“Where is my king?”
“Prassade has taken him.”
“And my friends?”
“One of them is across your feet; a lad of mine killed him. I do not know where the others are, it is some moments since I heard fighting.”
“It is all to you, then?”
“All to us ... you dog ... if I let you up she is?”
“I will take you.”
But it was not until Mancha had bound and rebound him that he left the smith to go and turn over the stiffening body of Lianth and wipe the bloody froth from his lips.
XIII
HOW THEY FOUND THE RUBIES, AND THE SMITH’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF
News of the fight reached River Ward before midnight, but before that, about dusk, we heard Trastevera singing, walking up and down on a low hill scented and white with gilias, hymning of victory. And after I had lain down in my accustomed place I heard the women all about me, fevered with expectation, rising to intimations of approach too fine for me. From that part of the camp where the women of the Far-Folk slept, there arose now and then some sharp accent of dismay and grief, succeeded by the nearly mortal dejection of defeat. Unable at last to bear the night so full of noises and suspense, I rose and walked to the edge of the wide, bush-grown shallow where the Outliers were camped and met Herman coming to find me.