“Fate is made by men, as well as that Fate rules men,” he said. “I shall not rest content till the earth holds at last the body of Kian, son of Kian the White.”
Yet it was not until the seventh time that the earth trembled no more, and held within it, beneath a cairn of boulders, the slain body of Kian the Noble.
Thereafter the three sons of Turenn rode swiftly away, and that night were among the host which had been assembled by Lu of the Long Hand.
On the morrow, on the vast plains of Moytura, the great and terrible Battle of the Kites was fought. It was so called because after a day of dreadful slaughter the kites and hawks assembled in multitudes, and were satiated with the feast of the dead. In that battle the fiercest strife was on the part of four heroes: Lu the Ildanna, and the three sons of Turenn. For hours the swaying and whirling of spears, the rush of javelins, the flashing of swords, the trampling of horses and crash of war-chariots, made the plain of Moytura a place of savage din and fury. For long it seemed as though the great might and numbers of the Fomorians would give the day to Bras, son of Balor of the Evil Eye; but so great was the prowess of the Dedannan host, that the Fomorians were mowed down as ripe grain.
In the wane of the afternoon, Bras and Lu met at last. The tides of war ceased, for all men wished to see the battle-meeting of these two champions.
But already Bras had seen that the day had gone against the glory of Lochlin, and he knew that an hour hence his great army would be utterly routed, and that all who did not straightway escape to the shores of Connaught and gain the Fomorian galleys would be tracked and cut down like flying wolves.
So he lowered his great spear, and threw his shield upon the ground, and thereafter asked Lu to stay the tides of battle, and agreed that the day should be accounted as a final victory to the men of Erin. And the son of the king of Lochlin further agreed, that if Lu and the leaders of the Dedannans would do this, he would give a solemn bond to withdraw all the Fomorians from Erin, to cancel for ever the bond put upon the Tuatha-De-Danann by Balor of the Evil Eye, and never to return again in enmity, neither he nor any Fomorian of the north nor southlander of lower Lochlin.
And thus it was that the great battle of Moytura, the Battle of the Kites, came to an end. A year thereafter the grass was not yet green, and the plain was covered with the white bones of the innumerous dead.
When all was over, and Bras and his defeated army were hasting towards the distant Connaught shores, Lu threw from him his blood-stained armour and the weapons he was almost too weary to bear. All day he had fought, as only the mightiest heroes fight, and many strong and valorous men had marvelled at his dauntless courage and at the prowess that failed not for one moment.
Glad was Lu of the Long Hand to see Ald and Art, but when he asked how his father had fared in the battle, and heard that he had not been there, and had been seen of no man that day, he knew that Kian the Noble was no longer alive.