to hide him from the sun.

Now the Wanderer hung back behind the squadrons of horsemen as though
in fear. But presently he sent messengers bidding the Captains of the
squadrons to charge the first nation, and fight for a while but feebly,
and then when they saw him turn his horses and gallop through the pass,
to follow after him as though in doubt, but in such fashion as to draw
the foe upon their heels.

This the Captains of the mercenaries did. Once they charged and were
beaten back, then they charged again, but the men made as though they
feared the onset. Now the foe came hard after them, and the Wanderer
turned his chariot and fled through the pass, followed slowly by the
horsemen. And when the hosts of the barbarians saw them turn, they set
up a mighty shout of laughter that rent the skies, and charged after
them.

But the Wanderer looked back and laughed also. Now he was through the
pass followed by the horsemen, and after them swept the hosts of the
barbarians, like a river that has burst its banks. Still the Wanderer
held his hand till the whole pass was choked with the thousands of the
foe, ay, until the half of the first of the nations had passed into the
narrow plain that lay between the hill and the mouth of the pass. Then,
driving apace up the hill, he stood in his chariot and gave the signal.
Lifting his golden shield on high he flashed it thrice, and all the
horsemen shouted aloud. At the first flash, behold, from behind every
rock and bush of the mountain sides arose the helms of armed men. At the
second flash there came a rattling sound of shaken quivers, and at the
third flash of the golden shield, the air was darkened with the flight
of arrows. As the sea-birds on a lonely isle awake at the cry of the
sailor, and wheel by thousands from their lofty cliffs, so at the third
flash of the Wanderer's shield the arrows of his hidden host rushed
downward on the foe, rattling like hail upon the harness. For awhile
they kept their ranks, and pressed on over the bodies of those that
fell. But soon the horses in the chariots, maddened with wounds, plunged
this way and that, breaking their companies and trampling the soldiers
down. Now some strove to fly forward, and some were fain to fly back,
and many an empty chariot was dragged this way and that, but ever the
pitiless rain of shafts poured down, and men fell by thousands beneath
the gale of death. Now the mighty host of the Nine-bows rolled back,
thinned