axe at my right, and in my hand a heavy staff capped with iron.
For helmet I had a bonnet of fur, for breastplate a jacket of boar-hide,
and strips of leather were wrapped around my legs where the breeches did
not cover them. Mikael was armed with a tipped staff and a saber, and
carried a light shield on his left arm.

"Leap on the crupper!" I cried to my brother at the moment when the
horses, now no longer under control, arrived at full gallop on the
lances of the Iron Legion. Immediately we arrived within range we hurled
our iron capped staffs full at the heads of the Romans with all our
might. My staff struck hard and square on the helmet of a legionary,
who, falling backward, dragged down with him the soldier behind. Through
this gap my horse plunged into the thickest of the legion. Others
followed me. In the melee the fight grew sharp. Mikael, always at my
side, leaped sometimes, in order to deliver a blow from a greater
height, to my horse's crupper, other times he made of the animal a
rampart. He fought valorously. Once I was half unhorsed. Mikael
protected me with his weapon till I regained my seat. The other
foot-soldiers of the _Mahrek-Ha-Droad_ fought in the same manner, each
one beside his own horseman.

"Brother, you are wounded," I said to Mikael. "See, your blouse is red."

"You too, brother," he responded. "Look at your bloody breeches."

And, in truth, in the heat of combat, we do not feel these wounds.

My father, chief of the _Mahrek-Ha-Droad_, was not accompanied by a
foot-soldier. Twice we joined him in the midst of the fight. His arm,
strong for all his age, struck incessantly. His heavy axe resounded on
the iron armors like a hammer on the anvil. His stallion Tom-Bras bit
furiously all the Romans within reach. One of them he almost lifted off
the ground in his rearing. He held the man by the nape of the neck, and
the blood was spurting. When the tide of the combat again carried Mikael
and myself near our father, he was wounded. I overcame one of the
brenn's assailants by trampling him under my horse's feet; then we were
again separated from my father. Mikael and myself knew nothing of the
other movements of the battle. Engaged in the conflict before us, we had
no other thought than to tumble the Iron Legion into the river. To that
end we struggled hard. Already our horses were stumbling over corpses as
if in a quagmire. We heard, not far off, the piercing voices of the
bards; their voices were