Close behind Boarface had leaped a
youth to whom the leader had given his commands before the onrush and
who, as he found his feet upon the valley's sward, sought, not an
adversary face to face, but circled about the two champions, seeking only
to get behind the leaping Ab while Boarface occupied his sole attention.
The young man bore a great stone-headed club, a dreadful weapon in such
hands as his. The men struck furiously and flakes spun from the heavy
axes, but Boarface was being slowly driven back when there descended upon
Ab's shoulder a blow which swerved him and would certainly have felled a
man with less heaped brawn to meet the impact. At the same instant
Boarface made a fierce downward stroke and Ab leaped aside without
parrying or returning it, for his arm was numbed. Another such blow from
the new assailant and his life was lost, yet he dare not turn. That would
be his death. And now Boarface rushed in again and as the axes came
together called to his henchman to strike more surely.
And just then, just as it seemed to Ab the end was near, he heard behind
him the sharp twang of the bowstring which had sounded so sweetly at the
valley's other end and, with a groan, there pitched down upon the sward
beside him a writhing man whose legs drew back and forth in agony and who
had been pierced by an arrow shot fiercely and closely from behind and
driven in between his shoulder blades.
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