Not until Gerent learned how few
we were here would he dare to divide his forces. Far off to the
southward in the valley we could see the blue reek of his
campfires, and it would seem that he had not yet moved on the
Wessex border.
All the day we waited and watched, anxious and restless, but no
attack came on us here, and the smoke of the camp grew no thinner
at Norton. A few Norsemen rode up to us from Watchet, and they said
that no move was on hand yet, so far as they could tell. And at
last, as the sun was setting, and shone level on the slope of the
Poldens, above which the Tor of Glastonbury sent a waving wreath of
smoke into the air to bid Wessex gather against the ancient foe, we
saw the long line of sparkling helms and spear points as our host
marched from hill to causeway to the bridge that spans the Parrett.
Ina would hold the heights above Norton before morning.
But that made it the more needful that we should bide here till we
were sent for, seeing that we guarded the flank of our advance; and
hard it was to sit still and do it, with a battle pending yonder.
It was a long night to us, and hungry.
Early in the next morning there was heavy smoke on these hills that
told of burning on the line of our march, and there was more away
toward the far Blackdown hills, as if there were trouble beyond
Tone.
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