Up the steep came three bodies of men, to right and left, where the hill was sharpest, and straight for the gate, where there was a long, even slope ending in a platform, as it were, before it.  Gymbert himself headed this company on foot, and men whose names the princes seemed to scorn altogether led the others.  Altogether there were not less than a hundred and fifty men; but as they drew nearer I saw that they were not at all the sort of force with which I should hope to take so strongly stockaded a place as this.  Outlaws, runaway thralls, and such-like masterless men they were, ill armed and unkempt and noisy.  Their only strength was in their numbers, so far as I could see.

As for ourselves, the gate was the weakest place, by reason of there being no ditch before it, and that the ground was level, or nearly so, for twenty paces outside.  I did not think it in the least likely that our men could not hold off the two side attacks; for the stockade was well placed and high, and the ditch sheer-sided and deep.  Take it all round, it was hard to see how Gymbert expected to take the place, or why he would try it at all.

“Quendritha is driving him,” said Kynan, laughing, when I said as much.  “If that woman bids a man do a thing, he has to do it, or woe betide him.  But it will be a fight, for a time.”

Now Gymbert halted his men beyond bow shot, and called to Jefan once more to give us up; and so finding no answer beyond a laugh from the men who were watching him from the rampart, drew his sword and bade his men fall on.

They broke into a run for a dozen paces, and then some half of either company halted, and while the rest went forward, those who stood began to try to clear the way with arrow flights, shooting over their heads so that the shafts might drop within the stockading.  And at the same time our men began to shoot, somewhat too soon; for the Welsh bow will not carry so far as the English, though the arrows are more deadly, being heavier.

Seeing that, Jefan bade his men hold their hands until he gave the word; on which Gymbert called to his men, and they came the faster.  The arrows met them then at short range, and in a deadly hail, and they faltered.  Many fell under them, yet they still came on; and now the men who had been shooting found that the Welsh were too well sheltered under the stockade timbering for much harm to be done them, and they ran and joined their comrades at some call from their leaders.  Then without stay the whole three companies threw themselves with a great shout against the defences, leaping into the ditch on either side, and surging up against the gate itself.

In a breathing space our Welsh were ready with the long spears, and as one by one the heads of those who climbed gate or stockade showed themselves, hoisted up by their comrades, or climbing in some way or other, back they were sent with a flash of the terrible weapon, falling on those below them.  And now and again the Welsh spears darted through the spaces between the timbers of the stockade at some man who came close to them and was spied, or at those who tried to help their comrades to climb.  The whole place was full of yells and shouting.