A strange thing was believed or feared by the fierce
tribes beyond the mountains, and it was credited among them that at
certain stations round Merimna's ramparts there still rode Welleran,
Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. Yet it was
close on a hundred years since Iraine, the youngest of Merimna's
heroes, fought his last battle with the tribes.

Sometimes indeed there arose among the tribes young men who doubted
and said: 'How may a man for ever escape death?'

But graver men answered them: 'Hear us, ye whose wisdom has
discerned so much, and discern for us how a man may escape death
when two score horsemen assail him with their swords, all of them
sworn to kill him, and all of them sworn upon their country's gods;
as often Welleran hath. Or discern for us how two men alone may
enter a walled city by night, and bring away from it that city's
king, as did Soorenard and Mommolek. Surely men that have escaped
so many swords and so many sleety arrows shall escape the years and
Time.'

And the young men were humbled and became silent. Still, the
suspicion grew. And often when the sun set on the Cyresian
mountains, men in Merimna discerned the forms of savage tribesmen
black against the light, peering towards the city.

All knew in Merimna that the figures round the ramparts were only
statues of stone, yet even there a hope lingered among a few that
some day their old heroes would come again, for certainly none had
ever seen them die. Now it had been the wont of these six warriors
of old, as each received his last wound and knew it to be mortal, to
ride away to a certain deep ravine and cast his body in, as
somewhere I have read great elephants do, hiding their bones away
from lesser beasts. It was a ravine steep and narrow even at the
ends, a great cleft into which no man could come by any path. There
rode Welleran alone, panting hard; and there later rode Soorenard
and Mommolek, Mommolek with a mortal wound upon him not to return,
but Soorenard was unwounded and rode back alone from leaving his
dear friend resting among the mighty bones of Welleran. And there
rode Soorenard, when his day was come, with Rollory and Akanax, and
Rollory rode in the middle and Soorenard and Akanax on either side.
And the long ride was a hard and weary thing for Soorenard and
Akanax, for they both had mortal wounds; but the long ride was easy
for Rollory, for he was dead. So the bones of these five heroes
w