Dennis McKiernan - The Brega path

"It was all foredoomed anyway. My whole witless venture was unnecessary. No single part of it was necessary. Look at our mission: We tried to sneak through Drimmen-deeve, and the Dusk-Door wasn't even broken. Barak died for nought. Tobin suffered needlessly. Delk died for nought. And Ursor. And what for?… What for?… What for?"

Cotton looked into Perry's sapphirine eyes. "Oh, no, Mister Perry," he protested, "you've got it all wrong. That's not the way of it at all. They needed us. Without us the raids of the maggot-folk would go on. Without us the Dwarves might not have gone to Dusk-Door and would have died in the Great Deep." Cotton gestured at the nearby gulf. "Without us the Dwarves wouldn't have stood a chance."

A grimace of pain crossed Perry's features, and he gasped through clenched teeth. "Leastwise now, leastwise now…" A shuddering sigh racked the wounded buccan, and unconsciousness mercifully washed over him.

"Mister Perry!" cried Cotton, fearing the worst, but before he could press his ear to Perry's breast, one of the huge Cave Trolls, seeing two small, helpless targets hidden in the shadow of a Dragon Pillar, lumbered toward the Warrows.

Cotton saw the Ogru coming, and gently eased Perry to the floor. Catching up his sword, Cotton sprang between the Troll and the wounded buccan. And as he ran into the path of the dire creature, the story from The Raven Book of Parrel and the Ogru on the bridge flashed into Cotton's mind, and he shouted, "Hail Troll! You great clumsy oaf! Look at me! I am the golden warrior!" And the buccan held his arms wide and danced to one side, drawing the Troll's full attention. The huge Ogru stared stupidly at the small creature in the shining gilded mail; then he raised his great iron bar and struck.

Crack! The bar smashed to the stone, but the nimble Warrow was not there. Cotton sprang to the side and forward, and hewed with his Atalar sword, hacking just above the great Ogru's knee, for that was the highest the small Warrow could reach with his blade. But the edge clanged into the Troll's armor-like hide and glanced down.

Crack! The great iron bar missed again, and once more Cotton's blade failed to cut the stone skin. As the Warrow dodged away, he knew that sooner or later the Troll would make contact, and the fight would end then and there. Cotton knew he needed help; and in that moment he glimpsed from the corner of his eye Bane's blue flame burning on the stone where the sword had skidded when Perry had been felled.

Crack! The Ogru missed again, and Cotton darted to the side and scooped up the blazing Elven-blade. Yet the monster shouted in vile gloat, for it now had Cotton trapped: to‹ get at Bane, the Warrow had dashed beyond the Troll to the precipitous edge of the Great Deep; and the only way to freedom led back past the great foe. To cut off escape, the Ogru spread its arms wide and took a ponderous stride forward.

Cotton, his eyes locked upon the massive War-bar, stepped back, and his foot came down upon the edge of the great split. He teetered and gasped in fear, his arms windmill ing. And the vast dark gulf gaped blackly, and waited. Yet with a twisting motion, the Warrow managed to fall forward. And as he had been trained, Cotton rolled as he landed, to come back to his feet in a balanced stance with sword in hand to again face the foe. The great Cave Troll snarled in anger, yet its eyes took on a look of evil cunning, for it still had the wee Warrow trapped; and the monster swooshed the bar in a feint followed by a swift overhand stroke.

Crack! The iron pole just missed the dodging Warrow, so close it ticked a golden scale.

Again Cotton leapt to one side and then lunged forward; and the blazing rune-jewelled Troll's Bane flashed up as Cotton plunged it into the Ogru's kneecap: the stone-like skin dial easily 'turned aside axes and swords yielded like soft butter to the flaming Elven-blade; the point sank through the cap and into the knee joint, plunging nearly to the sinews at the back of the leg. Cotton jerked Bane out and twisted aside; black blood dropped from the bitter blade to the stone floor, and where it fell a reeking smoke coiled up from the hard rock.

The great Troll roared in agony and clutched at its pierced knee, and stumbled with a sliding crash to the stone at the lip of the great black abyss, to slip over the edge, grasping frantically but in vain at the smooth floor. And with a bellow of terror and its eyes wide in fear, and still gripping the massive War-bar, the huge Ogru fell howling beyond the rim and down into the bottomless black depths.

Cotton stared for a moment at the place where the Troll had gone over the edge; then the Warrow scooped up the Atalar Blade and ran back to Perry, who was conscious again. Once more Cotton cradled the wounded buccan.

As Cotton watched the hideous battle, Perry gazed up into the shadows on the ceiling. The War was going badly for the Dwarves: the Spawn now controlled the center of the chamber and the Dwarves were at the perimeter. The great numbers of the Rucken forces and the strength of their position weighed the battle heavily in meir favor; though much more skillful, the Dwarves were in weak array, and by the hundreds they had fallen to Gnar's Swann. As Cotton looked on in dismay, Perry whispered, "That's where Bonn climbed."

"Wha… what, Mister Perry?" asked Cotton.

"That's where Borin climbed over the ceiling. When we crossed the gulf, I mean," rambled Perry, lying on his back, looking upward above the chasm. "Over there. Above the bridge."

"You said he didn't make it all the way. The ceiling was all cracked, zig… zig something," wept Cotton, crying for the Dwarf dead as he tried to comfort his wounded master.

"Ziggurt. The roof is ziggurt. As far as the eye can see. Bonn told us." Perry's blurred gaze roamed down the Hall along the roof above the pillars.

Though he was weeping, Cotton felt strangely at peace- sitting here, holding his friend, chatting about inconsequential things-as the mighty clash and clangor of weapons and War swirled back in the main chamber just a stone's throw away.

"Rocks, stone, that's all the eye can see," muttered Perry. "No green growing things, no soft comfortable things, just hard rock and stone. I had enough of rocks when the slide nearly got us back in the Crestan Pass, oh so long ago. Those were the days. Just you and me, and Anval, Bonn, and Kian."

"True," answered Cotton, "those were the days. They taught us a lot, Lord Kian and the Dwarves." And Cotton again looked at the black shaft standing out from Perry's shoulder. "I just wish they'd taught me about healing instead of about swords, and rock slides, and snow avalanches, and-"

A startled look had come over Perry's face, and a fierce energy suffused his pained lineament, and he urgently interrupted Cotton: "That's it! Cotton, that's it!" he gasped through his pain. "You've solved the riddle! We've got to get to Durek! We can win the War yet! Get me to Durek. Get me to Durek." And he clutched desperately at Cotton's arm, and struggled to rise. "Get me to Durek."

Cotton helped Perry to stand, and the wounded buccan fought to keep from swooning. His good arm was over Cotton's shoulders, and he absently clutched Bane in his other hand, having grasped it when Cotton had laid it aside. Slowly they started along the south wall; Cotton didn't know why, but his master urgently needed to get to Durek.

As they crept forward, Cotton's emeraldine eyes cast about for the Dwarf King. Perry's eyes, too, sought Durek as the Warrows limped slowly along the perimeter, the black shaft standing full neath Perry's left collarbone. Cotton saw Dwarves striving desperately with two, three, or four Rucks at once. He also glimpsed Kian and Rand in a small force battling the remaining Ogru:

Only a handful hewed at the Troll where fifty were needed, yet at bay they held the creature. Of those facing the Ogru, it was Prince Rand who had harassed and baited the fell beast into a foaming rage; for after the two Trolls had burst through the Dwarves' defense, Rand had seen that these great monsters if unchecked would assure a Yrm victory. And he had run before one of them, shouting and waving his arms, leaping away.from the crashing iron bar, drawing the Ogru out of the general metee in the creature's rage to smash this puny Man-thing that it couldn't quite seem to hit. Again and again Rand had leapt aside, and again and again the great iron pole had smashed to empty stone where Rand had stood but an instant before. But the Prince was growing weary, for he had baited the beast long, and the great bar was becoming more difficult to dodge.