Dennis McKiernan - The Brega path

Then Lord Kian saw his brother and the Ogru, and he ran to aid Prince Rand. Kian fell upon the Troll from the rear and lashed his sword in a mighty arc, but the blade crashed into the stone hide and glanced away notched. Three Dwarves joined the fray, but their axes proved no better. "His heel!" cried Prince Rand. "Go for his heel when I draw him forth!" And Rand stood motionless at a long reach for the Troll.

The monster lunged forward, swinging his bar in a wide sweep; and as he extended his body, the creature's ankle bent sharply and one of the scaled plates of his greenish hide lifted away from his heel. Lord Kian stepped up, and using two hands he swung his sword of Riamon with all the strength he could muster. The blade sped true, and the keen edge flashed under the scale and into the flesh to sever the heel tendon and chop to the bone and lodge in the joint. Kian's sword was wrenched from his grasp to shatter in twain upon impact as, with a great bellow, the Ogru crashed forward onto the stone, to roll and clutch at his ankle; the great beast was now out of the battle and would aid the Rucks no more, for it could not stand.

"Rand, we did it!" Kian shouted, elated, and looked up and saw to his horror that his brother had stood fast so that the Troll could be felled, and Rand had been smashed to the wall by the cruel iron bar.

And as he saw his brother's crumpled form, and the howling Ogru rolling in agony upon the stone, a madness of fury possessed Lord Kian. Weaponless, he seized hold of the Troll's great War-bar which had been flung from the monster's clutch, and even though the mass of the bar was beyond the strength of two Men to heft, in his wrath Lord Kian raised up the huge pole and violently smote it down upon the thrashing Troll. The Ogru saw the strike coming and warded with his forearm, but the force of the blow was so great that the rock-hard limb was broken as if it were a twig, and the War-bar drove on to smash into the Troll's thick neck, crushing its throat; and the great creature's eyes bulged out as it tried to breathe but could not, and its limbs flailed about in desperation. And though the monster was mortally struck and failing swiftly unto Death, Lord Kian tried to raise up the War-pole for yet another blow, but could not, for with that one strike the towering fury had been spent and the bar was now far beyond his power to wield.

Catching up a fallen axe from the lax hand of a slain Dwarf, Lord Kian turned from this heel-chopped, throat-crushed monster, and made his way toward Prince Rand's fallen form.

Slowly the Warrows went forth, and they both saw Anval: he was battling Gnar! There was a great clanging as axe and scimitar clashed together. Anval drove the great Hlok back, but then the tide turned as more Rucks joined Gnar to attack the Dwarf. "Get back! Get back!" cried Perry, feebly, but his whisper was lost in the shouts and screams of others and in the din of steel upon steel. Suddenly a Ruck behind Anval hurled a War-hammer, and it struck the Dwarf on the back of his helm! And Anval staggered! And Gnar's great scimitar flashed up and back down, and clove into the Dwarf, blood flying wide, and Gnar threw back his head in wild laughter as Anval fell dead.

Cotton and Perry both gasped in horror, and their minds fell numb with shock. Then they heard a raging scream above all others, and they saw Bonn rush at Gnar roaring, "For Anval! For Anval! Death! Death!" And he fell to with a rage unmatched by any. The Rucks shielding Gnar were cut down by Borin's bloody axe like wheat before a reaper, and then the Dwarf and Hlok rushed together in savage combat.

Cotton tore his eyes away from Borin and Gnar, and at last he saw Durck. The Dwarf King and Shannon Silverleaf stood back to back, battling Rucks, besieged near one of the entrances into the War Hall. Cotton drew Perry as close to the fracas as he dared, and sat the wounded buccan to the floor, his back to the wall. "Don't move!" Cotton cried, and then he drew his blade of the Lost Land and attacked the Rucks from behind.

Cotton felled three before the enemy realized that another foe had joined the fray. Two more dropped, but then the Warrow's foot skidded in gore, and the buccan fell. A scimitar came slashing down and Cotton started to rot! to one side, but he was not quick enough to avoid the cut. Another blade seemed to flash out of nowhere to clash with the descending curved edge: it was Shannon's long Elf-knife, and it turned the scimitar aside to crash with a sheet of sparks into the stone floor. Then Shannon cut upward, and the Ruck fell dead. Cotton sprang to his feet to see the remaining Rucks flee screaming from this deadly trio.

"King Durek!" cried Cotton, "Mister Perry calls you to him. He is wounded and says you must come. Here, this way." And he led the Dwarf King to Perry's side. Perry had swooned again, but he opened his eyes when Durek knelt at his side and called his name.

As Shannon and Cotton stood guard, Perry spoke: "Narok," whispered Perry, and Durek leaned closer to hear. "Narok!" Perry said more strongly. "The roof is ziggurt. The slide in the mountains-Anval told us about rock slides and how they are started. But Anval is dead." Perry began to weep. "Borin fights on for him. But the sounds… you must make the right sounds."

Durek looked upon the weeping, incoherent Waeran. The Dwarf had no idea what it was that Perry was trying to tell him. With an arrow standing forth from high on his chest, the small warrior sat against the wall: wounded, crying, looking up with pain in his eyes, bloody Bane blazing, held in the hand of his hurt arm. "Friend Cotton," asked Durek, "do you fathom what Friend Perry is trying to tell me?"

Cotton shook his head in anguish. "No, Sir, I don't, but whatever it is, he's got a good reason."

Durek turned back to Perry, but the Warrow was staring through his tears at the mighty battle between Cruel Gnar and raging Borin. "Friend Perry," rumbled Durek, "you are sorely wounded and I grieve for you, but I must return to the fight." And he started to rise to his feet.

But Perry desperately clutched him by the wrist. "No! No! It's time that Dwarves come on horses, King Durek," pled Perry. "You must sound the Horn of Narok. Sound assembly! Now! Before all is lost! It is our only hope!"

The Dwarf looked doubtfully away at Cotton, and then again at Perry, who was struggling to reach the trumpet on Cotton's shoulder. Cotton quickly removed the bright horn and handed it to Perry who, in turn, held it out with trembling hand toward King Durek. "Believe me… oh, please believe me," begged the Warrow.

In an agony of indecision, Durek looked at the fearful token and then away to the savage mSlee in the Hall and back to Perry again. And the Dwarf dreaded touching the glittering silver. "We are at our uttermost extremity. More than half of my warriors have fallen, and it seems certain that the Grg will have the victory. This trump we Chakka have feared all of our days, yet you say it is our only hope-but I do not know why. Yet I deem I must believe you, though I do not understand. You may be right, Friend Perry: perhaps the wind of Narok is our last hope. Perhaps the Chakka must at last ride the horses." The Dwarf King looked away from the dreadful clarion and into Perry's wide, tilted, gemlike eyes. Tears glittered in the sapphire-blue gaze, and desperate urgency welled up from the jewelled depths. "Aye, I believe you. Friend Perry. Quickly now, before I change my mind, before I lose my courage, give me the trumpet; I will sound it ere all is lost."

And Durek, full of apprehension, accepted the brilliant horn from Perry's trembling fingers. And lo! at Durek's touch the metal shimmered with light, and sparkling glints shattered outward; and the Dwarf King set the dazzling horn to his lips and began to blow:

The silver call electrified the air. Its clarion notes rang up to the roof and sprang from the walls and sounded throughout the great War Hall. Everywhere, Dwarves' hearts were lifted; and the Rucks and Hloks quailed back in fear. Again and again the call resounded as Durek blew the signal to assemble; and the sound leapt into the Great Deep, falling to its depths and running out into the vast rift in the walls; and then it seemed to spring back from the nether parts of that great split, magnified by the sheer stone faces of the mighty fissure. Durek blew the shining horn again and again, and the whole of the War Hal! appeared to tremble in response to the silver notes.