Dennis McKiernan - The Brega path

Imperceptibly at first, but swiftly growing, the floor began to resonate as a crescendo of sound mounted up from the depths of the r Great Deep and the echoes piled one upon the other; and still the Dwarf King winded the sparkling trumpet. Stronger and stronger came the vibrations, racking through the floor in continuous waves. And then the entire Chamber began to quiver, and rock dust drifted down from the cracks above. And still the echoes and vibrations grew as Durek sounded the bright horn and the stone shook. The Rucks huddled together, screaming in fear in the center of the thrumming floor, the place of strength they had won. All battle and fighting had ceased in the shivering Hall. Nay! Not all! For mighty Bonn yet raged against Cruel Gnar to avenge fallen Anval.

Durek blew, and still the echoes grew. Now all of the War Hall wrenched: the floor rattled, the walls groaned, the pillars lurched, and the roof pitched. And there came from the stone a sound like that of an endless herd of horses wildly thundering by in racing stampede. Cotton became aware that Perry was chanting, and Cotton listened in wonder:

' 'Trump shall blow, Ground will pound As Dwarves on Horses Riding "round."

It was the Staves of Narok! Perry chanted the Staves of Narok as Bonn's axe and Gnar's scimitar clashed together again and again, and sparks flew up from their collisions. The two fought on as the Hall groaned and rumbled and shook, as if an earthquake strove within the mountain.

And Cotton looked at Durek. Now the horn seemed to be blazing, flaming with a bright internal fire; and the figures, riders and horses, were they moving? Galloping through runes 'round horn-bell? Or was it just a judder-caused illusion? Cotton squeezed his eyes tightly shut and rubbed them with his fists and then looked again, but he could not tell, for the quake jolting through the Hall blurred his vision.

Still the Dwarf King blew, and except for Bonn, all the surviving Dwarves, their numbers now less than a thousand, flocked to Durek's signal and arrayed themselves along the southern wall. The Rucks wailed with dread, for they knew not what was coming to pass. And Perry chanted on:

' 'Stone shall rumble. Mountain tremble, In the battle Dwarves assemble.

Answer to

The Silver Call."

And?till Durek continued to sound the flaring trumpet, and the silver notes grew, and the mountain shook. Pebbles fell from the ziggurt ceiling, and rocks, and slabs. And great clots of Rucks and Hloks jerked mis way and that as the stone smashed into their ranks.

Bonn pressed Gnar back to one of the huge shuddering pillars. A great slab of rock crashed down from above to land beside the battling pair, but they gave it no heed. Now they grappled, and Bonn's great shoulders bunched, and he forced the Hlok back against the quaking stone support. Gnar screamed hoarsely in terror, and Bonn's axe flashed as stone fell all around. Up went the double-bitted blade, and then down it fell with a meaty smack, and Gnar's head was shorn from his thrashing body. Bonn laughed wildly as rocks and slabs, summoned by the Silver Call, crashed from the ceiling to the floor and giant pillars toppled with thunderous wrack; and the Dwarf held up the grisly trophy by the hair, shouting, "For Anval!" And he flung it bouncing and skidding across the wide stone floor as the entire roof of ziggurt rock at last ripped completely away from the cavernous vault above, and the great, invincible, rushing mass fell with a Cataclysmic roar to smash across all of the broad center of the vast War Hail.

' 'Death shall deem The vault to fall."

And as the rock thundered down, the surviving remnants of the Dwarf Army reeled back aghast against the southern wall, their eyes locked in awe upon the crashing mass, their hands clapped over their ears. Durek desperately held the Horn of Narok in his white-knuckled grip, and he winded it a few notes more, but its silver echoes were lost in the deafening roar of thundering stone.

Tons upon unnumbered tons shattered down, crashing into the Hall, a great, bellowing, endless, rolling roar. Rock smashed upon rock, hammering, shattering, pulverizing, destroying. It seemed as if the vast collapse would never stop…

But suddenly it was over: the thundering rockfall ended. Slowly the rolling echoes of cracking stone and cleaving rock died away. Billowing stone dust whirled and settled, and the survivors gazed stunned across the wreckage. Volume upon volume of stone had crashed down into the chamber. Only along the walls had the roof been sound, and the Dwarves who had assembled mere had, for the most part, escaped the carnage, although here and there a few huge rocks had bounded and crashed to crush some unfortunate Dwarves. But in the center of the chamber, all living things had perished: All the myriad Rucks and Hloks. And Borin.

Hie battle was finished, the War over. Four fifths of the Dwarves had been slain in battle; ten thousand Spaunen had died, two thirds at the hand of the Host, the rest by falling stone. Perry looked out across the wreckage:

"Many perish, Death the Master, Dwarves shall mourn Forever after.''

Durek had taken the silent bugle from his lips. Stunned, he looked across the shattered sea of stone. He turned to Cotton and gave him the Horn of the Reach, now softly glowing with but the gentle sheen of fine silver and no longer flaring with glitterbright fire. Cotton took it with numb fingers and unconsciously hung it over his shoulder.

At last Cotton had seen the connection between Perry's pain-driven, rambling speech and the crashing down of the ceiling. Cotton, too, now remembered Anval's warning in the Crestan Pass of just how the right sound would cause rock to jink and come roaring in avalanche. And he remembered Anval's exact words: "We Chakka believe that each thing in this world will shake or rattle or fall or even shatter apart if just the right note is sounded on the right instrument,'' And the Horn of the Reach-the Horn of Narok, the Death-War- crafted ages ago by an unknown hand, had been created for just this event: created against the day when Dwarves, driven to their uttermost limits, would have to bring the vast ziggurt roof of the immense War Hall down upon some great horde of enemies. The Staves of Narok were not made to warn Dwarves against riding on horseback. No, for that line in the ode spoke only of the drumming sound the rock would make in the event the hom was winded. And to Cotton it was now plain that the vault referred to in the rede was the wide ceiling of this huge stone chamber; til now, Cotton had suspected that the vault of the poem was the sky above and that somehow the Staves were related to the Dwarves' belief that falling stars foretold of Death's coming. But Mister Perry had figured it all out, and just barely in time, too.

Cotton was wrenched from his stunned thoughts and back to the here and now by an anguished cry from Perry, who was staring toward the center of the chamber. "Oh, Borin, Anval, we loved you and now you are gone." And the wounded buccan began weeping as, slowly, the healers started moving among the Host, tending the injured. And Shannon came to Perry and examined the arrow standing forth from the juncture between the Waerling's chest and shoulder.

As the Elf prepared to extract the barb, with Cotton hovering nearby, ready to aid, King Durek began to make his way along the wall, at the edge of the wrack, seeing but too benumbed to fathom the total destruction wrought in the War of Kraggen-cor: The great War Hall was destroyed. Tons unnumbered of fallen ziggurt ramped upward toward the center of the chamber; like a vast cairn, it covered the crushed bodies of all the Okhs and Hroks, all the Chakka slain in battle, the Troll felled by Rand and Kian, and Gnar's slayer, Borin Ironfist. Here and there a broken Dragon Pillar jutted upward through the great heap, a jagged reminder of the ancient rows of columns, now collapsed and part of the rubble. Durek also made his way past many of the eight hundred or so surviving Chakka quietly and methodically binding up each other's wounds. All were stunned by the cataclysmic ruin, and had not yet realized the staggering cost of their victory.