Robert Salvatore - The Lone Drow

Instinct alone had her sword flailing before her, fending the heavy punches of the ore's spiked gauntlets. Only gradually did Innovindil collect her wits enough to get her feet firmly under her and solidify both her stance and her defenses. She fought the orc back to even footing.

"Lesson learned," she muttered under her breath, and she vowed that she'd watch for that devastating head-butt more closely.

* * *

Upon a stone did Bruenor make his stand.

His legs widespread and planted, his many-notched axe held high, the King of Mithral Hall called for his kin, called for all the Delzoun dwarves, to hold firm. And there did the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer rally. Whether by luck or by the guarding hands of his ancestors and his god, no spear found Bruenor that day.

With the swirling orc sea around him, he stood, a beacon of hope for the dwarves, a testament to sheer determination. Spears thrust and flew his way, orc hands grabbed at his sturdy legs, but none could uproot King Bruenor. A flying club smashed him in the face, opening a long wound, closing one eye.

Bruenor roared through it.

An orc saw the opportunity to get up beside the dwarf, slamming hard with a warhammer.

Bruenor took the hit and didn't flinch, then chopped the orc away with a deadly slash of his axe.

Another orc was up beside him and another and another, and for a moment, it seemed as if the dwarf king would be buried where he stood.

But they went flying away, one after another, thrown by the strength and determination of Bruenor Battlehammer, who would not fall, who would not fail. Blood ran freely from many wounds, some obviously serious. But Bruenor's roar was not in pain nor in fear. It was a denial, stubborn and strong, determined beyond mortal bounds.

Never did Delzoun hearts so swell with pride as on that day, as on that stone, when King Battlehammer cried!

There was no choice before them. To retreat past Bruenor meant to abandon those hundreds of dwarves even then crawling down the cliff face. Better to die, by all measures of dwarven logic, than to forsake kin.

Bruenor reminded them of that. His presence alone, somehow risen from his deathbed, reminded them all of who they were, of what they were, and of what, above all else, mattered: kin and kind.

And so the retreating dwarves did pivot as one, did dig in their heels and press back against the onslaught, matching spear with hammer and axe, matching orc bloodlust with dwarf determination.

And there, around the stone upon which stood the King of Mithral Hall, the orc wave broke and was halted.

* * *

Shoulder to shoulder and with Banak Brawnanvil in their middle, the five dwarves met the tip of the orc ranks with sheer fury, leaping in as one and pounding away with hammer and axe. Behind them, Catti-brie worked Taulmaril to devastating effect, coordinating her shots with Wulfgar as he ran back and forth along the short defensive line, preventing any orcs from getting behind the fighting fivesome.

"Pwent, ye hurry! All the boys're down!" Banak shouted to the very depleted group of Gutbusters who were finally making some headway in their desperate attempt to reach him and the drop chute.

Banak couldn't even see if Pwent was alive among that group.

"Girl, ye bring yer fire to bear!" Ivan Bouldershoulder shouted back to Catti-brie.

"Go," Wulfgar bade her, assuring her that he had the situation in hand.

Indeed it seemed as if he did, for no orcs wanted anything to do with the terrible barbarian warrior.

Catti-brie sprinted ahead, coming to a stop right behind Ivan. She took quick note of the situation ahead, of the group of orcs who had turned around in an attempt to seal off the retreat of the bloodied Gutbusters.

Up came Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, and sizzling lines of silver raced out from the line of five dwarves. Catti-brie worked left and right, not daring to shoot straight down the center for fear that her enchanted arrows would blow right through some orcs and into the retreating dwarves. She found her rhythm, swinging left and right, left and right, each shot slicing down to devastating effect. Those orcs in between the continuing lines of deadly arrows found no reinforcements to bolster their barricade against the fury of the Gutbusters, and seeing that reality, the Gutbusters themselves reacted, tightening their ranks and spearheading their way up the slope.

"Now get ye over that cliff!" Banak demanded of Catti-brie and Wulfgar when the line closed. "We got us a faster way down!"

Reluctantly, but unable to argue the logic, Catti-brie ran up to Wulfgar and the pair charged back to the cliff face. They shouldered their weapons, took up their respective ropes, and went over side by side, sliding down the face of the cliff.

They heard the Gutbusters leaping into the drop chute above them and took satisfaction in that. They heard Banak calling frantically for his fellows to go.

And they heard orcs, so many orcs.

Wulfgar's rope jolted suddenly, and again, and Catti-brie reached out for him, and he for her.

His rope fell away, cut from above.

* * *

Obould did not see his forces stall around the stone upon which stood King Bruenor, for his attention had been drawn to the side by that point, to the defensive stand in the north, where dwarves were fast descending.

The dwarves were making a stubborn stand, to be sure, but Obould's numbers should have swept them away.

But then a fireball exploded in the midst of his line. And, inexplicably, another charging group ran off to the side and began fighting against… against nothing, the orc king realized, or against each other, or against the stones.

A quick scan showed Obould the truth of it, that two others, a human woman and a gnome, had joined in the defensive stand, waggling their fingers and launching their magic. More dwarves came down from above, leaping to the dale floor, pulling free their weapons, and throwing themselves in to bolster the defensive line.

His orcs were going to break ranks!

A bolt of blue lightning flashed through the throng and a dozen orcs fell dead and a score more flopped on the ground, stunned and shocked.

The real beauty of his plan, to not simply push the dwarves into their holes but to slaughter the whole of the force up above, began to unravel before Obould's angry eyes. With a roar, he denied that unacceptable turn. With a growl and a fist clenched so tightly that it would have crushed solid stone, the great orc king began his own charge to that northern wall, determined to turn the tide yet again.

The dwarves were not going to escape his trap. Not again.

* * *

Banak went into the hole head first and last, after having forcibly thrown the exhausted and bloody Thibbledorf Pwent in before him. He expected to fall into the steep slide, but he had barely gotten into the hole when he got hung up.

Only then did the old dwarf realize that he had a spear sticking out of his back, and that it was stuck on the stone.

Orcs crowded around the hole above him, whacking at his feet, prodding down with their nasty spears.

Banak kicked furiously, but he knew he was dead, knew that there was no way he could extricate himself.

But then a hand grabbed him by the collar and the smelly Pwent clawed back up before him.

"Come on, ye dolt!" Pwent yelled.

"Spear," Banak tried to explain, but Pwent wasn't even listening, was just tugging.

A searing eruption of fire burned suddenly in poor Banak's back as the spear twisted around, and he gave a howl of agony.

And Pwent tugged all the harder, understanding that there was no choice, no option at all.

The spear shaft snapped and Banak and Pwent fell free, sliding down the steep, turning chute Torgar's engineers had fashioned. They came into a straight descent then and fell through an opening, dropping several feet onto a pile of hay that had been strategically placed in the exit chamber. Of course by that point, most of the hay had been scattered by those coming down earlier, and the two dwarves hit hard and lay there groaning.