Gnar had withheld the great Ogru-Trolls, for they were the last in Drimmen-deeve, and the secret of his power; and the prowess of Dwarf Troll-squads was legendary. Hence, only shouting Rucks and snarling Hloks clashed with the Dwarves in this first charge.
Blood and gore splashed the stone of the hall, and screams rent the air, and corpses littered the floor. The Dwarves' compact deployment defied the enemy attack, and at last the Horde withdrew. Dwarf wounded were drawn into the center, and fresher warriors stepped to the fore.
Twice more the" Spawn charged, only to suffer dismaying losses, for twice more the Dwarves' formation held, and the Horde was beaten back; the Rucks could not break through to bring their greater numbers to bear. Many of the Chakka, however, were felled, and the Dwarves yielded back a bit to consolidate their perimeter.
Gnar knew that he would have to use the great Trolls, even though he could not replace them, even though were they to fall, his rule in Drimmen-deeve might fall with them, for other Hloks could then challenge him without fear. Yet without the Ogrus, the Hlok-Ied Rucks could not break the Dwarf array, and unless the array were broken, Gnar would suffer defeat at the hands of the Chakka.
Hence, once again Gnar ordered a charge, but this time he loosed the Cave Trolls. These mighty engines of destruction waded into the forefront of the Dwarves, their great iron War-bars swinging to and fro to crush all before them. The Dwarves gave back, and there stood a gap in the wall of axes. Hordes of Rucks streamed into the center, and the Dwarves' mighty phalanx disintegrated: the formation was broken and the Dwarf defence was sundered into Companies, squads, pairs, and single Dwarves fighting against desperate odds.
In the center, fifty or more Dwarves surrounded each Ogru, hewing and hacking at their vitals and great legs; but Gnar ordered Rucks to attack the Troll-squads, and whether the Dwarves would have succeeded in felling the giants will never be known, for the Rucks assaulted the squads and turned the Dwarves' energies aside.
Perry and Cotton found themselves facing the foe at last, and the relentless hours of Kian's sword-instructions now showed their worth, for the Warrows' blades wove swift nets of death upon the enemy.
Perry lunged under a hammer, and blazing Bane drank black Ruck blood; the foe fell, but another took his place, and Elven-blade clashed against Rucken-scimitar. A parry, riposte, and thrust ended that duel, but another Ruck lashed a bar at the Warrow, And amid snarling Rucks and cursing Dwarves and the clash and clangor of War, Perry dodged and whirled and darted, and hacked and stabbed and cut, felling Ruck after Ruck in the swirling battle.
Cotton, too, was pressed by a great number of the maggot-folk: they seemed to come at him from all points. Twisting among ally and foe alike, Cotton hewed and clove and pierced with his Atalar sword; and Rucks fell about the Warrow like grain before the scythe.
And as circumstances would have it, the two Warrows found themselves battling back to back near the lip of the Great Deep, hindguarding one another while dealing death to the foe at hand.
Soon the assailants fell back, for these small warriors were much more skilled than they, and the two in glittering silver and shining golden armor seemed bright and invincible.
But men a great Hlok jumped forward to challenge Cotton. Even as the Hlok engaged Cotton's sword, a Ruck tried to take the buccan from the rear; but Perry and Bane cut down the foe, the Ruck's death scream to be lost among the shouts filling the War Hall. And with Perry guarding his back, Cotton fought the enemy before him. Clang! went sword on scimitar, and the clash and skirl of steel upon steel rang out. Cotton was pressed hard, for the Hlok was skilled, but at last the Warrow turned a thrust aside and slashed his blade through the throat of the Hlok. Blood flew wide, and the enemy fell.
AH wailed the Rucks and drew back; but one set an arrow to his bow and drew it full to the cruel barb and let the black shaft fly at point-blank range. But Perry had seen the danger, and with a warning shout he leapt forward to knock Cotton aside. And the arrow slammed into Perry, its force so great that it penetrated even the silveron mail, bursting through a chink high on the chest where an amber gem was inset among the links. And the Warrow slammed backwards against the base of one of the great Dragon Pillars, and crumpled to the stone, the buccan pierced through. Cotton sprang forward with a cry of rage, and his blade mortally clove the Ruck from helm to breast. The remaining Rucks fled from the small enraged warrior in the golden mail. And Cotton's wrath turned to dismay as he fell to his knees beside Perry's.still form.
"Mister Perry! Mister Perry!" wailed Cotton, hugging the fallen Warrow to his breast. And then Perry moaned, and Cotton saw that he wasn't dead. "Oh, Mister Perry, you're alive! Oh, don't die, Mister Perry. I couldn't bear it if you died."
With chaos and confusion and slaughter all around, and with a savage and desperate battle raging back and forth above them, Cotton knelt at the edge of the Great Deep and held on to Perry and wept and rocked back and forth in torment.
Perry opened his eyes, his vision swimming in a sea of pain, and looked to see Cotton's face dimly before him. "Oh, Cotton, Cotton, what have I done?" whispered Perry. "I have dragged you off into a quest where neither one of us belongs. And you may be slain. Oh, Cotton, when I reached for this adventure, 1 did not stop to consider anyone's feelings but my own. The only thing that mattered was my own lust for excitement. I did not stop to think how you felt, or Holly… poor Holly… Did you see how she cried, Cotton? I didn't know. I didn't think. That's it! 1 didn't think. Me, the bright scholar, the glorious Fairhil! Scholar, and I can't mink my way past a foolish dream of bold achievement.
"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 s
cooped 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.
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 tu
rned 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.
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