was closing, screaming and hooting with every running stride.
The orcs came to the base of that narrow ridge in full run and began scrambling up, and Wulfgar and the dwarves rained rocks, crossbow bolts, and Aegis-fang upon them, battering them back. Those who did reach the fortified position met, most of all, Wulfgar the son of Beornegar. Like an ancient oak, the tall and powerful barbarian did not bend.
Wulfgar, who had survived the harshness of Icewind Dale, refused to move.
Wulfgar, who had suffered the torment of the demon Errtu, denied his fears, and ignored the sting of orc spears.
The dwarves rallied around him, screaming with every swing of axe or hammer, with every stab of finely-crafted sword. They yelled to deny the pain of wounds, the broken knuckles, the gashes, and the stabs. They yelled to deny the obvious truth that soon the orc sea would wash them from that place and to the Halls of Moradin.
They screamed, and their calls became louder soon after, as more dwarves came up to reinforce the line, dwarves who fought with King Bruenor - and King Bruenor himself, determined to die beside his heroic human son.
Behind them, a Felbarran raft made the shore, the dwarves charging off and swinging north immediately. Then a second slid in, and more approached.
But it wouldn't be enough, Bruenor and Wulfgar knew, glancing back and ahead. There were simply too many enemies.
"Back to the hall?" Wulfgar asked in the face of that reality.
"We got nowhere to run, boy," Bruenor replied.
Wulfgar grimaced at the hopelessness in the dwarf's voice. Their daring breakout was doomed, it seemed, to complete ruin.
"Then fight on!" Wulfgar said to Bruenor, and he yelled it out again so that all could hear. "Fight on! For Mithral Hall and Citadel Felbarr! Fight on for your very lives!"
Orcs died by the score on the northern face of that ridge, but still they came on, two replacing every one who had fallen.
Wulfgar continued to center the line, though his arms grew weary and his hammer swings slowed. He bled from a dozen wounds, one hand swelled to twice its normal size when Aegis-fang connected against an orc club too far down the handle. But he willed that hand closed on the hammer shaft.
He willed his shaky legs to hold steady.
He growled and he shouted and he chopped down another orc.
He ignored the thousands still moving down from the north, focusing instead on the ones within his deadly range.
So focused was he and the dwarves that none of them saw the sudden thinning of the orc line up in the north. None noted orcs sprinting away suddenly to the west, or groups of others simply and suddenly falling to the stone, many writhing, some already dead as they hit the ground.
None of the defenders heard the hum of elven bowstrings.
They just fought and fought, and grew confused as much as relieved when fewer and fewer orcs streamed their way.
The swarm, faced with a stubborn foe in the south and a new and devastating enemy in the north, scattered.
* * * * *
The battle south of the mountain spur continued for a long while, but when Wulfgar's group managed to turn their attention in that direction and support the main force of Battlehammers, and when the elves of the Moon-wood, Nikwillig among them, came over the ridge and began offering their deadly accurate volleys at the most concentrated and stubborn orc defensive formations, the outcome became apparent and the end came swiftly.
Bruenor Battlehammer stood on the riverbank just south of the mountain spur, staring out at the rolling water, the grave for hundreds of Felbarran dwarves that dark day. They had won their way from Mithral Hall to the river, had re-opened the halls and established a beachhead from which they could begin their push to the north.
But the cost....
The horrible cost.
"We'll send forces out to the south and find a better place for landing," Tred said to the dwarf king, his voice muted by the sobering reality of the battle.
Bruenor regarded the tough dwarf and Jackonray beside him.
"If we can clear the bank to the south, our boats can come across far from the giant-throwers," Jackonray explained.
Bruenor nodded grimly.
Tred reached up and dared pat the weary king on the shoulder. "Ye'd have done the same for us, we're knowing. If Citadel Felbarr was set upon, King Bruenor'd've thrown all his boys into fire to help us."
It was true enough, Bruenor knew, but then, why did the water look so