The War of the Dwarves Read Online Free PDF Page B

charging down the
     hillside in a line measuring five hundred paces across. Beasts and bögnilim were trampled to the ground.
    “Get back, Boïndil!” he shouted anxiously. Behind him, the last of the dwarves were clambering out of the shaft: Tungdil’s
     troop of a hundred warriors was complete.
    “Aren’t you coming?” called Boïndil cheerfully from somewhere in the scrum. His voice was barely audible amid the sound of
     buckling armor and the shrieks of the dying beasts.
    Tungdil gripped the haft of Keenfire with both hands and squared his shoulders. His eyebrows knitted together in a determined
     frown. “I’m coming,” he murmured softly. Then he raised his voice to a shout. “Drive them forward!”
    His warriors let out a fearsome battle cry and fanned out, brandishing their hammers and axes as they threw themselves on
     the startled beasts. Tungdil and Keenfire led the attack. Nothing could stop the formidable blade as it sang through the air,
     slicing shields, hewing armor and chain mail, severing limbs, and killing strings of orcs with every blow.
    The dwarves carved a path through the hordes, undeterred by the stinking blood and the vile smell of their enemies’ grease-encrusted
     armor. Green gore splashed from gushing wounds, and dismembered limbs thudded to the ground to be trampled underfoot by the
     indomitable dwarves. Soon the warriors at the rear were clambering over enemy corpses, but they pressed on regardless, determined
     to free Girdlegard from the pestilent orcs.
    The resistance soon dried up. The bravest beasts died in combat, while those of a less courageous nature fled at the sight
     of the grim-faced dwarves.
    “After them!” shouted Tungdil. The strategy paid off: Driven forward by the dwarves, the orcs and bögnilim collided with their
     comrades, who were running from Mallen and his men. The beasts were doomed.
    Swinging his ax, Tungdil took aim at a couple of orcs. Even as the blade swung toward them, the beasts keeled over, felled
     by an invisible hand. To Tungdil’s astonishment, Ireheart popped up from behind the corpses. He was soaked with the blood
     of countless orcs and his eyes were glinting dangerously.
    “I was wondering where you’d got to,” he said cheerfully. “What kept you? Don’t tell me you were having trouble with the runts.”
    “I was yelling at you to come back,” scolded Tungdil, shaking his head.
    “Oh,” said Boïndil. “I assumed you were talking to them.” He pointed to the fleeing beasts. Sighing contentedly, he contemplated
     the battle. “A good end to the orbit, eh?” He raised his gore-spattered axes. “Come on, we’re not finished yet.” Suddenly
     a shadow crossed his face. “To be honest, scholar, it isn’t much fun without my brother. The two of us would have wiped the
     floor with the runty little beasts. The next twenty are for him…” He charged off, bellowing ferociously at the top of his
     voice.
    “His fiery spirit will be the death of him,” murmured the dwarf next to Tungdil. Soon he too was slashing his way through
     the orcs.
    Please, Vraccas,
prayed Tungdil.
Don’t let Boïndil come to any harm
. He dropped back a few paces and placed the bugle to his lips, playing a sequence of notes that Mallen would recognize as
     a signal that the dwarves had arrived and were closing in from the opposite side. There was a danger that Mallen’s archers
     would loose their deadly arrows at the dwarven warriors, who were hard to spot from a distance, especially when surrounded
     by orcs. He waited for Mallen’s bugle to reply, then caught up with the rest of his company, and launched himself into the
     fray.
    The dwarves were still fighting at sundown and Mallen’s infantry joined the action, which didn’t please Boïndil at all. Some
     of the orcs and bögnilim were intent on escaping, but Mallen was ready for them, and the attempt to leave the battlefield
     was blocked by a unit of riders with lances.
    By nightfall,