“Ye canno’ go alone!” she cried back at him, staring through the roiling flames at the beastly demons beyond.
“Do it!” Emerus ordered. “And send others to help me as ye can!” Still shaking her head, Mandarina launched into her spellcasting, putting an enchantment upon Emerus that would protect him more fully from the biting flames than the minor protections that had been offered before the onset of battle.
“Now meself,” Ragged Dain demanded as soon as she had finished. But King Emerus didn’t wait for his shield dwarf. As soon as he felt the enchantment washing over him, he spun and ran off, plunging into and through the wall of fire, and coming out the other side with a roar and a leap.
“Be quick!” Ragged Dain cried, and Mandarina pressed on, as other dwarves tried to breach the wall in pursuit of their daring king, only to be turned back by the unbearable heat.
“Priests!” many yelled, seeking similar enchantments to get them through, or something, anything, that might bring down that wall. And indeed, many dwarf clerics were already approaching the task, attacking the magical fire with dispelling enchantments, a few even creating water to fall upon the flames and dim them.
Ragged Dain began his run even before Mandarina finished her spell, and he only felt the enchantment washing over him as he entered the fires. He didn’t care, though, for at the same time, he heard the ring of metal and knew that King Emerus had joined in battle.
When he burst through the other side of the fire wall, Ragged Dain could only wince, for that battle Emerus had found was with the sixarmed demon herself, and her blades worked in a blur all around him. No novice to battle, indeed as great a warrior as Citadel Felbarr had ever known, old King Emerus fought back valiantly, trying to block, trying to dodge, trying to parry, even trying to counterstrike.
And he seemed to be holding his own. Ragged Dain knew his guess had been correct when the wall behind him dimmed and flashed out. Emerus had taken Marilith’s concentration off her enchantment, and so she could not counter the spells of the many dwarf priests.“Me king!” Ragged Dain proudly yelled, sprinting to join Emerus.
But then Emerus came staggering backward, and a swarm of hulking demons, many vrocks and glabrezu among them, rolled around Marilith and Nalfeshnee to shield their leaders.
Ragged Dain caught his king in his arms and fast retreated. Other dwarves similarly rolled around Dain and Emerus to meet the demon charge.
“Me king, oh, me king,” Ragged Dain breathed, and he kept stumbling backward. He soon had to ease Emerus Warcrown down to the floor and as he did, he saw that for all his brilliant efforts, Emerus hadn’t blocked all of those swings. Blood covered his chest and belly, with more spilling fast. “Priests!” Ragged Dain shrieked desperately.
But he knew in his heart that it was too late.
“Ye hold the line,” Bruenor told Bungalow Thump. “Whate’er ye do, ye keep the flank solid!”
“Aye!” the Gutbuster replied, nodding. He, like all the others around, saw the gleam in Bruenor’s eye and understood what the dwarf meant to do.
When Obould’s minions had descended upon Mithral Hall a century before, King Bruenor had left his bed and charged out into Keeper’s Dale. Atop a stone that long-ago day, Bruenor had been the guidepost, the rallying point, the immovable object that would not allow the orcs passage. So it would be again. With these greater demons on the scene, the dwarves would be overwhelmed, would die here by the thousands.
The reclamation of Gauntlgrym would die here, too. Perhaps forevermore.
“Pwent!” he called to the specter he had sent out from the ranks, thinking to bring the spectral warrior along for the fun. But Bruenor then realized his error in calling in Thibbledorf Pwent too soon in the battle. The dwarf was nowhere to be found, and very likely the spirit had been defeated, and so sent back into the enchanted horn. Bruenor growled and shook his head.
“Come on, then,” Bruenor told Mallabritches, Athrogate, and Ambergris, and off they ran, Catti-brie close behind.
“Crossbows up!” Bruenor ordered as he made his way down the ranks, pointing at the chasme and leaving no doubt about the first order of business for every crossbowdwarf. Along with those missiles went lightning bolts, the Harpells trying to blow the ugly creatures out of the air.
By the time Bruenor’s entourage made it past the Adbar contingent, they found King Emerus lying in the arms of a sobbing Ragged Dain. The wall of fire was down, and the Felbarr dwarves were into the battle with the demons once more-but not with the demon leaders, Bruenor noted, for those two giants remained in the back, directing the fight from behind a shield wall of vrocks and glabrezu and other hulking and ugly beasts.
Bruenor was fast to the spot of the fallen king, sliding down beside Ragged Dain. He was surprised to find Emerus still alive.
“Girl!” he called to Catti-brie. “Put yer healin’ on him!”
Emerus reached up and grabbed Bruenor’s forearm. “I tried,” he whispered.
“We’re all knowin’,” Bruenor assured him.
“Ye kill her,” Emerus said with a bloody gasp. “Ye kill ’em both dead. Head o’ the snake.”
Bruenor bent low and kissed his old friend on the forehead, then leaped to his feet, shouted for Catti-brie once more, and charged for the front of the dwarven line, his three battle companions close beside him.
“Get me to ’em!” Bruenor yelled. He leaped upon a giant vulture demon, his axe working furiously, pounding the creature down. He felt the strength of Clangeddin, the wisdom of Moradin, the whispers of Dumathoin. When desperation reared up around him, so, too, did the spirits of the dwarf gods, and his final swat sent the vrock tumbling aside.
The dwarves around him rallied greatly, none more powerfully than Athrogate, with devastating swings of his enchanted morningstars.
But the shell around Marilith and Nalfeshnee was solid, with ranks of mighty creatures, and fight as they may, with the king lying near death, the Felbarrans and Bruenor’s group could not make much headway.
Drow lightning and fire reached out at the mass of dwarves. Chasme rained death from above. All along the line, the demons moved in coordination to Marilith’s buzzing call.
And for all his power and all his strength, for all the spirits of the dwarf gods within him, this time, Bruenor came to realize, it would not be enough. Soon he and those around him were being driven back, and he saw the six-armed demon note him and grin wickedly.
She knew.
And she knew that he knew.
It would not be enough.
Catti-brie worked furiously over King Emerus, the blue magical mist pouring from her sleeve, the divine healing bathing the fallen king. The whole time, though, Catti-brie was shaking her head, fearing that the wounds were too deep and too wicked.
Shouts around her, not from the fighting up front, but from behind, demanded her attention, and even Ragged Dain looked up.
The dwarves in the back were diving aside every which way, some screaming “Poison!” others warning of some Abyssal beast about to materialize in their midst.
Ragged Dain saw it first, a concentrated gray fog sliding through the ranks, coming straight for him, and with a gasp he fell away, throwing his hands up defensively.
Catti-brie, too, let out a gasp, but as it passed them by, the fog didn’t leave her and Ragged Dain on the floor writhing, nor did it pause as it continued its apparently focused sweep beyond them.
The woman leaped to her feet and followed it as it closed on Bruenor and the others. Behind her, Ragged Dain shouted out a warning to the last standing king. Bruenor turned, Ambergris began a spell, and Athrogate took a wild and futile swing at the fog as it went past.
Still it did not stop. And it crossed through the glabrezu and the vrocks, who seemed not to notice.
Then it stopped, hovering for just a moment before it became a swirling vortex of gray mist right in front of the demonic commanders.