When the animals finally reached the chamber they found the walls bare and only Malcoff, Curbar and the chair carriers inside. Morar and the players filed past them in silence and followed the rest of the warriors out on to the Tor to take up their positions. The Elflord spoke quietly.
‘Here, Nab; take this casket. It contains the Faradawn of the Mountains and the High Places.’ Nab took the small silver-grey stone casket and, carefully opening the last of the three lockets on the Belt of Ammdar, he placed it inside and snapped the top shut. It felt wonderfully satisfying that the Belt was now full and he thought back to the time when he had first seen it in the Forest of Ellmondrill when Wychnor gave it to him and showed him how to work the lockets. It seemed a long time ago now. Then Malcoff continued, ‘We will watch the battle from a high vantage point behind one of the rocks and you will remain close by my side, ready to run when the time is right. I need not tell you how important it is that you are not seen. Come then; follow me.’
A strange and eerie sight met their anxious gaze when they emerged from the tunnel entrance and scrambled out on to the rocks of the Tor. The moon shone fitfully as it came out for short spells from behind the large black clouds that raced across the night sky and in these occasional flashes of silver light they could see the elven army drawn up in battle ranks in a circle all around the summit; those with swords in front followed by the spearthrowers and, lastly, the archers, who stood with their bows ready while the front ranks knelt. The pipers stood right on the summit on the rock where the animals had first seen Morar. At the very front of the army, one on each side of the Tor, stood the two battle-chiefs Morbann and Mendokk with their huge swords raised high above their heads ready to give the signal for battle to commence. The overwhelming impression was of a mass of shimmering, twinkling lights; silver from the elves’ bodies and reflected from their swords and spears, golds and reds and crimsons and greens from their helmets and shields.
Just down the summit, in another circle, stood the tents of the Urkku. Outside many of them the smouldering remains of last night’s camp fires flickered red in the darkness while inside their occupants slept. It was very still and quiet and the air was cold. A light breeze from the mountains made the heather rustle and wave gently. Behind the shelter of a large rock that seemed to have pushed itself straight up through the earth, the animals all stood in silence, hardly daring to breathe, with the sound of their hearts pounding furiously in their ears. From where they stood they could see all around them. Malcoff pointed out the great high peak of Mount Ivett where it stood in the middle distance just beyond the near range of hills, its jagged spire silhouetted by the moon. Morbann, Mendokk and Morar were all looking intently at the Lord Malcoff to give the signal for battle to commence. Their throats were dry with nervous anxiety; not since the days of Ammdar had the elves fought in open battle and, although they had constantly kept in readiness preparing for a moment such as this, they could not help being a little afraid.
Slowly, Malcoff raised his right hand and then suddenly brought it down. Immediately there was a massive skirl of pipes and the heavy beat of the drums began to reverberate over the hillside. Nab felt the blood start to race through his veins. He turned to Beth and took her hand tightly in his; it was shaking and as he looked in her eyes he saw that they were wide and glazed with fear. The pipes and drums rose in a great wall of sound and the Urkku were emerging from their tents, bleary-eyed and drugged with sleep, to see what the noise was. They stood looking out into the night, puzzled and bemused by the commotion, until Nab saw Malcoff raise his hand again in a signal at which the archers pulled back their bows and loosed their arrows. For a second or two the air was full of a whistling, rushing noise as they sped through the air, and then, as they found their targets, pandemonium broke loose. Amidst the groans and cries of those who had been hit came the guttural shouts of the leaders as they tried to organize the rest and the frantic yells of others as they stumbled about in the dark attempting to get back in their tents to find their weapons. Only the goblin leaders, in their guise as Urkku, knew what was happening, and they rushed around the camp shouting, cursing, cajoling and threatening the panicking mob in an attempt to get some kind of order into the fearful, bewildered Urkku who had no notion who could be firing arrows at them. No sooner had they been gathered into line than another hail of arrows would be released and once again chaos would take over. Finally, however, the goblins managed to assemble the remaining Urkku into a number of ranks and they began firing uphill at an enemy they could not see and whose identity they did not know. It was then that Malcoff gave the signal to charge and the sword and spear carriers raced off over the heather to the sound of a different, more urgent, rhythm from the pipes and drums which mingled with the sound of the elves as they each shouted their own individual battle cry. At the sight and sound of these ferocious, yelling creatures leaping and running towards them, the Urkku froze with astonishment and then fear. They were blinded by a whirling kaleidoscope of blood-curdling noise and flashing colour and many of them turned and tried to run, only to find, standing in their way, the squat fat ugly shape of a goblin — for many of the leaders had changed back into their natural state — slavering and twitching and bawling at them to turn round and fight if they did not want to be buried amidst the powers of hell. Then, abandoning themselves to the nightmare, the Urkku would face back up hill towards the elves and fire blindly.
The animals watched, their fears for the moment forgotten in the tension of the battle, as the elves ran through the shower of bullets, many of them being knocked down by the force of the blast but then, because the Urkku bullets could not kill them, picking themselves up and charging on until with a huge clash they met the enemy who, realizing that bullets were useless, had begun in desperation to use their guns as clubs and shields in an attempt to prevent the elves from cutting them to pieces with their swords. At first the battle seemed all one way as the elves swarmed over the Urkku forcing them back down the hill but then the goblins drew out their swords from under the ill-fitting Urkku garments now stretched tight over their natural bodies. In each of these had been welded a fragment of the Sword of Degg which Dréagg had forged from Amemeze, an evil metal mined from the Halls of Drāgorn which he obtained while he was banished there. The Sword had been so cast by Dréagg that it could halt the flow of time, destroying the elves’ immortality, and so each of these swords which the goblins now wielded was also imbued with that terrible power. Now the goblins swept forward to bolster up the tattered ranks of Urkku and the roar of battle swelled until the hills echoed. The elves were halted and their line began to waver as the magic of their weapons, woven with the light of Ashgaroth, met the evil force of Dréagg. The sun rose and streaked the sky with gashes of crimson and red and orange and the tumult of the fight rose in the chill morning air, shattering the stillness of the mountains with the clash of sword on shield and the dreadful cries of the wounded. When the elves fell, a cloud of silver lifted from their bodies as their remains vanished like a puff of smoke. Malcoff watched and his old eyes grew blurred with tears at the departure of those whom he had known and loved and their passing was like the dying of a flower.