More and more kender died, in ever-increasing numbers. Ogres continued to climb up the ladders onto the wall, and for each attacker who fell, three of Kendermore’s defenders died, smashed by cudgels or hacked to pieces by axes and swords.
Riverwind shoved his way to the front of the battle, his sabre flashing in the moonlight. He stabbed one ogre in the face, then swept the blade low and disemboweled another. The stones under his feet were slick with ogre and kender blood. To his left, Kronn hewed away with his chapak. To his right, a golden-haired kender woman swung a hoopak. She killed three ogres with the weapon, but a fourth seized her by the arm and lifted her up into the air. She slashed at the creature with her hoopak, but it only laughed, raising her high and flinging her out over the merlons. She dropped out of sight, plunging to the ground far below.
For a moment, Riverwind and Kronn held the line alone, using all their strength to stave off the surging tide of the ogres. Then someone stepped in on the old Plainsman’s right, shouting with berserk fury Two ogres fell, in rapid succession, to her whirling, flanged mace.
“Brightdawn!” Riverwind shouted. He thrust his sabre through an ogre’s ribs, and it fell face-forward on the stones. “I was wondering where you were! We need your help!”
His daughter laid into the ogres with two weeks’ worth of seething rage, wreaking bloody vengeance for Swiftraven’s death. Bones cracked and blood spattered beneath her pounding mace. With the added force of her attack, Riverwind and Kronn began to push the ogres back toward the ladder.
The kender at the other battlefront did not fare so well. The catwalk was littered with their broken bodies, and the survivors faltered beneath the onslaught of the ogres. The wall’s defenders fell like grain at harvest time.
“Come on, you lamebrains!” roared Brimble Redfeather as he chopped at the attackers with his chapak. “Tighten up those lines! We’ve got to stop these bastards!”
But the ogres continued to press, and the kender continued to give ground. Brimble glanced up and down the wall and cursed. Then he looked toward the ladder, where more and more ogres continued to pour up onto the battlements, and his eyes narrowed with sudden determination. Shouting at the top of his lungs, the old veteran leapt up onto the merlons and began to run toward the ladder. “You won’t take this city while I live, you goblin-spawned, lackwitted dogs!” he roared.
The old kender dashed recklessly across the merlons, leaping across the crenellations, his chapak held high. Attackers and defenders alike stared in amazement as he sprinted to the ladder, knocked away the topmost ogre with his axe, and hurled himself off the wall, onto the rungs. Pushing with all his strength, he used his own weight to tilt the ladder away from the wall. It swung back from the battlements, stood straight upright for a heartbeat, then fell away. Brimble shouted triumphantly as he rode the ladder all the way down, then disappeared amid the throngs of ogres at the bottom of the wall.
Galvanized by the old veteran’s last, crazed act, the kender who had been fighting at Brimble’s side began to make headway against their attackers. The ogres, suddenly stranded and bereft of reinforcements, cast about in panic, seeking to escape. The hesitation cost them dearly. The kender dosed in, slaughtering them without mercy.
At the other battlefront, Kronn, Riverwind and Brightdawn continued to force their opponents back. Soon they were at the ladder. Riverwind raked his sabre across the chest of one last ogre, who screamed and fell from the ladder. Without pausing, the old Plainsman dropped the blade and picked up a discarded bill hook from the catwalk. He lunged at the ladder, using all his strength to shove it away.
The ogre at the very top of that ladder happened to be Baloth, Kurthak’s lieutenant, whose job it was to command this first charge. For just a moment, the hairless ogre locked eyes with the fierce old Plainsman.
Feeling his footing give way beneath him, Baloth dropped his war axe and made a wild leap for the wall. He landed on top of a merlon, fought momentarily for balance as the ladder fell away, then sprang forward, toward Riverwind. The old Plainsmen jumped aside, swinging the bill hook. The butt of the weapon’s long handle cracked against the underside of Baloth’s chin, and the ogre reeled back.
Riverwind didn’t hesitate for an instant. He jabbed with the pole arm again, striking the hairless ogre between the eyes. Blood erupted from Baloth’s face as he dropped senseless to the catwalk.
At once, several kender surged forward, raising their weapons to finish the hairless ogre, but Riverwind held out his hand. “Stop!” he shouted. “Don’t kill him.” He pointed at Baloth’s intricate bone and tooth necklace, draped in a tangle across his comatose form. “That must mean he’s a leader of some sort. This one is of more use to us alive than dead.”
Nodding their understanding, the kender ran, shouting for strong ropes to bind the unconscious ogre leader. Riverwind, meanwhile, whirled back toward the battle, relieved to see that it was all but over.
“They’re retreating!” Brightdawn announced, looking out over the battlements. “They’re running away! We beat them!”
The surviving kender atop the wall cheered heartily at this, lifting their weapons high above their heads. Riverwind and Kronn did not share their joy, however. They looked gravely at each other, sharing the same thought. Brave Brimble Redfeather and hundreds of kender were dead, they had nearly lost the battle, and they had only faced two thousand of Kurthak’s troops.
There were some ten thousand ogres still out there, waiting for the real assault to begin.
When the sun’s light touched Kendermore’s rooftops once more, it found the courtyards beneath the town’s east wall littered with the wounded and the dead.
The surviving kender had found no rest after the ogres’ retreat. Some had spent the night heaving dead ogres off the battlements onto the bloody field outside the city, while the rest lifted those of their fellows who had fallen to the onslaught and laid them out in rows upon the ground. Now, as the sky paled with morning light, there was scarcely room to walk for bodies. Healers-including Arlie Longfinger and Moonsong of Que-Shu-moved among the fallen, helping those who could be saved and comforting those who could not. Many other kender picked their way through the aftermath too, searching for parents, siblings, children, and friends. The usual tumult of noise that hung over Kendermore had changed. Rather than shouts and laughter, the air rang with weeping and groans of pain.
Riverwind stood wearily above it all, looking down upon the casualties from atop the wall. Brightdawn and all three of the Thistleknots stood with of him.
“We can’t do it,” the old Plainsman said at length, putting a hand to his head. He was shaking with fatigue, and cramps wracked his old muscles.
The others looked at him sharply. “Father?” Brightdawn gasped.
“What do you mean, ‘can’t?’ ” Paxina asked.
Helplessly, Riverwind gestured at the carnage below. “I mean that,” he snapped. “One-fifth of Kurthak’s army did that-and we were fortunate. When the rest of the army attacks, we will certainly lose. I can’t lie to you, or to myself. There’s no way we can hold the walls against that horde. It’s simply a matter of numbers-we’d still be hard-pressed if our forces were doubled.
“And,” he added, seeing Paxina open her mouth to object, “even though we drove them back, the ogres won the battle last night. They accomplished what they set out to do-they have learned our weaknesses. Now they know how to beat us.”