A second volley met the onrushing foe as the giant predators reared only a few paces from the edge of the forest. Following the shot, the archers dropped their missile weapons and all the dwarves, together with their human and Llewyrr allies, met the humanoids with sword and axe, hammer and shield.
Tristan stood near the center of the line, singling out a strong company of trolls for the attentions of his powerful sword. As the first of these sprang through the hedge at the border of the field, the High King split him from chin to pelvis with a slashing downward blow of Trollcleaver. Spewing gore, the monster collapsed beside him as Tristan already clashed blades with his next opponent.
All around he heard the gruff cursing of dwarves, the hissing shrieks of bloodthirsty trolls, and the bellowing cries of the giant-kin. Ranthal snarled and snapped beside him, while wolfdogs lunged at the mighty moorhound with slavering jaws.
Trollcleaver met a troll's heavy axe, the resounding clang driving daggers of agony through Tristan's bones, but he held firm, and as the troll recoiled for another blow, the king's sword snaked out, piercing the gristle of the monster's chest and finally puncturing the knotty ball of its heart.
Smoke wafted through the air. In other places, fallen trolls were charred by snapping flames, dry timbers piled upon the corpses to ensure that they wouldn't rise to fight again. Ranthal, ranging from side to side but always battling close by Tristan's flank, added his fierce snarl to the din, while cheering dwarves raised their voices in triumph each time another of the beasts succumbed to the blaze.
But amid the cheering, the king heard darker, more painful sounds. Dwarves groaned, and all too often he heard the piteous exhalation that Tristan recognized as the last sound of a dying warrior. Wounded dwarves tried to stifle their moans, but were not always successful. Too many of them, fallen amidst the chaos of the melee, expired simply because there was no one to help at hand.
Nearby, the king saw another familiar knight. The Earl of Fairheight, wielding his huge, two-handed sword with deadly precision, stood between two large oaks, anchoring a good portion of the line. The sister knight of Synnoria fought at his side, making certain two razors of sharp steel met any firbolg or troll foolish enough to try to press through.
Finellen moved back and forth along the line of battle, at times lunging forward to help out one of her hard-pressed countrymen, or else carrying flaming brands of dry timber to stack on the temporarily slain corpses of the trolls.
"Need some fire here?" grunted the stalwart dwarfwoman as Tristan carved a deep wound into the leg of a troll, crippling the beast. The monster dropped like a felled tree, scuttling crablike away from the fight.
Gasping for breath, the king shook his head. Already half a dozen troll corpses lay motionless around him, and in the lull, Tristan grinned at Finellen's look of astonishment.
"Good sword," was all she said as the High King raised the weapon to face another push, this time three trolls rushing him together.
Fortunately the tangle of trees kept two of them from coming fully to bear, and the third one danced quickly backward to avoid a thrust from Trollcleaver. As one of the others darted in, Tristan's blade chopped into the beast's arm and Finellen's axe carved a deep wound into its thigh. The monster fell, and Tristan stabbed it once in the skull, driving the tip of his blade deep into the fetid brain; the creature wouldn't menace them further. Ranthal, meanwhile, held the third troll safely at bay.
"Nice work," grunted the dwarfwoman as the ebb and flow of battle momentarily gave the pair a berth of space.
But then came a deeper sound, a growing roar of hoarse triumph from firbolg throats. At the same time, dwarven voices hollered in alarm. The scene of the commotion was perhaps twenty or thirty paces to their right, though the humans could see nothing in that direction because of the screening forest.
Finellen, however, didn't need to see in order understand the significance of the alarm.
"That's bad news," she said, starting toward the noise at a jog. "It means that the giants have breached the line!"
The sounds of fighting came to Brandon and Koll through the trees, and their ragged force of northmen and Ffolk broke into a jog, quickly emerging from the forest into a field of trampled grain. Across the broad expanse, they saw the source of the noise-a seething chaos of bloody melee, where the army of the trolls and firbolgs attacked some foe concealed in the woods across the field. The backs of the humanoids faced Brandon and Koll's men, and that was all the incentive that the two veteran warriors required.
"It's them-the trolls, I mean!" barked Knaff the Elder, pacing at his prince's side. "But who are they fighting?"
"Whoever it is, they can use our help!" Koll barked.
"Charge!" the two captains bellowed in unison, and the men who had been driven from the battlefield of Codscove loped steadily into the field. Voices rose in lusty courage, and many an axe and sword blade gleamed in the midday sun as its wielder brandished his weapon overhead.
To an onlooker who purported neutrality, their onslaught seemed like madness. Though they couldn't know what force they aided, their own numbers equaled but a fraction of the foe's. Yet their defeat on the field at Codscove had branded all of these men with a burning desire for vengeance.
As the humans sprinted and shouted and jeered, dozens of trolls broke from the mass of the attackers, drawn by the sounds of the fresh attack. Many firbolgs, too, hoisted their clubs toward the new threat, lumbering at the heels of their green-skinned comrades.
Loping back into the field with their deceptively speedy gait, the trolls met the men of Brandon and Koll's force with savage tooth and rending claw. The human charge stopped immediately as a dozen men were slain in the first shock. In another moment, the courageous warriors found themselves fighting for their lives against an overwhelming press of savage, hulking humanoids.
Brandon chopped hard into the forearm of a troll, sending the creature reeling backward, but another stepped in to take its place even as the wound began to mend. At the same time, a man beside the prince screamed as a pair of trolls ripped his torso in two.
Furiously the Prince of Gnarhelm slashed one troll in the side, but the creature whirled with deceptive speed, knocking Brandon flat onto his back. He lay immobilized, gasping for breath and trying unsuccessfully to move. The monster picked up a longsword, dropped by another slain northman, and thrust it down, straight toward the prince's unprotected chest.
A wiry body blocked out the sun, and Brandon blinked, knowing that he stared death in the face. The troll stabbed, and the muscular shape-a human shape-took the piercing blow intended for the Prince of Gnarhelm. Brandon's strength returned in a wave of energy, and he sprang upward, hacking the troll's chest open with his great axe. He chopped again and the monster fell.
Only then did Brandon turn to see the man who'd given his life for him. Knaff the Elder lay upon the ground, blood emerging like a fountain from the puncture wound in the chest.
"No!" gasped the prince, dropping to his knee beside his trusted helmsman and mentor. Desperately, fruitlessly, he tried to stem the flow of blood.
With gentle pressure, Knaff pulled his hand away. "Go and fight, my prince-for Gnarhelm and the Moonshaes!"
And as the warlike gleam in his eyes faded for the last time, Knaff's jaw remained set in a grimace of battle.
Shaking his head in a failed attempt to dispel his numbing grief, Brandon lurched to his feet and chopped savagely at a nearby troll. Sir Koll of Codscove fought nearby, but the prince saw with dismay that most of his loyal fighters had been driven from the field or slain. A sea of the enemy surged around him, and everywhere he saw the fallen bodies of his friends.