The screech of metal grinding on metal and stone, and the thunder of tumbling boulders, echoed back into the main chambers, eliciting a great war whoop from the gathered forces, who took up the charge.
Wulfgar led the way on the left, though he had to stoop nearly double to pass through the tight corridor. Before him lay bright daylight, for the train had blasted right through and had gone skidding and tumbling down beyond the exit. Already dwarves were scrambling out of that wreckage, weapons ready.
The barbarian came out into the open air and saw immediately that their surprise was complete. Few orcs were in the area, and those that were seemed more frightened than ready to do battle. Wulfgar ignored his instincts to go to the seemingly vulnerable train-riders, and instead cut a fast left and sprinted up a rocky slope toward the watchtower. The door was partially ajar, an orc moving behind it just as Wulfgar lowered his shoulder and barreled into it.
The orc grunted and flew across the room, arms and legs flailing. Its three companions in the room watched its flight, their expressions confused. They seemed hardly aware that an enemy had burst in, even when Aegis-fang swept down from on high, smashing the skull of the closest.
Wulfgar pivoted around that dead orc as it fell, and in his turn, sent his warhammer sweeping out wide. The targeted orc leaped and turned, trying to twist out of the way, but the warhammer clipped it hard enough to launch it into a spin, around and around, into the air, its flight ending abruptly at the tower's stone wall. Wulfgar strode forward, chopping at the third orc, who rushed away and out of reach. But the barbarian just turned the momentum of the hammer, launching it out left to right so that it cracked into the back of the orc who was pressed face-up against the wall, crushing its ribs and splitting its sides. The creature gasped and blood fountained from its mouth.
Wulfgar wasn't watching, though, certain that his hit had been fatal. He let go of Aegis-fang, confident it would return to his call, and charged ahead, swatting aside the spear of the remaining orc as it clumsily tried to bring the weapon to bear.
The huge barbarian stepped close and got his hand around the orc's neck, then pressed ahead and down, bending the creature over backward and choking the life out of it.
"Above ye!" a dwarf called in a raspy voice from the doorway.
Wulfgar glanced back to see Bill HuskenNugget, the lookout who had been in there when the tower had been taken. Bill had been downed with a poisoned dart, and simultaneously, his throat had been expertly cut, taking his voice, which was only beginning to heal. The retreating dwarves had thought Bill dead, but they'd dragged him along anyway, as was their custom—and a good thing they had, for he had awakened cursing in a whisper soon after.
Wulfgar's gaze went up fast, in time to see an orc in the loft above him launching a spear his way. The orc jerked as it threw, Bill's crossbow bolt buried in its side.
Wulfgar couldn't dive out of the way, so he reacted with a twist and a jerk, throwing his arm, still holding the dying orc by the throat, coming up to block. The dying orc took the spear in the back, and Wulfgar tossed the creature aside. He glanced back to Bill, who offered a wink, then he ran to the ladder and leaped, reaching up high enough to catch the lip of the loft. With his tremendous strength, the barbarian easily pulled himself up.
"Aegis-fang!" he cried, summoning the magical hammer into his hands.
Roaring and swinging, he had orcs flying from the loft in short order. Down below, the dwarves, including Bill and Bruenor, finished them up even as they hit the ground.
Wulfgar ran for the ladder to the roof, and nearly tripped as a small form came rushing past him. He wasn't even surprised to see Regis go out the loft's small window, nor was he surprised when he charged up the ladder and shouldered through the trapdoor—a trapdoor that had been weighted down with several bags of supplies—to see Regis peeking at him over the lip of the tower.
As soon as Wulfgar got the attention of all three orcs on the tower top, the halfling came over and sat on the crenellation. Regis picked out a target and let fly his little mace, the weapon spinning end-over-end to smack the orc in the face. The creature staggered backward, nearly tumbling over the parapet, and as it finally straightened, the halfling hit it with a flying body block. The orc went over the edge, to be followed by a second, thrown out by Wulfgar, and a third, leaping of its own volition in the face of the raging barbarian.
"Good place to direct!" Bruenor yelled, coming through the trapdoor. He ran to the southern edge of the tower top, overlooking the battlefield.
The wide smile on the fierce dwarf's face lasted until he looked to the east, to the river.
* * * * *
The jolt when they hit the stone wall rattled their teeth and compressed all eight of the dwarves in the ore cart into an area that two had fully occupied just a moment before. They weathered it, though, to a dwarf. And not just in that cart and in the other nine in the same train, but in the twenty carts of the other two trains as well.
Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder stretched and shoved with all their might, trying to keep the dwarves in their cart from crushing each other. The jolts continued, though, the iron carts twisting and straining. Rocks bounced down as the train rumbled about.
When it finally settled, Ivan was first to put his feet under him and strain his back against the dented cover of the cart. He pushed it open a bit, enough so that he could poke his head out.
"By Moradin!" he cried to his companions. "All of ye boys, push now and push hard!"
For Ivan saw that the plan had not worked quite so well, at least with their particular train. They had hardly cracked through the mountain wall, instead beginning an avalanche over them that had left the train half buried, twisted, and still blocking the tunnel exit so that the soldiers running behind could not easily get out.
Ivan grabbed at the twisted metal cart cover and shoved with all his strength. When that did nothing, he reached out over it and tried to pry away some of the heavy stones holding it down.
"Come on, lads!" he shouted. "Afore the damned orcs catch us in a box!"
They all began shoving and shouldering the metal cover, and it creaked open a bit more. Ivan wasted no time in squeezing out.
The view from that vantage point proved no more encouraging. Only two of the other nine carts were open, and the dwarves coming out were bleeding and dazed. Half the mountainside had come down upon them, it seemed, and they were stuck.
And to the east, Ivan saw and heard the charge of the orcs.
The yellow-bearded dwarf scrambled atop his damaged cart and pushed aside several stones, then reached back and tugged the cover with all his strength.
Out popped Pikel, then another and another, with Ivan shouting encouragement all the while.
The orcs closed.
But then a second roar came down from just north of their position, and Ivan managed to get a peek over a pile of rubble to see the countering charge of the Battlehammer dwarves. The center train and the northern one had pounded right through, exactly as planned, and the army was pouring out of Mithral Hall in full force, sweeping east and fanning south to form a perimeter around the catastrophe of the southernmost train. The fierce dwarves met the orc charge head on, axe against spear, sword against sword, in such a violent and headlong explosion that half the orcs and dwarves leading their respective charges were down in the first seconds of engagement.
Ivan leaped from the rubble and led the charge of those few among the dwarves of the southern train who could follow. Of the eighty in the carts of that southern train, less than a score came forth, the others out of the fight either because of serious injury or because they simply could not force open their twisted and buried carts.