If they lost at the riverbank, the brave Felbarrans in the river would have nowhere to land their rafts.
Looking out at the river, at the splashes of giant boulders and the flailing dwarves in the water, at the battered craft and the line of missiles reaching out at them, Wulfgar honestly wondered if holding the riverbank would mean anything at all. Would a single Felbarran dwarf get across?
Yet the Battlehammers had to try. For the sake of the Felbarrans, for the sake of the whole dwarven community, they had to try.
Wulfgar glanced back behind him, and saw Bruenor leading another force straight east along the base of the mountain spur, driving fast for the river.
"Turn east!" Wulfgar commanded his troops. "We'll make a stand on the high ground and make the orcs pay for every inch of stone!"
The dwarves around him cheered and followed, rushing down the rocky arm toward where it, too, spilled into the river. With only a hundred warriors total in that group, there was no doubt that they would lose, that they would be overwhelmed and slaughtered in short order. They all knew it. They all charged on eagerly.
They made their stand on a narrow strip of high, rocky ground, between the battleground south, where Bruenor had joined in the fighting and the dwarves were gaining a strong upper hand and the approaching swarm from the north.
"Bruenor will protect our backs!" Wulfgar shouted. "Set a defense against the north alone!"
The dwarves scrambled, finding all of the best positions which offered them some cover to the north, and trusting in King Bruenor and their kin to protect them from those orcs fighting in the south.
"Every moment of time we give those behind us is a moment more the Felbarrans have to land on our shore!" Wulfgar shouted, and he had to yell loudly to be heard, for the orc swarm was closing, screaming and hooting with every running stride.
The orcs came to the base of that narrow ridge in full run and began scrambling up, and Wulfgar and the dwarves rained rocks, crossbow bolts, and Aegis-fang upon them, battering them back. Those who did reach the fortified position met, most of all, Wulfgar the son of Beornegar. Like an ancient oak, the tall and powerful barbarian did not bend.
Wulfgar, who had survived the harshness of Icewind Dale, refused to move.
Wulfgar, who had suffered the torment of the demon Errtu, denied his fears, and ignored the sting of orc spears.
The dwarves rallied around him, screaming with every swing of axe or hammer, with every stab of finely-crafted sword. They yelled to deny the pain of wounds, the broken knuckles, the gashes, and the stabs. They yelled to deny the obvious truth that soon the orc sea would wash them from that place and to the Halls of Moradin.
They screamed, and their calls became louder soon after, as more dwarves came up to reinforce the line, dwarves who fought with King Bruenor—and King Bruenor himself, determined to die beside his heroic human son.
Behind them, a Felbarran raft made the shore, the dwarves charging off and swinging north immediately. Then a second slid in, and more approached.
But it wouldn't be enough, Bruenor and Wulfgar knew, glancing back and ahead. There were simply too many enemies.
"Back to the hall?" Wulfgar asked in the face of that reality.
"We got nowhere to run, boy," Bruenor replied.
Wulfgar grimaced at the hopelessness in the dwarf's voice. Their daring breakout was doomed, it seemed, to complete ruin.
"Then fight on!" Wulfgar said to Bruenor, and he yelled it out again so that all could hear. "Fight on! For Mithral Hall and Citadel Felbarr! Fight on for your very lives!"
Orcs died by the score on the northern face of that ridge, but still they came on, two replacing every one who had fallen.
Wulfgar continued to center the line, though his arms grew weary and his hammer swings slowed. He bled from a dozen wounds, one hand swelled to twice its normal size when Aegis-fang connected against an orc club too far down the handle. But he willed that hand closed on the hammer shaft.
He willed his shaky legs to hold steady.
He growled and he shouted and he chopped down another orc.
He ignored the thousands still moving down from the north, focusing instead on the ones within his deadly range.
So focused was he and the dwarves that none of them saw the sudden thinning of the orc line up in the north. None noted orcs sprinting away suddenly to the west, or groups of others simply and suddenly falling to the stone, many writhing, some already dead as they hit the ground.
None of the defenders heard the hum of elven bowstrings.
They just fought and fought, and grew confused as much as relieved when fewer and fewer orcs streamed their way.
The swarm, faced with a stubborn foe in the south and a new and devastating enemy in the north, scattered.
* * * * *
The battle south of the mountain spur continued for a long while, but when Wulfgar's group managed to turn their attention in that direction and support the main force of Battlehammers, and when the elves of the Moon-wood, Nikwillig among them, came over the ridge and began offering their deadly accurate volleys at the most concentrated and stubborn orc defensive formations, the outcome became apparent and the end came swiftly.
Bruenor Battlehammer stood on the riverbank just south of the mountain spur, staring out at the rolling water, the grave for hundreds of Felbarran dwarves that dark day. They had won their way from Mithral Hall to the river, had re-opened the halls and established a beachhead from which they could begin their push to the north.
But the cost….
The horrible cost.
"We'll send forces out to the south and find a better place for landing," Tred said to the dwarf king, his voice muted by the sobering reality of the battle.
Bruenor regarded the tough dwarf and Jackonray beside him.
"If we can clear the bank to the south, our boats can come across far from the giant-throwers," Jackonray explained.
Bruenor nodded grimly.
Tred reached up and dared pat the weary king on the shoulder. "Ye'd have done the same for us, we're knowing. If Citadel Felbarr was set upon, King Bruenor'd've thrown all his boys into fire to help us."
It was true enough, Bruenor knew, but then, why did the water look so blood red to him?
PART THREE A WINTER RESPITE
Do you know what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do'Urden?"
I hear this question all the time from my companion, who seems determined to help me begin to understand the implications of a life that could span centuries-implications good and bad when one considers that so many of those with whom I come into contact will not live half that time.
It has always seemed curious to me that, while elves may live near a millennium and humans less than a century, human wizards often achieve levels of understanding and power to rival those of the greatest elf mages. This is not a matter of intelligence, but of focus, it seems clear. Always before, I gave the credit for this to the humans, for their sense of urgency in knowing that their lives will not roll on and on and on.
Now I have come to see that part of the credit for this balance is the elven viewpoint of life, and that viewpoint is not one rooted in falsehood or weakness. Rather, this quieter flow of life is the ingredient that brings sanity to an existence that will see the birth and death of centuries. Or, if preferable, it is a segmented flow of life, a series of bursts.
I see it now, to my surprise, and it was Innovindil's recounting of her most personal relationships with partners both human and elf that presented the notion clearly in my mind. When Innovindil asks me now, "Do you know what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do'Urden'" I can honestly and calmly smile with self-assurance. For the first time in my life, yes, I think I do know.