“Come, Roakore!” came a voice from above. Roakore quickly retrieved his axe and ascended the stairs to the great balcony. Looking down upon the carnage that was the stairway and tunnel opening, he was not pleased. More than fifty dwarves continuously heaved great stones down onto the Draggard. This had stopped their approach so far but still the Draggard poured into the room. Roakore peered into the stone holding room and discovered to his dismay that only a few hundred stones remained. Also, upon turning back to the chamber, he discovered that dozens of Draggard had begun scaling the walls. To his left Roakore saw his three brothers and his father. They had begun the chant to the stone, and Roakore quickly joined in. As the dwarf before him tossed a great boulder, Roakore took control of its momentum with the power that only he and his family possessed. He sent the boulder smashing into one of the climbing Draggard, squashing it like a bug. The crushed and lifeless beast, along with the rock, then fell to the waiting horde below. Roakore and his brothers and father successfully kept up this attack until every rock had been thrown.
The scene below was a slaughter. Hundreds of Draggard lay in waste, their bodies crushed and bloody among the rocks. But though the stones ceased to fall, the Draggard did not cease to enter. The tunnel entrance had been essentially barricaded with the rain of stone, but still gaps remained. Through the gaps in the fallen stone the horde of Draggard continued to pour.
“To the next chamber!” Roakore’s father ordered. The dwarves retreated from the balcony and past the stone holding room. Beyond was a descending staircase and another chamber, the Chamber of Fire. Roakore stayed behind the group as the dwarves hurried to the end of the chamber and up another staircase. Unlike the other chamber this one was rectangular, with a high ceiling and a stone-tiled floor. Between each of the stone tiles was a three-inch gap, two inches deep. At the top of the staircase Roakore could see that the five large barrels of oil had been tapped. Oil poured forth down a circuit of stone gutters and onto the floor, filling the gaps between the stone. Fifty dwarves waited at the top of the staircase, which led to an arched doorway to the next chamber. In the chambers beyond, more than one thousand dwarves waited, armed and ready. Roakore, however, stayed within the Chamber of Fire, shoulder to shoulder with his kin atop the staircase, waiting for the Draggard. The trap’s effectiveness counted on the dwarves’ waiting until the room filled with Draggard, which also meant that they had to hold them off for a while.
Soon they came, hissing and spitting, shrieking and growling, slowly down the adjacent stair. On a perch high above Roakore stood a lone dwarf with a torch ablaze, waiting for the right moment. The Draggard were few at first, as it took some time for the horde to maneuver through the fallen stone in the last chamber. But quickly their numbers grew, as did their confidence. They filed onto the stairway and began to descend, eyeing the awaiting dwarves with fierce glares and vicious snarls. More than one hundred of them now descended the stairs as the front line came upon the oil-soaked floor. They stopped, inspecting the cracks in the floor suspiciously and sniffing about. The Draggard had a superb sense of smell and no doubt could smell the oil, for the vapors filled the room and burned the eyes of the awaiting dwarves. The Draggard were not stupid, however, and knew what lay before them. Roakore spat at the beasts and yelled insults and curses at them, trying to egg them on. The other dwarves followed his lead, mocking and challenging the lingering army.
Though the Draggard at the front line thought better of the idea, those higher up on the stair snarled and hissed, pushing the group forward into battle. The whole of the Draggard upon the stair and in the room beyond suddenly charged, filing into the chamber by the hundreds down the stairs and across the wet floor. “Hold!” Roakore bellowed to his fellow dwarves. The army ran across the room now, some of the beasts on all fours, others erect. They snarled and hissed, drool falling from their open mouths, bloodlust shining in their demonic eyes. As the Draggard neared the stair below the dwarves, Roakore yelled, “Hatchets at the ready!” All fifty dwarves produced two hatchets each, one in each hand, and took a throwing stance. The Draggard reached the stair and bounded up, taking the steps two and three at a time. Behind them the room quickly filled with the demonic horde.
“Now!” came the call from Roakore, and the dwarves let loose their hatchets. Though the Draggard scales were as thick as any armor, the dwarves possessed strength five times that of the largest man. They threw the deadly blades with such power and accuracy that any who stood in the way were cut down. The deadly attack of the dwarves dropped the entire front line of Draggard as they ran up the narrow staircase, but still more came. The beasts trampled over their fallen kin and surged forward as another volley of hatchets tore into their ranks. The Draggard were relentless, however; many charged on though they had been hit with many of the blades.
“Ready your axes!” Roakore ordered as he took a battle stance. The Draggard filed up the stairs and charged straight into the reach of the awaiting blades. Roakore let out an angry bellow as pain suddenly shot through his left thigh; he looked down to see a Draggard spear protruding from his leg. Quickly he found the wielder in the onslaught of the army and hewed him down with his mighty axe. With one arm he pulled the spear from his leg with a growl and impaled yet another of the charging demons. Still more came, and more fell to Roakore’s great double-headed axe. The dwarves held the line well, though the Draggard kept coming.
“Back to hell, ye foul beasts!” Roakore roared as he caught another Draggard in the groin, lifting the screeching creature off its feet and sending it flying halfway down the stairs. The dwarf perching above suddenly signaled with a whistle that the time had come. Roakore and his men slowly began to back through the arched doorway to the next tunnel. Roakore blocked a swinging tail with his axe and came down into the neck of the beast before him. As the monster fell, Roakore saw the torch fall to the crowd below. The torch bounced off the shoulder of one Draggard in the middle of the room and found the floor. The Chamber of Fire erupted with such force that it shook the very stone and sent Roakore and many dwarves flying nearly twenty feet into the tunnel as a great rolling wave of fire rolled over them.
Roakore had landed hard on his shoulder but paid it no mind as he scrambled to his feet, utterly blinded by the bright pyre. He helped his fellow dwarves to their feet and led the way to the next chamber. Behind them dozens of Draggard, shrieking like hell demons and fully engulfed in flames, stumbled from the chamber in frantic terror. Of the fifty dwarves who had made a stand atop the stair, now only forty remained. Roakore guided them down the long tunnel and into the next chamber, the Chamber of Arrows.
This chamber was much larger than the previous one, but like the first it was built in the shape of a triangle. Its ceiling was over two hundred feet high, and another two hundred feet at its widest. Roakore led his men across the chamber to the steep, one-hundred-foot-high staircase as the Draggard screams echoed down the tunnel. Atop the landing a thin drawbridge of stone expanded ten feet to a large balcony that extended the wide wall. Once all of the dwarves were safely across the bridge, it was quickly lowered. Atop the balcony more than one hundred dwarves with crossbows awaited the Draggrard army. Roakore and those of his following dwarves who were able also took up crossbows and awaited the Draggard.
Minutes seemed like hours as the dwarves waited for the first sign of the beasts. Their screams and howls echoed forth from the tunnel like a chorus of damned souls. Roakore watched the tunnel entrance below through his crossbow sights, waiting. Could they have killed the last of them off? He dared to hope. He was confident that he and his people would be successful in fighting off the demonic army; it was just a matter of time. How many could there possibly be? The dwarves of the Ebony Mountains had fought off countless invasions over the past two thousand years, and they did not plan on losing the dear mountain to this half-breed dragon scum. More than a thousand armed dwarves waited to join in the fight in the other chambers of Erraknar. They would no doubt fight until their last breath, for the sake of the thousands of female and child dwarves who were huddled within the very last chambers of Erraknar.