the lair of the ettin, though truth be told, Toadface wasn’t thrilled about going anywhere near the thing. Of such previous expeditions, the goblins had returned less than half of the time. But maybe Toadface had found an out. Wouldn’t the goblin king be overjoyed if he delivered the heads of three hated dwarves?
The torch was still only a speck of light far down the tunnel ahead of them, but it was moving again. Toadface motioned to the largest of the others. “The side tunnel,” he ordered. “Gets them when they crosses. Usses’ll rush them up front.”
They started off slowly and silently on soft footpads, each of them thinking it grand that dwarves used torches.
And goblins didn’t.
The tunnel had widened out; ten could walk abreast, and the ceiling had moved higher as well. “High enough for a giant,” Bruenor observed grimly.
The three moved into the classic dwarven hunting formation. Feldegar walked down the middle of the passage with the torch, while Bruenor and Yorik slipped in and out of the shadows of the walls to either side. While Feldegar controlled the pace, the two on the sides kept their backs to the walls, barely watching where they were going. In this alignment, Bruenor’s duty was to Yorik, and Yorik’s to Bruenor, each using the advantage of the angle to scout the wall ahead of his companion.
Thus it was Bruenor, to the left of Feldegar, who first noticed a side passage breaking off of the right wall. He motioned to his wary companions, and he and Feldegar waited while Yorik moved into a ready position behind a convenient jutting stone against the corner of the side passage.
Then Bruenor and Feldegar started out straight ahead down the main passage, seemingly taking no notice of the new tunnel.
The expected ambush came before they were halfway across the mouth of the tunnel.
Yorik tripped the large goblin who darted out at them, then dived into a roll behind him, taking him out with a hammer smash to the back of his head as he tried to rise.
Up ahead in the main corridor, the other goblins hooted and charged, hurling spears as they came.
Bruenor, too, was moving, crossing behind Feldegar. He saw the first spear break into the torchlight, aimed right for his young cousin, and dived headlong in front of Yorik, knocking the missile harmlessly aside with his crafted shield. Then he continued his roll to the safety of the jutting stone beside the side passage.
Feldegar didn’t hesitate. Understanding the main threat to be up ahead, he flung his torch forward and brought his crossbow to bear.
Horrified to find themselves suddenly within the revealing sphere of light, the goblins shrieked and scrambled into the shadows, diving behind boulders or stalagmites.
Feldegar’s bolt took one in the heart.
“Nasty dwarvses,” Sniglet whispered, crawling up to Toadface. “They knows we was here!”
Toadface threw the little goblin down behind him and considered the dilemma.
“We runs?” Sniglet asked.
Toadface shook his head angrily. Normally, retreat would have been the preferred course of action, but Toadface knew that the option wasn’t open. “The king bites our necks if we comes back empty,” he hissed at the little goblin.
“How do we fare?” Feldegar whispered to Bruenor from a cranny in the other wall of the main tunnel.
“Yorik got one,” Bruenor replied.
Groaning, Yorik crawled over to join Bruenor behind the jutting stone. A second spear had found the young dwarf’s hip.
“But he took a hit!” the dwarf added in a voice he hoped only Feldegar could hear.
“I can fight,” Yorik insisted loudly.
“Wonderful,” Feldegar whispered to himself, remembering that he had argued against bringing the young dwarf. His sarcasm didn’t hold, though, when he took the time to realize that Yorik had foiled the goblins’ ambush and had probably saved his life.
“How many did ye make?” Bruenor called.
“Four up front,” replied Feldegar. “But one’s lost his heart for the fight,” he added with a grim chuckle.
“Threes to threes, then, wicked dwarvses!” Toadface yelled out to them.
Feldegar launched a second quarrel in the direction of the voice, smiling as it sparked off the stone just an inch from the big goblin’s nose.
“Wicked dwarvses!”
Bruenor worked to dress his young cousin’s nasty wound, while Yorik, ever a brave lad, fumbled out his tinderbox and torches, lighting them and heaving them down the tunnel to take away the goblins’ advantage of darkness.
And then they waited as the long minutes passed, each side searching for some way to break the stalemate and get in on their foes.
“Hold on the torches,” Bruenor whispered to Yorik.
“Mighten that we be here awhile.” Bruenor knew that time was on the goblins’ side. Dwarves could get around in the darkness, but lived most of their lives in torchlit tunnels. Goblins, though, knew only the absolute darkness of deep caverns. When the torches burned low, their enemies would strike.
“How much nasty lights has yous got, wicked dwarvses?” taunted Toadface, apparently seeing the same advantage.
“Shut yer face!” roared Feldegar, and he put another quarrel off the stone to emphasize his point.
Bruenor looked down at his young cousin and considered retreating. But that route seemed impossible, for Yorik obviously couldn’t run. Even if they managed to slip away unnoticed, the goblins would soon be on them. Bruenor saw one slim chance. Perhaps he was far enough from the light. If he could manage to get over the jutting stone and slip around the corner into the shadows of the side tunnel, he could come back into the main tunnel right in front of the goblins’ position, too close for another volley of spears.
“Wait here and ready yerself,” he whispered to Yorik.
The young dwarf nodded and clutched his hammer, coiling his good leg under him for a spring that might propel him out when battle was joined.
Bruenor belly-crawled over the rock but froze when he heard Toadface’s call.
“Lights is dying, wicked dwarvses,” the goblin teased, hoping he could get the dwarves to run away. He figured that looting the ettin’s lair was less dangerous than fighting against an equal number of dwarves.
Bruenor sighed when he realized that he hadn’t been spotted. He eased himself out of the main corridor and down the side passage. So far, so good.
This second tunnel fell away steeply after a few steps, rolling down into the blackness of a huge chamber. Bruenor could only guess at its dimensions, but he understood the implications when he remembered suddenly that the survivor of the first expedition had mentioned a side passage in his tale of terror. And if the goblins had come down the main tunnel from one direction, and he and his friends from another …
“Time for …” he heard one deep voice say from the depths of the side tunnel.
“Lunch,” answered another.
“Damn!” Bruenor spat, and he quickly slipped back to Yorik.
“Ettin?” Yorik asked him rhetorically, for Yorik had also heard the voices.
“What’s the wait, Bruenor?” Feldegar called softly from across the way. “The torches’ll burn low.”
“Lunch …” one of the giant’s heads answered for Bruenor.
“… time!” growled the other.
“Drats,” came Toadface’s voice from down the hall.
Bruenor knew the fight with the goblins to be at an end. They would flee at the approach of the ettin, and his group would be wise to do the same. But what of Yorik? Bruenor grabbed at a desperate plan. “Get yer bow ready,” he called to Feldegar. “And me an’ Yorik ours,” he lied, for he and Yorik didn’t have bows. “Goblins won’t be staying for the ettin; take ’em in their backs as they leave!”
Feldegar understood the reasoning. “Oh, I’ve got me goblin all picked and ready,” he pointedly laughed,
