Lucky, he grabbed hold of his beard, pulled the gnome toward himself, and struck at his unprotected face with the dagger.
Lucky fell, bleeding heavily, and the orc raised his dagger for the final blow. I went dashing to help him, although I knew I’d be too late, but Deler beat me to it. With a mighty roar, he flung his terrible poleax at the orc with both hands. The weapon flashed through the air in a glittering circle and crashed into the orc, slicing through his head and upper body.
“Deler, behind you!” Eel shouted, but it was too late.
An orc who was behind Deler struck the dwarf with a short, broad sword that was quite different from the orcs’ usual yataghans. The blow was so powerful that the tip of the sword emerged from the warrior’s chest. The Wild Heart swayed and collapsed to his knees. Before the orc could free his sword, Egrassa took up his bow again and turned him into a pin cushion.
It was all over.
The orc who had stabbed Deler with his sword was the last one. We all rushed to Hallas or Deler. The grun that Egrassa had shot in the side was still alive and whimpering as it tried to reach the arrow with its teeth. I paused for a moment to finish the vicious beast off. The orcs’ hunting horns gave voice again, but this time much closer.
“Oh, light!” Kli-Kli groaned, falling on her knees beside Hallas. “Oh, light! So much blood! So much blood!”
She kept on repeating those words, and there was panic fluttering in her eyes. It was the first time I’d ever seen our jester in such a state.
“Oh, light! How can this be?” the gobliness wailed. There was an orcish dagger with a notched blade lying beside her.
The moment I saw the gnome, I realized he was in a bad way. The blow had struck his right cheek and the notched blade had made an irregular wound. In fact, the whole right side of Hallas’s face was one ragged wound. The orc had struck upward with his weapon and now there was a gaping bloody hole where Lucky’s eye used to be.
And there was blood everywhere. Lots of blood. The gnome was still alive, but he seemed to be unconscious.
Egrassa unceremoniously pushed Kli-Kli aside and started trying to do something, whispering some mumbo- jumbo in orcic and sprinkling yellow powder straight onto the wound.
“Eel! How’s Deler?” croaked Lamplighter, who was fussing over Hallas.
“He’s dying,” was the answer.
“Ah, darkness! Darkness! The darkness take them all!” Mumr howled. “Harold, run over to Eel, maybe there’s still something…”
Without waiting for him to finish, I dashed across to help Eel. Milord Alistan was there, too. The Garrakian hadn’t taken the risk of pulling the sword out of the dwarf’s back—that would have increased the already powerful loss of blood. Deler was conscious and he was trying to say something, but he could only move his lips without making a sound.
“How can we help him?” I asked.
“Only a miracle can help,” Alistan Markauz muttered darkly.
But no miracle happened. A minute later the ginger-haired dwarf died, without having said anything.
“May you dwell in the light,” Eel murmured as he carefully closed Deler’s eyes.
How had we managed to get caught out so badly? Deler was dead, Hallas was at death’s door.
“Harold, we’ll mourn later!” said Eel, thumping me fiercely on the shoulder. “Wake up!”
The Garrakian was right. Mumr had found some clean rags somewhere and he was bandaging the gnome’s wound. The rags were immediately soaked in blood, but after Egrassa’s magical first aid at least the bleeding had slowed down.
Orcish horns on the left warned us that the Firstborn were coming as fast as they could, and they were answered by other horns on the right.
“We haven’t got much time, Mumr,” said Egrassa.
“I know,” the warrior growled as he bound up the gnome’s head. “I’m almost finished!”
“How’s Deler?” the elf asked.
“Dead.”
Kli-Kli gasped and lowered her face into her hands. I patted her on the shoulder, trying to comfort her a little.
“Time to be going! They’ll be here soon!”
“I’m done!” said Lamplighter, with his hands covered with blood. “But he won’t hold on for long. We’ve only postponed the end.”
“We have to hope for the best. There’s no time to make a stretcher, the gnome will have to be carried,” said Alistan.
“Kli-Kli,” I said to the sniffling gobliness. “You take the krasta.”
I had to carry the gnome, because if the orcs caught up with us, the warriors would have to be ready to fight them off.
“You won’t manage on your own,” Lamplighter said. “Eel, you carry my sword.”
The Garrakian nodded and put the bidenhander over his shoulder.
“Here we go, Harold. But in the name of all the gods, be careful!”
We lifted the wounded man cautiously.
“What about Deler?” Kli-Kli sobbed. “Aren’t we going to bury him?”
“We don’t have time for that, goblin. The forest spirits will take care of his body,” Egrassa replied.
Kli-Kli nodded reluctantly and she seemed to shrink somehow. The orcs’ horns called to each other through the mist.
“Let’s go!”
As we left the battlefield, I cast a final glance at Deler. Eel had attended to the dead man while we were trying to save Hallas. He had pulled out the orc’s sword, set the dwarf’s poleax on his chest, and folded his hands over it. As he walked along, Mumr whispered the words of the funeral song of the Wild Hearts. When we had gone about twenty yards, Kli-Kli suddenly turned round and went dashing back.
“Stop, Kli-Kli,” I barked, but she completely ignored me. “Stop, you fool.”
She came back a minute later, carrying the dwarf’s bowler hat in her hand.
You can’t run all that fast carrying a wounded gnome, but we were managing pretty well … so far. When my arms were just about ready to fall off, Mumr and I were replaced by Eel and Alistan Markauz. As we moved on, we swapped round again twice, and stopped twice to check on the gnome’s condition. Hallas was still holding on by some miracle, but Egrassa only shook his head in disappointment: “It’s only a matter of hours. Hallas won’t make it through the night.”
“We’ll see about that!” growled Eel, furious with the whole wide world.
“We can’t carry him forever. That way we only make it worse for him.”
“Are you suggesting we abandon him?”
Egrassa’s yellow eyes glinted in fury and he put his hand on the hilt of his crooked knife.
“You forget yourself.” The elf’s tone was very cold.
“The last thing we need now is a duel!” Milord Alistan roared furiously. “Eel!”
Eel worked the muscles in his jaw, but he said, “I’m sorry, Egrassa, I spoke hastily.”
The dark elf gave a slight nod. “I understand. But we can’t go on running forever. The Firstborn are only ten minutes away. We won’t survive another battle like the last one, and they might have bowmen.”
“We’ll have to give battle,” the Garrakian agreed. “Better do it now, before we collapse from exhaustion.”
“This battle will be the last.”
“So be it, elf. So be it. But I’m not just going to wait to be slaughtered, I’m going to put a few holes in some Firstborn.”
Egrassa turned to Alistan Markauz.
