Realms of War

away. The great logs lay in rows, neatly ordered, and it had seemed so surreal to G'nurk that such a natural calamity as a volcanic eruption, the very definition of chaos, could create such a sense of order and purpose.

So it seemed to the orc warrior as he stood upon that rock and looked out across the rocky slope that had marked the end of the horde's charge, for the bodies lay neatly in rows-too neatly.

So many bodies.

'Tinguinguay,' G'nurk whispered.

He had to find her. He needed to see her again, and knew that it had to be there and then if it was to be ever-before the birds, the beetles, and the maggots did their work.

When it is done, all that is left are the bones and the stones. The screams are gone; the smell is gone. The blood is washed away. The fattened birds take with them in their departing flights all that identified those fallen warriors as individuals.

Leaving the bones and the stones to mingle and to mix, as the wind or the rain break apart the skeletons and filter them together, as the passage of time buries some, what is left becomes indistinguishable to all but the most careful of observers.

A rock shuffled under his foot, but Pwent didn't hear it. As he scrambled over the last rise along the cliff face, up onto the high ground from which the dwarves had made their stand before retreating into Mithral Hall, a small tumble of rocks cascaded down behind him-and again, he didn't hear it.

He heard the screams and cries, of glory and of pain, of determination against overwhelming odds, and of support for friends who were surely doomed.

He heard the ring of metal on metal, the crunch of a skull under the weight of his heavy, spiked gauntlets, and the sucking sound of his helmet spike driving through the belly of one more orc.

His mind was back in battle as he came over that ridge and looked at the long and stony descent, still littered with the corpses of scores of dwarves and hundreds and hundreds of orcs. The orc charge had come there. The boulders rolling down against them, the giant-manned catapults throwing boulders at him from the side mountain ridge-he remem shy;bered vividly that moment of desperation, when only the Gutbusters, his Gutbusters, could intervene. He'd led that counter-charge down the slope and headlong, furiously, into the orc horde. Punching and kicking, slashing and tearing, crying for Moradin and Clanggeddin and Dumathoin, yelling for King Bruenor and Clan Battlehammer and Mithral Hall. No fear had they shown, no hesitance in their charge, though not one expected to get off that ridge alive.

And so it was with a determined stride and an expression of both pride and lament that Thibbledorf Pwent walked down that slope once more, pausing only now and again to lift a rock and peg it at a nearby bird that was intent to feast upon the carcass of a friend.

He spotted the place where his brigade had made their valiant stand, and saw the dwarf bodies intermingled with walls of dead orcs-walls and walls, piled waist deep and even higher. How well the Gutbusters had fought!

He hoped that no birds had pecked out Gendray's eyes. Honcklebart deserved to see his son's eyes again.

Pwent ambled over and began flinging orc bodies out of the way, growling with every throw. He was too angry to notice the stiffness, even when one arm broke off and remained in his grasp. He just chucked it after the body, spitting curses.

He came to his first soldier, and winced in recognition of Tooliddle Ironfist, who had been one of the longest- serving of the Gutbuster Brigade.

Pwent paused to offer a prayer for Tooliddle to Moradin, but in the middle of that prayer, he paused more profoundly and considered the task before him. It wouldn't be difficult, taking Gendray home, but leaving all the rest of them out there.

How could he do that?

The battlerager stepped back and kicked a dead orc hard in the face. He put his hands on his hips and considered the scene before him, trying to figure out how many trips and how many companions he would need to bring all those boys home. For it became obvious to him that he couldn't leave them, any of them, out there for the birds and the beetles.

Big numbers confused Thibbledorf Pwent, particularly when he was wearing his boots, and particularly when, as on this occasion, he became distracted.

Something moved to the northwest of him.

At first, he thought it a large bird or some other carrion animal, but then it hit him, and hit him hard.

It was an orc-a lone orc, slipping through the maze of blasted stone and blasted bodies, and apparently oblivious to Pwent.

He should have slipped down to the ground and pretended to be among the fallen. That was the preferred strategy, obvi shy;ously, a ready-made ambush right out of the Gutbusters' practiced tactics.

Pwent thought of Gendray, of Tooliddle, and all the others. He pictured a bird poking out Gendray's eyes, or a swarm of beetles crunching on his rotting intestines. He smelled the fight again and heard the cries, remembering vividly the desperate and heroic stand.

He should have slipped down to the ground and feigned death among the corpses, but instead he spat, he roared, and he charged.

Who will remember those who died here, and what have they gained to compensate for all that they, on both sides, lost?

The look upon a dwarf's face when battle is upon him would argue, surely, that the price is worth the effort, that warfare, when it comes to a dwarven clan, is a noble cause. Nothing to a dwarf is more revered than fighting to help a friend. Theirs is a community bound tightly by loyalty, by blood shared and blood spilled.

And so, in the life of an individual, perhaps this is a good way to die, a worthy end to a life lived honorably, or even to a life made worthy by this last ultimate sacrifice.

G'nurk could hardly believe his ears, or his eyes, and as the sight registered fully-a lone dwarf rushing down the slope at him-a smile curled on his face.

Gruumsh had delivered this, he knew, as an outlet for his rage, a way to chase away the demons of despair over Tinguinguay's fall.

G'nurk shied from no combat. He feared no dwarf, surely, and so while the charge of the heavily armored beast-all knee spikes, elbow spikes, head spikes, and black armor so devilishly ridged that it could flay the hide off an umber hulk-would have weakened the knees of most, for G'nurk it came as a beautiful and welcome sight.

Still grinning, the orc pulled the heavy spear off his back and brought it around, twirling it slowly so that he could take a better measure of its balance. It was no missile. G'nurk had weighted its back end with an iron ball.

The dwarf rambled on, slowing not at all at the sight of the formidable weapon. He crashed through a pair of dead orcs, sending them bouncing aside, and he continued his single-noted roar, a bellow of absolute rage and… pain?

G'nurk thought of Tinguinguay and surely recognized pain, and he too began to growl and let it develop into a defiant roar.

He kept his spear horizontally before him until the last moment, then stabbed out the point and dropped the weighted end to the ground, stamping it in with his foot to fully set the weapon.

He thought he had the dwarf easily skewered, but this one was not quite as out of control as he appeared. The dwarf flung himself to the side in a fast turn and reached out with his leading left arm as he came around, managing to smack aside G'nurk's shifting spear.

The dwarf charged in along the shaft.

But G'nurk reversed and kicked up the ball, stepping out the other way and heaving with all his strength to send the back end of the weapon up fast and hard against the dwarf's chest, and with such force as to stop the furious warrior in his tracks, even knock him back a bouncing step.