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.
“They will not break our defenses!” Roakore roared. “Let them come and let them bleed!” His fellow dwarves returned the call with a loud war cry that echoed down the now-silent tunnel.
At least twenty minutes had passed. Roakore assumed that the Draggard were beaten and fleeing the Mountain, or worse, they were regrouping. The latter was proved true when suddenly a great wave of Draggard poured into the Chamber of Arrows. This group of over one hundred veered away from the stairs instantly and began climbing the walls. The dwarves began their assault at once, sending a huge volley into their ranks. As the dwarves tried to pick off the wall-climbers, another hundred charged straight in and headed for the stairs. Roakore’s father’s voice rang out into the large chamber. “All to the left o’ me, shoot for the climbers; those to the right o’ me, hit the walkers!”
The bowmen instantly complied, as did Roakore. “Let ’em come taste me blade!” spat a burly old dwarf next to Roakore. He smiled to himself and gave a triumphant growl as he shot one of the Draggard in the eye. Roakore was confident that the battle would end here, for never in the history of the mountain had an attacking army ever made it past the Chamber of Arrows. Though the Draggard roared with what sounded like triumph, they had failed to notice the thousands of small holes that covered the stairs and side walls.
More than four hundred Draggard were now within the chamber, some climbing the walls to get to the shooters’ balcony, others ascending the stair. The entirety of the staircase was now covered with so many of the foul beasts that not a hint of stone could be seen. They poured onto it with such aggression that many fell over the sides and to their deaths one hundred feet below. Those at the very top of the stair, only ten feet from the dwarves, leapt with reckless abandon across the ten-foot gap towards the balcony. The left flank of archers cut them down in midair, dozens of arrows hitting the beasts with enough force to send them hurtling lifeless back toward the stair.
Another call suddenly came from Roakore’s father. “Bring the chamber to life!” he bellowed, and somewhere in the chamber a dwarf pulled a single lever. Roakore watched with great pleasure as thousands of arrows sprang forth from the holes within the steps of the stairs and side walls. The entire horde of beasts upon the stairs was thrown ten feet into the air, their bodies bristling with arrows, and fell lifeless to the stone below. Those Draggard that had been climbing the wall were torn to pieces by the thousands of arrows. Even those still just entering the chamber did not fare well, for they were cut down where they stood by the great crossfire produced by the barrage of arrows upon the side walls. The chamber was suddenly deathly quiet, a literal tomb.
The dwarf archers erupted into cheers at the sight of the massacre, but their celebration was short-lived. Giving no heed to their personal safety, still more beasts came pouring in from the tunnel. Over their fallen kin they climbed, and advanced upon the stairs once again. The Draggard were not known for their bravery, and the relentless attack unsettled Roakore. He sensed, as did others, that these beasts were being controlled by an unseen force. They would not stop until they were killed, or until they took the mountain. The dwarves cut into the ranks of the advancing group as it ascended the stairs. But their numbers were again overwhelming. They poured forth from the tunnel by the hundreds, up the walls and stairs.
“Draw weapons!” Roakore’s father’s call echoed as many of the beasts made it to the balcony. Roakore took up his axe as a Draggard jumped from the stair to the balcony. With a powerful sideswipe Roakore downed the hissing monster in midair, only to be met by three more leaping demons. The balcony had broken out into an all-
