Warrow dodged away, he knew that sooner or later the Troll would make contact, and the fight would end then and there. Cotton knew he needed help; and in that moment he glimpsed from the corner of his eye Bane's blue flame burning on the stone where the sword had skidded when Perry had been felled.
Crack! The Ogru missed again, and Cotton darted to the side and scooped up the blazing Elven-blade. Yet the monster shouted in vile gloat, for it now had Cotton trapped: to‹ get at Bane, the Warrow had dashed beyond the Troll to the precipitous edge of the Great Deep; and the only way to freedom led back past the great foe. To cut off escape, the Ogru spread its arms wide and took a ponderous stride forward.
Cotton, his eyes locked upon the massive War-bar, stepped back, and his foot came down upon the edge of the great split. He teetered and gasped in fear, his arms windmill ing. And the vast dark gulf gaped blackly, and waited. Yet with a twisting motion, the Warrow managed to fall forward. And as he had been trained, Cotton rolled as he landed, to come back to his feet in a balanced stance with sword in hand to again face the foe. The great Cave Troll snarled in anger, yet its eyes took on a look of evil cunning, for it still had the wee Warrow trapped; and the monster swooshed the bar in a feint followed by a swift overhand stroke.
Crack! The iron pole just missed the dodging Warrow, so close it ticked a golden scale.
Again Cotton leapt to one side and then lunged forward; and the blazing rune-jewelled Troll's Bane flashed up as Cotton plunged it into the Ogru's kneecap: the stone-like skin dial easily 'turned aside axes and swords yielded like soft butter to the flaming Elven-blade; the point sank through the cap and into the knee joint, plunging nearly to the sinews at the back of the leg. Cotton jerked Bane out and twisted aside; black blood dropped from the bitter blade to the stone floor, and where it fell a reeking smoke coiled up from the hard rock.
The great Troll roared in agony and clutched at its pierced knee, and stumbled with a sliding crash to the stone at the lip of the great black abyss, to slip over the edge, grasping frantically but in vain at the smooth floor. And with a bellow of terror and its eyes wide in fear, and still gripping the massive War-bar, the huge Ogru fell howling beyond the rim and down into the bottomless black depths.
Cotton stared for a moment at the place where the Troll had gone over the edge; then the Warrow scooped up the Atalar Blade and ran back to Perry, who was conscious again. Once more Cotton cradled the wounded buccan.
As Cotton watched the hideous battle, Perry gazed up into the shadows on the ceiling. The War was going badly for the Dwarves: the Spawn now controlled the center of the chamber and the Dwarves were at the perimeter. The great numbers of the Rucken forces and the strength of their position weighed the battle heavily in meir favor; though much more skillful, the Dwarves were in weak array, and by the hundreds they had fallen to Gnar's Swann. As Cotton looked on in dismay, Perry whispered, 'That's where Bonn climbed.'
'Wha… what, Mister Perry?' asked Cotton.
'That's where Borin climbed over the ceiling. When we crossed the gulf, I mean,' rambled Perry, lying on his back, looking upward above the chasm. 'Over there. Above the bridge.'
'You said he didn't make it all the way. The ceiling was all cracked, zig… zig something,' wept Cotton, crying for the Dwarf dead as he tried to comfort his wounded master.
'Ziggurt. The roof is ziggurt. As far as the eye can see. Bonn told us.' Perry's blurred gaze roamed down the Hall along the roof above the pillars.
Though he was weeping, Cotton felt strangely at peace- sitting here, holding his friend, chatting about inconsequential things-as the mighty clash and clangor of weapons and War swirled back in the main chamber just a stone's throw away.
'Rocks, stone, that's all the eye can see,' muttered Perry. 'No green growing things, no soft comfortable things, just hard rock and stone. I had enough of rocks when the slide nearly got us back in the Crestan Pass, oh so long ago. Those were the days. Just you and me, and Anval, Bonn, and Kian.'
'True,' answered Cotton, 'those were the days. They taught us a lot, Lord Kian and the Dwarves.' And Cotton again looked at the black shaft standing out from Perry's shoulder. 'I just wish they'd taught me about healing instead of about swords, and rock slides, and snow avalanches, and-'
A startled look had come over Perry's face, and a fierce energy suffused his pained lineament, and he urgently interrupted Cotton: 'That's it! Cotton, that's it!' he gasped through his pain. 'You've solved the riddle! We've got to get to Durek! We can win the War yet! Get me to Durek. Get me to Durek.' And he clutched desperately at Cotton's arm, and struggled to rise. 'Get me to Durek.'
Cotton helped Perry to stand, and the wounded buccan fought to keep from swooning. His good arm was over Cotton's shoulders, and he absently clutched Bane in his other hand, having grasped it when Cotton had laid it aside. Slowly they started along the south wall; Cotton didn't know why, but his master urgently needed to get to Durek.
As they crept forward, Cotton's emeraldine eyes cast about for the Dwarf King. Perry's eyes, too, sought Durek as the Warrows limped slowly along the perimeter, the black shaft standing full neath Perry's left collarbone. Cotton saw Dwarves striving desperately with two, three, or four Rucks at once. He also glimpsed Kian and Rand in a small force battling the remaining Ogru:
Only a handful hewed at the Troll where fifty were needed, yet at bay they held the creature. Of those facing the Ogru, it was Prince Rand who had harassed and baited the fell beast into a foaming rage; for after the two Trolls had burst through the Dwarves' defense, Rand had seen that these great monsters if unchecked would assure a Yrm victory. And he had run before one of them, shouting and waving his arms, leaping away.from the crashing iron bar, drawing the Ogru out of the general metee in the creature's rage to smash this puny Man-thing that it couldn't quite seem to hit. Again and again Rand had leapt aside, and again and again the great iron pole had smashed to empty stone where Rand had stood but an instant before. But the Prince was growing weary, for he had baited the beast long, and the great bar was becoming more difficult to dodge.
Then Lord Kian saw his brother and the Ogru, and he ran to aid Prince Rand. Kian fell upon the Troll from the rear and lashed his sword in a mighty arc, but the blade crashed into the stone hide and glanced away notched. Three Dwarves joined the fray, but their axes proved no better. 'His heel!' cried Prince Rand. 'Go for his heel when I draw him forth!' And Rand stood motionless at a long reach for the Troll.
The monster lunged forward, swinging his bar in a wide sweep; and as he extended his body, the creature's ankle bent sharply and one of the scaled plates of his greenish hide lifted away from his heel. Lord Kian stepped up, and using two hands he swung his sword of Riamon with all the strength he could muster. The blade sped true, and the keen edge flashed under the scale and into the flesh to sever the heel tendon and chop to the bone and lodge in the joint. Kian's sword was wrenched from his grasp to shatter in twain upon impact as, with a great bellow, the Ogru crashed forward onto the stone, to roll and clutch at his ankle; the great beast was now out of the battle and would aid the Rucks no more, for it could not stand.
'Rand, we did it!' Kian shouted, elated, and looked up and saw to his horror that his brother had stood fast so that the Troll could be felled, and Rand had been smashed to the wall by the cruel iron bar.
And as he saw his brother's crumpled form, and the howling Ogru rolling in agony upon the stone, a madness of fury possessed Lord Kian. Weaponless, he seized hold of the Troll's great War-bar which had been flung from the monster's clutch, and even though the mass of the bar was beyond the strength of two Men to heft, in his wrath Lord Kian raised up the huge pole and violently smote it down upon the thrashing Troll. The Ogru saw the strike coming and warded with his forearm, but the force of the blow was so great that the rock-hard limb was broken as if it were a twig, and the War-bar drove on to smash into the Troll's thick neck, crushing its throat; and the great creature's eyes bulged out as it tried to breathe but could not, and its limbs flailed about in desperation. And though the monster was mortally struck and failing swiftly unto Death, Lord Kian tried to raise up the War-pole for yet another blow, but could not, for with that one strike the towering fury had been spent and the bar was now far beyond his power to wield.
Catching up a fallen axe from the lax hand of a slain Dwarf, Lord Kian turned from this heel-chopped, throat-crushed monster, and made his way toward Prince Rand's fallen form.
Slowly the Warrows went forth, and they both saw Anval: he was battling Gnar! There was a great clanging as axe and scimitar clashed together. Anval drove the great Hlok back, but then the tide turned as more Rucks joined Gnar to attack the Dwarf. 'Get back! Get back!' cried Perry, feebly, but his whisper was lost in the shouts and screams of others and in the din of steel upon steel. Suddenly a Ruck behind Anval hurled a War-hammer, and it struck the Dwarf on the back of his helm! And Anval staggered! And Gnar's great scimitar flashed up and back down, and clove into the Dwarf, blood flying wide, and Gnar threw back his head in wild laughter as Anval fell dead.
