“A bargain, then?” Bruenor offered.
“Says it,” answered Toadface.
“A truce.”
“And runs?”
“Not to run,” Bruenor growled. “To fight!”
“Two-heads?!” Toadface shrieked.
“Run, then, and catch me bolt in yer back!” Feldegar reminded the goblin.
Caught in the trap, Toadface gingerly stepped out from his nook and moved to the corner of the side passage opposite from Bruenor and Yorik. Bruenor moved out around the jutting stone to face the goblin.
“Me and yerself trip it up,” Bruenor whispered to Toadface. “Bait it,” he then called quietly to Feldegar. Understanding the plan, Feldegar was already moving. He put his back to the wall directly across from the entrance to the side passage, waiting to meet the approaching monster head on.
Toadface motioned similarly to his forces, and Sniglet squeamishly moved out into the open next to Feldegar. But the last of the goblins, terrified, darted away down the darkness of the corridor.
Feldegar raised his crossbow and snarled.
“Hold!” Bruenor said to him. “Let the miserable rat run. We’ve bigger things to fight!”
Feldegar growled again and turned an angry glare on Sniglet, who shrank back. “Hold yer ground!” the dwarf snapped. He slapped the head of the goblin’s spear out toward the side passage. “And make yer throw count!”
“Left leg, right leg?” Bruenor said to Toadface. The big goblin nodded, though he wasn’t sure which was which.
The stamp of a heavy foot issued from the passage. Then another. Bruenor tensed and held his breath.
Ettins grew large in this part of Faerun, and this one was big even by their standards. It towered fully fifteen feet, and its girth nearly filled the corridor. Even fearless Feldegar blew a sigh when he saw it, and when he saw, more pointedly, the cruelly spiked club it held in each huge hand.
“Goblin!” yelled one of the ettin’s heads.
“Dwarfmeat!” hooted the other.
“Goblin!” the first argued.
“Goblin, always goblin!” complained the second. “I want dwarfmeat!” The ettin hesitated for just a moment, giving Feldegar the chance to settle its foolish argument.
The dwarf’s crossbow twanged, the stinging quarrel nicking wickedly into the ettin’s ribs. The hungry giant looked at the impudent little dwarf, both heads smiling. “Dwarfmeat!” they roared together and the giant rushed ahead. One great stride carried it to the main corridor.
Toadface struck next. He leaped onto the ettin’s leg, biting and stabbing with his little sword at the huge calf muscles. One of the ettin’s heads cast him a curious, even amused glance.
The flat side of Bruenor’s axe smashed in just as the second leg crossed into the main corridor. The dwarf’s aim proved perfect, and the strength of his blow enough to shatter the ettin’s kneecap.
The giant howled and lurched forward, suddenly not the least bit amused.
And as it stumbled past, Bruenor completed the deft maneuver. He reversed his grip, spinning a full circle, and knifed the razor edge of his axe into the back of the giant’s leg, just where the hamstring joined the knee. The leg buckled and the ettin fell forward, burying Toadface beneath it.
Then came a second stinging volley as Feldegar fired another quarrel and Sniglet threw one of his spears.
But the ettin was far from finished, and its howls were more of rage than pain as it hoisted itself up on its huge arms.
Not to be left out, Yorik sprang out from his concealment, rushing past Bruenor and swinging his hammer as he came. But his leg buckled under him before he was close enough for an effective strike, and the ettin, looking around for the source of its broken knee, saw him coming. With a single movement, the giant slapped Yorik’s small hammer harmlessly aside and poised its wicked club for a blow that certainly would have crushed the prostrate dwarf.
Had it not been for Bruenor.
True to his brave and noble heritage, the mighty young Battlehammer didn’t hesitate. He ran up the back of the prone giant and, with every ounce of power he could muster, with every muscle snapping in accord, drove his axe into the back of the ettin’s left head. The weapon shivered as it smashed through the thick skull. Bruenor’s arms tingled and went numb, and the horrid CRACK! resounded through the tunnels.
Yorik let out an audible sigh of relief as the giant’s eyes criss-crossed and its tongue flopped limply out of its mouth.
Half of the thing was dead.
But the other half fought on with fury, and the ettin finally managed its first strike. Coiling its good leg under it (and scraping poor Toadface into the stone), it lunged forward wildly and swung its club in a wide arc at Feldegar and Sniglet.
The dwarf actually saved the little goblin’s life (though Feldegar would deny it to the end of his days), for he grabbed Sniglet’s shoulder and threw him forward, toward the ettin and within the angle of the blow. Then Feldegar dived sidelong, taking the ettin’s club in the shoulder but rolling with its momentum.
Helpless on his back, Sniglet closed his eyes and planted the butt of his spear against the floor. But the ettin hardly noticed the little goblin. Its concentration was squarely on Feldegar. The dwarf had rolled right to his knees, his crossbow leveled for another shot. At the twang of the release, the ettin reflexively ducked its head-
— impaling itself through the eye upon Sniglet’s spear.
Sniglet squealed in terror and scrambled away, but the battle was over. With a final shudder, the ettin lay dead.
Bruised and battered, Toadface finally managed to push out from under the giant’s leg. Feldegar rushed over to Yorik. And Bruenor, who had clung to the giant’s back throughout, now stood atop the dead ettin’s back, amazed at the sheer force of his blow and staring incredulously at the first notch he had put into the blade of his new axe.
Finally they regrouped, dwarves on one side of the ettin and goblins on the other. “Wicked dwarvses!” Sniglet hissed, erroneously believing that Feldegar had thrown him in as a sacrifice to the ettin. He quieted and slumped to the side of his boss when Feldegar’s crossbow came up level with his nose.
Bruenor glared at his companion. “The truce,” he reminded Feldegar sternly.
Feldegar dearly wanted to finish his business with the wretched goblins, but he conceded the point. He had witnessed Bruenor’s awesome strike and had no desire to cross the young heir to Mithral Hall’s throne.
Bruenor and Toadface stared at each other with uncertainty. They had been allies out of necessity, but the hatred between dwarves and goblins was a basic tenet of their very existence. Certainly, no trust or friendship would grow out of this joining.
“We lets yous leave,” Toadface said at length, trying to regain a measure of his dignity. But Toadface wanted no part of the dwarves. He was outnumbered three to two, and he, too, now understood the strength of the beardless dwarf.
Bruenor’s smile promised death, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to spring over the ettin and silence the filthy goblin forever. But he was to rule Clan Battlehammer one day, and his father had taught him well the order of duties.
Honor above anger.
“Split the trophy and leave?” he said to Toadface.
Toadface considered the proposition, thinking an ettin’s head and news of the dwarves a wonderful gift for the goblin king. (He didn’t know, however, that the goblin king already knew all about the dwarves and thought it grand to have an ettin keeping unwitting guard.)
“Left head, right head?” Bruenor offered.
Toadface nodded, though he still hadn’t figured out which was which.
Dark Mirror
Sunrise. Birth of a new day. An awakening of the surface world, filled with the hopes and dreams of a million hearts. Filled, too, I have come painfully to know, with the hopeless labors of so many others.