Indeed, a trio of spears reached out at him, and their orc throwers, barely ten paces behind him, howled at the expected kills.
Bruenor managed to dodge one, take a second with his shield and deflect the third enough with his axe so that it only glanced him along the side, stinging painfully through his chainmail armor but doing no mortal harm.
The jerking movements nearly cost him his tentative hold on his companion, though, and she started to tumble. But again, Bruenor merely growled and realigned his feet, catching Tannabritches fully again and rushing off down the path.
“Orcs!” he shouted, leaping from stone to stone down the steep decline and somehow, miraculously, managing to hold his balance.
He pitched into the copse headlong, finally overbalancing and diving into a face plant, with Tannabritches bouncing over him, pressing his face harder into the ground as she rolled limply toward the fire.
“Mandarina!” Ragged Dain shouted for Mandarina Dobberbright, the group’s cleric, and the female dwarf spat out a large mouthful of stew and scrambled to get her medicine bag.
“Orcs!” Bruenor shouted, spitting dirt.
As he spoke, there came a large cracking sound above and splintering tree limbs fell around the camp, and a huge stone crashed to the ground, crushing poor Ognun Leatherbelt’s toes! Oh, but how he howled!
Bruenor and Magnus Leatherbelt, the sixth of the party and Ognun’s third cousin on his father’s side, reached the boulder at the same time, trying to push it off Ognun’s foot, but unfortunately, they came to the spot on opposite sides of the stone and inadvertently worked against each other. With a groan and a growl, the two rolled around to meet at opposite sides of their commander, but that, too, proved problematic for poor Bruenor, and poorer Ognun, for when Bruenor came around, the spear shaft, the missile firmly embedded in his shield, swung around and whacked Ognun across the side of his head.
“Bother and bluster!” Bruenor cried and he dropped his axe, reached over with his free hand, and yanked the spear free. He swung around as soon as he had, and threw all of his weight and strength against the stone, and joining with Ognun and Magnus, they managed to hoist it enough for the commander to pull his foot free.
“Better ground to the west!” Ragged Dain cried out from atop a boulder just beyond the dell.
“Go! Go!” ordered Ognun.
“Ah, but I can’t be movin’ her!” Mandarina protested.
“ in the general direction, and palimYe got yerself no choice!” Ognun insisted and he hobbled over, but his voice trailed away when he got there, for it was clear to him and the other two that Mandarina wasn’t speaking lightly, and wasn’t exaggerating.
Tannabritches seemed on the very edge of death.
But now the orcs were coming, and another heavy stone crashed through the branches just above them.
“They’ve a giant,” warned Magnus.
“Run away!” shouted Tannabritches with what seemed the last of her strength.
The other three looked to Ognun-Bruenor could see the pain there on the face of the seasoned but compassionate leader. Ognun had no choice, Bruenor understood, for the good of them all and the good of Citadel Felbarr.
“To Ragged Dain, with all haste,” Ognun said quietly, and somehow his words stuck out clearly among the mounting whoops of the charging orcs.
Ognun fell to one knee and handed the nearly unconscious Tannabritches a long knife, then kissed her on the cheek. A good-bye kiss, surely.
“Go! Go!” he ordered, coming to his feet.
The words prodded at Bruenor’s heart more sharply than the spearhead stuck in Fist’s chest.
“No!” he shouted before he could stop himself. Even as the word echoed in his own thoughts, Bruenor didn’t really understand it. It was a denial, and not just of leaving the girl, but of everything. It was a scream at the gods for this tragedy, for their very mocking of the life Bruenor had given them, centuries of fealty and honor.
No! his mind screamed, at himself and at Moradin. No to everything. Just no!
And in that eye-blink of time, Bruenor could not deny the sudden and unexpected sensation. He felt as he had felt on the throne in ancient Gauntlgrym, and heard the strategic whispers of Dumathoin, the calm command of Moradin, and felt, most of all, the strength of Clanggedin coursing through his young muscles.
“No!” he said again, more forcefully, and he tore the cape off his back and threw it to Ognun. “Make her a litter!” he ordered.
Ognun stared at him incredulously.
“Too many!” Magnus cried.
“They ain’t getting past me!” Bruenor roared, and he spun around, taking up his axe and shield, and with a feral growl, he rushed up to the boulder and threw his back against it. With an exaggerated, confident wink back at the other three tending Tannabritches, he rolled around the boulder, whooping and swinging.
He caught the nearest orc by surprise just as it lifted its arm to hurl a spear at the group, his axe cracking into the beast’s chest and throwing it backward. No sooner had he pulled the axe free, then Bruenor charged along, cutting back in front of the boulder.
He threw his shield up high as he skidded down to his knees, sweeping out an orc’s legs at the same time the beast’s mace thumped hard against the blocking buckler.
The dwarf was to his feet in a heartbeat, leaping along to the next two in line, shield-rushing, skidding short and sweeping across with his bloody axe. He didn’t wound either, though he managed to rip the sword from one’s grasp and cut the other’s spear short by a third.
He did not relent-he would not surrender his rage and ferocity, butting and swinging, shield-charging and asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we in his throat.imscreaming with every step. The overwhelmed orcs scrambled back, turning right into their reinforcements and slowing the orc charge.
Into that confusion went Bruenor, wildly chopping and punching, shield-butting, and even biting when one opportunity presented itself. He got hit hard by a club, a resounding thud that nearly knocked his helmet from his head. Things didn’t sort out clearly for him at that moment and for many afterward, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t worried about precision or about tactics even.
He was just mad. Mad at Mielikki for tempting him, for making him start anew. Mad at Moradin for allowing it! Mad at Catti-brie and Drizzt and mostly at himself for not having the sense to step into Iruladoon’s pond beside Wulfgar, to go to Dwarfhome and his just reward.
And now … the uselessness of it all! The thought that he had wasted a decade-and-a-half only to be cut down on a cold mountain trail in defense of a clan that wasn’t his own, for the honor of a name that wasn’t his own, and to the ultimate futility of his “mission” to help Drizzt.
It was too much … too, too much.
He felt the punches-or were they stabs? — of orc spears, and he ignored them and charged on, roaring, denying. He felt his axe dig into flesh and crack through bone. He heard the varied screams of his enemies, of rage, of pain, and sweetest of all, of fear.
He managed to glance back only once, and hardly registered the scene, though it seemed as if the three were hard at work with Tannabritches, attempting to ferry her away, he hoped.
No longer did it even matter.
He shield-rushed the next two orcs in line and down they went, all three, in a tangled ball. Even as he tasted dirt, Bruenor kept chopping, cutting the spine of one. He somehow got the edge of his shield on the throat of the other and pressed down, using the orc’s neck as support to allow him to stand once more.
And then he was free, standing alone, and he hopped all around.
Orcs fled in every direction, some, to Bruenor’s anger, past him. But when he glanced back, he took comfort in the fact that Magnus and Mandarina had Tannabritches up in a stretcher, and mighty Ognun was ready for the incoming enemies, and with capable Ragged Dain huffing and puffing to join him.