The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [132]
They were stopped finally at the far end of the pass. Raybur had caused a log wall to be built at the back of a trench filled with dead wood, and on the Northlanders’ rush he had the whole of it fired.
Pressed forward by those who followed and too heavy themselves to climb free, the Trolls died where they stood, burned to the bone.
The screams and the stench of their ruined flesh filled the air, and the attack broke off.
They came again at midday, less reckless this time, and again they were beaten back. They attacked once more at nightfall. Each time the Dwarves were forced a little deeper into the pass. Positioned on both sides of the draw, Raybur and his sons directed the Dwarf defense, holding as long as they reasonably could before withdrawing, giving ground grudgingly, but judiciously, so that no more lives were lost than necessary. Raybur commanded the left flank in the company of Geften while Wyrik and Fleer commanded the right. Risca was left to choose his own ground. The Dwarves fought bravely, pressed at every turn by a force at least three times their size, seasoned from countless battles. No winged hunters or creatures of the netherworld came at them in daylight, so Risca did not waste his magic in support of their defense. The plan, after all, was not to win the battle. The plan was to lose it as slowly as possible.
Nightfall brought a break in the hostilities and a new quiet to the mountains. Mist slipped down from the higher elevations in the slow melting of the light to close about defender and attacker alike. The silence grew pervasive as vision narrowed and shortened, and small breezes, damp and cloying, slithered out of the rocks to caress and tease. There were living things in the touch of those breezes, invisible and shapeless, but as certain as midnight.
They were creatures of the Wolfsktaag, beings formed of magic as old as time and as needful as men’s souls. The Dwarves knew of them and were wary of their intent. They were forerunners of things larger and more powerful still and not to be listened to. They whispered lies and false promises, rendered dreams and treacherous visions, and to heed them in any way was to invite death. The Dwarves understood this. Knowledge was what protected them.
Not so with the Gnomes who camped opposite them at the head of the pass. The Gnomes were terrified of these mountains and the things that dwelled within. Superstitious and pagan, wary of all magic and particularly of the sort that resided here, they would have preferred to avoid the Wolfsktaag entirely. There were gods here to be prayed to and spirits to be appeased. This was sacred ground. But the power of the Warlock Lord and his dark followers frightened them even more, so they closed ranks with the more stolid and less impressionable Trolls. But they did so reluctantly and with little heart, and the Dwarves made ready to use their fear against them.
As Risca had foreseen, the Northland army mounted a new attack several hours before dawn, when darkness and brume still masked its movements. They came silently and in force, massing on the floor of the pass and along its higher slopes and ridges, intent on sweeping over the Dwarves through sheer strength of numbers. But Raybur had withdrawn his line of defense a hundred yards farther back into the pass from where the battle had ended at dusk. Between the two lines, the Dwarves had built piles of green wood and new leaves and left them ready to light. On the floor of the pass, fresh barricades and