The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks [295]
It was as if the stone had been chained in open position to the cellar floor. It did not move. From far below, the sounds of metal on stone ceased, replaced by the thudding of booted feet as men raced toward the trapdoor. Only seconds remained. If they reached the stairs, Menion was a dead man. Bracing himself, the wounded man again threw all of his weight into lifting the massive piece of stone, and this time it rose. Groaning with the terrible strain, the highlander raised upward against the great trapdoor until at last it carne over and fell with a great booming thud into place in the ancient floor. With numb, sweating hands he bound the chain through the sealing rings and fastened it with an iron bar. The passageway was closed. If the Northland army sought entrance here, they would have to cut their way through several feet of stone and iron.
“Menion.”
The sound of his name broke the sudden silence in a cracked whisper. The highlander had fallen to his hands and knees, but his groping hand found a discarded sword, and he raised his battered face. Across a floor littered with a tangled mass of fallen enemy guards, their twisted bodies either lifeless or in their final death throes, the eyes of the Prince of Leah found his friend. The Dwarf stood with his back to the wall near the bottom of the cellar stairway, the great mace still gripped tightly in one hand. There were dead bodies all about him. He had killed them all. No one had escaped. The hardened eyes met Menion’s for just an instant, and it was as if they were again meeting for the first time in the lowlands beyond the Black Oaks. He was the old Hendel — taciturn, grim-faced, ever resourceful. Then the mace slipped from his hard, his eyes glazed over; with a long sigh, his body slid slowly, lifelessly to the death that had finally claimed him.
Hendel! The name raced through Menion’s stunned, disbelieving mind as he struggled numbly to his feet and stood swaying unsteadily in the flickering shadows. Tears welled into his reddened eyes and ran in dark streams down his battered face. With leaden steps he picked his way over the lifeless bodies of the enemy dead, gasping now in unrestrained fury and helplessness. He was only dimly aware of Stenmin regaining consciousness somewhere behind him. He reached the Dwarf’s side and knelt beside him, gently cradling the limp form next to his breast. How many times had Hendel saved his life? How many times had he saved them all, only to...? He couldn’t finish the thought. He could only cry. Everything seemed to break inside of him at once.
Stenmin raised himself slowly to one knee and stared blankly about the cellar at the mass of tangled corpses. His men all dead, the stone trapdoor closed and chained, and... Fear surged up inside his pain-wracked body. One of the intruders was still alive — the highlander! He hated that man, hated him so badly he fleetingly considered trying to kill him, but then the fear returned even stronger than before and abruptly his thoughts turned to escape. Escape so that he could live! There was only one way out up the stairs past the kneeling man and through the open cellar door. Already he was on his feet, moving noiselessly through the carnage, half walking, half slinking toward the unguarded steps.
The highlander’s back was turned to him, still holding the body of the Dwarf. Sweat beads broke out on Stenmin’s forehead and the thin lips curled menacingly — yet it was fear that kept him moving. Only a few more steps. He would be free again. The city was doomed; all of them would die — all of his enemies. But he