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The dwarves continued to coax them on, down the steepest part of the valley, to the narrow, sloping ledges on the cliff face that crossed in front of the numerous entrances to the dwarven caves An obvious place for an aht of their er

When the es and the rest werethe initial descent into the vale, the first trap was sprung Catti-brie, heavily armed but positioned in the back of the inner tunnels, pulled a lever, dropping a post on the vale’s upper crest Tons of rocks and gravel tumbled down upon the tail of the ed to keep their precarious balance and escape the brunt of the avalanche found the trails behind theed froroup of dwarves rushed out to oblins

Bruenor wasn’t with them He had hidden hioblins, intent on the challenge up ahead, passed hier prey, waiting for the ogres to coe The rope had already been carefully measured and tied off He slipped one of its looped ends around his waist and the other securely over a rock, then pulled two throwing axes froerous the dwarf had ever tried, but the sheer thrill of it becarin across Bruenor’s face when he heard the luhter when two of the frores and threw the axes at their heads The ogres twisted and ed to deflect the half-hearted throws, but the hurled weapons were merely a diversion

Bruenor’s body was the true weapon in this attack Surprised, and dodging frores were put off-balance The plan was falling into place perfectly; the ogres could hardly find their footing Twitching the powerful s, Bruenor launched hi into the closest monster It fell with hie

One of the ogres e hand onto the dwarf’s face, but Bruenor promptly bit it, and thejus and arth and sorted the, boys," Bruenor called as he broke free of the fall "Give the rocks a big kiss foron the rope dropped Bruenor into the entrance of a e as his helpless victioblins in line behind the ogres had watched the spectacle in blank a the hanging cord as a shortcut to one of the caves, and one by one they climbed onto the rope and started down

But Bruenor had anticipated this as well The descending goblins couldn’t understand why the rope felt so slick in their hands

When Bruenor appeared on the lower ledge, the end o’ the rope in one hand and a lighted torch in the other, they figured it out

Flaed to scrae, the rest took the sares before the heavily on the lower ledge Before he could even regain his feet, though, Bruenor kicked hily as he admired the successful results of his handiwork That was one trick he intended to reether and darted back down the shaft It sloped upward farther back to join the higher tunnels

On the upper ledge, the dwarves were fighting a retreating action Their plan was not to clash in a death fight outsside, but to lure the monsters into the entrances of the tunnels With the desire to kill blotting out any semblance of reason, the direater nu the dwarves back into a corner

Several tunnels soon rang out with the clash of sword on sword The dwarves continued to back away, leading the monsters completely into the final trap Then, from somewhere deeper in the caves, a horn sounded On cue, the dwarves broke away frores, thinking that they had routed their eneed after the dwarves

But deeper in the tunnels several levers were pulled The final trap was sprung, and all of the tunnel entrances siht of the rock drop, the entire face of the cliff ca down

The only monsters that survived were the ones at the very front of the lines And disoriented, battered by the force of the drop and dizzied by the blast of dust, they were i dwarves

Even the people as far away as Bryn Shander were shaken by the tremendous avalanche They flocked to the north wall to watch the rising cloud of dust, dismayed for they beieved that the dwarves had been destroyed

Regis knew better The halfling envied the dwarves, safely ento tunnels He had realized thethat his delay in the city, waiting for his friend from Lonelywood, had cost him his chance to escape

Noatched helplessly and hopelessly as the black mass advanced toward Bryn Shander

The fleets on Maer Dualdon and Redwaters had put back to their ho They found their families safe for the present time, except for the fishermen of Termalaine who sailed into a deserted town All that the men of Termalaine could do as they reluctantly put back out to sea was hope that their kin had made it to Bryn Shander or some other sanctuary; for they saw the northern flank of Kessell’s aros, the second strongest city and the only one other than Bryn Shander with any hope of holding out for any length of tiainst the vast army, extended an invitation for Termalaine’s ships to tie up at her docks And thethe homeless themselves, accepted the hospitality of their bitter enemies to the south Their disputes with Keht of the disaster that had befallen the towns

Back in the enerals that led Kessell’s arhtfall They obeyed their leader’s plan to the letter: The main body of the army veered away froround between the principle city and Targos, thus cutting any possibility of the terful cities linking their forces

Several of the goblin tribes had broken away fro down on Ter their third city of the day But when they found the place deserted, they abstained fros Part of Kessell’s army now had a ready-e in coreat arms, thousands of monsters raced south from the main force So vast was Kessell’s army that it filled the miles of field between Bryn Shander and Terh numbers to encircle the hill of the principle city with thick ranks of troops

Everything had happened so quickly that when the goblins finally stalled their frenzied charge, the change see calain

"Why don’t they just get it over with?" he asked the two spokes beside hiable in the ways of warfare, understood exactly as happening

"They are in no hurry, little friend," Cassius explained "Ti his many years in the more populated southlands, he had heard e

The iorwal’s final salute out in the distance came back to him then, the contented look on the spokesis had no desire to die in any way, but he could iine what lay before him and the cornered people of Bryn Shander

He found hiorwal