She could see nothing, could feel only the pain of raw scrapes all around her arms and shoulders, and the discomfort of breathing in chunks of stony dust. She groped around in the darkness of the partially collapsed tunnel, searching desperately for her father.
Luck was with her, for the area around which Bruenor lay had survived the catastrophe almost intact. Catti-brie got up beside her father, gently running her hands over his face, then putting her ear low to his mouth, to find that he was still breathing, shallow though it was.
The woman turned around, trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out which way would provide the shortest route to the surface, though she wondered if she should even go to the surface at all. Had the orcs come on in full after the fall of Withegroo's tower, which surely had fallen? If so, she wondered if she would be better off staying there, in the dark, for as long as she could manage before trying to find a way out of the town altogether so she could head for the south.
That seemed the safer course, perhaps, but Wulfgar was up there, and Dagnabbit and the others were up there, and the townsfolk were up there, and if the orcs had indeed come on, the battle would be desperate.
Catti-brie crawled to the side of the small chamber and began to claw at the stone, digging free several chunks and a mound of dirt and stone
dust. Her fingers bled but she pushed on. The ground above her groaned ominously, but she pushed on, ignoring the exhaustion that crept through her as the minutes passed.
She hit a rock too big for her to move. Undaunted, the woman started working at the side of the stone, and she jumped back as the rock suddenly shifted.
Morning light streamed in as the boulder went away, hoisted and tossed aside by the strong arms of Wulfgar.
He reached in for her and she gave him her hand and the barbarian gently pulled her from the small tunnel.
"Bruenor?" Wulfgar asked desperately.
'"He's the same," Catti-brie replied. "The collapse didn't touch his room. Dwarves built it well."
As she finished, the woman looked around at the devastation. The tower had half fallen over and half collapsed in on itself, and it had taken out several buildings on its toppling descent, leaving a long line of rubble. She wanted to ask so many questions then, about who had survived and who had fallen, but she could find no words, her jaw just drooping open.
"Dagnabbit is gone," Wulfgar informed her. "Three other dwarves were lost with him, and at least five townsmen."
Catti-brie continued her scan, hardly believing the devastation that had befallen the town. Most of the buildings were down or badly damaged, and little remained of the wall. When the orcs came on -and she knew it would be soon since she could hear their horns blowing and drums beating in the south-there would be no organized defense, just fighting from street to street, and before the bitter end, from tunnel to tunnel.
She looked to Wulfgar and gathered strength from his stoic expression and his wide shoulders. He'd kill more than a few before the orcs finished him, Catti-brie knew, and she decided that she would too. A wry smile widened on her face, and Wulfgar looked at her curiously.
"Well, if it's to end, then it's to end in a blaze o* fighting!" she said, nodding and grinning.
It was either that or fall down and weep.
She put her hand on Wulfgar's shoulder, and he on hers.
"They're coming," came a voice behind them.
They turned to see Tred, battered and bloody, but looking more than ready for a fight. The dwarf stood sidelong, one hand hidden behind his back, the other holding his double-bladed axe.
Wulfgar pointed out several positions in a rough circle around the cave entrance leading back to Bruenor.
"We'll hold these four positions," he explained, "and fall back behind one pile after another to join up right here."
"And then?" asked Tred.
"We fall back into the caves, or what's left of them," the barbarian said. "Let the orcs crawl in and be killed until we are too weary to strike at them."
Tred looked around, then nodded his agreement though he understood, as they all did, the ultimate futility of it all. Certainly some orcs, thirsty for blood, would foolishly come into the caves after them, but soon enough the wicked creatures would realize that time was on their side, that they could just wait out the return of the defenders, or even worse, that they could start fires and smoke the defenders out of the caves.
"It'll be me honor to die beside yer King Bruenor and to die beside the fine children of the king. He was a fine and brave one, that Dagnabbit," Tred said somberly, glancing over at the long pile of broken stone. "Citadel Felbarr would've been proud to call him one of our own. I'm wishing we had the time to dig him out."
"It is a fitting grave," Wulfgar replied. "Dagnabbit stood tall and defied them, and at the moment of his fall he called to the dwarf gods. He knew that he had done well. He knew that he had honored his people and his race."
A solemn and silent moment passed, all three bowing their heads in deference to the fallen Dagnabbit.
"I got me some orcs to chop," Tred announced.
He saluted the pair and moved off, organizing the remaining few into battle groups to defend three of the positions.
Soon after, the bombardment increased once again but there was plenty of cover with so many piles of rubble, and there was little left to destroy. The giants' prelude seemed more an annoyance than anything else. The rain of boulders ended as the orcs, many riding worgs, came on, howling their battle cries.
Catti-brie started the fight for the defenders, popping up from behind the rubble pile and letting fly a streaking arrow that hit a worg squarely in the head, stopping it in its tracks and launching its rider through the air. The woman let fly again to the side, for there was no shortage of targets with orcs swarming over the all but destroyed walls. She drove her arrows into their ranks, taking one, sometimes even two, down with every shot.
But still they came on.
"Stay with the bow," Wulfgar instructed her.
He rose up strong and tall and met the orcs' charge, Aegis-fang sweeping the leading orcs away, launching them through the air.
All around the pair, the defenders of Shallows rose to meet the charge, humans and dwarves fighting desperately side by side. For a while, it seemed as if no orc's blow could fell any of them, as if any hit they suffered was a minor thing, shrugged off and retaliated immediately and brutally. Bodies piled all around the four defended positions, and almost all of them at first were orc and worg.
The momentum couldn't hold, though, nor could the defense. The defenders, even in their desperate frenzy, knew it.
Wulfgar swept his warhammer tirelessly, battering through any defenses the orcs trying to stand before him could possibly manage. Occasionally one of the creatures managed to slip under the blow, or duck back from it, but before the orc could them come on, a streaking silver arrow drove it down.
Catti-brie put Taulmaril up again and again, her enchanted quiver never emptying. Whenever she could manage, she aimed for a worg instead of an orc, considering the snarling wolves to be the more dangerous foe. Most of the time, though, the woman didn't even bother to aim, nor did she have to.
Even with that devastating line of fire, and with Wulfgar fighting more brilliantly and brutally than she had ever witnessed, the orcs, like the incoming tide, began to press in, swarming through holes.
Catti-brie let fly an arrow, put another up and spun around, blasting away an orc point-blank. Another was there, though, and she had to take up her bow like a staff and fend the creature off.
A second joined it, and she almost yelled for Wulfgar. Almost, but she held her words, realizing that any distraction to him would surely bring about his swift downfall. The woman whipped Taulmaril out before her viciously, back and forth, forcing the two orcs back. She dropped the bow and in the same fluid movement brought forth Khazid'hea, her fine-edged sword.
The orcs pressed on, a thrusting spear coming in hard at her right. A downward parry sheared the spear's tip cleanly off, and the orc, surprised by the lack of any real impact with the parry, overbalanced just a bit.
Enough for Catti-brie to turn her hand over and stab out quickly, taking the creature in the chest.
Back came Khazid'hea, just in time to ring against the heavy blade of the second orc's sword. One on one, this creature would be no match for Catti-brie.
But two others joined it, on either side, and Catti-brie was working furiously to fend off the trio. Behind her, she heard an impact, followed by Wulfgar's grunt.
But she couldn't help him, and he couldn't help her.
Catti-brie worked her blade all the more ferociously, turning aside thrust after stab after slash. Frustration grew within her, for she was making no headway, and she was working far too hard to maintain the pace.
The orc before her and to the right moved suddenly, and in a way she could not have anticipated. At first, she thought the creature was charging her, but quickly she realized that it was just flying by, launched at the end of a heavy dwarven axe. Tred stepped forward behind it, launching a backhand that doubled over the second of the trio, the one standing right before Catti-brie. The woman reacted quickly, diverting all of her attention to the orc on her left. She came forward suddenly, turned Khazid'hea over the orc's sword and down. The orc, both weapons down low, charged forward, trying to bowl her over, but the woman nimbly side-stepped the charge then stepped right past the orc. As the blades disengaged, she flipped her grip around and stabbed out behind her, severing the creature's spine.
"Defenses falling!" Tred cried, running to join the battered Wulfgar and nearly getting his head torn off by one of Aegis-fang's wild swings. "We're backing to the hole!"
Wulfgar grunted his accord and swiped away yet another orc, then fell back behind the rubble barricade.
A worg came flying over it, leaping for his throat.
Catti-brie, her bow retrieved, took the wolf in the flank, the powerfully enchanted arrow throwing it out to the side, quite dead.
She looked up to see a horde of others charging in, though, and expected they would be overwhelmed quickly. She heard a noise behind her on the ground and turned to see old Withegroo, his features gaunt and strained. He could hardly stand, his body trembling from the exertion of even being upright, but the look in his eyes was not dull, and he moved his lips with determination wrought of sheer rage.
His fireball stopped the charge of worg and orc, and brought the defenders a little more time, but the exertion cost Withegroo dearly. He managed a smile as he launched his devastating bomb, then he looked at Catti-brie and winked.
He fell over, and before she even went to him the woman knew that he was dead.
Withegroo's blast had defeated the charge of one flank, but the orcs did not scramble from the magical display. The dwindling defenders backed and backed some more, and when they heard horns blowing in the south they knew it was more orcs joining the already overwhelming odds.
Or were those horns some other signal? the defenders had to wonder, as the press suddenly lightened. They were practically backed to the end of the line by then, with several already forced down into the tiny tunnels.
The defenders of Shallows regrouped in a tight ring and battled on. Before long, Catti-brie and Wulfgar were back to their original defensive position, and this time with few orcs standing before them.
Still the horns blew in the south, and as the fighting subsided, Wulfgar dared to run to the highest mound he could find and peered out that way.