[Kransha]

Brór Stormhand knew that sound, that horrible, incessant, unending clacking that beat with a furious rhythm, not sounding together but in multitudes like vile locust swarms buzzing about in the shadows above. It infuriated him even now that they lurked above and descended only to strike. Like goblins they were, dwelling in the shadows and waiting until the moment most opportune to dive and strike. This incensed Brór, and he knew that, if ever his time had come to fight, now was it. He did not heed the words spoken to him by any and chaos reigned soon after. The hurried party scattered, but stayed at least in some group. Some moved left, some right, some frontward, some backward, all every which way, but Brór knew where he would go. Dismissing his kin, Dorim and Dwali, he ran as fast as his legs took his through the band, towards the small, beastly spiders that alighted on the ground and hung just out of reach, tantalizing him to hit them with his blade and club. Nevertheless, he cleared the group, and dove into the mound of dark, pestilential monsters, seeking either their death or his.

He hacked and bashed, thwacked and smashed, and hammered away madly at the creatures as they tried in vain to swarm him. His inflated ego, which bloated more after each sickening sound that signaled the demise of one beast, told him he was doing well in battle, but it was his mind’s false hope and that alone. Three more went down, ground into the gasping dirt and damp rock by his cragged cudgel crushed and his swift ax sliced in twain or more. Their corpses on the earth seemed swallowed up by the oncoming hordes that moved steadily towards him, their fragile, stick-like legs pattering gently on the cave floor around as they rushed to get behind him, or to some vulnerable side. They would leap at him through the misty shroud of their webs, trying to bite and taint his blood with their putrid venom, but he was armed, and heavily armed at that, like a wall of rough-hewn stone he stood, statuary in the sea of arachnids. But, though he stood firm, he was almost lost. Through the writhing mass of spider flesh, he saw none of the other prisoners. He was sure that some, in their arrogance, had stayed behind, or moved there, to battle the cluster of monstrosities, but he could not make them out. The orcish armor he wore stabbed at him as much as the puncturing teeth and claws of the spiders did, galling him to wear it and darkening his sight.

He knew now, now more than ever he had known that he was lost. He brought the hefty ax down mightily, cleaving a final spider in two with a revolting sound, but his weapon seared as water to fire through the monster’s hide and was borne into the rock below, which grabbed onto it, latching its remnants of webbing onto the prongs of the ax and pulling it. As Bror attempted to unsheathe it from the earth in one swift motion, another spider took its moment to lunge, pouncing viciously on Brór’s stray hand. Through the rings of his male the beast’s darting fangs went, piercing his tough flesh beneath, but only for a moment. He drew his hand away, leaving the ax where it lay to be assimilated by the spiders, and clutched his hand as the tight armored gauntlet fixes upon it held in the blood, only causing him more pain. He tore at the metal glove to no avail, but abandoned that cause a moment later in favor of fighting his assailants, clubbing the next spider that leapt back towards his kin.

The dwarf, standing amidst the clacks of fangs and the hisses of beasts, heard only doom’s drum in his ears, covered by a heavy-handed helmet of the orcs. He could see nothing, save the spiders and the jutting rocks. Many hanging roofs of stone sat around, coated with webbing, a desirable hiding place, but he could not flee. He was surrounded, and his kinsmen, even if they desired to help him, could not reach him. Who, besides them, would bother risking life and limb for the dwarf? It didn’t matter now; Bror didn’t blame himself, though his sense did, as his heart was busy with its own agenda. He had wanted to die here, sooner or later, and, as he’d told his kin, hope was still its same illusion. To have good humor was a way to go about death that Bror had once excelled in, and would again. When the last spider drained the life fluid from his empty skull, his dead face would wear a defiant smile, though he could not muster the expression. He dashed, headlong, forward, and plowed into the fray renewed.

Suddenly, his dimmed eyesight caught in its cone the sight of a figure, a figure upright, though crouching, which lurked darkly beneath the canopy of stone nearby. He yearned to know who he saw, but he could not tell. It was no spider, for it had but two arms, clasped about itself. But, in a flash and an instant, in between the clicks and clacks of spiders wanting his death and ingestion, he recognized the figure. He looked just as he had the last time he and Brór had crossed paths. It was the darker elf, Morgoroth by name, though Bror did not know what he was called. The last time Bror had accosted that elf, he had been similarly crouched in the courtyard of the tower, looking as lonesome and desolate as now he did. With this realization came more dissolution. This elf, of all elves save the single female, who had nearly come to blows with him, was least likely to help him. He despaired again, but not for long. If the elf’s eyes were open as they seemed to be, they would see Brór’s glory and demise - or more, if that elf saw fit to take part. For now, Brór was content to die, not beneath the stars, but beneath the likeness of stars, the glittering eyes of his enemies…