[Gwathagor]

Shrill orc-cries echoed through Dimrill Dale, bouncing back and forth off the high walls of the valley and disippating into the black night sky. In the darkness and swirling snow, it was impossible to tell whence the echoes came, and when the fighting began, Frar's band had lost track of Tror and his dwarves. They stood close and silent now, listening and watching for any sign that might lead them to the skirmish. To some of the less hardy, it almost seemed that evil spirits were on the air, riding on the frozen wind, shrieking and cursing as they went. The muffled clash of weapons also reached them: spear on shield, sword on hauberk, drifting down to where they stood among the ominous boulders, and sounding then like but a memory or rumor of battle - perhaps the hills spoke thus to each other on wild nights, mourning the death and strife that they had observed through the many ages of the world all unable to intervene?

Frar shook himself - his mind was wandering. He brought his thought to bear once more on the urgent situation at hand. Where was Tror?

Did the cries come from the left? Or from down the valley? Or from behind them? Frar stood frozen in indecision, his jaw tight with concentration. He had to make a decision, they could not afford inaction, not now. He looked now left, now right, and cursed himself. Where was Tror?

His officers and soldiers were watching him anxiously when suddenly a goblin came scampering out of the darkness from their right. It lurched to a halt some 15 yards before the dwarves. For a brief instant, the dwarves stared at the orc in surprise and it stared back. It was, evidently, just as bewildered as they were. Then, with a cry, it spun around and leapt off into the mist, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. The dwarves blinked. Had they imagined it? No - the orc's exclamation (had it been malice? Fear? Or something as common as surprise?) still echoed about them.

Frar acted, seizing upon this as a kind of sign. "This way!" he shouted, the officers passed the word down, and the dwarves pounded off after the orc. "Find Tror!" roared Frar. And sure enough, the sounds of battle grew clearer and more distinct. The dwarves began to find scattered bodies and weapons - but no Tror. It seemed that he had led his dwarves some distance in pursuit of the orc skirmishers.

"Spread the line!" shouted Frar. "Two ranks deep, stay together!"

The dwarves obeyed as they ran with a smoothness born of discipline, spreading out into a heavy line of iron death. And over a low rise in the rockey ground, they came upon the orcs and dwarves tangled together, living and dead, struggling violently among the tall boulders and drifting snow.

Frar did not need to give any command. Without a word, his troops swung down upon the battle making no noise but that of their boots against the ground. They hit the lines, however, like a clap of thunder, as they trampled down the first orcs they met and crushed the next ones with heavy blows of their axes. They killed professionally, swinging this way and that through the press, laying orcs out every which way as they went. Frar found Tror in the middle of the battle standing upon a pile of crushed orcs, swinging his axe about him like a lunatic - only to the movement of his axe there was a deep and deadly logic, as subtle as the playing of a harpist and as brutal as the hammering of a smith. Orcs fell upon him in astonishing numbers and died with just as astonishing a rapidity. There were too many, though, and they began to press too closely about him, more warily now, holding him at bay with long spears. The slow anger that had been burning in the deep mine of Frar's heart all day blazed higher. Khazad-dum will not lose two lords in one day! This thing will not be! and he rushed towards Tror with an extra spurt of speed. A gently sloping boulder was in his way, but he could not be stopped now. Indeed, he could not stop himself, such was his anger and determination. He ran up the boulder and hurled himself from its peak upon the mass of orcs that surrounded Tror.

The backs of the first two orcs broke under Frar's iron-shod feet. The next orc, which tried to wrestle Frar to the ground, had his skull cracked, and the last thing he remembered was Frar's massive black fist exploding into his face. The next three had their heads torn from their necks by a single swing of Buzunimbar. This is was all before the other orcs noticed that something was wrong; the seventh orc tried to skewer Frar with his spear and caught Frar's reverse swing in his midsection. Frar leapt through the enormous hole he had just single-handedly cut in the orc ring and ran to Tror's back. The two old warriors did not even need to exchange a word, neither of thanks nor of greeting; they had been through this before. They knew, and they both settled down to the work of killing as many orcs as possible.