"Ah! Let them come! No blade or shaft will fell me today! I feel it," cried Dárin harshly. "But still may we be overwhelmed with numbers. I suppose we must take to cover. Is there any on this landscape?" The fog had cleared. The plains were flat and had little or no trees. Rocks stuck up here and there but were probably not enough.
"Ride to meet them! The other alternative is to be rooted out before we can escape. Unless our horses are swifter, which I doubt, trained by the Horse-Lords though they be." His axe grew restless. Dárin wondered if he was counseling them to their deaths. But there was no real other alternative, at least in his eyes.
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