[Will Witfoot]

Alrik and Maron barred the doors of the Chamber of Records and braced themselves against their wooden bulk, ready to match their strength against those who would force a passage into their lord Balin's resting place. The elderly dwarf took the opportunity presented by the brief lull in the battle to check the others. It did not look too good.

Flori was wounded, his arm having been cut of at the elbow, and all of them bore minor wounds in the least from the battle. He himself looked no better. His white beard was stained black from orcish blood and bile, and his own fiery life-fluid was seeping out from a crag in his armour. His old body had not replied fast enough for him to interfere with the blade a goblin was swinging at him.

They had lost Nali, Frar and Loni, as well as Oin according to Linsie. The rest of them looked fatigued and frightened, yet determined to sell their lives dearly. Alrik felt his heart swell with pride. It would be an honour to fall along with all of them.

Suddenly there was a sound of wood splintering, and the doors began to buckle. The gibbering of goblins could be heard from the other side as Alrik and Maron were forced to back off from the door. There was a great snap and the dual doors swung open, revealing a horde of their ancestral enemies which began to flood into the room in a seemingly inexhaustible tide.

Alrik dispatched the first three to enter the room with swift blows of his axe, but the sheer mass of the goblins were forcing him backwards. It was as useless to try and combat their numbers as it was the flow of a river.
He swung his axe with all the strength in his old sinews, burying the weapon into the midriff of a particularly large goblin. Before he could pull it out, the press of bodies in the melee sent it slipping out of his grasp. Seeing their foe rendered weaponless, the cowardly wretches attacked him en masse.

Desperately he grappled with two of their numbers. The three of them, a dwarf and the spawn of the Great Enemy, rolled on the stone floor locked in a desperate struggle to the death. Alrik's helmet was torn off, but undaunted the dwarf managed to twist the head of one so forcefully that it's neck snapped, and then he proceeded to grab the other by the collar and repeatedly bashed it's head on the floor, till nothing but a red mess remained. Alrik scrambled to his feet and drew the short blade he allways carried by his side for just such an occasion.
He grabbed the haft of a mace swung at him and impaled it's owner on his sword. The goblin spewed it's last meal over itself before keeling over, only to be lost from sight immediately by his still living kin. A swing to the left sliced open the throat of the one that tried to plant a spear in his back, and with a swift lunge the sword was buried in the chest of another.

Suddenly there was a lull in the ruck, and Alrik felt a curious light-headedness. He sensed rather than saw the goblin thät loomed behind him with a spear held at the ready, and began to spin around by instinct, knowing that he would never be able to turn around in time. A white-hot lance of pain shot through his body as the spear pierced the joint in his armour between body and shoulder. His enemy had no time to enjoy it's triumph for long. Alrik's blade took it in the throat, but it's dying weight took the weapon from his hand.

Another lance of pure agony shot through his being, and he realized that one of the goblins had rammed it's blade into his back. A third was swinging it's scimitar at his face.

It was the last thing Alrik Stonebeard ever felt. As darkness claimed his mind, he saw last the tomb of Balin, buried under an avalanche of goblin's.