Risca used his magic to light the fires that dotted the slopes and floor of the pass, and suddenly the Northlanders found themselves engulfed by a blanket of smoke that choked and blinded. Eyes tearing, throats clogging, they came doggedly on.
Then Risca sent the wraiths. He created some from magic, lured some from the mist, and sent all into the smoke to play. Things of tooth and claw, of red maw and black eye, of fears real and imagined, the wraiths closed on the gasping, half-blind Northlanders.
The Gnomes went mad, shrieking in terror. Nothing would hold them against this. They broke ranks and ran. Now the Dwarves struck, slingers, throwers, and bowmen sending their deadly missiles into the heart of the attacking force. Steadily they pushed the attackers back. The assault stalled and fell apart as men died at every turn. By dawn, the pass belonged to the Dwarves once more.
The Northlanders attacked again the next day, refusing to give up, determined to break through. Their losses were frightful, but the Dwarves were losing men as well, and they had fewer lives to spare. By midaftemoon, Raybur had begun making preparations to withdraw. Two days was long enough to stand against this army. Now it was time to retreat a bit, to draw the enemy on. They waited until nightfall, until darkness had closed down about them once again. Then they fired a last trench of deadwood topped with leaves and green saplings so that the smoke would mask their movements and slipped away.
Risca stayed behind to make certain they were not followed too quickly. With a small band of Dwarf Hunters, he defended the narrowest point of the deep pass against a tentative assault before falling back with the others. Once a Skull Bearer showed itself, trying to wing beneath the layers of mist and smoke, but Risca countered with the Druid fire and flung it away.
They marched all night after that, traveling deep into the mountains. Geften led them, a veteran of countless expeditions, familiar with the canyons and defiles, ridges and drops, knowing where to go and how to get there. They avoided the dark, narrow places where the monsters dwelled, the things that had survived since ancient times and lent substance to the superstitions of the Gnomes. They kept to the high open ground where possible, sufficiently concealed by darkness and mist that they remained hidden from their pursuers. The Northland army would have scouts as well, but they would be Gnomes, and the Gnomes would be cautious. Raybur’s force moved swiftly and deliberately. When the army of the Warlock Lord found them, it would again be on ground of their choosing.
By the following day, after the Dwarves had stopped to rest for several hours at dawn and were again on the march, a messenger arrived from the smaller force that defended the Pass of Noose at the south end of the mountains. The balance of the army of the Warlock Lord had arrived, pressing inward from the lower end of the Rabb to set camp. An attack would probably be launched by nightfall. The Dwarves could hold the pass for at least a day before yielding. Raybur looked at Risca and smiled. A day would be long enough.
They let the Northland army coming down from the Pass of Jade catch up to them that afternoon, when the sun was already gone behind the peaks and the mist was beginning to creep down out of the higher elevations like vines in search of light. They waited in a canyon where the floor rose steeply through a maze of giant rocks and treacherous drops, and attacked as the Northlanders climbed out of the exposed bowl. They held their ground just long enough to frustrate the advance, then fell back once more. Darkness descended, and their pursuers were forced to halt for the night, unable to retaliate.
By dawn, the Dwarves were gone. The Northlanders pressed on, anxious to end this game of cat and mouse. But the Dwarves surprised them again at midday, this time leading them into a blind pass, then tearing at their exposed flanks as they sought to withdraw. By the time the Northlanders had recovered, the Dwarves had disappeared once more. All day it went on, a series of strikes and withdrawals, the smaller force taunting and humiliating the larger. But the south end of the mountains was drawing near, and the Northlanders, furious at their inability to close with the Dwarves, began to take heart from the fact that their quarry was running out of places to hide.
The First King of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene