The First King of Shannara

The contest had grown serious. One false step and the Dwarves would be finished. Messengers raced back and forth between those who harassed the enemy coming down out of the north and those who still held the Pass of Noose south. Timing was important. The enemy south pressed hard to claim the Pass of Noose, but the Dwarves held firm. The Pass of Noose was more easily defended and difficult to take, no matter the size of the force at either end. But the Dwarves would yield it up at dawn and fall back, slowly, deliberately, letting the Northlanders believe they had prevailed. The army of the Warlock Lord would claim the pass and then wait for their comrades to drive the overmatched and beleaguered Dwarves onto their spearpoints.

Dawn arrived, and while one army of Northlanders occupied the Pass of Noose, the other drove relentlessly south. The Dwarves, caught between, had nowhere left to run.

All that day, Raybur’s army fought to slow the southward advance. The Dwarf King used every tactic he had mastered in thirty years of Gnome warfare, hammering at the invaders when there was opportunity, creating opportunity when none presented itself. He divided his army in thirds, giving the largest of the three over to his generals to command so that they might provide an obvious target for the enemy to pursue. The two smaller companies, one commanded by himself, one by his eldest son Wyrik, became pincers that harried the Northlanders at every turn.

Working in unison, they drew the enemy first one way and then the other. When a flank was exposed by one, the second would be quick to strike. The Dwarves twisted and wound about the larger army with maddening elusiveness, refusing to be pinned down, pressing the attack at every turn.

By nightfall, they were exhausted. Worse, the Dwarves from the north had been backed up against those from the south. The two joined and became one, both having retreated as far as they could, and suddenly there was no place left for either to go. Night and mist shrouded them sufficiently that running them to ground should have been postponed until morning. But instead, the hunt went on, in large part because the Northlanders were too angry and frustrated to wait. The Pass of Noose was only a few miles farther on. The Dwarves were trapped, bereft of room to maneuver or hide, and now, finally, the Northlanders were certain that their superior force would be able to exact a long-overdue retribution.

As night descended and the brume thickened along the last few miles of the valley into which the Dwarves had withdrawn, Raybur dispatched scouts to give warning of any enemy approach. Time was running out, and they must act quickly now. Geften was called, and the first of the Dwarf defenders prepared for the escape that had been intended from the beginning. The escape would commence under cover of darkness and be finished by midnight. It marked the culmination of a plan the king had settled on with Risca when the Druid had first returned from Paranor, a plan devised from knowledge possessed only by the Dwarves. Unknown to any but them, there was a third way out of the mountains. Close to where they were gathered, not far from the more accessible Pass of Noose, there was a series of connecting defiles, tunnels, and ledges that twisted and wound east out of the Wolfsktaag into the forests of the central Anar. Geften himself had discovered this hidden passage, explored it with a handful of others, and reported it to Raybur some eight years past. It was knowledge carefully protected and kept secret. A select number of Dwarves had used the passage now and again to make sure it was kept open, memorizing its twists and turns, but no others were shown the way. Risca had learned about it from Raybur on a visit home several years ago, the Dwarf King sharing the secret with the one man who was as close to him as his sons. Risca had recalled it when the Northland army had come east, and his plan had taken shape.

Now the Dwarves set the plan in motion. Slowly they began to reduce their numbers, siphoning off their strength in a long, steady line that withdrew east into the mountains, following the escape route meticulously laid out by Geften. The Northlanders approached the head of the valley, and the scouts began to report back. Yet the most dangerous part of the scheme remained. The Northlanders must be delayed until the Dwarves were safely away. With Risca accompanying him, Raybur took a small band of twenty volunteers north. They placed themselves in a jumble of rocks that overlooked the valley’s broad passage in, and when the first of the Warlock Lord’s army appeared, they attacked.

It was a precise, momentary strike, intended only to disrupt and confuse, for the Dwarves were vastly outnumbered. They used bows from the cover of the rocks, firing their arrows just long enough to draw attention to themselves before falling back. Even so, escape was difficult. The Northlanders came after them, furious. It was dark and treacherous in the rocks, a maze of jagged edges and deep crevices, and the light, as always in the Wolfsktaag, was poor. Mist curled down out of the taller peaks, masking everything on the valley floor. More familiar with the terrain than their pursuers, the Dwarves slipped quickly through the maze, but the Northlanders were everywhere, swarming over the rocks. Some of the defenders were overtaken. Some turned the wrong way. All of these were killed. The fighting was ferocious.