Astride The Shadowed Gates: The Unbroken Light

The sky, choking of dush and ash, rose in thick plumes as millions of roars and cries echo throughout the valley. Dáin was focused, uncaring as he was deep in the red mist of combat, steel crashing against steel. He glared into the gnarled, snarling face of an Orc, the sheer adrenaline coursing through his veins. With a grunt of pure hatred for the enemy, Dáin parried a heavy strike, pivoted as the creature tried to strike a blow, struck and felled the creature with a brutal, clean counter. Then came a sharp quick noise from behind. Dáin whipped his head around, hair wet with blood clinging against his face as he looked. Despite the chaos, a terrible certainty washed over him, he felt a heavy drop in his stomach. He had known, deep down, what this day would demand. War could steel a man’s mind to many horrors, yet it could not stop the sudden, hollow sinking of his heart. Through the haze of dust, and the echoing cries of battle and death, he saw the dark-haired King. Brand was completely still, his body marred by blood, and coated in ash, entirely surrounded by the advancing enemy line. A profound, wordless grief struck Dáin, leaving a leaden, hollow weight deep within his chest. There were no words in any tongue to describe that feeling—only action. But the leaden weight never vanished, still heavy in his chest, it simply transformed, replaced by an iron resolve. He did not weep, but he felt the constricting roar rise within his throat, and held it there as Dáin planted his iron-shod boots hard into the blood-soaked ground and charged. He cloved through the horde towards Brand at full speed, with an unflinching, uncompromising, grim finality. With a final, desperate push, Dáin threw himself into the fray and lunged over his fallen friend, planting his feet firmly over Brand's chest, and let out a shattering roar that shook the very air. His knuckles turned white as a sheet, his grip tightening into a death-grip. He raised the axe close to his face, his eyes locking onto the enemy beneath the shadow of the great Gates of Erebor. The sun glinted sharply off the moving blade—a sudden flash of hope that outshone the ash—and then he became a whirlwind of desperate violence, dodging, twisting, and parrying the raining blows Glaring directly into the eyes of the Easterling Vanguard, Dáin met their advance with terrifying ferocity. "Not while I breathe!" he screamed into the teeth of the horde. He held the fort entirely alone, a single, unbreakable dwarf standing over the body of his friend. For five long, brutal minutes, he swung his axe against an entire army, refusing to yield an inch of stone until his strength finally tore away, and the darkness took him.