Just down the summit, in another circle, stood the tents of the Urkku. Outside many of them the smouldering remains of last night’s camp fires flickered red in the darkness while inside their occupants slept. It was very still and quiet and the air was cold. A light breeze from the mountains made the heather rustle and wave gently. Behind the shelter of a large rock that seemed to have pushed itself straight up through the earth, the animals all stood in silence, hardly daring to breathe, with the sound of their hearts pounding furiously in their ears. From where they stood they could see all around them. Malcoff pointed out the great high peak of Mount Ivett where it stood in the middle distance just beyond the near range of hills, its jagged spire silhouetted by the moon. Morbann, Mendokk and Morar were all looking intently at the Lord Malcoff to give the signal for battle to commence. Their throats were dry with nervous anxiety; not since the days of Ammdar had the elves fought in open battle and, although they had constantly kept in readiness preparing for a moment such as this, they could not help being a little afraid.
Slowly, Malcoff raised his right hand and then suddenly brought it down. Immediately there was a massive skirl of pipes and the heavy beat of the drums began to reverberate over the hillside. Nab felt the blood start to race through his veins. He turned to Beth and took her hand tightly in his; it was shaking and as he looked in her eyes he saw that they were wide and glazed with fear. The pipes and drums rose in a great wall of sound and the Urkku were emerging from their tents, bleary-eyed and drugged with sleep, to see what the noise was. They stood looking out into the night, puzzled and bemused by the commotion, until Nab saw Malcoff raise his hand again in a signal at which the archers pulled back their bows and loosed their arrows. For a second or two the air was full of a whistling, rushing noise as they sped through the air, and then, as they found their targets, pandemonium broke loose. Amidst the groans and cries of those who had been hit came the guttural shouts of the leaders as they tried to organize the rest and the frantic yells of others as they stumbled about in the dark attempting to get back in their tents to find their weapons. Only the goblin leaders, in their guise as Urkku, knew what was happening, and they rushed around the camp shouting, cursing, cajoling and threatening the panicking mob in an attempt to get some kind of order into the fearful, bewildered Urkku who had no notion who could be firing arrows at them. No sooner had they been gathered into line than another hail of arrows would be released and once again chaos would take over. Finally, however, the goblins managed to assemble the remaining Urkku into a number of ranks and they began firing uphill at an enemy they could not see and whose identity they did not know. It was then that Malcoff gave the signal to charge and the sword and spear carriers raced off over the heather to the sound of a different, more urgent, rhythm from the pipes and drums which mingled with the sound of the elves as they each shouted their own individual battle cry. At the sight and sound of these ferocious, yelling creatures leaping and running towards them, the Urkku froze with astonishment and then fear. They were blinded by a whirling kaleidoscope of blood-curdling noise and flashing colour and many of them turned and tried to run, only to find, standing in their way, the squat fat ugly shape of a goblin – for many of the leaders had changed back into their natural state – slavering and twitching and bawling at them to turn round and fight if they did not want to be buried amidst the powers of hell. Then, abandoning themselves to the nightmare, the Urkku would face back up hill towards the elves and fire blindly.
The animals watched, their fears for the moment forgotten in the tension of the battle, as the elves ran through the shower of bullets, many of them being knocked down by the force of the blast but then, because the Urkku bullets could not kill them, picking themselves up and charging on until with a huge clash they met the enemy who, realizing that bullets were useless, had begun in desperation to use their guns as clubs and shields in an attempt to prevent the elves from cutting them to pieces with their swords. At first the battle seemed all one way as the elves swarmed over the Urkku forcing them back down the hill but then the goblins drew out their swords from under the ill-fitting Urkku garments now stretched tight over their natural bodies. In each of these had been welded a fragment of the Sword of Degg which Dréagg had forged from Amemeze, an evil metal mined from the Halls of Drāgorn which he obtained while he was banished there. The Sword had been so cast by Dréagg that it could halt the flow of time, destroying the elves’ immortality, and so each of these swords which the goblins now wielded was also imbued with that terrible power. Now the goblins swept forward to bolster up the tattered ranks of Urkku and the roar of battle swelled until the hills echoed. The elves were halted and their line began to waver as the magic of their weapons, woven with the light of Ashgaroth, met the evil force of Dréagg. The sun rose and streaked the sky with gashes of crimson and red and orange and the tumult of the fight rose in the chill morning air, shattering the stillness of the mountains with the clash of sword on shield and the dreadful cries of the wounded. When the elves fell, a cloud of silver lifted from their bodies as their remains vanished like a puff of smoke. Malcoff watched and his old eyes grew blurred with tears at the departure of those whom he had known and loved and their passing was like the dying of a flower.
The battle raged on as the pale sun climbed in the cold grey sky. First one way, then the other did it ebb and flow until by mid-morning the elves finally claimed the ascendancy and the air grew foul with the smell from the dead goblins whose black blood stained the heather. Slowly they pushed the hordes of Dréagg back until there was a clear gap in the fighting, and Beth, Perryfoot, Brock and Warrigal knew that their time had come. Malcoff turned to them.
‘You must go now,’ he said. ‘May Ashgaroth shelter you and guide you.’
Nab’s heart felt as if it would break under the torment of the thought of their leaving and his throat ached with the effort of holding back his tears. Quickly he embraced them all, the soft feathered body of Warrigal, the deep fur of Perryfoot and the familiar warm shape of Brock. Brock who had first found him and brought him up and shared everything with him and who was as much a part of him as his own eyes. Finally he held Beth tight as if he would never let her go and the din of battle matched the tumult in his brain so that when she gently pushed him away he was dazed with grief.
‘We must go,’ she said. ‘We’ll meet again soon; I know it,’ and she turned abruptly away and ran out from behind the shelter of the boulder after the dark brown shape of Warrigal as he flew across the heather towards the gap. Perryfoot followed and then Brock and as they ran a cry went up from the goblins and the Urkku. Slowly as the news that they had been spotted spread, the cry grew louder and the Urkku pressed against the line of elves, fighting to break through and follow but the line held firm.
Soon the animals were through the gap and racing away over the moors, yet still the elves held back the frantic yelling mass until finally, when they were just a speck in the distance, the line broke and the goblins and Urkku, with a massive triumphant shout, plunged through and thundered in pursuit of their quarry. Nab watched painfully as he saw his friends finally disappear around a small hill on the far horizon and then, some time after, their pursuers were lost to sight around the same hill. Now the last link with them was gone. He turned back to the battlefield where the remnants of the elven army were wearily walking back up the hillside. Many had fallen, but they had achieved what they had set out to achieve against that vast army and they were satisfied. Now they would rest, and in the evening they would begin the distasteful job of burying the dead goblins and Urkku. Of their own kind who had gone, nothing remained except a scattering of silver dust which would soon be blown away.
