The Clegerach

So the Clegerarch began, that battle that dwarves sing of in sorrow and triumph. The goblins hurled themselves upon the King and his 40, crashing against the iron wall of their shields. In great slaughter the dwarves threw them back. All this while the folk began to climb the cliffs behind them, pulling themselves up with ropes and spikes, making slings for the young and old. Women and men hauled and pulled to save their kin. And when many were on the cliffs the dragons came, with goblin riders, and washed the cliffs in acid and gas. Dwarves fell by the scores, plummeting to the earth below, screaming in pain and terror, washed in death. Some of the dwarves turned and fought the dragons, leaping upon their high necks, shooting bolts and the like. These are accounted wondrous feats, and many dragon lost his wing. The goblins attacked, and the 40 fought on, and the climbers climbed, and the dragons fell upon them. All day the battle raged until the rock in the earth could drink no more and the blood ran in currents.

As the moon rose Lorin King fell, brought down by a mighty troll. The beast lifted his body and hurled it far afield into the goblin host, and they fell upon it in a mad frenzy. At this time only 18 of the 40 remained, and at the sight of their fallen king they plunged into the mass of the goblin forces. Enraged, the dwarves clove through the goblins, slaying them in droves. Singly and in pairs they fought, and some turned this way and that, lost in the press. Others cut their way through the wall of flesh. Here one fell, there another, lost to the blood rage of the goblins. But everywhere was blood and death until, in the end, two brothers alone made it to Lorin's ruin and they stood over him, waging their bloody campaign.

The goblins never ceased attacking, and rushed, time and again, upon the brothers, trying to pull them down. At last, wearied from the contest the younger brother stumbled and the press forced him from his brother's back to fall in a wash of iron and bone, flesh and blood. The lone brother fought on until a thrust in the back drove him to a knee and he was overwhelmed in the press. At last, rent and torn by many wounds, the brothers died and their bodies consumed with the King upon goblin cook-fires.

Most who climbed onto the walls died, falling to the dragon's wrath. Though tis said that some few escaped into the high cliffs, fleeing over the snow capped mountains, down hidden trails that only the dwarves knew.

The Clegerarch ended only after the moon stood high above. And thus were Grulding Hohle and her people destroyed. Few now speak of the Grulding Dwarves, for the sorrow is too great.

~The Codex of Aihrde