The beasts fell upon them with a deluge of fire, claws and bone-chilling screams. The beasts, usually aggressive, seemed now to fight for their very lives, careless on defending and of an unearthly frenzy. Turuviel had not seen such an attack before. Occasionally drakes were a danger on the roads towards Eregion but never hunting elves intendedly and in packs. Yet, behind a wall of shields her hand would not tremble on the bow and the rate of firing remained constant, high, mercyless. Some arrows of the archers were spent uselessly finding scales too thick to pierce but many more wounded the maddened drakes. Yet, unexpectedly for her, the real damage done to the drakes was not that of the arrows but was that of the melee naugrim axe wielders and that of the few elves that joined them sword in hand. All five of them she knew to be old noldor that had seen much war and their skill with their weapons confirmed that. Even the elf girl that she knew best, Turuninde, whom she knew more for a shy and reclusive herbalist always in the shade of her brother, was using her unbelievably light shield with apparently long tested efficiency against the death from above. Her sword, long, thin and highly decorated, seemed a toy compared to those of her companions and with the axes of the dwarfs but she was finding ways to stab and cut using elegant acrobatics rather than brute force. Her brother was not leaving her side and they were forming a good team, long tested. The dwarfs laughed and screamed while fighting like possessed by a revengeful and belligerent spirit and they seemed to hold no weight despite their heavy armor and shields their own size. A beast, its head severed by a halberd-looking axe, continued to stumble some more steps running into the shieldwall protecting the archers. The dwarf in front of Turuviel cheered long and turned to his brother on his left side screaming something in their highly consonatic language. His eyes were full of such bloodlust that Turuviel had to stop herself from shivering. Much hate must have been long gathered, between their kins and many times they must have destroyed eachothers lairs, the dwarfs and the drakes.
The last of the drakes fell at last, with an arrow that pierced its neck and it almost caught one of the dwarfs under it. He avoided it at the last moment and several others were already ready to chop further the carcass, making sure it was really dead. The four blonde elves looked at each other and smiled at one more time they won the day together. Tolmen first nodded towards them in greeting then exchanged a few words with the dwarfs and laughed a rare laugh. At last he approached the archers group, balancing exaggeratedly the huge heavy shield. He stopped before Turuviel and grinned “Not bad, heh? For an old elf that spends too much time in the halls of Elrond tormenting too sensitive young Hammers?” She retained from picking a quarrel with him for the arrogance: here, in the Moors was no room for stupid quarrel picking. And they all did good this day, like a team should do. Before she got to comment anything at all the dwarf commander clapped loudly his huge hands, too big for his height, and yelled so that he could cover the talks among everyone.
“Come, come, no time now to congratulate ourselves much, the main fight still awaits us. Fast, to the mines!”
They reorganized fast and went together, in a light running, towards the mine entrance. The entrance itself was lightly guarded. A few orcs, that seemed more afraid to search hiding inside than face the elves, fought them with the frenezy a sure death brings to the one expecting it, but neither their number or skill helped them even to delay their battlehardned attackers. Once inside the mine the situation changed to a degree, at least for Turuviel. She was not used to caves and the thick darkness was uncomfortable. She remembered traveling with Veryacano in Moria, so long time ago but then his competent presence was reassuring and their goal.. Well, their goal was enough to make anything else unimportant. She did not remember now to have been afraid in Moria, was it only time covering it all with its dust, making things bearable? She was now afraid -or at least nervous- in the thick darkness, even though she was again in good company, the dwarfs were sure of themselves and already lighting up torches and lamps. They seemed at home, ready, decided, and so did the rest of the company. She dismissed the bad feeling that something would go wrong and maintained her relative position, towards the rear of the attack force, paying attention to each noise and shadow that could betray an ambush.
