Chapter 14
Epilogue 2
Efforts, led by King Thror, to re-conquer Moria started with lots of planning.
They consulted old maps.
They arranged with the elves to have all the entrances watched.
Then they got materials together.
When they had what they expected to need, the dwarves marched to Moria's East Gate, went in and attacked the orcs there.
Their army swept into the tunnels quickly, and kept up a rapid pace such that the orcs had no time to gather.
The dwarves found orcs everywhere, but encountered them in small groups that they easily dispatched.
The dwarf army took certain sections of Moria - areas they had previously agreed upon - killing plenty of orcs in the process.
Then they stopped.
And they built.
They built quickly, and with great focus on completing a few of Durog's designs as fast as they could.
They knew the Balrog Durin's Bane would come, and, once they'd had a chance to gather, limitless orcs would too.
And the dwarves needed to be ready in time.
They neither planned nor expected - not yet - to get defensive architecture equal to that which existed at Lonely Mountain, where the city of Erebor was thriving because of it.
No, they just needed a little of that - enough to help defend against the orcs' first onslaught, and so and give the dwarves more time and safety in which to build more extensive and greater defenses.
So they rushed the work - a hard thing to get dwarves to do: they really like to do things right the first time.
They were convinced by the argument that, if they built enough to last for the first few days, then they could expect more time to build in ways that would last for centuries.
The army had taken carefully selected areas of Old Moria nearest the East Gate.
These areas had been selected with defense in mind.
As a major part of that defense, the dwarves sealed all unnecessary tunnels leading to or from the area they had re-taken.
They could do this quickly, by first pasting to the walls, floors and ceilings of a tunnel, Runes of Clay drawn on sheets of special paper called "Secret Message Paper", and then collapsing that tunnel using the Runic war-hammer Pyel-Ar.
Secret Message Paper could be, and sometimes was, used for passing secret messages which self-destructed soon after being read to keep the secret safe. But it had really been developed with the Rune of Clay in mind.
Sometimes you wanted the Rune of Clay to be deeply buried, and yet turn off on its own.
Secret Message Paper was a special paper with a very high acid content.
Normal paper decayed years after being made, due to its acid content.
But Secret Message Paper decayed into mush a mere two days after it was made.
So the Runes of Clay drawn on that paper, and pasted along the tunnels to be collapsed, were active for a while, turning rubble into soft wet clay, and then the paper they were on dissolved into mush, destroying, and therefore deactivating, the Rune. A day after that, the soft clay had fused into seamless hard stone again, since it was no longer under the influence of the magic Rune.
Such stone can be tunneled through, but it is a lot harder than hauling out the loose rock that a normal tunnel collapse would result in.
So, with a little work, they ended up with a large number of connected underground spaces which, between them, had plenty of room for an army and a village, but only had 3 ways in or out which needed to be defended.
One of those 3 was the East Gate itself - the dwarves way in and out of the mountain.
One was a small tunnel: too small for a Balrog to use - this would be for emergency escapes, if needed.
And the last was a large tunnel - big enough for a Balrog - this was where the dwarves would be ready to fight Durin's Bane.
The dwarves had brought materials with them, pre-made and ready to install quickly.
So all 3 remaining entrances to the dwarves' reclaimed area in Moria had thick Troll-Stone doors before the day was over.
Those doors had shutterable firing loopholes so crossbows could be used to shoot any orcs who approached.
And they had lights installed on all sides of the doors, around the approaches to those doors, and in the tunnels on the 'safe' sides of the doors, in case of any breaches.
Later they would get lights in the dwarven inhabited areas of the enclave as well.
These lights were the small glass vials of magic gel that Losse Seldo had shown them how to make, and which the dwarves were calling Liquid Sunlight. They'd been kept in natural sunlight for a year, and now they re-radiated that constantly.
Part of their magic was that they would never 'run out' of light - they would keep shining forever, unless destroyed.
So the dwarves tried to make sure the lights wouldn't get destroyed.
Each vial of Liquid Sunlight was installed in a recess high on a wall, with at least a foot of sturdy clear quartz in front to protect it.
And some had 'special mirrors' - actually highly polished reflective steel sheets - mounted near them, to make it unclear, from a distance, where the light source actually was.
That was because they expected the orcs - who were actually somewhat disabled by sunlight, and hated it in any case - to try to destroy the lights with long-ranged arrow shots and similar sniping. The reflectors could withstand such sniping even better than the quartz blocks could.
Beyond actually partially-debilitating orcs, the light also made it easier to see them and fight back.
Orcs, like cockroaches, very much preferred operating in the dark.
The sub-sections the dwarves had taken included the old administrative offices for the city in Moria, including the old tax office.
Some had joked that they should just declare a very high tax on the orcs, saying that would be the best way to get rid of them, since high taxes were a great way to inspire people to move away.
Two human bards, who had come along to write the epic story, could not tell that taxing the orcs was a joke - they thought it was a great idea.
King Thror was running this expedition - he had left his son Thrain II at Lonely Mountain, to rule there - and, in a fit of whimsy, decided to humor the silly humans.
He allowed them to write notices, in Orcish, on the surfaces of the new Troll-Stone tunnel doors, while those were being installed.
The notices decreed that orcs could live in Moria and be at peace with the dwarves if only they would pay taxes.
They didn't even mention how much the taxes would be.
They didn't bother specifying other things, like living the same laws the dwarves did, either.
King Thror could read Orcish, and knew the humans had left things out, in a misguided attempt to motivate as many orcs as possible to agree.
Thror didn't bother correcting the notices.
It didn't matter.
He knew no orcs would be willing to keep even a minimal requirement made by a dwarf or human. They only followed other orcs when bullied into it, and even then, only to the degree their boss could verify and coerce.
The orcs had followed Sauron because he could verify and coerce them like no other could.
Immediately after Sauron had actually died, soul as well as body, the orcs had promptly fallen apart, so to speak, thereby demonstrating just how much influence he had been exerting on them.
Orcs have never been hard-workers, or dedicated, or goal-oriented, or focused, or organized, or willing to cooperate with each-other.
But under Sauron's magic influence, they had approximated those things to some degree.
Orcs were naturally quarrelsome, aggressive, greedy, and especially violent. They fought each-other on even the most trivial of provocations.
Apparently, most of the influence Sauron had exerted on them was to turn that violence and aggression outward and focus it on non-orcs.
Under that influence, they had been able to gather armies and conquer territory.
Without it, they went back to fighting each-other often enough to keep their numbers down to the point where they were not much of a threat to others, except their immediate neighbors.
So it was no surprise that the initial orc attacks on the newly established dwarven hold within Moria were mere probes, where a few dozen orcs at a time would test the defenses.
These orcish attacks rarely even made it to within sight of one of the new Troll-Stone doors. Mostly the crossbow fire coming from those doors killed a few orcs and scattered the rest while they were still a long way away.
Two goblin groups did manage to fight their way all the way to the new door, where they tried battering it or breaking it, to no avail.
After the second group, the orcish attacks stopped for a while.
The human bards said it was because they'd seen the notice written on the door and were considering paying taxes.
The dwarves knew the pause was because the orcs expected the Balrog to do the hard work, and they figured he must be on his way.
They were right.
Dwarves had barely been back in Moria for a day and a half when Durin's Bane the Balrog arrived to try to throw them back out.
The dwarves keeping watch saw orcs gathering in a peculiar way - so many gathered that they clustered tightly, all along the fringes of the lighted area, with one very notable exception.
They left a completely clear path from one tunnel all the way to the dwarves' door.
The orcs clearly wanted to watch the show without getting in the Balrog's way.
The Balrog didn't mind killing any orcs it found inconvenient, so they'd left a wide clear path for it.
When the watch-dwarves saw that, they started sending pre-arranged signals in mine code.
So it was that, before the distant approach tunnel started glowing red from the Balrog's fiery presence, the dwarves were ready.
As soon as the huge creature of shadow and flame came into range, it was hit by crossbow bolts.
It ignored these - both the normal ones, as well as the special ones designed to probe it for weaknesses.
Crossbow bolts carefully made of specially-grown and strengthened icicles did not bother the Balrog a bit.
Bolts made of long thin hollow glass tubes and filled with flammable lamp-oil burst on contact with the monster, as designed, but hindered it not at all.
Similar tubes filled with Liquid Sunlight, in hopes of countering its shadow aspect, also failed to harm the Balrog in any noticeable way.
Half a dozen other varieties of glass tube bolts, filled with 4 kinds of poison and 2 kinds of strong acids, had no observable effect on the Balrog.
Even the spring-steel Spider-Forged magic crossbow bolts, though they hit the beast and penetrated, failed to affect it in any significant way.
When the Balrog got too close to the door, the defending crossbow-wielders retreated.
The plan did not depend upon them, and there was no point in throwing their lives away.
Such was the fame of the Balrog that even the stubborn and proud dwarves didn't hesitate to retreat from it.
So as the massive fiery best ripped the Troll-Stone door from its hinges and flung the entire thing behind him - flaring briefly with extra flame as he did so - no dwarves were hurt.
The Balrog advanced down the tunnel, towards the dwarves fleeing near the far end.
As it advanced, every flammable thing near it caught fire, including bits of trash the dwarves hadn't yet cleaned up, and some unlit torches in wall sconces.
It paid no heed to the flat metal pans lining both sides of the tunnel, along the edges.
It somehow knew they were no threat to him.
Yet it also sensed - supernaturally somehow - that there was a threat to it hiding here.
Its flaming sword lashed out at a nondescript section of wall, smashing the stone door hidden there and revealing a closet-sized cubbyhole with an armed dwarf standing in it.
The Balrog's whip had already been in in motion before the sword hit the wall, and now with a small additional twist of its wrist, the Balrog directed the whip to remove the threat.
The tip of the whip curled around the magic spear held by King Thror, and yanked it so hard that it flew out of Thror's grip and sailed out of the tunnel back the way the Balrog had come.
At the same time, King Thror was yanked out of his cubbyhole and fell at the Balrog's feet.
Thorin, charging out of his own cubbyhole in the opposite wall of the tunnel, arrived in time to block the killing blow from the fiery sword.
They had discussed in advance how to fight the beast, including how to block blows so immensely strong that even the magical enhancements to their own strengths were as nothing in comparison. They had no more chance to win a straight strength versus strength contest than a child had against an adult.
So mostly they had planned to dodge, using the agility and speed enhancements granted by their magic weapons, and especially the impressive leaping abilities granted by the Spider-Forged weapons.
Thror could have done that, even without his spear, since he still had a number of Spider-Forged throwing knives in his possession.
But he was stunned.
So the Balrog's swing would have killed him had not Thorin arrived and used a parry that did not oppose the Balrog's strength, but redirected it slightly, so it hit the floor rather than his grandfather.
The floor was deeply gouged, but Thror had time to take the backup weapon from Thorin's belt. It was the Triple-Forged battle-axe which he had used before getting the spear he now favored - the spear forged in Smaug and a particularly large spider and troll - which allowed him to regenerate.
Durin's Bane swung again, with both weapons.
Thror cut the flaming whip off short and Thorin redirected the flaming sword into a wall, causing a minor cave-in as the rock was smashed.
The dwarves nimbly avoided the cave-in and the Balrog ignored it, dropped the stub of his whip, and swung his sword two-handed in a sweep designed to catch both dwarves.
They leapt behind it, and both landed solid blows in the huge evil beasts back.
The two weapons were both extremely potent in their magic.
Each was wielded by an expert.
Each landed in what would have been weak-spots on any normal creature.
Any other creature would have been instantly killed by either blow.
It wasn't.
But at least it did seem to slow down a little, as if it was slightly damaged and in pain.
It roared defiance and blasted both dwarves with a huge gout of intense flame.
They took the opportunity to each stab it again, while ignoring the extremely hot flame they were completely immersed in.
The flame did them no damage.
They were each wearing a gift from the elves - a Minor Ring of Power - which made them immune to all flame.
The discovery of how to make those rings - based on the Ring research Thror had commissioned and on study of certain of Smaug's glands - had been a major factor in deciding to retake Moria.
They only had the two Minor Rings of Fireproofing so far - more dragon glands were needed before more could be made. But there had been enough gland material of lesser potency to make quite a bit of salve, which gave temporary immunity to fire.
The dwarven crossbowmen wore such salve, and so did the dwarves standing with them - a few valorous dwarves wielding Double-Forged weapons, and 3 slingers.
They were formed up at the far end of the tunnel, ready to fight the monster to try to buy evacuation time, if Thror and Thorin failed.
The crossbowmen held their fire, since it was more likely to hurt the King or his grandson than the Balrog.
But when a good opportunity arose, the 3 slingers fired.
All 3 oddly-shaped projectiles hit the Balrog.
It had been debated, whether the things that bothered one supernatural evil might bother another.
This was their attempt to find out.
The slingers had launched fist-sized wax tadpoles. Each was hollow and filled with something.
The wax tadpoles filled with fresh snow and marinated beets lightly sauteed in a white wine sauce, did not seem to achieve anything.
But the third wax tadpole - the one filled with vinegar - clearly had an effect, though a minor one. The vinegar splashed onto a shadowed area on the monster's chest, and the shadow there disappeared as if under a strong light source. With that small amount of shadow gone, the beast shrunk just a little - about as much as a potato or apple do when peeled. It was insignificant damage to the beast, but it was damage.
The Balrog roared in anger, flared briefly as his flames grew larger, brighter and hotter, then directed a long blast of flame at the cluster of dwarves around the slingers, then gave that up when he saw it didn't affect them either.
He returned his focus to the 2 nearby dwarves, who were also hurting him and were within reach.
In his anger, he rushed his attack, getting his hands slashed in exchange by Thorin and Thror as they dodged his attack.
These slashes would have been debilitating to any other creature - even discounting the magic of the weapons delivering them - but did only minor damage to the Balrog.
Thror and Thorin were discovering that stabbing, slashing, and gouging this monster was like punching a bear: you may bruise it, give it some pain, and slow it a little, but you primarily anger it and are extremely unlikely to kill it that way.
They stayed alive by excellent teamwork, and a series of truly amazing acrobatic leaps to dodge its blows, made possible by their Spider-Forged weapons.
The human bards, standing behind the crossbowmen to observe first-hand for the epics they would be writing, wept over the inadequacy of mere words to describe the battle.
The Balrog changed tactics, went back to using its flaming sword one-handed, and started using the other hand to try to grab the dwarves. It also started trying to kick them.
They fell back before this assault, gradually giving ground before it.
The Balrog allowed that because it meant the orcs waiting in the vast cavern out there would tend to hem in the dwarves and restrict their movement - or just kill them. Either way it would be pleased.
The dwarves were happy about the retreat because it took them closer and closer to where Thror's magic spear had fallen.
Thror and Thorin communicated by verbal mine code as they fought.
But even with the coordinated teamwork that allowed, they were very hard-pressed.
They had both noticed that, when the Balrog's flames flared larger brighter or hotter, it always had a surge of ability in some way. It could briefly get stronger, faster, or more durable - shrugging off blows that otherwise would have affected it more - or combinations of the three.
In the past, from observing and listening to Gandalf, the most gregarious of the wizards, the dwarves had formed the impression that wizards got magical energy in something like a steady but slow stream.
The wizards would never admit it, but they seemed to prefer storing up that energy for times when they really needed it, which was why they weren't doing all sorts of flashy magic all of the time.
Thror wondered, and communicated to Thorin, if Balrogs used magical energy more or less the way wizards did - storing it over time and calling on it at need. It would explain the brief bursts of additional supernatural speed, strength or toughness they had observed, always accompanied by extra flames.
But whatever the explanation was, the knowledge that flaring flames would accompany extra abilities saved them more than once, since they knew to take fewer risks and be more ready to dodge then.
As the dwarves continued to retreat towards the spear, they planned and the Balrog got angrier.
It was observably angry at the orcs in the huge room. They were staying far away from the battle and just watching.
They were not even shooting arrows at the dwarves. That should have been no surprise to it, since all concerned knew that if they missed a dwarf and hit the Balrog instead - which was always possible in a fast-paced highly mobile melee like this - that the Balrog was certain to kill them at least, and probably torture them first.
Still, the Balrog was evidently disappointed in his nominal teammates.
It was having great difficulty with these dwarves who just wouldn't stay still and get hit.
They mostly didn't even try to block its blows.
Instead they constantly leaped around like agitated grasshoppers.
While they leapt, the dwarves planned.
Using mine code, and the most obscure phrasing they could even then - using phrases and references from their shared experience that would mean nothing to others - just in case the Balrog understood mine code, they had worked out an idea for how to retrieve Thror's spear.
When the right moment came, they acted on it.
*** made it to here reading to Jared***
Thorin used his spear to stab at the Balrog's eyes. Most creatures are protective of their eyes and they had observed that this Balrog was no exception.
So, predictably, that stab got the Balrog's attention.
He swung his free hand at the spear shaft, to block as well as to rip it out of Thorin's grasp.
While it did that, it also lunged at Thorin - whose attack had left him looking vulnerable to a lunge - with its huge flaming sword.
But Thror had used this time to prepare his own attack.
The moment the Balrog's foot came off the ground, Thror's Triple-Forged battle-axe cut at its hamstring.
The axe blow hit, and sunk deep.
The Balrog's fires flared bright and hot, and it tried to stomp Thror flat.
Thror was ready for that and rolled out of the way, but also positioned his axe - braced against the floor, sharp side up - under the Balrog's heel.
So the Balrog's supernaturally-strong stomp only drove his foot down hard onto the blade of the axe, cutting it deeply again and making it reflexively yank its foot up off the thing that was hurting it. This unbalanced it and it fell down.
Thror, still on the ground, had to do a surprising leap from a crawling position - like a grasshopper - to avoid being crushed.
Thorin had leapt for the Shelob Spear, as they'd been calling it, as soon as Thror's attack had distracted the monster.
But the monster was quick, and responded supernaturally fast, throwing his sword since he had no time for anything else.
So Thorin was just picking up the magic spear when the Balrog's flaming sword smashed with tremendous force into the ceiling above him.
The monster had not even tried to hit the nimble little dwarf, but tried instead to catch it in the area of falling rocks as the roof collapsed.
And collapse it did, for 40 feet all around where the sword hit the ceiling.
The first few rocks were already hitting Thorin, as he stood up with the newly retrieved spear, knocking him off-balance and spoiling his attempted leap to safety.
On his knees and with many more rocks about to hit him, Thorin still did what he could - he threw the Shelob Spear as hard as he could at a supporting column next to King Thror.
The spear head sank a couple inches deep into the solid stone column at the same time as Thorin - yelling a war-cry and tightly clutching his own magic spear while still struggling to leap to safety - was buried under many tons of rock.
Meanwhile, the Balrog had stood and scooped up the weapons of 2 nearby orcs who had earlier been killed by dwarven crossbows. It got a long sword in one hand and tried to get a heavy flail in the other hand. It was in such a hurry that it partially missed its target - it got the flail, but also the dead orc.
So it charged Thror with a nicked and rusty - but still deadly - long sword in its right hand, and a shoddy heavy flail - plus a whole dead orc held by the hand and forearm - wielded in the other hand.
A saddened King Thror reflected that nobody could have survived such a cascade of rocks right on top of them, as he grabbed the Shelob Spear in one hand - keeping the other on the Triple-Forged axe for the extra strength it granted - and yanked the spear out of the stone.
So it was "For Thorin!" he yelled, as he turned, lunged, and stabbed the spear into the Balrog's arm.
Thror leapt back immediately afterwards, but he didn't need to.
The Balrog was immobile - paralyzed and standing completely still, as if an artist had cast a statue of a charging Balrog.
The flail and dead orc swung to and fro from its immobile left hand.
The Balrog was also rapidly flaring, with its flames growing brighter, larger, and hotter by the moment.
When it had summoned supernatural energy before, the flares had been brief.
But this time, due to Shelob's poison, what it had started it could not stop.
As the evil monster summoned and consumed more and more of its magical energy, it flared so bright that every corner of the vast cavern, several hundred feet across, was revealed in stark contrast, as if under a noonday sun.
Thousands of orcs were revealed, hiding in what had been the dim recesses of the room. But the light was so bright they were sickened by it, as they would be by direct sunlight.
The Balrogs flames grew ever larger, effectively doubling its size, then re-doubling it.
And its flames got hotter and hotter.
The dead orc in its left hand rapidly burned to a cinder, then into ash.
The sword and flail it held grew red hot, then yellow, then white hot. Finally they melted and dripped down to the ground, along with the armor the dead orc had been wearing.
Ever brighter and hotter it grew, as King Thror backed away towards the tunnel he'd started in, carefully shuffling his feet to prevent tripping over anything while his eyes were locked on the Balrog and its steadily growing flames.
Then all at once, like a fire that has burned all its fuel, the Balrog flickered and went out. It just vanished completely like a candle flame in a sudden wind.
At the moment the Balrog died, King Thror felt like a great weight had been lifted from him. It was as if the evil beast had been a source of hate, anger, fear, and hopelessness, and this flow of those things had suddenly ceased.
It was similar to having been around a horrible stench - like a rotting corpse - for long enough you got used to it, to some degree, and then had it suddenly blown away by a fresh sea breeze.
King Thror knew he could never adequately describe it, though he would try.
He wanted the bards to be able to sing the epic as well as possible.
The Balrog's flames had been intensely bright, and its death had suddenly snuffed those out, which seemed to throw the room into immediate pitch darkness for which the eyes were not adjusted.
It wasn't actually pitch dark. The Balrog's flaming sword, still embedded in the ceiling over Thorin's burial mound, cast quite a bit of light from its flames.
And the huge room also contained several of the new lights - vials of Liquid Sunlight behind clear quartz blocks - which the dwarves had been installing.
So by underground standards, the room was exceptionally well-lit.
But it seemed completely dark by comparison to what it had been.
That was why the orcs in the room were not attacking yet. Their vision was still adjusting.
Thror could sense things around him pretty well, due to the extra senses his Spider Amulet gave him.
So he was moving quickly towards the safety of the tunnel he'd come from.
Very soon, he noticed there was a small group standing around that tunnel mouth.
It was mostly composed of the Forlorn Hope - the 4 crossbowmen, 3 slingers and 4 warriors with Double-Forged weapons, all volunteers, who expected to die fighting to buy evacuation time for the rest in case the Balrog won. They were guarding the 2 bards, who'd come out to watch the battle.
Thror tried to signal them to withdraw, but they were temporarily blind like the orcs, and for the same reason.
Still rapidly shuffling along, Thror tried verbal signals to them - starting quietly and then getting louder when quiet didn't work - but they couldn't hear it over the debate they were having among themselves.
In the last few steps before he could actually lay hands on any of them to shove them towards the tunnel, Thror pointed urgently into the tunnel and made shooing motions, while still calling - in the loudest whisper he dared - for them to retreat.
But the agitated King actually reached the dwarves and humans around the tunnel mouth before they noticed him.
As he laid his free hand on a dwarf and gently but firmly shoved him towards safety, a human bard saw the king and reacted.
In a loud voice, the bard exclaimed, "Hey guys, it's the King! I guess we don't need to go rescue him after all. Should we do that other thing - what was it? go inside - now?"
As one, all the dwarves turned and raced into the tunnel, dragging the humans along.
Behind them, the huge room was filled with the sound of thousands of orcs issuing war-cries and charging.
It was very characteristic of them to attack even though the Balrog was dead. It had weakened the dwarven defenses and the orcs would seize that advantage and see how far it got them.
That had been expected.
And it was why Durog was in the tunnel with a team of his assistant engineers, inspecting, and making careful adjustments to, the lines of flat steel pans, still red-hot from the Balrog's flames, lining both sides of the tunnel.
The dwarven engineers knew the situation, and fled towards the safe end of the tunnel the moment the King and the Forlorn Hope entered from the dangerous end.
Orcish arrows clattered around the retreating dwarves, and before they could all get into the tunnel 4 actually struck their targets, though only one penetrated the armor it met, and that only a little.
Then the dwarves were far enough down the tunnel that the height of its ceiling prevented the long ranged arcing shots from entering.
The dwarves all hurried down to the safe end of the tunnel, then shut and barred the door.
Behind them was just another short tunnel, and then the areas that the dwarves had re-colonized.
They must stop the orcs here.
But they had a plan for that.
Durog was given the honor of watching through the peephole - not an actual hole this time, but a piece of clear quartz - slightly wider on the dangerous side than on the safe side - set into the door so they could see through it.
It wasn't long before he called "The first orcs are inside."
Behind him, engineers were opening 2 hidden closets in the wall of their tunnel, and preparing the Battle Bells stored in each.
There was still some debate on what to call those.
A couple young engineers preferred the name Defense Against Legions Engineer's Kettle, or DALEK's for short, since it resembled a particular kind of tea-kettle and "the name just feels right", though they couldn't say exactly why.
But they were Durogs invention, so his name of Battle Bell stuck.
Each looked like a steel bell, slightly taller and wider than a dwarf and flared wide at the bottom, where it almost met the ground.
They didn't quite meet the ground, since they had 4 wheels, like a cart, inside, on which they were supported, and allowing the dwarf standing inside them to move them around.
They each had 2 metal rings near the middle, and a ring of clear quartz at eye level, so the dwarf inside could see out.
Each metal ring had a short arm extending from it, ending in a clamp.
Some engineers clamped swords into those clamps, while others climbed down into narrow pits under the bells, then up into the bells themselves.
Everybody backed up when the bells moved forward, driven by the dwarf inside walking slowly while shoving against its significant weight. The steel of the bells was judged thick enough to be impervious to all hand-weapons.
They had no openings to attack either.
They were heavy, and not very mobile. So they would be completely impractical for most military applications. But in a small narrow stone tunnel with a flat floor and a ceiling too low for trolls, they could probably hold off any number of orcs.
At least they hoped so.
The Bell operators issued warnings, then tested their weapons. By turning crank one, the clamp on ring one would rotate vertically, swinging the sword it held through a 360 degree vertical arc and reaching from just above the floor to just under the ceiling of the low tunnel.
By turning crank 2, ring one would rotate horizontally around the bell, swinging the sword clamped to it through a 360 degree horizontal arc stretching from just short of the left wall, to just short of the right wall.
Cranks 3 and 4 did the same things for ring 2, and the sword attached to it.
"Now remember," Durog could not keep himself from saying, while still watching the other tunnel fill with orcs, "this version of the Battle Bell, the Mark 4, has a 5th crank. If you set both swords at horizontal, then just crank on the 5th crank, both rings will rotate quickly in opposite horizontal rings scything around the bell. We think that will be pretty effective. But you still have the other cranks which, between them, let you hit any point you choose, just remember to lock crank 5 first and OH, there's my mark. Yank the lever now!"
Two engineers, waiting by large levers, hauled on them.
The earth shook and roared, cracking the door they all waited behind.
"Earthquake?" wondered one bard.
"No, the motion is wrong for that..." began one engineer.
"Steam." Durog answered flatly, still gazing through the view-port. "All those flat, red-hot, pans of water flashed to steam all at once when the levers pulled the rods holding the retaining pins in place. The sound and the shaking exactly coincided with all that water flashing to steam all at once. It is taking a while to clear, though having that big room - a ventilation hub no less - on the other side does help. So I can't say for sure, but I believe all that expanding steam shoved hard at every surface, and went where it could - out the tunnel mouth into the big room, taking the orcs with it. I think it did ... oh what was that word... "
"Exterminate?" offered one of the engineers inside a Battle Bell.
"Yes, that's it. I think the orcs in the tunnel got exterminated, and maybe some outside the tunnel too."
"Interesting..." said the nearest engineer, making notes.
Meanwhile out in the big room...
Not all the orcs had rushed into the tunnel to get at the dwarves.
Some had rushed for treasure.
The dwarf who'd been buried under a rock fall had been using a potent magic weapon.
Greedy orcs were digging for that weapon almost before the last rock fell.
Such a weapon would be a great prize, and make its owner a chieftain at least.
But only for the one orc to get it first.
So almost a hundred orcs dug frantically into the pile of rocks, seeking Thorin's weapon.
Rocks got thrown about willy-nilly, without regard for where each went.
This started several fights.
And a few times, when an orc dug down to something that looked like a helmet or spear, his exclamation of glee just got him stabbed in the back by the next nearest orc, wanting to take the prize for himself.
Orcs were like that.
When the tunnel leading to the dwarves thundered and vomited out vast amounts of steam mixed with miscellaneous bits of former orcs, the diggers paused only briefly, to make sure that whatever it was was no threat to them.
Then they resumed digging.
When they actually did uncover Thorin, a general melee ensued, with every nearby orc dropping what it had been doing to fight for the prize.
Their prize - Thorin's spear - was still tightly clutched in the armored gauntlet of the suit of full plate armor - dented over its entire surface - that contained Thorin.
Orcs tried to yank the spear free, but it did not move - it appeared as if all the dents had locked the armor immobile.
Failing to yank it free, orcs then tried everything else - some tugging together in a semblance of teamwork, while others spared a moment to move key rocks away before again grabbing at the spear.
Many just fought each-other, with the aim of being the last orc standing & then having time to free the spear.
Their fight was settled the way such things usually were among the orcs - by a particularly strong or capable orc defeating his rivals and promising the others positions of power and authority in his new kingdom if they followed him.
As usual, the first couple of strong orcs to so declare themselves king got stabbed by their new followers at the first opportune moment.
But eventually one arose who managed to defend himself adequately from his new followers, while still hanging on to the immobile magic spear.
The new orc king's new followers quickly killed or drove off the remaining orcs nearby, then dug Thorin the rest of the way out of the rock pile.
Then they all peed themselves in fear when Thorin stretched, shook himself, and said "Thank you".
Thorin shook himself like a wet dog trying to get dry, and all the orcs ran away as fast as they could.
They wanted no part of a battle with a warrior who could withstand being buried under tons of rock.
Thorin walked tiredly back towards the tunnel that led to safety. He wanted to remove his armor - it chafed with all the new dents - and then get a nice long soak in a hot spring - with his spear. He didn't plan to let go of his spear for a long long time, just in case.
The regeneration it granted had kept him alive, despite having nearly every bone in his body broken.
He had felt them break, though he hadn't experienced much pain. He guessed that was normal, since trolls didn't seem to feel much pain from the damage they took either.
Then he had felt his bones heal.
Though afterwards he still couldn't move, with tons of rock on all sides of him.
It had been all he could do to keep still while orcs were digging him out, grabbing at him and his spear, and climbing all over him like ants on a sugary treat.
He'd been grateful enough to finally be freed from the rock that he actually thanked the orcs, rather than stabbing them, though he'd been prepared to defend himself at need.
At least he would have one heck of a story to tell, he thought, as he trudged tiredly back to safety.
-0-0-0-
A couple days later, four orcs under a flag of truce carried a large chest labeled "Tax" into the light near the repaired Troll-Stone door leading to dwarf territory.
They set it down, backed away a bit, and waited.
Dwarven warriors, along with Thror and Thorin, were gathering in "The Balrog Tunnel" as it was coming to be known, and preparing to go check out the alleged tax chest, when the 2 human bards arrived.
The tunnel was surprisingly clean - everything had been blown out of it by the rapidly-expanding steam.
The humans were terribly excited that their tax idea had worked. They moved around animatedly, trying to share their excitement with dwarves that didn't believe it was real, and expressing impatience with the delay.
They said the dwarves were gearing up for a battle that wouldn't take place - that the dwarves were too paranoid and should just go out and greet the new taxpayers.
The dwarves ignored this and calmly kept working on their battle preparations.
Yet they were shocked when the exuberant human bards gave in to their impatience and threw open the outer Troll-Stone door then hurried out to the Tax chest, loudly expressing their delight that the orcs had chosen to pay tax instead of fighting.
Dwarven cynicism was then confirmed as large numbers of orcs surged up out of the darkness, grabbed the humans, and dragged them away.
Some dwarves moved to go help, but Thror restrained them, saying "Hold on lads. Getting yourselves killed a few at a time won't save those fools. We go out together, in formation, using the best military tactics we know, when we're fully ready for a fight, or not at all. Besides," he said calmingly, "the orcs didn't kill them right away. That means they will take their time with them, and we can still get there before it is too late, despite taking a moment to fasten the last few armor straps and such."
Soon enough, the dwarves moved out, assembled in formation, and advanced on the far corner of the room, where they could see orc fires and hear orc singing.
The orcs were in a jolly mood, from the sounds of it.
As the dwarves got closer, they could hear the words the orcs were singing.
Those words made orcs jolly, but would disgust anyone else.
The orc songs were all about how they would enjoy torturing their prisoners, before they killed them and ate them.
The dwarves marched quickly, but as silently as they could in the darkness.
And it was dark in this part of the room. The nearest dwarven lights were behind the marching dwarves now.
The Balrog's flaming sword had been recovered from the ceiling and sent to the elves for study. Along with it had been sent the two pieces of his whip, and the metal that melted in his grip as he died.
They would be examined by the same group of elves and dwarves that had examined the ball of steel that had still been red hot when it jammed in Smaug's throat and he died.
There were strange magics in that steel, possibly making it useful for armor, and there may be interesting discoveries in the Balrog metal and equipment as well.
The approach of the dwarven army had been anticipated, and they were not completely silent.
Orcs were disorganized, but not unfamiliar with combat, so a few actually kept watch and warned the rest.
Soon, arrows were bouncing off the dwarven shields.
And the dwarves fired back.
Both sides were well familiar with fighting in very dim light.
It wasn't a particularly unusual battle, and certainly not epic.
The dwarves advanced.
Groups of orcs screamed war cries and charged the dwarvish lines.
Brief fights resulted, but became more and more frequent as more and more groups of orcs got the idea.
Some groups of orcs attempted to flank the dwarf formation. But the dwarves were prepared for that and had formations protecting their flanks and rear.
And then, after the battle became continuous and reached a crescendo, it was suddenly over.
When one orc decides the fight is un-winnable and flees, it is very common for the rest to quickly decide to do likewise.
The dwarf formation reached the humans, with no orcs currently in sight.
The humans were bound, laying next to the spits on which they would have been roasted, and had had some fingernails pulled out and teeth removed. But other than that trauma, they were intact.
As they returned to their tunnel, the dwarves did stop to collect the chest labeled tax.
It was full of dwarf bones and written threats.
They never spoke of taxing the orcs again. It was no longer funny to the dwarves and no longer believable to the humans.
Taxes were paid by the civilized to maintain civilization, and orcs did not want civilization.
-0-0-0-
After that, the dwarves spent a while building defenses around the areas of Moria they had retaken just inside the East Gate - the area they were now calling Enclave 1.
They built slam-doors, reservoirs, and drowning rooms.
They re-built some rooms and hallways to be "crushing rooms", where the doors would seal shut and the whole ceiling would rapidly descend to meet the floor.
They built battle bells and corridors for them to defend, which were too short for trolls.
They built "marble runs", where the end of one hallway would get an extension tunneled up from its ceiling at an angle, so forming a nice sloped ramp, the end of which contained a huge stone ball - sized to fill the whole tunnel it would roll down - that could be released to roll down into the tunnel, crushing all orcs it met.
They built "dart racks" - grids of hundreds of simple pipes, each containing a dart, all of which were connected at one end to a manifold which directed air to them from a huge bellows. The bellows had a large weight suspended above it, such that, when it was released, the bellows suddenly pumped a powerful blast of air through the manifold and into the pipes, expelling the darts with almost the strength of a crossbow bolt each.
They did not yet build steam-blast traps and other such things that depended on having available the hot exhaust gasses from many forges. They only had a couple forges so far in the small village that was Enclave 1. Not many dwarves had been available for recolonizing Moria.
Only one medium-sized army had been available for that purpose as well.
So the army stayed at Enclave 1, fending off regular orc attacks.
A few of those attacks included orcish efforts to tunnel in past the defenses, so the orcs could get right into the undefended areas of the dwarf enclave.
But tunneling is slow work, and each blow of the pick or chisel being used against the rock sends minor vibrations through the rock. These vibrations were easy for any dwarf with a Spider Amulet to pick up. Those amulets could sense and interpret minor vibrations through air, and vibrations travel better through rock than through air.
It was easy for the dwarves - very experienced in mining - to calculate where the orcish tunnels would emerge, and then to set up surporises - usually drowning rooms - to meet the orcs when they finished their tunnel.
The army stayed until adequate defenses were built.
Then they stayed a little longer, resting, while the defensive architecture around the enclave took over all defense.
When that proved the defenses were adequate, the army started the next phase of the operation.
The dwarves started securing Moria's other entrances similarly.
Elves had been retained to keep watch on the other entrances, and any activities there. So the dwarves knew when, where, and how to hit them.
Each entrance got a rapid attack, unexpected by orcs, at a time when they were least likely to be prepared. That attack would sweep in, to certain carefully-planned boundaries, stop, and begin building defenses, just as had been done with Enclave 1.
They carefully sealed all unnecessary access tunnels to each Enclave - using Pyel-Ar for rapidity and the Rune of Clay to make the changes as permanent as solid stone could be.
The army stayed as each new enclave was fortified like the first.
Then they repeated the procedure at another entrance.
This they did only at the 'official' - that is, dwarven, entrances of Moria.
Holes dug in by orcs got taken in similar ways, but then were simply collapsed and sealed.
Such holes were found for the dwarves by the Giant Eagles, in a deal brokered by Gandalf.
For each day a Giant Eagle would have spent hunting, but instead spent in scouting the mountains, looking for orcs and orc-sign, the dwarves paid the eagle as if it had had a successful hunt, by giving it a sheep, goat, pig or cow.
Payment was made when the eagle came and pointed its beak at a map, indicating areas it had scouted, and double-tapping areas where orcs or orc-sign had been seen.
It worked out well for both parties.
So, gradually, the dwarves 'besieged Moria', by taking or closing all the external entrances.
Very little food grows deep underground.
Some streamlets, flowing in from outside, carry edible tidbits to underground lakes, feeding fish there. But that can support only so many fish.
And numberless hordes of orcs need a lot more food than the scant amounts grown underground by such methods.
Without access to the outside, to hunt and gather food, the orcs began to starve.
And that led to them fighting more intensely to get food.
They fought the dwarves, trying to get out the exits.
And they fought each-other, for various reasons, one of which was to eat each-other.
But it takes a lot more energy to grow a pound of meat than that pound of meat provides when it is eaten.
So eating each-other was no solution to the orcs' problems.
But it did help the dwarves immensely when the orcs ate each-other.
So they encouraged it.
The dwarves set up various methods to get the orcs attacking each-other.
Notes were written in Orcish, and left in certain places outside each dwarf enclave.
They said "Kill another orc, and we will feed you. You may eat the orc you kill. Just leave it's full set of bones here in this spot, and we will leave 2 days' worth of food in their place. We will check for bones twice a day. Only fresh bones will earn food."
These "drop-off points" as they became known, were selected to be sheltered from arrow fire, both to encourage the orcs to use them, and to keep parties of dwarves safe.
They were also selected to have nice, smooth, even floors, so Battle Bells could be used to make the food-for-bones swaps.
As expected, the orcs ignored the offer at first, only using it in attempts to ambush the dwarves doing the swaps.
The dwarves were ready for that, and, having taken every precaution they could, in addition to having carefully selected and prepared the sites, they came through such encounters very well.
Eventually, desperate orcs actually tried bringing bones to trade for food. They killed each-other often enough anyway, they had fresh bones available.
The dwarves kept the deal faithfully.
They had every reason to.
Two days of food for an orc was a trivial cost, and would only slow the orc's starvation by a trivial amount.
Each dead orc was a far more significant boon, and very much outweighed the cost of the food.
Plus it helped clean up Moria, because, orcs being orcs, they tried to cheat by bringing in all sorts of old bones too.
It was easy to tell old bones from fresh ones, and the old bones got no reward.
But they did get sent out of the mountain, along with the fresh bones, to certain mills. There they were ground to powder and given to the elves, who used them as fertilizer.
They said it was very effective fertilizer.
They were using it in a formerly barren area, planning to grow beautiful gardens there. Some wanted to call them the Orc Gardens, as a fairly obscure joke about the only way an orc would ever make something beautiful was by serving as fertilizer for it.
At first, just a few orcs brought in bones for food.
But more and more began to participate when it became clear the dwarves honored the deal scrupulously and didn't try any tricks, such as poisoned food or ambushes.
The dwarves didn't need to try any tricks. The deal worked fine for them.
As more and more orcs brought in bones, they also started fighting each-other more and more.
They fought to get dead orcs to eat and trade.
They fought for possession of fresh bones.
They fought for the food others were carrying away from the trade sites.
They fought for revenge over tribe-mates being killed.
They fought for spite, to punish any who would deal with dwarves.
And all of that was on top of the usual orcish reasons - often trivial - for killing each-other.
Soon, every day had an orcish death toll similar to a battle.
The dwarves, encouraged by this result, tried offering other deals via notes as well.
They offered a certain tribe - which had seemed amenable to this kind of thing - that they would all be allowed to leave Moria safely, but only if the whole tribe left together and each was carrying a dead orc from a different tribe.
The offer did not include anything beyond just allowing the orcs to leave Moria. There was no guarantee of safety after that.
In the end, that didn't matter.
This offer still led to that tribe fighting all their neighboring orcs to get enough bodies.
Many orcs were killed and their bodies were collected, including among the hopeful tribe.
They fought until their numbers withered away to nothing.
The dwarves posted notes offering a continual deal, available to any orc, that they'd get a week's worth of food for the dead body - complete with identifying tribal markings - of any orc from a tribe on the dwarves' special enemies list, which was regularly posted and kept up to date.
Orc tribes mostly got on the special enemies list by attacking dwarven enclaves, or trying to ambush the food-for-bones trading parties.
This "starve the orcs and use food to motivate them" strategy increased in effectiveness as the dwarves closed more and more entrances to Moria - sealing up the orcish ones and building defended enclaves at the dwarven ones, which Durog referred to as "Offensive Castling" and some others called "Offense through Defense."
The last entrance to Moria to be taken by the dwarves was the West Gate.
It didn't need Offensive Castling.
It had a monster instead. in the lake just outside it.
The elves, hired even before the first dwarven attack, to watch all Moria's entrances, had noticed that no orcs used the West Gate, except once.
One time, some orcs had opened that door from the inside, shoved out some other orcs - who were screaming in terror as if in the process of being executed - and slammed the door again.
Then long tentacles had shot out of the lake, grabbed the doomed orcs, and pulled them all underwater again.
The water threshed a little, then was still and silent.
The elves referred to the tentacled monster as the Watcher in the Water.
The elves had reported this to the dwarves, who had decided to leave that entrance for last.
It was already well-defended, in a way.
In time, the dwarves did get around to taking the West Gate.
They did it Durog-style, by digging and building.
First, a series of 3 portcullises were emplaced in the stream that was the lakes outlet. They started 200 yards downstream of the lake, with one every 5 yards after that.
Each portcullis went from shore to shore, from the bottom of the stream to above its surface.
As hoped, this activity was far enough downstream from the lake that the monster left it unmolested.
Elves had said that animals seemed to have no fear of the stream, that far downstream of the lake. so they'd hoped the monster did not range that far. But it was always nice when such hopes were verified.
Just in case, archers were stationed near the portculli, to shoot the monster if it tried to cross the barriers and escape downstream.
It did not.
Then the stream that fed into the lake was addressed.
This was also done well upstream, at what was judged to be a safe distance.
First the dwarves dug a new channel for the stream, which carried its water by a different path - bypassing the lake entirely - before rejoining the former channel well downstream.
Then, just after connecting the new channel to the stream well upstream from the lake, they built a dam across the old channel.
The lake containing the Watcher in the Water still had a functioning outlet stream, but no inlet stream to add water.
Its level started dropping.
In a week, it was dry.
And there, in the middle of it, clinging to the small puddle of remaining water, yet very exposed, was the huge squid-like tentacled monster.
Without water to support its weight, it did not seem able to move its body - only its tentacles, which still remained dangerous.
Durog recommended finishing it from a safe distance with crossbows firing Spider-Forged bolts.
The response from the Mighty Dwarves of Valor was "where's the fun in that?"
Because they relished the challenge, they formed up in a line of battle, and advanced.
As they marched down into the lake and across the mud, past the bones of scores of the Watcher's previous victims, the Watcher-no-longer-in-the-Water attacked.
A dozen tentacles lashed out at the advancing dwarves.
These tentacles were parried by dwarves who were granted supernatural speed and agility by their Dragon-Forged and Spider-forged weapons.
A dozen tentacles got their ends lopped off by being parried with edged weapons.
The furious monster tried again, with the same result.
After that, the monster died, having had a tentacle cut off by the Shelob Spear wielded by King Thror.
Standing there, in the bottom of the former lake, Thorin turned to Thror and asked "Do you remember when that human suggested taking on this monster by standing on the lake shore with spears and swords and waiting for it to attack us? It didn't even occur to him to drain the lake first."
Thror chuckled "I still laugh every time I think of that. Although," he added, holding up his magic spear fot emphasis, "with this spear even that strategy could have worked. But it isn't good to get into bad habits and lazy thinking just because you can get away with it."
Thorin grew thoughtful, then said "You know, I've always wanted to retake Moria, rename it back to the original Khazad-dûm as we re-colonized it, and then be its king."
Thror replied "and since you got a Ring of Power, gradually things have been coming together to make that possible."
Thorin nodded "yah."
His grandfather continued "but you know, Khazad-dûm is vast. You're going to need a lot more dwarves to fill it."
"Yah."
His grandfather, still in middle-age by dwarf standards, continued, "maybe that's why I've been feeling a growing desire to re-marry and have more kids..."
"Yah."
- The End -
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Author's note:
I actually came up with the Battle Bells from the direction of "personal armor too thick to penetrate and with no weakspots, so too heavy to wear yet still useful somehow."
Only then did I recognize the surprising similarity to Dalek's.
Honest.
Then of course I had to make the joke.
But I did want to clarify that it is just a funny case of cosmic coincidence, not a prophecy or anything like that. Do not expect the dwarves to ever go up against Doctor Who.
A quick ballpark 'reality check' says that a steel cylinder 3' in diameter and 5' tall and a quarter inch thick (just try ramming a spike, sword or anything through quarter-inch steel) would weigh just about 250 pounds - dwarves could shove that around even without wheels. Most of them could probably bench-press it. So moving the bell around is entirely possible.
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Omake
Several centuries later, in a place that has yet to be even named, on a field about to become a battlefield...
The Dwarf general Ragnar the Belligerent nodded to his chief of staff and said,
"Well done. We're all set to trounce the enemy but good as soon as the sun comes up, but we yet lack one thing."
"What's that?", asked his assistant.
"Bacon!" Ragnar answered enthusiastically.
"Make sure the troops have plenty of bacon at an early breakfast before the battle, for, as Lucky Durog Mountain-Hammer said during The Smaug Incursion 'There is nothing at all that bacon doesn't improve'. So say the Sagas!"
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"The Dwarves of yore wove mighty spells"
But details we don't know so well
So shrug and mutter "who can tell?"
Then make it up: it's just as well.
Thanks for reading. That's all I have on this story. I consider it complete.
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