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. Within the ice, dark shadows hinted at shapes. He
knelt in front of a sheer plane of ice and rubbed at it,
smoothing and clearing its face. Polished, the ice was
transparent.
The dwarf leaned close, peering within. Just inside,
only a few feet away, two dwarves were locked together
in combat, hammer against sword, shield to shield,
straining each against the other - violence captured just
as it had been the instant the ice had covered the combat-
ants. Beyond these two were others, receding into vague
translucence. A dwarf on the ground held a shield above
him, desperately fending against a slicing blade frozen in
descent. Another, arms outspread, flailed motionless for
balance, frozen in the act of falling over the body of a
dwarf cleft from shoulder to midriff by some lucky blow.
Within the ice, the spilled blood remained crimson on the
black ash beneath.
These are some of those who went out to defend Thor-
bardin's gates, the dwarf thought. And these are who
they fought. Which are which, though? Did even they
know? There might be a hundred or more locked in com-
bat, just within this one mound of ice - dwarves who
came out from Thorbardin, and dwarves who fought to
go within. All dwarves, and all alike now in frozen
silence.
No one ever returned to Thorbardin to tell of this bat-
tle, he realized
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