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"Stress and derailment!" the gnome swore, and began
another adjustment on his controls.
** * * *
When dragonfire rolled over the frozen battlefield, the
effects were instantaneous. Ice splintered and fell away,
becoming great spreading clouds of steam mixed with
ancient smoke. Gray mist roiled outward, obscuring the
goblins and the defenders beyond, then drifted upward
on heated drafts. A wide, thick cloud shadowed a fore-
shortened land where everything seemed to writhe and
rumble. Goblins retreated, wide-eyed, then turned and
retreated again when the blades of the handful of human
and dwarf refugees drew blood.
The evil minions fell back, turned again, and stopped
in confusion. From the rolling clouds came dwarves,
hundreds of dwarves. Dwarves armed and armored.
Mountain dwarves and hill dwarves with dead eyes in
frozen faces that had not known change in more than
two centuries -- faces that grimaced and twisted in the ex-
act ways they had when they fought against one another
in a burning forest at the instant the spell of ice had been
cast by an archmage.
But they were not fighting among themselves now.
Mountain dwarves and hill dwarves stood shoulder to
shoulder, spread out beneath the dark plume of choking
steam. They were silent and relentless, and fell on the
panicked goblins without a hesitation or a sound.
The hobgoblin leader screamed, turned to run, and
fell, his helm pierced by Fleece Ironhill's spiked hammer
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