Rurik's Arc

Chapter 20 of 22

The north column reached the throat of the pass before Rurik's fresh fighters could set their feet. He heard the boots first, then saw them come around the shoulder of rock. His mountain men were still climbing to the high stone. The door was not seated. The line was open, and the first ranks broke into a run for the gap. "Gunnar," Rurik said. "How long?" Gunnar knelt at the iron door, driving a pin with the flat of his hammer. Soot streaked his arms. He did not look up. "Not long enough." He struck again. The pin bit. "They're already here." Rurik looked at the running men, then at the two men at the gap. It would not hold. A charge would spill through before the door closed. He counted the seconds he did not have. "Thorin," he said. "The stones above." Thorin stood on the high rock with his father's axe in his fist. He saw what Rurik meant before the words were done. A loose shelf of rock leaned over the throat of the cut, held by nothing but its own weight. "Foolish," Thorin said. "Might bring the whole face down on us." He was already moving. "Get your men back." "Bjorn. With me." Rurik ran for the shelf. Bjorn came without a word, Rurik's belt-knife still swinging at his hip. The two of them set their shoulders against the leaning stone. Thorin drove his axe into the crack behind it and hauled. The first enemy ranks hit the gap. The two defenders there took the charge on their shields and gave a step. Steel rang. A man went down in the mud. The line bent. "Now," Rurik said. They heaved together. Rurik felt the stone give. It ground, tipped, and let go. The shelf came off the rim in a slab and dropped into the throat of the cut. It struck the front of the charge and buried the leading men where they ran. Dust rolled up thick. The rock jammed the gap to a hand's width. No horse would cross it. No rank would push through it. The charge broke on the far side. Men clawed at the fallen slab and found no way through. Behind it, Gunnar seated the last pin and the iron door swung true. Rurik stood on the rim, chest heaving. The gap was choked. The first charge had failed to break his open line, because there was no open line left to break. The column was stopped cold at the throat. Bjorn wiped dust from his eyes. "They'll dig it out." "Let them dig." Rurik looked down at the buried men and the wall of stone he had dropped on them. Thorin leaned on his axe, breathing hard, saying nothing. "They dig one stone at a time. We hold the door. And we make them pay for every hand." The siege was not lifted. But the pass had not fallen, and the column had learned it would bleed to take it.