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The ferocity of the onslaught caught Hænir off guard, despite his so recent experience with fighting these savages. They came at the Dwarves like beasts – very deadly beasts. As last time, they fought with incredible skill and speed, but with greater caution than before. He smiled as he realized that the Dwarves had won an odd form of respect from their enemies, and it showed in the caution they demonstrated in their fighting. Hænir returned this respect, particularly as he watched the glittering dance of their blades.
All time for reflection was soon gone, however, as he was plunged into the middle of the maelstrom. He planted his feet at a shoulder’s width apart and depended upon his axe to guard him from their blows. The last time he had fought these people, he had been constrained by the closeness of their battleground, and he had tried to make up for that by matching them speed for speed. Such a strategy had almost got him killed; and now that he was fighting them in the more open space of this grand hall, it would have been suicide to try and keep up with them. Instead, he fell back on the kind of battle he was most familiar with: maintaining closed ranks with his companions and giving no ground, he dealt out a series of precisely calculated powerful blows to any who dared come near him. The Rhûnians hard-won caution was well repaid, however, as they nimbly darted aside from his attacks, before launching themselves at him, attempting to get under his guard and wound him in the leg or under his arm where his armor was weakest. He countered each such attempt, but with every counter he was forced to move back a half step. Sometimes he was able to regain that ground, but sometimes not, with the result that he was slowly but inexorably being pushed back toward the wall where he would not have room to swing his axe…but where there would be ample space for knifework.
Seeing how the battle was ending, Hænir knew that he would have to change his strategy if he were to survive. Despite the risks, he began to press forward, advancing into the attacks of his enemies. This brought him closer to their blades and lessened the time he had to react to their attacks, and soon he had been cut twice beneath his left arm. Neither wound was grievous but it did not bode well. One particularly large Rhûnian seemed to have selected him as his intended prey; seeing the blood on the Dwarf’s side, the man lunged in at him, looking for the quick kill – it was a fatal mistake. With an easy upswing Hænir removed the man’s weaponhand, before killing him with the backswing. The other Rhûnians gave way slightly, horrified, he supposed, by the ease with which his sharpened blade had moved through his enemy.
But he had gained something far more valuable from the exchange than the death of a single enemy, for in the attack he had seen something that he had not noticed before, but which now stood out to his eyes as clearly as gems in a mine. Most of their attackers wielded two blades, and until now he had assumed that they sought to counter the weapon of their enemy with the lead blade so that they could slash with the following. But it was not so – they did counter his weapon with the lead blade, but rather than holding his axe with it, they would slash with the same blade while simultaneously countering his axe a second time with the following blade. It was a marvelous tactic that depended on blinding speed and a tremendous amount of skill. But now that he realized what they were doing, the advantage began to tip somewhat in his favour.
The very next attacker came at him and tried this precise maneuver. Prepared as he was for it, Hænir ignored the woman’s following hand, knowing that the lead hand, currently engaging his axe, was destined for his throat. Stepping into her guard he countered the blow that would have killed him with the shaft of his axe, and aiming low to avoid the second counter, he swept aside his enemy with a single blow. There was an almost audible gasp from his enemies as they saw the sudden ease with which he had dispatched her. Suddenly filled with the love of battle he cried, “Khazad!” and rushed at the murderous savages before him.
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