[Gwathagor]

The soldiers were indeed ready, sixty of the fiercest, finest warriors in Khazad-dum. They stood shoulder to shoulder like grim chiseled stones, three ranks deep, awaiting Frar's command. Not one of them moved a muscle, but the tension was nearly palpable. They all felt it - the excitement, the pre-battle thrill. Even the most hardened veterans there, who had known that sensation countless times before and lived to remember it, felt it again, as they always would before a fight. Frar surveyed them, weighing their strength and their morale with a practiced eye. He strode down the ranks, turned, and strode back. He paused and tapped his foot - and then nodded slowly, his jaw set. He spoke to the lieutenant.

"Send for my axe."

The glowing embers of their excitement were kindled into a flame. This is what the dwarves wanted to hear. Most of them had fought under Frar before, and these muttered quietly to each other, some nudging, some grinning solemn grins. "Gamil Naragatholbund" they called him: "Old Citadel," and the other soldiers could see what they meant. Frar towered above all but the tallest of them like a black boulder, a titan of basaltic muscle and sinew bound in iron. "But have you seen his weapon?" they said. The newcomers had not, but they heard the name "Buzunimbar" passing between the ranks, and they wondered at it.

"First two ranks, step forward."

They did so as one man.

"You will be under my command. Third rank, the Lord Tror will lead you. We have very little time and we cannot wait for our skilled masons to be summoned. When we reach the site, we will throw up simple defenses - enough to break the goblin-army's advance. Then we can take them man-to-man."

Two smiths ran up, breathless. "Your - axe - sir," one gasped, and it was no wonder he was out of breath, for the weapon the two of them bore between them was tremendous. It was nearly as tall as an ordinary dwarf: long of handle, heavy of blade, and forged entirely of a dull black metal, of which, in the torchlight, only the very edges of the blades gleamed all along their twice-curved lengths. Buzunimbar it was, Black-Horn, the only axe Frar had ever borne in his long life, and it was as dark and scarred as he was; but its edge was still keen, and it had been newly sharpened. Most of the dwarves knew that axe and what it had done and could do. The others could well imagine, now that they saw its for themselves, why orc-chieftains told stories to their youngest fighters about the Grim Claw, the bane of their northern kin. It was a thing of fearsome use and terrible beauty.

Frar gave his thanks with an inclination of his head and took the enormous thing from the hands of the relieved smiths as though it were no lighter than a wooden board and yet also as if it meant as much to him as life itself. The smiths edged away and disappeared down a corridor. Frar felt the weight in his hands and lifted the horrible axe with one hand, raising it above his head.

"Gundi!" he thundered. "My hewers! Follow me!"

The electrified dwarves roared back their approval with a shout. "Buzunimbar! Buzunimbar for Tror and Khazad-dum!" they cried, and then fell silent. The soldiers all turned a sharp ninety degrees, and then the first rank began to march as a single-file line, for, even as they cheered him on, Frar had already turned his back and strode out of the hall towards the East Gate.

Outside, the last light of Durin's Day was failing as dusk crept up out of the east into the Dale - and with it, the goblin horde.