Trapped

heedless of any harm below the neck, bore the ricochets in silence.
    The Shield Brothers pressed forward, unwitting of their coming doom.
    Cunning Hel, bride of ice and despair, gave commands in tombstone whispers to her soldiers, who raised their weapons and fired at the ceiling above the Shield Brothers, bullets whipping off rocks, tearing through flesh from above, felling many who never struck a blow for their clans, never hewed a head from its shoulders.
    The front line marched on, and behind them quickwitted Shield Brothers raised their skaldic wards, redirected ricochets, foiled the efforts of Hel. And finally, when the armies met, the draugar learned of the strength of dwarfs! Rotted skulls flew from rotted bodies as axes swept the air over shields, while others were trampled under the vanguard and hewn apart by subsequent ranks.
    The draugar shrank back at first, their orderly advance exploded, but then they swelled as corpses will with blowflies and maggots, filled the tunnel with their unholy bodies, halted our advance and held their line, while their back ranks emptied magazines above the Shield Brothers’ heads, ceaseless ammunition thrown up to tear us down, and some found targets after two, three, or four ricochets.
    Slowly, by attrition, the draugar took their toll, slaying noble dwarfs in heat and noise and close rock walls with cowardly attacks. The dead soldiers of Hel pushed back, advanced again despite the best efforts of the valiant Shield Brothers, courageous warriors to the last.
    Bodies of their dwarven brethren, slick with blood, impeded both retreat and advance. The wounded, no matter how they cried for help, could not be tended in that close tunnel with so many enemies to fight; naught but enduring agony, desperate breaths, and despair was their lot, until their honorable deaths brought them peace and immortal glory.
    Back, back, beneath the onslaught, the Shield Brothers gave ground, slowly yet inexorably, pushed by the juggernaut of Hel’s army. Yet every footstep was dearly won, for it took hours for the draugar to travel the distance a dwarf may walk in five minutes, crawling over the massed dead.
    And in that time, assembling in the Grand Cavern, a mighty force of Shield Brothers awaited, ready to protect the market and residences and streets there. Ricochets would not be so effective in the Grand Cavern, and the Shield Brothers had firearms of their own. So when the tunnel forces were pushed back to the cavern, they abruptly retreated on a signal from their general, fell behind the lines, and allowed the draugar to walk into an ambush.
    Thousands of shambling soldiers were mown down by a fusillade from dwarf-made guns, and a furious cry of victory echoed in the cavern! Blue and twitching, heads shattered by bullets, the draugar fell in ranks, turned to foul dust, leaving their weapons behind.
    Yet still they came, innumerable as ants or the swarms of summer bees, and after we had slain a thousand with unremitting fire, they paused, and we entertained hopes that our resolve had taught Hel to reconsider her rash invasion of Nidavellir. But then they flooded once again through the opening, yet with this cruel difference: They held the bulletproof skaldic shields of our fallen brothers in front of their heads, and thus we could not slay them, only poke holes in their rotted flesh, slow them for a time with a shattered thighbone, a pulverized ankle, nothing more. And then the chill craft of Hel manifested itself, and we shuddered in horror at her plan, for every piece of it represented the death of a Shield Brother in the tunnel: The draugar began to make a wall of shields, three high, linking them together and then creating another column, by which method they created a corridor that would allow them to maneuver in safety.
    And it was, indeed, a corridor. Strangely, the draugar made no attempt to advance in the cavern, to advance on our treasures, to reach for our lives or destroy our homes. Putting aside their modern weapons, the Shield Brothers charged with axes and hammers to break the wall, and the resultant clash of arms thundered in the great cavern, as draugar were beheaded and dwarfs were shot by the defiant minions of Hel. Reports came back that the draugar were advancing through and past the cavern as fast as they could move, their objective elsewhere, their purpose unclear.
    And then in the court of King Aurvang a Svartálf bowed, ambassador of the dark elves, longtime