It went on for many verses, and when the seven dwarves ran out of the formal lines of the old song, they just improvised, as they always did, with each piping in his own wants from such a remarkable place as Upsen Downs. That was the fun of the dwarven song, after all, and also a fairly subtle way for any perceptive dwarf to take a good measure of a potential friend or a potential foe.
Also, the song was a fine distraction, mostly for the three tugging the wagon along, backs bent and straining. They made fine progress through those minutes, bouncing along the rocky ground, the mountains rising up to their right as they moved south along the trail.
In the driver's seat, Tred called out names in order, bellowing for each to add the next verse. It went on smoothly, until he called out to his little brother Duggan.
The other five kept humming, providing the background, but they went through almost an entire verse, and there was still no response from Duggan.
"Well?" Tred asked, turning to regard his little brother and seeing a very confused look on Duggan's face. "Ye got to sing in, boy!"
Duggan looked at him curiously, confusedly, for a long moment, then quietly said, "I think I be hurt."
Only then did Tred look past that puzzled expression, moving his head back and taking a wider view of Duggan. Only then did Tred notice the spear sticking out of Duggan's side!
He gave a shriek, and the humming behind him stopped, with the two sitting in the back of the wagon turning to regard the slumping Duggan. Up front it quieted, too, but not completely, until a huge boulder whistled down, slamming the path right beside the three surprised dwarves and bouncing over them, clipping Nikwillig on the shoulder and knocking him silly.
The terrified horses broke into a gallop, and both the injured horse and poor Stokkum broke free of the rig, with Stokkum tumbling out onto the stony ground. Tred grabbed the reins hard, trying to slow the beasts, for his poor kinsmen up front were being tugged and dragged along, especially Nikwillig, who seemed unconscious.
Another boulder smashed down right behind the bouncing wagon, and a third hit the ground before the charging team. The horses veered wildly to the left, then tried to turn back to the trail on the right, putting the wagon up on two wheels.
"Move right!" Tred ordered, but even as he spoke the command, the wagon's left wheels buckled and the cart crashed down and flipped.
The horses broke free, then, taking the harness and the three strapped dwarves on a dead run down the rocky trail.
The two dwarves behind Tred went flying away -and Duggan was hardly aware of it-and Tred would have, too, except that his leg got hooked under the wagon seat. He felt the crunch of bone as the wagon came down atop him, then he got smacked on the head, and hard. He thought he had erupted into a bloody mess for a moment as the wagon continued its sidelong roll, but he had the fleeting notion that it was ale washing over him.
Luck alone extracted the dwarf from the crunching catastrophe, for he somehow wound up inside that decapitated keg. He went bounding and rolling away down the slope of the foothills. A rock stopped him abruptly, shattering the keg, and Tred went into a weird twisting somersault.
Tough as the stone around him, the dwarf struggled to his feet. One of his legs gave out under him, so he fell forward against the stone, stubbornly propping himself up on his elbows.
He saw them then, dozens and dozens of ores, waving spears, clubs, and swords, swarming over the destroyed wagon and fallen dwarves. A pair of giants followed them down from the higher ground -not hill giants, as Tred would have expected, but larger, blue-skinned frost giants. He knew
then that this was no ordinary band of raiders.
Slipping from consciousness, Tred kept enough of his wits about him to throw himself backward, falling into a roll down another slope, ending hard against another rock beneath a tangle of brambles. He tried to stand again but then tasted bloody dirt in his mouth.