THROUGH THE STABLE DOOR JILL ought to have been back at the white rock already but she had quite fotten that part of her orders in the excitement of watg the fight. Now she remembered. She tur ond ran to it, and arrived there barely a sed before the others. It thus happehat all of them, for a moment, had their backs to the enemy. They all wheeled round the moment they had reached it. A terrible sight met their eyes.
A ene was running towards the stable door carrying something that kicked and struggled. As he came between them and the fire they could see clearly both the shape of the man and the shape of what he carried. It was Eustace.
Tirian and the Uni rushed out to rescue him. But the ene was now far o the door then they. Before they had covered half the distance he had flua and shut the door on him. Half a dozen more enes had run up behind him. They formed a line on the open space before the stable. There was ing at it now.
Even then Jill remembered to keep her face turned aside, well away from her bow. "Even if I t stop blubbing, I wo my stri," she said.
"Ware arrows," said Poggin suddenly.
Everyone ducked and pulled his helmet well over his he Dogs crouched behind. But though a few arrows came their way it soon became clear that they were not being shot at. Griffle and his Dwarfs were at their archery again. This time they were coolly shooting at the enes.
"Keep it up, boys!" came Griffles voice. "All together. Carefully. We dont want Darkies any more than we want Monkeys - or Lions - or Kings. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.」
Whatever else you may say about Dwarfs, no one say they arent brave. They could easily have got away to some safe place. They preferred to stay and kill as many of both sides as they could, except when both sides were kind enough to save them trouble by killing one ahey wanted Narnia for their own.
erhaps they had not taken into at was that the enes were mail-clad and the Horses had had no prote. Also the enes had a leader. Rishda Tarkaans voice cried out: "Thirty of you keep wat those fools by the white rock. The rest, after me, that we may teach these sons of earth a lesson.」
Tirian and his friends, still panting from their fight and thankful for a few minutes rest, stood and looked on while the Tarkaan led his men against the Dwarfs. It was a strange se by now. The fire had sunk lower: the light it gave was now less and of a darker red.
As far as one could see, the whole place of assembly was y except for the Dwarf and the enes. In that light one couldnt make out much of what was happening. It sounded as if the Dwarfs were putting up a good fight. Tirian could hear Griffle using dreadful language, and every now and thearkaan calling, "Take all you alive! Take them alive!」
Whatever that fight may have been like, it did not last long. The noise of it died away.
Then Jill saw the Tarkaan ing back to the stable: eleven men followed him, dragging eleven bound Dwarfs. (Whether the others had all been killed, or whether some of them had got away, was never known.)
"Throw them into the shrine of Tash," said Rishda Tarkaan.
And when the eleven Dwarfs, oer the other, had been flung or kicked into that dark doorway and the door had been shut again, he bowed low to the stable and said: "These also are for thy burnt , Lord Tash.」
And all the enes bahe flats of their swords on their shiel