A week later, north of the Misty Mountains.
The Blue Mountains dwarves' allied army, led by Thráin, marched grandly, with Thráin standing on the ridge, his steel War Boots crushing the accumulated snow.
Behind him, the battle banners of the Blue Mountains dwarves' allied army billowed in the cold wind like crimson magma.
Although the dwarves had been severely weakened after the Battle of Azanulbizar a hundred years ago, they had now responded to the call of the Durin royal family under Thráin's summons, gathering here once more.
Among the dwarves' allied army, the light infantry marched with nimble steps at the forefront. They wore light chainmail, covered by bright silver scale armor, with short-handled axes and round shields clanking at their waists.
The heavy infantry phalanx followed closely, like moving fortresses, clad in thick plate armor and wielding massive battle-axes and long-handled hammers. These plate-armored veterans had the upper part of their warhammers and long-handled axe shafts wrapped in oiled linen, ready to be lit at any moment and thrown to the ground to create makeshift firewalls.
Eight hundred War Ram Knightss escorted Thráin forward. These War Goats, like those of Dain's Iron Hills, had sharp horns and were covered in heavy iron armor. The Dwarven riders on their backs enthusiastically roared War Songs in dwarvish, their singing intertwined with the dull thud of goat hooves on stone, resembling a grand symphony.
Dwarven chariots rumbled in the center of the formation, with sharp spears protruding from between their bronze-clad wheels. Dwarven archers stood on the chariots, ready to support their teammates and strike enemies with a volley of arrows at any time.
Each chariot was also pulled by six War Goats, and the sound of their wheels rolling over the mountain rocks was like a giant beast grinding its teeth.
The siege corps bringing up the rear pushed detachable catapults and ballistas, gifts Thráin had prepared for the Lonely Mountain's thick gates and rock walls.
Thráin watched the Dwarven army that had answered his call with surging emotions, raising his warhammer. The cold light reflected from its blade pierced through the thick fog, and he occasionally shouted loudly: "Let Azog see, the fury of Durin's bloodline has never been extinguished!"
And the dwarves responded to their king by striking their shields with their hammers, their voices shaking the heavens.
Dain's plea for aid fell into the dwarves' camp at dawn the next day.
The carrier pigeon's right wing was almost torn to shreds by an orc arrow; it fell by Thráin's campfire, and the blood oozing from its beak stained the parchment letter reddish-brown.
As Thráin cut the string binding the letter with his warhammer, a murky drop of blood slid down the blade, making a dark red pit in the snow.
Other Dwarven lords arrived upon hearing the news. After Thráin finished reading the letter, he tossed it to them.
Thráin's healed eyes were bloodshot in the firelight, and his iron gauntlet crushed the tin wine cup in his hand as he spoke the letter's contents: "Dain is trapped in Lake-town… Azog's bastard ambushed him, then bit at his army's heels."
A hot-tempered Dwarven lord immediately grabbed his warhammer, his red beard bristling with anger as he roared: "If Dain sheds one drop of blood, the orcs will repay it with a lake of blood!"
Another Dwarven lord who had experienced Azanulbizar also shouted loudly: "Dain's injury is a disgrace to the Durin clan! Let those orc bastards see what Dwarven fury is!"
"Yes! Exactly!"
"We can't keep marching slowly!"
"What are we waiting for? Abandon the baggage! Chariots lead the way! If I don't get through this damned Misty Gorge in three days, I'll feed my beard to a warg!"
The other Dwarven lords, after reading Dain's plea for help, also became agitated, their voices echoing through the camp with anger and concern for Dain.
Thráin stepped into the bonfire, his War Boots crushing the firewood: "Issue the order: light infantry, shed your armor; heavy infantry, abandon your shields; War Goats, double sulfur beans! Charge to the pass before sunset. Anyone who dares to slow down half a step…"
The most hot-tempered Dwarven lord finished Thráin's sentence, saying, "I'll personally hammer him into wrought copper on an anvil!"
"Enough! All of you calm down!!" A calm lord gripped his axe handle and struck his shield forcefully, the noise drowning out the Dwarven lords' bickering.
Then he came to Thráin's side, pressing on his shoulder plate and speaking loudly: "Calm down, Thráin! Trust Dain! He will hold out in Lake-town, for molten iron of the Durin ancestors flows in his veins, not orc pus! Now, we should be the ones worrying! It is you, in fact, who is too hasty! To order our warriors to abandon their armor and shields! That is Azog! If Dain can be attacked by them, it means we might be too!"
Thráin was briefly stunned by the other's roar, then calmed down, a look of shame on his face: "You are right, brother. I was worried that Dain would be captured by Azog and suffer the same inhumane treatment as I did, and I was too eager for revenge, losing my composure."
Only then did this Dwarven lord nod, pressing Thráin's shoulder plate again, offering an apology for his rudeness, and stepping back.
"So, are we just going to let it be? Watch Dain fall into crisis and do nothing?" the hot-tempered Dwarven lord said discontentedly.
"How could that be?" Thráin immediately shook his head. After a moment of thought, he decisively ordered: "Those chariots, ballistas, and catapults will be needed when attacking the Lonely Mountain; we cannot abandon them. This damned Misty Mountains terrain is rugged, severely slowing our march. Therefore, to quickly support Dain, we can only send the War Ram Knightss, whose movements are unaffected by the terrain. So, you will lead all the War Ram Knightss, take a shortcut, and immediately head to Lake-town to support Dain."
The person Thráin pointed to was precisely that hot-tempered Dwarven lord.
The other party did not hesitate, simply saluting Thráin, then, carrying Thráin's token, he took his warhammer and went to find the commander of the War Ram Knightss.
Thráin withdrew his gaze from him and looked at the mountain pass shrouded in mist: "We set off too, and be wary of Azog's ambush. We will let this damned orc scum know that the dwarves' War Song will tear off his scalp!"
A few days ago.
Azog hunched his back, his eyes pressed against the map of the Misty Mountains.
His iron hook of a severed hand scraped across the parchment, poking a hole at the pass: "After Thráin receives Dain's plea for aid, his army will rush in here like rutting mountain goats… and I want their blood to soak every grain of sand."
Thirty Uruk-hai Trolls were chained deep within the cave; their skin looked as if it had been cast in sulfuric acid, with orc-forged iron armor embedded in their grey-black wrinkles.
These monsters, five zhang tall, were war machines specially bred by the Dark Lord Sauron, and also a grand gift Azog had prepared for Thráin.
Not just these Uruk-hai Trolls, Azog had also brought many Trolls of normal size for Thráin.
When ambushing Dain earlier, Azog had not deployed these Trolls because the environment around the Lonely Mountain was not suitable for Trolls.
Because Trolls cannot see sunlight; if they see sunlight, they turn into stone.
And the Misty Mountains are perpetually shrouded in thick mist, preventing sunlight from reaching the ground, thus becoming a natural lair for Trolls.
Time returned to the present, the Trolls were currently huddled in natural caves on either side of the pass, and orc archers squatted in higher caves.
Their arrowheads were soaked in venom, a toxin that wouldn't kill immediately but would cause the injured to fester and wail for three days, affecting morale.
When the first wisps of mist drifted over the mountain pass, the orcs controlling the Uruk-hai Trolls seared their eyelids with branding irons.
The Uruk-hai Trolls awoke in excruciating pain, the clang of their iron armor echoing like morning bells in hell.
The controlling orcs pointed at the swirling gray mist outside the cave, roaring in Black Speech, "The sun is your death! But now, here, you are death!"
As the Dwarven allied army led by Thráin was wary of ambushes and about to encounter the orcs and Trolls, Azog was elsewhere in the Misty Mountains.
He was in that underground Goblin kingdom, originally intending to hire these Goblins to cause trouble for Thráin, but he discovered that their king, that fat Goblin, was already dead.
Azog himself was on the other side of the Misty Mountains, in the underground Goblin kingdom that Thorin and his companions had passed through when they crossed the Misty Mountains earlier.
Azog's iron hook scraped against the moss on the cave wall of the Goblin kingdom, bringing up a string of dark green slime.
This lair, hidden deep within the belly of the Misty Mountains, was now filled with the stench of rotting flesh and mold.
Countless Goblin corpses were slowly decaying in this vast cavern, and the Goblin King's corpse lay beneath the throne, his head pierced by an arrow, terror frozen on his face, with another of Igon's arrowheads stuck between his yellowed teeth.
A cunning smile appeared at Azog's lips, and he unceremoniously used the tip of his hook to pick up the king's shattered crown; his pale face was like a specter in the dim, lightless underground cavern.
Since these Goblins had no king, he would make good use of this fact to make the Goblins obey his commands.
Azog deliberately lowered his voice, yet it stirred layers of echoes within the hearts of the living Goblins: "Look, your king died like a squashed slug.
And the murderer, Thorin Oakenshield, is now somewhere laughing and celebrating with his kin!"
Thousands of Goblins huddled in the shadows, sobbing, their emerald eyes flickering in the darkness like a swarm of frightened fireflies.
After losing their king, the intelligence of these lowly creatures was barely enough to distinguish whether mushrooms were poisonous; the tragic state of the throne room and Azog's arrival had plunged them into complete chaos.
A daring Goblin guard crawled forward, his claw pointing at the dark space beneath the throne: "It was, it was that human sorcerer!
He used evil magic to collapse the exit... we couldn't catch up... otherwise, we would definitely avenge our king!"
Azog's eyes suddenly narrowed; he, of course, knew that "the human sorcerer" referred to Arthur.
That wizard who suddenly appeared beside the dwarves, causing him to lose an entire elite troop of warg riders.
The cunning expression on Azog's face remained unchanged, then the iron hook suddenly pierced the guard's shoulder blade, lifting him into mid-air: "Want revenge? Want to use Thorin's guts as a noose?"
"Yes! We wish we could eat those Dwarven scoundrels alive!"
Pain became the best catalyst, and the Goblin guard struggled, shouting.
Azog flung the injured guard aside, strode onto the throne, feigned a moment of silent mourning for the dead Goblin King, then shouted to the Goblins: "Then take your poisoned arrows and sharp blades and come with me to the Lonely Mountain!
I will make you pull out the dwarves' beards one by one and stuff them into their nostrils!"
The cave erupted; the Goblins' brains were simpler than mushrooms, and they immediately believed Azog's words.
The Goblins brandished rusty knives and short bows, putrid saliva dripping from their fangs.
Azog raised his iron hook again, roaring: "To Ravenhill, and River Valley Town!
The Dwarven scoundrels who killed your king will surely go to these places! Go occupy every brick, every crevice!"
Thousands of Goblins, incited by his words, began to move as Azog instructed, pouring into the underground caverns like a tide of cockroaches, surging towards Ravenhill and River Valley Town.
Azog watched the Goblins he had deceived, grinning at the void: "Thorin Oakenshield, you think you can reclaim the Lonely Mountain?
No, the Lonely Mountain is a forge, and you dwarves are the kindling!"
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Thráin's army entered the pass where the orcs were ambushed; the cliffs on both sides towered into the clouds, and the mist was as thick as a wall.
The light infantry were the first to suffer.
Despite Thráin's orders, the Dwarven soldiers remained vigilant, but the fog provided too much advantage for the orcs.
orc poisoned arrows poured from the mist, the venom causing the wounded to let out agonizing wails.
But the wounded dwarves did not wail; the injured soldiers in the front ranks directly lit torches, dispersing the fog, and with their last strength, charged into the rock crevices where the orcs were hiding.
Amidst the stench of burning flesh, the heavy infantry stepped over the bodies of their valiantly sacrificed comrades, skewering the exposed orcs in the rock crevices like meat kebabs.
"Crossbow volley! Clear the cliff tops on both sides!"
Thráin's battle axe pointed skyward, and he shouted loudly.
After the fog was partially dispersed by the flames, he immediately noticed that there were indeed orc archer ambushes on the cliffs on both sides.
Thirty crossbows fired simultaneously; they did not shoot regular crossbow bolts, but rather iron net-cables, which soared into the sky wrapped in burning pitch, turning the orc archers on the cliff face into fiery balls that plummeted down.
As Thráin's battle axe split the skull of the third orc, the war cries of the Dwarven soldiers reached their peak.
The light-armored soldiers' torches and oil pots drew crimson arcs in the mist, turning the rock crevices where the orcs were hiding into furnaces.
The heavy infantry's shield wall moved like an iron anvil, working together to cut down the charging warg riders.
Several chariots even rolled through the enemy lines, with seven orc corpses impaled on their ramming spikes, and their spear-tipped wheels continuously crushed the orcs, making a sticky grinding sound.
After the initial brief confusion from the attack, the dwarves gradually gained the upper hand through their coordination and combat ability.
Victory seemed within reach, but then the ground began to tremble.
When the first Uruk-hai Troll burst through the wall of mist, the dwarves thought the mountain was collapsing.
A fifteen-foot-tall black iron giant's bludgeon swept across, scattering the front-line heavy infantry like dead leaves.
Their finely crafted plate armor was like paper against such absolute force; one dwarf's upper body was still embedded in his shield, while his lower body had been trampled into pulp.
"It's the Trolls!"
Screams erupted again from the Dwarven soldiers in front; the normal-sized Trolls also rushed out from their hiding caves, swinging thick clubs, and using their size advantage to brutalize the dwarves.