Where she is right - The story of Dís, daughter of kings.

4

With trembling fingers Dwin lit the candle and Dís went to the door and opened it wide. They heard the warg creep around the room downstairs and take a loud snort to scent his surrounding. Then silence. And in the next moment the stairs creaked under the immense weight of the beast. It was on its way up to them.

"Do you hear that? It is lame", Dís said softly. 

And really. As Dwin listened in terror she could clearly hear an irregularity in the heavy steps.

"Magda! The room is to low for a stroke over head. Place yourself over there in the corner. You will distract it briefly with the poker. I'll give you a sign", Dís ordered. Magda nodded, clenched her teeth and got into position. The iron poker firmly in hand.

"What am I supposed to do?", Dwin asked desperately.

She had pulled her knife and still stood at the window.

"You will get you chance for heroism when I make a mistake", Dís answered quietly without letting the door out of sight.

The warg had reached the landing and sniffed. Then he slowly made a few steps towards their room.

The big ugly head appeared in the door frame. The warg growled. Step be step it came closer, lugging his left hind leg. The little malicious eyes were on Dís who stood, head held up high, directly in his path. It hesitated.

But its hunger seemed stronger than its suspicion and it moved on. Its forelegs crossed the doorstep and after one further step into the room Dís nodded to Magda without taking her eyes of the predator.

Magda shouted at it and stabbed hard with her poker at the shoulder of the giant wolf. The warg whirled around, snarled and got ready to attack. These few moment Dís took to get enough momentum with a swirling rotation for a powerful blow aslant upwards. Her blade slashed the throat of the warg and was stopped with an awful crunching sound by the neck vertebrae. Dís pulled the sword through to the tip with all her strength and stood ready to carry out another blow if necessary. A gurgling was heard and blood gushed in spurts from the gaping wound. The warg stood still for a moment swaying on its three legs and then collapsed.

Magda who had taken all of her courage to turn against the wolf let herself slide down the wall now. Her knees just gave way. Dís kicked with the tip of her boot carefully at the warg's nose but it did not move. She sighed in relief but kept the sword still in her hand. From downstairs came a loud knock on the front door.

"Magda? Magda, open up! It's over!", called a man's voice.

"Hans! Oh, thank God!", cried Magda, tears of relief streaming down her face now. She stumbled to her feet, stepped over the dead animal and hurried down the stairs. They heard her remove the bolt and open the door. Crying she fell into the arms of her husband. Someone else came up the stairs and a moment later Dwalin stood in the door over the dead warg. Pale and shaken he looked around for the dwarrowdams.

"What...", he began.

"We're fine", Dwin assured him quickly.

Dwalin stumbled into the room and fell down on his knees in front of the princess.

"Dís! I...", he muttered.

"Oh, be quiet! This mess here we evaluate later. Report!", Dís snapped.

Dwalin gathered his thoughts for a moment and said:

"One injured, otherwise only scratches. One of our dwarves got a bite in the leg. Bad luck. Stumbled the wrong moment and although the elf who was closest to him was there immediately and killed the warg it had happened. The surgeon of the settlers is with him now. We have killed thirty-seven of them. All that were in the circle."