Daeren looked at his fellows in the small room. They were silent, expressionless. A few were mumbling prayers. He gripped his silver hammer and snarled, sitting up straight in his bed without aid for the first time in years.
"Come on, you Tree hugging sissies! Are we men, or are we DWARVES?"
The others only looked hollowly at him, and he felt a surge of energy flow through him. This was their final stand, and he knew it. Almost unwittingly, an old poem flowed from his lips.
"Do not go gentle into that good night!
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
Though wise dwarves at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night!
Good dwarves, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
Wild dwarves who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night!
Grave dwarves, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
And you, my friends, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray!
Do not go gentle into that good night!
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!"
The beast through the window with a horrible scream, and the Bucket Brigade, for the first, last, and only time, lept to their feet in defiance of their fate, as Daeren screamed his final words:
"COME 'ERE, YOU PANSY ASS ELF POLLINATIN' MOTHERFU-"