The Battle of Black Pass was an early event in the centuries following the War with Winter, remembered shamefully by dwarfs to this day. After a centuries’ long blood-feud, the Elf Prince Nualador lured the dwarfen army of the Ironhelm clan into Black Pass and a bloody slaughter.
In the twisting maze of canyons of the Knife Spires, Prince Nualador and his kinsmen engaged the dwarfs in a series of masterfully directed hit-and-run attacks. The two armies faced each other across the narrow defile of Black Pass, and the dwarfs marched resolutely through the hail of arrows launched by the elves. They outnumbered the elves heavily and were confident of victory.
Just before the dwarf charge hit home, the elves turned tail and fled, their ranks seemingly in utter disarray. The dwarfs pushed forward, advancing further up the ever-narrowing canyon in pursuit of the fleet�footed elves. As the walls closed in, the crush became ever more oppressive as the entire dwarf army surged forwards. Only then did Nualador launch his trap. The young prince had positioned vast batteries of Dragon’s Claw bolt throwers upon the ridges overhead, and as the dwarfs pushed into the narrow defile below, they unleashed their fury.
The dwarfs could not escape the brutal fire of the war machines, so tightly packed where they, and hundreds died in the first barrage. Those elves that had been feigning flight turned back upon their pursuers, cutting them down with relentless waves of bow fire before Nualador led the counter-charge of his spearmen, breaking the back of the enemy army and cutting through them without mercy.
The dwarf momentum was stymied and their army crumbled under the sheer fury of the elven blades. Nevertheless, it was the horrific toll that the Dragon’s Claw bolt throwers exacted that accounted for the vast majority of the dwarf casualties that day.
By sundown, it became clear that more than ten thousand dwarfs had been slain, including their lord, Balor Ironhelm III, for the loss of less than fifty elves.
Great soliloquies against elven dishonour were composed in the wake of the dwarfen defeat at Black Pass and were recited for untold generations.
Trivia
- Crohn Maevus wrote about this battle while he was the Head Archivist for the Imperial Records between the Years 3562-3730 CE
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