' Very clever,' thought Bekkar. 'But not clever enough.' He now knew where the enemy was and with his greater numbers, his men could now make quick work of them.

Most of the invaders were perhaps 100 feet up the back wall, so Bekkar had his men move toward that part of the canyon. At first shaken by the surprise attack and their unexpected losses, Bekkar's soldiers were once again sure of their superiority and advanced with some of their former confidence. Bunched together, with shields raised high for protection from the arrows raining down on them from the hillside, they moved toward the base of the rear canyon wall.

Before they reached their objective, however, they were surprised by another loud blast of the war horn and suddenly the ground at the base of the walls on both sides of the canyon exploded as screaming warriors, caked in mud and dried blood erupted from dozens of shallow holes where they had lain hidden since before dawn. They now charged in to attack both sides of the advancing lines with a ferocity Bekkar's men were unprepared for. Even as his men turned to meet this new, two-sided threat, Lashki and his warriors who had been on the hillsides above the battle poured screaming down the walls to join the fight, blades and axes swinging in a frenzy of flashing death.

Suddenly finding himself with the enemy on three sides and fighting in a relatively confined space, Bekkar discovered that there was not enough room for his superior numbers to be much of an advantage. His men were now forced into a tight mass due to the pressure of the three-sided attack and little more than a third of his men could even reach the enemy at any one time because of the bodies of their comrades fighting in front of them.

Knowing that they were no doubt doomed anyway, Lashki and his warriors fought as if possessed by demons. They had nothing to lose at this point and with their clan battle cry on their lips, they hacked and cut at the close-packed enemy with a ferocity well beyond what their meager endurance should have allowed them to do. The long, thick, two-handed swords and heavy battle axes of the northern barbarians cut through the thin shields and light armor of their foes with ease behind the almost berserk strength of the crazed warriors. The short, stabbing swords used by Bekkar's soldiers were of little use against the longer weapons of their opponents and Lashki and his men were soon having to step over the bodies of fallen enemy dead in order to reach new foes to fight.