"Now, boys!" Torgar yelled to his dwarves. "They came to help us, and it's our turn to repay the favor!"
From on high came the dwarven charge, down the barren, rocky slope at full run. To their right, the west, came Galen and the humans, sweeping in behind the trolls as the monsters pressed eastward to do battle with the new threat.
Blood ran—troll, dwarf, and human. Troll roars, human screams, and dwarven grunts mingled in the air in a symphony of horror and pain. The drama played out, minute by minute, a hundred personal struggles within the greater overall conflict.
It was the end for so many that day, lives cut short on a bloody, rocky slope under a pre-dawn sky.
As the lines tightened, the wizards became less effective and it became a contest of steel against claw, of troll savagery against dwarf stubbornness.
In the end, it wasn't the weapons or the superior tactics that won the day for the dwarves and humans. It was the care for each other and the sense that those around each warrior would stand there in support, the confidence of community and sacrifice. The willingness to stand and die before abandoning a friend. The dwarves had it most of all, but so did the humans of Nesme and Silverymoon, while the trolls fought singly, self-preservation or bloodlust alone keeping them in battle.
Dawn broke an hour later to reveal a field of blood and body parts, of dead men, dead dwarves, and burned trolls, of troll body pieces squirming and writhing until the finishing crews could put them to the torch.
Battered and torn, half his face gouged by filthy troll claws, Torgar Hammerstriker walked the lines of his wounded, patting each dwarf on the shoulder as he passed. His companions had come out from Mirabar behind him, and had known nothing but battle after vicious battle by the end of the first tenday. Yet not a dwarf was complaining, and not one had muttered a single thought about going back. They were Battlehammers now, one and all, loyal to kin and king.
The fights, to a dwarf, were worth it.
As he moved past the line of his fighters, Torgar spotted Shingles talking excitedly to several of the Silverymoon militia.
"What do ye know?" Torgar asked when he came up beside his old friend.
"I know that Alustriel's not thinking to move north against Obould," came the surprising answer.
Torgar snapped his gaze over the two soldiers, who remained unshaken and impassive, and seemed in no hurry to explain the surprising news.
"She here?" Torgar asked.
"Lady Alustriel is with Galen Firth of Nesme," one of the soldiers asked.
"Then ye best be taking us there."
The soldier nodded and led them on through the encampment, past the piled bodies of Silverymoon dead, past the lines of horribly wounded men, where priests were hard at work in tending the many garish wounds. In a tent near the middle of the camp, they found Alustriel and Galen Firth, and the man from Nesme seemed in as fine spirits as Torgar had known.
The two dwarves allowed the soldiers to announce them, then walked up to the table where Lady Alustriel and Galen stood. The sight of Alustriel did give stubborn Torgar pause, for all that he had heard of the impressive woman surely paled in comparison to the reality of her presence. Tall and shapely, she stood with an air of dignity and competence beyond anything Torgar had ever seen. She wore a flowing gown of the finest materials, white and trimmed in purple, and upon her head was a circlet of gold and diamonds that could not shine with enough intensity to match her eyes. Torgar could hardly believe the thought, but it seemed to him that next to Alustriel, even Shoudra Stargleam would be diminished.
"L-lady," the dwarf stuttered, bowing so low his black beard brushed the ground.
"Well met, Torgar Hammerstriker," Alustriel said in a voice that was like a cool north wind. "I was hoping to speak with you, here or in the inevitable meetings I will have with King Bruenor of Mithral Hall. Your actions in Mirabar have sent quite an unsettling ripple throughout the region, you must know."
"If that ripple slaps Marchion Elastul upside his thick skull, then it's more than worth it," the dwarf answered, regaining his composure and taciturn facade.
"Fair enough," Alustriel conceded.
"What am I hearing now, Lady?" Torgar asked. "Some nonsense that ye're thinking the battle done?"
"The land is full of orcs and giants, good dwarf," said Alustriel. "The battle is far from finished, I am certain."
"I was just told ye weren't marching north to Mithral Hall."
"That is true."
"But ye just said—"
"This is not the time to take the fight to King Obould," Alustriel explained. "Winter will fast come on. There is little we can do."
"Bah, ye can have yer army—armies, for where's Everlund and Sundabar? — to Keeper's Dale in a tenday's time!"
"The other cities are watching, from afar," said Alustriel. "You do not understand the scope of what has befallen the region, I fear."
"Don't understand it?" Torgar said, eyes wide. "I been fighting in the middle of it for tendays now! I was on the ridge with Banak Brawnanvil, holding back the hordes. Was me and me boys that stole back the tunnels so that damned fool gnome could blow the top off the mountain spur!"
"Yes, I wish to hear all of that tale, in full, but another time," Alustriel said.
"So how can ye be saying I'm not knowing? I'm knowing better than anyone!"
"You saw the front waves of an ocean of enemies," Alustriel said. "Tens of thousands of orcs have crawled out of their holes to Obould's call. I have seen this. I have flown the length and breadth of the battlefield. There is nothing the combined armies can do at this time to be rid of the vermin. We cannot send thousands to die in such an effort, when it is better to secure a defensive line that will hold back the orc ocean."
"Ye came out to help Galen here!"
"Yes, against a manageable enemy—and one that still tore deeply into my ranks. The trolls have been pushed back, and we will drive them into the moors where they belong. Nesme," — she indicated the map on the table—"will be raised and fortified, because that alone is our best defense against the creatures of the Trollmoors."
"So ye come to the aid of Nesme, but not of Mithral Hall?" said Torgar, never one to hold his thoughts private.
"We aid where we can," Alustriel answered, remaining calm and relaxed. "If the orcs begin to loosen their grip, if an opportunity presents itself, then Silverymoon will march to Mithral Hall and beyond, gladly beside King Bruenor Battlehammer and his fine clan. I suspect that Everlund will march with us, and surely Citadels Felbarr and Adbar will not forsake their Delzoun kin."
"But not now?"
Alustriel held her hands out wide.
"Nothing ye can do?"
"Emissaries will connect with King Battlehammer," the woman replied. "We will do what we can."
Torgar felt himself trembling, felt his fists clenching at his sides, and it was all he could do to not launch himself at Alustriel, or at Galen, standing smugly beside her, the man seeming as if all the world had been set aright, since Nesme would soon be reclaimed.
"There is nothing more, good dwarf," Alustriel added. "I can not march my armies into the coming snow against so formidable an enemy as has brought war against Mithral Hall."
"It's just orcs," said Torgar.
No answer came back at him, and he knew he would get none.
"Will you march with us to Nesme?" Galen Firth asked, and Torgar felt himself trembling anew. "Will you celebrate in the glory of our victory as Nesme is freed?"
The dwarf stared hard at the man.
Then Torgar turned and walked out of the tent. He soon made it back to his kinfolk, Shingles at his side. Within an hour, they were gone, into the tunnels and marching at double-pace back to King Bruenor.
CHAPTER 16 SHIFTING SANDS AND SOLID STONE
"The boys from Felbarr're in sight across the river," Jackonray Broadbelt excitedly reported to King Bruenor.
For several days, the dwarf representative from Citadel Felbarr had been watching in
tently for the reports filtering down the chimneys for just such word. He knew that his kin were on the march, that Emerus Warcrown had agreed upon a Surbrin crossing to crash a hole in the defensive ring the orcs were preparing and link up aboveground with Mithral Hall.
"Three thousand warriors," Jackonray went on. "And with boats to get across."
"We're ready to knock out the hole in the east," Bruenor replied. "We got all me boys bunched at Garumn's Gorge, ready to charge out and chase the stinkin' orcs from the riverbank."
The two dwarves clapped each other on the shoulder, and throughout the audience hall other dwarves cheered. Sitting near to Bruenor's dais, two others seemed less than enthusiastic, however.
"You'll get them out fast?" Regis asked Nanfoodle.
The gnome nodded. "Mithral Hall will come out in a rush," he assured the halfling. "But fast enough to destroy the river defenses?"
The same question echoed in Regis's thoughts. They had won over and over again, and even when they'd lost ground, the cost had been heavier for their enemies. But all that had been achieved through defensive actions.
What they planned was something quite different.
"What do ye know, Rumblebelly?" Bruenor asked a moment later, and Regis realized that he wasn't doing a very good job of keeping his fears off of his face.
"There are a lot of orcs," he said.
"Lot o' dead orcs soon enough!" declared Jackonray, and the cheering grew even louder.
"We have the hall back, and they're not coming in," Regis said quietly. The words sounded incredibly inane to him as he heard them come from his mouth, and he had no idea what positive effect stating the obvious might bring. It was simply a subconscious delaying tactic, he understood, a way to move the conversation in another, less excitable direction.
"And they're soon to be running away!" Bruenor shot back at him, and the cheering grew even louder.
There was no way to go against it, Regis recognized. The emotions were too high, the anger bubbling over into the ecstasy of revenge.
"We should take no chances," Regis said, but no one was listening. "We should move with care," he said, but no one was listening. "We have them held now," he tried to explain. "How long will their forces hold together out there in the cold and snow when they know that there is nowhere left for them to march? Without the hunger of conquest, the orc momentum will stall, and so will their hearts for battle."
Nanfoodle's hand on his arm broke the halfling's gaining momentum, for it made Regis understand that Nanfoodle was the only one who even realized he was talking, that the dwarves, cheering wildly and leaping about, couldn't even hear his whispered words.
"We'll get out fast," the gnome assured him. "These engineers are magnificent. They will make wide tunnels, do not fear. The Battlehammer dwarves will come against the orcs before the orcs know they are being attacked."
Regis nodded, not doubting any of those specifics, but still very uneasy about the whole plan.
A clap on his other shoulder turned him around, to see Wulfgar crouching beside him.
"It is time to turn the orcs back to the north," the big man said. "It is time to put the vermin back in their mountain holes, or in the cold ground."
"I just.. " Regis started.
"It is the loss of Dagna," said Wulfgar.
Regis glanced up at him.
"You struck out forcefully and the cost was heavy," the barbarian explained. "Is it so surprising that you would be less eager to strike out again?"
"You think it was my fault?"
"I think you did the right thing, and everyone here agreed and agrees still," Wulfgar answered with a reassuring smile. "If Dagna could reach out from the Halls of Moradin, he would pick you up by the collar and send you running to lead the charge out the eastern doors." Wulfgar put his hand on the halfling's shoulder—and from shoulder to neck, Regis disappeared under that gigantic paw.
The halfling tuned back in to the wider conversation then, in time to hear Bruenor shouting orders to send signalers up the chimneys to the mountain-top, to tell the Felbarr boys across the river that it was time to send Obould running.
The cheering drowned out everything, and even Regis and Nanfoodle were swept up in it.
It was time to send Obould running!
* * * * *
"Before winter!" came the shout, and the roar that was heard in the common room of the human refugees was as loud as that of the dwarves above vowing vengeance on King Obould. Word had filtered down the corridors of Mithral Hall that Citadel Felbarr had come, and that King Bruenor and his dwarves were preparing to burst out of their imprisonment.
The River Surbrin would be secured—that much seemed certain—and the dwarves had promised to set up passage over the river to the lands still tamed. They would cross the Surbrin before winter.
"Never again will I be crawling into any tunnels!" one man shouted.
"But huzzah to King Bruenor and his clan for their hospitality!" shouted another and a great cheer went up.
"Silverymoon before the snow!" one shouted.
"Everlund!" argued another.
"There's word that Nesme's looking for hearty souls," added another, "to rebuild what the trolls tore down."
Each city mentioned drew a louder cheer.
Each one stung Delly as acutely as the bite of a wasp. She moved through the crowd nodding, smiling, and trying to be happy for them. They had been through so much turmoil, had seen loved ones die and houses burned to the ground. They had trekked across miles of rocky ground, had suffered the elements and the fear of orcs nipping at their heels all the way to Mithral Hall.
Delly wanted to be happy for them, for they deserved a good turn of fortune. But when the news had come down that the dwarves were preparing the breakout in earnest, and that they expected to open the way for the refugees to leave, all Delly could think about was that soon she would again be alone.
She had Colson of course, and Wulfgar when he was not up fighting— which was rarely of late. She had the dwarves, and she cared for them greatly.
But how she wanted to see the stars again. And bask in the sun. And feel the wind upon her face. A wistful smile crossed her face as she thought of Arumn and Josi at the Cutlass.
Delly shook the nostalgia and the self-pity away quickly as she approached a solitary figure in the corner of the large room. Cottie Cooperson didn't join in the cheers that night, and seemed hardly aware of them at all. She sat upon a chair, rocking slowly back and forth, staring down at the small child in her arms.
Delly knelt beside her and gently put her hand on Cottie's shoulder.
"Ye put her to sleep again, did ye, Cottie?" Delly quietly asked.
"She likes me."
"Who would not?" Delly asked, and she just knelt there for a long time, rubbing Cottie's shoulder, looking down at the peaceful Colson.
The sounds of eager anticipation continued to echo around her, the shouts and the cheers, the grand plans unveiled by man after man declaring that he would begin a new and better life. Their resilience touched Delly, to be sure, as did the sense of community that she felt there. All those refugees from various small towns, thrown together in the tunnels of dwarves, had bonded in common cause and in simple human friendship.
Delly held her smile throughout, but when she considered the source of the cheering, she felt more like crying.
She left the room a short while later, Colson in her arms. To her surprise, she found Wulfgar waiting for her in their room.
"I hear ye're readying to break free of the hall and march to the Surbrin," she greeted.
The bluntness and tone set Wulfgar back in his chair, and Delly felt him watching her closely, every step, as she carried Colson to her small crib. She set the baby down and let her finger trace gently across her face, then stood straight and took a deep breath before turning to Wulfgar and adding, "I hear ye're meaning to go soon."
"The army is already gathering at Garumn's Gorge," the big man confirmed. "The army
of Citadel Felbarr is in sight above, approaching the Surbrin from the east."
"And Wulfgar will be there with the dwarves when they charge forth from their halls, will he?"
"It is my place."
"Yer own and Catti-brie's," Delly remarked.
Wulfgar shook his head, apparently missing the dryness of her tone. "She cannot go, and it is difficult for her. Cordio will hear nothing of it, for her wounds have not yet mended."
"Ye seem to know much about it."
"I just came from her bedside," said Wulfgar as he moved toward Colson's crib—and as Delly moved aside, so that he did not see her wince at that admission.
Bedside, or bed? the woman thought, but she quickly shook the preposterous notion from her mind.
"How badly she wishes that she could join in the battle," Wulfgar went on. So engaged was he with Colson then, leaning over the side of the crib and waggling his finger before the child's face so that she had a challenge in grabbing at it, that he did not notice Delly's profound frown. "She's all fight, that one. I think her hatred of the orcs rivals that of a Gutbuster."
He finally looked up at Delly and his smile disappeared the moment he regarded the stone-faced woman, her arms crossed over her chest.
"They're all leaving," she answered his confused expression. "For
Silverymoon and Everlund, or wherever their road might take them."
"Bruenor has promised that the way will be clear," Wulfgar answered.
"Clear for all of us," Delly heard herself saying, and she could hardly believe the words. "I'd dearly love to see Silverymoon. Can ye take me there?"
"We have already discussed this."
"I'm needing to go," Delly said. "It's been too long in the tunnels. Just a foray, a visit, a chance to hear the tavern talk of people like meself."
"We will break through and scatter the orcs," Wulfgar promised. He came up beside her and hugged her close in his muscular arms. "We will have them on the run before winter and put them in their holes before midsummer. Their day is past and Bruenor will reclaim the land for the goodly folk. Then we will go to Silverymoon, and on to Sundabar if you wish!"
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