Regis gave a resigned sigh and dropped the parchment that the scout had just delivered. He watched it float down, gliding left then right before landing on the edge of his desk and hanging there precariously. How fitting, the halfling thought, for it was just one more troubling document in a pile of worry. The scout had come from the south to report that some trolls had turned around in apparent pursuit of Galen Firth and the band Regis had sent to the aid of Nesme.
The halfling's instincts told him to muster an army and go retrieve the fifty dwarves.
But how could he? He had nearly a thousand still up on the cliff fighting with Banak and another even larger group settled into the western reaches of Keeper's Dale, holding Banak's flank and the course to Mithral Hall's western door. Those limited numbers of dwarves still within Mithral Hall proper had more than enough to keep them busy, between patrolling the tunnels, ferrying supplies up to and bringing wounded down from Banak - and replacing his losses - and running the forges nonstop, crafting the items for Nanfoodle.
A sour look crossed Regis's face when he thought of those forges, and for a moment he considered shutting Nanfoodle's crazy scheme down then and there. He could free up some dwarves at least and send them off to the south.
Another sigh escaped the halfling's lips, and he dropped his face into his palms. Hearing a rap on his door, he rubbed his face briskly, looked up, and bid the knocker to enter.
In came a dwarf arrayed in battle gear, except that his head was wrapped with a bandage instead of encased in a helmet.
"Fighting's begun in the tunnels under the giant ridge," the dwarf reported. "Banak telled me to tell yerself."
"When you came down to get your wounds tended," Regis reasoned.
"Bah, just a scratch," said the dwarf. "Came down to get some long spears so we can build a few new defenses."
He nodded and started back out.
"How goes the fighting in the tunnels?" Regis asked after he recovered from the dwarf's statement.
The warrior looked much worse than he was letting on. One side of the head-wrap was dark with blood and his armor showed dozens of tears and dents. The dwarf turned back.
"Ye ever try to push an enemy outta a tunnel?" he asked. "An enemy that's dug in and ready for ye?"
Regis tried not to grimace as he shook his head. The dwarf just nodded grimly and walked away.
That brought yet another sigh from Regis, but not until the dwarf had closed the door - he didn't want to show any outward display of despair or weakness after all. But it was getting to him, truly wearing at his emotional edges. Dwarves were fighting and dying, and ultimately, it was his decision to keep them there. As steward, the halfling could recall Banak and his forces, could bring all of Clan Battlehammer and all of the newcomers to the halls back within the defenses of Mithral Hall itself. Let the orcs try to move them out then! And given his own revelation that this continuing battle might be exactly what the orcs were hoping for, perhaps recalling the forces would be the most prudent move.
But such a move would, in effect, be handing all the region over to the invading orcs, would be abandoning Mithral Hall's standing as the primary kingdom in their common cause of the defense of the goodly folk in the wild lands beneath the shadows of the eastern stretches of the Spine of the World.
It was all too confusing and all too overwhelming.
"I am no leader," Regis whispered. "Curse that I was put in this role."
The moment of despair passed quickly, replaced by a wistful grin as Regis imagined the answer Bruenor would have had for him had he heard him utter those words.
The dwarf would have called him Rumblebelly, of course, and would have backhanded him across the back of his head.
"Ah, Bruenor," Regis whispered. "Will you just wake up then and see to these troubles?"
He closed his eyes and pictured Bruenor, lying so still and so pale. He went to Bruenor each night, and slept in a chair right beside the dwarf king's bed. Drizzt was nowhere around, and Catti-brie and Wulfgar were both tied up with Banak in the fighting, but Regis was determined that Bruenor would not die without one of his closest companions beside him.
The halfling both feared and hoped for that moment. He couldn't understand why Bruenor was even still alive, actually, since all the clerics had told him that the dwarf would not survive more than a day or so without their tending - and that had been several days before.
Stubborn old dwarf, Regis figured, and he pulled himself out of his chair, thinking to go and sit with his friend. He usually didn't visit Bruenor that early in the evening, certainly not before he had taken his supper, but for some reason, Regis felt that he had to go there just then. Perhaps he needed the comfort of Bruenor's company, the reminder that he was the dwarf king's closest friend, and therefore was correct in accepting the call as Steward of Clan Battlehammer.
Or maybe he could simply find strength in sitting next to Bruenor, recalling as he often did his old times beside the toughened dwarf. What an example Bruenor had been for him all those years, standing strong when others turned to flee, laughing when others crouched in fear.
As he was moving through the door, another thought struck Regis and took from him every ounce of comfort that the notion of going to Bruenor had seeded within his heart and mind.
Perhaps, he suddenly realized, he had felt the need to go to Bruenor because somehow Bruenor's spirit was calling out to him, telling him to get to the king's bedside if he truly wanted to be there when his friend breathed his last.
"Oh no," the halfling gasped, and he ran off down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him.
The speed of his approach and the unusually early arrival time in Bruenor's chamber brought to Regis an unexpected enlightenment, for as he moved through the door, he found not only Bruenor Battlehammer, lying still as death on the bed, but another dwarf crouching over him, whispering prayers to Moradin.
For a moment Regis thought that the priest was helping to usher Bruenor over to the other side and that perhaps he had arrived too late to witness his friend's passage.
But then the halfling realized the truth of it, that the priest, Cordio Muffinhead, was not saying good-bye but was casting spells of healing upon Bruenor.
Wide-eyed, wondering if Bruenor had done something to elicit such hope as healing spells, Regis bounded forward. His sudden movement alerted Cordio to his presence, and the dwarf looked up and fell back, sucking in his breath. That nervous movement clued Regis in that his hopes were for naught, that something else was going on there.
"What are you about?" the halfling asked.
"I come to pray for Bruenor's passing every day," the dwarf gruffly replied, a half-truth if Regis had ever heard one.
"To ease it, I mean," Cordio tried to clarify. "Praying to Moradin to take him gently."
"You told me that Bruenor was already at Moradin's side."
"Aye, and so his spirit might be - aye, it... it must be," Cordio stammered. "But we're not for wanting the body's passing to be a painful thing, are we?"
Regis hardly heard the response, as he stood there considering Bruenor, considering his friend who should have died days before, soon after he gave the order to the priests to let him be.
"What are you about, Cordio?" the halfling started to ask, but he stopped short when another rushed into the room.
"Steward's comi - " Stumpet Rakingclaw started to say, until she noted that Regis was already in the room.
Her eyes went wide, and she seemed to mutter some curse under her breath as she stepped back.
"Aye, Cordio Muffinhead," Regis remarked. "Steward's coming, so end your spells of healing on King Bruenor and be gone quick."
He turned on Cordio as he spoke the accusation, and the dwarf did not shrink back.
"Aye," Cordio replied, "that would've been close to Stumpet's own words, had ye not been in here."
"You're healing him," Regis accused, engulfing them both in his unyielding glare. "Every day you come in here and cast your magic into his body, preserving his life's breath. You won't let him die."
"His body's here, but his spirit's long gone," Cordio replied.
"Then let him die!" Regis ordered.
"I cannot," said Cordio.
"There is no dignity!" the halfling yelled.
"No," Cordio agreed. "But Bruenor's got his duty now, and I'm seeing that he holds it. I cannot let King Bruenor's body pass over."
"Not yet," said Stumpet.
"But you are the ones who told me that you cannot bring him back, that soul and body are far separated and will not hear the call of healing powers," the half-ling argued. "Your own words brought forth my decision to let Bruenor go in peace, and now you defy my order?"
"King Bruenor cannot fully join his ancestors until the fighting's done," Cordio explained. "And not for Bruenor's sake - this's got nothing to do with Bruenor."
"It's got to do with the king, but not the dwarf," Stumpet added. "It's got to do with them who're out there fighting for Mithral Hall, fighting under the name o' King Bruenor Battlehammer. Ye go and tell Banak Brawnanvil that Bruenor's dead and see how long his line'll hold against the orc press."
"This ain't for Bruenor," said Cordio. "It's for them fighting in Bruenor's name. Ye should be understanding that. Mithral Hall's needing a king."
Regis tried to find an argument. His lips moved, but no sound came forth. His eyes were drawn low, to the specter of Bruenor, his friend, the king, lying so pale and so still on the bed, his strong hands drawn up one over the other on his once-strong chest.
"No dignity...." the halfling did whisper, but the complaint sounded hollow even to him.
Bruenor's life had been about honor, duty, and above all else, loyalty. Loyalty to clan and to friend. If staying alive meant helping clan and friend, even if it meant great pain for Bruenor, the dwarf would put an angry fist in the eye of anyone who tried to stop him from performing that duty.
It pained Regis to stand there staring at his helpless friend. It pained Regis to think that those clerics were going against the wishes of Catti-brie and Wulf-gar, the two who held the largest claim over the fate of their adoptive father.
But the halfling could find no argument against the logic of Cordio and Stumpet's reasoning. He glanced at the two dwarves and without either affirming or denying their work, he put his head down and walked out of the room, yet another weight on his burdened shoulders.
The two heavy iron tubes clanged down to the stone floor and bounced around for a moment until Nanfoodle finally managed to corral them and hold them steady. The gnome huffed and puffed after carrying the two lengths all the way from the forges. He didn't sit back and rest, but instead adjusted the metal tubes so that they were set end to end.
Pikel Bouldershoulder looked at the items curiously, then down at the pile of mud set before his crossed legs. The enchantment would soon fade on the mud, he knew, reverting it to its former solidity. The green-bearded dwarf scooped a handful and slid over to the two pipes, then lifted the end of one and examined it.
"Heh," he said appreciatively, noting that the dwarves had put a lip on either end of each piece.
He waved Nanfoodle over to his side, and the gnome took up the other tube and carefully held it up to the end Pikel had elevated.
Pikel helped press them together, and Nanfoodle quickly wrapped the area of the joint round and round with a strip of cloth. Pikel brought his hand in, slopping the mud all around the joint, all over the cloth wrap. He worked the mud around, then he and Nanfoodle carefully laid the two pieces back on the floor. Nanfoodle quickly gathered some small stones and buffered them against the curving sides of the two pieces, securing them in place while Pikel's stone hardened.
And harden it did, sealing the two pieces together into a single length.
"Ssssss," Pikel explained, pointing down at the joint, and he pinched his nose.
"Yes, it will leak if we leave it as is," Nanfoodle agreed. "But we shall not."
He rushed out and returned a few moments later bearing a heavy bucket, the handle of a wide brush protruding over its lip. Setting the bucket down, Nanfoodle lifted the brush, which was dripping with heavy black tar. Again, the gnome bent low to the joint, washing over it with the tar.
"No ssssss," he said to Pikel, waggling his finger in the air.
"Hee hee hee," the green-bearded dwarf agreed.
It did Nanfoodle's heart good to see Pikel in such fine spirits. Since the loss of his arm, the dwarf had been sullen, and even less talkative than usual. Nanfoodle had watched him carefully, though, and had come to the conclusion that Pikel's despair was wrought more from being helpless in the face of the current adversity than in his own sudden disadvantage.
Engaging the green-bearded dwarf so completely in his plan - and indeed, Pikel was the best suited of all for such a task - had brought energy back to the dwarf and had rekindled the dwarf's wide smile. Sitting there with his stone-turned-to-mud, Pikel even offered the more-than-occasional "Hee hee hee."
"They're fighting up above," Nanfoodle remarked.
"Oooo," Pikel replied.
He started to rise and turn, as if he meant to run right off to the battlefield.
"The tunnels under the giants," Nanfoodle explained, grabbing Pikel's arm and holding him in place. "If we are fortunate, the battle will be over before we could even get up to join it. But we cannot ask our friends to hold those tunnels for long - doing so will deplete Banak's resources greatly."
"Oooo."
"Only we can help alleviate that, Pikel," Nanfoodle said. "Only you and I, by working hard and working fast."
He glanced down at the lengths of metal tubing.
"Uh huh," Pikel agreed, and he fell back to work, gathering up his large bucket of mud, which was fast turning back to its previous solid state.
Nanfoodle nodded and took a deep breath. It was indeed time to begin in earnest. He considered the course he had to lay out and quickly estimated the maximum number of dwarves he could press into service before creating a situation with simply too many workers. Regis would be easy to convince, the gnome understood, for up above, the truly brutal work, the clearing of the tunnels, was already underway.
Nanfoodle imagined some of the scenes of battle that were no doubt occurring even then.
A shudder coursed his short spine.
"Damned archers!" Tred McKnuckles cried.
He fell to the side of the tunnel, throwing himself behind a rock. The dwarves had easily enough gained the outer areas of the tunnels, the southern stretches nearest to Keeper's Dale, but as they had moved in deeper, the resistance had grown more and more stubborn. Tred's group, which included Ivan Bouldershoulder and Tred's Felbarr friend Nikwillig, had hit fortified resistance along one long and narrow tunnel.
A short distance from them, the orcs had dug in behind a wall of piled stones and held several vantage points from which they could fire their bows and throw their light spears.
"Torgar's pressing on to our left," Ivan, who had similarly dived for cover on the opposite side of the corridor, called back to Tred. "He'll move past us to the wider halls. He's to be needing our support!"
"Bah!" Tred snorted, and he determinedly leaped out from behind the rock - and promptly got hit by a trio of arrows that had him slumping back from where he'd started.
"Ah, ye fool!" Ivan cried.
"That one's hurtin'," Tred admitted, clutching at one of the quivering arrow shafts.
"We'll get ye outta here!" Ivan promised.
Tred held up his hand and shook his head, assuring the other dwarf that he was all right.
"We gotta get 'em pushed back," the Felbarr dwarf called back.
"Nine Hells!" spouted a frustrated Ivan.
He pulled a crossbow quarrel from his bandoleer and eyed it carefully. His friend Cadderly had designed those bolts, with Ivan's help. Solid on both ends, they were partially cut out in the middle, designed to hold a small vial in their cubby. That vial was full of enchanted oil, designed to explode under the impact of the dart's collapse.
Ivan fitted the bolt to his small hand crossbow - another design that he and Cadderly had worked to perfection - then fell flat to his belly, eased himself out, and launched the missile down the corridor.
Without much force behind it, for it was merely a hand crossbow after all, the bolt looped down toward the orcs. It hit one of the rocks that formed their barricade and collapsed on itself. The oil flashed and exploded, blowing away a piece of the rocks.
"Let me chip away at their walls," Ivan called to Tred. "We'll send them pigs running!"
He fitted another bolt and let it fly, and another small explosion sounded down the tunnel.
And the tunnel began to tremble.
"What'd ye do?" a wide-eyed Tred asked.
Ivan's eyes were no less open.
"Damned if I'm knowing!" he admitted as the thunder began to grow around them. Ivan looked down at his bandoleer, and even pulled forth another dart. "Just a little thing!" he cried, shaking his head, and he looked back down toward the orcs.
He realized only then that the reverberations were behind his position, not in front.
"Tweren't me, then!" Ivan howled, and he looked back in alarm.
"Bah! Cave-in!" cried Tred, catching on. "Get 'em out! Get 'em all out!"
But it wasn't a cave-in, as the two dwarves and their companions learned a moment later, when the leading edge of the thunder-makers came around the corner behind them, charging up the tunnel with wild abandon.
"Not a collapse!" one dwarf further down the corridor called.
"Gutbusters!" cried another.
"Pwent?" Ivan mouthed at Tred, and both wisely rolled back tighter against their respective wall.
His answer came in one long, droning roar: the cry of sheer outrage, the scraping of metal armor, and the stamp of heavy boots. The column rushed past him, Thibbledorf Pwent in its lead, and bearing before him a great, heavy tower shield. Arrows thunked into that shield, and one skipped past, catching Pwent squarely in the shoulder. That only made him yell louder and run faster, leaning forward eagerly.
Orc bows fired repeatedly, and orc spears arced through the narrow passage, but the Gutbusters, be it from courage or stupidity, did not waver a single step. Several took brutal hits, shots that would have felled an ordinary dwarf, but in their heightened state of emotion, the Gutbuster warriors didn't even seem to feel the sting.
Pwent hit the rock barricade at a dead run, slamming against it, and the dwarves behind him hit him at a dead run too, driving on, forming a dwarven ramp over which their buddies could scramble.
And the wall toppled.
A few orcs remained, some firing their bows, some just swatting with flimsy weapons, others drawing swords.
The Gutbusters responded heart and soul, leaping onto their enemies, thrashing them with wickedly ridged armor, skewering them with head spikes, or slugging them with spiked gauntlets.
By the time Ivan helped the stung Tred hobble down to the toppled barricade, no orcs remained intact, let alone alive.
"Gotta take 'em fast and not let 'em shoot ye more'n a few times," the smelly Thibbledorf Pwent explained.
He seemed oblivious to the fact that a pair of arrows protruded from one of his strong shoulders.
"Get that tend - " Ivan started to say to him, but he was interrupted by a cry from farther along, calling out another barricade.
"Get 'em boys!" howled Pwent. "Yaaaaaaaaaa!"
He kicked the broken stones off of his shield and yanked it up. With a chorus of cheering all around him, Pwent set off again at a dead run.
"Hope we don't get to the wider areas too much afore Torgar," Ivan remarked.
Tred just snorted and shook his head, and Ivan helped him along.
Far down from the fighting, in the sulfuric chamber beneath the northern floor of Keeper's Dale, Nanfoodle, Pikel, and a host of dwarves had gathered, heavy cloths over their faces, protecting them from the nasty stench.
Pikel crouched in a pit that had been carved on the edge of the yellowish water. He was mumbling the words of a spell, waving his hand and his stump of an arm over the stone. Beside him, one burly dwarf held a long metal tube vertically, its bottom end capped with a spearlike tip. Pikel finished the spell and fell back, nodding, and the dwarf plunged the long tube into the suddenly malleable stone. Burly arms pressed on, sliding the metal down through the mud, until more than half its length had disappeared.
"Hit rock," he explained.
Pikel nodded and smiled as he looked at Nanfoodle, who breathed a sigh of relief. It would be the trickiest part of all, the gnome believed. First, with Pikel's help, they had excavated ten feet of stone, leaving a thin wall of about five feet to the trapped gasses. There was little room for error.
They waited until the enchanted mud turned back to stone, and on a nod from the gnome, a pair of mallet-wielding dwarves stepped forward and began tapping at the top of the tube.
Nanfoodle held his breath - he knew that one spark could prove utterly disastrous, though he hadn't shared that little tidbit with any of the others.
He didn't breathe again properly until one of the hammering dwarves remarked, "We're through."
The other dwarf, again on a nod from the gnome, pulled out a knife and cut the tie that was holding the spear tip tight against the bottom lip, allowing it to fall away, and almost immediately both the dwarves spat and waved their hands before them as a deeper stench came flowing through the tube.
Pikel gave a little squeal of delight and ran forward, capping the end with a gummy substance Nanfoodle had prepared, then falling down and further sealing the tube in place with more stone-turned-to-mud.
"Craziest damned thing I ever seen," one dwarf off to the side remarked.
"Durned gnome," another answered.
Beneath his cloth veil, Nanfoodle merely smiled. He couldn't really even disagree with their assessment. On his word alone, the dwarves had strung a line of metal out of the chamber, along several tunnels, and through another ten feet of stone to the floor of Keeper's Dale. On his word alone, other dwarves had taken that line all the way to the base of the cliff, more than fifty feet farther to the north and twice that to the east. On his word alone, still more dwarves were even then continuing the line up the side of the cliff - two or three hundred feet up - securing the tubes end to end with a series of metal pins so that Pikel could later seal them together with his stone-turned-to-mud.
Pikel went back to work, with all the dwarves in tow, some carrying buckets of mud, others carrying buckets of sealing pitch. While the pit had been carved, the green-bearded dwarf had connected nearly all of the underground tubes, and so within the matter of an hour, the crew was back above ground, crawling their way across Keeper's Dale to the base of the cliff. Pikel had become quite proficient at his work by that time, even perfecting the technique for "elbowing" the stone joint when the tubes had to turn a corner.
Nanfoodle led a second crew all along the joined metal line, painting more pitch on any possible weak areas and propping stones against the metal to further secure it. There was no room for error, the gnome understood, particularly in those stretches underground.
Every so often, the gnome went back to the sulfuric chamber, just to make sure that the critical first tube was still solidly in place.
Just to reassure himself that he wasn't completely out of his mind.
After Pwent's dramatic victory at the barricade, the battling dwarves had the majority of the tunnels beneath the giant-held ridge secured within another hour, forcing the remaining orcs to the very northern end of the complex. Not wanting to delay much further than that, Torgar ordered the area sealed off (which greatly disappointed Pwent, of course), his engineers dropping a wall of stone before their enemies. Inspecting the cave-in, Torgar declared the complex won.
The work was only beginning, though. The dwarves rushed back out of the tunnel's southern end, back near Keeper's Dale, and replaced weapons on their belts as they took up buckets of dark and sticky pitch. As part of Torgar's troupe went back underground, buckets and brushes in hand, another part began stringing the come-alongs and ropes down to the floor of Keeper's Dale. Within a short expanse of time, a bucket brigade had begun, with tar-filled pails coming up the ropes and empty buckets moving back down for refilling.
Inside, the dwarves worked to seal every crack and crevice they could find, plastering the walls and ceiling with the sticky substance.
Using the designs offered by Nanfoodle, other dwarves secured themselves to the long ropes with harnesses and eased down the cliff face, taking up equidistant positions from the canyon floor all the way to the top. They began hammering in eyelet supports, building a straight line of supporting superstructure from floor to ledge.
Torgar, Ivan, and Tred - who continued to stubbornly wave away any who thought to tend his wounds - began to inspect the region near the center of the tunnels within the ridgeline, seeking the thinnest area of stone blocking the way to the east and the continuing battlefield. Torgar moved along deliberately, tapping the stone with a small hammer and listening carefully for the consistency of the ring. Convinced he had found an optimal spot, Torgar sent his diggers to work, and the team quickly bored a hole out to the east, breaking through the line of the stony ridge so that they could feel the open air upon them.
"That wide enough?" Torgar asked.
Ivan held up the small box he had constructed to Nanfoodle's specifications, with its mirrored side.
"Looks like it'll fit," he answered.
He moved close and held the box up tight. The diggers went back to work at once, shaping the hole so that it would be a better and more secure fit, then they moved back and Ivan squeezed in as far as he could, pressing the box, mirror facing outward, as far to the edge as possible.
"Seal it tight in place," Torgar instructed his team, and he and the other two leaders moved back the other way.
"What's that durned gnome thinking?" Tred asked.
"Couldn't begin to tell ye," Torgar admitted. "But Banak telled me to take the damned tunnels, so I taked the damned tunnels."
"That ye did," said Ivan. "That ye did."
"And good'll come of it," Tred offered with a nod.
"Aye," agreed Ivan. "These Battlehammers know how to win a fight."
Torgar patted his companions in turn, and it struck Ivan then how ironic it was that he, Torgar, and Tred had been given charge of so important a mission as retaking the cave complex, in light of the fact that not one of them was of Bruenor's clan.
The stomping of battlerager boots interrupted that thought, and their conversation. The three turned to see Thibbledorf Pwent leading his troops at a swift pace back to the south.
"Fighting's startin' again outside," Pwent explained to the three as he passed. He called back to his team, "Hurry up, ye dolts! We're missing all the fun!"
With a great cheer, the Gutbuster Brigade charged past.
"Glad he's on our side," Tred remarked, drawing a chortle from both of his companions.
Before the next dawn, with fighting continuing along the sloping ground to the east and with Tred sent along for some priestly tending, Torgar and Ivan stood at the edge of the southernmost of the complex tunnels, right near the lip of the cliff drop to Keeper's Dale.
"We spill good dwarf blood just to close it all off," Torgar remarked with a frustrated sigh.
"I'm thinking the gnome's meaning to stink them giants off the ridge," Ivan replied. He kicked at the length of tubing that had been laid down from the cliff face to inside the tunnel itself. "He's for bringing up the stink."
Before the pair, a group of dwarves worked fast, piling rocks all around the center reaches of the long metal tube, carefully placing the stones so that they supported each other without putting any pressure on the metal pipe.
"Have to be a pretty good stink," said Torgar, "to chase giants off the ridge."
"Me brother says it's a good one," Ivan explained.
As the workers scurried to the side, he nodded to the dwarf engineers standing to either side of the tunnel, warning them away. Torgar and Ivan took up heavy mallets and simultaneously knocked out wooden supports that had been set in place, and the end of the rocky tunnel collapsed, burying the entrance and the middle sections of the tubing.
"Seal it up good," Ivan explained to his workers. "Wash it all with pitch, pile it with dirt, then wash it all again. We're not wanting any of that stink backing up on us."
The dwarves nodded and went to work without complaint.
Ivan returned the nod, then glanced back over the cliff facing, at the line of harnessed dwarves hanging all the way down to the floor of the dale. Other ropes brought buckets of muddy stone and still others hauled length of the metal tubing.
So much metal tubing.
"Durned gnome," Ivan remarked.