Images of the fates that had been planned for them coursed through Vereesa’s head. “Disgusting! I thank you wholeheartedly for your timeliness!”
“Had I known it would’ve been ye we were rescuing, I’d have made this sorry bunch move faster!”
Gimmel, eyes shifting much too often to the elf, joined his leader. “Joj’s dead. Still stickin’ halfway out the hole. Narn’s bad; he’ll need fixin’ up. The rest of the wounded can travel well enough!”
“Then let’s be moving on! That mean’s ye, too, butterfly!” The last referred to Falstad, who bristled at what apparently had to be a harsh insult to one of the Aerie dwarves.
Vereesa managed to calm him down with a soft touch on his shoulder, but her friend continued to glower as the party started off. The elf noticed that the hill dwarves stripped not only the trolls of any useful items, but also their dead companion. They made no move to try to bring the body with them, and when Rom noticed her glance, he shrugged in mild shame.
“The war demands some proprieties be left behind, lady elf. Joj would’ve understood. We’ll see that his stuff is divided up to his nearest kin and that they also get an extra share of the trolls’ items . . . not that there was much, sorry to say.”
“I had no idea that there were any of you left in Khaz Modan. It was said that all the dwarves left when it became clear that they could not hold the land against the Horde.”
Rom’s canine face turned grim. “Aye, all that could leave did! Wasn’t possible for all of us, ye know! The Horde, it came like the proverbial plague, cutting off much of us from any route! We were forced to go deeper underground than we’d ever gone before! Many’s that died at that time, and many more’s that died since!”
She looked over his ragtag band. “How many are you?”
“My clan? Seven and forty, where once we counted hundreds! We’ve talked with three others, two larger than ourselves. Put that total number at three hundred and a little over, and ye still only got a small fraction of what we once were in this land!”
“Three hundred and more’s still quite a number,” rumbled Falstad. “Aye, with that many, I’d have gone to take Grim Batol back!”
“And perhaps if we fluttered about in the sky like dizzy bugs, we might confuse them enough to make that seem possible, but on the ground or under it, we’re still at a disadvantage! Takes only one dragon to scorch a forest and bake the earth below!”
Old enmities between the Aerie and the hills threatened to explode again. Vereesa quickly tried to breach the gap between the two. “Enough of this! It is the orcs and theirs who are the enemies, am I not correct? If you fight with one another, does that not serve their purpose alone?”
Falstad mumbled an apology to her, as did Rom. However, the elf would not let matters settle at only that. “Not good enough. Turn and face one another, then swear you will fight only for the good of all of us! Swear that you will always remember that it is the orcs who slew your brothers, the orcs who killed what you loved.”
She knew no specifics about either of the dwarves’ pasts, but could draw upon the common understanding that everyone who fought in the war had lost someone or something dear. Rom had no doubt lost many loved ones, and Falstad, who belonged to a reckless yet daring aerial band, surely had suffered the same.
To his credit, the gryphon-rider held his hand out first. “Aye, ’tis the right of it. I’ll shake.”
“If ye be doing it, I’ll be doing it.”
Murmurs arose briefly from the other hill dwarves as the two clasped hands. Likely this sort of quick compromise would have been impossible under any circumstances other than the immediate ones.
The party moved on. This time it was Rom who asked the questions. “Now that the danger of trolls is behind us, lady elf, ye should tell us what brings ye and that one to our wounded land. Is it as we hope—that the war turns back on the orcs, that Khaz Modan will soon be free again?”
“The war is moving against the Horde, that much is true.” This brought some gasps and quiet cheers from the dwarves. “The bulk of the Horde was broken a few months back, and Doomhammer has disappeared.”
Rom paused in his tracks. “Then why are the orcs still in command of Grim Batol?”
“You’ve to ask on that?” interjected Falstad. “First of all, the orcs still hold out in the north around Dun Algaz. ’Tis said they’re beginning to cave in, but they won’t go down without a fight.”
“And the second, cousin?”
“You’ve not noticed that they’ve dragons?” Falstad asked with mock innocence on his face.
Gimmel snorted. Rom gave his second-in-command a glare, but then nodded in resignation. “Aye, the dragons. The one foe we, earthbound, cannot battle. Caught a young one on the ground once and made short work of it—with the loss of one or two good warriors, sad to say—but for the most part, they stay up there and we’re forced to hide down here.”
“You’ve fought the trolls, though,” Vereesa pointed out. “And surely the orcs as well.”
“The occasional patrol, aye. And the trolls, we’ve done them some damage, too—but it all means nothing if our home’s still under the orc ax!” He stared her in the eye. “Now, I ask again. Tell me who ye are and what ye doing here! If Khaz Modan’s still orcish, then ye would have to be suicidal to come to Grim Batol!”
“My name is Vereesa Windrunner, ranger, and this is Falstad of the Aeries. We are here because I search for a human, a wizard, tall of height and young. He has hair of fire, and when last I saw him, he was headed this direction.” She decided to omit the black dragon’s presence for the moment, and was grateful that Falstad did not choose to add that information himself.
“And as daft as wizards are, especially human ones, what would he be thinking of doing near Grim Batol?” Rom studied the pair with some growing suspicion, Vereesa’s tale no doubt just a bit too far-fetched for his tastes.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “but I think it has something to do with the dragons.”
At this, the dwarven leader let out a bellowing laugh. “The dragons? What’s he plan to do? Rescue the red queen from bondage? She’ll be so grateful she’ll gobble him right up out of excitement!”
The hill dwarves all found this terribly amusing, but the elf did not. To his credit, Falstad did not join in the merriment, although he, of course, knew about Deathwing, and most likely assumed that Rhonin had already long ago been “gobbled up.”
“I swore an oath, and because of it I will go on. I must reach Grim Batol and see if I can find him.”
The merriment changed to a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. Gimmel shook his head as if not certain that he had heard right.
“Lady Vereesa, I respect ye calling, but surely ye can see how outrageous such a quest is!”
She carefully studied the hardened band. Even in the near dark, she could see the weariness, the fatalism. They fought and they dreamed of their homeland free, but most likely thought that it would never happen in their lifetime. They admired bravery, as all dwarves did, but even to them the elf’s quest bordered on the insane.
“You and your people have saved us, Rom, and for that I thank you all. But if I can ask one boon, it is to show me the nearest tunnel leading to the mountain fortress. I will take it alone from there.”
“You’ll not be journeying alone, my elven lady,” objected Falstad. “I’ve come too far to turn back now . . . and I’m of a mind to find a certain goblin and skin his hide for boots!”