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Gasps came back at him.

"That is our way," Arganth quickly added, seeing the dangerously rising dissent and the sudden scowling of dangerous Achtel. "That is always our way, and a good way it is. But now, with the blasphemy of this idol, we must join the two, Obould and Gruumsh! Their glory must be made as one!"

The other eleven shamans neither cheered nor jeered, but simply stood there, staring at the volatile shaman of Snarrl.

"Each tribe?" one began tentatively, shaking his head.

The orc tribes had come to Obould's call—especially after hearing of the fall of King Bruenor Battlehammer, who had long been a reviled figure—but the armies remained, first and foremost, individual tribes.

Arganth Snarrl leaped up before the speaker, his yellow-hued eyes so wide that they seemed as if they would just roll from their sockets.

"No more!" he yelled, and he jumped wildly all about, facing each of the others in turn. "No more! Tribes are second. Gruumsh is first!"

"Gruumsh!" a couple of the others yelled together.

"And Gruumsh is Obould?" Achtel calmly asked, seeming to measure every movement and word carefully—more so than any of the others in attendance, certainly.

"Gruumsh is Obould!" Arganth proclaimed. "Soon to be, yes!"

He ended in a gesticulating, leaping and wildly shaking dance around the ruined idol of his god-figure, the hollowed statue the dwarves had used as a ruse to get amidst Obould's forces. With imminent victory in their grasp, overrunning Shallows, the ultimate, despicable deception of the wretched dwarves had salvaged some escape from what should have been a complete slaughter.

To use the orc god-figure for such treachery was beyond the bounds of decency in the eyes of those dozen shamans, the religious leaders of the more than three thousand orcs of their respective tribes.

"Gruumsh is Obould!" Arganth began to chant as he danced, and each shaman in turn took up the cry as he or she fell into line behind the wildly gesticulating, outrageously dressed character.

Except for Achtel. The thoughtful and more sedentary orc stepped back from the evocative dance and observed the movements of her fellow shamans, her doubts fairly obviously displayed upon her orc features.

All the others knew of her feelings on the matter and of her hesitation in counseling her chieftain to lead her tribe out of its secure home to join in the fight against the powerful dwarves. Until then, none had dared to question her in that decision.

* * *

"You must get better," Catti-brie whispered into her father's ear. She believed that Bruenor did hear her, though he gave no outward sign, and indeed, had not moved at all in several days. "The orcs think they've killed you, and we can't be letting that challenge go unanswered!" the woman went on, offering great enthusiasm and energy to the comatose dwarf king.

Catti-brie squeezed Bruenor's hand as she spoke, and for a moment, she thought he squeezed back.

Or she imagined it.

She gave a great sigh, then, and looked to her bow, which was leaning up against the far wall of the candlelit room. She would have to be out again soon, she knew, for the fighting up on the cliff would surely begin anew.

"I think he hears you," came a voice from behind Catti-brie, and she managed a smile as she turned to regard her friend Regis.

Truly, the halfling looked the part of the battered warrior, with one arm slung tight against his chest and wrapped with heavy bandages. That arm had fended the snapping maw of a great worg, and Regis had paid a heavy price.

Catti-brie rolled up from her father's side to give the halfling a well-deserved hug.

"The clerics haven't healed it yet?" she asked, eyeing his arm.

"They've done quite a bit, actually," Regis answered in a chipper tone, and to show his optimism, he managed to wriggle his bluish fingers. "They would have long ago finished their work on it, but there are too many others who need their healing spells and salves more than I. It's not so bad."

"You saved us all, Rumblebelly," Catti-brie offered, using Bruenor's nickname for the somewhat chubby halfling. "You took it on yerself to go and get some help, and we'd have been dead soon enough if you hadn't arrived with Pwent and the boys."

Regis just shrugged and even blushed a bit.

"How do we fare up on the mountain?" he asked.

"Fair," Catti-brie answered. "The orcs chased us right to the edge, but we got more than a few in a trap, and when they came on in full, we sent them running. Ye should see the work of Banak Brawnanvil, Ivan Bouldershoulder, and Torgar Hammerstriker of Mirabar. They had the dwarves turning squares and wedges every which way and had the orcs scratching their heads in confusion right up until they got run over."

Regis managed a wide smile and even a little chuckle, but it died quickly as he looked past Catti-brie to the resting Bruenor.

"How is he this day?"

Catti-brie looked back at her father and could only offer a shrug in reply.

"The priests do not think he'll come out of it," Regis told her, and she nodded for she had of course heard the very same from them.

"But I think he will," Regis went on. "Though he'll be a long time on the mend, even still."

"He'll come back to us," Catti-brie assured her little friend.

"We need him," Regis said, his voice barely a whisper. "All of Mithral Hall needs King Bruenor."

"Bah, but that's no attitude to be takin' at this tough time," came a voice from out in the hallway, and the pair turned to see a bedraggled old dwarf come striding in.

They recognized the dwarf at once as General Dagna, one of Bruenor's most trusted commanders and the father of Dagnabbit, who had fallen at Shallows. The two friends glanced at each other and winced, then offered sympathetic looks to the dwarf who had lost his valiant son.

"He died well," Dagna remarked, obviously understanding their intent. "No dwarf can ask for more than that."

"He died brilliantly," Catti-brie agreed. "Shaking his fist at the orcs and the giants. And how many felt the bite of his anger before he fell?"

Dagna nodded, his expression solemn.

"Banak's got the army out on the mountain?" he asked a moment later, changing both his tone and the grim subject with a burst of sudden energy.

"He's got it well in hand," Catti-brie answered. "And he's found some fine help in the dwarves from Mirabar and in the Bouldershoulder brothers, who have come from the Spirit Soaring library in the Snowflake Mountains."

Dagna nodded and mumbled, "Good, good."

"We'll hold up there," Cattie-brie said.

"Ye best," said Dagna. "I've got more than I can handle in securing the tunnels. We're not to let our enemies walk in through the Underdark while they're distracting us up above."

Catti-brie stepped back and looked to Regis for support. She had expected that, somewhat, for when Banak's couriers had come in with requests that a second force be sent forth from Mithral Hall to secure the western end of Keeper's Dale, their reception had been less than warm. Clearly there was a battle brewing about whether to fall back to Mithral Hall and hold the fort or to go out and meet the surface challenge of the orc hordes.

"They're getting their ropes down to the dale so that Banak can get them all out o' there?" Dagna asked.

"They've several rope ladders to the valley floor already," Catti-brie answered. "And Warlord Banak's ordered many more. Torgar's engineers are putting the climbs together nonstop. But Banak's not thinking to come down anytime soon. If we can assure him that Keeper's Dale is secure behind him, he'll stay up on that mountain until the orcs find a way to push him off."

Dagna grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and though Catti-brie and Regis couldn't make it out, it was fairly obvious that the crusty old warrior dwarf wasn't thrilled with that prospect.