Kingred handed Brusco over fully to the other dwarf and sprinted ahead, drawing a hammer from his belt as he approached the huge iron doors of Mithral Hall. He went in hard, hammering away, once, twice … a pause, and a third time. He waited a few moments and banged out the coded signal again and again, and more emphatically when he thought he heard the locking bar being lifted behind the door.
The last thing he wanted at that moment was for those impregnable doors to open!
A grinding noise began off to the side of the main entrance and a small rock slid aside, revealing a dark crawl tunnel. In went the dwarves, one after another, with Kingred standing beside the tunnel, urging them on. Dwarves came from the north and from the south, each group barely outdistancing the advancing force—trolls in the south, orcs in the north. Kingred saw the truth of it; even though a second crawl tunnel had been opened, all the dwarves couldn't possibly get in ahead of the monsters. He almost called for his fellows to open the main doors then, but he held off the urge and bit back his fear. He and some others would have to stay out, would have to hold back the invaders to the bitter end.
Kingred took up his sword and strapped on a shield, and he continued to order those rushing up into the crawls.
"Go! Go! Go!" he called to them. "Keep yer butt down and keep yer butt moving!"
The trolls were the first monsters to arrive, their horrid stench filling Kingred's nostrils as he rushed out to meet them. His strong arms worked tirelessly, slashing away at the beasts, driving them back. A claw raked his shoulder, drawing a deep line, but he shrugged it off and turned, swinging, at that attacker. One after another, Kingred drove them back. Fighting like a dwarf possessed, a dwarf who knew that all, for him, was lost, Kingred growled and pressed on.
A great two-headed troll, as ugly as any creature Kingred had ever seen, as ugly a nightmare as Kingred had ever believed possible, shoved some of the other trolls out of the way and stepped up before him. Swallowing his fear, Kingred roared and charged headlong into the beast, but a huge spiked club whipped across to intercept and the dwarf was lifted from the ground and launched far, far away.
At that moment, the orcs arrived on the scene, sweeping down from the north, howling and hooting and throwing stones as they charged in with abandon.
* * *
"We got a dozen left out there!" cried Bayle Rockhunter, one of the inner gate guards. "Open them durned doors!"
The dwarf slapped a heavy pick across his hands and charged for the portal, and many others fell in behind him.
"It ain't to be done!" the wounded Brusco cried. "Ye know yer place!"
That reminder slowed the charge to the great doors—portals that were not to be opened in any event without express permission from the clan leaders back in the western reaches of the complex. The dwarves at the eastern gate were not an army by any means, but merely lookouts and sentries, holding the hall at all costs. Opening those doors would be engaging an apparently powerful force, one that could then flow into the hall.
But not opening those doors meant listening to their kin caught outside die.
"We can't be leaving them!" Bayle shouted back.
"Then ye're stealing all meaning from their deaths," Brusco responded, much more quietly.
That tone as much as the words themselves seemed to steal all the fire from the angry young dwarf.
"Hold the crawl tunnels open as long as ye can," another dwarf remarked.
Two score dwarves got into the safety of Mithral Hall that fateful evening, while some dozen stood with Kingred outside the crawl tunnels and the great, barred doors. Eventually, those inside reluctantly pulled the levers that dropped the counterweights that slid the stones back over the crawl entrances, sealing their kin outside, sealing their fate. Brusco and the others shut the crawl tunnels with heavy hearts and with promises that Kingred and the others wouldn't be forgotten, that songs would be written and sung, tavern to tavern.
* * *
King Obould, Gerti Orelsdottr, and Proffit the troll stood back from the tower and the doors, watching the work as giants, orcs, and trolls piled heavy stones before Mithral Hall's eastern entrance. All sound from inside the hall indicated that the dwarves were doing likewise, but Obould didn't want to take any chances. His goal had been to seal the eastern gates, and so he was doing just that.
"The land is ours to the Surbrin," the orc announced to his fellow leaders. From the shadows, Kaer'lic and Tos'un listened carefully.
He forgets that his son has not quite sealed in the dwarves, as yet, Kaer'lic flashed to her companion.
Tos'un appreciated the sarcasm, though he was more impressed with Obould's progress. Given the pressure that Urlgen was placing on Clan Battle-hammer in the west, the victory had been all too easy. A few dead orcs, a few dead dwarves, and Obould controlled the western bank of the Surbrin, all the way from the Spine of the World to the end of the mountains south of Mithral Hall. With defensive positions already being constructed along the river north of their current position, that was no small thing.
"The dwarves will find another way out," Gerti remarked, and Tos'un could tell that she, like Kaer'lic, simply wanted to deflate the glorious orc king a bit.
Obould offered a quick scowl at the giantess but turned his attention to the two-headed troll, Proffit.
"You have done well," he congratulated. "Your march was impressive."
"Troll no.." said the left-side head.
"… get tired," added the right.
"And so you will go right back to the south when we are finished here," Obould said, and both heads nodded.
"We stretch our line the length of the Surbrin," Obould explained to Gerti. "Hold our gains against any who would deny them. And our main force goes back to the west and north."
"And Proffit goes back to the Trollmoors?" Gerti asked.
Her disgust for the smelly troll was easy to see.
"To the tunnels in the south," Obould corrected. "Tunnels that connect to Mithral Hall. Proffit and his people will begin the battle for the dwarven stronghold within. We will defeat the dwarves without and claim our new kingdom."
He has a vision, Kaer'lic flashed.
Tos'un hid his smile, for he could tell that his companion was growing very uneasy with Obould. The four clever drow had incited all of it, but never had they actually believed that Obould would orchestrate something definitive and winnable! What would happen, Tos'un wondered (and he knew that his drow companions were also wondering), if the orc king managed to secure all the North between the Trollmoors and the Spine of the World, from the Surbrin to the Fell Pass? What would happen if, with such a base to serve as a kingdom, Obould did finally rout the dwarves from Mithral Hall? What would Silverymoon do? Or Mirabar? Or Citadel Adbar or Citadel Felbarr?
What could they do? More orcs were pouring forth from the mountains, by all reports. Had Tos'un and his companions inadvertently elevated Obould beyond their control?
An orc kingdom nestled within the various strongholds—human, dwarf, and elf. Would other tribes flock in to join in Obould's glory? Would Obould seek treaties, perhaps, and trade with the other cities?
It all seemed so preposterous to Tos'un, and also amusing. When he looked at Gerti, though, her expression grim even as she outwardly agreed with the orc king, the dark elf was reminded that there remained many potential pitfalls.
Only then did Tos'un realize that Kaer'lic was walking out to join the three leaders and that Obould was calling to him as well. He moved out beside the priestess of Lolth.
"You go with Proffit," Obould instructed the warrior of Barrison Del' Armgo.
"I?" Tos'un asked incredulously, and with more than a little revulsion at the less than appetizing thought.