Obould looked up at her and said, "They were turned back."
"Turned back?" Gerti asked, and her voice turned snide. "Have your people already reverted to their self-destructive ways? Are they preparing the way for a counterattack before victory has even been achieved?"
"They were turned back by elves," Obould sourly replied, and he glared at the giantess, as open a threat as Gerti had ever seen from any orc.
"The elves have crossed the Surbrin?" the giantess asked, but not with too much concern.
"They were turned back by a pair of elves. . and a drow," Obould clarified. "Does that ring familiar?"
"These Red Slash orcs—a small tribe?"
"Does it matter?" Obould replied. "They will run back into the tunnels now, and alert any others who were considering coming out to join with us."
"But Arganth spreads the word of the glory of Obould," said Gerti, "and Obould is Gruumsh, yes?"
As Obould narrowed his eyes, Gerti knew that he had caught on to the underpinnings of sarcasm in her voice, and she was glad of that. She might not overtly go against him just then, but she was more than willing to let him know that she remained less than impressed.
"Do not underestimate the advantages that Arganth and his shamans have brought to us," Obould warned.
"To us, or to Obould?"
"To both," the orc said definitively. "Their call sounds deep in the tunnels. I have brought forth perhaps fifteen thousand orcs, and thousands of goblins as well, but there are ten times those numbers still available to us if we can coax them forth. We cannot have these puny enemies turning the retreat of a few into a tactical advantage for our enemies."
Gerti wanted to argue of course—mostly because she just wanted to argue with everything Obould said—but she found that she really could not find flaws in the logical reasoning. "What will you do?" she heard herself asking.
"The preparations here are well underway, so we will take the bulk of our force and march off at once, back to the west and the north," Obould announced. "We will send some to reinforce Urlgen so that he can continue the fight on the north ridge for as long as the dwarves are foolish enough to stay and battle. Whatever his losses, we can afford them much more easily than the dwarves can afford theirs.
"I had planned to swing immediately around to the west," Obould went on, "and close the vice on the place the dwarves call Keeper's Dale, driving them into Mithral Hall. But first I will go north with Arganth and some others to see to this problem."
Gerti eyed him suspiciously, trying not at all to hide her trepidation.
"I expect that you will afford me a few of your kin for my journey," Obould answered that look. "You can come along or not, at your pleasure. Either way, I will have a pair of elf heads and a drow's to hang on the sides of my carriage."
"You do not have a carriage," the giantess remarked.
"Then I will build one," Obould replied without missing a beat.
Gerti didn't answer but merely turned and exited, and that act alone signified to her the change that had come over her relationship with Obould. Always before, it had been the orc king coming to Shining White, her icy mountain home, to speak with her, but lately, she more often than not seemed the visitor in Obould's growing kingdom.
With that unsettling thought reverberating within her as she walked out into the daylight, the giantess also heard the orc king's dismissive, "you can come along or not, at your pleasure," echoing in her mind.
Gerti pointedly reminded herself that she could not afford to let Obould move her too far to the margins. Her thoughts began to crystallize around the realization that if the orc king's confidence continued to grow into such impertinence, she might have to kill him. The timing would be everything, the giantess realized. She had to let Obould play his hand out, let him chase the dwarves into the tunnels and begin the full-fledged flushing of Clan Battlehammer, and let him stand as the center point of war with the larger communities in the North, if it came to that.
If there was to be a fall, Gerti wanted Obould to take it. If there was to be only glory and gain, then she would have to give Obould his fall and step into the vacated position.
The giantess would enjoy crushing the life out of the impertinent and ugly orc.
She had to keep telling herself that.
CHAPTER 20 DELAYING THE INEVITABLE
"That's it then? We just leave?" Nanfoodle asked Shoudra.
The little gnome assumed a defiant posture, folding his little arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently, his toes, which could not be seen, flapping the front of his red robes.
"You would have us go back in there after your revelations to Steward Regis?" the sceptrana returned, pointing back over Nanfoodle's shoulder at the closed door of Mithral Hall. "I prefer to report in person to Marchion Elastul, if you please, and not simply by having my disembodied head delivered to him on a Clan Battlehammer platter!"
Nanfoodle's bluster did diminish a bit at the reminder that he had been the one to betray them, and his foot stopped tapping quite so insistently.
"It… it was the truth," he stammered. "And when they hear the whole truth, they will understand—I never meant to follow through with Marchion Elastul's stupid mission anyway."
"So just march in and tell that to Regis," Shoudra offered. "I am certain he will believe you."
Nanfoodle muttered under his breath and went back into his defiant mode.
"Of course we cannot go back in there!" said the gnome. "Not yet. We have to prove ourselves to the dwarves—and why should we not? We did come here under false pretenses and with nefarious designs. So let us show them the truth of Nanfoodle and Shoudra and of how the truth is different from that of Mar-chion Elastul."
"Well said," Shoudra remarked, her sarcasm still dripping. "Shall we go and destroy the orc hordes? Perhaps we can return to the halls before the afternoon beer and cookies.."
She stopped, seeing Nanfoodle's eyes go wide and for a moment, she thought he was staring incredulously at her. But then Shoudra heard the wailing behind her and she spun around to see a trio of dwarves approaching from the north. Two flanked the green-bearded one in the center, the dwarf on Pikel Bouldershoulder's right holding him under the shoulder, while the dwarf on his left, his brother Ivan, held a blood-soaked cloth up to the stump that remained of his left arm.
"Oooo," Pikel whined.
Nanfoodle and Shoudra rushed across the expanse to meet up with the trio.
"Oooo," said Pikel.
"They got me brother good," Ivan bellowed. "Took his arm off clean with that slate them giants're chucking. Damned unlucky shot!"
"They've got the high ground now, and once they get their war engines built, there will be many more coming down," said the other dwarf supporting Pikel. "This wound'll be a little one compared to what we're soon to see."
The trio hustled by, heading straight for the door, and Shoudra and Nanfoodle wisely moved farther out of the way.
"We cannot abandon them in this dark hour," Nanfoodle insisted.
Shoudra peeked around a boulder as the great doors opened and the trio were hustled inside. The sceptrana fell back quickly, though, for a couple of dwarf guards came out and began glancing all around.
"What would you have us do, Nanfoodle the alchemist," she replied, putting her back to the stone and seeming, in that dark moment, as if she truly needed it for support. "Perhaps we can join with the orcs, and you can poison their weapons with your concoction."
It was meant as a joke, of course, but Nanfoodle seemed to brighten suddenly as he stared at Shoudra. He snapped his stubby fingers in the air.