"We just might do that!" he declared.
He started away toward the north, staying close to the cover of the uneven, broken wall.
"What are you talking about?" Shoudra demanded, pacing him easily.
"They need us up there, so let us go and see where we might fit in," the gnome replied.
Shoudra grabbed him by the shoulder and halted him.
"Up there?" she echoed, pointing up to the top of the northern cliff. "Up there, where the battle rages?"
Nanfoodle fell back into his cross-armed, toe-tapping stance.
"Up there," he answered.
Shoudra scoffed.
"You know that I am right in this," the gnome argued. "You know that we owe it to Clan Battleham—"
"We owe it to Clan Battlehammer?" the sceptrana asked.
"Yes, of course," said Nanfoodle, and it was his turn to bathe his words in sarcasm. "We owe them nothing. Not even in common cause against monstrous armies. Not even though they might be the only thing standing between these orc and giant hordes and Mirabar herself! Not even because they have offered Torgar Hammerstriker and his followers the friendship of brothers. Not even because they welcomed us into their homes, trusting us even though they had no sound reason to. Not even because—"
"Enough, Nanfoodle," said Shoudra, and she waved her hands in surrender. "Enough."
The tall, beautiful woman gave a long sigh as she looked back up at the high cliff and at the lines of rope ladders hanging down, crossing from ledge to ledge.
"Up there," she stated more than asked.
"Perhaps you have a spell that will carry us up to them?" the gnome asked hopefully.
Shoudra looked back at him and shook her head.
His look was crestfallen, but that was quickly pushed aside by renewed determination as little Nanfoodle the alchemist led the way to the base of the cliff and the nearest rope ladder. He gave one look over at Shoudra, and he began to climb.
It took the pair more than an hour to get up the side of the cliff, pausing to rest at every available ledge. When they finally did near the top, the first faces that greeted them were not dwarves', to their surprise.
"Regis sent you?" Catti-brie asked, peering over at the two.
She reached her hand down toward Nanfoodle, while Wulfgar fell flat beside her and extended his strong arm to Shoudra.
"We came on our own," Shoudra answered as she climbed up and brushed herself off. "We were preparing to leave—back home to Mirabar—but thought to check in and see if we might be of some use up here."
"We can use all the help we can find," Wulfgar answered. He turned and stepped aside, giving the pair a wide view of the lands below them to the north, where the vast orc and goblin army was regrouping. "They have come at us regularly, several times each day."
Lowering her gaze to encompass the descending ground between the dwarves and the orcs, Shoudra could see the truth of the barbarian's words, as evidenced by the scores of hacked orc and goblin bodies. Blood was so thick about the battleground by that point that it seemed as if the gray stone itself had taken on a deeper, reddish hue.
"We're killing them twenty to one," Catti-brie remarked. "And still they're coming."
Shoudra glanced over at Nanfoodle, who nodded grimly.
"We will help where we may," the sceptrana assured the two human children of King Bruenor.
"Ye'd be helping more if ye might be finding a way to take out them giants," came the call of a dwarf, Banak Brawnanvil, as he stalked over to greet the pair of new recruits.
He turned as he approached, motioning back to the ridge in the distant west, a mountain arm running north-south.
"They cannot reach us with their stones," Catti-brie explained. "But they've improvised well, hurling flat pieces of—"
"Slate," Shoudra finished, nodding. "We met up with the unfortunate Bouldershoulder down in Keeper's Dale."
"Poor Pikel," said Catti-brie.
"The giants will become more of a problem than that soon enough," Banak put in.
He didn't elaborate, but he didn't have to, for as she scanned the giants' position far to the northwest, Shoudra could see the great logs that had been brought up to the ridge, some of them already assembled into wide bases. No stranger to battle, Shoudra Stargleam could guess easily enough what the behemoths might be constructing.
"The slate is troublesome and unnerving," Wulfgar explained. "But in truth, they cannot often get the soaring pieces anywhere near to us, despite Pikel's misfortune. But once they assemble and sight in those catapults, we will have little cover from the barrage."
"And I'm thinking that they'll have a couple up and launching tomorrow," Banak added.
"Their advantage will drive you from the cliffs," Nanfoodle reasoned, and no one disagreed.
"Well, we're glad to have ye, for as long as we can have ye," Banak said suddenly and enthusiastically, brightening the dampened mood. He turned to Wulfgar and Catti-brie. "The two of ye show them about so they might figure how they'll best fit in."
Despite the many forays by their enemies, the dwarves had done a fine job of creating defensive positions, Shoudra and Nanfoodle quickly realized. Their walls were neither high nor thick, but they were well angled to protect from flying slate and well designed to allow for the bearded warriors to move from position to position along the trenches created behind them. Most of all, the dwarves had forced a series of choke points up near the cliff, areas where the orc advantage in numbers would be diminished by lack of room. Shoudra could well imagine that the last orc charge, if designed to drive the dwarves over the cliff, would prove very costly to the aggressors.
And the dwarves were preparing for the eventuality of that retreat as well. With several hundred to evacuate, it seemed clear to Shoudra that many would be killed on the journey down the rope ladders—taken down by missiles from above and perhaps tumbling away when ropes were slashed. Shoudra recognized many of the dwarves, Mirabar engineers, hard at work on the answer to that dilemma. They were digging a tunnel, a slide actually, with a wide hopper area leading to a narrower channel that wound down within the stone, paralleling the descent of the cliff itself.
"Would you even fit down there?" Shoudra asked the huge Wulfgar.
"They've set drop-ropes as well," the barbarian explained. "The slide is for those last dwarves leaving."
"Ye think ye got a spell or two to grease the run?" came a familiar voice from out of the hole.
Nanfoodle fell flat and peered in to see Shingles McRuff climbing up from the darkness.
"It is good to see you well," Shoudra said when the dwarf emerged from the hole.
"Well enough, I suppose," Shingles replied. "But we lost many kin when them ugly orcs took the tunnels in the west."
"Tunnels?"
"Under the ridge," Catti-brie explained. "Torgar, Shingles, and the others from Mirabar tried to hold them, but the onslaught was too great." The woman glanced over at the dirty dwarf. "But more orcs died than dwarves, to be sure," she added, and Shingles managed a smile.
"Tunnels under the ridge?" Nanfoodle inquired.
"A fair network," Shingles explained. "Not too wide and not too many, but running one end to the other."
Nanfoodle's expression suddenly became very intrigued, and he looked up at Shoudra.
"And no easy access up to the ridge," Catti-brie remarked, "if you're thinking we should fight our way back in there and rush up at the giants."
Nanfoodle merely nodded and began tapping his finger against his chin. He moved off for a moment and glanced back over the cliff at Keeper's Dale.
"What's he thinking?" Shingles asked.
"With him, who can tell?" came Shoudra's answer, given with a shrug. "Pray tell me, my old friend, how fares Torgar?"
"He's well," Shingles reported.