"No dignity…." the halfling did whisper, but the complaint sounded hollow even to him.
Bruenor's life had been about honor, duty, and above all else, loyalty. Loyalty to clan and to friend. If staying alive meant helping clan and friend, even if it meant great pain for Bruenor, the dwarf would put an angry fist in the eye of anyone who tried to stop him from performing that duty.
It pained Regis to stand there staring at his helpless friend. It pained Regis to think that those clerics were going against the wishes of Catti-brie and Wulf-gar, the two who held the largest claim over the fate of their adoptive father.
But the halfling could find no argument against the logic of Cordio and Stumpet's reasoning. He glanced at the two dwarves and without either affirming or denying their work, he put his head down and walked out of the room, yet another weight on his burdened shoulders.
* * *
The two heavy iron tubes clanged down to the stone floor and bounced around for a moment until Nanfoodle finally managed to corral them and hold them steady. The gnome huffed and puffed after carrying the two lengths all the way from the forges. He didn't sit back and rest, but instead adjusted the metal tubes so that they were set end to end.
Pikel Bouldershoulder looked at the items curiously, then down at the pile of mud set before his crossed legs. The enchantment would soon fade on the mud, he knew, reverting it to its former solidity. The green-bearded dwarf scooped a handful and slid over to the two pipes, then lifted the end of one and examined it.
"Heh," he said appreciatively, noting that the dwarves had put a lip on either end of each piece.
He waved Nanfoodle over to his side, and the gnome took up the other tube and carefully held it up to the end Pikel had elevated.
Pikel helped press them together, and Nanfoodle quickly wrapped the area of the joint round and round with a strip of cloth. Pikel brought his hand in, slopping the mud all around the joint, all over the cloth wrap. He worked the mud around, then he and Nanfoodle carefully laid the two pieces back on the floor. Nanfoodle quickly gathered some small stones and buffered them against the curving sides of the two pieces, securing them in place while Pikel's stone hardened.
And harden it did, sealing the two pieces together into a single length.
"Ssssss," Pikel explained, pointing down at the joint, and he pinched his nose.
"Yes, it will leak if we leave it as is," Nanfoodle agreed. "But we shall not."
He rushed out and returned a few moments later bearing a heavy bucket, the handle of a wide brush protruding over its lip. Setting the bucket down, Nanfoodle lifted the brush, which was dripping with heavy black tar. Again, the gnome bent low to the joint, washing over it with the tar.
"No ssssss," he said to Pikel, waggling his finger in the air.
"Hee hee hee," the green-bearded dwarf agreed.
It did Nanfoodle's heart good to see Pikel in such fine spirits. Since the loss of his arm, the dwarf had been sullen, and even less talkative than usual. Nanfoodle had watched him carefully, though, and had come to the conclusion that Pikel's despair was wrought more from being helpless in the face of the current adversity than in his own sudden disadvantage.
Engaging the green-bearded dwarf so completely in his plan—and indeed, Pikel was the best suited of all for such a task—had brought energy back to the dwarf and had rekindled the dwarf's wide smile. Sitting there with his stone-turned-to-mud, Pikel even offered the more-than-occasional "Hee hee hee."
"They're fighting up above," Nanfoodle remarked.
"Oooo," Pikel replied.
He started to rise and turn, as if he meant to run right off to the battlefield.
"The tunnels under the giants," Nanfoodle explained, grabbing Pikel's arm and holding him in place. "If we are fortunate, the battle will be over before we could even get up to join it. But we cannot ask our friends to hold those tunnels for long—doing so will deplete Banak's resources greatly."
"Oooo."
"Only we can help alleviate that, Pikel," Nanfoodle said. "Only you and I, by working hard and working fast."
He glanced down at the lengths of metal tubing.
"Uh huh," Pikel agreed, and he fell back to work, gathering up his large bucket of mud, which was fast turning back to its previous solid state.
Nanfoodle nodded and took a deep breath. It was indeed time to begin in earnest. He considered the course he had to lay out and quickly estimated the maximum number of dwarves he could press into service before creating a situation with simply too many workers. Regis would be easy to convince, the gnome understood, for up above, the truly brutal work, the clearing of the tunnels, was already underway.
Nanfoodle imagined some of the scenes of battle that were no doubt occurring even then.
A shudder coursed his short spine.
* * *
"Damned archers!" Tred McKnuckles cried.
He fell to the side of the tunnel, throwing himself behind a rock. The dwarves had easily enough gained the outer areas of the tunnels, the southern stretches nearest to Keeper's Dale, but as they had moved in deeper, the resistance had grown more and more stubborn. Tred's group, which included Ivan Bouldershoulder and Tred's Felbarr friend Nikwillig, had hit fortified resistance along one long and narrow tunnel.
A short distance from them, the orcs had dug in behind a wall of piled stones and held several vantage points from which they could fire their bows and throw their light spears.
"Torgar's pressing on to our left," Ivan, who had similarly dived for cover on the opposite side of the corridor, called back to Tred. "He'll move past us to the wider halls. He's to be needing our support!"
"Bah!" Tred snorted, and he determinedly leaped out from behind the rock—and promptly got hit by a trio of arrows that had him slumping back from where he'd started.
"Ah, ye fool!" Ivan cried.
"That one's hurtin'," Tred admitted, clutching at one of the quivering arrow shafts.
"We'll get ye outta here!" Ivan promised.
Tred held up his hand and shook his head, assuring the other dwarf that he was all right.
"We gotta get 'em pushed back," the Felbarr dwarf called back.
"Nine Hells!" spouted a frustrated Ivan.
He pulled a crossbow quarrel from his bandoleer and eyed it carefully. His friend Cadderly had designed those bolts, with Ivan's help. Solid on both ends, they were partially cut out in the middle, designed to hold a small vial in their cubby. That vial was full of enchanted oil, designed to explode under the impact of the dart's collapse.
Ivan fitted the bolt to his small hand crossbow—another design that he and Cadderly had worked to perfection—then fell flat to his belly, eased himself out, and launched the missile down the corridor.
Without much force behind it, for it was merely a hand crossbow after all, the bolt looped down toward the orcs. It hit one of the rocks that formed their barricade and collapsed on itself. The oil flashed and exploded, blowing away a piece of the rocks.
"Let me chip away at their walls," Ivan called to Tred. "We'll send them pigs running!"
He fitted another bolt and let it fly, and another small explosion sounded down the tunnel.
And the tunnel began to tremble.
"What'd ye do?" a wide-eyed Tred asked.
Ivan's eyes were no less open.
"Damned if I'm knowing!" he admitted as the thunder began to grow around them. Ivan looked down at his bandoleer, and even pulled forth another dart. "Just a little thing!" he cried, shaking his head, and he looked back down toward the orcs.
He realized only then that the reverberations were behind his position, not in front.