Bruenor had found Banak in a dour mood, but with his fighting spirit intact. He had been more concerned about those who had fallen than with his own wounds, as Bruenor expected. Banak was a Brawnanvil, after all, of a line as sturdy as Battlehammer's own, strong of arm and of spirit, and with loyalty unmatched. Banak had been physically crippled, no doubt, but Bruenor knew that the warcommander was hardly out of the fight, wherever that fight may be.
Nanfoodle's audience marked the end of the announced procession that day, and so Bruenor dismissed the gnome and excused himself. He had one more meeting in mind, one, he knew, that was better made in private.
Leaving his escort—Thibbledorf Pwent had insisted that a pair of Gut-busters accompany the dwarf king wherever he went—at the end of one dimly lit corridor, Bruenor moved to a door, gently knocked, then pushed it open.
He found Regis sitting at his desk, chin in one hand the other holding a quill above an open parchment that was trying to curl against the press of mug-shaped paperweights. Bruenor nodded and entered, taking a seat on the edge of the halfling's soft bed.
"Ye don't seem to be eatin' much, Rumblebelly," he remarked with a grin. Bruenor reached under his tunic and pulled forth a thick piece of cake. He casually tossed it to Regis, who caught it and set it down without taking a bite. "Bah, but ye keep that up and I'm to call ye Rumblebones!" Bruenor blustered. "Go on, then!" he demanded, motioning to the cake.
"I'm writing it all down," Regis assured him, and he brushed aside one of the paperweights and lifted the edge of the parchment, which caused a bit of the recently placed ink to streak. Noting this, Regis quickly flattened the parchment and began to frantically blow upon it.
"Ain't nothing there that ye can't be telling me yerself," Bruenor said.
Finally, the halfling turned back to him.
"What's yer grief then, Rumblebelly?" asked the dwarf. "Ye done good—damn good, by what me generals been telling me."
"So many died," Regis replied, his voice barely a whisper.
"Aye, that's the pain o' war."
"But I kept them out there," the halfling explained, leaping up from his chair, his short, stocky arms waving all around. He began to pace back and forth, muttering with every step as if trying to find some way to blurt out all of his pain in one burst. "Up on the cliff. I could have ordered Banak back in, long before the final fight. How many would still be alive?"
"Bah, ye're asking questions that ain't got no answers!" Bruenor roared at him. "Anyone can lead the fight the day after it's done. It's leading the fight during the fight that's marking yer worth."
"I could have brought them in," the halfling stated. "I should have brought them in."
"Ah, but ye knew the truth of the orc force, did ye? Ye knew that ten thousand would add to their ranks and sweep into the dale from the west, did ye?"
Regis blinked repeatedly, but did not answer.
"Ye knew nothing more than anyone else, Banak included," Bruenor insisted. "And Banak wasn't keen on coming down that cliff. In the end, when we learned the truth of our enemy, we salvaged what we could, and that's plenty, but not as much as we wanted to hold. We gived them the whole of the northland don't ye see? And that's nothing any Battlehammer's proud to admit."
"There were too many …" Regis started, eliciting another loud "Bah!" from Bruenor.
"We ran away, Rumblebelly! Clan Battlehammer retreated from orcs!"
"There were too many!"
Bruenor smiled and nodded, showing Regis that he had just been played like a dwarven fiddle. "Course there were, and so we took what we could get, but don't ye ever think that running from orcs was something meself'd order unless no other choice was afore me. No other choice! I'd've kept Banak out there, Rumblebelly. I'd've been out there with him, don't ye doubt!"
Regis looked up at Bruenor and gave a nod of appreciation.
"Questions for us now are, what next?" said Bruenor. "Do we go back out and fight them again? Out to the east, mayhaps, to open a line across the Surbrin? Out to the south, so we can sweep back around?"
"The south," Regis muttered. "I sent fifty to the south, accompanying Galen Firth of Nesme."
"Catti-brie telled me all about it, and in that, too, ye did well, by me own reckoning. I got no love for them Nesme boys after the way they treated us them years ago and after the way they ignored Settlestone. Bunch o' stone-heads, if e'er I seen a bunch o' stoneheads! But a neighbor's a neighbor, and ye got to help do what ye can do, and from where I'm seeing it, ye did all that ye could do."
"But we can do more now," Regis offered.
Bruenor scratched his red beard and thought on that a moment. "Might that we can," he agreed. "A few hundred more moving south might open new possibilities, too. Good thinking." He looked to Regis as he finished, and noted happily that the halfling seemed to have shaken off his burden then, an eager gleam coming back into his soft brown eyes.
"Send Torgar and the boys from Mirabar," Regis suggested. "They're a fine bunch, and they know how to fight aboveground as well as below."
Bruenor wasn't sure if he agreed with that assessment. Perhaps Torgar, Shingles, and all the dwarves of Mirabar had seen enough fighting and had taken on enough special and difficult assignments already. Maybe it was time for them to take some rest inside Mithral Hall proper, mingling with the dwarves who had lived in those corridors and chambers since the complex had been reclaimed from Shimmergloom the shadow dragon and his duergar minions years before.
Bruenor gave no indication to Regis that he was doubting the wisdom of the suggestion, though. The halfling had proven himself many times over in the last tendays, by all accounts, and his insight and understanding was a resource Bruenor had no intention of squashing.
"Come along, Rumblebelly," he said with a toothy grin. "Let's go see how Ivan and Pikel are getting on. Might be that they know allies we haven't yet considered."
"Cadderly?"
"Was thinking more of the elves of the Moonwood," Bruenor explained. "Seems them two came through there on their way to Mithral Hall. I'm thinking it'd be a good thing to get them elves putting arrows and magic across the Surbrin to soften our enemy's entrenchment."
"How would we get word to them?" Regis asked. "The elves, I mean. Do we have tunnels that go that far east and north?"
"How'd Pikel get him and Ivan there in the first place?" Bruenor replied with an exaggerated wink. "By Ivan's telling, it's got something to do with trees and roots. We ain't got no trees, but we got plenty o' roots, I'm thinking."
Regis put on his best Pikel voice when he replied, "Hee hee hee."
* * * * *
Tred McKnuckles emphatically raised a finger to his pursed lips, reminding the dwarven catapult team that silence was essential.
Bellan Brawnanvil mimicked the movement back to Tred in agreement and tapped his sideslinger pull crew to ease up on their movements as they worked to set the basket. Mounted on the side of the jamb of a hallway door, the sideslinger catapult served as the staple war engine of the outer defenses of Mithral Hall. Its adjustable arm length made it the perfect war engine to fit any situation, and in the east, so close to the great flowing river that the stones continually hummed with the reverberations of its currents, the catapults were front-line and primary. For just beyond the group's present position in the eastern reaches of the complex, the tunnels dived down into the wilds of the Underdark. Even in times of peace, the eastern sideslingers were often put to use, chasing back umber hulks or displacer beasts, or any of the other dark denizens of those lightless corridors.