"Proffit will turn his eyes to the north, as Obould bade him," Tos'un added a moment later.
"Then you and I must convince him that the situation here is more important," Kaer'lic replied without hesitation.
"Obould will not be pleased."
"Then perhaps Obould will slay Proffit, or even better, perhaps they will slaughter each other."
Tos'un smiled and let it go at that, perfectly comfortable with the role that he and his three drow companions had made for themselves. Prodding Obould and Gerti Orelsdottr to war from the beginning, the drow had never really concerned themselves with the outcome. In truth, they hadn't a care as to which side emerged victorious, dwarf or orc, as long as the drow found some excitement, and some profit, in the process. And if that process inflicted horrific pain and loss to the minions of Obould, Gerti, and Bruenor Battlehammer alike, then all the better!
Of course, neither Kaer'lic nor Tos'un knew then that their two missing companions, Donnia Soldou and Ad'non Kareese, lay dead in the north, killed by a rogue drow.
* * * * *
They found their first break in a shallow cave tucked into a rocky cliff behind a small pond more than an hour later, and there, too, their first opportunity to bandage wounds and determine who was even still among their continually thinning ranks. Nesme had been an important town in the region for many generations, strong and solid behind fortified walls, the vanguard of the Silver Marches against intrusions from the monsters of the wild Trollmoors. That continual strife and diligence had bred a closeness among the community of Nesmians so that they felt every loss keenly.
The day had brought more than a dozen deaths, and had left several more people missing—a difficult loss for but one band of less than a hundred refugees. And given the seriousness of the wounds that many resting in that shallow cave had suffered, that number of dead seemed sure to rise through the remaining hours of the night.
"Daylight ain't no friend o' trolls, even in tracking," Dagna said to Galen Firth when he met the man at the cave entrance a short while later. "Me boys're covering the tracks and killing any trolls and blokes wandering too close, but we're not to sit here for long without them beasties coming against us in force."
"Then we move, again and again," Galen Firth said.
Dagna considered the man's tone—determination and resignation mingled into one—as much as his agreement.
"We'll cross shadow to shadow," Galen went on. "We'll find their every weakness and hit them hard. We'll find all the remaining bands of my townsfolk and meld them into a singular and devastating force."
"We'll find tunnels, deep and straight, and run headlong for Mithral Hall," General Dagna corrected, and Galen Firth's eyes flashed with anger.
"More of my people are out there. I will not forsake them in their time of desperation."
"Well, that's for yerself to decide," said Dagna. "I come here to see how I might be helping, and so me and me boys did. I left six more dead back there. That's eight o' fifty, almost one in six."
"And your efforts saved ten times the number of your dead. Are not ten of Nesme's folk worth a single dwarf's life?"
"Bah, don't ye be putting it like that," Dagna said, and he gave a great snort. "I'm thinking that we're all to be slaughtered in one great fight if we make a single mistake. More than two score o' me boys and closer to a hun-nerd o' yer own folk."
"Then we won't make a mistake," Galen Firth said in a low and even tone.
Dagna snorted again and moved past the man, knowing that he wouldn't be getting anything settled that night. Nor did he have to, for in truth, he had no idea of where the force might even find any tunnels that would take them back to Mithral Hall. Dagna knew, and so did Galen, that this band would be moving out of necessity and not choice over the next hours, and even days, likely, so arguing about courses that might not ever even become an option seemed a rather silly thing to do.
Dagna crossed by the folk of Nesme, accepting their kind words and gratitude, and offering his own praise for their commendable efforts. He also found his own clerics hard at work tending the wounded, and he offered a solid pat on each dwarf shoulder as he passed. Mostly, though, Dagna studied the humans. They were indeed a good and sturdy folk, in the tough general's estimation, if a bit orc-headed.
Well, he supposed, orc-headed only if Galen Firth is an accurate representative of the community.
That notion had Dagna moving more purposefully among the ranks, seeking out a particular man whose actions had stood above the norm back on the battlefield. He found that man at the very back of the shallow cave, reclining on a smooth, rounded stone. As he approached, Dagna noted the man's many wounds, including three fingers on his left hand twisted at an angle that showed them to certainly be broken, and a garish tear on his left ear that looked as if the ear might fall right off.
"Ye might want to be seeing the priests about them fingers and that ear," Dagna said, moving up before the man.
Obviously startled, the warrior quickly sat up and straightened his battered chain and leather tunic.
"Dagna's me name," the dwarf said, extending his calloused hand. "General Dagna o' Mithral Hall, Warcommander to King Bruenor Battle-hammer."
"Well met, General Dagna," the man said. "I am Rannek of Nesme."
"One o' them Riders?"
The man nodded. "I was, at least."
"Bah, ye'll get yer town back soon enough!"
The dwarf noted that his optimism didn't seem to lift the man's expression, though he suspected, given the reception Galen Firth had offered Rannek back at the battlefield, that the dourness wasn't precipitated by the wider prospects for the town.
"Ye done well back there," Dagna offered, eliciting a less-than-resounding shrug.
"We fight for our very existence, good dwarf. Our options are few. If we err, we die."
"Ain't that the way of it?" asked the dwarf. "In me many years, I've come to see the truth in the notion that war's the time for determining the character of a dwarf. Or a man."
"Indeed."
Dagna's eyes narrowed under his bushy and prominent eyebrows. "Ye got nearly a hunnerd o' yer kin in here looking to ye. Ye're knowing that? And here ye be with a face showing defeat, yet ye got most o' yer folk out o' what them trolls suren thought to be the end o' yer road."
"They'll be looking to Galen Firth, now that he has returned," said Rannek.
"Bah, that's not a good enough answer."
"It is the only answer I have," said Rannek.
He slid off the rounded stone, offered a polite and unenthusiastic bow, and moved away.
General Dagna heaved a resigned sigh. He didn't have time for this. Not now. Not with trolls pressing in on them.
"Humans…" he muttered under his breath, giving a shake of his hairy head.
* * * * *
"They are helpless and they are scattered," Kaer'lic Suun Wett said to the giant two-headed Proffit soon after the human band had temporarily escaped from the troll and bog bloke pursuit. "The hour of complete domination over all the region is at hand for you. If you strike at them now, hard and relentlessly, you will utterly destroy all remnants of Nesme and any foothold the humans can dare hope to hold in your lands."