"Right there," Nanfoodle instructed a pair of other dwarves who had been put in his charge. He pointed to a flat wall in the western entry chamber, to the side of the doors that led into the main upper level corridors. He motioned for Ivan to bring the pail up, which Ivan did, to the continuing "hee hee hee" of his brother Pikel.
"Would you be so kind as to go and inquire of Candles how he fares in his work?" Nanfoodle asked, referring to a thin, squint-eyed dwarf named Bedhongee Waxfingers, nicknamed Candles because of his family's line of work.
Ivan gently set the bucket on the floor before the wall and glanced back at the other two helpers, both of who were carrying brushes. "Aye, I'll go," he said, looking back at the gnome. "But only because I'm wanting to be far from here when one o' them dolts kicks the bucket."
"Boom!" said Pikel.
"Yeah, boom, and ye're not knowing the half of it," Ivan added, and he started away.
"What were the dimensions again?" Nanfoodle asked him before he had taken two strides.
"For Candles? Two dwarves abreast and one atop another," Ivan replied, which meant five feet wide and eight high.
He watched Nanfoodle motion to the pair with the brushes.
"Durned gnome," he muttered, and he left the chamber.
Barely in the hallway, he heard Nanfoodle lift his voice in explanation: "Bomblets, Pikel. No big explosions in here, of course—not like what we did outside."
"Boom!" Pikel replied.
Ivan closed his eyes and shook his head, then moved along more swiftly, thinking it prudent to put as much ground between himself and Nanfoodle as possible. Like most dwarves, Ivan applauded clever engines of war. The Battlehammer sideslinger catapults and "juicer," a rolling cart designed to flatten and crush opponents, were particularly impressive. But Nanfoodle's work assaulted Ivan's pragmatic dwarven sensibilities. Outside, in the battle for the ridge, the gnome had brought trapped subterranean gasses up under a ridgeline held by frost giants, and had blown the entire mountain spur to pieces.
It occurred to Ivan that while Nanfoodle's efforts might help secure Mithral Hall, it was also quite possible that he would destroy the whole complex in the process.
"Not yer business," the dwarf grumbled to himself. "Ye're the warrior, not the warcommander."
He heard his brother laughing behind him. More often than not, Ivan knew all too well, that laugh didn't lead to good things. Images of flames leaping a thousand feet into the air and the rubble of a mountain ridge flying wide filled his thoughts.
"Not the warcommander," he muttered again, shaking his head.
* * * * *
"Ye're doing great, Rumblebelly," Bruenor prompted.
Regis shifted at the unexpected sound, sending a small avalanche of soot tumbling back on his friend, who was climbing the narrow chimney behind him. Bruenor grumbled and coughed, but offered no overt griping.
"You're certain this will get us out?" Regis asked between his own coughs.
"Used it meself after ye all left me in here with the stinking duergar," Bruenor assured him. "And I didn't have the climbing tools, either! And carried a bunch o' wounds upon me battle-weary body! And …"
He rambled on with a string of complaints, and Regis just let them float by him without landing. Somehow having Bruenor below him, ranting and raving, brought the halfling quite a bit of comfort, a clear reminder that he was home. But that didn't make the climb any easier, given Regis's still-aching arm. The wolf that had bitten him had ground its teeth right into his bone, and even though tendays had passed, and even though Cordio and Stumpet had cast healing spells upon him, he was a battered halfling indeed.
He knew the honor Bruenor had placed upon him in asking him to lead the way up the chimney, though, and he wasn't about to slow down. He let the cadence of Bruenor's grumbling guide him and he reached up, hooked his fingers on a jag in the rough stone and hauled himself up another foot. Over and over, he repeated the process, not looking up for many minutes.
When he finally did tilt his head back, he saw at last the lighter glow of the nighttime sky, not twenty feet above him.
Regis's smile faded almost immediately, though, as he considered that there could be an orc guard out there, standing ready to plunge a spear down atop his head. The halfling froze in place, and held there for a long while.
A finger flicked against the bottom of his foot, and Regis managed to look down into Bruenor's eyes—shining whiter, it seemed, for the dwarf's face was completely blackened by soot. Bruenor motioned emphatically for Regis to continue up.
Regis gathered his nerve, his eyes slowly moving up to the starlight. Then, with a burst of speed, he scrambled hand over hand, not letting himself slow until he was within reach of the iron grate, one bar missing from Bruenor's climb those years ago. With a determined grunt, his courage mounting as he considered the feat of his dwarf friend in escaping the duergar, Regis moved swiftly, not pausing until his upper half was right out of the chimney. He paused there, half in and half out, and closed his eyes, waiting for the killing blow to fall.
The only sound was the moan of the wind on the high mountain, and the occasional scraping from Bruenor down below.
Regis pulled himself out and climbed to his knees, glancing all around.
An amazing view greeted him from up on the mountain called Fourth-peak. The wind was freezing cold and snow clung to the ground all around him, except in the immediate area around the chimney, where warm air continued to pour forth from the heat of the great dwarven Undercity.
Regis rose to his feet, his eyes transfixed on the panoramic view around him. He looked to the west, to Keeper's Dale, and the thousands of campfires of Obould's great army. He turned around and considered the eastern stretches below him, the dark snaking line of the great River Surbrin and the line of fires on its western bank.
"By Moradin, Rumblebelly," Bruenor muttered when he finally got out of the hole and stood up to survey the magnitude of the scene, of the campfires of the forces arrayed against the goodly folk of the Silver Marches. "Not in all me days have I seen such a mob of foes."
"Is there any hope?" Regis asked.
"Bah!" snorted the toughened old king. "Orcs're all! Ten to one, me dwarves'll kill 'em."
"Might need more than that," the halfling said, but wisely under his breath so that his friend could not hear.
"Well, if they come, they're coming from the west," Bruenor observed, for that was obviously the region of the most densely packed opposition.
Regis moved up beside him, and stayed silent. They had an hour to go before the first light of dawn. They couldn't really go far, for they needed the warmth of the chimney air to help ward the brutal cold—they hadn't worn too many layers of clothes for their tight climb, after all.
So they waited, side by side and patiently. They each knew the stakes, and the bite of the wind was a small price to pay.
But the howls began soon after, a lone wolf, at first, but then answered again and again all around the pair.
"We have to go," Regis said after a long while, a chorus of howls growing closer by the second.
Bruenor seemed as if made of stone. He did move enough to glance back to the east.
"Come on, then," the dwarf prodded, speaking to the sky, calling for the dawn's light.
"Bruenor, they're getting close."
"Get yerself in the hole," the dwarf ordered.
Regis tugged his arm, but he did not move.
"You don't even have your axe."
"I'll get in behind ye, don't ye doubt, but I'm wanting a look at Obould's army in the daylight."