"L-lady," the dwarf stuttered, bowing so low his black beard brushed the ground.
"Well met, Torgar Hammerstriker," Alustriel said in a voice that was like a cool north wind. "I was hoping to speak with you, here or in the inevitable meetings I will have with King Bruenor of Mithral Hall. Your actions in Mirabar have sent quite an unsettling ripple throughout the region, you must know."
"If that ripple slaps Marchion Elastul upside his thick skull, then it's more than worth it," the dwarf answered, regaining his composure and taciturn facade.
"Fair enough," Alustriel conceded.
"What am I hearing now, Lady?" Torgar asked. "Some nonsense that ye're thinking the battle done?"
"The land is full of orcs and giants, good dwarf," said Alustriel. "The battle is far from finished, I am certain."
"I was just told ye weren't marching north to Mithral Hall."
"That is true."
"But ye just said—"
"This is not the time to take the fight to King Obould," Alustriel explained. "Winter will fast come on. There is little we can do."
"Bah, ye can have yer army—armies, for where's Everlund and Sundabar? — to Keeper's Dale in a tenday's time!"
"The other cities are watching, from afar," said Alustriel. "You do not understand the scope of what has befallen the region, I fear."
"Don't understand it?" Torgar said, eyes wide. "I been fighting in the middle of it for tendays now! I was on the ridge with Banak Brawnanvil, holding back the hordes. Was me and me boys that stole back the tunnels so that damned fool gnome could blow the top off the mountain spur!"
"Yes, I wish to hear all of that tale, in full, but another time," Alustriel said.
"So how can ye be saying I'm not knowing? I'm knowing better than anyone!"
"You saw the front waves of an ocean of enemies," Alustriel said. "Tens of thousands of orcs have crawled out of their holes to Obould's call. I have seen this. I have flown the length and breadth of the battlefield. There is nothing the combined armies can do at this time to be rid of the vermin. We cannot send thousands to die in such an effort, when it is better to secure a defensive line that will hold back the orc ocean."
"Ye came out to help Galen here!"
"Yes, against a manageable enemy—and one that still tore deeply into my ranks. The trolls have been pushed back, and we will drive them into the moors where they belong. Nesme," — she indicated the map on the table—"will be raised and fortified, because that alone is our best defense against the creatures of the Trollmoors."
"So ye come to the aid of Nesme, but not of Mithral Hall?" said Torgar, never one to hold his thoughts private.
"We aid where we can," Alustriel answered, remaining calm and relaxed. "If the orcs begin to loosen their grip, if an opportunity presents itself, then Silverymoon will march to Mithral Hall and beyond, gladly beside King Bruenor Battlehammer and his fine clan. I suspect that Everlund will march with us, and surely Citadels Felbarr and Adbar will not forsake their Delzoun kin."
"But not now?"
Alustriel held her hands out wide.
"Nothing ye can do?"
"Emissaries will connect with King Battlehammer," the woman replied. "We will do what we can."
Torgar felt himself trembling, felt his fists clenching at his sides, and it was all he could do to not launch himself at Alustriel, or at Galen, standing smugly beside her, the man seeming as if all the world had been set aright, since Nesme would soon be reclaimed.
"There is nothing more, good dwarf," Alustriel added. "I can not march my armies into the coming snow against so formidable an enemy as has brought war against Mithral Hall."
"It's just orcs," said Torgar.
No answer came back at him, and he knew he would get none.
"Will you march with us to Nesme?" Galen Firth asked, and Torgar felt himself trembling anew. "Will you celebrate in the glory of our victory as Nesme is freed?"
The dwarf stared hard at the man.
Then Torgar turned and walked out of the tent. He soon made it back to his kinfolk, Shingles at his side. Within an hour, they were gone, into the tunnels and marching at double-pace back to King Bruenor.
CHAPTER 16 SHIFTING SANDS AND SOLID STONE
"The boys from Felbarr're in sight across the river," Jackonray Broadbelt excitedly reported to King Bruenor.
For several days, the dwarf representative from Citadel Felbarr had been watching intently for the reports filtering down the chimneys for just such word. He knew that his kin were on the march, that Emerus Warcrown had agreed upon a Surbrin crossing to crash a hole in the defensive ring the orcs were preparing and link up aboveground with Mithral Hall.
"Three thousand warriors," Jackonray went on. "And with boats to get across."
"We're ready to knock out the hole in the east," Bruenor replied. "We got all me boys bunched at Garumn's Gorge, ready to charge out and chase the stinkin' orcs from the riverbank."
The two dwarves clapped each other on the shoulder, and throughout the audience hall other dwarves cheered. Sitting near to Bruenor's dais, two others seemed less than enthusiastic, however.
"You'll get them out fast?" Regis asked Nanfoodle.
The gnome nodded. "Mithral Hall will come out in a rush," he assured the halfling. "But fast enough to destroy the river defenses?"
The same question echoed in Regis's thoughts. They had won over and over again, and even when they'd lost ground, the cost had been heavier for their enemies. But all that had been achieved through defensive actions.
What they planned was something quite different.
"What do ye know, Rumblebelly?" Bruenor asked a moment later, and Regis realized that he wasn't doing a very good job of keeping his fears off of his face.
"There are a lot of orcs," he said.
"Lot o' dead orcs soon enough!" declared Jackonray, and the cheering grew even louder.
"We have the hall back, and they're not coming in," Regis said quietly. The words sounded incredibly inane to him as he heard them come from his mouth, and he had no idea what positive effect stating the obvious might bring. It was simply a subconscious delaying tactic, he understood, a way to move the conversation in another, less excitable direction.
"And they're soon to be running away!" Bruenor shot back at him, and the cheering grew even louder.
There was no way to go against it, Regis recognized. The emotions were too high, the anger bubbling over into the ecstasy of revenge.
"We should take no chances," Regis said, but no one was listening. "We should move with care," he said, but no one was listening. "We have them held now," he tried to explain. "How long will their forces hold together out there in the cold and snow when they know that there is nowhere left for them to march? Without the hunger of conquest, the orc momentum will stall, and so will their hearts for battle."
Nanfoodle's hand on his arm broke the halfling's gaining momentum, for it made Regis understand that Nanfoodle was the only one who even realized he was talking, that the dwarves, cheering wildly and leaping about, couldn't even hear his whispered words.
"We'll get out fast," the gnome assured him. "These engineers are magnificent. They will make wide tunnels, do not fear. The Battlehammer dwarves will come against the orcs before the orcs know they are being attacked."
Regis nodded, not doubting any of those specifics, but still very uneasy about the whole plan.
A clap on his other shoulder turned him around, to see Wulfgar crouching beside him.