"This piece of ground between your eastern door and the Surbrin will not fall, if all of it is to be covered in layers of the dead from the three cities I represent at this meeting," she said. "We are all agreed on this. Winter's Edge will be expanded as a military encampment, and supplies and soldiers will flow through Silverymoon to that town unabated. We will relieve King Emerus's dwarves here, so that they can return to their work in securing the Underdark route between Felbarr and Mithral Hall. We will offer great wagons and drivers to King Harbromm, so that Citadel Adbar can easily enter the conflicted region as they see fit. We will spare no expense."
"But you will spare yer warriors," Bruenor remarked.
"We will not throw thousands against defended mountains for the sake of nearly barren ground," Alustriel bluntly answered.
Bruenor, wearing the same expression and seated in the same posture as his dwarf counterpart, offered a grim nod in response. He wasn't thrilled with Alustriel's decision; he wanted nothing more than to sweep ugly Obould back to his mountain hole. But Bruenor's people had done battle with the orc king and his legions, and so Bruenor surely understood the reasoning.
"Strengthen Winter's Edge, then," he said. "Work your soldiers in concert. Drill them and practice them. I wish that the Moonwood had chosen to attend this meeting. Hralien, who speaks for them, has promised his support, but from afar. Surely they fear that Obould is as likely to turn against their forest as against Mithral Hall, since they chose to enter the fray. I expect the same loyalty to them, from all o' ye, as ye're offering to Mithral Hall."
"Of course," said Alustriel.
"They saved me a thousand dwarves," Emerus agreed.
Galen Firth sat quietly, but not still, Bruenor noted, the man obviously growing agitated that the discussion had so shifted from the fate of his beloved Nesme.
"Ye go get yer town put back together," Bruenor said to him. "Ye make it stronger than ever before—I'll be sending caravans full o' the best weapons me smithies can forge. Ye keep them damned trolls in their smelly moor and off o' me back."
The man visibly relaxed, even uncrossing his arms and coming forward as he replied, "Nesme will not forget the aid that Mithral Hall offered, though Mithral Hall was terribly pressed at the time."
Bruenor responded with a nod, and noted out of the corner of his eye that Alustriel was smiling with approval for his generous offering and words. The King of Mithral Hall wasn't thrilled with the decisions made that day, but he well understood that they all had to stand together.
For if they chose to stand alone, they would fall, one by one, to the swarms of Obould.
* * * * *
"You don't know that," Catti-brie said, trying to be comforting.
"Delly is gone, Colson is gone, and Khazid'hea is gone," Wulfgar replied, and he seemed as if he could hardly stand up while uttering those dreaded words.
He and Catti-brie had sent the news throughout Mithral Hall that Khazid'hea was missing, and had made it quite clear that the sword was not to be handled casually, that it was a weapon of great and dangerous power.
It was obvious that someone had taken it, and few dwarves would be put under the spell of any sentient weapon. That left Delly, or one of the other human refugees who had set out across the river.
It had to be Delly, Catti-brie silently agreed. She had come to Catti-brie's room before, the woman knew. Half-asleep, she had once or twice seen Delly staring at her from the doorway, though out of concern or jealousy, she did not know. Was it possible that Delly had come in to speak with her and had been intercepted by the machinations of a bored and hungry Khazid'hea?
For where had Delly gone? How dare she leave Mithral Hall with Colson, and without ever speaking to Wulfgar?
The mystery had Wulfgar on the very edge of outrage. The man, battered as he had been, should have been resting, but he hadn't gone to his bed in more than a day, ever since the troubling report of Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder chasing after a lone figure running off to the north. The dwarves were betting it to be Cottie Cooperson, who was quite out of her mind with grief, but both Catti-brie and Wulfgar held a nagging feeling that someone else might be out of her mind, or at least that someone might have inadvertently let a malignant spirit into her mind.
"Or is it that we have been infiltrated by stealthy allies of Obould?" Wulfgar asked. "Have spies come into Mithral Hall? Have they stolen your sword, and my wife and child?"
"We will sort through all of this," Catti-brie assured him. "We will find Delly's trail soon enough. The storms have lessened and the ferry will soon be running again. Or Alustriel and King Emerus will aid us in our search. When they come out from their meeting with Bruenor, bid them to find the refugees who went across the river. There we will find answers, I'm sure."
Wulfgar's expression showed that perhaps he was afraid of finding those answers.
But there was nothing else to be done. Dozens of dwarves were searching the halls, for the sword, the woman, and the toddler. Cordio and some of his fellow priests were even using divining spells to try to help the search.
So far, there were only questions.
Wulfgar slumped against the wall.
* * * * *
"Obould will be dead in three days," Stormsinger the giant growled. "That was your promise, Princess Gerti, yet Obould is alive and more powerful than ever, and our prizes—pegasus, dark elf, and that magical panther he carries—have flown from our grasp."
"We are better off having Drizzt Do'Urden working toward the same goal as we," Gerti argued, and she had to raise her voice to lift it above the tumult of protest that was rising all around her. Once again the weight of events pressed down on the giantess. It had all seemed so simple just a few tendays past: She would lend a few giants here and a few giants there to throw boulders from afar at settlements the orcs had surrounded, softening up the defenses so that Obould could overrun the towns. She would gain spoils of war for the cost of a few rocks.
So she had thought. The explosion at the ridge, where twenty of her giants had been immolated, had irrevocably changed all of that. The assault into Mithral Hall, where several more had fallen to tricks and traps, had irrevocably changed all of that. The ceremony of Gruumsh, where Obould had seemingly taken on godlike proportions, had irrevocably changed all of that.
Gerti was left just trying to bail out of it all, to let Obould and the dwarves battle it out to the last and leave herself and her kin playing on both sides of the equation so that, whoever proved victorious, the battle would not come to Shining White.
The grumbling around her showed her clearly that her kin weren't holding much faith in her or her curious choices.
If only Drizzt Do'Urden had slaughtered the wretched Obould!
"Drizzt is a formidable opponent," Gerti said, following that notion. "He will find a way to strike hard at Obould."
"And at Shining White?"
Gerti narrowed her eyes and scowled at the petulant Stormsinger. Clearly the large warrior was positioning himself as an alternative to her when the great Jarl Orel finally let go of life. And just as clearly, many of the other giants were beginning to look favorably on that positioning.
"Drizzt will not, by his word, and he will dissuade others from coming against us, should Bruenor defeat Obould."
"It is all a waste," Stormsinger groused. "We have lost friends, all of us, and for what gain? Have we more slaves to serve our needs? Have we more wealth than we knew before we followed King Obould of the orcs? Have we more territory, rich mines or wondrous cities? Have we even a single winged horse, one handed over to us and now handed away?"