"That's it then? We just leave?" Nanfoodle asked Shoudra.
The little gnome assumed a defiant posture, folding his little arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently, his toes, which could not be seen, flapping the front of his red robes.
"You would have us go back in there after your revelations to Steward Regis?" the sceptrana returned, pointing back over Nanfoodle's shoulder at the closed door of Mithral Hall. "I prefer to report in person to Marchion Elastul, if you please, and not simply by having my disembodied head delivered to him on a Clan Battlehammer platter!"
Nanfoodle's bluster did diminish a bit at the reminder that he had been the one to betray them, and his foot stopped tapping quite so insistently.
"It... it was the truth," he stammered. "And when they hear the whole truth, they will understand - I never meant to follow through with Marchion Elastul's stupid mission anyway."
"So just march in and tell that to Regis," Shoudra offered. "I am certain he will believe you."
Nanfoodle muttered under his breath and went back into his defiant mode.
"Of course we cannot go back in there!" said the gnome. "Not yet. We have to prove ourselves to the dwarves - and why should we not? We did come here under false pretenses and with nefarious designs. So let us show them the truth of Nanfoodle and Shoudra and of how the truth is different from that of Mar-chion Elastul."
"Well said," Shoudra remarked, her sarcasm still dripping. "Shall we go and destroy the orc hordes? Perhaps we can return to the halls before the afternoon beer and cookies . .."
She stopped, seeing Nanfoodle's eyes go wide and for a moment, she thought he was staring incredulously at her. But then Shoudra heard the wailing behind her and she spun around to see a trio of dwarves approaching from the north. Two flanked the green-bearded one in the center, the dwarf on Pikel Bouldershoulder's right holding him under the shoulder, while the dwarf on his left, his brother Ivan, held a blood-soaked cloth up to the stump that remained of his left arm.
"Oooo," Pikel whined.
Nanfoodle and Shoudra rushed across the expanse to meet up with the trio.
"Oooo," said Pikel.
"They got me brother good," Ivan bellowed. "Took his arm off clean with that slate them giants're chucking. Damned unlucky shot!"
"They've got the high ground now, and once they get their war engines built, there will be many more coming down," said the other dwarf supporting Pikel. "This wound'll be a little one compared to what we're soon to see."
The trio hustled by, heading straight for the door, and Shoudra and Nanfoodle wisely moved farther out of the way.
"We cannot abandon them in this dark hour," Nanfoodle insisted.
Shoudra peeked around a boulder as the great doors opened and the trio were hustled inside. The sceptrana fell back quickly, though, for a couple of dwarf guards came out and began glancing all around.
"What would you have us do, Nanfoodle the alchemist," she replied, putting her back to the stone and seeming, in that dark moment, as if she truly needed it for support. "Perhaps we can join with the orcs, and you can poison their weapons with your concoction."
It was meant as a joke, of course, but Nanfoodle seemed to brighten suddenly as he stared at Shoudra. He snapped his stubby fingers in the air.
"We just might do that!" he declared.
He started away toward the north, staying close to the cover of the uneven, broken wall.
"What are you talking about?" Shoudra demanded, pacing him easily.
"They need us up there, so let us go and see where we might fit in," the gnome replied.
Shoudra grabbed him by the shoulder and halted him.
"Up there?" she echoed, pointing up to the top of the northern cliff. "Up there, where the battle rages?"
Nanfoodle fell back into his cross-armed, toe-tapping stance.
"Up there," he answered.
Shoudra scoffed.
"You know that I am right in this," the gnome argued. "You know that we owe it to Clan Battleham - "
"We owe it to Clan Battlehammer?" the sceptrana asked.
"Yes, of course," said Nanfoodle, and it was his turn to bathe his words in sarcasm. "We owe them nothing. Not even in common cause against monstrous armies. Not even though they might be the only thing standing between these orc and giant hordes and Mirabar herself! Not even because they have offered Torgar Hammerstriker and his followers the friendship of brothers. Not even because they welcomed us into their homes, trusting us even though they had no sound reason to. Not even because - "
"Enough, Nanfoodle," said Shoudra, and she waved her hands in surrender. "Enough."
The tall, beautiful woman gave a long sigh as she looked back up at the high cliff and at the lines of rope ladders hanging down, crossing from ledge to ledge.
"Up there," she stated more than asked.
"Perhaps you have a spell that will carry us up to them?" the gnome asked hopefully.
Shoudra looked back at him and shook her head.
His look was crestfallen, but that was quickly pushed aside by renewed determination as little Nanfoodle the alchemist led the way to the base of the cliff and the nearest rope ladder. He gave one look over at Shoudra, and he began to climb.
It took the pair more than an hour to get up the side of the cliff, pausing to rest at every available ledge. When they finally did near the top, the first faces that greeted them were not dwarves', to their surprise.
"Regis sent you?" Catti-brie asked, peering over at the two.
She reached her hand down toward Nanfoodle, while Wulfgar fell flat beside her and extended his strong arm to Shoudra.
"We came on our own," Shoudra answered as she climbed up and brushed herself off. "We were preparing to leave - back home to Mirabar - but thought to check in and see if we might be of some use up here."
"We can use all the help we can find," Wulfgar answered. He turned and stepped aside, giving the pair a wide view of the lands below them to the north, where the vast orc and goblin army was regrouping. "They have come at us regularly, several times each day."
Lowering her gaze to encompass the descending ground between the dwarves and the orcs, Shoudra could see the truth of the barbarian's words, as evidenced by the scores of hacked orc and goblin bodies. Blood was so thick about the battleground by that point that it seemed as if the gray stone itself had taken on a deeper, reddish hue.
"We're killing them twenty to one," Catti-brie remarked. "And still they're coming."
Shoudra glanced over at Nanfoodle, who nodded grimly.
"We will help where we may," the sceptrana assured the two human children of King Bruenor.
"Ye'd be helping more if ye might be finding a way to take out them giants," came the call of a dwarf, Banak Brawnanvil, as he stalked over to greet the pair of new recruits.
He turned as he approached, motioning back to the ridge in the distant west, a mountain arm running north-south.
"They cannot reach us with their stones," Catti-brie explained. "But they've improvised well, hurling flat pieces of - "
"Slate," Shoudra finished, nodding. "We met up with the unfortunate Bouldershoulder down in Keeper's Dale."
"Poor Pikel," said Catti-brie.
"The giants will become more of a problem than that soon enough," Banak put in.
He didn't elaborate, but he didn't have to, for as she scanned the giants' position far to the northwest, Shoudra could see the great logs that had been brought up to the ridge, some of them already assembled into wide bases. No stranger to battle, Shoudra Stargleam could guess easily enough what the behemoths might be constructing.
"The slate is troublesome and unnerving," Wulfgar explained. "But in truth, they cannot often get the soaring pieces anywhere near to us, despite Pikel's misfortune. But once they assemble and sight in those catapults, we will have little cover from the barrage."
"And I'm thinking that they'll have a couple up and launching tomorrow," Banak added.
"Their advantage will drive you from the cliffs," Nanfoodle reasoned, and no one disagreed.
"Well, we're glad to have ye, for as long as we can have ye," Banak said suddenly and enthusiastically, brightening the dampened mood. He turned to Wulfgar and Catti-brie. "The two of ye show them about so they might figure how they'll best fit in."
Despite the many forays by their enemies, the dwarves had done a fine job of creating defensive positions, Shoudra and Nanfoodle quickly realized. Their walls were neither high nor thick, but they were well angled to protect from flying slate and well designed to allow for the bearded warriors to move from position to position along the trenches created behind them. Most of all, the dwarves had forced a series of choke points up near the cliff, areas where the orc advantage in numbers would be diminished by lack of room. Shoudra could well imagine that the last orc charge, if designed to drive the dwarves over the cliff, would prove very costly to the aggressors.
And the dwarves were preparing for the eventuality of that retreat as well. With several hundred to evacuate, it seemed clear to Shoudra that many would be killed on the journey down the rope ladders - taken down by missiles from above and perhaps tumbling away when ropes were slashed. Shoudra recognized many of the dwarves, Mirabar engineers, hard at work on the answer to that dilemma. They were digging a tunnel, a slide actually, with a wide hopper area leading to a narrower channel that wound down within the stone, paralleling the descent of the cliff itself.
"Would you even fit down there?" Shoudra asked the huge Wulfgar.
"They've set drop-ropes as well," the barbarian explained. "The slide is for those last dwarves leaving."
"Ye think ye got a spell or two to grease the run?" came a familiar voice from out of the hole.
Nanfoodle fell flat and peered in to see Shingles McRuff climbing up from the darkness.
"It is good to see you well," Shoudra said when the dwarf emerged from the hole.
"Well enough, I suppose," Shingles replied. "But we lost many kin when them ugly orcs took the tunnels in the west."
"Tunnels?"
"Under the ridge," Catti-brie explained. "Torgar, Shingles, and the others from Mirabar tried to hold them, but the onslaught was too great." The woman glanced over at the dirty dwarf. "But more orcs died than dwarves, to be sure," she added, and Shingles managed a smile.
"Tunnels under the ridge?" Nanfoodle inquired.
"A fair network," Shingles explained. "Not too wide and not too many, but running one end to the other."
Nanfoodle's expression suddenly became very intrigued, and he looked up at Shoudra.
"And no easy access up to the ridge," Catti-brie remarked, "if you're thinking we should fight our way back in there and rush up at the giants."
Nanfoodle merely nodded and began tapping his finger against his chin. He moved off for a moment and glanced back over the cliff at Keeper's Dale.
"What's he thinking?" Shingles asked.
"With him, who can tell?" came Shoudra's answer, given with a shrug. "Pray tell me, my old friend, how fares Torgar?"
"He's well," Shingles reported.
He looked down to the northeast, to a group of dwarves holding a tight formation behind a low wall, ready to spring up and counter any orc charge. Studying the group, Shoudra thought she could make out the familiar figure of Master Hammerstriker, whose actions in Mirabar carried effects for them all that seemed to go on and on.
"Well as can be," Shingles added. "He's not much happy about losing the tunnels."
"Too many orcs," Catti- brie said. "And too many giants, and some with dark magic. The Mirabarran dwarves did well to hold as long as you did."
"Yeah, yeah," came Shingles's dismissive answer.
"Perhaps you'll get the chance to take it back," Nanfoodle offered, rejoining the group.
"Might that we will, but I'm not for seeing any reason," Shingles replied. "Won't do us much good in getting rid o' them giants, and them giants're the big trouble now. Can't see how we're to stop "em."
Nanfoodle looked at Shoudra, who gave a great sigh and walked off a couple of steps to the northwest, cupping her hand over her eyes and looking off at the high ridge.
"Solutions are often complicated," Nanfoodle said, and the gnome was grinning widely. "Unless you follow them logically, one little step at a time."'
"What're you thinking?" Catti-brie asked.
"I am thinking that I have been presented a problem. One in need of a solution in short order." Still smiling, the gnome turned back to Shoudra - to her back, actually, for she continued her scan of the ridge. "And what are you thinking, Shoudra?" he asked.
"I am thinking that I know what you can do to metal, my friend," the sceptrana answered. "Would you have a similar solution for wood?"
Nanfoodle looked back to the puzzled expressions of Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Shingles.
He offered them another wide smile.
The feeling of flying was strange indeed to Wulfgar - almost as much so as the spell Shoudra had cast upon him so that he could see in the night as well as any elf. He was the only one enchanted with the power of flight - the others were simply levitating - so he was the guiding force, pulling them all across the broken terrain of the mountain ridge.
He kept glancing back at them, though since they were invisible, he couldn't see them or the tow ropes. He knew they were there, for he could feel the resistance on the separate ropes from all four: Catti-brie, Torgar, Shoudra, and Nanfoodle.
Remembering Shoudra's warning that magical flight was unpredictable, Wulfgar set down as soon as it seemed to him that the remaining run to the giants and their war engines was smooth enough to easily traverse. He set himself firmly and ducked low, understanding that the levitating foursome would continue to fly past him. One by one, he caught them and broke their momentum as their different lengths of rope played out to the end, and though all of them did their best to remain quiet against the tug, there came a slight grunt from Nanfoodle that had them all holding their breath.
The giants didn't seem to notice.
It took the five a short while to untangle and untie themselves and get together, for only Shoudra and Nanfoodle, enchanted with spells of magical vision, could see the others. Finally, they were all settled behind a small jut.
"We were wise in coming out," Shoudra whispered. "The giants' catapults are nearing completion."
"I will need five minutes," Nanfoodle whispered in reply.
"Not so long a time," said Shoudra.
"Longer than you think, with a score of giants about," Catti-brie whispered.
Nanfoodle set off then, and Shoudra guided her three invisible companions around to the east of the giants, to a defensible position.
"Just say when to go," Catti-brie offered.
"As soon as you attack, the invisibility spell will dissipate," Shoudra reminded her.
In response, Catti-brie lifted Taulmaril over the lip of the jut, settling the bow into the general direction of the closest group of giants. Only then did she realize that she couldn't rightly aim the invisible weapon, for she had no reference points with which to sight it in.
"You two here, then," Shoudra agreed. "You will hear the first sounds soon enough." The sceptrana took Torgar's hand and led him away, circling even more to the east and north of the giant encampment.
"I'd be feeling a bit more comforted if I could see you ready beside me," Catti-brie whispered to Wulfgar.
"Right here," he assured her.
He went silent and so did she, for a giantess moved very near to their position.
Many minutes slipped past in tense silence, broken only by the hum of the wind whistling through the many broken stones. Even the wind was not loud that night, as if all the world was hushed in anticipation.
And it began. Catti-brie and Wulfgar jumped back in surprise at the abrupt commotion off to the north, a great din that sounded as if an entire dwarf army had gone on the attack. The giants reacted at once, leaping up and turning that way.
Catti-brie let the nearest of the behemoths get a few long strides farther away, then let fly a sizzling blue bolt, slamming the giantess right in the center of her back. She howled and had just started to turn when Aegis-fang smacked her across the shoulder, sending her sprawling to the stone.
"To the glory of Moradin!" came a great roar, a magically enhanced blast of Torgar's voice, Catti-brie realized.
Then came a lightning bolt, splitting the darkness and sending a handful of giants tumbling aside.
Catti-brie let fly another arrow into the giantess, and as soon as his magical warhammer reappeared in his waiting hand, Wulfgar launched it at the next nearest giant, who was turning to see to his fallen companion.
More cries to the dwarf god echoed from the north, another lightning bolt lit up the night, then came a sudden storm, a downpour of sleet pelting the stones near to Wulfgar and Catti-brie.
The woman hardly slowed her shooting, letting fly arrow after arrow, and many giants turned and charged at her position.
And many giants slipped on the slick stones. One nearly navigated his way all the way to the jut, but Aegis-fang smashed him in the chest. Though the giant seemed to handle the heavy blow well, he staggered backward under its weight, his feet sliding out from under him.
Catti-brie hit him in the face with an arrow as he sat there on the wet and shiny stones.
A great hand appeared right in front of her, the scrambling giantess finally crawling to the other side of the jut. She pulled herself up v/ith a roar, and Catti-brie was suddenly falling away.
It wasn't from anything the giantess had done, though, the woman soon realized. Wulfgar had tossed her aside, taking her place, and as the giantess's head came up over the jut, the barbarian gave a roar to his god of war and brought Aegis-fang sweeping down from on high.
Catti-brie winced at the sharp retort, a sound like stone clacking against stone, and the giantess disappeared from view.
But more were coming, as fast as they could manage across the slippery surface. Others took a different tack, finding stones and sending them sailing at the pair. It was Catti-brie's turn to pull Wulfgar aside, as she dived behind the cover of the jut, catching him by his thick shock of blond hair and forcing him down beside her. And not a moment too soon, for barely had the barbarian hit the ground when a boulder smashed the tip of the jut and went rebounding past.
The two quickly untangled, trying to regroup, and both cried out in surprise as a blue line appeared in the darkness, running straight up to a height of about six feet. That line widened and stretched, forming a doorway of light, and through it stepped Shoudra and Torgar.
"Just run!" Shoudra cried, pulling at Catti-brie as she began her sprint to the south.
"Nanfoodle?" Catti-brie cried.
"Just run!" Shoudra insisted.
And there seemed no other choice, for the giants were closing and were soon to be out of the icy area, and more rocks began to skip all around them.
They scrambled and they tumbled, and whenever one fell, the others hoisted him up and pulled him along. At one point, a rather wide and seemingly bottomless chasm, Wulfgar grabbed Catti-brie and tossed her across. A protesting Torgar got the treatment next, then Shoudra. With giant-thrown rocks cracking the stone all around him, Wulfgar made the leap himself.
On they ran, too afraid to even look back. Gradually, the bombardment thinned and the yells of outrage behind them diminished to nothingness.
Huffing and puffing, the foursome pulled up behind a wall of stone.
"Nanfoodle?" Catti-brie asked again.
"If we're lucky, the giants never even knew he was there," Shoudra explained. "He has potions that should allow him easy escape."
"And if we're not lucky?" Wulfgar asked.
Shoudra's grim expression was all the answer he needed. Wulfgar had seen enough of giants in his day, and enough of frost giants in particular, to understand the odds Nanfoodle would face if they noticed him.
"I don't know ... that we killed any ... but there's one . . . giantess who is sure to be ... wishing we hadn't come," Catti-brie remarked between gasps.
"I am sure that my lightning stung a few," Shoudra added. "But I doubt I did any serious harm to any."
"But that wasn't the point, now was it?" Torgar reminded them. "Come on, let's get off these rocks before the next orc charge. I didn't get no swings at the damned giants, but I mean to have me a few ores' heads!"
He stomped off, and the others followed, all of them nursing more than a few cuts and bruises from their nighttime run, and all of them glancing back repeatedly in hopes of seeing their gnome companion.
They should have been looking ahead instead, for when they arrived back at the main encampment, they found Nanfoodle resting against a stone, an oversized pipe stuffed into his mouth, his smile stretching wide to either side.
"Should be an interesting morning," the gnome remarked, grinning from ear to ear.
Soon after dawn the next day, the first giant barrage began - almost.
All the dwarves watched as in the distance, a pair of great catapults, baskets piled with stones, bent back, giants straining to set them.
From below, the orcs howled and began their charge, thinking to catch the dwarves vulnerable under the giant-sized volley.
Beams creaked ... and cracked.
The giants tried to release the missiles, but the catapults simply fell to pieces.
All eyes in the area turned to Nanfoodle, who whistled and pulled a vial out of his belt pouch, holding it up before him and swishing greenish liquid around inside it.
"A simple acid, really," he explained.
"Well, ye bought us some time," Banak Brawnanvil congratulated the five-some, and he looked down the slope at the stubbornly charging orcs. "From them giants, at least."
The dwarf ran off then, barking orders, calling his formations into position.
"They'll need many new logs if they hope to reconstitute their war engines," Nanfoodle assured the others.
Of course, none of them were surprised later that same day, when scouts reported that new logs were already being brought in to that northwestern ridge.
"Stubborn bunch," the little gnome observed.