"They won't come on, I tell ye, for them trolls in the south've run off," said Cordio, who was fast being recognized as one of Mithral Hall's leading priests, and leading voices in their difficult struggle.

"Moradin tell ye that, did he?" Bruenor came right back.

"Bah! Got nothing to do with that," Cordio answered. "I'm using me own thinking here, and not needin' more'n that. Why'd them trolls back out o' the tunnels if them orcs're meaning to press in? Even orcs ain't that stupid. And this one, Obould, been showing himself smarter than most."

Bruenor looked from the priest to Cordio's patient, Banak Brawnanvil, still unable to walk or even stand after taking an orc spear in the back on his retreat from the ridge north of Keeper's Dale.

"I ain't so sure," the wise old warrior dwarf answered. "Trolls could come back at any time, of course, and ye're guessing that Obould even knows them trolls've left. We got no eyes out there, King Bruenor, and without them eyes, I ain't for putting the safety o' Mithral Hall on a guess."

Bruenor scratched his hairy head and tugged on his red beard. His gray eyes went from Banak to Cordio, then back to Banak.

"He's coming in," Bruenor decided. "Obould's not to let this stand. He took Felbarr once, and he's wanting nothing more than to do it again. And he's knowing that he ain't to get there unless he comes through Mithral Hall. Sooner or later, he's coming in."

"I'm guessing sooner," said Banak, and he and Bruenor both turned to Cordio.

The dwarf priest held up his hands in surrender. "I'll argue all the day long on how ye might be bandaging a wound, but ye're the warcommanders. Cordio's just one to clean up after yer messes."

"Well, let's make this mess one for Obould's shamans to clean," said Bruenor.

"The boys're already making them top halls ready for defense," Banak assured him.

"I got an idea of how we might give Obould's shamans some extra work," the dwarf king remarked, heading for the corridor. He pulled Banak's door open wide, then looked back, grinning. "All the clan's owing to ye, Banak Brawnanvil. Them boys from Mirabar're thinking yerself to be a demigod."

Banak stared at his king stoically, though a bit of moisture was indeed beginning to glisten at the corners of his dark eyes.

Bruenor kept staring hard at the wounded warcommander. He reached down and snapped open his thick belt, and with one quick motion, pulled it off. He wrapped the leather around his hand locking the buckle, a thick, carved mithral clasp adorned with the foaming mug standard of the clan, across his knuckle. Still looking Banak in the eye, Bruenor grabbed and secured the door with his free hand then hit it with a solid left cross. He pulled the door open a bit wider, so that Banak and Cordio could see his work: the indent of the Battlehammer foaming mug.

"We're gonna fill that with silver and gold," Bruenor promised, which was the highest honor a king of Mithral Hall could bestow upon any of his subjects. With that, Bruenor nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

"I'm thinking that yer king's a bit fond of ye, Banak Brawnanvil," said Cordio.

Banak slumped back, resting flat on his back. "Or he's thinking I'm all done for."

"Bah!"

"Ye get me fixed then, ye durned fool," Banak demanded.

Cordio exhaled and took a long pause, then muttered, "By Moradin's blessing," under his breath.

And truly the priest hoped that Moradin was paying attention and would grant him the power to alleviate some of Banak's paralysis, at least. A dwarf as honored and respected as Banak should not be made to suffer such indignity.

* * * * *

Obould stood up high on the rocky bluff, overlooking the work. Orcs scrambled all around Keeper's Dale, sharpening weapons and practicing tight and fast strike formation, but the majority of the important work was being done not by orcs, but by Gerti's giants. Obould watched a procession of more than a dozen behemoths enter the western end of the dale, dragging a huge log with ropes as thick as an orc's chest. Other giants worked on the stone wall around the closed western doors, tossing aside debris and checking the strength of the mountain above the portal. Still other giants tied off and hammered logs on tall towers set on either side of the doors, and a third that rose up a hundred feet, which was located straight back from the iron-bound western gates of Clan Battlehammer's hall.

Obould scanned higher up on the mountain above the doors, at his many scouts scrambling over the stones. Foremost in his mind was the element of surprise. He didn't want any dwarf eyes peering out at the preparations in the dale. Tsinka and the other shamans had assured him that the dwarves would never expect the assault. The bearded folk were tied up in the south with Proffit's trolls, they presumed, and like those dwarves in Citadel Felbarr years before, they held too much confidence in the strength of their iron portals.

The orc king moved down the rocky slope, seeing Gerti standing among some of her giantkin, poring over parchments spread on a tall wooden table. The giantess looked from the parchments to the work on the towers and the huge log sliding across the stone floor of the dale, and grinned. The giant beside her pointed down to the parchment, nodding.

They were good at this, Obould knew, and he gained confidence with every stride.

"Mighty doors," he said to Gerti as he approached.

Gerti shot him a look that seemed somewhere between incredulity and disgust. "Anything a dwarf can build, a giant can knock down," she replied.

"So we shall soon see," the orc king responded with a low and respectful bow. He moved closer and those giants near to Gerti stepped aside, granting them some privacy.

"How far into Mithral Hall will your giants travel?" Obould asked her.

"Into Mithral Hall?" came her scoffing reply. "We are not built for dirty, cramped dwarven tunnels, Obould."

"The ceiling of the entry hall is high, by all that I have heard."

"I told you that we would knock down the door, and so we shall. Once the portal falls, let your orcs run into the killing chambers of King Bruenor."

"The treasures of Mithral Hall are considerable, so it is said," Obould teased.

"Treasures that I have already earned."

Obould bowed again, not as low, and not as respectfully. "Your giants will be of great help to my warriors in that entry hall," he said. "Help us to secure our foothold. From there, my warriors will spread like thick smoke throughout the tunnels, routing the dwarves."

Gerti's sly smile showed that she wasn't so sure of that.

"Then you and your kin can go to the Surbrin, as we agreed," said Obould.

"I will go to the Surbrin as I determine," Gerti retorted. "Or I will not. Or I will go back to Shining White, or to Silverymoon, if I feel so inclined to take the city of Lady Alustriel. I am bound by no agreements to Obould."

"We are not enemies, Dame Orelsdottr."

"Keep it that way, for your own sake."

Obould's red-streaked yellow eyes narrowed for just an instant, tipping off the giantess to the simmering rage within him.

"I wish for your giants to accompany the lead ranks through the entry hall," said Obould.

"Of course you do. You have no warriors who can approach their strength and skill."

"I do not ask this without recompense."

"You offer me the treasures of Mithral Hall?" asked Gerti. "The head of King Battlehammer, whom you already claimed dead?"

"The pegasus," Obould blurted, and for a brief moment, he saw a telltale flash of intrigue in Gerti's blue eyes.

"What of it?"

"I am not so foolish as to try to ride the creature, for it is not an unthinking beast, but a loyal friend to the elf I destroyed," Obould admitted. "I could eat it, of course, but would not any horse do as well? But you believe it to be a beautiful creature, do you not, Dame Orelsdottr? A fitting trophy for Shining White?"

"If you have no use for it - "

"I did not say that," Obould interrupted.

"You play a dangerous game."

"I make an honest offer. Send your giants in beside my orcs to crush the initial defenses of Mithral Hall. Once we have pushed the dwarves to the tighter tunnels, then leave the hall to me and go your own way, to the Surbrin or wherever you choose. And take with you the winged horse."

Gerti held a defiant pose, but the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her interest.

"You covet that creature," Obould said bluntly.

"Not as much as you believe."

"But your giants will charge into the hall beside my orcs."

"Only because they do so enjoy killing dwarves."

Obould bowed low once again and let it go at that. He didn't really care why Gerti sent her forces in there, as long as she did.

* * * * *

"Hee hee hee."

Ivan couldn't help but smile at his brother's continuing glee. Pikel hopped all about the upper western chambers of Mithral Hall, chasing behind Nanfoodle mostly. King Bruenor had come to the pair immediately following his discussion with Cordio and Banak. Convinced that the orcs would try to break into the hall, Bruenor had commissioned the two unconventional characters, the dwarf "doo-dad" as Pikel described himself, and the gnome alchemist, to help in setting unconventional and unpleasant surprises for the invaders. Of course, Nanfoodle had immediately set the best brewers of Mithral Hall to work in concocting specific formulas of various volatile liquids. All of the rarest and most expensive ingredients were even then being poured into vats and beakers. On Bruenor's instructions, Nanfoodle's team was holding nothing back.

Ivan followed behind the pair, carefully and gently carrying one such large pail of a clear liquid. He tried very hard not to let the volatile fluid slosh about, for in that pail was the same liquid that was held in a small vial in each of his hand crossbow darts. "Oil of Impact," it was commonly called, an exotic potion that exploded under the weight of concussion. Ivan's crossbow darts had been designed to collapse in upon themselves on impact, compressing the chamber and vial, and resulting in an explosion that would then drive the tip through whatever barrier it had struck. Given the force of those explosions using only a few drops of the oil of impact, the dwarf couldn't even begin to guess what clever Nanfoodle had in mind for so much of the potent mix.

"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."

A howl split the air, so close that Regis imagined the wolf's hot breath on his neck. His arm ached from memory alone, and he had no desire to face the gleaming white fangs of a wolf ever again. He tugged more insistently on Bruenor's arm, and when the dwarf half-turned, as if moving toward the chimney, the halfling scrambled belly down to the ground and over the lip.

"Go on, then," Bruenor prompted, and he turned and squinted again to the west.

The air had grown a bit lighter, but Bruenor could still make out very little in the dark vale. He strained his eyes and prayed to Moradin, and eventually made out what looked like two great obelisks.

The dwarf scratched his head. Were the orcs building statues? Watch towers?

Bruenor heard the padded footsteps of a canine creature not far away, and still staring down into the dale, he bent low, scooped up a loose stone, and pegged it in the general direction of the noise.

"Go on, then, ye stupid puppy. Dog meat ain't to me liking, to yer own good!"

"Bruenor!" came Regis's cry from the chimney. "What are you doing?"

"I ain't running from a few skinny wolves, to be sure!"

"Bruenor. . .."

"Bah!" the dwarf snorted. He kicked at the snow, then turned around and started for the chimney, to Regis's obvious relief. The dwarf paused and looked back one more time, though, concentrating on the tall, dark shapes.

"Towers," he muttered, and shook his hairy head. He hopped into the hole, catching the remainder of the grate to break his fall.

And it hit him.

"Towers?" he said. He lifted himself up and glanced to the side at a movement, to see the glowing eyes of a wolf not ten strides away. "O, ye clever pig-face!"

Bruenor dropped from sight.

He prodded Regis to hurry along all the way down the chimney, realizing then that his precious Mithral Hall was in more danger than he had imagined. He had wondered whether Obould would try to come in through lower tunnels, or perhaps make one of his own, or whether he would try to crash through the great iron doors.

"Towers...." he muttered all the way down, for now he knew.

* * * * *

The next morning, a tree appeared atop the mountain called Fourthpeak, except that it wasn't really a tree, but a dwarf disguised as a tree by the druidic magic of the strange Pikel Bouldershoulder. A second tree appeared soon after, farther down the mountain slope to the west, and a third in line after that. The line of "new growth" stretched down, dwarf after dwarf, until the leading tree had a clear vantage point of the goings-on in Keeper's Dale.

When reports began filtering back to Mithral Hall about the near-readiness of the giant towers and the ghastly, ram-headed battering pole that would be suspended and swung between those obelisks, the work inside the hall moved up to a frenetic pace.

There were two balconies lining the large, oval entry hall of the western reaches of the dwarven complex. Both had crawl tunnels connecting them back to corridors deeper within the complex, and both provided fine kill areas for archers and hammer-throwers. On the westernmost side of one of these balconies, the dwarves constructed a secret chamber, large enough to hold a single dwarf. From out its top, they ran some of the same metal pipes that Nanfoodle had used to bring the hot air up on the northern ridgeline, securing them tight against the ceiling and carrying the line out to the center of the large oval chamber. A heavy rope was then threaded through the piping, secured on a crank within the small secret chamber and dangling out the other end of the pipe, nearly to the floor, some thirty to forty feet below.

All across the reaches of that chamber, the dwarves built defensive positions, low walls over which they could fend off attackers, and which afforded them a continual line of retreat back into the main corridor in the east. They coordinated those junctures in the many walls with drop-points along the ledge above. Under the watchful eye of none other than Banak Brawnanvil, the teams practiced their timing continually, for those below knew that their brethren above would likely be their only chance of getting out of the chamber alive. To further hinder their enemies, the industrious Battlehammer gang placed hundreds of caltrops just inside the great doors, some fashioned purposely and many others nothing more than sharp pieces of scrap metal - waste brought up from the forges of the Undercity.

Outside that expected battlefield, the work was no less intense. Forges glowed, great spoons in brew barrels constantly stirred, sharpening stones whirred, smithy hammers pounded away, and the many pottery wheels spun and spun and spun.

The crowning moment came late one afternoon, when a procession of dwarves carried a large, layered circular bowl into the chamber. More than fifteen feet across, the contraption was all of beaten metal, layered in fans and hooked together on a center pole that rose up just a couple of feet and ended in a sturdy eyelet. Through this, the dwarves tied off the dangling rope.

Nanfoodle nervously checked the trip-spring mechanism on the center pole several times. The tension had to be just right - not so loose that the weight of the bowl's contents could spring it, and not so tight that the drop wouldn't trigger it. He and Ivan Bouldershoulder had done the calculations more than a dozen times, and their confidence had been high.

Had been.

In looking around at all the curious dwarves, Nanfoodle realized just how much was at stake, and the thought had his little knees clicking together.

"It'll work," Ivan promised him, the dwarf bending in low and whispering in his ear. He gently took Nanfoodle's shoulder and ushered the gnome back, then motioned to the helpers who had come in behind the pair, gently pushing a wide cart full of ceramic balls.

The dwarves began placing the delicate orbs inside the bowl of the contraption, along set ridges, all of which ended with a curled lip of varying angles.

When that work was done, the dwarves up above shoved a long handle into the crank in the secret cubby and began lifting the contraption from the floor, drawing the rope slowly and evenly. Other dwarves climbed ladders beside the bowl as it rose, slowly rotating it through its climb.

"Get a ladder and smooth the edges," Ivan ordered as the whole disk was locked into place up near the ceiling, for though the bottom of the bowl had been painted to make it look like the stone of the ceiling, once it was in place, he could see where improvements might be made.

"It'll work," the yellow-bearded Bouldershoulder said again to Nanfoodle, who was staring up nervously.

The gnome looked to Ivan and managed a meager smile.

* * * * *

Up on the ledge, Bruenor, Regis, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar watched the work with a mixture of hope and sheer terror. The two humans had already witnessed one of Nanfoodle's surprises, and both figured that one incident had made enough of an impression to foster grandiose stories for a lifetime.

"I'm not for liking yer choice," Bruenor said to Regis. "But I'm respecting yer decision, and respecting yerself more and more, little one."

"I'm not for liking my choice, either," Regis admitted. "But I'm no warrior, and this is my way of helping."

"And how are you to get out of there if we don't retake the hall?" Catti-brie asked.

"Would that question be any different if a dwarf was accepting the duty?" the halfling shot right back.

Catti-brie thought on that for a moment, then just said, "Maybe we can catch an orc and trick it into pulling the pin."

"Yeah, that'd work," Bruenor said. Beneath his sarcastic quip, the other three caught the slightest of quivering in his voice, a clear sign that he, like the others, realized that this might be the last time they saw their halfling friend.

But then, if they failed in this, they would all likely die.

"I'm wanting you two up on the other ledge," Bruenor said to his two human children. "Right near the escape corridor."

"I was thinking to fight on the floor," Wulfgar argued.

"The walls're too short for ye, and what a fine target ye'll be making for our enemies, standing twice a dwarf's height down there," Bruenor answered. "No, ye fight on the ledge, the two o' ye together, for that's when ye're at yer best. Hold all yer shots, bow and hammer, for any giants, should they come in, and keep yerselves at the escape tunnel."

"So that we might be the first to leave?" Catti-brie asked.

"Aye," the dwarf admitted. "First out and not bottlenecking the low crawl for me kin."

"If that's the reasoning, then shouldn't we be last?" Wulfgar asked, tossing a wink at Catti-brie as he did.

"No, ye go first and ye go early, and that's the end of it," said Bruenor. "Ye got to be near the tunnel, as ye'll both be needing that tunnel to fall back from sight, for ye can't get as low as me boys that'll be up there with ye. Now stop yer arguing with me and start sorting out yer tactics."

The dwarf turned to Regis and asked, "Ye got enough food and water?"

"Does he ever?" Catti-brie asked.

Regis grinned widely, his dimpled cheeks climbing high. He patted his bulging backpack.

"Should be today," Bruenor told him. "But ye might have a bit of a wait."

"I will be fine, and I will be ready."

"Ye know the signal?"

The halfling nodded.

Bruenor patted him on the shoulder and moved away, and with a grin and helpless shrug to his friend, Regis moved inside the secret cubby, pulled the stone-shaped door closed and bolted it on the inside. A pair of dwarves moved right up to the closed portal and began working its edges with mud and small stones, sealing the portal and also blending it in to the surrounding wall so perfectly that a trained elf thief would have a hard time spotting the door if he'd been told exactly where to find it.

"And you'll be on the floor, of course?" Catti-brie asked Bruenor.

"Right in the middle of the line's me place." He noted Catti-brie's scowl and added, "Ye might want to dip yer bow every now and then to clear the way if ye see that I'm attracting a bit too much orc attention."

That brought a light to the woman's face, a clear reminder that whether up on the ledge or down on the floor, they were in it together.

* * * * *

"We're gonna make 'em pay for every inch o' ground," Bruenor told his charges when word came down the chimneys that the towers were completed in Keeper's Dale, and that great lengths of rope were being strung. It took quite a while for that word to run up the dwarven "tree" line, down the chimney to the Undercity, then back up the corridors to the entry hall, though, and so the words had just left Bruenor's mouth when the first thunderous smash hit the great iron doors. All the chambers shook under the tremendous weight of that blow, and more than one dwarf staggered.

Those closest to the doors immediately moved to inspect the damage, and with just that one blow, cracks appeared in the stone supporting the massive portals.

"Won't take many," the lead engineer closest the doors called.

He and his group moved back fast, expecting the second report - which shook the chamber even more. The doors cracked open under the great weight. More than one set of eyes went up nervously to the ceiling and the delicate bowl contraption.

"It'll hold," Bruenor shouted from the front rank in the center of the dwarven line, directly across the hall from the doors. "Don't ye be looking up! Our enemies're coming in through the doors in the next hit or two.

"Girl!" he called up to Catti-brie. "Ye set yer sights on that center line in the doors and if it opens and an ugly orc puts its ugly face against it, ye take it down hard! All of ye!"

The great ram swung in again, slamming the iron, and the doors creaked in some more, leaving a crack wide enough to admit an orc, if not a giant. Just as Bruenor had predicted, enemies did come against the portals, hooting, shouting, and pressing. One started through, then began to jerk in place as a barrage of arrows and crossbow bolts met it.

The orcs behind the unfortunate point pushed it in and to the floor, and hungrily crowded against the open slot.

More arrows and bolts met them, including a silver-streaking arrow that sliced right through the closest creature and several behind it, lessening the press for a moment.

Then the ram hit again, and the right-hand door busted off its giant top hinge and rolled inward, creaking and groaning as the metal of the bottom hinge twisted. Chunks of stone fell from above, smashing the first ranks of orcs, but hardly slowing the flood that followed.

The orcs poured in, and the dwarves howled and set themselves against the charge. The broken door twisted and settled back the other way, crashing down upon many of the unfortunate orcs and somewhat slowing the charge.

Missiles rained down from on high. A heavy warhammer went spinning among the throng, splitting the skull of one orc. As the charge neared the first of the newly-constructed low walls, dwarves sprang up from behind it, all of them leveling crossbows and blasting the closest rank of enemies. Bows fell aside, the dwarves taking up long spears and leveling them at the charging throng. Those orcs in front, pressed by the rolling wave behind, couldn't hope to slow or turn aside.

As one, Banak's well-drilled team let go of their spears and took up their close-combat weapons. Sword, axe, and hammer chopped away wildly as the orc wave came on. From above, a concentrated volley devastated the second rank of enemies, allowing the dwarves a chance to retreat back beyond the second wall.

The scene would repeat itself in ten-foot sections, wall to wall, all the way back to Bruenor's position.

"Wulfgar! Girl!" Bruenor cried when a larger form appeared in the broken doorway. Even as he spoke, a magical arrow from Catti-brie's Taulmaril zipped out for the hulking giant form, followed closely by a spinning warhammer.

The orcs made the second wall, where many more died.

But the monstrous wave rolled on.

* * * * *

Regis curled up and blocked his ears against the screaming and shouting that reverberated across the stones. He had seen many battles - far too many, by his estimation - and he knew well the terrible sounds. And it always sounded the same. From the street fights in Calimport to the wild battles he had seen in Icewind Dale, both against the barbarians of the tundra and the goblinkin, to the battles to retake and hold onto the coveted mines of Mithral Hall, Regis had been assailed by those same sounds over and over again. It didn't matter if the wails came from orcs or dwarves or even from giants. As one, they split the air, carrying waves of agony on their shrill notes.

The halfling was glad to be in his sealed compartment where he did not have to witness the flowing blood and torn bodies. He took faith that his role was an important one for the success of the dwarves' plan, that he was contributing in a great way.

For the time being, though, he wanted to put all those thoughts out of his head, wanted to put everything out of his mind and just lay in the near-absolute blackness of the sealed cubby. He closed his eyes and blocked his ears, and wished that it was all far, far away.

* * * * *

"Giant!" Wulfgar said to Catti-brie, who was kneeling on the balcony beside him. As he spoke, the huge form crossed over the lighter area of the fallen door and into the chamber, spurring orcs on before it. With a roar to his god of war, Wulfgar brought his warhammer up over his shoulder, then rolled his arms around to straighten them, putting the hammer directly in line behind his back.

"Tempus!" he cried again, and he leaned his tall frame back, then began a rolling movement that seemed to start as his knees, his back arcing and swaying forward, huge shoulders snapping ahead as his arms came up over his head, launching mighty Aegis-fang into an end-over-end flight across the room.

Catti-brie targeted quickly upon Wulfgar's call and let fly, her arrow easily outdistancing the warhammer to strike the giant first, right in the upper arm. The behemoth cried out and straightened, squaring up to the pair on the ledge right as the warhammer slammed in, taking it squarely in the face with a tremendous slapping sound.

The giant staggered. Another arrow hit it in the torso, then a third, and Wulfgar, the enchanted warhammer magically returned to his grasp, yelled out for Tempus again and launched the missile.

The giant turned and stumbled back toward the door.

The hammer pounded in right against its bending back, launching it forward and to the floor, where it crushed an unfortunate orc beneath its tumbling bulk.

"More of 'em," Catti-brie remarked as another, then another huge form crossed the leaning door.

"Just keep a line of arrows then," Wulfgar offered, and again his hammer appeared magically in his grasp. He started to take aim at one of the new adversaries, but then saw the wounded giant stubbornly trying to rise again. Wulfgar adjusted his angle, roared to his war god, and let fly. The hammer hit the giant right on the back of the skull as it tried to rise, with a crack that sounded like splitting stone. The behemoth went down fast and hard and lay very still.

Two other giants were in the foyer, though, the lead one accepting a hit from Catti-brie's devastating bow, and dodging fast as a second arrow sped by, the enchanted missile slicing right into the stone wall. Another behemoth appeared at the doorway and held there, and a moment later, the bombardiers on the balcony understood the tactic. For that giant turned fast and tossed something to the farthest one in the hall, who caught it and swiveled about, tossing it to the leading brute.

Another arrow from Catti-brie stung that behemoth but did not drop it, and when it turned around to face the ledge, its arms went up high, holding a huge boulder, and it let fly.

"Run away!" cried the dwarf to Wulfgar's left, and he grabbed the barbarian by the belt and tugged him aside.

Wulfgar twisted, off-balance, and tumbled to the balcony behind the dwarf. Only as he landed hard and managed to glance back did Wulfgar come to realize that the dwarf had saved his life. The giant-thrown boulder smashed hard against the front of the balcony and skipped upward, slamming into the wall at the side of the exit tunnel.

It rebounded from there back to the balcony, and Wulfgar could only look on in horror as it crushed down upon his dear friend.

* * * * *

"Clear the hall!" came a voice above the tumult of battle, the voice of Bruenor Battlehammer who centered the line of dwarves on the floor, ushering his retreating kin out. "Give us time, archers!"

"Special arrows!" cried dwarves all along both balconies.

As one the crossbowmen reached for their best quarrels, tipped with a metal that burned like a flaring star when touched to flame. Torchbearers ran the length of the archer lines, while cries went out to concentrate the killing area.

Flaring quarrel after quarrel soared down to the center rear of the entry hall, to the region just before the unmoving Bruenor Battlehammer and his elite warriors, the Gutbuster Brigade, as they held the last line of retreat.

"Now go!" Bruenor cried as the orc ranks shook apart under the glare of the magnesium bolts and the shrieks of unbelievable agony from those who had been struck.

"Block it!" Bruenor cried.

Up on the ledge above him, a dwarf tugged hard at Wulfgar, pulling him away from the boulder that had fallen on Catti-brie.

"We need ye now!" the dwarf cried.

Wulfgar spun away, his blue eyes wet with tears. He was part of a team who were supposed to definitively finish the retreat, one of four assigned to lift the vat of molten metal and pour it down before the escape corridor, buying the fleeing Bruenor and the Gutbusters some time.

Wulfgar, full of rage, changed that plan. He pushed the dwarves aside and wrapped his arms around the vat, then hoisted it and quick-stepped to the edge of the balcony, roaring with every step.

"He can't be doing that," one dwarf muttered.

But he was.

At the edge, the barbarian dropped the vat and tipped it, glowing molten metal pouring down upon the orcs.

A boulder slammed the ledge right below him and the force of the blow threw him aside, stumbling, as pieces of stone broke away below him.

With one last look back to Catti-brie, Wulfgar fell from the ledge, tumbling right after the heavy metal vat.