The arrival of the two dwarves brought much excitement to the village of Clicking Heels, and that deep into the wilds of the Spine of the World, excitement was not usually welcomed. After the two dwarves had gone on their way, the villagers settled back from the initial fear that they would be attacked and began to savor the story. Excitement within a larger cocoon of safety was always welcomed.

Still, the villagers of Clicking Heels were seasoned enough to not fall too deeply into that cocoon. They limited their out-of-town travel over the next few days and doubled the daytime watch and tripled the nighttime watch.

All through the nights, at short, regular intervals, the sentries would call out, "All clear!" from one checkpoint to another. Everyone kept his eyes peeled to the cleared ground around the village walls with that special vigilance that could only be learned through harsh experience.

Even toward the end of the first tenday after the dwarves' departure, the watch held strong and steady, with no slacking, no sleeping or even dozing along the wall.

Carelman Twopennies, one of the sentries that particular night seven days after Nikwillig and Tred had gone on their way, was tired, and so he wouldn't even lean against a pole for fear that he would nod off. Every time

he heard the all clear call circling along the wall to his right, the man shook his head briskly and strained his eyes toward the dark field beyond his section of wall, ready for his turn to yell out.

Soon after midnight, the calls circling, Carelman did just that, and peering into the emptiness beyond, he was fairly certain that his impending call would be an honest one. When it came to his turn, he yelled out, or started to, "All clear!"

He heard a rush of air above him as the words began to leave his mouth, though, and was merely unfortunate enough to be standing in the way of the giant-thrown boulder, and so his "All clear!" came out as "All clea-ugh!"

He felt the explosion, for just an instant, then he was dead, lying on the ground beneath the rubble of the wooden parapet and the heavy stone.

Carelman Twopennies didn't hear the cries erupting around him or the subsequent explosions as heavy boulders smashed through the walls and buildings, softening the defenses of the small village. He didn't hear the shouts of alarm after that as a horde of orcs, many riding fierce worgs, swept down upon the battered town.

He didn't hear the deaths of his family, his friends, his home.

Marchion Elastul stroked his wild red whiskers, a movement that many dwarves took as a proud gesture, one used for showing off one's beard. Of course, Torgar wasn't overly impressed by the red whiskers of the human marchion, for no human could grow a beard to match the worst of dwarf beards.

"What am I to do with you, Torgar Hammerstriker?" Elastul asked.

Behind him, his four guardsmen, the Hammers, bristled and whispered amongst themselves.

"Didn't think ye was to do anything with me, your honorness," the dwarf answered. "Been going about me business in Mirabar since before ye was born and before yer daddy was born. I'm not needing ye to do much."

The marchion's sour look showed that he was not overly impressed with the statement or the not-so-subtle reminder that Torgar had been in service to Mirabar for a long, long time.

"It is just that heritage that brings me a quandary," Elastul explained.

"Quandary?" Torgar asked, and he scratched his own beard. "That a place where ye get both rocks and milk?"

The marchion's face screwed up with confusion.

"A dilemma," he explained.

"What is?" asked the dwarf.

Torgar worked hard to hide his grin. One thing he knew about humans was that they carried an internal superiority belief, and playing dumb was the easiest way a dwarf could deflect ire.

"What is what?" the marchion replied.

"Yeah, that."

"Enough!" the marchion cried. He was visibly trembling, to which Torgar only shrugged, as if he understood none of it. "Your actions present me with a dilemma."

"How's that?"

"The people of Mirabar look up to you. You're one of the most trusted commanders in the Axe, a dwarf of fine reputation and honor."

"Bah, Marchion Elastul, ye're bringing a blush to me bearded cheeks and to me other ones, as well." He finished the sentence by twisting to look over his shoulder. "Though I'm guessing them nether ones're becoming about as hairy as old age begins to set in."

Elastul looked as if he wanted to slap himself across the face, which pleased Torgar greatly.

The man gave a great sigh and started to respond, but the door to the audience chamber banged open and Sceptrana Shoudra Stargleam entered.

"Marchion," she greeted with a bow.

"We are discussing whether or not I should have you melt the Axe symbol off of Torgar's armor," the marchion replied, throwing aside Torgar's distracting remarks.

"We are?" the dwarf asked innocently.

"Enough!" Elastul scolded again. "You know well enough that we are, and you know well enough why I have summoned you here. To think that you, of all dwarves, would go consorting with our enemies."

Torgar held up his stubby-fingered hands, his expression going suddenly grim.

"Ye take care on who ye're calling our enemies," he warned Elastul.

"Need I remind you of the wealth that Bruenor Battlehammer and his dwarves have stolen from us?"

"Bah, they've stolen not a thing! I made me a couple o' pretty deals from where I'm looking."

"Not their caravan! Their mines to the cast. Need I remind you of the drop in business since Mithral Hall's forges began to burn once more? Ask Shoudra there. She above all others can tell you of the difficulty in renewing contracts and attracting new buyers."

"True enough," the woman added. "Since the return of Mithral Hall, my job has become far more difficult."

"As have all of our jobs," Torgar agreed. "And that'll make us better, from where I'm looking."

"Clan Battlehammer is no friend of Mirabar!" Elastul declared.

"Nor are they our enemy," Torgar replied, "and ye should be careful afore ye go callin' them such."

The marchion came forward in his chair so suddenly that Torgar reflexively brought a hand up by his right shoulder, near to the hilt of the large axe he always kept strapped across his back, and that movement, in turn, made the marchion and his four Hammers start and widen their eyes.

"King Bruenor came in as a friend," Torgar remarked when things had settled a bit. "He came here on his way through, as a friend, and he was let in as a friend."

"Or to take a measure of his greatest rivals," Shoudra remarked, but Torgar just shrugged that thought away.

"And if ye're letting a dwarf legend into yer city, then how can ye be sayin' the dwarves o' yer city can't go and sit with him?"

"Many of the dwarves of my city are among the loudest voices for espionage against King Bruenor's Mithral Hall," Elastul reminded. "You have heard their calls for spies to go into Mithral Hall and find some way to shut down the forges, or to flood some of the more promising tunnels, or to place cheaper goods in among the armor and weapons Clan Battlehammer is sending out to market."

Torgar couldn't deny the truth of the marchion's words, nor the fact that he, himself, had uttered similar curses against Mithral Hall in the past, but that seemed different to him than this personal visit, a rant against a faceless rival. Torgar might not wish Clan Battlehammer well with their merchandising, but if an enemy came against Bruenor and his clan, Torgar would gladly lead a charge to assist them.

"Ye ever think that we might be going against Clan Battlehammer in

the wrong way?" the dwarf asked. The marchion and Shoudra exchanged curious looks. "Ye ever think that we might be using their strengths and our own strength together to the benefit of us all?"

"What do you mean?" Elastul asked.

"They got the ore-better ore than we'll be findin' here if we dig a hunnerd miles down-and they got some great craftsmen, don't ye doubt, but so do we. Might that our best and their best could work with their good ore to make great pieces, while our apprentices and their apprentices, or a few who're too old to see it right or lift the hammer well enough, could work with the lesser ore in making the lesser pieces-railings and cart wheels instead o' swords and breastplates, if ye see me meaning."

The marchion's eyes went wide indeed, but not because he was the least bit intrigued by the suggestion of cooperation. Torgar saw that immediately and knew that he had crossed a line.

Trembling so badly that he seemed as if he might vibrate right out of his chair, Elastul forced himself, with great effort, to settle back. He shook his head, seeming too enraged to even speak a denial.

"Just a thought," Torgar remarked.

"A thought? Here is a thought-why don't we have Shoudra burn that axe from your breastplate? Why don't I have you dragged out and flogged publicly, perhaps even tried for treason against Mirabar? How dare you lead so many into the embrace of King Bruenor Battlehammer! How dare you bring comfort to our principle rival, a dwarf who leads a clan that has cost us piles of gold! How dare you represent any prospect of friendship between Mithral Hall and Mirabar, and how dare you suggest such a thing to me!"

Shoudra Stargleam came forward to the side of the marchion's throne. She put her hand on Elastul's arm, obviously trying to calm him. She looked to Torgar as she did and nodded toward the door to the room, motioning for him to make a fast exit.

But Torgar wasn't ready to leave just yet, not before he had the last word.

"Ye might be hatin' Bruenor and his boys, and ye might have reason," he said, "but I'm secin' it more as our own weakness than anything Bruenor and his boys did to us."

Marchion Elastul started to respond with another "how dare you," but Torgar kept on rolling.

"That's the way I'm secin' it," the dwarf stated flatly. "Ye want to take me Axe emblem, then take it, but if ye're thinking o7 flogging me, then ye should be looking more closely at me kin."

With that threat hanging in the air, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker turned and stormed from the room.

"I will have his head on a pike!"

"Then you'll have two thousand shield dwarves running wild in Mirabar," Shoudra explained. She was still holding the man's arm and firmly. "I don't completely disagree with any of the things you say about Mithral Hall, good Elastul, but given the response from Torgar and many others, I wonder the wisdom of holding our present course of open animosity."

Elastul shot her an angry and threatening glower, the look alone reminding her that few on the Council of Sparkling Stones would side with her reasoning.

So Shoudra let him go and stepped back, bowing her head deferentially, while silently wondering how destabilizing King Bruenor's visit had truly been to Mirabar. If the marchion kept pushing this hard, the result could be disastrous for the ancient mining city.

Shoudra also silently applauded King Bruenor for his shrewd move of even showing up where he knew he would not be welcomed, but where he would neither be flatly rebuked. Yes, it was a cunning maneuver, and it seemed to the Sceptrana of Mirabar that her boss was playing right into Bruenor's hands.

"Prisoners?" Obould asked his son as they stood overlooking the ruins of Clicking Heels.

"Few left," Urlgen said with an evil grin.

"Ye're interrogating?"

Urlgen straightened, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him.

Obould gave a growl and slapped Urlgen on the back of his head.

"What we need to know?" the confused Urlgen asked.

"Whatever they can tell us to help us," Obould explained, speaking slowly and articulating each word carefully, as if he was addressing a toddler.

Urlgen snarled but didn't voice his displeasure. The insult had been earned, after all.

"Ye know how to interrogate?" Obould asked, and his son looked at him as if the question was purely ridiculous. "Just like torture," Obould explained anyway, "except ye ask them questions while ye play."

Urlgen's lips curled into a perfectly evil smile, and with a nod, he headed back into the village, where many of his warriors were already at play on the few unfortunate villagers who had not died in the attack.

An hour later, Urlgen caught up to his father, finding Obould at parlay with the giants who had helped in the raid, playing the political angles as always.

"Not all them dwarfs got killed when we hit them," Urlgen remarked, his tone a mixture of excitement for the chase, and disappointment.

"Dwarfs? There were dwarfs in that stupid little town?"

Urlgen seemed confused. "Not them dwarfs," he said. "Weren't none of them dwarfs."

Now Obould and the giants seemed confused.

"No dwarfs in the town," Urlgen stated clearly, trying to end the circular confusion. "When we hit them dwarfs a tenday ago, two got away."

It wasn't completely surprising to Obould, for they knew that some dwarves, at least, were running around the region. A band of orcs had been slaughtered not too far from this town, with tactics indicating a dwarven ambush.

"They come in there, and hurt," Urlgen explained.

"And they died in there?"

"Nope, kept runnin', looking for Mithral Hall, and were gone before we hit."

"How long?"

"Not long."

Obould wore an excited expression. "A fun hunt?" he asked the giants, and as one the great blue-skinned behemoths nodded.

But Obould's expression quickly changed as he remembered the warnings of Ad'non Kareese. "Small forays, and with restraint. We draw them out, little by little," the drow had said. Chasing these dwarves to the south would bring the force dangerously close to Mithral Hall, perhaps, and might incite a battle far beyond what Obould wanted.

"Nah, let 'em go," the orc king decided, and while the giants seemed to accept that readily enough, Urlgen's eyes popped open so wide that they seemed as if they would fall right out of his ugly head.

"Ye can't be . . ." the younger and rasher orc started to argue,

"I can be," Obould interrupted. "Ye let 'em make the hall, with their tales o' death and destruction, and the dwarfs there'll send out a force to investigate. That'd be a bigger and better fight."

Urlgen's smile began to widen once more, and Obould let him in on the rest of the reasoning, just for prudence. After all, any mention of Mithral Hall might send the young warriors charging headlong to the south.

"We get too close and start that fight, and some o' them dwarfs might get back home, and all the stinkin' Mithral Hall'll empty out on us, and that's a fight we're not wantin'!"

Despite the nods of agreement, even from sour Urlgen, Obould felt obliged to add, "Not yet."

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***