and sweep into the dale from the west, did ye?"
Regis blinked repeatedly, but did not answer.
"Ye knew nothing more than anyone else, Banak included," Bruenor insisted. "And Banak wasn't keen on coming down that cliff. In the end, when we learned the truth of our enemy, we salvaged what we could, and that's plenty, but not as much as we wanted to hold. We gived them the whole of the northland don't ye see? And that's nothing any Battlehammer's proud to admit."
"There were too many ..." Regis started, eliciting another loud "Bah!" from Bruenor.
"We ran away, Rumblebelly! Clan Battlehammer retreated from orcs!"
"There were too many!"
Bruenor smiled and nodded, showing Regis that he had just been played like a dwarven fiddle. "Course there were, and so we took what we could get, but don't ye ever think that running from orcs was something meself'd order unless no other choice was afore me. No other choice! I'd've kept Banak out there, Rumblebelly. I'd've been out there with him, don't ye doubt!"
Regis looked up at Bruenor and gave a nod of appreciation.
"Questions for us now are, what next?" said Bruenor. "Do we go back out and fight them again? Out to the east, mayhaps, to open a line across the Surbrin? Out to the south, so we can sweep back around?"
"The south," Regis muttered. "I sent fifty to the south, accompanying Galen Firth of Nesme."
"Catti-brie telled me all about it, and in that, too, ye did well, by me own reckoning. I got no love for them Nesme boys after the way they treated us them years ago and after the way they ignored Settlestone. Bunch o' stone-heads, if e'er I seen a bunch o' stoneheads! But a neighbor's a neighbor, and ye got to help do what ye can do, and from where I'm seeing it, ye did all that ye could do."
"But we can do more now," Regis offered.
Bruenor scratched his red beard and thought on that a moment. "Might that we can," he agreed. "A few hundred more moving south might open new possibilities, too. Good thinking." He looked to Regis as he finished, and noted happily that the halfling seemed to have shaken off his burden then, an eager gleam coming back into his soft brown eyes.
"Send Torgar and the boys from Mirabar," Regis suggested. "They're a fine bunch, and they know how to fight aboveground as well as below."
Bruenor wasn't sure if he agreed with that assessment. Perhaps Torgar, Shingles, and all the dwarves of Mirabar had seen enough fighting and had taken on enough special and difficult assignments already. Maybe it was time for them to take some rest inside Mithral Hall proper, mingling with the dwarves who had lived in those corridors and chambers since the complex had been reclaimed from Shimmergloom the shadow dragon and his duergar minions years before.
Bruenor gave no indication to Regis that he was doubting the wisdom of the suggestion, though. The halfling had proven himself many times over in the last tendays, by all accounts, and his insight and understanding was a resource Bruenor had no intention of squashing.
"Come along, Rumblebelly," he said with a toothy grin. "Let's go see how Ivan and Pikel are getting on. Might be that they know allies we haven't yet considered."
"Cadderly?"
"Was thinking more of the elves of the Moonwood," Bruenor explained. "Seems them two came through there on their way to Mithral Hall. I'm thinking it'd be a good thing to get them elves putting arrows and magic across the Surbrin to soften our enemy's entrenchment."
"How would we get word to them?" Regis asked. "The elves, I mean. Do we have tunnels that go that far east and north?"
"How'd Pikel get him and Ivan there in the first place?" Bruenor replied with an exaggerated wink. "By Ivan's telling, it's got something to do with trees and roots. We ain't got no trees, but we got plenty o' roots, I'm thinking."
Regis put on his best Pikel voice when he replied, "Hee hee hee."
* * * * *
Tred McKnuckles emphatically raised a finger to his pursed lips, reminding the dwarven catapult team that silence was essential.
Bellan Brawnanvil mimicked the movement back to Tred in agreement and tapped his sideslinger pull crew to ease up on their movements as they worked to set the basket. Mounted on the side of the jamb of a hallway door, the sideslinger catapult served as the staple war engine of the outer defenses of Mithral Hall. Its adjustable arm length made