Up close, the garments of the dwarves took on an even more ragged appearance, not surprising if they
had been subsisting, as Vereesa suspected, on whatever they could steal from the orcs. A distinctive
odor also prevailed, indicating that bathing had also long been at a premium.
“Here ye go!”
Her ropes fell away. Vereesa immediately pulled free the gag, with which the dwarf had not bothered.
At the same time, a long string of swearwords from her side indicated that Falstad, too, had now been
completely released.
“Shut ye mouth or I'll stuff that gag back in permanent!” Gimmel snarled back.
“It'd take a hand's worth of you hill dwarves to bring one from the Aerie down!”
A rumble of discord indicated that their rescuers could readily become new captors if the gryphon-rider
did not quiet. Stumbling to her feet—and recalling at the last moment that the tunnel did not quite match
her height in this area—the anxious ranger snapped, “Falstad! Be polite with our companions! They have,
after all, saved us from a horrid fate!”
“Aye, ye have the right of it,” Rom replied. “The damn trolls, they eat anything of flesh—dead or alive!”
“They mentioned some companions,” she suddenly recalled. “Perhaps we had better leave this place
before they come—”
Rom raised his hand. His crinkled features reminded Vereesa of a tough old dog. “No need to worry
about them. That's how we found this trio.” He mused a moment longer. “But ye may be right,
nonetheless! It's not the only band of trolls in this region. The orcs, they use 'em almost like hunting
hounds! Anything other than an orc that crosses these ruined lands is fair game—and they've even taken
one of their own allies from the mountain when they've thought they could!”
Images of the fates that had been planned for them coursed through Vereesa's head. “Disgusting! I thank
you wholeheartedly for your timeliness!”
“Had I known it would've been ye we were rescuing, I'd have made this sorry bunch move faster!”
Gimmel, eyes shifting much too often to the elf, joined his leader. “Joj's dead. Still stickin' halfway out the
hole. Narn's bad; he'll need fixin' up. The rest of the wounded can travel well enough!”
“Then let's be moving on! That mean's ye, too, butterfly!” The last referred to Falstad, who bristled at
what apparently had to be a harsh insult to one of the Aerie dwarves.
Vereesa managed to calm him down with a soft touch on his shoulder, but her friend continued to glower
as the party started off. The elf noticed that the hill dwarves stripped not only the trolls of any useful
items, but also their dead companion. They made no move to try to bring the body with them, and when
Rom noticed her glance, he shrugged in mild shame.
“The war demands some proprieties be left behind, lady elf. Joj would've understood. We'll see that his
stuff is divided up to his nearest kin and that they also get an extra share of the trolls' items . . . not that
there was much, sorry to say.”
“I had no idea that there were any of you left in Khaz Modan. It was said that all the dwarves left when
it became clear that they could not hold the land against the Horde.”
Rom's canine face turned grim. “Aye, all thatcouldleave did! Wasn't possible for all of us, ye know! The
Horde, it came like the proverbial plague, cutting off much of us from any route! We were forced to go
deeper underground than we'd ever gone before! Many's that died at that time, and many more's that
died since!”
She looked over his ragtag band. “How many are you?”
“My clan? Seven and forty, where once we counted hundreds! We've talked with three others, two
larger than ourselves. Put that total number at three hundred and a little over, and ye still only got a small
fraction of what we once were in this land!”
“Three hundred and more's still quite a number,” rumbled Falstad. “Aye, with that many, I'd have gone
to take Grim Batol back!”
“And perhaps if we fluttered about in the sky like dizzy bugs, we might confuse them enough to make
that seem possible, but on the ground or under it, we're still at a disadvantage! Takes only one dragon to
scorch a forest and bake the earth below!”
Old enmities between the Aerie and the hills threatened to explode again. Vereesa quickly tried to
breach the gap between the two. “Enough of this! It is the orcs and theirs who are the enemies, am I not
correct? If you fight with one another, does that not serve their purpose alone?”
Falstad mumbled an apology to her, as did Rom. However, the elf would not let matters settle at only
that. “Not good enough. Turn and face one another, then swear you will fight only for the good of all of
us! Swear that you will always remember that it is the orcs who slew your brothers, the orcs who killed
what you loved.”
She knew no specifics about either of the dwarves' pasts, but could draw upon the common
understanding that everyone who fought in the war had lost someone or something dear. Rom had no
doubt lost many loved ones, and Falstad, who belonged to a reckless yet daring aerial band, surely had
suffered the same.
To his credit, the gryphon-rider held his hand out first. “Aye, 'tis the right of it. I'll shake.”
“If ye be doing it, I'll be doing it.”
Murmurs arose briefly from the other hill dwarves as the two clasped hands. Likely this sort of quick
compromise would have been impossible under any circumstances other than the immediate ones.
The party moved on. This time it was Rom who asked the questions. “Now that the danger of trolls is
behind us, lady elf, ye should tell us what brings ye and that one to our wounded land. Is it as we
hope—that the war turns back on the orcs, that Khaz Modan will soon be free again?”
“The war is moving against the Horde, that much is true.” This brought some gasps and quiet cheers
from the dwarves. “The bulk of the Horde was broken a few months back, and Doomhammer has
disappeared.”
Rom paused in his tracks. “Then why are the orcs still in command of Grim Batol?”
“You've to ask on that?” interjected Falstad. “First of all, the orcs still hold out in the north around Dun
Algaz. 'Tis said they're beginning to cave in, but they won't go down without a fight.”
“And the second, cousin?”
“You've not noticed that they've dragons?” Falstad asked with mock innocence on his face.
Gimmel snorted. Rom gave his second-in-command a glare, but then nodded in resignation. “Aye, the
dragons. The one foe we, earthbound, cannot battle. Caught a young one on the ground once and made
short work of it—with the loss of one or two good warriors, sad to say—but for the most part, they stay
up there and we're forced to hide down here.”
“You've fought the trolls, though,” Vereesa pointed out. “And surely the orcs as well.”
“The occasional patrol, aye. And the trolls, we've done them some damage, too—but it all means
nothing if our home's still under the orc ax!” He stared her in the eye. “Now, I ask again. Tell me who ye
are and what ye doing here! If Khaz Modan's still orcish, then ye would have to be suicidal to come to
Grim Batol!”
“My name is Vereesa Windrunner, ranger, and this is Falstad of the Aeries. We are here because I
search for a human, a wizard, tall of height and young. He has hair of fire, and when last I saw him, he
was headed this direction.” She decided to omit the black dragon's presence for the moment, and was
grateful that Falstad did not choose to add that information himself.
“And as daft as wizards are, especially human ones, what would he be thinking of doing near Grim
Batol?” Rom studied the pair with some growing suspicion, Vereesa's tale no doubt just a bit too
far-fetched for his tastes.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “but I think it has something to do with the dragons.”
At this, the dwarven leader let out a bellowing laugh. “The dragons? What's he plan to do? Rescue the
red queen from bondage? She'll be so grateful she'll gobble him right up out of excitement!”
The hill dwarves all found this terribly amusing, but the elf did not. To his credit, Falstad did not join in
the merriment, although he, of course, knew about Deathwing, and most likely assumed that Rhonin had
already long ago been “gobbled up.”
“I swore an oath, and because of it I will go on. I must reach Grim Batol and see if I can find him.”
The merriment changed to a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. Gimmel shook his head as if not
certain that he had heard right.
“Lady Vereesa, I respect ye calling, but surely ye can see how outrageous such a quest is!”
She carefully studied the hardened band. Even in the near dark, she could see the weariness, the
fatalism. They fought and they dreamed of their homeland free, but most likely thought that it would never
happen in their lifetime. They admired bravery, as all dwarves did, but even to them the elf 's quest
bordered on the insane.
“You and your people have saved us, Rom, and for that I thank you all. But if I can ask one boon, it is
to show me the nearest tunnel leading to the mountain fortress. I will take it alone from there.”
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