Neither Bruenor nor Catti-brie were looking at the dwarven handiwork at that point, however. Both had their eyes and thoughts turned farther north, to where Wulfgar had unexpectedly gone.

“Ye ready to walk with him to Silverymoon?” Bruenor asked his adopted daughter after a long and uncomfortable silence, for the dwarf knew that Catti-brie harbored the very same feelings of dread as he.

“My leg hurts with every step,” the woman admitted. “The boulder hit me good, and I don’t know that I’ll ever walk easy again.”

Bruenor turned to her, his eyes moist. For she spoke the truth, he knew, and the clerics had told him in no uncertain terms. Catti-brie’s injuries would never fully heal. The fight in the western entry hall had left her with a limp that she would carry for the rest of her days, and possibly with more damage still. Priest Cordio had confided to Bruenor his fears that Catti-brie would never bear children, particularly given that the woman was nearing the end of her childbearing years anyway.

“But I’m ready for the walk today,” Catti-brie said with determination, and without the slightest hesitance. “If Wulfgar crossed over that wall right as we’re speaking, I’d turn him to the river that we could be on our way. It is past time that Colson was returned to her father.”

Bruenor managed a wide smile. “Ye be quick to get the girl and get ye back,” he ordered. “The snows’re letting go early this year, I’m thinking, and Gauntlgrym’s waiting!”

“You believe that it really was Gauntlgrym?” Catti-brie dared to ask, and it was the first time anyone had actually put the most important question directly to the driven dwarf king. For on their journey back to Mithral Hall, before the coming of Obould, one of the caravan wagons had been swallowed up by a strange sinkhole, one that led, apparently, to an underground labyrinth. Bruenor had immediately proclaimed the place Gauntlgrym, an ancient and long-lost dwarven city, the pinnacle of power for the clan called Delzoun, a common heritage for all the dwarves of the North, Battlehammer, Mirabarran, Felbarran, and Adbarran alike.

“Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor said with certainty, a claim he had been making in that tone since his return from the dead. “Moradin put me back here for a reason, girl, and that reason’ll be shown to me when I get meself to Gauntlgrym. There we’ll be findin’ the weapons we’re needing to drive the ugly orcs back to their holes, don’t ye doubt.”

Catti-brie wasn’t about to argue with him, because she knew that Bruenor was in no mood for any debate. She and Drizzt had spoken at length about the dwarf’s plan, and about the possibility that the sinkhole had indeed been an entry point to the lost avenues of Gauntlgrym, and she had discussed it at length with Regis, as well, who had been poring over ancient maps and texts. The truth of it was that none of them had any idea whether or not the place was what Bruenor had decided it to be.

And Bruenor wasn’t about to argue the point. His litany against the darkness that had settled on the land was a simple one, a single word: Gauntlgrym.

“Durn stubborn fool of a boy,” Bruenor muttered, looking back to the north, his mind’s eye well beyond the wall that blocked his view. “He’s to slow it all down.”

Catti-brie started to respond, but found that she could not speak past the lump that welled in her throat. Bruenor was complaining, of course, but in truth, his anger that Wulfgar’s rash decision to run off alone into orc-held lands would slow the dwarves’ plans was the most optimistic assessment of all.

The woman gave in to her sense of dread for just a moment, and wondered if her duty to her friend would send her off alone across the Surbrin in search of Colson. And in that case, once the toddler had been retrieved, what then?

The beams creaked for a moment, then a great rush of air swept across the onlookers as the counterweights sent the massive neck of the catapult swinging past. The basket released its contents, tri-pointed caltrops, in a line from the highest peak of the arc to the point of maximum momentum and distance.

The rain of black metal plummeted from sight, and King Obould moved quickly to the lip of the cliff to watch them drop to the floor of Keeper’s Dale.

Nukkels, Kna, and some of the others shifted uneasily, not pleased to see their god-king standing so near to a two-hundred-foot drop. Any of General Dukka’s soldiers, or more likely, proud Chieftain Grimsmal and his guards, could have rushed over and ended the rule of Obould with a simple shove.

But Grimsmal, despite his earlier rumblings of discontent, nodded appreciatively at the defenses that had been set up on the northern ridge overlooking Mithral Hall’s sealed western door.

“We have filled the valley floor with caltrops,” General Dukka assured Obould. He motioned to the many baskets set beside the line of catapults, all filled with stones ranging in size from a large fist to twice an orc’s head. “If the ugly dwarves come forth, we’ll shower them with death.”

Obould looked down to the southwest, about two-thirds of the way across the broken valley from the dwarven complex, where a line of orcs chopped at the stone, digging a wide, deep trench. Directly to the king’s left, atop the cliff at the end of the trench, sat a trio of catapults, all sighted to rake the length of the ravine should the dwarves try to use it for cover against the orcs positioned in the west.

Dukka’s plan was easy enough to understand: he would slow any dwarven advance across Keeper’s Dale as much as possible, so that his artillery and archers on high could inflict massive damage on the break-out army.

“They came out of the eastern wall with great speed and cunning,” Obould warned the beaming general. “Encased in metal carts. A collapsed mountain wall did not slow them.”

“From their door to the Surbrin was not far, my king,” Dukka dared reply. “Keeper’s Dale offers no such sanctuary.”

“Do not underestimate them,” Obould warned. He stepped closer to General Dukka as he spoke, and the other orc seemed to shrink in stature before him. His voice ominous and loud, so that all could hear, Obould roared out, “They will come out with fury. They will have brooms before them to sweep aside your caltrops, and shielding above to block your arrows and stones. They will have folding bridges, no doubt, and your trench will slow them not at all. King Bruenor is no fool, and does not charge into battle unprepared. The dwarves will know exactly where they need to go, and they will get there with all speed.”

A long and uncomfortable silence followed, with many of the orcs looking at each other nervously.

“Do you expect them to come forth, my king?” Grimsmal asked.

“All that I expect from King Bruenor is that whatever he chooses to do, he will do it well, and with cunning,” Obould replied, and more than one orc jaw fell open to hear such compliments for a dwarf coming forth from an orc king.

Obould considered those looks carefully in light of his disastrous attempt to break into Mithral Hall. He could not let any of them believe that he was speaking from weakness, from memories of his own bad judgment.

“Witness the devastation of the ridge where you now place your catapults,” he said, waving his arm out to the west. Where once had stood a ridge line—one atop which Obould had placed allied frost giants and their huge war engines—loomed a torn and jagged crevice of shattered stones. “The dwarves are on their home ground. They know every stone, every rise, and every tunnel. They know how to fight. But we…” he roared, striding about for maximum effect, and lifting his clawing hands to the sky. He let the words hang in the air for many heartbeats before continuing, “We do not deny them the credit they deserve. We accept that they are formidable and worthy foes, and in that knowledge, we prepare.”