“No!” Bruenor cried. “What’re ye thinkin’?”
His last word came out as a grunt, though, as another boot stomped atop his shoulder, and another on the other side.
“Bwahaha!” he heard, and he knew that Athrogate and Ambergris had come.
The kobolds knew it, too.
Painfully so.
Reconstituted in his corporeal form once more, Hoshtar Xorlarrin glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the approaching battle. He was in the last tunnel now, moving for the large chamber that joined the lower levels with these upper portions of the complex.
The kobolds were running out of room.
The dwarves would be here soon, in this tunnel, and the upper complex would be theirs.
There remained some monsters between them and Hoshtar’s clan, and surely the drow could bring in some more to hinder the progress of these bearded ruffians.
Hinder, but not stop, for it was only a matter of time now, and not much time at that.
Hoshtar reached the end of the corridor, moving through a door to a landing that opened high above the vast chamber and the deep darkness below. With a last glance back up the corridor, the mage touched his House emblem, enacting an enchantment of levitation, and stepped from the ledge, drifting down.
Matron Mother Zeerith would not be pleased, for he had nothing good to tell her. The dwarves had made tremendous progress, securing room after room after tunnel, and fortifying everything in their wake. When Hoshtar had secretly crossed through the front warrior ranks of the enemy, he had found the industrious dwarves behind hard at work, building traps and secure doors of stone and iron, even reshaping corridors in meticulous detail, setting up kill zones with their clever war engines. Even if House Xorlarrin fought off the initial assaults and defeated the front lines of dwarves, claiming these upper tunnels of Q’Xorlarrin would be costly.
And without these upper tunnels secured, Matron Mother Zeerith’s designs on trade with surface-dwelling partners could not be easily realized.
Hoshtar thought of Athrogate, Jarlaxle’s ugly little friend.
“Oh, clever Jarlaxle,” he said, drifting down into the darkness. Might Jarlaxle, and not the matron mother, prove to be the impetus behind the dwarves’ reclamation of the upper halls? Jarlaxle knew these dwarves, obviously, and had spies among them-Athrogate at least. With these devious developments, with an army of dwarves holding fast to the upper complex, only Jarlaxle could facilitate the necessary trade between the city of Q’Xorlarrin and the World Above.
Was this Jarlaxle’s way of ensuring himself a larger profit?
“Or is it truly the work of the matron mother?” he asked himself as he lightly touched down beside the huge spiral staircase that could be, and now was, retracted halfway to the ceiling.
Aware then that many eyes and bows were trained upon him, Hoshtar held up his hands unthreateningly and offered his name.
“Beware falling kobolds,” he warned the drow sentries, moving past into the deeper tunnels, moving toward the unenviable task of informing Matron Mother Zeerith on the successes their enemies had already realized.
“Dwarves,” the delicate and fashionable dark elf muttered repeatedly during that long, long walk to the royal chambers. “Ugly, hairy, filthy dwarves. Oh, why must it be dwarves?”
“Haha, but ye’ve picked yerself a band o’ bluster an’ bustin’!” Athrogate said to Bruenor a bit later, when the five had turned into a series of side passages and found-to their disappointment-a few moments of muchneeded respite. “Don’t know that I’ve e’er seen a one-hander so quick to clobber!” he added, using an old dwarven nickname, “one-hander,” to describe a five-dwarf patrol group.
Bruenor had a hard time disagreeing with the sentiment. Fist and Fury were truly a rolling disaster from any enemy’s viewpoint, and Bruenor, with his supreme skill, centuries of experience, and mighty gear, knew how to complement them perfectly. And no less devastating were Athrogate and Ambergris, particularly Athrogate. Never in his life had Bruenor witnessed a more capable dwarven catastrophe-indeed, this one was on a par with Thibbledorf Pwent!
“If I didn’t have ye with me, I’d not be out in front o’ the group,” he replied, and dropped a friendly hand on Athrogate’s shoulder.
“Aye, and an added pleasure it is that th’ other three are lasses,” Athrogate said, lowering his voice so that the trio, who were not so far away, couldn’t hear. “I know ye’re me king here, and know that ye’ve got me allegiance, but I’m beggin’ ye to keep yer charms from me girl Ambergris. I’ve ne’er known a sturdier lassie, and oh, but she’s taken me heart in her hands!”
Bruenor just stared at him curiously.
“What?” Athrogate asked when he finally caught on to that expression. “Were ye thinkin’ o’ takin’ her from me, then?”
“I’m yer king?” Bruenor asked, seeming genuinely surprised.
And Athrogate seemed genuinely wounded. He stuttered about for a response for several heartbeats, then whispered, as he had in the Rite of Kith’n Kin, “Ar tariseachd, na daoine de a bheil mise, ar righ.”
“Ye’re here because Jarlaxle sent ye here, and no pretendin’ other,” said Bruenor. “Ye’re not serving me, Athrogate, and I’m not to hold any fancies on it. Ye serve Jarlaxle and his band o’ drow, and ye serve yerself, and so ye have since when first I met ye.”
That statement seemed perfectly logical, given the history, but it clearly caught Athrogate by surprise and rocked him back on his heels, and put on Athrogate’s face an expression caught somewhere between surprise and sadness.
“I’m not judgin’ ye,” Bruenor was quick to add. “I’ve had Jarlaxle aside meself, as well.”
Athrogate winced.
“What, then?” Bruenor asked.
“I came to Nesmé as Jarlaxle’s spy,” Athrogate answered. “I’m not for denyin’ that. Never did.” He paused and looked at Ambergris. “But me spyin’ showed me more than I was thinkin’.”
“Jarlaxle’s band’ll accept yer girl, if that’s yer worry,” Bruenor assured him.
“Nay,” Athrogate said. “Not me worry.”
“Then what?”
“Not a life for a dwarf,” Athrogate said, and he seemed genuinely choked up by then.
“What’re ye sayin’?” Bruenor prompted. “Speak it straight out.”
“I’m hopin’ to call ye me king. So’s Amber Gristle O’Maul o’ the Adbar O’Mauls.”
Now it was Bruenor’s turn to rock back on his heels. Despite the Rite of Kith’n Kin, despite even that the Throne of the Dwarf Gods had accepted Athrogate, Bruenor’s surprise at the level of Athrogate’s intensity and pleading here was genuine, his eyes wide, his jaw hanging slack until he could fumble around in his thoughts enough to find words for his shock. “Ye think Jarlaxle’s to just let ye go?” he said, because he had nothing else to say.
“Why’s it got to be one or th’ other?” Athrogate replied. “I. . we, me and me girl, will be Jarlaxle’s eyes, ears, and mouth in Gauntlgrym.”
“Serving both?” Bruenor asked, his tone showing that he was none too pleased by that prospect. Was Athrogate asking him to willingly accept a spy in Gauntlgrym’s midst?
“Serving the king o’ me clan,” Athrogate replied without hesitation, and with sincere conviction. “Tellin’ Jarlaxle only that what ye’re tellin’ me I can be tellin’ him! And I’ll be lettin’ him know that right up front, what, and if that’s not good enough for him, then good riddance to him!”
Bruenor stared at him hard, and found that he truly believed every word.
The other three came over then, Fist and Fury obviously eager to be on their way.
“More. .” Tannabritches began.
“. . to hit,” Mallabritches finished, and the two punched each other in the shoulder.
“Lot o’ trust, ye’re askin’,” Bruenor remarked.