"Ye're pushing the old one hard," a young dwarf, Fender Stouthammer by name, remarked when they took their next break and meal. He and Galen were off to the side of the main group, in a wider and higher area that allowed Galen to stretch his legs a bit, though that had done little to improve his sour mood.
"My cause is—"
"Known to us, and felt by us, every one," Fender assured him. "We're all feeling for Mithral Hall in much the same way as ye're feeling for Nesme, don't ye doubt."
The calming intent of Fender didn't find a hold on Galen, though, and he wagged his long finger right in the dwarf's face, so close that Fender had to hold himself back from just biting the digit off at the knuckle.
"What do you know of my feelings?" Galen growled at him. "Do you know my son, huddled in the cold, perhaps? Slain, perhaps, or with trolls all about him? Do you know the fate of my neighbors? Do you—"
"General Dagna just lost his boy," Fender interrupted, and that set Galen back a bit.
"Dagnabbit was his name," Fender went on. "A mighty warrior and loyal fellow, as are all his kin. He fell to the orc horde at Shallows, defending his king and kin to the bitter end. He was Dagna's only boy, and with a career as promising as that of his father. Long will dwarf bards sing the name of Dagnabbit. But I'm guessing that thought's hardly cooling the boil in old Dagna's blood, or hardly plastering the crack in his old heart. And now here ye come, ye short-livin', cloud-sniffin' dolt, demanding this and demanding that, as if yer own needs're more important than any we dwarves might be knowing. Bah, I tried to take ye in stride. I tried to see yer side of the fear. But ye know, ye're a pushy one, and one that's more likely to get boot-trampled into the stone than to ever see yer home again if ye don't learn to shut yer stupid mouth."
The obviously flabbergasted Galen Firth just sat there for a moment, stuttering.
"Are you threatening me, a Rider of Nesme?" he finally managed to blurt.
"I'm telling ye, as a friend or as an enemy—choice is yer own to make— that ye're not helping yerself or yer people by fighting with Dagna at every turn in the tunnel."
"The tunnel…." the stubborn man spat back. "We should be out in the open air, where we might hear the calls of my people, or see the light of their fires!"
"Or find ourselves surrounded by an army o' trolls, and wouldn't that smell wonderful?"
Galen Firth gave a snort and held up his hand dismissively. Fender took the cue, rose, and started away.
He did pause long enough to look back and offer, "Ye keep acting as if ye're among enemies, or lessers. If all the folk o' Nesme are as stupid as yerself—too dumb to know a friend when one's ready to help—then who's to doubt that the trolls might be doing all the world a favor?"
Galen Firth trembled, and for a moment Fender half expected the man to leap up and try to throttle him.
"I came to you, to Mithral Hall, in friendship!" he argued, loudly enough to gain the attention of those dwarves crowded around Dagna in the main chamber down the tunnel.
"Yerself came to Mithral Hall in need, offerin' nothing but complaints and asking for more than we could give ye," Fender corrected. "And still Steward Regis, and all the clan, accepted the responsibility of friendship—not the burden, but the responsibility, ye dolt! We ain't here because we're owing Nesme a damned thing, and we ain't here asking Nesme for a damned thing, and in the end, even yerself should be smart enough to know that we're all hopin' for the same thing here. And that thing's finding yer boy, and all the others of yer town, alive and well."
The blunt assessment did give Galen pause and in that moment, before he could decide whether to scream or to punch out, Fender rolled up to his feet, offered a dismissive, "Bah!" and waved his calloused hands the man's way.
"Ye might be thinking to make a bit less noise, yeah?" came a voice from the other direction, that of General Dagna, who glared at the two.
"Get along with ye, then," Fender said to Galen, and he waved at him again. "Think on what I said or don't—it's yer own to choose."
Galen Firth slowly moved back from the dwarf, and toward the larger gathering in the middle of the wider chamber. He walked more sidelong than in any straightforward manner, though, as if warding his back from the pursuit of words that had surely stung him.
Fender was glad of that, for the sake of Galen Firth and Nesme Town, if for nothing else.
* * * * *
Tos'un Armgo, lithe and graceful, moved silently along the low corridor, a dart clenched in his teeth and a serrated knife in his hand. The dark elf was glad that the dwarves had gone back underground. He felt vulnerable and exposed in the open air. A noise made him pause and huddle closer to the rocky wall, his limber form melting into the jags and depressions. He pulled his piwafwi, his enchanted drow cloak that could hide him from the most scrutinizing of gazes, a bit tighter around him and turned his face to the stone, peering out of the corner of only one eye.
A few moments passed. Tos'un relaxed as he heard the dwarves back at their normal routines, eating and chatting. They thought they were safe back in the tunnels, since they believed they had left the trolls far behind. What troll could have tracked them over the last couple days since the skirmish, after all?
No troll, Tos'un knew, and he smiled at the thought. For the dwarves hadn't counted on their crude and beastlike enemies being accompanied by a pair of dark elves. Tracking them, leading the two-headed troll named Prof-fit and his smelly band back into this second stretch of tunnel, had been no difficult task for Tos'un.
The drow glanced back the other way, where his companion, the priestess Kaer'lic Suun Wett waited, crouched atop a boulder against the wall. Even Tos'un would not have seen her there, buried under her piwafwi, except that she shifted as he turned, lifting one arm out toward him.
Take down the sentry, her fingers flashed to him in the intricate sign language of the drow elves. A prisoner is desirable.
Tos'un took a deep breath and instinctively reached for the dart he held clenched in his teeth. Its tip was coated with drow poison, a paralyzing concoction of tremendous power that few could resist. How often had Tos'un heard that command from Kaer'lic and his other two drow companions over the last few years, for he among all the group had become the most adept at gathering creatures for interrogation, especially when the target was part of a larger group.
Tos'un paused and moved his free hand out where Kaer'lic could see, then answered, Do we need bother? They are alert, and they are many.
Kaer'lic's fingers flashed back immediately, Iwould know if this is a remote group or the forward scouts of Mithral Hall's army!
Tos'un's hand went right back to the dart. He didn't dare argue with Kaer'lic on such matters. They were drow, and in the realm of the drow, even for a group who was so far removed from the conventions of the great Under-dark cities, females ranked higher than males, and priestesses of the Spider Queen Lolth, like Kaer'lic, ranked highest of all.