Sye-nitch looked away, as he threw the bag and its contents into the magma flow creeping past the forging area.

He glared at the goblin workers.   Since their eyes could stand the red glow of the fire and lava, they were pressed into service here, making more weapons for the Oolar’s armies.  No one dared look up at him, and all that could be heard was the ringing of hammers, and the hissing steam of the cooling troughs.

The tribe had able bodies to replace the ones lost, so their fighting force was not really shrinking.  The true threat came from the spectacle of their troops being slaughtered.  Why he, Croll and Tolga had not yet been executed by Chief Ingruk, he could not guess.  And as he had been fast to grab the heads when the Blister-foot dogs had dropped them in his tribe’s part of the undercity, some of the fighters were actually deferring to him.  Leadership did have its privileges.

But also it had its price.  They had to get that human, before she spelled doom for them all.

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Sitting in the nests, Fawnlum looked at their fatigue, but would not voice any acknowledgement of it.  Dreighton and Lucas shared the space with her, as Lucas used his wand to heal a laceration on Dreighton’s arm.

“Now I guess I’ll go over to Sienna’s perch, and fix her wound before it festers,” the young wizard said.  “I know she hates to have any open skin in this place.”

“Wait,” Fawnlum told him.

The grey sight of her headband showed her his questioning gaze clearly.  She smiled and tapped her earlobe with her fingertip.

After another few seconds of dead silence, the sound came quite clearly– grumbling, animalistic voices.  They all heard the growling shouts, as Fawnlum chanced a peek through the window-flap.

“Another wave,” Dreighton said regretfully.

“Sh,” Fawnlum quietly bade him.  “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

Dreighton held up his heavy ear-string, and smiled.  “Two groups in one night.  They’re going to much trouble to kill you, Saima.”

The nap had not been comfortable, and now Fawnlum and her group climbed down to the ground, and greeted the dismal, barely-there light of day.

“Let me guess,” Sienna said.  “We can get the smelly things out of the other nest.”

“Aye,” Fawnlum grunted with a full-body stretch.  “We’ve got another delivery to make.”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

“Back again!” Klingger called with open arms, as the Coastals trudged back into the Spur Saddle.

As he walked up to Fawnlum and steered her to the bar, he waved her comrades to a table.  But to Fawnlum he subtly motioned, directing her to follow him.

In the privacy of the far end of the bar, he quietly asked her, “Did the Humboldt royalty send you here?  I had not expected such success from a sell-sword.  I wonder if you’re a military commander sent to quietly help this city, so the kingdom can concentrate on its own war in the north.”

“I’m just a paid fighter.  Outside my comrades, I have no command to call my own.  Why?”

“Farmers have fled, from north of Windsaeve to shelter in the city.  The clerk in the bounty office sent word on the streets of your latest spoils.  With the number of ears you’re bringing in, some are more concerned with how many tri-cleorps are truly walking that forsaken forest.”

“And the others?”

“They believe you’re eliminating the ones that are there.  Some have gone back.”

He waved a hand toward his great map.  “In the world outside this shadow, it is the time of summer.  In East Osterly, the darkness slows the crops’ growth.  You’ve given courage to people to go back to their land, even under these conditions.”

“Then let them stay free to ply their trade.  I’ll continue mine.”