After nearly a ten-day of rest at Klingger’s, the dwarves arrived, thanks to the speed of Fawnlum’s messenger, with fire in their eyes.

“If you stick with me,” Fawnlum told them, “the tri-cleorps will come to you, since we killed their holy figure.”

Gritcomb slapped the top of his head.  “Hoots, mon,” he exclaimed, a tiny cloud of fine dust puffing out from around his silt-laden hair.  “Why didn’t we think o’that?!”

The dwarf troupe had learned some things about working with the saw-vines, as they had felled a few shrooms in strategic spots in Dark Hulthuein.  With just the right method, they had formed walls, and a good spot to box a pack of tri-cleorps in.

“When the beasties cooperate, that is,” Bluntwerk added.

They brought that knowledge to bear, as they started work on the site Fawnlum had chosen to make her stand.  Feeling the danger all around them in the dim forest, the humans felled the shrooms to make them land in the right position, and form a small fort.  During the hardest part of the labor, the bearded folk were chuckling all the while.

At one point, Fawnlum had turned her head.  When she looked back, part of the wall, complete with fitted stone steps, was finished.

“The power of the dwarves to build is amazing,” she muttered to Sienna.

Their fire-gel having been restocked by the Nacklegems, Sienna’s desire to spark the stuff off in some tri-cleorps’ faces was matched only by Bluntwerk’s desire to crush those same faces under his hammer.

Their audience did not keep them waiting.

Fawnlum and Sienna, in full flight from a mass of howling tri-cleorps, came over the wall.  The ladders were pulled up, and the arrows flew, Firgristle’s crossbow shooting almost as rapidly as Caitlyn’s bow.

The bodies that fell did not even slightly slow the ones in back.

“By Thorgrim’s fiery beard, Missy!” Banacheck yelled, as the mob came rolling out of the trees.

“Ready on the catapults!” Fawnlum shouted, as Guilwar and Lucas stood at the release-ropes in the fort’s courtyard.

“Now!”

Heavy-laden with pitch-wrapped rocks, the catapults loosed their fiery ammunition.

The warriors went over right behind the burning projectiles, and the melee began.

As human and dwarf, after having retreated back inside their walls, crouched under large round shields cut from shroom-pulp, Dreighton scowled, asking, “What are they doing?”

“Keeping us pinned down,” Sienna answered, as another volley of spears came down.

A horn sounded, as Lucas signaled them from the back of the fort.

“Go!” Fawnlum ordered.

Dreighton and Halrick ran under their shield, carrying bright torches, to the rear to defend the southern wall.

“Is this daylight really stopping them?” Sienna asked.

“Nah,” Banacheck answered.  “They’re just gatherin’, while we’re sittin’ still.”

“Ready?” Fawnlum asked.

“Aye.”

The rest of her allies scurried to the southern wall, and Fawnlum lit the final bundles loaded in the small catapults.  The clods of pitch, swabbed with the wonderful fire-gel, burst into punishing brightness.  But with this batch, the ingenious Nacklegems had mixed in sulfur, and a couple other noxious ingredients.  Fawnlum launched the bundles before their foul smoke engulfed her, and dashed after her party.

She ran out of the hidden rear door, and caught up to the dwarves, as Caitlyn led them along a well-scouted path, and left pursuit behind.

Banacheck, laughing like an avalanche, shouted up at her, “Missy!  Ye weren’t jokin’ when ye said they were after ye!”

“The rear of the fort,” Sye-nitch carefully said to Imep, “was too well protected – “

“Did we catch them or not?” his leader snapped.

“No,” Sye-nitch tersely said, expecting to be struck down.

“Don’t worry,” Imep calmly replied.  “We’re the best chance Croll has of getting that woman.  He won’t kill us yet.  Leave some goblins to watch for their return.”