We reached the gates of Gothol'gathrak the same day and while Tortho and the stealthiest of his lot had continued on to take the defenses to the west of the dwarfen fortress city the majority of the army had set up camp on a hill beyond the widening valley in front of the city's gates. By Yath'zur's estimates we should be well out of range of any defensive artillery here and the burn marks on the valley floor in between us and the city's fortifications seemed to suggest as much as well. I still felt a little unease though. The dwarves' alchemical ammunitions were no laughing matter.

That had been yesterday. We had been pretty busy setting up our camp and its own defenses. Now though I had some time to get a better look at what lay ahead of us as we waited for news from my master of scouts. And, well, I was a little underwhelmed, now that I had time to study what little I could see of the dwarven city. Sure, the gate was impressive and as far as I could tell it was made of massive metal, bronze to be exact. The bastions flanking the gate weren't anything to sneeze at either. They were partially built into the mountains flank and topped by firing positions sporting heavy catapults.

There were a few more smaller firing positions built into the mountainside a little higher up as well. All together these ballistae and catapults could probably create a deadly crossfire. In all honesty, these defenses should have made it near impossible to ever get close to the gate itself. The defenses should have chilled me to the bone. Except they didn't. It was glaringly obvious that they were crewed only with the bare minimum of men or women necessary to operate the heavy weapons. Some even seemed to be abandoned altogether.

In the chill mountain air the breath of the defenders fogging over, or rather the lack of any such thing happening in various places, was a dead giveaway. Even with the defenses weakened as they seemed I didn't really want to try a frontal assault. There might be gaping holes in their fields of fire but I had little doubt that their alchemical weapons would still doom plenty of my men and women were we to try and get any closer. I rubbed my sides and wrapped my arms around myself under the cloak I had donned over my armor, to warm up a little and looked over at the captain of the Wall Breakers. “Your opinion?”

“Hm.” He rubbed his chin. “We crunched some numbers, the sergeants of the trebuchet crews and I. If we use smaller and lighter barrels, we should be just about able to reach the gate and the base of their bastions from around here. It will take us longer to weaken the rock like that but that shouldn't be an issue. Right?”

I nodded. “Better to spend a little more time than to unnecessarily spill the blood of our men and women.” I pointed at some ruins halfway in between us and the gate. “These ruins. That was a small hamlet, wasn't it? It looks kind of strange although I can't quite say why.”

This time it was Yath'zur's sister who spoke up. “You are right. It probably was a small farming community providing some of the food needed in the city. Much of the flat land there was probably used to grow some hardy crops. You can see the remains of some terraces at the edge of the valley as well. They probably were able to grow a surprising amount of food up here but you are right. The ruins don't look right.”

At this point the captain of my siege train took over again. “That is because the place hasn't been demolished in preparation for the siege. It looks rather like it has been abandoned for a while already instead.” He fell silent again, contemplating his next words, before he continued. “If I had to hazard a guess they probably stopped growing food up here in favor of trade with the human realms which had much more fertile ground available.”

I shuddered and rubbed my sides again. “We already knew that there was some kind of economical turmoil. Could it be that trade dried up and they are short on food?”

The giant siblings looked at each other and finally Gash'zur shrugged. “At the very least when Gothol'uin turned into a shambling hive of unquiet dead. Before that they must have still been shipping out arms and armor by the wagon load though.”

I groaned. “They sold wagon loads of good dwarven steel to the other realms of the Council of Kings. And if they didn't buy a hundred times that amount of grain in return that would explain why there might have been a shortage of coin in the realms dominated by elves and humans.”

Now it was the giantess' turn to groan. “It can't be that simple. Or can it be? It would take a special kind of idiot to ruin trade in the entire Council of Kings like that. And what would they do with all the coin anyway? Its not like they can eat it, right?”

I had no real answer to that question, thus I shrugged. “No, I'm not exactly an expert on dwarves, but they probably can't eat gold. Not any more than any other creature I'd guess.” I shook my head for emphasis. “We will probably have to get in there to find out.”

There was no debating that point. The only question that remained was how we would go about it. I turned to face Yath'zur. “Start setting up our trebuchets once you are satisfied with the camp's defenses. Have someone watch the sky and the dwarven positions just in case they were trying to fool us about the range of their catapults.”

He nodded and left to carry out the orders. Getting the mighty siege engines set up would take some time. Even just preparing their positions might take all day or possibly even longer. If the dwarven defenders were led by anyone worth their salt they would quickly realize what was going on though. If they were able to reach us with any of their weapons, that was when we would find out.

I didn't intend to just sit around until then though. I turned to address Gash'zur. “And while everyone else is busy, we'll try something else. Get a truce banner. Something nice and big. I want them to see it for what it is from all the way over there.”

She opened her mouth but quickly shut it again. It was obvious that she wanted to question my decision but she didn't.

I just shrugged. “If there is even the slightest chance to take the place intact without spilling the blood of hundreds, hundreds of theirs and quite possibly ours as well, we should give it a try. Shouldn't we?”

She nodded and hurried the banner I had requested. Once she returned I started marching down the hill in the direction of the ruined hamlet and the grand gate beyond it. I stopped well short of the first holes that had been burned into the snow and the ground below it though.

As my giantess companion unfurled the banner of truce I gathered Mana to amplify my voice with the Lion's Roar spell once again. Once the banner fluttered in the crisp breeze I called out, my voice carrying far and wide, even echoing back from the mountains around us as I did so. “Defenders of Gothol'gathrak! I would invite you to parlay and discuss terms for your surrender!”