The next morning, the group helped the dwarves break camp. They looked forward to resting in beds, for they expected to arrive at Kith Cairn that night, mere hours before the hostile force. Before the caravan departed, Triben used his magics to sew the Oakenshield back together. Vali thanked him gruffly, but was obviously still upset over Oleg's claim that it was not, and had never been, magical.
Once camp was broken, West cast about in a wide circle to watch the approaches to the caravan. Midmorning, he noticed that the band of humans from Sunndi had changed direction and were now headed towards the road behind the caravan. West turned in to a human and questioned Cetus Farstrider, their leader, as to their intentions. Cetus explained that they meant to catch up with the caravan and provide further escort. West gave them a proper bearing to the caravan, then returned to report to Dafur Steelhews, with Triben acting as interpreter.
Dafur had no problem with the humans joining the group, and greeted them warmly when they arrived. Cetus gave a rousing speech decrying his government for its inaction. He pledged that though the government of Sunndi had forgotten its obligations to the Iron League, the people had not. The men with him were stout free men, and they intended to stand by the old pledges to the League. He swore they would die in the defense of the dwarves sooner than resign them to their fate alone. There was much cheering when he was done, and Dafur mentioned that it was nice to see that "iron still ran in the blood of some humans."
After a brief delay to integrate the humans, the caravan started up once again. West continued scouting ahead, and towards evening he rounded the last hilly bend before the sea, about a mile from the mine. He was stunned to see the hostile army already in place. A couple of thousand savage jungle men strong, plus a few hundred of the scarred warriors from the previous day, and almost a hundred horrific aberrations. Their tracks were indicative of a boat landing on the beach about a mile north of the mine entrance. West quickly flew back to the caravan, alertly stopping them before they rounded the bend and were spotted.
Oleg was able to identify the aberrations as extremely large gricks, reknowned for climbing and resistance to nonmagical weapons, and umber hulks, crafty diggers as smart as the common man. The pary convened with Dafur and Cetus to discuss how to get to proceed. Dafur emphasized that the goods in the wagon were very important, and should not be abandoned unless truly necessary. The party came up with three possible plans. The first was to arrange with the mine for a sortie to distract the army and allow the caravan to rush in behind the wall as quickly as it could. The second invovled using one of the secret passages that led out of the mine, but might alert their foes as to its location. The third plan was to lower the goods from the bluffside two hundred feet above the small enclosure that guarded the mine.
West flew into the mining enclosure, attracting attention from within, but fortunately no quarrels. Upon shifting back into human form, he was led by five guards to Golin Firebelly, the paladin leading the resistance. Golin quickly recognized him and dispatched the suspicious guards. After West explained the party's thinking, Golin asserted that any of the three plans would be acceptable, and that he trusted Dafur in the situation. If any action was needed by the men in the mine, they had but to ask.
West returned, and all agreed that lowering the supplies into the enclosure would be the safest plan. The sortie plan put too much risk on the goods in the caravan, while potential discovery of the secret passage would put the whole mining complex at risk. With night falling, the caravan rapidly prepared as they approached the bluffside. West and Gronk patrolled the area along the bluff while Oleg and Triben assisted the dwarves in lowering the supplies.
After only a little progress had been made, they were spotted by lookouts from the army below. Handlers rushed to the Grick pens, sending a score of them up towards the caravan. Oleg and Triben rushed to assist Gronk and West. The party applied overwhelming magical firepower, and was able to repel the first group of gricks with flame, lighting, and precise archery. The handlers had been busy, though, and even as the first group were slain, fell, or climbed back down the wall, a second score climbed up.
This fresh assault was too much for the party, who had expended most of their energy on the first wave. They performed a fighting withdrawl to the caravan at the bluff's edge, where the last of the dwarves had gone down. West flew down as an eagle, while Gronk and Oleg climbed. Triben tried to convince West's tiger to jump with him, that he might feather fall them to the bottom, but the tiger was unwilling and ran away into the hills. Triben leap just seconds ahead of the wave of gricks. Meanwhile, Oleg animated the rope and had it untie itself, leaving no easy path into the enclosure. A couple of gricks tried climbing down, but a dwarven stonesinger spoke to the wall, and it stopped holding them. When they slipped and fell, the rest of the gricks fell back.
The party met with Golin, Dafur and Cetus, who were catching up and making arrangements for the battle ahead. Golin confirmed that the men had arrived by ship, and offered the party two possible assignments. The first was as agents of chaos, disrupting the enemy forces however possible. The second was as bodyguards for the stonesinger in camp, who was one of the most powerful of his kind. Golin stressed that if they accept the assignment, the party would be expected to die to a man before allowing the slightest harm to come to him. After some discussion, the party felt more immediately comfortable wreaking havoc on the enemy army. They left open the possiblitiy of later working as guards, but first wanted to test the defenses of the enemy army.