[@Roughdragon1][@Hammerman][@eemmtt]

The slippery assassin tumbled off the Mantis' back with a light shriek as the axe clipped the side of its chest to crack the ribs and draw a small bright red line of its filthy blood before it fell into the crowd below. It never made it to the ground. Like the beetles, the Mantis could feel its masters emotions and lurched forward to swallow the assassin rat in its mandibles with a sickening crunching of broken splintering bones. 
The body it spat out into the throng of Stormvermin was unrecognizable.
Maria had managed to fend off one threat but the many clan rats and the surviving Stormvermin still posed a serious threat to the groups chances for victory. With the king bleeding out on the stones alone it was only a matter of time.

A scream caught their ears as the fire priestess Ayse felt the keen edge of a Raki blade to the stomach, already its vile poison was robbing her of strength. Her eyes heralded the onslaught of fire that erupted from the priestess in a bright circle of death, turning the clanrats in her immediate vicinity into ashes in the pyroclasm of spent magic. 
The flames did not subside as she channeled what was left of her magic into one more burst of healing flames to her nearest allies. Gormarrs toxic affliction burned away as his wounds closed, the aches to Sylvia were dulled to a manageable level, and the clanrats were quick to falter. More and more of their kin were dieing and even the stormvermin were being slain. As the last immediate threat to the mantis, Marianne, and the archer Fariha, were taken care of, Sylvia slumped to the ground exhausted and cradling her stomach where the blade had met flesh. A full dosage had entered her system and while it had a large portion burned away, the last lingering threads would put her out of commission for quite some time.

"RETREAT!"
"FLEE FLEE!"
"DRAW RANK!"

The disorganized vermin called out to the stormvermin and clanrat alike, the line of armored warriors was holding well against the tiring Dwarves, but then it happened. With a shout to his forebearers and the gods under the mountain, king Cragshield struck the breach with his hammer and the battle took a drastic change.
Two halberds had pierced his armor and found the hard flesh beneath, eliciting a howl of pain and anger from the stubborn dwarf that echoed over the rocks tumble to the floor. The breach had been sealed. Grendricks call echoed across the hall in the otherwordly howl that so marked him. 
The rats were cut off from reinforcements.
Their commander had been shoved into the collapsed tunnel, left for dead beneath the blood soaked rocks.
Worse still - The Dwarves saw their King bleed upon the stones of his homeland.

Their fury became not the song of the mountain, of the river of gold beneath their feet or the heroes of the past, but a mournful wail of outrage and disgust. Strength flowed in their stocky framed as their hatred burned hot in their inner furnaces. For the first time since the rats coming, the Dwarves of Thesuri mountain pushed their ancestral foe back one step at a time. One swing of their weapons at a time. One huffing breathe of smoldering madness at a time.

The sinister ring of a bell far below the halls rattled its sturdy foundation..

Siph fought with the clanrats as they retreated into a single corner of the room near the breach, their instincts to flee forced a few to try and dig their way out as others clawed over the Dwarves in an attempt to bolster the Stormvermin line. 

The Barbarian heard the ring of the Bell and his face showed his sudden fear. Calling out to the group, he motioned for the opposite wall where the assassins had come through. 

[color=ed1c24]"Finish the rats, quickly! We must find the Shaman from the bridge."[/color]