The forward defense has been taken! the bridge has been raised and we are sealed form the outside. On the plus side the merchants are safe, for as long as the barricades hold. On the minus side, we have exactly 0 soldiers left, and all of our weapons and armor are beyond the barricade. Also on t he minus side, they have trolls. I'm pretty sure those cna destroy bridge, because we're hearing lots of ruckus of them destroying doors.
As we sit here, we think to our gods. Not Etom (of happiness) or Mengmand (of dance), not Rodem (of rain and trees), nor Thikut (of crafts). We do not even think of Duthal (of generosity), nor Alis (of fertility)
Instead we think of Limul, of the mountains, and Enor of trade and fortresses. Surely they will bless us in this dark time. Wow... we don't have as single deity of war? How embarrassing. Maybe we'll just build a wall behind our bridge, and deal with the merchants after they go insane. We'll also train... maybe 6 squads of 3 dwarves with crafted weapons (of whatever metals the merchants have) and armor made entirely of copper. Time to melt down those steel harps and iron drums - we need the metal!
Edit 1: We heard them loitering toward teh gate, and thought "hey, it's worth a shot". We pulled a lever, and crushed basically an entire squad (judging by the screams and crushing noise). I'll drink to that!
Edit 2: The merchants promised they could take care of it, so a dwaf opened the gate. Shame, 'cus now they're inside. We did try to lift the gate as soon as possible, and in the end it looks liek it was worth it. Only a handful of dwarves died, and it looks like the siege was broken. All those doors and beds destroyed... and all that blood... and... we'll be busy for a whiel cleaning up this mess.