1. The fighting had been great. Hraulgoth Bronzefist still had the blood and brains smeared all over his hammer and club to prove it. He'd killed more people than he could count. Granted, he wasn't much of a scholar -- and he was suspicious of anyone who could count higher than their number of exposed digits. But nevertheless, he'd slain more foes than any of of the other mercenaries. The baron had showered praise on him for that achievement. And better yet, he'd also given Hraulgoth a fat sack of gold.
2. Yes... the fighting had been good. Many of the enemies' bodies had been broken, and the rest had been broken in spirit. Breaking spirits wasn't enjoyable as breaking spines or skulls, but it was better than not breaking anything at all. And there was a certain satisfaction in seeing legions of foes fleeing in terror -- leaving their dead and the contents of their digestive systems behind. But perhaps those spirits had been broken too well. Therein lay the problem.
3. The survivors had fled to their city, and were now hiding behind its thick stone walls. Thus a siege had begun. This displeased Hraulgoth Bronzefist. A siege wasn't like a battle. It was more like... Well, he couldn't think of a suitable simile. But something unenjoyable. It meant day after day of sitting around doing nothing, with no killing at all. He'd become a mercenary to fight! And for gold, of course. He wasn't some kind of altruistic slaughterer. But mostly for the fighting. And now he wasn't doing any!
4. For several days this frustrating state of affairs continued. the baron assured them that the enemy would eventually surrender or make a sortie. The latter would have been Bronzefist's preference, of course. Some more fighting, more blood and brains on his weapons (he hadn't cleaned the last lot off yet, out of general principle and laziness). But even the former would have been acceptable. If they surrendered, his agreement with the baron would be over. He could go off and find another conflict. And he'd make sure it was one without any possibility of sieges. However, neither had yet occurred -- and it seemed less and less likely that they would, at least quickly enough to satisfy the dwarf or even the baron.
5. The baron finally sent for engineers, and ordered them to get him some siege engines. That meant more waiting for Hraulgoth of course. Siege engines didn't grow on trees. Well, the wood did. But it still had to be put together in the proper way. That took time. And time meant more waiting, when he should have been killing. This displeased Hraulgoth Bronzefist. So he did what any self-respecting dwarf would have done under the circumstances. He started drinking.
6. Drinking wasn't as much fun as killing enemies. But boredom was more tolerable on the outside of a few dozen pints of ale. So Hraulgoth drank. And he drank. And, since he found he still had nothing better to do, he drank some more. At one point the supply of ale in the camp ran out. But after a few friendly headbutts, the quartermaster managed to arrange for a fresh supply. Thus the dwarf was able to continue drinking as he saw the siege engines come into being step by step, their wooden frames climbing upward like strange trees. Bronzefist didn't know why the engineers kept building three of them almost on top of one another, but that was their buisiness.
7. It was during this long period of inebriation that Hraulgoth Bronzefist decided to climb up onto the observation platform from which the engineers oversaw their work. One of them protested, but Hraulgoth put a stop to that through the simple expedient of kicking him in the backside and sending him flying off the edge. Thus left undisturbed, he took another swig from the barrel he'd brought up on his shoulder (not an easy feat, but one which he considered to have been well worth the trouble), and looked down to see how the nearest catapult was coming along. As it happened, it had just been completed.
8. He wasn't quite sure how he came to fall from the platform. But he wasn't too perturbed. His dwarven bones were tough, and his thick magical armor -- which he wore out of habit, even when drinking -- withstood the impact easily enough. Thus he was uninjured when he landed inside some kind of large bucket. So he took another quaff from the barrel, which he'd somehow managed to keep safe during his plummet and the subsequent hard landing. It was in mid-quaff that the catapult fired, and its great arm hurled Hraulgoth Bronzefist through the air like a boulder.
9. The dwarf clutched the barrel of ale to his chest, and he tried to keep it upright so none of the precious beverage could fall out. He needed that ale for drinking! But alas, it was not to be. For when he crashed into the battlements of the city wall, the barrel was smashed to pieces. And so were the actual battlements, as it happened. Apparently that human-worked stone wasn't equal to the impact of enchanted dwarven armor flung into it at high speed. The barrel was broken. The battlements were broken. Hraulgoth Bronzefist was not broken, however. But he was very, very angry. So he strode towards the nearest shocked sentry, snatched the weapon from his hands, tossed him off the wall, and started killing.