Nadri stroked his ruddy beard. It was well preened and beautifully studded with silver ingots that bound up locks of his hair.
‘Father would have been so very proud,’ he said, and gripped Heglan’s shoulder a little tighter.
Lodri Copperfist was dead, slain by urk over a decade ago during one of the High King’s purges of the mountains. Grief had brought his only sons closer, despite the very different paths they had taken.
‘He loved the skyroads, Nadri. Just like grandfather.’ Heglan’s beard was unkempt, more brown than red and tied together at the end with a leather thong. Most casual observers would not think them kin, but the bond between the siblings was stronger than gromril.
For a moment, Heglan was overtaken by a wistful mood. In his mind’s eye, he soared through the heavens with the wind on his face, buffeting his beard as he flew. Birds arced and pinwheeled beside him, the sense of freedom overwhelming…
Burgrik Strombak brought him back to the ground with a stamp of his foot.
‘Earth is where dwarfs are meant to be,’ he said, a pipe stewing between clenched teeth. ‘Under it or over it, but never flying above it.’
The engineer guildmaster cut a formidable figure. Two mattock-like fists pressed against his broad waist and a thick leather belt filled with tools crossed his slab chest. Strombak knew engines like no other dwarf of Barak Varr. Most of the sea wall defences on the side of the hold that faced the Black Gulf were his design. A circular glass lens sat snug in his left eye, which he used to scrutinise the young engineer before him.
‘What about the sea, master?’ asked Heglan, bowing deferentially. ‘Dawi can sail the seas too, can they not?’
‘You ask me that question in a Sea Hold. Have you hit your head, Heglan Copperfist?’
Heglan bowed again, deeper this time. ‘I only meant that the horizons of our race have broadened before and will again.’
Scowling, Strombak leaned in close. ‘You are fortunate King Brynnoth can see a military use for this machinery of yours.’
Heglan shook his head. ‘No, master. Its intended use is for trade, prosperity and peace, not as an engine of war.’
‘We’ll see.’
Strombak sniffed contemptuously and stomped over to where Heglan’s creation was docked. It had taken sixteen mules and twice as many journeymen to get it up the Merman Pass and onto the Durazon.
It was a ship, a vessel of dark lacquered wood and gilded trim. Incongruous as it was, sitting on the mountain plateau atop a curved ramp, the small wheels attached to its hull arrested by stout wooden braces, it was still magnificent. If he thought so, Strombak did not give any indication.
‘And sea is not air, though, is it,’ grumbled the old engineer, chewing on his pipe and feeling the smoothness of the wooden hull beneath his grizzled fingers. ‘Wood is stout,’ he said, ‘that is something at least.’
As well as the braces against its wheels, the ship was also lashed to iron rings driven deep into the rock so it wouldn’t sway in the wind. A small vessel, it could take five passengers including its captain, but had a hold that would accommodate twice that again in wares for trade. Presently, twenty casks of grog sat in the ship’s belly from the brewmaster’s guild, bound for Zhufbar.
Spry for an old dwarf, Strombak clambered up the ramp and tugged on the rigging.
‘Strong rope,’ he mumbled. ‘Might hold in a decent gale.’
Strombak pulled out the pipe and chewed his beard. It was black with soot from his workshops and resembled a fork in the way the strands of it were parted by bronze cogs and screws. A leather skullcap covered his bald pate, which he revealed when he removed the cap to wipe his sweating brow. Runes of engineering, telemetries and trajectories, parabolic equations and yet more esoteric markings lined his skull in knot-worked strands.
He paced the length of the ship, appraising its rudder and sneering at the absence of sweeps. Sails jutted horizontally from the sides and with the effigy of a dragon carved into the prow it had the appearance of some alate predator, albeit one fashioned from wood and metal.
Sat astern was a small tower, where its captain was already installed and at the wheel. Three large windmills surmounted masts that stuck out from the deck, angled slightly so as not to be perpendicular to the ground.
‘Never have I seen a more awkward-looking ship,’ Strombak muttered. He turned away, as if he’d seen enough, and addressed Heglan. ‘You’d best get on with it. Guilders are waiting.’
Behind the engineer guildmaster were three other dwarfs of the engineers’ guild, the high thane of Barak Varr himself and his retainers, and a contingent from the merchants’ guild who had funded the enterprise. Every one of the assembled nobles and guilders, some thirty-odd dwarfs, was silent.
Nadri stepped back and joined his fellow guilders.
Heglan licked his lips to moisten them. He glanced at the ship’s captain to ascertain his readiness. A vague nod didn’t do much for Heglan’s confidence at that moment.
‘Tromm,’ he uttered, crafting a deep bow to the lords as he gave the traditional dwarf greeting for veneration of one’s betters and elders. ‘High Thane,’ he added, rising but turning to the entire assembly. ‘With your permission, Lord Onkmarr.’
The high thane nodded dourly.
King Brynnoth was away in Karaz-a-Karak attending a council of the High King and had left Onkmarr in charge as regent until his return. Unlike Brynnoth, who had a ribald manner and was as gregarious as any king of the dwarf realm, Onkmarr always seemed slightly put upon. Perhaps it was the fearsome rinn he had taken as his wife. Certainly, his posture was more stooped, his humour more acerbic, ever since he had made a union with
