Annoyed at the interruption, Snorri stood up and started to dress. As he hauled on his overshirt, he replied, ‘Just my hand, Grimbok.’
Forek Grimbok was removing his leather gloves, tucking them into his belt with the rest of his trappings, when he said, ‘Then why is it you need to remove your garments and armour?’ He looked to Elmendrin, sketched a quick bow. ‘Sister.’
‘Forek,’ Elmendrin replied.
The reckoner was lean, with a thin face for a dwarf and an aquiline nose. His black beard was neatly trimmed and tidy, but still retained its length. His accent was cultured, for as well as reckoning for the king, he was also a gifted ambassador and negotiator.
Snorri met Forek’s iron gaze without flinching. ‘I asked the lady Elmendrin to rub salts and salve into my back and neck. When fighting all day in your armour, a dwarf tends to develop a tightness in the shoulders that requires the tender mercies of the priestesses. But I doubt you would be aware of that given the reckoners’ deeds are generally confined to seeking recompense from other dwarfs, or am I wrong?’
Forek’s face reddened at the obvious slight but he didn’t bite, not yet. ‘I serve your father, the High King,’ he said, ‘as do you, Prince Snorri.’
Snorri laughed. ‘You and I are not so alike as that, reckoner.’ He strapped on his armour, attached his vambraces. ‘I assume you’re here to take me to him.’
Livid with barely contained anger, Forek’s next words almost came through clenched teeth. ‘Indeed I am. You have much to explain.’
‘Not to you, Grimbok,’ said Snorri, flashing a smile at Elmendrin that elicited a scowl from the priestess.
Forek gave her a warning glance, escorting Snorri from the temple in silence.
‘I know you covet my sister,’ he hissed once they had their weapons and were headed for the Great Hall.
Snorri kept his eyes forwards, nodding to the clan warriors and guilders they met along the way. ‘It’s the only thing I like about you, Forek.’
‘What, my sister?’
‘No. Your boldness. One day it’s going to get you in trouble.’
‘Threats do not become a prince of Karaz-a-Karak, my lord.’
Snorri laughed, loud and hearty like they were two old friends sharing a joke. ‘It’s not a threat.’
Anything further would have to wait. Thurbad Shieldbearer waited at the end of the corridor, muscled arms folded across his chest. He had removed his vambraces and torcs banded his brawny skin instead.
As Snorri approached, he stepped aside without a word and the iron-banded doors into the Great Hall opened with an ominous creak of hinges.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Arrows and Blades
A bead of sweat creeping down his back, a half-glimpsed shadow at the periphery of his vision, a waft of noxious odour, the scent of perfume gone before it was fully resolved. Furgil recalled the sensations he had experienced when they’d found the nobles on the Old Dwarf Road.
He knew these mountains, knew the hills and even the forests though he loathed their shaded arbours and sinister groves. In the wilderness, the lands beyond the hold halls of the mountains or the fortresses of the hills, there was much to be wary of. Danger lurked in every crag and narrow pass, in each wooded glade and weathered hollow. Creatures made their lairs in such places, hungry primitive things that preyed on the isolated and the lost.
Never venture into the wild on your own.
Save for the rangers, it was a rule many followed. But death was a patient hunter and all it took was a moment of recklessness, a wrong turn on the wrong trail, and all the guards and precautions would not matter.
Even during times of peace, these were untamed lands. The Old World would never know true peace. Its citadels and bastions of civilisation, whether they were above or below ground, ruled by elf or dwarf, were merely lanterns in a dark and turbulent sea. Some were even less than that, merely candles guttering in the storm. Furgil had known of many outposts, isolated hamlets and villages where a stake wall, a watchtower and a warning bell were poor defence against being consumed by the darkness.
Beasts and greenskins, giants, trolls and even dragons had descended upon such tenuous places and wiped them from existence.
Knelt with his hand upon the earth, a fistful of dirt clenched to his palm, the thought of unending peril did not bother Furgil. It was the way of nature. It was balance and order, albeit a brutal one. He understood it and that made it tolerable to the dwarf.
But something else lurked in the shadows, something that was not part of this order. It was a foreign object, a thing that had made the ranger’s skin crawl and his beard bristle. Ever since he was a beardling, Furgil did not like to be watched.
Out on the Old Dwarf Road, he had sensed the presence of several watchers, of eyes regarding them with harmful intent. If asked, he could not explain how or why he knew this. It was a survival instinct he had cultivated whilst ranging the wild lands beyond the dwarf kingdoms, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion.
Almost without thinking, he touched the scar that ran from his neck all the way down to his chest. Invisible to a casual observer, Furgil felt the evidence of the wound with every breath. The beast responsible was dead. Its gutted carcass was a trophy in his private chambers, a reminder of always listening to instincts, especially when they screamed danger.
Furgil felt that sensation anew now and got to his feet. The earth had a strange aroma, the scent of narcotic root and dank
