Ranuld Silverthumb was amongst the High King’s royal retinue and occupied one of ten seats reserved for the high council. At Gotrek’s edict, all of his advisors were present including his Loremaster and Grudgekeeper, both of whom scribed in leatherbound books cradled on lecterns in front of them, thick parchment pages cracking as they were turned. As well as the Master of Engineers, who sat with a thick belt of tools around his waist, there was also the Chief of Lodewardens, he who was responsible for the mines and therefore much of the hold’s wealth and prosperity, and the Chief of Reckoners who ensured that grudgement was meted out and reconciled on the behalf of the clans of Karaz-a-Karak, including the royal clan of Thunderhorn, against other clans and other dwarfs if needed.
Disputes were commonplace for a race that valued honour so highly and held grudges so easily. Dwarfs would seldom forgive; and they would never forget. Therefore a record and a means of settling disputes was needed in order for their culture to function without constant wars breaking out between the clans. As High King, Gotrek was fierce but also wise. He had mediated many grievances between his clan lords and those of his vassal kings. His rise to power was not only assured through the greenskin purges of his early reign, but also the agreements he brokered between the northern and southern kings when the former encroached on the latter’s territory by mistake. Blood was shed, for dwarf clans are not above fighting one another, but not so much that the warring nobles could not be reconciled.
Many years later the grudges on both sides were still remembered. It was echoed by the fact that all the northern kings sat on Gotrek’s left and the southern kings his right. He wondered absently where the kings of the hill dwarfs would have sat, should they ever have graced his hall with their presence.
Gotrek had made his disdain for Grum’s insolence plain to all, and only current matters prevented him from taking steps to redress it. From atop his Throne of Power, seat of the High Kings since before Snorri Whitebeard’s days, he glowered. Clan bickering had turned to matters of the realm. It was a subject that had cropped up often during the rinkkaz, and Gotrek felt its unwelcome weight upon him like a cloak of anvils.
Ever since they had returned to the Old World, the grumbles from the other kings had been the same.
Elves.
No one wanted war with them, but then no one especially wanted peace either. Of all the liege-lords of the dwarf realm, it was Gotrek who had extended the hand of friendship most readily. Like his forebears, he recognised the nobility and power of the elves. There was also the honour of heritage and ancestry to uphold. For was it not Snorri Whitebeard himself who had made an ally of the Elf Prince Malekith and even called him friend?
Who were they not to maintain such a fine tradition?
‘They encroach too far onto my lands,’ griped Thagdor. As he puffed up his chest, the King of Zhufbar clanked in his ceremonial armour. The majority of the kings and their delegates were smoking pipeweed. Thagdor was no exception, and a palpable fug of their combined exhalations clung to the lower vaults of the massive chamber in an expansive cloud. Together with the smoke issuing from the roaring fire in the High King’s mighty hearth, it muddied the air, obscuring the many warriors Thagdor had brought with him.
A traditionalist, fond of engineering and with a thriving guild, Thagdor was just slightly paranoid. Zhufbar had been besieged by greenskins many times, in the early days before Gotrek had made his war against the creatures and all but eradicated them. It had made Thagdor wary of constant attack, his back perpetually up. A hundred hearthguard had accompanied him into the great hold hall; a hundred and fifty more awaited him above in the entrance hall.
‘Every time I step beyond my halls for a stroll, there’s a bloody elf wandering about,’ he went on. ‘I am fed up with it, Gotrek.’
No lord other than Thagdor ever called the High King by his first name during a rinkkaz. There was none more down to earth than the lord of Zhufbar and this extended to the way he greeted his liege-lord, so it was tolerated.
There were mutterings of agreement from Brynnoth of Barak Varr and the fierce-looking Luftvarr of Kraka Drak at this proclamation. The former resembled a sea captain more than a king, with a doubloon eye-patch and a leather cloak festooned with sigils of sea monsters and mermen. Brynnoth had a long, plaited beard that flared out at the ends where it was attached to tiny hooks that tied to his armour.
Luftvarr wore furs and pelts, in keeping with the Norse dwarfs who had to travel vast distances to reach such proceedings. His scowl was legendary, said to have killed a stone troll at fifty paces. His beard was rough and wild, his helmet crested by two massive mammoth tusks. Ringmail swathed his muscular body and his arms were bare apart from knotted torcs just below the elbow.
‘And what of the rats in the lower deeps?’ said King Aflegard of Karak Izril. The Jewel Hold was well known for its wealth and its deep mines. Rich veins of ore ran through its hewn halls, much to the envy of the other liege-lords present.
King Bagrik of Karak Ungor, the farthest of the northern holds of the Worlds Edge Mountains from Karaz-a-Karak, nodded in agreement with Aflegard. He was called ‘Boarbrow’, an honorific earned because of the mighty pelt he wore over his back and shoulders, beneath which was a red and gold tunic armoured with a coat of silver mail.
Aflegard was as bejewelled as his hold and wore a great many rings and bracelets. It made him appear slightly effete, especially given his silk garments and the fact
