A look of incredulity crumpled Morgrim’s face as he recognised the warrior before him.
‘Drogor?’
The dwarf was dressed in furs and lizard hide, a bronze pauldron over one shoulder and a helmet with a flanged crest in the crook of his right arm. On his left side was a mace, also bronze, with a heavy gem affixed to the pommel. He looked weather-beaten, his skin sun-kissed and a peaty brown, but he wasn’t old. White, wiry hair ran a ring around his balding pate and his long moustaches drooped like the exhausted tentacles of some leviathan cloud. His beard was bound in a bronze ringlet, etched with the snarling visage of a serpent. A cloak of exotic feathers cascaded down his back.
Drogor was staring intently at the statue and the hammer above it in what Morgrim took to be reverence. At mention of his name, the dwarf smiled and nodded.
‘By the ancestors, I thought you were dead!’ Rushing over, Morgrim clapped his errant friend in a firm embrace, slapping his back and shoulder.
‘I went south with my clan, Morg,’ said Drogor, coughing as Morgrim crushed the air out of him. ‘I didn’t venture north to the Wastes.’
‘Of course… I just didn’t expect to see you again.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘There’s been no word from Karak Zorn in many years, and last we heard…’
At this remark, Drogor nodded grimly.
‘Aye, there are worse things than sun and jiggers the size of your fist in the endless jungle. Ziggurats that claw at the sky, and beasts…’ He shook his head, as his gaze was drawn far away as if back beneath the sweltering canopy. ‘Like you have never before seen. Creatures of tooth and scale, of leather pinion and tusk, chitinous bone plates that repel crossbow bolts like paper darts.’
Drogor’s hand was shaking, and Morgrim clutched the fingers to steady it.
‘It’s all right, old friend,’ he said, his voice soothing, ‘you are returned to Karaz-a-Karak, but I am surprised you are back at all. How long did you travel from the Southlands to get here? How many long years has it been?’
Clans Bargrum and Zarrdum had been staunch allies for many decades, across two generations without bloodshed or a grudge made. Miners and fortune hunters, the Zarrdums had left Karaz-a-Karak over twenty years ago and gone south to be reunited with their cousins in the sunny climes of Karak Zorn.
Finding his composure again, Drogor said, ‘We were many months travelling on perilous roads. Fifty of us ventured out, our pack mules brimming with saurian gold. Of that expedition, I alone remain.’
‘What happened?’
Drogor’s expression darkened further. ‘Having survived the jungle with just under half of my father’s warriors, we reached the borders of Karak Azul.’ His eyes narrowed, remembering ‘Foolishly, we thought we would be safe in the shadow of the mountain but we were wrong. An ambush, old friend. Archers, hidden in the crags and raining steel-fanged death upon me and my fellow dawi. It was a slaughter.’
Morgrim’s jaw clenched at such perfidy. ‘Cowards…’ he breathed, an undercurrent of anger affecting his voice. ‘How did you survive?’
At this Drogor hung his head. ‘To my shame, I ran and hid.’
‘Dreng tromm… Mercy of Valaya that you lived. There is no shame in retreating from certain death.’
‘Then why is it that I wish I had died with my kin?’
Morgrim gripped the shoulder of his old friend, and exhaled a deep, rueful breath.
‘Come with me,’ he said, after some thought. ‘I must meet my cousin outside the Great Hall but then we can find an alehouse and drink to the honour of your slain clansmen.’
Nodding solemnly, Drogor said, ‘I don’t think I have ever met your cousin, the great prince of the Karaz Ankor. I much look forward to it.’
‘I warn you,’ said Morgrim as he left the alcove-chamber, ‘he takes a little getting used to.’
Drogor smiled. ‘We have time, old friend.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Return of the Prince
During times of war, a king’s duty to his hold and his peoples is very clear. Conflict against a different race, a different creed unites clans, it brings cultures together. It was no different for the dwarfs. But Gotrek had fought his wars, or so he hoped. He had defeated the greenskins, harried them to the point of extinction and brokered peace between all the clans of the Karaz Ankor. The dark days were over, at least for a while, and had been for many years.
So, why then did he feel so tired?
It was with a weary reluctance that he dragged himself from his bed or to his feast halls, or even the alehouses of the chief brewmaster. War made a king lean, sharp like the razored edge of an axe blade. Gotrek felt blunt like a hammer, but without its purpose and directness.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, especially to himself, peace was wearing him out. Despite his protestations to the other kings who still argued and fought him and each other, he would prefer war but was wise enough to realise the folly of that desire. Weary of constant negotiation and compromise in the search for harmonious co-existence with the elves, he just wanted a good clean fight to blow away the dust he felt gathering between his bones. It provoked a maudlin mood in the High King.
I am atrophying, becoming a living ancestor bereft of his tomb.
In the minds of some, he had invited an enemy onto their shores, to camp and build cities outside their holds. Tempers were already frayed. It wouldn’t take much of a spark to ignite something more serious than mere discontent and pugnacious bellyaching.
War was easy. It was simple, the need obvious. Survive or die. Kill or be killed, they were hackneyed words but with good reason. Truth shouted loudly from every syllable. Give him greenskins or giants, even dragons
