Morgrim introduced them. ‘This is Drogor…’
‘Of Karak Zorn,’ said Drogor, rising to offer a hand to the prince. ‘My lord.’ His eyes flashed in the firelight from the hearth. ‘I can see the blood of kings in you.’
Morgrim clapped Snorri on the back, so hard it made the prince’s eyes bulge a little.
‘This is Snorri Lunngrin, Prince of Karaz-a-Karak.’
Drogor bowed deeply. ‘I am honoured, my lord.’
‘Karak Zorn in the Southlands?’ asked Snorri, ignoring the flattery. His eyes narrowed, only half shaking the other dwarf’s hand. ‘How is it you are here, yet your king was absent from the rinkkaz?’
‘Drogor is only here by the mercy of Valaya, cousin,’ said Morgrim.
‘My party and I were ambushed south of Karak Azul,’ Drogor explained. His eyes dipped slightly. ‘I alone lived to tell of it.’
‘Dreng tromm,’ uttered Snorri, suspicions fading. ‘Was it grobi?’
‘They were… archers, cousin.’
Snorri regarded Morgrim sternly.
‘Elgi?’
Morgrim shook his head then looked at Drogor, who answered, ‘Perhaps. The arrows were not crude enough for grobi or urk, though I didn’t wait for the killers of my kin to reveal themselves.’
Snorri’s gaze was on the table at the two slowly warming tankards of ale, but he wasn’t thirsty. When he looked up, his face was creased with concern.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, but you should seek an audience with my father and tell him what happened to you and your kin,’ he said to Drogor. ‘There has been no word of Karak Zorn for years, and then there is the matter of your ambushers.’
The sound of a door opening arrested the dwarfs’ attention.
A familiar figure had just entered the alehouse, and was looking around.
‘Furrowbrow,’ Snorri scowled. ‘What does he want?’
When the runesmith’s gaze alighted on their table, he began to walk towards them.
‘Looks like he wants you, cousin,’ said Morgrim.
Folding his arms in a gesture of annoyance, Snorri said, ‘Aside from his master, I have never known a more saturnine dawi.’
‘He is certainly dour,’ agreed Morgrim.
‘Why the perpetual frown though, cousin? Perhaps his gruntis are too tight, eh?’ Snorri leaned over to speak to Drogor. ‘What do you think, Dro…’
But the dwarf from Karak Zorn was gone. Snorri thought he saw him at the back of the drinking hall, disappearing into a pall of pipe smoke, lost to the gloom.
‘Let’s hope that wasn’t because of something I said,’ Snorri remarked, and turned to face Morek Furrowbrow.
‘My lords,’ uttered the runesmith, bowing. Though he was Ranuld Silverthumb’s apprentice, Morek was older than both the nobles. Grey hairs intruded on his dun-coloured beard and at his temples. Wrinkles under his eyes suggested a lack of sleep, but also a weight of years yet to burden the other two dwarfs. And then of course there was his forehead and the lines of consternation worn there almost continuously.
Peering past the two nobles, Morek scrutinised the darkness at the back of the hall. The alehouse was over half full and there were many patrons who chose the anonymity of that part of the drinking hall, but Morek’s eye was fixed upon one and one alone.
He couldn’t say why.
‘Who was that dwarf?’ he asked.
Morgrim glanced over his shoulder. ‘Which dwarf, this place is full of– Ah,’ he said, realising who the runesmith meant. ‘An old friend, come back from Karak Zorn.’
Morek glanced at Morgrim. ‘The Southlands? I thought that hold was cut off from the rest of the Karaz Ankor.’
Snorri chipped in, ‘Yes, the Southlands. An expedition made it to Karaz-a-Karak, if you can count one dwarf as an expedition that is. Are you here to see me, runesmith?’
Regarding Snorri askance, Morek said, ‘At the behest of my master, I am to fashion a gauntlet for you. Given your injuries, I need to see your hand in order to forge one that fits.’
Snorri showed off his bandaged wound and smiled. ‘Well, it won’t need all the fingers.’
Morek wasn’t really listening. His eyes had returned to the shadows at the back of the drinking hall, but the dwarf from Karak Zorn was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
City of the Hill King
Perched like an ugly bird of prey on a rocky tor, the city of the hill dwarfs glowered down on the boulder-strewn valley around it with disdain. Its watchtowers and stout walls offered a peerless view that stretched for miles, all the way to the edge of a treeline where the forest became a sea of fir and pine. Flanked by jutting crags of rock, the only way to gain an audience with the king of the hill was to climb. After the High King of Karaz-a-Karak had visited with two hundred of his warriors, Skarnag Grum had commanded the old sloped concourse demolished. Back then entire wagon trains, two abreast, with mules and trappings, could be let up to his gates. Now, if Gotrek Starbreaker returned to try and cow the hill king in his own hall again he would do so without his throne and all his retainers.
A narrow path wended the last few hundred feet to the city gates, but even this was treacherous. A long fall awaited any dwarf who slipped on the scree underfoot and sharp rocks that bullied onto the trail at intervals made safe navigation difficult. The hill dwarfs mainly used ropes and baskets dangled from the walls to send and receive supplies. It was awkward, but Skarnag Grum would have it no other way.
Defensively, the approach to Kazad Kro was both well watched by scores of crossbowmen but also forced attackers and visitors alike into a single file.
Its message was simple, Leave us alone. Although King Grum did welcome trade, he preferred it to camp outside his halls. Tents and temporary lodgings were a common sight ringing the borders of Kazad Kro. Anything so as long as the gold kept flowing into his coffers.
Krondi had felt far from welcomed as he made his last weary steps into the city.
