‘Yes, my cousin. That’s what I said.’ Morgrim tried to find Drogor again but it was like looking for chalk dust in an ancestor’s beard. ‘Is something wrong?’
Morek was leaving.
‘My master will be waiting.’
Left alone with the priestess, Morgrim sighed. ‘I’ll never understand runesmiths.’
A commanding voice got Snorri’s attention. ‘Son of mine,’ said Gotrek Starbreaker, not even deigning to glance at the prince, ‘see here a lesson in axecraft.’
Even as the High King spoke, goblins were scurrying into the arena armed with knives and cudgels. Furgil and his rangers had rounded up the creatures, caging them until this very moment.
Sitting a short distance from the High King, Forek Grimbok was busy speaking with the elven lords. Using a mixture of elaborate hand gestures and a halting dialect, the reckoner described to them what was about to happen next. As Snorri listened to the crude bastardisation of Elvish and Khazalid tumble and crash off Forek’s tongue like weighted anvils, he smiled. For a dwarf, Forek sounded like a very good elf.
The reckoner need not have bothered with the convoluted explanation. It was a waste of effort. Snorri could have explained the outcome of the fight with a single word.
Slaughter.
The elf and the hill dwarf had unsheathed their weapons and went to opposite ends of the arena, the former releasing his longsword with a perfunctory flourish, whilst the latter merely fastened a tight grip around the haft of his axe. Both combatants looked determined on what they were about to do. Despite himself, Snorri found himself admiring the toughness of the elf. He seemed less airy than Imladrik, a warrior not a statesman, a slayer not a conciliator.
Perhaps it would not be such dull entertainment after all.
In the middle of the arena were the greenskins, penned off from the two fighters by a cage. Wrought of heavy iron, spikes decorating the points of intersection on the latticed metal, the goblins were well secured. Capering and hooting, biting each other and rolling around in the muck, the greenskins did not seem to understand what was about to happen to them.
Snorri did a rough count in his head and reckoned on close to eighty greenskins on the field. Furgil must have been busy to capture so many for the brodunk.
‘All the grobi at once?’ he muttered, intending to keep it quiet, but the High King had sharp ears like a wolf’s and heard him anyway.
Gotrek jabbed his son playfully in the side.
‘Would you balk at such a feat, lad?’
Snorri affected a dismissive air. ‘They are just grobi. I could kill a hundred on my own, but since you have banned me from taking up an axe…’
‘Ha!’ Gotrek’s bellowed laughter woke some of the sleepier members of the elder council and sent tremors of unease through the elves, for which Grimbok hastily apologised. ‘And that is not about to change because of your petulance. Remember why you are sat here and not out there fighting alongside Lord Salendor.’
‘Is that his name, the elgi?’
‘Aye lad, and he is a brutal bastard of a warrior. You just wait and see.’
Snorri had already made that same assessment.
‘Sounds like you admire him, father.’
‘I respect him, as should you. They are not so thin boned and soft of spine as many dawi think.’ He eyed the elves again at this remark, as if testing that theory by sight alone. He need not have been so cautious, for the elves did not understand him. True Khazalid was beyond even their most gifted ambassadors. Even so, Gotrek leaned in closer to his son, nudging him conspiratorially. ‘Tell me, what do you think of the skarrenawi? You have seen him fight.’
Gotrek pointed at the hill dwarf. He was crisscrossing test swings over his body to loosen his shoulder. Every loud whomp of his blade through the air drew a cheer from the small crowd of hill dwarfs that had gathered at the arena side.
‘Years ago,’ said Snorri, recalling a similar feast time. ‘He was decent with an axe.’
‘Now I know you are lying, son.’
Snorri was disinterested and had no qualms about giving his father that impression. His gaze wandered over to the healing tents, where the priestesses of Valaya practised their battlefield ministrations.
The High King seemed not to notice and went on, ‘Rundin son of Norgil is the skarrenawi king’s champion. He shuns the rinkkaz but sends his axe-battler to humble our warriors in the brodunk. Petty, King Grum, very petty,’ he grumbled.
‘What does it matter if he does? Let me go over there and show him up for the pretender he is. The skarrenawi do not care about us, why should we care about them?’
‘Spoken like a true wazzock,’ Gotrek said angrily. ‘Does nothing I say ever sink into your thick skull, Snorri? The skarrens are our kith, if not kin. They are dawi, albeit of a different stripe. You should care about them, for the day may come when we need them. Relations between our two disparate clans, hill and mountain both, are important. Grum is the problem, not the skarrenawi.’
‘Yet you do nothing when he thumbs his teeth at you.’
‘Diplomacy is a delicate business, lad,’ the High King replied, though he agreed with his son that something needed to be done to bring Grum back in line. Bad enough dealing with elves and the ambitions of King Varnuf, without adding the hill dwarfs to his list of immediate problems.
Snorri scoffed, his gaze drawn back to the healing tents where it lingered in hope.
‘Skarnag Grum is an oaf and a glutton, grown fat on excess,’ he declared, lowering his voice to add, ‘I’ve even heard rumours of an elf consort.’
Forek, who had evidently been earwigging, nearly spat out his ale and ended up tipping most of his tankard over his finely tailored tunic.
‘I seriously doubt that,’ said the High King, though there was a glint of amusement in his eye as Forek did his best to apologise to the elves and wipe down his attire at the same time.
‘If I could
