‘What of Kazad Thar and Mingol?’
‘Them neither. King Grum rules both with iron.’
Furgil spat onto the ground. ‘Grum rules nothing except that treasure chamber he sits in all day. You are the one the skarrens respect, not him.’
‘What are you saying, brother?’ asked Rundin, a dangerous look in his eye.
‘Ah, calm yourself. You know what I’m saying.’ Furgil turned on his heel and the other rangers went with him. ‘If Grum sits on his arse, Gotrek will be coming for his head when he’s done with the elgi,’ he called.
Rundin had no reply to that. He let Furgil go, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time he saw his friend.
A canker wormed at the heart of Kazad Kro and all the skarrens, it stank to the sky and though he didn’t want to admit it, Rundin knew he would have to be the one to cut it out.
Gotrek Starbreaker had never felt so powerless.
For eight years he had cooled the ire of his vassal kings, for eight years he had shackled them to peace. And for eight long, arduous years his efforts had come to naught.
He was drowning, in more ways than one. The sheer amount of parchments, scrolls and stone tablets was staggering. Gotrek’s private chambers were full of them. His desk groaned under their weight despite its broad wooden legs. Hunched and grim-faced, he looked almost gargoylesque as he peered over the piles of missives and declarations of grudgement laid out in front of him. The tankard he had supped from was long empty, his pipe cold with its embers long dead. From across the Karaz Ankor, kings, thanes and lodewardens expressed their continued dissatisfaction at what they described as elven ‘dissension’ and ‘belligerence’. Attending to them was not to be a brief task, even for a dwarf.
Trains of reckoners were dispatched daily from Everpeak alone, seeking recompense for misdeeds, and rangers thickened the byways and roads of the hills and lower slopes of the Worlds Edge Mountains until nothing could get through without their prior knowledge.
And still disorder persisted.
Dwarfs and elves were not meant to live together, it seemed.
Some of the disparate clans, those from Mount Gunbad and Silverspear, took the lawlessness as sanction to attack elven settlements, gold-greedy miners looking to fatten their hoards with stolen treasure. Warriors from the distant holds of Karak Izor and Karak Norn had clashed directly with elven war parties in minor skirmishes. Such incidents were few and far between, but as the last decade had ground on the frequency of such skirmishes had worryingly increased.
Gotrek condemned it, sought recompense from the elves, but thus far his messages had remained unheeded. In turn he urged the clans to close their gates and stay within their holds, and forbade any dwarf of Everpeak from violent action.
In the deeps, the forges slaved night and day to fashion weapons, armour and machineries. Thus far, it was stockpiled in the voluminous Everpeak armouries but Gotrek knew the day was approaching when it would have to be broken open and used to furnish his armies.
It had been a desperate hope that forcing distance between the dwarfs and elves would see matters improve or at least not worsen between the two races.
That hope had been dashed on bloody rocks and it was to falter further still.
‘And here,’ he said wearily, a rasp in his throat from the many hours of reading aloud to his Grudgekeeper who was on hand with the hold’s book of grudges. ‘At Krag Bryn and Kazad Thrund did elgi come from across the sea and slay the great King Drong the Hard, leaving his queen Helgar without a husband. Let it be known on this day…’ Gotrek trailed off, taking a moment’s respite to rub his brow.
Seeing his chance, the Grudgekeeper massaged his aching shoulder and flexed his fingers.
For days they hadn’t left the chamber. It was the latest stint in what had become a regular accounting of the misdeeds of elves over the last few years. The grudge from Krag Bryn was almost three years old and Gotrek was only just getting to it now. He balked at what else he would find.
‘How many more are there?’ he asked the statue at the door of the room.
‘Three more vaults, my king,’ uttered Thurbad in a sonorous voice. ‘And there are reckoners gathering in the entrance hall.’
‘How many of them?’
The captain of the hearthguard didn’t betray a tremor of emotion. ‘Almost two hundred.’
Gotrek rubbed his eyes with fingers black from ink. Try as he might, he could not smooth out the worry lines across his forehead. He picked up another missive, waving away the Grudgekeeper who was still waiting for the High King’s edict concerning Krag Bryn.
‘Bagrik is dead,’ he muttered, it not seeming so long ago that the King of Karak Ungor had enjoyed the hospitality of his hold. ‘Slain by elgi, his queen now a widow too. Two kings of dawi dead, and a host of elgi lordlings too no doubt.’ He seized a fistful of parchments, scattering and displacing others much to the Grudgekeeper’s obvious but quiet dismay. ‘Grievances the length and breadth of the Worlds Edge…’ Gotrek sighed deeply, worn out and tired of peace. ‘Is it any wonder my son has left the karak, and garrisons the keep at Black Fire Pass?’
‘There is still no word from him, my king,’ offered Thurbad, ‘but my hearthguard report he has yet not left the fastness. Should I tell them to stop him if he does?’
Two hundred of Thurbad’s warriors had left with the prince, ostensibly in support of Snorri’s war. In truth, the High King had sent them to keep a watchful eye on his son. The wayward clans of Everpeak, he would deal with later. Their thanes would be punished for their transgression. Such things had waited for eight years, they would stand to wait a little longer.
‘I am sorely tempted to join him, Thurbad.’ Gotrek paused, as if considering just that, then
