‘Almost thirty thousand warriors.’
‘Dreng tromm… and he holds?’
‘For now, my king. He does.’
Gotrek muttered, ‘Perhaps he’s learned some temperance after all.’ He sighed again, trying to exhale his many worries. ‘We stand upon the brink of war,’ he croaked in a tired voice that suggested decades, not years, had passed since he ceased trade with the elves.
The two other dwarfs in the room did not answer. What could they say that wasn’t a facile reminder that their High King was right?
Gotrek rose to his feet.
‘High King?’ asked the Grudgekeeper, uncertainly.
‘I am done with grudgement for today, Haglarrson. Seal the kron and have these grudges gathered up for my later reckoning.’
Haglarrson the Grudgekeeper nodded mutely, still unsure what was happening.
Gotrek directed his attention to Thurbad. ‘Dismiss the reckoners. All of them.’ He was leaving, and the captain of the hearthguard followed him in perfect lockstep.
They were into the Great Hall, its large and empty vaults echoing with the footfalls.
Gotrek snarled, ‘This is blatant transgression by the elgi. They flout any chance at peace with their arrogance! Dawi lie dead and cold in my lands, Thurbad. Tell me how should I make answer to that without dooming us all?’
‘I cannot, my king. All I can do is serve the karak.’
Gotrek stopped. He gripped Thurbad’s shoulder.
‘And a more brave and noble servant I could not wish for, Thurbad.’
‘Tromm, my king…’ he said, bowing. ‘Is there anything further?’
Gotrek nodded. ‘Yes, bring me my Loremaster and that reckoner, Forek Grimbok. I have need of his silvern tongue.’
‘Should I tell him what it is concerning?’ Thurbad asked.
‘Tell him I need him to go to the King of the Elves on Ulthuan,’ said Gotrek. ‘Tell him I need him to prevent a war.’
Forek Grimbok’s heart pounded like a boar-skin drum. He knelt before the Throne of Power, head bowed, his left arm tucked against his chest.
‘Tromm, High King…’ he uttered to a largely barren room.
‘Look at me, reckoner.’
Forek tilted his head up to meet the gaze of the High King. His mind was reeling already with the task before him. Pride swelled his heart and he tried to master it for fear it would overwhelm him.
‘You are my most gifted ambassador. If anyone can wrench a peace from this mess, then it is you. But make no mistake, Grimbok, I want an apology from the elgi for their transgressions, nothing less.’ He waved the robed dwarf on his left forwards. ‘My Loremaster has a missive you must present to the King of the Elgi. It is unsealed. Read it, digest its meaning and know my mind before applying the wax. Put it in the elgi king’s hands and his alone. Do you understand?’
‘I do…’ Forek croaked, cleared his throat then tried again. ‘I do, my king.’
‘Good. It will be up to you to impress upon him that misdeeds have been done unto us by the elgi, but that I am not without forgiveness and such misdeeds can be undone in the eyes of the Karaz Ankor.’
‘Yes, my king.’ Forek took the letter and secreted it inside his tunic.
‘Now rise and let Thurbad tell you of your journey ahead.’
The High King gestured to the captain of the hearthguard, a mass of armoured muscle who was standing by his right.
‘Twenty of my best warriors will accompany you,’ said Thurbad.
Behind Forek, the hearthguard bristled with strength and threat. Only one amongst them wasn’t wearing his full-face war helm, a flame-haired warrior who stepped forwards into the reckoner’s eye line. ‘Gilias Thunderbrow is their leader and will be your shadow.’
The one Thurbad had introduced as Gilias bowed, before steeping back and donning his war helm.
‘A ship will carry you across the Great Ocean and you will have the runelord Thorik Oakeneye in your party. He will meet you at Barak Varr and shall ensure you breach the veils surrounding the land of the elgi.’
With the salient details of the journey revealed, the High King took over again.
‘This is our last chance, Grimbok. Of all the dawi of the Karaz Ankor you know the elgi best. Bring me back peace and a measure of contrition with which I can placate the other kings.’
‘By Grungni, I swear I will try.’
‘You must succeed, Grimbok. Many dawi lives are depending on it.’
‘Y-yes… of course, my king. When do I depart for Ulthuan?’
The High King’s eyes were like two chips of hardened diamond.
‘Immediately.’
The fastness of Black Fire Pass was bleak and cold. Known to the dwarfs as Kazad Kolzharr, which simply meant the fortress of black fire, it was a stout keep of hewn stone with a broad, thick gate bound by strips of iron and sentinelled by a quartet of stocky watchtowers. It offered a peerless view of the mountains and a wide aperture into the lands west, all the way down the Old Dwarf Road.
‘I heard Ranuld tell that in ancient days the road was paved with gold and shimmered like fire in the sun.’
‘Poetry isn’t really my strength, cousin.’
Snorri’s mood was as bleak as the weather and their surroundings as Morgrim joined him on the wall.
The dwarf prince was peering into the west through a spyglass at the arrow-sharp pinnacles of the elven cities several hundred miles away. They were distant and indistinct but he could make out the rough shape of Kor Vanaeth and knew the names and positions of several others from the map spread in front of him. Two large rocks kept the fluttering parchment from blowing away in the high wind coming off the mountains. Winter nipped at the air and a light frost rimed the battlements and glistened on the grasslands below.
‘He said that gold-gathering put paid to the gilded road, to all the golden byways of the Karaz Ankor,’ said Morgrim, stoking up his pipe. ‘That it was dawi, not urk or grobi, that picked the great shining roads
