Pipe smoke puffed around a plush chair of leather. It encircled a reclining Khadrin trying to morph into the seat. The crackling lumber cast a warm, red glow upon his strained appearance. He sat beside a round edged bookshelf with authors arranged in alphabetical order. Spent candles gasped their final orange breaths from their ornate silver cradles. Staring at him from a wonderfully crafted end table gifted to him from the Mayor of Valencia was the stern face of his Cousin, High King Paragon Gotrek Kazzad, in marble form.
Khadrin felt the stress sag every part of his body. Anxiously his fingers turned the curved head of his carved wooden pipe. This whole affair left dissatisfaction on his face as he reread for the tenth time, the letter he received from the first household of clan Kazzad. They wrote to him from his home in the Ingaz Mountain Range. Moradin’s Thaig. An intricate map laid out on the round shaped table in front of his station. It had all the dwarven kingdom holdings in vivid detail. Their connecting roads. Their mining colonies. Their warden ranger outposts.
Xorgon Axebreaker launched a major assault on Moradin’s Thaig. Hundreds died trying to repel his attack. Their heads now torn asunder and decorated poles while their innards heated on rocky outcroppings. Good dwarf folk Khadrin knew by name. Who he grew up alongside, dined with, and laughed at in his earlier days.
High King Paragon Gotrek Kazzad had a messenger the same time the Theocracy had sent him. The King requested the Queen send Warden Caste across the Underpath connecting east and west to join his armies that were struggling to defend the Ingaz Mountain Range. The Southern Jungles swarmed with ork tribes who were constantly warring with one another.
That was the status quo. And the dwarves liked it that way. It kept the tribes disorganized. Weak. Occasionally however, they unite and with their powers combined, they scale the mountain by the tens of thousands. A rockslide of iron and muscle crushing against the dwarf thaigs. Xorgon Axebreaker was just one of a handful of ork war bosses.
His tribe numbers had swelled, resulting in a series of altercations. Each had been deadlier than the last. It was just a matter of time before others did the same. The Oracle Seers prophesied with The Book of the Ancients through communal rune casting. They whispered to the High King Paragon behind veiled faces; ork tribes were unsettled by a greater threat unbeknownst to anyone.
And Gotrek, the superstitious dwarf that he was, clung to what the Seers fed him. He called the alarm. Rallied the holds. Gave a rousing speech about the The Mountain God forging them into something grand. Not only did he need Warden Caste to defend the mountain holds but warden rangers to drive into the heart of the Southern Jungles. He called it an expeditionary force.
The Council baulked at the idea. And rightly so, Khadrin thought. The orks were always a threat. They always sought to overwhelm the mountain holds. Khadrin surmised that the answer was simple. In Galicia, he saw with his own eyes that orks worked alongside humans. Laughed at taverns with exiled dwarfs and fought in mercenary companies, disciplined as any soldier. It was their turbulent history of violence that failed them, not their nature. Overcome it and the tribes were a force of unquestionable power.
Truthfully, he thought, their neighbor Galicia was the greater threat. There were whitebeards old enough to remember the siege of Aalesund Thaig. It had been centuries since Betatune led the combined might of the Galician people upon their wayward Thaig and yet her story still was told by many under the mountain. Khadrin doubted the demigod status attached to her by the Theocracy but, like the whitebeards who spun her yarn, could not deny the martial prowess she possessed. Or, according to the humans, still possesses.
It wasn’t easy to lay siege to a dwarf in their mountain homes; let alone be successful. And she had done it. Then, Betatune aided his people when the dragon horde of Juuktyr descended upon them. Whitebeards spoke reverently of her godlike feats in song and poem; Claiming she wore dwarven armor and slayed with a dwarven spear and traveled in dwarf maid company. They swore certain that Hirgrim blessed her travels and Gungborg used her arm to protect us in their time of need.
The traditionalists wanted to honor the commitment to the institution she left behind. They argued that The Theocracy of Galicia was built upon the sturdy foundation of a dwarven alliance and that a prosperous Galicia meant a prosperous Three Peaks. The Loyalists wanted to fight back the ocean of death pouring out from the Jungle. Dwarven problems needed solving before they could tend to the humans. They screamed at anyone who would listen, that if the Ingaz collapsed then it would be a reckoning for not only the dwarfs but for all of the continent.
But High Queen Paragon Ambrri could not do both. Her army could not go east, go west, police their holdings and protect them from the monsters lurking in the caverns. One thing was clear; a choice needed to be made. Doing nothing would be seen as weak. But choosing one path over the other would inevitably upset the opposing faction.
The subsequent two meetings with the Council had not quelled any of his fears. Both had been adjourned without a conclusive answer. The whitebeards bickered for hours over how to handle the treaty invocation.
Khadrin forgot how cold it was under the mountain. He had missed the icy touch of stone. Without the sun's harsh glare to warm him, he felt a slight chill creep down his spine. He tugged at the end of his beard in contemplation. He wanted to swig mugs of frothy alcohol. He wanted to dance along with bagpipes blown by old windbags. He wanted to load his spirit with the finest tobacco he could buy. Because he wasn’t sure how long any of it would last. The world felt more dangerous now than it had been in decades.
A knock twisted his head towards the door. " Ulfskar Kazzad leaned against the wall.
Ranger.” Khadrin said with a smile. The dwarf had a loose ring of curly midnight hair that tumbled down his shoulders, partially covered by the leopard cloak buttoned against his chest. His beard was cut very short and carried the triple scar of a raked claw across it. He was still wearing his travel clothes and he stunk of the outside world. A crossbow hung across his waist and daggers stuck out of both boots.
“Kin.” He grumbled. Khadrin motioned for him to take a seat. The warden ranger strolled to a loveseat couch and let himself collapse. He grabbed at the air. Khadrin knew the signal. He opened a humidor and pulled out a cigar. Ulfskar loved Galician tobacco. More than he loved the hash of Kilab or the grassweed of Avierno. Khadrin lit the cigar with a match, letting it burn for a moment, puffing the heat through the body, before passing it to his oldest companion.
“You just arrived.” Khadrin remarked.
“I did.” Ulfskar said after a deep inhale. The smoke escaped his nose. “That’s good.” He rubbed his chin. “Real good.” He pulled out a small parchment with the Caashtan house sigil and leaned towards the dwarf. Khadrin took it with a furrowed brow and unfurled it.
“I pray it is good news you carry, cousin.” He said.
“With those two? Only the Seers knows.” Ulfskar said.
Khadrin read the contents of the letter. The missive was short and concise. His commission was complete and waiting for him in their smithy. He let a smirk escape his lip. Brunhild will be pleased. She had been questioning whether or not she would have to wait until they were under the mountain again to receive their new armaments.
“Prodigious timing.” Khadrin sighed, knowingly. “When do you return to your post on the Avierno border?” He looked up at his cousin.
Ulfskar chewed on the cigar; Khadrin couldn’t tell if he was in contemplation or simplifying drifting away the time with daydreams. Finally the young dwarf said with a shrug. “I ain’t. The Warden Commander is delaying sending any more dwarfs up the mountain.” One eye peeked out at Khadrin from the mouth of the leopard draped over the dwarf’s face. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you? Is the Council of Dung eaters planning something?”
Khadrin hesitated. Ulfskar wasn’t just kin. He was one of his closest allies. He knew that what the Council discussed was not to be shared but it was obvious what was happening if someone had even a crumb of knowledge from the outside world. Warring neighbors and ork tribes, all closing the noose around their necks. He rolled up the parchment and put a paperweight on it.
“The drums of war sound in the halls of our father’s father.” He said.
Ulfskar snorted. “Obviously. Dramatics aside, which way am I to point my weapon? East or west?”
Khadrin hummed. “The Council is in a deadlock.”
Ulfskar's subsequent laugh had a tinge of pessimism hanging on its tail. “So I'm stuck here twiddling my thumbs until the head knockers downstairs make up their mind.”
“I am afraid so.” Khadrin said. “Probably for the best. Tend to your dwarf maid and beardlings. Enjoy what time you have left with them.”
Ulfskar lifted his hood, the row of teeth mimicking a furrowed brow. “What kind of dire talk is that? Are we really hanging by the balls that badly?”
“Truly, I know not.” He let the reality of his words sink in. “Everything feels…tense. Like we are all watching the rope tying off the trap above our heads fray.”
There was a pregnant silence.
“Do you think the clan head will call us back?” Ulfskar said.
“You know what happened in Moradin’s Thaig?” Khadrin said.
“I do.” He replied. Everyone is talking about it.”
“Then you know my answer.” Khadrin said.
“Well, Ambassador, that’s real fucking shit.” He pushed his hood back down and smoke bellowed as if the cat itself was emanating it. “I like my post. I’ve no desire to go back to Moradin.”
“I can request you to be transferred to my security detail.”
“And live amongst the sky born?” He guffawed. “Talk about a rock and a hard place.”
“I’ll need you if things go belly up with the human alliance.”
“You always did need saving, Khadrin.” He signed. “Just another favor in a book full of them.”
Khadrin smiled. It was good to be amongst friends. Especially ones as old as Ulfskar.
“I am going to collect my armaments from the twins. Go home. Await a letter from my household, dearest cousin. We shall see each other again soon.”
“Have some better news for me next time, won’t you?”
Khadrin laughed. It was all he could do to keep from crying.
