Robert Salvatore - The Thousand Orcs

"Perhaps we should not have allowed him entrance," Shoudra remarked.

Agrathan looked up at Elastul, guessing correctly the dangerous glare the marchion would be offering to Shoudra at that moment. When word that King Bruenor was at Mirabar's gate had been passed along, it had been Elastul's decision to let Bruenor and the others in. None on the council, or the secptrana, had even been informed until the Clan Battlehammer dwarves had already set up their carts on Mirabar's streets.

"Yes, perhaps my faith in the loyalty of my citizens was misplaced," the marchion countered, harsh words aimed more at Agrathan, the dwarf knew, than at Shoudra. "I expected King Bruenor to find greater embarrassment than rejection by the ruler of the city. I expected the folk of Mirabar to know enough to not even bother with our guests."

Agrathan glanced over to see that the marchion was indeed staring directly at him as he spoke. No humans, after all, had gone to do business with Clan Battlehammer, only dwarves, and Agrathan was the highest-ranking dwarf in the city, the unofficial leader and voice of Mirabar's two thousand.

"Have you spoken with Master Hammerstriker?"

"What would ye have me say?" Agrathan asked.

While he was the accepted voice for the dwarves among the human leaders, that wasn't always the case among the Mirabarran dwarves themselves.

"I would have you remind Master Hammerstriker where his loyalties lie," the marchion replied. "Or where they should lie."

Agrathan worked hard to keep his expression placid, to hide the sudden storm welling inside of him. The loyalty of Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker could not be questioned. The crusty old warrior had served the marchion, and the marchion before him, and before him, and before him, and before him, and before him, for longer than any human in the city could remember, longer than the long dead parents of the dead parents of any human in the city could have remembered. Torgar had been among the leading soldiers charging along the tunnels of the upper Underdark against monsters more foul than anything any of the marchion's Hammers—those elite advisors selected supposedly because of their glorious veteran warrior status—had ever known. When the orc hordes attacked Mirabar, a hundred and seventeen years past, Torgar and a very few other dwarves had held the eastern wall strong against the assault, fending off the hordes while the bulk of Mirabar's warriors had been engaged on the western wall, against what had proven to be no more than a feint by the enemy. In scars, wounds, and cunning victories, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker had earned his position as a leader among the Axe.

But even to Agrathan the marchion's words rang with a bit of truth. It wasn't a question of loyalty, as far as Agrathan was concerned, but rather one of judgment. Torgar and his fellows had not understood the implications of trading with their rivals from Mithral Hall or from subsequently socializing with them.

With that, Agrathan and Shoudra left the agitated marchion, walking side by side along the outer corridors of the palace and out into the pale sunlight of the late afternoon. A chill breeze was blowing, a reminder to the pair that in Mirabar, winter was never far away.

"You will approach Torgar with a bit more gentleness than Marchion Elastul showed?" Shoudra asked the dwarf, her smile one of genuine amusement.

As sceptrana, Shoudra was involved in signing trade agreements. With the rise of Mithral Hall, she too had suffered, or at least her work had. Shoudra Stargleam had taken it more in stride than many others in the city, though, including many of the dwarves. To her, the way to beat Mithral Hall was to increase production and find better ore for better product. To her, the rise of a trading rival should be the catalyst to make Mirabar stronger.

"I'll tell Torgar and his boys what I can, but ye know that one, and know that not many can be telling Torgar anything."

"He is loyal to Mirabar," Shoudra stated, and though Agrathan nodded, the expression on his face showed that he wasn't so certain of that anymore.

Shoudra Stargleam caught that look and stopped, and put her hand on Agrathan's shoulder to stop him as well.

"Is he loyal to city or to race?" she asked. "Does he consider the marchion his true leader or King Bruenor of Mithral Hall?"

'Torgar's fought well for every marchion since before yer parents were born, girl," Agrathan reminded her.

Shoudra nodded, but like Torgar a moment earlier, she didn't seem overly convinced.

"They should not have gone to trade and drink with the visiting dwarves," Shoudra remarked.

She bustled her cloak in front of her and started on her way.

"Mighty temptations there. Good trade, good drink, and better stories. Are ye thinking that my folk aren't wanting to hear the Battle of Keeper's Dale? Are ye thinking that your own world would be a better place if the damn drow invaders had won at Mithral Hall?"

"Well, perhaps if" the dark elves had inflicted a bit more damage before they had been chased off…" Shoudra replied.

Agrathan snapped a scowl over her, but it was quickly defeated, for the woman was grinning mischievously even as she spoke the words.

"Bah!" Agrathan snorted.

"So by your reasoning, Mirabar owes a debt to Mithral Hall for their victory against the dark elves?" Shoudra asked.

Agrathan paused for a moment and thought long and hard on that one. In the end, he shrugged, not willing to make a commitment.

Shoudra grinned again and nodded, for it was obvious that the dwarf's heart was giving one answer and his pragmatic head, the part that owed loyalty to Marchion Elastul and Mirabar, was giving another. H wasn't a laughing matter, though. In fact, the notion that Agrathan, a major voice on the Council of Sparkling Stones, was apparently holding mixed feelings concerning Mithral Hall incited more than a little trepidation in the sceptrana. Agrathan had been one of the strongest voices of opposition to Mithral Hall, often relating the words of his more vocal dwarf constituents who wanted covert action to be taken against Clan Battlehammer. Agrathan had once outlined a plan for infiltrating the neighboring kingdom and slipping cooler-burning charcoal into their stores, weakening their smelting and shaping work.

Many times during council meetings Agrathan Hardhammer had himself exploded in tirades against the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, but having seen them face-to-face, Shoudra was seeing the true depth of his, and his people's, resolve.

'Tell me, Agrathan, was that famous drow elf accompanying King

Bruenor's caravan?"

"Drizzt Do'Urden? Yes, he was there, but they didn't let him into the city."

Shoudra looked at him curiously. Drizzt had made quite a reputation for himself in the North, even before his actions against his own people when they had attacked Mithral Hall. By all accounts, he was a hero.

"The Axe weren't about to let a cursed dark elf walk the streets, whatever his name," Agrathan said firmly, "but he was there. Torgar and some others saw him and that human girl that Bruenor is calling his own, along with that human boy that Bruenor is calling his own, off to the side, watching it all."

"Was he as handsome as they say?" Shoudra asked.

Agrathan turned an even bigger scowl over her, twisted into an expression of skepticism.

"He's a drow, ye damned fool!"

Shoudra Stargleam merely laughed, and Agrathan shook his hairy head.

They stopped their walk then, for they had come to Undercity Square, an open area between three buildings, one of them a large sectioned building where Shoudra kept her apartment. In the center of the triangular area was a descending stairway, which led to the most heavily guarded room in all of" Mirabar, the main entrance to the Undercity—the real city as far as Agrathan and his kin were concerned — where the real work went on.