Robert Salvatore - The Thousand Orcs

Shoudra bid the dwarf farewell and entered her house. Agrathan stood at the top of the stairway for a long, long while, more uncomfortable than he had ever been before entering the domain of Mirabar's two thousand dwarves. It was his solemn duty to go and deliver the marchion's message to Torgar and the others, but Agrathan knew his kin well enough to understand that the words would cause more than a little anger and division among the dwarves. Their emotions ran the gamut concerning Mithral Hall. Many of the Mirabarran dwarves had even called for confiscation of any Mithral Hall caravan moving west of Clan Battlehammer's domain, knowing full well that such an action might mean open warfare between the two cities. Others quietly remarked that their ancestors had lived in Mithral Hall with King Bruenor's predecessors, and that it had been a good life, as good a life as any dwarf could ever want.

Agrathan snorted—a "dwarven sigh," he called it—and thumped his way down the stairs, brushing past the many human guards in the upper chamber as he made his way to the lift. He waved away the attendant and worked the heavy ropes himself, lowering himself down hundreds of feet to a second well-guarded room, with all exits blocked by external portcullises and iron-bound doors. The guards there were all dwarves, some of the toughest of all the Axe.

"Ye go and put the word to all our kin in all the holes," Agrathan instructed them, "and to them working the walls up top. We're meeting after sunset in the Hall of All Fires, and I want every one of my boys there. Everyone!"

The guards opened one of the exits for Agrathan and he exited, head down and murmuring to himself, trying to discern the best way to handle this most delicate of situations.

Though he was more tactful than most, as was evidenced by his rank in a city that was dominated by humans, Agrathan was still a dwarf, and subtlety had never been his strong point.

The scene was never controlled and quiet in the Hall of All Fires when a significant number of Mirabar's dwarves were assembled, but that night, with nearly all of the city's two thousand in attendance and with the subject so controversial, the place was in absolute chaos.

"So now ye're to tell me whose story I can hear, and whose I can't?" Torgar Hammerstriker roared back at Agrathan. "It was a good bit o' ale, and a finer bit o' tales!

Many of the dwarves who had accompanied Torgar to the Icewind Dale bazaar and later to the Clan Battlehammer reception shouted their agreement. One or two held up beautiful pieces of scrimshaw they had purchased from the traders, wonderful pieces gotten at better prices.

"I can resell this in Nesme for ten times what I paid!" one industrious, red-bearded fellow declared. He jumped high onto a dark furnace, holding up his small statue—a scrimshaw depiction of a shapely barbarian woman—for all to see. "Ye tellin' me I can't be making good deals, priest?"

Agrathan slumped back a bit, not surprised by the reaction.

"I have come to deliver the words of Marchion Elastul, a reminder— and yes, a stern one—to us all that the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer are not friends to Mirabar. They take our trade—"

"Is there a one of us here who can rightly say that he's livin' better since they opened Mithral Hall again?" another dwarf cut the priest off. "Even wit' yer pretty statue, fat Bullwhip, ye're not to have a good year in the matter o' yer purse, now are ye?"

Many dwarves seconded that, cheering the agitated speaker on.

"We had better lives and bigger coins afore the damn Battlehammers came back in! And who invited them?"

"Bah! Ye're talking the part of a fool!" Torgar lashed out.

"Says the dwarf who looked to other councilors for a loan!" the fiery one shot back. "Ye needin' coin now, Torgar? Will King Bruenor's stories fill yer belly?"

Torgar climbed up to the raised area at the north end of the hall to stand beside Agrathan. He paused for a long while, looking to and fro, commanding everyone's attention.

"What I'm hearing here is jealous talk, plain and simple," he said, very calmly. "Ye're talking about Clan Battlehammer as if they've declared war upon us, when all they've done is open up mines that ve been there, and been theirs, since afore Mirabar was Mirabar. They've a right to their homeland and a right to make it work. We're sittin' here making plans to bring 'em down, when it's seemin' to me that we should be making plans to bring ourselfs up!"

"They been stealin' our business!" someone yelled from the crowd. "Ye forgetting that part?"

"They been beatin' us," Torgar pointedly, and immediately, corrected. "They got better mines an' better metal, and they built themselves a strong reputation one dead orc, duergar, and stinkin' drow elf at a time. Ye can't be blamin' King Bruenor and his boys for working hard and fighting harder!"

The shouts erupted from every corner, many in agreement and many in dissent. A couple of fistfights broke out in various corners of the hall.

Up on the raised platform, Torgar and Agrathan stared hard at each other, and though neither had fully embraced the other's viewpoint on this matter only a few days before, their respective visions were crystallizing.

There came a shout from somewhere in the crowd, "Hey priestie, ye taking the side o' the humans over that o' yer kinfolk dwarfs?"

Both Torgar and Agrathan turned at once, and many others did as well.

All the great meeting chamber went silent, dwarves stopping their fighting in mid-swing, for there it was, spelled out simply and to the point.

For Torgar, it was a moment of confusion and self-examination. Was it actually coming down to this, a choice between his dwarven kin of Mithral Hall and the joint community of Mirabar?

For Agrathan, leading member of the Council of Sparkling Stones, the choice was less fuzzy, for indeed, if that was the way that some of his kin chose to view things, then so be it. Agrathan's loyalties lay to Mirabar and to Mirabar alone, but when he looked at his counterpart, he saw that the marchion's remarks, which Agrathan had considered insulting, toward Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker were not without merit.

Agrathan's faith in his community was a bit shaken a moment later, when the great gates of the Hall of All Fires swung wide and a large contingent of the Axe of Mirabar swept in, wading into the confused throng in a wedge formation, then forcefully widening their stance so that a huge triangular area of the room was quickly secured. In marched the marchion and several of the more stern councilors, along with the sceptrana.

"This is not the behavior the human folk of Mirabar expects from their dwarf comrades," Elastul scolded.

He should have left it at that, a quiet and calm reminder that the city had enough enemies without to worry about such squabbles within.

"Accept that Torgar Hammerstriker and those who accompanied him to the carts of Clan Battlehammer, and to the liars. . er, the bards of the same clan erred, and badly, in their judgment," Elastul bluntly warned. "Beware, Master Hammerstriker, lest you lose your position in the Axe. For the rest of you, lured by ale and this creature, this false legend, who is Bruenor Battlehammer, remind yourselves where your loyalties lie, and remind yourselves as well that Clan Battlehammer threatens our city."

Elastul swiveled his head slowly, taking in all the gathering, trying to wilt them under his stern gaze. But these were dwarves, after all, and few wilted, and few of those who agreed with the marchion wagged their heads.

Many of those who disagreed stood a bit straighter and a bit taller, and in looking at his counterpart on the stage, Agrathan seriously wondered if Torgar was going to peel off his Axe insignia then and there and throw it at Elastul's feet.