tear Mourkain apart stone by stone. And Neferata could not allow that to happen. Not until a time of her choosing. Eventually, Mourkain would need to be shattered, so that she could rebuild it into something stronger, but not now.
So instead, she spoke, her words hammering against dwarf stubbornness. There was no eloquence to it, no art, only those parts of the truth which she had hammered into the proper shape to fit her needs. And, finally, ‘What’s your answer? Will Karaz Bryn and Strigos fight together?’
Razek was silent. He tugged on his beard, his shrewd eyes on hers. ‘Aye,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Aye, Neferata, we will at that.’ Razek grunted and sat. ‘Somebody bring me a map.’
Neferata sat for a moment, stunned slightly by the abruptness of Razek’s decision. Instead of asking the obvious question, she merely inclined her head. Where dwarfs were concerned, silence was always the safest option. Razek had agreed, but not due to her words, that much she was sure of. But the why of it wasn’t as important as the fact that he had.
Two dwarfs brought the map and unrolled it on the table. It was a beautiful thing, drawn with an eye for detail that escaped even the most dedicated of Ushoran’s cartographers. Strange marks that she had never seen in relation to a map before littered the depicted terrain. She made an assumption and said, ‘These are your cities.’
Razek frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, as if uncertain whether or not he should be answering. Neferata noted that there were far more dwarf holds in the near mountains than she had thought.
‘Your people seem to have better claim to these mountains than the Strigoi,’ she said.
‘We have better claim to the world,’ Razek said grimly.
‘If your people are so numerous, perhaps I was over-eager offering our aid,’ Neferata said.
Razek closed his eyes, as if in pain. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.
Neferata’s eyes narrowed. She looked at the map again, considering. She had learned little of the dwarfs beyond some smattering of their customs to go with their tongue, but what she did know implied that the map was, if not wrong, perhaps old, older even than herself, or Mourkain or even Nehekhara. There had been a war, she knew, a war to shake the world, between the dawi and some race from across the sea. The druchii, perhaps, though she couldn’t be sure.
It struck her then, that her kind were not the only ones for whom nostalgia was a burden. The dwarfs clung to their past as fiercely as Ushoran clung to the tattered memories of the Great Land. It poisoned them just as surely, and crippled them. She looked up from the map and saw Razek looking at her.
‘We cherish our past, too much perhaps. We hold tight to ancient claims and grudges, nursing them,’ he said. ‘More, we seek them out, to add to our burden of miseries.’ There was poignancy to his words that struck her to the core. The desire to turn back the world was strong, even in her. She could only imagine how strong it must be in this creature before her who was immeasurably older. Then, the implication of his last words struck her and all at once, Neferata knew that she must tread carefully, even more carefully than before. Razek was no longer speaking in the general. He had a specific misery in mind, and she knew what it was. ‘Honour is a two-edged blade,’ she said delicately.
‘Pah, what would a people as young as yours know about honour?’ Razek said dismissively. ‘No, it is not about honour, but about debts and accounts, as I have told you before, Neferata.’ He splayed a hand on the map over the symbol she knew marked the sprawl of Mourkain. ‘Debts must be paid and accounts balanced.’
‘Regardless of the cost to both parties,’ she said. It wasn’t a question, and Razek didn’t take it as such.
‘Yes. But some debts must be paid sooner than others.’ He slammed his stein of beer on the table, producing a ringing sound that echoed through the outpost. ‘Gather round! Gather round,’ he bellowed. ‘We’ve got a grobkul to plan!’
‘Grobkul?’ Rasha murmured questioningly.
‘The hunting of greenskins,’ Neferata said. ‘An apt description, if I do say so myself.’
The dwarfs in the outpost gathered around. They were a motley lot, insofar as Neferata could tell them apart. Younger, she judged, than those dwarfs in charge of the throng waiting to meet Wazzakaz’s forces; eager thanes