had not come to pass, it was assumed Dagna would be named as Steward of the Hall while Bruenor lay near death.
Indeed, both of those opportunities had been presented to Dagna, and by those in a position to make either happen. But he had refused.
"Ye wouldn't have me tell me scouts to run along swifter and maybe give themselves away to trolls and the like, now would ye?" Dagna asked.
Galen Firth rocked back on his heels a bit at that, but he didn't blink and he didn't stand down. "I would have you move this column as swiftly as is possible," he replied. "My town is sorely pressed, perhaps overrun, and in the south, out of these infernal tunnels, many people may now be in dire jeopardy. I would hope that such would prove an impetus to the dwarves who claim to be our neighbors."
"I claim nothing," Dagna was fast to reply. "I do what me steward and me king're telling me to do."
"And you care not at all for the fallen?"
Galen's blunt question caused several of the nearby dwarves to suck in their breath, aimed as it was at Dagna, the proud dwarf who had lost his only son only a few tendays earlier. Dagna stared long and hard at the man, burying the sting that prompted him to an angry response, remembering his place and his duty.
"We're going as fast as we're going, and if ye're wanting to be going faster, then ye're welcome to run up ahead. I'll tell me scouts to let ye pass without hindrance. Might even be that I'll keep me march going over your dead body when we find yerself troll-eaten in the corridors ahead. Might even be that yer Nesme kin, if any're still about, will get rescued without ye." Dagna paused and let his glare linger a moment longer, a silent assurance to Galen Firth that he was hardly bluffing. "Then again, might not be."
That seemed to take some of the steam from Galen, and the man gave a great "harrumph" and turned back to the tunnel ahead, stomping forward deliberately.
Dagna was beside him in an instant, grabbing him hard by the arm.
"Pout if ye want to pout," the dwarf agreed, "but ye be doing it quietly."
Galen pulled himself away from the dwarf's vicelike grasp, and matched Dagna's stare with his own glower.
Several nearby dwarves rolled their eyes at that and wondered if Dagna would leave the fool squirming on the floor with a busted nose. Galen hadn't been like that until very recently. The fifty dwarves had accompanied him out of Mithral Hall many days before, with orders from Steward Regis to do what they could to aid the beleaguered folk of Nesme. Their journey had been steady and straightforward until they had been attacked in the tunnels by a group of trolls. That fight had sent them running, a long way to the south and out into the open air on the edges of the great swamp, the Trollmoors, but too far to the east, by Galen Firth's reckoning. So they had started west, and had found more tunnels. Against Galen's protests, Dagna had decided that his group would be better served under cover of the westward-leading underground corridors. More dirt than stone, with roots from trees and brush dangling over their heads and with crawly things wriggling in the black dirt all around them, the tunnels weren't like those they'd used to come south from Mithral Hall. That only made Galen all the more miserable. The tunnels were tighter, lower, and not as wide, which the dwarves thought a good thing, particularly with huge and ugly trolls chasing them, but which only made Galen spend half his time walking bent over.
"Ye're pushing the old one hard," a young dwarf, Fender Stouthammer by name, remarked when they took their next break and meal. He and Galen were off to the side of the main group, in a wider and higher area that allowed Galen to stretch his legs a bit, though that had done little to improve his sour mood.
"My cause is - "
"Known to us, and felt by us, every one," Fender assured him. "We're all feeling for Mithral Hall in much the same way as ye're feeling for Nesme, don't ye doubt."
The calming intent of Fender didn't find a hold on Galen, though, and he wagged his long finger right in the dwarf's face, so close that Fender had to hold himself back from just biting the