It’s said that rumor has wings in most places, but in Allabrast it is the wind. A caravan hauler, name of Fogtak, sitting in a bar in the Brown Granite District, a dank cavern some way below the central station, is about to prove this to devastating consequences.
He’s just come up from a fast, interesting, somewhat disturbing yet also rather easy journey from the realm of Runethane Yurok—who is, he’s gathered from overhearing the talk of the runeknight drivers, dead. This is almost certainly bad news for those below, he feels, but doesn’t much care about it. The runeknights will sort it out; nothing he can do.
But it does make for an interesting tale to tell. Fogtak and his mates are sitting around a stone table in one of the cheaper bars of the district, playing rails, betting heavily, drinking more heavily, and he’s belting out the tale loud enough for everyone in the bar, and probably out on the street also, to hear.
“...then I hear they want to see the Runeking directly!” Fogtak says. “Hah! What's old Ulrike going to say when those two stroll in to the palace, eh? Some tale!”
“As if he ever needs to talk,” another hauler says. “All he does is blink I hear, and all the runeknights jump right to!”
“Sounds like how your wife treats you!” barks another.
There is raucous laughter.
“These deep ones, ay?” says Fogtak, shaking his head. “They’re mad.”
“Oh yes,” agrees one of his friends. “Crazed. It's not normal for your beard to go white that young.”
“Yes—though one of the two that came up had black hair.”
“That's odd.”
“It is." Fogtak lowers his voice. "I always thought they didn't allow anyone from too high up down there. I heard that if your beard is too dark, they cut your head off!”
“Don’t be stupid,” someone else says. “I never got my head cut off on my trips down there.”
“Wonder how he ended up there.”
“By caravan, obviously.” The hauler rolls the dice, curses, moves one of his pieces another length of the rail. “Your turn, Fogtak.”
Fogtak takes the dice, rolls an eight, sweeps a few of his opponents’ pieces off while grinning broadly.
“Think this one is in the box!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“He didn't come down by caravan, from what I heard. Walked down.”
“Who?”
“The runeknight I was talking about, with the black beard. You need to clean your ears out.”
“Who cares. My turn for a tale—”
“I ain’t finished!” Fogtak says, scowling. The only thing he likes more than winning at rails is listening to the sound of his own voice. “He walked down—from Thanerzak’s realm, that’s right! The one that got blasted by the dragon!”
The other haulers laugh loudly.
“Don’t be absurd,” one says. “He’d have got run over.”
“I think he went down through the natural caverns. That’s the impression I got.”
“He'd have been eaten by trolls. Sounds like you’re the one who needs his ears cleaned out.”
“Maybe he’s just lying,” the dwarf doing the worst at rails says. “Fogtak said this dwarf’s spear was black as well. But they all wield shiny glowy weapons down there.”
Fogtak argues very loudly with that dwarf, and they nearly comes to blows, and then actually do once the game is up and the other haulers find the extra pieces up Fogtak’s sleeves. By that time, a dwarf who was sat at the neighboring table, a down-on-his-luck seventh degree, has rushed out to his guild.
“You’ll never believe what I heard,” he says, breathless, to the first senior member who will listen. “You’ll never believe it!”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What?” she says crossly, sipping her pint. She was just about to get back to forging, and now this idiot is here talking at her.
“There were haulers saying there was a dwarf from our realm with a black spear and that he’d walked all the way down from our realms and was in some deep fort or other and that he had a black beard and blue eyes. A black spear!”
Jalat, third degree runeknight in the Troglodyte Slayers, or at least what’s left of them, frowns deeply.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure!”
“That was before your time though.”
“I was an initiate, it was my time! I remember him! And I know...”
Jalat stands up. “That Vanerak wants him.”
“I caught the rumor first!” the seventh degree says quickly. “I want my reward too!”
“You’ll get it,” she says as she stands up, “just so long as you keep your mouth shut about it for a while.”
“I need some gems; diamond, ruby...” he begins, but she’s already dashing off.
A dwarf with a black spear! Could it be? Could it be the same who killed her brother, and more importantly, it’s rumored, the one who betrayed Thanerzak’s vaults to the dragon?
That tale was one spread from some of Broderick’s dwarves, babbling about some key or other, during the temporary peace just after the devastation. No one took it seriously until Vanerak put out an order stating that the dwarf in question must be arrested.
What was his name again? Zathar?
Jalat rushes up and out of Grokfust district into the bright lights of Diamond-Cut ravine, elbows her way through the well-off commoners that throng there, exits, makes her way through several more districts—Allabrast is enormous, not at all comparable to the city of Thanerzak—and eventually makes it into Obsidian District, Vanerak’s domain.
She does not particularly like Vanerak. In fact, she is afraid of him. But he has grown rich and powerful between the devastation and now, and she knows that if the rumor turns out to be true, he will reward her handsomely.
And more importantly, the survivors of the black dragon will get the answers and justice they deserve.
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The guard Makthar opens the door and lets us into the meeting chamber, though not before warning us to stay quiet until we’re spoken to. It’s a surprisingly small room, but no less grand for it. Warm yellow light pours onto a diamond-encrusted table from a chandelier of hexagonal beryls. The walls are a mosaic of platinum, silver, gold and tastefully rusted bronze, that depicts the slayings of great beasts. The floor is thickly carpeted by some fabric that feels and looks very expensive.
The twelve runeknights seated around the table are impressive. Each is armored in bronze, and the runes on their plates are predominately Bezethast script writ so fine I can barely make it out. It imbues their armor with an awesome sense of solidity and weight. I have no doubt that even the thinnest plates could turn Heartseeker’s blows with ease.
Eleven of them look rather unhappy. The twelfth is in a fury.
“I thought you said the tin from smeltery three was of double pure quality!” fumes Guildmaster Halmak. “And now you tell me some are complaining it’s two points below single pure!”
“It is of double pure quality,” insists one of the elders—even though they're called that, they only look as old as any other runeknight with an amulet of unaging. “They contaminated the samples they sent in on purpose. They’re trying to cheat us.”
“Baltezan’s family is honorable. They wouldn’t cheat us.”
“Baltezan is honorable,” says another elder, whose beard is bound with bronze chains. “His family less so.”
“I don’t for a moment think they’re trying to cheat us. It’s the smeltery operator—we should have kept this business inside the guild!”
“I’ve inspected the smeltery myself,” says the elder with chains in his beard. “There were no irregularities; the tin was pure.”
“Maybe while you were looking on it was!”
“I see no reason to doubt the operators. They are honorable, and Baltezan’s sons’ reputations as cheats are well-founded.”
Guildmaster Halmak throws a counter-argument, about how this Baltezan keeps his sons under a firm hand; the elders argue their own points. The discussion continues for a while. It becomes even more heated. I flinch at a couple points when Halmak becomes enraged enough to stand and start flinging insults.
He’s quite short, barely four feet, yet this does nothing to diminish his presence. His armor burns fiery bright, the lines of gold wrought into the bronze a vivid red like living blood. Though it does not quite have the solidity I feel from the others’ plates, I get the impression that its offensive power is unmatched. Doubtless the runes enhance his strength many time over—necessary for him to wield the great warhammer displayed on the wall behind his chair, whose head is about the same size as his own. Spikes of diamond gleam on it.
It’s during one of these angry outbursts that he spots us standing beside the door in the shadows.
“Who are you lot?” he yells. “This is a senior guild meeting—” His eyes narrow. “You two are not even guild members! And you, who are you again? Why have you brought them here?”
“I am Helnat, fifth degree. These two dwarves have a tale they wish to tell you.”
“A tale?” Halmak glowers. “You intrude upon this serious business for a tale?”
“An offer!” Nthazes says quickly. “We have a most solemn offer for you, Thanic Guardsdwarf Halmak.”
“Business enquiries are to be done though the proper channels,” snaps the elder with chains in his beard. “Helnat, you ought to know this.”
Helnat, undaunted by their anger, says: “This offer is of a most sensitive nature. And if you wish to blame someone for our intrusion, blame Makthar, who let us in.”
“He will be disciplined,” Halmak fumes. “As will you, Helnat.”
“You may not wish to discipline anyone after you hear our offer,” I say, stepping forward and looking the angry guildmaster in the eye.
Halmak frowns; he seems slightly taken aback by my boldness.
“Is that so?”
“I think it is so,” I say, swallowing. The eyes of everyone are now boring into me. “I think you will find our offer—worth hearing, at least.”
“Then let us hear it,” says the elder with chains in his beard. “Quickly, if you will.”