-Fort Spearclaw, Clan Red-Eye territory-

Commander Corvaughn of House Darragut groggily woke to the reality of tight chains binding his pudgy feet and hands.

Blinking through the dirt and soot clogging his eyes, he slowly began to perceive the cracked wooden walls that encased him. He was in a small room with barely enough space to swing a rat. Before him was a simple crag of stone that looked like it had been hewed to resemble a table. He was attached to a wooden stake in the ground, the only light surrounding him being that of one flickering torch sconce. The light threw his muscular shadow across the wall beside him, but his pathetic stance made him groan with ruined pride. He was wearing a threadbare vest that was at least two sizes too large for him – the ultimate insult for a noble-born Dwarf.

“So, this is how it ends,” he said to himself with a deep, throaty sigh. “Not with a bang, but with a whimper. At least ye won’t have ta see yer old dad come home a failure, Malcolm. Ye’ll grow up and avenge me one day. I already know you’ll be strong enough.”

He suddenly recalled the sneaky tactic that had led to his detachment’s sound defeat without a single drop of blood being spilled or a single clang of blades. Memories of the aftermath were hazy and unreal. They had to be – because he had the distinct impression that the ratman swordsmen that ran down any survivors of the initial Glitterpak explosion simply disarmed his men and bound them up in chains.

That had to be a dream. A trick of the mind brought on by the noxious fumes of those fucking bloated gasbags. Ratmen didn’t take prisoners, right?

A sudden drawing of a wood block on the other side of his cell door startled him, and he stiffened up, ready to spit in the face of the furry bastard that had probably come to gloat in the face of the defeated Dwarf. He wasn’t about to take this insult to his pride sitting down.

But when a human (albeit a scruffy and foul-smelling one) entered his cell and closed the door quickly behind him, he swallowed the phlegm in his throat and channeled it into a gasp instead.

“Fuck me sideways…” he murmured aloud. “A Lank, walking among rats. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Far from being insulted by his sleight, the human chuckled.

“Eloquent,” he said, wiping his black-rimmed glasses with a dirty handkerchief. “I think I’ve learned at least five wholly new slurs since coming to this land. Some things never change. Lank is a pretty good one, though.”

Corvaughn scoffed in the face of this human’s laughter, shooting him a stare of confusion as the Lank sat opposite him and produced a bowl of water from behind his back.

“I’m afraid I can’t attest to its purity,” the human said. “But it’s at least drinkable.”

The Dwarf’s eyebrows raised.

“If ye think this little chummy act is gonna get you anywhere, yer wrong, Lank. The fuck are you doing down here, anyway? Your Emperor don’t make friends of the dirty furs.”

“I don’t represent any outside authority,” the human said. “My name is Marcus, and I came here from another world. The rats of this Kingdom call it ‘The Place Beyond.’”

Corvaughn huffed. “So yer a fantastical traveler, are ye? A traveler from another magical world?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Well then let me tell you something, Marcus of the Place Beyond.”

Corvaughn leaned forward, teeth flaring with spite and hatred.

“Fuck you. And fuck where you came from. Fuck your rats, and fuck your ‘kindness’. If ye think ye’ll interrogate me and get me secrets, think again. Ye’d have an easier time drawing blood from a stone. So, say whatever bullshit you have to say, slay me like I know your rats want to, and then fuck right off back home.”

The Dwarf sat back, infinitely satisfied with himself. On the other hand, Marcus accepted his statement with a shrug and a little tut.

“I believe you,” he said with another shrug. “I don’t expect you to talk. The hatred between your peoples is far too great for you to ever see eye-to-eye. You Dwarves aren’t like the Kobolds. You can’t be cowed by sheer force of arms or displays of superior religious faith. My understanding is that your numbers are even fewer than the ratmen in this realm. You’re backed into a corner, not open to negotiation, and hoarding technology that only just barely gives you an edge. It’s a path that leads only to one place: stagnation and death. Your only chance to regain a foothold in this place would have been to ally with one of the powers at each others’ throats. The fact you chose not to do that tells me your people have chosen to die. You’re probably prepared to die better than anyone in this entire underground realm.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Don’t talk like you know us,” Corvaughn spat.

“Tell me I’m wrong then.”

“Yer wrong!” the Dwarf roared, kicking at the water bowl to send it crashing against the left wall of the cell. “We’ve got hearts and skins of stone that have helped us endure longer than any of the freaks that put their mangy claws on our Kingdom. This place was ours, once. It will be ours again.”

“History,” Marcus sighed. “A sense of pride in a national identity that has since faded with time and conflict. Your entire war effort hinges on the belief you can go back to the way things were – that you can make this Underground yours again. I’ve seen it in my world. Most of the conflicts of our twentieth century could be boiled down to such desires. Problem with them? They all fail. Dreams of the past won’t take you into the future.”

“You think I expect a traitor to his own kind to understand?” Corvaughn snarled right back. “You have no nation, Lank. You got no stake in this. By the Stone, what the hell are you fighting for?”

“For the only thing that matters,” he said. “For my home, and for the woman I love.”

“Fuck me,” the Dwarf groaned. “Don’t make me fucking cringe.”

“You did ask me, Sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Corvaughn snarled. “You don’t respect me any more than I do you.”

“You’re wrong on that,” Marcus corrected, leaning over the table and resting his hands in its center.

He knows he’s within striking distance, the Dwarf thought. He’s doing this to show he isn’t scared of me. Fucking snarky Lank.

“I find much to admire in you and what I’ve seen of your people,” he continued. “I’d like nothing more than to talk the hours away with you, learning of your history, your tactics, your beliefs and your culture. Not for the purposes of exploiting you – though I know you won’t believe that – but because I’d like to just go back to being a historian again.”

He suddenly knit his brows and looked at his gloved hands – hands that had formed into fists of their own accord.

In his eyes now, Corvaughn saw someone different than the man that had first walked through that door. He saw the fires of war burn in those eyes, sights of horrors this Lank had seen and decided to wade through to get what he wanted. Such as it was.

“But I can’t go back to that,” Marcus said slowly, like he was having an epiphany right then and there before the dwarf commander. “I chose to fight. Or, more accurately, I chose to direct an entire species to fight for me. In my name. I wonder if that name’s what’s taken over now. I wonder if I can really go home with that name still hanging over me.”

The Dwarf was listening to the ramblings of this man and suddenly came to the shocking conclusion that this wasn’t just any traitor to his species. This wasn’t just some rat auxiliary or sub-commander. The way he talked…

“By the fucking Stone,” he said. “You’re the one…you’re the one behind the Glitterpaks. You’re the one behind those cavalry charges. Pushing the screaming Yips back. You’re calling the shots, aren’t you?”

Marcus met his stare head on, looking as the hate in the dwarf’s eyes began to melt away into fiery frustration.

“You don’t have a fucking clue what you’ve done here.”

“I’ve fought for what I care about,” Marcus replied. “Just as you have.”

“I’ve fought alongside my Brothers. I’ve fought to cleanse the filth of this world, while you’ve been out here spreading it this whole time. A Lank like you. And I thought I couldn’t be more insulted.”

The Dwarf spat into the empty bowl before him.

“You know, it’s funny,” Marcus said. “Had I been summoned on your side, I might have been a commander that could have salvaged your people from their impending doom. I might have even come to empathize with you. There’s something to that, you know. Turns out building mutual understanding isn’t as hard as we think. All it takes, it turns out, is proximity.”

“Don’t tell me you care about these fucking gutter-running rats.”

“’Care’ would be a strong word. But I understand them. I know what they want. I know how to lead them towards my goals.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I am,” Corvaughn scoffed. “You really think these beasties give a damn about what you want? The second you start failing them, they’ll find a way to kick you out and send you to the dirt. By the Stone, I never thought I’d see the day when a Lanky would trust a filthy rat.”

Marcus shook his head, but he never broke eye contact with the Dwarf.

“I’ve come here to offer you my terms,” he said.

“’Terms’, he says!” the Dwarf shouted. “Boy, I gave you my fucking terms. Like you said, they aren’t open to negotiation.”

“Maybe not for you,” Marcus replied, coolly. “But I think there’s something an honor-bound Dwarf like you might care about more than your own sorry life.”

The Dwarf grit his teeth. “Oh? And what might that be?”

Marcus leaned back and drew a deep intake of the Underkingdom’s stagnant air before he finally came to the point:

“Your men.”

###

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