Lok pushed his way into the crowded hall. H’ghar was close by, scanning the north end of the room like an angry bull. H’ghar had a fierce look, Lok had to admit. His deep set eyes burned like copper salted flame under his tattooed brow. His long, fiery locks tied in their mowhawk of braids added to his threatening aspect, but it was his hunger for action that caused the crowd to part in front of him. It certainly wasn’t his size. He was stoutly built, for sure, and could hold more than his own if it came to that, but if it weren’t for Lok towering over the heads of the other dwarves, H’ghar wouldn’t know which end of the room was which. Lok continued to wade through the crowd, his massive arms moving people aside like oars moving water. They were less than halfway through the hall when H’ghar took Lok by the shoulder. Lok gave him a nod and stopped.

H’ghar chose a good spot. From here Lok could clearly see the makeshift stage of piled crates in the west end of the hall, and the rows of benches lining the northern wall. Lok agreed with H’ghar when he said whoever spoke to the crowd was most likely a proxy. The power behind the movement would be sitting to the side, making sure their puppet behaved. There were twenty older dwarves seated on the benches, and a smattering of younger ones. Wealthy tradesmen and young sycophants no doubt. A pair of older men had young women hanging on their arms, and there was an old woman with a husband that looked young enough to be her child. These decadent elite were surely the ones fanning the flames. If Lok was to get in on the real action, he’d have to get to them. He would need to get the speaker’s attention, as they would likely be both gatekeeper and puppet. Lok thought again of the unexpected worth of his companion. He’d hesitated when his uncle told him H’ghar was to accompany him. H’ghar was hotheaded by repute, but was turning out ot be everything Lok needed. Before him was a gate he wanted through, and at his side was a Gatebreaker.

A group of young dwarves quickly spread out alongside the walls and empted the sconces. The crowd hushed as the chamber grew dim, and two tall torches were set on either side of the stage. Dramatic, thought Lok. The crowd quickly began a chant, hundreds speaking as one. “Bok!” they shouted, “Bok! Bok! Bok!”. Lok wracked his brain, searching for any memory of such a name. It pained him to be an outsider in his own land. The chant grew wild as a young dwarf leapt atop the pile of crates. Lok assessed him quickly. He was fit to be a soldier, shoulders back and eyes forward, but fresh and lively and inexperienced. He reminded Lok of a fledgling bull dragging its hoof through the dirt, eager to gore its first wolf, but blind to the rest of the pack. He was one of the droves of new conscripts, Lok determined, put through basic drills and riding high on his burgeoning prowess. What is he doing here with this rabble? Why is he not in Forvangur, readying himself to face the goblins? Lok thought wryly that the same question could be asked of him and H’ghar. He chanced a quick scan of the crowd to see what sort had rallied to this mummer’s drama. Many were men Bok’s age, and some younger, and a third of them had women by their sides adding their fiery voices to the throng. The men all had that same unseasoned look about them as Bok, fighting fit but not yet blooded. Every one of them belonged in Forvangur, but they were here, and so were Lok and H’ghar.

“QUIET!” Bok shouted in a voice that could bring the walls down around him. He had all the presence needed to inspire this crowd. He stood straight and refused to smile. His golden hair was bound in a knot at the back of his head, and his beard was tightly braided and no longer than it needed to be. And his eyes, Lok had seen those eyes before. Seen them squint angrily at the threat before them, seen them alight with rage at their first spear thrust. They were eyes that gave a person heart to look into, but Lok had seen them fade too. He’d seen that incendiary gaze turn to smouldering ash after years of fighting wore them down till bloodshed became business rather calamity, and courage settled into ambient aggression. But Bok’s eyes had yet to open. He was a lamb still on the teat, brandishing horns that had only just sprouted. But in the eyes of these other children he was an Obaki ram with snowlion blood dripping from the tips of its rack. The crowd grew quiet at his command and pressed toward the stage, waiting hungrily for their horned god to speak.

“Ay, you know my name,” Bok said, “but what of it? What does my name matter? If you want to shout some names then shout the names of our kindred who suffer beneath us. You don’t know their names, do you? Well neither do I, but I know they’re our own, and I know they’ve been done ill. Our king wants us to die on goblin spears, but we know where the true enemy lies. Don’t we!?”. Bok raised his arms and the hall was filled the howls of young wolves. The cheering stopped when his arms went back down, but the fervor in the room was palpable.

“If you’ve come to hear me talk, then you’ve wasted your time.”. He gestured to a group of men in the darkness behind the stage. They came forward, dragging with them a man bound with hemp line and a sack over his head. They threw the man on the floor in front of the stage and removed the sack. Lok couldn’t see his face, but the young wolves all began to snarl. “You know who he is,” Bok said, “do with this surt trash as you will.” Bok turned his back, descended from the stage and strode into the shadows, leaving the young wolves to tear at their kill. H’ghar bolted through the crowd and Lok followed. When they got to the front the man was battered half into the stone floor. H’ghar looked down angrily at the wreckage of his face. Lok couldn’t see H’ghar’s expression past all his bright red hair, but the smaller man’s shoulders rose and fell like a tide swelling in a storm.

“You came too late brothers!” shouted one of the nearby dwarves. “Not to worry,” said another, “there will be more!”.

“I don’t want them,” H’ghar growled, “I want the centaur loving gnolls they take their orders from.”

The nearby dwarves went wild over H’ghar’s words.They raised their fists and bellowed their agreement, clapping him on the shoulder and howling with their heads thrown back. Lok could see a pair of eyes glowing like stars in the nearby shadows. The stars grew brighter as they emerged from the darkness, coming steadily closer to where Lok stood. Bok stopped just at the edge of the shadows and met Lok’s gaze. “I don’t know you, brothers,” he said.

“Nor do we know you,” H’ghar angrily retorted, “nor do we care to. We came here for blood, not piss! This is all you’ve got? An unlettered lackey? You see those men?” H’ghar thrust a finger to the northern wall where the older dwarves sat. Lok noticed one he hadn’t seen before, a smallish man with brown hair and an eyepatch.

“What of them?” Bok replied stoically.

“The bastard Novians have men just like them where they gather,” H’ghar snarled. “We’ll let you know when we’ve bled them. Maybe send you a few pieces to flaunt at your next mummer’s parade.”

“I share your anger, brother,” said Bok, “but there’s a right and a wrong way to gain justice. We meet again on the morrow. If you want to cut off the serpent’s head, humor me with a few bits of its tail first. You want blood? There’s plenty that deserves to be spilt. But I’m after more than blood.”

“What more can you take from a man than his blood?” Lok asked sneeringly.

“The heart that pumps it,” said Bok. “I don’t want death for Thrond, I want change. Be here on the morrow, midday, if your words are true.”

Lok was restless that night. He was filled with anger over the plight of the doomed, and agreed that change was needed, but no matter what fierceness Bok showed in his eyes and stance, he was untested, idealistic, spirited but malleable. Lok wondered what the true plans of the old ones seated to the north really were, and if help for the doomed could be achieved in spite of their meddling. He’d thought nothing of Bok when he first saw him, other than traces of contempt for him not esteeming the true threat of the goblins. But Lok was finding himself increasingly forgiving on that count as he and H’ghar wandered the streets and plazas of Ormazum. Here in the principle city of the realm, there were no goblin war screams echoing through the ventilation shafts, no tremors from them blasting holes in the stress points near the main gate and maintenance portals. They heard the sounds of peddlers shouting prices across plazas, the ringing of hammers in guild smithies, the chatter of children romping about looking for mischief. To them the return of the iron monger from the Underguard was the paramount concern. The undoing of such an old tradition had far more visible an impact than a distant army of traditionally easy foes. They had Forvangur in between them and the host sent from Goblin Town, and the soldier’s plague was a rumor few here had heard, and fewer had felt. The mothers and fathers weeping over sons killed by the plague wanted the goblins dead with all their souls, but Ladhu’s return was like a beam of sunlight focused through a looking glass that set a pile of leaves aflame.

Lok had to admit that he himself was truly more concerned with the plight of the doomed than the army of goblins. He’d been on the mountainside, seen the distant horde drifting through the Starwood like a windswept mist, and had walked the halls of Forvangur and saw both the plagued veterans begging for death, and the young and hungry conscripts begging for battle. The goblins sent their full force. The battle would be close and painful, but the matter would be settled much more quickly than the fire Ladhu’s return had started.

“Do you think Bok can be turned around?” H’ghar asked as they made their way back to the meeting hall.

“How do you mean?” Lok asked.

H’ghar scratched at his scalp where his braids split. “He seems like a good man, the kind we could use more of.”

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“Then why turn him around? If he’s a good man, then he’ll do good things.”

“We need good men in Forvangur.”

“Do we?”

H’ghar stopped. “How can you ask that?”

Lok kept walking.

“I mean it, Lok. How can you ask that? With everything that’s happening…”

“We need men in Forvangur.”

“Lok, I don’t understand…”

“The men in Forvangur will die. So why send the good ones there? If you think Bok is the kind of man Thrond needs, then why send him to die? There’s threats within the kingdom as well as without, and he’s made a stand without anyone giving him orders. So I ask again, why turn him around?”

H’ghar was silent the rest of the way. Lok wanted to shine light ont the crooked men fueling Bok’s ire for their own ends, but he did not want to turn anyone aside from championing the doomed, not even an inexperienced youth with no sympathy for their suffrage.

The meeting hall seemed a different place in the day. The blood of the prisoner had been washed away, leaving the floor stone white and unblemished. The sconces were all filled, and a pair of women were drilling a group of children with spears and bucklers. The older of the two women was keeping one group of the children trapped in the corner, boxing them in with arching sweeps with her shield and vicious thrusts of her spear. The younger woman had drawn the wilder of the children away and seemed about to be overwhelmed.

“Brothers,” Bok said from the far corner of the room. He gestured for them to follow, and they went through a door in the northern wall and down a long passage. The passage lead to a storage shed for cleaning supplies and masonry tools. A wooden table had been set on a pair of sandstone trestles with a spread of standard fare food. “Have some bread and oil,” Bok said. “There’s fowl in the cupboard. It’s cold, but seasoned and flavorful.”

Lok tore a chunk of bread off the loaf and dipped it in the oil. The oil was sweet with a hint of garlic. The taste was pleasing, and the bread plain but fresh. He’d grown used to near starvation broken by meals one had to be near starving to eat. He was contemplating how well the warriors in Forvangur had it when he remembered that it was their food that carried the plague.

“You both know my name,” Lok said, “may I have yours?”

“I’m Lok. This is H’ghar.”

“H’ghar? You’re from Cloud Hammer?” Bok sat on the bench across from Lok. H’ghar scowled at him for a moment before answering.

“My father was. Came down here to marry my aunt, but settled for my mother when my aunt said no.”

Bok laughed. It was a brief laugh, and unaccompanied by a smile, but the sound was warm. “The brand on your brow, you’re a Gatebreaker. It seems to me you’re in the wrong city.”

H’ghar sat on the bench by Bok and tore off a piece of bread. “Same could be said of you and your brothers,” he snarled. “My father’s in the Underguard, and my commander knows better than to fear any number of goblins. I told him I could spare one man. He sent me on my way with strict orders to keep my business to myself.”

“So you’ve colored your hair to avoid notice. Loyal of you to spare him reprisals for setting a man loose on the eave of battle.”

Lok laughed. He’d told H’ghar not to use so much color, if any at all. Bok turned to him next. “And you, big man? You’re covered in brands from head to toe, and I don’t recognise a single one. My guess is you’re a sellsword.”

Lok nodded.

“My father’s a citadel smith. I’ve lived a life of privilege, with any post in any legion mine to choose. My father wanted me in the Stone Guard. I told him I’d sooner protect the people than the king. He told me it was my choice, but I’ve grown to know the truth behind his patronizing words.”

Lok chewed thoughtfully on his bread for a moment, pondering his answer. No harm would come of Bok hearing his tale, but he wanted to leave something hidden, something for Bok to wonder about. They needed him, after all, to lead them to both his masters and those of his rivals. “My company was under contract with some southern elflord. His rival paid my king double our cost and we were bid to flee the field. I’d heard of such rotten dealings, but felt sick to be a part of it. I left my company on the march home, and here I am.”

“And here you are,” said Bok. “For all that’s wrong with Thrond, I thank Imanna that I was not born in Heth. Our realm is not beyond saving, and this iron monger’s arrival has given spark to coals that have long been piling. Will you help me with a difficult task, brothers?”

H’ghar had helped himself to the cold fowl in the cupboard. He closed it loudly and chewed as he spoke. “We ‘re not here for talk. If you have need of us, show how we have need of you.”

Bok nodded after a quiet moment then stood. “Come with me, and we may be able to aid each other.” The three men stood and left. Bok lead them through the back streets of Ormazum to the storage halls under the Grand Bazaar, down an unused ohr-tempus, into a passageway cut parallel to the upper mineshafts, and into one of the many dimroads used to transport basic living supplies to the miners. Bok lead them to a storage shed filled with jars of alcohol, crates of light crystals and stacks of clean linens. A lone boy stood watch over the door. He’d just about bent the knee to Bok when they approached. Inside the room were a half dozen men in fighting shape, and three people with their hands and ankles bound with sacks over their heads. Bok uncovered their heads and gestured to one of his followers. The man handed him a sheathed sword, which Bok in turn held to Lok and H’ghar hilt first. “They know where the Novian leaders are,” said Bok. “If you want them as you say, this is how you’ll find them.” H’ghar was quick to act. He took the sword, scabbard and all, and kneeled on the ground in front of the three captives.

One of the captives was a small old man with peppered gray hair. He looked terribly frightened, and had obviously been beaten. One eye was swollen shut and he had numerous small cuts on his face. The older of the two women looked like she might be pretty without the bruises on her face, and the third was a homely young thing, not much more than a girl. She was unbeaten but nearly paralyzed with fear. Her lower lip quivered violently, flicking bits of spittle into the air. She sobbed as H’Ghar leaned in front of her. He placed the scabbard on the ground, drew the sword enough to expose a hand’s width of naked steel, then brushed some tears off the girl’s cheek.

“We’re all afraid, child,” he said, “all of us. Whatever these men want to know, please tell them. And then at least you will have no more need for fear.”

She managed to shake her head and whimper the word can’t.

H’ghar leaned back and sat cross legged on the stone floor, keeping the sword between him and the girl. “You wish for the doomed man to be returned don’t you? Please, tell me what you can. I won’t ask you what these men already have. Do you want the doomed to continue to suffer? Even if their crimes don’t warrant their pain?”

She sobbed hard and shook her head. The old man too was sobbing now and began to speak. One of Bok’s men quickly gagged him and the older woman. The young girl stifled a shriek, then struggled to regain her composure. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” she managed to say.

“None of us do,” H’Ghar said gently. “But outside our gates is an army that does wish us harm. We can’t afford to be at war both within and without. If we can’t heal our inner wounds, than we will surely fall to our enemies. If the Underguard had never existed, then we would not be experiencing this turmoil, and we’d have several thousand more strong men defending us.”

“But, the doomed man, if he’d stayed…”

“What’s your name, girl? Please tell me.”

“Sh-Shiloh…”

“Shiloh, that man is innocent of any crime. Why would you wish him torn from his family.”

Lok saw tears streaming from the eyes of the old man. He was starting to wonder who they were, and why they opposed the doomed being reclaimed.

“M-my father was m-m-murdered…”

It came together for Lok. This was her mother and grandfather.

“Not by Koll Ladhu,” said H’Ghar.

The girl wept openly for a moment, then spoke. “Neph,” she said, “his name is Neph. He’s behind everything. I don’t know where he is.” She buried her face in her hands and wept shamefully. Her mother glared while her grandfather lowered his hide. H’Ghar pushed the sword back in its scabbard, rose, and handed the weapon back to Bok.

“We have men who can find Neph,” the young man said, “you two, come with me.” They followed him through halls and roads, ohr-tempus and winch lift, until they made their way to the passages that had once been sealed off but were now reopen. The passages lead to a hidden door in the outer walls of Forvangur.