The nearer of the two, whose sandy hair was pulled up in a clubbed topknot, ducked his head. "I am Thorgig Helmgard, son of Thane Kirhaz Helmgard, of the Diamondsmith clan of Karak Hirn, at your service and your clan's. This is my friend and clan brother Kagrin Deepmountain." The second dwarf, a round-faced youth with a brown beard even shorter than Thorgig's, ducked his head, but said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"We... We recognised your axe when you raised it," continued Thorgig, "though we have only heard it described."

Gotrek frowned at the name of the hold. "And that's excuse enough to interrupt a dwarf in his drinking, short-beard?"

Felix glanced at Gotrek. That was unusually brusque, even for him.

Thorgig coloured a little, but kept himself in check. "Forgive me, master Slayer. I only wanted to ask if you had come to Barak Varr to help your old friend, my liege, Prince Hamnir Ranulfsson, recover Karak Hirn, which was lost to the grobi not three weeks ago. He is organising an army among the refugees."

"Old friend, is it?" said Gotrek. "I wouldn't help Hamnir Ranulfsson finish a keg. If he's lost his father's hold it's no more than I'd expect." He turned back to his mug. "Off with you."

Thorgig's fists clenched. "You border close to insult, Slayer."

"Only close?" said Gotrek. "Then I've missed my mark. Hamnir Ranulfsson is an oathbreaking dog, not fit to shape tin or dig middens."

Felix edged back.

"Stand, Slayer," said Thorgig, his voice trembling. "I would not hit a sitting dwarf."

"Then I'll stay sitting. I don't want your death on my hands."

Thorgig's face was as red and mottled as Felix's cloak. "You won't stand? Are you a coward as well as a liar?"

Gotrek's hands froze on his mug and the muscles in his massive arms flexed, but then he relaxed. "Go back to Hamnir, lad. I've no grudge against you."

"But I've one against you." The young dwarfs posture was rigid with a mixture of fear and fury.

"Fair enough," said Gotrek, looking into his mug. "Come back when your beard reaches your belt and I'll take your measure, but at the moment, I'm drinking."

"More cowardice," said Thorgig. "You are a Slayer. You will be long dead by then."

Gotrek sighed morosely. "I'm beginning to doubt it."

Thorgig and his companion continued to stare at Gotrek while the Slayer downed his ale, lost in moody reflection, and Felix eyed the scene anxiously, every muscle ready to jump away at the first sign of a fight. He had watched Gotrek's back in battles with daemons, dragons and trolls, but only a madman got in the middle of brawling dwarfs.

After a long moment, the awkwardness of his position at last became too much for the young dwarf and he turned to his companion. "Come, Kagrin, we are fools to expect a Slayer to defend his honour. Do they not take the crest because they lost it long ago?"

Gotrek tensed again as the two dwarfs pushed through the crowd to the door, but he successfully stopped himself from going after them.

"What was all that about?" asked Felix when they were gone.

"Not your concern, manling." Gotrek drained his mug and stood. "Let's find another place."

Felix sighed and rose. "Another place will be better?"

"It won't be this place," came the reply.

Lodgings suddenly became available at the next tavern, a filthy dive called the Blind Alley, when two Tilean traders who had been staying there got in a fight with three Estalian sailors over the favours of a tavern girl, and all five of them were thrown out. There was a fierce bidding war for the room among the tavern's customers, but Gotrek showed the landlord a diamond the size of his thumbnail and the auction came to an abrupt end. He ordered a half keg of the tavern's best brew sent up and retired immediately.

Felix shook his head when he looked around the cramped, grimy room. There were mould stains on the walls, and the sheets on the two narrow cots tucked under the eaves were blotched and grey. "That diamond was the gift of the Caliph of Ras Karim," he said. "It might have bought a townhouse in Altdorf, and you used it to pay for this?"

"I want some peace," rumbled Gotrek, "and if you go on about it, you can sleep in the hall."

"Not I," said Felix, pulling back his cot's patched blanket dubiously. "I'll be too busy wrestling bed-bugs to speak."

"Just be quiet about it."

There was a deferential tap on the door, and two of the landlord's barmen waddled in with a half-keg. The mark of a Barak Varr dwarf brewery was branded on the side. They set it on the floor between the cots, then tapped it, left two mugs, and withdrew.

Gotrek turned the tap and let a few inches of ale slide down the side of the mug. He took a sip, then nodded, satisfied. "Not Bugman's, but not bad. Ten or twelve of these and I could sleep in a pig sty." He filled the mug to the brim and sat in the room's only chair.

"A pig sty might have been cleaner," said Felix. He filled his mug too, and took a swallow. The rich amber liquid flowed, cool and pleasingly sharp, down to his stomach, and sent a warm tingle through his limbs. At once, a mellow glow spread over the whole room, a golden patina that blinded one to the dirt and disrepair. "On the other hand, a pig sty wouldn't have this," he said, lifting the mug. He took a longer drink and sat down on his cot. A slat creaked ominously, and he slid toward the centre. He sighed. "So, is this what you mean to do while we wait out the week for the Celeste? Sit in this room and drink?"

"You have a better plan?"

Felix shrugged. "It just seems a waste of time."

"That's the trouble with men," said Gotrek, "no patience." He took a drink. Felix tried to think of a better plan, but couldn't, so he had another drink too.

Four or five mugs later another knock came on the door. Felix thought it was the landlord again, bringing up another half keg, and levered himself out of the sway-backed bed, but when he opened the door, a prosperous-looking dwarf stood in it, four more behind him in the shadows of the hall. Felix recognised young Thorgig and his silent friend Kagrin among them.

The dwarf in the door looked of an age with Gotrek — though it was hard to tell with dwarfs — but considerably less weathered. His chestnut brown beard flowed down his green and gold doublet, bulged over a comfortable paunch, and was tucked neatly under his belt. A pair of gold spectacles dangled from a gold chain clipped to his collar. He had square, broad features and clear brown eyes, currently flashing with suppressed anger. "Where is he?" he asked.

Gotrek looked up at the voice and glared balefully at the speaker from across the room. "Found me, did you?"

"There aren't many one-eyed Slayers in town."

Gotrek burped. "Well, now you can go again. I already told your boot-boy I wouldn't help."

The dwarf — Felix assumed it must be the aforementioned Hamnir Ranulfsson — stepped forwards, ignoring Felix entirely. "Gotrek — "

"You set foot in this room," said Gotrek, interrupting him. "I'll kill you. After what has passed between us, you've no reason to expect anything from me except a cleft skull."

Hamnir hesitated for a second, and then stepped deliberately into the room. It was an act of courage for, compared to Gotrek, he looked small and soft and fat. "Then kill me. I've swallowed a lot of pride coming here. I'll speak my piece."

Gotrek looked him over coldly from his chair. He shook his head. "You've become a shopkeep."

"And you've become a tavern bully by all accounts," said Hamnir.

"I told your boy my grudge was with you. I didn't fight him."

"I know our grudge, Gurnisson," said Hamnir, "which is why I don't come asking for myself, but for Karak Hirn, and all its clans, and for all the dwarfs and men of the Badlands as well. With Karak Hirn fallen there is no bastion to stop the grobi from raiding the countryside. It burns. Trade twixt dwarf and man has ceased. No grain for ale. No human gold for dwarf swords. The holds are slowly starving."

"And how did this tragedy come about?" asked Gotrek, sneering. "No fault of yours, surely."

Hamnir looked down, colouring. "The fault is mine more than anyone else's, I suppose. My father and older brother went north to join the forces fighting the Chaos invasion and left me with the running of Karak Hirn. As second son, I have dealt primarily with trade, as you know, and it has been my custom to come to Barak Van-to negotiate with the Tilean grain merchants, as they are known for their sharp practices and slippery ways."

"No sharper or slipperier than yours, I'm sure," muttered Gotrek.

Hamnir ignored him. "So I left the hold in the hands of Durin Torvaltsson, one of my father's advisors, too old to go to war, and — "

"The orcs took the hold while you were away arguing over wheat?" Gotrek's disgust was palpable.

Hamnir clenched his jaw. "We had no reason to expect an attack. The orcs were running wild in the Badlands, but they hadn't attacked the holds. Why would they when there were so many easier targets among the human settlements? But... but they did attack. We had been here three days when Thorgig and Kagrin slipped through the siege by night and found me. They said the orcs had come up from our mines, in overwhelming force. We were taken entirely unawares. Our alarms, our traps, all failed. Durin is dead, as are many others: Ferga, my betrothed, Thorgig's sister, may be one of them. I — "

"So you are to blame," said Gotrek.

"And if I am," said Hamnir, hotly, "does it change what has been lost and what more will be lost because of it? Can a true dwarf turn away?"

"I am a true Slayer, Ranulfsson," growled Gotrek, "sworn to seek a great death, and I won't find that fighting grobi in Karak Hirn. I'm going north. There are daemons in the north."

Hamnir spat. "That for Slayers: vain and selfish. They seek great deaths, not great deeds."

Gotrek stood, taking up his axe. "Get out."

The dwarfs in the hall put their hands on their axes and hammers, and stepped forwards, but Hamnir waved them back.

He glared at Gotrek. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this. I hoped you would do the right thing and come to the aid of Karak Hirn out of loyalty to your race, but I see that you are still the same old Gotrek Gurnisson, still more concerned with your own glory than the common good. Very well." He raised his chin, pushing his beard out like an auburn waterfall. "Before the oath was made that birthed the grudge between us, there was another, spoken when we first became friends."

"You dirty — " said Gotrek.

"We vowed," continued Hamnir, talking over him, "with blood passed between us, that come what may on life's bitter road, if called upon, we would aid and defend each other as long as there was still blood in our veins and life in our limbs to do so. I call on that vow now."

Gotrek's single eye blazed and he advanced on Hamnir, axe raised. Hamnir paled, but stood firm. Gotrek stopped before him, trembling, and then whipped the axe down, so close to Hamnir's side that it shaved some stray threads from his sleeve, then bit into the floorboards.

Hamnir let out a relieved breath.

Gotrek punched him in the nose so hard that he landed on his neck at the feet of his dwarfs. They stepped forwards to cover him, but Gotrek stayed where he was.

"You've some gall calling on an oath, after what you've done," Gotrek said as Hamnir tried to raise his bleeding head, "but, unlike some, I have never broken a vow. I'll join your army, but this foolishness better be finished before the war is over in the north." He turned his back on the dwarfs in the door and picked up his mug. "Now, get out. I'm drinking."

CHAPTER THREE

A wide boulevard, the Rising Road, ran straight through Barak Varr from the docks to the back wall of the enormous cavern where the holds of the port's founding clans were built into the solid rock in the more traditional dwarf manner, each with a fortified front door topped with the clan sigil. The boulevard pierced the back wall and continued on, rising, straight and broad and gradual, through the earth to the surface, where it opened within a sturdy dwarf fortress, built to defend the landside entrance.

On this road, three days later, Hamnir Ranulfsson, Prince of Karak Hirn, mustered his army of refugee dwarfs — five hundred doughty warriors from a score of clans, along with dwarf smiths and surgeons, and bustling dwarf wives, overseeing wagons full of food, camp gear and supplies, all headed for Rodenheim Castle, a human keep near Karak Hirn where, according to Thorgig, the survivors of the orc invasion had taken refuge. The castle too had been ravaged by orcs, Baron Rodenheim slaughtered with all his vassals, but the green horde had soon abandoned it for fresh pillage, and the dwarfs had moved in.

Banners waved proudly at the head of Hamnir's column. The force was well kitted out with armour, shields, axes, crossbows, handguns and cannon — as well as provisions and fodder — for Barak Varr had helped outfit the army. Felix didn't doubt that this was because the dwarfs of the port wished Hamnir every success in regaining Karak Hirn and assuring the security of the dwarf race, but no doubt the fact that, with his force gone, they would have six hundred less mouths to feed probably had something to do with it as well.

Felix was the only man in the long column. This was not yet an army of general liberation. The dwarfs were going to take back Karak Hirn, and men were not invited freely into a dwarf hold, no matter how desperate the situation. Only Felix's status as "Dwarf Friend" and Gotrek's "rememberer" allowed him to join the dwarfs' solemn ranks. He stood with Gotrek near the front of the force while they waited for all the clans to form up.

There was a fair amount of argument about the order of march, with each clan claiming some ancient honour or precedent that would put them closer to the front, and Felix could see Hamnir standing in the centre of a crowd of clan leaders doing his best to keep his temper while he arbitrated amongst them.

Gleaming gromril armour covered Hamnir head-to-toe — if a little snug about the waist — and over this was belted a dark green surcoat stitched with Karak Hirn's sigil of a horn over a stone gate. A shield over his back had the same design, and he wore on his head an elaborate winged helm, the cheek and nose guards of which did not quite hide his lumpy broken nose and his two purple-tinged black eyes.

Gotrek swayed beside Felix, moaning, and propping himself up with his axe. True to his original intention, he had spent the last three days in their filthy room, blind drunk for the few hours he was awake each day. Yet it had been him — with a dwarf's uncanny ability to know the time under or above ground, in light or dark — that had woken Felix two hours ago and told him to get ready. Now, however, with nothing to do but wait and, eventually, march, the effects of the previous night's binge had caught up with him.