"Are you going to eat that cheese?" Boпndil interrupted. "It'll fall into the fire if you don't get on with it soon." Tungdil handed him the skewer wordlessly and the warrior wolfed it down. "Much appreciated."
Boлndal resumed his account. "Your adopted family took pity on you and carried you off. They took you to Lot-Ionan for one simple reason: No one would ever think of looking in a magus's household for a dwarf."
"You do realize that dwarves have no truck with the long-uns' wizardry, don't you?" Boпndil said suspiciously.
"Quiet!" his brother shushed him. "Just let me finish." He turned back to Tungdil. "So now you know why you grew up in Ionandar, miles from your kinsfolk. When the assembly of dwarves heard of your existence, it was obliged to summon you in accordance with our laws and consider your claim to the throne."
Tungdil held the canteen to his lips and took a long draft. "I don't mean to be rude," he murmured weakly, "but it can't be true. Lot-Ionan would have told me."
"He intended to tell you on your return." Boлndal produced a letter from his pack. It was written in the magus's hand. "He gave me this, in case you didn't believe us."
Tungdil unfurled the parchment, fingers trembling, and scanned the lines. The story was true, down to the last detail.
All I wanted was to meet a few of my kinsfolk, not be crowned king of all dwarves. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't do it. I'll gladly accompany you to Ogre's Death, but the other contender should be crowned." He laughed wryly. "How could I rule over anyone? No one will ever accept me as a dwarf. They'll think I'm a-"
Suddenly a morsel of stinking cheese was thrust under his nose. "Stop grousing," snapped Boпndil. "It's a long way to Ogre's Death. We'll make a dwarf of you yet." The molten cheese wobbled threateningly. "You may as well start now." He still had a faintly crazed look in his eyes. "Go on, taste it!"
Tungdil pulled the warm cheese from the stick and popped it in his mouth. It tasted revolting. His fingers would reek for orbits, not to mention his breath. "I can't do it," he said firmly. "I promised to deliver the pouch to Gorйn."
"You don't have to come right away," Boпndil said magnanimously. "It's not far from here to Greenglade village. We'll go with you."
His brother nodded. "And you don't have to worry about the magus; he's given us his blessing already."
"What if you were to return without me?"
The brothers exchanged a look.
"Well," Boлndal said thoughtfully, "I expect they'd crown Gandogar, but no one would ever accept him as the rightful king." He fixed his brother with a meaningful stare.
"Exactly," Boпndil put in quickly. "There'd be all kinds of arguments and whatnot. Some of the chieftains might even…well, they wouldn't take orders from him, so before you know it, there'd be terrible feuds and…" He gazed into the flames for inspiration, then rushed on. "It could all end in war! The clans and the folks would fight each other, and you'd be to blame!" He sat back with a satisfied expression on his face.
Tungdil didn't know what to make of it all. Too much had happened since that morning. Having never raised his ax in anger, he had slain two orcs in succession and now his kinsfolk were trying to bundle him onto the throne. He needed time to reflect. "I'll think it over," he promised them, curling up beside the fire and closing his eyes wearily.
Boпndil cleared his throat and began to sing. It was a dwarven ballad with deep mysterious syllables that charmed the ear, telling of the time before time began… Desirous of life, the deities fashioned themselves. Vraccas the Smith was forged from fire, rock, and steel. Palandiell the Bountiful rose from the earth. The winds gave birth to Samusin the Rash. Elria the Helpful, creator and destroyer, emerged from the water. And darkness fused with light in Tion the Two-Faced. Such are the five deities, the… For Tungdil, the song ended there. It was the first time in his life that he had heard a dwarven ballad sung by his kin and the sound was so soothing that it lulled him to sleep.
Tungdil awoke with the smell of cheese in his nostrils and his mind made up: He would go with the twins to the secondling kingdom. His doubts had been conquered by a desire to meet more of his kin.
"Just so you know, I haven't changed my mind about being high king," he told them. "I'm doing this only because I want to see my kinsfolk."
"It's all the same to us," Boлndal said equably. "The main thing is you've decided to come." He and his brother packed their bags and they set off briskly. "The sooner we get to Greenglade, the sooner we'll be home. Eight hundred miles are a good long way."
"We'll accompany you to the edge of the village and no farther," snapped Boпndil. "We want nothing to do with that elf maiden. It's bad enough having to walk through an elfish forest, let alone visit an elf house or whatever they build for themselves." He made a show of spitting into the bushes.
"What did the elf maiden ever do to you?" Tungdil ran his hand over Gorйn's bag; there was no avoiding the fact that some of the artifacts were no longer in their original state. The encounter with the orc's sword had done them no favors, which made him doubly certain that the beast had deserved its fate. "Six hundred miles!" he muttered crossly. "Six hundred miles through Gauragar, through Lios Nudin, past beasts and other dangers without the artifacts coming to any harm, only for a confounded orc to ruin everything. Another three or four hours and I could have handed them over, safe and sound!" He hoped the wizard would be understanding.
Boпndil's mind was still on the elves. "Oh, she didn't have to do anything! Her race has caused enough trouble as it is," he blurted out angrily. "Those self-satisfied, arrogant pointy-ears are enough to-"
Overcome with fury, he whipped out his axes and fell upon a sapling, swinging at it with unbridled rage.
Boлndal, an impassive expression on his face, lowered his packs, pushed his long plait over his shoulder, and waited for the outburst to end.
"He does this sometimes," he explained to the dumbfounded Tungdil. "His inner furnace burns stronger than most. Sometimes it flares up and he can't contain his anger. It's why we call him Ireheart."
"His inner furnace?"
"Vraccas alone can explain it. Anyway, take my advice and keep out of his way. It's fatal to challenge him when he gets like this." Boлndal sighed. "He'll be all right again once his furnace has cooled."
Boпndil finished hacking the sapling to pieces. "Bloody pointy-ears! I feel better now." Without a word of apology, he wiped the sap and splinters from his blades and carried on. "We need to find a proper name for you," he grumbled. "Bolofar is no better than Belly fluff, Sillystuff, or Starchy ruff; it's plain daft! We'll come up with something on the way." He glanced at Tungdil. "What are your talents?"
"Er, reading…"
"Book-learning!" Boлndal burst out laughing. "I should have guessed you were a scholar! But we can't call you Pagemuncher or Bookeater. Dwarves should be proud of their names!"
"Reading's important. It-"
"Oh, books are very useful when it comes to fighting orcs. You could have killed the whole band of them with the right bit of poetry!"
Boпndil looked at Tungdil and frowned. "No one could call you a warrior, but you've certainly got the build for it. Your hands are nice and strong-with a bit of practice, it might come right."
Tungdil sighed. "I like metalwork."
"That's not exactly unusual for a dwarf. How about-" Boлndal trailed off and sniffed the air attentively. His brother did the same. "Something's burning," he told them, alarmed. "Wood and… scorched flesh! It must be a raid." Boпndil pulled out both axes and broke into a jog. The other two followed.
The trees grew farther apart as the path rounded a corner and emerged into a clearing. Until recently, the spot had been home to a settlement, but the elf maiden's haven at the heart of the forest had been ravaged by flames. Charred ruins hinted at the former elegance of the many-platformed dwellings that were set about the boles of the tallest trees. The carved arches, smooth wooden beams, and panels embellished with elven runes and gold leaf were so perfectly at one with the forest that they seemed to have grown with the wood.