“Wheold me that the Underkeepers were going to bee a guard anization, and that we were going to open applications to the general public, I told him he was out of his mind -- and he was!” Fiora looked around at the humans, dwarves, goblins and gnomes assembled in the ter of the Uy Market.

  Behiood what Bernt assumed was going to be some kind of mo – currently covered in an enormous sheet of cloth. It hadn’t been there st night.

  She offered them a wry smile. “But Ed has always been the best kind of crazy. He didn’t care that nobody had dohis kind of thing before. He wanted ge, so he made it happen. Or rather, he invited you to make it happen, and you showed up. Now, barely a month ter, you stepped up to defend this city against invasion, and our new unity in it. We were new and ued, but you trusted in yourselves and in us – many of you proved it by moving your families down here. That trust was vindicated when the Duergar came for us in ford we stood in the way.”

  Fiora paused for a moment, lending gravity to her words. “Many of us aren’t here today to appreciate our hard-won victory, but their families are. Some won’t be able to return to work, but their families will. We’re here today to memorialize those who didn’t make it…”

  As Fiora tinued, Bernt noticed just hoeople had turned out to watch. The Underkeepers were a retively small anization, numbering barely over a hundred people when the Duergar attacked. Now, he estimated that they had maybe 70 left. Most of those were deaths, but a few had been maimed and would be forced into retirement.

  Bernt stood he back of the Underkeepers, behind Nirlig and his father and a few gnomes, but the crowd was much rger than that. Beyond the cluster of grey-derkeepers stood hundreds more people. Many of them were the families of the dead, but others were passersby and people who’d e to shop at the market only to discover a ceremony in progress.

  Still others were evacuees from the surface. For many from the Crafters' District, the reality that their homes had been pletely destroyed was only now starting to sink i expected that some had taken notice of the fact that their evacuation had beeirely managed by the Underkeepers, rather thay Guard.

  As the crowd grew, Fiora’s magically amplified voice grew in volume to match. Bernt hadn’t expected her to be a gifted public speaker, but she was. She had little difficulty holding the crowd’s attention, uding the dedication of the Underkeepers to their unity, and reaffirming the importand the value of their work. Whehahem for their service to the city of Halfbridge and drew down the cloth that obscured the mo, there were even a fes from the crowd.

  It was a bck stone obelisk. The Underkeepers’ symbol was carved at the top of each of the four faces and painted gold, a crest over an are glyph with a line down the middle. Bernt wasn’t sure exactly what the glyph meant, but the shape alone made it clear it was reted to hydromancy.

  The two faces that Bernt could see from where he was standing were inscribed with dwarvish runes and the strange goblin script that Lin had been using respectively. He couldn’t read dwarvish well, but he reized enough characters to realize that he was looking at the names of the dead. He stared at the goblin script, trying to work out how many here were – he still didn’t kly who was dead, and who he just hadn’t seen sihe battle. The text just looked like a tinuous lih little branches ing off of it.

  As the crowd started to disperse, he leaned over t. “You know, I think it would have beeer to carve it all in Beseri. This way, nobody’s going to be able to read the goblin names, and most people won’t be able to read the dwarvish or the gnomish oher.”

  Nirlig smiled. “No, it’s good. I think they did it because of us, actually. I guess Fiora knows about our s. Or maybe Kustov – he probably made it.”

  “What do you mean?” Bernt asked, puzzled.

  “We don’t write down the names of the dead.” Morix expiaking over from his son. “Only their direct desdants are allowed to speak their names or tell of them to others.”

  “Oh. Alright… what does it say, then?” Bernt asked, taken aback a bit. Why wouldn’t you be allowed to talk about the dead? Wouldn’t that mean anyone who died without children would be fotten inside a single geion?

  “It’s a poem about the battle – a song.” Morix expined. “Any goblin who es here get a first hand at right from the memorial, as long as they read. We don’t write down songs, normally, but I suppose Lin had to give Kustov something to appease him.”

  Bernt examihe script again, w exactly what it said. He started to ask, only to be cut off by the arrival of a rge, unfamiliar goblin who pushed past him as she berated Morix.

  “My poor nephew, just look at his hand! I told my sister that you were trouble! I told her! The poor boy! How is he ever going to meet a nice young woman like that? You’ve always been reckless, Morix, but this is too much!”

  Bernt backed up, extrig himself. That would be Nirlig’s infamous Aunt Striga, he guessed, and he did not want to answer questions about Jht now. Besides, he o get to the surface. He still hadn’t found the time to che on Therion and the others and he wao make sure they were alright.

  ***

  “Tell me about Nuros.” Iria said in Duergar, walking in a slow circle around her prisohe abjurer she’d captured was shackled to a st inside a circle of wards. She’d prepared her questions ahead of time, and brought one of her mages, a dwarf who cimed to uand the nguage well enough to help her if she didn’t uand something.

  When you were questioning someone, preparation was critical. You o know what to ask and how to ask it, and you had to make sure you took your time about it. Ironically, rushing to get aeo result in stall tactics. It gave people the idea that they could ‘win’ by just holding out for a while. Not that she predicted it would be an issue with a Duergar.

  “Our sources suggest he’s not your prince, but rather the demon possessing him,” she went on. “So I wonder. Why doesn’t anyone speak the name of the warlock – your prince? Was he hiding his identity? Why? We already know we’re fighting the Duergar Empire. For the gods' sake, you sent us an ambassador!”

  The dwarf stood impassively, watg her whenever she passed by in front of him. He didn’t try to follow her with his gaze, and he didn’t appear intimidated. her did he seem overly resistant. The Duergar mage just looked weary.

  Enki, her interpreter, grunted something impatient sounding at the prisoner, who sighed. After another lengthy pause, he finally responded.

  “You do not fight the Empire.” he said slowly, staring at her as if trying to make sure she uood. “The Empire is big…. we are a small… the surface region…” he tinued, but Iria didn’t uand the rest. Fortunately Enki noticed and helpfully transted.

  “He’s saying they’re only a small part of the empire – their ‘king’ is something more like a regional governor, by the sound of it. Their kihem out to 'y low' the enemies of the Empire, or something like that. I'm guessiher he or Nuros just wao get to the surface for his own purposes.”

  “To harvest souls. As we found out.” Iria said darkly. She returo her pag, thinking out loud. “Though I don't think they really cared about us specifically. They were fighting the kobolds, first. We might just be a target of opportunity. Did they even knoere here?"

  Enki shrugged. "I doubt he's going to give us an ho answer, but probably. We knew about them, after all, at least to a point."

  Iria nodded. "To a point, yes. We khe Duergar Empire was rger than Besermark, though he’s certainly trying to make it sound mubsp;rger.”

  This might be a good thing. If the rger empire saw this entire war as a meaningless border skirmish, then Nuros’ influence likely didend beyond this single ‘’kingdom’ within the Empire. It meant there might be political fault lio exploit here. For that matter, was their tral gover even aware of the flict? She would o gather more information.

  Filing that away, she turned back to the enemy mage, repeating her question in Duergar. “So, why do we still not know the name of the Duergar warlock behind all this?”

  “Because you asked a summoner, I assume,” he said matter-of-factly. “Summourn their eyes from every cra the stone.”

  Iria blinked and looked over to Enki, who expined.

  “He means their warlocks prefer to ignore obvious problems. I’m going to guess he doesn’t think very much of them.”

  Iria scoffed. “Then why go to war for them? And what the hells does it mean?”

  Enki fired off her questions in Duergar. Iria could mostly uand her, but it took too long to try to put the senteogether coherently on her own. She frowned. Who would have thought that she was ever going to o have a serious versation in Duergar?

  The dwarf answered easily this time, speaking faster and quite a bit longer. Enki grimaced in disgust after a few sentences. It was something about the king and some kind of versation he had with Nuros. Did he mean the prince? As he talked, Enki’s grimace melted into horrified fasation. When he finished, she spat on the ground as if trying to get a bad taste out of her mouth.

  “What is it?” she asked. What could get that kind of rea?

  “Their king is called Grundrik. He’s an a warlock of some kind, apparently. Unnaturally a. He initially pacted Nuros a few decades before this fellow here was born. Powerful demons like that don’t grow on trees. You ’t just give it a soul or tayment. So the rumor is that he gave the demon his young son, instead. It’s a rumor, because nobody actually firm that he had a son, just that the duergar Nuros was riding around bore a family resembo Grundrik. If the Solicitors said that the demons called him a duergar prihough… well, what reason would they have to lie? He's beehat eime, building influen their kingdom.”

  Iria scowled. What a disaster. It was the fall of the Madurian Empire all ain.