The dwarves who went down the mountain and the warriors who were protecting them lost their homeland, and they became a wandering people. They crossed to the north with many refugees, living lives full of suffering and humiliation. But in spite of it all, they grit their teeth, kept the words of their lord in their heart, and for the next two hundred years, some as craftsmen, others as mercenaries, they survived.
“That is our secret, the tale passed down among the people of the Iron Mountains,” said the bald dwarf Agnarr, his face flushed red from alcohol. “I wasn’t born at the time. As for Grendir…”
Grendir, the white-haired dwarf, was crying. It was probably half because he had some strong firewater in him, but even so, he really was a mess of tears.
I had asked them if they would talk to me about their past, and they had quietly nodded and told me their story.
“I… We had only just been appointed warriors to the king at the time…”
Grendir snivelled like a child. “We couldn’t even fight beside the warriors who came before us… We just had to obey the order and… run away with the others…” He broke into sobs. Agnarr watched over him uncertainly.
Eventually, he continued. “And that was not easy. It was cold… and too hard a journey for the children… Oh, the children… They kept dying. There was a bright boy, always smiling and urging everyone around him to keep going, and he became increasingly exhausted, until even a smile was more than he could muster… He was a shell of himself, and then a cold was all it took, he stopped moving, even, and… just died. He died on my back as I carried him!”
The long train of refugees suffered random attacks by lone demons. There was dissension over their scarce food supply. And even when they reached a town, there were more of them than the towns could handle. It was the same when they crossed to the north; they were just one group of many in the same situation, and found it very difficult to find jobs.
“I no longer remember how many died. Slurping mud and gnawing on tree roots wasn’t the worst by far. Young women sold their youth for bowls of porridge for their children. Some of the men who couldn’t stand by any longer turned to thievery and were beaten to death for it. We were skin and bone, reduced to begging…”
I quietly listened to him talk and realized that the dwarf-lord’s bravery and the people’s anguish had already brought tears to my eyes.
“And yet we lived… We lived. We overcame that age of chaos and lived through the next two hundred years. Somehow, we lived through…” Grendir spoke quietly. “And then you, William, you returned this land back to the hands of people. Not only that, you even cry with us.”
Grendir gazed up in the direction of the Rust Mountains — no, the Iron Mountains.
“Someday, we’ll be able to go back. Someday, we’ll be able to return it all to the way it was. Someday, we’ll be able to achieve what our ruler ordered…” His voice was shaking. “How precious a thing it is to be able to believe that… How grateful we are…”
As Grendir thanked me over and over, he slowly fell into an alcohol-induced sleep. He had been downing drink after strong drink to help him talk about his painful memories, so it was only natural.
“Grendir must have been happy to bare his heart to someone,” Agnarr said, smiling. “That is our history. I hope you can understand.”
“Thank you so much. That must have been incredibly difficult for you both.”
“You’re welcome.”
There were a few more words to wrap things up, and then I departed Agnarr’s mansion.
I had been so engrossed in their story of the past as we all drank together that I hadn’t noticed how much time had gone by. When I got outside, it was already evening. The dwarves had finished their work and were either returning to their houses or stopping by taverns.
As for me, I was doing a lot of thinking. I thought about those mountains of iron, the dwarves who were left behind, the feelings of the then-monarch Aurvangr. I thought about Blood, Mary, and Gus, who had lived during that time; the fearsome High King; and the Union Age, when the world was prosperous and peaceful. I also thought about the Lord of Holly’s prophecy.
And as I walked aimlessly with my thoughts wandering over all these things, it suddenly occurred to me how dark it had gotten. It was already nighttime.
Because there weren’t many lights here, night was a lot darker in this world than in my past one.
As I stood confused in front of a row of nondescript houses wondering what street I was on, the light from a tavern caught my eye. I decided to walk over. I was sure that if I got a look at the sign hanging outside, I’d at least be able to figure out what street this was. This “city” was small enough for that to work.
Then, I heard some kind of commotion and the sound of someone being punched. Was there a tavern brawl going on? I quickened my pace, and someone came crashing backwards out of the door to the tavern. I hurriedly caught him.
His braided black hair fluttered.
“Oh!”
It was that dwarf who had come to see my morning training. He looked like he had been badly beaten.
After catching him, I froze for a second in surprise. He looked surprised as well, but recovered before I could. Ducking a quick bow to me, he went straight back into the fray inside the tavern, yelling out, “Stop this!”
It only took a short glance to tell me most of what I needed to know about what was going on inside. The tavern was a mess of tipped-over tables and chairs, and two male customers, both human, were in there having a fight. They both looked like pretty muscular craftsmen, and their faces were red. They probably had a lot of alcohol in them already.
“Ahh! Stay outta this!”
“This ain’t got no’n’a do with you! Bug off!”
The two of them started getting heated, breathing heavily, stinking of booze.
The other patrons were either watching from a distance and trying not to get involved, or deliberately fanning the flames from the sidelines. The young tavern girl looked troubled.
“Please, stop, I said!” The dwarf was trying to physically separate the two of them, but he wasn’t very good at it. In fact, he was just getting thumped and shoved away without any effort. I couldn’t really understand it. He looked strong enough to me from where I was standing.
Then it clicked: he wasn’t used to physical fighting. He was timid, and the way he moved showed he was afraid of hurting either of them, which put the craftsmen who were used to fighting and committed to their punches at an obvious advantage.
In this dangerous age, it was unusual to see someone so unused to fighting.
With his muscle and physique, the dwarf could just grab hold of one of them and squeeze as hard as he could, and it would be pretty effective.
“You want a fight, I’ll give you a fight!”
“Sto— pmfh?! ”
Ouch. That looked like it hurt.
There was a reason, by the way, that I was just standing by and watching: no one had yet drawn any weapons. This wasn’t the peaceful society of my previous world; here, it was the norm for even craftsmen to keep at least a dagger with them on their belts or hidden in an inside pocket. They hadn’t drawn those, and what’s more, they weren’t getting violent against anyone else. In other words, though the people here may have been getting riled up, they were all exercising at least a minimum of restraint by this world’s standards.
“Do it outside, you’re disturbing the other— gmf!”
“Just shut your piehole!”
“Butt out already!”
I thought I should probably just watch for a little longer. The dwarf was doing his best to keep them off each other, after all, and they probably had a reason for fighting. If I, the liege lord, stepped in all of a sudden, it would just make everything into a big deal and—