1For the Love of Me Son“We must be quicker!” the human commented, for the hundredth time that morning, it seemed to the more than two score dwarves moving in a line all around him. Galen Firth appeared quite out of place in the torchlit, smoky tunnels. Tall even for a human, he stood more than head and shoulders above the short and sturdy bearded folk.
“I got me scouts up ahead, working as fast as scouts can work,” replied General Dagna, a venerable warrior of many battles.
The old dwarf stretched and straightened his still-broad shoulders, and tucked his dirty yellow beard into his thick leather girdle, then considered Galen with eyes still sharp, a scrutinizing gaze that had kept the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer ducking defensively out of sight for many, many decades. Dagna had been a well-respected war commander for as long as anyone could remember, longer than Bruenor had been king, and before Shimmergloom the shadow dragon and his duergar minions had conquered Mithral Hall. Dagna had climbed to power through deed, as a warrior and field commander, and no one questioned his prowess in leading dwarves through difficult conflicts. Many had expected Dagna to lead the defense of the cliff face above Keeper’s Dale, even ahead of venerable Banak Brawnanvil. When that had not come to pass, it was assumed Dagna would be named as Steward of the Hall while Bruenor lay near death.
Indeed, both of those opportunities had been presented to Dagna, and by those in a position to make either happen. But he had refused.
“Ye wouldn’t have me tell me scouts to run along swifter and maybe give themselves away to trolls and the like, now would ye?” Dagna asked.
Galen Firth rocked back on his heels a bit at that, but he didn’t blink and he didn’t stand down. “I would have you move this column as swiftly as is possible,” he replied. “My town is sorely pressed, perhaps overrun, and in the south, out of these infernal tunnels, many people may now be in dire jeopardy. I would hope that such would prove an impetus to the dwarves who claim to be our neighbors.”
“I claim nothing,” Dagna was fast to reply. “I do what me steward and me king’re telling me to do.”
“And you care not at all for the fallen?”
Galen’s blunt question caused several of the nearby dwarves to suck in their breath, aimed as it was at Dagna, the proud dwarf who had lost his only son only a few tendays earlier. Dagna stared long and hard at the man, burying the sting that prompted him to an angry response, remembering his place and his duty.
“We’re going as fast as we’re going, and if ye’re wanting to be going faster, then ye’re welcome to run up ahead. I’ll tell me scouts to let ye pass without hindrance. Might even be that I’ll keep me march going over your dead body when we find yerself troll-eaten in the corridors ahead. Might even be that yer Nesmé kin, if any’re still about, will get rescued without ye.” Dagna paused and let his glare linger a moment longer, a silent assurance to Galen Firth that he was hardly bluffing. “Then again, might not be.”
That seemed to take some of the steam from Galen, and the man gave a great “harrumph” and turned back to the tunnel ahead, stomping forward deliberately.
Dagna was beside him in an instant, grabbing him hard by the arm.
“Pout if ye want to pout,” the dwarf agreed, “but ye be doing it quietly.”
Galen pulled himself away from the dwarf’s vicelike grasp, and matched Dagna’s stare with his own glower.
Several nearby dwarves rolled their eyes at that and wondered if Dagna would leave the fool squirming on the floor with a busted nose. Galen hadn’t been like that until very recently. The fifty dwarves had accompanied him out of Mithral Hall many days before, with orders from Steward Regis to do what they could to aid the beleaguered folk of Nesmé. Their journey had been steady and straightforward until they had been attacked in the tunnels by a group of trolls. That fight had sent them running, a long way to the south and out into the open air on the edges of the great swamp, the Trollmoors, but too far to the east, by Galen Firth’s reckoning. So they had started west, and had found more tunnels. Against Galen’s protests, Dagna had decided that his group would be better served under cover of the westward-leading underground corridors. More dirt than stone, with roots from trees and brush dangling over their heads and with crawly things wriggling in the black dirt all around them, the tunnels weren’t like those they’d used to come south from Mithral Hall. That only made Galen all the more miserable. The tunnels were tighter, lower, and not as wide, which the dwarves thought a good thing, particularly with huge and ugly trolls chasing them, but which only made Galen spend half his time walking bent over.
“Ye’re pushing the old one hard,” a young dwarf, Fender Stouthammer by name, remarked when they took their next break and meal. He and Galen were off to the side of the main group, in a wider and higher area that allowed Galen to stretch his legs a bit, though that had done little to improve his sour mood.
“My cause is—”
“Known to us, and felt by us, every one,” Fender assured him. “We’re all feeling for Mithral Hall in much the same way as ye’re feeling for Nesmé, don’t ye doubt.”
The calming intent of Fender didn’t find a hold on Galen, though, and he wagged his long finger right in the dwarf’s face, so close that Fender had to hold himself back from just biting the digit off at the knuckle.
“What do you know of my feelings?” Galen growled at him. “Do you know my son, huddled in the cold, perhaps? Slain, perhaps, or with trolls all about him? Do you know the fate of my neighbors? Do you—”
“General Dagna just lost his boy,” Fender interrupted, and that set Galen back a bit.
“Dagnabbit was his name,” Fender went on. “A mighty warrior and loyal fellow, as are all his kin. He fell to the orc horde at Shallows, defending his king and kin to the bitter end. He was Dagna’s only boy, and with a career as promising as that of his father. Long will dwarf bards sing the name of Dagnabbit. But I’m guessing that thought’s hardly cooling the boil in old Dagna’s blood, or hardly plastering the crack in his old heart. And now here ye come, ye short-livin’, cloud-sniffin’ dolt, demanding this and demanding that, as if yer own needs’re more important than any we dwarves might be knowing. Bah, I tried to take ye in stride. I tried to see yer side of the fear. But ye know, ye’re a pushy one, and one that’s more likely to get boot-trampled into the stone than to ever see yer home again if ye don’t learn to shut yer stupid mouth.”
The obviously flabbergasted Galen Firth just sat there for a moment, stuttering.
“Are you threatening me, a Rider of Nesmé?” he finally managed to blurt.
“I’m telling ye, as a friend or as an enemy—choice is yer own to make—that ye’re not helping yerself or yer people by fighting with Dagna at every turn in the tunnel.”
“The tunnel . . .” the stubborn man spat back. “We should be out in the open air, where we might hear the calls of my people, or see the light of their fires!”
“Or find ourselves surrounded by an army o’ trolls, and wouldn’t that smell wonderful?”
Galen Firth gave a snort and held up his hand dismissively. Fender took the cue, rose, and started away.
He did pause long enough to look back and offer, “Ye keep acting as if ye’re among enemies, or lessers. If all the folk o’ Nesmé are as stupid as yerself—too dumb to know a friend when one’s ready to help—then who’s to doubt that the trolls might be doing all the world a favor?”
Galen Firth trembled, and for a moment Fender half expected the man to leap up and try to throttle him.
“I came to you, to Mithral Hall, in friendship!” he argued, loudly enough to gain the attention of those dwarves crowded around Dagna in the main chamber down the tunnel.
“Yerself came to Mithral Hall in need, offerin’ nothing but complaints and asking for more than we could give ye,” Fender corrected. “And still Steward Regis, and all the clan, accepted the responsibility of friendship—not the burden, but the responsibility, ye dolt! We ain’t here because we’re owing Nesmé a damned thing, and we ain’t here asking Nesmé for a damned thing, and in the end, even yerself should be smart enough to know that we’re all hopin’ for the same thing here. And that thing’s finding yer boy, and all the others of yer town, alive and well.”
The blunt assessment did give Galen pause, and in that moment, before he could decide whether to scream or to punch out, Fender rolled up to his feet, offered a dismissive, “Bah!” and waved his calloused hands the man’s way.
“Ye might be thinking to make a bit less noise, yeah?” came a voice from the other direction, that of General Dagna, who glared at the two.
Copyright © 2026 by R.A. Salvatore. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
