“They are our only hope,” Frost told him, his tone quieter but no less dire.
“There’s no reason to believe they can do anything,” Gronbach responded.
“Do you think we would have risked execution if we didn’t know? If we weren’t sure?” Flood said. He pointed at Arion. “She is Miralyith, just like Fenelyus. We saw her open the ground, which swallowed a giant.” Then he pointed at Suri. “She is her apprentice, and killed that same giant. If anyone can do something, it’s them.”
“You have to let them try,” Frost said. He glanced awkwardly at all of them and added, “None of us have a choice anymore.”
“Because of you!” Gronbach shouted. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone. More than six thousand years it was contained. Three hundred of our bravest warriors gave their lives to trap it, and you…” He began to say more, but then stopped himself, taking a moment to breathe deeply several times.
He looked back at Arion. “We don’t like each other, your kind and mine. An ocean of blood divides us. The law is clear. If I let you loose in the depths of our holy city of Neith, I will be thrown into the fires of Drumindor just as surely as these three.”
“But aren’t you the ruler of your kind?” Persephone asked.
Gronbach’s brows rose. “Of course not. I told you, I’m only the mayor of Caric.”
“Then shouldn’t we be speaking to the leader of your people?” She directed her question to Frost, who made a quick shake of his head.
“We no longer have a king,” Rain explained in the silence that followed. “Mideon was the last of the Belgriclungreian monarchs. When his daughter, Beatrice, died, so did the bloodline and the monarchy.”
“So who is in charge?” Persephone asked.
Gronbach appeared puzzled for a moment. “Well…no one.”
“Each city or village has a mayor or council,” Rain clarified.
“It’s one of the things we were hoping to fix,” Frost said, while stepping forward. “We need to reclaim the Stone Throne, crown a new king, and restore the monarchy and our people to greatness. The lack of a single ruler has doomed our people to divided bickering, too many petty disputes. Every village has its own way of doing things. We can’t even haul a cart from Linden Lott to Drumindor because the track of the road changes width. How can we possibly accomplish anything that way? We’re no different than Rhunes now; it’s impacting our crafts. We’re forgetting the old ways because the tools and recipes are buried under that mountain.”
Persephone addressed Gronbach, “So, if you are in charge…at least here…you can negotiate a trade, yes? If there is no one who’ll stop you, then—”
“Didn’t you listen?” Gronbach exclaimed. “Everyone would stop me. A mob would form and carry me to the fires of Drumindor, and they would have no trouble navigating the irregular road!”
Gronbach glared at Frost and then began stroking the length of his beard, his eyes shifting from side to side. He huffed, groaned, and finally sighed. “And yet…” he began. The dwarf had his jaw clenched, his mouth frowning deeply. “If we do nothing…”
Gronbach stood up and walked to the drawing on the wall. “Balgargarath reached the Great Anvil two days ago.” He tapped on the drawing. “Echo and Khem led teams down to seal the Great Gate at Rol Berg.” He tapped the drawing again, this time at a different spot. “Their efforts won’t hold. We don’t have long now. Khem estimates three weeks.”
“Two,” Rain said with conviction.
“Two?” Gronbach looked at him skeptically.
Frost and Flood both nodded.
“If Rain says two weeks,” Frost explained, “it’ll be two weeks.”
Gronbach’s shoulders slumped, his arms dangled limp at his sides, and his head hung. “We’re doomed.”
“Gronbach,” Frost said, “if this works, all of Neith will be open again. We can finally go home.”
“And if it doesn’t…”
“Then you’ll be dead even if you’re not dragged off to Drumindor. They”—Frost pointed to Persephone’s group—“are our best hope. Maybe our only hope. They have a Miralyith. Fenelyus created Mount Mador on the crushed bodies of the Tenth and Twelfth legions! Balgargarath will be vanquished.”
Gronbach seemed to soften.
“But we’ll do nothing without payment. Without weapons,” Persephone said.
The mayor of Caric looked over and expelled an unhappy laugh. “If you can do this thing for us, the Belgriclungreian Nation will…we’ll give you ten bronze swords.”
“You can’t be serious,” Moya burst out. “Ten! This giant sounds like a threat to your very way of life, and you offer just ten weapons? Forget it. Send us home like you wanted to in the first place. You can take care of this Balgargarath yourselves.”
“Moya, please.” Persephone shot her a let-me-take-care-of-this look, which Moya replied to with a roll of her eyes. Turning her attention back to Gronbach, Persephone said, “I want ten thousand bronze blades.”
“Ten thousand?” Gronbach’s eyes widened. “Never going to happen.”
Persephone firmed her jaw and stared.
“I will offer you one hundred blades,” the dwarf said.
“A thousand,” Persephone demanded. “That’s nine thousand less than I came for.”
“Perhaps, but no less ridiculous a number. I can’t produce a thousand bronze blades. We don’t even have the resources. We couldn’t make that many if we wanted them ourselves.”
“What about that?” Arion asked, pointing to the gray metal he’d been playing with.
Gronbach looked down. “This? This is…” He hesitated, and then hid the piece in one of the drawers. “Nothing.”
“It’s the same metal your weapons are made of, yes?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Persephone got the point. “Of course, it’s the gray metal you use, so you must have stores of it. We want one thousand of those weapons.”
“One hundred bronze swords is my offer,” Gronbach said.
“Then you can take care of this giant yourselves. I can’t fight a war with a hundred weapons no matter what they are made from. Give me one thousand of the weapons like your people use, or give us leave to go,” Persephone said.
Gronbach tugged on his beard and looked to Frost, Flood, and Rain, who nodded encouragingly. “All right, fine. One thousand weapons, but you can’t tell the Fhrey where you got them. They’ll know they’re Belgriclungreian blades, but they don’t need to know I was the one to provide them. Is it a deal?”
“Agreed,” she said, standing up. “We will rid you of this giant, and you’ll give us one thousand gray-metal swords.”
“Giant?” Gronbach hesitated and stared at her. “You realize Balgargarath isn’t a giant.”
“They said…” She looked at Flood.
“Oh, he’s plenty big—so technically that’s true—but he’s not a Grenmorian.”