Dark Thane

Mog closed his eyes, trying to remember. "I do recall something tugging at me, and a face… a face!" He slapped his knee and pointed at the old dwarf. "I thought you were death come to take me."

Smiling, Ogduan pulled a battered trunk from under the bed and flipped back its lid, revealing a carefully folded black robe, a leather-bound book, and a white skull mask. "Not death, just a death skald," he said.

Mog shrank back from the skald in horror. " B u t… no one is allowed to know the identity of a death skald. Why are you telling me?"

Ogduan shrugged, looking around innocently. "Who are you going to tell?"

Mog stared at the strange dwarf, pondering. "I can't place your name, stranger, and you look like you could be just about any of the five clans," he said. "So what clan are you from?"

"I'm not exactly of any clan," the dwarf said. "I'm a death skald, after all."

"But who are the Bloodspikes? I've never heard the name before."

The old dwarf shrugged as he returned to his place beside the cooking fire. "I'm not surprised," he said, lifting a battered pewter ladle from its hook and dipping it into the pot. He leaned closer, shielding his face from the heat of the fire as he stirred and stirred.

Resting his hands upon the coverlet, Mog waited for what the old dwarf would say next. "So you live here alone?" he finally asked.

"Mostly," came the gruff reply. "I expect you are hungry."

Mog nodded. "How long have I been here anyway?"

The old dwarf shrugged. In the corner beside the fire, an old cabinet leaned upon three legs, one of its doors hanging from one hinge. Ogduan opened it, and removed a pair of pottery bowls. "One day runs into another out here," he said as he carefully ladled each bowl full of steaming stew. He crossed back to the bedside and set one bowl in Mog's lap. He produced a pair of wooden spoons from a pocket of his somewhat tattered garments, then sat down on a low stool beside the bed.

Mog lifted his bowl and inhaled the aroma of the stew. He couldn't remember when he'd ever been so hungry, nor when he'd smelled anything so delicious. "I-I-I thought my legs were crushed by the stone," he managed to stammer. "They seem fine now, so I must have been mistaken."

"Oh, they were badly crushed alright," Ogduan answered over a mouthful of stew.

"Surely I didn't sleep through the entire healing process," Mog said in surprise. "It would have taken months for me to heal." Ogduan merely shrugged and continued to blithely shovel spoonfuls of stew between his copper-bearded lips.

Mog tasted the stew and found it even more delicious than it smelled. Several different types of meat swam in a hearty thick brown broth. Some bits were so tender they fell apart in the mouth, while others had some bite to them, chewy but pleasant. "If I've been here for months, why didn't anyone come to look for me? Surely you told the people who bring your supplies to let someone in Norbardin know that I was here."

"No one brings me supplies," the old dwarf explained. "No one comes here at all."

Mog paused, the spoon lifted halfway to his lips. "Then where do you get your food?" he asked, somewhat alarmed.

"There's food to be found just about anywhere, if you know where to look," Ogduan answered.

Mog stared in horror at the bowl resting between his legs, at the strange little clumps of meat floating in it. Steeling himself, he asked, "What kind of meat is this, may I ask?"

"Gully dwarf."

Mog felt a solid column of gorge rise to the back of his mouth. A rank belch nearly gagged him. He set the bowl aside, biting back nausea.

Ogduan bellowed with laughter. "By my bones, you must think me truly depraved if you think I'd serve you gully dwarf just when you are beginning to heal."

Mog eyed the old dwarf suspiciously. "Well, what is it, then?" he asked.

"Urkhan eel and feral mushrooms. Didn't anyone ever cook Underdark Stew when you were a boy? By my beard, I shudder to think of the poor quality of practical survival education young dwarves receive these days," Ogduan said, his cheeks stuffed with stew and rich brown gravy dribbling into his beard.

"It's been a long time since I encountered Underdark Stew. I had forgotten," Mog chuckled as he resumed eating. Despite his hunger, he found that his appetite had been severely dampened by the old dwarfs joke. Though he knew well enough that he wasn't eating gully dwarf, a niggling doubt remained in the back of his mind.

"Besides, I finished off the last of the gully dwarf weeks ago," Ogduan added with a wink.

Mog set his bowl down. "I'd better take it easy," he said. "Too much rich food."

The old dwarf nodded in agreement as he continued to wolf down his meal. Between mouthfuls, he said, "Out here in the perimeter there are no markets, just stone and water and darkness and earth. There's the ruins and what you can scrounge for and dig for. When you're starving, you're not above boiling bones. Dwarves these days don't really know what hard times are like."

Mog snorted. "What about the Chaos War?" he asked.