Thordak Ironfold was having a bad morning.
The quarterly supply ledger was wrong again, the eastern tunnel's ventilation shaft had collapsed for the third time this season, and the foreman responsible for the repair had sent a runner with a note that read, in its entirety, 'Shaft's busted. Need gold.'
Thordak set the note down on his desk, placed both palms flat on the stone surface, and breathed through his nose until the urge to have the foreman reassigned to latrine duty passed.
He was the Lord Warden of Kharn Moldur, a border fortification carved into the belly of the Greymount range. Seventeen thousand dwarves lived and worked within its tunnels, from the barracks on the upper levels to the ore processing chambers three hundred meters below. The fortress had stood for over six centuries. It had repelled five sieges, an earthquake, and a particularly stubborn infestation of rock crawlers that had taken four months to purge.
