>>5688182All heads now turn to the Throat-singer, who steps forward with swagger from beside his fellow dwarf. Many hiss, snarl, and scoff at his cocky demeanour and presumptuous interruption. You regard him impassively, but nod for him to continue.
“You said to think carefully about what I wanted, and I did,” Karz announces—to you, to everyone present. “No one here can deny it, however much they want to, that this war was fought first and foremost by me and by my Duergar.”
‘His’ Duergar, you note.
“I made the plans, I led the forces, I recruited the soldiers and turned them into the fighting force we needed. And yet… Dwarves are still the lowest rung of this hierarchy, aren’t we? We’re the only ones without a fort to call our own. We’re the only ones working as slaves, getting forced into the worst situations, never given any station or power except what we can take. Isn’t that right?”
“Asss it should be,” the Translator mutters, and you hear a few others agree with snide sniggers from among the Master Race. “Warm-blodoed ssurface-sscum upsstart.”
“You are old enemies. Stone-old, ancestor-old!” Agno snaps at him, and the Kobold Eleders nod sagely at his words.
“Forget all that,” the Throat-singer says, waving his hand with dramatic flourish, and looking to you. “Bloodrise is something new. Blood doesn’t matter here—not bloodlines, or blood spilled before we all became a part of… Of THIS, right?”
You nod slowly, but narrow your eyes.
“What do you want, then, Throat-sssinger?” you ask him. “Ssspeak.”
