The Grey Legion

[Ghorim]

“I hereby call the first meeting of the Grey Legion to order.”

Berezin had stared directly at Jokim as he spoke these words. Looking back on his blurred memories of his old friend, Jokim remembered that weighty seriousness with which Berezin had always carried himself. He had grown up fast by necessity.

Berezin had led Jokim and the three others up to a lonely cliff that full-mooned night. He had given them little explanation. Suffice to say, when Berezin gave an order, his friends followed it. He was the eldest of the group by over seven years, and the fact that he was the only one old enough to enlist in the army seemed to expand the gulf between him and his friends. His peers in the infantry ribbed him for running with a pack of children, but Berezin never felt the need to explain himself to them. He and his four friends were forever bound together.

Why had Berezin stared at Jokim like that? They and the others were seated in a circle about halfway up the mountainside, where the wind began to pick up and cut at any who dared scale so high. Jokim stared back at Berezin, feeling intimidated as always by the quiet strength that his older friend exuded. He would always remember Berezin as he saw him that night – his face lit in a dour mixture of blues and grays, the full moon shining hard at his back.

“The Grey Legion…?” said Vorik timidly. He sat to Berezin’s direct right, as always appearing as if he were trying to take up as little space as possible. “Is… that us?”

Berezin gazed upon him patiently, as a teacher would a dull but well-meaning student. “Do not forget where you came from, Vorik… where we all came from.”

Berezin gazed off to the northwest. The others remained silent. The wind moaned softly, seeming to encircle them all in a sudden gust. A few faint fires blazed down in Dale below, but otherwise the land lay still beneath them. The Long Lake stared up at the Lonely Mountain, looking like an impossibly deep shadow in the night.

“This is not our home,” said Berezin, looking down into the valley below. “I feel nothing for it.”

“Not yours, but mine,” replied Dhal, who sat further back from the others, his head resting on his left fist. “This mountain took in my family when we sought shelter, and fed us when we were ill with hunger. I have not forgotten those favors, Berezin.”

Jokim glanced to the sullen form of Dhal, who sat beneath a gnarled old tree. It was one of the few things hardy enough to grow this high up on the mountainside.

“Home is more than the place that houses and feeds you, Dhal,” said Berezin, leaning forward as the shadows of the evening leapt across his face. “It’s what’s in your blood. Your kin knew nothing of these lands for generations. All of those centuries… they lived and worked and died in the Grey Mountains. They are part of its roots now, as are my ancestors, as are all of our families.”

Jokim kept looking at Dhal, at his oddly sensitive face as it reacted to Berezin’s words. Dhal’s brow creased, his mouth twisted, and his nose wrinkled, as if Berezin were twisting his arm to its breaking point. He was poor at hiding his pain.

Berezin nodded. Dhal’s hurt expression was his confirmation.

“We cannot forget our homeland. It will not allow us. It dwells in our hearts… stubborn, ever stubborn.”

Ghari leaned forward, drawing his face even with Berezin’s. His features seemed to glow with excitement, oblivious to the grim spirit that hung over the discussion.

“So what’s this Grey Legion business about, eh, Berezin?”

Berezin leaned back, and Ghari mirrored the movement, loyally awaiting his friend’s word. He was a miner’s son, an impulsive lad who always seemed to be chasing after something. His breath sounded heavy and nervous in the night.

“I propose a simple pact,” said Berezin after a pause. “That when the campaign comes to reclaim our home… as it must, ere long… that we shall be there to fight it together, and that at least one of us shall live to see the mansions ‘neath the Grey Mountains rebuilt to their past glory.”

He extended a fist to the center of their makeshift circle, with an air of expectancy in his eyes as he glanced about at the others. Ghari immediately slapped his hand atop Berezin’s fist. He gave his familiar grin, the front right tooth chipped from a nasty tussle he’d had a few years back.

“Brother, I’ll follow you all the way to the Worms' lair, if that’s what it takes!”

None of the five were brothers. Yet they tossed the familiar term around constantly with each other, and none abused it more than Ghari. He and Berezin turned their gazes to Vorik. They knew he would cave immediately. Vorik’s sweaty, trembling hand joined theirs. Now three sets of eyes turned to Dhal.

Dhal drew closer to the group, crawling forward in a crouch, but made no move to submit his hand. As he emerged from the shadow of the tree, the moonlight struck him dead on, coloring his face a deathly white.

“I am no fighter, Berezin. Such is not my stock. My heart does not beat to the war drum as yours does.”

“Nor is Vorik,” said Berezin, his voice dropping to its lowest register. “I can teach you both.”

Jokim watched Dhal once again squirm under the pressure. No, Dhal wasn’t a fighter. His father had supervised the sprawling Hall of Records back in the Grey Mountains. Most of those documents – historical studies, army rosters, poetry and more – were lost when the cold drakes descended upon the realm’s capital. Dhal’s father had made off with all he could. His new home in Erebor contained a mess of shelves, with tottering piles of parchment abounding in every corner.

They were a bookish clan, Dhal’s family, and their quiet sense of culture piqued Jokim’s interest. They played string music as a quartet – Dhal, his parents, and his mother’s brother. Jokim visited their cramped den often, listening to them rehearse. The polished harmonies reverberated off the stone walls and filled Jokim’s mind with previously unimagined fancies. He constantly pestered Dhal to recite one of the hundreds of poems that he had memorized. Many of them dwelt on the beauty of the Grey Mountains. Jokim could hardly remember what they looked like, but the ancient verses summoned the might of the range to his memory, as if he had never left it.

He couldn’t imagine the skinny Dhal wielding an axe. But Berezin was drawing them all into this pact, his will a heavy current that none of them could resist.

“Come,” Berezin spat, “is there no life left in you, Dhal? Have you become lost in those books of yours? Your home was taken from you. Do you never reflect upon that? Reflect upon it now, then! Does not your heart beat faster and bolder, to think of the filth that has slain our kin and defiled our halls?”

He let the question hang in the air. Dhal lowered his head.

”But we can change that,” continued Berezin. “My father tells me it’s only a matter of time before they organize the legions necessary to recapture the range. Will you hide in your father’s library when that time comes?”

“Come, then!” shouted Ghari, once again backing up his hero Berezin. “We’ve always done these things together, Dhal. You’re part of the group, always.”

Dhal ran a hand through his fair-colored hair, avoiding their gazes for the moment.

Ghari glanced to Jokim. “And where does the babe stand in all of this?”

Jokim was the youngest of the five. The others had adopted him as a pet sibling of sorts, rotating him through their homes on a daily basis. He didn’t mind it. He liked the feeling of having four older brothers, each distinct from the other. There was no doubt in his mind – he’d go to battle for them. Not so much for the Grey Mountains – perhaps he was yet too young to hunger for vengeance as they did. But if they were going off to fight, he wanted to be there with them.

His hand joined the others’. Jokim smiled, looking even more like a child as he did. His free hand fell upon Dhal’s shoulder.

“I can help you, too,” said Jokim confidently. “My papa fought the dragons. I’ve got his solider blood in me.”

Dhal looked up from the ground and smiled faintly at Jokim’s simplicity. There came a faint chuckle before he spoke.

“I could never trust Berezin alone to teach me… but your pledge has set my mind at ease, Jokim.”

Dhal placed his hand atop the pile. Once again, all five were connected.

“Welcome to the Grey Legion,” said Berezin quietly. “We’ll meet again tomorrow night to start our training. We must be prepared if we are to be of any use to this cause.”

Jokim remembered feeling a sudden tremor of terror as Berezin had stared at him once again – at him alone. An impenetrable fury blazed in Berezin’s eyes. But it was only for a moment. Berezin blinked, and suddenly his gaze was cold and distant once again.

[Ghorim]

The Grey Legion of Erebor officially came together over bruised bones and awkward drills in the autumn moonlight. But the roots of the group lay neither in the mountain where they trained, nor in the distant lands that they hoped to someday reclaim. The five young dwarves had come together somewhere along the way between the two realms, on the long and cold march that had followed the sack of the Grey Mountains. The journey had been nothing but harsh, open plains. Everyone huddled close together and let their tears mark the path as they trudged to the southeast.

The five youngsters had needed each other, in a sense. It had meant so much just to be able to behave like a child in the wake of the tragedy. The lads would chase after each other, playing their boyish little games during breaks in the hard slog to Erebor. For those brief moments, they were young fools again, unencumbered by grief or anxiety. They could laugh again as they ran, and other members of the camp would look up from the dirt in a dazed shock, wondering if what they were hearing was real.

When Jokim cried upon learning that his father had perished holding back the dragons alongside King Dain, his four friends stood fast by his side to comfort him. And when his sister Froma was born halfway along the march, they had all huddled close around the tent where Jokim’s mother lay, eager for the first glimpse of what they all assumed would be Jokim’s new baby brother.

Jokim sat inside, watching in rapt awe as a gaggle of midwives rushed to and fro about his mother. His maternal grandparents were there as well, keeping a close eye on their daughter’s blessed event. When Froma arrived amidst a fanfare of red liquid and horrible screaming, Jokim’s grandfather clasped both of his grandson’s shoulders and shook him in excitement. The midwives cleaned the babe, and Jokim looked on as his mother held Froma for the first time, the both of them bathed in the warm glow of the sunlight that filtered in through the gray tent. His grandparents got to hold her next. When Jokim’s turn came, he immediately turned to the tent’s entrance and beckoned his friends into the cramped birthing area. Dhal, Ghari and Vorik all burst in immediately, while Berezin hung behind, trying to act like he didn’t care as much.

“What’s his name?” asked Ghari breathlessly.

“She’s called Froma,” said Jokim, feeling like the smile on his face would never leave.

The others gasped.

“A sister!” said Vorik, registering the whole group’s shock. “How’re you gonna play with her?”

Jokim shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He often thought of her as she was then, helplessly squirming and wailing in his arms, her eyes barely opened to the harsh light of the world. She had brought joy to the whole camp, seeing that new life could emerge from even the calamity that had forced them into flight. The babe was a light for them all back then. Now, over a decade later, she was just another citizen of Erebor, but Jokim and the rest of his family still looked upon her as a great gift. The five of them shared a two-room dwelling: Jokim, his sister, their mother, and her parents. Jokim’s grandfather supported the family by working as a blacksmith. He had been one of the undisputed master craftsmen of the Grey Mountains, but once in Erebor he found he had to reestablish his reputation from the foundation up. His pride rankled at some of the jobs he had to accept to feed his family, but he complained little.

“Things in this life tend to move in circles,” he once said to Jokim. “Here I am, doing journeyman’s work again at my age! The world gives bounties untold, and takes them back just as swiftly. You must never be afraid to start again.”

Jokim worked as his grandfather’s apprentice. His mother had supported the arrangement wholeheartedly. She knew her son had notions of becoming a soldier like his father, but was determined not to lose another precious member of her clan to battle. The sooner her father pounded those fantasies out of Jokim’s head, she thought, the better. Of course, Jokim had yet to explain to her the activities of the Grey Legion, and his full intent to enlist in the army once the time came to recapture the Grey Mountains.

He was still sneaking out late each night he and the Legion trained, with only his grandfather’s snores to cover his tiptoeing departure. Each member of the Legion had to develop his own special method for slipping out into the empty avenues undetected by his family, or in Berezin’s case, his superior officers. The Grey Legion’s commander was playing a dangerous game, trading his shifts at guard with other soldiers and making nice with the fellows who guarded Erebor’s Main Gate so that they’d allow him and his merry band of minors to set foot outside of the mountain.

More often than not, Berezin could only give word of a training session a few hours in advance. Jokim usually got wind of it secondhand from Dhal or Vorik, who both lived in his neighborhood. But one evening, Jokim had dinner in Berezin’s home. Berezin was on a rare night of leave and free to have dinner with his family, rather than in his regiment's mess hall. It struck Jokim as odd that his friend would invite him over that evening, when Berezin was seeing his parents and brothers for the first time in months. Jokim was afraid of Berezin’s father, a former officer in the Grey Mountains who commanded his dining table with a terrible, brooding intensity. His beard was thick and bristly, the way Jokim imagined a warg’s fur would appear. He led the prayer to Mahal before the meal, and often his speech to the Creator made some request of bringing the Grey Mountains back to his people’s control.

“And wreak terrible vengeance upon them that have defiled your sacred mountains,” he said the night Jokim visited, his hands clasped in front of his forehead and his eyes shut tight. “Let their blood flow like a black river into the valley below…”

Jokim opened one eye halfway through the prayer and looked to Berezin, who had a pained expression on his face.

After the meal, the two lads went outside to play.

“We’re at it again tonight,” said Berezin after shutting the door behind them.

Jokim nodded sharply, already starting to look and act like a lower ranking infantryman in Berezin’s presence. “Aye, sir.”

There was a silence, and Berezin looked ill at ease for a moment before speaking. “Listen, Jokim…”

“Aye, sir?”

“Drop the ‘sir,’ lad. We’re still just friends, you and me.”

“Aye, sir!” Jokim gave a playful salute.

Berezin grunted, continuing to seem uncomfortable in his skin. “Listen… I’ve meant to say this for awhile now… back when we were marching to Erebor…”

Jokim’s posture deflated. “Aye?”

“My papa came back, and yours didn’t.” Berezin paused. “I never felt… right about that. Like things weren’t square between the two of us. And they still aren’t.”

Jokim shook his head. “Neither of us chose things to shake out like that.”

Berezin nodded, looking more vulnerable than Jokim had ever seen him. “Aye, but still…” He grit his teeth, struggling for a word. At last he let his pent-up breath out in a gust. “Nae… you’re right. Forget it.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll race you to the marketplace!” said Berezin quickly, his expression instantly sharpening into a competitive smirk.

A bit bewildered, Jokim could only nod and start running as Berezin sprinted off down a back alley leading south.

---

Jokim lay staring at the ceiling that night, waiting for the rest of his family to fall asleep so he could make his escape. Berezin had him worried. Jokim still dreamt about the Grey Mountains, still missed them, and still – or at least he told himself – wanted to see them recaptured. But Berezin and his father especially seemed haunted by thoughts of their old home. They hungered for the land in a way that Jokim couldn’t comprehend.

They lived there longer than I did, thought Jokim. It’s different for them.

But that explanation didn’t entirely satisfy him. What had Berezin meant bringing up Jokim’s father like that? How were things not square between the two of them?

Jokim could now hear his grandfather’s snoring beginning to start up, and the heavy breathing of the others joining in the chorus. He glanced over at his sister, who shared a cot with him. She was definitely asleep. Jokim sat up slowly, sliding his legs around the side of the cot with infinite care and leaning down to pick up his boots.

“Are you going out again tonight, Jokim?”

Jokim froze, feeling his heart seize up briefly in shock. He turned around to see his sister staring at him intently in the darkness. She was definitely awake. He needed to find his tongue in a hurry…

[Ghorim]

They walked in awkward tandem, the two little figures upon the vast mountainside. He took the lead, walking in sure, even strides, she never far behind, her legs sputtering along to match his pace. He held her hand at all times – tightly – as if afraid the harsh autumn winds might send her tumbling down the rocky slope and into the valley below. Jokim would look back to his sister occasionally, always gazing directly into her eyes. He remembered watching as she had first opened them, squinting and wailing in thoughtless need. Now they were bright and round, brimming with excitement and a hunger for possibility. Jokim was beginning to realize with some alarm that Froma was no longer just a helpless babe in his arms, but that she too now had thoughts and dreams of her own. A day would come when he could no longer protect her, and that he would entrust her to the care of another. He looked upon her with a father’s eyes as they struggled up the Lonely Mountain, filled with pride and a scarcely hidden concern.

When the siblings arrived at the familiar plateau where the Grey Legion trained, Jokim’s comrades were already in the full swing of things. Berezin was leading his troops in a round of pushups, a practice that they all despised – especially Vorik. He had joined the Grey Legion in pudgy form, and despite his determined efforts he still remained a step or two behind the rest of his comrades. Even Jokim, three years his junior, could wrestle him to the ground with relative ease.

Vorik was struggling through his seventh push-up of the night as Jokim and Froma approached the group. The would-be soldiers had constructed a makeshift fire to light their training session, and the siblings stood just outside of its glow. Jokim suddenly hesitated to step forward, as if only now realizing that he would have to explain his sister’s presence to his friends. He was just starting to form the right words in his mind when a straining Vorik glanced up from his unfinished pushup into the shadows that surrounded the training ground.

Vorik gasped upon seeing the two shadowy figures nearing the training grounds. Reacting quickly, he stumbled to his feet and grabbed the wooden training axe that rested by his side. He nearly fell over with the effort, but Vorik dutifully took up a sentry’s stance to protect his vulnerable comrades.

“Who goes there?” he cried out, attempting to twist his boy’s voice into something threatening.

The others shot up to their feet in short order, and soon all four of Jokim’s friends were standing in an improvised defensive formation, which looked more like a tangled knot of limbs than an effective shield.

“Aye, who dares trespass upon the Grey Legion?” shouted Berezin, taking the lead.

Looking on his friends, lit all strange and ghostly in the firelight, Jokim only then began to realize how preposterous this whole venture had become. It didn’t seem like a game anymore, but something unfamiliar and almost frightening.

“‘Tis I,” said Jokim haltingly, “and...” how to introduce her? “Our newest member!”

The others dropped their guards, looking relieved and annoyed as Jokim at last approached with his guest in tow.

“You’re late,” said Berezin to Jokim dryly, ignoring the other for the time being.

“Aye... well, I had to...” Jokim shrank under Berezin’s gaze, gesturing vaguely to the one standing beside him.

“Just who is that?” asked Ghari, stepping forward and squinting at the newcomer.

Jokim had disguised his sister well to get her past the guards. An oversized hood swallowed the top of her head, while an old scarf wrapped itself around her nose and mouth. Only her eyes showed, and those gazed back at Ghari unflinchingly.

“Well... he’s...” Jokim’s speech was failing him as Ghari neared. “He...”

Ghari ripped the scarf off. “She is...” he burst out laughing. “Your little sister?”

Ghari nearly toppled over with amusement, while the others looked on in shock.

“Jokim! You’re not supposed to take a girl outside like that!” said Vorik, glancing around as if they were all about to be caught and imprisoned.

“What’re you doing bringing her along like that?” growled Berezin. “She’s going to give us all away!”

“Didja need a partner for wrestling?” laughed Ghari. “I’ll send you both down the mountain, if that’s what you’re after!”

Jokim’s tongue died as he tried to stutter a response, and Froma bowed her head in embarrassment. Of all of them, only Dhal seemed to keep a cool head.

“Hush now, all of you!” he said quickly. “Let Jokim explain.”

Jokim cleared his throat. His friends had aligned themselves in a half circle around him and Froma, and he suddenly felt it was his responsibility to shield her from them.

“Froma caught me trying to leave tonight,” said Jokim. “She says she’s heard me sneak out at night before, but never said anything. Tonight, though... she said she’d tell my mother if I didn’t take her along. But... she swore to me that she’d keep silent about it if I brought her.”

“I just want to watch,” offered Froma, defiant.

Berezin regarded the two siblings with a stern expression, as if they were his own children to discipline. The others instinctively looked to him to sort out the situation.

“The girl...” he paused, “... may stay.”

Jokim grinned, and pat Froma on the shoulder in his excitement.

“But you, Jokim,” continued Berezin, “must do your penance for arriving late.”

“Aye, sir,” said Jokim.

This time, Berezin didn’t tell him to drop the “sir.” Instead he turned to Froma, who looked strangely pathetic with that large hood draped all over her head. “And if you tell a soul about our Legion,” he said, “your brother won’t have anything to do with us any more, you understand?”

Berezin knew how close the two were. A threat to him was a threat to her. She nodded, of course, in no position to refuse, while Jokim moved off to begin an extended round of pushups. Along the way, though, he gave Ghari a sharp glance.

“I’ll take you myself, Ghari,” he said sullenly as he passed the older – and much larger – lad. “And then maybe you can try your luck against Froma.”

Ghari snorted. “Just enjoy your pushups, eh? I’ll stomp you properly when the time comes!”

Jokim grumbled some half-formed words and then took to his penance. Froma, meanwhile, sat her small form beneath the bony wings of the dead tree that marked the outskirts of the Grey Legion’s training area. She watched the boys as they played their little games...

[Ghorim]

“How did this happen?”

The voice of Jokim’s grandfather rebounded off the bare walls of the dwelling and shot straight into the boy’s head. He could hear the question resounding, again and again in different volumes and pitches.

Jokim rubbed his hands on his dirt-stained trousers and fidgeted in his chair. The blood dripped from his nose and pooled in a dark puddle on the earthen floor. His eyes fled from his grandfather’s exacting gaze, retreating first to the huddled forms of his sister, mother and grandmother in the corner of the room. Jokim’s mother had wanted to clean his face as soon as she saw his crumpled nose and the dark bruises about his cheeks, but his grandfather had refused such treatment until the lad explained who had delivered these gruesome injuries.

Like a child, Jokim bit his lower lip and stared pleadingly at his mother to intervene. She could only grimace and look away as her father grabbed Jokim’s chin and wrenched it back to face him.

“I could just as well ask Froma,” said the grandfather. “She saw it all, I can tell that. But you would be unworthy of a beard if you hid behind her.”

Jokim’s gaze recoiled again, this time to the sole candle that lit their little home. It trembled slightly as his grandfather began to pace, awaiting an explanation. The dim glow of the evening lanterns filtered in through the windows, and now the boy glanced to them, as if they might offer some means of escape.

“Slinking out at night like a common burglar,” muttered the grandfather. “And taking your sister along, Mahal knows where!”

Could Jokim wait his grandfather out? Or could he lie? The lad tried to patch together a plausible story in his mind. Maybe a goblin...? No, there weren’t any of those left around these parts...

“It wasn’t anything dangerous,” protested Froma, seeking to ease the old dwarf’s wrath.

“Wasn’t dangerous?” scoffed the grandfather, his gaze never leaving the bloodied Jokim. “Well, it certainly proved harmful for your brother, did it not?”

“Jokim would have beaten him, if...” Froma bit her tongue halfway through her thought, realizing she had slipped.

“Beaten...?” the grandfather narrowed his eyes and turned to the girl. “Beaten who?”

“Ghari,” said Jokim in a defeated gush of exhaled air. His grandfather swiveled back to face him, and Jokim suddenly felt like he was gazing upon his executioner. The long, gray beard swung in even time as the old dwarf approached, his hardened hands clasped behind his back. He leaned in toward his grandson, the lone candle lighting only the left side of his face and casting the other half into deep shadow.

“And why were you and Ghari in a scrap?”

Jokim had to spell out the short and sorry history of the Grey Legion, at every opportunity trying to justify the actions of his band of friends. His face convulsed in the throes of guilty confession, and every minor twitch made his nose sting all the worse. Tears welled up, dribbling down alongside the trails of drying blood on Jokim’s cheeks.

His grandfather stopped him just as he got to the point where Ghari insulted him and Froma. The old dwarf had heard all that he needed.

“We have some visits to make, lad,” he said, firmly. “And then we’ll clean you up.”

He took one of Jokim’s little hands and hoisted him out of the chair. And suddenly they were out on the cold streets of Erebor, with only the yawning night watchmen for company, the grandfather leading his battered grandson by the wrist.

They stopped at Vorik’s house first. Jokim said nothing as his grandfather delivered the story, much to the horror Vorik’s parents. To think that their only child, whom they had raised so carefully, could be out roughhousing in the dead of night! Vorik, heavy sleeper that he was, only stumbled into view behind his mother and father once they had heard the whole sordid tale.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled, rubbing at one of his bleary eyes drowsily. His parents turned in unison to face him, and in so doing revealed the guests at the door. Vorik gasped as he took in Jokim’s bloodied face. Of course, he like the rest of the Legion had hoped that Jokim would be able to clean himself off, sneak back into his home without any of his family waking, and come up with a good explanation for his injuries in the morning.

“Tell them you woke up in the middle of the night and tripped getting out of bed,” Vorik had offered.

“You dunce! That would have woken everyone else up,” growled Ghari.

“Well we can’t say that he snuck out, could we?” Vorik replied, his voice desperate. “Then they’d suspect! And then...”

“You’d better not give us away!” Berezin had shouted over Vorik’s words. “You’d better keep your mouth shut!”

Both Jokim and Vorik remembered Berezin’s scarcely hidden threat as they exchanged glances, and both seemed to go pale.

“Thank you for alerting us to this troubling bit of news,” Vorik’s father said to Jokim’s grandfather. “We will handle the rest.”

The door seemed to close on its own. As he and his grandfather marched off in the direction of Dhal’s home, Jokim could hear the sound of spanking noises and Vorik’s accompanying wails spilling out into the quiet avenues.

---

And so they visited three more homes that night. Dhal hid his eyes when he saw Jokim at the door. Ghari turned red and called Jokim a traitor, just before his father smacked him across the face, right there in front of the door to their squalid home. But from Berezin there was only a distant silence. Looking upon him with apologetic eyes, Jokim might as well have been appealing to a statue made centuries before, such was the distance between them in that moment. Likewise, Berezin’s father said nothing, only nodded with his usual solemnity and shut the door.

That silence continued into the next morning, as Jokim helped his grandfather with his projects at the smithy. The lad would repeatedly seek out his elder’s eyes, hoping to find some forgiveness in them. But the old dwarf would only turn away and ask Jokim for another tool.

[Ghorim]

It would be over a month before Jokim saw any of his friends again. Dhal invited him over to his home one evening. By now, winter had descended outside the Lonely Mountain. The Grey Legion couldn’t have trained outside anymore, even if their activities had remained a secret. All of the mountain was trembling with excitement for an upcoming winter festival, but Jokim had already been told he couldn’t attend.

He looked to Dhal like a mournful puppy, sitting slumped there in an overstuffed chair as Dhal tuned his fiddle.

“How badly did they punish you?” Jokim asked Dhal, as one prisoner asks another about his sentence.

“No friends and no music for a month,” said Dhal with an easy shrug. “But now I have both back, as you can see.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“‘Twas your sister gave you away, right?”

“Aye, she came running down ahead of me to wake my folks. She must’ve thought I might bleed to death.”

Dhal plucked one of his flat-sounding strings and smirked. “Then I can only fault you for allowing Ghari to get his knee up into your face like that.”

Jokim grumbled and rubbed his nose gingerly. “He fights dirty.”

“Well... miners, you know,” said Dhal. “Always dirty.”

Jokim laughed weakly. “Always dirty.”

Now Dhal’s string was singing out sharp. He adjusted the proper knob on the instrument’s head.

Jokim watched the foreign process with absorbed curiosity. But doubts still tugged at his thoughts.

“Do you think the others will forgive me?”

Dhal glanced up from his task to regard Jokim’s taut and concerned expression. The area around his nose was still flushed bright red, and the other bruises Ghari had given him had just recently faded.

“I wouldn’t worry as you do, Jokim,” he said. “We’re brothers. Brothers quarrel, but in the end they shake hands and make nice. They can’t escape each other.”

Jokim nodded, easing up his hunched posture somewhat. “I know that, but Berezin...”

Dhal laughed, lowering his fiddle. “Berezin! Berezin made out the best of any of us. Didn’t you know?”

“He did?” Jokim’s eyebrows shot up to the edge of his hairline.

Dhal nodded. “Oh sure, they suspended him from the infantry for a week or so, but it was mostly for show. His superiors were quite impressed that he started up an amateur fighting unit all on his own. Showed a good martial spirit, they said. They were only angry that he was doing it behind their backs. Berezin tells me that the infantry’s looking to start up local ‘youth camps,’ as they call them. It’ll be just like the Grey Legion, only under the supervision of a real army officer. Why, we could all join the nearest one until our age of enlistment arrives.”

Jokim startled at the news, but just as quickly deflated the more he thought about it. “My grandfather will never allow me to join one of those.”

“Hmm...” Dhal plucked the troublesome string as he considered Jokim’s predicament. Flat again. “Well, give it some time. Let those injuries heal, and that night might fade from his foggy old memory.”

“Not likely,” replied Jokim sourly. “When it comes to discipline, he does not forget his old scores.”

“Let him grind his axe until it dulls, then,” said Dhal, sounding as offhanded and at ease as ever. Those who didn’t know Dhal inevitably interpreted this manner as a sign of arrogance, but his comrades in the Grey Legion knew that he cared intensely about the close relationships he kept.

Dhal plucked at the string warily, but this time it rang true. He smiled broadly, feeling a musician’s greatest satisfaction. He took the fiddle up to his shoulder again.

“How about a tune?”

Jokim nodded enthusiastically.

“Nothing too raucous!” called a reedy voice from one of the adjoining rooms. It was Dhal’s father, hunched over a dusty manuscript at his desk. “I am at study.”

“When is he not, that’s what I want to know,” murmured Dhal to Jokim before running his bow tentatively along the strings. “Let’s see... a ballad, then.”

Soon he was at play, massaging an old folk melody from his instrument. It was a simple tune, with lyrics that dwelt on the chill descent of winter and pined for the return of spring. Dhal stuck to the melody dutifully, and tried to hum the vocal line at the same time. When he found that he couldn’t do both, Jokim stepped in and sang in a whispery tenor, forgetting and substituting words as he went.

Now familiar warmth is fled,
In caverns where our folk once... bled?
We huddle close and stoke the fire,
‘Til springtime... er... ‘til springtime...

“‘Fulfills our desire!’” shouted Dhal’s father from his study. “Don’t they teach you lads anything anymore?”

Dhal fell apart laughing and lowered his instrument. “Why would we want to remember such silly words, father? It’s the songs of today that speak to our hearts.”

“Hmmph,” the father rose from his chair and stomped into the den, his ire piqued. “The songs of today! All rubbish, I say! These days, lads sing about battle and victory with fists upon their breasts, as if it were all some grand adventure. They are so quick to forget what our folk have suffered in times past.”

“King Azaghal did not become a hero by ruling in quiet times,” said Dhal, always eager to display his knowledge of history in front of his father.

“Azaghal was carried home stone dead on his shield, and don’t you forget it,” said the elder dwarf before ducking back into his private anteroom.

Jokim glanced at Dhal in surprise. “I thought you said you weren’t a fighter.”

Dhal scowled a bit and leaned in to Jokim confidentially. “Listen... if it were up to my father, we would all keep our noses buried in the past and let the present day descend into chaos. Berezin and his kind may be thickheaded at times, but it’s the fighters who change the realms for the better. Dreamers... well, dreams alone don’t make a jot of difference, aye?”

Those words, though spoken by a lad only two years his elder, seemed to answer a yearning call for purpose in young Jokim’s spirit. They might as well have emanated from a hoary-bearded sage of distinguished years. As he smiled and nodded in hearty agreement, Jokim realized just how badly he wanted to return to training with his brothers, discerning the secrets of combat strategy and bonding over hard-fought drills in the moonlight.

He forgot many things in that moment of revelation, and it would be quite awhile before he remembered them again.

[Ghorim]

Ghari led the way, a seething engine of raw animal energy set loose on the avenues of Erebor. His dress uniform – stiff wool, jangling, oversized copper buttons – clung to his back in wild disarray. It empowered him, even when he refused to wear it properly. Every step he took was charged with provocation, and he’d shove civilians out of his way with a mere stare. His new boots struck the smooth stone walkway with sharp snare taps, heralding his arrival from blocks away. And he laughed, in joyful spasms that sounded like trumpet calls bounding off the cavern walls.

Jokim shuffled in his magnificent wake, trying to catch the embers of his friend’s bottomless fire as they trailed behind. His shirt had worn down to an off-white rag that hung loosely over his scrawny body. A gray vest bereft of buttons dangled over his shoulders. He stared at the back of Ghari’s feet, hypnotized by their martial stride.

“Where are we headed?” he murmured.

“Wherever the road takes us!” called Ghari, as if answering the entire city.

“Please, Ghari,” Jokim rubbed his left shoulder in discomfort. “My grandfather doesn’t want me out late.”

“Ah, so the old warg’s on a campaign for discipline again, eh?” Ghari threw a winking look over one shoulder. “Well, I was just pulling your beard, anyway. I know where we’re headed. Come!”

And with a sudden stutter step, Ghari broke to his left, heading down a grimy alley toward the mountain’s main canal. Jokim stumbled, looking around him at the artisans, workers and merchants who milled about the avenue. None of them cast him a second glance, and so he chased after his friend. Ghari had sped ahead, and stood waiting beside an embankment that led down to the water.

This was the finest part of the dwarvish colony. Jeweled walkways and upscale shops lined one side of the waterfront, and grand, imposing mansions reigned over the other end. Jokim found himself adjusting his hair to try to look slightly less out of place. The pedestrians here bore the clothes of nobility, with forked beards tucked into diamond-studded belts and silver walking canes guiding their way.

“Why here?” muttered Jokim as he approached Ghari.

The other lad simply nodded to the grand, arching bridge that swept over the canal. “My favorite spot in the city.”

“Up on the bridge?” Jokim followed the structure’s imperial arc with his eyes. It was one of the great monuments of Erebor, constructed by the first generation of dwarves to dwell beneath the mountain's lonely peak. Bright gold beams shot up along the sides of the bridge, encasing it in a pair of precious ribs. Great carts trundled over its broad back at all hours, even now, as Jokim and Ghari stood just off to its side.

“Not upon... under.” Ghari grinned, his teeth showing like a yellow crescent moon. He hopped the short stone wall that guarded the bank and sprung down its incline, his long, black hair fluttering behind him as he went.

Jokim glanced about him incredulously, but once again, everyone on the street had failed to notice him and his friend. Attention ran short in the bustle of the city.

After a moment’s thought, Jokim leapt the wall and skidded down the stone bank toward the water below. He probably would’ve tumbled into the blue deep had Ghari’s strong arm not snared and held him back.

Ghari held his tongue behind a wily smirk, and gave his friend a shove back toward the bridge’s underside. Jokim trod carefully upon the slim walkway that ran along the water’s edge. The bridge’s great shadow fell upon him, and he scrambled back up the bank until he was a safe distance from the canal. Ghari followed with an easy gait, and sat himself beside Jokim.

“As I said,” he continued, lying down on the stone and lacing his hands behind his head, “my favorite spot in the city.”

Jokim listened to the water creep lazily below them. All else was dark and still. “I should never have thought that you would take to a place so lonely.”

Ghari’s gaze shifted from the rock ceiling above to eye his companion. “It is quiet here. Sometimes a fellow needs only the quiet for company.”

A carriage rumbled overhead.

“You’ve shunned the quiet ever since I’ve known you, Ghari,” Jokim smiled, thinking upon their first meeting. “What was it you said when you first discovered me?”

“‘Do you want to see what kind of face I can make?’” Ghari crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, just as he had done all those years before on the long march to Erebor. Jokim had been sitting alone, looking back toward the Grey Mountains, where ominous black smoke curled skyward. He had not yet known the fate of his father. Ghari, oblivious, stumbled upon him and proceeded to make friends.

That was the first bond Jokim forged within the Grey Legion. From there he met Berezin, whom Ghari already worshipped, and later Dhal and Vorik, who had been playmates since birth.

As they recounted that initial meeting, Jokim and Ghari’s laughter echoed all throughout the space beneath the bridge. A pair of children walking above thought they heard the cackling of wicked spirits, and took off running in mortal dread.

“I was rather proud of myself, I suppose,” said Ghari, his form swelling with false modesty.

“You’ve yet to overcome that condition,” replied Jokim.

“Well, just wait until you’ve a uniform of your own,” said Ghari as he cast an outstretched finger. “That should force you to respect yourself, at long last!”

“I reap pride enough from assisting my grandfather,” said Jokim, looking away from his friend.

“Come now, brother,” Ghari sat up. “You’re of soldier’s stock. Blood’s not so easy to escape.”

“If that were true, you’d be deep in the mines with a pick in hand and a face full of soot.”

“I’m never going down there,” Ghari’s tone grew gruff and insistent. Jokim turned, and dimly remembered Ghari’s father... the casual and indifferent way his hand had struck the lad across the face when he discovered that Ghari had broken Jokim’s nose. “I make my own path.”

Silence crept over both of them. Jokim folded his arms and watched the water, and Ghari lay back down to study the stonemasonry above.

“What do you do down here?” Jokim asked after a time.

Ghari smirked a bit, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a small flask. He held it up so Jokim could make it out.

“What’s in there?”

“Dragon’s Breath.” Ghari pulled off the cap with a tender touch, careful not to spill any of his favorite drink. He passed it over to Jokim for a sniff. A fiery odor singed Jokim’s nostrils as soon as they neared the vessel, and he withdrew with a grimace.

“Why not drink a vial of pitch and save yourself the trouble?”

“Oh come, now,” Ghari looked disgusted enough to spit. “Jokim, becoming an infantryman has taught me one thing: you have to reach out and take what the world offers you. And I’m telling you now... as a brother... this stuff will have a smile on your face in one sip. Now are you going to turn that down?”

Jokim searched his friend’s eyes for any sign of mischief. He never knew how much he could trust Ghari, for the lad always seemed to place his own amusement before the well-being of others. But it appeared that this time, at least, his friend was making an honest entreaty. With one last flinch of hesitation, Jokim cocked his head back to drink.

Now Jokim had sneaked a pull or two in the past from his grandfather’s tankards, but this concoction of Ghari’s hit his throat with a merciless intensity. He nearly coughed it up, but somehow forced the liquid flame down his throat. With an angry wipe of his lips, he handed the flask back to Ghari, who was chuckling.

“You’re a mad one, Ghari!”

“I dare say so! Look at the company I keep.” He took a swipe at Jokim’s shoulder.

Jokim parried the blow, and struck back with a sound left hook that nearly caught his friend in the face.

“Careful! I might spill the drink!” Ghari took a quick nip at the flask to ensure that not a drop was wasted.

“Ah! And it would burn a hole in the ground, would it not?”

“You, Jokim! You need to get used to the harder stuff. No friend of mine will drink like an Elf.”

“Better so than to look like one!”

And so they went, trading insults and gulps of Dragon’s Breath until they were both too drunk to do much of anything other than giggle and wrestle about sloppily. Above them, the legend of the haunted bridge was growing.

“‘Ey now,” Ghari chortled, giving Jokim a hard elbow, “remember...” Jokim slugged him back, and Ghari wheezed for breath, “remember when I broke your nose?”

“A dirty trick,” grunted Jokim belligerently. “I had the upper hand until that point.”

“I remember when you came by my house,” Ghari rolled on the embankment in fits of laughter. “Looked like a tomato exploded all over your face!”

“I’ll have my revenge yet...”

“And how do you plan to do that? There’s no more Grey Legion, thanks to you and your dratted sister.”

“Why, I’ll be thirty in a few years, aye? And then I’ll have a uniform, too, and we can settle our score in drills.”

“What’s this?” Ghari propped himself up on his elbow. “What happened to tending the smithy with your grandfather?”

“Seven curses upon that nonsense!” declared Jokim, grabbing the flask from Ghari’s weakened grip and finishing off its contents. “Papa wielded the axe, and that’s all my hands were meant to grip!”

“Seven curses, you say! Can we make that an oath, then?” With some effort, Ghari shoved himself up into a slumped seating position, and gazed at Jokim through a black web of hair. He extended a shaky, propositional hand.

Jokim smiled broadly, feeling swept away in a wave of courage and defiance. “An oath wrought in iron, brother!” And he shook Ghari’s hand, as both of their red faces burned all the brighter with happiness.

For the first time in their friendship, Jokim felt that Ghari respected him as an equal, not just a younger brother.

I'm an adult, thought Jokim, now he sees that.

He missed his curfew by a few hours that night.

[Ghorim]

Jokim trampled and plowed through the mountain springtime as fast as he could, pebbles spitting up from beneath his boots as he raced up the trail in giddy excitement. Swaying pines guarded the path for the first quarter mile, but soon they trailed off into jagged rock cliffs. The young dwarf burst forth from their protection, and sunlight drenched his laughing face. He cut to the right in a moment of sudden boldness, racing off from the cut trail and onto wild, untamed stone. Jokim’s feet leapt from one great boulder to the next with an improvisational glee, never once hesitating for the fear of a costly slip. The whole surface of the Lonely Mountain stood in silent witness to his youthful insanity.

The lad’s eyes caught on a sharp peak that jutted up just ahead and to the left. In his mind, Jokim plotted the fastest course up to its airy heights, and his feet followed accordingly. Minutes later, he stood overlooking his entire world: the receding slope of Erebor barreling down to the thatched roofs of Dale and the deep blue of Long Lake. His breath departed him in ragged bursts and the sun glared angrily upon his brow, but Jokim felt himself a lord over it all, with nothing but time and strength to be wasted. And he cried out with the force of a king: “Vorik!”

His flabby companion tarried about half a mile behind, ambling at an easy pace through the pine woods. Vorik had long since given up on keeping up with the feverish blur of his younger friend, and settled down into his own gradual gait. The sunrays that flickered between the deep green needles hypnotized him and lit a stupid smile upon his face. He would halt at times to study a pinecone upon a branch, or to listen to a mysterious birdcall, or to inhale the air that carried none of the stenches of the city streets.

But then Jokim called his name, and Vorik feared his adopted brother had fallen into peril. He dropped the wildflower in his right hand and took off at a lumbering sprint. By the time the blossom’s purple petals fluttered to the ground, Vorik had made more forward progress than he had in the past fifteen minutes. The lad chugged and wheezed out of the woods, and sweat crept all over him as he desperately scanned the rocks for any sight of Jokim.

“Vorik, there you are!”

And there Jokim was, perched atop the unsteady-looking finger of rock that served as his mountain throne.

“Where have you been, you stone-footed slug?”

Vorik leaned forward with his hands on his knees and panted with tongue extended.

“Here I thought you had agreed to a walk!” Vorik had summoned all of his remaining breath to croak his retort, and had to take another moment before adding: “And slugs don’t have feet, you piece of warg dung!”

“Get on up here, if your fat legs can handle it!”

Vorik grunted as his angry, animal eyes squinted up at Jokim’s form. But unable to resist the provocative challenge, he plodded off the path and began to navigate the rocks that led in a precarious staircase up to his friend. Jokim watched Vorik struggle through the ascent, flogging him on with unceasing insults. But when his friend reached the final gasp of the climb, Jokim reached down and yanked him up to the top rock with some effort. They both fell to the ground, Jokim laughing, Vorik groaning.

The sky seemed painted in overhead, with woolly clouds drifting close together in little flocks through the pale blue. Adventurous ravens and thrushes took to the wing not so far above the two collapsed dwarves. An exhausted Vorik found himself in rapture once again. Even Jokim paused for a moment to take it all in. He then sat up, hauling Vorik along with a rough hand.

“What’s next?” Jokim gave Vorik a shake as he asked the question, and his friend’s head wobbled about raggedly.

“A nap,” muttered Vorik, covering his eyes with his right hand and trying to slump down into the ground. But Jokim wouldn’t let him, and gave Vorik another yank by the shoulder.

“Now what sort of talk is that?” Jokim leaned in to stare Vorik down. “Have you turned into an old greybeard already?”

“These expeditions are aging me before my time, you know!”

“Come, just a bit more exploring...” Jokim glanced up to search along the horizon, where a silvery thread of vertical light entangled his vision. “Ah! See that up ahead? Looks like a waterfall!”

“Where?” Vorik reluctantly followed Jokim’s gaze, and saw the glint of sun upon the cascading water.

“Let’s head up there, Vorik, and then we can rest.”

“Eh... my parents said to be back home in time for supper...” Vorik gave one of his dubious, haunted looks at the mention of his elders. Jokim knew how strongly Vorik’s mother and father ruled over his life. The pudgy youth was an only child, both spoiled and royally fussed over at the same time.

“Well... all the more reason to hurry. And it’ll be a short rest, I promise.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Vorik grumbled, but struggled to his feet all the same.

Jokim gave a surprised and encouraging smile, before hopping up to lead the way. This time, he kept to Vorik’s pace, even reaching out his hand at times to steady his friend as they both maneuvered over the loose stones together.

“I’m going to break my neck, I just know it,” Vorik said, keeping his arms extended to maintain his balance.

“You’re doing fine, Vorik. Think of it as training for the infantry.”

“Somehow that fails to make it any more appealing!”

Jokim gave his friend a pat on the back, which nearly sent him sprawling. Working together, they conquered the crest that led up to an even plateau. There the waterfall roared into a deep pool, before streaming off down the mountain with its heart set on the lake below.

“Ha!” Jokim stuck his hands to his hips and breathed deeply. “Now wasn’t this worth it?”

Vorik was already plopped down against a large boulder, and stared at the waterfall through half-lidded eyes. “Aye... I suppose. So long as we take the proper time to savor it.”

“As you wish.” Jokim settled down atop a nearby rock, gazing up to the sky.

Up above, a dark swirl of ravens filled the air. Jokim had never seen so many together in one place, and shielded his eyes against the midday sun to get a better look. There must have been at least a dozen, some rising, some diving, all of them engaged in a delicate aerial dance.

“Look at that, Vorik!” Jokim pointed.

The other lad opened a weary and skeptical eye. “Well... look at that, indeed.”

“A whole family, by the looks of it...”

“We call it a 'flight,' actually.”

Jokim and Vorik each looked at each other with a retort in mind... and then realized that neither of them had just spoken. Both hunted after the source of the words, and their gazes led them to the peak of a stone pile that sat just behind them. There was perched a sprightly young raven. “Greetings!”

It took one moment for the two lads to comprehend what was happening, but only half of one to leap to their feet. They’d heard of the clever birds that picked up bits of Westron or Khuzdul... but seeing one and hearing it speak set them both on alarm.

“What is this?” the bird gave a provocative hop toward the two lads. “Such shock from two members of the prestigious Grey Legion? Are you not always prepared for anything?”

And suddenly both dwarves were torn in two directions: either to become further confused by the fact that this uppity creature knew of their training club, or to uphold the Grey Legion’s reputation and act unperturbed.

“How has our fame traveled so swiftly?” asked Jokim, attempting to slow the words that wanted to come racing out.

“Fame!” the raven hooted and squawked, a sound that was harshly echoed by the rest of the flock above. They were swooping and darting down from the air now, alighting in a half-circle that surrounded Jokim and Vorik. “You and your companions were famous indeed, for we had come to eagerly anticipate your clumsy attempts at soldiering each night. Such entertainment arrives very rarely on this mountain, I daresay!”

“We were yet learning,” Jokim said in a desperate defensive stand. Vorik attempted to somehow conceal his dough ball of a body behind his friend’s skinny form.

“Learning.” The bird’s tone sharpened, the mocking singsong disappearing from its voice. “From whom... that stripling Berezin? The one who fancies himself a war chief already? What sort of folly do you seek?”

“Not the counsel of birds, that is for certain!” spat back Jokim, having heard enough. He grabbed Vorik’s wrist and tugged to begin their retreat.

“The path you are on leads to only disaster, boy!”

That final call and a chorus of unearthly cackling poured down on the two lads from above as they stumbled down the endless field of stones.

[Ghorim]

“They say ravens are excellent foreseers of the future,” said Vorik nervously. He and Jokim each lay on a separate cot in the darkness of Vorik’s family den. Jokim was sleeping over tonight. He and his grandfather were having another of their feuds.

“What do they know?” Jokim’s hands were clasped behind his head, and he stared into the dull grey of the stone ceiling.

“Maybe...” Vorik paused and swallowed. “Berezin’s holding onto this grudge too long.”

“It was our land,” Jokim growled.

“It’s still just land,” Vorik said. “Just mountains...”

Jokim sat up and turned to face his friend, a vengeful shadow in the night’s blackness.

“If you think that way, then what’s to stop them from taking this mountain, too? Berezin seeks only justice.”

“It’s his father.”

“What?”

“His father is driving him to it. You’ve been to their house for dinner, haven’t you? It’s all the old fellow will talk about.”

“Well... what of it?” Jokim lay back down.

“He’s mad, I think.”

“Angry. Not mad.”

“Mad with anger.”

“It doesn’t matter! They’re in the right, and you know it.”

Vorik rolled over onto his side to face away from Jokim. “I just worry about who gives us the orders. They’re still mortals, after all...”

“You’ll make a poor soldier, brother...”

Vorik rolled over to try to gauge whether Jokim was jesting. But his friend’s back was now facing him, and there was only silence. Vorik turned over on his cot again, and had only the cold wall for company until he fell asleep at last.