In the Iron Hills, Thane Borin Ironbeard received the reports from his scouts with the specific satisfaction of a dwarf whose grudge was being validated by the events that the grudge had predicted.

He sat in the great hall of Khaz-Dorum, the throne room carved from living stone whose walls bore the weight of three thousand years of dwarven history, the runes of power and protection glowing faintly in the forge-light that the mountain’s interior provided. The throne was iron, forged from the first ore the Ironbeard Clan’s ancestors had pulled from the mountain’s heart, and the dwarf who sat on it was the dwarf whose decision to sever the Threian trade agreement was producing the consequences that the decision had been designed to produce.

"Report," Borin said.

Rurik, the Thane’s senior advisor, stood at the reporting position with the posture that dwarven military protocol required: feet planted, hands clasped behind the back, beard braided in the formal pattern that reporting occasions demanded.

"The manlings’ northeastern border is broken, Thane. Fort Harken fell on the seventh day. The highland barbarians are forty miles into Threian territory with twenty thousand warriors bearing our standard equipment. The manling king has lost eight thousand soldiers in three engagements. His ammunition stockpile is at approximately forty percent and declining."

"Our ammunition," Borin said.

"Aye, Thane. The ammunition we sold them before the trade was cut. The ammunition they cannot replace because they chose pointy-eared friends over proper dwarven trading partners. Every ball they fire is a ball from a shrinking pile, and every ball the barbarians fire is a ball from a growing one because we keep the barbarian wagons rolling."

Borin stroked his beard. The motion was the motion of a dwarf processing information through the filter that dwarven grudge-keeping provided, the filter that assessed every development in terms of its contribution to the grudge’s resolution.

"The orcs?" Borin asked.

"The savage brutes? Sitting in a camp near the manling capital. Haven’t moved in weeks. Just sitting there. Watching."

"Smart brutes."

"Aye, Thane. They’re waiting for the manlings to bleed out on both fronts. Then they negotiate from strength. Or they take what they want."

Borin considered this. The green ones, the orcs, had never been customers of Khaz-Dorum. The orcs made their own weapons in their own forges with their own methods. The dwarves respected that. Not because the orcish weapons were good, they were adequate at best, but because the independence that self-manufacture represented was the specific quality that the dwarves valued above all others: the quality of not depending on anyone else for the things your survival required.

"The manlings depend on us for their weapons," Borin said. "The barbarians depend on us for their weapons. The orcs depend on nobody for their weapons. Of the three, which do ye respect most?"

"The orcs, Thane. Obviously."

"Aye. Obviously."

He stood from the iron throne and walked to the great forge’s viewing gallery, the elevated platform from which the Thane observed the foundry’s operations. Below, the forges burned at full capacity. Hammers rang on anvils. Molten iron flowed in the channels that the foundry’s design directed. Boomstick barrels cooled in the quenching troughs. Thundermaker balls were cast in the molds that the production line filled continuously.

"Keep the barbarian wagons rolling," Borin said. "Every ball they fire into a manling is a ball that reminds the manlings what happens when ye betray yer proper allies for tree-worshipping long-ears. The grudge stands. The Book of Grudges does not forget, and neither does Khaz-Dorum."

"And if the manlings come asking for trade again, Thane?"

"They’ll come. They always come. When their pile runs dry and their soldiers are dying with empty boomsticks, they’ll send another envoy with another bag of gold and another speech about how the elven alliance was purely commercial. And we’ll tell them what we told the last one: the grudge stands until the elgi ties are severed and proper restitution is made."

He paused at the gallery’s railing and looked down at the forges that had armed the Threian military for three generations and that now armed the barbarians who were destroying it.

"Actions have consequences, Rurik. The manlings chose the long-ears. Now they live with the choice. That’s how the world works. That’s how it’s always worked."

"Aye, Thane."

"Keep the forges hot. Keep the wagons rolling. And keep the grudge sharp. A dull grudge is no grudge at all."

The forges of Khaz-Dorum burned through the night. The hammers rang. The ammunition was cast. The wagons were loaded. And the grudge, written in the Book of Grudges in blood and stone, continued to produce the consequences that grudges produced when the grudge was held by dwarves and the dwarves had three thousand years of practice holding them.

Rurik hesitated at the gallery’s railing, a question forming behind his soot-blackened features that the formal reporting protocol did not accommodate but that the Thane’s relationship with his senior advisor permitted.

"Thane, there is one additional matter."

"Speak."

"The highland barbarians have requested increased supply. Their current ammunition expenditure exceeds our delivery rate by approximately fifteen percent. They are asking for additional wagons."

"Grant it. Double the wagon frequency. The barbarians are doing the work that the grudge requires. Every ball they fire into a manling is a ball that proves what happens when ye choose long-ears over proper dwarven partners. The cost of the additional wagons is the cost of grudge maintenance, and grudge maintenance is a sacred obligation."

"The additional wagons will require pulling crews from the eastern mine operation."

"Pull them. The eastern mine can wait. The grudge cannot. The manlings are learning a lesson, and lessons interrupted are lessons not learned. The wagons keep rolling until the lesson is complete."

Rurik saluted in the dwarven manner, fist to forehead, and departed. The great hall settled into the silence that the Thane’s solitary contemplation required, the silence of stone walls and forge-heat and the deep patience that dwarves applied to grudges the way other peoples applied patience to agriculture: as the sustained investment that produced the harvest that the investment was designed for.

The harvest was proceeding. The manlings were bleeding. The grudge was being satisfied, one irreplaceable thundermaker ball at a time, one empty boomstick at a time, one burning town at a time. The Book of Grudges would record the satisfaction’s progress with the meticulous precision that dwarven record-keeping applied to everything, and the record would stand for three thousand years or until the grudge was settled, whichever came first.

Thane Borin Ironbeard returned to his iron throne and sat. The forges burned below. The hammers rang. The ammunition was cast. The wagons were loaded.

The grudge continued.

The production continued through the night shift and into the morning shift and through the afternoon shift without interruption because dwarven production did not interrupt. The forges of Khaz-Dorum had been burning for three thousand years and the forges would burn for three thousand more, and the ammunition that the forges produced would arm whoever the dwarves chose to arm, and the dwarves chose to arm the enemies of the people who had betrayed the dwarves’ trust by allying with the pointy-eared tree-worshippers whose name the dwarves spoke with the specific contempt that three millennia of grudge-keeping had refined into an art form.