Mordrin Kazgrum

The Kazgrum have lived under the mountain for nine generations. They dig tunnels, haul iron and owe nothing to anyone on the surface.

Mordrin was the best digger in the clan. They said he could hear the rock: he knew where it would give way before it ever creaked.

That is why they sent him down the day the new tunnel was opened. He said the ceiling would not hold. They told him to dig.

He managed three swings of the pick. On the fourth, the mountain came down on him.

Up above they counted to a hundred. Then they walled up the entrance and gave him up for dead. A dead miner costs less than an open tunnel.

Mordrin spent nineteen days in the dark, digging upward with a broken pick. He shouted until he had no voice left. Nobody answered. He kept digging.

When he came out into the light, he had no voice and no clan. Only the family name, and that one he had no intention of giving back.

Since then he sells his pick to the highest bidder. He does not bargain: he raises his fingers to name the price and nods to seal the deal. He always delivers. It is the only thing the Kazgrum taught him that is still of any use.

On the battlefield he plants himself in front of whoever pays him and does not move. He knows what it is to have a mountain on top of you. An army does not weigh that much.

When the fight turns ugly, he strikes the ground with his pick three times. It is the only thing anyone has heard him say since that collapse.

It is a call. In case someone is still trapped down below.