High-King Modric looked down on his brother’s second grave. To the many guards surrounding him he seemed calm, composed and deep in thought. In the privacy of his head however, Modric was nursing a deep and terrible rage. Someone had brought his brother back from the dead. Someone had infected him with lycanthropy. Someone had pointed him towards this sacred ground, this monument to peace amongst the dwarves. And someone was going to pay.

It had to be one of the shapeshifters. Raising his brother from the dead wasn’t necromancy; he was a living, breathing thing. It was a divine power that did that. He considered the shapeshifter emissary, and his claim that the Shapeshifter God was not a god at all. He certainly couldn’t trust this shapeshifter, who apparently goes by the name ‘U’: at least not yet. He was being kept as a prisoner for now.

Modric turned the One True Coin between his fingers. Jorn Gravelarm believed that the One True Coin was not any specific coin; he believed that it was a metaphor, that it was any coin used as a symbol of conviction. He put his faith in this coin and it became the first One True Coin. What happens when thousands of shapeshifters sincerely believe that some terrible monster is their god? What power does that grant?

Baern was approaching him now, telling him that it was time to move on. Here was a dwarf that one year ago called him a half-dwarf, who insulted his ancestors, mocked his faith and killed his brother. This dwarf that defended me to the Council of Kings, that now follows my orders as we go to war. Everything changed so quickly.

“It is time to go”, said Baern again.

Modric held up a hand for silence. He cast his mind back to the day that his mentor took him out to the graveyard, clutching the forbidden tomes tight to his chest, and taught him the darkest rituals of his faith. He gripped the coin tightly in his fist as he spat out the cursed words that would make certain his brother could never again be brought back from whichever hell he now inhabited. The wind blew fiercely and the fresh soil on the grave seemed to settle.

He looked up at Baern. His voice was quiet, but failed to conceal his anger as he spoke.

“We’re going to make them pay, Baern. For my brother… for Urist.”

Baern bowed his head with a smile.

“That we will, my liege.”