A heavy book bound in iron-studded leather, its pages thick as armor plating. Dwarven runes are stamped into the cover, and the spine creaks when opened.
Hear now the saga of Brundrik Stonebluff, called the Elder, who rose from the tunnels to the throne, who carried the weight of a mountain on his shoulders, and who asked nothing of his people that he would not give twice over himself.
He was born to the Stonebluff clan, miners, not nobles. His hands learned the pick before the sword, and his first decades were spent in the deep tunnels where mithril gleams and dangers lurk in every shadow. He was unremarkable in birth, unremarkable in fortune, and entirely remarkable in courage.
Brundrik joined the Iron Tunnels Guard at forty, young for a dwarf taking up arms. His superiors noted his stubborn refusal to retreat, his habit of placing himself between his comrades and danger, and his complete disregard for his own safety when others were at risk. Promotions followed, not because he sought them, but because the dwarves who served beside him refused to follow anyone else.
For a century and a half he served. He fought goblin warbands in the upper tunnels. He held the line against cave-ins that would have buried lesser dwarves. He led expeditions into the deep places where older, darker things stirred. His body became a map of scars, each one earned protecting someone else.
Then came the Year of Ash and Sorrow.
A plague swept through the Ember Halls, killing rich and poor alike. The royal family, King Durgan IV and his heirs, fell within a single month. Then the deep tunnels collapsed in a series of earthquakes that some whispered were no natural occurrence. The kingdom was leaderless, grieving, and under assault from threats above and below.
The Council of Elders met in emergency session. They needed a king. Not a politician. Not a noble who had spent his life in comfortable halls. They needed someone who understood war, who knew the tunnels, who could hold the realm together through sheer force of will.
They chose Brundrik Stonebluff.
He accepted reluctantly. "I am a soldier," he told them. "I know how to fight. I do not know how to rule." The Council's response has become legendary: "Then fight for us, and we will help you rule."
He sat upon the Throne of Ash and Iron for a hundred and twenty years, and never stopped wearing his battered circlet of black iron and mithril or carrying himself like a warrior first and a monarch second. He spoke plainly, expected competence, and valued deeds over titles. He drank with his soldiers in the Cinderbrew Hall and knew the name of every dwarf who died under his command.
Goblin warbands tested the mountain in every decade of his reign, and the deep tunnels never stopped shifting. Each time, the dwarves of Khur Dural met the threat with courage, because their king stood at the front of every battle, his hammer blazing with runic fire, his voice roaring defiance at whatever darkness dared approach.
He died as he had lived, in the deep tunnels, holding a collapsing gallery long enough for the miners behind him to get clear. They carried him up to the Hall of Flames on their shoulders, and the Firewardens say his pyre burned for nine days. His son ruled after him, and the grandson who bears his name sits upon the Throne of Ash and Iron today.
He was not the king they expected. He was the king they needed.
Stone endures. Fire purifies. Stonebluff prevails.
, Recorded by the Saga-Keepers of the Ember Halls