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magic washing around the Westlands. How strange to think that a new star up there in the sky could affect the lives of dwarves here underground. . .
    They came to a cavern where huge sections of pipe were being assembled. Overseer Glunt was looking on, striding up and down with a look of satisfaction on his usually angry face and his hands in the pockets of his moleskin coat. He greeted Etty and Durgar almost cheerfully when they scrambled down off their diremole and went over to join him. Even when Durgar showed him Etty’s record of the conversation she had overheard his good mood did not vanish entirely, although a frown appeared between his bushy eyebrows.
    â€œAsking help from the bigling king, are they? They don’t realize what they’re up against, the fools. They think a bunch of overgrown biglings can help them stop us? And yet. . .” He paused and looked thoughtful, tapping the edge of Etty’s slate against his teeth. “We do not want any more biglings nosing around, not until our great work is complete.”
    â€œAnd what is this great work, Overseer?” asked Durgar. “All these tunnels and pipes; warriors and miners being ordered hither and yon. . .”
    â€œYou’ll know when you need to know, Durgar,” snapped Glunt. “It’s the Head’s orders. The Head Knows All and the Head Knows Best, you know.”
    â€œOh, aye,” agreed Durgar, “but. . .”
    â€œI have an idea!” said Glunt, brightening again. He waved the slate under Durgar’s nose. “Go asking favours of the king, would they? Well, why should they deserve his favours? Isn’t Dwarvendom one of the kingdoms of the Westlands too? We shall send our own ambassadors to the High King!”
    â€œBut we don’t have any ambassadors, overseer.”
    â€œWe do now,” snapped Glunt. “Gather your stuff, Durgar, and pick yourself a couple of companions. You’ll be leaving for Coriander this very day.”

It was almost a hundred miles from Clovenstone to Coriander: six days’ hard walking across the wild uplands of Oeth Moor, past the clear waters of Lyn Glas and the frowning scarps of the Calchoen hills. A road had run that way back in the Lych Lord’s time, but nowadays most of its stones were overgrown with grass, or had been dragged away by farmers to wall their fields. For most of the way Skarper and Henwyn trod a wet track paved only with puddles. At last they reached the green valley where the River Ystwyth ran, and as they struck south along its banks the track improved and the villages grew larger and more frequent, until the river widened at last into the great, grey, restless sea, and the road swung westerly and led them down to Coriander.
    The city of the High Kings of the Westlands lay upon the shore of a broad bay, whose waters were dotted with many-coloured sails as bright as petals. Along the waterfront were quays, shipyards, chandlers’ shops, ropemakers’ lofts and big, stone-built warehouses. Inland the houses were mostly built of wood, painted in red and blue and yellow, so that when Henwyn and Skarper first came in sight of it the city looked like a cheery patchwork counterpane spread over the hills. Just offshore, on a rocky island linked to the city by a causeway and a steady coming-and-going of ferry boats, stood Boskennack, the castle of the High King, with long banners rippling in the sea breeze and shining copper spires a-glitter in the afternoon sun.
    â€œThere!” said Henwyn, pointing proudly. (He’d never been within sixty miles of Coriander, but he’d heard so many stories of it that Boskennack seemed as familiar to him as his father’s cheesery.) “That is where the High King lives, His Royal Majesty King Padstow the Twelfth, who is a direct descendant of King Kennack himself. And that lesser tower, lower down, is the Hall of Heroes. It’s there that we shall find the brave warriors