Balgur Demirkapı

Balgur Demirkapı is the dwarf thane of the house of Demirkapı at Gromkar in Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles"). He has been the counsellor and teacher of the city's human baron, Castor Garet, since the baron's childhood, as he was of the baron's father; the baron counts him among the people he trusts most.^{1 2}

The rulers of Gromkar have traditionally conducted their affairs under the guidance of a dwarf mentor who raised them from childhood.³

The house of Demirkapı

The Demirkapı are not engineers but soldier nobles who defend a fortress, distant kin of the Demirsakal, and their mines in the dwarven kingdom of DağAltı yield almost all of the black amethyst. Balgur himself said that about nine in ten of those stones come from his mines, though he admitted he was no expert in them and offered to bring the companions to the mining masters then in the city for an imperial project.^{4 5}

The champion of the house, Karak Dağdöven, called Balgur his king: when speaking to humans the dwarves say thane, while a king heads each fortress or house and a high king rules above them. About five years before, Karak said, his king had promised that the dwarves would protect Gromkar, and no outside help could be accepted without Balgur's leave. Balgur said that every man of the house had learned the axe from Karak.^{6 7 8}

The baron thought that the house was losing strength, that things were going badly in DağAltı, and that Balgur was too proud to admit it. Four winters earlier, he said, Balgur's two grandsons and the baron's only son had been killed fighting drow while exploring the underground passages just outside the city walls. Balgur spoke too of his people's battles with black dragons allied with dark powers in the deep tunnels, in which both sides had suffered.^{2 9 10}

The companions

When Kemp Corvus, Sara and Ephorus brought Karak back alive from the tunnels, Balgur came gladly to thank them, and said that the name of their fallen dwarf companion Brundar would be written in the book of grudges and carried before the high king. He accepted their offer to keep fighting the drow, trusting Karak's word, but said that his men were few and behind in this war. The city's defence, he explained, belonged to his house by the rank of thane, while the baron saw to trade and the city's works.^{8 11 12}

He promised Kemp a suit of dwarven plate made for him alone, which was later delivered with a mark of belonging on its back plate and the wish that it return to the Demirkapı at Kemp's death rather than pass to his heirs. To Ephorus he gave a ring of health.^{13 14}

When Ephorus laid the ring down and showed his drow face, Karak reached for his hammer and Balgur stopped him. Balgur asked whether Ephorus's word would hold under captivity and pressure, and agreed to the partnership only if Ephorus did not hide his face in the city; if he lied to the people, Balgur said, he would have to cut his own hair and beard. He counted Ephorus a friend, but ruled that Sara, and through her Karak, would answer for any crime of his against the dwarves, and gave him back the ring.^{15 16 17 18}

Bardin's ashes

The companions brought back from a sealed tomb the arms of Bardin Demirkapı, an ancestor of the house. Balgur told them that Bardin had been among the first dwarves to come up to the surface, for which some of his people scorned him and buried him outside; he was famed for slaying a great red dragon alone, his axe still held its blood, and his shield was worked almost wholly of mithril. By right of blood, Balgur said, the treasure belonged to the companions, and he asked for the axe and shield for Karak in exchange for a fair return. The green dragon's defilement of the tomb had been written in the book of grudges and would now be struck out, for no one kills a dragon by chance; it was a sign of fate and of the god's favour.^{19 20 21}

He offered to bring the companions to the rune masters of Gazad, who give holy objects seen in their dreams to those who deserve them, and to keep the dragon's remains to be sent ahead of them. When Ephorus asked for a small piece of mithril in the sun tattoo on his arm, as a mark of dwarven friendship no one could steal, Balgur promised it if Ephorus came through alive, and otherwise to bury him with it.^{22 23}

Balgur admitted that he might fall out with the baron, his former pupil, and that although he was the elder, his oath bound him to the baron's orders. He meant to close and narrow some of the tunnels so that the enemy would have to pass before the dwarves in low corridors and could be held for months; the baron would rather close every tunnel and give up the trade, while Karak held the tunnels to be the old homeland of the dwarves.^{24 25 26}

Then Balgur broke the lid of the great metal vessel from the tomb and poured a handful of its ashes onto the city square, and the dwarves mixed them into the soil. Karak declared that Gromkar was now dwarven ground of the kingdom under the mountain, and that since Bardin lay there, to retreat would be to yield his grave to the enemy. Dwarves young and old, women, and the one-legged keeper of the Tahta Bacak inn gathered with their hammers. When the baron asked with what army, Balgur answered with the army of the exalted, and said he would keep his word to the baron's father and never leave the baron or Gromkar to the drow.^{27 28}

When the Inquisition came to the city's aid, its Grand Master Hemlock declared that his forces had come to be Balgur Demirkapı's soldiers and servants, and Balgur greeted him with a smile. Through Karak, Balgur gave the three companions a document, signed in his name, granting them entry to DağAltı and acceptance as friends of the dwarves.^{29 30}

Spoiler: What followedRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #34; Sürgün Günlükleri #35; Sürgün Günlükleri #38; Sürgün Günlükleri #42; Sürgün Günlükleri #44 · Say what you have read

Karak told the companions that Balgur's son had died and that he had no other; this might be the last war of the Demirkapı. On a night when some forty drow struck at many places in Gromkar at once, Karak swore at a ceremony to take vengeance on those who had killed the Demirkapı and to fight until his own death.^{31 32 33}

At the gate of DağAltı the officer Darvin Fırtınayumruk told the companions that news of Balgur's death had reached them, and that they would honour his document as the will of a departed friend. He had known Balgur little, and his son, who had also died recently, only well enough to greet; Balgur had been the last of the Demirkapı. The high king later told the companions that he knew of Balgur's letter of passage.^{34 35 36}

The goods and mines of the house that held no mithril passed to its nearest kin and bannermen, the Demirsakal, who had in fact worked them for seventy or eighty years while the income went to the Demirkapı; the mithril mine was to pass to the Altınsakal and the high king. Ephorus had taken the snake whip of the drow priestess who had ordered Balgur's killing, and the officer judged that it should be handed to the Demirsakal in person.^{37 38}

The companions delivered the whip at a Demirsakal kinsman's great manor among gardens and statues, as a token of vengeance for the Demirkapı; its magic was said to be gone. Over breakfast they recalled Balgur's promise of mithril for Ephorus, and their host said that someone of the family would honour it if he could not. Ephorus, who had since lost a hand, was later offered a glove to cover it in fulfilment of that promise.^{39 40 41}