Ardent had a speech to make.
The history of Koom Valley, in my world, is repeated around us every day. It is repeated in small, imperceptible ways, and I, and other Dwarfs, must remember the history around us in everything we do. Remember the sacrifices of our ancestors in both battle, and in life, in defending their culture against a world which may, at instants, tear it to pieces if they do not revere the past.
It has been, in the past, the words of the late Grag Hamcrusher spoken on, and about this solemn day. I speak them now, as the only Dwarf here, and thus, find it even more important to do so. For we all must fight for what defines us, we must all water the very roots of us, the histories which lay behind us, the legacies left by our great ancestors. We must continue the traditions we have, no matter of how few of us there are to share them with - and as thus, I shall thank you all for sharing this with me.
Koom Valley. Let me take a moment to describe Koom Valley itself; it is treacherous land. Full of potholes, underwater rivers thundering merely inches beneath your feet at times - it is surrounded on nearly all sides by forbidding peaks, by impassable mountains. There are very few ways out of the valley, once you are within it. And it is watered with Dwarf blood; the rivers rushing underneath your feet might as well be stained crimson, for the amount of blood shed upon that soil. I had seen paintings, but as impressive as they are, they never convey the... heaviness of the air in the Valley. The sense of history pressing all around you. I only needed to stand in that Valley, those caves, once, to know what being a Dwarf was truly about. You can taste the battle in the air, after all that time, you can feel the rivers under your feet, it's... real, and pungent, and awe-inspiring.
Because Dwarfs have fought Trolls for millenia. It is a battle which defines us. Trolls are nothing but lumbering killing machines with a penchant for killing Dwarfs. They were created as such, I pass no judgement of my own, but that of Tak. They were created half formed, never intended to be a Brother, like Humans or Dwarfs. They forever shamble in the Twilight, when Humans walk in the Light and Dwarfs in the Dark. They think about little else but crushing Dwarf skulls. It probably defines what they are, putting their dirty great clubs into Dwarf skulls. But Koom Valley... Koom Valley is legendary. Of all the battles, it is the one which stands throughout history as the most noble and valiant battle against this poisonous aggressor.
Dwarfs were walking on their own soil, on Uberwaldian land, above the dangerous underground caves of Koom Valley. Being surrounded by mountains, this time, also meant the danger of Trolls was ever present - they are, essentially, walking rock faces. The ambush that followed on this small group of Dwarfs, doing nothing but a small scouting mission, shall forever go down in history. For despite being outnumbered, despite being caught in surprise, the Dwarfs did not run - could not run - from this threat to their very existence, and brought their axes to their own defence. They may not have been numerous, but their tactical genius came to the fore, and they held their own against lumbering rocks which wanted them dead. Nothing more than that. The air was thick with spilled blood, with the crash of axe against stone, with the anguished cries of Dwarfs who had given their lives in defence of their fellow Dwarfs, in committing themselves to a great act of history. It was thick with an oncoming storm, too. The battle raged, but so did the clouds above, and the rivers below. The Valley mirrored the fury being wreaked upon its ground, and only seemed to grow angrier with every drop of Dwarfish blood spilt amongst the stones.
The storm broke, and the rain poured down to wash the blood away as it was being shed, to wash the sins of those Trolls into the very rivers and ground of Koom Valley itself. [There is a very, very solemn pause here,]
The efforts of those valiant Dwarfs was in vain. All in the battle, Troll and Dwarf, perished in the rising waters. They drowned. The injustice of the ambush brought against the Dwarfs, of the brutal killing fields created by needless Troll aggression, went unanswered. The battle was never won.
And the battle never will be won, nor forgotten. Dwarfs continue to fight for their culture, fight for everything around them, whether with axe or word, they continue to battle, they never stand down in the face of something Tak never intended to walk the Disc. The battle will be fought in the hearts and minds of every good Dwarf. Every Dwarf who knows his ancestors, who knows what is written - both by Tak and of history itself - will know Koom Valley is not won. Koom Valley will never be won, because life is Koom Valley. You can only emerge victorious by being a true, Law abiding Dwarf. By being the Dwarf Tak intended you to be. Koom Valley is not just an ambush in a dangerous place. It is everything. It is the struggle for yourself amongst all that would bring you down. It is the struggle for definition and culture.
[Another pause.] I have not just told you the history of Koom Valley, but I have told you what it means to be a Dwarf. I thank you for the attention to my words. [He then toasts in Dwarfish. To anyone who understands it, it's 'to my fallen Brothers']
What Ardent says above is... partly lies, partly the truth, partly what he believes to be the truth. And very, very racist. The version of the Dwarf creation myth he believes in basically puts Trolls as sub-creations, compared to Dwarfs and Humans.
The thing about Koom Valley is: Most people believed it to be an epic ambush, but could never decide who ambushed who; did the Trolls ambush the Dwarfs? (that's what a Dwarf would tell you) or did the Dwarfs ambush the Trolls? (that's what a Troll would tell you). It's a classic example of two variants of history, neither of them true, being used for political purposes. As a result of this? Dwarfs and Trolls have been fighting for centuries. So when Ardent tells y'all that the Dwarfs were ambushed? It's genuinely what he believes.
What's lies, what's the truth? - Most of it is what Ardent really does believe, but there's a couple of blatant lies/exaggerations in there. a) being outnumbered. b) 'their own soil' - the Dwarfs generally only own under Uberwald, and why fight a battle in land that isn't disputed, guys?
Everything else is the truth as far as Ardent is concerned. Which means it's about as far from reality as possible. The only things that actually happened at Koom Valley? Everyone drowned. That's true.
So what really happened?
Ardent will vehemently deny this as a set up and a total lie, because his version of history is right, dammit. BUT:
B'hrain Bloodaxe (the Low King at the time) and Diamond (the Troll King) were meeting to sign a peace treaty, to end all that centuries of warfare they were talking about. And thus, had a lot of Dwarfs/Trolls with them, as any good King needs an entourage. In the process, they recorded on the Cube the ancient version of What Tak Wrote, and an actual history of what happened/was happening in Koom Valley. And then were promptly drowned/preserved in rock in the underground caves of Koom Valley.
Then legend over took reality on both sides, and here's what we get. Ardent knows about this, but dismisses it all as a lie. He's trusting y'all to believe it because there's nothing to contradict him. Only Narvin should really know it's not-what-happened. His racist skew is pretty damn obvious, though.