He looked right at Greg, and his eyes were red but dry. "He would have said something useful right now..."
"Something that made you feel dumb for sitting on the floor when there was work to be done."
Dorin's hands never stopped moving, keeping the forge's flames going. "He believed in what you were building here..."
"More than he believed in anything since leaving the Ironbottom clan, and more than he believed in me when I came back from what was supposed to be death."
"He believed in you and what you stand for."
The voice of the old dwarf got rougher. "So, are you going to build it or let him die for nothing?!"
The words penetrated Greg's paralysis with a sharp edge.
He stood up, but not in a dramatic way or with a flash of golden light. He stood up like someone who'd been down for a while and needed to get to work.
He clasped it to his travel cloak, the last thing Bork made that needed to be put away. The metal was warm against his chest, which was a constant reminder.
