"Exactly! Exactly so! I would not be able to trace the patterns and disruptions of the city as you do, but the principle is just the same, I think. After all, people are part of the world around them, though we seek to bend our surroundings to our will. Certainly the politics of Argunn Lode are not so different from the struggles of the wild, though they may pretend to something higher. Now I am curious to see the big city, and hear your observations on its rhythms!

"But I forget -- it will require much time and much luck for us to come to that. For now, I am supposed to be teaching you what I know about these wilds of my home -- `the deep caverns of coldstone and and mountains in the sky,' as it's been called. So consider this: when one wolf-pack wanders into another's territory, there is usually considerable fuss, and posturing, and growling and howling. But most of the time, little actual violence. One pack decides it is the weaker, and moves on. But sometimes, when the winter has been hard, and neither pack is clearly stronger, neither is willing to leave. And then it comes to blood, and the luck and fate of battle decide which is weaker, which stronger.

"This is not so different with people: kingdom has fought against kingdom, whether dwarf, or human, or something else again. But like the wolves, there is more often posturing, and rattling of swords, and maybe skirmishes here and there, and then the two groups have a sense of each other's measure, and go back to a more peaceful life.

"But what of the orcs? I tell you this, because your history may not say: dwarves have fought orcs for centuries upon centuries, and I have heard it is the same with elves, and with humans: all of us have been at war with the orcs for as long as there have been scribes to record it. First, why do you suppose this is, and second, with all the magic of the elves, and the puissance of the dwarves, and the adaptability of the humans, why haven't the orcs been destroyed?

"These may well be unanswerable questions, though I'm interested to hear your thoughts."

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