GORDRED STOOD STOCK-STILL, GAZING DOWN IN TERROR AT THE UNNATURAL SCENE. WHAT DID LOTHAR EXPECT HIM TO DO? WHY WERE THEY ALL GIVING HIM IMPATIENT LOOKS AS THEY MOVED TO JOIN HIM? NOW THE GHOULS WERE STEPPING UP THE WORN STAIRS TOWARDS HIM. ONE LASHED OUT WITH A CLAWED HAND AND GORDRED TURNED TO RUN. LOTHAR CURSED. "THE CLERIC'S LOST HIS NERVE MANFRED, FORTUNATUS-ATTACK " Gordred is a fully trained scrivener in the city of Cosht. He's served his apprenticeship and now he's a journeyman, looking for work. So he tells his long-suffering parents. Sadly, he missed the hiring fair, having been down the tavern the previous night with fellow apprentices Dilrich and Rambert. Somehow, they both got out of bed early enough to get themselves swanky jobs in a scrivener's on the other side of town, and now they can go drinking and whoring every night. Gordred's girlfriend Rhyn also wants him to get a job so he can settle down, get a place of his own, and marry her. So when Gordred's mother mentions that the mysterious Kestrel Free Company, operating out of some scruffy hired offices down by the harbour, are advertising a clerical job, Gordred makes tracks. Little does he realise that this fateful decision will lead him into high adventures that take him away from the city, and into the goblin caves beneath the Mountains of Morning, until he finds himself up to his neck in the machinations of dwarves, goblins and changeling rebels...