Meanwhile, in Firungráda, Dreygan the Frostgiant continued in his own ways, ignoring the rumours of war. When Spring came again, he set Slungandi to work. First, he gave him thirty ells of dragonhide, and from them Slungandi fashioned a mighty drum, Brandubur. From the Talyoran he drew the runes of the deep into the Drum. Thenceforth it was the Drum of the Deep, Tumbulë ta-Kumbren. So loud and persistent did his drumming become that he was called Fûbraváni ‘he who thunders’.
Then at Dreygan’s bidding, Slungandi went out into the wastes beneath the northern mountains, and beat on Brandubur. When he had beaten the Drum for many days, the Falakkazri began to gather, one dozen, two dozen, three dozen. And Dreygan came forth, and the Falakkazri came and did obeisance to him. And Dreygan said to them:
‘You have been a despised and rejected people without power or prince. Become my servants, and I will give you dignity and power.’
Now the Falakkazri were the lesser part of that people who had become the Ainë, Doitherúna in the form of great birds. At the beginning of the making of Thrâyeldim, they were a little people, small in stature among the Gangri and the Entellári, the Silúna and the Thendâ, and they were without a Guardianship, and had no task more exalted than to do the bidding of the greater Doitherúna. And so they petitioned Émarul Sápha that they be given the Guardianship of the Air; and she decreed that they receive the form of birds, greater than all but the greatest birds of the air.
But even as the remaking of their soul-houses — their hignathanya — began, there were those of them who said nay to it, for they wished to remain earthbound and were unwilling to soar into the sky. A dissension arose among them, and the lesser party lost the debate; the greater party assumed their birdlike form and became the Ainë, and they built fâligna or higheries for themselves to dwell in. And their lords were known as the Melainë, and the chief of them all was Kerorkîn Melainen. But those who refused the transformation retained only a hawklike countenance to show what they might have become; they came to be called the Hawkheaded Ones, the Falakkazri, and they were shut out. They had no proper dwellings and wandered without purpose in the mountains of Zorthin, avoiding the Gangri and the Kabadri. But when they heard the drumming of Slungandi they were drawn to Firungráda, which hitherto they had shunned in fear of the Ice Giant.
Then Dreygan commanded Slungandi to prepare dwellings for them, for they were warm-blooded nyandri like him. So he went to the Kabdath of Hlund beyond the mountains, and entreated them to carve out dwellings for the Falakkazri.
The Hlundika Kabadri came over the mountains and worked day and night to build chambers in the rock. And the Falakkazri dwelt in them and made fires and became warm; they went hunting and fishing and fed and clothed themselves; and they praised their new master Dreygan.
When the Hlundika Kabadri had finished their labours, they asked Dreygan,
‘Where is the payment for our labour?’
But Dreygan threatened them with the hammer Gantâr.
‘Just this,’ he said, ‘that I do not beat your bones to dust!’
But Slungandi went secretly to Dreygan’s storehouse and took his whole supply of icemetal from it, and gave it privily to the Hlundika Kabdath.
Then they said to Slungandi:
‘We have forged an armoury for the Fellgiants, and they are on the way here, armed with the swords and spears that we made, to overthrow Dreygan, because they have heard a rumour that he has taken into his service a sorcerer of the Entellári by whose power he wants to rule all the lands of the Gangri.’
Then they went away. Slungandi went to Dreygan and told him that an army of Fellgiants were on their way to overthrow him. But he dismissed it as idle gossip.
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