The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

Yorvig didn’t mind letting Hobblefoot go first. Holding his spear point-down, Hobblefoot turned onto the ladder and started climbing. Warmcoat followed close behind, then Yorvig began. Greal and Onyx came last. It was the longest chute in the entire claim, and it opened onto a wide and high stope. The smell grew fouler as they descended.

“Here they are,” Hobblefoot said from below.

Stepping onto the rock at the bottom of the chute, Yorvig saw what Hobblefoot meant. There were bones piled together a few yards to the right. Scraps of clothing were mixed in, and a few stone knives. There were other weapons—clubs and few broken javelins—scattered on the floor of the stope.

Yorvig frowned. It wasn’t right. He approached the stinking pile and pushed a bone away from the top with his foot. The bones were jumbled, broken, and cracked. Maybe they’d jumped or fallen from above. . . but they wouldn’t be piled over there.

“Somethings wrong,” he said.

“Here’s another, but . . .” Warmcoat trailed off. He stood a bit further into the stope, staring down in the light of the lamp. Onyx and Greal looked around at the stope from the foot of the ladder with wary expressions.

Yorvig and Hobblefoot joined Warmcoat, though the smell nearly pushed them away. In front of Warmcoat lay a fresher body, or what was left of one. It had been stripped of much of the flesh and organs, though not completely. What remained had started to rot, and one of the legs was missing entirely.

They ate each other.

The memory of a nightmare returned to him.

“Be careful!” he hissed, raising his walking hammer.

“What?”

“There’s still one alive. . . At least one.”

“How is that possible?” Onyx said, hurriedly walking toward them. Hobblefoot held out his hand and turned away from the body.

“No reason to come see,” he said.

Yorvig stared into the dark of the drift ahead, his heart pounding.

“What is it?” Warmcoat asked.

“There’s one in here.”

Greal and Hobblefoot heard the cold edge to Yorvig’s tone and turned, looking into the dark.

“We can go back up the ladder,” Warmcoat suggested.

“No,” Yorvig said. “We can’t leave this thing down here.”

“I don’t understand,” Onyx said, staring down with squinted eyes at the body of the ürsi.

“You should go back up,” Yorvig told her.

“I’m not going anywhere in here alone."

That was a good point. Yorvig also didn’t want to send anyone else with her. They would stay together. Surely they were a match for one or two ursi. There were enough bones that there could hardly be more.

“Follow me,” he said, forcing himself to walk forward further into the stope. The darkness receded in front of the oil lamp. The light irritated him. Standing so close made it hard to see into the darkness. But would he rather do this in total blackness?

“This is where the amethyst came from,” Warmcoat whispered to Greal. Greal looked around and nodded.

"You showed me before."

Yorvig couldn’t believe they cared about amethysts right now.

They halted at the split between the two drifts. This was the history of Hobblefoot and Sledgefist's feud, each digging a different direction. Yorvig’s nose was useless in here. Nothing got through the pall of rot. He forced himself to pick. He would go right.

“Warmcoat, Onyx, and Greal, stay here and be ready. Put the lamp down on the ground behind you. Hobblefoot, with me.”

Yorvig moved to the right, toward Hobblefoot’s old drift. He heard the other dwarf’s footfalls with him. The drift was too narrow for them both to stand side by side.

“Let me go,” Hobblefoot said, pushing past with his long spear. They moved up the drift close together, bit by bit. As they distanced themselves from the lamp, their eyes slowly adjusted.

They came to the end. No ursi.

"The other drift," Yorvig said.

They did the same thing in the other drift even slower. Yorvig's heart pounded. Something moved ahead. There was a clicking, like a fast gear moving, but somehow also sounding wet. Hobblefoot crouched low, his feet spread wide. Nothing moved toward them out of the dark. Yorvig patted Hobblefoot’s shoulder and they inched forward. A couple more yards and they could see it, crouched at the end of the drift. It was naked, and it held a club with what looked like a great rusted iron nail hammered through it. It made the strange clicking noise again deep in its throat. There was what looked like an old suppurating wound on its shoulder.

And it was missing an ear. That wound was not new. It was a clean cut and long healed, judging by the pale ridge of scar against the ürsi’s grey skin. Hobblefoot made to advance on it with the spear, but Yorvig held him by the shoulder.

“What?” he asked.

“Wait,” Yorvig said. He was looking at the creature. It's orb-like eyes blinked sideways, its body trembled, but it didn't look like fear. It looked like it was ready to pounce.

"What?" Hobblefoot said.

"Back up."

"I can kill it."

"No. Back up."

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s the last one,” he said.

“I know. That’s why I was going to kill it.”

“It’s killed all the others. They’ve eaten each other to survive.”

“I realize that.”

“Like a rat.”

Hobblefoot tensed, not taking his eyes off the beast.

“You’re saying. . .You want. . . you better tell me yourself.”

“It can't get out. We need to talk with the others.” The ürsi was staring at them, and it started weaving its upper body back and forth.

Slowly, they inched back down the drift. The ürsi made no attempt to follow.

“Nothing there?” Greal asked as they emerged back into the junction.

“No, it was there,” Hobblefoot said. “At the end of the tunnel.”

“Dead or alive?”

“Alive.”

“You got it then?”

Hobblefoot looked to Yorvig.

“No,” Yorvig answered.

“Why?”

“We’re going back to capture it.”

“What?” Onyx asked, incredulous. “Why would you capture it?”

“So we can let it go.”

It was a long argument. They all knew the legend, but it didn’t sway the others. Onyx kept silent but Greal thought Yorvig had lost his mind. Warmcoat lost his temper and yelled that it was a worthless effort to handle the vile thing rather than kill it or seal off the whole area. Yorvig countered that there was hematite and limonite down there among other resources, and they would have to clear the dead, anyway. It was plain that Hobblefoot did not like the plan, but for whatever reason, he kept mostly quiet.

"Hammer and tongs, Chargrim," Warmcoat said. "It is a gilke's story."

"They'll just feed it and send it back after us."

"They killed Savvyarm," Hobblefoot said at last.

But Yorvig could not shake the idea. Something in his gut told him it was what they were meant to do, like an old rinlen who dreamed of the right spot to dig, even though there was no other sign. He knew it, and he trembled.

"I am rinlen," he said. "Is this beast worth breaking your oaths?"

"I rue that vote," Warmcoat sneered.

"Shit on the whole claim if you want," Yorvig answered. "Will you break your oath?"

"This is superstition," Greal said.

To Yorvig it felt like an irresistible impulse, a gut feeling that insisted it was right and logic be damned. Maybe that was superstition. But there was no other choice he could make.

"You've lost your mind," Warmcoat said. "But I will not break faith. Let there be sixty-four against us, then."

What difference did that really make?

Yorvig sent Warmcoat back for rope and the fishing net. They left Onyx behind while the four dwarves moved back down Hobblefoot’s old drift, and she did not complain. The ürsi remained crouched at the end, naked, looking more like a wild animal even than the beasts normally did. Yorvig watched it for a time, making double sure it did not conceal another weapon somehow. Satisfied at length, he gave the order:

"Now."

Using the butt of his spear, Hobblefoot rammed the ursi hard in the stomach, slamming it against the back of the drift. It shrieked and squirmed away, but Hobblefoot caught it again in the side, pushing hard. Yorvig squeezed beneath Hobblefoot's arm. He would take this part himself, because it was his idea. Swallowing down the nausea at the thought of grappling with it, he lurched forward. It twisted and raised its club, but Hobblefoot slammed the butt into it again, pushing it against the stone. Yorvig dropped the fishing net over the club and yanked. The iron spike caught. The ürsi released its club, twisted away from the spear, and leapt forward hissing, fangs wide and claws toward Yorvig's neck, Wiry and desperate as it was, it did not have the raw strength of one dwarf, let alone four. Yorvig slammed a fist against it, knocking it into the drift wall, then grabbed its arms. The beast tried to claw and twist, but before it could get at Yorvig with its feet, Hobblefoot had its legs. Greal moved in with the rope. The dwarves cursed and spat, but soon the ürsi was bound tight and helpless and trussed on a spearhaft.

“This is mad,” Hobblefoot said, but he whispered it under his breath with his back turned to the others. Greal was cursing loudly about how he had to scrub his whole body and his clothes thrice three times and again. But Hobblefoot and Greal lifted the spearhaft over their shoulders and carried the ürsi out of the drift. Onyx’s eyes widened as it appeared, and she stared at it as they passed. It was the closest she’d ever come to one, Yorvig realized.

It was trouble getting the beast up the ladders and into the High Adit. Striper and the other Mine Runners were nowhere to be seen. They took it straight to the stone door and opened it. Through the bridge slat, he saw that the tower was clear. He and Warmcoat manned the crank for the bridge. It was already growing dark outside. They lowered the bridge partway, leaving it a good four feet above the tower platform. They heard yips and guttering down in the dell. They brought the trussed ürsi forward onto the bridge. Yorvig and Hobblefoot remained while the others went back through the stone door. Down in the dell, they saw the ürsi ringed around, watching. They had tied the ürsi's hands and feet together with one rope.

“On three,” Yorvig said. Hobblefoot nodded. He slid a knife in between the rope loops, counted, and slashed, springing away from the ürsi. It didn't rise as they rushed back into the adit. Warmcoat already had a spear raised in case it came at them, but it didn’t. At first it didn’t even move, staring at them with its black orb-eyes. The dwarves swung the stone door shut and Yorvig peered through the slat. With a sudden snap the ürsi flipped into a crouch and turned to face them. It stayed there, staring motionless for what felt a long time. Then, it slowly backed up to the end of the bridge. It opened its mouth, showing fangs, and it jumped the gap to the tower.

“Raise it!” Yorvig said. The winch turned as Warmcoat and Greal worked the jack. Before it was even closed, they heard a chorus of short yips and high-pitched keens from the ürsi in the dell. The bridge touched stone.