The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

Three days Yorvig waited, mining and mending with the others. Each day he climbed to the terrace to view the dell. The carrion came; vultures, crows, ravens. All the sorts of creatures that scoured the Waste as well, though no jackals. He hated the jackals that prowled the Waste. He’d never heard them until he ventured out of Deep Cut on his way to the claim, but their howling and yipping had filled the nights with dread. Folk had told him that jackals didn’t attack dwarves except in dire need, but he hadn’t thought to ask what constituted dire need. He smirked at the memory. From jackals to ürsi. Back then, ürsi had just been an idea, something from stories.

On the fourth day, Yorvig ventured out. As they were lowering the gate, Striper and two of her offspring came running to the door.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"She and the others have been in my chamber for days," Onyx said.

"In your chamber?"

"Ay, yes. I kept water there for them."

It made some sense. That was about as far from the ürsi as they could get. Now the Mine Runners were hungry, begging to be let down to hunt. Yorvig went back and got a basket, putting them inside to be carried down the tower. They could climb up, but for whatever reason they never wanted to climb down.

He left Warmcoat and Onyx atop the tower platform, warning them to watch above as well as below. He feared a possible assault by rope down from the cliff, as unlikely as that might be. Greal carried the crossbow, Hobblefoot his spear, and Yorvig trod the dell with his walking hammer, making a straight line for the promontory. The ground in the dell stank. There was filth all across it. The loam was pressed with ürsi clawprints. But atop the promontory Yorvig found what he more or less expected. It was the remains of one of the large ürsi. It’s gnawed and cleaned skull lay a few yards away, but the parts of the body still within the rusted old mail shirt were largely untouched. Clumps of dark hair were scattered around, matted and damp.

“Mail,” Greal said. “I haven't seen that on an ürsi before. "

“We saw it,” Hobblefoot said. “On a big one that was standing here with a spear and a bunch of yellow feathers.”

There was no sign of spear or mantle of feathers, but for whatever reason, the mail remained, so decayed that in places it had fused. There was a tear in one spot where the rivets had been broken, maybe from the blow that had killed the original wearer. Judging by the size and the rivet work, it was human in origin. Most ürsi would not have been able to reasonably wear it. It had still fallen down to this one's knees, though knees it had no longer.

“Do you think it was deposed?” Hobblefoot asked.

Yorvig shrugged.

“I do not know what these beasts do.”

Somehow, deposed felt too civilized a word, if that could be. His thoughts dwelt more on rats.

"There're more here."

Greal had walked a few yards further. There were the remains of two more of the larger ürsi, judging by the size of the eviscerated and torn pieces that remained. They had been hidden behind low rock.

"Well," Hobblefoot said, then shook his head and turned away.

They left the bodies to be finished by the vultures, though Yorvig was surprised even they would eat the foul creatures.

They saw no sign of ürsi that week. They brought all the charcoal inside the mine. The ürsi had burned much of their remaining store of wood for their own fires. The second week, they ventured to the weir. It was unharmed and full of fish. They ate some and smoked more. During this time they mined and smelted, for Yorvig did not trust the foe was truly gone. Still there was no sign. The third week, they cleared the door to the Low Adit and lit fires in the old stope where the ürsi had died, tossing their bones in the forest and letting smoke cleanse the drifts. Hobblefoot knew where more of the vein of hematite could be mined, and so they focused on that while Onyx smelted the ore. They needed iron much more than gold. It felt backwards. In Deep Cut, iron was common, and gold so rare. No gold had been found in Deep Cut itself. What there was came from trade. The smell of ürsi faded in the dell, and rain washed their tracks.

The fourth week, there was a chill in the air and cool spitting rain. Yorvig stood in the first terrace alone at dawn. The clouds above were flushed pink from the east, but the ridge never revealed the sunrise beyond. They must hunt, again, whether or not the ürsi were truly gone. The summer drew to a close, and they still needed to survive. That reality never left. While it was hard to trust that an ambush wasn't waiting for them, they could not survive indefinitely without venturing beyond the bounds of the dell and the path to the weir.

The pockmarks of the old ürsi campfires could still be seen in the dell, little charred circles of fresh ashes amidst the fading remains of the great burn. In the spring and summer, new growth had reached upward, reveling in the open sunshine. Much had been trampled, now.

How?

They should be dead. He should be dead. All it would have taken was the merest change in the trajectory of a sling stone, or an ürsi feinting rather than striking. One of the dwarves could have stepped right rather than left.

But it was more than just the battle and siege or the mad idea of letting One-Ear go. Why had Hobblefoot and Sledgefist fancied the same maid? Why had any of this happened?

How was Yorvig standing there as rinlen, still drawing breath? How could life be anything but a thread in a tapestry woven by purpose? How else could such odds prevail?

Yorvig’s hands trembled, and a flush of heat had risen to his face. Though his eyes stared out across the dell, his mind grappled with questions about a hundred happenstances leading to this moment.

There was a footfall behind him and he spun around, half expecting to see the hungry orb-like eyes that so haunted his mind. Instead, it was Onyx, wearing a yellow wrap dress, a blue half veil, and a scarf of silver around her hair. The fineness of it seemed so out of place here. Before he knew it, he looked down at her shoulders but kept his eyes moving to the ground, as if the glance had been part of the movement. He ran his fingers through his beard. She must be here to tend the garden beds. The radishes looked ready.

“Are you well?” Onyx asked.

“Ay, yes,” he said. “Just planning a hunt.”

“I want to come this time,” she said flatly.

“Why?”

“If you won’t treat me like the rest, why should I act like them?” She raised an eyebrow, perfectly arched over the deep jewel of her eye. Yorvig’s gut stirred, but he managed something resembling a snort of amusement.

“Do not make this difficult,” he said.

“I’m not making things difficult simply by being a maid.”

That was plainly not true, Yorvig thought. There was a reason why maids and wifs worked together in Deep Cut, and dwarves with dwarves. But he supposed it was more the fault of Greal and Khlif. Would Yorvig have left a sister alone in Deep Cut, though? Better not to come if there was kin to look after. Yet dwarf-maids who chose to marry their trades often kept their own stoneholds. They looked after themselves. No, this wasn’t about Onyx being weak or incapable of hunting. This was about the fear of something happening to her. He couldn’t help it. It just did not seem the same, for a dwarf to die and for a maid to die, or even be injured. Maybe there was a way to keep her safer.

“Can you handle a crossbow?” he asked.

“I could learn.”

“Greal will take our crossbow. We don’t have a spare. But you have smelted hematite. I can delay the hunt for one day. We need to make more crossbows, anyway—” Yorvig looked over his shoulder, but she was already hurrying down the drift toward the stair.

Onyx completed her crossbow before morning. Yorvig had to admit, it was far more elegant in design than the ones the dwarves had forged and carved. Onyx was a better smith than the rest of them. Even though her practice had been in delicate and fine metals, she knew the way of hammer and fire beyond their simple minerly skill, the kind all gilke were taught. She chose cedar for the stock, as they had some kept from their felling of the dell, being a strong wood and resistant to rot and insects. With oil, it would have come to a lovely red sheen, but they had no such oil to spare. Though only the work of a single day, Onyx’s crossbow was pleasing to the eye and the hand, lighter yet the power remained. She had made a strap of hide to hang it from her shoulder.

“You must make us more,” Yorvig said, handing it back to Onyx after looking it over. “Each of us should have one.”

“I will start after the hunt,” she answered, and her eyes crinkled in such a way that Yorvig suspected she smiled. He smirked in return.

“Ay, yes. After the hunt, then.”

Yorvig walked with Greal and Onyx down to the river, leaving Hobblefoot and Warmcoat to hold the claim safe. Having Onyx along made Yorvig feel exposed. There was a sense of fear, and he took especial care to move slowly and watch for any sign of trouble. Yorvig had his walking hammer, which he preferred even over a longer spear. Despite his nerves, he led them south along the river, following the game trail. He suspected that the ürsi came from the south, and he wanted to see if there was any fresh sign of them.

There was plenty of sign of ürsi tracks, but they were full of water or half washed away, none looking new. The cold rain of the day before had turned to a heavy pall of gray cloud that obscured the tops of the mountains. By midday, they had passed a few miles downstream, seeing little of anything living.

Yorvig was crouched, squinting at a stand of trees ahead where the undergrowth was thin, when Onyx tapped his arm.

“Look,” she whispered.

Winding through the browned ferns to their right along the riverside were hairy green vines. Onyx reached down and tapped on some kind of gourd lying amid the large broad leaves.

“What is it?”

“It looks like some kind of squash.”

Greal leaned over, looking at it.

“I don’t recognize it,” he said.

“The cultivators at Deep Cut grow these. Or something like them. They make pies and bakes and stews of them.”

“Are we sure its the same thing?” Yorvig asked. He didn’t want to be poisoned. He had heard that great care should be taken in eating any plants one found.

Onyx was crouched, the high split of her wrap dress revealing one leg of her dark brown trousers. She reached into her wrap and drew a dagger. It surprised Yorvig, because he had never seen her carrying a dagger, but she had somehow produced one from a fold in the loose garment. Dwarves loved pockets in their clothes, and it occurred to Yorvig that a maid's wraps could hide all sorts of pockets and pouches for the concealing of things.

Onyx sliced the gourd in half, revealing a stringy center full of broad, flat seeds. She lifted one half to her nose and smelled. Why that was necessary, Yorvig didn’t know; he could smell it from there, strong and sweet.

“Ah,” Onyx said with a sigh. “My friend once baked this with honey and cave-bread.”

That did sound good. Anything sweet sounded good. Salt, too.

“There are more of them,” she said, moving aside more of the broad leaves.

“Are you sure?” Greal asked.

Onyx rolled her eyes.

“I have not forgotten what my hands held.”

“Is it worth carrying some back?” Yorvig asked, ignoring the sibling hostility.

“It’s worth carrying them all back, and we can plant the seeds in the spring and let the vines grow over the edges of the terraces.” Her eyes crinkled again as she looked at him, as if she was smiling beneath the veil. “A gift for next year.”

That was when he admitted it to himself. He knew it was the way of things, between dwarves and maids; he knew it was a complication, something best ignored and forgotten. But it didn’t matter. He wanted her. He wanted her, despite how much he wanted to not want her. “I value a dwarf of his word,” she had said, knowing the oath he swore. He’d run that through his head many times, hoping it meant something other than the flat obvious. How much clearer could she be that she did not want his pursuit?

Yorvig shook the thoughts away and stood up.

“Then let’s take them.”

They found many growing along the river. They had to build a litter of branches to haul the heaping mound of them back to the claim. Over the coming days, they ate many of them, keeping bags of the seeds in storage while roasting more of the seeds for eating at Onyx's suggestion.

From that day, Yorvig put Onyx in the hunting rotations, though he did not always go with her. The hunting was not so good as it had been in the summer, but the hunting parties did bring in a few beasts of size that increased their larder by hundredweights. They found that one of the best methods was to wait in silence a couple dozen yards from a game trail, especially near dawn or dusk, waiting with crossbows and hoping something came by.

Life seemed to return to some kind of normalcy as the weather turned. The maples and birch trees flared with their autumn colors, and the first flurries of snow fell around the mountain peaks. They mined and smelted and hunted, and they thought of what the spring might bring. Onyx worked at the forge and smelter. She built more crossbows, not just for the four of the remaining dwarves, but for the others who had gone back to Deep Cut. The smithy was always hot even as the cold air seeped in through the adit drifts. Cold did not bother dwarves overmuch, but they also loved the heat of a forge.

Onyx was working on the heads for crossbow bolts one evening when Yorvig stamped into the workshop and sat down near the smelter on a three-legged stool, letting the warmth of the fires wash over him. Onyx’s presence was also a warmth to him, but he let himself hold onto the lie that it was the fire that brought him so often there between his shifts of mining. He'd even begun to dig himself a chamber in his allotted stonehold, to give himself something extra to do through the winter. Greal, Hobblefoot, and Warmcoat were doing likewise.

It was customary for dwarves to mine for fourteen or sixteen hour shifts in Deep Cut—sixteen hours on, and sixteen hours off, as shifts changed and others took their places. They paid little heed to daylight above. Here at the claim, they had kept close to the turning of day and night, what with the ürsi and hunting and gardening. So they had taken to sleeping in the middle of the night for their five or six hours, and rising again to work. Now, with winter's grip closing, the hours of light had shortened. The ore piled up faster than it could be smelted. In truth, they could have kept a few smelters occupied, but they would run out of charcoal. With the summer being as it was, they had not cut more timber for the burning of another mound-kiln. They would use up their supply of charcoal before winter’s end.

“Do you think. . .” Onyx asked, and hesitated. Yorvig had been so lost in thought, running sums on charcoal, that he was startled by the question. She had stopped her work at the forge and was looking over at him, hammer in one hand and tongs in the other, while a bit of iron re-heated in the coals.

“Think what?” Yorvig asked.

“That they made it before the ürsi. . .”

She was the first to ask him that. It had occupied his thoughts much since then.

“I. . . hope,” he said. A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“I hope. And I fear.” She turned back and drew the iron out of the fire with the tongs, setting to work with her hammer, flattening three surfaces narrowing to a point for the bolt-tip. Yorvig watched the sure and precise strokes until the iron had cooled and she plunged the billet back into the coals. Such a small amount of iron did not hold heat long. Yorvig noticed that she had made more lanterns from thin-pounded iron sheets. There were eight now standing in a row on the stone table. The angles and curves were uniform. It was practical work. Onyx turned back to him, but then her eyes flicked beside him.

“Leave that,” she said.

“What?”

She nodded at the walking hammer leaning next to him.

“That.”

“My hammer?”

“Ay, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” she said, and laughed, her eyes crinkling. Yorvig folded his arms and frowned.

“I can improve it,” she said.

“How?”

“If you don’t want it, don’t leave it. But leave my forge, anyway. I don’t like an audience while I work.”

Yorvig sighed, grabbed his walking hammer, and then thought better of it. He leaned it back against the stone. It didn’t feel good to walk out of the smithy without it. He knew it was in his head—he could go without it in the mine, but he just didn’t trust his leg anymore, and he didn't like to be unarmed. He glanced back. Onyx was standing, staring into the fire, waiting for the billet to glow the right color.

Her forge. She should know better than that. . .

Was she being funny? Was that humor?

He shouldn't be sitting in her presence alone, anyway.

He shook his head and walked to the rough beginnings of his own stonehold.