The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

The next week, the tower was finished. Hobblefoot and Shineboot permanently mounted the treadwheel just beneath the roof-line. Yorvig and Shineboot watched the first turns of the mounted treadwheel while sitting on a rock and eating curds that Shineboot's wif had brought them. The herders were providing milk and cheese from the nursing ewes, even those who had lost lambs. After so long without, they shut their eyes as they tasted the curds.

As soon as it was done, Hobblefoot announced his plans to journey to East Spire. Thrushbeard had so far recruited seventeen dwarves into the Ridge Wardens thanks to the lure of the high wage, and Yorvig determined their first expedition would be to see Hobblefoot at least part on the way. Yorvig just wished the few kittens born that spring were mature enough to send leashed or caged. A few of the prospectors who had attached themselves to the claim expressed a desire to go to East Spire as well, life in the wilds not agreeing with them.

“Do not trust them,” Yorvig told Hobblefoot about the prospectors. “You will have gold on you.”

“I will tell Shineboot their family names and holds,” he answered. “If anything happens to me, he will avenge. I will let them know as much.”

Yorvig raised his eyebrows. It didn't make him feel safe, and he didn’t like resorting to the threat of violence. Yet perhaps the threat of violence was necessary, now. They were too wealthy.

What did surprise him was that as soon as Sledgefist learned of Hobblefoot’s plans, he decided to go as well. He had mentioned to Yorvig he might seek a bride in a few years once the mine had worked further into the ridge, but Hobblefoot’s declaration changed that.

“Do not venture back alone,” Yorvig told them. In addition to what portion of the personal hoard they took, he ensured they left with enough gold to purchase donkeys and supplies and to hire some dwarves. The Ridge Wardens would only go the first fifty miles. At that point, they would make their way back slowly, dividing into two groups and surveying the ridge-lines. Yorvig told Thrushbeard to keep an eye out for a good location for a southern supply post.

The traveling dwarves departed on a rainy morning, heading down river. There was no guarantee of safety in these wilds, but at least his cousin and brother would have protection much of the way. He had considered sending the wardens all the way to East Spire, but it was just too far. It could take months for them to return. Yet every time one of his friends left the claim, he worried. Sledgefist told him not to even send the Wardens as far as he was.

“We came here on our own, and we can find East Spire on our own.”

Yorvig ignored him. He would worry. If anything happened to Sledgefist and Hobblefoot after the Wardens left, he would not forgive himself. He agonized over the decision, but sending the Wardens all the way to East Spire would keep them from other use for the rest of the summer. In times of such decisions, he wished again that he was not Irik-Rhûl.

But he was the Irik-Rhûl. So he redirected some of Sledgefist's dwarves to work at elevating the outer walls another five feet and deepening the trench beyond it. They would also drive sharpened stakes into the embankment. Yorvig was sure that somewhere, One-Ear was preparing, thinking about the dwarves. And Yorvig was thinking about him.

Shineboot pressed his lips as he listened to Yorvig's plans.

"The kulhan grumble," he said. "The less they mine, the less they are paid."

"I know," Yorvig said. "Then the owner's will take less of the gold that is mined, just for this season."

"Why should we take less!" Greal said. "Many of those prospectors would have died if not for us. We took them in."

"And they have shed their blood with us in battle," Yorvig answered. "We cannot survive without the kulhan."

"If we make less, so do they," Greal said.

"Brother," Onyx said. "He is Rhûl."

"That doesn't change the rights of owners. And Hobblefoot and Sledgefist are not here to object."

"Fine," Yorvig said. "Then I will share my own portion with the kulhan for this six months. You can tell them that, Shineboot."

"That is easy for you," Greal said. "You will still have a share with Onyx."

"And when you pay out the kulhan—" Yorvig looked at Greal, who managed the payments "—tell them who is paying it."

Greal leaned back, squinting and folding his hands. He made a slight shrug, but he said nothing.

Shineboot carried out Yorvig's command in the defensive work, and he had plenty to deal with managing Sledgefist’s cadre and his own in separate labors. Khlif had taken on Hobblefoot's cadre, as well. Yorvig knew the kulhan thought he was paranoid about the defenses. At least, he suspected they thought so. They were still boastful of their victory at the Battle of the Blizzard, the heroes of the winter.

The heroes of the summer were the gardeners who brought forth early crops of radishes and turnips, and the herders with their milk and cheese and curds. They still did not eat to their satisfaction by any stretch. Their flocks needed more years of growth. The herders cut trees and cleared undergrowth along the river banks, seeking to promote tender vegetation for the goats and sheep to browse. These trees were in turn reduced to charcoal in great mound kilns. Only the maples and birches did Yorvig forbid them to cut.

Fish stews from the weir gave savor, and as the summer wore on, Yorvig led a few more hunting expeditions. One trip to the west they killed elk, camping in the pines again behind Tonkil’s Rock. It was only when they were leaving that they met a pair of annoyed prospectors and found that the vein running up the ridge beneath the rock had been claimed. It wasn’t even Hillmane, who had not been seen since he’d fled. The prospectors had begun an adit on the west face of the ridge well below and a little north of the crest, and they had started following the seam upward. Yorvig hoped they would not disturb Tonkil’s Rock, itself. He was fond of the spot despite its hard memories, but he had no right to stop them. The hunting party moved along and left the irritated prospectors alone.

So Glint eked by. A few times, prospectors came looking to trade rough gems or flakes of gold for food. Yorvig traded what they could, hoping for a good harvest in the fall. Now and then, the prospectors simply came as beggars and swore on as kulhan, looking ragged and defeated. In order to ward against theft and diversion, Yorvig and Greal began to regularly assay the qualities of the ore in different stopes. They would carefully test samples with the help of the smelters, separating the elements such as copper or lead and determining the ratio of gold to ore. This gave them an idea of how much gold they should receive from the ore being smelted, even if they weren't present at all times. They told the smelters it was to determine where best to dig, but the truth was that there were far more faces than Yorvig could easily remember, now, and certainly more than he could trust.

During one of their assays of a stope that Shineboot was mining, they found that a particularly rich bit of ore-bearing quartz running down into a massive granite intrusion, but the granite was merciless to the edges of the iron picks. With iron in such short supply, simply breaking the granite was a costly and brutal labor.

"Better leave this for now," Yorvig told Shineboot. "We can come back to it, some day."

"We are below the level of the Low Adit," Shineboot said, "And we have good ventilation here so close to Hobblefoot's pumps."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we fracture it with fire and water."

Yorvig frowned. He knew of the method, but he had never seen it done. In Deep Cut, the method was used to open up the granite bedrock with coal and the water of the aquifer lakes.

"Do you think you could?"

"Let me try."

Yorvig shrugged.

"Be safe."

Digging out the sandstone around the intrusion, Shineboot's dwarves piled timber and charcoal over the granite and lit it. With the air sucking in through the Low Adit and the pump working hard, they heated the granite as hot as they could manage, the working dwarves bundled and wearing wet rags over their faces against the heat. Then, with the granite radiating heat, they loosed cold water on it, re-directed and backed up from the Low Adit spring in carved wooden troughs. As the frigid water poured in, Yorvig and Shineboot listened from outside the stope. The granite snapped and popped and fractured, whole faces falling away. When the noises tailed off, Shineboot stopped the flow of water. It had taken surprisingly little. The water cooled the outer stone so quickly that it burst away from the inner stone that remained hot. They repeated this process three times, but the gold was theirs.

The work inside the mine progressed at a rapid pace as well. They had to dig out space for additional smelting and forging, but even with all the other work, the mine hoard grew faster than Yorvig had anticipated. The rock was rich. He'd known it, but it was another thing to see the ingots. With nearly two hundred dwarves, they could mine gold and attend to other matters, at least to a degree. The problem was, with more dwarves there were more other matters to attend to. Yet even without Yorvig's promise of his own portion, it looked like the kulhan would do better in the six months than they ever would at Deep Cut. Such wage-shares would change the fortunes of any Deep Cut dwarf. Little good it did sitting in the locked rock vault, though. What was wealth if you couldn't spend it?

In mid-summer, a second caravan arrived by way of East Spire. They had passed Sledgefist and Hobblefoot on the way and so Yorvig knew the two were most likely safe in East Spire already. The caravan brought salt-pork in barrels, soap, more cloth, and other welcome goods. A second bill-of-lading on parchment graced Yorvig’s table. He drove a harder bargain than before, not as desperate as he was in the spring. As important as the supplies were, the pack-train left carrying a letter for Crookleg's relatives, and the letter interested Yorvig more. After paying the kulhan for the second time and paying the second trader, the mine hoard looked smaller, but new gold glowed bright in the smeltery.

The expected cobbler arrived with the second pack-train, and Yorvig made him the same bargain he had with Lowpleat. Soon, the owners wore both new clothes and new boots, though Yorvig did not throw away his old hide slippers or his work clothes so mended that they were more patch than original cloth. He folded and tucked them onto a shelf in his hold, though Onyx called him silly for it. Through the summer, she kept more and more to herself in the hold, working at her bench, with the mercenary Striper curled on her feet much of the time. Yorvig caught sight of the kittens in the mine now and then, the grandkits of his pioneer cat. One day, he awoke to find Onyx gilding Treadfoot in fine gold leaf, an extravagance he would never have requested.

Thrushbeard and the Ridge Wardens returned at last, having surveyed the ridges in a swath ten miles wide on their way back. Inside Yorvig’s reception chamber, Thrushbeard spread piles of colored rocks and notched sticks onto the stone, as well as a tanned hide marked with some concoction of blood, soot, and tar.

“These are claims,” he said, pointing to markings upon the hide. “We found thirty-eight claims.” He pointed to a pile of small beryl pebbles. “And over three hundred dwarves.”

Yorvig stared at the map, following with his fingers the turns and coves of the ridges that Thrushbeard—or one of his Wardens—had marked out. Already, the column of territory was well-populated, with little enough room for more claims by dwarven tradition.

“Do that many thrive?”

“Thrive? No. I do not think more than half will endure. They'll leave before winter if they don't wish to starve. I told a few of them as much.”

“You told them to come here if they need?”

“How much food do we have?”

“The gardeners hope for a good harvest. They have already laid in good stock of roots.”

“Enough for a siege?”

“I fear we cannot tolerate another siege. Not yet. We must grow the flocks, not eat them. If half of the dwarves you say flee to us for safety. . .”

Thrushbeard nodded, and they stared at the map.

“How many have struck?” Yorvig asked.

“Twelve claims have struck gold. A few more have signs.”

“And did you notice a good place for a southern outpost?”

“Anything with clear sign of gold was claimed.”

“And without?” Yorvig stared at the map. Around forty miles to the south, there was what appeared to be a gap in the ridges both east and west, where a stream from the west joined the river as it turned southeast. “Here. Is there good rock at the end of this ridge?”

“Sandstone. Traces of iron with beryl in the streams. As most of this range.”

“Can you see well from there? Across the valley?”

“Ay, yes, if you climbed it.”

“And is there a peak?”

“Not so tall as some, but there is a granite knob.”

Yorvig nodded and leaned back.

“What else did you find?”

Thrushbeard proceeded to give as much of an account of the rock, streams, and claims of the territory as he could, while Yorvig asked questions, trying to picture all in his mind. He had Thrushbeard leave the map with him when he left, and he stared at it long, idly rolling beryl pebbles between his fingers.

Yorvig gave the wardens a week of rest and sent them north upriver. “Go no more than thirty miles and do the same,” he told them. When they came back, he would send them hunting for a time. The report they brought was much the same, though the claims were sparser to the north.

As summer waned, the air tasted of coming cool as he walked the walls in the evening, staring out at the ridges and down toward the river, thinking what else may come besides the cold. He sent half the Ridge Wardens ten miles to the south, to an overlook Thrushbeard had marked on his map. They would rotate weeks there, keeping watch as the weather changed.