The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

After a time, Yorvig, Hobblefoot, Warmcoat, and Shineboot joined the feast in Hobblefoot's hold. Warmcoat and Shineboot sent for their wifs. Warmcoat had a gilke of two years as well. Khlif had been asleep when Hobblefoot arrived, as he oversaw the mining on the opposing shift, but Onyx had told Greal and Greal had gone to rouse him. They returned with their spouses as well. Soon the hold that Yorvig had dug for Hobblefoot was full of the squeals of babes and the laughter and speech of old friends. Warmcoat’s gilke climbed up on Onyx’s lap and kept pulling at her necklaces. Hobblefoot, Greal, and Warmcoat were blessed that the wombs of their wifs had already opened. They were doted on, those three gilke.

The chamber filled with Hill-Smoke as the dwarves lit pipes, the fragrant smoke mixing with smells of meat and mead. It had been too long since they had all been together, even those who remained at Glint. Yorvig missed Sledgefist, but he was glad that Onyx was sitting next to Hobblefoot’s wif Spinel, talking about something in friendly tones at least. Sledgefist had stayed with his wif in Glint for three seasons after marriage. Onyx and Sledgefist's wif could hardly be in the same chamber, and in the end Sledgefist had gone to establish the southern outpost.

That might explain why Hobblefoot had not stopped in there first on his way.

Those had been lonely years for Yorvig, cooped up in his chamber, listening to reports from rinlen of mines, herders, gardeners, cooks, smiths, and a score of other dwarves who moved throughout the honeycombed ridge. Gold-mining had sunk half a mile east, deep into the rock. They had cut through to the back of the ridge as they mined out the veins, but the bulk of the ore led them deeper east and down. Now, the back of the ridge was cut with new terraces of crops, and a fortified adit there let the gardeners and herders come and go.

Yorvig looked up from his meal and saw Thrushbeard leaning into the packed feasting chamber. He nodded toward the drift when he caught Yorvig’s eye.

Yorvig excused himself, but the conversation barely faltered as he stepped into the drift and the low glow of the blue-green miner’s eye. There were four Ridge Wardens flanking the chamber door, helm and mail donned, rectangular shields and spears ready.

“There is a double guard on all three adits,” Thrushbeard said. “And at the river gate.”

“And the new arrivals?”

“Five we have yet to find. The others we have brought to Wardenhold. We are questioning them.”

“No violence,” Yorvig said.

“Of course.”

“I was thinking—look at their hands. See if their calluses match their trades. Your Wardens have different calluses than miners. We should expect it to be the same for Jackals.”

“A wise thought,” Thrushbeard said. “We will check.”

“Did these five missing come together?”

“By three and two. They claimed to be miners. We are searching the deep delvings, now.”

“Check for any who have not been working, or haven’t sworn as kulhan, but have been trading for food. Also see if any of the newcomers have seemed incompetent at their labor.”

“It will be done. Do you wish to see them?”

“Not tonight. Keep them together, feed them, and give them my apologies.”

Thrushbeard nodded.

The Ridge Wardens found two of the missing newcomers in the upper workings, camped at a little-used stope. They had ample rations of dried meats and fruits with them. The three others were found by Khlif’s miners. None of the five were miners; that was apparent right away. Their hands felt wrong, and they had not sought out any rinlen or any craft since they had arrived around two weeks prior. Within their packs, they had daggers and hand-axes with blue-blacked blades.

The rest of the newcomers, numbering nineteen, had already thrown themselves either into the working of a craft or mining—mostly mining, as only two were skilled, being tanners from Deep Cut. That was good, they could use more tanners, and one of the tanners already present in the claim was able to confirm their knowledge of the craft. They had sought him out their first day at the claim. As for the miners, they had all sworn on as kulhan among the cadres, and had been at work already.

Yorvig approached the Ridge Warden hold—Wardenhold—with Thrushbeard and six of the Wardens. The stonehold door was flanked by guards who slammed the butts of their spears against the stone at their approach by way of salute. Thrushbeard opened the door and led Yorvig inside. On the far side of the room, the five dwarves were seated against a wall and bound with iron manacles, more armed Wardens standing watch over them.

Thrushbeard moved a chair about ten feet away from the prisoners, and Yorvig sat down. He looked at the interlopers for a while, and they looked back. They put on a great show of unconcern, which in itself proved their guilt. They had refused to speak to anyone, and Yorvig had yet to permit their torture, although they deserved it. They looked unusually pale, but not from nervousness or fear.

“Where are your masks?” Yorvig asked. “Don’t Jackals always wear warmasks? Rusty, twisted ones. I’ve seen Jackals before, in Deep Cut.” They didn’t respond. Yorvig looked over at Thrushbeard. There was nothing unusual in a dwarven warrior wearing a warmask—the Deep Cut Guards did as well. Even some of the Ridge Wardens had fashioned themselves warmasks. Soon, they’d all probably have them. What set the Jackals apart was that their masks and other kit were blackened, twisted, and made in the snarling visages of animals. More than that, the Jackal masks always looked neglected, as if polishing or cleaning the metal was a sin.

“What little I know of the Jackals is that they never go unmasked on duty or on the surface.” He looked at Thrushbeard, speaking to him, now. “That may mean they didn’t bring their kit in with them. Maybe it’s hidden inside the claim. Maybe their friends were to bring it, or they hid it outside the claim.”

“We have extra patrols searching, and we’ve manned the fall lookouts,” Thrushbeard said.

Yorvig knew all this already. He turned back to the Jackals.

“So, I take it there weren’t enough of you to try your coup in both claims at once. I’m surprised they chose East Spire first, but it is much closer. I still would have done it the other way around, or at least made greater haste. This feels sloppy.” And that made Yorvig suspicious. He pointed at a captive on the end of the line. “So you’re the leader, then?”

The eyes of the captives turned toward the dwarf Yorvig signaled, but before they could stop themselves, their eyes flickered back, one to the right, and three to the left. Yorvig smiled at the dwarf in between. “That makes it you,” he said. The captive said nothing. Yorvig shrugged and stood, nodding to Thrushbeard. They left the chamber.

“Put them in a chamber, bar the door, and keep them under heavy guard,” he said. “They are dangerous.” Yorvig had not expected to get any information from them. He simply wanted to see them, and having seen them, he felt they were snakes ready to strike. They were not built like miners; they were slighter, but hard. The Jackals had one purpose, and that was to fight and watch. He did not doubt that dwarf for dwarf, they would slay any of the Ridge Wardens.

Hobblefoot did not know how many Jackals were in East Spire. He said he had seen twenty marching together at one point. From everyone he had asked, there should be around two hundred Jackals in total, and they could not leave East Spire without a garrison or else loyal kulhan there might bar them out on their return. Hobblefoot didn’t know what they’d done with Hardeye.

“Call up half the reserves,” Yorvig added. “Keep the gates and adits closed day-round, and admit only those who belong.

“And newcomers?”

It felt wrong to block out newcomers who had journeyed so long to reach Glint. They trickled in through summer and fall every year. But for the time being, wisdom said to bar them.

“Find somewhere they can shelter outside for now. But once they arrive, let none leave. And make it known what the Council has done.”

Seven owners sat at the nine-sided table. It was the most that had sat there since Sledgefist departed nine years ago. Savvyarm’s chair was forever empty. The place of his death was now marked with a memorial cairn topped with a granite inscription. They were missing only Sledgefist of the living. Yorvig had decided against sending him a message for fear that a runner would be intercepted by approaching Jackals. As much as he wanted to warn Sledgefist, taking the southern outpost would achieve little for the Jackals. Yorvig didn’t think they would bother—the scant pyrite and copper Sledgefist mined there were incidental to the outpost's purpose as a waystation for pack-trains and a defense against southern ürsi raids moving through the eastern pass into the Gold River Range. Sledgefist traded supplies to the miners nearby, helping to consolidate their wealth—giving them gold from claims they did not own. Yorvig still did most of the administration from afar, while Sledgefist gathered other hot-headed dwarves to himself who wished to test their mettle in the fall raids.

“If we know they are coming, no host of Deep Cut could force entry against us. I do not care how well-trained the Jackals may be, and if they harry the flocks, let them face our thousand spears,” Hobblefoot said.

“They have lost surprise,” Warmcoat said. “Do you think they will come at all, now?”

“They might not know,” Hobblefoot said. That was the prime reason Yorvig did not want to risk the capture of a messenger.

“If the Council wishes to take the wealth of the Red Ridges for themselves,” Onyx said, “Then they will come for us. They don’t have to come this year. They could come in five years. In ten. If they fail once, they may try again.”

“It’s not lawful!” Hobblefoot slammed his palm on the table.

“I know,” Yorvig said. “But let us not rehash that. We are speaking of what we are to do.”

Law, in this case, had more to do with tradition—old traditions. Yorvig knew that if the Council chose this course of action, it was either from desperation or overreaching greed. Either way, they had already set it in motion. He had barely slept the night before. His mind hadn’t raced like this in years. Sure, he was always counting and planning and assessing the workings of the claims, but they had a system, and it was working. Their hoard had grown steadily for a decade. It was possible they would soon be, or already were, the richest dwarves alive. It gave Yorvig little pleasure. He had fine clothes. Fine food, at least sometimes. He ruled over the wealthiest claim in the world. And by and large, it had been a lonely and drudging life for some time. He loved Onyx, but she shut herself in her workshop most days and never emerged, trying to fashion finer and finer creations of gold wire and mesh studded with beryls and amethysts. It seemed only arbitrations could draw her out. They continued as conjugal dwarf and wif, and yet they had no babe. He reminded himself they were still young.

But now, after all this time, his blood flowed again.

“What else can we do?” Greal asked. “We have set a guard. We cannot keep all the kulhan posted as sentries. We don’t even know if the Jackals will come, now.”

“We could use the ones we’ve captured as hostages,” Hobblefoot said. “Slice their throats if they will not withdraw.”

Yorvig frowned. He knew it made sense, but he did not like it. And he suspected the Jackals may be the sorts to hold deep grudges. The last thing they needed was a blood feud with two hundred trained killers.

“It may come to that,” Onyx said. Yorvig looked over at her, surprised. She had said it in such a matter-of-fact tone. He was more inclined to release the hostages if a peace could be negotiated. The problem was, the Council had shown itself untrustworthy. A failure may just enrage them more.

“I need to talk to someone with authority,” Yorvig said. “Someone who can actually make decisions.”

“They tried talking to Hardeye first,” Hobblefoot said. “Maybe they will try the same with you.”

“I doubt it,” Shineboot interjected. “If talking didn’t work in East Spire, I doubt they'll expect it to work here. We have a reputation, you know.”

Yorvig grinned. The mound of ürsi skulls was now over fifteen feet high, dominating a rise along the river-road south of the claim. Each fall and winter, the ürsi moved into the ridges from the south and east, raiding the smaller claims. The Ridge Wardens hunted them. Yorvig went along sometimes, but he found it difficult to keep up. The raids were minor incursions. More ürsi skirted the northern claims to hunt. Yorvig stubbornly held that a bigger assault was brewing.

“I agree,” Greal said. “Hold the hostages over their heads. If they push us, we kill them one by one.”

Yorvig listened to them, but he would do what he would do.

The next morning, Yorvig returned to Wardenhold.

“Take the leader out and put him in a different chamber,” Yorvig told Thrushbeard. “Keep him separate. Then bring me one of the others.”

In minutes, one of the Jackals stood before Yorvig, held on each side by Ridge Wardens.

“I’m letting you go,” he said. “I want you to go back to your leaders and tell them that if they want the rest of your comrades, they can come here and ask for them. But if they come seeking violence, they will find it.”

Yorvig turned and left, knowing that Thrushbeard would follow his orders and push the Jackal out of the gate with a bag of provisions and send him on his way. Thrushbeard had already pleaded with him not to release any of the Jackals. They were too valuable as hostages, he argued.

Yorvig only hoped the rest of the Jackals agreed to their value. Either way, Thrushbeard would obey.

“It’s done,” Thrushbeard said when he came to Yorvig’s reception chamber an hour later.

“Good,” Yorvig said. He was running his fingers through his beard, staring at a parchment. Back in Deep Cut, he’d always thought of salt as a cheap, plentiful and rather unimportant mining product. Now, it was a constant need. There was nothing else so badly needed that Glint could not produce on its own. They could produce their own wool cloth, their own tools, their own charcoal. But salt let them preserve meat quickly and keep it dry, and it let them brine and pickle and ferment. They smoked as much meat as they could in great smoking closets, and smoked meat they could hang in the cool stone for years. But if they wanted to make the most of their food, they needed salt.

If there was any way to cut themselves off from Deep Cut salt, he would jump at it.

“I still think we should follow him,” Thrushbeard said. “We can catch up.”

Yorvig jerked his head up. He had gotten distracted thinking about salt.

“Meeting the Jackals in the open country takes away our advantages,” Yorvig said. “They would almost certainly suspect the hostage was followed, and they might use the opportunity to strike back. I do not want a hostage trade." But if the Southern Outpost was taken, it might come to that. Everything was a gamble.

“I could send few and fast, and order them to keep their distance.”

“We cannot be sure that they would not fall into an ambush themselves. It is still no. Make sure the approaches are watched with all vigilance, but do not strike. If they approach, fall back to the walls.”

Thrushbeard nodded. All this was already spoken, Yorvig knew; he just wanted to pad the refusal to tail the hostage. It was of the utmost importance to avoid the spilling of blood. Once the blood of dwarves was spilled, he did not know if peace could again be restored.

It took three weeks before the Jackals arrived. By that time, Glint had over twenty more newcomers held in a kind of quarantine on the surface. Yorvig was certain that almost all were honest migrants, but he would not take chances.

He was in the deep workings with Shineboot and Khlif, examining traces of ore on a new-cut hanging wall. In the background, Hobblefoot could be heard shouting with the rinlen of engineering about ventilation. Yorvig would have to find something to keep Hobblefoot occupied soon before he caused trouble out of boredom.

For the past years, Hobblefoot had been using his wealth to experiment with different steam engines in East Spire, and he had even imported oil from Deep Cut for experimentation. Yorvig knew he was partnered with others in Deep Cut more experienced in that area, and that Hobblefoot, while involved, was providing the means for the experiments more than the innovations. The dwarves of Deep Cut were always experimenting—from alchemy to engineering to new techniques for forging, casting, and smelting. They had made advances and discoveries far beyond what they had figured out how to put to use. Hobblefoot hoped to have the mines of the Red Ridges using steam and oil within the next decade or two. Yorvig always replied to the letters with respect and encouragement, but it was not viable to his mind; it just meant relying on coal or oil from Deep Cut. Further reliance on Deep Cut was the last thing they needed. But Hobblefoot loved his machines.

“Rhûl!”

They all turned and looked. A Ridge Warden was running down the stope. “They approach!”

They headed back to the upper delvings without hesitation.

“How many?” Yorvig asked.

“Forty. Seen three miles south of Bearstone.”