The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

Not as much happened in the first two months as Yorvig anticipated. The ürsi harried them, but it became harder and harder as the walls grew and the dwarves launched bolts from the new crossbows. By the end of the second month, the walls were wider and two yards high. The ürsi drew further back into the trees or up the ridges, rarely coming out to trade projectiles, although one night a few ürsi were found sneaking over the corner of the wall, only to be seen by dwarven sentries watching from the terraces. Horns sounded, and two of the interlopers were killed as they attempted to scramble back up the wall to escape.

As the weather worsened, Yorvig often looked down on the dell from the terraces, and many times he observed One-Ear doing the same from the southern ridge. Within the onset of the winter cold, the ürsi constructed some kind of huts upon the height there, made with shells of bark upon a framework of woven branches. Smoke rose from holes in the domed roofs. The largest of these sat prominently at the top of the ridge and was striped yellow, perhaps with an ochre pigment. It was the same color as One-Ear’s mantle of feathers, and the maimed ürsi often stood in front of it, especially if Yorvig was in the terraces. To construct their hovels in sight of the claim was a statement of defiance, a taunt. Yorvig had no doubt of that. Other hovels were constructed around the dell on the heights to the east and along the river to the west, and now the dwarves could watch the ürsi coming and going. The dwarves had to accept that there were not scores but hundreds, and trails of smoke further downriver and beyond the south ridge indicated that more remained out of sight.

Beyond duties of guarding and preparation, Yorvig allowed the dwarves to expand their own stoneholds and to mine and smelt and do what they could to occupy themselves. The prospectors who had joined them were divided into new cadres formed under Shineboot and Khlif. Yorvig did not make them swear oaths, but since they were sheltering with them, they would work with them. No one complained—at least openly—or thought this unfair. By letting them work, Yorvig knew he would be increasing their hunger. But boredom is a fell thing to a dwarf, and through boredom foolishness and conflict could easily arise. It was better to keep the kulhan and prospectors occupied. He forbid the forays and attacks that Sledgefist constantly requested. There was no reason to risk lives, for now.

With the wall built and heavy detachments of sentries guarding them by systematic rotations, Yorvig finally got to spend more time with Onyx. It felt strange, to know bliss in the midst of such circumstances. They spent any hours hidden away in their private chamber—he had moved to her stonehold, as it was more spacious than his narrow chamber, even though Onyx had moved her tools and a simple workbench inside so she could practice her trade away from prying eyes. Now that the gardening and harvesting was through for the year, she bent her will to the fine working of gold lace and chain and wire, either in their chamber or at the forge in the smithy. At night, she and Yorvig lay side-by-side in the dark, Striper complaining from a shelf because Onyx would not tolerate her in the sleeping alcove. Far through the rock above, the storms of winter rocked the trees, sleet and snow in full measure. Sometimes at night, Yorvig would hear Striper knock some of Onyx's tools from the table, and he would slip out from under the wool blanket and put them back while Onyx slept.

"You foolish one," he whispered to Striper. "Do not press your luck against her."

The owners sat at the nine-sided table again.

“They think they’ve got us cornered,” Sledgefist practically snarled. “We could dig a tunnel out the back of this ridge if we wanted, and they’d be none the wiser until we were on them.”

“We could come upon their village by surprise and burn them out,” Hobblefoot said, nodding. “Give them battle!”

“They haven’t fought us toe to toe yet,” Shineboot said. “Why think they will stand and fight, now?”

Every time the dwarves had sought to close with the ürsi, both during their expeditions to the surrounding claims and skirmishes near the dell, the ürsi had simply retreated into the trees, peppering them with darts and stones. They were weaker than the dwarves but also faster, and they knew it.

“To defend their. . . their things,” Sledgefist said, waving a hand vaguely toward the ürsi encampment on the ridge. "We could burn them if they don't."

Yorvig listened, his head in his hands, his elbows on the stone of the nine-sided table. He had debated all the same points in his own mind for weeks on end.

"If they were worried about that, do you think they would have encamped so close?" Shineboot asked.

“We can’t survive forever locked away in the dell,” Sledgefist said. "I say we burn them out."

“They don't care about the huts," Yorvig said, staring down at the table. "They just want to make sure we can't forage. The ürsi know they cannot match us up close, even with their greater numbers. And they don’t need to. They need only to starve us, and when we flee, they’ll harry us and pick us off one by one.”

Each dwarf in the claim now had at least something serving as a shield and a spear, although they did not have the reserves of iron to forge anything by way of armor. Yorvig imagined their own flight, but it looked in his mind just as it must have looked in the Long Downs a century and more before. It would be a dwarf hunt. They must avoid that fate.

“You speak of when,” Hobblefoot said. “Do you think there is no hope?”

“We cannot share the ridges with the ürsi. Our only hope is to drive them out and keep them out. I simply do not yet know how.”

The others were silent. The statement had brought a heaviness into the chamber. Onyx looked over at Yorvig, and he met her eyes, giving a grimace in lieu of a smile. He was starting to be able to imagine her face beneath the veil, but only sometimes; he couldn’t tell what she was feeling at that moment. Mostly, those eyes remained inscrutable to him.

“I could have sworn they would leave by now. They must have hunted out these valleys for miles,” Greal said. "What are they eating?"

Besides having thousands of square miles to hunt, Yorvig did not want to mention that the ürsi had also killed scores of dwarves. If they had any way of preserving meat, their initial attack had provided abundantly.

“Who knows the mind of an ürsi?” Warmcoat asked.

Yorvig thought about that question. To some degree, he felt that he did know One-Ear’s mind. At least a part of it—the part he had helped forge. Yorvig wasn’t sure that the others appreciated what One-Ear was. Perhaps they did not want to remember what they had done to him in the dark of the old delving, and Yorvig did not speak of it.

“They fought each other last time,” Hobblefoot said. “Some kind of coup.”

“Then we should kill their leader. Cause chaos. . . Our one-eared kulkur with the yellow feathers on him,” Sledgefist said. “I reckon we kill him and it’ll cause some problems.”

“We could dig a tunnel up right beneath him,” Hobblefoot said, nodding.

“Only if they’re deaf. There’s a lot of granite in that far ridge. You’ll make noise digging up through that,” Shineboot said.

“We can hope they’re too stupid to know what’s making the sound."

Yorvig frowned.

“They’re smart enough to put us in this bind. And they’re doing it on purpose. I wouldn’t call them stupid, foul as they are.”

“They’re just wild beasts. Vicious when cornered, sure, but beasts just the same,” Sledgefist said.

“I think we’re the ones who are cornered,” Shineboot said, and took another swig of beer from his mug. At least the brewer had put up enough sap beer to last them the winter on close ration—though it had been watered down since the prospectors arrived.

Yorvig glanced at Onyx. She was sitting back in her chair, her lovely shoulders squared as she looked up at the polished quartz in the chamber dome.

Where were the ürsi females? Surely they must reproduce. . . If this was the ürsi’s true homeland, then their females would be here. . . They would have young. Tonkil must be right. . . Must have been right. The males migrated to hunt, returning at certain times of the year to the dens of their females. They had seen no sign of such dens here in the ridges. Or perhaps the males and females looked the same and migrated together, and Yorvig's theory was groundless. Either way, by being here, the dwarves threatened the ürsi’s hunting pattern. They, like the dwarves, must be caught between the human kingdoms. But unlike the dwarves, the ürsi kept what they could by fierce aggression, whereas the dwarves kept it by hiding themselves under stone. Yorvig wondered if the ürsi told stories, too, and knew how they had driven the dwarves out of the Long Downs. If they survived this, Yorvig determined to learn all he could about this foe.

“If we could just. . . get them into one place and keep them there!” Sledgefist said, slapping the table with his palm.

Ay. Yes. If only.

Another month slipped by, and Yorvig ordered the smelters to cease before all the charcoal was used. They would at least be able to eat warm food and drink warm tea for the rest of the winter. . . What came after that no one knew.

The stores of fodder for the animals were low. Likely they had two, maybe three weeks before the animals began to starve. They could have halved the animals' rations, but even if they made it to spring they would be scrawny beasts, not worthy of butchering by then and likely to miscarry their young. Yorvig would have tried to stretch the rations more if they had any reason to believe the spring would bring relief. The ürsi remained in their hovels on the ridges. Their shrieks and yabberings punctuated the nights.

Active conflict had all but ceased, but for the occasional attempt by the ürsi to catch the dwarves off guard. Once, a dwarf standing watch was wounded in a sudden sortie, but most of the time the ürsi were seen before they could do any mischief. They could do little besides damage the walls or tower, anyway. Even the ürsi seemed to realize there was no need to risk themselves, or that it was too costly. Time was their ally and the dwarves’ foe.

Most resources in the claim were strictly rationed, including oil and fir candles. As a result, Yorvig sat in the dark in their private chamber as he often did for long hours, thinking in silence. He could smell Onyx’s scent, even though she was not within the chamber. It was comforting.

He heard footsteps in the drift, and then the door swung outward and light shone in, making him squint. Onyx entered, carrying an oil lamp in one hand and something bulky beneath her arm. She set the light down on their small table, then grasped her other burden with both hands. It was wrapped in raw un-felted wool.

“I know you’re going to do something stupid,” she said.

“Oh?” Yorvig asked with a smirk. Even before marriage, he had come to value the way she spoke to him as no others would.

“Ay, yes.”

“And you’re going to try to stop me, I take it?”

“Can I stop the river flowing?”

Yorvig laughed. Onyx was wearing her veil, but Yorvig saw the slight squint that indicated she was smirking.

She shrugged and set the bundle down in his lap. It had weight, and he felt instantly that there was metal under the covering. Onyx nodded for him to look, and he parted the rough wool.

A spangenhelm sat upon a breastplate, each forged of steel with stratified etchings of gold. In a setting upon the brow of the helm was an actual onyx. It was finely cut—no doubt by Greal—and meshed upon the stone in delicately-worked wire was a flame of copper-alloyed gold, flashing red. He understood its meaning immediately: Ühlvaran. The flame in the darkness would shine on his brow.

Yorvig stared, speechless. So this had occupied her these weeks and months, and he had not known. He felt both overwhelmed at the gift and guilty for the fact he had not observed her labor.

"The iron," he said at last.

“I had kept some store, and I waylaid some from Brownfoot.”

“I’m sure he grumbled,” Yorvig said, thinking of the surly smith.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Onyx said with a laugh. “At least not to my face.”

"That I should be so arrayed when. . ."

"Do not be a fool," Onyx said. "What do you think would happen to them if you died? Besides. I have my rights as an owner, too."

Yorvig set the gift aside, rose, and wrapped his wif in his arms.

“They are magnificent,” he said. He tried not to think about how no one else would have such protection.

“I know.”

Magnificent and timely.

Three days after the gift, Onyx and Yorvig stood together in the terraces, looking out over the dell. The ürsi camps marred the view. A bank of grey cloud approached slowly from the southeast, piled layer upon layer many miles into the sky. It rose so high that no ridge could fully obscure its march from view.

“A southeastern storm in the winter,” Onyx said. “That will bring thick and heavy snow.”

The only chance of rain that Deep Cut ever saw was from a fast south-easterly wind. Even then, little rain made it to the Waste. The Red Ridges were different, especially this far east.

“Ay,” Yorvig said. “That it will.”

The winter before, he’d seen such storms riding on the damp southeast winds, wallowing over the ridges for days and feet of snow. In the whipping bluster, one could hardly see a yard ahead by day or by night. It was the perfect time to stay inside in the safety and comfort of the stone. Without shelter, such weather made the Red Ridges a fierce foe in itself. He could already smell the snow. It was refreshing, dampening the smell of the ürsi that was always present, now.

The idea came whole.

“We must prepare,” he said, and turned toward the stair.

“Prepare for what?” Onyx asked, following.

“I’ll explain when we’re all together.”

Bundled and armed, lines of dwarves waited in the drift of the Low Adit, filling up the side chambers as well.

“Are you sure they won’t be expecting us?” Hobblefoot asked.

“He might expect us,” Yorvig said. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“How does that not matter?” Greal asked.

“Because by the time they see us, we’ll be upon them. We all know our roles. May you meet success.”

Yorvig signaled to the sentry. The adit door swung outward. Wind and snow struck their beards and made them squint.

“First cadre, away,” Yorvig said.

Sledgefist hesitated at the door.

“May we drink together again, brother,” he offered.

“May we.”

Sledgefist dipped his head and pressed out against the fury of the blizzard. His cadre filed after him, hoods pulled and drawn tight, spears forward to fit through the door, shields at their sides.

“Second cadre,” Yorvig said, motioning forward. Hobblefoot saluted him as he passed, leading his dwarves into the blizzard. While Sledgefist would head down the dell as fast as he could to reach the river and circle behind the south ridge, Hobblefoot would lead his dwarves north up the dell in an attempt to circle down on the south ridge from above, killing as they went.

Yorvig held the third cadre back for a time, giving Hobblefoot and Sledgefist the lead. At last, he released them. Where Sledgefist’s cadre meant to push past any ürsi along the river to try to get behind the south ridge, the third cadre would attack any hovels at the river and hold the river trail. Warmcoat led them out, with Khlif bringing up the rear. Khlif had asked to go on the attack, but Greal was to stay behind and see to the guarding of the claim. The High Adit door was shut fast, but a few of the previously wounded dwarves would remain to hold the Low Adit, leaving the door ajar for quick escape into the mountain if needed. Yorvig hoped that the adit guard would see nothing of interest that day.

The storm that struck the previous evening had intensified through the night, so that day came only as a weak haze in the blowing white. The wind reached even down into the dell with fury. Yorvig looked back at his own cadre, the smallest. There were only seventeen dwarves, a grim-faced lot. They had the shortest distance to travel. Shineboot was there, right at his back.

“You know, Char,” Shineboot said in a whisper. “I’ve been thinking this might be a little like the Kara-Indal, after all.”

Yorvig grinned at him, raised Treadfoot in signal, and stepped out the door.

Onyx had wanted to see them off, but Yorvig had asked her to remain in the High Adit. Thankfully, she had conceded the point. He tried to push her out of his mind as he squinted against the sting of the fine ice crystals blowing into his face. He wore grey felted wool over helm and breastplate and half a heavy wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The frayed edges of the blanket snapped in the wind.