The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder - Chapter 72: Into the Walls

Yorvig woke to shouting—the kind of shouting that spoke danger even before the words could sink in. He swung his feet from the alcove—he always slept on the outside and Onyx on the inside with the babe—and grasped Treadfoot even as he rose. He wore only his longshirt but stamped toward the door of the hold. Someone was pounding and shouting for him.

“What is it, father?”

Yorvig glanced over, seeing Iolite in her nightshirt.

“Go back to sleep, bejeweled,” he said. “All is well.”

It wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. But it would do her no good to know it.

Outside the door stood two Ridge Wardens, eyes wide behind their helms.

“They’re coming over the walls,” the first one said.

Without a word, Yorvig stepped over the threshold.

“Wait!” Onyx called from behind him.

The two Ridge Wardens glanced up and abruptly spun on their heels to show their backs. Yorvig turned. Onyx was striding through the hold behind him, holding a pair of trousers and boots with one hand and cradling the babe to her bare bosom with the other. She looked angry.

“Peridot!” she yelled. “Peridot!” Onyx flung the trousers and boots at Yorvig’s feet. “You’ll go when you’re armed!”

Peridot rushed from her side chamber also in her nightshirt. Onyx spun on her. “Get your father’s harness!”

“Iolite,” Onyx commanded. “Your father’s arms! Now!”

In moments, Yorvig had his trousers and boots on, and he stood arms-outstretched as his gilna strapped on his armor, hand-axe, and daggers. The Ridge Wardens kept their backs turned all the while. Yorvig was dressed and armed in moments. He pressed his helmed forehead into the gilna’s, then looked at Onyx and stretched out his hand to her. She came and pressed her forehead to his.

With no further words, Yorvig turned and left, slamming the door behind him. The Ridge Wardens spun back their heels.

“Should we call out the reserves?”

“No!” Yorvig snapped, then caught himself. “Ay. Yes. Call them. Go!”

The Warden went off at a run. Yorvig had no fear the ürsi would breach the mine itself, but if they came into the dell, it was a chance at slaughter that they needed to take. He rushed down the drift with the remaining Warden when he heard a bellow behind him. Sledgefist burst from his hold, fully geared and flanked by two Hammers who most likely had come to fetch him as well. He barreled down the drift and together, they rushed to the High Adit Tower as fast as Yorvig could manage.

Thrushbeard was there.

“They are coming over the walls by the score,” Thrushbeard said. The night air was full of the twang of crossbows. “They’re using the ladders.” The shriek of ürsi made it difficult to hear, so that they yelled to speak. The stench was strong, too.

“Stupid beasts!” Sledgefist shouted. “They’re just coming in to be slaughtered!”

A nearby Warden loosed a bolt through a loop-hole and Yorvig glanced out as the Warden stepped back. Ürsi swarmed down the inside of the wall, apparently using ropes. He watched one after another fall as they were struck by bolts. What did they hope to achieve?

Hookear came running across the bridge to the High Adit Tower.

“What are your orders?” he yelled.

Sounding faint, a horn blew from the River Gate.

“Get your crossbows into the walls,” Yorvig said.

“I’ve given that order, but they’re still rousing.”

No doubt, the runners were still rushing to wake up sleeping dwarves and reach the ones working in the mines. It took time to rouse the reserves, even though they practiced. Yorvig wondered if Rightauger was being roused at that moment.

“When they come, split your spears between the Low Adit and—” Yorvig was interrupted by a resounding crash to the east that he felt as much as heard. He strode across the tower, pushed a Warden away from a loophole, and looked out. A huge shadow came hurtling down the eastern ridge slope and slammed into the wall with another crushing blow.

“What was that?” Thrushbeard said,

Then came another, and another, massive shapes fifty feet long and twenty feet thick careening down the mountainside. What happened next felt slow—Yorvig saw one coming, spinning and turning sideways as it tore down the uneven ridge. It planted one end against a boulder and flipped up toward the wall. It tore the roof away in an instant, shattering the walls of the enclosed hallway before landing in the dell, spinning once more and clipping the High Adit Tower, most of its energy exhausted. Yorvig had seen it clearly—a great bundle of trees lashed tight together like a bundle of firewood, sent rolling down the mountainside. It had torn open a thirty foot swathe in the top of the wall and opened the hallway.

Helpless, they watched in quick succession as another seven monstrous bundles flipped down the east ridge. One did not make it to the wall, lodged among stones. Another leapt entirely over the wall end-to-end and came to rest floating in the tailings pond with a mighty wave. The others slammed into the wall, one tearing another breach in the roof and hallway and buckling the foundation. There was no time for dust to settle before the ürsi swarmed anew, climbing up the bundles of trees, scrabbling along the roof to drop down into the breached hallway, and continuing to crawl over the rest of the walls and slide down ropes. They were running in the midst of the dell, now.

“Get spears into the wall!” Yorvig shouted to Hookear, pointing at the breach. Ladders landed against the breaches, and ürsi poured into the hallway. The Wardens inside were armed primarily with crossbows and handaxes. They were not ready for such a surge. “We need spears in the walls!”

“There are ürsi at the door!” a Ridge Warden shouted up from below. A sling-stone rattled against the roof of the chamber and fell to the ground spinning, thrown in through a loophole window.

“Come on!” Yorvig shouted, and hurried across the bridge and into the adit. To the east, the end of the wall abutted the cliff, and there was a doorway into the wall there. He heard the footsteps of others following him, but he didn’t turn to look. He hated that the others held back to keep pace with him. They took the stair down to the wall level, then rushed down the drift. When he turned the corner, he saw Ridge Wardens barring the stone door. One saw him arrive and shouted:

“The ürsi are outside!”

A wounded Warden leaned against the stone, clutching the stub of a dart protruding from his side. It had pierced the mail behind his breastplate. They could hear the scrabbling and hammering of ürsi on the other side of the thick stone door. It would take a heavy ram to break that stone.

“Get reserves to reinforce this adit!” Thrushbeard shouted to one of his aides. The dwarf went running.

Yorvig turned to his brother. There were still only two of his dwarves with him.

“Rouse the rest of your Hammers,”

Sledgefist turned and shouted at the two dwarves as he ran back down the drift. At least his voice had no trouble carrying. Yorvig turned and followed the same drift, but he did not turn back to the stoneholds. The fighting would be taking place to the west, now, but there was no way to make it there without running half a mile west through drifts, above the old Lower Adit and to the far end of the wall.

As they hurried, they passed reservists hurrying to join their cadres, running in both directions. By the time Yorvig got to the door, his heart was pounding and his leg was shaky. Hookear was already there. Reserve dwarves with spears and shields clogged the drift behind the door. They pressed back against the walls to let Yorvig and Thrushbeard through.

“What is going on?” Yorvig asked. “How far have they gotten?” Hookear shook his head.

“I have runners checking. I sent in two cadres already. I just heard the ürsi are at the Ridge Tower, too.”

Yorvig looked around. He needed to get into the wall, to find out what the situation was there.

“Send a cadre to the top,” Yorvig said, then paused. “Put a guard at each adit.”

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Hookear nodded and started shouting orders. Reservists turned and rushed back up the drift, their rinlen repeating orders and keeping their cadres together. There were only five working adits and the two doors to the walls. The Low Adit, the High Adit, the Door to the Terraces, the Shepherds Adit on the far side of the ridge, and the Ridge Tower Adit at the top of the spiral stairway on crest of the cliff above them. There were sentries at all of them, but nothing felt safe to him right now. He had never imagined hurtling bundles of logs. Who knew what else One-Ear might devise?

Yorvig watched as scores of dwarves melted away, slowly emptying the crammed drift. Yorvig couldn’t help but look for Rightauger, but he did not see him.

“Keep a guard here,” Yorvig said, motioning to the entry, then he and Thrushbeard rushed into the wall. The Warden and reservist crossbow-dwarves were scattered along the loopholes, firing. The wall was stocked with thousands of bolts kept in niches, but at the rate they were firing, they must use them all.

Thrushbeard and Yorvig reached the River Gatehouse, and one of the Warden rinlen flagged them down.

“They have rams!”

“How far have they gotten in the wall?” Yorvig shouted back. It was unlikely that trees would break the stone doors, even if used as rams. Then he heard the high-pitched sound of striking again, and again, and again. That was not wood on stone. That was iron on stone.

“They’ve got a ram at the High Adit Tower too!” another Warden shouted. Yorvig looked out a loophole and cursed. The dell was full of ürsi, and the ram was slamming against the door to the tower.

The River Gatehouse had outside doors on the north, south, and west sides, and the walls came to a point there. Any traffic across the bridge or up and down the river must pass through the gatehouse. The sound of a second ram joined the first.

“They’re at the north door!” someone shouted from below.

“Come on!” Yorvig shouted. The wall rose toward the south ridge from there, heading up from the river. Yorvig struggled up the stairs, using Treadfoot to push himself forward. Something slammed into his side, knocking him off balance. He looked over. An ürsi hung to the side of the wall, and it had rammed a short javelin through a loophole. It hadn’t pierced his mail. Thrushbeard grabbed the ürsi by the arm and punched through the loophole with his punch-dagger. The stench of ürsi blood flooded inside. Thrushbeard let go and the ürsi fell away.

They kept on, passing Wardens and reservists firing through loop-holes. The edges of the hallway barely overhung the outer aspect of the wall below, and there were loop-holes allowing the defenders to shoot down to the wall’s base as well. Barely twenty yards further, they came to a halt. There was a cluster of dwarves standing there, staring up. The sound of tools striking slate and sandstone sounded from just above them.

“They’re trying to come through the roof,” one of the Wardens said.

“Stay here,” Thrushbeard ordered, then followed as Yorvig pressed further. They reached the top of the south ridge, and Yorvig was startled to see the hallway clogged with dwarves ahead. They were only halfway up the dell, but he could hear the melee. The ürsi must have scoured the wall all the way to there, overwhelming the Wardens or sending them running. He could not let himself think about the toll.

Yorvig and Thrushbeard marched to the rear of the dwarves. The hallway was wide enough for four dwarves to stand shoulder to shoulder. There were at least sixty dwarves crammed ahead, and it was difficult to see what was going on beyond. The hall was full of shouts and shrieks. Up ahead, a wounded dwarf was trying to make his way backward through the throng.

“Give him room!” Thrushbeard shouted, but there was little room to give.

“We’re holding them!” a dwarf nearby said. Yorvig could tell by the rune on his helm that he was a cadre rinlen in the reserves. He wore a helm, hauberk, and breastplate, but he was barefoot and trouser-less, no doubt roused from sleep like Yorvig. It would be nearly impossible for the ürsi to force the spear-dwarves back by brute force, but there were always darts and sling-stones to contend with.

Yorvig took a moment to try to think. He walked back a few feet to a loophole and looked toward the High Adit Tower. A thirty-foot iron-capped ram was slamming into the tower door, and the ürsi all around had formed a roof of shields held over their heads. Crossbow bolts still punched down into their midst. Forty-odd years ago, when he had first encountered two ürsi hunters upriver and gained his leg-wound, he had never imagined a scene like this could be possible. It struck him as absurd.

He watched as the ürsi smashed the ram into the doorway again, and again. Maybe they should have forged solid steel doors, rather than stone. Stone was more brittle than steel. But hinges. Hinges were a weak point.

“Rhûl!” someone shouted. Yorvig turned, looking back down the hallway toward the River Gate. A Warden came running alone.

“They’re getting through the roof! They’re going to come down on us!”

“If they get through, we’ll be trapped here,” Thrushbeard said. “We have to fall back.”

“The reserves may break,” Yorvig said. He looked at the reserve rinlen who had spoken to him. “Send them back line by line to the River Gate!” Yorvig said. “Now!”

The rinlen spoke hurriedly to four dwarves, and after a moment’s confusion, they went running. Then the next four.

“You should go!” Thrushbeard said to Yorvig.

Yorvig looked back and forth. He couldn’t see the spot where the ürsi were breaking the roof because of the stairway down the ridge. This wasn’t going fast enough. They could be cut off. He did need to go. He looked back at the spear-dwarves. There were reserves here. Where was Rightauger? Was he there? Was he one sent into the walls? A flush of heat came over him, and he felt disoriented, like he was thinking through ale. His heart was hammering at the forge. More dwarves fell back, running. Further up, some others had noticed and were looking back in confusion. The cadre rinlen was shouting orders.

“They’re coming through!” the Warden shouted from the top of the stairs.

“We’re all going now,” Yorvig said. “Everyone stay together! Fall back together! Don’t turn!”

A few of the reserve dwarves fled backward without order, but the rest held.

“Form with spears out!” Yorvig shouted.

Creeping one step at a time, the mass of roughly forty dwarves moved back down the hallway, stepping toward the stairs on one side and falling back from the foe on the other. Mere yards from the first stair, an ürsi rushed to the top step from below, only to be sent falling back by the bolt from a Warden’s crossbow.

“We have to hurry!” Thrushbeard said.

“Double step!” Yorvig shouted, quickening the pace. As they crested the stairs and headed down the ridge, he saw the gap in the roof. They had torn it apart so quickly. Ürsi were leaping down into the hallway. There were bodies on the ground, and beyond the hole, a knot of spear-dwarves and Wardens held them back.

“They’re going to come down on us,” Yorvig said. “Shields up! Spears up in the middle ranks!”

Yorvig had no spear or shield, but he jutted the spike of Treadfoot into the air as they reached the gap and limped forward. A hail of darts came down from above. Yorvig stumbled on something and went down hard on his knees. He groped and saw a dwarven pick clutched in the hands of a dead ürsi. They had dwarven tools. But of course they did. They had killed many unwary prospectors over the years. He tried to rise but his leg would not obey him. Strong arms grabbed him beneath the armpits and hauled him forward. There was a dwarf on either side of him, a Warden on one hand and a reservist on the other. They carried him through, Treadfoot dragging in his hand. Ahead, ürsi were trapped between the two groups of dwarves, and the front ranks drove their spears home. They stumbled forward across the slippery bodies.

Yorvig twisted to look back. The group who had made it through were fewer. Beneath the gap in the roof, ürsi were leaping down behind them. He saw wounded dwarves with beasts setting upon them. There were reservists there. Where was Rightauger? Yorvig struggled to get his feet under him, and shrugged off the two dwarves. The Warden turned back to the fighting, but the reservist grabbed his arm again as Yorvig faltered. The dwarf wore a steel facemask covered in ürsi blood, and his beard was wet and matted. Ürsi stench was thick in the hallway.

Where was Thrushbeard? For a moment, Yorvig feared his friend had fallen, but then he saw him at the rear, moving backward with the ranks to withstand the press of ürsi.

“To the River Gate,” Yorvig said. He tried to step down the stair, but his leg was spasming and he nearly fell again. He put his arm around the reservist’s shoulder and motioned forward. Leading the others back, they headed to the River Gate. There was shouting from that direction too. They saw the door to the River Gatehouse ahead.

“Rhûl!” It was the Warden rinlen shouting out into the hallway. “They’re breaking through the roof between here and the rock!” It meant between the River Gatehouse and the safety of the mine.

Shit.

“And the south door hinges are cracking,” the Warden shouted again as they reached the door. The shrieks of the ürsi were so loud that he had to shout even so close.

Shit.

“We are going back under stone, all of us,” Yorvig said. “Prepare your dwarves for the withdrawal.”

“Ready to shoot!” someone shouted. A group of Wardens with crossbows stood to either side of the gatehouse door where loopholes opened into the hallway. Thrushbeard and the last rank retreated through the door, and the Wardens loosed a volley into the hallway as others shut the door. This door was of iron-banded wood. It would not hold for too long against dwarven tools.

“Get these dwarves back into the stone!” Yorvig shouted. Some were already running for it. Others held together. Yorvig waited until all the Wardens were up from the ground floor of the gatehouse. They shut a hatch over the stair and bolted it into place. The ürsi were hacking at the hallway door already.

“Let’s go,” Thrushbeard said. There was blood in the dwarf’s beard, but Yorvig didn’t think it was his. Keeping his hand on the reservist’s shoulder, Yorvig used Treadfoot for support as they made their way down the hallway with the last of the Wardens. His leg continued to spasm, but the pain only enraged him. He should be standing to fight with his dwarves, not being carried.

A knot of Wardens waited with readied crossbows as stone loosened in the roof ahead. As they passed, Thrushbeard commanded them to follow. The wall was abandoned. In two minutes more, they shut the hallway door to the mine and barred it. It was stone a foot thick, braced within. Yorvig noticed the floor of the sentry chamber. There was blood smeared on the rock leading down the drift.

Hookear was there.

“How?” he asked, staring in bewilderment.

“They tore through the roof,” Thrushbeard said.

“The High Adit Tower is breached and the ground floor is lost,” Hookear said. “We have closed the adit to the Ridge Tower. The ridge-top is lost.”

Yorvig could hardly believe it. What could One-Ear gain from such an assault? They had slain countless ürsi. How many dwarves had fallen? He thought of the terraces. The door to the terraces was shut fast and under guard as well. There was nothing planted this time of year.

“We can hold the upper floors of the High Adit Tower easily,” Thrushbeard said.

“Sledgefist is there,” Hookear added. “They will not take it.”

“Bring them in,” Yorvig said. “Abandon the tower.”

“But it gives us vantage for crossbows!”

“The ürsi hold the ridge above it,” Yorvig said. “They crushed our wall from above.”

Thrushbeard chose that moment to recite a litany of curses. Yorvig held up his hand.

“Leave cadres at all the adits,” he said. “Send all the wounded to Wardenhold. Have your rinlen bring me a count.”

Thrushbeard nodded, still looking on the verge of a tirade. He spoke to a Warden who headed down the drift at a run.

“Same for you, Hookear. I want a count.”

Hookear nodded.

“Where to? Where will you be?”

“I will see the wounded first,” he said.