The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder - Chapter 77: War on the Ridge
It was not half an hour later when Onyx rushed into the chamber holding a knife. She attacked the ropes that bound Yorvig, and in her hurry she nicked him.
“Ah! Careful!”
Onyx hesitated. He could see the distress on her face, but it wasn’t from the nick.
“Finish. Hurry.”
“But if I do, I might lose both of you. What could you do now, anyway?”
“You have stolen from me the right of a Rhûl,” Yorvig said. “Do not steal from me the right of a father.”
She met his gaze, and that broke her. She started to cut again. Yorvig threw the sliced ropes away.
“My armor,” he said. “Treadfoot.”
Working together, he was arrayed within minutes. He strode to the chamber door, but stopped and looked back at Onyx. Her stomach and breasts were still freshly swollen from bearing the babe. Nevertheless, standing there, she looked frail and frightened. It was so strange to see her that way. He wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t; he could not blame her. He reached out his hand. She came to him, and he pressed his helmed forehead to her bare forehead. It was the helm she had made him, bearing the onyx stone. Flame in the Darkness.
And then he left. The Owner’s Drift was deserted, but when he stormed through the drift door arrayed for battle, the sentries flinched in surprise.
“Rhûl!” one said, but Yorvig didn’t pause. Slamming the butt of Treadfoot against the stone with each step, he hurried down the drift. He wanted to run, but he knew that he could not run all the way. Sledgefist had a head start on him by miles.
This might be useless.
It didn’t change anything.
He ignored the questions of the sentries who kept a brisk pace beside him. One ran off, no doubt seeking help.
Yorvig was stomping in the drift beneath the river when a familiar voice called from behind.
“Rhûl!”
Yorvig glanced back over his shoulder. Thrushbeard was rushing to catch up, followed by a detachment of Ridge Wardens.
“Rhûl!” he shouted again. Yorvig did not stop, and Thrushbeard had to come up at a jog. “What is it?” he asked. Yorvig talked as he walked.
“I am going to the expedition.”
“They have already left!”
“I know.”
“I thought you wanted Sledgefist to lead it?”
Yorvig ignored that.
“I have decided I must join.”
“Alone?”
“Come if you will.”
Thrushbeard breathed heavily after his rush. He leaned in, trying to speak low.
“It’s madness, Chargrim. What are you thinking?”
“Rightauger went with them against my command.”
“Shit.”
“I must go.”
“No,” Thrushbeard said. “It was unlikely one cadre could go in secret, but two? You’re more likely to get him killed than save him.”
Yorvig stopped. Did he really think the ürsi would not notice dwarves on the ridge? Maybe. . . There was a chance of crossing the back side of the ridge undiscovered. He wouldn’t have entertained the plan if he didn’t think reaching the adit was possible at all. He had refused the idea of sending a sally from the mine during the expedition because he did not want to spook One-Ear. Now, he’d rather spook One-Ear and draw his attention away from Rightauger even if it meant risking the chance to kill the ürsi. Was he choosing his son over all the other folk in the mountain? Would saving Rightauger matter, if they could not destroy One-Ear?
Maybe he was wrong about the sally. Maybe it would help. For a horrible moment, he stood in indecision.
“Go back, Thrushbeard,” he said. “Assemble the Wardens and Hammers. Re-take the terraces and the Ridge Tower and fire down on the walls.” That might draw away attention and risk the fewest. They would have to re-take the terraces and tower if they needed to sally, anyway.
“Right now?”
“Now. Make haste.”
“And what about you?”
“I will go to the end of the stair and await their return.”
Thrushbeard looked disturbed, as well he might.
“I will leave you these dwarves.” He motioned to the Wardens.
“I can find my way.”
“They will go with you.”
Yorvig did not have time for an argument.
“So be it. Now go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Thrushbeard nodded and turned.
“Make noise,” Yorvig added. “Draw their attention. Make no delay.”
Thrushbeard fled back down the drift.
Yorvig led the Wardens on along the Under Way, through the far sheepholds, and up the stair beyond. His leg throbbed and trembled from the pace he’d set, but he leaned hard on Treadfoot. He would have done this anyway to go on the expedition. His leg would not stop him. Facing his own death was easier than facing the death of his son. His family’s lives had been at risk for a long time, but he had not been ready for final decisions. How does one get ready for that?
Two Ridge Warden sentries had been left at the adit door atop the stairway, guarding for the return of the expedition. They were surprised to see Yorvig and his contingent, but they asked no questions when he commanded them to open the door. It was nearly two hours past dawn when Yorvig emerged from the stair and out onto the ridge where he so recently met a filthy Jackal.
It would take the expedition at least three hours to reach the old claim adit after leaving the stair, but they would be moving slowly, cautiously, and heavily burdened. They had not intended to leave until full daylight when the ürsi were least active. The dwarves of the expedition would have waited on the stair as the sun rose, twenty-five volunteers plus Sledgefist and Rothe. They had at least an hour head start. Yorvig couldn’t have reached them before they left no matter how fast he’d walked.
From experience, Yorvig knew that the ürsi tended to congregate in low areas near water, and they only ranged up the ridges to hunt. That was why it was unusual for a group of ürsi chiefs to have made camp behind Tonkil’s Rock. It also meant that moving along ridges was safest, even though difficult, for there were screes of broken rock, gouges carved by water, and sometimes the slopes were simply too steep to traverse. But this ridge was close to home and well known. They had charted the best route in their preparations. The ürsi would have hunted out these ridges early in the fall, making it unlikely to encounter hunters, now. Despite being so close to the horde, Yorvig suspected that the greatest danger would come nearer to One-Ear’s encampment, when ürsi runners or sentries might spot the expedition or smell them.
Yorvig stepped out of the door.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Rhûl?” asked on of the Wardens behind him.
“I merely go to look out from the ridge.”
The Wardens followed him to the spot where he’d found Rothe Stonefoot. From there, he could see over the naked valley, the river, and across to the dell. It was strange, looking at it from here and seeing the broken roof of the wall and the encampments of ürsi. The huts ranged up and down the river-valley by the thousands, and he knew for each hut, there was a cluster of ürsi. He could smell them. How he hated that stench. The rest of the Ridge Wardens and Hammers would be rushing beneath the stone over there, arming and preparing. It would take a little while to open the doors and move the piled rock away, but then the killing would start. Perhaps he should go back and join it. He may be of more worth there.
A sound echoed in the distance, a crack like the sudden splitting of a rock from the expansion of ice in the winter. It was followed by faint shrieking and yipping from southward along the ridge. The yipping spread down into the valley, an uncertain noise, as if the ürsi were repeating a message they didn’t understand.
It wasn’t a stone cracking. Yorvig had heard the oddly hollow sound before, but the last time it had been beneath the stone and close by, deafening. This time it was far, but it was the same sound. It was Rothe firing his weapon, his shuglenu. The only reason to fire it was if the expedition had been set upon by the foe and hope of secrecy was gone.
Yorvig looked out over the valley to the dell beyond the river. How different it all was! The other owners knew the plan he had dictated should he fail to return. Last night, he had given Onyx private directions as well, should he die on the expedition. She hadn’t wanted to listen, and looking back, he saw that it was because she knew he wouldn’t be going. At the time, he had attributed it to her perennial stubbornness. But she would remember what he said.
He thought of Onyx standing there as he’d left her. Death and pain was coming to the mountain. He was at the height of his achievement and power, and he felt helpless. He was out of ideas. Was all the joy of his life still worth it, if it all came to a brutal end?
He still had a family under that stone, a wif and gilna and gilke. Was going to Rightauger the same as abandoning Onyx, Peridot, and the others? Or would he do the same for each and every one of them, if faced with it?
He let out a long moan.
“Rhûl?” one of the Wardens asked.
He turned to them, tears running down his face.
“I am going to the expedition,” he said. “Choose for yourselves. I put no burden on you. Go fight with Thrushbeard, or come with me, or seek some other end as you will. I go.”
Yorvig couldn’t move quickly, but he had little patience for caution now. He headed up the ridge, following the path he knew the expedition had taken. They crested the ridge with no sign of foe and headed down the back side. Down in the valley and south along the ridge, there was a chatter of shrieking and barking. Partway down the western slope, they abandoned the path and turned south. The Ridge Wardens formed a loose knot around him, with two rushing ahead about thirty yards as an advanced guard. Seven. He realized they had all come. It didn’t take a talented hunter to see the disturbed pine needles and wet loam that the twenty-seven dwarves of the expedition had left behind. No snow remained on the ridge, and the smells of spring were strong.
The sound of the shuglenu had not come from all the way to Tonkil’s Rock, he was sure of it. They couldn’t have made it so far yet, anyway. He gritted his teeth as he felt the knotted muscles of his leg pull. A hundred yards south turned to half a mile.
“Rhûl, we are getting close,” one of the Wardens whispered. He was one of the advanced guard, but they had halted to let the others catch up.
“Then keep going!” Yorvig said, striding past with Treadfoot. Never had he so resented the old injury.
The Wardens followed, hunched with crossbows nestled close, gathering around Yorvig again like a shield. He didn’t know the Wardens’ names. He didn’t want to know. He couldn’t think about how he was likely leading them to their deaths, and they were following.
An ürsi shriek rose ahead, nearer than the others. The Wardens crouched again and raised their crossbows. A second shriek, and then a cackle, still a ways off.
“Keep moving,” Yorvig said.
“They’re too near,” the Warden said. Yorvig recognized a rinlen mark on his warmask. ‘They’re between us and the expedition.”
“Then go back!”
They struck a game trail. It looked like the expedition had taken it too. Yorvig pushed his pace even harder. A few more shrieks showed that whatever ürsi ranged ahead were also heading south. Then, Yorvig saw movement to his right down the slope. A group of ürsi, climbing up the ridge at a southward angle. All were converging on the same spot. The noise ahead had risen into the familiar sound of an ürsi battle, full of shrieking and gibbering. Yorvig and his Wardens had not yet been spotted. They were not yet near the adit that lead beneath Tonkil’s Rock. The expedition had been discovered at least half a mile short of their goal. With so few dwarves, it might already be over.
Then a blast shook the pine trees ahead. Even Yorvig ducked this time. Was that it? Surely not. That could not have been the whole blast. He kept moving, willing his leg to hold. They passed an old abandoned mullock pile and a shallow adit not five yards deep. Thirty-odd yards beyond it he saw smoke and licking flames. The acrid smell of Black Fire was in the air. As they passed, they saw debris, and what looked like charred meat and metal. The bodies of a few ürsi lay on the outskirts of the ring, smoking and scorched, their charred flesh adding another horror to Yorvig’s memory-hoard of smells.
Another blast and then a third shook the woods further on. Shrieks and gibbers broke out afresh, and through the trees ürsi rushed back towards them—ahead as well as lower and higher along the ridge.
“Ready!” the Warden rinlen said. The others raised their crossbows as the ürsi came on in a blind panic. “Shoot straight ahead in order!”
They loosed and ürsi fell, but more streamed past on the slope above and below. Yorvig heard another crack that sounded like the shuglenu.
“Hurry!” he said, starting off at what he intended for a run but was more of a lurching hop with the aid of Treadfoot. It was at least faster than his walking pace. They crossed a vernal flow of water over loose cobbles, crested a narrow rise, and saw smoke rising below them among spruce trees. Another small blast shook the branches and sent more ürsi shrieking back up the ridge. They were using the fused ceramic jars that Rothe had directed them to fashion. Each of the dwarves in the expedition had carried a satchel with five or six. They must be throwing them.
Yorvig rushed down the slope and into the copse of smoking spruce.
The Warden rinlen had the presence of mind to shout “Friends!” as they came through the smoke. “Friends! Friends!” The smell of sulfur hung heavy on the morning air.
Huddled in a rough circle amidst trees and exposed boulders were the dwarves of the expedition, Wardens with their crossbows raised, Hammers with shields forward in the crouch, and Rothe on a knee in the middle, Sledgefist standing beside him. They all stared agape as Yorvig and his small cadre emerged. They had set down the kegs with the carrying straps.
Yorvig tried to count them. Twenty-five. There were twenty-five alive, but two were wounded. Another Warden lay still, blood running from his neck. Ürsi javelins were lodged in trees or lay upon the slope.
“Rightauger!” Yorvig shouted. “Show yourself, Rightauger!”
“Shit! What in seven flames are you doing here?” Sledgefist shouted, rushing over as Yorvig went from Warden to Warden.
“Rightauger is here!”
“What?” Sledgefist grabbed Yorvig by the shoulders and held him. “Are you mad?”
“On the south slope!” Rothe yelled, raising his shuglenu. He fired again, a sharp crack, ringing the ears so close. Yips and shrieks responded as the ürsi moved back again. On the rock next to Rothe sat a canister drilled with holes. In it burned hot coals, flaring red. A light chain was fixed to the top so it could be carried easily. Rothe had insisted on just such a design for the lighting of the bombs.
Yorvig pushed Sledgefist back and looked around. Many of the masked faces were turned to him. He looked at their beards, searching.
“I am here,” someone said. Yorvig spun around. A dwarf had stepped from behind a tree, wearing a full warmask and helm covered with the red-stained leather of the Ridge Wardens. His beard was plaited and black—the wrong color. Yet his build. . .
“Rightauger is not here, Chargrim!” Sledgefist said, but Yorvig stormed over to the dwarf with Treadfoot for support. As he got near, the dwarf flinched, then caught himself and stood square. As soon as Yorvig reached him, he saw the beard was stained to look dark, and he gained a clear sight of the eyes and threw his arms around him.
“My gilke!”
“Rightauger?” Sledgefist asked, mystified.
“Ay, yes.”
“Shit! Seven fires of shit! This is not the place to be rhundaela!”
“They’re circling again!” Rothe yelled.
Yorvig looked up and stepped away from his son. He had found him. Now there was business.
“Be quick and tell me the story.”
“I wanted to do my part for—”
Yorvig waved a hand in Rightauger’s face.
“Not you. Sledgefist.”
“We hit a hunting party. At first they held off, but more came from up and down. They took one of my Hammers above both greaves with a javelin. He was bleeding badly. Rothe lit his keg and we ran. We tried to make it to the adit, but more came on us.”
Rothe had made certain each keg had a long length of fuse, the easier to tie them together when they prepared the main blast, or to be lit separately in need. A stone slapped into Sledgefist’s breastplate, leaving a dent. More tore through the copse, cracking on the trees and the armor. One dwarf cried out. Rothe fired again up the ridge where ürsi slingers popped out from behind trees just long enough to loose stones down upon them.
“They are terrified of the blasts. They run, but they come back.”
Yorvig squinted up the slope. Behind the slingers, he caught the barest glimpse of yellow in the pines.
“There are chiefs directing them,” Yorvig said, even as more stones slammed into shields. One nicked Yorvig’s helm. He wished suddenly for a warmask—he had never gotten used to them. That was an error.
“Can’t you put bolts in the kulkur?” Sledgefist shouted at one of the Wardens.
The Warden raised his crossbow, took high aim, but the ürsi worked the trees so well that it was difficult even to find a target for long enough for the bolt to travel.
“We must take the ridge,” Yorvig said. “Now.”
Rothe fired, smoke pluming, and one of the ürsi slingers dropped and rolled down, lodging behind a tree. A couple others fled up the slope. Yorvig was impressed. The shuglenu‘s range might not be much greater than the crossbow, but it struck in an instant, and that shot was uphill.
“More behind!” a Hammer yelled from the back of the ring.
Rightauger raised his buckler in front of Yorvig.
“Keep it for yourself,” Yorvig said to him. “Your mother made me this breastplate. Burdens on!”
“Pick up the kegs!” Sledgefist ordered in a shout much louder than Yorvig’s. “Hammers in line! Up the ridge! Wardens keep the rear!”
The dwarves acted quickly, shouldering their heavy burdens with gritted teeth.
“Up!”
