The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

Icevein: Chapter 22

The ürsi quietened some through the late afternoon, and the frequency of the whistling sling-stones reduced. Under the criticism of Aftercut, the wardens raised a fortification nearly seven feet high, with inner steps for defense and outer buttresses to keep the ürsi from pulling it down. It was a half-circle, its back to the open fall of the ravine behind, just spacious enough for the few dwarves to fit inside. Gretti’s frustration at being prevented from helping or even defending himself had not lessened. The wardens moved their wounded into the fortification, and the Ridge Warden rinlen ordered the dead to be stripped of their gear and thrown over the ledge into the stream below.“They might be the only ones not eaten,” a warden muttered near Gretti as they watched the bodies thrown.

“When did the ürsi attack?” Gretti asked.

“We arrived yesterday evening, and the ürsi struck before dawn this morning.” The dwarf nodded to the stream that had accepted the dead. “We lost them in the first attack. We should have brought a Mine Runner, this time of year,” he added. “It would have bought us time.”

It was one of the odd stories about Chargrim of Glint; he had discovered that the Mine Runner cats he so loved could detect the presence of ürsi long before even a dwarven nose. The Hammers at Sledge Rock relied on them as well, though Gretti had wondered if their ability was real or not.

“Ask your rinlen to let me free,” Gretti said to the warden, his tone low. “I can help. I can kill ürsi.”

The warden looked at him for a few heartbeats, considering. He nodded, then moved away. Gretti watched him approach the rinlen and speak, but the rinlen glanced at Aftercut, and whatever he said in response, it did not result in Gretti’s release.

As evening approached, Gretti squeezed through the narrow entrance gap in the new wall. The gap was constructed with a sharp turn part way through, so that nothing could pass quickly. He climbed up the tier steps inside until he could peer over the wall. The wardens and remaining jackals were retreating to the fortification, slipping away one by one. Gretti saw an ürsi watch from down the trail, well outside the range of the crossbows. It hunched over and crawled up the slope and out of sight when Aftercut slid into the gap, the last of all.

The fortification was hastily made, but it protected them from stones or stones rolled down the slope, and it provided a killing-ground for the crossbows. If they were fortunate, the ürsi would consider the cost of assaulting the position too dear. Wardens took posts on the inner steps, resting the stocks of their crossbows on the wall and gazing outward. Gretti slipped back down to the natural stone on the ravine’s edge. With no helm, he did not want to present his skull to the ürsi sling-stones.

“So what do you think?” Aftercut asked the warden rinlen.

“I think we should allow naps, an hour a piece for those who can, until night.”

“They won’t come until night?”

“Let us hope they come tonight. I fear if they do not, it will go poorly for us,” the warden answered.

“What do you mean?” Aftercut asked.

“If they remain by morning, yet have not attacked, it is because they believe more of their ilk will come to their aid. These smaller bands separate from the main host and range far to hunt and to catch claims unawares. If there is no help for them near and they do not think they can take us by storm, then they will leave to find easier prey.”

“Well, let us hope then that we wet our blades tonight, if at all. Let us take a meager meal.”

They did make a meager meal of sliced beetroot, a few hard chunks of salt venison, and sips of water. The risk of running out of water was greater than running out of food, though Gretti saw that the wardens had rope. It might be possible to lower a bucket into the stream below. The jackals had fed Gretti on the trip, but as the venison was handed out from the wardens’ supplies, Gretti was skipped.

“Let me eat,” he said.

“Why should we feed one of thewardens asked.

“My life is bound with yours. What do you fear?” Gretti asked. “Are not the ürsi my enemies as well?”

The warden rinlen looked to Aftercut.

“He is your captive,” the rinlen said. “What say you? If we live, I think it will be by blood.”

“If you wish Icevein to fight for you, then pay his price and he is yours.” Aftercut held out his hand to Rimbiter, who produced and gave over the key-pin. The warden rinlen motioned to one of this dwarves, and a pouch was produced.

“Here are the yothe agreed.”

Aftercut loosened the mouth of the bag and looked within. It was an insult to check the payment, but the jackal did not care about the frowns of the Ridge Wardens.

“The Irik-Rhûlis not false,” the rinlen said.

Is that so?” Aftercut asked, tucking the pouch beneath his breastplate. “And where is he, that I may commend him?” He made a show of looking around the little fortification. Rimbiter snorted at Aftercut’s mockery.

“The key-pin,” the warden rinlen demanded, holding out his hand. Aftercut tossed it to him, and the warden approached Gretti.

“Do you give your oath that you will fight with us against the ürsi?”

“I give it.”

“And should we survive, you will go peaceably to Glint to stand before Chargrim?”

“I give it.”

“Swear it on your mother’s bones and your father’s beard.”

He sighed. He had already given his word, but they clearly did not trust him. It was unwise to invoke such oaths, but he saw no alternative. He could hardly avenge his family from the gullet of an ürsi.

“I swear it on my mother’s bones and my father’s beard.”

“Turn around.”

Gretti turned, and the warden released him from his chains, letting them fall to the ground. Slowly, Gretti brought his hands out from behind his back, feeling the pull and ache of the muscles.

“Find what you may,” the warden said, pointing to the stacked kit of the fallen dwarves. “It belonged to better dwarves than you.”

Gretti ignored the barb and went to look among the arms and armor. Neither helm was big enough for his head, but one of the hauberks had lace closures up the back, and he managed to pull it over his frame, though he could not draw it closed behind. He tied a belt around it with a hanging punch dagger and took the longer and heavier of the two hand-axes as a main weapon. He tucked away the other handaxe in his belt. As he did this, the warden he had spoken to earlier offered him a piece of venison. Gretti thanked him, and as he chewed, the warden rinlen pointed to the entrance of the fortification.

“Stand there, and let nothing through,” he told Gretti.

The days were already shortening toward fall, and darkness came quickly in the gully. The ürsi fell silent, replaced by the stillness of autumn. If it weren’t for the occasional whiff of their stench on the air, Gretti would have hoped they had gone entirely.

“They are coming tonight,” the warden rinlen said in a low tone. The dwarves were so near eachother in the fortress that it was easy to make out the words.

“How do you know?” Aftercut asked.

“If they meant merely to harass us, they would be loud. Now they hope to lull us.”

“It is well the brutes are not more clever.”

“Some are,” the warden answered.

As if in response to the ürsi’s quiet, the dwarves grew still as well. They sat hour by hour in silence. No one slept. Rimbiter stood near the entrance behind Gretti, but the rest waited on the steps of the wall, watching with crossbows ready. Even though the night was overcast, the dwarves had little trouble seeing, especially in the open space of the campsite. Their night-eyes were better nearer than far. When Gretti leaned to peer out of the opening, the features of the slope melded into obscurity after thirty yards, but he could see the colors of the stone in the wall beside him. Embers glowed where the fire had burned down, casting shadows on the slope.

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Gretti was tired, but it felt good to stand upright, to have an axe in his hand, to breathe freely. His body still ached, but he would make a good account when the ürsi came. He just hoped they came sooner than later. Wait was often harder than fighting.

“Here they come!”

“Shit!”

Crossbow strings sprang. Sling-stones clattered against the rock wall and spun overhead. Gretti gripped the axe in his left hand and the punch dagger in his right. There wasn’t enough time for the crossbows to shoot again before the first ürsi turned the corner of the entrance gap. The beast wielded a short spear, pointed upward for lack of room. Before it could right the weapon, Gretti chopped downward, splitting its skull. The reek of ürsi filled his nostrils, enough to turn his stomach, but there was no rest. Another ürsi pressed in overtop the collapsed body. Gretti thrust with the dagger, jabbing at its chest. It sunk down with a shriek, and now the night erupted in yips and shrieks, a grotesque cacophony. Gretti could not see beyond the wall, but his stomach sank. The garbled voices were a multitude. Another ürsi pressed through. Gretti clove its head as well, and another behind it. Already the entrance was clogging with ürsi dead. Another tried to crawl over the bodies, and Gretti put it down.

“Ai, give me a turn!” Rimbiter said, jostling Gretti aside. Another ürsi crawled atop the slain, and Rimbiter jabbed his punchdagger through its eye. Gretti glanced at the walls. The dwarves were crouched, stabbing upward as ürsi scrabbled over the wall. A ridge warden lay sprawled backwards on the ground behind the wall, his body still. Aftercut rose to throw an ürsi back down, and a hail of sling-stones rattled against his armor, knocking him back a step. He cursed and crouched low again, stabbing at another ürsi face.

Rimbiter had clogged the entrance to head height with the dead, but the ürsi came pouring over. Dwarves on the walls pushed ürsi bodies out of their way. One fell on Gretti’s shoulder, leaving a smear of dark blood that made him sputter at its foulness. He climbed to the wall in the spot where the warden had fallen, shouldering between two other dwarves. He could not risk lifting his head above the wall without a helm, but he could ward away anything that tried to climb above. A hail of thin javelins plunged over the wall. One caught Gretti in the hauberk but did not penetrate, though he heard a dwarf scream near him. He could not take his eyes away from the patch of wall in front of him. The ürsi climbed on the shoulders of others, stabbing with spears or scrabbling up the rocks faster than the dwarves could kill them. Others tried to pry stones apart. He heard Aftercut shouting something, but in the chaos he could not make sense of it.

There was no room to swing an axe, so Gretti choked up on the haft and punched with the blade. The ürsi abandoned their javelins as they scrabbled over the walls. It was knife and dagger work, and Gretti felt the sting of more than one stone-knapped chert blade. His dagger was wrenched from his hand, stuck amid the ribs of a twisting foe. Next to him, he saw a warden fall backward, ürsi clinging to his legs and arms. Gretti laid about him with all his strength, twisting and kicking and punching. An ürsi leapt against Gretti’s chest, and he grabbed its throat as the stinking beast sought his neck with its fangs. More latched onto him, and he toppled, falling down into a pile of writhing wounded and befouling dead. A light flared, revealing the grotesque visage of the ürsi, mouth wide, lips curled back from grey incisors.

The world erupted. Thunder peeled around and through them. Fire burst upward, turning the night brighter than day. Gretti’s head spun, and he was not sure whether he was upside down or rightside up. Another blast shook the rock, and then another, and another, like successive lightning strikes. Gretti felt the percussion in his chest and teeth. He clung to the ürsi to shield himself from the terror. His ears rang. The yips and shrieks ceased. The ürsi in Gretti’s hands struggled to free itself, but he clutched it by the throat and squeezed with all his strength, crushing its windpipe. He tossed the beast away and struggled to rise from the pile of dead and dying. The stench was outrageous, and his stomach clenched.

Aftercut crawled over the bodies toward another jackal. It was Rimbiter. He leaned against the wall, the broken haft of an ürsi javelin jutting from his armpit. His breaths came in irregular heaves. Two wardens struggled to rise amidst the bodies, both so covered in gore that Gretti couldn’t tell if they were wounded or not. Some of the ürsi yet moved. Gretti grabbed one and threw it bodily over the edge of the ravine. The impulse to be rid of the bodies came on him strong, and he lifted body after body in frenzy, throwing them over the edge He didn’t know what had happened, and he hardly thought. The ground was slick with blood and bile. It flowed in little rivulets down crevices in the rock.

Gretti worked with a daze. He did not count them, but they must have numbered in the scores. They had swarmed over the wall so quickly. Gretti left the bodies packed in the entrance in case any ürsi should return. Nothing would stop the reek of the blood-soaked ground. His nose burned and his eyes watered from the foulness. He saw a little rivulet of dark blood trickling over the side of the rock ledge.

Aftercut sat against the step next to Rimbiter, whose chest had stilled. One of the wardens climbed the wall while the other sat cross-legged, rocking. He was so covered in ürsi blood that there was no bare skin. Gretti looked at the bodies of the fallen dwarves, but none showed any sign of life. Helms had been ripped off, necks savaged, noses obliterated by sling-stones, hauberks pierced by javelins. One warden’s intestines trailed out from beneath his hauberk, but he was mercifully dead.

Gretti had seen violence and killing, but he struggled to compose his thoughts. He wanted to sit, but there was nowhere clean and bare to sit, so he stood and stared. He could not tell how long the fighting had lasted. Not long. He looked at the sky. It was overcast, but there was no sign of lightning and no sound of thunder. Not a drop of rain had fallen, so far as he could tell. In his gut, he knew the blasts had not been thunder and lightning, but his mind searched for an explanation. Mixed in with the revolting stink was the acrid tang of sulfur, or at least he thought; every breath of befouled air stung his nose.

How morning had the audacity to dawn, Gretti did not know. But the sky paled. The reds and browns of the blood grew stronger. Gretti climbed up onto the step next to the warden, keeping his head down. The warden’s face was smeared in filth. He stared out on the campsite with a blank gaze. For a moment, it looked like he was dead, but the dwarf’s shoulders moved with subtle breaths.

“Have you seen any?” Gretti asked. To speak felt like a transgression, somehow.

The dwarf swiveled his head and fixed Gretti with a distant gaze, his mouth slightly open. He turned away again and gave the subtlest shake of his head.

Gretti lifted his eyes above the level of the stone.

“Seven fires,” he muttered. “What?”

There were no ürsi—no living ürsi, at least. In a wide swath around the fortification were their mangled remains. Some were more or less whole, but others looked as if a wild beast had torn them apart. Yet there were no beasts.

“What did this?” he asked. The defenders had slain many coming over the wall, but they could not have wreaked such carnage beyond.

“Have they fled?” The voice belonged to Aftercut. Gretti turned and saw the jackal standing and looking up at them, still masked.

Gretti scanned the slope and trails. There was no sign of living thing.

“Maybe,” he answered.

“Either they have or we die.” Aftercut turned to the body of Rimbiter and dragged it toward the edge of the gorge. He rolled the body over, letting it fall. He did the same with Broadlever. Then, he slung one of the donkey panniers over his shoulder by a strap. The oiled leather was stained with blood. The jackal’s actions finally stirred the second warden, and the survivors set about finding their remaining supplies, gathering bolts and undamaged weapons. Gretti climbed down and cleared away the entrance as the wardens rolled their dead off the ledge. Gretti took one of the panniers as well, still laden with food, and found a new axe and dagger.

“I will bring up the rear,” Aftercut said.

“Where are we heading?” one of the wardens asked.

“Wasn’t there a claim a few miles to the north?”

“Ay, yes.”

“We go there.”

The wardens nodded, not questioning the Jackal leader. Gretti pushed his way through the entrance first. He wanted to be away from that awful place. He headed toward the north trailhead, trying to avoid stepping on the remains splayed outside the wall.

He heard a gurgle and flinched, thinking one of the ürsi was yet alive. He spun round and saw Aftercut’s axe on the downswing. Gretti raised his shoulder and ducked his head away. The blade slammed into the meat of Gretti’s bicep, biting through a few links of mail and glancing down the sleeve of his hauberk. Gretti hooked his fist into Aftercut’s masked chin, sending the jackal reeling, but even as he spun away he gave Gretti a slash across the forearm with the dagger in his off hand, grating down across the mail and nicking the back of his wrist. One warden lay on the ground, grasping his sliced throat, eyes bulging and rolling as blood bubbled between his fingers. The second clutched at a wound just above his collar bone as blood spurted out.

“What are you doing?” Gretti shouted, but Aftercut had already recovered. Gretti leapt back to avoid the next blow of the axe, but the jackal did not cease his attack.

“Stop!” Gretti yelled, holding his axe out to deflect. Faster than Gretti thought possible, Aftercut redirected a blow from high to low, hooking Gretti’s leg with his axehead while bowling forward, sending Gretti sprawling onto his back. Aftercut swung round for the killing blow, but cried out and hopped sideways. Gretti scrabbled to his feet as Aftercut limped back, grasping at a bolt in the back of his leg. The pointed head protruded just above his knee and the edge of his greave. The warden slumped forward over his crossbow, blood still pulsing from behind his collarbone.

“Shit!” Aftercut spat, trying to put weight on the wounded leg.

“Why?” Gretti gasped.

“I won’t die to keep our secrets, but you will.” Aftercut surged forward, bringing his axe round for a strike. Gretti raised his own to deflect and saw the jackal flick with his off hand. Gretti flinched, turning his face, and the dagger pierced through both his cheeks. Blood spurted into his mouth and rage into his chest. He stepped forward instead of back, ducking inside the jackal’s axe-swing, ignoring the axe, grasping the sides of the jackal’s helm and driving his thumbs into the eye sockets of the mask, gouging deep. Aftercut bellowed and tried to pull away. Gretti ripped the helm from his head, snapping the leather strap, tearing the mask away with it. Aftercut squeezed his eyes shut as blood streamed down his face. He raised his arms to ward away attack, but Gretti swung the helm down, knocking away the jackal’s hands, then slamming the steel into his face.

Aftercut fell backwards, and Gretti was atop him. With both hands, he brought the edge of the mask down across the center of Aftercut’s face—once, twice, thrice. The jackal spasmed, his body stiffening. Once more for good measure, and Gretti rolled away. Reaching up, he drew the dagger out through his cheeks, screaming at the pain. His tongue was sliced but not severed. All he could taste was iron and salt. He lay on his back, exhaling something between a sob and a groan.