Chapter 21: Winter Working

Shineboot didn’t ask why. The tree shook and in minutes Shineboot dropped into the adit. Yorvig tried to look as surprised and excited as he could. Mostly, he felt stupid trying to act. But Shineboot wasn’t looking at Yorvig’s face; he was looking at the driftback. He approached it carefully, not taking his eyes away from the color. Gently, he touched the ore with his fingertips. When at last he turned to Yorvig, he looked far more dumbstruck than excited, his jaw hanging slightly ajar.

“Go bring the others,” Yorvig said, putting his back against the rock and sliding down to sit. He needed to get off his leg.

Shineboot hesitated for a moment, looking down at Yorvig as if confused, then scrambled back out of the adit and down the tree.

It was Sledgefist who scrambled up the tree first. He barely glanced at Yorvig as he stepped over his legs and rushed to the back wall. Sledgefist stared agape at the vein of gold. A few moments later, Hobblefoot squeezed shoulder to shoulder next to Sledgefist in the narrow opening. Shineboot returned last and stood near the adit opening. There was no room left further inside. There was hardly room for all four of them at all in the shallow drift Yorvig had mined.

Sledgefist turned toward Yorvig, his eyes wide and face slack. Yorvig smiled and hoped the the bedazzlement of the strike would blind them to his awkwardness. It was Hobblefoot who broke the silence.

“This changes things,” he said. “This is. . . This is . . .”

“Our dreams come to life,” Sledgefist muttered. “We must build real ladders.”

“No,” Yorvig said. “We dig a passage to the main adit. We cannot come and go through the dell all winter with ürsi about. And we have to keep our wits when we’re outside.”

Shineboot looked over his shoulder, down into the dell, as if just remembering the threat of ürsi.

“It will take so long,” Sledgefist said.

“The gold will keep.”

“He’s right,” Hobblefoot added, and nodded at Yorvig. “Best to come through the rock. I’ll take measurements. Should we connect to the storeroom, do you think, or the back of the drift?”

“What about bringing it right down above the waterwheel chamber?” Shineboot suggested.

Yorvig hadn’t thought of it, but it certainly had merits. It would allow them to more easily put the engine to good use. It might be premature to expect to need a vent-bellows or a rail system, but it didn’t hurt to allow for the possibility in future.

“Ay, yes. Slope from above the wheel chamber. What do you think for a gap thickness, Hobblefoot?”

Yorvig may be their chosen rinlen, but Hobblefoot had more experience with machines than any of them. It would be foolish for Yorvig to ignore the others' knowledge.

“Better thicker than weaker,” he said. “Let it be ten foot of rock, braced from below, and we can drill from each side for a vertical axle-shaft.”

“So be it. We can start with a ladder chute to the lower adit drift.”

“I see it. I will measure,” Hobblefoot said, and hauled himself back out onto the tree and started down.

The next days were a flurry. They stopped only to eat and to take short naps. They left the adit door closed and barricaded except when they needed to dump rock. Using the measurements Hobblefoot took with rope and charcoal markings on stone—double checked by Sledgefist of course—they were able to determine the grade and distance, and they re-checked the trajectory of their delvings frequently. They worked up from below, starting at the Lower Adit and heading to the rockface above, planning to reach the right level thirty feet deeper into the cliff than Yorvig had dug the High Adit, as they'd already begun calling it. The work would take months with all of them working. Yorvig was still not much use in hauling rock loads by barrow, dumping them down the ladder chute into the adit drift below, but he could stand and swing a pick. If he walked far, he still used his crutch, which was now closer to a cane since he'd sawed away the sharpened point.

The last of the leaves fell from the trees, dry and crackling. One morning, Yorvig and Shineboot left the adit to go check the weir for fish. They sought oil as much as meat. When they peered out of the adit, scanning for ürsi, they saw a thin film of ice on the pond. It was the first time Yorvig or Shineboot had seen ice. They broke it by throwing rocks onto the pond, then by pushing their hands through at the edge, picking up shards of the clear, cold stuff. They shattered it against the ground and heard its sound, fascinated by the idea of water growing solid.

Those were hard but happy days, fed on smoked meat and honey and the odd fish as winter closed its grip over the dell and the Red Ridges. There was little to disagree with about their current plan and little to argue over. They worked in tandem, as was fit for dwarves in a mine, and what few choices must be made they let Yorvig make without complaint or second guessing. With such hard labor, their supply of food would still not last the winter, even though they kept themselves on hard rations. They would have to hunt again in a couple months, and it would be wise to begin hunting sooner than necessary. But even Yorvig was happy to throw himself into days and weeks of laboring at the stone, letting himself forget for a time the desperate despotism of the wilds. Beards tucked into the necks of their belted long-shirts, their skin covered in stone dust and streaked from sweat—it was a good life.

The snows came. The river flowed swiftly, deeper now than in the summer. While the center remained open to the sky with its dark flowing water, a thick crust of ice grew out from the edges, covering the weir. They could not trust it with their weight, and even if they could, the higher water meant that many fish would escape the trap. Their supply of oil dwindled. They used fir candles in plenty, and all were glad Yorvig had forced them to set in such a store. So long as their dwarven eyes had remained in the dark for a few days, a single fir candle was more than enough light to mine by. They supplemented with reed pips soaked in the grease of the salted meat they cooked in their prospecting pans. When they hauled ore to and from the active drift, they did so in the dark, but dwarven feet did not need sight to walk a familiar tunnel. They knew the distances and steps by heart, navigating their claim in the dark with ease. Nor did the dark weigh on their spirits. Better dark beneath than light above, the old saying went.

By Hobblefoot’s measurements, they had to dig two-hundred and eighty-three yards and two feet before they reached the right level and alignment of the High Adit. They had chosen to dig a “single drift,” which to the dwarves of Deep Cut meant a tunnel 3 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with alcoves for passing every 30 yards. This allowed a single dwarf to push a barrow down the tunnel. As they got into a groove with their labor, they estimated that with two dwarves digging and two hauling, they were averaging 5 cubic yards of removal in a day, leaving the drift sides rough, and they expected a total removal of just over 425 cubic yards for the whole drift. Because there was room only for one to swing the pick at a time, they worked in two shifts, 16 hours at a time. The drift never rested. Yorvig made sure that he worked with Hobblefoot and Shineboot with Sledgefist, dividing the brothers, though he wondered at times if maybe through congenial work Hobblefoot and Sledgefist may find some peace.

With six hours of sleep, that left time for the dwarves not digging to sharpen tools, patch clothes, and try a little fishing if the the ice allowed. The days were regimented, duties clear, and that lifted their spirits as well. At this pace, they’d reach their goal in a little shy of three months. Such calculations were second nature to experienced dwarven miners. All in the claim had completed their apprenticeship, being called ørleg, which meant something like "able miner" in dwarvish. They had all the essential skills and knowledge, but they were not masters. Most mines only had one or two masters even in Deep Cut. The rinlen was normally one. They were expected to guide the cutting of a drift over huge distances with the precision of inches or less.

Yorvig still hadn’t dug a sleeping alcove. He lay atop one of the pelts he’d hunted, sleeping in the storeroom. Warmcoat and Savvyarm had left their sleeping alcoves unused, but Yorvig wouldn't take them over even though they'd be gone for months. The dwarves of Deep Cut lived in close quarters with their kin, and where folk lived in close quarters, practices about space coud grow strict. Sleeping alcoves were little more than shelves cut into the stone to accommodate the length and width of a dwarf, padded with rugs or pelts, the opening covered with a tapestry or thick curtain when available. For many a dwarf, only the sleeping alcove was truly private space. It was sleeping on padded stone, regardless, but the dwarves liked the confines of the alcoves.

Two months passed and Yorvig watched their supply of food dwindle. They only made one significant strike in the digging—a thin vein of galena, an ore containing silver and lead both, but they ignored it. In the summer, it would have excited them, but not now. When they opened the final jar of honey-meat, Yorvig knew they had to stop and hunt, even though the snows fell. Their destination was only a couple weeks of labor away, but they’d already tightened their belts too many times. The faces of the three dwarves now passing their second hungry winter looked gaunt, indeed. Yorvig suspected he wasn't too far behind them. As he swung his pick, Yorvig found himself fantasizing about fried mushrooms and goat stew, and the sweet mead of Deep Cut.

Then, Shineboot woke Yorvig and Hobblefoot out of their sleep.

“We’ve struck,” he said.

In minutes, all four were squeezed into the end of the upward drift, looking at another flash of gold under the light of a smoky fir candle.

“I reckon it's part of the same vein,” Hobblefoot said, pointing. “Look at the angle as it slopes.”

“If that’s the same vein. . .” Sledgefist said, and paused to do sums in his head.

Though it could take a moment to do the actual sums, they all knew what it meant. It meant the vein extended deep. It meant there was a great distance of gold-bearing quartz running from their current location at least to the High Adit.

“This may be even bigger than we hoped,” Yorvig said. That meant the potential for wealth beyond precedent in Deep Cut. There was no gold mined in Deep Cut. What was there was from trade with humans. The claims of the western Red Ridges sometimes produced small amounts of gold, but they mostly mined galena, copper, and iron.

Not all of the quartz in this vein would be gold-laden, and it would take work to extract it. But in at least some places there were nugget-sized deposits of the yellow ore, shining in the small candle flame. Ay, yes, such wealth was beyond hope, but they realized what kind of practical considerations lay before them. To extract it. . . To smelt and refine it. . . To trade it. . .

This was not a respectable strike that a few dwarves could pack back to Deep Cut, hoping to trade for a stonehold and maybe win the eye of a maid. This was the kind of strike that turned claims into. . . something else entirely. Yorvig wasn't sure what to compare it to. The closest example might be the galena of East Spire. Yet East Spire was much closer to Deep Cut, whereas they were in the far Red Ridges, hundreds of miles away.

“The question is, do we continue as we planned,” Hobblefoot said, “Or do we start to mine this vein. It looks to continue further down and in as well as up and out."”

“I think we mine as we go, but not yet. We have to replenish our food if we can.”

The disappointment was clear on their faces. Yorvig was disappointed too, but he knew it was the right call. He was also concerned that they needed to build new tools. Their picks were worn, the hardened steel edges long filed and sharpened away. They also needed drills. By drilling long holes into the stone, they could sample the rock and ore beyond and so guide their efforts.

Before Yorvig’s arrival, the others had built a small wooden lean-to against the cliff in the dell. It had been their first shelter and later their improvised forge. But they needed new iron, a quenching tank. . . eventually a better anvil than the piece of granite they’d used. All this meant they needed to smelt some of the hematite ore they’d struck in the lower drifts in a bloomery, and for that they would need charcoal, and to get charcoal they would need to make a mound kiln. Hopefully they would have enough hematite. They could heat and pound the plentiful limonite for iron as well, but that would take even greater amounts of coal and time. Regardless, the process represented weeks of work still ahead of them.

But Yorvig didn’t mention any of that. Not yet. Let them secure food, first. Even as they stared with gleaming eyes at the vein of gold, Yorvig knew it would be long before they could return to it with undivided attention.