Chapter 22: A Whiff of Foe

The last time Yorvig went to the weir, a thin layer of snow had rested upon the land, and he and Hobblefoot had seen the tracks of beasts—cloven hoofed beasts—on the river trail. They knew the beasts were passing, and so Yorvig hoped to make another pitfall trap as he had done before.

When dawn came, they took their tools to the river. They walked a short distance upstream to where the animal trail passed through a narrow gap between a heaped shelf of exposed stone and the river. With four of them, they were able to dig a much better pit, even breaking up the rock layer beneath the thin loam. The rock there was already fractured from the freezing and thawing of water. By that evening, the pit was five feet deep, full of sharpened stakes, and there was a narrow entrance with steps closed off and secured by a split wall of timber that could be dismantled from the outside.

Across the top, they laid a weak framework of sticks and leaves and pine branches to hold up any snow.

“It looks a right mess,” Sledgefist said as the winter sky above them flushed with hues of peach from a sunset they couldn’t see beyond the ridges. It did look a mess. They had trampled the trail, turning the thin snow into a brown slush. They’d tossed the burden of rock from the pit into the river to get it out of the way, but Yorvig doubted any beast would fall for this trap yet.

“We hope for snow,” Yorvig said. Snow would remove their traces better than anything.

“Is that it, then?” Sledgefist asked.

“Maybe we should make another downstream,” Shineboot suggested.

“To catch the Hardfells?” Hobblefoot said, chuckling. “That would make sure they don’t pass us by on accident.”

“That’s a good point,” Yorvig said. “Let’s carve danger runes.”

They carved some runes on the rock shelf and into the bark of nearby trees, a triad of the cave runes for danger, hidden, and pitfall, plus directional marks. All dwarves knew cave-runes, not just the miners. Cave runes were used to guide movement, warn, or inform, such as whether the rock door was to a stew-hall or a smeltery, or whether there was the risk of a cave-in ahead. Speaking runes were another thing. There was some crossover, but speaking runes could be used to read and write, to store ideas. Such runes were inscribed on stones as memorials, or written with chalk on slate for a quick message between traders. But not all dwarves knew the secrets of speaking runes—certainly none of those present.

With the runes carved, they headed back to the dell and the adit. The winter sun had already sunk, and the dim of twilight had come. The days were short in the winter. Though the dark of night did not disturb the dwarves much, they did not like being exposed on the surface. Even in the dead of night, they could see what was close to them with little trouble, even glimmers of color, but beyond fifteen or so yards, the darkness held sway. Still, their eyes were not their strongest sense. Dwarven noses drew in the world. They could smell the loam, even the temperature of it. They could smell the decaying leaves, the sandstone of the ridges, the water and its distinct mineral load.

Something spooked in the trees to their right, rushing off further into the woods. They couldn’t see it, but they heard the crunch of snow beneath its feet.

“There goes dinner,” Hobblefoot said. “Supposed to run toward the pit.”

And then the smell hit them.

Few dwarves who have once smelled ürsi ever get the stench truly out of their nostrils. Some smell it again in their dreams. All four of the dwarves crouched instinctively, gripping their tools-turned-weapons.

“Shit,” Sledgefist said.

“What do we do?” Shineboot asked, staring around into the dim woods.

“Why did it run?” Hobblefoot whispered. “It could have stayed there and we wouldn’t have seen it.”

“We smelled it,” Sledgefist said.

“We smell something,” Yorvig said. “But whether it’s the same as what we heard is another question.”

“Shit,” Sledgefist said.

“Hobblefoot, you look left. Sledgefist, watch behind. Shineboot, right. I’ll take the front.”

Yorvig stood, holding a shovel like a walking staff, using it for support as he moved forward. The smell hung on the air, but it diminished somewhat as they reached the dell, and when they opened the adit door, only the sandstone-laden air met them. They quickly braced the door, dropping a thick maple bar into grooves. Sledgefist peered out of the door's small slat window.

“Nothing,” he said. “And the mine is clear unless they’ve learned to bathe.”

“What was it doing?” Hobblefoot asked.

“Spying, I think,” Yorvig said. “If it meant to attack, it would have. There were plenty of times we didn’t pay enough attention while we were digging today.”

“Shit,” Sledgefist said again. “I hate those kulkur.”

They were all silent a moment. Yorvig felt certain he was right. It must have been a spy. Or the one-eared ürsi returning, maybe. But why would it?

If it was a spy, then it meant there were more ürsi, and they knew where the dwarves were.

“We aren’t soldiers,” Shineboot said.

“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Yorvig answered. “To leave would be more dangerous than to stay, especially this time of year.”

“So we just wait until they attack again?”

“No. No, we prepare.”

“How?” both Sledgefist and Hobblefoot asked together.

Images flashed in Yorvig’s mind, somehow his thoughts moving faster in pictures than words could run.

“We cut down the dell.”

“The dell?”

“The trees. Every one of them. We cut them and stack them. We make it clear so we can see from one side to the other, all the way down to the river. First, we cut a stone door to this adit. We should have already done that.” The wooden door they had first made would slow an attack but not stop it.

“The door, ay, but the trees? That will take many days," Hobblefoot said.

“It must be done. At least that way they won’t be able to sneak up on us. And we need new tools, anyway. Ours are badly worn.”

“The Hardfells and the rest will bring new tools.”

“Not enough. We can’t rely on Deep Cut for our tools, we know that. We’d have to make charcoal sooner or later. It will be sooner.”

Sledgefist sighed. “We’re doomed to make the richest of strikes, and never to work them.”

“Let’s just make sure we’re not doomed to die.”

Dwarves had long ago refined the art of hanging stone doors, so much that there were stone carvers in Deep Cut who specialized in only the carving of doors and hinges and locks from the rock. None of those specialists would have considered carving a door from sandstone, but the four dwarves in the dell were more interested in speed, and they had not time or safety to go searching for a big enough slab of granite or any harder stone. They cut the rowed hinges in the adit rock and hung the sixteen inch slab of sandstone on the third day, with levers and prybars and cursing. But at last it hung. They carved a grate in the middle of the door to allow the dwarves to peer outside. At the bottom, they carved three small channels for the water of the spring to pass through. They’d divided the flow into three to allow for excess water to flow out but still keep the channels small enough so nothing bigger than a rat could squeeze through the course. Maybe the sandstone could be broken, but they felt certain no ürsi could do it and hope to catch the dwarves unprepared.

They were going to need a lookout higher up the ridge; even with the grate in the door they could not see enough of the dell to ensure it was clear before they stepped out, and they could not see directly to the left or right of the doorway. Each time they left the adit would be a risk. But with the stone door braced, they could sleep secure knowing nothing would come upon them suddenly.

Sledgefist tried to dissuade Yorvig once more from insisting they clear-cut the dell.

“We can hold on till the Hardfells get here.”

“Our friends could be walking into an ambush coming here, and I don’t see a way to stop them." Even if they all left now to try to make it to Deep Cut in the winter, it was more likely to get everyone killed. "And if we don’t walk the surface, we’ll be starved and dead by spring. We clear the dell." Yorvig paused, thinking. "Except for the mature birch and maple for the sap in the spring. We’ll cut their lower boughs.” The dwarves had learned of sap from the humans. At least one small colony from the western Ridges dealt in birch syrup to Deep Cut, it being a richer resource than the worked-out copper of their claim.

The next morning it snowed. They all went warily to the riverside, but nothing had fallen into the pit. They stayed a distance from it, creeping just close enough to see. They knew beasts could smell well, and they didn’t want to leave their scent. At least the pit was indistinguishable from the rest of the trail under the few inches of white powder. The snow had even covered the ice on the edges of the river, leaving only a narrow strip of dark water flowing in the center.

They returned to the dell. The pond was a white field, too, but the ice would not have supported their weight. They only had two axes, so two would stand watch with spears for now, rotating at intervals. They began, and Yorvig quickly realized just how many trees were in the dell. With their sharp axes and broad shoulders, the dwarves could make quick work of the soft pines, but it still took time for so many, and unless they limbed the trees, dropping them to the ground only made more cover for the foe.

Sledgefist was quick to point it out.

“We need the trees for charcoal, anyway,” Yorvig answered.

“These pines weigh ten tons on average I’d say,” Sledgefist squinted upward and jutted out his jaw, a sure sign he was doing sums. “Pine isn’t a good wood for coal.”

“There is cedar here, and fir, and spruce.”

“With a mound kiln, that’s maybe one ton of charcoal a tree. Maybe less. And the wood will need to sit for many months. Far less coal burning them green. . . How many tons do you want?”

“Fine. We stack the first hundred trunks and cover them. We let the rest lay where they fall, and we burn them.”

“You will scorch your birches and maples that way.”

“So be it.”