Chapter 31: A New Working

Radishes, mangelwurzels, beets, turnips, all these things the dwarves of Deep Cut ate in plenty, cultivated in the terraced gardens of the canyons nearly year-round below the desolate surface of the Waste. There the sunlight still reached, and the pumps carried water from the deeps.

Yorvig knew they could not rely on hunting only, and with no flocks and herds, their only other options were the seeds and bulbs. They had not planted half of what Onyx had brought. The more he thought on it, the more vital he knew those plants were, and he was thankful that Onyx had decided to bring such a store, even though he grudged her presence.

The next morning, at the first flush of grey light, they were all up and assembled at the High Adit.

“We start a new work," Yorvig said, "so that we can survive even if the ürsi besiege us.”

And he laid out his plan. Based on the canyon terraces of Deep Cut, they would carve wide channels in the cliff in three tiers above the High Adit, each facing south and a little east as necessitated by the rockface. The terraces must be open to the sun, so they would be cut with roofs sloping upward and out, and they would only be fifteen feet deep. A path down the center would allow for raised beds to each side for soil. First, they had to cut a spiral stair to the proper level.

When completed, the plan would allow them to garden twice the space they had prepared in the dell. He wasn’t sure how much space they would need to feed themselves, so he took his best guesses and exceeded them in his design. He should have asked Onyx for ideas first, but he was trying to avoid speaking with her.

After he presented the idea, the dwarves discussed it, pointing out potential problems, fixes, and adjustments until they were satisfied. Onyx remained mostly quiet. If she had criticism of the design, she kept it to herself. In the end, Yorvig made the final decision, and still to his surprise, they all acquiesced without much argument. The terraces would be accessed through a spiral stair twenty yards into the adit. It would rise to the level of the first terrace and join it through a thick stone door. A separate stair would join the three terraces together. This way, even if the ürsi lowered themselves from above by ropes like Yorvig had done, they would face a single door if they wanted to breach the rest of the claim.

“That will take many days,” Greal said, after the design was settled. “I am no miner. I came to cut gems. Shouldn’t I begin on the amethysts?”

“We can’t eat the amethysts,” Yorvig said. He didn’t want to fight these battles again with the newcomers, but he would if it came to it. “The rock will need shoveled and moved. There is no great need of skill in that”

“There may be ore there, too,” Sledgefist said, brushing off Greal’s complaint. “We may be cutting into some of the seam above.”

“We’ll keep what we find,” Yorvig answered, stating the obvious.

"What about food?" Shineboot asked.

Yorvig grinned. Something was funny about someone else asking that, but his smile faded when he considered Shineboot's gaunt face. There was a waxiness to his skin, and his beard could no longer hide his cheekbones.

"It's not like you to mine first and hunt later," Hobblefoot said.

"We will check the weir first, and then some will stay to work and some will hunt." They were too many now to hunt all together. They would make a hopeless racket in the woods if they tried. But then, they were at risk of attack. How to balance the need for safety and the need for food? Digging the terraces was for food, too. He didn't want to talk about ürsi with the others, but if they planted only down in the dell, they had no way of protecting the crop.

“Let’s tuck our beards and go," he said.

The following three days proceeded to be disheartening. Four dwarves ventured each day, twice up the ridge, once lurking a few miles south. They saw nothing except the odd little bushy-tailed beasts that leapt from branch to branch or scurried among dry leaves, sounding far bigger than they were. Rilleye and carp from the weir kept their bellies from pain, boiled with leeks and onions that truly did grow up and down the river, but they were going further and further looking for patches. The fish and plants might slow their starvation, but they did not reverse it.

On the second of those three nights, Yorvig awoke in the dark to Striper pawing at his beard. He reached up to stroke her head.

"What is it?" he said groggily. But when his hand reached her face, she turned into his rough palm and dropped something from her mouth. It felt soft as it slid off his hand and landed in his beard. He picked it up, feeling the warm, lumpy, damp thing. Tired and confused, it took him a few moments to identify it in the dark. Realizing what it was, he recoiled and tossed the dead rodent away. Striper meowed angrily and leapt across the drift. She returned a moment later, hopped onto his chest, and dropped it back into his beard.

"Striper!" he said, sitting up. He picked up the rodent intending to throw it farther, but he was awake now. She had never done this before. The Mine Runners ate their prey. They weren't fed enough to survive without hunting, and they'd been fed nothing at all of late. They'd made just enough of a gap along one of the stream channels for the cats to squeeze in and out of the adit to hunt. Yorvig hesitated, the rodent held in his hand.

She was feeding him.

He lowered his hand from the throw, and with the other he stroked her fur.

"Thank you, Striper," he said with sincerity. He had never felt grateful to an animal before. For an animal, yes. He'd been immensely grateful for each of the beasts they'd managed to hunt and slay. But not to one.

Striper jumped away as he climbed to his feet, the lump of rodent in his hand. It was mostly skin and viscera and bones. "But I'm not eating this. . ." He paused. "Not yet anyway." He wasn't about to throw it away in front of her, either, so he climbed up the ladder to the Upper Adit and disposed of it out of her sight.

The fourth hungry day, Yorvig had chosen to leave Onyx, Khlif, and Greal at the claim. They would keep digging while the rest of them ventured back into the woods. Five were too many for hunting, yet the more days went by tramping in the woods, the more he worried about running into ürsi. Yorvig had gone with the hunters each of the days, though his leg ached by evening. He would not send anyone else in his place for such risk. The others were more than competent enough to manage the simple design of the stair without him.

It was palest daybreak when the five dwarves made their way out of the High Adit and down the tower ladder. Sledgefist and Shineboot carried the crossbows, having the most practice. They’d made a few extra bolts using sharpened rock, but not many. They needed more hematite or time to work limonite.

They made their way to the river, ignoring the weir and heading upstream. Yorvig’s plan was to make for the opening of the next valley, cut away from the river, then circle back again so that their scent did not mar the game-trail that ran near the water. Circling in the valley was easier than climbing up the back of the dell, but he hoped it would still work to lessen their scent. Climbing so high had been a great expenditure of energy, and he was learning that they needed to spend their energy with care. Within a few hours they were in place. The morning sun had not yet grown old. Sledgefist and Shineboot hid by a rock shelf downwind of the western breeze and within shot of the thin hoof-trail along the river. Well behind them in a low copse of hemlock, the others waited in silence. Sledgefist and Shineboot were truly the hunters; the others were just there in case of attack. They were prepared to stay the night or longer. They could not return empty-handed again.

“What’s that?” Hobblefoot asked under his breath. It was now the warmth of the afternoon, and Yorvig had grown sleepy. He had been leaning against a hemlock trunk, but now he sat forward. Hobblefoot pointed with his thumb back eastward, deeper into the valley the way they’d come. They listened for a time before they heard a stick snap. Then, there was a snuffling sound. They couldn’t see it yet, but they heard the beast coming. No. Beasts. There was too much noise for just one. And then something squealed and Yorvig knew they were wild pigs. He gripped his walking hammer and wished he had a spear. Hobblefoot and Warmcoat had spears. Warmcoat had finished his the evening before, a stout cedar haft with a knapped stone head, made from a bit of igneous rock they’d mined from an ancient intrusion.

The boars came into view—a great sow with a litter of seven half-grown piglets.

“What do we do?” Warmcoat whispered.

If only they had the crossbows. If they sprang out, the pigs might all scatter in different directions, or simply straight back as they'd come. The dwarves were under deep cover, but they were sure to make plenty of noise getting out of the hemlocks. Even standing up to throw a spear would alert the beasts. If the swine ran, there was no hope the dwarves could catch them. Beyond the hemlocks, the sow waddled into a small opening in the woods. There was a bare spot there, without pine needles, dusty and dry. The sow approached, snuffling at the air, her head erect and small eyes alert. She must smell them. . .

She came on anyway until she reached the patch of dirt where she stood looking around as her piglets scampered. All at once, she fell onto her side, rolled in the dust, and lay panting, watching her piglets nose around her. She was a massive beast, bigger than any of the dwarves.

One of the piglets snuffled its way closer and closer to the hemlocks. Yorvig’s heart raced. He had an idea, but it would all depend on that piglet. He leaned forward, slowly. He was the closest. He made it to a crouch, his hands on the ground in front of him. He felt his leg tremble as he readied himself for a spring. Let it hold. Let it come.

So quietly it was barely audible, he spoke:

“Stay still until I call,” he said. He wasn’t sure the others heard.

A few more steps.

He leapt, as hard as he could, and while he wasn’t even tall for a dwarf, it was enough. The piglet startled but it was too late. Yorvig burst through the hemlock branches and landed atop it. It squealed and tore at the ground with its hooves. He grabbed its front legs and flipped the piglet up in front of him and struggled to his knees. The thing might be young, but it was still closer to a hundred pounds than fifty.

The sow lurched up as the piglets squealed and scattered and tried to regroup behind their matron. With his miner’s arms, Yorvig dangled the squealing little beast in front of himself, dancing it back and forth for the sow’s gaze.

“Come on,” he growled.

The sow screamed and charged. At that instant, Yorvig thought he'd killed himself. She had tusks and weight. He knew she was dangerous, it’s just he was focusing on food.

“Help!” he shouted as he rolled, clinging to the piglet as a shield in front of his torso as the sow swerved to get at him, screaming.

Through the branches, Hobblefoot and Warmcoat were there, their spears ramming into the sow’s side. The shriek cut through the forest as she tried to writhe away. The spearpoints buried deep as the dwarves pressed their hafts. She twisted, so strong she pulled the two dwarves with her, but they held onto their spears. She tried to run but fell. Yorvig drew his dagger and slit the piglet’s throat, dropping it onto the pine needles where it thrashed and wheezed. The sow was trying to run on its side, then twisted trying to stand again. Yorvig sprang for her and slashed her throat as well. He stepped away, warm blood on his hand, up his arm, and in his beard. Only then did he look around.

Across the little opening, two of the piglets darted back and forth, looking back at their mother’s body and squealing. They made to run off, paused, and rushed back toward their mother, only to see the dwarves and repeat it again. Yorvig’s heart was hammering. He didn’t see any way they could get them.

But Sledgefist and Shineboot came crashing through the woods. The two rounded the hemlocks, crossbows raised and eyes wide.

Yorvig pointed at the two piglets. The little beasts backed off further at the new arrivals but did not flee into the forest, still reluctant to leave their dam. The sow still kicked in the dirt, though she had fallen silent.

“Can you shoot together?” he asked.

Sledgefist and Shineboot readied themselves.

“Wait till they’re still,” Sledgefist said, then held his breath. “Now!”

They both released.

Two bolts slammed into one of the piglets. The other fled squealing and unharmed. They listened to the fading sound of it crashing away through the woods.

Sledgefist bent over, breathing hard.

“I suppose we should have said which one,” Shineboot said, looking at the dying piglet with bolts stuck in chest and shoulder.

“I suppose so,” Sledgefist answered. Then he looked up at Yorvig. “Hammer and tongs, I thought you were being eaten alive."

Yorvig let Sledgefist and Shineboot catch their breath while Warmcoat and Hobblefoot tried to yank their spears out of the sow.

“It’s warm," Yorvig said at length. "Let’s get this back to the claim before it starts to turn.”

Even as they butchered the animals, Yorvig was doing sums. A hunt more successful than they could have hoped for, and yet it only gave them about two weeks worth of meat, not including the bones for boiling. If they hunted every few days so successfully, they could lay up enough meat to last the winter. . . Such hope seemed a wild fantasy.

They carried the meat toward the claim on poles. They approached the back—or northward—side of the ridge. On the opposite side was the cliff where they had dug their adits. Something shook Yorvig ought of his sums and planning. This side of the ridge had a gentler rise. There was no cliff, though some areas were broken and showed exposed rock. It was this exposed rock that caught his attention. An idea came to him, but it was not for today.