They saw no ürsi as they backtracked to where Savvyarm had fallen. There was a bloodstain, but no more. Pack and tools were gone as well.

It took them only an hour to make it back to the dell. Warmcoat gaped as he saw the burnt clearing stretching up the dell from the river. They climbed up the tailings pond embankment and the tower standing near the High Adit came into view. The weary hunters led their friends toward the tower.

“What has happened? Where are we going?” Warmcoat asked as they bypassed the Lower Adit.

Yorvig just pointed up the dell. He wasn’t in a mood to explain things, and there would need to be much explaining. The Hardfells and Warmcoat had strapped on their packs—even Onyx carried a significant load. Sledgefist and Hobblefoot had argued about carrying her pack for her. Rather than let them go on arguing, Yorvig had ordered them to take their weapons and "guard the flanks." He thought it would allow them to act the warrior while also keeping them clear of the Hardfell maid. Instead, they both ended up clutching their weapons and walking on either side of her, even though the narrow game trail often only accommodated one.

It annoyed Yorvig beyond reason. He stumbled on his bad leg twice. Shineboot carried his crossbow at ready, bringing up the rear.

“Hammer and tongs,” Warmcoat said as they reached the bridge tower at the High Adit.

“Later,” Yorvig said. “Let's everyone get under stone first.”

Hobblefoot hurried up the ladder to the top and moved toward the edge of the platform, holding his spear at the ready. They had left the bridge raised using a pulley mechanism Hobblefoot had devised.

“Doesn’t look disturbed,” he called down, staring at the pull rope that ran to the bridge release catch. They had wrapped the rope in such a way that only an impossibly observant foe could have replaced it as they’d left it.

“Then lower it and go in,” Yorvig yelled. “And smell for them.”

The Hardfells and Warmcoat continued to exchange glances as Yorvig gave directions, but Onyx stared straight ahead.

Hobblefoot called the all clear. Yorvig motioned for Onyx to climb. As she took hold of the ladder, he and the other dwarves still on the ground turned their backs out of propriety. It was custom for dwarf-maids and wifs to wear trousers beneath loose high-slit skirts or wraps when engaged in any labor, but no self-respecting dwarf would have watched her ascend.

They didn't turn until they heard her footsteps on the bridge.

“Go ahead,” Yorvig said. The rest ascended and Yorvig followed at the rear. He’d gotten used to climbing the ladder with his walking hammer, using the hooked beak like a hand so that he could climb without having to stow it.

The others had already proceeded across the bridge when he reached the top. He stopped to look back out over the dell. It was quiet, and he saw no movement. The breeze had died with the coming of evening. Even the birds seemed hushed. He turned his back and crossed the bridge. Sledgefist winched it closed.

Striper was there, meowing and brushing against Yorvig's leg.

“Why the fire?” Hobblefoot asked Greal. “It might have just drawn more ürsi.”

“We figured it was over, and better to die on stone with a fire to our back.”

“And you brought your sister out here?” Hobblefoot asked, an edge to his voice. “Into the wilds?”

“Our mother went to the Halls of the Crippled King last fall,” Greal said. “We could not leave Onyx alone. There is no other close kin, and she has accepted no offers.” That last bit had an edge in it, too, Yorvig noticed.

Onyx stood nearby in the adit, and her eyes glinted as Shineboot lit a candle.

“I’m weary,” she said flatly.

Sledgefist and Hobblefoot sprang into action.

“We will make you a bed in the storeroom tonight,” Sledgefist said.

“I will carve you a chamber,” Hobblefoot added.

“We will,” Sledgefist corrected.

Yorvig winced.

“The first thing we do,” Yorvig said, “Is eat. And I suppose we need to talk.”

“I will make a stew,” Onyx said to Yorvig. "It will go farther."

He looked at her for a moment, considering. He’d gotten used to giving direction to Sledgefist, Hobblefoot, and Shineboot over the winter, but he didn’t know what to make of her. He didn’t have to say anything, though.

“There is a forge-hearth in here,” Sledgefist said, and brushed past them into the smithy. Onyx followed, as did Hobblefoot.

“Shineboot, would you get water?”

“Ay, yes,” he said, grabbing a wooden bucket and heading toward the lower tunnels.

That left Yorvig with Warmcoat and the Hardfell brothers.

“I take it a lot has happened,” Warmcoat said.

“More than,” Yorvig answered. Then he grinned. He truly was happy to see Warmcoat, though they’d never been overly close. What should have been a warm greeting had been marred, worst of all by Savvyarm’s death. Yorvig had liked Savvyarm the most, back in Deep Cut. He was a kind dwarf, strong in friendship, in labor, and in joy in the stew halls. They would carve his name above the arch of the adit. Yorvig’s grin faded, and his throat constricted as tears came. Seeing this, Warmcoat embraced Yorvig, and the two wept and Khlif and Greal stared down at the rock.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

They shouldn’t have stayed at the claim over the winter. They should have left, gold or no. They should have tried to make it back to Deep Cut and warn the others of the ürsi. Savvyarm would still be alive. Why had they chosen to stay? They might not have made it back. There was a good chance they wouldn't have. Had they traded their friend for gold? Protected themselves while they let him walk into death?

The smell of burning charcoal and smoke came from the smithy when Warmcoat extended his arms, holding Yorvig by the shoulders.

“Have the ürsi pressed you hard, that you dug an adit up so high?” he asked.

“That is not why,” Yorvig said. “But we’ve had to fortify it. Twice we have fought the ürsi. And every day we are on guard.” He didn’t bother clarifying that he had fought them twice, the others only once.

“This is a foul place then,” Greal said. “Best we abandon it. Amethyst was not worth Savvyarm’s life, or any of ours.”

“Nothing was worth Savvyarm’s life,” Yorvig said, and then he sighed. He may as well show them right away. “Come with me.”

Yorvig took the nearly extinguished fir candle and lit a smoky grease-oil lamp, rendered pig oil the fuel. They had made a small stock of oil from pig fat, but they had been considering drinking it. With the lamp, he led them down the adit and toward the most recent workings. It was not far, for they had not been able to dig for ore nearly as much as they wanted. He lifted the lamp and let the light fall on the vein.

Khlif cursed.

Greal stared with mouth agape.

“No,” Warmcoat said. “No.”

“Ay, yes,” Yorvig answered. “And it continues on down into the mountain. How far we don’t yet know, but it is a mighty lode.”

Khlif kept cursing at intervals as Greal ran his hands over the gold-laden quartz.

“This,” he said. “This is. . . beyond.”

Greal turned and stared at Yorvig, squinting. Striper had followed and swatted at Yorvig’s leg. He picked her up, holding her in one pouched arm.

“How— Why—” Greal began, but stopped and shook his head.

“Much has happened today,” Warmcoat said.

“Too much," Yorvig replied.

Together they ate of boiled salted jerk meat and even opened one of the casks of sap beer. The Hardfells and Warmcoat recounted fully their journey, the death of Savvyarm, and their fears of a final stand on the promontory. Onyx remained quiet, and mostly staring at the flames of the forge or into her own carven soup bowl. They had started their trek early in the year, expecting to reach the Red Ridges when snow still clung to the slopes. It had been a mild enough winter above Deep Cut in the Waste.

Yorvig questioned them closely about the contents of their packs. The loss of Savvyarm's pack was a great blow, though it felt awful to think so considering the loss of the dwarf, himself. The pack had contained many new chisels, hammer heads, axe heads, and a few new pick heads, all without hafts to make for easier carrying. Savvyarm had trudged on the journey for months, making light of the great weight by recounting to the others how they would empty the mountain of amethysts and forget their burdens in joy.

There was still much to be thankful for that the others had carried through. Yorvig was thankful that they hadn’t dropped their packs in despair during the pursuit by the ürsi. Even Onyx had packed much of value and worth. She had brought seeds and bulbs for garlic, onions, wurtzels, radishes, and turnips, as well as many varieties of mushroom spores. She even had a ceramic jar full of seeds for hill-smoke, though they had smoked all their actual leaf on the journey. Greal had brought yeast for brewing. There were many rolls of fine wick, a luxury that would save them time from peeling river reeds. New bundles of scrap cloth. Extra shirts and trousers. And each had brought their own sets of personal tools. The Hardfell brothers had brought stone-cutting and lapidary tools. And as Yorvig learned, Onyx had brought a wide array of her smithing tools, but they were small and fine, for she had practiced the working of delicate wire, foil, plating, and metal lace. It was her work that provided the settings for many stones that Greal cut. Khlif himself was a miner, and he had labored with Sledgefist and the others, the source of their friendship.

They had eaten the whole kettle of stew and Yorvig was staring at his empty bowl thinking about just how much more food they needed now that four additional dwarves had arrived when Greal spoke:

“I can’t help but notice,” he said, “that Chargrim has taken an. . . active role in the ordering of the claim.”

Shineboot glanced at Yorvig.

“Well,“ Sledgefist began, waving the topic away with his hand. “It was a temporary agreement. Food was scarce and—”

“We agreed to make Chargrim rinlen until you all arrived,” Shineboot interrupted. Sledgefist looked surprised that he’d been cut off.

“I’m sure Chargrim has done nobly,” Greal said, not even looking at Yorvig. “But it’s unusual to choose a. . . junior dwarf.”

“Sledgefist and I—” Hobblefoot glanced at Onyx as he spoke “—were not willing to choose between ourselves as rinlen. We thought this temporary measure best.”

By the faces of Warmcoat and the Hardfell brothers, they did not find this explanation satisfactory. They'd have to be fools not to know there was more to it. Above her half-veil, Onyx’s amethyst-rimmed eyes gave little clue as to her thoughts or feelings. Auntie Tourmaline had never veiled, saying veiling was of no need with the humans far away. But her custom had not held; veiling became even more prevalent in the caverns of Deep Cut over the years.

Apparently, Greal decided to leave the past in exchange for the present:

“So who was to be rinlen, now?”

What Warmcoat and Savvyarm had told them about the conflicts in the claim, Yorvig didn’t know, but they must have thought it a minor enough problem to still venture into the wilds. That was something Yorvig had not been certain they would do.

“That is to be chosen among us,” Shineboot said. Yorvig was thankful he was doing so much of the talking; it was uncharacteristic of him.

“Chosen? How?”

“By vote.”

Khlif actually guffawed once, but caught himself when he realized it was serious.

There was a gap in the conversation that no one wished to enter.

The dwarves of Deep Cut avoided a vote at all costs. There was an old adage:

Chosen Once, Chosen Twice.

When miners or soldiers chose their own leader, they began to get a sense that they had the power, and they could withdraw it. Once folk started to choose their leaders, they could do it again, and to keep a mine running amidst disagreements and conflict, only the rinlen could have power. So the rinlen was normally entitled by rights, an appointee by the council or the true claim holder. Such things could not be gainsaid by irritated subordinates.

“It has been a long day.” Yorvig stood up. He’d had enough. “Tomorrow. . .” he started to say, but cut himself. He was going to say that tomorrow they needed to split up, some to hunt or fish and some to work on planting seeds and cultivating fungi. But he realized he would not be rinlen any longer. Such problems would no longer be his to command. He would have to decide whether he could follow the new rinlen. “Tomorrow is a new day,” he said instead.

Leaving the others, he headed down to the Low Adit to find a new nook to sleep in, since Sledgefist had already given the storeroom to Onyx. Over the winter, he had lost faith in Sledgefist and Hobblefoot’s ability to lead the claim even if they could set aside their differences. They were good miners, and they had courage, for only those with courage would have journeyed so far. Either of them would make a fine rinlen of a mine, but this was more than a mine. Far more. This was life or death in the wilds, where food and safety held primacy over gold or amethysts. Mining the gold could lure them to distraction and death. Was staying in this claim with its gold and crystals worth it? He could make a run for it back to Deep Cut, but that came with its own risks. He'd avoid the river, following the ridge crests. Now that they’d seen the gold, the others would likely stay. Already that gold had cost Savvyarm his life. Yorvig felt the emotion rising again.

Even if he could win his way back to Deep Cut, could he leave them all behind? Leave his kith and kin to their fate?