“Go!” Yorvig yelled, sweeping Onyx toward the drift and the stairway with an outstretched arm. They spun down the turns of the outer stair, then through the door that led to the terraces. Like always when he had to move fast, his leg trembled.

“Keep going. Warn them!” he yelled, leaning back to push closed the stone door that led out to the terraces. He slid the thick bolts into place, then followed Onyx down the next stair. She was already in the main adit, and he heard shouting. As he came out into the drift, Greal barreled past him, holding his pick.

“Ürsi!” Greal shouted as he ran. Onyx emerged into the drift from the stope, Hobblefoot and Warmcoat behind her with their hammers and picks.

Yorvig pounded to the adit and pushed Greal away from the slat. Ürsi clung to the tower ladder, passing up a long section of a wooden plank, just a portion of a split tree-trunk. Other ürsi stood atop the tower to receive it.

Hobblefoot and Warmcoat rushed back out of the storeroom, carrying spears, Yorvig's walking hammer, and the remaining crossbow. They had 21 bolts. . . Yorvig knew that sum. They should have made more. So many more. He tried to count the ürsi as they passed up another length of split plank. He counted twelve just on the ladder and the platform. Others swarmed around the base of the tower.

“What’s happening?” Hobblefoot asked.

“They’re building a bridge.”

“How many?”

Yorvig glanced back. He connected with Onyx’s gaze first, though she stood behind the others, holding a spear with a blade of sharpened igneous rock. Her eyes were wide, but she stood stock still. Hobblefoot, Warmcoat, and Greal looked no less startled.

“Many,” he said. Darkness was falling in the dell, but he could see their orb-like eyes and the details of their faces—if the snouted visages could be called faces. The ürsi on the tower laid the first length of split log down on the platform and slid it forward, thumping it against the bridge-gate. Yorvig flinched. The ürsi had judged well. They’d left enough length for some of the ürsi to stand on the far end and hold the plank in place over open space like a cantilever. The second plank drove into place with a thud. Shit. That was too intelligent.

Twenty-one bolts. There were more than 21 ürsi. By far. But it was the need of the moment, and the ürsi didn’t know how limited their arsenal was.

“Greal,” Yorvig said. “Shoot through the slat."

"Me?"

"You've shot it before!"

“Once on a hunting trip, and I missed," Greal said. Hobblefoot peered over Yorvig's shoulder.

“This will not be a hard shot," he said.

"Shut up and shoot!” Yorvig snapped. Greal took the crossbow and the bundle of bolts and stepped up to the small eye-level opening in the bridge.

“Oh shit,” he said, looking out.

“Make the bolts count,” Yorvig said. Greal swallowed and nodded. He put his foot in the stirrup and drew back the string until it snagged the catch. Then he fitted a bolt. Another plank knocked against the outside of the bridge-gate. Greal raised the crossbow to the slat.

“They’re coming across!” he said, and released. The foe had remained quiet up until then, but with that bolt came a shriek, followed by a cacophony of shrieks and gibbers that did not cease. Greal was already pulling back the string again as blows landed on the outside of the gate.

Why had they not built a stone door here? There was only wood between them and the ürsi, now. The bridge was stout, but some of the ürsi had axes, or at least axe-like blades of flint or obsidian, and the wood wouldn’t resist long. Had Yorvig thought this bridge would be enough to defend them?

But he had never dared to imagine the ürsi coming in such numbers. Fear had kept him from dwelling on the possibility, and so fear had kept him from preparing for it. He saw it all in that moment, and he swore under his breath. If they lived through this madness—and it didn’t look good—he would not make the same mistake again. He would not let fear limit his imagination.

Greal fired again and again, even as blows struck the wooden bridge like hail.

“Onyx,” Yorvig said. "Go put your ear to the Low Adit hatch and tell me what you hear.” He didn’t even turn to see if she obeyed.

A javelin thrust in through the slat, nearly impaling Greal’s face, but he jerked to the side.

“Stand back further!” Hobblefoot shouted. Greal retreated a couple paces and raised the crossbow, aiming through the slat. He fired again and swore. Yorvig could hear the blades biting into the wood. How long did they have? The adit opening was wide enough for two dwarves to stand shoulder to shoulder and use spears, but the ürsi could stand back and riddle them with javelins and rocks. They had no shields. Greal fired again, sweat dripping down his forehead now, though not from the labor.

“Are you hitting them?” Hobblefoot asked.

“Shut up! I’m hitting them,” he shouted, pulling the thick sinew string.

Yorvig’s eyes drifted to the small winch that raised and lowered the bridge. Two separate ropes attached to each end of the winch drum. It was a simple bi-directional turning device, with intersecting teeth-angles to allow it to be raised and lowered by a crank. But if they wrenched the gear out of place, the bridge would fall and bring all its weight with it.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

A rusty blade pierced between two of the bridge planks, sending a chip of wood flying inward. Onyx rushed back up the drift.

“Nothing,” she said. “Silent.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Yorvig said. “Onyx, we’re going to open the bridge.”

“We’re going to what?” Hobblefoot asked.

“When the bridge lands, the tension will be off the winch. You’ll need to put it back in alignment as fast as you can.”

“Alright.” She nodded.

“We’re going to what, now?” Hobblefoot asked. Greal shot again, and the bolt sped out into the chaos of shrieks. The outrageous smell struck Yorvig all at once, watering his eyes.

“We’re going to drop the bridge, charge out, and clear the platform,” he said.

“Then what?”

“Then we run back in.”

“If we’re alive,” Warmcoat said.

“If we’re dead,” Yorvig countered. “We won’t have to make any more decisions. Greal, take a spear.”

He looked around, grasping his walking hammer. He didn't even remember taking it from Hobblefoot.

“Ready?”

“Ay,” they chorused.

Yorvig grabbed one of the ropes and pulled, giving the winch some slack.

“Do it!” Yorvig said, nodding to the gear-drum. Warmcoat understood, and he kicked the end of the drum with a solid blow, knocking the gear teeth free of each other. The winch spun with a rattle and the heavy bridge fell hard. It did not land flat onto the tower—writhing ürsi were trapped beneath, pinned between the bridge and their planks.

Yorvig charged, not looking back to see if the others followed. This was what must be done. This was their task, the only task at the moment: to clear the ürsi from that platform.

They had little to do. The sudden crushing descent of the bridge startled the ürsi. The bridge bucked as trapped ürsi tried to push it up from beneath, but then the dwarves came thudding across it. Some of the ürsi on the platform fled toward the ladder, but others already clung to it. Some of the ürsi stood as if dumbstruck, staring at the rushing dwarves, unprepared to form a resistance.

Yorvig gripped his walking hammer in both hands and rammed forward with the spike. An ürsi brushed it aside and made to draw back for a strike with its hatchet, but Yorvig's momentum carried him on, slamming the haft of the hammer into the beast before it could strike. Yorvig pulled back and stabbed low, piercing it in the gut just as a second ürsi lunged forward with some kind of sharpened jawbone on a stick, carving into Yorvig’s side. Warmcoat’s spear took the foe in the chest and drove it back over the edge of the platform. A few others stood to fight, but the dwarven spears were longer. Two of the ürsi on the platform actually leapt from the tower.

Warmcoat shouted in pain next to Yorvig, and his hand shot up to the side of his head. Something sharp glanced off Yorvig’s right shoulder. The platform was clear, and the ends of the loose tree-planks jutted up, pinned between the bridge and the tower, no longer held down by the counterbalancing weight of the ürsi on the platform.

“Run!” Yorvig said.

They turned and fled. It had only been moments. They thudded across the bridge, which had far more bounce to it than before.

“Get the bridge up!” Yorvig shouted to Onyx as they re-entered the stone. She stood beside the re-fitted mechanism, her hands already on the crank. Good, she’d managed. He turned to see if they were pursued, but the ürsi who had been on the ladder still clung there uselessly. A smooth round rock hit the top of the adit and fell at Yorvig’s feet, spinning.

Slings.

Hobblefoot and Greal crowded Onyx aside and cranked at the mechanism. The gate lurched and rose. With the pressure of the bridge gone, the planks slid from the edge of the platform and fell. Yorvig wondered how many ürsi had been trapped beneath the bridge. The fall might not be certain death, but it was certain maiming. Unless the ürsi swarmed too thickly beneath to cushion their fall. He glanced down out of the adit toward the ground. The dell was thick with movement, and he jerked back just in time for the stones that flew to miss him and ricochet off the stone. In a minute, the bridge closed against the adit. Yorvig looked out from the slat.

“They’re climbing down,” he said. It was true, the ürsi on the ladder were retreating downwards.

“Gave ‘em more than they expected,” Hobblefoot said, grim but satisfied. He nodded at Yorvig. “It was a good plan.” Yorvig felt the affirmation but didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Warmcoat was holding his right ear. Blood flowed down his face and neck.

“Are you alright?”

“Glancing,” he muttered with a grimace. “A blasted sling-stone. Think it cut my ear in two by the feel of it.”

“Let me see.”

Warmcoat removed his hand for a moment. The ear and the flesh on the head behind it was already swelling, and there was a clear notch split into the top of the lobe, but the bleeding was worse than the wound itself. Yorvig looked at Hobblefoot and Greal.

“Are you both well?”

“As can be,” Greal said. “It felt good to stab that kulkur.”

“I am well,” Hobblefoot said. He walked up to the slat in the bridge-gate and looked outward.

“I don’t see them,” he said. It had grown quieter, too, though intermittent shrieks echoed in the dell. He wrinkled his nose and looked away. “Ach, but their blood is foul.”

“Let’s get you bound up,” Yorvig said to Warmcoat, putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him toward the storeroom. They still had a bit of extra cloth to tie about him.

“And you,” Onyx said, pointing at Yorvig. He remembered his side and looked down. His shirt was torn and blood had stained from the laceration down nearly to his hip. It burned, but he had managed to ignore it somehow.

“Don’t worry,” Hobblefoot said. “We’ll keep watch here.”

Onyx brought a basin of clean water from the storeroom. Yorvig insisted she attend to Warmcoat first, so she bathed the ear and the side of his head and wrapped a length of cloth tight about it. Warmcoat grimaced but said nothing.

Yorvig lifted up his shirt. Though long, the laceration had cut at an angle across his ribs and not between them, and it had done little more than part his flesh below the greater muscles of his chest, thankfully. It stung worse than salt when Onyx cleaned it, but then she bound it tight with the last of their cloth, and he stood up.

“You should take a moment,” Onyx said.

“There is much to do.”

“And others to do it. What must be done?”

“We must cut a stone door for the adit. Now.”

“Then you and Warmcoat can watch at the entrance, and we others can manage the door,” she said.

They returned to the adit, Warmcoat holding the side of his head and Yorvig keeping his arm tight against his side.

“All is still,” Hobblefoot said.

“We will watch. You three cut a door. We do not rest until there is stone here.”

“Ay, then,” Hobblefoot answered. “That we can do.”

“Let it have a view-slot,” Yorvig said, “and be as thick as you can manage.”

With Onyx, Hobblefoot, and Greal working together, they were able to bring the door to the adit on rollers before dawn, using levers and pullies and rope. It was fourteen inches of solid sandstone, rough cut and hurried, but fitting the dimensions. When making the bridge, Sledgefist and Hobblefoot had thankfully squared the rock just inside the adit.

“Go sleep now,” Onyx said to Yorvig and Warmcoat. “We can work here and keep watch.”

It was a sensible thing, so Warmcoat and Yorvig stepped inside the smithy and lay down on the stone, exhausted.

It was Hobblefoot who woke them. Yorvig knew they had slept for hours.

“The work is done,” Hobblefoot said. His eyes were red and weary.

“Take your rest then.” Yorvig rose, feeling clots pull at the wound. “I will watch.” He did not wake Warmcoat, who lay asleep still clutching the side of his head.