Bones of Stone

Vol. IV of the Dwarves of Ice-Cloak

A. Trae McMaken

Copyright © 2023 by A. Trae McMaken

All rights reserved.

www.traemcmaken.com

Lost Pathway Books

Michigan, U.S.A.

www.lostpathway.com

Cover Design by Rebecacovers.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

1st edition 2023.

To my daughters, E. and V.

Contents

1. Beneath the Mud

2. Tinker

3. The Hall of the Crippled King

4. The King’s Poachers

5. The King’s Mines

6. Map of Ashes

7. A Broken Caravan

8. Northward

9. Hounded

10. The Horsemen

11. The Bridge

12. Liberators

13. Separating

14. Into the Wilds

15. Free Dwarves

16. The Fog

17. Battle on the Heights

18. The Crossing

19. The Hunt

20. Cornered

21. Tools

22. Alone

23. The Valley of the Lake

24. The Bells of Ice-Cloak

25. Under Stone

26. Into the Deep

27. A Crown

28. Fires Rekindled

29. The Fall

30. Dwarves

Thanks

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also By Trae

1

Beneath the Mud

The springtime mud was so cold it dampened its own aromas. She could still smell the silt of the stream, the clay, and a trace of faint mica. And decaying vegetable matter everywhere.

“The little bitch,” a man’s voice exclaimed nearby.

“In the stream, you think?”

“You ever hear of a dwarf swimming? Sink like rocks.”

The second man guffawed. It wasn’t a funny joke at all. She heard the squelches of their boots in the mud as they continued down the streambank.

Tourmaline waited. She would wait, wait, and wait longer. She had learned patience from these humans—patience in so many ways, and yet she still felt the anger, still lacked so much of that same patience.

“Don’t let them see your anger,” her mother always told her. “It feeds them. So make them starve.”

The mud was cold, but she would wait. She felt its comforting weight on her body, though it was watery, churned up by passing horses, boots, and wagon wheels where the track followed the streambank. She had wiggled and squirmed until at least two inches covered her entire body, except for her nose, which she kept tilted up just enough to let her breathe.

Her hair was full of mud. It would weigh something fierce when she rose out of the mud like a golem from an old story. She would have to wash it in a hot bucket for an hour, along with her clothes. Her boots were leather and would need oiled. As she lay, she planned the sequence of her tasks when she returned to camp. Thankfully, it was night. It had been early evening when she’d set out on her walk.

No one else passed by in the hour or two that she lay submerged in the mud. Humans never thought to look down into the earth. Their eyes always seemed to end on the surface. Water they would look into, but if anything thicker than their vile soups confronted them, they were useless. Not that she was pleased to be hiding in mud. She belonged beneath stone.

With a horrid sucking, she rose, chunks of mud falling away. It wasn’t far back to camp. A few hundred yards east along the track lay a cutoff that led to an old cow pasture in the woods, and there her folk had camped. But she couldn’t go straight there along the path. If the humans laid in wait, it would be along that route. So she struck off into the woods, preparing to make a wide circuit back to camp. She did not fear losing her way. She had her folk’s nose for directions.

“There’s iron in our noses,” her grandmother had told her. She always wondered if it was true, or if it was just one of those sayings. There were many sayings.

Her clothes were wet and heavy and her boots squelched under her feet, but she came into view of the camp firelight without any further problem. She heard the nicker of a pony, the humming of a ballad, and the scrape, scrape of a steel file on iron. She did not want to be seen in such a state nor talk to anyone. Now that she could see camp, her mood fouled with every step. She circled around to approach her family wagon from behind, sliding her filthy boots off her feet and nudging them under the carved wooden steps, before climbing up through the open door. An oil lamp flickered inside, always left alight for her grandmother, even though the oil was costly.

Out of habit Tourmaline smelled the air for the tang of urine, but there was none. Instead, she caught the scent of balm. Her mother must have seen to grandmother’s needs recently. Normally, she would have greeted the old dwarf-wif—two-hundred and fifty-three years old—but the curtains were drawn across the opening to her bed. Tourmaline could hear her steady, even breath with the rasp that had grown stronger in the past few weeks. It sounded like grandmother was asleep, and Tourmaline didn’t feel like talking, anyway.

She closed the door behind her and pulled the curtains shut at the window. Stripping down, she put her long shirt into the washbasin. She untied the sodden ribbons from around her flared trousers and slid them off, lifting her legs in turn to keep the mud from the carpets which she would already have to clean from her muddy footprints. She added them to the washbasin.

She looked for water in the small barrel in the corner and sighed. It was nearly empty, and she standing there with a mane of filthy hair running down her head that still dropped bits of mud when she moved. The drying, cracking silt smeared her whole body. She couldn’t go out for more water naked, and she couldn’t put on her only other bits of clothing without soiling them, too. Worse, it was her task to keep the water supplied, and instead of the many tasks she must complete, she’d lain in the mud for hours. It made her angrier than reason. It was her fault for being stupid. But it was their fault for chasing her. Their fault for everything. She opened a drawer and pulled out a gleaming steel knife. With her other hands, she grabbed her mud-slick mass of matted hair and pulled it around in front of her body.

The wagon door opened. Tourmaline’s mother peered inside, her eyes widened, and with surprising speed she stepped into the wagon and closed it behind her.

“Get that knife away from your hair!” she snapped.

“It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“You may be three years after rhundal, but you think like a child. The glory of a dwarf-maid is her hair. The glory of a dwarf-wif, her children.“ It was an old adage, oft repeated among dwarves.

“It’s a stupid saying.”

“Stupid, she says! And you with the Hair of Jade on you. Some would give all for it.”

In truth, she did not want to cut her hair, but she was angry. She sighed and lowered the knife.

She’d always wondered as a child why red hair was called the Hair of Jade, being that Jade was a dark green stone. It was also one of the hardest stones. She figured it would make more sense to call it hair of fire. Forge hair, even. Red hair was rare, but not unheard of. She had finally asked her grandmother who explained that red hair was called the hair of Jade after Queen Jade from the old ballads of Ice-Cloak.

“Now, I expect you’ll tell me why you’re standing naked as a babe in a lighted wagon, filthy as swine and about to cut your hair.”

“I fell in the mud,” Tourmaline lied. She didn’t want to get into it more than necessary just now. She was, as her mother said, three years past rhundal and could make her own decisions, even if respect for one of the chief dwarf-wifs of the caravan—in this case, her own mother—could never waver.

“Swam in it, more like. I’ll be back.” Her mother grabbed a large tin pale. She peeked outside, then slipping through the door without opening it all the way. In a few minutes, she returned with a full, sloshing pale. For the next half hour they did the best they could to free Tourmaline’s nearly yard-long mass of thick hair from what felt like half a creek-bed’s worth of mud. As they finished and Tourmaline slid on a raggedy bed-robe, her mother began to coil the hair to keep it from hanging and tangling.

“Remember to wear it up and covered if you go outside the camp,” her mother said.

“I know.”

Humans had taken to forcibly shearing dwarven women. The thick, dense, strong hair of dwarven wifs and maids was perfectly suited for making the ostentatious wigs desired by the human aristocracy. Red Hair? It probably put her at even more risk. The thought of being tackled and shaved made her shudder. She’d narrowly avoided it tonight, and who knew what else. A dwarf-maid was stronger than a single human man most of the time, but there was little she could do against multiple assailants. All she’d wanted was to take a walk—to feel a bit of air moving through hair not bound tight in heavy braids. She scratched at her scalp, and her mother batted her hand away.

Dwarf-wifs often used their own hair to make ribbons or ropes. In fact, hair-craft was common as gifts among wifs. Many wifs and maids wore ropes and ribbons made of the hair of their ancestors. Tourmaline had dress-ropes made from her grandmother’s hair, and her mother had some going back even farther. Hair survived for centuries, especially when preserved with the proper oils. But a dwarf-maid did not lightly cut her hair—not before marriage.

“And stop going out alone.”

Tourmaline’s mouth took an angry twist. Taking a simple walk outside the camp was the only time she ever got to be alone. Ever.

“I shouldn’t have to!” she snapped. “And I shouldn’t have to be escorted everywhere outside of camp.”

“You should also be careful inside of camp.”

“It’s not right!”

Here mother, turned Tourmaline around to face her.

“Enough! Again with this childishness. Stop complaining of how things should be and start dealing with how things are.”

Tourmaline stayed quiet, setting her jaw to the side in irritation. She didn’t respond. She knew her mother was right—she’d been speaking like a child. Her mother recognized the silence for the victory it was and continued in a milder tone. “Once our folk were ruled by kings and queens in great halls of stone. Now we are ruled by dwarf-wifs trying to hold dingy caravans together. Who is stronger? A fat king with an army to do his bidding or a wif with grime beneath her nails?”

It was a question that Tourmaline’s mother had asked her more than once before, and the implication remained the same. They had to preserve their folk by keeping the camps together, bearing children even when their husbands or lovers disappeared. Such was the life of a dwarf-wif in the lands of the olenag. It was an old dwarven word for ogre, more or less, but they didn’t use it that way, anymore. They used it to refer to humans and elves, the masters of the lands in which they sojourned.

Tourmaline did like leaving camp, just to be alone, but she did not like going near the human dwellings, villages, and towns, certainly never the cities. Nothing felt right there, everything too big, from the steps to the doorways to everything, really. It was one reason she liked to daydream about the old dwarven colonies, dwellings made by dwarves for dwarves. In her life, only their wagons were built to the proper scale, small and strong like the stocky ponies that pulled them.

But she shouldn’t have to be afraid. That was the point that made her angry, as useless as it was.

Someone outside the wagon began to sing, a low tone in the back of the throat, high harmonics drifting overtop. It was a wordless song, just a melody of deep grinding bass and high overtones, but it was familiar. With the sun down, the camp would be busy for hours more. The dwarves preferred to see to their tasks and business when the humans wandered about less. The olenag did not see well in the dark.

“What are you thinking, Tourm?” her mother asked. Tourmaline glanced over. She had drifted in her thoughts, down the avenues of the melody to ancient halls beneath the stone.

“Nothing,” she said. Her mother pursed her lips, then grabbed the wash basin full of Tourmaline’s muddy clothes. Tourmaline protested:

“I can do it.” She reached for the basin, but her mother turned away, shouldering toward the door.

“No,” she said. “You look like you could rest, and you have mending in the morning.”

Tourmaline sighed as her mother left, then turned to her own narrow curtained bed along the wall of the wagon. There were three such alcoves on the right wall of the wagon, end to end, her grandmother’s, then hers in the middle, then her mother’s. The opposite wall contained cupboards, a work table, and a small coal-stove, left cold and dark now that the spring had broken winter’s hold. The wagon’s woodwork was intricately carved, painted in bright reds, yellows, and blues. She pulled back the drape and climbed onto her bed, lying in the cool dark. She would sleep, and wake early to catch up on her work.

But it was still early, and after a few turns in the bed, she opened the drape enough to let in the light of the oil lamp. The flicker of flame had always comforted her. It was one reason she liked the cold months more than the warm. In the winter, the coal fire smoldered through the night, despite the cost of coal. How wrong it felt, a dwarf having to pay humans for the coal her own folk dug. Coal fires she liked, and the frozen hard ground, more like rock and less muddy. Mud was always a problem for their ponies’ hooves and their wagon wheels, but she felt a special distaste for it at the moment.

She was fooling herself to think she could sleep.

A laugh from outside the wagon drew her attention. It was light in tone and much louder than the muffled conversation that prompted it. She smiled before she knew, waiting to hear the laugh again. She’d always liked that laugh. It didn’t come again. The voices spoke too low to understand, mixing with the strain of leather bellows and the rush of air on flame. She tossed to her other side.

“Well, go to him,” her grandmother said from her own bed.

Her grandmother had a thin, wavering voice now, but it still possessed the terse spirit of command.

“I can stay,” Tourmaline replied.

“So I can listen to you toss and turn? Go.”

Tourmaline smirked and rolled out of bed. She didn’t bother with her boots, still thick with mud beneath the wagons steps. She hopped down and walked barefoot across the trampled grass toward the blaze of light pouring from the open mouth of a portable furnace.

Underhide muttered something and she heard Glasshand’s laugh again. Underhide crouched near the back of the furnace working iron-tipped bellows while Glasshand waited, holding a long blowpipe into the open maw of the furnace. She could hear the flames inside, roaring at the rushing bellows air, and she could smell the hot quartz. As she approached, Glasshand glanced over and his grin fell away, replaced with a more serious expression. He looked back to his work while Tourmaline sat down cross-legged on the grass to watch the flames.

With Tourmaline present, the two dwarves worked in silence. It didn’t bother Tourmaline. She’d spent the three years past rhundal getting used to the effect she had on young dwarves. She hadn’t come out to talk, anyway; she’d come out to watch Glasshand. He was not so strong as some, and he was slight for a dwarf, but he knew his trade. With nonchalant speed he drew the blowpipe from the furnace, already spinning it. The spinning kept the drooping red-hot glass from falling away. Glasshand lifted the blowpipe to his mouth and blew, expanding the glowing glass. It took him a few cycles in and out of the furnace, reheating the glass, before he’d expanded the new jug to size by the power of his lungs.

Glasshand turned to the iron-topped trestle-bench and set to fashioning the jug with calm intensity, keeping the glass moving as his other hand deftly switched between crimpers and tweezers. He twisted the neck of the jug and smoothing the hot glass into his chosen shape, a flat-bottomed and slouch-shouldered design. A small shard of scrap glass separately heated made for the finger-hold on the neck, still red as the jug cooled to its dull brown.

It was only the first such jug of the night. Glasshand often made them in batches for the taverns, inns, and even some of the village wives wherever they passed. Humans considered it prestigious to have glassware rather than ceramics, but few humans knew the trade of glassblowing. That was well, for Tourmaline loved watching the soothing trade with its flaming furnace, the molten glass glowing red in the night. Glasshand did his best not to glance at her as he worked, sweat shining on his brow, but not all the sweat of labor.

2

Tinker

Tourmaline sat cross legged on the ground, her leather apron draped over her knees. In her hands, a stubborn tin plate needed smoothing. She had her tools arrayed on a low portable table in front of her—hammers, snips, punches, and her small two pound anvil, one end squared and another rounded.

Tinsmithing was not a glamorous trade among dwarves, but the humans always needed tin containers, cookware, and utensils. From the scraps she fashioned toys for the wealthier of the human children. It was always strange to see those children, already taller than Tourmaline, staring greedily at tin toys.

Tourmaline had only slept a few hours before she’d woken again, ready to get her work done for the day. There were pots and plates to mend or make, as well as spoons to fashion. It was repetitive, but it did take skill. Her mother had taught her, and her grandmother. Both were tinsmith’s, or had been. It was simple trade to travel with—it rarely required a forge fire, and when it did, it did not take high temperatures.

Tourmaline lifted the plate and looked at it sideways. There was still a slight ripple where it had been bent. The ripple was hardly visible, but as she ran her fingers over the tin, she felt the undulation of the old bend still. A little more delicate work with the hammer on the anvil would finish it. Not that a human was likely to notice. The woman had given the bent plate over for repair with few words and an outstretched arm to keep her distance from the dwarf-maid. Tourmaline could get by—as most dwarves could—with shoddy work and still do trade with the humans, but what pride in that? And dwarves still had their pride. . . At least, Tourmaline did. She was less and less sure about her folk.

She’d worked for a few hours. The tap-tap of her hammers did not bother any of the dwarves napping through the early morning, but now she saw the stirring of others around the caravan. Eleven wagons in all, eight family groups at the moment, though sometimes they came and went as inclination struck them. This caravan ostensibly belonged to Tourmaline’s mother by force of will if not by right, and so it was called “the Copperwheel” caravan, as that was her mother’s byname. Most caravans had such a name, almost always a dwarf-wif’s. That didn’t mean she owned the wagons, just that she made the decisions.

The dwarves typically decorated the inside of their wagons, but never the outside for fear of drawing attention. Her mother had once in her youth put copper caps on the axles of her family wagon. It didn’t last long. That act of brazen defiance did not strike Tourmaline like her mother at all, but then Copperwheel was over one-hundred fifty years old, now.

Tourmaline smiled at Kilner as he stepped down from his wagon and stretched. Speaking of old, Kilner was well over two-hundred, now, and his hair was white like mountain snow. Climbing out after him came his grandchildren, two little branna if ever there were. They saw Tourm and raced over, crowding before her anvil as she put in the last strikes with her hammer.

“Story!” they said. They always awoke wanting stories or to follow Tourmaline anywhere she went, like the other children of the caravan.

“Just wait until I get started with this,” Tourmaline said, picking up a tin pot with a hole burned in the bottom and squinting at it. Why she was expected to work and look after these children while their parents went about their business, she did not know. Except she was a dwarf-maid, and so she must work harder. That’s what her mother said, anyway.

She sighed and started to ply her tin snips, glancing from her tools to the faces of two more children walking over, a gilna and a yawning gilke. Male dwarven children were called gilke, females gilna. When they reached rhundal they could consider themselves dwarf or dwarf-maid. Most of the children in the caravan remembered when Tourm was a gilna, as did most of the adults. She didn’t like that.

The children settled cross-legged before her, watching her work with careful consideration.

“Tell us about the kings,” said a gilna. At least they hadn’t asked her to sing a ballad right away.

“The Crippled King was the first king under the mountain, who brought our folk to Ice-Cloak. He made all dwarves free. He and his beloved wif came to the mountain first, and seeing its great wealth, they knew they must bring all the dwarves there to share its riches. So they gathered, called from lands far and wide.

Nine other lords of stone followed after his death. There was Jade, Queen under the Mountain, who had served the Crippled King. She defended the folk from the ürsi. Then came King Spinner called Spinner Dîrthna-Bearer, Spinner the Great, and Spinner the Jovial in the songs. He went into the wilderness and destroyed the ürsi den and returned bearing the great dîrthna and the secrets of living steel. He married Keyhand, Daughter of Jade, and ruled long and well. All the dwarves of the world flocked to Ice-Cloak to glimpse its wonders, and all bent the knee.

It was Elderstone, the son of Spinner, who delved the northern mines seeking the living ore. Queen Azurite made Ice-Cloak shine with living steel when she built the northern road and the great bridge. The lodes ran out under King Asharm. Of the others, little is remembered—”

Tourmaline hesitated. In truth, she could never remember them all and would have to hum a little song to bring them to memory, and she didn’t want to do that in front of the children.

“—except that the wealth of Ice-Cloak grew greater than all the colonies of dwarves, and all the other dwarven kings knelt before the kings of Ice-Cloak. Their glory was whispered even in the far lands of elves and men, and no ürsi ever dared to creep among the Kara-Indal, the greatest of mountains.

But in the years of Ringhand, last king beneath the stone, death came from the north—the great dragon, with scales like emeralds and rubies and wings ten fathoms wide. It struck Ice-Cloak first, but it spared none of the old colonies. The dragon’s talons were sharper than blades of living steel, its fire hotter than any forge, and all the warriors of the dwarves fell before the serpent. It ravaged the mountains and devoured the flocks leaving only hunger and famine and death.

Those who survived fled south. After all the mountains were emptied, they say that the dragon returned to Ice-Cloak. There it lies sleeping on its horde amidst the charred bones of our fathers.

Our folk have wandered in the lands of men, living as we do now. But always in our hearts we remember the time when dwarven kings ruled in halls of stone.”

Tourmaline could almost give that brief account word-for-word as her grandmother had told it many times sitting cross-legged while working tin. Now, her grandmother’s voice had grown weak, and she stayed always in the wagon resting on cushions and wrapped in blankets. Tourmaline eyed another pot. She had snipped out the hole from the burnt one but it would take a fire to forge-weld a new bottom, so for now she’d set it aside and move on. Its owner was not due to return until tomorrow, anyway.

“What part of the Crippled King was crippled?” a gilke asked. Tourmaline called him Snotty, not out loud, but he was constantly sniffling.

“Some say he had a lame leg. My grandmother told me he was a hunchback. But he was a mighty king under the mountain.”

“I wish we lived in Ice-Cloak,” one of the little gilna said. “It sounds nicer than wagons.”

Tourmaline nodded but said nothing. She’d always felt the same. Growing up, she had wished she’d been born in the days of King Spinner or Queen Azurite. She supposed that she still did.

“Except there’s a dragon!” Snotty said, elbowing the gilna.

“Was there really a dragon Tourm?” she asked. The young often called Tourmaline by the nickname “Tourm.” It was informal and too impolite for a gilna to speak to a maid who had passed the age of rhundal, but she had not stopped them doing it, so she was partly to blame.

“No, no. I don’t think dragons are real. Grandmother told me it was a way of saying that there was a famine and they started fighting over food. Or that the folk had grown wicked and made war among themselves.”

“And the living ore? Is that real?”

Well, they dug far deeper in those days. The human mines only go down a thousand feet at best, and only with pumps. There’s too much water here.

“Tourm, was my grandfather there in Ice-Cloak?”

“No honeyrock.” It was not the maid’s name, it was an affectionate term often used with gilna.

“Was his grandfather?”

“No, this was nine hundred years ago.”

Nine hundred years since dwarves had been dwarves. That’s how Tourmaline felt. She sometimes wondered if somewhere dwarves still lived under stone in the old ways, rather than wandering as vagabonds.

“Will you sing us the ballad of Spinner the Jovial?” Snotty asked. Tourmaline didn’t look up from her work. She didn’t want to sing a ballad now. Especially not that ballad. It was a comic song, and she preferred the sad ones when she did sing. Dwarven ballads often contained twenty, thirty, sometimes even more stanzas. She had a pleasant singing voice. Her grandmother had taught her all the great ballads as the wagons rolled around the Kingdom of Laith, but she loved the solitude of her own thoughts, and these children often robbed her of it.

Still, with her grandmother lying frail upon her bed, lungs too weak to sing, Tourmaline felt a growing responsibility. She took a breath.

When Spinner saw her beauty
Bedazzling like a jewel,
Brighter than the noonday sun,
The sternest heart to rule.
When Spinner saw her beauty
Bedazzling like a jewel,
He knew he’d found his treasure,
And she had found her fool.

So she sang to the gilna and the gilke as she worked, as her mother and grandmother had sung, all the way back to the halls of Ice-Cloak far, far away, lost somewhere in the north. She skipped a few verses, and after seventeen others, Spinner finally made Keyhand laugh, and so won her heart.

And then they called for a second ballad. An hour passed, then two. Most of the children wandered away by the third.

“One more?” Snotty asked. Tourmaline had only one spoon left to make to finish her orders from the nearby village, and she expected the human women to show up near noon, as they usually did. Humans loved the brightest parts of the day, though Tourmaline yawned and felt her eyelids grow heavy. She hoped the humans came soon. She wanted her afternoon sleep.

“That’s enough, now scram you branna,“ a dwarf’s voice said.

Tourmaline looked up from her work. Glasshand grabbed Snotty by the back of the shirt and lifted him up with one arm, setting him on his feet and swatting him on the back. The gilke took the hint and raced off toward Windleg who was shaping ash handles on a pedal-driven lathe.

Glasshand smiled at Tourmaline. She raised an eyebrow and looked back down as she snipped tin around her soup-spoon pattern.

“Well,” he said. “The prettiest tinker of them all. I enjoyed your company. I wish you came to watch me work more.”

Tourmaline glanced up and offered him the slightest twitch of a smile, despite his use of the term tinker. It was a human term for the dwarven tin-smiths, often applied to all dwarves, and not in the most favorable spirit. Even the dwarves had taken to using it. After all, it was not the most derogatory term the humans used for them.

“So,” he continued. “This year?”

Glasshand had first asked Tourmaline to marry him one week after she reached rhundal.

“I’m not ready,” she’d said.

“When can I ask again?”

“I don’t know.”

“I will ask again next year.”

She had complained to her mother about the suddenness of the proposal.

“I was married three months after rhundal,“ her mother had said.

He had asked again the next year.

And now he asked for the third time. If he had known just how irritated she’d been the previous night after lying in mud for hours, he would likely have chosen a better time. To Tourmaline, that was his problem, not hers.

“You want me to be your wife, to raise children to your name. . .”

“Of course.”

“Dig me a stonehold,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard.”

Glasshand laughed, furrowing his brow. Tourmaline’s expression suggested no joke.

“That’s impossible.”

“Can you not dig? You’re a dwarf, yes?”

“It’s forbidden.”

“Many things are forbidden. We cannot have weapons, and yet I suspect more than a few axles here hide spears.”

“That’s different.”

“We cannot train in arms, yet the old dwarves still train the gilke to use those spears.”

“In secret, in the night, far from villages.”

“Dig in secret.”

“And in secret we would have to live, away from all folk.”

Tourmaline knew it wasn’t fair. She knew it wasn’t reasonable. But she did not like being reasonable. Not under olenag terms.

She intended to marry Glasshand eventually. Maybe. Certainly she did not intend to marry anyone else. She liked him—she did. But she was young. So was he, though not quite as young. And she felt like giving him trouble, despite the rope-tight forearms, musical laugh, and ready smile. Those things actually annoyed her half the time, too, for how much she liked them.

“So what? Live always in a wagon? Roam about fixing tin pots with babies on my knee? Burning pony manure for forge fuel? If I have to fix tin pots all my years, it’s easier without babies grabbing my skirts—or a husband for that matter.”

“So what, never marry? Let your line die? We have a duty to our folk.”

“Go dig me a stonehold. Give us rock and stone to call our own. Then come to me and speak of marriage.”

“You know it’s outlawed for us to dig, except in the king’s mines.”

“There was a time when dwarves did not live at the behest of a human king.”

“Maybe, but what would you have us do? Wage war on the crown with a handful of tinker families?”

She looked up from her pot, and her emerald eyes gleamed. Maybe she had sung too much of Ice-Cloak that morning.

“Or go north, cross the borders, and delve in the great mountains like our ancestors did.”

“These old stories are stories.”

“Do you not believe in Ice-Cloak? In the peaks of the Kara-Indal so high that the gems of the mountain soaked up the very light of the stars?”

“Tourm,” he said, raising his hands as he'd done many times in their childhood. “Old metaphors. We can’t survive in the north. I’d rather not see you eaten by a pack of ürsi.”

“Our ancestors lived there.”

“Until they didn’t. Until their halls were destroyed and they fled south chased by a ravening dragon.”

Tourmaline laughed. “So you believe that story is true. That’s the part I think is a metaphor.”

“Metaphor for terrible mortal peril, maybe. Ürsi and trolls at the least. It’s only the king’s soldiers that keep them at bay, and worse things from the east.”

“And how grateful we are for the opportunity to mend the king’s tin pots and make his subjects spoons.” Tourmaline set the finished spoon down on the anvil. “Or to dig in his mines for copper and coal.”

“At least we have a life. We can be thankful for that. You can wait for marriage. I don’t know if I can.”

“So you wish us to hurry to bed, so you can leave me to care for the children.”

“At least there would be children.”

“I would be thankful to see our folk live as we ought.” She looked at the path. “My humans are here.” It was true. Three human woman approached down the dirt track. They always seemed to draw themselves up to exaggerated height, standing as erect as they could, shoulders back, arms barely moving as they walked and tried to look unconcerned.

Glasshand sighed.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said. “As long as I’m here to ask.”

“And I’ll probably turn you down.”

And she thought she probably would.

3

The Hall of the Crippled King

Tourmaline watched the three gule-kulkur women walk away through the cottonwood trees that lined the track, arms loaded with worked tin. She didn’t like them—didn’t like the way they looked down at her without moving their heads, stared at the thick braids wrapped around her head, and never looked her in the eye when they spoke to her. Besides olenag, the dwarves called the humans gule-kulkur. Gule, simply meant “the numerous,” Together the words meant “the plentiful dross of refining,” or a lot of useless waste.

Tourmaline didn’t like to wear a head covering or a veil in the camp, though interactions with the human women made her question that choice. Some dwarf-wifs and dwarf-maids had their brothers or husbands or any other dwarf do the haggling for them, choosing rather to remain unseen by humans. As a rule, Tourmaline didn’t interact with a human male without a covering, but she did her own dealing with their women.

It was after mid-day and Tourmaline wanted to sleep, not stand in the bright sunshine. Freckles already flecked her cheeks and nose, the ugly marks of the sun. She imagined Queen Jade had not had freckles on her face and arms. Another reason to wear the veil above ground, but then Tourmaline only went below the stone every two years, in a rare natural cave on the eastern side of Laith. It was cool and dim and perfect. The Copperwheel Caravan traveled a great circuit through the Kingdom of Laith, one of a handful of fractious human realms, but a large one. It took them two years to complete their route and they always stopped at the small cave as long as they could, drinking from the underground spring. They could never stay long, as it was near a human village begrudging and distrustful of the dwarves’ presence there.

As Tourmaline approached her family wagon, she saw her muddy boots still lying beneath the steps. The mud had hardened, now pale and cracked. She needed to break it away and oil and polish the leather, but she had neglected it in order to finish her smithing. She would sleep first and look after the boots after. As she stepped up and opened the door, she felt the slight sway of the wagon. On the outside, the handle was wooden and rough-carved, like all the outside of the wagon, but the inside handle was polished brass, the wood polished and gleaming. It was best that the camps appear dingy on the outside, but the dwarves took pride in making what little inside space they had reflect their souls—colorful, fine-worked, shining in the flame-light.

As soon as she stepped inside the wagon, she smelled it. Her grandmother had soiled herself. And she never cried out for help. She went and pulled back the curtain to her grandmother’s bed. For the past week, she had refused to even get out of bed and sit on her cushions. Now, she didn’t open her eyes when Tourmaline pulled back the drape. She often refused to open her eyes when they came to clean her. Tourmaline knew that her grandmother hated being care for like a babe. But she could no longer walk, and no longer knew when she needed to void.

Tourmaline got the rags and bucket and rolled her grandmother onto her side. Her breathing grew even more raspy in that position, so Tourmaline tried to hurry, wrinkling her nose. How different she was now from the strong, wise grandmother she’d known even just ten years before. When finished, Tourmaline lay her grandmother on her back again, repositioned the pillows, smoothed the blanket, and left to wash her own hands in fresh water.

When she turned back and looked at her grandmother, she sighed. She still lay without moving, her breath shallow. Tourmaline didn’t close the curtains. She and her mother never did, preferring to see grandmother and let the light of the oil lamp touch her, but grandmother could still reach the curtains and more often than not they found them closed when they returned.

No oil lamp burned, now. Bright daylight filtered in through the curtains on the windows, and the air inside the wagon felt a bit stuffy from the sun beating down on the roof. Tourmaline finally lay down on her bed. She removed her necklace and hung it on the board above her head. The necklace was just a cord of her mother’s woven hair, with dangling glass jars the length of her thumb full of pigments and polished pebbles. Glasshand had made her the little jars.

The dwarves might not be allowed to dig in the human lands, but they could not be kept from scouring the ground. They made sure their children knew the rocks and minerals from one end of Laith to the other. In the southeast, deposits of copper weathered out from the low hills, and there one year Tourmaline had found bits of azurite. They had to collect or dig in secret, for the human king claimed rights to the mining of all the minerals of the kingdom. Still, Jade often wore her necklace with its bits of chalcedony, her ground pigments of green copper and blue azurite, her bits of polished quartz. She liked the way the rocks clicked faintly when she moved throughout the day, and in her bed she liked to look at the stones in their jars and think about the great gems of the mountains, like the Shor-i-Illenfärner, the great fire-opal set in the crown of the kings of Ice-Cloak. The name meant, the Blood of Ice-Cloak.

“Tourmaline.”

She jerked awake to her mother’s voice. Even out of sleep she recognized a strange tone in it.

“Yes?”

“Come. Grandmother would speak with you.”

When Tourmaline pulled back the curtain to her bed, she saw her mother standing by her grandmother, and her grandmother sitting on the edge of her own bed, her feet touching the floor for the first time in a week. Tourmaline had slept long. Evening was falling, and her mother had lit the oil lamp. The flickering light glinted on grandmother’s long, thick white hair. Grandmother’s eyes were open, and she looked straight at Tourmaline. She was cave-eyed, and the light seemed to make her flecked yellow irises glow. Tourmaline’s mother was cave-eyed also, but Tourmaline wasn’t. “Cave-eyed, wiley-eyed,” was the saying.

“My daughter,” her grandmother said. Dwarf-wifs rarely differentiated between generations of their descendants. “I have a gift for you for my passing.”

“Hush, grandmother. Don’t speak of passing.”

“I speak of what must come, and it is no strength to hide from it.” Her voice took on some of its former strength. Tourmaline felt the rebuke and remained quiet. “Now, come here.”

Tourmaline approached and knelt down in front of her grandmother out of respect, so that she did not stand over her where she sat. From under the blanket, her grandmother pulled out a glinting piece of round metal.

“You more than all my descendants have loved the ancient lore of our folk, and so I entrust this to you. It is the proof of the truth of our heritage. Now, only we three know of its existence. Keep it secret that no man or elf may steal it, and pass it on in your time as my own grandmother imparted it to me.”

The medallion lay flat on her grandmother’s open palm. It was wide, four inches in diameter, and the blueish steel glowed with a strange luster, as if still hot in the center, but then, it may have been a trick of the eye. The light refracted across its surface like no other metal she’d ever seen.

“What is this?”

“It is the living steel,” her grandmother said, her voice rasping. “Brought out of Ice-Cloak by our forebeards.” The three stared down at it together. Some living steel had escaped the fall of the dwarven colonies, but the last of it had been stolen and robbed from them hundreds of years before—or so Tourmaline had believed. The elves of the west especially coveted it.

The dwarven word for “elf” was a compound construction of “dirn” and “bak,” in other words, “dangerous snake.” The appellation was commonly explained to children in terms of how the elves were deceptive and poisonous. Dwarves did not like to work for elves. The elves were also clever makers, and worse, great tricksters. Few if any dwarves resided among the elves in their lands beyond the sea. Tourmaline herself had never seen any.

“Hand me that knife,” her grandmother said. Tourmaline reached over to the narrow workbench and handed her grandmother the carving knife. The old dwarf-wif took it and sliced off a thick length of her own hair. She laid it across the medallion and lifted the gifts out to Tourmaline, her hand trembling. “If my sight and hands were stronger, I would twist a rope myself, but you will have to do it for me. Keep it always on my hair to remember me.”

At the top of the medallion was an eyelet for passing through a chain or rope, but it was empty. Tourmaline felt a tightness in her throat. She knew beyond a doubt that this was the most precious thing her family owned—perhaps the last living steel possessed by all the dispersed caravans of their folk. Not only had her grandmother endowed her with their songs and stories, but now this.

And yet she would rather have her grandmother back, strong and hale, with a voice that carried far. She leaned forward and laid her head down on her grandmother’s knees. Her grandmother set her hand atop Tourmaline’s head.

“I have already said my goodbyes to your mother. I say it now to you. Goodbye. I go to the hall of the Crippled King, who welcomes home the weak.”

Tourmaline’s grandmother lived for three more weeks. She grew frailer each day, and she spoke little. They had moved camp again, fifteen miles further west, when Tourmaline awoke in her bed one afternoon and knew that her grandmother was gone. Her grandmother hadn’t moved for days, had eaten and drank nothing. The rhythm of her breathing had changed two days prior. It was wrong, slowing down, pausing, and speeding up again, with a gargle at the back of her throat. But now the wagon was silent.

Tourmaline pulled back the curtain to her alcove bed and saw her there, still and pale, her chest no longer rising and falling in that strange pattern. She stood looking for a few moments, then went to get her mother. It wasn’t until the two of them stood there together before the body of the beloved dwarf-wif that their shoulders started to shake and the tears came.

Though Tourmaline had never called her anything other than ankraan, a compound word meaning “mother my mother,” the rest of the dwarves knew her as Talestone, and they fulfilled the rituals with deep respect. She was at her death the oldest in the caravan. They cremated her in a great clay kiln, as was the custom of the wandering dwarves. Stories said that in the old days the dwarves buried their folk’s bones in ossuaries of stone, but now they owned no place of their own, no place to return to honor their dead. So, they cut the dead's hair for a memorial, and scattered their ashes to the wind, asking it to carry the soul to the hall of the Crippled King, wherever it may be.

They had traveled over seventy winding miles westward through the lands of men since the death of Tourmaline’s grandmother, a few miles at a time. Tourmaline hated traveling. She wanted nothing more than to find a place to dig, just a nice tidy underground chamber that she never had to leave. Instead, she traveled around in a wagon, no stone for her own. There was little else the dwarves could do to make a living. The humans allowed them to pass by, but they had to camp outside the towns and villages. They mended pots and shoed horses and smithed tools. Even that was frowned upon by many of the olenag. The humans paid the dwarves less than they would for the lesser work of human smiths, and they made sure the dwarves did not stay long.

“A dwarf is always a thief,” the humans said. “Poor dwarf moving, rich dwarf staying,” was another saying. Humans didn’t like rich dwarves. “Dwarves steal work,” they said, meaning that a dwarf who stayed would put many tradesmen out of work. The tradesmen hated dwarves so much that to appease them many local lords passed laws forbidding dwarves from making anything new. They could only mend the old. “Dwarves don’t pay taxes” they said—which was false and also ignored that dwarves mined for the king as little more than slaves. “This is the land of men, not dwarves.”

And while it was not unusual for humans to accost a dwarf-maid—one of the reasons many of the dwarf-maids and dwarf-wifs did not go into human villages—it was also dangerous for their husbands and sons. Plenty of times a dwarf just speaking with a human girl was enough to incite a mob bent on spilling dwarven blood. “Filthy brutes,” was an epithet the dwarves heard often.

“Do you know the difference between a good dwarf and a bad dwarf?” the question went. “A bad dwarf stays.” Some even modified it to the difference between a good dwarf and a dead dwarf.

One afternoon in the sixth moon of the year, Tourmaline lay in her bed, the drape slightly open to let in the faint light that filtered through the curtain covering the wagon window. The outward-facing side of the curtain was a dingy gray, but the inside a deep blue, dyed with pigments of aventurine.

Yet again, she was having trouble sleeping.

She rolled over, feeling for a knot in the wood underneath the cushion. She found it where it always was, pulled open the compartment, and grabbed the cool metal within.

All dwarves kept any possessions of value hidden, and there was hardly anything more valuable than the treasure her grandmother had imparted to her. She lay on her back, holding up the disc of living steel in both hands. There was so much depth to the metal, so many hints of fire within, and yet it was cool to the touch, like any steel would be. She stared at the surface of the medallion as she often had since receiving the gift.

One side was nearly blank except for an etched emblem of a shattered spear with a decorative border of curling geometries along the outer rim. It was a strangely simple design for such a valuable piece of metal. Had the dwarves of old been so wealthy that they could make something of little account out of something so dear? She flipped the medallion over to look at the back. This side was even more strange. Straight on, it looked almost blank, so fine and so polished was the embossing, but when she ran her stubbed, work-hardened fingernail along the metal, she felt the working plain.

She knew living steel was the hardest metal in the world to work, full of secrets that she did not know. She wondered what method they had used to make such a fine embossing on the steel. Normally, embossing was done with a press onto heat-softened metal. Living steel was the most heat-resistant of metals. It must have taken an intense effort even to get such a fine pattern. Or to craft the medallion itself.

Curious, she slipped from bed, walked to the workbench, and sat down on the stool there. She laid the medallion down. Her mother’s slight snores followed steadily one after another. No one would bother her. She pulled out a fine-edged chisel and set it against the side of the medallion that showed the embossed spear. Putting both her hands over the chisel handle, she pressed into the metal, trying to make a mark. She strained, listening and feeling the contact. After a few moments, she pulled the chisel away. The edge of the chisel blade was burred, and she saw a mark on the living steel. She popped a finger in her mouth to wet it and then wiped the mark. The swipe of her wet finger removed the stain. It had just been a fine bit of the chisel’s edge stuck to the living steel. The medallion had not a scratch.

She would resharpen the chisel later when the rasping wouldn't wake her mother. She held up the medallion to the light shining in from the edge of the curtain and shifted it to glimpse the embossed design. Held at an angle, the lines were more apparent. It wasn’t the first time she’d examined it, but she still wondered. The luster of the steel shimmered in the light, and she could see the tracery of the fine lines. There were runes among them. The dwarves still used runes, carving them in trees and on rocks at campsites and so passing news from caravan to caravan. Thus, all the scattered dwarves still had some means of communication. But the human couriers would not carry messages for the dwarves.

Had the crafter who cast this medallion not been able to raise the embossing further than this? She pondered that. If the medallion had come from the old colonies, which it must have, that meant it was at least 900 years old. Could it be that the dwarves of old had different conceptions of decorative work? If it was Tourmaline making it, she would have balanced both sides, and given the embossing a pattern and symmetry. The runes were difficult to even read. They distracted from the fineness of the rest of the work. The runes which she could make out meant nothing to her. They were pictorial runes, meant to be familiar to those who knew what they looked for. The dwarves still used such pictorial runes. The caravans each had such a rune, a unique identifier that could be left behind for other dwarves to find.

As curious as she was about the workmanship, it wasn’t the etching or embossing that made the medallion special to her. It was living steel, like in the stories, with its strange luster and strength. It was a piece and proof of the history of her folk.

The dwarves of her caravan called grandmother by the name Talestone because even after two hundred years she still remembered the ballads and stories as if reading them from carven stone. But Tourmaline often struggled to remember all the stanzas of the ballads, or all the names in the stories. Her grandmother had passed to her more than the medallion, yet already Tourmaline felt it slipping. How could she live with the shame if she forgot the heritage of her folk, the words passed down for centuries? What if she was the link in the chain that broke? Tourmaline took the medallion back to its hiding place and crawled back in bed.

Glasshand was right. She did have a duty to her folk. She had a duty to pass on what she knew before she forgot it all. She had a duty to bear children and continue her line and to pass this medallion on after her, perhaps to her own granddaughter some day if she was blessed with a gilna. Girl children were rare among the dwarves, and yet their caravans did not always reflect it now, except among the children. Ay yes, she could always try to impart her lore to some other gilke or gilne in the caravan, but that was even less sure. Families came and went over the years.

She must say yes to Glasshand, and soon. This summer. He was a good dwarf. And even if the cruelty of the world tore them apart, leaving her to care for a child alone in the caravan as her mother had, then she would still have done her duty. And maybe, they would have some good of it, before any dark years could fall. Certainly, it couldn’t be all bad. She liked him, after all. He was a fine crafter, and he had always been kind. She liked his walk and his arms, the clarity of his dark eyes. She fell asleep in such thoughts.

4

The King’s Poachers

Two more weeks passed of regular life. The caravan trundled westward, mending pots and shoeing horses. Tourmaline had not spoken again with Glasshand, though she saw him daily. She did not even watch him work in the evenings, suddenly bashful. She had no doubt Glasshand noticed, but she hadn't given him reason to think it anything other than pure neglect.

One evening, as they moved toward their next campsite beyond the edge of a nearby town, they saw dust rising in the road behind them. It was an abnormal amount of dust, and though they could not make out what caused it at first, it caught the westering light of the long summer evening.

They pulled the ponies to a stop and closed the distance between the wagons on the dirt road, the mud dried to a baked hardness now during the warm moons. Copperwheel sat with the reins of the ponies at the front of their family wagon. Tourmaline had walked behind. She preferred to stretch her legs rather than sit in the bouncing wagon.

Copperwheel hung over the side of the wagon to watch the dust to the rear for a while. Then she shouted:

“Off the road!”

There was a meadow of ungrazed grasses, and they turned their ponies aside and drew the wagons into a circle. Whatever stirred up the dust was approaching them, and it was not easy to hide a caravan of wagons. It was best to merely pull aside and hope.

It didn’t take long. The tramp of the feet reached them first, human soldiers marching in three files along the dirt track. There were hundreds, conscripts judging by the mismatched look of their kit, but a few well-equipped men rode horses at the fore and rear, obviously in charge. The humans stared openly at the dwarves as they passed by. Tourmaline, like the other young maids and wifs, had climbed into the wagons when they realized humans approached, and now she peeked through the curtain to see them pass. The soldiers stared with dark expressions from beneath crude iron helms.

The leaders of the soldiers took no interest, and they exchanged no words with the dwarves. The column passed by and the dust dissipated behind them. Copperwheel led the caravan in backtracking a mile to a flat cow trail that led to an opening in a copse of poplar trees. They lit no fires that night, and sang no songs. The next evening they continued west.

Perhaps the conscripts were just new recruits for the northern marches where they would join in defending Laith’s frontier border from the encroaches of ürsi. There was always skirmishing; always fighters were needed there.

When two more columns of soldiers passed them heading west, they knew something unusual was afoot. Another day, a cadre of mounted warriors drew up and eyed their encampment from a distance, talking to each other with hand gestures far out of ear-shot.

After that, Copperwheel led the caravan down a southern branch of the road, off their usual route. There were few and poor villages in that southerly district, but whatever was going on in the north, they would rather not find themselves in the mix. Copperwheel drove her wagon with a dark and furrowed brow. The impoverished humans of that district stared at them with suspicion as the caravan passed their hovels and cow paddocks and squalid villages, but better peasants than soldiers.

It didn’t matter. It was hard to hide wagon tracks, and the soldiers found them anyway. On the third day since they turned south, a cadre of riders approached not from the north but from the south along the dirt track, When Tourmaline saw who they led, her heart sunk. Walking with horsemen at the fore and rear was a cluster of dwarves. The wagons had pulled away into a field, but the horsemen did not pass by. Instead, a man wearing the yellow livery of Laith rode at the fore into the center of the wagons. The massive warhorses snorted at the whinnying ponies and stamped hard on the packed ground.

Inside the wagon, Tourmaline watched her mother take a deep breath and step out the door. Tourmaline followed. Normally, they would hide from any passing humans if they could, but this situation was already bad—and all too familiar. When they approached the mounted humans, their heads barely reached the level of the stirrups. The other dwarves remained hidden in the wagons, out of sight, though Tourmaline saw the flutter of a curtain.

The lead rider legged his horse forward a few paces. He wore a spangenhelm with a wide nasal piece, quality work for human. His yellow livery was dusty but otherwise clean, and even his saddle showed fine workmanship.

“Greetings, dwarf-wif,” he said, looking around at the wagons. He spoke the human language, a nasally drone. After hundreds of years in the human lands, the dwarves all spoke at least a smattering of the human tongue, and many human words had made their way into dwarvish as well.

“Greetings,” Copperwheel replied, standing straight-backed with her hands at her sides. She stared up unflinching as the horse lowered its head and huffed at her. The rider pulled the reins to bring the horse’s head away.

“I am Renald of Torrel, servant of the Quartermaster of the western march.”

“I am Copperwheel,” she said. He was still looking around at the wagons and the surrounding grasses in the field.

“I’m glad to have found you. I have little time to waste, as you no doubt realize, but I carry good tidings, at any rate.” Renald turned in his stirrups and motioned back to one of his men. “Bring them up.”

“Eh, you two,” one of the rear riders said, pointing. “On now.”

Two dwarves stepped away from the group. One walked with a crutch, his left pant leg sewn shut where his knee should have been. Most horrifying of all, both of them were shorn, their heads and faces recently shaved. Thick stubble had started to regrow, but it was shocking to see. Tourmaline had never seen a dwarf without his beard. Even gilke grew beards before ten years of age. The other dwarf had white hair salted throughout the black stubble, and wrinkles lined his face. Both were too thin and walked with a hunched posture.

The shock must have played upon Tourmaline’s and Copperwheel’s features, because Renald spoke again.

“Our condolences for the. . . hair. I know it isn’t your way. But lice, you know.” He looked behind. “Who are they again?” he asked, then waved. “Doesn’t matter. It’s written somewhere. We return them to you as demonstration of the truth of our compact. They completed their terms of service to the king.”

The two dwarves stopped walking a few paces to the side of Tourmaline and her mother.

“Thank you,” Copperwheel said. Tourmaline’s jaw flexed as her teeth pressed together. Thank you. She couldn’t imagine thanking them.

“And,” Renald continued. “We’re here for a levy, as well. For the campaign.”

Tourmaline felt the heat reaching her face. She’d known it was coming. She’d tried to hope, but she’d known.

“What campaign?” her mother asked.

“What campaign?” Renald gave a short laugh and looked back at his men. The other riders grinned. “Eh. We’re marching north. Against the ürsi. They’ve massed, following the coast. The king wishes a decisive strike. New lands to those who can hold them north of the line.”

So that explained the columns of conscripts. Such an open, massed conflict had not been known in decades—a long time for humans—and never under the auspices of their current king, who was less than thirty. Imagine being ruled by a man not yet at the age of rhundal. Humans lived hot and fast and dirty.

“We have few dwarves here,” Copperwheel said.

“Of course.”

“I doubt many would be of service.”

“We’ll see.”

Tourmaline saw some movement. Two wagon doors had opened. Riftwarp and Kettlemend stepped down and approached the riders, both old and gray, each over one hundred and seventy-five years. Tourmaline knew what they were doing.

“We will serve the king,” they said.

Renald smiled.

“Of course, grandfathers,” he said. “I am sure you are more than willing. We are looking for, uh, perhaps some younger backs, though. We will double-check the wagons.” He motioned to his men, who dismounted and split into groups, going round the wagons and opening doors, stooping to climb inside.

Tourmaline heard the panicked voices of wifs, maids, gilke and gilne, then an outcry. Yet none of the dwarves resisted, choosing instead to walk out of the wagons with dignity and upright posture. Tourmaline saw Glasshand emerge and felt a flutter of panic.

But no. There were nine able-bodied dwarves in the caravan, and Glasshand was not quite as brawny and fit as the farriers who beat iron. Glasshand’s trade was more refined. Surely they would pass him over.

The eleven dwarves stood in loose array before Renald, along with Riftwarp and Kettlemend who still attempted to offer themselves up. Renald looked them all over, then turned to Copperwheel.

“I accept,” he said with a grin. “You may keep the two grandfathers.”

“What?” Copperwheel asked. “You can take two. Two of five. That is the law.” Copperwheel didn’t mention that it was Two of Five in Ten. The crown claimed the right to take two dwarves out of every five every ten years.

“The king has given orders. All able-bodied are to aid in the effort to destroy the ürsi. It is a noble campaign. You know that the humans protect you from the scourge of the north, and so you are as beholden to the king as any. Be thankful you have a part to play, and to live safely in our lands.”

Safely. Is that what it was?

“No!” Tourmaline said as the humans started to close in around the dwarves. “It’s not been ten years. It’s only been nine!”

“As I said,” Renald answered, his previously cheerful tone now flat like his expression. “The king commands it. They will serve the camp. They will not have to fight like our own.”

Now, wails arose from within the wagons, where the wifs and maids remained. Still, they did not step out to let the humans look on their grief. Tourmaline caught Glasshand’s eye as a human grabbed his shoulder and pushed him toward the dusty group of dwarves that already marched among the horsemen. Glasshand did not smile, made no expression, just stared at her with those eyes. He was not supposed to go. He had clever, deft hands for making things, not the muscled arms of a smith. He was a fair dwarf, with a gentle smile. She was going to marry him that summer, before the tenth year came around.

No.

“Then they will be returned after the campaign,” Copperwheel said. “Not the thirty years.”

Renald smiled again, a flat and meaningless movement of his muscles. He did not reply.

No. No. It was all Tourmaline could do not to run after Glasshand, not to scream and wail like those she heard in the wagons. They could not take them all. Why didn’t they fight? Why didn’t Glasshand fight?

“Where is my son, Coalbrow?” a high, shrill voice called. An old dwarf-wif stepped down out of a wagon, bangled shawl across her shoulders. “Where is my son, Coalbrow! He went to the mines and never returned! Where is Coalbrow!” she yelled.

“Quiet, crone!” Renald snapped. “My brother went to the northern march and never returned. Be thankful you get any back.”

With the dwarves all clustered together in the line, the humans remounted. One of them snapped a riding whip in the air, and the dwarves headed away down the track. Glasshand turned and looked back at Tourmaline until the rear horses blocked his view. Tourmaline looked over at her mother.

“Where is Coalbrow?” the old dwarf-wif continued to yell after them.

“We have to do something!” Tourmaline said at her mother, but Copperwheel just stood and watched them go, her face creased.

“Mother!”

“Hush, girl,” she said. “Save your words.” Copperwheel walked back to their wagon and climbed inside. Tourmaline could hear the wailing from the other wagons. Riftwarp and Kettlemend stood still, shoulders fallen, staring at the dust rising behind the moving group of horsemen and dwarves. And the two shaven strangers remained, the crippled with the crutch and the one with the salted hair. The latter looked up, catching Tourmaline’s eye. There was a look of hardness there. She turned and walked out into the field, unwilling to share the wagon with her mother and unwilling to be seen.

Hospitality, they called it, letting the dwarves scrape and starve in their lands while forbidding them to delve and taking a tithe of them as slaves to work mines and forges for the king. Those who worked the forges were fortunate and few, but not as few as those who came back from the so-called service.

Tourmaline never remembered being taught it, but she knew the edict by heart:

“By his majesty’s decree, two dwarves for every five males will henceforth forfeit thirty years of mandatory service to the crown in exchange for his hospitality to their people. His majesty deems this fit, as the gods have in their unknowable will given dwarves a life longer than men.”

His majesty had died seventy some years ago, but his son, grandson, and now great-grandson continued the practice, taking dwarves every ten years. The dwarves had lived in human lands for centuries, never fully welcomed, never at home. The kingdom had changed hands and borders many times, so that humans even remembered less of their own history than the dwarves. But the tradition of forbidding dwarves to mine for themselves in the kingdom went back to the beginning, when the first refugees fled down from the north.

“We cannot give to the dwarves the foundation of the kingdom, the ground on which we dwell,” they had said. And they said it still. That at least the humans had not forgotten.

5

The King’s Mines

When Tourmaline returned, it was the dark of night. No lights burned in the wagon windows. No fires and no kilns smoked. There was no echo of anvil or hammer. Even the sound of weeping had ceased. But when Tourmaline passed through the lopsided arc of wagons, she startled at two dark shapes sitting cross-legged on the ground.

For a horrid moment, she thought they were humans from the shorn profiles of their heads, but then she remembered the shaven dwarves the dwarf-poachers had returned. They'd simply sat down where they’d stood. Dwarven hospitality had failed that night.

“Who are you?” she asked. “You are not of this caravan.”

“I am of Crooked Nose Caravan,” said the one with the salted hair.

“They do not come so far north,” she answered.

“This I know, but the humans do not care. They brought me to dwarves, which is more than they did for many.”

“What are your names?”

“I had a name,” said the one-legged dwarf, his voice gravelly. “Now they call me Hobblefoot.”

The other dwarf did not respond.

“And you?” Tourmaline asked.

“I have been called many things since they took me from the caravan. I have dug in three of the King’s Mines, and then followed a troop of horse as farrier.”

“You served your thirty years?”

“Thirty and three,” he said. “The humans do not keep track. In their mind, thirty years is a lifetime. I have petitioned for three years, but they said they could not find the record.”

“They released you, though.”

“To soften the coming blow.”

The dwarf did not look at Tourmaline as he spoke. He simply stared away into the dark.

“You must be tired,” she said. “I will bring you blankets, and you may sleep under our wagon.” She would have offered the inside of the wagon had they been maids or wifs, but no unrelated dwarf could sleep inside a wagon with her and her mother.

“Food,” said Hobblefoot. “Food and drink.”

Of course. Now, she felt ashamed that they had left them there for long hours, unsheltered, unfed, unwashed. They should have received a joyous welcome back after long years, their beards anointed with oil. But then, their beards had been cut. It might be an insult to offer them oil.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I will see to your needs.”

As Tourmaline rustled in the wagon, preparing a simple meal, drawing a tin pitcher of precious ale and another of water, her mother peered out of the curtain to see what was astir. As soon as Copperwheel realized the oversight, she aided Tourmaline, and before long the strangers had eaten and drunk, bathed in buckets of clean water, and settled beneath the wagon in warm blankets.

Afterward, as Tourmaline lay in her bed, she thought of those worn, thin, shaven dwarves lying beneath the wagon. What must it be like, slaving for decades for the humans only to return to a cold meeting with your own folk? She thought of Glasshand. If he made it, survived those thirty years, would he find their caravan again, or would he be brought to another where no one knew and no one cared? Would she see him again?

She had squandered a chance at something. Tears came before sleep.

When Tourmaline awoke the next morning, her mother was just finishing preparing a breakfast of cold smoked eggs and oatmeal for their guests. It was nothing fancy, but raw smoked eggs were a favorite of the dwarves, who often kept a few hens in a small compartment at the back of their wagons.

Copperwheel had put in an effort to look well. She had replaited her hair, donned a head covering, and wore ribbons. Tourmaline did not doubt that this was more for their own caravan than for the guests. It was never good to show weakness in the face of hardship. Following suit with her mother, she took the time to rebraid her own hair. The hair hung down her back, the braid as thick as her forearm. She plaited green ribbons into the braid, and while she did not wear a veil in the caravan—on principal, and also as she did not like to cover her rhundal tattoo among her own folk—she covered her shoulders in a woven bangled shawl and put on her necklace of mineral jars, thinking of Glasshand and trying not to think of him as the glass touched her skin.

It was still morning, and the sun was cool. Dew shone on the grasses in the field. A few deer grazed on the far edge of a treeline. It looked a pleasant morning, a stark contrast to the distress of the previous night. Only a few of their folk had ventured outside. There was no sound of forge-work.

She had been upset at her mother for not doing something about the humans, but she knew now in the morning that nothing could be done. Not so long as they roved in caravans in the human heartlands. That didn’t keep her anger down, though. She was a maid, her mother a wif. They were not warriors. They were those left behind to hold things together for their folk. It wasn’t right.

Should Glasshand have fought? She had seen their dwarves there, unarmed, their heads barely to the level of the stirrups. They could not fight. Not without weapons and armor. Even then, the superior reach and height of the humans, not to mention their mounted soldiers, gave them an advantage in the flat open ground. Of course, if the distance could be closed, dwarven strength could come into play, and humans were easy to topple with their high center of gravity.

Spears were the dwarves’ best hope in open ground, but mountains, tunnels, dense shieldwalls and superior armor were true defense. Tourmaline knew all this because even though weapons and martial training were forbidden for dwarves, they knew how to hide things. They were masters of false bottoms and hidden compartments. The axles of almost every wagon hid a spear, and while they couldn’t train in the open, they saw much better at night than humans. Much could be accomplished out of sight. Still, it was dangerous; there was always the risk of reprisal if found training to defend themselves.

None of this knowledge made her less angry, or less thirsty to see resistance.

The two strangers sat cross-legged near the wagon eating breakfast when Tourmaline stepped down, the faint clicking of glass and metal accompanying her movements. Her mother was speaking with the strangers, her hands on her hips. She fell silent as Tourmaline approached. They hadn’t spoken since the previous evening. Tourmaline didn’t think either wanted to touch that wound. But now there were new duties to attend to—guests.

“I was just asking what our guests’ wishes are. Hobblefoot came from the Welded caravan, which split some fifteen years ago. He has been gone forty-three years and doesn’t think he can make the journey to seek his kin alone. He will join our folk for now.”

Tourmaline nodded. Forty-three years. It was supposed to be thirty years of service.

“Why have you been gone for forty-three years?” she asked.

Hobblefoot barely glanced at her, bent over his food, scooping the soaked meal into his mouth with a wide tin spoon.

“Punishments,” he mumbled.

“What do you mean?”

Hobblefoot grunted.

“How can they keep you there longer than the time?”

This question brought a snort from the other dwarf who ate just as avidly.

“Our. . . other guest has not told me his plans and says he has no name any longer,” Copperwheel said, ignoring her.

“Call him Salt,” Tourmaline said. The shaven dwarf looked up at her, startled for a moment, then shrugged and returned to eating.

“Salt, then.” Copperwheel looked down at him. “I’ll return with more food. You’re both skin and bones.”

Copperwheel had barely shut the door to the wagon behind her when Salt scraped the bottom of his bowl clean. He stared at it as if remembering the food it had contained. Without looking away, he spoke:

“They do what they want. They punish for anything, even just sneaking out to try to snare a rabbit for our bellies, and the punishment might be another year, even two of labor. Some have worked the mines for forty, even fifty years. Those strong enough. They don’t keep track of service, but they keep track of punishments.”

Hobblefoot licked his bowl in a display devoid of dignity.

“They let me go cause of my leg,” he said, his face still in the dish.

“You only stayed for thirty-three. Were you an obedient dwarf?” Tourmaline sized him up, trying to figure his age. Normally, dwarves did not show white or gray hair until they neared a hundred at least, but something made Tourmaline suspect he was not so old, despite the gaunt, loose skin. He had scars on his arms, hands, and neck, though she could not tell what from. Something about him irritated her, but she couldn’t quite place what.

“I was a cautious dwarf. And a lucky one. I was moved three times, the last to work as a farrier for the crown troops.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“They call us deserters if we run, and the reward is death. On their tall horses, there are few they fail to find, and they punish the rest for it, those who didn’t run. Add years.”

“That made four of my extras,” said Hobblefoot. “When others ran.”

“How can you not fight?” Tourmaline asked. “Surely, underground, you could resist.”

“Surely, underground, we could starve. They kept us always on the verge.”

“Black-Tar Coal fought,” Hobblefoot said.

“What happened?”

Hobblefoot glanced at Salt with a smirk.

“No more Black-Tar Coal.”

“That was a deep mine,” Salt answered. “It needed pumps to keep the lowest levels dry, so there were ponies down there. The limestone was soft. They could have eaten the ponies and mined another way out. The humans couldn’t have stopped them.”

“So they escaped?” Tourmaline asked.

“No. The gule-kulkur flooded it,” Hobblefoot said. “Diverted a stream. Wrecked the whole works. Rather lose a whole mine than let them escape.”

Tourmaline remained quiet. In truth, she was trying to master her anger.

“Death is in the human mines. What timber we had we cut ourselves in addition to our delving. They did not let us take precautions—reinforce the tunnel backs, carve the proper columns. They had no patience. Their lives are short, and where we dwarves would go slow, they rush. Their death is always before them. They seek only to fill their bellies before they die. What our folk horde, we do with care and skill, and we keep it long.”

Hobblefoot nodded in agreement.

“We survive as we can. They do let enough of us go in the end to keep hope alive.”

Copperwheel returned from inside the wagon, bringing another pot of boiled meal. She ladled it into their upheld bowls and they tucked in afresh.

“I suppose you brought messages,” Copperwheel said. Tourmaline squinted. What messages did her mother mean? Tourmaline had never seen anyone return, not since she was quite young, barely old enough to remember.

Tar nodded. He lifted up his ragged, patched, torn shirt of rough felt. Tourmaline could see his ribs, he was so thin, but wrapped around his stomach was a band of cloth and tucked within were bits of leather and scraps of rag.

“None for this caravan, though. I’d never heard of you before.”

“Had you met Elderoak? Thinleg? Harcopper?”

“No. Never met them. We’re scattered around the kingdom. Over ten different workings, I’d say.” Salt slid the bundle of rags and scraps loose and handed them to Copperwheel, but he kept one of the larger pieces of soft leather, folding it and tucking it away again.

“We will disperse them,” she said, eyeing the runes. Runes kept secrets, and few kept secrets like the dwarves. Most of the time, they disguised the runes to look like decorations or hid them in patterns or on the undersides of rocks where only a dwarf would know to look. From the glimpse she caught, these notes looked written in plain script with no attempt to disguise.

She pictured her grandmother, leaning over to whisper to her as she mended a tin pot.

“Men have many words and few years.
But dwarven secrets live from generation to generation.”

She said it often, teaching Tourmaline the secrets of their trade.

Hobblefoot and Salt ate the rest of their food. They didn’t rise after but remained in place. Riftwrap and Kettlemend, the whitebeards of the caravan, came and sat down with them, but they didn’t speak. Instead, they passed pitchers of ale until the midday sun rose, and they all found shade to sleep.

That evening, they prepared to move, not that much needed done besides bringing the hobbled ponies back from the field and hitching them again.

“We keep south,” Copperwheel said. “Away from the war.”

No one complained, even though south was not their usual route. It meant passing through the Shalen district, which was a poor collection of rocky-grounded estates, smallholds, and dirty villages. Poor in resources, in soil, and in folk, there was little to gain for the dwarves there, except to flee the turmoil of the northern marches.

They made ten miles that evening before camping in a rocky pasture near enough to a village that they could smell the smoke from the evening cookfires. Limiting the distance traveled at any stretch both spared the ponies undue exertion and allowed them time to graze hobbled along the tracks for the coarse grass and brush-leaves.

The next day, word of their presence would spread and anyone who wanted work done would come to find them. Despite the loss of their strongest, halest dwarves, every maid and wif could work their family trade. It had been thus for long years. Only they could ensure the passing of knowledge and skill to children when fathers so often were gone. But Glasshand’s skill was unique among their losses. Glasshand had done fine, fine work.

Tourmaline lay down on her bed and hung the glass mineral jars above her head.

6

Map of Ashes

When Tourmaline stepped down from the wagon the next morning, she found Hobblefoot, Salt, Riftwrap, and Kettlemend sitting around a low wooden table. Pipe smoke drifted skyward as they passed a long curved stone-bowled pipe packed with smoldering hill-smoke. On the table sat a stone jug and something else—a scrap of leather. As she approached, the four dwarves fell silent and Salt reached out and slipped the leather from the table, tucking it under his shirt.

This had no other affect than to annoy Tourmaline. Maids and wifs had held their folk together for generations, and these dwarves had the gall to act as if they had any right to keep secrets. So, she grabbed her skirts, sat down cross-legged, folded her arms across the table, and looked straight into Salt’s eyes.

“What are you hiding?”

Salt glanced to the others. Riftwrap sent up a long trail of smoke. With a sigh, Salt reached back into his shirt and pulled out the leather. He leaned forward and slapped it down on the table in front of Tourmaline. With one hand, trying to act nonchalant, Tourmaline unfurled the creased, dirty bit of skin. Dark marks, lines, and symbols covered it. Tourmaline couldn’t fight the flush that came over her face, even as she felt it rising.

The reality was, she had no idea what she was looking at. She didn’t want to look up and catch the eyes of any of the dwarves sitting around the table. They were already watching her. She tried to make sense of the symbols and lines, but she latched onto the runes. Most were symbol-runes, used for directions and distances. Distances to what?

Then she saw a kind of tiny picture of a hole in the ground, crossed out, labeled with the noreph, tulth, and kif runes. . . Salt’s story came to her mind. Black-Tar Coal. Then it started to dawn on her. This was a map. She knew of maps, but she had never actually seen one. The caravans traveled their routes by memory, by road and landmark and village and season. They rarely deviated. When they did, their unerring sense of direction and distance kept them on track.

She looked back up at Salt.

“A map of the mines.”

Salt nodded.

“Why hide it?” she asked. He shrugged.

“Long habit. Besides, what use is it to a dwarf-maid?”

“I would wish to know where the olenag enslave our folk,” she answered, an edge to her voice.

“Why worry? They won’t take you.”

“They take our future. We would never do what they’ve done to us. We would not force others to dig our mines or do our work!”

“Hush, gilna.” Salt smirked. “Lest the Crippled King’s shade haunt you.”

“I am three years past rhundal,” she snapped.

As for the Crippled King’s shade, she did not know what he meant.

“Rhundal.” His lip curled. “I was five years before rhundal when they took me to slave in the mines.” He planted a finger on one of the runes on the map. “Here. The Galena Grave we called it. Then they moved me here—“ he touched it on the map “—and then to follow the horses.”

Five years to rhundal. That meant he was fifty-eight years old. He looked more like eighty-eight, even ninety-eight.

“They took you before rhundal?”

“What is rhundal to the kulkur? My back was stronger than theirs already. It still is, waif as I am.”

As this conversation unfolded, Tourmaline had absently noticed a cowherd driving bony cattle along the road with a stick, heading toward the village. It was not an unusual sight, and far less interesting than their conversation, so she had done no more than mark the movement along the dirt track.

“Leave!”

Tourmaline and the others around the caravan turned and looked. The cowherd was staring at them as he drove the cows past.

“Leave you stunted pony fuckers!” he shouted, accompanied by a vile gesture. Tourmaline turned away, looking back at the map but not seeing it. She knew the others had turned away too.

Never give them heed, her mother had taught her.

The human continued to shout at them until he was out of hearing.

No one came to the camp that day. Tourmaline never even got her tools out. Sometimes that happened, especially near a poor village. No one came the next day, but Riftwrap and Kettlemend went into the village to purchase meal. They came back empty handed. No one would trade with them or even speak. So in the evening Copperwheel led them away again, further south into Shalen.

They passed a hamlet—just a collection of hovels and their wicker-fenced goat-yards—and they made their customary ten miles before camping in another clearing within sight of a village. The homes were still mostly mud-brick and thatch, and the pasture-land was sparse, browsed by goats and milk cows with bony hips. There were no horses to be seen on the pastures, so it was unlikely that the farriers would have much work. Tourmaline had never been this way, and so she asked her mother how long it would be until they reached more prosperous environs.

“Probably another forty miles,” Copperwheel said. “Until we reach the southern byway.”

That meant the better part of a week with little work to be had. They didn’t even try to go into the village for food. They made due with smoked eggs from their hens and milk from the few goats that followed the wagons by lead ropes, small iron bells clanking around their necks.

It was important that the caravan be seen, be noticed, but not approach the village. If anyone sought the work of the dwarves, they would come out to the caravan. Enough herdsmen passed, driving in flocks and cattle for the evening, that they had no doubt news of their arrival would spread. Tourmaline and her mother did not light the oil lamp that night. They were low on oil, and with grandmother gone and little work to do, they did not bother. Tourmaline lay down on her bed even before the moon had set. She felt listless, and she hadn’t even changed out of her day dress.

She awoke to a scream cutting through the darkness. She bolted upright, unsure if it had come from a dream or not. Then she heard breaking glass. A pony whinnied in alarm. Another scream rose from the other side of the caravan.

“Mother?” she said, pulling back the curtain to her bed.

Then their window broke, glass scattering inside. She saw flame as someone shoved a handful of burning straw through the window. Her mother sprang out of bed. Without hesitation, Copperwheel scooped the straw in her arms.

“Door!” she yelled. Tourmaline threw the door open and her mother launched the straw out. It scattered into the night air in a plume of sparks. Copperwheel patted her hands on her linen shift where embers had landed and stuck. Now, Tourmaline heard the tramp of hooves, the bleating of goats, frantic hens, screaming and yelling both in dwarvish and the human language. Outside, the flicker of flames lit the night. She saw drifting smoke and smelled tar. Tourmaline looked out the door, but her mother grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

“Don’t go,” she said. “Close the door!” Copperwheel pushed it closed, herself, holding Tourmaline tight with her other arm.

“Mother!” Tourmaline said, pointing at their broken window. Even through the curtains she could see flames licking up the outside of the wagon. Her mother held her firm, not looking, but listening. What for? The chaos seemed to have died down outside, and then someone yelled.

“Leave, pony-fuckers! Leave!”

There was a cheer, after which they heard no more hoof falls, no more animals. Just the crackle of flames and hurried dwarvish speech. Copperwheel opened a drawer and pulled out the winter blankets, shoving one at Tourmaline.

“Go, go!” she said. They tumbled out the door. The only shapes they could see by the light of the burning wagons were other dwarves, also bringing carrying blankets. There was no nearby well or stream. Tourmaline and Copperwheel beat at the flames that raced up the side of their wagon, but it looked like someone had smeared pitch across the wood and then piled straw beneath. Already, the wood cracked with embers. The blankets caught fire. Tourmaline saw her mother’s shift catch fire, and she pulled her away, beating at the flames on her mother’s clothing with her own bare hands until they were out.

Then she saw something even more shocking. Copperwheel’s legs buckled. She fell to the ground, crying hysterically, the flames lighting her wide eyes. Tourmaline turned and hurried back into the wagon. Already it was hot, and the flames had come in through the window and spread up the inner wall. She did not have much time. She ran to her mother’s drawer, pulling out clothes and throwing them through the door of the wagon. What else? The heat hurt her. The curtains burned and embers floated in the air. Food.

She threw out the bag of meal, what was left of it. An ember popped and landed on her sleeve, catching the linen in an instant. She dove out of the wagon, pushing and rubbing her arm into the dirt, feeling the sting of the burn but suffocating the flame. When she turned, the wagon was engulfed. Dry wood, linens, their material life rising in dark smoke into a moonless sky. A chorus of wails joined with Copperwheel’s, piercing through the roar of the burning.

Tourmaline fought to keep her own head. She was breathing hard, sweat stinging her eyes. She smelled burnt hair. Every single wagon was alight. The ponies were gone. The goats. They’d taken them. She saw dark, strange grey shapes on the ground, lit sideways by flamelight. It took her a moment to realize they were bodies. Someone stood next to her, and she flinched. It was a human face, and she raised a hand to strike. The figure grabbed her arm with uncanny strength, and then she realized it was no human, just the weirdly shaved face of Salt. He didn’t let go of her arm, even when she lowered her fist.

Together, they watched the caravan burn to the ground.

In the morning, Copperwheel refused to speak of plans until they burned the bodies of Hobblefoot and Riftwrap, one more mound of char and ember in the remains of the camp. Some of the families had saved more than others from their wagons, but all had lost most, including their homes and their animals. One family had saved a shovel, and with it they dug a pit in the rocky field for Hobblefoot’s and Riftwrap’s charred bones. They filled it back in and attempted to disguise the spot by replacing the sod. They did not want the bones disturbed.

The practice of cairn-making had been abandoned when the dwarves returned to find the cairns scattered and bones missing. They feared the skulls of their folk were taken as curiosities by the humans.

It was Salt who pressed the sod back into place over Riftwrap and Hobblefoot with his ratty boot.

“Forty-three years in the mines, and dead the third day back.” He cursed and turned away, walking to the remains of the camp.

As if in insult, a few of their ponies grazed in a fenced paddock at the edge of the human village. Even at the distance of the burned camp, they could identify their markings. A gangly boy sat on the fence, kicking his feet, staring not at the ponies but at the dwarven camp half a mile away.

The grim work of burning and burial had been done with few words to accompany the cry of scavenger birds overhead. After, the dwarves turned to scavenging, themselves. With sticks they poked through the ashes and embers of their wagons, looking for lumps of metal. The bronze, iron, copper, and steel had blackened but retained its form, while the tin and pewter had melted into lumps and crusts. But even those who pulled their metal from the ashes had no good way to carry it. Some women had their shawls and used them to tie bundles. But even then, there was more than they could carry.

Tourmaline and Copperwheel picked through the ashes of their wagon. Though the handles had burned, Tourmaline’s tinsmithing tools and little anvil remained, piled in a heap where they had fallen together. She had to push them out of the embers with a stick, as they were still hot. They found Copperwheel’s carving knives and chisels, the fine ash handles with their polished luster little more than charred scale.

Then Tourmaline saw a shape in the ashes as she poked, and she snatched it up. She knew it instantly—grandmother’s medallion. Where the other tools had still been warm in the ashes and embers, the medallion felt cool to the touch, though it was covered in soot. She stepped away from the ashes, knelt down, and clutched it, fighting back tears. Grandmother’s hair had burned. All the hair ropes braided by her matron ancestors were gone. The glass bottles Glasshand had made for her were gone.

She felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder. Tourm looked up at her. Copperwheel nodded to the medallion.

“Not all is lost,” she muttered. “It has seen such days before.”

Tourmaline pressed the medallion against her stomach, holding it close and hiding it with her hands.

It was in that posture, kneeling with her mother’s hand on her shoulder, that Tourmaline noticed the others standing around, watching. She felt Copperwheel’s grip tense. Tourmaline tucked the sooty medallion away into a pocket. It was still a secret. But they were not looking at her or what she’d put in her pocket. They were looking at Copperwheel.

“I’m sorry,” her mother said loud enough to be heard by all. “I should not have brought us into this part of the kingdom. The poor have always hated us most.”

“Ours is not the first such burning,” Kettlemend said. He held his long pipe in his hand, one of the few things he seemed to have saved. But he had no hill-smoke.

“We need to take counsel,” said Kettlemend’s wife.

The dwarves moved to the center of the camp and each settled cross-legged into place in a circle. They did it out of instinct and tradition.

“We cannot stay the night here,” said Kettlemend.

Tourmaline certainly didn’t want to. The faces of all those around the circle were grim. She saw evidence of burnt hands and seared hair.

“There is no question. We must go,” Copperwheel said. “We must find another caravan.”

“We must head south, then. Hope to find Ironroof’s troupe this time of year.”

“I agree,” Copperwheel replied. “We must put as much distance as we can, and get through Shalen with haste. When we come to Eider, we can sell our scrap.”

“We should leave at sundown and march till morning. Sleep in some trees tomorrow. Stay in hiding.” Kettlemend turned his cold pipe in his hand absently.

Copperwheel nodded.

“I agree,” said Rimeye, a wif whose son had been taken just two days before. Now, her eyes looked red.

Throughout this exchange, Tourmaline had grown more irritated. This filthy little rocky village had done this too them, and now they must skulk away into the dark.

“We should burn them out,” she said. She was surprised by the forcefulness of her own voice. Eyes that had been cast down rose to meet her face in alarm.

“No,” Copperwheel said firmly.

“Why shouldn’t we do to them what they’ve done to us. Teach them there is a price for what they’ve done.”

“Fool maid,” Kettlemend muttered.

“Fool maid? At least I’ve spirit to fight, unlike any dwarf I’ve ever known. You go off to dig for the king and come back to live the rest of your lives still slaves in spirit.”

“Do you think Hobblefoot died without raising a hand?” It was Salt who spoke, his voice level but firm. He had a sharp gleam in his eye. “Or Riftwrap? They died like dwarves where they stood, though they had no weapons when the humans cut them down.”

“And the dwarves of old would not have let such a thing go unanswered.”

“And you think the kulkur will let your retaliation go unanswered? That may be a poor village, but within ten miles of here are a thousand of them. And for every one of their houses you burn they will burn two caravans. Such foolishness could destroy our folk entirely.”

“There is such a thing as pride.”

“There is such a thing as survival,” Copperwheel snapped. “You are here today because your forebeards knew it well enough to keep stupid gilna from such rash behavior.”

Tourmaline’s face, already flushed, now burned with heat. The insult her mother had just struck her with in front of the whole troupe—how could she bear it? And yet, what choice did she have. Even in that moment, she knew a reprisal would end in their destruction. Her anger had driven her mouth to rash words, again. She looked around the circle. Even Snotty sat there, staring at her with wide eyes, his beard just starting to grow. Reprisal might get him killed, but doing nothing would teach him to be the same kind of spiritless, cowardly dwarf that Tourmaline saw before her. But maybe cowardice was their only lot. How many were they? Thirty-one left in the caravan, now?

She tried not to lower her gaze from the eyes of those around, and so she saw Salt sitting near her. But he was not looking at her face—he was looking at her belly, his brows furrowed as if trying to make sense of something. What? She glanced down. There was a round stain of soot there on the cloth, but there were darker lines and marks within it. She looked back up at Salt, but he noticed her gaze and looked away.

Copperwheel was speaking.

“We carry as much as we can, each of us,” she said. “We leave in half an hour.”

The assembled dwarves nodded and rose, preparing to carry their scrap as best they could with whatever they could. It was their only wealth, now, to be refashioned or traded or sold, or new handles fitted for use again.

Tourmaline stood as well, not looking over at her mother. She walked a short distance into the field, enough that she hoped no one would pay her heed. Then, she pinched the front of her dress to either side of the stain and pulled it out to get a better look.

Was it?

With her back to the camp, she reached into her pocket and drew out the medallion. The embossed lines were cleaner of soot where she had pressed the metal against the cloth, whereas the deeper surface was dirtier. With the contrast, she saw it anew. There were lines—curved, pointed, jagged, all seeming random at first, but among them were the soot-smudged runes.

She had seen this sort of thing before. Salt’s map. Her medallion was a map.

7

A Broken Caravan

Tourmaline went to find Salt. He was standing in the midst of the camp, watching the others as they gathered what little they had and made decisions about what to carry. Salt had nothing besides the ragged clothes he wore. He didn’t even have a beard, just the dark stubble on his face. Compared to that, his bald head looked strangely bright. In fact, he might be bald. At first, she had thought the humans had just shaved him unevenly.

He watched her approach.

“I want to see your map,” she said. He looked confused, narrowing his eyes.

“Why?”

“Just let me see it.”

He shrugged, reaching under his shirt and pulling out the flat, rolled piece of tanned hide. He had rolled it with the marked side inward. When he handed it to her, she turned and walked to one of the piles of ashes.

“Hey!” he said, following. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t respond, crouching down and rubbing the medallion in the ashes. She stood and walked a short distance into the field, Salt following. The field was rocky, and it wasn’t far before she found a wide flat stone. She spread the hide out on the stone blank side up and pressed the amulet down onto the hide, leaning forward to put her body-weight into it. When she lifted the medallion back up, Salt grabbed her arm.

“What is this?” he asked. She yanked her arm free.

“It’s mine,” she said.

“Is that? What is that?”

She sighed. It was still stained dark with soot and ash, and while he might be suspicious, she didn’t think he realized exactly what it was made from. She didn’t feel like she had time for this. The mark on the leather was too faint, too smeared to show a clear impression. The loose cool ash of the fire hadn’t clung to the medallion like the soot from the fire. She needed something to stain it. She wished she had some of the ink that the humans used. Instinctively, she reached toward her neck. No. Her necklace was gone. She could have made something from the mineral pigments.

She slid the medallion into her pocket and drew her knife. She didn’t want a cut on her hand, so she hiked her skirt up over her calf, took a deep breath, and scored her flesh.

“What are you doing? What is this about?” Salt asked again.

She ignored him, sliding the medallion back out of her pocket and spreading blood on the embossing with her fingers. She pressed it once more into the leather, and when she brought it away, she saw a clear imprint.

“Look,” she said, pointing.

Salt redirected his attention to the leather.

“A map,” he said. “It’s dwarven.”

“Of course it’s dwarven. What is this?” she pointed to a thicker line running down the left side of the map.

“Uh,” he said. He reached his finger toward it and then stopped, obviously unwilling to touch her blood. “Well. . . These here, these look like mountains.” He pointed toward a series of markings running left to right. “And this—” he pointed at the long curving line that Tourmaline had asked him about. “That looks like a coastline to me.”

“A coastline,” she said. “Like a sea?”

“Ay, yes.”

“And what’s this?” She pointed at a marking in the mountain range that ran left to right over the map. From what she could tell, it was a mountain, with a kind of irregular oval beneath it, above what looked like a tiny spear, divided in half and offset.

“The mountain?”

“No, the mark beneath.”

“Ehm. . . Could be. . . a lake?”

Tourmaline shivered, but not from cold. A dwarven map, on living steel from the old colonies, showing a mountain, a lake, and the mark of a broken spear. She laughed, the sheer emotion of it overflowing. Her grandmother had given her a map of Ice-Cloak.

“What?” Salt asked. “What am I missing.”

“Tell me,” she asked. “The sea. It goes north to the ürsi lands.”

“Ay, yes. I’ve never seen it, but yes. That’s where the sea goes. Far into the north, to the lands of ice. The humans go there in ships, looking for great beasts that swim in the deeps. That’s where the oil for the lamps comes from.”

“Could they take us there?”

“On a boat?”

He was right. It was a stupid question. No one would follow her onto a boat. She was fairly sure she wouldn’t get on a boat, Ice-Cloak or no.

“Are there ürsi all along the shores?”

“There are ürsi everywhere north of the borders.”

“Except they are massing along the coast, right? The humans were all headed that way.” She pointed at the coastline on the map. “Somewhere south of here. How far north of Laith are these mountains?”

“I have no idea.”

“This one is a long way from the coast.” She pointed at the mountain with the lake. Ice-Cloak. She was sure of it. She was as sure of it as her own bones. She was a dwarf-maid. Her bones were stone of that stone.

“So this is a map of the north,” Salt said. “I don’t even think the humans know much about these mountains.”

“They used to trade with the old colonies long ago.”

“So they say. That was before anything they remember well.” He looked over toward her pocket. “What is that stamp? Where did you get it?”

“It’s from my grandmother. Tell no one.”

“What is it made of?”

“The past,” she said. He stared at her, his irises so black she could not tell them from his pupils.

“The past,” he repeated. She pointed at the mountain again.

“This is Ice-Cloak. This is the greatest of all dwarven mines, where the bells rang and the Crippled King reigned.”

“Those are legends.”

“They are history.”

“Are dragons history?”

“No,” she said. Everyone always brought up the dragon. “That’s a symbol. A symbol for the failure of our folk. But these mountains could shelter us again. Free from humans.”

“Mountains full of ürsi and trolls?”

“The ürsi are westward, to the sea, and the humans march against them.”

“You’re not. . . . You couldn’t. What are you suggesting?”

“I’m going.”

“You’ll die before you see the foothills,” he said.

“I promise you this,” she said, grabbing the map from the rock and standing up. “Before I die, I will live in a stonehold of my own, ruled by no kulkur king. I will go to Ice-Cloak and see the truth of the legends.”

“You’re insane.”

Tourmaline strode back into the campsite, an exasperated Salt trailing behind her. During the fire, Tourmaline had thrown out an armful of her mother’s clothes. With that armful went a couple shawls, and with these Copperwheel had fashioned bundles of the scrap and salvaged metals. Tourmaline walked up to the ashes of their wagon. She grabbed a fist-sized stone from the ground.

It was not an official law that dwarves could not have weapons. After all, even a hammer or a woodaxe or a knife were weapons as well as tools. But when it came to such things as spears, the humans tended to react with fear and anger. The dwarves had long learned to hide them away. An appearance of defenselessness had proved a defense against retaliation by fearful humans. The kulkur hated the thought of a strong dwarf—at least, a strong dwarf not working in the mines. An armed dwarf was even worse.

Tourmaline had never asked whether their own axles contained anything. She’d never truly wanted a spear before.

“Tourmaline,” her mother called after her, but Tourmaline ignored her. She reached down for the first axle, straining to lift it from the ashes. She struck the end-cap. It took her a few blows to loosen it, but when she did, there was no space behind it. She dropped it and moved to the next. When she lifted it, she detected the change in weight—it was barely lighter. She knocked the end-cap off the same way. It was hollow and packed. She pulled out the leather wrapping. The spear—no, two spears—had been packed with leather to prevent rattling as the axle turned. It took her only moments to free them. The ash-wood handles were still warm, darkened by heat, but strong. Neither ember nor air had made it within the axle, and the wood had darkened without burning. The spearhead was long, with lugs beneath the blade to keep its victim from sliding up the haft when spitted. The spears had been covered in grease to preserve them.

“Tourmaline, what are you doing? Put those back,” her mother said. Tourmaline turned to face her, a spear in each hand.

“Are we not taking what is ours?”

“We cannot be seen with that,” Copperwheel said.

Both Tourmaline and Copperwheel turned when they heard the blow of a rock on iron across the camp. Kettlemend hammered a rock against the metal cap that had once fit on the outside of a wooden wheel. After a few stout blows, the cap came off and Kettlemend tipped the axle. His daughter helped pull the packed spear from within.

“Kettlemend,” Copperwheel said. “What are you doing?”

“Why do we have these, to hide uselessly?”

“Only in the most desperate of need.”

“They killed Riftwrap where he stood,” Kettlemend answered. “I intend no reprisal, but if they come for me, I will strike.”

“You put us all in danger.”

“You put us all in danger of being spiritless cowards,” Tourmaline muttered. Only her mother could hear. Copperwheel turned and looked at her, eyes wide. Tourmaline saw her hand flinch, as if she thought of striking, but she didn’t.

“I’m trying to keep us alive,” she said.

“Alive and dead at the same time.”

Her mother stared, open jawed, as if words failed her. Tourmaline felt a hint of regret and held out a spear to her. Copperwheel closed her mouth and shook her head. All around the camp, the dwarves knocked the ends off axles. More spears emerged, though not nearly enough for all. Tourmaline saw Salt watching, and she held out the second spear to him. He looked at it a moment, then approached and took it, looking up at the greased spearhead. He nodded.

“Now, we must be even more careful,” Copperwheel said, shaking her head. “If the humans see us, they will kill us instead of just robbing us.”

“It made little difference to Hobblefoot,” Salt said.

“What do you want? The humans outnumber us a thousand to one. The north is overrun by ürsi and the south and east are more human kingdoms no better to our folk than this. And across the sea are the elves. How else can we survive?”

“You can come with me to the north,” Tourmaline said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I go to find Ice-Cloak.” Now she pulled the map from her pocket and lifted it into the air. “I know the way.”

The announcement did not have the reaction Tourmaline had hoped for. With her own heart beating with excitement and thoughts of the ancient halls of stone, she had assumed that the revelation would set the camp alight. Instead, the dwarves stared, confused.

“Going where?” Kettlemend asked.

“Ice-Cloak. My grandmother gave me a medallion of living steel.” Now, she fished it out of her pocket, wiping away more of the soot on her dress to reveal the mercurial gleam of the mettle. She held it up for them to see. This had more an effect—gasps and mutterings, and folk drawing closer for a better look. “This, this is the imprint of a map that shows the location of Ice-Cloak, the home of Brokenspear the Crippled King.”

“You ought not show that!” her mother said.

“Our folk fled those lands, driven out by evil,” Kettlemend said.

“A dragon,” someone else said. Always the dragon, Tourmaline thought.

“They fled those lands nine hundred years ago, and we have lived in subjugation ever since.”

“If you go north, the ürsi will devour you.” Copperwheel stepped in front of Tourmaline and faced her.

“You heard the humans. The ürsi are massing westward along the cost, and the king marches to do them battle,” Tourmaline responded. “There will never be a better time for us to go north, through the heathlands to the mountains. The map will show us the way.”

There was more muttering, shifting of weight, and glancing from side to side. Kettlemend broke the silence.

“I heard my father speak of seeing the living steel as a gilke, before the last of it was stolen from us. I never thought to see it in my own life, handed down from of old. But we do not know what is in those mountains but that death awaits. A map is not enough to lead this folk. If someone came with real news. . . But no. This is not a wise endeavor.”

“Then I will go, and I will return.”

“Tourmaline,” Copperwheel said. “We must first look to the well-being of our folk. We must reach the southern caravans. We can talk more there.”

“No.” Tourmaline knew, in some part of her, that to reach the relative safety of the caravans would undermine her own resolve, and take her even further from the north. She wasn’t sure how far the ancient Kara-Indal were, but she knew that south was the wrong direction.

“Tourm—”

“I’m going. Our folk deserve better than to live like this. Whoever wants to join me may.”

The sun had sunk now on its way toward the horizon. Within another hour or two, it would be dark. Few humans had shown themselves near the village, and none had passed the burnt-out caravan along the dirt track. She stood alone, spear clutched in her hand. An hour or more had passed since she had revealed her plan, and no one had approached her. The others continued to prepare for their journey, casting wary glances at her back. She felt their eyes. Still, she looked northward, feeling every moment a growing sense of despair at the undertaking she had committed herself to.

She heard a footstep behind, and her heart fluttered, but it was Copperwheel who stepped up beside her.

“I thought, perhaps, some of our folk would still have spirit,” Tourmaline muttered.

“They have children. Husbands, sons, lovers they have not seen in years, and hopes perhaps to see them again. Riftwrap has a wife, grandchildren. They will not abandon them to follow you chasing stories and getting slaughtered by trolls.”

“It’s real.”

“We’re real.”

“We’re nothing but vagrants.”

“I have led this caravan for fifty years. I will not abandon them in such need. You are my daughter, and I would dissuade you from this, but you are past rhundal. I cannot command your tukith anymore.”

“I would not listen.”

Copperwheel didn’t respond for a while, and they stared north. At length, her mother spoke again.

“They call you Tourmaline because even as a babe, your green eyes and red hair brought that stone to mind. But Tourmaline is found in many colors, even black.”

“What is your meaning?”

Copperwheel sighed.

“I mean that you make your own choices.”

“Tourmaline isn’t my true name.”

Her true name was Ekith. Hope.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Copperwheel said. “I gave it to you. Perhaps the name was a curse, though I did not mean it as such. Hope is strong, and now I see it is dangerous.”

“Even so, it is my name.”

“I cannot tell you what to hope for, but I know what I hoped for then. I hoped to see your father again, but the thirty years have passed. Maybe he will still come. I would put no chains on you, even if I could. Even though I wish it, that I might not lose the last of my line.”

8

Northward

In the twilight, the dwarves departed the ashes, traveling with hurried steps southward and skirting far around the village. Tourmaline did not watch. She had nothing besides her stained clothes, a medallion of living steel, a map, her handle-less tools wrapped in a shawl, and half a bag of meal that her mother had left with her, saved from the fire. Tourmaline had not even thanked her. She had not watched as her folk departed, standing with her back to them instead. Even then she felt the pettiness of it, but the mingled anger and shame she felt dominated any other impulse besides staring begrudgingly away.

When she was sure that they were out of sight, she turned, only to flinch in surprise. A lone figure stood a short distance away, watching her and waiting. He leaned against a spear, his back hunched, his bald head bright in the evening light.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Waiting on you.”

“Waiting on me to what?”

“Get started.”

“You’re coming?”

“I suppose.”

“Why?” She couldn’t hide the surprise on her face.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was your moving speech. . . Probably not.” There was more than enough sarcasm in the voice.

“Well,” she said, looking around as if weighing the circumstances. “I suppose it’s time we got on our way.”

“I suppose,” Salt said again. Tourmaline turned and started north.

“Wait,” he said. Tourmaline paused and looked back. “We’ll need food, and whatever else we can get.”

“Ay, yes.” That was a major problem. Salt motioned at the human village, smoke rising from chimneys against the early evening sky.

“Our folk will be far away by morning.”

It took Tourmaline barely a second to catch on.

It was a rash suggestion that could endanger their folk, let alone themselves if they were discovered. Yet the suggestion of revenge and the gnawing hunger in a belly that had not eaten provided motivation. And for some reason, she did not want this dwarf to think her timid. She smirked.

“So they will.”

The humans expected them to come for the ponies, if they came at all. It was unlikely they would guard their chickens as carefully. The biggest problem were the hounds. All human villages were rife with hounds, and their noses were even more sensitive than a dwarven nose, keen to smell on the wind and ready to bray. The landscape of Shalen district was open and rocky, with only stunted trees, giving rise to stiff breezes and gusts. Salt led the way, circling downwind of the village. It was a stroke of fortune that this placed them away from the ponies and the humans that no doubt waited to see if the dwarves would attempt a rescue. Tourm and Salt stuck to the shadows, even though the night was cloudy and the humans like as not would never see them, dim-sighted as they were.

They both clutched their spears across their chests, unused to carrying the long weapons but not about to leave them behind. Near the edge of the village they saw a few hovels with small chicken yards, and between them stood a building that could only be a granary, built on short stone pillars much wider at the top than at the bottom to keep out rats. They waited and watched for movement of human or dog for a time.

Chickens were risky—they would make a racket if disturbed—but grain kept silent. They could see light from the slatted windows and smelled peat-smoke on the breeze, but there was little stirring in the poor village as Salt and Tourmaline slipped up to the edge of the granary. The wooden latch of the door was above their reach, but Salt tipped it with his spear and then swung the door open from the bottom.

He motioned for Tourmaline to stay, then leaned his spear against the wall and hoisted himself up to the shoulder-level floor. She heard rustling within, but a gleam caught her eye. There was a well nearby, and sitting next to it was a tin bucket with a braided rope handle. Even in the dark, she suspected it was dwarven work. The floorboards creaked as Salt reappeared at the door.

A hound brayed on the far side of the village and they froze, but no others took up the call. The night fell silent again, except for the insects. Salt lowered a sack down to Tourmaline. She leaned her spear alongside his and reached up. The sack was heavy coarse burlap, full of some kind of grain, and it must have weighed over forty pounds. She lowered it slowly to the ground. She expected Salt to climb down, but instead he went back into the granary. Tourmaline took the moment and rushed over to the tin bucket, drawing her knife. A hen that had roosted against the stone sprang up and cackled as it fluttered away between two of the mud-brick hovels. She had not seen it there behind the stone well. The sound felt deafening, and Tourmaline dropped down into a squat, startled. She sliced the draw-rope away from the bucket, grabbed it by its rope handle, and ran back to the granary.

Salt was back onto the ground, a sack over his shoulder and spear in hand. The other sack leaned against one of the granary pillars.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Just go!” she gasped. She slung the other sack over her shoulder and grabbed her spear in the same hand as the bucket. With that, they ran for it, leaving all attempts at stealth behind. Surely everyone in the village must have heard their thudding footfalls, but no cry rose, no hounds brayed, no more chickens cackled.

They were not sprinters, and soon they were out of breath. They slowed to a brisk walk, heading northward across the pasture-lands in parallel to the road, scrabbling over the old drystone walls that divided the landscape.

Tourmaline started to laugh. She gagged to keep it down, but the harder she fought it, the more it rose. To her surprise, Salt laughed too, snorting and huffing to keep quiet. They pushed further from the village, their shoulders heaving under their burdens. Tears rolled down Tourmaline’s face, and now she gasped for breath from the laughter, not from the sprint.

For the first time in her life, she had struck back against the humans—really—even if it was just two sacks of grain and a bucket. And for some reason, she laughed.

It was a mile or more before they calmed down and Tourmaline felt she had regained her wind. The night air was cool and refreshing, hinting of sandstone beneath all the sap and pollen. They returned to the dirt track and trekked until near dawn. To Tourmaline, used to walking miles behind her wagon when the caravan moved, the hike was not strenuous, nor even the weight of the sack of meal over her shoulder. More irritating was the awkwardness of managing the bucket, the spear, and the sack together.

Before sunrise, they found a stand of trees out of sight of the road and away from any human dwelling, with a creek near enough for Tourmaline to fill the bucket with water. It turned out that the sacks were full of oats. They drank their fill of water, and then, risking a fire out of hunger, they boiled some oats in the bucket and ate a warm breakfast. It was nothing but oats and water, not even flavored with wild herbs, but they were hungry.

They put out the fire after they ate, scattering the wood and kicking dirt over the embers. It was not unusual for dwarves to make camp in out-of-the-way places, but they felt the danger of their situation and wanted to attract no visitors. At last, they lay down, but not near each other. In their fatigue, they did not bother keeping watch.

It was as Tourmaline lay, with not even a blanket above or below her and the noise of crickets and nightbirds all around, that the loneliness and weight of what she was doing settled on her. She had never in her life slept away from the caravan. Sure, in pleasant weather, she and her mother or grandmother might sleep outside, but that was still in the familiar presence of the caravan—the families of dwarves, the nickering ponies. It was only exhaustion that came to her aid and finally closed her eyes in sleep.

It was late afternoon when Tourmaline woke. Salt leaned against his spear-haft in the shadow of the eaves of the copse, watching out across the flat rocky fields. Tourmaline yawned and stretched as she sat up, reaching back out of habit to prepare her hair, but she found it was still hanging in a thick messy braid, bits of twigs and leaves stuck in it. She felt a flutter in her gut as she realized it was uncovered and she was away from the caravan, and then she snorted at herself.

She would not wear it covered. She didn’t want to wear it covered, and if the humans wanted to cut it, they would have to deal with her spear. That way of living was over for her, making all her decisions from fear. And if she ever wore the veil again—she did like the finer ones, with the silver-threaded lace—it would be among her own folk, for her own reasons, and not because of the humans. Of course, she had neither headscarf nor veil to wear, now.

Salt had turned and was watching her.

“Beat me awake,” she said, standing up. She reached for the bucket, intending to go for more water.

“Stay,” Salt said. “There are herdsmen across the pasture. They have not come close, but they would see you go to the creek.”

Tourmaline nodded and set the bucket down. She glanced at the shadows, gauging the hours until nightfall. The summer days were long. Salt walked back from the edge of the trees and sat down against a rock. As he passed, she smelled wood-smoke and the salt of dried sweat and mingled in beneath that, a deeper scent of dwarf.

“They don’t let you sleep more than four hours in the mines,” Salt said. Tourmaline was confused for a moment, then remembered her comment about Salt beating her awake.

“I usually slept for four or five hours in the afternoon, and again after work at night,” she said.

“No. Four hours total.”

“Oh.”

“We worked the rest.”

“How did you keep from exhaustion?”

“We couldn’t. That was the intent.”

Tourmaline imagined working for the humans for thirty years on only four hours of sleep a day.

“I wish our dwarfs did not roll over on their bellies for the kulkur,” she muttered. Somehow, when she said it, she didn’t seem to relate it to Salt in her mind.

“You were never in danger of the mines. Dwarf-maids may speak ill words, but they have not shared in our suffering.”

Tourmaline snorted.

“Oh? We have led our folk and kept them alive on our own. Reared children and watched their fathers get hauled away.”

“—Hauled away for three decades of slavery, unable to brace the delvings from the falling rock that crushed our fellows. Many are buried in those holes. None of them maids.”

They heard the sound of distant human speech, and it reminded them of the rising volume of their own words. Tourmaline pursed her lips, but kept from spitting back a retort. She was tired of dwarfs making excuses. At least she would do something about their folk’s situation.

It would take them at least a week to reach the northern borders. The sea, though Tourmaline had never seen it, lay to the northwest. There, some of the most populous human cities sprawled along the coastline. The dwarven caravans did not like to go there where the harbors full of bobbing ships and screeching gulls never settled. And it was those sprawling towns and villages that the massing ürsi threatened, causing such a wide-scale mobilization of the king’s arms.

Tourmaline had traveled Laith all her life, and she knew the seashore lay one hundred and fifty miles northwest, give or take, but if she struck north and east, she could reach the border of the wilds in just over a hundred. She and Salt traveled by night, keeping to byways as much as they could, sleeping in hiding during the day, and living off their stolen meal.

The summer nights were shorter than Tourmaline could have wished, hindering their progress. Salt spoke little enough, and Tourm brooded not on the trip to the border, but on what might lay beyond. In the sleepless hours of the day she braided rope from plant fibers, and soon they carried their sacks of oats slung across their backs with straps.

She was glad they’d stolen the oats. She would have been even more glad for some milled meal. It wasn’t just because it was food. When the dwarves had first come to Laith, they realized the humans still used mule-driven grindstones for grain, and so they had established mills both along rivers and with the power of wind. But the humans saw the dwarves grow wealthy. Through terror, confiscations, and murders the humans took the mills, and in the years since, they'd forgotten that they had learned the workings from dwarves. The dwarves had not forgotten.

Tourm thought of cutting her hair for rope, but something kept her from it, whether the memory of her grandmother, or her mother, or perhaps a sense of scorn at the humans who would so greedily steal it. Let them try. She re-plaited it every afternoon before the sun went down. In the meantime, she made a sling for the tin bucket from plant fibers as well, until it swung at her side as she walked, full of her burnt tinsmithing tools.

The border was a string of watchtowers and fortresses kept by local lords and march wardens—little more than tough lowborn fighters granted chunks of the borderland by the king in exchange for keeping the ürsi at bay. Presumably, some would have gone to join the king’s force. No more news of the campaign had reached them, but Tourmaline didn’t intend to speak with any humans to learn more.

After what turned out to be an eight night’s journey, they reached the rising heathland on the kingdom’s borders that stretched into the unknown north. Bits of broken lichen-covered rocks lay strewed over the landscape, and low fens between rises. Few men dwelt in the region. The ground showed promise only for herding scraggly hill sheep, but the ürsi incursions discouraged even that.

On the eighth morning during a grey dawn, they saw the silhouette of a watchtower on a rise north and east. It was little more than a crude stack of unmortared dry-stone, obviously human work. Salt and Tourmaline sheltered out of sight beneath a prickly thicket of gorse. They could not risk being seen in the daylight, and so they must await the night to attempt their passage unnoticed.

Tourmaline was not sure if it was against the law to cross to the north. Who tried such a thing, anyway? Would the humans have simply shrugged and let the dwarves walk to their doom, or would they apprehend them? She didn’t want to find out—didn’t want to speak to a human at all, or to feel their ill language in her mouth. The landscape looked desolate and empty. She knew that some humans did live near the marches, but she was not sure where exactly. The caravans did not come here. Even the roads were little more than footpaths, barely fit for a small cart.

Tourm slept little that day, a sense of excitement building. They huddled under the gorse, and through the day she could smell Salt, that strong odor of dwarf. She had never shared a wagon with a dwarf. Her father had gone before her birth to work the king’s mines. She had only known life with her mother and grandmother. And now she lay in the dirt beneath the gorse next to a strange dwarf whose white-flecked beard was still little better than stubble. She missed her grandmother. And she missed her mother. And she wondered what her grandmother would think of this foolhardy expedition.

Toward evening she glanced over and saw that Salt’s eyes were open, staring up at the sky through the branches above. He noticed her looking over.

“Ready for this?” she asked, mostly to have something. He shrugged.

“Well, I don’t reckon you’ll turn back.”

9

Hounded

The moon already hung in the sky before the sun set. After nightfall, they waited for the quarter moon to set before they struck out. They wanted complete darkness. Normally the stars were Tourmaline’s favorite aspect of life above rock, but she had no love of their light that night, and would have traded the clear sky for clouds.

They slunk over the heath, trying to keep to low ground. Tourmaline knew how ragged they would look if found, with their sacks of meal, her stolen tin bucket hanging behind her, spears in their hands. They tried to keep away from the tower, but there must be others within sight. She had heard that from the east all the way to the shore, one border guard could see another from atop their watchtowers. But certainly, they could not see their two dark shapes passing. Human eyes were not good in the night, even with the bright stars.

They came parallel to the tower that rose to the east. A fitful night breeze gusted west, then turned and blew east. Tourmaline’s heart beat. By morning, they would be north of the border-line and into the wildlands.

A hound bayed. Tourmaline froze, and Salt next to her. Tourm hated dogs. The dwarves kept none. She had heard stories of dwarves run down and torn apart by the humans’ cruel hounds. Another hound bayed. They were not far, somewhere between them and the tower. A light flashed in the same direction—someone opening the door on a night lantern. More hounds joined, taking up a long howl.

Salt grabbed Tourmaline’s arm and pushed her forward.

“Go!” he said.

And they did, rushing northward, stumbling over the hard terrain. There was little to call a path amid the bracken and gorse and rock. She heard the hounds draw closer.

“They’re coming,” she said.

“Here!” Salt pulled up the branches of a thorny gorse thicket. Tourmaline dove beneath, crawling below the dense branches, skidding her spear along the ground next to her. Salt followed, and they pushed close to the center of the dense gorse.

Tourmaline hoped that the hounds were not after their scent. Perhaps they were hunting game. But if the hounds were following their scent, they would come, and there was no use running. Tourmaline and Salt could walk far and with heavy burdens, but they could not outrun human nor hound, and if once the beasts caught their scent. . .

The braying grew louder as the beasts approached. They heard human voices yelling behind, sounds as of command and response. They heard a rustling, and then a hound brayed at the edge of the gorse. She heard its snuffling, its clawing at the rocky soil. She cowered toward the thick stems of gorse, pushing close up against Salt and clutching at her spear. There was no room to use it.

Hounds surrounded every side of the thicket, howling in chorus, only stopping to bark and growl before howling again as they ran circles around the thicket and dug at the dirt. Then came the heavy footfalls of men.

“Ring it round, now,” said a brazen voice in the human tongue. Light broke out, streaming into the gorse.

“What’s in there?” someone asked. “The hounds act strange.”

“No ürsi I think. A fox to ground?”

“Cut away the brush till the hounds can take it,” said the deep, commanding voice again. The gorse shook as branches were hacked away.

“Hold!” Salt yelled, speaking the human tongue. “Hold we mean no harm!”

There were exclamations of surprise, and the hacking stopped.

“Who are you and why are you here?”

“We are only two dwarves, far from our caravan,” Salt replied. Then, grabbing Tourmaline’s arm, he whispered in dwarvish: “leave the spear.”

The humans muttered. She heard “dirt licker” at least once. It was an epithet used so often many humans said it to their faces, as if they didn’t even mean it as an insult. “Knee-biter” was another.

“There are no caravans near here.”

“Where is here, exactly?” Salt asked. So, he intended to play stupid.

“Come out and you’ll see,” said one of the humans, his voice far from enticing.

“Please,” Tourmaline said. “Don’t hurt us. We mean no harm.” Tourmaline’s ear had long acclimated to the speech of humans, but her tongue still found it difficult.

“One of their girls?”

“What’s this about?”

“Come out, and we will decide what to do with you when we can see you.”

“Please call off the dogs,” Salt said. The hounds had continued to growl and sniff around the gorse the whole time. There were a few moments of confusion as the men took hold of the animals, then the commander spoke again.

“Alright, out with you. Anything strange and we’ll let them take you apart.”

Salt crawled out first, followed by Tourmaline. The hounds bayed and tugged at their braided leather leashes, pulling at the arms of their handlers. As she crawled from under the gorse, the lantern light hurt Tourm’s eyes. Squinting, she saw five humans, all in mail, with swords and spears and daggers and bows, lean and hard-looking to a man. Two of the men each held three dogs apiece on their leashes, their arms straining.

“Well,” said the commanding voice when the two dwarves stood on their feet. The man stood with his arms crossed on his mailed chest, a spangenhelm dividing his face with a wide noseplate. He looked a rough man, but he wore a tabard with a stitched boar on the face, signifying he was likely a landed man. “This is an unusual quarry for the hunt.”

Tourmaline couldn’t help watching the snapping, frothy mouths of the hounds. She cowered back against the gorse.

“We intend no one harm,” Salt repeated, holding out empty hands.

The commander looked at the two men not currently holding back hounds and nodded toward the dwarves.

“Search them.”

The two men went for Salt first. One grabbed his shoulders from behind, towering above him, while the other human bent down and checked Salt’s clothes for weapons. He opened the sack of meal and ran his hand through it, scattering some on the ground.

“Not even a tin spoon,” the searcher said. They turned to Tourmaline, their eyes narrowed. She felt her body stiffen. Dwarf-wifs and maids had long encouraged the disgusting rumors the human women loved to spread about dwarven habits and hygiene. They did not mind appearing foul in the eyes of men, but such was no guarantee of safety. The tall human grabbed her shoulders, and then the other slid her belt knife out of its sheath and tossed it aside. He started to run his hands over her, and she snapped her elbow back into the tall one’s stomach. He doubled over, gasping for his wind as she flailed at the man who touched her.

“Leave her alone!” Salt snapped. The commander laughed.

“Easy now, and leave her some dignity,” he said.

“I don’t like ‘em short anyway,” the searcher mocked, holding up his hands. The stench of human and hound filled her nostrils. Coughing, the man behind her grabbed her roughly by the braid, yanking her head back. The other patted her down quickly, running hands down the outside of her skirts. It was all Tourmaline could do not to break his nose.

“What’s here?” he asked. Tourmaline reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded leather map, leaving the medallion behind.

“This,” she said. He snatched it and unfolded it, but finding nothing within the leather, he grunted and tossed it on the ground. He ran his hands through Tourmaline’s bag of meal and peered inside the bundle of blackened tools she carried in the bucket.

“Bits of broken tools,” he said. Tourmaline reached down toward the fallen map, but the man behind her yanked her braid.

“This is worth a month’s wages,” he said. Tourmaline grabbed her braid and gave it a sharp pull. The man laughed, but he lost his grip.

“Well, these dwarves are poorer even than usual,” the commander said, ignoring the display.

“And stupid, coming here,” added one of the hound handlers.

“Tell me the truth,” the commander said. He, unlike the others, had shaved his face fully smooth. None of the humans wore anything like a dwarven beard, but the others had patchy hair on their faces at least. “Why are you here?”

“We’re lost,” said Salt.

“We’re going north,” Tourmaline interjected with obvious anger, her own human speech broken and accented.

“You’re going north?”

“We’re going to our homeland.”

The humans looked at each other, as if gauging the seriousness of the statement. The commander looked over at the hound handler.

“You’re right, Eric, they’re stupid.”

They laughed, high and barking like their dogs. The commander looked back at Tourmaline.

“Girl, if you go north, you’re dead. There’s nothing out there but trolls and goblins.”

Tourmaline didn’t reply, so he went on.

“Well, I think our hunt is cut short tonight.” He looked at the hounds still straining at their leashes, sniffing toward the dwarves.

“Haven’t been any gobs this month, anyway,” Eric said. The commander nodded.

“I am March Warden Alard,” he said. “You’ll come back with us until we decide what to do with you.” He glanced at Tourmaline. “Well, at least what to do with you.”

Tourmaline didn’t like the sound of that. Salt’s face was dark, his heavy brow deeply furrowed, his frame taut.

Warden Alard turned to the east and led the way into the night. The one called Eric glanced at Tourmaline and Salt.

“Run and we let the hounds have you.”

Tourmaline crouched and picked up the map, stuffing it back in her pocket as they headed east.

The blocky tower was bigger up close, but no better fashioned. Its dry-stone walls had irregular curves and faces far from plumb. The men led them through a low south-facing door. A stairway diverged, and they followed an inner hallway to another door opening into a central chamber. Two more humans sat near a longfire. Smoke hung in the air, poorly vented out a hole above. Thick rough-cut beams held up the second floor. The whole thing felt squat and dark, even to a dwarf.

They herded the two captives into the center of the hall toward the fire.

“Sit there,” Eric pointed at the bare flags. Thankfully, the hounds had been led elsewhere, not following them into the inner chamber.

Salt and Tourmaline crouched cross-legged on the stones, while the men muttered together in their clipped speech. Eric grabbed the two sacks of flour and yanked the straps over their heads.

“Shared larder here,” he said, smirking, and walked to the side where chests and barrels sat in the open as storage.

Warden Alard sat down in a wooden chair at the far end of the longfire.

“Well, Warden,” said one of the men already in the chamber. He was heavyset, gray of feature, and he stuck his leg out in front of him in such a way that Tourmaline suspected an injury or debility. “You’ve at least brought something home, though they smell not much better than goblins.”

“A strange find, to be sure,” Alard answered. “And more trouble than anything. I may send them back south tomorrow.”

“But the campaign.”

“—has stripped me of all but the bones,” Alard interrupted with a note of irritation in his voice. “And I have no way to send it.”

The older man shrugged.

“We could put ‘em to use here, at least for a time. There’s some work to do.”

“Yes,” Alard said, turning his eye to the dwarves. “There is that.”

A hound slunk into the chamber, half-crawling toward Alard with ears back, looking a mix between frightened and happy. Alard glanced down at it, then scratched its ears as the hound curled near his boots.

“What I could truly use is some goblin blood on my sword,” Alard said in a louder tone. “It’s been a dull summer, and the hounds have grown thin.”

“There is that,” the other man parroted back.

Tourmaline and Salt slept on the stone where they’d sat. No humans slept in the chamber that night, but the dwarves did not check if the doors were guarded. The hounds were more than enough of a deterrent. The humans must have released the beasts to prowl the ground floor of the tower. They slunk in and out of the chamber and scuffled in the hall through the night, eyeing the dwarves with suspicion as they passed by. One hound nearly touched Tourmaline with its outstretched nose, sniffing, a low rumbling growl in its throat. When Tourmaline at last lay down to sleep, she heard a growl just in response to the movement. She managed only enough sleep for a fitful dream of teeth and lanterns.

The next morning, they sat in the same place when the humans stirred and went about their morning business. The limping man fried flat cakes over the fire in a cast-iron skillet, and the rest ate them off tin plates that Tourmaline knew a dwarf had fashioned. After they’d eaten, the limping man poured the rest of the batter into the skillet, then tossed the half-done cake onto the stone in front of Salt and Tourmaline. He laughed and left.

Salt picked it up, ripped it in an approximation of half, and gave the larger of the pieces to Tourmaline. She did not object, and while she hated the men, she ate the food, savoring the warmth of it in her mouth.

Not long after, the one they called Eric re-appeared, carrying a ratty wicker basket and setting it down in front of the dwarves. It was full of sharpening stones, stropping leathers, greasy rags, and a flask of oil—she would have known its contents from the smell alone.

“You’re going to put the finest edge on all our weapons,” he said. “And if you try something stupid, the hounds will rip you to pieces.” He drew his sword from its sheath. “Start with mine.”

To be honest, the sword was not in poor condition. It was kept with more care than anything else about Eric’s person. Still, Salt went about honing its edge until it would cut before it was felt, stropping it well, and oiling it to a high sheen. Others came, and before long they had a pile of work before them, including many bent and ragged tin pots and utensils that Tourmaline labored to mend with what limited tools she had at her disposal. Her small anvil was little marred by fire, but her tools had no handles, and the humans had limited tools and all unwieldy in her hands, their handles too thick and the tool-heads too wide and clumsy. She did the best she could, working through the pile.

She and Salt didn’t speak much, but at one point, Tourmaline let out an annoyed huff and looked up from her work, her jaw set sideways. She remembered the filthy hands of the human on her and she wanted to stab him.

“Meekness is survival,” Salt muttered to her in their own tongue, not looking over but keeping his eyes on the work of his hands. Meekness, she thought. Meek dwarves. If the dwarves had not been meek, they might not be subjected to this humiliating treatment. She had never in her life done work for a human without expectation of payment, although she had been cheated plenty. Even their women were vipers.

“Is that how you came back?” Tourmaline muttered in return. She didn’t say it, but in her mind she thought: “and my father didn’t.”

“Meekness and skill,” he said. “I worked hard despite my hate, till I became the best miner under stone. They wanted a smith to keep their weapons, and they trusted I would cause no trouble. And I didn’t, and then they sent me to follow the king’s horse as farrier, and I became the best. I spoke their language well, and the commander of horse used to talk to me, ask me about our folk and our stories of the north.” He paused, but Tourmaline said nothing.

“They planned to round up many dwarves for the campaign,” he continued. “But they were afraid of trouble, so the commander chose to send some home. Mostly the lame and old and weak. But he sent me, too. He wanted me to tell our folk about the need to defeat the goblins. He wanted me to keep down the trouble. Said he could trust me. Because I had listened and kept my heart to myself. Because I had stayed meek.”

Tourmaline stopped working. On the trip, she had begun to feel closer to him, by proximity and loneliness if nothing else. She had almost started to think of him as a friend. But now. . . She felt it like nausea in her belly. She wanted to lash out at him, even to strike him. Never had she heard a more foul tale in her life. She had always hoped that those who were taken resisted, caused trouble, rose up and fought. She had hoped that was her father's fate. But this. It made her sick. They should have sent a better dwarf home.

And he was the only one who had followed her. What did that say about her? She clenched her jaw and her hands went pale as they pressed hard against the tin.

10

The Horsemen

Tourmaline felt the urge to relieve herself during the day, and Salt noticed her growing distress.

“Are you well?”

“I need a latrine,” she’d muttered.

Salt called to one of the humans and said that he needed the latrine, and Tourmaline had followed him. He waited for her outside of the little shanty with the pit. Inside was a squatting beam so high her feet could not touch the ground when she used it, and she had to brace with her hands double over in fear of falling backward.

They asked for and received a skin of water, and apart from a couple of the more suspicious hounds watching them warily, no one paid them much heed as they sharpened and mended the day away. At least the gritty scrape-scrape-scrape of the honing felt familiar. Tourmaline closed her eyes for a moment and imagined herself back in her wagon, waking up to the sound of rasps.

They were fed more scraps at dinner, and they lay down to sleep again on the stone with not so much as a blanket between them. The hounds slept on the floor all around. They growled less, but still they watched them, gnawing on bones and snapping at each other.

Near the tower lay a low stone barn that housed a few horses, and the next day Salt was forced to trim their hooves and mend a horseshoe. Tourmaline remained inside, buffing mail and scraping away rust from within the links. When Salt returned, Tourmaline was surprised to see him walking alongside Warden Alard and speaking as the warden listened.

“Gorse, and no grains for him,” Salt said. “He could founder again. With the shoe, after a few months, he should be fit enough, but no grain. Just make sure to crush the gorse well before you feed it.”

“I had almost despaired of him,” Alard said, looking honestly relieved. They came near the fire, standing apart from Tourmaline but close enough she could hear every word. Alard had shown little to no interest in them the past two days, so she was surprised.

“No, I’ve seen it before many times. I was farrier to Commander Roald of the King’s Western Horse. The founder was not as bad as it might have been. The shoe should help while he heals. Just no grain.”

“You hear that Eric?” Alard yelled over at the other man who had followed them in. “No grain for Hunter at all, not even a bit of corn. Crushed gorse only, and don’t let him graze any damp grass in the morning.”

“And if he grazes,” Salt interjected, “Make sure it is that foot that you hobble.”

“Right. . .” Alard said, then turned back to Eric. “You hear?”

Eric nodded.

“Good, good.” Alard rubbed his hand across his forehead. He did not wear his helm, and his black hair was cut unevenly. “Well. . .” He looked around as if remembering himself. “I have things to attend to.” The warden marched back out of the chamber, leaving Salt behind without another word.

Salt settled back cross-legged on the stone at Tourmaline’s side

“Why help them?” she muttered. “What do you care for their horses?”

Early on, when they came to the human kingdoms, the dwarves had adopted the use of the strong, thick-legged hill ponies. Each dwarf in the caravan grew up knowing how to care for them. Farrier work was a craft the dwarves were renowned for, their short height and strong backs along with their skill at forging made them well-suited to it. But that didn’t explain why Salt would go out of his way to help the humans.

“I do good work,” he said, and shrugged. “The Warden is much attached to the horse. It was a gift from his brother.”

So? Tourmaline thought, but she stayed quiet, nursing the disdain she felt. Salt must have felt it, anyway.

“You’ve done good work on their mail,” he said, looking at a folded loaf of a hauberk before her. “Better them to think us pliant.”

That just irritated her more.

The third night, one of the hounds actually slept on the stone next to Tourmaline, and she felt cold terror that it would attack her in the night. It snored while she lay awake in fear. The next day, their tasks grew sparser, with only a couple final hauberks to de-rust and polish. They worked away with files and oil and darkened rags until a commotion arose at midday. A dog bayed. The other hounds rushed out and took up the chorus in the tower yard beyond. Human feet hurried in the passage, and voices called indistinctly outside.

After a time, the dogs quietened, and they could hear low speech outside.

“Someone is here,” Salt muttered, filing at a stubborn rust spot on a rivet in the mail. A while later, the one called Eric looked in through the chamber door.

“Out with you both,” he said. “Now.”

“Bring your things,” Salt muttered. He helped Tourmaline wrap her tools back up in the shawl and place them in the tin bucket, then sling the bucket over her shoulder with the fiber ropes she’d twined. Without his sack of meal and the spear, Salt had nothing to carry.

They followed Eric out into the daylight, squinting at the painful midday sun. It took Tourmaline a moment to gather in the details of the scene in the brightness.

Warden Alard stood speaking with another man who wore mail and livery. A cadre of horsemen had dismounted and were watering their horses at a stone trough. Two men held dogs apart as they strained at their collars to get at each other. It seemed the horsemen had a few hounds of their own. What most caught her attention was a group of five dwarves huddled together. They were all fairly young, no grey hair seen among them, and they looked startled as they squinted back at her.

Alard motioned to Salt and Tourmaline.

“I found these two on the heath a few nights ago,” he said. The sergeant of horse looked from Salt to Tourmaline and back to Salt.

“We will take him with us.”

“Take them both,” Alard answered. “I have no more use for either.”

“I’ll take the male,” the horseman said. His livery was travel-stained yellow, showing he was one of the king’s own horsemen. “We don’t want their girls. The king allows no camp-followers in the north.”

There were smirks at that from the men around.

“Well,” Alard answered. “The dwarves will be the king’s most obedient servants in that case.”

Now there was laughter. Tourmaline didn’t get the joke.

“Please, Warden,” Salt said. “Please, let her return to our folk.”

Alard shrugged.

“I have no further use for her.”

“You should at least shear her,” said the sergeant of horse, looking at Tourmaline’s hair. “The ladies in the cities would pay you well for those braids.”

She stiffened. The one called Eric slid Tourmaline’s own belt-knife from his belt. She’d sharpened it for him the previous day, cursing under her breath.

“I’ll have it done in a moment,” he said.

“Just like goblins do. No better than them,” Tourmaline snapped in the human tongue.

“The goblins take your hair?” Eric asked.

“They desire the hair of a dwarf-maid above all else,” she said. “Like you.”

The humans looked at each other. None of it was true about the ürsi and hair, but they didn’t seem to know that, and it made them uncomfortable.

“Please, Warden,” Salt said again, looking to Alard. “Please, just let her go.”

The warden crossed his arms for a moment. Then he nodded.

“Very well. Leave her be.”

Eric frowned and sheathed the knife, stepping back. Alard motioned to Salt. “Go join yours,” he said. Salt nodded and walked over to the group of dwarves without another word. Tourmaline wasn’t sure who she wanted to strike more.

“Will you stay for a meal?” Alard asked the sergeant of horse.

“No, too much day left. We must put in miles to reach the host.”

“How long, do you think, until they march?”

“I suspect by end of month.”

Tourmaline counted up. By the human reckoning, that was ten days away.

“Will the goblins hold off so long?” Alard asked.

“The goblins are many, but our strength is nearly full. They have held back so far. If we’re lucky, they’ll break, and then we can hunt them north.” The sergeant looked around. “Have all yours been sent?”

“Yes,” Alard said through his teeth. “And I’m left with just enough to get slaughtered if a pack attacks.”

“Well.” The sergeant grinned. “I doubt you’ll have to suffer such excitement. From what they say, every last goblin is along the coast, now.”

Alard kept his arms folded. “Long live the king,” he said.

“Long live the king.”

The horses watered, Tourmaline watched as the humans remounted and herded the dwarves away to the west. There were six humans atop long-legged coursers. They could have covered ground fast, but they were forced to keep to a pace the dwarves could sustain on foot.

Alard turned to go into the tower and noticed Tourmaline standing there.

“Get you gone, girl,” he said, then walked away. Tourmaline glanced at Eric. His hand still rested on the knife. She turned and hurried out of the yard and to the south. The hounds watched her go in silence.

She had no food, not even a knife to protect herself, just a bucket, a scarf, broken tools, and a bad idea.

She zigzagged amidst the bracken and gorse in case one of the humans came in pursuit of her hair regardless of orders. When she had gone far enough south to be out of sight of the tower, she began to pick her way west and north again. She would have preferred to wait until nightfall, but she was not willing to loose that much time, and she also didn’t want to get caught up in the hunt again. She knew now that the humans set the hounds to hunt for ürsi most nights.

Tourmaline picked her way beneath the afternoon sun, keeping to the low ground between hills, crawling between thickets, careful to keep out of sight of the tower to the east. It was difficult to gauge the distance of how far they’d been from the tower when they first tried to cross north. It had been night then, and she couldn’t be sure. Hunched over scanning the land ahead, she thought she recognized two hills that jutted down toward a dry seasonal creekbed full of jumbled cobbles. It looked familiar. They had taken that way to stay low the night of their capture. There could be a hundred such spots in this wide landscape, but she followed it, trying to keep in the path she thought they’d taken. In doing so, she crossed the fresh path that the horsemen and dwarves had taken. She could smell them strong on the air and ground; they were not long past.

The hiding and crawling wasted time, but she could not risk being seen. She wondered if her idea wasn’t too much of a risk or if it was even worth it. But there was a principle to it that kept her on. The spears were theirs. It had been a wide, dense patch of gorse where they’d hidden. But there were many such.

In the end, it was the scraped, displaced lichen and rocks near the gorse that clued Tourmaline in that she had found the right spot. The hounds had run in circles and clawed under the branches that hung dense to the ground. It looked so much different in the daylight. She remembered the way the lanterns had blinded them, the dogs snarling and slavering.

She crouched and reached under the gorse, feeling blindly. She felt the haft and pulled out one spear and then the other. The humans had been fools, utter fools not to check under the thicket. But then, she supposed they were not used to hunting anything with much more cunning than a fox. With how dirty they were, and how poorly supplied, what could Tourmaline and Salt have had of value, anyway? Still, it was a human oversight. They had been looking for goblins, not dwarves, and when they found dwarves, they saw the ragged and poor creatures they would have expected. They did not expect any surprise from them. She would have to trust that oversight to aid her again.

Finding the hidden spears had taken her much of the afternoon. She had to get back to the path, but she could not abandon stealth—there was too much summer daylight remaining. She’d already lost much ground, and to make it worse, she had neither food nor water. Her dress was dirty, her skin as well. She wore a tin bucket slung behind her, carrying her charred tools, and she held a dark spear in each hand. If she wasn’t so angry, she would have laughed. Instead, she slunk away to the west, angling south again to find the tracks of horses and dwarves.

She glimpsed the tower grow small behind her, a distant mote on a hill, but another came into view ahead, a similar clumsy pile of dry-stone on a hill surrounded by low-lying styes and barns, a drystone wall around it. These were small holdings of rough men, and she wanted no more stays with them. If only they had no hounds, she would not have feared so much.

At nightfall, she found the track of the horsemen. It had veered a bit south. She hurried her pace as the light failed, no longer crouching and rushing between thickets. If the hounds came, she wanted to be close to the other dwarves in hope the hounds would not single her out. The humans had no doubt moved at a steady pace in one direction. They would be miles beyond her, but they would camp at night. Humans hated to travel at night. So she would catch them yet.

She heard hounds braying in the dark, but they kept off to the north, beyond the new tower. She heard others to the north in the chain of defenses spaced roughly every two miles across the border. It took hours of walking, but she knew she drew near to the horsemen; the smell of the beasts grew stronger. At last, she scented smoke, fragrant with gorse and bracken. Firelight glinted against low clouds. The humans thought that by keeping their camp in low ground between hills they could stay sheltered and hidden, but anyone with a whit better sight and scent than a human could know it from a mile and more.

They did not seem to expect any ürsi. They kept only a single man standing picket with the horses, a horseman’s lance in hand, his long kite shield at his side, staring stupidly and blindly out into the dark. Tourmaline crouched on the hill above. At this close range, she could even see whether the human’s eyes were open or not. The picket had thrown a fresh-cut branch of gorse onto the embers, and it flared and smoked. Day was only a few hours away. The dwarves slept in a huddle near the horses, where the picket could watch over them, too. It looked like they had three hounds with them, huddling together near the fire.

“Fools,” Tourmaline muttered. There were six dwarves, and six humans, with only one of them awake. If the dwarves had wanted, they could kill the picket and disappear into the dark before the rest could react.

But no. The humans would have the hounds after them. Only three. Better to kill the hounds and humans in their sleep. Tourmaline had never killed before, but she felt, in that moment, that it must not be hard. The hounds would bray at any trouble. It would be hard to kill them all unawares. Tourm ran through scenarios in her head. She could sneak up behind the picket—if the horses didn’t spook— and run him through with a spear.

But even if he didn’t cry out, the dogs. . . With the picket’s weapon, it would be three spears to the human’s armored and trained five. And would the dwarves wake, grasp the situation, and join her? Obey her in the chaos of surprise?

She couldn’t count on Salt, that was sure. Meekness. . . What about the others? What if they had to flee and leave some alive? With so little night left. . . She looked to the east. In less than three hours, the world would grow grey. She would bide her time, wait until the next night. Watch and plan her move. She crawled back from the edge of the hill, out of sight, and took shelter beneath a gorse thicket. She would sleep for a short time.

11

The Bridge

Awhinny woke Tourmaline. She knew in an instant that the humans were breaking camp. She crawled out from under the gorse and peeked down the hillside. Already, the men were mounted, the dwarves arrayed in single file. The sergeant waved his arm and the horses jerked forward, swishing their tails. The sergeant and two others rode in front of the dwarves, the other three behind. Tourmaline watched the line follow the low ground west between the hills. They kept to the track, narrow and only suitable for one horse at a time. It was clear enough of grass that it must see frequent enough use traversing the border region. Why were there dwarves moving up here to begin with? She hadn’t wondered that before, but now she did. It was odd. Could others have sought to flee north of the border? But why?

The horsemen passed out of sight, and she was wondering how long she should wait before trailing them when she heard a noise. Something behind her was moving down the hillside. At first, she suspected an animal. Maybe a goat. But then she caught the rhythm. Whatever it was, it walked on two feet. Tourmaline wanted to slide back under the gorse, but she couldn’t without rustling branches and scraping stones unless she went too slow for it to help in time. So she lay still, her neck craned back to listen, her hand grasping a spear.

She caught sight of muted color and motion beyond the scrub to her left. Tourmaline tried to smell, to catch a bit of a scent, anything to clue her in, but she detected nothing but the lingering scent of the horses. And then the figure slipped out from behind the thicket along the slope of the hill ahead of Tourmaline, hunched low.

Tourmaline couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a dwarf-maid, wearing a ragged dress that must have begun its life as a deep burgundy but now looked a sun-faded and dusty brown. Dwarf-maid though she clearly was, her hair was cut short, only reaching down to her shoulders. It stood out thick and curly around her head like the foliage of a tree, brown as a bay pony. Her feet were bare, and she wore a satchel over her shoulder.

Tourmaline whispered to her in their own language.

“Stay quiet, sister,” she said. The maid swung around in shock, her eyes wide. Her irises were a pale yellow. Cave eyes.

“Shit,” she said after a moment. “You scared me.”

“What are you doing here?” Tourmaline asked as she rose to a crouch. The dwarf-maid looked at the spears in each of Tourmaline’s hands. Tourmaline tried to keep from looking at the maid’s hair. She’d seen shearings before. It was not cut by the maid's own will.

“I have a feeling it might be the same as you,” the dwarf-maid answered. “I’m following my dwarf.”

“I’m not following my dwarf,” Tourmaline answered, but the other did not heed.

“We were supposed to marry next moon, but they took him. They’d already taken the rest, but more came out of nowhere and they found him.”

“They call me Tourmaline.”

“Agate,” she answered, still looking at the second spear. Tourmaline held it out to her. They were sisters of their folk. Agate walked over and took it, running her hands up the smooth darkened ash.

“Did you have a plan, Agate?”

“No.”

“How long have you been following them?”

“Four days.”

“What are you doing this far north?”

“The caravan was trying to stay out of the way. They kept coming, looking for more.”

Tourmaline nodded. That made sense, at least.

“I figured I could sneak him away in the night,” she said. “But I don’t know how. The hounds. I can’t even risk getting close.”

The hounds were a grave problem, but Tourmaline felt sure there must be a way around it. Her sense of certainty had yet to translate into any ideas. But she felt angry, and that would see her through for now.

“We’re going to free them,” she said.

“I just want mine,” Agate answered. “The law is Two of Five in Ten , not all of them.”

“Damn the law,” Tourmaline snapped. Agate leaned back, startled. Tourmaline motioned for her to follow. “Come on.”

Four hours later, Tourmaline’s spirits had cracked and scaled, a poor tempering job. However she’d convinced herself that two dwarf-maids with spears they didn’t know how to use could overcome six of the king’s horsemen and three hounds—when they couldn’t even risk getting close enough to be smelled—was laughable. What made it more galling was that the six dwarves marching stolidly and silently between the horsemen could have done a better job of it if they had half the gumption.

Agate stumbled and cursed.

“I don’t get why the king is in such a fit,” she said. “Does he really need so many to fight some ürsi?”

“Not even humans breed faster than ürsi,” Tourmaline replied. By her gauge, they were about two miles behind the humans. She didn’t want to straggle too far, nor get too close. The sun had grown increasingly hot on her neck. She wished for a veil, now. Badly. Her face already bore many of the sunmarks, the freckles. Her rhundal tattoo on her forehead was marked with them, too. She glanced at Agate. Well, perhaps her face wasn’t as bad as Agate’s for the freckles, but if Tourmaline kept to the sun like this, she’d look like so much brecciated jasper.

The horsemen stopped at another tower, the first and only they’d seen that day. The trail had veered southwest from the border itself, separating bit by bit from the line of forts. Agate and Tourmaline had to circle south through rough terrain, creeping behind bushes and scrub. They watched from cover on a rise southwest of the tower, waiting for the horsemen to set out again. Tourmaline didn’t want to get ahead or watch from near the trail for fear of the dogs catching their scent. So, they waited as the horsemen filed past in the afternoon, then trailed them again. By the end of the day, the dwarf-maids were exhausted and hungry. The horsemen camped near nightfall in a shallow basin littered with rocks near a low boggy pond. Horses and men and dwarves drank alike from it.

Tourmaline and Agate watched the camp from a hill a quarter of a mile downwind. Again and again Tourmaline silently rehearsed the possibilities. An outright attack was impossible. They weren’t warriors. Sneaking into the camp might work, except for the hounds.

Agate rolled over and put her hand on her belly.

“I’m so hungry,” she said. Tourmaline was hungry, too, but she didn’t say anything. There had been plenty of water to be found, with springs amidst the hills, but nothing to eat. . . Tourmaline’s ear twitched. Speaking of water, there was another murky pond a few hundred yards south, overgrown with moss. She faintly heard bullfrogs, and they had spears.

“Come on,” Tourmaline whispered before stalking away.

It seemed the frogs had few predators there, for they were plentiful and fat. They jigged until they had enough to fill their skirts. Agate refused to eat the frogs raw, so Tourmaline relented and they fled a mile south behind hills. There they lit a smokeless fire of dried sticks and roasted and feasted on frogs. Frogs never tasted so good without salt or herb, but they were hungry and felt full bellies, the first in a long time for both of them. But even amidst the relief, Tourmaline’s mind went in circles. Horses. Hounds. Men. Dwarves. A fool errand above all.

Another day passed, following a mile behind the horsemen, staring at the tracks in the dust. The frogs had boosted their mood for the night, but in the light of day, Agate and Tourmaline walked in silence, following the narrow track as it angled further south. Night fell again, the horsemen encamped, they hid downwind, and Agate gave vent to the frustration.

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit! What’s the point. We’re two dwarf-maids. We’ve got no chance fighting a troop of horsemen and hounds. This was stupid, and now I’m fifty miles from my caravan. In two more days, they’ll reach the Hill Road, and it’ll be crawling with gule-kulkur.”

Tourmaline knew she wasn’t wrong. The humans were half again their height, far more on horseback, with long lances and swords. Even the heads of the hounds hung at their chests. They were two dwarf-maids, not great warriors. The Crippled King, he was a great warrior, but he hadn’t fought men in open ground. Even in the Battle of Four Kings, her grandmother said he used traps. The Crippled King was known for traps. That was a dwarven warrior.

Tourmaline sprang to her feet. Agate flinched at the sudden movement.

“You’re right,” Tourm said. “We are dwarf-maids. We are dwarves. Follow me.”

She started to the west, into the night.

“Where are we going?” Agate hissed after her.

“We’re getting ahead of them.”

Tourmaline marched relentlessly through the night, making sure to cover more ground than the horsemen did in a day. Thankfully, the border track was deserted. A fair portion of the border guards who used the track would have already gone to join the host. But the Hill Road would be different, and they had to make their move before they reached it.

To her credit, Agate kept pace with Tourmaline, not entirely without complaint. Tourmaline refused to tell her the plan, but that was in part because she was still formulating it, scanning the landscape for opportunity. The most important thing for that first night was to hurry, to cover ground, to pad the miles between them. She ran over her inventory again and again. She only had her tinker tools. They weren’t the type of tools she could really put to good use. What was worse, the further west and south they went, the lower the hills rose. The Hill Road, despite its name, was at the bottom of the heathland that led up to the border. Bigger hills, rockier slopes would have been better, but she would find something. She had to find something.

The sun rose red and hazy and in the east, and still she marched, scanning the hillsides along the track for anything that might serve. Before two more hours passed, a steady drizzle began to fall, further reducing their spirits. Tourmaline had never walked this track before. She didn’t know the land. Even her own faith wavered, and Agate’s grumblings had fallen away into sullen, sodden fatigue. They had to hide once in the morning from two herdsmen driving a small flock back east. Agate was asleep when they’d finally passed, but Tourmaline shook her awake and they pressed on. Besides the herdsmen, they saw no-one and nothing other than the birds darting among the thickets or hanging in the sky high overhead.

“We have to stop,” Agate said at last. “We’ve been walking since yesterday morning.”

It must have been near midday, but the sky had thickened more and the rain steadily increased. Tourmaline was staring off ahead as she walked, and she realized she hadn’t really seen anything for a time. There was a short ridge not far ahead.

“We go to the rise, and look for a place to hide.” She already felt defeated.

They trudged to the rise, but as soon as Tourmaline’s head rose above the crest, the breeze reached her, and she smelled water. She heard it—no meager creek, but a rushing stream. They’d seen plenty of brooks and ponds in the heath, but they had not come upon any other rivers.

She stood atop the hill and looked down. A river rushed in a gouge across the heath, and across it a narrow wooden footbridge spanned.

“There! That’s it!” It was better than anything she’d hoped for.

“A bridge?”

“A trap.”

Feeling a surge of energy she had not thought her body still had, she rushed down the hill to the bridge. Agate followed only to the bottom of the hill, crawling into a thicket near the edge of the track and disappearing within the leaves and branches. Tourmaline strode onto the bridge and took stock with the gauging eye of a dwarf—bleary and red as that eye was.

The river was about twenty-three feet wide and swift. She couldn’t see the bottom in the middle. She examined the riverbank. It was obvious that at times the river was even higher, but the rain was helping. These low rocky hills with their dry summer soil would shed the water into the rills and down to the river. The bank was piled with cobbles and small boulders the size of her head. She stuck her spear down into the water. Within a foot of the edge it was already deep, and the current pulled against the haft.

And the bridge—that glorious piece of awful human engineering—had no piles in the river, just buried logs supporting the opposite ends on the riverbanks. Judging by the stones on the bank, the displaced earth, at peak flood the bridge would be barely three feet above the water. It was built just wide enough for a small cart to cross, but not by much. Her mother would never have taken the caravan over it.

She got down to the riverbank and peered up at the underside of the bridge. Two large logs supported it on either side, with a thinner log in the middle to brace the center of the double layer of split planks. Each layer of plank lay in alternating directions. For a simple foot bridge, the platform was strong enough, but it was built in three sections, a short ramp on either side and a flat central span, and holding up the three spanning logs were those two bracing posts at each end, joined in the middle by a cross-piece that supported the central log. That meant that the weight of the whole bridge rested on four short segments of log, two on either side of the river, their bottoms buried an unknown depth in the ground.

She needed tools. She needed a saw at the least, but she had none.

What did she have? She glanced at her spear. The blade was a fine hewing form, nine inches of good dwarven steel, a smooth blade. She had her tinker anvil, her chisels still, and a hammerhead without a handle. Rasps and files. She had everything she needed. She felt the weight of her wet braid and looked up at the grey sky, the falling rain, and willed it to continue, to grow, to swell.

12

Liberators

Tourmaline slept beneath a bramble on the eastern side of the river. The rush of the swollen river covered her with its din, a pleasing dull throb that blocked out any other sound in the world. The rain stopped before she’d finished her work. Despite her hardest efforts, it had taken her the rest of the day and all the night to finish, and she didn’t know how she'd managed to stay on her feet. She wouldn’t have managed if Agate hadn’t crawled out from under the bushes that evening, wet and miserable but able to help. It hadn’t taken her long to grasp the plan.

Tourmaline had stayed awake for two days, but she’d finally closed her eyes at dawn as Agate kept watch. The short line of horsemen and dwarves should arrive sometime that day, but they couldn’t be sure when. Tourmaline expected around midday. She hoped it wasn’t sooner. She couldn’t go on without a bit of sleep. It was risky, staying so close to the track and the bridge. When the hounds arrived, their scent would be everywhere. They couldn’t risk being too far, either.

It felt like she’d just closed her eyes when Agate shook her shoulder, but the sun had crossed its zenith and was breaking through scattering clouds. Tourmaline saw in Agate’s expression that it was time. She slid her knees up under her, trying to keep from tangling in her skirts. She felt for her spear, but it had moved. Agate slid it toward her. Tourmaline glanced at the blade. So, Agate had worked to re-hone it as much as she could, filing down some of the blockier teeth. She must have been at it for hours. She could still see hints of the serrations she’d chiseled and sharpened into the blade when she’d turned it into a makeshift pole saw.

Tourmaline looked to the track. The first horsemen had started down the hill. They looked damp, grim, and somehow bored. They must know that in a few more days, they’d join a host set for a battle, and maybe those days would be their last. But whether they dwelled on that Tourmaline didn’t know. They did not look expectant of any surprise. The river had swelled, rushing deeper and faster, but it had not emerged from its rocky bounds—it was still the middle of the summer, and the water was low before the rain.

The line emerged in perfect order, three horsemen descending the hill first, then the six dwarves. She picked Salt’s face out from among them, the second in the line. His beard had grown longer since she’d first seen him. It gave him a more worthy, dwarven look, short though it remained. Though a meek dwarf could hardly claim worthiness. She was about to show him how the meekness of a dwarf-maid looked.

“There he is,” Agate whispered. She didn’t point. Tourmaline hadn’t a clue which one she meant.

Then came the final three horsemen. The true danger for the moment was the three hounds, but even they plodded along with a bored, grim demeanor, their necks long and low, their red coats a darker auburn from the damp. She worried though. They hung back toward the rear of the dwarves. Normally they ran toward the front, sniffing ahead at the path. She needed them in the front.

But then, Agate had accounted for that, too. She was a clever one, it turned out. Tourmaline watched as the first hound reached the scent mark—a drizzle of blood. The hound’s ears pricked back, his nose twitched, and his muzzle darted against the ground. The other hounds noticed and huddled around, starting to huff along the dirt track. The lead horsemen approached the bridge. From within their thicket, behind the extra branches they’d cut and padded in front of them, Tourmaline and Agate watched. The hounds had taken the scent—and not their scent.

The beasts rushed past the dwarves, scanning the ground with their noses for more of that scent. The ground would be a chaos of smells, but the humans wouldn’t have a clue. Their horses side-stepped, but their riders took little notice. The sergeant rode in the lead up the short ramp and onto the planks of the bridge. He had to cajole the sides of his mount for a moment, but the courser gave in and stepped forward over the racing water. Tourmaline saw the planks give and rebound just slightly with the steps. Her heart raced. She had checked and double checked, but she’d been so tired. What if she had miscalculated? What if it didn’t work? There wasn’t much to keep it from giving too soon, or worse, not at all.

The second rider followed onto the bridge, and then the third, their horses less hesitant with another to follow. But the hounds found more drops of blood, and they traced them onto the planking, sniffing left and right, then along the hooves of the horses. Then the lead hound saw it:

Just at the top of the far ramp lay a dead rabbit, its blood smeared on its grey fur. As it turned out, Agate had the trapping skill of the tinker dwarves in excess—given a few hours to fashion her clever snares. The hounds bolted past the horses’ legs. The lead charger whinnied and angled away as the sergeant cursed the dogs and tried to straighten his mount on the narrow bridge. A hound snatched the rabbit in its jaws even as the other hounds growled and snapped and leapt. A whirl of hound-bodies rolled down the far ramp, paying no attention to a thin, tough wire of Tourmaline’s own twisted hair tied to the leg of that rabbit. The wire ran over the edge of the ramp to a carved pin beneath the bridge—a pin precisely set in a brace that wouldn’t fall for all the horses in the column so long as that pin remained in its sloped channel. But with a firm sideways tug. . .

If she had carved it right. . .

If she had greased it well enough with rabbit fat. . .

She saw the string of her hair snap tight, flipping one of the hounds over as the rabbit jerked in its mouth.

No. . . That tug should have done it. The sergeant righted his charger on the bridge, cussed at the hounds, and pressed his heels to drive forward. A second hound got purchase on the rabbit.

No, they’d tear it apart. The hounds rolled. The string snapped taught again.

And the bridge gave, the central span dropping sideways in a single blink as one of the two remaining support logs collapsed. It went so fast that the horses and the men did not have time to scream before they plunged into the rushing water. The first dwarf in line had already set one foot onto the span as it collapsed. He nearly toppled in as well, but Salt reached out and yanked him back. Tourmaline’s heart skipped. She'd nearly killed him. She didn’t know a dwarf who knew how to swim. She’d expected the hounds to act sooner. The plan was to catch one, maybe two horsemen on the bridge.

In a show of loyalty, the hounds forgot the rabbit and raced to the edge of the water. Tourmaline barely glimpsed a horse’s kicking, swirling legs. The hounds raced downstream, following the flow of the water and glimpses of their masters.

“Come on!” one of the remaining horsemen shouted, spurring his horse downstream. She heard shouts mixed in with the roar. Another of the horseman raced after the first. Tourmaline gripped her spear, staring at the third. This one they would have to kill, she and Agate, rushing forward as quickly as. . .

The third horseman wheeled round, looked down at the dwarves in the line, and shouted:

“Stay!”

And then he too raced downstream after his companions. Tourmaline could hardly believe it. She waited until the hoof-beats passed the thicket. She could hear the shouting and baying behind her. Agate sprung forward first.

“Tarbelt!”

“Shush girl,” Tourmaline hissed, but she followed.

The dwarves had cringed back from the water, and now they stared in shock as the two dwarf-maids rushed up to them wielding spears.

“Agate! What are you doing here?” Tarbelt asked. He stepped forward, a round-bellied dwarf with blond hair.

So that was him. Tourm felt a bit surprised. Then she heard her own name.

“Tourmaline?” Salt said. “What?”

“Shut up and listen to me, all of you!” she snapped. The dwarves stared. She looked a mess, but she’d given no thought to her appearance those past days. “We’re going, now! North! Go! Follow me!” She pushed through them.

“What?” one of the dwarves asked. “We can’t go.”

“What’s going on?” another said.

Tourmaline whirled back on them.

“You shut up and do what I say before any of them make it back. Their hounds are across the river.” She glanced downstream. She saw a riderless horse limping on the far bank, but the stream's course bent fifty yards beyond them and she saw nothing but scrub brush and gorse. The baying still rang clear. “Go!” she lowered her spear at them. She’d stick them in their fat paunches if she had to.

“Come on,” Salt said, and he broke north. Agate and Tarbelt followed. Tourmaline trailed them, and she heard others behind. She glanced. They were all there, rushing north along the riverbank.

“Hold on!” Salt yelled. They had come to a rainwater rill still flowing from the low hills after the recent showers.

“What?” Tourmaline gasped.

“Follow it. Keep your feet in the water!”

They did, splashing and sloshing away from the river, slipping on cobbles. Tourmaline went to her knees once and Salt grabbed her arm and dragged her up. She shook him off. She didn’t need his help. They followed the brook until it grew too small, and then Salt dashed away north and east, pushing into the hills. Unable to keep their wind so long, they slowed to a walk, but they’d already put high ground between them and the river. They had to make as much distance as they could.

They saw nothing but crows and hawks and a few skittering rabbits. Their clothes dried in the sun. First a mile, then two, then five fell away in a zigzag flight between low hills. When evening fell, they huddled in a depression near a small trickle of fresh water. They could have gone on—the night was not too dark for dwarves—but they feared falling in with the border guards and their hounds.

So they sat in a close circle surrounded by brush and gorse, and they muttered their council. It had taken the other dwarves little time to understand the bridge had been sabotaged. They'd seen the tool-cuts on the posts after the collapse. Two other rescued dwarves besides Tarbelt were from Agate’s caravan, and when they saw her, it didn’t take a lot of figuring that the maids had been responsible.

“A lot of trouble you fool maids have gotten us into,” grumbled one.

“And who are you?” Tourmaline snapped.

“They call me Hooknose.”

Tourmaline actually looked at his face.

Yes, well, that name made sense. Beyond the nose, he had a forked beard tied in bands and thinning hair on his head.

“Well, your hooked words are not welcome. Better to thank those who saved you than insult them.”

“They’ll hunt us. We’re fugitives now. And they may visit retribution on the next caravan they find. You’ve killed them. Even a human could tell the bridge was sabotaged if they look.”

“You could have stayed behind,” Agate answered. She sat shoulder against shoulder next to Tarbelt. She’d drawn her knees up in front of her and wrapped her arms around them.

“I should have, but they would have questions, and why would they believe anything I said? They’d want blood.”

Another of the dwarves muttered agreement.

“Had they taken your names yet?” Tourmaline asked.

“They took us from our caravans.”

“But what is one caravan or another to them?”

“That’s not a good thing. Word will spread,” the forked dwarf answered.

“They were taking every dwarf they could find. Every one.” It was Agate, and her tone betrayed her anger.

“They’d have let us go after the campaign. They couldn’t keep all of us.”

“Don’t sound so cock sure, lad.” The speaker was the only dwarf with gray hair among them, apart from Salt’s scattered white. “The human king does what he wants. His laws are what he makes them. And who of us would fight?”

“I did,” Tourmaline answered. She glanced at Agate. “We did. When all the dwarves in the kingdom rolled over to the humans, two dwarf-maids fought.”

There was silence for a while after that. Tourmaline felt like her statement must have hit the mark, but then the gray-haired dwarf turned to Salt and spoke again.

“We’ve both been in the mines before. What say you?”

“I came north for a purpose, and I’ll keep to it.”

“And what purpose is that? You were close-lipped before.”

Salt sighed and looked at Tourmaline.

“I’m not sure I’m the best to tell that tale.”

The older dwarf followed Salt’s gaze to Tourmaline.

“There is something else here, more than lovers reunited.”

“We’re no lovers,” Tourmaline said. “We’re headed north into the wilds.” She reached inside the double-lined pocket of her dress.

When Tourmaline finished the display of both medallion and map, the others were silent, looking back and forth. The response reminded her exactly of how her own caravan had taken the news. She explained the significance as best she could in few words. As the dwarves said: five words better than ten, and one better than five. It was a saying that made up ten words, incidentally.

The older dwarf once more turned to Salt.

“And you take this for truth?”

“The medallion is real, there is no doubt. It is living steel, like our ancestors carried down with them. It is a map.”

“And what if it is,” said forked-beard. “It’s still death up there.”

“There will never be a better time, with the ürsi to the west along the sea,” Tourmaline interjected. They ignored her. That made her angry. “Is there no dwarf left worthy of our ancestors?”

The old dwarf looked at her with gauging eyes that gleamed in the light of the night sky.

“Maid, that you’ve found one to join you is a surprise to me.”

She clenched her jaw.

“Well, I want to go with Tourm,” Agate said. Tourmaline was surprised how quickly Agate had taken to using the familiar nickname. “We won’t be able to live in peace until we’re away from these gule-kulkur.”

“Agate, this is not wise.” Tarbelt lay a hand on her shoulder. She shot him a fierce look.

“Nor was chasing after you, but here we are, and you free.”

He withdrew his hand.

“We must rest, at any rate,” the older dwarf said. “In the morning is the time for decision. Then we must each choose our way.”

Like it or not, the rest took that advice, and they curled up to sleep, empty-bellied beneath the open sky. As she lay down, Tourmaline promised herself again that one day she would have a stonehold, not subject to wind or rain or snow or sun. . . or the timidity of others.

13

Separating

As upset as she was, her exhaustion won over and it was Salt who shook Tourmaline awake in the morning.

“It’s time,” he said. She sat up, her eyes heavy. A few were already on their feet. Agate and Tarbelt sat nearby, side by side. She looked defiant, and he looked sullen and resigned. Each had their arms folded over their chests.

“We’re going back south,” said Hooknose. “And you’re fools not to come with us. We should try to leave Laith. Maybe go to Corrilain.”

“Things aren’t good in Corrilain either,” said the older dwarf.

“Well, I doubt they’re conscripting every dwarf they find.”

“Tarbelt,” said one of the other dwarves. “This is not wise. Come back to the caravan with us.”

“We’re not going,” Agate answered.

“Tarbelt?” the dwarf asked again, ignoring Agate. Tarbelt sighed.

“Agate is not going,” he said. “That is why I am not going.”

The other shrugged.

“You’re fools,” said Hooknose, pulling on one end of his forked beard, and then he turned south and walked away. Three others followed him. That left. . . Tourmaline stared at the older dwarf. He wasn’t moving.

“Are you not going?”

He shook his head.

“Why?” she asked.

“My reasons will remain with me for now, maid. Perhaps, at least, I may be of use.”

“What do they call you?” Salt asked.

“Mudhorn.”

“Well, Mudhorn. You’re as stupid as I am, but here we are.”

“Not as stupid as I am,” Tarbelt muttered. Agate jabbed him with her elbow. They watched the others disappear into the scrub hills to the south.

Agate popped up to her feet with a sudden smile.

“Well,” she said. “Where exactly are we headed? North?”

“I’d like to see the map more closely,” Mudhorn said. Tourmaline had told them of the map the previous night, and Salt had confirmed the story, but it had been too dark to examine the faint lines. She reached into her deep skirt pocket and pulled out the crumpled leather, then unfolded it. She flipped it over to the reverse side, where her blood had stained it. It still felt damp in her hands after being soaked by the rain, and as she looked at the mark, she realized it had faded almost entirely.

“The rain has washed it away. I’ll have to make a new impression.”

“Do you have any ink?” Mudhorn asked.

“No. We can use blood,” she answered.

“It is not wise to open the flesh, especially in the wilds. For now, we can do something temporary.” He reached out his hand. “May I see the bucket?”

They emptied Tourmaline’s tools out of the bucket, and Mudhorn dipped it into the nearby rill, collecting just a little water within. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rock with a dark light-catching sheen. Tourmaline recognized it immediately as flint.

“Found this in the camp a couple nights ago,” he said. “Always good to keep a piece of flint about.” He looked at Agate. “Maid, behind you in the gorse. There’s an old bird’s nest.” Agate stood to go get it. “And Tarbelt, climb up this hill and make sure no one’s about.”

Tarbelt made his way up the rise as Agate brought the old nest. Mudhorn broke it apart in his wide weathered hands, snapping the fine twigs and downy batting. Salt caught on and brought some slightly larger sticks next.

“A piece of steel,” Mudhorn said, holding out his hand. Tourmaline gave him a chisel from her tools. Mudhorn glanced at Tarbelt, who signaled all clear. It was the work of a few moments to send sparks into the tinder and blow up a tongue of flame. Mudhorn only let it burn long enough to get coals, then he doused it. Using two rocks, he pulverized the coals into black silt, then slowly added it to a bit of water at the bottom of the tin bucket while he stirred rapidly with a stick. The solution turned black and thickened as he let more of the mix trickle in from his fingers. After a while, he nodded.

“There,” he said. “Use that.”

Tourmaline looked in the bucket. It had taken no more than ten minutes, and yet it looked and moved like thick ink. It worked like it too, leaving a fine dark impression on the leather, far more legible than blood.

They all sat cross-legged around the map, looking at it with crooked necks.

“So the map doesn’t even show all the way here to the border,” Tarbelt said. He pointed to the southern edge of the map. “How far from here to where we are?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be too far,” Tourmaline said.

“Why not?”

The question irritated her, in part because she didn’t know why not.

“What’s important is that we veer eastward as we go. We must stay clear of the ürsi.”

“If this is the coast,” Mudhorn interrupted. “And this is Ice-Cloak.” He pursed his lips. “No. There’s no way to tell how far for sure, but. . .” He fell silent.

“What is it?” Salt asked. Mudhorn squinted at the map. “This river. Two headwaters run down from the mountains and join here at this fork, then it continues down to the edge.”

“Ay, yes.”

“It must go to the sea, eventually.”

“We don’t want to go toward the sea,” Tarbelt said. “That’s where the ürsi are, and the humans.”

Mudhorn grunted.

“But if we find the river, we would know that Ice-Cloak is between its two headwaters.” He pointed at both places on the map with his fingers spread. “It would turn our search from an entire mountain range, the whole Kara-Indal, to just a few peaks.”

“It’s true,” Salt said. “If we keep to the left branch, until we see these hills to east and west, then leave the stream for the northeast. . .” His finger traced over to the lake, to Ice-Cloak, to Illenfarner.

“The ürsi and the humans should be no more than four days west of where we are now,” Mudhorn said. “And it’s not likely they’ll come east without a battle. If the river reaches the sea, then we should find it if we head due north—” he glanced at Tourmaline. “—if we do not go too far east.”

Tourmaline didn’t like that Salt and Mudhorn were making these decisions without her, but she didn’t know what to interject, either.

“I’d prefer to run as little risk of being eaten alive as possible,” Tarbelt said.

“I’m afraid the risk is high that we’ll all end up in the belly of a beast,” Mudhorn replied. “Are you all still planning to go?” He scanned their faces.

“Ay, yes,” Tourmaline said.

“I’m going with Tourmaline,” Agate answered.

Salt and Tarbelt merely nodded.

“There it is.” Mudhorn looked at Salt. Salt looked at Tourmaline. She realized he was waiting for something from her. A decision, maybe.

“We shouldn’t waste time. We need to get past the border.”

“We also need food,” Agate said. “We should keep our eyes out for rabbit warrens. They’re all through these hills.”

Tourmaline nodded. No doubt they could all use more food than they’d gotten lately. Say what you will about caravan life, but between scavenging the land and tinkering, she hadn’t gone hungry much. She wondered where her mother was, if they’d found another caravan, if she was safe. Copperwheel would be wondering the same about her. She shook the thought from her head, grabbed the map, and rolled it up.

“Let’s go.”

They couldn’t let caution go to the wind—far from it. They didn’t know exactly where they were, or how far from the border, but Salt expected to reach it by nightfall or maybe the next day. Mudhorn and Tarbelt agreed. For Tourmaline, the last few days, so low on sleep, had become a bit of a haze, and she could not reckon the distances.

Salt and Tarbelt carried the spears. Tourmaline wanted to hold on to hers, but the dwarves, with their broader shoulders and thicker arms, were more likely to put them to good use. She focused on thinking. In the afternoon, Agate spied a rabbit warren on a hillside, and in less than an hour she’d laid three out in a row.

“Good eating, these,” Agate muttered. “Give me a day and a night, I’d have thrice this many snared.” But they had forbidden her from using smoke on the hillside for fear of border guards, and they had no time for snaring. So Agate had employed a mix of rooting into the warren dens with the spears and her own arms. Tourmaline had never seen anyone work a rabbit warren like Agate. She seemed to know exactly what holes they should guard, and how to drive the creatures through. She snagged one with her bare hands as it fled and snapped its neck with a sharp twist.

They did not stop to cook the rabbits. There was no way to tell how near the humans might be. They did gut, clean, rinse, and parcel them out. Their hunger drove them to chew on bits of the raw meat, though Tarbelt mumbled at it. The rest, they would hope to cook once they’d passed the border. It was nearly sunset when they saw the ugly squat dry-stone form of a tower looming up ahead of them. Even at a distance, they could see men and hounds moving about amid the low barns that clustered near the tower. It was a clear day. A long swell of heather-choked ground blocked the western horizon, but they could make out a structure a couple miles to the east—most likely another guard outpost.

“We can go no further in the daylight,” Salt whispered to Tourmaline. They huddled in the gorse to keep out of sight. “We should make our way east. Try to go between the towers.”

“No.” Tourmaline shook her head. Already the sun had fallen below the hills, and the sparse clouds flared like amethysts in the pale sky. “We must stay due south of the tower.”

“Salt makes better sense,” Tarbelt said, not as quiet as he ought. For the first time, Tourmaline realized that others were using the name she’d given Salt, but she pushed the thought aside.

“Look.” Tourmaline pointed. Some of the humans stood in a line, and others brought hounds on leashes. “They will hunt again tonight. They patrol the border with hounds, and the beasts will find a dwarf as soon as an ürsi.”

“So the whole thing is foolish,” Tarbelt spat. Agate frowned, but she said nothing.

“Why stay south of the tower?” Salt asked.

“Because it is the least likely place for ürsi to be, and so the least likely place to hunt.” Salt looked from her to the tower, weighing the words. “Think about it,” Tourmaline went on. “They must hunt the land between the towers to make sure the ürsi don’t break through in the night. That means' they'll go away from the towers. With so few men left, they’ll hunt the most likely places where goblins might sneak through. We need to pass as close to the towers as we dare.”

“As close?” Tarbelt asked. “It’s bad enough we have to pass by hounds, but now we must pass under the nose of their tower?”

“The maid speaks sense,” Mudhorn said. “If we seek to pass, we should pass close to the tower, and early.”

Tarbelt’s frown deepened. He turned to Agate, ignoring the others. When he spoke, his voice had more of the tone of imploring than the scorn he had reserved for Tourmaline’s plan.

“This is not wise. Why do you insist on this?”

Agate did not look at him, nor did she look at Tourmaline. Instead, she stared down, her brow furrowed.

“I’m going at darkfall,” Tourmaline said. “Come who may.” With that, she stepped away, moving ahead to another cluster of gorse. There she sat in the shadow and waited.

It wasn’t long before Salt approached, crouching down to sit cross-legged beside her. He said nothing, but snapped off a piece of gorse and started twisting it in his hands, picking off the barbs and flicking them away with his fingers. It was the nature of a dwarf to have busy hands. Her mother had always reminded her, “still your hands or find real work to do,” when she’d seen Tourmaline picking at things as a gilna. It could still be an effort to keep her hands still, but she remembered her mother’s words.

Copperwheel never said it outright, but Tourmaline had always known that her mother intended her to lead the caravan after her—not go off into the wildlands. Tourm glanced at Salt’s hands picking at the gorse. They were thick, with short, dirty fingernails. She wondered if he’d had a mother who told him to still his hands, or if no one said that to gilke. Of course, the gilke were raised half-feral. Most expected to end up in the king’s mines. They didn’t even take their apprenticing seriously, not unless they came back. She thought of those she’d seen return in her short years. Some, but not many. It was the wifs who had to keep the folk together.

And Salt’s silence and fiddling annoyed her.

“You dwarves should be ashamed for cowards,” she said. Salt sighed and threw away the gorse. But he didn’t respond. “The only one here who understands is Agate, and even she is doubting.”

So was Tourmaline. But she could never face herself if she turned back, even though she felt a deep gnawing in the pit of her stomach telling her to turn south, flee, find Copperwheel. Mother. It made her feel spiteful.

“And Tarbelt just follows her, tries to talk her out of it. And who knows why Mudhorn’s here, the secret-keeper.”

“You will not gain love or loyalty with scorn,” Salt said, his brow growing dark as it furrowed. “It is hard to warm oneself from the heat of a distant fire. So it is with distant hope.” He snapped another piece of gorse from the bush and looked at her, his grey eyes piercing. Slate eyes. “Your hope is distant, and your scorn close. Maybe we should go south. Maybe you should go south.” He flicked a gorse barb away with his fingernail.

“Maybe we deserve it all, with all the cowards among you. If even half were born to be maids, it wouldn’t be so.”

“You selfish branna,” Salt said.

“You shit,” Tourm snapped back. “You’d have gone back and mined coal for the king.”

“You think us dwarves weak? Maybe you’re right. We came to the human lands as refugees, frail and few. Do you not think that many of the dwarves would have rather fought and died than live in servitude? We had the blood of Ice-Cloak in our veins. But we couldn't fight and let our maids and wifs and babes live.”

“That was nine hundred years ago.”

“And what has changed?” Salt snapped. “I did not give up my honor by serving the king. We work and die to protect you. To fight meant to bring reprisals on you. So no dwarf fought, even when our fists clenched the hafts of our picks and our teeth broke from gritting. Those who died around me in the mines did not die of cowardice. We were sacrifices offered so that you might live in peace. And you call us cowards. You don’t comprehend strength. It was meekness that kept the hair on your head at the tower. It kept you in a safe bed in the caravan for years, though I’d never met you.”

A dwarf had never spoken to Tourmaline with such vehemence. She stared, her nostrils flaring. Salt spoke again before she could form a retort.

“It is easy to dream of ancient legends from the north when you’re lying for hours on your own bed in a warm caravan,” he said. “I dreamed only of tomorrow for thirty-three years. It is a fool’s errand.”

“So, why did you come with me?”

That question struck Salt silent for a time. His jaw jutted forward as he thought, rolling the mashed gorse in his fingers.

“Whether the legends are true or not, it makes little difference. I came on this journey not to chase some dragon tale, but to keep you safe, if I could.

“Why do you care?”

He looked at her, his grey eyes piercing and dark. For a moment, it looked as if he would laugh.

“Why do you care?” he asked her back, then threw the gorse aside and left her there.

14

Into the Wilds

Mudhorn lay in the shade, his eyes closed. Tarbelt and Agate were locked in their own conversation, for all indications oblivious to the world around them. The hillside lay in deep shadow. Mudhorn must have been awake, just resting, for he heard Tourmaline approach and looked up. He nodded, his eyes narrowing briefly. Tourmaline knew she looked agitated.

“Tell me, Mudhorn. Why are you coming? Tell me before we venture this.”

He pushed off with his elbows and climbed to his feet with a sigh.

“Why bother with a graybeard’s history, maid?”

“You’re not all grey yet.” She tried to sound firm. He smirked, lifting his beard away from his chest to peer at it.

“It won’t be long.” He sighed again, but Tourmaline stared at him until he spoke.

“I worked the mines for thirty-seven years. When I returned, my betrothed had married. I left for a different caravan, and another, and another. I have found little of interest. But never in my life had I seen living steel. Perhaps there is more in this world my eyes may yet see.”

“Why didn’t you run from the mines? Or fight?”

“To keep my betrothed from the revenge of humans. She’s what I thought of for thirty-seven years.”

And yet she married another. Tourmaline’s chest felt like a doused forge, just wet coal and the certainty that she’d acted the fool. In the distance, she heard a horn blast and the baying of hounds. It was time. She’d wasted so much time and energy being angry at dwarves. Yet they were her folk. Her enemies lay just to the north, and her heritage beyond.

“Come,” she said. She looked over at Agate and Tarbelt. The horn blast had caught their attention, too. “Gather round.” She glanced at Salt. He rose and came to join them. She could not read Agate or Tarbelt’s expressions when they came to stand next to her. Salt did not meet her gaze. Mudhorn stared off to the north, his expression flat.

“If you do not wish to come, I do not blame you. I have been a fool, and I admit it now.” She looked at Salt. He glanced at her, but only for a moment. “Our folk have suffered long. I do not go to the north to abandon them. I go so that I may return with certainty, and lead them away to where we will be slaves and wanderers no more. If you go with me, go for that.”

Agate’s mouth flickered into the slightest of smiles. She looked at Tarbelt, but he only looked tired, and her smile faded.

“I’m going,” she said, but not to Tourmaline. “I do not bind you. Find another if you must. It won’t change my love. I will be happy to know you free of the mines. But I do not want to raise my children to know only subjugation. Not when there is the chance of a home.”

“I doubt it’s true,” Tarbelt said. “Or that we can survive the journey. But if I have children, you will be their mother. I go.” He reached out and took her hand in his.

“Time for words when the hounds don’t call,” Mudhorn said.

“Right.” Tourmaline turned to the north and motioned for them to follow.

A smell of animals and manure drifted from the tower enclosure. A low dry-stone wall ringed around the collection of huts and barns that sheltered beneath the main fortification. It wasn’t enough to call a village—more a large farm with a stubby tower in the middle. The dwarves crouched in the shadows of brush about fifty yards to the south and west of the wall, but in the cool of the night air, smells carried.

To the east and to the west, she could hear the occasional baying of hounds, but none were close.

“Why are we stopping?” Salt whispered. “Let’s go!”

Tourmaline stared at the tower. She could see the faint glow of an oil lamp, but otherwise the fortification looked still and barren. There must be someone inside. The humans wouldn’t have left it empty. But they had so few, what with the levies. They’d seen the hunting party move off to the west in the gloaming, carrying lanterns, the dogs running ahead.

Tourmaline glanced at Salt, nodded, and kept moving. Her heart pounded, even though her mind told her that no human could see their low forms skirting around the outpost. They’d chosen to pass on the west, downwind from the slight night breeze. They slipped past without even so much as a dog barking. If only it had been so easy the first time. Yet that would have meant that Agate, Tarbelt, and Mudhorn wouldn’t be with them. Tourmaline’s previous capture felt a long time ago.

They passed by the outpost, and Tourmaline hesitated, looking back at the silhouette of the tower against the night sky. She’d heard nothing from within the enclosure. It was only an hour since nightfall when the hunters had left.

“What?” Salt asked.

“There’s barely anyone still here.”

“Good. We should move,” Salt said.

“Wait.” She stopped, and the others did too, looking back at her with furrowed brows. “Let’s rob them.”

“What?” Salt asked.

“Like we did in the village. We need supplies. Tools. Anything.”

“It’s too risky. These are warriors.”

“This might be our last chance to stick a thumb in their eye for a long time.”

“There must be guards. None of us are killers.”

Tourmaline saw in her mind the three horsemen falling noiselessly into the rushing river. She wondered if they’d all made it out. Had she already begun killing? She hadn’t thought of it like that at the time. The trap hadn’t felt quite the same as ramming a spear through someone’s guts. She shook her head. That didn’t matter now. They were about to go into the wild with two spears and a few bits of rabbit.

“I’m going. Take them on.” Tourmaline started toward the tower.

“I’m coming,” Salt said. That was good. She hadn’t thought to grab one of the spears. She glanced back and saw that Agate, Tarbelt, and Mudhorn followed too. This might be the dumbest thing she could do. But she knew they needed every bit of help they could get for the wildlands, and theirs was not an endeavor to be blessed by cowardice.

Like the other outposts they’d seen, this one had its gate on the south face of the protective wall. There was not a true gate at this outpost, just an opening in the dry-stone flanked by ditches. Tourmaline crept up to it, trying to tread lightly. The hounds worried her most. A mix of manure, horse, chicken, and pig smells wafted from within. She saw no one near the opening. Salt kept by her side as she crept forward.

Light covered the inside of the enclosure, cast by an oil lamp hanging above the tower door, but she knew that to a human, it would only illumine a small area. What worried her most and made her stop and crouch was the hound sprawled in the dirt in front of the door. It took a deep, snoring breath.

“Let’s leave,” Salt whispered. Tourmaline shook her head. It was one hound. There were bound to be some left behind. So long as there weren’t many, they could handle them with the spears. Tourmaline reached into the bucket and grabbed one of her narrow chisels. In a pinch, it was better than nothing. Hunched over, she took a few more halting steps into the enclosure. They didn’t have forever. She didn’t know how long the humans would stay out patrolling, but if they returned soon it would be over for the dwarves.

The hound snored on. She moved to the nearest low building. Immediately, the smell of latrine punched her in the nose, congealing out of the confusingly potent mix of scents in the enclosure. She passed by to the next building, a long low structure made of a mix of wood and stone. She could hear the heavy footsteps of the others behind her. They were not natural sneak-thieves, that was sure.

She glanced toward the hound. It had raised its head, and it stared in their direction, sniffing. Surely, it should see them. Hear them. But then she saw its eyes glinting with a white haze in the lamplight. Of course. It was an old bitch. It could smell them, but it could hardly see and probably hardly hear. The hound groaned and climbed to its feet. Its hips were bony. It took a step toward them, its nose raised to sniff the air.

Tourmaline pulled open the door to the barn. Inside, she could smell livestock. Chickens and pigs. The others huddled around her.

“Agate,” she whispered, pointing inside. “Wring a couple necks for us.”

“Tarbelt and Mudhorn, check the other buildings.”

It was dangerous to split up, but it was dangerous to linger. The hound stepped toward them again, took a long huff of the air, and then loosed a low, meager howl, trailing off into more snuffling. The other dwarves hesitated.

“Go!” Tourmaline hissed. They scattered. “Come on,”she said to Salt as she clutched her chisel and stepped toward the hound. It was just an old bitch. She could do this. She could do this. A quick blow with the chisel to the skull. Or Salt could spit it with the spear. With its head still raised blindly into the night air, it howled again, then barked. A few answering barks and a howl sounded from across the enclosure. Oh no. Tourmaline looked back, expecting to see hounds rushing from the dark.

“What is it?” a voice called from within the tower. Tourmaline rushed forward. The hound lowered its belly to the ground and snarled. Tourmaline stopped, her heart ramming in her chest. The tower door opened. “Another fox, old girl?” said a tall man as he stepped out into the lamplight. He wore a sword and dirk at his side, but no armor. He looked up and saw Tourmaline at the edge of the light. His face went slack. Salt rushed forward. The hound snapped but missed. The man’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, but Salt’s spear-blade was at his chest. The hound spun in circles, snapping and growling, too blind and deaf to grab hold of Salt.

“Listen to me and you live,” Salt said, his speech thick and accented in the human tongue. The man raised his hands to shoulder height, palms open. At that moment, Tarbelt thumped out of the dark, spear clutched, his eyes shining wide in the lamplight. He had a thick coil of rope slung over one shoulder.

“Dwarves? What the hell are you doing?” the human asked, his voice loud in the night.

“If you listen, then we’re robbing you. If you don’t, then we’re killing you,” Salt said. “Grab the hound.” The man hesitated. “Do it or we kill it.”

“Don’t kill her. She’s a blind old thing.” He stepped forward. “Easy girl, easy.” The hounds ears laid back, and she sniffed at his hand, then pressed her head against it. He took hold of the scruff of her neck. “Easy. Sit. Good girl.” He patted her head. Tourmaline could not fathom the human love of those beasts.

“Who else is here?” Salt asked. The man looked at the spear in Salt’s hands, then at his clothes, then over at Tourmaline. His eyes flicked out toward the dark.

“I’ve got some fat ones,” Agate said, sticking her head out of the shed.

“What are you little goat-legged fuckers thinking?” the man asked. “How many of you are there?”

“More than you want to deal with. Who else is here?”

“I’m not telling you nothing.”

Salt pressed the spear against the man’s chest. He looked at Salt’s hands.

“Don’t. You may be tall, but we’re stronger than you. Up against the wall. Go on! Face it!”

The man pulled the hound after him and stood facing the stone wall. Mudhorn stomped out of the dark, two burlap sacks over his shoulder and arms laden with tools.

“There’s a kennel on the far side, but it’s locked up.”

“Hold him here,” Salt ordered Tarbelt.

Tarbelt put his spear against the man’s back as Salt moved toward the open door of the tower. There was a faint glimmer of light within, like a low fire. Tourmaline rushed up to the human and slipped the knot on his sword-belt. It fell from his waist with dirk and sword, and she took it with her into the tower after Salt.

The layout of the tower was nearly identical to the one they’d been inside days before. An outer corridor, a stair running upwards, and an inner door. Tourmaline rushed to the door to the inner chamber and looked inside. It was empty, just a low cookfire. She hurried to the far side of the hall where a row of chests sat against the stone. Salt followed. When captive in the other tower, she had never gone up the stairs, but she’d gathered that the humans slept there. She also knew they kept their ready food in chests and casks in this chamber. She turned to Salt.

“Check upstairs. Look for weapons.”

She opened a chest. There were bags of meal, including a few folded empty sacks.

“Wait. Here.” She stuffed a sack into his hands. He nodded and hurried away. She started ransacking everything she could find. She wanted food that would last. Dead chickens they couldn’t keep. . . salt. She wanted salt.

They didn’t have much, just about twenty pounds of salt. It took her too long to find it. She felt like she had to pee. Her heart raced. She needed her hands free, so she re-tied the sword-belt around her own waist. The tip of the blade dragged on the ground, so she undid it and tied it over her shoulder and chest. She slung as many sacks over her shoulder as she could carry, then fled the chamber.

“You always called us thieving tinkers,” she muttered. “Shit on you.”

She met Salt rushing down the stairs. He carried a sack over his shoulder and two spears in his arms, his own and a comically long human weapon. He looked pale, and sweat dripped down his forehead.

Outside, the human still pressed against the stone of the tower wall, Tarbelt squinting at him and looking nervous. Mudhorn held a woodaxe in his hands, his other loot lying at his feet.

“Let’s go,” Tourmaline said.

“What about him?” Tarbelt asked. They all paused and looked at the man. He raised his free hand, still holding the hound with the other.

“Just leave me,” he said. He twisted his neck, trying to look from one to the other of the dwarves. “You said you’d just rob.”

“He could get the others after us,” Salt said.

“This isn’t a battle,” Tourmaline replied.

“It wasn’t a battle in the mines, but plenty of us died,” Mudhorn muttered.

“Where do you think you’ll go?” the man asked. “They’ll hunt you. They’ll find your caravan.” That may have been the wrong thing to say, and he seemed to realize it as soon as he’d spoken, his body tensing even more.

“We don’t have a caravan. We’re going north. We’re leaving forever,” Tourmaline said.

“North? What?”

“We’ve had enough of you humans. The caravans tried to talk us out of it. They told us to obey the humans. But we’re going north and leaving those shits.”

At that moment, the man looked even more confused than scared. Tourmaline hoped it might save their folk trouble.

“Well?” Tarbelt asked, looking at Tourmaline. She saw that the others looked to her as well.

Her? Why did she have to decide if he lived or died? Part of her wanted one of the dwarves—Salt or Tarbelt or Mudhorn—to just run him through. But no, they expected her to say it. She listened. She heard hounds far to the east. The west was silent.

“Leave him be,” she said. “Salt told him so.”

“What?” Tarbelt said. “Why?”

“It's true. I told him we’d just rob him. I’m not a liar.”

Tarbelt drifted his spearhead a hair closer to the man, practically touching him. The hound growled.

“Easy,” the man said, low and slow, but not to the hound.

“Come on. We’ve got what we came for.” Tourmaline shoved a sack at Tarbelt, then turned and rushed toward the opening of the enclosure. When she got there, she glanced back. The others thumped behind her, their silhouettes oddly lumpy with their burdens. She saw the man drag the hound into the tower and slam the thick wooden door behind him. They ran through the dry-stone and between the ditches, turning north, boots slamming along the bare ground next to the wall.

Then the long peel of a horn sounded from atop the tower.

“Shit!” Salt cursed. “I didn’t see a horn!”

The horn sounded again, low and resonant in the night. A third blast followed.

“Shit,” Salt said again. They fled downhill between patches of brush. Already, Tourmaline felt the weight of the sacks that thudded against her back and kept slipping from her shoulders.

The signal of three horn blasts repeated, and over the footfalls of her companions and the gasping of breath, she heard replies, to east and west, but not close. She tried to think. The hunting parties would likely go back to the outpost to find out what had happened. It would take time. They’d have a head start, but even miles would not stop a pack of bloodhounds. What had she been thinking? She could have led them safely past the outpost, but she’d gotten greedy.

The terrain did nothing to speed their escape. North of the tower was a landscape of long rolling hills with dells between, all covered in thickets of dense, prickly vegetation and littered with stones—hardly suitable for daytime trekking, let alone a headlong flight at night. Between the land and their burdens, they could not keep up a run no matter how desperate. The sword slid down behind Tourmaline and bounced and dragged on the ground, but she did not pause to do anything about it.

Salt cursed.

“Stop!” he said.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Tarbelt practically shouted back.

“Stop!” Salt yelled.

“What is it?” Tourmaline asked, gasping for breath.

“We’ve got to sort this shit out, or it’ll be the death of us. Here!” He fumbled with one of the spears and held it out to Tourmaline. She looked at if. Her hands were full with the sacks.

“I can’t carry it,” she said. “And what’re you gonna do if they catch us? The humans lop off hands for thieving.”

“They won’t stop at hands for us, I promise you,” Mudhorn said.

“There’s no way to escape the hounds.” It was Tarbelt. “They’re going to tear us apart. They can smell us no matter where we go.”

Tourmaline looked around. She thought of the blind old bitch, its nose in the air trying to find their scent. She remembered the wall of scents that had flowed out of the outpost, confusing and thick.

“Get behind me,” she said. The others stared at her blankly. “Do it now!” They obeyed, falling in line. “Now stay behind me.”

This might be a dumb idea too, but if scent was what the hounds needed, then she would give them more than they could use. She started to walk in a small circle, then expanded it, spiraling outward, covering as much ground on the hill as she could, with the others in tow.

“What are we doing?” Agate asked.

“We’re spreading our scent,” she said. She thought she heard another horn blast in the distance and listened, but she didn’t hear hounds. Not yet. Had the humans made it back to the outpost yet? How long did they have?

She continued to lead them in a spiral, and she reached out and touched every bush, shrub, and rock that they passed.

“Is this going to work?” Tarbelt asked.

“Ay, yes!” she said. She had no idea, but that didn’t matter. The hounds would follow a straight line of scent, sure, but a chaos of smells—that could throw the hunt into confusion. She ignored the muttering of the others as they tramped around the whole hillside, covering every bit of ground. They pressed in and out of the thickets and crossed and recrossed their own trail. At last, she heard baying to the south.

“Let’s go!” She led them back through the midst of their invisible mass of trails, then out again, not to the north, but to the west. Once clear of the hill, she angled southwest. They had caught their breath while traipsing the hillside, and now the dwarves put on a fresh burst of speed, driven by the sound of baying hounds. Their burdens jostled and rattled, but they pressed on, across the next slope and the next before Tourmaline risked veering northward again. She should have gone east from the hill, but she’d been in a rush. Surviving the moment mattered more than anything.

A chaos of howling, barking, and baying broke out, back where they had massed their scent. Please work, please work, Tourmaline thought over and over. Would the humans pick out their trail by lamplight? It would be hard in that terrain, but a skillful tracker might, given time. She’d heard stories of such things.

But the sound of the hounds grew fainter behind them. They found a stream and sloshed down it for a few hundred yards, then turned northwest again. They covered the top of another hill with their scent, spiraling madly in every direction before moving on. For a time, she felt the hounds had come closer, but then she was sure the baying was farther off, until at last they heard only the soughing of the strengthening breeze.

Miles fell away behind. Tired and worn, burdened and sleep-hungry as they were, they did not stop. They couldn’t. Not so long as they could put one foot before the other.

15

Free Dwarves

Tourmaline hardly let herself believe they’d escaped. But the grey dawn lightened an overcast sky. The weary dwarves found themselves in a wide land of undulating hills, patches of dense brush, and sparse trees. Birds sang and darted amidst the brambles, sounding altogether too cheery for Tourmaline’s mood.

“When can we stop?” Agate asked.

“A little further.” Tourmaline saw the sun rising in a bright disc of haze through the clouds. Another mile and then another fell behind them as the sun rose further. How far was safe? They had missed another night of sleep on little food. Tourmaline wanted to stop as much as the others, but they looked to her for the decision.

“Tourm,” Salt said. She noticed the use of her shortened name. “We have to rest and eat.” He pointed toward a clump of low hemlock at the bottom of the slope, where a line of dark green grasses hinted at water. It was now full morning. She nodded. They made for the hemlocks, pushing their way inside. The promise of water in the low ground was kept, and Tourmaline filled the bucket and carried it back into the trees.

They sat cross-legged on the needles, feeling sheltered. Tourmaline wondered if they should be on high ground where they could watch the approaches instead, but they were all exhausted.

“I think we came more than ten miles in the night,” Mudhorn said. “And perhaps five today.” Tourmaline thought about it. It certainly could be true. She wondered how much further west they’d traveled in their flight.

“I say we light a fire,” Agate said. “We need hot food and sleep.”

“We shouldn’t risk it.” They’d come so far, Tourmaline didn’t want to lose it now.

“If they track us here in the next two hours, well, they were going to catch us anyway,” Agate replied. “But they won’t. Not so few of them. There will be no greater celebration than a bit of roast rabbit between my teeth.”

The talk of roast rabbit, even roast day-old rabbit, set Tourmaline’s mouth watering. But they also had a sackful of chickens.

“Find dry wood. No smoke,” she said. Agate grinned. Already Mudhorn had the flint from his pocket.

The only thing that kept Tourmaline awake was the smell of roasting rabbit and chicken. They ate in quiet, licking greasy fingers, reveling in heat and flame and meat. They each ate a whole chicken, sucking the bones clean.

“Now, if only I had some beer,” Tarbelt said.

“Ale,” Mudhorn answered.

“Mead,” Agate said.

“I’d take all of it.” Salt smirked, still chewing. “Separate, mixed, I don’t care.”

“Kumrar,” Tourmaline said sleepily. Fermented mare’s or goat’s milk, aged in a ceramic vessel. “Spiced and hot.” Her grandmother had made such wonderful kumrar.

Mudhorn laughed.

“Ah, that is old dwarven swill. My father drank it every day of his life, with a raw egg mixed in. That’ll grow your beard.”

“Give some to Salt!” Tarbelt said, and laughed. Salt blushed, but he didn’t respond.

“Eh, many’s the dwarf whose had their beards shaved by the humans,” Mudhorn said. “It’ll be long soon enough.”

Tarbelt glanced at Agate, as if just remembering she too had been cropped. She had blushed, but no one mentioned her hair. It must have been a month or more since, as it had grown out to her shoulders. It was still obvious she’d been shorn. Tourmaline felt unreasonably happy she’d made it away with her braid still hanging to her waist, thick as her arm.

Tourmaline looked at Salt’s bristly beard, standing out straight from his face, not yet heavy enough to weigh itself down. Their eyes met for a moment, and she looked away.

“Time to put out the fire,” she said. “And get some rest.”

Agate sighed, then grabbed the bucket and went to the crick. She returned, sending a swirl of steam up as she dumped water on the coals.

“You smell that?” Agate said.

“What?” Tarbelt asked.

“Not a whiff of human anywhere. These are the wilds. We’re free. We’re free dwarves.” She laughed, her sunburned face crinkling.

Tourmaline didn’t even remember falling asleep.

She startled awake. The human’s words rang fresh in her ears. “They’ll find your caravan.” She had dreamed of her mother’s face, a look of horror contorting it. What atrocity had she brought down on some caravan? On her folk? What reprisal would the humans meet out on the next dwarves to fall into their hands?

She sat up, feeling disoriented. She heard a crow caw and the breeze rustling the hemlock branches. The light was fading, the sun already down, and the air felt of the coolness of night. Salt, Tarbelt, and Mudhorn still slept, stretched out beneath hemlocks. But Agate was gone. Tourmaline climbed to her feet. She pushed through the low hemlock branches and stepped out into the little swale of grass with the crick trickling through it. Already, the colors were muting with the coming of night.

Agate was nowhere to be seen. Tourmaline glanced at the surrounding slopes. No one else was in sight, either.

“Agate,” she called in barely more than a whisper. “Agate.”

“Tourm?” Agate’s voice came from a nearby patch of tall grass growing along the crick.

“It’s me,” she said, assuming Agate was relieving herself. “I just wanted to see where you were.” Agate didn’t respond. “When you’re done,” Tourmaline went on, “we should sort out everything. Divide it into loads and figure out how we’re going to manage it all.”

“Tourm?” Agate said. There was something wrong with the tone of her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“I started.”

“You started?”

“Ay, yes.”

“Did you know?”

“I thought I had another week.” She paused. “But I started.”

“Shit,” Tourmaline muttered. She walked over, glancing behind to make sure none of the dwarves had emerged, then parted the tall grass with her hands and walked in. She found Agate squatting down, her skirts hiked over her thighs, picking apart a stack of cut sphagnum moss with her fingers.

“Do you have any cloths?” Tourmaline asked.

“I maybe didn’t think so much ahead when I left.”

Tourmaline sighed. She hadn’t saved any from the burning of their wagon, but then, she wasn’t due for another couple months. Humans called it “moon’s blood,” as they cycled so frequently, but dwarf-maids and wifs only came upon their time thrice a year—it was just longer and more severe. They called it the Triad.

But the custom was to isolate and rest for the roughly two weeks it took the triad to pass. They did not have that option, now. Tourmaline felt a mixture of pity and frustration. Agate took a handful of the separated moss and began to roll it in her hands, forming a dense mass.

“We should have extra sacking,” Tourmaline said. They would have to condense and distribute their stolen supplies. The rough textiles wouldn’t be comfortable, but with the moss, it would have to do. Agate would have to walk. There was no choice.

“Agate?” It was Tarbelt’s voice from the edge of the hemlock.

“Keep him away from me,” Agate whispered. Tourmaline nodded. She slipped back out of the grass. Tarbelt saw her emerge.

“Is Agate with you?”

“She’s fine.” Tourmaline hurried over to the hemlocks.

“Where is she?”

“Come with me. Leave her be.”

Tarbelt followed Tourmaline into the trees.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Tourmaline didn’t respond. This was a complication they didn’t need. Agate could certainly not carry a load. In another two days, it would be hard enough for her to walk the uneven ground without a burden. Dwarf-maids were meant to hide away in their stoneholds—or in the case of the tinker dwarves, their wagons—and drink hot honey tea, gritting their teeth through the pain and weakness.

Salt and Mudhorn were waking, still blinking and stretching. No doubt the calling had stirred them. She could have used a little more time without their interference. The sacks and tools and spears were piled beneath one of the taller hemlocks. Tourmaline started feeling the sacks, looking for one that she could empty. There was the sack Agate had carried the chickens in, but it was filthy, but there was the sack that she had given to Salt in the tower. It felt emptier than the others. She opened it and peered inside. Sharpening stones, stropping leathers, two daggers, and a few waterskins that looked empty. She tipped the contents out on the ground, picked up a daggers, and headed back to Agate.

“What are you doing?” Salt asked. Tourmaline turned and looked at the three dwarves.

“That’s what I’ve been asking,” Tarbelt said.

“Agate’s triad has begun.”

Even such a statement was shocking. Normally, a maid or wif simply disappeared for a while, no questions asked. Everyone understood, and no dwarf would ask. But their circumstances were not ordinary.

The three dwarves stood stock still, looking unusually pale and sober. Tarbelt opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Tourmaline left them behind.

“Here,” she said to Agate when she returned, handing her the sack and dagger.

“Thanks,” Agate muttered. Then she let out a long breath and shook her head. “At least it wasn’t yesterday.”

Tourmaline had to chuckle. Ay, yes. At least it wasn’t yesterday.

“I’m going to try to make sense of our supplies. You just. . . Try to get yourself sorted. If you need anything, call me.”

Agate nodded, and Tourmaline left her alone. Back in the hemlocks, the three dwarves remained silent, barely even looking at each other, let alone Tourmaline. She had little time to worry about them. She had to figure out how they were going to carry all of this on four backs instead of five.

Mudhorn had found two woodaxes, a short handsaw, and a spade in the outbuildings. Tourmaline had brought out a sack of salt, two bags of oats, and another two of barley, each about twenty pounds. Tarbelt had carried the sack of salt during the night, as well as other odds and ends, but Tourmaline had slogged with four sacks the whole way. Salt brought the contents of the sack she’d dumped out, as well as the long human spear with its narrow, long blade. The steel wasn’t the best, but any weapon was better than none. Tourmaline saw the sword and dagger she’d taken from the human, still on the belt. She’d simply dumped them on the ground the night before.

All in all, they’d been incredibly fortunate, though she wished they’d have thought to take a blanket or two. She also wished they had a needle and thread, and maybe some extra cloth. Judging from the state of their clothes already, patches would come in handy. But there was no going back. They were in the wilds, now, and the north lay open before them.

Tarbelt was standing, looking useless, trying to keep from repeatedly glancing out of the hemlocks toward Agate and failing.

“Tarbelt,” Tourmaline said. He jumped. “Come here and cut the hafts of this spear and these tool handles down to size.” He complied, looking relieved to have a task.

Tourmaline started to make four piles. There were three daggers, three spears. She divided the tools. Salt came over to watch.

“We need more hands, each of us,” he said.

“I know.” She glanced down at the sword on the belt. “I’m not sure we should even take this.” She tapped the sheath with her foot. “Too long to use.”

“Be a shame to waste it,” Salt said. He leaned over and picked it up, sliding the blade partway from the sheath. The sword was easily three feet long, whereas Salt stood not much over four feet, himself. Swords were not much loved by dwarves, who preferred a blade at the end of a haft to keep the foe at bay. Even humans preferred spears in the line of battle, though their long reach could make their beloved swords wicked weapons in a close scrap. “Might be able to use the blade,” he said, examining the peening on the pommel.

“Keep the stubs,” Tourmaline told Tarbelt, who had already lopped off the end of the human spear-haft. It was good oak, and Tourmaline could use it to replace handles of her hammers. Agate had managed to escape with five chickens in all. But there was little left after what they’d feasted on. Tourmaline regretted they hadn’t made it out with a piglet, but she didn’t even know if there’d been any. They could have salted pork.

Mudhorn re-lit their cookfire, filling the bucket with water and scooping handfuls of oats to boil. Tourmaline finished divvying up the supplies. In the end, each dwarf had to figure the best way to carry their load, rotating who would carry the fifth sack of food-stuffs until Agate recovered. Tarbelt re-coiled the rope he’d taken, putting his head and arm through the loop and wearing it across his body. It was stout rope, and it made him look even bulkier.

It was good that dwarves loved pockets in their clothes. Regardless of age or gender, they sewed them in all shapes and sizes. Often maids and dwarf-wifs kept the most creative of pockets, tucking them in pleats and aprons in all manners of ways. It was not unusual for a dwarf to produce something from a pocket unexpectedly, or for a dwarf to stow more cargo on themselves than seemed quite possible at first glance. The humans saw this as just another demonstration of dwarven shiftiness and thieving. Dwarves also liked belts and often wore more than one. It was simply practical. So there was little difficulty stowing sharpening stones, stropping leathers, and even the daggers. Tarbelt tied his sack of meal onto the end of an axe. Salt did likewise.

As soon as the oats had softened, the others ate the oats straight from the bucket with their hands. As soon as he had a mouthfull, Mudhorn doused the fire. It hissed and steamed. Tourmaline took Agate a portion on a broad-leafed plant she'd found.

Agate thanked her.

“We’re going to leave as soon as we eat,” Tourmaline said. “We can’t linger.”

“I know.”

“We don’t know for sure if the humans have stopped hunting us.”

“Give it another day or two and humans will not be our concern,” she said.

It was true. Already they’d crossed the border. Nothing now stood between them and the ürsi. She wondered if battle had already been joined in the west.

When the four had loaded themselves down and pushed free of the hemlocks, Agate emerged wordlessly from the grass, looking flushed. Tourmaline gave her a weak smile, but the others ignored her. Tourmaline led northward, and Agate followed in the rear of the line.

16

The Fog

The world felt wide and strange that night. She wasn’t sure if it had changed, or if it was just the knowledge that nothing stood between them and the unknown. They were in the unknown, with no humans barring the way against the nightmares and legends beyond. It would be better if they walked in the daylight despite the battering sun. In the old stories, the ürsi attacked at night, and trolls hunted then. Better to move in the day. They’d have to make that adjustment. For now, they marched through the slopes of a heath only broken now and then by stands of wind-bent trees.

The wind shifted into the west before morning, and she smelled salt. How close had they come to the sea, the great salty expanse? She’d never seen it with her eyes, but she knew the smell from times they had passed near enough for the wind to bring the briny scent inland. They needed to keep away from the west, and so Tourmaline angled as much east as she dared, for they must also find the river. It was impossible to travel in any truly direct route. Without road or straight path, they wended their way between brush and up and down rolling slopes, sometimes veering this way, sometimes that.

They pressed on past dawn and until the sun bore down harsh from the height of heaven’s dome. They sheltered from its glare amidst brush near a spring-fed pool bordered deep with moss. Agate had walked silently the whole while, and when they stopped, she separated herself, crawled into a thicket, and did not stir. They put some oats to soak in water in the tin bucket to be ready for a bland but filling meal when they awoke, and then they slept.

Tourmaline roused them after only four hours, the worst of the day’s sun past. They ate oats from the bucket with their hands. Tourmaline took some to Agate, but she waved it away, her lips pursed and her face grown paler. Yet she climbed out of the thicket and followed again as they moved on. Tourmaline pitied her, but they could not stay in place.

That afternoon, Tourmaline noticed that Tarbelt was picking plant stalks and tall grasses as they walked, tucking them into his belt in a thick sheaf. She recognized the type of plants he was choosing—fibrous plants good for making cordage. Sure enough, when they stopped a few hours after dark, he carefully peeled the fibers apart with his fingers. He was still working when Tourmaline fell asleep.

The next morning, Agate did not crawl out of the thicket to join them. Tourmaline pressed inside and found her lying on her side clutching her stomach. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Tourm.

“It’s time, Agate,” she said. Agate groaned, but she rolled over.

“Give me a moment,” she said. “I’ll be out.”

Though she looked pale and miserable, she kept her word. Tarbelt stared at her, looking almost as pale as she, but then he looked away and joined the other two dwarves in pretending Agate wasn’t there. Tourmaline took the lead again and headed due north, trying to err to the east when they could not keep a straight line, which was often. As the morning light strengthened, the temperature dropped, and the day grew colder. It was unseasonable, even this far north. Or so Tourmaline thought.

Even so, the smell of salt grew stronger, and she saw a gull overhead, the kind that sometimes flew many miles inland in the northwestern provinces of Laith. It made little sense to Tourmaline. So far as she knew the sea should lie well to the west. She didn’t believe they’d strayed that far during their flight.

She didn’t let them pause at midday. She had discussed it with no one, but she had transitioned them to daytime marches. No one questioned it. Thankfully, the sky was overcast. There was still an unpleasant glare, but perhaps she would not gain any more freckles that day. She figured after this trip, her face would be a solid patch of brown and red. It felt comically vain to care in unwashed clothes torn and frayed, hair un-oiled for weeks. She hadn’t even unbound her braid in two days.

She glanced back at Agate who trudged behind them, a gap of a few yards between her and Tarbelt. Agate stared at the ground, her face pale, her arms over her stomach, her short hair bobbing around her shoulders. Tourmaline felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn’t complain about the hardship, not even to herself. It could be worse.

The temperature continued to drop during the day. Tarbelt kept picking long-stemmed grasses and adding them to his sheaf as they walked. They all kept quiet. Tourmaline felt sure that humans were no threat, now, the border long behind. But though the landscape felt deserted apart from birds and rabbits, they knew that greater dangers lay in the wilds than any they faced in Laith.

“What’s that?” Salt asked, pointing at the sky. A great swath of darkness seemed to swirl in the eastern sky, elongating out across the north.

“There’s another,” Tarbelt pointed.

“Birds,” Mudhorn said. As soon as he said it, they all saw it was true. Great flocks of crows, dark against the overcast haze.

“What are they doing? It’s summer yet,” Salt said.

“Perhaps they flock early so far north.”

“We are not yet so far north as that,” Tourmaline answered.

“Crows don’t migrate,” Mudhorn said. They stood still for a while, watching the birds travel westward over the heaths. They saw another swarm later in the afternoon, this one coming so close they could hear the raucous cackling of the flock. The birds made them uneasy, but then, they were uneasy to begin with. The temperature continued to plunge, and Tourmaline shivered as the breeze picked up out of the west, laden with the smell of salt. She again wished they had stolen blankets from the outpost.

“What is it, now?” Tarbelt asked, looking into the west. It was late in the afternoon, and Tourmaline had been staring doggedly ahead as she led them across the heaths. Now she turned and followed Tarbelt’s gaze.

A massive bank of white cloud stood like a wall from earth to sky, but as she watched, she saw that it was moving.

“A fog,” Mudhorn said flatly. “It is not so strange a thing when the ground is warm and the air is cold.”

“Or the water is warm,” said Salt. They could all smell the salt on the air. The bank of fog was still a few miles west, but it towered up to mingle with the low clouds. They kept on their way, watching the fog roll inland on the light breeze. The day grew darker, the sun obscured in the west.

“I like it not,” Tourmaline muttered as the fog neared. She’d slowed down until Salt had come up alongside.

“It could hide us well.”

“It could hide anything well.”

Salt didn’t respond. The fog would be upon them in minutes. Up ahead, a long hill rose, stretching half a mile, cresting and blocking anything further north from view. Atop it, she could see some exposed jumbles of rock crowded with gorse and heather.

“We make for the high ground,” she said. “And we stay there tonight.”

They had nearly reached the high ground when the mist arrived, smelling thickly of brine and blocking anything from sight that was not within ten yards. Droplets of moisture clung to braid and beards. Tourmaline could taste the air, and her nose knew nothing but salt. They reached a jumble of rocks that must have been the hillcrest. Some patches of low gorse brush and heather would shelter them well enough next to the rock.

Agate crawled under a gorse bush and Tourmaline heard her moan as she settled. They could not risk a fire on the high ground, not even in the cold mist, but they had brought water in their stolen skins and soaked oats for a meal. Agate refused again to eat.

Tarbelt did not approach Agate. Instead, he sat cross-legged only a few yards away, hatcheling plant fibers apart with his fingers and peeling them into long strips. Night fell abruptly beneath the fog, and they sat in the damp dark. No one spoke. Mudhorn and Salt honed blades and Tourmaline carved the sawed-off butt-ends of the human axes and shovel. They would serve as handles for the tinsmithing tools that she still carried in the bucket. It was a task she could do without light. Most of the tools she had no immediate use for—snips, various chisels, tongs, nippers, punches, and her little five pound anvil—but the hammers she wanted handles for. Her tinsmith tools were small and light compared to some, but she had always done meticulous work, even for humans. After all, it was dwarven skill that kept the humans returning with their coin and trade. That and the prices.

They had stopped early enough that Tourmaline finished handles for her hammers and for her punches before she laid down to sleep. The whetstones and stropping leathers had already fallen quiet. There was only so much honing that could be done. Tarbelt still sat braiding and twisting fibers. Tourmaline curled up with her back against a rock. She could see her breath. It would be a long, cold night.

The day did not so much dawn the next morning as bleed through the fog. But when the colors of the gorse and heather strengthened, Tourmaline knew the sun had risen somewhere. The others were awake, sitting with their arms folded over their chests. How much any of them had slept, she didn’t know. She stood and walked over to the gorse where Agate had sheltered. She heard a moan from within.

“Agate.”

“No.”

“It’s day. We’ll be on our way soon.”

“Leave me.”

Tourmaline sighed. She knew what Agate must be suffering. It had been three days, and the pains and weakness would be greatest now until the end of a week, and then slowly improve for another week.

“Do you have any more moss?”

“Some.”

Tourmaline stood and walked back to the others. There was nothing she could do, truly. Moving would warm them all, but asking Agate to leave now hardly seemed possible. She looked at the three dwarves. They looked as miserable as she felt.

“We’re staying,” she said.

“Can we risk a fire?” Tarbelt asked. He glanced toward the gorse bush.

“We are close to the sea, somehow.” That meant close to ürsi.

“We should move east,” Salt said. “I don’t know how we came so far west.”

“Or maybe the sea came east,” Mudhorn said. “We do not know.”

It was a good point. Tourmaline knew next to nothing about the coast, especially north of the border.

“We can’t stay here long, either way,” Salt said. He lowered his voice. “Can she not walk?”

“We’ll stay until the fog lifts,” Tourmaline said.

It didn’t lift that day, though at times the light strengthened above them. The dwarves invented tasks for themselves. Mudhorn re-planed the haft of the human spear using a dagger sharpened to a razor’s edge. Salt managed to loose the pommel of the sword Tourmaline had stolen, then disassemble the whole grip, leaving him with a blade on the end of a wide, thick tang. Mudhorn sat next to him, glancing over and offering occasional input, pointing with his dagger.

Tarbelt even finished his project. After twisting two strong cords of fiber, he borrowed Tourmaline’s punches and tied off the cords to a piece of leather cut from one of the stropping leathers. He'd thinned the leather with the edge of a blade and chewed it until it was soft and flexible. After finishing the last threaded tie-off, he stood and let the sling dangle from his hand.

“Do you know how to use that?” Tourmaline asked.

“I used to hunt rabbits as a gilke all the time,” he said. “Agate and I.” He glanced at the gorse again. They’d seen enough rabbits scamper away as they marched. Perhaps they could supplement their cold soaked oats. The taste of meat might just tempt Tourmaline into granting them a fire. She looked around their meager camp. How had she come to lead this band of dwarves? Three weeks ago she’d been living in a caravan with no more responsibility than mending tin pots. She’d been planning to marry Glasshand.

She felt another pang of guilt. She hadn’t thought of him in days, not at all.

That evening, the darkness fell with no hint of sunset. As she lay with her arms wrapped around herself, trying to keep warm, she heard a faint whimper from the gorse. She got up and went to the gorse, then crawled beneath to Agate. The poor maid was shivering. Tourmaline climbed around behind her and put her arm over her, warming her with what heat she had to spare. So they passed the night.

When Tourmaline crawled out of the gorse in the morning, she saw the three dwarves huddled together as well, sharing their heat. But the air felt different. There was warmth that hadn’t been there before.

Mudhorn stirred and sat up. He sniffed the air.

“It’s changed,” he said.

Tourmaline felt the truth of it, but the fog had not yet lifted. Only Salt had a project left to work on that morning, and so the others watched, Mudhorn still interjecting from time to time in the process. Salt didn’t seem to mind. The two had a kind of easiness with one another. Maybe it was because they’d both spent time in the mines. The human spear Salt had taken had been seven feet long—unwieldy for a dwarf, but Tarbelt had cut it down to a manageable four feet. Salt had taken the sawed off length of the haft and using a dagger and Tourmaline’s tools, he’d managed to slot the end of the haft to the size of the sword’s tang, finely carving the wood to fit the steel perfectly. The sword-hilt had been secured both with resin and two pins, and Salt re-used the pins, setting them within the long haft. He left the cross-guard on the tang, fitting it atop the wooden haft below the blade. He re-peened the pins, risking the noise of a series of hammer blows. For a grip, he sacrificed the rest of the stropping leather Tarbelt had cut, wrapping the end of the haft. The result was three feet of thick oak below three feet of blade, a cross-guard in the middle.

“You could sharpen these,” Mudhorn said, pointing to the quillons. “Use them like barbs or spear lugs.”

Salt nodded.

“Ay, yes.”

Mudhorn handed him the sharpening stones and files.

All this time, the light strengthened. The sun had risen high in the east, and now it cast a halo of light through the fog. The air warmed even more, and the fog grew damper, beading on their hair. In a warm glow, blue sky emerged overhead. They turned their faces up to the warmth.

“It’ll burn the rest off soon,” Mudhorn said.

He was right. In just minutes, they could see the whole top of the hill, and even the tops of other rises to the north and east like islands above a white ocean of mist. Tourmaline scrambled atop the jumbled rocks to take in the prospect. The warmth of the sun pressed on her shoulders, feeling again like a summer heat, and for once she didn’t resent its strength.

17

Battle on the Heights

She sat and watched as the sun set the fog aglow, feeling lighter in spirit than she had in days. She could see the vapor burn away, dissipating in the warmth of the sunlight. A breath of breeze reached her, strengthened, and began to drive the lower mists back westward toward the sea. The white tendrils tore apart, rejoined, and twisted and broke again as they fled.

Something caught her eye to the southwest. A flash of light and a hint of color. It must have been two miles away on a ridge now clear of fog. It looked like a long line of insects, but she knew it wasn’t. Light glinted on steel, and she saw the colored banners of soldiers. They were arrayed in a thick line across the heights.

She hunched over, although at that distance there was no chance that anyone would see a single motionless dwarf-maid sitting on the rocks.

“Look!” She pointed. The others stood and followed her motion. They stared for a time.

“Is it human or ürsi?” Tarbelt asked.

“It is the human host,” Mudhorn answered. “The banners are human, without doubt.”

“Why are they strung out like that in a line?”

They were quiet, trying to make out the scene as wisps of fog blew across their field of vision.

“It’s a battle,” Salt said. “Look!” On one side of the ridge, the fog lifted in the strengthening breeze, and dark forms swarmed up toward the human line. “The ürsi assault the ridge.”

Ürsi. Even so far away, Tourmaline felt her heart flutter. These were nightmares out of stories. They watched the flashes of light where the distant masses met on the ridge. More of the mist parted. They could see the valley between that distant rise and their own, and Tourmaline caught her breath in her throat. It was full of the dark shapes, moving to and fro, most heading toward the ridge. There must have been thousands. No. A hundred thousand. And then she saw a gleam to the west, and everything made sense to her.

A great estuary curved inland. She could barely make out the shining grey of the sea in the distance, cutting through the land in a long sweep, and ending in a great bay beyond the estuary. She turned to look north. At the base of their hill, the mist was slipping westward, revealing the river. She’d never seen such a river, a hundred yards wide where it met the sea and not much less below their hill. It flowed down from the northeast, moving in irregular undulations across the heathlands.

The sea proper must have been ten miles away, but the bay reached toward them. And less than two miles away, battle raged on the heights. The human line looked thin compared to the mass of dark forms pressing up the ridge and extending across the valley. Yet the humans looked organized as well, an arc curving gracefully along the ridgeline. If the mass of ürsi curled around the flanks, they might overwhelm the human host, maybe even encircle them, but the ürsi pressed toward the humans in a disordered mass, bunching up toward the center.

“They will be hard put to move the king from the hill,” Salt said.

“Do you think the king is there?” Tourmaline asked.

“He is young, and they say hot-headed. I expect he is there. He wants to contest this land. Make it part of Laith and move the border further from the port cities.”

Tourmaline considered the landscape. It was not good for planting, but herds could graze there, and the river formed a natural boundary. She wondered if ürsi used boats. Did ürsi make things?

“Look!” Tarbelt said. He pointed down into the valley, much closer than the distant battle. Tourmaline saw what he meant. While most of the ürsi moved toward the battle like insects, individuals and small groups seemed to move and change course at random. Some were scattering away and heading toward them. With the growing wind moving the last of the fog out of the valley, they could see one pack of ürsi twenty or thirty strong moving in loose manner toward their hill. When Tarbelt pointed them out, the creatures were only a couple hundred yards from the base of the hill. Other ürsi headed more due west.

“Are they fleeing?”

“Stragglers, more like,” Salt said. It was true. Out of the tens and tens of thousands, those that stalked the edges of the valley or broke away were as nothing.

“They’re coming this way,” Tarbelt said. Tourmaline realized she was sitting in the open and slid down off the rocks. Together, the dwarves hunched below the level of the heather.

“We have to get out of here,” Salt said.

“If the ürsi break, they will break toward us, to the north and east,” Mudhorn said.

“If the ürsi don’t break, it’s because they have broken the humans,” Salt replied. Tourmaline wondered if she hoped for that outcome. She didn’t know. She just knew that ürsi were heading toward them.

“We have to go!” she said. She grabbed her tools, wrapping them hurriedly in her mother’s scarf. The others hastened to get their gear together as well. Tarbelt had twisted extra lengths of fiber rope through the night and day, and now they all wore their sacks and tools slung over their shoulders, freeing up their hands for weapons. Tarbelt had refused to use any of the rope he’d taken from the tower, or even to unwrap it from his torso.

“Agate!” Tourmaline yelled at the gorse.

Agate groaned from within.

“Agate get up! We have to go!”

“I can’t.”

“Ürsi are coming. Ürsi are coming now!”

“What?”

The gorse shook, and Agate crawled out from underneath. Her face was white, and she clutched the remains of a burlap sack.

“Ürsi, heading this way!” Tarbelt said. It was the first any of the others had spoken to Agate.

“Shit and thunder!”

Tourmaline slung the bucket of tools over her shoulder, then the sacks of meal. She grabbed her spear last. The others were ready, too.

“Come on!” she said, and rushed to the north side of the hill.

Below, she could see the river flowing slow and deep toward the estuary. It had to be the river they sought, the river that would lead them to the Kara-Indal and to Illenfärner. To Ice-Cloak. She rushed down the hillside and into the river valley. The ürsi behind had not been running, not been chasing, but if they came to the top of the hill and found the spot where the dwarves had left two days of their scent and wood shavings—she thought of Agate—and blood. . .

The riverbank was marshy, full of reeds and cattails. They could not actually see the water or get close to it, but wide game trails ran parallel to its course, and they followed one upriver. Tourmaline wondered if deer and other game animals had made the trail, or if the ürsi had. It didn’t matter. They had to put as much distance between themselves and the ürsi as they could, and that meant moving faster. The trail helped that.

Tourmaline looked back at Agate. The dwarf-maid held her stomach with one hand, and the front of her skirt with the other. She could see bloodstains on the skirts. Her face somehow looked both pale and flushed at the same time, and her brow was wrinkled. But she kept up. She was strong. The dwarf-wifs carried their babes in their wombs longer than humans, and their flow was more severe and lasted longer. They did not have so many flows or children as the humans, though. Their folk never threatened the humans with numbers. But they were strong. No one knew how strong a dwarf-maid could be.

Their path cut through a tall stand of reeds, the ground spongy underfoot. Tourmaline led them at a jog, through the reeds and into a stand of trees beyond. Something rustled next to her. She looked over and saw fangs, yellow eyes, grey skin. It lunged forward. She fell back with a scream, and the spear-tip that would have slammed into her belly passed above her. Something flashed across her vision, and the creature fell apart, upper body flopping away from its legs in a spray of blood.

Salt was there, holding his swordstaff in shaking hands, his shoulders heaving and eyes wide. Mudhorn grabbed Tourmaline’s arm and helped her up. A stench flowed from the body, like rancid oil, fouler than anything she knew.

“Keep moving!” Mudhorn said, dragging Tourmaline along. Salt stared down at the body for a moment, then ran after them.

Mile after mile they followed the river’s course. The further east they went, the firmer the ground became. More trees grew along the river than elsewhere in the heathland, providing cover but hindering their line of sight. Their pace slowed as they breathed hard, watching all around for more of the ürsi beasts. Tourmaline could hardly fathom that she’d seen one so close—it had nearly killed her, and Salt had killed it. He'd wiped the blade on some moss, trying to rid it of the stink of the ürsi’s putrid blood, but she could still smell it.

The moon had set, and hints of grey tinged the eastern sky when Salt lengthened his strides and came up beside Tourmaline.

“We can’t keep going on like this. Not on soaked oats. We need meat and fire.”

“We don’t know what happened back there.”

“Look!” he whispered. Tourmaline turned. The other three walked behind, staring at the ground. Agate looked the worst, but even Tarbelt and Mudhorn looked wan by the light of the moon. All around them, crickets and frogs chirped in a constant din. They hadn’t stopped at all since they’d fled the hill. “We can’t keep walking forever.”

“I know.” She looked around. They were in a patch of cottonwoods and sycamores. Last year’s leaves still crunched underfoot. Beyond the trees, reeds and cattails grew along the margins of the river. “We could halt here.”

“Ürsi may follow the river as well,” Salt said. “We need to find somewhere to have a fire and hunt.”

“We need to get as far from that battle as we can.”

“We have,” Salt answered. “And we won’t make it all the way like this. It could be fifty miles or five hundred. We need to stop.”

Only fifty yards before, they had stumbled through a shallow tributary stream, getting their boots wet.

“Come on,” she said. They doubled back to the stream. The cottonwoods and sycamores grew there too. Tourmaline followed the stream away from the river. The ground rose, broken by rocks washed clean by spring floods. The stream fell over the stones in clear sheets and pooled in shallow basins. They followed the stream up its shallow cleft, overshadowed by trees. Not even half a mile from the river, the trees ended and the open heath stretched away. Tourmaline doubled back deeper into the trees and chose a spot amid boulders on the edge of the stream. Gray light was spreading from the east.

Agate collapsed onto the moss between two boulders, curling up and turning onto her side. She was shivering. Tarbelt began picking up sticks.

“Keep it dry,” Tourmaline said. He didn’t react, just kept gathering fuel for a fire. Mudhorn held out his hands to Tourmaline.

“The bucket?”

She unslung it from her shoulder and pulled the scarf of tools out before handing it to him. He filled it with stream water and then untied the sack he carried, pouring in oats until it was over half full.

“We need to stretch that!” Tourmaline said. Salt put a hand on her shoulder. The touch surprised her.

“We need strength,” he said.

Soon, they had a fire of dry sticks burning, and the tin pail hanging above it, heating water and oats. It would be bland, but at least it would be hot. Tourmaline looked at the heat-haze rising from the fire. The dry wood made it nearly smokeless. Thankfully, it hadn’t rained in days, and the summer ground was relatively dry. That meant nothing would see a pillar of smoke from a distance, but anything close would smell the scent of wood-fire on the air—maybe even all the way to the river. This was a dangerous sufferance for frailty.

But Salt was right. They’d endured cold and hunger for days. She wondered how many miles they’d come. She found it hard to figure, but even in the broken heathland, they must have covered more than fifty miles since they crossed the border. They’d probably put twenty miles or more between them and the battle.

As they waited on the oats to heat, Salt carved into a piece of dry wood with strong, confident dagger-strokes. He saw her watching him.

“Spoons,” he said. “I’m tired of eating with my hands.”

“Good idea,” Mudhorn said, and went off to find a suitable piece of wood.

“That knot there would make a fine bowl,” Tarbelt said, pointing to a bulging growth on a nearby tree trunk. He grabbed the saw from Salt’s burdens and cut it free.

Tourmaline stirred the oats with a cleaned stick as the others worked. She looked over at Agate. The maid lay with her back to them, her knees pulled up in front of her. She remembered the stains on her skirts, and she knew Agate must feel humiliated, if she felt anything beyond fatigue and pain. She had to help her get straightened away, but she wasn’t sure how. First things first. Food.

The dwarves worked fast, wood being easily carved with blades as razor-honed as theirs. Salt made extra spoons, and by the time the oats boiled and softened, there was one for each of them. Tourmaline pulled the pail from over the fire and set it on a rock. Tarbelt sat cross-legged, the bowl pinned between his feet, his hands working rapidly with chisel and hammer. Already he’d nearly finished carving it. By the time the oats had cooled enough to swallow, he’d scooped a heaping portion into the bowl and stuck a spoon into it. He looked helplessly over at Agate, the picture of worried indecision.

“I’ll take it to her,” Tourmaline said. Tarbelt handed her the bowl with relief, and she walked to Agate and sat down in front of her.

“Here.”

Agate shook her head.

“Look,” Tourmaline said. “You’re going to eat this whole bowl and you’re not going to fight it. We need you strong.” She set the bowl down in front of Agate’s nose. “It’s not a choice.

Agate pushed herself up on her elbow, then picked up the spoon, tasting the oats that clung to it. She sighed, then took another bite.

“I’ll be back to check,” Tourmaline said, then left her. The others huddled around the pail, each scooping out bites with their spoons. Tourmaline joined them, the steam rising up from their midst.

Tourmaline had thought Mudhorn was portioning too much, but they cleaned the pail. Tarbelt ran his spoon along the inside, sure to get the last bits.

“Oh for a drop of honey,” Mudhorn said. Salt grunted in reply, already laying down with his head on a flat rock, turning on his side to keep the dappled morning sunlight out of his face. His swordstaff lay beside him. He’d kept the sword’s sheath, and he’d slid the blade back inside.

Tourmaline kept her word and checked on Agate. She had eaten the oats and fallen asleep. Tourm picked up the bowl and spoon and washed them along with the pail in the creek. When she stood back up, the others were already asleep. The idea of keeping a watch was hopeless. There wasn’t a single one of them who could have kept awake. It wasn’t just the day and night of flight. It was the days before as well.

She poured water over the embers of the fire and stirred them, then lay down not far from Salt. She felt safer nearer to the others. His face was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep.

18

The Crossing

Tourmaline woke to the smell of barley. Mudhorn knelt near a renewed fire. Rows of barley cakes baked in the heat on a flat stone he’d moved into the embers. They cakes were nothing but crushed barley and water, but they smelled delicious. She looked around.

“Where are Salt and Tarbelt?” she asked.

“Hunting. Scouting.”

The shadows were long. She had slept the whole day through and the long summer evening as well.

“They should have woken me,” she said. Mudhorn didn’t bother to respond.

Tarbelt and Salt returned before dark, Tarbelt carrying two rabbits and a grouse, and Salt with a lifted shirt full of bilberries and a stupid grin.

“There’re more than I could pick,” he said.

Mudhorn and Tarbelt each reached for handfuls. Salt’s mouth was stained with the dark juice. Tourmaline looked in. They weren’t truly ripe. They would have been better in another couple weeks, but still. She took a few in her fingers and tasted them. The bitter-sweet juice seemed to vivify her tongue. She couldn’t help herself and took a handful and shoveled them into her mouth. Then she remembered Agate and took her some. Agate actually sat up to eat them.

That night they ate grouse and rabbit and barley cakes and felt like lords.

They didn’t leave the next morning, either. Tarbelt went hunting again with his sling, and Salt led Tourmaline up onto the heath to pick more bilberries. They took the bucket this time. They climbed up the slope away from the wooded stream.

“Look,” Tourmaline said, pointing. A bit of ground had eroded away by flowing water, and a bright streak of yellow clay-like soil was exposed in the cut.

“Ochre,” Salt said. He reached over and picked off a loose piece, crushing it with his hand. He opened his fingers and showed the yellowish-orange powder. “There could be iron in this ground.”

They kept on their way. The first of the bilberry bushes were not far. They ate some and then started to fill the bucket. Before long, Tourmaline’s hands were stained from the dark juices. That’s when she had the idea.

Back at the camp, she dumped out half the bilberries on a rock and emptied the chunks of ochre from her pockets. She knew about ochre, of course, and she had stopped to collect it on the way back.

They had left the embers smoldering that morning. Tarbelt was still gone, but Mudhorn sat on a rock.

“Leave,” Tourmaline said.

“What?” Salt asked.

“I must tend to Agate. Go.”

Neither dwarf questioned further. They scooted off out of the trees and onto the heath.

When they were gone, Tourmaline added wood to the fire. She smashed the ochre to powder on the same rock Mudhorn had cooked the barley cakes on. Then she mashed the bilberries with a stick inside the tin bucket. She added in the crushed ochre, then filled it nearly full with water and hung the pail over the fire to heat it. She waited until steam rose.

“Agate,” she said.

“What?” Agate didn’t roll over.

“Give me your skirts.”

“What?”

“Give me your skirts.”

Agate raised her head and looked at Tourmaline, her expression incredulous.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to clean them, and then I’m going to dye them.”

Agate looked down at her stained skirts and sighed. She looked around to make sure they were alone, then she stripped down and handed the skirts to Tourmaline. While Tourmaline took the skirts to the creek where the water made a little pool and washed them as best she could. Tourmaline wished she had made some lye first, but she didn’t want to keep the fire burning hot for too long.

The cold water removed much of the dirt, but the brown bloodstains didn’t budge. As Agate slowly tried to bathe in the stream, Tourmaline brought the three layers of skirts over to the fire. She stirred the contents of the pail. It was nearly at a boil, the liquid a deep brown—ochre and bilberry mixed. She soaked the skirts one at a time, swirling them in the dye. When she’d done each, she let them drip dry for an hour or so and then repeated the process. After the second soak, the skirts had taken on a deep reddish-brown color. She had to look closely to even see where the stains had been.

Tourm hung the skirts to dry in a patch of noon-day sun, and then let the fire burn down as she combed the creekbed for moss. Agate washed her own burlap rags in the creek. The prospect of cleaned, dyed skirts seemed to lift her spirits. Tourm returned with an armload of moss.

Then she stripped and washed her own clothes in the creek, using the wet cloth as a sponge for herself as well. To avoid sitting around naked, she didn’t hang her clothes to dry—she put them back on cold, wet, but at least cleaner. She undid her braid and scrubbed her hair in the water, as well.

“Do you want me to braid it?” Agate asked. Tourmaline glanced over.

“No, don’t worry about it. You can rest.”

“It’d give me a distraction.”

“Alright. Sure.”

So Tourmaline sat with her back to Agate, while the other dwarf-maid plaited her hair. When finished, the braid hung down to her waist.

“I bet the dwarves in your caravan all sought your hand, you with the hair of Jade on you,” Agate said. Tourmaline chuckled. How absurdly distant such a thing felt to her just then.

“No. Not really.” Tourmaline had always felt that Copperwheel intimidated would-be suitors—especially those from the other caravans they sometimes met.

“None?” Agate asked.

“There was one.”

Agate knew not to press. After a moment Tourmaline told her:

“He was taken to the mines.”

“I’m sorry,” Agate said. Tourmaline thought of how Agate had gone after Tarbelt. Had the thought even crossed Tourmaline’s mind to go after Glasshand? No, she didn’t think it had, not when the humans had ridden out of sight, herding the dwarves between them like cattle. Agate just might be the toughest and bravest of anyone she’d ever known.

After her hair was braided, Tourmaline disposed of the dye while Agate saw to her needs and donned her still-damp skirts again. Finished, Agate sat down on a rock. It was good to see her upright, at least.

When Tourmaline stepped out of the trees and onto the heath, she found Salt and Mudhorn sitting with Tarbelt. Apparently, he had returned from a successful hunt—rabbits and a pheasant—and the others had waylaid him to prevent him from interrupting the maids.

“You may return to camp,” she said when they looked up. “And cook for us.”

They stayed that night and one day after, and they saw no sign of ürsi or human. Deer browsed in the forest, and rabbits combed the heath. They did not manage to hunt the deer, but Tarbelt proved his worth as a slinger, bringing in rabbits and birds.

After three days, Tourmaline could not justify their remaining any longer. In truth, it was only her pity for Agate that had kept them in place. The weather had held pleasant, but they did not know how far to the north they must go, and Tourmaline did not want to be caught by early winter. The days of midsummer would pass.

Agate still bore no burden, but some of her color had returned to her. They picked their way down the stream back toward the river. They reached the game trail in the sycamores and cottonwoods and stopped in their tracks. Where it crossed the stream, the leaves were disturbed, dirt and sand trampled and flattened. A print showed an elongated heel and four wide-set toes.

“These were not here before, I’m sure of that,” Mudhorn said. Tourmaline agreed, and she was sure they were ürsi.

“They seem to go east,” Tarbelt said. None of them were expert enough trackers to tell how many, but it was obviously a group, judging from how matted and disturbed the crossing over the creek was.

But there was nothing for it. They had set out to find something, and it lay northeast.

“Then we’ll be careful,” Tourmaline said. “We’ve enjoyed fires the past few days. Now we must remember where we are. The Kara-Indal were never safe, not even in the days of the Crippled King.” She thought of her grandmother’s old stories, of the ürsi and trolls and the great mountain bears that could kill ten dwarves with a single swipe of their paws. It was said that Brokenspear had slain such a bear, the spirit of the mountain, and so claimed Ice-Cloak for the dwarves. These were old stories, and Tourmaline took them with plenty of salt. What she didn’t doubt was that Ice-Cloak existed. Their forebears had come from somewhere.

She led them on, but apart from tracks in the silty soils along the river, they saw no sign of ürsi that day. At times the river flowed through open heath, and at other times a narrow band of trees grew to either side. Sometimes reeds and cattails spread in wide swaths of wetland. That night, they camped a few hundred yards inland amidst weathered rocks.

“Do you think the king won the battle?” Tarbelt asked. The question had been posed before, but still they wondered aloud together. “There were so many ürsi.”

“The king had horse in his host, and many archers,” Mudhorn said.

“I did not see horse during the battle,” Tarbelt replied.

They fell silent. There was nothing new to say. If the ürsi had lost, surely they would swarm along the river, fleeing back into the wilds. They could not have boats to cross the river or estuary, could they? There were no answers for their questions, and no fire to cheer them that night.

They found more ürsi tracks the next day, and the day after—different groups moving in different directions, some upstream, some down, and some striking into the heath. Yet they saw nothing but the tracks. The dwarves made a ragtag band hardly fit to face ürsi, but Salt held his swordstaff at the ready, Tarbelt his sling, and the other three carried spears.

Each day, Agate grew stronger, more of her natural color returning to her cheeks. On the fifth day since setting out again, she demanded to carry a pack. Considering they had eaten away a fair amount of oats and barley by that point, spreading some of the load to Agate made them feel positively light. Tarbelt had carried the spear Tourmaline had given Agate before the rescue, and now he gave it back to her. She thanked him.

“Must you wear that stupid rope like that?” she asked abruptly. Tarbelt looked down at the rope twined around his body.

“You always need rope,” he said.

“But do you have to wear it like that?”

Tarbelt had been wearing it wrapped around his torso, which was thinner a bit than it had been, but still substantial. He looked hurt.

“It could turn a blade,” he said. Agate rolled her eyes and fell silent again. Tarbelt looked at Tourmaline, as if searching for some kind of answer. Tourm raised both eyebrows and walked on.

Tourmaline often pulled out her map to study it as they walked. The darkness of the stain had faded since Mudhorn’s impromptu ink, but she could still make it out. They should come upon a split in the river. The river did not keep to a straight line, so she could not gauge their distance as the crow would fly, but she figured they made at least fifteen miles in a day. Thankfully, the further they went, the rockier the ground, and the less marshes of reeds and cattails obscured their vision of the water. Most of the day, they could see clear across. The river had narrowed to about fifty yards wide, and the edges were shallow in places.

It was not quite midday when Tourmaline smelled smoke. She stopped, her nose raised to the breeze. The wind was out of the east.

“I smell it too,” Salt whispered.

“Humans?” Tarbelt asked.

“Or ürsi,” Salt said.

“I didn’t know ürsi could make fires,” Tarbelt said. Salt shrugged.

“We’re going up there.” Tourmaline pointed. Ahead, the river curved slightly to the north, and they could not see far upstream, but a hill rose about fifty feet above the riverbank. They needed to survey their surroundings and try to locate the smoke. It didn’t take them long to scramble up the hillside. They reached the crest crawling on hands and knees, trying to keep a low profile. The smell of smoke was stronger, now, even though the wind swept across the hillside with force. But she smelled something fouler with it. There was a haze of smoke rising from the north against the clear sky. Tourmaline crawled up onto some bare rock and looked down the far slope.

The great river curved around the rocky hill upon which they perched. Looking upstream, the river divided. Two cold rivers met in a swirl of deep currents and slate-gray water. It was the fork they had searched for, she was sure, but what caught her attention more was what lay in the fork of the two rivers. In the strip of rocky ground between the two joining waters, the lazy smoke from a number of smoldering fires rose into the sky among a village of low, ugly huts. She could see the ürsi moving about there, but at first she was confused. These looked different from the ones she’d seen at the battle, and the one Salt had slain along the river.

“Are those ürsi?” Tarbelt asked.

“I didn’t know they were so tall. Were they so tall?” Agate whispered. The dwarves lay on their bellies side by side, peeking over rocks and heather.

“I think those are females,” Salt said.

Tourmaline was trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Then she saw one of the creatures lying on its side, three pairs of teats full and swollen, mongrel kits climbing over each other to feed. Others kits ran between the huts, as much on four legs as two. The huts themselves were shorter than the she-ürsi were, made of deadwood and skins, sun-baked mud and grass. There were at least fifty huts, though she could see far fewer ürsi outside. But there was more. In between the huts, low crumbling walls of stone blocks interconnected. There were crumbling structures of stone rising above the current in the water, too. Something older than the ürsi village had been there.

“These are foul creatures. I’d always heard the tales, but to see such things with my own eyes. . .” Mudhorn said.

A group of smaller ürsi, like those they’d seen at the battle, moved through the center of the village. They carried spears, and they wore clothes of hide and bone. They got near one of the she-ürsi and her young, and the she-ürsi rose to tower over them, swatting with long claws, her matted hair whipping around her. The male ürsi moved away, giving her space.

“I didn’t know they built things,” Salt whispered. No one answered. There was much the old stories didn’t say.

“This must be the joining of the rivers we seek,” Mudhorn said. He motioned to Tourmaline. “The map?”

She reached into her pocket and spread it out on the rock before them. He leaned over. “We must cross the eastern stream, get between the two rivers.”

“That’s where the ürsi are,” Tarbelt said.

“I’m not suggesting that we cross here.”

“We have to circle around,” Tourmaline said. “Cross upstream and cut across land to the western branch.” She had studied the map more than any of them. She could see it all in her mind if she closed her eyes.

“Speaking of crossing,” Salt said, and pointed to the riverbank near the ürsi village. “Are those boats?”

Lined up on the gravel and mud a few yards from the water were what looked like long logs, except the insides had been hollowed out. Tourmaline knew next to nothing about boats, but she supposed that such things might float.

“I did not know ürsi even lived in villages. I thought they roamed in wild packs, like wolves,” said Mudhorn.

“Let’s go.” Tourmaline did not want to lay there speculating about the habits of ürsi.

They crawled backward, out of sight of the village. Then, Tourmaline led them east away from the river and into the heathlands.

They walked in a line, hurrying between tufts of brush and jumbles of rock. After what she reckoned was three miles, she turned north. They skirted around an isolated stand of pines growing in a fold of the hills. It would have been a good place to camp, except they wanted to get as far from the ürsi as possible.

As they walked along the eaves of the pines, Tourmaline stopped in her tracks. She gripped her spear tight. The wind was out of the east, blowing from within the pines.

“Wha—” Salt began, but stopped. He moved his swordstaff into a low guard. The long blade caught the sun. An ürsi stepped out of the pines, hunched over, staring at the ground. It raised its head and looked over at them mere yards away. They stood motionless and silent, staring at each other in mutual shock. A second ürsi stepped out from the trees behind it.

There was a swish of air. A rock slammed into the first ürsi’s face, and it collapsed back onto the ground. Tarbelt fumbled in his pocket for another stone. The second ürsi snarled and a third stepped from the trees. Tourmaline leveled her spear at them, even as Mudhorn stepped forward on her left.

“Watch the trees!” Salt said, half-turning to look into the dark eaves on their right.

One of the ürsi raised its snout to the air, croaked, and then shrieked a high, piercing call. It was answered from within the pines by other voices, and some that sounded like they came from the heath beyond. There was movement in the shadows of the pines. Tourmaline heard a stifled cry and turned to see Agate clutching her spear and facing back—another ürsi had stepped from the pines behind them. Tarbelt spun, fumbling a stone into his sling.

“Come on!” Salt rushed at the two ürsi ahead of them. The first raised its barbed club to block Salt’s blow, but Salt's blade bit into the wood. He twisted and rammed forward, driving the swordpoint into the ürsi’s chest. It huffed and groaned as it collapsed. The second ürsi faced Salt with a rusted spear, but Mudhorn closed on it. It turned and dove back into the trees.

“Shit!” Tarbelt said. Tourmaline looked and saw Tarbelt’s sling hanging loose from his hand and the ürsi behind rushing back into the trees.

“Let’s go!” Tourmaline shouted. She struck away from the pines, heading northwest. Away from the pines, at least they would see any ürsi coming. More shrieks erupted from within the trees as the dwarves rushed away at a jog.

Tourmaline scanned the horizon for more threats or for ground where they could put their backs to something safe, but the empty heathland just rolled and stretched away. She couldn’t even see the river beyond the hills to the west. She glanced back. More ürsi had emerged from the trees, now, milling around their two fallen. There looked to be around ten from a glance. They gesticulated and shrieked at the fleeing dwarves. One of them drew back a bow and loosed an arrow. It flew wide, but that was no comfort. The dwarves had no shields, nothing to protect against arrows.

They gained the top of a rise a few hundred yards from the trees. Tourmaline paused to look back again. It seemed the ürsi had no clear idea what to do. Some milled about the fallen. A few trotted after the dwarves, hunched low, as if tracking them.

“I’d rather not tarry,” Mudhorn said. Tourmaline couldn’t argue. They pushed on northward at as fast a pace as they could sustain—something of a trot. They caught glimpses of the few ürsi tracking them across the heath, but the gap had widened. Still, it would be near impossible to lose them in these wide open spaces. The sun cast long afternoon shadows from their moving forms.

“I fear the coming of night,” Salt whispered as he jogged up alongside Tourmaline. She didn’t respond. If the ürsi preferred to hunt and move at night, those who tracked them could bring many more once the sun set. Without replying, Tourmaline veered westward.

The river. It was the only barrier she knew. They had only come a few miles inland, and it only took an hour before they came over the brow of a rise and saw the river snaking through the landscape below. It was not the mighty river they’d followed for days, but the eastern branch of the two tributaries that formed it.

They reached the rocky riverbank wet with sweat.

“They’re still there,” Tarbelt said, gazing back at the brow of the hill. He pointed at two low forms crouched on the brow. “It doesn’t look like they’re coming down here.”

Tourmaline figured they would not abandon the hunt, but would merely bide their time. She knew the ürsi had boats to cross the river, but the dwarves had none. Crossing the river had always been a problem they needed to solve, so Tourmaline had been thinking on it for days. No dwarf she knew enjoyed traveling upon the water. Water served its purpose—quenched thirst, spun wheels for grinding corn—but feet were meant for rock.

Tarbelt and Mudhorn carried the axes over their backs, strung on ropes of Tarbelt’s twisted cordage. Thankfully, a stand of low aspen trees clumped near the water. They took refuge inside, away from the prying eyes of the ürsi.

“Tarbelt, keep an eye out for them,” Tourm said. “But leave the axe and the rope.”

He slung the axe off his shoulder, and then, frowning, he unwrapped the rope from his body.

“Don’t cut it, alright?” he said, and then went to crouch behind a tree at the edge of the copse. The water flowed shallow near the edges, rushing in ten thousand undulations over stones, but near the middle it looked swift and dark.

“Mudhorn, Salt,” she said. “We need trees cut and trimmed.”

She helped, taking the saw to one of the trunks while Mudhorn and Salt bit into another from opposite sides. The first tree toppled in minutes. Salt started on another while Mudhorn lopped off the branches of the first. Tourmaline’s tree came down next, snagging in the branches of another before shivering to the ground in a rain of torn leaves. Agate stepped forward, hurrying to peel away the smaller branches with a dagger.

They cut each of the three trees again until they had six ten-foot sections.

“Will the rope make it stable enough?” Mudhorn asked. Tourmaline shook her head. She’d lain awake at night, trying to come up with a solution. How she’d wished for a simple corkscrew—four wooden pegs would have served. In the end, she’d had to come up with something far more rudimentary.

“Split the ends,” she said. It was green wood and should split easy enough. “We’re going to cross-wedge each side. It should hold flat then.” She hoped. The others grasped the design instantly and set to work. Within minutes, they had split the ends of each log and carved down long branches into wedges. Using the backs of their axes, they hammered the wedges into place, holding the logs together. Then they wrapped the rope around the raft. Salt wanted to cut the rope into lengths, but Tourmaline refused, feeling both pity for Tarbelt and the practicality of keeping it whole. They’d done the final wedging and tying right at the water’s edge. After little more than an hour, they had only to slide the raft forward.

“Tarbelt!” Tourmaline called. The young dwarf rushed over.

“Only one left that I can see,” he said.

“They know where we are,” Salt replied. “They’ll come for us when they’re ready.”

“All the more reason to get across the river,” Tourm said.

Mudhorn interjected.

“I understand getting the raft into the water, but how do we get it to the other side?”

“We use our spears,” she said. “And branches. Push off the bottom.”

“Might the middle be too deep?”

“Then we do the best we can.”

It wasn’t exactly a comforting plan for a group of dwarves about to embark on their first voyage. Many dwarves in the caravans didn’t even like bridges over water, warding themselves against ill adventure before crossing. Tourmaline had never much minded bridges, so long as the engineering was sound. She pictured the horses and riders plunging into the river from the sabotaged bridge, but she pushed it from her mind.

When each of them had a long branch or spear ready, they slid the raft halfway into the water until the front end floated free. Mudhorn, Agate, and Tourmaline climbed to the front. Tourm’s heart beat, and she saw sweat on the foreheads of the others. She had to look confident, though. This was her idea, and she would put a brave face on it. With a great shove, Tarbelt and Salt pushed on the back of the raft and leapt on.

The raft would have slid free, except for the addition of their weight bearing it down in the back. Salt rose up on his knees and pushed at the bank with his branch. He had chosen not to use his swordstaff for the purpose. Tarbelt followed suit with another branch. The bottom of the logs grated over stone, and then the nose caught the current and swung downstream. The dwarves at the front dug their poles into the stones of the bottom and tried to push further into the river.

The vessel rocked as Mudhorn leaned out to push. He flinched back and lowered his chest over the logs, grimacing. At the rear, Salt strained, his neck muscles bulging, trying to gain purchase on the river bottom. The raft slid away from the stones, and in moments the current pulled them toward the dark center of the stream, propelling them at startling speed. Tourmaline panicked.

“Push! Push!” she called.

“I can’t reach the bottom!” Tarbelt yelled back.

Mudhorn shouted something indistinct, and they sped past a boulder jutting up from the water, a narrow miss. Agate crouched with her face to the logs, not looking up.

Then, the nose of the raft twisted toward the far bank. Tourmaline looked back. Salt had his branch extended behind them into the water at an angle. He moved the branch to the left of the raft, and they angled again, moving toward the near shore. He moved the branch back to the right, and the raft turned to the far shore.

“Turn it that way!” Tourm shouted. But she didn’t need too. Salt had already grasped the situation. He put the stick down at a hard angle, and they slid over the current to the far side of the stream. Even as the river pulled them downstream, little by little they veered to the far shore. They nearly struck another stone, but Salt straightened them at the last moment and regained their course. The water grew clearer as they approached the edge. Tourmaline looked to Tarbelt.

“Try your branch!”

He stuck it down over the edge, and it glanced off the bottom. He pulled it back up, jutted it forward, and pushed hard. The raft jerked further out of the current. Tourmaline inched to the same side as Tarbelt, feeling the vessel shift and wanting to hang on for precious life, but they needed to push. Together, Tourmaline, Tarbelt, and Salt brought the raft into the shallow water, just as the river came to a bend. The last bit of current deposited them in a rocky shoal in the elbow of the bend. They hit a rock, nearly jarring Mudhorn into the water. The raft turned sideways and stuck fast.

“Everyone off!” Tourmaline yelled. She slid over the side first, surprised as she plunged into water up to her chest. She gasped at the sudden cold. It had not looked so deep, what with the rocks sticking up. Thankfully, the current was weaker amidst the shoal, and she pushed and stumbled over the rocks and crawled onto dry land. She looked back and saw Tarbelt frantically untying the end of the rope from the raft.

Agate sloshed onto the shore next to Tourmaline, then turned and yelled at Tarbelt.

“Leave the stupid rope!”

“No!” Tarbelt yelled back. He loosed the knot and unwrapped enough of the rope to reach the shore before scrambling into the water. He flailed as he made his way to land, but he stumbled onto the bank with the rope still in hand. The others lay on the shore and breathed like they’d run a mile, but Tarbelt cajoled a sodden and ill-humored Mudhorn to help him pull the raft closer with the rope. When the raft touched the land, Tarbelt set to work unwrapping the rest. By the time they all regained their feet, Tarbelt had slung the freed rope around his torso. It must have been a heavy burden, soaked as it was, but he hadn’t lost an inch.

19

The Hunt

Tourmaline led them northwest, barely needing her dwarven sense of direction. The sky was clear, the sun following its path down the western slope of the firmament. She wanted to reach the western branch of the river and to keep away from the ürsi village at the same time. She had no idea what kind of pursuit the ürsi would make. The dwarves probably wouldn’t be followed where they crossed the river, not unless the ürsi had boats stashed, but it would only take an ürsi scout an hour to jog back downriver to their village at the joining of the streams. Surely they had ways to cross back and forth and communicate. Did they talk? She thought they must, but it was hard to imagine.

The ürsi couldn’t know where the dwarves were headed, and if they wanted to track them, they have to pick up the trail where the dwarves had landed. Yet again, the dwarves walked as fast as they could, their calves aching with the strain. Any faster and they’d be jogging, but they couldn’t sustain a jog for miles over the rough country. Tourmaline wanted badly to slow down, but she wouldn't, not so long as Agate and the others kept pace.

The sun neared the horizon when they stood on a hill overlooking the snaking western tributary.

“Down!” Salt snapped. They all dropped to the ground. Tourmaline twisted to see Salt. He pointed south. Cresting a far hill was a group of dark figures, undoubtedly ürsi. They were spread out, moving at a steady pace but not running. The dwarves had come from east of there, but the ürsi would be on their scent trail soon.

“Crawl,” Tourmaline said. She didn’t think they’d been seen yet, and she wanted to keep it that way. They made it below the crest of the hill, then took to their feet and hurried down toward the river. It was much like the other branch, with thin strips of trees and brush lining its rocky banks. The trees would provide some cover from sight, but they wouldn’t hide their tracks or scent.

They made it into the stunted alders, hazels, and willows along the riverbank before any ürsi appeared on the heights above. As usual, thin game trails followed the water’s edge.

“Get in the water!” Tourmaline said. She led the way, slipping out onto the slick stones and splashing into the river up to her knees, keeping close enough to the riverbank to stay behind the trees. The others followed without argument. Tourmaline took high steps to fight the current as she forced her way upstream. The ürsi could not track their scent in flowing water. Nor could the dwarves move quickly through the water. After about fifty yards, Tourmaline realized she should have led them downstream in the water. It might have thrown the ürsi off. It was too late, though.

She kept looking back over her shoulder, expecting to see ürsi staring up the river at her and breaking into pursuit. They couldn’t stay in the water. Evening shadows closed in on them. The river bent ahead, cutting into a bluff where the clay and gravel soil had eroded and collapsed into the stream. Scattered boulders had fallen out of the soil and landed in the river, their tops sticking up from the surface of the water. A solitary willow clung to the side of the bluff, hanging nearly horizontal over the water by exposed roots. Tourmaline made for it. She gasped as she stepped in a hole and the water rushed around her stomach, but she kept her feet and they reached the boulders in the bend.

There was nowhere to stand on the bank there, the eroded soil rising almost sheer from the river. But under the willow lay deepening shadow, and the large rocks provided cover. The tendril-liked branches of the willow hung down, the tips dragging in the waist-deep water. The willow hid them from above, and rocks sheltered them from downstream. In order to see them, an ürsi would have to be standing on the opposite bank, or move beyond them and look back downstream. Either of those was a possibility.

“Where to now?” Salt asked.

“Nowhere,” Tourmaline said. “This is it.”

“For how long?” It was Tarbelt, looking red in the face and miserable waist deep in the flowing water. The current was slow amidst the rocks of the collapsed bluff, not threatening to sweep them off their feet, but none of them wanted to stay in it. Still, Tourmaline had no other ideas.

“They can’t smell us on the water, and they can’t hardly see us here,” she said. The others looked around. No one wanted to stay, but no one seemed to have a better idea. Agate sighed and folded her arms, leaning her forehead against a rock and taking some of the weight off her feet. Tarbelt leaned his back against another rock, but Mudhorn walked over to the riverbank beneath the willow. The trunk hung ten feet above his head. He picked at the dry, hardened clay with his fingers. A piece broke off, and he rubbed it between his hands. The clay crumbled, and he let the pieces trail into the water.

“It’s loose clay. Sandy and brittle.” He looked over at Salt. “But it’d hold for a while.”

Salt squinted and joined Mudhorn at the clay. Salt had the shovel they’d stolen from the outpost, it’s human-length handle cut down extra short to make it easier to carry. Now he unslung it from his shoulder. Mudhorn traced an arc across the clay with a finger, and Salt started to dig. Chunks of clay splashed down.

“Keep it quiet,” Tourmaline whispered. Mudhorn crouched, trying to keep the bigger chunks from splashing as Salt dug.

It seemed silly to her, but she’d never seen Salt dig before. She knew he had worked in the mines, of course, as had Mudhorn. But when Salt lifted the shovel to bite into the clay, his broads shoulders seemed to expand even more, the muscles of his neck flexed taut. He was what Glasshand wasn’t. His neck and shoulders were hairy, his beard bristly, his features dark and coarse. Scars marred his skin, and through his spirit ran a streak of hard ore—and yet, he did not show it against his own. She’d glimpsed it in his eyes, though, when he’d killed the ürsi. She had called him cowardly once, and she felt ashamed. There was not a coward with her in that river.

In a matter of minutes, Salt had stepped up out of the river and onto the ledge he’d made, but he continued to dig. Soon, the clay piled up out of the water, splashing no longer. Mudhorn climbed up beside Salt and joined in with his dagger. Tourmaline feared they made too much noise, but the clay was soft. The wind blew in the trees, and the river flowed over the rocks, muffling any other noise.

In less than an hour, they were all sitting dry in a crevasse of clay, staring out at moonlight reflecting on the river. An ürsi would have to stand directly across from the willow tree and possess unusually good eyes to see them, now.

“Try to get some sleep,” Salt said. “I will watch.”

“Wake me after a while, I will watch then,” Mudhorn said. Salt nodded. Tourmaline leaned against the clay, her knees drawn up in front of her. Before she’d left the caravan, she couldn’t have imagined sleeping in such a place and under such circumstances. Now, she didn’t even dream.

“The trees along the river will give us cover,” Mudhorn said. It was morning. A white egret had just flown silently upstream in the pre-dawn gray. Tourmaline’s back was aching from sleeping hunched in a sitting position.

“But the ürsi are looking for us along the river,” Salt answered.

“We should cross the river.” It was Tarbelt. “They’ll look for us on this side.”

Mudhorn ignored him. Tourmaline didn’t think anyone wanted a repeat of their raft experience.

“But if we cut inland, the heath is wide open,” Mudhorn said. “A single scout on a hill can watch miles.”

“We could keep to the low ground.”

“At least we can put our backs to the river.”

Mudhorn and Salt continued the discussion. Tourmaline agreed with both of them—both options were bad. She sat and thought. Her back might be stiff, but the clay dugout was certainly better than spending the night in the water. She knew Agate was awake next to her, but the dwarf-maid did not open her eyes, leaning her head against the clay.

“What do you think?”

The question brought her out of her own thoughts. Salt was looking at her. They were packed so tight in the dug-out shelf that his shoulder pressed against hers, and he tried to lean back to put more space between their faces.

“What do I think?” she repeated back to him. She’d been trying to do just that when he’d interrupted her. Maybe Tarbelt’s option was best, if they could manage to build a raft without the ürsi finding them. But then, they’d been lucky with their river crossing last time. If they collided with a single stone, they could all drown. The ürsi would feast on their washed-up bodies.

“I don’t think there’s a good option,” she said. “I think they’ll be hunting us, regardless.”

“I don’t think we can make it,” Tarbelt said.

“To Ice-Cloak or back to Laith?” Mudhorn asked, apparently as some kind of joke because he chuckled after.

“How many did we see coming over that hill?” Tourmaline asked.

“Ten or fifteen,” Salt said. “Could have been more behind.”

“How many do you think would come hunting five dwarves?”

No one knew the answer to that. Tourmaline stared at the rays of sunlight just reaching the tops of the trees across the river. She tried to imagine what she would do if she was an ürsi. What if she were the one doing the hunting?

“We hunt them,” she blurted.

“What?” Salt asked.

“They’re hunting us. I say we hunt them instead. We move north, but we move north like we’re hunting, not running. We kill them or they kill us. Mudhorn is right that we can keep the river to our back if they corner us. . . But maybe we corner them first.”

“Hunt the ürsi?” Tarbelt asked.

“Hunt the ürsi,” Tourmaline answered.

Tarbelt’s face was blank for a while. Then he grinned. And then he chuckled.

“Well, they’re bigger targets than rabbits, sure.”

“Let’s just make certain that if we do find them, we don’t let any go for help.”

“Well, well,” Mudhorn said under his breath, stroking his beard. “Well, well.”

They had to get their legs wet again, leaving the dugout in the riverbank. They backtracked in the shallows, then stalked their way up the side of the bluff. When they got above the trees they paused, crouched low as they searched the landscape for signs of ürsi. The heath looked barren, except for a small herd of deer grazing beyond the trees across the river.

But the morning was young, Tourmaline thought. One had to be patient in the hunt. She smiled. It was comical to her, but she felt a thrill that she hadn’t felt for many days—not a thrill of fear, but of something else, something dangerously close to joy. Even their movements changed, hunters stalking game, their backs curved, spears held ready, mindful of cover and quarry.

For a time, the trees on the eastern bank of the river grew sparse, replaced by rock and clay banks and low shrubs. But after a few miles, they came around a curve in the river and saw a stand of thick larches nestled in a fold of a bluff. Tarbelt pointed at it.

“I’d be there,” he whispered. “If I was watching.”

Tourmaline considered it. The back of the larches had the benefit of elevation, and one could survey the approach to the river from there. They crouched below the shrubs.

“Do you think they’ll have seen us?”

“At this distance? With this much cover? Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What’s the plan?” Salt asked, looking at Tourmaline. She looked back into his dark grey eyes. They were looking to her. Her stomach fluttered, and she wasn’t entirely sure of all the reasons why.

“We back up.” There was lowground in the heath to the east. They could cut inland and circle around behind the stand of larch, come at it from above. The wind was in the west, no hint of salt, now.

The others followed Tourmaline, crawling back out of sight of the bluff. They cut east, keeping to low ground. It took an hour to reach the back of the bluff that sheltered the trees. They saw no ürsi on the heath, only a grouse sent Tourmaline’s heart pounding as it scared up in a noisy flutter. Cool sweat dampened her brow as they climbed the back of the hill.

The top was nearly bare of growth, exposed, weathered sandstone showing through. They crawled on their hands and knees until they could peer down at the larch trees fifty yards below. It was daylight and difficult to see into the shadows beneath the foliage.

So. . . hunting.

Tourmaline wasn’t a hunter, but Agate and Tarbelt were. She remembered how Agate had worked the rabbit warren.

“Agate,” she whispered. Agate looked over. Her color had returned significantly. She wasn’t back to full vigor and cheer, but she looked far better than she had. “If you were trying to hunt something in those woods, how would you do it?”

Agate looked down at the trees for a moment, the breeze fluttering her short brown hair.

“I’d have someone on the far side with a sling,” she said. “And then I’d try to flush them that way.”

It made sense, but there was no way to get to the far side from here without being seen. They’d have to do the best they could.

“Alright. You and Tarbelt will sprint around to the other side.” We’ll give you a head start.” She looked at Mudhorn and Salt. “Then we move into the trees. On three—” she paused. “If it sounds like we’ve gotten ourselves into too much,” she said to Agate and Tarbelt, “Try to come in from the other side.”

This was probably a foolish idea. There could be twenty ürsi in those trees unseen.

“Alright? Alright. One. Two. Three. Go, go.”

Agate and Tarbelt bolted down the hill, scattering loose gravel as they went. Tourmaline grimaced at the sound. She gave them only a few breaths, then she rose and headed toward the trees, spear gripped in front of her. She’d never used a spear before, not really, but the principle was simple. Salt and Mudhorn careened down beside her, accelerating on the steep slope. They burst beneath the outer branches of the larch trees and into the shadow. Tourmaline skidded to a stop in the gravel and brown needles and loam. She scanned the small patch of woods, but it was empty. No shapes flitted between the tree trunks.

They made a quick search of anywhere they couldn’t see, then they called Agate and Tarbelt inside. As exhilarating and terrifying as the charge had been, Tourmaline felt foolish. They had wasted precious time and energy.

They took the opportunity and cover to eat a quick meal of cold-soaked oats from their dwindling supply, using water from a waterskin. Their burdens had grown easier the more stolen provisions they ate, and now they felt nervously light. They sat near the bottom edge of the larches, looking down at the river. They had just scraped the tin pail clean with their wooden spoons when Agate grabbed Tourmaline’s arm. She followed Agate’s gaze.

Rounding the edge of the bluff, three ürsi headed south along the riverbank. They carried short thrusting spears with rusted heads, and their eyes were barely visible as they squinted against the sunlight. They veered and headed straight for the trees.

Without a word, the dwarves scrambled behind tree trunks and thick larch branches. They had stayed in shadow and cover enough as they ate that the ürsi had not noticed them. Tourmaline crouched behind a larch and gripped her spear. She felt an indescribable urge to be the one to make a kill, to drive the spear into one of the foul creatures' bellies. She’d never felt anything like it.

Fifteen yards from the trees, the ürsi stopped. They raised their long snouts to sniff at the breeze.

Shit. The wind had shifted. Tourmaline sprang out from behind her tree trunk and broke into the open, trusting that the others would follow. She was still uphill, and she hurtled down at the ürsi so fast she nearly fell face first. The ürsi only had time to crouch and stick their spears out in front of them. Tourmaline panicked, remembering that the ürsi had weapons, too. In her impulse, she had forgotten it wasn’t quite a hunt of an unarmed animal.

She stretched her spear out in front of her, sliding the haft forward through her hands. Her dwarven mind calculated in the space of a heartbeat—her spear was longer. The blade pierced into the nearest ürsi’s chest. She had one of the dwarven spears, and the blade cut in till the lugs caught and the ürsi collapsed backwards with the weight of Tourmaline’s charge, its own spear dropping uselessly to the ground.

Tourmaline’s speed and her attempt to hold onto the spear now lodged in the ürsi brought her skidding down onto her knees. She rolled hard onto her side, doubled over the haft of the spear. She scrambled to rise and turn toward the other ürsi, but then she saw they were already down. Salt had spitted one, and Mudhorn another. Tarbelt was rushing down from the trees, his sling hanging from his hand.

“I couldn’t throw!” he exclaimed. “You got in the way!” He was looking at Tourmaline. Agate trailed behind him, clutching her spear with both hands, her eyes round and white.

20

Cornered

Tourmaline’s knees and palms were scraped and the bottom of her skirt was ripped where it had caught underfoot, but three ürsi lay dead on the hillside, their bodies left behind for the crows. The mood among the five dwarves had never been better.

They hurried north along the river, momentarily forgetting to act like hunters in their sense of victory. They saw nothing more for the rest of the day, and at night they camped among the rocks near the river, lying out of sight. Part of Tourmaline wished they had created another dugout shelf in the bank, but the thought of sleeping sitting up again deterred them. They split the watches, two awake and three asleep. Agate they allowed to rest undisturbed. She had gone off into the shrubs seeking privacy when they stopped, but she’d returned after a while and laid down in the same jumbled rocks.

The next day, they proceeded as before, stalking along the river, following it ever north. At midday, they smelled smoke. After climbing the nearest hill and crawling on their bellies, they spied the trail of smoke rising into the sky. It came from the western side of the river, but they could not see what caused it until they’d crept another half-a-mile north. Another ürsi settlement, this one smaller than the last, lay on the far shore. They saw the tall she-ürsi walking amidst the clay huts with long beclawed arms swinging down nearly to their knees, their hunched backs ridged and their rows of teats the object of desire for numerous scampering ürsi kits. There were only a couple males lingering near the edge of the settlement. Apart from the kits, the ürsi looked languid, as if they didn’t have enough energy for any exertion. But then, the stories had all said that ürsi hunted at night.

The dwarves crept past, staying well hidden. Hunters they may be, but none of them wanted to cross the river or to approach those massive she-ürsi. They saw no more of their foe that day, and by evening they’d turned their hunting skills to gathering the rabbits that scampered in plenty on the heathland. They picked as isolated a spot as all the others they’d seen that day and risked a fire of dried drift-wood from the banks of the river. The wood had been left high and sun-bleached after spring flooding, so it burned with little smoke. They still doused the flames as soon as the meat was close enough to cooked, holding the sharpened sticks on which the rabbits had roasted and tearing the flesh with their teeth. Hot juices dripped on beards and chins.

They didn’t sleep near the doused fire, moving another mile upstream and sleeping beneath a dense layer of bracken. Again they kept watch, but saw nothing more than a swooping owl and heard only the flow of water, chirping insects, and the splash of leaping fish.

The next morning, Tourmaline woke to Agate’s voice as she chattered to Tarbelt about carving another wooden bowl. She wanted to keep her eye out for a round growth on the trees. Tourmaline couldn’t see them well through the dense bracken, but she smiled. Agate’s voice had its old husky vigor back.

It was afternoon and many miles further when Tourmaline heard gasps. She had been looking at her feet. Salt’s arms hung down at his side, his mouth open, his eyes wide as he stared north. The others beyond him looked much the same. She followed their gaze.

Whether she gasped or not, she didn’t know. In the north the clouds were breaking apart, showing peaks beyond.

Mountains soaring up into the sky.

They looked so far away, and yet she knew they were the biggest things she’d ever seen. The dwarves stood in silence for a goodly time, the vision growing clear as more of the clouds lifted in the north.

“Never in my life. . .” Mudhorn muttered. “Never did I think my eyes would gaze upon the Kara-Indal.”

That’s what they were, what they must be. Neither Tourmaline nor the others had ever seen more than a large hill or ridge. Something inside Tourmaline’s heart swelled, and she couldn’t have described it if she tried.

The river had led them, just as the map had shown. The river had grown shallower and narrower in the past days, until sometimes it looked like they might walk across its thirty yards without the water reaching their waists. But they had no need.

That night, they sat on a ledge of rock staring at the mountains as the sun went down, an orange glare shining on the distant peaks. Some of the mountains looked white near the top, and Tourmaline assumed that meant snow. The stories said that the ice never fully melted from Ice-Cloak, that the glaciers nestled on its shoulders all the summer long, sending down streams of water so cold and clear and pure that no crystal could compare.

The next day, they saw from high ground a distant dark shadow stretching south along the river, down from the mountains in the north. It took Tourmaline a while to figure out what she was looking at. Forest. It was a deep forest, a darker green than any of the heathland before it. She looked over her shoulder to compare the color to the land behind, to make sure it was no trick of the sunlight behind clouds.

She grabbed Salt’s arm. He startled, then followed her gaze.

Nearly a mile behind them, dark figures moved on the hills, and many.

“Ürsi!” Salt said, and they all dropped to their knees, crouching low.

The ürsi did not move in a formation or a line, but spread out inland from the river. They walked a steady pace. There were far too many to fight—maybe a hundred.

“Let’s go,” Tourmaline said. They crawled down from the high ground, putting it between them and the ürsi. Then, they made all the haste they could, once again the hunted.

In the low ground, they could no longer see the forest and often not even the peaks of the mountains. But they didn’t need line of sight to keep north. The ürsi had been moving at a steady pace, but Tourmaline suspected they were not truly hunting, not yet. Did they already have their trail and were just waiting for nightfall to hunt, to close for a kill? Or had they yet to pick up the scent?

Night fell, but they did not stop. Without needing to discuss it, they kept heading north along the river. Tourmaline didn’t know if the ürsi had stopped. No one complained at the forced march. The moon had set and the night was deep when the forest loomed ahead of them like a wall of shadow. They did not hesitate—could not.

Raising their arms in front of their faces, they pushed through the outermost layer of branches, finding that the trees were evergreens. The needles clawed and poked, the branches dense. The smell of the tarry sap filled Tourmaline’s nostrils. Once past the outer layer of trees, the forest opened, the tree trunks rising like dark columns to a shadowy canopy above. The ground was overgrown with ferns that grew to chest height. Even with space between the trees, their pace slowed as they picked their way alongside the river. The banks of the river had grown rockier, its banks deepening and growing sheer. It was not always easy to follow the river's edge beneath the shadows of the trees, so they tried to keep the sound of water within earshot as they pushed their way ever northward.

At dawn, Tourmaline relented. The river ran in a deep channel cut through the sandstone, the roots of pines clinging to the rocky sides of the ravine. The water rushed and roared at the base of the sheer rock sides. They had walked with little break for a day and a night. Exhausted, they lay down to sleep for just a short time, keeping yards of fern and rock between them and the ledge. Salt volunteered for the first watch, and the other four fell asleep almost instantly.

“Stay quiet. Stay quiet.” Salt shook Tourmaline awake. It felt like only moments since she’d closed her eyes, but the sun was higher. Salt saw her eyes dart open and moved on to the next. Lying on the ground, they were below the level of the ferns.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Ürsi. Quiet.”

The others were awake, now, huddling beneath the ferns. They all clutched at their weapons.

“Where?”

“South, coming up along the river.”

Tourmaline slowly raised her head. They were still a fair way off, not running, but looking purposeful, their dark forms shadowy beneath the blue-green of the pine dusk. It was hard to tell how many between the trees, but there were a lot.

“Shit,” she mouthed. She turned to the others. “Crawl!”

They did, keeping beneath the ferns. How long until the ürsi reached the spot they’d slept? Their scent would be fresh and warm. They’d know how close they were. They had experienced a few blissful days where the threat of being devoured by ürsi had seemed distant. Now it was closer than ever. They couldn’t fight so many. They needed to hide.

Tourmaline angled their path toward the river, and soon she reached the edge of the gulch. There was a narrow cleft between two rocks, big enough to shimmy down for a few yards before the rock fell away sheer.

“Go down!” she said, wondering how close the ürsi had come to their sleeping place. She was about to get all five of them killed, and she knew it. She had brought them into this forsaken wilderness, and now anyone who ever cared about them would have more to grieve than they already did. The thought of her mother came to her mind. “Go!” she hissed. Mudhorn slid down, then Tarbelt and Agate.

“What then?” Salt asked. Their eyes were wide, their breath heavy, even though they’d only been crawling. She saw the fear in them.

“Go first!” she hissed. Somehow, for some reason, Salt obeyed, sliding down into the cleft. She looked down at them. There was nowhere for them to go, just enough room to scrunch together in the cleft of rock on the edge of the ravine. Beyond was death by rushing water and stones. “Whatever you do—” she looked at Salt but spoke loud enough for them all “—don’t get up. Don’t follow. Please. I’ll be alright. If you’ve ever listened to me, listen now.”

Tourmaline stood up. She looked south. The ürsi had not reached their sleeping spot, but only by about fifteen yards.

“Oi!” she shouted. The ürsi froze. She saw Salt try to pull himself up from the cleft, but she slammed him in the chest with the butt of her spear. He slid down and rammed into Mudhorn. They barely managed to dig in their fingernails and keep from falling off the edge. At least she hadn’t killed him outright.

“Oi!” she yelled again. The ürsi froze and stared at her, their bile-yellow eyes wide and round in the dimness beneath the trees. Then she bolted east away from the river, away from her friends and the spot where they’d slept.

Howls erupted behind her and gibberings that sounded more like dogs snapping at each other than speech. She ran with all the strength and energy of raw fear. Every moment she expected teeth and claws or the tip of a spear in her back. Dwarves were no sprinters, their torsos long and their legs short. But her legs were strong, her feet sure among the rocks and ferns of the forest floor, and so the ürsi did not overtake her in an instant. They were not much taller than the dwarves and slighter of frame, their bodies wiry though far from weak.

Branches slapped her in the face. She tripped once but clawed back to her feet, her spear twisting in her hand. She slid on her bottom down an embankment, hearing her skirt tear as loam and needles and gravel scattered down alongside her. At the bottom was a defile between two banks, covered in gravel and choked with dead wood, no doubt a springtime flood-path to the river. She turned and followed it, leaping over the dead wood. The ürsi screeched as they came down into the defile behind her. Something zipped past her and skidded along the stones. She saw the feathers and knew it for an arrow.

Ahead along the edge of the defile, a great heap of dirt and gravel lay piled high. She jumped atop it and nearly fell into a massive hole on the other side. A foul smell rose from it. She caught her balance, then jumped, barely clearing the hole and staggering to her knees. Walls of sandstone rose sheer on both sides of the defile. Her sides heaved and burned. She was about done. She heard the scrape of the ürsi as they came over the gravel behind her.

There was a gap in the rock to her left ahead, wide enough for her to fit inside and at least put her back to the rock for a last stand. She rushed toward it and heard behind her a hollow, high-pitched scream that made her ears ring. She staggered and turned. A creature with a head the size of Tourmaline’s torso rose out of the hole, muscles rippling beneath matted grey fur. Fangs the size of knives jutted down from its upper jaw beneath protuberant eyes and a flattened snout. With a lunge forward, it shot up from the hole. It’s body dominated the center of the defile. The smell of something rotten struck Tourmaline in the face. The ürsi turned and fled back the way they’d come, and the beast roared after them so loudly Tourmaline felt it in her teeth.

Instead of pursuing the ürsi, the beast swiveled its body at the shoulders and looked at her, nostrils flaring as it huffed the air. Tourmaline screamed and fled, though she didn’t know it. She felt the beast leap behind her, rather than saw it. She stuck the spear backward over her shoulder and leapt at the gap in the rock. The spear flew from her grasp with a blow that numbed her hand and twisted her arm behind her. The rock brushed both her shoulders as she dove into the gap, slamming against the rockface at the back of the cleft at full speed. She gasped, waiting, feeling another angry roar press against her body. She heard scraping, but nothing grabbed her. Her shoulders rose and fell in rapid breaths. Sweat dripped from her thick eyebrows as he pressed against the rock.

Her breath slowly returned to her as she listened to the scraping, grunting, and growling. Twice more it roared. She took a deep breath and turned. The beast crouched down, its shoulders twisted sideways into the gap, its arm outstretched and straining toward her with thick, dirty nails that left white score-marks on the rock. Its reach fell less than two feet short of her. The smell was worse even worse than ürsi, like someone had soaked a bloated, rotting carcass in week-old piss. Every huffing breath it made blew the rancid stench at her. She gagged but kept herself upright and away from its clutch.

She reached for her side. There was still a dagger there. She drew it from her sheath. The edge was like a razor, honed to as much perfection as a camp-bored dwarf could make it. With a quick thrust, she stabbed the beast’s hand—for a hand it resembled more than hoof or claw, despite the long thick nails. The blade bit, and she somehow kept hold of it as it yanked its arm back out of the gap. The creature looked at the dark blood that welled from beneath the fur on the back of its hand. It stepped back from the gap and crouched in an odd position, its back legs bowed out, its front arms reaching down to the ground. It stared in at her, puffing air through its nostrils.

If not for the rock at her back, Tourmaline might have fallen over. Too much had happened in too little time. She thought of the others. She hoped they’d run and made it. In part, she hoped they’d fled south. Maybe they could still make it back to Laith and find a caravan. A slim chance it seemed, even if she’d allowed them to escape this time. It had always been a slim chance. It just hadn’t looked quite so slim to her back in the caravan before she’d ever seen an ürsi. She'd never even seen a mountain then. She’d been ignorant, foolish, and it’d likely cost the lives of her friends. The only hope she felt was that she’d bought them a chance to get back. They could go west, follow the sea south. Maybe the king had won the battle.

She stared into the dark eyes of the enormous monster in front of her. She’d never seen a living thing so big. It was bigger than a horse. How was she still alive? For now. She was alive for now. There was no escape. She could never outrun it. The sandstone was smooth and sheer, no doubt worn by water over countless millennia. She didn’t think she could climb it. Maybe if she could press against both sides, but even then, the troll would know.

A troll. That’s what this was. A troll.

And with the troll’s grey hide
bound round his shoulders broad,
the ürsi fled brave Spinner’s path
As homeward bound he trod.

The memory came to her so clear, she could practically hear her grandmother’s stout voice singing the song. Those ballads and tales had all seemed so distant and unreal to her as a little gilna.

A glint caught her eye. It was her spear, lying in the gravel just in front of the creature’s feet. She felt her pulse quicken. That was it. It was going to realize the spear was there, pick it up, and ram her through with it. With the spear, it could reach her with feet to spare.

She waited. Minutes passed, and tens of minutes. The creature paced, but it ignored the spear as if it wasn’t there at all. Tourmaline squinted, her brow wrinkling, watching. She tracked its eyes. It never looked at the spear. It didn’t even look at the dead branches nearby—branches it could easily use to reach her.

It didn’t understand weapons. It didn’t know what it was, or what to do with it. The beast didn’t understand tools. It was stupid. Massive and vicious, incredibly strong, naturally armed, but stupid.

She felt a glimmer of hope. She could beat stupid. Maybe.

21

Tools

There had been a wizened old dwarf in the Copperwheel caravan when Tourmaline was a young gilna of ten or twelve years. He’d looked nearly three hundred. It was rare for a dwarf to reach three hundred years, but she and the other gilna and gilke told each other that he was three hundred and twelve, or three hundred and twenty. They must have added two or three years every year until he died. He remembered the days before the king’s edict, before the forced labor. Even those were days of tinkering and traveling around Laith. The generations who had seen mountains were far gone.

“And what is this?” he'd asked, pointing. Gilna and gilke were arrayed around him. He sat cross-legged in the grass.

“A lever,” Tourmaline answered.

“Ay, yes, a lever.” He pointed to another. “This?”

“A wedge,” Glasshand said absently. He was five years older and nearly too old to participate. Of course, he wasn’t called Glasshand, then, not for a few more years.

“Ay, yes,” the old dwarf said. In front of him sat piles of pebbles and cobbles, dirt, carved sticks, bits of wood, and pieces of tin. “This?”

“The block,” Tourmaline blurted, feeling competitive.

“This?”

“Screw,” Glasshand said. Tourmaline squinted at him.

“Mhmm.” It was an affirmative rumble in the old dwarf's chest. He pointed at a tin contraption.

“Pully!” yelled another gilke. The old dwarf nodded.

“And this is a plane,” he said, “as you all should know. Now, say you wanted to move this pile of dirt and pebbles to here.” He pointed. “You may use two of our tools, with variation if you describe it well. Which choices mean the least labor, and why?”

They all leaned in, thinking. Tourmaline pulled her knees up in front of her, wrapping her arms around her legs and her bright yellow skirts.

The troll didn’t understand tools.

Tourmaline crouched with her back against the rock, her knees drawn up in front of her and her arms wrapped around them just like so long ago, but now her stained outer skirt was ripped in the front, exposing the length of her scraped shin. The troll had slunk out of sight about an hour ago, and so far Tourmaline had only dared to move into a crouch. Just because the monster was stupid didn’t mean it wasn’t cunning in its way. She had to be careful. She picked up a stone and tossed it against the rock wall near the opening of the cleft. Even though she’d prepared for it, she still flinched when the troll lunged back to the opening, reaching and scraping for her. When Tourm didn’t move, it roared and stalked off again.

She thought of her friends again but tried to push them from her mind. There was nothing more she could do for them. She hoped they were alive. But she had to think about her own situation. The longer she stayed there, the worse it became for her. She had a dagger and a bucket with a few tools—somehow the scarf-wrapped bundle of tools hadn’t fallen out in her flight, though the mostly empty sack of barley that she’d jammed down atop had. She didn’t even have water. Salt and Mudhorn carried their two water skins. Agate had carried the saw, so Tourmaline didn’t have that either.

She hoped that Agate lived. And Tarbelt. And that they had a whole passel of gilke and gilna. She felt the old pang of anger that the humans lived so much shorter, but had so many more children. A dwarf wif could try for a decade and more for a single baby, while many human women had one every year.

Back to the problem. She scanned the environment. Loose rocks and loam on the ground. Solid sandstone walls enclosed her on three sides, only that narrow space between. There wasn’t even a stick in the cleft. She looked up. The sandstone near the bottom of the defile was smooth, but near the top of the gap there were cracks with some roots growing within. One crack looked fairly wide. Bits of loose rock sat within it, and from what she could see, it ran from the top in a wide arc down the side of the defile.

She carefully and quietly leaned forward, grabbing loose rocks from the ground one at a time. She placed them in her bucket underneath her tools.

If she survived, she was going to stomp on this bucket. . .

No. She’d keep it. Or make it into something else. It was good thick tin, after all. No reason to waste. Tinker's couldn't waste.

With the rocks stowed away, she looked up again. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was her only idea. The gap widened a little toward the top, but not by much. She untied her worn leather boots, with the laces full of knots where she’d spliced them back together. She slipped them off. How her feet could look so dirty and so pale at the same time she didn’t know.

She placed her hands against the sandstone. It was smooth, but she could still feel the grain against her palms. The cleft was too narrow to extend her arms. The only way was to shimmy up using her forearms and elbows and feet. She stood and planted a foot on each sidewall. She pushed up again and slid another six inches. And again. She had a long way to go.

The troll burst around the corner, fangs bared. Tourmaline flinched but tried to ignore it. She inched up again. And again. The troll slammed a fist against the rock, its nostrils flaring. It leapt up into the air, grasping toward her, then slammed both hands into the gravel as it landed. She inched upward.

Strength of leg and arm was not a problem for Tourmaline. It was more the smoothness of the stone and the awkward position that made her calves cramp. She hung from her arms and shook her legs, letting them dangle free, but she couldn’t do that for long.

Up and up. She began to sweat half way up. A fall now would not be good, but the gap had widened a little which helped her spread her arms and legs more. She glanced down at the troll. It was gone. She tried to ignore it. She just had to go higher.

At last, she reached the bottom of the crack she’d seen from below.

She should have planned better. She’d made it, but how was she supposed to work when she had to hold herself up? There were more cracks at this level, though not as big as the one she’d scouted. Finding one on each side at about the right height, she dug some loam out of them and jammed her toes inside. Nearly twenty feet above the gravel, a foot crammed in each sidewall, her legs spread out, her torn skirt dangling off. . . It was an odd sensation. If only her mother could see her and turn white at such immodesty.

Tourmaline checked her balance, kept one hand poised near the rock, and reached into the bucket. She’d considered leaving some tools behind but didn’t want to leave something that might end up useful. She removed a chisel first and dug out the loose gravel and soil from within the crack. The fissure closed up a few inches in, but the crack itself seemed to go deep in the rock, a few tendrils of white rootlets sticking out. The pine trees above and freezing and thawing water must have fractured this sandstone thoroughly over the years.

A roar and a shadow sprang above her. She nearly fell, only steadying herself with one hand on a root. The troll hung down from a tree-trunk above, its arm extended toward her, its hand only two feet from her. She cowered down as much as she could. The troll would have to climb down the rock to get at her, and if it tried, well, Tourmaline would at least make it bleed. She readied herself to draw her dagger. But the troll stared at her angrily, then pulled itself back to the surface. It sat there, its legs bowed, its knuckles planted on the ground.

That the troll would beat her to the top or at least catch her there if she attempted to flee by climbing, she had known. But she hadn’t thought it would hang down on a tree like that. After collecting herself, she finished cleaning out the crack. The bottom of the crack was the widest part—too wide for her purposes. The troll had reached down within two feet of her. She glanced up. There was nothing to do but risk it. She inched up another foot, then another half, finding enough foothold to let her work. The crack there was narrow, and it would give her the most advantage.

Jamming the end of her widest chisel into the crack, she slammed it with the hammer, then looked up at the troll. It stalked around the edge, looking down. She crouched a bit, then continued to slam the chisel. It dug inside. Next, she put her two other chisels in just below and above until the first chisel loosened enough for her to drive it in further. Some loose soil fell, scattering below. The crack had widened a bit more. She reached into the bucket and pulled out a rock. She pushed the narrow end into the crack, then tapped on it with the hammer, trying not to fracture the rock, but she did anyway. It shattered into pieces that fell down and clattered below. She glanced at the troll again. It had returned to its odd sitting position.

With the next stone, she just tapped the back of it until it held. The outermost chisels were looser, and she drove them further in. That loosened the wedged stone again, and she wedged it further. This pattern of wedging she continued until the wedges were driven flush with the crack.

She looked below. The bottom of the crack had widened considerably, probably six inches now. To wedge any more she would need to climb higher, and that would put her too close to the troll. It was time for the second part of her plan, and the most dangerous and time consuming. A thick old root snaked down near her right leg. It emerged from the rock three feet above her and continued another three or so below before it split apart into smaller tendrils to grasp at the stone.

With her dagger, she hacked at the root as high up as she could reach. The dagger was sharp, but the root was old and thick and dense. Her feet cramped and went numb, but she had no choice but to continue. At times, she paused and used her arms to take pressure off her legs, just to give them a break and let the blood return. At last, she hacked away the last of the root. It still hung there in the air, held up by the tendrils below. She yanked on it, and after a few stout tugs, it peeled away from the rock wall.

It took the best of her balance to turn the root and jam the end into the bottom of the crack. The wedging had opened up the rock enough to fit the hacked end of the root deep so that it wouldn’t slip out. With the root at the height of her waist, she leaned on it, slightly at first. It held fast in the crack, but she heard the rock groaning and saw the give. She put more and more of her weight on the root. The stone she’d wedged in the crack slipped out and nearly bashed her in the head. She should have expected that. She bounced a little on the branch, and she saw more dirt fall down as the crack opened and closed.

She needed something bigger to wedge. The best thing she could think of was her little five-pound tinsmithing anvil. She fished it out of the bucket, partly amazed she’d hauled the thing all this way. This wasn’t the use she’d envisioned. With weight on the root to open up the crack, she jammed the anvil into the rock sideways. That let her take her weight off and jam the root in even further. She pressed down again and saw the whole chunk of rock shift.

It needed more weight. She climbed back up until the root was at the level of her feet. She put one foot on it to test. This was crazy. She was over twenty feet above the ground. She put her other foot on the root and slowly eased her weight from her arms to her legs. The root held. It was old and strong. She saw the crack in the rock expand. She bounced her weight, bracing with her hands. The rock shifted, then rocked back into place.

Right. Lever. She remembered the old dwarf again, and she moved her weight further away from the crack, further down the lever. Now when she bounced, she heard a grind and the rock did not return all the way back. Dirt and pebbles fell. She bounced again, the rock twisted, and for a terrifying moment she thought it or she would fall.

Stupid. If the rock fell, the root would fall. She had to be prepared to hold herself with her hands. Not only that. . . She looked up. The troll still sat there, watching her. She needed it down below. If she climbed down, it might go back to the bottom, but then she’d have to climb back up. She pulled the scarf out of the bucket, then waved it in the air toward the troll.

“Hey! Here! Look!” she said. The troll leaned forward, watching her. Tourmaline tossed the scarf out from the gap. It floated down into the defile. “There!” she said. “Go get it.”

The troll didn’t move. It just stared down, its eyes narrow. It didn’t seem to care at all about things. The scarf claimed no more of its attention than the spear had. Maybe she could get the spear, if she climbed down and hurried. But then, how fast could the troll get there?

She needed to lure it down, preferably not with herself. What did beasts care about? She thought of the animals she’d known. Ponies. Chickens. A few goats. The troll sat there, its nostrils flaring.

Smell. Animals cared about scent. How did that help her? The humans’ dogs were scent hunters as well. She hated the humans’ dogs. She hated how they’d come around to sniff and growl and piss on the wagon wheels when the caravan came near a village. They wanted to mark their territory, and the smell of their piss lingered on the wheels for weeks if they didn’t wash it off.

Tourmaline looked down, then up at the troll again. It was a stupid idea. A ridiculous idea. Could she even? She felt within.

Yes, she could. She stared at the troll, at its twitching nostrils, and sighed. Turning around to face the back of the gap, she braced herself with one hand and reached up under and loosed her breechclout, then hitched up her skirts. She sighed again and thought of her mother. But this wasn’t the caravan.

It took her a few deep breaths to relax, but she hadn’t pissed all day. Almost as soon as the first of the piss hit the gravel below, the troll stood up, huffing at the air. It gave a high, piercing roar and disappeared from the upper ledge. Tourmaline turned as fast as she could, feeling piss trail down her leg, bracing her hands against the rock. She started bouncing up and down on the root, feeling the give as the rock moved.

The troll appeared below her, bellowing in rage. It kicked dirt at the moist ground, then spun around and squatted.

Oh. It was a female. Tourmaline hadn’t noticed before.

The rock shifted, the root dropping a bit as the angle reduced. It had to be now. She nearly jumped, driving her weight down. The stone cracked and came away in an instant, sliding from the fissured rock, tearing tiny white roots, and plunging down in a spray of soil and fragments of stone. The root fell from beneath her and Tourmaline pressed her hands against the rock to slow her fall. Sandstone burned and scraped the skin on her palms. She pushed her feet against the stone and only stopped herself five or six feet from the ground.

From there, she saw what she’d done. The rock had crushed the head and shoulders of the troll, its body sticking out, rump jutting into the air with its legs twisted under it.

Tourmaline let herself down the rest of the way, feeling the sharp sting of her skinned palms. She kicked the troll’s leg, just to make sure. There was no sign of life, not even the movement of a breath. She laughed in disbelief.

She, Ekith daughter of Copperwheel, daughter of Talestone, had slain a troll. For a moment, she wished she’d known her grandmother’s and mother’s true names, if only to revel more in that moment.

Oh, the stench of it. The smell that emanated from the troll was nearly unbearable. She thought of King Spinner in the song, returning to Ice-Cloak wearing a mantle of troll fur to display his prowess in battle. The ürsi had fled before him. But how had he tolerated that smell?

No. Spinner had returned from the far north, the only dwarf to survive the company of heroes who discovered the dîrthna. The ürsi had slain the rest of the company. Spinner's story was still recounted around camp and forge fires as he had told it thousands of years before. Even the prince and his rinlen had died bravely in the end, staying behind to hold the tunnel against the foe so that Spinner could carry the dîrthna home. And he'd done it. He'd made the long journey back alone.

She laughed again. The ürsi didn’t flee because of Spinner’s prowess. They’d fled because they smelled troll, not dwarf. He’d tricked them.

King Spinner, that clever rank little shit.

22

Alone

Tourmaline vomited while skinning the troll, and she gagged repeatedly for the first hour of wearing the putrid pelt around her shoulders. Her nose stung, and she had a throbbing headache. Would it even work, or would the smell of troll just bring other territorial trolls toward her?

Maybe. Maybe.

Who knew?

Was it silly to do something so vile because of an old song?

Probably.

Yet she wore the heavy fur across her shoulders, anyway.

She found her way back to the river, even back to the spot where they’d slept. There were no bodies, not of dwarf or of ürsi. There was no blood, either, no sign of anything except some crushed ferns and disturbed earth around the top of the crevasse where the others had hid. She was no tracker. She could not tell where they’d gone, though she tried. There were plenty of scuffs in the pine needles around, but she could not tell who had made them or when.

At least she felt confident her friends had not died there — unless they’d fallen or leapt to avoid the ürsi. She peered over the edge at the rushing water below. There was nothing but stone and cold river as far downstream as she could see. If they’d gone in there, she doubted they’d survived. But she hoped no such thing had happened. If they were smart, they would make for the sea, follow the coast down to Laith, and hope the king had won.

She could follow them, or try. She looked south through the trees. The light was fading toward yet another night, the gloaming arriving early under the conifers.

No, she could not follow. She had come nearly to the feet of the great Kara-Indal. She would not return. After coming so close, even if she made it back to the safety of a caravan, she would never forgive herself. But she wished her friends safety and speed.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the south. She was sorry she’d risked their lives.

The next day, Tourmaline stood on a low ridge of exposed rock where no tree could grow. It gave her a rare unimpeded glimpse north to the mountains. The rock beneath her feet was granite, and she had not failed to notice that harder stones were growing more plentiful than the sandstone and limestone. But what most took her attention were the mountains. Massive peaks dominated the northern skyline, and two long ranges of the mountains extended south, ending in low peaks to the east and to the west. She would have completely missed them were it not for the gap in the trees. If she had gone much further north along the river, she would have passed between them and possibly set herself off course.

She fished the leather out from her pocket. The dye Mudhorn had made was faint, but she could still make out the major ideas. She could worry about making a new impression with the medallion another time. She felt the weight of the living steel nestled safely in a folded pocket at the top of her skirt. It was time to strike away from the river, to pass below the eastern range and on toward Ice-Cloak. She could still hear the river rushing in its rocky course behind her, below the ridge. It had led her far, and it felt dangerous to leave it. But it did not go to Ice-Cloak. It had led her to the Kara-Indal, to the mountains that gave birth to the Crippled King thousands of years ago. She would walk among the peaks of her forebeards, to the once home of the queen whose likeness she’d been reminded of her whole life.

So she set off into the east.

After two days, rocky ridges and conifers of all types still surrounded her: spruces, pines, hemlocks, larches, and more she did not know. The smell of tarry sap was one of the few things that made it past the reek of troll. She wondered if she could ditch the filthy hide, but she had seen some ürsi tracks along game trails in the forest, and so she kept it around her shoulders.

Besides tracks, all she had seen was a brief glimpse of an elk rushing away from her and the never ending ferns and trees in the dells cut by rocky streams. She had managed to spear a speckled brook trout in the morning from one of the deeper waters, but she had found food scare otherwise. She’d eaten the little trout raw, not wanting to risk smoke.

She'd never foraged much for the caravan. Sure, she’d picked berries with her mother, gone mushrooming with her grandmother, but the fungi she saw in this forest looked strange, and she did not dare eat them. She imagined the dwarves of old would have felt at home, but to her the dense trees were bewildering. She missed Tarbelt and Agate’s seemingly effortless ability to find food.

The course of the sun and moon guided her, and glimpses of mountain peaks to the north, but even so she felt increasingly lost. The faded lines of the map gave little direction; she could have been anywhere east of the river. Even studying the medallion itself in a patch of light didn’t help. She decided to head further north, toward the high peaks. How far had she come? The woods slowed her progress. Perhaps thirty miles? Forty? She thought she had skirted the eastern branch of the mountains, but there was never a good view of the entire mountain range from beneath the trees, not since she left the river.

Moving further north was hard. The ridges grew steeper, the defiles and ravines deeper, and sometimes more like valleys than ravines at all. These must be foothills. She had never seen them before. She loved the granite and the basalt, weathered and fractured where it reached the surface, but still she felt the landscape was strange and dangerous. It made her feel somehow ashamed, as if she was not a true dwarf-maid, to be afraid as she drew near the mountains.

But she had never been alone before. Not truly. She’d always had her mother, her caravan. When she’d left, she’d had Salt and the others. Now, she had no one. She hummed old songs to herself as she walked. It didn’t help much.

That evening, she sat beneath the branches of a pine and stared at the map. She had thought before that to find a lake amidst the mountains would not be so hard. But she could not have imagined, truly, the size and scope of the Kara-Indal. She shouldn’t be so surprised. The old stories spoke of them with such respect and awe. It was just yet another way her naivete had made her foolhardy. She recognized more and more how often she’d let that happen.

She could not bear to sleep with the troll fur on. It had grown stiff and crusty and even fouler. She laid it a few yards away as she slept on the cold ground, but she could still smell it.

Two more hungry, weary days passed. She thought more and more of food and reconsidered whether she should risk eating the mushrooms growing in the forest. From glimpses between the trees she could tell she had come considerably nearer the mountains, but the terrain had grown treacherous. She could no longer walk in a roughly straight line over the steep ridges, hills, and the rushing streams that cut through the rock. She gauged her direction as best she could by the shadows cast from the sun.

Maybe she should make a sling like Tarbelt had, to hunt the birds she sometimes saw in the trees. But she had never practiced with a sling. She’d never even held one. It was the fifth day when she stumbled upon a small creature ambling through the pines atop a ridge. The little beast was gray and round-looking, and its back was covered in long tendrils. It barely reacted to her as she approached, as if it didn’t expect anyone to harm it. She stabbed it with her spear. It squealed and died. Greedily, she reached down to grab it, only to yank her hand away.

Those tendrils were hard spines, and now blood dripped from her hand. Yet she was too hungry to be foiled, and she skinned it with her dagger. She couldn’t bring herself to eat it raw. She desperately wanted something warm, so she risked a fire just long enough to roast it and eat it, the juices squirting from her mouth as she burned her tongue in her eagerness.

The next day, it rained, and despite the summer moon, it was cold. The rain fell steady and soaking. In the afternoon, she climbed up a steep incline. Toward evening, after the sun had already sunk behind the western peaks, she stepped out of the trees and onto a rocky slope covered with grasses and moss. Thousands of feet above her towered a massive peak capped with snow. She rushed up the slope until she was above the treetops, then turned and surveyed the world.

She had reached the peaks of the Kara-Indal. The mountains stretched to east and west as far as eye could see, and nestled into their folds and gaps were unending ridges and valleys covered in pines. She could see the white tracery of waters running down from the glaciers, see the last daylight blushing the peaks.

And she cried. She had never seen anything so beautiful or so hopelessly overwhelming. There could be a hundred lakes in those valleys spreading out before her, but she would not see them unless she stumbled down the right ridge of a thousand ridges. Searching these mountains could take a hundred years, and she was hungry and cold and tired and utterly alone. She did not know if she had gone too far east, or not far enough. The tears were cold by the time they reached her chin. The wind blew strong above the trees. She climbed back down to the forest as dusk deepened to night.

The next day, she climbed back up the slope and scouted the horizon again. She saw some kind of wild goats or sheep making their way across impossible rock faces high above, and she wished she had their agility and strength.

At last, she headed east despite a persistent fear she might have already passed the valley of the lake and not known it. She tried to stay above the tree line as best she could, but at mid day an impassible flank of rock forced her to descend into a valley. The trees closed overhead again. The wind had been chill against her light summer dress on the heights, but she preferred that to the closeness of the forest.

The trees shook, a roar filled her ears, a force like the blow of a kicking horse struck her side and slammed her to the ground. In a daze of fear and confusion, she rolled and glimpsed great yellow fangs rushing down at her. She raised her arms over her face. The troll fur around her shoulders tore away, spinning her as it came free. She rolled into the ferns, scrabbling behind a tree.

The troll was the biggest creature she had ever seen, but this beast was bigger, wide and thick, like a boar pig grown to twenty times its size and covered in dense fur. Most of the fur was brown, but it had a wide mark of white running up its left shoulder and across the side of its head. The creature shook the troll fur from side to side in a mouth as big as Tourmaline’s head, a strange growling moan rumbling from its chest. It sat back on its haunches and grabbed the fur between two clawed paws, tearing through the hardened pelt like it was nothing.

Tourmaline looked down to her side. The bucket was smashed, the top crumpled in where the creature had hit it. The beast dropped the pelt and rose on its hind legs, its massive head towering twelve feet above the ground. It stared down at her and huffed the air. And she knew it then. It was an Indal-Gorsch, a Mountain King like the one Brokenspear slew in the stories.

She ran.

She didn’t make it far. It hit her like the mountain itself, and next she knew, she was flung on her side, tensed into a fetal position with an incredible weight pressing the air from her lungs. She wrapped her arms around the top of her head. Hot breath puffed over her face and neck. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Now she would die. There was no resisting such a force, such massive power.

The weight intensified until she felt she would burst. Something hot and wet pressed against her neck, sniffing. She waited for the bite that would pop her skull like a grape.

The weight lifted. She peeked out between her arms. The bear had stepped back. Its head hung low to the ground, its nostrils flaring in and out as it puffed breath. Its eyes were round, dark like polished onyx. The bear turned and shambled back until it reached the troll pelt again. It growled a rumble like thunder and clawed at the fur again and again, tearing it into little scraps and mashing it into the loam and pine needles.

“I’m not a troll,” Tourmaline whispered. She could have kicked herself for wearing that pelt. It might scare ürsi, but even trolls had enemies it seemed. There were greater things in the world—in the Kara-Indal. She didn’t uncurl from her fetal position. Running would be useless, as would fighting. She doubted Brokenspear had ever killed a beast such as this. Just a story, surely.

The bear trampled the fur into the loam, its muscles rippling. At length, it turned to look at her again, rising on its hind legs. The white mark on its shoulder stood out against the dark brown of its fur. It dropped back down to all fours and approached Tourmaline. It sniffed at her legs, then up her body to her shoulders. She knew she must stink of troll. She just hoped that she also stank of unwashed dwarf-maid wandering the wilds in the same clothes for weeks on end, and that the bear could tell the difference. It hesitated, its head hanging over her. She barely dared to breathe. As if deciding in an instant, it turned and ambled eastward between the trees. She watched between her arms as the bear paused once more to look back at her, then galloped away through the pines.

At the next stream she found, Tourmaline stripped down and submerged herself, gasping at the frigid cold. The clear icy water was barley over a foot deep, so she had to lie down. First she scrubbed with her hands, and then she scrubbed with handfuls of loam and pine needles, trying to rid herself of the reek of troll. She did the same for her clothes, though she could still smell the awful reek of troll on them after three separate scrubs. So she dug into a pine tree with her dagger until the sap oozed and covered her tattered clothes in it, scrubbing a fourth time. That helped, though she still caught strong whiffs of troll.

She fixed her tin bucket, tapping it back into shape with her hammer and little anvil. She noticed that the burning, numb sensation in her nose had already started to subside.

She had survived the mountain king, to her own disbelief. But she still had no food and no idea where she was—or where Ice-Cloak was. She wanted to return to some high ground to get her bearings again, so she headed north and climbed up above the treeline. The folding landscape spread out around her, broken by rock screes and pinnacles of stone that jutted from the conifers. The landscape looked as confusing and inscrutable as ever.

She stared westward. Was she sure she had not gone too far? Maybe she should head back to the west. She glanced east again and flinched when she saw it on a far ridge. The bear. Even at a distance, she could see the white stripe on its shoulder in the sunlight. What was more surprising, the bear was looking back at her, even from over a quarter of a mile away. It turned and glanced down the far side of the ridge, to the north and east, then stared back at her for a few moments. Then it walked over the crest and disappeared below the ridge.

She stared at the spot for some time after. She did not want to go near that bear. Another reason to head back west. But maybe she shouldn’t turn back, not yet. She was hungry. It was critical to make the right decision, but she knew that the hunger was getting into her head, muddling her thoughts. She looked at the ridge where she’d seen the bear. It wasn’t that far, although even short distances in this landscape could prove difficult to traverse. But if she stood where the bear had, she thought she might have a better view of what lay beyond the flank of the nearest mountain.

So she continued east, even though it seemed insanity to head toward the bear. It was evening when she stood among the rocks at the top of the ridge where she’d seen the beast. She looked beyond, down into a narrow valley with an ice-melt stream flowing through it. Trees covered the lower slopes of the valley, but the upper stretches showed a mix of green grasses, dark granite, and weathered-out intrusions of basalt.

Beyond the valley rose another ridge stretching down from another mountain. There was a glacier on the mountainside nearest her. She couldn’t see the far side. But many of the peaks she’d seen had glaciers or snowcaps. There was no guidance in that. Who knew what lay at the bottom of those ridges and valleys stretching down from the peaks as far as the eye could see? She sat and looked at the map again, her stomach gnawing, her eyes fighting to focus. She couldn’t make sense of the peaks from the faded leather. There were lower peaks to the south as well, rising from the green haze of forest. Had she come too far north?

Was this map even accurate? She wished that Salt and Mudhorn were there to look at it with her. Again she wondered if they were still alive. She stuffed the map back in her pocket and tried to plan her route. The next ridge looked steep and rough. It would be better to avoid it if she could. She would descend into the valley, then follow the stream south, back into the lower ridges before turning east—and hope she found a lake somewhere. And some food. She needed food. She stood up, planning to descend before sleeping, but she stopped.

The bear sat atop the next ridge, watching her. She felt a chill go down her spine. It was uncanny, that bear. The white stripe stood out in the dying evening light. They always said the bears were the first kings of the mountains before the dwarves climbed up from the earth.

The bear looked east again, down the far side of its ridge, then back at Tourmaline. It was just like before. It rose, stared at her a while, and jogged away over the ridgeline.

Tourmaline shook her head. Bears did not lead folk. Bears did not communicate or care about the doings of dwarf-maids. Her mind was coming loose. She’d figured the bear hadn’t eaten her out of sheer disinterest. Maybe it hadn’t been hungry. Maybe, seeing she wasn’t a troll, she didn’t even register as a threat to it, or much of a meal. That’s what she’d thought. It wasn’t leading her. Maybe it just noticed her on the ridge. Both times. They seemed to both be traveling east. There were only four cardinal directions, after all.

Tukȋth.

The word popped into her mind.

Spirit.

But what kind?

Hunger gnawed at her belly. She should move. She had to move.

23

The Valley of the Lake

She slept the remainder of the night beneath a fallen log, listening to the gurgle of the stream just a few feet away. In the morning, she looked desperately for fish, but the stream was shallow and rocky and she saw nothing, not even a frog in the icy waters. Instead, she found a whole swarm of snails—if slow things could be said to swarm—clinging to the underside of a rock that jutted over the water. She broke the shells with her hammer and ate the cold, slippery meat inside. Then, she drank as much of the frigid water as she could. At least the water would help her belly feel full.

She headed east. She didn’t even realize she’d made the choice until she started walking. Going south would have been so much easier, but the bear. . . One more ridge. Then she could go south. She picked her way through the woods, following what seemed like a deertrail when to her left something caught her eye. It was a stone, shattered at the top, but its base rose about two feet from the ground. In a landscape of stones, it was unique—it was cut as a triangle prism. The edges were weathered and rounded and chipped, but surely it was not a natural stone. She couldn’t imagine a chunk of sandstone naturally formed into such symmetric dimensions. One did not see many perfect triangular columns in nature, tapering symmetrically as it moved upward. She leaned down and picked up a piece of the shattered top. It was covered in moss, but the fractured face was facing up. She flipped it over to see the bottom. There was carving on it. The symbols were strange, not even the same from her map, but they looked like cave runes. Her heart beat faster. This was old dwarf work.

Hungry as she was, she pressed her pace, at least until she reached the foot of the ridge itself. She regretted her choice to forge straight east, then. This section of the ridge was rocky and steep, and she had to use her hands to pull herself up much of it, stopping to rest frequently. The wind above the tree-line cooled her sweat and chilled her. It was unusual for her to feel so cold or weak.

At last, the ridge leveled off, and she found herself on a barren stretch of rock.

“Shit,” she said, and laughed.

Beyond lay a narrow valley, then a long sloping hill that rose to yet another ridge sloping down from the shoulder of a mountain. The ridge was bare of trees and covered in windswept rock, and atop it sat the bear, staring at her. She shook her head. “Shit.” The bear didn’t move. It just sat staring at her across the valley.

She looked south. The ridge she was on stretched far down toward another cluster of hills. If she had followed it south, she might not have come back up this narrow valley or the one beyond, at least not while moving through the dense forest that would have constrained her sight. She stared back at the bear. It was still there. She expected the hallucination to fade, to disappear after she blinked or rubbed her eyes.

“One more?” she said. “Alright. One more ridge, Tukȋth.” She headed down the eastern slope. It was less rugged, smoother than the side she’d just ascended. “What kind of tukȋth are you?” she asked aloud. She glanced back up, but the bear was gone, and then she entered the trees in the valley. She shook her head again.

It only took her an hour to cross the narrow valley, even without a path. While the last ridge had been a rough climb, this one sloped easily eastward. Tall pines, each likely hundreds of years old, rose up to the sky far above her. The higher she climbed up the far ridge, the thinner and more stunted the pines grew, wind-crooked and gnarled. Then she emerged above them. The bare stone sloped for another twenty yards to a rounded bald worn by the weather. It was a strange mix of stone—granite, basalt, but some sandstone as well, and dark intrusions she had not seen before.

She scanned the ridgeline for the bear. She saw nothing, but this time she had a fluttering feeling in her gut that it must be close. What if it was hungry this time? She climbed the last few yards, looked over the peak, and stopped in her tracks. Her eyes must have gone strange, or the hunger had twisted her mind. Then she realized that the sky had not fallen to the ground, but a pure mirror image of the summer sky reflected in a mountain lake. Beyond it was a swamp of cedars, and then yet another ridge running like a second arm from the mountain. It was as if the mountain was holding the lake close. And above the two opposing ridges, nestled upon two shoulder-like projections of the mountain, glaciers glinted in the light.

She sank back onto the rock on her buttocks, feeling weak. She’d done it. There could be no question. Below her was the Valley of the Lake. To her left, the peak of Ice-Cloak. She knew its description from the stories. It must be, right? If this bluff ended in a cliff—she couldn’t see the rest of the way down because the trees grew again, but it must be—there could be no doubt at all. She had heard this valley described to her since she was old enough to understand the words.

She jerked away from a sudden movement. The bear stepped up next to her. She had not seen it, not heard it, and yet she could have reached out and touched it. Its fur smelled of oily, earthy musk. The great beast didn’t look at her, just stared down into the valley and growled. Its growl was a menacing rumble, as if boulders ground together in its chest. It took another breath just to continue the threat, as if it was angry at everything below. Tourmaline didn’t move, didn’t look over at it. She could see it out of her peripheral vision. It turned and walked back out of sight. Still, she didn’t move. When she finally turned to look, it was gone.

Tukȋth, she thought again. What kind of tukȋth are you?

The bear was not likely to tell her, and she had to get down into the valley. She needed to be careful—she didn’t want to fall off a cliff, and there was supposed to be a cliff—so she picked her way down through the trees. Sure enough, she found it. A cliff cut sheer down for what must have been well over fifty yards. A few trees grew along the base where the lake lapped almost to the rock face. To the south, an arm of rubble extended out into the lake, covered in moss and saplings. But she knew it was not natural. She knew what it was—the wall, or what was left of it. There should be something similar to the north, but she couldn’t see that part of the shore because of the trees.

She headed south. That should bring her down the arm of the mountain, past the cliff, and allow her access to the valley. She stopped and looked back.

“Thanks.”

Then she hurried down the slope. According to the stories, this valley was once cleared of trees, but that had been hundreds and hundreds of years ago. No doubt the trees had encroached on it again. She made her way underneath tall, mature pines and spruce, her footfalls soft on the brown needles that covered the ground. As the ridge reached the forest floor, she turned north and soon stepped out of the trees onto the narrow shingle of cobbles and gravel at the margin of the lake. She could see the bottom clear through the water until the angle turned it into a mirror that showed sky instead of the lake bed.

“Tourmaline!”

Tourmaline nearly pissed. She swung around. It was Salt, rushing to her from out of the trees. When they met, she hugged him even before she realized what she was doing, her chest pressed to his, arms around his wide shoulders. Dwarf-maids did not hug dwarves. Dwarf-wifs didn’t even hug their husbands—in plain sight. But so great was her shock and amazement, she did it out of impulse. And she found that, even beneath the ripe travel clothes, he smelled good, like work and salt and minerals and something else she had no name to describe. Salt placed a hand lightly on her back, despite his obvious surprise, and turned his face toward her hair.

“We’d given up hope!” Agate shouted, rushing over and wrapping her arms around Tourmaline, lifting her off her feet and yanking her from Salt’s arm as she did. “Well, maybe almost all hope.” She laughed and spun Tourmaline in a circle.

“I can hardly believe it,” Mudhorn said, jogging up. Tarbelt was behind him, the rope still wrapped around his torso. They were all there. Salt seemed to remember himself and glanced to the ridge above the cliff.

“We should get back beneath the trees,” he said.

“Why?” Tourmaline asked.

“We’ve been in hiding,” Agate said, setting Tourmaline back down on her own two feet. “All day. We saw some monstrous beast atop the hill.”

“It was a bear. A mountain king, I’m certain,” said Mudhorn.

“Oh,” Tourmaline said. “Don’t worry. I think it’s gone.”

“You saw it too?” Salt asked.

“Ay, yes,” she said, hesitant. She wasn’t sure how much she was ready to tell. “It headed west, I think.”

“Still, we ought to be careful.”

“Then we should go along the cliff. The gates should be there, and nothing could come down that cliff.”

“She’s right about the cliff,” Mudhorn said hesitantly, and he glanced at Salt with a wary expression. Something was off, but she ignored it, too overwhelmed in the moment.

The mountain was beautiful, its cloak of ice sparkling in the evening light. White lines of water flowed down, the summer melts. The ice never fully melted from Ice-Cloak, she knew. It fed this lake all summer until fresh snows froze in the winter. They said the fish from this lake tasted better than any other. She remembered her hunger.

“Do you have food?” she asked.

“Some fish and a muskrat,” Tarbelt answered.

“How long have you been here?”

“Two days,” Salt said. “As of this morning.”

“How?” she asked.

“Let’s get somewhere safer first.” Salt looked at her with a wrinkled brow, as if he didn’t like what he saw.

“Have you looked for the gates yet? We should go there.”

“Don’t worry about the gates, now,” Salt said.

“We should go to the gates.”

“We haven’t found them.”

“They should be in the cliff. There was a road along the lake. They’re probably behind those trees.”

“We’ve looked. The cliff—it looks like it collapsed at some point.”

Tourmaline frowned, and without another word she set off at a march across the shingle. Some stones along the lakeshore had been cut by masons in the past—they were squared or rounded with too much precision to be natural. The signs remained, though long weathering had worn them. But if they had once been part of a road, they were no longer. No doubt nearly a thousand years of flooding and freezing and thawing had broken apart much of what the dwarves of old had built above the surface. There was little left of the flanking wall except a low line of fallen stone. She knew what it had been. At least, she had heard of it. Now moss covered it and young pines tried to find soil between the stones with thin, snaking roots.

She scrambled over the rubble and continued on. Once, this had been the doorstep of the greatest dwarven civilization the world had ever known. This was the home of her forebeards. She could hardly keep from running. At length, she saw what Salt meant. A huge section of the cliff seemed to have fractured and fallen. The scree of rubble jutted out into the lake, and she could have climbed almost all the way to the top of the cliff on the massive chunks of rock.

“Have you gone over it? Checked the other side?”

“I did,” Tarbelt said. “There’s nothing all the way to the north shore.”

Salt tapped her elbow. He wouldn’t have done that a month ago.

“Follow me,” he said. She followed him up to the edge of the fallen rock. There, a massive chunk of fractured granite lay at the edge of the rockfall. He pointed. “Look.”

The nearest edge of the granite had a different coloring than the rest. It was darker, and its texture was different. She ran her hand along it. It was unusually smooth, much smoother than the rest of the rock. It looked a bit like an ingot that had just begun to melt when it was plucked from the furnace.

“You don’t think. . .” she said.

“I have seen nothing like it,” he answered.

“Nor I,” Mudhorn added.

And they were miners. They knew more about rock than she did without doubt.

“Are there more like it?”

“We’ve seen a couple of pieces, but in this jumble?” Salt shrugged.

“So you think the gates are buried behind all this?”

“If we’re in the right place.”

“We’re in the right place.”

Salt pressed his lips together, as if he had his doubts but didn’t want to contradict her. She turned to face her friends.

“Look,” she said. “That is Ice-Cloak. This is the Valley of the Lake. We crossed the wall.” She looked at Tarbelt. “Is there another wall on the north side?”

“Ruins,” he said.

She nodded.

“This lake is ringed with masonry. There is no doubt.”

“If there were gates in this cliff, they must be behind this rock,” Salt said.

She turned and looked at the huge rockfall, then kicked the granite. This piece alone must weigh close to two tons. Multiply that by. . . Thousands upon thousands. They did not have the tools for it, let alone the numbers or time.

It was the law that there was only one entrance to Ice-Cloak, her grandmother had said. The Gates of Ice, wrought by the king and plated with living steel. None could enter apart from the will of the king.

“I’m hungry.” She had come this far. They had come this far. She couldn’t believe they were all still alive and actually there. And she could not accept that they could be blocked now, after coming so far. She just needed to eat, rest, and come back to the problem with a clear head.

They followed Tourmaline’s advice and moved camp to the lake shingle, sheltering in the cedars that clung tenaciously to the thin soil there. They were more exposed to sight, but with the cliff on one side, the lake on the other, and the rockfall behind, it would take a lot to overwhelm them.

In truth, there wasn’t much camp to move. They made a fire-ring of stones, as Tourmaline asked for warm food and the others obliged. They brought their tools and the fish and muskrat Tarbelt had strung up in the trees. Mudhorn got a fire burning, and Tourmaline ate fish roasted on hot coal and a muskrat boiled in her tin pot with pine needles for seasoning. The others let her eat first before taking what was left, and only when she had finished did they demand to hear her story.

But Tourmaline refused to tell it until she heard theirs first.

“Three of us know our story, but only one of us knows yours,” Agate said. Tourmaline’s face was flushed red from the warm food, and she felt tired, but she relented. When she tried to start her tale from where she left them, Salt interjected.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” he snapped.

“I had to.”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Let her tell her story!” Agate interrupted. “I want to hear her story.”

“It’s still true,” Salt said.

“Fight her later but let her talk.”

Salt folded his arms and leaned back against a stone, but he stayed quiet.

“There,” Agate said. “Now how did you get away from the ürsi?”

Tourmaline thought about it. What was she going to say about the troll?

“I ran down into a ravine,” she said. “And they nearly caught me, but there was a troll.”

“A troll?” Mudhorn interrupted, eyes wide. Tourmaline nodded.

“And the ürsi ran.”

“And what happened to you?”

“I. . . I got away.”

“From the troll?”

“Ay, yes.” She paused. Her friends glanced at each other.

“And what then?”

“There’s. . . Not much else to say,” she lied. “I got lost, but I kept heading east. Then today, I got up there.” She pointed up the cliff with her thumb.

“That’s where the bear was,” Agate said. Tourmaline nodded. It’s not that she wanted to lie to them. Maybe one day she’d even tell them everything. But not tonight.

“I thought you’d go back,” she said, changing the subject. “I figured you might head to the sea, follow the coast south.”

Once again, the others traded glances.

“No,” Agate said. “We’d come that far. What’s a bit of a hike through the woods?”

Tarbelt snorted.

“A bit of a hike my ass,” he said. “I thought we’d never get out of those trees.”

24

The Bells of Ice-Cloak

Tourmaline woke in the middle of the night. The wind had grown, and stormy clouds flitted above the trees and the lake. The cedar tops waved and whispered. They’d all slept lying in a row, their heads to the rockfall and their feet to the south. Agate was to Tourmaline’s right, and Salt to her left. She could hear Agate’s steady breaths, and Mudhorn’s snores. She glanced over at Salt and saw the gleam of his eyes as he stared up above them. He was awake.

“Salt?” she whispered. He turned to look at her.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you go back?” she asked. “You must have thought I was dead.”

“We did. Mostly we did. But we knew that if you weren’t, you wouldn’t go back, you’d find the mountain.”

“I would have told you to go back. You said you only came to keep me safe, anyway.”

Salt sat up. Tourmaline propped herself up on her elbows. He looked away from her, south along the strand, where the wavelets of the lake were driven before the wind.

“I dreamed for thirty-three years of returning to my folk,” he whispered. “Even as my spirit grew cold. By the end, I stopped dreaming. Then from nowhere they brought me back, and I sat in your mother’s caravan and I felt nothing. But when I saw you and the fire in your belly. . . ”

Salt reached out toward her. She flinched, but to her surprise, he set his rough palms on each side of her face. She smelled the fragrant sap of pine on them.

“I wanted to be warm again,” he said. “And if you were dead, I still wasn’t ready to leave the idea of it. The idea of you. And not just for me. Your fire could rekindle our folk.”

“Not me. All of us,” she said, and she reached up and pulled his hands away from her face, clutching his rough fingers in her own. They sat face to face.

“I know there was another,” he said.

“I was never promised.”

Tourmaline leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest as they held hands in the dark.

The next morning, Tourmaline rose early and sat huddled against the bottom of the rockfall, her arms folded across her as she tried to keep out of the wind. She regretted once more that she did not have thicker, warmer clothing. She’d escaped the burning wagon with only her summer dress on her. The others weren’t in any better of a situation, their clothes ripped and worn and stained.

The wind cut through the valley. The weather had turned into the southeast, running up the length of the valley and pushing waves against the shore. But even though it came from the southeast, it had a chill bite. Summer was not so mild here, so north and so high. She wondered how much higher they truly were compared with Laith in the south. They had climbed not just north, but up.

She couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. They had found the ancient home of her folk. At least the front stoop of it. There could be no turning back now—no coming so far and leaving without seeing the Chamber of Waters, or the Hall of Memory, or the great stair leading up to the Face. She stared at the mountain. A thin cover of trees clung to its lower slopes before it rose rocky beyond to a sheer face of rock. The rockface rose near vertical for what must be hundreds of feet before sloping away again toward the peak. That must be the Face, where the great smiths and artisans had toiled for centuries and centuries. There was nothing visible that bespoke of anything behind the rock. If she didn’t know better, it could have been just another mountain face.

“Blasted weather,” Agate muttered. Tourmaline turned to see Agate standing behind a tree-trunk, her arms wrapped around her chest for warmth. Tarbelt was trying to relight a fire, and Mudhorn and Salt looked to be waking up. She’d lost herself in thought and hadn’t noticed the movements.

“Wait on the fire,” Tourmaline said.

Tarbelt tried to shield the sparks glancing off his flint from the wind.

“We’re downwind of nearly everything here.”

“Let’s move to the far side of the rockfall. It’ll help block it.”

They all saw the sense, and they scrambled over the lower edge of the fallen stones where the lake waves slapped against them. Soil and gravel had filled the cracks of the rockfall where moss and plants grew. The cliff must have collapsed a long, long time ago.

On the far side, they found themselves in a sheltered calm.

“That’s better at least,” said Agate, huddling down against the stones. A couple cedars clung to the shingle between the lake and the cliff, but there were only six or seven yards between water and cliff. Tarbelt had carried some of the firewood, and they found some more driftwood. He set about building a fire again.

“Do you think there are ürsi around here?” Agate asked, looking up at the mountain.

“I don’t see why there wouldn’t be,” Tourmaline answered. “I’m still not sure a fire is a good idea.”

“We should cook the fish,” Tarbelt muttered.

“I thought we ate all the fish.”

“Well,” he said. “We’ll catch some more.”

Tourmaline looked at the choppy surface of the lake. She doubted they’d have much luck. She sat down near Agate and Salt. Mudhorn joined them, settling on his haunches.

“What’s the plan now?” Salt asked. Mudhorn watched Tourmaline for an answer.

“Well. . .” she said, and trailed off. “We’ll have to search the cliff.”

“We searched it for two days before you arrived,” Salt answered. “There are no adits.”

“And to move this—” Mudhorn patted a boulder in the rockfall “—would take us a whole mine worth of dwarves and tools as well.”

Tourmaline looked up at the cliff above her. The ridge must be a mile wide. It rose hundreds more feet beyond the top of the cliff to its bald summit and even higher to the north as it approached the shoulder of the mountain. She thought about the stories her grandmother had told her. Most of them came from the days of the Crippled King or Queen Jade or Spinner the Great. Few of the stories told much of anything about the final centuries of Ice-Cloak, as if the dwarves had been eager to forget. She had never heard of another entrance to the mountain, but even if there had been another adit, it could be buried under nine hundred years of rubble and loam. To search miles of rough ground for what their ancestors had likely kept hidden, if it existed, when they also had to worry about sheer survival—food and ürsi not least—would be madness.

Tarbelt had the fire crackling, and he slowly added on bigger sticks. Even the mere sight of the flames made their situation feel better.

“I need to think on it,” Tourmaline said. Mudhorn glanced at Salt.

“Well, it could be worse,” Agate said.

“Oh?” Salt asked.

“We could have met a dragon.” She laughed, and even Tourmaline chuckled.

“I’m certain that was just a figure of speech. My grandmother said it was a way to say that the wickedness of the last kings had brought destruction.”

“I want my own stonehold,” Agate replied. “But I could do without a king.”

Mudhorn shrugged.

“Even in the caravans, someone makes the decisions in the end.”

“Some of them have elders, a council.”

“Eh, I have seen such a council,” Mudhorn said, “and all those who sit in the circle are not equal.”

“I am not concerned with that, so much,” Tourmaline put in. “Just that our folk are free to live as dwarves. If there must be rule, let it be by dwarves.”

They all stared up at the mountain as the wind gusted over the rocks behind them. The waves on the lake blew past, crested with white. The trees creaked and groaned and bent under the force of the wind.

“It looks like they’re going to snap,” Tarbelt said, looking up.

“They’ve grown here many a year,” Mudhorn answered, “and through many a storm.”

They all huddled closer to the growing fire. Even though they were out of the blast, something about the windstorm raging above them made the flames even more appealing. Tourmaline had always hated when the wind grew so strong that it rocked the wagon at night. They always tried to keep from showing the broadside of the wagon to the wind, but they could not control the gusts.

She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the flames on her face and listening to the rush of the wind, the waving of the trees, the lapping of the waves. . . And something else. She opened and shut her eyes again. The wind blew, and waves lapped the shore. She tilted her head and listened until she thought she’d just been imagining, and then she heard it again—a high, clear pealing sound. Moments later, it came again, this time in a cluster of tones.

She’d heard that type of sound before, passing near some of the larger human towns. It sounded like bells. The others were quiet.

“Are you. . .?” she asked. Salt stared up at the sky, squinting.

“I hear something,” Agate said.

“I hear the wind,” Mudhorn answered.

But there it was, a pure note, faint in the air above them.

“Bells,” she said.

“Bells?” Salt asked.

“Shhh.” Agate cocked her head.

Now that Tourmaline had identified the sound, she heard it more clearly, ringing down from high up the mountain. The peals were not in any sort of rhythm or regularity, unlike any bells she’d heard before.

The wind. The wind must be blowing the bells.

“I hear them,” Agate said.

“The bells of Ice-Cloak,” Tourmaline said. “They’re real.”

“Who’s ringing them?” Tarbelt asked, his eyes wide beneath his thick blond brows.

“No one. It’s the wind,” Tourmaline answered.

Mocking us, then” Tarbelt said. “We can’t get in.”

“If we can hear them, that must mean the sound can escape from the mountain. And if the wind makes them ring, then the wind must be able to reach them.”

“They could be anywhere on that mountain,” Salt said.

“They must be on the southern face. Maybe the Face, itself. We need to go, now, while the wind still rings them.”

“It will not be easy up that mountain, and we have no food or warm clothes. That is ice up there,” Mudhorn said.

Tourmaline looked at the glaciers on the mountain’s flanks. It was true. But the Face—or what she thought must be the Face—was only a third of the way up the mountain. The glaciers barely reached down that far. Should the bells really be much farther than that?

“You don’t have to come,” she said. “Some of you could stay here. Hunt and fish. I’ll go scout for the bells.”

“I’ll go with you,” Salt said. He looked resigned to the idea, or he’d already despaired of changing her mind.

“I’m going, too” Agate said. Tarbelt looked at her and sighed.

“And me.”

“Alright then,” Mudhorn said. “Let’s hope there’s something edible on the way up there. I’ve not much fat left on my bones.”

The wind battered against them as they left the treeline and headed up the open, rocky slopes. The howl of the storm blocked out any ringing of the bells. Tourmaline wasn’t sure if they no longer rang, or if the wind and the shape of the mountain prevented her hearing.

If there was an adit near the bells, it would have to be up high and protected, not down where it could be easily reached. And if the great stair led up to the face, then she suspected the bells would not be too far away. Probably above the face. So she led them up the western flank of the mountain.

It was not easy. What little paths there were belonged to the black and white mountain goats that watched down on them from impossible precipices. No wonder the ancient dwarves felt so secure in their high fastness. What could possibly attack such a place?

By dark, they had not yet reached the bottom of the face, and they passed an uneasy night among the cold rocks. By morning, the wind had died down and shifted to a steady breeze out of the west, and they heard no more of the bells. Tourmaline had hoped the ringing would guide them as they approached, but that was not to be. She recognized the hunger in the thin faces of her companions as they set out again on their claim in the early dawn, bellies empty a second morning in a row.

It took them the entire day to reach the mountainside above the Face. It was a treacherous ascent up narrow escarpments, pulling themselves up with their hands and struggling over loose scree. Even their dwarven legs, short and strong, began to cramp in the afternoon. They could see the vastness of the Kara-Indal wilderness stretching out toward the horizon in ridges and valleys and rolling forest, the far distance lost in a haze of cloud. Some of the nearer clouds were below them.

“Careful, Tourmaline!” Salt said. They had reached the steep slope above the Face. Twenty yards below them, the sheer rock fell straight down. Somewhere deep in the rock beneath their feet, the ancient forges of their ancestors must lie in darkness and decay. Tourmaline had inched down toward the cliff edge, prompting Salt’s warning.

“We need to find shelter for the night,” Mudhorn said. “We cannot remain here.” The breeze was steady and chill at that height.

The question was, where else could they go? Climbing much higher would be difficult, impossible even. Sharp ascents of rock and jagged cliffs broke the mountain above, rising toward a peak that still towered thousands of feet higher. Glaciers covered much of the lower slopes, impediments of ice and snow that the ill-equipped dwarves could not hope to overcome. The temperature had plummeted as they’d ascended. She knew it would be a miserable night even without going higher.

Tourmaline felt her hope flicker. She’d known that the mountain was large, but she began to understand more of its true scope. Even at that height, the mountain must have been eight or ten miles in circumference. If she had wanted to hide the bells where no one could find them, it would have been easy—and she had nothing like the skill of her ancestors. That they could have come so far to be defeated by a lack of tools, a lack of clothes, a lack of food. . . That such things should overcome those who did not lack courage felt like a wicked treachery of fate.

“We need food,” Tarbelt said. “We can’t go much longer without.” It wasn’t just two days of fasting climb, but the cumulative strain of the prior weeks of hardship. Tarbelt pulled his sling from his belt, wrapping it around his arm. They had seen sheep on the mountainside, chewing on the cold-hardy grasses that grew in patches here and there, and gnawing lichen from rocks. They looked unconcerned, impervious to the weather.

“Alright,” Tourmaline said. She glanced up. A hundred yards higher, she saw a fold of rock. “There.”

They struggled up to the shelter, weary and wordless. The fold was just a bare undulation of granite, but it gave them shelter from the persistent breeze.

“There’s not much day left,” Tourmaline said. “We should hunt in the morning.”

“The light will linger up here,” Tarbelt said. “A single one of these sheep would feed us for days.”

“I could use a full belly,” Mudhorn said.

“I’ll go with you.” Agate stepped back out onto the open mountainside, her short hair catching the wind.

Darkness fell two hours later, and Tourmaline grew worried for Agate and Tarbelt. She had just decided to go out and call for them when they reappeared, huddling into the shelter of the rock. Tourmaline breathed a sigh of relief, even as Tarbelt unloaded his frustration.

“The little shits move on this rock like it's nothing,” he said. “I saw one jump twenty feet, and they stand on the side of cliffs with nothing to stand on.”

Agate said nothing, just rubbed her hands together for warmth. Puffs of white billowed from their mouths as they breathed.

Salt leaned over to Tourmaline.

“We have to go down in the morning,” he whispered. Tourmaline pressed her lips together. She feared he was right.

That night, all barriers of dwarf and dwarf-maid fell away. The cold was such that they huddled their bodies together for warmth. No one discussed it, but they lay on their sides all pressed together. Tourmaline lay behind Salt, and Agate behind her, then Tarbelt and then Mudhorn. She wasn’t sure how much any of them slept. She drifted in and out, her muscles sore and cold and stiff.

Mudhorn groaned as he rose. Salt scratched at his own chin, and Tourmaline noticed how long his beard had grown. They stepped out from the shelter of the rock fold. The breeze had lessened even more, which was a mercy. The sun was just a bright yellow haze below the eastern horizon, but the sky had already grown grey.

“Those little shits,” Tarbelt muttered. Tourmaline followed his gaze. Three mountain sheep lay on a flat rock not fifty yards away, staring at them and chewing their cud. How they survived on the bits of grass growing in the sheltered spots this high up the mountain, she didn’t know, but she felt jealous.

“Tarbelt, what are you doing?” Salt asked as the dwarf stalked toward the sheep.

“Ssh.” Tarbelt fitted a smooth round stone into his sling.

Mudhorn sighed and sat down with crossed legs.

“It won’t take him long to lose them,” he said. Not even Agate followed. She stood with folded arms and watched as Tarbelt stalked toward the sheep who already watched his approach. The three sheep stood up, stretched languorously, and jumped down behind their rock. Tarbelt hurried his pace, reaching the rock where they’d lain and creeping around the side. Tourmaline couldn’t see anything beyond, and then even Tarbelt disappeared behind it. She folded her arms and waited. Salt stared after the dwarf, his face grim. Even she was thinking of the fish in the lake. It seemed she’d just grown hungrier and hungrier the past weeks. Their clothes hung from their frames not just because the cloth had stretched and torn, but because they’d grown thin.

“Oi! Help!”

Tarbelt’s voice sounded distant and urgent. They all rushed toward it, scattering loose rock down the mountainside. When they rounded the rock where the sheep had lain, Tourmaline was surprised to see how far further Tarbelt had gone. About fifty yards away, he crouched near the edge of a short cliff-face that dropped away from the slope. He didn’t look like he was in distress.

“What is it?” Salt asked when they reached him. Tarbelt knelt on one knee, staring away. Sticking out from the cliff face ten yards away was the head of a sheep, horns curled tightly around its head. It watched them with round, protruding eyes.

“There’s a bunch of them in there,” Tarbelt said, pointing.

“How?” Salt asked. Tourmaline wondered the same. It didn’t look like there was any way to get to whatever crevasse the animal was peeking from.

“They jumped to that rock, then up against there and in,” Tarbelt said, pointing.

“That rock” was in fact a narrow four-inch protrusion and “there” was a part of the cliff that jutted out further than whatever opening existed.

“Nimble little shits,” Salt answered. “But they got away.”

“I doubt there’s another way for them to get out,” Tarbelt said.

“They aren’t going to come out when we’re standing here,” Agate said.

“We can get in there.”

“You’re crazy,” Salt answered.

“I’m hungry,” Tarbelt snapped. “There’s probably a thousand pounds of meat in there.”

They were all hungry, but that wouldn’t grow wings on their backs, or goat hooves instead of feet.

“What do you have in mind?” Tourmaline asked, trying not to upset him.

“Someone has to stay here, keep them from getting out,” he said. “Then we check above.”

The cliff stretched up only about fifteen yards. In fact, it stretched about the same distance below before meeting a rocky slope. The cliff itself looked more like a huge long stone set on end, protruding up from the mountain. It was much wider than it was tall, at least forty yards across.

“Fine,” Tourmaline said. “Mudhorn, keep the sheep from escaping.” He nodded, and the rest of them turned to struggle up the slope and try to get above the sheep. Tourmaline doubted anything would come from it, but then, they needed meat. Tarbelt was a much better hunter, as hunger-addled as he may be.

With difficulty, they reached the top of the cliff. Tarbelt knelt and looked down. Tourmaline watched from behind. From her perspective, all that lay beyond Tarbelt was miles of open air and hazy wilderness. The cliff could have dropped sheer to the lake below for all she could see. Salt inched up next to Tarbelt.

“That is a plunge,” he said. “How far down before it opens up, do you think?”

“One way to find out.”

“I don’t think it’s wise.”

“Oh, we’re being wise, now,” Tarbelt snipped. “March hundreds of miles through ürsi country, but when it comes to food we’re being wise.”

“Tarbelt,” Agate said in a tone that was somehow both compassionate and warning. He took a deep breath.

“I’m going down there.”

“Tarbelt, you can’t climb that.”

“I’m going down, and I’m using the stupid rope.” He stood and turned toward them with an expression of twisted triumph as he began uncoiling the rope from around his torso.

“Is it long enough?”

“We’ll find out.”

Tourmaline inched forward and glanced down. The cliff looked remarkably smooth. It was granite, warn by eons of wind and snow and rain.

“I need you all to hold the end of the rope,” Tarbelt said. He was tying one end of the rope around his waist. Tourmaline picked up part of the length and looked at it. It was thick hemp rope, tightly twisted. Humans did make decent rope, she begrudged. They used it on their ships. She hoped the weeks of exposure to the elements hadn’t compromised it.

The three of them lined up, sitting on their rumps and digging their feet into any cracks or divots in the rock they could find. Tarbelt fed the rope down over the cliff. He laid on his belly and slowly scooted backwards toward the open air until he hung at his waist and his legs dangled down.

“If you die,” Agate said. “I’m marrying your cousin to spite you.”

“That little shit,” Tarbelt said, gritted his teeth, and lowered himself over the edge.

25

Under Stone

“Can you reach?” Salt called. They braced back from the edge, the three of them bearing the strain of the rope.

“Hold on,” Tarbelt yelled back, sounding flustered.

They felt the tugging of Tarbelt’s movements on the rope. There were a few strong jerks, and the weight disappeared. The rope went still.

“Tarbelt!” Agate yelled, trying to pull up on the rope. It caught the weight again.

“Stop pulling!” Tarbelt yelled. “Let go of the rope!”

“Let go?” Salt yelled.

“Let go of it!”

They looked at each other, and then they released their grips. The rope slid away over the edge. Salt crawled to look down.

“What’s happening, Tarbelt?” he called. Tourmaline crawled to the edge next to him. She could see the rope dangling down the cliff, and she could see Tarbelt’s arms as he pulled the rope up. She couldn’t see the rest of him in the rock. The rope swung once more and then disappeared into the crevasse. A short while later, Tarbelt’s hand reached out and dropped the coiled end of the rope over the ledge, letting it fall the rest of the way down the cliff. It nearly reached the slope below.

“Go down to Mudhorn!” Tarbelt yelled. They obeyed.

Once down with Mudhorn, Tarbelt leaned out of the crevasse.

“Watch out for those sheep,” Mudhorn called. “They’ve got horns.”

Tarbelt glanced behind him.

“They ran inside,” he said.

“Inside?” Tourmaline asked. It was much easier to talk at this level.

“You’re going to have to see this. I think. . . I think its the bells.”

They had to backtrack down the mountainside, then climb up another way to reach the foot of the cliff. The rope dangled about seven feet above their heads. The granite there at the bottom was rougher, with a few handholds to be found, and they piled stones up enough that they could reach the bottom of the rope. Tarbelt told them to tie the weapons and tools first. He hauled them up in two loads. After that, Salt climbed up. His shoulder muscles strained as he hauled himself up, bracing his feet against the rock and stepping as if walking.

“Well done,” Mudhorn called when Salt disappeared over the ledge. Tarbelt and Salt peered back down.

“Loop the rope around you and hold. We’ll pull you. Just walk up.”

Mudhorn looked over at Agate and Tourmaline.

“I’ll go next,” Tourmaline said. She didn’t want to, but she was going to do it, anyway. It was awkward getting to the dangling end of the rope, then trying to hold herself up and wrap it around her waist. She glanced down. Mudhorn had turned his back to her. Her ripped skirt was hanging open as she planted her feet against the rock and leaned her weight back on the rope.

“Alright!” she called. She felt the tug on the rope and walked as the two dwarves hauled her up by brute strength. In only a minute, Salt grabbed her under her shoulder and pulled her onto the shelf of stone.

She looked up and gaped.

Before her was a perfectly smooth, perfectly carved conical opening extending into the rock, with the open mouth on the cliff face. There was no way this was natural. She unwrapped the rope from her waist and forgot about the others. She walked up to the stone and laid her hand on the granite. Faintly, she saw the marks of chisels, though they were nearly polished out.

The narrow end of the cone was shrouded in shadow, but she heard a loud, bass baa echo out, unnaturally loud. She stepped toward the shadow.

“Tourmaline!” Salt called after her. She stopped. “Those sheep are cornered. Wait for us.”

Agate was up now, and next they hauled Mudhorn over the ledge. Tourmaline waited impatiently as the others took in the sight of the strange carved channel.

“These little shits have horns,” Tarbelt said. He motioned to Mudhorn and Salt. “Spears first.”

Salt unsheathed his sword-staff. Mudhorn stepped up next to his shoulder, and they walked forward together. Tourmaline followed right behind, watching over their shoulders to get a glimpse inside. One of the mountain sheep stuck its head out of the opening, lowering its horns. It hopped forward, then back, then charged. Salt thrust his sword-staff into its chest, but its momentum carried it on, spinning Salt around. Mudhorn dropped to a knee and ducked aside, while Tourmaline dropped to the ground and folded her arms over her head. A hoof caught her hard against the shoulder as the goat jumped over her.

In the confusion, the other sheep sprinted for freedom, tearing out from the opening. Mudhorn brought his spear up and sliced open a stomach. Tarbelt crouched with Agate against the stone. The rest of the deft sheep sprinted through, turning to leap from the ledge, but the one Mudhorn had wounded stumbled forward and fell, its gut open and trailing.

No more sheep sprang from the opening, and the dwarves regained their feet. Tarbelt was the first to the ledge.

“Hah!” he shouted. “Two!”

It was true. The two wounded sheep had fallen, landing on the rocks below. One of them still breathed, its entrails hanging loose where Mudhorn’s spear had sliced its belly.

“There’s meat there,” Mudhorn said with a grin.

Tarbelt turned and started to lower himself over the ledge with the rope.

“Wait, we have to check the opening,” Tourmaline said.

“It’s not going anywhere. I’m hungry.” Tarbelt slid down the rope.

“I will help him butcher,” Agate said, preparing to follow.

“I’m not waiting to see.” Tourmaline turned and headed toward the dark opening at the back of the cone. She picked up her spear, though, and she gripped it nervously as she approached. Salt came along beside her. Sheep droppings covered the rock, small pellets both old and new.

The rear opening of the cone was not that small—at least five feet wide and five high, but rounded. Tourmaline smelled the thick lanolin of the sheep's wool and the earthy scent of droppings flowing out to meet her.

“Salt!” she said, and rushed forward.

The bells of Ice-Cloak.

“Tourmaline, careful!”

But she’d already passed through the opening. Bells the size of wagons hung from the rock on chains as thick as her leg. Their clappers hung down just below the rims. There were three of them, made of bronze grown green and dull from oxidization. As soon as she stepped through the opening into the bell chamber, she felt the breeze blowing on her back. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the shape of the cone must guide the wind. No doubt the cone amplified the sound of the bells, like a great stone horn pointing over the valley. The clappers had rings on the end, and Tourmaline suspected ropes had once guided them, now long rotted away, leaving them to blow free. There were slots in the stone beneath the bells that ropes could have fed through to some mechanism below. The granite walls were smooth, the chamber shaped in perfect geometry, a lopsided ovoid that would bounce sound and funnel it outward.

“The bells of Ice-Cloak,” Salt muttered. His face looked slack with awe. For the first time, Tourmaline thought he felt the sense of wonder that she’d felt since arriving in the valley. She reached out and touched the cool bronze. Despite the oxidization, she could see the flawless casting, the detailed engravings. The mold that cast such bells must have been a true marvel.

There was a back exit to the chamber, so small Tourmaline would have to duck through it sideways. As much as she could have stayed and gaped at the bells, this was just the beginning. All of Ice-Cloak lay below them. She slipped through the rear opening. It continued through five feet of granite before reaching another chamber. There were rusted hinges set into the stone, but no door. Any wood—anything not metal or stone—must have long ago perished.

Inside, she found a long narrow chamber. Ten alcoves were carved into the opposite stone wall. They looked like beds with shelves above them, and something like a rack beside each. As her eyes adjusted more to the dimness, she saw to her left a perfectly carved doorway with an arched lintel carved with ridges. It led onto a narrow stairway that curved downward. She headed for it.

“Tourmaline, stop!” Salt said. She hadn’t realized he’d followed her through. “There are thousands of years of tunnels in this mountain. If we aren’t careful, we might never come out.”

She hesitated. She felt sure she could have found her way to the Chamber of Waters from the Gates of Ice, just from her grandmother’s descriptions. There was supposed to be a great road through the mountain. But from the bells? She knew there was a stairway, spiraling up to the Face. But what else?

“If we go,” Salt said, “we go all together. With food.”

“When we go,” she answered, and turned back.

They sat in the crevasse of granite and gorged on slices of cold raw mutton. A month ago, Tourmaline’s stomach would have turned at the thought, but now she closed her eyes as she bit into the meat, relishing it.

“It’s not just a mine,” Mudhorn said, still chewing. “It’s also a colony. There will be living areas, communal areas. I suspect the mines will be in the deepest parts.”

“But we don’t know what passage leads where,” Salt said.

Tourmaline had already repeated what she knew of the caverns and delvings below. After she’d said it all, she realized it wasn’t as much knowledge as she felt. The old tales hadn't been meant as a map, of course, but it was something. The miners of the group—Mudhorn and Salt—discussed the maze of tunnels they’d likely encounter. Tourmaline, Agate, and Tarbelt showed enough deference to mostly listen quietly. Or maybe it was that they focused on eating. Tarbelt certainly said little as he took slice after slice of raw backstrap. As night fell again, their mood had risen into a dull satiation, a far cry the grim outlook of the morning.

“We have neither candle nor oil nor wick,” Mudhorn grumbled.

“Ice-Cloak was lit by miner’s eye,” Tourmaline interjected.

“Miner’s eye,” Mudhorn said with a smirk. “Is that even real?”

“You’d have asked the same thing about the bells in there a month ago,” Salt said. Mudhorn shrugged and took another bite. “Regardless,” Salt continued, “we can only go as far as we can see. We may have to go back to the valley and prepare torches. It’s the best we’ll be able to do.”

“Torches will get us only far enough to die when they burn out,” Mudhorn answered.

“I thought we could smell our way out by the fresh air,” Agate said, more of a question than a statement.

“So our grandmothers told us. But I can tell you from experience that in the depths a thousand feet below the surface, old sayings don’t keep you alive.”

“I thought the deepest mine in Laith only went to seven hundred feet.”

“Bah,” Mudhorn sputtered. “Don’t pick at dripping rocks, maid.”

Salt smirked.

In the morning, they prepared for their descent. Thankfully, they’d kept the now-empty bags from the oats and barley. They even had some of the salt left, though it had gotten wet and had dried as a hardened lump. It wasn’t much for all the mutton they’d butchered from the sheep, nor would it keep it from spoiling. But something was better than nothing, and their stomachs were stuffed for the first time in a long while. They filled the bags with salt-sprinkled slices of mutton. Then, without more to prepare, they filed into the mountain. They marveled once more at the bells, then passed into what they had decided must be a guardroom. After all, the bell tower was a potential entry point into the mountain as they’d proved, though it would have been near impossible for a foe to breach.

Tourmaline swallowed and took the first step onto the stairway. Never before had she entered stone, not like this. Sure, in secret at night with her caravan, she had been in the cave back in eastern Laith. Mudhorn and Salt had mined beneath the rock, but Tourmaline was a stranger to the depths. It felt dreamlike, and more akin to entering the legends of her folk than anything they'd done thus far.

The stair spiraled down, deeper into the gloom as her eyes adjusted. After so long in the sun, the cool dark felt like sweet relief. The stairs were level, the walls smooth, each seam finer than anything she’d ever beheld in crude Laithan stonework. Turn after turn, they descended into the darkness. Soon, all she could see were grey shapes and shadow.

“I’m not sure we can go much further,” Salt whispered from behind.

“We can’t get lost on the stair,” Tourmaline answered and kept going. She hadn’t expected the stair to go so far. The smell of granite and faint wafting hints of other minerals filled her nose. She saw a faint blue-green glimmer below. The stairs flattened out, and the close walls of the stairway opened out. Instead of total darkness, she could see the outline of a long corridor, the roof carved in an elegant arch. The corridor continued on from the mouth of the stair, and she could see the shape of doorways on either side. Right next to the stair they’d taken was the upper landing of another stairway that spiraled downward again.

Her eyes continued to adjust to the strange light as the others gathered around her. She saw patches of what looked like blue-green luminescent moss along the seams of the stonework.

Miner’s eye.

“I’ll be a blind cave-bat,” Mudhorn muttered.

“Stay together,” Salt said, still keeping his wits.

On an impulse, Tourmaline reached down and unlaced her boots, slipping her feet out of the worn, cracked leather. She set the bare soles of her feet down on the granite. It was cool and smooth. Tears welled and rolled down her cheeks. Everything so perfect, everything so precise, just the right sizes, widths, the lines without flaw.

“It’s beautiful,” Agate whispered.

Tourmaline stuffed her worn boots in the top of her bucket. Some of the boot seams were loose and hung open, but she felt an impulse to throw nothing away. She walked ahead to the first doorway in the corridor. It was closed. She laid her hand on the door. It was carved granite. Mudhorn stepped beside her.

“Doors of stone,” he said. “Hinges of rock.” He laid a hand against it and pushed. The door swung open with barely a grinding. “After nearly a millennium,” he said, shaking his head.

They entered the chamber beyond, and the smell of coal and rust and iron met their noses.

“It’s a workshop,” Mudhorn said as the others crowded in behind them. Tourmaline saw tools, workbenches, a forge set into the wall. She sensed the movement of air, as if a vent existed somewhere. She knew a forge would need a vent to the outside. That is why the Crippled King had had built them into the Face.

“Let’s spread out,” Salt said. “Check these chambers, but don’t go beyond. No one leaves this corridor alone.”

It looked like there were as many as fifty workshops cut into the rock on both sides of the wide hall, and at the far end another stair led down, but much wider—enough for ten dwarves to descend shoulder to shoulder.

“There’s coal here!” Tarbelt shouted, stepping back out of a workshop door.

“In many of them,” Agate said. She was walking from door to door, peeking inside. To search them all in detail would have taken a month. They were too excited to be thorough.

“No,” Tarbelt said. “I mean there’s coal. We have to go back for the rest of the meat before it spoils. We can cook it. We can dry it. It’ll feed us for weeks!”

Tourmaline groaned. More delay. She hated it even more because he was right.

“Fine,” Tourmaline said. “Tarbelt, you’re in charge of it.”

“Help me?” he asked Agate. Agate tried to hide her disappointment as she left off her exploration.

“Bring all the meat into this workshop,” Tarbelt said. They all left their sacks within.

“Just don’t go exploring,” Salt said. “Wait for us to come back.”

Tarbelt was already blowing on a flickering coal-fire in one of the forges.

“I saw grates in one of the workshops, I’ll go get them,” Agate said, walking away.

Tourmaline, Salt, and Mudhorn continued on to the wide stairwell. They followed it down until they found another landing. The miner’s eye there was even brighter. An even wider corridor stretched beneath the level they’d just left. They walked down it, finding more rows of workshops. They noticed the doors had keyholes and lock mechanisms, but many were ajar, and some of the closed doors were unlocked. Everything inside the chambers looked as if work had stopped at the end of a shift or for a brief break, like the workers expected to take it back up in the morning or hand it off to another. They saw half-forged tools resting on anvils. Wooden tool handles had long ago disintegrated, but the tool-heads remained encased in scale or dull ageless patina.

They arrived at the narrow stair at the far end of the corridor.

“This should lead back up to the higher level,” Mudhorn said.

But they took it downward. They found yet another corridor under the last. This one had three long passages running away to the north, deeper into the mountain. The corridors must have been aligned east-west to fit along the face of the mountain. Hundreds of doors also lined the north passages. They could not hope to explore them all, but they checked a few near the start of each passage.

“These are just workshops,” Salt said. “Not even stoneholds. There must have been thousands and thousands of our folk here.”

“There were,” Tourmaline answered. “More dwarves dwelled here than now exist in the world.”

“I never thought to see anything so grand,” Mudhorn said. He glanced to the side as they walked past a door ajar and stopped in his tracks. He rushed into the workshop.

“No,” he exclaimed. “No! No! It can’t be!” He reached picked something up from a forge. From behind him, Tourmaline couldn’t see what he held. Mudhorn’s shoulders quivered, and she heard the choked sound of sobs. Never had she seen a grown dwarf weep, but it seemed this was a day of firsts. Salt approached and laid a hand on Mudhorn’s shoulder, then looked down at what Mudhorn held.

“By the Cripple,” Salt said in awe. Slowly, Mudhorn turned around. The tears that streamed down his dirty face left cleaner trails.

In Mudhorn’s cupped hands lay a hammerhead forged of living steel.

“It’s a simple hammer,” he gasped, his voice choking. It was true; there was not an ornament on it. It looked like any plain blacksmith’s hammer. “They made it out of living steel.”

It took a while to resume exploration. They ignored following the northern passages and made their way toward the end of the main corridor. As they approached, they felt the movement of air and a great sense of openness. A wide circular chamber lay ahead, with a low ring wall in the center. Tourmaline slowed. Four massive chains hung down from great steel rings in the domed roof, fed through gears and mechanisms that she didn’t quite understand.

As they stepped into the chamber, they saw a massive stair winding down through the mountain. In the center, over the little ring wall, was a circular hole fifteen yards wide. The chains hung down, so motionless they looked petrified. The hole looked like an eternal descent into a blue-green haze of miner’s eye, but at the bottom Tourmaline saw hues of red and orange and yellow. How far down it the stair went, she couldn’t tell. She smelled something else rising on the air besides the minerals and moisture. It smelled like oil and grease and musk, but far more foreign than any of those things.

“This is it. This is the great spiraling stair. It leads down to the Chamber of Waters.”

She took the first step down.

“Not yet,” Salt said. “We shouldn’t get so far from the others.”

“But—” Tourmaline said, looking down.

“We’ll be safer if we take our time.”

Safer? She’d made it through humans and ürsi, troll and bear. This felt like the safe part. She sighed. Fine. She would wait for her companions.

Compared to that great stair, the smaller stairway that joined the workshop levels felt narrow and closed-in.

“We had to move to another forge,” Tarbelt said to them as they returned. “Vent in the first one was blocked. We nearly smoked ourselves as well as the meat.” He’d made a rudimentary smoker out of a forge hood, gratings, and a coal-fire. “Even the iron is still sound in here,” he said. “A bit rusty but sound.” He had a silly smile on his face, and Agate was smiling, too, though mostly at him.

“What did you find?” she asked Tourmaline.

“Workshops,” she said. “And the great stair. And—” she looked at Mudhorn. He held out the hammerhead that he carried in his hands like something delicate. Tarbelt and Agate caught their breath.

“A hammer,” Agate whispered. Mudhorn nodded. Tarbelt shook his head in wonder. “A simple hammer.”

26

Into the Deep

It took many hours to cook the meat down to jerky. Jerky would keep for weeks, even months this way, but waiting for it to slowly dehydrate felt like torture to Tourmaline. She tried to nap, but she didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. She just kept thinking about the whole civilization awaiting her below.

“We could explore these places for a year,” Tarbelt said, chewing on a piece of cooked mutton. “I admit. I was wrong. I didn’t believe we’d ever get here. But we should go back and bring our folk. The sooner the better. Winter must come early this far north.”

“We will go back, but not yet. I am not leaving until I see the Chamber of Waters, and the Hall of Memory, and the throne of Jade.”

“That is down toward the heart of the mountain,” Tarbelt said.

“Ay, yes. And I will find some treasure that will prove to our folk that our word is true.”

“It's true that we should not linger overlong,” Salt said. “But we can spend a few days. I too would gaze on the deepness, but we should be careful.”

Of course, Salt and his perpetual caution. She couldn’t believe that they weren’t all rushing with her down the great stair. Mudhorn had remained quiet, turning the hammerhead over and over in his hands, staring at the luster unchanged after centuries.

“I haven’t seen enough either,” Agate said. “I always heard there was a waterfall.”

“There is—in the Chamber of Waters,” Tourmaline said. Agates brown eyes reflected the light of the coal-fire as she smiled in anticipation.

“I don’t want to go back,” she said. “I want to stay here.”

Tourmaline felt the same way, but she thought of her mother and all the rest. This belonged to them, too. To all the dwarves who wandered Laith and every other petty human kingdom. But then, the others hadn’t come. Just these companions of hers who had risked their lives. Still, she could not abandon their folk. Maybe next spring, they could go back to Laith and tell the caravans?

“We’ve been awake long,” Salt said. “It will be night outside, and we should sleep.”

Tourmaline hadn’t even thought of what time it must be outside. They all laid down in the workshop, the coal fire glowing brightly and warming the air with a homeyness they hadn’t felt in a long time. It didn’t keep Tourmaline from feeling restless. Unknown treasures lay below them, and only a stairway to tread.

At length, she sat up and stared at the door, debating within herself. She climbed to her feet.

It was just walking to the doorway, she told herself. Then she walked out into the corridor. She knew the way to the great stair. She would not get lost. When she had taken only a few steps, Salt called to her from the door.

“Tourm,” he said. She turned, already irritated. He must have seen it on her face; his brow fell. He left the doorway and approached her. She readied herself for the demands that she wait, that she be cautious. Instead, he asked:

“What happened here?”

“What?”

“What happened to this place?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know more stories of this place than any I’ve met. These workshops, there are precious metals inside. I’ve seen silver, gold. Gems and precious stones. Mudhorn’s hammer—” he motioned back toward the chamber. “The door was ajar. Not just unlocked. It was left open.”

“The folk had to leave.”

“The folk had to flee,” he said. “You cannot tell me a smith did not take his tools or lock them behind him, tools like that.”

She saw his point. It looked like work had simply stopped midway. She’d seen the wealth, too, beryls and silver and chalcedony left sitting on jeweler benches amid the delicate instruments of the craft. If the folk had fled, they didn’t appear to have brought many of their tools.

“I always thought that the last kings had grown wicked. That wars and greed had destroyed the folk.”

“No one has ransacked this place,” Salt went on. “It wasn’t greed that left it so.”

“Famine?”

Salt shook his head. “Do you believe that?”

She paused, not wanting to answer that question.

“I’m going down the stair,” she said instead. Salt sighed. He didn’t bother to argue.

“I’m coming. But wait.”

Salt went back into the workshop and returned with his swordstaff and Tourmaline’s spear, as well as a sack of jerky and one of the water skins.

“I told Mudhorn,” he said.

Tourmaline nodded, and they headed to the great stair.

Tourmaline fought tears once more as they descended. The whole stairwell was cased in dressed stone, smooth and with no gaps. Each step was perfectly level, just the right height for a comfortable step, except in places she could tell were worn down by the footfalls of dwarves of old. She relished the feel of the stone on her bare feet.

Around and around they went until they came to a landing where the chains hanging motionless from above stopped at some kind of levered mechanism. Another set of chains hung from massive rings fixed to a steel beam, fed again into a mechanism that extended into a side chamber. The light grew brighter as they descended. They passed one more such landing. It appeared the chains were for some kind of system engineered so that a lift could be switched from chains to chains without blocking the unbroken opening above and below. The ends of the steel beams that held the lower chains rested on a kind of rolled track, allowing them to be moved outward over the hole when needed. It would have taken immense power to operate such a system.

All in all, it was no short descent. They spiraled for over half an hour down into the mountain. They passed more landings where tunnels departed, mostly north and west. Tourmaline felt confident the stair should end somewhere near the Chamber of Waters. She peeked over the wall protecting them from plunging down the central well and at last saw the bottom approaching.

When they stepped down from the final step, Salt glanced back up.

“That will be a long climb,” he said. “I imagine the crafters of old kept their legs strong.”

“There was some kind of lift,” Tourmaline said, pointing to a wreckage of metal hanging below the snapped ends of the massive chains. Stranger yet, beyond the wreckage, a massive fractured hole burst through what looked like it had been a smoothly cased stone wall. The hole was nearly twenty yards in diameter, a tunnel through the rock, yet looking nothing like the fine workmanship of the dwarves. Fractures ran away from the opening in all directions through the stone. It was the first sign they’d seen of outright destruction.

“What could do this?” Salt asked. He passed the wreckage of the lift and approached the enormous tunnel. He reached out and touched the stone with his hand. It was sandstone there, but the tunnel looked blackened and smooth, as if hardened to glass. The smell of oil and musk was strong.

“I don’t want to follow it,” Tourmaline said. “There.” She pointed at an archway of dwarven make, wide and perfectly cased with stone with a peaked roof and ruler-straight seams. Salt followed her through.

She’d always imagined entering by the adit gates. She knew enough to get to the Chamber of Waters from there. Follow the water. It was basically that simple. The Chamber of Waters would have a waterfall and a hot spring, and the galleries. . . were there ten? Or twelve? She thought it was an even number, but she couldn’t remember for sure.

Tourmaline stepped on something hard.

“Ow!”

“What?”

Tourmaline bent over and picked up a piece of metal.

“It’s a gold brooch, just lying on the stone,” she said. It was a simple design, a hollow circle with fine grooves creating a swirl pattern. She tucked it into her pocket.

“I smell water,” Salt said. “And salt.”

Tourmaline sniffed the air. She detected it too, beneath the strong foreign scent of musky oil. There was a movement of air against her face.

“We’re on the right path,” she said, and hurried forward. The tunnel was not long. A brightly lit archway opened ahead. She heard the rushing sound of water, and as she emerged from the arch, she exclaimed:

“Oh!”

Galleries of carven stone rose into the blue-green light of the miner’s eye covering the walls of the immense chamber. Miner’s eye even covered the stalactites hanging down hundreds of feet from above. A fall of clear water sheeted down past them, falling further down into a pool on the lowest level. The water was almost within reach from the carven railing. Steam rose on the far side of the chamber, and she could smell the minerals of the hot spring.

It was more spectacular than she had ever imagined. Even in her daydreams, she had pictured nothing so huge. Thousands of folk could have stood on the smooth flagged floor of the chamber. A cool breeze blew off the waterfall, steady and unceasing. Tourmaline and Salt stood on the third gallery above the floor. Passages split away to the north, south, west, and east, and a wide staircase spiraled further down and up.

“What’s all that?” Salt asked. He nodded toward the floor.

She hadn’t noticed at first, but the floor of the chamber was covered in stuff. Little bits and pieces, and some larger clumps. In places, the debris looked like it had been swept aside in massive paths as if with a giant broom. “And there’s more of those tunnels,” Salt said.

It was true. At the ground level, another huge circular hole broke through the chamber wall to the north, and another opposite it to the south. Tourmaline had ignored them as she gawked at the magnificence of her surroundings, but now she looked more closely.

“They don’t look like. . . Our work. Dwarven work.” That was plain from the cracks and broken stone around the tunnel openings. She was searching for an explanation.

“No, they don’t,” Salt said. “And look.” He tapped at the ground with his foot. Tourmaline looked down. There were buttons lying there—silver buttons. “No one leaves silver and gold lying around.”

“This was a wealthy place beyond our imagining,” Tourmaline said, as if that could explain it.

Salt didn’t reply, just pursed his lips. “Come,” Tourmaline said. “There’s something else I want to see.”

She took the south tunnel from the third gallery, and it led them out along a carven walkway—a road, more like—cut into a massive cavern that wound southward. Below, a pathway followed a flowing stream. Communicating stairs ran upwards and down, balusters of stone carved in perfect geometries.

“These are the caverns that lead to the gate,” Tourmaline said. She didn’t know the way exactly, but she knew the direction. She hurried down a nearby stair, searching along the cavern walls. Minerals glinted there, left in place and polished for their beauty rather than mined. It was glorious.

She stopped and gawked at a relief carving of giant tusked beasts, towers rising from their backs. Long appendages stretched from their faces, and huge tusks protruded on either side, but the tusks weren’t carved. Shining with a pearly glow, actual ivory tusks extended from the relief as if the beasts would march out of the stone. The carving depicted little figures marching at the beasts’ feet, and she realized they were dwarves.

“Mammoths,” Salt muttered. Of course. Tourmaline had heard that the kings of Ice-Cloak had ridden such beasts into battle. There was so much she had heard as a gilna that she simply thought of as marvelous fantasy. She reached up and touched one of the cool, smooth tusks. It was three times as long as she was tall, curling up over her head.

There was so much to see everywhere, but she had come this way for a reason. They passed by another strange tunnel that looked half-melted into the rock. She could see the Chamber of Waters at the far end of it as she hurried past.

Where the cavern curved ahead, she found what she sought. There was a great wall of carvings. The quality of the carvings was ruder than the others they’d seen in the caverns, but she knew why. These were old even a thousand years ago. In the midst of the depicted scenes, a figure wielding a broken spear stood opposed to a great bear.

“Brokenspear,” she said. A narrow door opened in the rock below a carved arch. The relief carving was so wrought that Brokenspear stood upon the arch. Inside, rows of plinths stretched to the back of a simple square chamber, with carven vessels resting atop them.

“This is the Hall of Memory,” she whispered, “where lie the dead of the battle of Four Kings.”

Salt shook his head.

“You were right about this place.” He whispered, too. “It all exists.”

Tourmaline smiled at him. Salt followed her in, stepping lightly. He stopped in front of one of the first plinths. Runes were carved into the stone with precise, even strokes in a style difficult for Tourmaline to read. She had never been a skilled master of runes to begin with. Her mother would have known how to read them, she was sure. She saw Salt’s lips move.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“It says. . . Here sleeps Breaker. . . something of the. . . Do you know who that was?”

Tourmaline shook her head. “No.”

The next plinth bore only one word that she did not know, but beneath it was a pictograph of a woodaxe. She wondered who lay within.

The solemnity of the chamber made Tourmaline feel a little uncomfortable.

“Come, I want to see the throne room,” she said. Salt trailed behind her.

There didn’t seem to be any way back into the Chamber of Waters from the main caverns except through the strange tunnel. They both distrusted to walk there, so Tourmaline led them back to the third gallery, then down the curving stairs to the floor of the Chamber of Waters. Outside the Hall of Memory, her excitement returned and she practically ran. At one point, she laughed.

“Can we at least be quiet, Tourm?” Salt whispered. He seemed to be growing more nervous.

“There’s nothing here,” she answered. “Whatever happened was a long time ago.” As she reached the floor of the Chamber of Waters, her pace slowed. Metal littered the ground, from buttons to neck chains to brooches and pins. Many of them looked melted. She had to step lightly with her bare feet. Some of Salt’s concern seeped into her, then.

“This isn’t right,” Salt said.

“It was a thousand years ago,” she answered, though she felt her certainty wavering.

“Something bored those tunnels through the rock.”

Tourmaline didn’t respond.

In the center of the Chamber stood a massive plinth of black granite with inclusions of white quartz. A vessel of some sort sat atop it, its white marble a striking contrast. Runes were carved in the granite plinth. She didn’t slow to examine it. If she stopped at every interesting thing, every inscription, she’d never make it anywhere, and there was so much to see.

Near the far end of the chamber, a mineral stack glistened with condensation from the steam that rose at its base. A hundred hues reflected across its mineralized surface. She smelled the salt, but even so close it was overpowered by the oil and musk and the faintest hint of something like burning tallow.

Another one of the half-melted tunnels extended north, but she could see the remains of a relief carving above, fractured and partially fallen. Bits of surviving steps ran downward in the tunnel. The dwarven passage must have been subsumed and destroyed by whatever had created the glassy bore-hole.

“The Throne Room was connected to the Chamber of Waters. Downward,” she said. “I think it’s down there.” As she reached the opening, the smell came up out of the tunnel stronger than ever. She could see where the tunnel leveled out and opened up further below. A few patches of dressed stone survived there.

“Tourm,” Salt started. She turned to him and raised her eyebrows. He said nothing more. The stone looked slick and shiny. She took the first steps tentatively.

“It’s fine,” she said, feeling the grip. “It’s smooth but alright.” Her bare feet actually gave her a better purchase than her boots would have.

Salt followed, and they descended the tunnel. When the path leveled out, they saw before them an open pit, its sides a perfectly carved rectangle. Tourmaline leaned over the edge. It plummeted about thirty feet, narrowing as it went. Water had collected toward the bottom. It was obviously an intentional design. The tunnel continued on the other side. The fissured remains of a narrow bridge crossed the pit, but it had broken in the middle, leaving a gap of about two feet.

“We shouldn’t try—” Salt began, but Tourmaline leaped before he could finish. She landed easily beyond and kept going. She didn’t turn when she heard Salt land. His caution and worry had begun to annoy her. They hadn’t come so far to be faint-hearted. Nor did whatever emotion growing between them give him the right to dote on her safety.

Beyond was a great arch with massive doors cased and shining with gold and living steel. The doors were open wide. The carven lintel was broken away in the center as if something too large had pushed through. Yet the doorway was twenty yards wide to begin with and nearly as high. Miner’s eye glowed from within in vibrant hues of red, orange, and yellow. She’d seen some similar colors in the lower caverns, but here they dominated the spectrum. The air felt dry, and the smell of musk was so strong it stung her nostrils.

Beyond the doors, a wide hall opened up, but her eyes fixed straight ahead to the far side where an imposing throne sat on a dais. The throne was carved from a solid piece of deep jade. At its top, a massive jewel rested in a setting of living steel. Before the throne lay a strange plate of living steel, luminous in the glow. The dîrthna, the footstool of the kings of Ice-Cloak, the treasure brought back from the far north by Spinner the Great. How could it still exist, just sitting there? Atop that treasure sat another—a crown, but it faced away from her.

Tourmaline couldn’t contain herself. She ran through the doors, straight toward the dais.

There was a rush of wind and a boom that resounded in her chest. She spun round. The doors had closed behind her, slammed into place. Her stomach clenched in terror, but she couldn’t make sense at first of what she saw as she stumbled backward.

Above the doors was a massive gallery overlooking the throne room, and something loomed within. It looked like burnished metal, red like blood or fire, and it rippled as it uncurled. An appendage like a long claw reached down, and then another. She saw the articulations, like plates of lamellar overlapping. Its angular head moved, following the appendages downward to the bottom of the hall.

She had seen snakes in Laith, and she recognized the beast then. It was a worm. A serpent. A dragon. The head was the size of a wagon, the body behind it filled half the hall as it uncoiled itself downward. Its appendages—legs or arms or whatever they may be—folded along its body in strange angles even as it moved slowly closer. Its skin looked like steel covered in crimson enamel, every glimmer of light reflecting there.

This monster had bored the tunnels in the mountain. How, she did not know, but she was certain of it. The smell of oil and musk and burning tallow flowed down on her, thick when its nostril flared in breath.

When it spoke, she staggered and fell onto the ancient polished stone, too overwhelmed and dazed to feel.

“I have heard you rattling through my halls,” he said. “Do you come to offer yourself?”

The dragon loomed over her, heat flowing from his body. How she knew it was male, she could not tell, but there was no question in her mind. From shoulder to shoulder, the dragon must have been over twenty feet wide. With eyes the size of Tourmaline’s head, he looked down at her and hesitated, pupils widening and narrowing.

“What is your name?” he asked.

Tourmaline was frozen in place, but when the dragon asked the question, she found she could answer.

“I am Tourmaline.”

“You speak old words with a strange accent.”

Only then did Tourmaline appreciate that not only did the dragon speak, but it spoke dwarvish, though its inflection was strange. “But this is a common name,” he went on. “What is your true name?”

“Egith,” she said. She’d already spoken before the shock of what she’d just told him hit her. She had just told him her true name.

“Ah.” The dragon lowered his head closer. His hot, oily breath washed against her. He paused, thinking or waiting. Tourmaline cowered in silence. Fighting was too absurd an idea to entertain. Running, equally so.

“I had wondered if dwarves yet roamed this world.” His luminous eyes drifted closer.

27

A Crown

Tourmaline regained enough composure to notice that the throne room was piled high with objects that gleamed and glimmered. She saw weapons, armor, gold, and living steel in abundance. It was a dragon’s horde.

The dragon sighed, dry heat flowing over Tourmaline. “I do not know how long it has been,” he continued. He looked down at Tourmaline, but she said nothing.

“How long has it been since I returned?” he asked.

“Nine hundred years, more or less,” she answered, feeling again as if the question empowered her voice. Where was Salt? Had he been struck by the doors? Was he alright? She did not hear him calling or pounding to reach her.

“That long. . .” The dragon slid past her, moving in undulating strides toward the head of the hall.

“I have slept long. I bored holes as I grew, that I might still move. Then I grew weary of moving.”

The worm reached the great jade throne and laid its head down across it as if it were a tiny pillow of rock. Its tail stretched to the gallery at the back of the hall, its body thick.

“Are there many of us left?” he asked.

“I don’t understand,” Tourmaline answered.

“Dwarves. Are there many left?”

She hesitated. She did not want to speak of her folk to the dragon.

“Enough to protect,” the dragon mused aloud. “Far from here, no doubt. I made sure of that.”

“You killed them,” she said. The dragon's words had angered her, and that seemed to have loosed her tongue.

“Ay, yes. And now the dwarves have fallen low. I read it in your face. I see slavery behind your eyes. Some must have escaped south to the lands of men, or west to the elves over the sea. I devoured countless. It was not my desire in coming. I was not so big then. I could travel the mountain without these unsightly holes. I was strong, and I burned hot. They should not have resisted me.”

“Why wouldn’t they resist?” she said. “You came to kill them. These halls didn’t belong to you.”

She knew it wasn’t wise to defy him, but some part of her hated the idea of dying browbeaten. Near the throne, Tourmaline noticed a framed mount holding a rock pick made of living steel, simple like the hammerhead Mudhorn had found. She hoped Salt had fled back to them, to warn them and get them safely away.

“You did not dig this hall,” the dragon said. “You did not fashion these treasures.”

“My folk delved this mountain,” Tourmaline answered.

“Your folk? You don’t even remember the workings of their craft. If you did, you would not come before me in rags. You come to live in these bones of stone and adorn yourself with the work of the dead. Your hands are ignorant and brutish.”

“I am a dwarf-maid, daughter of the dwarves of the north,” she said, feeling her spirit return even more.

“And I am their rightful king, as I am yours. Believe me, I knew this folk better than you. I never wished for them to die. But they were small-minded. They could not see past my form and grasp the destiny I could bestow. They left me no choice.”

“And what makes you a king for dwarves?”

“I alone of the dwarves have been beneath the stone, to the caverns of our naissance. There I breathed the Tukîth-i-Ëgla.” It was an old way of speaking, but Tourmaline knew it meant something like “the Spirit of Flames.”

“You are no dwarf.”

The dragon made a rasping sound, like wheezing bellows, and Tourmaline realized it laughed.

“Anyone can be a dragon if the fire grows hot. ”

“And dragons are liars.”

“We do not lie. We know our truth.” The dragon shut his eyes, the eyelids closing horizontally. He turned his head away from her, resting sideways across the jade throne. She waited. The slow rise and fall of the dragon’s breath was barely perceptible. In an instant, the dragon’s eye flashed open again, twisting as it focused on her.

“Your clothes are disgusting,” he said. “There, next to you, lift away that shield.”

Tourmaline looked down. A shield plated with tarnished silver and embossed with a sigil of a mountain ram lay against the heaped piles. She moved the shield and gasped. There, lying beneath it, was a dress that gleamed in the light. At first, she did not know why the cloth could have survived, and then she saw that it was woven of fine gold and not cloth at all. She lifted it, feeling its weight.

“It belonged to the last queen of Ice-Cloak,” the worm said. “Put it on.”

She looked at him, then at the dress. He was a dragon, not a dwarf, but she would not change before him, as much as she wanted to put on the threads of gold. What expression would Salt’s face show? But she did not know where he was, or if he was safe. And as amazing as the dress was, a work of art and craft beyond anything left in the world, this was not a time for such.

“No,” she said, and only then realized the danger of denying a dragon.

“Ah, the modesty of the dwarf-maid.”

“This is for a queen. I am no queen,” she said.

“No?” There was a rumble in the dragon’s throat. “At least we can cover up your rags. Come to the dais.”

Tourmaline braced herself and approached. She would not act the coward, even though she wanted to stay as far away from that angular serpent’s head as she could.

“There is a chest there,” the dragon said, and flickered an eye to the side. “Or, it used to be a chest.”

Tourmaline saw the old fittings of a chest, the wood now gone, but what had been inside remained, and for a moment she nearly forgot the dragon. She approached the remains, and when she lifted up the mail, it rippled down whole and unblemished, not at all tarnished by age. It was living steel, a hauberk of surpassing craft. Next to it lay vambraces and greaves.

“There is a helm,” the dragon said. “Somewhere beyond it, with a warmask.”

Tourmaline saw the helm gleaming in luster, covered in raised geometries with a strange ridge near the top. The warmask was simply a field of gold with a crafted nose and eye-holes and mouth-hole, but in its simplicity there was elegance. The shape of the eyes and mouth were grim and noble.

“It belonged to a king,” the dragon said. “Put on the armor, but do not cover your face. I would look at you.”

Tourmaline obeyed not out of obedience, but because of eagerness. She slipped off her bucket and rope. The hauberk was made in one piece, wide at the waist to allow it to pass over the shoulders—an incredible excess of living steel. It was meant to be belted, but Tourmaline had no belt. It hung down from her shoulders and chest in a straight fall to her knees. She lifted the vambraces, but the leather straps had rotted to nothing, leaving only the hooks.

The dragon sighed, an exhalation that raised the temperature in the room.

“The silver and gold have tarnished. The colors have faded. Much has already rotted to dust. Only the living steel remains as it did that day.”

Out of instinct and habit, she picked up the bucket again and slung it over the mail. She put the helm and mask inside before turning to face him again, the bright mail dangling around her.

“Well, a mild improvement,” the dragon said. “You almost look like a dwarf.”

“Why are you treating me this way?” she asked.

“You remind me of someone.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

She didn’t know how she felt being compared to a she-dragon. He must have sensed her confusion.

“My mother was a warrior queen.”

“I am no queen. I am a tinker dwarf.”

“But I could make you a queen,” he said, and he turned his head toward her. “Come closer.”

Tourmaline did not want to risk disobeying the command. She could see the whole of the dais, the dîrthna on its jeweled stand. The crown rested upon the dîrthna, facing away from her, as if the dragon had set it there to gaze upon as he rested his head on the throne. It didn’t look like the throne could be comfortable for the dragon; its head was so much larger, but then, she didn’t know if dragons cared for comfort. In its setting atop the throne, the brilliant jewel gleamed with hues of blue and violet like sparks of hottest fire. The dragon somehow knew she was looking at it.

“Ay, yes, the Tukîth—i—Illenfärner. It was dug by Brokenspear, one of the two great jewels of Ice-Cloak. There is the crown with the second,” he said. Curiosity overcame Tourmaline, and she stepped up onto the dais. If the dragon wanted to eat her, a few feet of distance didn’t matter. Her eyes grew round as she beheld the face of the crown.

The crown was fashioned of living steel and etched to perfection. At the front, so skillfully wrought that the setting seemed to disappear in the glory of the stone itself, there rested a jewel such that she did not know the stone could birth. It flashed in variegated hues of fire and sky, the blue of lapis and the yellow of gold. She gaped. She had no word for it.

“The Shor-i-Illenfärner—” It meant Blood of Ice-Cloak “—The first gem of the mountain mined by Brokenspear himself, the Crippled King. It has rested at the brow of every monarch of Ice-Cloak from the time of Jade to myself.”

Overwhelmed, she did not reply.

“Put it on,” he said, his voice a low whisper.

“Me?”

“Do what few dwarves have ever done.”

The desire was great. She approached, bending over to pick it from atop the dîrthna. Gently, she raised it to her brow, feeling the weight of it. She set it upon her hair.

“Ah,” the dragon whispered like smoke and oil. “I can nearly see her again.”

Tourmaline took off the crown and turned it, wanting to stare at the stone again. She felt she could have looked into its depths for years on end. The dragon watched her.

“If you bring back your folk, you shall wear that crown. If they bend the knee and acknowledge me, then revenge I will give you against men and elves. I will make them your slaves when you grow strong beneath the shelter of my wings.”

“After you slaughtered us?”

“I offered the same protection to each of the colonies, and like fools, they all refused. It began with Ice-Cloak. I have grown great on the corpses. The whole of our folk arrayed in living steel could not defeat me then. What could men and elves do? Will you not learn? Will you rectify their tragedy?”

“Why do you care? You already have the mountain and the treasure.”

“Ice-Cloak was not a mountain or a horde,” he hissed. “It was a folk. They are mine by right. It is my destiny to rule them. Instead of a great enemy, you would have a great king, uncontested by all, growing only greater with the passage of time. Every mountain and every stone would belong to the dwarves from the north to the south and from the east to the west. And you would join in my destiny, a queen of dwarves. You could give our folk the world.”

Tourmaline stared into his golden eyes as if he spoke from them, her head full of pictures of a future of glory and power. But in the fantasy, Salt was next to her. She glanced over her shoulder toward the gates.

“Are you looking for your companions?”

“Companions?” It was a weak try.

“Don’t be a fool. Two of you came down the stairs, but I do not believe you are the only ones.”

“It isn’t up to me. I have to go talk to them.”

“You’re trying to be clever.”

“I told you, I am no queen to speak for the rest.”

“Then leave the crown until you bring your folk to swear allegiance. Take the mail, to show my truth. A great king is generous to his subjects, but merciless to his enemies. You may go. Tell the folk to return, back to Ëglaszledum. Back to the fire at the heart of the mountain.”

Tourmaline heard a creaking, grating noise. She turned and saw that the dragon had used his tail to pull open one of the doors, cracking it just wide enough for her to fit through. So drawn in by the dragon’s eyes and voice, she had forgotten about the thick, weighty coils of him still stretched far behind her. Rather than turn her back, she backed away. It felt somehow both respectful and distrusting. She felt the heat emanating from his body. She glanced over her shoulder to guide herself, and when she was about to pass through, she stopped and looked back.

“What happens if I say no, or if they don’t come?” she asked.

A strange rumble vibrated down his length, and he lifted his head up above the throne.

“I am patient and merciful,” he said. “I will give them one more chance when I find them and they see for themselves.”

She nodded, then tried to keep herself from running out through the doors. She stepped through the gap and out into the tunnel. Something grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side, behind the door.

“Salt!” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I thought you’d have gone back to the others.” She didn’t mention her worry that worse had befallen him when the doors slammed.

“And leave you?”

She figured he’d either been injured, or he’d run back to warn the others. Neither was true. He’d stayed. She glanced at the gap in the door and motioned for Salt to follow her away. They leapt the gap in the bridge, rushed up the sloping tunnel beyond and across the Chamber of Waters to the winding stairway. They reached the third gallery and followed the dwarven tunnel to the Great Stair.

Tourmaline looked at the bore-hole tunnels with new understanding. The dragon had made them all. That meant he likely could reach this spot. She glanced up. Could he fit through the center well of the Great Stair, up to the workshops? She didn’t know, but she thought he might. She turned to Salt.

“You were out there the whole time?”

“Of course.”

“And you didn’t do something?”

“Do what? I didn’t survive the king’s mines by being a fool.”

“But I was in there with it.”

“And when I managed to climb to the top of the doors, you were having a nice long conversation with a dragon. After you ran off ahead without me.”

“You’re the one who came to protect me.”

“What am I, your husband all of a sudden?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t just asked, the way you act!” Tourmaline snapped, and then froze. Salt stared at her, his grey eyes wide.

“Come on,” Tourmaline said after what felt like an eternity. She started up the stairs.

“Tourm,” Salt said. His tone stopped her.

“What?”

“Do you want me to?”

“That’s not how it’s asked,” she said.

“I’d take you, if you’d have me.”

Her heart felt not so different than it had the moment she’d seen the dragon, but it wasn’t terror now. Not entirely. She turned. He stood at the landing of the stairs. His beard grown down to the top of his chest, salt and pepper. She could remember how he smelled, the memory in that moment stronger than the smell of the dragon.

“That’s still not how to ask. This isn't the time. We have to get back.”

28

Fires Rekindled

Climbing up thousands of stairs was easier when there was a dragon at the bottom. They didn’t speak, not that they had much breath to spare. At length and with burning thighs, they reached the top of the Great Stairs, then hurried to the smaller stair that led to the upper levels of the Face. Only when they stepped onto the upper landing did Tourmaline begin to feel safe. She knew the dragon could bore tunnels, but she didn’t know how fast he could do it. He certainly couldn’t fit through the upper landings without breaking them apart.

Tourmaline stopped to catch her breath and felt a touch on her arm. Salt had reached out and touched the mail of living steel that hung loose and unbelted down to her legs. She glanced at her bucket. The helm and mask were there.

“Come on,” she said. They walked back to the workshop where they’d left the others asleep. When they pulled the door open, it made barely a noise. Inside, Tourmaline, Tarbelt, and even Mudhorn yet slept, their breathing easy and even. Mudhorn had fallen asleep in a sitting position, the hammerhead held in limp hands, his head hanging over it. The scene felt somehow absurd to Tourmaline after what she’d just experienced.

“Should we tell them now?” Salt asked.

“No,” Tourmaline answered. “Let them sleep. They’re tired, and they think they’re safe.”

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded. They stayed in the hallway, watching in at their sleeping companions. Tourmaline reached up to her neck and tried to lift the mail from her shoulders. It clung. She grabbed it from below, but it bunched up. She bent over, trying to shake it off.

“Help me,” she said. Salt approached cautiously, hesitating as he reached out. “Oh, come on. I’m a maid not a. . . a dragon.” She snickered, trying not to burst into laughter. Salt frowned but grabbed hold of the mail. Between them both, they slid it off over her head. She straightened up and looked at him. His expression was so serious. She tried to suppress another urge to laugh. She wasn’t quite sure what was so funny. But Salt wasn’t laughing. Her humor faded as they looked at each other.

“Ay, yes,” she said. “Ay yes, Salt.”

He stepped forward, wrapping her in his thick arms. She smelled him again, warm and heady.

“My name is Egith,” she said.

“It is not yet our wedding, for true names.”

“There is a dragon below us.”

“Fair enough.” He grinned and shook his head. “I am Graelmîm.”

It meant fortress.

The first thing the others saw when they woke was a shirt of mail hanging off the edge of a stone workbench. Upon it rested a helm and a warmask. There were gasps, then picking up and passing around with comments of wonder and awe. Tourmaline let them enjoy it for a time, but at last she had to tell them. Salt let her handle that burden, except to nod and confirm its truth, for it sounded like a strange nightmare. She mentioned nothing that came after her fleeing the throne room and reuniting with Salt. That she would keep for herself.

They stared in silence until she had finished her tale.

“So, we have to leave,” Tarbelt said. “Now.”

“How long do you think we have?” Mudhorn asked. Tourmaline glanced at Salt, then shook her head. Who knew what time meant to a monster that had lain in a mountain for nine hundred years?

“It doesn’t matter how long,” Tarbelt answered. “We’re already wasting it. We need to get far, far away.”

“And then what? In the stories, the dragon could fly. Is that true?”

“I’m not sure,” Tourmaline answered Mudhorn. “He had something like wings.” She had a hard time picturing something so big flying.

“Do you think he meant he’d find us, as in the five of us,” Agate said, “Or find us, as in, all our folk back in Laith and the other kingdoms?”

“I’m not certain, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t just be us,” Tourmaline answered.

“Then we have to warn them. Give them a chance to flee,” Agate said.

“Where does one flee from such a monster?” Mudhorn asked.

They were all silent a while.

“Do you think the humans could kill it? Or the elves?” Tarbelt asked.

“Kill it?” Tourmaline asked. The idea hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“What do you think, Salt? You saw it,” Mudhorn said.

Salt shook his head.

“I do not see how.”

“Can it breathe fire?” Agate asked.

“I did not see it, Tourmaline said. “But I think so. Heat flowed from it.”

“And it seems to have melted rock,” Salt added.

“So, if it really wants to be king. . . Could anything stop it?” Tarbelt asked. “Maybe we should accept it. It’s better than dying, and it’s not like our folk would be any worse off.”

As annoyed as Tourmaline wanted to be at the suggesting, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered it. What if it was truly the best chance of freeing her folk from the humans?

“What we know is that it destroyed our folk once,” Mudhorn said. “We don’t know if it tells any truth at all. I claim no special wisdom, but trusting dragons does not strike me as wise.”

“Do you think. . . Do you think it somehow was a dwarf?” Agate asked.

No one had an answer to that.

“The whole thing is foul,” Mudhorn mumbled.

“Well, it’s either do what it asks, or flee and wait for it to kill our folk,” Tarbelt said.

“Or kill it,” Agate said.

“I thought we already said that wasn’t possible.”

“No, just that we didn’t know how. Everything can die,” she said. Tourmaline looked at her with a new appreciation. That was spirit. Nevertheless, the folk of ten colonies tried at the height of their power, when the dragon was weaker, or smaller at least, and they had failed. No doubt they had marched out against it in their finest armor, wielding spears and axes of living steel. Maybe they had even used mammoths. There would have been thousands of warriors. Tens of thousands. Yet they did not kill the fiery serpent. And nothing lay between them to keep it from sliding up the well of the Great Stair to seek and kill. These were Tourmaline’s thoughts, but she did not speak them.

“It’s a big snake,” Agate said. “How do you kill a snake?”

“You crush its head,” Mudhorn said.

“Its head is the size of a wagon,” Salt responded.

“We’d need a much bigger heel,” Tarbelt said, smirking. Mudhorn chuckled uneasily.

It would take something tremendously heavy to crush such a head. And a lot of force. Immense force. A hammer-blow from the sky. If anyone knew hammers, it was dwarves. Tourmaline grinned.

“What?” Salt asked, the first to notice the change that came over her.

“I have an idea. It’s probably foolish. It might just make it angrier. Odds are it will get us killed.”

They all looked at her and waited.

“Well, maid. Out with it,” Mudhorn said.

So began their labor.

“It will take days,” Mudhorn had warned once Tourmaline had shared her idea.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” she had answered. They laughed, and then they planned.

At first she thought to use granite, but Mudhorn and Salt intervened.

“Iron is heavier than stone,” Mudhorn said.

“Silver is heavier than iron,” Salt countered.

“And Gold heavier still. This is a rich place, but I am not sure there is enough of gold and silver in these workshops.”

“We should use the heaviest metals we can find, mixed if we must,” Tourmaline said.

“You can’t alloy gold and silver with iron, maid,” Mudhorn said.

“Then copper,” Salt countered. “Do you think we can find enough?”

“We can try.”

They found the biggest smelter in the Face and hauled there all the coal they could need from the workshops around. Thankfully, the smeltery was near the middle of the lowest level of the face, directly down from the Great Stair. They scoured all over for metals. It was not hard. Even though some workshops were locked, most were open as if the occupants had fled all at once with no thought to what they left behind. It made sense now, but that didn’t decrease the sense of wrongness about the place. There were jewelery workshops, enamelers, weapon smiths, armourers, ceramics kilns, glass furnaces, and every other workshop of craft and trade that needed a vent for fumes or smoke. The pile of metals grew, from raw ingots to rough pieces abandoned to go cold in forge or on anvil. There were copper pots from an enameler’s workshop, even some finished bits of artifice pulled from racks.

Mudhorn and Salt discovered huge vats of molding sand and clay in a casting workshop.

“Did no one in this mountain use tin?” Mudhorn grumbled. They had found none for the mold. In the end, they used brass found in ample supply in some kind of gear shop. Mudhorn and Salt labored in tandem at a forge in the workshop next to the massive smelter, shaping and smoothing an inner and outer shell. Sweat dripped down their faces and soaked their shirts. They dared not go down to the lower caverns for water, but the dwarves of old must have often felt the same, for a clever channel in the rocks funneled water from the mountainside into a massive cistern that overflowed again down a narrow channel to they knew not where. The cistern was carved into the rock of the Face. The water was cold, and to the thirsty, clean enough.

Tarbelt shoveled coal into the smelter. The workshop grew warm, lit by the red glow of the furnace. The leather of the bellows had rotted to dust, so it took time for the fire to grow. They could see the draw as air circulated through a vent in the stone and pulled through the fire-chamber while smoke was sucked out an upper chimney vent to disperse somewhere on the Face of the mountain. Other vents in the workshop sucked in fresher air, all drawn by the hunger of the fire. Agate and Tourmaline found thin sheets of steel and they worked in tandem to rivet them together to create a fan to move more air onto the coals. To reach the top of the massive smelter, they had to climb a ramp carved into the rock and dump the raw materials inside, but they did not begin that process until the fire was raging and Mudhorn and Salt had finished the mold.

With the gathering done and Tarbelt fanning the fire, Tourmaline and Agate set about another project.

“If we are going to anger a dragon,” Tarbelt had said as they planned, “I’d rather a bit of mail.” He’d eyed Tourmaline’s hauberk as he spoke.

“There’s mail enough, armor of all kinds, some even finished, and weapons up here,” Agate said. “I found workshops with racks of axe and spearheads. No hafts.”

So, Tourmaline and Agate set about to prepare armor. The hide of mountain sheep for the time would serve as leather for straps and laces. They had files of all varieties to manage the rust that blighted even some of the better finds. Tourmaline watched Agate as they worked together. Agate’s brown hair had grown out, resting on her shoulders. It was far more lustrous than she’d expected it to be.

There was little enough of living steel in the workshops. Maybe it was guarded more carefully than anything else, perhaps locked in some of the vaults they’d noticed built into workshop walls. She wished they could break into the vaults or some of the locked workshops to discover the treasures that must lay within, but she could not figure out the lock mechanisms, nor could they pick their way through the granite or file through the steel. There were other tasks to hand, and who knew how little time.

Salt and Mudhorn assembled the inner and outer shell of the mold, with the layer of clay and sand tamped down hard and firm between the two. The inner layer of the brass mold would likely melt and deform as it filled, but it was necessary to keep the mix of sand and clay in shape while the molten metal was poured. While Agate and Tourmaline salvaged and restored the best armor they could find, the three dwarves shoveled their pile of gold, silver, and copper into the glowing smelter.

“We could make it bigger with steel,” Tarbelt said, shouting over the roar of the fire.

“Size is less important than weight,” Mudhorn answered.

Almost as soon as they began shoveling, the first of the molten metal trickled out in the smelter channel, dripping down into the top of the mold. The trickle grew into a stream.

“There she goes,” Salt said. Tourmaline and Agate worked in a corner of the workshop, not wanting to miss the smelting even as they toiled with their own labor. Mudhorn, Tarbelt, and Salt wore silly grins on their faces, their eyes glimmering in the furnace light. At times, they laughed without a joke being made.

“We’re going to need more!”

“Zinc will alloy well, if you can find it!” Mudhorn called.

They all scattered again through the workshops of the Face. With hundreds to search, there was still much to find. Toward the back of one of the northern passages, Tourmaline and Agate found stacks of bronze brick ingots stored on a shelf in what looked like a sculptor’s workshop. Bronze busts of bearded dwarves stood on smooth granite tables, and molds lined other shelves near a small furnace.

“That will do nicely,” Mudhorn said when they returned to the smelter with armloads of the ingots. Mudhorn and Salt went back for more.

Red molten metal flowed from the smelter down the channel and into the top of the steaming mold. The heat pressed against their faces. The outside of the mold was nearly three feet high and half as wide.

Well before they’d used up the last of the small bronze bricks, the metal bubbled up out of the top of the mold and trailed down the side in a fiery glob.

“Hold!” Mudhorn shouted. Tarbelt deftly slotted a block on the channel and diverted the flow away into a pile of extra sand.

“That’s all we can do with it till it cools,” Mudhorn said.

“We’ve plenty more to do,” Salt replied.

29

The Fall

In the end, they estimated it had taken three, maybe four days to finish. Their sense of time had wavered. They'd slept in short stretches during the work, never all at once. The labor energized them as much as it fatigued. They ate enormous amounts of jerked mutton and drank water from the cistern, only to sweat it out again. But at last, there was nothing left to do—almost nothing.

Salt had argued with her for at least an hour about the final piece of the plan. It rested on too many unknowns and guesses, he said, and it was too dangerous by far. He offered to do it himself, or some variation. So had Mudhorn.

She refused to be swayed. No one had a better idea than hers.

So after refusing to hear more of the same arguments, she padded barefoot down the Great Stair, circling around the central well again and again. The further down she went, the crazier the plan felt. Not just this part, but all of it.

At the bottom of the Great Stair, she saw the worm-tunnel of the dragon, and this time she followed it. It curved as it descended to the Chamber of Waters, emerging near the waterfall and its cold pool lined with flagstones.

Entering the chamber from this direction, her gaze fell immediately on the tall black plinth of granite. Perhaps it was procrastination, but she approached it rather than veering straight for the throne room. Atop it sat the white marble vessel. It was the same sort as those within the Hall of Memory, and though she had never seen them before, she knew they held bones. Her grandmother had told her that the dwarves of old had storied the bones of their ancestors in stone vessels, rather than burning them as the tinker dwarves did. Atop the marble container, she saw a short black granite stand shaped as if to hold something aloft, but it was empty.

Runes were carved into the front face of the plinth, and she stared at them, her mouth moving, trying to make them out. It took her a while to recognize all the runes, but the words were simple. The first line read “THE QUEEN OF THE CRIPPLES.” It was carved by a different hand than what came next:

BROKENSPEAR
HE CARVED HIS OWN HALL
AND WE WILL GO TO HIM

She stood before the resting place of the Crippled King and the beloved wife whom he grieved until his death. She looked back up at the vessel of marble. It was the Crippled King, Brokenspear himself. She sank to her knees. Here at the heart of Ice-Cloak, this was the true king of the dwarves. This was he who brought the weak and poor to the mountain and carved for them a home.

That’s all she’d ever wanted:

A home. A stonehold. A place to stay in peace.

She’d hoped to find that there. Instead, she found a dragon. But even Brokenspear did not live to see his folk safe. He died for the dream of it.

Cradled in Tourmaline’s arms was the folded hauberk, the helm and mask resting atop it. She’d carried them down the stairs for a reason. No matter how much the plinth comforted her, she could not just sit here. She rose and headed for the throne room.

After the short leap across the cracked bridge, the massive door was all that remained, the narrow gap opening just as the dragon had left it. She took a breath and approached, not letting herself peek inside or hesitate to reconsider but stepping through.

The dragon’s body coiled in great loops near the dais, his head resting across the jade throne. His eye flickered open. She felt the force of that gaze, like heat pressing on her. For days, she had prepared in her mind. She had an uncanny certainty that she could not lie to the dragon. At least not successfully. So she wouldn’t. She began with something simple.

“I’ve returned.”

The dragon watched her. The slit of his eye narrowed, but he did not respond.

“I bring your gifts back to you,” she said, walking forward. She did not want to get too close, but her feelings had to come second to her strategy.

“Why is that?” The dragon said. His voice was as resonant as she recalled.

“I have failed to do what you asked. They do not wish you to rule them.” She laid the folded mail and the helm with the mask down upon the stone floor, then took three steps backward.

“Do they not?” A low rumble traveled down the worm’s long body.

“I can not force them. I did not lie when I said I was no queen.”

“Why has it taken so long? I have heard the sound of labor, of hammer and anvil high in the mountain.”

“They have repaired weapons and armor. They hope to kill you.”

He laughed, and dry pungent heat washed down from the dais.

“Rusted weapons and decayed armor. There cannot be many of you. Are you more than the hosts of Ringhand?”

“They are but four.”

“Four? So brave and so foolish at once.”

“I have told you the truth. They haven’t seen you.”

“You lie.”

“One of them has seen you, the others haven’t.”

He looked at her, his eye narrowing again. She took another step back. The violet-blue glimmer of the Tukîth—i—Illenfärner drew her eye. For a moment, its beauty distracted her.

“What is this?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t want you to kill me.”

He paused. Her heart beat, and sweat ran down her forehead, the fringes of her air damp. The fear was genuine and no lie. She stepped back again.

“This I grant. You will go back to your folk, not just to these foolish four, but to the rest who did not come, and you will make them the same offer. Those whom you bring to me will know glory. Those who refuse will die.”

“Please don’t kill my friends,” she asked, taking a few more wary steps back. “They just don’t want to serve you.” Her shoulder bumped into the edge of the door.

“Do not beg for the defiant,” he snapped, and a ripple of scale and sinew ran from his neck down his long body. He pressed his front claws on the stone, raising himself nearly to the ceiling of the throne room. “It is long since I stirred, but they will know fire.”

She fled, slipping out the gap in the doors. She could only hope that she’d angered him enough that he would strike, but not enough that he would devour her at once. The doors swung wide behind her as she leapt the bridge. She glanced back and saw the dragon press his shoulders through the doorway, fracturing more carved stone from the arched lintel. His wings were folded along the length of his body as he dragged himself forward with long claws that projected from his strange jointed appendages.

She fled back up the tunnel, slipping on the smooth glass-like stone, and clawing back to her feet. She paid no attention to the Chamber of Waters or the sharp debris beneath her feet. The dragon’s hole was the quickest route to the Great Stair, but she could hear the dragon behind her, its scales sounding like a grindstone on iron. He moved faster than she could have imagined, his great bulk heaving yards at a time. The heat followed her, brimming up like a furnace. She glanced back as she scrabbled up the smooth tunnel toward the Great Stair. He plunged his head into the tunnel behind her, crimson scales and yellow eyes seeming to glow with their own light. She barely cleared the tunnel before he overtook her. She pressed herself to the stone wall of the stair landing as he dragged his length through. He paid her no heed, his massive head lifted up toward the central well. She darted onto the stairs, feeling her hair singe in his heat. In motion more rapid than she could have imagined him capable, he pulled his great length into coils and loops below him.

“I smell you!” he called upward, as if playing a game of hide and seek with the gilna and gilke of the caravan. He paid Tourmaline no heed as she leapt up the wide steps. The dragon launched upward from his coils, stretching his claws and grabbing the edges of the stairway fifty feet above the ground. Stones tore away and crashed below as he climbed. His great mass nearly filled the well. Tourmaline could have reached out and touched him as she rushed along the spiraling stair. She could barely breathe for the suffocating heat, the overpowering scent of oily musk.

“I’m coming to see your spears and your axes,” he hissed as he half slithered, half pulled himself upward.

Now, she thought. She stopped, pressed herself back against the stone wall, and stared upward. In the cracks between the stone and the dragon’s body, she could only see a dark haze.

Now!

She did not know if he saw it before it struck him, it came so hard and fast from over a thousand feet above. It was always a risk they might miss or just enrage him with an injury, but she hoped.

She did not hear the blow. The dragon’s upward motion stopped in an instant. The dragon’s claws slipped, and he fell. His head twisted past her and the great metal sphere slipped away, leaving behind a crater of crushed pulp where an eye had been. She heard the stone-shattering smash of the sphere as it struck granite below. The dragon’s fall was a dull thud in comparison, and then it hissed, more like steam escaping a pot than an animal’s scream. His tail lashed out, shattering the stair one rotation below her. She ran again as the screaming began, a blind wordless bellow of rage and agony that threatened to rupture her ears.

She saw the glimmer of fire rise from below, and a haze of heat surged upward through the well. She didn’t stop or look, only ran. Ran, ran, as below the dragon thrashed and writhed and screamed. Then the heat and glow faded. She risked a look down and saw the monster dragging itself back down its tunnel, still screaming. Steaming black liquid stained the ground in its path, and she thought it must be blood. His hundred bloated yards from head to tail uncoiled to follow the accursed crushed head of the snake.

After they had smelted the metals and let it cool, they had removed the bracing, broken the mold away, and pulled off the scalded clay and sand. Within was a mostly spherical object a bit over two feet in diameter. They sawed and filed away the thick nub on the top left by the opening of the mold, then flaked and hammered away the bits of poorly adhered brass from the inner mold. It was far from perfect, but the casting had succeeded better than they had feared.

“How much does it weigh?” Agate asked, placing a hand on it.

Mudhorn paused, thinking.

“I’d say. . . Perhaps seven, maybe ten tons.”

To move it, they had brace iron bars to act as guiding rails, disassembling them behind and reassembling them in front as they rolled the sphere with wedges and levers and counterweights. They could only be thankful to their forebeards who had carved the granite floor to such a precise level. Mudhorn may have underestimated the weight. Moving the sphere into position was the hardest part of the whole labor.

Halfway up the stairs, she met Salt running down. He wrapped her in his arms for the space of a breath, then hurried with her back upwards. Tourmaline was gasping for breath and clutching her side when she reached the top of the Great Stair.

Agate grabbed her shoulders and jumped up and down.

“We hit it! I saw it hit!”

“How bad?” Mudhorn asked. “How badly was it injured?”

“Badly,” Tourmaline gasped.

“Will it die, do you think?” Tarbelt asked, following as they moved away from the stair.

“I’m not sure, but it left for now.”

“Let’s get in shelter,” Salt said, his arm around her shoulders.

They had readied their tools and supplies in the belfry chamber in case their plan went awry and they needed to flee. They went there, now. It was dark outside, cloudy without even the light of moon and stars. Cool air flowed in from the mountainside. Tourmaline gulped down water. The others wore their refurbished mail and clutched their spears. Salt grasped his swordstaff and went to look out at the valley from the ledge. After she had regained her breath and quenched her thirst, Agate helped Tourmaline don a simple steel hauberk, filed free of most of its rust. Tourmaline belted it with sheep-hide, then donned a helm and a warmask fashioned to appear as a woman’s face. She had found it herself. She strapped on vambraces and greaves. For the first time in her life, she felt like a warrior. The others had chosen gear for themselves from what they could find, as well. A different company they looked than that which arrived at the mountain, though mail hid rags beneath.

Salt returned.

“Nothing seems—”

The world split apart, a blast of force and sound that threw them bodily to the ground, or threw the ground to them. Dust and rock fell. Tourmaline tried to climb to her hands and knees. Her ears rang. The bells vibrated with a high-pitched peel. She saw the lips of the others moving, but at first she couldn’t hear them. She coughed, looking out of the belfry and toward the valley, but all she saw was dust.

Salt regained his feet first and helped Tourmaline up.

“What was that?” she yelled.

Salt shook his head. There was a wide crack in the chamber's roof, and one bell had fallen, its chain broken loose. Bits of casing stones had fallen, but none seemed to have struck them.

“Let’s get out from under here,” Mudhorn yelled. They grabbed their bags and gear and hauled it out into the cone of rock. The granite had fissured and cracked. Whatever just happened had wrought more damage than the nine hundred years before. Tourmaline reached the ledge and looked down across the valley. She heard cracks and impacts ringing out from below, and rocks bounced and rolled down the mountainside. A great spume of pale dust and cloud trailed up from the mountain’s shoulder. She could not make out the bottom of the valley through the haze and darkness. Something struck the mountain nearby, and Salt pulled her back into the cone.

30

Dwarves

The sounds of cracking and tumbling rock continued for hours. They huddled in their armor against the granite of the cone, not trusting the stability of the rock but unwilling to leave its shelter. They felt strange vibrations within the stone, and the thick dust bore a jumbled smell of minerals that overwhelmed their noses.

At the first hint of dawn, Tourmaline crept back to the ledge. The others followed her in silence. A pall of dust still hung over the valley, but the sounds had quietened. The yet unrisen sun heralded its approach in a yellow haze to the east. Realization came slowly as the light strengthened.

“No,” Mudhorn whispered. “I can’t believe it.”

The lake was dry, a great deep empty bowl surrounded by shattered trees. The western arm of the mountain had collapsed into a jumble of broken rock, and the western glacier had slid in shattered ice and snow down the mountainside.

“How could the lake have run dry?” Agate asked.

“There must have been miles and miles of tunnels and caves beneath the mountain,” Salt answered in a low voice. “They have collapsed and broken open the lake bed.”

They stared at the devastation as the sun rose. Buried beneath stone and ice and water were all the ancient workings of their ancestors, and with them the bones of the Crippled King, forever hidden from the sunlight. He had carved out halls of stone, but now those halls were destroyed. It was of him that Tourmaline thought as she viewed the destruction.

But he had done something in his day. Something greater than himself.

“All this way, only to see it destroyed,” Mudhorn muttered, shaking his head.

“And all the treasures buried. We have nothing to prove our tale,” Tarbelt added.

“There are locked workshops and vaults in the Face,” Agate said.

“Have they survived?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tourmaline said.

They all looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

“This was not our home. We are dwarves of the wilderness, like Brokenspear before us. We have slain a dragon and revenged our folk. We are dwarves again.”

“We came all this way,” Agate said.

“The dragon was right. We did not dig this mountain. We cannot claim the work of our forebeards as our own. I was wrong to think Ice-Cloak was the answer. We must delve our own halls, forge our own steel, create with our own hands. Every dwarf born must do the same. It doesn’t matter where. We are dwarves. We forge what ore we find. Brokenspear delved in his own time. Our generations are like a chain forged of steel. A link breaks and the chain comes apart. Each generation must fight and dig anew. We didn’t need this mountain or its treasure. We only needed pick and spade and spirit.”

“So where do we go?”

“To lead our folk in their exodus. To find a new home.”

It took a day to make their way down the broken mountainside. They did not walk on the lake bed; they did not trust it. So they followed the eastern ridge beyond the swamp and came south of the valley. At the dying of the second day, they reached the top of a tall ridge. Tourmaline looked back, a last glimpse at what had been the Valley of the Lake and the mountain of legend.

Far down, walking along the edge of the dry lakebed, she saw a bear. The evening glow shone upon a white mark that streaked from its head to its shoulder.

“It is yours again, Tukîth,” she said.

She did not look back again.

Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a rating, review, or simply telling a friend about this book. Your kind support helps independent authors like myself reach new readers.

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Sincerely,

A. Trae McMaken

Acknowledgements

J.R.R. Tolkien began my love of the dwarves with a journey to a Lonely Mountain. I hope my derivation is seen as the respect which I feel.

About the Author

From the struggles of a dwarven prospector to the adventures of a diminutive squirrel-rider, A. Trae McMaken’s decades-long passion for writing fantasy literature has led him into many worlds and introduced many characters. He lives and works near the shores of Lake Huron, as his flock of sheep munch grass. He has had a varied career as a traveling storyteller and folklorist, a fiddler and singer, but these days he much prefers to stay put and write.

www.traemcmaken.com

Also By Trae

As of July 2023

The Dwarves of Ice-Cloak

The Cripple King (Vol. 1)

The Mouth of Fire (Vol. 2)

The Second Gate (Vol. 3)

Bones of Stone (Vol. 4) to be released in August 2023

The After Adventures

After the Wish Dragon

After Endok

Stand-Alone Titles

Tale of the Timberlost: A Novella

Those Who Dwell