The Mine Lord: A Dwarven Survival Base-Builder

Icevein: Chapter 13

Hobblefoot stared down at the latest iteration of the plans. The mechanisms were drawn out on huge sheets of rag-paper. Between his workshop and Yorvig’s assistants, Glint used an absurd amount of paper—so much that Yorvig had established raggery and paper-making workshops on the third level. Hobblefoot and his engineer’s had fashioned all the machinery for the various presses. Every bit of worn-out cloth rag in the Red Ridges came to Glint to be made into paper so that Hobblefoot could toss yet another schematic drawing into the fire brazier and start over for the thousandth time. The smell of smoke, oil, coal, and grease was strong in the workshop.“I think the three foot spacing is superior,” his assistants said.

“Four feet is more stable,” Greasegear, Hobblefoot’s eldest son, replied.

“Not so much that it is worth the extra labor of laying track,” the assistant said. Hobblefoot had paid the dwarf highly to come from the machineries of Deep Cut, and his son Greasegear had been Hobblefoot’s constant aid for many years, now, but Hobblefoot only half-attended to their disagreement. In truth, he agreed with the assistant. Requiring less width of track meant huge savings in labor and time when creating pathways through the difficulties of the Red Ridges and beyond. It was not like rails were unknown or new. Rails for carting out mine spoilage and ore were commonplace in any established working. In Deep Cut, some of the deeper coal and salt workings already used steam boilers to propel trains of mine carts. Coal was cheap there, and the workings far deeper and farther from the habitations than at Glint.

Greasegear and the assistant were still arguing. Hobblefoot raised a hand.

“The issue for now,” he said, “are the rail connections. I do not like this locking mechanism.”

“But it is easier,” the Greasegear said.

“Easier, but not more durable. We need to look at durability. To move even a mile with a conjoined pair, that’s two hundred and sixty-five rail connections, hooking and unhooking, accounting for start and end.”

“Leaving the track in place is superior,” the assistant said.

Hobblefoot rolled his eyes. They had gone over this so many times. Ay yes, leaving the track in place was superior—with unlimited iron and no raiding ürsi. Neither condition was reality. Hobblefoot had already spoken to his brother about it. Chargrim had shaken his head and pointed out the obvious. If they wanted to travel through ürsi territory, the track had to be movable or their supply of iron had to increase a hundred-fold.

Instead of engaging in the same old argument, Hobblefoot returned to the point about the rail connections.

“The side-fittings should be durable.”

“Ay yes, but it requires placing ,” the assistant said. “That’s a problem on the edge of a gully.”

“And anything that can be fitted from the side can be loosed from the side,” Greasegear added in surprising solidarity with the assistant.

“The load will also produce an outward force during curves,” Hobblefoot said. “I think we need to look at a new design.” He flipped over the paper and took up his bit of charcoal, ignoring the deep breaths of his son and assistant. He began to sketch. “Here. If we have flanges on the outsides of the connection points, and an upward joint like so, then we can fit it into place by holding the forward end up in the air, then lowering it down. That will lock it into place, and the flanges will hold it laterally. Only by having the front lifted again to a forty-five degree angle could you undo the connection.”

“The welds on the flanges would be the weak point.”

“Ay yes, but even if they failed, it wouldn’t result in an immediate failure of the track.”

“It would require forge-welding the flanges on every rail,” the assistant said.

He had a point, Hobblefoot had to allow, but it was better than side-fitting the track.

“We could do it during the rolling mill process,” he said.

“At first. But if it fails, it will fail away from the mill.”

“We’re already accounting for field forging,” Greasegear said.

“We could do away with the flanges entirely,” the assistants suggested, leaning forward with his own stump of charcoal and scribbling. “By narrowing the male end so the one rail slots into the other entirely.”

“Narrower is weaker,” Hobblefoot countered.

“But we could reinforce it by making the external wall thicker,” he answered, filling in the space with his charcoal.

Hobblefoot turned the paper so that the sketch faced him straight on. He nodded.

“It’s better.” This was why he had brought the dwarf all the way from Deep Cut. Hobblefoot had taught Greasegear, and too often his son merely reflected his own approach. Hobblefoot needed someone to contend with.

“It will still require hand-smithing the connectors,” Greasegear said. “And if the fit is not perfect, it will vibrate, rattle, and work free.” It was not that they were enemies or feuding. They could have shouting arguments and go drink together as friends at the end of their labor. But they needed to get the design as right as possible before they wasted time in fabrication. Enough time had already been wasted.

“At our current specifications, our rails should weigh roughly three hundred and forty-two pounds,” Hobblefoot said, starting to draw sums in the corner of the paper. “Lifting one end to a forty-five degree angle, while properly fitting the connector in slots. . . Two dwarves at a pinch, but faster with three.”“Faster with three ” his assistant said. “It should not take long with this design.”

“I’m just thinking,” Hobblefoot said.

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“Rather than two lengths of track, it would be best to have three. That makes six teams of three dwarves.”

“Why not even more? Why limit it?” Greasegear asked.

“More dwarves are more provisions, which is more weight.”

“Fewer dwarves is more , which is more provisions,” Greasegear countered.

The assistant nodded, rolling a few strands of his beard between his fingers, a familiar nervous habit of his.

“How fast can a team jog the rail ahead to make the new connection?” the other asked. “Will it save that much time?”

“We will need to trial it, but they should be running onlyforty feet at a time.”

“Surely, they could manage a mile per hour.”

“Only on flat, unbroken, clear ground.”

“This would have been easier to test in the Waste,” Hobblefoot said, frowning. They all stared at the paper, not so much to look at the design but because they were each contemplating the challenges. There were no end to challenges. Sometimes, as Hobblefoot lay in bed falling asleep, he felt despair. It was an insane idea. But at other times, his heart beat with excitement, with the thrill of possibility. He could almost smell the coal-smoke and steam, hear the engine’s roaring heart.

Chargrim had dug Hobblefoot spacious workshops in Glint, and had provided Hobblefoot with anything he asked for, but he still missed his workshop in East Spire with its easy access to Deep Cut and all his home colony’s experimental machinery. It would have been easier to work in Deep Cut, itself, but even with Chagrim’s plentiful donations to that Jackal Reamer, they could not trust the Council. Plenty of Hobblefoot’s gold ended up in Deep Cut, anyway, where he had partners in the development of new engines. Letters, packstrings, and even prototypes passed back and forth, though Hobblefoot hadn’t left Glint in years.

But if this worked. . . the world would shrink.

“We still haven’t decided on the wheel spacing and the carriage design,” his assistant said, flipping the paper back over to the schematic and rousing him from musing.

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Hobblefoot said. He was always thinking about it.

Gretti wanted to wear a cap. His shaven pate felt strange and chill, but covering it would make the act of shaving meaningless. When he had worked vengeance in East Spire seasons before, his hair was long, shaggy, and unbound. Now, he was bald with a beard neatly braided and tied. Even gazing in water, he hardly recognized himself.

His body was sore from consecutive shifts in the Needle Claim, but he did not seek some remote drift where he could sleep. Instead. he wound his way through the drifts near the great stope. In speaking with another of the kulhan of the Needle Claim, he had learned the general location of the Defthand Claim, but he had to be careful approaching it—Tornheft would likely recognize him, and he had made oath to Sledgefist and taken his pay. Granted, it was in exchange for freedom, but a deal was a deal. He could feel his mother’s accusing voice; how could he so involve himself in the affairs of others while his own stonehold was yet unavenged? He shrugged his shoulders and lowered his head even more, as if he was walking through a pelting rain or driving snow.

He passed a great bronze-plated door. Speaking runes were expertly etched into the bronze. Gretti could only read cave runes, not speaking runes, but he knew from his previous time in East Spire that the engineering workshops beyond the bronze door had belonged to Hobblefoot, one of the owners of Glint. Ever since the Jackals had seized control of East Spire, the workshops sat abandoned and unused, the door shut. It was one of many now-abandoned holds. The dwarves of Glint had carved a narrow pack-trail through the Red Ridges many miles to the north, bypassing East Spire to trade with Deep Cut directly, further impoverishing East Spire.

Two drifts down from Hobblefoot’s old workshops, Gretti paused, looking up and down the passage. There was no one in sight. East Spire felt even emptier than during his last visit. More souls would flock to its tunnels for safety in the coming months, but those who could went to Glint, instead. Sledge Rock protected East Spire from the worst of the ürsi raids, but those raiding parties that slipped over the ridges could raid around East Spire with no one to stop them. The few Jackals in East Spire were insufficient. Glint had the Ridge Wardens, at least.

One fewer than before.

Gretti found the door he sought. It was closed and had no speaking runes, but above the lintel he could see the carven cave rune warning of machinery. The next door down was inset into the rock a few feet. There were no markings above that door and no sounds from within. Gretti hoped for the best and ducked into the inset doorway, settling down on the ground and leaning against the stone. If anyone stumbled upon him, he could claim he was a sheltering prospector simply sleeping in what he thought to be the doorway of an abandoned hold. He wasn’t sure how long he would have to wait, but he angled himself so he could barely peer past the edge of the rock and watch the entrance to the machinists’ workshop.

It was three hours before anyone left the workshop. Gretti heard the door open, and two dwarves left one after the other, walking down the drift away from him. Gretti quietly stood and waited for them to turn the corner before hurrying after. Intrigues were loathsome things, but Gretti’s enemies rarely stood to face him. A few hundred yards further, the two dwarves parted. Gretti chose the smaller, weaker looking of them, likely a gear-worker by trade, judging from his size. It was a good trade for a slighter frame. The dwarf was taking a drift toward a section of small stoneholds, and there was a risk of being seen.

Speeding up his pace, he closed the distance while trying to keep his footfalls from slapping. He wore fleece slippers with the wool on the outside, and the shirt he wore was a spare that Sledgefist had given him. The dwarf was not paying attention. It was likely just the end of another shift to him. He clearly had no fear of pursuit. Gretti grabbed him around the neck, covered his mouth with his hand, and slammed him face-first into the drift wall. The dwarf made a muffled cry.

“Be quiet, do not fight, and you will live,” Gretti hissed. The dwarf attempted to push back, but Gretti was stronger by far. Gretti gave him a harsh shake and squeezed his throat, keeping behind him so the dwarf couldn’t see his face. “Do you want to live?” Gretti asked.

The dwarf stilled.

“I only want questions answered,” Gretti said. The dwarf nodded.

“Where is Oneye?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. He just didn’t come back to work.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“And you didn’t ask after him?”

“We did! We didn’t find him.”

“Where did he stay?”

“In the Coalrim drift, but we checked, he wasn’t there.”

“What about his things? His tools?”

“They were there. We took them to the workshop, but he hasn’t come back for them.”

“Did he have any enemies? Any friends?”

“What? No. I don’t know. He did good work. I only worked with him a year.”

“Anyone acting strange in the workshop? Anything?”

“No!”

“If you know anything about his disappearance, tell me now.”

“I don’t!”

Gretti held the dwarf for a few moments, trying to think. What else could he ask? This wasn’t like hunting Highlodes. He didn’t need to a Highlode anything.

“When I let go of you, don’t look around. You walk down the drift and you don’t look back.”

“Alright.”

Gretti wasn’t sure if the dwarf would heed the command, but he let go and jogged back the way they’d come, lowering his head and showing only his back.

He listened to make sure the dwarf did not pursue and turned at the next drift.

“Shit on them,” he muttered.

No dwarf would simply walk away and leave his tools. Something happened to Oneye, but what was Gretti supposed to do? The Jackals may have killed him, but maybe he fell down a mineshaft drunk. It wasn’t likely, but maybe. Gretti could kill a Jackal in retribution, but he could not be certain. If he was wrong, that would make him a murderer. He was no murderer. He had to be certain, but he wasn’t sure how to find out more. It was a mistake to swear on as kulhan to Sledgefist in the first place, and it was a mistake to accept this task. Then again, what choice did he have? He was in East Spire, close to the Highlodes, rather than in the hands of the Ridge Wardens.