Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman Read online

“Leave him alone!” Engvyr commanded.

  “Sod off, sprog!” the drover said, angry at having his fun interrupted as he reached out a hand to give the boy a shove.

  Engvyr's father had trained him in the wrestling taught in the regiments and he reacted automatically. He side-stepped to his right, brushing the drover's hand aside as he struck a powerful blow with the heel of his hand that split the drover's cheek and knocked him to the ground.

  The crowd went quiet, shocked by his sudden action. The drover touched his cheek disbelievingly and looked at the blood on his fingertips. With a bellow of rage he lunged to his feet, his sax-knife appearing in his fist. Engvyr stepped back, his own sax sliding into his hand as a sudden cold wariness overcame him.

  Suddenly his father stepped from the crowd and casually batted the knife from the drover's hand with the barrel of the Big 14. Twisting his left fist into the dwarfs dirty beard he turned and slammed him into a nearby post with bruising force. Sticking the muzzle under the man's chin he growled, “Go for my boy again and you'll get worse than he's given already.”

  Turning to the crowd he said, “You lot ought to be ashamed! Get out of here. Now.”

  The dwarves slunk away muttering and the rest of the crowd began to disperse as well. Engvyr's father slung the drover to the ground by his beard and fetched him a boot in the backside as he scrambled away, clutching at his wrist.

  “Go on, you cur! I shoulda' let the boy kill you!” he shouted after the fleeing drover.

  He picked up the hat and scarf as he and Engvyr helped the battered goblin, still covered by the great-cote, into the shade next to a nearby building. The goblin gratefully donned the hat and scarf again, peered at each of them intently for a moment.

  “I t'ank you bot',” he said simply.

  The dwarves nodded acceptance and then Engvyr's father told the goblin, “You're welcome, but best you get yourself far from here before that group finds their courage again.” The goblin scurried off. His father gave Engvyr an approving nod and a warm smile, “Best we not mention this to your mother, eh?”

  Engvyr agreed and they went into the wainwright's shop together.

  Chapter Four

  “I've traveled far in my days and have seen many wonders and often enough I have wondered at what I have seen. One thing is plain to me, men are men. I've met each of the Five Races of Man and they are each of them very different and very much the same. They all have in common that they are none of them all one thing; each man of any race may be good or bad, and it's his own choosing which path he will follow at the end of the day.”

  From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson

  Engvyr found that the land outside of the Upland Gate was heavily settled, much like the south. At this altitude the growing season was just starting so rather than fields green with the sprouts of the first crops of the year; they were still barren and muddy. As the days and weeks wore on, they spent more and more time in the wild lands of the passes between the valleys. They began to keep watch when they camped at night, for outlawry was not unknown amongst the Dwarves and there was also an increasing threat of encountering goblins, trolls or other dangerous creatures.

  Goblins were not at war with the dwarves, but small parties of renegades did occasionally launch raids into the dwarven kingdom. A Goblin will eat pretty much anything, and the renegades among them had no compunctions against a nice bit of roast dwarf now and again.

  Trolls were another matter. Shy and solitary, these hairy giants were likely to see you coming before you saw them and make themselves scarce. But they had been known, on rare occasions, to assault travelers or to attack their camps. The first time they set a watch was the night after they had seen the huge, distinctive tracks of a troll in the mud along the side of the road.

  They were well into their third week out of Ironhame and were all beginning to weary of their journey as they pushed up the last slope to Taefleg Behmer, named for the castle and garrison that towered over the area. This was the last real town before entering the northern highlands and the last leg of their journey. From this point on the going would be rough indeed, for they would depart from the High Road when they left the town.

  As they walked up the last bit of road before the town Engvyr's father fell in beside him and asked, “You have the handgun?” He had taken to carrying it under his great-cote while they hunted and had kept the habit on the road once they were in wilder country. He nodded an affirmative.

  “Mind that folk don't see it- but keep it with you always. There are rough sorts about that might not scruple to help themselves if they think that they can get away with it.”

  While they camped on the outskirts his father negotiated the sale of the wagons and purchased pack-frames for their oxen. He also purchased two stout A-frame tents and found a pack-train that they could travel with for much of the remainder of their journey.

  “We're near the end of our money now,” he told them, “And while I mislike coming to the Clan empty-handed we have at least enough to finish the trip.”

  They met with the pack train in the early hours and his father walked up and down the line of mules and oxen before their dawn departure to suss out their fellow travelers. He gathered the family and told them, “We're traveling with several families who look to be good folk. If there is any sort of trouble on the way, go to them for help. But there are some rough sorts as well, dwarves on their own. Miners and roustabouts by the look of them. Mind you be polite, but on no account go off with anyone or allow yourselves to be alone in their company.”

  Engvyr's mother looked at his father searchingly and asked, “Are you truly expecting trouble, then?”

  He shook his head firmly. “That I don't, love. But better that we be prepared and need it not, than to need it and not be prepared.”

  They travelled for days along the narrow, winding path as it skirted knife-edge ridges and slashes of gullies. The sound of running water surrounded them much of the time and they sometimes saw great cascades tumbling down the cliffs. Engvyr was swept away by the sheer, wild beauty of the deep mountains.

  At night they camped in clearings that showed the signs of much use by groups like theirs. The families mostly kept to themselves, not unfriendly, just too tired from the day's travel to socialize much. As they approached the first high pass the trail took them above the tree line and up into the clouds. Their progress slowed to a crawl.

  Engvyr trudged along miserably, his head pounding. It seemed that he could never catch his breath and food turned his stomach. The twins became so ill they needed to ride on the packs of the stolidly trudging oxen. His dad was the least affected but in truth none of them were well.

  “It's the Height Sickness,” their guide told them that night as he squatted by their fire sipping coffee. “The air gets thinner as you go higher, and we're most of a league above sea-level here. Strong coffee and willow-bark helps a little, if you can get it in you, but the only thing that really cures it is to go back down the mountain. Come the morning you'll not feel like it but make sure you get some water in you. We'll top the pass early and you'll be feeling better by the time that we make camp on the morrow.”

  He bade them good night and went to repeat these instructions to the next family in line.

  Engvyr passed a miserable night, unable to get comfortable. When he did manage to drift off he dreamed he was being suffocated or chased by some nameless terror until he could not catch his breath. In the morning everyone looked as if they too had slept poorly. They choked down their coffee and as much water as they could stand before breaking camp and moving out.

  Engvyr stumbled through that nightmare morning in a haze. The light of the sun stabbed at his eyes like hot knives as it cleared the peaks. His head throbbed with every step until he felt that it would surely explode. He clutched at the pack-strap of one of the oxen to keep his feet when his balance started to go. His vision greyed-out at the edges until all he could see was the ground in front of him. He knew not how t
he others fared and was past caring.

  He came to himself with a jolt as he stumbled and realized that they were on a downhill slope. He seemed to improve with every step. When they stopped to make camp in late afternoon he had just the ghost of his former headache and was surprised to discover he was ravenous.

  Their guide stopped by their camp again that night to share the bad news with them.

  “Jerrod Porter didn't make it. Some folk’s hearts can't stand the strain of the heights.”

  His father shook his head sadly and his aunt exclaimed, “How awful! What will his family do?”

  The Guide shrugged and said, “Carry on, I reckon. Not much else they can do. They're near to home anyways and will be with their kin in five or six days, Lord and Lady willing.”

  They made a cairn for the unfortunate man in the morning and said a few words over him before pressing on.

  Later that day a rough-looking dwarf on a bedraggled pony dropped back and rode alongside their oxen as he spoke with Engvyr’s father.

  “Headed for the strike?” he asked.

  “Don't know anything about no strike,” his father replied, eyes fixed on the road before his feet.

  “You haven't heard? Been a strike, gold and silver both, over the backside of Keever's Mountain. Folks are saying this is the Big One.”

  “They always do,” his father replied neutrally. Engvyr watched the rider discreetly from under the brim of his hat. He didn't like the measuring way the dwarf looked at his father and peered at their packs.

  “Well, this time is different, you mark my words! This time next year they'll be paving that trail with gold bricks.”

  His father shrugged noncommittally.

  “We're just headed back home to join our Clan.”

  After the dwarf dropped back down the trail his father spoke quietly without looking at Engvyr.

  “You saw?”

  “That I did,” Engvyr replied in the same low tone. “He bears watching, that one.”

  “That he does son, him and his friends too.”

  They were near the front of the pack-train when disaster struck. Engvyr's aunt and the twins were walking by the ox just ahead of him. His father was with the two oxen behind him with his mother and the train's Guide bringing up the rear.

  The train had become strung out as they climbed a narrow trail along the face of a rocky slope. The loose group of miners and roustabouts were ahead of them and the next family was a good hundred paces behind them. Just far enough back to save their lives.

  Engvyr had his eyes on the ground in front his feet when a rumble started high above.

  “Avalanche!” his father bellowed, ducking tight against the slope. He did the same, looking past his father, head tucked down between his shoulders against a sudden hail of small rocks. The Guide lunged forward, gathering Engvyr's mother in his arms to pin them against the slope just as a huge boulder bounded onto the trail, wiping it away. In an instant the Guide, his mother and two oxen vanished as if they had never been.

  He lunged upward with a scream of shock and protest and a bounding rock struck him on the side of the head. There was a burst of light and then darkness.

  A voice woke him some time later, and an inarticulate protest from his father. He blinked his eyes open as he made sense of the words.

  “You're done for, hob. You'll not be needing this here shoulder-gun again.”

  His father lay half-conscious, his face bloodied and his body slack. The rough looking dwarf from earlier had the Big 14 gripped in one hand. He gave it a savage jerk, trying to free the sling and his father gave a short shriek of pain. Engvyr's head reeled and his vision kept going in and out of focus. A feminine cry of distress caused him to roll over and look towards his aunt.

  One of the twins lay unmoving. A dwarf held his struggling aunt's arms while another tore at the fastenings of her Great Cote. The second twin launched herself onto him, pummeling him with her fists and began screaming at him to leave her mother alone. He backhanded the child to get her off him and to Engvyr's horror the force of the blow caused her to stagger across the trail. She teetered on the precipice for a moment before she vanished over the edge with a terrified shriek. Everyone froze for a moment in shock.

  With a bellow of rage Engvyr rolled up onto one knee and without thinking leveled The Hammer and shot the dwarf that had struck her through the skull. There was a shocked exclamation from behind him.

  Unlike his father's gun The Hammer was a repeater. The piston was cocked by the stroke of a long lever, and as the lever was returned to rest a mechanism loaded another 36-bore ball from the tubular magazine that lay alongside the barrel. With muscles developed mucking out ore in the deep mine and fueled by rage he braced the butt against his hip and savagely stroked the charging lever as he rose to his feet and turned.

  The dwarf trying to wrest the Big 14 from his father released his grip on the gun and spread his hands. Engvyr gestured with The Hammer for the man to move past him and up the trail. He crowded back against the slope as the dwarf, hands extended placatingly, edged past him.

  “Easy there, boy- you don't want to shoot me…”

  Engvyr looked him dead in the eye over the sights and replied, “I beg to differ. Try anything at all and I will end you.”

  The miner looked into the boy's eyes and did what he was told, joining the dwarf that had just released his Aunt. She crawled away as their friends came back along the trail to join them.

  “Don't be stupid, boy!” one of them said, “there's five a'us and you got one shot before we'll be on you.”

  Engvyr shrugged.

  “At this range I'll kill one of you for sure,” he said, shifting his aim slightly, “You volunteering?”

  “I'll do for another,” a voice said weakly from behind him. He saw their eyes shift and knew that his father had managed to level the Big 14 at them as well.

  “Best you all cut your losses and get yourselves gone,” Engvyr told them.

  They looked at each other and stood uncertainly. They were not really a group, and it was as individuals that they acted now. Not one among them wanted to be the first to back down but they didn't like their personal odds.

  “Bugger this!” one of them finally said, “Let the mountains kill them.”

  With venomous glances at the boy and his father they moved up the trail and out of sight. He could hear them as they gathered the remaining oxen and moved off into the distance leaving them alone. Alone… without food, shelter or supplies.

  Chapter Five

  “A dwarf never knows himself until he faces ruin. Whether that ruin be death at the hands of his enemies, natural disaster or the whims of the Gods, it is then that his true mettle is shown, to himself and all the world.”

  From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson

  Engvyr did not know how long he stood with the big handgun pointed up the trail after them. When his arms began to shake he lowered the weapon. He could not later recall thinking anything at all, his mind shying away from the catastrophic events of the last few moments.

  A groan of pain from his father broke his stasis and brought him back to himself. He set the gun's safety and unslung it but kept it near to hand as he moved to see to him. He only half-noticed as his aunt gathered up her daughter, who clung to her frantically. She carried the child over to join Engvyr at his father's side.

  Sparing her a quick glance he asked, “How is she?”

  “She's alright, just had the wind knocked out of her,” his aunt responded.

  His father lay among the tumbled rocks, battered and bruised, one leg twisted in a bad way. He had slipped from consciousness again and Engvyr moved to make him more comfortable but was stopped by his aunt's hand on his arm.

  “We dare not move him yet, his back may be broken. Start a fire and I'll look to your father and see what's what.”

  He nodded and started to move off up the trail when they heard a distant shout.

  “Hallooo!”

 
Past the damaged section of trail there was a dwarf hailing them. It was Eggil Burenson from the pack-train.

  “Are you all right?” he yelled to them.

  “My brother is hurt,” his aunt yelled back, “And our supplies are stolen.”

  “Who stole your supplies?” Eggil yelled back.

  “It was those miners and their friends!” Engvyr replied, feeling a fresh burst of rage at the memory.

  Eggil put his hands on his hips, nodded and peered at the damaged trail. Engvyr looked as well. The trail had been carried away in sections, dropping into the gorge and the raging river more than three hundred feet below. Of his mother and their Guide, there was no sign; the raging torrent had already borne them away. It was clear there was no chance that they had lived, no chance at all.

  The thought of his mother brought fresh tears to his eyes. That she was truly gone, that he would never see her, hold and be held by her again… he forced those thoughts away with an effort of will. It was their own survival he must think of now. There would be time aplenty to mourn their loss later. For now the living must see to the living.

  Turning his regard back to the collapsed trail he studied it carefully. It was truly impassible. The hundred paces that separated them from the train might just as well have been a hundred leagues. He held up his hands helplessly to the other dwarf.

  “It's no good!” he shouted, “We can't cross!”

  The other dwarf gave them an exaggerated nod and yelled that he would be back. As he turned back to his father his aunt reminded him to get the fire going. He left The Hammer with his aunt, taking the Big 14 with him as he moved cautiously up the trail to find wood. It took time to gather as he had to go some distance to reach the trees and brush; all the while he kept a wary eye out.

  When he got back to the others his aunt had the rocks moved from under his father's body. Her great-cote was balled-up under his head for a pillow. She had already splinted his leg and was cleaning the gash on his forehead with water from the leather bottle that she carried slung about her body.