Chapter 20: A False Strike

There was one place that Yorivg needed to go alone, and he didn’t want to delay any longer.

As they returned to the adit from the weir, he said:

“Cook the fish. I need to go up the dell for a moment.”

“Not alone,” Sledgefist said.

“I’ll only be a moment. We’ve been traipsing out to the mouth of the dell and back. I'm confident we're alone for now.”

“Why do you need to go there?” Shineboot asked.

“I think I left my rasp up where I was digging.”

“Leaving tools?” Sledgefist said, the elder brother full in his voice.

“It’s all I can think. Since—“ he motioned to his leg, meaning since his injury, “—I can’t find it. Unless I lost it upriver, that’s all I can think.”

The mention of Yorvig’s injury quieted Sledgefist’s censure. It was fortunate that Yorvig hadn’t dug or had his mining tools out since then. It was a gamble to hope none of them remembered what he’d carried with him on his foraging trip. One of them had carried back his harness when they’d found him. There was a lot happening then that was more pressing than a rasp. He hoped they wouldn't remember, and it might have dropped along the way.

“I’ll go with you,” Shineboot said. Yorvig tried not to react, but he didn’t see a way around it.

With a disapproving look from Sledgefist, they headed off. Yorvig actually wore his harness that day, but it only contained his hammer and chisels, his small pick, and the coil of rope. He also carried an axe. He knew the others wouldn’t question it on their venture to the weir, thinking he was bringing the tools as potential weapons, and the rope coiled around his abdomen as protection. And at least for the axe, that was partially true.

With Shineboot at his side, Yorvig limped up the rough rising ground of the dell. He had his crutch under one arm, and the axe in his free hand, often using it as a sort of cane to steady himself. The feeling had mostly returned to his foot, though sometimes he felt pins and needles. He still felt off balance sometimes when walking, like the back of his leg had stiffened. The inflexibility gave him a faltering gait.

So, it took him longer than before to reach the pile of broken rock beneath his rough-cut adit. His shallow footholds cut into the rock led upward, but they were meant to be used as aids with a rope—which he’d taken down—and Yorvig couldn’t climb that way. Nor did he think he could scale the ridge and lower himself down like he’d done at first. Instead, he had another idea. Tall pines grew close up to the rockface, some easily reaching a hundred feet. There was one he had one in mind.

Yorvig walked to the trunk and dropped his crutch. He unwrapped the rope from his middle and handed it off to Shineboot. Pine was a soft wood. It wouldn’t take long. He braced himself with a wide stance and put a deep notch in the back of the trunk, angling for how he wanted the tree to fall. Moving to the front of the trunk, he cut it away with downward angled strokes. Yorvig was no expert at felling trees, but the general principle was simple enough, and he didn’t have to be too precise. He cut so that the fibers of the wood would give way and drop the pine toward the adit, hoping the flexible upper branches would hook it into the opening in the rock.

Shineboot stood at a safe distance, watching and sometimes glancing upward at the adit, but he didn’t speak. The trunk cracked. The tree leaned, slowly at first, and then faster. The trunk parted from the stump, thudding into the ground. The upper branches hit the rockface, completely covering the adit. It gave a half turn and came to rest.

Yorvig pushed on the trunk, but it didn’t budge.

“The rope?” he said. Shineboot looked up along the tree trunk.

“Do you want me to go up instead?”

“No,” Yorvig said.

“But—”

“Don’t fight me on this. I am not an invalid.”

Yorvig wasn’t entirely sure he shouldn’t be an invalid for some time longer, or at least when it came to scrabbling up trees. But acting insulted or defensive would hopefully cause the least questioning. Shineboot sighed and handed Yorvig the rope. Yorvig put his arm and head through the coil.

"Well, do you need to take your harness?"

"I may need the tools."

Yorvig stared up. The trunk rose at a steep slant. He’d chosen a tree that could reach the rockface unimpeded. He would have liked an even milder slope, but the further, taller trees would have snagged on other trees between. The hardest part of the climb was the first twenty feet where the branches had died and fallen away, leaving the trunk bare. Yorvig used his small pick in one hand and the axe in the other, swinging one and sinking it into the wood, pulling himself forward with the tool to steady himself, then swinging the other and so on. Once he got to the branches, he lopped them away a few feet up, using the stubs as handholds. His leg ached, but he took it slow, trying to ignore the slight bouncing of the trunk as he got higher.

At length, he reached the level of the adit. The trunk of the tree rested at least five feet from the opening of the adit and the cliff. This was the trickiest part. Yorvig took off the loop of rope and tied it fast to his harness and again to a lopped stub-branch of the tree, leaving only a few feet of slack between himself and the knot. Then, he took the axe, got as steady of a stance as he could, and cutting at the trunk above. Each swing bounced the trunk, lurching his stomach. The tree was much thinner there, and after about fifteen minutes of his meager, unbalanced strokes it cracked and the top of the tree bent upwards from the fracture as the lower trunk lowered itself down into the adit. Some of the thin branches against the rockface snapped. Yorvig lopped at others, then broke away the last tenacious fibers of the upper trunk. The top swung backward and fell away. Pine branches scraped and clawed at him as the top fell away, but he clung to the trunk. If it wasn’t for the rope, he might have followed the top down. But as soon as the log steadied, he climbed down into the adit, setting foot upon good stone with relief.

Climbing the ridge and letting himself down by rope might have been easier, in the end. His leg throbbed. But at least he’d done it. He peered down at Shineboot. The dwarf shook his head up at him. He was near the pile of broken stone beneath the adit, tossing a rock up and catching it again.

“Really worth a file?” Shineboot called.

“Where am I going to get another?” Yorvig yelled back. This would have been much easier if Shineboot wasn’t there.

He slipped his pick out of his harness and walked to the back wall of the short drift. He hooked the blade onto the false stone that covered the lode and pulled it away, catching it and lowering it down to the rock quietly. The gold gleamed. Yorvig turned to another section, one without sign of ore, and began to strike the rock. This part he could have made up if Shineboot hadn’t come, but now he needed to make noise. One blow turned to two, to three, and soon five minutes had passed.

“Oi!” Shineboot shouted from below. “Oi!”

Yorvig stepped away and looked down out of the adit.

“What’re you doing?” he called up.

“Haven’t swung a pick in a while. Feels good. I never got to finish digging this seam I was looking at.” He stepped back out of sight and continued on. Another few minutes passed. He could almost feel Shineboot’s irritation though he didn’t call again and Yorvig didn’t look.

Judging at last there was farce enough, he stopped swinging. He let a few more moments pass. Then he mustered his energy and shouted.

“Shineboot! Shineboot!”

“What?”

“Get up here! Get up here now!”