Chapter 73: Foray or Flight
It was known beforehand that in any conflict, wounded were to be taken to Wardenhold where there was a spacious hall for training that could double as an infirmary. Yorvig was still leaning on the reservist by the time he reached it.
“You may go back to your cadre,” he said to the dwarf. The reservist bowed and left. It was Thrushbeard who brought Yorvig a stool.
“Sit,” he said.
“I will stand,” Yorvig said stubbornly.
“Would you rather sit or be seen to fall?” Thrushbeard asked.
Yorvig clenched his jaw but sat after a moment. Already wounded lay in the hall upon padded wool pallets, and the bone-dwarves were moving among them as well as wifs with pitchers of beer. The smell of ürsi blood was strong, but Yorvig knew nothing would help that for the time, as noxious as it was. More wounded were coming in, now, trudging in dripping blood or carried by comrades.
A Warden approached Thrushbeard.
“The tower is abandoned. The bridge is dropped. The adits are all barred.”
“So we are under stone,” Yorvig said.
“They cannot hope to take the mine,” Thrushbeard replied, as if Yorvig doubted it.
He didn’t doubt it, even though he hadn’t thought they could take the walls or towers and they had. No number of ürsi could hope to push the dwarves out of their own tunnels, not against long spears and shieldwalls, murder holes, fire, water, and crossbow bolts to contend with. If they hadn’t come through the roof, not even the walls would have fallen. He realized now that he had blundered. The ridge-top was far more important. He should have put more dwarves there. They should have held it. He did not yet know how the tower had fallen, but there were openings on all sides of the bell-chamber to let out the sound, wide enough for ürsi crawl through. Was that it, or was it a ram?
Hookear hurried in and found Yorvig and Thrushbeard.
“I have twenty-three missing, forty-two wounded,” he said. Yorvig grimaced. To be missing now meant they were almost certainly dead. There would be no traces left.
“Rightauger?” Yorvig asked. Hookear flinched.
“I do not know names,” he said. "The runners have just sent the numbers."
“Go to his cadre and find out!”
Hookear bowed and left without another word.
Thrushbeard’s count was almost as dire—more so, considering the Ridge Wardens were fewer and better trained. Seventeen missing and twenty-eight wounded. It turned out that most of the Ridge Warden dead and wounded were from two cadres, those posted on the east and south walls. Yorvig thought of those giant bundles of trees flipping down the ridge, of the ürsi pouring through the breach.
Runners came and went, and the hall filled with the last of the lightly wounded who had stayed until they were sure the fighting was over. The adits were shut, and as of yet nothing assailed the stone doors. The Shepherd’s Adit also guarded—by way of a double door—a series of tunnels communicating to sheep folds and herder stoneholds out in the valley, even running beneath the river and beyond. . . but the herders too reported no assaults against their heavy doors.
Hookear stepped back into the hall, and as soon as Yorvig saw his face, his stomach turned. The dwarf seemed to drag himself forward, his face pale.
“Where is Rightauger?”
“He is not with his cadre.”
“Where was his cadre in the fighting?”
“In the wall.”
“In the wall!” Yorvig shouted, rising from his stool and clutching Treadfoot. “You put him on the wall!” His voice echoed in the hall. Wounded and hale alike looked over. Hookear quailed back.
“They were there in need. We will keep looking for him,” Hookear said.
Yorvig felt like he could have murdered Hookear then and there, but the dwarf’s horrified expression was too much. He looked around at all those in the hall who stared, and he set Treadfoot back on the stone and limped to the door. He had to get away from them. Just beyond the door, he pressed his back against the stone and slid down to his buttocks, putting his face in his hand. Hot tears blurred his vision.
Yorvig had called out the reserves. He had called for spears on the wall. He had made the right decision for the claim, but not for his family. . . not for his son. What was he thinking, that he would choose the claim over his family? He could not pick and choose cadres in the moment. . . neither could Hookear.
“Rhûl!”
Yorvig looked up. Two reservists approached. One had the rune of a rinlen on his helm, and the other—he wore a warmask stained with blood, and his beard was matted. The same dwarf Yorvig had leaned on. “Rhûl! We have Rightauger!”
Yorvig struggled to his feet, not bothering to wipe his face.
“Where?” he asked.
The rinlen looked a little startled, but pointed to the other reservist. “Here,” he said.
Yorvig stared. Did Rightauger have a warmask? The reservist’s beard was plaited and matted with blood. He had never seen Rightauger wear his beard like that, though it was popular among the warriors. Through the stench of the ürsi, he could not smell him, either. The reservist wore a full kit of armor that Yorvig had never seen, also besmirched and soiled. But there, hanging at his belt—a warhammer with gold filigree.
“Father,” the reservist said. The voice took away all doubt. Yorvig grabbed and clutched him, and wept again.