Icevein: Chapter 42
Gretti poured the first sack of gravel and mud into the rushing water of the sluice and used his hand to spread out the pile, pushing it downstream. His calves burned from the climb, and he slung the second sack from his shoulder and poured it out as well. Tossing them aside, he picked up the short-handled three-tined rake and spread out the paydirt, helping the cold water carry it down the sluice. Bluebrow and his son Shimmer were asleep in the adit. The three dwarves worked in rotation, so that at least one sluice was working at all times. Bluebrow preferred to work at night, and it was his claim, so Gretti squinted at the glare of bright sunlight reflecting off the water.
Picking up the empty sacks, he moved a few yards down the sluice to the roughest riffles and picked out some of the larger pieces of gravel, tossing them into a growing pile of spoil on the other side of the run. Bluebrow’s claim was a steep slope stretching up from the wide creekbed below, but down the slope flowed a tributary freshet, and it was this water they had diverted into the sluices. Bluebrow hadn’t struck in the hard rock, but the creek below carried paydirt down its course with every rain, gouging the hillsides during flood. No dwarf could claim the ground beneath a stream or river, and so they were free to dig the course, often standing waist deep, filling sacks to haul up to the sluicetops.
Gretti had lost count of how many trips he had made that shift, and now he slowly walked down the length of the sluice, picking out any gravel too big, eyeing for color. He used tweezers to pick out a few flakes caught in the middle riffles. Near the bottom, there was a haze of color in the dark sand caught in the layers of burlap. The sand was starting to back up and risked flowing overtop of the fabric, so Gretti placed a wide pan on the flat stone set for the purpose and shoveled the sand into it. With the pan in his hands, he made his way the few yards down to the stream’s edge and crouched ankle deep in the current, splashing some water over the edge of the pan and swirling it around, separating the lighter sand from the heavier gold dust.
A jay fluttered from a birch across the river, giving full throat to its discordant cry. Gretti looked up and saw the flash of steel. He fell back, jerking the pan upward. The crossbow bolt deflected off the iron back of the pan, its blade tearing open the side of Gretti’s finger as it sped away to the side. With a roar, Gretti sprang forward into the stream. It was shallow in the summer, with rocks sticking up from the course all the way across. He saw the movement of his foe and made for it. He could not delay, nor give him time to reload. Water arced behind his plunging feet.
The coward ran up the slope, bent over to keep his balance. Gretti knew the ground. The slope turned into a rocky scree, nearly impassible. If his foe was a coward, then he would turn right to escape, angling away from the claim, but a clever foe would turn left, cutting along the edge of the scree back toward the stream, trying to double behind pursuit. It’s what Gretti would do.
All this Gretti saw in an instant, without hesitation, and he turned left on the far bank, racing upstream, his heavy-booted but sure feet carrying him over the cobbles and boulders, beneath the shadows of sloping Red Ridge Pines. There was a jumble of boulders ahead, and he paused beneath it, hidden from the slope above. His heart pounded, and each breath sounded loud in his ears. At some point, he had dropped the pan. He picked up a palm-sized stone and tried to calm himself and listen.
At first, he thought he had misjudged. The dwarf must have run east, fleeing rather than choosing to fight. For the first time, Gretti wondered what might have happened if there had been two enemies. He had reacted instantly in the moment as he always did. Once more, he had lived. At least, for now.
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He saw brown hair and the crown of a head rise overtop of the boulder, and Gretti ducked down. The foe-dwarf was quiet; he had snuck down the slope without Gretti hearing. No doubt, there was another bolt loaded and ready. Gretti wasn’t sure if he could move without a noise on the gravel and cobbles. From this position, the dwarf could see downstream to the sluices and well past. It was a distant shot—perhaps a hundred yards—but if he was skilled with the crossbow, it was within reason. If he had chosen this spot at first, Gretti might already be dead. Gretti tossed the stone upstream. It landed in the water with a splash. He heard the scrape of clothes on stone as the dwarf turned. It was an old ruse. Gretti lurched upward. The dwarf jerked his crossbow around, but Gretti grabbed for the bolt. The dwarf squeezed the lever, but Gretti clutched the bolt and pushed. The spring of the string threw his arm back, but the shot was harmless.
With a roar of rage, Gretti leapt overtop of the boulder, grabbing the dwarf by his shirt. They fell backward, and Gretti slammed his head into the dwarf’s nose twice, his hands groping for the dwarf’s arms to pin them before he could draw a blade. The dwarf’s nose snapped. Blood spattered as he blew air. The dwarf wrenched his arms upward to try to protect his face, ignoring the dagger he had managed to draw, but Gretti slammed a fist into the dwarf’s stomach, grasped the dwarf’s hand in both of his own and slammed the pommel backward into the dwarf’s teeth with a vicious jerk. Gretti twisted the knife hard, and it was his.
The dwarf raised his voice in a garbled scream.
“No!” He tried to writhe away, but Gretti’s weight bore down on him. “No!”
There was no spirit left in the dwarf, now, only fear and an urge to escape. Gretti leaned back, straddling the dwarf, and slammed another fist into his stomach.
“Please no,” the dwarf gasped.
“I may kill you by rights.”
“No. Please. I have gold. Hidden.”
“Where?”
“I’ll take you, if you swear on your hold to let me live.”
“I am entitled to your property by law. I’ll give you this mercy. Tell me what I ask and do not lie.”
“I—” the dwarf turned his face and spit blood. “—I swear.”
“How did you find me?”
“I heard there was a big scarred dwarf working on this river.”
“From who?”
“From a prospector downstream. A greybeard.”
“When?”
“Four days ago.”
“Did you tell anyone else?”
“No.”
“Were you looking for me already?”
The dwarf hesitated, and Gretti tensed.
“Ay, yes,” he said.
“Why?”
“The Highlodes. They offered me blood-gold.”
“Where are they?”
“They went back to Deep Cut.”
“When?”
“In the fall.”
Gretti slammed the dagger-blade up the dwarf’s neck and into his head. The dwarf’s hands curled and his arms and legs went rigid. Gretti twisted the blade and ripped it free. Blood pulsed from the wound, steaming in the cool shadow beneath the pines. Gretti stood up as the pulse slowly faded. The rigid limbs went slack, and the dwarf’s legs kicked.
The fool shouldn’t have lied. Shimmer had gone to Glint in the Spring, and the Highlodes were still there. A dwarf who wouldn’t tell the truth to save his life would lie about gold as well, and only a fool would give him a chance to turn the Ingots board. Gretti hurried to strip the body, rinsing the bloodied shirts in the cold streamwater quickly enough that they wouldn’t stain. The dwarf was geared to kill, not to mine, and his kit would bring plenty enough in trade—what Gretti and his claim-mates didn’t keep for themselves. It might be useful to have a crossbow, though he had no love of the weapon.
Gretti sat for a moment at the water’s edge. Calm had settled again upon the claim, and the anger of the jay was replaced with the pre-evening calls of the yellow seedcatchers that declared safety, for they never sang when anything moved in the forest. He would have to bury the body, but he took a moment to accept the coming evening—another evening to be alive.
Yet the victory was spoiled by one question:
Who else knew?