Icevein: Chapter 45
Chargrim paused before stepping into the Main Drift.
“Walk beside me instead,” he said to Peridot, making space for her. She was arrayed in a dazzling robe of crimson and blue brocade, wired with silver, with a mantle of fine silver mail, silver pauldrons set with garnets and traced with gold, and a long veil of cloth-of-gold worked into a draping coverlay, her mother’s gold wire-work. For his part, Chargrim was dressed in his usual heavy workwear, made of fine fabric but cut like a miner with padded knees. As he often did when inspecting the claim, he carried Treadfoot, his walking hammer.
Two Ridge Wardens walked before them and two behind. Rightauger was not present; he was somewhere with the Ridge Wardens and Hammers spread abroad throughout the eastern Red Ridges under the command of Thrushbeard and Sledgefist. Since the Battle of Tonkil’s Rock, far fewer ürsi had migrated to the ridges in the fall and winter, but roving bands still threatened distant claims.
They took the Main Drifttoward the Terrace Stair. The main drift was wideand this part of the mine was always active, dwarves and wifs coming and going. It was the main artery of Glint, running to the Adit Tower and its lift on one end and descending towards the Ware Hall and the Lower Adit on the other. A descending drift was unusual for a colony; her father blamed it on the necessity of the first mining of the claim, not upon careful planning for a future colony, but to Peridot it was all she had ever known.
It took effort to keep herself from looking to the right or left at the many who stopped and stared at their passing, feasting their eyes upon the fortune of finery in which she moved, the most skilled craft-work of the folk.
At the turning Terrace Stair, they ascended above the third terrace, then took Hobblefoot’s drift east inside the cliff-face. Hobblefoot’s workshops held pride of place on the cliff, their vents pouring a never-ending cloud of smoke and steam out into the cold dell air. Especially in the winter, she heard Glint could be seen miles away from the rising pillar of smoke, but Peridot had never gone farther than the riverside and had no desire to go further. The sky was an unsettling emptiness.
They reached the door to Hobblefoot’s workshops, a whole cluster of chambers, vent-shafts, smelters, and foundries that had taken shape under Hobblefoot’s direction. He had even widened the drifts and Terrace Stair to allow him to move bigger machines and parts, and he hoisted the largest burdens from the terraces. Hobblefoot spent far more time in his workshops than his hold in the Owners Drift.
The door was carved and overlaid with bronze. A great knocker hung in the center, though they ignored it. The wardens in the lead pulled the door ajar, and Peridot stepped inside with her father. The first chamber was more of a storehouse than anything else, lined with casks and barrels stacked three high and huge bins of coal separated by pillars of sandstone to support the ceiling. The air was thick with the smells of grease, oil, coal, and smoke. Chargrim knew the way and led straight on into the central drift. Turning right, they entered another workshop, this one clearly intended for the purpose of design and planning. Drawings and diagrams were pinned to angled tables, and workbenches held miniature machines clearly meant to test designs.
On one workbench, a tiny steam boiler raised and lowered a chain of miniature ore-bins from the benchtop to the floor, its stack puffing out little clouds of vapor. A single lamp-flame flickered beneath the little copper boiler. Peridot remembered coming here as a little gilna with Rightauger. How they had marveled at Hobblefoot’s little machines! She still felt a flicker of that old wonder.
There were dwarves at work at one of the tables, and they stopped and inclined their heads when the procession entered. Peridot interested herself in the machines, ignoring the stares.
“Let Hobblefoot know we are here,” Chargrim said, and one of the dwarves hurried out of the chamber.
It did not take long. Hobblefoot rushed inside, a look of clear pleasure on his face. He wore a heavy leather machinist’s apron smeared with grease and stained by oil, his unbraided grey beard tucked behind it. Hobblefoot had the “early streaks” of grey in his beard when he was younger, but now he had gone entirely grey. It was premature, but the only way Peridot had ever seen it.
“We are just preparing to cast the new firebox!” he said, clasping his hands together. “Come, and you can see the pour.” He motioned for them to follow and turned back into the drift. He led them deeper into the workshops, past a dozen doors. Dwarves stepped aside to let them pass. Ahead, a great glow of fire-light filled the drift, and as they approached, a strong draft of hot air met them. They entered a long, tall chamber, and as she stepped through the door, Peridot felt the pressure of the heat flowing outward. The chamber was nearly twenty feet tall, with great bellows suspended from the ceiling pumping air into a massive furnace, worked by mechanical arms.
She knew it was a smelter, but it was bigger than any she had seen before. The roar of the air and flames was so loud that Hobblefoot shouted to be heard over it:
“The mold is good, I’m sure!”
The mold dominated the center of the chamber—a massive lump of hardened clay with a series of chimney-like projections at the top, but she knew that the clay had been molded around a carved-wax template. The mold would have been heated so that the molten wax ran out of one of the holes, leaving a hardened shell and a hollow mold within. The chimney projections were for pouring in the molten metal and venting out the gases.
Peridot was already sweating. She could feel the warmth seeping through her clothes and warming the gold and silver she wore. Even her father squinted, but Hobblefoot did not appear to mind the conditions. Dwarves clad in thick leather aprons, leather sleeves, masks, and glass-eyed hoods worked closer to the furnace. One of them opened a slot and peered within. Peridot knew that he was checking on the color of the crucible to reveal the temperature of the smelt. He turned and made hand signals.
“We’ll want to step back now,” Hobblefoot said, ushering them against the far wall. There were at least ten different dwarves in the wide chamber, and now a group gathered around a winch with protruding spokes. Walking together, they turned it, and the upper front of the smelter parted on great hinges as cogs and wheels spun, a line of dazzling white widening from the center. A new and fiercer wave of heat pressed against her. She felt the oils of her skin heating. She squinted, her thick lashes shielding her eyes. The smell of iron was so strong it filled her nostrils as if the scent itself was a solid thing. Two dwarves with long-handled skimmers stepped forward on platforms to either side of the open doors, pulling dross from atop the smelt. The skimmers glowed red as they pulled them away and signaled. Dwarves at a different wheel started to walk, and she watched as the shining crucible began to tip, held by thick glowing bands.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Surely, it was too hot; the bands would not hold, all would come crashing apart in a splume of molten metal. But it didn’t. The crucible tipped, and she watched the utter beauty of the white-orange liquid pouring into the central spout of the great mold. Vapors spat from the vents. The volume had been calculated down to the drop, for no sooner did the first of the smelt reach the top of the spout than the flow from the crucible ceased, and the dwarves reversed the turn. The crucible returned to its upright position, and the doors closed again. Darkness descended on the room as her eyes worked to adjust. The bellows ceased their pumping, and now quiet joined the dimness.
“We will break the mold tomorrow,” Hobblefoot said. “Then we can begin the annealing.”
“I want to see the rail production,” Chargrim said.
“As you say.”
Hobblefoot led them back into the drift where the air now felt cold. Further down they came to another chamber, longer and narrower than the last, but also blazing hot. In it, three smaller smelters burned, and the kulhan were also clad in thick leather. One of the crucibles poured into an open-faced stone mold nearly ten feet wide. The molten metal spread into glowing parallel lines. This chamber was also loud, with many bellows working and vent-chutes open in the ceiling, so that despite the heat there was a constant upward draft.
“The annealing is done in another chamber,” Hobblefoot shouted.
“I am not convinced it is worth heat-treating the rails,” Chargrim replied.
“I am,” Hobblefoot replied. “It will keep them from warping as much and reduce wear.”
“But can you produce enough in time?”
“If you can get me the iron. We are working without ceasing.”
“Iron has to be brought on donkey, you know that.”
“It won’t, once we use rail.”
“Then we won’t need as much.”
Hobblefoot shrugged.
“There will be more to build, from now to the end of the age.”
They watched the finish of the pour, and the crucible returned to its smelter in much the same manner as the larger one had.
“Alright,” Chargrim called, leaning toward Hobblefoot. “Let us go somewhere to talk.” He motioned toward the loud bellows. Hobblefoot nodded and led them out again. Further from the cliff-face, they came to a small chamber with a table and chairs and a fine rug. The wardens remained in the drift outside the door as Hobblefoot, Chargrim, and Peridot sat.
“Bring drink and food,” Hobblefoot told a dwarf waiting at the door. He disappeared into the drift.
“How many miles worth, so far?” Chargrim asked.
“One-hundred and three, and another half a mile per day.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Another foundry is being dug as we speak.”
“The sap will run in less than a month, and the expedition can wait no longer.”
“It will take time to lay what we have. By the time they have laid one hundred miles, I will have another hundred ready.”
“The expedition will start in the plains. It will be years before rail from Glint reaches the north slope. We cannot spirit the rails to the expedition.”
“Then lend more kulhan to the digging. It need not take so long.”
Based on Hobblefoot’s specifications, work had begun months ago on the path that would lead from Glint to the northern slope of the Red Ridges where Rothe Stonefoot’s message was found. Chargrim had sent Ridge Wardens to further fortify the camp. Once in the plains, labor would be far easier, but cutting a level path through the Red Ridges was daunting.
By keeping a north-south path as much as possible, they used the terrain to their advantage, as the ridges stretched in a prevailing northeast-to-southwest course, with valleys between. Many miles could be laid by following the valleys, but traversing the mountains to east or west would require tunneling through entire ridges, or finding passes. It could be done, but only with many more years. Even in the valleys, the ground was not level. Over two hundred kulhan had been digging already, creating a bed stretching many miles to the north, though no rail was yet laid.
Chargrim frowned. Peridot knew her father did not want to redirect any more kulhan to the work, as he already needed to send many on the expedition, itself. Though there were over fivethousand souls dwelling in and around Glint, a much smaller number were sworn as kulhan—only two thousand seven-hundred and forty-three, in fact, and of those, over two thousand were Ridge Wardens, gardeners, goatherds, cooks, smelters, engineers, traders, and other skillful crafters whom Chargrim preferred to employ directly.While much of the claim’s wealth came by trade, they also needed to mine in order to pay the kulhan wages. Her father’s mission in the north might serve a vital purpose, but it made no promise of wealth or even the recouping of kulhan wages. On the contrary, the expense was enormous, more than straining even her father’s wealth and the reserves of the claim. She had started to doubt the wisdom of the plan; perhaps it was better to build the rail west above the Brown Hills and trade with the humans from the start, danger or no.
“There is a way we could lend more kulhan,” Chargrim said, then he shook his head. “But no, I do not think it possible.”
“What is it?” Hobblefoot asked.
“It was just a thought, but I do not think they would agree.” Chargrim waved it off.
“Just tell me. If it is possible, we can make it happen,” Hobblefoot said.
“The strain on the claim is too much to lend more kulhan,” her father said, hesitantly. Peridot tried to keep her face placid, though she wanted to squint at him. She doubted that her father was just considering something for the first time, though he tried to make it appear so. He went on: “But if the owners contributed from their private hoards. . . we could spare the miners. Even a portion could double the kulhan for years.”
Hobblefoot was silent for a moment, looking up above their heads and clearly mulling it over.
“Truly, I think your rails may help the future of our folk,” Chargrim added. “But others need to see it.”
“It has taken you long enough!” Hobblefoot answered.
Her father smiled.
“These things take consideration.”
“I do not know if we can convince all of them to support this expedition into the north.”
“Then they could support the rail from Glint to the north slope depot and so on above the Brown Hills. That route would be necessary to trade with Laith, even without the expedition.”
“That is true,” Hobblefoot said, nodding. “I will speak to them.”
Peridot repressed a smile. She had just witnessed her father turn Hobblefoot to his own use. Hobblefoot was relentless when it came to advocating for his engines, and now Chargrim had washed his hands of the need to seek the Owners’ investments.
“Has there been word of the Lowpleatpack train?” Hobblefoot asked.
“Not yet,” Chargrim answered. “I have heard neither good nor bad.”
“Perhaps they overwintered,” Hobblefoot said. Peridot had heard that same sentiment from others.
“We can hope,” Chargrim answered. It was a hope belied by the sternness of his expression.
The door opened, and dwarves entered carrying pitchers of drink and platters of dried meats.