books44 Icevein: Chapter 6
Icevein: Chapter 6
Peridot’s arm started to shake. The five gauge slot was difficult to pull the gold through even when she hadn’t been making wire for ten hours, but now she wasn’t sure she could succeed. Hobblefoot had contrived an ingenious clamp that would affix to the end of the wire by means of three small screws. Once a starting length was drawn through the template, the wire could be drawn by use of a winch and a series of gears. However, once below a gauge of seven, the clamp had difficulty retaining its grip on the fine wire, and it again became necessary to draw the wire by hand.Gold was among the easiest metals to draw into wire, but it required a steady pressure. Too fast or abrupt, and the wire could snap, but too little and the wire could stop moving, creating a potential break point at the template. It was a delicate process, yet once the body knew how to sense the tensions and feel the wire as it drew through the narrow gauging hole, it was also a mindless job. Peridot tried to keep her thoughts occupied, but after many hours, she wanted to scream.
The wire snapped.
“Shit on it.”
“Peridot!”
“Sorry mother.”
Peridot glanced at Iolite, but her sister was looking at the broken wire and not at her.
“Too much tension,” Iolite said.
Peridot frowned.
“She’s right,” Onyx added.
“Ay yes, mother.”
“Put it in the scraps and I want another full length,” Onyx said. “What is it, Firelip?”
Peridot looked to the door. Her gilke brother was peeking around the corner.
“A warden has come to the hold,” Firelip said, staring into the workshop.
“And?” Onyx asked.
“He wants Peridot,” Firelip said, and pointed at her.
“The warden wants Peridot?”
“No. Father wants Peridot.”
Now it was Onyx who frowned.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Their mother stared at Firelip, and Peridot feared she would try to refuse or resist. Onyx turned to Peridot at last.
“Go on,” she said.
Peridot pressed her lips together, lowered her head, and rose. She kept herself to a slow walk until she was through the workshop door and into the hall, then she hurried to her closet, put on a veil and a shawl—she didn’t know what errand her father might have for her—and took the narrow passage to the back of her father’s chamber. She wore soft slippers of rabbit fur, and her passage made little noise, but still her father greeted her without turning.
“, daughter.”
“, father.” It was an informal hello, more sound than meaning.
Chargrim sat at his table, and as Peridot passed around to the far side, she saw his eyes were closed, his head leaning forward as he pinched the bridge of his nose with the fingers of his left hand. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes. They looked red and heavy.
A mine runner sat up from where it had been sleeping curled up on his lap. It looked at Peridot languidly and then hissed.
“This one reminds me most of Striper,” her father said.
“But Striper was striped. This is a gray.”
“I am aware,” he said, the corners of his mouth curling in amusement. He stroked the cat’s dark fur. “I do not mean her coat. She loves comfort, but is fickle with her affections, resourceful. . .” Even as he spoke, the cat splayed her claws and snagged the skin of his forearm. “And vicious above all,” he added, pulling his hand away.
Peridot thought, but she said:
“A winning personality.”
“Let’s play.” Chargrim motioned to the Ingots stone that sat at his elbow.
Peridot tilted her head, confused.
“You want to play?”
“Ay yes, sit. Or are you upset I saved you from drawing wire?”
Peridot pulled a chair forward and sat across from him as he squared the stone.
“Only a few more years until ,” he said. “I have agreed to let your mother have you until then.”
Peridot knew that she was essentially her mother’s assistant—along with Iolite—but she hadn’t heard either of her parents speak of a formal arrangement. It was not unusual for daughters to serve at the behest of the mother until . “After rhundal. . .” Chargrim trailed off, looking down at the stone. It was Peridot’s turn to take the first move, and she advanced an ingot, rather than stacking.
“You look tired,” she said, and then questioned if that was an appropriate thing to say to her father. But then, it was not a usual thing for her father to summon her from the workshop for a game of Ingots.
“Always.”
“More than usual, I mean.”
Chargrim rubbed his eyes with both hands.
“These ledgers are a mess.” He nodded at a pile of leather-bound books lying beside the Ingots stone. Peridot pulled one close. Chargrim said nothing but advanced one of his ingots. Peridot stacked a mimek on a kulhan and then opened the ledger, glancing at the first page. Onyx and Chargrim ensured that all of their gilna and gilke could read and write speaking runes and do sums, as well as recognize cave runes. They learned all this in addition to a basic education in mining and metalworking. Peridot’s brother Coaleye was with Shineboot even now, learning the workings of a stope.
“Oh,” she said, looking over the runes. “Are these?”
“Your uncle’s accounts,” Chargrim said, advancing another single ingot. “His records are always a mess. Doubly this year. There are two separate lists of dead and wounded, neither dated, with some names repeated, some on one and not the other. . . To say nothing of supplies.”
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“I thought you sent him a clerk?” She tried a misdirection on the stone.
“I did.” He made another counter. “Your uncle dismissed him.” He stood up and retrieved a paper from a cubby in the stone wall. Returning, he slid it over to her. The letter was dated on the reverse side to the previous fall, but there was no greeting or formality to it.
rsi
Peridot tried to hide her surprise at the way her uncle wrote to Chargrim, the She also didn’t know her uncle could write speaking runes.
“Is this Uncle’s hand?”
“No, and it certainly isn’t Oathquill’s. I suppose it is Pyrope’s.”
Peridot hadn’t realized her aunt-by-marriage could write, either, but then Pyrope was from a wealthy enough hold. Her uncle’s wealth had ensured that.Onyx and Pyrope could hardly stand to be in each other’s presence.
“They shouldn’t write to you thus.”
Her father smiled and waved away the comment.
“He my brother,” he said. “I’m more concerned with whether he’s truly so dense as to think the cost of supplying Sledge Rock is a matter of There are over two hundred souls there, now, counting the Ridge Wardens. I don’t know how many, because I can’t get blasted accounts. Your uncle’s idea of war is to charge the foe and worry about breakfast later.” Despite his clear frustration, Chargrim grinned at this last statement.
During this exchange, they had continued their game, and Peridot noticed that during this last diatribe, her father had moved the wrong ingot—at least, she thought it a poor choice, unless she misunderstood his strategy. She would have moved one hollow to the right. Chargrim squinted down at the stone, grunted, then looked away. She was right. He blundered. She moved a stack to the right.
“Why are trying to sort out his figures?” she asked, half out of interest and half to keep him distracted. “Why not have some of your clerks do it?”
“There’s hardly enough there to make sense of. Besides, I pay them to write the columns and do sums, not to make decisions, and if I don’t know what is written, how can I make decisions?”
She didn’t know how to answer that, but now she saw another opening and advanced. Chargrim frowned down at the stone for a few moments, then smiled. He moved a stack backward and Peridot saw her defeat in one flash.
“Oh,” she said, her shoulders dropping.
“It’s alright,” her father said, turning the stone around. “We’ll play again.”
Loafhide
Loafhide’s brother, Bronzemug.
And their cousin Tornheft.
The last of the Highlode hold.
They were out there, somewhere in the Red Ridges. Gretti was so close. Close to them and close to the end.
It was a cool evening, considering it was summertime; the pass was still high in the ridges. The sun had sunk only an hour before, and the stars shone in a clear sky. He alternated flexing his calves while sucking on a roasted chicory root to stay alert. There was nothing in the pass, and there likely wouldn’t be, but the rinlen still made sure the guards were alert. Gretti wasn’t afraid of his cadre’s rinlen, but trouble was irritating.
For the first months at Sledge Rock, it was alright. Gretti needed food, shelter, and time to rest, so he had accepted the offer to carry the crest of the Stone Fist and Hammer. He’d hardly stopped his dogged pursuit for years, but now that he had recovered and added back a stone of weight, he found the duties interminable. Standing watch in the pass, going on patrols in the valleys, it might have been less aggravating in the fall and winter when the ürsi raided, but in the height of summer, it only served to strand him with his memories for hours upon hours. Even the patrol he had accompanied east of the gap encountered nothing but old campsites and bones down along the edge of the coastal plain.
The mine runner started purring behind Gretti’s head, sitting upon the rock. In the stillness of the night, it was loud. The little beast reached out a paw, as if it would step upon Gretti’s shoulder, but he moved away. The mine runner was tied to a peg in the rock by a leash, and Gretti would take it back beneath the stone with him when the watch was over. He had a hard time believing the little brutes could alert them to approaching ürsi, but the others swore by it.
Sledgefist drove the Hammers fiercely in training. Even in the weakened condition in which he’d arrived at Sledge Rock, Gretti was hard and strong, but he had never truly learned the finer points of fighting, and certainly never how to fight as a member of a cadre. Sledgefist had a master of arms from Deep Cut who had served in the Deep Cut Guard, and they spent as much time drilling as they did standing guard.
There was one duty that Gretti found useful, though; as often as he could, whether through request or trade, he would stand watch at the adit or down along the trader’s road in the rivervalley. Anyone heading between East Spire and Glint passed through the valley, and they often stopped at Sledge Rock for shelter or trade. As one of the Hammers, travelers were more inclined to answer his questions, though he had to be careful. The other Hammers might grow suspicious if he asked about the Highlodes by name.
Loafhide, Bronzemug, Tornheft. He didn’t know what Bronzemug looked like, but he had seen Loafhide before. It was only a glimpse many years ago, but he felt a strange assurance he would know him. He had never seen those two Highlode cousins he’d stumbled upon in the winter, and yet they now waited tables in disgrace among their forebeards. Tornheft he would know in an instant. He would know him, and he would slay him.
Gretti blinked. He had to remember to blink to keep his eyes from growing blurry. He bit down hard, crunching the chicory root between his molars.
Gretti jerked his head up. The stars still shone. He was still standing, but he had wandered far down the drift of his own memories. The pass was empty. The Mine Runner had climbed onto his shoulder and sat purring against his neck. No rinlen had come prowling about, and somewhere out there, three Highlodes remained. He shrugged and the beast leapt back onto the stone.