Icevein: Chapter 24

Her father sent what few Ridge Wardens he could spare south to aid in hunting ürsi and to congratulate his brother, but more to demand an accurate account of the losses suffered at Sledge Rock. On the second day, Chargrim took Treadfoot, his walking-hammer, and hiked about with Thrushbeard and Crookleg to observe the flocks, the quality of the pastures going into winter, and the stores of forage. The goatherds were slaughtering the stock that would not be overwintered, and the smell of roasting goat and mutton filled the drifts of Glint. Chargrim returned on the afternoon of the third day, limping more than usual from the miles of walking.

Onyx sent Peridot to the Warehall to make an order for a variety of supplies, for even beneath the mountain stoneholds prepared for the coming snows, when trade was sparse. At the Warehall, she had heard the name “Icevein” more than once in conversation. His arrival at Glint, apparently of his own free will, was the subject of much debate. It had caused such a stir that the conversations did not pause for more than a few moments when she arrived. Peridot could have merely related her list to one of the Warehall kulhan and returned to the stonehold to await delivery, but she lingered until the kulhan confirmed they had everything desired. She knew they would, but she wanted to eavesdrop on the conversations. Everyone had a theory about why Icevein had come, but none of them made sense to Peridot. The wardens had taken him directly into custody, keeping him in one of the small alcove cells in the Warden Hall. She felt a great curiosity about the dwarf she had heard so much about.

Upon Peridot’s return, Onyx, Iolite, and she went down the Owner’s Drift to drink tea with Shineboot’s wif, Yarrow, and fawn over her latestgilke, passing him around while lauding his smell and downy cheeks. Even amidst such joy, their conversation turned to the arrival of Icevein at the gate.

“I will feel better with that outlaw dealt with,” Yarrow said.

“Is he really part troll?” asked Huffcoat, one of Shineboot’s sons, a gilke of ten years. He lowered his head as if Icevein might hear him.

“No, branna, and do not interrupt,” his mother answered. “He is not part troll. And he is safely under guard.” Yarrow turned to Onyx and the gilna. “I suppose Chargrim will have him executed sooner than later.”

“There will be an arbitration,” Onyx said.

Peridot looked at her mother in surprise. She had heard nothing of an arbitration.

“Why bother?” Yarrow asked.

“There has been no formal judgment,” Onyx answered, “not even in Deep Cut. Chargrim will not execute without a formal judgment, and that means arbitration.”

“How can anything be arbitrated?”

“It cannot, not at this point. Vengeance will come. But Icevein—” Peridot could tell from the way her mother said the name that she did not care for the moniker —“will get to speak for himself.”

“A formality.”

Peridot could sense the disagreement in Onyx’s shoulders and slight hesitation, but instead of disagreeing, her mother asked:

“Have you hung your lamb for winter?”

Though the conversation moved away from Icevein, Peridot continued to think about him even as she held the babe. Upon their arrival back to their own stonehold, Peridot filled a jug for her father, hurrying down the passage. As she hoped, she found Chargrim alone, a lit pipe of hill-smoke protruding from his beard.

“Father?” she said with a rising inflection that warned of a question.

“Would you like a game?” he asked, motioning to the stone.

“Ay, yes, but, I wanted to ask something else as well.”

“What is that?”

“If there is an arbitration, I would like to observe it.”

“Observe?”

“Ay, yes.”

“You will have to ask your mother.”

Peridot sighed.

“I was hoping that you would ask. If you asked, she would agree.”

Chargrim reached up and took the pipe from his mouth, sending long streams of smoke from his nostrils as he watched her.

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“You are very like me in some ways,” he said, “but you are like your mother in more ways than you realize. Ask your mother first.” He placed the pipe back into his mouth. “Thank you for the jug.”

Peridot recognized the dismissal and headed for the back toward the inner passage.

“Come back for a game after you ask,” he said. “I am tired and could use a diversion.”

Peridot paused. She had not fully intended to ask her mother. It didn’t seem likely that Onyx would allow such a thing. Her mother let little get in the way of work. Now, Peridot knew she must ask, or her father would know.

She wrestled with the task on the walk down the passage, but as she emerged into the stonehold, she made a decision; she would get it over with immediately and without over planning. Striding to the workshop, she found her mother and Iolite already back at their labors.

“Mother,” Peridot said, entering.

“Ay, yes?”

“I wish to be at the arbitration.”

Onyx set her crimpers down on the bench and turned to face Peridot.

“You do?”

“Ay, yes.”

“Why?”

“I. . . I wish to learn about it. I am interested.”

“I am glad,” Onyx said. “Glint’s hold on the Red Ridges is founded upon arbitration. Without it, all would fall apart. You will go to the trial along with me. Iolite will watch the young.”

Iolite nodded but did not raise her eyes from her meshwork of wire.

Peridot was surprised at the intensity of her mother’s agreement.

“Father asked me to return once I asked,” she said, avoiding mention of the game.

“You may go.” Onyx turned back to her own work, and Peridot tried to keep from rushing from the workshop.

Her father still sat as before, smoke trailing upward as he stared across the chamber. He stretched his bad leg in front of him under the table, sitting in an angle in his chair and leaning heavily on the chair arm. Peridot went to the cubby and retrieved the stone and ingots, setting them in the usual place on the table. She pulled a chair close and sat. After they had prepared the stone, Chargrim made the first move, and Peridot responded immediately.

She had hardly seen her father since the news of Sledgefist’s victory, and they had played few games for a time before that. The late fall and early winter were always stressful for him, she knew, when the ürsi raided and flocks and crops must be accounted for before the snows. Thousands of souls depended on her father. He might not be the one shepherding the flocks by day, or spinning the wool for clothes, or dipping the beeswax candles, or any of a thousand and one other tasks, but they all depended on him and his coterie of assistants regardless.

“Do you think that there really were ten thousand ürsi at Sledge Rock?” she asked.

“I fear it may be true.”

“Why do they come to the Ridges? Do we not slaughter enough of them?”

Chargrim looked up from the stone.

“Why do young dwarves go prospecting?”

“To gain wealth?”

“And why do they want to gain wealth?”

Peridot hesitated.

“To marry?”

Chargrim wagged his head from side to side, showing that she was partially correct.

“To build our stoneholds and our posterity,” he said. “We do it by making and mining. The ürsi do the same, but by hunting. Ürsi females are fiercer and larger than the males. The hunters who bring meat back to the dens are the ones who mate. They will die by their thousands for the chance.”

Peridot felt uncomfortable discussing such a topic, even though she was close to her rhundal and could conceivably marry after. She moved an ingot to the side.

“For every one we kill,” her father said, countering her move, “two more slip back to the plains with meat. We cannot be everywhere, and they are fast kulkur.”

“Even with the ridgeforts, we cannot stop them?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know how many miles long the Gold River is?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“From its headwaters to the plains, it is one hundred and thirty miles, counting its turn eastward. From the Waste to the Plains is ninety miles, as the crow flies, and what we call the Ridges are almost three hundred miles long. How many square miles is that?”

“Twenty-seven thousand.”

“Good. Much is still not prospected, to say little of claimed, and the hunting is good. There is little we can do, apart from trying to protect our flocks and the claims along the river. That is why I do not care much for heroics.”

Peridot had never heard her father speak like this to anyone—it was not so much a note of defeat, as of resignation.

“If they simply wish to hunt, then why attack Sledge Rock? There are other passes.”

“Sledge Rock is built upon an old hunting trail to the plain that follows the river, the biggest of the trails.”

“So, habit?”

Chargrim appeared to remember his pipe. It had burnt out, and the game and the conversation both stopped as he repacked and re-lit it. At length, he blew out a new stream of smoke.

“Not habit,” he said at last. “It is hatred, I fear.”

“One-Ear?”

He nodded and moved an ingot through the center. She stared at the stone, realizing she had lost—or she would, in two turns, anyway. It had not been her finest game. In truth, she was more interested in asking questions than in playing right now.

“Have you seen Icevein?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“He murdered awarden.I am a bit more than curious.”

“But you haven’t gone to see him?”

“He is a prisoner. I am the Irik-Rhûl. Let him wait.”

“Why?”

“I will not be seen to dote on his presence.”

“So he is a prisoner to you, and you are a prisoner to your own image,” Peridot said, and instantly regretted it. Her father squinted with surprise, then laughed. Leaning back in his chair, he drew on his pipe and laughed again, smoke spewing from his nose and mouth.

“My dear, it is image , as you call it, that keeps us alive. The kulhan of this claim serve the idea of the Irik-Rhûl, Chargrim be burned.”

“They made Chargrim Irik-Rhûl for a reason,” she answered.

“You are growing bolder. That is good. But consider your words. They made Chargrim Irik-Rhûl, you say. They took a dwarf and hid him within an idea because they needed the idea. But is there anything made that cannot be broken?”

Peridot had never thought of it like that before. Her father must have seen it on her face, because he smiled again.

“There,” he said quietly. “There it is.”