Michael Pearce - Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman

Ynghilda leveled her rifle at him and in a quiet but penetrating voice said, “Drop the knife or I will end you.”

Again the exact words might have eluded them but her intent was crystal-clear. The dwarf holding the thwittle let it fall and released the girl, dropping into a cringe. The girl scrambled away and her crew closed ranks between her and her assailant.

Deandra realized her teeth were gritted in a savage grimace and her sax-knife was in her hand. She forced herself to relax and slid the blade back into its sheath. Ynghilda advanced on the cringing dwarf and stopped with the big gun's muzzle inches from his face.

“Squirrel! Translate,” she commanded, “Deandra, was this man on kitchen-duty today?”

Deandra stood up to her full height, crossed her arms and favored the dwarf with a cold stare before replying, “No. He was not. He was not given that knife.”

Spotting the empty sheath tied to the girl's belt she continued, “The girl however was. He apparently stole it.”

Deandra turned to the girl and nodded to Squirrel to make sure that he translated, “Tell her that she is not in trouble, but that she must tell Ynghilda what happened.”

An older woman stepped forward and said, “I boss crew. I say?”

“Yes,” Ynghilda told her.

The woman spoke quickly to Squirrel, who nodded. Turning to Deandra and Ynghilda he gestured to the cringing dwarf and explained, “This one, Breaks Rock, is boss. Girl is Rock-flower. Breaks Rock take her knife, she say no. He say he take her for ridta, teach her he is boss. Her crew try to stop. This is all.”

“I see,” said Ynghilda tightly, “and what is this… ridta ?”

“Is for making babies,” Squirrel responded matter-of-factly.

“I rather thought so,” Ynghilda said, “Ask Rock-flower if she wanted to have ridta with Breaks Rock.”

The girl shook her head violently as she said, “No no no!”

“Did she tell Breaks Rock that she did not want to have ridta with him?”

Squirrel asked her and she nodded, “She says she told him she did not want to.”

“And he tried to force her?” Ynghilda asked calmly. The girl nodded.

“I see,” said Ynghilda. Suddenly she spun the heavy rifle in her grip and smashed the butt into Breaks Rock's face hard enough to send him rolling across the floor. Stepping forward she jammed the muzzle into his groin.

“Translate this very carefully,” she told Squirrel, then raised her voice to continue, “We have a rule. No person may force another person to ridta . No boss, not anyone may force another to do this.”

She looked around, meeting the eyes of the gathered Braell as Squirrel translated.

“Breaks Rock did not know this, so I will not punish him this time but next time I will cut off his balls,” she said, jamming the rifle into his groin for emphasis, “and leave him outside for the wolves.”

She stepped back and pointed the rifle at the ceiling.

“Now you all know this rule. You have no excuses for breaking it. If you break this rule I will kill you. No more second chances. Do you understand?”

The Braell all nodded and voiced their agreement. Deandra stepped forward and said, “One more thing.”

She looked to Ynghilda, who nodded for her to continue.

“Breaks Rock is not a boss now. If he causes any trouble for you tell Ynghilda or me and we will deal with him,” she said, fingering the handle of her sax-knife. Reaching down she yanked the dwarf to his feet. He wasn't quite able to stand fully upright and he clutched at his bloodied face.

“Come on,” she told him roughly, “Let's go take care of that face.”

She half dragged him over to the kitchen. Aunt Gerdy was standing in the door, arms crossed with a cleaver in one hand. She glared at Breaks Rock but gave way. Thrusting him onto a stool Deandra gathered a bowl of hot water and a clean cloth. When he would not pull his hands away from his face, she cuffed him sharply and pulled them away herself to examine his injury. He had a serious gash on the side of his head, a broken cheek-bone and there was something wrong with his eye on that side.

“Please, Misses,” said Aunt Gerdy, “let us tend to him.”

She yielded her place. Aunt Gerdy and one of her kitchen girls bathed, stitched and bound his wound while she watched. The old woman did not offer him anything for the pain. When she finished she said, “That'll do then. You just tell him, from me- if he tries somethin' like that again he'd best just hope the Mistress gets to him before I do!”

The dwarf was escorted back out to the great hall to his bedroll, and Deandra went to report to Ynghilda.

“You did him up proper,” she told her, “It'll be weeks before he can forget tonight's lesson. He may lose the use of that eye too.”

Deandra found she was shaking slightly from reaction and when Ynghilda poured her a tiny cup of Uis-Ge she accepted it gratefully. She downed it quickly, feeling herself relax as the liquor burned her throat. After taking a moment to catch her breath she said, “This was in some measure our own fault; we should have made the rules plain to them first thing.”

“Well, that's one rule they’re not likely to forget soon,” responded Ynghilda grimly. “Tomorrow we'll lay down the law for them, and now that they have some sense of the consequences it'll more likely stick with 'em.”

Deandra had to agree with that. Sunlight did not put in an appearance to learn embroidery that night and she was just as glad. It had been a long, hard day.

“Well,” Engvyr said as he lowered the spyglass and handed it to Taarven, “I think it's safe to say that we found the main body of their forces.”

Taarven accepted the glass and took a long look through it. He gave a low whistle.

“Lord and Lady, I hope this is the main body of their forces!” he exclaimed.

They were at one of the lower summits in the area looking down into a broad river valley. Where the ground wasn't covered with tents it seethed with Baasgarta. Rather than the neat rows and columns of a dwarven army encampment the goblins favored round tents organized in circles. Not being used to their formations or unit organization Engvyr was having a hard time coming up with a decent count of their numbers. Somewhere between 'lots and lots' and 'oh Lord and Lady we're all gonna die,' he thought.

“It's hard to be sure at this distance,” Taarven said, “But I'm thinking in the neighborhood of fifty to seventy thousand?”

“That's a mighty big neighborhood,” Engvyr said, “And we have four regiments? Call it fifteen thousand effectives? That hardly seems fair…”

“Be reasonable, Engvyr. If we wait around for more of 'em to show up we could be here all winter!”

The Rangers shared an ironic look and eased back from their viewpoint. They were getting ready to work their way back down the mountain to their ponies when Engvyr realized Taarven had frozen, eyes wide and surprised.

“You've gotta be kidding me!” he exclaimed.

Engvyr followed his gaze to the cliff opposite them. There in the middle of an apparently sheer cliff stood an ulvgaed. Its rider was staring at them in shock that near-equaled their own.

“Bloody Maker-taken mountain goat mother…” Engvyr swore. The rider began to raise a horn to his lips as the ranger brought his long rifle to bear. WHACK!