Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 19 of 20

Gray came back from the mine with an empty bucket. His face was pale, his knuckles scraped. "They're back," he said. "Goblins. All through the low passage. I couldn't get near the seams." Borin set down his hammer. The boy had been mining his own ore for weeks, learning without fear of wasting Finn's iron. Now the mine was closed to him again. Without fresh ore, the boy went back to flinching at every ruined bar. "Show me," Borin said. They walked to the leaning timber mouth together. Cold air breathed out of the black passage. Borin listened. He heard the clatter of small feet on stone, then a shrill chatter deeper in. Too many for one dwarf and a boy with scraped hands. Fighting through would cost blood, and Aelindor was gone with his map, no hero left to clear the way. Borin studied the ground instead. He remembered the air shaft where he'd hauled the elf up. A second way in. "Goblins guard the front," he said. "They won't watch a hole in the roof." Gray frowned. "The seams by the shaft are the richest. Aelindor said so." "Then we go down the shaft." Borin fetched rope and two picks. He anchored the line to a stone spur far from the frayed root that had failed before. He tested it three times, hauling his full weight against it. It held. He went first, down into the dark, boots braced on the shaft wall. Gray followed. They reached the bottom silent. The rich seams glinted in the lantern light, gold threads in gray rock. The goblin chatter stayed far off at the front passage. The little beasts never turned toward the roof. "Quiet now," Borin whispered. "We cut and we climb. No fighting." Gray swung his pick. Ore broke loose. He caught himself before it clattered, then grinned. He worked fast and clean, filling the bucket the way Borin had taught him. Sweat ran down the boy's face. His scraped hands did not shake. He was not thinking of wasted iron now. He was stealing metal from under the noses of the enemy. They filled the bucket twice. Borin tied it to the rope and hauled it up first. Then the boy climbed, then the dwarf, arms burning. They rolled onto the stone at the top with two loads of raw ore between them. Gray laughed, breathless. "We beat them." "We went around them," Borin said. "Same thing, some days." He looked at the ore. Enough for weeks of practice. But the shaft trip was slow and dangerous, and the goblins would breed and spread. The front would never open on its own. Sooner or later the boy would need a steady supply, not a stolen one. Borin could not go down that rope forever. And he had meant to leave town. Now the mine was one more reason to stay.