Chương 294: Chapter 89: Tuskers of The Deep

Seighard cleared me to touch a Copper hammer three mornings after the Kóboldaire fight. She did not clear my wrists because they had healed. She cleared them because the swelling had reduced, I could close both hands without shaking, and Eisenhammer had become more dangerous sitting unused than tested under supervision. The Eisenfeld yard hammer was Copper (early), square-faced, and reinforced beneath the socket.

Its head carried dents from older training sessions, each one shallow enough to show that the hammer had survived the error better than the person holding it. Seighard stood opposite me in the lower training yard with her round shield across her back and her pale braid tied high. Halden waited beside the rail fence with a slate beneath one arm. Talia sat on a cart bench against the sun-warmed wall, her ribs still wrapped beneath her shirt.

That morning, before we left the lodging room, I had accidentally seen three old scars crossing Talia's shoulder while she changed the binding. They began near the base of her neck and curved towards the shoulder blade, evenly spaced and deep enough that whatever made them had opened more than skin. She caught my movement in the washbasin's polished edge.

"If you die before I finish dressing," she said around the brush held between her teeth, "I will assume it was deliberate avoidance." Then she returned to the binding and gave me no useful place to put the question. Seighard pointed towards the reinforced training post.

"Stance." I set my feet and lifted the hammer.

"Wider." I moved the left foot.

"A sword begins at the hand," she said.

"A hammer begins at the floor." The first strike landed high. The head bit the timber, caught an old fastening beneath the surface, and rebounded through my wrists into the healing tear along my side. I lowered the hammer before the pain could loosen it. Seighard took the haft from me. She placed her feet, turned through the hips, and struck once without speed. The post shook. Her shoulders barely moved.

"Your arm is carrying the head," she said.

"The floor should carry it. The arm only decides where the mistake lands." Talia adjusted one elbow against her ribs.

"Cael does prefer visible mistakes."

"Thank you."

"I am supporting your education." Seighard returned the hammer.

"Again." The second strike travelled better. My knees took the recoil, and the head met the buried fastening with a short metallic note. Chink. I reset and struck again. Chink. The impact stayed blunt and narrow, unlike an axe opening timber or a pick driving through stone. The hammer did not need to enter the material. It needed to change the shape beneath it. Halden made a quiet sound behind the fence.

"What?" I asked.

"Your stance has become less indefensible."

"That sounded almost kind."

"Then you misunderstood it." The knock came through the ground before I could answer. The training rack trembled. Loose chain links against the fence struck one another, and the yard hammer cooled in my hands as the pressure travelled from the mine mouths beneath the licence rise. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Talia stood too quickly. Her hand went to the binding when the movement caught beneath her ribs. Seighard turned towards the lower tunnels.

For one breath, nothing followed. Carts still moved at the upper rails, clerks continued carrying slates between the offices, and the yard tried to resume around the sound. Then animals began screaming below. The noise rose through the mine mouths in layers: deep grunts, shrill squeals, chain scrape, tusks striking metal, and the heavy beat of many bodies moving through confined stone. Kord Wessel stood at the lower entry with one hand on the licence barrier.

He reached for the warning striker as the first creature burst into daylight. It was shaped broadly like a boar, but taller through the shoulder and heavy enough that its first step outside cracked the packed yard mud. Dark bristles lay slick against its body. Copper plates had been strapped over the skull and cheeks, joined by leather bands, mail fragments, bent lamp brackets, and small stamped tags. Metal capped both tusks. A snapped tether dragged behind it, throwing sparks against the stone threshold.

"Deep Tusker!" Seighard shouted.

"Bar the lane." The Tusker struck Kord's barrier before he cleared it. Timber split, and Kord went down behind the lower rail. The beast turned towards the open yard road. Talia crossed the space from the bench in three uneven steps. Her blade left the sheath, cut through the leather guard over the Tusker's left eye, and returned before the animal could turn its tusks towards her. The Tusker screamed and drove sideways into a stack of empty ore bins. Talia stopped with one hand pressed to her ribs.

Fresh red had begun spreading beneath her shirt.

"Behind the stone rail," Seighard ordered.

"The road is open."

"You have reopened your wound."

"A temporary disagreement." Seighard pointed once. Talia looked at the mine mouth, judged the next shapes gathering inside it, and retreated behind the reinforced rail without sheathing her sword. Kord rolled clear of the broken barrier and struck the repeated-yard alarm. Six more Tuskers emerged before the first signal finished. Then another group crowded behind them, shoulder plates striking tunnel walls and mismatched harness rings clattering against tusk caps. One wore a Kóboldar tool satchel against its flank.

Another carried an empty lantern housing beside one ear. Copper tags swung from neck straps, and small worked plates had been fitted across shoulders and joints. None of it matched, but none of it had attached itself. The animals had been handled below. The herd widened as it entered the yard. The leading bodies struck weighing stands, cart stops, and sorting bins, while those behind continued forcing forward through the mine mouths. Harness plates flashed in the morning light as the Tuskers collided and separated.

Brecht Valdais appeared beside the haul line and began redirecting the loaded carts across the road.

"Lock the upper wheels. Empty trays forward. Leave the ore where it is." Mörk Kessler brought an unladen cart sideways across the centre lane, set both brakes, and wrapped the chain around a stone ring. Workers closed beside him with hooked poles and yard spears, using the cart as the first barrier between the herd and Eisenfeld proper. A smaller Tusker struck the tray and rolled beneath the bodies following it. The cart shifted half a foot before the chain caught.

"Second brake," Mörk said. Brecht drove the locking pin through the rear wheel. More Tuskers filled the entrance. Fifty might already have reached the yard, though the moving harnesses made counting useless. They were not spreading to attack the workers. Every body drove towards the upper road, even when barriers forced them through narrower and more dangerous gaps. Talia watched from behind the stone rail.

"They are not charging us." A Tusker hit the centre cart hard enough to bend the tray edge. Mörk kept both hands on the brake lever while the workers beside him turned its head with hooks.

"They are fleeing," Talia said. The next herd scream rose from inside the tunnels, followed by another distant impact beneath it. Seighard looked into the mine mouth. Her hand tightened around the hammer at her belt.

"Close the left entrance," she said. Halden looked towards the repair stock stacked beside the cart lane.

"With what?"

"The brace beams."

"Those are measured for the lower galleries."

"Then measure the town after the herd reaches it." Halden was already moving. I returned the Copper hammer to the training rack, took the Iron yard axe issued for brace work, and followed him towards the timber stack. The beams had been laid on a sloped cradle, held by a side pin, wedge rope, and two lower stops. Released correctly, the forward half would fall across the left mine mouth. Released badly, the whole stack would collapse into the fence and leave the entrance open.

Halden reached the cradle and put one hand against the lowest beam.

"The forward pin. Do not touch the rear wedge." Hunter's Eye separated the lines of movement. Timber pressure sat through the stack in a shape Ironwood Strike understood immediately: swollen grain around the forward pin, tension held by the lower rope, and enough downhill weight behind both to break the cradle once the correct point failed. A Tusker broke away from the main herd and came towards us. Halden picked up a measuring pole and struck it across the plated snout.

The blow did no damage, but it turned the animal's head long enough for me to set the axe.

"Pin," he said. Ironwood Strike gathered through the fitted edge. The ability was already Iron (late), and the dense bracewood no longer felt like an ordinary cut. I needed to pass through the swollen grain without driving into the load behind it. I swung once. The axe entered the strain line, opened the pin, and stopped before the edge reached the supporting beam. The Tusker turned back towards Halden. I kicked the split pin free. The lower rope snapped tight.

Timber shifted inside the stack with a deep wooden groan. Behind us, another wave filled the left mine mouth. The first brace beam began to fall.