Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman

“Well, this time is different, you mark my words! This time next year they'll be paving that trail with gold bricks.”

His father shrugged noncommittally.

“We're just headed back home to join our Clan.”

After the dwarf dropped back down the trail his father spoke quietly without looking at Engvyr.

“You saw?”

“That I did,” Engvyr replied in the same low tone. “He bears watching, that one.”

“That he does son, him and his friends too.”

They were near the front of the pack-train when disaster struck. Engvyr's aunt and the twins were walking by the ox just ahead of him. His father was with the two oxen behind him with his mother and the train's Guide bringing up the rear.

The train had become strung out as they climbed a narrow trail along the face of a rocky slope. The loose group of miners and roustabouts were ahead of them and the next family was a good hundred paces behind them. Just far enough back to save their lives.

Engvyr had his eyes on the ground in front his feet when a rumble started high above.

“Avalanche!” his father bellowed, ducking tight against the slope. He did the same, looking past his father, head tucked down between his shoulders against a sudden hail of small rocks. The Guide lunged forward, gathering Engvyr's mother in his arms to pin them against the slope just as a huge boulder bounded onto the trail, wiping it away. In an instant the Guide, his mother and two oxen vanished as if they had never been.

He lunged upward with a scream of shock and protest and a bounding rock struck him on the side of the head. There was a burst of light and then darkness.

A voice woke him some time later, and an inarticulate protest from his father. He blinked his eyes open as he made sense of the words.

“You're done for, hob. You'll not be needing this here shoulder-gun again.”

His father lay half-conscious, his face bloodied and his body slack. The rough looking dwarf from earlier had the Big 14 gripped in one hand. He gave it a savage jerk, trying to free the sling and his father gave a short shriek of pain. Engvyr's head reeled and his vision kept going in and out of focus. A feminine cry of distress caused him to roll over and look towards his aunt.

One of the twins lay unmoving. A dwarf held his struggling aunt's arms while another tore at the fastenings of her Great Cote. The second twin launched herself onto him, pummeling him with her fists and began screaming at him to leave her mother alone. He backhanded the child to get her off him and to Engvyr's horror the force of the blow caused her to stagger across the trail. She teetered on the precipice for a moment before she vanished over the edge with a terrified shriek. Everyone froze for a moment in shock.

With a bellow of rage Engvyr rolled up onto one knee and without thinking leveled The Hammer and shot the dwarf that had struck her through the skull. There was a shocked exclamation from behind him.

Unlike his father's gun The Hammer was a repeater. The piston was cocked by the stroke of a long lever, and as the lever was returned to rest a mechanism loaded another 36-bore ball from the tubular magazine that lay alongside the barrel. With muscles developed mucking out ore in the deep mine and fueled by rage he braced the butt against his hip and savagely stroked the charging lever as he rose to his feet and turned.

The dwarf trying to wrest the Big 14 from his father released his grip on the gun and spread his hands. Engvyr gestured with The Hammer for the man to move past him and up the trail. He crowded back against the slope as the dwarf, hands extended placatingly, edged past him.

“Easy there, boy- you don't want to shoot me…”

Engvyr looked him dead in the eye over the sights and replied, “I beg to differ. Try anything at all and I will end you.”

The miner looked into the boy's eyes and did what he was told, joining the dwarf that had just released his Aunt. She crawled away as their friends came back along the trail to join them.

“Don't be stupid, boy!” one of them said, “there's five a'us and you got one shot before we'll be on you.”

Engvyr shrugged.

“At this range I'll kill one of you for sure,” he said, shifting his aim slightly, “You volunteering?”

“I'll do for another,” a voice said weakly from behind him. He saw their eyes shift and knew that his father had managed to level the Big 14 at them as well.

“Best you all cut your losses and get yourselves gone,” Engvyr told them.

They looked at each other and stood uncertainly. They were not really a group, and it was as individuals that they acted now. Not one among them wanted to be the first to back down but they didn't like their personal odds.

“Bugger this!” one of them finally said, “Let the mountains kill them.”

With venomous glances at the boy and his father they moved up the trail and out of sight. He could hear them as they gathered the remaining oxen and moved off into the distance leaving them alone. Alone… without food, shelter or supplies.

Chapter Five