Digging a Hole

The thing that finally appeared from further down the cave was a demon, this much Maedwynn knew. It seemed to emit a soft red light all around it as it strode toward them, and each footfall was heavy enough that Maedwynn felt it in her bones. It was three dwarves high and three wide, and it was staring down at them with something beyond, but reminiscent of, contempt. It had a head like the blade of a shovel, with a broad, flat growth of bone extending up from its forehead.

It definitely occurred to Maedwynn to ask dumb questions like

What the fuck is that

or

What do I do

. She lacked experience fighting demons like Vanwynn had, or like any dwarf who'd spent time in the Long Belt, but she'd been fighting for her whole life. She was a born fighter.

"Watch its arm," Van yelled, as she circled away.

Van's shield was some kind of turret, and Van herself seemed to be favoring a shotgun-first approach, which meant it was up to her to keep the thing's attention. And it had an arm like a jackhammer. She hadn't even noticed, until it was nearly on top of her, that its right arm was almost long enough to drag as it lumbered closer. There was a fist at the end of it, but she doubted it had much dexterity.

And then, before she'd had a chance to set her feet, the thing lurched. It reared back, bringing its bloated tree-trunk-of-an-limb down with thunderous force. Maedwynn rolled to the side, barely getting out of the way, and was running as soon as she was back on her feet. The turret fired off a handful of shots, with the last one making the demon's head tick slightly, like a broken second hand on a clock. It swung its great head to the side, and when it opened its mouth the sound that came out was like the roar of a great engine. The turret fired off another burst that deflected uselessly off the armor plating.

Maedwynn knew she needed to keep its attention. It took one step past her toward the turret before she brought her hammer around into the back of its leg. She wasn't sure if she hit the knee, or if the thing had knees, but the leg buckled all the same. It roared again, an awful cacophony of compression and valves. When it opened its mouth to vent its rage, the fumes made the air hazy.

And then, before any of that rage could be turned back toward her, Maedwynn caught sight of Van flying through the air. The demon saw her coming too, but its bulky arms were not built for snatching diving dwarves out of mid-air. Runes up and down the length of the barrels of Van's shotgun were a searing kind of red, bordering on white.

Whatever it was Van was packing for ammunition had a hell of a lot more impact. Her arc through the air had her passing within arms reach of the demon's face, and when she unloaded she sent the massive thing toppling backwards while she herself seemed to ricochet off of nothing, blasted backwards, landing hard on her shoulder and rolling until she hit the wall. Maedwynn wasted no time, leaping up onto its arm and chest. Its face was a ruined mess, only one eye able to focus on her as she scampered closer, hammer already raised.

It took about five swings before it stopped moving.

"You're gonna wanna wipe that sludge off," Van said, getting to her feet. "It'll etch the metal."

"Wha' tha fuck was..." Maedwynn was breathing heavy, much heavier than she would have liked. She spread out her grip, one hand near the butt end of the haft and the other just beneath the head, and let the fear and adrenaline work their way through her system. "Was that a Glorborgn?"

"That?" Van said, voice rich with disbelief. "No. Trust me. When we come up against a Glorborgn, you'll know it." She got to her feet and held her gun out in front of herself, carefully inspecting both sides. "Not that you need me to tell you this, but you did that fucking perfectly. This shotgun is pretty useless against borers unless I can hit the soft tissue in the face. All it has to do is scrunch up"-- Van squeezed her eyes and lips shut, looking like she'd just bitten something sour--"to stop me from doing anything, but you pissed it off at just the right moment."

"Issat wha' Ah did?" Maedwyn said, smirking, as she used palmfuls of durt to absorb and brush off the viscera from her hammerhead. "Got it all warmed up fer ye?"

"Which put him on the ground..." Van licked her thumb, and rubbed meticulously at the front end of the barrel. "...where you could finish the job." She pumped the forestock down and back, making a satisfying

click-clack

, and the runes blazed to life. "Yeeeah. Alright!"

"Wha've ye got on there?"

"On here?" For a moment, Van seemed unprepared. "On my shotgun? It's... it's just some runes. I think it's like a brimstone kind of thing. Most demons are immune to, like, the chemical reaction of fire, and this is a special kind that hurts 'em."

Van was being weird.

"Where'd ye get it?"

Van hefted her shotgun. "I think I bought this back in--"

"The runes," Maedwynn said, cutting in. When Van didn't immediately answer, a couple of puzzle pieces snapped into place. "You had

Keileigh

do it."

"I didn't say that," Van said, her eyes wide.

"You taugh' e human our runes? Di' Old Van know abou' this?"

"Look," Van said, kicking a pedal on the back of her turret to flip the gun back behind it again. "It's not a big deal."

"

So 'e didn' know abou' it!

"

"He liked her, but he didn't know her for very long." She dropped her shotgun over her shoulder, and the cavern filled with the vibrative

whmmp

of the rig catching its target. "But you know how she is! If it wasn't me teachin' her, she was just gonna go learn it somewhere else and get it wrong. Look. Look here." She drew her shotgun again, and held out in front of her as she crossed the distance toward Maedwynn. "Look at this taper."

Maedwynn leaned in, closely inspecting the runework.

"Who does this taper on the accent remind you of?"

"Issat..."

"

Mom,

" they said, in unison, though Maedwynn said it questioningly and Vanwynn more assertively.

"

Keileigh did tha'?

"

"I know it's a fraught subject, especially with Scalar, but..." Van trailed off, looking frustrated, and shrugged as she swung the shotgun back over her shoulder.

Maedwynn held up her hands in surrender. "No, Ah won' question ye. Ye have my suppor'."

Van's eyes went big. "Really?"

"We're in charge, righ'? If we say tha's 'ow i' is, then tha's 'ow it is."

"That's how it is," Van said, nodding.

"Ah'll back ye."

This earned her a big, goofy grin in return. "Alright."

"Alrigh'."

***

The rest of the expedition was quieter. The sector one asteroid Maedwynn had picked out proved to be an excellent mix of accessible, owing to its position near the outer edge of the belt, and profitable. They'd only had to lick a few rocks to get excited about the dremite and terramite ores that were right at the surface level. Van was particularly annoyed, having been to the same asteroid with Old Vanwynn once before without reaching any kind of assessment, but seemed mostly positive that changes were happening now that Maedwynn was there too.

True to her word, Vanwynn stopped pestering Maedwynn about her accent, and the rest of the trip was just about the most fun Van and Mad had ever had together, just the two of them, without getting into a fight. There were a few more demons, none of them with the scale or the aura of the Scorching Borer, which was apparently how it went. The big demons had a way of infecting their surroundings, making everything worse by proximity.

Warping reality,

Van had put it.

Van called for a team, and their shuttle was landing by the time Van and Mad made their way back to the entry to the cave. Mad took their two scouts to show them the traces they'd found while Van talked the other three through setting up lean-to accommodations using the shuttle's power supply. How to ensure the shuttle could still take off if it needed to, without slowing them down in an emergency.

There was something profoundly horrific about Van's expertise in setting up temporary, rapid-egress living quarters, but Maedwynn didn't think any of these older maern were hearing this information for the first time. They were all business. By the time Van had finished her speech, the two scouts had established their perimeter and were organizing some defensive measures.

"'ow many bodies d'we 'ave out here?"

"Up ahead?" Van said, as she piloted them back toward Deepwatch Station, "or in the Belt?"

"In the Belt." Mad shifted how she was sitting irritably. "'ow many se'lments like 'at can we 'ave at once?"

Van shook her head. "Grundhill would know better. I think, at any given time, we've got, maybe... ten teams like that? They set up, mine what's easy to get at the surface, make an assessment of the deeper veins, and then go back to Deepwatch."

"And what if the deep veins are good?"

"There's a few bigger crews that move slower, to the most promising sites. They'll have better facilities, better equipment, and the whole crew hops from rock to rock. Some of them can crack a rock like that down the middle."

"That's what we need more of."

"And for that," Van said, "we need creds. We need to be able to pay maern and wea to come back here. We need double the head count. Triple."

"Where'r we gonna find that kinda folk?"

"That's Grundhill's job," Van said, with a slow smile. "Let him deal with the numbers. He's good at that."

"While you an' Ah crack skulls."

"Yer Gods-damned right," Van said, reaching over to pound her knuckles against Maedwynn's.

***

The shuttle ride had taken five hours. By the time they'd gotten back to Deepwatch, Maedwynn was asleep on her feet. Van got her to her new quarters, which were more nicely appointed than Maedwynn was used to, and that had been the end of her night. When she slept, she dreamed of being chased, of nameless horrors, and of the book. She was sure she'd seen it before, with its gold leaf edging on the paper, the precious stones inlaid into the cover, and the thick, gold and brown binding. She couldn't place it, but it showed up in her dream over and over and over again.

In the hands of Keileigh.

Who was here. Runes like those on Van's shotgun need to be refreshed, and often.

Maedwynn bolted upright from her bunk, and forgot where she was for a moment. Her quarters were, essentially, one large room, like the efficiency she and Adam had shared on nearly every planet they'd ever lived in, but this one was large enough to fit any two of her previous living quarters. It was spacious, and that was freaking her out.

She was the kind of awake that was a little too worked up, too amped, to go right back to sleep, but also still quite sleepy. She needed something to help kill a little time while her brain settled back down. She picked up her hammer and started walking, carefully scrutinizing the face of the head where the demonic viscera had been thickest. There was some surface oxidization, which she could likely fix by getting it hot and giving it one good level strike to an anvil, but she didn't know where any of the facilities were on Deepwatch.

Surely,

she thought,

even space stations would have a good forge if it was built by dwarves, right?

As she wandered around, she started to feel self-conscious. She could ask

literally any

of the dwarves she was passing in the passageways. They were sworn to her family, which made them more or less bound to her bidding. She could ask them to do push-ups until they passed out while she lounged on a bench enjoying the view. She could set up shop in the bar she'd passed two levels up, and drink for three days (again) without worrying about the cost. She could get anything she wanted, within reason, and it nauseated her to even think about it.

It was weird to be

somebody

, for the first time in her life, at the tender age of two hundred and eighty-four, and she could only think of one person she could talk to about that.

No part of this plan

seemed like a bad idea until she was at her sister's bulkhead door, with her fist raised to knock, hearing the sound of Van and some maern inside.

Fucking. A rhythmic thumping, and a groaning that got louder right on the beat. It was unmistakable.

Maedwynn's features hardened as she knocked. The sounds inside stopped, followed by rapid, harsh whispering.

"Who is it?"

Van asked.

"Open up," Maedwynn replied, flatly.

More murmuring, most of it angry.

"Just a minute."

Maedwynn choked up on her hammer, wielding it one handed very near to the head itself, and when Vanwynn opened the door a minute later she was barely able to avoid the opening swing.

"What the fuck," Van screamed, as she staggered sideways back into her quarters. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Wha' the fuck're yew doin'?" Maedwynn yelled, moving in after her. "Where is 'e, huh? Where is 'e?"

Van backed around a table, and planted her hands on it as she moved to keep the table between them. "What are you talking about?"

"Ah gotta break this table, Ah will," Maedwynn said. She used the hammer to point, aiming it at Van as they circled the table opposite to each other. "Ah heard ye, fuckin' around on Keileigh with some

maern.

" The irony was extremely bitter on her tongue.

"Whoa," Van said, standing up straight and holding her hands up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

"'at's a good woman," Maedwynn said. Van had slowed to a stop, and she took advantage by speeding around the corner. "Fuckin' around on a good woman!"

"Will you shut up and listen?" Van cried, her eyes trained on the hammer as it whipped back and forth in front of her again and again. "Ancestors, Kay, any time you wanna jump in?"

"I'm good," came the voice of the maern, from where he was hiding in the bathroom.

Maedwynn whipped around, because Van was not between her and the maern Van been

cheating

with.

"Kay," Van said, her voice rising to an alarmed pitch. "Kay, look out!"

Just as Mad was about to step through the door, the maern peeked his head out and screamed. Mad swung wildly, but she hadn't really had her hammer in the right part of her range of motion to get any real power behind it and the maern quickly jumped back.

"What is it with you dwarves and violence?!" the maern cried, retreating into a corner of the tiny room.

This struck Mad as an entirely strange thing to say, and she found herself frozen, half in the bathroom and half out, trying to figure it out before she went any further. And then, for the second time in a day, Van tackled her to the ground.

***

Mad had mostly stopped fighting once she realized there was some aspect she was missing, but found herself increasingly irate at Van's ability to wrangle her into a chair. To them, it probably looked much the same as her earlier anger, but Mad had a vested interest in how easily Van handled her. Sure, there were limitations in a boxing match versus a wrestling match, and she herself was really only gifted in one of those. Maybe it was just that Van was a brawler at heart who didn't fully know how to cope with the confines of the boxing style. Maybe it was just that Van's tendons didn't have the snap to allow her punches to match her strength. Maybe all Maedwynn's boxing training had left her more vulnerable outside the ring than she'd realized.

Maybe.

"Sit," Van snarled, hovering above her with her arms crossed. "Stay."

"

Ah'm not a dog,

" Mad shot back, but just the same she didn't attempt to get back up.

"You sit too," Van said, pointing to the couch.

The maern slunk out of the bathroom, his motions unnatural in a way that made all the hairs on the back of Maedwynn's arms stand up straight. He came around, rolling his eyes in a way that was so familiar, and yet so foreign on that craggy face. It was right there, somewhere in her mind.

He said, still as naked as the day he was born, "I've only got less than a minute."

"That's what I'm counting on," Van said.

The way he sat, too, was setting off something. He tried to cross his legs, then yelped and reached down into his crotch. "Still so tender," he muttered, as he lifted and crossed his legs again. The way he crossed his arms, too. There was a moment where he almost went to put his hands over his pecs before thinking better of it. It was all so...

"Kay?" Maedwynn said, her jaw falling slack and refusing to clap shut.

The maern curled his lip and looked up at Van, but Van seemed unmoved. When that didn't get a reaction, the maern opened his mouth and immediately seemed to regret it. "Oh fuck," he grumbled.

There, right in front of her, the maern began to change. It happened slowly, muscles shrinking. Bones lengthening. Reshaping. Some bones disappearing entirely, shrinking to nothing, while different ones regrew from scratch. Lined, gray-dark skin lightened, growing paler and pinker to match the emerging human form. Light brown hair seemed to fall out, disintegrating in the air, only to be replaced by short, spiky hair, yellow like pale butter. The posture, a kind of bitter disregard, barely flickered throughout what looked like an incredibly painful, if not downright excruciating, body restructuring from the cellular level on up, and at the end of three very long minutes, Keileigh was looking very much like herself. A little bit older than the last time Mad had seen her.

She had to remind herself that humans had such shorter lifespans. It was always so strange to face that reality.

Van held up her hands. "I need to take a shower. Talk amongst yourselves."

Mad and Keileigh watched her go, and made hesitant eye contact in Van's absence.

"Apology accepted," Kay said.

"Accepted?" Maedwynn leaned back in her chair, arms out at her side. "Ah was pissed off on yer behalf, Ah migh' add! Ah came in 'ere cus Ah though' she was sleepin' around on yew!"

"I'm sure that was the only reason," Kay said, rolling her eyes. "Nothing else to it. Nothing. Not a little bit of anything else."

Maedwynn recoiled, making a series of short, chirpy sounds all drawing their roots from the word

what.

"Ohhh, so innocent." Keileigh snorted and rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"D'ye want a shir' or somethin'?"

"This is not about my nakedness." She leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "You wanted to watch."

Maedwynn leaned back, fingers curled in the air like she was grabbing something. "She made i' sound like ye'd broken up! Ah asked about ye, an' she got weird. Then we 'ad a bit of a tussle, bing bang boom, we're on our way back and Ah get here and... Ah though' she'd moved on?"

"She told me you two had some kinda fight earlier," Keileigh said, sullenly.

"Tha's one way a' putin' it."

Kay looked through the frame toward the shower in the bathroom. "She was pretty worked up when she got back."

"Ahhh," Maedwynn said, smirking. "Lucky you."

"No," the woman said, irritatedly. "I mean, you know how she is. She had to give

speeches. In front of others.

"

Maedwynn frowned and looked away. Even though she'd slept, briefly, it still felt like the same day. She should be tired, but her brain was churning at a fever pitch. "Will she be pissed," she said, head tilting toward where Van had gone, "if we go ge' a drink?"

"Best idea you've had in years," Keileigh said. She unfurled her long legs, rocking forward onto her feet, and was striding toward the door.

Mad just stared, watching her get closer and closer to the door while still naked. "Uh," she said.

Keileigh didn't acknowledge her except to reach one hand up over her head and snap her fingers. A vortex of orange sparks surrounded her, leaving streaks in Maedwynn's vision that had her blinking, and she'd only just cleared them in time to see Kay striding out into the passageway in a long blue robe and heeled boots.