Day 182. The High Pass.
The expedition was stuck.
They were five days out from Blackiron City, deep in the throat of the mountain pass known as "The Razor's Edge."
The wind here didn't just blow; it screamed. It stripped the warmth from the thickest wool and turned eyelashes into needles of ice.
The lead ox had collapsed, its legs buried in a snowdrift four feet deep.
"Push!" Varg roared, his face red with exertion.
Twenty men heaved against the heavy wooden sled carrying the Drill Bit. The ropes groaned. The sled moved an inch, then slid back.
"It's useless!" Olaf, the Miner, shouted over the gale. "The snow is too soft! We are sinking! We should turn back!"
Rian sat on his hawk, hovering low above them. He saw the problem. The path ahead was blocked by a fresh avalanche. To go around, they would have to cross the "Gray Ridge"—territory that every map marked as Forbidden.
Rian landed Storm-Wing on a rock outcropping. He jumped down, his boots crunching on the ice.
"We don't turn back, Olaf," Rian said, adjusting his snow goggles. "We cut through the ridge."
"The Ridge?" Varg spat, making a sign to ward off evil. "Boss, that's Dwarf territory. The 'Stone-Eaters'. They shoot anyone who steps on their rocks. They are greedy, stubborn little demons."
Rian looked at Varg.
This was the primitive thinking he hated. To Varg, anything different was an enemy.
To Rian, the Dwarves were the greatest engineers in the world. They understood stress, leverage, and metallurgy better than any human.
"They are not demons, Varg," Rian said calmly. "They are neighbors. And neighbors can be bought."
The Ambush
Noon.
The column moved cautiously toward the Gray Ridge. The terrain changed. The soft snow gave way to jagged slate and granite boulders.
Suddenly, a low rumble echoed through the valley.
CLICK-CLACK.
The sound of a hundred heavy mechanical latches snapping into place.
From the snowdrifts on the left and right, shapes emerged.
They were short, broad, and covered in white furs that made them invisible until they moved.
Dwarves.
They held heavy steel crossbows—much stronger than the human wooden ones.
"Halt!" a voice boomed, sounding like gravel grinding in a mixer.
A figure stepped out from behind a boulder. He was barely four feet tall, but his shoulders were as wide as a door. His beard was braided with copper wire and tucked into his belt. He wore a helmet made of a single piece of beaten iron.
Thane Borin.
"You trespass on the Clan of the Iron-Peak," Borin growled, leveling a heavy axe at Rian. "Leave your steel and your oxen, and you may live. Refuse, and the snow eats you."
Varg drew his sword instantly. "Filthy runts! Form the shield wall!"
The Wolf Riders tensed, their hands going to their Repeating Crossbows.
A bloodbath was seconds away.
"Hold!" Rian shouted.
His voice wasn't angry. It was commanding.
"Varg, sheathe your sword. Now."
Varg hesitated. "Boss, they are robbing us!"
"Stand down," Rian ordered.
The Walk of the Merchant
Rian walked forward alone. He held his hands up, open, showing no weapons.
He walked until he was ten paces from the Dwarf leader.
Rian looked at Borin. He didn't see a monster.
He used the System.
[Ding! Intel Report]
Target: Thane Borin.
Status: Malnourished. (Body fat 5% below critical).
Equipment: High quality, but poorly maintained. Lack of oil.
Motivation: Desperation. The trade routes to the South are blocked. His clan is starving.
Rian smiled.
Information was better than armor.
"Thane Borin," Rian said, bowing slightly—a gesture of respect, not submission. "I am Viscount Rian of Blackiron. I do not come to steal your rock."
"Words are wind, Long-Legs," Borin spat. "Your kind always steals. Why are you here?"
"I am a builder," Rian said. "And I see that your crossbow mechanism is dry. It clicked late. The spring is stiff."
Borin narrowed his eyes. "The winter froze our oil."
"And your men," Rian looked at the dwarves flanking the ridge. "They are holding their weapons steady, but their hands shake. Not from cold. From hunger."
Borin's grip on the axe tightened. "Careful, human. Pride is the last thing we have left to eat."
"I don't eat pride," Rian said. "I eat meat."
Rian reached into his coat.
The dwarves tensed, fingers on triggers.
Slowly, Rian pulled out a glass bottle.
It wasn't perfume. It was a clear, square bottle.
"White Wolf" Rum. (Distilled from the sugar cane, aged in charred oak barrels. 60% Alcohol).
He unscrewed the cap.
The smell drifted across the cold air. Sweet molasses. Burning oak. Pure warmth.
Borin's nose twitched. Every Dwarf in the line sniffed simultaneously.
Alcohol was sacred to them, but grain was too scarce to brew it this winter.
"I have ten crates of this," Rian said loudly. "And I have twenty barrels of smoked pork stew."
"I propose a trade," Rian placed the bottle on a flat rock between them.
"I give you the food and the drink. You give me... a conversation."
The Campfire Diplomacy
One Hour Later.
The tension had not vanished, but it had thawed.
A fire was lit in the shelter of the rocks.
Rian sat on a log opposite Borin.
Varg stood behind Rian, hand on his hilt, eyeing the dwarves suspiciously.
The Dwarves sat on their stones, tearing into the smoked pork Rian had provided. They ate with a ferocity that confirmed Rian's intel—they were starving.
Borin took a long swig of the rum. He wiped his mouth, his cheeks flushing.
"It burns," Borin grunted appreciatively. "Good burn. Not watered down like the swill the Imperial merchants sell."
"I made it," Rian said, sipping his own cup. "We distill it ourselves."
"You?" Borin laughed bitterly. "Humans don't brew this. Humans can't forge like this either." He pointed to the manganese steel sword at Rian's hip. "That blade... the color is wrong. It's too dark. What metal is that?"
"Manganese Alloy," Rian explained. "It absorbs shock. It doesn't shatter in the cold."
Borin leaned forward, the engineer in him overtaking the warrior. "Manganese? The black sand? You melt that? It makes the iron brittle!"
"Not if you remove the sulfur first," Rian said. "I use limestone flux."
Borin stared at him. For a moment, he wasn't looking at a human noble. He was looking at a fellow smith.
"Flux..." Borin muttered. "We use bone ash. Limestone is... smarter."
Rian leaned back.
"My men fear you, Borin. They call you 'Stone-Eaters'. They say you are stubborn and greedy."
Varg shifted uncomfortably.
"But I know the truth," Rian continued. "I know you built the Great Tunnel of the South. I know your stonework holds up the Imperial Palace."
"I don't want to fight you. I want to hire you."
"Hire us?" Borin scoffed. "We serve no human master."
"Not as servants," Rian corrected. "As Partners."
Rian pulled out the map of the Silent Reach.
"I am going to drill into the earth. Deep. Deeper than you have ever dug. To find the Black Blood."
"My men are strong, but they are clumsy with stone. They will collapse the tunnels."
"I need shoring experts. I need men who can smell a cave-in before it happens. I need Dwarves."
Rian poured more rum into Borin's cup.
"I will pay you in Gold. In Steel. In Meat. And in this Rum."
"Help me cross the mountains. Help me build the drill site. And you will never starve again."
The Handshake of Stone
Borin looked at the map. He looked at the rum.
Then he looked at his own men. They were eating the pork, laughing for the first time in months. The hostility was melting away with the calories.
"You are a strange human, Rian of Blackiron," Borin grunted. "You talk like a merchant, but you think like a smith."
Borin stood up. He held out a hand. It was thick, calloused, and covered in stone dust.
"The Clan of Iron-Peak accepts the contract. But one condition."
"Name it," Rian stood.
"This 'Drill' of yours," Borin pointed to the sleds. "If it hits bedrock, it will break. My boys will inspect it. If it's trash, we fix it. We don't put our names on bad work."
Rian smiled.
"Deal."
They shook hands.
It was a grip of iron.
Varg watched, stunned.
"Boss..." Varg whispered as Rian sat back down. "You just... bought an army of Dwarves with a bottle of rum?"
"No, Varg," Rian whispered back, watching the Dwarves immediately start inspecting the sleds, critiquing the joinery.
"I didn't buy them. I respected them."
"The Empire treats them like digging animals. I treated them like engineers."
"In the modern world, talent is the most expensive resource. And I just got the best excavators on the continent for the price of a drink."
[Ding! Alliance Formed: Iron-Peak Dwarves]
[Expedition Upgrade: Engineering +50%]
[New Route Unlocked: The Under-Pass (Safe from Blizzards)]
Rian watched Borin shouting orders to his dwarves to help push the stuck oxen.
With the Dwarves helping, the sled moved easily.
"Let's move," Rian ordered. "We have a shortcut to take."
End of Chapter 58