12th of Malachite
It's only been four days since we jumped the lower guard. Ragnar appears to be recovering fine. It seems like his deer skin armor helped absorb much of the damage and though he had bled considerably when he yanked the arrow out he insisted that he'd be fine. Of course before our evening blow I noticed he'd broken into one of the rum barrels and cleaned the wound before dousing it liberally with rum. Then he doused himself liberally, or rather his insides with it too. Funny, he didn't seem to drink less that evening with the rest of us either. There's a dwarf what likes his liquor.
Today however was good. We finally broke through the crust of the upper plateau with our ramp. Medtob and Mafol did good work with it. I've my doubts that a wagon'll be able to get down it but we'll see when the time comes. Unfortunately our labors there were apparently noticed by the goblin sentries up above and as soon as we broke through the thing was there, flapping it's gums and charging the miners. What a sight that made. Two dwarves with picks and covered in dirt being charged by a lone, unarmed goblin. They just looked at each other and pretended the goblin was a rock wall. Medtob was limping a little after the struggle but shrugged it off when I asked about it. The goblin had both it's legs and back perforated profusely with picks. We tossed it in the garbage pile and pressed on. Our activites seemed to draw sufficient attention from the other sentry up there and we noticed him tossing rocks at us below.
Pulling Fre aside we stared up the nearly hundred foot cliff at the little figure trying to hit us with fist sized rocks.
"Fre, I've got a job for ye. Now, that little bugger has been a pest. More so recently I'd say. Now that we have a way up there why don't you go try out that new crossbow of yours."
Fre just smiled and nodded. And took off running towards the temporary armory. I figured I'd head up to see how things went and to get the lay of the land from the vantage the top there provided. Fre passed me again on my way up the ramp. I wasn't hurrying. The Bismuth bronze crossbow seemed to fit well in her hands, the nearly full quiver at her hip. From the look on her face it looked like it was her birthday and rite of passage combined.
I made the top just as she was angling around the cliff, the oblivious goblin still looking for targets to throw stuff at far below. Her first bolt went wide, as did her second. By then the goblin had noticed her and started howling towards her. The thing must have been half mad. It'd been trapped on this half-frozen cliffside for months now. It probably caught fish from the lakes behind it to eat.
It seemed though that with the first two shots she was just getting the feel for the weapon since her third pierced it's left arm through and stuck. The forth bolt caught it in the chest as it stood there looking at it's arm and then it fell over. It lay there immobile while Fre carefully took aim and put a second bolt next to the first in it's chest. She stopped after that. No reason to waste good iron bolts on target practice.
I gave a look see around this upper plateau and was pleased with what I saw. There was still snow on the ground near the river, despite it being high summer. But this was the first time I'd been out of the valley since we arrived. It was a glorious view. The landscape around was visible to the east all the way to the horizon. To the west there towered more of the high mountain range, nigh impassable. The main trade roads lay north-south along our position here, which made it a very useful stronghold. I even saw some deer as I looked around in a smallish meadow north of us, near where the avalanche had struck and destroyed the path. It looked like the old path we had taken was accessible from here. Our ramp would be very useful, provided it could be used by wagons, and wasn't covered with ice.
Glancing at the stones to be found here I grinned in spite of the chill wind that had begun to pick up. I had noticed several exposed gemstone clusters, exposed by the elements. And a vein of Magnetite, with streaks of silvery metal, possibly platinum. The miners had been correct indeed that this place harbored useful resources. Perhaps that's why the goblins came too. Perhaps not. They had made little effort to utilize them. This place seemed almost more of a hideout, or regrouping ground of sorts. Lots of supplies, enough goblins to hold it if they had been watchful. There was the key. Goblins, watchful with a mountain of supplies. Yeah. That just didn't happen. It's no wonder half of them had been drunk. Still, we needed to be careful. We'd already had several thieves come, and two of our own were injured still. It wouldn't take much to become disaster. If they were careful though and planned properly it could be avoided.
Dorenemal indeed. Diamond sense this place had been christened, and just now it felt that was a very, very fitting name. Agna hadn't bargained with this perhaps. He had underestimated the goblin force here, as well as us, or so I hoped.
We are the Fahlstrom clan, we are the Wall of Zeal!
Enough of reveries, I've got to go get to work. There's a lot of clean up to do and this place still isn't operating properly. We're low on food for one. I must make the farming priority. Or find another way to obtain food. And soon.