Dawn on a dry riverbed thirty miles out of Silverhill.
Lyonel squatted on a grey rock the sun had split and worked yesterday’s black bread.
A beetle he could not name walked a circuit near his boot and did not care who was watching.
The panel opened on the first edge of light.
[Daily draw.] Green tore across the glass.
[Congratulations.
Green entry acquired: Geological Survey] Effect: Vein trend accuracy +40%.
Strata reading +35%.
Metal within three yards of the surface: detect +25%.
He stopped chewing.
Read it three times.
“…You could find mines and you waited until I was sitting on a rock eating bread.” [Draws are random.
The host got lucky.] “Then what were the last ones.” [Slight Cold Resistance.
Sense of Direction.
Night Sight.
All serviceable.] “Can Night Sight dig.” No answer.
A second line wrote itself.
[Unmapped ground.
Thirty miles from Silverhill.
Dry bed.
High chance of vein.
Survey now.] He shoved the rest of the bread in, chewed five times, swallowed, and dropped off the rock.
“Blum.
Bronn.” Blum’s head came out of the tree-shade.
“My lord.” “Up.
We’re moving.” Bronn pitched a half-eaten apple at his horse.
“Where.” “Up the bed.
A mile.” “Mining.” “Hunting.” Three men.
Three horses.
The column held the road behind them with Dake’s lot and the Rock riders and no need to see a dry ditch until there was something in it.
Half an hour up the old water.
The walls pinched.
Fist-stone became table-stone.
Blue-black threads showed in the grey like veins on the back of an old hand.
The panel worked the right edge of his sight.
[Geological Survey — Green.
Twenty-five yards on.
Dense metal.
Two and a half yards down.
First read: silver with gold riding it.] Lyonel checked the horse.
“Here.” Bronn turned a full circle.
“There isn’t a tree.
You’re going to mine dust.” Lyonel got down, crouched, and put a palm on the white-grey.
[Surface: weathered lime, two and a half yards.
Under: dark sediment.
Metal likes the join between sediment and granite.] “Pick.” Blum pulled the tool roll off the saddle and put a pick in his hand.
First blow.
The crust broke.
Grey gravel.
Second.
Something hard.
The point bounced.
Third— The glass went red.
The pick opened a skin of dark stone.
What sat under it made Blum sound first.
“…Silver.” Lyonel dropped the pick and worked a piece loose with the dagger.
Palm-sized.
Silver-grey packed in black rock.
Sun hit it and small gold points woke between the grains.
Blum went to his knees, turned the fragment over for a long ten seconds, and sat down in the dirt as if someone had cut the strings.
“My lord.
This density.
A shallow rich vein in the open.
I have only seen it written.” “What did the book say.” Blum looked up.
Mouth not steady.
“The last man in the West who found one like this was a great-grandfather of yours.” Bronn dropped off his horse, peered into the hole, and scratched the back of his head.
“Does it spend.” Blum’s head snapped around.
“Silver with free gold in it.
Ore this clean gives two hundred ounces of silver to the ton and five of gold.
If the bed runs the length of this wash—” He stopped.
Swallowed.
The voice came down.
“…My lord.
We may have walked into a fortune.” Lyonel squatted on the lip and looked at the cut.
[Vein logged: rich silver, gold in company.
Open.
Shallow.
Strike at least three-quarters of a mile.
First value in dragons: twenty thousand and up.] [No claim on the books.
Bind it before Silverhill writes one.] He gave the twenty thousand five seconds.
Twenty thousand.
What he could put on a table today was three hundred.
“Blum.” “Here.” “Paper.
These marks.
A sketch of the bed for a mile each way.
Eyes only.
No pretty work.” Blum came up fast.
Parchment.
Charcoal.
Lyonel stood, beat the dust off his knees, and looked down at the cut again.
Sun sat on it.
Silver and gold ticking.
“Blum.” “Here.” “What’s it called.” Blum blinked.
“It has no name.
You give it one.” Lyonel looked at the number on the glass.
Twenty thousand dragons.
Fifteen years old.
A few weeks since he had opened his eyes in a rented bed.
Three hundred in the purse.
A hole in a dead river worth twenty thousand.
The mouth found the smile without help.
“Lyonel’s Cut.” The charcoal jumped and dragged a black line across the sheet.
“My lord.
That is… plain.” “Plain is the point.
Anyone who hears it knows who opened it.” Bronn stood with his arms folded, looking at the shine, and clicked his tongue twice.
“My lord.” “Mm.” “Luck like yours.
If I’d had half of it when I was cutting purses I would own Broken Tooth by now.” Lyonel bent, took a chip of the ore, and weighed it.
Heavier than stone had any right to be.
He tossed it.
Bronn caught it.
“Hold that.” “What for.” “Luck.” “A rock.” “That rock is twenty thousand dragons.
Enough for ten wives.” Bronn’s face went from insult to quiet to something mixed—awe and a kind of offense at the universe.
“Fuck.
First time a stone felt heavy.” Lyonel got back on the horse.
Blum put the sketch inside his coat.
They took the bed toward Silverhill at a walk.
Two hundred paces on, Lyonel looked back.
Grey wash.
Same as ten thousand dead rivers in Westeros.
Twenty thousand under it.
[Westerlands economic index +11%.] [Westerlands Expansion — Stage One: Silverhill survey.
Vein found.
Unregistered.] He shut the glass and turned the horse.
Sun from the east pulled his shadow out long on the stone.
The shadow was still short.
Still bunched.
It had twenty thousand dragons under it.
Bronn came up, hefted the chip twice, and put it in the saddlebag.
“My lord.” “Mm.” “When we dig it.
What’s my cut.” Lyonel looked at him.
“A wife.” “…I want coin.” “Coin too.
Wife too.” Bronn gave it three seconds.
“…Fine.”