The flap tore.
Bronn came through it.
“My lord.
Mouth’s shored.
Nobody’s going in.”
Lyonel took his boots off the table.
“Of what.”
“Another fall.
Cliff took them to the lip and stopped.”
“Come.”
He was already moving.
Bronn after him.
A ring at the cut.
Fifty men at the mouth, looking down.
No one took a step.
Black below.
The fall had made a slope of broken stone.
In the middle of it, a hole the width of a man.
A mouth.
Cliff at the front.
Pick in both hands.
Palms wet.
“My lord—”
“Move.”
Lyonel took the rim and looked down.
Ground Sense ran by itself.
Rubble about sixteen feet thick.
A cavity under it, ten feet of air.
Deeper than that, the signal climbed.
The gold-green sat under the stone.
“Rope.”
No one moved.
“Rope.” He turned the look around the ring.
Bronn kicked the nearest shin.
“Deaf?
Rope.”
It came.
Lyonel tied one end at his waist and put the other in Bronn’s hand.
“Hold it.”
“You’re going down.” Bronn’s eyes went wide.
“Seven men still under it.”
“That doesn’t mean you—”
“You hold the rope.”
He did not wait for the rest.
He took the line, stepped off the lip, and slid the slope.
Stone rolled under his boots.
Rock to the knee.
A sound went through the crew behind him.
Bronn swore at the rim and locked both hands on the rope.
Lyonel fetched up at the hole.
Wider than it had looked from above.
Sideways would do.
He drew the short dagger at his belt and prodded the lip.
Stone gave.
It ran down and hit something that rang like metal.
Ore.
He turned his shoulder and went in.
Tight.
Rock on both sides.
Damp iron in the nose.
Ground Sense put a cold light on the dark.
Ten yards on.
Left.
Stop.
He stopped.
Something in the spoil at his feet threw the light back.
He crouched and raked with the dagger.
A fist of stone.
In the pane’s light the body of it was clean gold-green.
Smooth.
No waste in the grain.
[System]
High-density gold vein.
Purity, first read: 78%.
Green numbers.
Seventy-eight.
Twenty-six points over the fifty-two they had pulled in the sun.
He put the stone inside his coat and went on.
Three more steps.
The floor changed.
Grey-black to gold-green.
A sheet of it.
He crouched and scraped the dust off with the dagger.
Ore under it.
He turned and scraped again.
Ore.
Farther on, the roof had the same color.
The whole drift.
He stood in the dark for two seconds.
The pane put up another line.
[System]
Extension in progress.
East: ~200 yards.
North branch: unknown.
He did not finish it.
He turned and worked back the way he had come.
Moon at the hole.
Half his face in it. This story is hosted at g.com.
Bronn from the rim: “My lord!
You breathing?”
“Breathing.”
He came out of the hole and climbed the spoil.
Bronn hauled him the last of it.
Moon on him.
Grey to the hair.
Knees raw.
Dust in the lines of the face.
The gold-green stone still in his fist.
He held it up.
Moon took the face of it and put a thin halo on the grain.
Fifty-two miners watched the stone.
“What is that.” Cliff’s voice had a shake in it.
Lyonel tossed it.
Cliff caught with both hands and turned it three times.
The eyes went wide.
“That’s—that’s deep-vein stone.”
“How pure.”
Cliff dug a whetstone from his coat, dragged it once across the face, and held the scratch to the moon.
“Seven—seventy and up.”
“Seventy?”
“That’s not possible.
Last deep vein Silverhill cut was forty years back.
That one ran sixty.”
“Look again.”
“I looked.” Cliff’s shake had gone into the words.
“Seventy-five.
Better.”
The ring blew.
“That old cut kept this hill fat ten years.”
“How many carts.”
“My lord.
How far does it run.”
Every face came around.
Lyonel slapped dust off his coat.
“Two hundred yards east.
North I don’t know.”
No one spoke.
Fifty men took the same breath.
Bronn counted on his fingers at the rim.
“Two hundred yards—call it ten feet wide—fuck.
I lose it.”
“Don’t count.” Lyonel put the dagger home.
“Enough.”
One word.
Shock went.
The other thing came up hard.
A man jumped.
A pick went in the air and nearly took a skull on the way down.
One went to his knees and was up again before Lyonel opened his mouth.
No one stayed down long in front of him.
Cliff came with the stone still in both hands.
The hands had not stopped.
“My lord.
This ore is yours.”
“I know.”
“I mean—” Cliff swallowed.
“Silverhill rule.
Owner takes seven parts.
Crew takes three.
That’s iron.
Gold—what do you call the split.”
Lyonel looked at him.
The pane sat quiet in the low right.
[System]
Miner lead: Cliff.
Loyalty: 68%.
Awaiting decision.
Lyonel spoke.
“From today.
Every cart that comes up, one tenth to the men who pulled it.”
Cliff stalled.
“A tenth.”
“Too little.”
“No.” Cliff’s voice jumped.
“Silverhill rule—gold crews don’t take a cut.
They eat.
That’s the wage.”
A man in the ring: “He’s right.
No share on gold.”
“Thirty years.
Iron, three parts in ten.
Gold, not a hair.”
“My lord.
You mean it.”
Lyonel ran the faces once.
“Who are you digging for.”
No one answered.
“Hailstone?”
A head shook.
“House Lannister?”
Cliff shook his.
“Who.”
Lyonel held their eyes.
“Men who dig for Lyonel Lannister take a cut.”
“You pull it, you share it.”
“One tenth a cart.”
Three seconds of quiet.
Cliff’s pick went up first.
“Lyonel!”
“Lyonel!”
“The lord!”
Fifty picks found the moon and made a single sheet of iron light.
Bronn at his back, voice down.
“My lord.
Your father hears that—”
“He hears it, he says well done.”
“Why.”
“I put one part on the table.
Nine parts still land clean.”
Bronn gave that a second.
“…You count better than I do.”
“I know.”
The crew went down.
Ropes on the stakes at the lip, one after the next.
Men sliding.
Cliff first.
His voice came back up the hole, muffled, running hot.
“My lord!
The whole wall—it’s all ore!”
“Another layer under it!”
“Three years in this if the line holds!”
The rim packed tighter.
Men who had walked at the fall were back in the count.
Bronn ran the heads.
“Twenty more, my lord.”
“Put them in a line.”
“What line.”
“The line that goes down and digs.” Lyonel turned for the tent.
“Night shifts.
Lamp oil comes off me.”
Bronn put a thumb up at his back.
“That’s a spend.”
Lyonel did not turn.
The lamp in the tent was still going.
He took the chair and put his boots on the board again.
The stone in his coat found a rib and stayed there.
He left it.
Ground Sense kept rewriting the map.
East: two hundred yards.
North: still scanning.
The reserve number jumped three times.
First: eight thousand carts.
Second: twelve.
Third: sixteen.
He killed the pane.
Sixteen thousand.
Enough to turn the West over and set it back down different.
Outside the chant came in louder than the night before, and cleaner.
Someone was singing.
A rough line.
The words did not carry.
Lyonel let the chair take his back and shut his eyes.
The flame jumped.
The pane again.
[System]
Daily trait draw: 14 hours.
A new card in the morning.
Sixteen thousand carts after that.
The day after, Bronn might shut his mouth.
The mouth ticked.
The flap moved.
Bronn put half a head through.
“My lord.”
“Say it.”
“I ran the sum.”
“Which.”
Bronn’s teeth were out.
A face that had found coin in the road.
“Sixteen thousand carts.
Call it seventy-five on the purity.
Market—”
“Enough for an army.”
Bronn stopped a beat.
“How did you know that was the line.”
Lyonel opened one eye.
The green one.
“I’m the lord.”
Bronn pulled the head back.
From the other side of the canvas, a mutter: “Fuck.
Men who sit the chair come with the numbers already in.”
Lyonel shut the eye.
Picks in the hole.
Still going.
One.
One.
One.
Every blow was coin.
Every blow put another inch on the West.
Every blow made the morning’s card worth the wait.
He pulled his boots off the table, turned, and put an arm under his head.
The bend in the mouth stayed.