Colder and colder winds blew around the Shinerock with each passing day, but thanks to Endok's ingenious construction of a small, hand-cranked sawmill, the dwarves soon had enough boards to put floors and double-walled doors everywhere and so even the strongest winds outside could not rob their small halls of their precious warmth.

The wall grew at a steady pace. Rigoth had designed it to be much sturdier than what the colonists before them had built. Rather than just stacking a line of stone blocks ever higher, they had two rows of blocks with almost two feet of space between them. The outward facing row lean backwards onto the inner row, which was propped by a palisade. The rows of stone blocks met at the top, roughly ten feet high, the space between them was filled with crushed rock and gravel. “Each of the rows props the other one up with its weight.” Rigoth had explained to Bomrek one day when they were again breaking stone blocks from the quarry. “And the filling between should cushion any shocks from battering rams or bombardment.” Rigoth was no siege engineer, but he had decades of experience fortifying roads, quarries and mines against the forces of weather and rock.

The bright white wall growing ever higher made Bomrek feel confident. The ramshackle gate was replaced with a drawbridge. Thanks to the stability of the new wall, it could bear the weight of the bridge being pulled up. The wall itself did not have a walkable path on top, but a simple wooden scaffold behind the palisade still allowed them to peer and – if need be – shoot over the wall. All in all, it was a wall he would put his trust in, even if it had not the best materials and the most workforce behind it.

The days came that the brook froze and snow started to fall. It reminded Bomrek of his first time on the mountain slopes, where snow would fall even deep into spring, when the lower lands already had flowers and tilled fields. Lushrir had commented that the winter had come early this year and they were glad that they had made the trek to Eslettad when they did. Soon, the landscape was blanketed with snow that sparkled in the sun. The trips to the river and hunts in the forest became much rarer. As the shortest night came ever closer, even the river froze completely over. The dwarves started to stockpile compacted snow to not run out of water and one morning, Bomrek sat on the steps of the Quarry, a cup of hot soup – made with molten snow – tightly clamped between his hands, and stared out over the landscape. A tiny red spot appeared among the snow at the treeline. A fox had poked his head up, turning his ears in all direction on the hunt for prey beneath the snow, sitting in the scenery like a single carnelian set into smooth limestone. Sigun made his way up the quarry steps and thus it was time to get to work.

It was a well-trained process by, consisting of drilling holes in a straight line with a simple stone drill, chiselling the outline where the rock shall break and then hammering metal wedges into the holes, tapping each once until finally, they pried the rock apart, breaking it off the wall at exactly the chiselled grooves. It fascinated Bomrek time and time again to see the rock split exactly as they had planned.

The wall grew higher and higher and there was something incredibly satisfying in going inside for dinner after a long day of drilling, chiselling, hammering and smoothing, just to throw a look back upon the work that was done that day.

Dinner had become a time of comfort and relaxation. With proper doors and a wooden floor – even if the roughly-cut boards still gave off a few splinters – the guard room was almost homely and they no longer needed to huddle close together around a puny fire to keep warm, although two seemed to resist the call for more personal space: Umel and Stikus had stuck together closely every since they had returned from their trip and more often than not, they laid in each others’ arms. They did not announce it, one day, everyone just sort of knew and was happy for them.

Bomrek still led hunting trips from time to time. Not just for the meat; bones, sinew, gut and teeth were all valuable resources that could at least be stored until they were needed. The snow made tracking much easier and so one day, Lushrir and Bomrek came back to the clearing before the settlement, kill tied to a spar over their shoulders, only to find the drawbridge raised. Bomrek was glad to see the bridge work properly, but right now, he would rather get inside.

Lushrir put their kill down and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, is anyone there?” he called out over the wall. That they would close the drawbridge without setting up a lookout was unusual.

“Do you think something happened?” Memories of the goblin scout troop they encountered flared up in Bomrek's mind. He walked up to the drawbridge and kicked against it several times. “COME ON! OPEN UP!”

That’s when he heard someone yell. “NOW!”

He did not have time to recognize the faces that popped up from behind the wall before white balls started to rain down upon him, covering him in snow. The defenders laughed while Bomrek tried to find his bearings and follow Lushrir back to the safety of the forest. He ran as far as he could, with arms folded behind his neck, to prevent any more snow making its way down his thick fur jacket.

Bomrek and Lushrir regrouped by the tree line, keeping a good look on the wall. Only occasionally, one of the others seemed to peek their head above the wall to check on them.

“As far as we know, their ammunition pile might be endless.” Lushrir said, apparently looking for another way close to the wall.

Bomrek hummed in agreement. “The only one I have not seen is Umel. Even so, we are most likely dealing with seven, we are outnumbered.”

Lushrir pointed to the southern end of the wall, where the wall was not complete just yet. “Maybe we can jump over the wall there!”

“Yes, but we'd have to leave the kill behind.” Bomrek looked over to where they had dropped it, only to see the drawbridge being lowered. They came out for the loot!

“RUN FOR IT!” Lushrir yelled, making a sprint for the window of opportunity.

By the time they had made it to where they had dropped the kill, the others had already carried it inside and were raising the drawbridge again, but it was not all the way up just yet. Bomrek decided to make a leap for it.

He managed to grab hold of the edge. “YES!” But then his hands slipped and he fell back down, hitting the snow just before the snow again started to hit him from the defenders poking up from behind the wall.

Lushrir attempted to squeeze through the narrowing slit at the side, only to have Urist press a snowball right in his face, making him stumble backwards.

Again under heavy fire, they retreated and regrouped another time. For now, they decided to make some ammunition for their next approach.

“Without the kill, we can attempt to jump the wall over there at the right.” Bomrek strategized. “But I think one of us has to give the other one a boost first. How high do you think it is?”

They played Rock-Blade-Sheet to determine who had to give a boost to whom and Bomrek won. They planned their attack. Each of them took as many snowballs as possible in their arm, then they set out on their plan. In the cover of the forest, they got as close as they could get to the unfinished wall section. The others still held lookout for them, but did not seem to have found them.

Bomrek looked to Lushrir a last time and nodded. They started their dash to the wall. The snow made running hard and they soon were discovered by the lookout, but they had a leg up on the defenders. As they came closer, they threw their projectiles, more blind that aimed, in hopes to get at least some vengeance on the occupants.

They reached the wall, Lushrir got into position to give Bomrek a leg up, but at the crucial point, a flying snowball struck Lushrir's face, splattering all over his face and covering it with white sparkles. Lushrir lost his balance and fell over, while Bomrek just barely managed to grab hold of the wall’s top ledge, but when Endok appeared from behind the wall and slammed a snowball right in Bomrek’s face, he too slipped backwards, taking the topmost block with him.

The block landed on Bomrek and Bomrek landed on Lushrir with a resounding OOMPH. While the two of them were down, the defenders took their time encircling the attackers and so, the two attackers had no other choice to surrender to their captors, who out then to brutal slave labour dissecting the kills.

Umel had waited for them with a hot pot of dinner all that time and welcomed them by quickly filling up their bowls.

At the fire in the guard room, Bomrek decided to tell the story how he and his hunting troop sought shelter from an overly aggressive draltha. Normally, these giant creatures would graze peacefully on giant cave mushrooms, but they will attack if they feel brushed the wrong way. And so, Bomrek and three other expert hunters sat in a tiny crevice, too large for the dralthas's wide head to fit through and tried to deter it with the little ammunition they had left. For almost an entire day, they held out until the draltha fell asleep and they decided to make a run for it, past the sleeping beast. The round of merry dwarves shared many more stories as the wind outside picked up, rattled the doors, but to no avail, they kept tight and gave up not a single breath of cozy, warm air.

When Bomrek finally settled into his sleeping bag and thought about the beds that Endok promised to make. He tried to remember his soft bed back home.

It hit him in that moment, that this place, warm and tight under the Shinerock, was his home now, for him to take care of and protect. The floorboards seemed soft now, much softer than before.

Bomrek was awoken in the dark the next morning. “We are completely snowed in.” He heard Lushrir’s voice beside him. “Grab a shovel.”

They gathered around Asen, Who stood by the front door holding a candle.

“We'll clear a shaft to the outside air before we light a proper fire. We already gathered all the shovels. Everyone grab one.”

Whoever did not get a shovel got a pickaxe or a basket and then they opened the door. Some of the dwarves took a quick jump back as a slope of white fell in. Quickly, they established a work line of pioneers, shovellers and basket carriers. A shaft of light finally pierced the darkness and fresh, cool air rushed in like a a river through brittle rock.

They climbed outside to behold the area and when Bomrek made his way up the powdery mountain, he saw none of the landmarks he had gotten to know. The trees still poked out of the white blanket – barely – and that was about it. The wall was almost completely buried, the ox was nowhere to be seen, even the small valley's border were beyond recognition beneath the white blanket sparkling in the sun.

His moment of tranquillity passed when he returned to the matter at hand. They started to excavate a proper path through the snow. First, to the primitive roof under which the ox most likely sought shelter. There it lay, in a small pocket of air with the little hay they had gathered before the snow struck. They decided to bring it inside the guardroom to warm up. Its workforce would be direly needed.

Next up was the roof of the guardroom. If they did not clear it of snow, it might just collapse. Bomrek, Rigoth and Sigun were up there for almost the rest of the day, while the others stayed down in the yard, clearing a way to the gate. The wall still stood and the way to the forest was too far for now, so they decided to leave it at that and meet back for an extra-large dinner.

With the roof and chimney of the guard room cleared, they were rejoicing around a warm fire once again. Another evening of stories, friendly words and even some more river spirits later, Bomrek decided to hit the floorboards with his sleeping bag, Sigun, Asen and Rigoth decided follow him.

It was at the moment that he had left the guard room that a weird feeling crept up Bomrek’s legs, as if it had travelled a long distance through the rock of the mountain itself. A sudden feeling of dread came over him, together with memories of being trapped deep in caves when the land itself stirred beneath them.

A rumbling sound came down the slopes. All nine of them looked at each other for a fractured heartbeat, then a wave of snow crashed upon the roof of the guard room, pouring in through the chimney. The fire sizzled out beneath a pillar of white, darkness reigned again.

Someone managed to bring forth a “Is everyone al-“ before the sound of aching wood and stone interrupted them. With a muffled crack, violence burst down upon them.

Bomrek leapt back, pulling with him whoever stood in his way, as a section, no, probably the entire ceiling of the guard room, collapsed. Air thick with powdery snow blew over them. As it settled, dreadful darkness and silence took hold of the rocky tunnels beneath the mountain.