Crag Goats
The wild goats of the Ironspine's cliffs and scree and the Stormcrown's high pasture, hunted by Gatehold Dwarves for horn and meat, whose starts of stones are the commonest rockfall nobody saw.
Overview
Crag goats are the wild goats of the mountain belt. They live on cliffs and scree where nothing else can stand, and come down to the high pastures to graze. Gatehold Dwarves hunt them for meat and horn. They are harmless in themselves, but a herd crossing a slope above a road cut sets stones moving, and a goat-start is the commonest rockfall in the mountains that nobody saw begin.
Appearance
A crag goat is the size of a large farm goat, stocky and short-legged, with a deep chest and hooves that are hard at the rim and soft and grippy in the middle. Males carry great ridged horns that sweep back in a curve as long as a Human's arm; females have short, slender ones. The coat is grey-brown in summer, thick and darker in winter, with a dark stripe down the back and dark legs. Old males grow a beard.
They move up a cliff face in bounds from ledge to ledge that look impossible. A herd's alarm is a sharp whistling snort. In the autumn rut the males crash their horns together with a crack that echoes from cliff to cliff, and a herd's ground smells strongly of goat.
Habitat and Range
Crag goats live on the cliffs, scree, and high pastures of the Ironspine and the Stormcrown, and in the steep gorges of the Headwater Marches. They come lower in winter and climb higher in summer as the snow goes.
Behaviour and Temperament
They graze grass, herbs, and lichen and browse shrubs. Females and young live in herds; males go in small bachelor groups and join the herds for the rut. They are wary, keen-sighted, and quick to climb out of reach. They do not attack people.
Life Cycle
Kids are born in late spring, one or two, and can climb within hours. Crag goats live about fifteen years. Stone cats, eagles, and gluttons take the young and the old.
Uses and Dangers
They give meat, hides, horn for cups, bows, and handles, and fine winter underwool. Gatehold hunters stalk them on the cliffs above the gates. The danger is the stones: a herd on a slope sets rock moving, and on a road cut below in the Headwater Marches or on the gate roads that means a rockfall on whoever is passing. Carters look up when they hear goats.
Lore and Belief
Dwarves say the crag goats know which ledges will hold, and a hunter who follows a goat's path will not fall; hunters who have tried it say only the goat will not. Headwater carters call a rockfall nobody saw begin "a goat's toll". Giants are said, in Kindred tales, to herd crag goats on the storm shelves, which no one has seen.
Where It Appears
- Overview: Animals