"Mud churned by long feet with claws, eh? I'm afraid to name the culprit. It must be that monster that attacked us in the Iron Mountains."
"Monster!" Sunbright slapped his forehead. "By the Wild Fire, I'd forgotten that! But why does this fiend pursue me? And why take Knuck-Oh, no!"
"The monster punishes you by seizing your little lady. That's plain enough."
The dwarf fiddled with a five-pound hammer, flipping it end over end without realizing it. Others stood around helplessly: Monkberry, Magichunger the war chief, Forestvictory, a handful of other barbarians, the elven guide Blessedseed. With the sun directly behind the mountain, shadows gathered around the forge, the air was so chilly their breath steamed.
Drigor's forge lay below the wide streak of rust that named Sanguine Mountain. The dark soil was black volcanic ash mixed with red ore, folded like a rumpled blanket around the mountain's foot. Rich soil made grass grow head-high, and fed many stands of poplar trees that shivered in a breeze. To the east, a crazed dropoff overlooked rolling prairie. A bubbling cascade that spilled down the mountain had been deepened into a pool that would someday power a water mill. Drigor's workshop was logs and bark with a brush roof. The forge was made of dry-laid rocks. A flat slab served as anvil.
Drigor flipped his hammer while his two helpers, Agler and Erig, worried a lumpy hunk of iron with mauls. Life and death might teeter around, but dwarves kept working. Over their regular bangs, Drigor called, "It strikes me queer you don't know your enemy. It's got a powerful hatred of you."
"I don't know!" Sunbright's hands windmilled, plucked at his shirt and straps in his frenzy. "I'd remember if a giant, stone-hided monster tried to kill me, wouldn't I?"
"I'm not criticizing your memory, lad." The old dwarf said, flipped the hammer again, and Sunbright ripped it from his hand. "Oh, sorry. I just say, fathom its craving for revenge and you'll know how to combat it. So think."
"I've thought till my brain aches!" the shaman said. "Until it's caught fire! There's nothing-"
"Look!" hollered Magichunger.
Standing at the cracked dropoff, a half-bowshot away, the monster clasped Knucklebones in its claws. In the gathering gloom the fiend was black except for bulging blue eyes like lamps. Held by her throat, the exhausted thief hung as if dead. Yet a glimpse of Sunbright revitalized her. Gasping for air, she scratched and pulled with bloody fingernails at the monster's claws, solid as iron bars.
People stared, hollered, and reached for weapons. Sunbright charged.
To attack with Knucklebones helpless was not smart, but the shaman warrior wasn't thinking. Hauling Harvester over his shoulder with a shriek, he crossed the space in seconds, slung the fearsome sword behind -and crashed into an invisible wall.
He struck so violently that his neck snapped, his nose spurted blood, his jaw almost dislocated, and his knees folded. Harvester fell from numbed fingers onto red-black dirt. The shaman slumped to a heap holding his bruised face. But immediately he grabbed up his sword, and stuck out a hand to explore the shield wall. Its bounds extended above his reach and far past the dropoff. He growled like a rabid dog, for the monster and its victim were only five feet away. Poor suffering Knucklebones watched him with fear-haunted eyes, pleading for rescue, but also begging he not die foolishly.
The flint monster chortled, a gurgling like lava bubbling, then spoke: "As with Candlemas, as with Polaris, so you, the easiest of all. There, at dawn." A claw pointed to the prairie. "I'll bury you in your ancestral land, and throw your poppet atop your corpse!"
Shaking Knucklebones like a doll in Sunbright's face, the fiend vanished.
With it went the magic wall, and Sunbright's hand touched only empty air. With a curse, the barbarian slung Harvester far back, then hurled it through the space the monster had vacated. The glittering sword pinwheeled over the dropoff. Fists furled, Sunbright screamed rage at the sky, damned every god he knew for rendering him useless.
By and by, a hand like a bear paw clamped his shoulder. Sunbright slumped on his knees, a ball of misery and anger and helplessness. By the light of birch torches, he saw Drigor and many others gathered: dwarves returned from exploring, elves from the forest, barbarians with tools and weapons in hand.
Erig offered Harvester pommel-first. Slowly Sunbright climbed to his feet and took the sword, though it hung limp in his hands, point trailing in dirt, something he'd never done before.
"So you must fight the monster," drawled Drigor, as if proposing a horse race." 'Pears to me you need help."
Sunbright mopped his face. He was exhausted, wrung out mentally and physically, too weak to wrestle a kitten, and despondent. "Yes," he said quietly. "Dig my grave and carve a tombstone. 'Here lies Sunbright, who failed both the women he loved.' "
"Now, now," rasped the old dwarf. "It's not as bad as all that. We've talked, the elves and us, and we've got an idea. Show him, 'Seed."
Across Blessedseed's palms lay a strip of white metal as long as a man's arm, but no wider than a thumb. Sunbright couldn't imagine what it was.
Drigor took the strip reverently as a king's crown. "This is elven truesteel. Magic steel such as only elves make, such as I've seen only thrice in my many years. They fetched it from the forest. For you."
Dully, Sunbright croaked, "And what do I do with it?"
"Not you. Me and my helpers," the dwarf said. He stood only breast-high to the crowd, but was clearly in command. "With luck, and help from these pointy-eared blokes, we'll weld this strip to Harvester of Blood's edge. With our mumbling, and their enchantments, you'll gain a sword that'll cut anything-anything. A magic sword from a legend. A sword such as no dwarf or elf could ever create alone, but together…"
"Tarry a minute!" Magichunger called, then shouldered to the front of the crowd. A war axe big as a shovel hung in his belt, and his shaggy head still sported the full beard and unshaved temples of town men. "Our tribe don't hold with magic. It's taboo." The gruff man hesitated.
"I'm sorry, Sunbright, but enchanting is disallowed. We'll help you fight the fiend. The lot of us ganging up will bring it down, same as killing a mammoth."
Drigor turned angry eyes on the war chief. Wiping his big nose, he rasped, "What flavor of fool do you be? He needs a king's sword! And never before have elves and dwarves collaborated to make one! This monster killed three dwarves, and tied up the rest without hardly lifting a finger. It killed Lady Polaris, no less than one of the empire's archwizards. It blew the top off a mountain and started a volcano!"
"And killed Candlemas," Sunbright almost whispered. Only now did he recall the creature's boast. Poor, fat Candlemas, who worked so hard at the wrong things, but saved Sunbright and Knucklebones when the empire fell.
Magichunger, no great thinker, only shook his head stubbornly and grumbled, "I'll help any way I can. We all will, but anyone practicin' magic is cast out! It's tradition!"
Cursing, Drigor turned to Sunbright. "Well, which shall it be? Will you accept our magic, or not? You don't stand a chance without it!"
Sunbright surveyed the crowd, saw his mother quietly urging him on. For she knew, as did he. Sucking air, Sunbright announced in a strong voice, "Always I needs make the hard choice. Yet this one is easy. I need magic to rescue Knucklebones, yet magic-using would banish me. Thus I must choose between my love, and my people. Hear this. Twice my tribe banished me, so a third time can't hurt much. Yet in all my trials, Knucklebones stood steadfast by my side with narry a complaint. And so I choose: Love over loyalty!"