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“What’re ye jabberin’, then?” the knife-holder argued. “I come here to wet me cap, and wetting me cap’s what I’m to do!”

“Ye got a dozen dead trolls for cutting.”

“Bah, but troll blood’s not much for brightening me cap, and ye’re knowing it, ye danged fool, Mcwigik!”

“Best ye’re to get, unless some o’ them other monks come out o’ their rock house, and that ain’t for happening!”

One of the other powries added a complaint of his own, and another chimed in, but a second dwarf stepped forward in support of Mcwigik. Cormack recognized this one as the wounded Bikelbrin, whom Cormack had circle-kicked under the surf and had later leaped over when he had gone to intercept the ice trolls.

“Let him go, Pragganag,” Bikelbrin said to the knife-holder. “If me thoughts’re sorting out right, then this one saved me hairy bum.”

“Trolls had ye dead,” Mcwigik agreed. “We’d’ve put ye under a stone pile like we done to Regwegno there.”

“Aye,” agreed another, and to Cormack’s horror, that one held up a heart-Regwegno’s heart, apparently.

“But if there’d been no trolls it was us and them monks,” Pragganag argued, though even he seemed to be losing steam here and let his knife’s tip slip down toward the ground, enough so that Cormack was beginning to think he might indeed survive this ordeal. “Got me a crop o’ burned beard,” he added, tugging at the left half of his fiery red beard-or at least, the right side remained fiery red, for the clump in his hand had been blackened by one of Giavno’s bolts of lightning. “And now ye’re telling me that I lost half me beard for nothing? And when there’s bright human blood right there, laid out and tied and ready for the taking?”

“Foul chaps we’d be to kill one what saved our hairy bums,” Mcwigik growled back at him.

“Flattened yer own fat nose!” Pragganag shouted.

“Aye,” said Mcwigik, and he glanced back and nodded-appreciatively!-at Cormack. “Got a wicked punch to him.”

“And a wicked kick,” added Bikelbrin.

“Then a good kill he’ll be!” Pragganag reasoned. “And a brighter cap I’ll wear!”

“But ye weren’t the one to drop him, was ye?” Mcwigik asked. “Trolls bringed him down, and only because he leaped into the lot o’ them to save Bikelbrin. The least ye can do is knock him down yerself afore ye’re for taking his bright blood, don’t ye think?”

Pragganag stood straighter, the knife slipping down to his side as he eyed Mcwigik and Bikelbrin suspiciously. “What’re ye saying?”

Mcwigik grinned, his teeth shining white between the bushy black hair of his beard. He drew out his own knife and stepped fast behind Cormack. With a sudden swipe he took the bindings from the fallen man’s wrists. He reached down and grabbed the man by the arm and roughly hoisted him to his feet.

A wave of dizziness buckled poor Cormack’s legs as a ball of fire seemed to erupt within his battered skull. He couldn’t focus his eyes and would have fallen back to the sand had not Bikelbrin rushed over to help Mcwigik keep him upright.

“Well, alrighty then,” Pragganag laughed. He lifted his knife and advanced, grinning from ear to ear.

Mcwigik didn’t even have to intercept, though, as a pair of dwarves behind Pragganag grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Not now, ye dolt,” one said. “Fool monk can’t even stand.”

“Where’s yer honor?” the other agreed.

“It’s staining me beret!” Pragganag argued, pulling away, but he did indeed lower his knife.

“Now for yerself,” Mcwigik said, turning Cormack to face him, hoisting the man again as he slumped back toward the sand. “New moon tonight-ol’ Sheila’s not to be found. Are ye hearin’ me, boy?” He gave Cormack a little shake, which elicited a pronounced groan.

“Next time Sheila’s not to be found ye get yerself back to the beach, and we’ll come ashore so that ye can fight Pragganag here straight up,” Mcwigik explained.

“Yach, but the human dog’s not to come out to fight!” Pragganag argued.

Mcwigik tossed his fellow dwarf a dismissive glance and muttered, “It’s the best ye’re getting,” before turning his attention back to Cormack. “Ye come alone and come ready to fight. And if Pragganag’s beating ye, then know yer blood’s forfeit.”

“And what if this one wins?” Bikelbrin asked, giving Cormack another shake, which brought forth another groan. Across the way Pragganag snorted as if that notion was absurd.

“We’ll get him something for his trouble, then,” said Mcwigik.

“Yach, but ye’re giving him his life now!” one of the dwarves behind Pragganag reminded. “Ain’t that to be enough?”

“Aye, that’s enough,” said another.

“Nah,” Mcwigik bellowed back, waving his free hand at them. “Making it more interestin’. If this skinny human’s to win, then we’ll give him Pragganag’s cap,” he added suddenly, on impulse.

“Aye!” Bikelbrin said, seeing all the faces except for Pragganag’s, of course, brightening around him.

“To the dactyl’s bum ye are!” Pragganag frothed.

But Mcwigik was quick to reply, “Are ye saying that ye can’t take a skinny human one-to-one?”

“Yach!” Pragganag protested and threw up his arms, whirling away.

“Ye heared it all, boy?” Mcwigik asked Cormack, turning the monk’s face to look at him directly. “Next time Sheila’s not to be seen. Gives ye a month to get yer head put back together. Ye come out and ye come out alone.”

Surely the world was spinning, and Cormack hardly registered any of it. But he managed a nod.

Mcwigik and Bikelbrin laid him back down on the sand, and Cormack’s thoughts fell far, far away.

Onlookers ignorant of the shamanistic ways would have thought it a dance, though a pretty one to be sure. Milkeila’s bare feet scraped across the sand, drawing lines in a prescribed pattern about her as she turned and swayed and sang softly. She crossed her right foot over her left, stepped down with her heel, then gracefully rolled her ankle to lift the heel from the sand and point her toe in. She went up onto the ball of her other foot and slowly twirled all the way around.

This was the circle of power.

Milkeila’s hands moved in unison a foot apart out to her left. She chanted more loudly and dug her toe into the sand, connecting her to the power of the earth below her. Then she turned her palms up and lifted her hands to the sky, drawing that power up behind her movement. Her hands came gracefully down before her in a slow arc, and she repeated the process to her right side.

The energy lifted more easily this time, she felt in her soul, so when her hands were high in the sky, she turned about the other way, altered her chant to the god of the wind, and slowly turned her palms over as she found a stance of symmetry. She felt the wind gathered in her palms, so she slowly lowered them down by her sides, her thumbs tapping her hips and then moving lower to brush her bare legs below the hem of her short skirt. They pressed down past the outside of her knees and the sides of her shins as she dropped into a crouch, so low that her hands soon rested flat on the ground.

The shaman pressed the power of the wind into the soil, fanning the flames of the lava she had coaxed from far, far below. The ground around her, within her drawn circle, began to steam and to bubble. Despite what she had told herself before beginning the ceremony Milkeila couldn’t resist sending her thoughts into the ruby that hung on the gemstone necklace. She felt the power there, teeming with strength, and sent it, too, into the ground.

One vent popped clear, shooting hot mist several feet into the air to the approving nods of the gathered clansmen and women. Several grabbed their pails of fish, knowing that the cooking circle was near completion.