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at the summit of the mountain cracked and heaved, sending blocks of

ice the size of hay barns rumbling down the ravines, casting up sheets

of misty spray and ice particles.

Thurid led the descent from the mountain, muttering magic to

himself the entire time, until they arrived safely on the far side of the

fell to the south. By then, Leifr’s strength was exhausted and his

damaged leg dragged almost lifelessly as he hauled himself grimly

along with the aid of a rough crutch torn from a thicket. At the bottom

of the fell was a ruined farmhouse, where watch fires burned in a ring

around it. Leifr halted suspiciously, but Thurid assured him, “It’s

nothing to worry about—just some of your old friends from the mines

watching for us. We’ve got an army ready-made, armed with pickaxes,

mauls, and shovels, and a strong desire to remain free of Sorkvir. There

are about four times as many thralls as there were Dokkalfar. Even

Sorkvir would think twice about attacking them.”

The first watchman spied them and sounded the alarm, which

went from post to post down the mountain. In short order, a horse and

sledge came rumbling up the fell with a welcoming jingle of bells and

harness. None of it seemed real to Leifr until the sledge had delivered

him to the ruins of the house, where Ljosa and Gotiskolker had taken

possession of the last remaining piece of standing roof, which had been

part of a barn.

Gotiskolker was too weak to rise from his pallet and could only

welcome Leifr with his dark, pain-laden eyes and a slight quirk of a

smile. To Leifr, he looked already cadaverous, with his skin drawn

thinly over his battered facial bones, showing every scar.

Seeing Leifr’s stunned expression, Ljosa came forward quickly

and led Leifr aside to explain tersely, “He’s dying, Fridmarr. It took the

last of his strength to rescue me. He said that he has something

important to tell me, but I fear he won’t live to tell it.”

Leifr drew a deep breath and sank down on a sheep fleece to stare

across the fire at Gotiskolker. “I believe I know what he wants to tell

you.” He was certain it was the secret of Leifr’s identity; or perhaps

Gotiskolker wanted Ljosa to help Leifr return to the Scipling realm.

“He can’t die and leave me here,” Leifr said wearily. “We’ve

come so far together.”

Thurid held his hands over Gotiskolker a moment, as if testing

the heat of dying coals; then he sat down with an exhausted grunt next

to Ljosa’s fire. “Don’t look so bleak, Fridmarr,” he said, meaning to be

been killing him for years. He’s been living on

kind. “The eitur has

borrowed time. His life could not have been very pleasant for him.”

“He’s not finished yet,” Leifr said doggedly. “There are things

he has to do first.”

“Is there anything to eat around here?” Thurid asked, and

Raudbjorn grunted a second to that motion, his eyes brightening at the

prospect.

“Nothing but black bread and dried fish,” Ljosa replied.

Leifr shuddered. “I’ll never eat black bread and dried fish again

for the rest of my life.” He lay down, bone-tired and gloomy, unable

to think of anything but being marooned in the Alfar realm and unable

to convince anyone that he was not Fridmarr Fridmundrsson. He felt the

torque around his neck as the idea occurred to him that he might have

only three days to worry about it. But if he were successful in finding

the grindstone at Grittur-grof, he would have to spend the rest of his

life as Fridmarr, an uneasy occupation with frequent unpleasant

surprises as more of Fridmarr’s past came to light.

Eventually he went to sleep. In the morning when he awakened,

he looked first to see if Gotiskolker was still breathing. By daylight,

Gotiskolker looked far worse than by firelight, but he was still holding

on to the thread of life. He opened his eyes a moment to look at

Leifr, then closed them slowly, drifting away again.

Leifr prodded the frosty heap that was Raudbjorn, who

awakened with a snort and blinked around at the ruins, as if he had no

idea how he had gotten there.

“Raudbjorn, go find us a sledge and three horses. See if you can

find us some riding horses.”

Raudbjorn’s face puckered with doubt. “Old mine ponies no

good to ride,” he grumbled. “Dokkalfar took best horses. Maybe have

to walk.”

“While you’re doing that, Raudbjorn, spread the word that we’re

all going to Grittur-grof.”

Glad for the opportunity to strike a few blows at their former

slavemasters, the outcasts of Dokholur rallied themselves into an

efficient traveling company, ready to follow Leifr south to Grittur-

grof. Gently Leifr placed Gotiskolker in the sledge, noting that there

was almost no substance left to his body.

“He might have lived longer if he’d never come on this

expedition,” he observed bitterly to Ljosa, who was to ride in the

sledge with Gotiskolker.

She smiled at Leifr sadly. “Yes, but look at all the strength it took

for him to go so far, when he knew he was dying. He must feel proud;

and so should we, to have known such a brave and tormented soul.”

To cushion the rough ride, she held him in her arms, swaying as

the horses started forward. The spectacle of the chieftain’s daughter

comforting a dying beggar sent a thrill through the motley army of

perhaps a hundred tattered, homeless men, instilling their resilient souls

with the strength to shoulder their packs of salvaged provisions and

march grimly toward Grittur-grof and the expected confrontation with

their bitterest enemy.

Leifr found himself miraculously reunited with his old black

horse Jolfr, who had been deemed unworthy of Dokkalfar possession

and set to work in the mine, much as Leifr had. Raudbjorn brought

Jolfr to him in the company of several former prisoners Leifr

recognized, ones who had shared their food with him when they had

not enough for themselves. Leifr made them captains. Under their

leadership, the army moved southward.

Near sundown they came into view of Grittur-grof. Ancient

barrow mounds covered with stones rose from the barren earth, long

barrows where kings might have been buried, and round barrows for the

lesser dead. No bushes or thickets grew among the graves, and the grass

and moss clung to sheltered pockets between the stones, where the

piercing wind could not penetrate. Leifr viewed the vast, desolate area

with grim dismay, wondering how a grindstone could be found among

so many thousands of ordinary stones.

Raudbjorn deployed his watchmen, and a dozen small fires soon

sprang up in a circle around the main encampment. Leifr found a

sheltered area for Gotiskolker and Ljosa within the doorway of a

large barrow. As the sky darkened, the Dokkalfar appeared on the

tops of the barrows, their helmets and weapons glimmering redly by the

light of their torches and their battle-standards flapping in the cold wind

with a rattling of bones and metal symbols. Presently Sorkvir appeared,

riding the length of a long barrow, with several of his captains following

at a respectful distance. Greifli would no longer be among Sorkvir’s evil

train, Leifr thought with grim satisfaction, and neither would

Raudbjorn, who had taken a prominent position atop a small barrow to

yell derision at the Dokkalfar.

Sorkvir halted and conferred with his captains for a few

moments, then rode his horse down the side of the barrow

toward the former prisoners’ encampment. The former thralls took

up their weapons and presented a bristling defense. Stopping at a safe

distance, Sorkvir sent in word that he wished to speak to their

leader, and the message was carried quickly to Leifr. He rode his horse

out to meet Sorkvir, in spite of Thurid’s advice not to, and persuaded

Raudbjorn to stay at the edge of the watch fires only after a lengthy

argument.

Leifr stopped at a cautious distance, not trusting the glowering

wizard to maintain the truce.

“Fridmarr, we ought to be able to reach some agreement,”

Sorkvir began, his eyes burning with the fever of a hunted animal. “I

believe we can both continue to exist, once we come to a truce.”

“There will be no truce,” Leifr replied.

“I could give you Gliru-hals,” Sorkvir said after a long, taut

pause.

“Gliru-hals is not yours to give,” Leifr said. “It belongs to Ljosa

Hroaldsdottir, now that Hroald is dead by your hand. Driving out the

trespassers is only one of our goals. Not one Dokkalfar will remain in

Solvorfirth.”

Sorkvir snorted. “You wouldn’t be so arrogant if not for that

Rhbu wizard.”

“Perhaps not, but Rhbu magic will be your doom.”

“Be sensible, Fridmarr. I could make you rich and powerful. I see

now that I was foolish to think I could subdue your spirit by

imprisonment and deprivation, when it was your intelligence I should

have appealed to. We are not so different, you and I.”

“Only as different as night and day, Sorkvir,” Leifr said. “Only

one can exist at a time. It does you no good to try to sway me. I won’t

change my mind. I will sharpen that Rhbu sword and destroy you with

it.”

“You are only doing this to assuage your own conscience about

your brother Bodmarr. You think it will remove your guilt for his death,

but treachery to your own brother is a crime the Ljosalfar will never

forgive. They may tolerate you, but their backs will always be turned to

you. You will always feel a secret self-loathing because you were

unable to come to Bodmarr’s aid when you could have saved him.

What a weak fool you were in those days! You were out of your

mind with eitur while I was killing Bodmarr. You killed him almost as

much as I did. One day the eitur you took then will kill you,

Fridmarr. Sometimes it takes many years, but one day you’ll begin to

feel it burning away in your vitals, in your very brain. All that can

prevent it is more eitur. Aren’t you afraid, Fridmarr? It’s an

unpleasant way to die. I have the means to save you from such a

miserable and protracted death.”

Sorkvir held out a small flask to Leifr. “Go ahead and take it,

Fridmarr. As long as you have a supply of eitur you’ll never have to

worry about the pain of being without it.”

Leifr’s thoughts were upon Gotiskolker. With a sudden flare of

hope he realized that saving Gotiskolker’s life now could ensure him a

way back to his own realm later. But his hope died a sickly death when

he pictured himself forcing the poison on his friend in order to desert

him to the evil consequences of such a deed. He gazed at Sorkvir,

feeling the powerful influence of the wizard’s skills trying to draw him

under the spell of Sorkvir’s words.

“It’s useless to try to save yourself,” Leifr said after a long, silent

struggle. “You know that fate is on my side; otherwise, the Pentacle

would not be almost cleared.”

“The damage is quite easy to remedy,” Sorkvir said, making a

visible effort to control his temper. “Fridmarr, I have tried in vain to

appeal to your common sense and I have tried to frighten you about the

eitur. I had thought that you might listen to reason, instead of being so

obdurate. You have not changed from the stubborn fool you were

before.”

“As you said, we are not so different.”

“Is that your final word, Fridmarr?”

“Yes, unless you wish to tell me where the grindstone is hidden.”

Sorkvir chuckled drily. “And tempt fate? Your challenge is

tempting, Fridmarr, but I’m no longer young and foolish, as you are.

What if Bodmarr’s magic Rhbu sword doesn’t work in your hand?

What if he was the chosen hero, and you are nothing but a

presumptuous usurper? If that should be the case, and you are unable to

kill me, have you contemplated what your immediate future might be?”

Leifr turned his horse sharply, backing away from Sorkvir. The

wizard broke into a wild laugh that echoed off the rocky barrows. “Give

it up now, Fridmarr, while neither of us knows what the truth actually is.

This question will keep the peace between us.”

“I think I stand to lose more by not knowing,” Leifr replied,

feeling the torque’s cool metal around his neck. “I know from