proclaimed.
“Master Embermore, these mountains are no healthy place to work,” Tol cautioned.
It was true enough, but Tol also knew the new emperor would not be pleased to learn that dwarves were exploiting the riches of a land so close to the empire’s border. He urged the dwarves to depart quickly. The bandits might recover their nerve at any time, especially if they realized Tol’s “army” was only five strong. Mundur saw the wisdom of this and ordered his thanes to work with an impressive, booming voice.
Two wagons had been destroyed, and three of the ox teams slain, but from the remnants Mundur Embermore reorganized his caravan. However, the dwarves could not move on until their fallen comrades were solemnly interred. Tol understood their sentiment, and he and his people stood a nervous watch while the dwarves honored their dead.
When the last stone was placed on the last cairn, Mundur approached Tol, still mounted on Shadow.
“Our brothers will sleep in peace, thanks be to you and the Maker God,” he said. His deep-set blue eyes were rimmed with tears. “A thousand blessings on your noble brow, Ergothian!”
“We can’t let thieves run free,” Tol replied, embarrassed by the dwarf’s continued gratitude.
“No, indeed!” Mundur smiled, showing broad yellow teeth. “Allow me to repay your gallantry in my own small way. May I see your sword?”
The rest of Tol’s party collected around him as he drew his saber and offered the hilt to the dwarf.
Mundur ran a thick thumb over the flat side of the blade, then licked it. “That’s good iron. Mined in the west of your country, no more than five winters past I’d say.”
He summoned one of his thanes, and the two of them measured the saber with great care.
“You favor a curved blade, soldier?” Mundur asked, and Tol admitted he did. To his helper, Mundur said, “Bring Number Six.”
The thane retrieved a long wooden box from one of the wagons. When this was presented to Mundur, the elderly dwarf opened it and removed a finished sword with a long, curved Made and a cup hilt made to enclose the wielder’s hand completely. He presented the weapon to Tol.
“Try this, Ergoth.”
The cup hilt was somewhat snug, as the grip had been sized for a dwarf, but Tol’s own hands weren’t overly large. The weapon’s length was right and its balance excellent. Sweeping out from the oil-finished hilt, the blade was quite thin, and displayed an intricate pattern of whorls in its surface.
“We made up a number of sample weapons at the mine,” Mundur explained. “To show the folks back home what can be done with the metal we found here. What think you of the blade?”
Tol swung the saber. It was fast and light, but he doubted the thin blade would stand up long in close combat. As politely as he could, he said so.
Mundur’s eyes gleamed. “It will serve you well, a very long time. The sword is yours, warrior. A small gift from Mundur Embermore to his benefactor. Use it in good health!”
Chuckling deep in his chest, Mundur departed. With much waving, shouts of gratitude, and whip-cracking, the dwarves formed their caravan and went on their way.
Kiya took the sword from Tol’s hand and brandished it a few times. “I feel no magic in it,” she said, handing it back.
“I doubt there is any.” He slipped his old, much-used saber back in its scabbard and regarded the new weapon with a practiced eye. “Mundur’s a miner and a smith, not a spell-caster.”
“A handsome blade, though,” Frez noted. Miya commented sourly that gold would’ve been a better reward than another sword, no matter how well wrought.
Tol hung the new weapon from a thong behind his saddle bags. As Shadow jounced along, the cutting edge wore against the end of a saddlebag. No one noticed until the contents of the bag spilled out on the stony ground.
Darpo rode up from behind and pulled the dwarf blade free. With no more force than its own weight, it had sliced through the thick leather bag.
“Some edge!” Darpo declared, handing the weapon to Tol.
Miya picked up Tol’s scattered belongings. When she saw his tin drinking cup, she whistled loudly between her teeth. The cup was also deeply scored by the blade.
Tol dismounted. Sword in hand, he tossed the ruined cup in the air and slashed at it with Mundur’s blade. The cup flew into two halves, bisected.
Kiya gave Tol a quick look, lifting her eyebrows. He shook his head and casually rested a hand at his waist where he wore the millstone. He had touched the blade to the Irda artifact, with no result. The sword’s power lay not in magic but in superb craftsmanship.
“Try something harder, my lord!” Darpo urged.
Tol pulled a silver coin from his belt pouch. Holding the saber edge up, he balanced the coin on it. With a single, sharp heave, he brought the saber over in a wide arc. Two silver semicircles landed on the ground. Kiya offered a brass spoon, and Mundur’s blade sliced it just as easily.
Miya stooped and retrieved a black iron horseshoe from Tol’s fallen gear. Wordlessly she held it out. This would be the supreme test. Horseshoes were forged from the toughest iron. A common saber could be ruined by hacking a horseshoe; it might even snap in two.
Tol tossed the horseshoe into the air and swung the blade hard. He felt only a slight resistance, heard a snap, and the horseshoe hit the ground in two pieces. The edge of Mundur’s sword wasn’t even nicked.
Frez whooped, Darpo laughed, and the Dom-shu sisters clapped each other heartily on the back. Tol slipped the dwarf blade into his empty scabbard.
“A good sword,” he said, calmly. Unable to maintain his facade, he grinned suddenly. “I think I’ll keep it!”
Miya, the inveterate haggler, was all for going after the dwarves to see whether more blades could be bought. Kiya finally had to take Fitch’s reins and lead her sister away from temptation.
The sun was high. Since they’d descended from the heights, the day had turned sultry indeed, with white haze rising up to obscure the once brilliantly blue sky. Trees became common again as the land flattened. Behind them, the silent gray mountains they’d conquered looked like a forbidding fortress. Miya marveled that they’d managed to cross such lofty peaks.
Spread below them, the Harrow Sky hill country resembled a quilt, a patchwork of green vales and brown hills. With Tarsis four days behind them, Tol expected to reach the sea in another four.
At his order they shed their distinctive Ergothian clothing, trading scarves, hoods, and cloaks, until each of them looked appropriately anonymous. No sense announcing themselves as imperial warriors, Tol said. A small band of wanderers-perhaps robbers themselves-would invite much less attention than Ergothian soldiers.
A few leagues farther on, signs of habitation grew more and more common. Smoke was on the wind, from hearths and campfires. Here and there crude vegetable patches appeared, gouged out of the flinty hillsides. The hardscrabble gardens reminded Tol of his childhood. He’d spent many a morning hoeing in such fields alongside his father, mother, and two sisters.
As always, thoughts of his family brought a pang to Tol’s heart. Not having seen them for years, he had searched out their farm as he led the Army of the North southward on its long trek to Tarsis. He’d found the tiny homestead, tucked in the hills south of Juramona, but it was abandoned. The pens had fallen down, and the house in which he’d been born was roofless and derelict. No trace of his family remained. Caught up as he was in a war, Tol could not take time to look for them.
The first person they encountered since the dwarves’ departure was a little girl. With only a willow switch, she was herding a trio of pigs, each as large as herself. She shied away from the five riders, driving her charges off the path. Although only about twelve years old, she had hard eyes and a long dagger tucked in the rope knotted around her waist. She gripped its wooden handle as they passed.
“The natives are so friendly here,” Miya snorted.
“You grew up free in the forest,” Tol said quietly, as they gave the wary child a wide berth. “A farmer is surrounded by enemies: the weather, insects, thieves, overlords. Life makes you hard-or you die.”
They came to a village nestled between three hills. An open town, with no wall to defend it, it was a cluster
