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come to when there’s trouble above. You come for swords, shields,

armor, spells to destroy each other, and curses to curse each other. I

wonder what it will be like when you have finally done each other in

completely.”

They halted at another pair of heavy doors, and some lesser

dwarfs came forward to take the horses away. Inside the doors, Leifr

surveyed a vast, gloomy hall, cluttered with benches, sleeping

platforms, and tables, all gathering coats of dust from long disuse. In

the farthest end, a meager fire burned in the corner of a monstrous,

blackened hearth, with grinning carvings leering out of the soot. A few

benches and tables looked as if they were frequently used, and the

sleeping platforms on either side were neatly spread with troll- and

deerskins and soft down eiders. The furniture was carved for the

express purpose of looking grim and uncomfortable, and someone had

gone to a lot of trouble to make it so, with scenes of monsters being

killed, great battles, and grim moral tales carved into the wood for

centuries of Dvergar to look at and feel gloomy. Leifr looked around

and felt his hopes being quenched, one by one, until he had no

expectation of any support from this meager outpost of dwarfs.

He discovered that there were only twenty-one of them, and their

means of livelihood was rather tenuously supported by a pony train

that went over the fells twice a year to fetch provisions from a

larger entombment of dwarfs. Before the advent of Sorkvir and his

Dokkalfar, the primary function of Hjaldr’s settlement was metalwork

of some esoteric nature that Leifr did not feel encouraged to inquire

into. Dwarfs, he gathered, were rather solitary by nature, distrustful of

the above-ground folk, and parsimonious to an extreme degree. The

food was of the sternest and plainest manufacture—Leifr had never

tasted such unyielding and flavorless meat in his life—and the ale must

have been watered down three times to give it such a flat and colorless

quality.

When the cheerless meal was finished, all the dwarfs took out

their pipes. In a few moments, the air reeked with bitter smoke of

a greenish color. Then Hjaldr began droning the words of a skald,

and the others took it up like a swarm of dispirited bees, marking the

time with nodding heads and tapping knives, their eyes turned upward

to the wall above Leifr’s head. Finally he turned around, unable to

bear the curiosity of wondering what they were looking at. Twenty-

eight helmets hung there, some of them fearfully dented and

smashed in, as a silent reminder of their loss.

When the singing was over, the dwarfs took their leave of their

guests and went about their business. Leifr heard horses pass the door at

the far end of the hall; somewhere someone started hammering,

resounding blows that echoed with patient regularity down the

echoing corridors of the underground settlement.

Hjaldr folded his hands, resting his elbows upon the table and

glowering at his guests. “I dare say you’ve noticed the change

in our standards of hospitality,” he began rather truculently.

Dokkalfar have thrown us out of our fine Grindstone Hall,

but we’ll make the most famous hospitality known to all Alfar. This,

I assure you, will remain one of the most memorable of meals.”

Gotiskolker glared and kicked him under the table. “As a

scavenger, I’ve eaten much worse,” he said, “and felt far more grateful.

Once I had to eat my own dog.”

Leifr glared at both of them, wondering how to excuse two

such extremes.

Apprehensively he looked at Hjaldr, who didn’t seem offended in

the least.

“We Dvergar are accustomed to saying what we think,” he said.

“Perhaps the next time we meet, it will be under happier

circumstances.” He glanced up at the rows of helmets. “We’ve all

foresworn any but the plainest of food and drink and all the creature

comforts until our fallen comrades are avenged. Twenty- eight stout-

hearted Dvergar died when Sorkvir took the Grindstone Hall from us.

We won’t celebrate until we return to our rightful place with honor.

Then we shall hang these helmets on the wall and drink to them with

the blood of our enemies.”

Feeling the hair rise on his neck, Leifr fervently hoped that he

wouldn’t be numbered among the enemies of the Dvergar.

“Which brings us to the grindstone again,” Hjaldr went on, his

voice stiffening in tone. “I suppose it does you credit that you

wish to make restitution. Whether or not you are able is your concern.

Whether or not you are sincere is a Dvergar concern. You might decide

to abandon the effort to return our grindstone if the opposition is too

severe. Perhaps you are lying to us even now, hoping to escape our

vengeance.”

“You are courageous to call me a liar to my face, but not very

wise,” Leifr replied.

“I said perhaps, and that isn’t the same thing as a direct

accusation,” Hjaldr returned. “It makes no difference what your

intentions are, as long as you bring back the grindstone. We have ways

of insuring your cooperation.”

“I need the grindstone as badly as you do,” Leifr said, not liking

the threatening tone of Hjaldr’s words. “I’ll do almost anything to

get it, without any threats from the Dvergar. You have hinted that I

might be a liar, you doubt my sincerity, and you think I might lose heart

before I’ve succeeded. Perhaps you’d like to wait for someone

else to try getting back your precious grindstone.”

“We know you as a traitor and a thief. It remains to be seen if you

can be trusted. Your word alone is not enough to convince us.” Hjaldr’s

baleful eyes gleamed from their deepsunk caverns. “We want you to

return with our grindstone; if you don’t return, we want you to suffer for

it.”

Thurid leaned forward on his elbows. “What kind of surety do

you want? We don’t have any valuables to speak of, and the only

prospect we have of getting any is when Sorkvir is dead and we take

back the treasure he has stolen from the Ljosalfar of Solvorfirth. Then

we could give you a share, perhaps.“ He winced as Gotiskolker kicked

him forcefully under the table again.

“I think not,” Gotiskolker said. “A surety must be paid in

advance. It need not be in gold or valuable property. Perhaps we

could leave you as a surety. If we don’t come back, the Dvergar can

kill you.”

“That seems feasible,” Hjaldr said, plucking at his nether lip

thoughtfully. “A wizard is worth redeeming, if he’s any good at all at

magic.”

“Out of the question,” Thurid declared. “Fridmarr will need my

assistance in purifying the Pentacle of evil influences. We could better

spare a useless scavenger.”

“Or me.” Ljosa’s clear voice dropped in the echoing hall like

two pebbles into a silent pool.

“No,” Leifr said. “I refuse to consider it.”

“Come now, Fridmarr, she’d be well cared for,” Thurid said

soothingly. “She’d be safer here than with us or looking for her relatives

in Fjarastrond.”

“No,” Leifr repeated. “I can’t risk her life like that. What if I

were slain? These dwarfs would kill her.” He flashed a deadly glare at

Hjaldr, and it was all he could do to resist drawing his sword then and

there in her defense.

“We wouldn’t kill her,” Hjaldr said. “We will simply keep

her until you return or someone else comes to exchange her for the

grindstone. As the wizard said, she will be well cared for, although she

won’t see much daylight. She will be safe here until you return.”

Leifr clenched his fists. “No. I refuse to agree to it.

You’ll get your grindstone, but not at such a price.”

Hjaldr leaned back in his gloomy black chair and cast a covert

glance around the hall, where plenty of dwarfs seemed to be lingering

over insignificant tasks. Their presence was not lost upon Leifr,

who began to curse himself for stumbling right onto their

doorstep and inviting these villainous dwarfs to capture him.

“I fear,” Hjaldr said ponderously, “that I can’t permit you to

leave under any other circumstances. The girl must be left for surety

that you will return. I think that she matters more to you than the

grindstone.“

Leifr looked at her, half-smothered in her old dark cloak,

surrounded by warlike elves and dwarfs and the tools of destruction.

She belonged in bright surroundings; there her beauty and radiance

would dazzle like a jewel, instead of being locked away with the rest

of the dwarfs’ treasures, where neither light nor admiring eyes ever

intruded.

“I can’t leave you here,” Leifr said to her, fighting the sensation

that he was being slowly strangled from within, beginning with his

heart. He had no need for the carbuncle’s promptings.

“I said I would stay,” she said. “No one is forcing me against my

will. I want to do this to help you. The Dvergar will help you if I stay.”

“If you stay, then we all stay,” Leifr declared, rising to his feet to

pace restlessly back and forth. “I hadn’t thought when we came here

that it was as prisoners. You returned us our weapons, but now I

suppose we ought to surrender them.” He unbuckled his sword belt and

threw it on the table before Hjaldr with a satisfying crash.

Thurid exchanged a terrified glance with a cynical Gotiskolker,

who seemed to be looking on with dark amusement at the exacerbations

and antics of the others. Seeing no help from that quarter, Thurid slid

out of his seat and tried to reason with Leifr.

“Fridmarr, the reputation of Dvergar prisons is deplorable. Ljosa

as a hostage and Ljosa as a prisoner are two vastly different things. You

wouldn’t want to inflict needless hardship upon her, not to mention the

rest of us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gotiskolker interrupted. “It can’t be much

worse than what I’ve become accustomed to. I’d choose the Dvergar

over Sorkvir any day as jailers.”

Leifr rounded on him furiously. “No one’s asking you to choose.

You can desert me any time you want to go. You brought me into this

mess and haven’t done a whole lot to make it any simpler from the

beginning. I wish I’d never found you in those barrows. Now I can’t

make a decent choice. Whichever way I turn, it all seems wrong. I can’t

put up Ljosa’s life as surety and gamble her future against my ability

to find the grindstone.

What do you think the odds are of us fighting our way out of

here?“

Gotiskolker looked around the hall, counting dwarfs. “Eleven of

them, three of us who can fight—more or less.” He glanced

contemptuously at Thurid.

‘Those odds stink, Fridmarr. I wouldn’t try it.“

“Neither would I,” Hjaldr rumbled, and the other ten dwarfs

shook their heads and tweaked the edges of their swords and axes.

Leifr noted the powerful girth of their chests and the bulging muscles of

their arms, not to mention the fierce and ready gleam in their eyes when

a fight was mentioned.

Leifr cast himself into a chair, stifling a groan of despair. Hjaldr

gave his sword a push toward him along the table, saying, “We don’t

want anyone as prisoners. All we want is our grindstone back. If you

had treated us better in the past, we would be treating you better now.

Hroaldsdottir will be safe here and as content as we can make her. All

you have to concern yourself with is staying alive and returning the

grindstone, and we’ll release her. Take your weapon and put it on. You

have created these circumstances for yourself, so make the best of

them.”

Leifr turned toward Ljosa and saw her nod. Feeling a traitor’s

anguish, he resigned himself to the totally unacceptable plan.

“All right,” he said resentfully, unable to look at her again.

“We’ll do it. But if you don’t keep your bargain—”

The magnitude of his threat was too great for mere words, but

Hjaldr seemed to read his intentions accurately enough without

them. His swarthy features were pale and sober as he extended one

huge hand to seal the agreement with a slap of palms with Leifr.

“We shall keep our agreement,” he said. “When you have the