For his mind kept drifting. Fear for Knucklebones ached in Sunbright's heart, and threatened to choke him. Idly, he wondered what the battle would bring. He was willing to die if Knucklebones could live, but there were no guarantees. Most likely he would battle the monster and die, and Knucklebones would die soon after. Monkberry would wander the prairie for the last time. Perhaps Sunbright had been wrong to contact his ancestors across time, for compared to their turmoil and sufferings, and all the pains and glories of history, he amounted to little. Given enough time, nothing much mattered.

The dead waited, as did their descendants. Sunbright was missing something obvious, he felt. Or perhaps even these ghosts were powerless to help him. After all, when it came time for battle, he must leave all others behind, and walk onto the field alone. So perhaps the dead could only offer him their quiet comfort. He couldn't tell.

With nothing more to say, Sunbright's ancestors turned to fog and melted away.

Sunbright opened his eyes to night darkness, and the lumpy shape of his mother sitting on a rock.

"I'm a poor shaman," the man croaked to his mother. "I've let down my lover, and my people, my ancestors, and myself."

"No." Monkberry caught her son's face, pulled it down to kiss his forehead, then whispered, "You've let no one down, for you've tried your best."

From the forge came a babble, a roar, then a cry: "Get him! Get the bright one! He must draw the blade from the fire!" Fifty voices picked up the cheer.

Dark shapes cl.u.s.tered around Sunbright. Elven hands, long and supple and cool, and dwarven paws, craggy and hot from the forge, hustled him to the workshop. Nudged gently through the low door, he saw Drigor standing in a spark-spattered ap.r.o.n and enormous horse hide gloves. The forge was piled of dry rocks, long enough to hold a plow blade. Harvester's pommel jutted from a flare that smarted Sunbright's tired eyes.

"Take it. Take it!" the dwarf commanded. "That's it... draw it out slow, now ... slow!"

Sunbright laid hold of the long pommel, which was bare steel, the leather and wire having been unwound. Touching steel sent a tingle through his arm. It was only warm, not red hot, but the blade seemed alive, as if he'd caught a dragon's tail. Under Drigor's direction, he pulled the blade free of the flames.

Harvester of Blood flared in the night. Polished like a mirror, it made Sunbright squint. The strip of elven truesteel was forged so tightly to Harvester's old edge he couldn't see the juncture. The long edge retained its original curve, yet that curve suggested power like a cresting wave. The barbed hook behind the nose was cruel as an eagle's beak. The edge, once razor-sharp, was now invisible, fine ground to atoms. And the blade had a new balance, so it bobbed in his hand, light as a fishing pole, as if it matched his muscles, learned from them, helped them. He could wield this new-old weapon all day and never tire.

Dwarves and elves hurrahed for the hero and his legendary blade. Moving close, Drigor took it, gently as a baby, laid it on a stone table, felt the edge and flat, tested by striking a beard hair against the edge. So clean it cut, the hair seemed to evaporate. Chuckling at his cleverness, the dwarf polished the glistening blade with a chamois, and lovingly wrapped new leather and silver wire around the pommel. "Now," the dwarf said, "for the real test!"

Surging outside with the crowd, the dwarf hunted under a torch for the right rock, found one black and speckled with silver flecks-a rock not unlike the monster's flinty hide. Holding the sword blade up, he dropped the rock against the lowest part of the cutting edge. The rock dropped straight to the ground, but landed in two pieces. The crowd oohed as Drigor held up one chunk of granite. One side was smooth as gla.s.s.

"It's ready."

"One more thing," said an elf. "Actually, many small things."

From the darkness, elves approached Sunbright to surround him. They said nothing, but touched him in a dozen places with tiny things Sunbright supposed were charms or talismans. Slim elven fingers tucked a four-leaf clover into his sleeve. An elven woman tied a bead to the rawhide binding his hair. A young lad stooped and fastened a silver heart to an iron ring on his boot. A woman pinned a striped feather to his bosom. Other charms were laid on him. Finally old Brookdweller shuffled forward on twisted feet. Raising a withered fern, she brushed Sunbright from head to toe, back and front, even signaling to raise his arms to brush underneath, all the while she crooned a song like a lark's trill. Brushing his hands, she and the other elves drew back.

Sunbright thought to say thank you for whatever they'd done, but they'd been silent and so he answered the same way. His mind was elsewhere anyway, already fighting the battle, or already dead, as if he moved in a dream world.

Polishing, polishing, Drigor inverted Harvester and offered it to Sunbright.

But the barbarian gazed east, out over the prairie, where a band of yellow light filled the horizon.

"Almost dawn," he said absently. Reaching, he caught Harvester's pommel and slid the enchanted sword home over his shoulder. The weight at his back made him stand taller.

Then he marched toward the sunrise.

One minute's walk, and Sunbright was alone on the rolling gra.s.slands. Elves and dwarves stopped at the first gra.s.s as if lining an arena. Barbarians came too, drawn by the sun, and stopped to watch their tribesman stride out alone.

Then, from thin air before him, stood the monster. Its black flint hide sparkled with minerals in the rising sun. Knucklebones hung limp from one claw, her strength gone but her single eye alive. The little thief watched Sunbright approach with a mixture of love, hope, and fear.

Sunbright stopped a dozen feet from the monster, hands on hips, and studied it for the first time.

The bald head, thick skin of stone, fierce claws, mismatched, mighty arms, long, splayed feet, all suggested a creature fashioned for killing. But the bulging blue eyes this morning looked familiar.

Raising a long arm, the monster hoisted Knucklebones in the air, and flung her like a rag doll. The thief pinwheeled across the tops of the gra.s.s like a skipped stone, and came to a gentle, dizzy landing three hundred feet away. Croaked the monster, "She's nothing to me."

"She's everything to me," replied Sunbright. "Will you tell me your name?"

"You know it. Knew it." The voice was painful to hear, like a man strangling on poison. "In life I was called Sysquemalyn."

"Sys-" Sunbright's brow clouded. "I don't recall-"

"You know me!" the fiend screeched. "I was chamberlain to Polaris, whom I've beaten and banished beyond h.e.l.l! I was compet.i.tor to Candlemas, whom I transfigured into a horror, then tore to shreds!"

"Aaaaah!" Sunbright nodded. "A beautiful woman, tall and striking, with red hair."

The barbarian's denseness annoyed the former mage.

"The most beautiful!"

"Beautiful, yes. You posed as Ruellana to seduce me. And as a courtier to the One King. You played some game, a wager with Candlemas. I never wholly understood it, but-"

"But why seek revenge? Why come I to kill you?" Sysquemalyn raised curved claws and slashed the air. Sunbright's calm befuddlement, rather than stark fear, made her squirm. The mortal should beg for his life, not pose idle questions. She shrieked at him, "Look at me! Look at the horror I've become!

Think on the suffering I endured in my own personal h.e.l.l, trapped for three years when every second was torture!"

Sunbright, awake all night, poised for battle-madness, was yet cursed with curiosity, so struggled to understand. "Why hate me?" he asked. "I spared your life in h.e.l.l, when that big winged h.e.l.l-king ordered I behead you, and I did nothing to imprison you."

The monster's gashed mouth champed in frustration. Where was the fear, the cowering, begging, and whimpering?

"You were there! You helped condemn me, did nothing to prevent it! For this I will kill you, and all you hold dear!"

"Vengeance?" Sunbright scratched his horsetail as he said, "Revenge rings hollow, I've found. I planned to avenge myself on my tribe for years, too, but when I finally found them, they were helpless as baby birds. I was needed, so pitched in to help them survive. My mother insisted. Revenge would have killed us all. It's foolish."

"Foolish?" Sysquemalyn stamped forward, lowered her head like a bull about to charge, and hissed like a snake, "It's foolish to beg for your life, for this morning you die!"

"I don't beg, and won't," he said. Sunbright squinted with sun in his eyes. Sysquemalyn didn't listen well, for she was mad. And dangerous. Stepping backward through knee-high gra.s.s, the shaman said, "I'll ask one question, if you please. Tell me why, with the powerful magic at your disposal, you hare about gaining revenge? Why not use your power to restore your beauty?"

For a second, the idea so stunned the monster, it froze her in her tracks. Never once since crawling from h.e.l.l had she considered regaining her beauty. She'd been too bent on revenge. On her enemies, such as the barbarian before her. Who enraged her with calm words and awkward thoughts.

"You'd pity me?"

With a shriek that shriveled gra.s.s, the monster charged.

Sunbright was staggered by the ferocity of the attack. And slow from fatigue and worry. He wasn't really prepared for this fight, didn't want it. Lately, battling raiders and monsters and even his own tribe, he'd fought enough for a lifetime.

Yet if his mind was distracted, instinct saved him.

Without thinking, Sunbright stepped back on his left foot, body following, and c.o.c.ked Harvester over his right shoulder. Before he knew it, the sword sliced a path of death through the bright winter sky.

Sysquemalyn bellowed in rage, and slashed to deflect the blade with a stony wrist. Yet as the sword, swung with all Sunbright's strength, clanged off her arm, a tiny chip of stone flew free. In a blind fury, the monster didn't see or feel the wound, but the shaman did, and took note, and heart.

Then the fiend was on him like a pack of wildcats. "I'll flay your flesh from your bones!" she screamed.

A long-fingered hand clamped atop Sunbright's head. Flexing claws like broken gla.s.s dug in, punctured his shaven temples and scalp. Sunbright felt blood start, and his skull ached. Yet something, he sensed, kept his skull from collapsing. An elf had tied a bead to his horsetail thong, he recalled. Did that protect him?

Howsoever, he could strike back. Retaliating, he shot the pommel of the sword straight at the monster's skull face. The heavy steel end banged and skidded off. Sysquemalyn chuckled and twisted the claws fastened to his head. Pain shot through Sunbright's skull and down his neck. He had to get free, even if he ripped his own flesh, but the monster's other hand s.n.a.t.c.hed at his throat. When he made to grab it, fearsome claws closed around his wrist and squeezed. The shaman groaned as bones ground together, but the mighty claws didn't crush him, and again he sensed protection. The four-leaf clover tucked in his sleeve? Could these piddling charms protect against such evil?

But it was idiotic, Sunbright thought, to fight barehanded when he possessed a magic sword. With a gasp, he flailed his right hand to flip Harvester and chop at Sysquemalyn's head, but the sword only wobbled in the trapped hand. To drop it was to die, but he couldn't engage. Nor think, for pain exploded in his head like northern lights. Finally, he simply dropped his whole body.

His great weight tore skin from his head, but he got free of the monster's claws. His left hand was also free, though the right was trapped. As the monster swiped to claw him anew, he calculated, timed, pried open his right hand, and dropped the sword.

A miss would sever his hand, but he caught Harvester's pommel in his left, bobbled the sword, and hung on. Then he poised, aimed, and stabbed for the creature's armpit.

The enchanted blade lodged in a hollow against skin turned stone, then bit like a miner's drill.

Encouraged, Sunbright shoved harder, saw the point chip another pebble away. Sysquemalyn dropped her free hand to his shoulder, and guttered, "First hand, then arm. I'll break both, but not tear them off.

I want you alive to suffer!"

Grunting with effort, resisting a howl from his trapped arm, Sunbright bunched his arm, sucked wind, and redoubled his shoving. He saw his blade twist in stony flesh, bite, and sink almost to the barb.

A caw like a crow's startled him. Sysquemalyn was surprised by pain. Hopping back, she let go of his aching right arm.

Rising to a crouch, Sunbright waggled his crushed wrist, found it serviceable, and flipped Harvester to his fighting hand. " 'Twas enchanted by elves and dwarves working together . . ." he said, panting. He shook his head, for the blood trickling into his ears tickled."... for the first time in history.

Just for you!"

"Worm food!" the archwizard retorted. Hanging out of sword's reach, she flicked both hands while hissing like a dragon.

A tingling possessed Sunbright. An itch like severe sunburn crawled over his skin. At his inner elbow, tanned skin curdled like birch bark in a fire, split and broke and bled and itched abominably.

He felt it elsewhere, under his chin, behind his knees, in his groin, between his toes. A skin curdling spell? Was this her worst threat? Or did more elven charms, feathers and lace and owl bones, stop the worst effects? Nor did Sunbright ponder long. He didn't trust his right hand to keep the sword, so used two hands to hoist Harvester high, and charged across the winter gra.s.s.

The monster fell back, and raised a long, crooked arm to block the blow. When the truesteel struck with an awful shattering noise, Sysquemalyn suffered a slice in her forearm long as a man's little finger. Sunbright didn't hesitate, but caught the sword on the backswing, and hauled it through the arc and around to strike again. Another fearful clang, and a chip like obsidian spun from a clawed hand.

Sunbright cut again, and again, and each time the monster fell back. But the hero was too winded to deliver another blow. They were almost useless anyway. He'd spend his strength and only whittle off chips like sawdust. Sobbing for air, the warrior tried to think what to do.

And thought of nothing. He had no battle plan, no strategy, and little hope. Deep down, he'd never expected to survive this long, let alone win. The monster was too powerful, and he was, after all, only a man.

As if reading his mind, Sysquemalyn planted her dark, splayed feet like condor claws, and gargled.

"I know every spell of every creature in the nine h.e.l.ls, for I conquered them all! Taste this!"

From one hooked palm, there spat a fan of liquid, a flood of putrid rain stinking of sulfur. The spray spattered Sunbright from head to foot, filled the air, and rained on the prairie gra.s.s, which shriveled and curled black. Some spots puffed into flame. Sunbright felt afire himself, for the acid burned on his cuts and bruises. His eyes smarted, he gagged on the stink, he smelled leather and wool, and even his own hair corroding. Yet native strength and elven charm protected him, and so he attacked.

But as he slung Harvester sidelong for a rib shot, the fiend's hand soared in an arc. Sunbright smashed a ringing blow on her gaunt ribs, then felt heat all around. His boots squished in something soft that wasn't gra.s.s.

The prairie cracked in a hundred places to ooze foul black tar that bubbled and boiled. Within seconds, Sunbright was ankle-deep in gunk. He sniffed burning moosehide. Unable to see clearly for sweat and blood and heat waves, he ignored the threat. Some curse would kill him eventually, but until then he'd fight. With a different attack, if possible.

Waving Harvester high, he spun his hands in midair, took a new grip, slammed the blade down.

Enchanted steel crashed on Sysquemalyn's shoulder and grazed the stone ridge. The barbarian heaved the blade sideways and yanked. The barbed tip of Harvester snagged her scrawny spine behind the bald head. The barb had also been welded with truesteel, for it bit, and hung on.

Sysquemalyn staggered, thrown off-balance, and almost toppled into the shaman. Sunbright jerked his feet free of boiling tar, danced sideways, and yanked again. By hanging on and levering, he could steer the fiend where he willed. Now he wanted her down in her own foul mess. "Down, d.a.m.n you!"

he screamed. "Go down!"

The monster sliced the air, dug claws into seeping wounds on Sunbright's arms, clenched, and held.

The hero felt his warm blood spurt. The foes were locked. Then Sysquemalyn leaned her great weight, as great as any boulder's, to drag him down.

Sagging, Sunbright crashed on one knee, felt a sear of hot tar, smelled crisped flesh, but the charms of the generous elves still worked, for otherwise his flesh would have split and caught fire, crumbled in chunks to leave scorched bone. Taking advantage of his new stance, Sunbright levered an elbow against his knee and pulled until his muscles cracked and jumped. He could do nothing more, and prayed it was enough.

Sysquemalyn sagged with him. Bubbling tar grew deeper around them, as if they'd blundered into a tar pit. Sunbright was spattered with the stuff, as was she.

The sword pained her, bit the nape of her neck like a vampire, and she couldn't reach to dislodge the hook. She'd have to kill the man first. Dragging up a tarry hand, the monster aimed a palm at Sunbright's straining face.

Chain lightning erupted from the palm, and splashed over Sunbright. The barbarian flinched, ducked his head. Lightning that could shatter a tree only sparkled on his skin, made his horsetail friz, and lit rings and buckles on his clothing with curious fire. Ignoring the tingles, he levered harder on his sword.

Keening outrage, Sysquemalyn spat a bolt of dark energy, negative force that should have bored through the human like a auger. Sunbright shook off the blow like a mammoth shaking off a spear.

Screeching, Sysquemalyn unleashed an icicle storm, then a pocket tornado, then a whirlwind of steel. Ice stung the shaman's cheeks and drew blood. The tornado ripped hair from his horsetail. Phantom steel shredded his shirt and blistered his skin.

Yet, grim as a statue, he hung onto the sword and pressed harder, and slowly crushed Sysquemalyn into the tar until she propped on one hand and attacked with the other. She gargled in his face, "What protects you?"

Straining, grunting, grinding, Sunbright had no breath to spare, but answered anyway: "Love!"

Her snort puffed his hair. Twisting against his stinging blade, she dug into his thigh with a clawed hand, inched to his belt, then his torn shirt, and finally snagged his chin. She would gouge out his eyes, render him blind and helpless.

But Sunbright hissed, "It's nothing you know! You live for hate and revenge and death. I live for love! I've the strength of a thousand folk who stand behind me. I've the love of a good woman, the respect of my people, the wisdom of my ancestors, the guidance of my mother, the friendship of people from forest and mountain. What have you to live for?"

A strangled hiss answered. At the end of her arm, the monster inched a hand across his cheek, flicked a claw-and hooked his eye socket. Sunbright shuddered with pain, fright, and pure agony as the flint dagger bit his eyeball.

Dimly, he heard the monster's command, "Release me!"

Growling, Sunbright tried to jerk his head back, but his neck was strained to the limit. His hands jumped and shuddered as he pried at Harvester. He was slowly rising as Sysquemalyn sank into the tar. Her deadly hand ground in his face like a stone spider. The jagged digit pressed harder on his eye.

He'd only save his sight by letting go.

But he didn't let go. He groaned, "I'd give my life to save Knucklebones and my people. I'll gladly give an eye to stop you!"

With a roar like the ocean crashing on his head, he felt the claw puncture his eyeball. He rasped in pain but shoved harder downward. Blood spilled down his cheek and down the monster's arm like a river.

Sysquemalyn's stone chin touched tar. For the first time, she felt fear. Sunbright held her trapped by the fearsome hook, then stepped on her back to drown her in the h.e.l.lish tar she'd summoned. Stretched as if on a rack, Sysquemalyn couldn't wriggle free, nor could spells free her. Only the volcano spell, to turn prairie into inferno, would loose the hero, but she'd die too. From her own death, she drew back.

And so lost. For she knew Sunbright was right. She had hate and revenge and the powers of h.e.l.l to drive her. He had more: the love of a woman and community, a love that made a person sacrifice all.

She couldn't defeat him, she could only lose.

Strange, came an errant thought, she never used magic to restore her beauty. Or even considered it.