Aethelorn Silvenshield's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Aethelorn Silvenshield laid half a broken sword on the dwarf's workbench and waited for the laugh. Only his bloodline could wield this blade whole again. He had carried the shards through two winters. Now he held just three. The rest were gone, lost where his kin had fallen. No forge could reforge a weapon half missing. Thorin Ironhand did not laugh. The old dwarf picked up a shard with his crafted arm, brass fingers clicking as they closed. He turned it to the light of his forge, where purple crystals glowed along the dark metal. "Elf steel," he said. "Older than me. And you brought me a corpse with half its bones." "Then help me find the bones," Aethelorn said. Thorin set the shard down. "I know where your missing pieces went. Scavengers strip old battlefields. They sell to collectors. One collector keeps a hoard in the deep ruin past the river." He pointed his brass thumb toward the dark mouth of a stone dungeon, its weathered archway lit by two torches. "Endless passages. Men walk in and never return. That is where your shards are." Aethelorn looked at the arch. Faded runes crowded the stone. The dark inside seemed to breathe. "You've been in." "Once. I came out short an arm." Thorin flexed the brass fingers. "I will not go again. But I will tell you the first turning, and no more. The rest you earn." Aethelorn gathered his three shards into a leather roll. He stepped through the arch. The torchlight died behind him. His boots echoed down a sloping passage of wet stone. He counted turns the way Thorin told him. Left at the broken pillar. Right at the dry well. The air grew cold and thick. He found the collector's hoard in a low chamber stacked with crates and old weapons. Among them, wrapped in oiled cloth, lay four shards of pale elf steel. His blade. His blood. He pressed the pieces to the three he carried. The edges matched. His hands shook. Then the floor trembled. A low grunt came from the dark behind the crates. Something heavy shifted. Aethelorn turned. Two small eyes caught the last light. Tusks. Black fur over a man's broad chest. The beast rose on two legs, taller than him, and filled the only doorway out. Aethelorn stuffed all seven shards into the roll and backed against cold stone. He had the whole blade now. He had everything he needed to begin the reforging. But the thing guarding the hoard stood between him and the long climb back to Thorin's forge, and it had already caught his scent.