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.

The beast filled the doorway. Aethelorn pressed the leather roll of shards to his chest. Seven pieces of elf-steel, and not one of them an edge he could swing. He had the whole blade now and no blade at all. The tusked thing took a step. Its breath fogged the cold air. Behind him lay only stone wall. One way out, and the creature owned it. Aethelorn looked for a weapon. The crates held rusted swords, but his hands were full and his heart was loud. He grabbed a short iron blade from the top crate. The grip was slick. He raised it. The beast swung first. One clawed arm knocked the sword from his hand. It spun into the dark. Aethelorn fell against a crate. Wood cracked under him. The thing loomed over him and opened its jaws. Then light came down the passage. White and clean, cutting the dark like a lamp through fog. A voice spoke old words Aethelorn did not know. The beast turned toward the glow and howled. A gaunt figure stepped into the chamber. Grey beard, holy armor, a robe the color of dusk over coarse cloth. His sword hand shook at his side, empty. But his other hand burned with pale fire. Aethelorn had heard the road tales. A saint of the old gods, one of five. The man knelt at every shrine and could not hold a blade, so the gods had given him a different weapon. "Down, elf," the saint said. His voice was calm, like a man reading from a book. Aethelorn dropped flat. The saint raised his burning hand. Light poured out and struck the beast full in the chest. The creature screamed. Fur smoked. It swung blind, missed, and crashed into the crates. The saint stepped closer, hand steady though his sword arm twitched. He spoke another word. The light flared white. The beast folded to the floor and lay still, chest heaving, then not moving at all. Silence. The glow faded. Aethelorn got to his knees, roll still clutched tight. "You carry elf-steel," the saint said. He had not asked. He looked at the roll with pale, knowing eyes. "I felt it from the upper halls. Old metal sings when it is whole." "It sings broken," Aethelorn said. "Seven shards. I need a forge that can bind them." The saint helped him up. His grip was dry and firm. "No common forge will take elf-steel," he said. "There is one that will. Deeper than this ruin, down where the old gods set their fire. I am walking that road myself." He turned toward the dark passage, away from the climb Aethelorn had planned. "The way back is blocked with rubble behind that beast's den. The only road left runs down." Aethelorn looked at the fallen creature, then at the black passage sloping into the earth. His escape was clear. But it led the wrong way.