Nolan Jareth once knelt before kings. Tonight he knelt in the mud with half a sword. The blade had snapped a year ago, the same week he turned his back on the realm that praised him. He carried the broken stub anyway. He meant to reforge it into a champion's weapon again. But a man cannot reforge steel if the wolves eat him first. Two grey wolves circled him on the road. Their eyes burned red in the dusk. The larger one lunged. Nolan swung the stub and caught it across the snout. The wolf yelped and fell back. The second wolf tore at his leg and found the gap in his cracked black armor. Blood ran warm down his shin. He set his back against a boulder. Two steps left before the stone. He could not run. He could not win. The broken sword trembled in his fist. An arrow hissed from the trees. It buried itself in the larger wolf's shoulder. The beast screamed and bolted. A second arrow pinned the ground at the other wolf's paws. That one snarled, then fled after its mate. A woman dropped from a low branch. An elf, lean and quick, bow already drawn with a fresh arrow. Her brown eyes stayed on the treeline, not on him. She loosed one more shot into the dark to be certain. "Stay down," she said. "They hunt in threes. The third is close." Nolan did not stay down. He forced himself up on his bleeding leg, sword stub raised. "I did not ask for help." "No one who needs it ever does." She finally looked at him. Her gaze dropped to the broken blade. "You brought half a sword to fight a pack. Brave. Stupid." "It is all I have." The third wolf burst from the brush behind her. She spun, but too slow. Nolan shoved past and drove the jagged stub into the animal's throat. It dropped. The force snapped another inch off his ruined blade. Now he held little more than a hilt. The elf lowered her bow. She watched blood pool at his boot. "That leg will fester before morning. You'll not walk far." Nolan stared at the stump of steel in his hand. The last piece of the sword that once made him a champion. It had saved his life and died doing it. He had nothing left to reforge now. Nothing to carry to any forge. "There is a bloom that stops rot," the elf said. "Blue petals. It grows a day's walk from here. I know the place." She slung her bow. "But I don't guide men who drive their rescuers off." Nolan closed his fist around the broken hilt. He had spent a year chasing a blade worthy of his old name. Tonight that blade was gone, and his wound could kill him first. "Sylvara Windwhisper," she said, and offered her hand. "Choose quick, knight. The blood won't wait."

By dawn Nolan could barely stand. The wolf bite had swollen his leg to twice its size. Red streaks climbed past his knee. Sylvara walked ahead with her bow ready, her brown eyes sweeping the trees. She had kept her word. She was guiding him to the bloom that stopped rot. But the poison moved faster than his boots. "How far?" Nolan asked. His voice cracked. He leaned on the broken hilt like a cane. "Close. Through the gully." Sylvara glanced back. "Walk faster or I carry you. Neither of us wants that." He forced his leg forward. Sweat stung his eyes. The gully narrowed into damp stone walls. Then Sylvara stopped. Her hand shot up. Black shapes crawled across the rocks ahead. Spiders, each the size of a dog. Sharp horns curved from their heads. Their eyes glowed, one green, one red. They clustered over a patch of blue flowers growing from a crack in the wall. The bloom. The one thing that could save him. "They nest around it," Sylvara whispered. "The bloom draws them. I did not expect this many." Nolan counted six. His sword was a stub. His leg was failing. "Shoot them." "I have nine arrows. They move too fast up close." She drew one anyway. "We need the forge-man's help. There is a dwarf who hunts this gully. Thorin. He clears these nests for the bloom sap." "Then where is he?" An axe answered. It spun from above and split the nearest spider clean through. A dwarf dropped from the rocks after it. Red beard braided to his belt, iron helm dented, grin wide under the horns of his own helmet. He yanked his axe free and spat. "Sylvara. You bring me a dying man and a pack of biters. Generous." "Thorin. Clear a path to the flowers. He has hours, not days." Thorin eyed Nolan's leg, then the broken hilt in his fist. "A knight with no sword. Stay behind me, then." He waded in, axe swinging. Two spiders fell. The rest turned on him, horns stabbing at his arms. Nolan did not stay behind. He limped to the wall while Thorin held the swarm. A spider broke off and rushed the flowers, rushing Nolan. He drove the broken hilt into its green eye. It shrieked and curled. The jagged steel stuck fast. He left it there. "The bloom!" Sylvara shouted. An arrow dropped a spider at Nolan's feet. He tore the blue cluster from the crack. He crushed the petals and pressed the wet pulp into the wound. Cold sap burned, then eased. Thorin's axe finished the last spider. Nolan sank against the wall, breathing hard. The red streaks on his leg had stopped climbing. He would walk. He looked at his empty hand. The broken hilt was gone, buried in a dead spider's skull. His last piece of the old sword was lost now. He had traded it for his life. Whatever he carried to a forge, it would not be that blade.

Nolan rested through the night at a crumbling watchtower near the gully. By morning his leg held his weight. The sap had done its work. But his hand kept closing on nothing. His broken hilt still lay buried in a dead spider's skull, back among the nest. It was the last scrap of his old blade. Without it, no forge could reshape the champion's sword he once swore to carry. He limped back to the gully alone. The spiders had returned. More than before. They crawled thick over the blue flowers and the dead one where his steel was stuck. He counted ten, maybe twelve. He had no sword and no plan. Only need. "You'll die reaching for scrap metal." The voice came from the rocks above. A small woman climbed down, blonde hair loose, a healer's satchel on her hip. He had never seen her, but he knew her kind. She carried herbs, not weapons. She studied his leg with a quick, sharp glance, the way Sylvara studied a tree line. "Elara Brightwater," she said. "I gather sap from this bloom. Thorin told me a knight was bleeding out here. You look better than he described." Her eyes went to his empty hand. "And more foolish." "My sword's remnant is in that nest," Nolan said. "I need it." "You need to breathe. Scrap won't help a corpse." She knelt and opened her satchel. She pulled out a jar of crushed blue petals, the same bloom that had saved him. "But the horned ones hate this. The crushed sap. It burns their eyes." Nolan looked at the jar, then at the swarm. "Give it to me." "I'll throw it. You grab your metal and run. One chance." She did not wait for his answer. She flung the jar into the cluster of spiders. It shattered. Blue pulp sprayed across them. The spiders shrieked and curled, legs scraping at their own faces. A path opened across the rocks. Nolan ran. His bad leg screamed. He reached the dead spider and wrenched the broken hilt free from its skull. The petals' sting faded fast. A spider turned toward him, horns down. He swung the jagged hilt and caught its green eye. It reeled. He did not wait for the next. He ran back up the rocks. Elara pulled him over the ledge by his collar. They crouched behind stone while the swarm milled below. Nolan held the hilt to his chest. Rust and dried spider blood coated the broken steel. But it was his. He had it back. "Now what," Elara said. "That's not a sword. It's a handle." "It's enough to start." Nolan wiped the steel clean. "I need a forge. And a smith who works old blades." Elara shook her head, but she pointed north. "There's one. Half a day's walk. He's expensive, and he turns most men away." Nolan stood. His leg held. For the first time since the wolves, he had something to carry forward.

Nolan walked north with the broken hilt wrapped in cloth. His leg held, but the road climbed into hills where the trees thinned. He kept his hand near the useless steel on his back. A knight with no blade was just a man in heavy armor. He knew it, and so did whatever watched him from the rocks. Elara caught up to him by midday. She had her satchel and a jar of crushed blue petals. "You left before I finished gathering," she said. "Thorin's coming too. He heard a smith up here and wanted to see the forge." "I travel alone." Nolan did not slow. "You travel badly." She pointed to the ridge above. "There are bear tracks all over that pass. Fresh. You want to meet one with a handle?" Thorin came down the slope then, axe over his shoulder, red beard braided tight. The dwarf had fought spiders beside Nolan at the bloom. He planted his boots and looked Nolan over. "Still breathing. Good." He nodded at the wrapped hilt. "Got your scrap. Now you need muscle to keep it." "I don't need an escort," Nolan said. "Didn't offer one." Thorin kept walking past him. "Forge is this way. Coming or not." Nolan opened his mouth to send them both back. Then the brush cracked above the pass. A bear rose from the rocks, huge and scarred, blocking the only path north. It swung its head toward them and roared. Nolan drew the broken sword out of habit. The jagged steel was shorter than his forearm. The bear charged. He had no reach, no point, nothing to stop it. "Down!" Elara flung the jar. It shattered on the bear's face. Blue pulp burst across its eyes. The bear reeled, pawing at its snout, blind and screaming. Thorin ran in low. His axe bit deep into the bear's hind leg. The beast turned on him. That was the gap. Nolan drove the broken hilt into the bear's throat with both hands. He pushed until the steel sank past the rust. The bear shuddered and dropped. They stood over it, breathing hard. Nolan's hands shook on the bloody handle. Alone, he would be dead on the rocks. He knew it plainly now. "Still want to walk alone?" Elara wiped her hands on her robe. Nolan looked at the dwarf, then the healer. He had driven off every helper before this. The habit had nearly killed him twice. "No," he said. The word came out rough. "Walk with me to the smith." Thorin grunted and pulled his axe free. "About time." They climbed the pass together. Past the dead bear, the hills opened. Smoke rose from a stone chimney below. A forge. Nolan tightened his grip on the broken hilt. He still had the last piece of his blade. Now he had two people to help him carry it there.