Chapter One: Ill Met by Torchlight

  Rodrick—pragmatist, opportunist, and occasional outright thief—groaned and tried to sit up, but only managed to half-lean against the wall of a lightless cavern. His head had felt like this many times before, but usually only after a night of drinking and wenching. His memories of the prior hours were fuzzy, but they didn't involve taverns and winsome (or buxom, or both; he wasn't picky) maids.

  Images bobbed in his mind like rotting apples in a pond. A body, crushed in a trap. A man with a weaselly narrow face and a pack full of potions. A creature that looked like a beautiful woman from one side, and a gnarled, hollowed-out tree from the other. A room full of shattered treasure chests, and a suit of ancient black armor, and a distressingly large hole in the back wall—

  Then he remembered. Sneaking into a barrow rumored to be full of treasure, accompanied by a fool named Simeon who'd gotten himself killed in a trap before they were even well begun. Disabling traps and killing a monster, assisted by a treacherous alchemist named Alaeron. They'd had a small disagreement about how to proceed, and so the alchemist had drugged Rodrick, knocking him unconscious and leaving him here to die.

  Or, more accurately, to wake up with a headache.

  Rodrick patted his pockets and discovered that all of his knives were gone, even the ones in his boots. No surprise, really, since his boots were also gone. The alchemist had stolen his shoes. That was nicer than stabbing Rodrick in the neck, admittedly, but still quite rude.

  Now he sat slumped on a sloping hill, in a dark cavern that stank of something rank and reptilian, which Alaeron had claimed was a linnorm—a great slumbering beast that wasn't exactly the same as a dragon, but close enough. This barrow of treasures plundered from the North had included a linnorm egg, which had, at some point, hatched and grown to full size. The beast had smashed through the tomb wall into a system of caves and constructed a lair there, complete with a hoard made from the gold and gems and magical geegaws Rodrick had come to steal.

  The linnorm had been the source of Rodrick's disagreement with the alchemist. Rodrick had advocated sneaking into the linnorm's cave and stealing everything, while Alaeron had favored running away and living to loot another day. Rodrick had insisted on his course of action, using a sword to advance his argument, and Alaeron had replied with a potion.

  Rodrick began to crawl up the slope, quietly, toward the hole in the wall. There should have been torches lit in there. Either they'd burned out, or Alaeron had doused them when he left.

  Having groped his way back into the mostly-empty treasure room, Rodrick crawled without success along the floor, looking for the lantern. No luck—the alchemist had taken it—but he did find an unlit torch, and he still had his flint and steel, at least. He got the torch lit and breathed a shaky sigh of relief as light blossomed in the dark.

  After lighting the other torches on the walls, he sat in a carved wooden throne and considered his options. He was tempted to pursue Alaeron and exact revenge, but there was a more pressing concern: acquisition.

  The most important thing was the sword. The alchemist had used a potion of darkvision to look over the sleeping linnorm and its hoard, and had claimed to see a sword, so that was promising. Rodrick had spun a tale for the alchemist about discovering the existence of this barrow and deciding to pillage it with his friend Simeon, but that was only partly true. Rodrick had actually been hired by a wealthy collector to break into this place and retrieve the sword, rumored to be an artifact of great power. Anything else he could steal was his to keep, in addition to a hefty payment in coinage.

  Returning to Manius without the sword wasn't really an option if Rodrick wanted to keep his head. He could flee, with the collector's up-front payment in his pockets—but no, damn it, Alaeron had stolen his coin purse too—and probably escape any unpleasant consequences by changing his name again and heading south.

  Escape was tempting. He was no dragon-slayer, even if linnorms weren't exactly dragons. But the treasure... the treasure was even more tempting.

  He sighed, rose, lifted a torch from its sconce, and slowly approached the hole in the wall. He stepped through carefully, the torch held out in front of him.

  The light immediately returned to him, shining from a shimmering lake of golden coins and glimmering jewels. As always, the sight of large quantities of wealth took his breath away. Alas, he could also see the pale scaled belly of something immense coiled atop the hoard. He'd hesitated to bring light into this chamber before, for fear of waking the beast, but then he'd had an alchemist on hand, with potions that would let them see in the dark. Circumstances had changed, and necessity demanded a certain amount of risk.

  He crept down the slope, to the more-or-less level bottom of the chamber, just a few feet from the outlying spill of gold and gems. In this case, being barefoot was actually a boon—his footing was more sure, and he could move through the coins far less noisily. Rodrick mostly watched his feet, carefully sliding coins aside to find secure footing underneath, but occasionally he glanced up and saw more and more of the linnorm revealed. The thing was large enough that he couldn't apprehend it as a whole—it seemed serpentine, wrapped around and around itself. At least its head wasn't visible. Alaeron had said the creatures could hibernate for centuries, so Rodrick hoped a little torchlight wouldn't serve to wake it up.

  His circle of light continued to advance. At last, it touched the hilt and first foot or so of a longsword's blade. Unfortunately, the remainder of the sword was firmly wedged beneath the linnorm itself, both resting atop a bed of coins. Perhaps if Rodrick undermined the coins—

  "Do you mind?" The voice was deep, faintly annoyed, and slightly muffled, as if the speaker were wrapped in a blanket.

  Rodrick froze. "I... beg your pardon?" he whispered.

  The voice didn't bother to whisper. "As well you should. Do I come creeping into your bedchamber at night and shine a light in your face? Well?"

  "Uh, who is this speaking?"

  "Me," the voice replied unhelpfully. "What are you doing in here? In case you haven't noticed, there's a linnorm sleeping a few feet from your face. You wouldn't enjoy waking it up. If it even rolls over in its sleep you'll be crushed by its coils. The thing must be sixty feet long."

  "I'd love to discuss my motivations, but I'd like to know who I'm talking to—"

  "I'm the sword, idiot," the sword said. "Call me Hrym, if you must call me something."

  "Ah." Rodrick closed his eyes, but only briefly. "The sword. Of course. I'd heard rumors that you could speak, but I didn't entirely believe them."

  "I'm a rare breed," Hrym said. His voice was muffled—presumably because he was jammed beneath several tons of sleeping monster. "Who're you?"

  "Rodrick. An adventurer."

  "Stay here too long and you're sure to have an adventure, though it's likely to be your last. Why don't you have any shoes on?"

  "I had a disagreement with a, ah, fellow adventurer, and he stole them."

  "Mmm. There's a pair of boots there, about a foot to your right."

  Rodrick turned his head slightly and moved the torch. A pair of pale blue boots were indeed jumbled in with the gold and gems. "Are they magical?"

  "No," Hrym said, the sarcasm unmistakable. "They're perfectly ordinary boots, sealed up in a warlord's barrow with all his other treasures."

  "Ah. Do you know how they're magical?"

  "They let you walk on water, if I recall," Hrym said.

  Rodrick sighed. "Hardly helpful in my current circumstances."

  "They are also quite functional as ordinary boots."

  "A fair point." Rodrick slid over the gold, wincing as a small cascade of coins tinkled and chimed together. He stuck the torch down in the heap of gold—a bit like shoving a stick into sand—to free his hands, tied the laces of the boots together, and hung them around his neck like an unwieldy scarf.

  "Most people wear those on their feet," Hrym said. "But I'm sure your bold new fashion will soon be all the rage. Away with you, adventurer! I doubt the linnorm will notice the absence of the boots—they were just sort of swept along with the rest of the treasure. As long as you don't try to remove anything shiny from the hoard, you can probably escape."

  Rodrick thought of the gems and rings he'd already dropped into his pockets along the way and decided to pretend he hadn't heard that last part. "The boots are nice, but I'd rather hoped to leave with a bit more."

  "Don't be greedy," Hrym said. "It's unseemly in a human. Why, think of the money you could make ferrying people across rivers. You've got nice broad shoulders and strong arms—you could probably carry two, maybe three people at a time. If they didn't have any luggage."

  "Sword—Hrym—I'm here to rescue you."

  "Rescue," the sword said. "Rescue? Would you ask me to rescue you from a brothel or a barroom?"

  Rodrick frowned. "I suppose it depends on the circumstances—"

  "I love it here, human. Do you know my fondest aspiration in this world? It's to sleep on a bed of gold. And do you know what I'm doing just this very moment? Sleeping on a bed of gold! Or I was sleeping, until you shone a light in my face."

  "You don't have a face."

  "And you don't have a very good grasp of metaphor. Fine, then, you shone a light on my hilt—"

  "Which I assume would be less akin to your face and more akin to your—"

  "My point," the sword said, loudly

, "is that I don't need to be rescued. What you really mean is 'stolen.' Now go away before I wake the linnorm."

  Rodrick considered. Stealing a sword should have been a lot simpler than this. But the sword had a mind—of sorts—which meant that it could be manipulated. And Rodrick was far better at manipulation than he was a burglary.

  "Suit yourself," he said. "My client will be disappointed."

  "Oh, to know I caused the disappointment of some human I've never met or heard of, how will I stand the pain? Now, go. This beast is hibernating, but I have ways of stirring it into consciousness very quickly."

  "All right, fine. You're missing out, though. I mean, you call this a pile of gold? Pfft."

  "Pfft?" Hrym said. "These are the all the riches acquired by the warrior Brant, slayer of beasts and men, despoiler of vaults—"

  "Oh, I mean, it's alright," Rodrick said. "I wouldn't mind having this lot in my house, certainly. But my employer doesn't pillage. He invests. He owns half of Andoran, including the banks, and he believes in keeping a ready supply of coin on hand. There's a basement in his house that's so full of gold and gems that he has ten clerks working full-time just to inventory it all, and they can't keep up with the fresh cartloads of coins that arrive every day. He loves money, but more than that, he's a collector of rare and precious magical items and relics. You, of course, are one of the most rare and precious in the world—"

  "This is true," Hrym said.

  "—and he desires greatly to add you to his collection. Why, he's paying me more gold than I see here just to deliver you to him! Hrym, you could rest in a place of pride atop a mound of treasure that makes this look like the dregs of a drunkard's coinpurse after a holiday. Or you can stay wedged under the ass of a monster, if you prefer."

  "Hmmm," Hrym said. "If this is a trick, you'll regret it. I have powers beyond mere speech."

  "I'm sure you do," Rodrick said. "Shall we?"

  "Very well. Draw me forth. But slowly, so I don't slice the beast."

  Rodrick moved toward the sword, grasped the hilt, and gently drew out the blade. The linnorm didn't so much as shift—it might have been carved of stone.

  Hrym's blade was dazzling. It was made not of steel, but rather of some bluish-white crystal, gleaming like a faceted diamond in the torchlight. The substance resembled nothing so much as—

  "Ice," Rodrick whispered. "I'd heard you were a blade of living ice, but I didn't know what that meant."

  "You still don't," Hrym said. "Now go, quickly."

  Rodrick held Hrym aloft and carefully worked his way down the slope, moving in a low crouch, away from the light of the torch. He paused halfway down, spying what looked like a silver bell as big as a man's head, half-buried in coins. "Is that—is that the bell that summons blizzards?" he whispered. "I heard there was such a thing here."

  "Oh, probably," Hrym said.

  "I can carry that too," Rodrick said, and moved carefully sideways.

  "I wouldn't do that." Hrym said.

  "In that respect, we differ." Rodrick reached for the bell, brushing away coins with his free hand, and grasped the ring at the top. He lifted the bell up, carefully, slowly—

  And as it came free from the heap of gold, the clapper struck a deep, low note so loud it brought back Rodrick's headache in full force. An icy wind suddenly blew through the cavern, and the great coils of the linnorm began to move.

  Chapter Two: Serpent and Bow

  Rodrick dropped the bell and scrambled toward the slope that led back to the barrow. The linnorm uncoiled with impossible speed, and suddenly its head filled Rodrick's vision, blocking his route to the treasure room.

  The miniature snowstorm Rodrick had accidentally spawned with the bell sent snowflakes spiraling all around, limiting visibility, but not enough to matter at this range. The coins and stones beneath the soles of his feet were icy, so cold Rodrick worried he'd lose his toes to frostbite—and then realized such a worry was the least of his problems, as he was standing nose-to-snout with a linnorm.

  Rodrick had never seen a dragon or dragon-type creature in person, but this one looked more or less like the statues and drawings of such creatures: a huge reptilian head with twisted horns, immense black eyes, and a mouth full of teeth like broken daggers. It was unmistakably an apex predator of such power and size that Rodrick would barely count as a mouthful.

  He froze, still holding Hrym aloft, as the creature gazed at him. It opened its jaws, and Rodrick prepared himself to be bitten in half. The preparation mostly involved whimpering and trembling.

  Instead, the creature began to draw in a vast breath. Rodrick's relief lasted only for an instant. Could linnorms breathe fire, or ice, or poison, as their less snakelike cousins the dragons did?

  At least it would be a quick death, Rodrick thought. Not as good as no death, but better than many of the other alternatives.

  "Point me at the beast!" Hrym shouted.

  Rodrick complied, though it was more of an involuntary muscle spasm than a conscious effort.

  A cone of swirling, bluish-white crystals shot forth from the point of the sword, and the blade sent up great billows of freezing white mist. The linnorm disappeared in the torrent of ice, and when Hrym ceased his frigid attack, the beast's head was encased in an irregular ball of ice the size of a boulder. The linnorm's body began to whip around wildly, and Rodrick threw himself to one side—careful to keep his grip on the sword—to avoid being crushed by the creature's coils. The boots wrapped around his neck nearly strangled him in the process, but he managed to cram himself against the cavern wall.

  The linnorm's ice-encrusted head slammed into the wall that led to the treasure room, smashing down enough rocks to block access to the barrow. Rodrick whimpered again—he was doing a lot of that lately. Trapped in a cavern, in a magical ice storm, barefoot, with a furious linnorm lashing around. The day just got better and better.

  The torch he'd jammed into the coins was dislodged by the beast's lashings, and it came sliding down the mound of treasure toward Rodrick. He scooted away on his butt to avoid having his feet set on fire, then picked up the torch. It flickered weakly, its fuel nearly extinguished. The thought of being trapped here blind was too horrible to contemplate.

  The linnorm continued to bash its head against the cavern wall, trying to break the armor of ice before it suffocated. Rodrick wondered if it would die or escape before causing the entire cavern to cave in.

  "Good thing it's a mountain linnorm," Hrym said. "They breathe fire—or, actually, molten rock. Ice linnorms are immune to my powers."

  "How fortunate," Rodrick rasped. He struggled to his feet, shivering in the cold. "We have to kill the beast before it collapses the whole cavern on top of us."

  "I wouldn't recommend that," Hrym said. "When linnorms die, they curse their killers. Don't you think your luck is bad enough already?"

  "I'd rather be cursed and alive than blessed and dead, sword."

  "Hmm," Hrym said. "You make a point. Being an immortal magical sword, I don't usually see things in those terms. There is another option, though."

  The ball of ice encrusting the linnorm's head began to glow deeply red, like an immense ruby. Rodrick realized the monster was trying to use its breath weapon—magical lava-breath versus magical ice. Which would prevail?

  "Don't you want to hear about the other option—"

  "Yes, yes, of course!" Rodrick shouted.

  "We could just leave."

  "The monster has sealed off the entry to the barrow—"

  "Yes, I can see, you know, even if I don't have eyes. I don't mean we can leave that way. There's a tunnel toward the back of the chamber, probably too small for the linnorm to fit through. But a tiny little humanoid like you—"

  Rodrick was moving before the sword even finished speaking. The cavern was brighter now, with the monster's fiery breath shining through the prism of ice around its head, casting rays of ruby light all around—and revealing a spot of deeper shadow in one wall, a tunnel big enough for Rodrick to fit through if he crouched.

  Once outside the main cavern, the horrible biting cold diminished. Rodrick's spine protested as he shuffled along bent forward, torch in one hand, icy sword in the other, following the curving contours of the tunnel. Behind him there was a great thump, and the sound of cascading rock. He paused and looked back in time to see the mouth of the tunnel go totally black, sealed off by a cave collapse.