First, she went to the statue of her father. "I did it, Father. I killed the icebrood, and the Dragonspawn, too."
She paused as if expecting some response from the stony figure. The old man only returned her gaze, his eyes seeming to look beyond her.
Eir looked down at her feet. "I know. There's still the dragon. He's crippled now, without his greatest champion, and maybe we can strike."
Still, the statue watched her impassively.
Eir went to her drafting desk, drew out a scrap of paper, and began drawing. At first, the figure was the Dragonspawn, and then, the Dragonspawn devolving into a cyclone, and then Sandy being pulled into the monster. She sat back and blinked.
Garm nuzzled her.
"Perhaps it is time to make a try at the old wyrm."
The wolf looked levelly at her.
She smiled, ruffling the fur between his ears. "I'll start by chipping its tooth."
Next afternoon, before the celebrations began in earnest, Eir strode down the lanes of Hoelbrak. Her carving belt jangled, her axes and mallets hung in hand, and her dire wolf jogged beside her.
"She's going to take on the fang!" shouted one of the norn revelers.
Many followed this living legend as she made her way toward the hunting hall. The crowd seemed to swell with each step Eir took. They had heard the magnificent tales of the Dragonspawn's defeat, and whatever this woman planned next must be even more spectacular.
Among the crowd were Eir's companions, following with excitement and a mixture of other emotions. When Rytlock and Logan had heard what Eir planned, they had wanted to lend their weapons to the attempt. Snaff had even wanted to bring Sandy to bear. Eir refused them all, saying she was their leader, and that if she was not strong enough to break the tooth, they would not face the dragon.
Caithe and Zojja were not starry-eyed about the prospects, either. Caithe knew all too well the power of the dragons, and she feared that Eir was only setting herself up for failure. Zojja, on the other hand, thought it absurd that physical attacks could do anything against a magical creature.
Dragging along a crowd of believers and skeptics, friends and foes, Eir reached the hunting hall of Hoelbrak and hurled the doors open. She strode in, and the crowd around her flooded in as well. Eir headed straight toward the central feature of the hall-the Fang of the Serpent. This relic of the dragon had been brought back by the great hero Asgeir and rooted in the floor of the hall-a challenge to all norn champions. If they could not chip or dent or scratch the fang, they had no hope of facing and defeating Jormag himself.
Eir strode up before the fang, which was eight feet tall, broad, curved, and icy white. The crowd murmured excitedly as they settled in around it. Eir's eyes traced across them all, and she bound her red hair back from her shoulders.
"You have heard great tales of us, of the ones who slew Jormag's champion. But we did this thing only to weaken the dragon himself. I've come here tonight to see if he is weak enough that we can face him."
The crowd applauded, watching avidly as she drew two great axes from her belt. When she began to swing the axes in wide arcs, though, the spectators fell back.
"Spirit of Wolf, guide my work."
The two blades crossed in midair, and then Eir lunged forward, and the heads came down on either side of the tooth. They crashed into it, their keen edges biting into the hard whiteness-but no. It was biting into them. The axes skirled down the fang in a shower of sparks, their faces worn away in curves.
Eir looked at the blades, burrs rising from their ruined edges. She tossed the axes aside. "Axes are for trees," she said, and the crowd laughed. Eir drew from her belt a large, keen chisel and a great mallet. "Imagine these on your own tooth."
As the crowd cringed, Eir positioned the chisel in a line that ran the length of the fang. She raised the mallet and brought it down with a crack. The fang showed no damage. She reared back with the mallet and pounded the chisel again. Crack! Still no fault shown on the fang. Then she took a deep breath and struck it an almighty CRACK!
The fang was unharmed, but the chisel's end had curled over.
Eir dropped the chisel and mallet beside her. She also let fall the whole belt of tools. Closing her eyes, she raised her face toward the dark rafters high above and said, "Spirit of Bear, guide my work."
She swung her arm at the fang, but before she could strike it, fingers had become claws. The foreleg of a great grizzly lashed at that tooth. Claws rasped across it but left no mark. From the other side, more claws ripped at it. These were claws that could tear down a young tree, could scratch stone, but the fang stood, inviolate. Now fully a bear, Eir lunged in to set her own massive teeth against the dragon's great tooth. Enamel skirled, but no harm came to the Fang of the Dragon.
Eir reeled back, her figure transforming again into that of a norn warrior-shaking, sweating, enervated, and defeated. She looked out numbly at the crowd.
Rytlock stepped up, pulling Sohothin free. "Let me have a shot at that thing."
Logan arrived with hammer in hand. "Me, too."
"No!" Eir snapped. "We're done here. Let me through! Let me go!"
Her friends pushed back the crowd and moved in to hold her up as she went.
"It's fine," Snaff said softly as they moved along. "So, we're not ready yet. But we will be. We'll defeat the dragons. Together, we can defeat anything."
That night, there were more gifts and feasts and stories and ale. But Eir was quiet through it all, and all the comrades felt the weight of what had happened. Even more norn had flooded into town. From hundreds of miles, they had come, and the merrymakers from the last two nights had not dispersed. The sound of the ongoing party was like a logging camp next to a stockyard beside a slaughterhouse.
"With an army like this, they could have done it without us," Eir muttered.
She gathered her companions and led them to her workshop. "I've had about as much of this as I can take," she confessed.
Rytlock laughed out loud, but then looked around at the others, saw that they agreed with Eir, and sullenly stared at his claws.
"Norn ale is stiffer than most," Logan said, rubbing his forehead. "And norn pints are gallons."
"That's what I like," Rytlock said.
"And here they are!" came a new voice at the workshop door-a deep voice that was somehow both jovial and ferocious. Eir and her companions turned to see Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed. He towered in the doorway, his pistol-strewn bandoliers gleaming in the lantern light. A smile lurked beneath his long mustache. "I came all the way from Lion's Arch to toast Destiny's Edge, the slayers of the Dragonspawn-and yet, no one knew where you were."
"Here we are," Eir replied.
Magnus sighed, his breath ghosting from his nostrils. He stepped into the workshop. "Well, anyway, congratulations!"
"Something like that."
Magnus set his boot on a nearby chair and leaned toward them all. "Now I need a favor."
Logan said, "What kind of favor?"
"Help me hunt down and destroy another dragon champion."
Rytlock arched an eyebrow. "Who is this dragon champion?"
"His name is Morgus Lethe," Magnus responded. "He rules the black seaways beyond Lion's Arch-he and swarms of undead. They attack ships and tear through their hulls and drop them to the bottom. They kill hundreds of sailors a week and turn them into more undead."
"Can't you handle a few undead?" Rytlock asked. "After all, they are prekilled."
"One by one, they are nothing, but where there's one, there's a thousand."
Logan put in, "If you haven't noticed, there are only seven of us."
"Yes, but you defeated a thousand before," Magnus replied. "And I have a personal score to settle with this devil Morgus Lethe. In life, he was a norn like me, captain of the Cormorant before me. Since he fell among the undead, they have known our every move, our every route, our tactics, our vulnerabilities. I need-"