This idea, both new and old, sank in slowly. Sunbright saw confusion and shock on their faces. And for the first time, the animation of hard thinking, something they'd been denied.

Sunbright gave them more to chew on. "Think! Do the dead hear? Let me test. Hear this?" People fell back as he drew the long, fearsome, hooked blade Harvester of Blood over his shoulder. Inverting the blade, he used the leather-wrapped pommel to thump Blinddrum on the breastbone, then continued, "I, Sunbright Steelshanks, dead or alive, challenge you, Blinddrum, to combat! Else I name you a stinking, dung-eating, bastard, mongrel dog! Do you hear that?"

"I hear," Blinddrum murmured. His broad, simple face was uneasy. "I accept."

"Good!" Turning, Sunbright thumped Thornwing on her skinny chest, and said, "I challenge you! Would you be a barb-lipped, bottom-feeding sculpin picked clean by gulls, or a free and proud barbarian? Do you accept, or be named coward?"

"I accept," she said drily. "But like it not."

"I care not if you like or dislike, only that you hear! You, Archloft! Was your mother a maggot, and your father a pusworm, or will you fight me? Good! You, hold still! I name you nest-robber, and egg-breaker! Fight me? Fine!"

With a madman's delight, he poked Archloft, Goodbell, Magichunger, Forestvictory, others: anyone who'd ever wielded a sword, saying, "I challenge you all, and anyone I forgot! And why? Because I cannot leave the village until the duels are done! This custom would I have levied on Owldark had I been a warrior and shaman, but at the time I was only a boy. Well, that boy is dead, and a man returned! Blinddrum, when shall we fight?"

"Whenever you wish," replied the swordmaster. "No, wait. An hour. T'will give you time to visit your mother, and commend your soul. For after an hour, you visit the gods." With that, Blinddrum turned away, as did the rest.

Sunbright was left alone, inverted sword in hand. Knucklebones and Monkberry came forward, having lingered at the back of the crowd. The thief wept from her one good eye. "Why did you do that, Sunbright?" she sobbed. "Why come back just to die?"

Huffing with exhaustion, as if he'd run twenty miles, Sunbright sheathed his sword, and said, "In part, it was your idea."

"My idea?" Knucklebones shook small fists in his face. "You really are mad! You'll be killed! And I'll be left alone. What's the point anyway?"

Surprisingly gentle, Sunbright enfolded the small woman to his chest, kissed her tousled dark curls, and said, "Oh, Knuckle', if only life held simple answers… Come, I'll try to explain, not that I understand it well myself."

Seated in Monkberry's hut, Sunbright shared rations and sipped water from a canteen.

"You asked what tradition I could invoke that would make them listen. Killing the council fire was one. Yet I'm still banished-unless I have promised a duel to satisfy an insult. It's the only way I can remain with the tribe.

"And I can't leave, for they need me. They need someone-the gods must believe-and I'm the only one who's come. If nothing else, I must make them think, and return to themselves. I must rekindle the fire in their minds. Keeping alive customs, habits, and traditions-even mishmashing them when necessary-is a shaman's job. By challenging everyone, I can stay a long time and work."

"And get killed!" objected the thief. Angrily she thrust his canteen away. "You're a fine swordsman, a wonderful fighter, but even you can't fight nine dozen duels! You'll be hacked to pieces all at once, or a little at a time!"

"But in between, I can talk to folks, and think how to save us."

"Until you're dead," Knucklebones spat.

"Until a miracle occurs."

In their short hour, Sunbright talked to his mother about the old ways. Monkberry knew them all, for her husband had been the tribe's shaman for decades. Knucklebones listened raptly to a new world of tradition and legends and superstitions. When Monkberry finally asked Sunbright where he'd been in the years past, the shaman only smiled and shrugged.

"Around," he said. "Working here and there. Seeing the sights the empire has to offer. Meeting Knucklebones. I was lucky in that."

Dimly the warrior recalled the days when he'd first left the tribe, how he'd hungered and thirsted for revenge night and day. Then later, after sojourning in hell, he'd become a man, and known that one day he would return to his tribe, and walk amidst them scarred and powerful and mysteriously quiet, for he'd learned true strength lay within, and he could just quietly rejoin his people. And now that he'd really returned, he found himself in an unpredictable role, the preserver and savior of his tribe. Which just went to show, he supposed, how men made plans, and the gods made men fools.

"Yet it's my destiny to save this tribe from extinction." He was surprised to hear himself speaking aloud.

His mother smiled and squeezed his broad hand with her twisted one. "Yes," she said, "your destiny, and our miracle."

Sunbright smiled back. "Knuckle'?" he asked.

The thief rolled one eye, and answered, "It must be my elven blood that finds this stiff-necked barbarian pride a lot of claptrap and folderol. You need a miracle, I agree, but we'll help however we can." She squeezed both their hands.

A voice boomed across the village: "Sunbright Steelshanks! Come out and fight!"

Sunbright dropped both hands to creep outside. "Excuse me," he said to his mother. "The shaman has a patient."

Chapter 9

Dusk came early to this rocky wasteland, for the Channel Mountains cut off the sun. In darkness, Sunbright found the tribe waiting for him. Silently, Blinddrum led the way. Boys and girls toted torches with hardwood handles split at the top and jammed full of poplar bark. At the center of the crooked village, tribesfolk had rolled up rocks to make a rough arena. There were over three hundred barbarians now, including many who'd moved to town but had been fetched back by runners. The shaman smiled to see the changes. His coming-for good or ill-had already made an impact on the tribe.

Now, if he could just survive to get his message out.

Sunbright entered a ring of torches and people to stand alone. Monkberry and Knucklebones were admitted to the edge of the ring. The big barbarian shucked off his belt knife and back scabbard, tossed them aside so as to fight unencumbered. The crowd parted, oohed and ahhed, as giant Blinddrum stepped forth with only a long steel sword in his hand. The huge, craggy instructor raised his sword in a lazy salute, then took the first stance a student learned: left toe pointed, right foot and sword back. But he blinked when Sunbright lifted a bare hand.

"Wait!" Sunbright called out. "We must pray!"

The crowd gurgled a question. Blinddrum blinked again, as if his eyes were aging, and asked, "We must? Why?"

Sunbright tilted his sword down, raised his voice so all could hear, and said, "This is a formal duel, not a brawl. We needs pray so Amaunator, Keeper of Law, will oversee the fight and maintain fairness. Otherwise Shar, the Shadowy Seductress, might cast a veil over one of us; or Tyche, Lady Doom, might, on some whim, visit one with luck. To pray before a duel has always been a tradition amongst our people, has it not? Or has everyone forgotten that?"

Folk muttered. Some frowned at the interruption, but old Iceborn, blind and seeing only in his mind, quavered, "He speaks aright! It was always thus!"

Sunbright twirled a circle, raised his arms, and called out, "Rengarth, pray with me! Keeper of the Sun, please hear us! Send us truth, send us light, send us wisdom as we see these men battle for what is just! We praise thy name!" The crowd echoed, "Praise Amaunator!"