Dimly, he heard the monster's command, "Release me!"

Growling, Sunbright tried to jerk his head back, but his neck was strained to the limit. His hands jumped and shuddered as he pried at Harvester. He was slowly rising as Sysquemalyn sank into the tar. Her deadly hand ground in his face like a stone spider. The jagged digit pressed harder on his eye. He'd only save his sight by letting go.

But he didn't let go. He groaned, "I'd give my life to save Knucklebones and my people. I'll gladly give an eye to stop you!"

With a roar like the ocean crashing on his head, he felt the claw puncture his eyeball. He rasped in pain but shoved harder downward. Blood spilled down his cheek and down the monster's arm like a river.

Sysquemalyn's stone chin touched tar. For the first time, she felt fear. Sunbright held her trapped by the fearsome hook, then stepped on her back to drown her in the hellish tar she'd summoned. Stretched as if on a rack, Sysquemalyn couldn't wriggle free, nor could spells free her. Only the volcano spell, to turn prairie into inferno, would loose the hero, but she'd die too. From her own death, she drew back.

And so lost. For she knew Sunbright was right. She had hate and revenge and the powers of hell to drive her. He had more: the love of a woman and community, a love that made a person sacrifice all. She couldn't defeat him, she could only lose.

Strange, came an errant thought, she never used magic to restore her beauty. Or even considered it.

Bubbling tar filled her gashed mouth, seared her bulging blue eyes. Lacking eyelids, she had no protection against the hellish stuff, and felt it burn deep, as Sunbright's ruined eye must pain him. But he was atop while she was pressed into tar like a dying saber-tooth.

Then Sysquemalyn felt his foot shift, and both sticky feet crush her back. Tar engulfed her, but she'd already given up the fight. If she couldn't get revenge, she got nothing. Was nothing.

Grunting, shaking all over, weakening from loss of blood, the mighty barbarian twisted Harvester's enchanted blade into the gaping wound he'd inflicted on his enemy. Stabbing the thing was as difficult as prying open a mountain with a chisel, but the enchanted blade cut, and his native strength of arm and spirit bore down.

With a final heave, he slammed the sword through Sysquemalyn's spine. The tarry flint-hided monster writhed once, then lay still.

Weaving, Sunbright let go the blade. The monster didn't move. Sysquemalyn, a self-made monster, was dead.

Finished with his grisly task, bleeding in a hundred places, scorched, seared, and exhausted, Sunbright had a sudden, dim vision.

Long ago, the Shaman Owldark dreamed of Sunbright standing with bloody sword while smoke and fire filled the horizon. The reindeer were slaughtered, the tribe was shattered and defeated.

Was this that vision?

Then he toppled like a felled tree, and crashed on his back in roiling tar.

Chapter 21

Sunbright awoke in a strange place.

Beams and planks stretched overhead, reaching a point at the top. A familiar ceiling, like the hide yurts of his childhood. Sunlight slanted through a doorway. His vision was oddly flat and tilted to the right.

"Where am I?"

"Uh!" Knucklebones grunted, startled. She had sat by his side, head on her knees, napping. "You're awake!"

"Yes," he croaked. "Water, please."

Gently, the small thief lifted his head and helped him sip from a gourd. The tiny trickle extinguished a fire in his throat. A drink of water when you're dry, he concluded, was the richest gift of the gods.

Sipping, he studied his lover's face. She was pale and worn with bright scabs on both cheeks. Her hair was disordered and lank, and burned short in patches. Her normally nimble hands were clumsy with bandages.

Questions bubbled in his mind.

"How long…?"

"Three days. The elves helped with healing spells, and the dwarves brought a dark bread that gives strength, though we had to mash it to gruel to feed you."

"Your hands?"

"Burned them pulling you from the tar. I thought-we thought-you were dead."

Sunbright laid his head back. "I almost was," he told her softly, "but I had a lot to tell you, so I needed to survive. I had more than the monster. She had nothing."

"She?"

"Sysquemalyn. Just a woman who'd suffered and craved revenge on the world. She wasted the powers of a goddess. Revenge is not cool and sweet. It's a fire that burns you inside, and leaves a hollow shell."

Knucklebones wondered if he remembered his own brooding before he found his people. To change the subject, she spooned venison broth to his lips from a wooden bowl.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"Eh? Oh," he stammered. "That I love you."

Tired, she yet smiled, and leaned close to kiss his forehead. He smelled her perfume: sweat and spice and wood smoke, and a breath of wildflowers. "I knew that," she said.

"No. Not just that." He reared to his elbows and spoke intensely, "That I love you, Knucklebones, not anyone else, not the memory of poor, dead Greenwillow. I love what you are, a small sweet woman with a good heart. When I look at you, I don't think of another woman, or anything else. Just wonderful you." He flopped back, exhausted, and said, "Which is funny, in a way."

His kind words made tears stain her scabby cheek, but her mouth turned down. "Funny how?" she asked.

"Something else I needed to tell you. The elven priestess, Brookdweller, touched your hand and read your soul. She learned that your father was Eaerlanni, but you were also a Moon Elf, of the Illefarni. I may have the names wrong, but that's the idea. The clues confused her for a while, and you ran off. How the gods must laugh at us…!"

His voice trailed off as he nodded. Knucklebones touched his shoulder. "What?" she asked. "Please, tell me. What of my ancestry?"

"Hunh!" He blinked awake, and said, "After all my foolish chasing of Greenwillow's ghost, it turns out you are Greenwillow."

"What?" she breathed. The thief's mouth hung open, her single eye stared.

"Reincarnated…" Sunbright fought sleep to relate the vital news, "You were born in the future, three hundred years from now, but all things return to their roots. Brookdweller read your past lives. A recent one was Greenwillow. That's why you called me country mouse. It's why I confused you and Greenwillow in dreams. It's why we were attracted in the first place, because I was hunting Greenwillow. Fate brought us together, but I ignored you to find Greenwillow, when you were both by my side all the time…"

He blacked out. Knucklebones laid her tousled head on his chest, listened to his heart thump, and sighed with contentment.

When next Sunbright awoke, the sun was gone, and cool night air bathed his face while a nearby fire warmed him.

"He's awake."

Sunbright shook his aching head, tried to focus, but still found the world curiously flat. An audience knelt around his pallet. Many elves in green and black, bristling with arrows and bows and knives, all strangers, yet oddly familiar. One was small and wore a green eye patch. With a jolt, the shaman recognized Knucklebones. She smiled shyly.

"Sunbright, I'd like you to meet some people who've journeyed from the Star Mounts in the High Forest. My-family." To his dazed look, the thief explained, "They're kin to Greenwillow. They heard of my ancestry from Brookdweller and came to meet me. Fashioned new clothes for me, too."

She made a small curtsy, the first Sunbright had ever seen. Cleaned and rested, in shining elven clothes of soft green and deep black leather, Knucklebones looked like a princess. The shaman sighed, "You're beautiful."

Awkwardly, the part-elf made introductions. "My father, Marshwind. My mother, Pinemagic. My sisters Gracewealth, Butterfly, Earthstork, and my brother, Fullshrub."