"I suppose," Knucklebones said, her small bosom heaving in a sigh. "It's not mete to mention one woman while lying in the arms of another."

The barbarian opened his eyes, looked straight into her one good one, and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't think. I love you, Knuckle', and only you now. But Greenwillow was a boon companion, and I loved her once. She died saving my life, and was trapped in a corner of hell as a result. Somehow, some day, I'll get her loose of it, if her soul survived."

Again Knucklebones sighed, but wrapped her skinny, scarred arms around his head. "Your life would be easier if you busied yourself with daily tasks," she told him softly, "and people close by, not insurmountable problems that span the globe."

"Easier if I had no conscience, or honor." He kissed her white shoulder, licked her pointed ear as he spoke. "Perhaps you should marry a fishmonger or cobbler. They could give you a home, get you eight or nine children, make you fat and gray. Would that suit you better than tramping the world beside a dream-haunted barbarian?"

Knucklebones chuckled and kissed his forehead. "You're full of odd notions, Sunbright, and silly besides," she said. "Go to sleep."

And he did, as she watched the fire and caressed his thick hair.

Come the first cool day of autumn, when the hills burned red and gold and orange, Knucklebones knotted her sack of cash, Sunbright shouldered his sword and bow and satchels, and they left the summer cabin. Embarking on a small caravel with lateen sails, they were ferried down the Narrow Sea, past Vandal Station, past Northreach, past Frostypaw and Coldfoot, and through the Channel Lock. At Harborage the two asked after the Rengarth Barbarians, but received only blank looks. All summer Sunbright had asked everyone he met, travelers and locals alike, for the whereabouts of his tribe, but none knew. As far as the northwestern reaches of the empire were concerned, the Rengarth had vanished, and their ancestral lands stood empty. Wondering, and growing more fearful all the time, Sunbright had decided to sail into the eastern arm of the Narrow Sea and inquire there. But even at the crossroads of Harborage, they found no trace.

Over time, learning nothing, Sunbright's face grew longer, his eyes haunted, his demeanor bitter. Even with Knucklebones his answers grew short, until they passed days without speaking. They sailed on, clear to the east, to Janick near the river called The Alley, and found naught. There Sunbright disembarked, and stood on the docks, and stared at the sea and land for hours.

Finally Knucklebones said, "Perhaps we search too hard." Worn down by constant travel, she perched on a bird-stained bollard. All around the harbor ships and boats tacked and rowed, delivered supplies and people and fish and sails and water. They were the only ones idle, and they felt out of place.

But no place was home now, and Knucklebones, not even of this time, found herself saddled with a gloomy companion, and nowhere to go.

"Eh? What?" Sunbright said, turning from his daydreaming. "How can one search too hard? How else shall we find my people?"

"I don't know, but wandering blind isn't working, and you're unhappy," she said, desperately trying to think of any alternative. "Perhaps-perhaps if we set another goal, temporarily, we'd have luck. That might lead us in the right direction. When the way of mortals fail, it's best to trust in the gods."

Sunbright turned back to the harbor, as if to see over the horizon. "Perhaps you're correct. Perhaps the gods have other tasks for us."

Absentminded, the big barbarian rested his hand on the warhammer tucked into his belt. The long head bore a parrot's beak and crushing face, a tool for war, more a dwarf's weapon than a man's. "I've carried this a long time, with a pledge," he said. "I told Dorlas's brethren in Dalekeva that I would one day return the hammer to his kinfolk. I could return it now."

"Capital! A wonderful idea!" The thief exclaimed. Encouraged by the change, Knucklebones hopped up and kissed his chin. "We can journey to the south, where we haven't been before, and learn the news. Perhaps we'll find word of your tribe. Strange roads often lead to treasure!"

Without further ado, the barbarian walked off the dock and turned his back on the Narrow Sea, stomping down the first muddy street tending south. Shaking her head at his obstinate nature, Knucklebones scampered beside him.

A ghost of a smile creased Sunbright's face as he told her, "You realize this is just another quest, another foolish need to satisfy honor."

"I understand, but your honor is all you have. Feed it to keep it strong," she laughed. "At least, going south, we'll be warm."

"Sticky, muggy, buggy, and hot."

Sunbright tramped steadily past wagons and workers and shops.

"Warm like the sewers of Karsus," Knucklebones corrected. In celebration, she reached into her pockets and dug out her brass knuckles, slipped them onto knotty fingers.

"Anticipating trouble?" the barbarian asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Wherever you go, there's trouble," she chuckled. For the first time in days, Sunbright chuckled with her.

"I knew we wouldn't be warm for long," Knucklebones groused.

"It's not cold." Sunbright flicked snow from his eyelashes as he said, "It's… bracing."

"I need to brace myself, all right." Knucklebones said. She clutched a cedar bush jutting from the rock face to her left. "Else I'll be blown clean off this mountain."

"You could dance on the head of a pin, you're so nimble," Sunbright chided. "I'm the one slipping and sliding, taking two steps up and one back."

The two were again wrapped in sheepskin coats and mantles, tall boots, and wool leggings. Their boots slipped often, and Sunbright needed to catch rocks and roots to climb the steep mountain path. They'd climbed for three days, leaving the steppes and the last village far below. The vista to their right had yawned wider with every step, miles of wintry valley dark with pines and sheltered meadows dotted with sheep. A storm rushing over the Iron Mountains pelted them with snow and blotted out all vision except their path.

"It's not far now," Sunbright called. "It can't be."

"How can you know?" Knucklebones sniffed. Her furred hood was rimmed with white flakes that set off her shadowed face like a halo. "We could step to the moon."

"They said in the village the dwarves live below the treeline. We've climbed almost to where the green stops and the rocks are bare. And this is the only path, ignoring a few forks, so we can't be lost. Any minute now we'll probably smell smoke, or spook a sentry-whoa!"

The travelers stopped in shock. Around a bend, looming through the hissing snow, a trio of black-eyed cow skulls stared at them.

Knucklebones whispered a charm, Sunbright grunted. The skulls were huge, from oxen he supposed, bleached white and heaped with snow that trickled down the muzzles, one of which bore deep axe marks.

"What are they?" Knucklebones asked. "Warnings, or just markers?"

"I don't know," he said. Yet without thinking, he drew Harvester from the back scabbard with a low moan.

"Is it wise to bear your sword? Won't the dwarves, these sentries you speak off, take that amiss and shoot first?"

"It is foolish to bear a sword when coming in peace…" Sunbright pulled the scarf clear of his ears and nose to track sounds and smells. "But something else is up here. I feel it."

Knucklebones tugged off her hood to free her elven ears, keener than the human's. "Besides dwarves," she started to say, "what would-Hark!"

"What?"