"Wolf, guide my work," Eir murmured. Her eyes glowed with battle and her hands glowed with axes. She swung them overhead in a storm of steel.

An icebrood, newly turned, flung himself over the ridge and came down with a swinging axe. "Die!"

Eir leaped back from the blade and brought her own around to split the creature from shoulder to hip.

Another dead man leaped the ridge and bounded toward her.

Her other axe fell and broke the man like bread.

"Fall back!" Eir cried. "Give them room to land."

The crafters complied, stepping back while mauls and axes and swords rained down.

Eir was in the midst, her knives and chisels now slung on her fingers. They flew as if she were carving wood instead of frozen flesh. They flayed skin and muscle from bone.

Beside her, Garm leaped to latch onto throats and bring down more of the enemy.

Bjorn meanwhile pounded the icebrood as if they were iron.

Olin and Soren fought back-to-back, cudgel and pry bar wreaking havoc.

Which left only Silas, the weaver, who had felled two of the creatures before they reached the ridge.

Now two felled him. One ripped out his belly while the other smashed his face.

Eir heard Silas's scream and turned to ram her chisels into the back of Silas's attacker. The steel sank to her fingertips, and red foam bubbled hot from the wounds. The rime-covered norn, gasping, rolled from Silas. Garm clamped onto the neck of the other icebrood and shook him like a rag.

Eir looked down at the weaver, her old friend. It was too late. Silas was gone.

Face and belly-he was gone.

Eir roared, her blades flinging out to slash the throats of two more icebrood. They fell beside her as another came on-a man with hair like a horse's tail.

She knew this man, though his face was smashed, his nose canted to one side, his teeth gone where some great fist had struck him. His flesh was sealed in ice. His eyes were white, filled with the fury of the Dragonspawn.