Eir said, "You have come full of… courage, but it smells of hops."

"Yes!" the man enthused, glancing back at a group of twenty or so norn warriors swaying in the courtyard. "I am Sjord Frostfist."

"Sjord Foamfist?" she mispronounced, raising an eyebrow.

"Exactly. And I have come by Snow Leopard and Raven and Bear-by every living beast-to declare war on the Dragonspawn!"

Eir nodded. "You've come to the wrong place. I am not the Dragonspawn."

Sjord laughed. "Of course you aren't. You are norn, like me."

"Not quite like you."

"No! Of course not," Sjord said, suddenly earnest. "You're an artist. While I carve up monsters, you carve up rocks."

The warriors laughed.

Eir's fist flexed around the mallet handle as if she were about to carve Sjord himself.

"No offense meant, of course. Somebody has to make statues of us."

Garm looked to his master, wondering why she didn't just kill the man. She could. This man and all the others. Or Garm could. With just a word from her, he would tear the man's throat out, but Eir never gave the word.

"You want a statue in your image."

Sjord put his finger to his nose, indicating that she understood exactly.

"Pick any you wish," she said, gesturing to the statues behind her. "Brave young fools just like you, who gathered at the moot and drank and decided to save the world. I've met you before, a hundred times. Each of these men went to fight the Dragonspawn."

Sjord's grin only widened. "Then we understand each other." He thrust a bag of coins into her hand.

Eir stared levelly at him. "Take your money. Go rent a room. Go lie down and sleep. You cannot defeat the Dragonspawn."

Sjord stepped back, affronted, and the warriors behind him raised their eyebrows. "You are saying we should give up? You are saying that our people should get used to fleeing our homelands? Why do you oppose a man who would fight our foe?"