It was magnificent. The sculpture was the man-Sjord Frostfist in wood. Indeed, the man and the statue stared at each other with such unrelenting amazement that few could have told them apart.

The swaying brothers began to chant, "Sjord! Sjord! Sjord! Sjord!" They hoisted the man who would lead them into doom.

"Not me!" Sjord protested, laughing. "The statue! The statue!"

The men lowered their friend to the ground and snatched up the carving. "Off to the market! Off to the market!" they cried joyously. "Sjord will stand forever in the market!"

"And nowhere else," Eir murmured as Garm loped up beside her. She was spent. These ecstatic moments of creation always left her drained. She looked down at Garm and said bitterly, "He can't save us. He can't even save himself."

That night, Eir couldn't sleep. Garm had seen many such nights. The spinning in the bed, the pacing, the muttering, the sketching. She was imagining something, conceiving it as other women conceived children.

Garm rose from his blanket and trotted over to the workbench and looked down at the page where she drew.

It was an army of wood and stone.

For a week, she didn't carve but only sketched in her workshop or paced through the courtyard or stared past the bridges that joined Hoelbrak to the Shiverpeaks all around. Garm had seen this look before. Eir was waiting for something. He knew by the way she sharpened her blades and oiled her bow.

A fortnight later, as the cold sun descended into clouds, the sentries of Hoelbrak began to shout.

"Invasion! Invasion! Icebrood!"

Eir turned from a sketch and strode to the wall where her battle-gear hung. She dragged off her work tunic and strapped on a breastplate of bronze. She girded herself and threw on a cape of wool, strapped on boots, and slung a quiver charged with arrows. To these, she added also her carving belt.