“It is a task for me!” Prim insisted. “I see that now. It is why I was brought here.” Shading her eyes with one arm, she looked about for Corvus. Corvus had foreseen all of this. He had known that only Prim could slay the Chasmian. With a word, Corvus could cause Burr to sheathe the sword. But she did not see the giant talking raven anywhere. Only the Chasmian. Its rage had overcome its fear and it was advancing toward Burr with a fixed regard and a steady pace.

Edda emerged into the open ground of the Anvil Plain, following Lyne, who was showing her the way and kicking loose pebbles out of her path. The Chasmian either did not see her or did not care. Burr ran laterally, brandishing his sword, both movements calculated to draw the giant’s attention away from Edda. Edda looked ancient and bent under her burden but seemed to find it in her now to lengthen her stride a bit and cover ground faster.

So that was all to the good. Prim went the way Burr was going. She might not have been able to talk Burr out of his mad scheme, but once the Chasmian drew close enough, she could kill it. Provided that she went where it was going. Which was wherever Burr was waving that sword about.

“It’s working!” she informed Burr, when she thought she had advanced within range of his hearing. “The others are cutting around behind. But you do not have to fight this thing! Run away!”

“Look about. We have our backs to the cliff edge. The bridge is broken. What choice is there but to fight it?”

“You know perfectly well.”

“Oh, no, Princess! You must not!”

“Why not, Burr!?”

“This thing is the only being that has the power to stop him who pursues us!” And Burr—normally a stand-square-to-the-enemy type—took the unusual measure of turning his back on the Chasmian for a moment and pointing with his sword to the opposite side of the gorge.

“Burr! Look out!” Prim shouted. But instead of taking the time to look, Burr dove sideways and rolled to his feet. In the place where he had been standing a moment earlier, an adamant claw had sunk into the snow and broken the rock. It was the extremity of a writhing snake of stone and aura that reached all the way back to the Chasmian’s shoulder. Both Burr and Prim had assumed the foe to be far out of range; but they now knew it could fling its arms out to a distance many times their apparent length. The claw began to drag backward across the ground, then sprang into the air as its owner retracted it.