him and leaned on his trusty stick. He was very tired and sleepless,
but had more leisure now for eating his provisions. With
Tharagavverug the end was coming fast, and in the afternoon his
breath came hoarsely, rasping in his throat. It was as the sound of
many huntsmen blowing blasts on horns, and towards evening his breath
came faster but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furious to
the distance and dying away, and he made desperate rushes towards
the village; but Leothric still leapt about him, battering his
leaden nose. Scarce audible now at all was the sound of his heart:
it was like a church bell tolling beyond hills for the death of some
one unknown and far away. Then the sun set and flamed in the village
windows, and a chill went over the world, and in some small garden a
woman sang; and Tharagavverug lifted up his head and starved, and
his life went from his invulnerable body, and Leothric lay down
beside him and slept. And later in the starlight the villagers came
out and carried Leothric, sleeping, to the village, all praising him
in whispers as they went. They laid him down upon a couch in a
house, and danced outside in silence, without psaltery or cymbal.
And the next day, rejoicing, to Allathurion they hauled the
dragon-crocodile. And Leothric went with them, holding his battered
staff; and a tall, broad man, who was smith of Allathurion, made a
great furnace, and melted Tharagavverug away till only Sacnoth was
left, gleaming among the ashes. Then he took one of the small eyes
that had been chiselled out, and filed an edge on Sacnoth, and
gradually the steel eye wore away facet by facet, but ere it was
quite gone it had sharpened redoubtably Sacnoth. But the other eye
they set in the butt of the hilt, and it gleamed there bluely.

And that night Leothric arose in the dark and took the sword, and
went westwards to find Gaznak; and he went through the dark forest