"It _must_ be that way!" Tedric insisted. "Run more rods across, from there to there, to hold more hides and blankets. You four men fetch water. Throw it over the hides and blankets and him who turns the blower. Take shorter tricks in the hot places--here, I'll man the blower myself until the heat wanes somewhat." He bent his mighty back to the crank, but even in that raging inferno of heat he kept on talking. "Knowst my iron sword, the one I wear, with rubies in the hilt?" he asked the foreman. That worthy did, with longing; to buy it would take six months of a foreman's pay. "This furnace must stay this hot all day and all of tonight, and there are other things as bad. But 'twill not take long. Ten days should see the end of it"--actually seven days was the schedule, but Tedric did not want the priests to know that--"but for those ten days matters _must_ go exactly as I say. Work with me until this iron is made and I give you that sword. And of all the others who shirk not, each will be given an iron sword--this in addition to your regular pay. Dost like the bargain?" They liked it. Then, during the hours of lull, in which there was nothing much to do except keep the furious fires fed, Tedric worked upon the image of his god. While the Lomarrian was neither a Phidias nor a Praxiteles, he was one of the finest craftsmen of his age. He had not, however, had a really good look at Skandos' face. Thus the head of the image, although it was a remarkably good piece of sculpture, looked more like that of Tedric's foreman than like that of the real Skandos. And with the head, any resemblance at all to Skandos ceased. The rest of the real Skandos was altogether too small and too pitifully weak to be acceptable as representative of any Lomarrian's god; hence the torso and limbs of the gleaming copper statue were wider, thicker, longer, bigger, and even more fantastically muscled than were Tedric's own. Also, the figure was hollow; filled with sand throughout except for an intricately-carved gray sandstone brain and red-painted hardwood liver and heart. * * * * * "They come, master, to the number of eleven," his lookout boy came running with news at mid-afternoon of the seventh day. "One priest in copper, ten Tarkians in iron, a five each of bowmen and spearmen." Tedric did not have to tell the boy where to go or what to do or to hurry about it; as both ran for the ironmaster's armor the youngster was two steps in the lead. It was evident, too, that he had served as squire before, and frequently; for in seconds the erstwhile half-naked blacksmith was fully clothed in iron. Thus it was an armored knight, leaning negligently upon a fifteen-pound forging hammer, who waited outside the shop's door and watched his eleven visitors approach.