Tungdil's "foster father", the venerable magus Lot-Ionan, sends him on an errand to return some artifacts to one of his former pupils and travel to the secondling dwarf kingdom.

Along the way he meets Boïndil Doubleblade and Boëndal Hookhand, two secondling twins, who lead him to Ogreʼs Death, a fortress in their kingdom.

They slaughter orcs and avoid Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty (Nôdʼonn the Doublefold), a magus who has fallen under the spell of The Perished Land (the evil spirit of Girdlegard).

The Perished Land attempted and succeeded in infiltrating Girdlegard and defeating the dwarves' fifthling kingdom eleven hundred cycles ago.

Tungdil owns the books that explain the only way to defeat Nudin: forge a magical axe called Keenfire that needs to have a steel blade, a hilt made of the extinct tree known as the sidguredaisy, and runes engraved with a combination of all the known metals.