“I say you do not know,” croaked the little dwarf again, his beadlike eyes snapping angrily, his whole crooked frame quivering with rage. “I have a brother, a workman in brass and gold, who can make gifts more pleasing to the gods than any you have brought.”
Loke looked down upon the little dwarf in scorn. “Go to your brother,” he sneered, “and bring to us the wonderful things you think he can make. Bring us one gift more wonderful than these I have, or more acceptable to Odin and Thor, and I will give your brother my head to pay him for his efforts.” Then Loke roared with laughter, believing that he had made a rare, rich joke.
Hardly had the roars of laughter died away, when Brok, gliding down the rainbow bridge with a swiftness equalled only by the lightning, sprang into Midgard, and was making his way towards the great mountain, beneath which worked the forges of his brother, the master-workman—Sindre.
“Some one cometh,” said the dwarfs, pausing in their work to listen, their busy hammers in mid-air.
“Fear not,” answered Brok, his harsh voice echoing down the great halls. “It is I—Brok—and I come to demand of you that now, if never again, you do your best; for Loke boasts to the gods of Asgard that no dwarfs in all the caverns of the under-world can make one gift more wonderful or more acceptable to Odin than those he brings—a crown of gold, a ship that will sail on land or sea, and a spear that never fails!”
A terrible roar burst forth from the hosts of angry dwarfs. “We will see! We will see!” they thundered. And seizing their hammers they set to work. The great forges blazed. The sparks flew. The smoke poured forth from the mountain top. Loke, looking out from the shining city, trembled. Well did he know the workmanship of these dwarfs of Brok; and well did he know how rash had been his scornful promise to the angry little dwarf.
“We will make a hammer for Thor,” said Sindre, the greatest among the workmen in this under world; “a hammer, that when thrown from his mighty hand, shall ring through all the heavens. A trail of fire shall follow it. Its aim shall never fail; and it shall carry death and destruction wherever it falls.
“Blow thou the bellows, Brok; and I myself will mould the hammer from the red hot iron.”
With Brok at the bellows, the very mountain rocked, and Midgard for miles about was ablaze with the blaze of light from the mountain top.
“This shall not be,” snarled Loke. And rushing down from Asgard he crouched outside the great, black cave to listen.