Vanderjack pressed the attack, catching one draconian after the other in the abdomen, where the armor was a poorer-quality chainmail. The links parted under Lifecleaver’s magically keen edge, and the draconians were stone-dead a second later.
The driver leaned over the side of the carriage. “Milord! That’s all of them!”
The baron was wiping at his face with his voluminous sleeve. “So it is,” he said. “And we have this one to thank for it.”
Vanderjack watched as the petrified bodies of the slain draconians crumbled into powder and became mixed in with all of the rest of the mud. He let the rain wash the greenish black draconian blood from his blade, and nodded once at the baron. “Well, I’m used to draconians.”
“How can I repay you?” asked the baron.
“The noble thing would be to help him out of the mud and see him on his way,” said the Balladeer.
“You don’t need to be paid for the rescue,” said the Apothecary.
“It wasn’t much of an effort,” agreed the Conjurer.
Vanderjack ignored the ghosts. “Steel is the universal thank-you.” He grinned, sliding the sword back into its scabbard.
The baron didn’t seem shocked. “Of course,” he said. “And in fact, I may have something even more lucrative for a stalwart fellow like yourself. Let’s talk about it somewhere dry.”
Vanderjack gestured behind him with his thumb. “The bar leaks.”
The baron opened the door of his carriage. “Ah, but my manor does not.”
Vanderjack shrugged and climbed up beside the baron. The driver stowed his crossbow and snapped the reins. The horses lurched forward, pulling the carriage out of the mud and along the road. With his sword safely sheathed, Vanderjack enjoyed the trip without the running commentary of the ghosts.
As they departed, a black-robed figure stepped out of the shadows of the bar, watching as the baron’s carriage grew distant. Oblivious to the rain, the figure walked out into the center of the muddy road, looked down at the remains of the draconians-mainly armor-and poked at them with one boot until it found what it was looking for-a corroded medal bearing the symbol of the dragonarmies. Pocketing the medal, the robed figure headed for the bar; the rain washed away all that was left.
A gnome walked brazenly along the boardwalks of Pentar with his poleaxe over his shoulder, heedless of the stiff breeze coming off the ocean. He was easily half the size of the other marketplace patrons, who jostled and shoved their way through the weathered stalls and booths, shouting out their offers to the vendors.
Pentar’s seaside market was unique in that it extended out over the water with wooden walkways connecting converted flat-bottomed boats and buoys. The gnome skipped over the gaps in the boardwalk, ducked under the arms of two humans engaged in the early throes of a brawl, and leaped up onto dry land.
The gnome, whose name was Theodenes, was a thousand miles from Mount Nevermind. The gnome homeland, built within and on the slopes of a dormant volcano, held no attraction for him; he was a mad gnome, his kinsgnomes had decided, and better off elsewhere. Theodenes, not one to argue too long with anybody, agreed, and he had taken his life’s work of journals and logbooks, piled them onto the back of a mule, and struck out for adventure.
That was several years and countless annoying tall people earlier. Odd jobs repairing and tinkering with buckets, skillets, plows, and yokes had kept him solvent along the road to wherever he was destined. There were no classes in entrepreneurship at the Mount Nevermind Collective Scholastic Learning Academy for Gifted Gnomes, despite Theo’s insistence that somebody would one day like to make a living off the pervasive gnome culture of invention. No, Theo had to come up with a working hypothesis for earning steel all by himself. It was unorthodox, but he was mad, after all.
Theodenes didn’t look mad. He looked like every other gnome. He was short and slender, with a large head and a big nose. He had a wispy white beard and a receding hairline, and his eyes were bright blue. His skin showed the signs of years of travel in the world outside of Mount Nevermind; he was even more tanned than his kinsgnomes.
Seedy wharfside buildings loomed over him. He continued along, slipping into an alleyway flanked by oxcarts, over a midden pile of seashells and used fishing nets, and finally into a crowded square within earshot but out of sight of the floating marketplace. A sign bolted above a door read Monkey’s Ear Tavern, just like the name on the note in Theo’s pocket.
Inside the Monkey’s Ear, which was quite spacious for a gnome but cramped for the taller folk, a smah gathering of ne’er-do-wells, scoundrels, and rogues was clustered about a long table. At the table, a broad- shouldered old salt with a missing eye was taking names and writing them in a ledger, occasionally arguing with one of the miscreants and thumbing over his shoulder.
Behind the seated man, three of Pentar’s Seaguard stood with arms folded, cutlasses hanging from their belts, giving troublemakers a watchful glower. The Seaguard, once a dependable organization of maritime peacekeepers, were nowadays paid off by criminals and mobsters and had become little more than enforcers. The three in the bar could have been brothers and probably were. Pentar was a town filled with siblings who shared work, especially dangerous work.
Theo casually walked up to the table and looked about for a place to stand in line. As he turned his head from left to right, he swung the enormous poleaxe about, as if he’d forgotten he had it with him. Cries of outrage and yelps of pain ensued, and a space quickly cleared around him. The recruiter at the table glared in his direction with his one good eye.
“We don’t hire on kender,” he barked, looking Theodenes up and down.
Theo was short, yes, and had the same build as a kender, possibly. But nobody could mistake a gnome for a kender. Would a kender have his shock of white hair? Or his proud and sizable nose? Was any kender known for such brilliant blue cobalt eyes, or a most excellent mustache and goatee?
“I am a gnome,” announced Theo indignantly. “I am nothing like a kender. Indeed, I am offended by such an association! Why, even in my beardless youth, I could not have been mistaken for a kender. Kender are all burglars and thieves and scallywags. I, if you please, am Theodenes, a gnome and a master of locks, portals, gates, fasteners, sundry latches-”
“We don’t hire on gnomes,” interrupted the recruiter.
“Well now, I don’t believe that was the purpose of my visit.”
The recruiter snapped his fingers and pointed at Theo. Immediately, the Seaguard thugs behind him leaped forward with their cutlasses flashing.
Theo took a step to the right and swung the poleaxe up and over his head. The first Seaguard thug sailed over the recruiter’s desk and into the path of the swinging blade, falling to the beer-stained floor of the tavern with a cry. His severed right hand, cutlass still firmly in its grasp, kept on going, tumbling over and over and into the shocked crowd.
The second Seaguard brute narrowly avoided the poleaxe, grunting with surprise. Theo looked up at him, one bushy white eyebrow arched, and brought the pole-axe around again. As he did so, he twisted and tugged with a one-two-three on the haft of the poleaxe. A series of rapid clicks sounded; the axe head collapsed in on itself and formed a wicked spear point. It lanced right through the upper thigh of the Seaguard.
The gnome leaped over the pole of his trapped weapon to escape the third Seaguard thug’s cutlass. He grabbed the polearm, tugged it free, and looked directly into the eyes of that cutlass’s owner. Another twist of the haft, and the spear head became a wickedly curved hook. The bushy eyebrows narrowed.
“What are you waiting for!” shouted the recruiter, who was standing, sweating. “He’s half your size!”
The last Seaguard formed a scowl and feinted forward with his blade, hoping to at least goad the gnome into reckless action. Theo responded by sweeping the hooked polearm in a wide arc, scraping the floor, and catching his opponent around the ankles. The Seaguard toppled like a fallen vallenwood.
The recruiter blinked in astonishment. The gnome’s weapon-a poleaxe once again-was at his trembling throat.
“As I was saying. I, if you please, am Theodenes, a gnome and a master of locks, portals, gates, fasteners, sundry latches …”
He inclined his head to one side, in the direction of the three maimed thugs lying with a great deal of cleared space around them, the other scoundrels and rogues backing away and keeping their distance.
