bleeding from yet another small wound.
Panting, trembling, fearful now, the bigger man tried another tactic. “You win, Gord! I quit!” he called to the smiling, flint-eyed fellow who faced him. “You’ve gotten to be pretty good, ol’ pal, so’s I guess you pass the test- right, guys? You can be a member of our bunch if you wa-”
In a flash, the knife Snaggle had held before himself was gone, and numbness shot from his fingers up his arm. Gord had kicked the blade away with blinding speed, instantly closed to within a foot of the big leader, and lashed out expertly with his own blade.
Snaggle stared down at his belly, gone suddenly cold and painful. The jerkin he wore was cut away, the dirty skin beneath it revealed. A thin line of red traced the path the dagger point had taken across his hairy, bulging belly to where it now rested in his navel. He looked along the weapon’s steely length to the corded hand that grasped it, then up along the arm to the eyes of the man before him. Snaggle saw the threat of death in those eyes.
“No, no, no, no… please don’t kill me…” Snaggle whined, and with that he lost whatever remained of his valor and fainted dead away.
Satisfied at last, Gord casually stooped and tore off part of the slashed and stained jerkin. As he wiped his dagger clean on the strip of cloth, he looked around and studied the stupefied members of the ruffian band. They looked quickly away from his gaze, not wishing him to think a returned stare meant a challenge. They had seen all they ever needed to see of him.
“I am doing Snaggle a favor, and all of you stupid jerks one as well. I’m not going to kill him, or you… this time! But if I ever happen to run into any of you again, you can bet your lives the favor won’t be given a second time.” He idly toed the unconscious Snaggle with his booted foot. “Your big, tough leader seems to have soiled himself-both ways, too, from the stink of it. Drag shitpants, here, away with you when you run along-and, boys, I’d do that right
With cautious haste, the gang complied, and the last Gord saw of them they were going as fast as they could manage, hauling their still-unconscious leader by his arms, his legs scraping and bouncing along the rough cobbles as they hastened into a narrow alleyway and out of sight.
“That was not exactly revenge,” the grinning young thief thought to himself as he put his disguise back on and headed away from the slums. “It was more like justice.” He had balanced things, wiped out an old humiliation, and at last freed himself from whatever vague stigma from his former existence had plagued him over the years.
Now there was nothing left undone, nothing more to prove, no more of the old-except this cherished possession, the box that old Leena had once told him was somehow tied to the mystery of Gord’s parentage. He had found it easily, right where he had seen Leena bury it years ago, close to where the old lean-to of his childhood had stood.
He didn’t know exactly what he would do with, or about, the box-but that was a matter for later. Now he had a new life to build. All of Greyhawk lay before him, waiting for him to familiarize and refamiliarize himself with-from an exhilarating new perspective! Equipped with the vast riches, knowledge, and skills gained in his broad wanderings, Gord knew that Greyhawk was now his, and he had some interesting times in store.
