“And then a fight?”
“One fight per day is enough.”
Jus shouldered his way in through a door made from an old blanket. As he passed, Polk gave an unhappy sigh. “That boy has no idea of howto be a hero. It just ain’t in him.”
Escalla’s voice laughed from empty air. “He gets the jobdone.”
“I tell him again and again! It ain’t
The Sour Patch tavern sold only two types of food: raw andburned. The beer smelled like old laundry, but Polk drank it nonetheless. Escalla contented herself with lounging inside the Justicar’s backpack as it satbeneath the table. The ranger’s wineskin had yielded a last few drops of decentbeer, and there were still sweets aplenty. The girl reclined with her little feet crossed and her arms behind her head, thinking sly, warm little thoughts as she watched the Justicar.
Jus loomed at the bar, shaking down the locals for information. This was where the guards lived and drank. Teamsters bringing food to the shantytown and sharks keen to fleece refugees of their cash all came here to spend their coin. The crowd was loud, the room smoky, and the jokes were rich with filth.
A half-orc seemed to be giving Jus trouble-probably not thebest choice the half-orc had made in his career. The Justicar’s patience wasremarkable but would eventually wear thin. Enjoying the interval between the disappearance of rational, talkative Jus and the appearance of wrath-of-the-gods Jus, Escalla smiled.
The ranger had an endearing habit of tugging his grim persona about himself like a cloak. He enjoyed it like an actor living for a good role in a play, but from time to time, Jus could be persuaded to drop the facade, and then a rather interesting man began to emerge. Escalla had rolled onto her belly amidst the warm depths of the backpack, when quite suddenly a hand began groping at her rear.
Escalla jerked away, whirled about, and scowled.
A hand had snuck into the backpack. The hand was attached to an arm, and the arm had somehow ended up affixed to a pimple-smothered thief with protruding teeth. The thief groped about in the backpack, looking for anything valuable, and kept himself hidden under the table.
Escalla gave an amused little smile. She watched the groping hand, cracked her knuckles loudly, and then went to work.
Working carefully and with his eyes peering under the table toward the Justicar, the thief frowned as something touched his wrist and then jerked tight. He scowled, looked down at the backpack, then almost expired as he saw that the bag now had evil eyes and horribly sharp teeth.
With a noise like a whip crack, a long, rough, rope-like tongue wrapped around his arm, holding it in place. Talking with its mouth full, the bag gave an evil little roar. “Me magic bag of gnawing! Now me feed! Feedgood!”
Serrated fangs gleamed, the thief screamed, and quite suddenly a flash of magic sparkled in the air. With a bang, a weasel appeared beside the terrified thief. The weasel wrung its paws and pranced in concern.
“Don’t move! One wrong twitch and
Pale with fright, the thief held his arm rigid, the bag’stongue holding him trapped. He stared at the backpack’s fangs in fright.“M-magic wishing weasel?”
“Well, you wished for a way out of this, right?” The weaselopened up its front paws. “So what are you complaining about? I happened to bepassing, so I’m on the job… unless you want me to go?” The weasel snapped itsfingers, and instantly the backpack roared and yanked the thief’s arm deeperinto its maw.
The thief gave a pathetic bleat of fright. “No! Stay! Justget it off me! Get it off!”
“Sure! Fine!” The weasel clicked its fingers again, and thesnarling backpack subsided. The magic wishing weasel leaped onto the thief’sfrozen arm and inspected the backpacks hairy tongue.
“Hmm. All right. Simple to fix. You’ve got one hand free,right?”
“You want me to cut the bag?” The thief groped hastily for aknife. “Fine!”
“No!”The weasel hurriedly waved its paws. “You’ll enrage it!No, in a case like this, you have to make use of natural strategy.”
“Natural strategy?”
“Trust me, kid. I’m a weasel.”
Traveling in a sinuous round-about route, the weasel ended up upon the thief’s shoulder. It tapped its paws together and gave a brief flip ofits tail.
“All right, kid. We have to make nature work
The bag shifted its grip, trembling as if about to break its restraining spell, and the thief swallowed in fright. “Magic weasel, help me!”
“All right, kid, now listen.” The weasel looked down at thethief’s bulging purse then stood aside. “I’ve got it held for a while. To escapethe bag, you have to trigger its gag reflex, but not by putting a hand or a tool in there! Oh no. That thing senses anything big in there, and it’ll rip your armright outta its socket!” Drawing a brief sketch in the dust, the weaselchattered on. “There’s one patch at the back of its throat that can trigger thegag reflex. You have to hit it with something heavy-something small, dense, andsolid-to make it spit out your arm.”
The thief immediately threw an empty beer stein into the backpack. The magic weasel gave a tired sigh. “No. Something
“What?”
“Nothing. You want brains, don’t come to the Flanaess.”Sketching out a diagram in midair, the weasel tried to educate the thief. “Look.There’s a little tiny slot at the bottom of the bag. All you do is drop littleheavy things in there in the hope they’ll go through the slot. Little flat heavythings-small, flat, round, heavy things.”
The thief blinked cluelessly, and the weasel gave a snarl. “Look! Just drop coins into the bag, or it’ll nibble your knuckles off!”
Fumbling in haste, the thief grabbed for his purse, undid the drawstrings with his teeth, and sent a tumble of gold coins spilling down into the backpack’s toothy mouth. The carnivorous backpack scowled, mumbled, thensuddenly gave a great cough. Feeling his arm held in a briefly loosened grip, the thief jerked his hand free. He immediately threw himself as far away from the backpack as possible.
Frustrated, the backpack gnashed its fangs and grumbled. Meanwhile, the wishing weasel slapped the panting thief on the back in congratulations.
“There you are! Free as a bird!” Grinning, the weasel beganto prod the thief out from under the table. “Now go on. Scram! Off you go.Borrow some money, have a drink to celebrate, and maybe consider a change in career.”
Pale with fright, the thief still had eyes only for the gnashing backpack.
“Th-thank you, magic wishing weasel!” The man withdrew intothe tavern light. “How can I repay you?”
“All in a day’s work, kid! No need to thank me. Just naffoff!” The weasel suddenly bit its lip and scuttled closer. “But if anyone was toask-say, just for arguments sake, if a really big shaven headed guy in blackarmor wearing a hell hound skin-if a guy like
The thief rubbed his bruised wrist in fright and said, “Right!”
“Great, kid. Now scram!” The weasel crept onto the tablebeside an incredulous Polk. “Nice kid, but a brain the size of a peppercorn.”
Polk looked at Escalla the weasel in confusion and asked, “Was that boy a thief?”
“Nah. He came to make a donation. I think we must have madeabout fifty gold pieces outta him.” Escalla dropped her illusion spell from thebackpack, which returned to being a plain old leather pack. The “tongue” of thebeast-a disreputable length of chord-was stuffed back into the darkness of thepack. Escalla shifted back into her usual form and rummaged about inside the backpack to find her discarded clothes.
She was tugging her leggings into place when a heavy presence made itself known outside her
