the value of his tools. Turning, the Justicar slowly pushed the bartender away only to have the tavern bouncer suddenly appear on the scene.
The bouncer growled, then saw a kindred hostility in the Justicar. They met each other’s eyes in cold silence, each measuring the othercarefully. The two men nodded at one another, then both turned aside to go back to their own affairs. Escaping with his life from between the two heavy-set, grim men, the barkeep scuttled quickly back to the shelter of his bottles, jugs, and jars.
A pert blonde waitress made it her business to perch on a table at the Justicar’s side. She cocked her head and nudged at the man’s blackscabbard with her toe.
“Hey stranger! So what do you do? Ranger? Soldier?”
The Justicar settled his pack on the deck. “It isn’timportant.”
“Do you dance, soldier?”
“I don’t.” The Justicar found himself a place at the cardtable and wiped clean a chair. “Never learned.”
“I can teach you. It’s cozy!” The girl gave a winsome smile.“Why don’t I just keep you company?”
Growling like a surly wolf, the Justicar settled in his chair. “I
“Don’t you want to be friendly?”
The woman finally took the hint. She sniffed and stalked haughtily away, leaving the Justicar alone. From inside his backpack, a happy Cinders tickled his thoughts into the Justicar’s mind.
“Well a sniff is all we get. Now keep your nostrils open.”
Sitting beside him and shuffling cards, Polk clucked his tongue and fixed the Justicar with a disappointed eye.
“Son, you have to learn to lighten up. That’s the mark of areal hero. Devil-may-care, full of life! They take adventure in their stride.”
“Shut up. Deal the cards.”
The Justicar had only a small purse of gold left-a purse hekept in a badger-skin sporran at the front of his belt. Its proximity to his wedding tackle made it far too sensitive a place for any cutpurse, but until he finished his commission, the Justicar’s sum total of wealth stood at sevennobles, a poor sum to last a game of cards. He watched one round of the card game, then concocted a set of self-made rules that minimized financial risk. He wanted to nurse his funds and watch the tables so that he could listen to the talk. Cinders’ ears would have been helpful, but the hell hound skin was anextremely recognizable mark. Instead, the Justicar kept his backpack underneath his feet with the hound’s nose just peeking out into the air.
Ringed about the table were a dozen assorted teamsters, wagoners, and riverfolk. A fur trapper with a whole fox skin serving as a collar for his coat gave the Justicar a sharp nudge in the armored ribs.
“Hey, baldie! Are you betting?”
“I’m betting.” The Justicar advanced the minimum bet. “Dealme two.”
There were no women at hand. They would wait to see who was winning before making their moves. Hunched about the table, the gamblers made a fast and friendly game.
There was enough money at hand to make the ale flow freely, and Polk had a cavernous thirst. The man found time between beer steins to play a wickedly lucky game. Wearing a moustache of foam, he whooped as he laid down a winning hand and hammered at the table with glee.
The Justicar watched his own money disappearing and slowly supped his beer.
“Polk, you play well. You play this in a lot of places?”
“A hundred towns and a hundred trails with a hundred girls inevery one of ’em, son!” The teamster raked in the pot, then gleefully tossedcoins to the waitress and ordered a round of ale for the whole table. “I’m ateamster, son! A merchant adventurer, explorer, hunter, scout! We’re heroes oneand all!”
The blonde waitress returned with drinks-pointedly thudding amug beside the Justicar in an attempt to spill his beer. She retreated and kept her distance from the entire table as though convinced the Justicar was the carrier of some unsightly disease.
Much as it annoyed him, the Justicar’s mission required himto make conversation. Clandestinely changing his mug with the man next to him, the Justicar watched Polk drain his stein.
“So it’s a good life? You can’t go that far that often.”
“Well I do the borderlands, son. That’s where the money is!”The teamster dealt cards with a speedy skill. “Heroes! When we head out dayafter tomorrow, there’s folk going to be cheering our arrival with tears intheir eyes.”
Excellent. His mouth was spreading the news. Arranging his cards, the Justicar silently assessed the crowds. A new man had come over and silently joined the game while a shifty-eyed foreigner had leaned back in his chair at a table nearby.
“Cinders?”
“No.” Although Cinders echoed only in the Justicar’smind, the Justicar had to whisper in reply, and he had attracted attention. He hastily tripled his usual bet, then remembered too late that he was almost at the bottom of his funds. “Damn!”
“Never blame the cards, son! A good workman never curses histools.” Polk dealt extra cards all around- unwittingly giving the Justicar awinning hand. With an ironic snort at himself, the Justicar scratched his shaven head and laid down the cards. He gathered in a good ten nobles, gaining a hard glare of irritation from the trapper with his mangy-collared coat. Summoning the grumbling waitress, the Justicar arranged for a platter of hot sausages and mustard for the table.
Happily ensconced with sausages to his left and beer to his right, Polk somehow managed to both fill his mouth, drink beer,
“That’s the way, son. Spend it while you have it. No pointcounting your coins when you’re freezing your butt off on the Rift Wastes.”
Wonderful. The Rift Wastes were a very specific stretch of countryside. Polk was well on the way to blowing his secret destination. Casting his eyes surreptitiously across the table, the Justicar carefully assessed the other players, looking for a single change in breathing or a twitch of the eyes that might provide him with a clue. He rubbed his nose and used the move to cover another whisper to his backpack down below.
“Cinders?”
Looking up at the all-male table, the Justicar blinked. He sniffed loudly, caught a whiff of a spicy feminine scent, then whipped his head quickly to the right. The fox-skin draped about the trappers neck met his gaze in shock, the dead fox jerking with a quiver of fright.
One fist lashed out in a blur as the Justicar caught the fox-collar by the throat. The fur screamed and instantly turned into a huge cobra. The snake gaped its fangs, and the Justicar instinctively yelped and threw the thing away. As it hit the ground, the cobra shimmered and changed into a skinny, naked little woman a mere two feet high. She immediately flipped out a sturdy pair of translucent wings and flew madly off across the crowd.
The Justicar surged huge and angry up out of his seat, spilling the astonished fur trapper to the floor. With one hand he grasped the holy symbol around his neck while the other hand crackled magic all about his fingertips. He hurled a spell that streaked across the room and smacked into a potted fern beside the doors. Laughing at his aim, the pixie spread her wings and whirred gleefully from the room.
The fern lashed out like an insane octopus and grappled the girl with its fronds. The pixie screamed in fright, her torso trapped and her legs kicking as she desperately tried to fight free. The little creature looked up at her pursuer with a thin, exquisite little face. Her pointed ears quivered in alarm as she tried to break open the ferns. As the Justicar thundered across the deck planking toward her, spilling every chair and table in his path, the pixie jerked, struggled, and then suddenly wormed one hand out of the fronds. She pointed at the plant, screamed a frantic syllable, and a stream of magic darts blasted the fern apart. With bits of pot and clods of dirt showering the
