Gauntlgrym

That took a bit of bluster from Murley, and Athrogate realized that everyone in the tavern was looking at them then.

“What’ve me friends got to do with anything?” the dwarf asked. “Ye think I’d be needin’ help in putting the three o’ ye to the ground?”

“Good dwarf, your mug is full,” Genesay said.

Athrogate turned to regard her, grinning at her attempt to distract him and deflect the conversation.

“Aye, so it is,” he said, and he picked it up and swung his arm, launching the ale at Murley and his two friends.

“Now fill it again,” he told Genesay.

Murley snarled and pulled free of one of his friends, who fell back as the ale washed over him. He took a step toward Athrogate, but the dwarf just smiled and glanced at the man’s belt, at the curved sword he had strapped to one hip. It seemed a pitiful weapon indeed against the mighty twin morningstars Athrogate kept strapped across his back.

“Ye might get it out,” Athrogate teased. “Ye might even stick me once afore yer head makes a fine poppin’ sound.”

“Aye, don’t fight him, Murley!” one woman called from the other side of the tavern. “His weapons are full of magic you cannot match.”

“Oh, but you’re a tough one, dwarf,” Murley taunted. “You hide behind the damned drow elves and you hide behind the magic in your weapons. Oh, but I’d love to catch you without either, and teach you some manners.”

“Murley!” Genesay scolded, for she had seen the same play before, and knew the pirate Murley walked dangerous ground.

“Bwahaha,” Athrogate laughed, but not with his typically boisterous exclamation. It was just a sad, soft sound. He turned to his mug, which was still empty. “Fill it!” he barked at Genesay.

“Dwarf!” Murley shouted at him.

“Ah, but ye’ll get yer chance to shut me mouth,” Athrogate promised.

The moment Genesay put the filled mug in front of him, he scooped it up and quaffed it in one gulp, then hopped from his barstool and faced Murley and his two companions.

“Ye think I’m hiding from ye, do ye?” Athrogate said. He grabbed the buckle of his harness and flicked it open, and with a shrug let the vest and his morningstars fall to the ground behind him. “Well, here now, boy, ye got yer wish.”

He took a step forward and staggered, having drained more than a dozen mugs that night.

Murley broke free of his companions and rushed forward, and before the dwarf could catch his balance, the man unloaded a heavy right cross into Athrogate’s face.

“Bwahaha!” Athrogate howled in response.

He ignored the left hook and right jab that followed, lowered his shoulder, and charged at Murley.

The man spun to the side and almost got away, but Athrogate caught him by the wrist. The dwarf couldn’t stop his forward momentum, though, having overbalanced, and he continued ahead, falling to the floor and dragging Murley along behind him. Murley didn’t lose his footing, though, and although Athrogate’s strong grip must have felt as if it was crushing his left wrist, the man moved over the prostrate dwarf.

Up on his right elbow, twisted back to the left and with his left hand holding fast to Murley’s wrist, Athrogate had no defense against the man’s right arm—no defense other than his hard head. He took a hit and pulled Murley’s wrist closer, took another hit, and when Murley tugged back, he let the pirate retreat to the full extent of both their arms.

But then Athrogate yanked the man back with frightening strength, and as Murley fell into him, the dwarf’s whole body snapped up, driving Athrogate’s forehead right into Murley’s face. Murley groaned as his nose exploded under the impact, but he kept his wits enough to dive over the dwarf.

And so did his friends, the three of them burying Athrogate where he lay.

All around the bar, onlookers cheered the three pirates on, for many had felt the bite of Athrogate’s heavy fists over the last few years, and some had felt the bite of Athrogate’s teeth, as well.

And indeed, it looked as though the dwarf was finally getting his due, with three strong men atop him, pinning him and pounding on him.

Athrogate curled and twisted, finally getting his feet under him, and the crowd quieted. Somehow, impossibly, the dwarf stood up, taking the three brawlers with him. He began to thrash even more wildly then, keeping them off balance and denying them any real footing. Athrogate set himself squarely and bulled ahead, driving the three men in front of him.

“Bwahaha!” the dwarf roared.

A group of patrons at a round table began to scream and dodged aside as the dwarf and his cargo barreled in, splintering wood, sliding chairs aside, and dropping mugs. Metal and glass crashed to the floor along with the dwarf and his three passengers.

Athrogate came up swinging, a left hook that slammed one of the brawlers in the ribs and lifted him off his feet. The man landed two strides back and stared at the strong dwarf in disbelief, then crossed his arms over his broken chest, curled up, and fell over.

Athrogate wasn’t watching. He towered over the second of the fighters as the man made it to his knees, and from on high, the dwarf twice snapped his forehead down into the man’s uplifted face. The man would have crumpled on the spot, but Athrogate had him firmly by the front of his vest, and with a great heave, the dwarf brought him up to his feet and even higher. Athrogate clenched tighter with his right hand but let go with his left, snapping his hand down over the man’s crotch and heaving again, bringing the thug up horizontally over his head.

The third man got up with the help of a chair and without wasting a moment, slammed that chair across Athrogate’s back with enough force to send splintering wood flying every which way.

Athrogate staggered forward but managed to turn as he did, to see the pirate advancing, a chair leg held as a club. The dwarf threw his helpless passenger at his friend, but the third rowdy proved nimble, and ducked. He didn’t even wince as his friend went crashing down into yet another table full of mugs and plates.

With a roar, the man continued on, launching a series of vicious swings as he bore into the dwarf. Athrogate got his arm up to block—and how that stung!—and continued forward as well, wanting to get inside the weight of that swing. He drove his shoulder into the man’s waist, grappling with the swinging club arm with one hand and locking his adversary in place with the other.

But the man managed to wriggle free enough to change from a swing to a straight downward stroke, repeatedly jamming the butt end of the table leg against the top of the dwarf’s head.

So Athrogate stopped even trying to block and brought his second arm around the man as well. He stood up straight, lifting the man from the floor, and he squeezed with all his might.

The man kept pumping his arm, and blood soon caked the dwarf’s black hair. But the blows grew weaker. The man was off balance, and Athrogate growled and crushed him tighter and tighter, stealing his breath and twisting his spine.

Athrogate began to whip him back and forth and his victim yelled out for help. The dwarf bit him on the stomach, shaking his head like a guard dog might, and the pirate howled out in pain.

Athrogate never saw the next strike coming and didn’t even know that it was from one of his own morningstars. All he knew was a sudden explosion of pain, a sudden sensation of weakness as he went over sideways, dragging his bitten victim with him to the floor. Then several others were on him, punching him and kicking him, blocking out the light while all the folk in the room around him shouted and screamed.

“Kill him dead!” cried some.

“Let the poor fellow go!” yelled others.

Then he was up to his feet again, though he knew not how. It took him a few moments to note, through swollen eyes, a tiefling holding him by one arm and a dwarf holding him by the other.

“Ye go sleep it off!” the dwarf yelled in his ear. “Ye don’t come back here unless ye’re in a better mood!”

Athrogate wanted to argue, and wanted to call for the return of his weapons, but he saw the door approaching—at least, that’s what it seemed like, and it took him a few heartbeats to realize that he was approaching the door, and swiftly. He crashed through and went tumbling out into the street.

Stubbornly, he climbed back to his feet and staggered around to regard the posse that stood on the tavern’s porch, staring at him.

“And know that ye’re paying for the door and the tables, and all that’s broken and all that’s spilled, Athrogate!” the dwarf yelled at him.

Athrogate brought a hand up to wipe the blood from his lips. “Get me me ’stars,” he said. He looked down at his shoulder, bloody and torn from one of those very weapons. “I dropped ’em out o’ good manners.”

“Get ’em,” the dwarf, who was one of the proprietors of the establishment, told the group behind him.

A couple disappeared into the tavern, but only to come back and report that the morningstars and their harness were nowhere to be found.

Thoroughly dejected, dazed, busted, and broken, Athrogate wandered down the streets of Luskan. That hadn’t been his first fight, of course, not even his first one that tenday, nor was it the first time he’d ended up face down in the street. Always he took comfort in knowing that he’d given out better than he had taken, but without the glassteel morningstars that had served him so well for all those decades, he found little comfort indeed. And he was hurt worse than any of the other times.

He thought to get back to his own bed, but he wasn’t even sure where he was. He looked around, confused, his brain not connecting with his vision or his footsteps. He kept staggering for some time before finally stumbling into an alleyway, where he slumped against a wall and slid to the ground.

“Oh, but we’ll get us some fine coin for these beauties,” one dirty pirate said to the other, alone in the hold of their docked ship. He held up the harness, holding one of Athrogate’s morningstars, the second weapon in his other hand. “What good luck for the dwarf to be so noble as to drop them, eh?”

“Eh!” his friend agreed. “I’m thinking we might be buying us our own boat. I’d like to be a captain.”

“What? Yerself the captain? Was myself that took the things!”

“And myself that whacked the dwarf good with one in the fight,” the other protested. “Bah, but let’s sell them first and see the coin, and see what we might be buying two boats!”

The first started to nod and laugh at that grand proposition. “What good luck!” he said again.

“You really think so?” came a third voice, from the bottom of the ladder, and both men looked that way. And both men blanched, turning as pale as the stranger was dark.

“W-we found ’em,” the second stuttered.

“Indeed, and here’s your finder’s fee,” the drow said.

He flipped a copper piece onto the floor between them.

Help us!

“Eh?” Athrogate replied, not sure what he’d just heard, or if he’d “heard” anything at all.

He opened a swollen eye, just a slit at first, then wider when he saw the dwarf before him—and wider still when he came to realize it wasn’t the proprietor of the tavern he’d busted up, but one of the dwarf ghosts he had met a decade before in a place he longed to forget.