He knew this town, though only vaguely. He'd made a single passage through the place long ago, in the days of hope and future dreams, in the search for Mithral Hall. Little seemed familiar to Wulfgar now as he made his plodding way through Luskan, absorbing the sights and sounds of the many open air markets and the general bustle of a northern city awakening after winter's slumber.
Many, many gazes fell over him as he moved along, for Wulfgar-closer to seven feet tall than to six with a massive chest and shoulders, and the glittering warhammer strapped across his back-was no ordinary sight. Barbarians occasionally wandered into Luskan, but even among the hardy folk Wulfgar loomed huge.
He ignored the looks and the whispers and continued merely to wander the many ways. He spotted the Host-tower of the Arcane, the famed wizard's guild of Luskan, and recognized the building easily enough, since it was in the shape of a huge tree with spreading limbs. But again that one note of recognition did little to guide the man along. It had been so long ago, a lifetime ago it seemed, since he had last been here.
Minutes became an hour, then two hours. The barbarian's vision was turned inward now as much as outward. His mind replayed images of the past few days, particularly the moment of his unsatisfying revenge. The image of Valric High Eye flying back into the jumble of broken tenting, Aegis-fang crushing his chest, was vivid in his mind's eye.
Wulfgar ran his hand through his unkempt hair and staggered along. Clearly he was exhausted, for he had slept only a few scattered hours in three days since the encounter with the Sky Ponies. He had wandered the roads to the west aimlessly until he had spotted the outline of the distant city. The guards at the eastern gate of Luskan had threatened to turn him away, but when he had just swung about with a shrug they called after him and told him he could enter but warned him to keep his weapon strapped across his back.
Wulfgar had no intention of fighting and no intention of following the guards' command should a fight find him. He merely nodded and walked through the gates, then down the streets and through the markets.
He discovered another familiar landmark when the shadows were long, the sun low in the western sky. A signpost named one way Half Moon Street, a place Wulfgar had been before. A short way down the street he saw the sign for the Cutlass, a tavern he knew from his first trip through, a place wherein he had been involved, in some ways had started, a tremendous row. Looking at the Cutlass, at the whole decrepit street now, Wulfgar wondered how he could have ever expected otherwise.
This was the place for the lowest orders of society, for thugs and rogues, for men running from lords. The barbarian put his hand in his nearly empty pouch, fumbling with the few coins, and realized then that this was where he belonged.
He went into the Cutlass half fearing he would be recognized, that he would find himself in another brawl before the door closed behind him.
Of course he was not recognized. Nor did he see any faces that seemed the least bit familiar. The layout of the place was pretty much the same as he remembered. As he scanned the room, his gaze inevitably went to the wall to the side of the long bar, the wall where a younger Wulfgar had set a brute in his place by driving the man's head right through the planking.
He was so full of pride back then, so ready to fight. Now, too, he was more than willing to put his fists or weapons to use, but his purpose in doing so had changed. Now he fought out of anger, out of the sheerest rage, whether that rage had anything to do with whatever enemy stood before him or not. Now he fought because that course seemed as good as any other. Perhaps, just perhaps, he fought in the hopes that he would lose, that some enemy would end his internal torment.
He couldn't hold that thought, couldn't hold any thought, as he made his way to the bar, taking no care not to jostle the many patrons who crowded before him. He pulled off his traveling cloak and took a seat, not even bothering to ask either of the men flanking the stool if they had a friend who was using it.
And then he watched and waited, letting the myriad of sights and sounds-whispered conversations, lewd remarks aimed at serving wenches more than ready to snap back with their own stinging retort-become a general blur, a welcomed buzz.
His head drooped, and that movement alone woke him. He shifted in his seat and noted then that the barkeep, an old man who still held the hardness of youth about his strong shoulders, stood before him, wiping a glass.
"Arumn Gardpeck," the barkeep introduced himself, extending a hand.
Wulfgar regarded the offered hand but did not shake it.
Without missing a beat the barkeep went back to his wiping. "A drink?" he asked.
Wulfgar shook his head and looked away, desiring nothing from the man, especially any useless conversation.
Arumn came forward, though, leaning over the bar and drawing Wulfgar's full attention. "I want no trouble in me bar," he said calmly, looking over the barbarian's huge, muscled arms.
Wulfgar waved him away.
Minutes slipped past, and the place grew even more crowded. No one bothered Wulfgar, though, and so he allowed himself to relax his guard, his head inevitably drooping. He fell asleep, his face buried in his arms atop Arumn Gardpeck's clean bar.
"Hey there," he heard, and the voice sounded as if it was far, far away. He felt a shake then, on his shoulder, and he opened his sleepy eyes and lifted his head to see Arumn's smiling face. "Time for leaving."
Wulfgar stared at him blankly.
"Where are ye stayin'?" the barkeep asked. "Might that I could find a couple who'd walk ye there."
For a long while, Wulfgar didn't answer, staring groggily at the man, trying to get his bearings.
"And he weren't even drinking!" one man howled from the side. Wulfgar turned to regard him and noted that several large men, Arumn Gardpeck's security force, no doubt, had formed a semicircle behind him. Wulfgar turned back to eye Arumn.
"Where are ye staying" the man asked again. "And ye shut yer mouth, Josi Puddles," he added to the taunting man.
Wulfgar shrugged. "Nowhere," he answered honestly.
"Well, ye can't be stayin' 'ere!" yet another man growled, moving close enough to poke the barbarian in the shoulder.
Wulfgar calmly swung his head, taking a measure of the man.
"Hush yer mouth!" Arumn was quick to scold, and he shifted about, drawing Wulfgar's gaze. "I could give ye a room for a few silver pieces," he said.
"I have little money," the big man admitted.
"Then sell me yer hammer," said another directly behind Wulfgar. When he turned to regard the speaker he saw that the man was holding Aegis-fang. Now Wulfgar was fully awake and up, hand extended, his expression and posture demanding the hammer's immediate return.
"Might that I will give it back to ye," the man remarked as Wulfgar slid out of the chair and advanced a threatening step. As he spoke, he lifted Aegis-fang, more in an angle to cave in Wulfgar's skull that to hand it over.
Wulfgar stopped short and shifted his dangerous glare over each of the large men, his lips curling up in a confident, wicked, smile. "You wish to buy it?" he asked the man holding the hammer. "Then you should know its name."
Wulfgar spoke the hammer's name, and it vanished from the hands of the threatening man and reappeared in Wulfgar's. The barbarian was moving even before the hammer materialized, closing in on the man with a single long stride and slapping him with a backhand that launched him into the air to land crashing over a table.
The others came at the huge barbarian, but only for an instant, for he was ready now, waving the powerful warhammer so easily that the others understood he was not one to be taken lightly and not one to fight unless they were willing to see their ranks thinned considerably.
"Hold! Hold!" cried Arumn, rushing out from behind the bar and waving his bouncers away. A couple went over to help the man Wulfgar had slapped. So disoriented was he that they had to hoist him and support him.
And still Arumn waved them all away. He stood before Wulfgar, within easy striking distance, but he was not afraid-or if he was, he wasn't showing it.
"I could use one with yer strength," he remarked. "That was Reef ye dropped with an open-handed slap, and Reef's one o' me better fighters."
Wulfgar looked across the room at the man sitting with the other bouncers and scoffed.
Arumn led him back to the bar and sat him down, then went behind and produced a bottle, setting it right before the big man and motioning for him to drink.
Wulfgar did, a great hearty swig that burned all the way down.
"A room and free food," Arumn said. "All ye can eat. And all that I ask in return is that ye help keep me tavern free o' fights or that ye finish 'em quick if they start."
Wulfgar looked back over his shoulder at the men across the way. "What of them?" he asked, taking another huge swig from the bottle, then coughing as he wiped his bare forearm across his lips. The potent liquor seemed to draw all the coating from his throat.
"They help me when I ask, as they help most o' the innkeepers on Half Moon street and all the streets about," Arumn explained. "I been thinking o' hiring me own and keeping him on, and I'm thinking that ye'd fit that role well."
"You hardly know me," Wulfgar argued, and his third gulp half drained the bottle. This time the burning seemed to spread out more quickly, until all his body felt warm and a bit numb. "And you know nothing of my history."
"Nor do I care," said Arumn. "We don't get many of yer type in here-northmen, I mean. Ye've got a reputation for fighting, and the way ye slapped Reef aside tells me that reputation's well earned."
"Room and food?" Wulfgar asked.
"And drink," Arumn added, motioning to the bottle, which Wulfgar promptly lifted to his lips and drained. He went to move it back to Arumn, but it seemed to jump from his hand, and when he tried to retrieve it he merely kept pushing it awkwardly along until Arumn deftly scooped it away from him.
Wulfgar sat up straighter, or tried to, and closed his eyes very tightly, trying to find a center of focus. When he opened his eyes once more, he found another full bottle before him, and he wasted no time in bringing that one, too, up to his lips.
An hour later, Arumn, who had taken a few drinks himself, helped Wulfgar up the stairs and into a tiny room. He tried to guide Wulfgar onto the small bed-a cot too small to comfortably accommodate the huge barbarian-but both wound up falling over, crashing across the cot then onto the floor.
They shared a laugh, an honest laugh, the first one Wulfgar had known since the rescue in the ice cave.
"They start coming in soon after midday," Arumn explained, spit flying with every word. "But I won't be needing ye until the sun's down. I'll get ye then, and I'm thinking that yell be needin' waking!"
They shared another laugh at that, and Arumn staggered out the door, falling against it to close it behind him, leaving Wulfgar alone in the pitch-black room.
Alone. Completely alone.
That notion nearly overwhelmed him. Sitting there drunk the barbarian realized that Errtu hadn't come in here with him, that everything, every memory, good and bad, was but a harmless blur. In those bottles, under the spell of that potent liquor, Wulfgar found a reprieve. Food and a room and drink Arumn had promised.