3
The roadside tavern lay on the outskirts of a village whose name was not important. On a major Amnian trade road, its patronage included folks from many lands. Most were merchants and their hired guards, so it was not uncommon for armed men to drop in for a quick ale before getting back on the road with their caravans. No one gave Territ Fetterlis, a human with leathered skin and unremarkable brown hair, a second look as he entered the tavern wearing his chain mail hauberk and sheathed sword. His companion, however, would have drawn attention to the two of them if not for the hooded cloak he wore over his obsidian face and white hair.. Rizzan Pharn, a drow, was clad in a chain mail hauberk and had a morningstar tucked into his belt. Some patrons gave the holy symbol of Vhaeraun that the drow cleric wore around his neck a second look. Territ and Rizzan settled into chairs at a table near the tavern's bar.
Territ rubbed at his chest, where he felt the telltale lump of the Sapphire of Humankind under his hauberk. Like his comrades, he wore one of the Hearts of Knowledge on its silver pendant setting.
"Athmek didn't give us much time to wet our tongues," Rizzan said. "It's best we drink one tankard and get back to the wagon."
"I long to unfetter my restraint," Territ said. "I have not had the chance for mayhem since Athmek recruited me for this venture. Can we expect anyone to impede us here?"
Rizzan bowed his head slightly, and his fingers moved in time to his chants to a divine power that Territ didn't understand. The drow pointed to a table to his left.
"There," Rizzan said. "Four do-gooders. Probably adventurers off to right whatever wrongs they encounter."
Territ cast a surreptitious glance in the direction the drow pointed. Four men sat around the indicated table, wearing travel clothing dulled with road dust and belts hung with weapons. Two humans, an elf, and a dwarf all nursed tankards in their calloused hands, their wary eyes assessing the two newcomers.
"Do-gooders," Territ scoffed.
A lithesome young red-haired woman, the bodice of her dress cut low enough to show generous cleavage, sidled up to the table. "Can I get ya anything, love?"
"Two tankards of your finest ale," Territ said.
"Our finest?"
Rizzan set a silver coin on the table. "Your finest."
The barmaid scooped up the coin and headed for the bar, Territ watching her feminine movements as she did. What he would do just to feel her tender flesh in his hands. She returned with a pair of tankards, which she set on the table.
Territ pulled the barmaid down onto his lap. He reached down her bodice and cupped her breast. He salivated as he felt the warm softness against his palm.
She shrieked, struggling, but Territ continued to grope her at his pleasure.
As expected, the four do-gooders rose from their chairs at the sound of the barmaid's screams. Territ removed his hand from inside her bodice and gripped its neckline as he jumped to his feet. The only thing keeping the barmaid from being spilled onto the floor was Territ's firm grip on her bodice.
He gave the material a hard tug, exposing her.
Rizzan stood beside him and doffed his hood, revealing his drow features and his shock of white hair.
The four do-gooders advanced. Territ drew his sword and pulled the barmaid against him. He set the edge of his blade against the lower curves of her bared bosom.
"There's no need to hurt the girl," the human with the neatly trimmed red hair and beard said.
Territ's lips split into a grin as he assessed the bearded human. The bearded man wore unremarkable looking shirt and trousers and a longsword on his hip. What caught Territ's attention was the holy symbol of Torm worn at the man's neck. Torm, one of the gods of the Triad, was a foe of Territ's own god, Cyric. Territ was only too happy to send the man to Torm.
The other do-gooder human, the long-haired mustachioed one, was dressed like his friend, but he had a battleaxe slung across his back. Their dwarven companion also had a battleaxe strapped to his back, and the elf was armed with longsword and dagger.
"One step more and I cut her," Territ said, dimpling the barmaid's breasts with the edge of his blade. She gasped at the cold, sharp steel.
The do-gooder elf's fingers moved in concert with his lips. Rizzan was faster, reciting the words to a spell of his own. Three conjured stones appeared in the drow's palm. Rizzan hurled one stone and missed. A bystander's head snapped back as the stone pierced his forehead. The innocent man was dead before he knew what happened.
Rizzan threw the second stone, striking the elf in the chest. The elf's hands groped at his breastbone even as blood bubbled from the gaping wound caused by the magical stone. He slumped to his knees and toppled sideways.
Territ groped the barmaid one last time before lifting his sword and slitting her throat. As blood gurgled from the cut, he tossed the dying girl toward the human adventurers. The bearded man caught her and gently laid her on the ground as his two surviving companions stood over him.
The bearded human laid both hands on the barmaid's cut throat, and glazing eyes became once again lucid. She peered adoringly up at her savior. Territ wanted to retch.
When the man took his palms off her neck, her injury was gone without so much as a scar. He unclasped his cloak and draped it over her to cover her exposed chest.
Territ recognized a laying on of hands when he saw one.
"So, you're a paladin," he said. "I'm going to enjoy this, do-gooder."
Rizzan hurled his last stone at one of the bystanders. The do-gooder dwarf attempted to intervene, tried to take the stone with his own broad chest, but the magical stone struck a well-dressed merchant in the nose and plunged deep into his face, killing him instantly. The drow pulled his morningstar from his belt and swung it at the dwarf. Not caring who may be standing around him in the close quarters of the well-patronized tavern, the spikes of his morningstar slashed across several bystanders before landing against the dwarf's parrying battleaxe.
The dwarf redirected his battleaxe from the parry for a counterstrike. Rizzan batted the blow aside and pressed the palm of one hand against the dwarf's chest as he simultaneously chanted a spell. The dwarf cried out as the skin of his chest peeled away from his rib cage, staining the front of his tunic with bright crimson. Rizzan followed up by striking the dwarf's skull with his morningstar. The dwarf fell dead beside his slain elven companion.
Territ brandished his sword before the two human adventurers. He taunted them, beckoned them. The bearded human, the paladin, rose to his full height and drew his longsword from its scabbard. The mustachioed human unlimbered his battleaxe.
The mustachioed man swung his axe in a lateral arc. Territ blocked the stroke with his blade and whirled around. The edge of his sword cut the axeman across the gut, eviscerating him. As entrails spilled onto the floor, the adventurer dropped his axe and slumped to his knees. Territ ignored the fatally wounded man as he turned his attention to the paladin.
Blades came together in a ring of steel on steel. Territ laughed as he spun away from the paladin's next blow. He deliberately thrust the point of his sword into the belly of a bystander.
If the spectators were dumb enough to stand around to watch the fight instead of fleeing for their survival, Territ wasn't averse to showing them how dumb they were.
The paladin lunged an attack, and Territ pulled his blade free of the spectator to parry.
The tavern started to clear as patrons realized that their continued presence inside was hazardous to their survival. The room was empty now save for the three combatants and a handful of patrons who decided to watch the conflict from afar as they hugged the walls.
The paladin was brave but foolish, Territ thought. Outnumbered two-to-one, the paladin should have cut his losses and run. That's what Territ would have done in that situation.
Paladins, however, were the worst of the do-gooders. They risked their lives for others, protecting the weak instead of exploiting them. They were sanctimonious and self-righteous, and there was no one Territ enjoyed killing more than a hated paladin.
Rizzan attacked the paladin, and the do-gooder deflected the blow.
"He's mine to kill!" Territ demanded, lunging with his blade.
The paladin parried and delivered a counterstrike. Territ deflected the attack. He reached behind him and pulled a dagger from the sheath at the small of his back. He cocked his arm and hurled.
The point of the dagger plunged into the paladin's thigh, and he dropped to one knee. Territ attacked with an overhand blow of his sword, now gripped in both hands, and the paladin lifted his sword over his head to defend. Steel rang as the blades came together.
Rizzan slammed his morningstar into the paladin's back. The do-gooder slumped forward, bracing one hand against the floor to keep himself at least partially upright.
"Damn you, Rizzan, back off!" Territ cried. "I want to kill this holy bastard myself."
The paladin weakly lifted his sword to block, but Territ redirected his attack. He clove the paladin's sword arm off at the elbow. He kicked the paladin onto his back and stood over him with his feet planted on either side of him. With two quick thrusts, Territ stabbed the paladin's eyes.
The barmaid, one of the few who remained to watch, moved forward as she cried out for Territ to stop. A large-muscled man held her back.
"Just finish him off, Territ," Rizzan said.
Territ slashed the paladin from neck to navel. Crimson surged from the wound and soaked the front of his tunic, spilling onto the floor.
"Why do it quickly when I can enjoy his misery?" Territ said.
"Stop it!" the barmaid cried.
"Aw, weeping for your hero?"
Territ advanced on the barmaid, and before she or the big brute of a man with her could react he flipped her cloak aside to expose her torn bodice. The big man who held her tried to intervene, but Territ dispatched him with a sword thrust through the gullet. Territ gazed longingly at the barmaid's breasts, anticipating how they would taste. How they would look covered in the red sheen of blood when he cut her throat again.
The tavern door burst open and slammed against the wall. A dark-robed figure stood framed in the doorway. Dressed all in black from the hem of his robes to the hood of his cloak, his face was wrapped in black cloth to allow only his dull eyes to show.
He raised a hand, index finger extended. A magic missile erupted from his fingertip and struck a glancing blow against Territ's right eye. Territ cried out and whirled to face the cloaked man, covering his destroyed eye with a palm.
"What the—" he sputtered. "You ruined my eye, Athmek!"
"Consider yourself fortunate I need you alive to carry the Hearts, or I would have killed you both where you stand. I told you not to draw attention to us."
"We were only venting some frustration."
"It was Territ's idea," Rizzan said, putting his morningstar away and pointing accusingly at Territ.
Athmek, the wizard who was the group's mysterious employer, surveyed the carnage in the room. His gaze settled on the writhing paladin. He fired a magic missile into the dying man's chest, killing him.
"He was my kill!" Territ shouted.
"Then kill him," Athmek said. "Torturing him to death just to derive pleasure is perverse. Come, your playtime is over."
"What if we're not done?" Territ said, his hungry gaze falling once again on the barmaid. He was chagrined to see that she had covered herself.
"I need you alive to carry the Hearts," Athmek said, "but I don't need you in one piece. You can carry the artifacts just as well if you were eunuchs."
Territ and Rizzan glanced down at themselves. "Point taken," the drow said.
The pair scurried from the tavern. As Athmek turned to leave, the tavern bartender rushed up and grabbed the wizard's sleeve.
"Thank you, sir!" the bartender said.
Athmek effortlessly grabbed the front of the bartender's tunic and hurled him back. The wizard left the tavern and turned up the road toward their waiting wagon. Territ and Rizzan fell into step behind him.
Athmek's tent had been erected beside their wagon for their stay overnight. Territ hadn't seen the style and design of the tent before, and it only added to Athmek's mystique. Outside the wizard's shelter, three other members of their group sat around a crackling fire. Fangor sug Thorgg, a huge orc, leaned on the haft of his dwarven-made war axe, a trophy from one of his many battles, as he watched the other two play a game of old men's bones. Thak metKoth—a gray dwarf, or duergar—and Kraat—a deep gnome, or svirfneblin—were hunched over the pile of lacquered wood sticks carved to look like the bones of a fowl.
Rizzan walked up and kicked the pile, laughing. Thak and Kraat leaped to their feet. The duergar unlimbered his axe, and the svirfneblin drew his short sword and his hatchet. Rizzan brandished his morningstar. Fangor grunted his encouragement to the expected battle.
"Stop!" Athmek commanded.
Rizzan, Thak, and Kraat all lowered their weapons.
"I will dismember you and cart you to our destination in the back of the wagon," Athmek said. "One more display such as this, and I will turn one of you into a eunuch. I don't care which one. Are we understood?"
The trio nodded. Territ offered them a smug grin.
"Don't gloat too much, Territ," Rizzan said. "I'm not the one who lost my eye in the tavern."
Territ scowled. "Aye, speaking of which. Are you going to restore my eye, Athmek?"
"No," the wizard said and ducked into his tent.
Territ followed him into the tent. "Why not?"
"Let the loss of your eye be a lesson on obedience. I told you to keep a low profile in this camp, and you caused a disturbance in the tavern. We'll have to break down our camp and depart this place as soon as possible."
"Why is that?"
"Someone has surely sent a messenger to the next city for troops. Which means we'll have to remain off the road for the next few leagues."
Territ looked to the cage near one of the tent's canvas walls. Athmek's concerns already forgotten, Territ knelt beside the cage and peered at the frightened creature inside.
A female halfling cowered inside the cage. Dressed in a simple homespun dress, she looked like a beautiful dark-haired human woman save for the fact that she was only half the size of the average human. The Topaz of Halflingkind glittered in the tent's torchlight, nestled in the cleavage revealed by her low-cut bodice as it hung from a fine silver chain.
Athmek had kidnapped her from her home village and had forced her to go along with the theft of the Hearts of Knowledge, lest he destroy her village to every last halfling. Territ wasn't certain, but he was sure the halfling woman hadn't been chosen for any particular reason save she was a halfling. Athmek had simply strolled into a random halfling village and had abducted a random halfling. Apparently, Athmek hadn't the time to find a halfling of evil heart who would willingly go along with the theft.
Celesta Brumble, the she-halfling, scooted to the back of the cage as Territ reached through the bars. His loins stirred as she cowered in fear. Her simple dress would be easy to tear from her tiny body, and he envisioned the cries of pain that would issue from her tiny throat as he forced himself on her.
Athmek grabbed his collar and pulled him from the cage.
"Don't even think it," the wizard said. "I can't risk you harming her."
"I won't kill her."
Athmek turned an hourglass over, setting its sands to draining into the empty glass.
"What's that for?" Territ asked.
"Get the others to working," Athmek said. "If this camp isn't broken down and ready to depart by the time these sands are done flowing, I will remove a random appendage from each of you. Hand, foot, ear, it matters not to me."