“What in the Hells are you doing now, girl?” Oak asked. He had returned to the inn after the Kashari patriarch, Baskim, had finished his speech to find Sadia in her room covered in sweat, punching her mattress over and over again.

  Am I out of touch, or is everyone I run into a complete lunatic?

  It looked beyond strange. The girl was slamming her fist down with all of her strength and yet the mattress showed almost no signs of deformation, as if she wasn’t hitting it in the first place.

  “I…took…your…advice…to…heart.” Sadia panted for breath and lifted her right hand, taking a break from her punching. She had a simple bronze bracelet around her wrist. “This will keep me safe from harm.”

  “Right.”

  The willowy girl continued to punch the mattress, her black hair flopping in time with the impacts.

  “How exactly will…whatever this is, keep you safe?”

  “I got the idea from my grandmother’s grimoire!” Sadia turned back towards him, eyes shining with excitement. “If someone strikes me with a fist or a weapon, the bracelet will channel an equal amount of force back to them at the point of impact, completely cancelling out the force of the strike!”

  “Right.” Sadia was about to continue abusing her poor mattress, but Oak lifted a finger to signal his dissatisfaction with her explanation. “Details, please. Why are you engaged in an intense brawl with your own bed?”

  The girl blushed, but the excited look never left her face. No, proud. She is proud of her creation. I will have to give her a compliment. Sadia cleared her throat and lifted her right hand again, so Oak could get a good look at the bracelet.

  “The energy the enchanted bracelet channels to cancel out a strike on my person has to come from somewhere,” Sadia said. “I am charging it with the energy of my punches.”

  “And this way, you don’t need to exhaust your soul in order to charge the thing.” Oak tapped his chin with a finger. “Okay, I admit it. That is pretty ingenious. If it works as you’ve described.”

  “It works!”

  “No need to get mad, little spellsinger.” Oak raised his hands, trying to placate the girl. “I am just saying we need to test it before we head out.”

  “We can do a test right now!” Sadia stood up to her full height, a manic look on her face. “Give me your best shot.”

  Oak shook his head. “I think not. I don’t particularly want to break my hand if that enchantment of yours works as advertised and I don’t want to knock you out if it fails. We will start small.”

  Without further ado, he snapped a very light jab at Sadia’s right shoulder. As his fist struck home, the bracelet glowed softly with golden light. Sparks flew from the point of impact and Oak let out a curse.

  “By the Chariot that stings!”

  Punching the girl had felt like punching a brick wall. Thanks to her bracelet, Oak’s fist had slammed into a hard, immovable object and stopped completely in its tracks. His knuckles smarted, and he shook his hand to relieve the pain.

  “I knew it! It works!” Sadia punched the air in triumph.

  “It sure does.” Oak smiled at the girl's antics. “How many punches can that thing take before the protection runs out?”

  “Depends on the punch.” Sadia shrugged. “At least ten.”

  “How about bladed weapons?”

  Sadia winced. “Maybe five. It's not as good at defending against those, since a blade concentrates the power into a smaller surface area which the enchantment can’t counter as efficiently.”

  “Hmm. Since you can take a few stabs now, I will count this as a success.” Oak grinned. “Looks like someone gets to join the action.”

  “YES!”

  ***

  It smelled of sweat, tar, and fish. The stench of unwashed dockworkers and boathands invaded Oak’s nostrils, mingling with the more pleasant odors of tobacco and cheap beer.

  The Dancing Goliath was packed with people. Oak, Ur-Namma and Sadia waded into the general chaos and headed towards the counter, dodging patrons and waitresses as they went. They got their share of looks, which was not surprising. Oak and Ur-Namma did not exactly look like the regular clientele, and thanks to their earlier show by the nursery, everyone and their mother knew the Ensi had hired them to look into the murders of the two infants.

  By the Chariot, the ass on that lass. Oak shook his head in wonder at a passing waitress. The young woman noticed his stare and quickened her stride. He winced. Yeah. figures. I ain’t the prettiest lad around, that’s for sure.

  They had chosen this particular tavern for two reasons. One, just like the Kashari family manor, the tavern was situated close to the docks. There was a good chance that a member of the family or some of their boathands would be in the tavern and it would not take long for someone to slip out and take word to the manor that Ur-Namma and Oak were out drinking.

  Two, there were a bunch of dark alleys around the tavern. Plenty of ideal locations for setting up an ambush to kill a couple of pesky investigators sniffing at your heels, if you happened to be in the business of murdering babies.

  “Hey, Sadia? Can you get us a table?” Oak pointed towards the center of the floor, where a group of weathered old ladies had just ended their card game. The spot was perfect. Even the dumbest mouth breather in town could not fail to notice them. “I will get us some drinks!”

  Sadia gave him a thumbs up and went to secure the table for the three of them. Oak had left Geezer behind for this phase of the plan, much to the hellhounds' chagrin. Bringing him would have been counterintuitive, since they were here as bait. Giant black dogs tended to discourage people from attacking you and they wanted to be attacked.

  They had left their swords behind for the same reason. The entire plan hinged on the murderers getting so spooked by Ur-Namma’s ‘special abilities’ that they tried to kill the elf and the people in his service before they got to the truth.

  Oak ordered a huge pint of beer for both him and Ur-Namma. Sadia got a smaller mug. The girl was clearly a lightweight, and since she looked about as dangerous as a fuzzy kitten, the plan did not require her to pretend to drink herself blind. After all, her job was to ‘walk’ their drunken asses back to the inn.

  Beers in hand, Oak wandered through the throng of moving bodies and sat down at the table Sadia had secured for the evening's festivities. He took a long pull from his pint and sighed. Even if he could not actually drink himself under the table, surely a taste or two would not hurt? A man needed to sate his thirst before vigorous physical activities.

  An assortment of round tables and chairs just like ones they were sitting on covered the vaulted main hall of the tavern. The ceiling was high, thank the Corpse-God, and pipe-smoke swirled in the rafters, mingling with the shadows cast by the warm light of oil lamps. Colorful rugs covered the hardwood floor and a painting of a gigantic fish jumping up from the waves decorated the entire eastern wall of the establishment.

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  Glasses clinked together, fists pounded the rough wooden tables, and a roar of laughter rose from a table on Oak’s right. The unmistakable sounds of folk letting go of their worries, for just a brief moment, before the weight of everyday troubles reasserted itself with the coming of a new dawn. So different from the taverns he was used to and yet so achingly familiar.

  “Um. So, what am I supposed to do now?” Sadia asked, nursing her smaller mug of beer with an uncertain look on her narrow face.

  Ur-Namma ignored the girl and daintily sipped his drink, so it was up to Oak to fill her in.

  “Relaxe. Socialize. And above all, watch the people,” Oak replied.

  “Watch the people? Watch for what, exactly?”

  “Let’s see if I can give you an example.”

  Everywhere around them groups of people played cards, toasted their friends and drank away their sorrows. A pair of old men with impressive beards played a game in the far corner, placing a collection of different colored tiles on a wooden board, frowning at each other. A young man and his blushing lover walked past them, giggling and trading kisses.

  Close to the entrance, a trio of fishermen engaged in a whispered argument and kept glancing towards Ur-Namma over their pints. One of them stood up and walked out of the tavern’s front door, vanishing from sight.

  Oak leaned closer to Sadia and whispered over the cacophony of noise: “Behind you, by the entrance, a man just ran off after staring at us and whispering to his friends.”

  To Sadia’s credit, she did not turn around to ogle at the men in question.

  “You see something suspicious? Let either me or Ur-Namma know.”

  “Anything else?”

  The question deserved a bit of thought. Oak turned it around in his mind and took a refreshing gulp of cold beer. By the Chariot, I have missed this. Now, do I have any more wisdom to impart? Hmm. Ah, of course.

  “Don’t let your drink out of your sight.” Oak twirled his finger in the air, pointing at everyone and no one. “I doubt anyone will try anything overt in front of all these witnesses, but a discreet fellow could try to slip poison into our mugs.”

  “What? Surely he is joking?” Sadia blanched and looked at Ur-Namma for confirmation.

  “I doubt there is a poison to be found in this backwater that would give me more than a mild stomach ache.” Ur-Namma cackled. “Can’t say the same for you, little spellsinger.”

  “For Heaven's sake,” Sadia muttered and pulled her mug closer to herself.

  While the girl glanced around the drinking hall, eyes peeled for would-be poisoners and dastardly assassins hiding in the shadows, a pair of familiar faces walked through the doors of the Dancing Goliath. Wrinkled Zef and baby-faced Behar. The two guards they had run into outside of town between the refugee encampments.

  Oak waved the two of them over. Zef noticed and made a beeline for their table, pulling Behar with him.

  “Hello to you, good sirs!” Oak shouted and raised his pint. “By all means, join us and take a load off!”

  “Thank you for the invitation,” Zef said. The men pulled chairs for themselves and sat down around the table. Behar waved at a passing barmaid to get her attention and ordered a pair of drinks; beer for himself and aniseed liquor for Zef.

  “What brings you two here this fine evening?” Ur-Namma asked, narrowing his eyes. “Work, or pleasure?”

  “Behar came for the ladies. I’m just here to play some dice and sate my thirst,” Zef said and ran a hand through his dark, graying hair. “You mind if we get a game going?”

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Oak said and jumped up from his chair. “I think I saw a set of dice by the counter.”

  Maybe my luck has changed?

  ***

  Oak’s luck had not, in fact, changed.

  “Liar!” Zef called.

  With a wince, Oak lifted his cup and showed his dice. He had called six fives. The others followed suit.

  “Dammit!” Oak cursed. Out of all the dice under everyone’s cups, only five held the face value of five. He was out of the game.

  “I…how in the world?” Sadia giggled, holding her hands over her mouth. “The odds of this happening again and again are practically speaking zero!”

  The barkeep had loaned Oak a set of dice and cups to use as shakers. The game Zef had wanted to play was Liar's Dice, and the rules were deceptively simple.

  Everyone rolled five dice and kept their roll hidden under their cup from the others. Each turn, you made a bid on the face value and the number of dice showing that value. Each person in the turn order after the first got to challenge the previous player's bid or make an even higher bid themselves. Once a bid was challenged, all dice were revealed and whoever guessed correctly won.

  If the challenger won, the loser was eliminated from the game. Thus far, they had played six games and Oak had not won a single challenge.

  “You have told me your luck with games of chance is atrociously bad, northerner, but this is truly something else.” Ur-Namma shook his head in wonder. “God in Heaven.”

  “I concur,” Zef said, sipping his liquor. “I haven’t studied the venerated art of mathematics, Oak, but even I can tell you are cursed.”

  Behar had already vacated the table to chase after skirts, which was the reason Oak only had to suffer mockery from three people, instead of four. Unlike Oak, he seemed to have some success with the ladies.

  Life really was unfair.

  Oak sighed. Maybe the next round will go better?

  ***

  The evening continued on its merry course. Beer flowed, Oak lost at dice, and both he and Ur-Namma pretended to get more and more wasted as time passed.

  Oak found that the biggest obstacle facing their performance was logistics. Every time he went to get a new pint for himself and the elf, he had to figure out where to stash their current pints, still almost full of beer.

  In the end, he had to get creative. Oak used the people crowding the tavern to his advantage. Many drunken boathands found their empty pints inexplicably replaced with ones full of drink. He left pints on empty tables when no one was looking. He hid them behind buttresses and under benches and tables. He even poured them on the street when he went to take a piss.

  The Ears of Amdusias were a Godsend. An ample amount of sound bounced around the tavern, constantly giving Oak an accurate mental image of his surroundings. Having ‘eyes’ in the back of his head made getting rid of so many pints doable without getting caught.

  Well, almost without getting caught. Zef kept sending funny looks his way. The old soldier was too observant by half.

  Still, things were going swimmingly. By Oak’s count, at least two men and one woman had left the inn in a hurry after they had noticed the three of them. Only the first runner had come back. The fisherman who ran off before Zef and Behar arrived had returned and joined his friends.

  If someone wanted an opportunity to set up an ambush, Oak had delivered it to them on a silver platter.

  ***

  Dusk had come and gone, and the crowd inside the tavern thinned. People headed home to sleep off their inebriation. A few unfortunate souls deep in their cups had started the sleeping part a tad early and dozed off in their chairs, utterly dead to the world around them.

  It was time to start the next act of their play.

  “It has been a blast, friend, but we need to head back to the inn.” Oak pretended to sway drunkenly as he clapped Zef on the shoulder. “We have a busy day ahead of us!”

  Sadia was already leading a drooping Ur-Namma out the door. Oak had to give credit when it was due. The elf knew how to sell the idea he was shit-faced to the point of incoherency.

  Zef returned the gesture and leaned closer. “I don’t know what game you are playing, friend, but I can tell you are barely tipsy,” he whispered. “Why the subterfuge?”

  “All for a good cause, believe me.” Oak winked. “I suggest you don’t leave with us. Wait here a while, after we are gone.”

  “Hmm.” Zef nodded. “I think I will order one more drink.”

  “Good man.”

  The cool night air called to him, and Oak answered the call. It held a promise of adventure and violence. He stumbled after Sadia and Ur-Namma and out of the Dancing Goliath, into the dark streets of Kesh. The flickering oil lamps behind him cast his imposing shadow across the road and he drank in the silence of the night.

  He caught up with Sadia and Ur-Namma. The mouth of an alleyway loomed ahead on the right side of the street, like the opening of a dark cave. Good. The darker the better. It had been a long time since Oak had a reason to fear the dark, and nowadays his eyes pierced even the deepest shadows.

  “Ready?” Oak asked.

  “I…yes. I’m ready.”

  “Never better, northerner.”

  Down the road, the door of the Dancing Goliath opened. The three fishermen that had been staring at Ur-Namma all night walked out and turned to follow in their wake.

  Oak smiled widely. A sublime feeling of anticipation grew in his heart. He would get to kill a man tonight, that much was certain. Finally. My engine hungers for souls. Shuffling like a man deep in his cups, he followed Sadia and Ur-Namma into the alley.

  Come on, Kashari. Show me what you have prepared for us.

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