served as a harness for the mighty weapons strapped to his back.
He was a common sight in Luskan, and his shadowy relationship with the dark elves was the worst kept secret in the City of Sails. But Athrogate walked the streets openly and often, in appearance, at least, alone. It was almost as if he was inviting some opportunist to take a try at killing him. And the dwarf liked nothing more than a good row, though that pleasure had been hard to find of late. His partner frowned upon it.
He walked to the corner of a building across the street from his favorite pub, Bite o’ the Shark—an apt name for anyone who had ever sampled the establishment’s private stock of Gutbuster. At the corner of an alley, Athrogate put his back against the wall and took out a huge and curvy pipe and began tapping down his pipeweed.
He was well into his smoke, blowing rings that drifted lazily over the street, when a striking elf woman exited Bite o’ the Shark and paused near a gathering of drunks, who began throwing suggestive, lewd comments her way.
“Ye see her, then?” the dwarf said out of the corner of his mouth, pipe still firmly in place.
“Hard to miss that one,” a voice answered from the shadows beside him. With the suggestive cut of her skirt, the high black boots on her shapely legs, the low cut of her blouse and a striking black and red braid, his words seemed a great understatement.
“Aye, and I’m bettin’, sure as the sun’s settin’, that one o’ them fools’ll go for her jewels. And oh, then they’ll know in the heartbeats to come, that her sticks’ll play skulls with the sound of a drum.”
The voice in the shadows sighed.
“Never gets old, does it?” Athrogate asked, quite pleased with himself.
“Never was young, dwarf,” came the reply, and Athrogate bellowed, “Bwahaha!”
“Someday, perhaps, I’ll come to understand how your thoughts flow, and on that day, I fear, I’ll have to kill myself.”
“What’s to know?” Athrogate asked. “One o’ them’ll go too far with her, and she’ll put the lot of ’em on the ground.” As he posited that very thing, one of the drunks stepped toward the elf and reached for her buttocks. She neatly dodged and smiled at him, wagging her finger and warding him away.
But he came on.
“Here it comes,” Athrogate predicted.
The man seemed to fall over her in a hug, from the vantage point of the dwarf and his companion, at least, but when the dwarf started congratulating himself on being right, the voice in the shadows pointed out that the drunk was up on his tiptoes. He started to turn slowly, the woman coming around to put her back to the open street. The elf had spun her walking stick and poked it up as he came at her, locking its tip under his chin and driving him up to his toes.
She was still smiling sweetly and whispering to the man in tones so low his companions apparently couldn’t hear, and she had angled the ruffian so they couldn’t see her walking stick, either. She released him and stepped away, and the man staggered and nearly tumbled then reached up and grabbed his chin, coughing to accompany his friends’ laughter.
“Bah, thought she’d deck ’em all,” Athrogate grumbled.
“She’s too smart for that,” said the voice in the darkness, “though if they pursue her now, she’d be more than justified in putting that weapon of hers to good use.”
There was no pursuit, however, and the elf made her way up the road, toward Athrogate.
“She’s seen you,” the voice commented.
The dwarf blew another smoke ring, and walked across the alley and continued on his way, his work done.
The elf moved up to where the dwarf had been standing, and with a quick and subtle glance both ways, slipped into the alley.
“Jarlaxle, I presume,” she said when she saw the drow standing before her, with his great, wide-brimmed, feathered hat and purple jodhpurs, his flamboyant white shirt opened low on his black-skinned chest, and his assortment of rings and other glittering accessories.
“I like your hat, Lady Dahlia,” Jarlaxle replied with a bow.
“Not as ostentatious as your own, perhaps,” Dahlia replied. “But it gets the attention of those I wish attentive.”
“Osten—“Jarlaxle stammered as if wounded. “Perhaps I use mine to distract the attention of those I wish to harm.”
“I have other ways of doing that,” Dahlia was quick to answer, and Jarlaxle found himself smiling.
“That is quite an