“And stay out!” The massive gundar threw the men out of the bar with a snarl, turning his back on them before they landed on the other side of the street. He muttered under his breath as he turned back to the brawl continuing behind him. “Useless son of a bitches…”
Before he could continue, a voice screeched over the din, “Thanka, you moron! Get over here before someone hits something flammable and burns this place down!”
“Coming, Mistress Thunder!” Thanka smacked a large man upside the head, sending him flying over the table he’d been trying to pick up. “Got some cleaning to do over here first!”
“Well, hurry it up!” The portly human woman shrieked as a flagon crashed into the wall behind her. “Oh, that’s it!” She disappeared underneath the counter, returning with a large club that had obviously seen a lot of use. The first man closest to her unfortunately did not see it coming, and he collapsed with a groan as Mistress Thunder began swinging wildly.
“Great.” Thanka shook his head and moved toward her, but found his way blocked by a pair of swords. He frowned and crossed his hands over his chest as he sneered, “And what do you boys think you’re going to do with those?”
One of the two men snarled. “It don’t matter, ogre. If’n you want to live, you’ll sit your ass down right smart there in that chair and pretend what’s about to happen never happened.”
Thanka’s eyes narrowed. “This barfight is a setup.”
“Yer smart for an ogre.” The other man’s sword twitched slightly. “Too smart. You ain’t going to sit still and be quiet.”
“We’ll have ta kill him then.”
“Oh, that we will. After his boss dies.”
Thanka’s eyes narrowed, but before he could move a chuckle came from the next table over. His eyes moved to the person and he found himself looking at the tallest human female he’d ever seen. The woman was obviously a warrior or mercenary, judging by the twin curved shortswords she wore at her belt and her functional armor.
She caught his gaze and winked. “Amazing, really, how some people just feel like they own the world.” She finished off her mead and belched, wiping her face with the back of her arm in one smooth motion. “Hundreds of years of undead slaughtering us at every angle, and all they can think about doing is adding to the pile of bodies. Shame, really.”
“This ain’t yer fight, bit..” The man had been snarling at the woman, but his acidic words were cut short as her sword left its sheathe and, in a flash, had buried itself in the small of his neck, biting deep.
As he collapsed, his buddy turned to the woman and started to attack her… and crumpled when Thanka calmly raised both hands and effortlessly crushed his spinal cord. He looked at the woman. “Might I ask…”
“For my help?” She grinned. “I’d be more than happy to. They interrupted my drinking.” She kicked the body at her feet that was still twitching in its death throes. “Name’s Rhandi. I’m assuming I’ll get free drinks after this?”
“Enough to drink yourself unconscious for a fortnight.” Thanka smirked and turned back to the fray.
The attackers had expected the gundar. The attackers had even expected that the owner of the bar would defend the place fairly well. They had not counted on an obviously experienced mercenary to be assisting them as well… and when their numbers had dropped by over half in a very short amount of time, they quickly scattered to the winds.
It did not take Thanka long to deposit the corpses outside of the bar for the cleaners of the dead to remove during the next day’s business. He turned the sign from “open” to “closed” before he locked the door and sighed. “That’s done.”
“Good.” Mistress Thunder poured another flagon of ale for Rhandi as she talked. “Damn bastards were trying to get money from a turnip, it’s not like we had all that much to give them in the first place…”
Rhandi smirked from behind her cup. “Sometimes, any coin is better than none at all. Though I want no payment for my assistance… beyond a bed for the night.”
“It’s yours.”
* * *
... more would be coming, but thunderstorm means I go now.
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