The Warlock in Spite of Himself

Rod's right hand lashed out, chopping into the man's elbow, then bouncing away. The big man's hand loosened and fell, temporarily numbed. Big Tom stared at his hand, a look of betrayal.

Rod pressed his lips together, tucked his knife into the sheath. He stepped back, knees flexed, rubbed his right fist in his left palm. The peasant was big, but he probably knew nothing of boxing.

Life came back into Tom's hand, and with it, pain. The huge man bellowed in anger, his hand balling into a fist, swinging at Rod in a vast roundhouse swipe that would have annihilated anything it struck.

But Rod ducked under and to the side and, as the fist went by him, reached up behind Tom's shoulder and gave a solid push to add to the momentum of the swing.

Big Tom spun around; Rod caught the man's right wrist and twisted it up behind Tom's back. Rod jerked the wrist up a little higher; Big Tom howled. While he was howling, Rod's arm snaked under Tom's armpit to catch the back of his neck in a half nelson.

Not bad, Rod thought. So far he hadn't needed boxing.

Rod planted a knee in Tom's backside as he released his holds; Tom blundered into the open space before the hearth, tried to catch his balance, and didn't make it. Overturned tables clattered and thudded as the patrons scuttled back, all too glad to leave the fireside seat to Big Tom.

He came to his knees, shaking his head, and looked up to see Rod standing before him in a wrestler's crouch, smiling grimly and beckoning with both arms.

Tom growled low in his throat and braced a foot against the fieldstones of the hearth.

He shot at Rod head-first, like a bull.

Rod sidestepped and stuck out a foot. Big Tom went flailing straight for the first row of tables. Rod squeezed his eyes shut and set his teeth.

There was a crash like four simultaneous strikes in a bowling alley. Rod winced. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look.

Big Tom's head emerged out of a welter of woodwork, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Rod shook his head sadly, clucking his tongue. "You've had a rough night, Big Tom. Why don't you go home and sleep it off?"

Tom picked himself up, shin, wristbone, and clavicle, and put himself back together, taking inventory the while.

Satisfied that he was a gestalt again, he stamped a foot, planted his fists on his hips, and looked up at Rod.

"Here now, man!" he complained. "You don't half fight like an honest gentleman!"

"Not hardly a gentleman at all," Rod agreed. "What do you say we try one more throw, Tom? Double or nothing!"

The big man looked down at his body as if doubting its durability. He kicked at the remains of an oak table tentatively, slammed a fist into his own tree-trunk biceps, and nodded.

"I'll allow as I'm fit," he said. "Come on, little man."

He stepped out onto the cleared floor in front of the hearth, walking warily around the perimeter, keeping one baleful eye on Rod.

"Our good landlord told you I had silver in my purse, didn't he?" said Rod, his eyes snapping.

Big Tom didn't answer.

"Told you I was an easy mark, too," Rod mused. "Well, he was wrong on both counts.

Big Tom's eyes bulged. He gave a bellow of distress. "No silver?"

Rod nodded. "I thought he told you." His eyes flicked over to the landlord, ashen and trembling by a pillar.

And looked back to see Big Tom's foot heading right toward his midriff.

Rod fell back, swinging both hands up to catch Big Tom's heel and inspire it to greater heights.

Tom's foot described a neat arc. For a moment, he hung in the air, arms flailing; then he crashed howling to the floor.

Rod's eyes filled with pain as Big Tom floundered about, struggling for the breath that the floor had knocked out of him.

Rod stepped in, grabbed the front of Tom's tunic, braced his foot against Tom's and threw his weight back, hauling the big man to his feet. Tom immediately sagged forward; Rod shoved a shoulder under Tom's armpit and pushed the big man back to the vertical.

"Ho, landlord!" he shouted. "Brandy—and fast!"

Rod liked to think of himself as the kind of man people could lean on, but this was ridiculous.

When Big Tom had been somewhat revived and commended to the gentle jeers of his booze buddies, and the guests had somewhat restored the room and resumed their places, and Rod had still not wreaked anything resembling vengeance on the landlord, that worthy's eyes sparked with a sudden hope. He appeared again before Rod, his chin thrust out and the corners of his mouth drawn down.

Rod hauled himself out of the depths of a rather cynical contemplation of man's innate goodness and focused on the landlord. "Well, what do you want?"

The landlord swallowed thickly. "If it please your worship there's a little matter of some broken chairs and tables…"

"Chairs," said Rod, not moving. "Tables."

He slammed to his feet and coiled a hand around the innkeeper's neck. "Why, you slimy little curmudgeon! You set that ox on me, you try to rob me, and you have the gall to stand there and tell me I owe you money?" He emphasized each point with a shake of the landlord's neck, slowly pushing him back against the pillar. The landlord made a masterful attempt to blend into the bark, but only succeeded in spreading himself thin.

"And to top it all off, my ale's gotten warm!" Rod shouted. "You call yourself a landlord, and you treat a gentleman of arms like this ?"

"Forgive, master, forgive!" the landlord rattled, clawing at Rod's hand with commendable effort and negative effect. "I meant no harm, your worship; I meant only—"

"Only to rob me, yes!" Rod snorted, letting him go with a toss that fetched him up backward over a table. "Beware the kind, for they tend to grow cruel when you cross them. Now! A goblet of hot mulled wine by the time I count three, and I may refrain from stretching your ears out and tying them under your chin. Git!"

He counted to three, with a two second pause between numbers, and the goblet was in his hand. The landlord scuttled away with his hands clapped over his ears, and Rod sat down to sip at the wine and wonder what curmudgeon was.

Looking up, he saw a half a garlic sausage sitting on the table. He picked it up with a heavy hand and tucked it into his purse. Might as well take it along; it was about the only good thing that had happened today.

He surged to'this feet and called, "Ho, landlord!"

Mine host came hobbling up.

"A chamber alone, with heavy blankets!"

"A chamber alone, sir! At once, sir!" The landlord scuttled away, still bobbing his head. "Heavy blankets, sir! Quite surely, sir!"

Rod ground his teeth and turned away to the door. He stepped out and leaned back against the jamb, letting his head slump forward onto his chest, eyes closed.

"The law of the jungle," he muttered. "If it looks weak, prey upon it. If it turns out to be strong, bow to it; let it prey upon you and hope it won't devour you."

"Yet all men have pride," murmured a voice behind his ear.

Rod looked up, smiled. " 'Art there, old mole?' "

" 'Swear! Swear!' " Fess answered.

Rod let loose a stream of invective that would have done credit to a sailor with a hangover.

"Feel better?" Fess asked, amused.

"Not much. Where does a man like mine host hide his pride, Fess? He sure as hell never let it show. Obsequiousness, yes; avarice, yes; but self-respect? No. I haven't seen that in him."

"Pride and self-respect are not necessarily synonymous, Rod."

Someone tugged at Rod's elbow. He snapped his head around, muscles tensed.

It was Big Tom, his six-foot-five bent strangely in a valiant attempt to put his head below the level of Rod's.

"God e'en, master."

Rod stared at him for a moment without answering.

"God e'en," he replied, his voice carefully neutral. "What can I do for you ?"