Swords Against the Shadowland

Recoiling, the Mouser shielded his eyes with one hand as the Ilthmart thief disappeared down the fog-enshrouded alley. "I think I should mention he's got our purse," he said, sputtering dirt from his lips as he spoke to Fafhrd. "And I've run up quite a tab with Cherig. There'll be no beer for you tonight if he gets away."

Spurred to action by such a prospect, Fafhrd snatched his sword out of the ground and raced after the Ilthmart, guided only by the sound of fleeing footfalls. Down the length of Bones Alley he ran, emerging into Plague Court. There, he paused to listen and to determine the direction the thief had taken.

The Mouser crashed into him from behind. With a groan, he bounced off Fafhrd's huge form and fell backward on his rump. "Mog's blood!" he cried angrily, invoking his tutelary god. "What do you mean, stopping in the middle of a chase like that, particularly in this pea-soup fog!"

Fafhrd offered a hand to help his friend up. "Maybe I should have called a warning," he whispered derisively. Then, pitching his voice toward an imitation of a woman's soprano, he continued, "Oh, Mouser, I'm stopping now. Don't run into me like some stupid, drunken sot!"

The Mouser grumbled unappreciatively, waving his narrow blade before he wisely sheathed it. "I should have put Scalpel's point up your backside!"

A crash and a now-familiar snarl sounded out of the fog off to Fafhrd's right. Wasting no more time on witticisms, he ran in that direction with the Mouser close behind. At a corner of the next intersection a rain barrel lay overturned and smashed. The muddy ground betrayed how the thief had fallen and scrambled up again, and wet footprints indicated his direction.

Fafhrd stepped carefully around the broken pieces of the barrel, cool mud squishing between his bare toes. It was an abrupt reminder that, in his enthusiasm, he had jumped naked from his window to rescue the Mouser. Standing bare-assed in an unnamed alley with muddy feet and nothing but the night's fog to cover him—and a chilly fog at that—the stolen purse suddenly seemed less important than his dignity.

Unfortunately, at the same moment that he came to this realization, a door opened further down the narrow road, and a dim light spilled briefly out. A brief, muffled laughter echoed up the way before the door closed again.

"The rat's ducked into some dive of a tavern," the Mouser whispered, unsheathing his sword again as he advanced purposefully past Fafhrd. "Lucky for me—I've quite a thirst this evening."

"Mouser!" Fafhrd hissed, hoping to stop his friend. "Mouser!" But the Mouser continued on, determined to retrieve his purse from the Ilthmart thief. With an aggrieved sigh, Fafhrd followed, covering his groin with one hand while his other hand tightened around his sword's grip.

The fog nearly swallowed the weak light of a lone lantern that hung on a jut above the tavern's door. The establishment's name, painted over the same door in long-faded letters, was impossible to read.

"I can't go in there!" Fafhrd insisted. "I'm naked as a babe!"

One hand on the door, the Mouser paused to give Fafhrd an exaggerated wink. "Wait here, then," he said, “until find him and chase him out to you."

Before Fafhrd could protest, the Mouser pushed open the door and disappeared over the threshold. Within, the laughter immediately ceased. A moment later, the Mouser reappeared.

"It's too crowded," he said gravely, "and too poorly lit to see faces."

Keeping to the shadows, Fafhrd leaned one shoulder to the wall and looked patiently down at his smaller partner. "Let us go home then," he suggested. "It's not so bad to tuck your tail between your legs when there's nothing else to keep you warm."

The Mouser rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I have a plan," he announced. "Stay here, and keep hidden." With that, he turned, pushed open the door once more, and stepped inside. His voice, however, could plainly be heard.

"Your mothers sleep with Mingol stableboys," the Mouser shouted. "So do your fathers. And you've all got faces like the rumps of buggered sheep."

A general cry of outrage followed, and the crash of furniture being thrown about. Fafhrd felt a shock through the wall where he leaned, as if a weighty object had struck the other side. An instant later, the tavern's door flung back, and the Mouser dashed out.

"The one that stays behind will be our man!" he cried as he ran past Fafhrd's place of concealment.

"Good plan," Fafhrd complimented sarcastically, stepping out of the way as a score of insulted customers, brandishing swords and knives, in varying stages of inebriation, charged through the door and after the Mouser. Even the cook gave chase, waving a large wooden spoon, his apron flapping around his knees as he vanished in the fog.

Fafhrd listened to the fading sounds of their cries, then cautiously opened the door and stepped inside.