Sark Ore strolled through Central Dunnholme. A tune on his lips, he reached for the leather purse at his belt. Its weight and the feeling of hard currency straining the skink skin put a spring in his step. Even the narrow-eyed citizens staring askance at the dried blood on his hand and sleeve could not dampen his sprits. He knew any one of them could call the watch, improve their wealth or status by bringing him in. Their efforts would be wasted. The common dwarf could not touch him. Nobody could touch him. Sark Ore knew too much.
The city bustled around him. Dark warlocks preached their sermons upon pedestals of polished skull. Traders hawked wares from carts and booths, their voices tight and loud to compete with fiery sermons. Commoners stole, made purchases and went about their business. Across the street, two fellows, dressed in the simple smocks of labourers, whistlled at passing women as they shared a beer. Noticing the beginings of a heavy thirst drying his throat, Sark turned on a heel to join the two in a long session of indulgence.
"You dare?"
The high, nasal shout pierced the surrounding clamour of daily life. Blubbered apologies rode its tail. Heavy sobs filled the otherwise silent square. A sharp slap, flesh on flesh, rang out. A skull cracked against well-trod stone.
"Filthy skink sow!"
Licking his lips, Sark dragged a hand across his shaven chin. His desired to drink had blossomed. In a few seconds, his tongue had become thick with dehydration. Beneath the hard slabs of his abdominals, his gut whined for more solid sustenance.
"Pah," he spat.
"Who turns down free entertainment?"
Turning again, he saw a groups of citizens huddled together. A few hawkers leant against their barrows, using the carts for a better view. A noble, his scalp shaved to the bone and tattooed with crimson glyphs, stood over the crumpled form of a young slave. Face pressed into the stones, blood leaking from a gash at her temple, the girl vibrated with muted sobs.
"You dare walk within a span of your betters?"
The slave girl attempted to speak, an apology Sark guessed from her sibilant opening. Her plea died on split lips, forced back into her throat by a kick from the merchant's booted foot. Her head snaped away from the blow, trailing crimson that would stain Dunnholme's street for many more days than the remaining span of her lfe.
Curiosity and boredon struggled for supremacy in Sark's mind. The pouch of coin at his hip had been the result of a beating he'd delivered before breakfast. It had been a brutal affair, but he'd acquried information that would see his coffers overflow for the next year. He felt a sting of recognition for the tattooed torturer, though. The fact he could not identify the marked aggressor gnaw at his mind.
"Lord, please."
The girl's plea snapped Sark back to the moment. She had somehow managed to struggle to her knees. With her hands pressed to the floor in the tradtional pose of supplication, she could do nothing to stem the tide of blood pouring from her crooked nose and pooling between her thumbs.
With the flair of a man used to treading boards in a playhouse due to his wealth rather than talent, the young merchant threw a silk-swaddled arm into the air. Face coloured purple with rage, he swept his gaze across the growing dwarfish assembly.
"Do you hear it?"
Further tightened by rage, his voice came out as a wire-thin squeek. His fine leather boots clattered against well-worn stones. Standing behind the girl, he sank his fingers into long curls of titantium blue. Ignorant to his victim's sqeal, he pulled a knife from a jewel-studded sheath.
"This filthy animal dares address me, Darro Rix!"
A murmer rippled through the croud as Rix placed the point of his dagger beneath the girl's chin. Jagged laughter erupted when he pierced her pale yellow skin, adding to the darkening stain spreading through her flimsy halter. In the front row of spectators, a dwarf woman sidled closer to a bearded labourer. Swift fingers emptied his purse.
"Rix," Sark growled, the name rumbling in his chest with the ferocity of a demon's curse.
Hands delving into the pockets of his soft leather jerkin, Sark marched over to the disturbance. A face in the crowd turned toward him. Pale pink skin blanched to almost-white. The dwarf citizen thrust out an arm, brushing aside his compatriots to allow passage. Sark nodded his thanks, obscured fingers curling into the grips of hand-forge knuckledusters, each spiked with four single-carrat diamonds.
"Are orphanages of Dunnholme so corrupt that they would put idiots on the merchant's block?"
Sark pushed through the front line of spectators as Rix spat his question. White foam bubbled at the corners of Derro's lips. His eyes bulged from his sockets. The tattooed dwarf adjust his grip on the dagger's jewelled hilt. He pressed the blade against his slave's cheek. Knotting his fingers deeper in her hair, Rix pulled back her head, more clearly exposing her face to the crowd.
"I paid good money for this sow. I demand restitution."
Rix's voice keened with at the pitch of a wailing babe. Words no longer aimed at the gawping faces, his eyes glazed over. A bead of blood darkened the knife's edge. A tear trickled across the slave's cheek.
"I demand it in blood!"
Derro Rix flicked his wrist. The dwarf girl's screamed. Red ichor flooded her cheeks. Savaged flesh dropped to hard stone with a wet slap. Tears glistened in the girl's eyes. Unformed words died on her lips. The knife flashed again, hacking another filet from her face.
Ripping fists from his pockets, Sark cleared the square in three boudning steps. Ribs straining under the assault of his anger-fuelled heart, he cleared his throat in a mucosal grunt. Mouth twisted in a sneering hook, he grabbed the merchant's wrist with trembling fingers. He sucked in air, spat a gobbet of phlegm into Derro's face. It hit with a wet slap.
"How..."
Derro staggered, releasing his hold on the girl's mane to swipe his face clean.
"How dare you! Do you know who I am?"
"There are other ways to incite a duel," Sark spat.
"But that's the only one you deserve. Draw your blade Rix. I've business to attend."
Rix slammed his booted foot into the whimpering girl's ribs before leaping back. His scream of rage rang out, masking the hiss of his drawn broadsword.
"You have made your last mistake, peasant."
Arms up, elbows tight, Sark waited, motionless. Rix sprang forward. He hacked his blade in a downard arc, the cutting edge aimed at Sark's shoulder. Sark shuffled left, resisted the urge to end the duel with a crushing blow to Rix's jaw. He snapped out a foot. His booted toe clipped soft meats. The merchant dropped to a knee. Laughter rippled through the crowd of spectators.
"Foul play!" Rix screamed, left hand massaging his wounded fruit, the right driving his sword tip into stone flooring for balance.
Sark laughed, flexed his fingers inside his bejewelled 'dusters.
"This is Dunnholme, Rix. A dwarf can tread plumbs in a duel or flense chunks from a slave in the street. No one cares. Get up or yield."
Rix's tattooed brow forged into a shadowed 'V', stretching the runes etched into his flesh beyond recognition. Watery blue eyes scanned left to right in their sockets, continued to flicker until his irises became a grey-blue blur. Roaring with the ferocity of a skinned kitteen, Rix leapt from his feet. Both hands clasped in the sword's basket hilt, he aimed a savage chop at his foe's skull.
Snorting laughter, Sark let his fists dangle at his hips. Breathing steady, he watched the falling blade. Instinct told him the clumsy hack was a feint. Rix's crazed eyes and flared nostrils informed him otherwise. With the broadsword scant inches from his pate, Sark stepped to the side. Titanium and diamond smashed the blade's flat edge. The expensive sword shattered. Sark's second punch found Derro's throat. The tattooed dwarf dropped, hands clutched to his neck. Bloody gurgles bubbled from his lips.
His adversary forgotten, Stark turned to the bleeding slave. In a half-crouch, he extended a hand and fixed a smile on his face. Wide, terror-filled eyes met his.
"Come on," soothed.
Impact crashed the back of his skull. Blackness swallowed him. Sark Ore, puppet master of Dunnholme, sank into oblivion.
