Wastrel. Spendthrift. And he had the nerve to lay claim to Riliana's hand!
Quite unconsciously he found himself stalking toward Homdallson's heir, flagon hanging at his side, dribbling drops of blood-red wine on the holystoned floor. One of Joren's pals spotted Edgur and dug a warning elbow in his friend's ribs.
Joren straightened, dice poised in his hand. "What are you trying to do, jinx me?" he said. Conversation died when the rest of the gamblers spied Edgur. His grim countenance was plain evidence he'd not come to join the game.
"You?" Joren said breezily. "What do you want?"
"I want you to renounce Riliana."
Joren frowned. "Are you mad? Is that your problem?" To his friends he said, "Here, I beat the poor fool in a pitiful duel that would do shame to a street fair, and he has the gall to accost me in public and demand I give up my fiancee. Now, I ask you, is this man mad or what?"
"He looks distracted," said one of Joren's cronies, "or drunk."
"Give her up, you worthless filth, or the gods themselves will take vengeance on you!" Edgur cried.
"Five korls to anyone who removes this annoyance from my presence," Joren said, bored. A dozen sailors and stevedores rose from their benches, eager to comply.
One of Joren's friends, a dark-skinned Jamuraan, slapped another fellow on the arm and said, "Let's you and me do it, Varno. We'll save Joren five korls. "
Varno, a rugged-looking fellow who wore the emblem of the stonecutter's guild, stood up and replied, "Oh, no. If I do Joren's dirty work, I want the money!"
They advanced on Edgur, who swung his pottery flagon at the Jamuraan. He wore a gold-chased headband, and the cup shattered against it. Before Edgur could put up his hands to fight, Varno knocked him to the floor. There among the boots and slippers of the dice table patrons, he was kicked and hammered by Joren's friends. The beating abruptly ended when Penkin's bar-keep and some of the burly hired help intervened.
"Who started it?" snapped the barkeep, tapping a well-worn oak cudgel against the palm of his hand.
"He did, " said Joren, tossing the man a coin and pointing to Edgur. The coppersmith was curled up in a ball on the floor.
"Right!" With a nod, the barkeep signaled his boys to remove the offender. They grabbed Edgur by his heels and dragged him out the door behind the bar to the profane cheers of the customers.
In the alley out back, the Penkin bouncers beat Edgur with staves, even though he did not fight back or speak out. The barkeep finally ordered them to stop, saying, "Nobody makes trouble in my place. You come here again, you're a dead man. "
The back door slammed shut. Dazed, bleeding from a gash over his right eye, Edgur blazed with inner fury. He propped himself up against the rear wall of the alley and fumbled in his coat with aching fingers for the emerald. Before, he just wanted Joren out of the way. Now he was going to exact a less discriminating revenge.
He found the heavy stone and clasped it to his chest. He wasn't sure exactly how it worked, and he assumed when the time came the transformation would be automatic. For a long time nothing seemed to happen. Edgur clutched the stone so tightly the sharp edges cut into his fingers. One thought raced through his mind: Change. Change. Change!
Raucous laughter filtered through the dark brick walls. The beating and ejection of one poor journeyman didn't disturb Penkin's patrons. Edgur blinked through swollen eyelids at the rear door, four planks strapped with black iron. He struggled to his feet. The emerald slipped from his grip and fell to the dirty cobbles.
His anger still burned deep inside, but outwardly he felt strangely muffled and disconnected. Edgur raised a hand to pound on the rear door of the tavern. He would make them fight him fairly this time… but it wasn't a human hand that swam before his fevered eyes. It was the broad, hairy paw of a huge bear.
Edgur froze. Was this some kind of trick? He had seen no flash of light, felt no surge of power when he willed himself to change. People always said those sorts of things happened when magic occurred, but he had experienced none of it. Holding up his other hand, he found it was a paw as well, tipped with five razor-sharp claws. His heart beat faster. It was true! Praise Dare and his green magic!
Instead of knocking on the door, he demolished it with two blows. His new body was almost too bulky to fit through the doorway, but he wormed inside just in time to confront one of Penkin's servants, arms laden with a washtub full of dirty flagons. The man gazed in horror at the grizzly bear, standing on its hind legs, its head scraping against the dark-beamed ceiling. He was one of the ones who'd beaten and dragged Edgur from the dice table, so the grizzly smacked him on the side of the head with one broad sweep of its paw. The man somersaulted sideways, losing the tub and crashing against the wall. His head was twisted at an odd angle, and his empty eyes stared sightlessly.
The commotion brought more apron-clad servants through the swinging doors. When they saw Edgur, their eyes widened in shock and they scrambled back through the door to the barroom. Edgur dropped to all fours and charged, bursting through the flimsy wooden partition in time to toss two men onto the bar with a shake of his enormous head. The tavern erupted in screams as the brown bear tore in. There was a mad rush to escape, and several of the drunker patrons were trampled by the rest in their haste to depart. Edgur rose up on his hind legs again and waded through the crowd, swatting men like horseflies. One man cowered by the overturned dice table. Edgur batted the furniture aside and picked the screeching fellow up by his shirt. Only then did he realize he'd cornered a woman, a prostitute by the look of her. He had no quarrel with her and set her gently on her feet.
She stopped screaming and stared at the terrifying bear. For a few seconds there was a calm center to the vortex of chaos in Penkin's. Then a fiery pain shot through Edgur's rear haunch. With a roar, he spun and found Joren and his Jamuraan friend backed against the wall with short swords in their hands. Since Penkin's didn't allow sidearms they must have smuggled them in.
There was blood on Joren's blade. He'd stabbed Edgur, running his eighteen-inch blade into the bear's leg. Edgur felt the pain, but it troubled him no more than a pinprick.
Joren paled when he saw the grizzly turn on him. The beast roared, baring yellow fangs three inches long. Shaking its head from side to side, the bear lumbered forward.
"What's a monster like this doing in Argivia?" gasped the Jamuraan, readying his slight blade.
"You're asking me?" Joren replied. He lunged, jabbing his point at the bear's eyes. Edgur swatted the sword tip away.
"Did you see? He set that whore back on her feet and didn't harm her," the Jamuraan said. "Maybe it's a tame bear?"
Edgur flung a broken tabletop at Joren and his friend. Joren lost his sword when it became imbedded in the table.
"He disarmed me!" cried the astonished young man. "Adal, give me your sword!"
"What? What will I fight with?"
"Never mind that-give me your sword, Adal!"
The Jamuraan reluctantly handed his weapon to Joren. Edgur advanced. Joren lunged, hoping to drive his short blade through the bear's heart. Edgur twisted away from the sword tip and brought his powerful paw down on Joren's sword arm. Joren screamed as the bone audibly snapped.
Adal swung a chair leg at the bear. Edgur brushed this feeble attack aside and thrust his claws at the Jamuraan. With a simple scooping motion, he eviscerated Adal. Only Joren was left.