LIFE AS USUAL?

It wasn't much of a door, actually, just a few planks thrown together and tied with frayed rope, old cloth, and vines. So when the ferocious dwarf hit it in full charge, it exploded into its component parts. Wood, rope, and vine went flying into the small cave, trailed by ribbons of cloth.

No fury summoned from the Nine Hells could have brought more tumult and chaos in the instants that followed. The dwarf, thick black hair flying wildly, long beard parted in the middle into two long braids flopping across his chest and shoulders, lunged at the poor goblins, twin morningstars spinning with deadly precision.

The dwarf veered for the largest group, a collection of four of the goblins. He barreled into their midst without heed for the crude weapons they brandished, blowing past their defenses, kicking, stomping, and smashing away with his devastating morningstars, their spiked metal heads whipping at the ends of adamantine chains. He hit one goblin square in the chest, crushing its lungs and lifting it into a ten-foot flight. A turn and duck put him under the thrust of a spear that was no more than a pointed stick, and as he rolled around, the dwarf brought his trailing arm up and across, hooking the goblin's arm and throwing it aside. The dwarf squared before the goblin, and two overhead swings crushed its shoulder and its skull. He kicked the creature hard under the chin as it dropped to the stone, shattering its jaw, though it was already so far gone from life that it didn't even scream.

The dwarf's braids whipped as he leaped and turned to face the two remaining goblins. They could not match that ferocity, could not seem to even comprehend it, and they hesitated just an instant.

An instant more than the dwarf needed.

Forward he raced, and each arm struck at the goblins. One hit squarely, the other a glancing blow, but even that second goblin stumbled under the weight of the assault. The dwarf rolled over the goblin, driving it down with kicks and chops.

He rushed past and broke for the door, leaping into a sidelong spin and coming around with a double swing that took one goblin in the back as it tried to retreat through the door and back to the mountain slopes. Indeed, it got through the door, and much more quickly than it ever would have believed possible if it had been thinking of such things.

Its shattered spine took precedence, though, and as it crumbled to the dirt and stone, it felt... nothing.

The dwarf landed in front of the door, feet wide and steady. He went into a defensive crouch, eyes wild, braids bouncing, and arms out to his sides with the morningstar's heads dropping down low.

There had been at least ten of the creatures in the cave, he was certain, but with five down, he found only two facing him.

Well, at least one was facing him. The other banged frantically on a second door at the back of the cave, one more substantial and made of iron-bound hardwood.

The second goblin shrank against its companion, not daring to take its gaze from the furious intruder.

"Ah, but ye got yerself a safer room," the dwarf said, and took a step forward.

The goblin recoiled, small and pathetic sounds escaping its chattering teeth. The other pounded more furiously.

"Come on, then," the dwarf chided. "Pick up a stick and fight back. Don't ya be takin' all the fun out of it!"

The goblin straightened just a little bit, and the dwarf had seen enough of battle to catch the clue. He whirled around, launching a high-flying backhand that got nowhere close to hitting the sneaky goblin that slipped in the blasted door behind him. But it wasn't supposed to hit the creature, of course, merely distract it.

So it did, and as the dwarf strode forward and came around with his second swing, he found a clean opening. The goblin's face shattered under the weight of the morningstar, and the creature would have flown far indeed had not the jamb of the door caught it.

When the dwarf turned back, both goblins were pounding on the unyielding door with desperate abandon.

The dwarf sighed and relaxed, shaking his head in dismay. He walked across the room, and one, two, caved in the backs of the creatures' skulls.

He took up his morningstars in one hand and grabbed one of the fallen creatures by the back of the neck with his other. With the strength of a giant, he flung that goblin aside, throwing it the ten feet to the side wall with ease. The second then went for a similar flight.

The dwarf adjusted his girdle, a thick leather enchanted affair that bestowed upon him that great strength - even more than his powerful frame carried on its own.

"Nice work," he remarked, studying the craftsmanship of the portal.

No goblin doors those; the creatures had likely pillaged them from the ruins of some castle or another in the bogs of Vaasa. He had to give the goblins credit, though, for they had fit the portal quite well into the wall.

The dwarf knocked, and called out in the goblin tongue, in which he was quite fluent, "Hey there, ye flat-headed walking snot balls. Now ye don't be wantin me to ruin such a fine door as this, do ye? So just open it up and make it easy. I might even let ye live, though I'm suren to be takin' yer ears."

He put his own ear to the door as he finished, and heard a quiet whimper, followed by a louder "Shhhh!"

He sighed and knocked again. "Come on, then. Last chance for ye."

As he spoke, he stepped back and rolled his fingers around the leather-wrapped handles of the twin morningstars, willing forth their magic. Liquid oozed from the spikes of each ball, clear and oily on the right hand one, and reddish and chalky on the other. He sized up the door, recognizing the center cross of perpendicular metal bands as the most important structural point.

He counted to three - he had to give the goblins an honest chance, didn't he?  -  then launched into a ferocious leap and swing, left morningstar leading, and connecting precisely at the juncture of those two critical iron bands. The dwarf kept jumping and turning and building momentum with his right-hand weapon, though he did whack at the door a couple of times with the left, denting wood and metal and leaving behind that reddish residue.

It was the ichor of a rust monster, a devilish creature that made every knight in shining armor wet himself. For within moments, those solid iron bands began to turn the color of the liquid, rusting away.

When he was convinced that the integrity of the iron bands had been fully compromised, the dwarf jumped into his greatest leap of all, turning as he went so that he brought all of his weight and all of his strength to bear as he finally unloaded his right-hand morningstar at the same exact spot. Likely his great might and impeccable form would have cracked the door anyway, but there was no doubt at all as the liquid on that second head, oil of impact by name, exploded on contact.

Sundered in two, both the door and the locking bar in place behind it, the portal fell open, half flopping in to the dwarf's right, still held awkwardly by one hinge, while the left side tumbled to the floor.

There stood a trio of goblins, wearing ill-fitted, plundered armor - one had gone so far as to don an open-faced metal helm - and holding various weapons, a short sword for one, a glaive for the second, and a battle-axe for the third. That might have given younger adventurers pause, of course, but the dwarf had spent four centuries fighting worse, and a mere glance told him that none of the three knew how to handle the weapons they brandished.

"Well, if ye're wantin' to give me yer ears, then I'll be lettin' ye walk out o' here," the dwarf said in heavily-accented Goblin. "I'm not for givin' the snot of a flat-headed orc one way or th'other whether ye live or whether ye die, but I'm takin' yer ears to be sure." As he finished, he produced a small knife, and spun it to stick into the floor before the feet of the middle of the trio. "Ye give me yer left ears, and give me back the knife, and I'm lettin' ye walk on yer way. Ye don't, and I'm takin' them from yer corpses. Yers to choose."

The goblin on the dwarf's right lifted its glaive, howled, and charged.

Just the answer Athrogate was hoping for.

* * * * *

Artemis Entreri slipped behind a dressing screen when he heard the dwarf pushing through the door. Never an admirer of Athrogate, and never quite trusting him, the assassin was glad for the opportunity to eavesdrop.

"Ah, there ye be, ye elf-skinny pretender to me throne," Athrogate bellowed as he pushed into Calihye's room.

The woman looked at him with a sidelong glance, seeming unconcerned -  and a big part of that confidence, Entreri knew, came from the fact that he was within striking distance.

"So ye're thinking that ye got yerself a title here, are ye?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Lady Calihye, leading the board," Athrogate replied, and Calihye and Entreri nodded in recognition.

At the Vaasan Gate, a contest of sorts was being run by the many adventurers striking out into the wilderness. A price had been put on the ears of the various monsters roaming the wasteland, and to add to the enjoyment, the gate's commanders had put up a peg board listing the rankings of the bounty hunters. Almost from the start, Athrogate's name had topped that board, a position he had held until only a few months previous, when Calihye had claimed the title. Her fighting companion, Parissus, had been only a few kills back of the dwarf.

"Ye think I'm caring?" the dwarf asked.

"More than I am, obviously," replied the half-elf.

Behind the screen, Entreri nodded again, pleased with the response from the warrior who had become so dear to him.

Athrogate harrumphed and snorted, and roared, "Well, ye ain't for staying there!"

Entreri paid close attention to every inflection. Was the dwarf threatening Calihye?

The assassin's hands instinctively went to his weapon, and he dared move a bit farther behind the screen so that he could peek around the edge closest to the door, the angle of attack that would bring him in at the powerful dwarf's flank, if it came to that.

He relaxed as Athrogate brought one hand forward holding a small, bulging sack - and Entreri knew well what might be in there.

"Ye'll be looking at me rump again, half-elf," Athrogate remarked, and gave the bag a shake. "Fourteen goblins, a pair o' stupid orcs, and an ogre for good measure."

Calihye shrugged as if she didn't care.

"Ye best be winter huntin', if ye got enough dwarf in ye," Athrogate said. "Meself, I'll be goin' south to drink through the snows, so if ye're having some good luck, ye might get back on top - not that ye'll stay there more than a few days once the melt's on."

Athrogate paused there, and a wry smile showed between the bushy black hair of his beard. "Course, ye ain't got yer hunting partner no more, now do ye? Unless ye're to convince the sneak to go out with ye, and I'm not thinking that one's much for snowy trails!"

Entreri was too distracted to take offense at that last remark, however honest, for Calihye's wince had not been slight when Athrogate had referred to Parissus. The wound was still raw, he knew. Calihye and Parissus had been fighting side-by-side for years, and Parissus was dead, killed on the road to Palishchuk after she fell from the wagon Entreri drove from a horde of winged, snakelike monsters.

"I have little desire to go out and hunt goblins, good dwarf," Calihye said, her voice steady - though with some effort, Entreri noted.

The dwarf snorted at her. "Do as ye will or do as ye won't," he replied. "I'm not for carin', for I'll be takin' me title in the spring, from yerself or anyone else who's thinkin' to best me. Don't ye doubt!"

"Not to doubt and not to care," Calihye said, taking some of his bluster.

Indeed, Athrogate hardly seemed to have an answer for that. He just nodded and made an indecipherable sound, and shook the bag of ears at Calihye. Then he nodded again, said, "Yeah," and turned and walked out the door.

Entreri didn't note the movement at all, for he stayed focused on Calihye, who held her composure well though the weight of the dwarf's remarks surely sat heavily on her delicate shoulders.