“Stay away! Leave me alone! If you don’t, you’ll regret it,” the beggar said in a voice as cracked and ancient as the wood he held so dear.

This infuriated the ruffian and convulsed his associates with laughter. The onlookers laughed and exhorted the old beggar to show his adversary a thing or two, while the big gangster made further futile attempts to grab either the dirty old man or what he held on to.

“You’ve asked for it, dumbshit, an’ now I’m gonna give it to you good!” As he spat these words at the hunchback who had managed to elude his efforts, the burly ruffian whipped a wicked-bladed knife from his shabby jerkin. “I’m gonna carve that hump right offen your back, an’ maybe eat it too! Nobody talks to the leader of the Headsmen like that!”

The bully started forward but then suddenly stopped and stared in amazement. The old man had thrown off his tattered hood and short cape. His hump was gone, a part of the discarded garment, and his appearance had changed too. The aged and shaking beggar had suddenly transformed himself into a straight young man, smallish but tough and capable-looking, despite the rags of clothing that remained on his frame. Gone too was the frightened demeanor, to be replaced by a hard voice, determined face, and spread-legged stance, elbows held wide and hands on hips.

“And I warned you, too! Now what is it to be, Snaggle?” The bigger man paused in his advance to gape in astonishment at the result of the transformation. Recognition slowly dawned across his stupid countenance, and his coarse features lifted in a cruel grin. “I’ll be dipped in boiling batshit! It’s our old playmate Gord the Gutless!” He turned to leer at his friends for their benefit, adding as he turned back, “You come back to piss your pants for us all?…”

Snaggle bit off the rest of what he had to say as he beheld the long, glittering dagger in Gord’s hand and the deadly look in his eyes. Maybe, thought the cowardly ruffian, this was someone to be handled by the whole gang.

“C’mon, boys, let’s get this runt!” he called to his comrades without looking back at them.

His fellows began to move forward slowly. This was an unexpected development, and one that they were uncertain about. It was all well and good to bully and beat the helpless, or even brawl with someone who tried to put up a fight with fists, but the man who defied their leader looked quite ready to kill one and all, and might be able to accomplish such work too, judging by the hard eyes and ready weapon he displayed.

“What’s the matter, you bag of guts? Can’t the leader of the Headsmen handle one smaller man by himself? How can you need help with me? I’m just a gutless pisspants, aren’t I?”

The others stopped and murmured agreement among themselves that there was merit to the words Gord spoke. Snaggle was, after all, the toughest of their gang, and their leader. If there was a fight here, it was his alone. They would watch and see….

“All right by me, you little asshole,” Snaggle said without conviction. Gripping his knife, he came toward Gord alone.

“I recall how you took my little, broken knife from me years ago, Snaggle. Do you think you can manage to get this blade as easily?” Gord taunted, and then he danced back from the lunging rush of the big ruffian, laughing as he did so.

Gord drew the match out as long as he could, careful not to let himself be wounded and to inflict only superficial, painful jabs and small cuts upon the stupid man who vainly sought to come to grips with his elusive opponent. Of course, the stupid ruffian was no match for one so skilled as Gord, and the other members of the big fellow’s pitiful gang were soon quite glad they had not entered this fight. Gord was an adversary capable of taking the whole group on in an encounter such as this, and leaving them all leaking their lives out onto the dirty cobblestones thereafter.

With athletic grace, Gord leaped and tumbled rings around the confused and dismayed Snaggle, playing with him, goading him into blind charges and clumsy assaults that always ended with Gord elsewhere and Snaggle bleeding from yet another small wound.

Panting, trembling, fearful now, the bigger man tried another tactic. “You win, Gord! I quit!” he called to the smiling, flint-eyed fellow who faced him. “You’ve gotten to be pretty good, ol’ pal, so’s I guess you pass the test-right, guys? You can be a member of our bunch if you wa-”

In a flash, the knife Snaggle had held before himself was gone, and numbness shot from his fingers up his arm. Gord had kicked the blade away with blinding speed, instantly closed to within a foot of the big leader, and lashed out expertly with his own blade.

Snaggle stared down at his belly, gone suddenly cold and painful. The jerkin he wore was cut away, the dirty skin beneath it revealed. A thin line of red traced the path the dagger point had taken across his hairy, bulging belly to where it now rested in his navel. He looked along the weapon’s steely length to the corded hand that grasped it, then up along the arm to the eyes of the man before him. Snaggle saw the threat of death in those eyes.

“No, no, no, no… please don’t kill me…” Snaggle whined, and with that he lost whatever remained of his valor and fainted dead away.

Satisfied at last, Gord casually stooped and tore off part of the slashed and stained jerkin. As he wiped his dagger clean on the strip of cloth, he looked around and studied the stupefied members of the ruffian band. They looked quickly away from his gaze, not wishing him to think a returned stare meant a challenge. They had seen all they ever needed to see of him.

“I am doing Snaggle a favor, and all of you stupid jerks one as well. I’m not going to kill him, or you… this time! But if I ever happen to run into any of you again, you can bet your lives the favor won’t be given a second time.” He idly toed the unconscious Snaggle with his booted foot. “Your big, tough leader seems to have soiled himself-both ways, too, from the stink of it. Drag shitpants, here, away with you when you run along-and, boys, I’d do that right now if I were you!”

With cautious haste, the gang complied, and the last Gord saw of them they were going as fast as they could manage, hauling their still-unconscious leader by his arms, his legs scraping and bouncing along the rough cobbles as they hastened into a narrow alleyway and out of sight.

“That was not exactly revenge,” the grinning young thief thought to himself as he put his disguise back on and headed away from the slums. “It was more like justice.” He had balanced things, wiped out an old humiliation, and at last freed himself from whatever vague stigma from his former existence had plagued him over the years.

Now there was nothing left undone, nothing more to prove, no more of the old-except this cherished possession, the box that old Leena had once told him was somehow tied to the mystery of Gord’s parentage. He had found it easily, right where he had seen Leena bury it years ago, close to where the old lean-to of his childhood had stood.

He didn’t know exactly what he would do with, or about, the box-but that was a matter for later. Now he had a new life to build. All of Greyhawk lay before him, waiting for him to familiarize and refamiliarize himself with-from an exhilarating new perspective! Equipped with the vast riches, knowledge, and skills gained in his broad wanderings, Gord knew that Greyhawk was now his, and he had some interesting times in store.

come to grips with his elusive opponent. Of course, the stupid ruffian was no match for one so skilled as Gord, and the other members of the big fellow’s pitiful gang were soon quite glad they had not entered this fight. Gord was an adversary capable of taking the whole group on in an encounter such as this, and leaving them all leaking their lives out onto the dirty cobblestones thereafter.