“What’s this mean?” said Rori putting up his hand in imitation of the gesture the woman with the hammer had made.

  “I don’t know. Looks like a backwards ‘L’ to me,” said Trill looking up from his bowl of stew.

  It was late at The Laughing Green and the bar was uncharacteristically empty. In a large part it was probably because of the storm that was raging outside. Lightning flashed with regularity and the crack of thunder came immediately after. The rain was falling hard enough that the street was essentially a river. Anyone with any sense was safe in their home.

  Though he looked like Karl, there was little chance of anyone thinking too much about Rori talking to his friends. Besides Trill, Sean, Baxter, Wergen and Nolan the only other person in the room was Osrall. Osrall the halfling was a constant fixture at The Laughing Green. He showed up every night after midnight, drank himself into a stupor and passed out until morning. When the sun rose, he would rouse himself and stumble out the door without a word. It went that way every night without fail, and this was no exception. Tonight, Osrall had already reached the passed-out stage of his schedule.

  When Rori had asked Delores why they didn’t force the halfling to rent a room to sleep in, Delores had explained that the halfling spent well more on ale than the cost of a room. So, the management had said as long as he wasn’t causing trouble to just let him sleep.

  Osrall was such a fixture that if the tavern was busy, people would just share the table with the unconscious halfling passed out on the corner of it. If he ever knew such a thing happened, he’d never said a word about it.

  “No, I know that one,” said Baxter. “Let me think. Show me it again.”

  Rori raised his hand in a repeat of the gesture.

  Nolan, who was sitting at a separate table by himself, looked up from the papers he was pouring over.

  “Where did you see that?” he asked.

  Rori had not had time alone with any of his friends to relay the tale of what had happened the day before, but despite the room’s apparent emptiness he still wasn’t sure this was the place. He lifted an eyebrow and nodded his head towards Osrall.

  “Osrall’s out,” said Nolan. “Besides he’s trustable with most things. The rest of the help have gone home for the night. You are the sole representative of this establishment present. I think it’s safe to talk. Tell us about the hand sign.”

  “I saw a lady use it in a fight,” Rori explained. “While out on a walk I saw the assassin. I followed her and she made an attempt to kill Rowan Hargraves.”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” said Sean with a smirk.

  “I stopped her from succeeding,” said Rori.

  “Why?”

  “Because assassination is murder, and murder is wrong,” answered Rori. “Or did I miss the part where you guys stopped representing the law?”

  Baxter snorted in laughter.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Stopped her how?” asked Nolan.

  “I didn’t do anything fancy to give myself away. I just threw a plate in front of her dart.”

  “Oh ‘cause that’s nothing fancy. I see people flinging plates in front of blowgun darts all the time,” said Sean with no sincerity at all.

  “Threw a plate how?” asked Nolan ignoring Sean and pushing away from his papers and giving Rori his full attention. Rori demonstrated the throw.

  “How far away was Hargraves?” asked Nolan.

  “I don’t know. About fifty feet or so.”

  “Like I said, totally normal. I saw Baxter throw a ham in front of a flying spear the other day. Thought nothing of it,” said Sean though at this point nobody was paying him any attention.

  “So, the prohibition on weapons . . .?” said Nolan.

  “Still exists. I think this was a special case. Or maybe it was because I wasn’t attacking. If I don’t sound too much like I’m bragging, it was actually a pretty amazing throw.”

  “But it wasn’t so fancy he gave himself away,” assured Sean.

  “Okay, it wasn’t something you usually see. But I’m sure lots of people can throw things. There is no reason for people to think it was me. I didn’t do a back flip while I was doing it.”

  “Let’s move on. When does the hand gesture come up?” asked Nolan.

  “She ran. I chased her. She ran into this lady dressed in green. She had this giant hammer. She was like five and a half feet tall, but the hammer was like three feet longer than that. She was disguised by a head scarf. The hammer moved so fast it was amazing.”

  “Sounds like you were pretty impressed by this woman,” said Baxter.

  “I won’t deny it. She was amazingly good with the hammer, and she was exotic looking all wrapped up in green and gold. You couldn’t see anything except her eyes, but she was beautiful just the same.”

  “If you see her again, I wouldn’t mention that,” said Nolan.

  “Why not? Do you know who it is?”

  “Not specifically. But your description, the hammer and the hand gesture make it pretty clear that she’s with the temple of Lutrell.”

  “Who’s Lutrell?”

  “You need to get a book on the gods,” said Wergen. “Even I know that one. He’s all about law and order. Go down to the courthouse and see who is guarding the place. There’s plenty of soldiers about but count how many of them are also wearing symbols to Lutrell. Step outside and look next door and you’ll see a temple to Lutrell. That’s where you’ll find the real fanatics. Step out of line and they will punish you to the fullest extent of their law.”

  “That explains one of the things that she said. She called the assassin an ‘abomination to the law’ and then sentenced her to death,” explained Rori.

  “Yep, that’s Lutrell. That’s not a fun bunch to hang around. If you aren’t one of them, you feel like they are always judging you. And believe me, you will always fall short of their ideals.”

  “What happened next,” asked Nolan.

  “They fought for a moment. The Lutrell woman smashed the assassin’s blowgun. The assassin threw about forty knives without hurting the other lady. Then the assassin threw down a bunch of those smoke bombs and disappeared. When the smoke cleared it was just me and the hammer lady. She threatened me and then she ran off.”

  “I wonder who wants Hargraves dead?” asked Sean.

  “Everyone,” answered Nolan. “What you meant is you wonder who wants it enough to pay for it.”

  “He was arguing with some merchant about breaching a contract,” said Rori.

  “We could try and figure it out. But Hargraves has so many enemies we’d be busy for a year. I’ll poke around a bit, but it’s not our problem. You sticking out your neck when you are supposed to be in hiding, that is a problem. I’ll talk to Dade about moving up our timeline for getting you out of here.”

  “Nobody knows it was me,” said Rori defensively.

  “Yes, but they might know it was Karl. And it doesn’t take too many more steps after that until you’ve got a problem. Be ready to move out tomorrow or the next day at the latest.”

  “Okay,” said Rori. “You know, I think I’m actually going to miss working here. It was nice. You meet interesting people and learn a lot about their lives.”

  “Tell me one interesting thing that you learned here, and I’ll buy everyone a round,” said Sean.

  “Well,” said Rori with a smile, “I know the thing that Delores is looking for in a man.”

  “Wait! What?” said Baxter standing up so fast he nearly knocked the table over. “Rori, you’ve got to tell me!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to betray a co-worker’s trust.”

  “Rori! You’re killing me!”