Serrated fangs gleamed, the thief screamed, and quite suddenly a flash of magic sparkled in the air. With a bang, a weasel appeared beside the terrified thief. The weasel wrung its paws and pranced in concern.
“Don’t move! One wrong twitch and pow! It’ll rip yourarm off!” The weasel moved to hastily survey the thief’s arm. “It’s all right.I’m the magic wishing weasel. I’ve got the bag held in a spell. Don’t make anysudden moves, and you might get out of this alive.”
Pale with fright, the thief held his arm rigid, the bag’stongue holding him trapped. He stared at the backpack’s fangs in fright.“M-magic wishing weasel?”
“Well, you wished for a way out of this, right?” The weaselopened up its front paws. “So what are you complaining about? I happened to bepassing, so I’m on the job… unless you want me to go?” The weasel snapped itsfingers, and instantly the backpack roared and yanked the thief’s arm deeperinto its maw.
The thief gave a pathetic bleat of fright. “No! Stay! Justget it off me! Get it off!”
“Sure! Fine!” The weasel clicked its fingers again, and thesnarling backpack subsided. The magic wishing weasel leaped onto the thief’sfrozen arm and inspected the backpacks hairy tongue.
“Hmm. All right. Simple to fix. You’ve got one hand free,right?”
“You want me to cut the bag?” The thief groped hastily for aknife. “Fine!”
“No!”The weasel hurriedly waved its paws. “You’ll enrage it!No, in a case like this, you have to make use of natural strategy.”
“Natural strategy?”
“Trust me, kid. I’m a weasel.”
Traveling in a sinuous round-about route, the weasel ended up upon the thief’s shoulder. It tapped its paws together and gave a brief flip ofits tail.
“All right, kid. We have to make nature work for you,not against you.”
The bag shifted its grip, trembling as if about to break its restraining spell, and the thief swallowed in fright. “Magic weasel, help me!”
“All right, kid, now listen.” The weasel looked down at thethief’s bulging purse then stood aside. “I’ve got it held for a while. To escapethe bag, you have to trigger its gag reflex, but not by putting a hand or a tool in there! Oh no. That thing senses anything big in there, and it’ll rip your armright outta its socket!” Drawing a brief sketch in the dust, the weaselchattered on. “There’s one patch at the back of its throat that can trigger thegag reflex. You have to hit it with something heavy-something small, dense, andsolid-to make it spit out your arm.”
The thief immediately threw an empty beer stein into the backpack. The magic weasel gave a tired sigh. “No. Something small and heavy. Very small,very dense.” The weasel rapped on the thief’s head. “You understand dense,yeah?”
“What?”
“Nothing. You want brains, don’t come to the Flanaess.”Sketching out a diagram in midair, the weasel tried to educate the thief. “Look.There’s a little tiny slot at the bottom of the bag. All you do is drop littleheavy things in there in the hope they’ll go through the slot. Little flat heavythings-small, flat, round, heavy things.”
The thief blinked cluelessly, and the weasel gave a snarl. “Look! Just drop coins into the bag, or it’ll nibble your knuckles off!”
Fumbling in haste, the thief grabbed for his purse, undid the drawstrings with his teeth, and sent a tumble of gold coins spilling down into the backpack’s toothy mouth. The carnivorous backpack scowled, mumbled, thensuddenly gave a great cough. Feeling his arm held in a briefly loosened grip, the thief jerked his hand free. He immediately threw himself as far away from the backpack as possible.
Frustrated, the backpack gnashed its fangs and grumbled. Meanwhile, the wishing weasel slapped the panting thief on the back in congratulations.
“There you are! Free as a bird!” Grinning, the weasel beganto prod the thief out from under the table. “Now go on. Scram! Off you go.Borrow some money, have a drink to celebrate, and maybe consider a change in career.”
Pale with fright, the thief still had eyes only for the gnashing backpack.
“Th-thank you, magic wishing weasel!” The man withdrew intothe tavern light. “How can I repay you?”
“All in a day’s work, kid! No need to thank me. Just naffoff!” The weasel suddenly bit its lip and scuttled closer. “But if anyone was toask-say, just for arguments sake, if a really big shaven headed guy in blackarmor wearing a hell hound skin-if a guy like that asked what happened toyour money, you’d say that you chose to put it in the backpack, right?”
The thief rubbed his bruised wrist in fright and said, “Right!”
“Great, kid. Now scram!” The weasel crept onto the tablebeside an incredulous Polk. “Nice kid, but a brain the size of a peppercorn.”
Polk looked at Escalla the weasel in confusion and asked, “Was that boy a thief?”
“Nah. He came to make a donation. I think we must have madeabout fifty gold pieces outta him.” Escalla dropped her illusion spell from thebackpack, which returned to being a plain old leather pack. The “tongue” of thebeast-a disreputable length of chord-was stuffed back into the darkness of thepack. Escalla shifted back into her usual form and rummaged about inside the backpack to find her discarded clothes.
She was tugging her leggings into place when a heavy presence made itself known outside her sanctuary.
“Escalla?”
“It was an unsolicited gift!” Escalla jammed her head out ofthe bag to face the Justicar. “Ask him! He gave it to us on his own initiative!”
Jus squatted on his heels beside the backpack and scowled. “What?”
“Oh. Nothing.” The faerie saw Jus’ look of confusion andgave a nervous twiddle of her wings. “Nothing at all! Did you get anyinformation?”
“Enough to know we don’t want to eat whatever that is cookingover the fire.” Jus slowly cracked the knuckles of his left fist. “This townneeds justice.”
“Well, I’ve been redressing the balance and doing my bit.”Escalla finished tugging her long leggings onto her feet and wriggled her elegant bare toes. “So, are we staying or going?”
“Going.” Jus tried not to breathe the tavern stink. “Theseare lower level predators. The disaster in the valley’s giving them the chanceto prey on these refugees.” The man’s face was a shadow beneath the jet blackhell hound skin. “Kill the head, and the body has to die.”
The Justicar swung the pack onto his back, and Escalla stayed inside for the ride. Above her, Cinders’ tall ears stood proud. With her handsfolded behind her head, Escalla wriggled on her bed of misappropriated gold and sighed.
“That’s the man!”
Walking heavily through the tavern, Jus heard the excited yell from the door ahead. He stopped and saw a skinny, pimple-smothered man backed up by four huge half-orcs dressed in rusted armor. The leader of the armored brutes seemed strangely hunched and bestial. Part bugbear or part ogre, he had a skin covered in scabs.
The smaller man swelled in righteous fury and roared, “Thatman there! He has a carnivorous backpack! He uses it to extort people!” Thethief waved his hand. “He’s in league with the Takers! He’s here to scoutfor the pale lady!”
The four half-orcs instantly started forward. Polk immediately took a big step to one side, carrying himself away from the Justicar as he opened up his chronicles and dug out a fresh pen. Behind him, the whole tavern crowd arose. At least twenty thugs, mercenaries, brigands, and rogues surged to their feet.
Jus walked toward the huge, misshapen figure of the senior guard. The big ranger scratched his stubbled chin and scowled. “Who’s the palelady?”
“She runs the Takers! She clears the valleys.” The half-orchissed and flexed its claws. Yelling to his men, the guard began to draw a scimitar. “They’re Takers! Hang ’em!”