Champion of a Lost Cause

Night presses against the roadside tavern’s shutters. Effruin welcomes the scents of sour ale, smoke, and damp wool, while the chimera-hide wineskin remains secured beneath his belt.

Five soldiers crowd a scarred table, their Sosshan armor stacked beside them and rebel tokens hanging from spear shafts. Their laughter rolls through the cramped room.

Effruin rises and angles toward the exit without a word. Before he reaches it, the door swings inward and four more soldiers enter from the black road.

The newcomers halt just inside, several gazes fixed on Effruin’s missing arm. No one speaks his name, but the tavern’s easy noise thins into watchful silence.

The command reaches for the old place where chains and collars once decided his movements. Escaped slave, the tavern whispers without speaking, and the soldier, a lean young human man with close-cropped black hair, a weathered face, and scarred bronze-and-iron armor over a red tunic, expects obedience as tribute.

Effruin does not approach. His remaining hand stays loose at his side, and his posture gives the soldier nothing to seize. The demand meets composure instead of submission.

The word drow carries the weight of blood ties and old hierarchies, but neither claim governs him now. Resisting those ties leaves his will cold, balanced, and entirely his own.

Silence settles between the tables. The soldier’s inspection remains refused, plainly and without spectacle, while Effruin keeps the tavern door at his back and his departure unclaimed by anyone else.

The lie fits the room's hierarchy. The soldiers hear a servant with a master's protection, not an escaped slave, and their scrutiny loosens enough for Effruin to remain unchallenged.

While speaking, Effruin measures the tavern: the rear service door opens onto a narrow alley, the nearest table blocks its direct approach, and the soldiers have left their weapons stacked beside the wall.

Effruin lets the answer stand. Effruin's familiarity with the noble families of Sosshan and experience of servitude allow him leeway, while his scars still make the deception costly to maintain.

He has the route: cross behind the celebrating table, slip through the service door, and take the alley. The entering soldiers' attention is weakest while they watch the room's other exit.

The knowledge comes with a concrete cost: Effruin has spent precious moments studying instead of moving, and smoke leaves the exact number of weapons beside the wall uncertain.

Effruin accepts the invitation and crosses to the scarred table. He lowers himself among the five celebrating soldiers, keeping his back clear of reaching hands and his face unreadable.

The soldiers make room without protest. Their attention measures his shoulders, his missing arm, and the old scars, while the sharp scent of chimera-hide liquor steadies his controlled breathing.

For an instant, the command to approach presses against the memory of collars and forced obedience. The pressure remains contained; resistance to blood ties leaves his will his own.

The lie holds beneath their scrutiny. Effruin watches hands, exits, and the stacked weapons without appearing to count them, presenting obedience while revealing no threat.

Ale is pushed toward him. His wineskin remains secured beneath his belt, its familiar weight and harsh spirit giving him a private anchor as imperial suspicion settles into casual contempt.

The word slaves settles among the ale and smoke. Effruin's scars support the claim's ugliness, marking him as someone imperial authority might employ rather than trust.

The soldier leans nearer, searching Effruin's face for pride, grief, or treachery. Around them, the celebrating soldiers quiet enough to hear the answer.

The lie remains cold and practical. The wineskin's harsh spirit anchors his breathing, while resistance to blood ties keeps old loyalties from touching his voice; his scars still make every word suspect.

Effruin bares his scars and lets the soldier examine them. The tavern’s mockery settles over his back like a collar, while escaped-slave contempt makes the inspection seem ordinary.

Fingers trace old wounds and the stump of his arm. The touch drags chains, commands, and forced obedience through his nerves, but the memory remains contained beneath his stone-hard silence.

Effruin turns as ordered, keeping his face blank. No old loyalty in his voice or posture to exists to betray him, yet the soldier’s suspicion has sharpened instead of fading.

The deception has failed its quiet purpose: the soldier now watches him as a high-value enemy, and repeating the lie will invite restraint. Yet the inspection reveals a usable opening: the rear service door stands unguarded while every eye fixes on his face.

Effruin moves before the soldier can finish the insult. His single arm makes the attack brutally compact, while the soldiers’ contempt for an escaped slave leaves them too close and too slow to understand it.

A punch finds the first soldier’s throat with exact, merciless force. Effruin pivots through the falling body, the chimera-hide wineskin striking his hip and lending his motion a hard, drunken momentum.

Effruin's attention fixes to the next target in his awareness: the celebrating soldier who mocked his scars. One short strike drops him across the table before his hand can reach a weapon.

The remaining blow crashes into the soldier on the right. He collapses beside the overturned ale, dead before the tavern’s witnesses can turn their shock into action.

Three entering soldiers recoil together, hands flying toward the weapons stacked by the wall. The tavern erupts around them, but the rear service door remains open and unguarded.

Effruin stands amid the silence left by the dead, left hand low, shoulder burning from the one-armed assault. The path behind the table is clear.

Effruin surges across the table before the remaining soldiers can draw steel. His single arm turns the cramped room into an advantage, each compact strike demanding brutal balance from his overtaxed shoulder.

The Chimera Hide Wineskin slams against his hip as he pivots. Its harsh liquor steadies the drunken rhythm, letting him feint weakness, slip past reaching hands, and return with sudden force.

Killing Stroke guides his left hand into the first opening. The nearest entering soldier drops without a cry, and Effruin rolls beneath a wild counterblow from another.

Vengeance’s Mark fixes the celebrating soldiers as his next targets. Effruin crosses the scarred table in two swaying steps, striking one down and driving the others backward into the wall.

His remaining arm trembles under the strain, but momentum carries through. A final chain of blows leaves every surviving soldier sprawled and silent among overturned benches and ale.

The tavern holds its breath. Effruin stands amid the fallen, shoulder burning and wineskin secure, while the open service door waits beyond the wrecked table.

The tavern keeper crouches behind the bar, slight-built and freckled, a young woman with ash-blonde hair, a flour-pale face, and a russet dress beneath a stained apron. She presses herself into the corner, trying to disappear.

Effruin approaches without a word. The wrecked tables and spilled ale lie between them, but she does not run; his scars and missing arm mark him as the escaped slave imperial law teaches her to fear.

He crouches to her eye-level, keeping his face still. Vengeance’s Mark lends the silence a precise, merciless focus, turning his attention upon her as completely as a drawn blade.

Her whisper breaks, and she points beneath the bar. A trapdoor opens into the cooper’s lane, with no street-facing window to expose his departure.

She stays frozen as Effruin rises. The keeper’s silence is secured, and the hidden exit gives him a cleaner route away than the tavern’s front door.

Effruin’s swift kick ends the young tavern keeper’s life. Killing Stroke turns the small opening into a precise, final attack, while his one-armed balance makes the motion awkward but does not lessen its force.

The keeper collapses behind the bar, and the tavern falls silent around her. Effruin does not pause to examine the result; the hidden trapdoor remains beneath the counter.

His remaining shoulder protests as he turns, the missing arm forcing him to recover his balance with a sharp shift of his hips. The effort costs him time, but the way below is still clear.

Ale drips from the ruined tables. Beyond the bar, the trapdoor opens into the cooper’s lane, where darkness and damp air offer a clean departure from the bloodless quiet inside.

Effruin steps toward the opening, chimera-hide wineskin secured beneath his belt, leaving the dead keeper and the fallen soldiers behind him in the shuttered tavern.

Effruin reaches over the bar with his left hand and takes a surviving cup of ale from the wreckage. The one-handed reach pulls hard across his shoulder, but his endurance keeps his balance beneath the strain.

He drinks deeply. Alcoholism answers the ale’s sour bite with immediate insistence, while the chimera-hide wineskin presses against his hip, its harsh liquor steadying the rhythm of his movement rather than letting the drink slow him.

Effruin lowers the empty cup and throws it aside with his remaining hand. It strikes the floor and breaks, and the sudden twist sends a hot spasm through his overtaxed shoulder.

He steps behind the bar and lifts the trapdoor fully, bracing its edge against his forearm because the missing arm makes the simple motion awkward. Damp air rises from the cooper’s lane below.

Effruin descends through the opening and pulls the trapdoor shut above him. In the narrow darkness, his shoulder burns, his footing remains sure, and the shuttered tavern is behind him.