Frequently looking from the cards to Neleve, the other players apparently found an issue in defining his expression. He would not stop shifting his gaze.

"Psst... Neleve, it's thy call," said Thomas, intently tiptoeing to peek over his shoulder.

Neleve, ear to the friar, spoke energetically, "Okay friends, I call. Sport your hands!"

The first man, distinguished by his round hat and brown, unkempt beard, laid low his cards. "Two witches, two wights." he says.

"Damn!" shouted a second man sporting a linen bandage over his left eye. "Three enchantresses! Ha!"

"You feigning dog!"

"Bastard!" retorted a third player, frustratingly rubbing his hairless head and discarding his hand to the clattering of his teeth. "I'm retired."

"It's your hand, pretty boy," said the one-eyed player.

And Neleve stared at his hand, motionless, while Friar Thomas waited quietly--filled with such repressed excitement his toes nearly buckled. Neleve lifted his card hand in the air, and with a swift slam threw them down on the table. "Three princes!" he exclaimed. His fellow players thus stared seethingly. Therefore, Neleve subtly inched back in his seat and whispered to Thomas, "My hand, is it good?"

"Good for you," Thomas whispered back.

"Excellent!"

"Gah!" belched the last loser.

"Everyone has a bad day, men!" Neleve grinned, funneling the coins into a brown sack pouch. As he did so, he of the bald head grabbed his wrist.

"You conniving little runt," he spouted.

"Pardon?"

"I know what you did and what you are."

Neleve's eyes dilated for the possibilities.

"You used that brace to palm the cards. You're a cheat!"

Neleve nearly sighed a sigh of relief before realizing the rest of the men were staring at him with murderous intent. "Heh. I know not of what you speak, good sirs. Why don't we simply agree, the game makes no sense. Princes are overrated and cannot slay witches and wights and enchantresses. But 'tis a rectification best sought with the creator, no?"

A heated silence passed them by.

Suddenly, with a great heave and ending crash, the three men lifted the table out of the way and revealed their dull weapons.

Okay, Neleve, the whole room is staring at you now...me. What to do... These ruffians seem intent on brawling. A woeful goodbye to you, Reason.

"You mean to tell me this man's a magister?" said a man one table away from them.

"Likely!" exclaimed the bald one.

"Magic? Really?" ejaculated Neleve. "Oh come now, good sirs, surely we can be civil about this. I won, you lost. If we all lost our wits when we lost, there'd be no more card games, yes? No? Yes? Yay?"

"Don't mock us, snake. Silver tongues and trickery will not cheat us out of our coin."

"I say we gut him!" shouted an young man brandishing a serrated knife at the rear of the establishment.

Okay. What to do... Let's see here. One, two, three, four, four..., now six. Now they're all mad. Out of the many desperate situations I have escaped, six seems novel and laborious

"I will enjoy dismantling that smug-lookin' face a yers!" exclaimed the one-eyed man.

"Gut 'im! gut 'im! gut 'im!" recited the bald man.

"Yes," assented Neleve. "There is awful satisfaction belying mutilation—not speaking from experience. But, can't we avoid being ravenous?"

"At least not in my pub!" interjected the barkeep behind the counter. "You louts take this outside!"

"All too late!" the bald player persisted. "As you said, everyone has a bad day. Now, as it were, enjoy everyone else's lot."

"Is that the one sentence you heard?" questioned Neleve. To the left of him stood the tense, middle-aged barkeep at his counter. Directly in front, the three mad gamblers; and behind them, even more men slowly inching forward with whatever weapons they had on hand - mostly swords, except for the one-eyed fellow who brandished a battleaxe. Something so unwieldy was problematic, yet manageable. And via the downward swing of that battleaxe, the brawl began.

A crash on the floor.

"What the-"

Silence.

"There's no way he missed," said the bald and befuddled ruffian.

Yet Neleve was standing perfectly still while the axe lay lodged in the floor panel to his right. The next instant, he jaunted forward and uppercut the axe wielder's chin. Before the man even fell, the entire room gasped for Neleve's speed as he consolidated and landed a kick on the next man's mug.

"There's a quick lad!" exclaimed the bouncer by the entrance.

"Get him, now!" cried the bald fellow. From around the pub, the voracious men started toward Neleve. But he dexterously slid between the lot, and they found themselves converging and witlessly crashing into one another.

Dumbstruck, four of the men turned around, found Neleve standing idle, and redrew their frustration. "Y' can't dodge for long!" cried he of the bad beard.

Neleve took that moment to inhale the tension of their sweat... For all my conditioning, my footing is awkward in this place. Must be swift, must be clever, must be..."What ever happened to your eye?" he blurted, beaming at the one-eyed man who was in the middle of rising to his feet. Unfortunately, the one-eyed man ignored him and renewed the assault. Neleve's feet carried him infallibly out of reach, however. He was a surge preceding every one of their movements until he felt a presence behind him; one eager brawler reached and locked his arms around him. He was caught.

"Get 'im!"

The men charged, but Neleve kicked the front assailant's chest, knocking him into the others. This would not stop them, however. Picking up a random sword from the ground, the one-eyed man shouted, "Hold him still!" Carefully, he approached and leveled the sharp tip of the blade when Neleve shoved his whole body backward, slamming his man against the wall with a heavy thud. But the captor held on, forcing Neleve to reach around his buckle; whatever he retrieved, it led to his assailant's yelp. And freed from the man's grip, Neleve glanced back to witness him pressuring a bloody wound on his right knee.

"I hate being serious!" Neleve roared. "As I am an unbearably bad brawler, so must I concede this fight to thee. Let bygones be bygones," all the while, he maintained a silly grin, "unless you really don't want that."

Throughout their altercation, the unreasonable group of brawlers had failed to notice Neleve's blades. But he held them now, two weapons with cuffs for guards; whether they were short swords or long daggers the room could not tell. Yet, undaunted and abrasive, the outnumbering brawlers belligerently pressed on. And he was forced to turn and shuffle in order to evade, utilizing every recess and table of the room.

"Come on! GET HIM!"

Too determined to see him undone, the pub challenged the limits of Neleve's relentless speed and footwork. Many patrons had departed by this point, the remaining drinkers and onlookers stubbornly set against him. He had made a calculated decision by drawing his pair of steel blades, brandishing their knuckle grips as he did. For this, they would take him more seriously. Yet after dodging another strike, he reserved a moment for bravado. "We have a problem!" he exclaimed. "There aren't enough of you."

"Better to save yer words for final pleas, boy," replied his one-eyed nemesis; he stood at the behest of three cutthroats while another four barred his rear. These were the last of the rabble barring his salvation, leaving any approach, likely, a struggle to the death.