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e rock floor. An arm wrestling match was in process at one side, deep in the shifting green haze from a half-dozen guttering candles. The bartender emerged from a shadow behind the counter and pushed a mug at Max. "You know any good ruins around here?" Max said to him. A hefty growl from the other end of the bar drowned out any reply. The man behind the growl, Max discovered as he turned to eye him, was about seven feet tall, and waving a trestle table over his head with one massively corded arm. "You want another drink?" Max said. "I'll buy you another drink."
The guy growled and hefted the table. "Okay," Max said, "no drink." It was just as well, as the bartender had managed to conveniently disappear from sight. Behind the counter, framed by several large boulders, was a cave containing stacks of large kegs. The upper lip of the cave formed a narrow ledge overhead. Dangling in front of the ledge over the bar was a line of additional kegs, lashed together in threes and suspended by cables from pulleys. The cables ran down to a rack of marlinspikes in the rock at the end of the bar, just on the other side of the counter from Max, in fact. The giant swung the table again and took a bead on Max.
"Don't be ridiculous," Max said. "It's too hot for this kind of nonsense." The man reared up with the table. "All right, then," said Max, "have it your way." Max leaned over the counter, selected one cable, grasped it firmly with his right hand, and sharply cocked his right wrist. A blade sprung out of his sleeve below his palm and slashed the rope. Max rose swiftly into the air as the trio of lashed kegs at the other end of the bar equally swiftly descended. The kegs struck the waving table, the table overbalanced as its wielder lost his grip, and with one loud thud and a trio of lesser thuds the table hit the giant's head and the kegs again hit the table. All collapsed in a clatter and small cloud of dust.
A final two shards fell to the floor, there was a moment of silence, and then the unmistakable s