The First Book of Lankhmar

On this eve of all eves he must not risk needless trouble — the chance of being crippled, it might even be, or dead.
           Tactics, man, tactics, he told himself as he moved eagerly toward Mara, exclaiming in hurt, honeyed tones, "Mara, my queen, how can you believe such of me, who love you more than — "
           "Keep off me, liar and cheat!"
           "And you carrying my son," he persisted, still trying to embrace her. "How does the bonny babe?"
           "Spits at his father. Keep off me, I say."
           "But I yearn to touch your ticklesome skin, than which there is no other balm for me this side of Hell, oh most beauteous made more beautiful by motherhood."
           "Go to Hell, then. And stop these sickening pretenses. Your acting wouldn't deceive a drunken she-scullion. Hamfatter!"
           Stung to his blood, which instantly grew hot, Fafhrd retorted, "And what of your own lies? Yesterday you boasted of how you'd cow and control my mother. Instanter you went sniveling to tell her you were with child by me."
           "Only after I knew you lusted after the actress. And was it anything but the complete truth? Oh, you twister!"
           Fafhrd stood back and folded his arms. He pronounced, "Wife of mine must be true to me, must trust me, must ask me first before she acts, must comport herself like the mate of a chief paramount to-be. It appears to me that in all of these you fall short."
           "True to you? You're one to talk!" Her fair face grew unpleasantly red and strained with rage. "Chief paramount! Set your sights merely on being called a man by the Snow Clan, which they've not done yet. Hear me now, sneak and dissembler. You will instantly plead for my pardon on your knees and then come with me to ask my mother and aunts for my hand, or else — "
           "I'd sooner kneel to a snake! Or wed a she-bear!" Fafhrd cried out, all thoughts of tactics vanished.
           "I'll set my brothers on you," she screamed back. "Cowardly boor!"
           Fafhrd lifted his fist, dropped it, set his hands to his head and rocked it in a gesture of maniacal desperation, then suddenly ran past her toward the camp.
           "I'll set the whole tribe on you! I'll tell it in the Tent of the Women. I'll tell your mother..." Mara shrieked after him, her voice fading fast with the intervening boughs, snow, and distance.
           Barely pausing to note that none were abroad amongst the Snow Clan's tents, either because they were still at the trading fair or inside preparing supper, Fafhrd bounded up his treasure tree and flipped open the door of his hidey hole. Cursing the fingernail he broke doing so, he got out the sealskin-wrapped bow and arrows and rockets and added thereto his best pair of skis and ski sticks, a somewhat shorter package holding his father's second-best sword well-oiled, and a pouch of smaller gear. Dropping to the snow, he swiftly bound the longer items into a single pack, which he slung over shoulder.
           After a moment of indecision, he hurtled inside Mor's tent, snatching from his pouch a small fire-pot of bubblestone, and filled it with glowing embers from the hearth, sprinkled ashes over them, laced the pot tight shut, and returned it to his pouch.
           Then turning in frantic haste toward the doorway, he stopped dead. Mor stood in it, a tall silhouette white-edged and shadow-faced.
           "So you're deserting me and the Waste. Not to return. You think."
           Fafhrd was speechless.
           "Yet you will return. If you wish it to be a-crawl on four feet, or blessedly on two, and not stretched lifeless on a litter of spears, weigh soon your duties and your birth."
           Fafhrd framed a bitter answer, but the very words were a gag in his gullet. He stalked toward Mor.
           "Make way, Mother," he managed in a whisper.
           She did not move.
           His jaws clamped in a horrid grimace of tension, he shot forth his hands, gripped her under the armpits — his flesh crawling — and set her to one side. She seemed as stiff and cold as ice. She made no protest. He could not look her in the face.
           Outside, he started at a brisk pace for Godshall, but there were men in his way — four hulking young blond ones flanked by a dozen others.
           Mara had brought not only her brothers from the fair, but all her available