Bounty

by Harper Alexander

  “Shut up, Seth.”

  “Just checking,” Sethos obliged irritably.

  “Are you armed?”

  “When am I not?”

  “Good. Let’s catch up with Ossen.”

  “Who said we have to work together–” Sethos started to complain.

  “I meant statistic-wise, before he does all the work and finds another bloody reason to tattle on us, and gets another golden pat on his pretty back.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to split up too, or are you with me?” Godren asked as he strode down the dark corridor toward the Underworld’s main exit, still irritable from the exchange of words in Mastodon’s quarters.

  “Cool it, Ren; whatever you want. I can go either way.”

  “Then I’ll be fine on my own just now; I’m not feeling particularly friendly.”

  “Fine. I’ll find my own wing to purge. Good hunting, brother.”

  With that, they emerged past Kane where he kept guard and went separate ways, foul moods contributing to the attitude they needed to undertake this assignment.

  Godren strode through the Ruins with every intention of doing exactly what Mastodon wanted; intercepting the stray trespassers and throwing them out. He was not of a mind, just then, to procrastinate about the task’s cruelty. In the back of his mind, he wondered if it was even a good thing that Ossen was there to fray his nerves. Would his will to grit his teeth and bear his own cruelty eventually collapse if he didn’t have something there to feed his anger? Keep it coming, foe, he thought. Give me every good reason you can to take you out in the end.

  As Godren set his mind to the task at hand, his fingers hovered next to the hilts of his sheathed knives, ready to sweep them out in an instant of need. Completely at ease with the prospect of having to use them, he was not taut – just poised. He had developed an intimidating sense of confidence in his ability very quickly upon taking to the streets, finding a comforting ally of dependence in his quick reflexes. Accuracy had been honed with a bit of time, but now graced him with a finesse that eased the tension ever-present with the feeling of an exposed back. He did not fear to walk alone through streets crawling with backstabbers now – a prospect both comforting and disconcerting in itself. His position was a sour thing to maintain; reduced to dishonorable pride, he had to keep reminding himself that it was just an image – never mind that he was good at these things, never mind that the respect he had earned was well-earned. It was still just an image. A mask. A mask that was beginning to scar his face admittedly, but he could still claw it away if he needed to, if the course of his life would ever give him a chance. Maybe he could just find a way to take it off for a little while – that was what he needed. To step outside of what things had become and masquerade as himself, where no one knew his face. Unlikely that sort of opportunity would jump readily out at him, but surely there was somewhere he could go…

  He was distracted from his plans as his first victim became evident; an old man slouched against the base of the alley wall came into view through the darkness, half-hidden beneath a nest of garbage he was using to stave off the cold.

  Godren kicked the garbage off, winning the man’s wide-eyed, hare-like attention. “Up and out, old man,” he ordered. “Don’t seek shelter here.”

  The homeless old codger stammered some toothless protest, but Godren hauled him to his feet and sent him packing, merciless in the driving shadow of Mastodon’s bidding. Slamming his guilt aside, he turned from the deed and moved on toward the next. This was the easy part, he told himself; he would do well to get used to it.

  His next encounter was with a scrawny urchin, a flighty boy who launched to his crudely-slippered feet the moment he saw Godren coming and took off down the alley. Godren was not about to let him off so easily, though, actually partial to the idea of drilling fear of this place into the young boy’s head. His kind had no business here, and it would be in his best interests to stay far away.

  He pursued the boy, gaining swiftly on him even though his quarry darted elusively this way and that, well adept at using his small size to evasive advantage. A trip on his part was what ultimately allowed Godren to reach his side, and Godren dragged him to his scrambling feet.

  “That’s it, boy,” he encouraged threateningly. “You run. You run fast and hard, and get as far away as your blistered feet can carry you. And if I ever catch you feeding off the Ruins again, I’ll wring your scrawny little neck.” He pushed the boy away so forcefully that he stumbled and nearly fell again, but righted his teetering stance and fled anew with all the spooked obedience in his little heart.

  Watching after him, Godren let out a breath, his cruel manner draining with it. He felt low, suddenly void of the supportive attitude Ossen’s spitefulness had provoked within him. What was he doing? Where would this corrupt undertaking end?

  “Feelin’ good about yerself?” inquired a mocking voice behind him, bringing him around to regard the sudden speaker. An old crone lounged in her own garbage nest at the edge of the street, same as the old man Godren had chased away. But he did not remember passing her, could have sworn she hadn’t been there a second ago. Through the dark, her old eyes were sharp, penetrating blue circles, beady little daggers framed by fanning spreads of veins and wrinkles. Godren found himself caught off his guard by her presence as much as her question, and did not know how to answer.

  “What’s become o’ you, deary? Sweet thing?” continued the crone. “I ’ope ye think ye’re makin’ yer dead father proud. A god ye are, after all. But terrible black shame, it is. Fine lad like yerself, not a mean bone in yer handsome body, reduced to threatenin’ poor children on their bony last legs? Or per’aps you take foul pleasure in it? Who put a cork in yer fine destiny, diverting the current so twistedly? A beastly sort of a god now, aren’t you?”

  Mastering himself, Godren ignored her odd questions and remarks. “You’re not welcome any more than he is, crone. Clear out.”

  She cackled. Godren felt a wariness stir inside him at that uncanny reaction. He stood at his distance, waiting for her to quiet.

  “Can’t clear out,” she said, smiling. Surprisingly, she had all her teeth. Casting aside a large sack she was using to fend off the chill, she bared a concealed wooden leg. “Been ’ere fer years, deary, since the war. Pickin’ spiders off the ground as they pass, breakfast, lunch an’ supper. Gettin’ their spindly legs stuck between my teeth. Drinkin’ only when it rains, oily wine from th’ dirty sky. Oh no, I never leave. Never. Not in a thousan’ years. Can’t make me. Can’t make me, silly god.”

  “I’m not a god,” Godren said, unnerved by the strange term she kept using.

  “It’s yer name,” she corrected, and then cackled at him like she thought he was silly.

  “I’ve no time for your nonsense, crone. I’ll throw you out myself if you don’t find it in you to take yourself.”

  “Mark me words,” she threatened, suddenly very serious, “Ye lay one finger on me, an’ I’ll break every bone in yer body.” Her eyes had gone narrow and chilling, daring him to try something, anything. What he found disturbing was that he truly felt something wary respond in his gut. But he was not going to be dissuaded by a crippled old woman.

  “Get out, madam,” he said very evenly. “Right now.” And he bent to place a hand around her arm.

  With a bloodcurdling, wordless cry, the woman launched herself at him from her idle position, sending the scraps of her nest strewing. Only after she attacked did Godren note that her thin arm was not equally frail and sagging in his grip, but tight and well-muscled beneath her baggy, tattered sleeves. Cursing, he threw up his guard and tried to dodge out of her range, but she clawed at him like a feral creature and sank her teeth into his arm before he could manage it. She was still much lighter than he, though, and he quickly found a dominant stance. Throwing her aside off his arm, he drew a knife in each hand while she was picking her crumpled form up off the alley floor. Against his expectations – not to mention the p
robability of an injury – the crone appeared to have avoided acquiring any such discrepancy from the impact of her flight.

  “Don’t tempt your fate, my lady,” Godren warned as she drew herself up to a threatening pose facing him, lurking behind wispy strands of loose grey hair.

  “Me fate has been tempted fer years, boy, and it hasn’t done me in as of yet.”

  “But I’m a god, remember?” he reminded her, making reference to her claims. “I could deliver it right here, right now.”

  Some raspy inner laugh whistled mockingly through her teeth, wheezing out from her terribly amused core. “A god,” she scoffed. “That is only yer name.”

  What did she bloody flaming mean by that? Godren tightened his hold on the hilts of his knives, hearing the leather creak in his grip.

  “You haven’t a mean bone in yer body, boy,” she informed him, lapsing into an ominous mood from her wheezing hilarity. “And soon you won’t have an unbroken bone in yer body. I said I’d break ’em, I meant I’d break ’em.”

  At that point Godren had decided to stop talking to her. She was clearly cracked. He prepared himself for whatever she might throw at him, knowing it could be anything. If she wasn’t in her right mind, she would not be limited to playing by the odds.

  But she surprised him anyway by reaching into her sleeves and sliding out two wicked knives, arming herself against him. She stood awkwardly on her wooden leg, but didn’t appear trustworthily hindered by it.

  Gods, Godren thought. Who does this woman think she is?

  “You claim the ability to deliver me fate readily enough, boy, but you still seem hesitant to cross me. What’s this? A criminal ace reluctant to take on an old woman? Are you goin’ to earn the hair on yer back, or remain a cowardly baby mastodon? Show me yer bite, alley snake!”

  Not replying, Godren watched her, waiting for her move. She wasn’t going to stand there forever – no, she would lunge on her own soon enough.

  The crone chanted something under her breath, causing the wisps of hair in her face to dance across her features, like grey snakes billowing to her words. Then with a rising growl and intensifying flash of her blue eyes, she flew at him.

  She was swift, and she was fierce. Godren found himself subtly alarmed at her fervor, stricken by her rabid agility and unlikely strength. For a frail old thing, she was not to be trifled with. Panting through her hair, she clashed her blades with his, a crude encounter that slipped and threatened them both with its lack of accuracy. They tangled with blade and limb, the woman a clawing blur of hobbling agility, and Godren a fluid figure of defense. It was just the fact that he was fighting defensively that gave him cause to rethink the situation.

  But he had no time. The crone tore and slashed at him, whirling and hobbling around him like some crazed creature, rasping and snarling as the struggle intensified. It was a crude quarrel, delivering bruising glances and drawing lots of small blood, and the crone scored against him far more than he was comfortable with. Far more than was warranted, in his opinion, but then that was what made it so disconcerting. His breath was coming short, and his vicious assailant, though surely equally fatigued, did not slow her crazed assault. She tore at his clothes, his hair, shearing at him with lethal, snake-fast knives, climbing all over him, it seemed, and wearing him out just forcing him to keep up with her. He did his best to intercept her fatal blows, but felt like he was cutting it too close each time, barely fending her off. She had a lightning-fast, mocking way of fighting him, crying little meaningless words of success and taunting him with quick, inconsequential grazes with her blades before she was coming at him from a different angle.

  Ducking in behind him, she launched to his back and latched on like a leech. He threw her off, driven to his knees from the stunt, and hurried to pick himself up as he heard her scrambling to her own feet behind him. Half-balanced, he swept around to face her, and found himself facing only a breezy, empty alley.

  After he blinked, he had to wonder what had made the alley appear ‘breezy’ to his eyes, for nothing billowed anywhere in the solid, stony vicinity. It was almost as if the breeze itself had been visible.

  But then he had to wipe the sweat from running into his eyes, and he realized how dizzy he was from the quarrel. That must have been all he saw, he decided – dizziness. Of course, that didn’t solve the mystery of where the crippled old crone had scrambled off to so quickly, and he checked the lurking shadows of the alley edges, searching for her.

  This is madness, he thought, going rigid in the uncanny absence of his opponent. Utter, stark-raving madness. Surely not on his part, though? he had to wonder. There was something unnatural about the old woman who had disappeared from his midst. He wasn’t just seeing things.

  Unnerved, but refusing to be influenced by what had transpired, Godren swallowed his hesitance and treaded forward to finish his job, unable to shed light on his assailant’s whereabouts. Spooked or not, he was not going to return to the Underworld with anything less than what Mastodon expected.

  He didn’t encounter anyone else during his raid, though. The alleys were all vacant and awash with silence, and all that was left to be achieved was keeping a watchful eye on them to assure that they stayed that way.

  6: Courtyard Reminiscence

  Memories flowed unchecked as Godren lay by the water. “You look terrible,” Ossen had said upon his return to the Underworld, to which Godren had replied “So do you” – an insult rather than any countering valid fact, for Ossen had not even looked like he’d gotten his hands dirty. Retreating to his adopted courtyard, Godren had leaned over the fountain’s rim and stared long and hard at his reflection. He did look terrible – but not just because of the blood, dirt and sweat that plastered his hair and torn clothing to his grimy body. There was something in his eyes that tainted his image, some jaded sense of regret that stared out like a dark stranger staring right back. There was a shadow in his eyes, and as everyone well knew, shadows were hard things to shake.

  That’s when the memories started coming. Next to his reflection, he conjured up other images from his past, and a view of Wingbridge rippled into existence beside him in the water. There were visions of familiar places, beloved faces. When it became too much Godren turned from the water and lay on the fountain’s rim, but the memories did not subside. They flashed through his mind like a dream – surely that past had been a dream. Looking back was like looking into a mirror of innocence, unreachable behind the glass. And it was only right to keep such forsaken purity locked away in a glass case. If he couldn’t have it, he at least wanted to know it was safe in the form that he remembered and missed so much. Unbreakable. Immortal.

  How did it come to this? Godren lamented, but in a numb way that went to show just how many times he’d asked himself that question. It had lost its conviction, failed to send the pangs of hopelessness wracking through him – which, ironically, had stopped when he’d finally accepted hopelessness completely; had, in other words, truly become hopeless.

  Why me? was the next question that always followed. And it wasn’t just an unwarranted demand equal to those thrown around by bitter unfortunates feeling sorry for themselves. Godren really was a victim. He had every valid reason to ask that question, to ask why – why had he been accused of murder? Why had he been framed with the most condemning of accusations, stripped of his innocence without any say and plunged into an unkind destiny in order to escape an unfair fate?

  None of it made any sense. None of it was fair. But worse than having to die for that, was that he had to live with it.

  Asking why never helped, Godren reminded himself, whether he had every right to ask it or not. He turned his head to the side in frustration, breaking the gaze that had been imagining the dark underside of the ground as an open night sky above him. Maybe it was better that he couldn’t see the stars; if his destiny was written there, he was not so sure he wanted to read it.

  Rolling off the fountain rim, Godren leaned over the edge and splashed h
is face, scrubbing it clean as if he could wash away the change in his features that was such an unwelcome representation of the changes in his life. But although it made him feel better, it only made the changes in his face show more clearly, revealed from behind the significant grime that he detested, but that had served as a partial mask to hide what he didn’t want to see beneath it.

  Even more discouraged now, Godren grounded his elbows on the fountain rim and buried his scarred face in his dirty hands – washed or not, it seemed they were permanently stained. He rested that way, trying to deal with himself.

  That’s when Seth returned, pausing at the courtyard’s entrance and lingering there, watching Godren with a grim, knowing look at first, and then ducking his head to give his friend a moment – while he himself struggled with a rise of empathetic emotions.

  As if sensing him there, Godren took a moment and then glanced up. Seth didn’t look quite as mauled as he had upon his return, but he did look a bit tousled.

  Like he’d been given leeway to enter since his presence had been acknowledged, Seth treaded into the courtyard then. His white shirt looked sweaty and streaked with dirt, and his face and hands showed similar wear, but Godren didn’t see any blood.

  “Rough night?” Seth asked knowingly, moving past Godren and taking his own seat on the fountain, where he began pulling off his boots. He looked resigned.

  Godren was looking into the water again, but his eyes were absent. “Do you remember old times?” he asked, ignoring Seth’s question.

  Seth glanced at him, to which Godren was completely oblivious, and decided to reply – but the resignation was evident in his voice. “Only too well. What has become of things, when it’s the good times that haunt you?” Finishing off his boots, he swung himself lengthwise to the curving ledge he was propped on and settled down onto his back, gazing up at the ceiling that was the ground with that same wistful distance in his eyes – fooling himself into that same sad excuse of stargazing. He ran his fingers through his short-cropped, light brown hair once, and then let one arm dangle off the edge of the fountain while the other rested across his chest. “Shoot, Ren. Maybe we just weren’t meant to stay in Wingbridge. Maybe we were just meant for bigger things.”