Bounty

by Harper Alexander

  “Yes; figure it out yourself.”

  12: TRAPS

  The alley was found threateningly empty where the wolf had collapsed from the poison. The report left Mastodon highly displeased, and Godren on edge.

  “I have an escaped prisoner, a rabid wolf, an unnaturally dangerous cripple, and an unnamed hunter all on the loose in my alleys,” Mastodon lectured her men. “Where is my security?”

  “Setting prisoners free, getting bested by cripples, mauled by wolves, and otherwise conveniently missing targets when the darts are turned to as a last resort,” Ossen volunteered an answer, looking pleased with himself.

  “Well that’s very clearly intended to single out two of us, Ossen, so where’ve you been?” Seth challenged. “Do you have a better excuse than getting mauled by wolves?”

  That earned Ossen’s cold eyes, but Mastodon intervened.

  “Enough,” she said. “I wasn’t looking for excuses, or even candid explanations as much as promises to do better and suggestions of how you might accomplish that.”

  “I think we should sabotage the alleys,” Godren said, uninvolved in Ossen and Seth’s spitefully misguided concentration.

  Mastodon looked at him. “Sabotage? How do you mean?”

  “If you have unwanted figures on the loose in your alleys, and there’s no easy way to set out and locate them, why don’t we set traps?”

  For a few moments Mastodon stared consideringly at him, as if trying to find fault with his suggestion. Then she shrugged her eyebrows. “Why not? If you’d be kind enough to engineer said traps, Godren, then I’m all for such a scheme,” she granted. “I’m beginning to see what a good investment you were. Feel free to move forward with this.”

  Godren could not help but be averse to the praise, conscious of his present rivals, but there was not much he could do to smooth it over, so he didn’t try. Acknowledging it in any way would probably only make it worse. So he let go of his resentment and focused on a more subtle emotion: dread. If Mastodon was keen on him proceeding, she would expect him to get right on it, and he was not too keen about that himself. He was stiffer than a statue after his ordeal, every muscle burning with soreness where it wasn’t bruised black or slashed open. His hand was especially stiff, feeling like it belonged to a corpse, and his neck was especially tender where the wolf’s teeth had punctured and torn. He looked like hell, too, which Ossen had informed him himself, and it was that which made Godren most resent that he had to baby himself along, that motivated him to ignore his injuries and get right on what Mastodon wanted him to do.

  Curse pride, Godren thought, half wishing he would voice his perfectly valid excuse and wait to fulfill the task until he could move without his body screaming in protest.

  “Do you have a map of the Ruins?” he asked, refusing to be weak or slowed down. Aside from brandishing resilience for Ossen's benefit, impressing Mastodon was a key to his survival. He had to keep her pleased, and if he didn’t keep himself humble, he knew she would do that for him. He couldn’t pamper himself.

  Nodding, Mastodon unlocked a drawer in her desk and rolled it open to produce the requested document. It was a long, soft scroll, made of something halfway between parchment and fabric, and it was clean and spared of creases or cracks. Mastodon handed it over, and Godren carefully stretched his pained arm out to accept it.

  “And I’d like to sketch another version, if you have the tools to spare,” Godren mentioned. “To map out the best locations for traps.”

  This time, Mastodon stood and went to another set of drawers, slipping out two sheets of plain parchment and adequate drawing utensils. Godren collected those, and then began studying the map while Mastodon finished addressing the men in her study.

  “I want you all to help with whatever Godren needs. Make yourselves agreeable and you’ll be more useful.”

  Ossen was undoubtedly gritting his teeth at that, but he would never defy Mastodon to her face. He’d probably just make himself the opposite of useful when Godren needed something. Dreading his help, Godren thought maybe he just wouldn’t ask for it. But ordering Ossen around had a bit of tempting charm to it. He would have to wait and see what kind of assistance he ended up requiring.

  “And whatever happens,” Mastodon continued, “don’t let anyone else in, and don’t let any of the present trespassers get any closer. They shouldn’t be in my alleys to begin with.”

  “Do you have any idea who any of them could be, Mastress?” Bastin inquired, using the term of respect Mastodon had conjured for herself, a combination of ‘mastodon’ and ‘mistress’ that came out sounding like a more feminine version of ‘master’.

  “For a long time I’ve known the names and faces of my most prominent threats, but a new age has arisen, a new generation, and I’m afraid no – these characters are new to me, fresh blood,” Mastodon replied. “I will have to ask around and see what I can glean.”

  Godren wondered exactly what she meant by ‘ask around’, since she hardly ever came out from behind her desk and certainly never went out. Perhaps she used the ghosts somehow, but who exactly were her contacts? Not that he doubted she had connections, but he was curious who they were.

  With that, Mastodon was through with them, and they all went their separate dark ways. Godren headed to the courtyard to get right to work on drawing his plans, but was delayed for a time despairing over wielding the drawing utensils with his mangled hand. At first he thought he wouldn’t be able to use it at all, and kicked himself for not realizing something so blatantly halting before committing himself to this. He spent a long while massaging the stiffness out, careful not to massage the bruising, and was finally able to grasp the little tube that held the drawing lead. Starting with a compromising light sketch, he began recreating the network of alleys with plans for the traps they would set. It was all very faint as he carefully brushed the lead over the parchment, but he could darken it later.

  As he drew the alleys from a bird’s-eye view, an idea slowly presented itself to him. Could the Ruins be navigated from atop the walls? Not only would that spare Mastodon’s men from the risk of tripping the very traps they’d set, but it would also present an unexpected, discreet vantage point for keeping surveillance on the alleys.

  Warming to the idea, Godren installed some extra additions to the top of the stonework with his pencil. They would need a few bridges for convenience and some discreet ways up and down. Outlining a quick plan, he spent the next few hours putting it on paper. His hand cramped often, and he had to pause to massage it out, but he was eager to finish now that he’d gotten into the project and piqued his own creative interest.

  When he was done, the bites puncturing his palm were open and bleeding, and his hand was aching and sore in its entirety, but he looked at the masterpiece sketched from one edge of the parchment to the other and didn’t even spare his agitated injury a second thought.

  He just needed supplies, he thought as his eyes skimmed over his work. A few experiments would be necessary to engineer the traps he had in mind, but he already had a decent mental sketch of the details.

  Finished with the plans, he rose to present them to Mastodon.

  *

  After the mistress of the Underworld approved the plans and produced the necessary equipment, the engineering and labor began. The mechanics of the traps were fairly simple and mostly similar regardless of how the traps themselves deviated. Setting them involved a lot of spider work, stringing the alleys with the properly poised thread triggers that dropped nets from above or pulled the crumbling top edges of the alley walls down on top of you. Whether caught or buried, the traps were sure to serve their purpose: preventing anyone from reaching the secret heart of the Ruins.

  Mastodon was also very taken with the idea of traveling the Ruins on top of the walls. It intrigued her to no end, and she actually smiled at him, in a wickedly appreciative sort of way – happy with her investment again, no doubt.

  Granted enthusiastic permission, Godren got
right on constructing the minor deviations that were necessary to make the walls navigable from the top. He didn’t bother making anything fancy – just strung a few rope ladders in the shadowed backdrops where some of the connecting walls overlapped, and threw a few crude scraps of sturdy wood across the gaps between walls where it made the most sense to secure bridges. Though he felt like he’d been trampled by a herd of horses by the end of his disciplined dedication to the relentless work, the job was done swiftly and well. Healing was something he’d have to do on his own time.

  “Feeling alright?” Seth asked him as the project came to an end.

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “Well, feeling alive anyway?”

  “And wishing I wasn’t, but yes.”

  “You know, I really hate to say this,” Seth cringed, “but Ossen’s right for once. You look like hell.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just being honest, Ren. That’s what friends do.”

  “You just directly called Ossen my friend.”

  Seth frowned in realization. “How come he gets to throw around offenses by being perfectly, angelically honest, but if you try to return the favor and counter them they come out as ‘you look like an angel, Ossen; you smell so sweetly, Ossen; you’re jolly, bloody, pretty-smelling the cursed image of utter perfection tonight and every other night, Ossen’? It’s not fair.”

  “Some people have natural grace, Seth. Perfect by nature. And then some of us are naturally, hopelessly flawed in the pall of their statuesque shadows.”

  “I detect a frightful imbalance.”

  “Try to look on the bright side.”

  “There is no bright side. We are immersed in the very essence of one big dark side, Ren, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Then try a new perspective. Just think – one scratch is all it would take to ruin him. That’s the thing about perfection; it is entirely, wonderfully too easy to mar.”

  “Then why are we sitting here leaving him to his perfect face? What are we waiting for?”

  “One scratch is all it would take to ruin him, Seth, but that’s all it would take to provoke him, too.”

  “Drat. Of course. And you’re in no shape to skirmish.”

  “I wasn’t in any shape to remodel a whole sector of ruins, either, but I managed that just fine.”

  “Are you suggesting we go scratch him after all?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  Seth started to grin, delighted, but reversed the gesticulation just as quickly. “But you don’t mean it, do you?” he asked knowingly, disheartened.

  Godren let out his breath. “Unfortunately…not quite. But you’re always welcome to get at him yourself, since you do anyway. I’d rather bide my time.”

  “I hate time.”

  “I hate pain,” Godren put in his aversion, getting comfortable.

  “I hate pain and time.”

  “I hate pain and time together.”

  “I hate...melons.”

  “I hate cold baths.”

  “I hate mocking birds.”

  “I hate bugs.”

  “I hate weeds. And cold toes.”

  “I hate the relentless rain that grows the weeds and the unwelcome holes in the socks that inspire the cold toes.”

  “You know what I hate?”

  “What do you hate, Seth?”

  “Roses. More than anything else, I hate roses.”

  13: Damious

  The traps had no immediate success. Adaptation to mounting the walls for travel, however, was taken up quite enthusiastically. Even Ossen showed his immense pleasure at the method of surveillance, though he would never admit Godren had been the source. He ignored that fact and embraced the thrill of spying from the ledges, making himself right at home where he could look down on the rest of the world.

  Godren posted his sketch along one of the main passages of the Underworld so his allies could familiarize themselves with the layout of additions to the Ruins. He memorized it himself very quickly; having designed it, the details were easy to learn, originally having been his own ideas.

  That done, Godren made a bold move and assigned everyone shifts, taking authority and daring to see how it turned out. Ossen showed clear resentment for it, Bastin appeared to disapprove but made things easy by not voicing anything at all, Kane stared a little mordantly and spat, and Seth accepted the assignment wearily – but no one complained, and Godren sighed mentally in relief. Outwardly, he was all business and indifference.

  During his first shift, he carried a gun up the wall and walked across the midnight lengths of old stone, the weapon relaxed but ready in his grip, but his stride more relaxed than anything. Oddly, instead of feeling exposed and unsteady making his way across the dark ledges, he felt contrastingly elated and free. The air seemed fresher up here, less smothered – cleaner. And the danger of falling seemed so much less relevant than the threat of rounding a turn and haplessly coming to confront his archenemy on the other side. In addition, not only did he have a superior view of the Ruined grounds, but he could see the sky so much better from up here as well. How starved he had been of the sky lately. Before his shift was half over, he found himself trailing aimlessly with his distracted eyes cast wistfully skyward, trying to see to the depths of forever to make up for being stunted in the recent art of wishful stargazing.

  It became a habit, using his shift as an excuse to get away from the smothering underground kingdom and lay beneath eternity, breathing in the sky and forgetting the gun in his hands. Disregarding his duty, he would settle onto his back and face freedom, perched on a slight ledge that saw everything else fall away and left him breathlessly suspended at the edge of the open sky.

  He only came down because, eventually, he realized someone would come looking if he didn’t occasionally report back or check in with his allies, but as far as he was concerned he could live up there on the walls. More often than not, he abandoned the courtyard and slept willingly on a ledge instead, discovering he would rather have his life endangered than live his life smothered and stunted.

  When he did return to the Underworld, there was news. Bastin was before Mastodon, standing with grim conviction though it didn’t reach his face, and Godren kept his mouth shut as he joined them, wanting to see what was abroad.

  “I know that look, Bastin,” Mastodon was saying. “Too many times has it preceded something I dread. You might as well spit it out.”

  Bastin shrugged his eyebrows. “There’s not much dancing around it anyway,” he admitted. “And there’s really only one way to say it.”

  “Well?”

  “Damious is in town.”

  To that, Mastodon did not precisely react. Finally, after a completely blank, rather lengthy stare, she spoke – but she still didn’t blink. “How do you know?”

  “I saw him, when I was inquiring around for you at the Dark Angel. He was drinking in the corner.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “He grinned at me.”

  “I see.”

  Godren lowered himself into his usual chair, watching the two of them for more information.

  “Well this can lead to no good,” Mastodon finally remarked.

  “Indeed, Mastress. My thoughts exactly,” Bastin agreed.

  “Did you linger once he spotted you?”

  “I left the instant I became aware of his presence.”

  “Very good. Did you have time to learn anything, then?”

  “There is a new figure gracing the dark streets of the city who goes loudly by ‘Wolf’. That in itself isn’t entirely conclusive, but he could easily be our loose wolf tamer.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Who’s Damious?” Godren put in at last, not picking up on anything further.

  Bastin cast him a wary, warning look, but Godren ignored it and turned his eyes questioningly to Mastodon, obstinately wanting an answer.

  “He’s an assassin,” Mastodon r
eplied, “whom I courted in my younger days.”

  The word ‘assassin’ in place of a more expected term such as ‘bounty hunter’ drew a raised eyebrow from Godren.

  “We met abroad when I was somewhere near your age, and were taken with each other for a great length of time, until he gave up his professional expertise for the cruder life of a bounty hunter and I kicked him out in fear that my value as a criminal would tempt him more than my companionship.”

  Godren absorbed that and considered what Damious’s presence could mean. “Is he a threat, then?”

  “You tell me, Godren. If anyone knows my secrets, who would it be?”

  “A lover.”

  “Exactly. Of course, I was never stupid enough to tell him all of them, but he knows more than anyone else. And he knows I’m here and knows I don’t tolerate other infamous figures hanging about my city unchecked. And since I have it on good authority we never want to see one another again, he could only dare be here for one reason.”

  “He’s after you,” Godren finished knowingly. “For revenge?”

  “Or simply the thrilling irony of it. Damious always had a thing for irony.”

  Propping his elbow on the arm of the chair, Godren stroked his chin in thought. “What do we do?”

  Mastodon shrugged an eyebrow wryly. “Wait, I imagine. He has a thing for drama, too, and I’m sure he’ll make a dramatic entrance sometime rather soon. The only thing we can do is keep an eye out for him. Rest assured, you’ll know him when you see him.”

  Godren was sure she was right, but he didn’t feel any better for it. In fact, he felt a bit uneasy about being limited to sitting idly around expecting an unwelcome guest. A dangerous guest, whom Mastodon did not seem confident about holding at bay. If she couldn’t hope to prevent him from reaching them, that left only physical prevention once he was here. Would Godren finally have to step in and defend Mastodon herself, rather than merely protecting her domain? He began to consider actually throwing his life in front of her if she needed it, and the thought made him grimly restless.