by Desconocido
'MY GRANDSON IS dead then?' the question emerged from Viscount Augustine de Chegney's mouth like the forlorn growl of a wretched and dying wolf.
Brunner looked up at the seated nobleman upon his raised throne-like chair. He could imagine the man sitting there not as he was, a morose creature who had seen his last chance for posterity taken from him, who knew that his long and noble line would now end with his last breath but as a cruel and sadistic brute, resplendent in treacherous triumph. He could imagine the viscount sitting there, slowly sipping his wine as a sobbing maiden with long golden hair washed his feet with her tears, begging with the beast that had become her father to spare the battered and broken man whose blood still stained the stones of the hall's floor. He could almost hear the viscount's words of conciliation, of acquiescence to the pleas of his daughter-in-law. He could almost see the shabby, lice-ridden shapes of the slavers standing in the shadows of the room, there to ensure that every promise the viscount made to the maiden would become a lie.
'They never had the boy,' the bounty hunter's cold voice said. 'After leaving the castle, they killed the nurse and the baby, feeling that their prisoners would be too much of a burden to maintain. They never intended to return the child to you,' the bounty hunter concluded. He reached over and carefully unwrapped the small knotted cloth bundle that sat at his side upon the floor. The soiled cloth unfolded itself and the head of Ursio cast its sightless eyes upon the viscount.
The viscount trembled with emotion, one hand rising to conceal his face from the bounty hunter. With his other hand the nobleman gestured to his seneschal. 'Pay the man,' the viscount spoke through his fingers.
Elodore Pleasant shambled forward, withdrawing a leather pouch from the breast of his tunic. Brunner rose, opening his hand, letting the heavy sack of money sink into his palm. The bounty hunter bowed slightly to Pleasant.
Brunner favoured the viscount with a final icy stare. The viscount looked back, seeing only the hired killer his henchman had engaged. Brunner bowed again, leaving the viscount to consider all that he had lost.
THE ARMOURED TRAVELLER emerged from the rear room of the tavern, leaving the young woman and the quietly sleeping baby behind. He turned his black-helmed head towards the innkeeper, a slightly balding man in early middle age. The merchant gulped as he met the icy eyes of the bounty hunter.
'When I brought the child here three days ago,' the voice beneath the helm rasped, 'I promised you gold if you would care for him.' The man's gloved hand placed a leather pouch upon the counter of the bar, the sound of clinking metal whispering across the tavern as the bag came to rest. The innkeeper stepped forward, placing a protective hand on the bag of money.
'Rest assured, sir,' he said, his voice betraying his nervousness, 'I shall look after him as though he were my own.'
'You will do better than that,' the warrior said, his tone slipping still lower. 'Look after him as though his life were your own.' The bounty hunter strode towards the door. 'Because it is.'
'I shall return from time to time,' Brunner said over his shoulder as he opened the door of the tavern. 'To check on my grandson, and to bring you more gold. Take good care of him, Wiedemann.'
The bounty hunters last words seemed to linger as he closed the door.
'I'll find out if you don't.'
Scanned, layouted and (only very basic) proof-read by Mon
Version 0.9