Bounty (6 page)

“
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 his 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.”

Godren snorted bitterly. “Couldn’t we have been given a sign? Something a little more subtle than the rude awakening that was thrown in our faces?”

“
I guess destiny is ruthless sometimes. And unjust. And two-sided.”

Godren sighed. “And who are we to defy it?”

“
Well if I ever get one measly scrap of a chance, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Godren was going to agree vehemently, but remembered the listening ghosts and reminded himself to keep things harmless. He decided to drop the subject, settling on the fountain ledge in search of a state of mind that would cure his weariness. As his dangling fingers trailed over the water, he found himself half-hoping he would fall in while he was asleep – that he would fall into that pool of memories that had appeared as visions next to his reflection, or that the water would wash everything away, and free him of the stains that bound him to an inescapable reality. Or maybe he would drown, he considered distantly as he faded toward sleep. Drowning in a pool of memories would be a nice way to go, where he could pretend it had all ended back then after all – when his happiness had been a near, easy thing to recall, before the matter of his escape had gotten out of hand.

7:
Defiance and Allowance

K
ane called a meeting from his station above ground, and the summoned attendees made their way to the upper world to oblige, gathering in the crumbling interior of the empty building that was the Underworld’s main entrance.

Bastin was there, standing commandingly in a way that looked at the same time perfectly at ease – achieving, somehow, a fierce sort of lounge. Kane looked decidedly ominous the way he was stroking the cat at his crouched feet, the animal and him both watching the arrival of those summoned with steady, unblinking eyes that seemed to lurk in their skulls.

Godren and Seth entered up through the floor – up through the
fire
pit, insubstantial and burning with unnatural flame as it always was. The fire, of course, was turned off for their passage, but Godren had to wonder, since the stuff was clearly not real, if it wasn’t something they could walk through quite simply without being burned in the first place.

Ossen wandered in late, in no hurry to ensure that he wouldn’t receive some unwelcome manner of discipline for his careless tardiness.

“
Report,” Bastin ordered curtly once everyone was present, having not said one word up until then. Godren and Seth had waited awkwardly in the ignorant silence as Bastin and Kane waited, unblinking, for the last addition to the meeting.

Godren glanced at Ossen, not certain who was expected to begin.