Book 2: Chapter 20: Bounty Hunter
On the third day of travel toward the city of Gelica, the grasslands gradually gave way to cultivated farmland, and travelers and local workers began to share the roadway with them. Victor had no idea what sorts of crops were being grown in the fields they passed through, but he enjoyed the smell of rich, irrigated soil and the blossoms on many of the rows of plants.
They didn’t get much conversation from the locals they passed by—usually, just a grunted greeting and then wary glares. Thayla blamed Victor, saying he was large and strange looking to the blue and red-skinned natives, which prompted him to ask, “Why don’t we see any Ghelli or Vodkin around? It’s mostly Shadeni or Ardeni.”
“If you think those are uncommon, good luck trying to find an Ilyathi or Onaghi. Cadwalli, though, they like to farm.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Other than Cadwalli, I mean.”
“Ilyathi and Onaghi have the same origin world as the Ghelli, though some people claim we all came from the same world and had spread to populate the four worlds around our sun. Then the System came and mashed us all back together.”
“I don’t get it. If the System combined all the worlds, why isn’t the gravity smashing us into the ground?”
“Gravity?”
“The force pulling us to the ground . . .” Victor started to explain.
“I know what it is! I was just thinking aloud. It could have something to do with Energy or how the System structured the new world. It is enormous, but who’s to say what the System did to the mass under the surface? The short answer is, I don’t know.”
“Well, if you know about gravity, then I bet there are scholars in this world that have studied the subject.”
“Of course, but do you remember what I told you about schools? Well, my parents had other priorities.”
“Understood,” Victor said, lifting an arm to wave to a woman working in a nearby field. She wore a wide-brimmed hat with silky, turquoise-colored mesh hanging down from the brim. She waved back, and Victor asked, “Is that mesh on her hat to keep bugs off?”
“Yes, and the sun, I would imagine.” Thayla held a hand out to block the hot orb as if to illustrate.
“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Why so many Ardeni and Shadeni?”
“I don’t know. We’ve always been more numerous, but I’ve heard Gha has many more Ghelli and their relatives living on it.”
“Gha?”
“Oh, Ancestors! You know so little! Gha is a continent across the sea from Fala, far to the southeast. Before you ask, yes, Fala is the continent you’re standing on.”
“How many continents are there? Do you know?”
“Four major continents and many, many islands and archipelagos that are big enough to spend centuries exploring.”
“Seems like we ought to be able to lose ourselves in this world if we really tried.”
“Oh, I see where this is going. Yes, we might be able to flee our troubles, but we’d never be able to let our guard down. Maybe you could, but I would never feel like my daughter is safe.”
“Right, no worries, Thayla. We’ll try plan A first—deal with the people hunting us. Running for the hills will be a distant plan B, alright?”
“Sounds fair,” she said, taking a big drink of water from one of her containers.
Victor had noticed that the road they’d been following was very gradually losing elevation. They were coming down from some high, dry grasslands into a more fertile, verdant part of the world. Around mid-morning, he saw a line of blue-green trees in the distance stretching from left to right perpendicular to the road. At first, it seemed strange—this ribbon of greenery, but then he realized the trees were bordering a river and that the road was approaching a large, wooden bridge that stretched in a broad arch over the water. “Any idea what river this is?”
“No, we’ll be crossing a lot of similar rivers, I think. Gelica is surrounded by rich farmland. These rivers are like tiny streams compared to the Rill Catcher—the great river Gelica is built upon.”
“Rill Catcher, huh?”
“Yes, it’s a river that crosses most of the continent. Many, many rivers and streams feed it.”
“Huh,” Victor nodded, stewing on what Thayla had told him. The world seemed huge, but he knew from conversations with people in the pits and the mine that there were ways to travel great distances quickly, making it smaller in that regard. Most cities had System Settlement Stones that the citizens had improved to the point where they allowed teleportation for a fee. He’d also heard there were airships and even people who could fly, teleport, and create portals. In other words, taking a boat across the continent didn’t necessarily mean it would be difficult for someone to pursue them.
He was lost in his daydreams about flying ships as they started up the wooden bridge, and he gazed over the hand-carved railing, watching the wide river drift lazily by beneath it. They’d just reached the center of the bridge when movement caught his eye, and he looked away from the water to see a stick-thin, blue-robed, and hooded figure step to the center of the bridge, not twenty paces away from them. The person’s long arms were outstretched, each holding a curved, naked, short sword.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
“Patience seems to have won the day,” a man’s dry, raspy voice said from within the hood. Victor didn’t remember pulling Lifedrinker from her loop, but she was in his hands, and he’d stepped in front of Thayla.
“I know it’s not fair, but Thayla, you realize you can’t take the kind of beating I can, right? Look what that asshole did to my armor. Do you think you’d live through a cut like that?” Victor gestured to the rent in his black-ringed armor and all the shiny links that had lost their magical enamel. He hoped the shirt could recover from the damage—it was supposed to be self-repairing.
“No, but I’m not a damsel in distress, either! I deserve to stand up for myself! I have a spear, and I’m fast—he might never have landed a hit!”
“Well,” Victor wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her he was faster than she was when he boosted his agility, but he decided it wasn’t worth ‘winning’ this argument. “Look, I might have been wrong. I don’t know. All I know is that when you nearly died to those Naghelli, it wrecked me. I’ve got too much invested in seeing you back with your daughter. Like I said, I know it’s not fair, but if I can help it, I’ll never hold your bleeding body while struggling with the idea that I need to find your daughter, alone, to tell her about her mom. Not again. You can hate me for it if you want.”
“It’s not fair, but I appreciate you, Victor,” Thayla said, kneeling to look through the corpse of the bounty hunter. “By the way, this guy was an Ilyathi. If I’m being honest, he would have destroyed me—I think he was around tier-four; you’re overpowered, Victor.”
“Overpowered? Is that how you describe my amazing talent?” He stepped closer and watched while Thayla checked the robed man’s pockets and slipped an ornate, serpent-shaped ring off his finger. She flicked the ring up to him, and he caught it.
“Sure, you’re talented, but you’ve also got the strongest combination of abilities I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe other than Lam. Ancestors! You should have seen how you looked when you went berserk—like a hulking titan. That bounty hunter didn’t realize what he’d signed up for, that’s for sure.” She picked up the sword that wasn’t jammed a foot into the bridge and examined it. “This is worth a lot of money, Victor. Both of these swords are if we can get the other one free. They’ll fetch a pretty price in town if you don’t want them. Anything in the ring?”
Victor bonded with the ring and let his inner eye drift to its contents, listing off what he saw to Thayla, “Some food—like a few dozen bowls of soup, lots of wine, water, and bread. Six potion bottles like the one he drank to fix his knee. Um, some more robes in different colors, a pair of boots, a bow with some arrows, and over a thousand Energy beads.” Victor leaned down and yanked the other sword out of the bridge and body. “You keep one of the swords,” he said, stowing the one he held into his ring.
“No, they’re a set, Victor. You’ll get a lot more for them together.” She held the other sword out to him, and he took it, figuring he’d share the money with her when he offloaded them. “I know you’ve been busy fighting and all, but there’s a wagon coming, about a mile up the road.”
“Right,” Victor said, picking up the bounty hunter’s body and tossing it over the bridge.
“Victor!” Thayla said, aghast.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . . oh, never mind. We could have put him in a storage ring and buried him or something.” She sighed and started walking down the far side of the bridge.
“Sorry, Thayla. I wasn’t thinking,” Victor walked beside her, poking at the tear in his chain shirt, pleased to see that it felt a little smaller.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Fish need to eat, too, right? It’s not like he was a friend or even a good guy.”
“Yeah, he started it, right?” Victor punched at Thayla’s shoulder playfully, trying to get a smile out of her, but she was stoically serious, allowing him to jostle her without a word. “Hey, you still mad I fought him alone?”
“No, I’m just worried. That guy wasn’t cheap and wasn’t some old, wily hunter trying to catch a big score. That was a real killer.” Her eyes were focused down the road on the wagon coming their way. Victor could see it was a farmer; the wagon was piled high with green hay or alfalfa or something.
“Yeah, well, another day, and we’ll be in the city. Job one, we’ll get something to hide us from scrying spells.”
“Right, and then we need to find a place to lay low while I use that stone Lam gave me. She might be able to help us figure out who’s responsible for the bounty on our heads. I mean the specific members of the ap’Yensha clan.”
Victor snapped his fingers and said, “You’ve been thinking about this plan without me?” He’d completely forgotten about the stone Lam had given Thayla.
“Not really. I figured that much was common sense,” finally, she looked at him with a smile, and he laughed.
“So, you really think that guy was tier-four, huh?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but the Energy he gave off was tinged with a lot of purple. That’s a pretty good sign.” They’d left the bridge behind, and, as the wagon piled with green grass passed them by, she waved at the driver, a short Ardeni woman in a pair of yellow overalls.
“Ho, travelers, how’s the road ahead? I’ve a few miles yet to take this hay!” She had a bright, cheerful voice, and Victor was quick to wave back and reply.
“Pretty smooth back the way we came. How’s the road where you came from?”
“Lovely! What a day! Doesn’t the sun feel good? Soak it up because autumn’s coming fast.”
“How far’s Gelica?” Thayla asked.
“You could get there tomorrow by the end of the day if you hurry. I’d stop at the Red Roladii, though—you’re only an hour or two out, and they have the best brewery this side of the Rill Catcher.”
“Oh really?” Victor asked.
“Yep! I stayed there last night—got so drunk I didn’t get on the road ‘til noon! My dad’s going to have my hide!” She laughed and gave the roladii pulling her wagon a little switch with the reins and started rolling again. “Good travels!” she called as she passed them.
“Well? What do you say? A night at the Red Roladii, then hit Gelica tomorrow?” He draped an arm over Thayla’s shoulders and started walking. She leaned into him for a minute but then pushed his arm off.
“You’re too damn heavy to be leaning on people, Victor,” she said, but her words were softened by the smile on her face and a poke in the ribs with her elbow.
