Bounty (27 page)

Having it confirmed that he wasn’t going to get a break, Godren considered the chance she offered him. There was not much leeway granted in her expectations.

“
You can thank Evantralis that you’re alive at all. I’m not going to coddle you, but I imagine you know that. Your recovery is up to you, along with your fate. Don’t disappoint me, Godren. You have so much potential; I would hate to see it prematurely snuffed.”

With that, Mastodon rose to see herself out. “I’ll send someone to help you eat. Please try not to drool on my mattress – blood on my carpet is where I draw the line.”

Left to himself, starving, numb, and empty with bleak despair, Godren tried not to fear for his future. He told himself now was all that mattered, but ‘now’ was not so very full of encouragement. If now was all that mattered, he reconsidered in hindsight, he surely did not have much to be optimistic about.

It wasn’t long before Seth burst through the door. Anxious stress creased his sleep-deprived face. Striding to the bed, he sat heavily on the edge of the chair Mastodon had occupied, eyes searching Godren.

“
What’s wrong with you?” he demanded in concern. “They wouldn’t tell me anything.” Running his fingers through his hair, he seemed to change his mind; “No, that’s not true. Mastodon told me all manner of things. She actually very patiently answered all of my demanding harassment. But I want to hear it from you. Do you hurt anywhere? I’m told you don’t, but I think they’re all a little unfair in their assumptions if they’re going to take it upon themselves to deny pain when it’s you that’s been shot nearly to death.”

There was no question about it; Seth was frantic. Godren waited out his rambling before trying to answer, knowing he didn’t stand a chance of getting a word in edgewise, especially when his own speech was so hesitant in response when he tried to summon it up.

“
I don’t…hurt, Seth.”

That silenced Seth finally, and he looked at Godren in concern, not really reassured. “You don’t…feel, do you?” he asked grimly.

Godren blinked. “No.”

Glancing at the tray on the nightstand, Seth looked quizzically at Godren. “Do you want help with that?”

Managing a stiff nod, Godren waited as Seth readied the food and began spooning it into his mouth. It was painstaking work, but Seth was mortally patient with him. “I’m not about to let any of them touch you right now,” he said. “Not even to make you better. My trust has just taken a lethal shot to the heart, I’m afraid, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

To Godren’s dismay, he could not taste the food. It had been torture enough smelling it and then not being able to reach it, but to finally get a hold of it only to find it did nothing for him… He could have cried. Sinking into the numbness that overwhelmingly engulfed him was the only thing that saved him that despondency. He was alive. He should be thankful for that. But what good was it when you were no better than a dead man who was breathing? A dead man who could see? What good was living, he wondered, if you didn’t feel alive? As Seth nursed him back toward health, he looked around the room. “Well
this
is ostentatious, isn’t it?” he remarked, not expecting a reply. “I always expected she kept something elaborate behind closed doors, but I didn’t quite predict this. What’s the nationality of the theme? East Derridean?” He talked on about this and that, keeping Godren occupied and taking his mind off his restricting ailments. What it couldn’t take his mind off, though, ultimately, was Ossen.

“
Seth,” he said, catching his friend’s attention. Exhausted from the effort of eating, his next words were a struggle, but he drew up the energy and forced them out. “Where’s Ossen?”

Seth stopped blinking, and his face hardened. He looked like he wanted to spit, and spit fire. A muscle in his jaw tensed, and he looked bitterly away for a moment. “Sulking,” he said through gritted teeth. “He doesn’t…take getting reprimanded very well. And yes, that’s all he got for what he did. A scolding. Actually, to be honest he seemed mostly indifferent through the lecture, the cur. But I thought he got off too easily, so I hit him.
That’s
why he’s
really
sulking, Godren, I know it – I hit him hard. Gods, I could have done so much more to him…if Bastin hadn’t pulled me off, I would have split his skull – and Mastodon wouldn’t have stopped me, either. I’m afraid he got off with no worse than a black eye – but it’s a black eye that would make you proud if you saw it.”

Spent from his waking exertions, Godren refused the last bit of tasteless food and settled back into himself. Seth took a hint and left off rambling, though he didn’t leave the room, and soon Godren sank back into a hopelessly un-fitful sleep.

*

For a few days, there was no sign of improvement. Godren’s limbs remained deadened and unresponsive, failing him. He would work himself into a sweat just laying there trying to force the barest movement out of different things. Labored breathing was the hardest thing of all to recover from; as it intensified, his heavy chest weighed down his lungs and demanded more effort, and it took a conscious effort of will to start calming his body.

Under Seth’s close, untrusting scrutiny, Lea came to silently try her hand at working the stiffness out of Godren’s muscles, putting him through stretching routines and deep-pressure massages. Finally, it had some affect, and the smallest ability returned to him. His fingers twitched on command, and he could engage the rest of his muscles whether they offered their strength and support or not.

That was all it took for Mastodon to kick him out of the luxury of her bedchamber and send him back to the unsympathetic accommodations of his own courtyard, and he spent a miserable few days slumped up against the unforgiving wall in the corner, eager to persevere through the limitations and discomforts of his condition and regain his normal functions.

Lea bled him once or twice more with a single leech she removed from beneath her collar, and the practice left him drained and slightly nauseous but seemed like it might be doing some good when the little creature showed signs of successfully retracting more poison by dropping dead. At that point Mastodon pulled down a jar of leeches from a shelf and distributed a replacement to Lea before leaving the whole thing with Godren to use as he saw fit. Distastefully, he obliged – but made sure the poisoned creatures were thoroughly destroyed after use so Mastodon would not get a hold of any more of his blood.

Slowly, movement returned to him. He exhausted himself forcing it out, putting himself through strenuous exercises to gain the smallest amount of progress. He knew Mastodon’s expectations, and knew he was at risk of being declared incompetent and then wordlessly eliminated as his failing potential named him nothing more than an ailing figure who knew too much. They would come for him where he sat paralyzed in his corner, when Seth was away, and he would hardly be able to protest as they closed in, seized him without resistance, and un-hesitantly ran a blade across his throat. He would have no say, would be completely helpless and at the mercy of pitiless men following pitiless orders. What troubled him most about that scenario was imagining Seth when he came back and found him dead – if they let him get that far before killing him too.

Despair for that fate grew in his numb stomach as uneventful time dragged on. He tried not to let it overcome him, focusing on his recovery. Seth stood guard with all the fierce loyalty in the world, while Godren fought his own body for his life.
If only you knew,
he thought at himself.
If only you knew your slow progress was going to end up being the death of you, I daresay you’d speed it up a bit.

Finally, when Seth had his back turned one day, Godren channeled his will into his reluctant muscles, called on his deepest reserves of energy, and stood. Struggling to his feet, quivering with the effort, he used the wall for support and hunched wretchedly for balance, but he stood.

Seth turned around, hearing the movement. He looked at Godren, his appraisal blank at that point, weary out of his faithful mind. But the length of time his eyes stayed staring proved how notable the progress registered as, and then relief dawned in his tired gaze. “Welcome back,” he said gravely.

*

The doors to Mastodon’s study were thrust open. Conversation inside cut off, and everyone looked up to regard the driving force of the intrusion. All eyes landed on Godren, framed in the threshold. Ossen stood before Mastodon’s desk, his eyes cast over his shoulder at the interruption, words visibly dying on his lips.

“
Well – hello, Godren,” Mastodon greeted cordially. “Ossen was just persuading me to declare you fruitless and issue the order to have you taken care of.”

He would.

Saying nothing, Godren’s hard gaze drove Ossen to vacate the position he occupied before Mastodon’s desk – and therefore in Godren’s path – as Godren moved into the room. His limbs felt like lead, his muscles watery and unpredictable, but he dragged them the direction he wanted to go and forced his conduct into submission, appearing to possess much more control than he actually did. An illusion of strength surrounded him, exhausting to maintain but worth its weight in gold as he watched the surprised respect that surfaced in his company’s eyes. Ossen moved to the edge of the desk as Godren took up the central position of honor.

“
Where do we stand?” Godren asked straight out, wanting an update. He was astutely aware of Ossen’s discomfort where he had resigned himself to the sidelines; it radiated from him in waves at the edges of Godren’s peripheral vision.

A smug twinge of amusement was evident in the arch of Mastodon’s brow as she regarded him. “Alice was spotted again. Closer, this time. There’s also a strange unrest breaking out on the undercurrents of the social order of the city – a result of our little trick turning hunters against each other, I think. Where do
you
stand?” she wanted to know, her brow arching a little higher.

“
Ready to condemn anything you point me at,” he replied, meaning it. If she wanted him to bounce swiftly back, he had to give her that – and more, if he wanted an edge. And he had found, in his numbness, the potential tendency to indulge in recklessness, to embrace an impulsive side of himself and dive in fearless of the outcome – something that, while it subtly alarmed him, presented him with an edge he knew Mastodon would appreciate. It was full of risk, yes, but he realized he might very well become indispensable by it.

“
Rearing to go,” Mastodon observed. “I like that. I’m glad to see your recovery is coming along so successfully. We were worried, for a time, that you were not going to bounce back.”

As she spoke, Godren was aware of Ossen inching decisively away and slinking to the distance of the study doors, forgotten and unwelcome. Bastin stood silently in the corner, watching everything proceed.

“
Your faith moves me,” Godren said sarcastically.

“
Well I apologize, but you looked pretty wretched for awhile,” Mastodon reminded him. “It was not entirely unreasonable to consider the possibility.”

“
However, in the future you would do well to remember I don’t appreciate being underestimated when my life is on the line,” Godren informed her, surprising even himself with the conviction in his voice. It was meant for Ossen, though, more than anyone else, something to discourage any further attempts at ‘persuading Mastodon to declare him fruitless and issue the order to have him taken care of’.

“
Granted – in the future we will have to make sure to be more sensitive to your feelings when it comes to the matter of your death,” Mastodon said, a little mockingly, but he could see she was sincere as well. “But, just to clear the air, I had not decided to eliminate you yet.”

“
I’m flattered.”

“
Well then. Are we officially back in business?”

“
What do you need me to do?”

“
Hunt, if you will. I’m ready to taste some results. And if that’s the mood you’re in, I’d like to see what you can do.”

Taking it as his dismissal, Godren turned to leave. With his arms still casually crossed over his chest, Bastin’s eyes followed Godren up the level of stairs and to the doors.

“
Watch yourself, Godren –” Ossen started to warn as his rival drew abreast of him to take his leave, but Godren’s lead-heavy hand snaked out to clamp his throat and silence him, and he shoved him up against the door frame, glaring into his mismatched eyes – one full of loathing, the other dull behind its black and blue swelling. Seth’s work.

“
You should have finished me when you had the chance, Ossen,” he told his nemesis evenly. “Both times.” Though his muscles felt watery and lethargic, unable to support his threatening conduct, his arm felt steady as a crushing statue, his fist like iron, and he realized just how strongly the urge to crush the life out of Ossen must have a hold of him. “As it is, you’ve earned yourself three deaths by my hand to compensate the damage you have done and leave me with my revenge.”

With that hanging between them, Godren pried his fingers away from Ossen’s strangled throat. It took a conscious effort of will to release him, and when he finally succeeded, he was surprised to see the distance that Ossen slumped to perch comfortably on the ground again. Godren must really have had him hoisted and pinned.

Masking the tremors that shook his muscles as he left, Godren strode into the shadows of the corridor without.