Bounty (38 page)

Stunned out of the deepest recesses of his pain, Godren stared breathlessly at her. A part of him was stricken by her mercilessness, another part motivated beyond any previous extent.

The chapel doors clicked open then. Godren had just enough sense to drop the scraps of parchment so as not to be seen in his half-visible state, but then he bowed in on himself and stood there as the king came to retrieve the princess, raw and stricken and invisible among them.

*

Discovering the slaves may have been the last straw, he thought as he headed back toward the crime alleys of the city. They had certainly put him on the last edge. It had been the lack of any way to oppose his bonds that stayed his rebellion. But now, way or no way, he had no choice. Aside from a direct order from his princess, there was the expectation, the
require
ment, from the one he loved.

I thought love was supposed to be unconditional,
he thought, but then dismissed the notion. After all, she had not said she loved him. The only relevant thing was that he loved her. And the direct order notwithstanding, she had reinforced something deep inside him, a motivation lost to him.

To hell with the impossible,
he decided.
I will no longer be ruled by what cannot be changed. I didn’t do it, and they are all going to learn to live with that – because, by the gods, I am going to
live
again.

It was no quaint coincidence that the princess’s grove had snagged the many pieces of his wayward story. Fate, it seemed, was trying to hold him together.

Something Alice had said came back to him, and he almost laughed at its relevance.

In this storm, you have to grab the elements by the horns,
she had said.

But one could not grab wind, Damious had objected.

Then you must become the elements.
Become the wind…

The pieces of the wind had all come together to motivate him. Maybe, he thought, it was time to do just that.

31
:
Ambition and Irony

H
is term, he realized, might be close enough to its end to force into swift recession after all. Tipped about Damious’s possession of the three bounty hunters Devlin, Osbourne, and Graver, and knowing Kingston had taken out Rogue, left only Wolf and a few small-timers – and Damious himself. Alice had been a dreaded character to have on the loose, but now she was safe in Damious’s care as well. He had helped see to that himself.

Damious, of course, was fairly large game. Godren did not expect to take him down without a highly inconvenient fight. That in itself might prove to be a job all its own, and require more force than Godren had in him even inspired to ‘embody the wind of the storm’ that he was caught up in.

Unless… Becoming the elements didn’t necessarily mean embodying the ultimate force of something. He could become something entirely more clever – the eye of the storm. Subtle but central.

A manipulator.

Don’t be ridiculous,
part of him scoffed.
You have always avoided politics as much as possible. You don’t know how to play.

But this isn’t a game anymore. So I have to play.

How could he manipulate Damious? What could he possibly bring into play that would prove relevant to the other man at all, and how did he ensure that he could come through with what he offered? There were too many angles to hold together.

Godren shook his head. He was not in a position to manipulate.

But I’m going to try,
the motivated part of him decided. It was not going to be dissuaded.

Well, he could not begin to string angles together until he considered them all. He must look everywhere for potential, inspiration and risk. Then he could progress. If he didn’t succeed, so be it. But biding his time and hoping were no longer enough.

*

The shadows in the corner of the common room fell just short of covering the tip of Godren’s boot. When Damious entered and consulted the bartender, receiving the tip that someone was waiting to see him, he looked toward the back of the room, picked out the conspicuous boot, and followed it to Godren’s face. Turning briefly back to the bartender, he inspired two drinks out of the fellow and then made his way to join Godren in the corner.

“Well, lad,” he said in greeting as he plunked himself down at the table. “It’s nice to see you again so soon. What’s the occasion?”

“I have a sort of treacherous proposition for you.”

“Oh?” Damious asked, interest piqued, and took a swig of his ale.

“I was thinking about what Alice said. About grabbing the elements by the horns.”

“And then you realized a mastodon has perfect horns for grabbing and thought to yourself ‘it’s doubly significant, and I must consult Uncle Damious about his esteemed philosophy of coincidence and fate’?”

“Much more treacherous than consulting you, I’m afraid.”

“Delightful. Let’s get started, then.” Taking another drink, Damious leaned forward intently.

“I have come to need out of my arrangement with Mastodon.”

“Inconvenient.”

“Quite. The idea is mostly impossible, but perhaps not if I take it a step further and try my hand at opposing her, rather than merely escaping her.”

Impressed, Damious shrugged his eyebrows. “Ambitious.”

“Bound by blood, I of course cannot be free until I finish what I have agreed to do, and that involves bringing you in, an idea I grow quickly weary of being motivated enough to consider. I am not ashamed to admit that I have no overwhelming desire to grapple with a professional assassin who has been around longer than anyone else in the field of backstabbers has any business being. I’ve no interest in flattering myself, when you could squash me like a bug.”

“I understand,” Damious granted empathetically.

“So I thought maybe we could work together,” Godren revealed, watching the other man’s reaction.

“I like to work alone,” Damious expressed his preference.

“Well we wouldn’t exactly be employing a buddy system and watching the bonding beauty of plotting social schemes together,” Godren said. “But there’s something you could do for me, which might benefit your ambitions as well.”

“And that is…?”

“Seeing as I also need the other bounty hunters you possess to fulfill my deliverance to Mastodon, I was thinking you might be so kind as to bring them in now, and allow me to take you captive while you’re at it.”

Damious stared at him as if waiting for the punch line. When Godren said no more, he blinked. “And that benefits me how?”

“Well, you see, once free of Mastodon, I have another plan to put her out of business. Finishing my service to her is the only thing I’m having trouble with, so I came to see if you’d be willing to comply with my scheme. If you allow me to catch you, you will indirectly be contributing to her following demise.”

“A little too indirectly, for my taste, but tell me about this other plan. How you contrive to be successful opposing her afterward.”

Readying himself for being ridiculed by the unsuspecting man, Godren considered his words and then unleashed his plan on the assassin. Damious listened without interrupting, showing no expression. But when Godren had finished, he took a long drink and then turned disagreeable.

“And you expected me to agree to this preposterous idea?”

“I thought you might like the irony.”

Damious tapped his finger thoughtfully against his tankard. “Let Xinna think she has me only because it helps put her out of business,” he mused aloud. “Appreciate the irony I do.”

“And,” Godren said, “it
would
only be putting her out of business. That could be viewed as less of an incentive to make such a big sacrifice of yourself, but I also thought you might like to satisfy your own ambitions and finish her yourself. Directly. I propose only a first step, and perhaps the advantage of getting you near her while she’s disoriented.”

“Hmm,” Damious pondered, absently stroking his mug.

“There is one hitch, however.”

Brought out of his mulling, Damious refocused. “A hitch?”

“Aye. I can’t return to free you again.”

“Oh well that’s thoughtful of you. Ask me to sacrifice myself with the incentive of a small advantage that will only taunt me out of my mind because it’s close enough to see and not touch, and then leave me hanging while you get away with murder in the form of absolute and eternal freedom, not to mention your other objective that is so sickeningly terrific I can’t even bear to say it for the taste it would leave in my humble mouth.”

“I understand if you refuse to have any part in this whatsoever.”

“Re
fuse
? Boy, I should be smacking you silly and rendering you immobile for even thinking of it! For your sake, my sake, the country’s sake – by the gods, even the
gods’
sake. And if you had any sense return to you, you’d be thanking me. Refuse? Ha! Refuse is putting it lightly. That’s the grossest understatement I’ve ever heard. I bloody, absolutely, completely, downright, thoroughly, wholeheartedly accept!”

After that threw him way out of proportion, Godren recovered and reconsidered the man he had come to conclusively dismiss as a willing participant. “You do?”

“It’s the irony, I’m afraid, my boy. Where it used to be a hobby, it is now, unfortunately, a weakness. An obsession. I can’t resist.”

“But what about having no one to set you free?”

“You let me worry about that, lad. I can bide my time.”

“What if she kills you?”

“Gods, boy, don’t try to dissuade me now that you have me! You ought to work on your aristocratic finesse. Especially for your future,” he said with a wink.

“Well, I’ll worry about my future if you’ll worry about yours.”

“Fair enough.” Damious downed the rest of his ale. “Won’t you drink to our success?” he asked, seeing Godren had not touched his tankard.

“You might as well drink double to yours,” Godren said. “You’re going to need it, and it’s the least I can offer. I am not exactly being generous with the rest of my demands.”

“My generosity given back as your own,” Damious remarked with a twinkle in his eye, sliding Godren’s tankard to his side of the table. “I think, Godren, you might have a small taste for irony as well.”

32:
B
reaking Chains

W
hen he returned to the Underworld, Seth had news.

“A bounty hunter that goes by ‘Kingston’ brought in Rogue,” he announced. “We paid him and then took him down as well. Got a refund.”

“Good,” Godren approved, trying not to let his eagerness show on his face or manifest in his voice. “Any news of Wolf?”

“The ravens saw him in the forest, but there’s no easy way to find him in all those trees. He didn’t have a camp. I can deal with thieves and murderers, Ren, but I don’t know about uncivilized barbarians. How am I supposed to know what’s socially acceptable when taking him out? I mean what if he gets offended because he’s antisocial and doesn’t want to be touched?”

“Aye, Seth, I hear you.”

“Sheesh, this job frazzles my nerves. ‘Don’t stress over the little things’, I tell myself, but then I just end up stressing over the whole picture!”

Godren murmured a laugh at his friend’s distress, glad that some things never changed. “Thanks for dragging Ossen out the other day, Seth. It wasn’t a good time for interruption.”

“My pleasure. He protested the whole way,” Seth said with a grin. “So I dragged him an extra few meters, just for the hey of it. You should have seen him brushing himself off like an idiot.” Seth’s delight manifested like that of a little kid.

“It’s gratifying to finally ruffle his petals a little, ay?”

“If only I could do a better impression of an aphid, and
really
make him squirm,” Seth lamented.

“Keep working on it, Seth,” Godren said with a chuckle. “You’re getting there.”

“Really? Because I could have sworn I was having major drawbacks with my green hue.”

“Have you tried rotten tomatoes? They tend to cause the most delightful sick color when ingested.”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t. Do they induce tossing of the cookies as well, though? Because that’s a side effect I’m looking to avoid.”

“Not if you’re good at holding your cookies.”

Seth almost turned green just imagining. “I think holding down said manner of cookies would take things a little beyond the desired hue. I might turn purple.”

“And as a younger Seth liked to say, purple is a distinctly girly color, and you won’t be caught wearing it until the day you want to bloody look pretty.”