Bounty (40 page)

A breathless grunt escaped Damious, but his reflexes engaged themselves and saw him release Blackie’s reins and catch Godren’s arm despite suffering the effects of the blow. Godren’s assault turned against him as Damious wrenched his arm severely against its grain. For the first time since being rendered numb, a presence of pain pierced Godren. Perhaps it was the depth, the assault on muscle and bone beneath his unnatural armor, but it hit him like a sudden awakening, like the ice that cracks as spring blooms to release the ocean.

Shocked from his composure, from his dormant curse of winter numbness, Godren was completely at Damious’s mercy while he tried to readapt to the idea of calling on a will to persevere over pain. He had taken invincibility for granted, and gone soft.

Yet, the return of feeling in any form was an inspiration. In that painful instant he felt human again, wanted to
keep
feeling human, and that required he apply himself to surviving this circle.

Revitalized, he brought himself back and dedicated his cause for aggression back on the assassin he had chosen to grapple with. With a will to survive, and a fresh fear of what it would feel like if he didn’t dominate this battle and defend himself, Godren called on the greatest amount of reflexive concentration he could muster and unleashed himself on the man that stood between him and freedom.

Who was to say if his will would really have surpassed Damious’s expert finesse or not had the fight not been staged, but it certainly made for as convincing a show as anything could. Damious delivered a fair amount of dissuasion, hammering a cascade of bruising into his opponent as if to make him earn every ounce of what they had agreed on, but Godren was already set on earning it. He took the beating in stride, determined to rise above it – to rise above everything – in order to win back what had been taken from him. It wasn’t fair, but he was willing to fight, to sacrifice, to get back what was rightfully his.

When the proud light in Damious’s eyes gave way to respect for the passion embodied in Godren’s endeavors, Godren anticipated the final blows of the quarrel. The assassin left an opening, discreet but pointed, and Godren took it. He struck Damious to submission, leaving him stunned on the floor. Sacrifice accepted, mission complete, he wiped blood from his mouth and stole himself against the condemnation he had just delivered to another human being. A willing participant or not, who was to say if Damious would find himself able to get out of this. If anyone could, Damious could, but a weight of guilt still registered in Godren’s core, and empathy made him question how he could make someone else take his place.

Reminding himself that Damious was a master and would not appreciate pity or even sympathy, Godren left it at that and disengaged himself from the focus of the fight. Looking up, he found Mastodon, Bastin and Seth all staring at him from their religious stations on the sidelines.

Bastin was the first to react. Remembering the greater calling of his duties, he moved forward to secure the stunned assassin. Looking a little awkward, Seth gravitated forward to help. Lastly, Mastodon found her words.

“Put him in the cells,” she instructed almost absently, sounding surprised at what was coming out of her own mouth.

Without a word, Bastin and Seth removed the assassin from the room, leaving Godren to live up to his champion assertion alone.

Mastodon did not find further words for a few moments more, pursing her lips as she considered him. Then she thought to ask, “Do you need attention?”

Realizing she was referring to acquired injury, Godren gave himself a rough inspection. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Nodding, Mastodon took up another silence, uncertain how to address her dangerously self-promoted employee. He had just asserted his dominance before her very eyes, and he suddenly wondered if going beyond expectation was unwise. Would revealing a new level of what he was capable of prove to come across in a threatening manner? Had she employed him with the particulars of her contract meant to bind him forever because she did not expect him to be able to compare with certain targets?

“But if you don’t mind…” Godren said, suddenly feeling the effects of being battered. Aside from feeling disoriented from trauma to the head, the barest aches and pains were resonating up from his abused body. He hunched, wincing slightly, unaccustomed to the grief of such effects.

Mastodon seemed to come back to herself, sheepish in realization. “Of course,” she granted sympathetically. “Dismissed.”

“Would you like me to remove them first?” Godren asked, indicating the unconscious bounty hunters that were still crumpled on her floor.

“Oh. Just…yes, get them out of here.”

Starting with Alice, Godren fought the black spots that contaminated his vision and hauled her up. Ossen appeared then, pausing in the doorway as if debating whether to ask what had happened or not. Seeing Godren’s state, he looked disinclined to give his rival the chance to gloat over any victory, but silently joining the task of excavating the bounty hunters seemed too willing to be generous without question for his taste. Finally, he settled on scowling and ignoring Godren as he moved in to help, doing a service to Mastodon and none other.

Godren ignored him in turn, and went to rest as soon as the task was complete.
Ouch,
he thought, gingerly favoring the dull throbs Damious had charmed out of him.

He was still marveling over his body hurting as he drifted into an exhausted sleep. It was painful, he thought in awe.

Blessedly painful.

*

Sore and strangely replete, Godren stood at the edge of the Ruins, imagining soon being free of this place.

“Evantralis,” he murmured.

She materialized beside him, matching the direction of his gaze as he stared into the distance of the city beyond.

“If the wind chooses to speak to you…can you, in turn, speak to it?” he asked, still absently watching the city lights flicker out as night soaked into the stone territory.

“You may, to some degree,” the slave woman replied, “but of course only if you know how. The degree depends on your connection, and your connection depends on the wind’s preference and your own understanding, or faith, that surrounds these things.”

Godren thought about that.

“Is there something you would like to say to the wind?” Evantralis asked.

Godren’s eyes, merely absent before, turned inwardly so. “There is.”

“I can call the wind and interpret for you,” the slave offered.

Godren looked at her then. “You are privileged by the wind as well?”

“Wind, Venomtreader, is what runs in my veins.”

“But the leeches–”

“They
breathe
my essence. They do not drink it. It serves the same purpose as far as the lady Mastodon’s control is concerned.”

Staring, Godren tried to fathom the strangeness of her existence. “Everyone else seems to believe in your blood. They say it’s sweet, a cause of magic, and the leeches prefer it.”

“People say all manner of things. They fear what they don’t understand, and so they strive to create explanations for themselves. Of course they assume I bleed. Just because they’ve never seen it doesn’t mean I don’t. After all, they never even see
me
.”

True enough, Godren thought. Still, out of curiosity, he searched what was visible of her. “But, my lady,
how
?” he wanted to know, baffled beyond intrigue by the qualities she claimed to bear. “How does one find themselves bloodless? Are you not human? Are you merely chosen and possessed?”

“Chosen and possessed,” Evantralis confirmed. “As anyone can be. Do not mistake the implications and think we are special. The potential is in everyone. Reaching that potential is a choice, with unanticipated reward. It is in how you choose to live, and the reasons you choose to do so. It is at the center of irony – granted to those who do not seek it, but come by it through righteous and humble means. It is justice for those who make all the right sacrifices. You cannot win it, nor even consciously earn it; you must simply deserve it, without expecting it.”

Struggling to divine all the dependant factors, Godren shook his head. “But I don’t deserve anything. I was dealt an injustice, but I’ve turned to immoral means to sustain myself, therefore sustaining an immoral existence, while I search for a way to right the wrong that has been done to me. Is that not the most selfish thing in the world? Engaging in wrong that hurts others, even if indirectly, to serve my own interests?”

“You have to fight for justice, Godren, even if it happens to be a case surrounding your own interests. That is the only way to tip the balance of good and evil in this world. The law falls short, Venomtreader – because it is not followed. Disallowing a criminal to cheat that way does not stop them from doing so.”

“So we must lower ourselves to their level and become them in order to oppose them?” Godren asked, appalled.

“No. You do not become them if your actions are ultimately in the interests of good, if you are willing to accept the consequences of the questionable treachery of your actions and sacrifice yourself in that way, and if you put faith in greater forces than one-dimensional human laws.” For the first time, Evantrilis truly smiled. “Your nobility is in the right place, Venomtreader, but you must remember you have a very shallow perception of all that is in play around you. You don’t know the half of it, and understand only half of what you know.”

Becoming tranquil again at the truth in her words, Godren suppressed his frustration and tried to apply patience to the areas he was ignorant. What did he expect, that Evantralis would give him all the answers?

“But enough,” Evantralis announced gently. “There is no sense in arguing these things when you are already on the right track and set to discover them for yourself. You summoned me for a different reason anyway. Would you like to try to call the wind?”

“How?” Godren asked, taken aback by the offer.

Evantralis smiled again. “It cannot be explained. There is no way to teach it. You must only try.”

Turning over a few ridiculous ideas in his head – including barking out the wind’s name and calling it like a dog – Godren settled on merely closing his eyes and willing it to him. He breathed deeply, as if pulling the air to him, drawing on a ripple of movement and hoping it might inspire a butterfly effect. A ripple would turn into a breeze, a breeze into a gust, and a gust into a responding ocean of wind from near and far.

On his third breath, as his determination strengthened at his lack of success so far, the faintest breeze tickled past the Ruins. Godren’s initial excitement turned to dismay as he realized it could be chance, that nature did surround him, and then he had lost focus entirely.

He opened his eyes.

“Do not be discouraged,” Evantralis said. “You cannot expect to succeed when you haven’t even the barest idea of what you are trying to do. Have no fear – you will call the wind. But today, I will put a name to it for you.” Concentrating, Evantralis closed her own eyes.

At least I got that part right,
Godren thought.

At first, the only response to the slave’s unknown procedure was a breeze much like the one Godren had perhaps charmed out of the air. But then it twisted, strengthened, and another current leaked out of an alley behind him. After that the alleys all seemed to start breathing on him, issuing kin breezes until currents intertwined from every angle, becoming one strong force that revolved around the proximity. It buffeted Godren, playing with his hair, his clothes, and almost seeming to whisper just beyond what he could perceive.

Evantralis opened her eyes. “What would you like to say to it?”

In awe of the power that had just been called to surround him, Godren struggled to remember why he had prompted this meeting.

Was ‘meeting’ the right term?

Right,
he thought, centering himself. “Perhaps it is not ethical, but I would ask that if the wind truly wants me, that it would give me a sign. Others, who are intertwined in my fate, have received their own signs which have convinced them. And though they have intrigued and inspired me, I would ask to be convinced as well.”

Godren wondered how Evantralis would respond to his wishes, whether she would find them unreasonable, demanding, or altogether silly and pointless to ask, but she showed no reaction. She merely closed her eyes again and began whispering in her native language, capturing the essence of the wind in the sounds she used to form words. Soon, her murmured voice blended with the current that swept the area, infiltrating it with real whispers as the words were snatched from her mouth. They careened around him, like a force of restless ghosts, feeling him, tasting him, speaking against him. Then Evantralis discontinued speech and the whispers died away, and the completion of communication prompted the wind to respond by changing its course. Fed by the alleys, it drew on more currents and grew, spiraling up from the ground and tightening around Godren as if to dance with him, before rising higher and redirecting itself toward the city. Ravens spilled out of the alleys on the driving veins of wind, shrieking in their gravelly voices as they rode toward an involuntary destination. Godren could not distinguish whether they expressed objection or excitement.