by Noah Layton
Bounty Hunting: For Gold and Revenge
Noah Layton
Copyright 2020 Noah Layton
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Contents
1 – Betrayal
2 – My Hero
3 – Covering Tracks
4 – New Digs
5 – Fast Times at The Queen’s Steed
6 – Cassandra
7 – The Jones Bandits
8 – Late Night Feelings
9 – Hideout
10 – High Nights
11 – Clean-up
12 – Boom
13 – Gold and Love
14 – Bathing and Searching
15 – Midnight Hunt
16 – Assemble
17 – Killian
18 – The Chase
19 – A little rest and relaxation
1 - Betrayal
It all started the day I was supposed to die.
I didn’t plan on things going like this, of course; I’m always one for preparing. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. That’s how the saying goes.
Oftentimes, though, plans go completely to shit. Most of the time, in fact. And today was no different.
I made my way through the streets of the Bronze District, one of the 122 districts that composed the magisterial metropolis that was Spire City.
There were cities like this scattered all over the kingdom, filled to the brim with a bustling populous of all kinds of citizens – humans, elves, goblins, trolls, pixies and orcs; they were all in abundance, and all trying to make their way to the top in a city as unforgiving as this one.
I didn’t exactly blame them, though. This world was a harsh one, and this city was harsher, filled with criminals and bandits and gangs and murderers that the High Council, the leaders of the city, were completely unwilling to do anything about.
Fortunately for the citizens of Spire City, they had people like me – and the idiots that I worked with at the Poison Stag – to keep them safe.
What’s the Poison Stag? Just one of many bounty hunting guilds in Spire City. Whenever a group of bandits raids a caravan or a crazy starts cutting people down in the streets, we’re the guys who hunt them down.
It’s not honest work. Actually, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it’s pretty grisly work most of the time. Bad guys in these parts always tend to put up a fight first and surrender second.
The fight part just usually ends up with them getting skewered through the neck.
Fortunately for us, almost every bounty put out in Spire City is dead or alive. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but the first one tends to result in a lot less struggling.
And who am I? Drake Masterson, garish rogue and one of three bounty hunters employed by The Poison Stag. I’m 27 years old, at least by my best count considering I had been raised by a collection of farm-hands on a dairy farm miles away from the city.
They were good people, but the small-time world had never been right for me. As soon as I had reached adulthood almost a decade ago, I had taken to the towns and the wilds surrounding them in search of wanted men who terrorised innocent people.
It didn’t take long for me to get a little ahead of myself – I wasn’t so much taking down murderers and gangs as I was cattle-rustlers and petty thieves. After a few years, I couldn’t resist coming to the city and joining a guild to find real criminals.
I might have been handsome at one point if it weren’t for an almost permanent black eye from the number of fights I got into on the job, as well as a nose that had been broken more times than I could count. I sported a few days of razor stubble and short dark hair above my dark grey eyes.
The day began just like any other day; I arrived at my guild headquarters and headed through the door to a familiar sight.
Bartram, a fellow bounty hunter with a skinny frame and a short stature, was seated on a couch before a chipped wooden table, playing solitaire with himself. He didn’t look the type to be a hunter – I had thought that when I had first met him – but on our first outing together I had witnessed the true dichotomy of backstabbing habits and furious rage that he possessed.
He was more deadly than he looked.
‘What’s the deal, Drake?’ He asked as I stepped inside.
‘Not much,’ I replied. ‘Just another day.’
‘Probably. Killian’s in the back.’
‘Anything good?’
‘We’ll see. He’s been in there since I got here. Think he’s talking to somebody.’
Sat in an armchair with his feet resting on an old wooden box was Wargo. Wargo was the polar opposite of Bartram. He was a hulking figure standing six feet seven, with tiny eyes and a round bald head. He often looked the picture of idiocy, and while he had a similar penchant for rage as Bartram, he always kept his mouth shut. I hadn’t heard the guy speak in the whole time I had been hunting with the Poison Stag beyond occasional grunts and single word responses.
In a gig like this, though, there wasn’t much need for intelligence besides not getting hit by a sword.
He nodded to me quietly as our eyes briefly met, and I returned it. That was largely the extent of our conversations.
At the back of the open-plan room was a wood-panelled office. As I looked to it, the door opened and out stepped my boss, followed by the familiar song that he always whistled, a sharp, cheery tune that was popular in taverns across the city.
Killian was older than the rest of us; while Bartram, Wargo and I were all in our late twenties, Killian was in his mid-forties, which was a thing to behold itself. To make it this far in the bounty hunting game without getting sliced to bits was a feat that few had accomplished in Spire City.
He had probably once been strong, but in becoming the leader of a bounty hunting guild he had let himself go; a lot of his muscle had left and made way for fat, although there was still a strength to him that only came with age. A long scar ran down the side of his face from an old job he had never revealed, and his dark hair was receding steadily to the back of his head.
But there was still a formidable nature that he gave off. It was impossible to succeed as a hunter, never mind a guild master, without a hefty dose of quiet intimidation that could be given off with the eyes alone.
Killian had that skill; he may not have been what he used to be before I met him a few years ago, but he had been in this racket longer than I had been alive, and for that I respected him.
The same didn’t exactly go for Bartram and Wargo. They were just colleagues, a pair of creeps that I hung around with at work because I had to. But Killian I had time for.
Today, though, he wasn’t alone.
From behind him in the office two figures followed. I was so used to criminals creeping up on me in the shadows that I instinctively reached for the handle of the sword at my waist, invisibly stained with the blood of hundreds of men.
Killian stepped aside and let the two men out of his office and into the main area of the headquarters, into the eyeline of myself, Bartram and Wargo.
‘Who the hell are these assholes?’ Bartram said, looking sharply between them.
‘These are our new recruits,’ Killian said. ‘We’ve been
swamped with cases lately, so I thought it was time to expand our operation a little. Crime is only getting worse in the streets of this city, and it’s time for us to step out and do our part.’
‘More like step up and take our fair share of the pie,’ Bartram said, before pausing and looking around confusingly as if his thoughts had changed course mid-sentence. ‘No, wait, it’s time for us to take more than our fair share of the pie. Let’s take somebody else’s too.’
‘Exactly,’ Killian agreed, wagging his finger at him like he was acknowledging a dog. ‘Which is why I’ve decided to recruit these two fine young men. Say hello to Rolo and Tomas.’
The two men were as plain and stupid as I had ever seen. There was nothing remarkable about them; confused but excited faces, newly-purchased attire, one bearing a sword and the other a bow and a quiver of arrows.
They looked like fodder to be fed to the sharks if I had ever seen them.
The truth was, though, I already knew a little about them. They had shown up a few nights ago when the boss thought we had left, had a meeting with Killian, and taken off back to their home. Obviously I had followed them – I didn’t trust anybody, and I liked to know where I could find both my allies and my enemies.
They had just hadn’t seen me following them.
But more on that later.
‘They’re both strong men from the country, but they need to be shown the ropes first. I’ve got two bounties that need collecting today. First is a pair of drunks who started a fight that got a bartender killed over at a tavern in the Moss District. Second is a guy who murdered his work partner and high-tailed it.
‘Wargo, Bartram, I want you two to go after the drunks. The bounty was posted just this morning in the local office, and they seem pretty confident that these two assholes will be hiding out at one of their quarters. Addresses are on the posters. Go check them both out.
‘Drake, I need you to take Rolo and Tomas here and give them the initiation process. Show them the ropes, and show them how a real bounty hunter takes down a criminal.’
‘So I’m the one who gets saddled with the shit detail?’ I laughed, before turning to the new recruits. ‘No offence, guys.’
‘None taken,’ Tomas said quickly.
‘This isn’t a shit detail, Drake,’ Killian said charmingly. ‘It’s showing the ropes to a pair of hungry young men who are eager to get their start in this business. Let me remind you that you were in that position once.’
‘And let me remind you,’ I said jokingly, ‘that I showed up on your front door with those skills already in hand.’
‘True, but that doesn’t mean we should withhold such skills from the new recruits.’
‘All right, all right,’ I laughed, leading them out the door. ‘Come on, guys. Let’s go cut some throats.’
***
‘Which way now?’ I called from atop my horse, Blister, as I rode along the dirt track in the evening sun. I knew exactly which we were supposed to be headed, but I was leaving it up to the new recruits to map out our route.
‘The house this guy is supposed to be holding out at is just up a track here on the left,’ Rolo called back. ‘Unless dickless here misread the sign back there.’
‘You’re calling me dickless,’ Tomas said. ‘You’re a funny guy. At least mine isn’t where my fucking nose should be.’
‘Hey, fuck you. It’s inherited. From my mother.’
Tomas laughed hysterically.
‘You know,’ I smiled, ‘there are a lot of things you two have to learn as members of The Poison Stag, but the first is never to bring up your mothers when you’re already getting the shit roasted out of you.’
‘You walked into that one, Rolo. Didn’t he Drake?’
‘Yeah, you did walk into that one.’
‘Fuck both of you. When we get to the cabin this is my fucking kill. Gonna need to kill him twice just so I don’t fucking… Err…’
‘He ain’t too smart either, Drake.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I called up. ‘Long as you know how to swing a sword and keep your eyes open.’
‘We’re here.’
Halting our horses for a second, we looked left into the forest. Stemming from the dirt road was a trail, barely visible through the shrubbery.
Upon closer inspection it appeared the bushes and shrubbery had been manipulated and pulled over to cover the trail.
We dismounted our horses and led them up the trail, keeping the talk to a minimum, which was a damn tough task for these two.
The trail was winding and precarious for a mile through thick forest before we came upon a small clearing with a cabin stationed towards the end of it.
It was a shabby place. Door practically hanging off its hinges. Windows mostly smashed. A few empty barrels and crates rotting in the yard.
Exactly the kind of place that one of our targets would be holding up.
We tied up our horses in the forest and made to the edge of the clearing, then peered out to get a decent look at the place.
‘No guards, no lackeys, no horse,’ I said. ‘This guy’s working alone.’
‘Think he could have laid any traps for us?’ Rolo asked.
‘I doubt it. Doesn’t sound smart enough. Here.’
I pulled out the contract from my pocket and unfolded the tattered piece of paper.
WANTED – DEAD OR ALIVE
BOOKER TOROW
For the crime of murder
200 gold pieces
WARNING – CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. APPROACH AT OWN RISK
‘All right,’ I said, pocketing the contract. ‘I’ll take melee upfront, Tomas you’re with me. Rolo, you hold back and take out anybody who emerges from the clearing. It’s going to be close combat in there, so be careful that we don’t hack each other to death. Well, I mean I’ll be fine, but don’t you hack me to death.’
‘You got it.’
‘And keep this guy’s face intact. If we want the gold they need to be able to positively identify him, not make a guess off of his mangled teeth after one of us puts a sword through his face.’
As I turned back to the sight of the cabin I caught a look out of the corner of my eye between Rolo and Tomas; a piss-taking smirk that idiots prescribed too. They were stupid, true, but I didn’t mind. Everybody had to start somewhere, and everybody was making their own way through the mire of life.
Just like Booker was before we would rain on his parade.
‘Let’s go.’
Tomas and I moved forward through the trees. Tomas followed slightly behind, while Rolo hung back with his bow at the ready.
I produced my sword from the leather scabbard at my waist. Two-foot blade, streamlined and squeaky clean, apart from a few scratches from stray shots over the years.
It had served me damn well for a long time, and today would likely be the same.
I made for the door quietly, stemming the sound of my leather boots against the wooden porch and wincing at the creak that emanated from it.
Nodding to Tomas, I drummed my fingers on the door.
‘We know you’re in there, Torow. Just get out here so we can get this over with.’
Truth be told I didn’t know if he was in there, but pretending that I did always gave the target more of a sense of terror.
I received no reply.
‘Last chance, Torow.’
Still nothing.
I nodded to Tomas, got into position before the door, bounced back on my left heel and propelled forward with a raised right foot.
Delivering a resounding kick to the door, it slammed open and cracked off its hinges, smashing to the ground.
I entered the cabin with my sword before me, ready to cleave off Torow’s head the moment it poked out.
I figured his face would still be recognisable even if his head wasn’t attached to his body.
The cabin comprised a single room. Empty table, capsized chair, bed with no mattress, rotten pieces of wood…
&nb
sp; ‘Shit,’ I muttered, sheathing my sword and stepping into the room. ‘Nobody’s lived here in months, maybe longer by the looks of things.’
I stepped over pieces of wood and kicked fragments of dusty broken glass aside.
Then, an unmistakable sound from behind me brought me to a dead halt.
The elastic draw of a bow with an arrow being aimed.
I turned sharply, briefly registering the image. Tomas was stood by the door looking over at me expectantly.
Rolo was standing in the doorway, bow raised and arrow drawn at the ready.
‘What the fuck is this?’ I said slowly, glaring him down and reaching slowly for the handle of my sword. ‘What are you doing?’
‘This is our initiation,’ Tomas replied. ‘And your execution. Don’t reach for your fucking sword.’
I took a deep slow breath.
‘On who’s authority?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Killian ordered you to murder me? Why?’
‘That doesn’t matter to me.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I asked slowly. ‘Because the moment you let that arrow go, your ass is mine.’
‘How do you see that happening?’ Rolo laughed nervously.
‘Let it go and find out.’
I’ll be honest with you, I was talking complete and total garbage. Any number of things could have happened in the following moments.
I was just banking my life on me being the lucky one.
‘Stop wasting time,’ Tomas said. ‘Kill him.’
Rolo’s hands were beginning to shake.
TWANG.
The arrow whistled towards my chest. I anticipated the release perhaps half a second in advance.
I raised my arm and felt it strike. The arrow sliced through my forearm, its head cutting through my flesh and protruding through the other side.
It missed the bone but the sheer force of the strike threw my arm back against my chest, sending the spiked tip half an inch into my skin.
I ripped it free immediately and reached for my sword. Right-handed, so my sword arm now had a literal arrow sticking out of it
‘How did you fucking miss?’ Tomas yelled out in a panic. ‘I’ll do it myself!’
