Bounty (41 page)

The exodus took place swiftly and left Godren breathless, the proximity going almost unnaturally still. The only sign of what had been put in motion was the distant storm of birds swarming across the city sky. Was that the wind’s idea of a sign? Godren wondered. Or had the birds been sent to do something?

Godren couldn’t say. But as a gentle rain of cherry blossoms began drifting down from the ravaged sky, his doubts of the wind’s significance began to dissipate regardless of if the birds were to return with a further sign. He turned about beneath the silent shower of misplaced blossoms, which were a long way from home now, he thought, in addition to being out of season. He was unaware of Evantralis quietly withdrawing from the scene, and forgot about her as she faded from his side.

Spring has befallen the Ruins,
he mused.
Perhaps the dark season of my life has used itself up.

*

“
There are cherry blossoms in my alleys,” Mastodon said. “Why are there cherry blossoms in my alleys?”

Unfortunately, even Mastodon who never came out from behind her desk couldn’t miss the flowery oddity that infected her lifeless domain. The alleys were absolutely covered in petals, carpeted with a thick layer of blossoms. Their scent was wild in the air, evident even beneath the ground in Mastodon’s study. Aside from that additional evidence of the flowers’ presence, the cats were tracking them in.

Bastin, Ossen, Seth and Godren all stood before Mastodon’s desk, answering to her demands. Though Godren knew more than any of the others, he could no more explain it than they could, and so he shifted position and shuffled his feet along with them, avoiding her gaze.

“If this is some ridiculous idea of a joke–” Mastodon began, but cut off with an odd look on her face. An unsteady breath rattled in her lungs, causing the men to all glance uncertainly at one another, and then, abruptly enough that they all flinched, Mastodon broke the suspense and sneezed.

Blinking away the effects, the woman composed herself again, looking slightly disoriented for having been overcome by the spell. “If – if this is some ridiculous idea of a joke,” she continued, “I’ll have you know I completely missed the punch line and am aghast at the flowery obsession of the men I thought I employed. I hired you for your grit; you are supposed to spill blood in my alleys, not decorate them with the ravishing allure of springtime fantasy. What do you want this operation to look like? A wedding? I do have a reputation to uphold, you know, and it has nothing to do with springtime or weddings.” She sneezed again, abruptly. “How embarrassing,” she said to herself, starting to sound as if her nasal passages were clogging up. It was unclear whether or not she was referring to the flowery injury to her dark pride or the undignified inconvenience of being attacked by spells of sneezing.

At a loss, her subjects just looked on.

“Fine,” Mastodon gave in, looking increasingly allergic. “If you all insist on keeping quiet about your responsibility in this, then you will all clean it up. Get those dratted flowers out of my alleys.”

Dismissed, the men dispersed to follow their orders, still just as bemused by the nature of their assignment but relieved to escape punishment over the unexplainable turn of events. As the rest of them applied themselves to ridding the corridors of the blossoms, though, Godren found himself smiling and shuffling through them. It reminded him of childhood autumns in Wingbridge, when he and Seth would wade through the layers of fallen leaves. Only now, the layers weren’t of dead leaves but of fresh, rich blossoms, as if signifying a new age, a new way of things. He breathed in the intoxicating scent, thinking it was about time the alleys stopped smelling like darkness and decay and got freshened up. It was a nice side effect that it had Mastodon in fits of sneezing, too. He chuckled, thinking it was a good way to cheat against his contract and cause her grief. Not that he had planned it, but it gave him a sense of pleasure imagining.

And then, when a swarm of ravens rushed by overhead, Godren lost any notion of cleaning up entirely and followed them to their destination – the Underworld’s entrance, where they were vying for diving space and disappearing in clusters down into the fire pit.

Kane was cursing and plastering himself against the wall to avoid the unexpected flurry of ravens, looking a little bit spooked. If Godren didn’t know any better, he would have said he saw the other man draw a holy sign on his chest to ward against bad omens.

Smiling cordially at him, Godren barely waited for the swarm to subside before following the birds into the pit, a casual bounce to his step. He was in a decidedly good mood as he traipsed into Mastodon’s study and found her sneezing and shooing a mob of unruly birds off her desk. The cats were scattering, spilling out the door around his entrance.

A myriad of excessive smoke was billowing about the room as multiple flailing wings churned it into turmoil. Godren took stock of the ridiculous amount of incense burning about the room, wondering just how fierce Mastodon’s cherry blossom allergies were.

“Chaos have mercy,” Mastodon was saying, at her wits’ end at the continuing intrusiveness of events. “Get
off
, featherbrain. Get your molting hide and dung-crusted feet off my work. For goodness’ sake, even the birds smell like cherry blossoms,” she directed a remark at Godren to acknowledge his entry.

“I believe everything does,” Godren commented back, avoiding any mention of his insight and the connection the ravens had to the very uncanny wind that brought in the blossoms in the first place.

Emitting a sound of exasperation, Mastodon gave up trying to clear the ravens from her desk and swiped her papers out from beneath their squabbling feet. Putting them aside, she seized a raven firmly so its wings were immobile and drew it up for a closer look. With one hand she pulled a smoking stick of incense over and placed it so that its essence wafted up and pooled around the bird. Shooing some wispy tendrils at the creature’s eyes, Mastodon leaned closer to peer into the bird’s midnight pupils.

“Alright, what do you have for me?” she inquired absently.

Godren waited on the results, growing anxious as the woman settled into interpreting the reflections stored in the raven’s eyes. She took her time, and only after testing two more birds did she break her concentration.

“Well why don’t you share that with the class, then, if you think it’s so important,” she suggested, shooing pillars of smoke together into one mass over her desk and then drawing a wispy pattern in it with her finger. Lastly, she grabbed a bird and launched it through the makeshift cloud, and in the obscure window that resulted, a vision took form.

It was a bird’s eye view of the Crowing Woods, a feathery rush of treetops and then the relief of a clearing. A crudely-dressed figure could be seen moving about in the open area amongst symbols drawn in the dirt. The symbols seemed to mark some sort of course, and a wolf appeared to be completing training drills as the man gave directions to maneuver through it.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly until the wolf evidently did not finish the routine correctly and was reprimanded and refused its reward. It skittered away from punishment with its tail between its legs, but its head lowered into a predatory lurk and its eyes glinted in a dangerously provoked fashion that its master either dismissed or missed altogether. When he turned his back to reset something in the course, the wolf saw an opportunity and let instinct take over. Perhaps it was the unfair temptation of fresh meat that its master withheld in his hand, or perhaps it had merely been provoked past its raw taming. In any case, it squared its path, advanced without pause, and launched itself at its foolhardy caregiver.

Oblivious, the man went down under the unanticipated assault, naïve to the folly of his own operation. One moment he had control, but had taken it for granted, and the next he suffered the consequences of underestimation.

As the vision played out in favor of the wolf, Godren fought with empathy for the man, remembering what it felt like to be in that frightful position. He deserved no less for his lack of respect toward the unpredictable creatures he had gambled with, but it was impossible to be indifferent to such a fate.

“So the wolf turns on its master,” Mastodon observed as the smoke thinned and the vision dissipated. “It seems to me that was a foolish enough mistake to make on Wolf’s part. What kind of an idiot takes for granted a wild animal’s willingness to civilize itself for reward? Instinct is first and foremost its eternal master, and without respect for that you have nothing over an animal. It seems Wolf did not have the modesty to acknowledge that he was manipulating, not controlling, his pets.”

“Or perhaps he got scared with us onto him and no defense to hold us at bay, and rushed their training. Took their raw taming for granted because he felt pressed for time. Foolish, still, but understandable.”

“Perhaps,” Mastodon mused in agreement.

Godren’s humbleness at witnessing the episode he had indirectly hoped into happening lifted slightly in relief of an abrupt realization; Wolf was taken care of. The last of the relevant bounty hunters was eliminated. He had asked for a sign, put faith in the greater powers of nature and its ancient order, and suddenly found himself granted more than he had hoped for.

“But I don’t know what all the fuss was about,” Mastodon was saying, “swarming in here and strewing my business around just to relay an illustration of stupidity. Would you mind
getting
these creatures off of my desk and into some manner of cages?”

How to remove himself from her scheme… “As a favor to you,” Godren agreed, and Mastodon looked up. A swell of prideful independence bloomed like spring in the erstwhile shackled passageways of Godren’s being, and the dark winter of hopelessness breathed out of him. “Wolf was the last. My term is up.”

Mastodon met his proclamation with silence, like the sound of twilight turning all reason dormant. She was speechless, but not necessarily surprised. She hadn’t accounted for this, but acceptance overruled the unexpectedness of it.

“And I brought you Damious, to eliminate related threat.”

Considering him, Mastodon dealt with any resistance of coming to terms with his point. “So you did,” she acknowledged.

“I expect our contract will not undergo any challenge?”

Seeing no alternative, Mastodon did not oppose him. “Our contract stands. Your relinquishment is valid,” she granted, expressionless.

Godren nodded. “Then, my lady, I thank you for your hospitality.” Ruling himself so he did not run from the room, Godren measured his pace and graciously went about removing the ravens from her study. Not another word was exchanged between him and the mistress of the Underworld, though, and he left her sitting behind her desk with veils of dissipating incense drifting about her expressionless face.

33:
Home

A
fter depositing the ravens in their cell-oriented aviary, Godren lingered by Damious’s cell. The assassin peered out, his face bruised, split and swollen from their tousle. He did not show any traces of misery, though, and Godren marveled over his carefree spirit.

When Godren hesitated too long looking for words, Damious took up the silence himself. “What became of Blackie?” he wanted to know.

“One of the slaves removed him from the room when the fight broke out, and soothed him into an uncanny daze. He’s dozing in one of the courtyards.”

“Ah. Good. If it’s not too much to ask, I’d request that you ensure no harm comes to him.”

Godren inclined his head in agreement, and then kept his eyes downcast as guilt for entrapping Damious set in again. “I…do hope I have not put you in something you cannot get out of,” he expressed sincerely. “I’ve learned to try to do what I have to, but…I still find myself constantly second-guessing my actions.”

Listening fairly, Damious took in what Godren had to say with a deep amount of understanding. He measured his next words with care. “Godren…I took part willingly. Feel free to second-guess your own actions, but leave mine to me. Don’t try to carry the mistakes of others on your shoulders. That’s a job better left until you’re closer to…my age.”

Humbled by the significant undercurrent in the assassin’s words, Godren wondered if Damious meant to imply that he had chosen to sacrifice himself for the mess Godren had gotten himself into. Could he possibly have had the gall to turn himself in with a motive of empathy over irony?

“The ironic stakes you presented may have attracted the appetite in me, but it was your fight that convicted me. I saw the passion, Godren. The passion that overrides skill, and the odds, and just…makes every breath a fight for deliverance. You fight the very air, trying to breathe in more than you can get out of it. Starving for life and fighting the current. I respect that. And the truth is – I’ve lived. I loved once, and lost that, but you might fare better. Your ambition in that area is inspiring, and since you’ve earned my respect – I think you deserve a chance. The gods know I made my own mess of things and don’t deserve any more of a chance – there’s not even any point for another chance – and maybe I can compensate for some of the wrongs and selfish things I have done this way. Don’t think anything of it; it’s merely a gift of respect, that’s all. And it gives me a certain sense of peace. So just…take it and let it be what it is. Just make good of it.”