Bounty Read online

  “I’ll double the guard,” he announced, wanting to do something.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You would just let him come?”

  “I would rather not waste any effort. Better to save it, for when he’s here.”

  “Is he really that inevitable, my lady?”

  “He was a professional assassin. Not only does he know every trick in the book, but he’s naturally clever and resourceful, and has no trouble twisting tricks into new phenomena that aren’t in any books. It’s pointless to bother putting more scouts on the walls to keep their eyes on the alleys – Damious will probably come in on the walls.”

  “How soon do you expect he’ll arrive?”

  “Imminently. He doesn’t waste time. Today? Tomorrow?”

  Godren rose, and headed out without a word. Whether Mastodon was putting faith in precautions or not, he would rather do everything he could to avoid coming to the climax where he jumped in front of a blade and gave his life for hers, inevitably spilling his blood all over her carpet after all.

  He found Seth without trouble, and gave him the heads up. “Mastodon’s expecting trouble. An old acquaintance of hers is in town, and she’s saying that he’ll come for her and there’s no deterring him. She expects him to gain entrance, and claims there’s no point trying to prevent it, but security is my call. I want the alleys watched. And the walls. Where’s Ossen?”

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “Who’s shift is it to be on the walls?”

  Seth raised an eyebrow at the question.

  “I lost track of time,” Godren explained.

  “Kane’s, but Bastin had to report to Mastodon before replacing him at the entrance.”

  “So there’s no one out there?”

  “Unless you want to count on Ossen going above and beyond and volunteering more of the services you so spitefully had the authority to assign him in the first place.”

  Godren turned away in the same manner he’d left Mastodon’s study, in no mood to respond.

  “You want me out there?” Seth asked.

  “In addition to whoever is on watch,” Godren confirmed without turning his head to cast the words over his shoulder. With that, he went to ascend to ground level. At the entrance to the Underworld, he found Bastin settling down to free Kane.

  “Kane out there?” he asked curtly.

  “Just departed.”

  “Is Ossen around?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “If you see him, tell him he’s wanted.”

  “As you wish.”

  Turning on his heel, Godren cast a sweeping glance over the dark alleys immediately around them, then descended back to the Underworld.

  Seth caught up to him almost immediately, buckling on a dagger sheath. “Anything else you can tell me about this guest we’re expecting? I mean, what am I looking for, exactly?”

  “A figure you might peg as Mastodon’s ‘type’, who looks as if he has a thing for irony and makes some sort of dramatic entrance. Does that help any?”

  “I guess I’ll just have to look for the dramatic entrance.”

  “That would be my advice.” They turned down the passage that led to Ossen’s personal corner, and Godren lengthened his stride, only to find that Ossen wasn’t there, either. “Though anyone is progress, if you’re keeping an eye out for trespassers – gods, where is Ossen?” he demanded, spinning back around in an agitated fashion.

  “Is he really that important? I’ve never seen you so intent on seeking his company before.”

  “It would be just like him to disappear right as we really need to get our hands dirty,” Godren remarked without patience.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him, too, then,” Seth declared. “And I have leeway to pounce on anyone I see, right?”

  Grunting his approval, Godren turned deeper into the Underworld as Seth turned toward the entrance.

  “Where are you going?” Seth wanted to know over his shoulder.

  “I’m staying with Mastodon.”

  Parting ways, they went to take up their posts. When Godren entered Mastodon’s study, he found her sitting idly at her desk, no work in front of her, her hands folded in her lap. He paused to look at her, and then headed for the back corner of the room, forsaking his usual chair to sit restlessly in the shadows. He would rather be cloaked than comfortable, and besides – he could watch the room better from there.

  “Come to wait with me?” Mastodon asked, an ominous edge to her otherwise matter-of-fact tone.

  “What else would you have me do?” Godren replied soberly.

  “Cheer up, Godren. I have utmost faith in your deflective abilities.”

  That’s a great comfort, he thought. All that did was confirm that she expected trouble and that she expected him to jump in and deflect it.

  Maybe it’s more than expectation, Godren considered on a sudden hunch. Maybe that’s what she wants. Was this a test? Did Mastodon want to gauge his loyalty and see how far he would go for her, how quickly he would jump in harm’s way? There was no knowing, but it wouldn’t surprise him in the least. All he could do was proceed with the only option that had occurred to him in the first place: prove to her he would keep his end of this discomfited bargain.

  As he sat in the corner, the shadows seemed to lengthen and the silence seemed to thicken. For the first time, he noticed the rhythmic ticking of a clock on Mastodon’s wall, and after that he couldn’t shut it out. The seconds kept dragging by, each measured with precise significance and the clicking hands released with growing tension each time. The little gears churned louder into the silence, echoing in Godren’s ringing ears. And all the while, Mastodon sat at her desk – still, composed, and waiting.

  “Do you want us to shoot Damious, my lady?” Godren finally asked, having it occur to him that surely that would be an easy way to deal with anyone, clever assassin or not. What prompted the need for the question, however, was the fact that Mastodon hadn’t simply proposed delivering Damious’s fate that way in the first place – which was why Godren himself hadn’t bothered to consider it until then – and that made him wonder if some small part of her was still too attached to him to be so heartlessly cruel. He wouldn’t expect her to pause in her ruthlessness regardless of her victim, but why then had she not proposed such a clear solution?

  Mastodon glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Damious was…made immune to countless poison varieties in his youth. Training as an assassin, poison was – yes, ironically – his specialty, and he couldn’t risk proving a fatality unto himself. He’s untouchable in that area.”

  “You don’t even want us to try?”

  “I prefer not being laughed at for acts of stupidity.”

  I prefer being alive, Godren wanted to say, but kept his mouth shut. Mastodon wouldn’t care. Besides, she had ‘utmost faith in his deflective abilities’. If only I shared her faith.

  Then the silence continued. There was not much to be said, and nothing to do, it seemed, but wait. Godren tried to imagine what must be going through Mastodon’s mind, but there was just no knowing. Would Damious prove to bare her only soft spot? Or would he only end up proving just how ruthless she was?

  Thunder rippled above ground, the sound muffled as the tremors faded into the Underworld. Godren glanced at Mastodon from beneath his lashes, significantly anticipating the rain. Mastodon did not look back at him, but he knew she surely shared his thoughts. If rain fell, that would present the ideal setting for someone who wished not to be seen. Waiting for the opportune moment, Damious would undoubtedly choose then to make his entrance. And if he came in on the walls, as Mastodon suspected would be just like him, he would be twice as difficult to thwart; the walls would be dangerous in the rain – probably no obstacle for an elite assassin – and Godren’s once brilliant tactic would suddenly hold no advantage at all.

  The night passed slowly, time thick and uncertain, with Godren listening for the sound of rain outside. He heard d
istant thunder a few more times, but the rain held off, taunting the situation.

  When Kane came back from his shift, Bastin took a moment to check on things in Mastodon’s study.

  “Everything quiet down here?” he asked.

  “Yes, Bastin. Thank you,” Mastodon confirmed.

  Quiet as a tomb, Godren thought with unease, feeling smothered and, even more so, cornered.

  “I’m sure Godren would appreciate it if you relieved him a moment and let him stretch his legs,” the mistress of the Underworld added without looking at Godren where he sat resigned to his little corner.

  Bastin and Godren shared a glance, and then both made moves to comply on silent agreement.

  “I’ll be back,” Godren said, and then took advantage of the opportunity and escaped the trapping study. Outside, the corridors seemed darker with foreboding, the air taut somehow, and though he realized he probably wouldn’t find relief anywhere, he took the steps two at a time eager to emerge from the sunken, buried Underworld.

  The air was permeated strongly with the imminent smell of rain – a fresh smell, characteristically, but it was the imminence about it that boded ill with Godren, doubly significant, and he stood at the threshold to the Underworld eyeing the alleys with disquiet all aflutter inside him.

  “There’s nothing out there,” Kane said a little impatiently, annoyed at Godren hovering around his post. “We’ve been like hawks, watching the alleys, and nothing’s astir. Don’t know what warranted this fuss.”

  Did he not know about Damious? Godren looked at him, and then blinked and looked away. He wasn’t worth the trouble of explaining, if he didn’t know. At least, not while Godren was in such a mood.

  Just then, something did stir – a form emerged from an alley, and sauntered closer, featureless in the dark. The scent of roses exuded from him to lace with the smell of rain, though, and Godren would know that saunter anywhere.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked a little forcefully as the shadows flowed off of Ossen and his features became evident.

  Defiant indifference immediately lit up Ossen’s face at the sound of Godren’s tone. He looked Godren straight in the eye without shame – almost with pleasure – and didn’t falter in walking past. “Around,” he volunteered uncaringly.

  Godren’s grip closed around Ossen’s arm. The pleasure ran right out of Ossen, and he turned his face to bore warning holes into Godren’s skull.

  “Get on the walls,” Godren ordered, tone brooking no argument.

  Still glaring, Ossen removed his arm from Godren’s grip with pointed, savage care, and then continued moving very deliberately toward the Underworld, every muscle visibly smoldering with rebellion.

  Godren looked after him, expression mordant, holding himself at the edge of doing something wonderfully irrevocable about Ossen’s boldness. He restrained himself, but knew he couldn’t just let Ossen play him and walk away like this – especially if Kane was watching.

  “Where have you been, Ossen?” he demanded again, giving his rebellious ally a second chance.

  Ossen spun and treaded backwards, arms spread innocently open in the air. “On the walls,” he claimed mockingly, stance daring Godren to challenge him.

  And of course Godren couldn’t. For all he technically knew, Ossen could have been on the walls just as easily as anywhere else. It was just the fact that he knew Ossen better than that – a hundred times better than that – that festered in his knowledge.

  His claim going unchallenged, Ossen dropped his arms and disappeared within the broken fortress that housed the deceptive fire pit.

  “Don’t let him do that to you, Godren,” Kane said disapprovingly. “It demeans you.”

  “Watch yourself,” Godren warned. “The day you start caring is the day you start failing your job description.” With that, he went back inside. He checked to make sure Ossen hadn’t retired to his corner to ignore his orders, and then made his way back to Mastodon’s study. When he entered, he found Ossen just turning to leave. On his way by, Ossen conveniently misjudged the distance between them and knocked shoulders with Godren, then glared at him as if he had caused the blunder.

  Godren let him go, and the door clicked shut behind him. “Where is he going?” he inquired of Mastodon.

  “To the walls, Godren,” Mastodon replied, some knowing tinge in her voice. Glancing at her, then away as he stood there a moment, Godren ultimately let it go completely and moved back toward his corner. Not having settled down the way Godren had, Bastin pushed himself away from his upright lounge against the wall and went to join Ossen at the peaks of the Ruins, without needing to be told. Godren was thankful for that. Of course, Mastodon’s presence deterred any manner of rebellion by itself, and he found himself jealous of her silent conviction, but there was nothing for it.

  “I found Ossen incensed,” Mastodon observed when Bastin was clear of the room.

  “I find Ossen frequently disagreeable one way or another, my lady,” Godren remarked in turn, but didn’t offer any more.

  “May I ask what happened between you two, before your association through me?” Mastodon inquired, withdrawing a stick of incense from her desk as she spoke. Sometimes she could be so polite, so agreeable herself.

  Godren watched her light the incense, his focus starved of entertainment. “Just typical criminal rivalry, vying for the best hideouts and filching posts, and disagreeing over what belonged to who, knocking heads when one of us spotted the best loot and the other tried to step in and take over… Forgive me for saying so, but Ossen was always quite lazy, spying from the shadows while I did the work, and then jumping in to steal the prize. I’m afraid I had minimal respect for that, and my resistance drew out the bully in him. Before recruiting me in your name, the last time I saw him was when he jumped me in an alley and spitefully banged the living daylights out of me, leaving me for the vultures.”

  “But you picked yourself up and dusted yourself off?” Mastodon asked, arranging the incense stick with great care and fondly watching the smoke began to curl into the air.

  “More like dragged myself under a rock and painstakingly waited out the worst until I could crack my eyes open again.”

  “And yet you deign to live in harmony here, coexisting side by prickling side without tearing out his throat.”

  “Harmony?” Godren asked doubtfully.

  “Well, there’s a bit of a discord, certainly,” Mastodon granted, “but surely you itch to do more than let him walk by untouched all the time.”

  “He is my ally.”

  “He nearly killed you.”

  “Before he was my ally,” Godren pointed out.

  “You think he would not do it again? Do you think he would pause at the understanding I have forced between you simply because you are honoring it?”

  “I only mean that I am honoring it,” Godren distinguished. “Ossen will do as he wishes.”

  “I gave you authority, Godren. Don’t you wish to use it?”

  “When it’s appropriate.”

  “But don’t you take pleasure in it at all?”

  “I am not on pleasurable terms with my life just now, my lady.”

  “Ah yes, you are still full of resentment for your calling.”

  “I have no calling.”

  Mastodon settled back as the smoky incense began to drift through the air, closing her eyes and breathing deeply of its essence. “You are in denial, Godren.”

  “I was under the impression that the only relevant thing was that I am in your debt.”

  “So long as you’re not in denial about that, I suppose we’ll get along well enough,” Mastodon agreed, closing the touchy subject. “Did you have a pleasant childhood?”

  “As much as anyone,” he replied, not knowing how to go about speaking of these things to Mastodon. How did you react when a dark, ruthless woman was candidly interested in your childhood? “Did you?” he turned the question on her, deciding that if they were on friendly questioning terms, he mig
ht as well test the strange waters.

  “I had no childhood,” Mastodon replied. “Was plunged straight from the womb into the corruption of the streets. My father was in the business, and my mother was dragged helplessly along until the poor thing dropped dead, bless her weak soul. Well, to be honest she didn’t drop dead straight off. She went a bit loony and wasted away into frail decay before she was murdered down some dark alley. It was inevitable. Feeble things like her don’t last in this business. I was hardened as an infant and keenly pegged to inherit the trade when my father passed on.”

  “When was that?”

  “When Damious assassinated him.”

  Godren blinked. “Did you hire him?”

  “No, Godren, I’m not quite that treacherous. Not that I cared much for my father, but there was loyalty among the family. No, Damious was hired by the queen herself. For you see, my father was near as infamous as I am today, though of course it was across the border where the royalty was bolder in its intolerance for the likes of us. And Damious was quite a reputable professional. But that’s how I met him, you see, when I found him standing superior over my father’s corpse, and that grade of power attracted me.”

  “What attracted him to you?”

  “The irony, I imagine. Like I said, he had something for that. But my youthful beauty helped, too. Believe it or not, I was quite a stunner in those days.”

  Actually, Godren could imagine it. Though she showed age and was not done any service of appearance by the consuming corruption of her dark deeds, he could imagine her years ago, an exotic creature in the prime of her youth. Her dark hair wouldn’t have been course then – or graying – and it would have framed her face in midnight waves. Her clever eyes wouldn’t have been so hardened – and clever eyes are very attractive things when balanced and soft. If not wrinkled, you would notice the lovely shade her skin was, and since she was only slightly broad as a woman, sitting still and idle behind her desk all the time, surely she would have been a fine sight rising through the stimulating stages of her life.

  “So you did not love each other at all?” Godren asked, but it was more of a statement.