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Lear ‘Razor’ Hik
‘Captain’
‘Butcher of Drek River’
‘Man from Atetalerso’
Bloody favor
Part I
-Be wary of an old man…-
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> 14th of Sextus of 174 NC
>
> The warband-supporting Duchy of Sovya
>
> East banks of the mostly frozen Drek River
>
> A kilometer and a half from its bridge
>
> Twenty-seven kilometers from Kadrek
>
> 2nd Cohort’s (Lesia) advanced cavalry units under the Baron of Ballard seek to make contact with the operating in the Northmen’s rear areas mercenary company named the ‘300’ under Captain Lear Hik.
>
>
>
> *the unit known today as ‘333’
> -
> The slim figure of the Issir priest/adventurer Nard Molders could be heard praying over the blasting over the treeline northern wind. His black doublet and same color silken scarf draped around his neck and raised over the mouth to protect him from the bitter cold of Sovya’s summer. Emerson rubbed Baron’s snout with a gloved hand to clean it some, while watching the groups of Legion’s rangers fan out looking for game or deserters.
>
> The enemy had retreated during the night upon realizing no reinforcements were to arrive. As much a surprise to them as it was for Emerson’s men. They had headed towards the battlements of Kadrek where a large number of Nords had come down from their winter staging area near Halfostad to reinforce the front.
>
> Hardened men from Rifjordal itching for a scrap.
>
> If the Jarl gets involved this might drag out for another year.
>
> Or more.
>
> “Yer mare had a little stallion,” Emerson told his neighing horse with another pat on its head. His young sister Lila had written him all about it in a nice letter that smelled of home. “Reckon we need to think of a proper name.”
>
> Baron snorted and shook his mane, large head pushing on his heavy overcoat. Emerson stood back with a grunt of his own.
>
> “Was thinking of calling him Duke,” he rustled disapprovingly. “But now I’m not as sure.”
>
> “I can’t believe you are talking to the horse again,” his friend teased blowing at his gloved hands that dark face pale. Molders never found common ground with the cold weather, his skin color and own personal demons keeping him away from the predominantly Lesia-hailing soldiers but Emerson.
>
> “You are talking to dead people. I’ll take my chances wit the horse,” Emerson retorted with another grunt and turned hearing iron horseshoes approaching. Sir Melcher’s armoured figure appeared out of the trees and headed their away leading a group of mounted warriors with the number 300 stitched on their saddles in gold.
>
> The rumor being that this was the number of shares D’Orsi had in the Bank of Trust. A ‘gift’ from the Marquise.
>
> “Eh, Ora is ever following after Tyeus,” the priest griped in reply and slotted the rough bound copy of Veturius’ Histories he always carried with him inside a field satchel. Molders tended to lose himself in the old texts just before the last light of each day. Emerson avoided that as the present presented equal opportunities to learn and he preferred an early sleep.
>
> The latter not as easy to find anymore the last couple of years.
>
> Melcher reached them, pursed mouth lost under a thick greying beard and pulled at the reins to stop his horse, but turned it a little to keep his following ‘friends’ in view. A man close to Emerson’s age with his head wrapped in a bloody cloth and mauve skin under the eyes. A Lorian warrior next to him riding a laden with strange-shaped sacks horse and a Nord-looking female, followed by a hard-faced Horselord. People called him a Cofol, but they were wrong.
>
> Emerson knew the newcomers.
>
> “They cleared the woods milord,” Melcher rustled crooking his mouth, more a warning than a report for some reason. Emerson glanced at the leather sacks Roland Edge carried on his mount.
>
> “The Northmen with Redmond retreated?” Emerson asked a little surprised they had abandoned their positions and gave a nod with his head to greet the badly maimed Captain Hik.
>
> Sir Melcher, who had served his father starting as his squire for many years, let out an incoherent word and pursed his cracked lips tightly. “Some did. A few surrendered.” The veteran Knight finally replied.
>
> A leering Edge raised a clenched fist to salute the men of the Legion and then nodded at the men-at-arms of Ballard watching them. Melcher adding right after. “Did them no good. It is what it is, I suppose.”
>
> Emerson eyed the silent mercenary Captain for a moment and then the faces of the gang that led Baron D’Orsi’s company.
>
> “We could have used some high-valued prisoners to bring the Redmonds to the negotiating table,” Emerson started critically.
>
> “Eargh… mah.” Hik growled ineligibly through the bandages.
>
> “What the captain is trying to say, is that ye still can do that Baron. Don’t know about talking though,” Edge translated and reached behind with a hand for one of those heavily laden sacks he’d secured on the saddle. Emerson narrowed his black eyes.
>
> “What’s in the plaguin’ bags?” He rustled hoarsely and the Nord female Rita answered for the aloof mercenaries.
>
> “Most of the Redmonds.”
>
> The only person present reacting to the revelation Nard Molders that started whispering a quick prayer to Ora. His words snatched by the afternoon icy breeze and dragged screaming over the thawing trees with the soaked heavy branches. The branches crackled, large black swathes cleared of snow appearing in the white trees as they shed it. The collapsing material rattled the thorny leaves, breaking weakened stems and allowed some of the dying sunlight to come through. Nard’s words turning into an otherworldly howling.
>
>
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17th of Tertius 194 NC
Bearcub Forest, Kingdom of Kaltha
About a kilometer from Irde Shrine
Sunrise
The Lorian with the warpear let out an otherworldly howl that resounded over the trees hugging both sides of the path and snapped his heels to charge at the scowling Lear. More a tensed grimace than a scowl although there was plenty of anger in it to qualify for one as well.
Eh.
The horse charged down the path, iron horseshoes digging at the ground and hurling chunks of black earth this way and that. The spear’s tip aimed low to hit the bounty hunter center mass. Lear reached for his razor with the left hand, brought the right leg back and angled his body raising the longsword to eye level.
His eyes locked with the charging animal’s disregarding everything else for a brief second. The next he snapped his wrist and the blade lunged forward extending more than meter in front of Lear’s body.
A clear warning he would defend himself that the animal fully understood.
“Yargh!” The bank’s agent growled as the rapidly moving mount veered left abruptly, turning its head first and then the rest of its large body. The momentum dislodging the man from the saddle and hurling him the other way. He flew briefly, a hand still holding on at the spear and the other flaying to find purchase where there was none. Legs kicking wildly as he twirled around out of control and crashed on his back a meter away from the now moving again with measured strides –to conserve energy- Lear.
“Well, beshrew thee!” Fausto cursed and unsheathed his sword. “Get him Marshal!”
Lear stepped over the groaning, half-broken agent and stabbed the elongated razor down through the man’s raised to protect himself hand. The thin blade slashing four fingers to the bone and opening a deep gash on the agent’s screaming face from left eyebrow to chin. De-fleshing half his face to the cranium.
Marshal jumped from his horse with Fausto doing the same and the archer reached for another arrow from his horse’s quiver in the background. Lear walked away from the shuddering spear-wielding agent after hacking him once casually on the maimed head with the sword. Chopping his right wrist off. The blood jumping out in a torrent hissing like a coiled in the grass snake.
“Fucking hell!” Marshal cursed witnessing the clinical brutality and sidestepped to come at Lear from the left side. The bounty hunter glanced at the archer nocking a fresh fixed-blade broadhead arrow ten meters away, still on his horse and stepped back to bring the arriving Fausto in the archer’s field of view.
“You got more tricks in the bag old man?” Fausto grunted and hacked at him with the fancy sword. A gilded cross-guard on it gleaming in the sunlight coming through the canopy. Lear parried the blade aside but had to pull back to deal with the attack from Marshal. The agent switching grip to slash at his long coat, the blade stopping at the rings of his armoured leather cuirass with a thud. Marshal dragged the retreating blade to saw down but Lear smacked the sword away turning his torso.
Another step back, longsword whipping out to keep the attackers away, handle rotating in his grip, as Lear switched stances, an eye always kept on the archer in the background. The man ever shifting right and left looking for an opening. Lear would have taken the shot already in his stead, but the agent feared he was going to hit Fausto and stalled.
“Allgods Marshal!” A scowling Fausto admonished his man. “Get it over with!”
“Eh,” Marshall cursed and started circling the grimacing from having his innards rattled earlier Lear. “Tracer says Razor stood his ground with Sir Emerson!”
‘Tracer’ Jack was a bounty hunter operating in Lesia mostly. Running a similar outfit as Lear used to back in the day. Ayup. With that ruffian Shin and crazy Mist, Lear thought leaving the reminiscing for another day given the inopportune timing.
“I don’t care about old war stories mister Marshal,” Fausto snapped angrily. “I heard them all from my father!”
With that he came at Lear again angling to his right, which was a concern since with Marshal loitering to Lear’s left now the Archer saw the agents parting in front of him. It gave him the opening he craved since the start of the scrap to shoot the bounty hunter.
Go for the face! Lear urged the firing archer and jerked aside, lowering on a protesting knee and extending his longsword out towards the attacking Fausto. The arrow whistled over his head, the archer cursed Lear’s lineage and the ogling Fausto snapped his sword down to parry the bounty hunter’s blade away.
The previous time Lear Hik had urged a man to do the same that keen-eyed scoundrel had shot an arrow in his cheek. Cost him two molars and a tongue.
Lear was luckier this time but Fausto wasn’t. The Mclean scion’s blade pushed Lear’s sword down but the latter rode the momentum, the sword striking the ground and then leaping up in an arc. The heavy sharp point connecting with the twitching aside Fausto’s face opening a ghastly wound from the edge of his mouth to the left ear.
The latter slashed away in the process and soaring in the air spreading gore afore vanishing out of sight.
“Naah!!” Eleonora screamed in a high-pitched tone in shock as a groaning Fausto twirled away from the turning to defend against Marshal bounty hunter and the archer atop his horse raised his reloaded bow to try his luck again.
Discovering that he couldn’t.
With a gurgling grunt that Lear heard, the archer toppled from the neighing horse and crashed awkwardly between its legs. This last part Lear missed completely as the bounty hunter had gone after Marshal. Eleonora’s angry wails making the idyllic country road –if one was willing to look past the several butchered corpses littering this part of the woods- sound a tad haunted.
Which Lear supposed wasn’t that idyllic in the first place.
Umm.
Marshal attacked his razor-wielding arm but Lear moved the arm back and attacked with the other, his blade thudding on the agent’s armoured shoulder and shoving him back. Lear dropped the razor and snatched Marshal’s returning blade near the guard in a steely grip, his own sword turning a slash into a lower-aimed stab that penetrated the rings under the shoulder plate. With a pained grunt Marshal let go of his sword and jumped away from the piercing steel.
“Get him… what are you doing?” A livid Fausto growled, a hand clasping at his maimed face and blood dripping between the fingers. “Marshal!”
“Fausto. Len is dead!” Eleonora screamed.
Fausto checked at the body of the archer that had the steel bullet-point of a crossbow bolt sprouting out of his forehead. The misshapen cranium cracked, the skin torn and exploded outwards in a grotesque wound.
All things considered, darn kid is one hell of a shot, Lear thought impressed and stooped with a groan to pick up his razor. He walked towards Fausto briskly next, keeping the sword loose at his side.
“Toss the blade Mclean!” Lear thundered and Fausto cursed afore twisting about livid.
“Is that Bolt? I knew it! You fucking liar!”
“Drop it,” Lear warned him soberly and Fausto clenched his bloody teeth in a snarl. He’d more gore painting his chin and the collar of his expensive leather doublet. A fine ring armour over it. All lovely in theory but not that helpful in a fight against a superior opponent from up close and extra personal.
Especially one that didn’t give a shit about who you were or feared hurting you.
Or in this case, kill you dead.
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Fausto's eyes kept looking in Lear’s face. The right eye a light green resembling autumn leaves. A dark mushy red and bleeding the other. Eleonora had attempted to escape but Mark had shot a bolt in her horse’s head and brought her down rather dramatically. Fortunately she had come about only with a twisted ankle and a badly bruised hip, though rattled and full of anger after witnessing Lear’s sword skewering her husband’s lungs.
Then moving it about right and left to widen the wound.
It was standard procedure.
Fausto was also missing the right arm, but Lear couldn’t find it and he was dead-tired from dancing like a man of twenty in his late forties to look for the missing limb in the nearby bushes.
“You murderous scumbag!” Eleonora sniffled hoarsely from her spot, with Mark looking to bandage her swollen ankle. He had to remove the boot first and the woman had managed to land a good kick on the ranger’s face, splitting his lip. Mark kept apologizing to her until Edge told him to shut up gruffly.
It was more a threat really.
“Mclean will hunt you down like a dog,” Eleonora hissed, wiping the tears from her eyes with both hands.
Edge smacked his lips and looked his way troubled.
“Irde is near,” Lear rustled. “Better get moving. Others might be on the trail.”
“Did that fucker talk?”
“Easily,” Lear replied and sheathed his sword after cleaning it. He glanced at the tied up Marshal and the agent grimaced.
“Just a job mister Hik,” Marshal said after clearing his throat.
“How many came with Fausto?”
“Don’t tell him anything!” Eleonora snapped hoarsely.
“Len, John and myself,” Marshal replied looking her way apologetically. “He’ll torture it out of us milady.”
“Let him try!” Eleonora snarled with hatred.
Marshal glanced at Lear. “We know nothing else,” he told him.
“Umm,” Lear grunted and went to his horse.
“They are going to slow us down Captain,” Edge said to his back.
“We have the mounts,” Lear told him.
Plus I want to know more.
There was of course the other reason.
A favor owed.
“Lass hates yer guts and that’s a sneaky fellow over there,” Edge warned him. Marshal pursed his mouth pretending to be shocked at the old warrior’s accusation.
Lear stared at Eleonora instead as he’d made his decision before the scrap had started. “Get the girl on the saddle Mark,” he ordered the holding a cloth over his cut lip ranger.
“Don’t touch me you creep!” Eleonora warned him.
“Let her walk on that ankle,” Lear said and she glared at him. “She’ll change her mind.”
“I curse your bones Lear Hik,” Eleonora hissed livid. “May the Allgods hear me and punish you for the evil you’ve brought on my family!”
Edge stared at him knowingly.
“Get her on that saddle!” Lear grunted having had enough of talking about old stuff with a mission still in the balance.
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Irde wasn’t a settlement.
It had some buildings and warehouses next to an old inn and stone paths created that led to four separate walled monasteries. The latter housing more proper buildings inside. Four smaller villages surrounding the square amidst the thick oak trees. Each community occupying a point in the horizon. Uher’s priests in the east, Ora’s in the west. Tyeus disciples brick tower to the north and Naossis’ priestesses’ smaller wooden cabins to the south near the entrance.
A priest of Uher wearing tattered robes made a circle over his face, three fingers pointing at the sun above their heads in greeting and Edge cursed under his breath.
“We’re not staying,” Lear said afore his friend could say anything else.
“That’s an inn,” Edge commented from the saddle sourly. “It’s not a good one, I give ye that but we haven’t slept for the night and me arse is slowly coming part under me spine.”
“Albino told me there are hunter cabins deeper in them woods,” Lear murmured in a low voice. “We head north afore word of us reaches Laudus.”
“Told ye Laudus is there?”
“A man named Paros.”
Edge pursed his mouth and turned on the saddle to look at the crestfallen young woman and the aloof Marshal riding with his hands tied in front of him. “What about them?”
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“They are coming along. We’ll stop for a couple of hours north of the village to look for clues and a clear water spring,” Lear rustled and groaned trying to move his left arm.
“Anything broken?” Edge queried.
“Just a nasty burn from the blade,” Lear replied a little peeved. “Couldn’t you shoot at them earlier?”
“Didn’t have enough light. Myself that is. The kid seemed pretty unfazed. He wanted to take a chance earlier,” Edge informed him. “I counseled against such foolishness.”
“I had a horse charging at me!”
“Eh, you’ve dealt with that before.”
“How did you know they’ll come at me on foot next?” Lear grunted in frustration.
“I took a chance,” Edge retorted shamelessly and let out a croaky burp to get out all that cheese he’d munched on earlier. It always gave him gasses. But since it was his farts that Lear feared the most he didn’t mind Edge croaking like a drowning frog. “But he’s a good shot.” The old warrior continued. “Ayup. Maybe as good as Bolt when he still had the eyes.”
“Yep,” Lear agreed and glanced at Mark offering the woman some of his water.
“Thank you,” Eleonora said her demeanor changing. “I won’t hold this against you Yol,” she added in a whisper. “But I’ll want your promise we’ll return to get poor Fausto’s remains.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mark assured her. Lear frowned and Edge scrunched his face this way and that watching their exchange as well.
“Get them moving mister Edge,” Lear said raspingly with a nervous look at the waking up community. “Afore more monks come out and start asking questions or decide to travel towards Badum.”
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Mark got busy trying to prepare a small campfire with Edge ‘volunteering’ Marshal to carry firewood with his hands still tied up, to which the bank’s field agent counter-offered to cut down a couple of dried up, dead trees with the small axe instead in exchange for his freedom. Edge turned down his proposal without much consideration and sent him to gather fallen sticks with his hands tied.
“How is the ankle?” Lear asked the pouting Eleonora who was sitting on a trunk by the path leading away from the settlement. This ‘road’ maintained by animals and people leading north towards the snowed mountain peaks in the distance.
“I can’t wear my boot,” she retorted and glared in his face. “What are you looking for here?”
“You know,” Lear said and rolled a fallen trunk near her for himself.
“I know you had my father killed and my cousin,” Eleonora snapped, her pretty face smeared with dirt from her tumble. “Now my husband.”
“That’s not what happened to your father,” Lear grunted. “As for the others they got what was coming to them especially Tussio. Your cousin was an evil bastard. Is that what Jacomo told you? I had nothing to do with your father’s death.”
“What is this? You expect me to forgive you? After what you did?” Eleonora screamed and tried to get up but with a moan of pain she collapsed on the trunk again. “You made a name near the Mclean and now you stab them in the back?” She croaked through clenched teeth.
Lear turned his head around to watch Marshal carrying dry wood near the fire. Then he looked in the frustrated face of the young woman again. “If you loved Fausto so much,” Lear said evenly and Eleonora grimaced. “You would have stayed behind.”
“Attack a band of murderers with my bare hands?” Eleonora snorted. “You think I’m stupid?”
“I hope yer not,” Lear retorted. “It wouldn’t have worked sure. But would a passionate young woman care for that? Nah.”
“You know nothing about my feelings,” Eleonora hissed livid.
“True,” Lear replied. “Who else is after Laudus?”
She stood back with a frown. “What makes you think—?”
“I need an answer lass,” Lear cut her off mid-sentence.
“Fausto told me nothing,” Eleonora replied evenly. Lear grimaced and moved his left arm up and down to test the condition of his wound. Bandaging the spot after cleaning it wouldn’t be the worst idea, he thought working in his head all that he had learned these past weeks.
“Mark, you know him as Yol Borin, Marion Calcote’s friend,” he started looking at his friends building the fire and the white smoke rising over the trees. “Overheard talk about the bounty offered from Lucius’ men. Now the Merck are a minor partner in the bank but know what’s being discussed. Lady Diana for sure does. What is the bank’s interest in all this?”
“It’s a big sum. The bank’s agents are mercenaries,” Eleonora replied and worked on covering her bandaged ankle with the hem of her leather pants. Lear had seen women wear them afore. Rangers, scouts. Huntresses working the trails mostly up north. Women in Lesia were more conservative than their Regia counterparts and even they avoided wearing men’s clothes. The Issir females’ even worse and those working for the Bank usually kept a low profile.
There were exceptions and Eleonora had the legs for them. The young woman caught his stare but Lear didn’t look away. No point in it. The moment dragged and Eleonora looked away first wetting her lower lip.
Not because she was embarrassed and Lear had looked at plenty of women to know he’d a stare that made even harlots uncomfortable.
“What do you want to know?” She asked hoarsely.
“What was Fausto doing here?”
“Papa says… Lord Jacomo says your escapades got my father killed,” Eleonora stalled but it was a matter he wanted cleared as well. “Is this true?”
“All the unit’s actions were approved by command,” Lear retorted. “Nothing written since we were paid by your uncle. Let me correct this. By Federico Mclean.”
“The Marquise?”
“You know that’s not a real title,” Lear corrected her. “We get to use it a lot and people are mistaking him for something he’s not. Neither noble nor a knight.”
“The king thinks so.”
“The king owes the bank so much that Mclean could have asked for a night with the Queen and met little disagreement.”
“That’s… disgusting.”
“True… yet you don’t seem too rattled by it.”
Eleonora wiped her palms, running them up and down her thighs and then used her hands to repair her disheveled hair. Instead of the loosened from the fall bun, she now made a pony tail using a leather string she had looped around her wrist.
“I knew about the bank footing the bill. But Tussio backed… Jacomo’s words.”
“Tussio was lying. He panicked, took his sweet time to charge at the Northmen and by the time he got around to it your father’s men had been cut off. He didn’t murder him outright but wasn’t that much of a help that day one might argue he did.”
“Easy to blame a dead man. Did you have him killed in Eikenport?” Eleonora snapped.
“Never thought of him since that day,” Lear grunted and got up from the trunk. “Tussio massacred civilians in Eikenport under orders from Federico or by his own volition. Women, children. Hanged them in the public squares, cut their limbs off and had them burned in front of their relatives. You do that, no one is going to spare you lass.”
“Why not report it?”
“Manuela Mclean had claimed the Princess had incited the rebellion and had her nephew killed in Alden,” Lear retorted with a glare. “Nothing was further from the truth. Now if she lied about that, you think she wouldn’t about something smaller? What was Fausto doing here?”
“I told you.”
“Fausto told me different. He said they are looking to make amends with Lucius but that was a lie clearly. Why did she sent her little brother here?”
“Fausto… was dependable,” Eleonora whispered and Lear snorted in frustration.
“Had he wanted Laudus found, he wouldn’t have had the Albino killed,” he told her shaking his head. “Ah, these people are not your family lass. Why would Fausto bring you here in the first place? What madness possessed him?”
“It’s called love Mister Lear,” Eleonora retorted and placed both hands on her gathered knee. “Maybe I’m indispensable?” She taunted.
To him? Lear thought taken aback by her hubris. “This isn’t an adventure lass and you are married into the bad guys.”
“And you’re not?” Eleonora fired back getting all worked up again.
“I am,” Lear replied gruffly and glanced at Edge who was watching them talk with a worried look on his face. Mark had put a kettle on the fire to make some hot tea. “I’m also the one that catches them.”
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Lear left the camp behind him an hour later and followed one of the many diverging paths with his horse, leaving Edge and Mark talking jobs with Marshal next to a sleeping Eleonora. He headed northwest in the first one but turned around and tried the second. Then a third. Every time returning to the main path and the light of their fire.
“Anything?” Edge would casually ask from his spot.
“Nothing. Want to help?”
“I’ll let you work on it a bit more,” his friend would reply.
“What did the Albino say?” Marshal asked one of the times.
“Not much.”
“So what are we doing here?” The agent asked with a smirk.
“Same thing you guys were doing,” Lear replied, thinking of taking Edge’s advice and get the truth out of Marshal the hard way. But he didn’t want the knight’s daughter to see that. It was a stupid excuse since the young woman was Laurent’s daughter only in blood after being raised by the Baron. Who knows what damage that dandy-looking prick did to her? Lear thought and went back searching the paths.
The search tiring for most and dull but not for the veteran bounty hunter. Lear keenly felt the years weighing on him when he stopped working but not when on the job. He needed a purpose to keep on breathing and knew no other way to make a living.
If there ever was a time for him to get out, it had come and gone.
Edge had attempted it with Rita for a while but then she had up and died. He still couldn’t bring himself to learn the details. Lear with the late Bolt had discovered their friend mourning half-dead in their small home. Roland begged Bolt to finish him off and the callous Horselord had thought about it seeing the misery in the old warrior’s eyes. Eventually Bolt baulked away and Edge who had taken Rita’s demise too hard, slowly but surely managed to recover.
Sort of.
Ain’t gonna be left alone to die on me own again ye sons of wrinkled bitches, he cursed them all the way from Cediorum to Rida. Hear that ye old cunts? Ain’t going through that whole shite all over again. Hear me? Forget about it. See that none of you dies on me fucking watch or we’ll have words!
Of course Bolt went ahead and died just the same on top of a ruined roof so Lear got to hear all about it.
You start with baggage and supplies aplenty but you lose most of it in the journey. At the end of it though you carry as much baggage on the inside. Life’s circle intact in its cruelness.
The sixth path Lear followed into the woods brought him near a peaceful creek. The narrow creek in turn led him to a grouping of round rocks and a small spring. Its water flowing clear and big red and yellow flowers growing on the small pool next to it. The forest opening up at the end of the unassuming path leading there. The path turned into a paved with crashed stone road that led through the cut off forest directly northwest towards the now unseen mountains.
And a large log cabin with a smoking chimney. The smoke what made Lear notice it when he’d turned his eyes over the canopy to gauge the time. Lear heard the sound of an axe falling. Chopped wood clattering down.
“Shush,” he urged his mount and dismounted with a grimace. Lear removed his heavy and now sporting a large tear long coat. He placed it folded on the saddle and looped the reins around a low branch. He brought his dagger with him, slotting it in his waistband and wrapped the blade of his sword with a soft cloth after placing it on the ground. Used two smaller pieces of crumbled cloth to cover his boots after removing the spurs, to further distort their sound, as the ground around the cabin had gravel poured on.
Lear walked towards the sound of the falling axe.
Thump.
Then the crackling of tearing wood.
Wary where he stepped on Lear reached the opening and saw the pile of logs near the stub. Heard a voice talking and pulled behind the brushwood, a dry stick creaking as it snapped under his boot. Lear froze and used his left hand to free the blade dropping the cloth.
“Paros,” a man said from the other side of the opening. Lear could see the outline of the cabin to his right. “You heard anything?”
“Nothing. A thousand things. It’s the fucking woods! Where are the others?” Paros asked sounding peeved. “You walked here?”
“Not really,” the voice replied and Lear could swear he’d heard it afore. The bounty hunter glanced behind his back thinking he overheard something but all he could see was part of the path he’d followed and his horse grazing twenty meters away.
“This is ridiculous,” Paros complained. “Why move at all?”
“Word got out.”
“Bullshit. Nobody knows a fucking thing!” Paros snapped angrily.
“I lack yer conviction. Mayhap a monk talked?”
“They know nothing Shin,” Paros cursed. “I’ll talk to Laudus. Straighten this out.”
Lear remembered Marshal’s words during their scrap.
Has the Bank run out of people? He’d asked Mark when first they’d met him.
“You’ll do nothing. Go get yer horse. It’s time to go,” Shin admonished him. If Shin was here then ‘Tracer’ Jack was somewhere in the vicinity with Mist their scout.
“I just cut down these logs fuck’s sake. Have a stew on the fire,” Paros griped and turned around to head for the cabin. Lear moved swiftly to the right stooped, an eye on the slim figure of the Issir named Shin, now reaching for his pipe while sitting at the edge of the large pile of firewood Paros had chopped down with his back turned on the moving briskly Lear.
The bounty hunter reached the east side of the large timber cabin and tried the first of the windows with the point of his blade. Managing to pry open the second. Cursing under his breath he slotted the sword on his belt and jumped with a frustrated grunt to grab at the ledge of the two meters above ground window. Heaving and grunting Lear managed to bring himself up after a couple of failed tries, swollen biceps screaming at the abuse and all other muscles protesting at the weight. He was always a heavy-boned man but this is ludicrous, he decided with a scowl whilst breathing heavy.
Nigh embarrassing.
A sweaty, flushed Lear got inside from the cracked open side window, his wrapped up boots making no noise on the wooden floor of the low-ceiling but roomy cabin. A red-brick fireplace in a corner. Red hot coals underneath a hanging bronze caldron that had rabbit stew boiling in it. Another room after the large empty hall with an open door which must lead to the bedroom or bedrooms.
Lear took another stride and the moment his boot touched the flooring again the darn thing creaked so loudly everyone but a downright deaf man would have taken notice.
“Shin?” The apparently fully functional Paros asked from the bedroom. “That you ye cock-sucking black cunt?”
Shin had a craving for the opposite sex but also phalluses in general which made him a good friend of Nard Molders back in the day for a time, until his rotten character fully unveiled itself and the two had broken it off. It had cost that fool Molders a much better commission when the higher ups had gotten wind of it and eventually forced the Issir priest out of the Legion’s auxiliaries. Molders owed his head to Sir Emerson Lennox intervening and asking for the matter to be dropped. Old Emerson had a tendency to pick the unfortunate up when they tripped over their feet and stand them upright again.
Eh.
Speaking of feet…
Lear opened his arms, extending his reach and breathed out just as a shaven-headed Lorian appeared on the doorway carrying a furled blanket.
“Why aren’t you—? Devils!” Paros yelped stopping dead in his tracks with a scowling Lear stepping forward whilst raising his sword to cut him down.
Darn blade hitting the blasted ceiling.
“Who are you?” Paros croaked, pale in the face and in considerable shock, then realizing Lear had just tried to kill him only failing due to a case of thrifty architecture, he jumped away whilst swinging with the blanket. Blocking Lear’s swinging left punch unintentionally.
Still, Lear had put a lot into the punch.
Paros went down after striking the side of the bedroom door. Lear jumped on him but the cutthroat twisted about and the bounty hunter failed to pin him down properly.
“Help—!” Paros tried to yell but Lear shoved part of the woolen blanket in his mouth stifling the cry. Paros kicked him in the ribs and Lear opened the tight fist keeping the blanket in Paros’ mouth as wide as he could and inserted ring and index finger inside the man’s eyes. Paros squirmed and groaned, Lear’s right arm keeping his down and kept applying pressure into the soft moist eyeballs until he heard steps approaching from the outside and was forced to stop.
He raised his now clenched fist over the shuddering Paros’ head and punched down once -connecting with the blanket. The back of the man’s head banged on the floorboards and Lear stood up with a grunt, using his sword as a cane.
“Paros?” Shin asked from outside the cabin’s door. “Was that you?”
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Lear opened the door and shoved the semi-conscious Paros down the three steps of the entrance. The cutthroat tumbling down and stopping a meter from the shocked Issir. Shin licked his black lips, a hand touching the handle of a throwing knife kept under a knee-length brown overcoat he had on, the other tossing his lit pipe away.
Cunning hazel eyes opening and closing in shock.
“Think it through,” Lear urged the stunned bounty hunter.
“Captain Hik,” Shin croaked and sucked at his upper lip.
“Where’s Jack?” Lear grunted raising his sword ominously.
“Jack? Motherfucker is dead! He-he! I run the outfit now.”
“Let’s spin it another time,” Lear rustled not amused. “Where are yer friends Shin?”
Shin pressed his mouth down so tight the blood drained around his lips. The Issir’s expression acerbic.
“Fuck Paros. I’m walking away Hik.”
“Nobody’s walking away,” Lear told him but Shin took a step back and then another with a smirk.
“You got a load in yer hands Captain. Did ye bring a horse?”
“Did you?”
“Edge at the near?” Shin asked whilst retreating towards the other side of the opening.
“Laudus is a murderer Shin,” Lear growled and reached down to grab the dizzy Paros by the collar. “You know the deal. Don’t share his fate!”
“Fuck’s sake Hik,” Shin hissed angrily. “Nobody cares! The whole realm is a mess!”
“Makes no difference,” Lear warned the retreating Issir. “Give him up or ye head goes in the bag!”
“Blasted backwards idiot,” Shin cursed and showed him his teeth. “You don’t know who you’re messing with!”
“But you do!” Lear roared just before Shin disappeared behind a bush.
He had to move fast.
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Lear shoved Paros forward and when the man tried to protest he elbowed him in the mouth cracking his jaw. Reaching his horse the bounty hunter found one of the cut ropes he had in his saddlebags and looped it around the bleeding man’s neck and wrists. Pulled it tight and used a second rope to tie the first to the saddle.
“Walk fast,” he counseled Paros and climbed on the saddle. Put a foot in the stirrup that is, but he had to stop seeing Eleonora coming out of the trees. The woman didn’t have her coat on but she had worn her boot and walked towards him with the tiniest of limps. She had a light red front-buttoned shirt on, made out of fine thin cloth that left the outlines of her bustier visible underneath.
“What are you doing here?” Lear asked her.
“Wanted to help,” Eleonora replied softly. Lear sighed and got his foot down. He turned to stare in her comely Lorian face. She had her father’s eyes, shaped more sharply at the edges. More feminine.
Mm.
“I got this. We are heading back to the camp,” Lear grunted and looked about them. Why would Edge allow her to walk away on her own? “It’s not safe here.”
“Why?”
“The bank has hired more men,” a troubled Lear replied and raised his arm to scratch his bearded face only to realize his dagger was missing. The bounty hunter looked in the woman’s smiling face perturbed. A naughty smile this, under a cold killer’s eyes.
A little tingle and the dagger reappeared now stuck in his chest. The blade lodged at the base of the right lung.
“Nifty,” Lear rustled nigh impressed, blood in his throat and stumbled back on weakened knees until his back touched his horse.
“Yet again,” Eleonora hissed, her voice dripping poison. “You spoil my business.”
She made to grab the dagger but Lear swung the longsword and almost took her lovely head off. The young woman gasped in panic and rolled lithely on the ground to stand on her knees two meters away livid.
“Milady,” Marshal asked and appeared out of the woods as well. He carried a drawn sword.
“Manuela didn’t sent Fausto,” Lear croaked grinding his teeth, not so much angry but bitterly disappointed. “She sent you.”
Eleonora chuckled freely and jumped to her feet. “I do love a Mclean Hik,” she told him turning sober in an instant. “For years but the realm isn’t open to that.”
“You’re sick,” Lear rustled and made to move towards her.
“I’ll deal with him and Paros Milady. You get to the others now. Tell them what happened,” Marshal intervened stepping forward.
“All the talk in the office. Head in a salted bag. Isn’t that yer motto Hik?” The woman taunted to showcase she knew all about him.
“That’s right.” Lear growled and made a small step to the left switching hands.
Eleonora made a cute curtsy afore turning around and walking away briskly.
Darn fine bitch, Lear decided and Marshal rushed him confident he had the best of him. Seeing as Lear was sort of carrying a dagger, darn blade pointed the wrong way and had to use his left arm, the bank’s agent had every reason to feel that way.
> Nevertheless, most people facing Lear Hik didn’t. The majority of those having the misfortune opted to turn around and head the other way like Shin had done earlier. But Shin was an older scumbag, wise in his ways and Marshal while capable enough was twenty years younger and had missed the best of it. Sometimes the stories leave out vital details, deemed improper in a fancy dinner or the simpler stuff the streets never forget.
>
> Be wary of an old man in a profession that most men perish young.
Marshal hacked diagonally but Lear countered the downwards slash with an upward cut of his own. The blades banged against each other, fat sparks erupting from the gleaming steel and the sound reverberating inside the peaceful opening. Birds chirped scared and the horse tipped its head back and neighed deeply disturbed.
In the meantime Lear changed his grip on the handle and scythed savagely at the bank’s agent, now having the faster path and further benefiting from the unusual leftward angle, the sharp point of the longsword digging at the right side of Marshal’s neck splitting the collarbone. Blood sprayed out of the grisly wound and Lear let out a guttural beastly grunt afore yanking the heavy blade back. The sawing sword almost taking Marshal’s head off.
The man collapsed to his knees with a gurgling sound and Lear raised a leg to kick him back with a boot to the chest. The bounty hunter dropping on a knee as well seeing black spots gathering at the edges of his vision.
Lear was drowning in his own blood but calmed himself down as much as he could and stared at his surroundings. Then the horse standing a couple of meters away and the ogling Paros. The cutthroat was still tied up on the saddle and was holding his breath waiting for Lear to kick the bucket.
Motherfucker.
The bounty hunter made to stand up but failed with a gurgling growling inhuman sound that scared Paros shitless.
“Can’t you just fucking die?” He cried out looking at the scowling Lear bleeding from the mouth and down his chest that dagger still stuck in it. The seriously injured bounty hunter opened his bloody mouth but couldn’t speak.
Ah.
So be it, he thought a little annoyed and sat back down on his arse keeping upright by holding on to the sword. The sunlight started lessening and Lear waited there to die whilst the panicked Paros desperately tried to free himself biting at the tight knots with his cracked front teeth. It looked bloody painful. He needed a dagger for them as Lear had never failed to make a proper knot in his life. A dagger or his razor but the ruffian wasn’t going to come and take them afore Lear breathed his last.
Lear closed his eyes expecting to see visions. Parts of his life flashing before his eyes. Some good in there. A couple of pretty girls that mayhap liked him more than his coin. The friendships he’d forged with iron and hammer. All the mistakes. Lots of them. Aye.
Favors owed.
Some of them bloody.
At least you get to die in the open, under the warm sun, he thought gulping down blood. The latter not as pleasurable.
“Captain!” Edge yelled very loud.
It’s hubris to keep a rank after you retired.
“Grab him! Wait. Get that blade out. No. Don’t touch it!”
“Ah…what about the other guy?”
“Fuck do I care? Put a bolt in him!”
“Oi, no-no-no! I’m important! A prisoner!” Paros yelped hysterically while Lear tried to remember when this incident had occurred or why it was important. Rain touching his face. Dripping down his collar. Dirty fingers slipping in his mouth, prying it open and then digging down his throat. Gore pouring down his chin mixed with vomit. This is getting too intense, the hallucinating bounty hunter thought and cracked a blurry eye open.
What the fuck?
The sun blinding.
The horse munching on grass. He was in the same place still.
“He lives! You son of a bitch!” A teary Edge barked in his face, breath smelling of bad teeth and spicy cheese.
“It’s… a dream,” Lear assured him. “I’m gone friend.”
“What?” Mark gasped. “Oh, no! —Ouch!”
The sound of a heavy smack resounding amidst the trees.
A moment later Edge wrapped an arm around Lear’s shoulders to get him to stand up. Moving him brought all the pain back in an instant.
Oh, fer crying out loud!
Can’t a man just die in plaguing peace?
“Will ye just fuck… off,” a hurting Lear croaked afore fainting.
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