Long, long ago, the promise of gold lured seven bounty-men north into untamed Albaria. For ten days, they squelched across sucking bogs, padded through pristine forests, and traipsed across trackless tundra. They were hard-up for money and winter was on the way.
At last, the seven found themselves before the frozen foothills of the Saracilor Range. A steep, switchback path zigzagged up the side of Avar Mountain and vanished into a curtain of gray cloud. This was the Snake Road to Skywark.
Flinzer’s six companions craned their necks at the ascent and turned on him with unkind eyes. It was his idea to come here. He nodded, unbothered. He’d led men for a long time. His green eyes glinted at the climb, undaunted. If a mountain stood between Flinzer and his bounty, he would surmount it, that was all that counted. Resolved, he strove to rally the rest.
“Just a brief stroll into the sky, boys, and we’ll stand before Skywark Keep. Surely, a warm welcome awaits within. Think of it! Sizzling venison! Spiced mead, a roaring blaze, and comely company for Flinzer Schist of Fenwick, fabled finder of fugitives, and his motley mob of manhunters.”
The motley mob rolled their eyes mightily. Flinzer took the lead and was quietly relieved when the men fell in line after him. Morale was poor, the men might break at any time. But where else could they go?
The Snake Road was hard going from the first and only got worse as they climbed. The air thinned, the temperature dropped, and the grade grew grueling. Insulted by their presence, the wind did her best to blow them back down the mountain. Bluddox was bad with heights. In a few places, he locked up and went white. Flinzer had to lead the big man by the hand like a child. No one even laughed, always a terrible sign.
Rubble covered the road ahead. Flinzer sent Whently into the lead; he was the lightest. Halfway across the rockfall, the scree shifted beneath his feet and a wave of stone roared over the edge. Another man would have been swept to his death, but Whent sprang aside, nimble as a goat. They stood at full pucker and listened as rocks rained down the mountain. The dust settled and again, their eyes found Flinzer. No one had to say it.
This was all his fault.
Leery of landslides, Flinzer resumed the lead. A childish curiosity pulled him toward the cloud-line. He’d never touched a cloud before and wondered what it might feel like. They were not as pillowy as he’d hoped. A thin mist thickened into a freezing fog that engulfed everything. Soon, Flinzer couldn’t see five feet in front of him. He called a halt, tied a rope ‘round his waist, and passed the line back for the rest to do the same.
Now, the true grind began. The train of shivering, miserable men plowed through the cloud with half-frozen Flinzer at the fore. His chest ached with every breath, his fingers stung, his toes numb.
Surmount any mountain!
The lofty thoughts at the foothills seemed inconceivably naïve. Flinzer must have been mad; indeed, he felt feverish. Whispers tickled his ears, but when he wheeled round, it was only the wind. Strange faces snickered at the fringe of his vision and broke apart when he blinked. He shook his head at the thin-air phantoms and plowed ahead.
Doubt hardened in his steps like hoarfrost. What if the bounty had already been claimed? What if Skywark was a smoldering ruin, or his heart popped before they reached the top? He had no answer, no fallback plan, and there was nowhere to hide from his thoughts in this accursed fog. Blow by blow, the whole rotten year rolled back over him.
* * *
Bounty-hunting season began in sun-drenched Khemeria. Flush with last year’s success, Flinzer and forty handpicked men were hot on the trail of a spectacular bounty. A pair of witless alchemists called the Boodle Brothers had outraged the Coin King, and he’d offered up an eye-watering reward. Bounty-men came from every corner of the arc to hunt the marks, and Flinzer was foremost. Close behind was his rival Fat Tom with his troop of two hundred Lhazzan mercenaries.
As usual, gold was the root of the dispute. For three centuries, the Khem coinfish stood supreme among a hundred currencies in the east. The golden marlins bore no bites, for they were thought too intricate to counterfeit. The Boodle Brothers broke the bank with a clever centrifugal mold that left a thin layer of gold over slugs of copper-plated lead. For a jubilant year, the humble brothers lived like princes and wallowed in every delight money could buy.
Inevitably, greed got the better of them. The brothers brewed a batch of bunk bullion with a skin too thin, and the shine wore off. Apoplectic, the Coin King promised a dragon’s hoard and a duchy to whoever brought the Boodle Brothers before him, alive and intact.
The race was on! Flinzer’s flock was close, just a day away from payday. Fat Tom’s troop was closer still. The fugitive forgers fumbled and shacked up with one of Fat Tom’s seven sisters. The trap sprang and the fat lady sang. Flinzer had to stand among a howling crowd in Swordfish Square and watch Fat Tom collect a fatter purse from the bejeweled hand of the Coin King himself. They even let the new Duke pull the guillotine lever.
The Boodle Brother’s skulls were gilded via their own method and hung from the rostrum of the royal marlin above the main palace gate. Flinzer was devastated. The beat was unbearable, especially because Flinzer had snaked two scores from Fat Tom the year before. The Duke was due. After that fruitless pursuit, ten men quit Flinzer’s troop.
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Duchy-less and disgusted, Flinzer quit Khemeria to chase a disgraced retainer from Terhaljatan’s inner circle. The bounty was a safer bet, the mad prince paid lavishly for the intact return of his wayward pets. The mark wasn’t hard to find, the swarthy southern servant stood out like a sheered sheep among the doleful highland yokels.
Flinzer learned their target was headed for Umidaland on a northbound barge. The troop marched all night and arrived well before dawn, ready to intercept the Terhaljatani on the docks. The servant spotted them first, dove off the starboard side, and swam to shore. By the time they realized what had happened, the retainer fled north on foot.
North was a poor choice. The highland around the Ryo Fjord was a labyrinth of canyons and badlands. Flinzer caught the trail and drove the mark deep into the maze, all the way to the sheer edge of the Ryo. They cornered the fugitive against a crumbling precipice. The bounty seemed like a mortal lock.
It was not. The terrified Terhaljatani fled to the very edge and held himself hostage. Flinzer was caught in a conundrum. The cliff was too cracked to send a man after him. The bluff might slough off at any second. When they got out a rope, the servant stood with his heels over the brink so they couldn’t lasso him. At his back was a thousand-foot drop into a frothing fjord. Flinzer’s shoulders hunched at the gurgle below. He hated any water he couldn’t see the bottom of.
Flinzer tried to talk the Terhaljatani down, but whatever fate awaited the retainer must have been dark indeed. After two fruitless hours, the Terhaljatani took his chances and dove off the cliff. The servant couldn’t have possibly survived, and again, Flinzer was denied. No body, no bounty. He stared into the churning drink with his men and despaired.
After the Terhaljatani folly, ten more men had the good sense to desert. Flinzer was sure more would follow if he didn’t right the ship right quick. He doubled down and bet everything on one big score.
Flinzer led twenty men far east, into the backward moors of Caul. There was a bounty for the safe capture of Prince Rodge, the firstborn son of King Delore, Lord of Cauterwaul Castle. After a bitter argument over his betrothal, Rodge had run off and disappeared into the numberless isles of the Everbog.
There was a hefty reward for anyone who could capture the wayward prince and bring him back intact enough to pronounce his vows. At the time, Flinzer stifled a sigh, sick of trying to capture men alive. He’d kill for a fugitive he could simply shoot. Still, they needed the score. He signed the contract. The hunt began.
Even at the outset, Prince Rodge was no easy prospect. The Everbog was forever-fogged with noxious miasma and swarms of blood-sucking insects. The men were beset by quicksand, sickness, rickety bridges, poisonous plants, and venomous adders. Even the land would not stand.
The fickle, fetid islands rose or sank or drifted away of their own accord, and the locals were shiftier still. The Everboggers stank, stole, and contrived to cheat Flinzer any way they could. Their pungent, fermented food gave his entire troop the trots. Worse, their firefly moonshine made two of Flinzer’s men go blind.
He bought an expensive map from a so-called cartographer who lived in a shack at the swamp’s edge. Sadly, the map had no basis in reality. Flinzer came back for blood, but the entire shack was gone, somehow vanished into the swamp. He wasted two days trying to track the swindler down and never found him. The hunt dragged on.
Rodge the runaway regal was as slippery a mark as any Flinzer had ever followed. No matter how hard they hoofed it, Flinzer was always a step behind. For three long months, the quagmire dragnet netted nothing. Only the days they’d already wasted fueled their pointless pursuit. Finally, their quarry tarried too long in the boudoir of a swamp witch. Flinzer’s squad sprang as he stumbled out of the shack, still buttoning his pants.
At last, they’d captured the elusive fugitive!
Alas, they’d been hoodwinked!
Unknown to Flinzer, his princely prisoner was not Rodge at all. The artful mark was just a sly servant with a passing resemblance. For the entire hunt, the real Rodge was holed up inside Caterwaul, plotting in the guise of a penitent monk. By the time Flinzer hauled the so-called prince back to Caterwaul, the coup was complete. King Delore swung from the gallows. The patricidal prince was newly crowned as King of Caterwaul.
None of this was known to Flinzer. He arrived and found a great feast underway. All smiles, they marched in with the tied-up patsy in tow, expecting to be hailed as heroes. Instead, the court erupted with drunken laughter. Delighted with Flinzer’s predicament, Rodge floated the idea Flinzer and his men might dangle alongside dear, departed King Delore and keep the old monarch company. The revelers shouted in gleeful agreement and ran off to find rope.
Desperate to slip the noose, Flinzer flung pride aside and threw himself at Rodge’s feet. He begged, he wept, he crawled before the court on all fours like a dog. Rodge laughed himself into a fit and bid his new pet to bark on. All night long, the court heaped food and abuse upon Flinzer the Fool. He had to swallow it all with a smile, their lives were on the line.
An hour before dawn, Rodge was dead drunk. Before he passed out, Flinzer convinced him to commute the troop’s executions to mere banishment. Covered in shame and slop, Flinzer and hit the road and didn’t stop running until they were leagues away from Caterwaul. For a week afterward, Flinzer worried the hungover ruler would change his mind and send an army after them.
After the humiliating escape from Caul, a mass exodus began. Of the twenty he took into Caul, three died, two were blind, and nine quit the troop.
Now, on the mountain, the six men shivering on the line behind Flinzer were all he had left. It was the worst losing streak of his life. For a black moment, he pictured himself untying the rope, waving goodbye, and leaping off the cliff. As his hands clawed at the rope, his stomach rumbled.
Venison, mead, and gold, Flinzer promised himself. This time will be different. We’re due. He shoved the dark thoughts aside and let them roll down the mountain like boulders.
We’re due.
Flinzer repeated the mantra with every step until it almost seemed true. After so many steps mired in regret, the mountain was nearly done. The fog broke as they approached the summit and the sky blazed an incredible blue. The Snake Road rolled on and rode along the spine of the Saracilor Mountains. In the east, they could see the towers of Skywark Keep wedged between two peaks.
Flinzer called a halt at an overlook and let the men catch their breath. Far below, peaks broke through the endless gray tableau, islands mired in a sea of cloud. On top of the world, Flinzer and his men sat on stones and soaked it in. They could scarcely believe they’d made it.
“Let’s go see about a bounty,” Flinzer said.