Wanted Man
WC: 1,780
WC: 1,780
Night’s fog rolled over the sleepy town while shadows chased sputtering torch light. Clouds slunk along the sky, hiding the moon and her stars. It enveloped all the careless wanderers and thrill-seekers that roamed in total dark, broken only by the odd silver spear that slipped free from its airy cloth to pierce the earth’s hardened shell.
At the local in, seated just at the edge of its roof, Kincaid looked out on to the town with his grassy eyes. The candlelight was just enough for him to finish the last page of the story he’d been challenged to write, and he was rather satisfied with himself. It wasn’t easy to write a steam romance between a Demvir and Laicar, but he’d done it. Though he wasn’t too sure who would ever read it.
Setting down his quill and parchment near his candle, the thief took up the mulled wine and sipped it - a parting gift from Archimedes since their last meeting. The town wouldn’t have anything worth stealing, but the late hour was his time and his alone. The Spurii woman - Aeria - was in her own room and wasn’t likely to bother him after he’d dismissed himself for the evening.
“It’s not going to be easy traveling with people,” he sighed to himself and set his cup down. “But its what I’m going to have to do.”
Nodding to himself, Kincaid rose from his place and gathered his things together before he returned to his room long enough to drop them off. After that he used the natural fog and darkness to hide his descent from the second story floor of the inn.
The night was perfect for his prowling, and he slipped from one shadow to the other undisturbed and without worry. Here in this small village the guards wouldn’t be patrolling. They’d stand next to their fires, safe and warm from the chill of the night. If they spied him, the wouldn’t stir, as that would require them to investigate when no alarms were raised. If no alarms were raised, there was peace. And if there was peace the guard’s duty was easy - they liked easy duties.
A grin more arrogance than anything spread over his face as he pressed his shoulder against the aged wood corner of a home. The scent of oils and wood-shavings told the thief that a woodworker lived there, as well as the faint scent of roasted meat not too long ago devoured. Instantly Kincaid suspected it was a family home.
Family.
He didn’t have any of that. Well. Not really. The last remnant of that he’d left behind him in pursuit of his promise. If they had any brains at all they’d be alive and doing honest work for a change.
Crossing the street, Kincaid wove his way once more through the latticework of shadows laid across the town - right up to the edge where the fog grew thicker and the dark night’s beckoning was greatest. It tugged at something baser in him. To roam at a whim, unhindered by objects and bonds or oaths and people.
Inhaling the night, the thief swelled with pride. The night was his. No one could take that from him.
Someone turned the corner. Their reveal deliberate, purposeful, as Kincaid heard their feet kick at rocks forcing them to skitter across the ground. They wanted him to turn around, so that they could talk face-to-face. But Kincaid refused. Instead he half-cocked his head to one side, speaking to the stranger over his shoulder, “Yes? Town guard doesn’t stalk that well, so you’re not with the town.”
“Perceptive,” the stranger’s voice was gruff, raspy even. They were older than Kincaid by at least ten summers. “I had been warned you were cunning, but I wanted to see just how so. Tell me more, please, without turning to face me.”
“Hmm…,” Kincaid liked this game. “You’ve been hired by someone who knows me well. You’re refined, and not an assassin. A sellsword of sorts then - no. Bounty-hunter?” Something hissed and burned, bathing the darkness with blasphemous fire and its light. Kincaid turned now to see his latest pursuer and found he was right.
The gentlemen was decidedly in his thirties or more, and wore simple looking traveling clothes, but Kincaid’s eyes caught the fabric which had been used to make them and he tallied the exa it cost to make them. Fine blue velvet - not wool - dark as the ocean’s depths draped over hard muscle, and fitted pants without a trace of dust or dirt. The man’s face was a smattering of ugly scars where he’d been cut or bruised, but in spite of that the hunter wore them respectfully. They added character to him, and told more about the stranger than Kincaid thought he could learn in an evening talking to him. His hair was cut close and black with peppered white spots. Instantly, Kincaid thought the man was grandfatherly, stern, meticulous… soldierly.
The bounty-hunter took a small stick with fire to a torch in his other hand and waited for it to catch, then waved out the smaller of the two and took in Kincaid’s own appearance. A small smile began to creep at the edges of his pock-marked lips, and he even chuckled. “You are younger than they lead me to believe.”
Kincaid gave a showman’s bow and matched the other man’s refined speech, “I am flattered to think what little reputation your masters have graced me with has painted me wiser than my years would reflect.”
They stood in silence then, and when the hunter spoke again he asked, “How do you know I am not an assassin? Of my refinement?”
Kincaid spread his hands then, all too willing to explain. With a chuckle he said, “An assassin would have just killed me. Instead, you chose to confront me and let me know whom it was I could expect to be my next challenger. As for the other matter it was your speech that gave you away. The common rabble that floats too and fro from these places slur their words or speak with slang. Your tone, your words, they were all too precise
“And of my profession?”
“You were told I was cunning. If you were hired by a local lord they would only told you about how they were embarrassed and now exactly in what manner. Your employer has worked with me or has had me work for them. I work alone and I have only worked for one other organization. Tell me… did they give you a name to call them by, or was it just some poor sod with a story and more exa than you have ever seen for a common thief.”
“No name,” the bounty-hunter explained. “They came to me with coin, and aye, an amount that I questioned since I had never heard of you. But it is not my place to question my employer’s too stringently. So long as I know I am not killing women and children, or innocent men, I will take any job and see it finished.”
“I can respect that,” the thief said with a courteous nod. Then he introduced himself formally, “Kincaid. Thief.”
“Orion. Bounty-Hunter.” Pulling out a gladiolus, Orion saluted Kincaid. “Thank you for confirming me who you are. It makes this part all the easier.”
“No reason to drag things out,” Kincaid admitted. He showed his empty hands to the other man and asked, “Do you plan to kill an unarmed man?”
“You have your wit.”
“That I do.” Any other time, Kincaid would have reveled in the situation. Of being caught unawares and at a disadvantage. It was a challenge and he always had a love of challenges. Even if they cost too much. Sadly, this wasn’t one of those times and he had the sinking feeling Orion wasn’t going to be as easy to deal with as some of the other thugs the brotherhood had hired.
He acted first.
Slapping his wrists together, the thief applied his third magical art - the art of Serpens. The Vis of tricks, bindings, and cunning - and made a complete circle without breaking his wrists a part. To invoke the spirits Kincaid slapped the trinket around his boots with his opposite foot. The spirits of the Vis answered Kincaid’s magic calling, and unwillingly the bounty-hunter’s wrists slammed together in binding magic. His sword and torch clattered to the ground.
“I bid you a good-night, Orion, and a farewell. Mayhap we never meet again.”
Orion simply shook his head. “I had hoped you would allow my to take you peacefully, but it looks as if you will be like so many others. I had hoped….”
“That I would see the errors of my ways?” Kincaid offered. “That maybe, something human inside of me would tell me it was the right thing to do? Or maybe you had hoped your old bones wouldn’t be strained.”
“I had hoped to spare the town from this.” Magic coalesced around Orion’s fists in the form of a small ring-shaped portal, burning as if hot from sitting in the forge. He snapped his bound hands - now balled in fists - forward through the portal and Kincaid realized in horror what was happening.
Fire erupt from the ends of those fists, rushing for the thief with all of Bellator’s fury and determination to end him. With a curse Kincaid rolled, the searing heat licking at his side through his clothes. He wasn’t as successful as he had hoped, a tuft of fire burned at his left arm and he hastily put it out.
Kincaid’s green eyes looked up sharply at Orion and stared daggers into his earthy brown eyes. He tempered his voice and let his grin regain its rightful place on his face. “Bellator, well that’s a new one. Usually the help just tries to stab me.”
“I am not playing a game, Kincaid,” Orion warned. “You will either come with me of your own free-will or I will bring your dead body before my employer.”
“Either way, you’ll need a body, and I’m not offering mine.” In quick succession Kincaid waved his right palm over his face before he swept it out into the air towards Orion. From that palm leaped a magic poison, and the bounty-hunter sucked a lungful of the stuff. He hacked and coughed, and while he did so Kincaid slinked away. “Farewell!” he called again, and hastily retreated back to the inn.
With luck, Orion hadn’t followed him from there. Otherwise his new companion was in for a rude awakening this night.