Bounty

Seros - Part I

The pungent odor of the sea hit Julwei first as she snapped awake. The familiar mix of old fish and gull burned her nostrils. The throbbing pain in her skull came next. Her back and shoulders burned with pain but, judging from the chill that worked down her back, nothing important was broken.

Julwei pushed herself to her feet. Wood and cloth and silver spicefish littered the dented cooling plate around her. The familiar buzz of a nearby arc core — the power source for the plate, of course — ran along her arms. She spared a glance to the man whose stall she ruined.

"Sorry."

The islander crossed his arms and narrowed his grey eyes in response.

"Fair enough." Julwei shrugged. "You see a lizard? Green scales, tall, strong."

He pointed through a hole in the yellow canopy, a hole, she was sure, recently added when Julwei fell from the cliff above. She scanned the cliff. No sign of the lizardfolk who threw her down.

"You sure he didn't follow me down?"

The man offered no response.

"You know where he went?"

Still nothing.

"Alright."

Pulling her black hair out of her face, Julwei nodded a farewell. She thought, for a moment, that the vendor may try to stop her. She had destroyed his shop, technically. He would be justified. But he only grumbled at her as she passed. Perhaps he saw some kinship in her brown eyes. He recognized her as one of his own. If not from this town — this island — another nearby.

Or perhaps he feared the gun hanging from her hip.

Raising a hand to block the sun, she scanned the town. Osprey was a small port, compared to those that dotted the coast of the kingdom, but not empty. It sat several days off the fastest trade routes, protected from intruders by storms, coral reefs, and sandbanks. Only small ships could safely navigate to the harbor, and most preferred to row in. Yet enough managed to make the journey to turn the island into one of the few trading hubs outside kingdom control. Unofficially, the kingdom deemed Osprey a lost cause and left it to pirates, rebels, and other lowlifes.

Officially, it didn't exist.

The cliffs shielded half of Osprey from the vengeful sun and colorful tarps made of flora cloth protected the rest. They were strung together between leaning multi-storey wooden structures and poles painted in pastels. The port was mostly cobbled together from the wood of half sunk ships. Only a faint suggestion of the island's original architecture remained.

Julwei watched the crowd as she made her way to the coast. Islanders, kingdom escapees, and even the occasional mekanica filled the port, but her bounty was nowhere in sight. Under different circumstances, she would be impressed how a creature with scales and a tail could disappear in a place smaller than a kingdom galleon. Even in the islands, lizardfolk were uncommon. The few she did see didn't match his height or coloring.

Her body ached with every step, a constant painful reminder of who she was hunting. Nothing compared to the pulsing in her head. At the moment, Julwei wanted nothing more than a warm bath and healing salve, but she couldn't wait. She spent a month tracking the lizardfolk to Osprey. Allowing him to escape wasn't an option.

If she was lucky, he slipped back into the jungle and fell prey to the island. If she was unlucky, he retreated and set another trap.

Either way, she still needed proof.

The beach had no shade and the sun burned Julwei's skin as she stepped into the sea. Everything on the islands was warmer. Even the water felt pleasant against her skin, except for the salt in her wounds, unlike the cold waves in the mainland. Were it not for the bounty or her debts, she might not return to the kingdom.