The Bounty Hunter

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Safita filled her pack with as much food as possible, keeping her many water pouches strapped to her body and carrying with her only necessary additional clothing. She was up before the sun, braid and cloak in place as she crept downstairs to the bar.

Once there she paid the early barman and settled down to wait for her new companion. As she did so she began to regret allowing him to join her, but she didn’t trust his act of pretending not to know Ultuc, and she feared that he would alert Ultuc to the particulars of her assignment. It would not do for Ultuc to earn her hard-bargained for reward. Not only that, but she was beginning to have worries about having a partner on this expedition; it would take some work if she were to pretend to be a man for the whole time, and the shroud of mystery which she draped about herself in company was too tiring to stand up to such a long period of time. As the minutes dragged by, Safita found herself thinking that perhaps he wouldn’t be as useless as she once thought; after all, two minds were better than one. That is, if he ever turned up.

“Finally,” she growled when her companion arrived. “What took you so long?”

“Calm down, I was merely checking my provisions once again,” he replied as he handed a coin to the barman. “You’re up early,” he remarked.

“He has to be. Many people leave far earlier than we do, they don’t want to be cheated of their money.”

“Calm down Spider,” said To, “you cannot have been waiting more than ten minutes.”

“Yes but it feels like ten hours,” Safita said as she grabbed her pack and swept out of the door, the cloaked man following in her footsteps.

“You don’t have to be quite so ill-tempered,” he called as he ran to catch up with her.

“It is early, even for me; I want to leave and earn my money; without you I could do whatever I wanted; you are the first person who has ever accompanied me, and you will probably be the last,” she listed. “Nothing could make me cheerful right now.”

“What about breakfast?” he asked confused.

“Are you hungry? Do you feel the world going faint about you? Would you be able to fight if someone crept up on you? Can you walk at the moment?”

“Well I’m hungry but other than that I’m fine,” he replied, perplexed.

“Then you do not need food. Save it for when you really need it. We have a limited amount of supplies and I do not know the next time we will find a shop or…” she muttered the end of her sentence under her breath, “have a chance to steal anything.”

“Or what?” he asked curiously as he hurried to catch up with her, his long legs equalling her strides as they wound through the cramped streets, already buzzing with the beginnings of the day.

“Or nothing,” Safita replied shortly as she turned down a small side street, the smell of frying sausages following them as they picked their way over the uneven cobbles.

“Where are we going?”

“Erheim,” she answered.

“Erheim! But that’s-”

“Quite a while away, I know,” she interrupted.

“No, I was going to say that that’s in Palace vicinity. You’ll-we’ll be arrested.”

“Not if you know how to disguise yourself.”

“What do you call yourself anyway?” he asked.

“There are many names for me, but you may call me Spider,” she said, expecting to elicit a gasp of horror. When no such reaction came, she glanced at her partner quickly. “I’m the Spider.”