I awoke, staring at the stone ceiling of a cave, with no memory of why I had just woken up. I groaned as I sat up, holding the back of my head. Had I hit it against something? There was no damage, just a faint lingering pain. My body felt weak and frail, and my stomach ached. Breathing burned my throat and was difficult to do. I looked around with half-lidded eyes.
I was still in the same cave, next to Goran's body. I heard a rustling sound coming from behind me. As I turned my head, I saw Nigel with his head buried in a pile of clothes, supplies, and other random items. I tried to call out to him, but only a pained croak scraped my lips. That was all that was needed for Nigel to turn around and look at me. His face was still bloodied, the bandage wrapped around his head and covering his eyes, stained red with something hanging from his mouth.
He turned back and grabbed something before crawling over to me. Holding out a leather water sack, he knelt next to me and held it to my lips. The moment the water entered my mouth, I felt a surge of life in me again. I grabbed it with both hands and sat upright, tilting my head back as I greedily chugged all of the water from the sack. I held it up higher as it ran dry, extending my tongue to try and get every drop.
Nigel held out a sleeve of crackers to me; they were travel rations. Specifically made to be dense, dry and long-lasting at the cost of taste, but I didn't care. I snatched them from his hand and began to shove them into my mouth, chewing until they were just small enough to swallow. After I ate the whole sleeve in a few seconds, I stopped, looking at the last few crumbs in my hands. I felt like an animal.
I looked over to Nigel, who gave me a forced smile as he muttered, "We're alive".
We spent an hour rummaging through the discarded material and goods left by Goran's victims. Scavenging and consuming every drop of water and still edible piece of food we could find. After we had finally drunk enough water and eaten enough old food to feel like we weren't dying, the two of us sat in the middle of the room near Goran's body as I helped Nigel change out the bloody rag over his face.
"Is it gone?"
He looked up at me after I pulled the sticky red rag away. I looked down into his eye, which was still a dark red mass. The skin was scrunched as if the eyelid were covering it, but there was no eyelid. Only a flap of flesh half covering a deep red hole. I shook my head as I wrapped a new rag around his head, tying it off tightly.
"What happened?"
"He was about to kill you, I was either this or… or the knife would have gone alot deeper."
There was a moment of silence as we both let out an audible exhale almost in sync.
"I'm sure you did everything you could… thanks. I'll have to find someone to look at it when we get to Ravens Rest. Remove the dead skin and all that. But the question stands, what do we do with him?"
Nigel stood up as he spoke, walking slowly over to Goran's body and squatting over it.
"Also, how the fuck do we get out of here?" I stood and walked over to him.
"I found a way, that's what I was doing before coming to rescue you, but… fell into a trap. I spent hours exploring this palace for a way out."
"Does that mean… you… saw it?"
"His bedroom? Yeah, I saw it. This sick fuck is definitely some kind of monster. I didn't know what to expect when hunting down a marked child, but… it wasn't this."
"He wasn't a marked child… he's just a man."
"He's… not marked? It wasn't a sin that forced him to do this?"
I could only shake my head.
"Saints have mercy… Give me a knife… I'm going to cut his head off now."
The two of us found the exit to the cave as Nigel carried the severed head in a small sack we had found. The cave exit took us through the mountain and spat us out on the other side, coming out between some rocks that open onto the small desert that was the famous beach of Ravens Rest.
We walked through the sweltering heat towards the city, entering through the rear gate and trudging like walking corpses towards the mercenary guild building. As we passed, people turned their heads and their eyes locked on us. Nigel was walking with a bloody bag in one hand, the other hanging broken and a bloody rage over his face, while I walked next to him with my pants cut off under the thigh and my cowl half ripped.
"Saints alive! What the fuck happened to you two?" A voice of a younger man called out from behind the counter as we approached. I didn't recognise him, but he must work here.
Without waiting a moment, Nigel lifted the sack and placed it on the counter. Giving a glance, I took the notice out of my pocket, stating that we accepted the job in Eastwatch and would turn it in here.
"Where's the nearest Doctor?" Nigel muttered.
"We have one here. ADAM!" He yelled out while waving to someone in the distance.
An older man approached, maybe in his early fifties. Adam and Nigel walked through a door near the counter marked as staff only. The young man at the counter looked at the contract notice I had provided and read it over.
"Sorry, I'm new to this job, so I'll have to go and clear this with the boss. Just wait here a minute, I'll be right back."
He disappeared through the staff-only door, and a few minutes later, from the same door emerged a taller man with long dark hair. Corvis Malik.
He walked up to me, looking close for a moment before straightening his posture and smiling.
"Those red eyes, I was wondering when I would see you again."
"Corvis, you're the head of the guild here as well?" I took off my hood, and the younger man who followed behind Corvis pointed at me and screamed. Corvis had him off.
"Calm down, Shinya here's a friend. So you took down Goran? And you don't seem the worse for wear for it."
"Oh no, no, I got severely damaged by him, you just can't see it."
"I'll take your word for it, this the proof? What made you go after him anyway?" He asked as he opened the sack and peered into it.
"Something the leader of the Black Hand said."
"Black Hand! You ran into Robert?"
"Sure did, killed a few of his guys, but then he just sat there drinking. It was… weird."
"Well, he knows better; that's probably the only person with a bounty anywhere near yours." Corvis reached into the sack and pulled out the severed head, quickly lowering it under the counter to hide it from other patrons.
"He wanted?"
"Yeah, it's a hidden contract. If you get famous enough, yours will be hidden as well. We do that so morons and freshies don't get themselves killed trying to chase an impossible payday."
"I think that's what he was trying to get at."
"Well, this is definitely Goran, looks like shit thought, but it's him. If you really want to get your bounty taken out of the public eye, though, come to my office once your friend out back is all healed up. I'll let you look through those contracts."
"Thanks, I'll probably visit soon. I'm a bit more… hard to break than my friend."
"Yeah, I saw the state of him on my way over. You sure you don't need medical?"
"I'm fine."
"Alright, do you want me to take his medical expenses from the bounty?" I nodded. "Okay, I can pay some now, but it'll take me a bit to scrounge the rest up. Come back in two days for the rest."
He reached under the counter and pulled up a large sack of coins, and dropped it on the counter with a loud clang.
"Here's a hundred thousand, should be plenty for the short term. All we have on hand right now."
I weighed the coin sack in my hands. It was heavy, too heavy to lug for long.
"If it's too much, we also offer a banking service here."
"Bank?"
"You leave the money with us and come grab what you need. Or you can write a cheque."
He produced a notebook and processed it to explain it to me. Essentially, rather than pay money, I could write on this paper how much I promise to pay them and sign it, and they then take that amount from my money and give it to him, meaning I don't have to lug around all this coin. It was a bit more complicated than that, but that's how I understood it. It was something that was only accepted in this town by locals, so no travelling merchants would accept cheques, and if I wanted to go to a different town, I would have to transport my money there myself. But since this was the capital of the Black Lands, keeping it all here seemed like a good idea.
"Here, take this card. You can show it as proof that you have money in the bank. Otherwise, how will a merchant know if you actually can pay for it or not?"
As he gave me a black card, Nigel emerged from the rear room with his right arm in a sling and an eyepatch over his left eye. He had a wave and walked over to me.
"So my arm is broken. Said it would take a month or two to heal."
"And the eye?"
"It was removed, and the wound was cleaned out. He seared the inside with fire to close any holes and said to keep it covered until the skin grows over it."
I nodded and turned back to Corvis while holding the chequebook and bank card. "Know any good places we can get some new clothes?"
Nigel's arm would take several weeks to a month before he could even use his arm again. The money we got from the Goran bounty was enough to hold us over for months without having to worry about money whatsoever. In the first few days back, we took our time and went around shopping, first for clothing and then armour and then weapons for both of us.
We started simple with plain clothing, simple colours that don't draw attention, primarily natural brown and tan coloured pants, and while I bought a simple shirt and robe to replace my damaged ones, Nigel opted for a gambeson paired with a mix of leather and plate armour to find a good mix of defence and mobility. I also bought some simple leather armour to protect my heart, painted with the simple metal helmets we also bought, and we started to actually look like mercenaries. The two of us also opted for some simple leather armour, something that might stop a sword or dagger from cutting too deeply.
Once we had gotten our new clothes and armour sorted, Nigel really wanted to go shopping for a new sword, but with his sword arm in a sling, all we would do was browse, as buying one without holding it and swinging it would be nothing short of a waste of money.
With the remaining funds from our initial payment, we went and booked a room for a month at an inn run by the Raven Merecenary Company, and for the first time in a while, we ate a hearty meal.
The next day, I went to meet with Corvis. While sitting in his office, we discussed the possibility of somehow spreading public awareness that Goran was dead, and I was the one who killed him. When we came back to Ravens Rest to hand the bounty in, we were so tired, hungry and damaged that the only thing we did was hand the bounty in, completely forgetting to make a show of it.
He came up with the idea of a celebration in the town, as most, if not all, of Goran's victims were from Ravens Rest, so the news of his death would be a cause to celebrate. Then, amidst the celebration, he would present the one responsible for Goran's death, and while all eyes were on me and everything was cheering and clapping, I would simply show my face.
"I don't like that plan." I interrupted.
"Why not? I don't see any other way to achieve what you're trying to do."
"Publish my updated bounty."
"What?"
"Publish my million-frank bounty. My bounty now is high, but it's backed by the church; there's a big chance a lot of people haven't even seen it. You separate those bounties for a reason."
"Hmmm, you do have a point. If we do that, though, you might be a target right up until the reveal. Your life would be at risk."
"I'm not that easy to kill."
"Hm, you've definitely proven that to me and mine at least. Very well, at your behest, I will disseminate the wanted poster. I would recommend keeping your identity hidden at all times. But luckily, most people are looking out for some large woman you're apparently travelling with."
"We've… gone separate ways."
"Ah, well, sorry to hear that, but there are plenty of fish in the sea, and you're a young lad."
"Huh? What, no, she just wants north. She had a permit to cross the border."
"...oh… I thought you got dumped. My bad, I was about to offer you a drink and everything, wait. How old are you anyway?"
"Fifteen."
"That's… younger than I expected, considering your accomplishments. Younger mercenaries die fast, but you're still an adult at the end of the day."
"One other thing, I wanted to talk to you about hidden contracts. The type normal people don't get access to."
"You want access to them?"
"Yes."
"I don't think you can handle them; they're contracts for large companies like us or the Black Hand, not solo mercs or small parties."
"Even if we killed Goran?"
Corvis leaned back in his chair, letting out a long and loud exhale through his nose. He tilted his head to the side to crack his neck before continuing.
"How about I give you a specific one? A certain job that I think might cater well to a solo mercenary that knows how to get things done."
"Oh? What might that be?"
"I want you to kill Robert of the Black Hand."