The Coastal Highlands
Mordana, Dienghant2028
The land was overgrown. The trees were full and lush, their roots growing violently from the paved roads, cracked and broken apart. Stark sunlight shined down in shafts between the trees, clouded by the thick canopy of the trees as flocks of birds cawed overhead. The world was full of life yet monochrome, quiet and still.
A black cat prowled across the rich earth. Barely recognizable as the domestic breed it might once have been. Its fur mangy and rank, body lean and hard like a predator, entirely feral and very dangerous. It moved slowly, cautiously, sniffing the air, scanning the forest, alert, trusting nothing of its surroundings. It paced across a leaf-strewn clearing, closing stealthily on a decaying carcass, splayed face-down in the earth. His feet were bare, face frozen in a grim death mask. A gaping gunshot wound in his head, the dried blood caked around it matting his hair.
As the cat moved closer, approaching warily, a sound roared in the distance, growing closer and louder. As the sound began to roar deafeningly, the cat scampered away into the trees as a gust of wind blew past, whipping up a cloud of dirt that practically blew the decaying human remains away. A few moments later, the cat returned, eager to scavenge whatever meager morsels it could find.
The hoverbike emerged from the forest out into an open field consisting of rolling green hills covered in unchecked bushes and weeds. The road was barely there, and in many places hard to see, but the hoverbike stayed over it for the most part, flying at a rapid speed in the open air. On either side of the broken road were old buildings, some hollowed out, others falling apart from years of neglect.
A
song played from the center console of the hoverbike, driven by a relatively young woman dressed in tight-fitting clothing and wearing thick black goggles to cover her eyes. Her hair was a fading grey color, and it flapped in the wind behind her as the hoverbike sped along, completely alone aside from the occasional animal that scurried out of the way.
To the northwest, the sea sparkled a brilliant blue, and to the southeast, rolling green hills sprawled on for miles until the sea met the shore. This land was a peninsula, and it went by the name of Mordana, in bygone days of yore one of the greatest kingdoms of the Ghantar. Mordana was but one of several provinces in the so called Kingdom of Dienghant, home of the Ghantish in Dienstad.
Yet, Dienghant was very much unlike the other nations of Dienstad. Where many of them were prosperous and populace, Dienghant was poor and sparsely populated. It’s history, though long, was sad, filled with civil war, treachery, misery and woe. The nation of Dienghant today was but a shadow of its former self, and the former Kingdom of Mordana, once the pride of the Ghantish, was a broken land dominated by corrupt lords, miserly sheriffs, bandits and worst of all, slavers.
How did Dienghant fall so low? Why did the Emperor of Ghant care so little for the plight of this land? History is cruel, but truth is wicked. Hundreds of years ago, Dienghant was divided between multiple warring kingdoms, the Kingdom of Mordana being one of the most ancient and greatest. For centuries the kingdoms of Dienghant struggled for dominance, and for centuries they failed to succeed in their endeavors.
That was, until the Ghantish of Dienghant looked beyond the seas for new frontiers to give them an advantage. One after another sailors, merchants and pirates struck out into the sea to find their salvation. For every two ships that sailed out into those stormy seas, only one would return. Some of the neighboring lands were hostile, where others were more welcoming.
It was Mordana’s own Ghantish East Dienstad Company made headway on the island to the west, and settled an area that came to be known as Latalurra. Those foreign lands proved rich in natural resources, and the wealth of Dienghant grew immense, though before long, the East Dienstad Company owned all the cards. With that power came control, and soon the Company became more powerful than the kingdom that financed it.
Kings and lords both ancient and proud resisted the influence of the Company, but by then it was too late. The subsequent wars became known as the Company Wars, and Dienghant was never the same afterward. One by one the kingdoms fell to the East Dienstad Company, which in the end achieved an empty victory. Dienghant’s power broken and the colonies too unruly, the Company’s resources and manpower were so weak that when the Ghantar from beyond Dienstad came in to save their defeated kin, the Company fell easily.
By then the damage was done. Dienghant was but a collection of war-ravaged territories reorganized as provinces, and Latalurra achieved independence and went on to become the Federation of Mokastana. The Kingdom of Dienghant was the nominal designation of that collection of territories ruled by the distant Emperor of Ghant, who claimed to rule all the lands of the Ghantar, but in practice, his reach was weak and his grip nonexistent. Lords endeavored to rule these territories in his name, and selfishly did they rule those lands.
Even now the woman on her hoverbike had driven the length of Mordana in search of her quarry, and she could travel at least a day between villages. Sometimes she could see a lofty manor or castle off in the distance, standing sentinel atop a hill, but what she was looking for wouldn’t be found in a town or keep. For she was a bounty hunter, and in the course of hunting people, one had to go off the beaten path more often than not.
She did not doubt her course of action, her bounty or her upcoming destination. It served the purpose of killing two birds with one stone, as it were. She had been hunting this particular band of slavers for many years, and soon she would come upon them.
One step at a time, she thought as she continued to drive past old buildings covered in moss and ivy. This was a dangerous part of Dienghant, one that required careful and deliberate execution.
Up ahead in the distance she saw where she was hoping to go. In the course of her investigation she learned of a gathering ground for slavers, bandits and outlaws called the Playhouse. It was the sort of place that only people of ill repute would congregate, and anyone not looking for trouble was wise to avoid it. What she needed would be found here, and she didn’t doubt her ability to handle herself.
As the hoverbike approached the Playground, its façade came more clearly into view. It was an old building like all the rest, a cracked and crumbling brick structure that had the trappings of makeshift upkeep. A large rectangular building, the walls were covered in ivy, and the paved lots surrounding it overgrown with weeds. All around it were parked vehicles, some older than others, but no hoverbikes.
A few rough looking haggard men drifted too and fro just outside the building, armed with knives, guns and whips. There were no slaves in sight, just thugs by the look of it. No women either apparently, as when the bounty hunter pulled up with her hoverbike, several of the men stopped and stared. The woman paid none of them any mind as she parked the hoverbike and disengaged it.
When she removed her goggles, the woman gazed upon the Playhouse with dull green eyes framed by a heart-shaped face. After stretching she walked past a few of the men, right up to the front doors of the Playground, carved and framed in the fashion of saloon doors. The woman heard music playing and men laughing inside, and after a moment’s pause, she pushed the doors open and walked in.
What was once a grand, gilded entrance foyer had, like the rest of the theater, been largely gutted, but it was still impressive. There was spacious bar area with a grand staircase leading up to a second floor, entrance to balcony seats. Faded old theater posters still hung from the walls, most of them torn and ragged from abuse. The place had been shabbily converted into a kind of saloon, with old ripped-out theater seats arranged around tables. A fireplace sputtered dimly on one wall.
Men stood around drinking while others were seated at the tables eating and playing cards. There was a small band playing on stage with an array of instruments that looked as though they had seen better days, and the bartender was busy serving drinks in tall steins and mugs. The woman noticed several men staring at her, some murmuring amongst themselves, others licking their lips and others still grinning as though they might have been planning some mischief.
The band had finished their jig, and were about to start playing a new one when the bounty hunter sat down. She gestured to the bartender to get her a drink while watching the men in the Playhouse watch her with covetous eyes. She was a fine woman indeed, finer still to those men who might not have enjoyed a woman for some time. As such she was expecting trouble, and could only hope that the thugs were dumb enough to take the bait. For now however, the band began to play their next song.
As the woman sat at the bar and listened to the band, a shadow came into view and loomed large over her. A man was standing behind her, glaring, cutting a menacing figure in his armored leathers. “Hey beautiful,” the man said to her with an easy smile. “Never seen you around these parts before.”
The woman didn’t turn, she just looked straight ahead. Clearly annoyed that he was being ignored, he then said “You know, around here it’s rude to ignore somebody that’s talking to you.”
The bartender looked at the man nervously, while the woman opened her mouth to speak, without looking back. “I have nothing to say to you.”
Scowling, the man roared in anger. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Slowly, the woman raised her hands in a peaceful gesture. “I don't want any trouble.”
At that moment, the man grabbed her by the arm. “Well, that's too bad, ‘cause…”
In the blink of an eye, the woman suddenly slammed the man’s face into the bar, breaking his nose. The woman had pinned the man’s head to the bar with nothing more than one hand, her thumb pressed deep into a nerve cluster in his neck, while her other hand grabbed his arm and pulled it back at an awkward angle, ready to break it. The woman leaned in close as he whimpered, paralyzed and with his face covered in blood.
“I know your kind, slaver. Men who like to think you’re something special, a bunch of tough guys who think might makes right. Not used to getting your noses popped. You're going to spend an eternity suffering in torment and damnation for the things you've done. Do you know that? I can give you a head start too, if you touch me again.”
The other men seated at bar and at the various tables stand and approach, the woman sensed the trouble gathering behind her. She looked down at the man she had pinned to the bar and told him “you go on back to your table and tell your friends what I told you.”
It was all the man could do to just barely nod his head. The woman release her thumb from his neck, and her hand from his arm. The man staggered backward, gasping for breath. The other men must’ve numbered at least two dozen, and had gathered around the bar, surrounding the woman with intimidating looks on their faces, and hands on their weapons.
The woman sighed and looked down at the floor, a visage of anger on her face. Even as the thugs closed in around her, she stood up from her barstool and turned to faced them all. She reached down to her belt and drew a sword hilt, without a blade. Yet once it was in her hand, an arc of electricity and light burst out, several feet long. Pulsating energy in the shape of a blade lashed out at the first man that charged her, and within seconds a decapitated head was on the floor before her, while a headless body slumped down to the floor.
All around her the men drew their weapons and began to attack, some with knives and daggers, others with pistols and improvised projectiles. Meanwhile the band continued to play their song, unfazed by the events unfolding in the spacious area between the stage and the bar. The bounty hunter for her part drew her own pistol with her free hand, though when she shot it at one of the thugs on the second floor, a burst of energy discharged from the chamber, and when it struck him in the face, he slumped to the ground as some of it was burned away.
Chaos erupted in the bar as the bounty hunter began cutting a one-woman swath of mayhem through a dozen brawlers surrounding her. She ducked and covered, bobbed and weaved through tables and chairs while simultaneously shooting and slashing the attackers with her energy weapons. Several men fell dead as the woman cut through them effortlessly with her energy sword, a trail of severed limbs and heads on the floor.
After a few minutes the goons stopped coming through the front doors and nobody on the upper floor was shooting or throwing anything down. The band was still playing, though now it was for an audience of dead men. The bartender poked his head back out from beneath the bar and the man whom the bounty hunter had previously slammed into it was cowering in a corner having pissed himself.
The bounty hunter disengaged her weapons and cracked her knuckles before walking up to the cowering man in the corner. She stooped down on bended knees and got eye-level with the man before explaining to him that “Your friends didn’t take me as seriously as you did, it seems.”
Trembling, the man managed to ask, “who are you…what do you want?”
With a laugh the woman answered “if I told you who I was, I’d have to kill you, and as much as I’d like that I need you alive. I’m looking for Xavier Bordugas, and I have it on good authority that he’s somewhere on the peninsula.”
However the man appeared unwilling to talk, merely shaking his head as he curled up into a ball. “If I told you where he was and he found out I did that, he’d kill me.”
“…what’s your name, slaver?” she asked him without much care.
“...Thad,” stammered the slaver. “You killed them…you killed all of them…”
The woman nodded her head. “Yeah I did…they wanted a fight so that’s what they got. Not as good as they thought they were, seems like.” Looking back at the band that was still playing music, the woman turned her gaze slowly to Thad.
The bounty hunter scowled as she wrapped a large hand around the man’s throat and asked him, “I’m going to ask you one more time where Xavier Bordugas is. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to burn your baby bits off with my sword and shove them down your fucking throat. Do you understand?”
Thad nodded slowly. Then he answered, “he’s at a camp in a rocky alcove on the coast, a dozen or so miles to the southwest.”
Scratching her chin, the bounty hunter asked “how many men are with him? Are they well armed? How many slaves?”
“…About thirty men, three times as many slaves,” Thad spoke nervously. “Well armed…nothing like what you got though.”
The bounty hunter smiled as she took her hand off of Thad’s throat and patted him on the shoulder. “Very good. You’re coming with me to where you said this camp is, and if you’re lying, it’ll be worse for you…I don’t like it when people waste my time. Now do I need to tie you up or are you going to come along nicely? I wouldn’t try escaping either…I’m clearly faster than you, if your nose is any indication.”
Thad stood up warily and started walking to the front doors of the Playhouse, while the woman started walking behind him, giving the man a hard push in the back. Little did they know that a man was still creeping along the second floor balcony with a rifle in his hands, waiting for the best opportunity to take a shot at the woman who killed all his friends. Carefully he positioned himself to take the shot, aimed and put his finger on the trigger…
Bang! the woman stood motionless with her pistol in her hand, the barrel smoking. The man on the upper balcony fell over the rail and crashed down onto the bar, a hole in his face right between the eyes, dripping blood and gore all over the bar. “Clearly faster,” the bounty hunter said dryly as she holstered her pistol and turned to face the bartender. “Sorry for the mess.”
“…I don’t want no trouble, miss,” he replied nervously, half cowered behind the bar.
“Trouble is gone.” With that said, she plucked a large golden coin from her pocket and placed it on the bar. “For the trouble…and a washcloth,” she told the bartender with a faint smile. The bartender quickly reached down beneath the bar and very slowly pulled out a white washcloth, offering it to the woman.
The bounty hunter took it and inclined her head before turning back to the doors and walking forward with another hard push to Thad’s back. Once they were outside under the sun again, she tossed the washcloth at him and said “clean yourself up, I won’t have you bleeding all over my ride.”
Thad too the cue and began wiping the blood off of his face while the bounty hunter got her hoverbike ready. “You’ll be riding on the back…there’s handles for you to hold onto…I suggest you get a good grip on them otherwise you’ll be flying off the back and getting your ass torn apart by the road. I won’t be coming back for you, so you better hope you’re dead by the time you stop. Otherwise you’re going to be attending dinner with the wolves tonight.”
“Wait,” Thad stammered out as he was wiping his face. “There’s…something else.”
Sighing, the woman turned to face the slaver. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“…These slavers…they’re different,” he began to explain. “They are…umm, feared by the other slavers.”
That statement made the woman laugh for the first time that day. “Oh really? What could possibly make them so scary? Do they enslave other slavers or something?”
Thad shook his head. “No…they worship Erid…and they call themselves the Immolated. They get that name because, umm…when they’re baptized, it’s in fire…literally. They burn themselves, and the ones that burn themselves the most, earn the most prestige. They’re fanatics…nobody wants to be around them if it ain’t for business.”
“I suppose that explains why there were so many of you at the Playhouse,” the bounty hunter remarked as she got on the hoverbike. “Let’s go, and don’t try anything stupid on the hoverbike.” Thad nodded, tucking the washcloth into his pocket before climbing on the hoverbike. He found the handles on the sides of the vehicle, and the bounty hunter put on her goggles before turning on and revving up the hoverbike.
As they began to speed off, the woman put on another
song. The Playhouse faded out of view behind them fairly quickly, and once again the bounty hunter was back out in the open, speeding through desolate countryside on a course to the southwest. Here and there she saw the movements of animals in the brush, including rabbits, squirrels, gophers, badgers, even the occasional deer. None of them wanted to get too close to the hoverbike, and those that were in its path promptly hurried away.
Mordana was a hilly, rocky land, especially further down the peninsula towards where it ended. Some were quite tall and steep, jutting out of the earth like massive fists of rock. These features lended themselves quite easily to caves, tunnels and alcoves in the rocks, that in the past had served as bandit hideouts and pirate dens. Apparently, not much had changed since then.
If only the Kings and Company knew the fruits of their follies…Thad pointed at one particular formation of rocks along the coast, forming something like a barrier against the land beyond it. Vehicles were parked on random patches of earth, and armed men peppered throughout that area stood on guard. The bounty hunter knew what she had to do, and found the guard closest to the rocks. She whipped her hoverbike towards him and in a swift motion, drew her handgun and blasted the man in the head.
The sound of the hoverbike masked the sounds of shouting and gunfire, as the other men began returning fire as they were cut off from their alcove by the hoverbike. They couldn’t hit her however, as her vehicle was simply going too fast. Not wanting to spend too much time fighting these men from cover, she merely aimed and shot her handgun at the vehicles they were taking cover behind.
A solid projectile paled in comparison to what an energy projectile could do to a car, and when she discharged her weapon at the engine or the gas tank, it exploded. These cars did just that, and the men taking cover behind them either caught on fire or were blown to pieces by the explosions. Once she determined that they were all dead, the woman got disengaged the hoverbike, got off and removed her goggles.
When Thad staggered off, he gasped in horror at the sight. “Wow…you killed them all…again. I’ve never seen anyone do the things you do, woman…the slave bosses would love to hire you on.”
The bounty hunter sighed as she looked around, and then faced Thad. “I don’t accept contracts from slavers, and I don’t leave any survivors. I don’t want anyone to know what I can do, except the people that need to know. That’s why you must die now.”
Suddenly Thad got nervous again, his legs quivering beneath him. He dropped to his knees and pathetically began to beg. “Please woman, don’t kill me…I’m not that bad…I’m not like them. I’ve never hurt anyone, never done nothing to the slaves. I’m just a guard.”
“…So you just watch, then, is that it?” the woman asked him spitefully. “How many women and children did you watch get enslaved? Raped, abused? Innocents taken from their homes and inflicted the horrors of bondage upon? How many?” she asked as she drew her gun.
Thad just shook his head as tears began to drop from his eyes, down his cheeks. “There was nothing I could do…”
“You’re right,” the woman replied with a resigned tone. “There’s nothing you could do.” Rather than shoot him however, she drew her energy sword and slashed Thad’s throat as quickly as the arc of energy sprung forth. “Watch that,” she told him softly as he clutched at the gaping wound in his throat, hot blood gushing down his chest onto the soft dirt below his knees. He writhed in the blood and soil for a few moments as he bled out, and then stopped moving.
“Fucking slavers,” the woman said as she put her weapon back on her belt. “Always making excuses.” Looking around again, she made sure nobody else was coming or that any alarms were sounded, and then she proceeded to make her approach to the alcove. She did this by getting as close as she could to the rocks, where she could move stealthily and without detection. She had to move quickly as well, lest someone see the burning cars in the field and sound the alarm.
The alcove, as the late Thad called it, was an apt nickname for the large rock formation. There were large indentations that didn’t go especially deep into the rock, that were loaded with food, water, supplies, weapons and ammunition. In the first one she encountered a guard who seemed to be goofing around, and the woman was able to sneak up behind him and break his neck without any trouble.
In the second alcove, the man had his back turned to her long enough for her to get close, but turned at the last second to see her behind him. The bounty hunter pulled a small knife she kept on her built and buried it into his eye while covering his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Knives were easy to kill people with, she learned. Far easier than a tea cup, which on at least one occasion she killed three men with in one fight.
The alcoves led to an open tunnel beneath the rock, high and wide enough for several men to walk side by side. At the end of it was the beach, where several men were standing and talking, some of them even laughing like they were having a jolly good time. The bounty hunter knew that anything she did in this tunnel could be noticed from the beach, so she dispatched the guards in the tunnel quickly and efficiently, one after the other, and pulled them off into the crevices along the sides of the tunnel.
Now was the bounty hunter’s big moment. She stepped out onto the beach, with the sun beating down upon her fading blonde hair, turned grayish. The beach sprawled out to her left and right, a great expanse of sand that ended where the sea was gently lapping at the shore. Gulls flew overhead, cawing beneath a clear blue sky. In the distance she could hear the waves coming in, carrying with them the scent of the ocean.
True to his word, Thad’s description of a hundred slaves was correct, as to her right there were as many men, women and children bound at their ankles, wrists and necks by iron collars and chains to one another, scantly clad in torn cloth garments with a decent amount of skin showing, especially upon the women. The slaves’ expressions were a mixture of resignation and despair, some sobbing, several of the children crying but not too loudly, lest they get beaten. Some of them had been, as they had shiners on their eyes and bruises on their arms and legs.
Beside them stood some average-looking run of the mill slavers like the ones the woman encountered previously. Yet the ones on the other side of the beach, to her left, were quite different. These men were dressed in red clothing, many of them sporting burn scars or missing fingers and eyes.
These must be the Immolated, she realized.
This is where I’m supposed to be.The Immolated were inspecting the goods as it were, clearly they were buying the slaves from the standard slavers. It was no doubt a sensitive negotiation that didn’t benefit from any interruptions, which now was inevitable. The bounty hunter couldn’t surprise so many men at once out in the open like this, so now came her grand entrance. First she cracked her knuckles and popped her back, and then she began walking forward further out onto the beach.
The bounty hunter started to whistle as she approached the two camps of men, numbering roughly thirty total. They all turned their heads to stare at the woman as she walked up to them. She stopped and stood still a safe distance away with either camp up ahead in either direction. “Nice day for a walk along the beach,” she observed to the slavers. “Never know what you’re going to find.”
The Immolated shot cold glares at the other slavers, one of them putting his hands up before turning to face the woman. He was an older man with scraggly grey hair and dull green eyes, dressed like a pirate. This man gave a long, puzzled look at the bounty hunter before addressing her. “How’d you get in here, woman?”
Shrugging, the woman answered “through the rocks behind me. Your guards aren’t that good at guarding though, apparently. I don’t think they were expecting any visitors.”
“…Who are you and what do you want?” the man asked dryly.
“I’m glad you asked.” Looking around at the men in the slaver camp, the bounty hunter found who she was looking for, and then answered the man’s inquiry. “I’m nobody, but I’m looking for somebody. His name is Xavier Bordugas, and I believe that one over there is him,” she pointed at a younger man with a clean-shaven face, dressed in rich highborn garb. “If you give him to me this will go a lot easier for the lot of you.”
The slavers all began to laugh, though the man who stood before the bounty hunter did not, merely a cold expression rested on his face. “And why would we do that?”
“Make no mistake, old man, you’re all going to die. You can die quick and clean, or you can die violently. Either way, I’m getting Xavier Bordugas, and these slaves are getting set free. That’s the choice, and you have one change to tell me how it’s going to be.” The bounty hunter knew how these things usually went…they always refused a quick clean death. Violence was what they lived by, and it was what they died by too.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the old man that gave the men their orders, it was Xavier Bordugas. “Fuck this bitch. Kill her now,” he shouted, and the men began to aim their guns at the woman. She was ready, and flicked a grenade into the sand in front of her, while she jumped back and out of the way. Just after she put her goggles back on and covered her ears the grenade exploded with a loud bang and a burst of radiant light.
In that moment the slavers, and unfortunately the slaves too, were deaf and blind, in addition to being dumb. As they covered their ears or the eyes from being stunned by the grenade blast, the bounty hunter could still see just fine through her goggles. Through the bright light and the smoke she saw the slavers staggering, and with raptor-like speed she struck at them with her energy sword.
They were denied quick, clean kills. Instead the woman slashed at their hands, their arms, and their bellies with surgical precision. Limbs still clutching their weapons crashed into the sand and entrails spewed hot and wet from the bellies of disemboweled slavers. Only the old man had the common sense to stagger towards one of the boats anchored off the coast, while his men were slaughtered like pigs.
The Immolated put up a better fight it would seem. They reached out with blades and slashed wildly at the air, a few of them even coming close to striking the bounty hunter. She ducked and bowed beneath a few arcs and cut the Immolated upon their bellies and legs. One of them had the sense to swing his sword low, prompting the woman to jump above the arc and swing her energy sword at the man’s face, cutting his head in half.
Though they died fighting her, the Immolated died all the same, leaving only the startled slaves, Xavier Bordugas and the old man desperately swimming out into the ocean towards his boat. The bounty hunter first went to Xavier and punched him so hard in the stomach that he keeled over and collapsed into the sand. Then she delivered a savage kick to his face, causing him to fall backwards writhing in pain as blood gushed from his nose. She quickly disarmed him and threw his weapons into the water before turning her gaze upon the old man.
It was only when she saw his boat that she realized who he was. She approached the edge of the water with a heavy sigh, feeling the need to compose herself, and then, reached for her belt. She pulled out a long leather whip and lashed out at the old man with it, it quickly wrapping around his ankle. “No no no” he yelled as he realized something was stopping him from swimming forward, and suddenly he began going back the other way.
The bounty hunter pulled the old man up onto the beach with her whip, even as he desperately grasped at the water. “Don’t kill me,” he pleaded to her. “Don’t kill me, please I beg you.”
“I won’t,” she told him before hitting him in the neck in such a way that he passed out. Then she went back to Xavier, who was struggling to get back up to his feet. “Stay down,” she told him as she kicked his legs out from beneath him.
“Fuck you, bitch,” he snorted and spat at the woman. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I do,” the woman chuckled. “Your Xavier Bordugas, and I’m here for the bounty on your head. Luckily for you, the person who wants you wants you alive. Otherwise you’d be dead like these friends of yours,” she told him with a nod of her head towards the dead and dismembered slavers sprawled out on the beach.
Xavier apparently didn’t get the message. “My father is Balabar Bordugas, Lord Protector of Dienghant. Whatever they’re paying, he’ll pay double, I promise you.”
“That’s too bad, really,” she answered him as she bound his wrists and ankles with rope. “It doesn’t work like that, and that name doesn’t mean anything to me. Though he must be a fool for letting his son getting tangled up with slavers.”
Xavier shook his head, still trying to reason with the bounty hunter. “It’s necessary…to keep the peace among the factions. You think I like slavery? No I don’t, but it won’t go away. May as well take a piece of the pie.”
“All you slavers say the same shit, you know that?” the bounty hunter asked him pointedly. “Oh it’s just business, it’ll happen anyway, blah blah blah.” She pointed at the children in chains, cowering in the sand and wailing in fear. “You see that? You did that. You could have done something, but you didn’t, because you care more about profit than about people. You make me sick, and I’m going to enjoy delivering you in chains to the Bounty Box.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” Xavier screamed. “My father will stop at nothing to hunt you down like a dog. He’ll tear this fucking country apart for me. He’ll start a war that you won’t win. You’re a dead woman.”
The bounty hunter scowled. “You’re right, I’m a dead woman. I’ve been dead for many years now, and guess what asshole? You can’t kill someone that’s already dead.” Now finished tying him up, she stood up and said “now shut the fuck up.” She gave him a kick to the side of the head, causing him to stagger in agony, and then she gagged his mouth so he couldn’t talk anymore.
A quick search of his jacket revealed an iron key. “Oh well would you look at that?” she took the key up to the bound slaves and stood before them. One of them, a middle aged woman with bruises on her face, asked the bounty hunter “what are you going to do with us?”
“Nothing.” Looking at the chains and locks on the older woman, the bounty hunter used the key to unlock them, until the woman was no longer bound.
Once she was free of her bindings, the older woman burst into tears and embraced the bounty hunter. “Thank you, thank you.”
“Release the rest of them and see them to safety,” the bounty hunter instructed the older woman. “There are villages nearby with phones. Call the authorities, and let them know of your condition. They’ll make sure you all find your ways home.”
“…I don’t think we can ever repay you,” the older woman said sobbing, as the other slaves began to give their blessings and join in the shedding of tears.
“I don’t want anything,” the younger woman replied. “It’s enough to know that justice has been done. Now go…I have work to do.” The bounty hunter dragged the bound and gagged Xavier into the alcove, and then went back for the old man and a set of chains and manacles from the slaves as they were being set free. She had special plans for this old man that was befitting of his deeds.
Eventually the old man woke up, in a place he didn’t recognize. It was on top of a hill overlooking the sea with a few rocks scattered around a large sturdy tree. When he tried to move he felt a clanking of a chain, and then realized there was a collar around his neck. The collar was attached to a chain, and the chain was tied around the tree, bound together with a lock. He gasped and tried pulling at the chain, though it was all tight and he couldn’t get loose from it.
On a nearby rock sat the bounty hunter, watching him carefully. “Rise and shine, old timer. Enjoying the view? Such a nice day and a beautiful view of the sea.”
“…Who are you?” the old man asked pleadingly, searching the woman’s eyes for an answer.
“Oh, don’t you know, old man?” the woman asked sourly, giving him a long hard stare as she stood up from the rock and walked up to him. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.” Slowly she reached under her jacket to where a piece of twine was around her neck like a necklace. She ripped it off of her neck and out emerged an old harmonica. The woman held it in her hand, for the old man to see.
“No…it can’t be,” he shook his head. “You’re dead…you died a long time ago.”
The woman scowled as she stood over him. “You’re right, I’m dead…I died back there on that island. I am a ghost now, of your creation.”
“…No, little girl,” Targo stammered. “You’re the same girl you were on that beach. Tarna Bo. All grown up.”
Tarna Bo shook her head. “I’m not that person anymore. I was a slave. Now I’m not.”
With sadness in his face, Targo told her “that’s where you’re wrong, little girl. We’re all slaves to something, from the beginning to the end. You were born a slave, and you’d have died a slave one way or the other. Even if I set you free, you’d still have been a slave. To society, to industry, to the desires of men. Life uses us up and breaks us, Tarna. “We’re all just links in the chain.”
A short chuckle escaped Tarna’s lips. “Links in the chain, that’s funny Targo. Is that what you told yourself when you left me to die?”
Targo shook his head. “I showed you mercy on that beach.”
“Fuck your mercy,” Tarna spat on the ground. “You murdered my mother and left me to die. You could have killed me, but you didn’t. You left me to die you son of a bitch!”
“I loved your mother and you too, but she betrayed me,” Targo cried. “She ran away and took you with her. I gave her everything. Love, protection, a safe place in the world, and she betrayed me all the same. I couldn’t kill you Tarna, because you are my daugh…”
“No, you shut your fucking mouth,” screamed Tarna in a red rage. “You’re nothing to me but another dead slaver. Life is about making choices, and only free people can take advantage of that. You made yours a long time ago, as did I.” Tarna pointed at the cliff behind Targo. “You have two choices now. You can bide your time, hope for some miracle, your escape, whatever you want to call it. Or you can jump off that cliff and hang, though I suspect that the collar will break your neck. That would be mercy, considering my mother strangled to death at the end of the rope that you yourself tied while she begged you to spare me.”
Targo wept as Tarna spoke. “You remember don’t you? I do. My mother never once begged you to spare her life. Only mine, and you watched the woman you loved strangle to death while your child was abandoned on a desolate island left to die of exposure. This is a better fate than you deserve, so maybe, just maybe if there’s anything decent in that sick slaver head of yours, you’ll jump off that cliff and get it all over with, instead of living on and waiting to die and having to spend another moment thinking about the horrible things you’ve done.”
In spite of everything that was said, Targo said nothing, merely standing there sobbing. Tarna looked over him with daggers in her eyes. “Play a song for my loving mother,” she told him as she put the harmonica in his mouth. Then she turned his back on him and walked away. Tarna didn’t hear any songs, any crying, begging or shouting. Only the sound of the sea and the gulls off in the distance.
Tarna thought she heard the chain rattle hard as she was climbing back down the hill towards the ground, a groan and a snap following it, then nothing. Tarna thought nothing, felt nothing as she made her descent, before reaching the ground. Her hoverbike was waiting for her right where she left it, next to Thad’s lifeless body. Xavier was bound and slung over the backseat, strapped down tight enough to where Tarna was confident he wouldn’t fall off or get loose.
Jumping on her hoverbike, Tarna put on her goggles and took a deep breath, cracking her knuckles and throwing her hair back. As she revved up the hoverbike, she put on another
song. When it started up and she sped off, thinking about what Targo told her upon that hill.
We’re all just Links in the Chain.