A Hunter and His Prey- Chapter 1

Standards

Chapter One

Standards

In Ja-Wen, nighttime brought out three groups of people: drunks, mostly consisting of the city’s blue-collar workers; unemployed ‘adventurers’; and thieves. Jonah Staples belonged to none of these sects. He was a young Human male with a dream and a questionable source of information.

He pushed open a set of saloon-style doors, popular in Ja-Wen business buildings, and entered the seedy little tavern. A wooden plank out front named the place the ‘Flaming Tongues’.

Jonah stepped into the dim lantern lights of the tavern. He stood at approximately five and a half feet in height, with a skinny, angular frame with an unkempt, shabby appearance. Thick, oily black hair hung in tufts about his head, uncombed and seemingly unwashed for weeks. With a simple woodsman’s shirt, cloak and blue wool pants, he looked like an average, everyday citizen. With the thick, black leather-bound book tucked neatly under his left arm, he appeared to be the sort of man who spends his days working, reading, and doing little else.

Unbeknownst to anyone else in the tavern, Jonah carried a logbook. For two years, he had logged both public and private bounty contracts from the cities of Ja-Wen, the Port of Arcade, and Palen in the northeast. Each bounty listing was accompanied by the name of the Bounty Hunter who had collected, information that was free to the public, if the public bothered to inquire.

Jonah Staples was not some drunken wanderer or beggar. He was what is known in Tamalaria as a Scholar Class, a scientist-type. He had dreams of being something more. Jonah Staples wanted to be a Bounty Hunter, and he wanted to learn from the very best. Of all of the names of Bounty Hunters in his logbook, one name appeared time after time, accounting for a little more than half of the bounty head takedowns in the region. Portenda the Quiet.

Aside from being a Scholar, Jonah was well-versed in Alchemy and the principles governing the creation of tonics, tinctures, and potions. He hadn’t gotten far into the semi-magical arts of Alchemy, which involved the concept of energy exchange and the reformation of molecules, but that was mostly due to his low income and lack of resources. Manuals on the higher, more complicated concepts of Alchemy cost an arm and a leg, and his job as a farm hand just wasn’t paying enough. For a short time he had tried his hand as a potion shop owner, but that business venture had gone south, and he was forced to rely on the menial wages of a farm hand.

Two years previous to entering the Flaming Tongue, Jonah had resolved to become a Bounty Hunter, to train with the very best in the business. This Portenda, whoever he was, certainly qualified.

A month and a half earlier, an odd Gnome gentleman had stopped by the Newman farm, where Jonah worked, a man by the name of Lee Toren. Jonah, having recognized the name from one of his friends in Desanadron, had immediately asked the Gnome Pickpocket where Portenda the Quiet could be found.

“Ja-Wen, I fink,” the Gnome had replied, weary and travel-worn. “I was just through that way not too long back. Think he’s some sort of freelance adventurer or somefing loik that.”

Jonah had thanked him for the information, and asked old man Newman to be excused for a while.

The kind old farmer had told him to go ahead, and that he had a job waiting for him when he returned.

The information hadn’t been free, of course. Lee Toren had “this damned fuzzy memory,” and had remembered the city name after ten gold pieces of reminding.

Now Johan stood looking into the shadowy corners of the tavern, trying to find a Bounty Hunter. Other than a name, Jonah knew nothing of the man. He would have to pester someone for a more precise account of the man. Barkeeps, he had learned in his travels, often had relevant information for travelers and adventurers looking for people or places specific to the region. The Dwarf at the counter looked like a reliable source of info, so Jonah walked awkwardly up to the bar.

“Excuse me, sir?” With a finger pointed upward, Jonah caught the Dwarf’s attention.

The barkeep finished cleaning the mug he was rubbing down with a presumably clean cloth, then set the mug down and sauntered over in front of Jonah, placing his knobby hands flat on the counter. His braided beard ran nearly down to his sizable belly, and Jonah had trouble looking away from it for a moment. He had traveled much in his time, but had rarely seen such a gruff looking individual. He tended to take their sort as a sign of danger, and kept his distance. Now, he was surrounded by brutish looking people, and being glared at viciously by a member of one of the proudest warrior Races in the history of Tamalaria.

“Wot you want, stranger? Speak up.” The Dwarven barkeep slammed a palm on his counter.

“Oh, yes.” Jonah floundered for a moment. “I, ah, I’m looking for someone who might reside here in Ja-Wen. He goes by the name Portenda the Quiet.” Jonah gave the Dwarf a winning smile, which apparently only served to aggravate the man, as the Dwarf made a fist and slowly heaved a sigh.

He pointed at the far corner of the tavern from the entrance, where a single Simpa, loaded for bear, sat sipping a drink and reading a town crier of some sort. “Ah, thank you very much sir.” Jonah gave the Dwarf a slight bow. As he moved away, someone stuck their leg out at the bar, tripping Jonah up and sending him crashing to the floor.

A burly half-Orc seated nearby pointed at Jonah and giggled.

“Stupid Hu-man,” the brute said, pronouncing the word ‘human’ with an apparent lack of mastery of the common tongue. “You need to watch your step around here. This is not some village in the sticks.” The green-fleshed man hopped down off of his stool.

Jonah scrambled back on all fours, in time to see several customers leaving through the front door. For a moment, he was nearly paralyzed; he had never seen a Greenskin, and though this man was clearly not a full-bred Orc, his manner and musculature spoke of his ancestry.

Several thugs at the counter spun in their seats to watch this spectacle of bullying first-hand, cheering as the half-Orc lifted Jonah by the collar.

Oh shit, oh shit, Jonah thought, his mind going into overdrive as panic set in. He looked around the room for help, but everyone was either sitting back and enjoying the show, or cowering away in the hopes that this drunken brute would be satisfied by only beating on one person smaller than him.

Wait. A rush of hope ran through him. He looked at the werelion in the corner, who was watching with a detached look on his noble face. Wasn’t he going to do something? Jonah thought, afraid of what might happen next.

What happened next was painful. The half-Orc reared his head back, and pounded into Jonah’s face with a head-butt that felt like a blow from a boulder.

Jonah flew backward, his nose broken and bloodied. Tears blurred his vision, and he tried to scurry beneath a table, but the customers seated there blocked him with their boots.

The half-Orc’s crushing grip latched onto Jonah’s ankle, and in an instant he was hanging upside down by his foot. The world tilted and wheeled. Luckily, he kept his money tucked in pouches around his waist, but it wouldn’t take the brute long to figure that out.

Looking once again to the Simpa, Jonah shouted through bloodied lips. “Fifty gold pieces to anyone who will help me. Fifty!” It might not be enough to sate the Bounty Hunter’s tastes, but it should get his attention.

He saw a blur of golden fur as the Simpa darted from his seat to the half-Orc’s side, slamming into him with a huge, furious elbow strike to the ribs.

Jonah fell to the floor. As he fell, he saw the half-Orc fly across the tavern, landing on a table and breaking it into a thousand shards.

For a moment, the brute didn’t move, and Jonah feared that the Simpa had killed the man. But then his head bobbed up, and he clutched his side.

“Big mistake, buddy,” the half-Orc growled at the seven foot werelion. “Big mistake! I’m gonna…” as he tried to regain his feet, he fell back to the floor.

“You aren’t going to do anything,” the Simpa said in a deep but regal voice. His tone was quiet, barely a whisper, but it carried throughout the tavern effectively. “I struck your quiniod muscle, which as you well know has the tendency to cause muscle failure and spasms in your people. Even half-Orcs have quiniods. You may experience the need to rush to the bathroom, but with your ruptured muscle and broken ribs, you’ll have to start crawling that way now.”

The lethal Bounty Hunter turned to Jonah.

“Thank you greatly, sir, from the bottom of my heart,” Jonah said, reaching for the hand the Simpa offered. But as he tried to grab it, the Simpa moved his hand away, reaching it back down a moment later. “Oh, yes, of course.” Jonah untied one his money pouches and sett it in Portenda’s hand.

The Simpa felt the bag for a moment, looking at it with those cold, dead gray eyes. He looked back up into Jonah’s face as the Scholar got to his feet.

“There is only forty-eight gold in this pouch.” There was a slight lilt to Portenda’s flat tone, barely enough to keep it from being monotone.

Jonah looked at him as though stricken dumb. He was certain that there were fifty gold in that pouch.

Portenda opened the drawstring and poured the money onto a nearby table, counting it in his head as Jonah counted aloud. Forty-eight on the nose. How had the man known without counting it in the first place? He had merely felt the bag, and declared it two gold pieces shy. This had to be Portenda the Quiet, the Bounty Hunter whose name graced so many pages of his logbook.

“Here’s the last two,” Jonah said, placing two pieces down from another of his pouches. “You’re him, aren’t you? You’re Portenda the Quiet!”

The Simpa glared at him with a steely gaze.

Jonah contained the urge to jump up and down like a fool. “Can we speak for a few minutes? I have some questions to ask you.”

Portenda just shrugged, and returned to his table, leaving the town crier on the table’s surface. He took a long pull of his drink, some sort of wine from the smell of it.

The young Scholar sat across from him, thumping the logbook on the table. “Do you know what this is?”

The Simpa didn’t speak, didn’t move. He made no sign to indicate that he did or didn’t know anything, or think anything. What’s going through his head, Jonah wondered silently? He opened the book to its first set of names, pointing at the pages excitedly. “This is a record log of all of the bounties that have been posted in the last two years for the cities of Ja-Wen, Palen, and the Port of Arcade. Next to each bounty, I’ve listed the name of the person who brought them in. Of three hundred and sixty-one bounties, you’ve brought in one hundred and ninety-eight. That’s fifty-five percent. You’re unarguably one of the best!”

For a long moment, neither man said anything.

When it became apparent that Portenda wasn’t going to say anything, Jonah closed his book, somewhat discouraged. Didn’t the man say anything? Sure, he spoke to the half-Orc, who was now making a slow trip to the bathroom, and he had even spoken to Jonah about his payment, but aside from that, he hadn’t uttered a single word.

Jonah was incensed: how could anyone speak so little about himself? All right, he thought. I’ll just come out and ask him.

“I’ve kept track of you for two solid years, and I’ve come to admire and respect your work and achievements. To tell the truth, I’ve also made a running tally of how much money you’ve earned off of these bounties.” He tapped the book. “The total is nearly one hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces! You’ve got enough money to buy a city of reasonable size for the gods’ sakes. How do you remain so silent, so enigmatic? Why do you still do this?”

“Because it’s all I know.” Portenda took another sip of his wine.

Stunned by the swiftness of the response, and the fact that he got one at all, Jonah tried to assemble his thoughts. How would the man react to his request? Most likely in a very harsh fashion, he thought, but nothing tried is nothing gained.

“Very well then. Clearly, you’re a man of business.” Jonah got a genuine flare of interest out of the Bounty Hunter’s eyes. The word ‘business’ apparently was something that got Portenda’s attention. “Now, I know you took down a bounty head this morning, and received five thousand gold pieces, I believe it was. Oh, don’t worry,” he added, closing his eyes and leaning back in a haughty manner. “I have ways of finding these things out.” Of course, those ways happened to be pestering the local constables for all bounty information they had until someone gave up resisting. “The point is, you make a handsome living doing what you’re doing. I’d like to make that sort of money as well, you see. I’d like you to train me.”

The instant the words parted from his lips, the gleam in Portenda’s eyes faded into a cloudy gray.

Portenda stood, laid two gold pieces on the table, and stalked away.

Jonah, shocked at the sudden departure, collected his book and his thoughts before running after him. “Wait a minute.” He looked at the Simpa’s broad back, at his weapons, at his rucksack, noticing the odd weapon on the Simpa’s left hip, recognizing it as a rare firearm.

“Why are you walking away? Look, I’m not joking! I want to learn from you! I’m a capable student, more than willing to learn anything! And I can teach you things too!”

Portenda half turned back toward him, the moonlight glinting off of the tip of his spear.

“What can you possibly teach me?”

“I can teach you about that weapon. That’s called a pistol.”

“I know about firearms,” Portenda replied.

Jonah stood stock still once more. Damnation. There goes that advantage.

Recovering, Jonah ran up and around Portenda, stopping in front of him.

“Why won’t you train me? Is it because I’m not big enough, not fast enough, not smart enough? What is wrong with the idea of training me?”

Portenda didn’t move, didn’t flinch. His nose rustled slightly as he sniffed the air.

“I know you’re not stupid,” Portenda said. “Those potions in your shirt and belt are homemade. You’re an adept of Alchemy.”

Incredible, Jonah thought to himself. Such powers of observation.

“Back at the bar,” Portenda continued, “you were trying to get to cover so you could pull out one of those chemicals to spray in the half-Orc’s face, weren’t you?”

“How did you know that?”

“The way you were crawling, with your left hand trying to move you forward and retrieve the vial under your belt at the same time—a blunder, manageable if you had a little more muscle on you.” Portenda started to turn away then, but Jonah had misread something in the Simpa’s words.

“So you’ll train me then?” He pressed his small, Human hands together in front of his chest.

“No,” Portenda almost growled. He turned again and walked away, keeping his back to Jonah Staples.

“And why not,” Jonah shouted at his broad back, furious and nearly in tears. Two years of work, now walking away from him like he didn’t matter a whit. “Are you to full of yourself? Or is it because you can’t stand the idea of having someone take an interest in you, other than trying to kill you or take your bounty head?”

At last, Portenda ceased his solemn, silent march. But when he turned around, Jonah began to question the wisdom of having taunted a man like him. Before he could blink, the Simpa loomed over him, the pistol in his hand, the barrel pressed against Jonah’s forehead.

“This is the reality of the world around you, little man,” Portenda said in that same regal but cold tone.

Formal, Jonah managed to think between bouts of ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.

“There are those that can, and those that cannot. You cannot.”

Somewhere in the middle of Portenda’s short monologue, Jonah’s left hand shot out and did something to the weapon in Portenda’s hand.

The Simpa raised the weapon into the air, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened, no bullet fired, no resounding discharge of powders and metals. Absolutely nothing.

For perhaps the first time in years, Portenda the Quiet looked stunned, an expression that lasted all of a few seconds. But a few seconds was enough for Jonah to notice as he tossed the slide-catch of the weapon up and down in his left hand.

“I told you I knew about this weapon,” Jonah bluffed. He had no idea what he had just done, save that it may well have saved him from having a heart attack. The Simpa had clearly never intended to do him harm. If he had, Jonah reasoned, the pistol would have remained aimed directly at him the whole time. A section of weapon still sat in Jonah’s hand, but now he offered it up to the proud Simpa, who took it immediately and reassembled the weapon, aiming in Jonah’s direction again.

“I thought,” Jonah stammered, shocked into disbelief. Now I’ve done it, Jonah cringed with fear. Now he’s going to kill me!

“Get down.” Portenda’s facial muscles tensed as he brought the weapon up and pulled the trigger.

The resounding report of the bullet firing from the ancient, mysterious weapon echoed over the nearly twenty-five square miles of residences, businesses, and various stables and taverns of Ja-Wen. Accompanying that sound was the crunch of metal deflecting metal. Only the regal Bounty Hunter heard the ‘shink’ of a short sword jamming into the ground.

“Be on your way. You’ve wasted enough of my time, brute.”

Jonah turned to see the thug from the tavern, hands still raised over his head to strike the Human dead.

With an awkward smile, the half-Orc tucked tail and sped off down the street, leaving a trail of kicked-up dust.

“Well, I suppose I owe you my life, again.” Jonah was completely humbled by the Simpa’s skill. The bullet had passed within inches of his head, and struck the thug’s sword instead of his brains. Portenda’s course of action made a strange sort of sense: neither he nor the half-Orc had been contracted targets, so of course they wouldn’t be killed unless no other course of action was fitting.

“Come on. We’re leaving.” Portenda turned and stalking away.

The fact that Portenda had included him froze Jonah for a moment before he sprinted ahead to catch up.

“So what changed your mind? About bringing me along, I mean? Because it would appear to me that I just proved that I’m not up to being like you at all.”

“My reasons are my own,” the Bounty Hunter said in his emotionless tone. He didn’t bother to look at the Human Scholar as he twirled the pistol twice and returned it to its holster. “And from the looks of things, you won’t last long without a bodyguard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to train you.” The Simpa sighed. “I have certain standards, and you’re a long way from meeting them.”

Jonah Staples was not concerned with meeting the Simpa’s standards. While spending time with the Bounty Hunter, Jonah would learn.

Portenda the Quiet thought to himself, this is going to take a whole lot of work.