Suspect that your friend may be your enemy, and treat your enemy as your friend; one day their roles may reverse—the Book of Chaos, The Sacral Compendium

  Only a few times in life stick out to a man long after the deed has passed: the first time he laid with a woman, the first time he took a life, and the first time he feels a pistol pressed into the back of his head. Maro was experiencing the latter at the moment.

  “Do nothing stupid,” said the man, holding the pistol to his head. His thick accent made understanding him difficult.

  “Stranger,” Maro replied, “the only thing I’m thinking about right now’s not shitting myself.”

  “Good; you not stupid.”

  Well, that’s fucking debatable.

  “Nice and easy,” said pistol-man.

  Damn the Autarch, what in the seven hells is he saying?

  It sounded as if the man’s swollen tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  Maro let out a pent up breath. He’d been caught at a bad time, an awkward moment, the tail-end of a fistfight with his quarry. The hog tie for his hands lay half-finished, and Maro stopped while straddling the man. Introducing a third person put the scuffle on pause. Maro glanced down at his victim, the man losing the confrontation, and he wasn’t smiling. This newcomer wasn’t his friend, either.

  There were a lot of things Maro could’ve said, but such words fled him at the crucial moment, so he stuck with the simple, even if it made him sound like a backwater country bumpkin. “So, can I help you?”

  “Maybe,” said the foreigner with the gun. “He’s my bounty, stranger.”

  A fucking bounty hunter? Really?

  “Funny,” Maro countered. “I’d say you’re interfering with the apprehension of mine.”

  The man circled around Maro’s left side, coming into his peripheral. The cold, hard pistol never left his skull, the barrel dragged across his scalp in tangent with the man’s movements. Between the darkness of night and the flickering firelight, not to mention glancing at him from the corner of his eye, Maro couldn’t discern his features.

  Not the most important thing at the moment.

  “You bounty hunter?” pistol-man asked. “Name? I may have heard.”

  I fucking doubt that!

  Now that the man was closer and upwind, Maro detected the not-so-subtle scent of wet dog.

  How’d this bastard get the drop on me?

  Maro grunted. “I’m new. Maro Prakk. Joined up in Tepress under Horace.”

  The other paused for a moment. “I’ve heard.” He nodded more to himself, then waved a dismissive hand. “Nine months, yes? You have proof?”

  Maro frowned, his eyes narrowing, trying to follow the man’s words. This foreigner couldn’t articulate his words for shit, a canny echo in a wet pale, a second or third language at best. “I’ll grab my chit, so long as you don’t get trigger-happy.”

  “Left hand, nice and easy.”

  Maro reached into his coat pocket, fishing for the small metal disc with his name stamped on the back. On the front, it held the initials BHG for the Bounty Hunter Guild.

  They ain’t the most imaginative, but gotta keep it simple for the stupid, which is seventy-five percent of the population.

  Below the initials read: Tepress, where Maro had signed up. Grasping it between two fingers, Maro withdrew his hand with deliberate care. Holding it aloft, the pistol-man plucked it from his fingers. His fingers were rather cold when they brushed Maro’s.

  “Ha, you bounty hunter!”

  Damn the Autarch, he keeps dropping words, makes him sound ignorant.

  The pistol withdrew from Maro’s head, and the wet-dog foreigner holstered it. Maro let out a held breath. “Runnel Bloodbane.” He thumped his chest with pride. “Bounty hunter!”

  The tension leached out of Maro’s shoulders, and he finished hog-tying the prisoner, who squirmed and grunted but otherwise lost the will to fight. Now, with the two of them, escape turned impossible. Checking the taut rope, Maro dismounted the criminal and stood to his full height. No longer preoccupied, he sized up Runnel Bloodbane.

  The man stood taller than most, but Maro held the lead by half a boot. In fact, Maro once heard his height put him in the top five percent of men all across the world of Atar.

  Fat lot of good that does me, not when attached to this face.

  Runnel, however, resembled an animal, the kind you find in a dark, cramped cave, one who’d been starving all winter and ready to eat, or the kind that wakes up randy and looking for a way to relieve himself. Not to mention covered in fur too thick for a bullet to pierce. A bushy, black beard obscured most his face and hung in tangled strains down to his collarbone. The same curly mess roosted on his head, and both together resembled a helmet and face protection rather than actual hair, and if Maro had to guess, attributed to half his smell.

  Probably keeps him warm, too. I hate him already.

  “Hey, fellas,” the man on the ground said, his voice shaky but coated with a country twang. “Not sure what’s going on here, but you’re mistaken.”

  Runnel sent a swift kick in the man’s gut, and the wind rush out of him in a sudden gust.

  “Quiet,” Runnel barked in his maddening accent, but his voice brokered no argument. Maro used similar tones while in the army.

  “What’d you do that for?” whined the man. ”I didn’t mean nothing.”

  Runnel pulled out his pistol and cocked the hammer back.

  “Hey!” Maro said, but Runnel was already kneeling beside the man.

  “Open,” Bloodbane said, shoving the metal barrel into the man’s mouth.

  Maro contemplated interceding, but the wanted poster said dead or alive. Plus, the interaction would give him a moment to evaluate the foreign bounty hunter.

  “We talk, just hunters, and you lay quiet. Be like good whore, no talk with dick in mouth. If quiet, I won’t shoot. Deal?”

  The wanted man nodded frantically.

  Runnel dipped his head once and stood, holstering his weapon. He stretched his arms out wide, standing on his toes. “By Autarch, I love hunting.”

  Maro, with a slow movement to not draw attention, turned his body sideways so the man couldn’t see his holster or drawing hand. Runnel wore a massive coat, and while not fur, it looked like the dark brown of a bear.

  Damn thing’s half my weight.

  “Hmm. Well, then, you won’t mind showing me yours, would you?” Maro knew he risked offending the man, but better than going on blind faith. If Runnel Bloodbane was one of them, he’d have a chit, and adhere to the code.

  Runnel’s dark emerald eyes narrowed and hardened; they looked like flint chips, or the sharp end of steel.

  Shit, a shootout?

  Maro only had one ball in his single-shot pistol, but so did Runnel.

  The whites of Runnel’s teeth split the dark, tangled growth on his face. “Smart, kid! Sure.”

  His hot breath almost made the ex-soldier vomit in his mouth. Putrid would curl cream; this shit would decompose live bodies.

  Bloodbane fished for his chit while Maro took a step back from the reeking plume and mulled over being called a kid. A few months ago, Maro celebrated his first birthday out of the army, and he, a ripe, old twenty-four, with all the shit he’d seen and done, had abandoned childhood long ago.

  “Ah,” Runnel said, finding it and pulling it out, “here.” He flipped it to Maro, and his attention reverted to the tied up man.

  Maro didn’t miss the gaze, and he took a moment to size up the newest member of their trio. Runnel resembled an ox … that got fucked by a grizzly bear, and he outweighed Maro by a few mountains. Thick of chest, arms, and legs, not to mention the slight keg around the gut, Maro wouldn’t stand a chance. From the collar of his gray shirt, Maro spied a thick forest sprouting from his chest.

  This foreigner would snap me like a twig.

  Maro was tall, gangly, and filled with brittle bones; the army folk took to calling him scarecrow, and the name always stuck. He flipped the chit over in his hands, and on the back, Runnel Bloodbane’s name. On the front, under the initials BHG, he found Goldar stamped in the metal.

  “What parts are you from?” Maro asked.

  “Sindel,” Runnel answered without delay. He turned his attention to Maro.

  “Where the fuck’s that?”

  “Past Barren Frontier.”

  Maro grunted.

  Explains the accent.

  “What?”

  Maro shrugged. “Nothing. Never knew anyone coming out of that ass crack of a place.”

  For a moment, Runnel’s face went placid, still, stony with anger, and his eyes darkened like a thunderhead on the distant horizon. Then, he tilted his head and gave a belly-rumbling laugh.

  ”Huh huh huh. Ass crack! You right!” He wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye. “But come,” Runnel said, slapping him on the arm. The impact almost made Maro stagger a step.

  Damn, that’s going to bruise.

  Bloodbane waved his arms as he spoke. “We sit, we eat,” he pointed down at the man tied up, “we talk about friend.” Runnel moved closer to the crackling fire and took a seat, leaning against Maro’s saddle on the ground.

  I was going to sit there…

  Runnel pulled a bag from the other side of his body, and for a moment, Maro thought he’d brought his own. Instead, the man produced Maro’s pack, and he rummaged through the contents, pulling out his stale bread, hardened cheese, and jerky.

  What the—?

  “Not much here,” Runnel grumbled with disapproval. “I get bag.” He hefted himself up and disappeared into the darkness.

  Well, it ain’t like I offered to share.

  The crickets, as if being granted permission to chirp again, struck up a tune, filling the intermittent silence. Maro reclaimed his seat in front of the saddle, keeping his eyes on the man he hog-tied. Maro’s saddle, a thing of beauty and comfort, was his most prize possession other than his horse, Bastard. In the nine months of hunting, Maro had spent every crown he earned, which wasn’t much. The nice pile of coins he’d received for all the sold weapons after rescuing the girl, Maribel, fled faster than a wife leaving a man who lost all his money. But after paying his dues, buying a new saddle, finding a liveable hovel, purchasing a cantankerous young mare, adding to his sparse collection of tattered clothes, he didn’t have two coins to rub together, and the most entertaining and affordable thing involved his hand and some alone time.

  Sad story of my life.

  Runnel returned, his bag hanging from his right hand. When he reached Maro, he leaned down, plucked the saddle up from behind Maro, and dumped it on the ground before reclaiming his seat.

  What a son of a bitch!

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Bloodbane leaned back against his reacquired backrest and opened the top of his pack. “Nice saddle. I buy!”

  Maro grunted. “Ain’t for sale.”

  “Everything’s for sale, for right price!”

  Not everything.

  Maro thought back to one of the many reasons he left the army: his sadistic captain with nonexistent morals. Runnel pulled out a flask from his pack, took a swig, and passed it off.

  Maro shook his head at the offered drink, but damn, did his mouth water. He could almost smell the sweet succor from here.

  “No?” Runnel asked, surprised.

  “Don’t partake anymore.”

  Bloodbane gave a single shake of the head. “Don’t trust someone who doesn’t drink.” He leaned close, and Maro breathed in the spirit fumes. By the gods, he wanted a drink now. “Hard for us to work together.”

  “Hmm. You won’t like me when I’m drunk.”

  “Oh?” Runnel leaned closed again with mocking tones. “Stick-man, be angry drunk?”

  By the Autarch, what a jackass!

  “Something like that.”

  Runnel took another swig, screwed the lid on, and dropped it into his pack. He sniffed through his nose, then rubbed it until it turned red in the firelight. He pointed to the man tied up. “You know?”

  Maro’s eyes went to the prisoner. “Yeah, he’s my prisoner, after all. Tristan Bolag. Wanted for stagecoach robbery and horse thieving.”

  Bloodbane grinned ear to ear and nodded his head in affirmation. “No.”

  “What?”

  “Not him. I mean, yes, it’s … er, alias. He has other name, and I want words.”

  Maro took a moment to collect his thoughts. “What kind of words?” The fire crackled with a pop, punctuating the question. ”The kind that kill?“

  “Important ones.” Runnel cocked an eyebrow at him. “Make me rich.” He tapped his finger to his nose. “Be smart, let me have.”

  Maro’s eyes flickered to the man’s fingers, not the one tapping his nose, but the others. There, a gold and garnet ring clung to his middle finger with an engraving on the side, but Maro couldn’t make out the details.

  “So, I go talk?”

  Maro swallowed. He knew firsthand the methods of getting someone to talk, and he didn’t want to venture down that path anytime soon.

  Or ever.

  “Who do you think he is?”

  Bloodbane chuckled, his face turning a deep shade of cherry. Was it a genetic thing, or the alcohol he consumed? “You love this.” He spread his hands out in a sweeping gesture. “‘Chester ‘Jester’ Pen—Pen—Pen; eh, what is word?” He growled in frustration, and from inside his coat, produced a folded wanted poster. He unfolded it and showed it to Maro.

  “Pennyworth.”

  Bloodbane nodded, satisfied, folding it back up and stuffing it into his tunic. “Pennyworth.” Maro didn’t react, and Bloodbane’s brow frowned at him. “You don’t know name?”

  “No.”

  Runnel gave a single nod. “Every guild I go, I take poster. No man hunts mine.”

  “Didn’t realize we called dibs.”

  Bloodbane chuckled again and punched Maro in the arm. “You funny! Why you look like someone kicked dog?”

  Damn it, another bruise.

  Maro drew his lower lip between his teeth; unsure of what to say, other than he didn’t have a dog, he chose not to respond. His stomach growled, a reminder that his newest guest said he had food to share.

  “Him,” Bloodbane said, pointing his finger, “shot woman in card game. She showed—” Bloodbane pantomimed a woman’s generous bosom. “Who shoots woman in chest? Ruined good breasts, no? If woman shows me,” he chuckled again, a grin splitting the dark, unruly facial growth, “I show her something, too. Eh? Eh?” Runnel elbowed him in the arm a few times, and though he wouldn’t complain, that shit hurt, especially when you’re all skin and bones.

  Another damn bruise. Man’s too rough.

  Maro glanced up at the night sky.

  By the Autarch, why did you make people like this? He lowered his gaze and gazed at the prisoner. “That true? You shot a woman in the tits?”

  Tristan Bolag shook his head, fear lighting his face, and his twangy voice peeled the night. “Look, mister, I don’t know this man, or anything he said I done. I was just mindin’ my business when you assaulted me this evenin’.” He held up his hands. “If ya cut me loose, I’ll go on my merry. I won’t seek no retribution or nothin’.”

  “Liar!” Bloodbane said with a wave of his hand. “All Cosams lie!”

  Maro grunted and swung his gaze to Bloodbane.

  Well, that’s a gut punch.

  “Say what now?” Maro asked.

  Bloodbane gave him a double take. “Not you, him, lout. You okay Cosam.”

  “And what does that make you?”

  “Sional, no?”

  Maro cracked a smile and rolled his eyes. When he turned his head away, he frowned.

  Great, a jackass with jokes.

  Sional were dark complected, and Bloodbane was the antithesis.

  “Mium,” Runnel announced.

  That caused Maro’s head to whip back around. His neck cracked. “No shit?” He rubbed at the base of his neck.

  Mium were the palest Atarians, living in near frigid conditions year round. They didn’t have summer, and Maro doubted the vast majority of them had ever seen the ocean, let alone a nice beach and tropical weather. The man traveled far from his home, which was … astounding, to say the least. Then again, if anyone other than the Cosam ethnicity was in this land, they traversed far from their place of birth.

  Runnel held up his pale hands. “Goat milk.”

  Maro shrugged. “Never seen one of you. How’d you come from … where did you say you were from again?”

  “Sindel,” Bloodbane said with his thick accent. It rolled off his fat tongue. He held up a finger, shaking it at him. “As you know. But … ” He waved to Tristan or Jester Chester, or whoever the hell he was, “… I want words, and have now.”

  “Look, mister, I done told ya,” Tristan Bolag stammered, “I ain’t the guy. I’ve never even—”

  “No lie,” Bloodbane snapped, “or I cut tongue. So says Sacral book. Will make taking information harder. You write?”

  Tristan stuttered. “A little, only a few words.”

  Bloodbane gestured as if the problem was solved. “I won’t break hands.”

  “Hold on,” Maro said. “Not to call you a liar or say you’re mistaken, but I only got your word he’s this Chester fellow. You got proof, Bloodbane?”

  Runnel stared at him for a few moments, his face flexing between hard and soft. “Poster.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Runnel reached into his tunic and retrieved a folded, yellowed parchment. Maro hoped he didn’t have to listen to him read it. Instead, the Mium handed over, and Maro sighed in relief.

  Maro read aloud. “Wanted: Dead. ‘Jester’ Chester Pennyworth. Wanted for crimes of theft and robbery in Tepress, cheating at an establishment of fine order in Moisy, shooting a woman in the breasts in Moisy, illegal dueling and murder in Grand Gorge, assault of a prostitute in Deral, arson in Red Creek, and …” Maro dropped the parchment. “The list goes on.”

  The mention of Red Creek hit Maro harder than he thought, stealing his breath. He thought about the girl, Maribel, a handful of times since joining the guild, and he wondered how she fared. Had he made the right call to give her to the House of Lust and Candor?

  Maro, you ain’t no dad. You can’t take care of yourself, let alone a child. You did right.

  If he did, why didn’t he feel great about it? It didn’t make the doubt any less encumbering.

  Bloodbane pointed to the poster. “What his looks?”

  Maro began reading again. “Fair complected, blond hair, and blue of eye. Clean shaven, standing of average height and build, often seen wearing two pistols on the hip.”

  “There!” Tristan said, latching on to the words as a lifeline thrown to him in rushing water. “I ain’t got two pistols! Ya can check my things!”

  “Hmm. The description sounds like my wanted poster.”

  “Ah, yes!” Bloodbane said, holding up a finger. “Yours say tattoo?”

  Maro eyed Runnel. “No, no mention of a tattoo.”

  Bloodbane gave him a wolfish smile and pointed for Maro to continue reading.

  “Identifying marks: tattoo of two playing cards on left ass cheek, an Ace and a Jester.”

  “Wha—?” Tristan stammered. “That’s—that’s just silly, fellas.”

  Maro’s gazed at the criminal. The man’s eyes were wide, and that might be fear or shock. The sheen of sweat on his head could be from their tussle, but Maro sensed something more. He stood.

  “One way to find out.” Maro handed the parchment back to the other hunter and stepped over to Tristan, who still laid on the ground. “Alright, let’s get this done. Drop your pants.”

  “What? I ain’t going to do no such thing! That’s indecent! Y’all are a bunch of perverts!”

  Maro sighed through his nose. “I ain’t gonna poke you, just see if you have the tattoo or not. If you don’t, you’re in the clear.”

  “It’s inhumane!”

  “I help,” Bloodbane said from behind, and he got to his feet. When he stood beside Maro, he moved faster than expected, snatching Tristan by the clothes and rolling him over to his stomach. He put his foot, and his full weight, on the man’s hand. Tristan cried out. Bloodbane set his knife against the criminal’s arm. “Move and you get cut. Maro, go.”

  Well, that’ll make it easier.

  Maro pulled his own blade, reached down, cut Tristan’s belt, and jerked the pants down. A jester stared back up at him.

  “Booci,” Bloodbane said in his native tongue.

  Maro peered over at him. That word sounds too much like the sweetest thing known to man.

  The stench wafting up was terrible, and Maro straightened as quick as he dared. “I’ll be damned. Who gets a tattoo on their ass?”

  “Jester Chester,” Bloodbane said, lifting his knife from the man’s arm and standing.

  “Hmm. I mean, what drives a man to have someone stab him in the ass with needles?” Apparently, where Runnel hailed from, rhetorical questions existed because he didn’t answer. “Alright, so where does that leave us?”

  Bloodbane smiled with a vigorous nod. “I have chat, you turn in.”

  Jester Chester squirmed on the ground, trying to recover some of his dignity by pulling up his pants with his hands bound.

  Maro didn’t believe Runnel for a moment. The man might try to kill me once he’s done.

  “Just like that?”

  The other pulled on his curly, shaggy beard and gave a single dip of his head.

  “What does he have that’s so important?”

  “Information.”

  “About?”

  “An … eh, animal, monsters.”

  Maro’s eyes widened, not in fear, but eagerness. “What kind of monster?”

  “Much money to kill. Money and deeds bring fame, which bring women, and more kills, and more money and fame, and more women. Good cycle, no?”

  “Hmm.” Damn, this fellow doesn’t give straight answers.

  “What? You think I cheat? You have body.”

  “Body?” Chester said from the ground. “Now, wait a second, fellas.”

  “Quiet, or I cut tongue.”

  Maro grew pensive. This wouldn’t end well. Runnel might turn on him in an instant. Chester could lie until he turned blue, and Runnel wouldn’t know until much later, little incentive to be honest when your life hung in the balance. True, Bloodbane could beat the prisoner until his knuckles were bloody, and he’d be no closer to the truth.

  “He ain’t going to talk,” Maro said.

  “I make.”

  “No, he ain’t got the incentive to.” Maro faced Bloodbane. “He’ll lie his ass off to save his hide. You won’t know until you go there to find out, but if you give him his life, he might tell the truth.”

  “Might.”

  “Might’s better than nothing. If he lies and dies, you’ve got nothing.”

  Runnel cocked an eyebrow as his hand swept through the tangled mess on his face. “And you? No money if cut loose.”

  Maro nodded. “If you bring me in on this deal you’re about to make, I won’t come away empty-handed.”

  Runnel stopped stroking his beard and shook his head. “No, my money. I have lifestyle.”

  Maro’s eyes widened, then drew together as he scrutinized the man. Judging by his appearance and the stench, he reeked of the wilderness. “What lifestyle?”

  “Women; very expensive.” Runnel shrugged. “Soap for beard.”

  Maro grunted. “That puts us back at the start, him dead and you without certainty whether he told the truth. Cut me in on the deal for twenty-five percent.”

  Bloodbane’s emerald eyes hardened, but they softened as he thought. “You hunted beasts?”

  Maro shook his head.

  “Not worth twenty-five percent.”

  “I learn fast. Besides, it’s the other part of our gig, hunting and killing beasts. I need to learn.”

  “Partnership?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fifteen percent.”

  “I’ve got to eat. Twenty.”

  “You green ears, use for distraction. I kill beast as he eats you.”

  Green ears? What the fuck’s that? Oh, he meant green around the ears. Well, he’s got a point there, sorta.

  “You ain’t got nothing to worry about if you rake in one-hundred percent of the profit, besides, I've got five years in the army.”

  Bloodbane waved another dismissive hand and nodded. “Army not count. But you survive, I only get eighty.”

  Maro sighed through his nose. “I doubt you’re going after small game. You’ll need help, and you’ll have to hire other bounty hunters, and they won’t work for so little. It’s the best deal out there. I get to learn, take a little profit, and you reap all the fame and women you want.”

  Runnel nodded, but Maro sensed his reluctance. Mentioning how others would cost more made him reconsider.

  “Okay.” Bloodbane held out his hand and shook Maro’s. Runnel crushed his hand and pulled him close. “You fuck me, and I make you little girl, yes?”

  Maro leaned back as the man released his grip.

  Don’t know what he means, and I don’t care to find out.

  “Sure.” Maro ambled closer to Chester. “Alright, shit sack, you’ve heard everything, so that’s the deal. Start talking.”

  “No!” Chester said. “You’ll hunt me once I leave out of here.”

  “You’d deserve,” Bloodbane chimed in.

  Maro shook his head. “No, I won’t hunt you, at least not for a while, unless you lie.”

  “How long’s a while?”

  Maro shrugged.

  “A year, or I don’t say nothing!”

  Maro gave a single chuckle. “Six months, and not a day later. If you leave the territory and stay underground, who knows how long you can last? May come a time when people forget all about you.”

  “And the other bounty hunters?”

  Maro shrugged again. “Can’t make promises for others. This is the best you’re gonna get. Talk and live, or don’t talk, and I’ll let Bloodbane soften you up. Choice is yours.”

  He needed little persuasion. Runnel spoke in low tones with him for over an hour, and it seemed the grizzly man kept up his intensity as they retraced details. Maro didn’t care if Bloodbane wanted to keep things secretive. If Runnel double-crossed him and cut him out, he’d file a complaint with the guild master. In the short term, Maro would feel the pain of missing funds, but once word got out about Bloodbane’s double-crossing …

  Runnel nodded and finally stood. “Go, leave.” He cut the man free. For a moment, Chester stared at them in disbelief, then scrambled away, holding up his britches as he hobbled away in haste.

  Damn, there goes two runes of work. Two hundred crowns’s a lot to gamble on. Can put a dent in my rent and other needs.

  A movement drew his attention, and before he could react, Bloodbane pulled his pistol, aimed at the retreating figure, and fired. Chester went down in a heap. The night life went quiet, even the wind stilled, a paused breath as if the shot was the roar of a large predator. Then, the hum of crickets, owls, and small animals scurrying about returned.

  “What’d you do that for?” Maro yelled.

  Bloodbane shrugged. “He shot woman’s tits. Ruined good breasts.”

  “I gave him my word!”

  Bloodbane stared at him for a moment, his face unmoving. “I didn’t.”

  “You’re missing the point!”

  “No,” Runnel said, shaking his head and holstering his single-fire pistol. “You said you. I never said. Poster says dead.” Bloodbane shrugged. “He’s dead. You take body; you take ten percent. Deal?”

  “I don’t even know how much your bounty’s worth! I took it on faith.”

  Runnel sighed and pulled out another yellowed parchment. He held it up for Maro to see.

  “Two Autarchs?” Maro gasped. “Two thousand crowns?”

  Bloodbane chuckled. “Nice sum. Many women. Ten percent, yes?”

  Maro took a moment to think it through. Ten percent was two hundred crowns, and Chester’s wanted poster was also two hundred. That’d give him the initial twenty percent they agreed on. And if Drallus, the guild master, allowed him to double-dip with the Tristan poster, well, he’d be better off, anyway. Greed made the foreign man blind, either that, or he was bad at math. But for certain, his speech sucked worse than a dead hooker.

  “Alright,” Maro agreed.

  “Good, now question. Your saddle, how much?”