Blood For Wages

5: There's Always a Choice

Fia could feel the walls closing in. She cast a look over her shoulder at her captive riding along close behind her.

Gunn smiled sardonically and itched at his nose. He had to do it with both hands raised, as Fia had manacled his wrists together. He'd another set of manacles attached tight to both his legs, over his boots and above the ankles, so that he couldn't slip out of them. The two restraints were fastened under the stolen horse by a length of chain. It was an ingenious trussing system. Meant that if he didn't make an effort to sit his horse he'd find himself under it; back broken, face scraped off, all trampled to shit.

"You're new to this," Gunn said.

Fia didn't reply. She just continued to trot on, one hand clutching the reins of the horse she'd stolen and on which her prisoner was now riding, the other holding a pistol. She was winding her way into the heart of Yellowbend, hoping to obscure her and Gunn's tracks in the muddy, trampled streets from whatever members of his crew might follow.

"Oh, you've got to be new at this," Gunn repeated. "If you weren't new to this, sweetheart, you wouldn't ever have taken on this job."

Fia wound the loose rein once more around her fist. Kept her mouth shut and her eyes open as they jogged slowly along. Every now and again, she would take a turn, always sticking to the busiest thoroughfares.

Gunn shook his head sympathetically and sighed.

"Rookie mistake for a bounty hunter," the longrider said. "You made your pick without first walking the length of the counter. Had eyes bigger than your belly. Ain't uncommon in the young and the restless."

"If you could stop your lip from flapping for a few moments it might save me from pistol whipping you, Gunn," Fia said.

Up ahead she saw that the street became congested. Looked to be a cart with a broken axle blocking most of the road. Fia turned her horse off down a side street, cut left and carried on parallel to the Yellowbend's main thoroughfare.

"My boys know this town pretty well, woman," Gunn said.

"That so?"

"By the way your head's bobbing from side to side like a chicken, I'd say you don't. Always been a policy of mine not to go in somewhere if you don't know the way out."

"My policy's always been to steer clear of jobs like this," Fia muttered, more to herself than to Gunn. "Keep your fucking head down, because if something doesn't seem to be worth the effort it probably ain't."

Gunn hadn't seemed to have heard her. "Like the barkeep said back there, I don't rate your chances of getting out of here."

"Bet you wouldn't have rated my chances of getting you by the balls in the first place, would you?" Fia said, placidly, craning around to check their tail.

Gunn snorted. "I'll admit that there ain't been anyone dumb enough to try take me in for so long it must've made me complacent. I've got a lot of friends, you see, miss––and I don't say that as some societal boast. There's a fair few outcasts, vagabonds and other folk who are ignored and shit on by the Counts and Countesses of the tribelands who think that me waylayin' the upper-crust's tax caravans, trade convoys and the like is somewhat of a public service. Lot of poor people around this isle who are willing to earn a few gold bits helping out Torsten Gunn."

Fia grunted non-committally. "That shit doesn't really concern me, right now. I've only one concern, and that's delivering you to Gray."

Gunn spat at the mention of the name.

"What's this Kerr and the rest of your crew like?" she asked. "Any good?"

"When they're sober there're none better. More's the pity for you."