This choice: POV: Trackers are hired on a hunter's quest for the 'Reiter'. • Go Back...Chapter #6The Great Hunt. by: Unknown "You're a professional WHAT...?!" asked the barman in astonishment.
"A professional monster-hunter. You know - I track and hunt Vampires, werewolves, all that junk." answered Flint, slugging his shot of vodka in one go.
"Are you sure you're not a lunatic? I know some nice asylums near here..." said the barman disbelievingly, serving a new glass to Flint.
"Ha! You're SUCH a comedian. Have your laugh; you're not the first idiot to doubt me. And besides isn't it the wanted-poster that stated the village needed to have a 'monster' killed?"
"What stands on a piece of paper and what is, isn't always the same. This village is good for business, but the inhabitants are...how shall I put it? Superstitious?" replied the barman simply, efficiently cleaning a new cup with a linen cloth.
"Oh, you've got THAT right!" exclaimed Flint, again reading the crusty paper of the wanted-poster he had skied. It was illegal to remove anything from a town-hall notice-board, but Flint never did give a rat's behind for the law.
"I mean COME ON! He's only an albino! I dragged myself into this frozen hell-hole to hunt for this! He's just a regular kid! Some monster! I already hate Kraan. I hate its people too. Bunch sour, snobbish, cussing, dry stargazers! "
The barman leaned over conspirotally: "It's not what the kid is, it's what he did." he whispered to Flint, from whom the fumes of alcohol escaped like steam from a sauna.
"Oh yeah? What he do? Not be rich enough? The people here did everything in their power to make me feel unwelcome."
"Yes, but you're not exactly beautiful, Flint. Try washing for a bit. It'll do wonders."
"There goes my fragile feelings."
The barman continued, ignoring him: "They say the albino kid had broken the major's son's nose. He's not the type of man to cross, and he wants the kid stringed up-"
"Vengeance is so sweet." said Flint, belching. "So the local druglord's little runt got clubbed and now his ego's a bit dented. What a lovely bedtime story."
"Shhhhht! I didn't say he was-!" retorted the barman, eyes anxiously darting around to see if they'd been overheard.
"But he's the one who put up the price on the kid's head, wasn't he? There is only so many ways one can afford to pay that kind of money in these parts. Opium or gun-running." said Flint callously, taking in the interior of the dark, shadowy musky bar.
"Well, yeah...but you didn't hear it from me!" the barman said hurriedly and scurried away.
Flint bended his neck to the side to snap the vertebra back into place and turned in his stool to survey the bar inside more closely this time. Also, embarrassingly, to have something to lean his back against before he fell over from his drunken fervour.
The bar was filled with the scrap of society. Bandits, thieves, lowlifes and each and every form of undesirables. All were armed, scarred and in a mean looking mood.
Flint tsked. This was exactly why he despised Bounty-Hunts. It attracted the worst of the lowest.
Flint preferred contracts. Hitman jobs and assassinations. In the underground world, reliability and trustworthiness was a highly regarded trait for hired guns. If you had the integrity to carry out a contract without cheating, you would never find yourself short of work. For kingpins and billionaires would rather hire men at a greater cost and know they would kill the objective or die trying.
There was a very unique and professional code of conduct and etiquette when it came to a "Killing-contract". Both the employer and employee knew they would get their end of the bargain, because they knew that word of the other's cheating would spread though the underground and they would never be able to engage in a contract again.
But while 'Contracts' were clean, Bounty-Hunts were...messy. Not to mention bloody and violent. This violence rarely come from the hunt itself, but from your competition!
You see the rules were simple: the man/woman who brings the 'target' or proof of the death of the target (usually in the gruesomely ironic form the target's decapitated head for a literal 'head-hunt') to the benefactor, was the one to be paid.
Not, I repeat NOT, the individual who actually did all the work and killed the target! In a 'contract' you are the sole huntsman, but in a bounty-hunt you have to worry about the dangers of competitors who would likely kill you without thought or reason, just to eliminate the competition/opposition. A bounty-hunt is therefore a grueling rat-race; a very deadly one.
The underground had a term "parasites". It referred to bounty-hunter gangs who tailed a professional tracker and waited till he got the job done, then pounched on him and stole his prize right under his nose. Sometimes they even killed the tracker as well for the sports.
And since a Bounty-hunt is open for all, it attracts every rat from sewers of the crime-world looking to make a quick buck. Some really disgusting people. Flint really, REALLY, despise Bounty-hunts!
But the one reason why Flint had made an exception for this Bounty-hunt was that he had heard through word of mouth that this kid, this albino kid had gone invisible. Interesting. Maybe this backwash town wasn't filled with such retarded superstitious folk after all. This 'Reiter' as they called him would make an excellent ...."retrieval". Flint was NOT joining in on this hunt for the money, only the privilege to hunt, to track another true monster.
But first things first. Time to deal with the immediate trouble. 3 jackasses were making a bee-line for him, walking with the intent of obvious malice. They were dressed poorly; hoods covered their faces; they all wore brown leather breeches and woolen cloaks draped across their shoulders; they carried their arms resting on their hips, hands resting on large partially sheeved bayonet knives; it was as if they were trying to shout to the world that they were thieves! The bar silenced and the murmurings quieted down. All could see murder was soon to be. This was gonna be fun...
They stood in a semi-circle around Flint. The leader arrogantly holding his head high and looked Flint up and down as if sumarising whether a school boy was properly dressed for the day. Flint's head swayed slightly to the sides and back, the clear result of intoxication.
"Well, what do we have here?" smirked the thief.
"I think its an amateur!" said a second.
"Drinking on the first night! You should know better before entering a job!" said the third.
"Job? I don knoaw wha ya meaan." slurred Flint.
"Oh there's no need to hide it, my good friend! We know you're a bounty-hunter. It's written all over your face!"
"Ma face?" said Flint holding his cheek as if to feel something there that he had not noticed.
"Yes. And we thought, why don't we get to KNOW each other a little better. Seeing as we'll all be such good comrades very soon!"
"So why not buy us a drink, buddy?" asked the second thief.
"Take a hike, sunshine!" replied Flint, unfearingly.
"Don't you think its unwise to upset your new friends?" queried the 3rd thief with malevolence.
"Take one step forward...and I'll kill you with my cup." said Flint evenly, toasting them with the tin-cup he in his hands.
Events came and went in a blur. Flint's apparent inebriation disappeared completely. The 1st thief ripped out his bayonet with a flash and struck at Flint's belly. Flint stopped the thrust with the tin-cup; the bayonet embedded into the bottom. Wrenching the tin-cup sideways, ripped the knife out of the thief's hands and breaking several fingers in the force, making him yelp in pain. But Flint wasn't done yet: he scraped the top rim of the tin-cup against the cement of the table underside in one quick motion, which sharpened the edges drastically, and shoved the cup top-first into the throat of the thief to pierce his esophagus. The thief clutched feebly at his destroyed throat in which the make-shift sharpened cup lay embedded and collapsed.
The 2 remaining thieves retaliated and was wasted in quick order. The 2nd, learning from the 1st thief's mistake, struck sideways, while the 3rd thief struck on the opposite side. Flint, thinking on his feet, grabbed the 2nd thief by the knife-armed wrist and manhandled him as a shield in front of his comrade. The 3rd thief couldn't stop his jab in time, and impaled his friend through the heart. Throwing the 2nd thief aside as if discarding an empty bottle, Flint strode up to the final vagabond, which pulled out a pistol. But he never got to use it as Flint grasped him by the throat and smashed him neck-first into the ground. The sickening bone-crunching snap of his spine could be heard resounding throughout the awestruck silence of the bar.
Flint spat on the dead thieves and strode out of the shadows of the bar. None dared stand in his way or look him in the eye.
He jumped on his snow sledge-bike and burned the throttle. After he was certain the engine was heated sufficiently in this frozen cold he hit the afterburner and was off, mowing through the thick snow.
Flint always was in a good mood when he cleaned up the garbage of the earth.
He studied the map of his GPS and Pathfinder. His bet: the Reiter would hike the shortest route to the next village in this godforsaken cold. Flint would intercept him in no time. The only problem was that every other Bounty-Hunter would figure that out pretty soon as well. Those 3 morons he had just wasted had been hired by a quick tip off to slow him down. There wasn't a moment to lose.
Flint swore that he would get this albino kid first, regardless of whether he was a monster or not. He grinned as the excitement of the Great Hunt pumped through his vanes and the cold wind of the winter blowed over his scarfed face...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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