The next morning, loose cotton streaked the skies.

Sorath ran on the main paved road between cattle paddocks, wheat fields, tomato vines, and broccoli. Lots of delicious bitter broccoli grew around Fortified Guard Outposts spaced a thousand strides apart in a grid pattern fanning out from the town wall. For two leagues, Sorath skimmed through a thousand minds in these Farms, sipping from a flask of green apple syrup. Too sour, but it did the job to top off his stamina.

Nearing the town boundary, he asked an elderly Guard, “Hello, I’m going out to hunt and scout for dungeons. Has there been any bandit activity recently?”

His answer was slow to come, “Not that I know of.”

“When was the last sighting?”

“Almost a year ago, in fact.”

“The raid on the storehouse?”

“Yeeaap. Pathetic, really.”

Seems like they had stopped caring. Greenwood was just a farming town at the end of the day. Even bandits could grow their own broccoli.

Sorath asked, “What about rumors about an outlaw? Are you familiar?”

“Ehh… I think there were some rumors. It’s nothing. Don’t worry, go for it.” He offered a thumbs-up. “You look like you can handle a stray miscreant.” He didn’t believe that. Inside, he was a bitter old man who hated the sight of youngsters.

Sorath nodded in thanks and continued eastward.

The final Outpost was half-constructed and abandoned with dried blood—maybe years old—smeared on its masonry. Out here, the road was compacted gravel, ending at a shallow trench marking the town boundary. Any emotion fluttering about belonged to wildlife, birds and insects and an odd squirrel. He had never been so far away from civilization. This close to lawless ground.

As his boot fell onto the trench’s edge, the gods wrote in bold letters.

Warning: You are entering lawless territory and will no longer be under the protection of any faction laws. No actions (yours or otherwise) are recorded. Proceed at your own risk.

He jumped across.

Nothing happened.

But knowing he could now do anything and get away with it made his blood rush, his skin tingle in goosebumps rolling all over his body. Mana churned with an intoxicating ecstasy. This was real freedom. Real power over one’s god-given destiny. Gossiping neighbors, two-faced merchants, nosy Guard Captains… Their mundane nonsense and petty crimes weren’t his problems anymore.

Hunting bounties was his new mission.

He sprinted onward, traversing through scanty forests toward an unnamed mountain range that some called the Eastern Ranges and others spoke of as the Red Crags. Red because the land had been dyed in a slain god’s blood, a land so poor in fertility that even the best Farmers didn’t try settling. And over the Crags, on the Corrupted Sea’s beaches, air was poisonous to human lungs. Monstrosities roamed.

Swishing a mouthful of apple syrup, he picked up the pace down a gentle slope. Two leagues in, he heard a river’s burbling flow, sensed the noisy mana of a large animal. A deer, feeling satiated, drinking. Similar to rodents, its mana constantly buzzed in nervous vigilance except ten times louder, like a hundred flies.

With gritted teeth, he let it live, conserving stamina.

Downstream, a bridge covered in moss had Cardon’s blood splattered all over it. Well, someone’s blood. Blood old and new. Icepick holes in the wood had characteristic six-point star cross sections—Piercing Arrows. On nearby trees as well. No burn marks. No spatial warping.

Then Sorath caught a bad whiff… coming from under the bridge. He crouched, and a gag reflex burst into his mouth.

Maggots and algae were having a feast on a man’s severed head.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. It’s just a head. There was a first for everything. The head itself wasn’t so bad; it was the vomit-inducing smell, rotting skin, and burst eyeballs that he hadn’t imagined. All the pus, all the congealed blood on the bank. A decaying animal head would be almost as bad.

As for the head’s owner? Sorath held his breath and looked again.

Curly brown hair, a nose piercing, a weak narrow chin, burn scars on the left cheek, and a general overabundance of fat were not Cardon’s features. Under the left ear, on the neck, the top of a tattoo was either a flower or a fern. A rose or a fern, more likely the former. This man had been a member of Scarlett Freya’s bandit gang. His face wasn’t on any bounty list, but he was covered under a group bounty. 120000G reward to dismantle the gang.

50000G for Scarlett’s head. 150000G alive.

Spitting out a putrid taste, he crossed the bridge and hurried downhill, following broken arrowshafts, cracked twigs, and damaged trunks for two thousand strides until signs of a chase ended, abruptly. The underbrush was thick, and topsoil here was dense; he sensed insect life for less than five strides deep. Granite outcrops indicated a shallow bedrock. An underground hideout was very possible—if they had high-level Builders among their midst.

From the right, a predatory mind entered his sensing range on four paws. The mountain lion was following a scent—not Sorath’s scent—toward a…

It was stalking the deer from earlier.

He ignored the distraction, Backstabbed up a tree to a sleeping owl, climbed to the highest stable branch. Hilly forests stretched north, south, and east without obvious places for a hideout. On the east horizon, a faded white peak stood alone, as though giving him a rude gesture. He didn’t doubt that their base was in the Crags like often speculated.

It was going to be a long journey. Over three days on foot, closer to four.

But what of the severed head? The violent trail was leading to the bridge. That man had been chased. By a rival bandit gang? Or by his own?

Sighing, Sorath jumped down and reinspected that trail with unblinking, studious eyes. Although footsteps had been washed away, it was clear that the man had been alone (or strayed from his buddies), judging by the trail’s width and narrow spread of sixty-seven headless arrows, probably more lost to the elements. There had been at most two or three Rangers in the chasing party. Plus a melee class for the clean decapitation, assuming a lot of things.

Likely story: the man had been journeying to Greenwood and ran into a small hunting party from a rival bandit gang. They had killed him, cut off his head, and thrown his body into the river. And if they were hunting here, their underground hideout was in the vicinity. No hunter would travel more than twenty or thirty leagues from home. Maximum fifty leagues in this fertile valley.

Mystery solved.

Sorath could report his findings, but what was the fun and glory in that? Fun as in a boring search. He was mentally prepared.

* * *

Second thoughts on this whole bounty hunter thing tested Sorath’s resolve as the sun touched the highest peaks of Greeenwood Mountains.

Twelve damned hours.

Over twelve hours had yielded few leads. Few but good. The same low-quality arrows, that lacked fletchings and heads, were pointing him in a south-easterly direction. He was now over twenty leagues deep in lawless territory, closing in on a stretch of rocky land.

Wildlife density was more or less the same: birds, rodents, canines, felines, bears, and so on. No dire beasts as of yet, but a rat was nearing its limit. Too bad dire rats were worthless in terms of loot. Sometimes even town rats went dire when the populations were left untouched.

In a sparkling river, a family of bears was bathing. The mother’s regard for her five cubs’ safety was nothing short of unconditional love; warm, sweet, and gooey like high-quality caramel hot chocolate that Sorath’s mother had often crafted on special occasions. His heart thawed. An old pain dug into the back of his mouth. It had been over five years since her death.

Desperate, harsh mana streaked.

Sorath ducked and hopped behind a tree, but the Piercing Arrow wasn’t for him.

The mother bear bled in the water, emotionless. Dead. Her cubs panicked and ran.

A scruffy man came out of his hiding place. His torn brown cloak did little to shield him from the wind. He wore layers of cloth rags underneath, held together with low-quality rope crafted from grass. His bow was barely recognizable as one, and on his back, a bark quiver held a dozen arrows. His mind was erratic like his gait. He dragged the mother bear onto a sled and started hauling.

He wasn’t a bounty target, but a rose tattoo was on his neck.

So the man at the bridge had been chased by his own bandit gang. Minor difference. Sorath inwardly shrugged, dashing from tree to tree. When time came to cross the river, he waited until the bandit was out of sight at maximum sensing range, then he broke into a sprint and leaped across with Telekinesis throwing him forward. He tucked and rolled smoothly onto a knee, and a sharp rock took a durability point off his pants. He grumbled a curse and followed.

The landscape became increasingly barren. Trees were sparse among jagged rock formations, and in the dimming light, elongating shadows enveloped him in a cold embrace. Strong gusts slapped ice onto his cheeks. Deep underground, emotionless mana rumbled, but only for a second. He was certain he didn’t imagine it or the bandit’s sudden mad ravings.

I hate! I hate! I hate! Why is this?! I hate! Why is this?! I hate! Why— I hate!

The man wasn’t feeling hatred for anything in particular, merely hate for the sake of it. He wasn’t saying those words in his thoughts completely out of free will, but he wasn’t compelled by foreign magic. Some people were like that—mentally diseased. Not even a max-level Priest could help him.

For two and a half leagues, Sorath tailed him to their hideout at a cave opening tucked between hills. A second human mind was less erratic, starving. And two others as well.

A deep voice cheered, “Bear! Meat!”

“Well smite me,” someone else said and whistled. “It’s going to make beautiful cloaks.”

“Hey, hey, hey, hold up. I killed it.” The hunter’s voice was higher pitched than the others. “I dragged it twenty leagues.” He believed he had. “The skin’s mine. Pants, jacket, cloak, gloves—a full set, got it? You can have the leftovers.”

“Then you can craft it yourself.”

“You will craft me a set, Card.” Real threat backed up those words.

“Will I?” Cardon’s mana tensed up, jittering.

So did the fourth man’s, who was silent and far, far more confident than the others, almost bored. His mana was an undisturbed pond, patient and calculating.

“Shut up,” the deep voice spat. “Brucka!” Hungry mana surged down his arms, formed razor sheets, and cut into the mother bear’s hide.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the hunter said, “careful with the skin.”

“It’s the ability doing it.”

“Then make it do it better.”

“I can’t.”

“Then stop! Do it by fucking hand!”

The deep voice growled, “Don’t push me.”

“Do. It. By. Fucking. Hand.” Mana boiling, he was close to a violent outburst.

The silent man intervened, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it by hand. Relax.”

“Thank you,” the hunter said.

“You’re welcome.”

Cardon asked, “Did you lose any arrows?”

“What do I look like? I didn’t lose any. I never lose any.” He wasn’t sure if he was honest or lying.

Sorath left it at that, retreated to a safe thousand-stride distance, sat on dusty ground against a boulder’s flat side. He sipped on apple syrup, which helped his stamina reserves but not his aching feet and inflamed joints—his poor Vitality again. He lit up a Vitaleaf Cheroot, puffing smoke rings under the first stars. One was Blue Sierra. It wasn’t blue as far as he recalled; astronomy wasn’t his forte.

Neither was execution.

He hadn’t ever killed another person, another divinely blessed soul. Four souls. Three unknowns, and one childhood acquaintance whose life had been thrown off a golden chariot.

Was it Sorath’s fault?

Partly.

Lies may’ve been better than truth in Cardon’s case. So what was the best way to right this wrong? Execution was a dead end. Taking him alive would also end in similar results—prison for decades if not for life. Those in prison didn’t live for many decades. But Cardon, given his age and education, would be sentenced to unpaid labor, which wasn’t a cruel fate by any stretch.

Sorath wondered, Should I let him go? Pass twelve-thousand gold? Possibly more.

No.

The right, divinely approved choice was to lop off their heads. These bandits and pirates and outlaws were criminals, dangers to civilized society and those who ate with their hoods up. Because of them, tributes were on the rise. Because of them, children lived in fear. What was Cardon’s excuse? Attempted murder because his childhood was flaming shit?

The decision was made.

For the next hours, Sorath snacked on bland hardbread and fermented spicy cabbages (not as bland), his flesh and bones recovering from the day’s journey, somewhat. He melded into the darkness when last vestiges of sunlight faded behind Greenwood Spine. Clouds were blowing in.

At their cave’s entrance, air smelled of blood and guts and grilled meat. They had stacked rocks but not all the way to the ceiling (only up to Sorath’s chest), and even if they had, there were plenty of gaps for a dagger. They slept as far apart as possible, a smart move against Mages, but who would send a Mage assassin? Their mutual distrust was their predetermined deaths.

Sorath sat in a meditative posture. Telenka. His steel dagger rose without a sound, and then his shortsword. Both floated in, less than one point of stamina draining per second.

A body was two strides left of the rock pile, its coarse earthen mana belonging to the deep voice. A second body was just within range of Telekinesis—the confident man with smooth liquid mana. The depths of their pools were similar while the demented hunter’s was a leafy puddle and Cardon’s resembled a saucer of mud. How noble of them to position their stronger two at the entrance.

Sorath’s blades were in position.

There would be no going back from this.

He did it. Two slices.

Blood and mana gushed. Waking in mind-shattering fright, they tried to scream but couldn’t, and they weren’t quiet, gasping through their severed windpipes, struggling on the ground, making noise.

The confident man reached for his hip—his pouch.

A broad sweep of Sorath’s shortsword stole his left hand, then stabs through their chests pierced their failing hearts. Their struggles ceased. Both dead, humanely dispatched. There was no going back. No magic could bring back passed souls.

“Ahhhh,” the hunter groaned awake. “Be quie— Fuck! Get the fuck up! Fuck!” He drew his dagger.

And Cardon was up. “Shit!”

Two hilts flew to Sorath’s hands. He caught them with a practiced flourish. Brackia. There was a soft pop. His boots squeaked behind the hunter. Hexus. Blood sprayed as a shoulder-to-hip cut inflicted Fragility and Temporal Lethargy.

Suddenly, the hunter was moving in slow motion, thinking in slow motion, and cursing in slow motion, “Fuuuuuuuu—”

Sorath removed his dagger from the back of his softened skull, softer than a deer’s belly.

Three dead.

With wet pants, Cardon trembled in the corner, both hands gripping his dirk. “Wh— Who— Who’s th— there?” His voice was ten notes higher. He sounded much like his six-year-old self. “Who’s there?!”

Rusty iron fumes worsened the taste of blood. Sorath spat on the hunter’s corpse. “You don’t have a blink skill, do you?”

“Wha— What? I do.” He was honest.

“Then why aren’t you fighting for your life? Can you see me?”

“Y— Yes.” His mana flexed and quivered in the lie.

Sorath smiled. “I forgot. You have poor eyesight. You always complained about your glasses being too tight at my birthday parties. Then you stopped going to them after my seventh. Do you remember, Cardon? Son of Pavel.”

Tiny sparks of mana went off in his head’s jelly. Are you…

Dagger sheathed, Sorath hooked out a manalamp from his pouch. He fed it a tablespoon, and an indigo flame flecked with onyx flared. “I, Psionic Hexblade Sorath Adanell, am here on behalf of King Desiric for your crimes of multiple assaults, attempted murder, tribute evasion, and incitement of regicide.”

He was a crying male image of his horse-faced mother. His jaw pushed forward as anger won over fear. “You. You ruined my life.”

“Did I make you commit those crimes?”

“You don’t know what you did to my parents!”

“All three of them?”

“Pavel is comatose, and Father was sent to prison for grievous assault. And Mother—” his voice broke. “Mother was humiliated. She— She— She hung herself. All because of you and your mind-reading ability from Hell! I hate you!” Space warped around Cardon, scrunching his body into a point. His mana appeared at Sorath’s left side.

“Telenka.”

An invisible force pushed away Cardon, seized his neck, squeezed. His resistance was vigorous, draining hundreds of Sorath’s stamina points per second. Impressive. Even a spineless boy could be vicious in death.

Sorath lunged. A stab through the heart ended Cardon’s struggles, all his life struggles. His body slackened and fell face-down onto blood. Dead.

Four dead.

But only one bounty. The other three were from Freya’s gang. Only the scruffy hunter was a Ranger while the bald man at the entrance looked to be a Blademaster. The strong-faced confident man was an unarmed Brawler. Not a hunting party. Either scouts, disgraced members, or men on a secret mission. The latter wasn’t so likely.

Sorath stuffed his bounty inside an enchanted air-tight bag. Shivers broke out at the thought of someone’s head rotting inside his soul inventory.