“Give me that!” said Sagar, running over to Ryn and holding out his hand. Ryn handed over his sword reluctantly.

The man in black cried out.

He lay on the grass gripping his shoulder, which had become a mess of red at the tip. Elrann’s shot had only grazed it, but that had been enough to incapacitate him.

Sagar stood over him and raised his sword, point-down, ready to impale. “Filthy bounty-hunter scumsucker,” he said.

The man in black opened his eyes and looked at Ryn again. His eyes were indeed grey, but there were many shades in them. There was darkness there, to be sure, but also some light. They stretched wide, and Ryn fancied he could see tears pooling at the bottom of them too. It was a look of terror and desperation and regret all at once that shone through the man’s eyes. And there was...there was fire in it too. In that moment Ryn knew this man had seen things that he had never wanted to see too. They shared something in common.

“Wait!” Ryn cried.

Sagar stopped, sword still held in the air, and snapped his head round.

“What is it, pup?”

“Don’t kill him,” said Ryn, not entirely sure why he was saying it. “He… he might be able to give us information. He might be able to tell us why there’s a bounty for finding us.”

“What’s come over you, pup?” said Sagar, his face twisting up in confusion. “We know why we’re being hunted. We’re dangerous to the Empire. This piece of scum just tried to kill us, and he nearly did a good job of it too.”

“Boy’s got a point though, ya know,” said Elrann. “I didn’t shoot to kill him. Otherwise he’d be dead already. We could get some useful information outta this bounty hunter.”

Sagar looked dumbstruck at her, but his expression said “You too?!”

“I’ve got some rope in my kit bag,” said Elrann. “I could tie him up.”

Sagar put down his sword and rubbed his temples, shaking his head like he was witnessing a conference of imbeciles.

The engineer ran over to the writhing man in black and set about tying his arms behind his back.

“Stop wriggling!” Elrann had to say after a moment, and punched the man in black in the face. He called out in pain again but complied more easily after that.

Sagar sighed and went over to help tie him up.

The threat to their lives taken care of, Ryn suddenly had the sense that there was something important from which he had temporarily been distracted...

What was I...

“Nuthea!” he shouted and rushed back to the princess’s side at once.

He knelt next to her on the grass again and put his ear to her mouth. He heard a little rush of air, and his ear got slightly colder.

“She’s still breathing!” he called to the world in general. “Thank the One, she’s still breathing! She’s bleeding heavily, but she’s still breathing!”

Sagar came over. “Bandage her up and get pressure on the cut!” he barked at Ryn. “Haven’t you ever had to treat a battle wound before?”

“No!”

“Right. Of course you haven’t. Bloody farmboy.”

Following Sagar’s instructions with trembling hands, Ryn helped the pirate tear off a strip from the hem of Nuthea’s dress, wrap it around her abdomen and pull it into a tight knot. The strip had been clean, save for some mud and dirt from their escape from Ast, but it quickly turned red.

“She needs help!” said Ryn desperately. “She needs to see a healer!”

“You think I don’t see that, pup?” Sagar sounded almost as distressed as Ryn felt. “Rrr. You’re right, godsdammit. We’ve got to get her help, and soon.”

The pirate strode back over to the man in black, who now lay on the grass with his hands tied behind his back and his eyes scrunched up, whimpering intermittently. Elrann had done a good job of securing him.

“You!” Sagar shouted down at him. “Scumsucking bounty hunter! Where can we find the nearest healer? Where’s the nearest settlement? Tell me!”

Sagar kicked the man hard in the ribs, eliciting a deep grunt.

The man opened his eyes and glared up at the pirate. He looked to be snarling, though Ryn couldn’t completely tell because of the face covering.

“Why should I tell you, you Imfisi freeloader?”

Sagar kicked him again, even harder, and the man doubled up and went over on his side.

“Tell me! Tell me or I’ll kick your stomach out your backside!”

The pirate reached down and flipped the man onto his back again, then pulled the man’s face covering off in both directions, revealing his mouth and forehead. His skin was dark, but around his mouth it had been stained properly black. Jet black. In blotches. Like he had been eating lots of some kind of soft, black fruit.

“Tell me or I kill you!” yelled Sagar. “And I won’t let my clients talk me out of it this time!”

The man hacked up, then spat in Sagar’s face. Ryn remembered Nuthea doing the same thing to Sagar not so long ago on his ship. I’ve got to save her. Mother. Father. Hometown. Nuthea.

Sagar wiped the saliva from his cheeks, which in turn had turned the colour of beetroot. Ryn knew the pirate was angry, but for once he didn’t growl or curse.

“Ah, so I see you’re a poppy addict,” Sagar said slowly, sadistically. “I know the way to your heart.” He grinned, and it made him look like a wolf. “Tell us where the nearest healer is to be found, you sack of poodoo, and I will buy you some poppy.”

The man said nothing at first, his stained mouth a tight line, but then the line wobbled, and then it split. “W...will you?” he said, almost like a pleading child.

“It’s the best chance of a hit you’ve got right now,” said Sagar. Ryn didn’t know what they were talking about but he intuited it had something to do with the black colouring around the man’s mouth.

“N-Nonts,” said the man, lips trembling. “Nonts. That’s the nearest town. You want to go to Nonts to find a healer. Now, about this poppy-seed…”

“Nonts.” Sagar licked his lips. “Yeah; I’ve heard of it. Alright, you’ll take us to Nonts.”

“About this poppy seed…” said the man. “How much will you give me? How much will you be able to buy?”

“Oh, about a pound,” said Sagar, and the man shivered where he lay with what seemed to be anticipation. “Now tell me quickly, scumsucker, how do we get to Nonts? Which way? Tell me!”

“You were heading that direction anyway,” said the man. “It is just an hour or so’s walk South-East through the forest and then over the Pescari fields. I can show you the way if you want. You can buy me the poppy there.”

“And they have a healer?”

“Yes; I believe so. Why do you want to know? They also have a poppy-dealer if you know where to look. I can tell you wh--”

“Pup, help me with the princess!” Sagar cut him off. “Woman, you get the scumsucker here up and walk behind to make sure he doesn’t run off.”

“Hey I don’t take orders from anyone,” said Elrann, “especially if they keep calling me ‘woman’.” But she moved to do what Sagar said all the same, hoisting the man up onto his feet as she grabbed him by the arm. “You’re so insecure you’ve gotta have a nickname for everyone, don’t ya? Well, I’ve got my own nickname for you, pirate-man…”

Sagar either didn’t hear or, more likely, ignored her. Ryn and he picked Nuthea up under Sagar’s direction, Ryn holding her around the ankles, one in each hand, and Sagar with one hand hooked under each of her arms, walking backwards. She was surprisingly heavy. Maybe it was the gold she wore. Maybe she carried more gold about her person. They began to move like that, making slow progress, with Elrann walking a little way behind with her pistol held to the back of the man in black, who told them which way to go.

They walked through the forest painfully slowly. Ryn looked down at Nuthea and his throat tightened. Her skin had turned white as milk. The makeshift bandage they had made for her stomach was soaked through now, and blood had begun to drip onto the grass.

“Is there any way we can do this any faster?” Ryn said.

“You’ll never get her there in time like this,” said the man in black maliciously. “I gave her a good deep cut--not deep enough to kill her at once, but she’ll bleed out in an hour or two. My blade is also coated in ajanga--poison--so you really need to get her to a healer as soon as you can, and you better hope they’re a good one. If you want to get to Nonts to buy me my poppy-seed faster, you’d be better off taking my chocobo.”

“WHAT?!” Sagar shouted, and almost dropped Nuthea. He lowered her to the ground with Ryn, then strode over to the man and smacked him round the head.

“Ouch! That was for what?”

“You had a chocobo the whole time and you didn’t tell us?! Where is it?!”

The man nodded in a completely different direction to the one they were walking in. “She’s tied up a few hundred paces that way. I rode her till I found your trail, then dismounted and crept up on you.”

Sagar roared with irritation, then ran off in the direction the man had indicated.

Poison? thought Ryn, looking at Nuthea’s pale face again. I’ve got to help her. Hold on, Nuthea! Please don’t die!

Sagar returned a few moments later seated atop a large, yellow bird that walked on two feet and had an intelligent head at the end of a long neck, a bit like a cross between an ostrich and canary--a chocobo. Ryn knew them from his home farm on Cleasor. He had spent many a happy seventhday riding and racing them with his friends in the forests around his town. But that was a very distant memory now.

“Help me get her on its back, pup,” Sagar snapped as he jumped down. Together they lifted Nuthea’s unconscious body as carefully as they could and laid it across the back of the chocobo, which cawed and lowered its head obligingly. This one was tame and friendly, mercifully.

Once Nuthea was on, Sagar swung himself back up and mounted the animal, sitting behind her and clasping the reins that ran to to the chocob’s beak. It didn’t have a saddle.

“Which way to Nonts, scumsucker?” Sagar demanded of the man in black. “Tell me now and I’ll get you your poppy-seed quicker.”

At the mention of poppy-seed, the bounty hunter’s hand shot out and pointed in a particular direction through the trees.

“That way. A short ride. Come back quickly.”

Sagar wheeled the chocobo around to address Ryn and Elrann. “Make your way to Nonts by foot. Bring the scumsucker if you really must. I’ll get the princess to a healer and meet up with you there. Got it?”

Ryn looked up at the skypirate. He cut quite a figure atop his golden mount, proud and erect, his piratical ponytail flicking out behind him, his exposed eye shining, and with Nuthea draped in front of him like some distressed damsel he was heroically rescuing.

There was just one thing wrong with the picture.

“Hang on,” Ryn said, “this ‘bounty hunter’ was clearly after you and Nuthea, but he didn’t know who I was. If people are hunting for you in Nonts, it’s clearly safer if I take Nuthea to the healer.” He was surprised at his own boldness. But Nuthea’s plight demanded it of him.

“Be quiet, pup,” Sagar said like Ryn was an irritating child. “I’ll steal in quickly and go straight to the healer’s house. Nobody else will even know I’m there. I’ll see you in Nonts.”

He turned the chocobo to leave, but Ryn wasn’t convinced. Without thinking about it any further, he rushed forwards, grabbed Sagar’s boot, and yanked him as hard as he could off of the chocobo.

“Hey!” Sagar was taken completely unawares and slid from his seat in a single movement, crashing to the ground on his backside.

He shouted other things, vile and obscene things, but Ryn was barely listening. Instead, he was pulling himself up next to Nuthea on the chocobo.

And then he was riding as fast as he could in the direction that the bounty hunter had pointed, towards Nonts, to try to find her a healer and save her life.