Besides, this was the best place to watch the tavern door from.
For perhaps the hundredth time that evening the door pushed open–another stranger dusted with snow. The wind slammed it shut behind him, announcing his presence.
The stranger pulled back his cloak cowl, the icy fabric falling aside to reveal the shaved sides of his head, the scalp filled in with orcish tattoos, his green pointed ears were ragged and torn, suggesting many encounters with sharp claws and fangs.
For a moment, the crowded floor of patrons quieted.
It was him.The orcish bounty hunter. Nettle’s heart beat a little faster.
This side of the Chasm, there were many orcs, but Nettle only needed this one. He paid the other patrons no mind and rather crossed to the bar with a single-minded intent.
His shoulders were staggering to behold from even across the tavern as he hefted a full burlap sack over his shoulder. Murmurs crept up around the edges of the room.
Without a word, he tossed it down on the counter, likely containing some rare bird, if the iridescent feathers poking out between tears suggested anything. Within moments, the sack started oozing something black and viscous onto the counter.
The tavern keeper lifted the mouth of the sack a moment, eyeing the creature, then its deliverer.
“Erryc,” the bounty hunter nodded to him, as he undid the leather tie on one of his belt pouches.
“Silver,” the tavern keeper nodded in return, trying to conceal his queasiness at whatever gruesome mess was within the sack. “Back for another?”
Silver only grunted in lieu of a reply, pulling out a folded piece of parchment and handing it off to the tavern keeper.
Erryc unfolded the page, browning furrowing as he examined the page.
“One of these days, there isn’t going to be anything left on the job board.”
“Just get me my gold.”
Nettlewisp had heard of the bounty hunter’s prolific accomplishments in the field, but more importantly, she had heard he would take on any job for gold. Still, she was unprepared to see him in person, larger than life, thick muscled arms perfectly complementing his broad shoulders.
The stubs of a few snapped arrows were still embedded in his singular left pauldron, giving him the air of a grizzled, hunted beast. Though he stood a head shorter than the tavern keeper, he was easily the scariest being in a tavern packed full of knives and sharp teeth.
Nettle had been warned about seedy places such as these, where the patrons could range from thieves to murderers, hobgoblins and humans. It was so different from anything from the Court of Morning Mist.
Erryc peered into the bleeding sack on the counter once more, grimacing as he compared it to whatever was scrawled on the page, before he nodded to the bounty hunter again. He reached below the counter to produce a pouch of gold, which jingled as it landed on the counter. Another quest finished.
No sooner had Silver plucked up the payment and given it a couple shakes in his palm to feel its weight, he turned and headed towards the tavern notice board. One didn’t acquire a reputation such as his by resting on one’s laurels.
Many other scrolls of paper and scraped lambskin sheets were pinned to the wall, smeared with inky details, curling where they weren’t skewered by plain daggers and pins. There was even the occasional press-printed wanted poster, from more official decrees.
Nettle watched a moment, transfixed, as Silver extended one green hand, uncurling a roll of parchment to read it better.
Now was her moment.
Nettle couldn’t just sit here and wait until he had picked some other job. She’d been in here the other night, and her hesitation had cost her time. Thankfully, his last job hadn’t taken him long to complete, but as the tavern keeper had informed her the other night, sometimes the bounty hunter wasn’t seen for weeks at a time.
She couldn’t risk waiting that long.
Nettle flitted over to the orc, carving through the chains of hanging lamps— a path of glimmering sparks left in her wake.
Over the last couple of days, Nettle had learned that it was rude to just drop down in front of someone’s face, so she settled for hovering just behind him.
“Excuse me–”
He, of course, didn’t hear her. The voices of fey were more like whispers to larger creatures.
Face heating with the effort, she repeated herself, louder, more than she was ever comfortable with, “I said, sir, excuse me, SIR–”
