Chapter 1

He’d been watching the hunter for a while. He was sitting at the entrance to the town, the camp rather; it was hardly a real town, not these days; maybe in another decade. He was just sitting there, admiring the day, a chicken leg and a refilled bottle of beer beside him. Sometimes it was good to just take a break. The beer wasn’t as bad as some he had had.

The hunter appeared over the ridge and pulling his captives behind him. He was a mile away, striding along. The people behind did not look so keen to walk. Other people on the road looked up and moved to one side. The man dragging the captives did not look like someone to cross.

Finn hated hunters, these types anyway. The hunter was a big man, a large muscle-bound hunter half dragging his captives. As they got closer he could see that there were three, a woman at the front had her hands tied behind her. That often indicated the captive was trouble. He gave (to Finn’s opinion) a bad name to the role.

This guy wasn’t a ‘hunter’, not really, he was a slaver. Grabbing people and offering them for sale. In a world where there were no proper laws, that was what happened. Families stuck together and defended themselves; the weak went to the wall, the old were ignored because they were useless, the young fended for themselves from very early on. Brains were useful if they kept you alive. There were too many big chunky men who just used their strength to get what they wanted, you couldn’t reason with them because they didn’t need to think.

The little band was moving up the slope now. He stayed sitting on the turf watching. A woman, with a massive bruise on her face. Yes, she’d fought back and been beaten, so her hands were tied behind her. She couldn’t raise he skirts to piss – he looked like the kind of git who wouldn’t let them stop anyway, he’d tell them to piss as they walked. Behind her was a girl, maybe fifteen. She walked erect – saying ‘I’m still an individual’, but eyes downcast, knowing she was defeated. She looked at his chicken leg with famished eyes. Behind her was a younger girl, maybe eleven. She looked dead on her feet, exhausted. Those two had their hands tied in front; at least they could break their fall if they stumbled.

The man had a rope tied to his belt which led to a hang-knot around the woman’s neck. If he pulled the rope, it tightened. Now Finn could see the red mark around her neck, it had been pulled tight a few times, she hadn’t given in easily. Now she looked desolate. From her neck, a similar rope led to the middle woman, and from her to the child. Finn wondered why they had been alone.

“‘right?” Finn said as they passed.

The hunter/slaver grunted rudely. He wasn’t interested in talking to some man dressed in browns sitting at the gate. Rude. Saying hello was just being friendly.

“How much?”

“For which one? Doesn’t matter, you couldn’t afford any of them. They’ll go for auction. The middle one is still clear, she’ll fetch a lot. The little one will too actually, some git-slob will enjoy breaking her open.” He smiled, discoloured teeth in a higgledy row with a few missing. He’d probably pulled out the bad ones himself. He looked like he could. “Come on bitches.” He gave the rope a yank with his hand and walked on. The three trudged along behind, giving Finn not a second look.

Finn stood and felt the pouch in his outer pocket. He had three such pouches. He always kept one to hand so if he was robbed by overwhelming odds, he could pass over the gold easily and hopefully everyone was happy. People often tried to hide all their wealth inside their clothes, that was a good way to get cut to ribbons while the thieves looked for it.

He’d just done a lucrative job; he was a real hunter. He was paid to hunt down (and in the majority of cases kill) some person. Very occasionally he had to hunt down and kill some woman’s lover and return her to her owner/husband/partner/brother. Quite often that return was just so that man could fuck her one last time whilst strangling her or mutilating her. It wasn’t Finn’s business. Only once had he been contracted to hunt down and kill the man and woman by the man’s ex-partner. He still smiled at that; his employer for that was as ugly as sin, and the woman he found the man with was the prettiest wench with big doe eyes and slim body. She’d offered to fuck him for her man’s freedom (not hers, her man’s). It was tempting, but he had a reputation to preserve. He did dispatch her more quickly than his employer had asked – she’d described in detail how she wanted ‘the bitch’s tits sliced off, her cunt opened to her backside and then a broomstick rammed as far in as it will go.’ Finn had wondered at the imagination that brought that up. He killed the girl first and then did the things he had been told to do. The man just pleaded for his own life; he was weak, weedly, spineless piece of crap who should have realised that his ex-partner was not a forgiving type.