Standing Bounty

Standing Bounty

         Staggering over the congealed, snow covered lake, the figure wandered aimlessly. Tired, belabored, and injured he went on, past behind him and an uncertain future ahead. His boots were banal, the worn leather forming holes. The sword strapped across his back had excoriated the clothing and rubbed away the skin to form an open sore. Glancing back quietly, he grinned slightly as a young child followed him. The child looked up at him and quickly scrambled to her father's side.
         As she reached up to him, he lifted her from the ground and carried her on. Soon enough they arrived at a town he had eschewed for a long time now. He walked silently across the slushy, muddy wide paths that made the town's roads. Pushing open the door of an inn, slipping in, and closing the door softly with a quiet click as the metal bar returned to its keep.
         The hushed crackled of a fire came from a corner hearth, making his shadow emulate a ghost. Only then, did he lower the hood of his cloak, face pale and tired, letting his sandy, gray streaked hair show. How he had survived the long, drawn out evening, he did not recall. Easily, he received a key to a room and remained resting while his young daughter slept on.
* * *
         Morning's sun arrogated the sky, casting away the planet's multi-colored dotted black curtain of night, letting its twin pale moons linger in the sky before pushing them away as well. The young girl stood at the window, watching the coherent-colored sunrise. Acquisitive for where the night jewels had gone, she jumped in her father's bed, almost pushing him off the cotton stuffed mattress.
         Groaning quietly, he carped about his early morning disturbance. It took a moment for him to gather his bearings and then looked at her questioningly. Quietly he sighed as the complicated question poured from her acquisitive mouth, much like floodwaters run through a river bed. He smiled quietly after she had finished her inquiry and carefully chose his words, picking them so a seven-year-old child would understand.
         For several days, the two remained in the village, the man silently dreading the inevitable that followed him. Eventually, the black cloaked figure arrived at the village, tracking him down as a wolf does a harmless deer. The young girl was the first one he came to, questioning her father's where about's and then praised her for her answer. With a happy, childish giggle, she skipped into the inn, and scrambled up to the room she and her father shared.
         Roughly, the dark man pushed her aside, removing an old rusted sword from its sheath, kicking the door open with a swift, powerful kick. With a startled cry, she darted past him to her slightly surprised father, sobbing with fear. Carefully, the father steered his young child behind him and backed up a few feet, glancing to where his sheathed sword rested. With swift, fluid, and confident movements, he retrieved his sword and tossed the sheath to the side.
         Soon enough, showers of sparks rained down to the ground as the two men made their way down the hall and out into the frozen streets, the young girl fleeing the now burning building. Angrily, the dark man swung the blade at his opponent, already having a few deep gashes. Glancing at the child, he paused, a plan forming. With an evil smirk, he turned and dashed toward her, rusted sword raised and ready to be sheathed into flesh.
         The child's father froze in his tracks for the slightest second, and then with an angry yell, bolted for the man, sliding on the frozen mud before gaining a grip on the ground. The child scrambled backward, away from her attacker, slipping on the ice. He raised the rusted metal blade above the child, stopped by a cold, now blood covered blade through his chest. The child quickly made her way around the falling body to her father's side.
         Removing the blade from its temporary home in the man's chest, the father picked her up. With a final glance at his fallen enemy, he started out of the village, knowing that no longer would he have to worry about being hunted and the constant threat to his daughter.