Chapter 192: Chapter 175 – Collecting Blood Money

"While there have been cases of people setting a bounty and then refusing to pay for it in the past, these cases have become a rarity. The risk of being blacklisted by the guilds is a penalty most wouldn't want to face, and in many cases, those who were denied their bounties would come to collect it the hard way." - Agatha Kristoffur, Historian for the royal court of the Kingdom Down Under, circa 650 FP.

After she was done, for Cal to fight her way out was simplicity itself, and she retreated together with the girls as the remaining soldiers attempted to give chase. They sent arrows and javelins towards the chasers to discourage them, and that, combined with a second pit trap Leila made, gave them enough of a lead to escape pursuit without too much trouble.

 

Despite some of the soldiers and mercenaries they faced taking up their bows and shooting back, the girls came out of the confrontation without any major injuries, as they had cover to hide behind and Kino had plucked off any shots that might have been dangerous.

 

All of them had some cuts and scratches from close calls though, as Kino did allow those to go through to let the girls deal with it themselves. Even so, the worst of their injuries was just one arrow Elaina took in her left arm, which apparently hadn't bothered the girl that much as she was right handed. When Cal had joined them on the retreat she even saw the girl flick a javelin into the air, catch it in a throwing position with her atlatl, and hurled it all in one motion, with just one hand.

 

Dan helped Elaina extract the arrowhead from her arm and healed the wound for her once they were no longer being chased. Cal had taken them to the side of the battlefield, where they easily remained hidden as they waited for the battle to wind down relaxedly.

 

Much as Cal expected, the rebel army fell into disarray not long after they started watching, and soon started to retreat from the battle. The retreat turned into a rout soon after, and the loyalist army didn't miss that chance and gave chase with all they got.

 

They noticed right away that some of the hired mercenaries - mostly smaller bands - had not joined the pursuit, as they were scouring the battlefield and stripping the dead rebels of their valuables instead. It was a relatively common practice, and not even the girls seem surprised by it.

 

By the evening, some of those mercenaries were returning towards the loyalist base camp. Cal brought the girls out from where they hid and openly followed those mercenaries. A few gave questioning looks her way but none of them actually went up and questioned or stopped them.

 

Guards at the loyalist base did stop them for questioning as they had never seen Cal and her party before, though she got them to let them pass by showing a bounty note and the head of a young officer they happened to encounter with one of the patrols and killed along the way.

 

They had not known that Cal considered their security as sloppy and poorly organized. Were she an assassin from the other side it would have been far too easy to openly gain entry that way.

 

Either way, Cal brought the girls with her as they followed two mercenaries who looked like their group's leaders to redeem some bounties. They were directed to the camp's quartermaster, who bid them to come in one group at a time. After a while, the two mercenaries left happily, and it was Cal's turn.

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It was easy enough for the quartermaster to process the few heads of junior officers or young, talented mages they happened to run into along the way, but when Cal brought out the general's head, the quartermaster looked at her in open shock, then bid her to wait a moment as he sent a runner to fetch their general, as apparently dealing with bounties at that level needed his approval.

 

To Cal's surprise, they had not waited long - ten minutes at most - before the general arrived on a horse, apparently having hurried over from his command tent on the other side of the camp. Once inside, he quickly went to the head Cal brought out, and inspected it with a critical eye.

 

"I'll be damned," said the general, a slightly chubby man in his later years. His physique had become weaker with age, but for a man of his advanced age he still moved quickly, his movements sprightly, which showed the pains he took to keep in shape. "This is Farooq's head all right. Fetch the lady her coins, Barsen. She earned every bit of it."

 

"There's this one as well," Cal said as she nonchalantly dropped the corpse of the archmage she killed on the ground, while at the same time Sidonie behind her leaved through the sheets of bounties until she found the archmage's and handed it to Cal for her to show to the general.

 

"I take it you're the one responsible for the commotion by their base camps then?" asked the general, now with obvious interest. He had already sent the quartermaster off to fetch extra money for the bounty from the treasury. "Noticed it even all the way from my camp, though I couldn't catch a glimpse of what's going on. Since you took these two out… do you happen to have anything from their tent? Might be worth some extra change."

 

"Was wondering when you'd ask," replied Cal with a slight smile, quite pleased at the old general's straightforward way of handling things. She deposited everything she found in the rebel command tent along with documents from the small fort on the quartermaster's table. When the man returned, he quickly browsed over those documents together with the general.

 

In the end, on top of the two hundred or so gold coins for the bounties on the general, archmage, and the few others they ran into, they walked out of the quartermaster's tent with another purse of fifty gold for all the assorted documents they handed over. While many of those documents lost their value with the battle being over and done with, many still had value in the future to come, and it was those that fetched a decent price.

 

Satisfied, Cal brought the girls along with her and exited the loyalist base, as they continued their travels headed north.

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