Breaking Camp

[Danny]

Ludd slunk through the shadows. He'd watched the face-off between Spider and Malice in that clearing, but had been annoyed to discover that his pistol seemed to have fallen from its holster somewhere, and so had decided it would be prudent to leave it to Spider this time, as physically Ludd would be fairly useless against someone like Malice...

He'd backtracked until he found his Pistol, then returned to the clearing to find that both Spider and Malice were gone. Following Mal's trail, he'd found the mangled corpse of one of his fellow Mercenaries, and was following the footprints of a second, in the hope of organising the others into a hunting party for Malice.

The other bounty hunter hadn't been very careful in his passage, as his footprints were deep and the surrounding vegetation mashed. Ludd had no difficulty in following the trail, and eventually he found a small clearing, in which an Observation Tower was being hastily dismantled by six mudokons, whom Ludd recognised as his fellow hunters.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

One of them, whom Ludd remembered as Mik, jumped down from the trees. "We're getting out of here. They're offering a lot of money, but it's not worth our lives..."

"Oh come on, he can't get us if we stick together..."

Mik waved his arms around agitatedly. "Did you see what he did to Ral?"

Ludd nodded. "Nothing we haven't seen him do dozens of times before."

"Well, we've had enough. He's gonna kill us all, eventually."

"Not if we stick together, he won't!"

Mik shook his head. "Yes he will, he could take us all on!"

Ludd sighed in disbelief. "So you're just gonna give up? You're gonna let him carry on killing innocent people?"

"Rather them than me."

"You won't even catch him for the money?"

Mik looked at Ludd like he was a small child. "If anyone can take on him and win, they deserve the money. I know I can't."

"But-"

"Look, you're not going to change our minds. We'll be gone by nightfall. If you want to stay and die, that's your decision, but don't drag us down with you."

Ludd said nothing, then turned away from Mik, and ran back through the forest towards Pyke. I have to find Smick and Hoan... he thought, They won't chicken out like that lot...