The second crack across the jaw was what really made her mad. One she’d take, as a professional courtesy, but two was pushing it. Amateurish.
“You got the money?” said the shaggy-haired kid who’d slugged her. She shook her head. He nodded to the burly guy who was holding her off the floor, and he let go. “You better get the money, Waldo,” the kid said as she obeyed the unwavering hand of gravity with a thud. “Else I won’t be so gentle next time.”
Malison Waldo opened her eyes to the outstretched hand of the landlord, so she closed them again.
“I saw you look, tracker! No pretending to be dead in my bar, you’ll drive away the customers! Now pay me what I’m owed,” said the man, his moustache twitching.
“You too, Anders? But we were such good friends. Why spoil it with money?” Waldo pushed herself up on her elbows and tried to look plaintive. It wasn’t working. She dug her fingers into her coinpurse and pressed her last two coppers into the landlord’s soft hand.
“And the rest,” said Anders.
“The rest?”
“For the chair you broke when they came for you, tracker.”
“Anders, those were my last coppers. I can’t borrow any more money, I’d just be robbing Pyotr to pay Paul.”
“Then,” said the big man with a notable undercurrent of menace, “you’d better find somebody else to rob.”

The city of Motte was beautiful this time of the evening, the sun setting through the collapsed shells of buildings, half-rebuilt in different materials. It was a living document, constantly rewriting itself ever since it had been ransacked by the forces of Darkness years ago. If we don’t build anything permanent, the thinking went, we don’t have anything to destroy. As a nomadic soul herself, Waldo appreciated this kind of attitude.
It did make finding the city guard a bit of a task, though. She had to try a few dead ends where she’d run into them before she finally spotted the swinging steel helmet over a half-tent canopy. The current guard-house was inside the ruin of a library. “Why do you move around so much?” Waldo had once asked the Captain. He had replied that his was the only business where customers not knowing where to find you was a boon.
The guard out front of the tent flap glanced down at her along the nose-guard of his helmet. “Here to turn yourself in, scum?” he said.
“Not tonight,” Waldo replied. The tall man turned and bent forward a bit, and his eyes showed recognition.
“Sorry, Mal. Didn’t recognise you on account of the blood,” he said, and nodded her in.
“Don’t worry, it’s all mine,” she quipped as she went.
The bounty board was empty. Damn. She was going to have to crawl. She limped into the building proper and rapped on a door. A voice told her to come in, and she did.
“Malison. What a pleasure,” said the Captain grimly.
“Hello, Don.” Waldo frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Just that whenever you show up in my office, I seem to get a headache.”
“Not this time, baby,” said Waldo. “That’s a promise. On the ball, on time, that’s me.”
Don set down his pencil and looked at her sharply. “I take it you’ve come by to beg for special work? That you think that we have some sort of special relationship that lets you come straight past the bounty board and bother me for off-the-books jobs?”
Waldo paused. “No?” she said, after a moment.
“Really?” said Don. “That’s a shame. I had just the thing, too.” He picked up his pencil and scratched a signature on the top sheet of paper. He had the self-satisfied expression of a man who has just won the pettiest of petty victories. “I suppose I’ll have to find somebody else for it.”
“No, please don’t, I need-”
“What is it you need this time, Mal? A horse? A new cape? A dozen assorted glass beads of varying sizes and colours?”
“I need one thousand ducats.”
Don looked up. The nib of his pencil snapped off against the table.
“Thousand?”
“Oh, did I say thousand?” Waldo said, watching the relief pass across Don’s face. “Yes, that’s right. One thousand,” and it was crushed.
“Well, we can help you out with some of that,” croaked the man. “But you’ll have to find backing from somewhere else for at least three hundred, maybe more. Depends how much the budget will spare.”
“Don, you’re a lifesaver. Look for me at Anders’ Hotel. Another thing-” Don looked up as Waldo headed for the exit. “How much can you give me in advance?”

Anders’ Hotel was located in one of the small number of completely intact buildings in Motte, on the grounds that the average traveller was usually less into the semi-nomadic ethos of the city than a true-blue resident would be. Waldo strode in and slapped a handful of ducats on the bar.
“Here’s all I owe you,” she said, “Including tonight’s room.” She went for the stairs that would lead her to her chamber, and then glanced back. “Send a fresh basin of water up, would you?”
The basin came as Waldo was stretching, readying herself for the possibility of imminent exercise. The door opened as she put her palms on the floor, and the maid yelped. Waldo looked at the poor woman through the archway of her own legs and grinned.
“Don’t worry, that’s completely normal. Put the water on that table there, that’s the one… You’ve spilled some, but it’s alright. Now just turn around and you can open your eyes again.” Honestly! It wasn’t as if she was naked… although her tracker gear left less to the imagination than people around here were used to.
Her face stung under the cold water as she washed the dried blood from her cheeks. She touched a spot where the skin had split, noticeable in the clear reflection of her small silver mirror, and winced. These guys had to pay.
Just then there was a knock at the door. Waldo sighed. Could she not have one minute’s peace? “Come in,” she said, and touched the cut again, though she knew it would hurt the same as last time. The door opened. The man outside was good-looking if a little on the skinny side and wore the battered blue tabard of the guard. His helmet was under his arm, revealing an awkward yellow fuzz on top of his head.
“Evening ma’am,” he said. “I’ve been sent to briing you your orders, as written here in this document.” He presented it. “If you would care to peruse, I’m authorised to accept your… acceptance… of the contract on behalf of the Captain.”
“I shake your hand, you shake his, is that right?” said Waldo, opening the folded scrap of paper. It said:
Asasin known as Vangel Kirkbuzzer has been sighted leaving town. This following attemted posioning of Chairman Dashel. Apprehend and return for inte – then something was crossed out – qestioning as soon as you can. Take Otto with you (Narrow streek of pizz holding this letter).
Waldo glanced at Otto. “Have you read this?” she said. Otto shook his head.
“No ma’am! That would be intruding!” and she could tell he meant it too.
“That’s probably just as well. Anyway, it says here I’ve got to take you with me on this adventure.”
“Really?” said Otto. “Gosh.” He reached for the letter, but Waldo folded it up sharply. He didn’t need to see his boss calling him a narrow streek of pizz like that, in dispassionate cheap ink. Don would have to tell him to his face. Malison Waldo wasn’t going to do his dirty work, no sir.
Apart from the dirty work he was paying her for. She sighed longingly at the bed, but Otto seemed expectant that she would be coming with him when he left.
“You’re looking much better,” he remarked. “I mean than when you came into the guard house. You seemed pretty beat up then.”
“You were in the guard house? Helmet. Of course. You tinheads all look the same in uniform. What tipped you off, the blood?”
“Who did that to you? You should have reported it, you know.”
How did you explain to an enthusiastic rookie like this that the people that kid worked for operated under the nose of the guard as brazen as anything, because they had money on their side? How do you explain to a true believer that their belief system is a tissue of lies? How do you even start?
Waldo was so busy mulling over these questions she didn’t notice the shaggy-haired kid and his goons standing in their path until he called her out, index finger extended towards her theatrically.
“There she is, fellas! Get that money off her, one way or another!”
Waldo groaned and put up her fists as the hulking bullies lurched towards her. At least this time she got to fight back.