[William]
“We’ll be doing four wagers, one of you against one of us. They'll vary depending on who sets them up, and they can entail anything so long as it's confined to this inn. Understood?”
They all nodded.
“Good. As another courtesy, I’ll let you set the first wager’s terms. Which one of you will step forward?”
Whether it was a courtesy or not didn't matter. The glint in Quinn's eyes told enough. He expected the wagers to bend to his favor. He expected entertainment at their expense.
“Arm-wrestling,” came Yonten’s response before they could even discuss the matter. “If I win, you’ll give me all of your weapons. If I lose, you can choose whatever reward you want.”
Quinn regarded Yonten curiously. “Alright, and which one of us will you choose as an opponent?”
Yonten took his time, going through the bandits’ line-up until his gaze settled upon a giant presence at the back. “Him.”
William choked on his breath.
“Did he accidentally inhale something on our way here?” he heard Stella wonder as he fought to hold on for dear life.
“He probably has a trick up his sleeve,” was Jehona’s unbothered reply. William felt her hand patting his back in aid for his breathing crisis, to which he was grateful.
Even Quinn was baffled. “Janus? Are you sure…?”
“Yes.” Yonten grinned, looking at the opponent—Janus, apparently—he chose. “Could it be that you’re afraid?”
For a colossal man, Janus cut through the small crowd with astonishing speed. He gazed down at Yonten with eyes glaring the sharpest of blades, nostrils flared as if preparing to breathe out fire.
A target of such immeasurable wrath, Yonten nonchalantly pointed towards an empty table. “Shall we?”
The mere act of Janus sitting at the table dwarfed it, making it look like something befitting a child. Janus’s arm-muscles bulged ominously, the veins accenting them engorged, as he set his elbow on the surface of the table.
Taking an opposite seat, Yonten brought out his staff and made a knock on the ground, and from it, a mound protruded from the inn’s floor to reveal itself as a rock, as wide and long as an arm. Another knock, and the rock settled on the surface of the table, opposite of Janus’s arm.
Oh, so this was his approach...
In contrast to William’s relief, Quinn asked with alarm, “What is the meaning of this?”
“Arm-wrestling, of course.”
“A rock isn’t your arm!”
“But I pulled it with my own effort.” Yonten tilted his head, his gaze pure provocation. “Besides, even if it couldn’t be considered as my arm, it’s not like I specified which arm to compete with. I can’t be faulted for your limited imagination.”
Quinn looked a hair away from lunging to strangle Yonten, but with admirable self-control, he addressed his subordinate, “Janus, get back.”
Yonten made a show of sighing. “What a shame. A big fellow like you, and you fear facing a simple rock.”
Janus’s eye twitched. Whatever will he had to follow his superior’s command seemed to have wilted away as he faced Yonten and his rock. “Who’s afraid?”
“Definitely not you.” Yonten’s eyes sparked with victory.
“Janus!” Quinn nearly screamed.
“I can handle it, Quinn.”
But Janus couldn’t.
No matter how hard he tried, Janus couldn’t move the rock, reddening with effort as Yonten encouraged him. “Come on, I think I can see it mov—no, that was the table. My mistake.”
Needless to say, his encouragements fell on unappreciative ears.
Close to an hour since this pitiful show started, Yonten finally ended it with a knock of his staff.
The rock moved to the side, easily bringing down Janus’s arm under its weight, and perhaps dislocating a shoulder along the way, judging by the anguished scream Janus let out.
“So?” Yonten prompted.
At this point, Quinn couldn’t discredit the wager. Not after Janus pursued it and certainly not after they all invested a significant amount of time to it.
With incredible reluctance, Quinn declared, “You win.”
“Our turn next,” Quinn said, his expression easing up after the spectacle Yonten made out of his subordinate. “Bozo?”
“With pleasure, Quinn,” replied a bandit from the back. His form was tall and thin, distinguished from the rest by a single lock of hair that curled upwards, right at the top of the barren land that was his head. The gaze he fixed on Jehona dripped with untoward intentions. “Couldn’t help but notice the blunderbuss strapped to the waist of a gorgeous lass like you.”
“Oh, I know where this is going,” Yonten leaned in to whisper to William, amusement clear in his tone. “We should prepare ourselves for losing this round.”
“How about basing our wager on shooting? You win, you get all of our money. I win, you’ll be mine.”
“See?”
Stella immediately told Jehona, “Don’t accept.”
“We’ll make up for this round,” William added on in assurance.
“No need,” was Jehona’s nonchalant response, addressing Bozo like the matter didn’t concern her, “What’s your wager?”
“To prevent a prey from escaping, a Hunter has to take a shot, even with an obscured vision.”
On that introduction, Bozo detailed his wager, its bewildering terms a flattering estimation of Jehona’s prowess.
“I’ll pick four comrades, two of mine and two of yours. One to hold a wooden drum, and the other to bang it. You and I will be blindfolded, and our task is to shoot our designated drums based on sound alone. Each of us has three chances only.”
After calling two of his comrades, Bozo turned to call William and Yonten to step in, leaving Stella to join the watching audience. It was with palpable glee that he assigned Yonten to be the one holding the drum above his head.
“Jehona,” Stella called out from her place, distraught.
“Trust me,” Jehona replied. "I'm not taking his life with a lead ball."
If her words were meant to be comforting, then William was utterly at loss.
“She'll probably shoot the other way," Yonten mused aloud. William couldn't tell whether it was confidence in Jehona's inability or a product of wishful thinking.
“I should warn you, I’m an excellent marksman,” said Bozo, bringing out a blunderbuss and a cloth. William wondered if he would cheat, tie the cloth loosely or something, but it appeared his concerns in that regard held no grounds. The man secured the cloth tightly over his eyes.
A good distance away, Bozo’s two comrades stood. One reached up to hit the surface of the drum the other held, making a loud, booming sound.
Chasing after the sound, Bozo made his first shot. It hit the wall behind the bandit holding up the drum.
A second bang, and this one Bozo missed as well, but it was closer to the target.
The last bang marked a success for Bozo, shooting through the drum between its rim and center. He took off the blindfold with the smile of one who guaranteed a victory. He looked at Jehona and opened his mouth, but whatever he wanted to say died out at Jehona’s announcement:
“My turn.”
It took only a few moments afterwards for William to learn that Bozo did have the intention to cheat, just not in his part.
For one thing, William hit the drum with all his strength, but the strike only produced a faint sound. Their drum was of troubling density.
For another, a loud bang of a drum broke out just as William made his strike, masking the sound produced by their own. It came from the opposite side.
Yonten snorted, his gaze mocking. William could guess what he thought at the moment: the bandits shouldn't have taken all that effort to win. But then Yonten's eyes went wide and it made William turn to Jehona.
Why was she aiming at them?
Jehona didn't hesitate. She didn't attempt to focus or discern between the sounds. She just shot.
Silence overwhelmed all words in the aftermath.
“What happened?” William heard Yonten whispering, but he couldn’t answer him, too busy witnessing a miracle.
The signal for the second shot pulled William away from his shock, hitting the drum again. Of course, the bandits hit their drum in tandem, this time with an even louder sound.
Jehona still aimed her second shot at them.
William looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Could it be…?
A faint bang from them followed by a louder one from the bandits, a final shot Jehona aimed at them, the third of successive bull’s-eyes.
Untying the blindfold, Jehona surveyed her work with satisfaction, twirling the blunderbuss absently.
“What happened?” Yonten asked again, this time with the air of someone questioning reality.
Before William could answer him, Bozo’s voice rose in outrage, rushing to tower over Jehona. “You must’ve cheated!”
“Like you did?” Jehona returned.
Bozo took his blunderbuss to press its mouth against Jehona’s forehead, but then he dropped it with a startled cry. His blunderbuss fell with a thud far beyond its mass.
“What a sore loser,” Yonten remarked, his staff in hand and one of its stones glowing green.
Ignoring him, Bozo reached down to pick up the blunderbuss, only to halt at the sight of William’s scimitar near his neck.
“Don’t,” William warned.
That managed to sober Bozo up from his tantrum, making for a hasty retreat.
“I won,” Jehona declared aloud, robbing the privilege of making announcements from Quinn.
Members of the crowd exploded into discussions among themselves, leaving them momentarily alone.
Yonten suggested, his expression speaking of intrigue, “Mind doing another demonstration?”
In another miraculous event, Jehona obliged him. “What’s your target?”
Yonten pointed at the oblivious Bozo who stood the farthest distance away from them, partially concealed by his comrades. More specifically: the wondrous phenomena that called attention to Bozo's bald head.
Jehona shot him.
A lead ball was no sharp blade, of course, and some remained of that lock of hair to tell the fall of its brethren. It still got Bozo to mourn his loss.
Yonten whistled. “You do have a decent aim.”
Decent would be an understatement, William thought. “How did you tell where we stood?”
“I guessed the lower drum sound to belong to you. Otherwise, there would be no reason for it to exist,” Jehona answered him, her cool tone contrasting the wailing coming from Bozo in the background. “I suppose I was lucky to be right.”
Striking the drum’s center once while blindfolded was fortunate, but striking it thrice was a testament of incredible skill.
As impressed as William was about Jehona’s display, however, as confused as he was when he compared it to other displays he witnessed in the recent past.
Could the difference between using a bow and a blunderbuss be really that stark? With Jehona’s sort of aiming, she should at least demonstrate a decent level with a bow, but what William saw of her was everything opposite.
He put those thoughts for a later reflection when Stella finally rejoined them, telling him, “I’ll be the next one, alright?”
Long since used to wagers conducted at his expense, William didn’t care much for his turn. “Go ahead.”
