Bounty Hunter Bash River Towns Lock Part Five

 Back On The Water

Bash, Chashathrophogh, Strena, Cerpheres, Zaryb and Leonardo all looked at the water. All of them were painting the scenery as Leonardo wanted to teach them how to paint well. Bash noticed, as she painted, there were greyish green rocks ahead. She put her painting down as she looked over to Chashathrophogh. He too saw them, with a shock but a look of a hunter. He took a glance at her and back at the rocks.

“All of you, get ready for a fight.”

She nodded as she quickly dried her paint along with everyone else. Soon the rest followed her lead. Then Strena dried her, Zaryb’s and Leonardo’s paintings.

“We will decide the winner later.” Chashathrophogh said, as he put them away in a wooden box. “Now, we all need to get ready for a fight.”

“Alright!”

“Oh? And why is that dear?”

Chashathrophogh then pointed to the rocks.

“Oh.”

“Call me ‘dear’ again and I will feed you to them!”

“Hold on, they’re crocodiles, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Now get ready!”

Cerpheres looked at the rocks. His eyes widened in surprise. He looked at them for a moment, his mouth opened for a moment. Then he smirked as he closed it again when he looked at the crocodiles.

Then three rose up from beneath the water to reveal that it was a jaw. Bash widened her eyes as she looked at the rest of the rocks. She saw by the pattern of them that they all belonged to one creature! Her face drained of colour as she realized that it was larger than the barge and could tell it could swallow the barge whole!

She looked back to her uncle to see, by his deathly pale face, he had noticed this too.

What do I do? How can we fight that? How do I use the water to give us the advantage? Do I boil it?

No. If the heat was the weakness then they would not be in this climate.

Do I freeze it?

I don’t know, I think it could not hurt to try. She thought as her eyes on the water then willed the water to become colder and colder until water vapour rose up. Yet she focused on it. Then they stopped. She looked down to the ice. 

That was when she saw it. It was staring there as still as the statue. She drew her bow and arrow before pulling her foot out until it’s eyes flicker to her. Then it dropped it’s jaw and flicked at her. She dodged out of the way as it rested a claw on the ledge and pulled it down. The barge rocked and she loaded her bow and fired into the flesh pallet on the back of it’s throat. Yet it snapped the arrow in half as it collapsed the mouth. 

Then the barge started rocking over further. Bash saw the eyes and loaded her bow again and fired at one of them. It hit. This pushed him back and let go of the barge. She then scrambled to the ledge. She forged a ball of ice and threw it at it. Yet this did nothing.

Then she noticed the fog was getting thicker and thicker 

That was when the crocodile sank beneath the waves. They all had to keep their eyes on the water as they searched for the crocodile. Yet they made sure to keep vigilant as they could, waiting for the crocodile to appear again. Yet as they did they could feel the tension in the silence build. They all kept their breathing as silent as they could. Then they heard the water behind them. Then they looked behind them and they saw a crocodile the size of five men and the head the size of a ten year old scientist!

Quickly Bash fired at one of the eyes. It dodged out of the way and Zaryb threw a small dagger to where the eye was going and it hit. This was followed by an arrow from Bash. It let out a roar and swam rapidly then Strena flicked her blades down and beheaded it.

“Looks like we’ve got lunch!”

“Cerpheres!”

“Hummm?”

“You knew that this crocodile was the size that it was. Didn’t you?”

He chuckled.

“Maybe!”

“How?”

“There were rumors in Chailou that there’s a river of giant crocodiles. Seems it’s true!” He sang.

They all nodded as their faces became pale as they looked back to see Cerpheres pulling it up and carved the crocodile carcass.

“What are you doing?”

“Cutting it up of course! After all, we can’t put them in the stocks like this, can it?”

Strena made her way to him and threw her blades down again and again and again and soon Chashathrophogh and Bash were taking each piece and skinned and gutted I and threw all they did not need into the river. Then Zaryb and Leonardo chopped the meat down further. After, Cerpheres used his magic to dry the meat and put the meat boxes.

They all cleaned up and cleaned the whole barge. Then pulled out their paintings. They looked at each and every one of them. All of them were good. Yet the least good was Zaryb. The second least good was Bash. The best, other than Leonardo, was a tie between Strena and Chashathrophogh. With Cerpheres between Bash and the best.

“Who knew-”

That was when Bash fired a shot beside his head. This shit him up as his head turned and his eyes met the eyes of a snake, choking on an arrow. He looked at it as it looked at him. It dived at him and dropped. Then he felt something grab him by the ankles. He jumped and pulled out an orange powder and threw it at the creature. It hissed then he felt something whip him. The next thing he saw it trying to strike him. It did this again and again and again. He dived to the left, then the right, then left again, then right again. He punched the cheek, pouting. The head flicked back as he reached out his hand and pulled out Bash’s arrow as fast as he could.

Soon the snake fell and they had more food once they had gutted and skinned it.

“Good work!”

He nodded.

“Thank you Cerpheres.”

Yet later that day they ate their first portion of crocodile and snake. All of this lasted them a good number of days until they ran out and had to go fishing.