by Lee Bond
A perfect reminder of what happens when you fucked with the wrong fucker.
“Marc ain’t stupid. He’ll have his men close, but not too close. And his men ain’t stupid neither. They’ll have heard and seen yon fleet foot running out of your tent leaking crudey from his neck like a fountain.” Barnabas said this as rationally as he could. Garth might not know it, but he was in a bad way. The moment he did know, things would go roughly. And like as not, Barnabas preferred not to be the focus of the man’s blackened ire. Besides all that, the upcoming conflict betwixt Nickels and Marc would hopefully yield the sorts of answers a King had been forced into waiting for. “Now, come here, let me see what needs seeing. We’ve got a minute or two.”
Garth shut the buzzblade down and fought the urge to go hunting for the nearest stream. His skin was on fire. The only thing he recalled from Meechy exploding on top of him was gruesome, sticky heat and then cold sticky grossness. Nowhere in sight had there been any of this hot, prickly grodiness.
Moving closer to Barnabas, Garth snorted at the quickly produced engineer’s rag. “You sleep with that on you?”
Barnabas quirked an eyebrow. “Young man, I sleep with many things on my person. A rag is the least of them. Now, hold still whilst I swipe away at Wit’s end.”
The blacksmith ran the rag up and down Garth’s forearm, wiping away as much of the greasy black blood as could.
The King was fascinated by this turn of events and couldn’t wait to see Nickels’ reaction firsthand when the lad saw for himself just what’d happened; Barnabas couldn’t recall a single instance of anything like this since Kingsblood had become so readily available.
Curiously, then, “When you was in the pub, young lad, drinking and carousing with Nicked Jimmy, what was your mood?”
Garth answered vaguely, looking over his shoulder, trying to will Specter-trained instincts to detect the subtle movements of troop encroachment on their little, suddenly way too well-lit camp without allowing the violence lurking just on the horizon to launch forward. “Super-pissed. Coming here wasn’t the best idea. I should’ve spent, like, sixteen more fucking years investigating this shit, hunting down ex-wardogs where they burrowed into society outside, interrogated them, forced them to spill what they know. Then, of course, super fucking creeped out. You may think it’s totally cool or rad or whatever to chat with dudes that got, like, fucking engines coming right out the top of their fucking heads or ladies with metal eyes or, I dunno, guys with no lips and big shiny metal teeth, but where I come from, that shit is totally mental.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Barnabas asked, exhilaration seizing his heart. The arm he held betwixt his hands was a simmering mass of tattooed mechanics, the pistons and gears, the flywheels and the engines being about their business. It was miraculous. It was like looking into the inner workings of one of the machines that he built, but a thousand times more wondrous, because this was a man.
What possible augments could Trinity have given this man, that His Will and Kingsblood should react so perversely ‘neath Garth’s skin? To his certain knowledge, there was nothing outside that came close to workable nanotech, which seemed to Barnabas’ thoughts the only way to produce something so resilient.
Ah, damn his own precocious temper. If only he hadn’t canceled all contact with Trinity! He would know straight off what was what.
Continuing on with the conversation, Barnabas clarified his previous statement quite casually, “I hear tell from some of them as come inside that them old emptied gearheads are right buggers.”
I “Nah.” Garth turned back to Barnabas, a sardonic smirk on his face. “Out there, I’m the Big Bad. Hey, what’s got you look … oh, fuck me sideways. What the fuck is this fucking bullshit?”
Barnabas let Nickels shake his arm free, watching carefully as he danced around, twisting his arms this way and that, goggling in absurd stupidity at the moving Dark Iron tattoos.
Confident Nickels was in control, he said simply, “Reckon … well, I … I don’t know what to reckon, truthfully. Best guess is the Iron in your blood rushed to drink down the crudey-crude as was sprayed out onto you when you gave Quick Wit that second smile of his.”
Barnabas Blake had never heard of this sort of Iron mutation before, had never even in his wildest dreams imagined something as predatory as this could evolve without preeminent assistance.
Such a shame they were so close to the End, now. It would’ve been positively enlightening to watch the hated gearheads struggle against a foe that could quite literally drink Kingsblood from their veins.
Garth couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t … couldn’t get hold of himself. He stared at the knife in his hand, very seriously considering self-mutilation. It wouldn’t be pretty, but he was sure he’d survive. Better scarred for life with grisly arms than to live another minute with whatever the spinning tattoos implied; the old tattoos had been bad enough, now this? “Oh this is fucking gross. So fucking gross you don’t even know.”
This was a berjillion times worse than what’d happened in the bar, hands down. His skin … oh his skin had absorbed the Dark Iron nanotech right out of Quick Wit’s blood, for fuck’s sake. What the fuck was he?
More importantly, where were the quadronium implants during all this? Were they the cause of this goddamn nightmare, or had they already been subsumed by the crude? Were his guts being transformed into some cruel, H.R. Giger techno-organic fucked up bullshit right that second?
Garth tried to calm down, but it just wasn’t happening. His body was under assault by an unstoppable nanotech invader and it was changing him from the inside out.
The faintest of whispers, the softest hints of a breeze momentarily deflected by a passing body reached Garth’s Dark Iron-enhanced senses. All fear fled, replaced by the job at hand. Stillness filled him. In that place where demons lay, Specter clapped his hands with vicious glee.
Garth looked at Barnabas. “Run.”
“Now hold on a second here, apprentice,” Barnabas stepped forward, holding a hand out to literally stop the conversation, “I need to see you in action, gauge how your body is doing what it’s doing and I can’t rightly do that …”
Then the older blacksmith took a very good, very long, very thoughtful look at Garth. Something in the fella’s countenance, something in how he stood … filled King Barnabas Blake the One and Only with … concern. Yes. That was it. Concern. No other feelings. He was lord and master, sole possessor of King’s Will. There was nowt under The Dome as could bring him lasting harm.
If this were Specter on the rise, perhaps this one time, he would graciously allow such rudeness to pass. But only this once. Imminent violence trembled in the air, broadcast volubly from Master Nickels.
He would watch from a distance. Then –if possible- he would use that immaculate Kingly Will of his to spy upon Specter in all his darkest glory. If it were not, if the demon even now champing at the bit behind Nickels’ one good eye proved to be equally sensitive to Will, well, he was thousands of years old, weren’t he? Wouldn’t take much to use wisdom and experience to get close enough to the truth of things for the time being, hey?
Barnabas raised a finger, nodding. “I shall take myself away from the course of this battle, young apprentice, for mine own safety. I will find you after the mayhem. Will you allow me the chance to investigate then?”
Garth nodded. As long as he kept his shit together, as long as he didn’t lose his temper as he fought, chances of Specter rising to the surface remained slim. Leaving anything Barnabas might ‘discover’ of –hopefully- no intrinsic value.
Over his shoulder, two figures entered the clearing, one bending down to check on Quick Wit. Garth searched for Barnabas, a quirked smile on his lips. The white haired blacksmith was already gone, fled deep into the trees behind their tents. It was all well and good to insist on seeing something dangerous with your own two eyes when there was no real threat, but another thing entirely when blood –and lots of it- was about to
be spilled.
Strains of Superbeast by Rob Zombie, who’d never had a chance to make his style of rock and roll on an Earth torn to pieces by the War against the Hesh, filled Garth. He flowed towards the interlopers, buzzblade coming to life by his will alone.
***
“He’ll be back soon enough, Thumper, don’t you worry.” Emmy wiped bloodstained fingers off on poor Quick Wit’s lovely green jerkin. She looked over at her partner for this little endeavor, frowning; the mental giant had latched onto the quickest of them early on, and sadly, so too had Wit. The two were thick as thieves. Had been. She hesitated to share with the lug the depths of Wit’s wounds until after the battle was called to a close.
The fact was, though, that for all his dimwittedness, it was likely poor Thumper knew she were telling a kind lie; it took no effort to see that Quick’s blood was runny and thin with only the slightest hint of Vicious Elixir left.
“Shoulda thought about that.” Thumper muttered, squinting against the harsh firelight. Wit had crawled out to the fire before dying, believing –like many gearheads- that light brought life. Thumper knew it weren’t true, but couldn’t explain how or why. It were just one of them things he knew. He took better grip on his hammer. This was going to go bad. He could feel it.
“What’s that, sweetie?” Emmy rose, pulling loose some of her knives. Someone –had to be Nickels- was coming. Quickly.
“He’s strong.” Thumper said simply, looking again at Quick Wit’s dead body. Didn’t matter that he’d come back, fast and funny as always. What mattered was he was gone now. “When he needs. Shoulda thought about what happens if Quickie failed.”
“You fucking got that right, pal.” Garth stepped into the circle of flickering light properly, displaying his only weapon. Fresh Emmy opened her mouth to laugh at the sight of such a paltry blade.
Returning Emmy’s hilarity with a dead-eyed grin, Garth flicked the buzzing knife violently in her direction.
Emmy twisted and twirled out of the way of the deadly missile, catching the blade in the arm and hissing at the sudden gout of pain blossoming there. Hot Kingsblood poured freely from the brutal gash. Shouting incoherently at Thumper, Emmy started back towards their target, shielding her useless arm until Kingsblood sealed it up nice and tight.
Thumper lashed out with the shaft of his mighty hammer, catching Garth in the right shin, but the man kept coming, so the larger man did what he did best; he jumped backwards with all his might, slamming down with the motorized hammer as he did so.
Garth saw the move very nearly too late and his lapse of attention had cost him all save a single escape route: through the fire.
As the colossal hammer came thundering down with enough force to turn his head into tapioca, he did just that, all too aware that he’d wind up right in front of Fresh Emmy. Halfway through the huge bonfire, arms and legs and face growing uncomfortably hot, Thumper’s hammer struck the earth like some kind of manmade asteroid.
The effect was instantaneous and all-encompassing.
And for those capable of thinking, unsurprising.
The bonfire, a shallow dug hole filled with enough logs to provide heat and light –and to frighten away natural predators while the two blacksmiths slumbered- took all that energy and erupted skywards, filling the night sky with flaming logs, a sea of embers and enough smoke to blind all three.
***
Marc was watching through his glasses, but Jane’s sights were better. As the campfire exploded into the air, he pulled the binoculars away. “What in the hell is going on down there?” The rods and pistons he had for brains were going a mile a minute and making enough racket to drown the fight out.
Jane switched weight from one leg to the other. “He’s holding his own.”
“Don’t sound so impressed, Jane. We’re going to be skinning him alive.” Marc put the glasses back to his eyes, shrewdly calculating the price of what lay inside the blacksmith’s apprentice, adding prize money on for every second he survived.
Failed gearhead.
Such a lie should never have been believed.
***
Thumper bellowed in shocked agony as the hammer was wrenched loose from his titanic grip. He’d never hit the ground with the thumper-plate before. Had never even wondered. Now he knew why. “I think I broke my arms!” he bellowed at Fresh Emmy, who was dancing and whirling with the blacksmith, whose own arms were a jostling sea of gears.
Nothing else to do for the time being, Thumper went over to Wit and nudged his corpse with a toe. He could already feel his arms healing up nicely. Less than five minutes. Then back at it. Poor Wit. Like as not, he weren’t coming back this time.
Thumpy hoped Emmy stayed a live long enough. The smith weren’t only strong as he needed, he were well quick on his feet too, when things got desperate, hey? Them geared tattoos became more and more a prize, didn’t they just.
***
Emmy couldn’t believe this man, this blacksmith, what was his name? Nickels? There was something all the way wrong with him, and –dare she think it even to herself- something all the way right. He moved like an electric snake, either blocking or stepping out of the way of her own whirlwind quick knife-strikes and returning less than a heartbeat later with his own blows, all while ignoring the few gashes she’d delivered with quick, furtive hisses of pain and nowt much else.
And the eyes!
The black one glittered back at her, showing her own face, her own desperation, her own trembling muscles. It were like it were mocking her, trying to drain her reserves, like some kind of … some kind of witchcraft or summat. And that were bad, terrible, terrible bad, but it weren’t the worst.
The other eye, the blue one … cold as that ice down South that never did melt. Colder, even. It watched her like it were some kind of mask, hiding a … a … for real monster, summat as had never seen before in the whole history of their world. There were no emotion in that cold, dead eye. Just an eye with a brain. Watching her every movement, drinking her down. Learning who she were on the inside, seeing her secrets and … and dismissing them. Dismissing her.
Emmy did her best to block a sudden and brutal overhead hammerstrike coming her way, catching the brunt of the double-fisted swing with her uninjured forearm. The crack of the radius was loud as one of Shooty Jane’s gunshots. A bitter gasp of pain escaped her lips, quickly replaced by a short bark and some bloody spittle as Nickels booted her in the gut with enough force to rupture internal organs. Emmy fell backwards onto loose, smoldering logs, yowling like a cat as flesh was seared like steak.
Garth pressed the advantage, a wicked, curved grin on his face. Who did they think they were dealing with? The lithesome blondie with the seriously broken forearm struggled to her feet, one arm dangling loosely.
“That’s gotta hurt.” Garth said into the silence, keeping one eye on the brutish Thumper, who was actually trying to will his buddy back to life. That mook’s arms were shattered all the way from wrist to at least elbow from his incredibly stupid overhead swing.
“I’ve had worse.” Emmy quipped, struggling to move the broken arm behind her back. The pain almost took the top of her head off, but it was worth the extra bit of agony to get the damn thing out of the way while she fought and it healed. Leastways her gouged arm was up to snuff again, so back at it was the name of the game.
“I doubt that. I doubt that very much, little girl.” Somewhere in the middle distance, his lone buzzknife continued droning monotonously, no doubt chewing up some dirt or a tree.
Something in Nickels’ tone, combined with the one eye that were flat as dead water and the other that seemed to be leaking –as impossible as it sounded- dark light from around the seal of the hat’s lenses, frightened Emmy to her core.
She flicked out a handful of knives, turning to run as soon as the last one left her fingertips.
Garth took two of the regular blades in the chest before he knew what hit him, but managed to easily avoid the other five that came whistlin
g at him through the now dimly-lit campsite. He plucked the blades loose from his chest, momentarily catching sight of the Iron tattoos gracing his arms all the way to the knuckles. Were it not for the fact that they were formed out of poisonous nanotech, they’d be fucking awesome.
The clinical part of his mind –still running SpecSer instinct and training- noted that the blades dripped a fraction of the Kingsblood that came from similar injuries suffered by his ‘peers’. So. Where they sprung leaks like balloons, the crud in him was thick as treacle and reluctant to leave a potential breeding ground, clinging to his insides with dire tenacity.
Emmy was running to the edge of camp, either to call for assistance or to give herself breathing room. Another quick check on Thumper showed the man was rolling his shoulders rhythmically. It was as Barnabas said time and time again. Gearheads making their way across the outer ring were loaded with Kingsblood, more than enough to make the perilous journey inwards, transforming them into extremely tough customers, even the useless ones.
Garth flicked the two knives at Thumper before running after Emmy; of the two, she was the more dangerous in that she was actually thinking. Without a looker or a leader driving his actions, Thumper was useless without his hammer, so he won the ‘who dies first?’ lottery.
The knives sank into one of Thumper’s arms to the hilt, prompting the distracted warrior to finally get his head back into the game. He looked forlornly at his hammer, then at the blacksmith’s back; his arms weren’t healed enough to hold the massive weight without causing more strain, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight.
Thumper gave chase, simple, honest face split into a joyous grin.
***
Eddard and Elton were not the best of friends. Didn’t need to be when you fought in a crew; crews fell to pieces and reassembled themselves almost as much as individual gearheads did when fighting a King.
No, all you really needed was honesty. Honesty and trust, and Eddard, who was pale as a sheet and always hungry for more Kingsblood trusted Elton, who was an evil, angry man, to follow him into the jaws of Hell and back. And Elton felt the same about Eddard. Course, when they fell into disagreement over this or that, like all gaggles did, it took Mental Marc –who was by far crueler and hungrier than both men combined- to settle the dispute.
