by Lee Bond
Barnabas could find no other moment in his eternal life where the conflict raged so thoroughly within him. Leaving Nickels meant returning to The Dome and an early start to the next phase of the operation and also rooting Erg loose and learning all that invisible wisp knew about this outsider.
Doing so would demand some –if not all- of his time, though, and quite frankly, with that wicked gleam in Garth’s eye, Barnabas found himself thinking that as much as he loathed the idea of spending any more time with the man or giving him what he wanted, it was necessary.
“Twenty-five percent.” Barnabas decreed with absolute finality. A high price, certainly. Too high, in fact. Demanding such a price would surely outrage Nickels to the point where he changed his mind; losing a full quarter of the prize won from such a valiant conquest would be unpalatable in the extreme to a man with such incorrigible pride as Garth Nickels.
“A full quarter? Twenty-five gallons.” Garth stuck a finger as best he could in his ear and wiggled it around. “You sure you didn’t mean ten? There’s no fucking way I actually heard twenty-five. That’s crazy talk.”
“There’s things in here that aren’t often seen, my young apprentice.” Barnabas thumped the tub once more and the slurry blorped. The blacksmith closed his eyes at the truly wretched stink of offal that rose upwards. “Some of which would fetch cherry prices in Ickford. I could overcharge a hungry artificer and they’d accept wi’out blinking. Then they’d bend over and let me have at ‘em.”
“Ew. Just … ew.” Garth waved the stench away. “Twenty.”
“Hain’t a haggling situation, Garth. When all is said and done with the weight in this tub, if I were to sell to the tinkerers and artificers in Ickford, asking you for twenty-five is a loss for me.” Barnabas shrugged his shoulders. “Only reason I’m going low is on account of my curiosity. I wonder to myself ‘he built them arms out of a coat and constructed a method of absorbing a hammer into them same arms, what is it he plans on building now?’ For that, sonny Jim, I am willing to lose a bit.”
Always good to toss a little truth into the mix. Added flavor to the lie.
Garth was willing to wager his entire Dark Iron nest egg that Barnabas was lying through his teeth, but then again, that intuition could just as easily be laid at the Iron flowing through him. He stuck out a hand. “Twenty-five it is.”
Barnabas clasped Garth’s hand, though his head was fairly reeling. There was no getting a grasp on Nickels! Twenty-five gallons of Dark Iron for a pile of gears and all sight unseen. “Agreed.”
Garth didn’t let go. He squeezed a bit tighter. “I get free use of all your equipment and you don’t charge me for the Iron it takes some of that shit to run.”
Barnabas returned the tight grip. “Agreed.” When Garth smiled, he added, thumping the melter with a broad hand, “But you dig the sump for this bitch and you dump the gearhead stew.”
Garth nodded in agreement. The bargain had headed in precisely the direction he’d planned; while the melter reeked like the decaying asshole of a dinosaur, it was nothing in comparison to a Bruush prison, or their fleshy organic ‘conversion chambers’.
Besides, agreeing take care of the melter got rid of Barnabas for at least a few hours. Owing to the preposterous stench oozing out of the melter, the blacksmith had parked his caravan more than a mile away from the intended goop-disposal site.
Getting the nosy sonofabitch to voluntarily absent himself from camp was something Garth had been working on since the fucker had insisted he stop working on the broken Kingspawn circuit board, and ‘losing’ at the bargaining table was getting them both what they wanted. Parking the gearhead goop-train so far away from camp couldn’t have come at a better time.
Barnabas looked over his shoulder as he started heading back towards camp. “Be sure not to dig your hole too close to the Wall, apprentice. Some say that what bites travels through liquid. Also, be certain to dig deep. If them Gearmen as tagged you are still on the hunt, it’s a certitude by now they came across our old camp where you did for Marc and all. They ain’t stupid, they’ll know you’re traveling with me and so they’ll be on the lookout for my particular brand of dealing with dead gearheads.”
“Sure sure, fine fine, bugger off you old fuck.” Garth scratched at his jaw as he sought a good place to dig, debating internally whether he should follow the blacksmith’s suggestion or not; the deeper the hole, the longer it took, the less time he could spend monkeying around with the antique circuit board he had tucked under his shirt.
Decisions, decisions.
***
Coralline Criss couldn’t get the look that the man … what was his name … Garth, had given them all as he’d entered the blacksmith’s camp. It’d been a heartbeat in length, but Criss was a shooter. Her life was divided into heartbeats, and in that split second, she’d seen a rage that’d taken her breath away. That smoldering anger was why she’d run behind the tent, and why Ronald had come along; he hadn’t seen the look, but he’d felt her response, and had done the proper and gentlemanly thing.
The shooter was convinced that if … Garth, if Garth hadn’t been so tired, if he hadn’t just killed a King on his own with nary a drop of Kingsblood in him or lugged a King’s Ransom of Dark Iron by his lonesome … Coralline Criss was willing to bet her guns that they owed their lives to a chain of implausible events. And a man’s hunger for freshly cooked meat instead of murder.
That rage had been the equal of any gearhead with Kingsblood long seeped into their bones.
Troubling, that look. Her and Ron were walking a bit slower than the rest, eyeballing the way they’d come just in case the man with the blue eye and the golden arms decided it were better to do them in than count on their honor holding true. It’d been a day or so without any appearances, but there was still time yet.
More worrisomely, there were reasons for fearing sudden, swift comeuppance.
Criss raised her voice to be heard over the gleeful argument going on between Molly, Pat, Smitty and –of course- their illustrious and boneheaded leader, Deezy Cue. “You shouldn’t even be talking about the idea of what it is you nuts are rambling on about. Tell ‘em, Ronnie.” Criss whapped Ron on the shoulder and he sort of added in his own warnings before falling into trouble silence.
“Nothin’ to worry about, lass.” Deezy guffawed at the look on his shooter’s face. “They’re headed for Ickford, we are headed towards a Geared Door Estate. ‘Twixt us and them there’s two other Estates and that little market … what’s it called again, hey? Obese Patterson?”
“Gabled Corners. Went there once fifteen years back.” Pat rubbed his mouth thoughtfully. “They bring in peaches from somewhere. Or they used to.”
Deezy Cue threw his hands winds. “There. You see? Nowt to worry about, love. You just keep Scaredy-Cat Ronald in line and we’ll be well safe. No tears from you, hey?” Then the leader went back to a boisterous discussion on how much Dark Iron they were going to get for their story, and how often he figured they’d be able to tell it at any one place before having to move on.
Ronald clenched his fists. “I got more Iron in me than him, I can smell it. He smells like earth and dirt and people. Almost no crudey-crude left there at all.”
Criss wrapped an arm around Ron’s shoulder. “You do, you do, but he’s our looker and leader and you’re a thumper and a crusher. You get in there and you go toe to toe with a King. A leader never does, love. Stands at the back shoutin’ orders.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek. “And besides, only a fool or a madman would be unafraid of a bloke like Garth. Took that King down his own self, remember? Man like that … man like that could do for a whole crew, similar to the other guy … the one them Gearmen are looking for. What’d they call him? Oh, the name’s right on the tip of me tongue, innit…”
“I believe, lassie, the word you’re looking for in that disheveled brain of yours is ‘Specter’.” Barnabas said from the side of the road, devilishly enjoying the handfu
l of shrieks he got from those inclined to shriek. His favorite, though, was the expression of queasy guilt and shame on poor old Deezy Cue. That lad looked fit to burst into tears.
Obese Patterson bowed as well as he could with a gut the size of a mountain. “Master Smith.”
Deezy wanted to smack himself on the side of the head. He bowed lower than Pat, wringing his hands. “Smith.” Bent over, he gestured frantically for everyone else to follow suit.
When the last of his crew had performed the kindness, the leader straightened and eyed the smith broodingly. The man was old, but used to walking everywhere he went. Safe to say he’d walked longer and further than some Kingkilling crews would in their entire, ‘long’ lives. Why, some crews barely went fifty miles from a favorite Kingspawn.
It were possible the blacksmith had run all this way, but even then, even with a lifetime of lugging heavy smithy equipment around, even with all that walking, the man ought to be out of breath.
Then there was the smile. And the reason for this old, white-haired man with the seamed face and the scarred hands to come out this way. Deezy couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard tell of a smith leaving his camp behind. Now the looker thought on it further, quietly evading that ‘smile’, why, Deezy couldn’t recollect the last time he’d heard of a wandering smith taking on an apprentice.
“Why’re you here, then?” Deezy asked when his brain refused to come up with answers on its own. It was the smile on the old man. It was at complete and utter odds on a wrinkly, age-riddled mug. It were the sort of smile you saw on a Bolt Neck. All hunger and certainty you were the baddest thing in the room, which didn’t make no sense when it was comin’ from the man before ‘em.
“Wanted to apologize, I reckon.” Barnabas said, still smiling that smile of his. “My apprentice was rude to you all, and all after you’d brought that delicious deer to my camp. We shall be eating well because of that.”
“Too right you will be, blacksmith.” Riddled Smitty’d kept his gob shut on that front, but now their visitor had brought it up, the topic was fair game. This whole time he’d wanted to go back to the camp to grab some of that meat. They hadn’t eaten so well in weeks and what? They’re just supposed to abandon the biggest non-King-related kill they’d had in months and all because a bloke told ‘em to? How did that make a lick of sense? “You gave us the boot well quick when your apprentice showed up.”
Barnabas stepped forward, hand raised to soothe the angst-ridden Smitty. “For your safety, I assure you, Riddled Smitty, for your safety. My apprentice …”
“Garth.” Coralline Criss interrupted, desperately wondering why she’d open her mouth the moment the name had fallen from her lips.
Barnabas gave a quick stage bow. “Many thanks, Coralline. Yes, my apprentice, Garth … he is … unwell.” He tapped the side of his head with two thick fingers. “Here, in the head.”
Large Ronald squinted his eyes. “You come all this way to apologize for the bum’s rush and to tell us your squire is off ‘is nut?” The huge crusher looked to Deezy, who –if the thoughtful scowl on his face was indication- weren’t buying the story neither. Good. Something wasn’t sitting right, and Ronald couldn’t help but feel you didn’t need Kingsblood in your veins to be a good looker. Or leader.
Just a proper brain in your old noggin, that were all.
“Now, that’s summat I never thought of till just now.” Deezy unlimbered his weapons, as did the rest of his crew. “Never heard of a smith being apologetic. Not really. In fact, most stories we hear about you, Barnabas, is that you’re a right dreadful asshole who overcharges for sometimes quite shoddy workmanship. Now, before we get all sorts of twitchy and have a bad moment, I should like for you to answer a few questions real proper and honest-like.”
Barnabas smiled wide, his hands mimicking the gesture. “By all means, Deezy Cue, fire away.”
Coralline and Moxy –who’d stayed utterly silent because the blacksmith scared her so bad her toes curled- laughed at that. Deezy snapped his fingers and the stupid girls fell silent.
“Is your man in the bush somewhere waiting to get the drop on us?” Deezy cocked his head to one side, trying to read the man’s body language. It weren’t something he was too good at, which maybe went a ways to explaining why they were always being attacked by other gaggles.
“Nickels?” Barnabas snorted. “He’s at the curve in the Wall closest to us. Thinks he can find a way over. Either he’s doing that or he’s trying to figure out how to jumpstart a Kingspawn control board into spontaneous repair.”
“Anyone can do it, reckon that it’s that one.” Moxy tugged an ear. “No two ways.”
Obese Patterson remembered the sight of the man with the golden arms flying through the air and nodded somberly. “He already flew before. We seen it, didn’t …”
“Oy!” Deezy Cue snapped his fingers once more, drawing his gaggle of goofs back into the line with an imperious gaze. “Don’t matter if ‘e can fly to the top o’ The Dome or walk through bleedin’ walls, now does it? ‘e’s messin’ with the Wall, reckon our smith here will be out an apprentice in a shake of Shaggy Man’s stunted tail, hey? Now. Smith. Why is you really here? Hain’t to apologize nor to smooth our ruffled petticoats.”
Barnabas pointed at Coralline Criss, who was tapping the middle of her forehead with three fingers, muttering to herself. “I suppose it’s a bit of a test, really. You see, Deezy, I was well content to let you sorry lot wander about the rest of your natural born, Dark Iron-depleted days, but only if you did as I commanded.” He shot the looker a stare when the man went to interrupt, then continued on. “As I am led to believe, you all started discussing a proper way to tell the story of the Golden-Armed Hero and … Kingzilla? Good Lord, what a dreadf… anyway. You started working on a proper story from the moment you got far enough away from camp.”
“So?” Deezy stared at Coralline for a moment. Hell, everyone was staring at their lead shooter like she’d gone off her nut. The leader turned back to the blacksmith, a frank expression on his face. “Look, smith, we never had any intention of mentioning you or the fact that Garth is an apprentice. We was gonna keep it strictly about the King killing. Criss, what is your prob…”
“Specter!” Criss shouted, face flushing in triumph. She knew she’d heard it somewhere. It’d just been a matter of running through all the different ways the story of Specter In the Pub had been told. She looked lamely at her companions. “Barnie’s mate is Specter. The name, don’t you see? In a few of the stories, ‘e was introduced to the bartender as Nickels.”
Barnabas smiled from ear to ear. “Smart girl. Clever girl.”
“Not bloody likely.” Smitty scoffed. “The ‘man’ as did for everyone in Kingspawn were a demon made by the King to eat gearheads. Everyone’s sayin’ so. All you gotta do is look at the facts. Didn’t kill no normals, now did he?”
“No.” Criss said slowly, thoughtfully, missing the glitter in the blacksmith’s eyes and the curl to his lips. “No, no, but … in those stories, they talk about one blue eye and one black eye and …”
Barnabas hung his head in mock-sorrow. “And there it is, Deezy? You see? This is why I come out here, ‘struth. Your girl Coralline Criss loves the stories, she does, and is a first rate thinker when it comes to piecing together puzzles. Comes from being a shooter. For a shooter to survive at the game long enough to earn a fair share of Dark Iron, she’s got to have her head on straight, to be able to think around corners, to watch for the patterns in a King’s movement, back and forth, up and down, watching and waiting, right, for the moment when something shoot-worthy appears in the scope. I reckon a lot of the time, a great shooter is smarter than the smartest leader and looker, ain’t that right, young Miss Criss?”
Coralline Criss nodded sadly. “It is.”
Barnabas looked to the others, cast a dismissive glance to the weapons. “Those will have little effect.” He sucked lazily at a back tooth before continuing. “Before I appeared, the lo
vely Criss was talking and thinking about what she’d seen and about what she’d heard. Eventually, Deezy Cue, she would’ve made the connection on her own.”
Obese Patterson couldn’t contain himself anymore. He lurched forward, sword held high. There was something well off about their blacksmith. They all knew it. They were all acting oddly; they were just letting the man talk and talk and talk and even though they all had their weapons drawn, they weren’t doing nothing about it. Pat knew he had no Iron in him anymore, but neither did the honey-tongued smith, so he was going to chop the old bastard’s head clean off, then they could continue traveling.
Barnabas caught Obese Patterson around the neck with a cruel iron grip. He squeezed hard enough to crush the neck from larynx to trachea. Holding the blubbering, squeaking mass of flesh at bay, Barnabas Blake the One and Only King ignored the flailing sword as it bounced a few times off his head. “And that, sadly, is something I cannot allow to happen. Loathe the man I do, want him dead I surely do, no one can know of him until it is too late. You lot wandering around Arcade City like bards, praising the Golden-Armed Hero … there is only one man under The Dome deserving of worship.”
Deezy and gang screamed in horrified unison as Obese Patterson broke apart at the seams, brilliant light searing their eyes, tiny bits of … charcoal … falling red hot to the ground with a skin-curdling ‘plopplopplop’.
They ran.
They tried to run.
King Barnabas Blake showed them what a true hero looked like.
***
“I’d give my right nut to find out how other blacksmiths do this, because there’s got to be a fucking better way than this. This,” Garth said to a tree that looked up for some conversation, “this is fucking bullshit.”
Barnabas had suggested a pit to deal with the offal, but because Barnabas was a dick and a liar and probably one hundred percent disinterested in finding a way to get rid of the Dark Iron currently coursing through one Garth Nickels’ tattoo-riddled body, his ideas could suck a dick.
