by O. J. Lowe
Hobb’s mouth twitched in the corner, he started to pace as he rubbed his chest. That blow hadn’t been bad, not one of his best but it had to have caught him something painful. In Nick’s experience, getting hit in the lungs wasn’t a pleasant experience. Maybe he just didn’t like being ignored either.
“Something bothering you, old man?” Nick asked. “Not used to being hit? Used to sitting out the action from as far away as you can get?”
That twitch grew, he saw the fists clench together. He’d heard snipers claim that they hated that before. The dig that just because they engaged their enemies from a distance, they were more cowardly than those who went on the front line, the universal dislike of a thousand armies over.
“Want me to go stand over there and turn my back so you can feel really safe when you take your shot at me?”
That got the reaction he’d hoped for, any sort of control Hobb had been exercising over himself failed in that instant and he let out a roar, sprang at Nick. He’d seen them clench, hadn’t quite realised how big those fists were until they came clubbing at him. He got his arms up to block, winced as fresh pain shot through his cuts. A gasp slipped his throat, he had to weave back as another meaty fist came swinging towards his unguarded stomach, watched it sail through the empty air. His arms were wet again, fresh blood dribbling down them and into his shirt.
A third punch came he went to slip aside, grab the wrist and add to the momentum and send Hobb off-balance. Any other opponent, it might have worked. Against someone with similar training to him, he had to watch as Hobb followed through on the blow, used his momentum to spin and catch him across the side of the head with an elbow. Stars exploded across his vision, fireworks screaming through his mind as he staggered back. The memories of his own name were forced from him, instinct took over as he ducked under another blow thrown towards his face, charged forward and hit Hobb with a tackle. It was like hitting a frozen side of beef, but he went staggering under the effort, might even have righted himself until Nick pushed on. He dug his feet into the floor and pushed hard, as much force behind it as he could and felt the assassin topple like a tree under the effort. He went with him, stuck out his elbows on landing to dig in.
The crash was tremendous, Nick didn’t hesitate, threw a punch into the unguarded face, another and another, six blows in quick succession. He felt bones break, felt his knuckles split open under the punishment he was inflicting on them, wasn’t sure if the blood was his or Hobb’s. The assassin struggled underneath him, tried to throw him off, might have succeeded if Nick hadn’t rolled free before he could get any sort of purchase.
Hobb hadn’t been the best-looking man before the start of play, with his face covered in blood and his nose shattered, he looked almost ghoulish in the lights of the carnival outside. Nick’s head screamed for attention, he felt sick from the blow Hobb had caught him with, dizzy, light-headed but he tried to ignore it. If he let it overcome him, likely it would be the last thing that he ever felt. Hobb was deadly, he hadn’t gone to seed despite his age. If anything, Nick thought he might have had the worse of the exchanges so far. He drew a deep breath, tried to ignore the pounding in his head, tried to focus on the big assassin. His vision was starting to swim, three of them were currently pacing. Three ghouls.
“Come on,” he said thickly. His head felt like it had been filled with wool. “That all you got, huh?”
“They trained you all better in my day,” Hobb said. No emotion in his voice, just simple matter-of-fact. “A few punches and you sound ready to hit the floor. Come on, you can do better than this.”
If it was meant to get under his skin, it wasn’t working. Nick had heard it all before. Encouragement disguised as derision. Or was it the other way around. He didn’t know anymore.
They’d been feeling each other out so far. Hobb couldn’t have worked him out. He’d gotten one blow in, Nick noted, a shot born out of skill rather than luck. He’d seen what was coming and countered it. Given his past as a combat instructor, he’d probably seen it hundreds of times before.
Then, perhaps it was time to try a different tack. If they can see what page you’re coming from, you change the book when they least expect it. He threw caution to the wind, went charging in, crashed one punch into Hobb’s ribs, felt him grunt, ducked to the left out the way of a huge right-hook thrown where his face had been a second earlier. He hadn’t over-extended himself on the punch, no chance of snapping his elbow. Too many did that, he mused, hit his opponent in the back. Another elbow came towards him, Nick dropped into a crouch and then into a prone position as a boot sailed at his head. With Hobb bearing all his weight on one leg, he kicked out at the standing leg, remembering his thoughts earlier. Shoe met knee with a satisfying thud, he heard the assassin bellow angrily. Had he heard something snap? He doubted he’d be that lucky, he thought, as he rolled back into a crouching position.
Hobb was still favouring his leg, still standing though not up straight. That was good. Nick rushed forward again, taking advantage of his element of surprise. He jumped, arms outstretched and saw Hobb recoil, not quite sure what was happening.
He hadn’t learned this move with Unisco. Counter this, you bastard.
Outstretched arms caught him about the throat, he used his momentum to hook his arm and grab him by the chin, spun and threw all his weight into the swing. Nick wasn’t the lightest, he worked out when he could and years of travelling all over the five kingdoms on missions for Unisco had left his body heavy with muscle. No matter how strong you might be, having that sort of weight swinging about your throat was a hells of an impediment, especially with a potentially busted knee.
A crack broke out, he winced at the sound and Hobb went down again, this time with Nick adding to his downward momentum. He made sure that huge skull hit the ground hard. This time he knew he’d heard something breaking, hoped it was his skull and didn’t hesitate before lifting it up and smashing it back again into the wooden floor. He felt the bristles of hair beneath his fingers as he went for it a third time. Incredibly, Hobb was still trying to resist, his efforts were weakening by the second. His arms were flailing, his legs kicking all over the place and Nick let go of the head. For a fourth time, Hobb’s head hit the floorboards and moans were starting to break from his mouth. The eyes were wild, frenzied even, he wanted so badly to respond to what had been inflicted on him, but his body was failing him. He was jerking, his body convulsing into spasms.
It wasn’t the most dignified way to win a fight, that was for sure. That said, the key words there were ‘win’ and ‘fight’. Nick didn’t care. He looked at Hobb. His breath came out in ragged gasps and broken swallows, every gulp for air looked a struggle.
That move had been taught to him by a fighter out in Burykia, a man he’d barely known who’d appeared out of the night and whom he’d never seen again. It wasn’t Unisco training. Maybe it should be, there was little denying how effective it had turned out to be. Hobb hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t known what was coming, hadn’t known how to counter it. In that respect, Nick knew he’d gotten away with it.
Dying like this had to be agony. He couldn’t bring himself to care whether the assassin suffered or not. Every part of his body ached, even parts of him he didn’t know were capable of it. Hobb had known what he’d signed up for when he joined Unisco. He had to have known there was a risk it would end like this when he’d gone rogue. He’d been on the run long enough to know that time was running out. A painful death was a reasonable outcome to expect. It couldn’t have ended too many ways, if it hadn’t been him, it’d have been someone else who eventually took him down.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not quite able to help himself. It was more for his own benefit than Hobb’s. An assuage to his soul that he hadn’t been able to do better. “I’m sorry it had to end like this.”
Hobb coughed and choked, gave one final convulsion and was still. Nick stood up, gingerly touched the sore area on the side of his head. He’d have a pretty of
a bruise there for a while, he could feel a lump already forming. The human skull was one of the hardest bones in the body for a reason, it protected the brain from impact injuries.
He’d wanted to survive the fight, even if it was at Hobb’s expense. It didn’t mean he could enjoy the guilt for a little longer. He’d only been here because of Carling’s incompetence, unwilling or otherwise. If he hadn’t seen the woophawk…
Woophawk!
He went for his summoner and span, the same moment the window smashed in and the frenzied bird came for him, shrieks of righteous anger breaking from its beak. Those talons wanted his face, they looked steel-sharp and ready to cut. The final confirmation that Hobb was no longer with them.
The fortune teller opened her eyes. Her veil had fallen away during her fit and Sharon could see her smile, saw her look about her surroundings in confusion. “Why am I on the floor?”
“You… You don’t remember?”
“My dear,” Lady Ancuta said, rising to her feet in a flurry of skirts. “I remember a great many things. I…” The colour slipped from her face. “Oh my.” Sharon had seen that look before. It was the expression of one who’d forgotten and to whom the memories were returning. Memories that were painful. Memories better forgotten. “My, oh my.”
“You saw it all, didn’t you,” Sharon said. Not a question, more a statement. She knew full well what had happened. “You swam in the rivers of the Kjarn, saw everything at once.”
No response for a moment. The colour hadn’t returned to the fortune teller’s face. “It’s never been like that before. Never. I always just got glimpses before. Fractions of the future. That… That was horrific.”
“You felt like you were losing yourself, didn’t you?”
Slowly she nodded. “I couldn’t remember who I was. Couldn’t find my way back to my body. Your present has solidified. For a moment, it was in flux. Numerous possibilities. I saw you alone and I saw you with a man who loves you. I saw you happy, I saw you sad. I saw you angry with murderous rage, and I saw you being ecstatic with happiness. So many paths and I couldn’t see the true one for the lies. It felt like I was trapped between what was and what could be.”
Sharon blinked. Wondered what her boyfriend was doing to have caused such an impact on the Kjarn right now. It was the only explanation as to what had happened. Nick wasn’t sensitive to it, she’d have noticed it before now. He remained ignorant to the energy of life that flowed through them all, connected everyone and everything. When you were ignorant of something, it was easy to not realise the effect your actions had if you continued down the path you walked.
“I can still tell you your future,” the fortune teller said, her voice weak. She sounded like she needed whiskey and about a week of sleep to Sharon, not to carry on working. “If you like.”
It didn’t take much thought for her to shake her head. “No,” she said. “No. After seeing that, I think I’m happier not knowing what the future has for me.”
“I would be in your shoes as well,” Lady Ancuta said. Her voice betrayed no emotion, but her face dripped with sorrow. Sharon saw it, chose not to comment. She couldn’t believe she was still being sold a future after what she’d seen moments earlier.
“Keep the credits,” she said. “Thank you for your time.”
As she left the tent, the fortune teller waited until she’d gone before the tears started to dribble down her cheeks. She had to speak the words. It was the way of the art, even if she wasn’t here to hear them. “Your future. The light will return to the kingdoms, the one you thought lost. Though you will not be a part of it, you will be the spark that lights the flames of reaction. You will always be remembered, even when your name has been forgotten to the sands of history. You will hurt so many, yet the love felt for you will never fade.”
Alone, she turned to the cabinet towards the back of the tent. Her nerves were still ringing, and the brandy was calling out to her, a reprieve to her shaken soul.
Nick had retrieved Hobb’s rifle, gone to disassemble it. No point leaving it around for the time being. Anyone could find it, take it and any damage caused with it was on him. He’d taken the summoner as well from the assassin’s body. Maybe there was something that Carling could use to find the traitor who’d been helping Hobb cause so much chaos in the kingdoms. Better to have it now than for it to be lost in evidence later. The woophawk hadn’t caused much trouble, Carcer had eaten it in three large gulps. The day they couldn’t deal with a woophawk was the day they went into the ground.
He’d separated the barrel from the body of the rifle, tucked it away into the special compartment at the rear of the stock. He’d gone for the magazine pack of the weapon next, removed it and hadn’t been able to keep from reacting in surprise. He was pretty sure weaponised projectiles weren’t supposed to look like that. The cartridges had been damaged, misshapen beyond use, the shells removed from them. Useless hunks of metal left worth maybe their value in scrap.
Hobb couldn’t have killed anyone even if he’d wanted to. That realisation hit him hard, he dropped the pack and looked out the window. Perfect line of sight to the carnival, especially the VIP area and the stage. If that was the case, what had been the endgame here? He plucked the scope free of the rifle, broke it from the body and held it to his eye. The lens had been polished to perfection. The smoke had cleared from his grenade, all the rich and the powerful who’d been scattered asunder were stood around waiting to be let back into their own private area. Some of them were chatting to the masses around them, nothing drew a crowd like chaos. The spirit dancers had melted away with the smoke, they weren’t going to stick around at the zero point for what had gone on. If they stood on that stage, they were exposed. The VIP area was at least partly shielded by some canopy, it wouldn’t stop a shot from any sort of weapon, but it would make discerning a target quite a challenge for anyone less than a talented shooter. All reports indicated Hobb had been that. Say what you like about a woophawk, it might be good for gauging the direction and strength of wind, but it wouldn’t do much good for telling you exactly where a target was. Then of course, you had to bring the tampered rifle into the equation. All of which brought about a question he couldn’t even start to answer.
All he knew was something about this entire situation didn’t add up. It looked worse and worse by the second. Maybe the target had been due to get up on the stage? He only knew Hobb had known for sure. Too late to ask him.
He saw the explosion before he heard it, felt the shock wave even from where he stood, it rippled around the carnival below him. It had to be mere seconds, but it felt like longer to him. He didn’t know what it must have felt like to those closer to the blast, the final reverberations fading away to the accompaniment of screams and wails.
The stage had taken the brunt of the blast, half of it torn away. He’d heard it was some sort of heavily treated wood, supposed to be hard enough to withstand powerful blows. They’d made a spirit dancing arena out of it after all. Emberwood or something, he thought. Not that it mattered. The blast had shattered the stage absolutely, the VIP area demolished under the combined force of the blast and the thousands of lethally sharp wooden fragments spat out into it. Many of them had hit chairs, driven straight through them with minimum effort. Chairs empty only through the grace of his previous actions.
Chapter Six.
“I know turning credits into explosives isn’t cheap. But damnit, I enjoyed doing it, I think they were a sound idea. They tested positively with a lot of our agents, you have to agree with that. That’s why I do this job, Leon. I do it so that they can go out into the field with the best gear that our credits can pay for. I certainly don’t do it to cut corners or for the embarrassing wages or dealing with people like yourself.”
Alvin Noorland to Leon Barker, building manager for the main Unisco office in Blasington, Premesoir.
He’d left the warehouse, Shady Miles Courier Company he’d seen it was called on some old advertising they’d left behind
, only to run into a pair of men in the alley outside. He didn’t recognise either of them, but they had to be Unisco. He’d arrived at the conclusion that it was easy to recognise them when you knew what to look for. Especially those fresh out of the academy. They had a way of standing, looking proud like they owned the whole damn kingdom. They’d hooked their thumbs into their belts like old-time gunslingers and he could see the X7’s there, hidden in a not-so-subtle way. Like he’d thought, easy to recognise.
Hands shifted as he approached, not going for the blasters but not moving away either. One of them held up a hand.
“Halt right there,” he said. His voice dripped superiority and Nick came to a halt barely inches from him. He considered keeping going, barging past them. It wouldn’t be the smart thing to do, especially if he wound up getting shot in the back. “You’re trespassing on private property. This area is off-limits under Unisco directive…”
“Sixteen-A, seven-bravo,” Nick said. He knew that, he’d known them when this little punk was having his mother send him off to school. Get the hells out of my way or I’ll put you on your ass, he wanted to say. “If Unisco deems a building off-limits for the duration of an operation, compliance is demanded at the risk of temporary incarceration and possible further penalties. I’ve heard it before, stand aside.”
“Nuh-uh,” one of the agents said. He was blond and had a scruffy moustache that would have been fine if he looked capable of producing enough testosterone to help fill it in. “What the hells were you doing in there?”
“Your damn job apparently,” Nick said. “You hear that explosion?” He jabbed a finger towards the mouth of the alley. “What the hells are you doing here?”
“Our boss said to stay here no matter what,” the other agent said. The light from the streets reflected off the shiny surface of his forehead, his hairline had long since retreated up and away. “Guard this door with our lives. Nobody gets past us. In or out.”