Chapter 10

Ballardsville

“You’re certain the information he provided is accurate?” Malky asked after reading through the extensive report. His concern was written plainly on his face. The big man didn’t want to act on false information.

Lieutenant Hernandez looked harried, with too much to do and not enough time to do it in, but Mrs Reynolds had asked that he make time for the knight and so he would. “Absolutely, I may find some of the methods the Darkwyrlds supplies distasteful but there can be no doubt about their efficacy. Officer…I ought to say Citizen Johnson’s testimony is legitimate.

“Chief Ballard was on the payroll of the Hellhounds biker gang. He might not have been directly involved in what happened to your friends, but he knew about it and was part of the protection and cover-up. Since the gang’s fall, he has taken over their operations in south Flint. Ballardsville now. Damn it, we should have brought Ballard to heel before this. Not enough resources, evidence…not enough of pretty much everything.”

Deep in thought, Malky nodded his thanks and turned for the door of the office only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t send anyone with you, Malcolm.”

“I know.”

“I wish I could. We should have done something about this earlier. If it hadn’t been for this mess down south…it’s all-hands on deck here, you know?”

Word of the invasion by a large Chicago faction had reached Flint. Torin had hit the invaders hard in the south but a large group of them were still heading towards Grand Rapids. The Shattered Storm’s official armed forces were on high alert. Reinforcements had been called in from all corners and Hernandez was operating with a skeleton crew. Enough to patrol and defend the North Flint borders, but nothing more.

“I understand,” the large, quiet man assured the officer. “I will be careful, and I have a plan. Protect the people here and leave this to me.”

***

Malky waited until dark before he made his move and crossed the bridge over the river closest to the golf course where his mother used to work. The same place he had encouraged Mia and Keith to settle down in. The memories brought a lump to his throat. They always did. Shame and regret. If only he had been stronger, and more assertive, he could have saved Keith from himself.

The two soldiers guarding the gate on the bridge had been informed to expect him by Hernandez and let him pass without incident. The guards pulled open the big metallic gate with a scraped screech. Loud enough that one of the guard’s winced in apology

This entrance no longer saw a lot of traffic. The populated northern part of Flint had been walled in over the last six months, to keep the wandering monsters that had only grown in strength out of the settlement. Numbers had been dwindling here anyway. Once Detroit had fallen under Carter’s sway, many folks had upped sticks and moved. If things kept on as they were, Flint would be a ghost town before the end of the year. It was another reason Hernandez struggled for firepower. Most of the combat-classed citizens had moved on, there were few people he could call upon in a clutch to help.

With a final glance behind him, Malky crossed over. Southern Flint, renamed Ballardsville, had no such defensive measures on their side of the bridge. Not anymore. The wreckage of what had once been a checkpoint slowed his progress momentarily.

Ballard’s men used to have these on all the bridges that were still standing.

A measure to keep the ‘freedom-hating’ Northerners out of their business.

They’d been abandoned over a month ago and fallen into ruin since then. Why the mobs felt the need to destroy the checkpoints was a bit of a mystery. In general, they’d stopped the wanton destruction of infrastructure a while back.

According to the report gleaned from the defector Officer Paul Johnson, Ballard had maintained his position through the use of paid muscle. He had a handful of officers from the Flint police force that remained loyal and a few folks that he knew from before the Darkwyrlds that he’d brought into the fold. But not enough to be effective without the merc groups to back them up.

Ballard had stolen a significant chunk of change from the Hellhounds, but that money had started to dry up. To make it last, Ballard had cut half the mercs loose and downgraded the duties of those who remained. Less risk, less pay. Hence why the checkpoints had been abandoned a month ago.

The sound of a bin being knocked over brought Malky to a halt. He hadn’t been standing out in the open anyway but took a few quiet steps to the side and hugged a damaged wall. Simultaneously, he summoned a broadsword from the inventory.

There was a snuffling sound and then a low growl, or he should say growls, that came from the dark part of an alley not far from him. Malky waited breathlessly for a few moments and then a large canid figure padded out into the street illuminated by the moonlight. A three-headed fox, with a much larger than usual body. It was easily as big as a Great Dane, maybe a bit larger.

The fox beast lifted one of its head into the air and sniffed loudly. Three sets of vulpine eyes centred on his position. He’d been spotted. Or smelt, either way, the beast knew where he was.

The fox beast gave no further warning and bounded across the road, dodging the debris with ease. It leapt, three slavering jaws opening wide.

Malky twisted his body, swung upwards with the broadsword, and scythed through the lower mandible of the rightmost head while simultaneously throwing himself out of the way of the attacking monster. Rolling a full rotation and coming back up on his feet, a kite shield appeared on his left arm moments before the saliva-dripping mouths of the three-headed fox clanged into the metal.

Droplets of saliva were thrown all over the place and hissed when they came into contact with organic material. The pungent scent of an acidic reaction filled Malky’s nostrils. A gobbet of the acid had eaten through the clothing he wore not covered by armour, and then came the sharp sting of the reductive burn.

“You nasty doggie,” he grunted and manoeuvred backwards from the bite’s reach. There was a yellow abandoned taxi at the side of the road that he fell back to and used it to cover one flank.

The fox was having none of it and chased after him with unrelenting fervour.

This had been what Malky had been anticipating and the thumb of his shield-arm pressed down on a glyph etched into the handle while he fended the beast off. A foot-long bolt sprang from the base of the kite shield with the force of a pneumatic drill, aimed at the leading paw of the fox-beast. The bolt punctured the monster’s flesh, going straight through, and lodged several inches deep into the asphalt below.

The big man hopped back and took a moment to assess how effective his stratagem had been.

The three-headed fox yipped with anguish and rage. It thrashed about on the spot and tried to pull its paw free without success. Malky’s aim had been true. The impaling rod was high enough on the paw that the beast couldn’t simply tear it free through the flesh and the top was rivet-shaped which made it difficult to raise the paw off and free it that way. The leftmost head dipped down, seized the bolt, and started to yank with all its might. With its prodigious strength, it wouldn’t take long to pull free.

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Once it was clear that the fox-beast couldn’t pull itself free immediately, Malky didn’t hesitate. Using the hood of an abandoned taxi as a springboard, he leapt over the heads of the fox-beast. The middle head tried to reach skywards and intercept him but was hindered by the left head pulling their shared shoulders in the opposite direction as it grappled with the impaling bolt.

With the snapping jaws cleared, Malky came back down to Earth near the back of the monster, his broadsword pointed down, and he drove the point of the blade deep into the russet fur of the creature just ahead of its quadrupedal hips.

The left fox head succeeded in pulling the shield-bolt free, and the beast tried to move away with a whined yelp. But Malky’s grip on the broadsword was like iron and the three-headed fox only managed to inflict more damage upon itself in the effort to escape. To add insult to injury when the sword did come free, he whipped it around and severed the fox’s bushy tail.

Malky straightened his posture and stared after the beast. Meanwhile, the three-headed fox tried to limp away from the battle. A front paw badly wounded and its back legs in even worse shape. It bled profusely from the rear and the stump of its tail flicked about daubing crimson liquid everywhere.

“I won’t let you suffer.”

Malky raced after the partially immobilised monster and with three well-placed cuts put it down. The soft-blue nimbus of death surrounded the beast and allowed him to loot the kill.

It had been a good fight, enough to get the blood pumping. Although he could have done without the acidic saliva, fortunately the chemical reaction had fizzled out before it became problematic. Up above the abandoned car, which now had a hefty dent in the hood after he launched himself from it, was a road sign.

Fox Street.

Malky couldn’t help but smile at the coincidence. If it was such a thing. The Darkwyrlds could be funny that way.

He collected his winnings from the battle, cleaned the bloodied blade with a rag of cloth and then retrieved the bolt which the fox had helpfully pulled from the asphalt and discarded. After cleaning the ammunition, he reloaded the crossbow mechanism that had been built into the base of the shield.

An ingenious piece of improvisation that his fellow patient in the hospital wing, Sheamus, had come up with. Of course, the alchemic bombardier had wanted it to fire explosive bolts, but Malky preferred to use the regular kind and was happy to conclude his alternative tactic had been quite successful. If he added a tether to the end, it could also be used to haul an unwilling participant into a melee fight.

The big man put such thoughts for the future aside. Tonight, he was here to avenge the fall of his closest friend.

The road curved around and he walked past the school for the deaf and the associated playing fields on the right, not that they were recognisable as such any longer. The baseball pitch and football field had been converted into a training area by Ballard’s mercs when they held greater sway over the area.

Not long after walking, he approached the fenced-in area around the gold course.

A fence that he had mostly erected himself before everything fell apart.

Ballard’s people had taken up residence in the golf house. The place hadn’t been that big, but they’d actually built a large number of other residences and significantly expanded the scale of the onsite facilities since Malky had last been here. Easier to defend and keep an eye on the people you were using to tend the fields.

Malky knew enough about the site's strengths and weaknesses that he could have got inside unseen easily enough. But that still left the small issue of getting out once he’d exacted vengeance. He’d made a promise to Mia not to throw his life away and it was an oath he planned to keep.

To do that he needed to deal with the mercenaries in Ballard’s employment first. He had a plan, and it didn’t include sneaking around.

With a nonchalant swagger, Malky strode up to the main gate of the complex. Unlike the bridge checkpoints, there were two bored-looking men with beards idling behind the gate.

“Ey-up, what’s this?” one of them grunted when he spotted Malky’s approach. He reached to the side, picked up a bow, and nocked an arrow.

Internally, Malky snorted. It took them far too long to spot him. If he’d tried to conceal his approach he’d have been over the gate and inside the complex before they were aware of his presence. Things were even more lax than Johnson’s confession had suggested.

“Whoever you are, fuck off. This is private property,” the other gate guard yelled. There was a hint of a slur in his voice which confirmed he’d been drinking heavily earlier. Yet more evidence of how lackadaisical things had got around here.

Malky held up his hands to show he came in peace. “I’m here to speak with your boss, Zed.”

“Zed is in bed,” the drunk guard huffed with laughter when the unintentional rhyme penetrated his inebriated brain. “Come back in the morning.”

The drunk tried to wave him off and turn away to the hut at the side.

Malky reached into his pocket, retrieved a one-thousand gold chit, and flicked it through the gate with practised ease. The two guards jumped back in fright at the action but then calmed down when they realised it was just a podium chit.

The bowman inched forward first, his eyes never leaving Malky, and picked the rectangular piece of crystal from the ground. “Fuck me! It’s a hundred gold piece chit.”

“What?” The drunk exclaimed. “Give it here, give it now.”

The bowman wrapped his fingers around the chit and backed up a step staring suspiciously as Drunk. “I’m the one who had the balls to pick it up. It’s mine.”

“I’m the one in charge. It should go to me.”

“Bollocks are you in charge. You don’t have seniority over me.”

“My name was written first on the duty roster, that gives me authority. Now give it.”

Malky sighed in frustration, reached into his pocket pulled out a second chit and threw it with a bit more zip than necessary at the drunken gate guard. It bounced off his belly and fell to the ground. After overcoming the initial surprise, he knelt to the ground, scrabbled around and snatched up the chit, almost falling face first due to the inebriation.

“Happy?” Malky snapped with impatience. The guards glared at him. “Now, go get Zed. There is another chit of the same value in it for you, for both of you,” he clarified when they gave each other the stink-eye.

“I’ll go, you watch him,” the drunk declared and staggered off.

“Only because you can barely see straight, ya drunken sot,” the bowman muttered under his breath and renewed his watch on Malky after pocketing the chit.

Torin had been generous with the Shattered Storm’s kitty before Malky left. Well, Mia had been generous, but she would have got the money from Torin in the first place, and he would have known that she planned to give it to Malky, so it worked out as coming directly from him really.

Malky didn’t care about money, he never had. It should be more than enough to achieve his ends tonight.

It took ten minutes before the drunk guard returned with a man who looked far more professional. Zed Norris had been the leader of a group of adventurers who came to Flint in the early days. Ironically, answering a call that Carter put out. But he got greedy, accepted a bounty quest on Carter, and had been left behind as a result. That’s how he ended up in the employ of Ballard instead.

Convenience not loyalty.

Ballard also had a big problem, one that concerned Zed greatly. Johnson had mentioned it in his report.

Carter’s dominance of Michigan had seriously squeezed the market for the product Ballard’s people were growing. With the Hellhound's demise, Ballard didn’t have access to their distribution network and had been trying to build his own with mixed results.

According to Johnson, Ballard was broke, and he’d been stringing the mercs along on half pay for the last few weeks with promises of doubling the shortfall once the current crop was sold. If the likes of Zed hadn’t been blacklisted by Carter with nowhere else to go, they would have abandoned him already.

They were ripe to turn their backs and just needed a little nudge to get them moving.

Zed came to a halt in front of the gates, he had the drunk’s chit in his hands. The soused guard didn’t look happy about that and glared at the bow wielder with contempt born out of jealousy. “Okay, stranger, you’ve earned two minutes of my attention. You better be quick.”

“Fifty gold a minute. With those kinds of rates, I’ll be brief,” Malky replied with a smile. The delivery was a bit stilted, but jokes were something new he’d been working on and he hadn’t quite got the knack of it yet. “I’ve come here with a job offer for you and your people. An escort quest of sorts.”

Zed’s eyebrow shot up. “That is not what I expected to hear.”

“I need you to deliver a package to an address in Fenton to the south of Flint. There is a catch, it must be done tonight.”

“Travelling at night is a risky endeavour. Particularly at short notice, with little planning. Pricey. And I already have a steady employment that requires me to be here.”

Malky smirked at the blatant lie. “There is twenty thousand gold waiting for you in Fenton on completion, plus five hundred for each of your people who makes the trip with you. Although you don’t need to tell them it's that much, if you know what I mean. I’m sure they would be ecstatic to earn a hundred gold for one night’s work for example.”

Zed licked his lips in contemplation. His mind whirring. Malky could tell the man was smart enough to understand what he was really being paid for.

“This sounds suspect as fuck,” the bowman muttered. “Nobody pays that much for a delivery.”

“Shut up, Vince,” Zed snapped and raised his hand as if to cuff the surly guard.

“Ballard is never going to pay what he owes you,” Malky added. “If you don’t want the job, I can be patient. Let things play out as they will. Come back later.”

“What’s he on about?” it was the drunk who complained this time.

This time when Zed raised his hand, he did cuff the speaker. “Enough. The pair of you, go rouse the company, quietly. We’re going on a trip. Tell ‘em to pack for the duration. It’s time for pastures new. Something tells me that Ballardsville is played out. And keep your traps shut about this conversation if you want your cut.”

Greed glistened behind their eyes and the pair nodded eagerly and hurried off to carry out their orders.