Chapter 8: Murdered

Tybalt kept his eyes upon Erik. He did not blink. He wanted to make sure that the leader of this motorcycle gang was not luring him into a trap.

The leader broke eye contact from Tybalt and scanned over the horizon. He had not be phased by the lack of a response. He turned back.

“Well?”

“I’ll do it,” Tybalt said. This would be his way into Carrion Hill. He would do whatever was necessary to get into that city. Once he was in, he could find out what he needed to get is revenge against Mercury Transport and anyone else involved.

“Good man,” Erik said, placing his hand on Tybalt’s shoulder. “A little assistance for your task.”

Njall wandered from his motorcycle with a black bag in his hand. He gave it to Erik, who opened it and produced a small syringe.

“For the pain,” he said. Then, he pulled out two slats of curved plastic. They had been connected by a set of hinges on one side. “This did not come cheaply,” he said with an ounce of danger in his words. Clearly, accepting this gift would initiate an exchange. He would owe Erik and the rest of Corvus for the nociceptive cast.

Tybalt nodded deferentially, understanding the full weight of his action. Immediately, he bent down on one knee, rolled up the leg of his pant and positioned the soft plastic around his injured calf. With one hand, he held it into place, while the other hand swung the cast to a close. He locked the hinges together. While not a perfect fit, the tightness of the cast reassured him of its effectivity. His hands rubbed the smooth plastic as a brief bit of pacifying behaviour. He knew the next part would hurt.

He grabbed the metal ring that looped around the top of the cast and quickly turned it ninety-degrees around the calf. Immediately, he felt several metallic pricks pierce his skin. The pain, in this sliver of time, overwhelmed him. His eyes went black out of the magnitude of pain.

Then, peace.

Tybalt sighed with relief as the pain of his lower leg had completely disappeared. The cast had supported his limb, injected him with pain killers and nanobots that began to repair his leg. Before sun rise, his leg would be completely healed.

“Now,” Erik said, “there are only two things that I will ask of you when you kill Odvar. First, under no circumstances are you to damage his kutte.” Erik unholstered a 10mm gun. He flipped the gun in his hand and offered it to Tybalt. “Second, before you kill him, he must hear the words: ‘Corvus decided.’ Only after those words are spoken, only after he has heard those words, then you may kill him.”

Tybalt placed his fingers around the pistol.

“Promise me,” Erik said. He looked Tybalt straight in the eye. The intensity of the man sent a shiver down his spine. While Tybalt had plenty of experience with killers of all sorts, this had been the first time he had seen fire in a man’s eyes like this.

“I promise.”

“He should arrive alone in the next two hours,” Erik said, remounting his motorcycle. He and Njall put on their helmets and prepared to depart.

“Why?” Tybalt called after Erik. “Why do you want him dead?”

Erik stifled a cruel laugh. “You are not privileged to hear the answer to your question. One day, perhaps.” He slipped the black visor of his helmet over his eyes and revved the motorcycle. Njall responded with a similar roar of his engine.

The two men drove from the campsite. Within a minute, silence engulfed the twilight.

Tybalt looked at the gun in his hand. It had been a finely crafted firearm. Nothing cheap. Nothing makeshift. A good piece of equipment that might have even been crafted before the cataclysm. Tybalt flipped the gun over and touched the cold metal slide. This thumb rubbed over the serial numbers. He felt in love with the weapon. It had been too long since he had real firepower in his hand.

He stuffed the gun behind his back in the waistband of his pants.

While his surroundings seemed ominously absent, Tybalt felt at home. He had been given a quick and easy extermination mission. Better yet, he had full use of his lower body again, or, at least, shortly. He gave a little hop on his bad leg. He felt nothing. Overexpending himself physically at this point in time, however, would probably do more harm than good.

Instead, Tybalt looked to the dug hole that last nights fire had burned within. He took his wooden cane and poked the smouldering logs. They had not completely burned out. Tybalt took his knife and shaved a few strands of wood from his cane and tossed it into the fire pit. They caught flame. Then, Tybalt began to build the fire higher and higher. As it burned, he felt his own sense of life stir within him. He had a new flame within his chest as well. In the climax of his passionate excitement, he took his wooden cane, snapped it two, and tossed into the fire. He laughed to himself.

Who needed the company of women?

Who needed other mercenaries?

As long as he had a gun in his hand and a contract in his pocket, he would be happy to live. Sure, the experience would have been better if his brother had been there beside him, if he could split the loot or favours or other boons from the job with him, but, as it stood, he was free.

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Free!

Tybalt had no obligation to anyone else. The world was his own. It was only him and a handful of bullets. He did not have to worry about anyone’s safety except his own. In fact, his freedom intoxicated him with such a wonder that his hunger melted from the pit of his stomach. He was full with a new sensation.

And what of Corvus?

He had not need to keep his promise to those men. If he wanted, he could simply take the gun and try his own luck against the city walls. He did not need to earn his ticket from a group of leather-clad bikers. He had total freedom, radical freedom. Nothing from the outside impinged upon him.

Yet, he felt a modicum of obligation to Corvus. They had entrusted him with a mission, gave him a new leg, a clean gun, and a hearty dose of pain-killers. He only owed them out of a sense of obligation. Nothing could stop him from revealing the plan to Odvar and, instead, double-crossing the rest of the gang. Between the two men, they could sell the motorcycles and any other loot, splitting the money evenly.

As the night fell, the air grew colder. Tybalt warmed his hands by the fire, flexing his fingers in their warmth. By the looks of the moon, one hour had probably passed. He would need to get into position. Tybalt sat by the fire and contemplated his surroundings.

Corvus had selected a fairly open stretch of land to setup their campsite, although, in these parts, no section lacked its fair share of neighbours. Only about fifty yards from the campsite, he saw a well-built metal hovel. He could climb onto the roof of the building and wait for Odvar to arrive. Then, he would be able to launch his sneak attack.

Tybalt stretched his legs and made his way over to the building. He knocked upon its door. If the place had residents, he did not want to surprise them by clattered onto their roof. He need to befriend the people in this building. He knocked again.

The door opened. An elder man with white stood before him. Tybalt looked pass the man and saw an old woman sitting by a small hearth fire with a cup of tea in her hand.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Tybalt said, “but I have been traveling these parts for awhile, appreciating the lovely night sky.”

The old man looked up into the clear darkness.

“And, I was hoping, that you would allow me to take a short rest on the roof of your house. You know, just to be able to look at the stars and appreciate them a little closer.” Tybalt launched a friendly grin. In another life, he believed that he could pass himself of as an actor.

The old man wiggled his nose.

“No.”

“Oh, come on, dear!” the old woman by the hearth shouted. “Just let spend the night on the roof.”

“Why? Why should I trust this snot rag? He’s planning something, I know it.”

“Bah!” the old woman shouted. “You know nothing.” She aimed her voice at Tybalt, speaking more gently. “Go on, dearie. Enjoy the night sky. It’s been ages since I’ve properly gazed at them. This old bat is keeping looked in this dreary prison.”

“I am not!” shouted the old man. He turned back to Tybalt. “You got what you want. Now, get!” He slammed the door. A series of locks could be heard turning behind the door. Tybalt heard slivers of arguments pour from the hovel, but ignored them. He would rather spend his energy climbing to the top and making sure he had a good vantage point.

Once on the roof, Tybalt layed upon his stomach. The cold metal of the house sent a shiver through his skin. He did not let the discomfort bother him. In a few moments, his body would adjust to the position and to the sensations of the cold.

From this distance, he could see the fire he made continue to burn brightly. His eyes scanned the roads that flanked the sides of the campsite. The main road had settled into a night time quiet, while the smaller side roads continued to have the occasional wanderer moved under the protection of night. One or two persons walked across the Corvus campsite out of sheer curiosity, while another dawdled in the space, checking to see if anyone slept in the tents. With an unattended fire, the figure laid down beside the flames for warmth. He took on the of the rugs upon the floor and drew it over his body.

Tybalt snickered to himself. He waited in the hopes of murder at the same place some vagrant thought would be the best place to rest for the night. Yet, anyone who had been sleeping would have awoken at the rumblings of a motorcycle. A lone bike sped along the main road, and, taking the corner quickly and sharply, turned into the campsite.

Odvar dismounted from his motorcycle and began to harass the man sleeping by the fire. With a few blows of his hand, he caused the man to scatter. The sight and sound of the conflict stirred the curiosity of some of the locals, who peered into the campsite. They wanted to know the cause of the commotion. The biker hollered at them to run back into their shanties before he started to lay down their corpses. The locals scattered immediately. Odvar huffed and entered into one of the tents.

Tybalt clambered down the hovel and closed the gap between him and his target. He moved slowly, allowing himself to crouch and move with the easy stealth he had been able to long ago. His cast had returned to him a limberness that he had begun to forget. As he approached the tent, he could hear a barrage of foul language through the thin fabric. Odvar clearly had been searching for something.

Carefully, Tybalt pulled back the flaps of the tent. He reached for his gun behind his back and racked the slide of the gun. The sound had been enough to alert Odvar. The biker twisted in place and stared at the intruder.

“You! Where is it?”

Tybalt remained silent. He had spent enough years as a gun for hire to know that speaking to your target before you murder them was a waste of time. He lifted the pistol.

Odvar began to laugh.

“You think you’re going to kill me? You think you can get away with it. Wait until Corvus…”

“Corvus decided,” Tybalt said coldly.

Odvar dropped his smile. In a split second, he understood everything that had happen and would happen to him.

“Wait!” he shouted as Tybalt unloaded two clear shots into his head.

Odvar collapsed to the ground. His blood began to pour from his skull in a steady steam. These red rivulets pooled into the rugs at his head.

Tybalt wasted not time in the next part of his mission. He took the dead man’s body and peeled his jacket from him. He tossed the jacket to the side of the tent and dragged to body out into the open. Although a small trail of blood stained the dirt from tent to fire, Tybalt kicked some sand and dirt over it. He positioned Odvar’s body around the fire as though he had slept the entire night in that position.

Tybalt when back into the tent. The tent had been a big mess, as Odvar had turned over everything within its spacious interior. He took the time to rearrange the tent nicely as though the men of Corvus would be back in a few moments to take witness of the assassination. Tybalt folded Odvar’s jacket nicely and placed it on top of one of the sleeping bags. He could present to Erik when he and his gang returned. In the meantime, Tybalt took inventory of the things he had pulled out of Odvar’s pocket. Most of it had been either sentimental junk or spare coins. The only thing of value had been a small handgun, its full magazine, and a glass mickey of alcohol that had been strapped to the side of his leg.

Unscrewing the lid of the mickey, Tybalt exited the tent and sat beside the dead body.

“For the dead.” Tybalt poured a portion of the liquor into the ground, beside Odvar’s body. While he didn’t like the man, there were certain rites that he appreciated performing. He would need to pour a large libation for his brother and deceased friends, but they could wait another day in thirst. Tonight, he wanted the rest of the drink for himself.

He finished the bottle and fell asleep.