Inkslayer

Chapter 3: Four Barrels, Two Traders

The Coilhunter didn't run or hide. He didn't even shiver as the bikes came into view, big and black, and full of the rumble of machinery—and the black smoke of diesel. Nox let out a little puff of his own black smoke from his mask. They say you shouldn't fight fire with fire, but no one ever said anything about the smoke.

The leader of the Oxen clan was Lokk Ungrid, but Northfolk often called him Lockdown, because of his past, the kind of past that set you on a collision course with the Coilhunter. You see, Lokk was a jailbreaker, someone who'd spent the first few years of the Great Iron War behind bars in Copperfort. That was where he formed his clan, and it was from there that they'd stampeded out into the wilds. There should've been posters for him, but the Iron Empire didn't care, so long as he rampaged outside their territory. Gangs were good for war. They revelled in it every day.

"Now, there's a sight for sore eyes," Lokk said. He was a burly man, with fat on his muscles and muscle on his fat. His head was bald, but he made up for it with a thick, black beard, the kind that told you he was a fighting man, a drinking man, and a killing man. When you faced Lockdown, you faced the best and worst of three men in one.

"Howdy, clansmen," Nox rasped. He didn't need a beard. He had his mask for that.

The Oxen eyed him with equal parts ice and fire. Maybe that was how you didn't freeze or get burned, because one man's stare cancelled out another's. Nox returned their glares half-heartedly, as if they didn't quite matter at all.

"Last we met," Lokk said, "you caused a bit of a stir."

"Did I, now?" But Nox remembered it well. They challenged him to a race, and he'd won—though they disputed the manner in which he'd won. Apparently, tricks and gadgets weren't allowed. Nox wondered what those hyper-hogs were if not a big old gadget of their own.

"Don't you mock me, boy," Lokk growled.

"Boy?" Nox scoffed. "Now there's a name to add to my list."

In truth, Nox was a boy compared to Lokk, whose granite face betrayed his age. The gang leader must've been close to seventy now, and that was saying a lot. It told you the sun hadn't quite baked him dry yet. It told you the wildlife hadn't nibbled him to pieces yet. It told you the other gangs, and even his own gang members, hadn't gunned or knifed him yet. It all ended in 'yet', just like it all ended in the grave. But some people defied everyone and everything—even death. Lokk was one of those. But then there was time for a poster of him yet, if only folk weren't afraid of the ink.

"We seem to have caught you off guard," Lokk observed, nodding towards the abandoned monowheel. One of the clansmen flinched as the duck turned its head towards them.

"Did you, now?"

"We oughta mow you down for breakin' our code."

"You oughta mosey on outta here," Nox replied, "with your iron tails between your legs."

He shifted slightly, picking out each of them in turn—and making a deliberate show of it. He wanted them to see the counting, even though he'd already done it before the dust settled on their bikes. There were seven of them, including Lokk, though the bulkiness of their bikes made it seem like there were seven more.

Lokk noticed the count and laughed. "You're good, Nox, but you ain't that much of a gunslinger."

Nox smiled with his eyes, those deep, brooding eyes, which could've gunned you down on their own. "I wouldn't like to be the man who tests the truth of that."

Lokk's beard shuddered as he contorted his mouth, readying himself for a round of slurs.

"Here," Nox said, before Lokk could speak. "Ya see that?" He twitched his fingers over his pistol. "Get a real good look-see, Lokk, 'cause it's important. There." He twitched again. "I just took your life."

Lokk frowned.

"Now," Nox continued. "You want me to give it back to you?"

Lokk's chest heaved, as if trying to remove the imaginary bullet. Nox knew—and, more importantly, Lokk knew—that the bullet would only be imaginary for so long. Why, Nox had six lead pellets as real as the scalding sun. Six just for Lokk. And six more on the other side for the rest of them. They could puff their chests and rattle their tongues for hours, but it all amounted to the same thing, that knowledge of just how lethal the Coilhunter was, and how willing he was to demonstrate it.

"A bike," Nox said suddenly, catching Lokk off guard, as if it was the first round of fire.

"What?"

"I want a bike."

"You've got one."

"I want one of yours."

This was adding insult to injury. A hyper-hog was everything to a biker. It was their life. It seemed Nox was intent on taking it after all.

"You're mad," Lokk said.

Nox stared at him with the cold eyes of sanity. In their reflection, they could see the cold eyes of the dead.

"I want a hog, and I'm willing to trade for it," Nox said.

"There ain't nothin' you have worth an iron steed."

"Isn't there?" Nox pulled a four-barrel shotgun from his back so sudden that they scrambled for their own guns. He tossed it on the ground at Lokk's foot. "Tell me you don't want that and a dozen more of 'em."

Lokk looked down and eyed the gun greedily. Many had heard of these powerful creations of Nox. Many had seen them, and felt them too. They were the kind of thing that could turn the tide in the never-ending battles with the other gangs. In Altadas, folk lusted for money. In the Wild North, they lusted for guns.

But pride was a badge that every biker wore, and it might as well've been emblazoned on their leather jackets. Just like Nox had his self-given sheriff badge pinned on his.

"I'd rather die," Lokk said, glancing at the watchful, judging eyes of his clansmen.

Nox smiled with his own eyes. "I can do that too."