Judgement (The Twelve) (4 page)

“Don’t to that Rage, you’re scaring him.”

This came from the last person in the room,
he’d been seated next to Chris, now he stood and moved
away to face him
. He was
a mus
cular middle aged male
,
with
v shaped, black cropped hair
.  He stood
over
six foot
two
tall
, with
a broad chest and
well muscled arms.
He was wearing
leather as well but also a
fire scorched short leather apron
, held in place with a thick belt with a huge iron buckle
.
His well worn leather trousers were
tucked into
short heavy combat
boots.
Hanging from his right hand
was a
large
double headed anvil hammer. The shaft had silver rune type symbols etched into the blacked iron wood.

The hunchback called Rage
, surprisingly
looked embarrassed as he
caught himself
in mid growl, “Sorry
Anvil
, g
ot to stop doing that.” He looked towards Chris, “Sorry kiddo.”

Chris
noted that
when the hunchback spoke
, he did so with
a
slight foreign accent that he would have sworn sounded Danish or Finnish.
Chris was having trouble taking in all this detail. He guessed for some reason the one called
Anvil
was in charge.

“There are laws against kidnapping.” Chris tried to bluster his way out of this.

The one called
Anvil
h
eld
out his right
hand in a sign of friendship
to Chris,
who surprisingly took the offered handshake.

“Names
Anvil
as you most likely will have guessed
.
Not your run of the mill name,
we all
got
new
ones
after
our re-birth
and you’re not a prisoner.
“

Chris understood
. They were
some religious sect, “Born again Christians eh?”

Anvil smiled, “Not exactly kid
but close enough. N
ow t
hat ugly
hump
is Rage. He’s
pure muscle
and used to be
a
great Norse warrior
,
one of the cursed
Berserkers.
”

Rage thumped his chest, “
I dare you
to believe I’m anything but!”

Anvil
continued,
“The
bearded man you spoke to in the rain is called Slash
,
our knife man.
We go way back. Used to be a foreign mercenary for Egypt when the pyramids where still being built.
Those knives have been carefully gathered over thousands of years and each one is as deadly as the next.”

Slash flicked the knife he was holding up into the air and caught it point first on the tip of an upraised finger. He held the knife there for a second before flicking it up again
and was about to catch it by the handle
.

Patch snatched it
out of the air
faster than Chris could follow, “Stop showing off.”

She handed the knife ba
ck
hilt first.  Slash grinned once before returning it to its sheath, “Anyone else but you
touches
my weapon
s
and I’d have cut them
bad
.”

Anvil continued, “
The lad who unfortunately hit you is Speed
.
He moves faster than anything alive.
He was a track runner in his day.  Competed in the first games at Olympia, he was famous
way back when
. Ran from Marathon to Athens to give news of a victory
over the Persian army in 450BC
,
but he
got
the
message wrong
, nearly gave the Emperor a heart attack on the spot. The second runner arrived half a day later with the correct news so poor old Speed
had his throat cut. I guess he founded the expression ‘
don’t kill the
messenger.
‘
, Speeds a fast mover but a slow thinker.
”

Chris used all his will power to keep his mouth shut for now, ‘
Okay is he trying to tell me they’re what?
That they’re
bloody immortal or something.’

“Hey that’s not fair!” Speed exclaimed.

Anvil
didn’t even look at him,” Should have asked
you
to come with
him
.
I
guess
you
would have come under
your
own steam because
you
would want
to know
more about the Shade that killed
your
friend.
Speaking of which
Priest wants more detail how
you
destroyed the Shades hand.”

Chris glanced
over
towards the one with the dog collar, “He a real Priest?”

Anvil
rocked a hand back and forth
, “
Sort of, he’s changed
slightly
now, like the rest of us
, s
hould have been called Juggernaut
or tank.
But Priest
was his given name.
H
e’s a clever man
and
I listen to his advice
and
his
prophecy’s
.”

The one called Priest snorted, “Not so clever as to
know how he could destroy part of a Shade with a touch. Not unless he’s….” He exchanged a quick glance with the one called
Anvil
.

Anvil
ignored the partially asked question
, “The girl wedged in the middle of that group is Patch. She’s our martial arts expert. Does things even I don’t believe
when I see it.”

Then Chris noticed another man standing off to the side. Apart from the usual leather get up and a bald scared head, he had what appeared to be a metal shaped segmented right hand and a bloody big crab like claw instead of a left hand. He
chuckled, “I’d like to see her do some things.”
He spoke with a cockney accent.

He ran his tongue subjectively over his top lip.
“
Girl like that would make a fine
…”

Anvil
glanced disapprovingly towards him, “That thug is called Heartless. He has no conscience
at all
as well as no hands. He does and says things that get him in trouble from time to time.
How he was chosen is besides me but he was.
”

The girl called Patch smiled a wicked sweet smile, “He
keeps
that up
Anvil
and it won
’
t be just his hands he looses.”

Chris noticed for the first time that she
had a set of wicked looking
razor thin
daggers tucked
sideways under her narrow twisted
leather sash
around her slim
waist
, as well as a pair of rice flails strapped to her
right
thigh.

Heartless pretended to protect his privates and
chuckled nastily before holding up his mechanical hands, “The one of the
left
can snip through quarter inch steel. The one on the
right
looks like a normal hand but like doctor No it can
crush a golf ball to dust.”

He chuckled, “But luckily for my own balls sake, I can also pick up a raw egg without cracking it.”

Chris couldn’t help himself, “
A metal sea shell.”

Heartless stopped flexing his hand, “What?”

Chris grinned, “Doctor No crushed a metal sea shell. Odd Job crushed the golf ball.”

Patch laughed, “That’s Heartless alright. A real odd job if I ever saw one.”

The others joined in laughing at his misfortune. Heartless glared back at Chris but said nothing.

‘
Made no friends there then
.’ He thought.

Anvil
stopped smiling to nod towards
the other
female
who was now
perched on the arm rest of
his settee
.
Chris was looking at
her
wicked looking black hunting bow
. It
was
nearly
six feet long and reminded him of t
h
e old hunting bows used way back when. Robin Hood sprang to mind
, b
ut this was mat black instead of Yew
.
“The lady with the bow is called Huntress. Don’t let her white eyes fool you. She can
out see a
hawk and can hit anything she can see.
Huntress is our tracker as well as our long distance silent markswoman.”