"Alright, show me what you got." I demand of my friend as a heavy sigh burns through my nose. My gun grip tightens, my eyes jumpier than the springiest of juperse. Teeth grind against each other, pushing up and pushing down. Stressing the bone to an unimaginable breaking point.
"Thankfully for us, Ivahstar... Heiya's within reach still. The ovskabinos are taking the long way. Here." he points out, his blood-caked finger going over the enchanted parchment. My brow furrows, digging deeper and deeper as I lean close.
This route they're taking, I'm not familiar with it, but I'm familiar with the concept. Poorly dug tunnels that go a length around main roads. Hidden enough to avoid police on the highway but developed enough for a car to go through. Or, several, in this case. A tight fit either way. Smuggler's routes are not fit for purpose when a mobster convoy is in play.
A noise escapes me, my words cold-footed prisoners, "... We can intercept them."
"My thoughts exactly, Ivahstar," Hrurim echoes, his cigarette burning bright as his lungs fill, "Question is where. We don't know how far down they are and I'm not looking for a stake-out."
I glance up from the maps and salvaged documents, eyeing his many torture wounds. Lighter moods would have me scoff, but I can barely manage to not be screaming in rage. Gamtambo's gangsters have my daughter. His thugs have Heiya.
My fist tightens as a face that should be an echo goes through my mind. Nothing special compared to any other elder hwardgon. He's still got his fur. He's not scarred or burned in any way. My former time in his employment certainly ensured that part. I just know his face.
I could never forget his face... Not after the night he nearly drove my family to extinction.
And now, here it comes again, he's so close to finishing the job. His mobsters had us both, and now they only have her. We need to move and yet it is reckless to do so. The urge to spit drives my tongue mad, its underside nothing more than a pool of saliva. I gulp it down, distracting myself with the choking hazard.
"I came here in a car that is fit for service. So long as we have luck on our side, no highway patrol and all that." I let out, muttering in and out of my thoughts as I figure out the slipways. Police are always looking for maps like these. Can't have the routes too clear now, can we?
"I'm thinking here, maybe?" Hrurim points out, the knuckle of an index finger knocking a painted ridge in the parchment. I follow the digit, narrowing my eyes at the warnings marked across it. Whatever code they're using here, it's not what I'm familiar with. The map's legend seems to have been damaged or removed long ago. It might not even be a modern map.
Might be an outdated deceit...
"Grah." I hiss out, my knuckles flexing again. Rolling my veins and tendons over the bone. Pushing up the skin and fur of my hand. Squeezing my paws a little too tight.
Hrurim walks around, slapping a hand onto my back with no regard to my quills. I look his way, noting the slight wince in his eyes as he pricks his palm. He continues to pat my back, shifting to a gentle rub. He smiles what reassurance he can and I nod, slowly.
"I get it, Ivahstar. She's your daughter. Simplest idea to get since Thurnmourer's blood hit the clay all that time ago. Father protects the child, we all get it," he tells me and I glance around at the empty room. I lean to the side, glancing down at the corpse we're still using as a doorstop. I look back at him and he looks back at his former torturer.
"To keep her safe, I ended up putting her in more danger than I could've imagined. There's no way I could've known Gamtambo's thugs were at the black market." I remark upon, my bitterness seething out of me as I second guess myself. Getting in here and freeing Hrurim from his captors certainly proves my senses aren't dulled to uselessness. Gods above, I couldn't even save him without smashing my way out of the same convoy we're tracking!
Heiya is in danger and I have no excuse the shade of rust or the feel of morning grogginess. I simply failed to protect her. For all my years of experience as a hitman, a smuggler... A father. She's never been in greater danger and I was in full control of the situation.
"Of course... Ivahstar, we do have one more matter to discuss." Hrurim points out, the click of a handgun disturbing the air. He's picked all the dead clean of every gun, every bullet. A carrion looking for that last drop of stringy, bloody meat.
"She's not going to be in the front of any car, van, or lorry. We take out the driver or we take out the tires. She's a tough girl. She'll handle a tumble." I dismiss, almost hypocritical to myself as the words make me sick to my stomach. The organ in question quivers, shaking with an acidic threat.
"I'm more concerned about the tunnel itself. It's narrow, not much room for anything. A firefight at the wrong point and we risk an explosion. No where for it all to go... Either. Ka-boom." Ivahstar clarifies, his hands going together and out with his final sound. They come back together, tingling with the sound of bullets and shells.
"I shoot." I decide, bringing up my needle gun and snapping open the front. I stare and ponder my choice of munitions. Shaped blood wasp honey has never had a habit of causing fires. It's razor sharp, however. Where there is a blade going fast, sparks can come. Still experience has me doubting the risk of fire.
Even back during the firefight I got into before I got here to save Hrurim. The only fires were caused by grenades, mobster bullets, or the car crashes themselves. My weapon did not add to the fire in any way other than breaking up the foul smell and taste of smoke. We should be safe.
"Mmm." Hrurim goes, his hands empty for uninterrupted drumming of the fingers. Index to pinkie. Index to pinkie. An annoying tune I can't even be asked to bark about.
His focus goes to the expanse with all the warnings. There's a slipway not too far ahead of the chamber. We can intercept them or we'll be right behind them to pick away at the cars. The vulnerable rear of a convoy with no means to turn around.
An image goes through my mind, one of a leaping man. I shake my head, dismissing the idea for the time being. Something like that is too detailed. I do not know how the chase will develop as we close in. For all I know, this warning sign is a Water-Veins colony or an osibindah hive.
"We best get going, I suppose," Hrurim says, his tongue clicking at the end. I look up and nod, another heavy breath flaring my nostrils.
"Bring the fuel out front. I don't want us to get halfway and then run out." I tell my friend and he huffs away at his cigarette with renewed vigour. He throws a thumb up at me and I wave a tired arm. My paw squeezes the door handle and I throw a chair down to keep it open. My feet hit the flattened stone of the underground and I walk with haste, the car a short distance away.
Staring up at the bottom of the surface, I blink and find it still there. An unending sky of shadow-drowned rock, stalactites and ageless cracks. Who knows what horrors await us in the tunnel? I may have not been down underground in a long time, relatively speaking, but I know what those routes are.
Their crudeness isn't just because of shoddy workmanship. They're always chosen for a threat that naturally guards them. Osibindah, monsters of all kinds. Even a dragon or wyvern that's been driven deep below the mountains proper. They're not safe roads.
I want to save my daughter and my only chance is to put her in more danger. The safest moment will endanger her beyond the scopes of my thoughts. I suppose it will be worth it. Anywhere is safer than having her in Gamtambo's grasp.
Keeping her out of his grip will keep us all safe. I cannot let the Don maintain control of the situation. If he has Heiya, he can dictate my actions. Disarm me without so much as a fist striking my person or a gun shooting out a joint. Only words. His greatest weapon.
"I'm coming, Heiya. Hold on." I grumble, arriving at the car on its driver's side. Opening the door, the body I left in their slumps out and a copper-scented fog blasts my nose. I drag the body the rest of the way out and sit down in the mess of blood. Dry, sticky, and wet.
Yet, I cannot find it within me to turn the keys or do anything. A shiver overtakes me and I blink, removing my hands from the wheel. I double-check everything, unable to grasp why I am shaking so much. No, no... I know.
My daughter. My only daughter left. My only family left. She's all I have and I could lose her so quickly.
I made swift work of so many gangsters today alone. In hours I've already killed probably half a hundred of them. Probably more. I'm not keeping real track.
If I can kill that many this quickly, it will take them no time in comparison to take one life. Her life, Heiya's life. The shivers die down and I blink. My blood abruptly shifts temperature, the cold familiarity of death washing away in rage's deluge.
I growl and turn the car on. It sputters to life, the custom engine job done by mobster mechanics letting me hear its strength. My fists tighten around the wheel and I pull up into the outpost. Hrurim waves me back and I park in front of him, keeping the car running.
"Get loading what you want. I'll handle the back." my friend tells me, hoisting the first fuel can up into the air. The fuel cap clicks open, the fist-sized metal door banging on the car without a care.
"Hope you're fine driving." I tell him, making sure he knows full well what I am expecting of him. He's already had trouble before in motor vehicles built for hwardgon bodies. As tall as a human child, we are. If we get into trouble, he'll be trapped with no room to squeeze out.
"I can handle some bad knees. Trust me, Ivahstar." my friend huffs, his back rolling about to show off all the new scars a quick wash will show off.
"Good." I say, nodding once and firm and bouncing off into aimless bobbles. I shake my head to a stop and get back indoors to grab my things. My gun comes back into hand and I retrieve my blood wasp hive. The container, in a moment of oddity, buzzes peacefully.
The car's half opens, and I put the container in. Throwing everything else about with a fraction of the care. I do one more trip and look everything over. Hrurim's already put his choice of things in an appropriate box.
I grab it and head on out, not having any mind to be courteous to the dead mobsters. My friend tosses the last fuel can and slams the little door shut. He claps his hands somewhat clean of the mess and takes his box. We linger, staring at each other.
"Keep your head where it is, Ivahstar. We've got to remind them of why you got your nickname." my friends say to me as I pointlessly look at a palm.
"Of course." I answer, squeezing it tight as a flash image of decades old blood passes me by. Not mine, not Heiya's or anyone alive now. My dear wife, who I lost to my incompetence. I could not hide from Gamtambo then, I cannot hide from him now.
But I will not let him mistake it for fear of him. I will make sure he fully understands that he should be fearing me. After all, he came after me after I left the mob, not the other way... He came for the Terror of the Dark... I did not come for Don Gamtambo, the don I made with my talents.
"Let's hurry. I don't want to spend more time here than we have to!" I demand with a bark, slamming the door shut behind me as my gun enters my hand. The familiar practice of gun maintenance clearing my head. Keeping it focused and on point.