Judgement (The Twelve) (15 page)

Finally Alina
asked, “Black belt two inch wide with inlaid rune letters in blue silver for words of power? “

Alfredo nodded, “
Yes but steel buckle
for strength and reliability
.”

Alfredo stepped back
,”
Judgement?”

“Judgement.” Alina echoed.

Both bowed politely first to Chris then to
Anvil
, “
Pleasure doing business with you.
”

Anvil
pulled a bundle of cash from his pocket. Without counting them,
Anvil
placed
the money on the counter
.
Chris’s eyes bulged, they all appeared to be fifty pound notes and there must have been
four
thousand quid on that counter. At least!

“See you
tomorrow then
. Oh and
Slash needs a new jacket. Speed stitched a rip up.”

Alfredo went white,” Not Speed, with all due respect
, magic go out of cloth with his messing!
He is all speed and no style.
”

Anvil
chuckled, it was the first time Chris had heard him laugh.

“Dead right there.”

As both Chris and
Anvil
left the shop and re-entered the In Between place. Chris asked who the two
…he was about to say dwarfs but said
tailors
instead
.
Anvil
chuckled again.

“
Dwarfs, you can say it you know, nothing politically correct in using the name. It is after all what they are.
Dwarfs; from the old country
”

Chris smiled, “Like Middle Earth.”

Anvil
frowned, “No
,
never heard of that
place
before.”

Chris shook his head, “Man
!
Like
Lord of the Rings. You know the books and the films?”

“Never read a book, can’t read. Never saw a film.”

Chris was amazed but tried to hide it, “Then from where?”

“The old country
. M
y
adopted
home
,
Denmark as you call it now.”

“You’re a Dane?”

Anvil
nodded, “
U
sed to be called something else a long, long, time ago
, p
rimitive people in a primitive world.
I had ideas above my station. Tried new things, made an axe from flint, then found a way to get iron from
ore
.
I m
ade an iron axe when all my people were still using stone weapons.”

Chris gaped,
‘
Jesus, the bloody stone age!’
and quickly apologised to God for swearing again.

Anvil
had stopped talking, so Chris quickly thought of a question,
tried to be subtle,
“You where born be
fore
your time
?
”

“Died you mean. Chieftain came into my cave one night in the dead of winter. Heavy snow lay
outside;
he said he just wanted to get warm by my fire. Took the axe and brained me. When I awoke, the fire was dead and so should I have been but my wound was healed.”

“Did you kill the chieftain and take back your axe?”

“No I left camp went
,
up into the mountains
and
found the Elder race.”

Anvil sighed as he remembered fond memories
,”
In time
Folk lore renamed them
Dwarfs.
The Elder Race
lived in small settlement
s
high up in a valley between two peaks.
The settlements where all joined by a network of tunnels and caves.
I stayed with them for forty years and never grew any older. Fifty years passed, then sixty. Before I knew it a hundred had gone by, then two hundred and so on. I practised my skills and
with the help
of the Elders
I
forged
the hammer you see me carrying from a rock that fell to the Earth thousands of years before I was born.
”

“Then
this was the what, Iron Age, Bronze Age???”

Anvil ignored the question
,
“
let
’
s get back and eat.”

Chris wasn’t finished, “How did they know I was this Judgement character?”

Anvil half smiled, “The Elder race know everything.
They’re the ones who give us our names. They named me when I first arrived
and d
ressed me in new leather clothing to keep the cold out. It’s been a tradition of theirs ever since
, naming and cladding us in leather clothing.”

“But if you find someone in another country. How do you get them back to London?”

Anvils eyes went skywards and with a sigh remarked, “London didn’t exist when I first started recruiting. Like I said Chris there are more than just those two. No matter where I am, I can always find the Elders, or they find me.”

Chris
blinked and
looked up
from the television,
realis
ing
he was being asked something.
P
riest
repeated the question for the third time.

Chris
sighed (again), “I saw the thing you call Ghost attacking
Patch
, I don’t really know what I did. I sort of pushed her away and two big holes appeared in her body
. I
f you can call a swirling cloud of black smoke
with a face
a body.”

Priest made his way over to one of eight oak framed chairs next to a large mahogany dinning table, “Patch mentioned your voice changed at one point?”

Chris shrugged, “I don’t remember that. Did those holes mean I hurt the thing?”

Anvil
who was
resting on a recliner armchair,
looking at pictures in a super comic
next to
a bookstand containing several dozen hard back books and a reading lamp,
glanced up,
“I’ll say! She will take weeks if not months to recover.”

Chris noticed his hammer stood upright next to his chair within easy reach, “I
still
don’t understand how
my hands could
hurt her,
your hammer yes, but not my hands!
”

Priest rubbed at his many chins, “Weapons come in many shapes and sizes young man.”

Patch ruffled his wild
light brown
hair cut, “Glad we got rid of the nits, I like touching your hair.
”

She suddenly slapped him gently across the back of his head and stood up, “
It’s about time you started to understand what we are and what they are.”

Hands on hips she looked around the room
, “
I’ll start
unless anyone objects?”

No one answered but several smiled, so she continued,” First let me ask you a question. Why haven’t you grilled us
further
about who we are?”

Chris glanced down at the rug, thinking about the answer, “I
asked a few times but was ignored. I
was never the brightest kid at school
, a
lways ignored, except for the bullies. I never questioned things, always tried to fit in and hide. I was never loved at home, except by my step father and that was a different type of love if you understand what I’m saying.”

He glanced around at the others before continuing, “When I ran away, it was easy for me to fit in with the other vagrants. Like I said, I’ve always managed to hide in the background to avoid
being noticed
. I haven’t a clue about what’s going on with you lot but you’ve offered me a better place to kip than a cardboard box. You’re strong, so the bullies and child molesters can’t get at me. You’ve fed me and offered to cloth me.”

He smiled up at Patch, “And allowed me to wash and clean myself and on top of all that you tell me I’m someone special, someone important. No ones ever said that to me before in my entire life. So I thought, ‘
Chris keep quiet, keep your head down and fit in’
. So here I am and apart from being scared and confused, which I’m used to.
Then there’s these fine clothes
Anvil
paid for me to wear”

He was resting his hat on his knees. For some reason he wanted to keep it with him at all times, like a weapon of sorts.

“
I’m also happy for the first time in my life and if you guys don’t want to tell me anything about yourselves. That’s fine
by me, none of my business. But
Dwarf tailors?”

Everyone looked to
Anvil
who put down his comic book
which he
was
holding sideways, “
As I told you
Chris,
they
’re
The Elders
.
Later they became known as the’
Delvish
’, which was an ancient name for
‘the small ones’
. Man changed the name over the
centuries to
dwarfs.
I think
about
three
hundred and
fifty are
still
a
live, dotted around the globe. These two
in this country
are
our
tailors
.
As I said before t
hey
specialize in making the right clothes for
each of the Protectorate and renaming us after our rebirth.
They also do a nice side line in Goth clothing.
They have Earth magic running through there
veins
and it is woven into the leather they stitch. Those two have been around for a very long time, I knew there parents in the beginning, both dead now naturally.
They just are
and always have been the Elders.
”