Lex Talionis, Part Twenty-six
Barangay Seaside West
Riuwiee, Abanhfleft
It had taken some time, but the Huns had finally gotten the answers that they wanted from the Corsair that they had cornered when they had recaptured Fat Man’s Hangout in Barangay Sapang Bato. The Huns had turned over Fat Man’s to the Dirtbikers “as a gift of appreciation” from the Doctor, the Huns’ international president. The Corsair had black and blue all over and was missing some teeth and a pinky once the Huns were done with him, and as the Huns rode away from the bar, the last they saw of the Corsair was of the Dirtbikers throwing him out of Fat Man’s.
The Huns hadn’t expected to get something as good as what they had learned from the Corsair when they set out to retake the whole of Sapang Bato from the Wannabes, but they were going to make good use of it. The Witch had interrogated the Corsair on a whim, but it turned out that the guy knew where some of the Corsairs’ top leaders were at the moment, and it was high time that they began really letting the Wannabes know that their time was up.
Barangay Seaside West was just a few blocks away from Fat Man’s, and it was the first chunk of Corsairs territory which had actually been theirs for quite some time, and while the Huns weren’t the type to overextend themselves, the chance to take out a bunch of high-ranking Corsairs was just too good. If Pool Stick wasn’t lying or setting up the Huns for an ambush, then they would find two such people in Seaside West: Scout Jonsdottir, the Anglatian leader of the Corsairs’ female wing, and Francisco “Isko” Riviero, the Fleftic chief weapons expert of the gang. The Anglatian would make a very good present to the Huesca Cartel, while the Huns had something special planned for Isko.
The mechanic’s shop which served as the Corsairs’ local headquarters was clearly visible a mile away. Highly customized motorcycles decked out with loud, noisy exhausts and bright neon body lights milled around the shop, and the Huns knew of only one gang who rode flashy modded bikes: the Corsairs. A few Wannabes were milling around outside the shop, but they quickly ducked back inside once they saw the approaching Hun horde. It was the wisest decision that they would make that night.
The Huns parked across the street from the shop. A few bikes moved to block off the road from any potential Corsair escapees or reinforcements, and the Witch and Attila got off their bikes and strode to the middle of the road. “Francisco Riviero! Scout Jonsdottir!” the Witch called out. “Come out, come out wherever you are! We know that you’re both in there! If you both want to die quickly then I suggest you come out and give yourselves up! If you try to make us work at trying to find you then we are going to make you regret ever being born!”
“Guys, heads up, we got a door opening!” Kid called out. She and some of the other bikers got off their rides to support the Witch and Attila if ever shit hit the fan. Indeed, the front door of the shop opened, and at least four Corsairs, all armed to the teeth, stepped out first before a man and a woman followed them out. Under the pale moonlight and the lights of the bikes, the Huns could see Isko Riviero’s wide and bulky figure and Scout Jonsdottir’s short hair and tattooed arms. “What the hell are you Huns doing here?” Riviero asked. “This is our turf!”
“Boy, news sure does travel slow in your part of the world, doesn’t it?” the Witch replied. “Haven’t you heard? War has been declared between the Huns and the Corsairs! Now, like I said, if you two know what’s best for the both of you, I suggest you throw down your guns, come quietly with us, and let yourselves get killed.”
“Over my dead body, bitch!” Scout shouted.
The Witch just sniggered. “Oh, I definitely plan to do that, my Anglatian friend,” she said. “Whatever happens tonight, I will make sure that all of you Wannabes end up dead. Especially you, Isko, you fucking traitor. I’m going to make sure that there’s a special place in hell reserved just for you.”
By this time, the Witch, Attila, Scout, and Riviero were standing almost face to face with each other. All four of them could smell each other’s breaths, an altogether uncomfortable prospect for all involved. “I’m not going to tell you this again, Hun,” Scout said in a seething whisper. “Leave. Leave our turf, leave our city, leave this life!”
“Your city?” the Witch asked back in an equally low hiss. “You ain’t Riuweño, Anglatian. You and your pals have no right to call Riuwiee your city. And you, Isko, you lost your right to call Riuwiee your city when you went with Sorondo to join his band of wannabes.”
This time it was Attila who made the first move. He sucker-punched Riviero while he was still absorbing the Witch’s words, and then the Witch slammed a fist right into Scout’s nose. It was the start of yet another fistfight between the Huns and the Corsairs. The Wannabes with the long guns made to shoot at the other Huns because the risk of hitting either Riviero or Scout while shooting at Attila or the Witch was too high, but the other bikers beat them all to the draw and shot them all down. More Corsairs rushed out of the shop and ran towards the Huns, but the Huns were ready and waiting to meet them. The Huns shot at every Corsair who went out of the shop and then, once they had run out of bullets, got up close and personal and began punching and smashing up any Corsair they got their hands on.
Riviero and Scout somehow managed to disentangle themselves from the Witch and Attila, and they pulled back to where their bikes were parked. Some of the remaining Corsairs went up to their own bikes as well, and everyone stared at each other for a moment before Riviero and Scout got on their bikes, the signal for the Wannabes that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. “Go, go, go!” Riviero shouted at his people. At least five bikes roared to life and began fleeing the shop in a cloud of thick exhaust. Their heavily customized bikes, loud and throaty exhausts, and neon lighting made them very big and visible targets for the Huns.
“Saddle up, boys and girls!” the Witch shouted. “We’re going on a Wannabe roundup! Yeehaw!” Those Huns who had dismounted their bikes quickly hopped back onto their rides and followed the Huns who had stayed by their bikes and were already chasing the fleeing Corsairs. Gunshots lit up the night as the Huns fired at the Corsairs running for their lives. The Corsairs tried firing back at the Huns, but the Huns had an easier time because they were the ones chasing and it was much easier to control a bike and fire forward at the same time instead of backward. The Huns also had bigger targets to aim for due to the Corsair habit of tricking out their bikes to be very noticeable. Soon, three Corsairs were down, having been shot dead by the Huns while riding on or after crashing their bikes.
Eventually, only Scout and Riviero remained standing, and with the Huns hot on their heels, they weren’t able to pay attention to where they were going, and they only realized that they had been trapped when more Huns appeared right in front of them. Riviero slammed hard on his brakes and allowed his bike to slide out from beneath him even as the asphalt scraped the seat of his pants and eventually rubbed his buttocks raw. Scout swerved away from Riviero and then slowed down just enough so she could dismount and make a run for it on foot, but she wasn’t able to get very far before Countess smashed an iron pipe into the back of her head, knocking her down to the ground.
Countess stopped her Harley-Davidson beside the unconscious Scout and hopped off her bike to inspect the casualty. “Hey, guys!” she called out. “I think I’ve found one of those Anglatians whom the Huescas want!”
“Is she dead?” the Witch asked. “Remember, Peña wants them alive so she could kill them herself!”
Countess bent down to check for a pulse. “She’s out cold, but still alive,” she said, and then she began running through Scout’s pockets. She took out a cellphone, which she pocketed, some loose bills of Fleftic and Anglatian money, which she also took for herself. Then Countess happened to notice a glint of silver around Scout’s neck. It was a silver Orthodox cross, and Countess made to take it, not because she was Orthodox (she was actually Catholic) but because it was silver. Silver was worth a fortune even in tiny amounts in the current economy.
Then, just as Countess was about to wrap her hands around the chain around Scout’s neck, the Anglatian’s legs suddenly went up and smashed into Countess’s chest, right on the sternum. Countess collapsed beside Scout as she had difficulty drawing breath. Scout made to run away from the scene, but Countess still had the presence of mind to grab her by the ankles and haul her back down. “Oh, no, you don’t, bitch!” Countess said, but since she still had trouble taking deep breaths, only the last word on her sentence came out of her mouth.
Scout went down hard on the ground, and Countess crawled up over her and began throwing punches and elbows on the downed Valerian as the Huns began to ground and pound the Corsair. Scout tried to shield her head from the blows, but Countess had knelt on her arms just to prevent her doing such a thing. Scout was forced to resort to smashing the toes of her boots into Countess’s back and the back of her head, and when the Corsair got really lucky and managed to clip the Hun somewhere on the top of her head, Countess groaned and stopped punching. Scout saw her opportunity and sent a haymaker right at Countess, cutting open the Hun’s upper lip. Scout pushed a dazed Countess away and got to a kneeling position to catch her breath.
Meanwhile, Countess rolled closer to her bike and finally took great big gulps of air as her lungs began to work properly once again. Behind her, she heard Scout get to her feet and call out, “Is that all you got, Hun?” Countess slowly got to her feet as well, and then her hands curled around something strapped to the side of the fuel tank of her Harley.
“The real question is, is that all you got, Wannabe?” Countess asked, and then she unsheathed the camp knife strapped on her bike and took a wild stab in Scout’s general direction. Scout jumped away from the sharp and swinging blade but the knife still caught her leather jacket and tore a large gash through them. Scout took another step back and then began running away from the scene. One of the Huns raised his pistol and began firing at Scout’s retreating form but then the Witch called out, “That’s enough, Springfield! Let her run away. Someone has to tell our Wannabe friends about what happened here tonight.”
The Witch then looked down at Isko Riviero, who was being held at gunpoint by the barrel of Attila’s Glock 17 pistol. “Now, did you really think we would forget all about you, man?” she asked Riviero as she took Attila’s place over the Corsair and aimed the long barrel of her revolver at Riviero’s forehead. “You should’ve given up when you had the chance, Isko,” she said to him in a whisper.
In a louder voice, the Witch said, “Francisco Riviero, for the crime of being a member of the Corsairs, the Huns find you guilty! For the crime of being a complete and utter failure at being part of the one percent, I find you guilty! For the crime of giving the ride priority over the rider, I find you guilty! And for the crime of being a blood traitor to the Democratic Republic of Abanhfleft by selling out to the Crows of Anglatia, I find you guilty! Your sentence is death by dismemberment. Sneaky! Steeler! Countess! Kid! Carry out this poor excuse of a biker’s sentence!”
Sneaky, Steeler, Countess, and Kid, the four highest ranking women among the Huns gathered around Riviero with the obvious exception of the Witch, surrounded the downed Corsair and began tying thick starched nylon ropes around Riviero’s wrists and ankles. The Witch wanted to add further humiliation to Riviero by having four women execute him by dismemberment. Sneaky, the president of the Huns’ Balmaceda chapter; and Steeler, the Witch’s vice president, took care of Riviero’s legs; Countess and Kid, Attila’s vice president and sergeant-at-arms respectively, tied up his arms. Once ropes had been tied around the Corsair’s ankles and wrists, the women tied off the other ends to the rear fenders of their bikes. Once they were done, the Witch took her pistol away from Riviero’s face since he had no chance of escaping now. The four women hopped onto their bikes, turned on the engines, and began taking up the slack on the ropes as they moved away and began their grisly task. Riviero felt himself being lifted off the ground as his limbs were pulled in four different directions.
Dismemberment was an old method of execution taking back to ancient times, and the Huns had decided to resurrect it for tonight. However, instead of horses, motorcycles would be doing the job of pulling the victim apart.
“Come on, Witch,” RIviero said in a pleading voice. “Don’t do this, girl. Please.”
“Too late, Isko,” the Witch said softly. “I told you, you should’ve given yourself up when you had the chance. It would have been just a little bullet to the head for you, quick and simple. But you brought this upon yourself, brother. Now you’re going to have to suffer.” It wasn’t true, though. The Witch would have had Riviero dismembered even if he had decided to give himself up like she said.
The four bikes as the ropes were stretched to their limit. Now, it was all about how long Riviero could keep himself together before the forces tore his body into pieces. The bikes roared as their riders goosed their respective throttles to add a little bit more power, and their prisoner’s body was stretched to its maximum extent. Riviero could already feel the pain beginning to build up, and he took hold of the ropes around his wrists to relieve a tiny fraction of the pressure. “Attila, Witch, please, don’t do this!” he said, but the two Huns had turned a deaf ear to his pleas.
The four bikes’ engines screamed, and smoke poured out of their rear tires, as Riviero fought against the inevitable for as long as he could. Francisco Riviero let out a loud and piercing scream which mingled with the roar of the motorcycles, and then the scream was cut short by a sickening crunching sound. Blood spurted out of the massive and ugly wounds where RIviero’s limbs had been torn out of their sockets by the force of the bikes pulling them away. All four bikes moved forward as their potential energy and momentum were converted into kinetic energy and actual movement.
“And that is the end of Isko Riviero,” the Witch said huskily.
“What do we do with the body now?” Attila asked her.
“Mail it to the Wannabes for all I care, but make sure that they get the message,” the Witch replied. “It’s ‘Get out of Riuwiee or else this will happen to you!’”
“Who gets to take the guy’s patch?”
“I think our executioners have already that question for us.” The Witch and Attila watched as Sneaky, Steeler, Countess, and Kid took the limbs tied to their bikes and began measuring them. It turned out that Kid had the longest limb as a scapula was still attached to Riviero’s right arm when it had come off, just barely beating the left leg held by Steeler. Countess congratulated Kid by tossing her knife to Kid.
“Countess, did you cut yourself with this?” Kid asked as she examined the camp knife.
“No, I didn’t. Why are you asking?”
“Because this thing’s got blood all over it,” Kid said, holding up the blade so Countess could see the dark red and nearly black blood staining the blade.
“Hmm,” Countess muttered. “I must have got more of that Wannabe than just her cuts. Well, if she does die, it’s no great loss for all of us.”
Kid shrugged and then began cutting off the laughing skull patch on the back of Riviero’s leather jacket with the camp knife. Once she was done, she held up the patch over her head to the resounding cheers of the rest of the Huns. They had taken their first Corsair scalp and were reasonably sure that they would be getting much, much more in the coming days.
