Murderer

The clash of alloys rang loudly throughout the complex, piercing the walls and traversing all corridors within range. One after another, smashes of hard iron against its glowing brethren were the only thing that could penetrate the thick smog-like clouds of brownish mist that sluggishly pushed itself around the entire building, gently seeping out of the one or two windows that someone had bothered to open, enveloping the entire building in a musky shroud. Only the faint flashes of orange light that tinted the smoke around it could possibly allude to what was going on inside, that was, until one stepped foot inside to be greeted by the chorus of metallic embraces: the clinks, the clangs, and a soft melody of sparking embers flitting from their steely homes and into the air around them, causing that delicate haze within the mist, the only thing of vibrancy to be found in such a vile place.

Resounding with the banging gavel were the footsteps of he who owned this place, though not a place he frequented, it was definitely under his auspices at all times. He marched down the dulled corridors, places that once held some semblances of life, but had since been stained by the ash and dust, charred by the fires of Hell and cracked from both overuse and neglect. The now colourless wallpaper peeled from the walls themselves, revealing the messy plasterwork beneath, and swayed in the air as the soulless man paced past them, never to be fixed.

He continued his journey, breezing past the countless array of heavily built wooden doors, not taking a moment to glance upon their contents through the small square windows that each had upon its face, his eyes ignoring the damage that had been caused here. Some rooms had been caved in entirely, others had been repurposed and refitted with specialist equipment, and since abandoned. Others however, were still fresh with signs of life and care, rows of desks and small chairs propped behind them, almost still in usable condition, if it were not for the viscous pollution that had seeped inside and reduced the areas to dust-ridden sarcophagi for the vitality that died within them. It was if time had stopped on the inside, but the future had caught up, and swallowed this entire, enclosed world whole.

Though his eyes refused to wander, it was impossible for the echoes of history to not worm their way into his ears, burrowing deep with the cries of women and children, the trials faced here, and the untimely end they met at his hands, a guilt that was forced further out of his mind and sight with each metallic smash that proceeded to grow louder and more fierce with every step he took, heading to the gargantuan oaken doors that had once separated hallway from assembly chamber, but was now just a shallow barrier between him and the ‘help’ that sat inside.

“Murderer” A voice rang out, being blurred to a silent shout by the continually battling metal and the screech of an opening door. A few more steps inside he took, laying his bloodshot, watery eyes upon his target. “Murderer!” He once again shouted as a plea for attention, calling out to a man in the centre of the large room who was wearing nothing but a blighted executioner’s smock, a pair of inflexible iron boots, and something upon his head that resembled an anvil with a face crudely painted upon it.

Was it a mask? A helmet? Perhaps it was just his head…

He held a thick, brass war hammer in one hand, and a white hot lump of iron in the other, forging it into the desired shape. His lack of a response caused the soulless to pipe back up, opening his mouth wide and about to spew out that one word once again, but before the moniker escaped his chapped lips, the blacksmith finally replied. “I told you before, boss. Call me Birmingham.” His guttural tone echoed as sharply as his tools as he dropped them to the ground, turning his chalk-drawn visage up at his apparent employer, as if he could see through the anvil that rested neatly upon his neck.

“Got your attention, didn’t it?” The boss muttered in a thick, gruff, cockney accent. It seemed that both of the gentlemen’s voices were just as harsh as each other’s. “I believe you’ve got something to show me, surely it’s ready by now... After all, you’ve had – Ah what is it now? – About six weeks is it?” His voice mixed together all of the charm of a fascist dictator with pile of forgotten vomit to form a sense of smugness that couldn’t be equalled by human hands, at least not purposefully. No, this kind of petty evil was something that only random chance could breed; an unfortunate side-effect of human nature, or at least the nature of this particular human.

“Barely a month, but that’s beside the point, boss. I’ve got your assignment ready, right here.” He stated with a quiet disgust about his words, clearly he didn’t truly like the one he was working for, and it was obvious that this negative energy was reciprocated by the employer, as both looked down upon each other, despite working together. The forger took a lowly stroll to the other end of the room to open up a shiny steel box, an object that actually remained clean amongst all of this mess, and flipped the lid with a mighty creak as it opened up, releasing a dose of fresh air into the atmosphere, which almost seemed to pollute the smoky embrace around it, cleanliness being an enemy of this place. From the iron coffin, he pulled forth a weapon of massive proportions that proved to be utterly giant when standing next to this beast of a man, whom it towered over with ease.

The sword’s grip was a good twelve inches in length and was composed of naught but steel, no leather straps or protection, no bevelled grip for the hands to fit around, just a metal bar that one would hold onto, likely with both hands, as there was more than enough room for two. The pommel was completely absent, as was the cross-guard, meaning there was little to this weapon other than its handle and the blade itself. Speaking of the blade, it was as wide as the grip was long, and over seven feet in length that stayed true to its width until the very end, where it tapered off to a curved point. This was something completely unwieldy and utterly useless to the average man, but both the Blacksmith and his ‘friend’ had the strength of hundreds, so this uninspired piece of equipment may find use within their hands.

“Over twelve-hundred kilograms of meticulously folded steel, edged with laser sharpened obsidian flakes to maintain an almost monomolecular state of sharpness, with a fuller of lead that seeps into the forte of the blade itself to prevent the whole thing from shattering under extreme stress. The thing is safe as houses…” The forge-master proudly proclaimed while struggling to carry it over to his employer, opting to drag the absurd weapon along the ground, scraping its broadside across the uneven, stone floor as not to dull its edges. “Safe for you at least, I’m sure any man, beast or wayward armoured division would be wise to rethink their entire life’s worth before coming anywhere near you while you wield this thing.”

The boss took it from the other, grabbing its hilt with a single hand and raising his strong arm to point the tip of the blade at an angle directly between right in front of him and above his head. He took the time to use his free hand to brush away a lock of his already filthy hair (Now even more defiled by the addition of all this dust and ash) away from his milky lenses, casting a crimson gaze about the weapon in a look that seemed to say ‘One is not amused.’ Not only was he able to hold this thing in such a position that would make a regular man of a similar build cringe if they attempted it, even if the weapon was just a regular sledgehammer, but he was also able to spin the thing around in its entirety around his wrist, 900 degrees, before finally slamming its razor point into the ground beneath, letting it rest in the small fissure it had created. “Much, much, much to be desired…” His voice was almost a whisper, but he purposefully made his mumbling loud enough for his cohort to hear it loud and clear.

“Eh!?” A single syllable let loose from the mouth of the blacksmith, at just the right inflection (With interrobang and all) was enough to let the soulless man understand the utter discombobulation of his worker. “How? H- I… I don- How exactly did you expect me to improve this monster of a weapon? It suits you perfectly, an absolutely flawless item in its functionality… You could play a game of chicken with a jet-powered aircraft while pointing this baby forward and not receive so much as a scratch.” His exclamations were exaggerated of course, but not to an outlandish degree, as it was true that this weapon – if swung with enough force – had the innate strength to smash apart concrete foundations, never mind the comparatively weak fixings of a vehicle’s nose. “What is it that you desire exactly? Want the thing to do your taxes for you too I should imagine?”

“It isn’t that…” The boss muttered while eyeing the blade up and down with an unimpressed grimace. “You see, murderer, it—“

“Birmingham!”

“It requires more grandeur, more emotive effect, if you catch my cold.” The soulless man tried to express a want that he truly had, but right now, the words had all but escaped him. “It’s a tool of war, boss; Not a poem for your mother.” The blacksmith shook his head slowly and rested back against his table, his body coming perilously close to a red hot iron rod that shared his seat, not that he seemed to mind. “It needs to – It should…” He paused for a moment to clutch at the straws of his mind, pulling out the words he needed. “It should induce fear amongst those that look upon it.”

With that sentence, the forger let off a laugh of his own, pondering at how stereotypically villainous his employer was being right now, almost Saturday morning cartoon levels of sheer evil-ness just oozed from his words. “Not being funny, boss, but you do look as though you’ve just crawled out of your own grave.” He spoke while motioning at the soulless man, pointing at his stained, torn clothing, his permanently open shirt and his grease-ridden mop of hair that dangled lowly around his face. “If someone lays their eyes upon you while you hold that massive blade in a single hand, they are sure to be instilled with absolute terror, depending on how easily frightened they are, I suppose.”

“But is that really enough?” The boss quizzed; now actually being a tad bit more complacent with his worker, and less of a giant tosser about the whole situation. “Of course, I thought that was how your persona worked anyway; fear of the unknown and all that? They see you, and they see a deranged man with the power to lift that weapon, they’ll have no idea what’s rumbling around in that tiny little mind of yours.” He was actively trying to cheer his employer up, likely just to sell his product as a blade like that took a considerable amount of work and resources to make perfect.

The boss’ eyes twirled about in their sockets as his brain conjured up a relevant enough analogy to how and why he couldn’t leave this weapon as it was. “The unknown is like Pandora’s box, you don’t know what terror can be unleashed upon opening it, could be all of the world’s ills or just an awkward pain in the neck… But therein lies the problem, it could just be something small, and the thought of not knowing precisely what is coming allows one to speculate. Men lie to themselves all the time, and a simple shrug of the shoulders towards impending doom will feed into their own morale should they see me and my giant sword as nothing more than a hobo with a well-paid blacksmith. They have hope on their side, hope to give them courage and see out the fear I’ve laid in their path. No, I need despair on my side, I need to make it unmistakably clear that coming anywhere near me will be an act of suicide.”

“And how do you suppose we are to achieve that lofty goal? In the form of just a weapon, no less? Paint it a different colour?” The blacksmith joked, having a rather straightforward thought-process, not being the most creative of the bunch. “Jest if you must, but that is as good as a start as any… Paint it crimson, etch skulls and other deathly paraphernalia into its surface, coat its exterior in spikes and craft a solid gold cross guard that emanates and eerie purple glow to make the blade seem more diabolical, nigh demonic even.” The blacksmith finally interrupted his boss’s rambling of requests. “Surely even you can figure out that all those bells and whistles will take away from the blade’s performance? It is made to be perfectly functional; all of these meaningless additions will defeat its own purpose.”

“Fear and despair are their own weapons, I don’t want people to look upon me and see a well-armed enemy of questionable origin, but a hellish creature bent on their utter annihilation. That is enough to make them think twice, and we both know how much hesitation kills.” It appeared that he was done, he had vented a well pent up spleen upon his worker and expressed just what he wanted out of the weapon, now completely sure of his decisions, causing a pause of brief silence between them. The few moments of quiet grace were eventually interrupted by the defeated blacksmith. “Fine… Tell me, boss.  In your opinion, are these cheap thrills and emotional offenses truly worth reducing the efficacy of the weapon itself?”

He gave it a little thought, the gears turning in his head to make a fluid motion of thinking, reaching definitive and finite answers for such a query. “Yes. Yes of course it is. I whole-heartedly believe that in whatever remnants of a pumper I have remaining in here.” He expressed his opinion with a firm nod, as if making a deal.

“Then – If you don’t mind me saying so – Why have the blade at all?”

The boss was stopped in his tracks, barely moving a muscle upon hearing those words, just locked in a state of perpetual thought that was promptly broken by a series of steps that he took towards a nearby window, wiping away the grime that coated it with his right hand and staring out at the rural looking streets around him, an empty world that was once a hometown to hundreds of regular people, a place that had been forcefully evacuated by his cruel hands and made into a ghost of what it was. His eye was pulled back to the room to stare upon the blackened walls and mess of tools that lay strewn around, before turning back to gaze out of the window, a gentle grin slowly curling his lips and creasing his cheeks. “Well… Thanks for the good work, murderer.” He said with his initial smugness and clairvoyance, before heading off to the exit to leave the blacksmith to his devices.

“I thought my ‘good work’ wasn’t enough for you, boss?” The forge master called out as the soulless man booted open the door in an act of excitement and progress while also dragging a coil of rusted old razor-wire behind him. “You’re paid for ingenuity; it can come in the form of weapons, but also in just simple ideas… And today you have given me a monstrous one indeed.” He placed to fingers upon his forehead before flicking them forward as a sign of departure. “Keep it up, Birmingham.”

And with those words, he disappeared into the fog of the old, abandoned primary school, to do what he did best…

“It always creeps me out when he calls me that.”