The Wastelander

by Tipsy Wanderer

  During his enlistment, Stone was able to best two professional soldiers by himself, so they made him part of the wall’s defense. From that moment on, he was a true warrior.

  “You new?”

  A craggy and unpleasant voice assailed him.

  Stone saw an older man resting beneath a crenel, with two massive black broadswords for weapons. One was in his hands, and he ground its edge against a whetstone. Better than average leather armor protected his body and head. The armor seemed to have been personally customized and reinforced. Most discomforting, however, was the man’s hideous face. Half of it was caved in like he’d taken a hammer to the cheek. How was he still alive?

  Stone nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Man as young and healthy as you… why’d you join up?” The veteran put his sword to the side and fished a rough hand-rolled cigarette from his waist. He put it in his mouth, lit it, and took a long drag. “Seems t’me life as a bandit’d be better. No one tellin’ you what t’do, go where you please... you’d probably earn more, but most importantly, you’d pick yer own targets. Come across somethin’ stronger’n you, just run.”

  Stone was taken aback by the strange man. “You don’t like being a soldier?”

  “Soldiers are always facin’ the unknown. Even if you know yer gonna die, if the cap’n says fight, you fight. Followin’ orders, that’s the life of a soldier.”

  “Doesn’t seem to me a bandit’s life is much better. They don’t even have a steady place to lay their head,” Stone objected to the grizzled warrior’s opinion, “The new leader said it. Anyone who joined up has a place in the fort. All I’m looking for is a safe place to sleep.”

  “Hrmph. The fort, eh? Gotta be breathin’ to earn that blessin’.” This time, it was another soldier who spoke, a large and burly man with not a thread of hair on his smooth head. His weapon was an iron spear resting on his shoulder. “Maybe if it was Hydra leadin’ us, we’d have a shot but this woman? She was just one of his flunkies. You even know who we’re fightin, kid? Sweepers!”

  Stone continued to challenge them. “The new leader might not be as strong as the old boss was, but she’s got that banshee helping her. They already turned the place around. They say if anyone refuses to accept the new leader, the banshee shows up and snuffs out his life. If I were you, I’d be careful about what I say.”

  The bald man clearly paid the warning no mind.

  “A’ight now, that’s enough. We’re here so no use yappin’. We’re all brothers now. We need to be smart in these dark times.” The veteran plucked the cigarette butt from his mouth and flicked over the side of the wall. His patchwork leather armor creaked as he rose and clapped a hand on Stone’s shoulder. “You an’ Baldy got night watch. I’ll bring the others ‘round for patrol. Holler if you see anything. Baldy, you look after the new blood.”

  “Will do, captain!”

  Night fell quickly. The oasis was enveloped in an unsettling silence.

  Stone and Baldy sat across from one another, illuminated by the flames of a campfire between them that dispelled the chilly night air. They took turns talking and feeding the fire.

  Baldy fished out a large biscuit and broke it in half. He handed a piece to Stone. “Night shift is long and tough. If you don’t eat, you won’t keep up your focus.”

  The biscuit was a jerky-like pulp made from smashed roots and stems, all coarse and bitter fiber that was no fun to chew. But at least it filled their bellies, and out in the wastelands, anything that eased hunger was appreciated. Who’d complain over taste?

  “Thanks.”

  Even this small piece of biscuit was worth a lot out here – more than a few people would kill for it. Your typical new recruit was not well-off and often went days without a meal.

  With longing in his face, Stone spoke to his comrade, “The new boss has started to hand out all the food that was hoarded in the fort. Folks are getting more and more for themselves, and their lives are improving. We’ve gotta beat these sweepers, not pay tribute – life will improve even more then.”

  Baldy, on the other hand, had never liked the new boss. What did that distant future have to do with anything anyway?

  Stone stuck a piece of the hard biscuit in his mouth, chewed it to soften it up with his spit before gulping it down.

  A gust of wind blew particles of sand at them.

  “Pa, sand?” Stone scowled at the wind. The oasis was protected by ruins that kept the desert at bay, so where did this grit come from? Strange though it was, he paid it little mind as he continued his discussion with the older warrior. “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Three years, maybe four. I forget.” The sound of sand whipping against the walls increased, filling their ears with rasping noise. Baldy sighed. “A guy like me with no real talent to speak of, almost forty… this is about the best I can hope for.”

  Stone chuckled. “Come on, out in the wastelands, making it to forty is an accomplishment. I hope I make it to your age. I’d be happy.”

  “You’re young. You got potential.” Baldy shook his head, full of envy. “If you make it to my age, you’ll have at least earned a name for yourself here. You’ll be somebody.”

  But Stone didn’t seem interested in such a future. “Was Panther somebody? Snaketooth? They’re dead. Even Hydra… ah, doesn’t matter how strong they were, they were still insignificant in the wastelands. Me? I just don’t want to starve to death. I just want to sleep somewhere safe and enjoy a woman from time to time. I’d be content to do that for forty years.”

  The kid’s demands were a tall order. Wasn’t that the dream of every wastelander?

  Baldy was getting ready to ridicule him a little when he noticed the sand getting thicker. The grit was starting to affect his vision, and the sound of it blowing against the walls made it difficult to hear. The sand was startling to sprinkle like sheets of rain, covering both of them in a thin layer of it. Their campfire was sputtering, barely keeping itself lit.

  “What the fuck is all this?” Baldy had never experienced something like this. He picked up his weapon and rose to his feet. He then stuck his head out of the crenel to take a look. “Where’s all this goddamn sand coming fr- ahh!”

  A shrill scream broke the silence of the night!

  Stone was fiddling with the fire when he suddenly felt a warm spray skitter across his cheek like a spider. One moment, he was listening to Baldy talk and the next moment, his new companion was on the floor with limbs twitching. His eyes stared into the distance and his lips twitched, trying desperately to form words, but nothing but unintelligible syllables sputtered out. A hand ax jutted from between his eyes, half buried in his skull and deep enough to sink a third of the way into his brain.

  “Sneak attaaaack!”

  Stone’s scream changed the night from dead silence into chaos. He picked up his weapon and leapt to his feet with no hesitation, moments before the huge silhouette of a sweeper bore down on him. Its deadly hatchet was aimed right for his head.

  Clang!

  Stone held a sheet iron shield between him and the attack, whose impact shook and numbed his left arm. Without thinking, he shoved the knife in his right hand deep into the sweeper’s chest. It cut into the mutant’s heart and caused blood to spew everywhere like a fountain. Stone wiped his face clean and ripped his dagger from the body.

  Whoosh-whoosh!

  Two sharp and ice-cold crossbow bolts punctured his flimsy armor and jutted out from his chest. Eyes wide, Stone turned around, and the charging figure of another sweeper filled his vision. He saw the glint of its ax aimed for his throat.

  Stone’s whole world spun.

  The young man’s head thudded to the ground and rolled off the wall. His headless body followed.

  Thousands of sweepers were clambering over the parapets, slaughtering soldiers as they swept past.

  The sweepers were of all sorts: from heavily armored wasteland rangers to emaciated things that scrambled on four limbs and seemed
to defy gravity as they clawed at their victims with deadly talons. Some of them even had wings, and though they couldn’t fly, they used the twisted appendages to glide on the evil wind into the outpost.

  “The sweepers are breaking through! Stop them!”

  The scarred veteran came rushing to the fore with a hundred warriors, and suddenly, the sounds of bowstrings, guns and clashing metal filled the air. No one expected the sweepers to climb over the walls in complete silence under cover of night. Most crucial to this assault was this strange sandstorm that’d given them cover. Without it, this many sweepers would definitely have been discovered long ago.

  The old veteran was certainly capable. He split several sweepers in half as they came before him, shouting orders as he charged forth, “Keep ‘em out!”

  Suddenly, a tornado appeared before them.

  The veteran captain came to a dead halt. A tornado, here? He peered at the dervish that shouldn’t have existed and suddenly saw a figure hidden within. He couldn’t make out any details, but there was definitely a human figure inside the whipping winds. The stranger seemed to float above the ground and was clad in otherworldly armor. Two red eyes crackled like hellish lightning through the darkness.

  “Die!”

  The veteran charged ahead, lifting a broadsword with both hands. The dark figure responded by flicking a finger as though he were simply shooing away an irritating pest.

  In the midst of his headlong rush, the veteran was unceremoniously blown apart. The grizzled captain became a cloud of dust in the wind, vanishing with the breeze like he’d never even existed.

  85 Unstoppable

  An intense feeling of danger woke Cloudhawk from his sleep. Something wasn’t right.

  The discomfort was more intense than ever. It felt as though even his spirit was trembling in instinctual fear of some ultimate predator. Cloudhawk felt like he could be swallowed up by the terror at any moment.

  Tonight was the night!

  He snatched up his exorcist rod and leapt out of bed. In the same instant, a thick energy hung over the whole outpost – like the seeds of a dandelion blanketing the whole world or musical strings invisible to the eye. From somewhere nearby, the pulses of a powerful psyche rippled towards him in distinct waves.

  The demon! He was here!

  Cloudhawk was certain because it wasn’t the first time he’d sensed this presence. He had felt it in the distance when the Blackflag Outpost was attacked, just before the tornado of sand toppled its walls. He was back now and close.

  Cloudhawk could even sense his precise location. This proximity meant the demon wasn’t watching from afar – had he finally lost patience? Was he taking matters into his own hands?

  Cloudhawk pulled open a window and was immediately blasted in the face by a gust of sandy wind. He winced against its intrusion, which confirmed his suspicions. The demon had to be in the camp. A dust storm like this came from the wastelands. They didn’t just spontaneously appear here. The demon had to have used some strange power to create it.

  The abilities of demons and demon hunters were very similar. Both used relics of power to create supernatural phenomena. Cloudhawk had no way of knowing what this relic was, but he could speculate about how it was used.

  Cloudhawk had traversed dimensions twice, and each time, he could sense the essence of whatever reality he visited. Everything – whether it was water, wood, metal, or stone – had a certain “vibration” frequency. Because this resonance was unique, each manifestation in the physical world was different. Each type of resonance organized atoms and molecules into specific shapes that appeared to people as water, wood, metal, and so forth.

  Thus, a power that could affect resonance could alter that thing’s fundamental properties. Earth could become iron. Gold could change to water. Anything could be realized by manipulating this power. Of course, normal humans could not observe or access this power, and only through the miraculous effects of relics were demons and demon hunters able to manipulate resonance.

  Therefore, this sand wasn’t natural. It didn’t come from the wastelands. The demon spread it through the air with his power, changing the constitution of the wind and reorganizing atoms [1] to create sand. Hence, seemingly out of nowhere, the sandstorm arose. The level of power creating it required was nothing short of fantastic, and though Cloudhawk had never encountered the demon, he could tell by his handiwork that he had to be even stronger than the Bloodsoaked Queen!

  “Has the coward finally showed its face?” After Cloudhawk tracked down the Queen and let her know, her eyes were filled with a terrifying cold light. Her hands were curled into fists, and suddenly, it felt like the air was boiling. She’s been hunting this beast for a year: a whole year of waiting, of enmity, finally culminating in this moment. “I’m going to kill him!”

  “Slow down!” Cloudhawk blocked her path and tried to calm her down. “You can’t just rush out. I can tell he’s no weakling. Just throwing yourself at him is too dangerous. We have to come up with a plan.”

  The Queen stared at him through her hideous mask. “What is there to think about? None of you can help me with this task. Don’t get in my way!”

  Artemis agreed. She felt it was time to act. “If we don’t act now, the outpost could be destroyed.”

  Blackflag Outpost’s bane and the murderer of Mad Dog and Slyfox had been difficult to flush out of hiding. Cloudhawk also wanted him to pay for his crimes, but was a handful of humans enough?

  Mantis, who had remained silent until now, added his quiet voice to the discussion, “He’s only one person, and no matter how strong he is, everyone has their limits. We can keep sending people at him until he’s exhausted.”

  Artemis reacted by stomping forward in a rage, grabbing him and lifting him off his feet. “Are you suggesting we just sacrifice the outpost’s people!?”

  The assassin hung in her grip. His expression never changed, and he delivered his words in detached and frigid tones, “That’s how we survive. Otherwise, nothing will stop him. Better them than you – is that not so?”

  Artemis fell silent. Everyone was quiet. Mantis’s method was to throw lives at the demon. Logically, it was the most effective course of action – force the demon to waste his psychic energy on lowly soldiers, and once his abilities were exhausted, the Queen could mop up. It was a reasonable strategy.

  “The sweepers didn’t have much time to prepare. Unless my guess is wrong, there shouldn’t be too many of them.” Mantis continued in his deathly cold voice, “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have hidden in the oasis for so long, trying to keep us in the dark. The outpost has the advantage in numbers. This is now a battle of attrition.”

  Artemis considered his words and found that Mantis had a point. Although she didn’t agree with throwing lives at the demon, she also didn’t want them all to be destroyed by a single encounter with the fiend. She answered, “We’re gonna throw everyone we have at them!”

  Piercing whistles arose from all over the outpost, alarms that announced sweepers were breaching the walls. Their locations meant the enemy wasn’t coming from one location but many, creeping through the sand and darkness to attack from all around. It was a tactic used to confound the defenders so that they could not discern how many there were or which direction the main force was attacking from.

  Cloudhawk called out without any further thought, “The demon is to the east.”

  Artemis nodded. “Alright, then we ignore the other alarms. Concentrate our forces to the east. I’ll lead them myself to deal with this so-called demon!”

  Greenland Outpost’s regular troops numbered in the thousands, and if they conscripted everyone who could fight, that number rose to almost ten thousand strong. Given enough time to prepare, no force in the wastelands could stop a legion like that no matter how strong this demon was.

  But no sooner had Artemis made her decision than one of the outpost soldiers stumbled into the room. “Shit’s gone off the rails, boss! The east flank’s getting c
rushed. We can’t stop ‘em!”

  Artemis’ face darkened. “What are you saying? Where’s the enemy?”

  The soldier stuttered through his report, “I-if they keep this p-pace up, they’ll b-be at the fort a-any minute now.”

  Her face fell. Artemis knew this mob of sweepers would be strong, but she didn’t expect them to be this overwhelming. She made a quick change to their strategy. “Shut the fort’s gates and call back the rest of the soldiers. We make our stand here!”

  The night was doomed to be chaotic. Biting winds whipped through the outpost, and sand blotted out the sky like waves crashing on the settlement. Light from the moon and stars disappeared, and all of the outpost’s braziers were extinguished. Everything was plunged into a darkness so complete that no one could see their hands in front of their faces. However, the soldiers could see the inky shadows of the sweepers, darker than the night, moving their way.

  “Fire! Fire now!”

  As the soldiers prepared a volley, the sand-saturated wind was gathered together by some inexplicable power. All of a sudden, the sand turned to spears and the wind cut as sharp as blades, racing through the darkness. The soldiers had no way to discern where they were coming from.

  Whoosh!

  One of the sand-spears tore through a defender’s chest.

  Squelch!

  An intangible cutting wind opened another’s throat.

  The soldier tried to scream but only managed to spray blood all around. One by one, the doomed fighters fell to the ground, dead. The din of hundreds of footsteps closed in, caused by returning outpost soldiers who had met the enemy and their leader head-on as they made their way to the fort.

  The quality of the air changed. The countless granules floating in the wind became like flecks of iron gathered together by an invisible magnet. They coalesced into an enormous figure that began to take on a humanoid shape. A head, eyes, arms, legs, a body…