Wasteland Road Knights Trilogy

by Andrew Dobell

  The tower’s residents and guests noticed he was getting ready to leave, and several of them came by to say thanks and wish him well. He didn’t know most of them. Pitbull kept his distance, but was always there, watching him.

  Ras walked up as the minutes wore on.

  ‘You leaving?’ Ras said.

  Nero nodded.

  ‘Well, shit, thanks, man. You saved my life back there, and Gus’ too,’ he said. He turned to Gus, who was still fixing up their van across the garage. ‘Hey, Gus, don’t be a dick. Come over here. Nero’s leaving,’ he said.

  Gus got up and walked over, shaking Nero’s hand.

  ‘Thanks, man,’ Gus said.

  ‘No worries. It’s been great to meet you.’

  ‘So, you get what you wanted?’ Ras asked, peering at the supplies in the back of the car.

  ‘Sorta,’ Nero said. ‘Be careful of Rex, alright?’

  ‘Sure. We will.’

  Nero nodded and climbed into his car, revving the engine. Maybe this was the best thing for him to do, anyway. Taking another with him might be more trouble than it was worth. He’d been alone in these waste for years. He knew what to do, he knew how to survive on his own. Bringing Nyx with him would likely be trouble from the start.

  Nero eased the car forward, into the courtyard and over towards the front gates. As he closed in on them, Cryptus walked forward, staff in hand. Nero leaned out the window as he approached him.

  ‘So, you’re leaving us today?’ Cryptus said.

  ‘Yeah, I need to hit the open road. It was getting a little claustrophobic in here,’ Nero explained. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He wasn’t enjoying having all these people around him. He much preferred his own company, doing his own thing his own way, and that would be something which would have changed if Nyx were sitting in that seat beside him right now.

  He thought of telling Cryptus the truth, but Pitbull was close by, and he didn’t want to get Cryptus into any trouble. He glanced back at Pitbull.

  ‘Gates open,’ the general said, dropping a not so subtle hint.

  ‘Be careful,’ Nero said to Cryptus. ‘Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?’

  ‘You just might,’ he answered. ‘Safe travels.’

  Nero nodded and gunned the engine, easing the charger out of the gates. Nero looked into his rearview mirror and spotted Rex on a balcony with Nyx standing beside him. They were too far off for him to see any details or expressions they might be wearing, but they were both watching him leave.

  ‘Sorry, Nyx,’ Nero muttered to himself as the gates closed behind him, obscuring his view of her. Shouts went up, announcing the gates were locked before it all went quiet. Nero sighed. For a while there, it looked as though things might change. He was beginning to think that he might have actually left with Nyx sitting next to him and have his first companion in years. But, maybe it wasn’t to be?

  Nero revved the engine and then dropped the clutch, tearing off into the desert and leaving a huge cloud of dust behind him. He had much of the day ahead of him, and for now, he just wanted to get as far away from the Watchtower as he could. He chose a random direction and just drove, sometimes following the tracks, and sometimes going off-road. He didn’t see much as he went, just the usual encampments dotted about the desert, like tiny oases offering food, water, and shelter.

  He wasn’t interested, though, and whenever he spotted the tell-tale dust cloud of a vehicle moving in the distance, he kept well away, preferring his own company for the time being.

  He drove through the day, only slowing down and looking for a good place to stop as the night started to draw in. He soon found a suitable spot with a useful depression that would hide his campfire from casual view and moved around to have a look at the boxes of supplies he had been given before leaving the Watchtower. He pulled one out and started to go through it, pulling out some of the food and bit’s he saw inside it. It only took him a moment to realise something was wrong. There were some supplies in here, but nowhere near as much as there should be. The bottom of the box had been filled with junk with the food and drink placed on top, so, what looked like a full box of supplies, was nothing of the sort. He pulled out the other boxes and found the same thing in each. By the time he’d been through each one and separated the good stuff from the junk and empty containers, he realised be actually barely had enough to even half fill one of these boxes.

  With each box he looked in, he grew angrier and angrier, cursing at the night sky, calling Rex all the names he could think of. The shit head had screwed him. Fucked him over one last time to make sure he knew where he stood.

  Nero supposed he should have checked the boxes as they were being loaded, but it was too late now, the damage was done, and he couldn’t exactly go and lodge a complaint now, could he? He guessed that if he showed his face at the Watchtower again, he’d be shot on sight.

  It was better for him to move on and look for supplies elsewhere. Going back would achieve precisely nothing and only waste more gas.

  As his temper and anger faded and he started to accept the hand he’d been dealt, Nero went through the supplies he did have and sorted himself out a meal and settled down beside the campfire he’d built, wanting nothing more than to forget the day's events.

  It had been a day of ups and downs, really, with the daemon attack being somewhat terrifying, only for that to finish with Nyx revealing that she could kill them. That was, so far, the first and only time he’d seen one of these things die. He’d fought them many times, countless times really, and it always ended with his hiding or running away while others died around him. He’d heard the rumours, of course. The stories that were passed from camp to camp by travellers like him. He’d heard talk of the daemons being killed by some of the more resourceful survivors. Even occasionally by the mystics, those touched with magic. But they had been only stories, tales of hope that were passed around during these bleak times when the human race teetered on the brink of extinction.

  They made us feel better, made us think that maybe, just maybe, we could fight back.

  He had always viewed the stories with a healthy amount of scepticism, because the evidence he had seen, the evidence he had first-hand experience of, said the opposite.

  That had changed in the early hours of today when Nyx had killed that daemon with two hits from her sword. It shouldn’t have died. It should have healed and continued its rampage, probably destroying the Watchtower in the process. He’d seen it countless times before. If a daemon got into a camp or fortress, it would kill anyone it found and bring the place crashing down around it unless you were able to lure it away somehow.

  But now Nero had his own story to tell. His own, first-hand tale of hope against the darkness.

  Stories like this kept humanity, or what was left of it, surviving. It kept us going. It had certainly had a positive effect on Nero today as well, despite being thrown out of the Watchtower. Knowing that Nyx and probably others like her were out there and able to kill these nightmare creatures actually made the future a little more tolerable.

  Nero grimaced, though. Sure, it was great that Nyx could kill these daemons, but she wasn’t going to be much help cooped up in the Watchtower as a slave to Rex.

  Nero sat back against the side of his car, being careful to avoid the spikes and sighed. Hopefully, she would be freed, or free herself sometime, he thought, so that she might actually put her ability to use.

  As he let his mind wander through the memories of the day and picturing Nyx in his mind’s eye, a sudden scuff of something against the ground, and the sound of pebbles rolling and hitting each other, brought Nero’s attention straight back to reality and his eyes snapped open.

  A figure jumped from the low ridge of rock opposite him and landed just on the far side of the fire. Nero recognised him right away. It was one of Rex’s Dogs, holding a nasty looking club with huge nails and barbed wire wrapped around it.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ the man cackled and leapt for him.

/>   Chapter 11

  Nero

  Nero rolled sideways as the Dog brought his club down onto the side of the car with a resounding boom before turning towards him.

  Nero scrambled to his feet and pulled the pistol he had on him from the holster on his hip. The Dog was on him right away, though, and swung his club at Nero’s gun. The Dog caught it with a clean hit, knocking the gun from Nero’s hand and scratching him with the barbed wire.

  Nero hissed. It wasn’t a bad cut, but he knew full well that it didn’t need to be a big one for it to get infected and do him some serious damage and maybe even kill him.

  The Dog wasn’t about to stop there, though, and went for him again. Nero ducked the clumsy swing and backed up some more.

  ‘You’re far from home,’ Nero said, hoping to distract him.

  The Dog smiled for a moment, and the pause was enough to give Nero time to pull his dagger from its scabbard. The Dog frowned at the new weapon and hesitated. Nero went on the attack, swinging his knife, slashing one way and then the other as the Dog backed off, doing his best not to get cut. The man backed up into the fire, though, and flames licked up his leg.

  He yelped and jumped away from the flames, which had set the hem of his trousers aflame. Nero put his knife in his off hand and rushed him, body-slamming his attacker and knocking him over onto his back.

  The Dog dropped his club as he hit the floor, but Nero didn’t hesitate to jump on top of him, pinning him to the ground and delivering first one, and then two punches to the man’s head. After the third hit, he stopped struggling, but Nero hit him once more to be sure. Nero then put his knife back in his right hand and lifted it up high. Only to look up into the ends of three shotguns pointed at him. Nero froze and looked past the barrels to the people holding them.

  More of Rex’s Dogs.

  Another of them stepped forward and relieved Nero of his knife before Pitbull appeared close by.

  ‘I told him not to rush in,’ Pitbull sighed, looking down at the bloody man Nero sat atop. ‘Restrain him, hook up his car and let’s go, I want to be back before daylight,’ Pitbull said.

  The Dogs went to work, hauling Nero off their fallen comrade and restraining him before loading him into the back of a pickup truck that they were attaching his car to.

  They were soon on their way and bouncing through the desert back to the Watchtower. Nero saw no reason to argue with these guys as he’d only end up beaten up, and he felt sure he’d endure enough of that once he was in the tower anyway. Instead, he did his best to sleep. The bumpy ride didn’t help much, but he did manage to doze off a few times during the night out of sheer exhaustion.

  Eventually, the Watchtower came into view, lit up from within by whatever generators they were using against the night sky. The first traces of daylight on the eastern horizon were just visible as the convoy rode up to the back entrance that led straight into the garage and moved inside. Nero was quickly brought down from the pickup and led into the compound and down a flight of stairs to a lower level.

  Nero looked around, taking in the layout. He’d not been down here during his first visit, and as he passed a side corridor, he spotted the old lady Pheen in what looked like some kind of laboratory. She looked back at him, too, staring into his eyes before she passed out of sight.

  A couple of turns later, after passing several other doors, they opened one up before him. They then removed his restraints and threw him inside. Nero stumbled, primarily because of how tired he felt, and fell to his hands and knees as the door was slammed and locked shut behind him.

  Sitting up, Nero sighed and looked around him. The cell was bare, just stone walls, a stout wooden door with a barred window set into it, and opposite the door, another small barred window set high up on the wall. Nero raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure why they had bothered to put bars in the window, it was tiny. His head wouldn’t fit through that, let alone anything else.

  Well, Nero thought, he didn’t think he would be back here so soon. He knew he’d insulted Rex, and probably pissed him off, but he wasn’t entirely sure why he was here. Maybe the insults were enough. Or, perhaps it was his interest in Nyx?

  Ras had spoken of how much value Rex put on her when they had first watched her spar in the courtyard. So, maybe he really did hold her in high regard. Maybe, having someone out there like Nero, who was clearly interested in her and in her freedom, was enough to piss Rex off and order him to be imprisoned.

  Nero moved to sit against the wall, still feeling really tired and did his best to rest, but his mind wouldn’t stop working and wondering what this was all about.

  Did Rex know of Nyx’s ability, or just suspect it? Maybe his interest in Nyx wasn’t purely carnal. Sure, she was pretty, and in Rex’s mind, probably made a great trophy to have beside him, but knowing what she could do now, Nero couldn’t help but think that maybe Rex suspected something more.

  Maybe he had a good idea or even knew that Nyx could kill daemons. If he did, it would certainly explain why he held her in such high regard. Although, her looks might do that, too.

  ‘Arrrgh,’ he muttered to himself, there were too many possibilities. He would have to wait and see if Rex came to see him and maybe ask him some questions. He might get a better idea of what the situation was then, he thought.

  He didn’t have long to wait in the end, and as the sky outside his window started to look more like morning, Nero heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A face appeared at the door. It was just a guard, but he unlocked it and let several people enter the room.

  Pitbull strode inside, followed by a couple more guards, one of whom carried a chair that he placed in the centre of the room, and finally Rex.

  Pitbull reached down and lifted Nero up from the floor. He was a big man with arms like tree trunks who was able to manhandle Nero easily. He placed him into the chair where one of the other guards restrained him again. The wire they used on his wrists cut into his skin, making him wince. If he struggled, he knew he’d do himself some serious damage.

  Nero looked up at Rex, who stood leaning on the door frame, watching. As the last guard stepped away from Nero, Rex stepped forward.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting at the top of the steps,’ Rex said to the two guards in here. They both nodded and followed Rex’s instructions, leaving the room. Rex stood silently, waiting for the sound of footsteps to recede enough before looking down at Nero.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Rex said.

  ‘What?’ Nero asked, confused, only to be punched in the side of the face by Pitbull. The force of the hit knocked his head spinning. He thought the strength of it might break his neck it was so sudden. The pain that blossomed from the punch was incredible, making the room spin as he tasted blood in his mouth straight away.

  ‘This will go much smoother without any sarcastic comments, rudeness, and anything else that I feel deserves a punch, got it?’ Rex said.

  Nero nodded, not really wanting to be hit again, but he also had no clue what Rex might be referencing with his first question. What had happened when? There were a few options, but, he supposed, only one was really interesting, but only if Rex suspected something.

  Did he suspect something? Nero thought it was very likely, but not only had Nero made a promise to Nyx, but he also really didn’t like Rex, and had no desire to break Nyx’s confidence.

  ‘Good, so, let’s start again. What happened in the garage yesterday morning?’ Rex asked.

  ‘A daemon attacked us, I killed it,’ Nero answered.

  ‘No, you didn’t. You shot it, but you didn’t kill it, did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Nero said.

  He was expecting the punch, which actually kind of made it worse because he tensed up. As the pain from the hit lanced up and over his face, the room spun again while bright colours exploded before his eyes like the fireworks he remembered seeing as a child, before the world went to shit.

  ‘No, you see, I think you’re lying. I think you know w
ho killed that daemon and you’re protecting them out of some kind of misguided loyalty. You came here alone, and you were only here for a couple of days, so who the hell deserves that kind of loyalty from you?’

  Nero shrugged, and Pitbull punched his arm. Nero yelled in pain, cursing to the heavens as he shook his head and got control of himself again.

  ‘I think I know who it is. It’s fairly obvious, but I just want to hear it from you. That’s all I want, and I’m prepared to stand here and watch you get beaten to a bloody mess, each and every day until you tell me,’ Rex explained.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, I killed that daemon, and if you don’t believe me, well, there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?’ Nero laughed. ‘But, if I had to guess, I’d say you were talking about Nyx. Heh, well, that’s a nice idea, but it’s far from the truth. She didn’t kill that daemon. I did. I only wanted to free her because she’s hot and would look good on the end of my cock,’ he spat, taunting Rex. He didn’t care what Rex did to him, he could beat him up and torture him all he liked, he wouldn’t break a confidence.

  ‘That’s very honourable of you, Nero. Really, it is. You act like some kind of knight of the roads trying to protect her like that. I get it, but, the only cock that Nyx will be getting is mine, whenever and wherever I want. So, you just think on that as you slowly die here in this cell of yours while I’m up there raping her each and every night with impunity. The apocalypse is great, isn’t it? No one to stop me doing whatever the hell I like. No police, no judges, no courts. I can kill and rape and torture and rule like a king, and people love me for it. Fucks like you, still stuck in the old ways of doing things, are a dying breed, my friend. Face it, the future is mine for the taking, and believe me, I’m taking it.’

  Nero spat at Rex. The spittle smacked right into Rex’s eye with a satisfyingly wet slap and made him pull away in disgust.