Wasteland Road Knights Trilogy

by Andrew Dobell

‘Aaah, shit,’ Nyx said.

  Nero whipped his head back front to see a zombie lurching out of a side corridor, its guts hanging from its rotted-through belly and dangling before its legs. It was going for Runt.

  Nyx adjusted her grip on her sword and swung it in a wide arc, cutting the thing across its torso. It wasn’t a very refined hit, but it did the job and knocked the walking corpse back and to the floor. Runt had fallen as well and was scrabbling away as several more undead staggered from the side corridor.

  Nyx roared in defiance as she leapt forward, her sword swinging into the next closest one. Nero darted forwards as well and slammed his foot on the chest of the one Nyx had cut down and grabbed his knife. It was still alive and reaching for him and Nyx. A second later, the blade was buried in the zombie’s forehead. Looking up, another Zombie was reaching for him, staggering forward with its arms outstretched with a baleful moan.

  Nero surged upwards and jammed his shotgun up beneath the thing's jaw and pulled the trigger.

  The almighty explosion from the gun echoed around the corridors, getting an answering roar from whatever beast was fast approaching them.

  The zombie dropped to the floor, the top half of its head missing.

  Nero caught a glimpse of Nyx a short way off to his right, chopping down another zombie like it was nothing.

  Nero smiled to himself. There were times when this was almost fun.

  Another rotting bloated figure lurched from the darkness, its mouth distended in a howl of pain and horror. Nero slammed the grip of his shotgun into the things head, knocking it back while he swung his knife in and skewered its brain on the blade.

  From the darkness of a side room, another corpse stepped into the wide corridor with a strained howl. Nero whipped his shotgun sideways, smacking it across its face, knocking it back. The thing screamed as it tried to right itself until it jerked in pain and Nyx’s sword erupted from the creatures face. It jerked once before falling limp, revealing Nyx’s beauty just behind it.

  ‘Saving your life again?’ she asked.

  ‘You know I never tire of you doing that,’ he said.

  ‘Just as well, because it’s too much fun,’ she grinned.

  Nero looked around him at the rotten lifeless bodies that now lay scattered on the floor. When did this become normal everyday life? He mused.

  ‘Runt thanks you, you truly skilled. Runt see that now, yes,’ Runt said. Nero turned to him with a slight frown and walked over to the junction that Runt was in the middle of. He was picking himself up off the floor. The corridors were quiet now, Nero noted as he stepped up to the little mutant.

  Reaching the cross-section, Nero looked right, down the length of corridor they had run down. He couldn’t see anything down there. Was that unseen beast still after them?

  Nero looked down at Runt and cocked his head sideways. ‘Who are you, Runt? How do you know who we are?’

  ‘Oooh, that’s easy one. Runt answer that. Runt was at the Watchtower when you save Nyx. Yes, Mmm hmm, that’s right. I saw you save her, put her in your car and drive into wastes, and then Rex follow you. Runt remembers well, yes. Rex not happy, no he wasn’t. Rex was very angry. But… But you kill Rex, right? You kill him and his Dogs of War, right?’

  ‘Close. I didn’t kill Rex, although I was going to, and would have, had I not been beaten to it…’

  ‘Oh, yes, Runt remember now. You not kill Rex, daemon kill Rex. Whisperer kill Rex, right?’

  Nero frowned once more. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked. He’d not exactly spread that little fact around, and there were only a few people there at the time of Rex’s death. He had left Cryptus and Ras at the Watchtower after the chase through the wastes that had ended in Rex’s death. They were the only two other people who had been there, so it was entirely possible they had retold the story to anyone who might listen.

  ‘Runt was told, by master. Yes, that’s right, Runt knows what happened.’

  ‘And who is your master?’ Nero asked.

  ‘Master is great man. Master is friend. Mast—’ But another inhuman roar cut Runt off and filled the corridor.

  Nero looked right as a huge deformed figure smashed into the end of the hallway and screamed at them. It was a mutant, and a big one, like some kind of ogre.

  ‘Aaah, shit, run,’ Nero yelled as he pushed Runt forward. Nyx did the same, urging the little man on. But he didn’t need much encouragement, and within seconds, the little mutant was outpacing them, charging forward through the dark corridors, leaping over the debris.

  ‘Come on, Runt take you to master and safety,’ he shouted back.

  Nero ran hard, keeping right behind Nyx, pounding the floor and vaulting over the objects that were in their way. Runt charged around a corner up ahead. Nyx followed. Nero glanced back as he took the turn at speed, catching a glimpse of the rampaging monster that was actually gaining on them.

  Nero had fought and killed a few of these before, but they were formidable opponents. Not like mindless zombies which were easy to dispatch. Mutants like this might not be on the level of intelligence of an average human, like Nero, but they weren’t mindless undead, either. These things were dangerous and could recognise weapons and threats, and would plan accordingly.

  The confined space of the destroyer’s nearly pitch black corridors were not an ideal place to fight, even if he could get a few good shots off at it. There was no space for anyone to help him in here. Nyx wouldn’t be able to flank him, and there just wasn’t the room to manoeuvre. Besides, he only had so much ammo, and there was likely to be more beasties in here. If they could run and escape it, that would be preferable.

  Nero hadn’t survived merely by killing everything. He also knew when to make a tactical retreat.

  Runt turned left up ahead, Nyx followed, and Nero chased after them both. As they ran down this corridor, Runt started yelling.

  ‘Master, master.’ He yelled. Looking past Nyx, Nero saw someone appear from a side room a fair distance up ahead.

  ‘Master, we have company. Mutant,’ Runt yelled. The man up ahead in the darkness shouted something and ran in front of them in the same direction until he reached a doorway. The man stepped through it and held it ready, waving Runt, Nyx, and Nero onwards, urging them to get to him as quickly as they could.

  Runt was maybe ten meters in front of Nyx now and pulling away. A moment later, he jumped through the doorway as the mutant behind them continued its chase. Nero didn’t need to look; it was obviously in the corridor behind him and closing fast.

  Nero just focused on getting to that door and keeping Nyx in front of him. For a moment after Runt had passed through the door, Nero wondered if the man might close it on them and trap them in the corridor with this thing, but he didn’t. Instead, he waved them on.

  ‘Run, come on; you can do it,’ the man shouted, his voice echoing down the corridor, distorted as it reverberated around.

  ‘Go, Nyx, go,’ Nero yelled at her, hoping that neither of them stumbled in this last stretch with possible safety, even just temporary safety just a short distance ahead.

  Nero looked back. The thing was only meters behind them now, bellowing its rage and defiance at them with its huge jaws filled with rows of wicked looking teeth.

  Terror filled him as he ran. He shouldn’t have looked, he thought. Nyx jumped through the doorway next to Runt and the man.

  Nero followed, pointing his shotgun back as he did so and fired a single shot into the face of the mutant a second before the door closed and two seconds before the mutant slammed into it with an almighty boom.

  But it was already locked by the man rotating the spindle that levered the deadbolts into place. In the near complete darkness on this side of the door, Nero leant against the wall, nearly collapsing to the floor at the same time. For a moment, he focused on catching his breath and ignored the world around him. Looking up, Nyx used a hand to steady herself against the far wall. She looked up at him and smiled. Nero smiled back and let out a brief
laugh, just feeling happy to be alive as the mutant hammered on the other side of the door.

  Nyx stood straight, stepped over and wrapped her arms around him.

  ‘Holy shit that was close,’ she said.

  ‘It certainly was,’ he said, and looked up at the two men who stood close by. Runt stood beside the taller man, looking inordinately happy.

  The taller man wore a long leather cloak with a deep hood and a mask. His arms were crossed, and he held a long animal skull-topped staff decorated with feathers.

  ‘Well, well, well. It really is a small world. I’m pleased to see you two are still together,’ the man said.

  Nero knew that voice and stepped away from the wall. He’d not recognised it in the stress of the run, but now that they were safe and the man was talking normally, he felt sure he knew who it was. The clothes were similar, and the staff looked the same, but there were plenty of differences, too: additions or changes to the overall look, complete with an entirely different mask. Despite this, he felt sure he knew those intense looking eyes that peered out at him from the shadows of the hood.

  ‘Cryptus?’ Nero asked.

  Chapter 4

  Nyx

  Nyx raised her eyebrows as Nero said the name. She hadn’t realised who it was either, but then she’d spent much less time with this travelling mystic than Nero had.

  He’d told her all about what had happened and how Cryptus had been a part of things outside of what she had experienced.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ Cryptus answered.

  ‘It is you! Shit, how have you been?’ Nero asked beside her.

  ‘Good, my friend, good. I see you have met my assistant here,’ he said.

  ‘Runt, yeah, thanks for the help. Appreciate it.’

  ‘Runt happy to help any friends of master,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t remember him being at the Watchtower,’ Nero said.

  ‘You wouldn’t. He stayed with my vehicle and kept out of sight. It’s not good to reveal your hand to others. Runt was my back up plan should anything happen to me,’ he said.

  Nero nodded. ‘Good plan.’

  ‘And how are you, my dear? It’s good to see you free at last,’ he said, offering his hand to her.

  Nyx raised one eyebrow, not entirely sure if she trusted the man, but he had been key in events at the Watchtower. He’d been the one to come and find her and tell her that Nero was in the dungeons. She’d have never known that Rex had gone out and captured Nero after expelling him from the Watchtower otherwise.

  Nero seemed to trust the man entirely, but Nyx felt a little unsure about him. She wasn’t sure what the man’s motives were and that just worried her. After years in slavery to Rex, she guessed it wasn’t surprising, though. The only person she really trusted right now was Nero, and he’d demonstrated his commitment to her on countless occasions.

  Still, the man had just saved their lives when he really didn’t have to, so she took his hand and shook it. ‘Well, thanks to you, I’m still alive,’ she said.

  The creature slammed into the door again, denting the metal slightly.

  ‘Not for much longer if we stay here, it seems,’ Cryptus said. ‘Come, there’s a way out along here, I think,’ he said and set off down the corridor.

  ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Nero asked.

  ‘Kind of. I’ve been wandering about these corridors for the past few hours, and I spotted a way up to the top deck around here. We might be able to ambush the creature with a little more room to manoeuvre, maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Nero agreed.

  ‘Are you armed this time?’ Nyx asked, remembering him being without a weapon during their time at the watchtower and on the chase from Rex.

  Part way along the corridor, with some light filtering through into the end of the passage up ahead, Cryptus stopped and pulled something from the inside of his cloak.

  ‘Oh, yes, I found something at the Watchtower after you left which I don’t think Rex will have any more need for,’ he said, brandishing a long-barrelled revolver in his hand.

  Nyx smiled. She recognised that gun. It was one of Rex’s prized possessions that he usually kept in his private quarters. ‘You went looting,’ she said.

  ‘Well, why not? The opportunity presented itself, and Rex had a number of nice items he was keeping hidden. Perks of the position he held, I suppose,’ Cryptus said.

  ‘Is it loaded?’ Nero asked.

  ‘Absolutely, and I have more than enough shells to last me a lifetime back at my place,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent,’ Nero answered as Cryptus placed the weapon back in his cloak. Cryptus took one more step and the entire corridor’s floor suddenly collapsed beneath them and they dropped to the floor below. Nyx dropped to her hands and knees, getting bumped and hit as she fell. The floor below gave way, too, swinging open beneath her and the others and suddenly she was in freefall in darkness. Something whipped past her, catching her coat but not holding it, and then something caught her legs. It was thin, stretchy and very sticky. She flipped and hit more of these strands of sticky elastic, tumbling over herself but somehow managing to hold onto her sword. Within moments she’d slowed to a stop, held aloft by these strands of whatever it might be. She looked around her to see that these sickly, sticky white strands were everywhere. She was suspended only maybe five or six feet above the ground, although it might as well have been a hundred, and this stuff was everywhere.

  It looked like she and her companions had been caught in a gigantic web.

  She was at a very strange angle — mostly upside down with her legs sticking out in very different directions. But she’d kept hold of her sword. Although looking up, she saw it was caught in the white gunk, too.

  ‘Nyx? Are you okay?’ Nero called out. She looked around in the direction of the sound and spotting him not too far away, also suspended in mid-air.

  ‘I’m fine, but what the hell is this stuff?’

  ‘It looks like webbing; like a spiders web,’ Cryptus said.

  ‘That’s a very big spider,’ Nero answered.

  Light spilt into the room from one corner of the space they were in, lighting up a section of the floor and just catching the webbing with a faint glow without really lighting up the room.

  Movement in the opposite direction to Nero caught her eye as she looked around. She saw something large and inhuman moving very slowly. Reaching out with one long leg made up of bone like armour and more joints than was natural.

  As it crept into the small shaft of light, it revealed its face covered with several large bulging eyes and some really evil looking fangs.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Nyx said, and knew she needed to get free. She tried to pull her legs free to get them under her, but it was little use as they were tangled in the webbing, so she pulled on her sword.

  Surprisingly, after a good pull on it, it moved, snapping a strand of webbing, and then another. Looking up, she watched the keen edge of her blade stretch and then slice through the webs. With a grin, she whipped the now free blade across one side of herself, and her body dropped from the webbing, leaving her hanging by her legs.

  Nyx glanced up. The colossal mutant spider shot forward a few steps and stopped. Its movements were incredibly freaky.

  Runt screamed in fear, but the thing was focused on her as she was the closest one.

  Focusing back on her predicament, she swung her blade once more, attacking the webbing, breaking more of the strands.

  ‘Come on,’ she chiding herself as she hacked, again and again, breaking more and more of the stuff until she’d cut enough of the stuff and she suddenly fell, landing on her back, her sword clanging to the metal floor.

  The fall had knocked the wind from her, and for a moment, she found herself unable to breathe. Nyx looked left and saw the mutant bug drop to the floor, its legs splayed wide.

  That doesn’t look good, she thought, finally catching her breath with a cough.

  ‘Nyx,
careful,’ Nero called out.

  ‘Thanks for the advise, sweetheart,’ she answered him, her voice croaky. She rolled to her right, towards her sword. Rising to her knees, she grabbed her blade and hefted it up before her as the mutant approached. It stopped as the blade glinted in the light, apparently recognising the danger.

  ‘Can you hold that thing off?’ Nero asked.

  ‘Can you get yourself free?’ Nyx asked in return.

  ‘Working on it,’ Nero said, his voice strained with effort.

  The spider jerked forward and raised its legs. With all of them on the floor, it was maybe four feet in height, but its footprint was huge, and with its legs and body raised in the air and its fangs bared, it was easily taller than she was. Nyx stepped into it and swung her sword, catching one of the thing’s legs and slicing the end of it off.

  The thing squealed and backed off.

  ‘Damn right,’ Nyx said. ‘We bite, too.’

  The spider stopped fussing and skittered sideways, looking at her, watching her.

  She suddenly noticed some orange light flickering off her blade. Was there a fire in here? She chanced a glance back and saw Nero had managed to pull out his lighter and was setting the webbing on fire. He was mostly free and had started to help Cryptus, who was close to him as well.

  She looked back just in time to see the mutant spider leap at her.

  Nyx whipped her sword up in a desperate attempt to ward it off. She caught it in its body as it slammed into her, its many legs reaching for her. It wasn’t a great hit, but she knocked it off and onto the ground.

  Nyx dropped back to the floor, too, landing hard on her bum.

  The speed with which the spider righted itself was incredible. Nyx barely got herself up to one knee before it charged at her again. Nyx paused, holding her sword behind her and waited for it to fully commit to attacking her before she lifted her blade again, whipping it around her in a wide arc, swinging it with all her might.

  She caught the mutant spider right across its front like a major league baseball player, smashing her sword into it and practically slicing it in two. The mutant squealed again before dropping to the floor. It twitched for a moment, its legs wheeling about in panic before it slowed, grew still and stopped.