Krav and Nala finished eating amongst the vile Gordo clan undiscovered. They forced a laugh at each of their jokes and listened intently to all the campfire stories they told. The outfits had worked as intended, no boots necessary.

  Once the Gordo clan was done eating, they grabbed their weapons and went on patrol. Dansk had to count them multiple times, always coming up with the wrong headcount. Eventually, he shrugged it off and assumed Jackmaw had messed up the count and blessed him with extra heads.

  Krav was sent to oversee the slaves with a group of multicolored raiders. The four of them stood over the slaves and tormented them with spit, kicks, and insults whenever they got bored. Krav was so swept up in the moment of it, he actually started to follow suit, challenging one of the other clansmen to a spitting competition to see who could hit a thin slave first. He howled with laughter when he won.

  “Hey!” he said when he saw one of the other raiders pull a rolled cigarette from a shirt pocket. “What’s that you got?”

  The raider looked confused for a minute, as if Krav should know what it was. He turned the cigarette over in his hand, second guessing if he knew what it was. “You get bonked on the head back in Kiva Noon, kid? It’s the same shit I always smoke.”

  “I don’t know who you are. How the hell am I supposed to know what you smoke?”

  The rest of them raised their eyebrows as well. A conspiratorial look was passed among them. How could he not know who that was? The raider scratched a match against his thigh and held the flame to his cigarette before continuing the conversation.

  “You don’t know who I am?”

  Krav thought quick, but his quick thinking was akin to a short fuse dynamite. “I’ve been strung out on random drugs since Kiva Noon. I don’t even remember my own name. If I’m being honest, man, I could use what you got real bad.”

  “I’m Scaly Pete of the Gordo clan, kid! I’ve gotten at least three kills from every raid we’ve had since I joined on! I’m in the running to become a lieutenant as soon as a position opens up!” he offered Krav the drug. “Go ahead and have a puff, but don’t forget my name again.”

  Krav licked his lips before taking the drug. It had a musky smell fuming from its smoldering end that turned his stomach, but he had been sober for a couple hours now and it was giving him a headache. He snatched it from Scaly Pete. Removing the loincloth mask, Krav took a long drag from it before handing it back. “Thanks. Don’t worry, I won’t forget a name as stupid as Scaly Pete ever again.”

  The raider held his cigarette, now half smoked, and fumed. He was turning so red, he looked like he was going to burst into flames. The others backed off and prepared themselves for a show of force from the would-be lieutenant.

  “You think that’s funny?” Scaly Pete snatched Krav by the collar and drew him close. The boy chuckled and his eyes lulled back in his head. Not worth it, Scaly Pete thought, but he had to show his men he meant business. “Alright, addict, I’m going to cut your losses for you. Say you’re sorry and I won’t kill you right now.”

  “I’m sorry I forgot your name, Smelly Pete,” Krav said, and he laughed like it was the funniest thing he had cooked up in weeks. Whatever the drug was that he had smoked, it left his throat dry and his head spinning. It also strangely left him with the urge to reach up and give Scaly Pete a kiss on his stubbly, chapped lips.

  The raider wound up and hit Krav hard in the face, and he fell to the dusty earth. The sound of laughter surrounded him. Scaly Pete stood over him, snorted, and spat a glob of snot onto Krav’s painted chest.

  “Clowns don’t live long around here, kid. We leave funny guys like you buried up to their neck for the megafauna to come pick at. As a matter of fact… Gerdie, Mosk, start digging. It can’t take too long to make a hole big enough to fit this shrimp.”

  Their laughter was echoing from their small group, but the most disturbing one was coming from Krav. The raiders didn’t know if he was entertained by the idea or if he had lost his mind. Now it felt like burying him was just putting a junkie out of his misery. Still, Gerdie and Mosk looked at each other, then started scooping out lumps of shale with their bare hands.

  Back at the edge of the jungle, Nala watched over the slaves who were crafting more containers for the sacred god blight. Some wove baskets from the fallen twigs while others were hollowing out giant nuts with dull knives.

  It was hard to watch. The Disciples had known little about slavery. They didn’t have any particular value on the concept of freedom, but that was because they had no understanding of what it meant to be subjugated. Why didn’t these people fight back? There was no reason to serve these monsters. Wouldn’t they rather die than further the goals of their enemies?

  By the time she was done pondering it, she had a newfound disgust for the slaves of Kiva Noon. Her fight was with Jackmaw Yapyap and the Gordo clan, she told herself. She didn’t have to save a group of people that wouldn’t even save themselves.

  But she redressed that thought. What would Mistress Voya say? Mistress Gaya? What about the high priestess? Nala could almost hear all of their voices in her head telling her the same thing: Nala was young, and youth bred fervor at the expense of sensibility. These people had their reasons not to fight back.

  She took a deep breath and leaned back against a large palm tree. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another Gordo clan girl approaching her. She wore a torn red dress that had been patched with dyed scraps. Nala checked her feet. Boots.

  “Hey,” the girl said with a smile.

  Nala frowned. It was hard to play pretend with murderers. “Hey.”

  “Pretty boring job, huh? I swear, this better pay off.”

  “Yeah.”

  The girl nodded, the she whipped her face around to watch Nala. “You don’t talk much. I get it, but I don’t think I even know your name.” She reached out her hand to shake. “I’m Vicky the Viper. Most people just call me Vicky though.”

  There was a lurch in Nala’s stomach as she looked down at Vicky’s filthy palm. She didn’t want to touch any of these raiders unless it was to scalp them. In the end, she swallowed her grievances and shook Vicky’s hand. “I’m… I’m Nala.”

  She didn’t mean to give her real name, but it just slipped out. She hadn’t prepared for something like this. Apparently, her espionage plan hadn’t been completely thought out if she didn’t even have a fake name lined up.

  Vicky held her grip tight for a moment too long, and Nala feared that she had sniffed her out. When she finally let go, she smiled and leaned against the tree alongside her. “I don’t know how I missed you, Nala. I don’t think I’ve seen you around the clan. Where did you join up?”

  A bead of sweat formed on Nala’s temple and she swallowed hard. She had no idea what was outside the jungles of paradise. Her mouth opened to answer, then closed it again. She was trying to think of somewhere, anywhere that she had heard of. With any luck, the Gordo clan pillaged it and recruited from the ashes. But she couldn’t think of anything.

  “I… I’ve been around for a while. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been a raider.”

  Vicky nodded, but then Nala realized something in her eyes. The raider wasn’t trying to determine Nala’s loyalties. She was making small talk before a big ask. Vicky’s eyes were wandering Nala’s body, and she was getting closer.

  “I’ve, uh… I’ve only been with the clan for a few months now. I got picked up during the raid on Vulpis.” Vicky’s eyes went from trailing her body to focusing on her face. She smiled. “I was really wondering if you wanted to find a quiet place to get up to no good with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Right! Right. Worth a shot though,” she laughed nervously. “Just… don’t tell Rust that I came onto you. I’m on my third strike with that and he said he’d kill me if it happened again.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  That was a harsh punishment, Nala thought. She looked at Vicky the Viper with a bit of compassion blooming in her heart. What a terrible thing to be chastised over searching for love. She offered the raider a smile and said, “Don’t worry. Secret’s safe with me.”

  Nala felt something jam into her side. It was metal and cold. When she looked down, she recognized it as the weapon that brought down her entire flock. Vicky brought her lips close to Nala’s ear and whispered, “Rust died back in Kiva Noon. Blew his ass to smithereens on a landmine. Who are you really?”

  Of course it was a ploy. Far be it from raiders to have anything resembling a heart. Nala swallowed hard and looked down at the pistol, then back up to Vicky’s wide eyes. Her thin lips were flat with deadly seriousness. She had the look of a psychotic killer, the kind Nala never saw among the villagers of Rootwalla. It scared her half to death.

  “Please…”

  There was a click from Vicky’s weapon, and Nala flinched. “Don’t worry, baby. That’s just the safety switching off. But you’d know that if you were part of the clan, wouldn’t you? All you had to do was come do some drugs and fuck me, but now I’ve got you on the end of my pistol!”

  Sheathed in Nala’s belt was a knife whittled from megafauna bone. She had a practiced form with it and could easily plunge the weapon into Vicky’s heart in no time at all. But Vicky’s weapon was even faster. Nala had only ever seen that kind of speed from the lightning strikes that split the sky in the rainy season, and she knew she couldn’t beat that.

  “What do you say, baby? Want to give me one more chance before I shoot you? It’s either that or I turn you in, and a pretty little thing like you wouldn’t be the kind of slave making baskets and digging up shale.”

  Vicky still had that manic look in her eye, and it made Nala feel increasingly small. There was one hope, however. Vicky was trying to direct her by waving the pistol back and forth across her hip. It slid against her exposed skin, then Nala felt it slip and aim away from her. Vicky quickly recovered it, but by the second time it happened, Nala was prepared.

  “I’ll give you until the count of three. One… two… ungh!”

  Vicky’s crazy eyes disappeared, replaced by shock and surprise. She tried to suck in air, but she died so quickly, she didn’t even have a chance to comprehend what had happened. Nala had one hand on the back of her head. The other had the bone knife stuck under Vicky’s sternum and jabbing up into her heart. Nala did as her warrior creed had taught her, ripping out the knife, popping it into one kidney, removing it again, and then dragging it across Vicky’s throat. She was dead from the first strike, but it was better safe than sorry.

  She didn’t know what to do when the gun fell to the earth and went off with a violent pop.

  Scaly Pete’s ears pricked when he heard the gunshot. Elsewhere, there was some action, and he wanted to be part of it. He called off his men. “Hey! What the hell was that?”

  “My cue,” Krav laughed. From the floor, he removed the axe from his belt and swung it into Scaly Pete’s leg. It ripped it off at the knee and the raider went down cursing and screaming. The other two had their eyes blown wide with fear at the sudden brutality unfolding. Gathering their nerves, they each tried to pull their weapons to put the rabid boy down. With their hands slick with the shale, each of them struggled to even unholster the things.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” one cried.

  Krav swung his axe again, this time taking off a raider’s hand as it fiddled with the gun on his hip. As he collapsed to his knees, holding his stump and yelling at the top of his lungs, Krav followed up with a downward chop that split his head in half. The third and final raider fell to his knees and put his hands up.

  “Wait!” he cried. “I’ll give you whatever you want! I’ve got drugs and Ammo plenty, friend! Just don’t fucking kill me!”

  “Give them to me!” Krav said. He had the serrated edge of the axe on the raider’s neck, drawing beads of blood on its blade. Frantically, the raider dug through his pockets and produced needles and rolled cigarettes. He also handed him magazine after magazine of their holy Ammo, although, Krav didn’t know how that was supposed to help him. “Give me your weapon, too. Now!”

  There was no hesitation from the raider. His fingers slipped on the blinker in it holster, but he frantically pulled it out and let it slip from his hand onto the floor. Krav scooped it up before he could get any funny ideas.

  “Great. Now how the hell does this thing work?”

  “U-um. You disable the safety with the switch on the side, then pull the trigger to start shooting. When you’re out you push that button there to—!”

  Krav didn’t wait for him to finish talking. He aimed the gun at him and held the trigger down. The weapon bucked and kicked in his hand as it rattled off all the holy Ammo it held. It fired with such unobserved speed, Krav didn’t even realize it was empty until the raider was on the floor soaking the shale with his blood.

  “Neat!” he said with a smile. He went back to Scaly Pete, who was clamping down on his ragged stump. The bleeding wouldn’t cease, and he was sucking pained breaths in through his teeth. He cursed Krav with every step he took toward him.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you, you low life wastelander! If this was a real fight, I’d… I’d…”

  Scaly Pete let go of his stump with one blood-slicked hand. He was reaching for his own gun, but Krav stopped him by stomping on that arm. The boy squatted down and found Scaly Pete’s cigarette had fallen on his chest.

  “What else you got, huh, Smelly Pete?” Krav dug through his pockets and found more Ammo and cigarettes. A pack of handmade matches was packed in one of those pockets. Krav struck one against the maimed man’s face and lit his half-smoked cigarette. “I don’t really like these, but it’s better than being sober.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “That’s such a boring question. Do you really want it to be your last one?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Krav took one last drag from his cigarette and jammed the smoldering stub into Scaly Pete’s eye. The black crystals forming behind Krav’s eyes flared with pleasure at the merciless rampage. Every splash of blood, every cry of agony burned the boy’s skull with a cozy heat. He was starting to enjoy the cruelty.

  Scaly Pete struggled to remove the cigarette from his eye, but when Krav finally let go, it was only to grab his axe. The crystals behind his eyes demanded more, and he whipped the serrated edge into Scaly Pete’s chest. The raider cried out through pulverized lungs, then Krav wound up the axe and did it again. Soon, the two-tone paint job Nala had given him was a singular, blood red that covered him like an apron.

  He gathered up all of their weapons and drugs. For a moment, he was cycling through the cigarettes, trying to find one he liked. When none of them were giving him the high he was looking for, Krav decided to try the needle.

  That ended up being a bad idea. As it began to take effect, the world around him seemed to move in slow motion. Colors ungulated like filters constantly being changed over and over. First a grey nothingness, then a calm green, and finally a blood red.

  “Oh, fuck yes…” Krav smiled. He could feel his master at his hip. “Which path is this one, Rufus?”

  “The psychopath,” he said. Krav could hear the sarcasm in his voice. “At least release the prisoners before you go on a killing spree.”

  That hadn’t even crossed his mind. The slaves here looked like they had given up a long time ago. Collars hung around their emaciated necks and shackled them to spikes drive into the ground. Multiple slaves were shackled to the same spike to prevent them from running off in separate directions.

  Krav remembered feeling something like a key in Scaly Pete’s pocket, and he fished it out of the corpse. Slick with blood and glistening bright in his compromised vision, he handed it to the closest slave.

  “You’re that kid from the bar… the one in Kiva Noon. You got into that fight with the Pit Lord… how are you here?”

  Krav had to squint at the slave to get a clue to who he was. The boy vaguely remembered him as the bartender who had been an asshole. It didn’t matter now; there were other assholes in need of his axe. He said something unintelligible that seemed to spook the bartender, then he was running off towards the jungle.

  Nala hid amongst the foliage as the soldiers of the Gordo clan swarmed her position. They were barking at each other in a crazed panic. One of them found Vicky the Viper’s corpse, and all hell broke loose. There were charges of treason, claims of shapes in the trees stalking them, and even theories that the slaves were in revolt.

  By her count, there were sixteen feathered freaks around her. She made herself as small as possible beneath some ferns and produced her blow darts.

  The chaos was the perfect opportunity to stir the pot. She had a selection of darts in her arsenal, including sleepers, poisoners, and ragers. She slipped a rager into the pipe and shot it from her concealed position.

  It hit one of the searching clansmen in the neck, and he doubled over. He cried out to his clan. “I’m hit! Fuck me, I’m hit!”

  There were others running to his aid, and as they approached, she fired another dart into the one at the back of the group. Her training as a Disciple had taught her to be resourceful against the human enemy. It was better to divide and conquer than to go all out when outnumbered.

  The first victim was succumbing to the rager. He felt the familiar sting of the zerker drug pumping through his veins in such a high dose, he couldn’t warn anyone. As soon as one of the Gordo freaks got around to check on him, he attacked.

  There was a crazed cry, then he was strangling his rescuer. Nala heard him squeeze until the spine between his fingers cracked and the choking clansman went limp. The raging raider stood on shaky legs and pulled his pistol from his hip. He began to fire into the other approaching members.

  From behind, the second target was beginning to feel it as well. He started to fire his blinker randomly into all of his allies as he screamed. As soon as he was out of Ammo, he threw his gun and charged them barehanded.

  The chaos was so short live, Nala didn’t understand what was happening. The Gordo clan was quick to turn on each other and begin blasting away. The jungle was filled with confusion and panic as no one could tell who was and wasn’t compromised. The two who had been dosed with the rager were already dead, yet they still exchanged fire with each other.

  It ended abruptly when Krav burst into the scene. He strode through it as if he was invincible, rooting out the rest of the Gordo clan as he went.

  Under the effect of whatever was in the needle, it was easier to react to danger. Krav saw them in a delay as they appeared from behind trees and boulders. They moved in slow motion, and he was able to aim his blinker and spray them down before they could even register that he was an enemy.

  When he finally got back to Nala, she didn’t recognize him. The chaos had died into an eerie quiet, and he stood amongst the dead like he belonged on a pale horse. He was covered in blood and tissue from his head to his pants. The strange weapons of the Gordo clan hung in his sash like a personal arsenal.

  When she tried to talk to him, he only mumbled and pet the skull on his hip.