"...but you must not lose hope, America. Today, all the nations of the free world are united; and it is you, foremost among them, that musts guide them toward safety, freedom and greatness. In spite of all challenges, we will prevail! So what if our enemies resort to blasphemous powers and hellish pacts? It shows the extent of their desperation! But we have access to just as much power – and a power more pure, a powrrrrrrrrrrzzzth. Under the watchful eye of the Lord, we will cast down the monsters that would plague our lands! Mark my words, America – tomorrow, at this very hour, will begin a war of justice, a war of freedom, and the world will be cleansed offfffffffffffhrrrrrrrrt.
You have been listening to President Montague's Adress to the People of the United States, November 13, 2076. Now beginning iterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzz thousand six hundred and twenty-nine."
The Wanderer walked into town in the middle of the afternoon, a weary look on her face. The sky was as occluded as always, the sun a miserable ball of bilish yellow half-concealed beyond the dust clouds; her heavy leather boots raised a puff of dust with each of her tired steps. She gazed at the skies, but no actual clouds were in view; despite the worn-out light of the sun, the dust maintained a constant greenhouse effect, resulting in a blistering heat. Combined with the lack of rain, this whole place was a scorched scar on the face of what remained of the US. She wiped her brow with her hand, but it seemed like her sweat turned to vapor even as it oozed from her skin; she only managed to stain her sleeve with more dust.
The Wanderer had that same tan, shriveled skin characteristic of those who spent too much time out in the Wasteland; nonetheless, she was very young. Her left arm was wrapped in dark fabric; on the wrist, something that looked like a watch did not indicate hours but contamination level, currently in the low greens. Her clothing was a motley of leather straps, likely cut from pre-existing clothing and sewn together into something more or less ressembling trousers and a tunic. She did not seem to wear any kind of weapon, which was unusual on its own, but even more so considering she was alone and had obviously been travelling for some time – days, likely, considering the dust gathered on her clothes and face and in her black hair. She did not carry a bagpack either, merely a small satchel.
The girl looked around her, trying to guess which of the dozen concrete houses in front of her were still in use; all of them sported closed shutters and planks as if they were abandonned, but she guessed that was merely a way of keeping the interior as cool and dark as possible. Advancing in the streets – if that single crossroad which the houses were built could be called such – she finally spotted a larger house whose front windows were merely shut rather than boarded off, and went to knock on the door. At first, there was no answer; she waited a minute, then knocked again.
"Come in," called a feminine voice from the inside. She complied, opening the door on a dark interior, humming with low conversations that slowed down and stopped as she advanced in the room. Half a dozen people were scattered across a single large room, around disparate chairs and tables. At the other end of the room, behind what was obviously an overturned desk repurposed as some kind of bar, stood a lanky gray-haired woman with a wary gaze, though she relaxed when seeing that the newcomer was just a girl. The Wanderer walked up to her, glancing at the shelves full of bottles in the corner behind the bar.
"Can I have a whiskey?" the girl asked in a hoarse voice that hadn't spoken in a long time.
"How old are you?" the woman answered, drawing a look of surprise from the girl.
"I-I'm eighteen."
"I'll be damned if you're a day older than sixteen, girl, and I ain't giving no alcohol to children."
The girl stared at her for a second, then giggled uncontrolably, drawing more eyes to herself. When she stopped, she was smiling warmly.
"Give me a coke, then. Ma'am."
A dark bottle soon landed on the table, and she drank it down in three swift gulp, sighing as she put it down. "Give me another," she said, and this time she sipped it slowly, enjoying the taste and welcome freshness. "You got ice somewhere?" she asked.
"Small generator powers a fridge. Keeps food from going bad," the woman answered laconically. "Now tell me, where you from?"
"Nowhere in particular. I travel a lot. I've been through Ohio lately."
This drew interest from the various people present, and two men and a woman moved their chairs around her.
"How are things down there?" asked the older woman.
"I've been walking for a week straight and didn't meet a single living soul. I stayed away from large roads and former cities, though, so perhaps people were gathered here. Would make sense, seeing how the rest of the country was."
The news seemed to worry the patrons a lot. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I did say I met no living souls. Awful lot of draugr though. I met at least one a day, and I got attacked by packs twice."
"Packs?" The bartender's surprise was obvious.
"Yeah. Weird things; half a dozen leeches, who seemed even dumber than usual, but not as strong, and they obeyed some kind of leader. I didn't stay to investigate, though; I ran like hell. These things are scary, and as I said, they were all over the countryside."
A moment of silence followed her words, people looking at each other worriedly. Without being asked to, the woman picked up a few beers and distributed them among the patrons, who stared absentedly at their drinks.
"I take it you don't have a lot of draugr around these parts?" the girl asked.
"No, can't say we do. We're too far from anywhere important for them to bother finding us. And there has never been a lot of them in the state. Authorities hunt them down systematically, and a lot of towns chase vamps away. Those who stay around tend to be "mistaken" for draugr by hunting parties."
The girl cocked her eyebrow with a dry smile. "Charming place you got here."
"It's all right, mostly. And this here town's better than most, at any rate. Or was."
"Doesn't seem like much of a town to me."
"Fallen on hard times."
"Lot of places do."
The bartender glared at her, anger pointing in her eyes. "This is different."
The girl stayed silent for a while, finishing her coke. Meanwhile, the other patrons moved away from her, getting back to their individual conversations and leaving her alone with the owner of the place.
"You intend to stay?" the woman asked finally.
"A couple of days, perhaps. If you got any room."
"We do. But you can't stay long."
"Why?" the girl asked, prompting a weary sigh from the other.
"We're running out of water."
"What? You mean like, your springs are irradiated?" the girl said, puzzled.
"No. We're... Running out. Water is going away. It hasn't rained in weeks, there's no spring in miles, and our wells have run dry."
"Well, that's... That's bad. What are you going to do?"
"We're probably gonna have to move. Get closer to the city."
The girl's face darkened. "That's hella dangerous, especially with short water supplies. You're not all gonna make it."
The bartender closed her eyes, visibly tired. "I know. But we don't have much choice. What happens here... It's not natural."
"What do you mean?"
"It's not just natural water. My stocks... My bottles and tanks... The water inside is going bad. Cloudy. Smells wrong. Sometimes I find living stuff inside it, algae, insects. I filter it, but I lose some along the way, and then it gets bad again."
The bartender fell quiet, surprised at the attitude of the girl; there was a glimmer of interest in her eyes, like these words meant a lot more to her than it did for the older woman.
"That's why everybody was so worried about what I said, right?" she asked. "You were waiting a caravan from Ohio, hoping to get resupplies. And since the situation there is bad with all the draugr, the caravan might never come."
The bartender sighed again. "It's not so much about supplies. We hoped to tag along to the next city. Would have given us food and water, a safe road, and a couple mercs with us. Could have used the help. Now... I don't know how we're gonna make it."
The girl played with her empty bottle for a few moment, then dipped a hand in her satchel and came out with four shotgun cartridges.
"Is that all right for the cokes?"
"Don't you got caps?" the woman asked.
"Seems to me like whatever you do next, you're gonna need ammo more than money. At least for the time being."
The bartended nodded silently, and she dropped the cartridges on the bar. "I'll be back later this evening. See that you got a room for me." And under the puzzled gaze of the owner, she left the house-bar.
In the street, the heat had come down, the sun closer to the horizon taking orange hues. The Wanderer took a folded cloth out of her bag, unpacking it to reveal cripsy brown meat. She chewed at it absent-mindedly – Brimborn meat wasn't the worst one could find, but it was better not to think too much about what you were eating. Those weird fish-things had once been quite close to human, after all. And it wasn't their fault that they had turned into those feral water-lurking things in the mystical fallout of the war.
Oh, well. A girl's gotta eat.
She took a stroll through what remained of the town at a leisurely pace, looking at the chipped and cracked walls, the wooden planks barring windows and doors. The place was pretty scary, but she could see that a few of the smaller houses were not boarded-off; in all likelihood, the patrons of the bar lived there. Seeing as the space around the town was pretty much a desert, and that its buildings were organized in a neat grid around the central crossroad, this place would be pretty safe to defend. If it was really as secluded as the bartender had said, then this place was probably safe from raiders and gangs: the rare frew who'd dare make the trip to this place would face a well-defended place.
It really was a shame that they had to abandon it. This was as good a living as you could find in the Wasteland.
After picking at the last crumpets of meat, the Wanderer folded the cloth and put it back in her satchel. It felt pretty good to eat after one straight week of fast; she was fortunate to not have had to hunt, gather food or roots and cook, or in all likelihood she'd have taken a lot longer to get from Colombus to there. After that disaster with the Valkyries, she'd wanted to get as much distance as she could between the city and her. Now, having seen the rest of the state, she understood their reaction better... But they were way past reconciliation. If she never put a foot in their damn plains, she'd be all the better for it. That'll do,
Trying to get rid of those disturbing memories, she tinkered with her glowing watch, which produced an annoying white noise for a few seconds before finding a radio station to settle on.
"Soooooome people say a man is made outa mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and booones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong..."
"EVERY STATE BOND YOU BUY HELPS US PUT AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
HELP OUR ALLIES IN THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM"
She chuckled. How things have changed, she thought idly.
The door of the house on her left was significantly less barred than the others, which drew a smile of satisfaction from her. That's what she'd been looking for. With some effort, she took down the rest of the planks, uncovering a grey door that she quickly forced open. Inside, the house was as dark as she had expected – but there was practically no mold, and most of the furniture was intact: the fridge showed some rust (and, of course, received no power) and one of the chairs was broken, but that was it. She'd just stumbled inside a perfectly mundane middle-class living room.
She went to the sink, which showed traces of rust and the damage of time – but far less that one would have expected after so long. She worked the tap, waiting for a few minutes – but nothing came out of it.
Weird. The automatic Durarust pumps installed in the 50s throughout the country had ensured that indoor plumbing remained working even after the war, with only minimal maintenance required. She had been in the deepest parts of the countries, in run-down buildings inhabited by people who barely knew how to use a gun, and they still had running water.
Deadly, contaminated water that would kill you in a week if you weren't careful, true. But water still.
ploc
The sound drew her attention, and she squinted at the tap. There a droplet of water, yes... Then another. They fell slowly, but fell nonetheless. But they didn't look quite right... Curiously, she wiped it with her finger and smelled it. She wrinkled her nose; the water smelled bad. Not only this, but it had an unnatural texture and color. It looked more like oil than water.
The Wanderer sighed and wiped her hand on her clothing. She sat on one of the chairs that looked like it wouldn't break down, and searched her satchel for a small, hard plastic bottle containing filtered water. She drank it slowly, wondering how long it'd be before she could replenish her supplies. She was short on both food and water, and had no TaintAway left to fight contamination. She looked at the glowing screen on her arm, and removed that concealed the rest of the item.
The device was strange, its metallic surface stained with soot and dirt, the label "SANCTUM 34" barely visible on it. A few copper gears and brass bolts gave some color to the apparel; beside the round contamination-indicator was a black screen, which she tapped a few times with her finger until it lit up – though it looked more like reflection upon a black surface than an actual digital screen.
Despite her best efforts, the device had no relevant indication on her surroundings; it persisted in simply showing the name of the town she was in, and a huge expanse of nothing around it. At least it still was pretty good at evaluating relief, but in these dusty plains all she had to do to know the relief was go out and look around her.
She checked her vitals, but her contamination was still low, her heartbeat normal, and her hydratation level within acceptable margin. All was mostly good.
The deep wail of Billie Holiday died away, to be replaced by a strangely cheerful voice, somewhat out-of-place in this desolation
"You are hearing the voice of Grimm the Reapah, gentes! And I'm interrupting this cool program for your hourly feed of information! Remember we've been without news of Nukelahoma for now three weeks? Well news just came in – and it ain't good. Word is in the Wastes that the town met a grizzly end – no, nothing to do with bears, though there have been sightings of mutated beasties in the region. No, rumor has it that it Taint in the area has reached a critical point. People claim to have seen "plumes of shadow erupting from the valley," and what have been described as "black monsters" running from the city. Understandably, no one is willing to get much closer. As to how and why such a city would have accumulated so much Taint, we are still in the dark – pun not intended. Magickers playing around with paradox? Good ol' tainted places? Stay tuned to find out!"
Music again replaced the voice, and the Wanderer massaged her temples wearily. She felt a headache coming soon, no doubt about it. The world had hit rock bottom decades ago; how did it manage to keep tumbling down?
She stood up, and went outside, where the sun was almost gone beneath the horizon, giving an orange tint to the dust clouds. She started towards the bar where the lights were already on, seeping through the shutters. From there, it really did look like a fortress against the Wasteland, concreted reinforced with wood, windows and doors closed to ensure the safety of those inside. A handful of other houses in the city had such lights on, and became more noticeable as the skies grew darker. Presumably the bar served as a town hall of sorts during the day, where people gathered and talked; it was lonely in the desert, and human contact was often as important as food and drink. More than once, the Wanderer had found a secure wood cabin or mountain mountain shelter, away from most possible dangers and with crops growing in the garden; only to open the door on the stench of death, and see a dead body still grasping a gun, its brain painting the wall.
Loneliness killed. She took their ammo and buried them, and on the door of their home she left a message – "do not stay alone." For all the good that it did.
The bar was significantly more empty when she entered, only two people sipping a coke in their old chairs. She approached them and sat down with them, and was greeted politely.
"Do you all have your own generators here?" she asked right away.
"Pretty much," one of the men answered. "Johnny don't have one, but he's been nagging caravans hoping they'd bring him one. Not that it matter much now anyway."
"Do you have problems with the electricity sometimes? Brown-outs, black-outs?"
"Sometimes, yeah."
"Was there an increase in that kind of problem recently?"
One of the men looked surprised.
"Not right now, but we did have a few days were the power was really wonky, yeah. It was a while ago, though. How didja know?"
She did not answer right away, looking thoughtful.
"How long ago?" she said finally.
"About three months?"
"Thank you," she said and got up, leaving them to puzzle the meaning of her strange questions.
The room she had rented for the night was simple, the bed old and rusty, the door covered in dust – then again, everything was full of dust in this region. The Wanderer sighed and put down her satchel, closed the door and put a chair against it to keep it from being opened – there was no key, and even if this town looked nice it would be a cold day in hell before she let her guard down among people she didn't know. There was a small bathroom, though its appliances were obviously non-functional for lack of water. There was a dirty mirror in which barely anything could be seen – she took another of her manyfold pieces of cloth and tried her best to wipe it, but it was pointless.
Sunlight was definitely gone by the time she looked through the shutters. It was not too late, but she had barely sleeping all through her trip from Colombus. She took off her leather clothes, checked a few fresh wounds and many more old scars on her tanned skin – none seemed infected or about to reopen, which was reassuring. She'd had to deal with infection when going to Cincinnati, and it had been one of the most unpleasant moments of her life.
She went down to the bed, covering herself with her own clothing for lack of sheets, and was asleep within the minute.
Her dreams were empty and barren. Her soul once again flew through the void, calling desperately to her Queen, to any Queen, to the denizens of the dreams, to anyone, anything. But there was only silence, and darkness.
The following morning she went down to the bar's main room, wearing her leather motley again. The owner greeted her absent-mindedly.
"Excuse me," she asked. "I have a few questions, if you don't mind."
The woman looked up, distracted from what seemed to be an inventory.
"What's it?"
"When was the last time a stranger came through?"
"Well, last caravan was two months ago..."
"No, not caravan. Lone traveller, like me."
"We did have one of those. About three, four months."
The girl sighed. "I see. Tell me, did all the water in the town go bad at once?"
"No, not at all. It started running dry and being all weird about, what, one, two months? It was not immediate."
"Did it stop raining before that?"
The owner eyed her suspiciously, suddenly much more serious and attentive.
"It did. A little more than two months ago. Why?"
"That was one month after the stranger came through, wasn't it?"
"It was."
"What kind of person was he?"
The woman gathered her thoughts. "I don't know. I was pretty annoyed at the time. We had a lot of trouble, and a single traveller wasn't something I cared a lot about."
"A lot of people were angry, weren't they? Irrational, acting kind of crazy?"
She did not answer. Instead, she stared at the Wanderer with what looked like defiance or anger.
"How do you know so much?"
The girl close her eyes, exhaustion washing over her face. And so early in the morning, even.
"Trust me. It's simpler if I don't explain. What was the first part of the city to run out of water?"
"The well," the woman said with suspicion. "North-East of town. We thought it'd just run dry as wells do."
"Thanks," the girl said with a sorry smile, as if to excuse her cryptic behavior, and left the bar into the blazing day.
The heat immediately made her reach for another water bottle, from which she sipped carefully as she went to the north. A few minutes of walk from the bar was a mass of ruins – the rubbles of destroyed houses. The street opened, giving to the dust fields beyond the town, and there a single well remained, its concrete circle half-broken, a wooden bucket tied to a rope lying on the ground close to it. She got closed to it and peered down the shaft – but there was only blackness. She picked up a small rock and threw it down the well, hearing a *thump* as it impacted below, and tried to guess the depth from the distance... Then she realized this was silly and uncloaked her magitech device, imputing a few commands. She felt a tingling sensation on her arms as energy surged from the object, and soon the black screen showed a topography of her surroundings describing the depth of the well as 20 yards.
"Well," she said to no one in particular, "better get down to it then."
She threw the bucket down the well, the rope tensing as it reached the bottom. The wanderer took the rope in her hands and passed her feet over the lid of the well, putting her feet against the wall and climbing down slowly and carefully.
The well was post-war work; its design was rough and uneven. This made it easier to climb down, as smooth surface would have made her work much more difficult. Half-way through, she stopped, looking at her device; it showed that several smaller tunnels crept from the shaft itself, probably the result of cracks in the walls and erosion. She continued moving down until she reached the bottom; she put her feets on the ground, scrubbing her hands together – the descent had been particularly rough on her palms. Then she crouched and swept her hand on the ground.
The well was not entirely dry. The same kind of black, oily substance that dripped from the taps could be found in some spots of the ground.
The Wanderer stood up and looked around, the light of her device increasing when she turned a button; the well was illuminated by dim greenish light, revealing a large, vaguely triangular crack in the wall in front of her, extending higher than her own eight; it looked like a particularly small or thin individual might be able to crawl to whatever was at the other end of that tunnel. The bottom of the well was much larger than its opening, and might have contained a considerable amount of water once, presumably replenished through rainwater and the various cracks leading to the shaft and down here. It was certainly not clean water, but it was better than going thirsty – it could be de-irradiated, at least.
She did not turn when she heard a scratching sound behind her; she remained calm, controlling her breath, and looked discreetly at her Sanctum 34 device. It was now showing a red dot right behind her, several feet above in the shaft. She slowly moved one hand towards her neck...
There was a hissing sound, and the enemy leaped at her. She threw herself on the ground, dodging the assault, and tugged at a thin chain of metal around her neck concealed by her tunic; the chain broke as she yanked out a small box cutter, but before she had time to do anything else, the misshapen monster struck at her again. This time, its claws raked across her torso, tearing the leather – but it did not struck her flesh.
The creature was barely describable, and not just because the dim and moving light made it hard to make out its features. It looked somewhat humanoid, with human arms and skin – but bent in all the wrong ways, and its face would have looked human only from behind; bald, it had smooth skin instead of eyes, and its mouth was a huge maw full of two-inches fangs. The rest of it looked animalistic, covered in scales, with beastly claws on its legs.
She sneered and groped blindly for the rope, dodging another attack; with a swift movement she cut it cleanly, her box cutter going through the fiber as if it was wet paper. She grabbed the rope stump to which the bucket was tied, and used it as a flail, hitting the beast square on the head as it leaped again, knocking it back.
The thing's legs skittered on the ground, and it snarled loudly, its claws raking at the ground. It seemed rabbit, barely able to restrain its killing urge long enough to gauge its opponent. It leaped against a wall, its claws digging into the earth and scurried above the Wanderer, throwing itself at her again; she whipped him with her bucket while moving out of the way, and it crashed on the ground clumsily. It growled and got back on its feet, drooling on the ground.
She could keep it at bay, but it did not seem affected by her blows. She tightened her grasp on the cutter knife, gritting her teeth, and used her other hand to give a wheeling motion to the bucket, turning it faster and faster. The creature ran straight at her and again she stepped out of its way, hitting him with a blow so fierce that the bucket shattered into splinters of wood. The thing snarled and stepped back, but it did not seem to bothered, and now she had no bucket.
She breathed out very slowly, and changed her grip on the box cutter ever so slightly.
The creature leaped again, extending a misformed arm towards her, and she slashed at the air. There was a flash of blinding light, and the thing's arm flew away in a wide arc, spreading blood all over the bottomwell.
The box cutter was gone. The Wanderer now held a large, medieval-looking sword in both hands, which radiated a dim pulsing light – barely bright enough to show the blood that stained its gleaming steel.
The creature screamed and backed away, clutching its bleeding stump with its other arm, its legs moving frantically as if they were independent from the rest of its body and trying desperately to drag it into the triangular crack in the wall.
"I'm sorry," the girl said, and she meant it. "You're not going anywhere."
The light suddenly grew tenfold as heat flared from the blade, gleaming to red-, yellow- then white-hot, and suddenly it burst in flames.
She moved with incredible speed, and the creature barely had time to duck that she was already slashing at it again, cutting a deep, charred wound in its left flank; it screamed and tried to strike her again, but the blow ripped on the reinforced leather on her shoulder, and did no harm. With a shout, she thrust her sword, and the blade went smoothly through the thing's body, pinning it against the wall; it screamed one last time as the flame flared across its flesh, and its flesh turned to ash. Within seconds, nothing remained of it but cinders.
The Wanderer stepped back, the fire on her sword fading away, and she shook her head wearily. With a flex of her wrist the blade went back to its cutter box form, much like a telescopic baton than she'd have retracted. There was nothing left to do here.
The climb up the well was much more difficult, and it was a good twenty minutes before she was sitting next to the well, rubbing her bruised shoulder and flank with a strange paste she'd made with herbs across her Ohian trek. Soon the pain was gone, though she felt a bit num in the parts she'd healed. She spent some more time doing calculations on her device – it had been able to cartography the direction of the main fissure at the bottom of the well up to 30 yards, and from there and the fact that the well had ran out of water before the rest of the town, she could make a strong estimate as to her next direction.
She looked to the East, out of the town. Some distance away, an otherwise boring pile of rock – barely a hill – stood in the midst of the dust plains. Even from there, she could see the silhouettes of a few long-dead tree around and above it.
She finished drinking her bottle and set off towards this new destination.
Half an hour later, the girl faced a cave going into the ground at the base of the rocky heap. She imputed another command on her device, and it showed the plan of the cave as it extended before her – several sub-tunnels branching into a web of interconnected passages, some of which went deep into the ground; the majority, however, were too small for a human being and did not interest her. She willed the cutter to become sword again, and its blade expanded and hardened until she held the same weapon that had killed the first creature. Then she looked at her clothing with deep fatigue.
You never got away from your royal duty.
She closed her eyes, and in thought she was back to that first day, when she had for the first time felt the power Blossoming in her heart, hope burning away all her doubts and uncertainty. She called upon that light once again, and it was there to answer, bringing warmth to her cold sadness. She opened her eyes, and her leather straps were gone, replaced with a shining dress of a confection unseen since the days before the War; lace and frills and threads of gold and silver embroided in a magnificent outfit; but its function was not merely as an ornament, for plates of shining metal were artistically disposed over her body's most vulnerable parts, including a breastplate decorated with her own figure brandishing a staff burning with holy might.
Her body was stronger, faster, her resolved hardened, her perception improved. She walked into the cave and it revealed itself to her, all cracks and edges and varming bones lying around.
The first monster came at her within ten yards. It had a gator's jaw and gleaming red eyes, and more legs than was good for it. An ordinary creature would have known how to coordinate its limb movement to increase its speed, but it seemed to stumbled upon its own paws. It rushed her with more strength and speed than the one in the well, but she received it, feet firmly planted in the ground. Her blade buried itself into the shoulder of the creature while its jaws missed her neck by one inch, and she pivoted on herself, throwing it into the wall; it skittered back up and spat at her, surprising her; the acidic spit hit her left arm, but failed to burn through the metal, instead producing an unbereable acrid smell.
She stepped forward, feinted to the right, then her sword burst in flames as she slashed to the left in a wide arc, burning the creature's right eye. It threw itself at her in frenzy, and the weight managed to knock her down; but before its jaws could close over her face, her blade thrust into its hips, and it cried and rolled away; she made one last move, and its scorched head fell to the ground two feet away from its body.
She walked onwards.
The end of the cave would have been completely dark, were she not weilding a flaming sword. As it were, the light shone upon another misshapen creature, bigger than the others; its head snapped in her direction, and it roared.
It did not interest her, though. What made her feel her throat tighten and dry up was the sight of something... Someone who had once looked human, sitting against the wall at the end of the cave. He would have been a tall and large man, had his legs not been chewed off, leaving only bloody ragged stumps. Its right arm showed several teeth marks, but its left arm had completely disappeared; half his face was missing, and his belly was open on bloody guts.
And he was still breathing.
The Wanderer wiped a tear, and took a fighting stance. In the dim darkness in the corners of the cave, the monster prowled. It had two legs, but three arms, and each of them was adorned with dark green scales and plates of horn. Its face was elongated, halfway between the lizard and the man, but it had none of the fangs its brethrens bore; its hands, however, bore terrible claws, each the size of a knife. Its back was hunched, and through the dark she saw what looked like gills around its neck.
They started making rounds around each other, keeping a safe distance, the creature letting out a low growl.
Then it struck.
It was abnormally heavy, and it hit like a bighorner; he slammed her against the wall before she had time to react, and pain spread in all her back, drawing a scream out of her. It had gotten too close to the blade however, and it quickly stepped back, its shoulder blackened and burned.
She did not leave it a moment to consider its next action; she stepped forward and thrust her sword. The thing waved a hand to deflect the blow, but the blade cut into its forearms, scorching the wound immediately. It screamed in pain and struck back, three clawed hands slashing through the air. She parried deftly several blows, but had little experience fighting multi-armed opponents; a claw pierced her guard and tore through one of her metal plates. The cut was shallow, but the impact necessary to punch through such armor considerable, and she stumbled back; pressing its advantage, the monster tried to grab her by the leg in a low sweeping move.
The Wanderer willed power through her body, and she jumped above the claw and the monster itself, landing right behind its back; power flowed in her blade and the fire grew in power as she delivered a terrible strike, cutting off one of its arms.
Blood flew – a few drops; less than would have without the fire to scorch the wound... And it was lucky; the black liquid flew into her face, and she screamed immediately in horrible pain as the acid burnt through her skin and blinded her. The monster charged at her and she felt herself thrown back against a wall yet again, only this time she could feel the claws tightening around her arm as the creature grabbed her and threw her in the air like a rag doll.
No, she thought.
Power came forth from her unleashed will, and she never touched the wall, a gust of wind saving her from the impact; she found her footing, and when the creature came at her again, she raised a bare hand; the claws met her silken glove, and golden light burst as it was pushed back. The Wanderer moved with swiftness unparalleled, one swift estoc, and impaled the monster; it tried to move, but the flames waxed again, fire engulfed it, and it died screaming.
When she took back her sword, only a few ashes remained.
She spit out blood and wiped her face with her glove. The burning was not as bad she had thought at first; her eye was safe, it was merely the eyelid that had suffered. But she already knew she would bear a scar... Without the sword's flames though, she'd be as good as dead now, drenched in acid.
She filed it away with all the other nightmares she could not afford to have right now, and went to the side of the mutilated man.
It had one good eye, which opened when she crouched next to him.
"Are they... Gone?"
"Yes," she said softly.
"Have you come... To set me free?"
After a pause, she said: "In a sense."
His eye closed, and it took in a ragged breath.
"I only wanted... A child."
"I know. You always do. Sometimes it even works."
"Have I..." It seemed to struggle with every word. "...hurt people?"
"Nothing that cannot be repaired."
He opened his eye again.
"Then it is good."
They waited for a moment, in silence.
"Thank you," he said finally.
"I am sorry."
The flame went out; in the darkness, the sword did not shine.
There was no rain when she came back; it was too soon. But already she could see tendrils of vapor drifting through the air, which soon would become clouds; and as she approached the town's main building she could hear shouting of excitement and joy mixed. She opened the door on a full house, people talking loudly and excitedly. She ignore them and made her path through the small crowd to the makeshift bar and took a chair.
The owner and bartender was extremely busy, and it took her a few minutes to notice the girl sitting there; she hurried toward her, and slammed her hands in the bar, making her yelp in surprise and look at her, puzzled.
"What did you do?" she asked urgently. She was not angry; but she was at the same time pleased and worried, and did not know what to make of that girl that asked strange question, left, and came back half a day later, after the taps had started to work again, giving out water – in small quantity yes, but at least giving it.
The look of surprise went away, and infinite fatigue replaced it. Her eyes glazed over, and she said nothing. The owner did not know how to react. The girl played with a box cutter tied to a broken chain, until she looked at it with what seemed like disgust, or fear; then she put it inside her leather outfit, and looked at her.
"Please. Can I have that whiskey now?"