It was hot. Then again, what was new? When was there not a day when even the weather could dictate your death out here? Out in these merciless wastes if the sun wasn't slowly killing you it was the poison precipitating from a putrescent sky where it seemed that even the clouds themselves suffered from sickness. However this heat was uncanny today. A little comfort could often be found in at least a small breeze. A little respite from the ruthless onslaught of the relentless sun especially in such an open area, but not today.

Despite this, it was times like these when it was safest to move. If you think you are the dumbest person in the world for using now to travel then it is likely, for the optimist, that you are alone. Or such is the theory.

All was still. Nothing was moving between the rocks dotted around or through the scattered debris of antiquated machinery and pulverised concrete from buildings long passed. Not the sniffing of foraging animals could be heard nor the cry of hunting birds. Yet suddenly the peace was interrupted. The silence was punctuated with brutish voices. Voices of two hulking monstrosities that filled the lazy desert air.

"It belongs to Barl!" yelled one of the mutants, arm held outstretched above its head to hold away from its companion what appeared to be a broken propeller blade of an aircraft.

"We both found it!" bellowed the other, "I just want to see!"

Each one seemed a twin to the other. Massive brutes with skin stained green and huge oversized shoulders that, due to their bulk, forced the head and neck down to look almost as if it grew out in front of the collar rather than above it. Despite this, they stood half again as tall as a man. Their faces showed vicious signs of abuse, sporting horrendous scars and healed broken bones.

They were sick exaggerated parodies of humankind whose strength was only matched by their madness, but although their eyes revealed lethal insanity and a ravenous hunger, they also showed a beastlike cunning and the aged stare of their long years.

"No! It's mine! You see it from there. Your eyes don't touch."

Gruk seemed to falter upon hearing this, but only for a brief moment. After all he wasn't under Barl's orders. Who was he to deny Gruk anything? Had Gruk not pointed the plane out in the first place? Were it not for him, there would be no trinket to take home at all.

He waited for Barl to relax his arm and move on. At which point he lunged at the tantalising new treasure. Barl knew Gruk all too well, however, and was ready for this inevitable action. He spun round to face his foe and dodged out of the way at just the right moment to make Gruk sprawl to the floor. He rose back to his feet, meeting Barl's repulsive grin with a hate filled glare.

"Damn you!" he cried. "You keep all spoils for yourself! I see you. You hide man meat even, I see it! You slurp and swallow when people don't see and offer none to no one, even Gruk!" His face cracked into a mirthless laugh, "But I see you."

Barl pushed Gruk away and raised his fists, still holding the propeller in a gesture of challenge. "I keep mine! That man meat was mine because I kill more humans! If you were strong like Barl you could....." he was cut short when he realised Gruk had stopped listening.

Gruk was staring to the left, behind his cohort at a pile of rubble a mere twenty feet from where they stood. A small, near unnoticeable cloud of dust had arisen from the base of the mound and caught the sunlight to catch his attention. Had something just moved? Barl turned to see what had caught Gruk's eye.

"What?" he jeered.

"There's something down there." Gruk murmured, pointing with his chin.

Barl did not know what he was supposed to be looking at, but Gruk did have an eye for these sorts of things. Many a raider ambush had been thwarted by Gruk's uncanny senses to danger, but Barl could see nothing. All that filled his senses was the calmness of the desert yet constant threat of danger the wastes always posed, but Barl was used to this. You would not last long out here if you jumped at every shadow. There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could sense.

It was probably another of Gruk's distractions. "You trick me to make me lose my guard?" he spat.

"I saw movement!" snapped Gruk, but Barl was having none of it.

"I am not fooled easily!" he declared. "Get moving! I am hungry! Maybe we find more humans." With that Barl started walking again, all the while patting his stomach. Gruk loped along after, trying to catch up.

"Well I get a share this time if we do. Or I tell about your horde."

With that, the wastes were silent again, the two mutants' voices floating further into the distance.

At the base of the rubble mound, tucked within the shadows of the wreckage of an ancient car, lay what at first glance would be a pile of tattered fabrics. Closer inspection would reveal that out of a small gap in these rags poked the muzzle of a rifle. The man the rifle belonged to still lay, unmoving in hiding for a while. Not daring to move and endanger his position again. It was not until even the smell of the creatures had left his ken that the rags were flung from his person.

This revealed the unkempt face of a man with the look of those in their late forties, but this was not his age. Years of strife in the wastes could age a man quickly, and he had started travelling east from his home long ago.

He wore a long, brown leather coat covering a mass of tatters that were once a shirt and pants before long years of damage and improvised repair. His dark, matted hair was cut just above the shoulders to keep the sunlight off his neck.

He stood up with a grimace, shaking the blood back into his limbs and picked up his rifle to sling over his shoulder. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a small sawn-off shotgun, opened and shut the barrels with a snap to check that all was well before putting it back, and fondled under the car again for his wide brimmed, brown leather hat.

What recklessness, he thought. He had moved only slightly to combat the onslaught of cramp he was receiving on his leg and they had noticed. Sure, it would have been easy enough to plug them there and then but would their friends have heard? Even if not, would these two have been missed after a while?

Maybe the group are nearby, he thought. Hopefully he could catch them in time to save the poor bastards who would be their next victim. That surely would deserve a good meal or even a mattress for the night. With that, Roland started in the direction the mutants had gone. After all it shouldn't be too hard to catch their scent again.