Phoenix in Arizona
(Chapter Six)
Nothing was far beyond the eye except the fields of Legion slaves and the many tents that dotted the land. Some Legionnaires here and there were seen patrolling the slave camps, but not much more than that. The real fight would be at the heart of the Legion's home- where their unforgotten memories would show up and raze the land until everything was burnt to the ground- including the flags featuring the feared Oxen that managed to bore a hole within the Mojave's political peace that once resided within the desert sands. Rene would make sure she got to strangle the crimson and gold from the land, and wove her fingers through her hair, making elaborate braids and twisting strands together.
Despite her the Twisted Hairs being assimilated, the blood of her tribe had never once left her veins, only suppressed to appear more civilized among the droves of NCR soldier that looked upon her in amazement. Even Rene felt over-glorified and she had to relieve herself with her tribal affinity; attacking the Legion was an excuse to show her roots. With an ex-soldier and a man of great faith, it seemed as if nothing could get within their way. She only hoped her luck would last for all of them.
Boone watched her braid her hair, each lock being elaborately twisted. It was a beautiful process to watch. However, his rifle did need tending to, and he cleaned it well. Making sure he had enough ammo to put a bullet through each and every Legionnaire's head, Boone sighed and tried to rid himself of negative thoughts; however, he wasn't sure what was negative or positive.
His rifle was indeed falling apart after all these years, but he did know it well. It didn't matter if the stock was duct taped- it could be broken in half for all he cared- but he knew his rifle well enough to know it wasn't at that point yet. In fact, it wasn't even broken to him- just well used. Boone ran the cleaning cloth over the barrel and finally looked pleased with something for once in his life. He watched Rene dig her hands into her pack, pulling out jars of colored paints.
He had seen her use them before- but only once. She usually made designs on her face that looked like they were in a completely different language- something alien in design. As far as he was aware though, Rene wasn't an extra-terrestrial; and he certainly hoped not. Rene only used the paints whenever something big was happening, and the first time she had used it for was during the Battle of Hoover Dam. Boone even remembered General Oliver commenting on it after she woke up from the surgery she had to undergo once more.
Rene took out a broken piece of mirror she kept and the brush for the paints was quickly dipped within the jar containing the crimson red, and painted her lips- coating the top one and making a bold line on the bottom. Wiping her brush onto her shirt, she dipped the brush into the gold and made dots beneath her brows, and lined her waterline. Making jagged lines on her lips with the gold, it almost looked as if she was wounded and bleeding the vibrant colors.
Eli looked over at her with curiosity. He knew she was from a tribe, but never before had he witnessed this kind of behavior being exhibited from the young lady.
"What do they mean… the lines and dots?" he asked, wondering what they spoke.
"It means war- war that is against the Legion. The colors are mocking them", Rene told him, Boone looking at her, noticing the colors. A woman in Legion colors must be a great mock to them; reminded him of the propaganda posters about female soldiers within the NCR.
"You want some?" Rene asked, her eyes now focusing on Eli. She looked over to Boone, who shook his head. Eli shrugged.
"Not sure. How do I know you're not going to write something bad on my head?" Eli chuckled. Rene locked eyes with him in a serious glare.
"Because I'm not my father."
Eli felt his heart drop at the sound of her voice being directed at him. It was like she was holding a very sharp dagger to his throat.
"Ah… sorry."
Boone sighed, watching Rene continue with her painting.
"You're not performing any heroics. No-one is", Boone sharply told Rene. He looked over to Eli to get a confirmation, who nodded his head.
Eli could tell they were all going through their own pre-battle rituals while he himself had none. Under normal circumstances he would have considered that a good thing. His tradition preferred violence as a last resort if it all and even then, his faith had been ashamed of the few times it did try to develop a martial tradition. With good reason. Conquest in the name of faith was a great way to start discrediting it.
Still...he felt the need to do something as he wandered a few paces away from the two NCR legends.
Eli lowered his desert camo hat and bent to a knee. He felt the need to pray but he highly doubted his Lord would approve of any request he made in regards to what they were about to do. Truthfully, he did not approve of it either. But he could not in good conscious turn away from this either. Then there was only one thing to be said...
"Thy will be done." Eli murmured before returning the cap to his head.
Aw screw it, in the end he was a sucker for the traditional.
"Do you have any black available?" he demanded.
Still working the designs of her face, Rene motioned vaguely to a brush and cup of dark paint. Eli immediately set to work. On the stock of his rifle and the side of his .45's barrel he etched two Greek letters overlapping each other.
"I think it's my turn to ask what those mean." Rene said, noticing his work.
"The symbol was once known as the Chi Rho." Eli murmured.
"And what does it mean?"
"The legend is that the first time this symbol was painted for war, it served as a memo of announcement to the first Romans that they were about to come under new management. As for what it was suppose to mean...its best that that's forgotten."
In hoc signo vinces. Though if anyone should die today, it better be me. New Canaan is now reduced to ashes and it is only fitting that I join their ashes. The time of war must come to an end and man must one day beat his swords into the dust just as this old symbol has nearly been swallowed by the sands of time.
"Thy will be done."
Rene finished her work, letting her designs dry. She definitely looked like a tribal war queen now; as the last one standing from the Twisted Hairs, it was almost as if she was supposed to be dressed for battle. She didn't pray, as their god had no set deity but believed in animism, the belief that everything has a soul. That even the Legionnaires had one, and she would start by emptying them of theirs by impaling them through the heart. Thinking harder on this, it wasn't a hate crime against the Legion, no matter what her reasons were.
They all had to burn for their actions against the innocents in the Mojave, for each soldier they mindlessly slaughter and each woman they raped and enslaved…
And Rene, she hadn't even got the worse of it.
It felt wrong to still contain innocence after thirteen years of slavery, free from the touch of man but kissed by the evidence of war. It wasn't right, she wasn't like the other women- persecuted and killed, singled out by each Legionnaire. But Rene had only met the face of death numerous times and seen blood spill as soldiers fell over the great walls that separated the old world's values against the new rising of an order to yet be seen against the exsanguinated horizon of The East. It was wrong- but it just wasn't about her, or Boone, or even Eli.
The Legion had set up a perfect order to seemingly annihilate whatever came in their path- but not only was it upfront, it was stabbing everyone in the back- while creating an autocracy with slaves as the working force…
The perfect setup for endless amounts of soldiers, for countless wars.
And why had they kept Rene strong? To lead an army to march over the Mojave, with gales of blood and silver of swords. They almost knew she would figure out their conspiracy, and see the beauty of the plan. She was picked- from the genetic cream of the crop for soldering- and was lost to the enemy's side. However, it wasn't about her.
The resilience of subservience had its fine pleasures for the Legion. To keep an army under wraps, to portray them as weak but yet hide daggers beneath their boots that kicked dirt west. Rene couldn't be the only one either. There had to be more, and there were possibly hundreds more of brilliant tacticians, shackled down by the Legion.
Rene's face drained of color upon her penultimate realization.
Not only would it be a hard fight, it would be long. And bloody- but more so than Hoover Dam twice over.
She'd be murdering the newly-bred generation of a tribe that would sweep across the land like a brush fire… her generation.
The change in Rene's demeanor could only be felt like a drop in temperature or a shift of the wind. Eli might have noticed but he was uncertain about asking. Boone had no such misgivings.
"Is something wrong?" the sniper asked.
Rene turned and explained to them exactly what she thought. The sun had shifted several degrees in the sky by the time she was done. Boone and Eli had listened intently the whole time and had not said a word. It was not a very uplifting concept. Bad enough that that their jobs would be made that much more difficult by a ticking time bomb the Legion had so insidiously been developing this whole time; they would be essentially destroying a generation that had not been taught better. Rene's generation.
"We all knew this would not be easy." Boone mumbled.
"Maybe we're approaching it wrong." Eli blurted.
And for probably the thousandth's and one time that trip, Rene and Boone shot a look at him.
"Sure, they're the Legion but they're still people too. The fact that we used the great ditch they crawled out of infiltrate their lines speaks volumes already. Rene, Legion soldiers are taught to follow orders and not to show their own initiative, right? They take orders, they don't think for themselves?"
"Yes, but we thought we destroyed all of their leadership at Fortification Hill." Rene explained.
"Possibly you took out their good looks and their teeth but more of their cranium remained. If there was a way to slice off the leadership here, what would happen?"
Rene's mouth slightly screwed together, trying to think of what The Fort had been like during its last hour of living and breathing life before flames and explosions seemed to have descended upon its inhabitants.
"Caesar was the leader. Wasn't he? He ran the Legion from his little playfort upon that hill by Mead Lake. He had the entire Legion at his command, but not once did he ask the force from Arizona to stomp in during the second battle of Hoover Dam, or any time before that. So I guess he's not really the brains of the operation- he's just the disguise. We killed him, Legate Lanius, Vulpes Inculta, Lucius, and everyone else on his counsel that would provide some form of order if anyone else were to die; down to the last Recruit Prime. Arizona is really the last stop, but the slaves from Cottonwood Cove and the remnants from The Fort are the next problem we have."
Boone caught her idea, and he finally looked alert.
"But if we kill the leaders, then the slaves will have no rules to follow. There won't be any order, and they'll all fall-out of line to be easily picked off as stragglers."
"Good point, all of it, but just hear me out on this crazy idea," Eli asked. "We got several options. We can quietly knock the heads of one or two of their stragglers and ask them key questions. Boone, I'm sure the NCR might have taught you a thing or two about conversations with prisoners, right? Don't feed me official NCR bellyaching about not torturing prisoners, what are governments but organized gangs with suits."
Rene and Boone stared at him in disbelief. Unfortunately for them, Eli had not gotten to his most hair brained one yet.
"Or, we've gotten this far and Flagstaff is just a stone's throw away. How about we just sneak right there on the front door, knock and have a polite conversation with the people in charge?"
"You want to do that? Have you lost your mind?" Boone demanded.
"It's not any more crazy than what we've been doing. It's the three of us against an army, and empire! We've known that all along, we've just been in denial about it the whole time. We used the landmark on the back of their coin to sneak up on them. We are right outside their capital while we're their most wanted criminals! This is just the last swallow of the crazy bottle because let's be honest, we do not have the bullets or an army to fight off every one of them." Eli argued, pointing in the direction of Flagstaff.
"Besides, we only need to get in talking distance with them to have a loud conversation." Eli smirked, tapping the trademark pistol of the New Canaanites.
"Still, that's just...madness." Boone argued.
"Look, if you want, I can go knock on the gates by myself, that way you have a clear idea who the leaders are and you might get a clear line of sight of them. Besides, the Legion is not known for dispensing quick death to those they hate the most. You'll have time. I don't fear death nor where I should go be it heaven or hell. I just know I've cheated death for too long now. If I'm going to die, I want to get it over with."
The silence was deafening.
"Well, frankly I think it's either those ideas or raising an army of Death Claws."
"We all need to stay together if we've come this far, though. Splintering off within chaos is stupid. But Eli is right… it's an army and an empire. However, I don't want to be carrying bodies by the time we're finished. Nor am I going to die myself, I've had enough of that."
Rene peered around the area, just looking upon the ramshackle city of what was once Flagstaff. Her eyes caught the light of the sharply rising buttes and mountains around the city.
"Boone. There are high places up there- like, that flat top place", Rene pointed toward the butte.
"But be careful. It's dangerous within the mountains. There may be Yao Guai in the area, and they're like mutated bears. And they're mean. I'd say take an anti-materiel rifle, but seeing as how we're under-stocked with all of our equipment; just keep a sharp eye out. That won't be a problem for you."
Rene sighed. She hated making plans for a death date.
"Eli, let's go. We're going to be knocking on the city gates… but we're going to give in. They won't suspect Boone up there if they will focus on us now- A New Canaanite, and a Twisted Hair and escaped slave. They'll most likely bring their leaders out in the broad day to meet us… and if Boone is quick enough, he'll crack their skulls with a .305 round."
Eli looked worried. Being apprehended by the head of the Bull and dragged in by the horns of the damn thing was enough, but Rene suggesting to be crucified? He thought that braids upon her head were too tight at this point, but it was elaborate- even it if meant death.
It wasn't far off that the Legion could see two people approaching; two scouts stationed on the outside of the gate peered through their sets of binoculars and stared for just a moment, their breath taken away from them in a fury of disbelief and an oncoming bout of rage. The Great Rene Ward, the Witch of the West, the Damned Memory. She wasn't alone as expected, but with a different man at this point. One unmistakably who had arose from the ashes of the Mormon City, one named Eli. It was a mystery as where the sharpshooter of the Bear lay- possibly dead; just one small grace from Mars himself. Still, there was a chain of command to follow and this required someone higher than them. They sent word to the centurions.
As Rene and Eli made their way further down the road, their steps moving more with bravado and chutzpah with every step, they spotted four figures coming to meet them. Eli squinted, though the shapes in the shadows did not take a lot to decipher what they were.
"Centurions. Guess we qualify as dignitaries." Eli murmured.
Rene's heart pounded, wanting to jump out of her chest at this point.
"Are you ready, Rene?"
"What?"
"It's going to get real from here."
"Ready as I'll ever be, Eli."
"No. I mean, it's going to get real. This is going to hurt. Crucifixion is not easy and it's not a quick death. This can be days of slow suffocation, or quick depending on how fast or slow they want us to go. Now is the time for you to go if this is not the path for you."
Rene shook her head, still determined to walk the path with Eli. She'd been with him this far, but the feeling of regret panged within her mind. It made her sick, and of course, her skin paled. But only just. She felt words climbing from her heart, and up into her throat, from which she just kept within her mouth, sitting there like stagnating water.
"All right. Well then, let's make sure we get through this. You're younger than me and no one should die younger than myself. Life flashing before your eyes would be too quick, not enough to entertain you to your last breath." Eli replied, smiled weakly.
"Halt. You will go no further and submit to the will of Caesar." one of the Centurions barked.
"Yeah, yeah, Ave Caesar and all that Latin. Shall get on with this? I'm sure Caesar has been getting awfully lonely eating by himself in the river Hades."
The Centurion landed a blow into his stomach.
"Yeah, I probably deserved that." Eli groaned.
Boone treaded up the mountain paths, huffing and puffing until he got to the top. His sunglasses cast a small glare on the ground as he threaded through the dead trees and bushes, moving at a quickened pace to keep Rene and Eli from dying at the gates of hell themselves, immortalized by the blood that leaked from the creaking metal that only opened to prisoners and the worthy- both of which labeled Rene and Eli… and himself. He'd gotten this far and he'd been traveling with Rene for so long, it was insane how far she pushed him up on the Legion's hit list. He wanted to thank her.
His rifle, however, didn't like the wear and tear Rene provided for him. Instead, he figured he needed to maintain it better at this point for all their adventures to come. He didn't mind traveling with Eli, but the boy did need to shut his mouth at times. He only imagined how they were doing, walking to the city of nightmares itself. He would've taken either of their places any day. But he had his own role to take, and that was to be a guardian angel... if those existed. He wanted to believe so badly.
Boone finally reached the top and quickly got to work. A sniper rifle was more of a complicated weapon platform than a simple rifle. It required preparation. Readying himself, he peered down below.
What he saw was only worthy of his own nightmares. Eli and Rene were being drug into the city, the bloody gates opening exactly for them as a few Legionaires of high rank tore to the front gates and surrounded the two. His heart dropped to his gut as his fear resurfaced and Carla's face replaced Rene's already bloodied face. Her crying face. Eli looked over to Rene as far as Boone could see, trying to give her comfort as time irked on, slower than ever, but the kick the Centurion gave Eli was all too swift. Boone could almost hear Rene's visceral cry of defeat as she received a hard kick as well.
Boone's breathing slowed and he focused into his rifle, already too late as his hands fumbled for the trigger. He shook badly, Carla wrecking his mind and Rene's scream piercing the air about him. His eardrums rang with her cry so loud, her voice would surely only rasp out at this point. He couldn't see much over the gates, but he saw Rene's head again. Images flashes between reality and imagination of her screaming face, tearing her apart.
He was not there, but he might as well have been in that hell too.
Moving his finger from the trigger, Boone sighed, held his breath and let it go slowly as he closed his eyes and tried to stop his shaking or keep it to a minimum. Eli, on the other hand, wanted to grasp his chest to ease the pain but he was being drug by the wrists and Rene, the poor girl, was weeping silently from the pain, inhaling sharply and groaning from the intensity of their current punishment. Rene closed her eyes and tried to be strong, only wondering what Boone was doing. If he could see, she tried to look strong for him.
Eli disdainfully thought that of the many bad ideas he had in life, this was getting towards the top of the list of all the ones he regretted. Normally he would not have cared but the silent and quickly diminishing, frail figure of Rene next to him was throwing salt in that wound of guilt. He was not sure how long they had been knocked around and beaten but it was long enough for him to lose track of time.
The rigors of the Mojave were certainly kinder than the wrath of the Legion scorned.
In the end, battered, breathless and in agony, the two were lined up and brought to the main street that ran through the center of the encampment. Eli scanned the masses, way too many of them. The wretches, huddling groups pounded into cogs into the warmachine of the Bull, all too willingly brainwashed and cooperative.
"Wait...is this a triumphal entry?" Eli blathered breathlessly.
That earned him a backhand.
"Silence, profligate."
"Really? Really! You know that much of history but he never taught you that Rome fell?" Eli screeched.
The centurion went to hit him again and this time Eli caught his hand in his mouth and bit down hard. They had to beat him off the angered commander. Rene wondered if Eli was trying to goad them into killing him right then and there but once that whole drama was over, they started marching them.
"Worth it." Eli croaked.
Rene opened her eyes once more, as much as she could without writhing in pain. Her eyes had always been sensitive and the beatings only made it worse. She could hear her nickname being screamed within the crowd, many soldiers calling her the Witch of the West and the fallen soldier. It was pretty stupid, though, because in the Legion, women weren't meant to be soldiers.
However, the deafening feeling of a dark crimson shadow casting upon the land made Rene despair all over again, for what seemed like the eleventh time.
Maybe she'd despair herself into infinity at this point.
The silver of eyes penetrating into the city was just one more killer, the thin-lipped smirk of a tall and unbreakable influential man pierced her heart with sadness and in the distance of the crowd gathering, she could see a familiar face of greying brown hair and insanely blue eyes look upon her, but the man could've been as fake as her strength right now. The shadow was very real as he emerged from an elaborate housing, a palace of sorts, and made his slow way to where there were two large crosses visible on the horizon of the city. There was a third, but it was empty. She was glad it would stay like that.
And of course, many people asked of who they were, and a Centurion simply told the masses that followed that Rene and Eli were very important prisoners, if there were people who didn't see or know- which was the majority. Although little whispers of Ward could be heard among the crowd. Rene broke into pieces once more, murdering her strength that was never really there. Simple thoughts plagued her mind. The words she wanted to yell but could never be heard at this distance wanted to spill from her mouth like a waterfall, like the rising bile from her stomach from being punched and kicked.
Breathing as much as she could, she looked over to Eli.
"We'll... be fine. I know it!", she smiled through the tears and the kick to the throat, delivered specially from the Centurion who half-drug-half-walked her to the hill specially laboured for them, where the specially made crosses stood in the blazing light.
Eli wanted to tell that if she honestly believed that, she was crazier than he was but you had to lie to yourself to escape the reality of the present.
Up and beyond the city, Boone noticed the activity starting to stir on the main street. There were far too many people and it was too distant for him to make out details. His heart skipped though when he noticed a small group being drug down the road towards the central square. It had to be those two. Boone tried so hard not to look at Rene directly in the scope. That would be too much...
But he had to.
His eyes flickered between Rene and Carla once more, both faces occupying Rene's at this point. Pointing his crosshairs towards the middle of her forehead, he wanted to place a bullet between her eyes. To let her have peace, and for making him want to die.
The Caesar, the true leader of the Legion stared upon the young woman, his mirror-like pools so sharp he could cut through diamonds. He looked upon Eli, only wondering how he replaced the sharpshooter. The toga he wore draped elegantly around his sandaled feet and the silver laurel around his black hair only made him stand out even further. To Rene, he looked like a ghost to haunt her in her dying moments, to make her rue the day she was even born. Rene opened her eyes and stared at him, to which she received a hard smack from a neighboring Vexillarius.
Rising behind him were the three crosses, the third quickly being taken down as unnecessary. Either way, the remaining two were foreboding enough.
Rene had been broken down. She was a slave once more, but a slave that had been well-punished. Her small chest rose and fell, barely wanting to rise so she could put oxygen in her body for what seemed like the last time. Her busted lips only rasped out to Eli, but it was inaudible as they were being prepared to be nailed to their deathbeds.
"Stay with me, girl." Eli muttered.
Rene groaned.
"Come on, Joan of Arc. Did I ever tell you what the Flagellum Dei was?"
Rene said nothing.
"The scourge of God sent to bring Rome to its knees. Actually, his real name was Attila the Hun. He brought a weakened empire and made it grovel to him."
He shot a look at Caesar but returned to look back at Rene. This was where the half truths had to be told but they were in the middle of an empire built on half truths.
"So Attila turned back after sacking the Empire. Rome did not kill the Flagellum Dei but you know what did? It was a woman. Attila died on his wedding bed. Stay with me, girl!" Eli barked.
"Crucify them." Caesar replied casually. They had to get this over with.
"Truth be told, Attila died by drowning in his own blood," Eli murmured to the Roman Emperor. "But you've shed enough blood to drown in a thousand times over. Oh come on, more of these crosses? Didn't you learn what happened to the Rome the last time they tried that? Do you really want another religion outliving your empire as well? Not like you killed the first one off. I'm still around."
Rene listened to Eli, trying to stay awake. But here she was, the Joan of Arc, the Queen Boudicca, upon the crosses that meant nothing to her but obviously meant something to Eli. Religion... it was something weird to her, she never quite understood the symbolics of it despite all of Boone's reading to her.
She never did learn to read, however.
Rene felt the first stake become driven within her tiny palm, and she screamed bloody murder once more. Boone watched it in his sights, watching Rene die again. His heart fluttered and he knew he couldn't take it anymore, watching her die. Hearing the bloodcurdling screams that emanated from her into Heaven above. It was almost as if the second scream echoed into the valley, only more feigned. Adrenaline seemed to rush in her and ease the pain a bit. Boone watched her head turn to Eli, her eyes unopening. Only Eli could see the tears that dropped onto her battered cheeks.
"I wish I told him I loved him, Eli."
That hit the new Canaanite like a ton of bricks. Truth be told, Eli was starting to wonder where their sniper was. He looked around, growing desperately frustrated. Then it occurred to him why. The new Caesar was standing by several heavily armored praetorians. Boone did not have a clear shot.
"Stay with me, Rene. You have to tell him yourself. Do you hear me?"
He was met with silence.
"Stay with me, Rene. You're not going to die with that regret. You're going to tell him."
Eli could see they were quickly getting nowhere. This had to end. He hurt in countless places and those nails were digging into his bones and chewing at his mind. Where on God's good green earth was Boone?
"Ave, Caesar." Eli murmured.
The Legionaries and their leader perked their ears. He had their attention.
"I swear, if you tell me to get off this cross, I will spit on you." Eli growled at them.
They did nothing, continuing to watch this man, wondering what he might have had to say.
"Get me off this cross." Eli ordered.
The Praetorians laughed in derision. It was too absurd. The condemned actually dared to speak an order to Caesar?
"Leave me here, and death will find you on swift wings, Caesar. Get me down and maybe I can keep you alive." Eli blathered.
"He's gone mad." one of the guards murmured.
"And how do you propose to do that, New Canaanite? Do you take me for a fool?" Caesar demanded.
"No, I take you for a joke, relieving a past dream condemned only to fall like its predecessor."
"You are wrong."
"It will fall. With none of the former's glory."
Anger flashed in Caesars eyes and he stepped away from the guards. He opened his mouth to speak but Eli interrupted him one last time.
"Veni, vidi, vici."
Caesar's last thought was trying to decipher what he meant by that. Alas, his head exploded before he could get the epiphany.
Many praetorian looks around, growling with the fury of a thousand Yao Guai. Rene looked down, blood dripping from her forehead and adding to the mess Boone had made on the ground. Putting her face up to the sunlight once more, she closed her eyes despite the screams down below them. However, all screams weren't of terror.
"Rene! RENE!", a man yelled over the orchestra of madness. His tousled blond hair and dark green eyes stared up into Rene's bloodied face, finally realising it was the young lady who gave herself to the Legion many years prior so she could save the rest of her tribe. There were stories passed around, not only of the Burned Man, but of Rene Ward, only known as the Witch of the West. But the slaves loyal to her story, her past, and those who knew her believed her to have mystical powers to make empires fall by a wave of her hand, to summon droves of lightning and fire upon lands. Of course, she wasn't that mystical.
She had become a simple girl trying to make her way in the world, in the company of the mysterious sniper only referred to as Boone, who sat upon the butte, firing off more rounds but evenly spaced his shots so his location would not be betrayed by his own rifle. Keeping his finger on the metal heated by the sun, he kept his shaking under control and left his trust in his mind, which still contained some part of being a soldier in it. But never once did he look at Rene, for fear of his emotions overpowering him and shooting her instead.
Eli looked around as a group of the former slaves marshalled around them. It all started to fall in place. Caesar was dead and if he was going to take a swing at what was going on, these slaves, probably former member of her tribes, saw his death as some sort of retaliation from her.
That illusion was only going to last so long as she remained alive, though.
"Get her off that cross. Now!" Eli shouted at them.
The slaves got to work, some even climbing up the beam to quickly extract her from the wood.
"Also, don't forget me. I don't want to hang out here much longer than I have to. Actually, could you work on me now? Just for that pun I'd rather not die just yet. That deserves a century in purgatory or two." Eli murmured, his sarcastic nature too deeply ingrained in him.
Rene's former tribesmen gently cradled her to the ground. Eli was not treated as gingerly but no one present cared. In the end, all that mattered was Rene and the New Canaanite all too quickly assessed the situation.
"Can you get her to the main gate?" he demanded.
The Twisted Hairs stared up at him in bewilderment.
"Can you get her to the main gates? Can you get her out of the city? Answer me, now!"
They nodded.
"Get her out of here. Look for a man with a red beret, a hat on his head. Bring her to him. Find any healer you know. Get her better but get her out of here. Now!" Eli barked.
Looking around and seeing the city was descending into chaos, his own nightmares were being realized. The seat of their empire, with its splashes of red and decorations of crucified skeletons, was descending into anarchy. The head of the snake had been cut but the convulsions of the death throes threatened to destroy the rest of the corpse. This had to be changed.
He found his pistol and rifle being thrust into his hands.
"Do you want to protect your families?" Eli demanded of those gathering around him.
"Yes."
"Then follow me and do as I say."
"Ad hoc signo vinces."
-
Boone watched the crowd of what appeared to be slaves flood from the city, oozing from the gates, carrying something within the middle of the group. It only took him a minute to understand what had happened, and he started running down the mountain to meet the great flood of human beings that carried only one more of their kind. The blond boy with the tousled hair cradled Rene gently, placing a gentle kiss upon her bloodied hair. It was long, unlike the other women's hair. Even most of the men's hair was completely shaved except for his. His mother always said that the stories got to his head when he said he wanted to be the Wizard of the West.
But his mother was carrying Rene as well, and his mother's sister, and so on.
They all huddled around what was to be perceived as a Goddess, unlike the name the dissolved Legion murmured rarely. Boone forced his way through the crowd that started to disband into a circle around the three people- the boy, the goddess, and the sharpshooter.
Rene turned her neck to meet Boone's blurry face, his sunglasses still on them. His breathing was quick as he approached Rene and quickly relieved the girl from the tall boy's arms, who yelled at him.
"She needs help! She is hurt badly, my mother is a healer!", He yelled fiercely at the Sharpshooter. Boone growled at the tribal. Rene silently intervened between the two.
"...Hi, Boone. How are you?", she asked, rasping a giggle. She smiled, even though most of her teeth were missing. Her hands and feet had holes bored into them. Her eyes barely opened, which contained tears. She had been crying into Flagstaff and she was crying now that she was out.
Boone wanted to drop to his knees at this point and ask a God, any God, for forgiveness. Or to take Rene's place. But he stayed silent, shaking with her blood covering him; just like it did whenever he held her when she had problems with her lungs.
Rene coughed, and blood spattered him. Just like when he first saw her on the road to Novac, the blood spilling between her fingers like water.
Only for a moment did his gaze turn to the damned city, to wonder of Eli. His shaded eyes looked down towards to broken Rene.
"We're leaving", he simply said, and carried her, determined to bring her back to Vegas.