A/N
It's been eight chapters ago since I've introduced my reimagined version of the Enclave.
I'm happy to see that the idea's well received, dear readers :) Now that we're finished with the Four Seasons arc, it's time we moved on to a part of the book I've been anticipating to get to for near two years now. I confess, I'm a big fan of Mad Max Fury Road. Ever since I saw Immortan Joe and the Cult of the V8, the neo-norse esthetic stuck with me and I've always wanted to put it into writing somewhere. What better place to put it than in the Fallout universe? That brings us to Arkana, formerly known as Texarkana, a little speck of land locked in perpetual nuclear winter between the borders of Texas and Arkansas.
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For most of the Dominion's populace, the idea of war was treated with almost casual indifference.
This wasn't born out of callous disregard, but out of a simple acceptance of the reality of the new world climate. There was never a shortage of enemies in the Wasteland. Whether the government pushes for reclamation of the nearby territories or sits idle, something new comes up to threaten the existence of the Dominion. So it came as no surprise that the Enclave, ever as enigmatic a foe, surged from the Cajun Wasteland to assail the frontier. The scale of the conflict was bigger than anything they'd ever seen before. The attacks on border outposts and towns happened near simultaneously. Artillery and shrieking ballistic missiles rained down on forward bases, while reports of a massive robot army bearing down from the North spread panic and confusion among the people. But as the Dominion was wont to do, they bounced right back up.
The people, from the ubiquitous grunt to the average farmer, had been conditioned to support the defense of the homeland. Fear could easily be turned to patriotic zeal, much like it was when the Dominion-Brotherhood War happened, and it did. The Dominion war machine ramped up production, recruitment numbers soared, and soon battlelines were drawn on the map of the wastes. The Texan-Cajun Theatre, it was termed. One state versus three, a fledgling nation against an Old World power. Faceless mechanical drones fought against brave rook soldiers and mech-pilots, fighting in the bristling heat of the desert sun or the freezing cold of nuclear winter. In the sky, nuclear-powered jets duked it out in terrifying but brief dogfights. Ordnance, churned out fresh from ammunition factories, reshaped the land in powerful jaundiced red detonations.
It was a war of ideals, a war to decide who was rightful heir to the future of America. The cruel irony was that although their flags were different, both nations were more or less the same.
During the first few weeks of the war, as positions were consolidated and forces were shored up along the frontier, the Dominion found itself contesting a particular patch of land bordering the Arkansas rockies. This speck of land, filled with impassable mountainous ranges and wind-swept outbacks used to be the city of Texarkana. Suffering a catastrophic nuclear attack, the land became a desolate distended shadow of its once prosperous self. The broken landscape became a barren dust bowl, wrapped in perpetual nuclear winter. The earth, poisoned by radiation, would not give life to tilled crops. That same radiation changed what the bombs did not destroy.
The trees, the animals, and especially humans.
Whereas Four Seasons loved to pretty itself up and hide its vicious nature beneath a thin guise of propriety, Arkana embraces the savageness of tribal life. Raiders, cannibals and other unscrupulous folk living together in one place- all made for a hotbed of violence. When compared with anything yet to be touched by Dominion civilization, nothing much was different. As far as the two great powers were concerned, Arkana was the perfect no-man's land, the proving ground to determine which nation had the stones to inherit America.
Despite earning a reputation in itself for being an inhospitable patch of frozen earth, Arkana was still home to an eclectic group of scattered communities hardened by local turf wars and the harsh elements. The people here eke out a living from the stubborn irradiated soil, often feeding off from one another. The strongest managed to cut clear territories, marked by totems of twisted metal and bleached bone. But like the ever-shifting winds, borders were always subject to change depending on each tribe's ascension or decline.
Three tribes occupy the peak of the Arkanan food-chain- the Everwinter clans, the Church of Purity and the Worldenders. They are immediately followed by the nomadic waster warbands, too small or too crazy to form a self-sustaining community.
The Everwinter rose from the ashes of Texarkana marked by mutation from the irradiated ruins, but at the same time granted extraordinary powers. The oldest of the Arkanan tribes, the Everwinter restored the Texarkana Institute of Scandinavian Culture and History and built a stronghold of sturdy concrete into the mountain refuge. What once served as a monument to the Middle Ages became the source of their newfound faith. The Everwinter clansmen took to the neo-pagan worship of the Scandinavian pantheon and, with the fragmented lore inscribed in the burnt tomes, formed a unique culture mixing roots with the long abandoned past and the brutal reality of the future.
The Church of Purity, a xenophobic isolationist cult resulting from the amalgamation of different pre-apocalyptic denominations, inhabits a lonely hill overlooking the green crater where the Texarkana bomb dropped. The cult's followers are made distinguishable from the other tribes by the archaic power-armor they outfit their warriors with, heavily modified with strange technologies designed to cleanse the earth of radiation. Its people live in giant domes of stone and lead, shadowed by great pylons that act as buffers to ward off the swirling rad-storms that mix in frequently with the snow.
The third, the latest scourge to inhabit Arkana, was a horde of blood-crazed raiders known simply as the Worldenders. Worshippers of the apocalypse and self-proclaimed heralds of the 'Deluge of Blood', the Worldenders see it as their divine purpose to wash the ruined lands in the blessed red. Every winter's respite they emerge from the Dead Plains, the silent patches of no-man's land which crisscross the borders of Arkana, riding atop their six-legged mutant horses or blazing the trails in their speedy dune-buggies.
Locked in a perpetual age of bloodshed, the arrival of the Dominion and the Enclave hardly stirred the locals from their personal conflicts. But soon, the clear transition of warfare was enough to make everyone take pause. After all, who could ignore the sight of a hundred artillery shells detonating at once or the thundering march of a thousand men in power-armor sweeping across the frozen tundra?
A lone M2 Black Bear made its climb through the steep drop in the gully, breaking up rocks and icy formations as its heavy treads churned through the slippery slope. Three shells bombarded its position, unsettling the soft earth and throwing up snow all across its gray hull. The tank's main gun traversed on target, sighted in, and prepared to fire.
A powerful magnetically accelerated round penetrated its frontal glacis, sending fragments of steel spraying and bouncing inside the crew compartments. What once passed as a crew of five men was reduced to bloody paste in an instant, and the tank sat still at an awkward angle while its weight forced it to sink deep into the mud. The Castle war-bot that fired the shot, an Enclave behemoth of an automaton, loaded in another round and started lumbering forward. Spread out in a neat fan formation before it were some Revenant drones, painted in a camo pattern designed to blend in with the snowy terrain. They got as far as thirty meters before they met resistance from the Dominion Army. And just as quickly as they dispatched the Black Bear and its crew, a tactical nuke sailed through the air and planted itself into the ground, destroying the robots in a great big ball of nuclear fire. Further ahead, a convoy of armored transport vehicles backed by light tanks could be seen dropping off Dominion infantry, while above hovered several Condor gunships. On the other side, Enclave dropships could be seen deploying fresh automata along with their human commanders.
Back and forth, scenes like these could be seen unfolding throughout the Dead Plains. The battles that were fought weren't much about seizing territory, but more about two empires sizing each other up. And the tribals of Arkana, who up until that moment had barely scratched the surface of the concept of war, bore witness to the destructive might of the Old World. On a large overhanging bluff heavy with snow turned gray from ash, an Everwinter hunting party watched the battle unfold. The tribals, led by an old and battle-scarred giant of a man, sat back on the saddles of their six-legged mounts as they waited for the fighting to die down enough for them to safely cross the Dead Plains in order to return home. Their leader, a Warsworn named Sven, beheld the Dominion soldiers with growing admiration.
Rooks dashed, crawled and shot their way through Enclave trench-lines. Flashes of mag-fire, intense flamer discharges and ordnance detonations were everywhere. Though they adorned themselves in power-armor or rode in beasts of steel, they weren't soft like the automata of the Enclave. They waded in the thick of it and didn't shy from crossing into the fires of war.
The neo-norse tribals felt comfortable watching it all from a safe distance. Even then, the sight of the two war machines clashing was terrifying to behold. To see it up close would mean their deaths.
"They follow the path of the Thunderer." Sven remarked, "So must it be."
The tribals waited for an opening. But it was an opening that would come much much later. Among the neo-norse was a young huntress named Sif, a war orphan from one of the many battles fought between the Everwinter and the Worldenders. It was said that her mother, heavily pregnant at the time, took a sword through her belly and survived- giving birth to Sif. Unfortunately, she was also carrying a second child, Sif's unborn twin. The blade cut the babe in half, only Sif was able to take her first breath in the cruel world of Arkana.
Sif was a tiny thing when compared to her fellow Everwinter clansmen, but she wasn't weak. A life filled with physical activity molded her into a woman worthy of her people's name. The ceremonial tattoos, depicting runes or images of various blessings and achievements, ran along her arms like intricate black serpents. Her fiery red hair, bound in traditional thick braids that swept into a single lock, swung heavily behind her back. Her keen blue eyes, which helped a great deal in her spotting potential food or danger from a long way, peered across the battlefield to witness a Dominion Jottun mech drop from the sky borne on the metal fingers of a hovering Condor dropship.
The thing straightened itself up and started walking. Its impressive array of weaponry bristled and barked with deafening peals that reverberated across the valley. Sif had to tighten her hold on the reins when her mount started to back up nervously.
"Easy girl." She patted the mare on the neck. "Easy."
"Sven, I see a path through." One of the tribals pointed to an empty trench running along the chaos of the battle. The fighting had moved on some safe distance away, although the mech clearing up the remaining traces of Enclave resistance served as the only form of obstacle in their path.
Sven leaned forward in his saddle, "We wait until that metal beast is out of the way. Only then will we ride for Niflheim."
Sif watched the mech stomp its way unassisted through the battlefield, only to be swarmed all of a sudden by a group of Enclave Vampire drones. Hidden in the snow, they leaped out from their holes and attacked the lone mech. The poor thing was clumsy at the range its enemies were at and was next to useless when engaging in a melee.
"Let's go!" Sven declared, leading the charge right across the battlefield while the fighting was far away. The tribals went after him, including Sif.
However, the huntress' attention was diverted to the mech struggling to throw off the robots scrambling over its hull. She was on the rear guard of the group, and she was lagging behind. Sven didn't notice her absence until after he and the riders were already out of the valley and safely within Everwinter lands. Sif guided her mount towards the fight, fearlessly brandishing her mother's AR-15. The weapon was older than she was, but due to the ceremonial maintenance done in the Everwinter war-forger circles, it was as reliable as the day it was recovered from an abandoned US Air Force base.
She didn't know the pilots inside the thing, it wasn't her fight. But seeing the awful machines swarm over the mech, those soulless creatures of steel and silica, it triggered something inside the tribal. Her weapon rattled off a few shots, hitting three vamps accurately in the sweet spots between their necks and spinal actuators. The Everwinter may not have much in the way of ammunition, but every one spent was done with the utmost care- each shot was made to count. The robots recalculated their priorities, giving the pilots ample time to swivel their massive guns around and blast them into pieces.
Her intervention was timed perfectly too. One of the vamps managed to smash its hand through the cockpit and yank one of the pilots halfway through the breach. Poor guy was struggling to get back inside and wiggle free from the robot's iron grip. Sif shot the thing in the face after riding up her mount close to the mech and emptying the rest of her magazine until the vamp toppled to the ground.
Two men were driving the Dominion Jottun, one seated behind the other. The one on the front, the youngest of the two, stared at Sif as the mech stood upright, its weapons still puffing steam from its earlier discharge. Sif could only stare back and force up an awkward smile. She kicked her mount to trot off, the mech emitted an audible whirring noise as it tracked her movements. The woman rode out of the valley and disappeared into the wilderness, riding hard after her fellow Everwinter tribals.
"Sif!" Sven bellowed when he saw her emerge from the fields to join up with them, "What in Hel's name are you doing, disappearing on us like that?"
"I-I'm sorry, Sven." Sif avoided his gaze, a telltale mannerism of one prepping an alibi. "My mount got spooked by something, had to rein her in."
The big man narrowed his eyes, "Don't lag behind again, understand?"
She nodded timidly, keeping her head down as the riders headed out of the valley. Niflheim, home of the Everwinter tribe, was a fortress city carved into the icy rock and reinforced by steel barriers. Its walls of concrete and sturdy brick rose up to greet the riders, and the gates swung open with a loud groan once the sentries had identified them. Men and women dressed in a bizarre amalgamation of wool tunics and animal skin cloaks walked out of their huts to greet the riders.
Sven ignored them, heading up to pay a visit to the Council of the Fateweavers. The temple where they usually gathered, an old but sturdy relic of a bygone era that once was the Texarkana Center of Scandinavian Culture and Histories, loomed over Sven with the imposing stature that befitted a place of worship. The towering statues depicting the gods of the storied northmen from the Middle Ages; once served a purpose limited to mere decoration, now served a higher one by giving the hardy folk of Arkana something to believe in. Two generations after the nuclear cleansing was enough to forge a primitive but thriving community in Niflheim.
"Sif, come." The big man said gruffly, summoning the huntress up the steps. "Sigurd awaits."
The fateweavers were gathered before Odin's altar, busying themselves with a ritual to gain a glimpse of the future. The idol of the Allfather, fashioned from copper melted down from the coins of the local state bank, loomed over the circle of hunched forms. Its visage stared blankly into space, embodying the hollow promise of the false god's patronage. Each fateweaver seated in the council was a mishapen old crone, ravaged by radiation but granted immeasurable power through the unknowable properties of the god-particle- the atom.
Sigurd was the exception. The woman's hair, ankle-length and braided heavily, was wrapped around her arm with a ceremonial anchor affixed to the final knot. Amidst the battle-scarred folk of Niflheimr, who were marred in some way or another by the Wasteland, Sigurd stood out as the most beautiful woman in the land. Intricate runic tattoos depicting the world serpent Jörmungandr snaked along her bare shoulders and arms. No scar adorned her flesh, she was unblemished and pure- an anomaly in itself in the ugly scar of land she called home. Unlike the rest of the fateweavers, Sigurd had no ceremonial mask to hide her face.
Her face, her beauty, had been the cause of many wars. Even when she was a young girl, barely reaching womanhood, the sight of her was enough to drive lesser men mad with desire. Many tribal leaders in Arkana had come to the walls of Niflheim to claim the fateweaver for their own, only to perish at the hands of their fellow contenders. Pretty soon, the number of tribes living in Arkana had grown smaller.
But the want for Sigurd did not vanish.
"Sven." The fateweaver spoke in a voice resonating with a dozen others. "You've returned... and with less than you've left with."
"Aye, Sigurd." Sven explained, "We were set upon by the automatons of the Enclave invaders. It is fortunate that they've attracted the attention of the new ones, the so-called Dominion. We lost our pursuers in a battle raging in the deadlands."
Sigurd's eyes glowed with purple light, reading the thoughts and memories of the young woman at Sven's side. "You've met with them, young Sif. You saved one of their own in the valley."
Sven threw the huntress a questioning look. Sif shrank back, feeling sheepish. "Y-Yes, I did."
The other fateweavers rose up, bearing a similar purple gleam in their eyes through the narrow slits of their masks. They closed in behind Sigurd, placing their spindly spider-leg fingers over her shoulders and arms. They all spoke in broken phrases, altogether forming a chilling prophecy. "The will of the gods has been made known. The Dominion will come to our gates, and through us they will seize all of Arkana. So must it be."
"Prepare the folk of Nilfheim." Sigurd declared, "When they come, we must greet them as friends."
"What?" Sven protested, "B-But Sigurd-"
"We are surrounded by enemies, but the Dominion is the only thing unknown to us. Heed our words and see the task done, noble Sven."
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