Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 34: Gathering Storms

A bitter wind scoured the desert, rasping at the Initiates raw skin, his tattered rags doing nothing to provide protection. He shivered and blew out a train of pale air, casting his eyes skyward to steal a look at the stars before the guards could notice his slacking. Few nights in the Blood Lands were clear of the Red Menace, and he wanted to savor the clear sight before the storms rolled back in to cloud it all in their violent greed.

Red Menace, he scoffed internally. These raiders were so ignorant. If only the pre-war Soviets or Chinese would invade the deserts and liberate them all. He would gladly become a P.O.W. if it meant escape from this hell, and Third-Degree's torture sessions...

He sighed, glanced at the knuckle joint of his missing finger, and continued shovelling mounds of dirt and sand onto the exposed oil pipeline as it spewed a fountain upon him and the other slaves around him. The Red Claws had really done a number on the wells this time.

When would their raiding parties rescue him for once? Even if they found him, would they even bother cutting him loose? He wasn't one of them, and if they knew he was from the Brotherhood, they would likely think him just as much the enemy as the Dark Bloods.

So, no Chinese or Red Claws were coming to save him. He really was screwed.

Thunder beat on the wind at the Initiate's back, and he turned with a groan, thinking it the radstorms come to rub salt in his wounds, but the sight instead made a different kind of dread worm in his gut. It was a vertibird. And only the battle commanders travelled by vertibird.

The circle of slaves stopped their shovelling to stare as the aircraft motored overhead. The two power-armored figures in the load were unmistakable.

"Slay and Dark-Drinker come back," one of the other slaves stated in confusion, body so slick with oil he was cloaked to the night save for the reflection of the stuff from the surrounding flame torches. The Initiate couldn't remember his serial number.

"But why?" another voiced.

The only reason the Initiate could think of was that their base had been invaded and they were driven out. Maybe the Brotherhood had taken action! Maybe they were finally coming to save him and kill all these scumbags! Maybe Grace was among them. Sweet, caring Grace...

"Keep shovelling, maggots!" one of the guards grated on their ears, threatening to strike out with his giant flint-spiked war axe. Surprisingly, he wasn't the one that the Initiate feared the most.

It was the brute with the enormous mace slung casually over his shoulder, the spiked wrecking ball swaying by it's chain from the tip. He had seen an escapee slave become the victim of that, first with a blow to the spine, then a finishing bludgeon to the skull. The slave's head had splattered like a rotten melon. The Initiate would rather take a war axe to the face any day.

As he piled on more dirt to clog the oil, he had to wonder what the setback in the Commonwealth would spark. From what he had gathered through slave gossip and rumors, the Dark Bloods had never been wholly driven back from their territory once claimed. Sure, the Red Claws had burned out smaller encampments and sabotaged a number of trails and routes, but never a large outpost.

They were going to be pissed beyond imagining.

As the vertibird inevitably soared in the direction of the Dark Bloods' main encampment, one of the guards, the one with the dart blowgun, gave a shrill call to the other guards.