Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 62: Castle Of Glass

*WARNING*
Graphic violence and disturbing content

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Hope.

A black mass of hope in the form of smoke undulated off the distant outpost as vertibirds took to the air, splitting into multiple squadrons and veering for the outlying camps. The sight gave the Initiate something to latch onto as he and his fellow slaves were hustled and bundled. Something like hope.

They had all heard the carriage on the wind. The bloodcurdling roars and screams of battle were like the ambiance of Hell breaching into reality. He had seen battle before since joining the Brotherhood, but never heard it quite like that. Was that what it sounded like back when the world came to an end in The Great War?

Not only that, but the shrieks of pain within that everflowing package of battle cries took him back to that cave. Those children. Their harrowed screams were adhered to his memory. If he closed his eyes for too long, they grew louder in his head.

Harsh hands on his shoulders gave a shove, and he was suddenly piled into a barbed cage with a dozen others, skinning his knees on wooden planks. Familiar scabbed hands helped him upright, and then he was looking into equally familiar eyes, blackened at the rims as Ghoulification took hold.

Mole pinched a frown at him. "Are your people coming to save us, boy?" His voice was squeezed by a quiet desperation.

"Yeah, Mole," the Initiate reassured, pushed aside as more slaves were tossed in with them. Mole's eyes were glued to him still, unseeing of anything else. The Initiate took hold of his frail shoulders to increase the weight of his absolute belief in the Brotherhood. "They're coming for us. They're gonna get us out of here."

A fist smacked on the cage, startling the two. One of the guards was leering down at them, grinning with teeth that were blotted by decay.

"No one save you," he mocked, giving a wicked chuckle. Their hope amused him. "We take you far away. Into Rad-dragon territory, to Screaming Craters." His glassy, inebriated eyes locked onto the Initiate. "No one ever save you. Third-Degree have many plans for you." The eyes then drifted over to Mole. "You? Brotherhood not save you. You infected by rad-demons. Brotherhood kill rad-demons." His throaty laugh erupted into bursts of coughs and saliva, then a bout of hysteria as he slapped the cage repeatedly to rattle them further, laughing louder and louder with every flinch they gave.

"What does he mean?" Mole fretted. "The Brotherhood kills ghouls?"

The Initiate was caught off guard by the question, and horror fell into Mole's eyes at the look of pained truth the Initiate couldn't cover in time. He hadn't known the Brotherhood of Steel's stance on ghouls? The Initiate supposed the organization was still an enigma to the Commonwealth, especially to settlers whose only source of news was rumors through trader caravans.

He increased his grip on Mole's shoulders. "Listen, they won't hurt you. I'll talk to them, explain that you're a friend. They'll understand. Don't worry."

The horror faded a little from Mole's eyes, but it still lingered in those darkening edges, like storm clouds overshadowing clear skies.

The guards sealed the cage door with a clang, and the connected wagons gave a sudden lurch as the sabretusks growled and hauled the load along on it's treads with their burly strength. They were evacuating the slaves from the camp before the vertibirds arrived, too useful a resource to be allowed liberation. Not many slaves had even bothered fighting back as they were herded to the wagons. Too lost to the well of their depression to even risk the idea of hope. Like it was a burden that would only end up betraying them.