Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 117: Dragon Rider

Clay-Crawler rode a dragon. Clay-Crawler, the sex slave, the psychotic raider boy, the runner who longed to be a warrior. Clay-Crawler was a dragon rider.

The Apocalypse Gods soaked him in their glory, he could feel their radiation in him, rewarding him for his gift of fire and blood and pain. After the metal tail of the beast was gone from the crater above him, he lay dazed by the fall and the view above.

A pageant of stars pierced the night sky. It was so pretty. Prettier than anything he had ever seen before. Why had he never noticed the stars in such a way? Why did they wink at him so seductively? When he sneaked out from Slay's lair late at night to drink and smoke and snort and inject with the spirit people, they always told him that the stars were the Eyes of the Lost Voices, those poor souls who had perished in the Apocalypse Fires and ascended to become the guides of the Sight. The Eyes of the Sight saw all, Meek and Eye-Daddy always told him. Had they seen his glory? Would the Sight show his legacy for the world to see? Would he be remembered when he died?

It was only an arm and an ear. He wasn't dead yet. There was still more glory to be had.

Commotion raised him up. The battle was done, the Brotherhood were sweeping for survivors and aiding the injured, taking over the outpost as though they had won it all on their own... and Whisper was on the ground with a man in her arms, being ignored by everyone and everything around her.

As Clay-Crawler ambled to her, she did a dramatic double-take. She looked like dreadful shit splashed in blood and actual shit, and she was wearing Red Claw battle garb. "Clay? That you? No one else would have the balls to do what you just did."

"Oh." He pulled his helmet off and smiled his winning smile. The man was wearing a power armor helmet. Deadskull?

"Your ear," Whisper mentioned before he could ask. "Your arm. Clay, what happened to you?"

"Glory," he said, jutting triumphant. "But, what happen to you!?"

A darkness fell on her. "War," was all she said before her gaze dropped onto the man she held. "Please, can you help me with him? I need to get him out of here."

He nodded eagerly and bent so she could help ease the unconscious man over his shoulder plate. "Deadskull?"

"Yeah. Deadskull."

He wanted to smile with relief that his favorite Paladin was alive, but the downcast turn to her features warded him off his joy. He had watched while regaining consciousness as the rad-dragon had smashed the man against the cave wall in it's frustration with him, his resistance waning with each slam, limbs going slack. "He is okay?"

"I don't know," she said as her fingers dialled into Deadskull's pulse. "He's strong. Stronger than any of us. But he went through a lot to find me, and then some." Clay could see the guilt riddling her eyes. "Come on. The Brotherhood are forbidden to help him on account of me. If anyone can help him, it's Curie."

Whisper limped as she led him out through the tangle of bodies and past the towering heights of the Hell Gates. They weren't always known as the Hell Gates. Back when the Red Claws had first conquered these caves, the entrance was open and free of any construction that warranted naming. At least that was how history told it. He wondered what it had looked like, all that time ago. Was it a home warm with laughter and the hearty songs of war, as the rebellion swept the Fire Steppes in it's height of hope and promise, or was it always a dungeon of dark secrets and torture?

The number of dead Red Claws strewn over the charred sand troubled him, and he ached to know what had gone down between them and the Minutemen for such a brawl to break out on mutual enemy soil. It seemed that the infighting between Brotherhood, Minutemen, and Red Claws was more potent than the war with the Dark Bloods in itself. Why did war have to be so complicated? Wasn't it simple just to band up and fight the enemy they all shared? How hard was it to get their shit together and get along for a cause?