The Wasteland Soldier, Book 1, A Fractured World

Twenty

The pickup spluttered and ground to a stop, its supply of black energy exhausted.

Stone abandoned the truck and continued on foot. He was only a few miles from the mountains. In the dark, he trudged off the highway, a solitary figure in the night. He was utterly alone. The wind was his only companion as he followed a slowly winding dirt road, dotted with stone and rock. He could have remained on the highway, it led straight to the city, but he would have been visible, exposed. He would use the mountain range to cover his approach. Walking for another hour, his calves began to ache as the road gradually ascended. He stopped and set his pack down. Despite the chill air, he was sweating. He took off his hat and goggles and tipped water over his face. He shook his head, his long, dirty hair swinging wildly. He had pulled it back and tied it with a short length of rope. Pushing his goggles across his eyes, his hat back over his scalp, he lifted his pack and walked on. He came across a narrow path, much steeper than the road, which now seemed to be falling away back to the flat lands below. He chose to follow it.

His legs stretched long as he pushed his body to its limits. The crags loomed around him as the path wound deeper into the mountains. He turned, glanced back, held his gaze for a moment. The ground below was grey, featureless, the highway a black line; Gallen stretched to the horizon, a land that filled him with nothing but despair. He felt every grain of sand, every block of dirt, every piece of road, ruthlessly combined to weight upon his shoulders. He had lived for more than forty years. He was old compared to many. Few lived long years in this world. He tilted his head to the sky, seeking solace, and watched the clouds for a moment, marvelling at how they shifted in the wind, the white lights hiding behind them and then revealing themselves.

Stone lowered his head and headed on, further and further, the path forking many times. He took out his torch, thankful it was still working. He left his revolver in his belt and armed himself with a pistol he had taken from one of the Blood Sun warriors. The weapon was black and the magazine held nineteen bullets. He had used a similar firearm before. He shone the torch onto the path, keeping the beam low. The path was stony and uneven and, despite torchlight, he managed to lose his footing from time to time. The moon peeked around the clouds, illuminating the way ahead. He switched off the torch as he approached a wall of dead trees, branches black and lifeless, like a host of evil creatures escaped from a nightmare, waiting to ambush him.

He stopped and sniffed the air. He crouched, waited, listened, kept the pistol out in front.

His eyes scanned the surrounding darkness, peering through the trees, across sloping rock faces.

He saw the opening, faint wisps of smoke trailing from it. He looked around but couldn't see anyone watching him. He waited longer. Wind whistled through the black trees. He rose, began walking, aware of the noise his boots made across beds of fallen branches and loose stone; it didn't matter, the fire had been quickly extinguished, his presence was already known. Stone kept one eye on the cave opening, his pistol fanning left to right as he came closer. The path split again, one branch heading further into the mountains, cutting away to his right, another running down to his left, perhaps dropping all the way back to the barren scrubland.

He passed the cave opening and swiftly pressed his back against the craggy rock surrounding it.

He could no longer smell anything or see the wood smoke. He edged along, pistol ready, torch in hand, but switched off.

He took a deep breathe and swung around the entrance, dropping down, snapping on the torch and aiming his pistol.

Wide eyes looked back at him. Bushy grey eyebrows and blackened teeth. A thickly lined and sun burned complexion. He was crumpled in the corner of the cave, skinny and ragged, his fire now only dying embers. He had a knife but Stone ignored it. Ducking, he entered the cave, finding it much larger than he had anticipated. He looked around. There was no one else here and no other way out. He set down his pack, snatched the knife from the old man and hurled it into the shadows.