At the End of the Road

Chapter 1

Well-worn boots beat a familiar path through the dust and debris towards Hopeville. There he was, still keeping his lonely vigil on the cliff top: the man who once waited for her at the end of the world.

Ulysses didn't even turn around as she approached him.

"Courier," he said, with a brief nod of acknowledgement. Jane grinned.

"What, you can tell me by my footsteps now?" She dropped her pack and rifle to one side and sat beside him on the cliff, as always. He watched her as she did, his expression betraying none of his thoughts. She still wasn't entirely sure where she stood with him – hadn't been since they'd fought side by side in the Temple – but he at least tolerated her visits, was willing to discuss whatever news she brought from the Mojave. Even when they argued philosophy, the words he spoke to her had lost their fury; that flame, it seemed, had died alongside his apocalyptic plans. Nor did he ever question why she came here; several times now, since they first met, despite her pressing business in the Mojave. Perhaps he had his own theories.

"Don't have to," Ulysses replied. "No one else would brave the road west into the Divide. Nothing here for scavengers but ash and radiation."

Melancholy as ever, it seemed. Well, that wasn't too bad. Melancholy wasn't what worried her.

"All right, all right, I get the picture." She waved him off with a wry look, and he fell silent again, resuming his watch. She cast her eyes forward too, over the expanse of the Divide; saw the crying windstorms blowing dust and ashes over the ruins, the distant pinpricks of Marked Men fires, the strange glow of the Courier's Mile. From all the way up here, it almost didn't look like total shit. They sat there in silence for a few minutes while Jane gathered her thoughts. Finally, she took a deep breath.

"I killed Lanius," she announced. He glanced over at her. Surprised, perhaps? Hard to tell, with this one. "At Hoover Dam. He went on about how he'd 'teach me my place in his tent,' or somethin'. I put a bullet through his brain." She smiled bitterly. "That's gettin' to be a thing with you Legion boys. Good thing you left, eh?"

Ulysses said nothing. Christ, but there was no in-between with this man. Either he was talking your ear off with philosophising, or he was silent as the goddamn grave.

Finally, he spoke.

"Not what I expected," he admitted. "Thought you might be able to talk him into changing his plans. Good at that." He gave her a pointed look, and she doffed her hat playfully in response. "Nineteen tribes couldn't bring the Monster of the East to bay. Made him a symbol of the Legion; all the might of the Bull in one man. You ending him at that Wall? Who can say what will come of it. Bull won't die quick, Courier."

Jane waited patiently for him to finish, suppressing a twinge of irritation at the title. Why he couldn't just call her by her damn name, she would never know. He didn't seem to carry any grudge against her now, but she couldn't quite shake the memory of the raw contempt with which he once growled the word. Her feelings were complicated enough already without him digging that back up.

"Reckon the East'll find another symbol?"

Ulysses paused, mulling over the question.

"Doubtful. Killing was public; can't hide a new man behind the mask if the Legion saw the last one fall. Power in his invincibility; now that's been proven a lie, they may not believe it a second time. Killed more than a man at that Dam, Courier. Won't see another Lanius."