Stellan’s smile falls, and he glares at me. But if I’m not mistaken, he’s blushing. He brandishes the map, then growls, “Turn right.”
I chuckle and swerve.
Interstate 5 has been cleared by survivors a long time ago, the cars and trucks stolen, dismantled for parts, or pushed off the road. Their rusty shells are a reminder of a long-dead civilization, one neither Stellan nor I have known personally. And it’s a mercy. Some of the older traveling merchants reminisce about the past, and they can never seem to let it go.It weighs them down like shackles, stopping them from fully committing to the present.
I am a by-product of the Rise and the end of humanity’s reign. There would be no place for me in the old world.
The asphalt of Interstate 5 is cracked and the potholes are large enough to swallow a tire, but you can still drive at fifty miles per hour if you’re careful, and make good time. In only a few hours, we’re already driving past the ruins of the city of Sacramento. We meet two vehicles on the way, but they speed away from us. My truck is quite impressive, and it spellsdangerto anyone who has survived this long in the wastelands.
By nightfall, we look for a place to spend the night. We get off the interstate and through a small and decrepit town that the apocalypse might have improved. I’m about to take us to the open land beyond the town when Stellan points to a wooden caravan by a broken-down casino.
“Isn’t that Johnny and Anna’s caravan?” he says.
I nod and stop the truck nearby. I would recognize the ugly paint job anywhere. Johnny calls himself an artist, and he painted the ugliest animals I’ve ever seen on the walls of their home. Perri showed me pictures of medieval depictions of animals a few weeks ago and told me with a laugh that Johnny was just born a few centuries too late, and his art would have been all the rage back then.
“Let’s spend the night with them. We’ll be able to rest longer with the extra pairs of eyes to help keep watch,” I say.
We grab our guns and the truck’s key and jump out. I call Johnny and Anna’s names, but no answer. Everything is quiet. We circle around the caravan, but nothing seems amiss.
I wrinkle my nose. It smells of sour sweat and unwashed bodies. Not surprising in the wastelands, but it’s still bothersome for my sensitive sense of smell. I wish I could burymy nose in Stellan’s neck to escape the stench, but I doubt he’d let me.
“I’m going to check the building,” I say.
Stellan nods and goes to look at the truck pulling the caravan.
Broken glass crunch under my boots as I make my way towards the casino’s entrance. A good part of the ceiling is missing, probably destroyed by an old god walking by, and the crystal chandelier swings precariously from the remaining plaster. The tables and chairs were cleared away a long time ago to leave room for some long-dead survivors who found shelter here during the first days after the Rise, judging by the trash littering the place and the moldy blankets.
“Anna? Johnny?” I call.
No answer.
But I can hear someone breathing on my right, behind the slot machines. These have been broken open like oysters by someone who thought money might still be useful one day. Did they survive long enough to realize human civilization as they knew it was dead and buried?
I raise my gun just as the person hiding behind the machines tries to rush me. She’s a middle-aged woman with half of her teeth missing and scraggly hair. Definitely not Anna. She brandishes a machete and goes for my neck, but I dodge her attack easily. I kick her down to the dusty floor and stomp on her leg. The bone cracks, and she screams.
“Stay down,” I say. “What have you—”
But my question dies mid-sentence as I hear gunshots from outside. I leave my quarry behind to rush out.
I find Stellan on the floor with a man on top of him, brandishing a knife, and I see red.
12
Successful distraction.
“Alastair the First killed his first man when he was only eight years old. There was an attempted coup at the Traveling Market, and a group of rebellious merchants wanted to claim the RWE Baggers for themselves. They detonated explosives and two of the Market founders were injured during the explosion. Back in those days, the mutants were only children, and their reputation hadn’t grown into the beast it is now. The attackers stormed the throne room, expecting to find no resistance, but faced an angry eight-year-old demigod. It is said he fell on them with manic rage, unpredictable and unhinged, and inflicted damage to all of them. One bled out to death in minutes from a deep wound to an artery. The coup failed miserably, and the surviving merchants were put to death the next day. From then on, Alastair became the Traveling Market’s executioner: the one the founders sent to deal with their enemies. Nowadays, Alastair doesn’t get hishands dirty as often, but people would be wrong to forget what he’s capable of.”
Extract fromThe Traveling Market and its Kingby Nolan Sigmond, published in 2062.
STELLAN
I made a dangerous mistake, one that might very well cost me my life: I got distracted.
I was checking out the quiet caravan and noticed that the lock on the door was broken. It gave out just as a woman screamed in the building behind me, where Alastair had just disappeared. My head snapped up, and the sudden urge to go help him overtook me. That’s when the man who’d been hiding in the caravan jumped at me from the open door with a knife. I raised my gun, but the shot missed his head by an inch. The man lunged at me, tackling me to the ground.
Now I’m in the dirt, grappling with a fetid middle-aged survivor who is definitely not Johnny. I let go of my gun during the fall to block the knife aiming for my gut, and I don’t know where it fell. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, and I’m still reeling. The man uses the distraction to try to stab me in the throat, but I dodge just in time and he buries the blade in my shoulder instead. I grit my teeth, annoyed but barely registering the pain, and headbutt him with all my strength, properly destroying his nose. A torrent of blood gushes from his face and onto my neck and chest.
I tear the knife from my shoulder and I’m about to finish him when Alastair appears behind him, fury etched on his usually smooth features. He places both of his large hands on the man’s face and twists. There is so much force behind the action, thesurvivor’s body follows the momentum, but not enough to save his neck from breaking. There’s an audible crack, and he goes limp. Alastair pulls him off me and throws him unceremoniously in the dirt.
