The Summit

by K. A Knight

  Once we get back into the main part of The Ring, it’s clear panic and unease are in the air. I don’t spot anyone I know, so I head to the front gate with Thorn and Drax taking up protective positions behind me, their eyes sharp and hands on their weapons. Even my hand drops to my blade and rubs it reassuringly.

  When we get there, my mouth drops open at the war party assembled. Row after row of bikes and pimped out cars wait for us, with assassins, guards, and scavs eagerly waiting to go. Major and Dray are there with Priest and Nan. I narrow my eyes at Priest, having realised he wasn’t there when I made the announcement earlier. Striding up to them I try to control my glare.

  “Finally heard the news I see?” I ask, my eyes still on the vehicles.

  “Indeed, I was tending to my flock when a messenger reached us.” I feel him looking at me, so I meet his eyes. Major steps between our staring match, making Priest turn back to the gate.

  “You don’t have to go, kid, The Summit needs you here,” he says softly to not be overheard.

  “I have to go, it’s me they are looking for. Plus, The Summit can’t go ahead without all the leaders here and Dray will be going no matter what.”

  “Don’t you think that’s what Ivar wants?” Major asks, making me look at him.

  “I considered it, but it still doesn’t change what has to be done. Make sure to keep the peace while I am gone.” Blowing out a breath, I step closer. Thorn and Drax cover me so that no one watching can see what I am about to tell him.

  “Watch your back Major,” I warn, just in case anyone overhears us.

  His eyes narrow as his gaze turns calculating. “You think someone…” He looks around before lowering his voice. “You could be right, but if so, the likelihood is they are going with you.”

  I nod as my eyes flicker to Priest. “Not necessarily.” Priest meets my eyes and I turn back to Major.

  “Promise me you will be careful?” I ask, done with pretending I still hate him.

  “Promise, but you promise to come back.” I nod with a silly grin, even as his face turns grave. “I mean it, come back and I promise to tell you anything you want to know.”

  His bribe works, and he knows it, shock courses through me and I nod. Blowing out a breath with a fresh determination I look at the cars again.

  “Are we ready?” I ask in general.

  Just then, Maxen jogs up, his chest bare with his white trousers clinging to his muscles. More weapons than I have ever seen line his body, and I raise my eyebrow as he reaches us.

  “Gotta be prepared.” He winks before turning serious. “Bikes are ready, Vasilisy has...commandeered one.” I hold in my laugh as I nod at him.

  “Let’s get going then.” He nods and turns to Thorn as I look at Priest, Nan, and Major.

  “When we return, The Summit will continue, until then I suggest you think on what has been said.” With that final warning I stride through the gate.

  “Seeker land we go…” Drax mumbles, making me smile, it’s just like old times, apart from the impending death and fight, oh wait…

  Seeker Territory

  The noise of so many engines rumbling as we race through the Wasteland is incredible, and the number of people here added an extra layer of protection. I agreed with Dray, he will ride first, and me and my men will ride at the back, protecting our rear. I love that even after we had sex, he doesn’t think he can control me and trusts in my instincts, believing they are assets to protect myself and his men.

  “It’s a place of respect, you know?” I groan as a familiar annoyingly smug voice sounds. Looking to my left, I spot the assassin from before, I didn’t see him there earlier and I don’t know when the little sneaky bastard turned up.

  “Sneaky fucking Seeker,” I mumble, I don’t know how he hears me over the engines, but he laughs. Louder, to be heard, I carry on, “What do you mean?”

  Looking at me he starts to laugh. “You really are clueless about Seekers.” Sobering up, he swerves around a rock before moving closer to me. “To ride at the back of a war party is the ultimate respect. It means they trust you with their lives and to protect them no matter what. Only one other person has ever been asked to ride at the back.”

  Blowing away some sand, I carry on our conversation, “Who was that?”

  “Me,” he answers before moving forward and riding in front of me, effectively cutting off our conversation.

  Rolling my eyes, I pull up my bandanna to protect my mouth and nose as his bike kicks up dust. At this rate, with how fast we are riding, we should reach Seeker land before sundown. I just hope it’s still there when we get there. With nothing else to concentrate on but watching the roads and land around us, I start to wonder what Dray’s lands look like.

  I know the Berserker stronghold is a castle, The Rim is a shanty city, The Ring a zoo, Worshippers a church and Paradise a bunker… so what about Seeker? I guess I never really asked, but I can imagine it dark and dreary, with lots of weapons and shady places for assassins to hide, or maybe that’s just my imagination. The road we are on is twisting and we are using it rather than riding straight through the sand, it clogs up the bikes and isn’t an easy ride.

  Squinting, I spot something on the left, slowing my bike I leave a gap between me and the war party. I don’t know why I noticed it, but something is pulling me to go and check it out. Maxen and Thorn glance back and when they spot me, they slow down too, signalling to Drax and Jax to do the same. When the rest of the bikes get a bit further away, I swerve towards the object and speed up until I stop a good few meters away. When I can finally make out the shapes, I want to vomit.

  Tied to a post where the road twists are Dagny and Cherry. I can hear the other bikes roaring closer, but I don’t move as I stare at their lifeless bodies.

  Cherry is tied to a post, both arms and legs cut off and her clothing nowhere to be seen. Her body is covered in blood and her throat slit, her head is nailed so that her face is pointed towards the road, but it’s the utter terror and despair carved into her lifeless face that is my undoing. Swinging my eyes, unable to help myself, I take in Dagny. Similar to Cherry he is tied for the world to see, but even in death his face is determined. His breasts, which I am guessing he covered up, are on display and when my eyes drop to the rest of him, I clench the handlebar desperately. Not only did those animals expose him, they nailed a cock in between his legs. My breathing is harsh and sawing out of my chest as I look for a sign of who could have done this monstrous thing. My eyes land on the Berserker brand drawn crudely in blood at their feet. Time slows down as my ears ring, guilt hunching my shoulders because this is my fault. I don’t know how, but someone must have seen me with them and used them as a punishment because this type of killing is what it is...a punishment and a warning. To me, taunting me and daring me to find them, they are hoping to anger me until I lose control. I will, but not in the way they expect.

  Standing in the darkened corner of my cell, my hair tangled and covered in blood, I wait for them to come, I know they will. The screaming will have alerted them if nothing else. I feel like a monster right now, but strong as well. A cold smile curves my lips as I look down at the dead man at my feet. One of the bastards who gutted Petal lays there, bleeding out like she did. Only he had no one to help him, no one to answer his cries or begs, instead, the last thing he saw was my face as I screamed and raged, and cut him up. I’m numb though, I should be scared at the pure, unfiltered rage running through me, but I am just a puppet. It’s like I am here but I am not. Finally, something snapped in me, a force I have never felt before rose, and the next thing I knew I was leaping at the man taunting me. I should be scared, this is will have repercussions.

  I will be punished. You don’t just kill a Berserker and get away with it, but instead a twisted sort of joy fills my chest. It might be the last thing I ever do, but I will take some of those bastards with me. I can hear the footsteps as they stomp down the stairs, reacting to the scent of blood and sound of screams, like animals.
When they round the cell’s corner, they stop dead, two of them, gawking at the man before their eyes snap up to meet mine. I don’t know how much they can see, my whole body must look like a shadow to them, the fire not reaching me.

  “What tha fuck have ya done, slave?” shouts one of the guards as he bangs on the cell door. Grinning, I step forward and into the light, when they see me, they gasp and fall back, their eyes wide as they take in my blood-soaked body.

  “Holy fuck,” the one of the left whispers.

  “She’s fuckin’ lost it!” the one on the right shouts, eyeing me warily like I might break through steel to get to him.

  The fear in their eyes has my smile stretching, something powerful unfurling in my chest at the sight. All my life here I have felt powerless, nothing, just something to be used and ignored, but now they notice me. Now they fear me, and they will fucking pay for everything they ever did to me and my friends––even if it takes twenty years. I will kill them all.

  “Worth?”

  “I’m okay,” I croak, before dismounting and moving to the bodies. I have to think of them as that. They aren’t people anymore, they aren’t my friends, they are just empty shells, hopefully they are together in the next life.

  Kneeling at their feet, I bow my head, whispering a warrior’s goodbye and bidding them peace for their journey. A tear drops to the sand, the heat soaking it up right away like it never existed, the only sign of my grief and pain. I might not have known them for long or that well, but I knew them with one look. The love they had, the fight and hope in their eyes. I knew their story, their past, and struggles. I will remember them like that, not like this...meat for the crows.

  “I am sorry,” I whisper before raising my head and looking at them. “I promise you, I will make them pay.” With that I stand and square my shoulders, the deafening silence from behind only serving to help the screaming and anger flow through me.

  “We bury them,” I shout, my voice strong, even though I still face away just in case they can see the truth in my eyes. My blood is burning and my chest tight, my darkness clambering to get out, pushing me to burn this fucking world and all the evil in it down.

  I hear movement behind me as I drop my bag to the ground, the least I can do is help them. I watch as both my men and the assassin get to work on getting the bodies down, following my orders without hesitation. A hand lands on my back and I know who it is without looking.

  “We will get them all,” he warns, his voice silky and filled with deadly intent.

  “I know, but I wonder what they have left us at yours,” I reply coolly, trying to tame the storm inside.

  “As do I.” I can hear the sadness in his voice, but when I look his eyes are still as cold and expressionless as ever, making me wonder if I imagined it. “I will burn this world down to get to them if they have destroyed what I worked so hard to protect,” he vows, eerily echoing my own thoughts. As much as Dray scares me, he reminds me of my darkness and I know we are both made of the same blood and pain. I wonder how far he will go, how far I will go? Thinking back over all the people I have lost and how many lives have been ruined by Ivar and his twisted control, I realise I would do anything.

  We step forward at the same time, reaching for Cherry’s body as it falls. I wince when I catch her, the blood spraying everywhere and staining my hands. Breathing through my nose, I focus on the next step until there is nothing left to do, I am just standing above two unremarkable patches of sand covering their bodies. I can feel the blood drying and flaking on my skin, but I don’t bother wiping it away. I will ride into the Seeker camp like a warrior and any Berserkers that are there will know they have pushed me too far this time. It’s time to finish this war, before the week is through, I want Ivar’s head at my feet.

  We get back on the road, the mood more somber as we all check our surroundings better. They know we are coming, and we can’t be more prepared. Bloodlust coats every face as we ride hard and fast, like that might stop what has already happened.

  I expected bloodshed and mayhem, but as I see a sign for Seeker territory all seems calm and quiet, too quiet. The terrain starts to get more uneven, hilly with the roads ending in dirt paths and eventually nothing but wasteland. Yet Dray navigates it easily, not even looking where he is going. It makes sense that they would hide their camp, sneaky little assassins. A town seems to appear out of nowhere, mismatched roofs and smoke billowing from the sands. At least twenty homes are scattered in a tight formation, with darkened paths winding between them. We don’t bother stopping, but I look on curiously. No one appears or looks out of the town and that has me frowning, surely they have heard us coming.

  We ride around the town and around a hill before I let out a whistle, this is not where I imagined Dray living––it’s a fucking mansion.

  The Warning

  Towering from the sands, in complete contrast with the new world, is a fucking mansion. We aren’t talking a big house, we are talking about a house big enough to hold the whole clan. The windows are now brown and dusty, the outside, that obviously started as white, is dirty with more stains than I can count, but it still looks…good. Plants grow on each side of the stairs, which lead up to a wraparound porch and two large wooden front doors. Three stories tall with more windows than I can count, and spanning the whole of the clearing, it’s an imposing bit of architecture. Bikes and cars span the left side of the patch of gravel in front of it, and a smaller building is shut up to the right. That’s where Dray leads us, and I park up behind him before jumping off and looking around. Again, it’s silent. No guards, no Berserkers...no people.

  “Where is everyone?” Drax asks, and when I look at Dray, I can see he is thinking the same.

  A Seeker slips up next to him. “I just checked the guard stations, they are all empty.”

  Frowning, I look back at the still house. How can something like a home send fear shooting through my body? I have a terrible feeling, so I draw a blade and I hear a few others do the same.

  Dray doesn’t bother talking but strides up the steps to the front doors, where he kicks them open. They bang against the wall and I slide up next to him, he goes in right and I go left only to stop and blink. I expected bodies and blood, but the inside is pristine, well, as clean as you can get when you live in a Wasteland. Paintings hang on the left canary yellow wall and on the right white wall. Looking up, I take in the room. High ceilings, running right to the roof, are covered in intricate paintings and even hosts a chandelier, squinting I hold in a laugh when I spot the weapons hanging from it. A staircase, split in two, runs from just in front of it, going up three stories. We seem to be in some sort of entrance. A door leads off the right and a hallway leads through the middle of the split staircase. I shake my head when I spot the decorations, that is more like it. Big suits of armour stand in attention and every weapon you could image decorates the wall like an armoury. Dray heads that way, us on his heels keeping an eye out for anyone. The hallway is dark when we reach the middle, the light barely penetrating back here, so I nearly yelp when I slip on something, grabbing an axe on the wall to keep myself upright. When I right myself, I crouch down and run my finger through the dark liquid pooling in spots on the floor, lifting my finger into the air I growl.

  “Blood.” I point out, tracing the spotting across the floor and where it leads to a closed door on my left. Standing, I grab my swords and head to the door. Dray meets me there. I put my back to the wall as he waits for me. When I nod, he kicks in the door and I quickly spin into the room, crouching lower just in case anyone is aiming a gun. When no shots go off, I slide to the left, putting my back to the wall once again and allowing Dray to follow me in. He doesn’t hesitate like me, but stands in the open doorway, the light framing him as he searches for the source of the blood. When no one jumps out, I step away and go to search my half of the room. I have to squint, the room is that dark, but I can make out the shapes of objects. Mainly what looks like tables and chairs, maybe it’s some kind of m
eeting place? Running my hand along the wall, I stop when I reach material. Feeling around I open the curtains, letting some light stream into the room. Carrying on, I freeze when my hand touches something wet. Pulling my hand back slowly I look down at the floor as my feet stick. There, laying in a drying pool of blood is a Seeker.

  “Dray,” I murmur in a hushed tone as I drop to a crouch and push the body over. When I do, the head rolls away until it meets Dray’s boots as he stops in front of me.

  “Berserkers,” I confirm, looking up at him. He ignores the head, but anger crosses his face. Nodding, he offers me his hand and I take it, he helps me to my feet and we quickly search the rest of the room before joining the others back out in the hallway.

  “Get ready, Berserkers have been here. That kill is no more than a day old. They will have taken out the guards before playing with the others.” They all nod, their faces stark and filled with anger as we head back down the corridor. Maxen and Thorn come up the back and watch our rear.

  We carry on, slower and more cautious this time. We pass doors and stop as each person takes a room until we have cleared them all. Stopping at the end, the hallway opens into a large circular room, a water fountain in one corner and a fucking garden growing in the other. Only one more door stands down here, a massive hand carved one waiting for us. When we sneak across, tiptoeing lightly, I spot the bloody handprints before the others and tighten my grip on my weapons.

  As one, we throw open the doors and rush inside only to stop in horror. What looks like a banquet hall, complete with two long tables on either side, and one running along the back wall, make up the room. Game tables are set up in one corner and a bar is in the other. Large stained-glass windows are framed at the back, their red and yellow panes of glass refracting around the room. Large, elaborate light structures hang from the ceiling lighting the large room, but it’s not the size of the room that has me freezing, but what has been left behind.