Zerker coursed through the veins of the Executioners. It guided their muscles, poisoned their minds, and made them into the most terrible force on the battlefield.

  Shiela was an unknowable blur. The speed at which she charged her enemies left them reeling and confused before she split them open with so much ferocity the witnesses went white with fear. She picked up even more speed as she killed and dodged the ceaseless attacks of the Gordo clan’s firearms.

  The few times she was struck weren’t enough to deter her. There had been some holes in her body that leaked blood, but it didn’t slow her. If this fight had been in the Pit, their guns would have been more effective. In a sober state, she might be able to calculate her odds of survival, and that would slow her down. Now her mind focused on the blood on her claws.

  The Lioness jumped into a window and her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Before she could grasp where she was, she heard the pounding of feet on concrete and a battle cry. Shiela swung a claw in the general direction and felt the clang of metal-on-metal ring out in her bones.

  It hurt. Whatever was on the other end of her claws was strong enough to not break under her own strength. Still, the pain didn’t stop her. Her attention was focused in one general direction as her claws flashed like glinting lightning. More metal-on-metal, and then she felt the familiar, buttery texture of human flesh being ripped apart by her weapon.

  A blinker aimed at her head, and as soon as she heard the first bullet, she ducked and ran along the floor like an animal. The gun sprayed its entire magazine across one wall of the building, then clicked empty. The raider wielding it had enough time to eject the spent magazine before Shiela cut him from pelvis to clavicle. One swipe split him in two, and she took the time to stab into either half and fling them in opposite directions.

  More gunshots, and she was off, continuing the killing spree.

  Boris the Wall was outside dealing his own form of psychological damage. In the Pit, his act was akin to a wastelander strongman. The talent didn’t come in his ability to kill, but rather his use of the shield. The massive weapon was too much for anyone besides perhaps Jackmaw Yapyap himself to wield. During a show, he might display its massive weight by slamming it down onto an opponent and sending a shockwave sounding from the arena.

  Here in the desert, high on the zerker, he was a terrifying presence. Boris was able to slam enemies with his shield, toppling them to the floor and sending their heads spinning. Before they had time to put their brains back together, he would already be standing over them and pounding them into a pulp.

  Boris charged a building that had two pipe riflemen and a blinker firing down into him. The blinker had been quick enough to lodge one bullet in his skull and send another tearing into his muscle, but the pipes larger bullets pinged off of the shield. Boris crashed into the building and knocked down its wall as if it was made of paper maché. When he popped out the other end, it collapsed and sent all of its inhabitants screaming as they fell.

  One of them was a raider named Wingman, the one who carried a blinker and managed to hit Boris. The building was a singular story, and as such a fall from the roof was dangerous but nonfatal. Wingman landed on a large chunk of rubble and felt his back snap, but he lay sucking in pained breaths still. He could see the two pipe riflemen, Stu and Mustang, over one shoulder.

  Stu was pushing himself to his feet. A foolish move, Wingman thought. Better to play dead and wait for Jackmaw to deal with these guys. He was proven right in a matter of moments when Boris’s shield came sailing overhead and crashed into him. The heavy weight slammed into him and dragged him to the floor like an anchor. When the dust settled, Wingman could only see Stu’s legs. Whatever was left of him was crushed under the shield.

  And there was no sign of the Pit Lord.

  Mustang was up now, too. As soon as Stu was killed, she ran out of manic desperation. Another fatal flaw, he thought, but that didn’t matter. The beast of a man didn’t have his weapon, so she had a fighting chance.

  Wingman learned too little too late that the Executioners were just as much raiders as the Gordo clan. Their adaptation to the changing battlefield was done so with the mind of a crazy person. Wingman felt Boris’s mighty hands grip his ankles so hard his foot bones cracked away from his legs. He screamed and reached down to protest the grasp, but Boris was lifting him off the floor already.

  One turn, like a shotput throw, and then Wingman was whipped towards the fleeing Mustang. The last thing he saw was Mustang’s terrified face as they clapped into each other with a meaty, thunderous collision. Boris’s aim was impeccable, and the two had their heads caved against each other.

  The final dark presence on the battlefield was Mateo, and he was the most feared by the raiders. The massive chain that bound him to his scythe echoed with his heavy footsteps. You could hear him long before you could see him. Survivors of the battle, friend or foe, still had nightmares of that noise long after the day was won.

  A much larger building was housing nearly ten members of the Gordo clan. The small squad had been organized to follow Lieutenant Vanta Squawk. Squawk was a fairly new Lieutenant, put into command after the death of Rust in Kiva Noon. This was her first major combat role, and without the air of a more experienced Lieutenant, she was sweating bullets.

  “Orders?” someone called. She was in a corner, sitting in a rotten desk chair and holding her head in her hands while she bounced one leg uncontrollably.

  Orders? What the hell did they want her to say? She had given them orders, kill the damned enemy! Why was it so hard to understand? Just shoot them!

  “Squawk we need something!”

  “I know!” she shouted. Of course she knew. How could she forget with them constantly asking her? “Give me a status report or something.”

  “He’s got a scythe and he’s killed six of us already!”

  Her bouncing leg was picking up speed. It sent a pulse through the floorboards of the building, and she unknowingly gave away their hiding spot. She licked her lips. “Why doesn’t shooting him work?”

  “You’ve got a pistol; you go find out if you can hit him!”

  Squawk flew into a rage. She stood from her chair, sending it wheeling back with a rusted squeal. She snatched the underling by his ear and dragged him close. His name evaded her, indeed most conscious thought had. Her gritted teeth met his ear, and she hissed, “I don’t need your sass! If you want to get out of this alive, you’ll tell me why you can’t just fucking shoot him!”

  “It doesn’t hurt him? We miss every shot? The bullets could be passing right through him, for Karma’s sake! I have no idea what’s going on, but he’s not dying!”

  Squawk twisted his ear and forced him to bend his back. The raider winced and gripped his blinker. She could tell he’d pull it on her if she didn’t get the situation under control, so she tossed him aside.

  “Listen up! He can’t dodge all of us shooting at him at once. We need to get into position and watch the damn door!”

  It was too late. Her bouncing leg a moment earlier had led him right to them. The thundering clinking of the chain could be heard as Mateo the Reaper appeared in the doorway of the stairwell. He was tall enough to have to duck under the threshold. When he stood at his full height in the building, his wide brimmed hat nearly touched the ceiling.

  Every raider on that floor stared like the spitting image of death itself had wandered in. Under the effect of zerker, Mateo seemed calm and collected, a far cry from the socially anxious man that hid from the spotlight.

  In the Pit, Mateo was an Executioner that didn’t perform often. Under Talin the Great’s leadership, he was saved for special occasions, the kind where talented individuals needed to be put down. His shows were commonly a one-on-one where he was able to make a quick exit. Under Jerod, he was forced to be a common appearance. His combat style was unique, and it drew in a wealthy crowd wanting to see dismemberment performed by an expert.

  All he wanted to do back then was hide in the VIP booth. Now… now he was looking forward to the next time he would be able to take another dose of zerker.

  The drug cleared his mind. There were no eyes on him demanding perfection. There was no expectation to perform. No. Right now, all he could feel was the surge of combat. The blood on his skin was like electricity. A tingle of joy ran down his spine and stretched into his itching fingers. Standing there, sniffing their stinking fear-sweat and basking in their wide-eyed stares was enough.

  “Kill him you idiots!” Squawk commanded, and her small force began to unload. Mateo swung his weapon, sending it to the end of its chain as it cleared half the room and decapitated one raider. The rest ducked, only noticing the next attack as soon as the scythe was caught in one of the exposed studs. The wood creaked, then Mateo yanked it hard.

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  The ceiling in that area collapsed. Another raider was impaled by a falling beam and yet another crushed by the falling ceiling. When the raiders popped back up, Squawk counted seven left alive. She didn’t spot Mateo.

  The rumbling chain seemed to echo off of every wall. The raiders’ eyes flicked toward the left, then the right as shadows leapt from the walls and drew their fire. Lieutenant Squawk was unable to gain control of her force, and soon they began to drop.

  She couldn’t see past the crumbling walls and dilapidated furniture, but one by one, her men were dragged to the floor and turned into a blood geyser as a flash of red splashed the ceiling. Agonized screams filled the area, undercut by that terrible chain. They were being picked off one by one, and Squawk noticed they were getting closer to her.

  That was it. She had had enough. Squawk turned and ran for the window. Staring down at the dusty street below, she thought she might be able to make it. At least she could chance a broken leg over certain death. She took a step back, began to run for the jump, then was snatched by her hair.

  “No!” she cried. “Please no! Let me go!”

  Mateo turned her to face him. There was no humanity in his eyes, just a feral hunger for cruelty. Behind him, the dead of her clan smeared the walls, floors, and ceiling like a random smattering of gore. He was covered in their essence and stank of death.

  He didn’t answer her pleas. The look in her eye was reward enough. He lifted the scythe to her face, carving an M into her forehead with an agonizingly slow pace. Blood dripped into her shell-shocked eyes, and the rattle of the chain was like artillery fire thrumming in her ears. Mateo dropped her and she curled into a ball, mumbling incoherently to herself.

  He left her there, the noise of the chain mercifully disappearing downstairs and into the street.

  Almost as if they were using a singular mind, the three Executioners met up in the street. Each could tell they fought an urge to tear into each other. There was a look in their eyes that demanded blood, but there was sense enough to turn that hunger towards their original target.

  That boy, Krav, might have wanted to kill Jackmaw himself, but it was an Executioner’s duty to hunt the largest prey in any given battlefield. With all the Raiders on the frontline either dead or running for their lives, they followed the call of the M60.

  Jackmaw was firing into sands a few blocks away. His weapon was slowing Krav’s approach, and the two traded gunfire as they pinned one another to their hiding spots. The warlord ducked behind a broken-down vehicle, and the boy was behind a fallen home. Jackmaw’s gun was chewing through the old concrete like each bullet was a pickaxe burying itself in stone.

  Krav’s gun was burning up the vehicle, heating its metal and making unbearable to take cover behind. Its heat was a blazing oven, but leaving his position would mean getting vaporized. Jackmaw almost admired the ploy, even if Krav hadn’t planned it to go this way. In fact, the boy had no idea what he was doing. He simply wanted Jackmaw to run out of the holy Ammo before he did.

  Then there was something that disrupted their fight. Krav was hiding in his position when he heard the M60 firing like wild. None of the bullets were at him, however. With his back against the wall, he was able to feel every punch of the machinegun. He peered around the corner.

  Jackmaw wasn’t firing at him anymore. His attention was on the moving wall that was coming straight for him. The M60 bucked in his hands, and its terrible power was blasting into the wall.

  Boris held fast against it. The pipe rifles had hurt to hold up against, but this was something else entirely. The larger bullets in the M60 hit the shield and left welts in the metal. Some snagged and lodged inside, others pinged off and forced him backwards. Boris leaned into the fire and held strong.

  He had to be strong. He was the only thing standing between Jackmaw and his companions. Shiela and Mateo stood on either side of him, keeping pace as he cleared the way forward. Multiple bullets were crashing into him per second, and they shook the shield hard. It felt like holding up a car that was vibrating violently. The bones in his arms felt like they were turning to powder.

  “I can’t hold it much longer!” he strained.

  Mateo coaxed him on. “Almost there! Just keep us going!”

  Boris leaned all his weight into the shield. The metal rattled against his arms, and he even put his forehead against it to push on. They were a mere thirty feet or so from reaching Jackmaw when a particularly well-placed shot hit Boris square in his head. It dented the metal and caved it towards him, knocking him unconscious.

  As the shield came down like a curtain, Shiela and Mateo ran up it and leapt towards their target. In the air like this, there was nothing the warlord could do. He was caught between the two of them, and had to choose one to kill while the other cut him to pieces. It was the perfect plan, or at least it would have been if their target was anyone other than the red devil himself.

  The warlord saw two massive melee weapons and knew he could only kill one before the other disemboweled him. The choice was made in a split second to engage them in close combat. Jackmaw tossed the M60 aside and flashed two twin bowie knives from his waist.

  The knives scissored into Mateo’s weapon and dragged him down to be used as a human shield. Shiela caught it just in time and she hesitated with her claws. She rolled as she landed and found herself behind them. One stab of her claws into Jackmaw’s back would bleed him out in seconds.

  It was something Jackmaw had known as well. He might be king of the world, but that didn’t make him immortal. Throughout the decades he spent as a raider, he had learned all of the best ways to kill a man. While these enemies were competent, he found them to be boring. They went for quick, decisive kills, and he would have to be warry of that.

  As Shiela aimed her claws it his kidneys, Jackmaw sent a thundering kick into Mateo’s back. The Reaper rolled away, and then all seven feet of the giant turned and faced the Lioness. Watching their clash of blades was like watching a dog fight a cat. Jackmaw’s knives came at Shiela in heavy blows, and she did all she could to dance around their path and block where necessary.

  Each block rattled the bones in her arms and ripped the muscles in her shoulders.

  “I ain’t got a problem killing women,” Jackmaw smiled between heavy swings. “You seem like a tough enough bitch to take a knife wound. Want to find out?”

  Shiela gritted her teeth. The zerker in her blood was making it hard to talk. Each time she opened her mouth, she got the insatiable urge to bite and chew on something. She answered his taunts with a growl, but it wasn’t enough to stop the raging warlord.

  One block went horribly wrong, shattering her wrist and disarming her. Shiela was able to lean back just in time as metallic lightning arced for her neck. The blade was able to rip at the veins in her neck, but if she hadn’t moved, she would have lost her head to the strike.

  She collapsed to the floor, blood dying her posh blonde hair a deep crimson. As Shiela gasped for air, her hands grabbed her neck and desperately held her wound. Jackmaw was already standing over her, prepared to finish her off with his signature head stomp.

  The warlord paused when he heard the heavy chain rattle behind him. He turned just in time to see the scythe fly into his thigh. It bit through him, causing so much pain he had to stifle his own pained scream. There was no way in any hell that he’d let his men hear him cry like a bitch. Jackmaw recognized the maneuver as a snaring attack, and before Mateo could yank him off of his feet, he turned the tables on him.

  “The worst mistake people make chaining their weapons to themselves is underestimating the strength of their opponent. Tell me, scab head, do you think your stronger than me?”

  Mateo could hardly understand him while under the effects of the zerker. He didn’t underestimate anything, he was an Executioner of the Pit Lords, on par with any warlord in the wasteland. At least that was what he thought. The Reaper went to perform one of his own signature moves, where he would yank Jackmaw off of his feet and leap on him for the killing blow.

  When Mateo pulled, however, Jackmaw didn’t budge.

  Pain flared in the warlord’s leg. He could feel every agonizing centimeter as the blade scratched his bone. Any man would have fallen when faced with this much pain, but Jackmaw stood firm. His blood red gaze remained on Mateo and his smile twitched as he stifled another cry.

  “My turn!” he screamed, and then he grabbed the chain. A single yank forced Mateo to the floor, then Jackmaw was dragging him towards his death. Instead of fighting to detach the chain like he would have done in a sober state, the zerker made Mateo irrational and vengeful. He flailed to find purchase and tried to yank the chain from Jackmaw’s hands.

  It didn’t work. Arm over arm, Jackmaw reeled him in like a fish pulling a fisherman into the depths. One final yank, and Mateo went flying into the warlord’s embrace. One hand caught him by the neck, the other buried a blade in the Reaper’s stomach.

  Mateo instantly sobered up with the knife digging in his guts. He had been dreading this moment ever since the high priestess had told him his fate. Up until now, he had held out hope that fate could be changed, but Mateo the Reaper was not a man with that kind of power.

  The high priestess had entrusted him with a message, one that she knew only he could deliver. That was his fate, that was what his whole life had led up to. At the time he was told about it, that was all he could think about. Why did he have to die just to pass it on? In the face of death came clarity, however.

  “You’re mother…” he strained. “She reincarnated years ago… she says… she still loves you…”

  At the time, the words didn’t mean much to him. It felt so unfair, he wanted to leave and head back to the pit, with or without his clan. When he saw Jackmaw’s eyes, however, he understood why it was so important. The warlord looked like he had been stumped by a very complex riddle.

  “You been talking to my mama, huh?” he smiled, but his eyes communicated that Mateo’s words had wormed their way into his brain. He thought he could even see a sheen of sweat coating the red devil’s neck. “If she ever gets to the hell you end up in, tell her I never felt the same.”

  Jackmaw removed the knife and reburied it in Mateo’s stomach. He repeated that over and over until the Executioner had his guts dug out and stab wounds peppered most of his torso. Any more, and he would bisect him with violent stabs alone.

  Jackmaw launched the mangled corpse across the battlefield and roared with victory over his opponents. He turned, ready to finish them off, but they had disappeared. There was no way the woman could have moved the big guy. She may have been built like a brick shit house, but she was leaking to death. No… someone else was here.

  From the cover of a nearby building, he saw someone pulling the big one away. It was some fat guy, but the way he stared daggers at Jackmaw, the warlord knew he was one of them. The stranger had that same confidence about him. He ignored the pain in his leg and moved towards the man.

  “Jackass Yapyap! Your fight’s over here!” Krav shouted and glassed the sand around Jackmaw’s feet. The warlord stumbled, then turned with a manic grin.

  “You’re right Krav. Come show me what you’ve got!”

  Krav had crossed the wasteland to get here, killed more than he could count to do so. All of his lessons, all of his hardships, had brought him here. Whether it was fate, or the strength of men to bend such a concept to their will, Krav had found Jackmaw Yapyap.

  The boy took off the tank. If there was one thing he was destined to do since he found the axe in Agua Fria, it was to use it to decapitate the warlord of the Gordo clan.