Chapter Three
No Safe Roads
The desert baked them clean on the third day.
The blood washed off in sweat.
The wounds cracked and bled again under sun and dust.
No time to heal.
No time to mourn.
Just time to move.
The wagons rolled slow across broken rock and dead riverbeds, wheels creaking like old bones.
The beasts pulled hard, ribs showing through filthy hides.
Silas walked near the rear, same as always.
New bruises blooming under old armor.
Fresh blood dried stiff along his thigh and ribs.
Vesh kept pace beside him, silent, steady.
A strip of cloth wrapped tight around her waist where the arrow had gone in.
Tougher than she looked.
The others — Dren, the guards who’d survived the last fight — moved like ghosts.
No jokes now.
No complaints.
Only the steady shuffle of boots against dirt and the low groan of iron under weight.
By late afternoon, they saw it.
A town.
Or something pretending to be one.
Scour Rest — the name scratched onto a half-rotted plank nailed above the broken gate.
Old stone walls.
New graves piled outside.
A few watchmen leaning against spears that looked more decorative than useful.
It wasn’t safety.
It was a pause.
A place to trade blood-soaked armor for half-spoiled bread.
A place to patch wounds and load up on bad water before the next bad stretch of road.
Dren rode ahead, talking to the gate guards.
Coins changed hands — quick, quiet.
Bribes more than tolls.
Everyone needed something out here.
Sometimes it was food.
Sometimes it was mercy.
Silas adjusted the captain’s sword strapped to his back.
Adjusted the weight of his new arm where the servos whined quietly under the strain of another long march.
Checked the perimeter without thinking — the way old dogs check fences that haven’t failed yet.
No raiders in sight.
No war banners on the hills.
But the air smelled wrong.
Not blood, not rot.
Something worse.
Desperation.
The kind of desperation that turned men into beasts when the sun fell behind the rocks.
Silas spit into the dust.
Rolled his bad shoulder.
Didn’t break stride.
Scour Rest waited.
And whatever was waiting inside it,
he'd deal with it the same way he dealt with everything else.
Blade first.
Questions after.
***
They entered Scour Rest with their heads low and weapons loose.
The guards at the gate didn’t even bother to search them.
One look at the blood crusted on Silas’s armor and the hard set of his jaw, and they turned their eyes elsewhere.
Smart.
First stop was the market — if it could be called that.
A few tents.
A few lean-to shacks selling rusted tools, wormy bread, cracked water skins.
A smell in the air like old piss and desperation.
Silas found a trader behind a battered iron table.
Old man.
Sharp eyes.
The kind who knew better than to ask questions he didn’t want answered.
Silas dumped the bandit captain’s sword and armor onto the table without a word.
The trader poked at it with a knife.
Grunted.
Named a price low enough to insult a man who cared.
Silas didn’t flinch.
Just stared until the trader swallowed hard and bumped the offer higher.
They shook hands.
Dirty coins changed pockets.
No receipts.
No promises.
Vesh stood nearby, arms crossed, scanning the market with the same dead-eyed suspicion Silas wore like a second skin.
Next stop was the supply tent.
They bought bandages — rough cloth that would tear skin as easy as it sealed it —
Med kits — half-empty, but better than nothing —
Dried meat — tough enough to break teeth —
Water skins — patched so many times they looked more leather than bladder.
Every coin they spent hurt.
But running dry would hurt worse.
When the buying was done, they packed their haul tight into new canvas bags and made their way through the twisted alleys to a boarding house.
No real inn here.
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Just a crumbling stone building with broken shutters and a door that didn’t lock.
The woman at the counter barely looked up from her ledger.
Two rooms cost too much.
One room cost less.
Silas tossed a handful of grimy coins onto the wood.
The woman slid a bent iron key across without speaking.
Third floor.
End of the hall.
Rotting floorboards, a bed that stank of sweat and mold, a cracked basin filled with cloudy water for washing.
Silas dropped his gear near the door.
Rolled his shoulders.
The new arm creaked low under the strain.
Vesh leaned her crossbow against the window ledge, peeled off her blood-stiffened jacket with a grimace.
Neither of them said a word.
No need.
Silas stripped down, scrubbed the dust and blood from his skin in the basin.
The water turned black fast.
He didn't bother refilling it.
Vesh cleaned herself next, her ribs wrapped in fresh bandages, every movement tight and slow with pain.
When they were clean — as clean as this place allowed — Silas sat on the edge of the bed, head bowed, arms resting heavy on his knees.
The room smelled of iron and old soap.
Vesh crossed the floor barefoot.
Sat down beside him.
Close enough that he could feel the heat of her.
She didn’t say thank you.
Didn’t apologize for needing saving.
Didn’t promise anything for tomorrow.
She just leaned into him, resting her forehead against his shoulder.
And Silas — tired to the bone, carrying more scars inside than out — let her.
Let the walls drop for a little while.
Let the world spin somewhere else.
They spent the night together —
Not tender.
Not pretty.
Just two broken things finding a little shelter in each other’s skin.
Tomorrow, the road would call again.
The blades would flash again.
The blood would run again.
But for tonight,
they weren’t alone.
And that was enough.
***
The first alarm bell cracked the night like a whip.
Silas was on his feet before his eyes were even open.
Old instinct.
Old survival.
Vesh moved just as fast — snapping awake, grabbing for her belt where the crossbow hung.
The second bell clanged — closer, desperate — and shouting filled the street below.
Boots hammering stone.
Screams already cutting the air.
Silas yanked on his gear — armor half-buckled, boots laced just enough to run.
His saber flashed into his hand like it had never left it.
The new arm locked tight around the hilt, servo motors whining low in the silence.
Vesh jammed bolts into her pouch with quick, practiced hands.
Blood still seeping through the bandages on her ribs — didn’t slow her.
Pain didn’t matter now.
Only movement.
Only steel.
They didn’t speak.
Didn’t waste breath.
Silas kicked the door open, stepping into the hallway just as more bells sounded — deeper now, heavier.
The town’s alarm tower.
A sound you didn’t mistake.
Not a fire.
Not a drunk brawl.
An attack.
Real.
Organized.
Bad.
The hallway shook as someone below kicked open the front door.
Screams — men, women — high and broken.
Vesh slung her crossbow over one shoulder and followed Silas without question.
Down the stairs.
Through the broken common room.
Out into the street where chaos bloomed like wildfire.
Fires burned along the western wall.
Shadows moved through the smoke — men with torches, blades flashing.
Not bandits.
Not drunk raiders.
Too fast.
Too organized.
Something worse.
Silas scanned fast — calculating, cold.
No time to hide.
No safe ground to reach.
Fight.
That was the only path now.
The only path it ever was.
He rolled his bad shoulder once, feeling the weight of the new arm settle.
Flexed his fingers on the saber grip.
Glanced once at Vesh —
She nodded, sharp, face grim.
Ready.
Silas turned toward the fire and the screaming.
And without a word, they moved into the dark.
***
The street was a battlefield already.
Smoke curled low around the broken stones, stinging the eyes, clogging the lungs.
The fires along the wall threw long, twitching shadows across the alley mouths and doorways.
Silas and Vesh moved through it like knives through cloth.
The first enemy rushed them — a thin man with a chipped sword and murder in his eyes.
Fast. Sloppy.
Silas didn’t hesitate.
He stepped inside the man’s reach — blade low, rising fast —
Split the man open from hip to armpit.
The body folded without a sound.
Vesh caught another one —
A short, wide figure swinging a cudgel —
She dropped to one knee, braced her crossbow, and buried a bolt deep into the attacker’s throat before he could finish the swing.
They didn’t pause.
Didn’t celebrate.
Another came from the side — a woman with a hooked knife and desperation in her face.
Vesh swung the butt of the crossbow hard — cracked the woman’s temple —
Silas finished it with a stab low and cruel, blade punching through the spine.
Three dead in less than ten heartbeats.
No mercy.
No second chances.
The attackers weren’t bandits.
Their gear was too good.
Their formations too tight, even now, even in the chaos.
Mercenaries.
Maybe worse.
Hired blades.
And someone had paid them to kill everything breathing inside Scour Rest.
Silas and Vesh ducked down a side alley as a fresh wave of screams tore the air apart behind them.
A wagon burned at the far end of the market square.
Bodies sprawled around it — townsfolk, guards, attackers, all tangled in the dirt.
Vesh reloaded the crossbow with bloody, shaking hands.
Silas wiped the edge of his saber on a dead man’s tunic without slowing.
One fight down.
A hundred more ahead.
They crossed the square fast —
Keeping low, keeping tight, blades ready.
Two more attackers came at them near the ruined well — big men, short swords, no finesse.
Vesh shot one clean through the eye.
Silas parried the other’s clumsy slash and drove the point of his saber straight under the chin, deep into the skull.
Quick.
Clean.
No wasted motion.
The air reeked of blood and burnt fat.
The screams were thinning now —
Not because the fighting was over.
Because there were fewer voices left to scream.
Silas pressed his back against the charred wall of a crumbling house, scanning the smoke.
He didn’t say it out loud.
Didn’t need to.
This wasn’t about saving the town anymore.
The town was already dead.
This was about getting out alive.
***
They spotted Dren near the collapsed east wall.
Pinned behind an overturned wagon with a handful of surviving guards — maybe five, maybe six, it was hard to tell through the smoke and dust.
Blood streaked their armor.
Fear clawed at their faces.
They weren’t holding ground.
They were just delaying death.
A cluster of attackers circled them — better-armed, better-armored —
And one man stood at the front.
Bigger than the rest.
Chainmail hanging from his shoulders like a butcher’s apron.
The man wasn’t shouting threats.
He wasn’t swinging a sword.
He was asking questions.
Calm.
Cold.
Silas and Vesh crouched low behind a broken wall, close enough now to hear the words.
"Where is it?" the man said.
Voice flat as sandpaper.
"Where did you hide the core?"
Dren spat blood into the dirt.
Said nothing.
But Silas saw the flicker —
The tiny shift of the eyes.
The tightening of the jaw.
The mercenary smiled — a cold, thin line of teeth.
He gestured.
Two attackers stepped forward, grabbed one of Dren’s wounded guards — a kid barely out of boyhood —
Dragged him screaming out from cover.
"No more games," the mercenary said.
"You talk, or they die. One by one."
Dren’s face twisted — anger, guilt, calculation —
But he stayed silent.
The kid screamed once, high and sharp, before they broke his leg with a warhammer.
The sound echoed across the broken market square.
Vesh shifted beside Silas — anger boiling up.
Silas caught her arm — tight, firm.
Not yet.
Not stupid.
Two against twenty wasn’t a fight.
It was suicide.
But Silas watched Dren’s face — the guilt there, the desperation —
And the pieces fell into place.
Dren wasn’t just hauling weapons or supplies like he’d claimed.
Somewhere hidden — buried in the wagons, maybe strapped under false floors —
Dren had a working AI Core.
Old-world tech.
Something worth more than all their lives put together.
Something people would burn cities to the ground to find.
And now the wrong men knew about it.
Silas flexed his metal hand slowly, feeling the weight of the saber at his side.
He didn’t care about the core.
Didn’t care about Dren’s secrets.
He cared about survival.
And right now, if the mercenaries got the core —
they’d kill every last soul here to clean up the trail.
Including him.
Including Vesh.
Silas met Vesh’s eyes.
Sharp.
Focused.
No words passed between them.
Didn’t need to.
They rose from the rubble together.
Saber and crossbow ready.
Time to cut their way out.
Time to kill.
Or die trying.
***
Silas watched the scene unfold, stone-faced.
Dren yelling now — cursing, bargaining, anything to buy a little more time.
The mercenaries closing in, tightening the noose.
The kid with the broken leg sobbing into the dirt.
Vesh shifted beside him, muscles tense, ready to move.
Waiting for him.
Trusting him.
Silas ran the numbers in his head.
Fast.
Cold.
Clear.
Twenty mercenaries.
Maybe more in the smoke he couldn’t see.
Dren’s guards half-dead already.
No plan, no structure.
Just dying slower.
Attacking head-on would be suicide.
Buying time would just get more people killed.
The only move —
The only smart move —
was to use the chaos.
Grab Dren if he could.
Leave him if he had to.
Keep Vesh breathing.
Keep himself breathing.
Everything else was noise.
He touched Vesh’s shoulder — quick, sharp — and pointed two fingers:
Flank left.
Cut fast.
Don’t stop.
She nodded once.
No questions.
No hesitation.
The world they lived in didn’t reward loyalty.
It rewarded survivors.
Silas adjusted the grip on his saber, feeling the weight settle into his bones.
Flexed his metal fingers once.
Breathed deep through his nose.
The mercenaries didn’t see them coming.
They were too busy with their questions.
Too busy lining up the next man to bleed.
Silas and Vesh moved —
Low.
Fast.
Silent.
They hit the edge of the camp like a blade through soft meat.
Silas drove his saber through the spine of the first mercenary without slowing.
Vesh buried a bolt into the throat of the second before he could raise an alarm.
The camp exploded into chaos.
Shouts.
Swords scraping from sheaths.
Men stumbling in the smoke and firelight.
Silas didn’t stay to fight.
Didn’t stand his ground.
This wasn’t about winning.
It was about breaking through.
He caught Dren’s eye across the broken wagon.
Jerked his chin.
Move. Now.
Dren hesitated — torn between protecting whatever treasure he’d hidden and saving his own skin.
Another mercenary lunged at Silas —
Swinging a crude axe, wild with panic.
Silas sidestepped.
Clamped the man’s wrist in his metal hand —
Heard the bones snap —
Dropped the man with a brutal slash across the throat.
Vesh grabbed one of Dren’s wounded guards, hauling him to his feet.
The others stumbled after her, bleeding, broken, but moving.
Dren finally ran.
Smart.
Late.
But smart.
They sprinted together — a ragged, broken line —
Through the alleys.
Through the smoke.
Through the last gaps in the crumbling town walls.
Silas didn’t look back.
Didn’t care who lived or died behind him.
Not his burden.
Ahead — the wasteland.
The open road.
Freedom and death balanced sharp across the horizon.
And Silas —
Silas still breathing, still carrying steel,
still carrying survival carved deep into his bones.
That was enough.
