The Warlord's Physician Ch. 01

The swamp reeked of bitter peat, fertility lost long ago. Skeletal trees etched across the canyon like lightning bolts. It was once a valley of green, nestled between two rocky slopes. Now it was grey muck, given color only by flashlights and torches.

Some of the more self-conscious highwaymen had rolled up their jeans to prevent the mud from staining their only good clothes. They were all sorts of men, and some were women, and they came in every shape possible. Some were dreadfully short, which made it so much easier to dodge bullets. Others were tall and lean and fast as one of their cars. Others still were stocky and well-muscled. This described their leader, Snake, who did not at all look like a snake.

He rose a head taller than most of his followers, shaved head shining in the pale moonlight. His muscles rippled as he walked, sweat dripping down and into the muck. His jaw was set and rigid, shaved as meticulously as his head. He did not wear a shirt despite the cold, and his patchwork armor provided all the protection he needed. License plates and bands of rusted metal, hammered into new shapes and nailed to leather straps. This was the salvaged armor of a highwayman, and they all wore it.

Snake was a warlord. This means that the party he led, a good dozen highwaymen all armed with countless weapons, was a war party. War parties did not often enter this canyon for fear of leaving their vehicles behind. A group of men stayed back to guard them, but Snake doubted anyone would threaten his carmada. The other wastrels knew better.

They came upon it, through the bog and the mist and the twisted trees. The entrance to the cave. It was gaping and wide, like so many women that Snake had left. "Lower your weapons," Snake told his men. That was the way of things. He spoke, others obeyed. In another gang, they might have doubted their leader. They may have even dared to complain about leaving the cars behind, even though cars cannot traverse swampland. They did not.

A group of highwaywoman, for they were only women in this canyon, emerged from the cave and aimed their weapons at Snake. He did not lift his hands in surrender, nor did he open fire with his AR-15, butt duct-taped together.

The women wore that same sort of armor, but without the rust. Rust was the price one paid for living in the wasteland and not in some dingy cave. These women were of a wealthier sort than other highwaymen and did not have to pillage ruins and farms of the desert to survive. They were as diverse as Snake's own gang, each one a mix of Latina and Chinese and even Russian, if rumors were to be believed. He owned a few similar women back at his palace and had known them well.

"What's your business with the Canyon Crazies?" asked one woman with raven-black hair. They all had raven-black hair, so perhaps that was not her most distinguishing feature, but it was the one Snake noticed.

"Snake of Overdog Enterprises, here to barter."

"This is not how bartering works."

She was right. The proper procedure was to send a single man to negotiate a time and place for an auction. But Snake was a proud man and rules did not apply to him. Such was the mentality of the warlord. "Things change. I come bearing gifts."

The Overdogs were discontent to carry such heavy sacks through the swamp. It was another thing that members of a lesser gang would have complained about. Still, they carried their luggage forward and dropped them at the feet of the Canyon Crazies, who seemed disinterested and offended. Then the bags spilled open.

Brick after brick of highly condensed cocaine spilled out, sealed in plastic wrap. The white powder shined in the moonlight and the Crazies looked down in wonder. Snake just smiled as they counted the bags and the bricks within. Some of his highwaymen licked their lips, but knew that there was more waiting back at the carmada. Until then, they would be bug-eyed and agitated.

"You took out the Chef," the woman responded. She dug a knife into the brick and placed her nose against the powder. It was within her rights to try a sample, as every highwayman knew. "Oh shit. This is some good shit." Her sisters knew that they would not be given a taste until the deal went down, but their mouths salivated all the same.

"I bought out the Chef, actually. Turns out a few slaves were all it took to triple his supply. And all I had to do was take out a few of his enemies." Oh, that was a fun week. Countless corpses, most of them missing heads or other important limbs. Almost all of them were dealers or chefs themselves, but they didn't have that special flare that made Chef's work so valuable. "Plus his old gang is dead in a ditch." And not by accident. "So, he needed a new guardian angel. And I'm an angel."

"What do you want?" the woman asked. Her disgust had faded and her eyes widened, and she couldn't help but look at the warlord from head to toe, suddenly finding herself as wet as the mud that squelched around her boots. Perhaps she would meet him between the sheets later on, time permitting. Perhaps she would make some foolish error and earn the wrath of her superiors, putting her in chains like the rest of the chattel they sold.

"Everything," Snake said. He had waited so long to offer that answer. It was not particularly satisfying. "But there are some small things that your bosses have helped me with before. Bring me to Garcia so we might discuss the details." He had rehearsed this exact conversation in his head for hours before. It sounded professional, and Snake was nothing if not professional.

"Follow me," said the woman, offering a devious smile and a wink. The other women silently scurried back into the cave, metal armor clanging as they walked.

They were about to enter the mouth of the cave, deep, dark and intimidating as any virile woman, when one of the Overdogs had something to say.

"Boss, I can't go in there." He had a squeaky, annoying, high-pitched voice, and Snake couldn't quite recall if they had ever spoken before.

"Why the fuck not?" Snake demanded, turning around and placing a hand on the butt of his rifle.

He was a scrawny little shit, the kind that got too methed out to fight after a while and ended up as cannon fodder. "I'm s-s-scared of the dark."

Snake let out a deep sigh, the kind that could only express disappointment and loathing. "You know we're in the dark right now, right?" He gestured all around them. The swamp wasn't particularly well-lit. "Besides, they have lights inside. Obviously. They live in there, remember?"

He just shook his head. "I'll stay out here. Keep watch."

Snake walked over to him and the poor guy cowered. But instead of a knife in the chest, he got a hug. It was awkward and too tight and their metal armor clanged. "It's okay," Snake said, before plunging a knife into the coward's back.

The coward fell into the mud, sliding down as his blood mixed with the sand and dirt and water. He choked on it as he sank, but the world was not finished with him. As the Crazies and the Overdogs watched, Snake pummeled the embarrassing fool with kick after kick, each one forcing more blood out of his chest cavity.

"You! Made! Me! Look! Like! A! Jackass!" Snake kicked and kicked until the half-submerged moron stopped writhing. He looked around at the highwaymen who watched his murder-tantrum. He didn't offer a word, just tossed his knife to some other highwayman. "Clean it." And he would clean it, because he didn't want to be the next one to die by it.

They left the corpse behind, and a few stragglers retrieved its gun and ammo, because why be wasteful? It was the way of the wasteland to ensure that everything saw its purpose, even if that purpose was to be fired out of a gun and kill some poor bastard. Even his clothes and shoes were not safe from the looters. What did it matter? He was dead, the atoms in his body gone inert, and he would not even be missed.

The cave was lit, as he had said it would be, though that light was not apparent until after the first bend. The air was so much drier than it had been outside, and mud trailed behind the one-less-than-a-dozen highwaymen, guided by their womanly allies.

Snake knew that ancient peoples used to live in caves, but not quite like this. They were savage brutes who lived on worms and dirt and fought with primitive weapons. They weren't too different that most highwaymen gangs, come to think of it.

The cavern system was not quite as natural as it appeared, in the fluorescent lighting. It dug into the hillside and lights dangled from the domed ceiling, but steel girders held the whole place together. They rose up, a great metal skeleton, the ribs of the bunker. And indeed it was a bunker, though the computers had long since fallen into disrepair. Many such bunkers existed in the old days, when nuclear war was imminent. Only government officials and their corrupt friends had access to them. The bosses of the Canyon Crazies were the latter.

If viewed from above, the inside of the canyon looked like a large village, complete with homes and markets and shops, though there was no currency to make purchases. Water from the aquifer below was pumped through a well and power was provided by a hidden generator. Some of the Overdogs were impressed. Wonder filled their eyes, but Snake pretended that he was standing before just another simple village.

"Garcia will be this way. She won't be happy to have visitors."

It seemed that, throughout the whole compound, the only people free from chains were women. That was not to say that women were not enslaved by the Canyon Crazies. In fact, women were their hottest commodity. But this gang did not allow men into their ranks. The reasons for this would be abundantly obvious to anyone who had spent a day in the wasteland. While every highwayman had gone feral and turned savage when the world ended, women were at the distinct disadvantage that men wanted them. It is common for highwaymen to turn on members of their gang, and even more so for highwaywomen to find themselves beaten and enslaved as soon as she let her guard down. The Canyon Crazies did not wish to see this happen to themselves, and so they segregated themselves from men like the Amazons of old.

There were buildings in the bunker, made of rusted steel and rotting wood and poorly crafted cement. One of the largest, along the edge of the village. The dry air gave way to the smell of lavender, and guards marked the curtained entrance to the small palace.

"Your men can stay out here."

Snake didn't dispute this, mostly because the Crazies had allowed them to keep their weapons. She and her girls led him into the ramshackle building, carrying the sacks of cocaine before them.

The building did not have rooms in any traditional sense, but curtains divided it into sections. All was quiet save the sound of humming from a distant section, behind a flowery curtain. The smell of lavender grew stronger. It was alien to Snake, and he couldn't quite identify the last time he had smelled something to sickly sweet. Maybe an air freshener or cologne or some kind of fancy soap claiming to be imported.

The curtain parted and Snake found himself face-to-face with one of the most powerful women in the wasteland. Garcia. She was a short woman with black hair and wrinkles as deep as the valley they were in. She pretended not to notice him and continued humming some old dead song, eyes closed, rocking in her chair as the purple candle burned beside her. It was far from a throne room, though she deserved one. It was just a rocking chair, an oversized bed, and a table.

She finally opened her eyes. They were so deep that he might have fallen into them. "This is highly unusual."

"So am I. That's why you'll be making exceptions for Overdog Enterprises from now on."

"Enterprises," she said with a laugh. It was forced, but it got her point across. "Don't think you're above the rest of us just because you've had a few victories. Now, show me what you've brought the Canyon Crazies."

Garcia was not the only boss of the Crazies, but she was the one responsible for selling slaves. Wu was responsible for acquiring them, and Lady Smythe trained them. The system worked. It was the marriage of all the most powerful organized crime syndicates of the old world. The Mexican cartels, Chinese triads, and Russian Bratva. They were a scourge across the wasteland, and a profitable one.

She took a sample from the coke brick that her subordinate offered her, as she so often did. "This is Chef's recipe," she noted, just as the younger girl had. "I see he's finally found someone with distribution channels befitting his product. Tell me what you want, boy."

Boy. That was the second time she had insulted him, but Snake kept his temper in line. This wasn't some random wastelander or even one of his men, this was a leader of the Canyon Crazies. While he could have killed her any moment he wished, he would probably not escape the bunker alive. And even if he did, they would put a bounty on his head so big that every other gang in the wasteland would gun for him. Even his own men would put a bullet in his back for the love and support of the Canyon Crazies. So, he balled his fists and accepted it, knowing that any complaint would be met with even harsher insults.

"The only product you lovely ladies produce. Home-grown, natural, organic slaves. Specifically, a physician. I have this habit of getting bullets stuck in my body, and I'm not very good at getting them out."

She smiled, missing far too many teeth from her years of meth development and usage. "Warlords do not drive halfway across the desert to buy a single slave. Tell me the truth or be gone." Her girls seemed saddened by the threat of so much cocaine leaving the bunker.

Snake was hesitant to share such personal information, as any good warlord would be, but knew that she would detect any lie he told. That was the gift of age and experience. "My son is a sickly little runt. Kind of a loser, if I'm being totally honest. I just want him to get excited about the family business so that one day he could take up them helm and rule Overdog Enterprises with an iron fist. He can't do that if he chokes on smoke."

Once again, Garcia laughed, but this was far less mechanical. The other Crazies smiled, but not in a sinister way. They probably thought that it was cute, and would have said "aww" had they been less dangerous highwaywomen.

She swallowed the information, certainly storing it away for some later usage. "Like buying a dog to teach a child responsibility. We've got a doctor-slave for sale. Young. New blood. If you treat it right, the boy will last a while. Could be around to heal your descendants for generations."

"How experienced is he?" It was the sort of stock-standard question to ask when purchasing a slave. Other questions might include those surrounding its general health, sexual diseases, history of ownership, and behavior. Those questions were much more relevant when dealing with bed slaves, and would be used after the physician was purchased.

"Trained by our own doctors. He's worked on my girls before, and they don't die very often. He's a pretty thing too, if that's a factor."

"Don't be disgusting." He snarled at the insinuation.

Garcia shrugged off his rage. She was used to sensitive customers. "I'll give you the physician and fourteen other slaves. Six laborers, eight breeders."

"Ten laborers. Chef could use some new workers and we just took a new farmstead."

"Seven. That's my final offer."

They shook on it. It was an old idea, that shaking hands with a person guaranteed any sort of friendship or peace. But they shook hands anyways, his callouses against her wrinkles, each experienced in their own way.