The Warlord's Physician Ch. 06

Warcry felt that old familiar tightness in his chest. A quick whiff from his inhaler put it at ease. It would embarrass his father if he used it in public, so he kept it locked away in the same drawer that held his booze.

That tightness was common and familiar and often led to painful choking, but this time it had something to do with that lovely slave-boy. And it wasn't just his chest. Chills ran up his spine and the faint hairs on his neck stood up and something turned inside his stomach, just at the thought of that filthy wastrel on his knees. He could not recall ever feeling something so pronounced that wasn't utterly painful and hateful. But he had read about this sort of feeling in those books that his tutors so loathed.

But there was no time to worry about such things. Once again, Snake had called for a banquet, and that required a certain amount of acting on the part of Warcry. He had to pretend that he lived up to his name, a name only a highwayman could wear with any pride.

There were banquets in the ancient texts that tutors had him read. Odysseus feasted with kings and goddesses. Somehow, those meals seemed far more civil than the barbaric debauchery of an Overdog banquet.

The hall used to be an office, and the oaken table was meant for conferences in which the former mayor of this village would meet with citizens. It was now the host of war-spoils. Beef and poultry and any assortment of vegetables and fruits, taken from the poor farms either run by slaves or forced to pay tribute, for fear of being enslaved. Food was scarce out in the wasteland, and those with guns had the ability to take it. Dozens of villages paid tribute to the Overdogs in exchange for protection from other gangs.

Maleager, a former tutor of Warcry's, explained that it was a feudal system. Kings and their knights had treated their peasants the same way. Knights would protect farmers, and farmers would give them all the food they could muster. So, when some pissant gang like the Bronze Bullets or the Angels started banging heads in some distant village, Overdog Enterprises rode across the wastes to protect them.

It was a perfect system, proven by the bounty before the great warlords. Roasted beef, spiced with herbs and sauces, was the envy of the wasteland. Its salty scent hung in the air, inviting and warm, like a campfire on a cold desert night. The great slab of meat was surrounded by a cornucopia of vegetables: corns and carrots and beats. Dishes of sweet plums and apples circled around, and a great loaf of bread sat beside the beef slab, chunks removed by greedy hands. Slaves and wanderers and scavengers of the wastes could only imagine the massive feast, or remember the mouth-watering foods they once knew.

"There's the boy!" Snake shouted from the far end of the table, a great comfy chair being used as a throne. The room was lit by candles, if only for warmth and for mood, even though electric lights were in the ceiling above.

The highwaymen cheered at his approach. There were maybe a dozen, and some seats were empty. They passed around bottles of ale and whiskey and even wine. Some preferred the moonshine they brewed themselves. Whatever they drank, it burned their tongues and made them dizzy and it didn't hydrate them in the slightest.

They had stripped themselves of their armor, a symbol of their delicate trust in the warlord who led them to such great things. That trust was not so great that they left their weapons at the door. In fact, each highwayman carried three or four guns, and countless blades hidden in their clothing.

Warcry's crutch tapped against the checkered floor but nobody made a comment about it, knowing that the last man who did had died miserably. He feigned a smile and took a swig of moonshine, and sat beside his father. He was ravenous, and didn't bother with a fork and knife when a slave delivered a plate of beef before him. That made his father smile.

There were slaves serving, of course, and until the highwaymen got drunker they would be basically invisible. They were attentive young women who had been given the honor of serving in the palace rather than in the brothel or the factory. As the night wore on, some of the highwaymen dragged those waitress slaves onto their laps and started tugging at their humble rags.

Snake, already half-drunk (a feat for someone his size) wrapped a meaty hand onto his son's shoulder. "Did I tell you?" he asked, leaning in too close and drenching the poor boy in boozed breath. "I killed a dragon today. Well, it wasn't an actual dragon. But it looked like one."

"It was a helicopter!" one of the other men shouted from across the table. "Don't be a liar."

"I'm telling the story, asshole," Snake shouted back, less jokingly than his compatriot. "It was this big chopper, right? And I was pissed that I couldn't take it, but, you know, they were shooting at us. So, I have my men rig a catapult, and they launch me up, and I put a knife in the pilot. Right. Through. The. Glass."

"Liar!" that same highwayman shouted over the drunken laughter. "You shot the bastard. Sniped him like a pussy."

Snake's smile faded, and the highwayman seemed to realize the mistake he had made.

"God, I hate being interrupted."

Crack! went the pistol. Snake barely even realized he had drawn his gun, but the smoke and heat curling off the barrel was unmistakably. The highwayman fell slump in his seat. Slaves shrieked in surprise, and one dropped a platter of food all over the floor. She covered her mouth in fear, wondering if the next bullet was for her.

He glared at the offending woman. Everyone's eyes were on her and the whole world was silence. Some of the highwaymen still had their bottles to their lips, surprised mid-sip.

"Help her clean up, assholes," Snake said, pointing at the mess of food all over the plywood floor. "Animals."

They scurried to the ground like the rats that they were, helping the poor girl pile spilled food onto the metal tray. She didn't say a word, but she counted her blessings. Months working in the palace, she knew how unstable her owner was. But she was lucky to be free from chains while serving, if only so she could reach across the tables. It was a small blessing, but worth it.

"And get that thing out of here," Snake said, pointing to the bleeding body sitting thee chairs down from him. His ears still rang from the shot, but the other guy had it worse. "Now, where was I?" he asked, leaning back to his son's eager ear.

"You just killed the pilot," Warcry reminded him. He wasn't shaken by the cold-blooded murder. He knew that a banquet wasn't complete without a death or too, but usually they were slaves. It was so remarkable to him that he could maintain a gang this size when he constantly killed his own members. The secret, he had once learned, was in recruitment from other gangs.

"Right. So, I rode that thing to the ground. 'Cause I'm not a coward. You know that. And the metal shit explodes, but I'm fine just because of who I am as a person."

"Of course."

"But this one bitch, the one who shot up all our tires, he survived. So, with all my boys watching, he challenges me to a fight. And you know me, I'm not a coward. So, of course I let the moron try. And don't let any of these idiots tell you different, I didn't let him get a punch in. There were two hits. Me hitting him, and me hitting him again."

"You made sure to shoot him, right?" Warcry asked, feigning interest in the senseless violence of the wasteland. It was his only inheritance and it was the last thing he wanted.

"What kind of animal do you take me for?" he demanded, pretending to be offended. "Of course I shot the bastard. He blew out at least ten Ovedog Enterprises tires and tried to steal our latest acquisitions. That's punishable by death in our civilized lands."

"Good, I was worried you were going soft on me." He ripped off a piece of meat with his teeth, gravy all over his hands.

Snake laughed so hard he almost choked on his moonshine. The other highwaymen chuckled too, having finally packed away their dead comrade. "Boy, I hope you appreciate the great lengths I went to for your new physician."

"Of course I do. He's already broken in pretty well; the Canyon Crazies live up to their reputation." He couldn't admit to finding the boy cute, or to wanting to take another bath with him there to do all the work. That would lead to a beating at best, an execution at worst. So, he kept the habit of saying whatever would appease the old man.

"Think he'll be useful?" Snake asked. It was sad to see a father trying to desperately to earn his son's respect.

"I think he'll alleviate some of my current issues." He took a moment to reconsider his word choice. Those were a lot of big words and he didn't want to alienate any of the mouth-breathing highwaymen. That could lead to more gunfire. "But it's not like he can work miracles. Otherwise he probably wouldn't be in chains."

A wide smile cut across the warlord's face, and he pulled his son even closer. "That's my boy!" He was so proud, or so drunk, or a pleasant combination of the two. "So, I was thinkin' that tomorrow I take you shooting. Little bang, little boom, some screaming women. Call it a family trip. Like when we used to go camping."

"I'd love that," he lied. He would not love that. But the warlord was full of wine and ideas, and those ideas had to be accepted without question. Otherwise a feud might start, and those feuds led to dead slaves and drunken nights. No, it was better not to start a quarrel.

"Ah, atta-boy."

The feast went on into the night, and other highwaymen delighted the warlord in telling their stories of epic combat, although they were certain not to surpass a catapult attacking a helicopter. It was typical for these embellished stories to get passed around the banquet table, though many were retellings of older tales, with slight changes that nobody seemed to notice.

Bluecrosse spoke first. "So this lady, she's a rightful warlady, and her gang runs this old city. But she's a tough old bat and she doesn't use a gun. No, she's got a sword made of car bumper. A car bumper. It was fuckin' nuts. Anyway, this Amazon-looking lady runs the only gang out there that matters. Every other gang got knocked the fuck out. So, my boys got split up and I was on my own. I was a loner, see, and this warlady had a real specific MO. She'd send out her knights, 'cause that's what she called 'em, and they'd catch any men she could. Everyone knew to avoid downtown if they didn't wanna get caught up like the rest of those cucks. Didn't wanna end up in chains in her dungeon.

"But one day, I had to run downtown. Had some business to attend to. Then a bunch of these knights, big boys with guns and swords and shit, they tell me to come with them. I know what they want, and they know what they want, so I turn tail and run. I wasn't gonna fuck that ogre. But they catch me, still not sure how they managed it. And they were about to drag me off, when this other guy shows up. He had a mask, right? This big metal mask that covered his head. And he kicks the shit out of all those other guys. Like, six guys. And they got the better of me, so that should tell you how good this loner was. And then he takes off his helmet, and I didn't believe my damn eyes. It was a chick all along. Whole lotta hair, she was pretty as you please. But I didn't get the chance to make a move before she chased the knights back to the castle."

"What happened to the broad?" Snake asked as the highwaymen laughed and sneered at the story.

"No fuckin' clue. Probably killed the whole gang, just because she could."

Warcry couldn't help but think the story sounded like coming he read, but he couldn't place it. Maybe he had just heard it too many times.

Next to speak was Furioso. He hadn't had as much to drink as his fellows, but had snuck off to the bathroom a few times to snort coke off some slave's chest. "Man, I remember when I was a loner. One time, I ran around with this gang-leader from down south. Italian guy, had friends in the mob and shit. We went town-to-town to seduce all the women, just because we could. It was sick as Hell. Then we found this one chick, I'll never forget her. Bellona. Probably an Italian name too, come to think of it. This chick was nuts in the sack. Ever had a lady drip candlewax on your chest? Problem was, me and the Italian Stallion both wanted her. So, we came to the agreement that we would take turns with her. I got her one night, he got her the next. Yeah, we stayed in that village a while."

"This gonna get interesting anytime soon?" Bluecrosse asked.

"Fuck off," Furioso shot back, less creatively. "So yeah, best month of my life. Then I get in a fight with the Italian. Bastard wanted him two nights in a row. Then he kept saying that he hadn't had her the night before. But I didn't either. So, we head to her house and knock down the door, and there she is with some fucking townie."

"We get it, you killed them, move on," Bluecrosse said.

"You're next, jackass." The two always had a fun little rivalry, but it cause a turf war once, and they'd been punished pretty badly, in ways they couldn't discuss in public. So, they behaved. "So, yeah, we killed the lovely couple. Well, killed him and made her watch. Then the villagers got pissed, so we killed them too. Lot of fire. It was nice. Anyway, I didn't actually end up killing the broad. But I don't know what the Canyon Crazies did with her, so maybe she's death."

"Underwhelming," Snake noted, disappointed. Perhaps he should have exaggerated a bit more, for effect.

They went all around to table, telling these same violent stories, almost always with sex. When they weren't telling stories, they were ridiculing each other for everything from cock-size to how many slaves they owned to losing a hand to infection. Surprisingly, nobody got killed before they got around to Warcry.

"Come on, kid," Furioso said, jittering slightly after his latest trip to the bathroom. His eyes were bulging out a bit. "You've gotta have at least one good story."

"Nah, I'm pretty lame," Warcry replied. "Maybe soon."

"Oh, you've gotta have something," one of the other men replied.

Then they started chanting. "Warcry! Warcry! Warcry! Warcry!" Drinks spilled as slaves tried desperately to clear off the half-empty plates, knowing that their meals were what was left over.

"Just give 'em something, son," Snake said, giving him a gentle nudge and praying his son didn't humiliate him. "They need a little taste of a real man." He didn't seem to understand the blatantly sexual implication of that sentence. Warcry chose not to explain it to him.

"Fine," Warcry said with an awkward smile. He took another swig of that sweet whiskey and adjusted himself in his seat, manually forcing his dead leg into another position. It was an odd thing to do in front of men who valued strength, but they valued their lives enough not to insult his weakness publicly. "Father overbought on slaves one time, back before he could walk right into the Canyon Crazies' base. So, I had to choose which slave I would get. I didn't admit it at the time, but I didn't actually give a rat's ass which slave I got. They'd fuck up within a few weeks anyway, and I'd have to replace them. So, I broke a pool cue over my knee and gave them each a half. Told them that the winner got the honor of serving me. My tutor at the time, he was a nice guy and all, but he was too tame, he told me that I was making a mistake. So, when one scrawny wastrel finally won, I made him fight the winner. Maleager. That was his name. He won, surprisingly. Even though he was an old man. I was kinda proud, to be honest. But he was kind of a dick after that, got hanged for touching one of the slave girls. Wish he'd put up more of a fight, but they just put the rope around his neck."

The men cheered at the odd story just like it had been one of theirs, and Snake clapped a proud hand on his son's shoulder. The short tale of cruelty and pain had, in a measurable way, brought them closer together. He couldn't help but blush as the highwaymen sang his praises, and he knew the warlord was silently relieved that the boy didn't embarrass him.

But a knot filled Warcry's chest. He knew that it was a lie, and that the slightest misstep would bring shame on his father and death on countless. In spite of that, a smile crept onto his face when he thought about the physician.