Chapter 13 : The Road War — Part 1
The first War Boy vehicle hit our rear guard before the sun cleared the horizon.
I heard the impact before I saw it—metal screaming against metal, the distinctive crunch of a pursuit vehicle ramming at full speed. Then the gunfire started, and the morning dissolved into chaos.
"Contact rear! Multiple vehicles!"
Toast was already on the gun platform, her rifle barking three-round bursts toward the dust cloud that had spawned our attackers. I grabbed a cargo strap and hauled myself up beside her, the Armor shifting across my shoulders in anticipation.
Joe's pursuit convoy emerged from the dust like a nightmare given wheels. War Boys on bikes, their chrome-sprayed mouths gleaming. Armored trucks bristling with harpoons and lances. The Bullet Farmer's distinctive vehicle, its front-mounted spotlights blazing even in daylight. And somewhere behind them all, I knew, the Gigahorse—Joe himself, leading his armies in person.
The Vuvalini proved their legend in the first thirty seconds.
The seven surviving Many Mothers had split across our convoy—two on the Rig, the rest on flanking vehicles. Now they fought like women who had spent fifty years killing the wasteland's worst. A bike rider went down with three rounds through his skull, shot by a grandmother on a moving motorcycle at seventy miles per hour. Another took a pistol round to the throat from a woman who looked old enough to remember the world before the bombs.
"Left flank!"
I turned and found a War Boy scrambling over the Rig's side, his lancer arm already raised. The Armor hardened across my forearm as I blocked—the lance's point gouged the metal film but didn't penetrate. I grabbed the shaft and twisted, sending the War Boy spinning off the platform.
More were coming. Always more.
A pursuit car rammed the Rig's flank hard enough to shake the entire vehicle. I braced against a cargo strap and watched one of the Vuvalini—a woman whose name I hadn't learned—tumble from her position and disappear under churning wheels.
The Armor fed on the collision debris. Shrapnel, bent metal, the heat of screaming engines. Its reserves climbed even as defenders fell around me.
Not enough, I thought. We're losing people and all I can do is absorb.
A chain hung loose from the Rig's side—cargo rigging that had come undone during the first impacts. It whipped in the wind, useless, dangerous to anyone nearby.
I grabbed it.
The Breath had been sitting in my chest since the Citadel, since the blood bag ward where I'd harvested my first reserves from dying men. Eight lives. Eight weights of potential I hadn't known how to use.
Until now.
I pushed.
The sensation was like exhaling fire through my fingertips. Breath—two units of it—flowed from my core into the metal chain. The world flickered. Something changed.
"Bind," I said.
The chain came alive.
It snapped taut in my hand, then whipped toward the nearest pursuit vehicle—a bike pulling alongside the Rig. The chain wrapped around the bike's steering column with impossible precision, jerking the handlebars hard right. The rider fought for control, failed, and careened into the vehicle beside him.
Both went down in a tangle of fire and screaming metal.
The chain went limp thirty seconds later, Breath spent, animation fading. But for those thirty seconds, it had moved on its own. Acted on my command. Become something more than dead iron.
Toast was staring at me.
I didn't have time to explain. Another wave was coming.
A metal spar had broken loose from the Rig's damaged siding—two meters of rebar bent into a crude spear by the collision impacts. I grabbed it, pushed Breath, lost two more reserves.
"Block," I commanded.
The spar rose in my grip, positioned itself to intercept a thrown lance, and held steady as the weapon bounced off. The Awakened metal was learning—anticipating threats faster than my conscious mind could track them.
Two Breaths left. Then one.
A door panel from a destroyed scout vehicle had wedged against the Rig's running board. I grabbed it, pushed my last unit of Breath, and forced the words through gritted teeth.
"Shield."
The panel floated in front of me—not perfectly, not steady, but enough to catch the shotgun blast that would have taken my head off. The pellets embedded in Awakened metal instead of my skull.
Then the shield went dead. The spar went dead. Everything I'd animated collapsed back into ordinary iron.
My hands were shaking.
Not from fear. From cost. Three Awakenings had burned through five Breaths, and I could feel the absence like a missing limb. My skin had gone pale. Dark circles probably ringed my eyes. Every movement felt like pushing through water.
The Dag watched me from inside the Rig's armored compartment. Her pale eyes tracked the tremor in my fingers, the pallor of my face, the way I had to grip the cargo strap just to stay upright.
"He's giving pieces of himself to the metal," she said to Capable. Her voice was quiet but clear. "Did you see? He's giving pieces of himself away."
I couldn't argue with the description.
The pursuit fell back for a moment—regrouping, assessing damage, preparing for the next wave. I used the pause to close my fists tight, squeezing until the shaking stopped through sheer force of will.
Shaking hands on a war rig meant you were done. Meant you were weak. Meant you were a target instead of a defender.
I wasn't done yet.
The Doof Wagon crested a dune behind the pursuit convoy, and the world filled with noise.
The flame-throwing guitarist stood on his bungee platform, screaming chords into the wind while speakers the size of vehicles thundered War Boy anthems across the desert. The Taiko drummers on the Wagon's rear platform beat rhythms that synchronized with my heartbeat against my will.
War Boys howled. Engines revved. The pursuit surged forward with renewed fury.
And behind them all, finally visible through the dust, the Gigahorse emerged—two Cadillacs stacked vertically, chrome gleaming, Immortan Joe standing on the platform with his breathing mask catching the sun.
Their god had arrived.
The canyon narrows appeared on the horizon.
Support the Story on Patreon
If you are enjoying the series and would like to read ahead, I offer an early access schedule on Patreon. I upload 7 new chapters every 10 days.
Tiers are available that provide a 7, 14, or 21-chapter head start over the public release. Your support helps me maintain this consistent update pace.
Patreon.com/TransmigratingwithWishes