The dust storm wasn't through with Smack-dab yet. It howled and howled, crashing and smashing into the bar and its garden, hammering everything and everyone. It boiled and toiled, swirled and whirled, and quite frankly, made a bloody great racket.

And the Battle of Smack-Dab raged on.

* * *

Bert breathed hard and held up her axe-axe, now an ex-axe-axe due to an unfortunate failure of duct tape and the subsequent falling off of her shorter blade. Now it was just a stick, and not a particularly effective one at that.

Meanwhile, Brown was also breathing heavily, large droplets of sweat falling from his thick brow. He had suffered a few extra minor cuts, and his chunky left arm was now a little bit less chunky, on account of Bert having sliced out a chunk of it. The wound had bled at a steady rate at first, but the dust was clogging it up and although it would likely cause a horrible infection one day soon (should Brown even survive the battle), it was unfortunately acting as an effective coagulant. The stream had trickled to an absolute minimum, and Bert's plan to weaken Brown until he collapsed was trickling with it. But she was still alive, and she was still quicker than him. So long as she stayed in control of her Bertrage and kept moving, she'd hopefully remain both of those things for a good few years longer.

Bert watched as Farmer Brown grunted loudly to the storm and threw his hammer to the ground, feeling the shockwave in her boots as it struck dirt. He then flexed both of his arms, although his left one somewhat understandably less so, and stalked towards her. Bert figured he must be freeing himself up for speed over strength. From the sluggish start to their fight, she reckoned he hadn't come across someone as nimble as her before.

But the bastard was smartening up.

Bert pounced first, hoping to steal the initiative. She needed to get to the other side of him and pick up the short axe, which was loitering by itself on the ground with some ripped duct tape flapping loosely in the wind attached to it. She ran fast, but was careful where and how she planted each step. She needed to be able to move at a moment's notice. Brown stopped stalking and remained where he was, lowering his hands and widening his grasping fingers. But Bert wasn't stupid enough to just charge head-on without a weapon better than a blunt stick. She stepped to the right as she approached the bandit lord, making him flinch in that direction. Then, with a quick back-step, she pirouetted to the left and took herself right out of his lashing arms and arcing around his opposite side.

On the way past, she swung her stick with all her might and brought it down across Brown's cheek. She felt his face contort from the blow, and a bone-shattering shock vibrated up her arm. The pain in her muscles caused her to stumble the landing, but the blow forced Brown staggering in the other direction, holding his face.

He took two clumsy steps forwards and spat loudly, a mixture of spittle, blood and yellow shards cascading out of his gaping mouth. Bert, behind him, massaged her arm as much as she could with a non-functioning metal hand, trying to ignore the horrible pain in her skeleton from both the Hurl fight and now this one. Her small frame really couldn't take much more action. Just one or two hits from Brown and she was done for - but Bert reckoned Brown could still take plenty more himself.

Not good.

Brown looked back over his shoulder, his big face twisted in an ugly, red rage. His eyes flamed, nostrils flaring. "Ya knocked a tooth loose, bitch," he seethed, more spit and blood dribbling from his gargantuan lips.

Bert sneered back. "Only one? Damn, I missed."

Brown howled like a wounded Waste Beast. He was losing control of his anger, allowing it to pump his decisions full of gunpowder and sparks. The big lord flung himself at his tiny opponent, but Bert was already side-stepping out of the way, making a run for the axe as he sailed past harmlessly.

Excellent, she thought to herself mid-flight. If she could just keep him angry, he would be out of control and she'd be fine. All she had to do was keep jabbing him until he made a mistake, then she could start lashing out at some of his softer spots, like his throat, or his balls.

The axe was nearby, rattling in the wind as if about to take flight. While Brown was a few feet away and still turning his rhinoceros body around to charge again, Bert took the opening and dived for the weapon, sliding past it in the dust, grabbing it, and coming to a halt up against something solid as hell. She glanced up and met The Woman's firm gaze, her eyes challenging all of Smack-dab's opponents, but reminding the world of what had been lost to pointless battles beforehand, like that time...

...like the time The Woman's body had-

-hang on a second, Bert thought. Something was wrong. Resting at The Woman's feet was the distinct shape of her arm, clutching a replica of the pistol that now lay jammed in Bert's side holster. The arm had been broken off, and it looked like someone had dropped it in the dirt a few times for good measure. Who the fu-

"He he he," she heard behind her, a mischievous cackle from a mouth so large it could swallow most mischievous cacklers whole. "Sorry 'bout yer statue, woman. Looks like I broke it."

Bert spun to see Farmer Brown standing close, a smug look on his battered face. He grinned wide beneath his mask. The pipes in Bert's head were already burst from earlier. There was nothing the mechanics of her brain could do anymore. Her rationalism and common sense exploded into black curls of smoke with rib-shattering bangs. The mechanics were caught in the blasts, torn to oblivion by the heat and force alone. Any of them that somehow survived were then struck by the flinging shards and shredded on the steaming concrete floors of Bert's mind. Smoke billowed through her brain and rushed out of her ears, pushing the blood capacity of her face to its absolute load limit.

"You son of a bitch," she hissed quietly, her voice overwhelmed by the emotion coursing freely through her veins.

"What?" Brown replied, grinning wide with that canyon mouth of his. "Ya feel all sad about yer itty-bitty statue? Well, how 'bout ya come say what yer feel to me face?"

And Bert fully intended to, whether she intended to intend to or not. Rage wormed its way into her every limb, casting away the oppressive shackles of self-control and nestling its red ass into the driver's seat. It hijacked each of her nerves, jammed them up to full blast, pumped some heavy metal music, put on a pair of dark sunglasses and a spiked leather jacket, and cracked its knuckles. Bertrage was here, and it was finally in control.

Bert lunged, short-axe in hand, straight for Farmer Brown's bulky, waiting figure. He ran, too, pounding the dirt with his heavy boots as he brought himself up to full speed. They ran for each other, closing the small gap between them, and then something happened that Bert wasn't prepared for, but that she should have been.

Brown stepped to one side, which Bert twirled left to avoid. But, mid-twirl, Brown pulled the very same manoeuvre that she had done to him mere moments before, pushing his weight off his front foot and throwing himself in the other direction. She was caught completely off guard, expecting to be able to sail past the giant and axe his ears off. But instead, a rock-hard shoulder the size of at least three rock-hard shoulders struck her in the ribs, picking her straight off her feet and tossing her through the roiling storm, a mere feather on the wind compared to Brown's powerful strength.

You could have thrown a building at Bert and it would have hurt less. But no sooner was she on the ground and trying to catch the breath pumping out of her lungs than Brown was above her, grasping her by the neck and leg tightly in huge hands and lifting her to the sky once more.

Again Bert flew, this time in a daze, before colliding with The Woman's statue. The stony figure rocked on its platform as Bert's small body wrapped around it the wrong way. Something inside her cracked loudly, or maybe it was many things all cracking in unison. She couldn't tell. Blood seeped from her lips and nose as she came to a rest at the feet of her one-time saviour and mentor. Blackness curled in thick tendrils across her vision, spots forming in front of her eyes. Noise dulled into a distant thrum. Sensations numbed to a tingling cold.

Not far away, a monster of a silhouette towered into the sky, hefting an anvil onto its shoulder and taking the first steps towards its prone opponent.

The ground shook with every ponderous, angry step.

And so did Bert.

* * *

Jeb stared at the large table he and the other traders had erected over Smack's front door when the storm hit. Something was behind it, coming closer. They could hear the porch creak, but barely. It was hard to tell how many folks were there, or what their intentions were. The wailing storm covered too much up.

"Wadda we do, Jeb?" squeaked Orsen in a hushed whisper. They were both on the other side of the room from the door, huddled at a table near the other traders and wandering folk.

"Jus' stay outta trouble, Orsen. That's all we gotta do," Jeb whispered back, feeling his body starting to shake from the adrenalin his heart pumped into his limbs.

From their vantage point in Smack-dab, they had watched all kinds of violence today. People shot each other with whatever guns still worked, then beat each other over the head with the same guns when they stopped. There was axe murder, machete slashing, hammer bashing, and straight-up fist fights. Orsen swore he had seen someone bite another man's fingers off, but Jeb had missed it, instead watching a small band of fuzzy creatures running between people's feet towards where the truck still sat, spewing lead and steel at random into the fray. It was impossible to tell who was winning the battle when all they saw were tiny snapshots, but the farmers were fighting with extraordinary ferocity despite having fewer numbers. Jeb couldn't imagine them losing a battle.

And as if the farmer's ears were burning (which, to be fair, they could well have been out in that storm), the Smack-dab doortable burst inwards with a mighty wooden bang, flying away from the entrance to land in two near the bar counter. The manic storm blasted into the room after, screaming at the top of its windy lungs as great torrents of dust swirled through the door frame. Two figures stood in the entrance, one holding a bloodied home-made morning star (home-made from a tree branch, old brass globe, and a lot of nails), and the other a green metal crate. The one with the crate was an older wiry fellow with messy hair, no eyebrows and a bandana over his mouth, while the man with the heavy weapon had a decent set of muscles, but a dim-witted stare to suggest nothing decent going on anywhere else. Quite frankly, Jeb reckoned they looked like an alternate-universe version of himself and Or-

-Hey! he thought. He'd encounter these guys before. It was Gob and Job, or was it Lob and Tob? Or maybe Rob and Bob...

Yeah, that sounded right. But he'd be buggered if he could remember who was which.

"Keep th' customers back there, Maddison," said the older one, who would now be known as Bob. "I'm gon' put the bomb in th' kitchen. Then we blow this sucker."

Maddison, henceforth known as Rob, nodded dumbly and flexed his impressive muscular system, waving his nail-globe at Jeb and the band to threaten them into submission. Behind him, Bob scurried on his stick legs towards the kitchen, heaving a crate that was clearly too heavy for him to hold comfortably.

"A bomb!" whispered Orsen nervously. "Did he say bomb?"

"Aye, lad," replied Jeb, sweat forming on his frightened old face.

"What are we gonna do? We can't let Smacks get blowed up!"

Rob scowled at the duo. "Stop talking!"

Orsen scowled right back. "You stop talking!"

Rob looked stunned, then took a quiet step back. "OK, sorry."

"We gotta stay outta trouble, lad," whispered Jeb, who stared wide-eyed at the old man disappearing into the kitchen.

The other traders and wanderers around Smack-dab muttered quickly to each other. They descended into a tense ambience of hurried and hushed tones barely audible over the roaring wind that poured through the open doorway. Jeb coiled and uncoiled his fingers, playing with pieces of his clothing and staring all the while at the older invader, who had just disappeared into the kitchen. Orsen, meanwhile, was practically pressing his face his mentor's ear, grasping with his youthful fingers at the puffs of Jeb's puffy jacket.

"If we stay outta trouble we're gonna get blowed up, Jeb. And Smacks, too!"

Jeb could feel his whole body petrify with tension. Oh, maybe this is what being petrified felt like, he wondered as an afterthought. But he couldn't move, for moving was getting into trouble, and getting into trouble was the quickest way to getting killed, or getting the boy killed. He'd dedicated years to Orsen, and many had given their lives. He couldn't let that be in vain. He had to be safe. He had to stay safe.

But a bomb...? And Smack-dab...

Orsen cursed under his breath. "If you won't move, Jeb, I'm sorry. I gotta do this."

Jeb's bubble popped. "Wait, what?"

But Orsen was already moving. He sprang to his feet away from his older mentor, grabbing the nearest mug and lifting it like a mighty warhammer. He screamed at the top of his lungs and charged mug-first towards Rob, who had a clear picture of all of this happening and had more than enough time to prepare. The young bandit buck put two calloused hands on his morning star and wound it back like a sports bat.

"Orsen!" cried Jeb.

"FOR SMACK-DAAAAAB!" shouted the boy, closing in on his target.

And so Jeb made a decision, though he wasn't left with much choice. He rose to his tired old feet as fast as his tired old body would allow, which, given the nitro-glycerine-like adrenalin in his system, was surprisingly quick (but would be regrettable by the morning). His wiry fingers wrapped themselves around the nearest plate and he spun it like a discus towards Rob, who had more than enough time to prepare and avoid, but was too dim-witted to focus on two things at once. Rob took the plate square in the nose and it shattered on his baby face, slicing open tiny little cuts all over him and, more importantly, distracting him from the impending Orsen assault. Orsen then hammered his mug over the top of Rob's skull and it too shattered, showering the man in pieces of dirty glass and left-over grog and backwash. He howled with pain and staggered away from Orsen, still clutching his morning star.

Jeb was running forwards to intervene before Rob could recover and smash open Orsen's globe with his own, when he saw the older guy, Bob, reappearing from the kitchen door on the other side of the room. He looked confused as hell, and about twice as annoyed.

"RUN, LAD, RUN!" screamed Orsen, who promptly grabbed a chair and charged towards Bob.

"Wait, Orsen! Don't run, DON'T RUN!" screamed Jeb. He had just spotted what was in Bob's hand now that he didn't have a crate to lug about. It was a small semi-automatic pistol known as a Clock, which wasn't too common up in the Orcklands, but was an incredibly reliable and effective weapon - even long after the Old World has passed on. Orsen ran chair-first towards Bob, either not seeing the gun or not caring about it. He screamed his battle cry at the older bandit and lifted his chair for a hammering smash.

And Bob pointed his pistol and squeezed the trigger twice.

Two booming shots rattled the floorboards and shook dust from nearby surfaces, although more dust immediately piled back on. The shots roared over the noise of the storm, and Orsen was struck down by the gunfire: once in the thigh, the other in the torso, both bullets ploughing through his slender body and popping out the other side in a spray of blood.

And Jeb screamed.

* * *

Man things keep going from bad to worse. We're really in the thick of it now, folks. And I think you're utterly wonderful for reading all the way through to this chapter, and beyond. Thank you, I really do appreciate it. Onwards to the next one!

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