"Holy shit," Phoenix exclaimed. "I oughta blow your head off right here, Leeland. And I'd be doing the world a favour, you ugly bastard."

The stranger's eyes narrowed again. "Like you shot that Overlord Primarch down in Second Eden?"

"Hey, that wasn't some fancy-pants Primarch, that was just a dumb soldier. It was barely even that, too!"

"The Overlords don't seem to agree." The stranger leaned back in his chair, rocking it onto two legs. A sly smirk was spreading over his face. "Is that why you're here, eh Phoenix? Hiding away in backwater fucking nowhere while real adventurers do all the work?"

Phoenix balled his hands into fists.

"You know, there's a bounty on you down in Oughta-Go. The Overlords want your head."

"Why don't you come and take it, Terrance?"

"Alright enough!" Bert growled, standing between them. She pointed at Terrance. "You, shut the fuck up and drink." Then she glared at Phoenix. "You, explain."

"He's a grubby old adventurer that thinks the world owes him the world," Phoenix said, his eyes still locked on the stranger called Terrance Leeland. Bert had never seen him act so serious. Even when they went out to cull bandits on the Back Road, or clear a Waste Beast out of a cave, Phoenix never, ever, acted serious.

"The world does owe me, you bastard!" roared Leeland, leaping up and downing his drink in one. "I'm the damn Hero of Bank Island. I was at the battle of Da Big Fort! I fought on the One Acre Wall." He was standing now, his face red with rage. "What have you done, Phoenix? Except shoot an Overlord and flee with your tail between your legs."

Bert somewhat regretted giving Leeland a stronger drink, but it was too late now. She had played with fire, and now she would have to either put the fire out, or have the bigger fire. Meatsack, meanwhile, was shuffling over to Bert, hunched low as if it would make him invisible. While the two adventurers growled at each other, she placed a reassuring hand on the giant's arm, stroking it gently. But her face didn't soften.

"Will you two stop measuring your dicks in my bar?" she said.

Phoenix snorted. "Why are you here, Leeland? The Highway's where all the action is."

Leeland beckoned to himself. "Don't you see? I've had plenty action already. In fact, you should be thanking me, and I don't reckon I'll be paying for this drink."

Something burst on Bert's forehead. The pipes were beginning to whistle again. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, fuck you, and fuck that. There was a gang of dungarees-wearing bandit a-holes on their way here with a trailer, and I gutted them on the road." Terrance was visibly swaying now, his speech starting to slur.

Boy, thought Bert, that stuff acts fast. Definitely a big mistake, in hindsight. But then, hindsight was always a bitch.

Swaying didn't seem to stop Terrance. "Yeah, they wanted me to pay them Tax, can you believe that? Me, the Hero of Bank Island, of Da Big Fort, toppler of man-eating trees at One Acre. And they wanted me to pay them a fucking Tax. It's like they didn't even know who I wash ... was. Hiccup."

Bert stepped forwards, Meatsack scuttling away slightly into the background (not realising that there was never truly a background when you're seven feet tall). "Woah woah woah," Bert said. "Slow down, there. What's this about Tax?"

Phoenix's knuckles had gone white.

"Yeah, Taxss," said Terrance, the Hero With Many Titles, now swaying like a leaky boat. "They ssaid that they, they were collecting Tax for the new lord of Can't ... of Canb'burred. He's 'Making the Waste a better plaste', and wanted me to pay for it? Cany'believethat?"

A couple of traders who had stayed the night muttered in agreement. Bert hadn't even seen them come in - traders could be sneaky like that. Then again, she supposed you had to be quick and quiet to be a trader, because you never knew what would try to eat you out on the road. It could be a Waste Beast, it could be a tree, it could be the guy you thought was your best friend and lover.

"He's right, ya know," said one of them.

"You heard about this, too, Derick?" Bert replied.

"Aye," said the man. He was an older trader, with droopy frown lines on his head, and cheeks that hung almost past his chin. He wore multiple layers of ragged coats, with a thick woolly beanie covering his bald scalp. He sat next to a woman of a similar age and, quite frankly, similar appearance. Old traders all sort of looked the same after a while. "This new guy, Farmer Brown he calls hisself - but don't ask me what it means - is spouting all sorta rubbish 'bout fixin' things up. But he's just a bully."

"Hiccup," Terrance said.

The old woman nodded. "Picks on traders and the like, so he does. Sends out gangs with trailers t' steal yer goods, then lectures ya about how yer helpin' folk." She shook her old head, cheeks getting the message just a few seconds after.

Phoenix and Bert looked at each other, then back at the group. Neither had heard of this before, but at least it seemed to be distracting Phoenix. His fingers had uncurled ever so slightly, but he hadn't moved from his position, and he hadn't taken his eyes off the unstable figure of Terrance bloody Leeland.

Who now spoke. "Fuck that bandit bashtard," he growled. "I oughta march in ... into hiss fort and throw him off the wall."

The older man raised his eyebrow. "You know, it's not a half bad idea, eh Hilda?"

"Aye, love. We gut the bugger an' then its traders who own the fort!" She smiled, revealing a complete lack of teeth.

Terrance found Meatsack in his wandering gaze. "Hey, you, big guy. Get meanutherdrink."

Meatsack stepped away from him and hunched lower.

Derick scratched his chin, a thought seeming to pass before his eyes. Sometimes it took old traders a few run ups to truly get their sentences in order. "You know, Bert, you got a decent bit o' firepower in this bar." His droopy frown lines attempted to shift upwards into a more hopeful expression, but didn't quite get organised enough. "I mean, Phoenix used to be an adventurer, right? He easily counts for what, five bandits?"

"I'd say ten to be safe," muttered Phoenix, glancing between Derick and Terrance.

Terrance stepped around his table, the conversation having veered away from him. Not that he noticed anymore, anyway. "Oi, you grey bashtard. I wannannutherdrink. Go get it."

Meatsack looked between the bar and the drunken adventurer, and with his eyes the way they were, did so at the same time.

Derick was on a roll, now, and it would be a while before his brain knew to stop. "An' then you got the giant, Meatsack. Why I reckons he could cave a man's skull in with his bare hands, eh? Put a club in his hands an' who knows, you know?"

Hilda leaned forwards, a flash of understanding in her mischievous old eyes. "Ooooh aye, I get ya Derick. An' you, Berty, how many folks've ya kicked out o' this place with a few extra holes in their coat? Ain't no one tougher'n you."

Bert raised her robotic hand to stop them. Her attention was focused on the two traders, while Terrance stumbled towards Meatsack somewhere off to the side. "No, stop there," she said.

Their wrinkly old raisin faces dropped.

"I'm sorry, but Smack-dab isn't going to get involved in some battle for the fort. We're three people who run a bar in the middle of nowhere, do you know why we haven't been burned down yet?"

They shook their heads.

Bert shook hers as well. The pressure gauge in her head had come down, the pipes quieting. Bert was quick to anger, make no mistake. What she lacked in physical presence, she made up for in sheer, unadulterated Bertrage. She had to be that way, because how else was one small woman with a tiny pistol supposed to run a business in the middle of Can't Be Buried? Hell, they didn't even have a sheriff. But her customers were also many of her friends, and there were plenty she knew from back in The Woman's day. She understood their plight, she felt for it. But she felt more for her home.

"It's because we don't get involved," she continued, finally pulling a chair and perching next to Derick and Hilda. "This is a neutral place, and the only time it ever wasn't was when The Woman was running things..." her voice wavered with a sort of human radio static, "...and you can just look outside to see how that ended up."

Behind them all, Terrance was in Meatsack's chunky face, prodding a finger into his chest. "Do you even know who I am? Do you even know who I fucking am?! I'mm a damn hero! I've bled for asshholesh like you!"

"Look," Bert continued, seeing the hope dissolve off her friends' faces, "I respect that you're having trouble, but being Taxed is still better than dying, right?"

Reluctantly, they agreed.

"Aye, I thought so. I'm sorry, I am, but Smack-dab can't fight. We're pacifists, and we need to stay that way. And pacifists don't fight."

And then Terrance Leeland, a true hero, swung a fist at Meatsack.

* * *

Deep within the town formerly known as the Ash Fort, a skinny bandit wearing tidy dungarees was holding a clipboard. More specifically, he was clutching it - a much more frightened style of holding objects in one's hands, and a descriptor key to understanding how this man currently felt. To be even more specific, he was clutching it tightly, knuckles going white, in front of his breast. His chest was motionless, the breath within currently on pause.

"Missin', ya say?" rumbled a deep, vocal earthquake in front of the man.

"Aye, erm, yessir," he replied, feeling smaller now than he ever had before. He'd heard that people sometimes said you shouldn't shoot the messenger, but he wondered how many times that had actually helped said messenger at times of shootiness. "Never checked in at th' construction site," he continued, voice wavering, "an' nobody saw 'em at Second Thought, so's they never even made it that far."

Silence replied, and it was the loudest silence he'd ever heard.

The skinny man with the clipboard was standing in a large, well-kept wooden office on the second floor of the Manor. This building, built long after the Old World fell away, was the lavish palace of the late Lord Ash, and now the command centre for the new lord. The front courtyard was damn good for public executions, too. Nice and wide, with plenty of space for a gallows or three.

"So what yer tellin' me," the titanic voice said, "is that somewhere 'tween Geral' an' Second Thought we lost a whole trailer load o' Tax? Jus' like that?"

The skinny man nodded.

"Well?" the voice boomed.

"Uh, um, err, um, yessir. Gone, sir."

"Hmm..." the floor vibrated.

Silence again. Fingers clenched and unclenched around the clipboard.

"An' what exactly is between Geral' and Second Thought?"

The man gulped. "Well, err, s' far as we know, umm, that is to say, nothin'."

"Nothin'?"

"Some derelict houses, sir, an' a river. But again s' far as we know, there ain't a thing out there."

"So why're we puttin' trailers on it, eh? Walkin' up a road with nobody there."

The skinny man shuffled his feet nervously. "Well, err, traders use it."

"Traders?"

"Uh, yessir. Traders that don't want t' walk the Highway an' risk gettin' caught by, well sir, by us. They calls it th' Back Road."

The man's eyes lifted upwards as the Being, for that was the only word he could use to describe such a creature, stood to its full height and took a few ponderous steps to the Manor's window. The floor shook as though it might collapse with each step, until finally the Being halted and stared down into the busy streets below.

The skinny man waited, his muscles hurting from the tension.

Then the Being spoke once more. "I can't have murd'rous folk gettin' in the way of me plans. We're gonna make this place bett'r, whether they likes it or not, so we will." The window vibrated gently with every syllable.

"Um, yessir."

"If there be traders usin' sum back road, there mus' be somethin' out there. Nobody'd walk s' far without a place t' stop."

"Yessir."

"Well." The Being turned its gaze on the man with the clipboard, staring down at him with a dangerous, frightening glare. "I wants yer t' walk out there, so I does. An' if ya sees the folk responsible f'r murderin' our folk an' stealin' from us, you come right back 'ere an' tell me."

The skinny man stood straight upright, to attention. "Yessir, right away. But err ... am I going, ya know, alone?"

Something heavy, that sent little vibrations fleeing through the floorboards, slithered out of the Being's throat. It was laughing, a low and menacing sound.

"Oh, ya won't be alone, so ya won't."

And then a singular red lightbulb inside a boxy, metal skull clicked on in the shadows.

* * *

Bum bum bummmmmm. 

I'm quite enjoying breaking this book up into smaller Wattpad chapters. Leaves more room for cliffhangers! Want more?  Keep reading! And remember to Vote and comment.

To keep up to date, make sure you're following me! You can also find me on Twittery Twoo (@dppacey) or sign up to my monthly newsletter:
www.duncanppacey.com/join