He was in a hazy, indeterminate space, but somehow he still knew which direction was which. An eagle whose wings stretched to fill the sky was locked in combat with a great red serpentine dragon; as it fought its wings gradually turned to metal. In one final paroxysm of conflict, marked with a great flash of light, the eagle was badly wounded, and slunk away to hide on a metal island west of west – its feathers became all metal. He did not see what happened to the dragon. Eventually, the eagle prepared to give a cry – and he knew that cry would end the world all over again – but a bear cub swatted it away with its paw, and it was sent back east to the lands of sunrise. Dimly, shakily, the eagle slowly started to shed its metal feathers – but before it could begin more than the slightest a lion that had been lairing there fought it, and slew it.
The lion didn't last though – his fur gradually became metallic as well, even as he began to wither and starve. He ran to the north-east to hunt but his abandonment of his lair proved fatal. He returned badly wounded from his failed expedition and as he re-entered his lair ravens swarmed all over him and ripped him apart with their talons, then vanished.
To the west, the bear now full-grown matched up against a great blood-red bull with brazen horns. They fought for what seemed like an eternity, and the bull badly injured the bear and seemed about to win - then a coyote and a puma struck the bull from behind, and together with the bear they slew the bull and ate his flesh. The three victors made an accord, but it didn't last, and they started fighting over leftover bits of meat. As they were fighting-
Walker woke up panting and confused. What the Hell did all those animals fighting each other mean? For his new occupation as a caravan guard, this was some bizarre dream. He sighed. It’d been a week since he started the job, two days after leaving the Vault – he didn’t make many caps, but he wasn’t doing this for money. He needed combat experience and better equipment to survive in the city where his father had disappeared into. The place was a real no-man’s-land – not half as grand as how it’d been in the pre-War days. A pity I’ll never see it in its old glory, he mused.
He got up from his sleeproll and put it on one of the brahmins, which was pulling a cart full of excess food from the meagre farming settlements which struggled to get soil out of the cursed earth; parched and tainted with fallout and chemical waste, the ground could support only populations of a few hundred together in one place, at best. They were to exchange it for clean water, of which their destination had a far more than adequate supply. He could see it already on the horizon – a tall building of pre-War origin, surrounded by a ramshackle metal wall of wasteland type. It had been luxurious once, for sure, with elegant domes and a balcony round its centre. Now there were holes in the walls and broken windows, all covered in a patina of dust and dirt.
Thus faded the glory of the world.
“Tally ho!” cried a loud voice from the balcony, in an accent that Walker remembered had been used by the Romans in the pre-war holos he’d seen as a kid. Is this guy a-
His train of thought abruptly slid off its rails as a thunderbolt crack rang out from the man’s gun. A feral ghoul that had been idly walking by fell as the top of its head exploded, but even though the shot hadn’t been at them Walker still gave a start.
“Don’t you worry nothin’,” Eli, the leader of the caravan, commented. “That’s just one of ole Tenpenny’s quirks. Man’s half-mad if you ask me – says he came from all the way across the water to live here. Best to let an old man have his eccentricities.”
Eli’s deep twang was noticeable – the merchant captain was from the richer lands to the south, and hadn’t gone to the Capital Wasteland by choice. He’d been banished from his home city, and branded on the left cheek to ensure whatever crimes had caused such would be known wherever he went. As far north as here though, few knew what it indicated, which meant that in essence he had no known record – a fresh start to begin again.
The small group approached the gate of the compound – a relic from the Old World, unlike the rest of the wall surrounding it – cautiously, until the hired guns on top of it let down their weapons and opened their way in.
