I rode through the black woods at a good clip and was happy to be making such good time. The last time I’d been through I was walking through thick forest, needing to keep my senses open for any Ursans, massive black mutated bears that could rip a man in half in an instant. I was still keeping myself alert for any threats, but the ride itself was much easier than the walk had been.

It was roughly midday by the time the Ren Faree’s castle had come into sight. It had expanded significantly. There was now an outer wall made up of thick blackwood trunks that surrounded the building. They were decorated with the pelts and skulls of Ursans as well as the symbols I’d grown used to seeing adorn the tents in Fette, the Iron Horde’s capital. At each of the corners of the blackwood wall there were large mounted machine guns, which were matched by several higher up on the castle walls behind them, adding an additional layer of defense. Unlike the last time I’d arrived, when the castle had smelled of greenery, livestock, and dirt, it now had the additional smells of worked metal and gasoline. I found the blend of Horde and Ren to be strange, but oddly cohesive. The Horde already had the air of an old civilization, and the Ren’s had been pretending to be one, it made sense that they’d adapt to one another as quickly as they did.

I reached the gate to the wall, and brought my bike to a stop. A woman at the top looked down at me, wearing a surcoat and ursan fur bracers, but also leather chaps, making it difficult for me to determine from which group she was originally from. “Hail! Who goes there!?” She yelled down at me.

“Donovan. Marshall.” I held up the badge I’d been given by the Khan. The star of the Marshalls bordered in the Gear of the Khanate.

The guard hesitated, leaning forward and squinting at me, the she gestured downward for the gate to be open. “Come on through the first gate and hold there, the shift commander will likely need a word.”

The first gate opened, and I rode through, letting it close behind me and finding myself facing a second one. A small door carved into the corner of it slid open, and Shayera stepped through.

I kept my face neutral. Shayera had been the first person I’d met when I’d first encountered the Ren’s. She was a Ranger, and the last time I’d seen her she’d helped me to clear out the Widow’s, a gang that threatened the Khan’s holdings before I crossed the Cut. She’d changed even since then. Her blonde hair was still long and knitted into an intricate braid, but she seemed physically larger, more imposing than she’d been before. She was still much smaller than me, but she’d clearly put on some muscle. I also noticed several tattoos. They were similar to the gears and markings I was used to seeing on the Khan’s engineers and soldiers, but more wavy, and I thought I saw the head of a dragon mixed into one of them.

“Sharpeye,” I said, referring to her by her last name as I nodded.

“Donovan,” she responded, returning the nod. Her tone was neutral, but I was certain she was still holding a grudge from when I betrayed her and her people to the Khan. They’d clearly benefited from it in the long term, but that didn’t mean being forced into compliance at gunpoint didn’t sting any longer. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“Pott’s has had two deadmen go missing in the area, and I need to go back to the… dungeon I investigated when I visited the first time.”

“Ah, a return to your previous ‘quest’?” she asked, a touch of irony tinging the last word.

“In a sense.”

“And you’re wondering if they passed nearby?”

I nodded.

“I do remember hearing of some Undertakers passing through. It was on someone else’s shift. They were welcomed into the walls, and left without incident. Haven’t heard anything about them since.”

I squinted. She didn’t sound like she was lying, and she had no reason to treat a deadman other than me with anything other than respect, but I had to be certain. I activated my lie detector ability. “They didn’t come to harm here?” I asked.

She frowned, offended. “We would never violate the guest’s right. They came to no harm here, or even at our hand after they left.”

TRUTH. I nodded, “Of course.”

She shook her head, managing to return to a neutral expression. “We’ll open the gates and let you in the rest of the way. You may rest here. The King may wish to host you, though he’s been occupied with the Prince. Atlan is at the front with her father.”

I shook my head. “No. I need to keep moving. All I ask is that you find a garage for my bike while I continue into the woods. It was a gift of the Khan and has the authority to be cared for at any garage.”

She nodded, surprised. “We can take care of it.” She paused for a moment, and called up to have the gate raised again for me.

I slid my bike over to her, and let her take the handlebars, then turned to walk out the gate. I heard the starting of a sound come from Shayera, as if she had a question or statement to make, but nothing came of it, and I walked through the gate, listening to it close behind me.

…

The trip to the rEvolutionary bunker was much easier this time. I knew the path, and so didn’t need to rely on landmarks as I had the first time, and I also chose not to rest. I was beginning to reach the point where I might need some sleep, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. The thought that the fight was raging on the other side of Horde Territory made me want to move as quickly as possible. I did keep my senses open of course. I’d heard that the Ursan threat had been diminished, but that didn’t mean things couldn’t change, or a single Ursan couldn’t be ranging beyond its usual territory. I was much tougher and more prepared than the last time I’d been in, but Ursans were on an entirely different level compared to most wasteland creatures. The first time I’d encountered one I’d nearly died, and from then on I spent more time avoiding them than anything else.

I was nearly at the bunker, when the smell of musk, fur, and blood reached me. It seemed close, incredibly close, and it wasn’t the only thing I was detecting. All of a sudden, I could smell the wet feathers of a bird in the forest canopy above me. I could detect the trail of a mutated rabbit’s scat, and could smell the scent of ozone as if I was standing up in the clouds themselves. I clutched my nose, overwhelmed by the sudden increase in sensation, but it didn’t stop. The smell of the trees themselves burned into my nostrils, the smell of fungus growing in the shadow of a fallen log, the scent of gunpowder and leather that I myself was giving off. I placed a hand on a tree, steadying myself. I pulled up my citizen sheet, and looked through it. My guess was proven correct when I saw that one of the scrambled bits of text now showed a new ability from the virus.

Improved Scent Detection

I grimaced. I’d always relied heavily on my sense of smell. Deadmen in general seemed to have a more sensitive smell, in spite of our lack of noses, and mine had been particularly strong even for a deadman. This was on an entirely different level though. I stood, trying to parse the scents as they came at me one, after the other, after the other, then one hit me that finally allowed me to focus. It was the scent of a corpse. A deadman’s corpse. I put all my attention on that scent, drew my shotgun, and started moving. From that scent of death, I was able to slowly sort out each of the others, until I had them cataloged and broken down in a way that was no longer overwhelming. The Ursan was near the corpse, the bird I’d smelled was in a tree to the southwest of me, the rabbit trail began twenty feet from me, and the rabbit itself was nearly a mile away. I overlaid the scents I was detecting with the mental map I had of the area, and I was able to create a real time map in my mind's eye of the movements and activities of everything within almost a mile.

I crept carefully into the small clearing that held the cave the bunker was in. I saw the half eaten undertaker corpse exactly where my sense of smell told me it would be. An Ursan sleeping peacefully next to it, with a femur protruding slightly from its mouth.

I walked up slowly to it, looking at the corpse with anger, then reached the Ursan itself. I raised my shotgun in one hand. The creature started to stir, but before it could fully awaken I grabbed its ear, shoved the barrel of my gun inside and pulled the trigger. The beast died instantly as the pellets rattled through its skull.