The sun dipped low behind rusted hills, casting long shadows across the dunes as the convoy rolled slow and steady toward the Scorchmarsh border. The sand here was different—darker, damp with old oil and the scent of rot beneath it. This was a no man's land. Not because no one claimed it—but because he had passed through once.
Now, no one dared again.
Furiosa drove in silence, her jaw tight, fingers drumming the wheel. Max stood beside the war rig's turret, scanning the horizon. The rest of the convoy, battered and worn, followed close. The Vuvalini murmured between themselves. Toast checked her rifle again and again, though no one had said anything.
They all felt it: the air had changed. He was close.
Then the first of the warnings appeared.
A broken mask, hanging from a rusted pike. A black coat, torn and nailed to a dune. Shell casings arranged in the shape of a circle with a line through it—his mark.
Max spoke first.
"He's watching."
Furiosa didn't argue.
---
They reached the ridge by dusk.
That's when the smoke came.
Not fire. Not fuel burn. Ash. Cold and dry, floating in the air, dancing like dead snowflakes. The engines sputtered in protest. The convoy slowed as instinct overruled momentum.
And there he was.
A single figure on the ridge. Long coat, stitched from scavenged leather. No mask today. Just scars. Hair matted with dust. His eyes—cold and dry like the ash itself.
The Revenant King.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Behind him, another convoy approached—The Drownmen. Machines cobbled from sunken rigs and oil-steeped armor. Their war-banner snapped in the wind: a cracked gas mask surrounded by rusted chains. A war-priest rode front, his face hidden by wet leather and his chest covered in rebreather tubes.
They outnumbered Furiosa's convoy three to one.
"Keep driving," Toast said.
"They'll flank us in minutes," one of the Vuvalini warned.
"We're not the target," Max said.
And then, as if summoned by history itself, the war-priest raised a jagged megaphone.
"YOU STAND IN FORSAKEN GROUND! THIS BELONGS TO THE DROWNED!"
Furiosa stood atop the rig, staring at the figure on the ridge.
"No," she muttered. "It belongs to him."
The Drownmen didn't fire.
They waited—until the Revenant stepped forward.
And then chaos.
---
Five years earlier
He hadn't worn a title. No mask. No reputation.
He was just another survivor—scarred, lean, silent.
The Drownmen had raided a settlement. Left no water, no flesh, no future.
He arrived two days later. Spoke to no one. Just listened to the wind, picked through bones.
Then he disappeared.
A week later, one of their fuel depots exploded—during nightfall, without sound. A week after that, their lead scout vanished. Then their second-in-command turned up nailed to his own bike—eyelids carved with warnings.
He didn't have an army.
He used theirs.
Turned supply routes against them. Poisoned fuel drums. Spread rumors that made them kill each other out of fear. Shot their mechanics, not their soldiers. Slashed tires in the dark. Killed the dogs, but left the food untouched.
They began calling him Ash-Eater, because wherever he struck, the bodies were burned—and no one saw the flame.
When they finally cornered him at the Black Rig, the warlord mocked him.
"I am oil and empire," he sneered. "You're just a dying man with a knife."
The Revenant didn't speak. Just stared.
And smiled.
The rig exploded twelve minutes later. Every pressure valve, every tank—rigged while the warlord boasted. He'd already been inside—for days.
He walked from the wreckage, dragging a gas can and leaving only ash behind.
From that day forward, his name passed between raiders like poison.
Not a god. Not a demon.
A man who remembered.
---
Present
The Drownmen war-priest spat into the sand.
"You're just a myth!" he shouted at the ridge. "A shadow story told to fools!"
The Revenant took one more step.
And the first shot rang out.
But it wasn't him.
It was a flare—from behind the Drownmen.
And then everything changed.
Explosions tore through their flank—mines buried days ago, set along an old pipeline trail the Drownmen thought abandoned. Tires shredded. One crawler flipped. Screams filled the air.
Snipers—Vuvalini-trained—opened fire from the far rocks. Not many. Just enough. Enough to sow doubt.
And then the Revenant moved.
Fast. Methodical. A grenade into an open vent. A molotov into an ammo rack. A tripwire strung between two forgotten bikes—they never saw it.
He killed one man with a wrench.
Another he let live—long enough to watch the others burn.
The Drownmen broke. Discipline vanished. Men fled in all directions, some crashing into their own rigs, others tearing off into the marsh.
The war-priest stayed.
He raised a shotgun—and screamed—
"YOU'RE JUST A MAN!"
The Revenant stopped walking.
"Yeah," he said.
Then he shot the priest in the leg.
Not to kill.
To leave a message.
The Drownmen would find him limping, screaming, half-dead in the marsh. He'd tell them the myth wasn't a demon. Not a god.
Just a man.
But worse than a demon, because a man can be real.
---
The ash cleared by moonrise.
The convoy hadn't moved.
Furiosa watched him return, slow and quiet, dragging a chain of dog tags behind him. He didn't speak to them. Just passed by, nodding once at Max, who returned it wordlessly.
Toast stepped forward. "Why help us?"
He stopped.
Didn't turn around. Just muttered:
"They would've circled behind you. You didn't see it yet."
"And now?" Max asked.
The Revenant kept walking into the dark.
"You'll see it next time."
---
The convoy moved again.
The Drownmen wouldn't return—not for weeks. Maybe months.
But the real fear wouldn't come from the fire or the wreckage.
It would come from the whisper they left behind:
"He's just a man. And he's still out there."