The wasteland did not care who you were.
But the Barons did.
The fortress rose from the desert like a wound that refused to heal—layers of scrap metal, concrete slabs, and welded vehicles stacked into towering walls. Watchtowers pierced the sky, their silhouettes bristling with mounted guns and scopes that never slept.
Inside, power still breathed.
Fuel burned. Machines worked. Men obeyed.
Baron Vark sat on his throne of steel and bone, one massive hand resting on the armrest, the other wrapped around a glass filled with dark liquid that once had a name. His armor was polished, heavy, and ceremonial—not because he needed it, but because fear needed a symbol.
Before him, a man knelt.
The man was bleeding.
"You lost a convoy," Vark said calmly.
The kneeling officer swallowed. "Yes, Baron."
"Six vehicles."
"Yes."
"Water. Ammunition. Slaves."
"Yes."
Vark leaned forward slightly.
"To one man."
The officer opened his mouth.
Vark raised a finger.
A gunshot echoed through the chamber. The officer collapsed without another word.
Silence returned.
Vark exhaled slowly, annoyed more than angry. Around him, his lieutenants stood stiff and quiet. None met his eyes.
"One man," Vark repeated. "Burns my road. Steals my water. Kills my men. Leaves witnesses."
He looked at the woman standing to his right.
"Speak."
The woman stepped forward. Her armor was lighter than the others, her movements sharp. A long scar ran from her temple to her jaw.
"His name is Raven," she said. "Or that's what the wasteland calls him."
Vark raised an eyebrow. "Names don't survive long out there."
"This one has," she replied. "For years."
She activated a cracked holoscreen scavenged from old tech. Images flickered—burned convoys, dead riders, blurred silhouettes of a man with a shotgun.
"He operates alone," she continued. "No colors. No tribe. No base. Hits fast, disappears faster."
"A ghost," one lieutenant muttered.
The woman shook her head.
"No. Ghosts don't bleed."
She changed the image.
A Blood Rider symbol filled the screen.
Vark's jaw tightened.
"The Kan Yolcuları?" he said. "They hunt him too?"
"They lost men," she said. "Their scout leader survived. Barely."
Vark smiled slowly.
"Good."
He stood.
"When wolves fight, the wasteland eats."
He turned back to his lieutenants.
"Put a bounty on him," he said. "Public. Loud."
"How much?" someone asked.
Vark didn't hesitate.
"Enough to make even friends consider killing him."
Raven woke to pain.
Not the sharp kind.
The deep kind. The kind that settled into bone and stayed.
His leg throbbed, stitched tight and angry. Infection would kill him faster than bullets if he wasn't careful. He forced himself upright inside the drainage tunnel, teeth clenched.
Morning light filtered in weakly.
He checked his weapons.
One shotgun. Two shells. A scavenged rifle with a cracked scope. A knife.
Not enough.
He limped out of the tunnel and scanned the land. The ruins spread wide, broken towers jutting from the sand like teeth. Somewhere out there, people were talking.
Talking meant money.
Money meant hunters.
Raven moved anyway.
He reached a settlement by noon—a cluster of shipping containers welded together around an old highway junction. Flags flapped overhead. Armed men watched from platforms.
A Kül Şehri.
He slowed, hands visible.
A guard shouted. "Weapons!"
Raven laid them down. Every piece hurt to surrender.
Inside, the air smelled of oil, sweat, and desperation. People stared. Some recognized him. Others didn't—but they all felt something was wrong.
He went straight to the board.
Every settlement had one.
Paper scraps, metal plates, burned cloth—messages nailed and wired together.
And there it was.
A fresh posting.
A crude drawing of a man on a motorcycle.
Under it, one word burned in red paint.
RAVEN
Below that:
Alive preferred. Dead acceptable.
Reward: Fuel, Water, Ammunition.
A crowd had gathered.
Raven stood very still.
Someone laughed nervously. "Damn. That's a lot."
Another voice whispered, "That's suicide money."
Raven turned.
The crowd parted just enough to show a man holding a rifle, eyes shaking, finger tight on the trigger.
"You should leave," the man said. "Now."
Raven nodded once.
He took two steps.
The shot came from behind.
Raven dove as the bullet shattered the board. Screams erupted. The settlement exploded into chaos.
Raven grabbed his weapons from the ground and ran.
Hunters poured in from the outskirts—freelancers, mercs, desperate men and women who smelled opportunity. Shots rang out. Bodies fell.
Raven ducked into an alley, firing once, dropping a pursuer. He vaulted a fence, rolled through sand, came up firing again.
He was bleeding again.
He didn't slow.
He stole a bike from a fallen hunter and rode hard, engines screaming as bullets chased him out of the settlement.
The bounty had done its job.
The wasteland was awake.
By nightfall, Raven reached high ground—a ridge overlooking an old refinery field. Towers leaned, pipelines twisted like dead snakes. Fires burned in the distance.
Campfires.
Multiple.
He watched through his cracked scope.
Hunters.
Some wore Baron colors. Others Blood Rider red. Some wore nothing at all.
Enemies didn't matter anymore.
Everyone wanted the same thing.
Raven lowered the rifle and leaned back against the rock.
This was no longer survival.
This was war.
He thought of the woman from the ruins. Her words. Her scar.
Left us to burn.
He didn't remember faces.
He remembered fire.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Then he stood.
Raven moved downhill, silent as ash. He circled the camps, counting, planning. He sabotaged fuel lines. Set traps. Laid the ground bare.
When the first explosion hit, the night screamed.
Raven struck fast.
Shotgun thundered. Rifle cracked. Knife flashed.
Hunters fell without ever seeing him.
The camps dissolved into chaos—shouts, betrayal, friendly fire. Raven became a rumor moving through smoke and fire.
By dawn, the field was empty.
Bodies cooled. Fires died.
Raven stood alone among them, breathing hard, blood-soaked, exhausted.
He had sent a message.
He mounted his bike slowly, pain screaming through his body.
As he rode away, far beyond the ridge, Baron Vark watched the smoke rise from a tower balcony.
The woman beside him narrowed her eyes.
"He's adapting," she said.
Vark smiled.
"So will we."
The hunt had begun.
And the road would drown in blood before it ended.