Chapter Text
Bandits began falling back as the War Party headed bodily toward the encampment; many were running for their lives now. Some headed back to try to grab their valuables, others merely took off into the waste, too canny to waste their lives and their precious vehicles for whatever or whoever they had left behind.
The War Party surrounded the encampment, a loose net of vehicles. Shots rang out, the heavy thud of machine gun fire, and War Boys streamed out of their vehicles, armed and ready.
Nux got out of his car and shot down a Bandit that came at him with a piece of steel pole; he flinched back as the man's chest exploded in red, droplets of gore splattering everywhere. Disgusted, he scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand and quickly reloaded his sawed-off shotgun. Coil and Notch flanked him as they entered the squalid camp, a shantytown of corrugated aluminum and rusted out metal held together by loose chunks of stone and drifts of sand. It was hastily arranged, a seasonal settlement that moved with the fortunes of the land.
The War Boys said nothing to each other, but Notch grinned nervously at Nux, clutching his weapon with tense, white-knuckled hands. Nux frowned; the younger War Boy's nerves were getting to him, and he could feel nausea clutching his stomach as he walked the winding, reeking paths through the settlement, his eyes sharp, looking for signs of Slit. Here and there a child ran for cover. An unlucky one crossed paths with one of the many packs of War Boys hunting for them and was grabbed before it could run away. The War Boy knocked the air out of it with a quick punch to the gut before chaining it and slinging it over his shoulder. New War Pups, if these captives were lucky; if not, a trip to Bartertown on the monthly run, or down to swell the ranks of the Wretched.
Nux glanced over at Coil, who kept his crossbow ready but had something of a casual demeanor as he helped look for the missing War Boys. Coil, who was much older, who had been a full War Boy when Nux was still a pup had done war before, plenty of times. So Nux stayed close to him, watching his movements, learning from the older man, trying to imitate his alert calm, his apparent lack of concern.
Snap! Coil's crossbow shot into the skull of a Bandit that came out at them from a hut, a weapon in hand.
“Chrome!”
Nux looked closely at the Bandit. The dead man was gripping a spanner in his still-twitching hand, and Nux recognized it immediately; the slightly off-balance screw, the scratches of sketches on the shiny metal, little doodles of men and machines and parts. Quickly he grabbed it and tucked it into his tool belt.
“Slit.”
Slit groaned, blood oozing from the good side of his face where they had sawed jaggedly through his cheek. The torturer had killed the other five War Boys overnight during the storm; it was high entertainment, and men from all over the Bandit camp had crammed into the makeshift hut to watch.
Now they were starting on him. He was tied to a metal frame, a big, heavy rectangular plate of iron made from the tail lift of a truck, and he twisted, trying to break free, but the chains held him tight in place. The torturer fumbled when he heard the gunfire, slicing awkwardly here and there at his belly, trying to make a cut into his abdominal cavity to pull out the guts, to string them slowly on a drum, turning and turning as he writhed in agony. Five already, and Slit was going to be next. He gritted his teeth against the pain of the incisions, hands balled up into fists; pain was nothing to him, nothing. They'd have to try harder than that to make him squirm.
They wanted to know the secret ways into the Citadel. Passcodes, hidden corridors, secret handshakes, and no amount of telling them that such things didn't exist would stay their hand. No way to explain how War Boys from the littlest pup to the eldest Imperator all knew each other, if not by name then by sight. A War Boy didn't need a password when his face and the faces of his fellows were all that was necessary to get in.
Frustrated, the torturer gave up as he heard encroaching gunfire. He picked up a heavy, rusted axe; it was what they had used to finish off at least three of the five, once the torture turned dull and there was nothing useful to be gained but screaming.
The edge of the axe was streaked brown-red with rust, or maybe it was dried blood.
Slit stared at it, eyes wide. A black anger boiled through him; this was not his time, not his place. He wasn't about to join the others, miserable failures. He was not going to die on his back, helpless; not without a fight.
He was not going to die un-Witnessed.
“Say goodbye to your head, War Boy. Decapito–“
The man's head exploded before Nux had time to realize what he did. The axe fell to the ground with a thump. The charnal, animal reek of the hut was overwhelming, the intestinal, organal stink of men's insides filled the air and when Nux realized what the wet lumpy ropes were that were wrapped around the cylinders, he almost vomited.
A loose pile of limbs and torsos were piled in the corner and a War Boy's green eyes looked out at him, staring, from the hollowed-out shell of his body.
There was a groaning, and Nux's attention snapped over to the middle of the room.
“Slit!” Quickly the War Boys came to Slit's side; Nux stood at Slit's left, where Slit could hear better. Something splashed against his boot; Nux looked down and found himself ankle-deep in a depression full of blood.
“Nux. Finally.” Slit was almost incoherent but Nux understood him; his good side had been cut, deeply and jaggedly, almost matching the other and Slit's mismatched eyes looked up at Nux from the red running ruin of his face. There was something hollow in Slit's eyes now, as if some critical part deep inside of him had broke free, dislodged itself and torn up his insides, all in the span of a day.
“Don't talk. We're getting you out.” Quickly, the War Boys went to work, unchaining Slit from his narrow metal bed.
“Deca...” Slit's knees went out from under him as they got him up onto his feet, and Nux and Coil carried him stumbling back to the War Party.
*****
After the battle, they found Furiosa delirious, in a pool of her own blood, her good hand still gripping the wheel of the War Rig. She didn't remember the ride back to the Citadel, only a vague memory of being in the dark hold of the War Rig, a burning lamp by her side. Someone was there with her, holding her good hand, but who it was, she didn't know.
The next few days were touch and go; they hooked her up to a good bloodbag, one of the best, a universal donor, to get the blood back into her body. She heard the bloodbag's weak, pitiful sobs night and day until they replaced it.
She woke up a few times when someone spooned Aqua-Cola into her dry mouth, dribbling it in carefully. They spoke, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. She wasn't sure who it was who cradled her against their shoulder, warm and familiar, and fed her with mush, watered to go down easier, but whoever it was, she was grateful for them. Often, she fell asleep against their strong shoulder, dreaming of the past.
Bouts of hot and cold burnt through her. It was a fever, she knew it, and sometimes when she was alone, she seized up, curled up on herself, shivering on the hard stone bench of the Orgshop where she could hear the rattle of the wheels in the wheel shrine whenever someone came to take a wheel or drop it off. The creak of the blood bag cages swinging over her head.
The shot to her wrist was the least of her worries; it had been a clean, surgical shot, missing bone. Her hand had been shattered by the stomping boot, splinters of bone were working their way up through the bruised skin. She fell into a feverish delirium, and black veins began to run through her left hand, crawling up her arm.
“It's gonna have to come off,” the Organic said. She recognized his voice, understood it through the haze of her fever and started to shake her head. No, no, it couldn't. She'd rather die. They'd have no use for a War Boy with one arm. She'd end up in the Wretched like all the other crippled War Boys, abandoned, detritus. Trashed.
“Furiosa. Stay with me.” Gray, colorless eyes met her own, fiercely, and a strong hand gripped her good hand tight. They were taking her somewhere, somewhere where the light was better and she screamed, wordless. No, no. Not again. Please, no. Mother. No.
“Hold her down. Can't have her movin about while I'm working.”
“No!” She tried to thrash away, to kick, but there were too many hands, hard and calloused and white, and they held her down.
“Don't you worry, War Boy. I done this plenty of times.” The sharpening of the knife, the slick metal sound of the saw as it came out of its sheath.
“Stay with me. Furiosa!”
Once the cutting began, the pain was her entire world, red and orange, swirling behind her eyes and it melted away the cold blue light around it. By the time they began sawing through bone, she saw nothing but blackness.
She was lying down and alone, the stump of her arm bandaged and slung against her chest. No, she wasn't alone, her head was pillowed on someone's leg. Someone had their hand in her hair, the fine stubble that shot up through the scalp that most everyone went and had shorn off immediately.
There was a strange hushed silence. Even the blood bags were still in their cages, their breaths quiet.
“Immortan.”
“Immortan.”
“Immortan Joe.” The voices were hushed, filled with awe.
His heavy footsteps echoed metal through the corridor. She could hear the hiss and breath of his breathing apparatus; he never left the Vault without it.
He stopped before her, and she tried to open her eyes to look at him, her heart banging against the inside of her chest.
“They don't know if she'll live.” Ace. That had to be his voice. Ace coughed weakly, shaking Furiosa, and a bit of hot wetness touched her shoulder. Under her eyelashes, she could see that it was red.
“You don't look like you'll live either, War Boy. What did you break?”
Ace spoke cautiously. “Collarbone. Ribs. Four broken, three cracked, sir.”
The Immortan looked at her. She could feel his eyes on her, burning, and she opened her eyes. He was unclear, hazy in her vision, and as her eye caught the tarnished gleam of a medal on his chest, she realized that from here, she no longer felt anything as she looked at him but the dull ache of her stump and the white hot pain of her missing hand.
“If she lives,” the Immortan said slowly, his hard eyes running over her. “Make her an Imperator.”
He left briskly, and the War Boys let go their collective breath.
She felt the Immortan's words on her like a viscous grease, even as Ace stroked the soft stubble of her head.
So defying him and everyone, she lived.
It took weeks to heal, long days that she spent in the infirmary with Ace. He had been ordered to rest; of his broken ribs, one had shattered in the fall and the Organic thought it would splinter into his organs if Ace exerted himself before it healed.
“Two of a kind together, aren't we, Furiosa?” There was a wry amusement to Ace's words as he sat with her, back to back, keeping each other warm. “Busted chassis, missing a wheel...too bad we can't bolt on a new one for you.”
“Maybe not.” She brought up her stump, as if she could flex the mangled mess of the hand she could still feel. Already she had ideas for a replacement and she knew of some talented Revheads that she could recruit to help build and design it.
“It's a shame we can't bang out the dings as easy as on a car.” Ace winced, his breath catching as he breathed in too deeply. She could feel him tense up against her, and carefully, he felt at his side, at the awkward and crooked angle of his collarbone.
“Are you going to be all right, Ace?”
“That's my second fall, ever. Broke my jaw on the first one, you remember. Been a good War Boy all these years, but it's bound to catch up one day or another. Can't be a Lancer if you're afraid to fall. One more'll probably do me in, but that ain't gonna happen, not if I'm careful. Right, Furiosa?”
“Right.”
*****
It took a week to clean up after the War Party. The hauler brought back vehicle after vehicle; it took a few trips, and War Boys had kept guard on both the battlefield and the encampment to make sure that every last vehicle was hauled back, that every useful bit of material was sorted, loaded, and returned to the Citadel. They picked up a whole slew of new vehicles from the battlefield. Despite the destruction, it was a rich haul; cars, trucks, motorcycles, and every last War Boy who could still walk ended up sorting through parts good and bad, testing engines, and making repairs. The Revshops would be backed up for months with new projects.
By the time Nux had a chance to see Slit, he figured Slit was already on the mend, unhappy with being kept so long in the infirmary.
A Redthumb stopped him as he came down the hall: “Your friend's wounds ain't closin up, not the way they're supposed to. He's taking Aqua-Cola, sometimes, but he ain't eating enough to live by. The Mechanic don't think he's gonna make it at this rate. Better go say goodbye before we send him down.”
Icy moonlight dripped cold through the long air shafts and Nux found Slit fidgeting at the infirmary's stone bench, tracing the tip of his left index finger over healing scabs and scrapes on his wrist and forearm. Slit was across from the new Imperator, who Nux glanced at briefly, curious. She was asleep, her bandaged arm clutched to her chest.
Slit's wounds had been pinned with metallic staples that frankly looked fetching. But the wounds looked bad still, glossy and red with fresh blood, and Slit had lost flesh; he was looking hollow.
“Shiny,” Nux pointed to the staples on Slit's face, his torso, and Slit's mismatched eyes looked up at him, burning with barely stifled anger. Beside him sat a bowl of the mush, cooked down soft and wet for ill War Boys, and it was untouched, cold.
“You hungry?” Nux sat down and Slit moved away.
“Nah.”
“Can I have it?”
“Sure.” But Slit watched him hungrily. The wound on the side of Slit's mouth seemed to dampen as Nux ate, as he took slow, savoring bites.
Nux glanced at Slit, at the bowl of food, hearing the little hiss of air between the edges of the sucking wound as Slit tried to keep blood and saliva from dribbling out of his mouth.
Nux felt down into one of his pockets and pulled out his dried food bars, handing them to Slit without a word.
Slit unwrapped them from the clean cloth, and began to eat, one after another, chewing on the good side of his mouth.
They sat together eating slowly, wordlessly. After Slit finished the bars, he laid down and closed his eyes.
Nux set the empty bowl aside and looked down at Slit; there were lines of pain on Slit's face that were new, lines carved by suffering. He reached out to touch Slit's head, his shoulder, but then hesitated, knowing Slit would despise him for it.
Nux stared at his own hand for a long moment, before drawing back and folding the fingers of both hands together with a sigh.
He sat for a long time with Slit, uncertain of what he should do. He knew Slit wasn't asleep, but it was obvious that Slit didn't want to talk either. So Nux left.
Nux spent spent the rest of the evening going around the shops, calling in favors and trading future work for extra bars of dried food.
*****
Furiosa found herself back in the Vault on the pretext of an errand. Miss Giddy had let her in, putting down the shotgun.
“Furiosa!” The girls ran to her and it shocked her that they remembered her name.
“We've been worried about you.”
“Finally, the questing ears of the great Somnambulists have heard my prayers.”
“It's been months, where have you been?”
“Tell me what gun you used to war with. What was the action like?”
“I was sure you had died.”
“Sorry. I've been ill.” She took her left arm out from behind her back, holding it up, and Angharad gasped.
“Furiosa...”
“I came to apologize. I can't fix the pianofuerte. Not anymore.” She indicated to the metal arm. It was as light as they could make it, but she was still unused to the burden and wearily, she let it drag her arm back down.
The girls looked at her, and looked at each other.
“We didn't really care about that anyway. Not as much as we cared about you.” That was her name, Capable. What a good name, Furiosa thought, and a hard one to live up to.
Angharad stepped forward, and took her metal hand, lifting it despite its weight, despite the black machine oil that oozed slowly from its joints.
“Furiosa.”
Wheat, that was the color of her hair, golden, and her eyes, the blue of the open sky that yawned vast over the great expanse of the waste.
“It's all right.” Angharad's eyes were full of tears, and Furiosa blinked, her own eyes stinging, realizing that those tears were for her. “I'll be your left hand.”
Furiosa said nothing, but she closed her hand over Angharad's, feeling the firm warmth of delicate fingers pressed between metal and flesh.