"Vast" Wasteland

Ben woke up to the sound of shouting. "Again?" he thought to himself as he rose up and grabbed his stone sword, which was still unweildy, even for Ben's strong build. He also grabbed a leather chestpiece and strapped it on as quickly as he could.

He exited the barracks building and stepped out onto the hulking, sandy shell of the land turtle they were riding. Ben looked to his left and saw his friend Lucas battling a Vashti with a stone warhammer.

"Hurry up and join the fight! There's enough for both of us!" yelled Lucas as he side-stepped out of the way of a hammer strike that cracked the ground.

Ben sprang to Lucas, and narrowly dodged the swipe of the Vashti's warhammer. While the Vashti was recovering from its misplaced strike, Ben cut into it's torso with his stone sword, killing it outright.

"That's the only good thing about these weapons" Ben said, "They kill easy"

"More coming up on the side!" yelled a crewman from the right side of the land turtle.

Ben and Lucas both raced to the right side, and a few Vashti hopped out of the sand and onto the turtle.

"I got the left two! You get the right two!" yelled Lucas as he pulled out a shortsword made of iron.

"He's pulling out the metal eh?" Ben said as he pulled out his silver shortsword that glistened in the desert sun.

The two Vashti werent very agile, as they both couldnt dodge Ben's blows as he hacked at them.

"Vashti are ugly little creatures" yelled Ben

"Damn right they are! Overgrown lizards if you ask me" said Lucas as he pulled his sword out of the last Vashti's chest.

The conflict was mainly over after they killed those reinforcements, so Ben and Lucas went and talked to the Captain.

"Sir, that was the 3rd one this week, how do they keep finding us?"

"They can smell the metal boys, they're getting desperate now" said Captain Telk.

"So I'm assuming they'll be coming back for a round two?" asked Lucas.

"Most likely son" said the Captain.

"This is almost as hard as we had it in Bishland sir, damn that wizard for teleporting us here" said Ben.

"Damn him? You're the best damn thing we've had going for us in awhile!" said the Captain, "But hurry off and get the normal duties done, we have a very important day tomorrow"

"Would you sooner let someone's life-fire fade out? Or give yours freely?"

Those were the words that Jahil told me before I left for the midland. I didn't take it into consideration as I was a gun-for-hire. I took many lives, many MANY lives in my time around the wastes. But now? I read those words everyday when I wake up. Maybe it was the time that I almost got caught by those Mandeli thugs out by Velmont. Maybe it was when that kid got in my way as I was leaving Halgat and damn near killed him.

I don't know. But maybe you can figure it out. Here is my story.





Decent opening for a short story eh ;D