I am Marcel Payne. They call my Bronze Payne. They call me this because I wear a bronze helmet into battle, and because of the color of my skin. I am a warrior, and I am a goddamned man.

When we pillaged California's sunny coasts, I was the first off the boat. I remember roaring as I killed, and I remember seeing fear in their eyes as we drove them into the hills and looted their homes. I was there when we swarmed onto the beaches of Hawaii, where we plundered their old resorts and fueled our taste for the honest violence of the raid. When we struck Hakodate in far away Japan, in a time before we befriend the eastern world, our success was nearly immediate. The Pacific was ours. We owned it, riding on the backs of abandoned commercial liners and adapted fishing trawlers. We needed no navy. It did not take battleships to subdue the sea. It was ours.

We did not fear the land either. We brought the cattlemen of Montana into our new nation by force. I have seen the plains of Alberta, and I have taken what I could from their homeland. I even fought in Alaska. There was no glory there, but I must be honest about what I saw. In the burning tundra, in the sludge of the north, I gasped fire. I drank its ash and ate it in my food for months. And I saw it, the unholy fire. I saw it dancing in the air, and in the eyes of [i]those[/i] children. They taught us who ruled the north. I see no shame in having been bested by them.

I have survived all of that, and I have stood amongst the leaders of Cascadia. 

The smell of the fir, the spruce, and the pine filled the air around the capital. It was inescapable. This was the birthplace of Retched Bill, the greatest of their number and the man they called their leader. He was a man of few words, but when he did speak his meaning cut through a conversation like the axe he carrier strapped to his back at all times. He was a tall man, and his shoulders were as broad as a bull's. Other politicians dressed up, but Bill never did. He wore the same denim and flannel outdoorsman's clothes he had for most of his life. His hair had turned grey, as had the bushy mustache he wore on his lip, but age had not broken him. 

They say that Retched Bill was most at home when he was clearing timber. There was no doubt about this. There they had gathered, the Governor-Presidents of the Cascadian nation, and the strange, delicate creature that was the ambassador to East Asia's mystical government. They had gathered in the wild outdoors, on a tarmac on the outskirts of town where a firefighting helicopter had once been stationed. Retched Bill was at work in the treeline just beyond the cement, and his axe was grinding at the wood. Chop. Chop. In the scent of an evergreen tree taking an axe, nature cleared your head. It was as refreshing as sleep. It reminded us why we went to battle wearing used air-fresheners around our necks. When a tree went down, he shouted 'timber!', and everyone watched the top of the tree do the shaking dance it did before it hit the ground. The creaking, the cracking... it was part of the potency that the evergreen symbol conveyed. It made a man proud to serve under the evergreen flag.

These politicians had not gathered to watch Retched Bill in his wilderness, though to see Bill bring down a tree was to finally understand what the emotions of the word 'Triumph' were supposed to be. They had came to watch a fight, and to discuss the political trade.

In the middle of cracked cement tarmac, where pine needles and dirt had been blown over a fading red H painted in the center, two men did the dance of the swing-saw. The Swing-Saw was a weapon of the true berserker - a thing dangerous not only to the wielder and his target, but to any who surrounded them. It was a simple weapon.. There was chain. At one end of it, two grips made from lacquered pinewood allowed the wielder to hold the weapon confidently. On the other end were two gas powered circular saws. They buzzed alive, and when they were swung the sound they left behind sounded like a monstrous bee buzzing through the air. When you heard it coming toward you, you bent back to dodge. It was part of the dance. When two men came together to show off their skills with the swing-saw, those that watched them were a part of the fight. Spectators did not stand idly. They watched the saw blades, and when it looked like the blades might cut in their direction, they made sure to get out of the way.

The warriors little protection. They had a metal guard attached to the front of their neck by a leather strap, and below that was a cotton padded guard that protected the front of their torso. Patches of fluff leaked from the guard where cuts had been made. Their heads were not protected, and neither were their faces. These were men of the woods, and they would have you see them when they fought. Even my helmet was open at its front so my face was never hidden.

One man was a man of the First Nations - a Carrier by birth, his hair was long and braided, and it whipped behind him as he did the warrior's dance. His opponent was a white man, and he wore a bushy red mustache that partially covered the heavy scar on his lip.

Dylan DeComte, the Governor-President of Oregon, hovered over the small Chinese Ambassador, Yu Pandi, like a wood louse to the bottom of a rock. He had the same soft, cowardly ways of the louse. The Portlanders hid in their city while the men of the nation went warring across the Pacific. Dylan was a small man, so thin that it was apparent that he didn't even lift. His skin was pampered, his eyes were shielded by a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and he wore a fluffy scarf around his neck so thick and long that reached his hip and formed a cashmere toga. 

Yu Pandi was a small flower of a woman. Her old-world business suit looked too big for her, her skirt brushing against her feet. She watched the battle of men cautiously. Bronze Payne wondered what was going through her mind. Was she intimidated? Scared of the danger that this battle included for all those around it? Or was something awakening inside of her, some womanly urge to know the warrior's as sexual beings? It was hard to tell. From her eyes, she just looked timid.

The other Governor-Presidents watched as well. There was Leon Scusswede of Vancouver, a decadent old man with no taste for the outdoors. His oversized flannel coat and longer-eared trapper hat made him look more like a boy who was dressed for the cold by his mother rather than a man in his right habitat. He stood next to Carl Elkhart, the GP of Washington state. He had been a local sheriff before everything had went crazy with the world. Even now, he still wore the stained brown uniform and stiff brimmed hat of his office. He was a good man. Bronze Payne had fought alongside him in Hakodate, and again on the Dalton Highway during that dark war. He was not a big man, but he was a good warrior. 

Standing on her own was Janet Husks, the GP of Alaska. She was the only woman GP, but she was just as formidable as any man. She weighed two hundred pounds, and her eyes had went beady behind her puffy discolored flesh. You could accuse her of being well fed, but never of being lazy. In her time, she had raised five kids. It was a known secret that there had been a sixth. Nobody said what had happened to it, but everyone knew. It was alleged that she still had contact with the child, that the abduction was part of a deal made with those revenants of the artic circle. There was some sense there. How else had the Alaskans managed to feed the Cascadian nation so much oil?

Stands-With-Gun was the GP of Montana. He was the tallest of them all, nearing seven foot and as broad as a tank. He had fought them when they invaded his lands, and he had joined them when he saw what they could do. He was a member of the Blackfoot, and he had supporters in Alberta. How long would it be before their neighbor was brought into the fold?

Nearby brooded Miles Juarez, the GP of Idaho. The Juarez Clan ruled Idaho with a heavy fist. They had been ranchers at first, and they had all learned how to shoot from the back of a galloping horse. It was a skill they had learned before the world went crazy, when they used it to fight off rustlers and poachers. After the collapse, the Juarez's used their money and competence to build a small state of their own, only joining Cascadia for the protection. Even now, they were largely independent. They were known to launch raids on the east, coming on horseback and disappearing just as quickly. Miles was dressed as a cattle man. He was a hispanic man, with a thick mustache above his lip and greasy hair poking from under his hat. 

And finally there was Jack Burns, the GP of the Yukon. He was truly a man of the north. He had a wind-burnt face and burnside whiskers. In truth, there was little known about the man. Yukon was a quiet province, and Jack Burns a quiet man.

The warriors danced, their saws whining as they ducked and dodged away from each other. In the rhythm of their fight, watching the choreographic beauty of the thing, with the promise of violence so close to the surface, Bronze Payne felt the heat of life pulsing through his flesh. It reminded him of the thrill of combat. He thought about the rush he felt when his axe cleaved the body of his enemy after a hard fight in the uncertain smoke of battle. He remembered the weighty bass sound of sharpened heat-treated logs impaling a church steeple in Hakodate, and the asymmetrical sound the church-bell made in response. 

"Timber!" Retched Bill called out, and they all paused to watch as another tree struck the ground. The warriors, too, had stopped their dance. Pine needles, caught by the wind, fell on them like rough rain. The tree snapped and heaved, then it fell down with a roar.

Dylan DeComte clapped like a nancy. 

The warriors looked to Bill to bid them continue, but he did not. He slung his axe over his shoulder and came trudging down the hill. His eyes were on Yu Pandi. There was uncertainty in her eyes. Bill scared her. He did give her reason, with serious eyes and a tried axe in hand. He was approaching her, almost at a charge. When he came to her, it looked like she was going to run. Bill thrust out his arm. For a second, she was uncertain what to do, than it slowly came to her. She still looked confused as she shook his hand.

"I am mighty fine pleased to be friends with your people." he boomed. She smiled and nodded. "We are happy to the heavens." she answered timidly. 

He waved for the warriors to take their leave. They nodded and trudged off. Now it was only the politicians. Bronze Payne felt annoyed. He hated talk; he was a man of action. 

"We are thinking about taking Vladivostok." Bill said. Bronze Payne smiled. The Russians - that would be a battle.

"Taking..." Pandi processed. "A raid on Vladivostok would would not be worth much." she warned. "They poor people. Very poor people."

"Not raiding, taking." Bill replied. He spat to his left. "We should do more than raiding. I want to see a colony. I think Vladivostok would be a good location."

Bronze Payne did not know where this was, besides that it was in Russia. That was far away, but there would be opportunity there. There was plenty of land for the taking.

"I do not understand." Pandi said. "Wouldn't such a thing be expensive?" 

"Yes." Bill said. "But who gives a shit? If we can't do it, we don't have any right to call ourselves men."

Bronze Payne felt his heart fistbump itself.