Night had fallen as Arc and Julie followed the road, maintaining their distance from it as they had done before finding the basilisk-infested tunnel. The tracks left behind were slowly starting to be recovered by the sweeping sand, but Arc was still certain that they were going the right way to find where Jolly Roger had taken Jack and he was confident that where Jack was, Colt would be too.

“We’ve been walking all day,” sighed Julie, starting to give up hope of reaching Colt’s hideout before morning. “Why would Colt have a base so far away, it doesn’t make any sense!”

“We could have driven here in under an hour if I hadn’t destroyed the damn fuel tank,” said Arc.

“We wouldn’t have needed to come this far if you hadn’t done that.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Arc let out a dry laugh. “In any case, remember what I said about Pembroke being neutral territory? There’s a reason that Colt doesn’t have his headquarters too close to the town. He would piss off the rest of the bandit groups that want it. He’s a cunning fella, no doubt, and the last thing he wants is all-out war between him and his rivals.”

“What about the outpost?” asked Julie.

“That was for reassurance that his territory remained in his own hands, not because he was trying to expand. At least, not yet. I’m sure he’d love nothing more than to expand, but his men have a habit of dying when a handsome spellslinger rocks up with a golden gun.”

“You’re awfully full of yourself sometimes, aren’t you?” asked Julie with a raised eyebrow.

“At least seven women have said as much to me and only one was a relative.”

“And yet you don’t have a girlfriend.”

Arc’s face told Julie that she had hit upon a sore spot, but he covered it up with a smile.

Desperate to relieve the awkward silence, Julie veered back on-topic. “Do you think Jolly Roger open firing on us in the town will get him and his men a ban from Pembroke?”

“Enforced by who?” asked Arc with a shrug. “The guards will turn a blind eye, especially seeing as nobody was killed except for Colt’s own men. I reckon the other bandits will see that as a win. Maybe not so much of a win that they’ll seek me out and shower me with gold for all my troubles, but maybe they’ll hesitate if I ever run afoul of them.”

“Even sounds overly optimistic,” remarked Julie.

“You know me, Jule,” said Arc. “I’m ever the optimist.”

Julie stopped walking and took a deep breath. It was her turn to have a sore spot pressed upon.

“Something the matter?” Arc asked turning to her.

“I don’t want to make a big deal of it, but can you not call me Jule?”

“Alright.”

“It’s just…only Jack calls me that.”

“As I said, fine by me,” said Arc, away and walking once again.

“Thanks,” said Julie quietly.

Something poking out from one of the looming cliffs ahead caught Arc’s eye. There was a faint twinkle in the night as though a sliver of shining moonlight had caught what it ought not to have for a moment before it was gone.

“What do we have here?” he muttered, running up ahead, following the upwards slope and ignoring the road that passed between two cliffs.

Julie ran after him, hoping that they finally had finally found something more than a decreasingly visible set of tyre tracks to follow. Her morale was slow and she needed something to pull her out of the vat of pessimism she’d been lowered into as the day had faded into night.

“Keep low,” Arc whispered while beckoning her forward. “It looks like we’ve finally hit the jackpot, little lady.”

“What is that?” asked Julie.

“That, Julie, is a factory.”

The large structure was made from concrete and panels of metal that had long-since lost their paint, giving way to ever-encroaching rust. There were odd assortments of pipes, small and large, connecting one section of the factory to another and two large chimneys that hadn’t felt a tinge of smoke in countless years, but continued reaching into the sky in the hope of purpose. At the far side of the building were large rounded tanks that had long ladders reaching to their tops and railings around the roof to keep the walkways safe for whoever made the climb up.

Standing watch on one of these walkways and a further walkway on the flat of the factory roof were men with guns, while two more patrolled back and forth along the perimeter of the chain fence. Every so often, they’d stop and look around before continuing their slow steps. Resting on the asphalt within the confines of the fence, just outside the main factory building were four pickup trucks, one of which was more haphazardly parked than the others.

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“Well, Julie,” said Arc with a smile. “We’ve found them.”

“You’re sure these are Colt’s men?” asked Julie.

“Does that vehicle look familiar?” asked Arc subtly pointing to the haphazardly parked truck.

Julie gasped and then placed her hands over her mouth, worried that she had been too loud. “Yes. That’s the one, isn’t it? Jolly Rodger’s car!”

“Bingo.”

“What do we do now?”

“Four men on patrol outside, and no doubt another couple dozen inside,” said Arc, taking out his guns. “Three Arcane Shots left to use, but the bright lights would attract too much attention, even if I was able to somehow get in range of all four of Colt’s vigilant lackeys. I’ve got maybe twenty-five or twenty-six revolver rounds left while you’ve got, what, thirteen rounds in your magazine?”

Arc contemplated for a moment, furrowing his brow as he tried to crunch numbers based on his estimations of how many men would be in the building. Julie watched the cogs turning in Arc’s brain as the spellslinger’s eyes flicked back and forth across the factory.

“We’ll manage,” he said after a short while. “It would be nice to have a few more spell cartridges, but finding that gun in the glove compartment was a real gift. It means I don’t need to piss myself worrying about you going in unprotected.”

“I take it that means I’m allowed to come in?”

“If I told you that you couldn’t, would you listen to me?”

“No,” said Julie. “So, what’s the plan?”

“To start with,” said Arc, moving slowly along the cliff while keeping far back from the edge. “I want to get the lay of the land. Our best bet is to introduce the guards to one of my good friends, Mr Sharp Knife. The less ammo wastage for the early kills, the better. It means I can afford a few misses, which I’m sure I’ll have. As good of a shot as I am, I can’t land them all.”

Arc and Julie crept along the cliff, dropping to the ground and freezing any time it looked like a guard’s head was turned in their direction. To their relief, they always passed on by moments later and gave no second thoughts to the small shadows that could just as easily have been rocks, if they had even noticed them at all.

Upon reaching as far as the cliff would take them, Arc had seen enough. There was a sizable hole in the fence right by the gate that he and Julie could slip through without making much noise. The factory windows were too grimy to see through and even the broken ones opened only into more darkness.

Along the cliff, Arc had found a small chasm that he could slip down to reach the fence without walking along the main road. It would be an awkward climb and a painful fall, but he was confident that he could make it and help Julie down at the same time.

He and Julie crawled back to it and waited until the ground guards were waiting by the gate before slipping down, wedging themselves between the two rock faces. Arc had a much easier time of this and he had to shimmy his way down while holding one arm to the underside of Julie’s leg to relieve some of her weight. As slender as she was, she was not as strong as her brother and struggled to support herself.

Once they were safely at the bottom, the two dusted themselves off and pressed themselves against the rocks, trying to blend in as much as possible. With the guards being much closer now, reality started to sink in for Julie and she was filled with dreadful anxiety at the thought of having to kill a human, but Arc assured her that he would do as much of the killing as possible and her role was to watch his back while prioritising her own safety.

They waited as the guards continued their routine, taking care to count if the timings were consistent. They weren’t, but that only made things easier as having all of the guards facing or moving away from them was exactly what Arc wanted.

“One of the guards is slipping around the side,” said Arc, before looking to the guards on the roof. “Those two aren’t facing us. Now’s our chance.”

He hurried over to the fence and moved quietly alongside it with Julie keeping close to him. Arc unsheathed his knife as they drew upon to the guard who was too busy scratching his nose to notice his pursuer until it was too late.

Arc placed a hand over the guard’s mouth and stabbed him in the neck before he could let out more than a low groan. The bounty hunter dragged his victim over to some rocks and dropped the bandit’s body, which lay limp on the ground. Arc gathered a handful of sand and scattered it on the blood at the gate as he headed for the hole in the fence, disguising his successful assassination as much as possible.

He helped Julie through the hole before climbing through himself and looked to the perimeter guard who was still moving away from them. With no time to check their surroundings further, they rushed over to the poorly parked pickup truck and crawled underneath it.

The pair breathed a sigh of relief, glad to have gotten this far without issue. He felt a jolt as Julie tugged on his sleeve and he looked up, wondering what was wrong.

“Arc,” whispered the young girl.

“What is it?” he mouthed to her.

“The passenger side window is open,” said Julie before pointing to the gun tucker in her belt.

Arc smiled at her and nodded, pleased that she was so observant. Once he was certain there was nobody watching him, he slipped out from under the car and reached inside the window. He opened the glovebox and felt around. His fingertips brushed along a cold bar of metal and he wrapped them around it, pulling out the magazine and then crawling back under the pickup truck.

“Good job,” he whispered to Julie, passing her the magazine, receiving a smile in return.

The two strained their eyes through the darkness as clouds covered the moon, making everything under it even more difficult to discern. Worried that it wouldn’t be long before the patrolling guard realised his buddy was dead a few yards away, Arc gave Julie the signal and they crawled low, making their way underneath each of the cars in turn. Every chance he got, Arc tried the doors of the cars, only to find them locked. He decided it wasn’t worth smashing the windows and drawing attention for weapons and ammo that might not be there.

Once they were free from underneath the final car, Arc and Julie quickstepped over to a low wall that lay by a small set of concrete stairs. At the top of the stairs, lay a door; their ticket inside Colt’s base.

“The coast looks to be clear,” said Arc, looking around. “Agreed?”

Julie surveyed the area as best as she could before giving Arc a nod. “Agreed,” she mouthed.

The spellslinger creeped out from behind the wall and up the stairs while watching over Julie as she did the same. “Inside,” he said.

Arc pulled out his revolver, opened the door and walked inside with Julie following him. He closed the door behind him, glad that the first step of the mission was out of the way. He was fearful that Julie would get hurt during the infiltration, but he had to push that feeling aside. Their chances of success together were much greater than if he was alone.

As she had said, if he told her to wait outside, she would have refused and came along anyway, so desperate was she to find her brother. No, they were best to stick together and far beyond the point of no return.

That left Arc with two tasks before the night was through. He had to find Jack and reunite him with Julie, and he had to make sure that Colt the Scourge was dead, along with as many of his bandits as possible.