The man with the orange scarf stood atop the cliff, staring towards the convoy of cars that drove along the old desert road. He counted five of them, three at the front and two more as brown silhouettes obscured by the billowing dust that streamed out from the frontmost cars.
The second in the lineup was the one he sought; a pickup truck with heavy armour plating to guard the man who relaxed in the passenger seat, no doubt uncaringly puffing a cigarette with his seat reclined back and a smile on his face, but he wouldn’t be smiling for much longer.
With a satisfied smile of his own, the man on the cliff checked that his rope was securely tightened around the jagged rock he had fixed it to. He held it firmly in one hand as he walked to the edge of the cliff and slid down effortlessly while the rumbling of the cars grew ever louder.
The man’s blonde hair blew in the breeze and the tail of his scarf flew over his shoulder as he slid. He landed with a thud on a small outcropping above the road with the far side of the rocky pass beneath facing him. He moved his hand to his side and pulled out a gun from his holster.
It was an exquisite piece. Gold from top to bottom save for the varnished wooden grip and the blue indecipherable inscriptions along both sides of the barrel. The trigger was designed and calibrated to perfection; never too sensitive and never too stiff. It was both sturdy yet lightweight. Even the cylinder was a work of art, glowing as sapphire blue as the man’s eyes whenever it took a shot, but few got to see it do that. Those who did, rarely lived to tell the tale.
Many found the weapon garish, but to the man, it was beautiful. “What in the world are you carrying that ugly thing around for, Arc,” they would say, receiving only a smile and a shrug in return. But those who knew what it was capable of didn’t say a word.
Arc the Hawk, bounty hunter extraordinaire, took out a single red bullet with a rune inscribed into it. These bullets were his favourite to use and he could not wait for the cars to pull up close enough for him to fire a single shot. He hated wasting these special cartridges, so hard were they to come by, but the occasion merited it.
As Arc felt the rumbling in the air, he knew that he was only seconds away from enacting his plan. He flicked the cylinder open and carefully placed the bullet inside before clicking it back in place. He kept low and stared down the road as the cars grew larger, keeping their trails of dust flowing behind them.
Arc took a slow, deep breath and held it as he pointed his gun towards the bonnet of the first car. He didn’t dare blink in case he missed a sudden jolt from the car and his cartridge was wasted. That would be a tragedy of unmatched proportions.
“Almost there,” he said under his breath as the car came within a hundred yards of him.
Arc followed the bonnet, looking between the front sight of his gun, and counted to three as the cars sped closer and closer. It was the moment of truth. The second his target passed underneath his outcropping, he pressed his finger on the trigger and fired his shot, but it was not a mere bullet that exploded from the muzzle; it was something much more powerful.
The cylinder glowed that beautiful sky blue that Arc loved so much as the bullet casing was cast aside. Into the pass, emerged a flashing white orb of arcane power that burst towards its target, curving along with the movement of the car and speeding towards the bonnet.
Upon seeing what was chasing him overhead, the driver screamed “What the—" before the sphere whizzed overhead and struck the bonnet precisely where Arc had intended. Before the driver could as much as veer to the side, the vehicle exploded and blew him and his passenger to smithereens and sent the burning remains of the vehicle spinning through the air.
The rest of the drivers spun their steering wheels like madmen, trying to avoid the flames. Three of the cars crashed into the cliff faces and the final car flipped on its side, having turned too sharply, before colliding with the broken remains of the blown-up car.
There were a few seconds of stunned silence that Arc used to drop to the ground.
“To arms, men!” cried an enraged voice from the armoured car. This was the voice of the man that Arc sought; the voice of Colt the Scourge.
Arc remained low, pressed against the tiny pebbles that dug into his chin. He knew that it was only a matter of time before they deciphered the mystery of why one of their cars had suddenly blown up. At least one of the men would have seen his spell flying overhead, homing in on its target.
As the men leapt from their cars, grabbing their pistols and swords, they called out furiously to each other to confirm who in their group had survived the crash. Colt himself stood atop his own car, not fearfully seeking cover like the rest of his men. No, he was anything but a coward. He spun his revolver around in his hand and let out a loud whistle.
“Come out, come out,” called the bandit chief. “It’s my head you want, isn’t it? Probably best you don’t put a bullet in it in case my beautiful mug ends up unrecognisable, eh?”
Arc said nothing as he retrieved an old grenade from his jacket pocket and pulled the pin, praying silently that it would work as intended. Not wanting to overshoot the crash site, he forcefully rolled it across the bumpy stone and let it fall into the pass beneath. The panicked cries of the men made him smile.
He had them out of their cars and ready to blast a few holes in him, but he needed them confused and aimless, even if it was only temporarily. As a few of them pointlessly shot at the navy canister, Arc peered over the edge to mark their positions a second before the grenade exploded and let loose a wave of black smoke that filled the valley, reaching twenty feet high and to just below where Arc was waiting.
He had switched his golden spellcaster for a regular old silvery revolver and shot six rounds down into the smoke, hearing four pained cries as he did so. Four out of six wasn’t bad, especially not when seven men had climbed out of the cars. That left Colt and two lackeys remaining. He had been in fights with far worse odds.
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Arc retrieved six copper-coloured rounds from his jacket pocket and hurriedly loaded them into his revolver before taking aim in the rough direction of one of the bandits, but holding fire in fear of missing his target and wasting more ammo than he needed to.
At last, the smoke cleared and Arc moved his gun an inch to the left, now pointing right at one of the remaining goons of Colt the Scourge, but the bounty hunter’s eyes widened in horror as he caught a glimpse of his main mark. Colt was pointing a copper-coloured rod at Arc and giving him a wide grin as he gently tapped the trigger of his own spellcaster.
Arc ducked low as the same spell he had cast—Arcane Shot—soared towards him. It tried to curve to his position, but he was too low and it clipped the edge of the cliff before petering out, its magical energy expending upon contact. As the rock outcropping crumbled, Arc tried to drag himself to safety only to find himself falling twenty feet into the valley and landing on the hard ground with a heavy thud.
He groaned as he stretched out before climbing onto his feet, glad he had opted for the lower outcropping over the much higher-up cliff edge. He held his gun in one hand and clutched his back with his other, staring towards the quivering image of Colt and his two men, all of whom were pointing their guns at him.
Colt swished his spellcaster through the air like a baton and started whistling a merry tune that echoed throughout the pass, all the while the smoke from the burning wreckage of one of his cars floated up behind him.
“Another spellslinger, eh?” asked Colt as Arc shot at him and missed, too disoriented to aim accurately. “A powerful gentleman like you shouldn’t be chasing bounties, my friend. What with a weapon like yours, you should be conquering these forsaken lands and ruling them as the god that you are.”
Arc said nothing, feeling nothing but disgust for the man speaking to him.
Colt continued. “I’ve got an opening in my crew if you feel like signing up. Several openings, in fact, thanks to your marksmanship. We can do your formal interview here and now, but I’m liking your odds already.”
Arc clenched his eyes shut and opened them again, trying to push through the pain and refocus, but it was no use. His vision was still blurry and he knew that he had to buy time until his eyes caught up to his brain.
“That’s an interesting piece you got there, Colt,” Arc called out. “You don’t see many spellcasters shaped like wands.”
“A custom piece,” said the bandit, flicking the barrel up to his mouth and blowing away imaginary smoke. “Quite slick if I do say so myself. Remodelled it from an older gun model not too dissimilar to yours. What are you rocking, Mister…”
“Arc,” the bounty hunter replied, pulling out his own spellcaster with his free hand and holding it up high. He rotated it in his hand so that Colt could get a clear view of it. “I call it the Golden Hawk.”
The bandit leader whistled enthusiastically. “Fancy old instrument that one is,” he said. “Definitely one of the nicer gun models I’ve seen. Real shiny too, you must have polished it recently. I’ve got a nickname for mine too, just so happens. The Conductor. I’ll let you work out how I came up with it.”
“Boss,” came the impatient voice of one of Colt’s goons. “Just say the word and I’ll blow this rotten scumbag’s head clean off.”
Colt held up a finger without looking at his man. “Do not interrupt my conversation, Howie. This fella may be of use to us. Having another spellslinger on the squad is worth ten sharpshooters and twenty swordsmen. We need to think about the long-term goals, don’t we?”
“He killed our guys!”
“I am very much aware of that. And think how many more he could kill for us,” said Colt, now turning to look at his lackey. “Think of how many towns would be at our mercy with such power. We can become richer than our wildest—agh!”
Colt clutched his bloody ear as a shot rang through the air. Arc the Hawk stood with his revolver pointed straight ahead. His vision was not perfect, but he had felt ready enough to take the shot. Clearly, he was wrong, but now he had to act quickly.
As the bandit leader finally ducked behind one of his vehicles and loaded his spellcaster with another round, Arc ran to the side and fired another bullet at Howie, piercing him in the neck as the other remaining goon dove behind the overturned vehicle, using the still smoking wreckage to hide.
Howie fell onto the road, clutching his throat as he gasped for breath in an expanding pool of his own blood. He looked to his boss who didn’t have enough mercy in him to even bother to put his own subordinate out of his misery. All Colt understood was power and the dying Howie had none of it, while Arc had plenty of it. It was such a shame that his fellow spellcaster had so resoundingly rejected his generous offer.
“Pretty stupid of you to do that,” called Colt. “We could have been greater business partners, Arc.”
“I’m more of a freelancer, Colt,” replied the bounty hunter as he moved into cover behind one of the crashed vehicles.
“A real shame. Now, I’m going to have to toss your ravaged corpse onto this fire of your own making. How’s that for irony?”
“I don’t think so,” said Arc, hurriedly stowing his revolver and drawing his spellcaster.
He had hoped he wouldn’t need another one of his precious arcane rounds, but needs must. After all, what good would they be if he was indeed thrown into the fire. Colt would doubtlessly take his rounds, so valuable they were, and that was unacceptable Arc grabbed another Arcane Shot cartridge from his pocket and loaded it into his spellcaster.
Praying that there would be enough of Colt left to be recognisable, Arc stuck his head around the corner and pointed his gun towards the bandit leader’s position. As he pressed on the trigger, he saw Colt himself rise up from his cover with his own spellcaster. The two spellslingers shot simultaneously, the spells collided and an explosion rang out.
All Arc could see was white and all he could feel was an intense wave of heat as he writhed on the ground.
“Colt!” called the final lackey pleadingly. “Boss? Talk to me, boss. You alright?”
It was the last thing he heard before Arc the Hawk lost consciousness and the white light rapidly faded to black.
*
Arc groaned as he felt something blunt poking him in the ribcage. He was in agony, but he was alive. As he finished his groan, he started coughing and spluttering, feeling even greater pain than before all throughout his body. He had always wondered what would happen if two Arcane Shots collided and he hoped to never witness it again. That was if he was still able to see.
The bounty hunter blinked furiously and, slowly, the sky above revealed itself to him. There was a lone cloud drifting across the sky and he had never been so pleased to see a cloud. He had his sight, but did he have his arms and legs. He wiggled his fingers and toes and the intense pain confirmed that he was intact.
“He’s alive!” cried a young feminine voice. “Jack, come here!”
Arc couldn’t keep his eyes open as the pain grew in him once again and his head started to fog, but he could hear pattering footsteps running towards him before a young man spoke.
“Son of a bitch,” said the lad. “I could have sworn he wasn’t breathing.”
“What do we do with him?” asked the girl, her voice trembling. “We can’t just leave him here on the road to die, can we? What if there are coyotes nearby…or worse?”
“We do exactly what we came here to do, Julie,” said Jack. “Check his pockets, see if he’s got anything worth taking and let’s get the hell out of here before he tries to kill us.”
“I don’t feel good about this, Jack. Do we have to?”
“We need to survive one way or another and if this guy has something we can sell, then it’s his fault for getting caught in that explosion.”
“Yes,” said Julie with a sigh. “Yes, you’re right.”
As a hand reached inside his jacket pocket, Arc wanted to reach out and stop the looters. He wanted to slap some sense into them and tell them to cease their thieving ways. He wanted to, but he could not. Before he could even move an inch, he slipped back into the dark painless bliss of unconsciousness.