Adrien leaned around the iron bulkhead, then yanked himself back and swore as the metal rang from the impact of a forty-five.
“I signed up to intimidate anybody that got too close to the cargo, not to fight off an entire train robbery!”
The engineer gave him a panicked look, and kept stoking the fire. He wasn’t much help, Adrien thought, checking his shotgun. Two left in the tube, one in the chamber, that was more than enough, but he was out of slugs. He muttered an invective against the gods and the cheapskates who paid for the ammo on this trip.
Quickly, he traced a circle in the air with his index finger and thumb, leaving a faintly glowing blue line. Two lines for light, then a third for reflection- a simple spell. A small circle of reflective air, stationary relative to him, coalesced, and he nudged it towards the side. He angled it a couple times, then sighted the one that’d been shooting at him.
The figure was wearing a cuirass with faintly glowing lines on it, riding a horselike machine that glowed blue at the joints. One hand gripped the reigns tightly, and the other clutched a revolver, which he had pointed at the train. At him, because of course he couldn’t be so lucky as to have the guy distracted, even for a moment.
“One, two, three…” Adrien mumbled to himself, counting the amount of times he’d heard the gun fire. “Four… five.”
His eyes narrowed: he’d have to draw out that last shot, then, but how-? Ah, wait. Oldest trick in the book. He reached out and drew his thumb down the floating spell circle that maintained the little pocket of light-reflective air, then quickly turned around. The moment he had his back to it, he paused a split second, then turned in place and aimed his shotgun at the reflective surface, which had expanded downwards to show his entire body. A single shot rang out, and the mirror shattered, the spell circle dissipating as Adrien grinned fiercely.
“Clearly somebody’s never taken magical combat theory one-oh-one.” He said to himself, rapidly tracing things on the receiver of the shotgun.
The cuirass the guy was wearing was no doubt magically reinforced. That would be enough to resist buckshot, which was most of what Adrien had brought, but a slug would be too much- it would overload the spellwork and punch straight through. Unfortunately, the few slugs he’d had he’d already spent on the riders that had accompanied the sole one still standing, magical automatons meant to take gunfire and suppress whatever basic guards they’d had riding this train. It was a complete stroke of misfortune that they’d attacked a train carrying a package Adrien’d been hired to guard.
Still, though, even if he was out of slugs, he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve. Circle, then a smaller circle, representing a whole. Several dots to represent the parts, then press a fingertip into the center and power it. A little chunk of the prana in his tank was siphoned out as the circle glowed blue, the magic flowing straight into the shotgun shell in the chamber, binding the buckshot together into a clump that was kind of like a slug. The downside to this was that the aerodynamics of the misshapen clump of lead and wad were awful, and the thing would be impossible to aim at this range, necessitating a second piece of spellwork: crosshairs, circle drawn in the center. A homing spell, and another little bit of prana gone.
He spun around the bulkhead for real this time, and was met with the sight of the rider frantically trying to reload the revolver with one hand. He brought the shotgun up, aimed, fired, and with a bloom of smoke, he saw a hole appear in the cuirass of the rider as the spellwork guided the unwieldy clump right through his heart. He wavered in the saddle for a moment, stunned, his revolver falling to the desert sands, before he followed it. The last tug on the reigns his falling body gave caused the automaton horse to veer off course, galloping off into the desert. It’d run out of steam eventually, without a rider to feed it prana, and Adrien figured it wasn’t his problem. No, his problem was clearing out the rest of the train, now that the engine was safe.
“Keep your head down, and keep us at speed. If there are any more riders, blow the whistle three times, and I’ll try to take care of them. Understand?” The engineer looked at him with wide eyes, hands shaking as they clutched a shovel, and Adrien hissed. “Repeat that back to me!”
“Wh-whistle, three times, keep th-the speed up.” The engineer managed to get out through chattering teeth.
Adrien clapped his shoulder, which made him jump, his other hand sliding his shotgun into the leather holster on his back. Quickly, he clambered up the iron rungs bolted to the outside of the tender, up onto the top, where he drew out his shotgun again and quickly counted the slugs stuffed into loops affixed to the holster’s strap over his chest. Nine, plus the couple he had in his pockets for emergencies, plus two in the magazine… cutting it close. He half-hoped one of the bandits had a twelve gauge, he could at least loot them for more.
He racked the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell over the side of the tender for it to bounce against the desert sand rushing by. He rapidly loaded four more shells into the tube, walking across the iron top of the tender car, then leaped down from the end and onto the small bridge that connected the tender to the first car, the soles of his boots cushioning his landing and prevent the metal grating under his feet from announcing his presence. He breathed in, then out, and then breached the door.
There was a guy on the other side who had been walking towards the door, face half-hidden by a cloth mask, who took a step back in surprise as it splintered under Adrien’s kick. He had a pistol, but he couldn’t bring it to bear before he ate a shell’s worth of buckshot to the chest, crumpling like a puppet with their strings cut. Adrien kicked the pistol away from his twitching fingers, loading another shell and stepping over the man without a second thought. He had more train to clear.
He counted the shells as he spent them, dodging bullets and blasting the ones that he shot at. The bandolier across his chest slowly depleted, burned shells scattering themselves across the cars as he burned his way through the bandits that had managed to get onto the train. After the first four or five kills- half his shells gone, and not a single one was carrying anything chambered in twelve gauge- they appeared to wise up, retreating towards the back of the train, where the cargo was. Coincidentally, Adrien thought as he grimaced, where the package he’d been brought on to guard was.
Which was, of course, right about when the train’s whistle blew three times.
Adrien shot straight up, giving up searching the body he’d just been patting down to make a circle, staring out the windows. There, on the left side, three riders approached, a human and two automatons, the automatons on horses while the human was operating a self-driven wagon.
“Shit.” He reflexively checked his tank. Half, at best. “Shit!”
He rubbed a hand over his face, then threw himself against the outer wall of the car. The human hadn’t been wearing armour, most likely because he was meant to come in after the train was cleared in order for the bandits to toss across their loot and evacuate, but that meant he was perfectly vulnerable to buckshot. The automatons with him, however, would resist buckshot just as well as body armour would- which meant maintaining a tracker and a binder for two shells.
Adrien grit his teeth, then began drawing the circles. Longingly, he thought of the prana reserve that he’d been planning to get with the payout of this job- he could’ve asked for it in advance, but he hadn’t been willing to take the slight hit to the overall pay that would require. Hell, was he kicking himself for that now.
The spell was drawn. The prana flowed into the gun, binding the pellets and wad, making them a cohesive whole. He came up, pointing his shotgun out an opened window.
BLAM
One of the automatons fell, blown clear out of the saddle by the impact of the clump, and right underneath the the wheels of the wagon. The human driving it exclaimed something that was lost to the wind, fumbling the revolver he’d been holding, even as the second automaton began bringing its weapon to bear. Too late, Adrien thought with a vicious grin, lining up his sights.
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BLAM
The second spun as it fell off the mechanized horse, impacting the ground with a huge cloud of dust, quickly left behind by the train and wagon. Adrien racked the slide, the shell clattering against the wooden floor of the train car, as the man in the wagon finally grabbed his revolver and brought it around.
BLAM
Too little, too late. The shot that came from him went into the air as he fell out of the seat, buckshot tearing him away from the controls. The wagon veered to the right, then tipped and rolled, smashing itself against the rocks and sand, creating a plume that quickly hid the resulting carnage from view.
Adrien grunted in satisfaction, pumping his shotgun and loading three more shells. Half of the six that he still had, and he wasn’t near done. He kicked the body of the man he’d been searching in frustration, then shook his head and continued on down the car.
The moment he kicked in the door of the last cargo car, he spun to the side- and was glad he did, as several bullets screamed by him, impacting the wood of the previous car. He breathed out as he considered his options.
The mirror trick wouldn’t work here, it had worked on the rider because of the distance and because his focus was split between managing the mecha horse and watching for Adrien poking his head out of cover. It wouldn’t fool these idiots, not at this close range and without anything for them to focus on and distract themselves from anything odd about the reflected version of him. The shots stopped after a few seconds, probably because they realized that wasting ammo on an open doorway without him in sight was just idiocy.
“You know, you could give up!” He yelled. “Save me a heap of trouble and paperwork if you just surrendered!”
“Fuck off and die!” Came the answer from inside. Adrien shrugged.
“Well, can’t say I didn’t try to warn you!”
Circle for mirror, one for stabilization, one for recoil reduction. The prana flowed out of him like water out of a man in the desert, as the blue lines burned in the stock of his shotgun, joining a number of other faint scorch marks in the wood. He’d seen something like this in a traveling show, which had inspired him to create this little trick. After all, the woman who’d done it hadn’t even been a trained mage, if she could wield prana at all, and surely he’d be able to match or even surpass her performance.
As he swung the shotgun around the corner, two shots ringing out at the movement and impacting nothing, he caught a glimpse of a face in the mirror- and pulled the trigger. The first one was caught by surprise and fell with a cry, dropping his gun as Adrien pumped the shell out. The second had a bit of warning, and thus the buckshot impacted the crate he hid behind instead of him. Adrien was sure that there were at least three or four more in there, and he counted his remaining shells with a grimace.
Quickly, he stepped into the car and threw himself to the side, wincing as a rifle round cracked out, blowing splinters out of the crate he’d hidden behind. He had a fresh shell in the chamber, and he loaded two more from his bandolier, leaving a solitary loop occupied. The continued spellwork on the gun wasn’t nearly as draining as the tracking/binding combo, not requiring more than base upkeep, but he could still feel his already drained reserves slowly depleting. He’d have to finish this, fast, or he’d run out, and then… no more faster reflexes or bursts of increased strength and speed. He’d be a mortal in a gunfight, without the time to wait for his prana to recover. A death sentence for a mage, even if he hadn’t packed light on the ammo.
“Safe job, they said.” he muttered bitterly. “Guard cargo, they said. Free meal and a ride to the city I was going to anyway! Should’ve known it was too good to be true.”
Leaning his gun out of cover would be awkward, here. Wouldn’t be as big a deal if he was a southpaw or ambidextrous, but he wasn’t, and wasn’t willing to expend the additional prana to increase his coordination. He needed to cross the car, to take cover behind an iron box bolted to the wooden floor on the other side, which would be much more conducive to his efforts of making men into corpses. But that would come at a cost.
He stuck his shotgun out, fired at the first hint of movement he saw in the little mirror, and was rewarded with a scream. He doubted it was a good hit, probably just a graze, but he’d take it- he’d expected that shell to go completely wide. He fired once more, just to keep them honest. Then, he jumped for it, rolled, and ended up behind the iron box just in time for a bullet to impact the floor where he’d been, and another to ricochet off of the iron he had his back to. He slid the last shell out of its loop, pressing it into the magazine and grimacing. Five left.
Two shots rang out, and he poked his shotgun around, firing at a bandit that just managed to throw himself flat, the buckshot shredding the wooden wall behind him. Four.
He noticed one of them coming in low, trying to flank him he supposed, and watched his eyes widen as the barrel of the shotgun went straight to him and it fired. Three.
Examining the car showed him that the crate one of the goons was hiding behind was nearly collapsed, hanging on by a thread- he made a quick decision, then spent one of his remaining shells to smash it enough for it to fall apart. Two.
The last goon leaped up, took a single step towards a crate in the center of the room, then fell with a scream. One.
And there, Adrien saw one of them do the stupidest thing he could think of- standing just out of cover, bringing their rifle to bear. Adrien had one last shell in the chamber, and he felt a sort of satisfaction at ending things so cleanly, even as he pulled the trigger-
Only for the person to shatter, instead of fall over. Adrien’s eyes widened for a brief moment, and then narrowed as he hissed- the last one had some amount of magical talent. He’d fell for the exact same trick he’d used against the rider. There was complete silence for an extended moment, where Adrien drew his shotgun back behind cover.
“I was counting!” Came the voice of the last man from the back. “When you kicked in the door, I got a good look at the shotgun you have. Model eight-seven, yeah?”
“Nelly’s done right by me!” he yelled back. If this guy wanted to banter, who was Adrien to stop him?
“I have no doubt! You shot your way through these boys like a champ, didn’t even hesitate. You, sir, are a stone cold killer.”
Here came the sales pitch. Adrien could hear it, just like he could hear the slight creaking as the guy edged out of his cover and started coming down the aisle. Quickly, he slid out of his jacket, the leather duster heavy in his hands as he crouched behind his iron cover.
“But now you’re in a bind, because I saw your bandolier when you kicked in that door. Three shells in your loops, and you’ve fired nine times.” He paused for a second, and then Adrien could hear the grin in his voice. “You’re out of ammo, slick.”
“Get to the point, wouldya? I’m a busy man.”
“Fair enough. Here’s my offer: why don’t you ply that skill in a trade that’ll earn you a heap more money than you could get sitting in a stuffy train car, babysitting a box?”
Mm. There it was. Not even the most enticing that he’d ever heard, honestly.
“I’m gonna have to say… no dice!” and, with that, he threw his duster out into the aisle.
The rifle cracked, the duster fluttering as a new hole appeared in it, and the guy swore. Because Adrien had been counting, too, and he’d heard that rifle fire four times before now. The rate of fire, and the sound of the battle, he’d guessed a Karkarov, bolt action rifle, four rounds plus one in the chamber. He grinned, because it sounded like he’d been right.
He stepped around the corner, to where the final bandit was dropping the rifle to clatter against the wooden floor of the train car, as he drew a knife that glittered with blue lines. Adrien, in the meantime, brought his shotgun to bear, and the bandit smirked.
The smirk vanished when the shotgun vomited smoke and pellets.
The first shell made him stumble, wavering, the knife flickering, prana woven into his clothes shielding him from the worst of it. So, then, it was very good that Adrien had a second shell loaded. He racked the shotgun and pulled the trigger again, and this time, the bandit fell.
Adrien did a careful sweep of the rest of the car, finding nothing and nobody. The bandit he’d clipped lay moaning on the floor, but he was pretty easily restrained with some spare rope. When he went to the lone mage among their number, though, it was obvious that he wasn’t long for this world, sitting in a spreading puddle of his own blood. Adrien placed the butt of his shotgun against the floor, crouching down and looking the man over, as he drew raggedy breath.
“H… how…? C-counted…”
Adrien snorted. “Never show your full hand. I had two extra shells in my pocket, where you couldn’t have seen them.”
He closed his eyes and made a face that was half smile, half grimace.
“Ah… shit.” he said.
And then he let out a breath as he died.