Alex woke up on the hard wood of the cart. His eyes snapped open, and he saw a familiar wood roof above him. He was in Sam's barn, lying in the cart. He let the thought settle before he pushed himself up. The feeling of safety left him as his brain worked through the implications of his situation.

"No," he whispered, jumping to his feet on the cart and making it shake beneath him.

When he had asked Sam to get them somewhere safe and then collapsed in the cart, he hadn't meant the farm. The farm would be the first place Silvertooth would look after he reported back to Goldfist. Well, maybe the second, assuming Silvertooth went to town first to settle up with the other people in the saloon. Alex jumped off the cart onto the dirt floor.

He had to find Sam and get her to a safe place. He looked around himself and saw the donkey in its stall, giving him a side eye as it stood against the stall door. There was another problem. If Silvertooth came to the farm, Alex didn't imagine the deputy would even let the animals off clean. Silvertooth didn't strike him as the type of man who took defeat in stride.

He found Sam leaning against the wall, a pitchfork crossed between her arms as she slept. The left side of her face was marked with purple bruises, and dried blood marked a cut on her lip. He had forgotten the fight. His hand went to his chest and felt beneath the cuts in his shirt. A long scab had formed over where Silvertooth had hit him with a whip. The duster had taken the brunt of the rest of the attacks, so he hadn't needed to worry about those.

Alex held back a smile. While he didn't know everything that happened, she had staved off Silvertooth long enough for him to get out and help. That was impressive in its own right. He didn't have time to let her rest, though. No light shone from the window on the second floor, and Alex didn't think the mist would stop Silvertooth or Goldfist from paying the farm a visit.

"Hey, wake up," Alex whispered as he shook her shoulder.

A look of shock cut across her face, and Alex caught the handle of the pitchfork before she could bring it to bear against him. He clicked his tongue to reprimand himself. He should have been more careful but forgot in the moment.

"You're alright," Alex said, keeping a hold on her shoulder. "Everything's going to be alright."

"Alex," Sam whispered, dropping the pitchfork and grabbing his hand. "You're okay."

"About as okay as I would expect," Alex said, keeping a smile on his face. "You look like you've been through hell, though."

"The deputy, he..." She paused, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "He caught me after I went to check the front. He told me he wanted to take me to the mines. He told me my brother was there."

Alex raised an eyebrow at that.

"He doesn't have a good reason to lie," Sam said, shaking her head. "He said Joshua was at the mines, that he was going to take me there and reunite us."

"Another problem to add to the list," Alex said. "We'll look for him there when I go. I need to go there anyway to check on something."

"Thank you." Sam had to reach up to wipe away tears as they ran down her face.

"Don't thank me." Alex let go of her shoulder as he stood up. "I'm going there for my own reasons. More importantly, we need to figure out something first."

"What?" Sam kept wiping away her tears.

"Silvertooth is going to come here sooner rather than later. I don't think even the mist will be enough to keep him away. So long as one person in town knows where you live, he'll be coming."

"The farm?" Sam's tears stopped instantly as realization set in on her face.

"We need to go, and I'm not sure what will happen to it. If we stay, we'll be sitting ducks."

Sam squinted her eyes, but the confusion over the phrasing passed quickly. "What about Winny?"

Alex looked up at the donkey. "We might be able to send her running off. If she's smart, she can probably outrun most of the mistwalkers. Leaving her here locked up will probably get her killed, though. If Silvertooth wants you at the mines, he won't leave anything standing or alive."

Sam stood up, looking between Winny and Alex. A pang of sympathy cut into Alex's gut. He could understand having to make a hard choice quickly. That had been his entire life since he had come to this world.

"I understand," Sam said as she made her way over to open Winny's stable door.

She stopped halfway there, looking up at the barn's second floor. Alex followed her gaze and noticed the orange dancing glow creating shadows through the window. His nose flared as he breathed in deeply and noticed the smell of smoke for the first time. In an instant, he knew they were too late.

"Get over there and get down," Alex said. "If the barn catches, you need to run. Ride Winny and stay away from anything moving in the mist. Head to town and don't look back."

"But I can help," Sam said, moving for the pitchfork.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"You can help by not being an extra target," Alex said, raising his hand and calling his staff to it.

The staff whipped from the ground, and he caught it. He immediately turned and released the latch on the barn door, pushing it open and stepping outside without looking back. She would either do what he asked or not. He couldn't afford to think about it. He could only focus on the fight ahead.

"Wait," Sam said, making Alex pause. "In town, I kicked Silvertooth hard. Both he and his copy fell over when that happened."

Alex turned back, staring her directly in the eyes and giving a nod. That information was useful. He had a decent idea of Silvertooth's curse now. The deputy could create copies made out of light, and those copies were under his control. He couldn't make an infinite amount of them, and the bodies his mind didn't occupy were weak. It took a moment for the deputy to shift his mind between his copies. Finally, if the body his mind was occupying was hurt, the other copies felt that pain but didn't dissipate. Alex assumed that taking out the body controlling the others would be enough to stop all the other copies, but that wasn't something he had tested yet.

He tapped his staff as he looked to the farmhouse. An inferno blazed behind it. The orchard was engulfed in flames. Fire licked across the dry grass toward the house. The light would push back any mistwalkers from the area. The creatures thrived in shadow and minimal light. If he focused, he could see a few on the edge of the fallow fields around the yard, shuffling in the darkness but not approaching.

Alex ignored them, making his way toward the burning trees, and he suspected the deputy.

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"More fire!" Silvertooth shouted at his copies.

Twenty of his copies were dedicated to torching the orchard and farmhouse, each working in tandem to light grass and branches before moving on to the next one. Twenty of his other copies held the coyotes on leashes. Each one was an asset, and he didn't want them running off while the fires blazed.

They had been invaluable in clearing the monsters from the fields on their path over here, but until Ortega came out, they were better held in reserve. His last ten copies had their guns out, their eyes searching the area for any sign of movement. When Ortega showed his face, Silvertooth was ready to take him down.

"Set the house alight next. If they're in there, we'll drive them out."

His copies moved to do just that. Some grabbed burning branches and tossed them onto the roof. Others ran around with torches and lit the sides of the house on fire. Others broke windows and tossed their torches inside. The old wood went up fast and burned like a blazing sun in the night.

"You're going to a lot of trouble just to call me out."

Silvertooth and all the copies froze. With him holding control of them, they couldn't act independently. He searched around with his eyes and ears, each copy doing the same. He couldn't pinpoint where the voice came from.

"You're a monster, you know that? Burning down this farm, dragging those people into the mines, and making them slaves. Shooting those who stood up to you. All for what in the end? Greed?"

"That's funny." Silvertooth laughed, and his clones did the same all together. "The man who burned August to the ground is judging me? I don't need to hear those words from a terrorist like you."

"Hah. You might have a point. What makes you think you can stand up to me?"

"There's seventy of us and one of you," Silvertooth said with a grin. "Release the hounds!"

The coyotes, who had been pulling against their leashes, surged off and toward the farmhouse. They were trained to attack anyone who wasn't Silvertooth or Goldfist, and with their keen senses, they would be able to find Ortega, even in the smoke and soot of the fires. There was no way that just one man would beat them. Each one was as strong as a bull, with the sharp teeth and claws of a predator.

Behind the house, the coyotes growled, but Silvertooth did not go after them to look. He didn't believe they would lose, but he had to be ready for any eventuality. Instead, he called his copies back to himself, all of them drawing their guns and holding ready. Ortega might have been able to stop a few shots, but he couldn't stop fifty-one.

Thump. Whine. Crunch. Yelp. Thack. Thack. Thack. Thack. Yelp.

Ten of the coyotes ran out from behind the farmhouse and off into the night. Each one trailed blood behind it from several wounds. Silvertooth gulped down the lump that formed in his throat. There was no way Ortega could take out all twenty.

Thump. Crunch. Whir. Crack. Snap. Whine. Yelp.

Five more coyotes ran out from behind the farmhouse and out into the night. Silvertooth waited, but no more sounds came out from behind the house. He focused on the clone around him and made sure his control was tight. When Ortega came out, they would all be shooting the same target. All together.

"I didn't like having to do that, you know. Those creatures, you made them what they are. I will make sure you go down for everything you've done."

"Then come out and face me like a man!" Silvertooth yelled, cocking the hammer on his gun even as his fifty copies did the same.

"Gladly."

Movement caught Silvertooth's eye, shadows flying above the remains of the farmhouse’s roof in a cloud of darkness. He instantly trained his gun upward, and the hands of all his copies followed, but he didn't fire. None of the shadows were large enough to be Ortega. He instantly looked to the farmhouse. The sky attack was a fake out.

"Step."

A chill ran down Silvertooth's spine, but no strike came for him or his clones. He glanced up and saw a large shadow among the many in the air and tried to raise his gun again. He was too slow and cursed himself for falling for a double feint.

"Scrap Storm!" Ortega yelled above him as metal rained down on himself and all his copies.

Nails, metal plates, pieces of pipes, forks, knives, spoons, every kind of metal that might be found around a farm rained down on Silvertooth and his copies. Silvertooth instinctively raised his arms, blocking his head from the attacks, but there were so many. There were too many to counter.

His copies shattered into light around him, even as nails and forks pierced into his arms. A knife embedded itself in his shoulder, and a heavy metal weight hit his arms and threw him into the ground. He was alive at the end of it all but bloody and bruised from all the objects. He forced himself up on one knee as the barrage ended, looking around him at the metal implements scattered about.

Thump.

Ortega landed on the ground in front of Silvertooth, a broad grin on his face as blood ran out of his nostrils. Silvertooth tried to bring up his gun, but a sudden wave of force sent it clattering out of his hand. He was beaten.

"See." Ortega's breath came in sharp bursts. "Told you I'd get you."

"Doesn't matter," Silvertooth said as he forced himself to stand, holding up both of his hands balled into fists. "The Military Police are on their way. When they get here, you'll get taken down. Captain Drake will bring you in."

A look of confusion ran across Ortega's face, and Silvertooth smiled. That was the opening he needed. He charged forward, swinging his fist in a hard right hook as he closed the distance between them. At the last second, he tapped into his gate, splitting himself five times.

"Split!"

Ortega didn't move. He didn't need to. A black object flew up from the ground and clocked Silvertooth in the jaw from below, sending him and all his copies flying up and away in a long arc. Silvertooth's vision flashed white before being consumed by darkness. The last thing he felt was the flash of pain on his back as he hit the ground.