Past another bend, the canyon began to open up, widening to the point where each side was as broad as the main road of a town. The river still ran through the middle, but the noise had died down enough that it was no longer deafening. The group moved through the twists and turns of this wider part of the canyon with relative ease, although Billy insisted that they stay close to one of the walls.

Feeling confident from the ease with which the Mawbeasts were dispatched, Oscar and Bob began to chat. The conversation was entirely pointless and did not pertain to the current situation at all.

“If you would be so kind as to cinch it up and hold your tongues,” said Billy, his eye twitching with irritation, “we need to stay sharp.”

Before Oscar could respond, a deep rumbling started above their heads. Billy looked up, worried about an avalanche, but what he saw was much worse. Clinging to the side of the canyon walls were several gigantic metallic spheres, which were now moving and detaching themselves. It became apparent that rather than being spheres, they were monsters that looked like a cross between an armadillo and a rhino covered in metal.

“Dang it, forgehides. Move!” shouted Billy. Before anyone could take a step, four of the steel beasts slammed into the ground, making craters and kicking up dust, blinding everyone. Drawing one of his revolvers, Billy leveled the gun at the spot where one of the forgehides had landed. As soon as the dust had settled enough for him to line up his sights, he squeezed the trigger. In an instant, the beast's head was engulfed in an intense fire, melting it to slag.

image [https://imgur.com/kSwYiTR.jpg]

Seeing their kin felled enraged the remaining metallic monsters, who let out a roar filled with anger and sadness. Billy used this opportunity to fire a flame shot into the mouth of a second monster, causing an explosion of fire from inside the beast’s head, killing it.

In response, the final two started to charge the men with a speed beyond what should have been possible given their bulk. Billy tackled Oscar out of the way of one of the monsters, which then plowed into a boulder, shattering it and causing Billy and Oscar to get pelted by razor-sharp gravel. Bob had his pickaxe out and swung it as hard as he could at the head of the second monster. The tip of the pickaxe struck the beast clean on the side of the head, but rather than doing any damage, the pickaxe shattered. The force of the swing was luckily just enough to throw the monster off its line so that Bob was not impaled by its horn and instead received a glancing blow that sent him flying into the wall of the canyon, knocking him unconscious.

“Consarn it, Oscar, go check on Bob. If you can, drag him behind something to conceal you both. I’ll cover you.”

Rolling to his feet, Billy leveled his revolver at the nearest metal beast but couldn’t get a bead on its head before it started to charge towards Oscar. Having no option, he pulled the trigger, striking the armored flank. This caused minimal damage but was still enough to draw the beast’s attention away from Oscar. However, this meant that Billy now found himself between two enraged, charging, three-ton metal monstrosities with no time to line up a clean shot and only three rounds left in his gun.

As the two beasts charged at him from opposite directions, Billy stood still, waiting. Aware that if he timed this wrong, he would be dead. Both monsters began to pick up speed and dipped their heads so that their horns were pointed at their target.

Fractions of a second before being struck, Billy threw himself out of the way, causing the two metal behemoths to collide and glance off each other, careening away. In a seemingly terrible move, Billy ran after one, pulling his now heavily damaged coat off. Running as fast as his exhausted legs would allow, he circled the forgehide, placing the wall of the canyon behind him. He then held his coat up in front of him and whistled as loudly as he could, causing the closest forgehide to round on him while the further one attempted to change direction too quickly, causing it to slide and fall on loose gravel, eventually coming to a stop with its rear legs over the riverbank.

Billy waved his coat to taunt the beast into charging and, again, moments before being struck, he jumped out of the way but allowed his coat to wrap around the forgehides' head, blinding it as it crashed into the wall, getting its horn stuck. Getting to his feet, Billy ran over to the trapped monster, aimed his gun at its head, and fired, incinerating the beast's head but burning his hand in the process.

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The adrenaline surging through him allowed Billy to ignore the pain and focus on the last of the forgehides, which had now regained its footing. As the monster began to charge at him, he raised his gun, exhaustion making it feel heavier than it should. Swaying slightly, he squeezed the trigger, but the round ricocheted off the steel hide, striking a rock and exploding. “Last round, better make it count.” Steadying himself despite a rapidly approaching living avalanche, Billy took a deep breath, lined up his sights, and squeezed the trigger. This time, the round found home, lodging in the beast’s eye and melting its skull from the inside.

The momentum of the now dead beast caused it to crash into the ground and slide towards Billy, eventually hitting him with enough force to knock him over but not enough to do any real damage.

Billy lay on the ground with his eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. The injuries he had sustained chose this time to make themselves known. Slowly getting to his feet, he looked at the burned, tattered remains of his duster. “Aww hellfire, I really liked that coat,” he said to no one in particular.

“Wheeeeeeeehewwww, that was some fancy shootin’!” said Oscar, poking his head out from behind a boulder.

“That wasn’t fancy, it was desperate and lucky. If there had been any more of those things, it woulda gone south real quick,” said Billy through gritted teeth.

“Well, ya made desperate look good, something I’ve never managed to do.”

Billy took a breath to calm himself before replying, “Thank you, but we ain't got time to stand around congratulating ourselves. The closer to sundown it gets, the more creatures there’s gonna be, and if we get stuck in here at night, we’ll be in deep hog slop.”

“Naw, I reckon you could take 'em.”

“I appreciate the faith, but there’s not enough ammo in Blackwater to put down the number of monsters that’ll come out.”

“That bad, huh?”

“That bad. So again, let’s go. Bob, can you move?”

“Rigguma micht've brucken ma ribs.”

Billy stared blankly before continuing, “According to the information we got, we are looking for a cave with fire golems outside it. That cave is where the crystal we want should be. But again, fire golems. So when we find it, I need you two to stay hidden while I deal with them.”

“I ken ardly muuv.”

“Yeah, you have at it. Bravery was never my thing, and Bob says he can hardly move anyway.”

The three men hobbled on their way, each slowed by various injuries. After another half hour of walking through the winding, and at times claustrophobic, canyon, they came to another corner. Billy signaled for the other two men to stay back while he scouted ahead.

The information they had been given provided a rough description of the area of interest. Peering around the corner, what Billy saw matched that description. A large, flat, open area with the river running through the middle and at the other side of the clearing, a cave opening surrounded by a fortune in different types of magic crystal. The information had also indicated that the area could be identified by the fire golems who had taken up residence here.

Billy easily saw them. Their black rock bodies were roughly human-shaped and engulfed in flames. The rocks themselves weren’t attached but rather held in place by whatever force gave them life. Among the other inferno beasts was a rather unpleasant surprise in the form of an enormous molten golem. Standing 20 feet tall, the molten golem was the second form of fire golems. Still made of black rock, but the heat had turned the rock molten, hence the name. Bright orange veins crossed its body, and the air shimmered from the heat it radiated.

“Shoot, shoot, shoot,” whispered Billy as he fell back to where the others were hiding.

“Is that a good ‘shoot, shoot, shoot’?” asked Oscar.

“No, when has someone saying that ever been good?”

“Hey, there’s a first time for everything.”

“Well, it ain’t this time. We’ve got the fire golems we expected, but one of them has leveled into a molten golem.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” asked Oscar.

“Worse than a prairie fire in a high wind. The ice bullets I have will work on the fire golems by cooling them to the point that they extinguish. That ain’t gonna work on a molten golem or any of the bigger forms. They generate their own heat rather than just burning fuel. I freeze it, and it’ll just thaw out, then reignite.”

“Well, how do people normally kill 'em?”

“They don’t. The only time I’ve ever done it, I had a full squad and a whole lot more munitions than we do now.”

“iffum neetael coolit doon tea oofit, why dinne jist intae river?”

“Bob says why don't we dump 'em in the river?”

“Yeah, strangely, I caught that. But I don’t love the idea. Getting it into the river would be a bastard, then the steam that’ll be made has a good chance of cooking all of us. And lastly, it wouldn’t even kill it. At best, it’ll immobilize it and send it downstream. It’d eventually get back out somewhere else,” said Billy, rubbing his stubble. “On the other hand, though… I don’t think we have much choice.”

“How do ya know all this about these beasties?”

“...It's what I did during the war. My company cleared areas with lots of monsters to either allow the main forces through or allow crystal mining for munitions.”

“It’s a pity ya don’t have yer company then.”

“It is a pity I don’t have them.... I do have a plan, though.”