John knew using himself as bait was a dumb idea, but he had no better options. At least none that would allow him to get to his horse without getting shot in the back. Things weren’t all bad, he still had a range advantage once he reached the remains of the camp. The pneuma rifles may be accurate but they were only lethal out to about four hundred yards or so. Past that, you might be able to hit your target, but you were more likely to piss it off rather than kill or wound it. His long rifle was lethal out to at least six hundred, assuming he could hit the target from that distance. Even John couldn’t guarantee a hit from there, it was more luck than skill by that range.

He slowly made his way down the slope, keeping the hidden men in his peripheral vision. It was pretty obvious when the first ambusher noticed him coming down the slope. Like an eager child on their first hunt, the Harc’otti warrior repositioned to follow him. A normal person may have missed the subtle movement, but John was anything but normal.

The second man was much the same. Both followed his path down the hill with the barrels of their weapons. An amateur move. They should have watched with only their eyes and remained motionless until the last minute. The last two seemed to either not notice him or were more skilled than their two counterparts. He couldn’t be sure.

John stopped behind a tree, a dozen or so feet inside the forest from where the camp lay. It was hard to tell from back up on the ridge, but now that he was down near the camp, he was sure. Most of the camp was outside of the effective range of the pneuma rifles. Anyone even remotely familiar with the weapons would have accounted for this. It seems the Harc’otti had some understanding of this limitation because they hadn’t fired at him as he came down the hill. But they were clearly not very familiar with the rifles if they made a simple mistake such as this.

Unfortunately, John was barely inside the effective range of his own rifle from where he waited. He had hoped to use the trees as cover to draw the shooters in, but now he was going to have to step out into the open. He had his armor on, but if he took a round to the head, he was likely going to be knocked unconscious. The blow didn’t need to be lethal to take him out.

Seeing the camp from here, he was really regretting his decision to come down. Not that there was much of a choice. A fight was going to happen one way or another. He preferred to have it on his terms and with all parties in clear view. He scanned the ruins of the camp for anything he could use as cover. What he saw wasn’t promising, but he did spot the remains of the chow wagon. Or at least the metal components that hadn’t burned away in the fire. And nearby was a cast iron kettle.

John prayed that these men were as undisciplined as he thought they were as he raced out of the forest and toward the burned-out cart. The dirt in front of him puffed as a round slammed into it. John dodged the silver ricochet, not pausing his forward momentum. Standing still in the open was as good as signing his death warrant. That first shot was followed quickly by three more. One whistled dangerously close to his head while the other two struck him. One on the chest, the other on the thigh.

It felt like getting punched by a grown man. He gritted his teeth through the pain but didn’t stop running. Four seconds later another volley of fire whizzed past him. Only one struck his chest this time. And he was pretty sure it came from the same person that hit him there the first time. He marked that man as his first target as he slid behind the burned-out cart moments before the third volley came for him. Before their rifles could recharge, John popped his own over the edge of the burned-out cart. He didn’t rush his shot though. He took careful aim, held his breath, and gently pulled the trigger.

Unlike the pneuma rifles and their near-silent attacks, his belched out flame and smoke, sending the lead bullet spinning through the air at nearly twice the speed of the quieter guns. John saw the splatter of blood. The man he had aimed for was likely dead before he had even heard the shot.

John ducked back behind his cover, but the follow-up volley did not arrive. He grunted at that. They were learning fast. That meant his next little trick would likely only work one time. He reached over and grabbed the still-warm cast iron pot. He set his hat on the ground beside him and stuffed the pot over his head.

Once the pot was in place, he exposed his head. As he had hoped, three shots all impacted the cast iron. It wasn’t all rainbows and roses though. John hadn’t accounted for the ringing his head would take, even with the improvised metal helmet. But he couldn’t afford to hesitate. He threw off the helmet and raised his rifle.

His target jumped up and started to run, but John was ready for that. He narrowed his eyes to try and drive away the dizziness as he led the running individual. After allowing as much time as he was comfortable to ensure his shot, he held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

The shot hit, but it missed its mark and the man went down screaming. John ducked just in time for a round to ricochet off a piece of metal close to where his head had been a moment before. There was no second shot. He cursed his luck. If they were alternating shots, it meant he wouldn’t be able to pop up to shoot without receiving return fire. “I hate fighting competent people.”

He raised the helmet above the cart to see if he could trick them into firing, but nothing came of it.

“The hard way it is then,” he grunted and shimmied to the edge of the pile. He only had a split second before his target would be able to redirect to this position, so he needed to make the shot count.

John took a few deep breaths before popping around the side of the cover instead of the top. When he took aim though, he found the man had also moved. And he found him a moment after the other guy fired. The round hit John in the bicep instead of the head. Ignoring the pain, John adjusted his aim with his bruised arm and fired before the man could duck back behind the tree he had taken cover behind.

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He didn’t have time to see if his round had found its mark though as the final shooter moved into position and fired. But John was quick enough that he managed to duck behind the rubble before the round zipped through the area he had been occupying.

He racked the lever on the gun and loaded a new round. By now the screaming man had gone silent. But John was kind of out of ideas on how to deal with the final man or final two if he hadn’t managed to land that last shot. Well… that wasn’t entirely true. He was out of good ideas. He sighed and grabbed the pot again. He had a good enough memory of the camp that he was certain he could cross to the treeline and the hill where his attackers were hiding while being blind.

After sticking the pot back on his head, John sprinted out from cover. It didn’t take long for the first shot to strike his chest. John wanted to toss the pot and return fire, but he waited. It was a good thing he had. Two seconds later a second shot cracked into the helmet.

‘Dammit,’ he cursed internally. He had indeed missed that last shot. And now the pair were taking turns firing, ensuring John didn’t have time to remove the helmet and return fire. The other issue was, that the rounds were hitting harder as he got closer to the treeline. He was forced to start moving erratically to try and throw off their aim as he closed the distance to the trees. It was only effective for about a quarter of the shots. The rest hit him center mass or in the head.

The ringing was starting to get nauseating, but he was more worried his chest armor would give out or one of the rounds would break his ribs.

By some miracle, that didn’t happen as John finished sprinting across the clearing and past the first trees.

He threw off the damn pot and fired in the general direction of his attackers. A shot impacted the tree next to him, but he quickly reloaded and adjusted his aim, firing within less than a second. His ears picked up a choked gurgle. It seemed his round had found its mark. John reloaded again before sprinting to another tree.

A round whizzed passed him, barely missing his head. It seemed the warriors were learning the limitations of a scoped rifle. Long rifles were good at long range but became much harder to aim using a scope as you got closer. If they were using traditional iron sights, they might not suffer from this problem.

John heard the last man frantically scramble to his feet as he realized he had missed. He just shook his head. If the man were more skilled, he would have waited in cover until his weapon recharged. Twisting out from behind the tree like a deadly snake, John took aim and fired. The bullet smashed into the last attacker's spine, just below his head.

If John didn’t need answers, he would have simply shot the man dead.

He quickly reloaded and scanned the other three spots where he had downed shooters. Two were visible from his current position, but the man he had wounded was not. That wasn’t ideal. The wounded man could still be alive.

Not wanting to get caught in the open, John took a circuitous route up to the first body. This was the man he had missed the first time. The second round had hit him in the side of the neck, his glassy eyes stared lifelessly up at him.

John nudged the rifle away from the body before moving on to the next. The man he shot in the spine was tearing at the ground, trying to drag himself toward his dropped weapon. Hmm, he could have sworn he had hit him higher in the spine. But the chaos of a fight could play tricks on you. That’s why he always double-checked his kills if he could.

John stepped on one of the man’s legs, holding him in place as he scanned the surroundings.

The man cursed and screamed at him in an unknown language but John ignored it. Eventually, he found what he had been looking for. The last man seemed to have crawled into a little ditch behind a nearby tree before bleeding out from his wound.

With all the bodies accounted for, John used his foot to turn the crippled man over. As soon as he was facing up, the man reached down and drew a wicked-looking knife from his belt and tried to slash John with it.

John took a step back to avoid the man’s ineffective flailing. Eventually, the man threw the knife at him, but John turned aside and easily avoided the throw. “Do you understand me?”

“Fuck you!” The man spat, only to have it dribble down his chin in a sad little stream.

“Good, that makes this easy. If you answer my questions, I won’t leave you out here to suffer.”

It took a moment for understanding to dawn in the man’s eyes and John saw his gaze flick toward where he had just thrown his only way to escape from John.

John waited for a moment as the young man came to grips with his situation. “You promise on the spirits that you will end my suffering?”

“I don’t know anything about these spirits of yours, but I can tell you I’m a man of my word.”

“Fine!” The man spat. “Ask your damn questions and send me into my next life.”

***

John wiped the blood from his hands. He had been true to his word, and while he got the answers he was seeking, they didn’t make him any happier.

The warrior and his people had attacked the camp as well as Ember Creek. No surprise there. When John asked who ordered the attack, that answer surprised him. It was no wonder the leaders of the Harc’otti didn’t bother stopping the attacks, they had been behind them this entire time.

When John asked about the guns, the dying man had said they came from an artificer. But the man hadn’t ever met this person. It certainly wasn’t the one in Ember Creek, someone would have noticed him moving weapons or selling them to the Harc’otti. That meant someone else was bankrolling this unknown artificer. And what were the chances there were two rogue artificers out here? It was looking more and more likely that the same group behind the train attack was also behind the Harc’otti raids.

The last question John asked was if they had been responsible for the disappearing miners. The man seemed confused by the question. He had only been involved with the raids on the town and this attack. Which had been prompted by John’s arrival in the area.

At least one other group was involved out here. But that wasn’t the most disturbing fact. Someone in Ember Springs had sold him out to the Harc’otti. It was the only way they could have possibly known he was coming out here.

At first, he suspected the Klein family. But they didn’t know his destination, only that he had left the city. They could have also just shot him in the forest. That made the list of suspects short, real short. So short that even John could figure out who it was. Exactly one person knew he was looking into the mines.

That weasely little bastard of a foreman was the only person who knew John had planned to visit. When he returned to Ember Creek, he was going to have a few choice words with the man. Depending on how Frederick answered, those words might involve some lead therapy for the Terminus Mining Foreman.