As he approached the bridge, a few people pointed weapons at him wearily. Some of them must have recognized him because he wasn’t shot on sight.

He nodded as he passed the people clearing the bodies off the bridge. John felt a bit naked without his hat, but going back to fetch it now wasn’t as important as finding out how the town fared.

“Have you seen the Sheriff or Deputy Seline?” he stopped a worker to ask.

The man shook his head. “Try over by where the machine fell.”

John thanked the man and headed over in that direction. He figured the Sheriff and Seline would be out here coordinating defense and cleanup, not standing around near the broken automaton. There must be some reason they weren’t.

He found them along with a dozen other people digging through the broken remains of the building where the construct had crashed. John hurried over.

“What’s going on?”

The Sheriff turned to him without stopping. “Travis is buried, we need to dig him out.”

John set aside his jacket and rolled up his sleeves as he assisted. Eventually, someone shouted and three people hauled a bloody man from beneath the destroyed building.

Seline rushed over and checked her uncle for a pulse. “He’s alive!”

There were a few tired cheers for that as the group moved off to search for more trapped people. There were a lot of damaged buildings, but none as bad as the one the walker had crashed into.

“What happened?” John asked.

The Sheriff ran his hand through a sweaty mop of hair before setting his hat back in place. “We were holding them off and even managed to take out three of those armored suits. One as soon as it appeared and two more when we collapsed the bridge. Then we repositioned to this bridge and as soon as we arrived, something impacted the walker’s leg. Travis tried to get it back under control but wasn’t able to. He told us to jump and we did, landing on the roof of the now-collapsed building. Then the walker crashed into it, sending Travis flying off the device and into the hole just before the entire roof came down. Man’s lucky to be alive after that.”

“I don’t know Travis all that well but the man seems too stubborn to die like that.”

Blackwood chuckled weakly as he watched Seline and another woman carry off her uncle on a stretcher. “We coulda used you here.”

There was no admonition in the Sheriff’s words.

“Once I saw they had some rifles, I stayed back to deal with those.”

Wyatt nodded. “I saw. I wondered who was taking them out.”

John looked around at the destruction and the dead. “How many did we lose?”

The Sheriff shook his head. “I haven’t gotten a count yet. Less than I feared and more than I would have liked. Those Harc’otti bastards thought they could make us break with their screaming, but the people of Ember Creek held firm.”

“I wouldn’t count them out just yet,” John cautioned the man. “They lost quite a few people today, but that wasn’t even half of their forces. They will probably attack again, but not in such a straightforward manner.”

“You know just how to suck the joy out of anything don’t you,” Blackwood sighed. “I know they’ll be back, dammit. Let me have at least a small win.”

John winced at the chastisement. He knew better, he just didn’t want these people underestimating the Harc’otti because they had one victory, even if that victory was a major one. “Sorry, force of habit. I do need to bring up something else though.”

“Lemme guess, the train?”

John nodded.

They both turned to look at the dark pillar of smoke still coming from the east.

“Can you handle it yourself? I can’t spare anyone. I would prefer not to even send you, but we need to know what happened.”

“Just let me reload, and get me my rifle. I can handle it from there.”

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The Sheriff nodded and they went in search of the deputized individual with his rifle. They found the man, dead on the roof where he had been defending the front line. Wyatt closed the man’s eyes and handed John the rifle and the sack of ammo.

He took it in silence and climbed down from the building before making his way on foot to the East side of town.

The frenzy of activity reminded John of New Gata. Mostly the part where nobody was standing still. Everyone was rushing about with either buckets, tools, or stretchers. And very few were heading away from the scene of the battle.

A few people glanced his way but his serious expression, arsenal of weapons, and direction of travel likely told them where he was heading. John stopped next to an elderly gentleman with a rifle. This wasn’t one of the rifles he had retrieved, so it was likely the man’s own weapon.

“Too old and my eyes too bad to be in the thick of the fight. Sheriff said I should watch out back.” The elderly man provided without prompting.

“Anything I should know about before I go out there?”

The man shrugged. “Haven’t seen anyone come from the train. Someone shoulda by now.”

Yes, yes they should have. “Keep up the good work,” John spoke as he walked out along the train track.

John scanned the grass and sparse trees around this side of Ember Creek as he moved forward. He had his rifle tucked into his shoulder and ready to raise at a moment's notice.

As he closed in on the wreckage, he got his first good look at the damage.

The engine lay sideways in a crater. The black smoke was coming from the coal car that had started on fire. Someone had buried a lot of explosives to create a hole large enough to nearly swallow the locomotive. And that wasn’t all. The cargo and passenger cars behind the engine were broken and twisted piles of metal. But that probably would have been survivable if not for the final car. Where the Caboose had probably been was another massive crater.

John only remembered hearing one blast. That meant the two explosions happened at the same time. It was no wonder nobody walked away from the train. If the derailment hadn’t killed them, the shockwave from both explosions certainly would have.

The only way someone could have timed these blasts so close together was if someone was aboard that last car, which was likely filled with more dynamite.

John took a wide route around the burning piles of coal and the large hole as he made his way to the first passenger car. It was the only one that was still upright and somewhat intact. He wouldn’t have bothered, but he recognized the car as the same type of one he rode in before the attack. They had moved the sleeper car farther toward the front of the train. Probably to keep it as centralized as possible and as far away from the danger in the last car. If there was anyone of importance aboard, they would be in that car.

The car groaned as he stepped aboard, and John waited for it to settle before going any further. He didn’t want to risk the thing tipping over while he was aboard.

The scene that greeted John was much as he expected. Everyone was slumped over dead. What he didn’t see were workers though. Every single man in this car was armed.

“That lying prick!” John spat. Novarez said he would give him a month. It hadn’t even been three weeks since he arrived.

John set his rifle near one of the seats and started searching the dead men’s pockets. Novarez had given him a note, surely one of these bastards would have one as well.

Sure enough, he found what he was looking for. But it wasn’t what he was expecting when he read it.

Daniel Novarez is no longer a thorn in our operation. Get out to Ember Creek and secure the town. I’ll be joining you by airship in a few weeks. I expect everything to be well in hand before I arrive. And get rid of that idiot our late friend Daniel sent out there. We don’t need him causing us any problems.

-V

John crumpled the letter in a white-knuckled grip. If the letter was to be believed, and he had no doubt it was, Daniel was dead. He failed in the one duty he had been assigned by Bartem Novarez.

This news brought him conflicting emotions. On one hand, he was glad to see Daniel had finally met his end. It couldn’t have happened to a shittier person. On the other, his failure. But there was little John could do about that. The dumb bastard had sent him away, and those two idiots he had protecting him were never going to measure up.

To be honest, John expected a letter like this to arrive eventually just not so soon. With how many enemies that man had, it was only a matter of time. Even if John was there to protect him someone would have succeeded eventually.

So the question was, who was this V person? John knew a few powerful people from New Gata whose names started with a V. But if he had to guess, it was probably Vernon Hensley.

The owner of Vernon Mining Consortium was Daniel’s primary competitor. If John thought Daniel was a right bastard, Vernon was worse. The man would smile to your face, but stab you in the back the second you turned around. Metaphorically anyway, although if Vernon thought he could escape the legal ramifications of the act, he would probably stab you for real.

The one time John had gotten involved in Daniel’s affairs was to warn him not to get into a deal with Vernon. He could see beyond the man’s thin veneer of civility to the rot that lay below. Surprisingly, Daniel had heeded his warning for once.

If Vernon was bankrolling these attacks, it explained a lot. The man was beyond wealthy. He had come from royalty back in the old world. A fifth or sixth prince; something like that, John couldn’t recall. All he remembered was the man couldn’t inherit the crown so he decided to make a name for himself in Fareen.

The letter said he was going to arrive via airship. John had seen the ridiculous contraptions. He barely trusted elevators, he wouldn’t be caught dead on one of those flying deathtraps. He didn’t care how safe the artificers claimed those hot air balloons were. One tear and you'd find yourself falling out of the sky. No thanks. At least elevators claimed to have a brake to stop them if they fell.

With a good idea of who was behind all this trouble, John tossed the letter over his shoulder and started piling up all the weapons from the dead mercenaries. He was guessing that Vernon and whoever had bombed the train were not seeing eye to eye. He assumed that the other group belonged to Jacob. If there was some dissension in their ranks, perhaps John could use that to his advantage.