John strolled back into Ember Creek, dragging a pile of weapons on a sheet. He would have carried them across his back but he wanted to be able to discard them in a hurry if he was attacked.

Nobody attacked him and there were no signs that Jacob or his people had been near the accident site.

He didn’t understand why they would just blow up the train and not follow up. The only way it made sense was if they assumed the Harc’otti would push through the town. That seemed like a flimsy plan to rely on.

Even if the barbarians managed to cross the bridge, the fighting wouldn’t have stopped. The people of Ember Creek were not simply willing to abandon their homes and flee into the dangerous wilderness. They would have fought tooth and nail if they had to. It was a death sentence. Anyone with an ounce of combat experience knew you didn’t back your quarry into a corner. That was when they were the most dangerous.

He was starting to get a much clearer picture of Jacob. The man was smart, and it seemed he planned for many contingencies. But some of the mistakes he made were amateur at best. Assuming he was in charge of sending the Harc’otti storming the city, it was done very poorly. He seemed like a man of history, playing at being a general. If that was true, he was as dangerous as he was delusional.

John nodded toward the old man who watched the east side of town. The old man simply watched him without saying a word.

The town had quieted down significantly since John had left. Most of the people were no longer in the streets unless they were armed. Gone were the makeshift weapons of farm tools and whatever was handy. In their place were weapons taken off the dead warriors. The axes, spears, and bows were crude weapons by today’s standards, but they were still better than wooden pitchforks and chair legs turned into improvised clubs.

People eyed the bounty of weapons wrapped up in the sheet he was now carrying, but nobody made a move to grab them. John was glad for that, he didn’t want to hurt anyone in town after they survived the attack. He was going to drop these off at the jail and let Blackwood and Seline decide who got what.

The single remaining bridge had two rotaries covering it now. They must have removed the second one from the broken walker. John was surprised the guns had survived the chaos of the battle. Considering how many times he heard them firing, he was sure their barrels would have melted. But if they still had people at them, they must be fine.

He didn’t see the cannon. That wasn’t all that surprising. It didn’t have its own stand like the guns did, and needed to be mounted somewhere solid. If it were up to him, he would mount it to one of the roofs. John looked around, and sure enough, a building with a clear view across the bridge had two men standing on the roof with the cannon between them.

The men must have seen him looking as they glanced his way. He nodded to them and they nodded in return.

Walking across the blood-stained bridge was a quiet experience. All the dead had been carried off already and the broken barriers had been shoved off to the side. People were already walking back and forth to carry away the wood to be reused and made into new defenses.

John passed the workers and the people with guns that were guarding them. There weren’t as many as he expected to see. He got one of the men’s attention. “Where is everyone else?”

“The Sheriff took all the surviving deputies to clear out the west side. Turns out not all the Harc’otti left. Some were waiting inside of homes!” the man spat. “Bastards, the lot of them! Killed a few people just trying to see if their homes survived. That’s when the Sheriff took it into his own hands to deal with the issue. If you see a building not marked with charcoal on the door, be careful, it means it wasn’t searched.”

“Thanks,” John replied.

He walked onward, wondering why the Harc’otti were so hell-bent on throwing themselves to their deaths. The ones he fought weren’t dumb, so why hide inside the buildings like that? They had to know it was a death sentence to stick around. The few he spoke with did mention great spirits. Are they afraid cowardice will not provide them with their awaited reincarnation? It was honestly the only thing he could come up with to explain their actions.

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John had heard of religious zealots but he had never fought any before. If this is what they were like, he would rather never have to fight them again.

As he passed buildings, it was much as the man said. Each door John passed was marked by a charcoal line. Or if the door was missing, the frame or wall was marked. He noticed a few different markings. There was a line, a circle, and a circle with a line through it. Based on what he saw, he could guess what they meant.

The line was easy as it only appeared on homes with intact doors. So it probably meant the building was checked and cleared. The circle appeared on buildings with no doors and the circle with a slash through it appeared on buildings with no doors and a distinct smell of death coming from inside. Once he even saw a dead Harc’otti halfway out the door. The circle probably meant clear but be cautious because of the lack of door. It wouldn’t take much for a warrior to sneak back inside and wait. The other buildings had wire wrapped around the door handles and nailed to the frame to ensure nobody went inside. And the circle with a slash through it probably meant there were corpses inside.

He turned down a street and headed for the jail. Soon he was walking past buildings without charcoal markings. There was a creaking of wood coming from one as he passed and John sighed.

A moment later the warrior burst out of the building he had been hiding in. There was no screaming or intimidation, just pure blind rage coming from the older man’s face. The man swung his axe at John’s throat but John took a step back and leaned out of the way of the strike. He didn’t want to alert the entire street that he was here by firing one of his revolvers, but thankfully he had accounted for this possibility. The recovered pneuma pistol he had taken from the mercenaries aboard the train practically jumped into his hand from the hip holster he had taken along with it.

The man tried to slap the gun aside with the flat of his weapon. John didn’t try to resist the strike, instead, he fired as the two weapons connected. The bullet tore into the man’s hand as his weapon was thrown wide.

This warrior was much more experienced than the younger ones John had encountered. He simply gritted his teeth and caught the falling weapon with his off-hand as it tumbled from his mangled grip.

Taking his eyes off John was a mistake though. The slightly older warrior didn’t see John turning with the momentum of the strike. A devastating spin kick impacted the side of the axe wielder’s head. There was a crunch of bone and the man dropped to the ground, unmoving.

John shot him in the heart to make sure he didn’t get back up before carrying on down the street.

Soon he arrived outside the jail. The thick wooden door had been hacked apart, and the remains dangled from the hinges. There was no mark on the building either, meaning Blackwood and his people hadn’t gotten here yet.

He stepped off to the side and swung his burden off his shoulder and onto the ground. With a few deft moves, he tied a series of knots in the cloth and tied it around a post. It wouldn’t keep anyone from stealing the weapons, but it would slow them down. And that’s all John needed.

There was no worry about anyone using them against him. He had degassed all of the weapons except the pistol he took and his own rifle, which was slung across his back in its holster.

He checked the charge on the pistol before approaching the open door of the jail. As soon as his foot creaked against the wood walkway, an arrow launched from the darkness inside. John barely dodged the shot, the obsidian tip skipping across his vest with a tearing sound. He returned the favor by firing blindly into the dark building.

There was a grunt of pain letting him know his shot hit its mark. He didn’t have time to follow up though as a second man rushed out and threw a spear at him from only a few feet away.

The spear tore painfully across John’s extended arm, leaving a long gash before embedding itself in his bicep.

His arm would be useless until it healed, but he still fired off one shot, hitting the spear-throwing man right in the foot.

The warrior screamed and stumbled, his second spear stabbing down toward the wooden flooring instead of toward John. John used his good arm to pull out his revolver. Before the spear wielder could recover, he fired one shot into the top of the man’s skull.

Another arrow came flying from the darkness and slammed into his chest, making John grunt and take a step back. He cursed and rushed into the building where the second man was already readying another arrow. John shot him just as he released. He managed to tilt his head aside at the last moment but the arrow still tore through his cheek and ear.

There was a whole lot of blood and a whole lot of pain, but John didn’t take his eyes off the door to the cells. He could hear people moving around inside, more than one.

His first instinct was to empty the last four shots in his revolver into the door and hope he killed everyone inside. He dismissed that thought for a few reasons. If he missed, it was going to be awkward to go for his other revolver. And if the people inside were more warriors, why hadn’t they come out to join the fight?

John stepped back to the doorway. He heard people shouting from outside. His shots must have alerted Blackwood and his people. Or so he hoped. By the time the people arrived, the pain in John’s face and arm were beginning to numb slightly. He still hadn’t pulled the spear out. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by bleeding all over the place with unknown people approaching.

He was relieved to see the first person to come into view was one of the deputized men. The man slowed for a moment until he saw the corpse of the Harc’otti and the state John was in.