Chapter 1

“It ain’t right,” I grumbled as I watched the town burn. “None of this is right.”

The three of us sat atop our horses, watching as stop between St. Louis and the west proper, was consumed by flames.

“Take it as a reminder that life don’t care about right and wrong,” the old man beside me said. He was older, surely in his fifties by now, with a face worn by weather, and hair greyed with age. His eyes though, piercing and focused, showed he still had plenty of fight left in him. This fire, the events of the past few weeks, had reignited something within him. Colonel Clint Westbrook, feared as the Whisper of Death by Confederate Soldiers, a living legend, and my latest mentor.

“I’ve grown rather tired of such reminders,” I said bitterly, my hands resting on the twin pistols at my side. The pearl handled revolvers, known as Peacemakers, gave me comfort. They were the last gift I had from my original mentor, my family’s butler, who apparently, had once even been a US Marshal. He was the reason I was still alive today. And he was the reason for my current path in life.

“Until you stop grumbling about them,” Clint countered, “then you still need ‘em.” Clint looked at the third member of our party. The member that looked the most out of place, between the three of us.

“Now then, Miss Watts,” he said, his tone immediately switching from that of a bored instructor, to one of respect and care, “have you seen enough?”

“Just about,” she replied. Her lips pursed tightly together, forming a thin line on her face, as she watched the town, her town, continue to burn. Up until I’d arrived, she’d owned the place. A gift, of sorts, to her from her father, before he passed away. Unfortunately, her uncle, a bloodthirsty Rail Baron by the name of William V Watts, otherwise known as Bloody Bill, wanted that town. And he wanted it so much, well, he’d planned to murder his own niece to get it. As it stood… he’d won. Emma was leaving her town. The people who’d lived there, her people, had all fled West already. We’d lost. But… that didn’t mean he was going to get his way exactly.

“Let me know when you’re ready then ma’am.” Clint glanced from Emma, back to me. A sad smile on his face. His horse, a grey speckled Morgan he’d acquired shortly before the end of the Civil War, munched lazily on some grass. He patted its neck, and then one by one, removed his leather gloves. Without saying anything else, he drew his rifle, a Model 1873 lever- action repeating rifle, from the scabbard on his saddle. The weapon was ornate, covered in intricate soul-silver patterns, ensuring the weapon could handle the large amount of mana Clint could push into his rounds. Even though Clint only had an Iron Core, like me, which was apparently the lowest type of core, he still had a large amount of mana. Meaning, he could push his weapon to limits normal folk couldn’t.

Which made his next action all the more surprising to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked, as on instinct I pushed mana towards my eyes, triggering their ability to see the mana of the world around me. Instantly blues and silvery-purple flared across my vision, temporarily blinding me for a moment. Clint’s core was the reason for the latter color, his wind mana so strong it radiated in the air around his body. The blue, a rich sapphire just as bright, if not a little brighter and larger than Clint’s, was provided by Emma. She, of the three of us, was the only one who’d advanced their core from Iron, the lowest and base tier for cores, apparently, to Copper. That fact was the only reason she was coming with us. So she could teach me how to do the same.

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“You’ll see,” Clint said mysteriously as he loaded a single, soul-silver cased bullet, into his rifle with less than practiced ease. While every gun had the ability to be loaded with physical rounds, we didn’t use them. That was a function meant for people with barely any mana or skill. People who had to rely on ‘pre-loads’, special bullets made of Soul Silver with mana preemptively loaded into them. The bullet Clint had just inserted into his rifle, the first I’d ever seen him physically load, glowed, just barely, with crimson. It was a fire round.

I glanced from Clint to Emma. She looked at me, and for a moment her expression softened. Her amber eyes glinted with amusement, and she brushed a bit of her straw-colored hair away from her face as the wind tried to take it. Then, her smile turned to something else. Something… predatory. Something vicious. The look of a viper preparing to strike.

“My uncle has won my town,” she said, voice laced with venom. “Or, at the very least, he’ll get the land. Everything we built, everything that had the blood, sweat, and tears of the people who’d lived there though, he doesn’t get a claim to. And,” the look intensified as she nodded towards Clint, “what he really wants, the railway, the access and power it will offer to him. Well, he will get that after Hell’s froze over.” she laughed, and the sound caused me to shiver atop Baron. Even my horse, in all his wisdom, caught her tone, and pawed uncomfortably at the ground.

“I—”

I stopped speaking as Clint lifted his rifle to his shoulder. The veteran sharpshooter took in a deep breath, and slowly exhaled, his body becoming motionless as he took aim down the sights, looking far off, past the town, at the wooden tracks that headed back East. The same tracks I’d arrived on. The same tracks that had taken Holiday, and his quandary, Thomas Cane, back East just a few days prior. The tracks that, in just under two days, were supposed to deliver Bloody Bill’s little army to the town he’d intended to steal. Without warning, just as he finished his full exhale, he pulled the trigger. A flash of red escaped the muzzle of the weapon, and I looked off into the distance, wondering what it was he’d been shooting at. My question was answered a moment later, in a manner that even a blind man would be able to understand.

The wooden rail ties splintered and shattered, screeching and snapping and cracking in horrendous ways as a brilliant blue flash erupted across the tracks. Spanning twenty feet I’d reckon in diameter, a massive bloom of ice ripped ground and railway asunder. It was a dark blue, grander even than the ice that formed from my dynamite during my assault on Pickam’s fort a few weeks ago.

“A personal parting gift, for my Uncle.” Emma said, her tone bemused, yet cold. “I wanted him to know, in no uncertain terms, that he’d pushed me for the last time. It’s one thing, to burn a town down. That’s easy to repair, especially with a railway to provide supplies.” She pointed towards the towering structure of ice. It gleamed in the sunlight, and I knew it would take a good bit of time before it melted away to nothingness, even with the heat of the burning town.

“That, however, will ensure his plans are frozen for a good bit of time. The crater it’s made, which will fill with the water from my melting dynamite, will no doubt slow progress. And that’s assuming the first train heading this way, the train carrying his men, doesn’t crash into the freshly made pool. Past that, the damage, while not catastrophic, is a bigger blow than I figured he’d been expecting. And, combined with the fact that worm Thomas Cane will no doubt squeal and give Mr. Holiday all he needs. My uncle is going to find himself unable to worry much about me, and my actions, for a long while.”

I looked at the ice pillar. Her intention, her message, I got that. But the thing that impressed me most, the bit I didn’t think she even realized about her final act of defiance to her uncle, was that in that moment, more so than anything else she’d claimed or done, she’d proven why she was coming with us. If her dynamite was that powerful, purely because her mana came from a copper core, instead of an Iron one, then I needed to refine my core as soon as possible. If Emma could do something like that, with her mana levels, I could hardly begin to imagine what I’d be able to do. And that was a power, a goal, I needed to accomplish as soon as possible.

“Well then,” I said as I looked away from the carnage. I turned my eyes north, towards our destination. The Dakotas, home of the Black Hills, and the next man on my path of vengeance. It was time to begin my hunt for the Mountain Man.