When Alain finally stirred awake, it was to a throbbing pain in his right leg. He let out a low groan as he cracked both eyes open and looked around.

Surrounding him were the remnants of the decoupled train cars, reduced to little more than slags of overturned metal. Somehow, he'd managed to avoid being killed when the train had derailed; he'd been thrown around the interior of the car, if the myriad bruises across his body were any indication, but he was still alive.

Just another day of cheating death, he supposed.

"Danielle…?" he managed to rasp out. "Danielle, you in there…?"

The door to her room had come flying open in the crash, and Alain forced himself to his feet, wincing when waves of pain lanced up his leg. He was no doctor, but it sure felt like his leg was at the very least fractured, if not outright broken. Still, he willed himself onwards, limping to Danielle's room to check on her.

At first, he thought she was dead, the way she was slumped against her bed. A quick look revealed her chest gently rising and falling, however; she was covered in bruises the same way he was, but she was alive, which was good. Alain hobbled over to her, wincing and biting back cries of pain the entire time, and gently shook her awake.

Danielle catapulted upwards, hyperventilating as one hand went for where her revolver would have been holstered on her hip, only to come up empty; clearly, the gun had been lost in the crash. Alain had been lucky – his revolvers were still in their holsters, and his shotgun was slung across his back, as always.

"Relax," Alain urged, trying to calm her down. "It's me."

Danielle stared at him for a moment before taking several deep breaths to calm herself. "Where the hell are we?"

Alain went to look out the window, but was unable to see anything aside from smoke; the engine compartment must have caught on fire when it had been decoupled. As if that wasn't bad enough, he had no idea where Sable and Az were either; there was certainly no sign of them nearby, that was for sure.

"I wish I could tell you," he said. "Can you walk?"

He offered her a hand, but she brushed it off, rising to her feet on her own. As she did so, she eyed him up and down, seemingly taking note of how he was heavily favoring one leg over the other.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Alain let out a grunt. "Fucked my leg up in the crash. I think it's broken. Safe to say, I'm going nowhere fast." He shook his head. "Let's get off this damn train, first. Then we can re-evaluate what we need to do."

Danielle nodded, then threw one of his arms over her shoulder and began to help him walk forwards. It didn't take them long before they had reached an exit, and the two of them carefully stepped out into the desert sands, Alain biting back a cry of pain as he landed on his bad leg. Waves of agony reverberated through his entire body, and he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as black spots danced on the edges of his vision.

"Sorry," Danielle offered, a look of remorse crossing her face.

"It's fine," he said through gritted teeth. Pushing the pain away as best as he could, Alain looked around. Just as he'd thought, the train cars were in disarray; it had been a very large train, and now every single one of the cars was overturned and in a completely different location away from the tracks. That wasn't what got his attention, though – from what he could see, off in the distance, there was a town.

And more importantly, there were several dust clouds rapidly approaching their position.

Alain's eyes widened at the sight of them. No doubt those were people approaching on horseback. Now, he wasn't one to say no to the hospitality of a stranger, but given that they'd just fought off a train full of cultists, his gut was telling him that it would pay to be cautious for the time being.

"Quick, under the train car!" he urged.

"What?" Danielle questioned.

"Just hide!"

Alain gave her a small shove towards the train, and thankfully, Danielle obliged, crawling underneath the car and flattening herself against the tracks. Alain did the same, again forcing himself to deal with the pain in his bad leg. And he wasn't a moment too soon; as he finished scrambling underneath the overturned train car, the riders finally reached them.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

There were five of them, from what Alain could see. And most striking of all, they were all wearing cloaks – three black, and two white. Next to him, Danielle's eyes widened, and he brought a finger up to his lips, indicating her need to stay quiet, even as he carefully drew one of his revolvers with his other hand and slowly cocked the hammer.

The robed figures milled about for a few seconds before finally, one of them let out a sigh that was equal parts irritated and annoyed.

"This is a waste of time," the man declared. "Nobody could have survived a train derailment like that."

"You never know," another answered. "Besides, Father Keenan-"

"I know what Father Keenan said, I just disagree with it. If he's so convinced that any of our brothers and sisters could have survived this, he should come check the crash site out for his own damn self."

"Watch your tongue, brother," a third man warned. "You are new to our order, but Father Keenan will not forgive you your apostasy if he hears you speaking like that."

"I know, I know…" The first man let out another sigh. "Come on, let's check inside."

Alain carefully brought his revolver around as the five figures stepped inside the train car. Danielle, meanwhile, looked to him for some sign of what to do, but Alain simply shook his head, then drew his second revolver and offered it to her; she eyed it with surprise, but a quick look at his face confirmed what he was thinking.

They couldn't stay under the train forever, and they couldn't just make a break for it without being spotted, either. This was only going to end with violence, and they both knew it.

It didn't take long before the cultists gave up on searching the interior of the train car. They stepped outside one by one, and Alain counted them as they went, until he was certain all five were out.

"Okay," one of them said. "You two, take the car over to the left; the rest of us will take the one on the-"

That was as far as he got before Alain slid forward, just enough that he could poke his upper body out from underneath the train car, and centered his revolver's sights on the man's head before pulling the trigger. The shot broke, and the cultist fell, dead before he hit the ground. Alain didn't waste any time; he turned from target to target, firing and working his Colt's hammer as fast as he could, until all five were dead.

And just like that, it was over – five shots, and five fresh corpses with holes between their eyes. Alain pulled back into cover and began to reload, all while Danielle watched him with wide eyes.

"Wow…" she muttered. "You're an incredible shot…"

"Have to be if you're going to be in this line of work," Alain grunted as he slid loose cartridges into his weapon's cylinder. Danielle went to offer him his gun back, and he accepted it, sliding it back into its holster before motioning for her to step out.

"Take one of their guns," he said. "Something tells me we're going to need it."

"What makes you say that?" Danielle questioned, even as she pulled herself out from underneath the train car and approached the group of dead men.

"Call it intuition, or something along those lines. Those five men emerged from town way too fast for nothing to be wrong there."

"You think the town is in on it?"

"I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. Believe me, it wouldn't be the first time… or second…" He thought for a moment. "...Or fifth, for that matter. Safe to say, we've dealt with a lot of cults over the past few months."

With a pained grunt, Alain pulled himself out from under the train and struggled to his feet, then hobbled over to where Danielle was looting the bodies, a grimace on her face as she took gear and ammunition from the dead men. Alain, meanwhile, looked around, his eyes lighting up when he found a long, thin piece of timber that must have fallen from the train during the crash. It looked to be about the right size to him; he limped over to it and picked it up, then returned to Danielle's side.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he knelt down next to one of the cultists.

"Making a splint," he replied as he tore off several strips of the dead man's robe. He specifically went for the black-colored one, figuring it'd stand out less than the stark white robes some of the other men had opted to wear. "Hold this piece of wood in place for me, would you?"

Danielle obliged, pressing the piece of lumber against his leg while Alain tightly wrapped the strips of torn cloth around it, then tied them into knots. He tested the makeshift splint out a bit and the cloth seemed to hold; he wouldn't be going anywhere fast, that was for sure, but it was better than leaving his leg untreated.

"So, what do we do now?" Danielle asked as she finished clipped two holsters to her belt.

Alain thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Honestly, I don't like our chances at all, no matter what our options are. At the very least, we've got horses now, but I have no idea where we are or which direction we need to go in order to find help. At worst, we'd just be wasting time riding through the desert, and considering neither of us has any food or water…"

He trailed off. Danielle caught what he was saying and pursed her lips.

"What's the alternative, then?" she questioned.

"We go into town and try to find my friends," Alain explained. Seeing the look that had come over Danielle's face, he added, "I know, I know – I don't like it any more than you do. But we don't have a lot of options, and my friends are still missing. I'm not leaving them behind, either. If they're in town, I figure there must be a reason why they didn't come searching for us in the first place."

"So your suggestion is, what, ride right into the hornet's nest and hope we don't get stung?" Danielle questioned.

"Unfortunately," Alain replied. He approached one of the horses. "You know how to ride, right?"

"I do."

"Good, because there's no way I'd be able to make that walk on this leg. I figure we'll ride to the outskirts of town, then leave the horses and continue on foot. With any luck, I'm wrong and the cultists coming out in force that early is just a coincidence."

"And if you're not wrong?"

Alain didn't answer; he didn't have to. Still, that didn't stop Danielle from saddling up and following him as he began to ride into town.