Chapter One - I Hate Goblins

I hated goblins.

There was a whole host of reasons why I disliked the green-skinned, fox-nosed bastards. They liked ambushing those lost after a storm, they pissed all over and it smelled nearly as bad as a sand-skunk’s warning scent, and once, a couple of the little shits had stolen my lunchbox.

Worse, it felt like every other bounty on the board was to kill off a group of them. They’d gone through a mating cycle about two storms back, and now there were more clans in the Vastness than you could count on fingers and toes.

I crawled up a rocky outcrop, careful with the placement of my boots on the steep hillside so that I didn’t send loose stones crashing down, and wished I’d brought more water along.

My canteen was halfway empty, and that made it clang against my hip with every upwards lurch. I had more water over with Rusty. Fat lot of good that did me.

I huffed out a breath that escaped with a click as my mask’s exhale valve pushed out.

The climb soon came to an end, and I found myself crouched atop a rise. My coat, old and worn, made of terror bird leather, was a pale-ish white. Not quite the same colour as the sand packed into the rocks around me, but close. If I didn’t wave my arms and holler, I was pretty sure the goblins wouldn’t see me.

Dumb shits.

I tugged my hat down with a glove, making sure the sun couldn’t reflect off the glass of my goggles, and narrowed my eyes to take in the valley below.

It was a wide space, with the rocky outcrop I was on at one side, and a deeper cliff-face on the other. Good protection from the wind and sandstorms, as long as they were coming in from the west.

At the bottom were some tents, maybe a dozen in all, with one trailing a tall pillar of pale smoke into the deep blue sky. A dead giveaway of their location.

Like I said. Dumb shits, goblins.

I could make out maybe a dozen of them out and about. Some were lazing around in the shade, others doing dumb goblin things.

What caught my eye was the thing that had set the bounty on these fools.

One of the tents, bigger than the rest, and next to the one that was smoking, had a mech in it.

A goblin sort of mech, of course. Three-legged, with no two matching. Two rifles clung onto its shoulders, welded in place with spark-steel. It was a wonder they hadn’t blown themselves up. The thing was covered in armour. Flat plates of roughly-hammered metal, beaten into shape around the machine’s limbs and torso.

Open cockpit, which was suicide in most cases, but then, goblins were dumb like that.

There was no way anyone could ride that thing out in a storm, and I’d bet my favourite revolver that it would burn through a crate-load of cores in the space of an hour or two.

Still, it made this particular clan a threat. The nomads and traders had been hit three times in the last couple of weeks. Enough that even as stingy as they are, they’d put out a bounty for the goblin shaman’s head.

I reached over my back and unslung my rifle. Bringing it around, I tucked the stock into my shoulder, pressing my cheek into the warm leather butt cuff wrapped around it. With my other hand, I gently flicked open the caps on either end of the rifle’s scope. They jingled a little on the end of intricate brass chains attached to the bottom of the scope.

It wasn’t much, as far as magnification went, and there was a crack running through one of the glass bits, but I’d learned to use it as a measure of where my shots were going. It’d worked to keep me alive and fed so far.

“One, two... eight... twelve... thirty little goblins,” I muttered as I counted them out.

A girl got lonely, out in the Vastness with no one for company but her rifle and her ride.

I lowered my rifle, letting it lean onto the ground where I was laying and surveyed the valley again.

It was a nice, defensible position. There were maybe nine or ten of the little bastards with guns. I doubted they were good shots, but volume of fire might mean a hit or two.

I tallied up how many rounds I had. Five in my rifle, with ten more in a belt pouch by my hip. Five in my six-shooter, and a dozen more in a pair of quick loaders in pouches next to the rifle rounds. Had a couple lose in a pocket too.

There was no way I’d land hits from half a klick off with a revolver. I was a good shot, but still. With my rifle I was a little more confident. I could walk a couple of shots over to them if need be. The added height was a nice advantage to have.

I sighed and reached up to tug the strap on one side of my mask, the one that was always slipping a little.

More enemies than bullets. A too-common problem for me.

Rusty had five in his revolver, and a dozen more stored away. Four in his rifle and I had four spare clips for that.

I counted on my knuckles.

Even if I landed every shot, I’d be low in the end. And if they got that pile of junk mech moving, then I’d be spending a good number on it alone.

“Dammit,” I muttered as I started to back up. I had to come up with a better angle of attack.

Once I was away from the edge, I spun over and let my head drop, using the wind-sharpened rocks around me as a bed as I looked up into the endless, cloudless blue of the sky. No purple, so no storms, thank all the dead gods.

I tapped a beat with my fingertips on the stones next to me as I thought, then stopped. That was a bad habit. Didn’t need to tell the scorpions that I was here.

I needed to cull the goblins, but couldn’t hit them all from up here. And I didn’t have the ammo to kill them with Rusty.

If I could catch a band of them out in the open, maybe I could take them out in a tussle, then grab the rest.

I spun over and looked at the camp again. How many of them had guns? I counted again, then grinned. I had a plan.

A stupid, risky plan, that would earn me a few free drinks at the saloon later, but a plan nonetheless.

The climb down was a whole lot faster than heading up.

I didn’t bother moving over to Rusty. Wouldn’t need him for this, and if my dumb plan ended with me dead, then it was better that the bastards didn’t find him.

I started the long trek closer to the mouth of the valley, moving with the slow gait needed for crossing sandy ground, even if there were patches of hard rock here and there that I could jog across.

Once I was a ways from the entrance to the valley I slowed down and kept low. There wasn’t anything in sight. No guards, not even a bush or some water-starved tree. I should have taken a look around when I was atop the outcrop; from up there I could probably have seen a few klicks in every direction. Not that I had really expected to see much. The Shadow Mountains were half a day’s walk to the east, and to the west, south and north, was a lot of nothing.

I found a nice spot to fight on. A slab of stone some paces across that was surrounded by loose, deep sand. Anyone coming closer would be slowed down.

Pulling out my revolver, I flicked it open and reached into a pouch for a speedloader. I tugged two rounds free, then closed the revolver and aimed the gun up.

A magical ring formed within the chamber of my gun and hummed with unspent potential, then a single shot rang out across the desert, echoing across the Vastness.

A glowing, golden line stretched from the end of the barrel and into the sky.

My dumb plan hinged on the goblins being dumb, so I figured I had chances on my side.

I reloaded my gun, then, with a sigh, laid down onto the boiling rock to wait.

***