The dust from the explosion was thick, a cloying fog of pulverized mahogany and ozone that tasted of copper. Through the haze, the world was a jagged, fractured thing.
"Uurgh."
I pushed a heavy slab of debris off my chest, the wood splintering under my palm. I stood up, shaking the grey powder from my shoulders. My ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that threatened to drown out the roar of the wind.
Fortunately, I was intact. The heavy, weave-reinforced coat I'd chosen for the journey had held against the shrapnel. I'd always been a man who prepared for the worst; ten years in the northern trenches had taught me that a good coat was worth more than a dozen prayers.
I looked around. The corridor and the outer wall of the compartment—the very wall I had been leaning against minutes ago—were gone. In their place was a gaping, jagged maw that opened into the abyss. The train was still thundering forward at eighty miles an hour, and the winter wind of the Arette Pass clawed at my skin like a thousand icy blades.
"I thought it was a normal robbery," I muttered, my voice snatched away by the gale.
I had been wrong. A normal robber wants to live to spend his spoils. The man who had just vaporized himself was no thief. He was a fanatic—a vessel of high-yield mana crystals and pure, unadulterated madness. To trigger a suicide vest while being electrocuted required a level of devotion that turned my stomach.
'Are they the remnants of the Utah civil war? No,' I mused, sweeping my hand across my face. 'Those rats are too busy digging holes to hide in. These bastards are something else entirely.'
I felt a flap of something loose hanging from my jaw. I reached up and peeled away the remainder of the camouflage mask. The explosion had shredded the delicate mana-membrane; I was no longer a man in his forties with a salt-and-pepper beard. I was myself—younger, sharper, and far more dangerous.
I threw the tattered mask into the blizzard. It was useless now.
Then, I looked at the empty space where the seat across from me had been. Julian Vane—the young, bright-eyed Professor of Sorenth—was gone.
The blast had been centered on his side of the corridor. Looking out at the steep, snow-drenched cliffs falling away into the white mist below, I knew there was no hope for him. He had been a scholar, a man of theory and books. He hadn't stood a chance against a man who turned his own heart into a detonator.
'Rest in peace, Professor,' I thought, a small, silent prayer for the man who had been so excited about his new life. 'You picked a hell of a day to commute.'
But I didn't have the luxury of mourning.
The Inside Man
I couldn't stay in the wreckage of Carriage Four. If these lunatics were blowing themselves up, the entire train was a rolling bomb. I needed to move to the rear, away from the engine and the first-class VIPs who were undoubtedly the primary targets.
I pushed through the warped door leading to Carriage Five. Halfway down the corridor, a conductor appeared. His face was a mask of frantic terror, his uniform disheveled.
"Oh, sir! Thank the gods!" he stammered, his eyes darting to the devastation behind me. "Are you alright? What happened? The blast—"
"A suicide attack," I said, my voice cold and level. "The raiders are armed with unstable mana-explosives. We need to move the passengers to the rear carriages immediately."
"Yes... yes, of course!" He approached me, hands trembling. "I was just heading forward to help—"
I waited until he was within arm's reach. The moment he stepped into my shadow, I didn't reach for his hand. I reached for his throat.
Baam!
I slammed him into the floor, my knee pinning his chest down while I twisted his arm behind his back.
"Argh! What are you doing? I'm an official of the Gilded Rail!"
"You're a poor actor," I growled. "I refuse to believe a Magitech locomotive—protected by Grade-4 defensive wards and reinforced mana-stones—can be breached by a few mountain thugs while moving at full speed."
The conductor's struggling ceased for a fraction of a second. A tell-tale pause.
"The only way onto this train is if someone on the inside lowers the dampening field," I continued, my voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "You've been waiting for this stretch of the Arette Pass, haven't you?"
The terrified expression on the conductor's face vanished. It didn't turn to anger; it turned to stone. The mask of a common worker was replaced by the vacant, glassy stare of the fanatic I had seen earlier.
He reached into his sleeve, but I was faster. I drew a combat knife from my boot and pressed the edge against the soft tissue beneath his chin.
"Stay still," I commanded. "Or you won't live to see your 'True Path.'"
"It doesn't matter," he rasped, a thin line of blood appearing where the blade met his skin. "The cycle has begun. You are all just fuel for the fire."
"Charming. How many of you are on board?"
He didn't answer. Instead, his eyes flickered toward the door of Carriage Five.
My ears, sharpened by years of listening for the snap of a twig in the woods of Utah, caught a faint, rhythmic sound from the other side of the bulkhead.
Click.
The sound of a rifle hammer being cocked.
I didn't hesitate. I shoved the conductor forward with all my strength and threw myself flat against the carpet.
Ratatatatatatata!
A hail of lead tore through the wooden door, shredding the air where my head had been a second ago. The conductor didn't even have time to scream. He was caught in the crossfire of his own allies, his body jerking like a marionette as a dozen bullets turned him into a sieve.
Debris rained down on me. I lay perfectly still, counting the rounds.
A machine gun? I thought, my jaw tightening. These aren't just rebels. They have Imperial-grade hardware.
The shooting stopped. The silence that followed was broken only by the whistling wind and the heavy thud of boots.
The Calculus of Murder
Three men stepped through the shattered remains of the door. They were hulking figures, wearing reinforced leather coats and carrying shortened automatic rifles.
"Check the body," one of them ordered.
"The rat's dead," another said, kicking the fallen conductor. "But where's the other one? We saw him on the sensor."
I stood up slowly, shaking the splinters from my hair. "Right here."
The three men spun around, their rifles swinging toward me. The corridor was narrow; only one could aim clearly at a time, but at this range, it shouldn't have mattered.
"What the—? He's still alive?"
"Who are you to decide when I'm done?" I asked. My tone was no longer polite. I was irritated. I had wanted a quiet retirement, a fake job, and a warm bed. Instead, I was standing in a drafty hallway surrounded by idiots.
"I'll take his head!" the lead man roared, dropping his jammed rifle and drawing a massive broadsword.
I watched him lumber forward. He was strong, surely, but he was moving through a world I had already mapped out. I could see the tension in his lead foot, the way his shoulder dipped before the swing.
I didn't draw a weapon. I drew mana.
In my past life, I had studied the geometry of the brain. In this life, I applied that logic to the flow of energy. I didn't need a wand; I used my own nervous system as the conductor.
"Fracture," I whispered.
I didn't cast a fireball or a bolt of lightning. I simply applied a concentrated pulse of kinetic pressure to the air directly in front of his lead foot.
Boom!
It sounded like a small cannon going off. The floorboards beneath the man exploded upward, and the sheer force sent him flying backward like a ragdoll. He slammed into his two companions, and the three of them tumbled into a heap of limbs and swearing.
"A wizard?" one gasped, struggling to untangle himself. "He didn't use an incantation!"
"I'm a traveler," I said, stepping forward. "And I'm very behind schedule."
As they scrambled to rise, I raised my hand. I carved a three-dimensional sigil in the air with my index finger—a shimmering, blue-green thread of light.
"Aeolus's Grip."
A violent, localized gale erupted in the narrow hallway. It didn't just push them; it seized them. The invisible hands of the wind lifted all three men off the floor, pinning them against the ceiling before dragging them toward the gaping hole in the side of the train.
"Wait! No! Mercy!" the leader screamed, his fingers clawing at the air.
"You didn't show much mercy to the conductor," I said coldly. "And frankly, I don't have the room for prisoners."
With a flick of my wrist, the wind threw them out into the white abyss of the Arette Pass. Their screams were silenced almost instantly by the roar of the blizzard.
I took a breath and pulled a hair tie from my pocket, gathering my long, dark hair and securing it at the nape of my neck. I looked at the carnage. Carriage Four was a graveyard. Carriage Five was likely a war zone.
I checked my pocket watch. Ten minutes since the first explosion. The Imperial backup wouldn't be here for at least another twenty.
I looked toward the front of the train. If they had a wizard powerful enough to help them breach the train, he would be at the engine or the VIP cars.
I started walking. I had spent my first life trying to ignore the spirits my mother said followed me. I had spent my second life trying to hide from the blood I had spilled.
But as I stepped over the bodies, the cold logic of the shaman and the ruthless efficiency of the mercenary merged into something new.
"Five minutes," I told myself, staring at the door to the next carriage. "I'll give them five minutes to surrender. After that... I'm going to start charging for my time."
I opened the door to Carriage Three. A new group of men stood there, rifles raised, a wizard in a black robe standing at their center.
"Kill him!" the wizard shrieked.
I sighed. It was going to be a very long trip to the capital.