“Well, well,” said the balding shopkeeper with the handlebar moustache. He leaned on the counter with both hands, smiling cockily as three figures walked through his doorway. “If it ain’t the fabled Arc the Hawk, still alive after his brush with death.”

  Jack and Julie stood behind Arc and looked around the shop, taking in everything from the empty canteens piled in a crate in the corner to a dozen backpacks hanging on the wall, fixing especially on the locked-up arsenal of weapons kept behind the counter. Everything that a bounty hunter like Arc needed was in this shop, but the one thing they didn’t see was spellcaster bullets.

  “Word travels fast, Jamison,” said Arc, approaching the shopkeeper and shaking his hand firmly. “I take it Colt’s men have been running their mouths?”

  “They said their big boss killed you, but I see they were a little presumptive,” said Jamison with a hearty guffaw before taking notice of the two shorter individuals. “Who’re the children? They’re much too old to be yours, Arc.”

  “The boy’s called Jack and the girl’s called Julie,” said Arc, gesturing to each as he spoke their names. “We’ve been looking out for each other on the road and they’ll be sticking around town after I go on my merry way.”

  “Well,” said Jamison, looking to the twins, “let me welcome you both to Pembroke. Decent enough little place, all things considered. If you’ve got the money to eat, you’ll eat well, which is more than can be said for most towns across Nuvaria.”

  “Thank you for the welcome,” said Julie sweetly and Jack hurriedly repeated after her. “You aren’t hiring, are you?” she added.

  “Hiring?” asked Jamison with a raised eyebrow. “You’re looking for work? Well, I hadn’t thought much about it, but I can always put out some feelers and see if there’s anything going.”

  “They’ll work hard,” said Arc, giving the twins a subtle wink. “You can give my name as an assurance of that, Jamison.”

  “You’ve always been straight with me, bud, so I’ll take that as gospel,” said Jamison with a curt nod. “I presume you’re here on business and it isn’t just a social call.”

  “That’s right,” said Arc, pulling out his spellcaster, flicking out the barrel and spinning it around. “I’m in need of some more rounds if you’ve got any left.”

  Jamison walked over to the door and latched it before turning back to Arc. “Alright, come with me. I’ve got a few and you can take your pick if you’ve got the coin for it.”

  The trio followed Jamison behind the counter and into a back room where he kept all sorts of tools and weaponry that couldn’t be seen from the shop floor. He had everything from rocket launchers to a bionic arm. Julie wasn’t sure if the arm was meant to be worn like a long glove or if it was a cybernetic limb to replace a lost one, but it intrigued her greatly.

  Sitting in the corner was a large greenish-grey shell that looked as though it would have fit neatly in the barrel of a tank; Jack wrinkled his nose upon seeing it. He felt another pang of guilt about what had happened to Minator because of his carelessness, but he tried to focus on what Arc had said about the string of circumstances leading up to the emerald master’s uncovering. It didn’t help much, but it was just enough to tide him over until he was distracted by Jamison reaching underneath a desk and pulling out a battered leather suitcase.

  He blew the dust from its surface and entered the lock combination before flicking the lid open and revealing the contents. Inside, were two rolled-up pieces of parchment along with ten spellcaster rounds in various colours—red, white, and purple—with six of the seven red cartridges being identical.

  Arc picked one up and looked at the rune inscribed on the side. “My favourite,” he said, signalling to the twins that this one was an Arcane Shot. “I’ll take all six of those plus that other red one in there.”

  “Pricey, no? If you didn’t kill Colt then you don’t have his bounty money.”

  Arc held up a small pouch and jingled it. “I took a little detour on the way back. It was very much worth my while.”

  “Heh,” grunted Jamison with a smirk. “Fair enough, my friend. It’ll be sixty ounces of silver per Arcane Shot cartridge with the Fireball cartridge at two hundred ounces, but I’ll do the whole lot for four hundred and fifty seeing as I know you’ll be back for the others before too long.”

  “Four hundred and fifty is the discount?” exclaimed Arc. “What happened?”

  “Well, it seems as though a certain bandit has been buying up what my supplier had in stock so prices are on the rise. Maybe Colt the Scourge knows you’re coming back for him.”

  “Fine,” grumbled Arc, opening his pouch and dumping eight small gold coins on the table along with fifty ounces of silver. “But you’ll throw in two dozen revolver rounds too and relieve me of a few shotgun shells I scavenged.”

  “Works for me,” said Jamison, collecting the gold and the shotgun shells Arc placed beside them.

  The spellslinger lifted the seven red bullets and put them in his jacket pocket, zipping it up so they wouldn’t fall out. He felt as though he had been robbed, but he knew that Jamison wouldn’t overcharge him unless the supply of spell cartridges was tightening. It just meant that Arc would have to resist the urge to use his Arcane Shots unless it was absolutely necessary.

  The four returned to the shop floor and Jamison handed Arc the revolver rounds he promised before unlatching the door. He bid Arc and the twins farewell and told Jack and Julie to check in with him in a couple of days to see if he had found them a job. After thanking him, the siblings followed Arc outside.

  “Four hundred and fifty ounces of silver,” said Arc, still sore about how much he had to spend. “That leaves a lot less for the pair of you.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack.

  Arc held out a hand containing sixteen pieces of silver “I’d give you more, but it’s all I can afford now that my wallet has been nuked. It’ll be enough to keep a roof over your heads and buy you some food until you’ve got some sort of income.”

  “We can’t take your silver,” said Julie, shaking her head and her hands. “You earned it. If anything, we just got in the way in Purdue.”

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  “Shut up and take it,” said Arc, grabbing her hand, dropping the coins in her palm, and then folding her fingers over. “I’ll not see you two starving, alright?”

  “Thank you,” said Jack, holding out his hand for Arc to shake. “I mean it.”

  “I know you do,” said Arc, shaking the young man’s hand. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow, alright? I’m going to go and speak to a few contacts I have and see if they can sniff out where Colt’s hanging his hat right now.”

  “You know where we’ll be,” said Jack.

  “Take it easy, kids.”

  And with that, Arc the Hawk walked along the street and away from Jack and Julie, both of whom were at a loss for how to fill their time while waiting for work. Arc knew they’d have the sense to realise they needed to take their own initiative before the day was over, so he wasn’t particularly worried about them. For now, he had to find a small man in a bowler hat. He would surely point him to where he needed to go.

  Arc headed into a small side street and squeezed past a rust-eaten dumpster that hadn’t been picked up in decades. To prevent it from going to waste, it had been repurposed as a bed for one of the local urchins whose bedroll was sitting at the bottom. So filthy was the torn cover that nobody would have thought twice about stealing it.

  Not far past the dumpster sat a red door that had long since lost its sheen and left many a glimmer of steel visible beneath its chipped paint. Arc gave it a knock and a small hatch opened up, revealing a pair of brown eyes behind it.

  “Afternoon, Jeremy,” said Arc pleasantly. “I’m looking for Kenny, is he in?”

  “Thought you were dead,” mumbled Jeremy through the door.

  “A premature notion spread around by a few not-so-intelligent individuals. I’m alive and kicking.”

  “Good to know.”

  Jeremy slid the hatched closed and unlocked the door, pulling it open to reveal a set of wooden stairs leading into a basement. The burly Jeremy stood blocking the way, holding up a finger of warning.

  “There’s any punching this time, I’ve got permission to intervene, Arc,” he said.

  “I’m hoping this will be a civil conversation,” said Arc, patting the guard on the shoulder. “But, just in case, I’d appreciate it if you found yourself just out of earshot.”

  The spellslinger reached into his coin pouch and passed five silver pieces that he’d rather not part with over to the burly man, who accepted them and took in a deep breath.

  “My ears are feeling a bit congested,” he said, stepping aside. “Must be coming down with a cold.”

  “Better to take it easy then,” said Arc, walking down into the basement. “I’m sure Kenny wouldn’t want to catch it.”

  The air was thick, with no ventilation to speak of, but the owner liked the stifling heat. His kind were used to making burrows underground and, if he wanted to keep his business going, he had to make do with what most would consider an unpleasant basement. It suited him just fine.

  Arc walked up to another door—this one wooden—and rapped his knuckles against it. “Oh, Kenny!” he called in a singsong voice.

  “Oh, no,” muttered a squeaky voice from behind the door before speaking up. “The door is open, Hawk!”

  Arc flung it open and sauntered into Kenny’s office with a big smile on his face. It was a dreary little chamber of concrete with a rickety wooden desk and a few crates that were used in place of drawers and filing cabinets. Hung on the wall was a map of Nuvaria with at least fifty pins stuck in it, all colour-coded in ways that Arc didn’t understand, but didn’t care enough to ask about.

  The man he sought, Kenneth Wormwood, sat on a stool with his tiny arms folded and his legs dangling over the edge of the stool, unable to touch the ground. He was balding underneath his black bowler hat with his tufty red hair sticking out to the side like pulled cotton. Springing from his chin was a neatly trimmed goatee curled into a hook at the bottom that Arc always joked could be used for fishing. The look on Kenny’s face was one of forced contentedness as he loathed when this particular spellslinger showed up on his doorstep. It always meant trouble.

  “How is my favourite gnome?” asked Arc, folding his arms.

  Kenny grimaced. “I heard that you—”

  “Yes, that I was dead. Many people are saying this, but I don’t know why.”

  “Of course, you do,” said Kenny, rolling his eyes. “Colt has a mouth on him and is known for being presumptuous. I’m amazed you haven’t lost as much as a finger.”

  Arc raised his eyebrows. “Colt, eh? Seeing as you brought him up—”

  “No,” said Kenny bluntly.

  “Can you just point—”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “My jaw has barely healed since your last visit, Arc. You think I’d help you after you beat information out of me?”

  “You shouldn’t have tried to poison my drink and then stab me in the leg,” shrugged Arc. “I’d rather you just talked, but you forced my hand, Kenny.”

  The gnome flashed a smile before feigning a guilty look. “Ah, you knew about the poison? I thought it was strange for you to turn down a whiskey. I suppose we’re even then.”

  “Even?” asked Arc with a guttural laugh. “Not even close, pipsqueak. You made two attempts to kill me and got away with a bloody nose and a few bruises. You owe me information about Colt and I’ll settle for nothing less.”

  “Come on, Arc. If you do get killed this time and Colt finds out I’ve ratted, I’ll suffer far worse than that. I’m sorry to say, he’s a much nastier individual than you.”

  “I’m not nasty!”

  “You are when I piss you off.”

  “And you know what you can do to not piss me off, Kenny, don’t you?”

  The gnome sighed and dragged his hand across his face. “What do you want me to tell you? Which of his hideouts he’s holed up in?”

  “That would be a start.”

  “Well, I can’t. I don’t know where he is.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth, Arc,” said Kenny, hopping off his stool and walking over to the map on the wall.

  Standing upright, the information broker was barely three feet tall. He pulled a collapsable pointer from his pocket and extended it, raising the tip to point at various spots on the map.

  “If you’ll see here, there are seven facilities to the north that Colt has ownership of. Each of those has, on average, twenty of his lackeys manning it. Colt himself passed through Pembroke to get medical treatment before vanishing; as he’s known to do.”

  “Seven facilities, eh?” asked Arc, approaching the map and drawing his finger in a circle around each of the points Kenny had pointed to before stopping at the westernmost one. “This one looks to be a little removed from the others.”

  “That’s simply an outpost,” said Kenny, collapsing his pointer and shoving it back in his pocket. “It’s to keep Darcy’s men away from Colt’s territory. You know how Darcy can be.”

  “What does it look like?” asked Arc.

  “I’ve never seen it, but old photographs suggest that it was once a broadcasting station.”

  “Broadcasting station?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Is it functional? Can the men radio back to Colt if they wanted to?”

  “How in the hells would I know that, Arc?” snapped Kenny. “You think I’m best buddies with these freaks? That we trade housing tips over a hog roast in the evenings? Catch a grip, you hellion.”

  “Well, perhaps you can tell me how many men I should be expecting,” said Arc, trying not to laugh as Kenny grew so red in the face that it almost matched his hair.

  “It’s a small place, so I would wager no more than a dozen. I can’t be certain.”

  “Good,” said Arc, turning towards the door. “Look at that, Kenny, we had a pleasant conversation and I didn’t have to throw any fists today. Our friendship is healing.”

  “Indeed,” said Kenny through gritted teeth. “Don’t go getting yourself blown up anymore Arc. That would be a real…shame.”

  “And deprive you of another jolly visit? I wouldn’t dream of it. No, my friend, you’ll be seeing me for many more years to come. We’re pals ‘til the end of time.”

  Arc departed from the office as Kenny swore up a storm under his breath. He was tempted to ask for his five silver back from Jeremy as he passed, but he thought keeping in good stead with Kenny’s bodyguard would serve him well in the future should the gnome cause him grief. Instead, he simply bid Jeremy a friendly farewell and headed back into the streets of Pembroke.

  If he couldn’t find out where Colt was, he would be sure to cause the bandit as much misery as he could in the hope of drawing him out. Now armed with more revolver rounds and a healthier supply of spell cartridges, Arc was certain that he could convince one of Colt’s men to give up his location. Failing that, he had the exact thing he needed to make a scene big enough to draw Colt’s attention.

  Arc looked at the holstered Golden Hawk and started laughing quietly to himself at the thought of putting his plan into motion. That plan involved a new spell cartridge he had been looking forward to using from the moment he laid eyes on it.