The rhythm of Locomotive 09 was hypnotic. The clack-clack of iron wheels on oxidized rails echoed through the narrow tunnel walls like a mechanical heartbeat. Inside the cargo car, the only light came from a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, swaying with every jolt.

  Henry sat on a crate, methodically cleaning the jagged blades of his brass knuckles. Elena sat across from him, sharpening her wrist daggers on a whetstone, while Kane stood near the gap of the armored door, watching the darkness rush by.

  "Do you think the Conductor was bluffing?" Elena asked, never taking her eyes off the steel. "About this 'boss'?"

  Henry stopped his hand movement. The image of Arthur Volkovich—a man who feared no one on the surface—trembling at the mention of a superior, wouldn't leave his mind.

  "Volkovich is a survivor, Elena. He wouldn't invent a story like that just to scare us. If he says there’s someone above him, that person holds the keys to everything that happens down here."

  "The world used to be simple," Kane commented, turning back toward the interior of the car. "Nations, trade rules, planes that didn't fall out of the sky. Now, we’re on a scrap-metal train heading toward a mystery, fleeing from legends, and serving a master who gave us wooden masks instead of names."

  Henry looked at his blue mask resting beside him.

  "Solomon gave us more than masks, Kane. He gave us the right not to be like the Crusaders. He gave us a choice."

  The moment of reflection was shattered by a high-pitched sound. It wasn't the train. It was the sound of metal scratching against the outside of the car—on the roof.

  Kane, positioned near the control cabin, raised his hand for silence. His eyes were fixed on the tunnel ceiling ahead.

  "Did you hear that?" Kane whispered.

  Before Henry could answer, a metallic crash shook the car. It wasn't a derailment, but the sound of boarding hooks latching onto the sides of the train. Suddenly, the reinforced windows were struck by improvised Molotov cocktails, coating the train's exterior in orange flames that illuminated the tunnel.

  "Ambush!" Kane shouted, revving the shrill whine of his saws.

  The train began to decelerate sharply as figures in red shirts leapt from the overhead maintenance catwalks onto the roof of the convoy. There were ten of them—a significant detachment, about 13% of Vincent Malakor’s entire army. They weren't there by chance; the smell of PCP and the fanaticism in their eyes betrayed that they knew exactly who they were hunting.

  One of the Crusaders, his face painted with a cross of fresh blood, kicked open the upper hatch and screamed in a hoarse, manic voice:

  "Vincent wants your freedom, Heretic! The gunpowder demands your head for the baptism!"

  Henry felt his blood boil. The interruption of the mission, the threat to the civilians waiting for that cargo, and the audacity of the Powder Cross to invade Traveler territory was the breaking point. He snapped his brass knuckles into place with a dry, violent click, his eyes glowing with fury behind the blue wooden mask.

  "Motherfuckers..." Henry growled, his voice rasping and heavy with hate. "I’m going to send you all to hell!"

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  Henry didn't wait for them to descend. He used a cargo crate as a step and lunged toward the roof opening, grabbing the screaming Crusader by the throat. With a brutal motion, he drove the jagged blade of his brass knuckle into the man's chest and hurled him off the moving train, watching him vanish into the darkness of the tracks.

  Outside, atop Locomotive 09, the biting wind and sparks created a war zone. The nine remaining Crusaders advanced with machetes and iron bars, sliding over the hot metal.

  "Kane! Elena! Get off the train!" Henry ordered, already throwing himself at the next two attackers. "I’ll handle these rats up here!"

  Kane emerged right behind him, the buzz of the saws drowning out the train's engine. He was a blur of motion, while Elena slipped through the side shadows, ready to harvest the throats of anyone trying to enter the cabin.

  The fight on the rails, deep within the stone throat of Oregon, had just become a slaughterhouse.

  The wind in the tunnels was like an icy blade, whipping Henry’s blue jacket as he balanced on the unstable roof of Locomotive 09. The environment was a chaos of sparks, black diesel smoke, and the intermittent flicker of the tunnel's emergency lights.

  Three Crusaders surrounded Henry. One of them, visibly taller and wearing a necklace made of spent shell casings, swung a butcher’s machete with manic dexterity.

  "The Void awaits you, Heretic!" the Crusader screamed, lunging at Henry.

  Henry dodged by millimeters, feeling the air displaced by the machete's swing. He didn't retreat. Instead, he used the train’s own momentum to pivot and deliver a side-punch. The metal of the brass knuckle slammed into the ribs of the second Crusader trying to flank him. The crack of breaking bone was muffled by the engine's roar, and the man was tossed off the roof, disappearing into the abyss of the tracks.

  The lead Crusader snarled, his PCP-injected eyes glowing a sickly red.

  "You fight well for someone who worships dry branches!" He lunged again, a series of rapid strikes that forced Henry to use the blades of his brass knuckles to block the heavy steel of the machete.

  The sound of colliding metal created sparks that illuminated Henry’s wooden mask for fractions of a second. Henry took advantage of a high strike from the large cultist and ducked, performing a technical sweep. But the man, drugged and ignoring basic balance, simply jumped and tried to bring the machete down in a two-handed vertical strike.

  Henry rolled to the side, feeling the machete wedge itself deep into the metal roof of the car.

  "Now you're mine!" Henry roared.

  Before the Crusader could pull the stuck weapon free, Henry pounced like a predator. He delivered a straight right to the Crusader’s face, shattering the man's nose. Without giving him time to react, Henry grabbed his arm and twisted, hearing the shoulder pop out of its socket.

  The man didn't scream in pain; he laughed, a bubbling sound of blood and madness.

  "Blood for the gunpowder..." he spat at the face of Henry’s mask.

  Henry didn't hesitate. He drove the jagged knife of his left brass knuckle into the Crusader’s neck and, with a powerful kick to the chest, shoved him away. The body was swept back by the wind and hit a tunnel support beam with a dull thud.

  Only two remained on the roof, but they hesitated seeing the strongest of their pack discarded like trash.

  "Who else wants to go to hell today?" Henry asked, his voice cold and lethal, as blood dripped from his gloves.

  At that moment, the tunnel began to open up. The pale light of the Oregon moon began to flood the area as the train emerged from the bowels of the earth.

  The two remaining Crusaders exchanged quick glances, hesitation fighting the chemical delusion in their brains. But for Henry, hesitation was an invitation to the end.

  Locomotive 09 broke through the mouth of the tunnel, and the freezing surface air hit the roof of the car like a slap. Under the cold moonlight, Henry moved.

  The first fanatic tried a desperate lunge with a combat knife, but Henry shifted his body aside and, in one fluid motion, seized the attacker's wrist. With a sharp twist, Henry used the train's momentum to hurl the man against the edge of the car; the Crusader lost his footing and fell under the massive steel wheels, silenced instantly by the weight of the convoy.

  The last survivor of the ambush, seeing himself alone, tried to jump off the train in hopes of escaping through the high brush. He wasn't fast enough. Henry threw his backup combat knife—the one kept in his leg holster—with surgical precision. The blade buried itself in the man's back mid-air, and he fell lifeless onto the gravel of the tracks, becoming just another fading silhouette.

  Henry took a deep breath, wiping blood off his wooden mask with the back of his hand. The silence of the surface was unsettling after the chaos of the tunnel.

  The Sight of the Disaster

  The train began to slow down, screeching to a halt on a stretch of track that curved around a devastated hillside. Kane and Elena climbed onto the roof, standing beside Henry. None of them spoke for a few seconds, both exhausted from having eliminated their own share of Crusaders.

  Down below, in the valley between charred pines, lay what remained of Bosnian pride.

  The cargo plane was immense, a carcass of twisted metal that looked like a silver whale stranded in a sea of Oregon mud. The fuselage was broken into three main pieces, and the wings had sliced through trees as if they were grass.

  "Something's wrong," Elena whispered, pointing toward the wreckage.

  A dense smoke of a sickly green hue emanated from inside the ruptured cargo hold, crawling across the forest floor like a living mist. It didn't look like ordinary fire smoke; it was heavy, chemical, and seemed to glow faintly under the moonlight.

  "The Conductor was right about one thing," Kane observed, adjusting the focus of his binoculars. "There are no signs of artillery fire or missiles on the fuselage. It wasn't blown up. It was... torn open."

  Henry climbed down from the train roof, jumping onto the damp ground. He watched the greenish mist approaching.

  "That's not fire," Henry said, adjusting the locks on his brass knuckles. "No matter who brought this plane down, whoever did it might still be down here."

  He looked out at the silent forest surrounding the crash site. The air smelled of metal and something sweet and rotten at the same time. The rescue mission had just become a survival mission in unknown territory.

  End of Chapter