Day 1
The town of Dragonskull was less of what most would think a town should be and more of a mishmash of ramshackle structures and the occasional one built to last. But even then several of the huts that had been smashed together for the less permanent structures still built a rather nice looking facade to give the place a look of more permanence from the main road.
Being nearly eighty miles from the last city, and the last stop of the lightnin' rail that carried most of the fortune seekers into the wastes there was only the wagon and coach post to ship things in from, though the all but monthly attempts to convince the rail companies to continue the line through their fair town seemed to be a repeated, doomed prospect.
James Walker stepped from the coach to the freshly dried mud track that served to keep the place supplied with the trappings of civilization. The leather duster he wore slapped against his legs, just below the knees and less than an inch above the tops of his boots.
As the coachman and shotgunner started unloading, he nodded to them and paid his fare with a few gold coins before glancing about for the local inn to claim a room for the time being.
The locals seemed to be ignoring the newcomer as the local padre was giving a sermon from atop a few upturned crates and barrels that formed an impromptu stage.
It wouldn't have been anything he hadn't seen before except the preacher was just over seven foot and built like a pillar of muscle with greenish grey skin. An exceptionally well groomed orc, one who had apparently found religion and a will to spread it. It was rather rare to find many that weren't in the more backbreaking positions, a testament to their physical capability that few races could keep up with barring the dwarves, but the two races rarely had much of a conflict with mines being a bit to short for the orcs and dwarves tended to prefer more cozy tunnels to work from there.
James paused for a moment, but repentance wasn't really something he needed to contemplate. Though he did give the preacher a tip of the hat before he stepped into the saloon that served as the lower floor of the three story inn.
He stepped up to the bar to speak to the proprietor as one of the local singers stepped up.
His first thought was that she was a satyr, but revised his position a second later. He'd gotten fey right, but wrong kind, she was a faun.
The place was probably lucky, Satyr's were notorious for causing problems for the fun of it, fauns tended to be less of that and more of in it for the joy of the music. Few businesses from the more civilized lands wished to deal with the constant threats of riots that a bored satyr could cause by accident with their pipes.
Oddly enough, the bartender, in the midst of their negotiations for a possibly long term stay in the establishment, was the first person in the place to notice the mithril star pinned to his chest. Something that paled the old dwarf for a moment before hurrying up his booking before James bought a drink.
The dwarfs eyes widened even more after the well used glass' smudges from seemingly decades of use vanished with a wave of the marshals hand.
He'd been sent here due to reports of something due to happen, a seer of his acquaintance had spoken of dark magic rising in the frontier and he'd gotten the assignment to find out what was going to happen and do his job.
The dragons had all but vanished, moving this direction a century ago, and he'd be damned if the frontier would take him as well.
A half hour later, James was tossing his hat onto the bed of the room he was renting while glancing out the window at the landmark that had named the town.
Nearly ten times the height of a man and many times longer lay a single dragon skull, still half buried in the local stone. Rather than the normal off white most bones turned when exposed to the sun for years, and this had been out for at least centuries if not even more, it had darkened to nearly the color of charcoal, and the positioning of it rising prevented most forms of discovering the type.
But then again, there hadn't been anyone who had seen a dragon since their exodus past the mountains and wastes just under two centuries ago, so there wasn't that much in the way of real experts that could be called out with any true experience in the matter.
Part of him wondered if the skull's discovery, and the founding of the town soon after, were omens for whatever he'd been sent out here to deal with when it revealed itself.
His fingers traced the simple star on his breast, a moment lingering on the engraved numbers on the back, and the years it had taken to earn it.
There were twenty-seven numbered stars in circulation, and it took a lot to earn one of them. And even then, he'd only been given the chance to do so a month ago, something that the other twenty-six still weren't in total agreement over.
And that's part of the reason he'd been chosen to end up here on the other side of the Drake's Passing Mountains at the furthest reach of civilization.
And he didn't even have the rail here that could call in backup if he'd end up needing it.
But he was still a marshal, one of those who kept the peace, or at least that's what the legends said.
Proving it, well, that was another matter, but one he was willing to do his damnest to accomplish.
The preachers voice was still loud and strong as James headed down for a meal and to listen in on the locals after a pair of boys that seemed to have some orc blood in them hauled up his things with less of an issue for the chests than most would.
Those with orc blood were common on the frontier, at least after the various issues of the wars.
Most orcs weren't that bright, and tended to have more tradition combined with a higher tendency to physical violence than most of the races. It didn't mix that well when technology boomed with dragons out of the picture.
But even with the early boosts, the orc hordes had been a menace, at least until guns entered common use.
Their race had been decimated and most of their bands slaughtered.
Probably would have been best to leave it at that, they'd either adapt or die, but then the elves got involved.
Now, while elves tend to be rather long lived and extremely capable at a lot of things, they weren't that well known for being physically strong. Some of them got the bright idea to enslave the youngsters of the tribes they smashed. Took nearly a century before the Sylvan Realm collapsed and let loose a lot of workers now able to look for an honest wage and do work that no human ever could.
The local orcs, though, seemed less like those living in camps along the path of the lightning rails as the tracks were expanded, their capabilities making the labor easy and keeping most of them out of trouble. These ones were probably of the few that had grown up in the kingdoms, and were encouraged to take part in the expansion to the frontier.
He'd worked with a partner for a year that was from the rail stock, been some of the best backup a gunslinger could find with that scatter gun of his. But Horatio had retired from their line of work to try his hand at handling a bounty office back in Calisseon after he'd lost an eye to a group of bank robbers that used some explosives to try to dissuade their pursuit.
At least his former partner's life had been saved when his horse took the brunt of the blast.
But that was some bad business, hopefully not something he'd need to deal with here.
He finally settled into a corner table, next to one occupied by an old duster of an elf discussing ordering some barrels of blast powder to clear a field from a scarred kobold wearing oil stained clothes and a slight scent of brimstone.
Unconsciously, James loosened his pistol on his hip.
