Free The Horns of Ruin by Tim Akers Page A

one place we found a body, some old guy who must
have stumbled on their hideout and paid with his life. He'd been dead almost a
week, wrapped in some kind of sheeting that masked the smell. We even found a
lookout on the closest waterway, accessible only by depthship or a really good
set of lungs. The last place we looked was along the Pershing circle, trying to
find where the guys who had actually attacked us were hiding. It was almost
dawn.
    It was an easy place to find. Just had to figure out where
we were when they had attacked the rails, and then backtrack a little bit. It
was a nest, built into the open gridwork at the level of the train, shielded
from view by barrels taken from a local distillery. There was no communications
rig here, just some kind of tube that was charred at both ends and smelled of gunpowder.
From here I had a clear view of the crash site, and the surrounding square.
Patrols milled about, whiteshirts circling nervously and black-robed Amonites
working on the track. I sat down on the little platform and swung my legs over
the edge.
    "So," Owen said, sitting beside me, "what do
we know?"
    "We know where they waited. That there were a lot of
them, spread out all over the city. They knew we were coming, and how."
    "Not necessarily. We've only looked in places we knew
you could have gone. There might be other sites like this, all over the
city."
    "That's a cheery thought."
    "Yeah," he said. "Means there could be a lot
of those guys."
    "We also know that someone killed some of them. Either
because they were following us, or knew we were being followed." I rubbed
my face and looked down at the street, far below. "That's something."
    "Really, we still don't know much of anything,"
Owen said.
    "We know the Fratriarch is missing."
    There was a shout, far away, and we both looked up. In the
distance, there was a commotion around the crash site. Amonites were rushing
away, all of them running toward a white-robed man who held one hand high in
the air. They threw themselves at his feet. The other Alexians at the site were
milling about. The tracks and other buildings blocked much of our view.
    "They've found something," I said.
    Owen stood and spun up his rig, the swirling orbits of the
helmet closing around his head and eyes as it tapped into the communications
grid.
    I didn't wait. I jumped to my feet and, invoking a little
trick from the book of Morgan, leapt the distance to the track. I ran along the
rails, toward the crash site, bully out, heart pounding.

hey were gathered around a
crater in the ground. The Amonites were fully leashed, lurking unhappily behind
their Alexian master on the far side of the square. There was a yellow tape
barrier around the crash site, lined with a handful of curious passersby,
though more were gathering as the search team became increasingly agitated. It
didn't help when I boomed down the tracks, glory wicking off my boots as I
leapt to the ground in full combat gear. I'm a crowd pleaser.
    The investigator in charge, a bald-headed, frail,
middle-aged man in an impeccable Alexian robe, waved me to a stop. Then he put
a hand on my shoulder as I passed him and, eventually, hurried after me as I
closed on the crater. He was sputtering.
    "We don't know the full extent of its power, my lady,
and think caution is best."
    "Full extent of what's power?' I asked. There were a
number of craters in the ground, all of them from my fight yesterday. Already
yesterday, I mused. How long did the Fratriarch have? "What did you
find?"
    "It's ... unclear. An icon, perhaps. It might be
nothing."
    "Nothing, huh? That would be in line with the rest of
your findings." I reached the crowd of whiteshirts who had gathered around
the crater and muscled my way through.
    It was far from nothing.
    The crater was shallow. I didn't remember it from the
fight-at least, I didn't remember doing anything dramatic in this particular
spot. Close to the tracks, but not where I had engaged the two burnpack
soldiers.