05. Children of Flux and Anchor Read Online Free PDF Page B

crossing the top of the triangular northern tip of New Eden, a hundred kilometers or more south of the border, and things had seemed normal. The land was still less populated than most of New Eden, but that was due to the weather patterns which kept this small area very dry and made water difficult to come by.
    Both riders halted as if one. "Smoke up there," Ryan noted.
    "Think it's trouble this far in?"
    "Can't tell, but my instinct says we better assume it is."
    Both had 9mm pistols and Ryan also had a shotgun, but both ignored these and went into packs, bringing out pieces of metal and professionally clicking each part into place. Each took out long magazines of ammunition and put them in every pocket they had, then one in each of the new weapons.
    The land swept up from where they were. It was more a rise than a hill, but it was sufficiently high to block their view. They approached it, then dismounted and went down on their stomachs, crawling to the top on their bellies.
    They looked down on what had been a small ranch. The house and barn were now in flames, and several human figures were going from place to place, checking on things.
    "The raiders?" Rondell asked the older man.
    "Looks like some of 'em. I don't make it as more than a dozen, though. Probably a rear guard." Both clicked their sights to maximum telescope range and looked again at the sight.
    The range was still too great to make out individual features, but there were clearly some dead bodies scattered around. The raiders themselves seemed a ragtag bunch, dressed in mismatched and outsized clothes that looked like somebody's refuse, but commanding nasty-looking weapons that seemed to be related to the two now pointed at them.
    "Look at the horses over there. See anything odd?" Ryan asked the other.
    Rondell looked. "Can't tell much from this distance, but they sure don't look like work horses or breed horses, either."
    "Right. They're also out of the corral but are the most passive bunch I've ever seen with all that going on."
    "Think they're the raiders' horses?"
    "I do. But that's clearly a horse farm down there—I can make out the picture on the sign, and you can see the layout yourself. So where's the farm's horses and the other raiders?"
    " Whoops! Looks like they're getting ready to pull out down there. I hope they don't decide to come this way."
    "Ten to one they'll screw the road and take off overland to the northeast. Shortest route to the border and away from the roads and the army. How many horses you make down there?"
    "Huh? Looks like sixty or more. Why?"
    "They came in overland and probably pushed hell out of those horses. Bet they did a hundred kilometers without real rest just to get here by midday. They had it well thought out."
    "A hundred is pushing it to the limit," Rondell noted. "You—oh, I get it. They knew this place was here and that it had a large number of fresh and broken horses. They came in, pushed everything to the limit, and when they got here the horses were spent. So they left a sufficient number of them here to move the horses out while they continued to ride off on the new fresh mounts. It explains some of it, but they're gonna be pretty damned exhausted after that ride and a fight."
    "Uh huh, but they've had most of the day, and night will fall in an hour or so. They can afford a cold camp and some rest now. See, when the army gets here, or a posse is formed, they're gonna take off after this bunch here— northeast. Easy tracks off the road, at least for a while. In the meantime, the main bunch will be ahead of us, mostly on the road until they want to camp, then probably making a dozen cold camps just out of sight of the road for the night."
    "But the only thing up ahead is the Logh District—the old Anchor. The Sea starts in another twenty or thirty kilometers and runs right up to it."
    "Then that's what this is all about," the old man sighed. "A dozen or more raids up and down five hundred kilometers of Flux