The Horns of Ruin Read Online Free PDF

still had my eyes when it
happened.
    It was a fast shot, traveling from my left and going toward
the front of the car. It came in through the windows like a lightning flash,
first behind us, then keeping pace, then ahead of us and nearly gone. I was
just glancing over my shoulder to see what it was when the sound came. Tearing,
like ripped cloth. The tracks shook and then everything was washed in red and
gold and a terrible, terrible sound.
    We fell. I hit the carpet hard and slid all the way to the
front of the car, slamming to a stop with my shoulder against the wall. The
girl slid into me, screaming. Barnabas ended up against the benches. He was the
first to his feet. I pushed the girl away and stood. Cassandra lay on the
floor, burbling and wailing. When she rolled over I saw that her right hand was
a mangle of skin. There was no blood, but the bones were broken, and there were
long, angry friction burns across the palm and back. Her thumb was pointing in
several wrong directions.
    Outside the car, there was smoke and metal. Something had
hit the track. The creosote-smeared wooden spars of the tracks were burning
with chemical brilliance, thick black plumes of smoke rolling off in heavy
waves to the street below. The rails themselves were as tangled as the girl's
hand. We were off the tracks and leaning in dangerous ways. The other
passengers were screaming. I was screaming, too.
    "Get up and away from the windows. Get off the
car!" I yelled. In the cars behind us, people were slapping open the
emergency hatches and riding the telescoping chutes to the ground. I started
toward our own chute just as the car torqued under some unseen force. All the
windows popped, then the ceiling peeled open like a scroll. Fat coils of rope,
three of them, landed on the floor around us.
    They landed in a rough semicircle. I turned my back to the
Fratriarch, pushing the whimpering Cassandra behind me. The girl stumbled to
the ground, cradling her limp hand against her chest. I hurriedly invoked armor
and strength, sketchy bindings that I could snap out without thinking. I didn't
have time to think. Gold lines traced the edges of my greaves and pauldrons,
and the air around me tightened. The runes of my noetic armor settled down to a
warm glow. As invokations went, they were weak, but there wasn't time for
anything fancy.
    Our assailants wore armor, actual armor, though it was
roughly formed. Their faceplates were flat and plain, two bulbous gogglelike
eyes over a voxorator grate. The metal of their breastplates and pauldrons was
dull gray, sheened like oil on water. Wickedly barbed blades snapped out from
their armguards. They attacked without saying a word.
    I laid into them. My opening strike was to the left,
scything past the first brute's guard with the weight of my attack. The blade
struck his shoulder, denting metal and drawing a staticky shriek from his vox.
He collapsed to the floor, and I followed the force of the blow, letting my
sword swing low. My momentum rolled me over the fallen warrior. I came to my
feet. This separated me from the Fratriarch, but their attention was fully on
me. That's right, watch the dangerous bitch. Don't worry about the old man. The
two remaining guys were nicely lined up. I turned the flat of my blade toward
them and invoked.
    "Morgan stood at the gates of Orgentha, broken city,
broken wall. He stood in the stones and bones of the defenders; he stood before
the spears of the invader." My voice was flat and quiet, grinding like
stone in the grist. This was a new invokation for me, and I had to focus to
draw into the past and pull out the power of Morgan's story. Hard lines of
energy danced around my legs, light cutting in spirals through the train's
dusty interior. The attackers stared at me impassively with their glassy eyes.
I hurried, binding the invokation as quickly as I could. "Three days he
stood against them, alone, shield as a wall, sword as an army. The city stood.
He stood. The Wall of