Tim Akers - The Horns of Ruin

The Horns of Ruin

Tim Akers

To my own BloodyJennifer, who fights like a girl

hey came for us one at a time,came to kill the last servants of the dead god Morgan. I had lost brothers andsisters before, to battle or old age. Scions of Morgan die all the time. We'rewarriors. Now we were going to die in alleyways, in our homes, in crowdedtheaters and empty hallways. They came to kill us, and we didn't know who theywere.

They came for me and Barnabas while we were walking throughthe city, on our way back to the Strength of Morgan from an errand at theScholar's prison, the Library Desolate. Well. Mostly they came for Barnabas. Ijust happened to be there, escorting him. It was me. I'm the girl who let theold man down.

He looked good that morning. Healthy. He always lookedbetter out of the monastery. Those old, empty stone halls did little more thanweigh him down. Open air, even the dirty air of a crowded street in the city ofAsh, always put a smile on his face. He was smiling that morning. This wasbefore the hidden deaths, before the murders and betrayals. Before we knew whatwas happening. He was the first one they came for, and we didn't know they werecoming. Not yet.

We walked down the road, and the crowd parted for us.Barnabas was in his formal robe, a deep maroon hemmed with gold thread, andcarrying the staff of his office. Symbolic armor clattered on his shoulders,and the cuffs of his robe were stamped with golden scale mail that shimmered inthe morning light. His knuckles bore the calluses of a life spent fighting andworking, the twin paths of the scions of Morgan. White hair and wrinkled facesat on a frame thick with muscle and iron hard. Even in the waning days of ourCult, there was glory in the office of the Fratriarch, and Barnabas Silentlooked every inch the part.

As proud as I was, I wished he'd left the formal robe athome. I was dressed in my battle-day simples. Pride was fine, and glory wasbetter, but both of those things were bought with attention. As theFratriarch's only guard, I could have done with less attention. Of course,whatever attention I avoided by dressing simply, I gave up with my holster andsheath. But a girl shouldn't go out half dressed.

"It's a matter of state, Eva," Barnabas said, hisvoice as gentle as mist at the foot of a waterfall.

"I said nothing, my Elder."

"You did," he said, nodding. "In the way youstand, in the movement of your eyes. In the weight of your hand upon yourbullistic. You do not wish to be here."

"It's not my fault you like to get dressed up, oldman. No, no, I'm happy to be here. Thrilled to be walking through the city withthe holiest man I know, just me as a guard. Not like we have any enemies,Barnabas. Not like the Rethari are massing at our borders, or their chameleonspies have been dredged up in the collar countries. No, not at all. This isideal." I sped up a little to intercept a group of children who hadblundered into our path. The Fratriarch smiled and patted their heads as wepassed. They stared at us, whispering. "I just wish you'd brought moreguards. Maybe an army or two?"

Barnabas watched the children, his face equal parts gentlehappiness and melancholy. He turned back to me.

"The Rethari are always massing. It's what they do.And as for their spies? We used to make stew of their spies. Besides, we haveno other guards, Eva. It's a matter of state. We go to seek the aid of ourgodbrother. Only Elders of the Fist and Paladins may attend. Among the Elders,Simeon was busy, Tomas and Elias are napping, and Isabel cannot be more thanten steps from her library, for fear that one of her books go unread."

"I saw Tomas, just before we left."

Barnabas nodded absently. "Yes, yes. Not napping.Tomas does not ..." He smirked and shrugged. "Tomas will not beinvolved in this. And of the Paladins, Eva?"

I grimaced and looked around at the passing crowd. Apedigear weaved past us, its clacking engine momentarily drowning out theperfectly good awkward silence.

"You are the last Paladin of the dead god Morgan, Eva.There are no more, and likely never will be," he said, patting my hand."I am the Fratriarch, and you are the Paladin. Let us attend to ourbusiness."

He walked off. I sighed and followed.

"Yeah, let's just make a parade of it. You andme," I said quietly, adjusting the hang of my revolver at my hip."Maybe I should have rented an elephant."

"Elephants don't belong in cities, Eva," the Fratsaid, gesturing broadly to the crowded streets and towering glass buildings allaround. "It's not humane."

"To the elephant? Or the city?"

He laughed deeply, and I smiled and caught up. In youngeryears he would have pinched my cheek or patted me on the head, as he had thosechildren. But now he was the Fratriarch and I was the Paladin. We walked sideby side through the city of Ash.

"If it's a matter of state, then we're going the wrongway. Alexander will be at his throne today, in the Spear of the Brothers."I pointed across the road. "That way, in case you've gotten senile."

"It is," Barnabas nodded, "and we are notgoing there."

"You said-"

"Morgan had two brothers, Eva. We are going to visitthe scions of Amon."

I stopped walking, frustrating the crowd. Barnabascontinued on, nearly disappearing into the throng before I snapped out of myshock.

A whole column of elephants wouldn't be enough, nor stonewalls. Nothing would make me feel safe in the halls of Amon the Betrayer.

Ash is a funny city. Not funny, like rag clowns and puppetshows. Funny like it shouldn't exist. Funny like it should collapse in onitself in a cloud of shattered glass and burning streets. My kind of funny.

It goes back an Age, back to when the Feyr were theraceascendant rather than mankind, when the Titans ruled the skies and theearth and the water all around. Before there were people, maybe. I don't know.But it goes back to the Feyr.

What is today the city of Ash was once the capital city ofthe Titans. Their throne, their birthplace, a city of temples and totems andgrand technology. The name of that city is lost to us, but it nestled in acrater, like a giant bowl of stone sprinkled with buildings and roads andcarved riverways. We really don't know why the Titans and the Feyr fought theirlittle war, but they did, and that war came to the city in the crater.

The Feyr were masters of the elements. They made water outof nothing, fire out of air. They could sink mountains and freeze the sun inthe sky. That's the story my momma told me, at least. Scratch that. That's thestory my nanny told me. So the Feyr came to the crater, to the city of theTitans.

They burned it, then they drowned it. Two deaths for onecity. It was enough to win the war, and more than enough to scar the Feyrforever. They filled the crater with a lake of cold, black water, and that lakewas choked with the slick ash of the dead city below. It was a wound on thesoul of their kingdom, the greatest sin they ever committed. In time they triedto atone. They built temples of wood that floated on the lake of ash, trying tosuck the sickness out with their prayers.

And when war came to them, when mankind rose up and namedtheir gods and came marching with swords and totems of their own, this was thelast place the Feyr stood. Afterward, mankind made a city on that lake, builtup from what was left of the charred temple-rafts of the Feyr. Amon the Scholarcrafted engines that supported more and more structures, more buildings androads and people. It became the capital of the Fraterdom, the impossibleengines always churning against the lake to keep us dry.