Amonites, all of them. They had ditched the robes and chains, but I could tell. I could smell them. Could smell the grease under their fingernails, the oily smoke of burnsaws in their hair and clothes. The fear. Mostly, I could smell the fear.
The room was a tight labyrinth of head-high walls that ended long before they reached the ceiling. They looked cobbled together, made from bits of junk that only coupled under an Amonite's careful hand. The air smelled of sweat and burned food. It smelled like a crowded home, like diapers and stale sheets. I stood in the foyer of their hovel and flared my shields. A wave of force puffed out from my core, scattering paper and pottery. The Scholars were running. As they should.
"I am here for the girl!" I boomed, my voice distorted and fey through so many invokations. "What runs will be run down! What hides will be dug out!"
A scattering of shots sparked off my armor, children with handguns firing from the corners of the trash-built home. I pushed at them, weaving my sword through an invokation of force that crumpled the walls and splintered their bones. I was burning it way too hot, but Morgan was on me and vengeance had taken my heart. All I could think of was the old man, and not letting him down again. I was a little blood-sick from yesterday's fight, but I just rode it out.
I stepped over the bodies, scooping up and holstering a discarded revolver as I went, and shoved through a flimsy wall. It fell into a kitchen and toppled a pot of boiling liquid, then caught fire against the heating element. Soup hissed as it steamed away, filling the air with the smell of fried meat. A pocket of Scholars scampered from cover, crossing the rapidly burning kitchen and diving through a door across the way. The last one turned to spit a cant into the room. The stove tumbled open, its tank spilling thick, heavy flames onto the floor. I laughed and followed, the fire whimpering to a halt at the edge of my shielding. More shots banged off me from behind, but they were light caliber. Nothing to worry about. I was on the path, and they were just trying to distract me.
"The girl, Cassandra! She is all I ask of you, Betrayers!"
The first real resistance came from a trio of older men, still wearing the tired remnants of their robes, their belts of service tight across their chests and jangling with tools. They fell in around me and began to unmake the room, throwing together half-realized constructs and hurling them to die at my blade. They dropped a cage of pipes around my shoulders, tightening it until it clenched the articulated sheath like a lover. My blade thudded dully into the steel, suddenly harder than any building's conduit had the right to be. Runes writhed across the surface of the metal as one of the Amonites chanted a rite of strength.
I rolled against the cage, slipping one shoulder between the bars, regretting it as the metal pinched closed against my pauldron. A whirlwind flurry of tiny automatons buzzed across the floor, scampering up my legs in tiny, razor-barbed steps, cutting their way to my face. I screamed, flaring a shield that crisped the toys but left my larger defenses weakened. The cage tightened again, and now I was staring at the tip of my own blade as it was crushed against my chest. The trio of Betrayers was chanting, tighter and tighter, my breath coming in grunts and starts. Forcing my hand.
I burst, spiking hard into Morgan's power, the wreath of his incarnation manifesting in blue and black fire. The cage held for half a breath and then it was gone, and along with it most of my invokations. My sword fell to the smoldering floor and I dropped to my knees, drawing the bully as I crumpled. The trio closed in.
My first shot took one in the knee, the second stopped his heart. They started in on the Unmaking, but they weren't Cassandra and I was fast. I emptied the cylinder, killing the second Amonite. The last one abandoned the cant and just ran. Good thing. I dropped the revolver and fell to my hands and knees, heaving bile and spit. Too much invokation. I probably should have eaten some breakfast, too. Gotten some sleep. It's hard to be a god on no rest and a little wine.
The room was wrecked. The half-walls were mostly burned and crumpled, shattered framework turning to char from my final invokation. There were clothes burning, and bodies, and the remnants of furniture. I spat the last of the vomit from my mouth, wiped off and holstered the revolver, then dragged myself to my still-warm sword. My hands burned against the metal.
"I gotta learn to dial that glory down," I gasped. "God or no god, I need to keep that tight."
The girl was gone, I was sure. Doors slammed open, feet hammered on concrete. Fading. The only voices I could hear were organized. Calm. Directing an evacuation. I looked at the two dead Amonites, the ones who had almost taken me. Scholar had his own Paladins, I guess. And the last of this little convent of Amon was getting away. I stood and started toward the next room.
Evacuating, all right. In a hurry. Clothes and various personal items were strewn across the floor, possessions hastily packed, weapons loaded, and food gathered. How long had they been here? It had the feel of a place that had been lived in.
The escape hatch was about halfway around the room, a tiny steel door that looked like it belonged on a depthship. Rusty iron wheel in the center, pressurized glass window. I tried to undog it, but the wheel wouldn't budge. Too much of Morgan had left me to force the issue. I looked around for something large and metal for leverage.
The wreckage of the room was little help. The inner walls were flimsy, little more than plywood braced up with scrap. There were no beds, just piles of clothes, a couple mattresses that were intricately stained, and a crib, but it was smashed. The only metal was in the kitchen, in the form of old and worn-out utensils. The spoons were almost flat.
Amonites always had tools. I went to the bodies of the two Scholars who had slowed me down. Wrenches, hammers, ankle-pliers, all clean and stored carefully on their belts. I took the biggest wrench I could find and tried the hatch, but there was no budging it. It was invoked, for sure. I went and put the wrench carefully back in the guy's belt, then walked around the room one more time. Looking for weapons, I guess. Looking for signs of an underground conspiracy bent on kidnapping the most powerful man in the Cult of Morgan.
Stuffed toys. Pots. A stilograph of a girl, standing on the stairs of an old house in a field somewhere. The girl was just turning toward the camera, not yet aware that her picture was being taken. She had a hand against her face, half in the act of brushing a curl of long, blonde hair out of her eyes. I put the stilo down and looked around.
Children, and old men, and mothers. This was a home hidden between empty spaces, carved out of junk and refuse and the forgotten things of the city. Occupied by the desperate remnants of an outlaw church. They could be escapees, or simply Amonites in the wild, some splinter Cult left over from before the Betrayal. Who knew? This was more an orphanage than a bandits' den.
But the girl had been here. And where the girl was, there might be clues to where the Fratriarch was. That was all I had.
I sat cross-legged on the floor and laid the sword across my knees, then fumbled a vial of oil from my vest and prepared to anoint the blade. Outside I heard Owen's amplified voice booming down the alleyway. Looking for me. It would be a while before they got up here.
"Long hunt," I whispered, to myself, to the Fratriarch, to the girl. "Gonna be a long hunt."
6
re you going to hit me again?" Owen asked. He was standing standing in the middle of the wreckage of the Amonites' hideout, holding the remnants of a child's teddy bear.
"Are you going to touch me again?" I asked.
"Probably not."
"Okay then."
He looked around the room, at the torn walls and scorched floor, at the two body bags and the trail of blood that led to the escape hatch. Men were working on the hatch with burn knives, fat sparks cascading down like a fountain. The Justicar shook his head and threw the ragged doll into a pile of other toys and assorted personal items that his men were sifting from the wreckage.