Nightwatch over Windscar by K. Eason

Author:K. Eason [Eason, K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2022-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Trammen took Iari to the barn first. The big doors were partly open; the amount of rust on the hinges made Iari think they wouldn’t open much wider than that. Or close completely. Iari could see the rest of the Ettradens clumped in the middle of a large open front area lined with crates and boxes. There was a loft overhead (more boxes, and a ladder of much newer vintage than the rest of the place). There were stains in the floor where a big vehicle had sat once—tractor, ATV, something that dripped fluid. Little drifts of snow, too, that had sifted down through the roof’s patchier bits. A youngish tenju woman was talking to Gel, holding a tablet and stylus, frowning at the newcomers.

Trammen herded Iari inside, then went to talk to Gel. Iari thought about ducking back out, then let that idea go. She had to play along. She had to trust Corso. She had to find her people.

Then she spotted a filthy tarp in the corner, a pile of irregular angles and shapes that could be a pile of junk. Except (blink) the barn floor around those shapes showed signs of disturbance, scrapes in the wood planks from something heavy and large dragged across them. She pushed through the Ettradens, crowding—eh, what was his name? Radin, Raden, the one who’d said earnestly all templars should be sent offworld. Raden shot her a look, then crossed her gaze and flinched and sidled away.

Closer made it obvious. Yeah, those were battle-rigs. She picked out the distinctive curve of a chest piece on top, another matching curve jutting out sideways. Of course they were disassembled. Iari had left hers in similar condition with Char, Winter Bite, and Dodri (still in her own rig).

Fear hit like a battle-rigged fist to the chest, like it would punch a hole right through breast and spine. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. The syn came to her rescue and burned through, getting air back into her lungs. Cold air, dusty. Maybe a little bit metallic, like blood or hot polysteel.

Or Brood.

She realized she’d made fists, that she’d rooted in place, when Geltrannen said, “Something wrong, Iari?”

Obviously something was. Iari gathered her scattered wits. It wasn’t bad news—Luki and Llian were here. Somewhere. Alive or dead—but here.

“Those’re battle-rigs,” said Iari. “Under that tarp.”

Gel was standing a prudent meter away, balancing a smile against wary eyes. “Yeah. They are.”

Iari squinted at the alw, trying to look—oh, void and dust, not like a pissed-off templar, not smarter than she’d pretended. Like Corso’s stone-dull cousin. She pointed, sketched the line of the chest plate with her fingertip in the empty air. “Those are templar rigs. I know the shape. Those, they—they were all over B-town last fall, with the Brood. They’re not like army rigs.”

“No,” said Gel. “They’re not.”

Raden had turned around at the word templar. Now he joined Iari in peering at the tarp-covered pile. “Templars? We killed templars?”

Iari held her breath against Gel’s expected smirk, the smug, yes we did.

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