Ellen's Arc

Chapter 32 of 45

The god was gone, and the house was quiet. Ellen let her women sleep. She stood watch at the door alone. But near dawn, a girl on the third floor called down. Dust rose on the road. Riders. Not a god this time. Men. A band of raiders moved slow along the single road, testing the empty-looking hotel. Ellen understood at once. Word had spread of a house of free women. The dismantled fort had done its job on Nyx, but now it worked against her. No guns showed. No walls looked hard. The raiders saw easy prey. They meant to take the place and everyone in it. She counted six riders. She had rifles in the cabinet and six women who had trained on the third-floor windows. But the road switch still worked. Stark had wired the chokepoint. One press by the door would blow it. She waited by the switch and let the raiders come deep onto the road. Then a horn split the dark. Not from the raiders. From the flats behind them. Thorn Odinson walked out of the gray light, hammer swinging loose in one hand. He had helped her seal the fire beast weeks ago, then left at dawn. Ellen never thought she would see him again. Beside him strode Dracula, the pale man who had once hunted Cade and taken his vengeance elsewhere. And behind them, small and stiff, came the Mandarin, his broken hand still bound, herded forward like a prisoner. "Your road is about to bite them," Thorn said. He did not slow. "Press it." Ellen pressed the switch. The chokepoint erupted. Rock and fire threw two riders from their horses. The others wheeled, panicked, straight into Thorn. He swung once. A man flew. Dracula moved through the smoke without sound and pulled another from the saddle. The raiders broke and ran. One rider spurred hard for the flats, clear of the blast. He did not get far. The ground itself buckled. A colossal scorpion rose from the salt, claws wide, tail poised and dripping. It took the horse and rider in one strike and dragged both under. Ellen stared. She had killed one such beast at the army camp. She had not known another lived out here. When the smoke thinned, the road held four dead men and no live raiders. The Mandarin looked at the scorpion's settling dust. "You keep dangerous ground," he said flatly. "Why bring him here?" Ellen asked Thorn. "He knows where Nyx went," Thorn said. "You need that. So do I." He turned his hard eyes on the Mandarin. Ellen's stomach dropped. Nyx had chased the ledger to the dry well. Other people sheltered near there once. The raiders were dead. Her house stood. But the god she had turned away was hunting the thing she had hidden, and now she knew she had to go after it first.