A Flight of Ravens John Conroe (great books for teens txt) 📖

pulled one end down, coiling it as it came.  After both ropes were down, I stowed them in the pocket at the back of my coat while Cort led our inexperienced team member back toward the inn.

We had just started to enter the Lost Lobster when yelling, running people came around the far corner in a clear panic.

Inside, Freyla met us in the entryway.  “What’s happening out there?”

“I believe a riot just broke up,” I said.

“Broke up or out?” she questioned.

“Up.”

“We heard thunder,” she said, sniffing the air. An odor much like swamp gas was wafting from Cort’s clothes.

“So did we,” I said, waving a hand in front of my face.  “Really Cort, where are your manners?” I asked.

“So sorry,” the stocky sapper said with a shit-eating grin. “Too much cabbage.”

I doubted the Raven was fooled, as her eyes had narrowed, but I wasn’t going to admit anything in public.

Chapter 24

Soshi and Drew arrived at the inn before the hour was out. We were upstairs in the rooms, Cort fussing over his munitions while I worked on my notes.  I would need to send a raptor in the morning, and the short set of observations I was recording would form the framework of my report.  The pair entered together, with Kassa appearing in the doorway behind them, toweling her hair.

“Report,” I said.

“We found that altercation brewing before we could make it to a single pub,” Drew said.

“Which is incredibly sad,” Cort added.

“They formed up sides like it was an informal lacrosse game rather than the beginnings of a riot,” Soshi said.  “Very odd behavior.”

“We have a solid theory on that, but continue,” I said.

“I saw it start from nothing,” Soshi said.  “These two were ahead of me, almost sprinting for the first bar.  Those two speakers just started arguing, right in the middle of the street.  Each had a few friends with them.  Within minutes, the others all just showed up, like they were all waiting around for trouble to brew.”

“I stayed on the ground when Soshi and Cort went high,” Drew said.  “Oddly, I was almost ignored.  People seemed to know exactly who went with who.  It wasn’t like they actually knew each other, not most of them, but somehow they recognized enemies from allies.”

I looked at Kassa, who had stopped drying her hair to listen.  She shrugged.  “It could be something as simple as two different sets of necklaces, each with a different message.”

“Those necklaces have a message?” Cort asked.

“We think they were modified by an eslling with the ability to sort of record a strong set of impressions onto those little rectangles of gold.”

“That’s a thing?” Drew asked.

“It is,” Kassa answered.  “An incredibly rare talent but still a real one.”

“What did you see when the Holy Assembly showed up?” I asked Drew. “Did you notice anyone doing anything different from the rest of the crowd?”

RRS troopers are trained to create riots in enemy territory, to disrupt economies, manufacturing, and governmental functions, so I knew my people would be looking at the street fight with educated eyes.

“There were a few observers like me, people who didn’t seem inclined to pick a side.  Some were obviously Montshire citizens, but there were a few shady types—thieves and pickpockets, but one individual caught my eye.  About Soshi’s height, completely cloaked and cowled.  Couldn’t see their face.  Could have been a man or a woman.  I did glimpse a bit of gray hair. Whoever it was took off just after the Mandrigo crowd turned on the Holy Assembly.  Fast, smooth exfil of the scene, like they had picked out an escape route much earlier.”

“How bad was the riot?”

“Fists, feet, and rocks mostly.  A few clubs and blades.  Lots of people will be bruised and bloody after that.  It broke up immediately when Cort’s little gifts went off,” Drew said.

“And the Holy Assembly?”

“Stayed to help the wounded.  At least two broken limbs, a couple of possible concussions, and a really bad abdominal knife wound. The rest took off if they could move their feet at all.  I don’t think any of the clergy were hurt, but one of the concussed was a member of their guard team.  Saw your favorite parson in the mix, by the way,” Drew said.

I felt Kassa’s eyes looking my way, which for some reason bothered me.  And that made me a little angry.  I met Parson Gwen Vancour very briefly, two times, in the Berkette town of Pit, more than a month ago.  She was very attractive and seemed to possess a wonderful personality, as you might expect from a member of the clergy.  So what.  My team, most of whom were interested in the good parson themselves, had picked on me ever since.  But my relationship with Brona was solid and exclusive, facts that they well knew. And why Kassa’s judgement had any bearing or effect on me was baffling.

“Which is interesting,” I observed.  Soshi raised her eyebrows and I gave her a hard, level look.  “Because, as we all know, she works with the deacon who destroys Tainted artifacts of the Punished.”

Drew nodded, his face serious as opposed to Cort’s grin, Soshi’s frown, and Kassa’s silent regard.  “You think these trinkets that have been modified have caught the Holy Assembly’s attention to such a degree that they are willing to step onto the church’s territory?”

The religions of Berkette, Mandrigo, Wenkroy, and Montshire are all different, yet remarkably similar.  All four preach against the rise and use of any advancement of technology beyond the current level of modern society. And their edicts in regard to technology can carry the full weight of law—right up to a sentence of death.  The ruins of the Punished had left enormous amounts of information about machines and tools far beyond our own—devices and techniques that would doubtlessly save lives and improve the survival rates of ordinary citizens and nobility alike. Some information was okay, like agricultural and medical information that wasn’t reliant on machines—crop rotation and anatomical knowledge, for