Read Online City Of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton - Free Book Online Page A

regular patrol. At that point, the albino reaffirmed that numerous other people in the city had similarly gone missing. Jeryd made a mental note to study all the reports back at the Inquisition headquarters.
    At Jeryd’s request to see Private Haust’s quarters, the commander led them over to the dormitories. The rest of the regiment were on training exercises, and the place was empty: a long, narrow room that housed five soldiers, as well as Haust himself. Sparse and oppressively neat, Jeryd could tell from this one room that the life of a soldier would never have been right for him. Haust’s bed had been left untouched, the sheets folded down immaculately. A few sheets of paper were rested tidily on the side table – a letter from his partner, another one from his brother, a hand-sketched portrait of an attractive young lady and, resting on it, a woman’s bracelet.
    ‘Everything’s exactly as he left it, I believe,’ the commander said.
    Jeryd regarded Haust’s meagre possessions. ‘These from his lover at home?’ he enquired.
    ‘Yes, his wife, back in Villjamur. They’d been married quite a while for such a young couple, but Haust, like a few other soldiers, would go out and play with the local girls.’
    ‘Not the most trustworthy of gentlemen then?’ Nanzi sneered.
    ‘I’d trust him covering my back with a sword, if that’s what you mean.’ Brynd glanced meaningfully at Jeryd then at her, and Jeryd weighed up the scenario in his mind. ‘They can get up to whatever they want in the evenings, the men, so long as they’re not participating in a military engagement.’
    Jeryd nodded.
    ‘But he sent most of his wages home to her, so that she lived well, in one of the upper-level apartments,’ Brynd continued. ‘Her letters kept him going – that’s what keeps a lot of these men going, in fact.’
    ‘Yourself included?’
    A smile. ‘I don’t like to complicate matters too much.’
    ‘Very wise,’ Jeryd murmured. ‘So he’d left his precious personal items here. I reckon we can rule out the notion that he’s just run away.’
    Commander Brynd Lathraea quickly followed Jeryd’s logic, and nodded solemnly. ‘Someone’s taken a Night Guard soldier? That seems most unlikely. This unit contains the most efficient warriors in the Boreal Archipelago. You don’t just take one of them against his will.’
    Jeryd wasn’t so sure about this military bravado right now. ‘I think we can safely assume that if Haust has been abducted or murdered, our suspect is likely to be a little on the tough side himself.’
    *
    Jeryd and Nanzi accepted drinks in the officers’ mess, while Brynas called away briefly. After he returned, the conversation turned the mysterious enemy with hard shells and claws.
    ‘This is partially classified, of course,’ Brynd said, ‘although I will be shortly making some public announcements. Not even the Inquisition know the full details just yet.’
    ‘Understood,’ Jeryd said.
    ‘Okun,’ Brynd declared. ‘That’s what they’ve been called, based on the old language upon which Jamur itself was constructed. It comes from the word ókunnr, meaning unknown or alien.’
    ‘You mean you don’t actually know what the hell they are,’ Jeryd observed dryly.
    ‘You might say that.’ The commander’s gaze settled on some deep distance. ‘Tineag’l has suffered a genocide at the hands of these Okun. Mass culls were involved - whole towns and villages simply cleared out. Over a hundred thousand people have gone missing, and the rest were slaughtered. I was out there with a band of my soldiers on an investigative mission that turned into a rescue operation. It wasn’t a pretty sight, finding the corpses, seeing the trails of blood all across the snow. People were just taken from the safety of their own homes.’ Brynd shook his head. ‘As for what did this -these new creatures? Well, I suspect they arrived by crossing the ice sheets - but where from originally, I’m