Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

Today’s Sneak Peek continues where Hump Day Hook left off and will conclude with the Weekend Writer Warrior snippet to follow. After that, the scene ends, so I really need to get organized before next weekend and find something else to show you all.

Meoraq pulled the knife across his throat slowly, bringing blood in a fall and not a spray, guiding the boy to his knees while he made his little struggles, and then letting him fall where Gann willed when it was over. He found his other honor-blade, cleaned them both, sheathed them. He took his belt back. He found the pitted toy of a knife stowed away in the dead boy’s boot and broke it. He stood and stared at the body until the rain had washed the blood away.

Sixteen spans. He didn’t think the boy had been lying about that. They had been traveling east, and he didn’t think the boy had been leading him false either. But crop? Canals? That was not a raider’s camp. That was a settlement, one that could not possibly have gone unnoticed for as many years as the boy claimed to be visiting it.

The sky flashed; a final stroke of lightning, a final snap and growl of thunder. In the back of his mind, Meoraq heard the phantom crash of shattered glass and felt Amber slamming up against his back as she’d done that long-ago night in the ruins.

Ruins. For as long as Sheul had forbidden his children to enter the ruins, those who had gone to Gann had nested in them. Yes, they might hide their crop in the roofless husks where the Ancients had made their homes and yes, they might even have canals worth restoring, but so what? Sixteen spans, generally eastward, look for ruins? Was that hope? There were ruins everywhere!

But ruins stand, he thought suddenly. After so many days, he would never catch a moving pack, but ruins were a pin to hold his Amber in place. He could have her back.

If he could find her.