Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

He was fast. Between her realisation and her very next heartbeat, he was before her and looming over her – chearl mounted as she was! – he was close enough for her to feel his breath.

For the briefest of moments, she met his eyes, human eyes, gleaming in the Monument’s light. Stupidly, her mind told her he was beautiful, wild haired and potent, the blood in his skin pounding with outrage. As he opened his mouth, she saw long incisors glitter.

He screamed down at her, a sound of pure fury.

Shocked out of her disbelief, she was trying to back up and turn her beast, slamming her heels into its shoulders, shouting at Feren to do the same. Hopelessness laughed at her. Big as they were, chearl couldn’t outrun a good horse on a short distance and that... thing... was bigger than any horse she’d ever seen. Fear hammering in her chest, she leaned back against the saddle support as he gathered his legs to turn and run.

Feren, too – she caught a flash of his ghost-white face as she passed him – was turning his beast to flee. Perhaps he prayed. She screamed at him to run, run.

The first fletchless shaft hit his chearl’s hindquarters.

It squealed, skidded, lurched sideways and kept moving. Feren cursed, his voice high with fear. Amethea paused to wait for him, and dark shapes flickered past on either side of her. And stopped.

Trying to trap them.

“Fe- ren !”

He looked, but his fear-crazed eyes went straight through her.

A second shaft hit his beast’s other side. It skidded again, its back legs faltering. With an inarticulate shriek, Feren crashed sideways to the ground, the rein still in his hand.

“Don’t let it drag – !” Amethea called. The height of the fall tore his hand free. Instinctively, she stopped.

But what could she do?

In the emptiness of the plainland night, she turned her beast to face the creature. Lost in the grasses beside her, Feren moved, fear and pain spilling from his mouth. With a faint feeling of ludicrousness, she drew her own belt-knife.

“I’m a healer, I belong to the Hospice in Xenok – what do you want?” Her defiance was shrill, blade and voice shook. Did this thing of madness even understand?

“Little lady.”

What had she expected? Not this masculine elegance; this sensually perfect voice that shivered her ears. Her chearl watched the mighty creature, his head up and ears cocked forwards.

“We only came for the taer...”

“The taer is mine !” His flare of passion made her jump. “The grass is mine, the great stones are mine . Creature-created I may be – but I am crafted to mastery, to leadership. I am better than these stupid beasts that let you sit upon them. They, too, are now mine.”

Crafted to what? Knife forgotten, she stared. Behind her, there was a flurry of movement and a high, skin-crawling scream. Something big struggled, coughed liquid and fell. Feren’s chearl?

“Please...” This was crazed. “...I’m an apothecary, a healer –”

The creature glowered at her, his predator’s teeth flashing, the light shining from his smooth skin. “Heal and Harm, little lady, the oldest rule. Apothecary or alchemist, you must obey. Do you understand?” One foreleg raked, tearing the grass. She saw that it was tipped, not in a hoof, but in a huge, three-toed claw.

“None can learn one without learning the other.” It was a child’s lesson. “But – alchemist? What made you, what – ?”

“The craft is found,” he said to her. He paced forwards until he was almost close enough to touch. His presence was stifling, even flattened against the high back of her saddle, she could feel the heat of his skin. Her chearl whickered at him, bizarrely unafraid. “We return. But do you know what it means?”

“It means...” Overpowered, she wanted only to back away, but did not dare move. “No, I don’t...”

“I am alive!” Rage burned from him like madness. “Creature-created, I am, crafted for perfection – better than these foolish beasts. And it makes my life more important that yours.”

What...? She did not find the opportunity to articulate the thought.

His voice dropped to a thrum. “Have you saved a life, little lady?”

Barely a whisper. “Yes.”

“Have you taken a life?”

She had hunted creatures for food, much as anyone. “...Yes.”

He laughed at her, cavernous and chillingly perceptive.

“Can you wield that little blade you bear? Yes – or you would not be out here alone.” Stepping back, he crossed muscled arms over his chest. “Take the life of the young male that cowers beside you.”

“No.” Her reaction was immediate and without question. Feren was struggling to stand, his face white. Behind them, the other two creatures closed in.

“It is weak and injured, it serves no purpose.” The creature nocked a huge, flightless arrow and began to bend the limbs of his longbow. “It pollutes the whole. Its life is mine and I say it is done .”

“Thea...” She found Feren’s hand on her leg and covered it with her own. He was shaking, sweating. Dimly, she understood that the fall had injured him – yet, somewhere, her fear and disbelief were starting to smoulder into anger. “Maybe... I was right... about the mountains...”

“Take its life, little lady,” the creature said. “Show you understand.”

“Or you’ll take mine?” She found there was an edge in her voice.

In the pale light, the great bow flexed and loosed.

Feren gave a faint cry. His hand was gone from hers as he fell.

So sudden. So utterly final.

The flickering of her defiance drowned in total incomprehension, she shook her head. No. Instinctive, pointless denial. No.

Her chearl shifted, snorted at the metal smell of blood.

“Leave the male to die, bring this one.” The great creature ran a hand though his mane of hair – a disturbingly ordinary gesture. “There is need of a healer.”

Reeling from shock and nausea, the blow to her head somersaulted her forwards into the dark.

* * *

His face itched.

When he moved his arm to brush the grass away, other sensations shot through him – sickness, cold.

Pain.

He stomach lurched and he retched – a dark, liquid splash on the grass stalks before him.

Inanely, he heard Amethea’s voice, ... told you not to guzzle it all , and it came with the realisation he wanted water.

He retched again, a thin stream of bile and blood.

Above him, the air was cold.

With an effort that spilled tears down his cheeks, he got his hands under him and pushed his face and chest away from the bloodied grass. He looked up.

Far, far above him, the sky glimmered faintly – it was almost dawn.

Across from where he had fallen, the body of his poor chearl still bore saddle and panniers. Black specks buzzed sluggishly about its eyes.

Fighting the urge to retch yet again, he tried to sit up.

And collapsed, biting his lip against a scream.

The pain was in his belly, just over one hip, focused about the arrow shaft that had spiked him front to back. One hand found it; carefully explored it. It was a broadhead, he could feel the point. At such short range, that monster bow had simply punched it straight through him.

Okay – the Gods were with him. He knew how to deal with this.

Chearl, panniers, healers’ kit.

Apothecary, heal yourself.

Stupidly, he started to laugh.

His laughter scaled upwards and he found himself fighting for control. He was shouting, shrieking, “Thea, help me!”, yet knowing that the creatures had taken her. He raised his hands to cover his face and sobbed.

He was going to die out here, under the haunted mountains, and the insects would eat his eyes.