Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

She tensed her hands, ready. Decl– ! No sound passed her lips. She tried again, “Declare yourself!”

“There is someone there, oh thank the Goddess!” Movement again, pained, terrible movement. “I can’t stand up any more. Please, help me.” The words dissolved into a gasp.

The voice was young, hurt, male – she had no clue what he could be doing out here.

But she was fireblasted Banned and if it was some forgotten monster or some phantom figment, she’d slit it straight up its daemonic middle. Keeping her hand firmly in the mare’s mane, Triq swung one leg over her rump and slipped down into the long Varchinde grass.

It wasn’t a monster.

It was a boy.

Perhaps fifteen or sixteen returns, shock haired, badly injured and alone. His skin was parchment white, his garments black with blood. Beside him lay a crude, scratch-built crutch.

He looked oddly familiar.

She stood stunned, shook her head helplessly when he begged her for water and wondered what in the name of the Gods she was going to do with him. She was no cursed apothecary – something about not shifting him because of his back?

“You’re injured,” she said. “I don’t know –”

“I do.” He shifted painfully, gulping air. “My ankle’s broken – it’s not serious. But my hip... please, be careful... I have to get to Roviarath... my teacher... need to tell them about the monsters... need to tell someone what they were ...”

He was desperate, babbling, Triq didn’t really hear him. She’d have to let go of the ever-more-skittish mare to retrieve the boy, she wasn’t betting the horse would stay put.

The boy coughed and something liquid splashed over his fingers.

Annoyed with her own hesitation, she let the mare go and knelt by him. His eyes were glazed – pain, fear, relief – there was a heavy, dark stain soaking through his garments at his hip.

The mare had backed, but not bolted, the whites of her eyes were showing. As Triq called her, she came to whuffle at the boy’s fallen form and laid her ears flat back. There was froth specking on her chest.

“What’s up with you?” Triq wondered out loud. “Blood doesn’t bother you, you’ve smelled enough of it.”

The mare blew snot, ears flicking. The boy tried to smile, reached a hand to touch her mane. When Triq asked him if he could stand, he heaved himself to his good foot, hand on the horse’s shoulder, and she boosted him over the little mare’s back.

White faced under the moonlight, he passed out.

Triq fixed her attention on the lighthouse, aimed a little to the left, and began the long walk back to the tavern.

Her little mare sweated fear every step of the way.

9: STONE

THE MONUMENT

Amethea’s existence was nightmare and death, the smell of cold stone and hard metal, the feel of blood-wet flesh.

There had been something before this, something she’d been seeking, a friend she’d forgotten – but such things were worlds away, shadows of another time. She was a wraith, a ghost that flickered with loss.

Hollow, she watched listless as the girl died.

Her healer’s hands were like strangers. The blood of others was crusted beneath her nails, caked in the skin about their outsides. She had failed – again. Maugrim would be angry with her, but her hands were helpless. They lay in her lap as if they were broken.

The girl was keening, last breaths thin with horror. She had collapsed, slumped and broken on the dirty stone. As Amethea watched, she shuddered once, tried to speak, and was still.

Reaching forward, Amethea closed her eyes. Her metal-scaled skin was cold. Perhaps she should have prayed, but there was no touch of hope in this Godsless place.

The girl was the third failure, the third tormented death, the third sufferer to succumb to Maugrim’s burning passion, to the exquisite tortures of the Kartian craftmaster called Vice.

Maugrim was a blaze of vision; an architect so powerful that she’d not even felt herself fall. He pulled her, drove her, wanted her and inspired her. She hated him, but she needed his fire to warm the cold she had become. Nothing else seemed to matter – this was his dream and she existed only to make it happen, to bring his revelation to power and life.

She and Vice, craftsmen both, workers of flesh and metal.

Now, though, Maugrim had gone. Vice was stood behind her, his presence sharp and cruel. She turned, looked over her shoulder at the elaborate and deliberate scarring that carved patterns in his pale skin, at his thin white fingers blackened with blood and metal shavings. When he spoke, he was as cold and distant as the white moon.

“You’ve failed.”

“Yes.”

His chill voice was rich with a thousand layers of intonation that her blunt Grasslander ears would never pick up. Raised in almost pure darkness, Kartian culture communicated by sound and by touch. His scars were his identity, his rank and family, and the marks of his pure skill.

“It can’t be done.” Her voice caught on a sob and she found she was angry – with herself, with Vice’s blame and scorn, with the insanity of what she faced. She had no sense of time – of day and night, of sleep and hunger – her sunless world had become pain and torment and failure. The screaming of flesh and the scraping of metal.

Maugrim’s fire.

She feared him, needed him; she tumbled in his wake and she hated herself for it. When he was gone, she resented him and raged silently against him; in his presence, she would do anything to please him.

She looked at the corpse of the girl, at her glittering carapace of metal-scaled skin.

“It can’t be done. The trauma’s too severe, too much blood...” Her voice was a whisper of horror at what she was doing.

Vice said only, “We start again. Maugrim should be told.” The accusation in his tone was as heavy as metal itself. He turned and walked away, quiet as a final breath.

Watching him leave, Amethea felt her heart retract in fear. Maugrim would be angry with her... but there was nothing she could do, no way she could make this happen.

I can’t do this... I can’t...!

Helpless, she walked through the twisted, narrow tunnels to her chamber.

* * *

She was drying her hands when the doorway rolled back.

His anger was tangible, she could taste it, feel it – it blazed from him raw and red. Water dripped sparkling from her skin. She backed away, found herself babbling, “I tried, I swear, I...!”

He wasn’t listening. Two steps, he had one hand round her throat, her back pressed hard to the warm, smooth stone. She breathed swift and shallow, a caught animal, wild-eyed. His predatory smile was primal, an unholy firelight burned in his eyes.

She knew that she hated him. And yet she was gasping at his touch, and wanting...

Somewhere in her heart, there was a tiny fragment of defiance, Why do you let him do this why do you let him do this? But his intensity was beyond her. When he was this close, she burned.

His hand on her throat squeezed; his expression a promise of danger.

The pressure was just enough to show his strength. She bared her neck to him as if he were a bweao.

“Please...!” she gasped, but no longer knew what she was asking for.

He let her go.

Her knees went, she slid to the floor. Every time – every time in his presence! He robbed her of her thoughts – all she wanted to do was make him happy.

This had to stop.

The stones beneath her were blood-warm, oddly comforting. She spread her hands on them, steadying herself.

Maugrim slammed a fist into the flat rock of the wall. He spun towards her.

“Why?” he demanded. “I’ve got every resource, every insight. I’ve done all the calculations, I know this can happen. I’m missing something, sweetheart, what is it?” Blood oozed from his fingers where his rings had bitten his skin. “This damn world plays tricks on me!”