Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

But he turned to face the creature anyway.

The beast stood wild and wounded, chest soaked in blood from his crazily hanging jaw, hair stuck to his skin, eyes glittering loco in the low rays of the afternoon sun.

Right, then.

She’d been waiting for this.

She took a hold of her anger and frustration, gripped them hard and strong and swung herself deliberately out of her saddle. She thumped the gelding on his shoulder, thumped him again when he didn’t move.

When he cantered for Ress and the cart, she turned and faced the massive beast on foot.

Her heart rate was increasing now, a steady, rising thunder. She was completely aware of her body, poised on the knife-edge of motion and reaction. Above her, the monster was huge, elegantly muscled. This close, he smelled of blood and sweat and grass and pure, physical power. But Jayr burned now, her need to vent had found a focus. She pointed the spear up at him, a flagrant dare.

He raked the soil, shredding the grass. He shook his wild hair, twisted his broken face at her and made only noise.

She remained quiet, motionless. Her challenge grim and silent but for the whetted sense of rising eagerness in her chest and throat. She held the spear two-handed, close to the head to give her hard impact at short range.

Looking down at the ludicrous, puny human, he snorted through flared nostrils and snatched at her face with one extended claw.

It was almost too easy.

She ducked sideways, forwards, came up right between his two muscled forelegs. She slammed the spear straight into the socket joint.

And pushed. With every fibre of strength and determination she had.

He couldn’t articulate a scream, he hissed and bubbled. Half shoved, he stood on his hind legs.

Letting the spear go up with him, she changed her grip and pitched her strength against his. Driving the spear point deeper and using it like a lever against his bulk, she intended to topple him sideways.

The point scraped bone, dug deep into the joint. He flailed with his good leg, claw flashing, clenching aimlessly. His back claws danced, trying to keep him upright.

Both hands white, spitting curses through clenched teeth, she slowly, slowly heaved him into overbalance. She felt him sway, and then totter. The spear head tore deeper into flesh and muscle and ligament.

He staggered and she screamed defiance at him. “Go down you bastard thing, go down!”

He lurched, staggered, tried to right himself – but he was too badly damaged.

He crashed to the ground like a rock, legs in spasm, eyes wild.

Cursing aloud, with no idea what she was saying, Jayr dragged the spear point free with a foot on his chest, then rammed it straight through the red hole where his mouth had been.

Her adrenaline crested in a scream.

And with a splutter, the beast died.

* * *

Smooth and grim, Ress fitted and threw a second spear.

The existence of the creatures had shocked his analytical mind, sent tremors through his confidence. As Triqueta and Jayr took the fight to close quarters, he was robbed of safe targets and he watched the monsters in disbelief, almost as if he expected them to dissolve in the summer’s haze.

He fitted a third spear, awaiting an opportunity. Behind him, Feren groaned, stained with suffering.

What were they? Where had they come from?

These creatures were young. Had they been horses, they would have been the return- or two-returns-old, young males driven from the main herd by the stallion, yet still orbiting close to their dams. Add intellect, and that would make them...

Scouts.

It fitted, but it didn’t answer the question. How were they possible?

Where the rhez had they come from?

His attention was caught by Jayr’s gelding, cantering back towards him with an odd, shaky gait. Ress untangled himself from the spear thrower, jumped from the wagon and went to catch his mane, saw the savage gashes in his rear. As he grabbed for his precious supply of taer, he tried to strategise a solution.

And failed. He had no cursed idea...

The boy had to go to Roviarath. The audience with Larred Jade, demanded by the Bard, was now – by every God and his disbelief! – essential. The CityWarden must send force to answer this.

But that still didn’t answer his basic incomprehension. Half a man and half a horse... it was loco.

How could such things even exist?

The Bard had raged about alchemy – about skills forgotten, lost in times disregarded. What kind of learning was necessary to graft a man onto a horse’s body? To keep it there? More than that – if these beasts were the two-return-olds, were they reproducing? Or being reproduced?

Was that what had happened to Feren’s unfortunate teacher?

Alchemy or no, he knew how flesh worked. And this was madness.

In spite of the sun, he was chilled.

The taer covered the gelding’s hide, soothing the terrible gashes in his rump and easing pain and bleeding. He blew through his lips and stood head down, buried to the ears in grass. Muscles in his shoulders twitched.

Agitated, Ress stroked the horse’s sweated neck. Speculation was pointless – the monsters were real, they were real. He needed facts, and context, and he needed to extrapolate what the rhez this meant.

Was Roderick right ? All this time, had he really known some vast and sinister truth? It was crazed. And yet...

...no more crazed than what he’d just seen.

The horse whuffled in pain, nosing the grass.

Across the plainland, the girls were returning. Triqueta was back astride her little mare, Jayr walked by her head and he could see them laughing, gesturing as they retold their separate fights. Watching them, the ageing apothecary smiled, a hint of paternal affection they would never see – somehow, their loco victory didn’t surprise him.

But the questions were still coming.

His eyes tracked the descent of the aperios, the carrion birds, finally feasting on the creatures they’d followed for so long. Like a row of archers’ targets, Ress set up what he knew, re-evaluated everything Feren had told him. The monster – the stallion – was real. It was a fanatic – crazed. Its agenda could be anything. He had to know where it had come from, how it was possible, what else may be coming in its wake...

The implications were terrifying. Ress’s whole comprehension of reality had taken a sharp smack round the side of the head. What had Roderick said? Just because you can’t see it –

Behind him, the boy said suddenly, “Thea!”

Startled, Ress turned – into a chill rush of shock when he saw Feren was sitting up. White faced in the sunlight, cold fever shining on his skin and his red hair a dark mat of sweat, he stared fixedly at the setting sun, the rising shadow of the Kartiah. His dry lips moved again, though the word was almost wistful, “Thea...”

“It’s all right.” Ress was back in the cart, rummaging hastily through packs and bags for something to ease his tension. “Rest easy, Feren, we’ll find her.”

He heard Triqueta laughing.

But the boy stared straight ahead, the dying sun reflecting red in his eyes. He was shivering, slim body wracked with desperation, his wasted hands clutched at his covers. “Don’t leave me... with the monsters...”

Monsters.

The shadow of the Kartiah swelled as the sun touched the tops of the mountains. Like blood, red sunset light was flooding across the plain.

The girls came close, softening their elation to silence as they saw the cart.

“What happened to him?” Jayr threw the question at Ress as she went to check on her horse.

“I don’t know.” Ress smoothed oil across the boy’s upper lip. Feren inhaled, inhaled more deeply. His eyes began to blink – at first confused, and then more heavily.