Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Realisation crystallised and shattered. “The Ryll. They will not welcome me.”

“They’ll welcome me.” Rhan’s gaze was peridot and white fire. “And if we have no other way to find answers, then what else remains?” His grin was like the first edge of the sunrise. “We ask Mother.”

16: ASH

THE VARCHINDE

It was dusk as Ecko sighted the ruin.

The evening was silent, any birds or creatures had fled the devastation and, for the first time since leaving The Wanderer, the trade-road below him was utterly deserted. A cool wind blew ripples of ash across the wide shine of the river.

“What happened?” Pareus asked. The tan commander had joined him in the grass, peering through the stalks at the wreckage. “What do you see?”

What the fuck do you think I see? Ignoring the wary mutterings of Pareus’ patrol, Ecko spun his telescopics.

He saw destruction.

Seared grass, blasted soil. This had been a township that had swollen from the back of the trade-road like an abscess – now it was wreckage. Charred skeletons of trees stood witness to its ruin, buildings torched and crumbled, corpses twisted and blackened or crushed by fallen rubble.

“Someone blew the shit out of it.”

Spars of charcoaled timber still stood upright, stark against the glitter of the water – the fire had been vicious, fast and hot. Hell, whoever’d been inside there hadn’t had a fucking prayer.

At the heart of the little village the buildings were shattered, the ground melted and hollow – like this place had taken some kinda missile.

And that just wasn’t fair !

Since when did this program do old-school flash-bang magic? Or was there something else the fuck out here that he’d not seen yet?

Jump this way...

He crawled forwards for a better view. Hell, no bastard round here had the right to blow shit up but him. And he was still working on it!

Beside him, the twenty-something wet-behind-the-ears corporal stayed in the grass, watching, and smart enough to be quiet.

Pareus. Corporal Teen. Squad commander. Now military escort.

Hell, you had to laugh.

Yeah, or you’d lose the fucking plot.

Ecko had fled The Wanderer a seething knot of questions and resentment – his sense of purpose had packed its bags and fucked off on vacation and he’d got no clue where he fit any more. This Rhan character had just put him out of a job and, frankly, he was pissed.

By the time he’d calmed the fuck down, the Bard was long gone and he was well and truly lost.

In grass.

More sodding grass than Lugan on downtime. Grass this way, grass that way, grass the other. Ecko was neither hippie nor cowboy – and limitless prairie was not his idea of fun. His telescopics had picked up some sort of tower, still faintly gleaming in the dawn – chrissakes, whatever it was, it’d have to do. Once he reached habitation, he could work out what the fuck he was supposed to do next.

He’d got a bagful of nicked gear and the kit he stood up in. On the street, he could’ve survived indefinitely – but out here? Yeah, saving the world should be a fucking doddle.

Y’hear me, Eliza? I don’t need help! This Rhan can kiss my mottled ass!

Chances of success: 26.75% and falling...

Bitch.

It had taken him until that relentlessly hot midday to realise that his rations were pitifully fucking inadequate – already rotting to overheated sludge. The local wildlife found him inedible, but it still buzzed round his face, driving him batshit. He had been stumbling, thirsty, cursing Eliza, Roderick, Lugan, and anyone-the-fuck else he could think of when he’d spotted a cadre of local goons, their weapons cast aside, apparently stopped for a nice little picnic.

No such thing as a free lunch?

Well whaddaya know, think I scored a bonus.

As he’d got closer, though, he’d realised they were kids. They were sunning themselves and laughing – these weren’t squaddies, for chrissakes, they were more like a comedy road trip. If their vehicles’d had tyres, rather than a leg at each corner, Ecko could’ve been in and out smoother than a gossip journo in a whorehouse.

But, teens or no, these guys’d got something he didn’t.

Orientation.

In short, they knew where the fuck they were.

He’d crouched in the grass, all itch and heat and dust and beasties, and watched.

When he’d accosted them, ghosting out of the sward like some sort of twisted dryad, they’d challenged him – they’d never seen anything like him before. He’d explained he was an ambassador of the Bard – it was as good a line as any – and wanted to go the nearest habitation of any size. They’d been ribald, mocking, abusively friendly. They’d be going back to Roviarath when they’d finished their patrol, they said. Would he like a ride?

A ride ?

Sure, if it had tyres and a tank.

Chrissakes, the thing wasn’t even a horse, it was an ugly slope-shouldered monster that looked like the offspring of a horse and a camel. He was dealing with enough – the agoraphobia, the sudden onslaught of self-doubt – and he had to sit on some critter that was a half a ton of muscle with a brain the size of a –

Pareus nudged him, nodded. “Ecko.” Distantly, black specks were circling in the sky. Ecko yanked his thoughts back to the smoking ruin ahead of him.

“What d’you mean,” the commander said, “‘blew the shit out of it’?”

Motioning his squad to silence, Pareus had belly-crawled to where Ecko lay. They watched the distant, smouldering town.

“Fucker did a helluva job.” Ecko’s black gaze made the kid shiver, though he tried to hide it. He was young, way too young. “You wanna tell me how? And with what ?”

And where I get some?

Pareus flickered a frown. “I don’t understand.”

“Place exploded. Boom. Like the powder store went up or some wack-job chemist screwed up with the Greek fire. You gettin’ me?” He grinned. “Ker-blooey.”

“Anything left alive?”

“Only us.” His oculars picked up shattered roof slates hanging from eyeless, half-collapsed houses, floors sliding into ruin. Charred bodies, adults and children, flash-burned as they sat in their homes. In many places, their stuff was still visible – broken ceramics, torn flutters of fabric, melted and glistening terhnwood-resin.

Ecko caught himself thinking: Poor fuckers.

They didn’t even have a chance.

His focus spun back and forth as he scanned the ground. Charred animal remains, shattered fragments of lives. Here and there, tiny pockets of flame still sought fuel and oxygen, twists of smoke climbed from still-smouldering wood. Nothing else moved.

“Flash-fry job. Nothing livin’ down there.”

He spun his focus back to the grass in his face.

“We’ll picket the chearl inside the rise,” Pareus said, and his fingers flashed orders at his patrol. He checked his blade and bow. The kid was pale, but not afraid to make the decisions – vacation time was done. “Ecko, you’ll take point. If there’s anything left alive in there I want it found. Questioned.” He took a long breath, then let it out. “We’ll follow you. Tarvi!”

Ecko bared his black teeth in a grin, lifted his cowl further over his face. The kid’s got ’ em when he needs ’ em , he thought, maybe this won’t be a rerun of Aliens after all.

“See?” Ecko rasped a chuckle. “It ain’t so hard. Get your goons in line, kiddo, let’s party.”

* * *

The vastness of the open Varchinde.