Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

And she found herself eying the grass.

They were taking a loop, not crossing through the city. They were closer to the mountains here, and on the meeting point of three rivers, the soil was rich and deep. The grasses should be lush – she should be dragging the mare’s head out of the grass with every fifth step.

But the plant life was tinged with black, like the edge of a nightmare.

Triq put her hood back, let the misting drops fall cool on her skin.

But she could feel a prickle of dread beneath their kiss.

In maybe a cycle, the grass would start to transform. From the Kartiah, all the way across to the sea, from the Khavan Circle in the north all the way to the far-distant Yevar, it would wash over with autumnal shades – reds, oranges, yellows, a hundred hues of umber and ochre. Its beauty was astonishing, as though the land burned with glory. This was the natural cycle of the world: this was how it should be and the cities and farms knew these rhythms intimately.

The grass harvest was a time of rural celebration. They gathered their crops and they paid their tithes to the cities, and their protection for the return was assured.

Finally, as the cycles rolled towards winter, the grass would wither and die completely. It would leave the vastness of the Varchinde naked under the cold sky.

Lifeless.

Then the predators would come; the desperate and the hungry and the foolish. The glory of the summer plainland would be lost in a world of struggle and death.

With the spring, the grass would grow once more, green shoots across the emptiness – and life would return to the Varchinde. It was the cycle of seasons, air and soil; it was the way things should be.

But something was blackening the tips of the grass, closing the bright eyes of the wildflowers.

The rain soaked Triq’s hair.

The grass was wrong, somehow. Its colour was wrong, it seemed infected, struggling – fighting a silent war against something she couldn’t see.

Redlock joined her. “I know,” he said softly. “I saw it in Vanksraat, like the very beginning of some sort of rot...”

“Do they know – Fhaveon, the CityWardens...?”

“Vanksraat sent a bretir to Fhaveon.” In the sunlight, he looked older, worn down with age and combat. “They don’t know what it is any more than we do.”

Somewhere under the soft kiss of the rain, she heard Feren screaming.

For a moment she sat there, feeling the water on her face, watching the tiny, black tinge of death...

...then she turned the horse away and went back to the road.

They had a job to do.

* * *

Suddenly Tarvi said, “Wait!”

With a clunky effort, Ecko reined his beast into a lurching half turn. He lifted the front of his cowl. His butt hurt like he’d received the biggest S&M spanking ever known to man.

“What?”

“I think we’re lost.” Her voice was full of fear and resignation. “Oh dear Gods...” She rode her beast close to him, her gaze searching the grass.

He flinched back from the closeness, couldn’t be this near to her, not any more.

They hadn’t mentioned it. It stalked through his head continually, a tumble of images and sensations that he couldn’t scrub from his memory. Contact and warmth and pleasure and reaffirmation and intensity. Her skin in the soft dawn light, the rain on the tent sides, her voice gasping his name, her hands pulling him to her, her body shaking with orgasm...

She made a grab for his rein and he let her take it – shied away from the touch of her skin on his own.

She scared him. He scared himself.

“Ecko? Can those black eyes see where we are?”

Pulling his cowl back down, he turned away, unable to bear it. With an effort, he slashed his black sneer back over his face, hid behind it.

He couldn’t tell her, couldn’t admit to himself, how good that had been.

Good enough to kick his adrenals sky-fucking-high as he’d let himself go, good enough to send him into fucking orbit.

Good enough for him to lose control of his targeters, his flamethrower.

If the tanks had not already been emptied, he knew he would’ve burned her to death.

It was in the midst of that thought that his telescopics picked up on motion, slightly to the north. A stone ruin, alight with a nacre of its own; figures moving at its base.

One of them was familiar.

Seeing her, Ecko realised something about fractals that he’d forgotten...

That, whichever direction you chose, whatever ripples you generated, the fucking patterns repeated themselves.

And the implications of that were too scary to contemplate.

* * *

Across the vastness of the Grasslands, the sun was setting.

It glared red, light spilling from under heavy cloud to coat the Varchinde in blood. The rain had finally ceased – but the heavy, bulbous sky had a metallic light that foretold the rising storm.

The air was warm and close, sweat ran down Triq’s spine. Her mare was jittery: she could feel the elemental imbalance and she danced sideways, throwing her head and rolling her eyes. The wet grass swished at her chest. Redlock’s gelding was calm – but exhausted. He’d run a long road, his legs quivered and his head hung low.

But they were almost there.

The Monument.

After the speed of her ride, Triq was tired, sodden, filthy and thinking lusty thoughts about inn beds and clean sheets. There were times, she thought, that even the Banned had their limits.

In the distance, the first rumble of thunder – soft and menacing. The rain began again, a ceaseless beating of grey.

They rode on.

She was getting nervous now – as they approached the Monument just as Feren and Amethea had done, a halfcycle before. The air was tight and breathless. The monster, the half-horse stallion, was here somewhere.

Waiting.

Slowly, the mountains’ twilight swallowed them. Ahead, a nacreous, yellowish glow swelled upon the horizon. The thunder rumbled again, louder and closer – reddish light flashed behind the clouds. As the sun died on the spiked peaks of the Kartiah, she drew both blades, jumping at every swish in the grass.

“Triq.” Redlock reined his beast and pointed. “Look.”

Before them, the ground swelled upwards at last, lifting a jumble of massive, fallen stones to the swollen grey sky. In the gathering darkness, they gleamed like the mother of all rocklights, a powerful crepuscular glow, eerie and shivering Triq’s skin. Around them, the rain sparkled as it fell and the grass was all stark light and black shadow.

The surrounding bank was high and dark – lifeless.

She had never been this close. All Feren’s fears clamoured to be heard and she rode slowly upwards into that strange light, compelled and awed and silent.

The lightning sheeted again, blood red behind the glowering clouds.

Even fallen, the stones were immense. She’d no idea how they could’ve been brought here, built – allowed to crumble.

Forgotten.

Halting beside her, Redlock asked, “Can you feel it?”

“Feren said...” Triq was drowned out by thunder. She swallowed and tried again. “Feren said he heard it sing, said it was sad, deep and lonely.”

“Doesn’t sound lonely to me.” Redlock chuckled irreverently and his laughter made her smile. “You ask me? It sounds mighty pissed off.”

She was about to laugh with him when movement caught her eye: something big, running in the rain. Her heart hammered with certainty, but her voice was steady as she told him, “Talking of pissed off...”

There they were, three of them, huge and hair flying, highlighted into monstrousness by the Monument’s illumination. The thunder rumbled as they came in. They were fast – fast – racing hard up the far side of the rise.