Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Dear Gods, they were huge. Bigger than the scouts had been, far, far bigger.

Triq’s mare lifted her head, flared her nostrils and shook her mane, blowing rainwater. She was lifting her knees high, dancing on the spot like a Padeshian street girl. Triq let out her breath, let out the fear.

“They’re coming.”

“I see them.” Rock steady, Redlock slid to the ground, axes in hands glittering with cold assurance. “Distract it.”

She mustered a laugh. “You’re loco. ” For a second, she stared at him, trying to make him meet her gaze – but he was watching the shapes, the light gleaming cold from their skin as they came closer. “Red–”

“Later,” he said. “We’ve got guests.”

In the moment between one heartbeat and the next, between the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder, the stallion was there. He was huge, far heavier and broader than the scouts had been. His horse body was twice the mass of her little mare, his human torso massively muscled and sparkling with water.

He was beautiful.

And, Feren had been right, he was terrifying.

His thick mane of hair was plastered to him, clinging to the lines of his chest and shoulders. His eyes were terrible, more than human and less than animal – he was utterly crazed and he celebrated it.

He screamed at her, his incisors too long, like a bweao’s. His claws rent the wet soil. Around him, the thunder crashed again.

Was this what Feren had seen?

Triq was aware that Redlock had moved, she didn’t look at him. Instead, she stood in her stirrups and screamed straight back at the monster – shrill and utterly insolent.

And the stallion laughed at her.

“Little lady,” he said. “Lady of the Banned. You who slew my scouts, my sons. Little creature thinks she can fight?”

Like his horse body, his human chest, his voice was perfect – powerful, sensual. It was deep, a throb she felt in her blood. It robbed her of words, and, for a moment, she was overpowered by his presence. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged.

“And you, warrior, you smell like the other one. You seek to punish me? Little human – you’re creature-born, forced to live with whatever your sire and dam could spare you. I? Am so much more!”

In the rain, the two flanking shapes had flashed past, trapping them. Triq kept them in her awareness, but her attention was on the stallion.

She found her voice and shouted, “There was a girl, an apothecary. What did you do with her?”

“She was needed. To heal flesh. ” The word was a hiss, spat between his predator’s teeth. “She belongs to us now.”

“What did you do with her?”

“We gave her a home. A family. Purpose. There will be none of this for you.”

The thing was crazed, the light reflected broken from its eyes.

Triq shrieked at it, “I don’t know what the rhez you are or why you were made – but you’re wrong. Half creature, life all twisted! The grass has no place for you!”

With a fluid motion, the great beast raised his longbow, nocked a flightless shaft like a spear, drew back the string.

“This place is mine ! I was charged to come here; to guard the cathedral, the centre, the work that happens here. You, creature-born – your time is done. ” The broadhead was pointed straight at Triqueta’s throat. “He knows you are coming.”

“He?”

The stallion laughed, the thunder crashing through his mockery, the sparkling rain soaking his mane to darkness and shadow.

“Enough,” he said. “You want to challenge me, little lady?”

He put the final pressure on the bowstring, released the shaft.

Triq threw herself sideways, hanging half out of her saddle. It skimmed past her so close the broadhead sliced a red line in the side of her neck. Her mare stood straight up, raindrops shattering on her forehooves – tiny against the almighty chest of the beast...

But the stallion stopped dead, staring at something behind her.

What the rhez?

She twisted in her saddle, blades gripped in her hands. The mare plunged back to the soil, ears flat back and hooves tamping.

There was something else out here?

Beside her, there was movement, down in the grass. Something dark, shadowed; something Triq couldn’t see.

Something that threw two broken halves of arrow shaft straight up into the monster’s face, daring it.

“Y’know, for a centaur, you’re a lousy fuckin’ shot.” The voice was harsh, oddly accented, a rasp that tore into her ears. “Whoever made you? Shoulda had better blueprints.” In the grass, in the rain, two red lights blinked up at Triqueta. “Hey,” the voice said. “Good to see ya. I think you lost some dice.”

What?

“Whatever the rhez you are.” Redlock’s voice. “Identify yourself.”

“We’re your three’n’fourpence,” it said. “Looks like we’re gonna dance.”

18: FOUNDERSDAUGHTER

TEALE, FHAVEON

Penya Esamy laughed and salt wind tickled strands of her tied-back grey hair. Beside her scuttled a slender young man with pale skin, dark eyes and the slightly haunted look of one who sought her services a little too regularly.

But Rhan’s guise didn’t fool her and he knew it. She’d known him far too long.

The day was overcast, the sky fluffed layers of grey. To one side of them, scattered buildings rose in zigzags to forested hills above the town – to the other, trade-boats hunkered down in rows upon the water, covered in sun-faded fabric and awaiting summer rain. The great city of Fhaveon had no sea harbour – and this little town of Teale, further north and on a gentler coastline, was lifeline to both fisherfolk and incoming coastal trade.

Flanked by a tall lighthouse and a blurred, grey-sombre statue, the harbour mouth was currently quiet.

Down through long returns, Rhan had grown fond of Teale. He’d been instrumental in the town’s construction – generations ago, when Adward had been a young man, inheritor of his great-grandfather’s zeal and fire. High on the hillside, they’d built the Hollow Theatre together, the celebration of the trade cycle that had brought peace and communication to the Varchinde. It stood there, as Rhan remembered, like a promise – a promise that the Grasslands would thrive.

Thrive. The dead lord’s image was as clear as the daylight. He’d aged into a bitter man, thin as a spear handle, and smiling like its thrust. Samiel’s teeth, I’d like to take the old sod up there and show him what we’re becoming.

Teale was shabby now, more ribbon-town than trading post. A population once comfortable with a tithe of the incoming cargo had been suitably squeezed by Phylos’s tight fist. The theatre shone bright as the sun slanted through the clouds. On the waterfront, many businesses were shuttered and hard-eyed predators loitered in gaggles in their doorways.

Watching.

Rhan could feel their gazes as they passed, he didn’t look up. Beside him, Penya walked swiftly.

In the harbour, there were two of the great, square-sailed Archipelagan boats, their prow-sculpted maidens blank eyed and huge breasted above the wharf, smiling emptily at the rising town. These triremes would bring spiceweed, parchment and wrought-fibre gems – cargo then carried by cart and caravan south over the hills to Fhaveon herself, to the fiveday markets and the meticulous records of the Cartel.

They would return laden with terhnwood of their own.

The breeze filled Rhan’s senses with salt, with weed and wrack, with a tumble of images never forgotten – he breathed them deep. The world may have no memory – but these, these were his , bought with his own endless time.