Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

It buckled, but still didn’t fall. Its claws were catching its own sliding guts, they dragged, filth covered, through the muddy grass.

Yet it laughed, manically, vicious humour across the downpour.

“You want to stop me, warrior? You think you can?”

With a grim twist to his mouth, Redlock hit a low crouch and slammed one axe into its rear leg, just above the dewclaw. The second axe followed it, this one into the slender bones below its knee.

Its leg shattered. It faltered, staggered.

It plunged away from him, reeling, trying to turn. It was slipping on grass soaked in blood, tangling itself in its own viscera.

What the rhez did it take to kill this thing?

A second, vicious double blow, ribs breaking under the impact.

Another.

It was faltering, now, trying to get away from his relentless onslaught. Its hide was matted with rain and blood and fluid, its intestines were spilling from it like uncoiling rope. Its eyes were wild, terrible; its breath ragged. It half turned, raised the bow as if to strike...

And it started to shake.

The muscles in its legs were quivering. It staggered, just for a second, righted itself.

But Redlock was still moving.

Holding hard to his lunch, he ducked sideways through the wall of grass and came up before it with both axes gripped centre-shaft – ready.

He heard the scream that came from the creature Triqueta was fighting...

...but the stallion was still going.

A final, desperate effort.

It rode him down.

* * *

Ecko’s boosting was running out.

He was coming down, shivering with aftershock. His belly was twisting round that familiar, hollow sense of loss.

The beast was searching for him. It was lurching painfully, claws raking, hands reaching into the grass. Its face – how did it manage to look so fucking girlie? – was twisted round hurt and savagery and suspicion.

And without his supercharged strength and speed, he’d got nothing that’d touch it – no weapon, no flamer, fucking sod all. What was he supposed to do – bite it to death?

He wondered what’d happened to Tarvi – she still had her spear, her bow. Unable to come up with anything any more creative, he loosed his Bogeyman breathing: wet, dank, rotting. And he kinda hoped the beast had read the comic books.

It turned, its shattered knee twisting, but it was sharp as a hunter, seeking the sound through the rain.

“I can hear you,” it said. “Kartian creature – like us, created. Better than born!”

“Make that ‘upgraded’.” His voice came from behind it. As it spun, he was off through the grass, heading low and swift for the lifeless black wall of the bank.

Weapons. He needed weapons. He’d sell his fucking soul right now for a carbon-fibre blade and a couple of spools of monowire...

“You think?” The creature whirled, straining to see. “Better than we?”

“You betcha ass –” The taunt ended in a clumsy exclamation as his stealth-cloak caught in the grass, a sudden line of tension across his throat.

Fuck!

The creature wasn’t as dumb as it looked – it homed in on the sound instantly. A hefty yank didn’t free him – the fucking Bogeyman’s luck was deserting him. It was too strong to tear, too complicated to unfasten. He tugged at it again.

Harder.

Nothing.

“Now, I see you, shadow-creature!”

It was behind him, right over him, its claws gouging angry chunks out of the soil.

He heard the other one scream as the horsewoman’s blade slammed home; he saw the rising rear of the wounded stallion, saw the axeman fighting, weapons in hand. Saw him go down, churned beneath the beast’s claws.

Holy shit...

Then the horizon exploded.

* * *

What the rhez... ?

Triqueta saw the light from the Monument rise, saw it burn with yellow nacre as the stones caught alight, blazing into the clouded sky. The clouds returned the glare, their underbellies burned with furious shades of flame.

The air grew tight; she couldn’t breathe.

The injured beast was grappling for her, trying to seize her wrists, her hair – anything to drag her out of the saddle. She ripped her serrated blade free of its flesh and slashed, barged, driving it back.

It was weakening, starting to falter.

The light swelled, dancing into the sky in great, leaping waves of colour that played over and above the swollen grey clouds. Where they parted, the air was burning. It wasn’t fire – it had no heat – it was pure, raw elemental power, leaping from the broken Monument into the covering storm.

As her own foe fell, she saw Redlock go down under the claws of the stallion.

* * *

He didn’t understand how the beast could still be fighting.

It was on him, a blur of legs and claws and trailing guts that tumbled him into cold soil and thick grass.

Horses wouldn’t trample – unless they were trained, or had no choice. This thing was different: those damned claws were huge and it was going to shred him meat from bone.

He tried to break sideways, get out from underneath it – but the claws were everywhere, slamming down beside him. One came down on his booted foot and he snarled, slashed the axe clean through the leg muscle.

He tasted blood as it sprayed his lips. He rolled clear.

Just as Triqueta and the mare crashed into the beast’s flank, then spun and thumped it with both horse heels. It staggered, caught its claw in a reel of spilling intestine and staggered again.

With one almighty sweep, shouting wordless into the storm, Redlock smashed its other foreleg.

Tangled in its own spewing life, it fell.

And the sky above it was burning.

* * *

Ecko saw the centaur stallion crash to the ground, heard the injured mare scream denial. He saw the horizon aflame, saw the Borealis screaming through clouds, lighting their darkness to fantastical colour. Memories of dreams, memories of memories – fire raining from the sky.

But there was still one of these bastard things right over him, her face twisted with hate, her hands reaching through the grass, one huge claw raised to snatch his head straight off his cloak-caught shoulders.

His boosting was down: he was exhausted, nauseous. His targeters tracked the assault even as they plotted the trajectory to roll away. His muscles fired, spasmed – his tank was fucking empty, he had nothing left.

Through the rain, he thought he heard Tarvi calling him as she had once before.

“Ecko! Ecko!”

That fucking claw was huge.

Then a blinding concussion knocked him backwards, a sizzling flare that seared his skin. He caught the reek of burned meat as he fell, twisted awkwardly by the caught cloak. His anti-daz iris-flickered, he could still see...

...see the black and smoking shell of the centaur mare, legs twisted, cracking sticks, the ground around it blasted. At the edges of the strike, the grass burned under the rain.

And the sky... !

The clouds were alight, pulsing waves of colour played under and through them. The Monument blazed like a burning building, waves of fire leapt between sky and stone. The injured mare was racing away, dodging side to side as the clouds roiled with fury.

The stallion was struggling to right itself, but the axeman was right in its fucking face.

“You move, you’ll get one of these up each nostril. You hear me?”

The grass was burning in patches, tiny bonfires, rising smoke.

“Ecko!” Uncaring of the majesty, the destruction overhead, uncaring of the fires under her feet, Tarvi raced down the bank. She was warm, she was scared and awed and she was in his arms. She kissed him so hard she drew blood from his lip.

His pulse screamed frenzy at her closeness – suddenly his adrenals were back in play.