Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Then he faltered, his great body rolling sideways.

And he stared, empty eyed, at the sky.

20: TREASURE

THE MONUMENT

They faced each other over the cooling corpse of the beast, its intestine slick with mud and rain.

“So. Was that fun or what?” Under cloud and darkness, through soaking grass and spreading gore, Ecko turned his maniacal black grin on the axeman. “You sure throw one helluva party.” His skin flowed with the sick, yellow light of the broken Monument.

“Where the rhez did you come from?” Redlock was blood to the elbows, saturated with violence. The wound in his shoulder was ragged and shallow, a bruised scape against the bone. And he wasn’t quitting yet.

Ecko grinned. “You’d never believe me.”

Over them, the night sky was lifting. Between thinning, wind-blown cloud, glimpses of moons loosed strobes of light across the grass tops. Drizzle scattered, cold and cutting. The Monument’s ghostly yellow nacre washed the plain with a sickly highlight.

A ruffle marked Triqueta’s return.

The sight of her reminded Ecko of his flash of dread, of the inevitably repeating pattern. Of his fear that whatever choices he made, he would he end up, eventually and hopelessly, in the same fucking place.

That, in the long run, whatever decisions he made didn’t actually matter.

His freedom was an illusion.

In the comedown, he shivered.

Chrissakes.

He held his hand out to her, something on his outstretched palm.

“Yours?”

“My dice!” The horsewoman was nearly as fast as he was – the dice were gone out of his hand. She brandished them at him. “Where in the name of the Gods...?”

“You will just leave this shit lying around.”

Redlock said, “What happened to the – ?”

“Gone.” Triq shrugged. Blood seeped from the narrow slice in her neck. “I took what I could from the panniers. The mare’ll go home – she’ll take the rest of them with her.” She slipped the dice into a pouch. “We’re stuck.”

“See? I knew horses were bad idea,” Ecko said.

One of Redlock’s muscled hands clamped around the front of Ecko’s cloak, lifted him almost clean off his feet. Ecko inhaled, cursed his empty flamethrower. His eyes flashed red and he bared his teeth.

“Gotta problem ?”

Redlock snarled. “What. The rhez. Are. You?”

“Your unavoidable destiny. Now put me the fuck down before I break your face.”

For a moment, confrontation clamoured loud.

“You were in The Wanderer,” Triq said. She put hand on Redlock’s arm, a caution. “On the bar – I remember. You’re a friend of the Bard?”

“I’m his...” The words caught as he said them, but he said them anyway – spitting them at the sky, at Triqueta, at Redlock, at Eliza. “I’m his Eternal Champion or some such shit – I’m here to save your ass. Now move your fucking hand. ”

Redlock let him go.

But Triqueta was staring at him, her jaw dropped, her dice forgotten.

“If the next words out of your mouth are about coming from another world...”

Ecko grinned. “Whaddaya know, he gave you my resumé.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The axeman snorted scorn.

Ecko gave a jaunty, what-the-hell shrug and stood back, untangled his cloak, flickering his optical scans.

“Toldja you wouldn’t believe me.”

Redlock said, ‘What are you, Kartian? Another alchemical monster?”

Ecko cackled. “The Bard’s nightmare vision? The Bogeyman? You tell me.”

“Enough!” And Tarvi was there in the moonlight, the Monument’s nacreous glow making her shimmer. She looked oddly ethereal – the taste of her still tingled on his lips. Viciously, Ecko crushed the feeling, binned it with an addict’s determination – she was a trained soldier for chrissakes, not some winsome heroine that needed a protector.

Fuck that noise. He wasn’t going to babysit her, or any of these guys. He was just...

Just...

What was he doing?

His fingers were fidgeting with Lugan’s lighter, clicking the lid open and shut, open and shut. Somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Eliza laughing.

Ah, Ecko. You know just what you’re doing. Don’t you.

Yeah, he did. He was proving that the Bard was wrong. Proving that he could do this. Proving that he was a champion. He wanted to be, needed to be, it was just...

On the heels of his admission came a realisation, an understanding of something...

The fractal repeats itself! Of course it does! And that means this world is mine – all of it, it was made for me.

Why else would the goldie girl come back?

But that means...

For a moment, Ecko’s thoughts were poised on the edge of explosion, torn between impossible, opposing poles. He wanted, need to be a hero, a fighter, a champion. He needed the purpose, the validation. But at the same time, he likewise needed to be free, to achieve his success his own way, to escape with his mind intact.

But if the pattern repeated itself, then he had no freedom – every choice he made would just land him in the same place.

Was that the point? Was that the choice he had to make, the lesson he had to learn? His therapy? If he wanted to win, then he must toe the psychological line and be “normal”...?

His snarl was almost aloud: I’m not playing your damned game!

“We should go,” Tarvi said. She was watching the horizon, all round them. “I don’t like this – we should move away from the corpses.”

“Wait,” Redlock said. “We’re not going anywhere until we get a name and –” he blinked “– explanation out of this character.”

I said “another world”. You want me to prove it?

The acerbic reaction never made it past his teeth.

“Down!” Tarvi’s soft cry had them all flat in the grass.

“Where?” Instantly businesslike, Redlock was fast, axes in hands. He looked ready to hook the rest of that henge thing and drag it into the dirt, pyrotechnics and all.

Beside him, Triq was arrow nocked and silent, watching the rear. Her voice was low.

“I can’t see –”

“I got ’em.” Ecko’s telescopics spun and locked. “Beasties. Over a klick, south-west. Whatever they are, they’re heading away. They’ve come out behind us, for chrissakes.”

“They? What the rhez is a ‘click’?”

“Easy, tiger – they’re there. ” Ecko’s mottle-dark arm pointed, and there were creatures, a dull red glow of motion, heading fast away from the Monument.

Great blurs of wildflower hampered his ability to focus. For chrissakes! He batted at them – then a rift in the clouds bathed the prairie in yellow-white madness and his tele-focus hit: they were right up close and personal. Ember-glow eyes, grey and broken faces, pitted stone muscle limned in fire. They were misshapen and twisted, worn like old rock...

“Jeez, they’re on vacation from the local fuckin’ cemetery.”

“ Will you be specific?” The only thing from the cemetery was Redlock’s sense of humour. Ecko scowled him to silence and they watched.

He counted ten of them, twenty, more. They lurched unevenly as they ran in ranks, extended file. The grass flashed into ash and smoke tails as they passed.

He didn’t need his heatseeker to tell him how hot they burned: steam flashed from their stone skin, the night air shimmered over them.

They were unaware of their audience, their surroundings, their attention was pointed straight forwards. One-track fucking program.

Triq said, without turning round, “South-west? They’re heading for Roviarath.” In her half crouch, she backed to where they’d gathered, heads low. Her voice was urgent. “I have to go back – Jade has to know.”