Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

“What the rhez is that?”

“Progress.”

Tarvi said, “Oh...” Her reaction brought warmth that had nothing to do with the incoming nasties.

Shut up ! he told himself. The pottery impacted repeatedly against his fingers. In his other hand was the metal bite of home. He found them comforting, somehow bridging the gap between one reality and the other.

This is the Bike Lodge, mate...

The thumping stone feet came closer. A line of soil shivered down the wall.

“By the Gods...” Triqueta breathed softly, tailing into silence as the pounding was in their ears, in the rock about them. Past the square stones that limned the entranceway...

The creature was rock, a cloak and cowl of ancient, worn stone covering twisted, eroded grey muscle. It had hooves – solid like a horse’s and impacting hard on the floor. Its gait was heavy enough to judder the walls.

More soil trickled. Ecko bounced the ceramic globe in his hand.

But its face...

Blunted, empty features, worn down like a graveyard statue. Its expression was hollow despite the flame in its eyes – its cheeks were sunken in stone-shadow.

Behind it came another, a second, a third – each one twisted, damaged, wrong.

“How did he get so strong, so quickly?” Tarvi said softly. “He’s not –”

“How’d you know so much about this?” Triqueta’s comment was only half humorous.

Redlock had thrown a scowl over his shoulder but the beasties were single focus, lumbering onwards in the charred trail of their mates. As the last one passed the end of the passageway, Ecko sparked the lighter and leaned round the edge of the stone.

Oh, this was just too perfect.

His targeters crossed, plotted, described the arc. The big crack in the stone, the gap between roof and floor... yeah, that one...

The pottery sphere left his hand and sailed, slo-mo...

He watched it lodge in the crack.

And the world exploded.

* * *

In her dreams, Amethea had heard the death of the crystal. A distant echo, a faint, discordant jangle.

She awoke with an image flickering at the corner of her thoughts – a creature of darkness and shadow, eyes like black-on-black pits and laughing like insanity.

The harsh laugh and the jarring chime layered one upon another as she stirred into wakefulness and the choking tension of Maugrim’s heat.

Remembered where she was.

Before her, he had turned from the huge brazier, his hand half raised and his rings glittering fierce. However much she hated him, he drew her eyes like a campfire on a cold night.

“They’re early,” he said. His grin was tight and wary.

Who ... ? Hope was a forgotten light: the rock of resentment in her soul was buried deep so the Sical would not find it – but she knew where it was. Who’re early?

Around them, four naves in a vast, elemental cross, the ruin of the Great Cathedral was lit to a brilliant, orange anger by the brazier’s reconsecration. Behind the glowing, broken-topped walls, she could see hints of the cavern outside. Upon the walls, the half-seen shapes of the window frames flickered. And over it all, the vast arch of cavern roof glistened as though damp, and the lichens quested like open-mouthed sparks, lusting for the light.

In the brazier’s heart the Sical danced, bright-eyed and fervent. It was tiny, it wavered with no real form – but the eagerness that radiated from it was palpable.

She could see he didn’t trust it: he kept it trapped and hungry. Loosing it was easy – getting it back under control required strength.

Her voice carefully dull, she said, “Do you – we – have time?”

Maugrim laughed, his hand in the brazier and the Sical nuzzling him, pleading. Its eyes were sharp, glowing white-metal.

“They’ve got some stuff to be thinking about, sweetheart, a few distractions.” He glanced at her, his predator’s smile hot with hunger. “We’ve got time.” Smiling at her – Goddess why did he still smile at her like that? – he spun on his heel to gesture expansively at his silent congregation.

Amethea had tried to ignore them, the endless ranks of silent figures, hunched and misshapen, stretching back into the dark.

Waiting.

They made her want to curl close to the fire.

They were worn, pitted, irregular. They filled the gloom with threat, with twisted, broken muscles of grey stone. Some of the pedestals were already shattered, crumbling, but they waited for his call, for the freed fury of the Sical to rain fire from the skies.

It was as through the destruction of the township had been merely a gesture made for her, an illustration of his strength.

A test.

To take Roviarath, he needed power.

And Amethea knew that for power – he needed her.

* * *

Detonation.

Tearing force and staggering concussion. A splitting crack, a thunderous rumble of falling stone. A rattle of rocks, a hiss of soil, a cloud of dust. Coughing and confusion. The passageway around them shuddered.

Redlock and Triqueta were shouting. Tarvi was on the floor in a jumble, her mouth hanging open.

Ecko grinned like a fiend.

“Boom,” he said.

“What the rhez...?”

Leaving the axeman to his apoplexy, Ecko slipped through the settling debris, picked his way carefully over the pile – it groaned faintly, shifting and settling.

The passageway they’d come through was completely blocked.

Throwing the fucking thing had been a gamble – but the Bogeyman’s luck was with him and the rock had cracked clean through, split free from the wall. Over it, the entire ceiling had come down.

He could smell soil. From somewhere, there was cold air.

Beneath the fall, the four beasties were rubble, their shattered remnants scattered amid the heavy, broken slabs. Their light had gone out: their eyes only empty sockets in ancient, stone cadavers.

Rumbles echoed through the rocks, loose stones hissed in the distance.

Redlock was behind him, boot on the stone, axes in hands.

He said softly, “What did you do?”

“Hoisted that fucker Maugrim with his own petard.” Ecko was crouched, watching the debris – he was half convinced the remains of the beasts would move by themselves. “He wants to play blowing shit up? I wrote the fucking rulebook.”

The axeman gave a tight grin. “I don’t think he’s playing by any rules.”

Ecko cackled.

“Can we get out of here?” Triq sounded almost plaintive, she was watching the ceiling. “I don’t mean to piss on anyone’s campfire – but I’m betting the rest of this is coming down. Any time now.”

“There’s a draught.” Ecko gestured with a hand which was trying to turn the colours of the tumbling dust. At his ankles, the tips of his stealth-cloak were shifting, stirring imperceptibly. If he raised his palm, he could feel it: cool breath on his fingertips. “Can’t go wrong with a secret door – even when you hafta make your own.”

“That’s not a door.” Triqueta said. “That’s a hole. You’re not telling me you’re going to dig...?” She made a noise that was half scorn, half fear. “You’ll bring the whole damned Monument down on our heads!”

“We need to get off the marked route,” Redlock said. “Good thing there were only a few of those things – next time, we might not be so lucky. How many of that weapon have you got?”

“Not enough,” Ecko told him, patting his webbing. “Not enough.”

* * *

The boom was soft, but unmistakable. Somewhere above, the stone seemed to judder.

Maugrim stopped, tense and dead still. In a silence broken only by the crackle of the brazier, he listened.

Starve, I. Fuel, give. Now?