Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Redlock saw his opportunity. He dropped the axes, dove between the chain-ends, seized its centre and pushed Maugrim backwards. A foot around the back of his ankle, and he fell, cracking his head on the stone.

* * *

Redlock was on top of him, the taut stretch of the chain across his throat. The warrior’s shattered face was gruesome, his brown eyes held no mercy. He was as much stone as the cathedral’s walls around him, as the stalagmite pillar that held the blaze of the Sical’s prison.

Maugrim fought to breathe as his vision blackened. He fought to call aloud, to his mentor and protector, his teacher and rescuer.

Vahl! Vahl! Help me!

He had known all along that the daemon wouldn’t tolerate failure.

* * *

Ecko was being swamped.

Stone hands tore at his cloak, his flesh, his face. They pressed into him, grabbing for his limbs, cadaverous stone faces and eyes of the Sical’s fire. He dropped a circular, sweeping kick, took two of them off their feet, but the press came on, stamping the fallen into fragments and dust.

They were too close packed, he couldn’t breakroll through them to change position. He lashed a low kick, broke the base of another and sent it toppling backwards – but the press behind it was too close, it didn’t fall. It teetered, rocked, and then smashed downwards towards him.

He slammed himself sideways – it missed, crashed into pieces.

But he was too close now. Hands reached for his shoulders and gripped him, grinding into his reinforced skin, into his collarbone. Fingers wound round his upper arms, cutting off the bloodflow, crushing muscle painfully against bone.

He still had his feet – in front of him, the creatures broke like pottery, but there were too many of them.

And they were pulling him down.

* * *

Redlock pushed down on the chain with a strength born of anger and exhaustion, focus and fury, pushed until Maugrim stopped struggling, pushed until his face blackened, until his tongue swelled from his lips and his eyes bulged with horror. Then he let go and stood, the adrenaline still pounding, his chest heaving, his sight dazed and scarlet. There were tears of anger running down his face, sweat sheeting his body, but he did not care. He picked up the axes and the chain, and looked up at the huge might of the Sical.

It didn’t care that Maugrim lay twisted. It was reaching for the cavern roof, for the twist of dark rock that stretched down towards it. Beside it, shadows against its flame, Triqueta defended the injured teacher. The elemental paid them no attention – perhaps they were all too small for it to notice.

He had no way to face that thing, no weapons to touch it.

Slinging both axes and spinning the chain for momentum, he ran the stone tightrope between the open sarcophagi and raced for the stone wall that was closing round Ecko.

* * *

They were clawing at him now, sharp stone fingers ripping his skin. Their silence was eerie. He kicked and thrashed, but he was held down like a scrawny street kid by a bunch of gangland bullies. He was yowling abuse, had no idea what he was saying – could Eliza see this? Was this how this fucking fiasco would end – shredded by a bunch of animate fucking statues ?

Then there was a ripple of impact, a harsh ringing of metal on stone. He could hear Redlock swearing vengeance and warfare. Behind him, the claws slackened.

Again. They swayed at the blow, their attention turning from him.

With a twist and a shove, a furious flailing of feet, he was free. Shreds of his flesh clung to their fingers, blood slid over his skin.

Fuckers.

For a moment, he was on his back on the stone, doing the fucking dying fly, then he flipped himself to his feet and lashed a kick at the closest shambler.

The hard jang of metal rang again. The things staggered at the impact.

He heard the axeman shout, “Ecko!”

“Still breathing!” He spun back. One kick, another, repeated and savage, against the press of stone that separated him from Redlock’s vicious, slamming, chain onslaught.

He saw the axeman spin the chain over his head – once, twice – then crash it into them full force.

They shattered like glass under the impact, pulverised, fucking dust.

There was a gap – his targeters didn’t need to tell him. He was through it like a rat.

And they were still coming, ranks of them.

“I won’t stop them all!” Redlock was shouting. “We have to get out of here!”

Amethea shouted back at him, “We have to stop the Sical!”

“With what?” Ecko was shaking now, the comedown was hitting him and he felt sick, weak. The shamblers were still coming, there seemed no end to their silent, stone determination.

“We stop them now,” Triqueta said. “Or they’ll tear Roviarath to the ground. Everything dies!”

Maugrim lay sprawled, eyes bulbous and grotesque. He stared sightless up at the Sical as though shocked by its power.

Feed, I!

“Oh my Goddess,” Amethea said. “Look.”

Blood had seeped, dark and slow, from the axe wound in Maugrim’s belly.

Where the lids of sarchopagi had lifted, they’d left the very inside of the spiral intact – the closest point to the brazier, the platform upon which Redlock and Maugrim had been fighting.

Maugrim’s blood had spilled upon it, it spiralled where Amethea’s had done, mingling with hers.

And the Sical grew bigger.

* * *

For a moment, the horror of the mistake held them all completely still.

Around them, the shamblers advanced. Before them the elemental reached for the surface, for the air and the sky.

Its crystal celebration chimed in their heads – Roviarath would burn, and with it, the rest of the grass.

Fuck , Ecko thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He was out of options. What the hell did he do, chuck a fucking blanket on it?

Chuck...

The pressure in his webbing-pouch gave him the answer.

And he started to laugh.

* * *

Amethea looked at the dark jester, chilled by the demented cackle of its humour. She was barely keeping her feet – Triqueta’s taer had sealed the wound in her gut, but it was a patch, she could feel the blackness on the edges of her vision, just waiting to crowd in and close over her.

Maugrim was dead. Throttled, broken. She should feel relief, she should be celebrating, kicking his swollen-faced corpse and spitting on his memory.

But the creature he – they – had set in motion was rising like the sun.

She watched as the lean, dark-mottled figure unclipped something from a strange belt.

“Guys?” he said. “Remember this?”

“What...?”

The question was drowned out by Triqueta’s “Oh shit ...!”

And he threw the pouch on the fire.

* * *

The initial detonation tore through the building.

Walls rocked, masonry tumbled and smashed. The first ranks of the stone warriors were blasted backwards and shattered, scattering their followers with dust.

“With me,” Redlock roared. “Run!”

The pomegranate grenades blasted open in every direction, one after another, each one filling the Sical’s form with sparks and scattering pottery shards and hot coals to the bloodied, spiral floor.

But then the brazier started to rumble, the pillars of the stalagmite shook.

The floor quivered. The light in the cavern walls flickered and dimmed. From overhead, a loose stalactite smashed to the floor, then a second.

The writhing of the pillar stopped.

And the Sical shrieked, crystalline and furious – they heard it in the bones behind their ears, in their skin and in their thoughts.

“Yeah,” Ecko shouted, “and fuck you, too!”