Ecko Rising

by Danie Ware

  “We have to stop this,” she said. Redlock and Maugrim were fighting, fighting. The Sical’s blaze was roasting hot. “I have to stop it.”

  I started it.

  Triqueta rubbed the stone in her cheek against her shoulder – easing an itch.

  “Then you’re going to need a really big bucket of water.”

  * * *

  Maugrim danced his chain, battering Redlock backwards as the warrior tried to regain the control of the fight.

  Keeping track of the chain-ends was pure instinct: he didn’t see them, just reacted. Redlock was dodging, dancing and lunging, the call of his blood pounding in his ears, his focus as sharp as a knife. He was backing, aware of the hollows of the sarcophagi behind him, but making Maugrim move in the hope of tearing his wound. A dark stain spread down the Elementalist’s odd garments.

  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.

&n
bsp; “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!”

  The walls about them trembled, dust billowed. The axeman was coughing, coughing, wiping his lips as he ran. Triqueta was half carrying the injured teacher. Ecko, running with them, turned back to see what was happening to the Sical.

  It was screaming in his head, livid and shining, brighter, brighter.

  Over it, stones were tumbling from the cavern roof. Water was starting to hiss through the gaps, spraying wide like an office failsafe.

  “Run, dammit!” Redlock’s hand closed around Ecko’s ripped, skin-shredded arm and dragged him away from the spectacle. “The char path will take us out! That way!”

  Ecko stumbled on his cloak hem, but kept moving.

  Amethea said, “What did you do? What did you throw...?”

  “I was tryin’ to make gunpowder,” he said. “Made a helluva bang.”

  The cavern roof juddered, rocks fell and smashed, stone shrapnel slashed outwards.

  The great, black capacitor stone cracked from end to end, its lightning shivered and faded.

  And the elemental screamed.

  Then the brazier under it collapsed.

  The last thing they heard as they fled into the crazed garden was the piercing, mind-shredding shriek of its detonation.

  * * *

  Dust settled, drifting across a faint breeze.

  Water dripped slowly from the cavern roof, a slow rainfall onto devastation – the destroyed remnants of the garden, the shell of the cathedral, now a scattering of low walls, mud and rubble.

  The brazier had been drowned, destroyed, fallen stones cracking as they cooled. The Sical was gone.

  In the quiet, Maugrim’s first breath was a rip of noise – a rasp of harshness and debris on his ruined throat. His face hurt, his tongue was swollen against his teeth. He swallowed, rubbing a ringed hand over the bruise across his neck.

  Then he began to cough, eyes watering, clearing himself of pain and dust. He inhaled another rasping breath, tried to sit up.

  “What a waste.”

  The voice was male, as familiar to him as his dreams. It was calm, almost scholarly, but the threat was naked and razor-sharp, its edge under his chin.

  There was no point even pleading for mercy.

  “Please...”

  “Get up now.”

  Maugrim rubbed his throat again – strangled with his own chain, indeed – and clambered slowly to his feet.

  He’d lost. Meddling kids.

  Something was bugging him, needling at the back of his mind – when his head stopped spinning, he’d place the rasp, the stylised imagery. The accent was familiar... Had he used the word “program”?

  The scholarly voice repeated, “I said, Get up.”

  Beneath the slash in his t-shirt, the axe wound in his belly had gone, a scar in its place where he’d seared it closed, just as he’d once healed Amethea. Maugrim felt drained, looking out across the mess, the bloody bombsite they’d left behind them. He had no idea where to go.

  Ash.

  Then he felt his mentor’s hand on his shoulder, soft, lethal.

  “Finish this.”

  He could say only, “Yes.”

  There was nothing else left for him.

  28: GUILT

  ROVIARATH, THE CENTRAL VARCHINDE

  Evening. The shadows of the Kartiah stretched long across the sunset grass.

  In the glowing, dusty air, a green-and-white banner flapped like a live thing, seeking to escape from CityWarden Larred Jade’s spear tip.

  The last of the sunlight glittered from the weapon’s terhnwood point.

  The creatures came fast, lumbering semi-mindless, stone and fire and destruction. Flame flickered about them, smoke and ash rose in their wake. They’d fanned out into a ragged line, an oncoming storm front for the swathe of devastation they brought: blasted soil, blackened grass.

  Behind them, abandoned farm buildings guttered with flame – blossoming flowers of light in the fading evening.

  Jade watched them, white-knuckled, fear in his merchant’s throat.

  I am no warrior.

  I don’t have a choice.

  Around him, horses stamped. His foot patrols stood silent, dread coming from them in waves.

  As the creatures came closer, he could see the red of their eyes, the heat that rose from their stone shoulders.

  From the wall behind him, he heard the tan commander.

  “Nock... draw... loose!”

  The volley arced over his head, shafts slashing though the sky. Arrows fell with a hiss, shattered on stone, clattering into ash and failure.

  “Second rank!”

  Jade’s hands tightened on his rein. His breathing was shallow, panic settled on his armoured shoulders, goading him.

  A second arcing hiss of arrows shattered terhnwood heads on faceless rock.

  And the creatures came on.

  “Flat-fire!” called the archer commander. His voice was confident but faint, wind snatched – the deserted wooden expanse of the Great Fayre separated him from Jade’s nervousness. “First rank! Eyes and joints! Nock... draw...!”

  Their shots were random – the setting sun was behind them and they were shooting into the city’s long shadow.

  Tense, almost nauseous, Jade held his riders. The spear was unfamiliar in his hand, his resin-and-fibre armour uncomfortable, heavy. It chafed his neck. The horses were jumpy, the approaching smoke was spooking them. Beneath him, his own mare jittered, shaking her head, clattering the terhnwood fixtures of her bridle. To his left, he had six tan of spearmen, sixty fighters in all. They stood two-deep behind a wall of shiny-new shields. They were anxious, wary, anticipating the impact.

  Jade’s grasp of logistics was solid – the overnight evacuation of the market had been flawlessly smooth. His muster and deployment was as his tutors had once shown him, markers on a map. He knew the theory.

  But out here, his clinical tactics were coming apart like rotted fabric.

  They hadn’t warned him about the fear. It was all around him, he could taste it.

  This isn’t strategy any more.

  Another hiss of arrows came hard, downwards over his head, shafts slicing deadly through the air. The creatures took no notice.

  They were almost upon them, their red eyes on the Fayre’s deserted stalls. As one, at some unheard signal, their lumber became a run.

  Here we go. Jade swallowed, let out a breath.

  With a barked order, the shield wall snapped together smartly, spears bristling. Their training was flawless, but the creatures were too scattered, too widespread – as the wall stepped forwards and punched hard into the centre of the attackers’ ragged line, they were already round its edges.

  Some turned inwards to lash at the spearmen’s flanks; others ran straight for the Fayre.

  Arrows struck them, sprang back.

  Jade had no idea what he should do.

  The shield wall held, just. Spears clattering uselessly off stone shoulders. Terhnwood shattered – too fragile. Stone hands tore at shield rims, methodical, relentless, grey-cadaver faces chillingly motionless. Their assault was completely silent. He could hear the defiant shouts of the fighters, the archer’s command to loose at will – but they weren’t enough, weren’t nearly enough.

  The second rank of spearmen was turning
, fearful, needing to see what was happening behind them. Orders were snapped, but they broke anyway, some of them running to save the bared wooden uprights of their livelihood.

  Smoke billowed across the battlefield.

  His heart screaming in his chest – What are you doing? – Jade saw his first warrior die.

  He was flanked, torn down from the shield wall’s edge, claws and ripped skin, a frantic scrabble for a belt blade that snapped like a stick. His cry carved a wound in the CityWarden’s mind – a scar on his memory until the end of the Count of Time. Failure. Guilt. The stone creature was on the spearman, unassailable. It burned his flesh, buried its broken talons in his skin and tore him to pieces, shredding muscle from bone, bearing him down in grim, grey silence, trampling him into the churn of mud and gore underfoot.

  Sickened, Jade could only watch.

  And it didn’t stop – red eyes brighter than the glow of the setting sun, it reached its claws for the next target, seized him as he turned, and tried to shove his spear crosswise over its chest and push it back. Heat reddened his face. Beside him, the rank was cringing away from a scorching, tearing death – they edged sideways, staggering, frightened, spear-points in every direction as the sides of the formation crumbled.

  As the second man went down, Jade saw one of them throw up.

  At the centre of the wall, the fighters rallied. Someone was shouting. They were stamping forwards, in hard time, one pace after another, shields slamming as they went. He saw one creature fall back, then another.

  Hope sparked – but it was brief. Fire and smoke were rising into the dusk, visibility failing now. A shield rim caught alight. The fighter threw it from her, yelling in shock. Another scream, another man down.

  The fallen man’s hand stretched for a moment, begging for help, before he was trampled into the churn of mud below.

  The creatures were tearing into the side of the unit, ripping their way towards the centre. Fighter after fighter saw the friend next to them shredded, ground down, burned and screaming. They were turning to defend themselves, their friends, tangling spear shafts. One punched his shield rim with a slam into a stone thing’s face – it hesitated. He hit it again, and again, and again, screaming terror and defiance as it rocked, cracked, and crumbled.