Ecko Endgame

by Danie Ware

  He held his breath.

  A moment later the flicker came again, then a long shadow, stretching down the roadway. The figure paused, the walkways dark over him, the curving balconies layered with light. It waited for a moment, the pursuing feet coming ever closer, then it turned and ran down the road towards where Jade waited, its long shadow running with it.

  The pursuers rushed, scrabbling.

  Jade could hear voices, though he couldn’t make out what they said.

  Then, at the far end of the road, more shadows as the other runners paused, searching.

  Pulling back as far as he could, hand on his belt-blade, Jade waited.

  Close now, the fleeing figure slowed, looked back over its shoulder. It stumbled, tripped and fell headlong, swearing as it went down on its elbows on the stone. As it – he – picked himself up, he paused, leaning over to draw huge gulps of air. Jade wondered how long the man had been running for.

  At the far end of the road, the others were laughing, coming forwards now with slower steps; confident, as if their prey was caught.

  The runner stood upright, brushing dirt from crumpled street-clothes. With an inhalation that sounded like resolve, he turned to face his pursuers.

  Now, Jade was curious – by the rhez, he was almost avid. The road was not a dead end, there was an angled laneway between the back buildings that would take a walker through a series of cobbled archways and eventually out to the riverside. It was a maze, but navigable if you knew it and an ideal place for losing pursuers.

  But the runner crossed his arms as if he didn’t know it was there.

  Or as if…

  Almost without thinking, the CityWarden glanced at the half-dark walkways over his head, the lanterns like shuttered eyes – some open, some closed.

  Oh, you clever bastard.

  Jade realised he was endangered – but he couldn’t have moved, even if he’d been able to leave without the man seeing him.

  There was no way he was going to miss what was coming next.

  The pursuers advanced down the street, jaunty and mocking. “You can’t run any further, Roken. We’ll just chase you ’til you can’t breathe. Then you’ll be swinging free.”

  Roken. Jade knew the name – a roustabout, a troublemaker, one of the smarter thugs of the Great Fayre. A man of some influence, if he remembered it right.

  Silent, he watched.

  Roken’s breathing was easing. He was stood in the middle of the roadway, the criss-cross of walkways like some great black sigil over his head. Watching the incoming goons, he said nothing.

  His pursuers came on, laughing at him. “You’re done, sunshine. We’re everywhere – streets, alleys, roofs. We’ve taken it, Roken, the manors bring their stuff to us now. We got the food, we got the grass harvest, we say what goes. Jade’s finished, he’s got no damned clue what goes on out there. You too – no more street wars.”

  “Come on, then.” Roken’s voice was less a challenge and more a wheeze. “If the city’s yours… you come and prove it.”

  We got the food, we got the grass harvest.

  Jade’s finished, he’s got no clue…

  Really.

  Every word made Jade’s skin sing, his blood roar in his ears. There had been an inevitability to the Fayre’s scuffling factions moving into the city – but for them to have mustered this much influence and intimidation, this swiftly…

  No more street wars.

  …He wondered what the rhez he was going to do about it.

  Then, as he watched the attackers come closer, Jade found there was an idea taking shape in the back of his head – an idea that made him tremble with sudden excitement. Breathing steadily, he tried to build it carefully, to observe it from all sides to ensure that it would work.

  It was crazed, but it might – might just! – be the solution he needed.

  Briefly, he wished that Syke was here – the Banned commander was streetwise and shrewd and would be a far better person to execute this madness – but Jade was alone, and he would have to manage.

  He was almost shivering, his palms slick and his skin sheened in sweat. The CityWarden of Roviarath let out a long, steadying breath, as silently as he could, and he waited.

  The pursuers approached with weapons bared, their resin blades gleaming with the light of the tower behind. As they passed under the first of the walkways, Jade felt himself tense – but nothing happened.

  Sudden fear spiked cold.

  By the rhez, what if I’m wrong? What if…?

  Roken stood still, his head down. His empty hands were scratched where he’d fallen; he looked abject and beaten.

  What if…?

  “We’ll hang you from the walkways, Roken. A final message – anyone else who tries to take us, they’ll see it and learn. No more trading ’less we say so; we’re like Roviarath’s own cartel.” The grin was audible. “You’ll be the last warning – the streets are ours.”

  Three, four, five of them neared; others loitered further back. As they closed on Roken, they fanned out across the street. Jade saw loops of rope in someone’s hand.

  You’ll be the last warning.

  Perhaps not quite the last, Jade thought. If I’ve got this wrong, they’ll be stringing me straight up alongside the thug lord.

  But Roken said, soft as a breath, “Come on then. Come and put me out of business, you bastards. Come and use me as a damned message.”

  The pursuers took the last two steps to reach their target.

  The clouds broke for streams of moonlight, and the walkways exploded with violence.

  The fighting was brief, and ugly.

  Jade made no attempt to move, not when a gagging youth stumbled to a dying halt at his feet, his hands scrabbling for the blade thrust sideways through his throat; not when Roken took the noose that had been meant for his own neck and strung his lead pursuer up with it, watching as the man’s feet kicked until he died.

  Hidden by his cloak and cowl, and by the shadow of the balcony above him, Jade watched as Roken’s defenders walked among the wounded, silently slitting throats and emptying pouches, watched as the golden moon came fully into view at the far end of the street, decorating the roadway in slants and hummocks of shadow.

  As Roken clasped wrists with his closest warriors, slapped them on the back, Jade did probably the second most crazed thing he’d ever done in his entire life.

  He stepped out into the yellow blaze of the moonlight.

  “Roken.” His voice was clear; he raised his hands to his cowl and revealed his face.

  People tensed, spun. Several faces were blank – they’d never seen the CityWarden close-up before – but enough of them came forwards, hands on weapons, or turned, looking for the tans of soldiers, the incoming Banned.

  Roken himself was an older man, lean-jawed and clean-shaven. He bore a series of what looked like Kartian scars down one side of his face, a heavy white stone upon a thong around his throat. He raised an eyebrow at Jade, checked both ways down the street, and held up a hand to stop the incoming threats.

  “CityWarden,” Roken said. He spat to one side, a gesture more thoughtful than insulting. As his face turned, Jade could see that his Kartian scarring was clumsy – it lacked the intricate perfection of the race and looked almost self-inflicted. “Evening stroll?”

  “Insomnia.” Jade gave an affable shrug. He refused to be cowed; he met the man’s gaze with a faint grin. “You know how it is.”

  “You been hanging with the Banned too long.” Roken’s response got chuckles. “Drinking that rotgut’ll keep you up ’til the end of the Count of Time.” His grin showed teeth brown and stained. “Alone, are you?”

  “Absolutely,” Jade said. “Alone, and no one knows I’m here.” He spread his hands, his cloak parting to reveal the belt-blade still sheathed. “I came to speak to you. About… business.”

  Roken’s goons glanced back and forth. They were unsettled by his confidence, which made Jade feel a whole lot better. Roken scrat
ched his scars.

  “No business here, CityWarden. The Fayre’s all clean now. Nice job.”

  Tense now, Roken wasn’t stupid – he’d been loitering in the Fayre and the city for long enough to know the playing field.

  “The Fayre’s moving, Roken, changing. It needs guides and leaders, men and women who know the… ah… ropes.” He glanced briefly at the swinging corpse, grinned. “It needs cool heads and sharp ones. I didn’t come out here to play games, I came out here with an opportunity – and one I’m not going to offer twice.”

  “Nice night for a stroll,” Roken said. He spat again, a brown stream of fluid. “Will they miss you if you’re late?” He stepped forwards, his breath steaming, the sweat-stink strong in the cold night.

  “Maybe.” Jade nodded, calm as he could manage. “You might take the ground, Roken, but have you the force to hold it?” The question was measured, easy. “The goods to supply it, the eyes to watch it, the skills to keep it operational? Running wagons out of the Great Fayre is one thing – but this is Roviarath herself, and she works slightly differently.”

  Roken said nothing – he watched the CityWarden through eyes narrowed, smart enough to wait.

  Jade shrugged, went on, “Let’s say we have food enough to feed the people, if we’re careful. Let’s say that I have all of the terhnwood that the city has remaining. Let’s say that I have a fighting force that could almost be described as ‘veteran’, though that might be stretching a point. Let’s say that I need my city safe, that I need to secure her streets against rising levels of chaos. Let’s say—”

  “Let’s say I slit your throat or take you hostage,” Roken said, conversationally. “You know, as we’re playing the theory game.”

  Jade belly laughed, deep and genuine. “And who do you think will take command of the city if you do?”

  His answer caused muttering and sniggers from Roken’s hovering heavies. Roken gave a slow nod.

  “You’re a smart trader, Jade, we’ve always known that. You come out here to deal – I can deal. What do you want for your terhnwood?”

  “You. Your people. Your eyes and ears and hands and feet. Your streets. Your safe houses and your bazaar stalls and whatever stock you’re holding. Your confidence. In return, I’ll give you terhnwood. You’ll get the weight of the city behind you. You want to stitch this up, Roken – I’ll give you the needle. But you’ll use it where I say.”

  For a long moment, Roken looked at him. The gold moon touched the scarred side of his face with an odd dapple of light and shadow. Then, slowly, the man nodded, seething the brown goo between his teeth.

  “One thing.”

  Jade raised an eyebrow. “Only one?”

  “A clean break – anything that’s happened before now gets written off. Whatever I’ve done, wherever you find it, from here in – I’m clean.”

  Jade eyed the scars for a moment. He had an idea he knew where they’d come from – but that was so much public rumour, something that had never been proven – then he looked the lean man back in his face.

  He held out his hand, they gripped wrists.

  And Jade wondered, somewhere there in the moonlit dark, if he’d lost his damned mind completely.

  * * *

  “You’ve lost your damned mind completely!” Syke told him, hands on hips like a scolding aunt. “Roken’s a slaver – where d’you think ’e got those scars? Made his name tradin’ flesh – and not ’ow you’d think. And you’ve just promoted him to goon-in-charge? How you planning on makin’ that work?”

  The warm wooden hall of the Warden seemed to shudder with Syke’s sarcasm. Outside, the morning sun was pure and brilliant, lighting the windows to a bright-white dazzle of mica.

  “I’m not,” Jade replied, grinning like a fiend. “You are.” He’d not slept – been too overwhelmed and excited and terrified by the deal he’d just pulled. Beside him, his breakfast and herbal were going cold.

  Syke said, “You’re shitting me.”

  But Jade was after him like a bweao. “Syke, I need you with this. I can spin logistics, juggle numbers, ensure the right things reach the right places – but I need you to watch him, play his game and bring him onside. You need to make that handclasp a guarantee. He’s a greedy little shit and we can’t trust him as far as I can spit. You need to make him play nice.”

  Triqueta helped herself to Jade’s leather mug. She looked over its rim at the CityWarden as if he were two panniers short of a travelpack.

  “You’ve gone loco,” she said.

  “Possibly,” Larred said. He grinned at her, his expression like the sun coming up, and the lines round his eyes creased with mischief. “But I’ve been thinking this round in circles ever since we had Nivrotar’s message – how I can muster and still watch the city? – and I think I’ve damned well solved it.”

  “You think I’ve solved it,” Syke commented darkly.

  Jade chuckled. Outside, a flurry of birds rose from the building’s eaves, settled again. The CityWarden paced his wooden floor like a man possessed, his mind turning over and over with the new possibilities.

  Triqueta drained the herbal, pulled one of her serrated blades and inspected the tip. As she carefully began to clean under her nails, Jade stopped his fidgeting and met Syke’s flat, grey gaze.

  His unspoken challenge.

  “Look, I can play figurehead,” Jade said. “If I’m going to hold this together, the people need to know I’m still here. But I need—”

  “You need someone to do the shit you can’t.” Syke picked up the mug that Triqueta had discarded, ruefully inspected its emptiness, and put it down again. “Kick arse where your boots can’t go. An’ Roken in control of the streets—”

  “Means I want you in control of Roken,” Jade said. He jabbed a finger at the sunlit window. “And if the city’s out there fighting some damned war, it needs secure supply lines. No gambles, no mistakes.” His expression was intense, thinking. “We can’t get this wrong.”

  “I hate to piss on your parade,” Triqueta said. “But you’ve missed something.”

  Jade raised an eyebrow.

  “If you’re sending the city to war, you need a commander,” Triqueta said. “Not just some goon from the garrison, but someone with experience who knows this stuff nose-to-tail, who can win not only a fight, but a battle. Strategise. And you know Taure can’t keep his nose out the ale jug—”

  “I know exactly who’s taking command,” Jade told her. “Can’t think of anyone better.”

  Syke chuckled, catching something that Triqueta had missed. She folded her arms and glared at the pair of them.

  “Share the jest?”

  “No jest,” Jade said, spreading his hands. Syke was grinning like a loon.

  Triqueta tapped her foot, raised an eyebrow. “So go on, who gets the short straw?”

  “You, Triq,” Jade said, his grin as wide as his ears. “See yourself promoted, Tan Commander. You’re taking Roviarath to war.”

  Triqueta said, with some feeling, “Shit.”

  12: FOUNDERSDAUGHTER

  FHAVEON

  And then the time came when the talk was over, when the strategy was complete and the city’s final moments were before them.

  When they could stall no longer.

  Rhan stood on the balcony of the Palace, the sky before him as grey and cold as drifting ash. He was sheltered by the window, a pace back from the edge – as if reluctant to take that last step into inevitability, to begin the end.

  Down below, glimpsed through the balcony’s shaped stone supports, lay the city’s heart, the open square once as familiar as the backs of his hands. A place of festivity, ceremony – a celebration of the city’s life and history. But its elaborate mosaic was shattered now, melted and blurred – just as if Vahl himself had been thrown down upon that very spot. Just as if a war had been won there.

  Or lost there.

  Immortal or not, Rhan felt sick.

  Below him, standing silent about the
mosaic’s remains and looking like some final jest of the Gods, was Mostak’s mustered soldiery, the remnant of House Valiembor’s might. Roderick had brought them, as he had brought the people, their ranks and lamellar armour ragged, ruinous like the city herself.

  Some of the units were missing completely; others were represented by a lone man or woman, standard in hand as if they were the last fighter in the world. Some bore injuries, many untreated. Most had dirty, ill-fitting kit, though some had repaired and cleansed in an act of pure defiance, and stood with chins raised, their pride puffed like dust.

  It was a brave attempt – but by the Gods, it was a mess.

  Rhan swallowed, blinking.

  So many times, he’d watched their drill – precision and polish, demonstrations to illustrate the city’s hegemony, performances to honour House Valiembor, or visiting guests, or days given to harvesting or feasting. Combat tourneys and range patrols and parades and decorations…

  He swallowed again, and counted them.

  He knew full well what the tally should be – nine warriors to a tan, nine tan to a flag – at last muster, there had been thirty-four flags, eleven of them cavalry. Plus fifteen flags of archers, seven on foot and eight mounted; the latter swift and light-armoured to skirmish, flank and bear messages. In all, some four thousand warriors. A tiny number for a land area the size of the Varchinde, but after four hundred years of peace, why would they need any more? They drilled to perfection, trained endlessly, and earned their pennons by winning games and chasing pirates.

  Down below, their standards should have been flaring as the morning breeze caught them – pride and colour.

  Instead, the mosaic’s dust stirred, mocking. The flags themselves – the battle-standards of each unit – flickered and failed.

  Almost two thirds of the force was missing.

  We can’t do this, we can’t…!

  He caught himself. Stood firm, looking at the soldiers below.

  Many, mostly the conscripts from surrounding farms and families, had simply deserted. Others had been garrisoned at the Varchinde’s cities and had never returned. The heavier cavalry had mostly gone with Ythalla; Ecko’s scouting had put their number at seven or eight flags. What remained were mostly skirmishers, both foot and horse, and the older rank and file of spearmen, perhaps those with the experience to have served as range patrol, or with the age to have learned the meaning of loyalty.