by Danie Ware
Like the last snapping of his lifelong loyalty, Rhan said, “Come and get me.”
Selana stared at him for a moment, then, effortless enough to be scornful, she crouched and picked up the fallen form of her mother. The blaze swelled around them both.
“Then you commit treason, Seneschal. You and Mostak, traitors and deserters.” She smiled, almost coquettish. “I’ll tear out your soul.”
Mael was standing by her, guarding her like a soldier – but he didn’t meet Rhan’s gaze.
Rhan spread his hands, the gesture a beckoning, a dare.
With a curl of her lip, Selana turned away, taking Mael and her mother with her. Somewhere over him – how had he ended up on the floor? – Roderick was turning back to the sunlit shatter of the mosaic, was raising his voice to a cry that sounded a paean as high as the paling sky.
Wordless, unable to move, Rhan watched him, a dark shape against the winter sky. He couldn’t turn and watch Selana walk away through the Palace as though it meant nothing to her, and nothing to Vahl.
And Mael.
The old man’s courage had saved Fhaveon; Rhan had saved his life. He had pledged his life – and now his soul – to the Valiembor name.
Rhan had done what Nivrotar wanted, he had no doubts that Vahl would follow him.
But Mael had made it feel like a betrayal.
* * *
Standing over his oldest friend, the Bard took a breath. His nervousness flickered like a figment, but he faced the people and he did what he had been born and marked and tortured to do.
And his voice was the fire of the rising sun.
13: MARCH
THE NORTHERN VARCHINDE
Ecko was sure of one thing: this long-distance-forced-march shit was no fun at all.
He was jogging for chrissakes – jogging! – and he was out on the flank and alone. It was methodical, cold and boring; his rhythm, the sound of boots hitting the dead-cracked ground in perfect unison, his music, the cold wind, the snap of the flying banners and the clacking of the horses’ tack. Now if only he could remember the words to “The Duckworth Chant”.
But even his acerbic sense of humour was struggling under the pounding. This was tiring shit and, almost unavoidably, his thoughts had turned mechanical, some steampunk machine that rotated ever on the same axis and hissed ire every few klicks. Like the running of the soldiers, his brain was thumping, routine and obsessive.
He missed Lugan.
Yeah, like he knew that bit already, it kinda went without saying. But now, it was more – the vacuum was Redlock, and Triqueta, and Amethea. It was The Wanderer; it was Karine, and Silfe, and Sera, and Kale.
It was the fucking Bard.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
This World-Shaking War shit was seriously not as much fun as it’d been cracked up to be – where were the siege engines assailing mighty castle walls, the clashes of infantry, the strafing dragons?
His thoughts gave another long hiss…
Chrissakes.
…and they ran on.
Unrolling round him, the winter Varchinde was grey and vast and freezing. The wind was chill, slicing down from the rising ground ahead, cutting the skin from his cheeks. It made his fingers tingle, his ears sting; its noise was never-ending. Empty of the grass, of the swathes of autumnal colour, of even the hopeless tumbleweeds, the ground was hard as a slap, and etched in frost. The occasional stubborn tree was bent like an old hag, as grey as everything else.
Pennons on lines of spear-tips snapped whip-like, their colours defiant.
They ran on.
The pounding was compelling, mesmeric – it pulled him into running in rhythm, whether he wanted to or not. Freedom of choice his ass, this shit was just takin’ the fuckin’ piss…
Lugan would never’ve stood for this, even Redlock…
Ecko caught himself as the cog clunked into another turn, and he hissed, this time audibly, challenging the cold emptiness.
They ran on.
As the barrenness of that first morning expanded into vast desolation and bitter, aching cold, as the city faded behind them and the winter widened its mouth and swallowed them whole, Ecko’s physical machinery clunked, rusting – he’d never had to run like this.
His lungs strained, hauling at the cold air. His chest was starting to hurt.
And they still had a fuck of a way to go.
Yeah, an’ like I’m gonna quit. Mom made me; I can so do this.
They paused briefly for water and the compacted ration-pack biscuits that tasted like cardboard, then ran on into the afternoon. For a long time, Ecko’s telos clung, fingers-in-windowsill, to the receding city, to the Amos trade-road veering ever further to his left – he couldn’t bring himself to turn away. Here and there, they passed manors and farmlands, dilapidated now, their buildings dark-eyed and their lands devastated by winter and blight. In places, black smoke rose from pyres of Christ-alone-knew-what, ash scattered on the wind. Occasional scents of burning flesh were faint but evocative, stomach-churning.
In one place a dark force of implement-bearing nasties came out to eye their chances, then decided better of that shit and vanished again.
They ran on.
Oblivious to the point of tunnel-vision, the warriors ran like robots, their formation flickering but not faltering, their feet never ceasing. They didn’t actually chant, but their breath steamed, and the horsemen skirted their flanks, armed and watchful. On that first day, no one faltered or missed a step.
Ecko could keep to their speed, his wired body making up for his lack of angry-sergeant training, but he found himself thinking about his travels with Pareus, about the Varchinde’s dusty, golden summer – thinking through a haze of idealism that made him grit black teeth. Fucksake. He missed that shit too – missed the camaraderie, the affectionate aggression, the hard-edged humour and the vulgar jokes. He missed the tight sense of community. This grim-faced lot had about as much fucking comedy…
Jesus.
His clunking thoughts lurched and derailed as he looked sideways at the faces of the running soldiers, at the dirt that covered them and the short spears they carried, at the flush that was now spreading through the less fit. These poor bastards had lost everything; their future was some lunatic gamble they’d gotten no control over. Hell, they were every bit as fucking lost as he was. He guessed they weren’t gonna be cracking gags anytime soon.
They ran on.
As the light thickened, fading to the dirty red of the winter dusk, the wind eased and then faded, a relief to his coldly singing ears. There were rumours of predators – circling bweao. Ecko was really hurting now, his muscles cramping with strain. He was coughing gouts of London’s pollution – finding bits of his lungs he hadn’t used in years – but he was still half-tempted to skip his cardboard dinner and go see if he could find the marauders. By the time he’d caught his breath, though, the squads of mounted skirmishers had come back with nada.
“Headed north-east, sir,” their commander called across the rocklights of the evening. “We’ll keep an eye, but pretty sure there’s no need to worry.” He grinned, feral in the gathering dark. “Job done!”
Job done.
For a moment, the thought sharp-edged and raw against the backdrop of the spreading camp, Ecko found himself wondering what in the ever-loving fuck he was actually doing here.
Job done.
What the hell use was he? Like really? He looked at the mounted riders, sweat and muck and horseflesh, close and stinking – they didn’t even know he was here. Job done. Chrissakes, in the middle of all this, what the hell did he think he was gonna do?
Fight the ubernasty an’ save the world!
Yeah, right.
Roderick and Rhan, Mos-whatsisface the military commander – they’d gotten their roles, their labels. Fucksake, Ecko should’ve stayed with the city, with Amethea…
Gone with Triqueta.
That thought was barbed. He wondered where she was, what had happene
d to her. Then he pushed it away, flickering with anger.
So – now what? I’m as useful as an ashtray on a fucking Bike Lodge custom. I was gettin’ it right – what happened? Did I miss a turn? Fumble?
Turn to the wrong fucking paragraph?
In the rocklights, the riders were gone.
Around him, the camp had grown out of the empty plain like a petri-dish culture – soil-coloured bivouacs, the flicker of flame. The fires burned corn and garbage and horseshit, but they gave the same sense of gathered community. Humour returned as the warriors relaxed – Ecko could hear scatters of conversation, genial horseplay. The warriors were tired, but their mood seemed oddly elated.
Almost giddy.
They were making jokes about it, for fucksake, like it was the only way they could deal with it – jokes about Phylos and Selana, about daemons and monsters and nightmares. About Kas Vahl Stupid-Name…
Oh yeah, an’ I know all about that shit.
Ecko remembered Vahl, the touch of Amal’s blade and voice, the bargain he’d almost made – how he’d nearly traded this whole world for his own freedom.
Yet he was still here.
And he was fucking damned if he was quitting after getting this far, missed a turn or not. Bring it on, Eliza.
Whatever you got for me, I’ll kick its butt.
By the second morning, Ecko had a growing sense of unease spreading like circuitry up his spine. His cough had receded, but he was wan and shaky and he hurt like he’d dragged himself on his elbows through every layer of hell.
The dawn was slow and the light reluctant, blown back by gusty morning drizzle. Despite the cold, the campsite was spreading into wakening life, and strident shouts across the morning.
Never much of a sleeper, he’d found a vantage – a flat spar of smooth stone, half-thrust from the ground. He’d gone halfway up it, his telos in overdrive, looking out at the enormity of the grey death that surrounded them.
It was hard to wrap his brain round – that this was even the same place. It was all gone, for chrissakes, dead as a doornail, dead as a dodo, dead as fucking far as he could see.
It looked like it’d had the life just sucked clean out of it. Some world-eating vampire – shlup! – and all gone.
Behind him, fires smouldered into ash and bivouacs crumpled into packs. The soldiers yawned, stretched, scratched, swore, then tightened back into formation. Orders were barked in short puffs of breath, and the running began again.
They warmed up swiftly, ran smoothly and well.
To free the foot soldiers of everything but basic kit, the herded horses carried panniers containing much of the supplies. The flags of mounted skirmishers were formed in a loose cordon, guarding the infantry’s flanks. From the previous day, some of them had already turned drover, others hunter, still others message-bearer, tan to tan.
At front and rear, the foot-archers ran light, their formations loose and unconstrained by the regulation boot-pounding.
The Tan Commander himself sat at the head of the force – bastard led right from the front, a choice Ecko respected but was not convinced was wise. The man’s voice cracked through the rising morning, and his drummer thundered the pace. At times on the previous day, he’d broken from his unit to ride beside the skirmishers, shouting at them over the noise, listening as they’d shouted back. He was a little man, barely taller than Ecko, but he was wound from knotted cords and bore a constant scowl. As the running began again, he watched the horizons as if the world itself would fold inwards and imprison them all in walls of grey nothing.
In Kazyen.
The word hovered for a moment, taunting…
Then Ecko dismissed it, too tired to think, and kept running.
Behind him, mounted on some massive, hairy-hooved carthorse, Rhan roved tireless, watching backwards as if he expected to see the Big Nasty rise like some enormous Balrog, flames and whips and all. His armour was not what Ecko had expected – not shining plate like some book-jacket champion – it was terhnwood lamellar like the others, manoeuvrable and light. He carried no shield, and over his shoulder rested a slender, two-handed blade, the same early steel as Redlock’s axeheads. It looked every fucking bit as old as he was. He moved as if he’d personally castrate the first thing that came close.
An order barked sharp through the morning, the drum rippled faster, and the pace picked up.
Ecko groaned, stretched the kinks out of his shoulders, and kept running.
* * *
He hurt.
Christ, did he hurt.
Slowly the grey sky sunk to a scatter of rain, and the wind sharpened, vicious. Ecko’s muscles eased as he ran, but his cough returned – it left him reaching for air, hacking and spitting until his chest ached from the strain.
He thanked whatever fucking Gods he could think of there were no monsters after them – yet – but as the day passed, a different demon manifested.
Fear.
It slunk through the ranks like some predator, some beast of whisper and rumour. Warriors or not, these people were fucking terrified. They were rootless, restless, homeless, tired. They had nothing behind them and only questions in front. They were bait, for chrissakes, hung on the hook to tempt the big fish out of hiding – and they knew what that fish was. As the weariness set in, and the reality sunk home, they were looking about them and wondering what the fuck they were doing – what’d happened to their families, their homes and dogs and cats and collections of action figures, all left in the Cathedral’s basement.
As they made camp that evening, Ecko could see new rot in their armour, patches of green shit all spreading in the wet. It’d gotten into the weapons, and into the supplies – a whole pannier of sodden and mouldy cardboard biscuit had to be dumped.
Dark mutters flickered with the firelight: threats and fears and desertion. Morale was rapidly vanishing round the u-bend.
The Bard began to walk the rocklights.
He’d lowered his scarf to his chin, left his mouth bare, and he carried only a long, curved animal horn filled with some kind of booze. But his presence was like…
It was like blatant subliminal programming, for chrissakes. It was like some damned subvocal itch. As though he could walk from group to group and the ripples of his influence would spread like song and laughter.
It was like he was some fucking fractal in his own right, some pattern within the pattern.
Ecko watched his influence, stunned at what Mom had done.
Everywhere Roderick went, everywhere his voice and music touched, so the fears would evaporate like water in a heatwave and the people would live and love and die for him, promise they’d stand fast. And – Ecko could see it in their faces – they’d mean it, every fucking word. Roderick remembered every one of them – he knew their names, their histories, their families. He told them tales of when they’d been in The Wanderer, reminded them of warmer times gone, and gave them hope for those times to come.
So much for the good guys and the Bard’s morals, he was blatantly coercing these people. Keeping them on that bait hook. Piping them to their death.
Holy fucking shit.
Like Ecko before him, the Bard’d sold his soul for his new abilities. And, like seeing himself reflected, it was creeping Ecko the fuck out—
From the nearest group, there was a sudden burst of laughter. In the rocklight he saw the Bard stand up, slap the soldier he’d been teasing on the back. As Roderick turned away, Ecko thought he saw his eyes blood-red, cold with their newly inbuilt scan, but he wasn’t sure…
The look was like a laser-pointer, a target.
And later that night, Tan Commander Mostak impaled a deserter on his own spear, and left his corpse as a warning to the others.
* * *
Maybe it was the blood-smell that triggered the attack.
In the shock of it, Ecko first thought they were bandits – cloaked and armed and manifest like horror, straight out of barren nothing. They were in among the sleeping troops wi
th awful speed, all bared teeth and tattoos and the sharp edges of blades. They were fast, brutal; knives slashing before the exhausted soldiers could even move. Only half-dozing, Ecko was awake in an instant, his stiff muscles protesting at the rush of adrenaline. For a brief, lunatic moment, he wondered why bandits had horns at their temples, but the figures were too tall to be human, and their chests were bared beneath a writhe of blue ink. Then the thought was lost under the screaming and the shouting and the chaos and the pain.
Shit!
Blurs of flesh-warmth, bodies hotter and heavier than human, crouching and slashing, turning and kicking. Screaming, so much screaming; orders barking and being lost. From somewhere, a drum, suddenly silenced. His targetters were flashing in the darkness, crossing this movement, and this one, and he was moving – faster than the soldiers could see or respond, faster than his own damn thoughts…
Yeah, you fuckin’ try an’ stop me…
He was there in a moment, and the thing in front of him was too tall, eyes of chaos that glittered cold in the rocklight. It bore a long knife, and it was tearing its way through the just-waking tan, flesh and bivvy and bedding.
Laughing.
Under it was blood and debris, scrabbling. The injured cried out, tried to move. Others were fighting, shouting, going for weapons. Several couldn’t get up, were panicking, or calling for help. It was kicking at them, the motion somehow wrong.
The air smelled like copper. Debris billowed, lost in the darkness.
The noises rang loud in Ecko’s ears. His adrenaline boosting slowed time to a crawl. The craze of creatures calmed, slowed. His targetters flashed and the one before him was staggering back, blade lost, clutching at a broken arm. It tripped over a body behind it and fell, showing fucking hooves—
One of the soldiers buried a spear in its belly and it screamed, hooves kicking.
Oh, now he knew what these things were…
Somewhere about him, other tan were moving – there were sounds of horses. But they were too far away to reach them in time. And then he could hear more commotion, coming from further back – this wasn’t just a random dare, this was part of a co-ordinated attack.
