Ecko Burning (24 page)

The roadway was a small one, an ascending curve that wound its way carefully up the side of the city. The death of the sun streaked a warm glow between the buildings. The shrouded figure was crouched at the side of the road, shadowed by a balcony; no one else seemed to have seen it.

Mael stopped, startled.

When the thin hand lifted a bowl, the scribe patted his pouches regretfully, wondering what he had to offer.

Around him, the people were heads down, all of them wrapped in their own thoughts and business. Tensions flickered between them like the wind-dancing dust - they paid the old scribe no attention. A glance told Mael that the area’s soldiery were approaching, though still a distance away.

He looked back down at the dirty, road-stained figure. As the man moved, the dying sun caught his shabby cloak and gave him an odd glimmer of authority.

“I’ve nothing for you,” Mael said, apologising. He leaned down. “You don’t want to stay there, my friend, not for too much longer.”

The man’s extended hand was thin, and it shook. It had old calluses - but not from weapons. They were very similar to Mael’s own, the distinctive bump on the middle finger that denoted a fellow scribe, a bookkeeper, a man with his letters. Something in Mael’s blood shivered, like uneasy recognition. He glanced again at the incoming soldiers.

He leaned down closer, the plains wind picking at his thin hair. Discreetly, he tried for a look under the man’s hood.

“I mean it,” he said. “The grunts aren’t very sympathetic up here. You’d best... Dear Gods.”

It was involuntary, he drew back, his hands to his mouth, not quite sure what he’d seen.

The soldiers had paused to stop a woman, well-dressed and imperious. Her strident tones carried across the wind.

In odd counterpoint, the man was muttering, “No time, no time, no time, no
time...
”

Mael shook himself. Without quite knowing why, he extended a hand and pushed the man’s hood slightly back.

No time.

As he did, he became aware that the beggar was not alone - that there was a heavy-shouldered shadow loitering further back under the balcony. His first thought was that the shadow was some sort of attacker, and he was torn with the risk of calling the soldiers for help and chancing their reaction. Then he realised that the shape was protective, not hostile.

The beggar had a
bodyguard
?

Another part of his attention, though, was taken by the old man’s face, his crazed eyes, the sheer blazing determination of his expression. The sun was behind him and his face was in shadow; his hair and beard were greying, though haloed with light. His skin was weathered, and there was drool on his chin. But he had the single most compelling gaze that the scribe had ever seen.

No time.

Mael had a powerful urge to draw him, to exaggerate those features - to try and understand how any man’s face could come to look like that...

...but he had no time.

The soldiers were moving again, coming closer. Mael crouched right down, allowing the people in the roadway to break their line of sight.

He said, “What do you want?”

The man’s intense gaze did not leave Mael’s own. His mouth worked for a moment, as if he sought the shape of the words to answer the question. His lips were cracked. Mael cursed himself for not bringing his waterskin - or a mug of the tavern’s ale, no matter how poorly brewed.

Then the man said, articulating very carefully. “A... boat.” He licked his lips, his expression tight with effort. “Need... trade... for passage.”

“You’ll have to go north, to Ikira, Teale, to one of the outposts.” Mael was utterly baffled, simultaneously intrigued. “Do you even know where you are?”

The soldiers were close behind him now, it sounded like they’d stopped someone else. The scribe spared a thought to wonder why they were being so aggressive, but the man was still speaking.

“Fhaveon. Need.... a boat.” Spittle flew. “Have... to trade. Please.”

His gaze was brilliant with insanity. Mael had seen madmen during his days in the hospice, but nothing like this. The feeling of
focus
that came from this man was absolutely mesmerising. Again, he heard himself speak, as though the very words had been pulled from his mouth, “How can I help you?”

Then the bodyguard said, “They’ve turned this way, get back now.” The voice was female - startling Mael slightly, though he wasn’t really sure why.

The heavy-shouldered figure leaned down to yank the beggar back against the side of the building. She, too, was heavily cloaked.

But Mael was sure he’d seen Kartian scarring, the deliberate, elaborate carven cruelty inflicted by the CraftMasters of the Western Mountains.

Who in the name of the world herself were these people?

He stood up, turning around just as the soldiers reached him. They were young, casually arrogant; they eyed him up and down with a certain sharp scorn.

He met their gazes, smiled politely, moved as if to go on his way.

They watched him for a moment, then continued downwards, around the bend in the roadway. Mael kept his bland smile until they had passed the Angel, Wyll’s tavern on the bend’s outermost corner, then he turned back to the shadow of the balcony.

“It’s okay,” he said. “They’ve gone.”

He felt an odd sense of relief when both figures moved in response to his words. The crazed old man was huddled by the wall, shuddering, muttering. The bodyguard came forward and put back her hood.

Mael stared.

His heart was pounding.

She was young and very beautiful, classically Archipelagan in feature, high-cheekboned, tanned and oddly haughty. Her beauty was offset - or maybe enhanced - by the incredible scar-work that had been carved into her skin. Her head was shaven down both sides, also carefully scarred, and her remaining scalplock was long and heavy and braided down one shoulder.

For one moment, she reminded him forcibly of Phylos.

Then she spoke. “We need a boat.”

“It depends on where you’re going,” Mael said. The setting sun was in his eyes now and he raised an arm to block out the light. “You’ll need to get to Teale, or -”

“I’ll need stuff to trade,” the woman told him. Her attitude was defensive and abrasive, the bristle of someone who expected a fight with every breath. Whoever she was, she was as strange and intriguing as the madman she protected. “And I’ll need a pilot - I can’t sail the damned thing. Where’s this ‘Teale’ - in the city?”

“It’s north, though only a day or so,” Mael said. “The passage should be clear. If you like, there are still caravans...”

As he spoke, he realised the caravans were no longer a certainty. Teale was a fishing outpost, though he assumed that fish and salt were still considered worth their terhnwood.

What there was left.

The woman blinked. Her eyes were dark, almost as dark as a Kartian’s, though her skin and hair had the shades of the Varchinde. She was an oddity, fascinating. She glared at him for a moment, then nodded curtly.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll go that way.” She bent to help the muttering madman to his feet.

As she did so, a burst of sound came from the roadway. The madman crouched back against the wall, cowering with his hands over his head. The woman shifted, came to her toes as if ready and wanting to fight.

Mael had a horrible feeling that he knew what that noise was.

That noise was the door of the Angel being beaten down.

Hoping he was wrong, he turned.

In the roadway below him, there was a tan of soldiers, he recognised the emblem of their tan commander, Ythalla - one of the more vocal of Phylos’s sympathisers. Six of them were carrying a heavy log of wood, chipped to a rough point. Three to each side, they swung it against the tavern door.

Mael said, “Oh good Gods.”

The scarred woman stood, her fists tight against her sides. She was trembling. The madman had crept forward and was peering around the edge of the wall. His hand against the whitewash was clawed with tension.

Silently and together, they watched.

The door splintered but did not give. Mael could see over the tavern’s roof, to figures spilling out into the small garden, glancing back, and then shimmying over the wall. There was Andrin, Farrhon, and others he recognised. As the door split, snagging the point of the ram for a moment, he saw there was another tan, a little further down the sloping gardens, waiting for them.

He said, again, more softly, “Oh good Gods.”

Under Ythalla’s stern discipline, the ram-team yanked the heavy trunk back out of the door and went at it with feet, splintering the wood around the drop-bar on the far side. In a moment, the doorway was clear and the soldiers were inside. Sounds of shouting and chaos rang back to where they crouched.

The people in the street had scattered.

The scarred woman’s trembling grew tighter. She said, “What’re they doing?”

The madman laughed, a soft noise that was somehow laden with grief. He said quietly, “They’re dancing. A dance unchanged. See? No one has time. Not any more.”

Mael said, “They can’t do this. They can’t just -!”

The woman’s snort cut him dead. They could and they would and they were - and he knew there would be more of the same.

This wasn’t just about hoarding terhnwood any more.

Something in him whispered,
It’s started.

Shortly after, two of the tan emerged from the shattered doorway, Fletcher Wyll dangling between them like a broken toy. He was bloodied and bruised, and they were laughing at their triumph. The scarred woman inhaled sharply, her anger tangible.

The man said, “No, Jayr. No.”

Jayr.
The name was familiar, but Mael couldn’t think about it now. He watched as they dragged out the tavern’s owner, equally battered. He felt his own rise of rage, of sorrow and helplessness, and he turned away.

Frustration pricked at the backs of his eyes.

“It was planned,” he said. “Cylearan was popular with the soldiery. He made a martyr of her - just so he could buy their allegiance. Rid himself of Mostak. Consolidate. The whole damn thing was
planned.
”

Saravin, his intestines spilling through his fingers. Cylearan, her neck broken - a sacrifice to ensure the soldiers’ loyalty to Phylos. Mostak, seized; Valicia, damaged; Demisarr, dead. House Valiembor was gone, but for Selana - and Phylos forged her every move. The Council of Nine was a jest; it no longer existed.

Phylos had secured complete power in the city.

But
why
?

What did he actually want? Why was he hoarding terhnwood, consolidating his authority? He had control, but what did he intend to do with it? It seemed crazed.

Mael found that his eyes were wet and he snuffled, wiping a hand under his nose like a child. He was no warrior, no speaker, no politician. He was an old man, and he drew pictures.

The scarred woman - Jayr - thumped his shoulder and nearly put him on his arse.

She said, “You came out of that building.”

“Yes.” He could hear hammering, now, the sounds of workers placing a military seal over the tavern door. The street was absolutely empty and he knew that they’d have to move -and soon.

The madman was laughing, thin and high and crazed. His humour was severe and it scraped harsh on Mael’s ears. Jayr bent to quieten him, but he grabbed her arm and stood himself up, shaking still.

His eyes were focused all wrong, his pupils different sizes. He lurched forwards like a drunkard and grabbed Mael’s arm.

The intensity that Mael had seen in him before had gone, now he just looked insane. He said, “I can stop this. All of this. I know. I know the answers.” He laughed again. “I know
everything!”

It was a cackle, loud enough to make the heads of the remaining soldiery turn.

Jayr swore.

“Shh!” Mael placed his hands over the madman’s cracked lips. “You’re not going to get any boat if you make a racket like that. Come on. If you’re going to get to Teale, then you need to move.”

Somehow, helping them made him feel less helpless.

Long days, sweating and itching and weary, walking and aching.

Long nights. Cold air and hard ground, looming trees and rising foothills; shadows that roamed flickering-free in the moonlight. In more than twenty returns as a fighting warrior freeman, Redlock had never been this far off the trade-roads.

And it was making him cursed twitchy.

More than once, in the small times of the night, when watching the sleeping hummocks of his companions, he’d started at a figment, a sound. He’d prowled the darkness, bristling with combat tension, then sat watching the fire, his back tense with the unknown.

Amos, Fhaveon, the Varchinde - they all seemed very far away now, lost behind the crumbled stone shoulders of the Green Mountains, shrugging their way free from the forest’s heavy canopy. This was a place untrodden, of woven waterways and nighttime nacre. Triqueta had called it the “Gleam Wood”, Ecko had called it firewood, Amethea had said something about ancient legends, now forgotten... the axeman had missed the details.

This was probably one of those places where you weren’t supposed to leave the path.

If it’d ever had a damned path in the first place.

By every cursed god and his ale, Redlock didn’t want to be out here. New weapons or no, this seemed all wrong - as if they were heading for something they had no way to understand. The bustle and strife of the trade-roads, the politics of the cities, he knew, but this? This was outside his experience and he didn’t cursed well like it much.

Many times, there in the chill of the pre-dawn, he’d wondered what the rhez Nivrotar was playing at - why she’d sent them out here.

What she
really
wanted.

And whether she was expecting them back.

Sometimes, with his hips aching from the cold ground, his knee-joints clicking with the weariness of climbing and slipping and jumping, he wondered if they had simply been forgotten -and if the Varchinde had even noticed.