Ecko Endgame (33 page)

In a rough half-circle stood a grinning gaggle of the horned vialer, all of them bare-chested and heavily armed.

“Clever,” one said. “But just as easy to undo.”

By the Gods’ hairy bollocks – they, too, knew exactly what would turn the centaur herd. If they tore her down, then all of this…

For the first time, she wondered at the wisdom of her idea.

Battle shouts and fury seemed to reach her ears through a seethe of tension. From somewhere, white light flashed savage. She was closer than she’d realised to the top of the hill – but she was caught, the reserve on one side and the responding cavalry on the other. Drums thundered. Tumult raged in all directions.

Here, she was the eye of the storm.

“Come on then,” she said, her voice low. “Amal died, you won’t last much longer.”

Unimpressed by her defiance, they spread out, half-crouched and weapons held low. The mustang snorted again. His front hoof tamped at the ground. Knowing they were showing off, screwing her fear back into fury, Triqueta came again to her feet on the saddle. She stood, knees bent, and aimed her blades at the one who’d spoken.

“Come and get me.”

The vialer were swift, mocking; they started to circle her. The mustang stood solid, throwing his head up and down, his shoulders twitching. On her feet, she could give him no commands – instead, she watched, waited. The beasts were taunting her and she knew it. She was going to carve them into gobbets.

But their attack didn’t come.

There was a sudden surge of noise, and straight into one of the circling creatures slammed a heavy, misshapen thing wielding two bloody axes. It was savage and furious, injured and bleeding and overprotective and, by every cursed God, it was
unnecessary.

Gods
damn
him!

Suddenly, she really was furious – not with the vialer, but with Redlock, with this damned shadow that just wouldn’t leave her alone. First the bweao, then the centaur herd, now this? What the rhez did he think she was, some housebound seamstress?

She found herself shouting at him, a furious torrent of words, “Go away! Go away! I don’t need you!”

But the vialer were closing on her now, their games over.

Then everything happened at once.

Redlock was bare-chested, scarred and sweating, his teeth bared, claws and axes too fast to follow. He was hacking at everything to get to her. She was still shouting, she didn’t even know what. The mustang jumped sideways to avoid the first of the incoming vialer – but knocked straight into the second. The horse lurched, and she was off the saddle cantle; the vialer’s blade-strike missed her as she fell. She landed on her feet on the ground, but the horse was on his hind legs, mane flying, hooves flashing at the creatures’ faces. Using him as a distraction, she cut down the first one, blade slashing it across its belly.

It burbled, hands flailing at its spilling insides, but she kicked it over, right under the hooves of the panicked mustang.

Redlock hacked down another, and a third, merciless and brutal. She’d never seen anything fight like he could – his sheer skill was stunning, artistic and fast and absolutely pitiless, now brutal with the power of the animal he’d become. On his hind legs, he was bigger even than Baythunder had been. He blotted out the winter sky, his claws gashing faces and shoulders clean to the bone. As he crashed back to the ground, hair flying, she found a lump in her throat.

Red!

Had to look away. Had to shout, almost crying, “I don’t need you! Dammit! I don’t
need
—!”

A cut opened her collarbone, hurting. Blades still in hand, she viciously rounded on another of the vialer, cross-slashing it, shoulder to hip. It reeled backwards, tripped and lay kicking. She went after it, needing to open its throat before it got up again.

But the vialer were smart, and there were still three of them standing. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of them had got round behind the fighting Redlock. Even as Triqueta turned, spitting her flying hair out of her mouth, she knew what was going to happen.

Saw it unfold, as if the Count of Time himself had slowed to watch.

Smirking, the vialer cut the tendons on both of the huge creature’s rear legs. Redlock bellowed, lashed out backwards – he was too smart to rear. He tried to turn, but there was another vialer there, and then there were spearmen, closing on where he fought. Their commander bellowed orders, and Triq realised what a Gods-almighty target he must have made himself. She forgot her own foes; she ran towards him, her whole body charged with denial.

“No! No…!”

She wasn’t close enough.

He staggered back and fell onto his rump in the bare dirt.

She was bawling, now. “No! Why did you
do
that? You didn’t need to come after me!”

But the spearmen were closer than she was.

From the top of the slope, the searing white flash came again – the Amos forces were fighting to reach them, crushing the Ythalla’s army between themselves and the Banned.

But it was too late.

“Redlock!
Redlock!
”

Dust and dirt and cold blinded her. Suddenly there were horses everywhere as the rallying cavalry finally turned.

They were overwhelmed, surrounded.

Struggling through, slashing right and left almost blindly, she caught a glimpse of him – even arse-down, his axes were still savage. Anything that came close died screaming. His red mane was bloody and stuck to his skin; his teeth were streaked with gore. He was bellowing, wordless with rage and pain.

Maybe, if she got there in time, maybe, if the Amos force reached them…

But it was too late. The spearmen were all round him now. There were horses kicking and the damned vialer, and he couldn’t stop them all. Even as the Amos force crashed through, she saw the spears come down hard, stabbing over and over, saw Redlock as he crashed sideways, fighting furiously to the very last of his strength.

She saw the wounds torn in his body.

Saw the vialer cut his throat, shouting with triumph and brandishing its blade at the sky.

Saw the blood as if it was the only colour in the winter cold.

It soaked her vision red, and she remembered nothing more.

* * *

When her head cleared, she was being held down.

She was on her back, cold and drained, with a faceful of sleety drizzle. Her arms and legs were pinned by crossed spears, each driven point-first into the frozen dirt.

She swore, struggled to rise, but a voice said, “Easy, Tan Commander. It’s all right, it’s over. For now.”

The ground was cold. Cursing, she craned her head, trying to work out what the rhez had just happened.

She’d bitten her lip, and her mouth tasted like blood and metal. She turned her neck and spat.

“What…?” she began.

A heavy military boot came down in her field of vision. The voice said, “You’re a hero, Triqueta of the Banned. You’ve won us the day.”

“Then let me up, for Gods’ sakes. My arse is like ice.”

At a gesture, the spears were withdrawn. She sat up, shivering, looking for her blades.

But her gaze stopped on the slumped figure of the red centaur.

Oh Gods.

He lay still, a cold lump in the failing light. The air was bitter; her breath clouded away from her as if she could exhale her own life and just lay down beside him. Give up all of this madness, once and for all.

“You stupid motherfucker,” she whispered. The word was one of Ecko’s, but it seemed to fit.

She tried to stand, failed, crawled on cold, wet knees over to where he lay. When she reached him, she stopped, unable to speak. She made herself look into his face, put her hand on his shoulder, almost as if she could shake him awake.

Redlock?

His axes were still in his hands, his knuckles still white, his eyes still open. He stared out across the freezing hillside, out past ruin and wreckage.

In his face, she saw Feren.

She saw Baythunder.

She saw a Banned party, firelight and ale and boisterous humour, a square of spears laid out in the summer grass. Within them, Taure wrestled a bare-chested mercenary champion, a red-haired man she’d never seen before – they held a fifth spear between them, each fighting to pull the other one over. She remembered clearly how the merc had downed every challenger, to much coarse wit from the watching lines. He was damned good, whoever he was, and when Taure, too, had bitten the dirt, she’d stepped out herself. She’d been half the man’s age and less than two-thirds his weight, but she’d picked up the spear and challenged him.

He’d eyed her curiously, but hadn’t insulted her by refusing. Syke had counted down, and the Banned had called her name, stamping in time, “Tri-quet-ah!” She’d waited until the mark to start, then had stepped towards him and kissed him squarely on the mouth.

But he’d been sharper than she’d realised – hadn’t been shocked enough to lose his grip on the spear, or to let her trip him backwards. Instead, he’d willingly dropped the thing and just kissed her straight back, passionate and unashamed. The fight had disintegrated into shouts and cheers, fragments of thrown food. He’d broken away from her, grinning at trickery and kiss both.

“What do I win?” she’d asked him, the spear still in one hand.

His grin had broadened into pure, whetted mischief. “Anything you want.”

But summer and firelight were long gone, and he lay dead on the cold ground, the sleet settling over his skin. Shivering, she tried to retrieve his axes, but his fingers were locked solid – she couldn’t prise them free. After a moment’s struggle, she found herself yanking in a rush of temper, her body shuddering with something between fury and grief. It was huge and impossible, something that clamoured for this not to have happened, for him to wake up, to turn over, to be back in the warmth of that fire…

Those last shouts –
I don’t need you! Dammit!
– rang like bells, like a haunting figment that would never leave her be.

And then she was shaking, raw and hurting, furious at him, at herself.

In a gesture that was pure instinct, she took her belt-blade, dug the point under one of the stones in her cheeks. Blood oozed down her face. She tried to prise the thing out, just like in the dream—

A warrior’s scarred gauntlet reached down, closed firmly on her wrist.

The same man’s voice said, “He died fighting.”

She swore, let the blade fall free. She felt sick, felt like she ought to be crying, but there were no tears. Instead, she wrenched herself upright, her legs as weak as a newborn foal’s.

The man said, “You broke one set of teeth and two arms before we managed to put you down.” He chuckled, though the sound was bleak. “No one’s seen the Red Rage in my lifetime – longer. They sent for me in person.”

The comment made her look round, tear her eyes from the centaur’s body.

The voice belonged to a small, tightly muscled man, his shoulders strong and his energy palpable. His lamellar armour was odd, somehow archaic, and slightly too big for him. He looked like he’d borrowed it for a pageant.

But his face was lean, stern, the line of his nose almost Archipelagan. He punched a fist against his chest, a formal gesture she didn’t return.

She glared at him. “And who the rhez are you when you’re at home?”

“I’m Mostak Valiembor,” he said. “Tan Commander.” It was delivered without boast or inflection. “Your friend, the apothecary, is on her way down. The Lord Nivrotar also wishes to speak to you. For now, we’ve established a perimeter and secured the area.” His eyes were sharp as claws, his energy palpable. “A truce has been flagged, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.”

Triqueta snorted. “Bloody right.” For the first time, she turned to look out at her surroundings.

“Dear Gods.” The words fell away from her and rolled down the hill like stones.

The slope was a tangle of bodies and weapons and fallen flags, decorated by the black flappings of the hungry aperios. Pain was everywhere, audible, harrowing; in places, hands still clawed for help.

Down among the fallen, there were horses, bloated and injured and broken. One of them struggled to stand on a shattered foreleg, failed. Here, there was a centaur, her hide stained with blood. Beside her was the cavalryman she’d torn down, his chest raked open with huge claws; his organs had swollen and blood soaked his colours.

Among the dead and the dying walked several tan of Amos warriors, in pairs and bearing short blades. The slitting of throats and the salvage of kit were brief and efficient. Every so often, they would stop to help someone, and then point them or carry them to the ruin at the hilltop, to the fires that burned against the walls.

“Dear Gods,” Triqueta repeated softly.

“We won,” Mostak said. “Today.”

And then there was a cry of her name and a flurry of cloaked figure stumbling down the hillside. The hood blew back, and the hair was blonde and the face grubby, familiar, a mote of hope in the rising darkness. And Triqueta and Amethea were wrapped in a friends’ embrace beyond fear, beyond life and beyond warfare. Suddenly, Triqueta was crying after all and she didn’t care. She sobbed like a child, her body wracked to spasm with the force of it.

“Thea. He… he…” She was sobbing too hard, couldn’t speak.

“I know, they told me.” Amethea was crying too, her voice was catching. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“I know.” It was facile, but there were no words adequate, and they both knew it.

The two women pulled apart, stared at each other, streaks through the dirt on both their faces. Amethea gripped her friend’s shoulders with hands that were strong and still as stone.

She took a breath, said, “He couldn’t have lived like that, you know that. He wanted… he
chose
…”

“I know,” she said, again. “But I can’t help it. I told him… the last words I said to him…”

“Do you remember?” Amethea’s words were calm, firm. “Maugrim’s chain, Redlock’s cough? He was in my care, do you remember?”

“If you’re going to tell me he would’ve died anyway—”

“Not died, Triq.” Amethea’s gaze was sure. “Got old. And soon. Been unable to fight, to breathe. Even without what Amal did to him, blood clots in the lungs don’t just go away. He died in a battle, weapons in his hands.”