Ecko Rising (22 page)

Neatly, she broke its neck.

Oddly, it made her feel better – a tiny taste of the adrenal rush she’d once been all too familiar with. Carefully removing the arrowhead from the pelvic bone, she drew a blade across the creature’s throat and held it up to drain it.

Her horse flicked his ears at the flies, uninterested. He lowered his muzzle to graze at the full grass-heads.

“Jayr! Come on!” Ress sat in the front of the cart, spears by his side.

When the creature was at last bloodless, she shook it and slung it over her horse’s withers, put a foot in the stirrup and settled herself on his back.

Almost there.

Feren cried out again as the cart began moving, rolling clumsily towards Roviarath and the advancing shadows of the Kartiah.

Jayr touched the gelding’s flanks and he moved into an easy walk, the grasses swishing at his knees.

* * *

As the mare crested a long, rolling rise, Triqueta sat back, bringing the animal to an uneasy halt, her forehoof tamping restlessly at the soil. For a moment, Triqueta couldn’t see where the specks had gone – then her gaze was drawn to a circle of birds, high and black against the afternoon sky.

Aperios. Carrion birds. Tracking something?

The mare shook her mane nervously.

She unslung the bow, strung it without thinking and checked her saddle-side quiver. She didn’t nock, she had no target, but the birds moved lazily westwards, as if drawn by the Kartiah’s darkness.

Seeking death.

She’d been showing off her horsewoman’s skills before – now she stood up in earnest, swiftly, balancing easily, to look down over the long rise to the massive roll of empty plain beyond. Whatever those two black specks had been, she’d lay a bet the birds were following them.

Craning from the tips of her toes, she saw something strange.

Down there in the rippling grass sea, still a serious distance away, two young men, riders, long haired and bare chested, pushing their way forwards with an odd, deliberate gait. They walked in single file, leaving a long scar behind them. For a moment, she was puzzled. They were either closer than she thought, or they were bigger than Jayr in a lousy mood... Then the front one started at something by his feet.

Oh, you have to be jesting!

As Triqueta stared, bow forgotten, the young man spun sideways, lurched backwards – and grew suddenly, massively taller, high above the grass tops. His movements were wrong, incomprehensible... until she saw his dark smudge of hair was rooted all down his spine – and his spine ended in a back.

A horse back.

Monsters.

Dumbfounded, her mind refused to grasp what she was seeing. They were riders, surely...?

By the Gods – Feren’s loco tale. It was all true.

Like any skittish Banned mount, the creature had spooked and reared – the familiarity of the motion was wrong, disturbing. His forehooves – claws? – danced in the sunlight before he plunged back down to the soil, tail twitching with agitation.

Then, like any Banned rider, he calmly turned to warn his companion.

Triqueta stared. Her returns had let her see some pretty unlikely stuff – even out here. But, half horse, half man – behaviour and body, action and reaction – it was loco. Crazed. As crazed as Roderick’s doomsaying. As crazed as Feren’s rantings.

For a second, she stood motionless, her hand white knuckled on her lop-ended bow, then she saw the second creature change angle, as if he was pointing right at her.

Alchemical impossibility.

Like a fireblasted novice, she’d sky-lined herself flawlessly against the afternoon sun, her shadow stretched way down the rise. She saw the two great creatures acquire their target, and then make straight for her, charging from a standstill to a flat-out gallop.

The birds set up a distant, gleeful cawing and the circle began to move more swiftly.

By the rhez...

Thinking fast now, tension in every muscle, she dropped back into the saddle, prepped arrows with swift fingers.

Feeling her urgency, the little mare needed no command – she, too, ran.

The rise defended them instantly. Bereft of a target, Triqueta lay her chest flat against the creature’s neck and just let her race. She was fast, nimble – but whether she could outdistance those things...

She had to reach the cart. Feren. The horrors of what they’d do to the helpless wagon hit her like the pollen-headed flowers that exploded against the mare’s chest and forelegs. Her heart hammered against the mare’s hot skin...

...and they ran.

* * *

“Jayr!”

Alarm, command and sudden terror, Ress’s bark made her jump.

She turned in the saddle – and swore in a hot rush of adrenaline.

Arrowing towards them, fast as the slender, racing arqueus of the southern plainland, Triqueta’s little mare bolted flat-out loco, froth covering her muzzle and chest. On her back, Triqueta was low over the front of the saddle, her expression grim and her hair a crazed yellow cloud.

Blood hammering in her temples, Jayr slammed her heels into the gelding’s ribs and he leapt forwards, neck arching. Raising his muzzle, he snorted snot and laid his ears straight back, baring his teeth like a stallion.

He charged forwards willingly and Jayr wondered what wrong reek he smelled.

Then she saw them – creatures that came out of the grasses, shimmering like a dream in the afternoon haze. These were the monsters that had shot poor Feren, the things Ress had refused to believe existed.

Ress had no such problems now. He stood by Feren in the cart, his hip braced against the side, and he smoothly fitted a heavy spear into the wood-and-leather thrower on his forearm. He had an almighty range with that thing. The first spear arced over Jayr’s shoulder but fell short of the incoming beast.

Bleakly, he fitted another.

The beasts were not shooting back – as they came closer, Jayr saw they bore no weapons, or garments, of any kind. They were fast though, their forelegs and chests pushing through the grass, their huge claws crushed and tore at it. Even as Jayr reached her, Triqueta slowed her wild-eyed mare and, unspeaking, cross-drew her two wicked-looking serrated short-swords.

Jayr came up next to her. She was grinning, bright and hard as a polished metal blade. Her blood thundered, she could feel it in her belly and thighs and in the horse beneath her. Any minute now, her frustration was going to detonate.

The beasts came closer.

Now, Triqueta turned her mare in tight, agitated circles, trying to calm the animal down. Jayr’s gelding tossed his head up and down, up and down. Big as he was, he was skittering, all four hooves tamping the soil like a crouching bweao – he wanted to fight as much as she did.

A second spear shot over them. This one crested its arc – then fell full-force into the horse chest of the lead creature.

“Ha!” Way behind them, Ress’s shout was pure defiance.

The beast staggered, but was still running. Then he reached down to yank the thing bodily out of his flesh and snap it into jagged halves and flying kindling.

And he grinned.

Furious now, Jayr tightened her knees and her gelding sprang forwards, the grasses parting under the onslaught of horseflesh. Dismissing her bundle of javelins – she couldn’t hit shit with them anyway – she unclipped her big, heavy-shafted spear.

The beasts were upon her. She held her horse in a thigh grip like a terhnwood pincer, and lifted the spear two-handed to aim it solid and point down.

The injured beast flashed past. A moment later, she heard Triqueta’s high, ululating war cry; heard Ress’s echo from further back. The other one came at her, chest first, wild haired, bare fleshed and screaming in anger and hate.

She snarled fury, leaned forwards, ready for her horse’s move...

And the gelding stood straight up on his hind legs, his massive, cracked forehooves gleaming in the sinking sun. One caught the creature’s human face, smashing his jaw sideways into a maddened, flopping gape. Blood and spit exploded over them both.

With all her weight and power behind it, Jayr rammed the spear downwards, past her mount’s ear and into the muscled shoulder of the half-breed beast.

The point scored a red gouge in his flesh as he blocked the strike with fist and forearm.
Gods
, he was hugely strong. As the gelding plunged back to the ground, the creature reared in his turn, massive foreclaws extended and scrabbling.

A second spear rammed –
thunk
– into his horse ribs. He staggered, fell back to four claws, raking the soil into grooves of blood and fury.

What did it take to stop this thing?

One hand grabbed the spear and yanked it free. There was pain in his broken face now, rage in his eyes, righteousness where his jaw should be.

With the spear in his hands, mimicking Jayr’s grip, he went to rear.

Anticipating her command, the gelding spun to slam him with both hind hooves.

Jayr knew he’d got it wrong when he buckled under her and screamed, shattering the daylight into tumbling shards of sound.

* * *

As the creature came at her, Triqueta sheathed one of her jagged blades.

She controlled the spooked mare with an effort. The animal danced broadside, her knees high and her eyes rolling white. Fresh froth dripped from her chin.

With one hand on the pommel, Triqueta came to a combat crouch, feet on the saddle. The beast seemed to think this was funny, it was grinning – the thing had incisors as long as belt-knives.

A little closer, you accursed alchemical half-breed, a little closer...

In moving, she’d lost her contact with the mare. As she leapt like a performer from one horse’s back to the other, the mare gathered her legs and bolted – jarring Triqueta’s take-off. Instead of landing on her feet on the creature’s back, she landed and skidded, went splat on her belly, nearly going nose first over the far side.

The creature stank of sweat and flesh.

It shrieked, spat vicious defiance – his human body twisted this way and that as his hands tried to reach for her. Beneath her, his horse self plunged and kicked out, then went to rear.

Triqueta grabbed a handful of mane, pulled her body up and let one leg slide over his back. A moment later, he was tight between her knees.

And he went berserk.

Plunging, kicking, bucking, shouting wordless fury. His human torso leaned forwards, backwards. He twisted round, his hands scrabbled furiously to try and dislodge her. She was riding a whirlwind, a thunderstorm. His hair was everywhere, in her face, caught in her garments. She twisted one hand in his hair to the wrist; the other clung grimly to the serrated blade.

He fought like an unbroken wild thing, outraged and screaming. She gripped him with legs that had been riding a lifetime, rode the spasm and plunge and twist of his back. Dimly, she was aware of the gelding’s sudden scream but her focus was sharp as a bodkin, honed to a fighting point and absolute.

For a moment, he stilled, quivering.

Calm as the eye of insanity, Triqueta brought her feet under her and rose into a half crouch.

Instantly, he started again – now racing forwards, tilting left and right trying to tip her from his back, then stopping dead to buck, and buck, and
buck
like a overexcited foal. She was riding him like a champion charioteer, knees absorbing his motion, hand and arm overtensed and shaking with the effort of hanging on. She was panting, sweating, the sun was making the pollen itch on her skin; her eyes were dazzled by the light. As the creature tore in a desperate circle, she clung – and her heart was hammering, hammering.

He stopped again. As if he knew what was coming, he bawled wordless aggression, turned his body round to seize her by the ankles.

But it was too late. With a scream that might’ve been pure insolence, she rammed the blade straight through his neck and rasped it free, ripping out his windpipe and the front of his throat as she did so.

His anger became a bubbling hiss, an explosion of air and gore. His hands scrabbled frantically as he tried to stem the gush, his chest and ribs strained as he tried to draw breath.

Die you bastard thing!

His great body staggered, righted itself, staggered again and crashed into the grass.

Hand and blade red with the creature’s death, Triqueta jumped clear.

Her knees gave – but she was flushed, exhilarated. Head back, arms spread to the sky, she loosed the Banned’s war cry again, a shriek of triumph.

* * *

Jayr’s gelding screamed and sprang, leaping away from the creature he’d kicked at with his heels.

Jayr kept her seat – just – but the suddenness of the movement, the pitch of the horse’s cry had her grabbing for his mane, barely clinging on to her spear. For a moment, she thought he’d bolt. She craned her neck to see what had happened to him.

And blanched.

Two lots of three massive gashes had carved a wicked, deep chevron in his rump. Raw flesh bulged visibly through ripped hide. Blood was streaming across his haunches and matting his tail, running in rivulets down his legs and staining the grass to scarlet red.

Strong as he was, the gelding was shaking. His back legs quivered and she felt him falter.

But he turned to face the creature anyway.

The beast stood wild and wounded, chest soaked in blood from his crazily hanging jaw, hair stuck to his skin, eyes glittering loco in the low rays of the afternoon sun.

Right, then.

She’d been waiting for this.

She took a hold of her anger and frustration, gripped them hard and strong and swung herself deliberately out of her saddle. She thumped the gelding on his shoulder, thumped him again when he didn’t move.

When he cantered for Ress and the cart, she turned and faced the massive beast on foot.

Her heart rate was increasing now, a steady, rising thunder. She was completely aware of her body, poised on the knife-edge of motion and reaction. Above her, the monster was huge, elegantly muscled. This close, he smelled of blood and sweat and grass and pure, physical power. But Jayr burned now, her need to vent had found a focus. She pointed the spear up at him, a flagrant dare.