Ecko Rising (31 page)

Bereft of words, Roderick stared.

“I can also
move –
out of here and without being detected or missed. And I have sources of information that may surprise you. Perhaps I can find some answers.”

“And then what?” The question was slightly sharper than Roderick had intended. “There are too many questions. I feel I am chasing my tail like a sun-crazed –”

“Roderick, my oldest friend.” Rhan clapped his shoulder, held it for a moment. “You were never meant to witness the nightmare that you saw. You hold the thoughts of the world in your mortal mind and your beating heart – and they overwhelm you. I know the fear that lives in your soul, that it eats you by the day and haunts you in the darkness. The world needs you, you idiot, and she’ll protect you – as will I.” As he spoke, the faint sardonic edge had faded from his voice. “Trust me, trust yourself. If this fails – and it might – then we go to the one place that can answer every question. Probably the one place that you should have damned-well gone to start with.”

Realisation crystallised and shattered. “The Ryll. They will not welcome me.”

“They’ll welcome me.” Rhan’s gaze was peridot and white fire. “And if we have no other way to find answers, then what else remains?” His grin was like the first edge of the sunrise. “We ask Mother.”

16: ASH

                    
THE VARCHINDE

It was dusk as Ecko sighted the ruin.

The evening was silent, any birds or creatures had fled the devastation and, for the first time since leaving The Wanderer, the trade-road below him was utterly deserted. A cool wind blew ripples of ash across the wide shine of the river.

“What happened?” Pareus asked. The tan commander had joined him in the grass, peering through the stalks at the wreckage. “What do you see?”

What the fuck do you think I see?
Ignoring the wary mutterings of Pareus’ patrol, Ecko spun his telescopics.

He saw destruction.

Seared grass, blasted soil. This had been a township that had swollen from the back of the trade-road like an abscess – now it was wreckage. Charred skeletons of trees stood witness to its ruin, buildings torched and crumbled, corpses twisted and blackened or crushed by fallen rubble.

“Someone blew the shit out of it.”

Spars of charcoaled timber still stood upright, stark against the glitter of the water – the fire had been vicious, fast and hot. Hell, whoever’d been inside there hadn’t had a fucking prayer.

At the heart of the little village the buildings were shattered, the ground melted and hollow –
like this place had taken some kinda missile.

And that just wasn’t
fair
!

Since when did this program do old-school flash-bang magic? Or was there something else the fuck out here that he’d not seen yet?

Jump this way...

He crawled forwards for a better view. Hell, no bastard round here had the right to blow shit up but him. And he was still working on it!

Beside him, the twenty-something wet-behind-the-ears corporal stayed in the grass, watching, and smart enough to be quiet.

Pareus. Corporal Teen. Squad commander. Now military escort.

Hell, you had to laugh.

Yeah, or you’d lose the fucking plot.

Ecko had fled The Wanderer a seething knot of questions and resentment – his sense of purpose had packed its bags and fucked off on vacation and he’d got no clue where he fit any more. This Rhan character had just put him out of a job and, frankly, he was
pissed.

By the time he’d calmed the fuck down, the Bard was long gone and he was well and truly lost.

In
grass.

More sodding grass than Lugan on downtime. Grass this way, grass that way, grass the other. Ecko was neither hippie nor cowboy – and limitless prairie was not his idea of fun. His telescopics had picked up some sort of tower, still faintly gleaming in the dawn – chrissakes, whatever it was, it’d have to do. Once he reached habitation, he could work out what the fuck he was supposed to do next.

He’d got a bagful of nicked gear and the kit he stood up in. On the street, he could’ve survived indefinitely – but out here? Yeah, saving the world should be a fucking
doddle.

Y’hear me, Eliza? I don’t need help! This Rhan can kiss my mottled ass!

Chances of success: 26.75% and falling...

Bitch.

It had taken him until that relentlessly hot midday to realise that his rations were pitifully fucking inadequate – already rotting to overheated sludge. The local wildlife found him inedible, but it still buzzed round his face, driving him batshit. He had been stumbling, thirsty, cursing Eliza, Roderick, Lugan, and anyone-the-fuck else he could think of when he’d spotted a cadre of local goons, their weapons cast aside, apparently stopped for a nice little picnic.

No such thing as a free lunch?

Well whaddaya know, think I scored a bonus.

As he’d got closer, though, he’d realised they were kids. They were sunning themselves and laughing – these weren’t squaddies, for chrissakes, they were more like a comedy road trip. If their vehicles’d had tyres, rather than a leg at each corner, Ecko could’ve been in and out smoother than a gossip journo in a whorehouse.

But, teens or no, these guys’d got something he didn’t.

Orientation.

In short, they knew where the fuck they were.

He’d crouched in the grass, all itch and heat and dust and beasties, and watched.

When he’d accosted them, ghosting out of the sward like some sort of twisted dryad, they’d challenged him – they’d never seen anything like him before. He’d explained he was an ambassador of the Bard – it was as good a line as any – and wanted to go the nearest habitation of any size. They’d been ribald, mocking, abusively friendly. They’d be going back to Roviarath when they’d finished their patrol, they said. Would he like a ride?

A
ride
?

Sure, if it had tyres and a
tank.

Chrissakes, the thing wasn’t even a horse, it was an ugly slope-shouldered monster that looked like the offspring of a horse and a camel. He was dealing with enough – the agoraphobia, the sudden onslaught of self-doubt – and he had to sit on some critter that was a half a ton of muscle with a brain the size of a –

Pareus nudged him, nodded. “Ecko.” Distantly, black specks were circling in the sky. Ecko yanked his thoughts back to the smoking ruin ahead of him.

“What d’you mean,” the commander said, “‘blew the shit out of it’?”

Motioning his squad to silence, Pareus had belly-crawled to where Ecko lay. They watched the distant, smouldering town.

“Fucker did a helluva job.” Ecko’s black gaze made the kid shiver, though he tried to hide it. He was young, way too young. “You wanna tell me how? And with
what
?”

And where I get some?

Pareus flickered a frown. “I don’t understand.”

“Place exploded. Boom. Like the powder store went up or some wack-job chemist screwed up with the Greek fire. You gettin’ me?” He grinned. “Ker-blooey.”

“Anything left alive?”

“Only us.” His oculars picked up shattered roof slates hanging from eyeless, half-collapsed houses, floors sliding into ruin. Charred bodies, adults and children, flash-burned as they sat in their homes. In many places, their stuff was still visible – broken ceramics, torn flutters of fabric, melted and glistening terhnwood-resin.

Ecko caught himself thinking:
Poor fuckers.

They didn’t even have a chance.

His focus spun back and forth as he scanned the ground. Charred animal remains, shattered fragments of lives. Here and there, tiny pockets of flame still sought fuel and oxygen, twists of smoke climbed from still-smouldering wood. Nothing else moved.

“Flash-fry job. Nothing livin’ down there.”

He spun his focus back to the grass in his face.

“We’ll picket the chearl inside the rise,” Pareus said, and his fingers flashed orders at his patrol. He checked his blade and bow. The kid was pale, but not afraid to make the decisions – vacation time was done. “Ecko, you’ll take point. If there’s anything left alive in there I want it found. Questioned.” He took a long breath, then let it out. “We’ll follow you. Tarvi!”

Ecko bared his black teeth in a grin, lifted his cowl further over his face.
The kid’s got
’
em when he needs
’
em
, he thought,
maybe this won’t be a rerun of
Aliens
after all.

“See?” Ecko rasped a chuckle. “It ain’t so hard. Get your goons in line, kiddo, let’s party.”

* * *

The vastness of the open Varchinde.

Ecko had only ever seen this stuff in movies – it was an agoraphobic’s worst nightmare, emptiness more than anyone could fucking stand. It was more sky and wind and grass than he could get his head round, and, frankly, it was freaking him out.

It made him feel so fucking
small.

He knew he was holding them back, there was way too much to deal with.

His first problem was called a “chearl” – it had a bad attitude and a sloping back and a Mohawk mane and a tail like a bog brush. Sitting on it nearly sawed him in half, but he was determined not to quit.

How hard could riding the damn thing really be, for chrissakes? It wasn’t like it had an engine.

His second problem was the
dust.
The road was busy – heaving, compared to the population of the city – and dust from feet and hooves and wheels devil-danced like chaff across the roadways. Oddly, though it coated his lips and teeth, it lessened his feeling of exposure. It was soft, it diffused the sun and sheltered him from the godalmighty space that lurked, endless and featureless, behind the roadside buildings. As he rode the blade-line that cut the prairie in half, it billowed in his wake.

His third problem? His butt hurt.

But he kept his trap shut and rode on.

To one side of them, the bizarre ribbon of township rose and fell, in and out of the plainland – a thin, poor stretch of deadwood offering inns, pubs and whorehouses, general stores and rickety stalls. They further they rode, the poorer it became – sun bleached and tumbledown. He could hear voices, calling to the mass of travellers, asking them to stop and trade.

Ecko watched, kinda hoping for goblins. Some of these places
so
looked like there’d be an ambush – please? He flicked his oculars, mode to mode, twitched his fingers restlessly...

...but the goblins had packed their little green goblin bags, only the hobos and the winos remained.

Eventually, the township thinned, spotted and finally dissolved altogether, melted by the heat and trickling into the cracked and dusty roadside.

The neck of Ecko’s beast was decorated with intricate whorls of stink, he didn’t need his heatseeker to see the shimmer that came off its hide. As the pain in his spine and thighs increased, he became steadily more unfocused. He didn’t sweat and his poreless skin struggled with the ceaseless beating of the sun, the open air, the endless wind, the changes in food and sleep. He’d’ve sold his fucking
soul
for a can of chilled fizz. Slowly, the pain, the heat, the motion of the chearl, the rippling grass, drifted one into another, and all into a blur.

* * *

At the edge of the ruin, Ecko crouched still. His skin was ash and charcoal, his cloak loosed like a live thing, folds flickered like shadows in the evening breeze.

Behind him, Pareus and the ten members of his patrol. Most bore bows and short spears, a couple had small, round shields buckled to their forearms. They were fast on their feet, lightly armed skirmishers – and they were suddenly taking this the fuck seriously.

Playtime’s over.

They watched the township, and Pareus for orders. Ecko remained still for a long moment, oculars scanning every burned-out building, every crumbling wall, every broken cart and corpse – then he raced forwards, sharp and swift, barely stirring the ash as he went.

One dead corporate, two dead corporate...

He counted twenty-two before they came after him. Small units, archers and shieldmen together, the spears working in threes. They were noisy on their feet, but they were well trained and sheer, cold terror was making them focus. Not one of them spoke.

As Pareus directed them, they scuttled nervously outwards into charred remnants of buildings, ruined streets. They took cover where they could and occasionally shuddered as they passed something familiar, death curled on blasted soil.

Those kids were getting one helluva wake-up call.

Ahead of them, barely a wisp of darkness, Ecko was unarmed – he didn’t need that shit anyhow. His targeters cross-hatched empty windows, likely cover, possible threat – he moved from stealth-crouch to stealth-crouch with accomplished ease.

He may be cussing the absence of wrecked cars, but this shit? He knew backwards.

He paused at the base of a cracked and roofless wall, kicked a charred skull from under his feet, shreds of skin still clinging to the jawline. He listened to the hiss of superheated air, the creaking of damaged timbers.

As the colours in his skin shifted with the sky, the stone, he watched.

Pareus was good, tightly focused like he was too terrified to fuck up. He was blade in hand, low and alert, watching the units of his patrol and the ground ahead of him. His second, Tarvi, was wide-eyed at the devastation. There was a smudge of tears and dirt down the side of her face, but her focus echoed his – she held her terror in rigid check.

The Bard’s preaching Ragnarök – and this is our fucking army?
He addressed the silent sky, bright and blue as though it didn’t give a shit.
Jeez, Eliza, we’re screwed.

Eliza made no response.

As Tarvi came past him, spearman to each side of her, Ecko slipped out to follow.

* * *