Ecko Rising

Council. She was young, easily controlled. If she named her mother Seneschal, perhaps there would be hope for the city.

But if she named Phylos...

It was an old, old story. Mainly because it damned-well worked.

By the Gods, this was crazed!

He shifted under Phylos’s hand, strove to stand. His vision darkened, cleared. Pain skittered through his back, his chest ground as he moved – he wondered, bizarrely curious, just how badly he’d been thrashed. How badly he’d deserved it.

His mouth tasted of salt, blood and sand.

He reached a panting crouch and managed, “I don’t know what you’ve done to me – what you’ve made me do – but it’s a lie.”

The Merchant laughed, unfolded to his feet with a warrior’s ease. He stood over Rhan, blood-robes saturated to his knees.

Rhan said, “You touch Selana and I’ll –”

“The way you touched her mother?” The Merchant Master turned to the door, threw the words back over his shoulder. “You’re done. Today, Fhaveon begins her new life.”

* * *

The Theatre of Nine still rang with echoes of the tumult.

Small beneath her father’s white cloak, The Lord Foundersdaughter Selana Valiembor was wide-eyed, struggling to master reactionary shivering. She’d faced them, all of them, from the head of that table and she’d done her damned best.

Watching her, Phylos threw his own cloak across her chair – a splash of blue in this cold, white building. They were alone.

“You did well, my Lord,” he told her gently. “Even without the grief and the outrage, the Council is a hard thing to control.”

“‘Control’, Phylos?” Her voice was clear, remarkably steady. “I thought my role was to guide?”

“Of course.” The blood-clad Merchant Master gave a slight bow, changed tack. “My Lord, perhaps now the meeting is over, there’s a matter we can discuss privately?”

“The naming of my Seneschal –”

“No, my Lord.” He smiled affectionately at her, as if the issue were farthest from his mind. “I speak of the burning – and the harvest.”

Pain flickered a line between her brows. She put back the voluminous white hood as if she set her title aside, relaxed.

“I wish I knew,” she said. “If this continues...”

“I’ve despatched runners, my Lord, following Roderick’s hysteria. The Bard may be crazed, but there’s no fault in caution.”

The girl nodded. She wandered around the table, trailing her fingertips across its cold surface, looking up at the great mural carved into the circular wall.

“Do you mean what you say to me, Phylos? That this is a new beginning?” Cold quartz lay dead in the stone. “That Fhaveon will know new life?”

“Assuredly, my Lord. Enough of saga and history and forgotten woes.” He smiled up at Rhan’s plummeting stone likeness, a sharp edge of anticipation. “It’s time we take responsibility, make our destiny our own.”

“History.” She was still looking at the great saga around her, the city’s history, her construction by Saluvarith and Tekissari, the gift of the GreatHeart Rakanne. “Meaning Roderick’s vision – ?”

“Meaning the terhnwood, my Lord. Where is our life manifest if not in the grass, in the harvest, in the life of the Varchinde? Rhan murdered your father, hurt your mother and he will pay. It is your time now.”

She turned, pale face and white cloak, the might of her forefathers graven in the stone behind her.

“Your vision is compelling, Phylos. I want to make decisions, to remember the strength of the Valiembor House.” She extended her hand to him. “You’ll help me?”

“My lord, your mother –”

“My mother is broken –”

“Your mother is livid.” He met her eyes, took her slim hand in his own, ran his thumb softly across her skin. “But you’re right, she’s lost her objectivity – at least for the moment.”

“Then you’ll stand with me, Phylos? Help me steer the city through the chaos to come?”

“I will, my Lord.” In a billow of scarlet, the Merchant Master sank to his knees, bent over the girl’s hand. “As the Gods are my... No.” He looked up at her, sincerity in every line of his face and being. “As you are my witness, Selana, Lord and daughter of Lords, I give you my life and swear that I will stand by you, defend and protect you; that I will guard this city as though she were my lover –” his hand tightened on hers, eyes searched her face “– and carry her to a future of glory and strength.”

She was staring at him, transfixed.

He came to his feet in a rush, a paean of hope. “We will save the Grasslands, Selana, you and I!”

And she was in his arms, slight and soft and pliant, her breath as sweet as summer sunrise.

19: SENTINEL

                    THE MONUMENT

There was a red and jagged flash, a wound in the sky that split the grey clouds right down to the plain. There was an instant – the stallion on his hind legs, his huge body black against the Monument’s radiance. There was wet grass, shouts snatched away by the wind – and then everything screamed into motion.

His starlites flooded by the flash, Ecko kicked his heatseeker – the stallion was chill skinned in the rain but its body heat was a furnace. It was red hearted, red souled. Behind it, the Monument glowed like a kiln, a crucible of potential.

As the adrenaline jumped, everything swam, slowed. He shot forward, the grass buffeting him. He watched the colours that were the centaur’s legs, its claws, but his targeters crossed its weakest point.

One foot in the bollocks and this thing was going down.

On the creature’s other side, the heat signature of the axeman was slow in comparison – but as inevitable as a well-thrown rock. Both axes went for the fetlock on its rear leg. The bones were delicate; even on this monster, they’d splinter like dry wood. Hack the fucker off at the ankles – Ecko liked this guy’s style.

In front of the beast, still spitting fury, the goldie girl Triqueta was outmatched and overwhelmed by the monster, a hot glow of anger against the cold mass of sky. She had no bridle – how the hell she controlled that critter, he’d no fucking clue – but she surged the horse out of range as blue-cold claws grasped at the air.

Her horse was freaked, dancing like she’d electro-jabbed it.

He spared a moment to hope that Tarvi and the chearl had gained the cover of the inside of the bank...

And his cross hairs targeted. Damn thing had balls the size of –

But the stallion was too smart.

From the colossal, upright rear, it went over – one staggeringly powerful jump that took it away from feet and axes, past where Triqueta timed her turn. For just an instant, its belly was cold blue against the sky, one side highlighted red by the stones’ glow, then it landed in the thick, wet grass and its rear claws smashed out at anything following.

It lurched, spun round, teeth bared and foreclaws ripping the grass into a mangled mess of mud and fury. Its too-human eyes were demented with reflected light.

The rain glittered as if the air was broken.

“You presume?” It sounded amused. “Creature-created I am, you have no skills to match me.”

“Sure I do.” Ecko shrugged. Rain soaked his skin. “You wanna find out?”

The two mares closed, now, to flank him. They were smaller, high breasted and heavy shouldered with the