Ecko Rising (21 page)

“Then give me an alternative.” Roderick smoothed the nose of the chearl in the wagon traces. “If there was no monster, what happened to the boy? Where’s his teacher, Amethea?”

“Boys.” Triq was watching the sky. “Quit squabbling, will you? We’re running out of time.”

Feren muttered again, his face was white and sweating.

Ress turned on Triqueta, the paling sky glittering like shards in his eyes. “Why didn’t you leave him?”

“What?” Triqueta was rocked back by the question. “You know I wouldn’t – not even by my desert blood, none of us would. What the rhez kind of question is that?”

Ress shifted on the wagon seat. “I’m not Banned-born. I was a scholar, learned a lot about people – before it went wrong and Syke gave me refuge. The Banned, Triq, you’re forthright, you act before you think, you speak your mind, you –” a rat scuttled across the cobbles, making Triq’s mare snort and sidestep “– sometimes, you can be very naïve.”

“Oh
naïve
?” Triq spat, indignant. “I’ve spent my whole damned life with the Banned, worked for every CityWarden that’d compensate me and done dirtier deeds that I’d ever tell you. Naïve! What’ve you done?”

“Learned.” Ress gave her a wry half-smile. “Enough to know that you can’t achieve the
impossible
.” He glanced at the Bard. “So what’s left?”

Triqueta gaped. “You mean – Feren made this
up
?”

“Think about it.” Ress cut her short. “He’s a good apothecary – good enough to know he’ll die. And certainly, something’s happened to his teacher. So, what’s more likely?”

“Oh for Gods’ sakes,” Triq said. “He’s a kid, he’s hurt and he’s worried about his friend. Besides, that arrow shaft had to’ve come from the biggest Gods-be-damned bow I’ve ever seen. The Archipelagan
Redfeather
don’t make bows that size! And you said yourself that taer grows at the Monument – !”

“You’re
stupid
.” The slightly sullen, sulky voice was Jayr’s. “All of you.” Startled, they turned to look at her, at her elaborate, deliberate scarring shining white under the dying moons.

The girl was looking at her hands – at the multitude of long-healed breaks in her fingers, at the calluses and scars. She spat out a chewed piece of fingernail and shot them all a resentful, adolescent look. “You know something?” She glowered around at them. “This is all horseshit. Talk, talk talk. He’s young and he’s scared, and his friend is still out there. We should ride to the Monument ourselves and tear it
down
if we have to.” She looked fully capable of ripping it stone from stone.

“We can’t,” Ress said gently. “Not until Feren’s safe.”

“You must speak to Jade,” Roderick said. “Persuade him to call muster. At least scout the location, find the source and the truth of this – find the missing girl. And you must
tell
me!”

Triqueta checked the bow at her saddleside and swung herself easily onto the palomino’s back. She had no rein: she rode the mare by knees alone.

Ress snorted. “Gods’ sakes, for the last time –”

“Listen! I said nothing of fears or figments or monsters.” Roderick let go the chearl’s soft nose and stepped back. “Only this: tell Larred Jade he has a threat on his border. Tell him a force rises against him. Tell him the Great Fayre has no defence. Tell him the biggest Gods-damned arrow you’ve ever seen made this boy’s wound. Do whatever it takes, Ress of the Banned. But don’t leave this boy’s teacher to die – and, by the Gods,
tell
me what you find!”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Ress’s comment was barbed. “Or do you also believe in scrying?”

The little palomino mare scraped a forehoof on the cobbles, shook her mane and ears.

“Jade’s not a warrior,” Triq said. “His patrols secure his trade.”

“His trade will be the first target!” The Bard had a hand on the gate, but hadn’t opened it, not yet – he had one final bid to make. “You said your horse was spooked. What frightened her?”

The mare paused, nostrils flaring and ears up as though she knew they’d mentioned her. Ress lay the traces back in his lap. For a moment, the three members of the Banned looked at one another as if the truth distilled like spirits between them.

“She was terrified,” Triq said eventually. “The scent –”

“Not blood.” Jayr started on another nail. “They know it too well.”

“Then surely something frightened her. Some-
thing
!” Roderick lifted the drop-key and the wood creaked softly as the door moved. “And whatever that something is, it has taken the girl, and the CityWarden needs to know. The Fayre has no
defence
; Roviarath herself won’t stand some major assault. All legends aside, that’s
reason
.”

Jayr grunted. “Still don’t know why we can’t just trash it.”

“Because we don’t –” as the wagon started to move, Feren groaned again and Ress shot a glance at the Bard “– we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

Roderick shrugged as if the conclusion to their discussion had been inevitable all along.

* * *

“Yep,” Syke said, thoughtfully. “That’s one loco story.”

The Banned commander turned from the paling, striated sky to poke the fire with a thoughtful boot. He was an unremarkable-looking man – not tall, not muscular, not handsome – but he had a quiet, taut presence that kept his gathered riders in a loose kind of line. They may have a jest at his expense, but there wasn’t a member of the Banned that would cross him. His expression was sharp, thoughtful. “Ress rode for Roviarath?”

“Was taking Triq and Jayr with him.” Taure, Ress’s veteran friend who’d been helping him prop up the bar earlier that evening, was brushing the dust from his sleeves and thighs. Possibly more sober than his mates, he’d ridden hard to reach the camp. “Whole thing’s horseshit, if you ask me – but you needed to know. Damned Bard’s a loon. Pass the wine.”

The Banned commander cuffed Taure’s shoulder, grinning. “Half man, half horse, eh? Kid could’ve meant us.” He watched Taure’s eyes roll, his own sparking with mischief. “D’you believe him?”

“What?” Taure kicked the fire. “Some alchemical beastie nicked this kid’s teacher and carried her off... to what? Be his personal apothecary? Knock her up with some quarter-horse offspring?” The dying embers turned to reveal a new glow, warm in the cool air. “I think the poor kid’s mind has snapped like so much chewed leather. Hey, I said
pass the wine
.”

“Maybe.” Syke had been drinking for most of the night, but his gaze was as clear and grey as the dawn. “And yet, if there
is
hassle at the Monument, it’s not beyond a certain CityWarden to try and make us scout it for him.” He jerked his head at the Roviarath Lighthouse. “Canny bastard, old Jade.”

“Jade wouldn’t go to all this trouble, for the Gods’ sakes.” Taure nabbed the half-full wineskin himself and took a healthy swig. “He’d just pay.”

“I don’t like the smell of this.” The commander turned to watch the paling sky. “Not one little bit.”

“You reckon the Bard’s onto something? We should go out there?”

Syke gave a short, humourless gaffaw. “You’re jesting. The Bard’s a basket case loony and I’m not washing Jade’s dirty linen for him, sonofoamare.”

Taure missed a swig and covered his dusty face in wine. He spluttered, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

But Syke was thinking.

“So,” he said, “either the plains are being taken over by some politically motivated half stallion with a massive inferiority complex – or CityWarden Larred Jade’s deposited this boy as bait so we do a recce for him – or the boy’s brain got flash-fried by the open sun. I’m riding towards option three.”

Taure was still coughing. “Not being funny – but what if there is something out there? Even a loose bweao...”

“I’m not responsible for the open Grasslands, whatever the damned CityWardens may think –”

“That kid didn’t come from the CityWarden –”

In the rising brightness, the sky was clear and the horizon empty. Syke commented thoughtfully, “Old Roderick’s right about one thing, though. I don’t like anything about this.”

Taure said, “So – you believe in monsters. With longbows. This is loco.”

“Yep.” Syke picked up the leather mug that had been sitting beside him, tilted it to inspect its contents and set it down again. “Taure, old man, I trust my instincts. Something about this is giving me the fireblasted crawlies.”

“You want to move camp?”

“Not yet,” Syke told him. “I still don’t trust that CityWarden as far as I can spit an esphen.” A grin grew across his face. “I got a better idea.”

11: MONSTER

                    
OUTSIDE ROVIARATH

The horsewoman leaned low over the neck of her mare, laughing like a daemon. Beneath her, the horse raced like an arrow shot from the sun, smooth and swift, her shoulders churning fluidly with her speed. Her heels kicked at the grass as she ran, she was as glad as her rider of the freedom of the Varchinde.

Triq was sitting astride the wind. The mare’s hooves barely seemed to touch the soil, her chest knifed through the grass and it rushed past them, swishing as they ran. The horse was sleek and strong, and her mane flew in the woman’s face, making her laugh even more. Sunlight bathed their skin, but they moved so fast the air felt cold as it thrilled past.

Triqueta’s yellow hair and the mare’s tail were bright as flags in the midst of the empty plain. Behind them, they left a ripple of wake.

There!

She sat up. In one hand was a horseman’s bow, short limbed beneath the grip and long limbed above. She had several arrows in the same hand, resting against the wood and parallel with the bowstring.

The other hand nocked a loose shaft. Without missing breath or hoofbeat, she tracked the rustle in the long grasses, drew the string back to her ear, and let it go.

The arrow thunked into a squeak. The rustling stopped.

Gottim!

Grinning, she drew and nocked another – a reflex action. The mare, feeling the change in the pressure of the woman’s thighs, made a slowing, inward spiral and came at last to a halt.

Somewhere behind her, voices. Ress and Jayr, laughing at her. Jayr’s laughter was a rare sound and a joyous one – her past had scarred more than her flesh.

Triq hadn’t asked – life was too short. However Jayr had come by her fighter’s calluses and Kartian scarring, it didn’t matter. Why not celebrate?

Showing off, she jumped up to her feet on the mare’s back, balancing with no effort. She bowed like a theatre player, bow and arrows still in hands, then turned as if to do likewise to an audience behind her.

She stopped.

Against the bright eastern horizon, there was a black speck – no, two of them. They were too far away to see, they shimmered with heat-haze and pollen – but bweao ran alone, and they were far too fast for Range Patrol outriders.

They weren’t on the trade-road.

Controlling a flash of nervousness, she paused, squinting against the bright sky. They were a long way out of bow range, but whatever they were, they were coming across the open grass and they were... By the
rhez
, they were fast!

Ress shouted, “What is it?”

“Don’t know!” She dropped back into the saddle without struggle or thought. “Why don’t you and Jayr keep moving – I’ll run scout!”

None of them glanced at the clumsy, wheeled cart upon which the injured Feren lay dying.

* * *

Jayr the Infamous was being torn in half.

She was scratchy eyed from the sun, sneezing from the pollen. Their progress was agonisingly slow and she eyed the horizon almost eagerly, just waiting for some kind of contact. She had been raised to fight, trained to win from before she could walk. She needed and craved the adrenaline and the release that came with combat.

But in her own blunt way, she was worried about the boy.

Feren was getting worse. He called aloud to the empty sky, nonsense words and phrases, jagged fragments that tore at her memories and shredded her heart. He clung to his life only by the determination that had walked him, critically wounded, to tumble and fall at the edges of the Banned’s awareness.

She knew that determination: only two returns ago, she had known it personally. How it felt to be young and alone, how it felt to fight through desperation and pain.

She needed to help him. As if reaching to her younger self, she listened to his fevered voice as it called out, a cascade of the broken pieces of his life and memory. Perhaps, if she helped him, she could purge herself of her own dark figments.

Yet she had no idea what to do.

As they prepared to move out, she watched Ress’s calm logic, his gentleness – and his growing sense of despair – and she rode her big, bay gelding in another tight, angry circle round them. Daring everything.

Let them come – bweao, horse monsters! She wanted – needed – something to fight. She was burning beneath her skin with the rage of her own frustration.

Yes, you! Come finish what you started!

But they’d seen no predators, almost no wildlife other than winged.

Even the hunting had been scarce – while both Ress and Jayr knew the basics of tracking and ambush in the open grasses, they’d found themselves reliant upon Triqueta’s instincts and her lethal ranging eye.

With a tang of bitterness, Jayr nudged her animal with her heels.

The Infamous
, Syke called her, jesting. Bare-knuckled, she could down a Range Patrol champion in under a minute and she’d won the Banned commander a great deal of wealth and favours. She was bloody infamous all right: she could do one thing well and, right now, she was infamously useless. As Triqueta raced her little mare out to the eastern horizon, Jayr rode to pick up the downed esphen from the long grass.

Behind her, Feren cried wordless anguish and hope.

Jayr swung down from the gelding’s huge back, saw that their dinner was still alive. It quivered in fright, bright black eyes wide, blood matting its brown fur where the arrow had punctured its hindquarters. As she came close, it froze.