It was weakening, starting to falter.
The light swelled, dancing into the sky in great, leaping waves of colour that played over and above the swollen grey clouds. Where they parted, the air was burning. It wasn’t fire – it had no heat – it was pure, raw elemental power, leaping from the broken Monument into the covering storm.
As her own foe fell, she saw Redlock go down under the claws of the stallion.
* * *
He didn’t understand how the beast could still be fighting.
It was on him, a blur of legs and claws and trailing guts that tumbled him into cold soil and thick grass.
Horses wouldn’t trample – unless they were trained, or had no choice. This thing was different: those damned claws were huge and it was going to shred him meat from bone.
He tried to break sideways, get out from underneath it – but the claws were everywhere, slamming down beside him. One came down on his booted foot and he snarled, slashed the axe clean through the leg muscle.
He tasted blood as it sprayed his lips. He rolled clear.
Just as Triqueta and the mare crashed into the beast’s flank, then spun and thumped it with both horse heels. It staggered, caught its claw in a reel of spilling intestine and staggered again.
With one almighty sweep, shouting wordless into the storm, Redlock smashed its other foreleg.
Tangled in its own spewing life, it fell.
And the sky above it was burning.
* * *
Ecko saw the centaur stallion crash to the ground, heard the injured mare scream denial. He saw the horizon aflame, saw the Borealis screaming through clouds, lighting their darkness to fantastical colour. Memories of dreams, memories of memories – fire raining from the sky.
But there was still one of these bastard things right over him, her face twisted with hate, her hands reaching through the grass, one huge claw raised to snatch his head straight off his cloak-caught shoulders.
His boosting was down: he was exhausted, nauseous. His targeters tracked the assault even as they plotted the trajectory to roll away. His muscles fired, spasmed – his tank was fucking empty, he had nothing left.
Through the rain, he thought he heard Tarvi calling him as she had once before.
“Ecko! Ecko!”
That fucking claw was huge.
Then a blinding concussion knocked him backwards, a sizzling flare that seared his skin. He caught the reek of burned meat as he fell, twisted awkwardly by the caught cloak. His anti-daz iris-flickered, he could still see...
...see the black and smoking shell of the centaur mare, legs twisted, cracking sticks, the ground around it blasted. At the edges of the strike, the grass burned under the rain.
And the sky...!
The clouds were alight, pulsing waves of colour played under and through them. The Monument blazed like a burning building, waves of fire leapt between sky and stone. The injured mare was racing away, dodging side to side as the clouds roiled with fury.
The stallion was struggling to right itself, but the axeman was right in its fucking face.
“You move, you’ll get one of these up each nostril. You hear me?”
The grass was burning in patches, tiny bonfires, rising smoke.
“Ecko!” Uncaring of the majesty, the destruction overhead, uncaring of the fires under her feet, Tarvi raced down the bank. She was warm, she was scared and awed and she was in his arms. She kissed him so hard she drew blood from his lip.
His pulse screamed frenzy at her closeness – suddenly his adrenals were back in play.
He held her, kissed her, felt her shake, watched the wonder over her shoulder. The world was burning, and he stood at its very edge.
He had dreamed this. He had no breath. It was incredible.
“What the rhez is going on?” The horsewoman was ducking as though the sky would harm her. “The world’s gone loco!”
“Not a fucking – !”
But even as Ecko called back, the firestorm was fading, the dancing lights failing. The clouds lost their angry pulse, the rain fell normally, solid and cool. Around them, grassfires steamed and hissed.
Gone.
Only the Monument, still glowing, nacreous and nicotine yellow – damn thing was radioactive. It stood in defiance of the stormy darkness, the wind and rain seeming suddenly, oddly calm.
Tarvi was shaking. Hell, he was shaking too. Ecko had no idea what he’d just witnessed but it sure as hell beat the laser shows of the South fucking Bank.
“Not a fucking clue,” he repeated. The clouds were empty, the rain just rain. His arms did not let Tarvi go.
* * *
On its belly, the broken centaur stallion was still massive, eyes crazed in the yellow light.
Its shoulders were broader than Lugan’s – it looked like some sort of fucking giant, crouched in the grass. It was pale, rain sheeting down its skin. Its hands supported its weight and it was weakening, struggling not to fall forwards.
But it still hadn’t quit.
“I’m Redlock, Faral ton Gattana,” the axeman said. One axe was back through its belt-ring, he held the other casually over his shoulder. “There was a boy rode out this way, ’prentice to a Xenotian healer. His name was Feren. He was my cousin.”
“I remember. He was weak and injured.” There was no surrender in the beast’s tone. It was dying, but it was challenging them to the last. “Expendable.”
“Injured, yes – but stronger than you realised.” Redlock’s axehead – was it actually steel? – glinted in the rain. Both hands were long gloves of gore, his hair and garments were covered in Christ-knew-what – he was one savage motherfucking fighter. “What happened to his teacher?”
“The healer’s mine.”
Ecko slid closer. The stallion’s core temperature was dropping fast now – it was a corpse any second.
“He’s pulled your fucking guts out, dobbin, you might wanna answer the guy.”
The rain was slackening now, almost as if it realised the fighting was over. The thunder rumbled, far away towards the mountains.
Triq had gone after their horses. Tarvi to the Monument itself, her face a mask of wonder and bathed in its light.
“I’ll die before I answer you.” The beast seemed to find this funny. “One younger will be sent, the herd will live on.”
“Not if I hunt down every last fireblasted one of you.” Redlock rammed the top of the axe under the monster’s chin, shoved its head back and stared it straight in the eyes. “Mares, foals, your entire damned family. Every single one of them will die. By my hand. Unless you tell me – where the rhez you’ve come from and where the girl is.”
“And what the fuck just happened to the sky?” Ecko stood, arms crossed and casually curious. “Like whatever blew the shit outta the village we passed? What was that, fucking target practice?”
The stallion slumped bodily, mane falling over his face, pushed himself back up.
“Enough theatrics, asshole.” Ecko wasn’t buying that crap for a second. “What’s with the fucking pyrotechnics?”
Redlock forced its head back further.
“What’s the healer for? Why did you need her?”
His jaw pinned by the axe, the stallion looked down his nose at both of them.
“I am here to watch, guard – charged that all this is mine. You’ll never get down there.”
Redlock said, “You’re starting to piss me off.”
“Down where?” Ecko came forwards, his eyes red, his skin the blacks and greys of the plainland night, the yellow highlights of the Monument. As the beast looked, his eyes flickered through their scans. “Lemme guess. Mines? Dungeons? Secret passages? Fucking dwarves?” He grinned. “We got a healer here, too. She can keep you alive – for as long as this takes. So you cough the fuck up.”