The rain was thinner now, wafting chill across the wind. Redlock was right in the beast’s face. “What did you come from – and where’s the girl?”
“The girl belongs to us. Maugrim needed a healer – he knows metal, not flesh. And they were dying. Without her, he was failing – and the world would rot and perish.”
“Who were dying?” Redlock sounded confused, but Ecko spoke over him.
“Why do I know that name?” He paused to address the sky. “What’re you playing at?”
The axeman spared him a raised eyebrow. Ecko didn’t respond.
The centaur was still speaking. “The cathedral is mine. The Range Patrols –” the beast faltered, slumped, pushed itself back up “– don’t understand. Maugrim is building – passion and fire – helping. Our crafter, our sire, our creator and guide and vision and strength sent us to him. Together, they will forge such sights! The Powerflux... the elements... all awake now.” His head fell forwards, when he raised it again, his dark eyes were cracked with increasing pain. “Our sire... made us, he... The great stones, the grass, the work of Maugrim, the flower you creatures come seeking... he trusted them to me.”
“He?” Redlock said, confused. “What ‘sire’?” The stallion snorted derision, but Ecko had realised something.
“You’re nothing, you’re a fucking guard dog. Horse. You’re a minion.”
“He...” The beast struggled, swallowed. He rallied to spit back at them, fanatical to the last. “He... made us. He... gave the grass... to me. I guard... If you stop this, the world will rot.”
“Listen to me, you fireblasted corruption.” Triqueta was behind them, a travel sack over one shoulder. She stood over the axeman, arms folded, the stones in her cheeks catching the yellow light. “Feren told us... the girl – Amethea – said this was some great temple, some elemental stronghold, some passage grave to a forgotten hero. Is that where you were made? How do we get down there?”
The stallion said, “He must... be allowed... to finish. He told us... to guard... the future. Maugrim builds... the future...”
“You are making no fucking sense.” Ecko grabbed a handful of the thing’s mane. He was right in its face, wishing he still had his flamer. “Jesus, who programmed fanaticism, for chrissakes?”
Redlock said bleakly, “Who is this Maugrim?”
“Guessin’ he’s the boss man,” Ecko said. “This place is some kinda power-node. He must be building something fucking huge – like particle accelerator huge. You gettin’ me? Boom.”
The stallion sneered. “He told us... you’re all fools. The world stagnates round you, and you don’t care. Maugrim –” he was gasping now, his eyes losing focus “– fights.”
“Maugrim’s going to get my boot up his arse,” Redlock said. “Damn all this esoteric elemental shit – where’s the girl?”
The stallion started to laugh, faint and cold. It dissolved into coughing, blood flecked. “He owns her, mind and body and soul. She won’t even know you.”
Tarvi was beside him, hand on his arm.
“There’s no way down,” she said. “But I found the taer.”
“Creatures born.” The stallion rallied, made a last desperate effort. His anger was gone now, even his madness. His last words were a plea. “We... were made... to be better!”
Then he faltered, his great body rolling sideways.
And he stared, empty eyed, at the sky.
20: TREASURE
THE MONUMENT
They faced each other over the cooling corpse of the beast, its intestine slick with mud and rain.
“So. Was that fun or what?” Under cloud and darkness, through soaking grass and spreading gore, Ecko turned his maniacal black grin on the axeman. “You sure throw one helluva party.” His skin flowed with the sick, yellow light of the broken Monument.
“Where the rhez did you come from?” Redlock was blood to the elbows, saturated with violence. The wound in his shoulder was ragged and shallow, a bruised scape against the bone. And he wasn’t quitting yet.
Ecko grinned. “You’d never believe me.”
Over them, the night sky was lifting. Between thinning, wind-blown cloud, glimpses of moons loosed strobes of light across the grass tops. Drizzle scattered, cold and cutting. The Monument’s ghostly yellow nacre washed the plain with a sickly highlight.
A ruffle marked Triqueta’s return.
The sight of her reminded Ecko of his flash of dread, of the inevitably repeating pattern. Of his fear that whatever choices he made, he would he end up, eventually and hopelessly, in the same fucking place.
That, in the long run, whatever decisions he made didn’t actually matter.
His freedom was an illusion.
In the comedown, he shivered.
Chrissakes.
He held his hand out to her, something on his outstretched palm.
“Yours?”
“My dice!” The horsewoman was nearly as fast as he was – the dice were gone out of his hand. She brandished them at him. “Where in the name of the Gods...?”
“You will just leave this shit lying around.”
Redlock said, “What happened to the – ?”
“Gone.” Triq shrugged. Blood seeped from the narrow slice in her neck. “I took what I could from the panniers. The mare’ll go home – she’ll take the rest of them with her.” She slipped the dice into a pouch. “We’re stuck.”
“See? I knew horses were bad idea,” Ecko said.
One of Redlock’s muscled hands clamped around the front of Ecko’s cloak, lifted him almost clean off his feet. Ecko inhaled, cursed his empty flamethrower. His eyes flashed red and he bared his teeth.
“Gotta problem?”
Redlock snarled. “What. The rhez. Are. You?”
“Your unavoidable destiny. Now put me the fuck down before I break your face.”
For a moment, confrontation clamoured loud.
“You were in The Wanderer,” Triq said. She put hand on Redlock’s arm, a caution. “On the bar – I remember. You’re a friend of the Bard?”
“I’m his...” The words caught as he said them, but he said them anyway – spitting them at the sky, at Triqueta, at Redlock, at Eliza. “I’m his Eternal Champion or some such shit – I’m here to save your ass. Now move your fucking hand.”
Redlock let him go.
But Triqueta was staring at him, her jaw dropped, her dice forgotten.
“If the next words out of your mouth are about coming from another world...”
Ecko grinned. “Whaddaya know, he gave you my resumé.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The axeman snorted scorn.
Ecko gave a jaunty, what-the-hell shrug and stood back, untangled his cloak, flickering his optical scans.
“Toldja you wouldn’t believe me.”
Redlock said, ‘What are you, Kartian? Another alchemical monster?”
Ecko cackled. “The Bard’s nightmare vision? The Bogeyman? You tell me.”
“Enough!” And Tarvi was there in the moonlight, the Monument’s nacreous glow making her shimmer. She looked oddly ethereal – the taste of her still tingled on his lips. Viciously, Ecko crushed the feeling, binned it with an addict’s determination – she was a trained soldier for chrissakes, not some winsome heroine that needed a protector.