As he watched, they pulled it to and fro, then dropped it. He could see them, noses lifting, heads turning, their eyes flat as mirrors and shining in the darkness. His breath froze cold in his throat - were they looking for him?
But there was no fucking way they could know he was here. He had no scent, no sweat, no fucking pores, for chrissakes. He made no noise; he cast no light, no shadow. Back in London, his tech had made him to be...
Yeah, right - this wasn’t London. Like the impossible moonlight, these critters could probably do anything. They might have motion detectors. Or radar in their butts. Or -
One of them bared its teeth, and snarled.
Fuck.
Ecko pulled back, realising he’d make a rookie mistake - he hadn’t left himself with a route
out
of his stealth position. If he needed to flee, he’d have to go over the front of the broken stall - and over the fucking critters.
The second one was slinking sideways, now, shoulders low -it knew exactly where he was, and was flanking him.
Teach me to be a fucking smart-ass. Shit!
He took a moment to scan the stall - weapons, ideas. Gifts of the gods, for chrissakes, a plus-five magical whosit of beastie-skinning...
There was a long, wicked-looking wooden splinter - too light to throw, but perfect for eyeballs - and that was about his lot.
Bloody efficient fucking patrols!
The thing in front of him had lifted its chin, was still turning its head this way and that. For a frantic moment, Ecko tried to remember - was the wind supposed to be going from the critter to him, not the other way around? Hell, he’d never had to pay attention to this shit before.
Yeah, love the learnin’, Eliza, thanks for that. Gimme the download next time, willya?
But his blood was running high, his adrenaline was thundering in his ears as it hadn’t done in days. Hell, this was relief, release - trapped in the city, he might’ve been burning shit down by now, just to have something to fucking
do...
Come on, critter; let’s see if you’re smart, shall we?
The creature came forwards, flap-like ears up - what had he said about radar? His starlites could pick out the other one, now to the right, just about visible through a split in the side of the stall.
No sweat. With his adrenaline kicked, he could be over the stallfront and this thing would be a carpet -
It sprang.
And
fuck
it was fast!
He was taken absolutely by the speed of the thing; his targeters tracked it a beat behind, their crosshairs flashing as if struggling to keep up. It was almost as fast as he was. He went over backwards, one arm raised, smashed into the back of the stall, falling awkwardly, debris scattering over him, the jaws of the thing right in his face, filthy and stinking and layered with shreds of fuck knows what.
The other one was a split-second behind it, slamming into the side of the stall hard enough to come clean through, surging forwards to help hold him down. He felt its heavy jaws slam shut a second away from his other arm.
Spittle slicked him.
Shit!
In the back of his head, something yammered, the litany of suspicion that never left him.
Are you trying to teach me something, Eliza? That I can’t do this alone? That I need my friends? That I’m s’posed to be part of a fucking pack? Are you?
But the thought was a moment only; he had bigger shit to be worrying about.
In his raised hand, he still had the long wooden splinter. He flicked it through dextrous fingers and rammed it in the upper gums of the beastie in front of him, rolling sideways as he did so.
It screamed foxlike, burbling blood and drool; the sound seemed to shred the clouds, like the fabric of the stalls themselves. Through the rent, the dawn light was returning, and the back of the stall was splintering under his weight, splitting where he’d fallen into it. One critter off of him now, he flipped to his feet, tangled in cloak and wood bits, and turned back for the other.
It was there, still beside him, teeth bared, breath as toxic as its mate’s had been.
Come an’ have a go, if you think you’re beast enough...
A flash of memory: Kale, the Bard’s werecook, facing the doomed Maugrim - a flicker of over-image that made him think again about friends.
If Eliza was really trying to tell him something, she’d picked a helluva way to fucking ram it home.
Bitch.
But chrissakes, this whole reality was like that. It was like he couldn’t trust anything, like everything was some sorta tutorial, or assessment, or message -
Not now!
The thing beside him leapt, but he was already moving - one kick brought the back of the stall down completely, flapping and awning and all. He leaned down to tear the broken upright free with a savage jerk. Spear, or javelin.
Eat this, you motherf-
It was then that he saw the rest of the pack.
* * *
He came back to the city as the climbing sun streaked pink the tessellated streets. He was hurting, shaking, injured, but he’d taken out five of the fuckers, sent the sixth whining home for Mommy with its tail between its legs. Damn thing had taken a chunk of him with it - he hoped it had fucking choked.
Yeah, I still got it.
The fight’s adrenaline had made him feel more like himself than he had in days.
Stick that in your bong and inhale.
Around him, the tight streets of Roviarath were already wide awake. Maugrim may have been defeated, but he’d opened his darkness at the city’s border, thrown his monsters at her walls. The city herself was untouched, but her people were unforgetting and restless - and without the Fayre, they’d gotten fuck all to do.
And nowhere to live - for chrissakes, the streets were
rammed.
Traders crammed the corners, bodies packed the roadways, the homeless slumped against the walls, hands outstretched. Despite the early hour, a surfeit of bazaar stalls had already grown out of the buildings, like some haphazard and multicoloured mould.
Jade’s soldiers were prowling, watchful - but there was no violence.
Yet.
One hand wrapped over his chewed arm, Ecko slipped through the chaos, a muttering, wounded wraith. He needed treatment - hell, that wasn’t s’posed to be funny - but had no wish to go to the hospice and answer a stack of nosey bastard questions. Besides, his improved antibodies should be enough, proof against tetanus and septicaemia and whatever else you got when a pack of beasties held you down and tried to fucking
eat
you...
When he got back up to his tiny room, though, he realised Eliza was still testing him - that he was never gonna get away from this shit.
Oh fucksake. Heeeere we go...
They were waiting for him - his erstwhile companions.
His
friends.
Triqueta, rider and warrior, slight and warm and golden. Her skin and eyes and hair all gleamed in the light from his tiny window, the stones in her cheeks glittered opal. She was sitting on his bed as if Eliza had put her there, poised and gleaming, just to push his buttons.
Looking out at the city below was the girl Amethea, the leech they’d freed from Maugrim’s cathedral. She stood frowning slightly, her long blonde hair in a braid that reminded Ecko forcibly of fusewire.
Chrissakes.
Their presence made him feel trapped - like they were part of that hangman’s knot. He was never gonna get away from all this, every whichway he turned, he had to face the same conclusion - he had to surrender himself, and learn to be what Eliza wanted.
Dance, Ecko.
Yeah, like on the end of that hangman’s
rope...
“Ecko!” Triqueta was grinning, up on her feet as she saw him. She went to clasp his wrist, smack him on the shoulder. “How you doing? Killed anything yet? Burned anything down?”
Her face was leaner; there were dark lines in her sunshine skin. He remembered the daemon Tarvi kissing her, the way the time had
bled
from her body...
He shuddered, pushed both her and the image away.
“Jeez, get off me, willya? How the hell’d you two get up here?” he demanded.
Amethea turned, a smile lighting her face. She, too, wanted to touch him, she gripped his shoulder as if he’d fade away or something. He flinched from under her grasp.
“It’s good to see you,” she said. Her eyes sparked mischievous. “You’re looking a lot... better.”
“Better than what?” Their warmth was freaking him out, they were too close. “What d’you want?”
“Us?” Triq said innocently, winking at Amethea. “We can’t just come visit?”
Visit.
The word was affectionate - a joke, an embrace. It was camaraderie and friendliness, reunion and welcome. It was everything they’d been through, everything they’d shared, all right there in the tiny room.
Visit.
“Redlock sends apologies, but he’s in the hospice.” Amethea was saying. “He’s still coughing. And dead grumpy.” Her smile was like the sun coming up. “He asked after you.”
Visit. Asked after you.
And
that
was the problem, right there, it was why he’d stayed away from these people: Redlock’s wound
worried
him. He fucking
cared.
About these people. These pixels.
These ink-blots.
These devices that’d been set here to lead and control his behaviour.
He shrank back from them, said in a voice harsh as fear, “Get the hell outta here. Bonding, bondage, whatever it is, I ain’t playin’. Emotional reunions so not gonna happen.”
“Good to see you too.” Amethea chuckled, pointed at the mess the critter had made of his forearm. “Anyone looked at that?”
“Yeah, you just did.” He was shrunk under his cowl, hiding. “Now you got five seconds before you take a flyin’ lesson. Why’d the hell d’you come up here?”
“Oh put a cork in it, will you?” Triqueta stretched the kinks from her shoulders. She looked tired, weary figments crowded at the corners of her eyes. She’d clearly been drinking, regularly and a lot.
But he didn’t
care.
She said, “CityWarden sent us to find you. He wants you to stop upsetting his patrols.”
He snorted. “CityWarden can kiss my ass.”
“CityWarden’s had better offers,” Triqueta said. “You’re rattling around here like a dried grain in a skin drum, scaring the grunts and helping yourself to stuff you shouldn’t be.” She raised an eyebrow. “Larred Jade’s a good man - but you’re pushing his patience. He wants you to do something for him. A little trade for the stuff you’ve collected.”
“Oh, lemme guess.” Ecko crossed his arms and grinned. “He’s got - what? - a sewer rat problem? Local bandit lord needs spanking? Evil necromancer? C’mon, there’s gotta be -”
“Ecko, serious for a minute.” Triqueta flicked a ball of lint at him. “Jade’s working hard to fix this city. The Fayre can’t run from scattered stalls, they’ve got no way of tracking their stuff, knowing what goods go where, or what comes in return. No one can tally or allocate anything. Given enough time, the plains’ whole trade-cycle will come apart.”
Ecko’s targeters followed the lint, he caught it, flicked it back.
“I’ve just saved his fucking city.”
“
He
’s just saved his city. Personally went out there to fight the monsters. His people think he’s a hero and he might just save this place yet - but you’re making it hard for him. And it’s about to get harder.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Amethea said softly, “The plains are diseased.”
That one caught him broadside. “What?”
Amethea shrugged, said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure I even understand it, but when the Monument fell, when the The Wanderer...” Her expression clouded, she changed tack. “Around the edges of the hole, around the pit where the Monument was, there’s some sort of
rot
. I don’t know how, but the grass is blighted.”
Triqueta was scratching at her hands - her increase in age had given her eczema between her fingers and she agitated at them, flaking the skin. Tiny fragments of her life fell to the floor.
Amethea put a hand on her friend’s wrist. “And it’s not only here,” she said. “Jade’s sent flying bretir with messages, riders. To The Hayne, Fhaveon, Annondor, Idrak,” she named the Varchinde’s outermost cities, “to Rhark, Blinn, Aldarien at the foot of the Kartiah, Darash on the shores of Lake Fytch.” Her face was clouded fully now, darkened with tension and uncertainty. “They think it’s the same blight everywhere, creeping inwards from the edges of the grass.”
The words fell heavy, lay stone-naked on the floor.
Ecko said, “So what the hell does that hafta do with me?” His voice cracked and he was silent. Then he spat, like a last line of defence, “Jesus, why should I even fucking care?”
“Because
we
did this.” Triqueta said. “I don’t know how, but we made this happen. Dammit, Ecko, I was only waiting here for Redlock - I just want to go home. To pull the blankets back over my head and forget everything that happened. But how can I? How can any of us just not care? After everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve
lost.”
The lines in her face were as clear as if they’d been drawn. “I may be older, Ecko - but apparently I also have to grow
up.”
“Ouch.” He glowered at her.
“The Bard trusted you,” Triqueta shot back. “For all your horseshit, he believed in you. He
died
believing in you.”
He
died
believing in you.
Ecko’s adrenaline spiked, hard enough make him stagger, swallow bile. That hurt like hell, like she really had punched him, like his nose had crunched under her fist, like he couldn’t fucking breathe. Somewhere in his head, he could see that hangman’s noose, a silhouette against a clouded sky.
You bitch, Eliza. This whole fucking thing...