Ecko Burning (30 page)

Fhaveon was hoarding - the whisper of it had followed him northwards along the trade-road - but Rhan would’ve bet his no-longer-white arse it had nothing to do with fear or caution.

Phylos was an opportunistic bastard - and Vahl stirred, the vialer were aboard in the plainland.

Fhaveon was using the blight to stockpile.

She was arming herself.

And Rhan was afraid.

Watching the heave of the angry crowd, that fear was knotted cold in his belly, threatening despair and the rise of his grey mood, and tightening with every surge of anger below him. He felt helpless, the frustration in the crowd was a reflection of his own - vast and insurmountable.

His grey mood mocked him.
Why bother? You can’t make this better. Give up now...

He looked at his hands. Workman’s hands, scarred - hands that suited the grey-haired, older and more serious appearance that he now presented.

He had only his hands.

Fhaveon had fallen - Vahl was rising within her white walls, rising like a cloud of steam and Rhan had raised neither blow nor objection. He had lost his city without even knowing how he’d failed.

And he’d hit the water, outcast and bereft. Again. Only this time, it was less like some streaking, glorious cursed comet and more like a bloody
rock.

Oh, how are the mighty fallen, Rhan Elensiel.

Rain had begun to scatter from the heavy cloud above, the crowd pushed and heaved. As he reached the base of the steps and stood tight against the wall, he could see that there was a fountain at the intersection, a second great and clawed creature, and that it had become a rallying point. A single voice called out over the heads of the mass - the speaker was standing upon its stone edge as if it were guarding him.

Samiel’s
teeth.

That was all this needed.

Responsibilities pulled at him. He should stop this - but he had no might here, no power or strength.
Why bother?
And if things were already this bad, then he had to reach Avesyr, reach Mother and learn where in the name of the Gods he went from here...

Damn you, Vahl. How can I fight you when I don’t even know where you are?

In the crowd, almost in front of him, there was a flash.

It was white-metal, an edge of sharpness in a glint of violence. With a shriek that was half-gurgle, an older man not two paces in front of where Rhan stood stumbled and fell. Behind him, a slim figure reached for his belt pouches and was gone.

Rhan held himself still with an effort, watching.

Around the motion, a pool of shock widened. A voice cried, “’Oo did that? ’Oo did that?” Hands reached to pull the injured man to his feet. A sharp ripple of jostling broke out from the angry cry; others took it up. Hands grabbed a second cloaked figure, innocent and surprised, and dragged him backwards into the crowd.

With a frightened shout, he vanished.

He didn’t resurface.

The ripple spread, growing rougher. Several people tried to back away, but the anger was rolling now, spreading back into the people, and the seethe and press became more vicious, harder. The accusing voice grew louder, strident. It was echoed by others, all of them apparently righteous, seeking the thief, but their anger was self-serving and gathering both followers and momentum.

Retreating fearfully from the point of ignition, a slender young man almost barged bodily into the silent Rhan. With a start, Rhan saw the youth was desert-blooded: there was sunshine in his skin tone and a line of opal stones along his jaw. He muttered fearfully, not expecting to be heard or acknowledged, “Excuse me, excuse me...” and Rhan, on an obscure whim, grabbed his elbow and all but dragged him right up to the wall.

“Please,” he said, soft and intent, “what’s going on here? What happened?”

The young man looked at him, wild-eyed and wary. He was barely more than a lad, his garments were dirty and stained with the dust of the trade-roads.

He said, “I don’t know, I don’t know. Who are you, anyway? Get off me!”

Behind him, the crowd grew rougher, pushing. There were hints of screams. They were eager, they had the taste for it now and they wanted to find something else to blame.

Rhan released the boy’s shoulder, spread his hands peaceably. “Please.”

The lad relaxed, but still glanced back.

He said, “Fhaveon... we’ve always had a garrison here, a small one. But they’re doubling it, demanding curfew. To ensure the trade-routes, they said, to make sure the tithehalls are unthreatened. There are soldiers every- By the rhez!”

He nodded at the square.

As if he’d called them, the new soldiery were surrounding the intersection.

They were human, but their faces were like stone.

And their weapons were sharp.

As the press came in, Rhan grabbed the lad by the neck of his tunic and pulled him from the wall and the crowd, back towards the steps. Where the horde had been unruly, angered and shouting, now they were furious, a united and defiant mob, calling and shoving with violence. Some had weapons - belt-blades, mostly, but they gripped them in hands turned white with resolve.

This was going to turn ugly. And soon.

At the head of the wide, stone stairs, there was a wall of shields, the colours Fhaveonic, but with the winged device - his own device that once adorned the city’s soldiery - now gone. More of them blocked the three sides of the intersection. The figure on the fountain had vanished.

The boy said, “There’s nowhere to go. Last time, they just pushed the people into the river. Hundreds drowned, it was horrible. They made those they’d detained pull out the dead from the harbours.”

Samiel’s...

Never mind.

Rhan turned from the intersection to the stairway and back, looking for a solution, a route out, but they had blocked every which way. He could see others in the crowd, heads turning this way and that, starting to panic.

Then a figure came to the top of the steps, raised her hands.

“People of Foriath! My friends!”

Rhan had never met CityWarden Jasenna, but knew her reputation well enough - she was small and round and happy, a peaceable woman with little liking for conflict. Jas was ideal for her city, but up there now she looked like a lost redfruit carried on an errant tide. Mutters and calls came from below.

Rhan could not possibly believe that Jas herself was responsible for the mess that Foriath had become.

Unless...

The memory of Penya was a painful one. Damn Phylos, he’d lever anything against anyone, and shamelessly.

As the CityWarden tried to shout, objects were thrown towards her with little regard for where they landed. Rhan saw a young woman take a heavy stone to her forehead and stumble, bleeding, but the press of the crowd was too close to even let her fall. The lad winced at the impact. Rhan’s scarred hands almost reached for her, reaching for help, for air, for answers, for anything that would help him fix this...

Jas tried again, “People of Foriath!”

But Rhan had to fight the illness, not the symptoms. He had to take Phylos, take his city back, raise his arms against Vahl as he was always meant to have done.

But how? How can I fight an enemy that hides, that tricks and taunts, that plays games? How can I fight something that’s rendered me powerless in my own city?

“People of Foriath, hear me!”

“Yeah, we hear you all right!”

“You come down here with your promises!”

“Tell us again how it’s for our ‘safety’!”

“I can’t leave my house!”

“Your thugs killed my son!”

“I know times are hard!” Jas held up her hands and tried again. “I know that you fear, but there is no need! We must stand together! We must...!”

“Horseshit!”

There was laughter, but it had a cruel edge, an edge of threat. Voices threw back utter scorn. The surge and rush of the crowd grew yet rougher. Further back, the people were pushing to go forwards, goading those in front of them.

Jas sounded almost as though she wanted to weep.

“Please, people of Foriath!”

Behind the CityWarden, the tan of the shieldwall raised a hand, gave a sharp gesture that Rhan knew all too well. Horrified, he heard the three tan commanders at the edges of the square give a simultaneous barked command.

From somewhere behind the shieldwalls, the drums started, the sharp order to march. The sound rolled from the walls, threat and echo. Now, the shields were pushing forwards with a steady, heavy tramping, shoving roughly at anything,
anyone
, that got in their way. Slowly, slowly, they began to push the people tighter together, in to a seething, frightened knot. Shrieks sounded, scared, defiant.

On the fourth side, at the foot of the steps, the people did not move - they were watching the shieldwall above them. The crushing pressure behind them began to build. From somewhere, a stone missile flew, and another. Mouths threw spit and mockery.

“I plead with you, my people, my city, my
friends...!”

But the CityWarden did not have the presence or the voice to bring control - she was a merchant, a brewer, a lover of ale and company and conversation.

There were screams, now, in among the throb of the drumming and the stamp of feet, there were cries for help somewhere further back in the crowd. And then, with Rhan caught there upon the great stone stair, the lad pushed still behind him, the pulsing broke, and the people surged forwards, roaring. It was like a dam had broken.

The boy whimpered, a tiny noise of absolute horror.

The mob ran for the stairs, all weapons and rage, they ran past him and up to where Jas stood, her flushed face etched in shock. He thought he saw her mouth, “No...”

Behind her, he saw the tan commander open his mouth, shout something, give a single hard gesture. The shieldwall raised, locked, braced; weapons came out and over, slamming down on the upper shield rims with a loud and unified,
“Ha!”

The sound echoed from the walls, and the heart-throb of the drumming grew louder.

Rhan had no doubt the tan would use their weapons on the people of Foriath.

But the crowd did not care. They had no hope and no fear. They were drunk, not on ale, but on fury - and they were running up the stairs towards an armed, shielded force that simply stood and waited for them.

Pushed them into the river.

They would be cut down where they stood.

Standing there at the edge of the madness, watching the people run past him, watching their individual faces and expressions, Rhan was surprised to find that he was crying, that there was water in his eyes that was nothing to do with the rise of smoke, with the -

“Come on!” The desert-born lad tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, we can get away from this!”

“I can’t leave them!” The answer was reflex. But much good was he doing, standing here like a -

“You can’t help them. The soldiers are running everything. Narvakh and The Hayne are the same. We have to get away from here!”

The lad tugged at his sleeve again, and they ducked back against the wall, and then they were away through a cobbled alleyway that led down to the river.

And the bloated, rotting corpses of those who had been left to die.

* * *

There was an alehouse basement, right at the edge of the water.

There was a gathering of six scared people, faces pale in the rocklight.

There was a tiny, wooden wharf outside with a boat tied by its painter to the mooring - the river, they said, could still be travelled safely, corpses or no. If one walked the roads, there were questions and demands and the production of craftsman’s symbols and maker’s marks. No one bore belt-knives in public any more - unless they wanted trouble.

Outside, the rain speckled the slow brown roll of the water.

Inside, there was a long wooden table and a leather jug foaming almost to the brim. The desert-blooded lad was saying, “We should get a message to Fhaveon -”

“To whom?” An older man with grey whiskers and a wine-red face cut in with a scowl and shook his head until his jowls flapped. He picked up the jug and glanced around at the others, one eyebrow raised in a question.

“The resistance in Fhaveon fell before it could rise,” said a dark-haired woman, her hand resting gently on the lad’s shoulder. “Phylos cut it out like a canker. They took Fletcher Wyll, there’s no one else to even try. Demisarr is dead, Mostak is gone. There’s no Council. No, thank you, not for me.” She shook her head at the offered ale jug.

There’s no Council.

Other voices spoke, offering possibilities or denying them, hands held out tankards to be filled - but Rhan barely heard or saw them. The metal on his wrist was as cold as hopelessness. There was a hollow sound of horror in his ears, an echo of rising water and empty grey wings.

There’s no Council.

“What happened to Mostak?” The voice was rough with alarm, unfamiliar. “To the Council of Nine?” It was a moment before he realised the questions were his own.

And he saw that the six faces in the room were staring at him, eyes dark under the rocklight. The stones in the boy’s jaw gleamed.

“Who is this?” The man with the red face waved his tankard at the desert-born lad, ale slopping. “Tesail?”

The boy, Tesail, opened his mouth, but Rhan was already answering for him, his wit catching up with his shock.

“I’m Sarastiah, of Fhaveon. I’m a... ah... craftsman, terhnwood, nothing special, goblets and such.” The name and craft were a cover he’d used before. “Left the city when there was no work for me - arrived here this morning and was greeted by... well, you saw.” He shrugged. “The roads are running with rumour,” that much was true, “but I’d no idea -”

“He helped me,” Tesail said, his yellow eyes wide. “In the riot out there, he helped me get away.”

“You helped me, I think.” Rhan gave him a brief smile.

The red-faced man took a long pull from his mug and then spoke through the froth on his lip, “Foriath is in uproar. This morning, they torched the stalls of the eastern bazaar, burned the stock where it stood. An ‘example’, they said.”