Ecko Endgame (21 page)

His own long returns had bled one into another like mud in water, become vague and pointless until he’d lost them and forgotten them…

Like he’d lost lovers, friends, family.

Stood beside him now, that starry-eyed youth was cold and savage, brutalised, damaged beyond all redemption – Samiel’s teeth, perhaps he’d lost even more than Rhan had done. Yet his conviction burned within him still, tempered now, lethal, as cold as the waters of the Ryll itself, as the cutting-ice air of the Khavan Circle.

The Final Guardian.

The only one of his people remaining.

The man who’d been Roderick the Bard met Rhan’s eyes. For just a moment there was that shock of old recognition, so many returns of friendship – he was the Bard still, no matter what had been done to him – and then the moment was gone and the stranger with the metal throat turned away.

Mael was crying, a silent run of tears.

Rhan felt like joining him, wanted the comfort – but Selana was finding her voice now, talking to the people below.

“My friends – people of Fhaveon! This is a moment of history, a moment the Count of Time himself will hold to his heart. This is a moment my mothers, my fathers, never believed would come – but a moment in which we can take solace. We are not defeated, warriors, ladies, gentlemen – we still stand proud!”

The soldiers stood silent, watching her. In the Cathedral doorway, people surrounded Gorinel and Amethea, come to see the sunlight for the last time.

Rhan swallowed.
I’ve got this wrong… oh Gods, I’ve got this wrong! What’ve I done?

He watched Selana, watched her face, her lips, the expression in her eyes.

Come on, show me, tell me I’m right… Tell me this isn’t for nothing!

But her voice was alight with love, her expression fervent. “This is the stone that was wrought by my forebears, by the hand of Saluvarith himself! This rock where we stand is immortal, and it cannot be defeated – not by man, and not by monster! As Tekissari once fought to defend Fhaveon, so we will return, my friends, my people – we will come back here with our blades aloft and our hearts afire, and we will take it
back
!”

Mostak’s drummer had begun again, his bass thump soft like the shivering rise of adrenaline. Mostak himself stood like a statue, as hard as the stone face of Rakanne herself, unwilling or unable to turn and look at the balcony.

And then Rhan heard the Bard.

“
E Vahl Khavaghakke. E Vahl Sashar, yaedhkka, khava. Khavaghakke
.”

The words were Tundran, cracking like ice. It was an older language than that of the Varchinde; Rhan knew “
Khava
” as a greeting, or a calling, but that was all.

He shivered.

He had no idea if Roderick’s newfound vocal strength was powerful enough for this. The Art of Summoning was primal, unused, mostly forgotten – something for fireside tales, not for the balcony of the Palace itself. But the Bard knew enough of the wording, and now had the strength to use it…

Rhan saw Selana shudder. He saw Valicia, her mother, start forwards, her hands to her mouth. He saw Mael turn away, shaking his head as if to free himself of all of this…

And then he saw the surge of ink through the young woman’s skin, the power pulse from her shoulders, rising like heat, blistering.

They were right.

By the Gods, Vahl was really in there!

Relief raged and the drum throbbed again, brief like a heartbeat; the sun gleamed from lines of lamellar armour as the ranks of warriors stood watching.

Selana trembled, teeth bared. She stood with her hands on the balcony’s edge, ink and heat and rage and power. She shuddered, cried out.

The Bard’s voice was thundering now, undeniable. “
E Vahl Khavaghakke. E Vahl Sashar, yaedhkka, khava. Khavaghakke
.” He stood like a streak of darkness, his face concealed, his words a pulse, a demand.

It called to Rhan too, to something dark in his very soul. It pulled at him, hurting, but he strove to ignore it.

The air twisted, struggled.

The girl’s face contorted, light and shadow, pain and terror and savage eagerness. Vahl’s presence burned. He was in there, Rhan could
see
his brother’s expression.

“
E Vahl Khavaghakke!
” Roderick was calling to the concealed creature, pulling him forth, daring him. And if it was hurting Rhan…

Selana spasmed. She started to turn to her protectors, asking them for help, for understanding. The look was the last one she ever gave, and it would haunt Rhan for the rest of his days.

“
E Vahl—
”

And everything happened at once.

Her skin tore, ragged and bloody rips in her face and arms. Steam poured from her, rose like morning mist. Valicia screamed, ran to her daughter, but Selana, laughing, backhanded her mother hard enough to stretch her on the stone floor.

She didn’t move again.

Vahl threw the game down, and he laughed though Selana’s mouth. His voice held that same double layer that had been heard in Phylos. It laughed at Roderick and his summoning, at Rhan and his horror, at Mael and his grief.

You’ve got me
, it seemed to say to them,
so what are going to do with me?

Below them, Rhan could hear movement, the tight discipline of the military wavering. He heard voices, demands, cries of alarm, panicked horses. He heard Mostak barking orders, heard the drum repeat them. He heard Gorinel – the old man had a boom like Samiel’s own. Gods alone knew what the people were thinking…

But they had to see this. They had to know the truth, the whole story – know who could be trusted to lead them. Their loyalty
had
to be absolute.

And then Selana spoke, and everything stopped dead.

“Oh well done, my brother. Well done indeed.” Her voice was Vahl’s – it reached every corner of the plaza below. The soldiers would know it; they’d heard it before, in Phylos, at the city’s ending. They would know what it meant.

The Count of Time had stopped utterly still.

Roderick’s expression was still as stone, his eyes compelled by Selana’s new stance and power. Mael stared as if at a figment, some nightmare from his artist’s imagination. His hands were shaking. Valicia lay like a tumbled statue, motionless.

Then Selana spoke again, and the instant shattered. “But in your rush, I think you’ve forgotten something.” The tears in her skin were closing, edges melting together like tallow in the steam, and Vahl was smiling with her face, his mouth somehow wider than hers. “Have you become so besotted with your mortal family that you forget your estavah, those with whom you were promised privilege until the end of the Count of Time?” The smile grew wider, showed teeth. “Samiel damned us all, little brother. Not just you and I.”

Rhan tensed, trembling.

Samiel damned us all.

Not just you and I.

That endless, shrieking plummet from Samiel’s halls, the cold, dark waters that had caught him. But the others…

Not just…

Roderick may not have been able to find them, but there were Kas on Rammouthe, as damned as Vahl had been and curled deep in the island’s belly. And they had been waiting long, waiting patient, waiting cold within their citadel of dark stone. Vahl was their eldest and their vanguard. They had forced him to reveal himself before his army had manifested – but manifest it would, and soon.

Not just you and I.

He knew them by their older names, the names Samiel had given them, and then taken away – Tamh Gabryl, Ghan Rafyl, others. And without them, Vahl was not ready.

Not ready
– yet.

But Vahl had gathered in Selana’s skin, in her face – he was a writhe of ink, a smear of blood, a rise of smoke. He was manifest over her like some vast shadow. Now they could all see him.

The mosaic was utterly silent. Whatever tan had broken their ranks, they had stopped dead, transfixed by the tableau on the balcony.

By the thing that had brought the city to ruin, the thing that was even now in the skin of their Lord.

Vahl laughed, enough to make the clouds recoil. He turned on the Bard. “So – what now? You can summon me, Tundran, but can you expel me? Dismiss me? Are you some sage of old, wielding forgotten magicks?” Eyes of vapour crawled over them like insects. “I think not.” The smile spread, steam rose in waves from the young Lord’s shoulders. “Perhaps your skin and skills are better suited to my needs? Did you think I could not take you, Roderick of Avesyr?” She chuckled. “Or perhaps I should just do this:
E Rhan Khavaghakke
…” She let the threat go, even as Rhan doubled over, gagging – the words were like a fist in the belly.

She laughed again.

Mael stood up, wiping his eyes on his sleeve like a child. “Selana,” he said. “Please. Please, come away from all this, come away…”

But she – they – laughed at them all, laughed like a roll of thunder, loud enough to fill the plaza below with sound.

“Muster your troops, Rhan, fight us if you will – if you
can.
” Vahl’s gaze, two sparks somewhere in Selana’s eyes, held Rhan’s own. The voice was now half in his ears and half in his head. “Ah, little brother, you’re more brutal than I’d ever realised, more merciless.” A chuckle drifted. “I’m proud of you.”

For a moment, Rhan could see it all in the smoke – the cold of the citadel, the fall and the water, the welcome of his lost siblings, the sense of family that no mortal could offer him, the ultimate fulfilment of his long, lingering loneliness. For that moment, he wavered.

Then a fist like a rock hit him across the jaw. Roderick was bellowing at him, though all he could hear was the roaring of his ears. He shook himself, tried to focus, snarled denial and wordless rage.

Vahl was laughing at him, had always been laughing at him. Selana’s face was tearing at the edges of her mouth; her smile was widening, widening as if to swallow the world.

“Very well,” she said at last. “Enough games. We will return for the city soon enough, and teach this feckless Tundran a lesson of power.”

Roderick, refusing to be baited, said nothing.

Rhan managed, “Please—”

Selana rounded on him. “I promise you this: we will tear your city to pieces. We will tear your world stone from stone. You will be its last living thing, crying and alone, and I will come back and remind you of this moment.” She was burning now, beauty and glory. “Mael understands – he won’t leave me. My mother understands. And there are others – Halydd, Ythalla, Adyle.” She gazed at him, her beauty breathtaking. “You can come with us, Rhan – exalt in the power and freedom we offer!”

Like the last snapping of his lifelong loyalty, Rhan said, “Come and get me.”

Selana stared at him for a moment, then, effortless enough to be scornful, she crouched and picked up the fallen form of her mother. The blaze swelled around them both.

“Then you commit treason, Seneschal. You and Mostak, traitors and deserters.” She smiled, almost coquettish. “I’ll tear out your soul.”

Mael was standing by her, guarding her like a soldier – but he didn’t meet Rhan’s gaze.

Rhan spread his hands, the gesture a beckoning, a dare.

With a curl of her lip, Selana turned away, taking Mael and her mother with her. Somewhere over him – how had he ended up on the floor? – Roderick was turning back to the sunlit shatter of the mosaic, was raising his voice to a cry that sounded a paean as high as the paling sky.

Wordless, unable to move, Rhan watched him, a dark shape against the winter sky. He couldn’t turn and watch Selana walk away through the Palace as though it meant nothing to her, and nothing to Vahl.

And Mael.

The old man’s courage had saved Fhaveon; Rhan had saved his life. He had pledged his life – and now his soul – to the Valiembor name.

Rhan had done what Nivrotar wanted, he had no doubts that Vahl would follow him.

But Mael had made it feel like a betrayal.

* * *

Standing over his oldest friend, the Bard took a breath. His nervousness flickered like a figment, but he faced the people and he did what he had been born and marked and tortured to do.

And his voice was the fire of the rising sun.

Ecko was sure of one thing: this long-distance-forced-march shit was no fun at
all.

He was jogging for chrissakes – jogging! – and he was out on the flank and alone. It was methodical, cold and boring; his rhythm, the sound of boots hitting the dead-cracked ground in perfect unison, his music, the cold wind, the snap of the flying banners and the clacking of the horses’ tack. Now if only he could remember the words to “The Duckworth Chant”.

But even his acerbic sense of humour was struggling under the pounding. This was tiring shit and, almost unavoidably, his thoughts had turned mechanical, some steampunk machine that rotated ever on the same axis and hissed ire every few klicks. Like the running of the soldiers, his brain was thumping, routine and obsessive.

He missed Lugan.

Yeah, like he knew that bit already, it kinda went without saying. But now, it was more – the vacuum was Redlock, and Triqueta, and Amethea. It was The Wanderer; it was Karine, and Silfe, and Sera, and Kale.

It was the fucking Bard.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

This World-Shaking War shit was seriously not as much fun as it’d been cracked up to be – where were the siege engines assailing mighty castle walls, the clashes of infantry, the strafing dragons?

His thoughts gave another long hiss…

Chrissakes.

…and they ran on.

Unrolling round him, the winter Varchinde was grey and vast and freezing. The wind was chill, slicing down from the rising ground ahead, cutting the skin from his cheeks. It made his fingers tingle, his ears sting; its noise was never-ending. Empty of the grass, of the swathes of autumnal colour, of even the hopeless tumbleweeds, the ground was hard as a slap, and etched in frost. The occasional stubborn tree was bent like an old hag, as grey as everything else.