Ecko Rising by Danie Ware

Author:Danie Ware [Ware, Danie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857687623
Google: drj-ugAACAAJ
Amazon: 085768762X
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2012-09-11T07:00:00+00:00

The vastness of the open Varchinde.

Ecko had only ever seen this stuff in movies – it was an agoraphobic’s worst nightmare, emptiness more than anyone could fucking stand. It was more sky and wind and grass than he could get his head round, and, frankly, it was freaking him out.

It made him feel so fucking small.

He knew he was holding them back, there was way too much to deal with.

His first problem was called a “chearl” – it had a bad attitude and a sloping back and a Mohawk mane and a tail like a bog brush. Sitting on it nearly sawed him in half, but he was determined not to quit.

How hard could riding the damn thing really be, for chrissakes? It wasn’t like it had an engine.

His second problem was the dust. The road was busy – heaving, compared to the population of the city – and dust from feet and hooves and wheels devil-danced like chaff across the roadways. Oddly, though it coated his lips and teeth, it lessened his feeling of exposure. It was soft, it diffused the sun and sheltered him from the godalmighty space that lurked, endless and featureless, behind the roadside buildings. As he rode the blade-line that cut the prairie in half, it billowed in his wake.

His third problem? His butt hurt.

But he kept his trap shut and rode on.

To one side of them, the bizarre ribbon of township rose and fell, in and out of the plainland – a thin, poor stretch of deadwood offering inns, pubs and whorehouses, general stores and rickety stalls. They further they rode, the poorer it became – sun bleached and tumbledown. He could hear voices, calling to the mass of travellers, asking them to stop and trade.

Ecko watched, kinda hoping for goblins. Some of these places so looked like there’d be an ambush – please? He flicked his oculars, mode to mode, twitched his fingers restlessly...

...but the goblins had packed their little green goblin bags, only the hobos and the winos remained.

Eventually, the township thinned, spotted and finally dissolved altogether, melted by the heat and trickling into the cracked and dusty roadside.

The neck of Ecko’s beast was decorated with intricate whorls of stink, he didn’t need his heatseeker to see the shimmer that came off its hide. As the pain in his spine and thighs increased, he became steadily more unfocused. He didn’t sweat and his poreless skin struggled with the ceaseless beating of the sun, the open air, the endless wind, the changes in food and sleep. He’d’ve sold his fucking soul for a can of chilled fizz. Slowly, the pain, the heat, the motion of the chearl, the rippling grass, drifted one into another, and all into a blur.

* * *

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