Free Ecko Rising by Danie Ware Page A

chearl had been crafted with flawless efficiency.
    If the tales were even true.
    Slowly, the twilight caught them, rose around them. Above them, the moons were in perfect halves, they lit the plains to a vast, eerie emptiness where the ghosts of the Kartiah gibbered under every thought. The air grew chill and the grasses swished as the chearl ran on.
    “Feren.” Amethea reined her beast and pointed. “There.”
    He paused beside her. For a moment, they both stared in silence.
    Before them, the ground swelled into a low hill. Against the deepening blue of the sky, the massive, tumbled stones glimmered faintly with their own light, giving the Monument a peculiar, skin-crawling glow. Amethea could make out the heavy, black ridge of the surrounding bank – soil upon which no grass grew.
    Compelled to an awed silence, they rode slowly upwards.
    Surrounding the bank, a huge, empty ditch held only darkness. No creatures lived here. Yet the fallen stones themselves still towered over bank, beasts and riders and commanded breathlessness and wonder.
    His voice barely a whisper, Feren said, “It sings.”
    “Yes.” In the faint glimmer, Amethea could see that the massive, fallen sarsens were lichen-free. Faintly, they hummed in the deepening dusk. Her skin shivered.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know.” Oddly, the hum held a sense of patience – as though the whole Monument had simply settled to rest. “Maybe it once was some celebration, some ancient elemental temple; maybe the stones just observed the Count of Time. Maybe it was a memorial, or a tomb. I heard once that the hill we’re standing on is a great passage grave, commemorating some lord or hero.” Catching Feren’s expression, she smiled and made an effort to speak normally. “Maybe it’s all rubbish. Come on, you, we’re losing the light.”
    “Aye...” He didn’t move.
    “Feren.”
    “Coming.”
    She turned her chearl, listening for him to follow.
    Still, he didn’t move.
    “Feren?”
    “Thea.” His tone was flat, ice-cold. “Wait.”
    “What?” She twisted in her saddle.
    “Horsemen, coming this way.” His hand rested on the knife hilt. “They bear no light.”
    A chill shivered her shoulders. For Feren’s sake she said, “Vilsara said the Patrols do come here; they’re probably checking to see we’re not chiselling the names of old lovers into the stones.”
    But she turned her beast to look.
    Surprisingly close and coming fast – fast – up the other side of the hill were three mounted riders. In the almost-dark, they were barely more than shadows – the hauntings of the Kartiah brought to life. The glimmering of the Monument hampered her ability to see. She blinked and tapped heels to her chearl to move forwards.
    Behind her now, Feren said, “That’s not a Patrol...”
    The riders were swift and silent. They showed no signs of slowing as they came closer. Moonlight glinted from smoothly flowing horse muscles and –
    Goddess.
    As they came towards the top of the hill, she saw them clearly and she realised...
    They weren’t riders.
    They were attached.
    Too stunned to move, her placid chearl ever-unworried beneath her, Amethea gawked. In the failing light, they were all but on top of her before she could understand that what she saw was real – those were horses all right, big ones, heavy legged and strong...
    ...but they had no heads.
    No heads !
    From their equine shoulders came the upper bodies of people – as smoothly muscled and powerful as the horse bodies beneath. The creature in front was larger than the other two; he bore a longbow as thick as his wrist and fully as tall as Amethea’s chearl.
    He was fast. Between her realisation and her very next heartbeat, he was before her and looming over her – chearl mounted as she was! – he was close enough for her to feel his breath.
    For the briefest of moments, she met his eyes, human eyes, gleaming in the Monument’s light. Stupidly, her mind told her he was beautiful, wild