Read Online Ecko Burning by Danie Ware - Free Book Online

sprawl: she was twisted and dissolute, rotted and ancient, archaic and ornate. She was tumbledown in some places, overgrown in others. The buildings were tall and cramped and irregular, they seemed to lean upon one another as though wearied by time. The streets were narrow and meandering, the alleyways seemed woven one through another as if they’d been born in a tangle -twisted and wrong - as if they’d never had builders, had never been new or full of hope.
    Poetry? Ecko administered himself a mental slap. Okay, now I’ve really lost the plot...
    It kinda piqued him that he was at home here. As he turned around to look up at the narrow buildings over him, at the endless statues and sculptures, at the random artworks that seemed to lurk at every corner, loom in every archway, he wondered what Eliza was playing at.
    But hell, after five days on a fucking boat and a view of nothing but patchwork grass, Ecko would’ve been happy to get off the water at Westminster Bridge, security and all. Some huge part of his rotted soul wanted to just go, to say “fuck it all” and piss off through the streets, leave everything and climb up the side of the nearest building, run the rooftops, free...
    Sod Eliza and her fucking cunning plan, he’d stay here, stay Ecko...
    Like, who the hell’d miss him if he really ran away?
    Yeah, an’ I bet I don’t have even that choice...
    A crumpled harvest-banner caught for a moment on a stone, then whirled away in the rush-flood of rainwater.
    People splashed, cursing, down the main thoroughfare behind him.
    Damn you, Eliza, damn you an’ your fucking program. I’m not gonna just give in to this.
    He took Lugan’s lighter - now refilled from Maugrim’s stash - out of a pouch and began to spin it over the backs of his knuckles like a road-trickster’s coin. Raindrops hit it and shattered. The lighter was too heavy to move with any skill, and when it fell, his targeters sparked and crossed and he grabbed it before it hit the cobbles.
    He was caught between impossibilities - knowing he had to capitulate, but refusing to be led. Knowing he cared about his friends, but refusing to let them touch or weaken him. He was fucked, whichever way he chose.
    I’m so not gonna do this. You’re not gonna make me play splat-the-bad-guy again. Not demon-summoner 101, not dungeon-bash, not dragon-flight, not save-the-maiden, not fight-the-fucking-final-war. There’s gonna be a way outta this.
    “Angry, Ecko? There’s a change.” Triqueta was a leaning wall-shadow, stark in silhouette like some sort of film-noir poster.
    “Shit!” Preoccupied, startled, he found himself boosted and shaking, combat-poised to take her head clean off with a squarely placed foot. “Where the hell did you come from?”
    “Your dreams.” Her expression was perfectly blank.
    He said nothing. What the hell was he supposed to say to that, for chrissakes?
    The rain was thinning to a gusty drizzle. The wind was cold, bundling wet garbage in whirlwinds down the empty street. Over tall buildings, the gold moon was so close he could’ve reached up and gutted it with a slash, watched molten metal flood down the buildingsides.
    Triq stepped further into the light - she smelled of spirits, of tar and tallow smoke.
    “Good to see you’re awake.” Her words blurred at the edges. “Got me now?”
    “My early-warning system’s kinda fucked. So what?”
    His friends.
    She grinned at him. “I thought you’d be out here - though you’re a hard man to find.” She glanced down the side street, the clawing tree-fingers, the high walls. “Going to tell me what you’ve been up to?”
    “No.” His cloak writhed, swelling and billowing like a live thing. “Whatever you want, I ain’t got it. Now -”
    “You’re supposed to be seeing Nivvy, remember? Did you get distracted?”
    “An’ what’re you now, city militia?” He snorted, only half in humour. “Sell-out.”
    His accusation set her expression like drying ferrocrete.