Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

by A. L. Brooks

  A desperate lie to win him some time and prevent her killing him? Or had he actually spoken with truth?

  So consumed by her thoughts were she that she failed to notice a shadow standing behind her. A presence. A shape. A thing. Something with black, hungry eyes. And she came aware of it too late.

  8

  She turned and glimpsed a hulking abomination covered in shaggy brown fur and bearing long ungainly ape arms. And its face were naught but a gaping mouth and gaping eyes.

  She gasped but the monster swiped her aside before she could move. Its ragged talons tore shreds out of her wing membrane, and the force punched her twisting and tumbling against tree trunk; down she splashed heavily into the lagoon.

  She surfaced, coughing up water. Grunting, the monster waded toward her. She struggled to free herself from the lagoon, kicking, wriggling, and flapping her wings, but the water held her like a mantis in sap. The beast reached her and wound back its arm and this time Melai concentrated her will… and vanished.

  Her trick were only part successful. She flew from her position with the blinding velocity of a dart fly but careered into the creature’s arm and went flinging away into a mound of deadfall.

  She landed heavily, noisily but quickly she altered the pigment of her skin to blend in with her surroundings. The beast looked around for her. At first it seemed it could not see her. But must’ve sensed her then for suddenly it rushed toward her, knotted strings of saliva swinging from its yawning, cavernous mouth.

  Desperate, Melai unslung her bow and fired off a quick volley of arrows armed with Bloodfyre, a chemical drawn from Thoonsk’s deep-water toads. The five arrows lodged into the monster’s gut and, igniting on contact with blood, five explosive concussions blew holes out of its belly. Yet the monster hardly broke stride. On it came unruffled and unhindered.

  Melai flapped her wings desperately, hoping to get herself airborne and into the safety of the tree tops. But her torn wing prevented her leaving the mound. She reached for another set of arrows. These armed with Veil Of Midnight; once loosed, they would fill the air with a blanketing cloud of inky spore—if she could not harm this beast then she would disorient it whilst she made her escape.

  But while she was drawing back her bow string, the monster lunged at her, grabbed her and tossed her off into another tree trunk. The upper bones in both her right arm and right wing snapped. She heard them splinter and crack, she felt a numb dislodgement of bone; as she slid off oak trunk and down into the lagoon once more, unbearable pain surging through her.

  She flailed in the water, barely keeping her face above surface. She tried to swim but both her broken arm and wing dragged behind her, sending jolts of pain into her shoulder and down her spine. She gripped a nub of bark from the nearest tree to keep her chin above water. The monster came wading toward her with its soulless eyes and soulless face and huge hungry mouth open wide, yellowed, thick blunt teeth ready to chomp her head free.

  11

  She called for her golems. Then she watched the beast halt mid stride, as if distracted, as if some danger had alerted its attention.

  Had her golems heard her?

  Suddenly out of the forest, in a blur, like one of summer season’s flash storms, came yet another hulking creature, ramming the monster head-first in the chest.

  At first Melai could make out not what had assailed it, so fast and swift and sudden had been the attack, but as the monster were knocked to its side, as the creature that had thrust it over dashed off as quick as it might given the depth of the water, Melai saw it for the Rjoond’s hefty two-headed steed.

  Surely not! she thought. Though she had little time to debate it; the monster were righting itself from the water.

  And here the Rjoond appeared.

  Out he came, wading through waters with his sword held aloft, putting himself between her and the beast. He never gave her attacker any hint he were there, any chance to defend itself: all in one movement he swung his blade around, once, slicing open its chest and belly, and then twice, removing its great ugly head.

  It were over in but a sunflare. Black blood spurted from the beast’s neck as its head flung away and splashed heavily into water. Rjoond backed up as the monster’s arms flailed wildly. Melai were shocked, for even without its head, the thing remained upon its feet, lumbering this way and that in mad fashion, turning around and around, growing more and more rapid, more and more feverish.

  ‘Submerge yourself!’ the Rjoond yelled at her.

  The monster spun and spun, its arms and razored talons swinging wildly, tearing chunks from oaks and willows, from paperbarks and wattles, shards and splinters as big as Melai rocketing away in all directions, the sound of its limbs whipping through air like wings of the great Dragons.

  The Rjoond dropped himself below the water line just as the monster erupted in a mass of spines and needles and barbs. Melai dove into the lagoon with not a moment to spare.

  From below the lagoon’s surface, Melai saw a hundred projectiles punch through the air where not a moment earlier she had clung one-handed to the oaken trunk. Then above, all fell silent.

  THE RJOOND

  1

  MELAI surfaced slowly, wondering where the Rjoond were. With water dripping down her face, she clung to the oak, watching him inspecting his handiwork, prodding the bulk of the monster’s remains with his sword. He looked over at her.

  ‘Be you hurt?’ he asked her.

  She would not answer.

  He raised an eyebrow, perhaps curious as to why she refused to speak. He returned to his inspection of the creature. Melai saw a number of lesions on the Rjoond’s arms and neck, and rips in his clothing; lesions and rips that had not been there when she’d put those arrows into his face the previous day. She wondered if some parts of the drug had caused him to attack himself after all.

  ‘I learned about the barbs of this species the hard way,’ he said as if he had sensed her thoughts, indicating the numerous wounds on his person. ‘I have naught seen its kind before but I have now encountered two in as many days. The first ended its life like this one. With, shall we say, certain anger management issues.’

  Melai thought of the mess of meat and guts and bone she had discovered the morning prior, the mess she had believed were the self-mutilated body of this Rjoond. It bore a striking resemblance to the blown-apart carcass before her.

  Gargaron turned to her again. ‘Now tell me, are you hurt?’

  She were. And in pain. But she would not show it. ‘No. Though why should you care if I were?’

  He washed the black blood from his sword before sheathing it. ‘Common courtesy,’ he told her. ‘And besides, since setting out from my home village of Hovel many days ago, you are but the only living, sentient being I have met. And since I have discovered naught but death and dying my entire way here your being alive both intrigues and heartens me. So forgive me if I ask after your welfare.’

  ‘You lie! You spread sickness and disease. I have witnessed it now with my own eyes, with the death of the Soulsucka.’

  He frowned. ‘Soulsucka?’ he pointed at the body of the slain monster. ‘That thing?’

  ‘No, the Devil Werm that were attached to your leg.’

  He nodded. ‘Oh. That little beast. I have no idea why it perished. I tried to assail it yet with all my strength I could not. It died not by my hand I assure you.’

  ‘Liar!’

  He sighed. ‘I come from Hovel, many leagues from here. And as I stated, I have witnessed nothing but death in all these long leagues of travel. I had to see away my departed wife and daughter. I had to set alight to the corpses of all my village folk. Yet, I have witnessed some things, dark scurrying beasts, that I suspect might have something to do with all this mess.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’ She turned her face away and grimaced. She were determined not to allow him see her pain. It would make her vulnerable. If she were able she would have had her bow trained on him in these moments. If the arrows of Da
rk Moonlight had not worked, if the Spittle of Xonsüssa had proven ineffective, then maybe something else were required. Spiderlily venom. Shard of Basiiss root. Or the rare Deadfist toxin. But she could not wield her bow. The pain were too great and her arm were broken besides. If he came at her she were powerless.

  No. Untrue. There are always my golems…

  ‘Nothing might I say that will change your mind?’ he asked.

  She gripped hold of a bunch of moss vine that were strung to the oak and began to work her way back to the spirit stone. ‘You are Rjoond. Your kind lie, cheat, steal, murder.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Rjoond? This is a term of which I am unfamiliar. Which tells me you have me confused with another race, surely. For I am of the Giants of Hovel, from the line of Giants of Neverwhere, and the giants I know…or at least knew, are kind by nature and we stick to our own boundaries and cause none but ourselves grief and angst. Let alone murder. Or thievery.’

  ‘Untrue! Your kind once tried taking Thoonsk from my ancestors.’

  ‘Honestly? Well, if that be so then let me apologise on their behalf. Although, I must confess, this is part of history I have yet to learn.’

  There were silence amongst them for a time, broken only by the return of the two-headed horse, splashing and stomping through waters, snorting, flicking its ears. It drew up to the Rjoond and both its heads turned and regarded Melai as she pulled her way at last onto the dry slab of stone, holding her broken arm to her ribs, her broken wing hanging limply.

  ‘Anyhow, allow me to introduce myself. I am Gargaron. Gargaron Stoneheart. Giant, hunter, and resident of Hovel. This here is Grimah, a trusty steed I have found friendship with only in recent days. He is all I have now for, as I believed I explained, my family and all of my kind have mysteriously perished. Before I landed here I were on my way to find Hawkmoth, the great sorcerer, in hopes he might explain and possibly reverse the foul curse that has stricken our world.’

  She simply eyed him. And did not speak. He speaks of Haitharath the Old, she thought. Haitharath, friend of Thoonsk. Be he telling me falsehoods in order to gain my trust so that he might approach in feigned friendship and bludgeon me to pulp?

  ‘I have been starved of company for many a day,’ he told her, ‘I would very much like to make your acquaintance. But if you would prefer I leave you alone then I shall regretfully respect your wishes and be on my way.’

  Again she refused to speak.

  He regarded her for a moment or two… Waiting for her to say something. But she would not.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  2

  With a sigh he turned away and hitched his pack to the saddle of his horse. He placed boot in stirrup, took hold of his steed’s reigns and pulled himself onto his mount. With his great sword sheathed, and the dormant hilt of Hor’s warhammer packed in his pack, he gave Grimah’s shoulder a soft tap-tap and the huge horse began to move away.

  He would not look back he decided. He would not beg her to come with him though his heart longed for company, conversation and her potential friendship. He kept his shoulders high, his chest pushed out resolutely.

  Grimah had gone two dozen steps through the lagoon when he heard her voice.

  ‘Wait. Please.’

  Two simple little words. They flared warmth and hope in his heart.

  3

  He turned, not wanting to appear too hopeful, and waited to hear what she had to say. She stood now higher on the stone mass, beside one of the several trees that grew up around it.

  ‘You have a face in the back of your head.’

  Gargaron watched her, and laughed at such an unexpected question. ‘You have just noticed?’

  ‘Aye. What is it there for?’

  He pulled Grimah around and the great horse waded back toward her. ‘To spy on the night when I am asleep.’

  ‘Can I look upon it?’ she asked.

  He considered this, then turned his back to her. She studied it at length, intrigued. Its eyes watched her in silence, its spiked finger curled up beneath it. She had heard such tales about giant folk of legend who possessed two faces. But she did not imagine one face would be at front and the other at rear.

  Gargaron turned to face her once more. ‘Not all giants have retained their Nightface. But they serve we hunters of Hovel well.’

  She gazed up at him. And for a moment they regarded each other.

  ‘Why did you save my life?’ she asked. ‘Just now. Against that monster. I thought you were here to kill me. Please tell, why save me?’

  He shook his head. And smiled. ‘I still do not know where you obtained this bizarre notion that I have come here from far across the lands to slay you and your kind. I were minding my own business, fishing. A break from my village duties as hunter. I had been dozing on river bank, dreaming… and not dreaming of reaping death and destruction on this beautiful part of Godrik’s Vale, I assure you. No, I were dreaming of my girls: my dear daughter and her sweet mother. Until a shockwave passed over and awoke me. As I opened my eyes, I saw fish dying, and ornithens plummeting from the skies. I saw raging torrents of blackness sweeping down river. When I hurried back to my village I found all were dead. All. None remained alive. Including my dear girls.’ He sighed. ‘After I saw their bodies to their forebears, I left Hovel to find answers. And found nothing but death from there to Autumn town. I do not know if you have heard of it, but I utilised the Skysight to try and find the nearest habitat, village, town, city, anywhere where the living might still exist. But I found naught. Naught anywhere. Naught at least that could hold a conversation and tell me of this dark phenomenon. Then I chanced upon a metal man with that flying contraption you must’ve heard, if not seen, drop from the clouds who told me that Hawkmoth the sorcerer had discovered me from afar and had invited me to meet with him, that he needed numbers to help fight this scourge.’ He shrugged. ‘That is where I were heading before this unscheduled detour.’

  4

  She watched him. Spoke nothing. And yet he saw something new in her eyes. Something that suggested she were now reconsidering her earlier beliefs. ‘What be your name?’ she asked.

  ‘As I have already announced, Gargaron Stoneheart. What be yours?’

  ‘Melai Willowborne of Willowgarde.’

  ‘Well, Melai Willowborne of Willowgarde, I am glad to make your acquaintance.’ He dipped his head respectfully. Then straightened and looked about. ‘Be this your home?’

  ‘All of Mother Thoonsk be my home,’ she answered. ‘But this be my home trees of Willowgarde.’

  He were struck by its idyllic setting. A circle of trees grown up around a vast slab of stone that jutted above the waterline like the roof of an enormous marine toadstool; part of it were shaped like the prow of a ship, jutting out into the waters of the lagoon. It hung with snake moss and around its edge where the water lapped, it were encrusted with fresh-water barnacles and clung with crabs that Gargaron could not say were alive or dead. One of the trees appeared to grow up through the middle of the slab of stone. But as Gargaron realised it were simply growing upon stone’s surface with its roots gripping the rock as though they were but vast reaching fingers; roots that seemed to harbor a vast garden of flowering shrubs and toadstools and orchids. This tree stood the tallest of the group. Alas, it seemed to be one of the tallest trees Gargaron had yet witnessed in this water forest, so far above him were its canopy that it were lost to sky haze.

  But looking up he saw now several tens of feet above him, some branches of Melai’s “home trees” had accumulated around the central tree to form the base of what he could only describe as some sort of “tree house”. And above that, perhaps another twenty feet, the trunks of each tree were beset with some sort of growth. At least that is how it appeared at first sight. For each trunk were swollen with a bulbous mass. But he saw now that each growth were fixed with a large rounded hole, as if a doorway into the trees themselves. Were this where her kind slept? Were they dwellings?

  There w
ere a wonderful sense of calm here, but perhaps the quietness belied its usual ambience; tree dwellers like birdlings had maybe fled or had died. Bugs chirruped but, if he did not know better, their calls sounded haphazard, tortured, almost sick. As if they were crying out a sweet lament, as if they knew death were creeping through the bark to get them. Gargaron could not help but think of his wife and daughter and his own village.

  5

  ‘Would you come closer?’ Melai Willowborne asked.

  He frowned. ‘Why? So that you may fill me with more of your arrows? I’ll admit, the final one you lodged in my face gave me a wonderful feeling of inebriation. Yet, the first lot actually hurt.’

  ‘I shall only fill you with arrows should you prove untrustworthy. So, until I test your story, no more arrows.’

  He hesitated but were intrigued. ‘My story? How do you intend to test it?’

  ‘If you will permit me, I would look into your mind.’

  He considered this. ‘Before I agree, would you name your method of mind bonding?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘I would like to know one’s method before I allow one to probe my thoughts.’