Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (20 page)

7

The suns had moved on. It were
somewhere around midmorning. Melai were sat idly on the slab of
spirit stone where her sisters had lain, gazing out across the
silent expanse of Thoonsk. She could not help but wonder exactly
where it were that guardians took woodland nymphs, feeling a need
to understand, now more than ever, where it were that folk were
taken to. It were forbidden to trail the guardians. All she knew
were that woodland nymphs were carried to a prepared copse of
trees, where they were placed and reborn into another of Mother’s
creatures. Though it did not quell her loneliness, Melai took heart
that when her time came, she would be carried off to the same group
of trees and be reborn into whatever form her sisters had taken.
And they would be awaiting her.

Now though, she
considered her options. She accepted that Thoonsk were dying. And
hard as it were to admit, it had been dying even before she had
encountered the unfortunate Rjoond. She began to question whether
or not it were indeed the Rjoond who had delivered Thoonsk its
curse or if something else were to blame. If she cast her mind
back, strange things had been going on all across her water forest
for the past dozen rotations of Melus. When her sisters had
perished she had been desperate for someone to blame. When she
watched the Rjoond plummet from the heavens it seemed obvious that
here were the cause. Yet still, his last words rang in her mind:
‘
Some blight be killing all. No land have
I crossed that remains untouched by it. It kills all before it with
no discrimination. And none of it be my doing. My very own family
has perished because of it. I am all that
survives
.’

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.

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 Dark 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 Deadfis
t 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.’