Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (21 page)

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 were 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.’

She did not reply. Simply waited
for him to make his decision known.

Gargaron dismounted and waded
forward, his ankle still sore. Though he stood in the lagoon to his
waist, and she perched high on the exposed rock, he still towered
over her; a buffalo to a duckling.

‘
You would need bend down,’ she
advised. ‘I cannot reach you from here.’

He crouched, the
water rising up around his belly and chest and came face to face
with her where she stood on the edge of this mighty stretch of
rock. Up so close, she were, he realised, an exquisite looking
creature. He had never seen the likes of her. Aye, on his travels
and expeditions
,
he had
witnessed
forest sprites and river
nymphs. Some had even called home the Summer Woods up behind Hovel
when he were a boy. But this being were different. She sported, as
far as he could tell, two sets of wings, like those of the
Buccuyashuck dragonflies in the Spring that grew to the size of
hoardogs. And a pair of skinny, bony arms and legs. Her fingers and
toes, proportionate to her hands and feet, were long and ungainly
looking.
Like that of a Hovel
Nightfrog.
Her eyes were large and
luscious. And alluring. She had small teeth, the same colour of her
skin which were a soft creamy green. She had long hair that
reminded him of healthy spring grass. She had small breasts tucked
behind a green and brown shawl that were tied by a vine belt around
her waist and which hung over small green thighs. She wore no
shoes.
Her toes had tiny
green leaves where other beings would have nails or claws.
She had an odour of flowers about
her.

‘
Do you have anyone left here?’
Gargaron asked.

‘
No.’ Her voice brimmed with
sadness.

‘
Do you wish to stay
here?’

She did not know the answer to
that.

‘
If I agree to you delving into my
mind, then might you accompany me on my quest to find this
sorcerer?’

She watched him closely, thinking
deeply. ‘I will let you know soon enough.’

He considered this answer. Eyeing
her closely in turn. ‘Very well. Then I submit my mind to
you.’

6

She swallowed
deeply. And raised her arm and jabbed a small finger at his
forehead. His body went stiff as stone, feeling as if some great
worm had just thrust itself through his skull and into his
brain
.

He saw a smooth pattern of images
flow over his vision, like water in a stream swishing over smooth
stones. Waking beside a river. Seeing death and destruction in his
village. Finding his wife and daughter dead inside Summer Woods.
Carrying their corpses to great precipice. Watching Wraithbirds
carry them away.

He saw himself burning his village
folk, and fetching Drenvel’s Bane before leaving Hovel. He watched
his trek to Autumn, accompanied by all that death and rot. He saw
Dark Ones. Watched himself meeting the two-headed horse, Grimah.
Observed his adventure on Skysite tower. And of drinking himself to
sleep in the Autumn tavern, the Goat’s Head. He saw the dead again,
scattered amongst the streets. And Corpse Flowers beyond count. He
saw the metal man and its airship. And of taking to the
skies…

When the small
green being finally withdrew her hand a trickle of purple blood
coursed down the bridge of Gargaron’s nose, down his cheek. He
noticed her fingertip smeared in blood, and a small
barb, like that of a rose
thorn,
retracting. He saw her shudder, as
if what she had learned were too much to absorb.

He watched her face. She watched
his.

7

She needed the Temple Tree. She
desired communion with Mother Thoonsk about what best to do. But
she knew not how to get up there without the use of her wing. And
with her broken arm it would be impossible to climb. Thus she sat
there on the spirit stone, surrounded by her home trees, wondering
what to do. She looked across at the giant and considered him a
while; his steed waited nearby patiently, nibbling at floating
clumps of water-grass with both its mouths.

‘
These Dark Ones I see in your
memories?’ she eventually asked Gargaron. ‘What be
they?’

He shook his head. And considered
his answer. ‘As yet I have had no genuine encounters with them
other than brief moments where they have approached me, studied me,
before retreating. I do not know who or what they are, nor from
where they have come.’

‘
Do you believe they have brought
this death?’

He
sighed.
‘I can only speculate, of course.
Perhaps they have. Or perhaps the breakdown of our land and its
societies has brought them out into places they might not have
ordinarily strayed. Or perhaps the mayhem and death has simply
displaced them from wherever their home territories
be.’

Melai thought of
the monster this Gargaron had recently slain. She had naught seen
its kind in Thoonsk before this day. Perhaps it too had been
displaced, or lack of food and prey had drawn it from its own
country, or
perhaps
whatever creature or beings that normally kept it
at bay had perished and
were
no longer prominent enough to
contain it. ‘But I have heard your fears, oh giant, and I have seen
that you suspect them in the downfall of the
realm.’