Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (34 page)

‘
Veleyal,’ he whispered. He lifted
his head and looked about for his daughter.

What he saw staring at him were
the face of an enormous, banded serpent. Its mouth opened sideways
rather than downwards, and three sets of eyes on either side of its
skull goggled at him. Its forked blue tongue lapped in and out,
tasting him.

He thrust his arms at it, shoving
it aside and rolling onto his haunches, clambering away.

The serpent reared up in the
position of a snake poised to strike. Gargaron reached for shield
and sword but found he were unarmed. He scrambled backwards hoping
his hands might chance upon some stick or rock with which to defend
himself. Failing that, he prayed for a tree behind which he might
retreat and use as a defensive barricade.

Suddenly, filling
his ears, came the booming sound of thumping hooves on
earyth
as Grimah charged
into view, putting himself between giant and serpent. Some voice
rang out. The serpent hissed. The voice called a second time, more
forceful, and now the serpent lowered itself and turned away, its
blue tongue still flicking in and out in rapid
bursts.

Gargaron saw the crabman now,
whose name he could not recall. Beyond Grimah he stood ushering the
serpent away. Grimah turned and lowered himself to his knees,
nibbling Gargaron’s neck affectionately with his pair of mouths.
Melai flew down from some high perch in the trees.

‘
By Thoonsk,’ she said sounding
relieved, as she landed before him, ‘at last you
awaken.’

Gargaron breathed heavy, still
expecting an attack. ‘What by Thronir be that thing?’ he hissed,
looking wide eyed at the serpent.

‘
It be Zebra, my loyal steed,’ the
crabman called out jovially, fixing and tightening the straps of
saddle bags that hung down the sides of the serpent’s flanks. ‘She
meant you no harm giant. She be merely curious.’

Gargaron took in two or three deep
breaths, blinking, looking about, still orientating himself. He
felt something squeeze his arm and remembered Melai standing at his
side. He looked at her.

‘
All be well,’ she said to him,
‘all be well, you are safe.’

He drew in a deep calming breath
before shutting his eyes and kneading some feeling back into his
brow with his large fingers. ‘How long have I been in
slumber?’

‘
The suns have set and have since
risen,’ Melai told him. ‘We could not wake you. Haitharath hoped to
have left by now but decided we could do naught but let you
sleep.’

‘
Besides,’ came the crabman’s
voice again, laughing. ‘You are a heavy lump. Not even Hawkmoth has
a spell to heft you atop your horse.’

‘
Hawkmoth?’ Gargaron enquired as
if most of his memory of yesterday had failed him. Suddenly the
sorcerer in question approached, carrying both a stone bowl of
fruit and sizzling crispy bacon and a steaming mug of
tea.

‘
Eat,’ the sorcerer told him,
‘drink. Win back some strength and when you can stand, come over to
camp fire and I shall outline my plans as I have explained them to
Melai Willowborne. You can both then decide if you wish to be part
of them.’

4

Gargaron were on his feet before
he had finished his tea. And looking about helped return to mind
much of what had transpired the previous day. He saw the
plunge-hole and took in the clearing Hawkmoth had set up camp
within, he noted sandy woodland otherwise surrounding it, and if he
looked east he could just spy the tall spires of Varstahk poking
above the tree line.

Glad I am to see
the back of that place
, he
thought.

His eyes settled upon an enormous
blue-grey steed, nibbling chaff on the opposite edge of the camp.
Gargaron thought it were a mirage at first, some illusion, so
ethereal did the beast appear. This blue-grey horse looked even
larger by first impressions than that of his Grimah.

‘
That be Hawkmoth’s steed,’ Melai
told him. ‘Razor be its name.’

‘
A majestic looking animal to be
sure,’ Gargaron commented, wincing as he shifted his weight. ‘How
are my burns? I no longer feel them. I am either healed, or I am so
disfigured and injured that my body has grown numb.’ He gazed down
at his body noting he were in a fresh set of clothes which he last
recalled had been folded and stashed neatly in his pack.

‘
They are healed,’ she informed
him. ‘You have Hawkmoth’s slugs to thank.’

He stretched, reaching his arms
high over his head, screwing up his face in the effort. ‘Well then,
I will be sure to kiss each one as a show of my gratitude.’ He
relaxed and yawned and blinked and Grimah, refusing to leave
Gargaron’s side, nuzzled the giant affectionately.

Melai smiled. ‘I shan’t miss
witnessing a giant kiss a slug.’ She gazed up at him, her pale
green skin almost aglow beneath the wash of gentle morning
sunlight.

Gargaron reached up and rubbed his
steed’s long noses. ‘And I see I have been reclad.’

‘
Aye.’ Melai pointed to a mess of
charred and flaking cloth and material piled on the edge of their
camp. ‘They were mostly burnt from you. We dressed you in your
spares. I hope you do not mind but I insisted.’

He shook his head
and smiled. ‘I do not mind. Thank you. Where
be
my pack, by the
way.’

Melai pointed to a pile of their belongings.
‘All’s there. Nothing were burnt.’

He moved over, Melai following on
one side and Grimah on the other. He saw both his sword and hammer
hilt lying there. Along with his shield that were scorched black.
And a scabbard he did not recognise. Melai explained that it were
the sorcerer’s. Given over to Gargaron’s use and possession. ‘Yours
were burnt to cinders,’ she said. He crouched, untied his pack and
began picking through his possessions. He were focused on naught
else until he located the tablet portrait of his girls. He sighed,
clenching it longingly, briefly studying it. He slotted it
carefully back into his pack and heard Melai ask, ‘Be they your
wife and daughter?’

‘
Aye.’

‘
May I look?’

He were tentative at first. Not
because he did not wish for her to see them but purely because he
felt a slight guilt for Melai’s own loss, that he had at least some
keepsake with which to remember his girls when Melai had
none.

He withdrew again it and passed it
to her. She took it gratefully and cast her eyes over it for some
moments, wrestling for viewing space as Grimah prod its enormous
heads down for a peek. Gargaron nudged his faces gently aside and
pointed to the etchings. ‘This be my ever loving wife, Yarniya. We
knew each other as children, and were lovers when we came of age.
And this be my Everlight, my heartbeat, my daughter Veleyal.’ He
smiled sadly. ‘They were my world, my life.’

‘
They’re both beautiful,’ Melai
told him softly.

He could do naught but nod.
Anything else may have brought tears.

She handed it back, thinking now
of her sisters, longing for their company. Though her thoughts were
not on them for long. As Gargaron placed his portrait carefully
back in his pack Melai could not help but notice the charred rear
portion of his skull. As he put his pack aside he saw her
expression.

He frowned. ‘Something troubles
you.’

‘
Gargaron… I… I need tell you.’
She did not know how to put it.

‘
What be the matter?’ he enquired
of her gently.

‘
Your… your Nightface.’

He drew in a deep breath and
nodded. ‘I fear the worst. I no longer feel it there. It did not
alert me to the serpent.’ He swallowed. ‘Be it burnt?’

‘
Aye, severely. And has not
healed.’ She reached up and grasped his hand. ‘I am
sorry.’

He smiled mournfully down at her.
And tenderly placed his palm against the side of her head. As he
would his daughter. He were touched by her concern. ‘Naught can be
done about it. Though, many of my kind have lost their Nightface
and gone on to live full lives.’ It saddened him, but it paled in
comparison to the loss of his girls. And for this reason alone,
emotion aside, he felt rather pragmatic about things. He let out a
long breath and put his hand around Melai’s shoulder. ‘Come, let us
see what this sorcerer has in store for us.’

5

‘
How fare you, giant?’ Hawkmoth
enquired, sitting cross-legged on the ground smoking a
pipe.

Gargaron stretched his limbs, took in a deep
breath. ‘Aye, better. Though a bit sore, I must
confess.’

‘
Good,’ the sorcerer replied. ‘If
you feel pain then it means you live.’ He ushered Gargaron to a
spot before the hearth of his campfire, though mostly the flames
here were gone, replaced by naught but embers.

Gargaron sat, following Melai and
the crabman. There were an air that now with an extra two folk to
his party, Hawkmoth were ready and eager to explain why he had
summoned them all.

‘
I am hoping more survivors, like
yourselves, will find us and join us in the days to come,’ Hawkmoth
said repacking his pipe. ‘But for now I fear you may be all who
have bothered to answer my call. Or you are all who survive. So,
before I set off on my quest, before you make a decision on whether
or not you wish to follow me into the mouth of doom, then I ought
tell you what I believe is going on and offer you some history that
brings Godrik’s Vale, and perhaps even Cloudfyre, to this dire
point.’ He lit his pipe with a stick pulled from the coals. ‘So,
without further delay let us begin, shall we.’

6

‘
You may or may not have heard of
the Battle of Rabbit Flat. Not many have. It remains buried under
the sheer weight of Cloudfyre’s long history. And you’d be forgiven
for overlooking it were you reading through the annals of Godrik
Vale’s past days and happened to chance upon it. It were not a
large stoush, casualties were few. But it were the catalyst for
what I believe we now face.

‘
A century before the events at
Rabbit Flat, which itself now lies three centuries behind us, the
sorcerers and witches, who have long been enemies, were allies. We
discovered magic together, practiced it together, and intermarriage
between our two sects were common. But somewhere along the way, and
there are none now that live who remembers why, something came
between us. My Order will tell you that it were the witches who
perpetrated some heinous crime against the sorcerers. And the
witches will say it were us who did them some great injustice. All
I know for certain is that from somewhere, unrest spread and before
we knew what were happening, we were at each other’s throats, they
our sworn enemy, and we theirs.

‘
Thus strife and turmoil between
both our groups became the order of the day. And as the years drew
on, attacks and skirmishes perpetrated by both sides escalated. But
rarely did mighty battles play out; for the most part it were a
protracted war perpetrated by guerrilla attacks. The sorcerers
taking out a tribe of witches here, the witches eliminating a
ranging party of sorcerers there. It were tit for tat, reprisals,
pay backs. Until Rabbit Flat.

‘
At the time, the head of my
Order, Master Stormcrake, devised a secret mission to infiltrate
Vantasia, the hidden witch city, and take off with witch Goddess,
Mama Vekh. To execute this he set about creating a diversion. He
sent battlemages down to the southern ranges to overrun Rabbit
Flat, a town sympathetic to the witch cause, but also a town that
were a key strategic location for the witches.

‘
Master Stormcrake knew they would
not accept this lying down and anticipated their offensive to
recapture the settlement. Thus the witches organised a counter
attack which saw battle wage for barely a day before it were
retaken. Thus the siege of Rabbit Flat were over.

‘
However, in that time, the
sorcerers had slipped into Vantasia undetected, and run off with
their prize. And that is when it all changed. With Mama Vekh in the
hands of the sorcerers, the sorcerers had claimed themselves much
political capital. Threatening to slay the Goddess the sorcerers
handed the witches a list of demands. They were to immediately
release all sorcerer prisoners and their sympathisers. They were to
divulge all their magical secrets and lore. They were to divulge
location of all secret bases and hideouts. And last of all, they
were to be banished from Godrik’s Vale, never to return.

‘
Well, as things have it, folk
don’t much like being told what to do. And the witches, quite
rightly I might add, threw all demands back into the faces of their
enemy. And here they ordered the immediate return of Mama Vekh. And
if she were not returned then their retaliation would be to “burn
Cloudfyre from the skies”.’

7

It were here in the telling of his
story that Hawkmoth sat back and took a long pull on his pipe. He
gazed into the tree tops as he let pipe smoke fill his lungs. When
he let it out, it came in narrow streams that drifted away on the
breeze like soft grey tendrils. He took a breath and again spoke.
‘The witches promised to create what they termed Boom Weapons.
Bombs so powerful that a single one could level an entire mountain
range and the shockwaves be felt far and wide. But that were not
all. These bombs would also carry a dire curse, the Cropps, which
would ensure that any sorcerer fortunate enough to escape the
initial blast, would regardless, soon and in turn, be struck down
with instantaneous death.’