Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (41 page)

3

Storm clouds pushed onwards,
heaving out a chilled fore wind that curled mischievously about
them, that whispered and moaned through the station, plucking at
vegetation, making grass and weeds dance wildly. Distant thunder
grumbled.

Hawkmoth hefted his sidesack
around and rummaged through it. He pulled out a small stone
canister. He pulled off its lid and out zipped a handful of small
black flies that buzzed about his face. Squinting one eye against
their attention, he groaned some command and off they flew,
vanishing from sight downhill.

‘
What be they?’ Melai asked
intrigued.

‘
Little spies of my own devising,’
Hawkmoth said somewhat guardedly as he watched them fly from him.
‘With some help from my wife, I might add.’ He fell silent, his
gaze on the terminus. After a while he said, ‘They pass for flies.
But who would suspect such critters as being capable of gathering
intelligence?’

A minute or two later they
returned, one here, another there. They lit upon Hawkmoth’s cheeks
and crawled up into his eyes. Locke, positioned closest the
sorcerer, saw them jab tiny proboscises into his retina. The
sorcerer barely flinched. It were here that Hawkmoth saw what his
miniscule spies had seen: strange creatures hibernating in darkened
corners of the terminus.

When they were done, the flies
each withdrew their proboscis and flew readily back into their
stone vessel where Hawkmoth had placed a small portion of cured
meat as reward.

‘
Undead,’ they heard Hawkmoth
murmur as he put the vessel away.

‘
Undead?’ Gargaron
enquired.

‘
Aye. And they sleep.’

Melai remained wary, for the
creature she could hear whispering were not undead but something
else.

Gargaron eyed the garetrain
waiting out in the railyards. ‘Right then, if they sleep then we
can be off with that train before they know it.’

‘
Should we not wake them first?’
Locke asked grinning. ‘I would very much like these undead to meet
my moonblade.’

Hawkmoth glanced across at him.
‘I’d be careful what I wished for, Locke, if I were
you.’

4

They descended Devil’s Knee spaced
apart, Gargaron and Melai astride Grimah, Hawkmoth on Razor (the
steed’s green eyes aglow), and Locke upon Zebra. They gave the
terminal (and its hidden menace) a wide berth, veering directly for
the garetrain.

Near the base of Devil’s Knee
however, Zebra hesitated, as if sensing some imminent
threat.

Hawkmoth put up a hand, ordering
his companions to halt. The company came to a standstill. All eyes
fixed firstly on Locke’s serpent and then on the
terminal.

From here they could see the
railcourse winding its way beneath the vast protruding roof of the
building, away to vacant platforms where the dead littered seats
and walkways and footbridges. Here they spied a second garetrain.
In station. One, previously unseen from top of hill. It lay closer
to Gargaron and his friends than the one in the railyards, though
would have proved more troublesome to extricate due to the mass of
roof dropped upon it and rubble strewn about.

A soft rain began to fall.
‘Locke,’ Hawkmoth said, ‘What worries your Zebra?’

Locke grinned and shrugged. ‘I could not tell
you. But she senses something.’

5

They left the terminal at their
backs and, with the hill to the right and the carriages to their
left, they followed the rail line out into the train yards, weaving
around huge boulders. As they neared the garetrain it were
confirmed that three carriages remained untouched by the boulders.
And enormous carriages they were too, designed to cater for all the
varied sized folk the realm had to offer. Even giants. Though it
were quickly apparent that they were tangled up in some sort of
hefty vine.

‘
A curious finding,’ Hawkmoth
declared.

‘
What be it?’ Melai
asked.

‘
I am uncertain,’ Hawkmoth said.
‘Some plant by the looks of it.’

Melai thought otherwise. Yet could
not say why. She felt her senses clouded by whatever were hiding
within the terminal. ‘Alive or dead?’

‘
I cannot say. Either way, we need
deal with it for, see there, it tethers our train to
ground.’

‘
Leave it to me,’ Locke said,
stretching his arms out, readying himself for some heavy
lifting.

‘
Very well then crabman, you and
Gargaron see to this entanglement, if you don’t mind. And Melai,
fly high and be at guard. Keep an eye on the terminal. The moment
you see something emerge, you call out. I shall check the
locomotive for its arcane drive keys. And if needs be then I shall
set about finding them. I need not stress that we must work swiftly
here.’ He made to move off when he stopped. ‘Oh, by the way, mind
you each stay clear of the rail beam. Especially you Melai if you
be in flight. It shall come into being as soon as I manage to
activate the engine. Stray nowhere near it. Any of you. It will cut
you in two as easily as molten iron through fat.’

Melai, crouched upon Grimah’s
shoulders. ‘What be a rail beam?’

Hawkmoth indicated a series of
tall steel columns, ones that curved inwards at their peaks forming
what looked to be a broken hoop. Each column stood evenly spaced
apart, perhaps forty paces from one to the next. And tall they
were. Double the height of Gargaron. They ran out along the length
of the train and away into the gloomy distance.

‘
Once I open the drive keys,
energy from the arcane planes will be funneled along this corridor
of line-braces. It holds the energy beam beneath which the
garetrain is propelled. It be searing cold. Like I said, be nowhere
near it once it be activated. Heed me? Now, let us get to
work.’

Melai unslung her bow, prepping
herself to do as Hawkmoth had instructed. Gargaron gently gripped
her shoulder. ‘How be your wing and arm?’ he asked.

‘
Better. And if you are worried
about me, be not. I can manage this.’

He nodded. ‘Right then. Stay
safe.’

She fluttered her wings, leapt
from Grimah’s shoulders, and flew high, spiraling away into the air
above the train yards…

6

Locke dismounted his serpent,
casting his eyes over the vine choked carriages of the train they
hoped to thieve. ‘Take this side, giant. I’ll work the other.’ And
off he went, serpent in tow.

Gargaron dismounted and crouched
to get a clearer look at the subject. The vines resembled arms, he
thought, long clinging arms. There were an endless mass of them,
with an endless amount of elbow joints and each “arm” culminated in
extended fingers.

He had naught
seen anything like it. Brawny Twisters came closest but their
branches were quite unlike these.
This be
naught but a shrubbery mimicking some creature’s
limbs
.

He lowered
himself to his belly and scoured the space beneath carriage, half
expecting to find some fiend staring back at him. But the space
were empty, with no obvious signs as to where these “arms”
originated. It were evident enough though that whatever it were, it
had designs on staying put: its branches were not only dug down
into
earyth
but
were wrapped around the columns of line-braces.

Gargaron straightened and eyed the
carriage windows. They were dusty and the day dark enough so that
it were not easy getting a clear picture of the interior. But
Gargaron were almost certain now that something were in there, and
these “arms”, whatever their purpose, belonged to it. He would have
hauled open one of the doors for a look but the thick covering of
vines prevented such an action.

‘
One way to find
out
,’ he murmured, and reaching out, he
took one of the knotted branches and tugged. It did not give. It
were like new rope tethered tight and unyielding. He strengthened
his grip, leaned back, and this time put his weight behind it. The
branch cracked, swung loose, and a pained wail emanated from
somewhere.

Gargaron let go.
And stood there, listening.
What were
that?
He looked around at Grimah. His
horse were a tad pensive, but no more than he’d been at top of
hill. He gazed back along the rail course toward the
terminus—naught there but rain and dislodged boulders and collapsed
bits of roof, and the silent, unmoving, dead.

‘
Giant?’ Locke called out from
opposite side of carriage. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘
Aye. What were it?’

‘
No idea.’

Gargaron called up to Melai. ‘You see
anything?’ She were barely visible in the darkened sky
above.

‘
The way be clear,’ she called
back. ‘The sound came from that vine.’

‘
This
vine?’

‘
What other vine be
there?’

Locke called out again. ‘Right
then, giant, what say we tackle this with greater
coercion?’

‘
What do you have in mind?’
Gargaron answered.

‘
Our blades.’

Gargaron bit his lip thoughtfully.
He withdrew his sword. ‘Right then,’ he called. ‘How coercive were
you thinking?’

A hideous squeal were suddenly
heard from inside the carriage and Gargaron guessed Locke had made
first strike. ‘Guess there be no turning back now,’ Gargaron
grunted. He pulled back his sword and swung it into the
entanglement.

7

Another squeal. Again from inside
carriage. Though Gargaron did not expect the branches to recoil so
violently. But recoil they did, taking much of the mass of tangles
with it, as if he had just severed the appendage of some beast. He
backed up, wary, watching it, waiting for it to lash out at him in
defence. Though nothing of the sort transpired.

He wound back his sword arm to
strike a second blow when he heard some distant howl. And this one
did not come from the carriage’s interior.

He looked around. As he did, the
air around him sucked against his clothes and hair as if some
mighty gale had swept across the terminus and its railyards. He
heard Melai squeal and looked up just in time to watch some
invisible force swat her across the rail yards.

Gargaron gasped and went to race
after her but he came aware of some ground-footed shadow rushing
toward him.

He turned and saw some hell hound
galloping at him. It had long, razored forelegs, and gnashing
teeth. It ran like a dog yet it bore no hind legs, the lower end of
its torso disappeared into a mass of blue flame; as if half of it
were of the physical realm and half of it were contained within a
plane known only to ghosts.

It closed on him quickly, he had
almost no time to react. Though as he gathered up his sword, Grimah
bought him crucial moments, charging headlong at the monster. Horse
and hound crashed into each other, the puffy sound of meat and bone
crunching together were loud and raw, and they piled heavily into
ground, a burst of dirt and stones and clods of weed exploding at
impact.

Grimah floundered on his back,
legs in the air, the creature on top of him, blue flame flaring.
Gargaron sprung forward with great sword in hand just as the beast
were scrambling to its feet. He sliced its growling head from its
neck and despite the growing rain, the grass on the railcourse
shoulders took instantly to fire as the beast’s body crashed to
ground.

Another howling monster emerged
from between carriages, hurtling at Gargaron, and another leapt
from top of train. Gargaron barely had enough time to cut the first
in half before he spun with his sword and caught the other in
mid-flight, skewering it straight through its torso.

Yet another came charging. He
caught sight of it almost too late but brought his sword around in
time to skewer this one too. Only to have another come scrambling
over carriage top. He spun and slung his sword, catapulting his
skewered attackers into it and sheer impact took the newcomer to
ground where it scrabbled manically to its feet.

Grimah, having struggled to
hooves, lunged at it, chomping both jaws into its face. Blood
spurted from the creature’s mouth, and pale blue flames flared from
its body, and as it went to ground, Gargaron took its head
off.

Gargaron took a
moment to catch his breath. But could hear more of these beasties
charging out from the terminal. ‘
Grimah,
’ he said, unhitching his
shield.
‘Find Melai!’

His steed seemed reluctant to
leave him.

‘
Grimah! To
Melai, I say! Go!
’

Grimah made a
noise of disapproval but obeyed. As steed dashed off, Gargaron
heard the squealing train whistle suddenly piercing the air. He
backed up from the garetrain. The “arms” from the entanglement had
retracted from the line-braces and he spied the searing rail beam
above the carriages alive now an, running beyond sight away
northways.
So, Hawkmoth has the engine
awake
, he thought. ‘Locke,’ he called.
‘Our train be leaving. Do you see Melai?’