Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (47 page)

Melai frowned. ‘Monsters?’ She
looked back at the deserted trail as it wound up into cloudy
mountain slopes.

‘
Aye,’ Hawkmoth said.

‘
From which direction?’ Gargaron
asked.

‘
From over there,’ Hawkmoth said
pointing.

Behind Razor there were but the
garetrain lingering like a spectre in the mists.

‘
Let me fly the rope to Razor,’
Melai said. ‘I could tie it around him. He can leap from edge of
the ravine. You lot can reel him up.’

‘
Aye, an action I have
considered,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘Though my fear be that he may swing
headlong into the pylon. I would not want him to snap a
leg.’

‘
We must try,’ Melai demanded,
flying off and grabbing the rope from Locke.

Though as she did, Razor grew more
and more skittish, bolting back and forth along the ravine’s edge.
And here Melai heard something… Some noise from beyond the
garetrain. She stopped flying and now turned and gazed
southways.

‘
Something comes,’ she called out
to Hawkmoth. ‘I hear it now.’

‘
Are you certain?’ Hawkmoth
back.

‘
Aye.’

Gargaron heard it now. A howling.
A wailing. Something lost to the fog beyond the
garetrain.

‘
Hawkmoth,’ Gargaron called to the
sorcerer. ‘Do you hear it?’

Hawkmoth had reached the spot
where both the stone bridge and the skywalk had dropped into the
ravine—between he and his faithful steed lay a hundred foot gulf.
‘I do,’ Hawkmoth murmured to himself. ‘Though I know not what it
be.’

13

From the mists trundled a colossal
brute. A Hillcrusher, Gargaron realised. One of the docile giants
from the distant southwun reaches. A being of such bulk and height,
Gargaron himself might well have been but a mere boy.

Pursuing it were Harbingers. Dark
Ones.

The Hillcrusher failed to notice
the ravine. Perhaps blinded by fear, it surged toward it with
complete ignorance. Taking much of the cloddy grass bank with it,
it fell howling, scrabbling its limbs desperately in the air for
something to grab on to.

It smashed headfirst against one
of the rock pinnacles, crushing it, but another pinnacle punctured
its torso, thumping through its ribs in an explosion of meat and
blood.

Impaled there it died painfully,
pitifully, crying like a babe for its mother.

If not for the Dark Ones, Melai
would have sent it an arrow of Dreamnight, to quicken its passing.
But the Dark Ones veered toward Razor. Thus Melai let loose a
volley of arrows to defend the steed and Hawkmoth signaled his
horse into evasive action.

‘
Yes, call him away,’ Melai asked.
‘Give me a clear shot.’

‘
I am not calling him away,’
Hawkmoth called back. ‘I have ordered him to make a jump for the
bridge.’

‘
Jump?’ Melai asked. ‘He can jump
so far?’

‘
No,’ was Hawkmoth’s simple
answer.

Razor were already galloping
toward ravine’s edge, the Dark Ones hot on his tail.

Melai flew out into the gulf above
where their skywalk had hung and began firing her arrows at the
Dark Ones. Her first few volleys did nothing, swallowed into the
dark forms of her targets without effect. She then blew holes in
the ground before them.

This slowed them but failed to
stop them.

Hawkmoth conjured spells; there
were too many Harbingers to take down individually using fire
bursts from his staff, and summoning a concussive force to blow
them all to bits would have curtailed Razor’s charge. Thus from his
staff came a wave that could’ve been naught but a simple sheet of
water. It swept from Rashel’s gaping mouth, flying rapidly across
air between bridge and the far ground and struck just as the
charging creatures leapt for the steed.

The Harbingers piled headfirst
into this strange sheet of “water”. It stopped them instantly, like
a fly stuck to web. And afforded Razor crucial sunflares, galloping
toward Ravine’s edge, too fast now to pull away from the
jump.

Hawkmoth knew Razor had not the
leap in his legs to reach the bridge. Nor could his steed hope to
fly without wings. With the Hillcrusher still wailing and dying
down there beside river, its guts spilled out and streaming like
worms down the rapids, Hawkmoth knelt and concentrated his
mind.

Razor leapt before Hawkmoth had
pulled his intended enchantment from his staff. And plummeted fast
toward the stone pinnacles.

14

Hawkmoth did not flinch. And would
not be distracted as he channeled his thoughts, waking Lancsh and
Rashel both. Slowly over the ravine where the skywalk had
stretched, where the original span of the bridge once sat, a
glowing ball of light appeared and hovered there. And as Razor fell
toward his death the aura of light grew rapidly.

Gargaron and Locke watched from
the far side of ravine and Melai soared upwards and away from the
anomaly. The aura were distant but Gargaron believed he saw a
ghostly apparition of the old bridge, he believed he saw Razor back
there upon the southwun side, galloping toward ravine’s edge and
galloping out across bridge, while another Razor continued falling
toward rapids.

Then in a burst of light, as of
something thrusting through a wall of fire, Razor appeared,
suddenly racing across the bridge toward them. And the Razor
hurtling toward rapids and rock became suddenly a wispy thing of
nothingness, crashing about the stone stacks with all the solidness
of river silt. And then like pipe smoke, what remained of it
flurried about the rocks and vanished upon the air.

15

The Dark Ones broke free of their
“web”, and came scrambling after the steed. But here, just before
he collapsed, Hawkmoth terminated his spell. The ghost bridge faded
to nothing, the aura vanished with it and as the Dark Ones
plummeted into the canyon, the green mists twirled and spiraled in
their wake.

With that, Hawkmoth tipped face
first onto bridge’s surface. And from there, he did not
move.

1

SNOW fell amidst the mountain
mists as they climbed their way through tracks of slate shale. It
were not easy going, but Gargaron guessed the sorcerers who claimed
the Bonewreckers as their own were a private lot and did not enjoy
visitors; thus they had not bothered building roads nor even cared
for maintaining these treacherous tracks—anything that would
discourage outsiders were most likely welcome.

Withered old trees grew from sheer
mountain slopes and layers of moss clung to stones. The colours up
here were predominantly grey. And not since they had left the
craggy foothills had any of them glimpsed the sky, for the skies,
and mountain peaks for that matter, remained constantly choked and
hidden beyond thick drifts of fog and cloud.

Hours after leaving the ravine,
the stony path leveled out at a large clearing. Anywhere beyond
fifty feet in any direction were swallowed by mists. And as
Gargaron surveyed the area it were quickly evident that numerous
paths sprouted off in any number of directions. There were also a
thick drift of snow carpeting the ground here; in all likelihood
the track to Sanctuary were hidden beneath.

Gargaron called for his company to
a halt. As both steeds pulled up, as Locke tugged back on his reins
and brought the hissing Zebra to a standstill, Gargaron sighed.
‘Melai? Once more, I beg of you.’

She were seated atop Grimah’s
shoulders, huddled beneath a thick blanket. And as she had done for
much of this trek into the mountains, she shivered, and her teeth
clattered. She did not wish to be away from the relative warmth of
her blanket. But knew she had no choice.

She shrugged off her covers,
fluttered her chilled wings and flew across to Razor’s
shoulders.

By this stage of
their journey through these labyrinthine mountain passes Hawkmoth
had remained in some sort of unconscious state. He’d been that way
for almost five hours now. It seemed like days ago that Gargaron
had fetched the sorcerer off the bridge and carried him to safe
ground, where he had lain him down amidst the grass. There they had
spent most of an hour attempting to rouse him. Talking to him,
feeding him drips of tea and other tonics through his lips. When he
failed to awaken, both Melai
and
Gargaron had tried their individual techniques at
mind delving, hoping to discern what the matter were. Melai’s
method left the usual nick of blood in her subject’s forehead but
both’d had no luck in learning the nature of the
matter.

Yet, it were Melai who realised she could
“see” the route they were to take through the
Bonewreckers.

‘
Our route?’
Locke had asked her. ‘You
see
it?’

‘
Yes. I believe so. From some part
of Hawkmoth’s mind. I believe it be the way to this
Sanctuary.’

It were thus group decision to
heap sorcerer up into Razor’s saddle, belt him in lest he slide
off, and continue their trek.

Now here they were at yet another
junction, with Melai as she had done at numerous junctions behind
them, digging her thumb into Hawkmoth’s forehead.

This time however there came no
mental pictures.

She withdrew her thumb, looking
puzzled. ‘This time I see nothing. It is blank.’

Gargaron feared the worst. That
the sorcerer had passed on. He pulled Grimah alongside Razor,
slipped off his woolen glove, reached out and touched the
sorcerer’s cheek and neck. It were cold, but from climate not from
death he discovered for when he ran his hand down collar of
sorcerer’s thick robes he felt a warmth on his chest.

‘
He has perished,’ Melai told him.
‘But his mind be no longer there.’

2

Locke built a camp fire, lighting
it with Gargaron’s vial of Helfire. And Gargaron hefted Hawkmoth
from his steed, laying him upon his own bedroll and layering him in
blankets.

They sat around fire, huddled.
Even Melai. None spoke. Each of them lost to his own thoughts. Each
of them sullen and tired. Though you would not have known it with
Locke. For he marveled at the quiet falling snow, and at the ever
drifting fog banks. ‘Beautiful,’ he would murmur. ‘So
beautiful.’

Melai barely heard him. Her focus
were on the fire. She could at last appreciated Gargaron’s claims
that a fire could be a central point for social gatherings, and a
marvelous source of warmth. She would not have believed it had she
not found herself in such a relentlessly chilled region of Godrik’s
Vale. She had never felt so bitterly cold. But this fire were
chasing that infernal chill from her bones, as if someone were
lovingly caressing it from her limbs.

Gargaron wondered what time of day
it were. The last occasion they had experienced some semblance of
night were those hours before they had trekked to Appleford
Terminus. Their railcourse journey alone had taken much of the day.
Dusk should have transpired when they were busy constructing their
footbridge. Yet it had not. Now they were some hours since Hawkmoth
had performed that strange incantation to have saved Razor, (a
spell that perplexed them still) and there were yet no sign of
night.

It ought be
beyond midnight
, thought
Gargaron
. Though the air be grey with fog,
not be black with night
.

He gazed sleepily at Hawkmoth who
slumbered still. And did not intend it, but as he gazed back into
the flickering flame, his mind drifted and his eyes began to shut.
He told himself to stay awake. Then his head lolled slowly forward…
And into deep slumber he fell.

3

Gargaron opened his eyes. He found
Grimah curled up behind him and Razor lying with his head beside
Grimah’s. Locke’s serpent had coiled itself close to fire, and
purred like a cat as it slept. Melai were snuggled in beneath
Gargaron’s jacket. He watched her a moment or two, searching for
her breathing. He relaxed when he saw her chest slowly rise and
fall.

He sat up slowly, careful not to
wake Melai. From habit he attempted to tap into his Nightface. Of
course nothing came of it. He sighed, lamenting again his loss. He
spotted Locke, sitting there, toking on the sorcerer’s pipe. The
crabman coughed, his face a grimace. He looked around at Gargaron,
his eyes red as berries, his jaw hanging loose. He went to speak
but for once the crabman were without words. He tipped his head at
Gargaron and grinned lopsided. Drool ran down his lip.

Gargaron pulled blankets over
Melai, then stood, stretching, looking about, searching the heavy
cloud. Locke pointed to something above their heads, spoke some
silent words, laughed. As far as Gargaron saw, there were naught
there but hefty fog.

He spotted Hawkmoth then. The
sorcerer were some distance away, seated there in the mist with his
back to campfire. Snow fell heavy. Gargaron felt relieved that the
sorcerer were at last drawn from his unconscious state. But to sit
over there in the cold, his back turned to his companions, struck
Gargaron as a bit odd.