Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (54 page)

Pain’s halberd struck without
warning, but Hawkmoth’s two selves danced away from it skillfully.
Sorrow countered well with its morning star, almost smashing the
head off the shoulders of Hawkmoth’s twin. Grief swung its mace at
the real Hawkmoth. But he and his twin both leapt aside and rolled
and jumped. This is how things went for a little while, the two
Hawkmoth’s dancing here and there, evading strikes and hacks,
deflecting near strikes with their staffs. Hawkmoth himself were
working on catching one of the Wardens off guard. He had to wait
his chance, to counter their tactics. They were constantly flanking
he and his double, constantly trying to distract them. Then he got
the opening he needed. His doppelganger had run out in front of
him, catching the attention of his would be killers and here he
seized his opportunity, darting in with speed, striking Sorrow in
the neck with his staff and darting out again in the same instant,
as Pain thrust at him with halberd. Hawkmoth deflected it with
staff and leapt clear.

The strike on Sorrow had done
nothing it seemed, though a blue mould began to grow down its
armour and up its face plate. This blinded it and it swung wildly
now at random. Hawkmoth’s twin scampered up behind it and crushed
the side of its helmet inwards with a strike of its staff. The
assault failed to put the Warden out of action but it were never
the same after that.

Hawkmoth were free to battle but
two of them now.

He found an
opening and lunged at Pain, thrusting the spiked end of his staff
into the being’s lower back, and leapt away, springing lithely off
the shaft of its halberd. Pain appeared to show no ill effect to
begin with and Hawkmoth wondered if the enchantment he had
delivered would work. He rolled as he came to ground, narrowly
avoiding having his skull cracked open by Grief’s mace which took
out Hawkmoth’s twin, crunching the twin’s face into his skull,
blood spraying out. The real Hawkmoth leapt and rolled as Grief
pulled his mace from one sorcerer and swung it at the other.
Hawkmoth slashed his staff at the being’s legs, hissing,
‘
Putus hiss leggz tu
mush!
’ and Grief’s lower left leg crumpled
as if molten.

Hawkmoth dashed for clear space,
his twin on the ground dead. Pain leapt high and swung his halberd
around in a swinging arc. Hawkmoth were just in time to duck
beneath it, thrusting Rashel at it who clasped its arm in her
teeth. A searing light erupted from her jaws, spitting holes
through Pain’s arm, rendering it useless. Hawkmoth wrenched Rashel
back and with it came her victim’s arm clenched in her mouth.
Grief, hobbling, gave off a flurry of attacks and Hawkmoth rolled,
leapt, dodged, reaching again for another of Skitecrow’s gadgets.
He took out a Ploidoos, threw it at Grief. The metal spike buried
into its chest plate.

A moment later Grief began to jerk
and its torso suddenly split down the middle, from head to waist.
Though on second glance its body had not actually split but grown
another of itself, another torso stemming from its own waist, a
torso fixed with armoured head and arms.

As this one became fully formed it
began thumping the original’s torso and skull, pulling and twisting
its arms. Distracted with its self-pummeling, Hawkmoth once more
had but two Wardens to deal with. Sorrow, still blinded, and
indiscriminately flailing its morning star. And Pain, with its
remaining arm. He kept moving. Not let himself be cornered or
backed up against the cage bars. He had seen many a forbidden
Brother stand his ground and attempt to fight them off only to find
himself pulverised.

As Hawkmoth evaded a one handed
strike by Pain, Sorrow struck, taking him by complete surprise. It
suggested that there were naught wrong with Sorrow’s senses. It
threw its sword but what flew at Hawkmoth were a hundred daggers.
Hawkmoth countered quickly with a spider’s spell that shot web,
collecting them all, except for two or three that shot passed his
face.

Pain ran its halberd across the
snowy ground, as if cutting open some fissure in reality, and
twisted grey goblins crawled out and flew on wings at Hawkmoth.
Five or six of them, wielding talons and pointy teeth.

Hawkmoth had not witnessed these
tactics in years passed. This were something new. Still he felt he
were slowly gaining the upper hand over the Wardens and fought off
the goblins with a combination of wooden shards spat out by Rashel,
shards that ripped their flesh and tore their wings. They were easy
enough for him to dispatch but he knew they were merely sent as a
distraction. Sure enough, Sorrow had darted behind him but Hawkmoth
saw the attack at the last moment, thus he jumped and spun in the
air, the morning star missing his chest by an inch. Now he dropped,
rolled through snow, remaining goblins diving for him but they took
the brunt of the morning star as he had anticipated. Having
orchestrated the goblins’ demise he whipped his staff around, leapt
from the snow, twisting and then thrusting the sharp point of his
staff deep into Sorrow’s ribs.

He withdrew it and dove, rolled
and came to a standstill on one knee, in time to watch Sorrow turn
its weapon upon Grief, pummeling its skull. Pain rushed toward him
and he made to evade the attack when a cold object pierced his
chest. He looked down and amidst spurting blood he saw the tip of
the halberd poking though him. He turned his head and saw he had
been tricked. Pain stood behind him, and as blood poured out of
him, the armoured being lifted him high like an impaled rabbit on a
stick.

7

Razor squealed and bolted through
the packs of Bewitched, pelting them with green molten shots of
fire. He reached the cage and galloped around it as the Warden,
Pain, hefted Hawkmoth in the air like a trophy.

Razor were hysterical, he would
not stop screaming, galloping faster and faster around the cage.
Inside Pale prod its halberd deep into the snow leaving Hawkmoth
suspended.

The cage began to
lower, the bars retracting back into the
earyth
now that the forbidden
Brother were dealt with and dying. Here the Wardens began to
descend back into their dens below Sanctuary, and Razor keened at
the foot of the halberd.

Razor though were not done. He
turned and charged the Wardens…

Though before he reached them he
stopped short and he howled like a wolf, shaking them, blue streaks
of light began to bursting from between his ribs, his skin
splitting, his flesh ripping apart… and suddenly he
exploded.

8

The blast sent Gargaron and Locke
and Melai crashing into the tower, crunching the Bewitched every
which way, throwing Grimah from his feet, knocking Zebra off her
belly, throwing her head and neck against the tower
wall.

Everything fell still.

When Gargaron lifted his head from
where he lay, dazed, looking groggily about, wondering what by
Ranethor just happened. Melai were back against the stairwell of
the tower, rolling slowly to her side as if just waking from
slumber. Locke were propped against the doorway, the expression on
his face one of vacant bewilderment, as if he had just smoked a
full bag of the sorcerer’s weed.

Gargaron remembered Razor and
Hawkmoth. He struggled to his feet, using the doorway to steady
himself. He set his gaze out across Sanctuary’s grounds and saw the
snow had been blasted away in the explosion, exposing bare brown
earth and straw-coloured dead grass beneath. Swirls of blue light
illuminated patches of ground and snow alike, as though it were
star dust. The Bewitched were scattered, silent and unmoving. But
the strangest sight of all were what lay around the spot where he
had last seen Razor, Hawkmoth and the Wardens.

The Wardens still
stood, but were unrecognisable from their original forms. While
their legs were still firmly planted on hard
earyth
their bodies had been rent
eastways; they looked like frozen flags, like silver streaks of
metal smeared out across the frigid mountain air. And Hawkmoth
knelt in the bare dead grass, his head bowed forward, his face
unseen. There were no sign of Razor. Naught but a shimmering figure
at Hawkmoth’s feet.

Gargaron started forward. He staggered but
regained his footing. ‘Hawkmoth,’ he called. ‘Be you
well?’

He stepped through the uncovered
bodies of sorcerers and what he guessed were witches and everywhere
there were remnants of the Bewitched. There were no sound on
Sanctuary but the sound of wind, lonely and mournful.

He came aware of Grimah trotting
up beside him and heard Melai say distantly, ‘Fetch the sorcerer.
We need leave here. I fear this place be not done with us
yet.’

Gargaron neared Hawkmoth, still
unsure what lay at his feet. ‘Hawkmoth? Be you well? Where be
Razor?’

Hawkmoth looked up at him at last.
He were bloodied and cut and his face were white, as if all blood
had drained from him. ‘I be well,’ Gargaron heard him whisper. ‘I
farewell my Razor.’

The statement
confused Gargaron. Yet he focused on the
thing
at Hawkmoth’s feet. It looked
a ghost. Some small angelic creature, green of eye. Hawkmoth had
his hand upon it. It had but Razor’s horse face and Razor’s eyes
and Razor’s horsey snout. But its small ethereal body had wings,
and arms, a fore set and a rear set, long and loose and clumsy, as
if just learning how to use them, as if of some deer calf recently
birthed from its mother.

‘
Fly now, little one,’ Hawkmoth
whispered. ‘I have brought you full circle. Fly now and away. It
has been an honour to be your friend.’

Distantly Gargaron heard some
sound. He looked about, squinting into the misty gloom. He saw
faint shapes in the mist, things scrambling, clambering over the
wall. Grimah, at the giant’s side, were beginning to make noise,
snorting from both noses, nostrils flapping.

‘
Hawkmoth,’ Gargaron said.
‘Hawkmoth. We need leave now.’

Hawkmoth appeared not to hear.
Instead he sat back and allowed the thing that were once Razor room
to lift itself clumsily from the frozen ground. Thin transparent
wings unfurled from its back and flapped as two lots of arms hefted
its small body from the ground. It squeaked as of a newborn, flew
about Hawkmoth twice before lifting away into the air.

More Bewitched were coming now.
Hawkmoth remained idle, preferring to watch Razor’s new form fly
off than show care for anything else.

There were no time for ceremony.
Gargaron grabbed the sorcerer and hoist him to his feet. Hawkmoth
were unresponsive, his body limp, his head hung low. The Bewitched,
a larger breed now, Gargaron saw, taller than ones who had come
before, these with legs like that of deer, charged for them. Grimah
were already at a canter, and Gargaron, carrying both his great
sword and Hawkmoth’s staff, were dashing alongside him, pushing the
sorcerer into saddle. Now he gripped the pommel and hauled himself
onto his steed just as the Bewitched closed on them.

1

GRIMAH were not need to be told to
gain speed, he dug in and picked up pace, his hooves thundering
across the fresh blasted ground toward the tower. Locke and Melai
fired off their arrows and darts from the doorway, taking out
Bewitched as they closed in on Grimah’s flanks.

‘
Hurry!
’ Melai shouted.
‘
Hurry now!
’

As Grimah closed in on the tower
there came a thunderous noise and sections of Sanctuary’s perimetre
wall crashed inwards. Wall fragments shot out in every direction.
And Gargaron saw through the fog banks Dark Ones. Bashing down the
wall and surging on into the grounds. Like Appleford Terminus these
were big brutes, though rather than hammers, these hefted mobile
battering rams. And while some continued to batter the wall, others
strode out across Sanctuary, smashing anything and everything in
their path.

Gargaron reached the tower, Melai
and Locke, both still firing their projectiles, backed up the
stairway.

Bewitched were again hanging off
Grimah’s sides, and clinging to Gargaron’s legs, and clawing at
Hawkmoth’s robes, biting, scratching, chewing off chunks of meat.
Hawkmoth seemed not to notice. Sitting there in saddle as if in
some stupor, showing no concern, though around him Gargaron cut and
slashed with both his sword and the spiked end of Hawkmoth’s
staff.

They were too numerous though and
their combined weight dragged Grimah to his left, pulling him into
the wall once within the tower. Gargaron and Hawkmoth spilled to
floor and Grimah squealed with anger, kicking his legs to get
himself upright.

It were mayhem all over again,
Gargaron scrambling toward the stairwell, dragging Hawkmoth with
him as the ravenous Bewitched piled up around the doorway, more
coming still, flying at them with a frightening single mindedness.
They snapped and bit and gnashed and clawed, Gargaron heaving dolls
aside to pull Hawkmoth from beneath the mass.

‘
Sorcerer!
’ Gargaron yelled.
‘
I’m sorry about Razor but we need
you!
’

He dragged Hawkmoth with one hand,
slashing his great sword at Bewitched with the other, the staff
held beneath his shoulder. Melai sent off continuous volleys of
acid tipped arrows, the stink on the air of burning dolls both
sharp and acrid. Locke blew his blow darts, causing the Bewitched
to smoulder and melt. Grimah snapped and kicked, Zebra whipped her
tail and struck out with her jaws.