Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (55 page)

‘
Sorcerer!
’ Gargaron yelled again.
‘
Do you hear me?!
’

Slowly, so slowly, Hawkmoth began
to come round. He saw the enormous dolls snapping at him,
scratching at him. Though at first he could hear them not. It were
some dream to him. Until his pain began to return to him. He gasped
in a mighty breath all of a sudden and looked about. He struggled
to his feet, groggy.

‘
There you
are
,’ Gargaron shouted.
‘
Oh, don’t forget your
staff.
’

Hawkmoth took it absently and
stumbled. Gargaron caught him, cutting a Bewitched in half as it
leapt at them. Gargaron shoved the sorcerer up the stairway.
Hawkmoth stumbled again and Melai and Locke put themselves before
he and their adversaries.

2

It were a pitched battle from
there to the roof of the tower, but the advantage for Gargaron and
his friends were though the stairway up the tower were almost
fifteen paces wide, the Bewitched could not flank them, nor attack
from behind.

‘
Do we still
hold Mama Vekh?
’ Hawkmoth said amidst the
din of battle, as if he had just remembered her
existence.

‘
Aye
,’ Locke replied,
‘
still strapped to
Zebra
.’

Hawkmoth, satisfied, took a quick
swig of Gemtian, one of Skitecrow’s old brews. Its effects were
immediate. His mind were suddenly clear, his pain swept aside, he
felt an acute buzz surge through him. Without thinking, he pushed
his way back to the battlefront and unleashed Lancsh upon the
coming Bewitched. Screeching walls of flame filled the stairwell,
near igniting Gargaron and Melai. The giant stumbled backwards, his
arm over his face and Melai swooped away.

Hawkmoth were not done though.
Just as one wall of flame roared down stairwell, incinerating a
hundred Bewitched, he called on Lancsh to deliver
another.

Gargaron threw himself up the
stairs taking Locke and Grimah with him just as the second inferno
ignited the stairwell behind him; the heat were so intense it could
be felt far up the stairs where Melai had retreated. Even Hawkmoth
took evasive action in the end, bounding up the steps away from the
flames, his beard singed and smoking.

He reached the others, panting,
wide of eye, his muscles still buzzing from the Gemtian
tonic.

‘
Be you well?’ Melai asked
him.

He looked at her, blinking, as if
not comprehending. He did not answer her at any rate. He simply
turned, and taking from his robe’s pocket a handful of Duska
(relieved from Skitecrow’s office), he pitched them all at once
down the stairwell.

Down there
somewhere, hordes of Bewitched could be heard pouring in through
the lower floor doorway. And piling up the stairway,
plasteec
limbs clicking
and clacking.

The small rock-like Duskas bounced
down the stairs. And came to a standstill. Where they burst open
and gave birth to a trillion more small Duska stones that piled up
in no time creating a monstrous barricade from stair to
ceiling.

‘
Right then,’ Hawkmoth said,
catching his breath, looking around at his friends.

They all watched him. No-one
moving.

‘
What happened to Razor?’ Melai
asked him.

He bit his lip, gazed at the
stairs for a moment. ‘Razor,’ he said as if it had slipped his
mind. ‘Yes… Razor. There be no time to explain. We must get
ourselves to the Blackbirds.’

3

Gargaron lead the way up the
stairwell, Hawkmoth throwing down a second load of Duska stones,
creating another barrier. Behind them, the Bewitched were already
tearing through the first wall; rocks shifting and rolling and
tumbling from their stack as the Bewitched ripped them
aside.

As Gargaron dashed out onto the
roof there came the sound of an almighty crash and the tower
lurched sickeningly underfoot.

Gargaron reached
for something to hold onto lest he fall over. He retook his footing
just as another lurch near knocked him again from his feet.
‘
What by Thronir be
that?
’

The others were equally as
baffled. Gargaron rushed to roof’s edge and peered down. At ground
level he saw it: Dark Ones bashing their battering rams against
tower. Beside Gargaron, the others watched on.

‘
Let us not waste the moment,’
Hawkmoth said panting, ‘Into the birds! We have little time. This
tower be coming down.’

They raced across roof toward the
metal birds awaiting them and the Bewitched broke through the
second barricade and stormed the rooftop.

Gargaron turned to fight off the
coming mass, hacking at the surging enemy with his great sword,
buying his friends some precious time to board their birds. Locke
fired bolts; Melai, in flight, rained down arrows. Hawkmoth had not
yet reached a bird, though he had taken stance and were casting
spells where he could, stabbing his spiked staff at the odd
Bewitched who managed to break through Gargaron’s attacks. Slowly
he and Gargaron backed their way toward the birds.

Zebra hissed and from where she
were coiled around one of the so-called Blackbirds she shot out her
fang-filled jaw, knocking Bewitched from the roof. Grimah were in a
bird by then but the Bewitched were coming at them from all sides
now. The rooftop filling up with them.

Another mighty hammer smash shook
the tower and this time it began to lurch. The birds began to slide
toward the edge. But they stood up, their metal talons arresting
their momentum. Still, one of them kept sliding, Zebra’s weight too
much for it. Over the side of the tower it went. Locke leapt for it
at the last moment, reaching it before it fell from sight. And
Hawkmoth, pursued by Bewitched, dashed away and jumped from the
rooftop, plummeting out of sight. The Blackbird spread its wings
and swooped away into the sky, the crabman and sorcerer dangling
from its sides.

The second bird were flapping its
wings in preparation for flight, looking around as Gargaron still
fought his way toward it. But his path were swamped with no help
now but Melai firing her arrows from above and Grimah awaiting him
at the bird. Another crash sent the tower into a shudder, knocking
Bewitched off their feet, staggering Gargaron.

Grimah wailed; he knew Gargaron
were naught going to make it.

‘
Run,
giant!
’ Melai commanded him.
‘
Hurry!
’

But he were trapped, he were being
swarmed from all sides.

Grimah snorted and reared up and
left the bird, charging headlong into the Bewitched, knocking them
flying and another mighty crash made the tower shiver and it were
suddenly tilting, falling, great numbers of Bewitched tumbling out
into space, over the edge of the rooftop.

The tower steadied for a
moment.

More Bewitched piled onto rooftop
from stairway, rushing toward Gargaron who swiped at them with his
great sword. A voice came into his mind.

Leave now. I fend
off your enemy so you may save yourself. We shall meet again
someday. You have work here yet
.

He turned to find
Grimah charging headlong into the rampant mass of Bewitched, taking
huge numbers of them with him as his momentum carried him from the
rooftop. Gargaron were backing away toward the bird.
‘
NOOO!
’ he
roared, ‘
Grimah, no!
’ But it were too late, Grimah were gone. And this tower were
coming down.

Gargaron turned and charged for
the bird just as it slid from tower’s roof, leaping into it. As it
soared for the heavens, Melai swooped down, stowing herself within
its hollow as Bewitched leapt after it in great masses, trying
their best to grab hold, only to miss and plummet to ground as the
great tower came tumbling down.

4

They seemed a long time in flight.
Too long for Gargaron’s comfort. The air chilled him though he wore
his thick blood-splotched yak-spun coat. Melai huddled beneath
Gargaron’s blanket. She were quiet for a time not knowing what to
say. Gargaron sat there melancholy, speechless. He could help it
not, but in his mind, whether his eyes be open or shut (and shut
were worse), he saw over and over Grimah’s last moments. Piling
headlong into the Bewitched, taking a huge number with him off
tower’s roof… and then gone without barely a look back.

Yet, that voice
he had heard, a voice he had taken as words from Grimah.
Leave now. I fend off your enemy so you may save
yourself. We shall meet again someday. You have work here
yet
.

The Dark Ones had stormed
Sanctuary in the wake of the Bewitched. Something the witches had
no doubt orchestrated. He had seen them punch their hammers through
that wave wall. Had felt their hammers against that tower. Sadly,
Grimah must have fallen amidst them.

He gazed at the space in the back
of the bird. Space where Grimah were to have been, had he made it.
But it were vacant except for Gargaron’s bull-hide pack filled with
all his belongings, Drenvel’s Bane poking out the top. Somehow
Grimah had detached he pack from his saddle and dropped it here. It
were painful to look upon.

Melai sat there huddled, gazing up
at the giant. She had her chilled fingers on his ankle. She watched
him at length.

The other bird were before them,
slightly more elevated. It soared through cloud mass that made the
riders of both birds wet and shiver. Zebra were coiled up as tight
as her body would allow, stuffed inside the confines of the bird,
the cold taking the energy out of her. Locke sat near the bird’s
shoulders, staring back at the sorcerer; earlier he had called out
to Gargaron, offering commiserations at the loss of a fine steed.
Gargaron had nodded at him. Other than that, none spoke. At first
they had been all too busy patching up wounds and bite marks and
scratches. And at some stage Hawkmoth had called out their heading,
to perhaps confirm they were flying on a correct path. Then he had
partially disrobed to inspect his chest. Other than his bizarre
stone skin, there were no hole in Hawkmoth’s chest or back, nothing
to suggest he had been punctured first by the chain barb and then
by that halberd.

Gargaron, Melai and Locke all
noticed this but none questioned it for now, each of them
suspecting some magical spell had caused him to heal.

Now all were
fallen to silence. Though Melai kept her eyes on Gargaron. And
eventually she could hold her tongue no longer. ‘I lament your
loss, giant. But I feel somehow Grimah be not perished. Nor even
injured. I cannot tell you how I know this. But I feel it. I
see
it. A warhorse
bolting down the outer side of a far tilted tower and jumping long
at its base to avoid those Harbingers.’

Gargaron knew it were simply an
attempt at trying to allay his grief.

‘
I do, I feel it.’

He smiled and nodded and gently squeezed her
hand in return. ‘Thank you, Melai, I hope you are
right.’

5

They flew and flew, through
chilled, cloudy air and it seemed hours later when clouds parted
and Gargaron finally saw land below, lush green meadows and
forested regions and he felt they had lost some elevation for the
air around them had warmed, no longer did he require his coat. As
he shed it gingerly, grimacing as the wounds beneath stung, and
stuffed it in his pack, he saw how many bites and scratches and
tears in his skin he had actually sustained. His limbs were
literally littered with them. Almost no part of him were spared.
Most had stopped bleeding at least. Though the Amahlu sap that
Melai had provided had not set some of the deeper wounds where the
Bewitched had chewed out large chunks of flesh. And they were too
numerous and not deep enough to bother with his flesh patches. Thus
he asked of Melai for more of her sap and applied great dabs of it
to his wounds.

It were just as he were finishing
up, that quite without warning, the birds began to fall.

6

Melai noticed the metal ornithens
had until then held a blue glow in their eyes during their entire
flight but now this glow began to flicker. ‘Do they require more
chemical?’ she called out to Hawkmoth, concerned.

‘
No,’ he called back with a
certain frown. ‘Not as yet. But I would not wager them being
influenced by some foul witch enchantment. We are over Gwimpen
airspace after all. The witches have much influence over this
realm.’

The birds lost height
dramatically, dropping more steeply with each passing moment.
Hawkmoth called for his companions to brace themselves. ‘Unless I
can arrest this fall we might be in for a solid
landing!’

Pushing Grimah from his mind,
Gargaron gripped Melai to him and dug himself down into the
confines of their bird. Across from them, dropping faster under
greater weight, Locke’s serpent had coiled itself about the second
bird, and Locke, smiling, were strapped in tight to the serpent’s
saddle, snug beside the bundle of Mama Vekh. Hawkmoth however,
stood at the front of this bird, staff held aloft with both hands
as if he were having some struggle summoning magic.