Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (63 page)

Hawkmoth and his crew tethered
themselves to mooring ropes, and the crevasse bore down on them
like some vengeful creature. It were here Locke noticed something
else. Another dark scar. This one out to port. Though, this one
vanished just as soon as he’d spotted it. His focus were now split:
keeping an eye on the scar racing toward them and keeping a watch
for the new one.

When he glimpsed the second
anomaly again he were surprised how different it appeared. And as
he watched it, he suddenly realised it were no scar.

‘Hawkmoth!’ he called. ‘Other
than turtles, what beasts swim these strange seas?’

‘None I know of,’ the sorcerer
called back, straining on the wheel. Gargaron had dashed back to
help the sorcerer haul the ship about, dragging his long mooring
rope behind him.

Locke’s eyes were on the new
menace swimming their way. He managed only small glimpses of it as
it surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove, but some monster it were,
serpentine, with a head full of teeth, and arms and legs folded
back against its body.

‘We have another threat,’ he
called out, ‘off the portside bow.’

Gargaron left Hawkmoth with the
wheel, stumbling over to the portside gunwale. When he laid his eye
upon the new threat a chill went through him. ‘
Hawkmoth,
’ he
called. ‘
Locke be right. Some sea beast comes for us!
’

Hawkmoth nodded, as if to say,
Right then, a scar and some beast. Two problems be better than
three
. ‘So be it,’ he called, ‘brace yourselves!’

6

Two things happened then at
once.

Firstly, the scar met them.
Until the end of his days, Gargaron would remember standing there
on the forward port side bow, gazing down at the mighty trench
below them. It were like staring down into a deep, dark mouth, a
vast frightening cleft; something that existed it seemed only to
swallow them. And for a few moments the ship rode the very edge of
it, as if their evasive manoeuvre had been enough to steer them
from harm’s way.

However, ship’s momentum slowed
dramatically on the swell, pushing its passengers from their feet,
and the vessel began to tilt over to port. The moving trench seemed
to beckon the vessel, pulling it, Gargaron, Melai, Hawkmoth sliding
across the deck toward the gunwale, Locke clinging tight to the
rails of the crow’s nest.

And just as the ship began to
topple over the lip and into the waiting deep, the sea beast roared
up out of the ocean, slamming ferociously into the ship, shunting
it back to starboard, saving the vessel from being swallowed up by
the scar.

But the force sent Gargaron
toppling overboard.

7

For some moments as he fell,
all Gargaron saw were the gaping maw in the grass below him, a
gaping crevasse that dropped away into the deep dark depths. Then
the mooring line which he had looped and cinched around his waist,
gave up its slack and he swung and smacked heavily into the
hull.

For a sunflare he dangled
there, grimacing, the ship riding the very edge of the crevasse,
his feet dangling above the pit. But the swells heaved the vessel
high, and the upsurge tossed Gargaron back into the air, and as the
ship dropped back to ocean’s surface, Gargaron felt truly
weightless for a moment. The ship smacked heavily into the grass
swells, and yanked Gargaron’s mooring line, pulling him downwards
with great force, and as his line ran out of slack, this time it
did not hold. There came a cracking sound as the line severed under
the giant’s weight and Gargaron suddenly found himself screaming as
he fell into the depths.

8

Waves of grass crashed and
slapped over the portside gunwale, its long hissing fingers sliding
off the decking, snaring Melai in its grasp and dragging her with
them. She were gone in a flash, squealing and then silence, her
mooring rope held taught over the side of the ship, and sliding
back along the gunwale.

Hawkmoth were running, bringing
his staff around, chanting some incantation. He reached the edge
where he had last seen both Melai and Gargaron. He looked over the
side and saw Melai hanging there, her wings flapping, the grass
coiling about her ankles. Quickly he grabbed hold of her mooring
rope and yanked her upward, arm over arm, until she were near
enough for him to grab. He reached down, snatched hold of her and
hauled her back onto the vessel. But there were no time to waste
here. He took up his staff, swished it down upon the deck, dropping
to one knee as he did, his robes billowing out at his sides.

‘
Reliss temporass!
’ he whispered harshly. ‘
Reliss
temporass, vun temporass britheess! Bring iss buk!
’ Hawkmoth
felt his mind falter. He lurched forward but with his free hand
stopped himself falling flat on his face. His thoughts had turned
fuzzy, he felt faint. He felt an unwanted sensation surge through
his limbs, a hardening, parts of him converting to rock, a
sensation he despised. But this time he had acted quite without
thinking, as if some other force had hold of him.

The boat rocked beneath him, he
could hear the squeal of the sea monster off the bow, or somewhere
upon the ship, he knew he needed to arrest his faculties to help
fight it off.

With enormous force of will he
pushed himself to his feet. Yet he staggered and fell to his knees.
He could hear Melai screaming, yelling, warning him that some
monster were attacking, he could see Locke through blurred sight,
blow flute firing rapid-fire darts.

‘
Reliss temporass!
’
Hawkmoth whispered again.

He were operating in a state
out of mind now, using all his thought to push Lancsh to open a
dark temporal doorway, a passage leading into the past. It appeared
suddenly in the form of a shimmering cave mouth, an anomaly born of
pure energy, sparkling with light pulses that looked like tiny
stars. They surged inwards, as if trailing some dark passage. And
then appearing there all of a sudden, at the opposite end of this
temporal corridor, were Gargaron, back there in a time already
passed on, on deck just before he were dragged overboard.

When Hawkmoth saw Gargaron
standing there he acknowledged it with a smile. Then he fell flat
on his face.

9

Gargaron took hold of the
gunwale for support. He looked about, confused, even terrified. The
last he’d known he’d been poised on deck watching the scar rush
toward the ship. Then he’d felt himself being thrust somehow
forward. In his own time and space, it felt as if some dark ocean
wave had folded over him and there he’d tumbled. In his own time he
had known this darkness for hours. He assumed he must’ve perished,
that the scar had swallowed the ship. But somehow he’d never lost
the ship from sight; it had always been there, just out of reach,
as if caught in a bubble. Now here he were, as if he’d stepped
through some membrane, stepping back upon the boat amidst a pattern
of blurred light.

When he looked around he saw
Hawkmoth lying unconscious, his body rocking to and fro as the ship
swayed wildly. He heard snarls and screeches and as he steadied
himself his eyes bulged as he realised the ship were under attack;
some mighty Leviathan were writhing viciously around deck.

The sheer weight of the beast
as it lashed the decks forced the ship to list dangerously, the
starboard side were almost submerged, the top of the mast suspended
horizontal out over the sea, the sail dipping into the waves as the
tips of the grass stalks writhed and wormed, pulling, tugging,
threatening to drag ship and all down into its depths.

Gargaron spotted Melai racing
along deck to the forecastle, flying in small bounds, and firing
arrows at the creature. Locke were astern, elevated on the
aftcastle, blowing darts where he could, trying to avoid hitting
his own serpent that were currently intertwined with the much
larger sea monster.

Gargaron pulled out his sword,
left Hawkmoth where he lay tethered to his own mooring rope, and
marched into the fray. He leapt, his sword arm held high, bringing
his great sword down into the beast’s belly. It split its hide,
squirting blood and an acidic gas, choking Gargaron. He reeled
back, shunting aside the monster’s face with his sword as its open
jaws swung at him.

He stumbled backwards. The
Leviathan twirled away from him as a barrage of ice arrows fired by
Melai bit into it. It screeched and Locke blew his darts. They had
no effect.

The leviathan lunged at Melai.
She leapt aside, flapping her wings, just as the beast smashed into
the forecastle, wood splinters exploding outwards. Melai landed
heavily on deck and tried scrambling away, but her mooring line had
become snagged in the monster’s limb. And it reeled her back.

Gargaron charged forward, and
cut the line.

Here the beast, with a mighty
thrust of its tail knocked Gargaron flying across deck. Gargaron
smacked his head against the mast as he went, sending all thought
from his mind in an instant. He lay there groaning, distantly
hearing someone screeching, distantly aware that his body were
sliding about this way and that at the whim of the ship.

He shook his head and pulled
himself to his haunches. His sword had been dragged form his grip.
Groggy, he looked about. Saw it nowhere. But caught sight of Melai
as the ship listed, the grass dragging it further over. Melai were
slipping toward the edge.

Gargaron pushed himself to his
feet and scurried after her, his bulk sliding along the deck boards
as the ship tipped higher on its side. Behind him, Zebra bit into
the sea monster’s face, attacking it repeatedly, while Locke blew
darts that suddenly tore holes in the beast’s hide, several rents
opening up in its flesh as if slashed by some enormous invisible
blade. Still, it were obvious it would not be enough, leviathan and
Zebra were both sliding across deck. The ship were about to tip.
They would all be sent over the side.

10

Gargaron slid heavily into the
gunwale; the ship was at such an angle the bulwark were a narrow
platform beneath him, the decking of the ship like a wall on his
right, on his left naught but a dark drop into depthless sea. He
began crawling toward Melai when some mighty force shunted the
ship, pulling it back onto its keel, throwing giant and nymph back
across the deck as it levelled out.

On his back in the centre of
the carrack Gargaron looked about and saw what had helped right
them. A second Leviathan. And a third. All writhing about the boat.
Smashing masts, pulling down sails, the bulk of their forms lashing
everything.

Gargaron were hit and thrown
across ship, again knocking his head. As he shook some sense back
into him and tried getting up, he were hit again, slammed into the
deck and heaved up against the main mast. He felt his anger
beginning to bubble up inside him. His blood were boiling. His
temples pounding. He seethed as he were knocked again into the
mainmast.

He saw his sack, still hanging
there, tied to mast. He saw Drenvel’s Bane. He groped for it. Could
not reach it. He were hit again by a Leviathan tail but managed to
keep hold of the mast. He pulled himself to his feet, reaching out
toward his pack, finally getting his fingers around the hammer
hilt, and as he did he felt that unfamiliar sensation return to his
body. Of youth. Of strength. And of some fiend bigger than he were,
stronger than he were, quicker and more nimble, with endless
reserves of power and vitality…

11

Both Locke and Melai saw it.
Drenvel’s Bane coming to life, the hammer gracing the end of the
hilt. And Gargaron, if it were Gargaron, for the being wielding the
hammer were bigger than Gargaron, were clad in black steel armour
and helmet. He strode out swinging. They watched him smash the head
clean off one of the Leviathans as it lunged at him. As its head
flung end over end out into the Grass Sea, its body began to writhe
and twist madly, blood spurting from its open neck. Gargaron
hammered its body and sent it rocketing against gunwale, damaging
the gunwale as its curling body slid overboard.

He turned for the remaining
beasts, as they snapped at Melai. One were being assailed by Zebra
who had coiled her body around it, squeezing it while at the same
time striking her fangs into its neck. The Leviathan squealed and
its strange arms grabbed at Zebra, attempting to strangle her.
Locke filled it with darts that tore great reams of flesh from its
body.

Gargaron marched on the other,
winding back his hammer and swinging it into its hide. A mighty
hole punctured through its bony ribs, and a mighty gush of wind
popped out of it as the hammer sunk deep. Gargaron dragged his
weapon from the beast and swung again, slamming the beast across
deck while Melai filled its face with arrows that ripped its face
apart in an explosion of meat, blood and bone.

It squirmed in silence, unable
to make a sound, thrashing and rolling and Gargaron sent his hammer
into it again, catching it against its spine which drove it from
the ship and out into the grass waves, a mighty lump of faceless
Leviathan flipping away like a dead eel.

Meanwhile, the third Leviathan
were having its face effectively eaten off by Zebra. Gargaron
turned on it and pulled back his hammer…

But… his rage faltered… the
hammer head clunked into the deck. And he felt his fury wane…

12

The Leviathan wrapped its body
around the crabman and constricted, coiling Locke in a death grip,
his blow-flute and pipe held to him.

Melai flew to his aid. She had
spent her rocket shots and were left only with ice shards that
barely seemed to scratch the Leviathan’s scales. By now Locke were
fighting for breath. ‘
Ha
,’ he panted, ‘
do. Your. Best.
Beast.
’ Each word he spat with a grimace.