Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (70 page)

Dear
sorcerer
, Gargaron thought,
if you come back from this
,
it shall be a
miracle
.

Gargaron felt useless. The
sorcerer had brought Gargaron himself back from death. All Gargaron
could manage were some drops of liquid that may or may not
work.

He sat back with a hefty sigh,
dispirited, looking about, wandering what to do. And though it
tortured him, he could not take his eyes from Hawkmoth for many
long moments. In the end he forced himself to avert his gaze. To
gaze off into the woodland and work out what to do now.

It were here he noticed something.
Through the trees, a small clearing… Some crumpled mass lay on the
leafy forest floor. He saw large crab legs poking from
it.

7

He hefted himself to his feet. And
set off, grunting as he stumbled forward.

He reached the clearing and
dropped to his knees beside a massacred body. Gargaron put his hand
over his mouth, despaired, terrified. It were Locke. His body
ripped open. Crab guts were dragged out behind him, tangled in the
trees. The shell of his remaining legs were shattered. His head
were bent at a terrible angle, the bones in his neck stuck through
his skin, crab blood were everywhere. There were no heart to listen
for. Locke’s chest were burst open and organs were spilt out across
the grass.

Gargaron slumped back, barely able
to breathe. His eye watering with tears. ‘What am I to do?’ he
whimpered.

It were obvious now, it had all
gone wrong. Their plans to save their country were terminated. He
pushed himself back against a tree trunk, up against its lumpy
roots. He sat there weeping. His belly ached. He realised he were
bleeding again. Several puncture wounds dotted his body. The roots
beneath him dug into his bones. He pushed himself from them. One
shifted. He pulled it free and tossed it aside. As it flung away he
realised it were no root. But Drenvel’s Bane.

He eyed it from
where he sat. He cared for it no longer.
What use has it ever been?
he
thought.
What use be it
now?

He were still processing the
demise of both Hawkmoth and Locke when he heard a familiar sound.
The sound of swishing spikes, the sound of splashing
blood.

He looked tiredly toward Hawkmoth
who lay where he’d left him. But the sorcerer were free of those
fiendish Star Angels.

Gargaron stood as quick as his
aching body would allow. He clutched his aching stomach; bleeding
out it were. He turned slowly, searching through the woodland near
and far with his good eye. He had rotated almost fully when he saw
it. Through the trees, a cluster of Angels, stabbing something out
of his view.

He did not want to imagine what it
were. But he feared the worst. Melai.

And if it were he would tear down
those Angels. Though this time he needn’t be their pin cushion. He
stumbled forward, and fetched Drenvel’s Bane into his
grasp.

8

Fighting exhaustion, he staggered
through the woodland. Bumping into tree and branch, gripping each
for support. He drew closer and closer to the Angels. Their assault
on whatever they were attacking continued. And when Gargaron
finally stumbled into a small shaded glade he saw her being
speared, punctured, perforated.

Dear little wood’s nymph Melai.

His heart sank.
‘
No
,’ he yelled.
‘
Leave her be!
’
They might as well have been digging their vicious spines into his
daughter, his wife, every soul he had ever loved.

He gripped the hilt of Hor’s
legendary hammer. And as rage surged through him he felt a mighty
fire ignite in his chest. Suddenly he felt his fatigue abandon him.
He felt no more pain. He did not bleed. He felt all the strength
and power of a thousand giants.

Once more, the mighty hammer head
appeared at the end of the hilt.

9

If Melai had been conscious she
would have witnessed a being of enormous stature rise to his feet
before her, a being clad in dark steel armour, clad in a dark steel
helmet, gripping a hammer that held a bluish
iridescence.

Here now, before her unconscious
form, the figure turned and let the Star Angels have his wrath.
Trees were obliterated, smashed and bashed, wood splinters flew off
in a thousand directions, shaken leaves rained down, catching the
sun as they spun and fell. The Star Angels were pulverised, each
swing treating them as if they were naught but hollowed clay dolls,
golden blood splashing across the woodland. Though they did not
break apart themselves, nor shatter. They were rendered across the
woodland as long shards of metal, stuck out from the very trees
they clung to, like streaks of silver smeared across a canvas. And
none of them ever moved again.

But Hor were not yet done. For he
had spied Dark Ones standing amidst the shadows, surrounding the
clearing, watching.

Laughing a deep sonorous laugh, he
stomped toward them. They put their own hammers up in defence. But
while he battered them all they made no move to counter his
attacks. They simply parried his hammer blows. Still, he dispatched
them all the same. Twenty of them; all matching him in height and
bulk. And though they did not feel to be a physical part of this
world, pockets of blackness embedded in the wall of reality with
glowing white eyes, he bludgeoned them down with his magical
hammer. Until they were pockets of blackness spilled across grass
and fallen oak, like fallen shadows left with naught but their
searing pale eyes.

Hor marched back and forth,
wanting more, arbitrarily swinging his hammer down a tree here,
another there. Once he were done, once the leaf matter had settled,
once the bodies of Angels were discarded hither and thither, once
there were no further sign of Dark Ones, he saw her again…
Melai.

And his fury were replaced with
sadness.

10

By the time Gargaron knelt at
Melai’s side his hammer were again but a hilt and his pain had
returned and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, to pull him
down into sweet oblivion.

But he would not allow
it.

He would see to Melai first before
his life gave way. He would either help sustain her life. Or ease
her passing. Neither had he been able to do for Veleyal or Yarniya.
If the gods willed his death, then so be it, but not before he
tended to Melai.

She lay crammed against the root
of a tree. As if she had been thrown and kicked and stuffed there.
She were bleeding profusely. She were a mess. And
unmoving.

Tears filled Gargaron’s eyes as he
stared down at her small, broken body. He saw she were without her
wings. He saw her limbs were snapped. He saw that her ribs had
cracked and her chest cavity caved inwards. He saw spike holes
punctured through her. Her pale green blood were splashed
everywhere.

And yet unbelievably, there were a
pulse in her neck.

He crouched and lay his head on
her chest. It were faint, but it were there. Her precious
heartbeat. ‘Melai,’ he said. ‘Melai. Do you hear me? It be
Gargaron. I am here at your side. Can you hear me?’

There were no response. Quickly he
took the bottle of Lyfen Essence from his pack and administered a
drop into her mouth.

The result were surprising. Right
before his eyes her wounds began to heal. He had not seen the
Essence work so well even on giants. Still… it did not restore her
fully. He heard her breath return, a light, short breath. But that
were all.

‘
Melai?’ he asked. ‘Do you hear
me?’

No response.

‘
Melai, it be
Gargaron. Hear me. Please.’ He watched as her eyelids moved and
slowly parted. Though her eyes did not see him; they appeared to
gaze off into the woodland. If she were actually
seeing
anything he could
not tell.

He moved his face into her line of
sight, gently smoothing her hair from her brow. ‘Melai,’ he said
gently, ‘it be me. Gargaron.’

He watched her blink, and then he
believed her eyes focused on him. She watched him for a long while.
He held her hand. She tried to speak. There were no sound. Not at
first. But then a murmur. ‘Gar… garon.’

It were so faint it were like a listless
breath of breeze on a summer’s afternoon.

‘
Gargaron,’ she murmured
weakly.

He smiled, but tears were in his eyes. ‘Melai.
I be here with you.’

‘
It got us.’

‘
Lie still. Don
’t talk. Let me aid
you.’

‘
It got us,’ she said again
softly.

‘
Melai, save your
strength.’

‘
I looked into its eyes,’ she
whispered. ‘I saw its thoughts and mind. It cannot be stopped. I
know it now as I did not before.’

‘
What are you
saying?’
Gargaron laughed
awkwardly, smudging sweat and blood from her forehead.
‘Stop talking. Keep your
strength.’

‘
I… I’m dying. It’s too
late.’

‘
Melai, no, I shan’t let
you.’

Slowly, painfully, she reached up
with her arm and touched his cheek. ‘Oh, if we’d only met years
before. We would have been great friends. You are a kind soul. I am
truly sorry for the loss of your daughter and wife.’

‘
Thankyou,
’ he said, a lump in his
throat. ‘But you shall be fine. You shall be
fine.’

‘
My wings are dashed. I am dashed.
I must go now. Remember your promise. Take me back to Willowgarde,
release me to my sweet sisters.’

Her eyes watched him as her life
slipped from her; her body fell limp and her arm fell from his
face. A slight smile remained on her lips.

‘
Melai,
no,’
Gargaron sobbed.
‘Melai, please, no. Stay awake, hear me now, stay
awake. Please.’

Her head lolled back and her eyes
gazed out into the treetops of this hell forest of Vol Mothaak. And
Gargaron saw it then, away through the woodland, the top of the
tower, the idiot face gazing down at him with its idiot, mocking
smile.

11

Gargaron roared
and stood, taking up Drenvel’s Bane once more. ‘
NO!
’ he yelled.

Once more a blinding fury swept
over him. And once more his pain fell away, and the strength of a
hundred Skinkks filled him. He strode through the woods toward the
tower. All the anger that had seethed within him since the tolling
of the first bell drove him, all the fury that had built up since
the fall of his village, since the discovery of his wife and
daughter dead.

He began running, running, faster
and faster, bashing aside Star Angels who now descended upon him,
springing and wriggling from tree to tree, attempting to crowd him,
hundreds jabbing at him with their spikes. But he flailed his
hammer and smashed them asunder and he charged toward the toxic
silver pool at tower’s base and when he reached its bank he took a
breath and roared as he leapt out over the poisonous Mercuruan
pond…

He crashed heavily into the small
island on which the tower stood. He landed on his knees and rolled
and all in the same movement he were up and on his feet, wheeling
back Drenvel’s Bane, bringing it crashing into the
stonework.

A boom shook the foundations, dirt
and dust splintered from the ancient mortar, bits of brick peppered
the pond. Ignoring the tower’s leering demonic face that dropped
down at him with tremendous speed, its enormous mouth aghast and
laughing, Gargaron wound his arms back and brought his hammer into
the tower again and again and again, punching stone’s out across
the toxic pool, splashes of silver liquid crashing against the
banks.

Bring me down if
you can!
a voice screeched in his
mind.

‘
Oh, I intend
to!
’ Gargaron roared.

Part of the tower caved inwards,
into the hollow where the tip of a large fleshy appendage dangled,
resembling the tongue of a god. Gargaron did not care. He smashed
and bashed.

Bring me down, bring me down,
bring me down!

He hammered and hammered and
hammered and hammered…

Until nearly the entire base had
collapsed.

Here he stopped. Panting.
Sweating. Bleeding. Confused. But his rage held. He had brought
down far more than needed to make this tower topple. Yet the tower
looked no closer to falling than it had before he’d begun assailing
it. It looked like a tree that had been almost chopped through,
standing via a mere chip of bark. He began to fear Melai had been
right. It were unnatural. It could not be destroyed. It were
enchanted.

He looked up and saw the hell face glaring at
him, its grin as big as ever he’d seen it, a wicked, joyous grin
that told Gargaron it knew things he did not.