Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (9 page)

He tried not think too much about
it. Besides, the fate of its rider tugged increasingly at his
curiosity.

Slowly, he reached out and took
hold of the reigns. And found the steed Grimah willing to be lead
back toward the bed of glowing coals where last night’s flames had
roared.

8

He tethered the horse to a tree
and untangled its rider, dragging him down upon the grass at
fireside. This rider, although having mounted a giant’s horse, were
not of the giants, Gargaron now discovered. The rider were tall and
fair, with pale white skin. And it were not until Gargaron had
smoothed the hair from his face did he realise two things: the
rider were no male. It were a woman. And she were an elf, born and
grown.

Is this why my
Nightface did not react with alarm?
he
wondered.
It did not sense her as a
threat?

‘
Do you hear me?’ he asked her
closely. ‘Come now, do you hear me, pray tell?’ He put his ear to
her chest. There came back the slow tick of her heart. He took her
hand and patted it, lightly slapping her cheek. He even took his
gourd and poured water upon her face. ‘Come now, awaken
please.’

Nothing roused her. He peeled back
her eyelids, her soft green eyes blankly gazing up at him. He poked
a firm twig at them, a trick he had watched his father perform on
the Liilaal, beings who could trick you into thinking they were all
but dead. The elven woman however did not flinch, did not react one
bit.

Gargaron turned to campfire,
stoking its embers, dropping on dry kindling. When flames licked up
about the crisp wood he heated some Lyfen Essence into a
revitalising broth, something that ought chase off death and rouse
her. He lifted it to her lips. He crouched, gently held back her
head, pushed her mouth open, tipped a few drops of the tincture
upon her tongue. She did not need swallow it. The healing
properties would be absorbed though her mouth. Gargaron had seen
this brew work on many who had lost consciousness in battle, those
who had been injured whilst hunting, those stricken with sickness,
those who were suffering from the crushing effects of advancing
death.

He lay her back down. She breathed
still but nothing more. He touched her forehead. The backs of her
hands. She felt biting cold. He dragged her closer to fire’s edge,
let its warmth reach out and drape her.

Often the brew could take its
time. So he waited.

9

He inspected the
steed. Despite the death of nearly every creature he had come
across since Hovel, this animal looked in fine health. It confirmed
his suspicions. That he had come to the edge of this death zone.
That beyond here the world went on as it always had; by now folk
would surely be gossiping about the strange phenomenon that had
stricken his part of Godrik’
s
Vale.

He
leafed through the saddle bags for any note as to the elf
woman
’s identity. Except for
a handful of provisions, the bags were empty. So who were she?
How
had she come to be here riding this
war horse? Perhaps she had been part of a ranging mission. Come to
inspect the Steppe, dispatched by her leaders to search for
survivors, to build a picture as to exactly what had happened, to
ascertain what were going on in case the greater realm might be
under similar threat.

But by all appearances, whatever
had stricken all living things had stricken her too.

Yet… for some reason it had not
effected the steed…

The cloud mass began to clear,
though it did not break up entirely; whilst Gohor and Melus
remained concealed, their muted radiance managed to filter through
somewhat and illuminate some patches of the Steppe. But as time
drew on, the elf’s condition did not improve. Her breathing slowed.
Gargaron listened to her heart again. She should have come round by
now, lifted to consciousness by the brew of Lyfen Essence. Yet he
feared her heart had slowed far too much.

As a last resort he placed his
forehead upon hers. Not something he were entirely comfortable
doing. Many folk looked upon mind delving as a violation. And such
an act could sometimes hinder and retard the delver. But perhaps
this elf were now beyond offending or afflicting. Yet, if Gargaron
learned through mind delving what ailed her, and if that knowledge
in turn lead to her recovery, then she may prove
forgiving.

However, as he sent his thoughts
out into her mind, he saw nothing but blackness. A sorry sign. For
it meant her spirit were already leaving her body and did not wish
to return. He wondered if a Vannandal might help her at this point.
If so, she were out of luck. He had not thought to pack
one.

10

He watched her take her last
breath three hours after she and her mount had found him. And as
she passed on, grass sprouted up around her, flowers grew from her
chest and face, and her entire body turned to stone.

There were no obvious injury or
wound to tell Gargaron what had killed her. Naught but a simple
abrasion to the side of her head. And only blankness from her mind
when he had searched her thoughts.

Gargaron sat there and watched her
where she lay now, forever entombed. He eyed her for a long while.
He felt a sadness for her, a pity and a strange sense of emptiness.
That she had come here and would not return alive to her kind and
kin. He would notify the authorities in Autumn, of course. Her
family would want to know what became of her. He would inform them
of where she lay, he would tell them that if she had been part of a
ranging mission then it had come to grief and that perhaps more
members of her party had suffered the same fate.

Gargaron packed up his camp.
Kicked out his fire. Then stood regarding his new friend, the
horse. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘I’m for Autumn. Do you wish to
accompany me?’ As if understanding, Grimah stepped to him and
affectionately nibbled his cheek. ‘Should I take that as a
yes?’

He unhitched his bull-hide pack
from his shoulder and tied it to the side of Grimah’s saddle. The
steed did not object. Gargaron straightened the bridle and
tightened its straps. Then he placed his boot in the stirrup,
gripped the pommel and pulled himself up into saddle.

For some reason he half expected
the horse to rear up and buck him off. But Grimah remained placid,
content. Gargaron reached forward, patting him on the backs of both
necks. Then with one last look at the elf tomb he pulled the great
steed around and trotted down out of Eastbourne Hills.

1

STICKING to Far Trail, the upper
heights of Skytower, distant though it were, soon came into view.
Buoyed by the sight Gargaron rode on with haste through Toadstool
farms, where toadstools stood taller than even he. Gigantic looming
fungal plants they were with immense canopies of purple and green.
He looked up as his destrier trotted beneath them, their undersides
lined with bumpy blue ribs. Gargaron wondered if toad worms still
lived inside them, wriggling their shining blue bellies around the
moist dark beds of toadstool flesh. The folk of this region farmed
the nectar produced by those fat stinking worms. The most powerful
aphrodisiac called Elluur it were and it fetched grand prices in
the cities of Seagarrd and Ingarra.

He were half tempted to call out
as he passed by farmsteads. To see if any folk still lived, to see
who might respond. All farms hereabouts seemed far too quiet he
felt. But he stayed his mouth for fear of alerting any of those
peculiar Dark Ones, the sort of which he had spied howling about in
morning’s deluge. Ultimately, the fate of these farmers lay about
him in plain sight. Some lay stinking, gathering flies and grass
crabs on their porches. Others lay in their fields, their lips and
eyelids already pecked off and eaten.

He knew then he had not yet freed
himself entirely of this accursed death zone.

2

On Autumn’s outskirts, where the
view of Skytower stood ever prominent, Far Trail curved north and
away toward the distant frontier post of Cidertown. Here Gargaron
took the branching regional road for Autumn. Yet his hopes that he
might have finally reached the outer fringe of his death zone soon
looked dashed. For even here he should have come across signs of
commerce, of road side stalls, cheap Inns, seedy brothels. But the
living had deserted the roadway. Only the dead populated it now. As
they did, he discovered, all the way to the centre of Autumn.
Menfolk, womenfolk, children of countless numbers of species. Big
and small. Rich, poor. No distinction, no discrimination. All equal
now in death, all perished, all decaying. Some only half eaten,
some mostly eaten, some torn from their shawls and dresses and
breeches by greeps, mankks, skorks and every other known crawling,
wriggling, slithering scavenger and carrion muncher that dwelt in
sewers and drains and ditches on the outskirts of these larger
towns.

In some of the waterways he saw dead folk
floating, black gutfish busy feasting upon them.

The stench in the air barraged
him, as if invisible ghosts thrusted it upon him, determined to
turn him away, this living encroacher trespassing upon their newly
established land of dead. He fetched his lavender cloth from his
pack, dabbed it in fresh lavender oil, and tied it around his nose
and mouth. Instead of raw stench of dead now, he could smell raw
stench of dead over-laced with sweet musk of lavender. He were not
certain the compromise were worth the effort.

Still, he pressed
on, trying his best to ignore the reek.
Perhaps beyond Autumn, there lies the edge to this death
zone.
It were an optimistic forecast at
best. But a new notion came to him:
What
say Autumn be its epicentre?

This revelation made him pull
Grimah to a halt. Did this make sense? he wondered. Nothing had
survived in Hovel. And little else had survived anywhere else that
he had seen except for this end of the Steppe. If Autumn proved its
epicentre then would it not stand to reason to find everything here
perished? This were not the case as Gargaron had witnessed.
Swimming gutfish, crawling greeps, slithering mankks, scrambling
skorks, all alive and by all appearances thriving.

He had no explanation. None of it made
sense.

He cast his eyes across the
settlement to the Skysight Tower that dominated the townscape where
it loomed far into the heavens like a tall untouched pinnacle. He
felt it watched him in return somehow, watched him with quiet
suspicion, how he, the realm’s wandering survivor, standing there
oh so conspicuous, still stood, still walked, while every other
sentient soul rotted in the streets.

If this death
zone includes Autumn,
he thought,
then that tower may tell me what I need to know,
and might allow me to see how far this blackness spreads, allow me
to discover how far I need yet traverse to rid myself of this
corruption, to find some soul with an explanation as to what has
happened here.

3

Autumn did prove
deserted of the living. No matter where he tread or searched,
naught but the dead lined its streets and the stench of decay were
ripe and raw on the breeze. Yet there
were
things alive here that brought
him no cause for celebration. Enormous violet flowers growing from
the dead.

Corpse
Flowers
, his kind knew them by name. And
as he pressed on deeper into the township, their numbers grew,
parts of the settlement looking more like forests of violet, with
their towering stems soaring above many households and shops,
leaves and flowers fluttering and swaying in the
breeze.

Gargaron had not seen such numbers
of these creatures for many a year, not since the early days of his
marriage to his sweetheart Yarniya. He recalled an occasion when he
and his father had come across a bloodied battle field and there he
had lain his eyes on hundreds of them. Hundreds of Corpse Flowers
that had taken root within the dead and were hungrily consuming
them. He thought he would never have seen such a show of them again
in his life. But here there must’ve been thousands.

Undeterred, he called out in front
of the governor’s residence, and searched the hospital. He strolled
through the community hall, then the university, hoping he might
find survivors holed up against this blight. All the while he gave
the flowers a wide berth. But searching the town for survivors made
no difference. Autumn proved as dead and silent as
Hovel.

At last he stood outside the gates
of Autumn’s Watchguard, hoping that at last here would be living
folk, members of the Watchguard, surviving against the tide of
death. The Watchguard fort were a vast walled complex, for here
were the barracks and the primary centre of control of the realm’s
mighty protectors. The complex also housed the base of Skysight
Tower. Though Gargaron’s hopes were sunk for the gates were cast
open, something that would not have been had the Watchguard
remained alive and at their post.

He heeled his steed, cautiously
pushing through gate and arch, and were met with the sight of a
hundred of his own kind, giants, scattered about in various poses
of death and decay. Some sprawled across cobbles. Others dangling
from rampart and wall. Some still at desks within offices and
administration houses, bellies eaten open, innards dragged out and
unceremoniously pulled across tiled floor like stuffing from a
doll.