Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (8 page)

Gargaron heard
another sound. Growing. From the westwun. An alien sound… but one
somehow familiar. A deep grumbling noise, as if Godrik’s Vale
itself were shifting, waking, as if something beneath had cracked
the continent’s crust, some terrifying monster from the dawn of
creation in the process of heaving itself through the
earyth
.

Gargaron thought
of his waking on the bank of old Buccuyashuck, he had heard the
sound of some demon or dragon spreading out across the world toward
him. A sound like rolling death, as if the very
earyth
on which he sat had been
tearing apart and caving in, tumbling away into Great Nothing’s
depthless void.

So, here it came again. That same
demon roar.

When it hit him, it gripped him
and shook him hard until he feared his bones would liquefy, shaking
his weapons from his grip. As he had experienced the first time,
his limbs shook, his organs quivered, and it pushed his head about
so violently it temporarily shook conscious thought from his
mind.

When it had swept through him, so
deeply through him that he collapsed to his knees and then to his
side, it went rolling away yonder.

4

Next morning he lay there,
grimacing. Rain swept the hills. He swatted away the Nightface claw
digging at him, scratching at his face. ‘Leave me be,’ he grumbled
at it. Though he could hear the pained squealing of a thousand
creatures.

He sat up. Looked about. Beyond
the Brawny Twister, downhill, he saw them, mysterious dark shapes
racing madly through the deluge tearing sheep and mules to bloody
pieces. In the heavy deluge he could not fully discern the shape of
these creatures. But they were hulking creatures as great as he,
and often they howled or barked, though too large were they to be
hoardogs, and they skittered about not on four legs but on two. It
were a chilling sight to behold.

Then as he watched, one of them
clambered up the sodden slopes of Eastbourne Hill toward
him.

Panic gripped him. He unsheathed
his greatsword and scrambled behind the beech trees, ducking down
behind another wet thicket of writhing brambles that squirmed up
his arms, crouching as low as his giant’s bulk would
allow.

As he hid, the dark figure
approached and stopped opposite the brambles. The torrents of rain
were too thick to permit Gargaron unhindered view of the creature’s
anatomy but its face he could see, and he thought it a ghastly
thing with four goggling white eyes too far apart and a huge
slobbering mouth filled with fangs as long as stakes. Its skin were
black as coal and seemed to reflect no light.

Gargaron waited for its attack,
gripping his greatsword in readiness. But it never came. The beast,
whatever it were, tore off, hooting and snarling.

A ploy to draw me
out
, Gargaron knew as he watched the
figure scramble away, and so he resolved to sit there beneath the
heavy shower, tense, alert, heart pounding, not daring to leave his
position.
Are these the feared Darkwing at
last?
he wondered,
come to dish out their judgement upon me? Why are they not
aflight then? Why are they screaming and racing about the
earyth
like mad rats?
Why are they not darkening the skies in plague
numbers?

He crouched there pondering all
this. Until he realised the squealing had fallen silent, and the
peculiar beasts were gone.

5

Biting rain hammered Gargaron most
of the morning. He sat nervous, watching the dead and dying sheep
and mules. He kept expecting the dark critters to return. To draw
him out. But he never moved from his spot.

He ached. It were the first thing
he’d known when his eyes had flickered open from sleep. Ached deep
down in his bones. He blamed first the travel of the last few days,
all the leg work, the walking. To Precipice and back, lugging wife
and daughter. And then trudging to his current location, hefting
heavy pack and great sword. Aye, it were not anything he weren’t
unaccustomed to (he were a hunter after all, walking and
shouldering heavy prey came with the job) but the stress of all he
had seen and lost, the sheer anguish of it all, had put an
exhaustion in him he could not fathom.

Then he recalled the shockwave
that had rolled over him during the night. How he had trembled and
quaked so violently in its grip.

Strange
shockwaves, and now these dark things
, he
thought.
What on Cloudfyre is
happening?

He were in no
rush departing. “
One who makes blind haste
runs blindly to his doom
,” his father
would say often.
Never more true than
right now
, Gargaron
knew.

Thus, although
those howling shapes had moved off, he sat there cautious,
patient.
It be a trap
, he kept reminding himself.
To draw
me into the open
.

So he remained there for hours at
the fringe of the woods using the Brawny Twisters as cover,
surveying the ongoing Steppe from safety of hill and
copse.

But half the
morning came and went and there were no renewed sign of these
strange dark things. Still, all the death he had witnessed since
leaving Hovel gave him cause for much suspicion.
Perhaps they are out there somewhere hidden.
Hidden and waiting for me to emerge.

He wished, not
for the first time, that he knew how to wield
Hor’s
old hammer. He
might feel a tad more at ease if he’ had the power of such a famed
weapon at his disposal.

‘
And yet, Drenvel’s Bane or no, I
cannot stay here day and night,’ he reminded himself.

Keeping an ear open, and eyes
peeled, he packed up his camp and with greatsword in hand, made to
finally strike out for Autumn. It would be his final leg before he
reached possible salvation. He would have the eyes of his Nightface
to aid his trek. He would remain vigilant, alert, and lash out at
anything that came at him. But as he were about to depart, a sudden
snort came from somewhere behind him.

He spun about, gripping his sword
in both fists, and ducked down behind the Brawny Twister; its
writhing arms squirming about his face, shoulders and legs. He
peered between its wormy limbs and, alarmed, saw a shape in the
rain across the opposite edge of the copse.

Ha
, he thought,
I were wise to wait. Whatever those black demons are, they
have lost their patience and come for me now!

He remained poised where he stood,
frozen in a defensive stance, legs ajar, one planted slightly
forward of the other, thick fingers curled tight about the haft of
his sword. He were alarmed that his Nightface had not alerted him
to the beast sneaking up on him. Had it not recognised the creature
as a menace? Had it not seen it?

Whatever the case, there it stood,
the monster, tall, black, unmoving. Watching him.

6

The figure remained unmoved. As if
it waited for Gargaron to make first play.

Ha, it knows
nothing of my resolve.
Indeed his father
had observed in Gargaron at an early age such resolve. When out
hunting gorse and fleim, his father had been impressed by
Gargaron’s determination, steadfastness, doggedness, tenacity. Even
as a young boy, Gargaron had possessed the ability to wait, with
the stillness of a stone, watching, stalking a gorse or a fleim, or
some other beast, for long stretches, with greater concentration to
the task than his father had known in other boys of similar
age.

They were soon locked in stalemate
it seemed, Gargaron and this demon thing. Gargaron dared not take
his eye from it. And yet, he were conscious of the fact that this
were perhaps another ploy, to distract Gargaron whilst another
beast snuck up silently from behind him. Regardless of his
Nightface’s recent failing, he put faith in it to inform him if and
when something did.

It were scantly lit beneath the
copse; the rain had turned away at last but clotted, thunderous
cloud clogged the sky and thus Gohor and Melus remained veiled.
Gargaron dared not move, crouched where he were, clasping his sword
in both fists. His eyes focused primarily on the shape that hung
there in the morning gloom; still, impulses had his sight flicking
left and right, on the lookout for any more of these hidden
creatures.

As it were, he would’ve had
trouble seeing anything crouched in amongst the remainder of the
copse but when he removed his eye from the creature it shifted
quickly. As if it had been waiting for that exact moment. And when
he looked back, it had gone.

His hearts beat loud in his ears,
his eyes darted to and fro, nervously scouring every shadow, every
beech tree.

Suddenly there it were, half the
distance closer to him.

He gasped.

But then frowned. And blinked. And
ultimately lowered his sword.

7

It were no more monster than he,
it seemed. It were but a giant’s horse. With two heads like those
used by the Autumn Guard. Yet, that were not all. A rider hung from
its saddle, caught by his leg, dangling there, his arms and fingers
dragging through sodden grass, sodden hair covering his
face.

The horse snorted. Gargaron
straightened to his full height. He looked around, still suspecting
a trap. As such he did not yet sheath his sword. He kept it gripped
in hand. Though he hoped the steed would not be spooked by it. If
this were no trap, if this animal sought friendly company, then he
did not wish it to bolt. It were, after all, the first living horse
he had met since before this blight fell. And besides, there were
someone in its saddle, someone who looked in need of help. And
someone who potentially carried information about what had become
of this part of the world. And crucially, may have knowledge of how
it might be rectified.

When the horse
made no move toward him, Gargaron felt he had no choice but to
sheathe his sword. Though he sent a clear mental message to his
Nightface:
Keep vigilant. This may be an
ambush. Watch for anything approaching.

He raised his hand to the
twin-headed horse, gesturing that he were no threat. The horse
whickered from both mouths, but did not retreat, nor turn away. All
its ears flickered, listening, listening…

Gargaron looked about, wondering
if the steed had heard something. He saw nothing. Nor did his
Nightface. He gazed back at the horse and tread slowly to it. ‘Be
calm,’ he spoke to it softly, ‘be calm, I mean you no
harm.’

As he drew closer he reached out
his fingers and gently touched the long smooth snout of the head
closest him, patting it softly, murmuring to it the way his father
had done to calm the wild stallions of Chayosa. The second head
swung in his direction, and all four eyes focused on his for a
while.

‘
I mean you no harm,’ Gargaron
told it softly. ‘Hear me now, I speak true.’

The beast did not flinch at his
touch, not even after he lifted his free hand to the other face.
Indeed the majestic creature demonstrated signs that it accepted
Gargaron, bowing its heads in almost a gesture of
affection.

Gargaron took this moment to place
his forehead first against one long sodden snout held gently in his
palms, and then the other. As he did the steed’s eyes closed
softly. Gargaron projected a mental impression of friendship, of
peace, and of good will.

When he removed his head from the
steed’s it lowered both its noses and nuzzled his neck.

Its swift affection toward him
surprised him. He had apples in his sack with which he supposed he
might use on gaining its trust, though it seemed almost unnecessary
now. Still, he removed two and offered them. As the steed sniffed
the offerings and then took them, crunching them heartily and
noisily in both its mouths, Gargaron stood there ruminating on what
he had presently “seen” within the steed’s minds. Delving into the
thoughts of animals were akin to deciphering an unlearned foreign
language. And there were much hidden there in the minds of this
majestic creature that he could not decipher. Yet what he had
interpreted with some confidence were that this steed had indeed
come from the Watchguard. A destrier, it were, a warhorse. It had
seen battle, and it would not flinch in a fight.

He had also learned its
name.

‘
Grimah
,’ Gargaron said and both
heads of the steed swung about to look at him. ‘So, that be your
name. Grimah.’ He rubbed its noses and it lowered its heads
enjoying the attention.

Still, Gargaron remained puzzled.
If this were indeed a destrier of the Watchguard, be that Autumn’s
or some other garrison, then it should have been suitably trained,
which meant it should have displayed a healthy distrust of
strangers.

Were Gargaron to believe that the
current circumstances had driven this steed to loneliness? That it
had actively sought company?