Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale Page 3

by A. L. Brooks

  Part of the stone fortress had fallen, leaving a spectacular path of wreckage and ruin down plateau’s side. Trees had come down. A guard tower had smashed against the iron grate that spanned the stone stair case, the only way on and off this place. But most surprisingly, at least to Gargaron, were the stardrive tower. There it still stood, westways from his vantage point, on its awkward angle, eerily defiant, like the arm of some long dead demon pushing out into the atmosphere hoping to tug the moons from their orbit.

  Hawkmoth stood before the three wraiths; they had trailed his every step and they hovered there now as if awaiting some command. He bowed his head and Melai heard him something to them, some strange incantation. Within moments, as Rayen dragon’s spirit at Varstahk had done, the wraiths lifted away into the sky. Up and up she watched them, away and away into the heavens until they were gone.

  Once they were out of sight, Hawkmoth mounted Razor and pulled him round, heading for the stairway. ‘Come,’ he called to the others. ‘Let us leave this place.’

  BLUD OF WRENBUGGUS

  1

  THAT night the sky hung in a strange twilight. Melus and Gohor did not set; not entirely. And no moon rose but Vasher; though pale it were and low in the sky it hung, as if timid to rise further. Old Soor and the Cat’s Eyes never appeared. Hawkmoth, Gargaron, Melai, nor Locke, none of them had ever known such a phenomenon and it chilled them. Though you would not have known it with Locke. He seemed more fascinated than unsettled. ‘I have lived long and seen much,’ he said in the awestruck tone of someone watching perhaps the birth of a child, ‘but this is a first, I must say.’ He turned and looked at the others. ‘I feel privileged to witness this. It may never come again that at these latitudes night be as light as dawn.’

  ‘Our world lists like a dying fish,’ Melai answered him. ‘Why would you feel privileged?’

  ‘There be beauty in all things,’ Locke said. ‘Sometimes the things that terrify us most are themselves the most stunning to things to behold.’

  ‘Our world is being murdered. I see no beauty in that.’

  ‘So, we differ. Even in this, there is beauty.’ Locke slept soundly that night. Helmet off. Belly up, snoring against the hide of his sleeping serpent. But he were alone in slumber. For the others slept fitfully, if at all, consumed by what this strange night could mean.

  ‘I offer but one explanation,’ Hawkmoth declared late into the wee hours. Above, the moons of Vasher and Leenurs could barely be seen. And only the brightest of stars made themselves known. ‘And not a very informed explanation, I’m afraid.’

  Gargaron and Melai, seated on opposite sides of crackling camp fire, waited for him to speak. They had made camp on the edge of a ridge. Around them were spread a sparse upland scrub. On horizon were snowcapped peaks, which gave them some hope, for there at last were the Bonewreckers, and the troupe had taken some heart that they were now in sight. Yet, like all nights since the coming of the Ruin (as Hawkmoth had termed it), there were no chirruping bugs, no night hour ornithens nor soaring batlings, no nocturnal critters scampering around unseen in underbrush. Naught but their stinking bones and carcasses lying in dirt or snared amidst branch and leaf and knotted in weeds.

  Down ridge were a wooded valley, steam rising, forming a layer of mist across the canopy. Earlier in the evening, Melai had longed stared at it. To her it were Thoonsk, within reach, within grasp. Her sisters could have been down there awaiting her. To Gargaron it were Summer Woods, and he imagined he could hear his dear Veleyal calling for him to come and play.

  ‘These boom-weapons have shaken Cloudfyre’s orbit,’ Hawkmoth finally declared. ‘Have you noticed our suns? These days Gohor be almost the size of Melus. Our world has been knocked off kilter. There be no other explanation.’ He sucked on his pipe, smoke lifting away into cool “night” air. ‘Thus it makes our mission all the more urgent. The sooner we pull up this witch assault on our world, the sooner we can begin to put things to rights.’

  2

  Melai lay down beneath nearby trees, closing her eyes, her limbs sprouting roots that joined with stem and branch, hoping for some sort of bond with this scrubland. To hear its whispers, as she would have in her home trees back in Willowgarde. Hawkmoth sat by ridge’s edge, facing west where mists rose up from woodland below like arms of ghosts. His eyes were shut, his pipe out and placed by his staff and the remainder of his belongings near where Razor lay in slumber beside the two-headed Grimah.

  Gargaron were not tired. He could not sleep while Melus and Gohor lingered there at horizon’s lip. The sky were streaked in red and yellow. As though it were sunrise… or sunset. He pondered an alien notion that perhaps Melus and Gohor would never rise, nor set again. That Cloudfyre’s orbit were now so corrupted that it would forever remain this way.

  He looked across at Locke. There he slept soundly, a grin upon his face. A strange fellow to read, Gargaron thought. He tried to put himself in the crabman’s shoes for a moment. What would he say about the suns failing to rise or set forever more? Something stupidly optimistic, Gargaron decided. Perhaps something such as: At least we be not caught in eternal dark, nor stuck sweltering in eternal midday heat.

  Which, Gargaron conceded, would have been a fair point.

  Despite everything, it put a smile on Gargaron’s face. If he were not mistaken he were beginning to like that funny little fellow. And he could not place why.

  He cast his gaze once more at the distant Bonewrecker range. There they lingered, distant and indistinct, ghostly peaks so tall they appeared to scrape the Great Nothing’s dark belly. Hawkmoth had spoken of the urgency to see this mission through. Which meant first reaching this fortress, Sanctuary, high in those mountains. But how far to go and how long were it to take? Good sorcerer Hawkmoth suggested it might be yet another seven days on foot from this current position.

  Gargaron spread out his worn vellum map, one his father had left to him. It had been passed down, father to son, for generations, and often added to by its successive owners. It were a map showing off vast regions of Cloudfyre, detailing rich hunting grounds and migration patterns and pinpointing locations of newly discovered species. It were crisscrossed in detailed trade routes, highways, backwater trails, byways. It showed locations of cities, towns, villages, settlements. It showed canals and railcourses. It showed ironways and bridges and aqueducts. Gargaron were intrigued to find that the fort beneath which he and his new friends had sheltered away from the boom-shock were depicted, and even named. Though not quite as Hawkmoth had called it. King’s Lair, it were written here. And there were naught to denote its stardrive tower. Perhaps I shall add it to map when all this business be over, he thought.

  It were here also, with eyes scanning for possible hidden secrets of this region, that Gargaron discovered something else. Something intriguing. Something that may just hasten their push into the mountains.

  3

  Melus and Gohor began their rise sometime near where Gargaron adjudged natural dawn would have played out. By then Locke were still in blissful slumber. As were Zebra, lying there like a faithful hound, head tilted to one side, tongue lolled out. And Melai looked for all the world as if she had finally nodded off. Grimah and Razor were away nibbling grass. Hawkmoth though, still sat in his meditative state, unmoved now for hours.

  Gargaron, in this silent dawn, got about quietly, collecting an armful of sticks and twigs and placing them upon the embers of their fire. It smoked profusely for a while before, whump, flames billowed and engulfed the pile. He sat back, staring into the hypnotic flames…

  As fatigue tugged at him, he noticed Hawkmoth were roused from his meditation, gazing peacefully over the woodland below, and smoothing an oil cloth over his long two-faced staff.

  Gargaron let him have some moments to himself before eventually he strolled over and sat beside him. For a while they both contemplated the world beyond. And Hawkmoth went on with his polishing.

  ‘An intriguing weapon,’ Gargaron remarked after a whi
le.

  Hawkmoth looked across at him, with the air of someone still waking. He past the staff toward Gargaron who took it tentatively, holding the faces at arm’s length.

  ‘Rashel be the angel,’ Hawkmoth told him. ‘Lancsh, the demon.’

  The mouths of both were currently closed. And their eyes as dark as the blackwood they were carved from.

  ‘An angel and a demon coexisting,’ Gargaron said. ‘Even if they be mere depictions… well, don’t you sorcerers believe this a hex. Bad luck.’

  Hawkmoth tilted his head in thought. ‘Aye. Unless you be me.’ He smiled. ‘I have adopted such an item as a charm. Especially since this one came into my possession a gift. Thus, the angel Rashel and the demon Lancsh be a harmonious pairing if ever there were one.’

  ‘A gift?’

  ‘Aye, from my dear wife. Eve relieved it from a sorcerer who tried to have her killed. Some Brother whose name I have long forgotten. What he were doing with such an item remains a mystery. But, in his case, the hex proved his doom.’ Hawkmoth wore something of a smile of irony. ‘Eve had him dispatched well and truly.’ As he sat there he packed his pipe.

  Still gripping Hawkmoth’s staff, Gargaron watched the sorcerer work. ‘Speaking of Eve, I have not yet said, she were a most caring and hospitable soul. She made us feel very welcome when we arrived at your little house on the hill.’

  Hawkmoth simply nodded, and a look of yearning filled his eyes. ‘Aye, she be a most amazing woman. I miss her much.’

  Gargaron gazed across at him thoughtfully. ‘You love her deeply.’

  Hawkmoth lit his pipe and took a long toke. ‘Aye,’ he said giving a look to the giant that seemed to say Why would I not? Exhaled smoke lingered about his face.

  ‘As I did my wife,’ Gargaron said. ‘But she were a giant such as I. And not my sworn enemy. As a sorcerer be to a witch. How, pray tell, would such a union ever come about? If you do not mind me asking, of course.’

  For a time Hawkmoth simply smoked, lost in yesteryear, reliving memories from days long gone, a look of deep nostalgia watering his eyes. ‘I were sent out on a mission to eliminate a party of witches who had been ambushing sorcerers of the Order. Being a young sorcerer at the time I had secretly made up my mind that I wanted to get to know a witch. Especially since my idea to mend our bridges with the witches were ridiculed by my Brothers.’ He sucked back smoke, held it in his lungs then blew it out. ‘A strange thing to be told all my sorcerer’s life that witches were my sworn enemy, that I were to kill them on sight, when I had never met one. I felt a need to understand them. To discover for myself why they were so reviled, why we hated them so.

  ‘When we found them there were a brief battle. But we outnumbered them and those who were not slain were dragged back to Sanctuary and tortured for their secrets. Yet, I held a secret of my own. Eve. Or Renascentia, as she were known then. She had been amongst those we had ambushed, and she were a striking beauty. She had caught my eye instantly. This were perplexing to me as I had always been told that witches were brutish, ugly creatures, riddled with sores and holding a foul stench. But she belied all that. At first I thought it were an enchantment of beauty. But she, as I were then, were young and she certainly had no need for such enchantments, for naturally beautiful she were.

  ‘The day of our ambush, she feigned death in order to escape our wrath. But I detected it. I did not tell my fellows. I bespelled Eve with an enchantment of paralysis and hid her from wolven predators. As my fellow brothers marched our captives back to Sanctuary I posted myself as sentry to our captured outpost. Here I returned to Eve and fetched her to a place in the hills. There I removed the spell. In effect I held her captive but as we got to know each other I learned that she were a likeminded soul, as curious about my kind as I were about hers. After initially distrusting each other we ended up forming a strong bond. Thus our friendship began.

  ‘So, I attempted to hide my relationship with her from my superiors and managed to do so for a number of years. But eventually I were found out. I were spending more and more time away from Sanctuary you see, and my superiors grew suspicious and had me followed. When it were discovered that I had been running away to Eve I were incarcerated and eventually put on trial. I were then brought before a court, tried for treason and banished from the Order.’

  4

  Hawkmoth sat pondering those days. Lost deep in his thoughts. It were a touching story of love, Gargaron thought, a tad more dramatic than how he himself had met his own wife whom he had known and been friends since his boyhood. He had been keen on asking Hawkmoth about Eve’s death and subsequent rebirth though did not know how to bring it up. Yet as he sat there he were surprised to hear Hawkmoth suddenly recount it.

  ‘It were they who had her killed,’ Hawkmoth said sadly. ‘Once banished I made my mind up never to have anything to do with them. Thus I did not trouble my old Order. Yet they found it unconscionable that I should choose to live and love a ‘dirt hag’ as they called them. There were those who could not get passed this. Thus they organised ghost wolves to see to her, for it seemed they did not have the guts to face me.

  ‘Caught unawares, she proved no match for such creatures. She were ambushed and hopelessly outnumbered. I were alerted by the sparrows and finches with which she had communion, who flew to my abode and imparted what they had witnessed. I rode out on Razor and found the ghost wolves about to feast upon her. In my fury I dispatched each of them and hurried back to cottage with the remains of my beloved bundled up in a bloodied blanket.

  ‘I spread her out in my alchemy parlour, all her varied pieces. I had no idea what to do, only I knew I could not let her go. Being away from Sanctuary had given me the freedom to study far more varied branches of magic than I would have been permitted had I stayed there. Necromancy, magic of Darkness, magic of Earyth, magic of Xuub, Meschener’s Laws. But it were temporal magic I turned to. Though a cursed branch of magic it remains. For to use it repeatedly means to slowly render yourself lifeless. Until the day of Eve’s death, I had merely dabbled in it. But that day I did not care for the ramifications. I dragged Eve from a time pocket just before she had left our cottage.

  ‘There were one problem. I had not perfected the art of temporal lore. Thus what I dragged through, though living, were mere splintered pieces of her. I’d had some experience of reanimating dead newts and lizards, connecting parts together. With Eve though it were far more difficult. While I had pulled most of her through the temporal pocket, her innards remained lost. So… I built her again as best as I could. I kept her alive in stasis and built a clockwork arrangement to fit inside her ruined torso to keep her functional.’

  Hawkmoth sat back and smoked his pipe. He stared longingly out across the woodland, the suns rising further now. (Gargaron still expected tweeting birds to greet the morning but there were naught but that unnatural silence.)

  ‘It took us both time to get used to what I had done. And I questioned myself much that first year. I had saved my Eve yes, but what abomination had I given myself?’

  ‘Abomination?’ Gargaron asked him. ‘Ghouls be abominations. Undead be abominations. The Eve I met be none of those.’

  Hawkmoth smiled, and nodded, happy in the giant’s generous appraisal. ‘Aye, you are right. Her mind were not interrupted nor corrupted. Though physically she be more mechanical than flesh. There be no heartbeat in her chest.’ He shook his head. ‘Does that make her living or dead? I do not know. But she be my Eve and I love her as much as ever I did.’

  5

  They sat in silence. Hawkmoth lost in his thoughts, Gargaron lost to his own. Gargaron wondered now if his curiosity had been sated. Had his questions on reanimation been answered? Could his girls have been saved by this sorcerer? If they had been returned to him as part-mechanical beings, without a heartbeat, then, as difficult as it were to admit it, he supposed he preferred their current fate.

  ‘Did you see to your old Brothers for what they did? Seek retribution?’

&nbs
p; Hawkmoth smiled and shook his head. ‘Such destructive cycles must be curtailed, giant, before they end in a tail spin one can naught pull oneself from. Though so often pride and ego blind one to the idea of such a notion.’ He smiled. ‘Besides, I believe my bringing Eve back to life in the manner I did would have enraged them sufficiently. That be satisfying enough in itself.’

  Gargaron nodded but he were again pondering his girls. He gazed at length at the sorcerer. ‘Hawkmoth,’ he said at last, ‘had you been there on the day my dear girls died… could… could you have brought them back?’

  Hawkmoth eyed Gargaron briefly from the corner of his eyes. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘At personal cost to myself, but I may have had them back, yes.’

  Gargaron swallowed hearing this, and hung his head.

  ‘Though it may have been for naught,’ Hawkmoth went on. ‘For I am certain they would have ultimately succumbed to this blight regardless of my intervention.’

  Gargaron nodded. His heart filled with a heavy sadness.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘For your loss. Truly.’

  6

  Gargaron stared into the dirt, lost again to his thoughts. For a time he were back in Summer Wood kneeling over the bodies of his wife and daughter. Picturing their lifeless, unmoving faces. Forever that picture would remain in his mind he knew. He swallowed, collecting himself before any tears spilt from his eyes.

  Eventually he realised he still held Hawkmoth’s staff. He handed it back. ‘A fine weapon,’ he commented.

  ‘Aye, it be,’ Hawkmoth said, taking it from the giant, ‘and has served me well. As I suspect your great sword has served you.’ He dipped his staff toward the giant’s sword.

  Gargaron nodded. ‘In defense of myself and my friends, aye. Though I am no soldier and cannot say I have blooded it in war.’

  ‘No soldier?’ Hawkmoth asked, sounding surprised. Here he indicated Gargaron’s pack. ‘That there be Drenvel’s Bane. Hor the Cutter’s little baby. I recognised it on yesterday’s ride. Who would carry such an item if not a soldier?’

  Gargaron studied the hilt of the legendary hammer poking from the top of his pack. ‘A simple hunter who borrowed it from his village temple, be who.’ He had contemplated throwing it out into the woods during the night. For a burden to him it seemed now and nothing more. ‘But I am of a mind to leave it behind for all the use it has been.’

  At this Hawkmoth frowned. ‘Oh? And why would you entertain such a notion?’

  ‘I cannot wield it. Simple as that.’ He shrugged as though that were the end of it. ‘Your Eve suggested Skinkk’s blood may wake it, though I have about given up finding any.’

  Hawkmoth now understood. ‘Ah, which is why you made a request for such a substance when I found you.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Hawkmoth ruminated on this before rummaging through his pack, eventually producing a stone bottle. ‘Well then, here may be your answer.’

  ‘What be that?’

  ‘Skinkk’s blood, I believe.’

  It were Gargaron’s turn to frown. ‘Good sorcerer, you told me you were not in the business of exploiting your animal friends.’

  Hawkmoth smiled. ‘I am not. But I happened to chance upon this vial on my travels. Skinkk’s blood be a rare and valuable commodity, I could not simply leave it behind now could I.’

  Gargaron sat where he were, Melai and Locke slowly stirring. ‘Would you permit me use some then?’

  ‘Why not? You have Drenvel’s Bane. Such a weapon may grant us the upper hand should we come face to face with either my Brethren or the witches. T’would be folly not to try and utilise its power, I would think.’

  Gargaron fetched the bottle from the sorcerer, turning it over in his hand. It were blown from a black glass, and both ends were tapered and rounded, resembling teats or nipples. There were no evidence of a lid, nor stopper, nothing to simply pop open to access the liquid within. It were completely sealed. Gargaron imagined he would have to smash it upon a rock to get at the blood. An etched inscription on its flank read:

  BLUD OFFEN THEMS DRUGENS

  – Soossed byus himself Wrenbuggus The Great.

  ‘Blood of dragons,’ Hawkmoth translated.

  ‘How certain are you that it be genuine?’

  ‘Why, it state there it were sourced by Wrenbug the Great himself. Preeminent Skinkk specialist, and it be contained in one of Wrenbug’s signature vessels. And protected by one of Wrenbug’s signature enchantments. If you wish, I could have the enchantment lifted and the vessel opened.’

  Gargaron eyed the sorcerer. ‘Aye, lift it please, if you will.’

  ‘Right then. Let us put your legendary weapon through its paces, shall we.’

  7

  Hawkmoth took back Wrenbug’s dark glass vessel and placed it upon the ground. Here he knelt, his hands spread out above the bottle. He whispered something, his eyes shut. His hands began to shake, and soon shook so furiously that they appeared nothing more than a wild blur while Hawkmoth himself remained so still and becalmed. The strange bottle appeared at first to be melting at both ends while its base flattened slowly against the lay of the earyth, as of a puddle of water will pool within troughs or scoops, so that at either end the bottle had “melted” outwards and fashioned shallow scoops into which droplets of blood now splashed as it seeped slowly from each tapered nipple.

  Hawkmoth’s hands steadied at last and eventually he sat back. ‘There,’ he said as if he had just arisen from some deep and refreshing night dream. ‘Your Skinkk blood as you require it.’

  Gargaron took Drenvel’s Bane from his pack and stepped up to Wrenbug’s vessel. He lowered himself to one knee. There were an odour wafting from it like acid. Gargaron were reticent to touch it. ‘What… what should I do?’

  ‘You do not know the legend?’ Hawkmoth asked.

  ‘No. Only that Hor alone could command this hammer. Though your Eve suggested I would have to mix my own blood with that of a Skinkk before I might bring it under my service.’

  ‘Aye, her Mothers of Long Ago helped forge this weapon. So she ought know. Though in my own studies of legendary items I have read that you must cut your fighting hand, drip Skinkk blood upon the wound and then grip the hammer’s hilt. Hopefully we may see this mighty warhammer herald this new morning.’

  Gargaron did not delay. He placed the hammer hilt upon the ground and took his greatsword from its scabbard. Then with a single deft chopping motion, opened up a shallow gash in his palm. With blood pooling in the bowl of his hand, he put away his sword and lifted Wrenbug’s bottle, tipping Skinkk blood onto his wound.

  He grimaced as the alien blood reacted with his own. It bubbled and burned, issuing a dark vapour. He ignored the stench, the discomfort, and holding his palm upright he fetched with his spare hand Drenvel’s Bane from the ground beside him and placed it upon the waiting pool of blood. His fingers closed around the width of the hilt, gripping it with fervour, both Skinkk blood and that of his own squeezing between his fingers and running down the hilt’s length in worming, circular streams.

  Hawkmoth had climbed to his feet, and had backed up slightly.

  ‘What goes on here, pray tell?’ came Locke’s voice, who had awoken and stood there yawning, stretching his arms. Melai sat there in silence, sleep in her eyes, watching on tiredly.

  Hawkmoth, one hand gripping his staff, said, ‘Well, we are attempting to awaken a relic. One that has been in slumber for a good number of generations. And, ah, best you stand back. This could get wild.’

  Grimah were standing, watching keenly, pensively. Razor looked on with his searching green eyes. And Zebra were still asleep, belly up and tongue still dangling forth like a sleeping dog.

  Gargaron got to his feet and gazed at both his hand and hammer. Then up at the sorcerer as if Hawkmoth might know what were now meant to happen. For, so far, there were nothing. Not even a tingle in his fingers.

  Everyone stood silent, waiting for something to kick off. But ultimately nothi
ng transpired except for the smell of the Skinkk blood cooking Gargaron’s skin.

  Hawkmoth strode forward, his staff held before him as if he were marching into battle. ‘Attack me!’ he commanded Gargaron. ‘Strike me with all your strength!’

  Gargaron frowned. ‘I might knock you into your next life should I do that.’

  ‘Fear not, giant. Rashel and Lancsh will take full brunt.’

  ‘I do not see the point.’

  ‘Drenvel’s Bane might be tempted from sleep if it could savour full scale battle.’ Hawkmoth gripped his staff with two hands, bracing his feet in the dirt. ‘Now strike me!’

  Gargaron were reluctant. ‘I hardly think striking an old sorcerer constitutes full scale battle.’

  Hawkmoth laughed. ‘Try me then, puny giant!’

  Gargaron sighed. He wound back his hammer hilt and lunged at the sorcerer.

  Hawkmoth showed all the surprise of someone not expecting a giant to move at such blinding speed. A sunflare later, he were catapulted away into a mess of shrubs.

  Gargaron’s first thought were, ‘Oh Thronir! I’ve killed him.’ And he dashed after him.

  Hawkmoth lay there tangled, dazed, peering up at him. ‘Why, appears you have a good arm, giant.’ His voice sounded somewhat croaky. ‘How be the hammer?’

  Gargaron shook his head and held it up for Hawkmoth to see. ‘No change.’

  Hawkmoth were not put off. ‘Again then,’ he said, getting his breath back and allowing Gargaron to haul him free of the shrubs. ‘This time I shall be ready. And this time don’t hold back.’

  8

  As morning lightened, all sat around eating of their own particular breakfasts, Gargaron still wiping blood from his palm. Each of them silent, Gargaron and Hawkmoth especially so; the hammer had failed to rouse.

  ‘Perhaps Skinkk blood be not the secret,’ Melai suggested.

  ‘Aye, would seem so,’ Gargaron said disappointed. He looked across at Hawkmoth. ‘Any thoughts, sorcerer?’

  ‘Sadly no. But I am reluctant to rule out Skinkk blood altogether. There is certain to be some element we are missing.’

  Locke chewed down his dried sea moss, and cracked open his sea clams. (As far he claimed, his clams could stay shut and fresh for an age, though by their stink, Gargaron were of a mind to question the crabman’s claims.) ‘This war hammer may not have awakened,’ Locke said, grinning as he slurped back clam meat, ‘but I must say, I quite enjoyed watching your attempts at rousing it. You sent our good sorcerer flying.’

  After breakfast, with Drenvel’s Bane put away (there were more pressing things to worry about than a stubborn old hammer), Gargaron spread his map out upon the grass and dirt and showed the others what he had found during the night. He sat back when he were done to allow them time to digest it.

  ‘It certainly be an intriguing idea,’ Locke commented keenly.

  ‘If anything sees us through this mission in greater haste,’ Melai said, ‘then I am all for it.’

  ‘What say you, sorcerer?’ Gargaron asked.

  Hawkmoth nodded, sipping some tea he had brewed for all. ‘T’would cut our journey to Sanctuary by half. Though, there be something you ought to know about this place you’ve located.’

  Gargaron frowned. ‘Do tell.’

  Hawkmoth again sipped his tea. When he had swallowed he spoke. ‘As you all now know, days leading up to my departure from home, I sent off my zeppelins in the hope that I would make contact with folk like you lot, survivors of this Ruin. The idea then, once I had hopefully recruited you to my cause, were to have us all fly on to Sanctuary. My hope would be that by the time we gathered at our destination we would prove such a formidable force that my old Order would have no choice but relinquish Mama Vekh to us.

  ‘However, my problem were that I did not have enough zeppelin’s to fetch you all to me, so I began to search for faster ground routes, alternative paths, shortcuts, that might have you all reach Sanctuary in greater haste. Other than consulting my maps, the swiftest way to uncover such information were to begin dispatching reconnaissance drones. One of these I sent to Appleford town, to this terminus of which you speak, Gargaron. I must say, the news it returned to me were none too encouraging.’

  ‘What were its report?’ Gargaron asked intrigued.

  ‘The terminus lies intact. The garetrains undestroyed. But the place is overrun by something.’

  ‘What sort of something?’ Locke asked, a gleam in his eye, as if he were in some mood for a stoush.

  Hawkmoth sipped his tea, steam drifting about his face. ‘My drone could not describe it. Only that there be some presence there.’

  ‘Dark Ones?’ Gargaron asked.

  Hawkmoth shrugged. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘So, tell me your concerns,’ Gargaron said. ‘Be this spot too dangerous for us?’

  ‘Where ever we traipse be dangerous these days.’

  Locke eyed the sorcerer closely. ‘You claim the garetrains lie undestroyed.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And if we get them running, our journey to the Bonewreckers will be cut in half.’

  ‘Again, aye. Though if we get there and find some foul beast in our path then we will have wasted two days travel. One day getting there, and a day rerouting to our original path.’

  Locke considered his. ‘A fair gamble then.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Gargaron, folding away his map. ‘And if there be something in this terminus waiting for us, then we shall simply have to make a meal of it before it does us.’

  ‘I second that,’ Locke said smiling wide.

  ‘Me too,’ Melai said.

  Hawkmoth drained the rest of his tea. ‘Right then,’ he said with a sigh, looking about at his companions. ‘If we are all agreed, to Appleford we ride.’

  THE MENACE AT APPLEFORD

  1

  IT were a long day in saddle and much ground did they cover. Close to five hundred leagues by Hawkmoth’s calculations. Gargaron slept through much of it, dozing in his saddle. He had not planned on it, but had found his head nodding not long after they had left their overnight camp. And not far on, he had succumbed entirely to the tug of exhaustion. He were awoken at midday by Melai to allow him to quench any thirst and see to any hunger but he sipped little and nibbled less and were off to sleep again.

  ‘He slept not a wink last night,’ Hawkmoth reported, ‘and he is likely still healing internally from his burns.’

  So they left him in slumber, slumped forward against Grimah’s broad shoulders, snoring into the horses necks, drooling. Melai sat at first upon the steed’s rump but the constant side-to-side movement irked her. So she climbed up onto Gargaron himself and settled herself there upon his back.

  Late afternoon they crested a hill (marked on Gargaron’s map as Devil’s Knee) that were strewn with a hundred mountainous boulders, and Hawkmoth called for his company to a halt.

  2

  Roused by the sudden cessation of movement, Gargaron opened his eyes. Naturally, he attempted to tap into his Nightface, to pick up on what it had recently observed. But there were darkness there.

  He remembered that his Nightface were gone for good.

  Yawning, he pushed himself up into his saddle, displacing Melai who were seated upon his shoulders. She leapt from her perch and flapped into the air. ‘Oh, the sleeping mountain awakes!’ she said and the others turned their attention on him.

  Gargaron looked around, a little bleary eyed, a little disoriented. ‘Where be we?’

  It were a sunny afternoon, although, westways, monstrous storm clouds hurried eastways’n’north across darkening skies, threatening to blot out Melus and Gohor. Devil’s Knee hill and its immediate surrounds were silent. Just wind dragging its chilled fingers through the long grasses and enormous boulders. As had become the norm, no sound of bugs, nor ornithens.

  ‘That there be Appleford Terminus,’ Hawkmoth told him, indicating the station building beyond the base of the hill. ‘Built during the golden age of railcourse
travel.’

  It were indeed a majestic old thing. High arches ran along its sides in place of walls. And a replica garetrain were suspended on a steel frame above the entrance hall. Vacant ticket booths could be seen running away into the darkened interior where the northwun and southwun railcourses converged. Modern lamp posts trailed the street outside.

  Away from station, in the northwun railyards, one of the monstrous garetrains were parked. A number of its carriages had been knocked off track. By the looks of it, they had been assaulted by some of the boulders that had dislodged (perhaps during a boom shake) and tumbled downhill. Parts of the terminal itself had sustained similar damage; there were evidence of sections of the building having been crushed, areas where the old roof had caved in.

  The station lay on the outskirts of Appleford Town where, beyond the terminus, Gargaron could see townhouses and shops situated around a vast circular track. He had heard that folk in this region were fond of racing mountain hounds. And most towns hereabouts bragged hound tracks.

  No-one spoke for a while. Perhaps all were hoping to catch sounds of some slumbering beast, or the hiss of Dark Ones, or a snickering of witches waiting in ambush. Yet the Terminal, like the town, looked deserted, and but for the breeze moaning through its arches, the building were as quiet as ghosts. There were no movement down there, other than dust on the wind. And like Appleford Town, it were sullied with carcasses of the dead. Folk who had succumbed to the initial shockwaves, or perhaps been torn to bits by packs of Dark Ones, lay decomposing where they had fallen.

  Grimah’s ears were pulled back, he hefted side to side, uneasy. Gargaron gently pressed his palms against the sides of his mount’s two heads, hoping to glean from the horse what troubled it. It seemed Grimah had sensed naught but a foul odour on the air, though there were something alien and odd about it.

  ‘Hawkmoth, where be this beastie then you spoke of?’ Locke asked.

  Both Hawkmoth and Gargaron deployed their spyglasses. Gargaron focused his on windows, arched doorways, hoping to spy creatures hidden beyond in the gloom. Areas where the terminal roof had collapsed gave light to interiors where ordinarily there would have been none without the aid of lanterns or glowstones. He saw and detected no creature nor witch.

  Hawkmoth scanned the length of the building. Unlike Gargaron’s spyglass, Hawkmoth’s had the ability to switch between light spectrums and pick up on arcane planes. Yet, he, like Gargaron failed to detect anything out of the ordinary. It unnerved him more than it brought him relief. Something were amiss here. And he could not say what.

  ‘What do you see?’ Melai asked them both.

  ‘I see naught,’ the giant answered her.

  ‘As do I,’ came Hawkmoth’s rely.

  Locke sighed, as if disappointed. ‘Oh, so whatever menace may have been here has since fled. Or perished. Saving us the job. Pity.’

  ‘Let us not be too hasty,’ Hawkmoth warned. ‘I may have detected naught with my spyglass but my senses tell me something lurks down there still.’

  ‘Something does lurk there,’ they were surprised to hear Melai say. ‘I hear its whispers, I can.’

  All eyes went to her. ‘Whispers?’ Hawkmoth asked her.

  ‘Aye,’ she said, her brow furrowed as if finger nails picked at the insides of her skull. ‘Though… it be a language I do not know.’

  Locke frowned. ‘Intriguing. You can converse telepathically?’

  ‘No, I cannot. With none but my home trees, that is. I simply hear it on the breeze.’ Her troubled eyes scanned the terminal thoughtfully, as if she were listening in on some private conversation the others could not hear. ‘This thing knows we’re here,’ she reported. ‘It watches us as we speak.’

  That sent a cold creeping sensation up Gargaron’s spine. And they all gazed down hill as if the entire station now were suddenly alive and sentient and waiting.

  ‘Can you ascertain what this creature be?’ Hawkmoth asked her. ‘Is there more than one?’

  ‘Sorry, no. I have spent too many years sheltered amongst Mother Thoonsk to understand what I am hearing, let alone offer a guess as to what I think it might be. As for numbers… it’s difficult to tell… But aye, there be more than a single entity down there.’

  ‘Dark Ones?’ Gargaron asked her.

  ‘I am not certain.’

  ‘Witches?’ said Locke.

  ‘I cannot tell.’

  3

  Storm clouds pushed onwards, heaving out a chilled fore wind that curled mischievously about Hawkmoth and his cohorts, that whispered and moaned through the station, plucking at vegetation, making grass and weeds dance wildly. Distant thunder grumbled.

  Hawkmoth hefted his sidesack around and rummaged through it. He pulled out a small stone canister. He pulled off its lid and out zipped a handful of small black flies that buzzed about his face. Squinting one eye against their attention, he groaned some command and off they flew, vanishing from sight downhill.

  ‘What be they?’ Melai asked intrigued.

  ‘Little spies of my own devising,’ Hawkmoth said somewhat guardedly as he watched them fly from him. ‘With some help from my wife, I might add.’ He fell silent, his gaze on the terminus. After a while he said, ‘They pass for flies. But who would suspect such critters as being capable of gathering intelligence?’

  A minute or two later they returned, one here, another there. They lit upon Hawkmoth’s cheeks and crawled up into his eyes. Locke, positioned closest the sorcerer, saw them jab tiny proboscises into his retina. The sorcerer barely flinched. It were here that Hawkmoth saw what his miniscule spies had seen: strange creatures hibernating in darkened corners of the terminus.

  When they were done, the flies each withdrew their proboscis and flew readily back into their stone vessel where Hawkmoth had placed a small portion of cured meat as reward.

  ‘Undead,’ they heard Hawkmoth murmur as he put the vessel away.

  ‘Undead?’ Gargaron enquired.

  ‘Aye. And they sleep.’

  Melai remained wary, for the creature she could hear whispering were not asleep. And not undead but something else.

  Gargaron eyed the garetrain waiting out in the railyards. ‘Right, if they sleep then we can be off with that train before they know it.’

  ‘Should we not wake them first?’ Locke asked grinning. ‘I would very much like these undead to meet my moonblade.’

  Hawkmoth glanced across at him. ‘I’d be careful what I wished for, Locke, if I were you.’

  4

  They descended Devil’s Knee spaced apart, Gargaron and Melai astride Grimah, Hawkmoth on Razor (the steed’s green eyes aglow), and Locke upon Zebra. They gave the terminal (and its hidden menace) a wide berth, veering directly for the garetrain.

  Near the base of Devil’s Knee however, Zebra hesitated, as if sensing some imminent threat.

  Hawkmoth put up a hand, ordering his companions to halt. The company came to a standstill. All eyes fixed firstly on Locke’s serpent and then on the terminal.

  From here they could see the railcourse winding its way beneath the vast protruding roof of the building, away to vacant platforms where the dead littered seats and walkways and footbridges. Here they spied a second garetrain. In station. Unseen from top of hill. It lay closer to Gargaron and his friends than the one in the railyards, though would have proved more troublesome to extricate due to the mass of roof dropped upon it and the rubble strewn about.

  A soft rain began to fall. ‘Locke,’ Hawkmoth said, ‘What worries your Zebra?’

  Locke grinned and shrugged. ‘I could not tell you. But she senses something.’

  5

  They left the terminal at their backs and, with the hill to the right and train cars to their left, they followed the rail line out into the train yards, weaving around huge boulders. As they neared the garetrain it were confirmed that three carriages remained untroubled by the boulders. And enormous carriages they were too, designed to cater for all the varied sized folk the r
ealm had to offer. Even giants. Though it were quickly apparent that they were tangled up in some sort of hefty vine.

  ‘A curious finding,’ Hawkmoth declared.

  ‘What be it?’ Melai asked.

  ‘I am uncertain,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘Some plant by the looks of it.’

  Melai thought otherwise. Though she could not say why. She felt her senses clouded by whatever were hiding within the terminal. ‘Alive or dead?’

  ‘I cannot say. Either way, we need deal with it for, see there, it tethers our train to ground.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Locke said, stretching his arms out, readying himself for some heavy lifting.

  ‘Very well then crabman, you and Gargaron see to this entanglement, if you don’t mind. And Melai, fly high and be at guard. Keep an eye on the terminal. The moment you see something emerge, you call out. I shall check the locomotive for its arcane drive keys. And if needs be then I shall set about finding them. I need not stress that we must work swiftly here.’ He made to move off when he stopped. ‘Oh, by the way, mind you each stay clear of the rail beam. Especially you Melai if you be in flight. It shall come into being as soon as I manage to activate the engine. Stray nowhere near it. Any of you. It will cut you in two as easily as molten iron through cheese.’

  Melai, crouched upon Grimah’s shoulders. ‘What be a rail beam?’

  Hawkmoth indicated a series of tall steel columns, ones that curved inwards at their peaks forming what looked to be a broken hoop. Each column stood evenly spaced apart, perhaps forty paces from one to the next. And tall they were. Double the height of Gargaron. They ran out along the length of the train and away into the gloomy distance.

  ‘Once I open the drive keys, energy from the arcane planes will be funneled along this corridor of line-braces. It holds the energy beam beneath which the garetrain is propelled. It be searing cold. Like I said, be nowhere near it once it be activated. Heed me? Now, let us get to work.’

  Melai unslung her bow, prepping herself to do as Hawkmoth had instructed. Gargaron gently gripped her shoulder. ‘How be your wing and arm?’ he asked.

  ‘Better. And if you are worried about me, be not. I can manage this.’

  He nodded. ‘Right then. Stay safe.’

  She fluttered her wings, leapt from Grimah’s shoulders, and flew high, spiraling away into the gusty air above the train yards…

  6

  Locke dismounted his serpent, casting his eyes over the vine choked carriages of the train they hoped to thieve. ‘Take this side, giant. I’ll work the other.’ And off he went, serpent in tow.

  Gargaron dismounted and crouched to get a clearer look at the subject. The vines resembled arms, he thought, long clinging arms. There were an endless mass of them, with an endless amount of elbow joints and each “arm” culminated in extended bony fingers.

  He had naught seen anything like it. Brawny Twisters came closest but their branches were quite unlike these. This be naught but a shrubbery mimicking some creature’s limbs.

  He lowered himself to his belly and scoured the space beneath carriage, half expecting to find some fiend staring back at him. But the space were empty, with no obvious signs as to where these “arms” originated. It were evident enough though that whatever it were, it had designs on staying put: its branches were not only dug down into earyth but were wrapped around the columns of line-braces.

  Gargaron straightened and eyed the carriage windows. They were dusty and the day dark enough now with storm clouds that it were not easy getting a clear picture of the interior. But Gargaron were almost certain that something were in there, that these “arms”, whatever their purpose, belonged to it. He would have hauled open one of the doors for a look but the thick covering of vines prevented such an action.

  ‘One way to find out,’ he murmured, and reaching out, he took one of the knotted branches and tugged. It did not give. It were like new rope tethered tight and unyielding. He strengthened his grip, leaned back, and this time put his weight behind it. The branch cracked, swung loose, and a pained wail emanated from somewhere.

  Gargaron let go. And stood there, listening. What were that? He looked around at Grimah. His horse were a tad pensive, but no more than he’d been at top of hill. Gargaron gazed back along the rail course toward the terminus—naught there but rain and dislodged boulders and collapsed bits of roof, and the silent, unmoving, dead.

  ‘Giant?’ Locke called out from opposite side of carriage. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Aye. What were it?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Gargaron called up to Melai. ‘You see anything?’ She were barely visible in the darkened sky above.

  ‘The way be clear,’ she called back. ‘The sound came from that vine.’

  ‘This vine?’

  ‘What other vine be there?’

  Locke called out again. ‘Right then, giant, what say we tackle this with greater coercion?’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Gargaron answered.

  ‘Our blades.’

  Gargaron bit his lip thoughtfully. He withdrew his sword. ‘Right then,’ he called. ‘How coercive were you thinking?’

  A hideous squeal were suddenly heard. This time from inside the carriage.

  ‘You hear that?’ Locke called out, a triumphant tone to his voice.

  ‘Not easy to miss,’ Gargaron called back. ‘Tell me, did you strike the vines?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Sounds then like their owner be inside our train.’

  ‘Aye, sounds like it.’

  And there came another squeal and Gargaron guessed Locke had made a second strike. ‘Guess there be no turning back,’ Gargaron grunted. He pulled back his sword and swung it into the entanglement.

  7

  Whatever lay inside carriage squealed madly. And its woody “arms” recoiled violently. Gargaron backed up, wary, watching them, waiting for them to lash out at him in defence. Though nothing of the sort transpired.

  He wound back his sword arm for a second hit when he heard some distant howl. And this one did not come from the carriage’s interior.

  He looked around. He were about to enquire of Locke if the crabman had heard the noise when the air around him suddenly sucked against his clothes and hair as if some mighty gale had swept across the terminus and its railyards. He heard Melai squeal and he looked up just in time to watch some invisible force swat her away through the air.

  Gargaron gasped and went to race after her but he came aware of some ground-footed shadow rushing toward him.

  He turned and spotted some hell hound galloping at him. It had long, razored forelegs, and gnashing teeth. It ran like a dog yet it bore no hind legs, the lower end of its torso disappeared into a mass of blue flame; as if half of it were of the physical realm and half of it were contained within a plane known only to ghosts.

  It closed on him quickly, he had almost no time to react. Though as he gathered up his sword, Grimah bought him crucial moments, charging headlong into the monster. Horse and hound crashed into each other, the puffy sound of meat and bone crunching together were loud and raw, and they piled heavily into ground, a burst of dirt and stones and clods of weed exploding at impact.

  Grimah floundered on his back, legs in the air, the creature on top of him, blue flame flaring. Gargaron sprung forward with great sword in hand just as the beast were scrambling to its feet. He sliced its growling head from its neck and despite the growing rain, the grass on the railcourse shoulders took instantly to fire as the beast’s flaming body crashed to ground.

  Another howling monster emerged from between carriages, hurtling at Gargaron, and another leapt from top of train. Gargaron barely had enough time to cut the first in half before he spun with his sword and caught the other in mid-flight, skewering it straight through its torso.

  Yet another came charging. Gargaron caught sight of it almost too late but brought his sword around in time to skewer this one too. Only to have another come scramble over carriage top. H
e spun and slung his sword, catapulting his skewered attackers into it and sheer impact took the newcomer to ground where it scrabbled manically to its feet.

  Grimah, having struggled to hooves, lunged at it, chomping both jaws into its face. Blood spurted from the creature’s mouth, and pale blue flames flared from its body, and as it went to ground, Gargaron took its head off.

  Gargaron took a moment to catch his breath. But could hear more of these beasties charging out from the terminal. ‘Grimah,’ he said, unhitching his shield. ‘Find Melai!’

  His steed seemed reluctant to leave him.

  ‘Grimah! To Melai, I say! Go!’

  Grimah made a noise of disapproval but obeyed. As steed dashed off, Gargaron heard the train’s whistle suddenly pierce the air. He backed up as the garetrain begun to shunt forward. The “arms” from the entanglement had retracted from the line-braces and he spied the searing rail beam above the carriages alive now, humming, glowing, fizzing, running beyond sight away northways. So, Hawkmoth has the engine awake, he thought. ‘Locke,’ he called. ‘Our train be leaving. Do you see Melai?’

  There came no answer. ‘Locke?’

  He heard growls and squeals growing closer and he turned and spied monsters racing feverishly toward him. Five, six of them. More behind them. ‘You lot can come to me,’ he murmured. With that he turned and dashed between carriages, taking off after Grimah.

  8

  The train yards were a mess of engines and boxcars and open freight wagons and empty lines of passenger cars. Gargaron charged up between two separate lines of boxcars, calling Melai’s name. Then ducked between a divide only to be faced with more carriages. ‘Blast!’ He charged at the wall of train in front of him and scrambled up its side, pulling himself to its roof. A better all-round view were revealed to him up there, at least. Appleford terminal away to his left and around to his right, he saw the glowing beam line alive and buzzing and with it their garetrain slowly pushing its way through the railyards.

  ‘Pray you hold the train, sorcerer,’ Gargaron murmured as he clambered along carriage roof.

  Behind him, a pack of hissing, moaning hell beasts piled after him. But ahead, he caught glimpses of Locke’s serpent and heard attack howls from Grimah. There were still no sign of Melai however. Nor Locke. Nor even of Hawkmoth for that matter.

  Rain pelted down as he charged along roof, gaining speed and leaping across to the next train. Landing on its roof he kept running, his heavy footfalls leaving indents in the metal; behind him ghost-hounds clawed after him, gaining on him swiftly.

  He reached the next carriage, noticing Locke now and the serpent away in the direction Melai had been flung. Gargaron leapt from carriage, the pack of hell hounds close on his heel, jumping after him. Hearing them snapping at his neck, he spun about in midair, slicing three of them in two as he fell, blue flame licking up his sword blade as if it were hot oil and not blood that gushed forth.

  He landed heavily on his back in gravel, his momentum heaving him spine-first against the adjacent carriage, his weight rocking it momentarily from its tracks as hell hounds spilled about him; one of them falling beneath carriage as the train rocked back over, squashing the beast’s face in an explosion of brain and blood and fire.

  Gargaron booted the remaining beasts away, giving him time to pull his shield from under him and fend off another pair hurling themselves from top of train. They pelted against shield and carriage. He rolled over, got to his knee and shield bashed one on his left and scythed off the head of another on his right.

  He scrambled backwards, slashing, ramming, and heaving hounds as blue flame from downed monsters took to both train and weed. As he took care of the last beast he saw another mass of them scurrying up between carriages toward him. ‘By Ranethor, do they not get the hint?’

  He scrambled up side of train, hauling himself to roof, and just as he did the carriage further back shunted violently outwards from where it lay, as if it were a mere paper box kicked aside by some bored child. It flew outwards and slammed violently against the train opposite, squashing the oncoming hell beasts between carriages; an azure fireball mushrooming into the sky.

  The heat were blistering, even from this distance, and Gargaron leapt to ground, scurrying around the end of the carriage, shielding himself against the furnace. Crouching there panting, he spied Locke’s serpent: there it was with its huge body coiled around a mass of ghost-hounds, squeezing them as they spat and hissed and bit and squealed. As she did, Zebra dislocated her mighty horizontal jaws and sunk her sword-like teeth through them all, chomping them in half as flame flared up around her face. Meanwhile, Locke were backing along an overturned carriage, using his mysterious blowflute; clouds of darts flew from the strange weapon, burying deep into their assailants…

  And doing no damage whatsoever, Gargaron noted.

  The beasts kept coming. Locke reverted to his moon-blade, slicing meaty chunks from the monsters as they flew at him. Gargaron thought the crabman were getting the better of them until another pack clambered up behind him, swamping him. Locke laughed as the beasts did their best to bite into him, to flood him with flame. ‘Ha! Foul demons! I am impervious to fire! But do your best if it please you!’ And with that he drove two of his spiked crab feet up through the belly of one and tore the beast open, black guts and blood gushing out, splashing down the windows of the train car, steaming and stinking.

  Gargaron, still wondering where Melai were, uncertain if she were safe or lying somewhere injured, rushed to Locke’s aid. Only to have a dozen hell-hounds emerge from between boxcars and pile after him.

  9

  Gargaron clambered onto Locke’s upturned carriage but he felt the hounds jump him and cling to him like ants on meat, their grubby claws and filthy teeth digging into his shoulders, his neck, his back, his limbs. He couldn’t free his sword arm. He did his best to throw them aside but they stuck to him like limpets.

  He jumped from the carriage, taking them with him, spinning over whilst airborne so that when he landed he crushed most of them beneath him. Bones cracked and blood spurted and fire roared about him. Still, two of them kept their hold.

  He was able to clamber to his feet, one of the hounds hanging from his arm. He slung about and dashed it against the side of carriage, snapping its snarling head backwards, blood gushing from its mouth, blue flames licking up his arm. He reached over his shoulder to yank the other from his back but he found Grimah tearing at it with both mouths. Grimah ripped it free, spat it out, then trampled it to pulp.

  Gargaron dashed now to Locke who were still fighting his way from beneath a pack of beasts. But there were no respite. On they came, another swarm of hell-hounds, scrambling up the space between carriages, clambering over the tops of boxcars.

  Gargaron were again flooded by monsters. He and Grimah both. And Locke too. Zebra whipped and coiled her body, knocking them flying but their tenacity were something to behold. Even she were soon overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

  Gargaron found himself pinned to ground. His sword and shield had been dragged from him. He punched and kicked and snapped bones, but the flames these creatures dragged with them were scorching and he were running out of strength and breath.

  10

  There came an explosive blast from seemingly nowhere. Then Locke were laughing, yelling, ‘Ha! Have some of that you stinking dogs!’

  Something punched a mighty hole straight through the chests of two of the fire fiends mounted on Grimah. Instantly both crumpled and slid from Grimah’s hide, dropping to ground, dead. Almost without pause, another fiend were blown apart in similar manner, one hanging from Grimah’s mane. And barely a sunflare later, most of the pack assaulting Gargaron were blown to bits, body parts and streaks of blue fire exploding out across earyth and carriage.

  Hawkmoth, Gargaron thought.

  Encouraged now, and free of assailants, he scrambled to his feet and looked around. Yet he saw no sign of the sorcerer however. Another hound came belting toward h
im; he were without sword and shield, so braced himself to take the beast on with bare fists. Then something shot down from above, some silent projectile, blasting the monster, knocking it backwards, innards from its chest cavity blown out through its back in a blast of flame.

  Gargaron dashed for sword and shield, diving for them, snatching them up, and rolling over onto his knee. He slashed aside a hound galloping at him before peering about, searching for whoever or whatever had taken out these ghost-hounds.

  Then saw her. And his heart warmed. Melai.

  11

  She hovered there, bow and arrow deployed, slinging another shot, the arrow, its tip glowing white hot, zipping at its target. It made impact and exploded through the hound’s ribs, punching its guts out through its chest in a spectacular explosive blast.

  She nocked another arrow, pulling it into aim, surveying the area. From her height she had clear view back along the rows of carriages. She could see Hawkmoth now, toward the terminal he were, smiting a pack of ghost hounds. But after them there came no more. It appeared, for now at least, the onslaught had quit. She swooped down to giant. ‘Are you harmed?’ she asked.

  ‘I be as well as I can,’ Gargaron replied, managing a stoic smile. He were covered in claw wounds and bite marks, and purple blood seeped down his arms and neck but he were not in any immediate peril. Grimah too, bleeding and scratched but looking resolute, determined, his proud and fierce eyes on constant look out for any renewed attacks.

  Behind them Locke hoisted himself into Zebra’s saddle. ‘Oh, is that all?’ he asked, looking about. ‘I were just getting started!’ Both of them were blood splattered and scratched and bitten.

  ‘What of you, Melai?’ Gargaron asked. ‘I saw you flung across sky.’

  ‘I be well. But I declare my consciousness were thrown from me for some time. I cannot say why or how, nor what caused it. But I fear it were the work of the presence that still hides within the terminus.’

  In the distance another train carriage were thrust from its tracks. Moments later Razor galloped toward them, Hawkmoth mounted in saddle. ‘How are we all?’ the sorcerer asked, his beard and hair a straggled sweating mess.

  ‘As good as can be,’ Gargaron reported.

  ‘Though you could throw a few more of those fiends my way,’ came Locke’s jovial voice. ‘I were just getting warmed up.’

  Hawkmoth grinned. ‘Oh? Well, you may just have your wish, crabman. For I fear that whatever Melai sensed slumbering in yonder terminal be stirring.’

  ‘Good,’ Locke said. ‘Main course at last.’

  ‘That as may be, Locke, though I feel it probably be too big even for your appetite.’

  ‘Oh, I have rather a large appetite, sorcerer,’ Locke protested grinning.

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘Still, I would urge you all proceed to your train, for it departs as we speak. I need not remind you that it might be the last train for the Northlands for a while. Probably a good idea not to miss it.’

  12

  Hawkmoth lead the way, charging between the rows of carriage and boxcar and wagon until they met the railcourse on which their garetrain were now well beyond the railyards, gathering speed, suspended beneath the line-beam that vanished off into the far distance, heading northways from Appleford. ‘Hurry now,’ Hawkmoth called.

  Behind them however, something had arisen from the terminus and when Gargaron looked back he spied a mountainous shadow filling the sky. It were so vastly tall it made himself look like a child’s toy. In all his years, in all his travels, he had never lain eye upon such an entity. And toward them it turned.

  ‘Hawkmoth?’ Gargaron called. ‘Do you see that thing?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What be it? I have never seen its like before.’

  ‘I fear it be Jhegoth, star demon,’ Hawkmoth called back. ‘And I have known witches employ its services.’

  Locke laughed. ‘At least now we have a true opponent on which to test ourselves.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll not stand and face it if we can help it,’ Hawkmoth called across to the crabman. ‘Sorry to disappoint you but our safest bet is to reach the garetrain and lose it for pace.’

  13

  The colossal star demon, with its eyes burning blue and the ground shaking beneath its feet, began to trudge after them. Its gait were slow and cumbersome but such were its size, each of its immense strides covered a huge distance. Thus it gained on them quickly.

  The hooves of Grimah and Razor thundered across ground, and Zebra were almost silent as she slithered ahead of them, her swishing tail almost a blur. Above them all, keeping clear of the line-beam, were Melai, flying swiftly.

  Bolts of blue light began peppering grass and gravel around them, blasting out small craters, throwing dirt and grit and stones to all points. And when Gargaron looked he saw these projectiles bursting from the star demon’s eyes.

  Hawkmoth suddenly pulled Razor around. Gargaron watched him, yelling, ‘Sorcerer, what are you doing?’

  ‘Jhegoth be far too swift. I fear it will catch us before we reach our train. I must slow it down. Now fetch yourselves onwards! You too Locke! Get going!’

  Locke, who had slowed too, now pulled Zebra back in the direction of the train. ‘Quite unfair, sorcerer!’ he yelled as Zebra sped on. ‘Some folk have all the fun!’

  14

  Hawkmoth hauled Razor up, leapt from saddle and brought his staff into play. As Jhegoth strode toward him, its legs deep and lost amidst a mountain of blue flame, Hawkmoth began to spin his staff above his head like some circus performer with a baton. It spun faster and faster until his moving arms were but a blur and the staff were lost from sight. It were here he slammed his staff into the ground at lightning speed, and from Rashel (his staff’s angel visage) came a squeal so loud and piercing that it made Grimah howl, and Zebra screech, and momentarily sucked all sound from the ears of Gargaron, Melai and Locke.

  What Gargaron saw next he saw in dead silence. A mighty white light spewed from Rashel’s mouth, as if she had regurgitated some mighty dinner, and like a ripple on a pond, a shimmering wave pushed out through the rain… and slammed into the star demon.

  Jhegoth staggered… flames flaring and billowing skywards.

  Sound roared back into the ears of Gargaron, Melai and Locke as the darkened sky lit up with blue fire.

  Hawkmoth were not done. Again he spun his staff. And again he slammed it to earyth, and Rashel once more squealed, sucking the air from giant, nymph and crabman. And once more a wave of shimmering white light vomited from Rashel’s mouth and again the wave crashed around the star demon like titanic ocean waves on a rocky shore.

  Jhegoth let out a mighty roar. It shook the terminus and train yards, shook the very earyth. Yet Jhegoth hung its head, as if struck by a mighty blow… and fell to its knee.

  Hawkmoth wasted not a moment. He climbed back into Razor’s saddle and took off once more for the garetrain.

  15

  The others were just off the train’s tail now, galloping, slithering. Avoiding the line-beam, Melai swooped down and landed heavily on carriage roof, rolling awkwardly but gripping the knotted mass of vines that still clung to the carriage, preventing herself spilling over the side. Below her, Gargaron brought Grimah alongside the rear carriage where he reached out and grabbed the railing before sliding from saddle onto back of train. He came aware of some commotion behind him. When he turned, he saw Hawkmoth and Razor coming up on Zebra’s swishing tail, but just behind them were yet another pack of scrambling ghost-hounds. Do they never give up? Gargaron wondered.

  ‘Oh, you bring us left overs, I see,’ Locke called to Hawkmoth, pulling his blowflute into play.

  ‘Aye,’ Hawkmoth called back. ‘Don’t say I never give you anything.’

  Locke blew off a round of darts. Again they buried into the bodies of the coming hounds, and again, as far as Gargaron could see, they had no effect.

  ‘The idea be to kill them, crabman,’ Hawkmoth remind
ed him, waving his staff at them. Rashel spat out a mouthful of seeds that tumbled across ground before bursting to life, shooting out a hundred branches in but a sunflare, spearing the hounds through skull and torso, stopping nearly them all dead in their tracks.

  More were on their way however. And in the distance behind them, Jhegoth were slowly lifting itself to its feet.

  ‘Take them down,’ Hawkmoth yelled, kicking Razor into greater pace.

  ‘Oh? And where are you going?’ Locke wanted to know.

  ‘To the locomotive,’ Hawkmoth answered. ‘We need this train at a quicker speed. Jhegoth will surely catch us if not.’ Now he turned his attention on Gargaron. ‘Get the carriage open giant, and the steeds on board. Razor will drop back once he has carried me forward. Yar!’ He kicked Razor’s ribs and the steed thundered on for front of train.

  Melai wedged her feet beneath one of the vines, and fluttered her wings to remain as stationary as she could. Here she deployed her bow.

  The hounds advanced quickly. As Melai fired at them, Zebra railroaded them, tripping them up. Though they were quickly back on their feet. Melai took some of them out with incendiary arrows but many reached the train and, like spiders, clambered up the sides of the carriage. From where he stood on carriage’s rear verandah, Gargaron lunged and thrust his sword at them, and Grimah snapped at them as he galloped along.

  They bore down on Melai. She leapt into the air, they leapt after her, she fired punch arrows that blasted them backwards into the line-beam where they were sliced in half instantly, their two halves, aflame, tumbling away to ground. Three successive beasts she sent into the beam.

  Locke had to duck to avoid being hit by one, hauling Zebra away from the train. Hounds went after him. One clawing its way up Zebra’s scaly hide. Locke fired his blowflute at it and Gargaron saw the darts lob deep into the beast’s chest. Gargaron were about to tell Locke to give up on his glorified “harp” when something happened: the ghost-hound suddenly caved in on itself, as if a hundred years of desiccation besieged it in but mere moments. It let go of Zebra and crashed to ground where it split apart like an old carcass, flames roared and its bones went flicking off in every direction.

  ‘Ha,’ yelled Locke, ‘see how you like that!’ and he blew out another flurry of magic darts and another handful of beasts crumpled and crippled and ploughed into the gravel, bursting bones all over the place, fire curling into the sky.

  Gargaron turned for the carriage’s rear door. As the good sorcerer had said, they needed to get their mounts on board. A boxcar would have been ideal but they had to work with what they had. That meant going through this door. Though the vines still barricaded the entrance point.

  Bolts of blue fire suddenly pelted the train and the land about it. Gargaron glanced over his shoulder and saw Jhegoth again pursuing the garetrain. Gaining speed. It would catch them soon if Hawkmoth did not have this vehicle pick up its pace. And its projectiles would sooner or later have the train in ruin.

  Gargaron slashed his great sword through the vines. As before, there came a howl of anger from within the carriage and the “arms” recoiled. He lifted his leg and one well timed boot had the door off its hinges and punched back into the carriage. He stooped and peered in.

  He saw it now. The entity that had not so long ago claimed these carriages as its own, the ones whose many varied limbs had held the train like a clutch of strangling brambles. A strange looking beast it were, a torso with a head and a myriad arms. It hung there at opposite end of carriage like a spider in its web. And it eyed Gargaron with loathing.

  16

  Gargaron put the star demon from his mind. He hefted up shield and sword, and edged slowly down carriage interior toward the peculiar fiend.

  It watched him coming. It were the colour of clammy bones. Yellowish, mapped with hundreds of hairline cracks. Its eyes were watery and red, and the moment Gargaron were in range its jaw parted and out punched a long, pointed tongue.

  Gargaron deflected it with his shield, but the tongue were so sharp and quick it punctured the metal plate on shield’s front.

  It retracted with blurring speed and twice more it fired and cut through the shield, but a third strike saw Gargaron dart left and cleave it off.

  The entity squealed and threw a hundred arms at the giant, hauling him up against the train’s windows, arms curling about his neck, fingers poking into his mouth and down his throat.

  17

  Beyond the carriage Melai and Locke had gained the upper hand over the hounds. But the star demon were rushing toward them with ever greater speed. Suddenly there came a squeal of metal and the train stopped so suddenly and so violently that Gargaron were thrown forward, all his weight slamming against the entity at front of carriage, crushing its skull beneath him. Killing it instantly. Yellow gunk oozed from the critter’s brain.

  It took Gargaron a moment or two to realise what had happened. He pushed himself back from the fiend, eyeing it, repulsed. ‘I wager you didn’t see that coming,’ he murmured, screwing up his nose at the awful stench.

  There were suddenly great commotion beyond the train. He heard Locke yell, ‘Dark Ones!’

  Gargaron pulled himself from the fiend’s embrace and ran the length of the carriage and emerged onto the verandah at back of train. Here he saw them. It were almost enough to sink his heart. Cresting Devil’s Knee were Dark Ones so tall and immense they matched almost the star demon for size.

  Gargaron leapt from the motionless train. Locke were firing his blowflute at a handful of ghost-hounds charging toward the garetrain. Gargaron looked about. He could see no Melai. No Hawkmoth.

  ‘At front of train,’ Locke called out to him.

  Gargaron turned and spotted Melai flying toward the head of the locomotive. He raced after her, thinking something had happened to the sorcerer but he found Hawkmoth trying some spell to push a boulder free.

  ‘Whatever you lot are doing,’ came Locke’s voice, ‘you might wish to hurry it up. Those Dark fiends look eager to join this party.’

  Gargaron did not even think. He strode up to the boulder that were lodged there in their way and with sheer brute force hefted it aside.

  Hawkmoth lowered his staff. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘That’s one way to do it. Now, let’s keep moving.’ He climbed the locomotive back to the driver’s compartment and inside he dropped himself into driver’s seat and fired the engines.

  Melai and Gargaron returned to rear of train where Locke were fighting off another handful of ghost-hounds, firing his blow dart, taking them down in great clumps. More were on their way.

  The garetrain had again begun to move.

  ‘Locke!’ Gargaron called as he guided Grimah and Razor up verandah and into carriage. ‘We are leaving.’

  Locke blew his magic darts at anything that flew at him. The train were picking up pace. Melai flew up and perched on the verandah railing, firing her arrows.

  ‘Hurry now!’ Gargaron called.

  Locke whistled for Zebra who had been busy biting hounds in half—as she slithered by him he leapt into saddle.

  The train built speed rapidly, though not so swift yet that Zebra could not catch it. She slithered forward, lifting her head as she drew close, allowing Locke to scramble along her neck and jump from saddle. He landed deftly upon the spacious verandah.

  ‘Hurry girl!’ Locke commanded and Zebra snaked her bulky body alongside the train before squirming up into one of the carriage’s large windows, blown open by the star demon’s fire bolts. The garetrain continued to gain more and more speed and the last of the ghost-hounds on their tail began to lose ground.

  They stood there, Locke and Gargaron, on the verandah, with Melai perched on the handrail, and they gazed back at the Dark Ones, watching them march down Devil’s Knee hefting with them enormous war hammers.

  NORTHLANDS RAIL

  1

  BLEAK countryside rushed by. Rain didn’t let up. A roadway trailed the railcourse for some miles before it turned aw
ay through hills and were lost to the deluge. Gargaron remained at train’s rear, watching the Dark Ones through his spyglass. He were intrigued by what he observed.

  He watched as they trudged toward the star demon. And were puzzled as they took their warhammers to it. ‘What do you see?’ Locke asked.

  Gargaron handed him the spyglass. ‘I do not know.’

  2

  In the driver’s compartment, Hawkmoth maintained an eye as much as he could on the rail line ahead—he and his friends did not need another obstacle to derail their getaway. Still, for a time he stood with the cabin door ajar, wind and rain gushing in, and with his own spyglass he watched the colossal Harbingers batter Jhegoth into the hill.

  The scene left him with a measure of disquiet.

  Eventually he put away his spyglass and shut the door to the elements. He sat there in the driver’s seat, contemplating things as the garetrain sped onward.

  3

  The rain did not peter out till evening. As such there were not much to see by way of scenery; most of the land they passed were hidden beyond the deluge. Gargaron and his companions spent much of this time seeing to wounds and scratches.

  Gargaron patched the gashes in his flesh, stripping grafts of skin from his lower belly and pressing them over his wounds.

  Locke studied the giant with great intrigue. Yet the way Locke dealt with his own wounds were equally as intriguing to Gargaron. Locke had sustained cracks and rents in his claws and crab legs. He used barnacles, stored inside a saddlebag, to patch them up, pressing them against his wounds and waiting until they attached, much like Gargaron’s skin grafts.

  Melai watched them both in silence. ‘This world certainly produces strange folk,’ she said. Her own wounds were minor—except for some dark green bruising to her head she had come through the scrap virtually unscathed.

  Once done, Gargaron, Melai and Locke did their best at pulling the deceased spider fiend from train’s rear carriage. Both Grimah and Razor were not happy with its presence; remaining at the back of carriage, sniffing the air. Zebra did not seem to care; she rolled about it like a dog in dirt. Locke simply laughed at her. But there were an unpleasant stink about it. Hacking its dead limbs from where they were still tangled across ceiling and floor, they tossed chunks of it from the back of train, and watched its bony body go rolling and crashing across stony ground.

  As they worked, Gargaron indicated Locke’s blow flute. ‘I know now, a lute that not be.’

  Locke eyed him sideways, grinning. ‘No. And even if it were, you would not wish to hear me put voice to it.’

  Gargaron smiled. ‘So what be this weapon then? I have never seen its like.’

  ‘It were a gift to me by the sea goddess, Ehl Nori,’ Locke told him. ‘She gave it to me after I saved her daughter from fisherman who had hauled her up in their nets and planned to sell her to pimpeteers.’

  He unhitched it and handed it to Gargaron who took it, turning it over as he studied it. It were cold as steel, with texture not dissimilar to dead coral. It had a single mouthpiece but up to twenty firing holes. It had a sense of age about it, a sense that it had grown in the depths of ocean a trillion years ago. He felt also it were something he should not be handling. With a sensation of growing discomfort, he handed it back to the crabman.

  ‘It be a formidable weapon,’ Locke assured him, taking it. ‘Anything I strike with it, I kill.’

  Gargaron frowned. ‘Really? Such did not seem the case during our recent fight.’

  ‘You did not see me take down those hounds?’

  ‘Aye. I also saw your darts having no effect.’

  ‘Yes, well some occasions it takes its time assessing an enemy’s weakness.’

  ‘Assessing enemy weakness?’ Gargaron said intrigued. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It be a magical object. Its supply of darts be endless. But it is not always immediately effective. If my first volley of darts not kill my attacker then each subsequent volley will slowly unravel the secrets of its defences. Thus the poison and lethality of any following dart will be adjusted so as to make it more target specific. The only music this “lute” makes be the cries of my assailants dying.’

  ‘Sweet music then, after all,’ Gargaron said.

  ‘So, what of your own blade, giant?’

  Gargaron shrugged. ‘Why, it be just an ordinary great sword. Blooded in no war. Has no name. Though, it means much to me as it were my father’s and his father’s before him.’

  ‘A treasured possession then. And what of this hammer hilt you lug with you?’

  Gargaron shrugged as if to suggest it were useless. ‘Drenvel’s Bane. Famed throughout the Vale as far as I am lead to believe. Belonged once to Hor the Cutter, legendary warrior who heralded from my village. I lifted it from our village temple after the first Boom shake killed all. At present I am not counting it as a weapon. Though I am beginning to think it came in two parts and its better half were stolen long before I got to it.’

  ‘What about you, nymph of Thoonsk?’ Locke asked Melai. ‘That little bow of yours packs some power.’

  Melai looked tired and, Gargaron guessed, perhaps in no mood to brag about weaponry. At Locke’s insistence, she lifted her bow from her chest and handed it to him.

  ‘Such a slight item,’ Locke commented. ‘I would not have believed it packed such viciousness had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. Be it a weapon of your own devising?’

  Melai shook her head. ‘When I were a but a youngling of the forest, I were given it by Sera the wood’s spirit who taught me how to wield it. It be made of Starwood, and it bears a plaited chord spun from arachnid silk.’

  ‘And your arrows,’ Locke said. ‘From where do you source those?’

  ‘My quiver provides them, grows them. I simply spike them with deadly toxins and poisons derived from the plant life I carry with me from Thoonsk.’

  Locke were impressed. ‘A single army in but one compact little forest nymph. I would not wish to go up against you.’

  ‘No,’ Gargaron said with an ironic smile, ‘you would not. I can personally attest to that.’

  Locke raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? Do tell.’

  After hesitating, Gargaron retold the account of his and Melai’s first meeting. Locke laughed. Melai smiled at the memory though she felt somewhat uncomfortable at how she had treated the giant.

  4

  Melai did not expect to find sleep on that strange vehicle. She walked down the enormous, silent corridors of the first and second carriages, unable to access any of the sleeping compartments for the doors were all slid shut and she did not possess the muscle to open them. And if she had not already been along with Gargaron as he had inspected each room she might have feared some monster hiding behind each door.

  Eventually she found one whose door were not quite shut and in she squeezed. It were large and imposing: every object, the desk by the window, its chair, the bed and basin and luggage rack (things pointed out to her earlier by Gargaron) all loomed high above her. Nothing here had been built for people her size.

  She spread her wings and flew to the desk where she alighted and sat by the chilled window, watching the darkened countryside race by. The desk were wood she were glad to find, but dead wood and did not speak to her as the trees in Thoonsk did. Her initial fear of being confined within this garetrain were lifted somewhat, for cooped up in this compartment reminded her somehow of being cradled in her willow tree. She sat, sore, tired, gazing out window.

  5

  Back at rear of train, Locke made to climb for train’s roof where the chilled rain thundered down. ‘If you’ll excuse me, giant,’ he said, ‘I have a need to feel the elements on my skin.’

  ‘Would you not prefer to stay dry?’ Gargaron asked him. ‘There be room for many in these here carriages.’

  Locke laughed. ‘Giant, I am of the seashore. I am of the water. Too long lately have I been away from it. And too much have I missed sitting upon the cliffside rocks with my clan,
gazing out to thunderous sea during a hefty rain storm.’

  Gargaron nodded at him respectfully. ‘Very well then. Not something I might entertain myself but I respect your wishes. Watch that rail beam though won’t you.’

  ‘Aye, I shall keep my head about me,’ Locke said with a grin. He went to move off but hesitated and turned to eye Gargaron once more. ‘I ought tell you something, friend. Something I have not yet spoken aloud to any of you. Not even to the good sorcerer.’

  Gargaron looked up at him. Waiting for him to go on. Locke however, seemed in thought for a while. As if contemplating whether or not he should tell his tale.

  Eventually he continued.

  ‘On my journey from Barnacle-On-Sea, I happened to stumble upon an elven woman, tall, fair, beautiful. She told me she had been tracked down by a peculiar metal man who had flown off in its zeppelin without her. Having learned from it however that Hawkmoth were keen to meet with her, she had decided to set out and track him down. I told her I were heading the same way and as we had not the luxury of a zeppelin we opted to travel together.

  ‘Eyferith her name were and she turned out to be friendly company. As we traipsed across land we enjoyed good conversation, and much laughter too despite all that had befallen us. I grew quite fond of her. We were with each other for several days when one morning I awoke and she did not. I tried rousing her but somehow, somewhy, she had passed during the night.’

  Intrigued, Gargaron could not help but think back to the elven woman who had inadvertently delivered him Grimah. How he had found her perished in saddle.

  ‘I have no explanation as to what caused her demise,’ Locke said. ‘She may have harboured some unknown ailment or illness, though she seemed in good health the entire time I knew her. I have deduced that whatever phenomena brought down my clan, also brought on her demise.’ He paused at length in his tale… and then digressed. ‘I have not always been this optimistic soul that you see, giant, you may wish to know. Eighty three wives and one hundred and twenty children have a way of loosening the screws of any sane person. But those wives and children strengthened me too somehow. You would understand this, having a wife and child of your own?’

  Gargaron nodded. He knew that strength, a strength of soul and mind and spirit, and how it had grounded him. A strength of feeling and of self-affirmation. Feelings of deep, eternal love. Something he had not known in days before fatherhood.

  ‘I marveled in the innocence of my children,’ Locke continued. ‘The delightful way they viewed their surroundings, their world. Everything to them were new, everything exciting, wondrous. Since Cloudfyre turned, since Eyferith succumbed, I have come to realise that any point in time, any day or night, could be my last. Thus I now live and love and breathe every moment granted me as I would were I a wee innocent child.

  ‘How many times have I wandered the shore and not noticed the shells or the sand around my claws? How many times have I strolled through a woodland and not breathed of its woody smells, or enjoyed the songs of birdlings, or touched the damp moss upon its stones? Too many, I would wager. Because life has a habit of throwing other things to crowd your mind with: chores of a domestic nature, commitments to vocation, involvement in communal activities or campaigns. Day to day life sees one scurrying hither and thither without pause for thought of the greater world. And now, mostly, since Cloudfyre turned, since finding my children and wives all perished, before burying them each at sea, that is all there is to consume one’s time. And I find that it excites me more than it concerns me. For, should I die in the next moment, then I die, giant, without fear nor regret.’

  6

  Gargaron left Locke and wandered back into the carriage where the spiderling had camped itself. The stench of its sweat and excrement lingered like gamey bore flesh.

  Gargaron ignored the stink, hitching the saddles from both Grimah and Razor before sharing with them some dried apples from his pack. The serpent Zebra seemed curious by the offerings and lifted her face toward him, her tongue swishing in and out of her side-ways mouth, tasting the air.

  ‘I am not certain you’ll like apples,’ Gargaron told her. Yet she opened her jaws and gently tried to take a piece from his fingers. He let her have it. She ate eagerly just as if she were gulping down Locke’s clam meat. Again she nudged him.

  Gargaron had naught seen this tender side of her. She allowed him touch her; he ran his large hand down her scaly skull. She shut her several eyes and inclined her head into his caress, enjoying his touch. Though both Razor and Grimah wanted some attention too he soon found, all of them gently swamping him. It were a touching moment. He dished out another serve of dried apples, surrounded by these animals.

  7

  Gargaron found Melai asleep in a sleeping birth in carriage two. The smell were far more pleasant this end of the train. And far less like some fetid creature had been holed up there. The interior were polished rosewood with sleeping compartments and at the far end a smoking booth with a beverage bar. A lovely aroma of sandalwood and spice hung in the air.

  Melai were not curled up in the enormous bed as Gargaron had expected. But squished inside one of the horizontal wooden beams that, he supposed, mimicked the thick branches of her home tree. Positioned by the sliding door, he found himself watching for the rise and fall of her chest, haunted by what Locke had just imparted to him, about the seemingly healthy Elven woman succumbing to some mysterious condition and never waking.

  Were it possible that Melai, himself, Locke and Hawkmoth might simply just drop dead at random and without warning? Perhaps we are not survivors, he thought, but are simply ones who have not yet died. The thought chilled him. Causing him to swallow nervously. He would let Melai sleep. And decided, when she awoke (and pray she awoke), he would not burden her with Locke’s tale.

  He shut the door quietly and strode forward toward the engine.

  8

  Hawkmoth were seated in driver’s compartment, lost to his thoughts, sewing a patch of cloth over a tear in his side-pack.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  Hawkmoth started mildly at Gargaron’s sudden presence but did not object. ‘No, come in, good giant. Sit down if you please.’

  Rain pelted the locomotive’s long nose but a rain guard kept most of the deluge from the forward windows. Gargaron could clearly see the arcane railcourse stretched out before them—the peculiar green energy beam that propelled the monstrous garetrain vanished off into the heavy rain, sizzling as the rain pelted against it, illuminated like some ghostly artefact.

  Giant and sorcerer sat for a time not speaking, watching the northlands sweep toward them and rushing by, feeling the rhythm of the vehicle as it shot forward.

  ‘Everyone well back there?’ Hawkmoth asked eventually.

  ‘Aye,’ Gargaron said. ‘All be well.’ He studied Hawkmoth’s sewing. He saw now it were not so much a tear in his side-pack but more as if some substance had corroded it.

  ‘Have an accident?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, you could say that. I were rammed against carriage during our siege at Appleford. A number of my vials were crushed.’

  Gargaron frowned. ‘Lose anything of importance?’

  ‘Amongst some poultices and my randweed creams, Wrenbug’s bottle of Skinkk blood were cracked in two.’ He looked over at Gargaron. ‘It were seeped out before I discovered the bottle were in pieces.’

  Gargaron thought of Drenvel’s Bane. ‘A shame, I guess.’ Though surprisingly he found he did not much care now for the so-called legendary weapon. ‘An important substance for your concoctions, I assume.’

  ‘Aye. Though I were thinking more of your war hammer.’

  Gargaron shrugged. ‘It matters not. I doubt now such blood would have helped us bring back Drenvel’s Bane anyway. I feel Hor the Cutter took its secret to his grave.’

  Silence again between them. Gargaron watched Hawkmoth continue with his sewing. There were something calming, almost enchanting, about someone going about a menial task. A
monotonous, repeated chore conducted with calm concentration, patience and care.

  ‘You mind if I ask you something,’ Gargaron said.

  Hawkmoth did not pause in his work. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘The star beast, Jhegoth. You claimed it be a witch ally.’

  Hawkmoth sewed up the last of the hole in his pack. ‘I believed as such, aye. And I know what you’re going to say. If the Harbingers be the pawns of witches, why then were they attacking it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Hawkmoth sighed as he held his pack at arm’s length, studying his patch job. ‘Believe it or not, giant, I have been sitting here puzzling over that very same question. I have not all the answers, you must realise. But perhaps Jhegoth has turned rogue, or done something to anger its masters. I have long kept my eye on Jhegoth whenever it has arisen from its hiding places. It is not of our world and I have feared for many a year that it may try one day to sully our lands, to make them unlivable to all but itself. And so perhaps in these days of Ruin, while the boom-shakes do their worst, while any survivors stumble about the lands shell-shocked and disorganised, Jhegoth has peaked out of his hole and observed this sudden power vacuum and as such has decided to weigh in on the current conflict in order to claim its prize. That being Cloudfyre. And perhaps the witches have seen this and will not stand for it and have thus dispatched its mightiest Darklings to take it out of the picture.’

  Gargaron considered this and both he and Hawkmoth fell again to silence. For a few moments, the distant snowcapped ranges were seen briefly above the cloud banks. As he watched them, Gargaron considered what the crabman had relayed to him. The story of the Elven woman and her sudden death. He thought about telling Hawkmoth, to fish for his thoughts… but ultimately he decided against it.

  ‘Anyhow, giant,’ Hawkmoth said, packing away his bone needle and twine. ‘You ought to rest while you can. Once we reach the mountains, the climb is long and arduous and biting cold as I remember it. And once we find Sanctuary, I dare say we will have a fight on our hands to claim Mama Vekh. Best rest and recuperate now before the next leg of our journey.’

  9

  Once Gargaron had left him, Hawkmoth gazed ahead in deep thought. He could not see the mountain range before him for the rain clouds were thick and dark and clotted, yet he could sense it there. As the garetrain sped onwards he could not help but consider Sanctuary. It had been many a year since he had left there. But he recalled the day clearly enough. For he had been most unceremoniously booted out. Thrown out if he remembered rightly. Marched out across Sanctuary’s forecourts by Sanctuary guardsmen, dressed in their robes of deep stone-blue, and in front of his Brothers, ridiculed and spat on, kicked and slapped, and warned that if he ever returned he would be strung up on the forecourt wall for all to see and he would have his belly cut and splayed and the alpine buzzards invited to peck his intestines out.

  The memory still hurt. After all this time. But he would not have changed it. He had met Eve, and she had taught him love, true love. And he had truly lived life with her, where as his days residing behind the walls of Sanctuary, he had known naught but a void in his heart.

  PUKAYA’S BRIDGE

  1

  WHEN Melai awoke, she sat up shivering, realising the garetrain had stopped. There were a frost upon the windows, and inside the cabin a deep cold lingered, the like she had never known. Outside she saw frozen, barren marshland stretching off into deep fog.

  Melai stood and flew across to the door and pushed it open. Its brass handle were so biting cold to the touch it made her flinch. She peered up and down the aisle. ‘Gargaron?’ she called. A cloudy vapour puffed from her mouth. ‘Locke?’ No-one called back. ‘Does anyone hear me?’

  It were silent. She vacated her cabin and moved down to third carriage, supposing Gargaron were down there asleep beside his Grimah—the sleeping berths were far too small for his size after all. She found carriage three vacant. No Razor, no Grimah, no Zebra. No-one.

  ‘Gargaron,’ she called again, growing ever more concerned. ‘Can anyone hear me?’

  Again no reply.

  She turned and strode back through carriage two, rapping on cabin doors as she went, calling, ‘Locke? Haitharath? Anyone?’ She did the same through carriage one, her anxiety building. This were not a place in which she wished to be abandoned.

  When she reached the mighty locomotive she found the driving compartment vacant but the engine still thrumming. She heard distant voices then. Holding her arms about herself for warmth, she moved to front of cockpit. She were too short to see out the forward windows unless she fluttered up onto the console. So she spread her wings, flew to console, perched herself and peered out.

  She saw Gargaron, Locke, and Haitharath. They were poised at the edge of a mighty ravine where the rail line crossed a long stone bridge.

  2

  Outside, Melai stood by Gargaron overlooking the chasm. Wind whistled and moaned and the way forward were shrouded in a green fog. But Melai saw here their conundrum.

 

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