Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

by A. L. Brooks

  The Dead Man statue towered into the sky where it stood at summit of hill. It were both impressive and ghastly, hunched and goggle-eyed, and although it were side-on from Gargaron’s and Melai’s point of view, its head and chin were turned in their direction and no matter where they roamed on that hill it seemed always side-on to Gargaron and Melai, and always it watched them.

  It were a true conscious effort for Gargaron to keep his eyes from it. Though he scoured the hill, taking in more than a hundred doomed folk dotted here and there, apparently rooted to earyth, torsos rent open and chest cavities emptied.

  It occurred to Gargaron that they had been deliberately left for intruders to look upon. As a warning. Keep Away. For why else would this sorcerer have left such an abhorrent spectacle on his doorstep.

  Gargaron heeled Grimah and winding amidst both dead folk and living livestock (that Dead Man always watching) they took themselves up hill.

  4

  The cottage on the plateau sat amidst trees that Melai claimed were enchanted. They possessed mouths. And clawed arms. And large red unblinking eyes like those of the narwhales Gargaron had seen as a lad, hauled in by the sail-luggers, barbed on fishermen’s harpoons upon the bleak cold seas of Yissoonensk.

  As Grimah approached, the mouths of these beast-trees opened, bark parting in creaking juddering movements. They began to wail. The birds took for the skies. The sounds of cheeping bugs died away. And deer and goat fled into the sparse hilltop woodland.

  Grimah halted and Gargaron dismounted, and standing where he were before the cottage, keeping his distance from the moaning trees, he called out above the din. ‘Sorcerer Hawkmoth? Do you hear me? I be Gargaron Stoneheart of Hovel and with me I have Melai Willowborne of Thoonsk. You sent your metal men with an invitation for us to join you. Hear me now, be you at home?’

  He cocked his head, listening for a reply, squinting, straining his ear as the trees howled about him. He were intrigued by the size of the cottage. He had never met Hawkmoth but had once or twice in his days come across sorcerers who were of a species of tall folk emanating from the realm of Corsares On Hunn. Perhaps Hawkmoth were one of such folk for this cottage, while not on a scale of Gargaron’s own in Hovel, were by the looks of it, large enough to permit even he comfortably.

  ‘Sorcerer Hawkmoth?’ Gargaron called again. ‘Do you hear me?’ He glanced around at Melai. He had not voiced it but a worry he’d had on their approach began to pick at him: what if this Hawkmoth had succumbed to the blight. For all Gargaron and Melai knew, the sorcerer lay dead and decaying inside this cottage (or elsewhere) and they were too late in learning what possible secrets he’d uncovered.

  Gargaron surveyed the beast-trees. Their wails had reduced to soft growls but a number of them had uprooted, were shuffling toward them on twisting, cloddy roots. Mouths with wooden fangs gaped at him. Red eyes glowered. Branches with curving spiked claws reached for him.

  ‘Sorcerer Hawkmoth?’ Gargaron called once more. ‘Do you hear me?’ He felt uncertain whether or not these creatures were game enough to attack. He and Melai were certainly outnumbered. But he withdrew his sword all the same. And approached the cottage’s front door. Stooping he rapped the knocker. As he did, numerous eyes that had, until then, been burrowed deep inside the door’s dark wrinkled woodwork, snapped open and glared at him, yellow and aglow; a peculiar mewling sound seemed now to rise from the door itself.

  How many enchantments must this sorcerer throw at us?! Gargaron thought irritably. Ignoring the eyes and the mewling, he reached again for the knocker but this time a black tongue darted from an unseen slit in the wood and curled about his arm, followed by another that whipped out and coiled tightly about his neck; both drew him with inexplicable force toward the door, pinning him there against it. A swarm of small flying critters then besieged him, arriving without warning in a cacophonous mass from some mystery origin. Gargaron initially thought them enormous hound-flies. Alas they turned out to be a swarm of squealing woodland pixies. Climbing through his hair and clothes, wriggling through his ears, pinching him, scratching him, digging their claws into his skin, cackling, keening, screaming.

  He heaved himself backwards from the door, the pair of tongues holding him finally releasing their grip. He ambled about, yanking pixies from his clothes and hair with his free hand, tossing them aside, swinging his sword through the air. Yet still they came, in immense clouds. Melai had unslung her bow, had nocked several arrows, but firing into the swarm would have seen Gargaron punctured. Thus she stayed her hand.

  Suddenly a booming voice erupted from the slate roof of the cottage above. ‘Away, all ye stinking critters! Away with ye now!’

  At once, as if in fear, the black pixies flew off in droves, taking for treetops where they alighted and gibbered and squealed and fought one another madly.

  Spitting pixie sweat from his lips, dabbing welts and scratches on his face and neck, Gargaron staggered back until the slate roof came into view and there at roof’s edge, flat upon her belly, her head jutting out over the guttering, lay a strange woman.

  5

  She both smiled and glared at Gargaron and Melai and their mount. She had black hair and pointed chin and eyes that betrayed her somehow, as if she had much to hide. And while her face were pale as moonlight, she had black fingers that gripped roof edge with glistening black claws. She grinned as they gazed up at her, her shifty eyes darting back and forth between this giant, his nymph, and their horse. ‘I have been waiting for ye, I have.’

  From where Gargaron stood back near Grimah, he watched her; two or three pixies still knotted in his hair, buzzing and cursing and squirming about. Melai whispered, ‘We have been duped. This be some witch luring us to our deaths. There be no Haitharath here, I feel it. We need turn and flee.’

  To which the strange woman replied, ‘Witch? Ha! Don’t be so silly, little nymph of the forest! I am but the good sorcerer’s wife, I am.’

  Gargaron maintained his frown but bowed his head ever so lightly, holding his sword now at his side. ‘Well then, glad to make your acquaintance. I am Gargaron Stonehea―’

  ‘Yes, I heard ye names when ye bellowed it out, good giant,’ she said still grinning, still lying there at roof’s verge, although now she had her palms propped under her chin, resting there on her elbows, as if enjoying this byplay.

  ‘Right then,’ Gargaron said, ‘what be your name then prey tell?’

  ‘Eve,’ she said simply. ‘Short for Evehnyer Dawnraider. First and last of my kind.’

  Her eyes stayed on them, and she did not move and for a time no-one spoke. After some moments of this the woman left the roof. Her feet and legs rose behind her like a scorpion’s tail and curled out over her head. Then she lifted her torso up with her hands and pushed herself over lip of roof, feet-first.

  She landed like a spider, on all limbs, and for a moment from where she crouched she gazed up at them as a hound might. Then she scampered for the door.

  Gargaron backed up involuntarily, tightening his grip on his sword. Something be amiss here, his mind’s voice told him.

  6

  At door of cottage the woman pulled herself to her feet and here Gargaron and Melai took in her full height. First impressions suggested she did not belong here. Though, while certainly a tallish woman, the cottage were obviously built for someone of even greater stature than herself, for barely at half the door’s height did she stand.

  She cast her guests a shadowy over-shoulder grin. ‘Why don’t ye both come in? I have ripe, crisp apples inside. And cheese. And fresh baked bread.’

  Gargaron realised the beast-trees were all retreated and fallen silent. Their eyes however, continued to watch the newcomers with great suspicion and mistrust.

  As for the pixies, they remained in treetops, like a colony of bats, squealing and chittering. And those left knotted in Gargaron’s hair, untangled themselves finally and one by one flew off.

  The woman, Eve as she had introduced herself, unlocked the d
oor with an enormous metal key shaped in the fashion of a fish bone. She ushered them forward with her black hands and black claws. ‘Come,’ she said, smiling.

  Gargaron and Melai remained where they were. ‘I do not trust her,’ Melai whispered. ‘Nor do I,’ Gargaron told her. And to the woman he said, ‘I hope you do not think it rude when I ask, but where be this sorcerer Hawkmoth? It were he, after all, who summoned us here. Not you. And I would prefer to get this out of the way here and now before we follow you inside. We have had to overcome much to get here and I would like not to jeopardise all our hard work at this juncture. I am sure you understand.’

  ‘But of course.’ She grinned. ‘How remiss of me not to explain.’ She eyed him closely, her eyes narrowed. And she said nothing for a moment, as if brewing up some tale in her mind. ‘Hawkmoth Lifegiver… has but already departed. Yes. Almost… two days gone. He had no choice but to, ah, leave early, you see.’

  Creases formed in Gargaron’s brow.

  ‘Why, ye do not believe me, giant?’ she rasped, still grinning.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Gargaron said, ‘but the current state of things be none too conducive for swallowing tall tales.’

  ‘Tall tales?’ She cackled. ‘If there were one for tall tales then surely it would be a giant.’

  He did not share her joke. He remained stone faced. ‘Where be the sorcerer Hawkmoth?’

  She eyed both he and Melai for several moments.

  ‘Where be the sorcerer?’ he demanded.

  Eventually she spoke, grinning. ‘Alright, allow me to confess. I have but nailed down his wrists and ankles and have splayed his innards. Alas, do not fret, he still lives, but remains none too mobile. And oh, perhaps none too talkative either since I have relieved him of his tongue. But I am sure he’ll listen to all ye have to say as I have kindly left his ears where they are.’

  Gargaron eyed her coldly, adjusting his grip on his sword. Melai were right, he thought. This be a witch. And she has lured us here to what end?

  This Eve cackled again. ‘I see now it be yee who speaks falsehoods, Giant. For ye swallow tall tales rather naturally, and I believe ye did tell me otherwise.’

  ‘What are you playing at?’ Gargaron demanded angrily; beside him Grimah had begun to grow unsettled, looking about, its neck raised, stepping hither and thither.

  Eve turned fully to face him. ‘Ye want Hawkmoth?’ She pushed the door open; its hinges squeaked and she beckoned Gargaron and Melai forward. ‘Well, inside cottage he be.’

  As if to confirm this, a distant grizzled old voice appeared to sound from within: ‘Send them in, Eve, and for Soor’s sake, bolt the door behind you.’

  The doorway lay dark and ominous.

  Gargaron frowned. ‘Hawkmoth?’ he called. ‘Be that you?’

  ‘Who else would it be, I ask?!’ came the reply. ‘Now, stop dillydallying and come on in. We have much to discuss.’

  Gargaron frowned. Something were not right here, something about that voice, something he could not pinpoint.

  ‘So, giant,’ said this Eve, ‘tell me. Do ye wish to come in, or would ye rather remain out here? It matters not to me but hurry and have your minds made up ’fore yonder storm blows this way. For soon we shall have a tempest roar down upon us that will suck ye up into its angry belly as effortlessly as it will ye little wood’s nymph, and I personally would prefer to be indoors when it strikes.’

  Both Gargaron and Melai, and even the two heads of Grimah, turned northways to where a dark broiling mass had blotched out entire sky.

  Melai gasped. ‘What by Mother Thoonsk be that?’

  Gargaron had not seen its like for some years but knew it as soon as he saw it. Its rumbling blue-grey cloud banks, the wild flashes of forked shard-light in its belly, its ghostly arms pulling it across world, the hateful demon face at its curved front. ‘A vortex storm,’ he said gravely.

  ‘Aye, an angry breed, for sure,’ Eve said. ‘Now hurry, for I do not wish to remain out much longer. Join me inside and away from its reach. Or… spend the night here beyond shelter with naught but its fury for company.’

  Gargaron looked again at the storm and saw the dark clouds so much closer now; Grimah snorted, his ears shifting back and forth, unsettled. Gargaron gazed at Melai. ‘I do not trust her,’ Melai told him again. ‘Why does the sorcerer not show himself?’

  ‘I have no answer,’ he admitted.

  ‘We saw a cave some miles back,’ Melai reminded him. ‘Perhaps we ought return to it, huddle there for night.’

  They could hear it now, the storm’s dull roar, and sounds of trees being torn from ground, growls of cracking thunder, screech of fierce gales. ‘Aye, if we left now we may just make it.’

  ‘Well?’ came Eve’s voice, a sinister tone underlying it.

  Gargaron spoke not. Instead he hauled himself up into Grimah’s saddle and made at once to gallop away. Yet, what he, his Nightface, Melai, even Grimah, all failed to detect were the hulking entity standing at their backs. A tall white ghostly thing with hollow grey eyes and very few other features to its form. It opened its mouth, a vast cavernous mouth… and into it Gargaron and his companions were pulled.

  7

  Torrents of rain swept up the valley and roared against the cottage, inundating gutters, flooding garden and stables, gushing down into the vale. Day’s heat were smothered and fingers of cold snaked up hill on the back of squealing gales, chilling the air, creeping into cottage like a ghost’s breath.

  Shard-light crackled and thundered, illuminating the night in searing bursts while the storm front ate the hilltop woodland, bending trees, twisting them, uprooting many and more, plucking them into sky, roots and all, and off they went, end over end over end until the storm mass gobbled them up.

  For many hours Gargaron and Melai lay unconscious upon a rug spread across a paved floor. A presence floated above them. Eve. She hovered like a dark cloud, horizontal, gazing down at their faces. Her own face were split in two, down the middle from forehead to chin; a red proboscis had uncurled from her mouth and had snaked up inside the giant’s nose. She shut her eyes, she shivered in her delight as she drank of him. She savoured the connection with his mind.

  When she were done she retracted her proboscis and turned it upon the woodland nymph, forcing it up the nymph’s small nostril. And here Eve shut her eyes and fed again.

  Nearby, in the shadows, loomed the peculiar grey entity. Watching… watching.

  8

  When Gargaron and Melai awoke, the storm still screamed and roared, and they saw Eve standing near shutters peering out into night. Outside, trees crashed against the rigid stone cottage, shaking windows, rattling crockery. Some fell and smashed into tiled roof. Eve looked around and saw Gargaron and Melai and she grinned. ‘Come and watch,’ she urged them, shouting above the roar of storm. ‘Nature’s fury. Wondrous to behold.’

  Gargaron though could not move a fist. He felt somehow bound to floor. As if some witch’s spell of atrophy held him there. He groaned as he rolled over, trying to ascertain exactly where he were. When he tapped his Nightface it had nothing for him, as if it too had been influenced by some spell.

  Melai were none better. She opened her eyes but they shut on her. She moved her arms in attempts to hoist herself to some sort of seated position, hoping this may rouse her. But halfway to her objective, her senses failed her and she slumped back to floor.

  It were Gargaron who helped stir her, protectively pulling her to him as he might have dragged his daughter from a pack of Hoardogs, rubbing her limbs, stimulating blood flow, talking to her, urging her to stay awake. They slumped against cottage wall together, too weak to stand, watching Eve who crouched at shutters, gazing away into storm.

  9

  For a long while nothing changed. They sat, out of storm grip but assaulted nonetheless by the sounds of its rage and destruction. The cottage heaved and creaked and more than once Gargaron feared the roof were about to lift free and break apart and tumble off into sky.<
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  ‘What do you want from us?’ Gargaron heard himself asking. His voice were weak though and went unheard above howling gale and drumming rain. He looked about for his pack, for his sword and his hammer hilt, for Melai’s bow and quiver, but saw them nowhere.

  Eve eventually left her position by the shutters and both Gargaron and Melai believed they heard her say, ‘What say we enjoy some supper?’

  They watched her as she moved to a side room. And here, through the doorway, they saw her disrobe. She had a peculiarly shaped body, as if she had been constructed rather than grown. The tops of her arms didn’t quite meet at the shoulders; a short metal bar connected the two. The same could be said of the tops of her legs; a metal bar holding her legs to her hips. And there looked to be another that held her head to her chest. She possessed four breasts (a pair on her chest, the second pair below them) but below her sternum her stomach were open and she appeared within to be a mixture of wires and cogs and cords and clockwork.

  When she emerged from the room she were dressed in a light shawl despite the chill in the air. Her feet were bare. She even looked different, younger somehow, not so old and menacing. As if she had not only changed her clothes but had swapped out her face.

  She moved away to a kitchen and returned carrying a platter of apples, cheese and bread. She placed this on a large wooden table. Bursts of shard-light illuminated the shuttered windows. Wind howled. Eve approached Gargaron and Melai where they still had not moved, huddled together against cottage’s stone wall.

  She knelt before them, her knees against the floor and her hands placed upon her thighs. Here she regarded them, a motherly look upon her face.