Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (16 page)

He strode forward and gazed
westways. Before him the lay of land had changed. Thoonsk, he
guessed, beautiful green water glades, were spread out before them
now beneath a soft layer of dawn mist, curving across land from
south to northways. But what caught his sight were not the pretty
scene of morning sunbeams cast across the watery woodlands but the
hideous wave rolling across the distant treetops, surging from
northways’n’west to southways’n’east, on and onwards toward
zeppelin.

It were somehow beautiful, in its
own frightening way. To see it from such a vantage. But there were
no time to stand and admire it.

He knew instantly what were coming
their way: a shockwave like those he had twice experienced since
that fateful morn on the banks of Buccuyashuck.

‘
Are we safe from it up here?’ he
asked the mekanik.

Metal man replied not.

‘
Are we safe here, I ask?’
Gargaron pressed.

A coughing,
grunting sound burped up from the chest of the metal man.
‘
Th-theeeeeey haaave detonated…
anoth-another Boom.
’ Sparks spurt from the
mekanik’s face grill as its metal fingers worked furiously at the
rudder, turning zeppelin southways, all the while taking it ever
higher from ground.

‘
Boom?
’
Gargaron asked.
‘Of who do
you speak? What be this Boom?’

But the mekanik had no time to
reply. The invisible shockwave smashed into them at a terrifying
rate.

6

The craft
pitched, balloon and cage rolled over, spilling Gargaron, his steed
and anything not tied down or secured to craft, wildly to port.
Objects toppled out over the side, and with them, scrabbling
futilely with its mighty hooves, went Grimah
…

Gargaron lunged desperately after
him. But he were too late. Out his horse tumbled, whaling,
squealing, smashing against the black steel propeller unit, rending
it free, both horse and mechanical device out and over, and
gone.

Gargaron clung horrified to mast,
but the shudder that gripped the craft shook him loose and he fell
heavily away, smashing into portside bulwark. The air coughed from
his lungs. Wincing, gasping, he looked about, not even certain how
he were still on deck and not thrown after Grimah. The mekanik he
saw were still strapped in its pilot’s seat, its head lolled sickly
to one side, sparks and green flame spurting and spitting from its
neck grill and its eyes madly flickering blue and
yellow.

Slowly the balloon began to right
itself, elevating again, bringing the craft level but accompanying
it came a splitting, cracking noise and Gargaron looked up in time
to witness the mast itself rupturing, threatening to snap away from
the gondola.

He gripped the gunwale, eyeing the
mast, willing it to hold. Only to hear the whinnying cries of his
steed. He frowned. Were he hearing things? The whinnying came
again.

Gripping the deck he rolled
carefully to his side and set his eye out over the edge.

Somehow Grimah hung there by one
of its necks, snared by its bridle that had miraculously knotted
itself around one of the gunwale’s horn cleats.

Gargaron felt a surge of relief
that Grimah were uninjured, that it had not yet fallen to its
death. But desperation pushed him now, and with a surge of blood he
reached out over edge of ship and gripped the horse’s
bridle.

It took all of his strength to
haul the horse back to craft’s side. But to drag steed, with all
its bulk and weight, back upon deck, he knew would take more
strength than he could muster. Yet, Grimah surprised him, proving
his worth as only a true steed trained in war and crisis could.
With his own strength, with his own natural instincts of
self-preservation, he kicked out his forelegs and managed to hook
them over gunwale, and aided by the giant, he managed to clamber
back to relative safety.

Once Grimah were back on deck,
with the mast bent at an awkward angle, with the ship lolling, and
rudder stuck sending the zeppelin on a rotating course, Gargaron
scrambled to the unmoving mekanik.

He gripped it and
shook it, minding the flames roaring from its neck.
‘
Awaken, you godawful
thing!
’

But it did not.

In the far northwun Gargaron now
spotted the vast front of a second shockwave rolling out across
Thoonsk’s lush canopy. It would be here in a matter of minutes. He
either had to escape its claws by climbing further into sky, or
land the zeppelin and ride out the shockwave at ground level. He
already knew what would be best. Further elevation had made no
difference trying to escape the first wave. He had to get this
thing to ground.

In all his life Gargaron had never
ridden a zeppelin. Let alone flown one. Yet, he unbelted the
mekanik and shoved it aside. It were still fizzing and aflame, its
arm in spasms as it tumbled to the decking. Gargaron studied the
flight console. It were a dizzying array of levers, cranks,
pulleys, gas pods, dials.

‘
Blast
this!
’ he growled, yanking on the leavers
that he had observed the mekanik working, hoping desperately to
purge gas from the balloon, hoping to halt the propeller mechanism
still operating, hoping that something would give them safe yet
rapid descent. But perhaps the first shockwave had damaged
controls, or ruptured the hosing as green liquid now squirted
wildly across the deck. And although escaping gas hissed and spat,
the craft were not heading for ground. At least not as quick as
Gargaron wished it. He saw no other choice now. He withdrew his
great sword and yelled at his steed, ‘
If
you comprehend, horse, then hold something!
Tight
.’

Grimah appeared to understand. Or
else he were once more simply enacting self-preservation measures;
he began shifting his two heads and around and around so that the
reigns clung to the bollard upon which the mooring lines were
secured. Wasting not another second, Gargaron ran and jumped at the
balloon, slicing its side, dicing through the cage’s bony fingers.
Instantly gas screeched from the puncture and instantly the craft
began to spiral downward.

7

Gargaron were tossed across decks, sliding
toward aft, centrifugal force thrusting him outwards as the airship
spun, his hands and arms flailing, desperate to catch hold of
anything that would secure him to the falling airship.

But here, the second shockwave
hit.

The mast splintered, the balloon
shot back in the drag, marginally slowing the craft until the mast
severed for good. Balloon and mast spun off out of sight and the
airship plummeted like a stone.

8

Mostly, woodland and water
cushioned their fall. But the impact into the treetops of Thoonsk
tore the zeppelin apart. Branches of the water forest erupted,
snapped and cracked and bits of the zeppelin flung away in a
thousand directions, and Gargaron, steed and mekanik were flung off
into tree tops, smashing through foliage like cannon balls, ripping
away branch and leaf until the tepid lagoons swallowed them up in
mighty explosions of water and lilies and roots and sunkwood
snags.

The sounds of trees falling, of
scattered branches clip-clopping down amidst bough and trunk and
plummeting into water, the rain of a trillion leaves fluttering
down through the woodland, the sound of the shockwave rolling away
yonder, could all be heard for a little while… and then
silence.

1

SHE watched the peculiar skyship
fall and disintegrate as it slammed spinning into treetops. She
watched the strange beasts that tumbled from it: the two-headed
horse of immense proportions, the metal man in a wash of green
fire, and the Rjoond giant.

This Rjoond splashed heavily
amidst the water snails, narrowly missing their mighty spiraling
shells, like the humps of slumbering river monsters, jutting above
water’s surface. Snake orchid tendrils bent from bough and branch
toward him, writhing blue stamens inside bright olive-purple
flowers licking the air, tasting the new arrivals. Bug eyed swamp
cats took to treetops as the skyship impacted and tore apart; there
they perched, chittering excitedly amongst themselves, gazing down
at the big, stupid Rjoond lying there in the reeds and lilies
groaning. The headless Buccas climbed down from nests of bone root
to inspect this Rjoond only to be startled by his loyal two-faced
horse crashing through sodden undergrowth toward him, thus they
scrambled back up to safety of the canopy.

Melai Willowborne hid high up in
bushy bough as the Rjoond pulled himself into a seated position.
Water dripped down his face she saw, water weed and lilies clung to
his head and chest. His two-headed steed stood protectively nearby,
looking about, sniffing the water, searching for signs of danger.
She wondered how keen its senses were. If it might intuit her
presence. She watched it closely. It had not yet looked her way…
but she felt it were but a matter of time.

She did not move as the giant
rubbed the back of his neck, rubbed his elbow, and looked around, a
grimace upon his face. She saw he and horse both were cut and
grazed and bruised, strange purplish blood from Rjoond, red from
the horse, dripping down and fanning out in Thoonsk’s clear
water.

Rjoond rolled his head from side
to side, gazed up into the canopy to perhaps measure how far he had
fallen. He then looked around as if searching for any part of his
downed skyship.

You will have a
job
, Melai thought.
Your craft, all of its shattered pieces, sunk and swallowed,
belong now to mother Thoonsk
.

If he were also searching for his
metal man, then she alone could have told him: she had spied it
break in two, one part shooting southways as the ship splintered
into a thousand pieces, the other tumbling straight down, sunk into
the cool depths of her lagoon. Even now, from her vantage, if she
looked carefully she could spy its strange, blinking lights beneath
the ripples, and the ungodly spurt of its green fire.

She would offer up no such secrets
to the Rjoond giant however. For she knew, with his warhorse and
his armoured battle-droyd, that he had come here to slay
her.

‘
Kill me
,’ she whispered to the
still air, ‘
oh Rjoond of Never. Kill me if
you can. And ought you be quick and sure about it, if this be your
plan. For, one of us shall die before the day is through. And it
shan’t be I.
’

Her bow,
Sera’s Child
, were slung
across her chest. And a quiver of magic tipped arrows strapped on
her hip. For now she would content herself with observing this
great oaf. Perhaps he would drown down a hidden sinkhole. Or his
face eaten off by a flesh leech. Or at day’s end she would fill him
with enough poison to topple a swamp mammoth. Whatever the case, at
his moment of death she would present herself to him and let him
understand that this were justice for the grief he had brought down
upon her and her kin.

2

She watched him pull himself to
his feet. He stumbled backward, obviously dizzy. She smiled as he
fell rump first into the water. He reached for the nearest tree to
drag his face from the water again, spitting, coughing. He spoke
words to his horse, words she could not hear. The horse snorted,
its nostrils vibrating vigorously, its ears back, both necks
outstretched. She felt that it sensed her now. It looked about,
this time into the tree tops. She remained oh so still, drawing on
the colours and textures of bark and leaf, absorbing the scenery
around her. It had not spied her but it knew something were
watching.

The Rjoond seemed
to pick up on this, turning his stiffened neck to survey the area
the horse appeared concerned with.
Were I
to move
, she thought,
you would see me, oafish Rjoond. Yet I shall not give you the
pleasure
.

He stood for a
while gazing into treetops. Eventually it must have wearied him for
he trudged to what he thought were an island on which to free
himself of lagoon’s waters, but it turned out to be the shell hump
of a marine snail. He backed away from it lest it prove hostile.
She frowned.
Does he not know that his
evil magic is killing it?

He found higher ground on mounds
of deadfall, pulling himself up out of the lagoon at last; though
the mound sagged with his weight.

Melai grinned too
herself.
If this oaf hopes to find dry
ground, his hopes be dashed.
Except for
the old stone road built three hundred years ago by the invading
Rjoond’s of Darkk 5, (those whose sieges had come to an abrupt end
when wrath of Thoonsk rose up and drowned them in killer walls of
relentless pounding water) there were no solid or high ground in
this area of the water forest. Still, that roadway were some way
off. And if that were the way he were planning to head then she,
for her own amusement, would make certain he never reached
it.