Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (17 page)

3

He sat upon the
twisted, knotted deadfall heap for a lengthy period. Still
gathering his senses she assumed. He continued to appear dazed,
disoriented, lost. It brought another smile to her soft green lips.
And the fact that he were cut and slashed warmed her heart.
So Rjoonds do
bleed
, she mused.
And so shall you also die, Rjoond pig. By
my
hand
.

One particular
gash on his upper arm wept profusely. He noticed it not for some
time. Not until his steed nudged him and the Rjoond broke from
whatever tormented thoughts ate at him and looked first at his
horse before noticing purple blood dripping from his elbow, pooling
amidst yellow lichen and flaky brown bark and red moss. It made her
smile all the more, for blood would draw up the flesh worms that
resided in rotting wood, waiting for some passing beast to screw
themselves into. Blood, with any luck, would also draw out the
spined basilisk from its den.
That would
be a decent show
, she wagered.
Rjoond giant versus Thoonsk’s mighty unvanquished
basilisk. This day gets better with each passing
moment.

She watched him as he sat there
looking about. She assumed he may have been searching for something
to staunch his blood loss, or something that had perhaps recently
been on his person, a medicinal kit maybe, or some other sort of
belonging. But she were happy to see, in spite of his searching,
that he went without the item of his desire.

Still, it intrigued her, what he
did next. He hefted up the hem of his leather jerkin, exposing
belly and ribs. The muscle there were taut, no paunch. But below
the line of his ribs there existed two or three rounded welts of
raised flesh. From one of these he peeled away what looked to be a
circular strip of skin. The Rjoond then placed this over his gaping
wound and, grimacing, held it there in place for several moments.
When he’d removed his hand he gazed at the patch of flesh, perhaps
looking to see if his measures had proven effective or
not.

Melai noticed the flow of blood
had ceased, and the wound looked healed over, as if the patch of
grafted flesh had merged somehow into the surrounding skin. It were
a most intriguing and curious sight to behold.

After that she
watched as he padded himself down.
He
checks for more wounds
, she thought,
wondering if and when the flesh worms would wriggle up and find
him. He pulled something from a pocket. And as he held it in his
lap, she watched as he studied it at length.

It were too small
or too distant for Melai to make out.
A
stone tablet
, she guessed. And what were
inscribed upon it she could not see. When he put it away he gazed
away into canopy, his hand shading his eyes from the glare of the
suns.
Does he sense me here at
last?
Melai wondered.

He pointed and spoke something to
his horse. Melai heard him not. Except he pointed westways. Then he
climbed down off the mound of deadfall and slowly, as if in acute
pain, mounted up.

4

They pressed on through forest,
the sound of his steed’s heavy splashing as it waded through
crystal clear lagoon echoed loud, obtrusive, conspicuous. Melai
spread her wings, leapt, and followed, gliding soundlessly from
tree to tree. Every now and then the horse’s four ears flickered,
troubled, wary, its two noses snorting, and it would halt against
the wishes of its Rjoond master, and turn its noses in her
direction. When it did she would press herself up against bark, or
hide back within foliage, and her skin would take on the pigment of
her surroundings.

She heard the Rjoond speak for the
first time here. She were not surprised to learn that his words
were not that of her own tongue, but Valeyen. The language of the
Greater Vale. A tongue she had mastered long ago, a tongue taught
to her by Mother Thoonsk through her home tree; better to recognise
and understand the language of the enemy to better defend against
them.

‘
What do you see?’ Rjoond asked
his steed, following its gaze into the crown of the woods. ‘What be
it, pray tell?’

Of course the steed could no more
answer him than it could fly, she saw. Except every so often, when
the water were shallow, the Rjoond would dismount, face the horse
and place his forehead against one of those of his steed. It seemed
to belie everything she had heard about these Rjoond giants. Too
delicate an act, it appeared, too intimate. Tales told of an oafish
and warlike race. Clumsy and half witted. And bereft of emotion or
feeling. Incapable of sentiment or warmth or delicate physical
touch.

She could only
guess at what he were doing during these moments.
Some sort of communion with his steed, by the
looks of it. Tapping into the steed’s mind perhaps, hoping to learn
why it keeps stopping and searching these
treetops.

They passed further mounds of
deadfall and sunkwood snags, and blue lilies covering water’s
surface. Enormous lily frogs, frogs that stood as high as the
Rjoond’s knee, jumped and flopped about. Tadpoles as big as his
fist swarmed about the steed’s legs, sucking at its
skin.

‘
Perhaps we have left the
epicentre behind at last,’ she heard the Rjoond say elatedly to his
mount. ‘Life goes on here. Thriving. Look.’

Thriving?
she thought.
The frogs
normally croak all day. Or grunt, grunt, grunt in the throes of
courtship. None are engaged in such games, as you can clearly see.
None make a peep these days. The tree cats might normally be
hunting, clawing fish and forest squid from the depths of the
lagoon. Instead the cats languish about the tree tops, panting,
enduring the illness you have sent us. And in parts, I have
observed the fish floating more than swimming, gulping desperately
for air. The flesh worms should emerge to feed upon your flesh each
time you take to another pile of deadfall, but they do not. The
mighty basilisk should have by now vacated its den to seek you out,
but where is it? Life here does not
thrive
, as you believe, Rjoond oaf,
it is dying. Dying, I say! By
your
hand!

5

It were early afternoon when she
reached a point where she had observed enough. She could watch no
more of this fiend and his beast traipsing through her water-forest
home. Normally mother Thoonsk would have sent killer waves through
the woodland to crush intruders, but Melai feared mother Thoonsk
were caught too in some untimely and tragic demise. So, Melai would
set about bringing on the Rjoond’s death herself, the parasite, the
disease that he were. She were undecided about the steed. Whether
or not to allow it life over death. She would decide in time.
Meanwhile, whether he sensed settlement or not, this Rjoond were
beginning to stray too close to her village. And she would not have
him discover it. For he would surely bring it down.

She flew on ahead, calculating the
route he and his mount would likely take, and perched herself in a
bough directly above which Rjoond and steed might trek. She removed
her bow and selected a Barb of Insanity from her macabre arrow
collection. Filled with Black Moonlight, once lodged in Rjoond’s
stinking flesh, once the misty black poison had entered his blood
stream, he would lose his mind and begin a slow process of
self-harm. Slicing off his fingers and toes. Cutting his face free.
Incising a hole in his belly and dragging out the ropes of his
guts. Before he bled to death he would try to saw off his legs,
maybe an arm. Or dig his eyes out. But generally they did not get
so far.

For a while Rjoond and steed were
lost from her sight. But not from her ears; their approach were
noisy and conspicuous to the point of annoyance. Finally she
spotted them amidst red and green foliage where sunbeams cut
through in brilliant golden swathes and a thousand white moths
burst up from rotting trunks leaning against a copse of trees
forming a natural arch under which Rjoond and his steed came
stomping heavy and loud, water frothing in their wake.

‘
Meet death,
dear Rjoond
,’ she whispered to the air,
and nocking now her Barb of Insanity, she drew back on the chord.
‘
Meet it well and pray to meet it without
pain, for, trust me, pain you most certainly shall feel. And for
the sake of my dear sisters, I shall gladly
watch.
’

She stared down
arrow’s shaft, waiting… waiting… the big ugly head of the Rjoond in
her sights. ‘
For my
sisters
,’ she whispered and let her arrow
loose.

6

Gargaron saw not the death dart
fly toward his face. But he did feel the sudden jolts of pain rip
through his ankle. As he reached down swiftly to tear off whatever
swamp beast were assailing him, the arrow zipped pass his neck,
missing him by naught but the breadth of a feather. He never saw
it, never even heard nor felt it rush by as it speared itself
silently into the water beyond.

He tore off his boot. And set his
eyes on some strange segmented creature coiled about his ankle. He
had not noticed it climb up. Nor had his steed, for that matter,
that much were obvious for his steed had given him no warning. Nor
had his Nightface. He had not even felt the thing infiltrate his
footwear. No doubt some ambush parasite, waterborne, quick
striking, stealthy.

Dizzy, Gargaron pulled his steed
to a halt and hefted up his leg and rest it across the horse’s
broad shoulders to get a closer look at the little monster. Its
little toothy mouth had clenched onto his ankle.

A lamprey of some
kind
, he wondered. For lampreys were
common in the waterways around Hovel and possessed similar
mouths.

He lifted his arm and touched it
with his fingers. Its shell were rigid and as coarse as rock. If
this were indeed a lamprey then it were obviously of a different
species, being black and rough, where the kind he knew were white
and slimy.

He closed his hand about the
creature and attempted to simply tug it free. But its teeth dug
deeper and a jarring pain shot through his foot. Grimacing he
released his hold upon it. And saw blood. His own, a purplish
rivulet streaming down his heel and dripping away onto horse’s
sweating hide.

He twisted his leg about, lowering
his face to it to gain an overall picture of this little beast and
the manner of its assault upon him. He watched its lips suck at his
skin, small teeth grinding into his flesh. But he saw also that a
bony tongue had penetrated his leg, had come through the other
side, backwards facing barbs clamping it in place.

Gargaron sighed—there would be no
simple way of removing this thing. He studied the barbs. Perhaps he
might snap them backwards and break them, and simply drag the
creature and its godforsaken tongue from him. He took one between
thumb and forefinger and levered it backwards…

He grimaced as it sliced layers of
skin from his fingers. He sucked off the blood. He tried the same
trick using leather cloth as padding. But that too were soon cut
through.

He withdrew his dirk. He wiggled
its glistening black blade beneath the tip of the little beast’s
bony tongue. When he tried snapping off the barbs, excruciating
pain zapped up his leg and a second tongue suddenly and
inexplicably shot from the creature’s mouth, driving through his
ankle and thrusting out the other side in a little coughing
explosion of blood and meat. The pain of the impact made him howl,
even startling Grimah who bucked and knocked Gargaron from
saddle.

Gargaron splashed heavily into the
lagoon, and went under…

7

When the first arrow failed to
meet its target, Melai nocked a second quickly; another, like the
first, loaded with Dark Moonlight. She were determined to see this
Rjoond bring on his own demise in the most gruesome and humiliating
fashion. Yet, when she saw that a Soulsucka were assailing him, she
stayed her hand, choosing instead to observe the show for a little
while.

She relaxed the bow chord and
watched his attempts at extricating the Sucka from his person. She
watched as he roared in pain, spooking his mount. She watched him
drop down into Mother Thoonsk’s cool embrace and she knew then this
Rjoond of Never would fail to rise. That he would naught breathe
again.

Soulsuckas were Werms of the Deep,
waterborne predators, no more at home than when submerged in the
deep pools and underwater valleys of Thoonsk. Rjoond had not yet
surfaced. And nor would he. For by now his Soulsucka would have
shot out its dozen bony arms which would have clung to underwater
deadfall and rock and submerged root, holding its prey down,
preventing its subject from resurfacing. Right now the Rjoond would
be doing his best to hold breath as he struggled frantically
against his bonds. But it would be of little use. For as the
Soulsucka drank the life essence from him, the Rjoond would in turn
begin to lose will and strength of mind. Already the fight would be
seeping from him, his desire to rid himself of his assailant
waning. Soon he would be drown and the Soulsucka would be done with
him and he would drown be would be eaten up by lagoon shrimp and
snapper crabs.