Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale by A. L. Brooks

Author:A. L. Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: giants, fantasy action adventure fiction novel epic saga, monsters adventure, witches witchcraft, fantasy action epic battles, world apocalypse, fantasy about supernatural force, fantasy adventure mystery, sorcerers and magic

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 told them. ‘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.

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