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

includes Autumn, he thought, then that tower may tell me what I need to know,
and might allow me to see how far this blackness spreads, allow me
to discover how far I need yet traverse to rid myself of this
corruption, to find some soul with an explanation as to what has
happened here.

    3
    Autumn did prove
deserted of the living. No matter where he tread or searched,
naught but the dead lined its streets and the stench of decay were
ripe and raw on the breeze. Yet there were things alive here that brought
him no cause for celebration. Enormous violet flowers growing from
the dead.
    Corpse
Flowers , his kind knew them by name. And
as he pressed on deeper into the township, their numbers grew,
parts of the settlement looking more like forests of violet, with
their towering stems soaring above many households and shops,
leaves and flowers fluttering and swaying in the
breeze.
    Gargaron had not seen such numbers
of these creatures for many a year, not since the early days of his
marriage to his sweetheart Yarniya. He recalled an occasion when he
and his father had come across a bloodied battle field and there he
had lain his eyes on hundreds of them. Hundreds of Corpse Flowers
that had taken root within the dead and were hungrily consuming
them. He thought he would never have seen such a show of them again
in his life. But here there must’ve been thousands.
    Undeterred, he called out in front
of the governor’s residence, and searched the hospital. He strolled
through the community hall, then the university, hoping he might
find survivors holed up against this blight. All the while he gave
the flowers a wide berth. But searching the town for survivors made
no difference. Autumn proved as dead and silent as
Hovel.
    At last he stood outside the gates
of Autumn’s Watchguard, hoping that at last here would be living
folk, members of the Watchguard, surviving against the tide of
death. The Watchguard fort were a vast walled complex, for here
were the barracks and the primary centre of control of the realm’s
mighty protectors. The complex also housed the base of Skysight
Tower. Though Gargaron’s hopes were sunk for the gates were cast
open, something that would not have been had the Watchguard
remained alive and at their post.
    He heeled his steed, cautiously
pushing through gate and arch, and were met with the sight of a
hundred of his own kind, giants, scattered about in various poses
of death and decay. Some sprawled across cobbles. Others dangling
from rampart and wall. Some still at desks within offices and
administration houses, bellies eaten open, innards dragged out and
unceremoniously pulled across tiled floor like stuffing from a
doll.
    And here amidst numerous Corpse
Flowers, skorks and greeps hissed at his intrusion, black little
devil bugs with beetle eyes and long slurping tongues. He had hoped
for life here, sentient life, but alas all that seemed
dashed.

    4
    He took his steed to base of
tower. A spot upon which he had never stood. Indeed not being of
the Watchguard, he would not have been permitted to otherwise. And
never would he have foreseen such a day when he could simply amble
up to Watchguard Gate and simply stroll through unchallenged. Now
here he stood, marveling at the craftsmanship of the tower, a true
engineering wonder, gazing up and up and up… to where Skytower’s
upper floors needled the clouds.
    He heeled his steed, circled the
vast base of the tower; the clip-clop of the great horse’s hooves
echoing off the surrounding domed Watchguard buildings and its tall
outer walls. Two arched gates, gates too left open and ajar, lead
through fifty feet of base wall to an inner courtyard.
    He took Grimah through and stood
there gazing up into tower’s tall, hollow interior. It were
essentially a giant needle, he observed, hollow all the way to its
tip, far out of sight above him; it ached his neck to crane back
his head to look. He circled about looking for a way up.
    There were more Corpse