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Sky Demon
by Alyson Faye

Every night Alwain watched the skies, as had his father before him, and his father’s father. As a boy he’d been taught how to read the cloud patterns, the shifts in sun and shadow, the signals sent by the gods of the sky.

“Only the chosen can hear their voices,” Alwain’s father told him. “When the storms come, the rains will wash away our homes, the bolts of white light will strike down the unwary, blinding or smiting them dead. You, young Alwain, will be our last defence. You must do as the sky gods command.”

Alwain, all of ten years old, hung his head. “Even i -if they tell me to kill?”

His father frowned. “The gods are all knowing, and righteous in their might.”

The years passed, and Alwain grew tall and strong. He was now a hunter, a husband, a father, as well as the village’s Protector.

The village flourished, the crops fed all, and the animals grew fat. The river ran flush with fish and for years and years the skies were quiescent.

Until . . . the horn blared at dawn, a series of rapid frantic notes, dragging Alwain and others from their hammocks and out of their huts.

Though it was dawn the sky wore the colours of dusk, steely grey shadows swelled the clouds’ bellies, a sickly orange glow ringing them. The air stank of fire and copper.  A searing white light blazed through the clouds, and, streaking through the sky, seemed to be coming closer . . . ever closer . . .

“It’s heading towards the river!” Irian, the blacksmith, shouted.

Alwain cried, “Gather the women and children in the Great Hall! Barricade the doors.”

He gathered his hunting party, and the men headed north to the river. The closer they got the worse the stench of rotting meat, and burning wood. A herd of cows lay on their sides in the fields, charred and blackened. The trees smoked, their leaves scorched away and the river sizzled.

Alwain was the first to reach the shoreline. He gazed in amazement at what was resting in the water. Several pieces of shiny metal floated but smashed up, and in the midst of the debris, as if by magic, tiny fires burned. Most strange of all to his eyes was the creature who had burst from the wreckage. It was silver, glittering in the sun, and floating upon a raft the colour of egg yolk.

The hunters splashed into the shallows pulling at the raft, dragging it and the creature to shore.

Alwain scanned the skies, turning the eye of his mind and the tuning of his hearing inwards to hearken to the sky gods’ message.

He knelt, he prayed, he wept. And he heard – nothing.

Only the whisper of the river, the frightened breaths of his men, and the wheezing gasps from the creature. It was in pain, injured but it lifted a limb, pointing upwards, and uttered incomprehensible sounds. The men shrank away, turning terrified faces to Alwain.

He thought, Help me, sky gods, tell me what to do.

He was their Protector,  and he knew that what he did next would define the rest of his life, and also those of his children’s. If he failed the village, his bloodline would be exterminated. It was the Ruling.

Only weak men showed fear and indecision. His father had beaten that into him.

Alwain stood up. “The gods have spoken to me. We can all see their anger in the skies.” The men, terror-struck, nodded.

“This stranger is a threat. He must die.”

Alwain thrust his father’s dagger into the creature’s chest. Static burst from the silver suit’s buttons, the creature’s head dressing lit up, bleeping and it screeched in its own tongue.

But like any other villager when struck thus, it died.

“Now the ritual can begin. Harvest it, and we will feast well tonight,” Alwain walked away, knowing he was safe; the Protector inviolate.

***

Alwain sat by the fire, now sixty winters older, watching his many grandchildren play with sticks, clay toys, beads and ropes. His family.

He listened as they sang :-

“Lulla lulla, sleep thee well.

Lulla, demon, you’ll never dwell,

Not in our homes, nor in our hearts

For Alwain chopped you up in parts.

Lulla, lulla sleep thee well.”

Alwain smiled, licked his lips and drank deep from the skull cup, rocking back and forth to the singing. Around his leathery neck and wrist, the strings of teeth, torn from the sky demon’s mouth, clicked softly.

 

Fiction © Copyright Alyson Faye
Image © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose

More from Alyson Faye:

The Lost Girl & Spindleshanks

The Lost Girl
A nailed-up door. An inheritance which comes with a ghost. A missing girl. A fifty-year-old mystery. Parapsychologist Berkley Osgood is hired to investigate. What he uncovers reveals secrets the living want to hide and the dead will never forgive.

Spindleshanks
Adam is having nightmares about a skeletal shadow figure, who he calls Spindleshanks. Soon his whole class are sharing the same nightmare. Adam’s dad, Rob, knows that Spindleshanks can’t be real. But is he? One terrible night Rob has to face his son’s nightmare creature and fight for his son’s life. What would you sacrifice to have your child back safe?

“A decent two-for-one. Alyson Faye brings the engaging and eerie in equal measure.” CC Adams – horror / dark fiction author

Available on Amazon!