by D. P. Prior
The sun burning within the Archon’s cowl flared red, and Shadrak backed away from its scorching heat.
“OK, I’m going,” he said. “Rescue Shader, then what? Ask the dwarves nicely to let us use their tunnels? Maybe they’ll spare a bite to eat, while they’re at it. And if I’m honest, I could use a trip to the crapper.”
“They will take no part in this,” the Archon said. “Bad advice brought you here.”
“And you didn’t think to say something?” Shadrak knew that pointy-eared elf couldn’t be trusted, nor the sodding hunchback.
“You must find a way, Shadrak. Either to persuade the dwarves, or to find some other means to take the mountain.”
“Give us a second and I’ll rustle up an army,” Shadrak said, half-expecting a backlash for the sarcasm.
“That might work. Keep it in mind. Now hurry.”
Dust motes circled the Archon’s feet, wound their way toward his cowled head, spiraling faster and faster until he was consumed by a sparkling tornado, which then puffed out of existence.
Shadrak sprinted along the walkway, almost wishing someone would spot him so he could do to them what he couldn’t to the Archon.
The door the dwarves had taken Shader and Rhiannon through was hermetically sealed, only a hairline crack revealing its existence. He ran his hands over the surface, looking for hidden panels, some sort of mechanism to open the thing. Nothing. Not even a chip or a crack.
“Great,” he muttered up at the twin suns. “What am I s’posed to do now, knock? Hello? A little divine intervention, if it ain’t too much to ask.” His only answer was the fleeting shadows of buzzards circling overhead.
He unrolled his tool pack, selected the thinnest pick he had, and ran it around the crack of the door. It struck something about halfway up on the left-hand side, but whatever it was had no give in it and felt far too large to be the sort of mechanism he could trip. He put his eye to the crack but couldn’t see a thing. Perhaps with a match or a lantern—but of course he had neither. He drummed his fingers against the door while he chewed the problem over. A hammer and chisel might’ve done the trick, if he’d had them, but then again, the noise would’ve brought every dwarf in the city running. Same with explosives. He fiddled with a globe in one of his belt pouches, considered it anyway, but then decided it wouldn’t do nothing ’cept char the stone. Rate he was going, it’d be quicker to wait for a thousand years of rainfall to whittle away the door one drop at a time. True to bloody form, though, there weren’t a single sodding cloud in the sky.
He rolled up the pack and put it away. They must’ve done something to open it: a signal, a password, a combination of knocks. If only he’d paid more attention. That had certainly been his intention, but then his focus had shifted onto Shader, expecting him to do something, put up some semblance of a fight, rather than being led meekly away.
“Shog it.” Shadrak snapped, thumping the door and wincing at the pain. “That’s it,” he told the heavens. “Hit me with your best shot, coz I’ve had it about up to—”
There was a loud clunk, followed by the grinding of stone upon stone as the crack at the bottom widened, and the door started to slide upward. Shadrak whirled out of the way just in time, flattening his back against the wall.
A dwarf stepped out—or rather, parts of a dwarf did. Shadrak blinked and looked again. He could see the profile of a nose and beard, forearms and hands, and hints of legs terminating in leather boots. What was it, some kind of wraith, like Callixus? And then he noticed the air around the bits of the dwarf he could see rippling ever so slightly, and he realized what it was. The dwarf was wearing a hooded cloak that merged perfectly with the surroundings—first the darkness of the interior, but as he emerged onto the walkway, his cloak blended with the ocher of the ravine wall.
Shadrak slipped a dagger free from his baldric and waited half a dozen heartbeats, but there was no sound from within. Chances were, this dwarf was alone, but what was he about? After standing with hands on hips, taking in the view—or perhaps he was scanning for more intruders—the dwarf turned back to face the doorway, at the same time holding up two rectangular pieces of stone the length of a finger and snapping them together. The door started to descend, and the dwarf gasped as Shadrak sprang and slit his throat from ear to ear. The dwarf’s hands flew to his neck, and his lips trembled. Blood ran through his fingers, pattered on the walkway, and then his knees buckled, and he fell over backwards, smacking his head on the stone.
Shadrak wiped the blade on the dwarf’s tunic and was about to unfasten the cloak when he remembered the door. Shog, it was six inches from closing. He cursed and gritted his teeth, but then his eyes fell on the length of stone the dwarf held in his white knuckled-hand. Snatching it up, he pulled the two segments apart, and the door started to rise again. He then quickly removed his cloak and swapped it for the dwarf’s. Pulling the camouflaging material around him and tugging down the hood.
He took a step toward the doorway, but a niggling thread tugged at his conscience, made him stoop to cover the corpse with his discarded cloak. He sighed and shook his head.
“Oh, Kadee,” he muttered under his breath. “Kadee, Kadee, what are you doing to me?” She was more trouble in death than in life, and yet, was she truly dead, if she could stand alongside the Archon and speak with him? He’d never been one to believe in the afterlife and all that, but facts was facts. He couldn’t deny her presence, unless, of course, he was losing it. Maybe if she was some other place, somewhere better, he could… He shut the thought down; cursed himself for a prat. No point living in false hope. That sort of thing’d get him killed sooner than he’d like. If there was any truth to it, he’d know when the time came, when they put him six feet under. Only thing he had to say on the matter was she’d better be all right, coz if she weren’t, he might just have to make a premature visit, set things straight.
He slipped inside the entrance then snapped the stones together and waited for the door to grind shut.
There was a corridor bearing left and right, and an open doorway straight ahead. It was mostly dark, but the walls were splashed with wan light that seemed to come from the stone itself.
Old habits die hard, and so even with the protection of the cloak, Shadrak stuck to the shadows and moved silently on the balls of his feet through the open doorway. He flattened himself against a wall as he heard muffled footfalls and the low rumble of voices approaching. Four red-cloaked dwarves passed him by without a glance, deep in conversation about demons, the Demiurgos, and the sins of the Fallen.
“Bringing ’em into the city’ll curse us, I tell you,” one in a bronze helm and scaled armor said. “Should’ve killed ’em when we had the chance, like we should’ve done with you know who.”
A scrawny ginger-beard with an awkward gait made a show of mock horror. “Oh, you mean the Nameless Dwarf.”
“Not funny, Gline. Not shogging funny at all,” said an older dwarf, whose face was crisscrossed with scars.
“Yeah, show some respect, Gline,” Bronze Helm said. “Lot of people died to that bastard.”
“Stupid shogging name, anyway,” Gline said.
“Ain’t a name, if you ask me,” Scar-Face said. “But that’s about what he deserves.”
“Way I heard it, Thumil gave it to him,” Bronze Helm said.
“S’right, Kal,” the fourth said between wheezes and puffs. He was as wide as he was tall, purple-faced, and with a nose so bulbous it looked set to burst like an overripe melon. “Way them two was up each other’s arses, wouldn’t surprise me if he was in on it.”
“Nah,” said Scar-Face. “Not Thumil, he’s too bloody holy.”
“Ah, shog it all.” Fatso gave a long drawn-out sigh. “Shog it all to hell. No point fretting when there ain’t a thing to be done ’cept wait on the council to work things out, and we all know how long that’ll take. C’mon, let’s pay it no more heed. A beer and a bun’ll see us right, lads.”
Gline clapped him on the back. “Couldn’t
agree more, Trogweed. Couldn’t agree more.”
Shadrak tensed, expecting them to exit through the door to the walkway and discover the body he’d left under his cloak. Much to his relief, the door never opened, and the dwarves’ footfalls grew steadily more distant, their voices more muffled, until all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.
This was not how he liked to work. Not at all. Too much left to chance, and it was only due to the luck of finding the camouflage cloak he’d gone undetected. The Shadrak the Unseen who was so feared in Sarum employed a raft of tricks in order to pass unnoticed—distraction, misdirection, hunkering down in places too small for a regular assassin; but now he truly was unseen, even when he was right under the noses of his enemies. He almost wished he had someone to thank for that—providence or whatever the Nousians credited their coincidences to. He scoffed at the idea and then shrugged. Why not? Maybe someone was watching over him. Maybe Kadee. After all, this is what she would have wanted: to see him doing the will of the Archon, for no doubt it aided the Archon’s beleaguered sister, Eingana, the supreme goddess of the Dreamers.
Shadrak took a razor star from his baldric and continued in the direction the dwarves had just come from. The passageway dropped down three stone steps after twenty feet and did the same after the next twenty. He passed a number of tributary corridors but kept to the main artery. Gradually, the illumination from the walls increased, until up ahead it was as bright as day. A lone dwarf stood guard outside an iron door on the right, and opposite him there was a metal panel set head-height for Shadrak, and eye-level for a dwarf.
Shadrak slowed to a creep on the tips of his toes, drawing his arms inside the cloak and ducking his head so that the hood obscured his face.
The dwarf remained stock-still, but his eyes began to flick this way and that. Shadrak paused, wondering if he’d been seen, but then the dwarf bent down and tugged a flask from his boot, took a swig, and replaced it.
Shadrak closed the gap between them, quiet as a mouse, and when he was within touching distance, he let the razor star clatter to the floor. The dwarf started and then bent to get a good look at it, and in that instant, Shadrak grabbed him by the head and gave a short, sharp twist. There was an answering crack, and then he lowered the body to a sitting position beside the door. He scooped up the razor star and took a closer look at the panel.
It seemed to be a cupboard of sorts, and much to his satisfaction, it had a keyhole. He unfurled his tool pack and selected a curved pick, fiddled about in the lock until it clicked, then pried the panel open.
“Well that was easy,” he muttered, grinning that he’d struck gold first time.
Shader’s gladius lay within, which told him the iron door opposite must be the cell they were holding him in. He reached out and took hold of the pommel, and he yelped, snatching back his hand as if he’d touched a hot stove. “Shit, shog, and bollocks!” he said, skipping back and almost tripping over the dead dwarf.
He approached the sword again, this time with more caution, and took hold of it by the scabbard. Breathing a sigh of relief that he didn’t receive a second scorching, he slung the sword-belt over his shoulder and turned his attention to the iron door.
It was your typical cell door: narrow observation grate and a huge rusty lock. Predictably, the guard had the key on his belt, and the door gave a resounding clunk when he inserted it and turned.
“You can thank me when we get out of here,” he said, throwing back his cloak and slipping into the cell, pulling the door shut behind him. “Oh, shog, it’s you.”
“Miracles never cease,” Rhiannon said. She was seated on a stone bench, manacled hands hanging between her knees. “Thought you’d be halfway back to the marsh by now, looking for your plane ship.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Shadrak said, kneeling so he could examine the manacles. Stone, which was different. Lock looked pretty simple, though. He took a needle from his tool pack and inserted it into the tiny keyhole. A wiggle and a click, and it snapped open. “I was hoping to find Shader.” He made short work of the second manacle, and Rhiannon let them drop to the floor, rubbing her wrists.
“Me too,” she said, “rather than the milksop wearing his clothes.”
“I was gonna ask about that,” Shadrak said.
“Yeah, well don’t.” She wiped her face, flicked the sweat from her fingers.
Shadrak frowned at her as he stood. She was drenched, beads of moisture standing out on her forehead like a circlet of diamonds. He stepped away.
“Don’t worry, it’s not catching,” Rhiannon said. Her eyes fell on Shader’s gladius hanging from Shadrak’s shoulder. “Where’s mine?” She surged to her feet. “You got it, didn’t you?”
“Still on the walkway,” Shadrak said. “I got distracted.”
“You got what? What are you, a shogging imbecile?” Rhiannon started for the door.
“It ain’t going nowhere,” Shadrak said. “The dwarves are scared shitless of it. First, we get Shader, then we get the sword.”
“Wrong,” Rhiannon said. “Sword first, then Shader.”
“Shader.”
“Sword, you stunted shogger, or do I have to beat the crap out of you again?”
That was it. Shadrak had had enough of the bitch. He whipped out two knives and stepped in fast. Rhiannon gasped and backed up against the door.
“What was that?” she asked, pressing her ear to the door and holding up a hand.
“Shog off,” Shadrak said. “Think that’s gonna work on me?”
“Quiet,” she said. “I can hear footsteps.”
Shadrak listened. She was right. Someone was coming down the corridor.
“Hey, Grik,” a voice said. “Grik, wake up. I’ve got you some nosh. Drosa from Pigs in Pastry sends her regards. Got you some ale, too. Well, it’s Ironbelly’s, but it’s better’n nothing.”
Shadrak slipped his daggers back in the baldric and ushered Rhiannon away from the door. He pushed it open a crack. A scraggly-haired red-cloak was leaning over the dead dwarf, proffering a pie and a frothing flagon.
“Grik? Come on, mate, no sleeping on the job. Grik? Oh, my shogging—”
Shadrak darted through the opening and yanked him inside the cell by his beard. The flagon clattered to the floor, and the bread landed in the dead dwarf’s lap.
“Shut the door,” he told Rhiannon.
“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” the dwarf squealed. “I ain’t done nothing. I was just bringing grub for… Poor ol’ Grik.” He started to sob.
Shadrak slammed him up against the door and wedged an elbow into his windpipe. “The other prisoner—the man with the hat and the long coat—where’d you take him?”
“I didn’t take him nowhere. Honest, I didn’t.”
“Then let me rephrase,” Shadrak said, taking out a punch dagger and holding the tip a hair’s breadth from the dwarf’s eyeball. “Tell me where he is.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” the dwarf stammered. “I just got here.”
“But you know this place, know where prisoners are held?”
“Yeah, but—”
Shadrak rammed his knee into the dwarf’s groin, causing him to double up and spit his eye on the blade. His scream was so shrill it made Shadrak want to smack him in the teeth next. Blood streamed from the dwarf’s skewered eye, drenching his beard.
“Stop it,” Rhiannon said.
“You wanna find lover boy?”
“Shog you. Leave him alone. He doesn’t know anything.”
The dwarf whimpered and fell to his knees, clutching at his ruined eye. “Please. Please!”
Was it the dwarf whining, or Kadee? Shadrak shook his head. Right now, he couldn’t give a shog who it was. She weren’t gonna do this to him, no matter how much he missed her. He was an assassin, not a Dreamer. Eingana’s scaly hide, she’d make him a shogging Nousian next.
“Tell me where they took him,” Shadrak insisted. His blood was up more’n it should�
�ve been. Had been ever since the Archon stopped him leaving, but he’d kept a lid on it till now. Sooner they got Shader out, sooner they could get this shogging Gandaw business sorted, and then he was off.
“I don’t know!” the dwarf cried.
Shadrak kicked him in the head, and the dwarf toppled over sideways.
“Then guess.”
He hunted about in his tool pack for a scalpel and held it up as he crouched down beside his shaking victim.
“Go on. I’ll give you three chances, and I’ll know if you’re making it up.”
THE NAMELESS DWARF
Shader swayed out of the way of a clumsy haymaker and circled behind the dwarf. A grunt echoed from within the black helm, which swiveled side to side, hunting for him. If he’d had a weapon, he knew he’d be wise to strike now. The dwarf seemed drowsy, rusty from so much time chained to the bench. Given a few more moments, though, he might well warm up, and then there was no telling what he could do. The problem was, Shader had nothing, save for the chain linking his wrists together, but he could hardly strangle an enemy whose head and neck were encased in metal—if indeed it was metal; it had more the texture of stone. And then, of course, there was the morality of striking from behi—
The dwarf shuffled round to face him, inclining the helm to one side, gauging his every move. Boulder-like shoulders rolled backward, then he brought his hands together in a thunderous clap, while stomping his boots on the stone floor. He shook his helmed head vigorously, grunted, growled… then sighed and squatted down.
Shader retreated, weaving to the right, trying to remove himself from the helm’s narrow field of vision. This time, however, the dwarf tracked him with ease, rising from his squat to stand lightly on the balls of his feet.
Shader darted back the other way, but the dwarf exploded after him with unimaginable speed. He turned his head away just in time, and the dwarf’s fist struck the wall. Blood sprayed from ruptured knuckles, but he didn’t seem to notice. Shader twisted aside from an uppercut that would have shattered his jaw and stumbled toward the door. The dwarf closed down the space between them like a seasoned boxer, and there was nowhere left to run. Without a sword, Shader knew he didn’t stand a chance. He’d never faced anyone so fast—save maybe for Bardol Shin en route to Pardes; but Shin hadn’t had the dwarf’s prodigious strength to back up his speed. Shader was fast himself, and he could probably duck and dive a few more blows, but sooner or later he’d tire, which was something he couldn’t imagine happening to the stocky powerhouse glaring up at him through the narrowest of slits.