by D. P. Prior
“Oh, he’ll catch on sooner or later,” Nameless said. “Probably when he stops to make his daily call at Dame Consilia’s.”
“Right,” Shadrak said. “So, we got time to talk, then?”
“Always, laddie. Always. So long as it’s over a pint.” Nameless gestured toward the swing-doors of the gym. “Course, your little girl will have to sit away from the bar.”
One of the whores cried out, “This one’s not dead.”
It was the driver—Gram Pyler, a rotting ulcer of scum from Malfen.
“But he’s got an arrow through his neck,” Shadrak said. If he sounded disappointed, it’s because he was.
“Must’ve missed the jugular,” Nameless said.
“Did that, right enough,” Pyler croaked, like a man who’d drunk only desert sand for a week. He gurgled and spat blood. “Reckon I’ll live, though.”
Shadrak tried to smile, but knew it came out a grimace.
One of the whores ran for a doctor. Shog knows what they were going to do for Pyler. Caliber of medicine out in the provinces, they’d likely stick a leech on the wound and hope for the best.
He looked from Nameless to the husk girl, then back again. “She ain’t my little girl.”
“I know, laddie. I gathered that.”
THE MESSENGER
“Thought I paid for the gym and a grub stall,” Shadrak said as they approached the bar. “You said beef jerky, turkey drummers, and raw eggs—healthy shit to grow big muscles.”
Nameless went behind the counter and grabbed a couple of tankards. “Beer is healthy. And this stuff’s from Arx Gravis; Cordana’s family brew.”
He knew Shadrak wouldn’t have a clue who Cordana was, and probably didn’t know good beer from gnat’s piss. He hesitated with his hand on the pump; wondered if he should give the midget Ironbelly’s instead. He decided against it. No one deserved that. He pulled back on the handle and positively salivated as amber nectar started to flow.
He pushed one tankard toward Shadrak and took a long pull from his own. He had to give credit to Cordana’s pa, gods rest his soul: the hops were bitter and fruity, and it had a kick like a ravine goat. He was halfway to pouring himself another, when he noticed Shadrak hadn’t touched his.
“Not drinking, laddie? Wee fellow like you needs building up; and what with your complexion, you could use the iron.”
Shadrak’s eyes darkened into bloody pools, but the hint of a smile curled his lips. He checked over his shoulder, first the door, then the girl he’d brought with him. She was sat on a stall away from the bar. The poor lassie must have been scared witless. All she did was stare at nothing and twiddle her thumbs in her lap.
“I have cake,” Nameless said, coming back round the counter and scooping up Shadrak’s beer. “Waste not, want not.”
“Make you fat,” Shadrak said.
“No need to worry on that account, laddie.” Nameless patted his gut. “Abs of steel.” He patted it again, just to make sure.
“Time to eat’s when the heat’s off,” Shadrak said. He licked his lips. “What kind of cake?”
“That’s my boy.” Nameless went over to the pantry beside the bar. “Cranberry and walnut. I was saving it for squat day, but be my guest.”
They shared the cake in companionable silence. Nameless put some on a plate and offered it to the girl. When she didn’t take it from his hand, he ate that piece as well.
“Greedy bastard,” Shadrak said.
Nameless did his best to look affronted. “Bulking up, laddie. You might want to try it.”
Shadrak pulled a waterskin from over his shoulder and took a swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and re-stoppered it.
“So, how’s the gym working out? Got the New Londdyr army up to scratch yet? Senate delivered on the pay?”
“Don’t you worry, laddie,” Nameless said. “You’ll get your first installment on time.”
“Shogging well better.”
“I’m a dwarf of my word. Trust me.”
“Shog off.”
Shadrak took out his flintlocks and lay them on the bar. He fished around in his belt pouches, produced a rag and a vial of oil, and proceeded to clean the guns.
Nameless reached out a hand to stroke the axe he’d propped against a stool: the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. The Pax Nanorum.
“Bit too gold and gaudy for my taste,” Shadrak said. “Always thought it was just for show. You know, like horse brasses, or those gilded whips they sometimes have in brothels.”
“Paxy? No, laddie. She’s a looker, right enough, but she’s a doer, too, aren’t you, lassie?”
“Now you’re giving me the creeps,” Shadrak said. “It answer you?”
“She, laddie. She’s sensitive like that.” With a raise of his eyebrow, he said, “Gilded whips? Brothels? I didn’t think you were the type.”
Shadrak shook his head and rummaged about for a ramrod, which he used to clean out the barrel of one pistol, then the other.
“So, the axe ain’t from Arnoch, then? Not some poncy souvenir?”
“Aye, she’s from Arnoch,” Nameless said. “Before the city rose from beneath the waves. Quite a scrape she got me out of, wasn’t it, lassie?” He gave the blades an affectionate pat.
“Beneath the waves? Thought you couldn’t swim.”
“True, true, but a homunculus in a fish-ship gave me a lift to the bottom.”
He watched Shadrak for a response. The midget had taken it badly when he’d first found out that’s what he was: a homunculus, a creature made of the stuff of the Demiurgos, lord of the Abyss. Shifty shoggers, through and through; rife with cunning and deception. But Shadrak had been raised by a human on Urddynoor, and hadn’t even known what he was until a few years back.
“Fish-ship. Right,” Shadrak said. “Don’t forget the bit about some shogging great monster only you could defeat.”
“The Destroyer,” Nameless said. Just thinking about that horror made him reach for another beer. “Even the Dwarf Lords of Arnoch couldn’t stop it.”
“But you could.”
“Me and Paxy here. Eventually. With a lick or two of luck.”
“You’re not exactly gripping me with the tale. You want to get a professional to write it, like that shogging bard from Broken Bridge—what’s his name?”
“Quintus Quincey?”
“Not him—talentless scut. No, Elias Wolf.”
“Never heard of him.”
Shadrak stared off into space for a moment. “No reason why you should. He had this way, you see. Sang his stories while he played a guitar. It was… effective.”
Judging by the faraway look on Shadrak’s face, beguiling might have been a better word. Disturbing, even.
“Story’s already been told,” Nameless said. “By a friend of mine at the Academy.”
“No,” Shadrak said, like he didn’t believe it. “Who’s that, then? Didn’t know those sorcerous old bastards went in for high-blown tales to inflate dwarven egos.”
“Ego had nothing to do with it, laddie.” The suggestion soured Nameless’s beer. He set the tankard down with a thump. “Nils Fargin it was that wrote it. A good lad, and brave with it.”
“Buck Fargin’s boy?” Shadrak said. “Left Buck in charge of the Night Hawks when I got out of New Londdyr. Wanker.”
Nameless remembered helping Shadrak flee. Half the city militia had been on his tail, and some nasty-looking shoggers called psychers that could turn your brain into soup. He’d never gotten to the bottom of why they’d been after the assassin. Something to do with the murder of the First Senator, from what he could gather.
“Been back there since?” Nameless asked.
“Couple of times. How about you? Been back to Arnoch?”
“No, no. Too busy.”
Truth was, the ancient city of the Dwarf Lords made Nameless uncomfortable. When he’d led his people there, they’d tried to make him king. It showed just how desperate they were, after all they’d been throug
h at his hands. After the slaughter at the ravine.
He distracted himself by looking out at the gym. “Told you I’d do you proud, Shadrak. What do you think?”
“Barbells and dumbbells,” Shadrak said, apparently thoroughly unimpressed. “Might do a few chins before I leave. So, you ain’t been home, then?”
“Arnoch’s not my home.”
But Cordana was there, and she was the closest thing to family he had left. If only he’d told her what he felt when they were younger. If only Thumil hadn’t gotten there first. He clutched his beard, pulled on it, twisted it, wrung it. Poor Thumil. If only Nameless hadn’t found the black axe. If only he hadn’t put his oldest friend’s head on a spike…
It was a knife’s edge he was walking, thinking like that. Already, his mood was plummeting. Automatically, he reached for another drink; stopped himself. It wouldn’t help. He needed something else to assuage the mounting depression. He needed pain, or another good fight.
“Any of those shoggers left alive outside?” he asked.
“Doubt it. When did you start to care?”
“I don’t, laddie. Just want something to hit.”
Shadrak knew him of old. He’d understand.
“Listen, mate,” Shadrak said. “Ain’t no accident I came here.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know, laddie. Like why the Maresmen are after you. Either there’s something you’re not telling me, and you’re a husk, or you’ve been trafficking the shoggers through the Malfen Pass.”
Because there was nothing else that would draw the ire of the husk hunters. The Maresmen were charged by the Senate of New Londdyr with preventing incursions from the nightmare realm of Qlippoth into Malkuth—the Sunny Side of Aethir, as the Senate were now calling it in an attempt to gloss over the horrors of recent years. Not only had the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw, come close to unweaving all the worlds, but then New Londdyr had been besieged by the armies of the Ravine Butcher. It was a close-run thing; a war that only ended when Shadrak put a bullet between the Butcher’s eyes.
Nameless pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d been that butcher. It was a wonder he’d not been killed. Not wonder: magic. The curse of the black axe.
Shadrak’s eyes narrowed to slits. He looked Nameless up and down, like he was working out whether he could trust him. Like they weren’t really friends; or if they were, the assassin didn’t quite believe in the concept. Finally, he said, “Who you been talking to?”
“So, you are a husk.” Nameless grinned.
“No, I ain’t a husk. I still ain’t got used to the idea of being a homunculus. It was confusing enough being an albino midget raised by a brown-skinned Dreamer. But a shogging husk…” He flicked a look over his shoulder at the girl. “No offense, darling.”
Husks weren’t so bad, Nameless thought. Well, some were. Most, even. They were the nightmares of the Cynocephalus, Aethir’s sleeping god; as horrific and variegated as anything the mind could imagine. But the Cynocephalus had also dreamed his own defense against the nightmares: the elves of the Tree of Eingana, and the Dwarf Lords of Arnoch. So, they were husks, too, and it only stood to reason there could have been more. More denizens of Qlippoth who weren’t the demons the Senate claimed they were.
With a start, Nameless snapped into sharp focus on what Shadrak had just said.
“The lassie’s a husk?”
That would explain it. Explain why the Maresmen were on Shadrak’s tail. So, he’d been right: it was trafficking. Shadrak was lucky to be alive. The Senate didn’t want to hear about those who brought husks across the border into Malkuth. They just wanted them dead, and no questions asked. Same with the husks they trafficked, too.
“Ain’t like I could exactly go back to the guilds,” Shadrak said. “Not after I was made. My whole reputation was built on being unseen. But a crook’s gotta make a living somehow.”
“If it’s money you need,” Nameless said. “I mean, I’m a bit short right now, but if I lean on General Gin, I’m sure the Senate will cough up what they owe me.” That wasn’t his real name—Gin—but it’s what everyone called him, and it was easy for Nameless to remember.
Shadrak waved him away. “What you owe me’s peanuts, mate. Won’t make a blind bit of difference. And in any case, I’m under contract.”
“Again?”
“Respectable, this time. Well, sort of. Master Arecagen at the Academy. It’s all on the hush-hush, if you know what I mean, but he needs a steady flow of husks for his experiments.”
Nameless wasn’t sure, but the girl might have glanced up at that. Certainly, she moved, but when he looked, she was back to staring blankly ahead and twiddling her thumbs.
“And you’re all right with that?”
Shadrak shrugged. He chewed his bottom lip and wrinkled his nose up. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Mind, I won’t be a beggar once this one’s delivered. Rare, she is. Maybe even unique. And Arecagen is shogging minted.”
The swing doors to the gym squeaked open. Nameless craned his neck to see who it was.
“Local law,” he whispered to Shadrak.
“That you back there, Nameless?” Sheriff Orton hollered. “Need to have a word.”
“Shog,” Shadrak said. Instinctively, he pulled up his hood and rose from his stool.
Nameless held a hand up; nodded it was all right. “Be with you in a jiffy, Sheriff.” To Shadrak, he said, “He’s not normally so diligent. Must be he’s being appraised or something. The Senate like to keep a check on provincial law enforcement from time to time. Either that, or he’s been for an early romp over the road. You stay here. I’ll sort this out.”
“Jark Sventin found me with a runner,” Orton said when Nameless met him at the entrance. “Lucky to catch me, they was.” The sheriff held one of the swing doors partly open and threw a look out at the street.
Sventin owned the jewelers down the road from the brothel. It was no secret he was opposed to Dame Consilia setting up business in the area. Said it lowered the tone.
“Lucky indeed,” Nameless said, stepping outside with the sheriff.
The shogger was nowhere to be found when you needed him. Word was, he had another job somewhere. Moonlighting to make ends meet. Some said it was fishing and trapping. Others denied the traps but confirmed the fish. Only, they said folks heard it wrong; that the fish was to do with Portis on the shore of the Chalice Sea. Rumors abounded that Sheriff Orton had connections with the trade of illegal somnificus.
“Messenger caught up with me about to leave town for a day or two. Business out east.”
Yep, that’d be Portis, the conniving old dog.
Orton surveyed the bodies littering the road, the whores wrapping them in sheets and mopping up. “I know you’ve got a good explanation for this, Nameless. But Maresmen? Last thing I need’s trouble from those shoggers. You ain’t done nothing to wrong them, have you? ’Cause the Senate will be on my arse, if you have.”
“A misunderstanding,” Nameless said. “All cleared up now.”
The sheriff’s eyes widened, but remained fixed on the corpses. “I’ll say.”
A heavy silence settled.
Orton was a scoundrel, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew there was more to this. Knew and didn’t care, so long as the problem went away and didn’t interfere with his other interests.
Still looking out at the road, he said, “Who’s the little fellow in the bar? And who’s the girl?”
“Old friend, to the first,” Nameless said. “But the girl…” He didn’t know quite how to put it.
“She a husk?” Orton asked.
He was shrewder than a hustler of seven-card. Actually, word was, he was a hustler of seven-card, and by all accounts making a good showing of it.
Nameless gave a double cough into his fist.
“Like I said,”—the sheriff turned to him now—“you got your reasons, and I know you well enough by now that I’m willing to turn a blind eye. But your friend bringing Maresmen to my t
own… now that I can’t have. You understand me?”
“I was about to tell him the same thing, Sheriff.”
“Good.” Orton clapped Nameless on the back. “Knew you’d see it my way. Listen, Nameless, while I’m out of town—”
He was about to ask Nameless to deputize again, like he had before. The whores were going to love that. Last time, there was a three-day street party, and booze had to be shipped in from the city, they all drank so much. Jark Sventin was going to be one unhappy jeweler, though. With any luck, he’d make good on his threat and relocate to Malfen. The locals there would rob him blind before he got to the grand opening.
The sheriff never finished his sentence.
Someone was staggering up the street, calling out for Nameless, like his life depended on it.
“What’s this, then?” Orton said.
Nameless didn’t answer. He couldn’t take his eyes off the newcomer, even as he lurched to a halt in front of them. The whores leaned on their mops to watch.
It was a dwarf.
Tattered and bloody beyond belief, but definitely a dwarf.
Nameless took a step closer. He thought he recognized the fellow beneath the road-dust and travel grime, the cuts and the bruises.
“Weasel? Is that you?”
“Nameless,” Weasel gasped. “Thank shog.”
His knees buckled, but Nameless caught him before he fell. The stench of sweat and blood was heavy upon him.
“What is it, laddie? What’s happened?”
“Arnoch,” Weasel said.
Nameless’s heartbeat was an erratic stutter. The sheriff looked at him for an explanation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shadrak skulking in front of the swing-doors. He wanted to ask, “What about the citadel? What’s happened?” He wanted to ask about Cordana.
But Weasel slumped in his arms.
“I’ll go get Doc. Tervis,” Sheriff Orton said.
Nameless shook his head as he lifted Weasel like a child. “Leeches aren’t what he needs, Sheriff. He’s a dwarf, same as me.”