Return of the Dwarf Lords (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 4)

by D. P. Prior

  Kadee had never seen a dwarf in life, either. They were in short supply on Urddynoor. Shadrak winced at the unintended pun. It was bad enough putting up with them from Nameless. The closest to a dwarf she’d come was Shadrak, only he was even smaller. He had to wonder, though, had she known all along he was a homunculus? Was that something else she’d kept from him? Something she’d tried to protect him from?

  “They live in scattered villages around a vast circular plain,” Kadee continued. “All I know is that they lead a hard life, and must keep together to stay alive. They can grow nothing in this poisonous soil, and even if they could, it would likely kill them when they ate it.”

  “So, how do they survive?” Grimwart asked. “Hunting?”

  Kadee shook her head. “Anything big enough to eat would probably savage these people to death. They are not warriors or hunters. If anything, they are sheep.”

  “Then how?” Nameless said.

  “There is a city. Carts leave it now and again, bringing supplies to the villages, and though they need them in order to survive, the villagers also fear them. Like with everything else on Thanatos, there is a price that must be paid. I never even glimpsed what goes on in the city. It is enclosed by walls as tall as the highest cliffs, and a death smoke hangs heavy above it.”

  Shadrak frowned at Tarik for an explanation.

  “I’ve not seen it myself,” Tarik said, “but the way Kadee described it to me, this smoke sounds like pollution, of the kind we had on Urddynoor, back in my day. I remember visiting the city of Londdyr once, during the Great Exhibition. The air was barely breathable, and I came away with soot and grime on my clothes.”

  “Huh,” Shadrak said to Nameless. “What do you think? Could it be them?”

  “Paxy?” Nameless said, lifting his axe. He furrowed his brow in concentration, and bent an ear to the twin blades. “The Dwarf Lords were advanced, she says. Their technology was of homunculus design: some of it crude, some so complex it seemed like magic, but there was no such smog in Arnoch.” He lowered the axe.

  “Doesn’t mean to say there isn’t pollution now,” Grimwart said. “I mean, if they’ve been here all this time, they’d have to make the most of the local resources.”

  Tarik shrugged. “Seems possible. If they were a developed race, they might have to start from scratch again on a world like this. Stands to reason their technology might turn out differently.”

  “If it is technology,” Shadrak said. He couldn’t stand it when people jumped to conclusions without going over all the possibilities. “Who’s to say it ain’t just a death cloud, like Kadee says.” She rubbed his arm and gave a thin smile. “Who’s to say it ain’t sorcery or some shite?”

  “Well, if you ask me,” Nameless said, “this city seems as good a place as any to start.”

  “Tarik—” Kadee said.

  “No, Kadee. We nearly lost you last time.”

  “I always made it as far as the villages.”

  “But not the city, remember?” To Shadrak, Tarik said, “Harvesters came for her. Hundreds of them. If not for the Warlord’s intervention—”

  “I would have made it back,” Kadee protested.

  She wasn’t convinced. Shadrak could tell by the quiver of her bottom lip. It had been the same way when he was growing up, when she tried to reassure him they had enough food for the coming day. He’d cottoned on quick enough, though, and took it as a sign he needed to hit the streets and cut a few purse strings.

  Kadee crouched down and banged her gourd against a tree root. Three more strikes, and it split open, spilling copper and silver coins to the ground. One of them might have been gold, but it was tarnished with age.

  “City money,” she said, scooping them up in her hands. “We will need it there.”

  “These harvesters,” Shadrak said, “is it only the dead they come for?”

  “Kadee would put you all at risk,” Tarik said with a nod. “If you get in their way, they will kill you to reach her. And then they will kill you again and carry your souls to the black mountains, where Thanatos will feed on them.”

  “How?” Nameless said. “How does it feed? I’m assuming it has a mouth? Teeth that can be broken?”

  Kadee shook her head. “It is like the Kutji spirits my people are afraid of in Sahul. Only it is far greater.”

  “And hungrier,” Tarik said. “The entire planet is alive. It is sentient, and everything that lives on its surface, or beneath, is at its beck and call. Only the humans of the villages stand apart. Them, and our people, but we are just fodder. And this place,”—he gestured to the trees—“for all its apparent safety, is no more than a larder, preserving us in prime condition, so that the instant we step outside, we are ripe for the picking.”

  “Not the instant,” Kadee said. “The harvesters are slow to come.”

  “But come they will,” Tarik said. “As certainly as death to the living.”

  “Then you should stay here,” Shadrak said to Kadee.

  “Not unless you do. I have waited a long time for you, fellah. There is much for us to say to each other.”

  Shadrak looked at Nameless. The dwarf needed him, so he said. He was relying on Shadrak.

  Nameless’s chest rose like a bellows, and he sucked in his top lip. His eyebrows went up as he sighed and did his best to smile. “You got us here, laddie. I can’t ask more of you than that.”

  Grimwart slid his arm through his shield straps and moved to Nameless’s side in a show of solidarity. The husk girl stepped closer to him, too, though her expression was inscrutable.

  Shadrak felt his face tighten into a grimace. He looked at Kadee, down at his feet, to Nameless, and back to Kadee again. An easy smile raised her cheekbones even higher, and her eyes glinted, not with mischief, but with pride, like she knew what he had to do and was pleased at how he’d turned out.

  “You must go with your friend,” Kadee said, sparing him the choice. “And I will guide you.” Before Tarik could interrupt, she said, “Thanatos is a hostile world, but I learned much during my treks to the villages. If we move quickly,” she said, anticipating what Tarik was about to say next, “we may evade the harvesters, or at least get you to the city before they take me.”

  “They’ll not take you,” Shadrak said, patting his flintlocks.

  “No, they will not.” Nameless raised his axe, and beside him, Grimwart struck his shield with his mace, sending a resonant clang throughout the forest.

  Tarik put a finger to his lips. “Beware. The harvesters never enter the forest, but there are other things out there. Creatures that hunt the living. These trees are no barrier to them.”

  Grimwart gave a nervous cough, and pink bloomed on his cheeks. He dipped his head and muttered an apology into his beard.

  “You see, Tarik,” Kadee said, laying a hand on Shadrak’s shoulder, “I will be quite safe. I am but one elder among seven. You or Izan can lead till I return.”

  “And what do you think will happen, Kadee, if you evade the harvesters, yet you continue to age out there? What if you grow so old, you simply die again?”

  She shrugged, as if to say, “I’m already dead.” Or maybe she meant she’d sooner be with Shadrak than confined eternally to the safety of the Forest of Lost Souls.

  “Nameless!” a gruff voice called. “Grimwart!”

  The people behind Tarik parted, and out of the trees stepped a dead dwarf: Kaldwyn Gray, naked as the day he was born, looking younger and stronger than he had in life. His beard was full and shiny and reached down to his waist, and he had muscles that made Nameless’s look small and unimpressive in comparison.

  “Kal?” Nameless said, walking to meet him, leaving the husk girl standing alone, still as a statue.

  Grimwart hung back, eyes wide, the pink fleeing his cheeks and leaving them washed-out.

  “Laddie,” Nameless said, squeezing Kal’s biceps. “See. I told you my training would pay off.”

  Kal laughed, but it was a hollow laugh. He l
ooked around nervously, as if he hadn’t quite worked out where he was, what was going on. A couple of Kadee’s people followed close behind, hovering over him attentively, like parents watching their baby take its first toddling steps.

  Plucking up his courage, Grimwart approached, and Kal threw out a thickly muscled arm to embrace him.

  “I’m sorry, Kal,” Grimwart said with a sniffle. “If I’d been quicker to react…”

  “Nothing you could have done,” Kal said. Then to Nameless, “Nothing any of you could have done.”

  As the three dwarves talked in low voices, clapping each other on the back and occasionally breaking out in laughter that seemed engineered to disguise tears, Kadee conferred with Tarik and a group of five others. Undoubtedly, these were the elders she had mentioned. They all seemed anxious, and there was much shaking of heads. Once or twice, voices were raised, and Shadrak edged nearer. He needn’t have worried. Kadee had been able to handle herself in life, and she seemed equally adept at it in death. More so, with her newfound youth and muscle.

  Shadrak heard his name mentioned and turned back to the dwarves. Kal nodded acknowledgment, but then his eyes flashed wide.

  Instincts that had been honed from years of killing and avoiding being killed kicked in, and Shadrak dived. Wind whistled past his ear, and something silver thudded into the earth. He rolled to his feet and spun, at the same time drawing both flintlocks.

  A dark shape detached itself from the high branches of a tree and glided toward him. Shadrak opened fire, moving away with every shot to put trees between him and whatever it was.

  But he already knew. Knew by the frantic hammering of his heart, the icy chill that seeped from his guts and into his limbs, slowing their movements, rapidly setting them like wax. It was the same as the creature that had attacked him in New Londdyr: a Thanatosian. Luck and the quick action born of panic had combined to save him that time, but you could only rely on them for so long.

  Silver flashed from the creature’s harness as it touched down and stalked toward him. Sleek blades adorned its torso, and it was already reaching for two more with slender fingers. Besides the blades in its harness, it was completely black, with an elongated head, devoid of all features.

  Tired, a whispering voice said in Shadrak’s head. Heavy. You cannot move.

  “Shog you,” he yelled, squeezing off another shot.

  The Thanatosian slid aside, as if the bullet moved through treacle. Faster than Shadrak could have believed, the creature zigzagged toward him, daggers glinting, slicing down from either side. Shadrak raised his arms to block, but they may as well have been set in stone.

  Gold streaked past him, and the creature twirled aside.

  Nameless’s axe. Nice try, but he’d missed.

  Grimwart barreled into the Thanatosian with his shield, but it blithely flipped above him and brought a blade down. Nameless caught its wrist before the blade found Grimwart, but the creature flung him aside like a rag doll.

  Shadrak backed away, both guns bucking and booming, and the creature swayed aside.

  Grimwart swung his mace. Missed. A dagger flashed for his face, but he somehow managed to get his shield in the way. The blade screeched across the metal surface. Shadrak got off another shot, and the Thanatosian leapt for him, gliding across the space in between on membranes that unfurled beneath its arms. Kadee screamed, Shadrak swore. Twin blades slashed down.

  Behind the Thanatosian, gold blurred, and then Shadrak blinked as there was a sickening thud, followed by the splash of something hot and sticky on his face.

  The creature pitched to the ground, and its head bounced away against a tree trunk. The Axe of the Dwarf Lords soared in a wide arc, slinging black blood in its wake, then slapped back into Nameless’s palm as he stood. Nameless might have missed, but the axe had caught the Thanatosian on the return.

  Shadrak’s face was on fire. He swabbed it with the hem of his cloak, rubbed furiously until he got the dark ichor off.

  And then Kadee was holding him, eyes streaming with tears. “Oh, my boy. Oh, my fellah.”

  Gently as he could, given how tight he felt, Shadrak pushed her away and scanned the trees for any further movement.

  Nameless and Grimwart converged on him, and the three circled, back to back.

  “Where there is one, more will follow,” Tarik said. “If you are going to go, you should leave now.”

  “Kadee?” Shadrak said.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. “Shadrak, your face.”

  He looked to Nameless, who shrugged.

  “Adds character, and besides, the ladies will love it.”

  Shadrak scowled, and said to Kadee, “Ready? You still coming?”

  She took a few deep breaths and wiped her eyes, then nodded.

  “Nameless,” Kal said, jogging to join them.

  “You must stay with us,” Tarik said. “How long do you think you’ll survive out there? Kadee’s only going because she’s too pig-headed to do as she’s told.”

  “I’m going nowhere,” Kal said. “I just need you to do something for me, Nameless, if you make it back to Arnoch.”

  “When, laddie,” Nameless said. “When we make it back.”

  “Find Glariya. She’s my girl. We were to be wed.”

  Nameless opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes clouded over, and he sighed.

  “Tell her,” Kal said. “You know. Tell her…”

  “I will, laddie,” Nameless said. “Don’t you worry.”

  “But—” Kal said.

  “I know exactly what to say, laddie. You forget, you and I were once friends.”

  Silence sliced down between them. Nameless worried his lips, and there was a sheen across his eyes.

  “We still are,” Kal said.

  “After everything I did?” Nameless hung his head and slumped his shoulders.

  “After everything.”

  Kal embraced him.

  Slowly, uncertainly, Nameless raised a hand and patted him on the back. “Thank you, laddie. Thank you.”

  “We done?” Shadrak said, doing his best to sound irritable. It was better than letting them into how he really felt, which was scared shitless. His eyes flicked this way and that, scanning the treetops, the passages between the trunks. The Thanatosian had made him feel inadequate. Made them all look like amateurs, even Nameless. If it hadn’t been for the magical shogging axe…

  Nameless picked up on his demeanor in an instant. As he parted from Kal, he said, “Never dwell on what might have happened, laddie.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Kadee nodded her farewells to her tribe and set off through the trees, Grimwart, Nameless, and Shadrak in tow. The husk girl drifted along behind by herself.

  “Why’s that?” Nameless said. “Because I’m not a worrier?”

  “Neither am I,” Shadrak said.

  “But you are a wee bit obsessional.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Scrupulous, then.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Above and around them, creepers rustled, and flying insects were rousted from their nests. Shadrak pulled his hood up and drew his cloak about him. Last thing he needed was a toxic sting up the arse. He’d only been on Thanatos for less than an hour, and already he couldn’t wait to see the back of it.

  STRONGMAN

  The first thing Nameless learned when they left the Forest of Lost Souls was to keep off the grass. Thankfully, it was sparse, only growing in pockets and tufts; but when he first trod on it, needles of pain shot through his foot. He hollered, and hopped to the nearest patch of ash that comprised most of the landscape for miles around. When he took his boot off, half a dozen blades of grass were lodged in the sole. He tried pulling one out and cut his fingers. It was serrated, and sharp as any knife.

  Kadee made a weird clicking noise, which he took to be half laughter, half chastisement. She stooped over him and took the boot from his hand. Nameless averted his gaze from
the sweat-beaded ravine between her swollen breasts.

  Shadrak caught his eye but quickly turned away.

  Nameless winced. The assassin had seen, and reacted as any son should—even a foster son. But what could be done about it? There was no harm in noticing. It was just the way Nameless was made. It wasn’t like he was planning on doing anything about it. Kadee was far too tall, for one thing. He’d made an exception for Dame Consilia, but he suspected that was on account of the mead she’d plied him with—a fairly palatable keg she’d brought back from a trip to New Londdyr.

  No, there was only one woman in the world for Nameless, no matter what his dwarfhood said to the contrary. And besides, he’d made a decision. He was going to have that talk with Cordana, if they ever got back to Arnoch. He almost didn’t dare to hope. He knew he had no right to; but even after all she’d lost, after all he’d done, there had been something like encouragement in Cordana’s words.

  Or was he reading too much into it? His heart pounded even just thinking about the prospect. She’d forgiven him, she said, even if he could never forgive himself. But was it possible, together, they could heal the wounds he’d inflicted upon her, upon himself, upon their race?

  Straight away, an old familiar voice whispered out of the dark that wove itself through the ambit of his mind.

  Idiot. Of course there isn’t. You chose your path when you went after the black axe, and your penance is forever. You really think she could love the Ravine Butcher, the murderer of her husband and child?

  “Here, fellah,” Kadee said, handing him back the boot. She held the blades of grass in her palm for a moment, studying them, then blew them onto the ground.

  Not a nick on her.

  Grimwart crouched down to take a good look at the grass. He leaned on his mace, other arm holding his huge shield, which had lost some of its shine, but still reflected the dismal gray of the skies.