by D. P. Prior
Incredibly, Grimwart was still on his feet. He was visibly shaken, but he managed a relieved smile. As Nameless approached, he expected to see blood welling from a chest wound, but then he glimpsed the banded scarolite armor that was standard issue for the Krypteia. Being a Black Cloak, it seemed, was the only thing that had kept Grimwart alive.
Beams of light blazed on in front, behind, and to both sides. Nameless threw up a hand to shield his eyes. Behind the glare, he could make out the silhouettes of men. The light came from the barrels of long, chunky weapons that had to be guns. Smoke plumed from some of them, and one still had a lick of flame at its tip. When the lights were lowered enough for his eyes to adjust, Nameless could make out at least a dozen men.
One of them stepped forward, gun clutched in both hands and roving to keep the four of them covered. He was encased head to toe in black, and appeared unnaturally bulky and full of menace. His face was hidden by some sort of mask—a stubby snout surmounted by two elongated, glassy eyes, lit from within by a soft golden glow. They reflected Nameless’s face back at him.
When the man spoke, his voice came out harsh and grating, muffled by the mask.
“Dwarves,” he said, taking in Grimwart and Nameless. With a wave of his gun, he barked a command to the rest of the group. “Kill them.”
WARLORD OF THANATOS
“Kill them,” the leader said, and a dozen rifles came to bear on Nameless, Grimwart, Kadee, and the girl.
They were limned in green by the night vision afforded by Shadrak’s goggles. He saw the outline of Grimwart’s shield coming up, a blur of movement from Nameless.
Out of the darkness Shadrak fired, a flintlock in either hand.
Crack! Crack!
Two men went down.
A third wheeled toward Shadrak, lit him up with a beam of light from atop his rifle. There was a rushing exhalation, sparks and smoke, and flames spewed in a lazy arc from the end of the barrel.
Shadrak flung himself face first on the hard ground. Heat scorched the air above him. He rolled beneath the burning stream, came to his feet firing, and hit the scut in the knee. The man gave a muffled scream from behind his snub-nosed mask, and the flames gouting from his gun died.
The two men Shadrak had put down first were halfway to standing. It made no sense. He’d hit them with clean shots, one between the shoulder blades, the other in the kidney. No way they should have got up from that, but here they were turning to face him, angling their rifles his way.
He shot one in the mask, then dived as the other let rip with a barrage of bullets that sent up shards of rock and puffs of dust.
Could they see him, same as he could see them?
The gold-glowing eyes of their masks roamed left and right, their aims uncertain. Firing blind, then. Still, he had to be careful. He had to be quiet.
The goggles’ vision attuned to the glassy ground, colored it in deepening shades of purple to reveal steps and depressions, outcroppings of rock. The beam from a rifle’s flashlight painted his cloak as he slipped behind a low natural wall. No, not natural: a bank of piled rocks, maybe even a cairn for the dead.
Breathing soft and fast through his nose, he peeked around the edge.
The two that should have been dead were advancing with caution, gold eyes panning both ways, light beams scouring the rocks. The one he’d shot in the face hadn’t got up again.
Shadrak’s goggles whirred and clicked, adjusting to the pool of soft radiance coming off of Nameless’s axe. They augmented the glow, till he could see clear as day.
There were eight—no nine—more men, further back. They were garbed in padded black outfits, and all wearing identical snub-nosed masks. That accounted for the whole group he’d been observing before the Thanatosians attacked, the people he’d seen leaving the perimeter formed from shafts of light.
He winced at a pang of guilt he’d not come to the aid of his companions the instant the Thanatosians attacked, but what could he have done? The gunmen had been between him and the creatures, and they’d done what he’d have had no chance of doing. He’d seen what just one Thanatosian could do by itself. Against a group of them, there was no chance. But these people had driven them off with streams of fire from their guns. It was a wonder Nameless and Grimwart had lasted as long as they did. It was a wonder Kadee hadn’t been slashed and diced into a hundred pieces; that she hadn’t died a second, irrevocable death.
While the two men looking for Shadrak stood their ground the other side of the cairn, the rest kept their light beams trained on Nameless, Grimwart, Kadee, and the husk girl. Why hadn’t they fired? Why hadn’t they obeyed the order to kill?
And then it became obvious.
Nameless had a grip on the neck of the man who’d ordered them killed. His other hand held his axe, ready to deliver the killing blow. The man’s gun lay in two smoldering halves at his feet, no doubt from where the axe had cleaved right through it.
Grimwart covered Nameless’s back with his shield, mace at the ready in case anyone was stupid enough to come closer. Kadee protected the girl with her body, but she was watching the leader with imploring eyes.
“Tell your men to drop their weapons,” Nameless growled. All hint of playfulness had left his voice. He was once more the Butcher, grim and cold as death.
A light beam shone in Shadrak’s eyes. He heard a sharp inhalation of breath, but he was already moving. A single shot cracked out, but he was under the barrel in a flash and swept the man’s feet from under him. Shadrak followed him down, snagged him in a headlock, without letting go of his flintlocks. A short, sharp twist, a resounding crack, and the man slumped to the ground. The scut might have survived a gunshot, but no amount of armor would save him from a broken neck.
He rolled aside as the second man’s light beam found him. A shot from each flintlock, and the man staggered back.
Shadrak flipped himself to his feet, zigzagged past a wild spray of bullets, and launched himself feet first. He scissored his ankles around the man’s neck and slammed him into the ground. A twist of his hips, another crack, and that was three scuts down.
More light beams found him, but he tumbled away and vaulted back behind the wall. Chunks of rock were thrown into the air by a barrage of shots. Shadrak sat with his back to the wall, holstered his guns, and drew a glass sphere from a belt pouch. He’d need to aim long, else Nameless and the others would be caught in the blast. It might not kill the enemy, but it would be one hell of a distraction.
He peeked around the edge once more to gauge his throw. Two more men were heading his way, the rest maintaining their cordon about Nameless and the others.
“Last warning, laddie,” Nameless said.
The leader’s shoulders sagged in resignation, but then he slipped a hand inside a pocket. Lighting arced around his frame, and Nameless was flung back ten feet, where he hit the rocky ground hard with the scrunch and jingle of chainmail. His axe hung suspended in the air before the leader. At first, Shadrak thought it was going cut the scut down by itself, but then it sped to Nameless, and lit his body with a golden glow.
Grimwart spun and clobbered the leader in the chest with his mace. The man doubled over and crumpled to his knees. The others swung their rifles toward the Black Cloak, but in that moment, Shadrak threw his glass sphere over their heads.
Kadee was already flat on the ground atop the husk girl, and Grimwart got behind his shield as the first rifle fired. Bullets pinged from the metal, and then the globe exploded. The gunmen were catapulted forward by the force, and their weapons skittered across the ground.
Nameless pushed himself to his knees with his axe, then got one leg under him.
The leader was up, too, coughing and rolling his shoulders. His ribs should have been crushed, but he was quickly recovering from Grimwart’s blow. It was no mere padding he was wearing, that’s for sure. He drew a long dagger from a concealed sheath. Blue fire licked along its blade.
His men were scrambling about for their guns. Namel
ess took one lunging step, then another. Grimwart swung back round to confront the leader, and Shadrak sprinted for the shogger’s back, fumbling in his pocket till he felt the cold wire of his garrote.
The flaming blue blade sliced down. Grimwart’s shield came up to meet it. Nameless charged in among the fallen men who were starting to rise. He drew back his axe. Shadrak sprang.
As he wrapped the garrote around the leader’s throat, Kadee got to her feet and cried, “Stop! All of you, now!” Not waiting to see if anyone obeyed, she took three swift steps toward the leader struggling to dislodge Shadrak, and said, “Warlord, it’s me, Kadee.”
Shadrak tightened his legs around the Warlord’s ribs, but slackened off his grip on the garrote, waiting to see what happened before he sliced the shogger’s head from his shoulders.
Grimwart peeked over the top of his shield. Nameless growled and stomped, and the man confronting him skittered back, almost dropping his rifle in the process.
“Kadee?” the Warlord said. The blue flames edging his blade went out. He wedged a gloved hand between the garrote and his throat. All tension left his body, and so Shadrak released the garrote and dropped lightly to the ground, circling round to stand with his foster mother.
“You remember,” Kadee said. “I know you do.”
The Warlord reached up and slid his mask up on top of his head. “How could I ever forget?”
He had a lean face, clean-shaven, and dark, thoughtful eyes. If he was what the name implied, a warrior, a leader of men in battle, it was something he’d become, not something he naturally was.
Taking their cue from their leader, the others still standing raised their masks. They were all human, and some were women, though it was difficult to tell at first due to the bulk of their clothing.
Like an animal coaxed from its hidey hole by the offer of food, Grimwart emerged from the barrier of his shield.
Nameless delivered a scathing glare to the men and women in front of him, then shouldered his axe and went to hover like a protective father beside the husk girl.
“But so far from the Forest of Lost Souls, Kadee?” the Warlord said. “I thought you would have learned your lesson last time.”
“Things change.” Kadee reached out a hand and touched the Warlord’s cheek. Then, she guided his face to look at Shadrak. “Circumstances change. Warlord, this is my boy, Shadrak.”
The Warlord’s eyes widened for an instant, same as everyone’s did when they first took in Shadrak’s appearance. “The boy you never stopped talking about?”
Kadee nodded with obvious pride. Shadrak felt awkward about that. He wasn’t sure he deserved it.
“I’d always envisaged a child,” the Warlord said, “but Shadrak here is a full grown man.” There was no hint of mockery in his tone, no condescending sneer at Shadrak’s height.
“A man is always a babe to his mother,” Kadee said with a smile.
“Warlord,” one of the women said, a firm grip on her rifle, eyes trained on the night even as she approached. “The Thanatosians: there will be others.”
The Warlord nodded that he’d heard. To Kadee he said, “We should speak at my camp. It is not safe to remain here.”
Shadrak was startled by the clatter and clang of Grimwart’s shield as it hit the ground, and then the dwarf teetered on his feet, moaned, and crumpled in a heap on top of it.
“Laddie!” Nameless cried, and ran to his side. He got down on one knee but clearly had no idea what to do. He sought out Kadee with his eyes, looked at her for help.
“He was stung,” Nameless said. “Just before those shogging Thanatosians attacked. An insect, I think.”
Kadee knelt over Grimwart, turned his head till she located an angry red welt on the back of his neck. Black lines spread out from it like fractures. Kadee fished out her poultice bag, but the Warlord placed a restraining hand on her wrist.
“Too late for herbs, Kadee. We need to get him to camp, where we have proper medical supplies.”
Kadee nodded, and the Warlord signaled for two of his people to come forward and carry the dwarf.
Nameless waved them back. “No, I’ll do it.”
He’d barely laid his axe down, when shadows burst into the soft pool of light surrounding them. A man screamed as twin blades of silver ripped through his chest all the way from his back.
In one blindingly swift motion, Nameless swept up his axe, spun to his feet, and chopped down. There was a pulpy thud, and the Thanatosian was split from head to thorax. As its victim slumped to the ground in a rapidly growing pool of blood, the creature was held up by Nameless’s axe embedded halfway down its body.
The Warlord’s people responded to the attack with a sustained wall of flame that drove the rest of the shadows off. Nameless yanked his axe free, and the Thanatosian dropped like rotten fruit from a branch.
Shadrak felt himself gawping as much as the Warlord was. He knew Nameless was fast, but the longer they spent on Thanatos, the sharper he was getting. Somehow, axe and dwarf were working in synergy, like they both knew they had to up their game if they were going to survive this.
Nameless took it all in his stride, turning to Shadrak with a shrug and saying, “Took me longer than I’d like, but I think my eye’s in now.” Then turning to face the dark the creatures had fled into, he yelled, this time in the Butcher’s icy tone, “You hear that, shoggers? My eye’s in!”
Shadrak focused his goggles in the same direction. The Thanatosians didn’t show up in green like everything else; they were merely deeper splotches of darkness that were almost impossible to read. But he was getting used to them, and he could see they were still moving away. Maybe they’d given up.
On an afterthought, he turned to face the way he and his companions had come up the escarpment.
Still distant, but definitely heading this way, a bank of green-limned cloud was drifting against the breeze. He increased magnification with a toggle of the dial at the side of the goggles. It was still blurry and indistinct, but he thought he could make out movement within the cloud—or rather, the cloud was comprised of hundreds of diaphanous shapes, gliding on tattered wings with the consistency of smoke.
He glanced at Kadee, and she was watching him like she already knew.
The Warlord had guessed, too, for he said, “Harvesters?” and Kadee nodded. “Then what are we waiting for? You, you, and you,”—he jabbed his finger at a two men and a woman—“fetch Clem, Stancy, and Boros.” He glowered at Shadrak, but swiftly softened his expression out of deference to Kadee. “The man you shot in the face, and the two whose necks you broke.”
Shadrak wrinkled his nose and curled his lip. Nameless could tell he didn’t give a shog, and why should he? The Warlord’s people had attacked first.
“And don’t forget Derrin.” The Warlord gestured for someone else to fetch the man the Thanatosian had killed.
The woman glanced at a spot on the ground, then said, “Clem’s gone. His body, I mean.”
“The others, too,” one of them men said. “They must have taken them. All that’s left is these.” He slung a rifle to the Warlord, shouldered the other himself.
The Warlord clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Bloody Thanatosians. All right, people, we’re done here. Grab the other guns, and let’s go.”
A DEBT REPAID
With Grimwart’s unconscious body draped over one shoulder, and Paxy slung over the other, Nameless approached the palisade of scintillant rods that marked the perimeter of the Warlord’s camp.
It would have helped having three arms, he supposed, but there was little choice: only one with the blood of a Dwarf Lord could touch the eldritch axe, and, following their conversation earlier, he wasn’t about to let anyone else take care of Grimwart. The Kryptès was his responsibility. More than that, he was his friend.
Kadee held Grimwart’s shield, and the Warlord carried his mace.
Through the barrier, Nameless could see tents of some glossy white fabric clustered about a sp
ace large enough to encompass a small village. Upward of a hundred people bustled about inside or were stationed at posts set around the perimeter, eyes glued to the dark beyond. Everyone was armed, most with long guns, but some with smaller weapons holstered at their hips.
The staves that made up the palisade were of different hues of stark light, and they each emitted hums of varying pitches. If he’d not known better, Nameless would have assumed it was magic, but he’d seen enough of Shadrak’s plane ship to hazard a different theory.
“What is this, laddie, Sektis Gandaw’s leftovers?”
Everyone knew there were artifacts from the Technocrat’s rule dotted all over Aethir and Urddynoor. Stood to reason the same technology could have reached Thanatos, too. Especially if what he’d overheard at the Forest of Lost Souls were true, and the Warlord himself had come through the portal Nameless and the others had arrived at.
“Sektis who?” the Warlord said with a shake of his head. “These are things I brought back from Urddynoor. Each time I return, I bring more supplies, weapons, anything we need to keep up the fight.”
“Question is,” Shadrak said. “Who are you fighting?”
The Warlord gestured for them all to pass between the staves of light as he answered. “The city and its rulers, for one thing, but mostly this whole damned world.”
As Nameless drew close to the barrier, the hairs on his forearms stood up, and he stepped back.
“Don’t worry,” the Warlord said. “They are attuned to the many threats Thanatos has to offer: birds, beasts, insects. The frequencies of light and sound serve as deterrents to all but the most determined of attackers.”
Nameless exchanged looks with Shadrak, neither of them keen to go first. In the end, Kadee rolled her eyes and stepped between two staves, leading the husk girl by the hand.