Return of the Dwarf Lords (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 4)
Page 27
Nameless crushed two in quick succession, keeping himself between the harvesters and the husk girl. But he needn’t have been concerned on her account. They had one target, and one alone. They were all trying to get to Kadee.
Harvester after harvester was pulverized by axe, hammer, and glaive. One slipped through a gap in the disciplined shield wall the Dwarf Lords had formed, but Grimwart was there to meet it with his own shield, and a devastating whack of his mace.
As they realized they were being thwarted, the harvesters started to go for the dwarves. A razor-lined beak ripped through the rim of a shield and frantically snapped at the bearer, till it was ended by a shattering blow from the Matriarch’s scimitar. But that left the Matriarch open to a concerted attack from three others. Shadrak gunned one down in a shower of bone shards, and the Matriarch recovered in time to backslash another out of her way. But the third swept in from the side before she had time to see it.
Grimwart bellowed as he charged in with his shield. The noise distracted the harvester long enough for him to get there and pound it with steel. As it swept above the shield, Grimwart’s mace came down and reduced it to dust. The Matriarch saw he’d saved her, snarled, and turned back to the fighting.
But Kadee had been left exposed.
A harvester zigzagged through the buckling shield wall then sped straight at her. Shadrak missed it with the first shot, clipped it with the second. But it wasn’t enough to stop it.
“No!” he cried, as it’s beak gaped wide.
The husk girl’s hand swept out faster than a striking serpent. The harvester’s skull exploded, and then the girl embraced Kadee, putting her back to the swell of harvesters pressing hard against the faltering shield wall.
Kadee extricated herself from the husk girl’s embrace and stepped toward the fight. A baffled look passed across the girl’s face as she stepped to intercept Kadee, but then she froze, overcome with the realization of what Kadee was about to do.
Shadrak saw it, too, and his heart stopped. He wanted to run to his foster mother, but it was like he was stuck in a dream, trapped in a nightmare and unable to move.
Kadee’s bleary eyes met his as she hobbled toward the desperately battling line of dwarves. Tears tracked freely down both her cheeks, cheeks as wrinkled and sunken as they had been in life, real life back in Sahul, when she had been everything to him.
Shadrak’s lips trembled as he tried to speak, but his words were as frozen as his limbs.
Kadee mouthed, “I love you,” then continued to hobble toward the shield wall.
As if sensing what was going on, sensing that she was coming, the harvesters backed away and waited. Dirty light streaked in from between the breaches in the outer walls beyond the inner one they had broken through.
Nameless saw her first and dropped his chin to his chest. He knew there was nothing more they could do. They had given it all they had, but there was no end to the harvesters. They just kept on coming, as inexorable as time.
Slowly, reluctantly, as if it offended all they stood for, the Dwarf Lords parted to let Kadee through. The Matriarch drew in a deep breath and nodded at Kadee’s passing back. Grimwart lowered his shield and shook his head.
As Kadee stepped over the rubble into the spears of gray light penetrating from outside, and a cloud of ragged wings closed in to smother her, Shadrak sank to his knees, too flooded with grief even to cry.
And then, as the harvesters pulled back, departing the citadel now they had what they had come for, the husk girl began to sing. There were no words, just a keening, haunting melody that seemed to bring time to a standstill. It washed over Shadrak, numbing his pain, and coaxing voices, images, scents from his past, from the only part of his life he had ever considered worth living. They were memories of Kadee.
Nameless lumbered toward him, exhausted from fighting, but burdened by his friend’s grief. He lay his axe on the ground as he knelt in front of Shadrak and buried him in a hug, held him as he shuddered, and the tears finally flowed free.
DESTINY OF THE DWARVES
He had no idea how long he’d knelt and held Shadrak in his arms, but Nameless couldn’t let go. He wouldn’t, not until every last drop of moisture had been drawn from his friend’s body and shed from his eyes. Nameless wept, too. Wept for Kadee as well as for her son, but he also wept for Arnoch, and for Cordana, whom he’d likely never see again. It had been a brave attempt, a valiant effort, and he was prouder than he could have believed of Grimwart and Shadrak and the girl, and privileged beyond measure to have witnessed what Kadee had done: the calm way she had accepted her fate for the sake of her friends. And not just her friends: for the sake of the Dwarf Lords.
A jolt of anger passed through him at that thought. It was the Dwarf Lords who’d imprisoned the old woman, the Dwarf Lords who’d refused to come to Arnoch’s aid, and the Dwarf Lords and their strumpet Matriarch who valued others by their utility, which in his case, and Grimwart’s, meant how much seed they could supply before they were too old or too dried up to go on.
Shadrak no longer shuddered. His tears no longer spattered Nameless’s chainmail. But he hadn’t recovered, either. Nameless held him at arm’s length, looked him in the eye. Shadrak’s gaze was vacant, like the husk girl’s had been, and when Nameless let go of him, he hung there on his knees, as if we were made of wax that had set.
The husk girl was watching. She nodded sadly, a single tear drop glistening like quicksilver on her cheek. The film coating her skin had thickened, and her eyes were almost completely whited over by their cataracts.
Matriarch Gitashan sighed and shook her head. “You only have yourselves to—”
“Matriarch!” a Dwarf Lord cried, scrambling over the rubble of the wall. She stood to attention, and spoke quickly, before she could be chastised for interrupting. “The outer walls are breached all over the citadel, and there are Thanatosians gliding down from the peaks. Somehow, they know we are vulnerable. It’s as if the harvesters communicated it to them.”
The color drained from Gitashan’s face. She turned horrified eyes on Nameless.
“See what you have done! They watch us perpetually, waiting for any sign of weakness. And now, you have given them what they want.” As she said the last, she stormed toward Nameless with her scimitar raised.
Grimwart stepped in her way, blocked her with his shield.
The dozen Dwarf Lords who’d been with the Matriarch came at the Kryptès from every side. More were were running in from other parts of the citadel, clambering over the rubble of the collapsed wall.
Nameless surged to his feet, bringing Paxy with him. “Enough!” he bellowed. He put a hand in Grimwart’s shoulder, encouraged him to stand aside as he addressed the Dwarf Lords. “If you stay here, you’re going to die out, whatever you do. Oh, you might last a few decades, maybe even a century or two, but eventually, it will be over.”
He had their attention. He was right about how to speak to these people.
“Then, so be it,” the Matriarch said. “At least will will die Dwarf Lords, untainted by the blood of commoners, not forced to endure their illegitimate rule.”
“Grimwart’s a commoner,” Nameless said.
“Oi, watch it.” Grimwart’s response was automatic, the one that Nameless would have been looking for under normal circumstances, but no one was in a laughing mood.
Nameless went on, as if his friend hadn’t interjected. “But did you see the way he stood against those harvesters? Are you going to tell me the rest of you did any better?”
Behind their face plates, at least fifty pairs of eyes met his, and more Dwarf Lords were still filtering into the corridor, gathering together as the scale of the crisis became known. Some of them them were children, halfway to being adults, all armored and looking like they could handle themselves in a tavern brawl.
“Does anyone here want to disparage what Grimwart, a mere common-blood, did here today? What he always does, whenever his friends are in trouble? Our people back
home are the same. The dwarves of Arnoch.”
He let the citadel’s name hang in the air; let them know there were new dwarves in Arnoch that were equally as worthy as the Dwarf Lords of old.
“When the dragon came against the citadel, they faced it, the same as you would have done. And when they realized the task was beyond them, that their numbers were too few, their power no match for the beast, they did the only thing left to them: they turned to you for help. You, the Dwarf Lords that are revered in all our heroic legends. The mythical ancestors whose return has always been hoped for. The models who define what a dwarf should be. You. Their betters.”
The last word he cast at Gitashan like a javelin.
She recoiled, but quickly recovered, opened her mouth for a retort, but Nameless cut her off.
“I thought you would be more than this. Other than this. I hoped, I dreamed, you would save my people in the hour of their direst need. So, I came here, to Thanatos. I came here with loyal friends.” He looked pointedly at Shadrak, still on his knees, still broken and unmoving. He looked at Grimwart, and at the husk girl, in her own way as set in stone as the assassin. “I came here, and I found you. And I have found you wanting.”
He turned away from them to Grimwart. “You bring the girl, I’ll bring Shadrak. Come on, there’s nothing for us here.” And for the Matriarch’s benefit, he added, “And if they try to stop us, don’t hold back with the mace.”
He’d barely stooped to lift Shadrak, when a woman cried, “Arnoch!”
Gitashan stiffened, and her amber eyes roved the gathering crowd of Dwarf Lords, searching out the culprit.
Thyenna stepped forward. Her sister. The only other surviving Immortal among them.
“Arnoch,” she said again, this time straight at her sister.
There were mutters and nods of agreement from behind her.
“Thyenna,” the Matriarch snapped. “You would dare to—”
“Arnoch,” Thyenna said once more, this time barely above a whisper. She touched a finger to her sister’s lips, implored her with her eyes. “It’s what we were born for, Gitashan, who we are. We are Immortals, you and I. I never knew what that meant before, when all we were doing was hiding away and surviving. But this… this cause… It fires my blood and shouts to me that it is the right thing to do. The only thing.”
“Arnoch!” the cry went up from the massing Dwarf Lords. They continued to arrive from across the rubble, and from further back down the corridor. Even the two guards from the gatehouse came to join them.
From the back, Ancient Bub hollered, “You have my vote!” and then he swiftly added, with an impish grin for Nameless, “Only joking!”
“And my guns,” Cidruthus Tallish said, coming along the corridor, waving the two massive rifles he’d had on his wall. He was walking without his sticks, as if he no longer needed them, as if the excitement had restored him in some way. “And they still work! Shot one of those harvesters smack in the middle of its skull when it came through the ceiling. Boom! Went up in a puff of smoke. Let’s go, I say. This place is finished, and I for one ain’t waiting around for an army of Thanatosians to drop by. So, come on, where’s this shogging dragon?” He raised a rifle and pulled the trigger. A coruscating bolt of blue light burst from the end and blasted a chunk out of the ceiling. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know,” Gitashan said, all certainty gone from her voice.
“We will all die, if we stay,” Thyenna said. “Think on it, Sister. The timing is right. We have to go. We have to return to Arnoch. It is our destiny.”
Nameless stepped away from Shadrak and held out his hand to Gitashan. Her amber eyes had lost their wildness. They looked haunted as her fingertips met his. Nameless held her gaze, encouraged her with a nod, and she grasped his wrist in the way warriors were supposed to.
“Thyenna is right, Matriarch,” Nameless said. “Do this. Do it for the Dwarf Lords. Do it for Arnoch. But most of all, do it because you are an Immortal, charged with the protection of your people, as I am charged with the protection of mine.”
She stared into his eyes for a long moment, and then gave a short, decisive jerk of her head.
“We go!” she declaimed, and cheers rang out down the corridor. “Take only what you have with you. You all know what to do. You’ve trained for this all your lives. So, come on. Let’s move it.”
A vanguard of twenty headed off through the gatehouse. Nameless crouched beside Shadrak, holstered his guns, then scooped him up and threw him over one shoulder. Grimwart strapped his shield to his back, and then hefted the husk girl into his arms.
“Wait up!” a woman cried from the far end of the corridor. She was dressed in a leather apron, clean-shaven and bald as an egg. Well, not exactly clean: a two-day growth of stubble shadowed her scalp and chin, both of which were speckled with angry red welts. They looked like flea bites, to Nameless, which made him wonder what manner of diseases flowed through her blood. This was Thanatos, after all, where the concept “harmless” had yet to be invented. An armored Dwarf Lord supported her under the arm.
“Our beautiful jailer,” Grimwart said. His eyes lost their focus, as if he were imagining something. He scrunched his face up and looked about to gag. “You think they expected me to do her, too?”
“Indubitably, laddie. All part of your duties. Still want to stay?”
“Shog off.”
A call came from up front that they were clear to proceed, and the last three-hundred Dwarf Lords, women, children, and two old men, marched out of the Dark Citadel on the start of their journey back to Arnoch.
They moved swiftly down the mountain path, on orderly column, four abreast, and not a Dwarf Lord missing a synchronized step. Nameless found his legs wanting to keep the same marching rhythm, but with Shadrak over one shoulder, and Paxy over the other, it was a hard enough task keeping up at all. Grimwart was struggling, too, carrying the husk girl. If the Matriarch hadn’t noticed and slowed the column, they would have ended up falling behind. But the fact that she did was a guttering candle of hope to Nameless. At least she was starting to think like an Immortal.
The skies were dotted with spiraling black shapes drifting on the thermals. More alighted on ridges high up on the mountains. Others dropped through the clouds above the citadel to land atop the curtain walls, and tracked the column’s progress with jerky movements of their featureless black heads.
Thanatosians.
Hundreds of them, gathering like vultures. Just one of them had almost been too much to handle. But so many, even with the Dwarf Lords at his side… Nameless could sense the frisson between the creatures spread out all along the mountain range, the anticipatory excitement before the slaughter to come.
Almost imperceptibly, at first, the march quickened again, and this time, Nameless and Grimwart did all they could to keep up. Nameless stumbled and almost fell, but a Dwarf Lord caught him round the waist. Her eyes were fearful beneath her face plate, but she still offered to relieve him of his burden. He declined, and redoubled his efforts to make it down the mountain path before the battle started. Shadrak was his responsibility, his friend, and he was passing him off to no one.
One by one, Thanatosians touched down on the path behind the column. They were keeping their distance, but growing bolder. You had to ask, though, why they needed to pluck up the courage. The creatures were faster than any dwarf, and judging by the dark shapes overhead, those perched on the ridges and on the walls of the citadel, they outnumbered the evacuees at least three to one.
Maybe they were like cats playing with their prey. Or maybe they’d had their noses bloodied by the Dwarf Lords in the past and were biding their time. Lord Haxon Kly had taken down four of them, after all, when he was way past his prime. Maybe that last act of defiance, that last act of bravery in defense of his people had counted for something. Nameless liked to think so, that every deed of heroism, no matter how small, mattered somehow in the grand scheme of things.
“It won’t be long now,” she said, casting a look out over the peaks at the Thanatosians. “They are a calculating enemy, and they are taking stock of us.” Her eyes flitted constantly about the column, and there was a barely suppressed quaver in her voice.
“You’re wondering if you’ve done the right thing?”
“No,” she said, turning her gaze on him. “Stay or go, once the walls were breached, the outcome was always going to be the same.”
“Unless we take them by surprise.”
A Thanatosian glided closer, and a cold voice said in Nameless’s mind, You are few, we are many, and you are so, so tired.
He slung Paxy with almost casual abandon. The golden blades streaked across the intervening space, but the Thanatosian swerved to avoid them. As Paxy went for the rebound, the creature dived from view behind a looming crag. They weren’t just calculating and fast, they were also learning, as if whatever was experienced by one was mysteriously conveyed to the others.
“This surprise you have in mind,” Gitashan said, “will need to be better than that.”
“It is, lassie. It is. Only, it’s dependent upon something you may not like.”
“Oh?”
“Trust.”
She clenched her jaw and gave a nod of grim determination. “The way I see it, there’s not much choice. I will trust you, if you can trust me.”
“I know I can count on you,” he said. He didn’t know, but he had a strong feeling about these things. He’d trusted Nils Fargin, hadn’t he, in spite of first impressions? And the lad had come through when it most mattered. At the end of the day, the Matriarch was a Dwarf Lord. More than that, she was an Immortal, and that was blood he could happily put his trust in. But it wasn’t her he was concerned about. Nor was he asking her to place her trust in him.