by D. P. Prior
On the other side, the horde from the castle showed no signs of thinning, no matter how many Nameless put down. They just kept streaming out of the gatehouse like there was no end to them. And what if there wasn’t? It wasn’t like Shadrak could tell one apart from another. They were all exactly the same.
Nameless sang something in a booming bass that seemed more suited to one of those wanky shows in the city, where they spoke in songs, and twats in tights cavorted around the stage. It got the goons’ attention, though, and the front ranks faltered for a second. It gave the dwarf room to raise his gauntleted fist high and bring it crashing down on the ground. There was a crack like the rending of a mountain. Chunks of rock and snow flew, and a shockwave rolled on through the goons before Nameless, pitching them to their backs.
“Ha!” Nameless cried. “Got the idea from the lassie. She said Maldark did the same thing with his hammer.”
The town-goons lost their nerve momentarily, but as soon as they realized the attack was only focused on their comrades from the castle, they let out a cry and advanced.
“Ah, shog it!” Shadrak said. Anything Nameless could do… What did it matter if he used up all his globes? It’s not like it would matter if they all ended up dead.
One he lobbed high, so it came down near the rear of the pack. The next, he threw close to the front. As the first exploded, and the black-garbs that weren’t caught in the blast ran forward, the second went off, and the front ranks were decimated. Body parts and snow arced high into the sky, and the air was filled with sulfur and charred flesh.
Ludo started to protest, but already, the third and final globe was sailing toward the center, where the survivors of the rear collided with those from the front.
Boom!
And then the shoggers—those that were left—were running.
—Right into Ekyls, who had somehow worked his way behind them like a jackal stalking its prey.
The hatchet came down once, twice, three times, and the ground was stained crimson. The dozen or so left standing scattered for the town.
Up top, though, it was another matter. Nameless had only stunned the castle-goons, and already they were getting up and coming on again. And still, more were streaming out of the gatehouse and down the hill.
Nameless halfheartedly raised the axe again, gave a “What’s the point?” shrug, and stepped in to meet the renewed attack.
Galen growled and moved to join him.
A big group of black-garbs broke off from the main body. At first, Shadrak thought they were trying to outflank them, but then he saw Albert scampering away through the snow in a wide arc back toward the town. Shadrak smiled and shook his head. The poisoner had never been one to miss a chance to save his own skin. Only, this time, it didn’t look like he was going to make it.
Ludo loomed behind Shadrak, alternately gasping and exclaiming, “Nous!” or “Ain preserve us!” He was enthralled by the main fight, no doubt seeing how hopeless it was.
Galen’s saber trailed ropes of gore as he swung it almost lethargically now. Even Nameless seemed to be ebbing, though the gauntlets still gave him the strength to knock a man flying if he strayed too close.
When Shadrak looked back, Albert had gotten himself surrounded, but that only made him more dangerous. He jabbed and feinted, a stiletto in his right hand, a notch-edged blade in the left. Funny that. They looked identical to the spares Shadrak kept in his cabin.
Slow as you like, Shadrak unslung the rifle from his shoulder, took aim, and fired. The head of one of Albert’s attackers exploded in a spray of red.
“There,” Shadrak muttered. “Don’t say I never do nothing for you.”
A stick swung at Albert’s face, but he caught it between the notches of the sword-breaker and skewered the man with the stiletto.
Ekyls came loping across the snow to his aid, having finished with the survivors of Shadrak’s explosions. The savage was drenched head to toe in blood. He was on the goons surrounding Albert in a whirlwind of hatchet blows and snarls.
Albert took advantage of the panic, stabbing like a maniac, too far gone to care about the bloodstains ruining his fancy suit.
Shadrak dropped another goon for him, and then Ekyls and Albert broke free and ran hell for leather back up the slope. A few more shots from the rifle had the pack chasing them diving for cover, and then Albert and Ekyls were clear.
Galen staggered back from a stick blow to the jaw. He hacked down at the hand holding it, lopped it off at the wrist.
A goon charged Nameless head on, but it was a feint. Two more leapt at him from the sides and bore him to the ground.
Shadrak ran in, brained one with the stock of the rifle; swung it like a club in the other’s face.
Ekyls came barreling into the man who’d charged Nameless, hopping and chopping like some demented demon.
Nameless found his feet, bought them some time with another earth-shattering thump that pitched a score of black-garbs on their arses.
“It’s no good,” Albert said. He was bent over, panting heavily. “Too many. Have to get back to the town.”
For once, Shadrak agreed with him. They were only five. Five fighting men—and Ludo—against a sea of black that never seemed to abate.
“Are they even human?” Galen said, readying himself for the next assault as the goons started getting to their feet.
“Have to wonder who makes all the outfits,” Albert said as he wheezed and coughed. “Local haberdashery must be minted.”
The ranks continued to swell, but those in front held back for now, seemingly content to wait until all the men they had lost were replaced.
Nameless took a staggering step toward them. “I can do this all day long, laddies. Come on, who’s next?”
If he’d expected to intimidate them, he was sorely disappointed. With a series of ululating cries, the whole mob swarmed forward.
“Run away!” Albert yelled, already slipping and sliding down the slope toward town.
“Never!” Galen roared, as he stepped alongside Nameless.
“Bollocks,” Shadrak said, shooting a goon in the chest. “Fall back.” He swiveled the barrel, blew the top of another’s head off. “Come on, Nameless. Don’t be a wanker.”
“You first, laddie,” Nameless called to Galen.
“Not me,” Galen said, as he sliced and parried. “You first.”
Shadrak slung the rifle over his shoulder and started down the slope with Ludo in tow.
Ekyls seemed undecided for a moment, then he turned and sped after Albert in leaps and bounds.
“Put me dow—Waaaaagh!” Galen cried, as he came skimming down the slope on his front.
And then Nameless came thundering after him as fast as his stumpy legs could go.
Behind him, the entire horde came on like a landslide.
Shadrak slipped and tumbled. Tucking his legs in, he spun over and over till he reached flat ground just ahead of Albert.
Ludo helped him up, and they kept moving toward the outermost buildings.
Nameless somehow kept his feet and accelerated off the bottom of the slope to overtake the rest of them. As if he realized what that implied, he drew up sharp and turned back, waiting for them to catch up. “Dwarf legs,” he explained. “Built for hills and mountains, and you’ll never see a dwarf slip in the snow. Except maybe once. And that was a long time ago, and I’d had more than my fair share of grog.”
“Keep up,” Galen said, taking the lead at a sprint.
Ludo kept pace with him at little more than a jog, but Albert was exhausted and perspiring, even in the cold. Ekyls hung back with him, snarling over his shoulder at the oncoming mass.
Shog ’em, Shadrak thought, pressing on and fully intending to leave them behind. But of course, Nameless had to go back for them. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he should leave the dwarf, too. Let the black-garbs or their master do what he couldn’t bring himself to do. Least that way he wouldn’t have to fret no more, and it would appease the
Archon. He took a faltering step, started to turn, wavered.
An owl hooted, then swooped overhead.
In its wake, a colossal roar went up from somewhere ahead of Galen.
The black-garbs hesitated.
Albert seemed to stop breathing as he leaned his hand on the nearest house, legs no longer able to support his weight.
Ekyls growled at the goons, glanced the other way, and growled again, like he expected it to frighten off whatever beast was coming.
Except it wasn’t a beast.
Another shout went up. A challenge. A battle cry, followed by the tramp of a hundred pairs of boots.
Shadrak rolled his eyes, and decided which house to break into. Couple of hostages, a long drawn-out siege…
Nameless, though, danced a little jig as the owl circled above them then spiraled down to the road. As the homunculus Bird sprang up in its place, the dwarf said, “Ah, laddie, I knew you hadn’t left us.”
Before he’d finished speaking, dozens upon dozens of men and women poured out of the side streets, flanking the black-garbs. They were swathed in animal pelts, and wielded spears, swords, and wooden shields. The men were long-haired and bearded, the women tall with blonde hair twisted into ropes that whirled about their heads like flails as they ran.
The newcomers smashed into the black-garbs with uncompromising ferocity, hacking, cleaving, thrusting with spears.
The initial attack was devastating; but swiftly, the fallen black-garbs were replaced by more trickling in from the back.
Shadrak groaned. Against an endless sea, even a force of—what?—upward of a hundred would ultimately tire and fail.
A monster of a man, bearded to the waist, and wielding a long single-bladed axe broke away from the fight and ran toward them.
“Follow me,” he said in a voice like a bear’s growl. “The others will pull back once you’re safe. The Prior’s henchmen won’t pass the borders of the town.”
“They won’t?” Nameless said.
“Why?” Shadrak put in.
“Buggered if I know,” the big man said. “Either following orders, or they can’t. Like most things in this hellhole, they ain’t exactly natural.”
“You can trust Lorgen,” Bird said, barely audible over the clangor of battle. He put a claw-like hand on Shadrak’s shoulder. “We share a common foe.”
“Move it,” Lorgen said, striding toward the far side of town. “I don’t want to lose any more of my people than I have to, and I don’t like the look of that.”
Shadrak followed his gaze, to where streamers of smoke were spilling from the castle and drifting toward them against the wind.
He didn’t need any further prompting.
A glance at Albert was met with a nod that the poisoner was ready to go on.
Ludo, Ekyls, and Nameless were already setting off after Lorgen.
Bird gave a grim smile before once more taking to the air in the form of an owl.
Shadrak cast a final look at the clashing forces. Lorgen’s people had already lost their advantage and were starting to fight a withdrawal. And beyond it all, closing with terrible swiftness, tendrils of mist were coiling about each other, thickening, coalescing, darkening into a vile brume that threatened to smother the sky.
Then Shadrak was running for the edge of town, hoping against hope Lorgen was right, and they’d be safe once they reached the trees.
THE MIST
Tendrils of mist felt around the edges of the promontory, kissed the nubs of rock poking through the snow, then recoiled as if that wasn’t what they were looking for.
Because they were looking, Nameless was sure of that. He’d watched them questing, snaking, creeping through the trees since the setting sun had tinged the clouds with red. Watched them intertwining, tips meeting as if conferring, and then separating back into plumes and wisps.
At first, the mist had come on fast, harried them from Wolfmalen in the wake of the battle, but then it had slowed in its pursuit, as if it had lost them. For hours, it had seeped through the pines, systematically, leaving no stone unturned. And it was getting closer. So close it made Nameless’s skin crawl with a thousand invisible insects.
He took a step toward it, axe gripped tight in the giant’s gauntlets. Better to face a thing than to fear it, he’d always said. What you run from today will be twice as frightening tomorrow. Same as with the black-garbs streaming down from the castle. He knew he should have gotten out of there when Shadrak said. Knew he’d placed his companions at risk. But it was fear that made him stand and fight. Fear he was no longer himself. Fear he was growing afraid. Fear he was relapsing. Because he’d felt something similar, only far, far worse, when he’d been under the spell of the black axe; when he’d been the butcher: a terror that could only be assuaged by blood.
Was it the gauntlets? He splayed the fingers of one hand, held it up to the eye-slit of his helm. Made no sense. They’d granted him the strength of a giant. More, even: for they’d made Sartis the mightiest of all the Jötunn, given him the power to destroy his kin. The stronger you got, the less you had to fear. It was as plain as plain could be. But Sartis had been afraid, hadn’t he? Afraid enough of Sektis Gandaw he’d hidden for centuries in the roots of the volcano. And the maker of the gauntlets, the Cynocephalus: wasn’t he said to cower in the bowels of Gehenna, right on the brink of the Abyss? A trembling god. A paranoid one, terrified even of his own shadow.
“Anything?” Lorgen said as he came up the hill from the camp.
Seemed his people had scores of similar hideaways scattered throughout the woods. They kept themselves in small groups, the better to avoid detection, and employed runners in snow shoes for communication. More than that, Nameless hadn’t picked up. He’d not been in a listening mood.
“Nothing I can get a good swing at, laddie.” And maybe that was the problem. While he’d been in the thick of the fighting, he’d not had time to worry; time to wonder what was up with him. But here, in the relative safety of Lorgen’s camp, all they had been doing was waiting. Waiting for the mist to find them. Waiting to be picked off like sheep.
Lorgen laughed deep down in his belly. It sounded good-natured enough, but that didn’t mean it was. “Did your fair share of swinging earlier, I’d say, for all the good it did. Kill one of those black-garbed pieces of dung, another replaces him. Seen it before, I tell you. There’s no end to them. Theurgy, if you ask me. Black theurgy. Same kind that brings the dead to life and conjures this bastard mist.”
“The Prior?” Nameless took a step away from the ghostly carpet still inching toward him. Talking had cost him his resolve.
“Aye, that’s what the lackwits in Wolfmalen call him. To the rest of us, he’s still Otto Blightey, the Liche Lord.”
“And what is it with the townsfolk, laddie? I found them a little…” Nameless struggled to find the right word. “Odd” wasn’t specific enough, and “pathetic” seemed just a tad unfair.
“Docile?” Lorgen offered.
“Yes, that’s a good way of putting it.”
“Deluded? Beguiled? Because I tell you, they weren’t always that way. They were our people. They were free folk, till the Liche Lord put a glamor on them. Fodder’s all they are now. Well, not all. There’s more going on, but I can’t fathom it. Has them all believing he’s some holy man; some tinpot Ipsissimus like they have in Aeterna.”
Shader had mentioned an Ipsissimus, the supreme head of his religion on Earth. “You think he’s starting a rival faith?”
“That’s just it,” Lorgen said. “To do that, he’d need more devotees, but Wolfmalen’s population never changes. No children, no newcomers, and no one dies.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Nameless said. There was an appeal in the idea of all that stability. And not dying… Did that mean they had no fear? Not from what he’d seen at George and Hilda’s. They’d seemed afraid of the castle. Afraid of the Prior himself. Though, it was akin to the fear of children not wanting to be punished.
He swiveled the great helm so he could watch Lorgen for a response. Had to tilt his head quite a bit, because Lorgen was a big bastard. Big, and ugly with it: face more scars than skin; outcropping forehead, and a beard even dwarves would have found ostentatious. He had an axe, too: a long-hafted single blader. Should have been hard not to like him, on account of that alone. But Nameless was caught up wondering if that axe would be used on him; if he could take the big man down, if it came to it. Why? he asked himself. Why think that? Lorgen had come to their aid; been nothing but friendly. But other thoughts wormed their way into his mind: That’s how it always starts. Where do you think he got those scars? Are the giant’s gauntlets going to be enough, if he starts on you?
“I’ve a question for you,” Lorgen said.
He hadn’t responded to Nameless’s comment. Hadn’t elaborated on what he’d said, either. What did he mean there were no children? That no one dies? Remarks like that demanded an explanation. Unless he was hiding something.
“What brings you to Verusia?” Lorgen said. “Because you’re clearly not local.”
“Oh, laddie?” Nameless said. “And what makes you think that?”
Lorgen stooped to look down at him. “Your height, for one thing. Yours and the little fellow’s who came to me for help; not to mention the pale-faced one in the cloak. Then there’s your accents.”
“Bird came to you, you say?” Nameless said. “I mean, I knew he led you to us”—in the form of an owl—“but how did he come to find you?” How did he know he could trust you? Come to think of it, how could Nameless trust Bird? What if this was all some elaborate ploy. After all, the shogger was a homunculus, wasn’t he? As honorable as thieves and assassins, and twice as duplicitous. Which made him wonder about Shadrak, who was clearly both: spawn of the Demiurgos and a cutthroat to boot. A friend, yes, but did that really count for anything? How could you know? How could you really know?
“You have to wonder,” Lorgen said. “And I don’t mind telling you, he gives me the creeps, what with the way he changes form and all. Though, in a strange way, that’s what persuaded me. Persuaded me he wasn’t from Blightey. The Liche Lord disguises himself, right enough, but he’s no changeling, and few are the animals that will come within a hundred miles of his presence. This Bird said there was trouble brewing. Said you’d wandered too close to the castle. That made you either stupid or ignorant, far as I’m concerned; but no one deserves to be tortured and impaled for either. But the other one, the one with the pink eyes, I’ve not seen hide nor hair of him since we reached camp. He’s not foolish enough to go back there, is he?”