by D. P. Prior
“Shadrak?” Nameless shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him foolish. He takes too many precautions for that, and he makes a virtue out of being unseen. Told me he was going back to retrieve his weapons.” He chuckled at that. He knew how obsessional the assassin was. The thought of him cursing as he ferreted through the snow looking for every last razor star would have been a sight to behold. “Then he was planning to return to our…” How should he put it? “… transportation to pick up some more supplies.” Shadrak was a planner, and he always liked to be prepared. He’d been shaken by the attack, same as they all had. He’d flung everything he had at the black-garbs, and still they’d kept on coming.
“But if we could return to my first question,” Lorgen said. There was a hint of steel in his voice. Ordinarily, Nameless admired that in a man, but now all he heard was implied threat. He may have misread the tone, because Lorgen was standing relaxed, and his gaze was roving over the encroaching mist, as if he didn’t really expect an answer.
“Business with the Liche Lord,” Nameless said.
Lorgen stiffened, and his fingers tightened around the haft of his axe. “Aye, and what business is that?”
“Steady, laddie,” Nameless said. “His goons were attacking us, remember?”
Lorgen said nothing, but he managed a slight nod.
“He has something we need,” Nameless said. “And we aim to take it from him.”
“A friend?” Lorgen said. He almost gasped as he said it, and the scars on his face were pulled tight as he grimaced.
“No, not a friend, laddie. Just something.”
The tension visibly melted from Lorgen’s muscles. “Good. Well, not good. Any business with the Liche Lord tends to end in suffering. But it is good you have lost no one to him. At least, not yet.”
“And you have?” Nameless asked. He regretted it almost instantly.
Lorgen shut his eyes and turned his head aside. He drew in a long breath and let it out in a sigh. When he opened his eyes, he looked down the slope at the mist.
“It’s receding. It hasn’t detected our camp. We only moved a few nights ago. The old site was compromised last time the mist came.”
“This is a regular occurrence?” Nameless said. “I thought we’d triggered it by straying too near the castle.”
“You probably did. But it’s a frequent menace, wafting through the woods, looking for us.”
“But why?”
Lorgen rolled his shoulders and looked off into the last ribbons of bruised sunlight creeping beneath the horizon. “Because we are his.” He sneered. “All of Verusia is his. Mostly dead. Mostly undead. But the Liche Lord maintains a sizeable stock of the living.”
“Then leave,” Nameless said. “I know I would.”
“Getting in is all very well,” Lorgen said, “but you try getting out, and you’ll find the Gallic border patrols much more zealous. Not only that, but Blightey has things out near the fringes. Things that make sure no one tries to leave.”
“And this is better?” Nameless said. His imagination was running riot with the implications. What if they hadn’t got the plane ship? Would they have been trapped? Would he? He knew it shouldn’t have bothered him; knew he’d have normally risen to the challenge, but he wasn’t right. Something felt wrong. Idly, almost absently, he pulled at one of the gauntlets, but it wouldn’t come free. It seemed to have shrunk; shrunk so much it chafed. He grew desperate, pulled harder, but desisted when Lorgen shot him a look.
“We survive. In pockets of resistance, we survive. And we grow. The laughter of children graces our camps. Maybe one day, if we hold out long enough…” His voice trailed off, as if he lacked the conviction to continue. When he resumed speaking, it was in fits and starts, until he brought his tongue under control by some colossal act of will.
“Shit on him. Shit on Otto Blightey.” He may have been warding himself with curses. “Never want to look on that demon again. Three days I was in his dungeons with nothing for company but the sounds of screaming.” He winced and closed his eyes. “My daughters. My wife.” He shook his head. “Think hard before you go there. Think very hard. Evil shogger. Evil.”
“Not sure I have a choice, laddie,” Nameless said. His own voice came out tremulous. Lorgen’s words had moved him, but he didn’t know what to say. What could he say?
But he did have a choice, didn’t he? He’d survived well enough trapped in the great helm, and he’d done no more harm. It might have been a shogging inconvenience traveling to the Perfect Peak to be fed, but compared with the alternative…
He had to wonder: was that how the dwarves of Arx Gravis felt about him? The way Lorgen did about Blightey? The Ravine Butcher had slaughtered their loved ones, stuck their heads on spikes. The familiar cramps of despair gripped his innards. There was no coming back from what he’d done. No forgiveness. No atonement.
So, why was he risking his companions’ lives on some madcap quest to free himself from the helm? Free himself from the lure of the black axe? He had no right. No shogging right.
He gave the other gauntlet a surreptitious yank, but it, too, was stuck. Like the helm. Had he lost his hands as well as his head? Was that the philosopher’s plan? To obscure him one bit at a time? To encase him in scarolite and steel? Why would he do that? Plots and possibilities whirled about his mind. None of them made much sense, but all of them made him wonder.
He pulled his shoulder blades together until his back popped. He was knotted up with tension, head to toe, but there was shog all he could do about it.
“It’s heading out toward the crags,” Lorgen said, his focus back on the mist. “Where our old camp used to be. Guess it’s a good thing we moved.”
A chill deeper than that the snow had to offer insinuated its way into Nameless’s bones. He couldn’t tell if it was coming from the retreating mist, or the fact he couldn’t get the gauntlets off. He’d felt something similar in the darkness of Gehenna, when he’d gone after the black axe: an innominate dread that gave rise to whispers of thought, promptings, threats, warnings. He had no defense against that sort of thing. An enemy he could stand toe to toe with, no matter how big, how strong, had never bothered him. If you could hit it, chances are, it would bleed; and if it bled, it could be killed. But intangible fears, be they born from powers he did not comprehend, or his own inner demons, pierced him sharper than any blade; cut him right to the marrow.
“Come,” Lorgen said, starting off back down the slope. “Least we can chance a cook fire now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Always, Nameless wanted to say. Always shogging starving. Not so much from the need for sustenance, because Aristodeus’s muck took care of that, but for the taste of food. And of beer. If nothing else, a pint would settle his nerves, and get him feeling like a dwarf again.
***
There was more than one fire back at camp. Most of them were little more than smoldering wounds on the surface of the white ground. They brought back memories of the fire giant’s face, where Galen had shot it. And gut-clenching images of its pulped and caved-in head.
Lorgen’s people hunched about the fires, roasting skewered strips of meat over the flames. Whatever it was they were cooking, it was charred beyond recognition, and smelled vaguely of chicken.
The canvas shelters they’d erected around the perimeter were almost invisible under their blankets of snow. A couple of men were finishing off putting up new tents for the companions. It seemed likely these were the shelters of those who had fallen, or those who had been taken.
Such unexpected kindness, such consideration of total strangers, thawed the doubts Nameless had been having about their rescuers. Why go to all this trouble? Why come to their aid in the first place? Why the hospitality, if they bore any ill intent?
“Thought you said there were no animals close by,” Nameless said, indicating the food being passed around. “What do you do, hunt afar and salt them?”
Lorgen leaned in, as if he were going to answ
er. He appeared to chew over a reply then discard it. Instead, he indicated a fire much bigger than the rest: a fire that clearly didn’t give a shog if it was spotted.
Albert glanced up from whatever he was roasting on a long stick. Looked like sausages. “Went with Shadrak back to the ship,” the poisoner said. “Picked up some supplies. I assume you’re hungry.” As if he’d forgotten, Albert waved apologetically and tapped his head. “Oh, of course, you can’t eat in that thing, can you? Never mind. All the more for me.”
Lorgen settled himself with a clutch of his people. A woman offered him some meat, but he shook his head. The low hubbub of voices greeted his arrival. Probably, they had a lot to talk about.
Nameless couldn’t help wondering if he’d said something to offend the big man. If he had, though, he had no idea what it was.
He did his best to shrug the feeling off and went to sit next to Bird on the far side of Albert’s blaze. The homunculus had his head turned pointedly away from what was cooking. Clearly, he wouldn’t be eating, either.
Ludo had his nose in his Liber. He looked ashen, and thinner than he had mere hours ago. Must have been an effect of the firelight sending flickering shadows over his face. If he was hungry, he showed no sign of it, as if all the nourishment he needed could be dredged from the words on the page.
Galen was sharpening his saber with a whetstone—short, sharp licks and the occasional long, slow stroke all the way to the tip. Seemed he’d already given what was left of his hair the same meticulous attention, the way it was plastered over his scalp in finely combed strands. Why he didn’t just face facts, was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t like he was fooling anyone. At least Aristodeus was honest about being a bald bastard. Although, you had to wonder if that skimpy little box beard was just to deflect attention from his barren pate.
Still, one thing Nameless had to say for Galen: the man was no coward. Never leave a man behind, he’d heard the dragoon say.
Not even me.
Galen acknowledged Nameless with a quick look. “We took quite a beating back there, but gave as good as we got, eh?”
“Aye, laddie,” Nameless said, trying to inflect some good cheer into his tone, and suspecting he failed miserably. “That we did.”
Galen tested the edge of his blade, licked his finger, and went back to his honing.
Ekyls was seated as close to the dragoon as you could get without touching. Wasn’t so long ago they’d been poised to rip each other’s throats out. The savage must have seen it, too, that quality Nameless most admired in a man: the refusal to withdraw while even a single friend was in peril. That made Galen the pack leader in Ekyls’ eyes.
Ekyls was covered in bruises of every possible color: yellow, brown, black, blue, all splashed about his swirling tattoos. There was hardly an inch of untinted skin on him. He saw Nameless watching; hawked and spat into the flames. When Albert handed him a sausage, he glowered at it for an instant, then relented and ripped into it with jagged teeth.
“Shadrak not back?” Nameless asked no one in particular.
Bird might have flinched, but Albert was the only one who indicated he’d heard the question.
“Nope. Not that that’s anything unusual. Left me to lug the supplies back by myself and slunk off to do his thing, whatever that might entail. Do you think I should save him one?” He held up a sausage, wrinkled his nose, and took a bite out of it. “Probably not much point.”
“Ho, Lorgen!” a man’s voice called from somewhere back in the trees.
Conversation around the camp died in an instant, leaving only the sound of spitting and crackling from the fires.
Fat sizzled loudly from one of Albert’s sausages, but he swiftly snatched it from the flames.
Lorgen rose to his feet, peering into the dark. Others started to stand also, but when a man in a bulging fur coat stepped into the clearing, they relaxed. He wore long wooden snow shoes, and an animal hide hat with flaps that covered his ears. As he tugged off a glove, he nodded acknowledgment to Lorgen, then gestured with his thumb behind.
Three more figures emerged from the trees: two men leading a woman by the arms. Her long coat was frosted over with white, and her dark hair was dusted through and through with it. Nameless didn’t miss the hilt of the sword at her hip, poking out from the front of her coat. He was on his feet and rushing toward her before he realized he’d even stood.
“Lassie?”
It was Rhiannon, sure enough, but there was something different about her, something about how she held her arms out in front of her when the men let go.
“Nameless?” There was a quaver in her voice. It might have been the cold. She pivoted left and right, trying to find him.
And then he understood. She couldn’t see.
“What happened, lassie? To your eyes?” There were no wounds, as far as he could tell; least not in the dim light coming off the campfires. But she had no focus. Even now, with him standing right in front of her, her gaze never settled.
She found his helm with her fingertips, lowered her arms till she gripped his shoulders.
The crunching of snow announced Lorgen’s arrival. He spoke to the man who’d first stepped from the trees.
“Who’s this? Where’d you find her, Eugen?” He raised an eyebrow at Nameless.
“It’s Rhiannon,” Nameless said. “She’s a friend.”
He started to lead her to the fire, but Ludo was suddenly there, putting his arm around her shoulders, leaning in to console her like an old woman.
Nameless started to object, but stopped himself. Ludo might not have known her well; might not have fought with her during the Unweaving, but he seemed to know how to offer comfort. It was a damned sight more than Nameless knew how to give. More than that, though, Rhiannon seemed relieved to have found him.
“Adeptus Ludo?” she said, feeling his face with her fingers and almost dislodging his spectacles. “I need to speak with you.”
“With me?” Ludo glanced at Galen, who was standing by the fire, saber in hand, Ekyls at his heel brandishing his hatchet.
Bird was watching passively, firelight reflected in his dark eyes.
Albert was the only one seemingly not paying attention. He was munching quietly on the last of the sausages and taking sips from a flask.
“The Archon,” Rhiannon said. “The Archon sent me.”
A patch of darkness seemed to unfurl behind her as Shadrak glided away from a tree, letting his cloak fall open. His pink eyes blazed red in the firelight. He shot a glare at Albert then looked back at Rhiannon.
“What’s that?” the assassin said. “The Archon?”
Rhiannon ignored him and spoke only to Ludo. “We need to talk.”
Ludo frowned; swallowed thickly. “I see. At least, I think I do. Alone? We are among friends.”
“I don’t know,” Rhiannon said. “Maybe.” She sniffed a few times, inclined her head toward the fire. “Is that food? Shog, I’m starving.”
“Sorry,” Albert said, with a barely suppressed belch. “All gone, I’m afraid.”
“Alone,” Rhiannon said to Ludo. “At least, at first.”
Nameless wanted to ask about her eyes again, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move toward her. It was as if he no longer existed. He was nothing to her. Nothing to any of them. They knew what he was, what he’d done. You could read it in their faces. Even Rhiannon. She’d seemed relieved to find him at first, until someone else had come along.
“Your eyes,” Ludo said, confirming there was no need for Nameless to say anything. “What happened to your eyes?”
“I changed my mind,” Rhiannon said. “About coming here.”
Shadrak insinuated himself between her and Ludo. “And he made you come all the same.” He gave a derisive snort. “What’s he do, blind you with his face?”
“What the shog would you know about it?” Rhiannon said.
Albert was studying them both now, a frown or a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
/> “You know what this sounds like, Eminence?” Galen said.
“No, Galen,” Ludo said. “I don’t.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Galen said. “Ruddy heresy, is what.”
Ludo silenced him with a raised hand. “The Archon, you say, my dear? The Archon from the Liber? I know you’ve been through a lot—that’s clear from the state of you—but are you quite sure about what you think—”
“Save it,” Shadrak snapped. “The Archon’s real enough. Trust me.”
This time, it was Bird who glanced at Albert, but the poisoner was licking sausage grease from his fingers, as if the whole conversation bored him.
“And he did this to you, you say?” Ludo lowered his spectacles on his nose and peered into her eyes. “I can’t see clearly in this light,” he said, looking around in vain.
“Here,” Shadrak said, taking a slim metal tube from his belt pouch and twisting one end. A beam of illumination keen as starlight sprang from it.
Ludo took the tube and shone it in Rhiannon’s eyes. She didn’t even flinch. “Oh,” he said, stepping back. “Now that is unusual. It looks like scales. Silver scales.”
With a ruffle of feathers from his cloak, Bird bustled in among them. He waved the light aside and stared deeply into Rhiannon’s eyes. “No injury. Nothing to heal. It is akin to glamor.”
“Glamor?” Galen said. “Glamor?”
“You changed your mind?” Ludo said. “Is that why the Archon did this? In punishment?”
“He said faith is dark,” Rhiannon said. “Must be his idea of a joke.”
“Ah,” Ludo said. “Faith. It might be a message. No, a proof. A proof of who he is. We should pray.” Already, he was thumbing through his Liber.