The Nameless Dwarf Omnibus

by D. P. Prior

  The King let out a groan of utter hopelessness. “Then it was all for nothing. All for—”

  A crash sounded from one of the corridors, echoing off into the silence that enshrouded the city. Nameless turned to face the King, who was staring in the direction of the noise.

  Nothing.

  No more sound.

  And then there was a muffled thud and the King’s head dropped to his chest.

  “As I feared,” he said. “It is returning.”

  Another thud, followed in quick succession by another. Footsteps. Heavy pounding footsteps rapidly drawing nearer.

  “Quickly,” the King said. “You must take the axe. It is your only hope.”

  Thud, thud, thud.

  “No,” Nameless said, scanning the room for alternative weapons. “I will not.”

  “Then it is over,” the King said. “I have failed.” His head fell again, and this time the torso crumpled onto the throne and broke up into a thousand pieces.

  The thudding footfalls grew faster and louder, like the beating of a heart about to burst. Nameless ran down the last of the steps and lunged for a chunk of rock. He whirled, coming up in a fighting crouch as a colossal man charged into the chamber, stopped, and stared straight at him. Nameless felt the chill of its malevolence sweep over him, commanding him to flee. His fingers tightened around the rock as he backed away.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. The head was a mask of leather, crudely stitched with thick black thread. The body was the colour of dead flesh, recognisably human but massive, twice Nameless’ height, broad-shouldered and bullish. It lurched towards him and he let loose with the rock. The throw lacked any force. Whatever sickness afflicted him had all but drained his strength. The rock bounced harmlessly from the monster’s skin and clattered across the floor.

  A haze of red passed before Nameless’ eyes and he retched. Clutching his roiling guts, he headed for the corridor he’d entered by, but the creature moved to cut him off.

  “Great,” Nameless grumbled. “Shogging great.”

  He just wanted to lie down and sleep, his body felt so listless, but he knew it would be a sleep he’d never wake up from. Either the illness would claim him or the hulking aberration would crush him, like it had done everyone else who’d stood against it. “I will not be ill,” Nameless growled through clenched teeth. “Someone give me ale, for shog’s sake.”

  The monster ran straight at him and he just about managed to roll beneath a bludgeoning fist. Before he regained his feet, the thing had hold of him by the hem of his hauberk and slung him into the wall. Nameless hit with a sickening crunch. Salty blood dripped to his lips. His head swam with dizziness, and he swayed as he stood. Heavy footsteps thundered towards him and it was blind instinct that made him fall flat on his face as another hammer blow sailed over his head and punched a hole in the rock.

  Nameless roared his frustration and threw himself towards the closest corridor, he twisted and rolled amidst a spray of rock shards sent up by the monster’s pounding fists. He ended up on top of a skeleton and pried the sword from the dead dwarf’s fingers.

  “I refuse to be sick!” he bellowed, spinning and swinging the blade in a murderous arc. The sword struck flesh but rebounded, jolting his arm and sending stabs of pain through his shoulder. He scrabbled backwards, tripping and losing his grip on the blade. The creature came at him relentlessly, unstoppable even as Nameless cast dust into its blank eyes and snatched up a sturdy spear.

  “Die you shogger!” he bellowed as he thrust with every last ounce of strength, burying the spear deep in its chest and twisting. The tip punched through the monster’s back but there was no blood, only sawdust. A massive hand took hold of the spear shaft and pulled it out of the body before snapping it and casting it aside. The wound drew together and thick black stitches ghosted into view, holding it tight.

  “Shog,” Nameless swore.

  He darted past the creature, narrowly avoiding a haymaker that collapsed a section of the wall. Snatching up the sword again, he dived for the throne room, came up running, and sprinted to the top of the dais. The monster was right on his tail, kicking its way through a fallen pillar and splashing across a pool of water. Nameless waited until it was on the step below and swung with both hands. The sword cut right through the collar bone, burying itself deep in the ribcage, but the creature continued upwards as if merely bitten by an irritating fly.

  Nameless darted behind the throne, but a tremendous blow shattered the stone and sent him tumbling off the back of the dais. The breath was punched from his lungs as he hit the floor hard on his back. The creature glared down at him and prepared to jump, silhouetted against the glare coming from the axe still suspended above the throne. Nameless wished with all his heart, then, he’d taken the dead King’s advice, but it was too late. He tried to push himself backwards with his legs but his strength had finally seeped away.

  This was it, the end he deserved. He prayed to the victims of Arx Gravis for forgiveness even as the monster leapt, but with a flash and a speed impossible to imagine, the Pax Nanorum shot into his hands. In that one timeless moment, golden fire coursed through his veins, burning away every last drop of malignancy and filling him with incandescent rage. He twisted away from the creature’s leap, surged to his feet and brought the axe down in one fluid movement. It cleaved through leather and sawdust and the head came away from the gargantuan body. He struck again, this time half severing it at the hip, but once more the wound healed, and the ghastly head spun in the air and affixed itself back upon the neck.

  “What the Abyss?” Nameless whispered as the thing gathered itself for a charge. Could nothing stop it? Not the Axe of the Dwarf Lords? Not the entire might of the people of Arnoch?

  He spun clear of its lumbering grasp and circled away around the chamber. This time, as the monster ran at him, the axe communicated something deep within his mind and he flung it with all his renewed might. The air whistled and the blades flashed golden as they tore straight through the monster’s waist, shearing it in two. The legs ran on for a second and then stopped to wait for the torso to climb back on top of them. The axe turned in mid-air and flew straight back to Nameless’ hand. It had bought him a few seconds, nothing more, as the creature bunched its massive shoulders and charged again.

  Nameless cast a look over his shoulder. He had his back to the corridor he’d entered by. With his new vigour he might be able to make it back to the craft. Perhaps Abednago had been watching and might be ready to leave before the creature could board. He took a step towards the exit and then all his old stubbornness reasserted itself. This shogger had wiped out a civilisation. It was invulnerable to attack, a relentless killer that would stop at nothing. His mind flashed back to when he wore the impenetrable armour of the Liche Lord, carried the Shield of Warding; when he’d wielded the terrible might of the black axe with the strength of the fire giant’s gauntlets. With a gut-wrenching realisation, he thought this is how he must have seemed to the hapless victims at Arx Gravis; to Shader and his dearest friend, Shadrak the Unseen.

  “No!” he roared as the monster bore down upon him, fists raised for the killing blow. “I won’t stand for it!”

  Argent streamed from the twin blades of the axe, obliterating the golden glow and erupting with the force of an exploding star. The silver conflagration ripped through skin and leather as the chamber rumbled and the very air itself seemed to scream. Nameless felt an explosion of light in his head and toppled into a well of infinite blackness.

  ***

  Nils was starving. His guts were clenched as tight as a fist, his veins were on fire, and he had a mouth of saliva that overflowed down his chin in thick ropes of drool. He was so hungry he’d have ripped off his own arm and wolfed it down, if he’d had the strength.

  A deep rolling voice had awoken him. His cheek was pressed against warm fur, but his side was mostly numb from where he’d been lying on something hard and ungiving. He turned his head and squinted into the
flickering orange light coming from a fire—one of Silas’s by the looks of it, but bigger than usual, and with a spit long enough to roast a horse.

  Roasted horseflesh. The thought sent another pang of hunger through his belly. That sounded almost as good as … as good as … roasted human; or better still, raw.

  The cyclops was sitting on the opposite side of the fire completely absorbed in Silas’s dodgy book. The great unlidded eye was roving back and forth feverishly, and every so often the giant would lick his thumb and turn the page.

  “Nils,” Silas whispered from the left. “Are you all right?”

  Nils didn’t rightly know how to answer that. He was burning up, shaking from head to toe, but he knew he’d be fine if only he could sink his teeth into salty, bloody flesh.

  “Nils.” Silas prodded him this time.

  Nils turned to face him and licked his lips. Silas must have seen something strange about him because he went even paler than usual and scooted away on his backside. He cocked a thumb at the cyclops and mouthed something about trouble, but Nils was too hungry to take much notice.

  “Aha,” the cyclops boomed. “Found what you were looking for. Told you I was good at finding things with this here eye. Knows a lot about zombies, this Blightey of yours. Knows a lot about all manner of unpleasant things. Sure he wasn’t from Qlippoth?”

  “He’s dead,” Silas mumbled, and then said a little louder, “No, he wasn’t from Qlippoth, though he’s said to have come here at some point.”

  “Fascinating,” the cyclops said, still mesmerised by the text he was reading. “Has a lot to say on the making of zombies, but then goes on to tell you how to unmake them and how to cure infection caused by their bite.”

  Silas was up in a flash. “Let me—”

  “What, and spoil my fun?” the cyclops said. “We cyclopes are a magical race, you know. Runs in our blood. Always like to keep on top of new spells and the like, and this one,” he gave Nils a look that was as hungry as Nils felt, “looks like it might turn bad meat good, if you get my meaning.”

  The cyclops held the book in one hand and made gestures in the air with the other. His thick lips moved in silent agreement with whatever sorcerous words he read upon the page. A chill wind blew across Nils’s flesh, his veins turned to ice, and then he was up on his feet and feeling as right as rain.

  “I’m fine,” he said to Silas. “I feel fine.”

  “Great,” Silas muttered. “Now he can eat us.”

  “What?” Nils turned from Silas to the cyclops.

  A sickening grin spread across the giant’s face and his lips parted to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth. “Now don’t go getting yourself all scared,” the cyclops said. “Ruins the meat; makes it all tough and stringy.” He closed the book and stood to his full height, towering above Nils and Silas.

  “Now let’s talk about this,” Silas said.

  “Shhhhh.” The Cyclops placed a finger against his lips. “Quiet now my lovelies. Come to old Rumgorkin.”

  He took a lurching step towards Nils and reached down with a shovel-like hand.

  Nils dropped to his arse and scrabbled backwards. “No, don’t. Wait. Just wait up.”

  Rumgorkin’s other hand snapped out and grabbed Silas by the hem of his coat. The wizard slipped out of the sleeves and backed alongside Nils.

  The cyclops advanced another step. “Come on, my lovelies, no point in strug—”

  “Hi, honey, I’m home.”— A voice only slightly less booming than the cyclops’s own, but definitely female.

  “Huh?” Rumgorkin wheeled to face the steps that led down from the entrance.

  A massive one-eyed woman stood there leaning on a sharpened stake that appeared to have been crudely cut from a long branch. Her breasts were swollen sacks, heaving in a way Nils found strangely hypnotic. Judging by the way he walked dazedly towards her, so did Rumgorkin.

  “Miss me?” the cyclops woman asked, blowing him a kiss.

  “But—”

  Swift as a striking serpent, powerful as a titan, the woman twirled the stake in the air and thrust it straight through Rumgorkin’s lone eye. The cyclops staggered away, flailing with his arms, screaming as blood spurted in great gouts as high as the cavern ceiling. He dropped to his knees and then toppled over backwards, twitched a few times and was still.

  The cyclops woman took a step into the cave and collapsed. The air about her shimmered and she shrank until lying on the floor, sweat-drenched and clearly at death’s door, was Ilesa.

  ***

  “Shadrak?” Nameless said through a muddle of dreams and stillborn thoughts. “Shadrak, is that you?”

  A short figure leaned over him, shadowy at first, but slowly coming into focus within the gloaming of returning consciousness. Not Shadrak; Abednago.

  “Is it …? Did I …?”

  “It is. You did,” the homunculus said. “You are all I hoped you would—”

  Nameless grabbed Abednago’s ankle and flipped him onto his back. He rolled on top of the homunculus and delivered a cracking blow to his mouth, then stood and dusted himself down. The Axe of the Dwarf Lords lay upon the charred floor of the corridor amid a pile of ash. Instinctively he held out his hand and it flew to his grasp.

  “What … Why?” Abednago whimpered, wiping blood from his split lip.

  “You knew about that thing,” Nameless said. “Knew and still let me go in there.”

  The homunculus rose shakily to his feet. “It had to be done. Had to. This is the only way.”

  “Only way to what?”

  “To save your people.”

  Nameless rubbed his stubbly chin, ruing the day he’d chosen to have his hair and beard shaved. What did it matter if he eschewed the style most befitting a dwarf. Like so much he had done, it had been a stupid idea, a great dramatic statement that was as meaningless as it was pathetic. It was in his blood, the nature that had brought the dwarves to the brink of destruction. He should either put up or shut up. Denying the truth was an affront to all he believed in. Had he really fallen so far?

  “What do you care about my people?”

  The silvery dweomer from the axe dimmed and then died out, leaving it a dull grey not dissimilar to any other axe he might have found in any half-decent armoury. Except for the etchings on the blades, the script upon the haft. Was it really possible that there could be no deception this time?

  Abednago seemed about to say something but then looked away, contemplating the throne on the dais.

  “It was a golem, that creature. No one has ever defeated one before. How did you manage it?”

  Nameless shrugged. “Buggered if I know, laddie. Reckon it was more the axe than me. I hit the bastard with all I had but it kept on coming. At first the axe shone golden, but it was the silver fire that did it.”

  “So the Pax Nanorum accepted you—the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. Good. That is very good.”

  “Yes, well whatever it did, I have no idea how to do it again. Far as I’m concerned it’s just dead metal now.”

  Abednago nodded absentmindedly.

  “And did the King say anything to you?”

  “Aye,” Nameless said, regretting his final words to the skeleton. “Think I disappointed him. He had no idea of the time that had passed. Seemed to think the city had risen.”

  “As indeed it has now,” Abednago said. “The dwarves’ final defence was to sink Arnoch. The engineering was staggering, even by the standards of my people. Truly staggering. When it became clear that there was no hope of surviving the golem, a few hundred were selected, men, women and children, and sent to found a new community far from here. Those who remained fought to the death, and at the last King Arios triggered the doomsday device that sent Arnoch to the ocean floor.”

  “But why? What did he hope to achieve?”

  The homunculus made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “The entire city is encased in a crystalline globe. For centuries, it had floated upon the sea, an island kingdom, unassailable to e
ven the most horrific of the Cynocephalus’s nightmares. With each new encroachment on the mainland, the dwarves would set sail in their stone ships and drive back the darkness. Like the elves, they were dreamed by the Lord of Aethir to combat his own abysmal dreams, to keep his madness at bay. But the Cynocephalus is his own worst enemy. His mind is riddled with self-destruction, and so he dreamed a creature to hunt down the dwarves, a creature so terrible that nothing could stop it. Perhaps he overlooked the stubbornness of his guardians, though, for the dwarves would not give in. They vowed to take the golem down even at the cost of their own civilisation. It was a brave stand, a foolish one perhaps, but today it has come to fruition.”

  Nameless gave a bitter laugh. So his people had something in common with the legendary heroes of Arnoch after all, even if it was just their bloody-mindedness.

  “The survivors of Arnoch,” a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Do they endure? Are they here in Qlippoth?”

  The homunculus shook his head and Nameless felt his hopes dashed. “They did not remain in the lands of nightmare, for to do so would have been the end of them, much as it may now be.”