The Nameless Dwarf Omnibus

by D. P. Prior

  Ilesa yanked him upright by the collar, but that just brought him face to face with the V-wake ploughing straight towards them. The axe sparkled silver as it spun to the bottom of the lake.

  A cry went up from the shore, and Ilesa let go, leaving Nameless splashing like a child in the tub. The monster’s wake vanished, and he knew with dread certainty that it had dived right under him.

  ***

  “Run, lad! Run!” Cairn yelled.

  Dozens of black shapes, no taller than a dwarf, scurried down the branches, screeching like banshees and glaring with piss-coloured eyes. Nils didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. No way he should’ve been out here. It weren’t even his choice.

  “Not fair,” he muttered beneath his breath. Dad had sent him on this stupid errand, and it weren’t as if he’d even paid Nils yet. Weren’t his choice to follow the dwarf into Qlippoth neither. So, yeah, maybe he should run. It weren’t like he owed Cairn shogging Sternfist nothing.

  A succession of thuds made him turn to see more of the creatures dropping out of the low branches behind. These were closer, in spitting distance, but all they did was group together and scream, black lips curling back to reveal needle-sharp teeth. A glance to his left told him he still had time to make a dash for the lake. He snatched a brand from the flames and held it aloft.

  Cairn tried to push himself nearer the fire, but grunted with the effort and gave up. “Definitely goblins, or I’m no Sternfist. Do a dead dwarf a favour and get out of here,” he said. “Go on, run!”

  Nils started off to the left, checked himself, and went to stand over the dwarf.

  “Don’t be a shogging idiot,” Cairn said.

  The branches ceased their shaking, and on the ground two groups of the swarthy creatures had formed and were fanning out in a circle. Nils eyed his escape route again, judging he could still just about slip through, especially if he drove the goblins back with his fire brand. He looked down at Cairn, wondering what Nameless would do, and shaking his head that he’d even needed to ask. The circle closed and the goblins dropped to all fours and began to advance. Nils ripped his sword from the ground and held it out before him, turning a slow circle to keep as many goblins in sight as possible. One of the creatures darted in at him, but he waved the flaming brand in its face and it scampered back. Chattering passed between the goblins like a wave gaining momentum; there was a moment’s stillness, and then they surged forward.

  Nils’s guts turned frigid, and a sloshy weight dropped through his intestines. He clenched his buttocks and stifled the urge to drop his sword, fling himself face down in the dirt and beg for mercy. Perhaps he would have done, if he’d spoken goblin. Way he saw it, that left only one choice.

  Screaming so hard his lungs could’ve split, Nils charged. His vision blurred, went so red he thought his eyes had burst a blood vessel, and then he was in amongst the goblins, hacking down with his sword and splitting a head clean open. He drew a flaming trail in the air with the brand, but the goblins ducked beneath it and tried to nip at his legs. He kicked one in the face, brought the pommel of his sword down on a skull, smashed one in the teeth with his fiery club. The brand shattered, so he took a two-handed grip on the sword and hewed straight through a goblin’s arm. Gouts of black blood spurted into the air, but the creature came on, clamping its teeth to Nils’s shoulder and biting deep. He let go of the sword and stuck his fingers in the creature’s eyes, gouging until he felt them pop and hot liquid oozed over his hand.

  Goblins fastened to his legs and arms, tugging him to the ground. He banged his head as he fell, still kicking, still punching. A demonic face pressed up real close, jaws parted. There was a thwat and a thud and the goblin fell off him. The others let go and screamed, scrambling for the trees as scores of arrows thrummed through the air. Nils scrabbled about in the dirt, found his sword and used it to push himself upright.

  His jaw dropped and he could do nothing more than gape. Fierce faces stared at him from beneath the trees; craggy, bearded faces, atop stocky bodies. Many of them held crossbows aimed at the treetops. Others had their crossbows upended and one foot in the stirrups whilst they cranked them with a winch handle mounted on the stock. Still others thrust spears into the low branches and were rewarded with the odd yelp as limp bodies crashed to the ground.

  A golden-haired—and bearded—female knelt at Cairn’s side and was inspecting his legs. “Thought we’d lost you,” she said. “Council decided to send out a search party. Sorry it took so long. You know how it is.”

  A red-bearded dwarf thrust his way to the front and strode towards Nils with a monstrous hammer. He was stripped to the waist, his barrel chest thickly haired, arms and neck tattooed with spiderwebs. He had rings piercing his nose and what looked like a wolf’s fang thrust through the skin beside his eye. Blood ran from the piercing in a long streak, giving the impression it was a recent addition.

  “Thank you,” Nils said, sheathing his sword and holding out his hand.

  The dwarf responded by hefting his hammer and stepping in to strike.

  “Jaym, no!” Cairn called out, pushing himself upright on one arm.

  “Came for you, Sternfist, not this piece of scum. I say we toss him to the goblins.”

  Jaym grabbed hold of Nils’s collar and drew him close.

  Nils weren’t having it, though, and thumped the dwarf on the nose. “Shog!” he cried. He’d ripped his knuckles on the nose rings.

  Jaym hadn’t even flinched, but his dark eyes smouldered, the pupils just pinpricks. He slammed Nils to the ground and held him in place with a heavy boot. Nils squirmed and kicked, but Jaym was unmoveable, his hammer poised for a skull-shattering blow.

  “Enough!” the dwarf woman said in a voice like a whiplash. She stood and brushed dirt and pine needles from her pale blue smock. “You put that hammer down, you hear me, or I’ll tan your fat arse.”

  Jaym shook from head to toe, thick veins standing up along his bulging muscles. His eyes simmered with rage as he glared down at Nils. He was gonna do it. Nils squeezed his eyes shut and tried to twist away. He was gonna—

  Heavy footfalls made Nils look. The woman marched straight up to Jaym and slapped him full in the face. He roared and turned on her, but a dozen crossbows came up to meet him and he stayed his hand.

  “You don’t shogging hit me, bitch,” Jaym growled. “You hear me?”

  “Shut your stupid trap, baresark, or I’ll whip you so good you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

  Jaym took a step towards her. “Don’t think your position’s gonna protect you, not out here.”

  Nils took the opportunity to roll to his feet and draw his sword. “Back off, dog breath,” he said, his grip on the hilt slippery with sweat. His cuts and bites were starting to sting, but he gritted his teeth and used it to stoke his anger.

  “Why you shogging little runt!” Jaym shook his hammer. “You castrated twerp. You c-c-cu—”

  “Don’t you dare!” the woman warned. “Or have you forgotten what happened last time you used that word?”

  Jaym lowered his hammer and dropped his chin to his chest. “Sorry, Cordy,” he mumbled. “I’m just riled, is all.”

  “Here,” said a skinny dwarf with a fluffy, ill-formed beard. He slung Jaym a wineskin. “Drink this, big fellah. Take the edge off the rage.”

  Jaym upended the skin and drained the contents, belching and grunting his approval. “Owe you, Weasel. That’s some shogging good mead you’ve got there.”

  Weasel slapped him on the back. “You know me, Jaym. Only the best for my mates.”

  “So,” Cordy said, frowning at Nils. “You’re the Butcher’s boy, are you?”

  “Go easy on him, Cordy,” Cairn said from the ground. “Lad saved my life.”

  Jaym scowled at that. “Wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t screwed up. Told you scouting was a waste of time. If it was down to me—”

  “Well it’s not,” Cordy said. “And if it were, you’d be dead, same as the
rest of us.”

  “Who says?” Jaym flexed his huge muscles. “Could have had that shogger before, and he ain’t even as powerful now.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Cordy stared him straight in the eye. “Where were you when he hacked his way through Arx Gravis? When he cut down my Thumil? When he … when he put my baby’s head on … on a …”

  The blood left Jaym’s face and he lowered his eyes. “Don’t say it, Cordy. Don’t say it. Thought of it makes my blood boil.”

  “You know what you’ve done?” Cordy turned back to Nils. “Leading that evil shogger out here after us?”

  Nils licked his lips. “Look, I weren’t there, right. But I was at NJ when your lot came and started blowing holes in the walls, and you don’t see me going on about it.”

  “That wasn’t our—”

  “Weren’t your fault,” Nils finished for her. “Course not. Just like it weren’t his fault, what happened to you. It was the axe, way I heard it.”

  Cordy turned away from him and let out a sharp hiss. “Ignorant whelp!” She spun round to face him again, tears pouring from her eyes. “You weren’t there!” She jabbed him in the chest, forcing him to step back. “You didn’t see what he did!” Jab. “To my husband!” Jab. “To my baby girl!” She raised both fists like she meant to pound him into the earth.

  Nils stumbled away from her, tripped and nearly fell. He was crying himself, though he wasn’t sure why. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t find any words. Jaym was striding towards him again, and this time no one did anything to stop him. Cairn was watching with wide, mournful eyes, and Cordy’s weeping grew into wails of despair.

  “I—” Nils said.

  A frenzied splashing from the direction of the lake cut him off. Someone was crying out, “Shog, shog, shog!”

  Nameless! he thought, and then it hit him harder than a blow from Jaym’s hammer: “He can’t swim!”

  “Who can’t—” Jaym started, but Nils didn’t wait to answer. He was off through the trees with not so much as a backward glance.

  His boots churned up the loamy ground, great clods of earth flying away behind him. He broke through the tree line and paused long enough to take in the scene.

  Nameless was thrashing about in the water twenty yards from shore. Ilesa swam clear of him, kicking for the bank like all the sharks in Aethir were on her tail. And that’s when he realised: her legs had vanished; in their place was a long scaly fish’s tail that propelled her through the water with the speed of a dolphin.

  The dwarf’s head went under, but Nils already had one boot off and was undoing the other. He unbuckled his sword belt, let it fall to the ground. By the time he made the water’s edge, Ilesa had pulled herself out. The tail shimmered and turned back into legs. He caught sight of her eyes, bloodshot and puffy, as she pushed past him and sprinted along the shore. Nameless bobbed up again, slapping the water in an effort to stay afloat. He was spluttering and coughing, and a vast dark shape burgeoned beneath his kicking legs.

  Without another thought, Nils dived in and swam towards the drowning dwarf.

  ***

  The muscles in Nameless’ arms were burning with the effort of keeping his head above water. It was a losing battle, one that was rapidly drawing to a close. Ilesa, he wanted to scream. Ilesa! But what would be the point? The panic that had him thrashing his way to a watery grave was the same thing that made her leave him and strike out for the shore. Couldn’t say he blamed her, not with that thing somewhere below.

  He went under again, his arms too numb to paddle. He shot a look between his dangling feet, expecting to see the serpent’s fangs rushing up at him from the depths. The thought of it taking his legs off at the knees, or biting him in half at the waist, made him sick to the guts. He flapped and thrashed his way to the surface again, desperately trying to will himself landwards. Maybe it would grow shallower the nearer he got to the shore. He stretched down with his legs, pointing the toes of his boots, but found nothing but water. Times like this he couldn’t think of anything worse than being a dwarf.

  Something flashed silver way down on the bed of the lake—the axe, lost forever. He spluttered as water got in his mouth. Perhaps if he calmed himself, held out his hand …

  A shadow passed beneath him. Nameless literally tried to throw himself through the water to get to the shore, but he knew the effort was in vain. Water went up his nose, down his throat. He launched himself with a mighty shove and threw himself onto his back, kicking wildly as the dark form of the serpent corkscrewed up at his legs. A hand grabbed him by the hair and pulled him clear, just as the serpent’s head burst out of the water and reared above him on its sinuous neck.

  Thank, shog, Nameless thought. Ilesa. He craned his head to see, pleased to be such a good judge of—

  “Nils!”

  “Hold on and kick like crazy!” Nils said, releasing Nameless’ hair and rolling to his front.

  The serpent roared and darted towards them. Nameless clung to Nils’s legs as the lad attacked the lake with powerful churning strokes. Just before the fangs struck, Nameless twisted aside and the serpent bit water, sending white spray high into the air. It recoiled and gathered for another attack. In spite of the strength of Nils’s strokes, the shore didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Nameless was about to let go, give the boy a chance, when Nils suddenly stood.

  “Shallows,” he shouted. “You can stand!”

  Nameless put his boots on hard ground, the water still coming up to his neck. “We made it,” he said, but knowing it was too late. On instinct he held out his hand, and silver hurtled up from the depths, but the serpent’s jaws were already plummeting towards him, fangs slick with moisture. Nils screamed, and Nameless tried to roll away, but it had anticipated the move. He winced and raised his arms in vain, but then a ball of flame streaked over his head, straight into the serpent’s open jaws, and detonated with a deafening boom.

  A spray of gore shot into the sky, and hunks of pinkish meat came raining down with a thwat, thwat, thwat as they struck the water. Silver arced through the grizzly downpour as the the Axe of the Dwarf Lords shot out of the lake like a meteorite and returned to Nameless’ hand.

  “Oh my shog, oh my shog,” Nils was saying over and over again. “Was that … Did you—?”

  “No,” Nameless said, turning to face the shore.

  Gaunt as a consumptive, hair lank and starting to grey, black coat wrapped around him like a funeral shroud, was Silas, book in one hand, smoke billowing from the other.

  Nameless forced his legs through the water and strode up the bank. “Am I glad to see you, laddie.” He went to clap a hand on Silas’s shoulder, but recoiled. The wizard looked frail and feverish, but his eyes blazed with the intensity of a madman’s.

  “No time,” Silas rasped, as if his throat were clogged with dust. “I need you. Need you to come with me.”

  Nils splashed out of the water. “Thank shog,” he said. “Silas, you saw, didn’t you? Saw what the bitch done?”

  Silas didn’t even acknowledge Nils, instead keeping his crazed eyes fixed on Nameless. “I’ve found what I was looking for. We must go together and claim it.”

  “What?” Nameless glanced at the grimoire and Silas snapped it shut. “What is it you seek? More of that shogger’s magic? I know what that book is, laddie. Shog it, I even fought against the bastard once. Whatever it is you’ve found, I want no part of …”

  Nameless’ voice tailed off as a woman emerged from the trees. A dwarven woman, golden-bearded and wearing a simple blue smock and sandals. She held a dagger in one hand, and pulled a heavy chain necklace from her pocket with the other. Nameless groaned, his knees buckling and pitching him to the earth. It was Thumil’s chain of office. He’d recognise it anywhere, and holding it was the woman who had more right to hate him than anyone else on Aethir.

  “Cordarna,” he said, averting his eyes. “Cordy, I’m … I’m …”

  Other dwarves stepped from the trees be
hind her, hard-faced and pointing crossbows. At the back, two more dragged a crude travois bearing an injured dwarf.

  “Cairn,” Nils cried and ran towards him, but drew up sharp when half a dozen crossbows were levelled at his chest. The rest were aimed at Nameless.

  Silas turned on the newcomers. “We haven’t time for this.”

  A barrel-chested dwarf with wild red hair and a massive hammer pushed past Cordy. Nameless looked up, knowing him for a baresark, one of the lunatic warriors that lived on the fringes of Arx Gravis society, pariahs who had never fully accepted the rule of the Council. He’d seen this one before, seen him fight in the ring, pound his opponent senseless and then break his neck while unconscious. Jaym, that was his name. Evil shogger if ever there was one. The survivors of Arx Gravis must have been more desperate than he’d imagined if they were teaming up with baresarks.

  “No?” Jaym said. “Then what about this?” He charged straight up to the wizard and punched him full in the face. Silas dropped like a stone.

  Nameless roared and surged to his feet, the Axe of the Dwarf Lords raised high. Jaym turned to meet him, swinging his hammer over his head.

  “Jaym!” Cordy cried.

  The baresark pulled up sharp. “Not this time, Cordy. Told you what I was gonna do to this piece of shit if our paths crossed.” He glared at Nameless and spat.

  Nameless took a step towards him, face tightening into a snarl. Every muscle in his body felt swollen, fit to burst. The axe trembled in his grip, he held it so tight. He was going to break this ugly shogger’s face. He was going to cleave his thick skull, hack his stinking head right from his …

  Nameless reeled away from Jaym, the axe dropping from his grasp. No more, his mind screamed at him. Hadn’t he already killed enough of his kin? Had nothing changed? Maybe the black axe had left its indelible mark on his soul. Perhaps he’d been wrong to think its evil had left him when it was destroyed.