The Nameless Dwarf Omnibus

by D. P. Prior

  “See,” Jaym roared. “Told you I had him beat. Shogger’s too scared to face me.”

  Nameless’ eyes locked on Cordy’s. She stared with utter hatred, as if she were contemplating taking her dagger and stabbing him in the face before carving the names of her husband and her daughter … her beautiful baby daughter Marla … into his skin. And she wouldn’t stop there. He could see it in her face. She’d stab, and slash, slice and dice until he was a steaming pile of offal for the crows to pick at. She’d do it, he had no doubt. Only she was a dwarf, bound by a law as restraining as any chains. She couldn’t take it upon herself to make such a decision without the deliberation of the Council of Twelve, of whom her husband Thumil was once a member. Until he became one amongst hundreds, a victim of the black axe. No, only a baresark would do anything as rash as killing another dwarf.

  He felt the rush of air, saw a blur of movement, felt the crunch of Jaym’s massive fist against his jaw, and then knew no more.

  ***

  Get a grip, Nils, he told himself as he lunged for his scabbard while all eyes were on Nameless’ crumpled body. Don’t do anything stupid.

  He drew the blade with a rasping ching.

  Don’t …

  The red-bearded bastard, Jaym, grunted and turned towards him.

  Ah, shog it!

  Nils put everything he had into the swing, followed the blade’s sheering arc with his eyes, winced at the moment of impact, saw it slice the shogger’s torso right off of his stumpy legs. He felt the thrill of gore splattering his face; felt … a right stupid plonker as Jaym somehow sidestepped and caught hold of his wrist, forcing him to drop the sword. Before he’d fully registered what had happened, Nils’s arm was up behind his back and pain shot all the way to his shoulder as he was forced face-first to the dirt. He twisted his neck to see the baresark raise his hammer with his free hand.

  “Gonna pulp his brains,” Jaym growled. “Gonna smash him up for good.”

  “No you are not!” Cairn’s voice cracked out from the travois.

  “Yeah?” Jaym said. “What you gonna do about it, cripple?”

  “It’s not him you want to worry about,” Cordy said, nodding to the crossbows now aimed at Jaym’s chest.

  “Shog it, Cordy, he’s got it coming.” He released Nils and kicked him in the rump. “Bastard, shitting, pissing, cun … Ah, arse-end of Arnoch, give me something to kill.”

  Nils was up in a flash and went face to face with the dwarf. “Spineless shogger,” he said. “You sucker-punched Nameless!”

  “Yeah?” Jaym said. “Wanna see me beat him in a fair fight? Fine by me. Wake the shogger up. Go on!”

  “You’d crap your pants and die of fright,” Nils said.

  Jaym’s muscles tensed, and it suddenly seemed he had no neck, his traps were so bunched up. His face looked like blood was about to burst from every pore. His mouth opened and shut, but nothing articulate came out. He shook with rage and then threw his head back and roared like a cuckolded dragon.

  The skinny dwarf Jaym had called Weasel tutted at Nils and wagged his finger. “Not very sensible, my old son. Never a good idea to rile a baresark.”

  “Just telling it as it is,” Nils said, folding his arms across his chest.

  Jaym roared again.

  “Come on, big fellah,” Weasel said, leading him away by the arm. “Let’s go find you some of that special mead.”

  “I could beat him anytime I want,” Jaym whined like a spoilt kid.

  “Course you could, Jaym,” Weasel said. “Course you could.”

  Cordy nodded and a couple of dwarves slung their crossbows over their backs and dragged Nameless to his feet, still unconscious. Nils grabbed one by the shoulder as they started to bind Nameless’ hands behind his back, but he was pulled away and held firm.

  “Where he’s going, he has to go alone,” Cordy said. “This is dwarf business.”

  “Thought you were trying to avoid him,” Nils said. “So why not bugger off and leave him here with me?”

  Cordy flashed him a look that told Nils she wasn’t going to take much more of his insolence. “It’s too late for that. You got too close. Some of us on the Council—”

  “You’re on the Council? The Council of Twelve?”

  “Took my husband’s place. Guess they felt they owed me. Like I was saying, some of us wanted this, wanted to bring the Butcher to trial, get some sort of justice for what he did. There’s nothing like blood to atone for blood.”

  “Don’t exactly sound like a fair trial to me,” Nils said.

  “Oh, it’ll be fair,” Cordy said. “That’s the drawback with the Council. Nothing is ever simple. They … we have to deliberate over every single detail just so we don’t make a mistake. Action makes us really uncomfortable, after what happened in the past. If I had my way—”

  “Then thank shog you don’t,” Nils said. “So what, you just gonna leave us here?” He nodded at Silas, who was starting to stir.

  “If you’ll be good boys and don’t try to follow.”

  “Otherwise what the Council don’t see it can’t do nothing about?” Nils said.

  “Council? What council?” Silas sat up and rubbed his jaw. The frenzy had gone from his eyes and, apart from the swelling that was already showing, he looked to be back to his normal self. Jaym must have knocked some sense into him.

  “Think you understand what I’m saying,” Cordy said to Nils. She clicked her fingers and the dwarves headed back into the forest, dragging Nameless with them.

  Nils made to follow but found a crossbow cocked and pointing right between his eyes. He raised his hands and backed away, and the dwarf disappeared after the others.

  Silas stood, dusting himself down. “Were they—?”

  Nils nodded.

  “Is Nameless—?”

  “This ain’t good,” Nils said. “I mean, it ain’t fair.”

  Silas glared in the direction the dwarves had taken. “Fair is for simpletons and peasants. What we need is a strategy.”

  “Go after him?” Nils said. “I thought you didn’t care.”

  Silas smiled and put a lanky arm around his shoulders. “Oh, I care. Give me a chance, and I’ll show you just how much I care.”

  “Good,” Nils said, though something about Silas’s tone made his skin crawl. “So what do we do?”

  Silas looked down at the axe Nameless had left on the ground. “Remember how he wanted you to carry his old axe out of Malfen?”

  Nils felt his face flush at the memory. “Called me a pack mule.” He bent down and reached for the haft, but his fingers passed right through it, as if it were made of mist. “What the—?”

  Silas pursed his lips. “Interesting. Well, at least it should be safe here, assuming no one else can pick it up.” He kicked it, but he may as well have kicked air. He suddenly snapped to attention.

  “What?” Nils said, looking about.

  “Shhh,” Silas said, holding up a finger and then pointing off into the distance, along the edge of the forest.

  A dark figure was standing beneath a tree, too far off for Nils to see any real detail, but he knew who it was by the colour of the hair, the dark set of the clothes, the curve of the hips.

  “Ilesa.”

  “So what happened with her?” Silas said, watching as she slinked back out of sight.

  “Shogging left Nameless to drown, that’s what,” Nils said, his voice rising to a shout. “Coward! Backstabbing, double-crossing, shape-shifting whore!”

  “Well, far be it from me to judge,” Silas steepled his fingers, “but I could tell from the moment I met her.”

  “Yeah,” Nils said. “Me too.”

  ***

  Ilesa followed the dwarves through the forest and then watched from high up in a tree as they descended into a gorge and trekked towards the setting suns. Nameless was conscious, but his hands were bound, and one of his guards had slipped a noose around his neck, which he held like a leash. They pushed and thumped him as he st
umbled along at the centre of the party. Too many for her to do anything about, she reckoned. Must have been at least fifty.

  She dropped down from the branch, and continued to stare in the direction they were heading, even though she could no longer see them. She was torn between following and giving it up as a lost cause. She took a step towards the edge of the gorge and then turned away. It wasn’t what she did. Never had been, never would be. She was tougher than this. Colder. Harder. She placed her hand against the bark of a trunk and shook her head. She was nothing to him. He knew what she was. He’d seen her fail him twice already; knew she’d planned to kill him for money. But he’d carried her when she was too exhausted to flee; when she’d have just lain down and died. He’d stood against the wolf-men, knowing there was no way to survive, but refusing to abandon her, his companion. His … friend?

  Ilesa tried to scoff at that, but she found her head pressed against the trunk, her lips trembling, eyes filling with moisture.

  “Stop it, you stupid bitch,” she mumbled in a faltering voice. “You don’t have friends. You don’t have friends.”

  A wave of weakness washed over her and she lowered herself to her knees, sobbing. She’d had no one; no one since she’d been forced to leave Davy in Portis; since her guild had been ripped apart in New Jerusalem and she’d lost Master Plaguewind. Yes, she’d eked out a living with Brau and his mob, but she was just an asset to them, a shapeshifting assassin with a hundred percent track record. Long as she was useful, they tolerated her, but it was no more than that. And then this dwarf had come into her life; this bawdy, melancholic, beer-drinking paradox with a past as black as the Abyss. How the shog had he got under her skin?

  She pushed away from the tree and wiped her eyes. He hadn’t, she told herself. It was just the usual guilt. She knew herself well enough by now, knew it was all because she’d failed to keep Davy out of the bastard’s sleazy clutches; because she’d left him, even though it wasn’t really her fault. And now she’d done the same to Nameless. Twice in the space of a day.

  No point beating around the bush then, she decided, narrowing her eyes and taking a strong grip on her sword hilt. Shit like this is what would get her killed. In her line of work, there was no place for weakness; no place for friends.

  On the opposite side of the sky from the dying suns, Aethir’s moons cast their silvery light over the treetops—Raphoe an immense frosted face peeking above the horizon, Charos pitted like a sponge, and higher up, the tiny disk of Enoi, baby of the three. It may have been wishful thinking, may have been another ploy of this land of bad dreams, but she felt sure they were calling to her, offering her their counsel.

  Two times in one day might not have been enough. Didn’t they say all good things came in threes?

  Resisting the urge to glance back at the gorge, Ilesa cast her eyes about in the gloaming settling over the forest, hoping against hope for some glimpse of the distant Farfalls, some landmark that would show her the way out of this cursed place. Seeing nothing, she set off in the direction of Raphoe, and banished every last thought of the Nameless Dwarf from her mind.

  GLOSSARY

  ABYSS, the

  The creation of the Demiurgos. A realm of deception, where residents are granted that which they most desire for eternity. The Abyss lies outside of time, and those of its denizens who can reach beyond its boundaries can influence all the times of Aethir and Earth. It is home to the first begotten of the Demiurgos, the Dweller. The Abyss is accessible from Aethir via the gorges that lead down to Gehenna. Hangs over the mouth of the Void like a gaseous spider web.

  AETHIR

  The world created from the Cynocephalus’s dreams, one side (Malkuth) light, the other (Qlippoth) dark and populated with creatures of nightmare.

  AIN

  The Monad; the Source; the Infinitely Concealed; the All-Seeing Eye. Known only as darkness to the light of human wisdom.

  ALBERT

  Assassin from Earth who came to Aethir with Shadrak the Unseen. An accomplished chef and poisoner.

  ARABOTH

  Paradise. The future world. The afterlife in Nousian belief.

  ARCHON, the

  Angel of Nous. Stands between humans and the transcendent Ain. Serves Nous uncompromisingly. Carried an enchanted Sword through the Void—Vade in Pacem. Used it to cut the Cynocephalus from Eingana’s womb.

  ARISTODEUS

  A philosopher, originally from Graecia on Earth. Is known on both the worlds of Earth and Aethir. Led a doomed assault on the Technocrat Sektis Gandaw and subsequently manipulated beings from both worlds in a second attempt to thwart Gandaw’s Great Work of Unweaving.

  ARNOCH

  Mythical lost city of the ancient Dwarf Lords, who were said to have preceded Sektis Gandaw’s creation of the dwarves of Malkuth, and may even have been his inspiration.

  ARX GRAVIS

  ‘The Heavy Citadel.’ A dwarven city carved from the rock within a ravine. Multi-layered, criss-crossed with stone walkways and vast buildings. Doorways of stone that can be passed through by those who have access. Since the shame of the dwarves, brought about by Maldark’s betrayal of the Hybrids, Arx Gravis has been ruled by the conservative Council of Twelve who have a policy of withdrawal from the world above.

  Following the tyranny of the Nameless Dwarf, the survivors of Arx Gravis fled to wastes of Qlippoth.

  BUCK FARGIN

  Leader of the Night Hawks. Father of Nils.

  CARL THE CAT’S CLAW

  Henchman of Shent.

  CYNOCPEHALUS, the

  Dog-headed ape. Son of the Demiurgos and Eingana. Creator of Aethir and the Hybrids. Maker of Gauntlets of Strength, a Shield of Warding, and Armour of Invulnerability, with which he sought to protect himself from his own paranoid delusions upon discovering (with the arrival of the homunculi on Aethir, whom he had not made) that he was not the Primordial Being.

  Challenged by the Jötunn, giants bred by the homunculi to evict him, he gave his gauntlets to Sartis the fire giant who used them to destroy his own kind.

  The Cynocephalus eventually fell into the core of Aethir, his own mind, chased by shadows of his own imagining. The darkest recesses of his mind open up onto his father’s abode, the Abyss. He was tracked down and almost destroyed by the Liche Lord, Otto Blightey, who stole his armour and left the Cynocephalus cowering beneath his Shield of Warding.

  DEACON SHADER

  Former knight of the Templum Elect, the Ipsissimus’s elite force who are sworn to obey without question. Shader was born in Britannia and educated by the philosopher, Aristodeus.

  He was a distinguished veteran of the Battle of Trajinot, leading the charge that broke through Otto Blightey’s undead army and forced them back into Verusia.

  Shader won the Sword of the Archon at a tournament held in Aeterna to find a successor to the previous champion. Reneging his vow of obedience, he fled back to the Abbey of Pardes in Sahul, where he became embroiled in the battle for the Statue of Eingana.

  Shader met the Nameless Dwarf during his first trip to Aethir and later fought alongside him in Verusia.

  DEMIURGOS, the

  The False Architect; The Deceiver; The Ancient of Days. Came through the Void with Eingana and the Archon. Raped his sister, Eingana. Father of the Cynocephalus. Driven to the brink of the Void by the Archon for his crime against Eingana. Sustained himself with the creation of the Abyss. Trapped in the heart of his own creation.

  EINGANA

  Creator Goddess of the Dreamers. Sister of the Archon and the Demiurgos. Takes the form of an enormous snake. Also worshipped as a goddess of death, believed to hold all beings in existence by a thread.

  Dwells in the Dreaming (within the fabric of Aethir, the dreams of her son) and radiates to Earth when the portals are open. Gave birth to the Cynocephalus by the Archon cutting her womb open with the Sword, Vade in Pacem.

  Fled from the Technocrat Sektis Gandaw in the form of a snake. Protected by the Hybrids and the dwarves led by Maldark
. Betrayed by Maldark to Sektis Gandaw and was petrified in amber.

  The Statue of Eingana was used by Huntsman to inaugurate the Reckoning.

  GAUNTLETS OF SARTIS, the

  Made by the Cynocephalus to double his own strength, but later given to the fire giant Sartis to enable him to destroy his own race.

  GEHENNA

  Underworld on Aethir that reaches to the core of the world. Accessed through gorges across Malkuth and Qlippoth. Subterranean cities peopled with homunculi give way to the abode of the Dweller and the entrance to the Abyss.

  HUNTSMAN

  Dreamer shaman. Formerly Adoni (‘the Sunset’). Inaugurator of the Reckoning using the power of the Statue of Eingana to unleash the creatures of Qlippoth upon the Earth.

  JANKSON BRAU

  Long-lived mage and unofficial head of the bandit communities outlying Malfen.

  LICHE-LORD’S ARMOUR, the

  Made by the Cynocephalus to ward off all attacks below the head. Utterly invulnerable. Stolen by Otto Blightey, whom it enabled to walk through the Black River of the Abyss.

  LUDO, Adeptus

  Nousian cleric and a former tutor of Deacon Shader.

  MAGWITCH THE MEDDLER

  A mad magician from New Jerusalem. Magwitch ekes out a living supplying magical security systems and inventing contraptions from scraps of Scarolite he scavenged from the Perfect Peak after the fall of Sektis Gandaw.

  MALDARK THE FALLEN

  Dwarf of Aethir. Marshall of the Guardians of Eingana—renegade dwarves who rejected their creator, Sektis Gandaw, and elected to serve the Hybrids.

  Maldark betrayed the Hybrids and delivered the Statue to Sektis Gandaw, having believed his lies about the Hybrids being creatures of the Demiurgos. Realising his mistake, Maldark led the Guardians of Eingana against Gandaw but they were wiped out. At the instant of the Reckoning, Maldark was propelled through a portal to Earth where he sailed the seas in despair until he was called once more to the protection of Eingana.