by D. P. Prior
The man Brau had called Tony lunged at Nameless, who deftly sidestepped and smashed the chair over his head. Tony collapsed from the waist, right into the path of the dwarf’s knee. There was a spray of blood as his nose split like ripe fruit, and then Nameless stepped in to pummel Tony’s torso with his fists, as if he were tenderizing a shank of mutton.
Maybe the dwarf was still a little drunk. He certainly seemed to be, as he paid no attention to the other thug, who was advancing more cautiously. Nameless seemed lost in his own world, thumping out a rhythm on Tony’s ribcage. Incredibly, Tony kept his feet but he swayed and swaggered until Nameless cracked him a meaty right under the chin, and he went down hard.
That was the moment the other thug leapt. Nameless turned and grabbed his wrist, staying the knife a mere hair’s breadth from his face. The dwarf swung with his other fist but the thug caught his forearm and the two were locked in a grapple. The thug’s neck veins stood out like earthworms, and his face turned purple with effort. Nameless’s arms were knotted and swollen, but his face was eerily calm. The thug made the mistake of looking him in the eye, clearly trying to rattle him the way boxers did at the fights Nils’s dad took him to. It was a mistake. The man saw the effortless ease with which the dwarf held him and must have realized he was being played with.
Nils saw an orange flare out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Brau, still seated, with fire forming at the ends of his fingers. He tried to shout a warning, but his mouth was dry, and no sound came out. Without thinking, he drew his sword and ran the thug through the back. The man crumpled to his knees and toppled sideways to the floor. Nameless pouted, like his favorite toy had been broken.
The flames swelled around Brau’s hands, the air about them rippling. Nameless spun, overturned the table and leapt at him. Before the mage could react, Nameless had him by the wrists and shoved his flame-wrapped hands into his own face. Brau screamed as his flesh popped and sizzled, and when Nameless released him, his face was a charred and weeping mess.
Cold steel touched Nils’s throat, and he froze.
“That’s enough,” Ilesa said. “Back away, or I bleed the boy.”
Nameless took hold of Brau by the hair and slammed his head against the wall. The wizard slid to the floor.
“There’s a touch of magic about you, lassie,” the dwarf said, advancing on her.
Nameless’s eyes smoldered and, to Nils, there was an aura about him that made him seem as hard as stone. Right now, Nils wouldn’t have wanted to be Ilesa for all the gold in Malkuth.
“Last warning, stumpy,” she said, pressing the blade harder and breaking the skin.
Nils felt a trickle of blood rolling down his neck. He was shaking now, and the pressure in his bladder was getting uncontrollable. What if the dwarf didn’t care? What if Ilesa slit his throat whatever Nameless did or didn’t do, just to make her point? This was not a good situation. Not good at all.
Nameless glowered and strode toward them. Ilesa backed away, pulling Nils by the hair, using him as a shield. Suddenly, she yelped and tripped over Nameless’s axe. Nils broke free and ran to stand behind the dwarf.
Ilesa still had hold of her dagger and rolled to her feet. She retreated through the door into the porch, drawing her sword with the other hand and narrowing her eyes. Nils noticed the absence of cleavage. Clearly she preferred the flat-chested look for fighting.
Nameless continued to advance unperturbed and picked up his axe. He slapped the haft into his palm and gave a satisfied growl. Ilesa stumbled back, then turned and scarpered.
“Hmm,” Nameless said, watching her go. “Nice arse, for a human.”
“Don’t go there,” Nils said. “She can change shape to get what she wants.”
“Interesting.” Nameless wrung some of the moisture from his beard. “Do you think she could lose a bit of height and sprout facial hair?”
Nils frowned at him, but Nameless was already on his way over to the upturned table. He picked up the two pieces of the great helm and stared at them for a moment before placing them back in his pack. He gave Jankson Brau a prod with his foot, but the mage just groaned.
“Shog,” Nameless said. “I was going to ask him if he’d seen any dwarves come through here.”
Nils puffed out his chest. “They did. Told me that before you came in. I was just on my way out to tell you when you barged in and nearly ruined a bloody good piece of work. That’s what you hired me for. Professionalism, they call it.”
Nameless snorted, and his eyes narrowed beneath their ledge-like brows.
Nils felt an icy knot in his stomach, and licked his lips so that he could carry on.
“He said a whole bunch of dwarves passed through on their way to Qlippoth. That means they must have gone to Malfen. It’s the last border town, and there’s nowhere else for food and supplies within a hundred miles. Plus, it stands guard over the only pass through the Farfall Mountains.”
“Good,” Nameless said, chewing on the end of his mustache. “Good, good, excellent. Coming?” He strode to the door and peered out at the roiling clouds beyond the porch. “It’s a fine day for a stroll.”
Nils scampered after him. “That wasn’t part of the deal, remember? My job was to get you to Brau, nothing more.”
“True, true,” Nameless said. “And I thank you for your service. Good. Very good. Well done.”
With that, he wandered out into the rain, bellowing a tuneless song. Nils couldn’t quite catch the words, but he was sure there was something about a fat-bottomed girl and a flagon of ale.
Nils watched the dwarf disappear into the storm and then went to gather his coins and pouch. Jankson Brau stirred and muttered something. Fearing it might be a spell, Nils made a run for it.
He briefly considered going after the dwarf, but then common sense got the better of him, and he turned east for the long trek home to New Londdyr.
NAMELESS
The rain clouds scattered before a fierce northerly wind. By the time Aethir’s twin suns had dipped below the horizon, Nameless’s good humor had passed behind a heavy curtain of blackness.
The dark moods were never far from the surface these days. He’d always been prone to bouts of melancholy, but they’d grown more frequent and crippling since the atrocities at Arx Gravis; since the finding of the black axe.
Even now, even though it had been destroyed, the merest thought of the false Pax Nanorum sent the acid burn of desire through his veins. Nameless could still taste its promise of power, and still thrilled at the clarity and focus it gave him—the supreme confidence in his own righteousness.
Was he so easy to dupe? Had the axe played to his weaknesses, like the raven-haired woman’s arse? For all his strength, all his training and battle-hardiness, Nameless—or whatever he’d been called before he’d been stripped of his name—had fallen at the first hurdle. Under the spell of the axe, he’d achieved nothing but senseless destruction. If he hadn’t been stopped, he would unquestionably have been the last of the dwarves.
Where would it have ended? Would he have slaughtered everything in Malkuth? Would he have carved up the lunatic lands of Qlippoth?
Nameless winced, then took a deep breath and scanned the craggy escarpment. There was a spray of trees skirting the banks of a crater to the west. It was as good a place as any to set up camp for the night, and so he headed for it with the grim resolve to drive all thoughts from his mind before he ended up dashing his own brains out with a rock.
The gray half-light of dusk had given way to night by the time he’d got a fire going. He’d not brought a bedroll; he’d not even given it any thought upon leaving New Jerusalem, and had spent the last few nights cold and miserable.
Nameless found some jerky in the bottom of his pack and held it up before his face. He’d have sooner not eaten at all, but somewhere in the back of his mind he was nagged into doing so.
He ripped off a strip of meat with his teeth and chewed. Its saltiness roused his thirst, but he was out of dri
nk. He spat out the half-chewed jerky and stared into the fire. The wood he’d found was damp and sent up more smoke than flame. It fizzed and hissed, popped and crackled, and whatever warmth it gave off was lost on him.
His head had started to pound from the ale. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. That’s how it always was. He drank until he dropped and then, at the merest sign of trouble, he was sober in an instant. Unfortunately, that didn’t spare him the hangover. He’d also noticed that, while drink picked his mood up, especially when in good company, afterwards he was plunged into a deep depression. Already his limbs felt heavy, and the bones seemed made of ice. His face had tightened into a mask of rapidly drying clay. It felt like some malign sorcerer had cursed him, causing his body to slowly petrify.
A distant screech tore through the night air. Nameless raised an eyelid but was met with only the heavy blackness of the sky, interspersed with pinpricks of silver.
Aethir’s moons would appear soon. They were always late on the heels of the setting suns. First, Raphoe would climb above the horizon so close you could reach out and touch her. Raphoe’s ivory glow provided as much light as the dawn on a clear night. Next pockmarked Charos would rise, and then the tiny disk of Enoi, the smallest of the three.
The screech must have come from over the border. Malfen was only a few miles to the west, nestled between the Farfall Mountains and guarding the pass into Qlippoth. The denizens of Qlippoth seldom crossed the mountains, and if they did, there were Maresman on the prowl waiting to send them back to the dust.
But Qlippoth was where the dwarves were heading, such was their fear of what had happened in Arx Gravis, their fear of what Nameless had done to them.
Images of blood erupted in his mind. Images of slaughter.
Nameless groaned and tried to tear his thoughts away from the atrocities he’d committed with the axe. The grisly revenant of Thumil’s spitted head ghosted behind his eyelids, silently yelling accusation.
He removed the sundered great helm from his pack and then pulled out a heavy leather-bound book. It had belonged to Thumil.
Raphoe was half visible above the horizon now, and he could just about read by her light.
He opened the Liber Via at random, hoping to find some nugget of inspiration. In spite of everything, Cordy had given him Thumil’s precious scriptures, and then she’d left Arx Gravis, along with the rest of the dwarves.
So far, the book represented nothing more than a vague hope—a hope that never lasted beyond the opening of its first pages.
He scanned the Old Dwarven words, looking for some sort of guidance. Aristodeus had called them Latin, the same language the Senate used in New Londdyr. Nameless’s Old Dwarven was patchy, to say the least. He’d picked up most of it from his brother Lucius.
He flicked idly through the pages but saw nothing to latch on to. It was a hopeless activity in this mood. He closed the book with care and put it away. He was about to replace the pieces of the helm, but instead picked them up and studied them by the light of the fire.
The helm had been a desperate gambit. It had isolated him from the axe, stolen his name. But when it came down to it, when he’d followed Aristodeus’s plan to the letter and found the other three artifacts—the fire giant’s gauntlets, the lich lord’s armor, and the shield of warding—the helm had proven all but useless.
He dropped the two halves into the flames. He knew they wouldn’t burn, but he didn’t really care.
But it’s your mother’s helm, his pa Droom said at the back of his mind. The helm of a Dwarf Lord.
Nameless recalled the vision of Yyalla stepping from the frame of Durgish Duffin’s painting following the first massacre. He’d been in the cell, waiting to fall into a long and unnatural slumber. She’d looked at him with approval, with pride. But the way he saw it now, her look had been a lie, no better than the deceptions that had led him to almost wipe out his people.
Some sins can never be atoned for. He knew that now, as certainly as he’d known anything. But he still had to find the survivors of Arx Gravis. It was a compulsion stronger even than the need he’d had for the black axe. The best he could do was tell his people they were safe to go home. He should be the one to perish in Qlippoth.
Nameless tried to drag himself away from his thoughts, but his body refused to move. He sat as if he were entombed in stone, condemned to spend an eternity wallowing in misery and regret.
He twitched some life into his fingers and slowly curled them around the handle of the knife he’d picked up in New Londdyr when he’d bought his new axe. With his other tremulous hand, he opened the front of his shirt and drew the blade across his chest, leaving a deep wet gouge in its wake.
Action is what was needed.
Nameless dropped the blade.
Decisiveness. A course to follow.
He lay back on the hard ground as a new warmth seeped into his veins.
As soon as he’d rested, and morning had broken, he’d head into Malfen. There was something he needed to do before he continued with his quest: a badge that needed to be worn, a statement that he was no longer fit to be called a dwarf.
He yawned and studied the pallid face of Raphoe. Another screech sounded in the distance, and something fluttered across the moon. Probably just a bird, he thought, as weariness numbed his mind and sleep overcame him.
NILS
The milky disk of Raphoe loomed above the jagged horizon like a frosted mirror. Charos’s cratered face glowered opposite, spurned and vengeful. Tiny Enoi hung lonely in the darkness between them.
Nils shivered and hugged his damp cloak about his shoulders. To his tired eyes, the largest of the moons, Raphoe, looked like it was teetering, about to shatter across the Farfall Mountains.
He hunkered down by the embers of the dying fire. The drizzle had petered out, but the damage was done. His clothes were soaked through, and his bones might as well have been made of ice.
Perhaps he should have gone with the dwarf, after all.
He blew out a jet of air and watched it roil away as white mist. In his heart, he knew he wasn’t up to Malfen, not if there were any truth to the stories he’d heard about the place. It was just too darned close to Qlippoth and all the horrors that festered there.
An eerie screech split the still night air, and Nils sat bolt upright, straining his senses.
A shadow passed across the face of Raphoe and flitted off behind the valley wall. Probably a bat, Nils thought, and was about to settle himself back down when the screech came again, softer this time, but also nearer.
A black shape swooped down the embankment and flapped to the ground across the fire from him.
Nils backed away on his hands and feet, scrabbling for his sword. His fingers closed around the hilt, and he slid the blade from its scabbard.
The thing opposite craned its head and stretched out its huge wings. Nils could only see a silhouette against the ivory backdrop of Raphoe, but he could tell it was a bird of some sort. A very large bird—half as tall as a man, and with a neck like a shepherd’s crook. The bird-thing drew its wings around its body, shook its head, and started to grow.
Nils stood and scurried backward as the air rippled around the creature. There was a whiff of sulfur, a fizzing crackle, and Nils found himself gawping at the night-blackened outline of a man.
“Well met, young traveler,” the man said in a voice both strong and amiable. “I am Silas Thrall, and I am very, very lost.”
“Stand where I can see you,” Nils said, waving his sword. His heart bounced in his ribcage, and his knees were trembling.
Silas Thrall circled the fire until he was standing in the stark light of Raphoe, half his features still in darkness. He was a tall man, lean and angular. The moonlight cast deep shadows upon his face, making his eyes seem more like empty sockets. It was a stern face, drawn and sallow. He had the look of a pasty scholar about him, like the academics at the Academy in New Jerusalem. He wore a long black coat that came to his a
nkles. The frilled cuffs of a pale shirt peeked from beneath the coat sleeves, and a canvass bag hung over one shoulder.
“You a demon?” Nils took a two-handed grip on his sword to steady it. His fingers felt numb, his legs weak and ungainly. “Have you put the curse on me?”
Silas speared him with a look that blazed from the gloom.
“Fiends rarely cross the mountains from Qlippoth,” he said with a sly look to the horizon. “And the last I heard, there were no demons in Malkuth—unless you count certain senators I could mention. No, my friend, I am but a simple scholar, and your curse is nothing more than the fouling of your britches.”
Nils let go of the sword with one hand so he could feel his behind. “What you saying? I ain’t scared. I’m a guildsman.”
Silas sat on his haunches and gave a withering look at the failing fire. “That I don’t doubt,” he said, moving his hand above the embers and causing them to roar back to life. “Now, my good fellow, what say you put away the sword and join me for a late supper?”
“What we gonna eat?” Nils said. “Dirt? Maggots? I tell you, I’m starving, and I’ve found nothing that will fill a rat’s belly.”
“Then you’ve been looking in the wrong places,” Silas said, snapping his fingers and sighing with satisfaction.
Nils gawped at the blazing fire. A haunch of lamb was turning on a spit, fat popping and sizzling in the flames. Fresh baked rolls appeared at his feet with a selection of cheeses and a couple of glasses of wine.
“How—?”
Silas seated himself cross-legged on the ground and lifted his glass. He took a long sniff, sipped, and swilled the wine around in his mouth before swallowing.
“It’s not just demons who work wonders,” he said, breaking off a piece of cheese and holding it before his mouth. “There are a thousand ways to tap the occult energies surrounding us, and a thousand names for those who do so. I’ve known wizards and mages, sorcerers and shamans, prestidigitators, alchemists and necromancers.” He said the last in a hushed tone, and gave Nils a sideways glance. “Science, magic, dream-lore. Call it what you will. I choose ‘providence’ and, for myself, I take the name of student.”