Revenge of the Lich (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 3)

by D. P. Prior

  “No?” Cairn said. “But you’re all right with wolf-men are you? This is the land of nightmares, boy, or haven’t you learned anything yet?”

  The dwarf had a point. Weren’t no such thing as zombies, neither, but they’d still bitten him and nearly turned him into one of them. Practically had, according to Silas.

  “Besides,” Cairn went on, “there were goblins in the woods around Mount Sartis, according to some of our older miners. That’s why we ended up abandoning the engineering work there, because no one wanted an endless war with the nasty little shoggers. Shame, I always thought. Guess we’ll never know now if the power of a volcano can be harnessed.”

  “So, what should we do?” Nils asked, picking up on the dwarf’s anxiety and biting his fingernails.

  “Think I’ll just lie here,” Cairn said with a sardonic grin. “Reach inside my pack, boy. There’s flint in there, and a tinder box. Goblins in the stories can’t stand fire, and if it’s a demon, I’d bet my bristles he’s had a glut of burning in the Abyss.”

  Nils got down on his knees and rifled through Cairn’s provisions. He’d barely set the kindling and gathered some deadwood, when a chorus of chittering pealed out across the treetops. Scores of yellow eyes flashed like sickly stars up in the branches, which started to bow and rock with rhythmic movement.

  “Either they know what you’re doing, or they’re just getting ready for dinner,” Cairn said.

  Nils drew his sword and glared up at the heights, but the chittering only grew louder, more frenzied.

  “Go on, lad,” Cairn said. “Be off with you. No sense in you staying.”

  “Just shut up and go back to sleep,” Nils said, ramming the sword into the earth.

  The dwarf made a face and then lay back, eyes flitting this way and that, watching the treetops.

  Nils struck flint to steel and muttered encouragement to the sparks under his breath. The tinder smoked but wouldn’t take.

  “Must have gotten damp,” Cairn said.

  “Spilt beer on it, no doubt.”

  Nils cast about for something else he could use, then remembered Granny putting pine cones in the hearth to get a good fire going on chilly nights. He gathered a bunch from beneath the closest trees and plucked others from low branches. He added them to his pile of deadwood and tried again. Within moments, he had a blaze you could roast a pig over. The thought reminded him of Silas and his magical meals. He hoped the wizard was all right. Hoped he’d understand why Nils hadn’t come back.

  The chittering in the treetops turned to hissing and clacking, and then ebbed away to silence.

  “That shut them up,” Cairn said.

  Nils tensed, straining to hear. Maybe the fire had frightened them off. Maybe he could leave Cairn and get Silas. Maybe even find the dwarves and bring—

  The treetops shook like a hurricane was ripping through them. Yellow eyes flashed from the branches, and then dark shapes began swarming down the trunks, shrieking like all the demons in the Abyss.

  SILAS

  Two hundred and twenty-one gates. Silas counted them all—above, below, to either side; each formed from spinning letters hewn upon intangible pillars; letters that flashed like lightning.

  Warm fluid oozed from his tear ducts, rolled down his cheeks. A hundred thousand needles stabbed his pupils, screamed at him to shut his eyes, but he refused even to blink.

  His rapt focus impaled the letters directly before him, scrutinizing their endless juggling—reversals, augmentations, rotations. They jostled for position, dismantling the words they formed and assembling new ones through sequences of giddy permutations. They chiseled themselves into his brain, streamed down his spine and bounced back up again, running and returning in an endless cycle that bore him up into a language beyond speech.

  His field of vision stretched, elongated, doubled back around his head, revealing every direction in one omniscient revelation. The gates swirled around him, intersecting vortices that melded and blurred, cocooning him in an egg of light. He was the infinitesimal point, the limitless circle. The all and the nothing, the microcosm and the macrocosm. He was the Worthy, the One, the Pleroma, the Void. He was… he was… he was the silence.

  The gates revolved faster and faster, their letters a myriad flashes of argent, leaving silvery trails in their wake. They throbbed behind his eyes, vibrated at his sternum, ignited in his belly. He gave himself to them, let them consume him, let them tear him asunder. He was the black hole, eating them hungrily, until nothing existed but the darkness.

  The darkness of the cave.

  He pressed his palms to his weeping eyes, slowly withdrew them, blinking at last, until he could see once more.

  Harsh sunlight filtered through the opening between the wispy strands of his ward. The grimoire lay open on the ground, crimson spatters daubing the occult diagram. He looked at his palms—as red as a murderer’s—and knew that he had wept blood, not tears.

  The pages turned of their own accord, exuding a chill. They came to rest upon a passage he had read before; read but never understood. Now, the words as meaningless as ever, he knew it all; knew exactly where to find the Ebon Staff, the key that would unlock the last secrets of Blightey’s book. He saw a vision of it, tangled in vines at the center of a forest of tar. Unspeakable horrors skirted the forest’s edge, and a blade of hellfire spun in the air above the solitary track that led to its heart.

  The image shifted, giving way to a lake by a wooded shore. In the middle of the lake, an island of rock jutted skyward, and around it swam a giant serpent.

  Silas gazed without feeling at the disgorged remains frothing redly across the water. Bobbing to the side was a severed head with a matted, bloody beard, white eyes staring upon the Void. Some remote part of Silas’s mind registered that this was Nameless.

  Closer to the shore, Nils floated, a bloated water corpse trailing blood in a grisly slick. Of Ilesa there was no sign, but that was nothing to be surprised about.

  With a jolt of awareness, Silas knew for certain that this scene had not yet come to pass. He started as the grimoire slammed shut, leaving him with the compulsion to act, and act swiftly, if he were to prevent the deaths of his companions.

  And why would you want to do that? the voice of his cynicism asked, colder and more uncaring than before.

  The Ebon Staff, set amid its black forest, returned unbidden to mind. The malignancy of the abominations guarding it sent icicles stabbing into his bones. The swish, swish, swish of the hellish sword warding the path made him falter in his resolve.

  And in that instant, he knew beyond a shadow of doubt why he’d met the dwarf and accompanied him on this trek into nightmare.

  Silas grabbed Blightey’s book, rose shakily to his feet, and banished the ward from the entrance. He ducked out of the burrow with feverish purpose. He had to get to the lake before it was too late, and with an uncanny sense as clear as his newfound prescience, he knew exactly where to go.

  If he were to claim the Lich Lord’s staff and unlock the mysteries of his book, he needed Nameless with him. For who else would have a chance against the horrors he had seen standing in the way?

  NAMELESS

  Nameless shielded his eyes to peer across the lake from the highest point on the island’s rocky finger. The treetops were shaking, and it sounded as if the forest were alive with the screams of the damned.

  “What is it?” Ilesa said, standing on tiptoe lower down.

  “Shogged if I know, but it doesn’t sound good.”

  He thought about Nils creeping back into the forest with his sword drawn, wondered what he’d heard or seen. He didn’t like it one bit. He’d heard a commotion like that before, in the foothills of Mount Sartis.

  “Goblins,” he said. “Gods of Arnoch, I hate goblins.”

  That meant Nils was really in trouble. He made his way down the pinnacle to stand at the water’s edge.

  “Hope your observations are correct, lassie.”

  Ilesa pointed to th
e rear of the island, where the shadow of the serpent was coming into view. “Sure you wanna go back over there with that din going on?”

  “Shogging right I’m sure.”

  “Well, get ready then. Head should be coming up right about… now!”

  The serpent broke the surface, water cascading from its writhing neck as it glared straight at them.

  “Wait for it,” Ilesa said, lowering herself to sit on a rock with her feet dipping into the lake. “Wait for—”

  The monster splashed down out of sight, and at the same instant, Ilesa slid into the water. She turned and held out a hand.

  Nameless’s heart was hammering around in his ribcage, and he gripped his axe so tight, his knuckles stood up like white pebbles.

  A scream that turned into a battle cry cut across the screeching of the goblins. Was it Nils? He couldn’t tell, but the mere thought of a friend in danger had him clutch the Axe of the Dwarf Lords in one hand and pinch his nose with the other as he jumped in.

  He sank like a stone, opened his mouth to cry out, and took in water.

  Ilesa grabbed his wrist and pulled. His head popped above the surface, and he gasped for air.

  “My armor—” he spluttered.

  “Idiot! Now keep still and lie back.” Ilesa put an arm around his neck, cupping his chin in her hand. “I’ve got you.” She fumbled around with the straps securing his hauberk, then kept hold of the collar as she dunked Nameless’s head below the surface.

  He struggled like a lunatic, sending up streams of frothing bubbles. The hauberk came over his head, and Ilesa let it go. Taking hold of him under the arms, she pulled him back up.

  “There,” she said. “Now all you need to do is float.”

  “Float?” Nameless thrashed about, barely managing to keep hold of the axe.

  “Keep your head back in the water.”

  He tried to relax, let her take control, but his instinct was to drop his feet down so he could be upright.

  Ilesa kicked for the shore, half on her back, half on her side, paddling with one hand, holding Nameless under the chin with the other. She was as good as her word, gliding swiftly through the water, even with a dwarf for a burden. Nameless hadn’t thought to count, but it can’t have been more than a dozen seconds.

  “We’re gonna make it,” she grunted through the effort. “Just a little further.”

  A wave rolled over them, and Nameless panicked, dropping the axe, and slapping the water with his hands in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. “Shog,” he spluttered. “Shog, shog!”

  Ilesa yanked him upright by the collar, but that just brought him face to face with the V-wake plowing straight toward them.

  The axe sparkled golden 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.

  NILS

  “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-colored 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 favor, 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. Chittering 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 slopped 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 among 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 green 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 its 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, running 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. He clamped a hand over his shoulder to stem the bleeding.

  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 while 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 inspected his legs.

  “Thought we’d lost you,” she said. “Council agreed 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 toward Nils with a monstrous hammer. He was stripped to the waist, his barrel chest thickly haired, arms and neck tattooed with spider webs. 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 smoldered, 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 unmovable, 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 toward 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, and his shoulder was throbbing like a pox-ridden tadger—not that he had no experience of such things, but he’d been told it weren’t pleasant. He gritted his teeth and used the pain to stoke his anger.