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

by D. P. Prior

  “Pete who?” Nils asked.

  “Rotting vegetation, you nincompoop.” Lords of the Supernal Realm preserve us!

  Nils frowned at the undergrowth, bent his nose to the black mud. “Oh, got you. Shog, that stinks. Can’t we—”

  “No.” Silas pointedly resumed his reading. The letters and sigils on the page began their whirling dance, honing his vision to a point.

  “But we should get going. Anything could have happened to Nameless. I mean, they could have—”

  “I’m studying.”

  Nils let out an exaggerated sigh and began to tap the cover of his Liber Via. “How long’s it take, for shog’s sake?”

  “A lot longer, if you keep interrupting.”

  “Rate you’re going, I’ll have a full-grown beard time you’ve finished.”

  Silas’s fingers tightened into a fist, splayed, tightened again. His eyes narrowed so much, he half-expected them to pop from their sockets. How was he supposed to focus, when he could see the irritating little prick out of the corner of his eye, rubbing his chin and imagining he had anything more than bum-fluff growing there?

  “Impressive, Nils. You’ll be able to plait that in another decade. Don’t tell me you’re going to get yourself an axe and start drinking mead next.”

  “What you saying?” Nils thrust his chin toward Silas. He was coiled like a spring and indignant as a mangy cat whose tail had just been trodden on.

  “I have a notion you’re idolizing someone,” Silas said.

  “You have a what?”

  “Our dwarf friend. You’re emulating him, by which I mean you’re trying to be like him.”

  “I ain’t like him.”

  Silas closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath. “I think that’s very shrewd of you.”

  “Don’t mean to be. Rude, I mean. But I ain’t. Nothing like him. I reckon that’s obvious. I was just being… what’s the word?”

  “Annoying?”

  “Funny. You’re bleedin’ hilarious, Silas, you know that?”

  “Thanks for the compliment. Now, do you mind shutting up, so I can read?”

  “Fine.”

  Nils went back to his book, grumbling under his breath all the while. Silas caught snippets of it: “Bloody Ilesa. Never should have trusted the bitch,” and “Sod the shogging dwarves. Should have just followed.”

  The effect was mildly comical—the way the lad’s face kept screwing up like a donkey’s rectum, the same as Silas’s might have if he was presented with the Collected Works of Quintus Quincy, the worst poet in Malkuth. Not that Silas had ever seen a donkey’s back passage, but he’d come close to seeing Quincy’s when he’d threatened to shove his book where the suns don’t shine.

  For a moment, the memory distracted him, and he almost laughed out loud. Those had been hard days, eking out a measly existence as a cutpurse on the streets of New Londdyr, but there had been something pure about them. Things had changed when he’d worked the wizards’ quarter and been caught breaking into Magister Arecagen’s house. A year and a day of study—that had been his punishment. Locked in the Academy and never permitted to leave.

  After the first few weeks, he’d started enjoying it. He had an aptitude for study, a hunger for it as addictive as his mother’s need for men. Knowledge brought control, and control meant power. Not in any megalomaniac way; just the ability to get through each day without being trodden underfoot like his father. What was it Magister Satyring used to say about other people being the worst kind of torture? Of course, he also used to preach about power and corruption, but nobody’s perfect. Good days, all of them—the thieving and the study, and they weren’t that much different when you considered the way the scholars at the Academy were always plagiarizing their colleagues and stabbing each other in the back. He knew it was just nostalgia, but it seemed even the air had been crisper back then, the suns’ light brighter. He felt the gentle pull of remembrance, longed to drift upon its currents, but even stronger was the sharp tug back to the page.

  The letters oozed like a lava flow, burned themselves into his brain. They sat just behind his eyes, smoldering keys to Blightey’s dark secrets. Dark, but potent. The sort of thing they were going to need, if they had a chance of rescuing Nameless.

  And Silas did want to rescue him. He knew he needed the dwarf, if he was to complete the quest for the Lich Lord’s staff, but part of him genuinely wanted to save Nameless.

  The surge of emotion came like an unexpected blow; it almost translated into tears. Silas’s face tightened into a grimace, and he shook his head. He was getting to be like Nils, and that couldn’t be a good thing.

  “What’s that?” Nils said, looking up from his book like a startled chicken.

  “What?” Silas kept his rapt attention on the spells grafting themselves into his memory with a tangibility that hurt. Nils was no more than a buzzing fly at the periphery of his awareness.

  “That sound.”

  “Just a minute,” Silas said, satisfied he was prepared for every eventuality. The question now was, how were they going to find Nameless? It wasn’t as if either of them was much of a tracker. He was starting to wish Ilesa hadn’t gone off on her own. Well, maybe “wish” was too strong a word.

  “Listen,” Nils whispered, scooting closer on his backside.

  Silas held up a finger for silence.

  The grimoire’s pages turned of their own accord. He still hadn’t grown used to it. It was almost as if invisible hands were riffling through, looking for just the right spell to answer his unspoken question.

  Something squelched off to the left.

  Silas tensed, thinking Nils was chewing next to his ear. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d heard more than he could stand of the cretin’s slurps and teeth-grinding since they’d been traveling together. What was it with some people that they had to be continuously stuffing their faces? If Nils needed to masticate, then he could bloody well do so alone, out of earshot. And if that meant at the bottom of a quagmire, then all well and good. Silas had half a mind to give the uncouth youth a long overdue clip round the ear, but then he remembered they had no food and hadn’t had for some time. It couldn’t possibly have been Nils making that sound.

  He tried to screen the noise out, so he could focus on the page the book had selected. The ink was dried and crumbling, coming away in powdery flakes. It looked black at first, but when Silas licked his finger and dabbed it on the script, he saw it was a brownish red. The page itself, like a few of the others, was of vellum, gummed in at a later date, whereas most were of thicker parchment and stitch-bound. The flesh on his back crawled as he scrutinized the letters. They crept and slithered into his mind, a series of harsh consonants and long drawn-out diphthongs. He tried to mouth the alien words, but his throat felt like a thousand spiders had crawled into it, coalescing into one writhing, cloying mass.

  “There it is again,” Nils said, but Silas could barely breathe, never mind respond. “That sucking sound. Gurgling, like a ditch being drained.”

  Shut up, I’m choking!

  “Know what it reminds me of?” Nils went on. “My dad eating. Hated that sound when I was at home.”

  Now there’s irony for…

  Silas’s guts flip-flopped up into his throat. He felt like a snake that had swallowed an egg.

  “You all right?” Nils said. “What’s up with your neck? Oh my shogging—”

  Silas doubled up, dry-heaving, but nothing could get past the blockage. Something tickled his uvula, pressed against his palate. He retched again, and this time the mass shifted into his mouth. The same something probed his lower gums, found purchase on his teeth. It felt like a finger. Another emerged, curling under his chin. A scream started deep in his larynx as his jaw was forced open, and the skin either side of his lips stretched so taut he knew it was going to rip. But then the mass flopped out of his mouth and landed with a plop on the open page.

  “Shit!” Nils said, scrambling back.


  Silas coughed up blood and bile, all the while staring at the horror that had emerged from his throat. It looked like a huge glistening spider, drenched with his phlegm, but then it twitched and splayed out four elongated fingers and a thumb.

  “It’s a hand!” Nils half screamed. “A shogging hand!”

  The bog slurped and belched, causing Silas to look away from the abomination he’d just given birth to. The peaty ground to the left had shifted, leaving a ditch like a scar in its black surface.

  “See, I told you something weren’t right,” Nils said. “Let’s shog off out of here.”

  Childlike limbs hung over the edge of the ditch, the skin flayed and showing bones. Gobs of goo dangled from them, giving Silas the sickening feeling they’d been partially digested. The sod above the ditch bubbled and squelched, drawing together into a mound that kept on growing.

  A frantic rapping drew Silas’s eyes back to the hand. It was drumming its fingers on the page, as if it demanded his attention.

  Nils gasped something, and Silas’s jaw dropped, as the hand scuttled in a tight circle and then sped off like a giant cockroach.

  The heaping pile of peat was still sucking in more of the bog. It was already as tall as a man and just as wide. A bulbous protrusion sprouted from its top, forming into a misshapen head. Sinuous arms coiled from each side, flailing the air like a couple of half-starved pythons.

  The hand scuttled back and leapt a little way off the ground to thump Silas on the shin. He cursed as it sped off to the north, but this time, he needed no more prompting. He was already huffing and puffing in pursuit, when the bog creature let out a horrific slobbering roar.

  “Run!” he cried over his shoulder, but needn’t have bothered.

  Nils shot past him and sprinted hell for leather after the grisly hand.

  NAMELESS

  “Another?” Cordy lifted the jug like a trophy and took a staggering step toward him.

  “You need to ask?” Nameless held out his tankard and grinned at Thumil. “Best ale I’ve tasted, aside from Ballbreakers, or I’m a shogging goblin.”

  “Better than shogging a goblin!” Thumil guffawed and tipped over backward on the bench, feet kicking the air like he was running upside down.

  Cordy roared with laughter, doubling over at the waist and sloshing beer over the tiles.

  Nameless rolled from his bench, holding out his tankard like a pauper begging for coin, catching one drop, two, and then pitching onto his face.

  Thumil let out a shrill pipe of laughter, utterly incontinent. The tangy odor of hops rose like a magical cloud into Nameless’s nostrils and snapped the last restraining chains of decorum. His tongue lolled out, and he got down on his hands and knees to lap at the puddled beer like a dog.

  “Stop,” Cordy sputtered through snot and laughter. “Stop. Thumil has something to say.”

  “I do,” Thumil said. “I do indeed, and it’s frightfully important. What is it, dear?”

  “You drunken old sot. How the shog did you get elected to the Council?”

  Nameless twisted his head and winked. “What better qualifications for a councilor than to drink mightily and talk drivel? Same things you married him for, Cordy.”

  And suddenly, he knew he was dreaming. The three have them had not drunk together, save for the wedding banquet, once Thumil and Cordy had been married. Not only that, but Thumil was dead, his head shoved on an iron spike. And Cordy… Cordy would never laugh and joke again.

  She set down the jug and stood with hands on hips, playing the scolding mother. “If you want a thing doing,” she said, heading for the doorway on unsteady legs.

  “Shush,” Thumil said, finger to lips. “Not a sound. Not a… Here she comes.”

  Cordy returned, sure of step and suddenly sober. She cradled a white-wrapped bundle in her arms and was beaming down at it with utter devotion. “This,” she said to Nameless, “is our daughter, Marla. We would be honored if you would be her soul-father.”

  Nameless’s head cleared in an instant. He pushed himself upright and touched a tremulous finger to the baby’s cheek.

  Marla.

  The baby he had killed. It didn’t matter he hadn’t intended to. He was responsible, for her death, and the deaths of thousands of others.

  “She’s… she’s…” Nameless looked to Thumil for help.

  The Voice of the Council was sitting straight, arms folded across his chest, a big stupid grin on his wizened face.

  “I know, old friend,” he said. “Gladdens this dwarf’s heart more than he could ever have imagined.”

  “You seriously want me to… I mean, after all I’ve… Me?”

  Was this how it would have been, had he not been the Corrector, when he’d come back to the ravine for a second slaughter?

  “Yes,” Thumil said, smiling at his wife. “It’s what we both want.”

  “But the others,” Nameless said. “If it weren’t for my strength, they’d have my guts for—”

  “We all deserve a second chance,” Cordy said. “You’re a good dwarf at heart. I’ve always known that.” Her eyes strayed to the black axe leaning against the table.

  The armor Nameless had taken from the Lich Lord lay in pieces upon the floor. The scarolite helm that had imprisoned him for so long was on the table, along with the fire giant’s gauntlets. The Shield of Warding he’d brought back from the Abyss was propped in a corner.

  The axe still called. Its insatiable rage clung to the deepest parts of his soul, but next to these people who still believed in him, in spite of it all, its power was as nothing.

  “You’ve suffered enough,” Thumil said, rising to place a hand on his shoulder.

  The axe head grated as it pivoted, throwing off waves of darkness.

  Nameless tried to scream a warning, but it was too late. The malice smothered him like a pall.

  NAMELESS

  Freezing water splashed over Nameless’s face. He sputtered and thrashed awake, eyes opening onto the immense disk of Raphoe leering at him down the channel of the canyon. In one sickening moment, his heart turned into a millstone.

  Second chances? Suffering enough? They had been wrong on both counts, after the first slaughter. He’d come back, and this time they were even more directly affected.

  He flinched at the memory of baby Marla’s limp and bloody body. And Thumil… Poor, poor Thumil.

  “Hate for you to miss the fun,” said a nasally voice. “Seeing as you’re the guest of honor and all.”

  Nameless craned his neck to see a scrawny dwarf standing over him with a bucket. He rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his knees. His wrists were shackled, long chains running from them to his ankles.

  “Name’s Weasel,” the dwarf said.

  Nameless was sure he’d seen the shogger before, at the circle fights, what seemed an age ago. Weasel had been the one taking bets.

  He looked about as good as his name, lean to the point of starvation, with a snout of a nose and a scraggly beard. His almond eyes were heavy-lidded, giving him a lazy look that could just as well have been cunning.

  “Would say I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Weasel said, “but people might talk. Mind you,”—he leaned in close and whispered—“if you get out of this alive, which I sincerely doubt, come and see me. I remember how you took down Kallos the Crusher in the circle. Play our cards right, and we’re minted. Fear factor like you’ve got’s worth a ton of tokens in my line of work.”

  Kallos the Crusher, the undisputed baresark champion. Nameless remembered the fight; remembered prevailing, only just, but that was another lifetime, back when he’d still had a name.

  “Who told you to get up?” a heavily armored dwarf said, stomping over and raising a club.

  “I did, geezer,” Weasel said, stepping in the way. “Punters deserve to see what they’re wagering on.”

  “Punters? Wagering?” the grunt said, looking like he’d woken up from a dream to find everyone speaking in nonsensical wor
ds, which Nameless guessed was anything with more than one syllable.

  Weasel tapped a finger to the side of his nose. He produced a clinking purse of tokens and handed it over. The bewildered guard stared at it for a long moment then grinned and backed away to a clutch of similarly armored dwarves, nodding and giving Weasel a discreet thumbs up.

  Moonlight washed the floor of the gorge with silver, cast deep shadows on the sheer rock walls that loomed over them to either side. Nameless could just about make out the forms of crossbowmen watching the camp from ledges above. And what a camp it was. The survivors of Arx Gravis had worked quickly to set up a temporary village of tarpaulin shelters, and here and there construction had started on rough stone huts—none as yet completed, but it was clear they intended to stay. Drystone walls had been erected to the north and south of the gorge, hundreds of yards apart. Each was manned by stoic sentries brandishing spears that reflected the light of the fires dotting the occupied space.

  Most of the shelters were empty. Dwarves were gathered in groups, their chattering a muffled, echoing hubbub. Even the children were awake, fighting with wooden axes or hanging onto parents’ hands. In the red glow coming from a brazier, white-robed figures debated in a semicircle. One of them stood apart from the group talking with Jaym, whose red hair and beard were unmistakable even in the half-light.

  “Good to see everyone so excited,” Nameless said. “What’s the play? Phancles’ Tragedy of Maldark the Fallen? Mendar’s Some like it Stumpy? Jarid’s Trial of Tinfoot Beardless?

  “Getting warmer,” Weasel said.

  “Thought you might say that. Looks like the Council of Twelve’s already in full flow. Did I miss my defense?”

  Weasel chuckled. “Plenty of time for that. Even in full flow, the Council ain’t likely to make their minds up anytime soon. You know what it’s like. Must have been five years since a bunch of wizards from New Londdyr contacted them about selling off some scarolite from the mines. Mind you, gave some of us a chance to make a bit on the sly, if you know what I mean.”