by D. P. Prior
Targ produced a ball of string, handed the end to a Red Cloak, then backed toward Nameless, stopping every once in a while to hold the string between thumb and forefinger and call out measurements. Grago nodded each time he did so, but looked decidedly unimpressed. Before Targ had made it halfway to Nameless, the councilor called him back, wringing his hands.
Apparently, they were good to go.
The rest of the Council assembled in front of the crowd, some of them turning to shake hands and exchange words. Targ rewound his string and went to take up a position over the detonator.
Grago raised his hand for silence, facing the other eleven councilors, as if he lorded it over them. Nameless couldn’t hear what he said, but it hardly mattered. What was more worrying was the way Jaym sidled up to Grago’s right, watched attentively by a mixed group of baresarks and Red Cloaks.
Unless the butchery at Arx Gravis had changed dwarven society radically, something was amiss. Pariahs like Jaym and his crew were the scum of the ravine city. There’s no way they should be tolerated by a councilor, never mind stand shoulder to shoulder with one.
The top of Stupid’s hat could be seen bobbing about at the back of the crowd, its single bell glinting in the moonlight. It weaved in and out of the spectators, until the fool emerged at the front, moving his hands like a puppeteer and apparently making the Casket of the Law float alongside him. One of the guards blocked his passage with a spear, but Stupid held up a finger and then whipped a bunch of flowers out of his sleeve.
The casket was halfway across the canyon floor before a shout went up, and everyone turned from Stupid to gawp at the ghostly spectacle.
At a word from Grago, Jaym and his goons gave chase. A crossbow bolt threw up a puff of dust as it thwacked into the ground, and the chest tumbled end over end. Nils winked into existence behind it, rubbing his knee, where the leg of his britches had torn. More bolts whizzed past him, causing him to screech and roll out of the way.
Nameless wanted so much to let go of the chains and go to the aid of his friend, but his body wouldn’t respond. He focused on the pain in his wrists, from where the manacles had cut him, but it wasn’t enough.
He heard Grago shout something, saw the councilor raise his hand and lower it. Targ pressed down the plunger, and Nameless shut his eyes…
When he opened them again, Nils was back on his feet and reaching for the chest. A scream went up from the crowd as Targ backed away from the detonator.
“A spider!” someone shouted. “It’s got the fuse wire.”
“Ain’t no spider,” Targ called back. “It’s a shogging hand!”
The hand scarpered past Nils and threw open the lid of the casket. It scuttled over to Nameless, tapped on his boot, and then sped back again.
Nils bent to lift the casket but recoiled as an arrow ricocheted from it. Jaym grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and forced him to his knees. One of the other baresarks picked up the casket, but dropped it when the hand ran up his trouser leg. The others steadily advanced on Nameless, apparently intending to finish off what Targ’s explosives had failed to do. Eight hard-looking bastards, some Red Cloaks, some baresarks riddled with piercings and tattoos.
Nameless tried to summon rage, tried to find any emotion to stir him from his stupor. It wasn’t himself he cared about, it was Nils. Nils and everyone else he’d ever let down.
The baresarks and Red Cloaks seemed to sense his impotence and quickened their pace, murderous looks in their eyes. One of them jumped back as the hand shot between them, launching itself at Nameless and punching him in the fruits.
“Shog!” Nameless squealed. “Shoooooooogg!” He let go of the chains, cricked his neck, and ground his fist into his palm. “Oh, yes,” he said, shuffling from foot to foot, bobbing and weaving. “It’s shogging time.”
Nameless sidestepped a thrust from a Red Cloak and cracked him on the jaw with a sledgehammer blow. He swayed out of the path of a whistling blade and let rip with a flurry of jabs and crosses that had his assailant’s head bouncing back and forth until his knees buckled, and he hit the ground like a drunkard. No shame in that.
Strong arms wrapped around him from behind. He stamped down on a foot, cracked his head back into a nose, and the arms slid free.
“On your belly, or the boy dies!” Jaym growled from behind the five goons still standing. He had one thick forearm around Nils’s neck, and held a chunk of rock above him.
“You think I’m presenting my rump to you, you’ve got another thing coming,” Nameless said. “Rumor has it, you’d rut with a goat, if it would stand still long enough.”
Froth bubbled from Jaym’s mouth, and his eyes rolled up into his head. He teetered, and Nils twisted free, kicking him in the kneecap. Snatching his sword up, the lad ran straight at the dwarves between him and Nameless.
“No!” Nameless cried.
Two of the goons turned to face Nils. The other three closed in on Nameless.
Nils made a wild swing. An axe came up, and his sword went spinning into the air.
Nameless had no choice, and charged, but in the instant he moved, a flash of gold sped above the heads of the goons and slapped itself into his palm.
“Paxy! Did you miss me?”
The dwarves faltered. Even the pair attacking Nils backed away.
“He’s got the axe!” one of them shouted back toward the shelters. “Crossbows! We need support.”
An quarrel thudded into the dirt from on high, but the range was off. Two rows of a dozen crossbowmen pushed through the crowd. Those in front fired.
Nameless threw Nils to the ground and spun the axe in a glittering arc. It pulsed and whirred in his grip, the blades merely a blur. Bolt after bolt shattered on impact. The five remaining goons started to charge, thought better of it, and backed toward the crowd.
Nameless advanced, the axe still whirling like a manic windmill as the second rank of crossbows fired. Once more, not a single quarrel made it past Paxy’s blades.
“Come here, you shogger!” Jaym bellowed as he lurched forward, one leg dragging the ground from where Nils had kicked him. “I’m gonna shove that fancy axe so far up your—”
“Jaym!” Grago snapped, striding toward him. “Heel!”
The baresark stopped in his tracks. His shoulders sagged, and his face wrinkled up like a chastened child’s. “What? What is it now?”
“Hold your fire,” Grago called to the crossbowmen. “Clearly, it’s a waste of time.”
Jaym turned his palms up. “That’s why I was—”
“You’d be dead before you pissed your britches again,” Grago said.
Jaym threw his head back and roared.
“Not in a fair fight, of course,” Grago added, taking a step back. “But it’s hardly fair when he’s wielding that cursed weapon.”
Nameless lowered the axe head to the ground and leaned on the haft. “In case you’ve not noticed, the evil axe was black. Now, unless I’m as blind as a ravine bat, this one is most definitely golden.”
“What matter the color? Power like that corrupts. Especially in the hands of a murderer like you,” Grago said.
Cordy came forward, face ashen, eyes wide and staring. A fine tremor ran beneath her dress as she met Nameless’s gaze. It wasn’t loathing he saw there, or even condemnation. It was fear, plain and simple.
“I already gave it up to you,” Nameless said, his voice so low he couldn’t be sure she heard him. “And will do again, so long as you let the boy go.”
“I can fight my own battles,” Nils said, picking his sword up and slamming it in the scabbard.
“I know, laddie,” Nameless said. “But this isn’t your battle.”
Nils folded his arms across his chest and stuck his chin out. He was red in the face, and veins stuck up on the side of his neck. “Course it’s my battle, you silly shogger. You’re my… You’re my…”
Nameless reached out a hand, and Nils took it. “And you’re my friend, too, laddie. Always will be. Whic
h is why I need you to go.”
“But—”
“If you stay, you’ll be hurt, or they will. Either way, it’s not what I want.” He turned his eyes on Grago. “Shog knows why, but you seem to be the one calling the shots, Councilor. Do you give me your word the boy can leave unharmed?”
“Shog this,” Jaym said, his eyes smoldering like flaming coals. “Put that c-c-cun… Sorry, Cordy. Put that axe back in the casket, and let’s you and me get it on.”
“The boy?” Nameless said, keeping his eyes on Grago.
“You have my word, Butcher.”
Nameless nodded. “Fetch me the casket, laddie.”
“No way,” Nils said. “I ain’t leaving, and that’s—”
Jaym bunched his shoulders and snarled. “Do it. Now!”
Nils flinched then went to pick up the casket, muttering under his breath all the while.
Nameless placed the axe inside and closed the lid.
“Showtime,” Jaym said, thumping his palm and limping forward.
Nameless cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. The shogger was really asking for it, and against his better judgment, he’d half a mind to give him what he wanted.
“What you waiting for, Butcher, a shogging invitation?”
A growl rolled up from deep in Nameless’s chest. “Think I just got one, dung-face.” He raised his fists and stepped in. “You want me to hop on one leg to even things out?”
Jaym’s lips curled back, showing his crooked yellow teeth. His tongue thrashed about like a snake in heat, and a shrill ululating cry spewed from his throat in a torrent of froth. He raised a massive fist, but lightning forked down and struck him in the chest, flinging him head over heels to land in a smoking heap.
A shadow fell over the canyon, and all eyes turned to the sky, where bat’s wings as big as sails blotted out the light of the two smaller moons. Raphoe’s glow bounced from thick scales and lent a demonic caste to the face bobbing atop a sinuous neck.
“A dragon!” Grago cried. “Gods of Arnoch, a dragon!”
Only, for a dragon, it had a very human head, Nameless reckoned. Very much like the one he’d last seen on Silas’s shoulders.
“Something wicked this way comes,” Stupid declaimed above the crowd.
Jaym was already climbing to his feet, wailing like a child waking from night terrors and slapping at his smoking chest. “Water! Water!”
Silas wheeled away above the canyon, gliding in a wide arc before swooping in again with flames dancing on his fingertips. His eyes blazed red, and his face was gaunt, almost skull-like.
“Mess with my companions, would you?” he roared. “Then see what happens when you cross a wizard imbued with the sorcery of ages.”
His hands swelled to swirling balls of fire, their heat palpable as he dived.
“Silas, no!” Nameless bellowed.
Crossbows fired, but their quarrels bounced off of the air before they could touch the coiling body of the dragon-thing Silas had become.
Flaming missiles streaked into the canyon and exploded, sending up clouds of rock dust and plumes of smoke. Screams pealed out from the crowd, and those nearest the blasts were coated with ash.
Silas landed amid a shower of rubble, wings beating a hurricane through the gorge and driving the dwarves toward the far wall. His tail whipped out, wrapping itself around Nameless’s waist and lifting him till they were face to face.
“Impressive, huh?” Silas said with a grin like an open wound.
Nameless tried to wriggle free, but the coils holding him tightened so much, he feared his legs might drop to the ground without the rest of him.
“Set me down, laddie. Now.”
“In a minute,” Silas said. “First, I need to get you out of here. The boy can follow on foot.”
Nils ducked under a wing, hugging the casket to his chest. “I could ride on your back.”
Silas’s grin became a leer. “Just do as you’re told, and trot along behind. You are the pack mule, after all.”
With a single beat of his wings, Silas shot into the air.
Nameless raised both hands above his head and delivered a bone-breaking blow to the tail. He may as well have hit brick, the scales were so tough.
“Now, now, time for bed,” Silas said, eyes turning to whirling vortices as he angled a look behind.
A wave of nausea washed over Nameless, but he quickly recovered. “Ha, goat-face! Try again.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that. A door slammed within his mind. Black walls sprang up around him, started to close in. He thrashed and screamed and raged with all his might, but his limbs would not respond.
The ground retreated from his failing vision. He was looking straight down on the dwarves huddled together. The councilors were ringed in by soldiers, but Grago stood apart of the group, Jaym lurking at his side. With horror, Nameless realized the soldiers had their weapons trained on the councilors and were herding them toward one of the shelters. Old Moary was waving his arms in protest. At a nod from Grago, Jaym stepped in and floored him with a punch to the jaw.
Set me down, you shogger! Nameless bellowed, but he had no voice.
“Dwarves of Arx Gravis, your doom is upon you!” Stupid was screaming. “Long live the dwarves!”
As Silas veered away above the gorge, Nameless saw Nils struggling along with the casket behind the disembodied hand.
If the lad would just open the lid a crack, perhaps the axe would do something.
You only have yourself to blame, the voice of the dark said. You’re the one who shut her away. Only, it wasn’t the voice of the dark—his dark—it was something altogether more malevolent.
Don’t you know how long she suffered in her tomb beneath the sea, the poor dear? How much she sacrificed for the likes of you?
Who are you? Nameless asked silently. Panic welled up from some abyssal layer of his mind. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t—
He felt the thud of their landing, the crunch of gravel beneath his boots. His legs were moving, he was sure of it, only, he wasn’t the one in control.
Where are you taking me? Stop! Stop, I don’t want to go!
He tried to focus his eyes, but his vision remained blurry. He was aware of a shadow leading him on, another coming up fast on his side.
Nils? he tried to say. Silas?
Laughter bubbled up from the chasm at the bottom of his mind.
You think he’d listen, even if you could speak? the malevolence said. Baited, hooked, and reeled in, that’s what he is. No more than an ant following a trail of sugar.
Nameless’s eyes turned inward upon a scene that stole the last vestiges of his will to resist.
He saw trees with tortuous limbs of tar—a coagulating forest of utter blackness. And at its heart, wreathed in thorny vines, stood a staff of darkest ebony rooted in the putrid soil.
SILAS
“Blow winds, rain pour!” Silas threw his head back and howled at the elements. His hair was plastered over his face, his coat drenched, but he was damned if any storm the Cynocephalus could dream was going to stop him. He was an irresistible demon come to claim his due.
“Come on, you dog-headed primate, do your worst!” he screamed at the churning clouds. “I am Silas Thrall, do you hear me? Silas Thrall, god of magic, soon to be god of your sorry little world!”
God indeed, he thought as the sorcerous hand led the way through the squall, thrumming the ground with its fingers and moving at an alarming pace. Who else, besides Blightey himself, had commanded such power?
The clouds roiled, forming into islands in the cobalt sky. Directly above, they clustered together. When Silas squinted through the downpour, they resembled the head of a jackal atop the body of an ape. For an instant, the twin suns broke through, red with their rising, burning like a pair of demonic eyes from the face of the Cynocephalus.
“You see that, Nils? You see? I have him worried. Oh yes, he knows my strength.”
Nils was a sodden mess, lab
oring under the weight of the casket that held Nameless’s axe.
“All I see’s your ugly mug talking to the clouds. Shog, Silas, I knew you was strange, but this takes the bleedin’ cake.”
Silas spun in a circle, arms outstretched. “He knows my greatness, I tell you.”
“Knows you’re a plonker, same as the rest of us do. Knows you’re gonna be a dead plonker, too, if you don’t put a stop to whatever you’re doing to Nameless.”
The dwarf was trudging through the rain, completely oblivious. The effort to force his legs into motion was so minimal, Silas hardly knew he was doing it anymore. With just his will, he could keep Nameless marching until his body collapsed from fatigue. It was quite something to have absolute control over the Ravine Butcher, the mightiest dwarf of his age.
“He’ll be released when we get where we’re going, don’t you worry.”
“And where’s that, then? Because I’m tired of traipsing through this shithole, and hungry enough to eat a horse. You’re so bloody mighty, conjure us up some grub, like you used to.”
“All in good time, boy. All in good time. Oh, and Nils.”
“What?”
“Threaten me again, and I’ll crush you like the insect you are.”
Nils stopped and plonked the casket on the ground. The rain had turned to sleet and was spattering him relentlessly. Predictable as ever, he puffed his pigeon chest out and thrust his fists into his hips.
“Yeah? You and whose army?”
Silas allowed himself a smile and tried to put into it as much malice as he could manage. With barely a thought, he signaled Nameless to halt and then reached into the bottomless well of magic within, drawing just enough to make himself seem taller, more imposing. He wanted Nils to see fire coming from his eyes, lightning crackling from his fingers.
“Sure you don’t wanna back off?” Nils said. “Because, if you’re trying to scare me, I gotta say, I’m not gonna need to change my britches just yet.”
“What?” Oh, bugger.
Silas had reached into the well, sure enough, but the well was dry. Back there at the gorge, he’d felt indomitable, bursting with infinite power, but it seemed his ailing body still had its limits. As if on cue, he started to hack up phlegm and tasted blood on his lips. Every cough sent hot needles through his lungs, made him double up.