by D. P. Prior
The creature holding Silas switched its grip to his throat and pressed its mandibles close to his face. Silas strained away from it, but the thing was inhumanly strong. He heard the rustle of clothes, saw one of the wasp-men dash past him, and then the campfire fizzled out.
The ground within the stone circle faded, until it resembled nothing so much as paper arranged in combs and cells, within which dark shapes writhed. The grip on his throat tightened, the hooks breaking the skin. He saw his horrified reflection in the dish-like eyes, heard the echoing clack, clack, clack of the mandibles.
Then the buzzing grew to a cacophony, as scores of giant wasps started to emerge from the ground.
NAMELESS
“Hey, dwarfy, you’ve got what I need,” Ilesa said, her green eyes a couple of witch’s lanterns.
Nameless couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. He was helpless beneath her gaze, bereft of volition, and giddily happy about it. He wanted to speak, ask her what it was she needed, but her firm grip on his wrist was answer enough as it forced his hand toward the milky flesh of her breast. Lightning started at his toes, crackled along his legs, smoldered in his groin, and then shot up his spine to his brain. There was a concussive blast, the snapping of unseen chains, and… buzzing. Lots of buzzing.
His fingers touched something hard and ungiving, not at all what he’d have expected from such a bonny lass. He was groggy, as if he’d awoken from deep sleep. His vision was blurred, and he had an angry fly in his ear. He shook his head in an attempt to dislodge it and tried to focus on the feel of Ilesa, her insistent grasp.
“Thank shog!” Nils said.
“Ugh!” Nameless cried, yanking his arm away from the lad’s grip.
He barely had time to register that the reason Ilesa’s breast wasn’t as soft as he’d imagined was that it wasn’t a breast at all. He was holding the haft of the Axe of the Dwarf Lords.
“Quickly,” Nils said. “Silas—”
There was a flash of yellow, the snapping of mandibles, and a pulping splat as the axe clove through the head of a giant wasp.
Nameless was already swinging for the next one before he’d worked out where he was and what was happening. The twin blades sliced through the torso of another wasp—this one wearing a coat and britches—and greenish ichor splashed his forearms.
A gurgling scream drew his gaze, and he hurled the axe. It took the head from a third wasp-man and reversed its flight to land back in his hand.
“Well, that’s them taken care of. Now, laddie, do you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“What about the others?” Nils said.
“Others?”
Silas rolled out from under the headless corpse, clutching his throat and hacking. He half-ran, half-stumbled toward them, eyes wide with terror.
The ground was a seething carpet of yellow and black as dozens of wasps wriggled to the surface and stretched out their wings. They walked on two legs, like humans, and many of them wore the tatters of clothes.
“Is this gonna be a problem?” Nils asked, moving behind Nameless.
“Not at all, laddie. I’ve faced worse.”
“You have? When?”
Nameless rubbed his beard and thought about that. “Do you know, I can’t remember. Must be the lack of grog. Be that as it may, let me give you lads a word of advice.”
A flurry of wasps took to the sky and started to circle. Below, the parchment ground grew pitted with holes as more and more of the creatures burst through. There must have been hundreds, all adding to the furious din that was threatening to burst Nameless’s eardrums.
“What?” Silas said, squeezing between Nils and Nameless. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, his lips tinged with blue. “What advice?”
“Run!”
Nameless charged among the emerging wasps, chopping this way and that.
His plan was a simple one, one he’d employed a million times. Cut a swath through the enemy and keep going. Only, he got about twenty yards when the creatures in the air started to dive-bomb.
He swung the axe in a scything arc, dropping three in a shower of gore. Nils was thrashing his sword about like an old woman with a walking cane, while Silas held his book above his head, as if that could ward off a sting.
And what stingers they had: sickle-shaped barbs that stuck out of their arses. It would have been laughable, had one not been coming straight at Nameless. Quick as it happened, he still found himself making a mental note to get a helmet at the next opportunity. He swayed aside at the last moment and split the wasp down the middle.
Dozens more took to the air, blotting out the sagging clouds. No matter how fast he dispatched them, more kept coming. There was no way he could ward off all those stingers.
The wasps swarmed together, undulating through the sky as one. They banked high and veered into another attack.
Nameless held the axe up before his face and spoke to the blades. “That silver fire thing you did at Arnoch, Paxy… now would be a good time.”
Nothing happened.
“Paxy?” He shook the axe. “Paxy!” Still nothing. There was a rush of air and a deafening wall of noise.
“Get down, lads!”
Nils dragged Silas to the ground as the swarm hit.
The axe was a dazzling blur, an extension of Nameless’s arms that sliced and clove with the ferocity of a whirlwind. Limbs rained down, heads flew, wings tore.
“I don’t shogging believe it!” Nameless cried above the buzzing. “She’s sulking. The axe is sulking.”
Wave after wave of giant wasps hurtled into the path of his blades. A stinger grazed his shoulder but failed to bite. Another ripped the front of his shirt but barely broke the skin. He swayed, ducked, pivoted, and twirled without the impediment of thought. His body and the axe were one, perfectly in tune. He was ecstatic, reveling in every sublime strike, seeing each stinger as if it came at a snail’s pace.
At his feet, Silas and Nils cowered and yelped whenever they were showered with pus, but Nameless was loving every minute of it. He felt the words of a song bubbling up from his gut, but before he could give it voice, hooked hands grabbed his ankles and yanked.
“Paxy, I’m sorry,” he cried, chopping through a spindly arm. “Just get us out of here. I’ll make it up to you.”
He spun free, eyes searching out an escape route, even as he thrashed a couple more wasps from the air.
The swarm swirled out of reach and started to regroup. The ones on the ground had formed a cordon and were warily closing in.
Nils got to his feet, but Silas lay flat on his back and might very well have been dead. Nameless quickly quashed the thought that it would save him the trouble. Last thing he needed right now was to give an inch to the dark. Before he knew it, he’d be in the depths of despair with stingers perforating every inch of his dwarven behind.
Something scrabbled out of Silas’s pocket and sped off to the right. It was the hand that had freed Nameless back at the gorge. Whatever it was up to, it spooked the wasps. Those in its way shot into the air, and that’s when Nameless saw his opportunity. He threw the axe in a wide loop that sent the blades slicing through half a dozen carapaces. The edges of the circle buckled as the creatures balked at the carnage. The axe whipped back into his hand, and he dragged Silas to his feet.
“Help him,” he told Nils. “Get through the gap.”
Nils sheathed his sword and draped Silas’s arm over his shoulder. Together, they lumbered toward the opening. Nameless cast the axe left and right, keeping the wasps at bay, but overhead, the swarm was wheeling into another dive.
A rush of movement from behind had him spinning and kicking a wasp where a man’s fruits would have been. He hammered his fist into another’s face and swung the axe one-handed to split a third’s head down the middle.
A shadow fell over him, and he dived, rolling over and over, expecting any moment to be skewered by a stinger. There was a fierce buzzing in his ear, then a barb plunged into the papery ground be
side his face. He grabbed hold of it by the base and yanked it off amid a spray of pus. Then he was up on his feet, and finishing the wasp off with a clean slice. He backed away, weaving a wild arc of steel above his head and glancing over his shoulder to see if Silas and Nils were through.
The wizard fell, and Nils made a half-run, stopped, and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him through the rapidly closing channel.
Nameless roared his defiance at the swarming wasps hounding him from above, and they buzzed higher, out of reach. Those behind, however, bunched together in a droning phalanx that continued to swell as others emerged from their nest beneath the ground. The phalanx bulged amid a deafening din that rattled Nameless’s bones. With a unified shove, it surged toward him.
He turned and ran—straight into the wall of wasp-men closing the gap after Nils and Silas. With a chop to the left and another to the right, a path began to open. He shoulder-charged, kicked, punched, and head-butted, spun away from a stinger, and then he was through. His legs pumped furiously as he pelted toward his companions, but a sharp pain in his buttock made him yelp and tumble in a heap at Nils’s feet.
“One last try,” the lad was shouting. “Come on, Silas, you can do it.”
Nameless rolled to his knees as the phalanx bore down upon them, and overhead, the swarm dived like a hail of arrows. He tried to stand, but ice had formed in his veins, and his heart was flapping about like a chicken with its neck about to be wrung.
“I can’t,” Silas wheezed. “I just—”
“Nameless?” Nils asked, despair thick upon his tongue.
“Sorry… laddie, they got me. Poison…” He fell flat on his face.
Silas was muttering something that sounded like a senile lament full of made up words and rattling breaths.
“Crap,” Nils said.
A blast of wing-fanned air hit the back of Nameless’s head and made him open one eye in drowsy expectation of the pain to come. His guts lurched, and a stream of vomit burned its way up his throat and pooled around his face. His heart rate steadied, and fire surged through his limbs. It was the same thing that happened each time he got drunk and then needed to fight. Only, it was too late, and there were too many…
Heat whooshed over him, and he rolled to his back as a wall of flame roared up from the earth a hundred feet into the air. Charred carcasses thudded to the ground, and in front, the phalanx dispersed and fled back toward the nest.
Nameless climbed to his feet and tried to work out what had happened.
Nils was kneeling over Silas’s prone body. “He did it,” the lad said. “He did it.”
Silas groaned, and a trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth. His fingertips were smoldering, one hand still upon the open page of the grimoire. The letters flashed and flowed together into a snaking tendril that slid off the page and coiled about his wrist. His body convulsed, and he sat bolt upright.
“We must press on,” he said in a voice like crackling tinder.
Nameless cast a look at the retreating wasps.
“They’re going back underground,” Nils said. “Into the hive.”
“Hmm.” Nameless snorted and turned his attention to Silas. “I want a word with you, laddie.”
“Well, it will have to wait,” Silas snapped, putting the grimoire back in his satchel. “We need to hurry.”
Nameless stepped in close and cocked his head to one side. “Now.”
Silas’s eyes flashed red, and he opened his mouth, a retort on the tip of his tongue. But then he swallowed and lowered his gaze. “I had no choice. You weren’t exactly cooperating.”
“Did I ask to be rescued?”
“Well…”
“Did I?”
Silas licked his lips. “There’s gratitude for you.”
“They was gonna kill you,” Nils said to Nameless.
“Were.” Silas sucked in air through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“Were gonna kill you.”
Nils turned his nose up and rolled his eyes.
“So what if they were,” Nameless said. “It was the right thing to do.”
“Oh, that’s just dumb,” Nils said, and then immediately backed away with his hands raised. “I mean, you ain’t no threat to them. Not no more.”
“And they know that how?” Nameless said. “All they have are the memories of what happened at Arx Gravis, and the sight of this big stupid dwarf with a magical axe that’s the spitting image of the one that caused the slaughter.”
“Except it’s gold,” Nils said.
Nameless made a show of studying the blades. “Like I hadn’t noticed. Not at all like a certain black staff in a forest of tar.”
“What did you say?” Silas said.
“That got your attention, didn’t it, laddie? Now, give me that book of yours.”
Silas’s hand covered his satchel. “Why?”
“I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago.”
“No,” Silas said. “No, you’re not. You leave it alone. It’s mine.”
Nameless held out a hand.
Silas clutched the satchel to his chest and turned away. “Mine! Not yours! Mine!”
“Leave him,” Nils said. “He ain’t well.”
Nameless stiffened. A rush of fire burned beneath his skin. His fingers clenched into a fist, and he ground his teeth together. He craned his neck to glare at Nils, and the lad retreated, all the blood draining from his face. For an instant, he no longer saw Nils. Instead, there was the image of a baby, its tiny body limp and bloody.
The rage instantly drained away from him. He tried to say, “I’m sorry,” but the best he could manage was a throaty growl.
“You’re right,” he grumbled. “He’s not well. That’s what you get when you mess with magic, especially the kind that comes from Verusia.”
Silas twisted his neck to look over his shoulder at them. “That’s just ignorance speaking.”
Nameless narrowed his eyes.
“What I mean is,” Silas said, “there’s more to Blightey’s magic than almost anyone realizes.”
“Anyone but you?” Nils said.
Silas turned back round, nodding ten to the dozen. “Yes. Thank you, Nils. Thank you. At least someone understands. All that teaching I’ve been doing with you has paid off, I see.”
Nils put his hands on his hips. “It was a question.”
“Ah, but a good one. You have a shrewd mind, young Nils. You know, incisive.”
Nils frowned and shook his head.
“Clever,” Silas said. “Go on like this, and you’ll get a place at the Academy in a year or two.”
The lad’s eyes widened at that, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but Silas beat him to it.
“Well, maybe that’s stretching it a little.”
Nils dropped his chin to his chest, and his cheeks reddened.
“Nameless,” Silas said. “I admit it. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have charmed you. But look at it this way: I was just trying to get you out of there.”
“We was both just trying to help,” Nils said. “It ain’t right to leave a friend behind.”
Nameless allowed himself a tight smile. “I know that’s what you think, Nils, and believe me, I’m glad to be considered your friend. But the Dark Lord here, he’s got his own reasons for rescuing me.”
Silas relaxed his grip on the satchel. “I need you.” He looked up into Nameless’s face, eyes red-rimmed and feverish. “The book has shown me the way. You’re right. There’s a staff in a forest—”
“No,” Nameless said.
“Hear me out.”
“I said no. I didn’t ask to be rescued. Didn’t want it.”
“So what,” Nils said. “You just gonna stroll back to the gorge and let them kill you?”
Nameless closed his eyes and tried to think. Is that what he really wanted? At the time, he’d have welcomed death, but it all changed when Jaym threatened Nils. The lad hadn’t w
anted to follow him on this fool’s errand, but out of all of them, he was the one who’d shown his true mettle. Oh, he was cocksure and still had a lot of growing up to do, but there was no doubting his heart. Nor his aptitude for learning, from what Nameless had seen. The lad had warmed to him, looked up to him like he might an older brother, or a parent. At first Nameless had found it vaguely embarrassing, even a tad pathetic, but when all was said and done, it was Nils who’d started to make him feel like a person once more, and not just the Ravine Butcher. Nils and Ilesa, of course. Shame that, he thought. Shame she couldn’t have accepted his forgiveness. Shame she wasn’t still with them.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I came to help them. Came to protect them from something.” He looked at his palm, as if the answer were written there in the lines and calluses. “I thought they were running from me into something far worse, but there isn’t anything worse, as far as they’re concerned.” He felt his voice choking up and coughed before he went on. “It might be better for everyone if I just keep on walking, keep wandering this land of nightmares until no one remembers me.”
Nils started a slow hand clap. “That’s so trag… trag… You know, melodra… Makes me wish I had a fiddle.”
Silas winced and put a hand over his eyes.
It felt like Nils had just slapped Nameless round the face with a wet fish. Instead of anger, instead of being hurt, he just felt numb. Numb, and not a little stupid.
“You know,” Nils said, slapping the bag that held his Liber Via, “I was thinking I might take up writing once I know my letters more better. I been drawing on the pages—hope you don’t mind; I kind of thought you wouldn’t want the book back.”
“No,” Nameless said. “It’s yours.”
“I drew a map of the way we came, you and me, from New Londdyr to Malfen. I been trying to write the names of the towns and stuff on it. But what I really want to do is write down what we’ve all done here. Our adventures. You go off now like some sulking pup, and it’s right gonna ruin my story.”