by D. P. Prior
She glided down into the valley that approached the volcano, allowing herself a pat on the back for taking out the assassins.
They had grown careless, probably on account of their cloaks, which merged with the terrain. Such arrogance was often a fatal mistake, in her experience.
“The wolf on the hill has nowhere to go but down,” she remembered Master Plaguewind saying. “There’s always someone hungrier coming up behind.”
She’d only ever seen Nameless this scared once before, and that was when he was floundering in the lake with a giant serpent somewhere beneath him. On dry land, he’d happily stand toe to toe with anyone, but take him out of his comfort zone, and he was a victim, just like everyone else.
As she winged closer, she could hear Nameless’s ragged panting, see the flush of his face. He was at his limit, that was plain, but he still kept going, as if all the hounds of the Abyss were on his heels. He was spooked, and whatever had done it was back in the tangled mass of the black forest he’d emerged from when she’d first spotted him.
She’d tracked him ever since she’d lost hope of finding her way out of Qlippoth. The land kept shifting, throwing her into more and more dire situations.
But the serpent’s lake had drawn her back when she’d taken to the air. She’d seen its glimmering water from miles away, and stupidly allowed herself to hope that Nameless would have returned there to wait for her, that she’d have the guts to face him, apologize for her weakness.
For that’s what it was, she knew deep down, but the realization did nothing to dampen her guilt. If he’d been there, it would have been so easy. Her relief at finding a landmark in Qlippoth had buoyed her spirits, given her the courage to confess her faults.
And besides, Nameless was someone she didn’t need to wear masks around. He was probably the one person she could trust. Problem was, the longer it went on, the more that confidence seeped away like blood from an open wound.
Now she’d finally caught up with him, she wasn’t quite so sure what to do. The Ilesa that she’d constructed over these last bloody years, the one that had calcified around the child from Portis, wasted no time taking a firm grip once more. That was the Ilesa who wished, above anything, she’d been able to leave her so-called friends among the nightmares rising like an angry miasma from the mind of a crazy god.
Her guts flip-flopped into her mouth. She was so close, she could almost touch him. She veered off at the last moment and alighted on a crumbling bank of soil and rock.
Nameless stopped in his tracks, chest heaving, breaths coming in rattling gasps. He took a double-handed grip on his axe, arms shaking with the exertion of his run.
Had he heard her? Sensed her approach?
Ilesa took a hopping step further up the bank. When she looked back at him, he was staring straight down the valley, as if the ghosts of the entire dwarven race were drifting toward him, screaming their condemnation.
Ilesa followed his gaze and cursed herself for being so wrapped up in her own fears that she’d lost sight of her surroundings and the hazards that an assassin of her caliber saw everywhere.
A dwarf was half-running, half-stumbling toward Nameless. He was dressed oddly in a blue robe, long golden hair and beard slick with sweat. The robe was smeared with dirt from the track and…
No, Ilesa realized with sudden clarity. It wasn’t a ‘he’; it was a woman.
If she’d had hands at that moment, she’d have slapped herself on the forehead. She’d done it herself at Nameless’s request: turned herself into a dwarven woman, complete with a beard.
There was something softer about this one’s face that gave it away: a hint of roundness unlike the blockish granite features of the menfolk. Then there were the breasts, deeply cleft and in full motion as she approached.
The woman craned her neck to look behind, oblivious to where she was heading. A step away from running into Nameless, she drew up sharp, stared at him with wide-eyed horror, and staggered back. She tripped and landed on her rump, then started to scuttle backward, lips working ten to the dozen but no sound coming out.
Nameless hurled his axe. The woman screamed and threw up her hands, but the axe shot over her head and struck a pillar of moving rock.
Ilesa gasped as the rock sprouted arms and tried desperately to stem the blood gushing from its torso. She blinked, and then she saw. A cloak the same texture and color as the landscape fell away as the dwarf dropped to his knees drenched with crimson gore and then toppled over. The Axe of the Dwarf Lords tugged itself free and flipped back to Nameless’s waiting hand.
That was the moment Ilesa should have shown herself, she knew it right away, but it was like diving from the Titan Rock at Portis. She’d balance on the edge, curling her toes, tell herself to jump, and then step back. She couldn’t quite do it.
She took a deep breath, readied herself for the transformation back into her human form, when five more assassins detached themselves from the rock-strewn banks of the valley.
The dwarf woman looked from them to Nameless. It was hard to tell who she was more afraid of. She made it to her knees but then dropped her head in resignation. Nameless stepped up close to her and reached out with shaking fingers. She took his hand and stood, and then Nameless put himself between her and the assassins.
It was stupid, she knew, but Ilesa felt a knife twist in her guts, and before she’d even thought about it, she was spiraling up into the storm clouds and winging a chaotic course to nowhere. The winds buffeted her, carried her away from Nameless and his bearded bitch. She hoped the assassins killed him. She hoped they killed them both.
Screams shouted down the gale, demanded her attention. At first, she thought it was death cries in the valley below, but she soon realized it was screeching she could hear carried on the winds from afar. Terrible screeching: a banshee’s cry multiplied a hundred times; the baying of a thousand starving dogs. It threw up memories of her brother Davy and the wolf-pack that had ravaged Portis. Made her think of Silas and the little shit, Nils, and all they’d been through together. What if they were still out there, lost in the shifting terrain of Qlippoth? Not that she gave a shog.
But what if they were in trouble, and no longer had Nameless to protect them?
Like it was her problem.
She wavered for a moment, caught between flapping back down to confront the dwarf and his tart, or mounting an airborne search for the runt and the wizard. Idiotic, she knew. They were nothing to her. Ilesa didn’t need anyone, and she certainly didn’t owe them shit.
The screaming rose to a crescendo on the wind, and she sought out the source.
There, through a gap in the clouds, she saw the black forest, spread like a bruise on the horizon.
She couldn’t help herself; she rose above the storm and sped toward it.
Curiosity will be the death of you, Master Plaguewind chided at the back of her mind.
NAMELESS
Lightning forked overhead, a drumroll of thunder in its wake. Rain fell in stinging volleys, and through it all, the assassins came on.
“Cordy,” Nameless said. “What’s—”
A hazy shape streaked across the valley floor. Eyes flashed so close they were like twin suns. A rustle of cloth, a rush of air, and the dull thud of a dagger falling to the earth at Nameless’s feet—a dagger still clutched in a severed hand.
“Shog!” Nameless said, back-fisting the assassin in the face and sending him sprawling, blood pumping in great gouts from the stump of his wrist.
The Axe of the Dwarf Lords purred and glinted, pleased as punch.
“Good girl, Paxy.” Nameless patted her haft.
The assassin was halfway to his feet, when Cordy slammed into him and delivered a cracking right to his jaw. Nameless grunted his appreciation. For an instant, he was reminded of the stories of his mother, but when Cordy craned her neck to glare at him, his guts twisted, and reality crushed him like an avalanche.
Cordy gave the assassin a kick to make sure he was
out, then she narrowed her eyes and strode toward Nameless, her sodden hair and beard giving her the wild look of a baresark.
He stepped aside, and she kept on going. Nameless glanced back the way she’d come from and groaned. The air rippled along both walls of the valley.
He flung Paxy, and she lodged in an assassin’s face. The dwarf stood for a moment, frozen in time, then collapsed.
Nameless turned away from the others, holding out his hand to catch the axe whistling up from behind.
“Cordy, no.” He jogged to catch up with her. “Not that way. Something’s coming!”
Cordy spun round, hands on hips. “Yeah? Well it can’t be as bad as what’s behind.”
He knew she meant the assassins, but her words stung anyway. No matter the threat she was fleeing, or the one she was heading into, the Ravine Butcher was still the worst she could imagine.
Something gray dashed across his peripheral vision, parting the sheets of rain like a veil.
“Oh, for shog’s sake!” Nameless said through gritted teeth.
Paxy arced across the valley and met with a resounding splat and the snapping of bones. The axe haft shuddered as she struggled to free herself.
Nameless strode over and wrenched the blade clear. “I’ve had just about enough of…”
Cordy was off without a backward glance, half-striding, half-running.
“Cordy!” Nameless called, the blood in his veins fizzing as he looked from her to the glimmers of movement behind. “I’m warning you, shoggers,” he bellowed into the storm. “I’ve been holding back till now, but I’m about to get very, very cross.”
A dwarf appeared mere yards away, his concealer cloak thrown back to reveal a leather jerkin and a baldric loaded with daggers and darts.
“We have no quarrel with you, Butcher. Least not yet. We’re on Council business. Stand aside.”
Nameless took a step toward the assassin. “Listen, laddie, if you don’t shog right off, you’ll be spitting out teeth.”
The assassin produced a punch dagger in each hand and gave a cocksure grin. “Mate, you might’ve taken down a couple of rookies, but let me give you a friendly warning—” He swayed aside, and Paxy shot straight past him. “See what I mean, you clumsy shogging grunt.” He launched into a weaving run, twin blades a dazzling blur. “You’re gonna learn a thing or two—unnghh.”
Paxy punched through his chest in a spray of gore and settled back into Nameless’s hand.
“Sorry about that, laddie,” Nameless said, as the dwarf dropped to his knees and keeled over. “I keep throwing her away, but she keeps coming back. Must be my natural magnetism.”
Two gray shapes sped past him in pursuit of Cordy. He hurled Paxy on impulse, but she returned without finding her target.
“Great,” Nameless grumbled, as he forced his tired legs after them.
He knew he should have gone the other way, warned the rest of the dwarves before their doom was upon them, but he couldn’t leave Cordy. Not after what he’d done to her.
He rounded a bend in the valley and tripped. Paxy went spinning away to clatter against a pile of rocks, and Nameless tumbled head over heels to land with a whoomph on his back. He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet.
A quick glance behind showed him he’d fallen over one of the assassins, who was lying prone with his head a bloody pulp, a crimson-stained rock beside him. He caught a glimpse of Cordy’s blue dress and stumbled toward her.
Paxy shook violently, causing a mini rockslide, then flew to his outstretched hand.
Cordy was squaring off with the last assassin. She had her fists raised like a seasoned circle fighter.
The assassin was casting worried glances over his shoulder. He was on his own now, and knew the Ravine Butcher was right behind him. He made a weak lunge with a dagger, but Cordy sidestepped and punched him in the temple. He spun away from the brunt of the blow, right into Nameless’s fist. Teeth sprayed out in an explosion of spittle, and the dwarf fell on his rump.
“Shit!” he screamed. “My shogging dagger! I stabbed my bleeding leg!”
Nameless glowered down at him, then kicked him onto his side. The dagger was buried hilt deep in the assassin’s buttock.
“Technically, laddie, that’s your gluteus maximus, not your leg. Never mind, you’ll live, and besides, I’m sure you’re used to a little prick up the arse.”
The assassin whined and sniveled like a child. “Ain’t funny,” he said. “You’re a shogging nutcase. Wait till Grago hears about this.”
Cordy looked faintly amused at the prick joke, but the moment she saw Nameless watching her, the fire returned to her eyes.
“Grago’s going to hear about a whole lot more than how a bunch of Arx Gravis’s finest assassins got beaten by an unarmed woman and a knackered old lard belly,” Nameless said. “Let me give you a friendly warning, laddie. There are creatures coming.” He pointed down the valley, drawing a nervous look from Cordy, too. “Creatures that live to devour. They’re coming to rip every last strip of flesh from the survivors of the ravine city. I’m…” He stopped himself and met Cordy’s gaze. “We’re going to warn the people, get them out of harm’s way. You, laddie, have a simple choice: learn to hop really quick, or you’re dinner.”
The assassin’s face lost all color. He looked from Nameless to Cordy. “You can’t just leave me.”
“Bye, laddie,” Nameless said, as he sauntered back down the valley in the direction of the volcano.
He didn’t look to see if Cordy was following; he could already hear her footfalls.
The wind swirled, carrying with it a high-pitched screeching. Nameless stopped and drew in a deep breath.
“Is that them?” Cordy asked, coming alongside.
“Aye.”
“How far off?”
Nameless frowned and strained to listen. He’d thought they were right on his heels, but the screeching still sounded distant. “I’m not sure, but let’s not chance it. We need to warn the people.”
Cordy put a hand on his shoulder then immediately withdrew it. “But the Council’s not in control anymore. It’s just Grago now, and his goons.”
“I saw.” When Silas carried him into the sky above the gorge, soldiers had ringed the councilors in, and Jaym had put Old Moary down. “That why you were running?”
“He means to kill us. Oh, he’s passing it off as a trial, but there’s no doubting the outcome. I got away, but the others are being held captive.”
“Well, that’s where I was heading. We have to get to the gorge before—”
“No, not the gorge,” Cordy said. “Grago made us leave there. He said the time for hiding was over; said Stupid had maps that could lead us to our past and to our destiny.”
“Stupid?” What was it the fool thought he knew? Did he know about Arnoch? “So where—”
“I got away from them in the foothills of a volcano. Grago wanted to set up camp there, explore some—”
“Lava vents?” Nameless knew there’d been something about those tunnels.
Cordy’s eyes narrowed, and she sucked her top lip in. She never did like being interrupted. Thumil used to joke about it when she was out of earshot.
She looked away, as if undecided about what to do next. When she looked back, her eyes were moist, and her chin was quivering. She opened her mouth to speak, and Nameless braced himself, dreading the condemnation, the mention of Arx Gravis, of Thumil, of baby Marla, but then the screeching came again. It was no nearer, but it still sent chills crawling beneath his skin. He thought of Nils and gave a long lingering look to the north where he could feel, if not see, the cloying malevolence of the forest of tar. He winced against the desire to go back for the lad, no matter the cost to himself. But there was more at stake, more than he could bear to lose.
“I’ll handle Grago,” he said, heading southward. “Come, if you like, but I’ll not make you.”
The assassin continued to whine and plead, but Nameless may as well have been dea
f. He hefted the Axe of the Dwarf Lords to his shoulder and fixed his eyes on his boots. He wasn’t surprised when a pair of sandaled feet joined him on the trail.
He risked a look up, and saw Cordy staring straight ahead, no acknowledgement that she was coming, no sign that she wasn’t alone.
Words started to boil up from Nameless’s gut, but they were as ephemeral as gorge flies, winking in and out of existence. He moved his lips, trying to say something, but in the end, only a dry cough came out.
NILS
The squelching stopped dead.
It was still black as the grave, but something had changed. Nils’s heartbeat was suddenly center of the universe, hammering like the clappers in case anyone had forgotten he was still there. He couldn’t see nothing, and with his breaths all gasping and muffled, he felt like he’d been buried alive. Smothered was closer, he reckoned. Smothered by greasy tentacles that stank like fish.
At first, he’d thrashed about and tried to cry out, but goo had got into his mouth, clogged his throat. The fleshy dark had tightened about him, coating him with sticky gunge that seeped beneath his skin and left him frigid. A roiling motion full of slurps and belches made him panic that he was being digested but then gave him a strange comfort, like he was once more a babe in the womb kept safe from the horrors outside. And such horrors he’d heard, rampaging through the forest of tar, consuming everything in their path.
A jagged gray line cut across the darkness. Chill entered, a spot or two of cold wetness.
Nils held his breath and willed his disobedient heart to shut up.
The dark ripped open wider, and a hand reached inside, its fingers long and slender, and with only the barest hint of color. He knew that hand well; he’d seen it often enough scurrying around without a body. He’d been there when it had flopped like a newborn calf from Silas’s mouth; been there when it attached itself to Silas’s wrist after Nameless had cut off the real one.