by D. P. Prior
Before Nameless could think of an answer, his eyes were drawn to the huddle of white-robed councilors. A furious debate was in full flow, and Cordy, conspicuous in her frayed blue dress, was the most furious of the bunch. Her fists were clenched, her face livid as she faced a barrage of snide remarks and challenging questions with little more than exasperation and bluster. That was what they needed, though, Nameless thought. She may not have been the world’s best diplomat, but at least she had fire.
Stupid was bobbing around them, dancing a frenetic jig, hat bell tinkling like an alarm.
Old Moary bustled past. “Best get into the fray,” he said. “They tend to get a bit impetuous without me.”
“Pot, kettle, black,” Targ said, “after the way you took it to them feeders just now.”
“Defense of one’s people requires a different approach to careful debate,” Old Moary said.
“Maybe not,” Nameless said.
Old Moary eyed him curiously for a moment and then nodded. “I think you should join us. You too, Targ. After all, you are in charge now.”
“Better tell it to them,” Targ said. As Old Moary went on ahead, he leaned in to Nameless. “I may be a stone-headed moron, but I weren’t born yesterday. What the Council want is someone to make hard decisions for them, someone they can blame when it don’t work out. When it’s all over, assuming there’s anyone left alive, they’ll make sure they take all the glory.”
“Targ,” Nameless said, clapping him on the back as they headed after Old Moary, “you are one cynical old bastard.”
“And you’re a gloomy son of a shogger, with muscle for brains and piss in your veins.”
Old Moary brushed Stupid aside, and the Councilors all started appealing to him like tale-telling children.
The fool’s face was flushed, his eyes wide with frenzy. “At last!” he said. “Level heads.” He tugged at Nameless’s mail hauberk. “Talk some sense into them, for no one will heed a fool.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” Nameless said, moving straight past him.
“Targ?” Stupid pleaded.
“No,” Targ said.
“But my map, these tunnels.”
Nameless turned and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“This is a footprint, like the gorge. Like the vanishing cliffs and the city of…” He broke away and started to sing. “Toe ray di, non ninny nee.”
“What?” Nameless pressed in close and whispered. “What were you going to say?”
“Hey non ninny, a dwarf in a pinny.”
Targ shook his head and went to stand uncomfortably at the edge of the meeting.
“Arnoch?” Nameless pressed the fool. “You’ve seen it? I thought I was the only one to…”
“Not with these eyes,” Stupid sang in a resonant bass. “Not these ones.”
“Speak sense,” Nameless said.
“Me cannot. Me a fool.”
Nameless sighed and switched his attention to the Council.
“They must hear me,” Stupid said. “Make them listen.”
“We don’t have time for your nonsense,” Nameless said. “Plain words, or no words. What’s it to be?”
Stupid’s face puckered up, and he flopped onto the ground like a sack of grain, and a particularly dejected one at that.
“We must go to this Lich Lord,” Councilor Castail was saying to Old Moary. “Send one of our best orators. He’ll listen.”
“How do you know, Castail?” Cordy fumed. “Have you seen him? Had you even heard of the Lich Lord until Nameless told us about him?”
“Well, uh…”
“Then shut up.”
“Typical,” Nip Garnil said. “Shame your husband didn’t teach you about debating etiquette before he… I mean before…”
“Before I cut his head off and put it on a spike?” Nameless growled, taking a step toward him.
“Gentlemen, calm,” Old Moary said, holding up a tremulous hand. “An orderly debate, please.”
“Everyone wants something,” a nasally voice interjected. It belonged to a knock-kneed blubber-house with a long dangly mustache and no beard. That was worrying, Nameless thought. Never trust a dwarf with a mustache and no beard. “I say we find out what this lich wants and appease him.”
“Maybe he wants that ridiculous mustache of yours, Winso,” Cordy said, “so he can shove it up your—”
“Ain’t gonna be no appeasing no one,” Targ said. He spoke quietly, but everyone stopped and gave him space. A couple of the councilors barely suppressed sneers.
“I’ve seen enough of these feeders of his to know that lily-livered pansying about is only gonna end one way. All that’ll be left of the folk of Arx Gravis’ll be the gristly bits they spit back out, though I wouldn’t even bet on that. Way I see it, we run while we can, and when we can’t, we stand strong and give ’em something to remember us by.”
A crowd was forming outside the cluster of councilors. Dwarves of all stations—soldiers, workers, the young and the old—were pressing in close to hear what their leaders had to say, what they were doing to keep them alive.
“It’s flagrantly clear we can’t beat them,” Winso said with enforced patience, “so let’s just look at the terms of our surrender.”
“Seconded,” Nip Garnil said. “Last thing we need right now is a layman playing dictator, especially one appointed by the most notorious dictator our people have ever known.”
Grumbles of agreement passed through the councilors. A few glanced at Nameless but none dared meet his eyes.
“Appeasement, now!” cried Councilor Yuffie, the silver braids in his beard glinting like a thousand stars. He threw his arms wide, as if he expected applause, but the crowd had gone deathly quiet.
“Well,” Old Moary said, causing Yuffie to flinch and put a protective hand to his swollen jaw, “I had been considering appeasement myself, but what if…”
“What if we start acting like dwarves?” Nameless said.
“But we are,” Castail said.
“Real dwarves,” Nameless said. “Like the heroes of Arnoch, not the skulking cowards that Maldark made us. Dwarves of iron and stone.”
“Well, that’s all well and good for you to—” Nip Garnil started, but Cordy elbowed him in the ribs.
Nameless placed the haft of the Axe of the Dwarf Lords on the ground and rested his hands atop the head. The twin blades glinted green in the reflected light of the scarolite streaking the walls. He let his eyes rove around the cavern, taking in every last one of the survivors, catching as many eyes as he could.
“Iron,” he said again, “and stone. These are things we know well. We touch them with our hands, work with them, mold them. These blades,” he twirled Paxy, “show us what we really are, where we come from.”
Murmurs passed along the crowd. Nameless knew that he could lose them, if he didn’t get the next bit right.
“Sektis Gandaw lied. That’s how we fell under his influence. He took away our past, the glory of our ancestry, and told us we were nothing. Nothing but the results of his meldings, a disappointing experiment. Yes, he changed us. That I can’t deny, but the raw material he added to was the stuff of legends. He may have diluted the pot, or perhaps even enhanced it,”—he gave a long sweeping look at the crowd—“but what is undeniable is that in your veins, in the veins of every dwarf here assembled, flows the blood of heroes.”
Stupid’s head appeared above the onlookers. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about, numbskulls. Three cheers for the Nameless Dwarf. Hip hip…”
The fool’s face dropped into a gurning sulk when no one responded.
Nameless’s throat felt full of gravel. That was probably the longest speech he’d ever made, even though it was but the first swallow of summer compared to what the councilors would have been used to. He coughed and ran his tongue across his pallet, but then mercifully, Weasel slipped through the crowd and handed him a costrel.
“Ironbelly’s,” he said. “Sorry, mate. Best I could
do at such short notice.”
Nameless knocked it back and tried not to think about what it tasted like, but the thought leapt unbidden to his mind all the same, and he really wished it hadn’t: the septic discharge from a witch’s nipples. Still, it was wet, and it was reputed to contain at least some alcohol. No doubt after a gallon or two, you wouldn’t notice the taste, but the chances of that happening were as slim as him trading the Axe of the Dwarf Lords for a fencing foil.
Speaking of Paxy, she was throbbing in his hand and sending shivers of elation through his veins. She was cajoling him, that’s what it was. Telling him to go on.
He passed the costrel back to Weasel, who seemed preoccupied with taking wagers from anyone who’d listen to his odds. What it was they were betting on, Nameless had no idea.
He took a moment to gather himself, to gaze out at the survivors of Arx Gravis, gauge their reaction. It wasn’t good, and perhaps he should have expected that. Dark looks, sneers, lots of whispering and nodding. Only Stupid was with him, and that wasn’t exactly encouraging. Then he caught Cordy’s eyes, and she gave the slightest of nods.
Targ whacked him on the shoulder. “Go on, son. Reckon you got their attention. Don’t want to lose it now.”
“I know you’re all scared,” Nameless said, his voice made stronger by the booze. It was strangely reassuring to learn that Ironbelly’s had at least one virtue. “I’m scared, too, and I don’t scare easily. Most of you haven’t seen what’s after us, and you’ve had to take it on trust. Now, trust isn’t something I’ve earned from you, so all I can do is tell the truth and hope you believe it. Back there at the entrance, the lads and I had a bit of a scuffle with the vanguard. These creatures—they’re called feeders—live for only one thing: to eat. And right now, they seem pretty intent on dwarf flesh.”
A few people gasped at that, and somewhere at the back a child began to cry.
“Their master is a lich, a being neither fully dead nor alive. His name is Otto Blightey, and from what I gather he has a long history, both here and in the world he hails from. I encountered him back before… before…”
He almost said before he reclaimed the black axe; before he returned to Arx Gravis as the Corrector, but shame, or prudence, stopped him.
“I traveled to his world with some of the greatest heroes of Aethir and Urddynoor.” They wouldn’t have seen themselves as such, but he did, after all they’d been through together. “As a team, we confronted Blightey at his castle. I saw… I saw horrors there I won’t burden you with, not with children present.”
A forest of impaled victims, many still rasping out their last breaths and twitching on their stakes; a probing mist that chilled right down to the soul; and the Lich Lord himself, a flaming skull atop a borrowed body, impervious to all attack, and with eyes that could devour the very essence of life.
“I will not offer you false hope. This Blightey was too much for us. Too much for these great heroes. Some of us survived, to be sure, and there was a measure of victory, but not without great cost.”
Castail’s whiny voice trilled above the crowd. “Well, that’s just great. Thanks for sharing. Really, people, are we going to continue to listen to this prophet of doom?”
“You’ll listen, son, cause I say you will.” Targ glowered at the councilor and then turned his ire on the crowd. “Unless anyone else has anything to say on the matter?”
Nameless waited to make sure he still had their attention before he went on.
“Ask yourselves,”—he caught the eyes of a few frightened looking soldiers in the front row. “Ask yourselves what the Dwarf Lords of Arnoch would do, were they still alive.”
He waited long enough for the question to sink in.
“You know the legends. You know the odds they faced time and time again. You know they prevailed not through strength or weight of numbers but through unyielding courage. They never backed down from a fight. Yes, they retreated when it was prudent to do so, but they struck back with an iron first at the first opportunity. And when, at the last, they passed from the world into legend, they did not curl up and die. They faced a foe they knew could not be beaten, a terrible monster drawn from the mind of the mad god at the heart of Aethir.
“They fought doggedly, knowing all the while it was in vain, but they fought nonetheless. One thing they didn’t know, however, as the last of them bled out in the halls of Arnoch, one thing that would have given them hope to blot out the despair, was that their bloodline endured beyond the Farfall Mountains. They live on in you and me.”
He licked his lips and cleared his throat. Weasel proffered the costrel again, and Nameless reached for it but then drew back his hand. He was parched, true enough, but not that parched.
“These feeders are evil shoggers. Insatiable. But the Lords of Arnoch would have stood toe to toe with them and taught them a lesson they’d never forget. We, my fellow dwarves, have grown weak. Weak with shame for acts we did not commit. Weak from centuries of hiding away at the foot of the ravine. This is our time to emerge into the daylight, our time to take our place as the children of Arnoch. We will not despair before the approach of this Lich Lord and his minions. We will fight! Fight them in the tunnels, all the way to the roots of this volcano, if need be. We will fight them on the banks of the lava lakes, and we’ll fight them in the open air when we come out the other side. And we will beat them, I tell you. But even if we do not prevail, and if this long and glorious history of ours is to pass from this world, we will not lay down arms until every last one of us lies choking in their own blood.”
A great bellow went up from directly behind Nameless, causing him to jump.
“Ku-na-ga!” It was Jaym, pumping his fist at the ceiling.
The rest of the baresarks gathered around him, adding their own voices to the chant: “Ku-na-ga! Ku-na-ga!”
Targ joined in, then Old Moary, and then with the momentum of a gathering storm, every voice in the cavern was raised in deafening unison, save for those belonging to Yuffie, Castail, and Nip Garnil, who looked like they’d just downed a vat of vinegar.
It seemed to Nameless that the volcano shook in response, and that the dead of Arnoch drifted invisibly from the afterlife to offer their support.
He sagged with relief and nodded his thanks, but then someone yelled out, “I ain’t following no butcher,” and the chanting ceased.
“Nor should you,” Nameless said. “You follow Targ, as do we all.”
The old sapper stepped alongside Nameless, took hold of his wrist, and raised his arm aloft.
The crowd started to cheer then, and Nameless knew they would do their duty, every last one of them. He felt his face breaking into a smile, but then he saw Cordy pushing her way toward him. The blood froze in his veins, and he pulled free of Targ’s grip.
She came to a halt before him, icy stare probing, lips set and ready to unleash her anger. Nameless braced himself, but when she spoke, her face softened, and there was moisture in her eyes.
“Thumil would have been proud of you,” she said.
Tears streamed down Nameless’s face, and his frame was racked with shudders.
ILESA
Ilesa sat high above the valley, too tired to change again. Most of the feeders on the volcano were filtering inside the main entrance, having cleared a sizeable pile of rubble. Others were swarming into the smaller tunnels higher up, while Blightey orchestrated everything with wide sweeps of his black staff. Nils looked thoroughly miserable, even from this distance. He slouched behind Blightey, tethered to him by the leash. She felt a pang of guilt at leaving him, but what else could she do?
She twiddled with Nils’s pen, turning it this way and that, as if the scarolite it was made from held the key to her dilemma. Was it magic, like she’d heard, or was it just harder than diamond and a pain in the butt for to work with?
If she’d had half the courage Nameless had, she’d have put it to the test, stabbed that shogger Blightey right between the shoulder blades. Either he
’d have dropped dead on the spot, or he’d have…
She didn’t want to think about what would have happened next. Whatever it was, it sent eels wriggling through her guts. Just the sight of the Lich Lord was enough to start her shaking. It was like being back in Portis, helpless to stop the creep hurting Davy, paralyzed by her disgust, she liked to think. Or was it fear of what he might do to her next?
No, she resolved: if she’d stabbed the shogger and the scarolite had done nothing, she’d have scarpered, she was sure of it. What with her ability to change shape, there was no way he’d have caught her.
She almost talked herself into catching up with them and having a go. Almost, but she was so tired, and if she didn’t have the strength to change, she’d stand no chance of getting past the feeders. They’d reduce her to mincemeat in a matter of seconds.
She watched until the last of the creatures disappeared inside the mountain. When Blightey followed, dragging Nils behind, her heart turned to stone. Too late now. There was nothing she could do. Same old Ilesa. Same old coward. Same selfish bitch she’d always been.
“So what?” she muttered to herself as she stood and scanned the horizon. “Can’t save everyone.”
Shog, she hadn’t even been able to protect her own brother, so why lose sleep over an annoying prat like Nils?
Her best bet was west, she figured, where in the distance a thousand different colors winked in the shafts of sunlight lancing through the clouds. She could loop around the volcano and start south, head for the twin peaks that stood like permanent markers while the land approaching them churned with polychrome waves that rolled into rocks, trees, streams and valleys, breaking up and finding new forms.
It would have been easier to fly, she thought, but her brain was a hazy mug, too sleepy to focus, and it was an effort even to walk.
As she trudged away from the valley, she looked out over the volcano looming like all her failures to the south.