by D. P. Prior
If Nameless was still alive, if he was somewhere beneath all that rock, he’d do just fine without her. Him and his woman, that is. He might have been a bit on the short side, but he was big enough to look out for himself.
She shoved the scarolite pen in her pocket, thinking maybe Nils had a point, after all. Perhaps she should write the Lich Lord a nasty letter. “So long, shogger,” it should say. And, “You know where you can stick that staff.” She was half-tempted, but then she worried it might antagonize him. In her line of work, she’d known people travel half way round Aethir to avenge an imagined slight. There was no telling what Blightey would do, but every possibility he’d go even further, and do something a whole lot worse.
The strings of guilt gave a last desperate tug before they snapped, and Ilesa set her sights on the shimmering colors to the west.
What they were was difficult to tell. They danced all the way to the horizon, but even as she took her first steps, she had the sense they were coming to meet her.
The greensward beneath her feet frayed at the edges like an old carpet. With each new step, its borders were eroded by a tide of glittering color that swirled and swept ever nearer. Before she knew it she was walking over a fine multicolored sand, and when she looked back, the greensward had vanished. She could still see the volcano, and off to the west, the twin peaks stood out like beacons in a sea of chaos.
“Shog this,” she said out loud, casting her eyes around and picking up her pace, trusting that if she walked far enough, she’d get to the other side of this shifting desert.
A shadow passed across one of the suns, and in its wake came a thunderous roar.
She looked skyward and stopped dead in her tracks.
An immense dragon arced overhead, the beat of its wings whipping up a hurricane. More of the beasts swooped down from the clouds and began to circle her.
“Great,” Ilesa said, turning to look back at the volcano.
All she wanted was to get the shog out of Qlippoth and back home to Malkuth. Was that so much to ask?
As the dragons swept toward her and she began to run back the way she’d come, her heart was pounding, and the blood in her veins was like a torrent of lava. She’d drained her energy reserves dry already, but here they were coming to her rescue once again. Fear was good like that. Always had been. But would it be enough?
They were closing fast, and she’d never outrun them. If she could just manage the change…
A colossal roar erupted behind her, and she was blown from her feet by a gust of fetid breath.
NAMELESS
Nameless hadn’t imagined it being like this. The last of the dwarves fleeing from the minions of the Lich Lord, carrying with them the trinkets of a dying civilization, should have been somehow heroic, an epic struggle against the odds. It should have been the final dark before their triumphal return to center stage in the world.
Instead, he meandered through a scattered camp of very ordinary folk, courageous only by virtue of still being alive, still hoping against hope.
The stench of piss and shit wafting from their improvised latrines told him one thing, and one thing alone. They were flesh and blood, not the stuff of legend; meat just waiting to be consumed. Sad thing was, they’d taken heart from his rhetoric, and many of them forced tired smiles as he passed.
The eyes still said they didn’t trust him, though. Some said even worse than that, but there was a grudging feeling of thanks nevertheless.
Words. That’s all he’d given them. No substance, when all was said and done. But what was really troubling him was that they were the words the Corrector might have used, had Shadrak not put an end to his rein of terror.
Nameless shook his head. Who was he now? What had he become? He couldn’t quite shake off the dread that he was still the Ravine Butcher, just waiting for some malign influence like the black axe to call forth the evil that was already there, lurking deep inside him like a trapdoor spider ready to spring on its unsuspecting prey.
It felt like everything he knew about himself, his habits, his jokes, his customary remarks, was just crumbling bricks and mortar. Even Lucius was more than he was. Poor dead Lucius. Least he still had a name. Least he was remembered for something other than blind butchery, even if it was folly. And Targ still spoke highly of Droom, like he was some god of virtue, and Yyalla, the mother Nameless had never seen, the paragon of dwarven strength, who’d sacrificed herself that her second born son might live.
Nameless stood on the spot and turned a slow circle. The white robes of the councilors were clustered around Cordy and Targ. The old boy was giving as good as he got, by the looks of it, but his face was redder than bellows-heated steel. Time was, Nameless would have felt obliged to stand with him, add his voice to the fray, but he was no longer sure what words would come out, whether he’d hinder or help. Whatever it was he’d said back there that so lifted the people, it wasn’t anything remotely familiar. He may as well have been possessed, just like he’d been back at Arx Gravis. He tightened his grip on Paxy’s haft. Maybe he had been. He glared at the dual-bladed axe head. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.
He ambled out to the semicircular barricade made by the carts.
The goats had been tethered to stalagmites, their noses shoved in feed bags. The carts were tarp-covered and overflowing with glittering junk that may as well have been a millstone. He peeked through the canvas of a couple. All right, so there were tools and the like, clothes and kegs of booze, but at least a few were packed with gems and gold, sacks of unprocessed ore. Fat lot of good it’d do when the feeders came.
The third cart he checked was laden with barrels. He could tell what they contained by the flame symbol etched into the wood of each, the smell of sulfur that wafted out when he drew back the tarp.
“Can I help you?” someone growled from the far end, behind a stack of barrels.
When no one moved, Nameless climbed up into the tray and hefted a few kegs to one side, making a passage between the others.
A dwarf lay upon a pallet, caked in his own muck. The stench was worse than the latrines, heavy with corruption. His legs were wound with weeping bandages and splinted from the hips down. When he pushed himself up on an elbow, Nameless recognized him and took a step back.
Rather than the expected abuse, though, Cairn Sternfist merely gazed from one ruined leg to the other.
“Reckon they’re infected,” he said. “Problem with being on the move. Old Moary said he’d see to them, but I guess he’s too busy.”
“Meeting of the Council,” Nameless said.
“That’s me shogged then.”
Nameless frowned, but then a thought struck him. “My axe. Sometimes, when I’ve been hurt, she—”
“What?” Cairn said. “The magic axe heals you? Well, not this dwarf it don’t. It’s shogging magic axes got us into this predicament, I reckon, so I ain’t having one mess with me. Tell you what, though, Butcher, I go down, I take a shit load of ’em with me.”
Cairn wagged around a length of fuse wire he held between his thumb and forefinger. “All I’ve gotta do,” he said, lying flat so he could rummage in his pocket, “is get this here pipe smoking, and I’m armed to the teeth.”
“But there’s enough black powder in here to bring the whole cavern down,” Nameless said. “What about the others?”
“That’s your concern, Butcher. Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna do nothing rash. But those things come and I can’t get away, they ain’t eating this dwarf raw. I’m gonna give ’em a roasting.”
Nameless saw the resolve in Cairn’s eyes, the calm of a long-simmering despair. There was no point arguing, that was plain.
“I’ll speak with Old Moary,” he said. “See what can be done.”
“Yeah,” Cairn said, popping the stem of his pipe in the corner of his mouth. “You do that.”
No sooner had Nameless stepped out of the cart, than he saw Weasel emerge from another. The rogue jumped half out of his skin but then tri
ed to make light of it.
“Gaw, Butcher… I mean, Mr. Nameless Dwarf, what you trying to do, make me shit my britches?”
“Weasel.”
“Public service, before you ask,” Weasel said, producing a notebook and waving it about. At the same time, Nameless saw his left hand disappear behind his back, and Weasel gave a slight wriggle, as if his loin cloth had got caught in the cleft. “Bit of the ol’ stock taking. You know, facts ‘n’ figures.”
“On the orders of the Council?” Nameless asked.
“Well, not exactly, but they’ll be pleased all the same. Listen, Nameless, back there, after your speech, I took the liberty of offering a little wager. Amazing how many folks jumped at the chance, what with the economy being so shaky an’ all.” He ran his eyes over the carts to illustrate the point. “Got you down as odds on favorite to be king when this is all over.”
“Bah,” Nameless said and turned away. There’d been no king of the dwarves since Maldark’s day, and he’d bet a gallon of mead no one here could remember the shogger’s name. Arx Gravis had been a republic as long as anyone could remember. An ineffectual one, granted, ruled over by a prevaricating council of professional procrastinators, but a republic nonetheless.
“It’s what the people want,” Weasel said. “Strong leadership. All this caution and indecision is wearing a bit thin.”
“I’m not listening,” Nameless said as he walked away. It had been bad enough being a self-appointed dictator, but a king… now that was something of a different order. The kings of old had been almost sacred figures, their authority stemming from the Supernal Realm. No dwarf he’d ever met, save for the crumbling skeleton of King Arios of Arnoch, even remotely fitted the bill, and in any case, no one in their right mind would ever want the Ravine Butcher to lord it over them.
Someone tugged on the back of Nameless’s belt. Instinct made him whirl round, axe held high, but he froze when he saw it was a dwarf boy, beard all short and fluffy. An even younger dwarf, a girl, watched sullenly from just behind. The boy didn’t even flinch at the axe, for which Nameless was thankful and not a little impressed.
“Wow, is that the axe you used to kill everyone with, Mr. Butcher?” the boy said.
Nameless drew in a long, deep breath and lowered Paxy, doing his best to hide her behind his back.
“No, laddie. No, she’s not the one.”
“She?” the girl said.
“Uh huh.” Nameless tried to smile but stopped when the girl narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
The boy gave the air a flurry of jabs and crosses, bobbing and weaving like a pro. “Saw you whoop that Jaym in the circle,” he said. “Pow, wallop, bang. What’s it like, Butcher? What’s it like fighting for real?”
Nameless rubbed his beard and tried to look stern. “It’s… It’s…” What could he say to a child? That it fired the blood? That it made him feel alive? Maybe he should adopt the responsible approach and talk about horrific injuries, blood feuds, the abuse of power. He had it on the tip of his tongue, something about the strong protecting the weak, but it sounded like someone else’s idea.
The boy was watching him expectantly, waiting for the wise words that weren’t likely to come any time soon. Nameless sighed and changed tack.
“Butcher’s not my name. My real name is…”
And there was the clincher. He’d always felt it was daft to make a name out of a lack of one, but that’s what his friends had done. Probably they’d needed something to call him by, and he’d grown used to it, but here, telling a child his name was “Nameless”… the utter stupidity of the sobriquet hit him full on.
“Pa says you’re the Butcher,” the boy said.
The little girl crossed her arms and pouted, one eyebrow raised.
“Well,” Nameless said. “Have to honor your pa, I guess.”
“Hernin!” a man yelled, striding from a cluster of sacks and crates, a half-eaten strip of jerky clutched in one hand. “Get back here now!”
The boy’s face creased up, and he shot Nameless an apologetic look. “Sorry, Butcher. Got to go.”
He ran to the man and received a clip round the ear.
The girl shrugged.
“Your pa, too?” Nameless asked.
“Could say that,” she said. “Don’t much feel like it since Ma died.”
A clamp fixed itself around Nameless’s windpipe. Images of slaughter churned up from the dark, the whites of eyes, rictus grins, and death masks.
“Did I?” he stammered. “I mean, your ma, lassie. Did I…”
“No,” the girl said. “The wasting took her.”
There were no tears in her eyes. She said it matter-of-factly, as if everyone knew.
“Pa hates you for what you did back home,” she said, “but Hernin thinks you’re cool. Hernin’s such a kid.” Spoken like an adult, in spite of the fact she must have been a few years younger than her brother.
“What about you?” Nameless asked, hardly wanting to hear the answer.
“Me? I think you’ll save us.”
With that, she turned on her heel and sauntered after her pa and Hernin.
“Aren’t people supposed to lock up their sons and daughters when you’re around?” Cordy said as she approached.
Nameless didn’t need to look at her to know she was smiling. Typical Cordy humor, that, the sort she usually reserved for her friends. It should have been a good thing, only there could be nothing good between him and Cordy nowadays. Some things just couldn’t be fixed.
“Council meeting finished?” he asked.
“You’ve got to be joking. Old Moary’s barely gotten through his preamble. Poor Targ is getting redder by the minute trying to get a point across without them dissecting it from every angle. Told them I needed to pee. Couldn’t think of any other excuse. Don’t reckon Targ’ll be far behind.”
“You told them that?” Nameless risked a look at her face.
Crow’s feet had sprung up around her eyes, and there were wrinkles he’d never noticed on her brow and etched around the edges of her lips.
“What else is a girl to do? One moment longer, and I’d have had to butcher the whole bunch…” She caught herself mid-sentence and grimaced. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, lassie,” Nameless said. “No harm done.”
Silence fell heavily between them. Cordy shuffled from foot to foot, turned her head to look back at the Council gathering, tried to smile, and ended up delivering a sigh like a ruptured bellows.
“Look,” she said. “Back there, what I said about Thumil being proud…” She reached out and lightly brushed the back of his hand with her fingers. “I meant it.”
She was inscrutable, her eyes like smeared glass. There was the faintest trembling of her bottom lip, a softening of her expression.
Nameless tried to grip her hand, give it a reassuring squeeze, but she swept away from him without so much as a backward glance.
“Stop watching her ass, son,” Targ said, striding up and slapping him on the back. “Come on, we got us some exploring to do.”
“They finished?” Nameless said, looking at the dispersing Council.
Nip Garnil and Castail hung back to confer, and Yuffie stomped off by himself.
“Have now,” Targ grinned. “Just have to know how to talk to these pussies.”
Old Moary could be heard barking orders, and a dozen or so Red Cloaks headed for the iron ladder and started to climb high above the cavern. A dozen more headed back down the entrance tunnel, and still more took up positions behind the barricade of carts. Crossbows were wound and quarrels counted out.
“Bound to dig their way through sooner or later,” Targ said. “And I’d bet a baresark’s codpiece them smaller vents could bring ’em right down on top of us.”
Nameless looked up to where the last of the soldiers was disappearing up the ladder, legs lost behind a twisting stalactite.
It seemed Targ had been doing everyon
e’s thinking for them, Nameless’s included.
“That door over yonder, one I was telling you about,” Targ said. “Looks a whole lot like the volcanic engineering we pioneered at Mount Sartis.”
He hawked and spat. Mount Sartis was a sore point with the sappers. All that planning, all that work, only for the Council to cancel the project due to an infestation of goblins.
“They been channeling the lava flow, I’d say. Prob’ly holding it in sinks or reservoirs at various points. With energy like that, could be forges all over the place, piled high with ore and ready for mass production.”
“Assuming there are no goblins,” Nameless said.
“Shog off.” Targ gave a yellow-toothed grin. “I’m heading down the south tunnel.” He pointed at the far end of the cave, opposite where they’d come in. “Few of the lads are coming with me, but we’d be glad of some protection.”
“Consider it done,” Nameless said, and cast his eyes about for Duck, Jaym, and the others.
NILS
Nils was so hungry, he fantasized about taking a chunk out of Blightey’s arse and wiping the blood from his chin. Must’ve been the nearness of the feeders pressed all around his protective silver sphere, clogging the tunnel in front and behind. Thing that turned him off the idea was that Blightey might enjoy it. Other thing was that it was technically Silas’s arse, and Nils didn’t rightly know where it had been.
Blightey, on the other hand, had stuffed his face with snack after snack that he’d magicked out of thin air—smoked cheeses, oven-fresh cobs, rashers of bacon, all washed down with a never-emptying glass of red wine. The alcohol seemed to have no effect on him, and the gorging just looked plain wrong, what with the Lich Lord being skinny as a rake. He’d got that from Silas, course. Mind you, his head was just as gaunt as the rest of him, practically a skull covered with a filmy layer of skin. From what Nils had seen back at the forest of tar, that’s all Blightey was: a skull, lit from within by the fires of the Abyss. Everything else was either borrowed or an illusion.