Revenge of the Lich (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 3)

by D. P. Prior

  Targ watched them and shook his head. “Ain’t exactly attentive now, are they?”

  “Moary,” Nameless called, but the councilor may as well have been deaf.

  Jaym turned back. “Want me to tell them to stop?”

  “Might earn you a drink,” Nameless said.

  The baresark glowered but then forced a smile, which if anything was scarier than his scowl.

  “Hold up, you shogging shoggers, before I cut your balls off and feed them to you with your own shit for sauce!” he roared, watching Nameless for any reaction.

  “Nice,” Nameless said. “Like your style.” He turned back to Targ. “What is it?”

  “Would’ve thought Droom’s son would’ve spotted this.”

  “It’s a wall, Targ, just like we’ve been passing since we left the cavern.”

  “Is it?”

  Nameless pressed his face to the rock and squinted. “Yep.”

  Targ tutted and led him back a few feet. “Look again, only this time, cross your eyes.”

  “Cross them how?”

  “Like this.” Targ put a finger in front of the bridge of Nameless’s nose. “Stare at my finger, and see what’s beyond it.”

  There was nothing but a blur. Nameless was about to give up, but then he saw it: a hairline crack in the shape of a rectangle. There was another, smaller, inside the first.

  “It’s a concealed door,” he said, suddenly feeling very dense.

  Targ shook his head. “And to think, you a miner’s son and all.”

  “Too much time on the surface,” Nameless said. “And not enough carrots.”

  “Maybe your eyes just got used to seeing nothing but arse.”

  Nameless looked round as the others came plodding back, looking for the cause of the hold up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You and the councilor. I seen the way you look at her.”

  “Cordy? Don’t be ridiculous. Do you have any idea what I did? Shog, Targ, you haven’t got a clue about women, have you?”

  Targ blew out his bottom lip. “All I can say is what I see.”

  “Well it’s not happening. All right?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Targ reached out a hand to stroke the rock of the concealed door, but the instant his fingers touched the rough surface, it flickered with an eerie blue light and vanished. In its place, there was a smooth rectangle of scarolite, and where the smaller outline had been, there was a panel, upon which were two studs, one green, the other red.

  “Well shog me for a deep gnome,” Targ said.

  That was miner-speak for homunculus. Nameless remembered his pa using it on occasion.

  “Well, whoopee shogging doo,” Grok said, shouldering Targ out of the way and holding his hand above the panel. “A magic door. Now, let me guess. Hmmm, this is a tough one. Oh, yeah, red closes the door, so green must open it.” He jabbed a finger toward the green stud, but Nameless dragged him aside.

  “Idiot. This was designed by the homunculi. What is it they’re known for?”

  “Shogged if I know,” Grok said, “but you just got yourself a whole new level of trouble.”

  With the speed of a striking snake, his dagger struck at Nameless. Paxy swung up of her own accord and deflected the blade. Before Grok could try again, Duck was in between them with his shield raised.

  “Don’t be a shogger, Grok.”

  “What?” Grok said. “You want some, too? He disrespected me.”

  “Disrespect this,” Jaym growled, and slammed the hilt of his sword against Grok’s head.

  Grok must have bitten his tongue, because blood dribbled from his mouth. His eyes rolled, he half-snarled, then he dropped like a stone.

  “Oh,” Nameless said, not knowing whether he was more surprised than disappointed. “I thought he’d…”

  “Nah,” Jaym said. “Anger don’t make you a baresark.”

  “No?” Old Moary said. “Then what does?”

  Jaym looked him in the eye, and Old Moary took a step back. “Madness,” the baresark said.

  Targ looked too preoccupied to pay them much attention. He was frowning at the studs and rubbing his beard. “Green to open, red to close. Makes sense, but the homunculi would know that and use it as a trap.”

  “So press red,” Kal said, removing his helmet, so he could run his fingers through his flattened and sweaty hair.

  “But what if they know we know they’d try to trap us,” Old Moary said. “Like a double bluff.”

  “Good point,” Duck said, “but we are rather assuming it’s a trap.”

  “Bound to be,” Targ said. “From what I hear, those shoggers don’t do nothing but trick folk and lead them to their doom. S’pose I could dig around, try to pry this panel off.” He fished out a chisel and wedged it underneath the cover plate. “P’r’aps I can disarm it.”

  “If there is a trap,” Duck said.

  “Well, if there ain’t, there’s no harm done, is there, son?”

  Old Moary shuffled nervously from foot to foot. “Now, let’s not be rash. Why don’t we sit down and—”

  “Debate, debate, till it’s too late,” Stupid’s voice came piping down the tunnel. “No time for talking, ’cause death’s still a stalking. What’s the delay? We must be on our… Oh.”

  The fool noticed the scarolite door and the panel. He continued to work his mouth, as if he might yet utter the final word of his rhyme, but then he dashed up to the panel and pressed the green button.

  A collective gasp went up from the group, but it turned to a sigh of relief as the door rose into the ceiling.

  “How did you—” Nameless started to ask, but Stupid silenced him with a raised finger and a sparkling glare. “A simple ‘thank you’ would be nice, as rice, but not lice. Pass the cheese, I’ll have a slice.”

  Nameless frowned. He had a hundred and one things he wanted to ask the idiot, but Targ had already put away his chisel and stepped through the doorway.

  “Wait here,” Nameless told the others, and he followed the sapper inside.

  Targ was beaming like a child at a cake stand. He twirled around, arms spread wide. “It’s a forge,” he said. “And what a forge!”

  He was right about that. It was a massive chamber with walls that were plastered smooth. There must have been half a hundred anvils dotted about the floor space, and great hooks hung from the ceiling, holding tongs and hammers, bevels and chisels. Here and there, grilles were set into the ceiling, presumably for ventilation. A bewildering array of fullers was laid out along the right-hand wall, each with intricate grooves and hollows for moldings of great complexity. In an alcove beyond that, there was a vast stack of ingots and a pile of unrefined ore.

  A forge dominated the left wall, a sizeable bronze pipe leading beneath it and attached to the biggest bellows Nameless had ever seen. The forge itself was covered with a sheet of scarolite, and there were two studs, like those on the door panel outside, set into its body.

  Adjacent to the forge, there was a granite slack tub, its interior green-stained and riddled with cobwebs. It looked like no one had plunged red hot metal into its cooling water for ages beyond reckoning.

  Nameless caught sight of a cast metal tube set atop a carriage-like contraption with two wooden wheels. “What the shog is that?” he asked.

  Targ didn’t even look as he answered. “Oh, that’s a cannon.” He was already reaching for the studs on the forge.

  “Cannon?”

  “Used to read about them as a boy. Pack one end full of black powder, ram a big rock down the other, and boom! Works even better with incendiaries.” He nodded to a stack of metal balls behind the cannon.

  Targ pressed the green stud, and the scarolite cover slid back to reveal a deep tray, also made from the black ore. There were tiny vents all along its base, which was coated with knobs of hard rock.

  “Needs a good clean,” Targ said, “but I’d bet my knackers it still works.” He promptly pulled out his chisel and started sc
raping away at the rocky buildup in the tray.

  “What’s this?” Nameless asked, spotting a brass wheel on the wall beside the forge.

  “Faucet,” Targ grunted as he worked. “But don’t turn it while I’m bent over the tray, for shog’s sake.”

  When he was finished, Targ cast his eyes about then rushed off to a corner, returning with a brush and a pan. He swept the debris from the forge tray and stood back to admire his work.

  “You any good at smithing?”

  Nameless took down a hammer and gave a resounding bang to an anvil. “I’m a dwarf, aren’t I?”

  “You tell me, son.”

  Nameless tugged on his ever-lengthening beard. It seemed a lifetime ago when he’d had his hair shaved out of shame. A beard was the mark of a dwarf, so he believed. There were always shoggers like Winso who thought they were trend setters just having a mustache, but the length of a dwarf’s beard was often the measure of the man… or woman.

  “Yes,” he said a little doubtfully. And then with more conviction, “Yes, I’m a dwarf, and yes, I can bloody well smith.”

  “Good.”

  Targ turned the faucet, and the vents in the base of the tray began to spit steam.

  “What’s going on in there?” Old Moary asked, poking his head through the doorway. “Oh, my word!”

  The others pressed inside, the sappers nodding and commenting on tools and implements, Kal and Duck examining the cannon.

  Stupid wandered around with, appropriately enough, a big stupid grin on his face.

  Jaym peeked through the opening, snorted, and then remained outside.

  “Pressure’s building,” Targ said. “And here she goes.”

  The stench of sulfur filled the air, then thick red fluid bubbled up from the vents, filling the basin with molten lava.

  “Give us a good blow of the bellows,” Targ said, rubbing his hands together.

  Nameless obliged, and the lava seethed.

  “Lads,” Targ called to the sappers, “fetch us some of those ingots.” He stripped down to the waist and was reaching for a pair of tongs, when they heard the first screams.

  “It’s coming from the cavern,” Jaym yelled, his footsteps pounding away down the tunnel.

  “Shog,” Nameless cursed and ran for the door. “Kal and Duck with me,” he said, his throat dry and rasping. “The rest of you, stay here.”

  “I’m coming,” Old Moary said, brandishing his hatchet and rushing from the room, eyes wide with fear.

  “Shog it,” Targ said, snatching up a forge hammer. “Me too. Can’t have this ‘Seven’ of yours being only six. Someone better wake Grok.”

  Grok was already groaning on his hands and knees when they emerged from the forge. “What’s up? What’s that shogging noise?”

  “Trouble,” Nameless called over his shoulder as he ran past.

  “Now you’re talking!” Grok recovered in an instant and overtook Nameless, hurtling down the tunnel like a demon.

  Nameless’s worst fears spun through his mind. What if they were too late? What if the feeders had found a way in and put paid to the dwarves? What if he never saw Cordy again? Not that he had a right to care.

  “Only… drawback… with this… shield,” Duck said from beside him. “Shogging… bitch… to run with.”

  Nameless had barely turned the first bend, when he ran into a ragged column of dwarves fleeing toward him. Jaym and Grok were barging their way through, but their progress had slowed to a crawl.

  “Out of the shogging way,” Grok spat. “Out of the way, or I’ll stick you.”

  “Coming through!” Nameless bellowed, and charged straight at the lead dwarf on the left.

  The man started and flung himself to the right, and those behind followed suit.

  Jaym adopted the same strategy, striding ahead like an unstoppable avalanche. Get out of the way or be crushed, his actions said, and no one seemed to want to argue.

  Grok hopped angrily from foot to foot in his wake. They were making better headway, but it wasn’t fast enough for him.

  When they reached the mouth of the cavern, Nameless spotted Cordy ushering the panicked crowd two by two into the tunnel. They were pushing and shoving each other, rippling and bulging like a turbulent sea.

  Terrible screams, screams that went on far longer than they should have, echoed about the cavern, but above it all, Nameless could hear bloodcurdling screeches, the rending of flesh, and the crunching of bone.

  As he pushed through into the cave proper, he saw a cluster of feeders pooling around the base of the ladder, while an endless stream of them climbed down from above. Their clawed feet splashed through the spreading sea of crimson, within which half-eaten limbs and gnawed bones stood out like flotsam.

  A team of crossbowmen had formed up behind the carts, aiming toward the tunnel they’d first entered by. Nameless hoped they hadn’t seen what he thought they’d seen.

  Confirmation was a heartbeat behind when a mass of feeders burst from the tunnel in a frenzy of bloodlust. The first rank fell to a hail of quarrels, and the row behind stopped to consume them. The rest, however, surged over their kin like a monstrous wave and bore down upon the carts.

  “The children!” Cordy screamed.

  Nameless followed her gaze to the foot of the ladder, where a pack of feeders had surrounded a couple of dozen screaming kids. Their escape route had been cut off by the beasts that had just slaughtered their parents, and they were being backed into the swell of feeders still spilling down from above.

  He hesitated, looking from the carts to the children. If the barricade was breached, everything was lost, and yet…

  “You and me go,” Duck said, making his mind up for him. “The rest of you, to the carts.”

  Jaym, Kal, Grok, and Targ sprinted for the makeshift barricade, even as another volley of crossbow bolts slammed into the attackers. If it hadn’t been for the creatures’ cannibalistic nature forcing them to stop and eat their own fallen, they’d have swamped the defenders in no time. As it was, their feasting gave the crossbowmen time to reload and Old Moary enough time to shamble into position beside his comrades. He looked haggard, Nameless thought as he ran after Duck. Should have made him stay behind.

  Duck slammed his shield into the back of a feeder, spun, and bashed another in the face.

  Nameless arrived just in time to cut one down as it leapt at a boy. He hacked left and right, black spray splashing his forearms, but then the screaming went up a notch as feeders started leaping from the ladder straight on top of the children. Red blood joined black, and Nameless bellowed in frustrated rage, tears spilling from his eyes and blurring his vision.

  “The ladder!” Duck cried, crushing a feeder’s skull with his mace.

  “Got you, laddie,” Nameless said, and flung Paxy with all his might.

  The air whistled as she arced above the fray and sliced right through the top of the ladder. It did little more than knock out a rung or two, and still the feeders came down. Paxy returned to his hand with a dejected purr.

  “If there’s any more juice in you, lassie, now would be good,” Nameless said, shaking the haft.

  Duck backed against the cave wall, two kids behind him and the protection of his shield. Feeders crashed against the iron time and time again, but there was no give in it.

  “To me,” Duck cried to the rest of the kids. “Get behind me.”

  A couple more made it, but there was no chance for the others. In desperation, Nameless threw Paxy at the ladder again, but this time he didn’t stay to watch. Unarmed and despairing, he charged into the pack assailing the children, punching, kicking, biting, elbowing. All he saw was a blur of teeth and claws. His fists met with satisfying crunches and cracks. Faces split, limbs snapped, and black blood spurted, but it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.

  “No!” he screamed, lashing out with everything he had. If he was just stronger, faster, bigger, even, he might save one child. Just one.

  Claws raked hi
s arms, tore at his mail shirt. Jaws fastened on his calf, but he dislodged them with a blow that crushed the feeder’s skull. More and more of the creatures threw themselves at him, until he was spinning, throwing them, beating them off, and panting so much his lungs were ready to burst.

  Duck was down on one knee, holding out against a mountain of feeders gnashing and slashing, seeking some way through to the children he protected.

  A fierce hammering and a metallic ringing reverberated around the cavern, distracting the feeders and giving Nameless enough room to back up beside Duck.

  “That all of them?” he asked, hardly daring to look at the four surviving kids.

  “All I could save,” Duck said, his face streaked with tears. “All I could save.”

  Paxy was whirling and spinning in midair, chopping apart the ladder rung by rung.

  Dozens of feeders plummeted to their deaths, until finally the flow stopped.

  The axe circled away, heading back to Nameless. At first, he thought she was going to singlehandedly hack into the rest of the feeders massed before him and Duck, but her flight stuttered, and she clattered nosily to the ground.

  Nameless reached for her, but a feeder snapped at his hand, and he withdrew it. Another leaped, but Duck bashed it aside with his mace.

  “Reckon we’re about shogged,” Duck said.

  Paxy shook and rattled her way along the ground, dragging herself closer to Nameless. He tried to reach her again, but the feeders pressed forward.

  Duck brained one with his mace and shoved his shield in another’s face. Nameless took the opportunity and lunged for Paxy, gripping her haft and swinging her in a wild arc that drove the feeders back.

  “Go,” he called to Duck. “Get those kids out of here.”

  “I’m not gonna argue with that,” Duck said.

  Nameless didn’t see if he made it. He just bundled straight into the pack, chopping with wild abandon.

  “Duck?” he cried. “Duck, you through yet?”

  There was no answer, which only made Nameless rage more. He danced a furious jig of death, thundering a two-fisted axe blow right through the midriff of a feeder and immediately reversing the stroke to take the head from another.

  Claws grabbed him from behind, but he stamped down on a foot so hard he heard the bones crack. He spun round and drove his head into the creature’s chest, goring it with the horns on his helm.