Geas of the Black Axe (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 2)

by D. P. Prior

  “How about you, laddie?” Nameless said, walking beside Shader into the mouth of the barbican. “A half, even. Something to wet the whistle.”

  “You can’t drink, remember?”

  Nameless rubbed the top of his great helm. “Oh, shog, I completely forgot. Silly really, seeing as that’s why we’re heading to the Acad…”

  He dried up as they entered a long hallway lit by softly glowing crystals set into the vaulted ceiling. Fluted pillars ran in three evenly spaced rows, and polished wooden doors flanked both sides of the hall. Switchback railings formed a maze-like channel down the center, presumably for queuing people entering and leaving the city.

  Past that, the hall was dark and devoid of furnishings. The ceiling crystals there cast no light, and heavy cobwebs hung like drapes.

  Four signs marked the exits: “Visitors”, “Residents”, “Guilds”, and “Private”.

  A guard stepped from the shadows to usher them into a featureless gray corridor that took them to a squat chamber. Barred windows looked out onto a gloamy street. A couple of soldiers with crossbows watched from each. Between the windows, a massive oak door was fastened shut by three thick bolts. A man in a wrinkled toga stood to the side of it next to a waist-high table, upon which were stacks of booklets and papers. Apparently, Aristodeus wasn’t the only one to wear such a ridiculous garment.

  “Welcome, friends. Welcome to New Londdyr, bastion of the free and first city of Malkuth. My name is Lawson, your greeter today. Is this your first visit? Good, well, then you’ll need one of our exquisite street maps and a guide book, which details places of interest such as the Capitol, the Old Mint, our incomparable restaurant strip, the…”

  Shadrak sidled up to the table behind the man and pocketed something.

  “… Cotze’s Foundry, the Raymark Brewery—”

  “Let me see,” Nameless said, snatching the map from the greeter’s hand. “How much?”

  “We have a special discount this week only. A denarius for the book, half that for the map; but if you take both, we’ll work something out.”

  “Denarius?” Shader said. Then to Nameless, “Like back home.”

  “A lot of time and preparation went into the design, sir. I hardly think it’s too much to—”

  Nameless withdrew his purse and fished out a couple of silvers. “Just the map, laddie.” There was a fair bit of gold left, Made him wonder how much money Aristodeus had, that he could give it away so blithely.

  Shadrak rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve already nabbed one,” he mouthed.

  “Two sistercii.” Lawson shot Nameless a beaming smile. “That’ll do nicely. Thank you, sir. Have a great day. Uh, guards, would you be so kind…”

  One of the soldiers sighed and set about pulling back the bolts so that he could open the door.

  “Once again,” Lawson said, “welcome to our city.”

  THE ACADEMY

  Outside in the street, it could have been night, so dark were the shadows thrown by the Cyclopean Walls. Glowing crystals suspended from tall posts shed dirty yellow light in swaths upon market stalls bustling with activity. The bitter aroma of kaffa hung heavy in the air, and a brief gust of wind brought a whiff of pipe smoke through the slit of the great helm.

  Shadrak slid in among the crowd and disappeared.

  “There he goes again,” Nameless said. “Slippery little shogger, that one.”

  Shader spun round as if he’d been stung.

  “Sorry, guv,” a stoat-faced man said, snatching his hand away from Shader’s pocket. “Missed my footing.”

  Nameless took a step toward him, and the man slunk back into the throng.

  “Just like the Sanguis Terrae wharfs,” he said. “Pickpockets, waghalters, and rutterkins galore. The gnome should be in his element.”

  “Gnome?” Shader said.

  “Yes, you know, the homunculus. Miners call them deep gnomes, though you wouldn’t want to say that to their face.”

  Nameless unfolded the map he’d bought and tried scanning it through the eye-slit before giving up and handing it to Shader.

  “The city’s divided into dozens of squares,” Shader said. It’s almost a perfect grid. The Academy is north-east of here.”

  Shader glanced up, and Nameless followed his gaze to the smoking chimney they’d seen from outside.

  “That’s Cotze’s Foundry,” Shader said. “Only a couple of blocks from where we need to be.”

  They set out onto the high street and followed it north through the shaded market stalls, making their way around the scattered pavement tables and chairs in front of a bewildering array of eateries. The smell of roasted meat and garlic was torture to Nameless. He’d have given his right arm for a hot stew and a hunk of fresh-cooked bread.

  He led the way east down a side street labeled EW 41st. They must have been at the rear of yet more restaurants. Crates were stacked outside weatherbeaten doors, and here and there, refuse spilled from overturned cans.

  They turned north onto NS 20th and left the shadows cast by the Cyclopean Walls. The temperature went from cool and refreshing to muggy, and suddenly the stench of rotting food became overbearing. They’d gone barely twenty yards, when three dark figures stepped from an alcove. One of them snapped his fingers, producing a tongue of flame, which he used to light a weedstick. It might even have been narcotic somnificus, same as everyone said Councilor Yuffie smuggled into Arx Gravis. The other two raised crossbows.

  “Oh good,” Nameless said. “This is what I get up for in the morning.”

  Shader’s hand hovered above the hilt of his gladius.

  “Let me guess,” the smoking man said. “You got lost and just happened to wander into our territory? No, don’t tell me: You’re a pair of those underground holies come looking for converts. Am I close? No? Hows about you’re a couple of Night Hawks wanting to jump ship now there’s a new king on the dung-pile? See, thing is, no one comes down here less they’s really stupid or they got business with—”

  In one smooth motion, a shadow dropped down behind the trio, rolled left, lunged right, and the two crossbowmen crumpled into heaps.

  “Thing is,” Shadrak said, ramming a punch dagger into the smoking man’s kidney, “you got a big gob that’s just about starting to piss me off.”

  The man screamed, and his weedstick dropped to the ground. Shadrak kicked him in the back of the legs, sending him sliding off the dagger onto his knees.

  “Stop!” the man cried through a mouthful of bubbling blood. “Wait!”

  Shadrak whirled in front of him and rammed his elbow into his nose. There was a sickening crunch, and the man screamed.

  Nameless turned the great helm on Shader. “Give the gnome his due, he’s a tough little runt. Got the makings of a featherweight circle fighter, if you ask me.”

  “That’s enough, Shadrak,” Shader said.

  Shadrak picked up the still-burning weedstick. “Nothing’s enough for these types.” He jabbed the smoking end in the man’s eye, and this time the scream was even more shrill and terrible. “Show them one jot of mercy, and they’ll take it as weakness.” He burned the other eye and stood back to watch the man thrashing and whimpering on the ground.

  It wasn’t right, the way the assassin took pleasure in what he was doing, but you had to say, the shoggers had asked for it. Nameless had half a mind to step in and put the fellow out of his misery. He glanced at Shader and saw he was thinking the same.

  The thrashing subsided, and the man curled himself into a fetal ball. Shadrak bent over him and punched the dagger repeatedly into his skull. There was a grunt, a few twitches, and then nothing.

  “Shogging journeymen,” Shadrak said. “Hate the scuts.” He wiped his dagger on the man’s clothes and straightened up. “Place ain’t so bad,” he said. He threw Shader a paper-wrapped package. “Good food, lame city watch, and now what sounds like rival guilds ripe for the picking. Makes me want to set up shop.”

  The package contained
a hunk of fresh bread and a slab of cheese. Shader glanced guiltily at Nameless and then tore into it.

  “Sorry, mate,” Shadrak said to Nameless. “Had a turkey leg earmarked for you, and a bottle of wine, but then I remembered…”

  Nameless growled.

  By the time they reached the main street, Shader had wolfed down his bread and cheese and looked better for it.

  They emerged from the alleyway into a bustling shopping district, loud with the clatter of carts and the clip-clop of horses.

  They tagged along behind a man in a wide-brimmed hat and drab gray robe. He was handing out slips of paper to anyone who’d meet his eyes, weaving his way in and out of the central throng. As they passed a pavement restaurant sheltered by an awning, the man went from table to table leaving his slips for the diners. Some pocketed them surreptitiously, but others shook their heads or snapped their fingers at the waiters.

  When they came out the other side of the awning, the man was waiting. He looked through narrowed eyes at Shadrak and Nameless, then clasped Shader’s hand and gave a half-smile. He turned away and entered the open door of a three-story house nestled between two shops. A balding man peered around the jamb, checked the street both ways, then shut the door.

  Shader held the slip of paper he’d been left between his thumb and forefinger.

  “What’s that he gave you?” Nameless said.

  Shader passed it to him. There was a drawing on one side of a bird stabbing itself in the breast with its beak. On the reverse was written something in Old Dwarven, or whatever they called it here.

  Nameless shook his head and handed it back.

  “It’s Ancient Urddynoorian,” Shader said. “Same as what you call Old Dwarven.” He began to translate for Nameless. “O Dayspring, brightness of the everlasting light, Sun of Justice, come to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

  “Sort of thing Thumil used to spout,” Nameless said, “when he was drowning in his own vomit in Rud Cairy’s Mead Hall.”

  The memories were coming easier by the minute, but there were still great swaths of emptiness. He could recall all manner of inconsequential things: day to day life in the ravine, faces, places, customs. It was certain specifics that eluded him, things even closer to home; things that threw up an overwhelming wall of dread whenever he tried to think on them. It was all very well having a vague outline of what he was supposed to have done, but until he relived the events in all their stark horror, it was like hearing whispered rumors about someone else.

  Shader eyed the door, looking like he intended to go inside and speak with the man who’d handed him the paper.

  At the same time, Nameless saw something far more appealing:

  “Tavern!” he cried, setting off at a staggered run. He pulled up sharp and slapped the side of his helm. “Shog, shog, and double shog. I forgot again!”

  Shadrak was on him like a shadow. “Outfitters,” he said, pointing at the clothes store opposite. “My cloak, remember?”

  “Ah, laddie,” Nameless said. “You’ve a fine memory on you. Here, hold this.” He handed Shadrak his axe, ambled over to the store, and went inside.

  A bell rang as the door closed behind him, and an elderly woman looked up from behind the counter.

  “Oh my shog, a dwarf!” she said, coming round to get a closer look. “They said there was a dwarf in the city last year, but I never clapped eyes on him. And now, I have. Go on, luv, take your helm off.”

  “Last year?” Nameless said. “Madam, I’ve only just arrived.”

  “Then there must be two of you.”

  Another dwarf, leaving Arx Gravis to come to New Londdyr? “Are you sure of your facts, madam? I mean, where I come from, there are always stories of a monster in the lake, but no one seems to have seen one.”

  She circled him like a predator, lightly touched her fingers to his shoulder as she passed. “Not as short as I imagined,” she said. “And such muscles.”

  “Always like to keep in shape,” Nameless said. “As regards the helm, I’ll have to disappoint you. It’s stuck.”

  “I’ll get some butter, see if that’ll help.”

  “Really stuck,” Nameless said. “Utterly and completely.”

  “Oh… But do tell me you have a beard under there.”

  “A big one, lassie. Thick and bushy.”

  That seemed to please her. “So, tell me, sir dwarf, how can I be of assistance?”

  “I’m looking for a cloak, for my runty little friend outside.” He held his hand out level with his chest. “He’s so tall, and built like a half-starved fairy.”

  The shopkeeper gestured toward the far end of the store. “Have a look in our children’s section. There’s lots of bright colors, and some with embroidered patterns and sequins.”

  A few minutes later, Nameless stepped outside with a hessian knapsack and a sky-blue cape trimmed with gold.

  “You’re having a laugh,” Shadrak said, snatching the cape from him.

  “Thought it was rather fetching, laddie. It has a hood. All we need now’s a tinkling bell and you could earn a living as a prancing pixie.”

  Shadrak stormed into the shop with the cape.

  Nameless chuckled and pulled out the concealer cloak so he could stuff it into the knapsack.

  Shadrak eventually came out, his pale cheeks flushed scarlet. He was fastening a black cloak around his neck as he approached.

  “Now, why was that so hard?” he said, accepting the knapsack from Nameless.

  “Well, I just thought—”

  “Well don’t.”

  “It’ll draw the heat,” Nameless said to Shadrak’s retreating back. “And you still owe me a pint. Two, if you count the bag. I’m keeping a tally.”

  Shadrak held up his middle finger and kept walking.

  The street opened onto a crowded plaza, which was dominated by a three-tiered fountain sending up sparkling arcs of crystal-clear water. Sunshades had been set up all around the perimeter, where market stalls were bustling with trade and thick with the smells of fish, roasting meat, and ale.

  Nameless turned the great helm to face a beer tent jostling with raucous patrons clutching frothing tankards as big as buckets.

  “Oh, look,” Shadrak said, an impish grin crossing his face. “I’m right parched, I am. Reckon I might grab myself one of those.”

  “You do that, laddie,” Nameless said. “I would join you, but I never touch the stuff these days.”

  Shader studied the map and lifted his eyes to the broad avenue leaving the plaza on the far side. “Come on. It’s just off that road.”

  People were stopping to look up at the sky. Nameless angled the helm so he could see. Wispy fingers of mauve seemed to be clawing their way toward the city walls, but when he blinked, he realized it was a matter of perspective. The discoloration was still some way off.

  Shader had noticed it, too.

  “Don’t look good, mister,” an old woman said. “Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, I say.”

  Shader nodded, forced a smile. He started to say something, but an earsplitting boom rocked the plaza.

  Shader instinctively ducked and clapped his hands to his ears. All about the plaza, people were running and screaming.

  Nameless turned a circle, trying to locate the source of the blast, but there was nothing to be seen.

  “Just a clap of thunder,” Shadrak said. “Don’t know what all the—”

  There was a second boom, and this time the assassin swore and covered his ears. “What the shog is it?”

  Out of nowhere, rain sheeted across the plaza. Shader sprinted for the shelter of a doorway at the edge of the square. Shadrak was close on his tail, but Nameless merely ambled after them at his own pace. He’d heard worse during the storms at Arx Gravis, where the thunder would reverberate from the ravine walls, amplified tenfold by the time it hit the bottom.

  Stalls were swiftly covered, and within minutes the square was empty.

 
; “Funny thing about this rain,” Nameless said catching up with the others.

  “What?” Shadrak grumbled from beneath his hood. “It’s shogging wet?”

  “It’s falling sideways.”

  Lightning flashed, and a second or two later, there was another thunderclap. A dust devil stirred up the center of the plaza, spun into a covered stall, and dispersed.

  Leaving the shelter of the doorway, Shader led the way down the avenue. Fierce winds were gusting, and he gave up trying to look at the map.

  “Cotze’s Foundry.” He pointed above the rooftops at the smoke-spewing chimney. “Must be near.”

  “Want my advice?” Shadrak said. “Follow the geezer in the hat.”

  A man in a long gray coat and a chimney-stack hat was picking his way along the sidewalk, completely unfazed by the weather. It was like he was in a bubble of sunshine and calm.

  “That a wizard?” Nameless asked. It sure looked like a sorcerer from one of Droom’s tales. His heart thudded with excitement. Leaving the ravine was like stepping into a fairy story.

  They followed the man down a series of backstreets. The architecture started to change in subtle ways the further they got from the plaza, but after a while the difference was startling. Twisty narrow buildings leaned precariously over cobbled streets. Flying buttresses and arched walkways crossed overhead, and many of the buildings had burnished turrets, atop which flew flags of various designs: horse heads, skulls, green garlands, frogs, snakes, geometric shapes, pyramids of numbers.

  The man in the tall hat was down the far end of a narrow lane when they entered it. Shader redoubled his pace, but Nameless didn’t keep up with him.

  “What is it?” Shader cast over his shoulder.

  “Nothing, laddie.” Nameless waved him on. “I won’t be far behind.” Each word came with an effort. His mind filled with cold numbness. Where had it come from? Where had the black dog… But then it seemed obvious. They were almost there, and though he was hungry, whatever Aristodeus had in mind was likely to be as appetizing as a pint of Ironbelly’s. Worse was the indignity of needing the philosopher to feed him. Worse still was the thought that’s exactly what Aristodeus wanted: his dependence. But dependence no doubt at a cost.