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

by D. P. Prior

  Nameless stomped ahead, the clangor of his footfalls on the cold steel floor like bells tolling the end of the worlds. He heard a clatter and a rattle, the whoosh of air. He stopped dead and pressed himself against the wall. Shader did the same.

  A homunculus came through an open door pushing a metal trolley. He was dressed head-to-foot in gray. A white mask covered his mouth and nose, and his eyes were enclosed in clear goggles. Surgical instruments lay atop the trolley, and on the shelf beneath, there was pink-stained tubing and a glass bell jar smeared with blood. Something red and misshapen lay within, but before Nameless could get a good look, the man wheeled the trolley down an adjacent corridor.

  “Look,” Nameless said. “The shifty little shogger’s left the door open.”

  The instant he crossed the threshold into the vast room, Nameless was freezing. Frost rimed the walls, and set into the ceiling there were blue crystal globes and vents that gusted down chill air. The floor formed a walkway around a domed cage made from scarolite.

  Within the cage, a red-scaled and winged reptile, easily the size of a wagon, lay curled up and unmoving. One plate-sized eye was half-open, the sclera yellow, slit down the middle by a purplish pupil. Fangs like scimitars protruded from either side of its crocodile-snout.

  Low, rumbling breaths sent faint shudders through its scales, and plumes of steam rose from its cavernous nostrils.

  “Poor ol’ Rugbeard was right,” Nameless said. “Seems there were dragons, after all. Just never thought I’d see one in such a state. Have to wonder, though…”

  He pressed up close to the bars.

  “About what?” Shader said.

  “If there really was a Lord Kennick Barg to blow that dragon up with his balloon. If there really was an Arnoch.”

  Lacerations crisscrossed the dragon’s thorax, and a fresh incision that had been stitched with thick twine seeped blood and pus. Its forelegs had been hobbled, and its frost-dusted wings hung limply, pierced with sparking rings. Gossamer threads pulsing with beads of light trailed down from the top of the cage and attached to the rings.

  Shader moved around the walkway to the other side, and Nameless followed.

  Half the dragon’s skull had been removed, replaced with glass, and within, glowing metallic worms burrowed in and out of its exposed brain.

  Shader started as Nameless clamped a hand on his shoulder.

  “Come on, laddie. I’ve seen enough.”

  Leaving in silence that felt almost reverent, they continued past row upon row of sealed doors. Muffled noises came from behind some of them—chirps and growls, moans and gurgles. A few of the doors had windows, and through them they could see all manner of aberrations: tentacled things with the heads of women; giant clams that scuttled in frantic circles, snapping voraciously at invisible food; four-legged fish with cloven hooves; spiders with wings. In one cell-like chamber, there was an enormous bear with a glass bowl for a head, within which the brain had been divided into segments connected by copper wire. Its eyes were set on stalks that protruded from the bowl, and one of its arms had been replaced by a pincer harvested from some gigantic insect.

  When they reached a stairwell, Nameless led them up a floor to a sprawling hall, where dozens of the floating disks they’d ridden out of the poison gas carried homunculi up and down.

  If the creatures spotted them, they didn’t show it, and Nameless didn’t let Shader linger long enough to find out. They were immediately off into yet more labyrinthine corridors, until they reached another stairwell leading up to the next level.

  Nameless’s knees ached, and his calves were burning by the time they reached the top and emerged into a diamond-shaped room with a door set into one of its walls. It was open, and a sparkling silver trolley stood right outside. There were a number of steel implements on it—forceps, tweezers, a miniature saw—and a yellow sack of some glossy material hung from a hook at the top.

  “Either there’s a way through here,” Nameless said, “or we backtrack; though these ol’ stumpy legs of mine might have a thing or two to say about that.”

  Shader shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less. Either he was growing tired, or his resolve was ebbing once more. It wasn’t a luxury they could afford.

  Nameless stepped through the doorway, straight into the stench of rot, decay, death, and something astringent that made his eyes water inside the helm.

  And then he saw the cause of the smell.

  Tiny bodies hung from meat hooks. Babies. More were laid out atop burnished steel tables, and still others had been crammed into jars filled with greenish liquid. The lid of a long metal chest was partially open, with an infant’s foot sticking out of it.

  He backed straight out of the room, retching and groaning.

  “What?” Shader said, grabbing his shoulder. “What is it?”

  Nameless waved him away and bent double, clutching his stomach. After a moment, he let out a long sigh and straightened up. “Laddie, you don’t want to go in—”

  But Shader was already at the doorway. “Nous preserve us,” he said, covering his mouth and nose.

  Inch by inch, he crept into the room, taking in the grisly scene with an unblinking sweep.

  Nameless stood on the threshold, cradling his axe, drinking in the abomination. Was this what Sektis Gandaw saw as work? Was this how he wiled away the centuries?

  Shader turned back to the tables, studying their contents with an expression of horror and disgust.

  Nameless edged into the room to stand at his shoulder.

  There was something about the bodies lying upon the tables: their necks were arched at unnatural angles.

  Shader stepped in close and touched his fingers to a livid cheek, so he could move the head. He flicked a look at Nameless, as if communicating his revulsion could somehow lessen it.

  The baby’s spinal cord had been snipped just below the base of the skull. Same with the others. And they were all so tiny, smaller than any newborn Nameless had ever seen.

  “Are they—?” Shader started, but he seemed unable to form the rest of the sentence.

  “No, laddie. No, I don’t think so.” Nameless lifted a baby’s waxen arm and examined it. “Proportions are wrong for a dwarf. They’re human.”

  But the babies had no hands, just bloody stumps with protruding nubs of jagged bone. The feet were missing, too, as if they’d been crudely hacked off.

  Shader’s eyes widened as he noticed. He took hold of the table to steady himself, then edged toward the chest Nameless had seen coming in.

  When the knight lifted the lid, the foot that had wedged it open dropped to the floor with a dull thud. There were hundreds more inside, frozen in ice that had a pinkish tinge from the blood.

  Shader lowered the lid and slid to his knees. His head dropped, and his hands automatically clasped together, as if he were going to pray. His chin trembled, and the muscles of his neck began to spasm. His breaths came faster and faster, but when the explosion came, it was with a whimper. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “Why?” he muttered in the voice of a child. “Why take their feet?”

  Nameless staggered. Ice cracked deep within, and a thousand malignant faces spilled out, swirling about his mind like leaves churning in a gale. Demons assailed him from every side: red-winged demons with eyes of lightning. Shadow-formed devils that descended from overhead walkways on strands of spider web. They clawed and raked and slavered; they punched at him, tried to bury him beneath the weight of their scaly hides. He chopped and he hacked. Blood flew, ran from the walkways to pool at the foot of the ravine and stain the waters of the Sanguis Terrae red.

  And a demon came toward him, calling his name, but try as he might, he could not hear it.

  But it was pleading with him. Begging him. Its flashing eyes grew dull and brown.

  And then it was Kal’s face before him. Kaldwyn Gray, his patrol partner in the Ravine Guard. His friend.

  The axe came down. And in his heart of hearts, he knew
it was black, not golden.

  Nameless let out howl full of despair.

  He’d done it. There was no doubt now. This time, it wasn’t like hearing about it secondhand; he felt it right down to the marrow. They hadn’t been demons, they had been dwarves. Not red-wings, but Red Cloaks. Not shadow-forms but Krypteia.

  His anguished cries reverberated through the room, and Nameless sagged against the edge of a table.

  The nightmare scene drained away to the dark spaces within, leaving him once more face to face with the horror that had triggered it.

  “This is…” He turned the eye-slit on Shader. “Even I… with the black axe… I mean, I couldn’t have done such… Wouldn’t!”

  He let go his axe, and it clattered to the floor as he made his way over to Shader and took hold of his hand.

  “I killed them—my own people; hundreds of them. But not children. Not babies. I should have been stronger. Strong enough to resist. But no matter how weak I was, nothing could have made me do this.”

  He released Shader and held out an arm as he turned to take in the room. “Not even the the black axe could have made me kill a child.”

  He heard the scuff of movement, then Shader laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, my friend. You would have resisted it. From everything I’ve seen of you, you would have beaten it.”

  Nameless spun round and looked Shader in the eye. “Pray for me.”

  Shader took a step back. He swept off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair. “I—”

  “You prayed for Thumil back at the ravine. You blessed him and Cordy.”

  Shader nodded. He placed a hand on top of the scarolite helm and mouthed the words of a prayer. After a moment or two, he put on his hat and tugged it low over his eyes.

  “Thank you, laddie,” Nameless said. “Now you.”

  “What?”

  “Pray for yourself.”

  Shader scoffed at that, but Nameless grabbed him by the arm.

  “It’s what’s needed, laddie, if we’re to put a stop to this madness. Pray. For forgiveness, if that’s what you need. Pray that you break free of this stupor that’s followed you since the jail; but most of all, pray that you see this evil for what it is and have the courage to destroy it, all the way down to the roots.”

  He stepped back and pointed a finger at the gladius hanging from Shader’s belt.

  “With the tools you’ve been given.”

  Shader’s face reddened. His muscles clenched, and he narrowed his eyes.

  “Oh, I’ll fight evil, all right. With my bare hands, if I have to. But prayer… Even if I knew there was anyone listening, I wouldn’t hold my breath for an answer. And as for forgiveness!”

  “So, what you did to that guard back there,” Nameless said, “the one at the jail…”

  Shader opened his mouth to say something, but Nameless’s cut him off.

  “Are you saying there’s no forgiveness for what you did?”

  Shader sneered, and his eyes roved around the room, drinking in the senseless death, as if it somehow affirmed him in his guilt. “How could there be?”

  “So, what about me?” Nameless said.

  “What about—?”

  Nameless thrust the great helm up close to Shader’s face. “What about me? If you’re beyond redemption for losing control, where does that leave me? You only murdered one man. I slaughtered hundreds.”

  “It’s not a numbers game,” Shader said. “It doesn’t matter how many you killed; how many I killed—”

  “Matters to me,” Nameless said. “Matters a whole lot.”

  Shader gritted his teeth. “What I mean is, I acted from within. It’s who I am, and all this… this…” He fumbled his book out of his pocket and held it up. “This bullshit is just to keep me reined in, get it? Only, back at the jail, I was smarting so much, from what they did to me, to Tovin, the Wayist that died from their torture, it would have taken a damn sight more than pious scriptures to restrain me.”

  “No,” Nameless said, walking away to the far side of the room and facing the babies impaled on meat hooks. “There’s more to it than that. Has to be.” He moved a couple of bodies to one side, and peered behind them. He pointed at the closed door he’d uncovered.

  Shader nodded that he’d seen.

  “Thumil’s no fool,” Nameless went on. “He’d not waste his time studying and praying, if that’s all it was about.”

  “And he’s right,” Shader said, slipping the book back into his pocket. “But it’s beyond me right now. I don’t even know who I’m praying to anymore.”

  Nameless gave a last lingering look at the bodies then turned back. “Maybe you don’t need to know. Just pray, laddie. Head to the heart, Thumil used to say.” He bent down to pick up his axe, spat on the blade, and gave it a quick polish. “To be honest, I thought he was just drunk and rambling most of the time, but I’m starting to see the sense of it. Keep it simple.”

  He swept the axe up and brought it down hard on a table. It left a huge dent in the surface.

  “This,” Nameless said, stroking the head of one of the babies, “is evil. That’s enough to tell me we’re on the right side. Are you sorry for what you did to that guard? Really sorry?”

  A knot of emotions warred on Shader’s face—rage, despair, sorrow, shame. He lifted his eyes to the great helm. They were glistening with the tears that had not stopped falling.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Nameless said.

  Shader withdrew a pendant on a chain from beneath his surcoat. He made a fist about it, drew in a deep breath.

  Nameless made way for him as Shader leaned over the baby, touched two fingers to its forehead, and uttered a prayer.

  Tension sloughed away from him. He lingered a moment longer, then tipped his hat to the child.

  “Ready, laddie?” Nameless asked.

  Shader tucked his pendant back beneath his surcoat and nodded.

  His hand strayed to the hilt of the gladius. He flinched, as if expecting it to burn him, but then he curled his fingers around it and let out a sigh of relief.

  Nameless pushed through the hanging corpses till he came to the door. He angled the helm to try to get a good look at the panel through the eye-slit. All he saw was a blur of symbols. None of them made any sense to him.

  “Let me,” Shader said.

  He pressed a glowing triangle, and the door slid back.

  “I would have had it in another second or two,” Nameless said.

  The room beyond pulsed with a soft amber glow. Some kind of elliptical track ran round the center of the ceiling. Dozens of women were hung spread-eagled from it by metallic cords around their wrists. Their ankles were secured to a similar track on the floor. Their eyes were completely white, their mouths gaping. They each had the pallor of death, and yet their bellies were grossly distended, as if they were heavily pregnant.

  The tracks carried them forward a few feet and clunked to a halt. Snaking tubes rose from the floor and inserted into their abdomens, delivering a brownish fluid before retracting. The tracks moved them on another few feet, and the same thing happened again.

  “Let’s not linger here,” Nameless said, indicating a door on the far side.

  This one slid open as they approached.

  Nameless led the way into a hall so large, he couldn’t see the far side. All around the walls at ground level there were frosted oval windows. Each was as tall as Shader, and behind them, shadowy forms were moving.

  “Not sure I like the look of this, laddie,” Nameless said. “Ready to put up with some stumpy-leg grumbling?”

  Shader couldn’t take his eyes from the windows. “Leg grumbling?”

  “Back the way we came?”

  “Agreed.”

  The instant Nameless turned round, the door slid shut.

  Shader raced to the panel beside it. He pressed the dark glass, gave it a slap, but nothing happened.

  “Uh, laddie…” Nameless said.

  The frosting was me
lting away from the windows, and in some cases the glass—or whatever it was—was starting to bulge, where hands pressed against it.

  “Can’t go back,” Nameless said, “so that only leaves us one choice.” He slung his axe over his shoulder and headed out across the center of the hall.

  An arm burst through a window, pale fingers clutching at the air. There was no shattering of glass, just the tearing of some kind of clear membrane. The head was next out, stretching the membrane until it split.

  The face was human, though bloodless, and white eyes roved sightlessly back and forth. Where there should have been hair, wires were bundled up around the cranium, and a single red light was nestled in among them. The second arm punched through, this one an articulated silver tube that ended in a metal hand. Enough of the membrane had fallen away to reveal a shallow alcove behind it.

  Nameless looked round as Shader caught him up.

  “That sword of yours behaving, laddie?”

  Shader half-drew the gladius.

  “Good,” Nameless said. “Limber up.”

  Shader drew the gladius fully, as all about the room more limbs ripped their way free of confinement. He made a few practice strokes and rolled his shoulders.

  Creatures were starting to step from their alcoves as far into the distance as Nameless could see. Those either side were a good twenty feet off, lumbering, shuffling, lurching toward them. Their legs were braced with metal struts, and they wore what looked like steel sandals that whirred and clicked as they walked.

  They closed in front and back, their numbers swelling until they formed a circle around Nameless and Shader at least ten ranks deep.

  “All right, that’s far enough,” Nameless said.

  He pivoted and swung his axe in a murderous arc. The blades sparked across metal and threw up shreds of gray flesh that didn’t bleed. The creatures merely stumbled, then continued to press forward.

  “Shog,” Nameless said. “That doesn’t bode well.”

  Shader hacked at an arm, and the gladius sliced through dead flesh and steel with no resistance. The limb fell twitching and grasping to the floor. A slash across the neck sent the head flying, and the body crumpled.