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

by D. P. Prior

  “What the shog is that?” Dom Nilo said.

  Worried looks passed between the farmers. In the valley to their left, Jethor Lult’s phalanx seemed to lose cohesion. The archers on the other side began to nock arrows to wavering bows. Rabbit hounds yipped and barked, some of them moving to the crown of the hill and growling.

  “Big is what it is, laddie,” Nameless said, trying to inject lightness into his tone, as if he saw this sort of thing all the time. “Back home, I used to wrestle with the Sanguis Terrae monster.” He didn’t. He couldn’t even swim. “Now there was a beastie that would have eaten this wee nipper for breakfast.”

  It thrashed and wriggled its way onto the beach, a monstrous wyrm as long as the line of reavers was wide. Its segmented body was mottled purple and black. As it crawled inland, water cascaded from its glistening scales. It reared up and swayed, scenting the air. And that’s when Nameless saw its maw: a bristling circle of saber-length fangs, within a jutting ring of mandibles like a crab’s.

  “Reminds me of a lassie I once knew from the wharfs,” Nameless said. “She was a baresark, and fiery as a dragon’s sneeze. Had me scratching for a week and passing shards of glass instead of water.”

  No one was listening.

  The beast started to snake its way toward the phalanx.

  “Draw it off,” Nameless said to Dom Nilo. “Lult’s men will be slaughtered.”

  Arrows looped into the sky from the left flank. Most fell short, but the one or two that hit bounced off and stuck in the sand.

  “Draw it off how?” Dom Nilo said.

  “Those bottles you brought, laddie. Put them to some use.”

  “It’s way out of range,” Dom Nilo said.”

  “Then it’s time we got closer.”

  Nameless started down the slope facing the sea as sure-footed as a ravine goat. The few brave enough to follow him scooted down on their backsides. He glanced behind to see who’d come and who hadn’t. The majority of the force remained atop the hill, but five men were with him, among them Dom Nilo and Borlos. All of them held two bottles. He only hoped it was enough.

  The behemoth issued a gaseous belch. The beach shook as it drove a furrow through the sand. Its mandibles clacked as loud as thunder.

  Jethor Lult ordered, “Brace!”

  Pikes so long they passed from the back ranks to the front were brought to bear. Tips whittled to razor sharpness poked a good six feet ahead of the front line.

  The monster surged straight at them, the wind of its roar buffeting the phalanx and driving the men back.

  “Now!” Nameless yelled.

  Five bottles sailed overhead. Three of them struck the wyrm and burst into flames. The other two landed softly in the sand and failed to break.

  The beast howled and swung its ghastly head toward the bottle-throwers. It changed course like arcing lightning, and barreled up the side of the hill.

  Five more bottles shattered against its hide, and the monster was engulfed in flame. But still it came on.

  “Run!” Nameless yelled, not checking to see if anyone obeyed.

  And then he bellowed “Kunaga!” and hurtled downhill to clash with the beast.

  Its flaming head whiplashed down, but Nameless rolled beneath it and came up, slinging a thunderous blow into its underbelly. The axe bit deep, and dark ichor spilled. He wrenched the axe free and spun to meet the head snaking round behind him. He stared into its venomous maw as it shot down at him. A deft twist, a well-timed strike, and he shattered its teeth. It thrashed and shuddered, coils of segmented body rolling up the beach.

  Lult’s phalanx slammed into its flank. Sapling pikes tore through its hide, some coming out the other side. Flames leapt from its burning body and erupted along the shafts. The men had no choice but to let go and draw chipped and rusted swords.

  The reavers saw the opportunity and charged at Lult’s unprotected flank.

  Arrows rained down from the left-most hilltop. A handful of reavers fell. The rest continued, yowling cries that betokened slaughter.

  Then rabbit hounds were among them, snarling, worrying, rending.

  Nameless ducked beneath the monster’s head, and it passed over top. Heat from the alchemical mixture blazing across its scales scorched his shoulders, but the scarolite helm drew most of it in and nullified it. The wyrm back-lashed violently and flung him across the beach. He landed heavily, but the sand was soft. Borlos ran in between him and the questing head of the beast.

  Lult’s men broke off from the wyrm to defend themselves against the reavers. The two forces clashed with a tumult of roars and steel on steel. Dogs scurried in and out of the fighting, nipping at friend and foe indiscriminately.

  Bottles sailed overhead, shattering among the reavers and sending dozens of them screaming toward the sea.

  Smoke billowing from its blistering hide, the wyrm let out a thunderous roar. It homed in on Nameless as he found his feet, but when it darted forward, the air around Borlos shimmered. His clothes burst apart in tatters, and his body suddenly swelled to twice its size. Scales sprouted to cover his naked skin, and bony plates jutted all along his spine, which extended into a sinuous tail. His face grew long and snouted, and powerful jaws like a gator’s cracked open as he half-hissed, half-roared.

  The wyrm slammed into him, and Borlos caught on fire. His jaws clamped down, and he ripped out a huge chunk of flaming flesh. The wyrm rolled, tried to dislodge him, but Borlos raked for purchase with razor-sharp talons. He ripped, and gouged, and pummeled, and then he was screaming as he began to melt under the heat of the flames.

  Nameless ran in and delivered a woodman’s chop with the axe. The head bit true, but flames licked up the haft and he had to abandon it.

  A bloodcurdling cry from behind had him turning—straight into the path of a cutlass. He swayed aside and caught the reaver with a punishing hook to the temple. A dozen more came at him before the first had hit the ground, murderous looks on their corpse-livid faces.

  Taryn Glave ripped into them like a demented goddess of war. No matter the reavers’ size, she seemed to dwarf them with her sheer ferocity. Her spiked club bludgeoned and bashed. Skulls cracked, arms broke, and by the time they reacted to her onslaught, half were already down.

  The death throes of the wyrm sent its tail scything through the reavers. Those that weren’t crushed burst into flame.

  All along the beach, blazing reavers were diving into the sea, but when they touched the water, the flames surged higher, until all that was left was charred carcasses bobbing on the waves.

  Jethor Lult urged his men to regroup, and led them in a final rout of the reavers, driving them back to their boats.

  On the beach, the wyrm gave a last shuddering roar, and lay still.

  Melted to its side in a blistered heap was the lizard-formed corpse of Borlos the Skink.

  ***

  “Thirty-three dead, fifteen more injured badly enough to need your ministrations,” Jethor Lult reported to Dom Nilo.

  The beach was strewn with bodies, most of them reavers. The last of the enemy boats was no more than a black speck vanishing into the polychrome mist.

  “Used to be a surgeon, back in the day,” Dom Nilo explained to Nameless.

  “That before Pellor?” Nameless said.

  “Aye, before Pellor. Poor old Borlos never quite shook off his Maresman suspicion of anything that comes by way of Qlippoth. But what I learned in Pellor, the lore they garnered from the Stygians: you have to see, not everything that comes from the other side of the Farfalls is the big evil menace the Senate of New Londdyr would have us believe.”

  Nameless shrugged. “The way they tell it back home, Qlippoth’s a land of nightmares.”

  “It’s that, too,” Dom Nilo admitted, “and you’d not catch me setting foot across the Malfen Pass.”

  Nameless found himself in agreement. The way he saw it, after so many years in the ravine, Malkuth had more than enough wonders for him to see without him needing to go explorin
g the worst dreams of the Cynocephalus.

  Villagers started to gather together, giving each other congratulatory hugs. A cluster formed around Nameless, and before he knew it, they hoisted him overhead. They threw him in the air and caught him, over and over again. Cheers went up, along with cries of “Nameless! Nameless! Nameless!”

  When they set him down, he was moved to tears. He’d not felt anything of the sort since Arx Gravis, and even then it had been back before Thumil and Cordy had married, before Droom had died. Before Lucius and Gehenna, the black axe and the butchery.

  He could have gladly set up home here among these people who didn’t ask questions about his past, and who accepted him for what he was. Even the fact he was encased in a black helm drew only the most cursory of glances. They were practical folk, from all manner of hard lives. And they all had buried secrets that no one in Arnk gave a flying shog about.

  Jethor Lult grasped Nameless by the wrist. “Thank you, Nameless. I saw what you did, how you charged that thing and drew it away from my lads. That was a brave act, and well done.”

  The survivors of the phalanx grouped behind Lult, all nodding their respect at Nameless.

  “Reason I never got a command in the legions was because I couldn’t improvise,” Lult said. “I was fine following orders, and knew all the basic strategies, but do something unexpected, and I fall apart.”

  “You did fine, laddie. You all did. You should be proud of yourselves.”

  Dom Nilo clapped a hand on Nameless’s shoulder. “Sure I can’t persuade you to change your mind? I mean, Arnk’s a fledgling community, but these are good folk. You’d be more than welcome.”

  “Aye, laddie, I know. And I’m, glad to call you my friends. But I’ve a feeding due in a couple of weeks, and Arnk’s about as far from the Perfect Peak as you can get.”

  Dom Nilo frowned at mention of Sektis Gandaw’s mountain. “So, you’re still heading west, then. You want to bypass Portis. Whole place stinks of fish, and I hear it’s at the heart of the somnificus being shipped to New Londdyr. Brink’s where you want to head for. It’s midway between here and the Dead Lands. It’s supposed to be the up and coming town, but I’ve never felt inclined to head that way and see for myself.”

  “Brink, eh, laddie? Am I going to need a map?”

  “Pah!” Taryn Glave said.

  Nameless hadn’t seen her approach. She was spattered with blood, and the spiked end of her club was drenched with it.

  “Follow the Origo River to the Chalice Sea, then go cross-country as the crow flies. My people used to raid there, before the Senate sent garrisons to protect the townsfolk.”

  “Brink it is, then,” Nameless said. “Obliged to you, lassie.”

  She hawked and spat at her feet.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t do the same,” Nameless said. “Spitting in a great helm is something I’ve learned to avoid.”

  “Here,” she said, handing him a costrel. “You should fill it from the Origo. The water is good there. Cool and pure.”

  He was about to tell her there was no need. The fluid Aristodeus had pumped into his stomach last time was some wonder of the Ancients on Urddynoor. Apparently, it replicated water, enough to keep him hydrated for a month, and while he might still experience pangs of hunger, his body had all that it needed for energy and repair. He decided to accept the gift. He could sense it was a rare gesture from Taryn Glave. Even the spitting was probably a mark of respect.

  “Thank you, lassie. I’ll think of you when I drink from it.” What he’d probably do was pour a trickle through the eye-slit to cool his face, and maybe use the rest to douse his feet after a long day’s walking.

  The longer he stayed, basking in the villagers’ thanks, the harder it would be to leave, and so, with the shake of many hands, and a promise to return when he could, he pointed himself in the direction of the setting suns and headed out for Brink.

  BIRD

  Brink was a shog-hole, a den of scuts and waghalters.

  Nameless’s first thought when he passed the outlying smallholdings and entered the main street was to pass right on through and spend another night beneath the stars.

  Most of the buildings were boarded up and looked set to crumble into dust. The few that were still in use were scabby with peeling paint, and tiles were missing from roofs. Those that had windows had broken windows, and no one had bothered to sweep up the glass. The gutters were oozing with filth, and if it wasn’t rats scampering through it, it was unwashed children looking like they were panning for gold.

  A big old building that used to be a bank, judging by the signage, had been converted into a barracks. Legionaries in soiled cloaks and scuffed-up sandals loitered about outside, smoking weedsticks and drinking kaffa. They looked up as he passed, then went on chatting among themselves, as if it were every day a dwarf in a scarolite helm came waltzing into town. The impression it gave was that they’d seen it all before, or they didn’t give a shog.

  Further along the road, a storefront stood out from the rest of the ramshackle shops selling their tawdry wares like a diamond in a dung pile. It had an enormous window of unbroken glass that was polished clear as crystal. Lettering had been engraved upon the glass in swirling white script:

  JARK SVENTIN: MASTER JEWELER.

  A man in an immaculate gray tunic looked up from behind the counter as Nameless peered in through the window. He glided to the door and cracked it open so he could poke his head out. His face was tight with suppressed irritation, and there was the barest wrinkling of his nose. He tilted his eye-glasses so he could peer over them.

  “Sventin. Jark Sventin, at your service. How may I help you?”

  “Nice store you keep, laddie,” Nameless said.

  “I know. But I should warn you, quality comes at a price.”

  Nameless stepped back from the window and gazed down the street. “Oh, I’m not looking to buy, laddie, unless you sell axes. Last one I had was more suited for chopping wood. It had the balance of a drunkard, and chafed if I gripped it too hard.”

  Sventin indicated the lettering on his window with a theatrical sweep of his arm. “This, sir, is a jewelers, not a blacksmith’s. Might I suggest you try Gifforn’s forge over on the far side of town. You can’t miss it, what with all the clangor and smoke.”

  “Thank you, laddie, I will. Now, tell me, where would you recommend for an overnight stay?”

  Sventin whipped off his glasses and came to stand conspiratorially at Nameless’s shoulder. “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t. As you can see, Brink’s on the rise as a town, but that doesn’t mean it’s there yet. But we will get it there, mark my words. There are big investors starting to take an interest—an ex-Senator among them—and I have personally financed the bringing of law enforcement to town.”

  “You have?”

  “Sheriff Orton.” Sventin looked up and down the street, as if he were hoping the sheriff might materialize. When he didn’t, Sventin said, “Look, Brink might have been a free-for-all not too long ago, but we have standards now. Or rather, we are trying to establish them. I’m sure you have the best of intentions, but the helm and the armor: it creates the wrong impression.”

  “Is that right?” Nameless said.

  “Oh, I mean no offense. It’s just, times change, things move on.”

  Nameless caught sight of activity on the verandah of a three-story building a few doors down.

  “That a hostel, laddie?”

  Sventin scoffed. “That, sir, is virtually a brothel.”

  “Is it now?”

  Leaving Sventin standing there shaking his head, Nameless went to take a look for himself.

  A man with slicked-back gray hair, a mustache like an anaemic caterpillar, and wearing a grimy white toga stood on the porch of the hostel, engaged in animated negotiations with a thick-set woman. From what Nameless picked up, the man was interested in buying the property. The woman merely nodded as she wiped her hands on her apron. The impression she gave was th
at she thought the man a pompous ass, but she was too polite to tell him.

  “Madam,” Nameless said, “do you have a room available.”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “No,” the man said. “I’m sorry, but the hostel is in the process of changing hands. You might find lodgings with one of the locals. They’re always glad to make an extra sistercii or two. Good day.”

  The woman shrugged apologetically, then went back to listening to the man’s persuasive proposal.

  Nameless turned a circle, undecided about where to try next. He’d seen enough of Brink to know Dom Nilo must have misheard his sources. Brink was as up and coming as Kunaga’s House of Ale, which was as close to the bottom of Arx Gravis as any self-respecting dwarf would go.

  He could just about hear the pounding of hammers on anvils, fancied he caught a whiff of heated metal and soot through the eye-slit of the great helm. He was about to start off toward the noise, when he noticed the boarded-up property opposite the hostel.

  It was a broad, one-story building with some solid-looking brickwork. Planks had been nailed over a couple of swing doors that made him think of the fancy upper-tier taverns back home.

  He crossed the street and peeked through a gap in the shuttered windows. The space inside was virtually one enormous room with a stone floor and good sturdy rafters. There was a door at the back, and off to one side was an archway leading to a smaller room. A room with a bar.

  It hit him like a mattock to the head: this place was meant for him. All that space, that solid floor, would make a perfect training space, like the Ephebe. If he could get hold of some weights like Rugbeard had made him back in Arx Gravis, or maybe just improvise and use heavy stones… And there was room enough for sparring. He could even put some practice dummies in there for axe work. And capping it all, after a hard workout, he could slip through the archway and take a recovery beer—assuming he could ever drink again. Assuming Aristodeus came up with a way to remove the great helm without leaving him vulnerable to the black axe.