by D. P. Prior
“Bird came to you, you say?” Nameless said. “I mean, I knew he led you to us”—in the form of an owl—“but how did he come to find you?”
How did he know he could trust you? Come to think of it, how could Nameless trust Bird? What if this was all some elaborate ploy? After all, the shogger was a homunculus, wasn’t he? As honorable as thieves and assassins, and twice as duplicitous. Which made him wonder about Shadrak, who was clearly both: spawn of the Demiurgos and a cutthroat to boot. A friend, yes, but did that really count for anything? How could you know? How could you really know?
“You have to wonder,” Lorgen said. “And I don’t mind telling you, he gives me the creeps, what with the way he changes form and all. Though, in a strange sort of way, that’s what persuaded me. Persuaded me he wasn’t from Blightey. The Lich Lord disguises himself, right enough, but he’s no changeling, and few are the animals that will come within a hundred miles of him. This Bird said there was trouble brewing. Said you’d wandered too close to the castle. That made you either stupid or ignorant, far as I’m concerned. No one deserves to be tortured and impaled for either. But the other one, the one with the pink eyes: I’ve not seen hide nor hair of him since we reached camp. He’s not foolish enough to go back there, is he?”
“Shadrak?” Nameless shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him foolish. He takes too many precautions for that, and he makes a virtue out of being unseen. He was planning to return to our…” How should he put it? “… transportation to pick up some more supplies.”
“But if we could return to my first question,” Lorgen said. There was a hint of steel in his voice.
Usually, Nameless admired that in a man, but now all he heard was implied threat. He may have misread the tone, because Lorgen was standing relaxed, and his gaze was roving over the encroaching mist.
“Why did we come here?” Nameless said. “Business with the Lich Lord.”
Lorgen stiffened, and his fingers tightened around the haft of his axe. “Aye, and what business is that?”
“He has something we need.”
“A friend?” The scars on Lorgen’s face were pulled tight as he grimaced.
“No, not a friend, laddie. Just something.”
The tension visibly melted from Lorgen’s muscles. “Good. Well, not good. Any business with Otto Blightey tends to end in suffering. But it is good you have lost no one to him. At least, not yet.”
“And you have?”
Lorgen shut his eyes and turned his head aside. He drew in a long breath and let it out in a sigh. When he opened his eyes, he looked down the slope at the mist.
“It’s receding. It hasn’t detected our camp. We only moved a few nights ago. The old site was compromised last time the mist came.”
“This is a regular occurrence?” Nameless said. “I thought we’d triggered it by straying too near the castle.”
“You probably did. But it’s a frequent menace, wafting through the woods, looking for us.”
“But why?”
Lorgen rolled his shoulders and looked off into the last ribbons of bruised sunlight creeping beneath the horizon.
“Because we are his.” He sneered. “All of Verusia is his. Mostly dead. Mostly undead. But the Lich Lord maintains a sizeable stock of the living.”
“Then leave,” Nameless said. “I know I would.”
“Getting in is all very well,” Lorgen said, “but you try getting out, and you’ll find the Gallic border patrols much more zealous. Not only that, but Blightey has things out near the fringes. Things that make sure no one tries to leave.”
“And this is better?”
Nameless’s imagination was running riot with the implications. What if they hadn’t got the plane ship? Would they have been trapped? Would he? He knew it shouldn’t have bothered him; knew he’d have normally risen to the challenge, but he wasn’t right. Something felt wrong.
Idly, almost absently, he pulled at one of the gauntlets, even though there was no point. They were as much part of him now as the helm.
“We survive,” Lorgen said. “In pockets of resistance, we survive. And we grow. The laughter of children graces our camps. Maybe one day, if we hold out long enough…” His voice trailed off, as if he lacked the conviction to continue. When he resumed speaking, it was in fits and starts, until he brought his tongue under control by some colossal act of will.
“Shit on him. Shit on Otto Blightey.” He may have been warding himself with curses. “I never want to look on that demon again. Three days I was in his dungeons with nothing for company but the sounds of screaming.” He winced and closed his eyes. “My daughters. My wife.” He shook his head. “Think hard before you go there. Think very hard.”
“Not sure I have a choice, laddie,” Nameless said. His own voice came out tremulous. Lorgen’s words had moved him, but he didn’t know what to say.
But he did have a choice, didn’t he? He’d survived well enough trapped in the great helm, and he’d done no more harm. It might have been a shogging inconvenience traveling to the Perfect Peak to be fed, but compared with the alternative…
He had to wonder: was that how the dwarves of Arx Gravis felt about him? The way Lorgen did about Blightey? The Ravine Butcher had slaughtered their loved ones, stuck their heads on spears.
The familiar cramps of despair gripped his innards. There was no coming back from what he’d done. No forgiveness. No atonement.
So, why was he risking his companions’ lives on some madcap quest to free himself from the helm? Free himself from the lure of the black axe? He had no right. No shogging right.
He pulled his shoulder blades together until his back popped. He was knotted up with tension, but there was shog all he could do about it.
“It’s heading out toward the crags,” Lorgen said, his focus back on the mist. “Where our old camp used to be. Guess it’s a good thing we moved.”
A chill deeper than that the snow had to offer insinuated its way into Nameless’s bones. He couldn’t tell if it was coming from the retreating mist, or the fact he couldn’t get the gauntlets off. He’d felt something similar in the darkness of Gehenna, when he’d found the black axe: an innominate dread that gave rise to whispers of thought, promptings, threats, warnings.
He had no defense against that sort of thing. An enemy he could stand toe to toe with, no matter how big, how strong, had never bothered him. If you could hit it, chances are, it would bleed; and if it bled, it could be killed. But intangible fears, be they born from powers he did not comprehend, or his own inner demons, pierced him sharper than any blade; cut him right to the marrow.
“Come,” Lorgen said, starting off back down the slope. “Least we can chance a cook fire now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Always, Nameless wanted to say. Always shogging starving. Not so much from the need for sustenance, because Aristodeus’s muck took care of that, but for the taste of food. And of beer. If nothing else, a flagon of ale would settle his nerves and get him feeling like a dwarf again.
***
There was more than one fire back at the camp. Most of them were little more than smoldering wounds on the surface of the white ground.
Lorgen’s people roasted skewered strips of meat over the flames. It was charred beyond recognition, and smelled vaguely of chicken.
The canvas shelters they’d erected around the perimeter were almost invisible under their blankets of snow. A couple of men were finishing off putting up new tents for the companions. It seemed likely these were the shelters of those who had fallen, or those who had been taken.
Such unexpected kindness, such consideration of total strangers, thawed the doubts Nameless had been having about their rescuers. Why go to all this trouble? Why come to their aid in the first place?
Albert glanced up from whatever he was roasting on a long stick. Looked like sausages. “Went with Shadrak back to the ship,” the poisoner said. “Picked up some supplies. I assume you’re hungry.” As if he’d forgo
tten, Albert waved apologetically and tapped his head. “Oh, of course, you can’t eat in that thing, can you?”
Lorgen settled himself with a clutch of his people. A woman offered him some meat, but he shook his head. The low hubbub of voices greeted his arrival. Probably, they had a lot to talk about.
Nameless couldn’t help wondering if he’d said something to offend the big man. If he had, though, he had no idea what it was.
He did his best to shrug the feeling off and went to sit next to Bird on the far side of Albert’s fire. The homunculus had his head turned pointedly away from what was cooking. Clearly, he wouldn’t be eating, either.
Ludo had his nose in his book. He looked ashen, and thinner than he had mere hours ago. Must have been an effect of the firelight sending flickering shadows over his face.
Galen was sharpening his saber with a whetstone—short, sharp licks and the occasional long, slow stroke all the way to the tip. Seemed he’d already given what was left of his hair the same meticulous attention, the way it was plastered over his scalp in finely combed strands. Why he didn’t just face facts, was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t like he was fooling anyone. At least Aristodeus was honest about being a bald bastard. Although, you had to wonder if that skimpy little box beard was just to deflect attention from his barren pate.
Still, one thing Nameless had to say for Galen: the man was no coward.
Never leave a man behind.
Not even a dwarf.
Galen acknowledged Nameless with a nod. He tested the edge of his blade, licked his finger, and went back to his honing.
Ekyls hawked and spat into the flames. When Albert handed him a sausage, he ripped into it with jagged teeth.
“Shadrak not back?” Nameless asked no one in particular.
Bird might have flinched, but Albert was the only one who indicated he’d heard.
“No sign of him. Not that that’s anything unusual. Left me to lug the supplies back by myself and slunk off to do his thing, whatever that might entail. Do you think I should save him one?” He held up a sausage, wrinkled his nose, and took a bite out of it. “Probably not much point.”
“Ho, Lorgen!” a man’s voice called from somewhere back in the trees.
Conversation around the camp died in an instant, leaving only the sound of spitting and crackling from the fires.
Fat sizzled loudly from one of Albert’s sausages, but he swiftly snatched it from the flames.
Lorgen rose to his feet and peered into the dark. Others started to stand, too, but when a man in a bulging fur coat stepped into the clearing, they relaxed. He wore wooden snow shoes and an animal hide hat with flaps that covered his ears. As he tugged off a glove, he nodded to Lorgen, then gestured with his thumb behind.
“What, Hoag? What is it?” Lorgen asked.
Three more figures emerged from the trees: two men leading a woman by the arms. Her gray dress, her auburn hair were frosted over with white.
Nameless stood and trudged over to Lorgen. “Everything all right?”
Lorgen cocked his head at Hoag for an explanation.
“This is Naithe Lysson,” Hoag said. “From the Lankwood cottages. We found her wandering alone and near death. The Lich Lord came to her home. Her husband and child… both…
“He drank them,” the woman said, her eyes empty and unfocused. “He drank their souls and made me watch.”
“Why?” Ludo said.
Nameless hadn’t heard him approach, he’d been so rapt by the woman’s haunted appearance.
The adeptus frowned with bewilderment, but when he next spoke, his voice was laced with anger. “Why would he do such a thing?”
Hoag looked to Lorgen for permission, then led Naithe to sit by a fire. Immediately, a knot of women gathered around her, consoling her with hugs and shared tears.
“Why would he do it?” Lorgen said. “Why would the Lich Lord murder her family? For pleasure. For the spark of life it engenders in him.”
Ludo shook his head and grimaced. His lips began to move, but Nameless couldn’t hear any sound. He assumed it was some form of prayer.
“Then why would he let her go?” Nameless asked.
Lorgen let out a sharp laugh devoid of all humor. “Because he enjoys her grief.”
THE FOOLISHNESS OF OLD MEN
It was a shog sight warmer in Lorgen’s tent, but Nameless didn’t miss the thickness of the tension that rolled off the big man. The shadows of Lorgen’s people gathering outside danced on the canvas like silhouetted flames. Probably, they just wanted to listen in, but he couldn’t be too sure.
Albert gave the impression of a truculent child who’d been caught doing wrong and didn’t give a damn. Ekyls skulked behind him, a dog that knew its place.
Galen folded his arms over his chest, like a man about to confer with a fellow general—not that he was a general. Far from it. Nameless knew his soldiers, and Galen was a grunt, through and through.
Bird was wrapped in his feathered cloak, Shadrak in his black one. They stood side by side, a pair of evil-looking dolls.
Ludo was the only one who appeared unaffected by the atmosphere. His eyes widened above his glasses, an encouragement for Lorgen to say what was troubling him. Because something was. His entire body shouted it.
“This ‘something’ you seek,” Lorgen said to Nameless, “it must be very important to you. To you all.”
Albert let out an exaggerated whuff.
“So what if it is?” Shadrak said.
“Now, now,” Galen said. “Hear him out. What’s troubling you, old chap?”
Lorgen chewed over his reply before he gave it. “Whatever you think you’re doing, messing with Otto Blightey, let me tell you, it is folly.”
“One man’s folly—” Ludo started, but Galen cut him off.
“You may be right, but what you need to understand—”
“What I understand,” Lorgen said, “is that your presence here imperils my people. We are hunted. Continuously. What happened at Wolfmalen is certain to intensify the Lich Lord’s efforts. The last thing we need is for you to provoke him further.”
“Nameless?” Ludo said. “After all, this is about you.”
“I put you all at risk back there,” Nameless said, turning the eye-slit of his helm on each of them. “And I’ve no wish to drag you down with me.”
“So, this has been a waste of my shogging time?” Shadrak said. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not just yours,” Albert put in.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Anger tinged Nameless’s voice, but he swiftly tamed it. “I would say we should turn back now. Your lives are too precious to risk in pursuit of… of what? A half-baked plan to free me from this helm? So I can get back some sort of life and pretend Arx Gravis didn’t happen?” His excitement over the gym and beer hall had receded so far, he was starting to wonder if he’d really been to Brink at all.
“You see, I’m not even sure I want out of this helm anymore. It’s what I deserve. The only thing is, I think I may already have come too far.”
“It’s never too late to turn back,” Galen said.
Lorgen grunted his assent, but worry swept his brow.
“What do you mean too far?” Ludo said.
“I’ve started to change.”
“Change how?” Shadrak took a step toward him.
“I’m not myself, laddie.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t think I can go back,” Nameless said. “And I can’t stand what’s happening to me. It’s kill or cure now. I have to go on, but I don’t expect anyone to come with me.”
“Then you are decided?” Lorgen said.
“Indeed,” Albert said. “I’ll just gather my things and scoot on back to—”
“Aye, laddie,” Nameless said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Lorgen’s chest heaved. “Then I ask that you give us time, to break camp, and separate our path from yours.”
“We will,
laddie,” Nameless said. “Or rather, I will. The rest of you should go back.”
When Shadrak started to protest, Nameless said, “I’ll pay you for lost time.”
“With what?” Shadrak said. “You came to me for money, remember? For this gym of yours.”
“But we can still go?” Albert said. “Wait for you at the plane—”
“Not a chance,” Shadrak said. “You even think of taking my ship again…” He stopped himself, but the look Albert gave him was sharper than any blade. “We all agreed to this, and we’re all going to see it through.”
“Fine by me,” Galen said.
Ekyls growled.
Bird steepled his fingers in front of his nose. His black eyes were inscrutable, but nothing about his demeanor said that he objected.
Ludo, though, took off his eye-glasses and gnawed thoughtfully on one of the arms. “There has to be another way. What do we know about the peril we face? What do we really know?”
“Shog all,” Shadrak said. “Which is kind of my problem.”
“Know your enemy, wot?” Galen said.
“Exactly,” Shadrak said. “Know him better than he knows himself, then cut his balls off when he ain’t looking.”
Lorgen scoffed at that. “You have no idea what you’re up against, do you?”
“I think I might,” Ludo said. He resituated his eye-glasses on his nose. “But still, I would caution against demonizing the foe. We have to understand the enemy, not merely revile him. We have to know what makes him tick.”
“Then I’ll make it easy for you,” Lorgen said. “Pain. Suffering. Sadistic pleasure. Blightey is evil to the core, and anyone who thinks otherwise will quickly learn the truth. It’ll be a sharp lesson, I can tell you. A stake up the shogging arse.”
“Ah,” Ludo said with a wag of his finger, “but Blightey wasn’t always that way. None of us starts out bad.” He swept the tent with his gaze.
Nameless flinched. He felt like Ludo was singling him out, but then the adeptus’s eyes moved to Shadrak.