The Dragon Engine

by Andy Remic

  So then, think!

  What did Irlax want? What were his plans?

  Like a chill wind through his soul, Skalg realised with a sudden primeval intuition. King Irlax would combine the crown and the church. Irlax would become the first Cardinal King. He would merge the two most powerful organisations of the Harborym Dwarves, which had traditionally always been at some low-level war since the days of the Great Dwarf Lords. In one swift, decisive action Irlax would remove any challenge to his authority – now, and for all time.

  It was genius. Genius!

  Skalg sat up in bed, his twisted hump stabbing him with knives of fire. But for once the pain did not bother him. Not in the slightest. Instead, his mind was whirling and spinning like a tornado in the southern desert lands of Zakora.

  What a clever plan. Stage assassinations and the burning of several churches. Goad Skalg into doing something stupid, something brutal – as his reputation proclaimed. Then gather support from the people, build up rage in the mob and hate for the church, so that the removal of Skalg would not be an act of blasphemy, but a genuine act for the people. Then a short rigged election, Irlax has all the power in the Five Havens. Janya, Keelokkos, Sokkam, Vistata… and Zvolga. All under the ultimate authority of one Cardinal King.

  Skalg’s mind was reeling.

  How was I so blind? How did I stumble into this rancid donkey-shit like a drunk adolescent chasing fresh young quim? How did I not see the warning signs? How did I let that dumb dwarf bastard get such an easy upper hand?

  And the answer was there, staring him in the face, and truly, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

  You believed your own hype.

  You believed your own ego.

  You swallowed your narcissism.

  You considered yourself untouchable.

  You thought yourself fucking invincible, First Cardinal Skalg, you arrogant, arrogant bastard of a bastard of a bastard.

  Skalg climbed out of bed, and wrapped himself in a purple robe, and moved to the door, pushing it open and stepping onto the balcony of the Blood Tower.

  Far below, the guards should have easily got everything under control from the chanting, violent mob. And yet, amazingly, they had not. Pockets of violence were erupting all over the city. Skalg squinted. He could see eight or nine areas where fires now burned, accompanied by large groups of agitated, chanting dwarves.

  The city is crumbling, he realised.

  Law and order is breaking down. For the first time in thousands of years. The mob has overcome its fear of the Church of Hate, and for the very first time is fighting back. And it was all my fault, thanks to Irlax’s engineering. I blundered into the trap like a baby rabbit into a razor snare.

  Skalg licked his lips.

  Evil thoughts wriggled in his mind, the ejaculation of demons.

  The question was…

  What did he do next?

  Granda, Chief Educator for the Church of Hate, lay in the bed of the low-ceilinged hospital barracks. The bolt in his belly had been removed, but it had gone deep, deep, deep, requiring internal stitches, then stitches on top of the stitches. Granda had lost a lot of blood, and even more of his sense of humour.

  “That little bitch,” he muttered to himself, often.

  The nurses who tended him were squat, middle-aged beasts, many with beards themselves, waddling around in sturdy boots and starched uniforms, scowling at him as if he was an annoying toddler who refused to take his medicine or do what he was told. He wanted to scream, I’m the Chief Fucking Educator for the Church of Hate! but he knew they knew, and he knew they did not actually care; to them, he was just another bundle of injured flesh who needed help and drugs and a few shushes to get him to sleep at night – there there who’s a good boy then?

  Pain pulsed through him, deep down in his abdomen. It made him feel instantly sick, like somebody had driven a triangular dagger into his guts. He closed his eyes, and waited, but the seconds ticked by and sweat emerged on his brow, under his arms, soaking him within a few minutes.

  I need my drugs. I need my pain killers. I need my drugs.

  Slowly, the world receded. The Five Havens, the Harborym Dwarves, the cities, the church, the king, Skalg, more than anything fucking Skalg, that evil little back-stabbing bastard… No, everything became secondary as the pain took hold and he knew he needed help.

  “Nurse!” he cried, finally, when he could wait no longer. “Nurse!” Waves of pain washed over him, getting worse and worse, great oceans of blood which swamped his mind until nothing else existed, only the Pain, and the Pain was the World.

  “There there,” she said, and she was by his side.

  “Thank the Great Dwarf Lords…” mumbled Granda, rolling onto his side. He felt the stitches pull tight, including the ones deep inside him. Felt them. Nipping at his internal muscles. It made him cringe. He groaned.

  “Don’t you worry, we’ll soon get your medication for you,” said the nurse. Her face zoomed in and out of focus. Granda vomited from the side of the bed, drooling, but he really did not care. He was very much past caring.

  “Thank… you…” he managed, disgusted by his own feeble state, and yet unable to do anything about it. This was his existence. This was his weakness. Eternal, shameful, physical pain which he could not control.

  “Just one minute,” said the nurse, smiling down at him.

  Gods, he thought. That’s a savage beard! Why did she let it get so long? Normally, they’re so good at keeping them under control…

  He blinked. He was staring at the nurse’s boots. They looked wrong, as Granda puked onto the floor, but he could not work out why.

  And then it clicked.

  The laces were crisscrossed, like in boots they used in the dwarf army. Granda frowned. Why was the nurse wearing army boots?

  He looked up – into a pillow, which swamped his face and pushed him back onto the bed. He started to struggle, but was so weak, already full of pain, each movement an agony; but fury swamped him as he realised – fuck, they were trying to kill him! An assassination attempt!

  Him! Chief Educator for the Church of Hate! Did they realise who he was?

  His struggling became stronger, suddenly infused with anger and disgust that they would even dare target him. But then, maybe that’s exactly why they’d targeted him.

  His struggling turned into a full fight as panic kicked in. He was launching blows, but the nurse was absorbing them. It suddenly occurred to Granda how incredibly strong the nurse was, for a nurse. From beneath the pillow he heard her speak, but could not make out the words. His vision was flashing now and he felt his tongue sticking out as he tried to suck oxygen through the pillow.

  A great weight fell across his legs, pinning him down. Strong hands grasped his wrists, and he was held tight by a second figure as the first applied yet more pressure to the pillow over his face.

  Images flickered through Granda’s mind.

  Acceptance into the Church of Hate.

  Promotion.

  Yullanga, her sweet face, big eyes looking up at him…

  Granda went still. Warily, the pillow was removed.

  “Is he gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s get a move on, then. There’s more work to be done.”

  Fire Sergeant Takos, hair scraped back, beard singed, face marked with soot and burns, his uniform scorched and tattered and hardly recognisable, opened his front door on Silverlode Street and stepped into the cool, welcoming interior. It had been a long night. A night of fighting fires and rescuing stranded dwarves; a night of watching innocents burn and angry mobs attack. He was exhausted. Totally drained, every muscle aching, his mind a dull ache.

  How did this happen?

  How did our world turn suddenly so insane?

  He moved down the hallway and stopped at the foot of the stairs, listening. Kloona would be asleep up there, probably had Jeshael in bed with her, because neither liked to sleep alone when Takos was out on a night shift. But it was
part of his job. Part of the task of saving lives and fighting fire.

  He would catch a couple of hours sleep to stave off exhaustion, change his uniform, then head back onto the streets. The worst of the fires had been dealt with, but Takos had a sneaking suspicion there was more trouble yet to come. Bad trouble. Events in Zvolga had taken a turn for the worst, and he was damned if he knew what he could do about it.

  Deciding not to disturb his wife and son, he moved to the main living area. There were thick rugs on the rock floor, and he knew he could catch a few hours’ sleep there before heading back out.

  Except… he stopped. In the corner of the room, seated on an iron chair, was a figure shrouded in darkness. And what Takos could make out was a small, oak crossbow. The tip of the bolt gleamed like a dark eye and he fixed on it for a few moments.

  Fire Sergeant Takos stared at the seated figure. “Who are you?” he said quietly.

  “That is not your concern,” came a deep voice with an accent from one of the higher cities; Keelokkos, probably. So. A mercenary, then. A killer for hire.

  Takos swallowed. His mouth was dry. “Whatever you plan to do to me, I accept. But please, do not harm my family.”

  “Sit down.”

  Takos took a chair, and seated himself, eyes still on the crossbow. It was unwavering. The dwarf who held it made no show of nerves. Takos found that his legs were trembling, his hands shaking. He placed them flat on his thighs, noticing the skin was marked with tiny burns and swirls of charcoal.

  “Are you here from the Church of Hate?” asked Takos, quietly.

  The intruder paused. “You wrote a letter to King Irlax decrying the actions of Cardinal Skalg. I need to know if you wrote to anybody else. Is there any other proof of what you witnessed?”

  “No, I… no. As a senior Fire Sergeant, I deemed this information important for the good of the Five Havens. We cannot have a corrupt church. We cannot have dwarf torturing dwarf. This is not the will of the Great Dwarf Lords.”

  “I see. How much does your wife know?”

  “I have told her nothing.” But the words came out too fast. Takos felt the intruder smile in the darkness.

  “Look. Please. I have money. I can pay more than your… current employer. I will buy your services.” And send you back to murder him…

  “I’m sorry,” said the intruder.

  Takos saw him tense.

  “Wait, no!”

  There was a click and a whine. The bolt slammed into Takos’ chest, smashing him and the chair backwards. The intruder stood, and slotted another bolt into his crossbow, winding back the tensioning mechanism. He strode over and stared down at Takos. Blood stained his lips and chin. His chest was a concave mess. He was still breathing. Just.

  “Not… my family. Please,” he wheezed.

  The killer looked down with hard eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No!”

  “King Irlax thanks you for your contribution to the good of the Five Havens.”

  “Irlax? But… why?” Blood bubbled on his lips and the light was fading fast from his eyes. In his mind, he remembered teaching Jeshael about the many different types of precious metals, watched with wonder as the young dwarf’s small fingers explored gold, silver, platinum…

  The killer smiled. “Let’s just say this is a tying up of loose ends.”

  Skalg came awake to the sound of battle, and it was the most disconcerting thing he had ever experienced. His eyes opened, pain slammed through his twisted back, and fear crawled instantly into his mouth and sat there, a dead rat on his tongue. Metal crashed on metal, and there were various thumps. A slapping sound, then a crash as a metal stool rolled across the floor.

  Skalg climbed out of bed and pulled on his robes, kicking feet into silk slippers and

  grabbing a short blade from its place beside his bed. In the chamber outside his bedroom the fight continued, and he padded forward and eased the door open a crack.

  Razor was fighting three slender dwarves, all dressed in simple black, their faces hidden by hoods. Even as Skalg watched, Razor ducked a blow and back-handed her blade across a dwarf’s throat. His hands came up, clutching his opened windpipe as he gurgled and blood spewed out in a gushing torrent. Razor leapt at the other two, a blade in each hand, her good eye focussed on these assassins. They backed away, each holding their own long, curved knives. But they were professionals. Even the sight of their comrade with his throat cut, twitching on the ground, did not give them pause in their actions.

  They attacked as a unit, launching from opposite sides. Razor crouched a little, then rolled her upper body under one blade, boot stamping sideways at the attacker’s kneecap and dropping him with a crunch. She swept into the path of the other, but he leapt back as her blade slashed by his eyes, then shifted sideways, leaping, kicking from the wall into a high jump, left arm batting aside one of Razor’s daggers, his left hand slamming down, his blade entering her neck even as her second blade slammed up into his groin, twisting.

  Razor dropped, blood gushing from the neck wound, and the attacker slumped atop her.

  With a squawk of disbelief, Skalg opened his bedroom doors and ran out, dragging the wounded attacker from Razor and kneeling beside her. He tore a strip from the edge of his robe, folding it and holding the pad against the neck wound.

  “Razor! Razor! Hold this!” He guided her hand to the pad, and she coughed, pink froth on her lips.

  The attacker with the broken knee was dragging himself away, and Skalg hobbled towards him, leaping on his back and plunging his dagger down, double-handed. The blade went through the dwarf’s spine, and the attacker went limp like cut elastic.

  Skalg returned to Razor, and cut the throat of the attacker lying by her side, just to be sure. He gurgled and bled on the tiles.

  Skalg knelt carefully beside his Educator, eyes moving up and down her. Her knees were drawn up, fingers stained with her own lifeblood.

  “Horse… shit…” she bubbled.

  “Don’t die on me, Razor! I fucking order it!”

  “He got me. That… bastard.”

  “I am instructing you to be the hard bastard I know you are!” Skalg snapped. “You are not going to die on me. We’ll get that wound stitched up, we’ll get you back on your feet, and you can help me get to the bottom of this shit with Irlax! You hear me?”

  Razor’s dark eye didn’t move, it simply lost a… quality. There was a simple moment. Her eye went from being alive, to being dead. Her eye was open, but it did not see. And her chest fell, for one last time, and Skalg squatted there, staring down in disbelief, tears in his eyes.

  “No,” he muttered and then looked around, and suddenly realised the seriousness of his position. Three assassins sent to kill him. In his own fucking home. What about all the guards downstairs? What about his Educators? And sent by whom? The Army of Purity? King Fucking Irlax?

  By all the Gods, he thought suddenly. This goes all the way to the top. My Educators have been killed. My church wardens are being slaughtered. I was right. Even though I did not believe it, I was right. Irlax is exterminating the Church of Hate – and he intends to take over! Total power. Total control.

  What can I do?

  What in the name of the Great Dwarf Lords can I do?

  And a little voice spoke to him from his twisted back; the demon in his hump; the devil in his own disjointed, broken flesh and bone.

  And his dark twin said,

  You must kill King Irlax.

  And how the fuck am I going to do that?

  Your first step is survival. First, Cardinal Skalg, you must survive.

  Head down. Down, where it is warm.

  Down to the Dragon Engine?

  There, you will find answers.

  Skalg threw off his robes and dressed as quickly as his deformity would allow. Simple trews and boots, a loose shirt, no robes of state or identifying church colours. Skalg loaded his belt with a variety of knives and a short-handled war hammer. He pulled on a spe
cially adapted mail shirt, which he’d had made at very great expense (to the church coffers), and finally pulled on a helm. It was the best disguise he could think of, and yet was painfully aware there weren’t actually that many hunchbacked dwarves in a city like Zvolga. He might as well have had “Cardinal Skalg” tattooed across his forehead. Finally, he moved into his armoury. The smell of leather, wood, polish and oil was strong. He moved down one wall, and selected a belt of very expensive, extremely finely made throwing knives. This, he draped over his neck. Then he grabbed a short, vicious looking straight-edged sword and shoved it through his belt. Finally, moving to the back of the armoury, he unlocked an oiled wooden chest, and opened it almost with reverence. Inside was a small steel crossbow. A Krakkok & Stulliver, gleaming silver. It was truly a weapon of beauty, sculpted, without an ounce of excess metal. It was formed from curves and struts, and was absolutely, totally functional. But better than that, it had a three-bolt loading mechanism on a shaft, tensioned by a spring and locking levers. It was a very, very clever piece of engineering created, again, at very great expense to the church coffers. At this moment in time, Skalg was not only extremely pleased he’d commissioned the weapon’s creation, he felt as if his life might depend on it.

  Tooled up, the cardinal moved back past the body of Razor, glancing down at her, a glance of regret. Not something he felt often, and this time it was an actual novelty. Horse shit. She was a good woman. No. Strike that. She was a lethal killer, merciless, bordering on the edge of psychopathy.

  A little bit like me…

  Wiping away a tear, he moved through his chambers and stopped by the main doors, slightly ajar. He hefted the Krakkok & Stulliver, feeling the precision engineering, the perfect balance, and he pulled the lever which tensioned the firing mechanism. There were several slick clicks. Subtle, yet powerful.