Return of the Dwarf Lords (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 4)

by D. P. Prior

  “To Thanatos,” Shadrak pressed on. “Someone had to place the twin portal there, am I right? Which tells me you scuts must have found some way to travel there before. I’m guessing a plane ship.”

  “There are legends among the lore masters…” Abednago said hesitantly.

  “And that thing that attacked me in New Londdyr,” Shadrak said. “A Thanatosian, the Archon called it. How’d that come to be there?”

  “The creature you killed beneath the Perfect Peak?” Nameless said. “I assumed it was Sektis Gandaw’s.”

  Abednago sighed and puffed out his cheeks. “All right, I admit it. My people have been to Thanatos. I meant what I said about the legends of the lore masters. No one seems to know exactly when or why the portal was built there, but Mephesch did tell me about Gandaw’s Thanatosian. The Technocrat used homunculi in plane ships to bring specimens back from other worlds. Apparently, they knew the way to Thanatos, even though it didn’t register on Gandaw’s map of the cosmos.”

  “Have you tested it, laddie?” Nameless said, making a slow circle of the arch and tamping down his beard where it stood on end.

  “Kind of,” Abednago said. “By chance, a couple of days ago.”

  Cordana glared at him, prompting him to go on.

  “A baresark, badly injured in a circle fight. Wanted to make himself useful…”

  “So, you sent him through?” Shadrak said. He had to admit, he’d have done the same thing himself. If the scut was so badly hurt he could no longer fight, it made him expendable, at least to his way of thinking.

  “You what?” Cordana said.

  “And he didn’t come back, I suppose,” Nameless said.

  Abednago grimaced. “Could be any number of reasons why. The fact is, he was under the arch one minute and gone the next.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” Nameless said.

  The two soldiers exchanged worried glances.

  “You’re not going through that thing,” Cordana said to Nameless. “No shogging way.”

  “What I want to know,” Nameless said, “is how we get back.”

  “The Dwarf Lords must have had a keystone,” Abednago said. He indicated a luminescent hexagon of rock at the apex of the arch. He pulled it free, and the circle of lights went out. At the same time, the scarolite glyphs lost their shimmer. A shallow indentation indicated where the stone had been.

  “It’s common knowledge the homunculi had a hand in the building of Arnoch,” Abednago went on. “The stonework is dwarven, without a shadow of a doubt, but the city is riddled with Gehennan lore. How do you think it’s able to sink like this, for one thing? It stands to reason the homunculi must have let the dwarves in on the secret of portal travel to Thanatos, otherwise, how would King Arios have known to send his people there?”

  “So,” Shadrak said, “if the Dwarf Lords never made it, or if they died out, or if they ain’t exactly pleased to see us, we’re up shit creek, is that what you’re saying?”

  Abednago winced.

  “And what if they simply mislaid the keystone?” Cordana said. “No, I’m sorry, Abednago. Nice idea, but… No, not a nice idea. It’s the most idiotic shogging plan I’ve ever heard.”

  “Save for Old Moary’s proposal for the medicinal use of Ironbelly’s,” Nameless said.

  Cordana snorted out a laugh, but quickly caught herself. Nameless seemed to realize it wasn’t the time for jokes and sobered in an instant.

  “But what’s the alternative?” Nameless asked. “Just wait here until the shields collapse? Rise to the surface and be consumed by dragon breath?”

  “You are not—” Cordana started, but Nameless drew her into a fierce kiss.

  The soldiers both looked away. Shadrak screwed his face up and swallowed down bile. Abednago, on the other hand, had a sparkle in his eyes and the touch of a smile on his lips.

  Cordana flapped her hands uselessly for a few seconds, then used them to shove Nameless off.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Cordana,” Nameless said. “I thought… I mean…” He visibly wilted and turned his back on her. “Forgive me. I was wrong. What happened in the past… It can’t go away. It can’t—”

  Cordana laid a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “It can, you silly shogger. It has gone. I forgave you a long time ago. Every day, we start afresh, with a clean slate.”

  Nameless turned back to face her, and she slapped him so hard Shadrak thought she might have broken his jaw. If he felt it, though, Nameless didn’t let on. He tenderly touched the spot, as if she’d just planted a kiss there.

  “That’s for being right,” Cordana said.

  “Right?”

  “There is no other choice. Gods of Arnoch, I’d give anything if there were.”

  “So, we’re still going, then?” Shadrak said. He wasn’t exactly happy about it. The whole thing reeked of poor planning, or no planning at all. They could simply disappear into the Void, for all he knew. Or get to Thanatos, only to find there was no way back. But Kadee could still be there, and he’d risk anything to see her again. He’d always wished for one more chance to tell her what he’d been unable to while she still lived. One more chance to embrace, to thank her for raising him when no one else would.

  “Just you bring him back,” Cordana said, eyes still locked to Nameless’s.

  “Cordana,” Nameless said, “do you think—”

  She pressed a finger to his lips. “When you get back. We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

  A single tear rolled from the corner of Nameless’s eye, and Cordana wiped it for him. Her breast heaved as she drew in a deep breath, and then she wrenched herself away.

  “Everyone stand beneath the arch,” Abednago said. He held up the keystone and waited for them to get into position.

  “What about the girl?” Shadrak said.

  Before anyone could reply, the husk girl grabbed Nameless’s hand and pressed in close to his side. Her eyes were still blank as a pituri smoker’s, but it seemed she’d made her choice. From what Shadrak had seen of her strength, there was precious little chance of prying her away from Nameless and leaving her behind, even if the dwarves would have her.

  Cordana kept the Black Cloak back and whispered in his ear. He glanced at Nameless then nodded. Nameless didn’t seem to have noticed, but Shadrak did.

  Then, they were all in place, and Abednago inserted the keystone.

  Lightning arced around them, and the glyphs carved into the scarolite flared emerald. The stench of ozone grew overpowering, the room tilted, and a curtain of fog closed over Shadrak.

  DEATH WORLD

  Nameless shivered. It was a cold he’d never felt before, right down to the marrow. The husk girl’s grip on his hand was an anchor, holding him in place, somehow keeping him together. Droning filled the space between his ears, and tiny shocks exploded all over his skin. Waves of sickness slopped up and down from his guts to his head. It felt like he was at sea, but common sense told him it was the portal, the effects of the transition.

  He took a deep breath, but the air was stultifying and tinged with rot. Shallow sniffs through his nose was all he could manage.

  Someone vomited. He opened his eyes to make sure none of it got on his boots. Just doing so made him swoon and stagger. The ground squelched beneath him. Water or mud came up to his ankles.

  It was dark, but after a couple of blinks, he could see, although not very well. Gradually, skies as gray as iron came into focus above a stark landscape of silhouetted trees and the distant saw-tooth peaks of black mountains. His eyes adjusted again, and he saw that the trees weren’t silhouettes: they were black as coal; might even have been formed from coal, judging by the rough texture of their bark.

  The arch stood on swampy ground in a wide clearing. Hanging from the limbs of the closest trees to it were braided wreaths of dried flowers, all of them the color of bruises. But someone must have made them. Someone must have left them ther
e for a reason.

  Grimwart was on his knees, coughing up his gorge. Kal was flat on his back beside him, while Shadrak had his hood up and was inspecting the arch they had appeared beneath, like he made this kind of trip all the time. Maybe it was in the blood: he was a homunculus, after all.

  The coldness left Nameless’s bones as quick as it came. Bit by bit, he was feeling himself again, as if he’d been stitched back together after being ripped into a thousand pieces.

  The husk girl holding his hand was glancing about with shimmering blue eyes, but even as he watched, they faded, until they were once more dull and lifeless.

  “You want to lay off the booze, laddie,” Nameless said to Grimwart, clapping him on the shoulder.

  Grimwart grunted something that was probably best left incoherent. He wiped his mouth with the arm holding his shield and lurched to his feet, using his mace for support.

  “Shog,” Grimwart said, swiping at the leg of his britches with his free hand. “There’s something on me.”

  Whatever it was dropped off and hit the ground with a plop. Grimwart sloshed his way out of the depression the arch stood within and crested a low bank.

  “What?” Shadrak said, already padding up to stand beside him. “What was it?”

  Nameless led the husk girl away from the boggy ground. There was something dark clinging to his boot. He jabbed it with his axe haft, and it burst apart.

  “What about Kal?” Grimwart said.

  “Stay here.” Nameless let go of the girl’s hand and trudged back down.

  Black shapes, broad and slug-like, sloughed away from Kal’s prone body as Nameless dragged him up the bank. The minute he set Kal down, he knelt to examine him. He’d at least expected a moan or a sigh, but the soldier had made no sound. He’d been a dead weight.

  He held a couple of fingers to Kal’s neck, straining to feel a pulse.

  “Shog’s that?” Shadrak said.

  Nameless suppressed the urge to yell for quiet, and followed the midget’s gaze while still concentrating on Kal.

  A dark orb hung above them in the crepuscular sky. At first, he thought it was a black hole, but then he noticed wisps of fuligin around the circumference.

  “Is that the sun?” Grimwart said.

  “No sun I’ve seen,” Shadrak grumbled.

  Nameless still felt no pulse from Kal. He bent his ear to Kal’s mouth, listened for a breath. Nothing.

  “Is he…?” Grimwart started.

  “Let me,” Shadrak said.

  Nameless made room for him. He was the expert, after all.

  “Dead.” Shadrak suddenly stiffened and slipped a blade from his baldric. He stabbed down and skewered a black shape that was writhing on Kal’s britches above the shin. There was a hole in the fabric, and a livid mark surrounding a Y-shaped incision where the creature had latched on.

  “Shog,” Nameless breathed.

  “Poison,” Shadrak said, already stepping away from the body. “Scutting thing burned through his britches. Must be some kind of acid.”

  Nameless patted himself down in case one of the things had got on him.

  The husk girl was staring at the tree line that marked the start of the forest. There was a body there, slumped against a trunk. Not a body: a skeleton, every last scrap of flesh cleaned from the bone. Not only a skeleton: it was the skeleton of a dwarf. The way it was positioned, face toward the trees, it gave the impression of trying to reach the forest.

  Shadrak scuttled over to investigate.

  Nameless was too stunned to move.

  Kal.

  Kal was dead, and they’d barely set foot in this world. Where was the sense to it? The reason?

  He’d known Kal since his Ravine Guard days; even trained him with weights, until they’d fallen out. Well, not fallen out, strictly: Kal had been as horrified as the rest of the dwarves by what Nameless had become; what the black axe had made him. They’d fought together against the Lich Lord, though, and that had gone some way to repairing their lost friendship.

  But now, Kal was gone. Swift as an arrow, sudden as a knife in the dark. Dead. As if his life didn’t matter. As if it never had.

  “Fractured skull,” Shadrak said, bending over the dwarf skeleton. “Arm’s broken at the elbow, and a couple of teeth are missing. None of it recent, either.”

  “The baresark?” Grimwart said. “Abednago said he was injured in a circle fight.”

  The husk girl stroked along the length of Nameless’s arm. He wrenched his gaze from Kal’s lifeless body to look her in the eye. She remained impassive, lost in a world of her own; but she’d communicated something with her touch. She’d communicated that she cared. Whether about Kal’s meaningless death or Nameless’s grief, he couldn’t tell. Perhaps it was both. Then again, he thought, letting go her hand and moving to stand behind Shadrak, perhaps he was mistaken, and just reading things into her actions he wanted to believe.

  “So, this is the poor shogger old shifty sent through,” he said. “What do you suppose killed him?”

  “Not the broken bones, that’s for sure.” Shadrak reached in among the exposed roots of the tree and pulled out a pair of mud-spattered britches. They were covered in desiccated leeches, and they were ripped open down the front. “Got his cacks off in a hurry, by the looks of it.” Shadrak turned the britches over and scrutinized them. “No holes in the material. He reacted fast.”

  “That’s baresarks for you,” Grimwart said.

  Nameless grunted his agreement. The wild dwarves possessed instincts akin to those of animals. They were creatures of violent action, who seldom took the time to think. In that sense, they were the antithesis of dwarven society, with all its inaction and the Council’s ceaseless prevarication, which is what made them outcasts.

  “So, his injuries didn’t kill him,” Nameless said. “And neither did the leeches. So, what…”

  Shadrak dropped the britches and made a clicking sound with his tongue against his palate. He put a fist to his mouth and chewed on his knuckle, pink eyes rolling while he considered all the possibilities. Nameless had seen him do the same thing a hundred times, piecing together all the snippets of information before him, weighing the possibilities, and rejecting the impossible and the improbable in favor of the most likely.

  “You have to ask, what could have flayed the flesh from his bones in so short a time?” the assassin said, more to himself than anyone else. He looked out into the charcoal trees of the forest.

  Nameless felt the crawl of a thousand insects on his skin. He knew it was just dread, the fear of the unknown, but he still had to check to make sure. After what had happened to Kal, he didn’t want to be taking any chances.

  “Well, I don’t see anything,” Grimwart said. “Probably long gone.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

  Shadrak stood and swirled his cloak about him. He pulled up the hood, and gazed out toward the distant mountains.

  The husk girl once more drifted to Nameless’s side. Her vacant eyes reflected the drab gray of the skies, her pupils like imitations of the black sun overhead.

  “Make for the mountains?” Nameless said. Besides the forest, they were the only landmark he could see. “If I know dwarves, that’s where they’ll be.”

  “Just need to make sure we can find our way back,” Grimwart said, indicating the arch.

  Shadrak tapped his temple. “All in here, so no need to worry on that account.”

  Grimwart frowned, but Nameless explained, “Perfect memory. Except when it’s his turn to buy a drink.”

  “We’re wasting time,” Shadrak said. He started between two trees in the direction of the mountains.

  The assassin was right. The dwarves of Arnoch had three days at most, probably less. But Nameless knew Shadrak better than that. His urgency was more to do with self-preservation; not wanting to end up like Kal and the baresark. That, and he needed to find out the truth: discover for himself whether his foster mother really was here, although in what ma
nner, considering she’d died on Urddynoor, Nameless couldn’t begin to guess.

  A rustle of leaves came from the treetops above Shadrak. The limbs were mostly bare, save for the creepers entwining them. Shadrak half-turned, but the rustle died as soon as he did. Nameless took a step toward him, eyes welded to the creepers. He was sure they had moved. The husk girl gripped his hand tighter.

  Grimwart backed into him, gaze roving over the arch and the forest behind. “I don’t like it,” he said. “The trees are watching us.”

  “Shog you talking about?” Shadrak said, drawing a gun and panning it around the clearing.

  A whiplash sounded from above the assassin. He spun, raised his gun, just as a thorny vine lashed at his face. He dived and tumbled, but already, three more were streaming down from the treetops. One darted for his head, but Shadrak rolled out of the way, and rolled again as another struck like a serpent.

  Nameless started toward him, but the husk girl held him back. He tried breaking her grip on his hand, but it was like a vise.

  Shadrak flipped to his feet, then swayed aside from the third creeper’s attack. The other two coiled in the air, then launched themselves at him. This time, Shadrak backflipped out of the way. He holstered his flintlock and pulled an exploding glass sphere from a belt pouch. Nameless had seen him use them before, knew just how devastating they were.

  “Lassie,” Nameless growled at the girl. “Let me go.”

  Leaves rustled above him, and he ducked on instinct as a creeper lashed toward him. The husk girl pulled him into an embrace, and the vine recoiled, swaying in midair, before retracting and wrapping itself once more against a high branch.

  But Shadrak was still under attack. He backed away from the three vines pursuing him, but they seemed a long way from running out of length. He held the glass sphere aloft, eyes flicking left and right, gauging the best target.

  Grimwart ran to the assassin’s aid, and as the creepers struck again, he brought his shield between them and Shadrak and crouched down behind it. Three sharp clinks sounded as the creepers hit steel. Their tips had sprouted circular maws ringed with needles dripping venom. They recoiled, then swayed away, one to the left, one to the right, the other rising above the top of the shield. They bobbed as if conferring, and then swooped in unison.