by D. P. Prior
Relief flashed across Ardo’s face. The look was reciprocated by Bartimaeus.
Nameless shook his head and rubbed his shoulder. Blood was rushing in his ears, but when he let out a sigh, it was replaced by the roaring of the crowd. He might have lost, but he’d given them one shog of a show.
Ardo grasped his hand and clapped him on the back. “Close, my friend,” he said. “Very close.”
“But not close enough,” Bartimaeus said. He took center stage and declaimed above the cheering, “And still the undisputed strongest man on Thanatos, the mighty, the magnificent, the master of muscle: Ardo the Great!”
Nameless braced himself for more cheering, but the tent was suddenly pitched into silence.
And then a woman screamed from outside.
THE PRESS GANG
It wasn’t just a single scream, and there were words amid the cries, most incoherent, desperate, but Shadrak heard enough to realize what was going on outside the tent. A woman, shrill and histrionic, was spitting hate and bawling despair.
“My son!” she wailed in between sobs. Her voice instantly changed to a snarl. “You’re not taking him!”
Knowing looks passed around the bleachers, some sad, most accepting that’s just the way things were.
Down in the ring, Nameless had stiffened. He was straining to hear, and at the same time glancing at his discarded armor.
Beside Shadrak, Grimwart scooped his shield up from where it rested against the bleacher, and he took a strangler’s grip on his mace.
Nameless cast a quick glance up at Shadrak, but then located what he was really looking for. Where the dwarf had been sitting before accepting Ardo’s challenge, his axe began to shudder and rattle.
“Oh no,” Shadrak muttered, reaching for the haft. “Don’t be a tosser, Nameless.” His fingers met only air, where there should have been wood.
Grimwart spread his palms, as if to say, “Tell me about it.”
In the ring below, the strongman, Ardo, laid a hand on Nameless’s shoulder, but the dwarf brushed it off. He was already striding for the exit.
The axe shot away from the bleachers and soared above the crowd to slap into his hand, and then Nameless was running.
“Typical,” Shadrak said, drawing a flintlock and bustling toward the aisle. Nameless just couldn’t help himself. Always had to shogging get involved.
Grimwart squeezed past the other people seated in their row, and Kadee was up and guiding the husk girl along after him. There was something about his foster mother in the brief glimpse Shadrak had of her before he reached the bottom and headed for the exit: Her skin had lost some of its luster. She seemed older, somehow.
There was quite a crowd assembled on the ashy ground outside the tent. Most of them were villagers, corralled by upward of twenty men armored in scraps of plate, tatters of chain, and sporting a vicious array of weapons: barbed spears, tridents, morning stars, and chipped and dark-mottled glaives. They were all masked in iron that had been molded into grotesque faces: demons, tormented souls, death’s-heads; wolves, birds, and serpents. Where skin was exposed, it was crisscrossed with scars.
The screaming woman can’t have been more than thirty. She let out a long rasping screech and slumped with exhaustion, now no more than a heaving bag of sobs.
A suited man held her from behind, stroking her hair and uttering consoling words—her husband, no doubt.
Two of the armored thugs—Shadrak had to assume they were “Pressers”—had hold of a young lad by the arms.
A third Presser, a lanky bastard in a bearskin cloak, face hidden by an iron skull mask, was looming over Nameless.
To anyone else, the dwarf would have looked relaxed, but to Shadrak, who’d seen him like this more times than he cared to remember, the shit was definitely about to start flying.
“Where’d you get that weapon?” the Presser asked.
“City under the sea,” Nameless said. “Where’d you get that face, or were you born with it?”
“What? It’s a mask, you pillock.”
Nameless looked over his shoulder as he heard Shadrak draw near. “You hear that, laddie? A mask, he says.”
“No, really?” Shadrak said, sauntering to his side.
“I asked you a question,” the Presser said. He rammed the blade of his glaive into the ash coating the ground and rested both hands on the pommel. They were encased in banded gauntlets.
“And you’ve already had my answer,” Nameless said. “Now it’s my turn. What are you doing with this lady’s son? Because if that’s a twinkle I see in your eye, I’m inclined to give you a dose of your own medicine.” He upended his axe and waved the haft in front of the skull mask. “Course, you might not be able to sit down for a week.”
The woman’s husband raised a hand to the Presser. “This isn’t our doing. We don’t want any trouble.”
“He’s been selected,” came a resonant voice from the entrance to the tent.
Ardo the Great stood there, Nameless’s chainmail and gambeson draped over one arm, horned helm in his other hand.
“That’s what they do, these Pressers: select villagers to fight.”
The woman cried, “No!”, but her husband forced her face into his chest to muffle the sound.
“Those that win get the dubious honor of joining them,” Ardo said. “Become members of the city’s pressgang themselves.”
“And if they lose?” Nameless said.
“They die,” the Presser in the skull mask said. “And we cart them back to the city, where there’s a demand for such things.”
“And the majority do die,” Ardo said. His great chest heaved as he sighed. “The Pressers have weapons; the villagers have none.”
“Sounds fair,” Shadrak said.
“Which is why,” the Presser said, “I asked about your axe. It is not lawful for villagers to carry weapons.”
“Ain’t it?” Shadrak said, raising his flintlock and taking slow and deliberate aim. “So, what you gonna do about this one?”
The boy broke free of the Pressers holding him, and ran to his parents. The woman smothered him in an embrace. The Pressers tried to pull them apart, and the husband, if anything, lent a hand.
“It’s all right, dear,” he said to his wife. “It’s just the way things are. It’s all right.”
“No, laddie,” Nameless said. “It is not.”
He grabbed both Pressers by the scruff of the neck and slammed their heads together. Their iron masks clanged, and they dropped like a couple of flaccid pricks.
The lanky one in the skull mask raised his glaive and stepped in, but Shadrak pulled the trigger. Screams went up from the onlookers as thunder boomed and the Presser was spun from his feet. He’d barely hit the ground when Shadrak was on him, drawing a dagger across his exposed throat.
The Pressers containing the crowd came charging in. Nameless side-stepped a spear thrust and hammered his axe into a masked face. Paxy tore through the iron as if it were paper, and blood sprayed where the top of the man’s head had been.
Shadrak holstered his flintlock and drew a second blade. Scuts like this weren’t worth wasting ammo on.
The bulk of the Pressers went for Nameless, who met them with a flurry of chops and a booming snatch of song.
Three came at Shadrak amid the clatter and jangle of armor. He ducked beneath the swing of a morning star and knifed the scut in the bollocks. Spinning away and ripping the blade free, he rolled over the second man’s lunging leg and hamstringed him.
Grimwart stepped up, and the third Presser crashed into his shield. As the man recovered, the Kryptès brained him with his mace.
Nameless grew overconfident and let one of the Pressers get behind him. Shadrak saw the danger and drew back a dagger to throw, but Ardo was suddenly there. The strongman grabbed the Presser by the shoulder and groin, hoisted him overhead, and lobbed him at his comrades. Half a dozen went down, but before they recovered, Grimwart rushed in, clobbering them on the heads with his mace
, and those he didn’t get, Shadrak finished off with a knife.
Horrified looks passed among the watching crowd, but they needn’t have worried. The Pressers still standing broke off and bolted for their wagons.
“Come back!” Nameless called after them. “I was just getting warmed up.”
The husband of the screaming woman strode toward the dwarf.
“What have you done? They’ll be back, you know, and we’ll all be for it.”
“Laddie?” Nameless said, looking genuinely baffled.
Shadrak took three quick steps and kicked the scut in the back of the knee. As the man fell, Shadrak caught him by the hair and yanked his head back.
Before he could slice a blade across the shogger’s throat, Kadee called out, “Shadrak! Fellah, Enough!”
He hesitated, knife hand shaking. His face tightened into a grimace. He gritted his teeth, then shoved the man to the ground and sheathed his dagger.
“Scut deserved it,” he muttered under his breath.
“Good boy,” Kadee said, approaching and touching her hand to his face.
“What I don’t get,” Grimwart said to Nameless, “is why the villagers stand by and put up with this.”
Nameless looked to Ardo for an answer, but the strongman shook his head and said nothing. He seemed to be wrestling with something, judging by the clench of his jaw, the way he chewed on nothing and swallowed.
“They are like sheep, bred for slaughter.”—A voice of crystal clarity, high-pitched and lilting, resonant like a templum bell.
Everyone stilled, and a deathly quiet slammed the lid on their murmuring.
Nameless was the first to turn and look, and Shadrak followed his gaze.
The husk girl had spoken.
She looked taller, and her golden hair fanned about her head as if a strong wind were gusting. Her gossamer dress, though, was unruffled, clinging to her slender frame like woven cobwebs. Her eyes were scorching sapphires that roved the crowd, seeking out and excoriating everyone present.
Without warning, she coughed and clutched her stomach. She retched and dropped to her knees. He hair trailed to the ground, and on her back, by her shoulder blades, Shadrak could see the protruding nubs of… bone?
Kadee went to her side, knelt down, and hugged her. The husk girl shuddered, then slumped. With strength she had never possessed in life, Kadee lifted her in her arms and cradled her like a child. Within moments, the girl was sleeping.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the ringmaster, Bartimaeus, said to Ardo. He was standing beside the kiosk at the entrance to the tent. “Shouldn’t have gotten involved. There will be reprisals. We will lose our immunity.”
The strongman bit his lip and nodded slowly to himself. “I know, and I am sorry.” His head jerked round, and he speared Bartimaeus with a fierce look. “But it’s about time we did something.”
“Not your place,” Bartimaeus said. Removing his tall hat, he stared into its depths for a moment, and then said, “But maybe you are right.”
“Trouble for another day,” Grimwart said, “but we still have plenty left for right here, right now.”
He pointed with his mace across the valley, where a swarm of black shapes drifted inexorably toward them. They were still a fair way off, but it didn’t take a genius to realize what they were.
“Harvesters,” Kadee said.
Maybe it was the fear, but she looked to have aged again. Her body remained lean and full, but her skin had lost some of its sheen, and the faint marks of crow’s feet now adorned her eyes. Even the luster of her black hair had dulled, and here and there it was streaked with gray.
“How long do you have?” Shadrak asked her. His voice wavered with trepidation.
“Until they reach us?” Kadee’s eyes took on a haunted look as she watched the swirling flock’s languid approach.
“No. Until…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but she knew what he meant. He could see that from the grim set of her jaw. Until age caught up with her once more. Until her new body gave way and she went back to the mud. Permanently, this time.
“Don’t worry, fellah. I’m not going anywhere till we’ve found these dwarves of yours.”
“Dwarves?” Ardo said.
“Yes, laddie,” Nameless said. “Dwarves, like us.” He indicated Grimwart and himself. “Have you seen others?”
“Not me,” Ardo said. “But I know someone who has.”
“Ardo…” Bartimaeus said, starting toward the strongman.
Ardo waved him back. “The time for discretion has passed.” He gestured toward the bodies of the Pressers lying on the ground. One or two of them might still have been breathing, but that could soon be fixed.
Kadee flashed Shadrak a look, as if she could read his mind. He quickly shelved the idea.
Bartimaeus sighed and shook his head. “Fine. Throw caution to the wind, if you must. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. And just remember who’s to blame when the Pressers come back in force, and this time target my circus.”
He turned on his heel and disappeared inside the tent.
“Well, laddie?” Nameless said to Ardo.
“There is a man, an outsider,” Ardo began, but Kadee interjected.
“The Warlord.”
Ardo nodded. “A stranger from another world. He comes and goes, each time remaining on Thanatos a little longer. He recruits those among the villagers who show the slightest glimmer of fight and uses them in his war against the city. Skirmishes, mostly. Lightning raids.
“I don’t know how he does it, how he’s survived for so long, because it’s not just the Pressers arrayed against him. His people are hunted night and day by the denizens of this world.
“He comes to the show on occasion, tries everything he knows to recruit me. But I cannot leave the circus. These are my people. My family. They need my protection. Although now, after getting involved, I wonder if my presence will put them at greater risk.
“He once told me about dwarves in the black mountains. But they are not like you, my friend.”
Ardo rested a hand on Nameless’s shoulder. “According to the Warlord, they are brutal, without mercy. In the beginning, they cost him more men than the Thanatosians, and so now he avoids them whenever possible.”
Grimwart and Nameless exchanged looks, and they both nodded slowly.
“Where do we find this Warlord?” Nameless asked.
“Head for the foothills of the black mountains. If you don’t find him, I have no doubt he will find you. But be wary. Thanatos is a hard world, and it forges hard men. If you are granted the opportunity to speak, mention of my name may serve you well.”
So, a spot of stealth was in order, Shadrak figured. In case the Warlord’s people struck first and asked questions later. Fine by him. He was a master of being unseen. He only wished he could say as much for the others.
“I am known to him,” Kadee said, “though I am in his debt. He aided me against the harvesters.”
Ardo frowned at that. “Your kind should not leave the forest. The threat that follows you endangers the rest of us.”
“No need to worry yourself on that account,” Shadrak said. “We’ve already wasted too much time here.”
Ardo nodded, and for a moment, his eyes were filled with regret, as if he wished he were going, too. As if his heart were set on joining the Warlord’s efforts, but loyalty to his friends prevented him from going through with it.
The strongman shook Nameless’s hand. The dwarf winced. When Ardo let go and started to apologize, Nameless said, “Got you, laddie,” and clapped him on the back.
The strongman let out a deep rumbling laugh. “It is a shame we have no time for beer. One of the few good things that comes from the city. I would have enjoyed sharing a drink with you.”
“Me, too, laddie,” Nameless said. “Maybe some other time, if we get through this.”
Ardo smiled. “I’d like that.” A flicker of worry crossed his face. He coughed to clear hi
s throat and said, “I have a confession to make.”
“Oh?” Nameless said.
Grimwart cocked his head, and Shadrak edged closer. Kadee was crooning gently to the sleeping husk girl in her arms.
“The globes on the barbell… They contained quicksilver.”
Now it was Nameless’s turn to frown.
Ardo held up a hand. “I know. And I’m sorry. But with the show continually touring, and me performing night after night, sooner or later, I’ll be under par, and someone will meet my challenge. When that time comes…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, laddie,” Nameless said.
“No, I do. I cheated to win, to maintain my reputation.”
“You shogging piece of scutting—” Shadrak started, but Nameless cut him off with a raised hand.
Grimwart was nodding his agreement with Shadrak, but Kadee rolled her eyes.
“The quicksilver might have made the globes wobble,” Nameless said. “But you still lifted the weight, and managed to stand with it.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Ardo said. “It gave me an unfair advantage. With a few days to get used to the wobble, I fear you would have beaten me.”
“No, laddie. I don’t think so. And even if I did, your reputation would still be intact.”
“How so?”
“You are the strongest man on Thanatos?”
Ardo sighed and nodded that he was.
“Well, laddie, I’m a dwarf.”
Grimwart slapped him on the back and laughed. “Nice one, Nameless. The strongest dwarf on Thanatos.”
