by D. P. Prior
The blades of the Axe of the Dwarf Lords sang through the air, cleaved bone as easily as butter. Bodies piled up on the ground, and the three Immortals stood upon the mounds of the fallen, battling with savage fury that was at the same time measured and almost sedate.
This is what they were made for. This is what they were: the Immortals among the Dwarf Lords, the elite of the elite. The protectors of their people.
The carnage continued to mount, and there was no end in sight. Thanatosians streamed from the Forest of Lost Souls, drawn to the scything blades like moths to the flame. Nameless was blinded by euphoria, rapt by the drug of perfect killing. He could scent the blood of the Immortals rolling off of Thyenna and Gitashan. He could feel the osmotic flood of it through his skin. Their blades flashed, blurred, and swept down in harmony, amid a symphony of rushing, whistling air. Beneath that heady music, Nameless could hear the syncopated tattoo of their three heartbeats growing closer together, until they joined as one.
And still the Thanatosians came on.
Flame streaked to either side of them as the Warlord’s group came to lend their own devastation to the battle. Shadrak blasted relentlessly with both flintlocks, and at his side, Cid never seemed to tire of unleashing searing bolts of blue.
A glance behind showed Nameless the attack the far side of the arch had been thwarted, and the last stragglers were heading through the portal.
A clutch of Dwarf Lords, one of them a girl, were taking their last steps on the unforgiving soil of Thanatos. It was the girl nameless had spoken with outside the Warlord’s camp. As a breakaway stream of Thanatosians found a gap and came straight at them, the adult Lords instantly joined shields to protect the girl.
Nameless blocked the torpid strike of a silver dagger, drove his axe through a Thanatosian’s head.
Gitashan whirled, and she, too, saw the danger to the girl. “Jannak! Help her!” she shrieked to Nameless. “Thyenna and I will hold them here.”
The Warlord’s team began a renewed assault of bullets that spun a dozen Thanatosians from their feet. It gave Nameless the opening he needed, and he turned away from the main battle toward the portal.
The shield wall the Lords had swiftly assembled buckled under a united assault at its center. A single Thanatosian flipped over the top and leapt at Jannak. The girl’s shield came up, and she lunged with her sword, too brave to turn and run, too much a Dwarf Lord.
The Thanatosian slid round her blade with easy grace. Its twin blades flashed, but Nameless had already hurled Paxy. Gold streaked faster than a lightning strike and knocked the Thanatosian from its feet. Black blood gushed into the air from where its head had once been attached to its body.
Nameless hurtled down the bank and caught Paxy, then he bundled Jannak into the portal before she had even registered she was still alive.
Gitashan and Thyenna backed down the bank, hard-pressed by a renewed surge from the Thanatosians.
The Warlord’s band cut into the enemy flank, firing rapid blasts of bullets that sent black blood spraying. The horde turned on them, now the greater threat, and the Matriarch and her sister instead hammered into the flank of the creatures attacking the shield wall. Nameless came at them from the other side, and as the three Immortals renewed their deadly dance, Gitashan yelled for the remaining Dwarf Lords to flee into the portal.
Inch by inch, Nameless and the two women backed toward the arch. The Warlord’s people retreated down the slope, spraying bullets into the ocean of black.
“Go!” the Warlord yelled over his shoulder. “We’ve got this now!”
Shadrak ushered Cid ahead of him toward the portal, but the old dwarf could only go so fast. Ardo saw, and ran to his aid, lifting Cid under one arm and setting him down beneath the arch. The assassin continued to blast left and right, covering the strongman until Cid had made it through, and then Shadrak sprang after him. Without hesitation, Ardo charged back toward the rise, firing like a maniac.
Every instinct screamed at Nameless to stay, to throw himself deep into the massed ranks of the enemy and to smite and go on smiting till they brought him down, or he died of exhaustion. He could see from the blaze of Thyenna’s eyes, the purity of rage in Gitashan’s, that they felt it, too, but in the same moment, he recalled why he was there at all, why he had come to Thanatos. He remembered the dragon. He remembered Arnoch. He remembered Cordana.
The three Immortals broke off in unity, swirling away from the battle in a final flurry of blows. Thyenna passed beneath the arch first, then Gitashan.
Nameless turned on the threshold, glanced back at the people who had risked everything to make sure he got home. To make sure the Dwarf Lords returned to Arnoch.
The Warlord sent a booming blast into the middle of the Thanatosians, decimating their center. A creature flung itself at Ardo, coming beneath the aim of his gun. Dropping the weapon, the strongman caught the Thanatosian by throat and groin and hefted it overhead, hurling it into three others. As he braced himself for another assault, Ardo turned his head and winked at Nameless, then he powered into the fray like an irrepressible titan.
Nameless’s heart swelled with pride, with grief, but most of all with hope.
And then he stepped through the portal.
HOW TO TAKE DOWN A DRAGON
The transition this time was gentler, as if coming back where he belonged were somehow more natural. Certainly, the stuffy air of the portal room beneath Arnoch was an improvement on the noxious air of Thanatos.
The chamber was crowded, packed wall to wall with dwarves, most of them in the dark armor of the Dwarf Lords, but in among them, the odd flash of color from a red cloak. Nameless saw the black cloaks of the Krypteia, too, and with them, already being debriefed, was Grimwart, or was he now insisting his colleagues called him Kryptès Duck?
A woman separated herself from the crowd around the black cloaks and called something to Duck. Long red hair fell in untidy tousles down her back, and her beard was uncombed. It looked liked she’d come in a hurry. And then, with a sinking feeling, Nameless realized who it was. He’d never spoken more than a word of greeting to her, and that during the flight from the feeders beneath the volcano, but he was certain it was Kal’s girl. He was certain it was Glariya.
Bit by bit, though, the room was clearing, as Red Cloaks deferentially led the Dwarf Lords out and up the steps.
Gitashan was on one side of the portal, Thyenna the other. Both smiled at Nameless when he stepped from beneath it, and they each laid hands on his shoulders. They were letting him know they had shared something special in that last fight at the portal, something beyond words, for which they had no other means of expression.
Nameless nodded his acknowledgment, then stepped away from them into the room. He spotted Abednago’s diminutive figure weaving in and out of the crowd, gray dreadlocks a tangled mess trailing over his shoulders.
“Homunculus!” Ancient Bub cried out. “You in the white robe! Do you have a minute? I’ve things I need to talk to you about.” He held up his sack full of annals.
Abednago stopped in his tracks and arched an eyebrow.
Seeing the homunculus reminded Nameless to scan the room for Shadrak, but true to his name, the assassin remained unseen.
He saw the husk girl, though, laid out on her stretcher, the chrysalis about her now obscuring her features completely. If he’d not seen it slowly form around her, he’d have taken it for the cast of some gigantic insect. The thought occurred to him she might be dead, rather than changing, but to his mind there was no way to tell. Best thing for it would be to wait and see. If they were all still here in another day or two, better minds than his could examine the pod and see if there was anything else to be done.
And then he saw Cordana, white robes sticking out from the mass of black like moonshine on night-darkened water. She was stood there watching him as bodies bustled all around her. Cordana. His Cordy. He was halfway to greet her, when he faltered. Was she truly his? She’d said they would talk when h
e got back, but talk about what? Maybe she’d given it more thought. Maybe she knew, like he had always thought, that love between them was impossible, given all that he’d done.
She saw him stumble to a halt, and her mouth dropped open. A shadow of sadness rolled across her eyes, and then she strode toward him, and he shut his eyes, bracing himself for the punch.
Her arms wrapped about him, and her lips smothered his. He opened one eye warily, then the other, all the while too stunned to return her kiss.
She drew back and said, “What, not good enough for you now you’ve got all these Dwarf Lords to choose from?”
And that was all it took. He pulled her close and snogged her hard; went on snogging, till the bustle in the room, the hubbub of voices, retreated and left him in a rapture as sublime as his dance of death with the Immortals.
He came up for air and held her at arm’s length, studied her, tried to burn her form into his brain, so that he would never forget this moment. She caught sight of something over his shoulder, and he turned his head to see what it was.
His eyes met Gitashan’s. They were simmering pools of amber. With a haughty tilt of her chin, she looked away.
“That, lassie, is the Matriarch, the ruler of the Dwarf Lords.”
“I was going to say, they don’t have many men with them, only the two old ones. Is this all they could spare to help us? Did the menfolk stay at home, warming their toes round the hearth and sipping on cocoa?”
Nameless was momentarily confused, but then he said, “Duck didn’t tell you?”
“Grimwart?”
“Him, too. I mean, yes. He was Duck, then he was Grimwart, and now he’s Duck again.”
“I prefer Grimwart.”
“You do?”
“It was me that encouraged him to use his birth name,” Cordana said. “So they’d take him more seriously in the Krypteia.”
“Yes, yes, quite right, lassie. Duck is a silly name. But he didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“The Dwarf Lords: there’s only three-hundred left, and most of them women.”
“Three-hundred,” Cordana said. “But—”
“All here, lassie. Every last one of them, woman and child. Well, they’d probably grate my gonads if I called them that. Young adults, I suspect, is how they’d like to be called. And they can fight, lassie. They sure as shog can fight.”
Cordana was staring across the room at Gitashan, who was now in hushed conversation with Thyenna.
“I should go to her,” Cordana said. “Make myself known, if she’s their leader and I’m Voice of the Council.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good—”
But Cordana was already heading over to them.
Nameless swallowed, took a deep breath, and was about to set after her, when a girl’s voice said from behind, “Sir? Sir Immortal.”
With great effort, and mounting trepidation, he tore his eyes from Cordana’s back and turned. It was the girl he’d saved from the Thanatosian. It was Jannak.
Her chestnut beard was speckled with black blood, the spray from the Thanatosian’s severed head. The flash and flitter of her eyes showed she knew just how close she’d come. Her lips trembled as she tried to find the right words and came up wanting.
“It’s Nameless, lassie,” he said, trying to put her at ease. “No need for titles. We’re all friends here.”
She frowned at that, but the action of frowning seemed to give her confidence, as if it put her on familiar ground. “I just wanted to say… You know…”
“Aye, lassie, I know.”
She nodded. There was damp around her eyes, and she spun away from him to hide it. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she stiffened.
“You did well back there, lassie. Very well.”
Without facing him, she said, “I did?”
“Aye, you did yourself proud.”
She turned to him now, unabashed at the tears streaking her face, and she smiled.
“You should do that more often, lassie. It lights you up like a beacon.”
Pink bloomed on her cheeks, and she suppressed a giggle before wandering away through the crowd and following the flow out of the room.
Gitashan’s voice barked above the din, and set Nameless’s heart thumping. He looked back, expecting to see her and Cordana going at it hammer and tong, but the Matriarch was moving away, issuing commands to the Dwarf Lords, telling them to move out, follow the others to the throne room.
Nameless caught Cordana’s eye as she talked with Thyenna. For an instant, he thought the Matriarch’s sister had taken a shine to her, and he started over to them, his mouth suddenly dry. Gitashan swept past him as he went. He could feel the heat of her Immortal blood. When one of the Dwarf Lords asked her what they were to do, the Matriarch replied, “Anything the Red Cloaks tell you.”
Well, that was a surprise. He’d never have imagined Gitashan agreeing to that in a million years.
As he approached Cordana, Thyenna gave him a bashful smile and moved off, helping to herd her people toward the stairs.
“What did you say to her?” Nameless said. “To the Matriarch?”
“She wasn’t exactly friendly,” Cordana said, “and after about the third insult, I told her a few home truths. Told her if she didn’t cut it out and start acting like a Dwarf Lord, I’d see her in the circle.”
“You what? You threatened her with a circle fight? Oh, lassie, what have you done? I’ve seen her in action, and she is deadly.”
“Yes, well I saw the way she looked at your arse, and it shogged me off.”
“And who can blame her, lassie? These glutes of steel command the appreciative awe of more wenches than you’ve had hot—”
Her fist crunched into his jaw and sent him staggering back, reeling.
“Didn’t see that coming, did you, Mr. Shogging Immortal?”
“Point taken, lassie,” Nameless said, rubbing his jaw. “I’ll wear a kilt from now on.”
“The point I was making,” Cordana said, “is that I could break her shogging face, Immortal or not. And do you know what, I think it did the trick.”
“Aye, Cordy, I was going to say, they respond well to a bit of dominance.”
“Cordy? You called me Cordy. It’s been a long time since you did that.”
Nameless was as surprised as she was. He couldn’t recall when he’d stopped using the diminutive. It’s how he’d always known her, him and Thumil both. And then he remembered: it was the day he’d left Arnoch, after the defeat of the Lich Lord. After they’d kissed in the passages beneath the volcano and nearly did so much more. After the way it left him feeling, considering what he’d done to her husband and daughter. And so, the more formal address had come naturally, without him giving it much thought. But he knew it for what it was now: knew it was a way of keeping a safe distance.
“Oh, lassie, I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized I was doing it. But you know why, don’t you? Tell me you understand.”
Cordana’s eyes widened as she worked it out. She shuddered with contained laughter and pent up tears. She turned away briefly; turned back again, wiping her eyes. She let out a sharp sigh and smiled at him with such genuine affection, it warmed his cockles like even distilled creeper vine couldn’t.
“Shog, I’ve missed you,” she said, touching a palm to his chest.
“Aye, lassie, and I’ve missed you, too.”
Someone gave a polite cough behind Nameless. He turned to see Duck standing there, one arm draped over Glariya’s shoulder. She’d been crying, and there was a quiver to her lips as she spoke.
“Nameless, My Lady Voice.” She gave a slight bow to Cordana. “Sorry to disturb you, but…”
She began to shake, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
Duck pulled her head into his chest. “Kal, remember? Kal gave you a message for her.”
Nameless flicked a glance at Cordana, but how could he expect her to help. He knew he should have prepared somethi
ng to say, rather than relying on the inspiration of the moment.
He held out a hand to Glariya, and she took it. Her watery eyes met his expectantly.
“Oh, lassie, what can I say? I’m so sorry for your loss. Kal was…”
Cordana placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“What was his message?” Glariya said. “It’s funny, Kal never used to speak much with me. He said words could spoil the moment. We just used to hold hands a lot, and hug.”
“And that’s what he asked me to give to you, lassie,” Nameless said, thanking shog the inspiration had come at last. “He asked me to give you a hug.”
She slipped away from Duck and into his embrace, and with her tears threatening to rust his chainmail, he patted her lightly on the back, then started to stroke her hair.
***
Shadrak would have stayed huddled beneath his cloak in the corner of the portal room, had Cidruthus Tallish not found him and chewed his ear off about the guns his House had built atop Arnoch’s battlements, centuries, if not millennia ago. No matter how much Shadrak protested he wasn’t up to taking a look at the guns, how much he needed to stew and wallow, Cid would have none of it. There was a time to grieve and a time to pick up a gun and blow the shogging crap out of the enemy, he said, as if it were a point of common sense. And slowly, begrudgingly at first, Shadrak allowed himself to be won over.
And that was the thing of it: that he found he had a choice; a choice whether to fall apart at the seams, or to pick himself up and carry on. Last time he’d stood by and watched his foster mother die, he’d sunk into a dark place for weeks. Months, even. He’d been numbed by despair, too frozen by it to take the slightest pleasure, the slightest interest in anything. Even a year after her death, he’d still not been able to come home without expecting to find her there, chanting to her gods, whittling away at her wood-carved jewelry, which she sold in order to buy them scraps to eat.
