The Archon's Assassin

by D. P. Prior

  Shadrak rolled back from the edge. His lungs burned from the heat, and his beard was smoldering. He covered his mouth and nose against the fumes, and tried to find a part of the rifle stock that wasn’t too hot to touch.

  “With a hey, Nonny, Nonny!” Nameless bellowed.

  Sartis twisted at the sound, stooped to get a better look.

  “I’m feeling rather bonny!”

  The dwarf charged, smashing his axe deep into the giant’s ankle.

  Sartis kicked out, but Nameless danced around his foot and chopped down on a toe, sheering straight through.

  “With a hop and a hack, and a wench on her back…”

  The giant screamed, and the ceiling shook in response. A stalactite crashed to the floor in a pile of dust and rubble.

  Ekyls pounced at the other foot, hatchet rising and falling, rising and falling, great gouts of smoking blood spurting from the wounds.

  Sartis stomped, splitting stone and sending a booming shockwave rolling across the cavern. Ekyls was flipped to his back, and Nameless bounced and clattered into the wall.

  As the giant went to stamp again, Galen leapt beneath his foot, saber held high. Sartis bellowed as steel lanced through his heel amid a shower of molten blood.

  Galen ripped the blade free as he dodged the steaming shower, but Sartis’s tail lashed out and sent him flying into the oven.

  Shadrak rose on one knee and took aim. It had better be a good shot, because he was about to give away his position. He started to squeeze the trigger, but Nameless roared and ran back in, swinging his axe in a glittering arc.

  Ekyls jumped up and hammered his hatchet into the giant’s calf.

  Rubble cascaded from the ceiling as Sartis howled and raged.

  Shadrak took a different tack, and got Albert in the crosshairs, but before he could fire, the giant’s tail undulated and coiled, leaving a hazy smog in its wake.

  Sartis bent down and grabbed at Ekyls with iron-clad fingers. The savage was too quick, though, and sprang out of the way. The giant crashed his fist into the ground over and over, forcing Ekyls to leap and roll between the craters he formed.

  The haze cleared, but Albert had ducked out of sight. Instead, Shadrak pointed the rifle at Sartis’s head.

  The tail lashed out again, wrapped around Nameless’s chest, burning and constricting. The links on the dwarf’s hauberk turned red, then white. Nameless grunted and dropped his axe, legs thrashing, fists punching desperately.

  Sartis rose to his full height and spun round—

  —to stare straight down the barrel of the gun.

  Shadrak fired.

  A deafening crack resounded about the cavern, and a tiny hole appeared between the giant’s eyes.

  Sartis blinked and put a hand to his head. The tail went flaccid, pitching Nameless to the ground with an almighty clang where the great helm struck rock. The giant rubbed a silvery smudge from his forehead and flicked fluid to the ground: the molten remains of the bullet.

  Shadrak slung the rifle over his shoulder and leapt for the adjacent wall. Pain lanced through his injured shoulder, but he clung on, swinging from handhold to handhold, wincing against the thought of the giant’s fist pounding him into mush. He made it to a narrow ledge and rolled onto it.

  Nameless was back up, swaying like a drunkard, hoops of partially melted links encircling his hauberk.

  Ekyls poked his head out of a crater, snarling and hissing.

  Sartis stumbled as he looked down at them. He clutched at his stomach and belched. Dirty yellow gas billowed from his lips, and his hands went to his throat. He coughed, staggered, and fell on his face. Dust spewed into the air, and fractures raced across the cavern floor. Cracks rent the ceiling. It groaned and sagged, then dropped a ton of rock on top of the fallen giant.

  It took a while for the collapse to subside, but when it did, all that could be seen of Sartis was a gauntleted hand and the limp tip of his tail.

  Shadrak climbed down from his perch and crunched over the rubble.

  Nameless eased himself out from beneath a pile of rock. The black helm was coated with dust, but, incredibly, unscathed.

  Ekyls was curled into a ball at the bottom of his crater, boulders all around him, but none seemed to have found its mark. With painstaking care, he straightened his limbs and tested them.

  Albert emerged from behind a stalagmite and offered the savage a hand up.

  Ekyls flipped to his feet, then vaulted over the lip of the crater. Before Albert could react, Ekyls screamed like a demon and came at him with the hatchet.

  Albert deftly side-stepped and rapped a cheese-cutter around his throat. The hatchet clattered to the ground as Ekyls clawed at the wire, spitting and gurgling.

  “It’ll take your fingers off, if you don’t cut it out,” Albert said. He turned to Shadrak and forced a smile. “It would seem I’m being blamed for something.”

  Shadrak drew a flintlock. “Shrewd of you.”

  Nameless salvaged his axe from the rubble and advanced on the poisoner.

  “One more step,’”Albert squealed, “and I’ll finish him.”

  The dwarf kept going. “Fine by me, laddie. He’s your bondsman.”

  Shadrak couldn’t get a clear shot, as Albert kept tugging Ekyls in front.

  Nameless didn’t seem to care. He stepped in, raised his axe.

  “Stop! Wait!” Albert sounded like a girl who’d pissed her pants. “I was trying to help.”

  “Try another,” Shadrak said, drawing the other flintlock to double his chances.

  Albert retreated a step, taking Ekyls with him. Blood seeped beneath the cheese-wire, but whether it was from the savage’s fingers or his throat, it was hard to tell.

  There was a flash of red behind, and then Galen crashed the pommel of his saber into the back of Albert’s head, dropping him like a bag of rotten apples.

  “Spineless ruddy blackguard,” Galen growled.

  Ludo crept out from behind the oven and tried to make himself useful by examining Ekyls’ wounds. The savage lashed out at him, snarled, and backed away, clutching his throat.

  Galen rolled Albert over with his boot. “Should be out for a while. Heard the big chap fall. Terrific crash. Brought me to. Well done, everyone.”

  “Damn fine shot, laddie,” Nameless said. “I’d buy you a drink, if there was a tavern close by.”

  Shadrak scratched at his singed beard. There was something odd here. He’d hit the giant, sure enough, but the bullet had turned to molten mush the minute it struck. If it hadn’t done so, Sartis would have died in an instant.

  He glanced at Albert’s prone form. What if the poisoner had been telling the truth, for once? What if there had been poison in the vial, just as he’d suspected? It was too late to worry about that now. Either Albert would recover from the blow to his head, or he wouldn’t. Problem was, if he didn’t have his sights set on betrayal already, he shogging well would now. Albert wasn’t the kind to forgive and forget.

  “Best get what we came for,” Shadrak said, starting to roll the rocks from the giant’s body.

  “I was just thinking about that,” Nameless said. “I’ve hands like shovels in dwarven circles, but there’s no way those gauntlets are going to fit.” Nevertheless, he set about digging with a will, shifting boulders with an ease that belied his size.

  “You can tell Aristodeus that when we take them back to him,” Shadrak said. “Maybe then he’ll stop getting your hopes up, and we can forget about the other quests.”

  Galen knelt down and began to stack the rocks into neat piles.

  Ludo was obviously above such manual work. Either that, or he was too old. He thumbed through his book, presumably looking for some bollocks to account for their victory.

  Shadrak paused for a second as Ekyls slunk back over and squatted down beside Galen. The knight held his gaze, and something passed between them. Galen coughed into his fist, then straightened the end of his mustache. He gave Ekyls the barest of nods and then continue
d to stack rocks.

  “All we need’s the gauntlets,” Shadrak said. “Don’t worry about uncovering the rest of the scut. Just mind the heat.”

  Nameless already had a hold of one of the iron fingers, and pulled with all his might. The gauntlet slid free, and the dwarf fell on his arse. “Cool as a whore to a pauper. Same goes for Sartis. Must be because he’s out cold. Get it?”

  Shadrak snorted a laugh, but stopped abruptly.

  Nameless sat up, holding a gauntlet no bigger than his own hand. Shadrak could only stare at it, as if the world had just turned upside down.

  They worked together to free the other one, and it, too, shrank as Nameless pulled it off.

  “Well I’ll be,” Galen said. “Have you ever seen the like?”

  Ludo stopped looking through his book and touched his forehead.

  Nameless hurriedly put the gauntlets on.

  “Well?’ Shadrak asked. “Anything?”

  Nameless clenched and unclenched his fists, splayed the fingers, clapped the metal palms together. He took hold of the tip of Sartis’s tail and heaved. Slowly, steadily, he drew the giant’s body from beneath the rubble. He shrugged, as if the deed were nothing. With a roll of his helmed head, he stooped to pick up a rock. Turning to Shadrak, he closed his fist around it. There was a crack, and rock dust spilled between his fingers.

  Shadrak frowned. Three artifacts to break the spell of the black axe, Aristodeus had said. Three items that, combined, could thwart the Demiurgos and return Nameless to normal. Garner power to be freed from power. Made a certain kind of sense. Least it was a plan, and they were already a third of the way to achieving it.

  Ludo shut his book. “The giant’s still breathing.”

  Sartis’s body was beset with fine tremors. His fingers curled slightly, then his tail twitched.

  “Not a one-shot kill, then,” Galen said. “Shame, that.”

  “Held guts before he fall.” Ekyls looked at each of them in turn. “Seen before. Long time ago. Felt it, even. He cure me of it.” He jabbed a blood-soaked finger at Albert’s unconscious body.

  “The vial,”’ Shadrak said. “I saw him put something in the broth.”

  “Mamba poison,” Ekyls said.

  Well that about shogging sealed it. It was Sartis Albert had double-crossed, not them.

  “Oh,” mumbled Galen, staring down at the poisoner’s crumpled body. “Do you think he’ll be all right? It was quite a knock I gave him.”

  “You might want to sleep with one eye open from now on,” Shadrak said. They’d all have to. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Well, I’m not carrying him,” Nameless said. He bent down to pick up a far bigger boulder than the one he’d crushed.

  “What, leave him behind?” Galen said. “Not the done thing, in my book.”

  “Then you take him,” Shadrak said. “Now come on, before Sartis wakes up.”

  Galen tugged down his jacket and started to stammer a reply, but he stopped when Nameless hoisted the boulder high and slammed it down into the giant’s head. Bone crunched, and steaming gore splashed the cavern floor. Sartis moaned, but Nameless hefted the boulder and brought it down, again and again and again.

  Shadrak couldn’t take his eyes off the butchery. Neither could anyone else. Even Ekyls was wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Ludo sank to his knees, and Galen swallowed the same lump over and over.

  Finally, the giant stopped moving, and Nameless stepped away, drenched in blood from head to toe.

  “I…” Galen said. “I…”

  Shadrak frowned so hard his head hurt. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done the same sort of thing in his time, but Nameless… Perhaps the dwarves of Arx Gravis had a point. Perhaps the Archon did. He had the feeling things had just slipped a little further from his control, and that fulfilling the Archon’s contract, if it came to it, was now going to be that much harder.

  “Last of his kind.” A voice thick with emotion rose up from the rubble like an accusation.

  The air shimmered, and Bird stood before them, black eyes damp, lips trembling.

  Nameless snatched up his axe. “Perhaps if you hadn’t shogged off and left us…”

  For a moment, it looked like he was going to take a swing at Bird.

  The little man drew his cloak of feathers close, as if it could protect him from an axe blow.

  The tension broke with an almost audible snap.

  Nameless dipped his knees and sprang up to the vent fifty feet above. The others gawped at him, but Shadrak couldn’t take his eyes off Bird. He met the little man’s stony gaze and, for an instant, felt a familiarity, a communion, the sharing of a sadness welling up to despair.

  Bird blinked, and the feeling lifted. One side of his mouth twisted into a smile, then he fluttered up beside Nameless in the form of a raven.

  Albert moaned, flapped about in the rubble, and sat up holding his head. Ekyls scampered to his side.

  “What’s going on?” Albert asked. “My head. I’m all woozy.” He blinked his eyes into focus on the blood pooling beneath Sartis. “Are we done?”

  Shadrak looked up at the lava vent as Bird flew from sight. “Yeah, we’re done. Let’s go.”

  Nameless stared down at them through the eye-slit of the black helm. One gauntleted hand grasped his axe; the other rapped out a steady rhythm against his thigh.

  BENEATH THE WAVES

  Tunnel between Britannia and Gallia, Earth

  Caledon drew up sharp, drumming his front hoof on the track and snorting plumes of chill mist into the gloom.

  Shader patted his neck and stood in the stirrups, casting a look over his shoulder and straining to hear.

  Water dripped from a hairline fracture in the tunnel roof, pooling in a depression that had been eroded over the years. Drip, splash, echo. Drip, splash—

  There! A hissing, rasping sound—like the last gasp of the recently deceased.

  “It’s just the wind, boy.” The fact Shader didn’t believe his own words didn’t exactly matter to the horse. He only hoped calm and confidence were conveyed by his tone. He scratched behind Caledon’s ear and squinted up ahead.

  Dirty light spilled from strips along the ceiling, casting piebald shadows on the twisted rails and rotting sleepers. He’d seen such things in the lands bordering Friston, grown over with weeds and moss. Same beneath Sektis Gandaw’s mountain, when Rugbeard had driven a mechanical cart along the tracks.

  Pressing with his thighs, Shader urged the horse onward one clopping step at a time, skirting a snaking cable of thick braided metal, the only break in the miles of uniformity.

  The Ancients had been engineers of bewildering skill, more so here than with the towering buildings of Sarum. The tunnel was wide enough for a dozen horses side by side, and just as high. It had been cast from broad segments of gray stone, steel wires overhead and broken track beneath. From time to time, he passed openings onto smaller, parallel tunnels, beside which were mounted metal boxes coated with flaking blue paint.

  Caledon backed up as water belched from a crack in the ceiling. The lights either side of it flickered and buzzed.

  Shader dismounted and led the horse around the shower, casting worried glances at the damp stone above and the network of fissures working their way across its surface. Dank mustiness clogged his nostrils—earthy, tinged with salt. He inwardly winced at the thought of all those tons of rock, chalk, and sediment crashing down on him as the sea washed away all trace of the Ancients’ hubris in daring to build beneath the waves.

  There was a sharp crunch from somewhere behind, and a snarl. Shader had half-drawn the gladius before rationalizing the disturbance: air in the vents. It was the atmosphere down here causing him to misread every little sound.

  Another crunch—this time from Caledon’s hoof pressing down on the ballast between the sleepers.

  With a shake of his head, Shader continued on. Caledon nickered and swished his tail, but whatever had him spooked, he apparently preferred to keep on mov
ing.

  The track before them was mangled: a length of steel rail twisted upright, its tip a jagged threat. Blackness thickened in the gullet of the tunnel, coalesced around something massive.

  Tethering Caledon to the upright rail, Shader edged toward the obstruction, tripped, and stumbled into a pillar of pale stone. Not stone, he realized as he grabbed it to steady himself: a great curved bone, arching up from the floor almost to the ceiling. In the patchy light from above, it looked like a detached segment of the tunnel, virtually indistinguishable from the joists, save for its pitted and mottled texture.

  He swung himself around the bone only to be confronted with another, and then he saw that he stood within a gargantuan ribcage partially smothered with rocks and dust. The skeleton extended way back down the tunnel. The raised rail he’d tied Caledon to stuck up between two ribs. It was an image that seemed to sum up the whole bloody devastation of the Reckoning, as vivid and as tragic as that on the canvas in the Gray Abbot’s cell.

  Shader followed the spine of the beast, ducked into its cavernous skull. Its jaws were clamped about a rusted metal carriage; a carriage that dwarfed the one beneath the Perfect Peak. Its chassis was as big as a cottage, warped and buckled under the force of that once powerful maw; perforated by teeth as long as swords. Shattered glass piled around a broad window in the front, sharp edges clinging to its border. Seated within was the skeleton of a man thick with mold. Strips of frayed cloth clung to his bones with a tenacity that belied the ages.

  Shader pressed past and gasped, breathing in the dust and coughing. The carriage extended for over fifty feet, where it was coupled with another, skewed across the tracks. He could just about make out a third beyond it, wending into the distance.

  On one side of the front carriage, a steel door was half-open. A skeleton was wedged between the door and the frame, one hand outstretched. Shader took hold of the handle and tried to slide it all the way open. It was stiff with rust, but with a jerk and a heave, it screeched and relented. The skeleton’s spine crumbled, and the torso clattered to the ground outside the carriage.

  The dead inside were crammed into seats of faded gray cloth that looked as if it would disintegrate on touch. Their mildewed skulls were twisted at grotesque angles, lower jaws hanging slack from the barest threads of desiccated ligaments. Their clothes were caked in dust, heavy with cobwebs, but the material itself—some kind of silk, by the looks of it, striped, checkered, emblazoned with meaningless words or simple images—had outlived the flesh of their bodies. Science, no doubt, clothing the Ancients in an immortality that didn’t extend to them.