by D. P. Prior
“Yeah, you know, our illustrious guildmaster, Nils Farting. Isn’t that why you brought him along? To carry your axe?”
Well, that wasn’t the half of it, but he might have given that impression. “The lad’s all right. Give him time, and you’ll see.”
“Seen just about all I want to, I reckon. He’s probably found a way back to Malfen along with the wannabe dark lord.”
Nameless chuckled. “Silas’ll be all right, as well. He’s just a bit obsessed.” Thinking about the wizard gave Nameless another idea, one that might make their sojourn on the island a little more palatable.
“Say, you’re a magicker, too, aren’t you? Can’t you conjure up some beer like he does?”
“I don’t do magic,” Ilesa said, shaking her head. “It’s more personal than that.”
“Oh,” Nameless said. “No harm in asking, I hope.”
NILS
Nils weren’t jealous, and that was a fact. He grabbed his boots and started to put them on. It was just, every time Nameless and Ilesa sat down, he lost sight of them behind a rock. He was worried, that’s what he was. Just worried. It was bad enough being stuck in Qlippoth with his companions. Shog only knew what he’d do if anything happened to them.
So, Nameless couldn’t swim. That was a laugh and a half. Made you wonder what they got up to in Arx Gravis. Weren’t they supposed to have their own docks at the foot of the ravine? Surely that meant they had water enough for swimming and the like. If you asked him—
The cracking of a twig shattered the silence like a thunderclap. Least it sounded like a twig.
Nils craned his neck to look behind at the trees, heart dancing a stomping jig. Surely it couldn’t be the wolf-men. Last he’d seen of them was a lily-white arse disappearing into the forest.
He spun round, half-expecting to stare straight into slavering jaws.
Nothing. There was nothing there, save the sullen-looking pine trees brooding over the edge of the lake. Didn’t seem possible he’d just legged it through there. The forest had taken on a creepy aspect now that had given Nils’s bowels a life of their own. Nothing for it but to hold it in, he decided. Ain’t no way he was dropping his britches anywhere near the lake. Not with that shogging great snake in the water.
He let his eyes rove back and forth, searching the trees for signs of movement. It was like a graveyard now. Not even the flutter of birds nesting in the branches. Not even the sound of the breeze whistling through the pine needles. But he’d definitely heard that snapping sound. The back of his neck had gone all cold and goose-fleshed. Nils knew the feeling well from back in New Londdyr’s underworld. Someone, or something, was watching him. He’d stake his hind teeth on it. And he weren’t having it, neither. Not after all he’d been through since they left Malfen. If some spineless shogger was spying on him, he was gonna give them what for. He didn’t care how big they were, or whether they had fangs, fur, or rotting flesh. Nameless would have kicked their arse if he weren’t marooned on that poxy island, so Nils was gonna have to do it instead.
He drew his sword, the muscles in his arm taut, blue veins snaking beneath the skin. Whatever it was skulking in the trees had better watch out. Nils Fargin weren’t in no mood to take no shit from nobody.
He glanced back at the island, saw Ilesa visoring her eyes and looking in his direction. Nameless stood and joined her.
Fire burned in Nils’s guts, but he told himself it was anger at being watched. He strode for the tree line, but just as he passed beneath the first branches, he trod more warily.
Maybe it was a trap, an inner voice told him. What would a seasoned Night Hawk do? What would his dad have done? For a fleeting moment, he knew the dreadful truth that Buck Fargin would have screwed up, same as he always did. The realization was as hateful to him as what was probably happening on the island. What about someone really stealthy, like that little runt Shadrak the Unseen? He’d brought the guilds to heel almost singlehandedly. Weren’t a guildsman alive could sneak up on him.
Nils pressed close to a trunk and rolled around it, slipping to the next tree like a phantom. He was the thief in the night. He was the silent stalker. He was—
Well and truly shogged.
A stocky figure stepped out of the shadows beneath an overhanging bough. Before Nils could raise his sword, cold steel was touching his throat, and a thickly bearded face pressed up so close he could smell what the dwarf had for dinner.
Beause it was most definitely a dwarf. No doubt about it.
“Where is he?” The dwarf’s eyes flitted left and right, as if he expected an attack at any moment.
Nils’s brain felt like someone had just plunged it into an icy flow. His thoughts got away from him like stampeding cattle. “Rabbit stew,” he said, not intending the words to come out.
The face pressed even closer, thick bristles scratching his skin, making him want to sneeze. “What?” the dwarf said.
“I-I-I…”
A meaty hand took hold of Nils’s collar, half strangled the life out of him. “I won’t ask again.”
“Who’s he?” Nils squealed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know,” the dwarf growled. “The Ravine Butcher. The Corrector. Shogger’s got you hunting us for him.”
Nils flapped his arms about, nicked himself on the shin with his sword, and swore. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. Nameless ain’t no butcher. Not no more. He’s just trying to help.”
“Yeah?” the dwarf said. “Well, he can help by cutting off his own head, save us the trouble.” He stole a look behind, every muscle in his body tense. Sweat was beading on his forehead.
“He’s not with me,” Nils said. “We got split up when we was attacked.”
“Wolf-men?”
Nils nodded.
“We ran into them, too,” the dwarf said. “Shoggers have up and left now the suns are in the sky.” He relaxed his grip a little, and Nils sucked in a deep breath.
“You some kind of assassin?”
The dwarf glowered at that. “Wish I were. That would be too direct for the Council’s liking, though. No, I’m just a scout, watching to see you don’t get too close.”
“But now we have,” Nils said. “So, what happens next?”
The dwarf’s face tightened into a grimace, like he was wrestling with some dark thought or other. “Maybe I should leave him a little warning.” He pressed harder with his dagger, and Nils felt the skin of his neck pop. Blood trickled down inside his shirt.
“What if I lead him away from you?” Nils said, realizing he sounded just like his dad. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
The scout grinned.
Nils didn’t like it one bit. For all his earlier bravado, the dwarf had seen right through him and revealed him for the spineless coward he really was. Nameless wouldn’t have backed down, and neither would Ilesa. Shog, even Silas had more balls than Nils.
“Tell him we’ve doubled back. Say we’re heading for Malfen, and plan to return to Arx Gravis. Do that, and you might just get out of this alive.”
“But it’s all changed,” Nils protested. “The land keeps shifting. I don’t even know if we can find our way back.”
“Not my problem,” the scout said. “Long as you keep that murderer away from my people, I won’t have a reason to come looking for you. Chances are, you’ll not make it, in any case. Place is full of death, and I doubt even the Ravine Butcher will last long out here.”
Nils reckoned he was right, but hadn’t Nameless felt the same way about the survivors of Arx Gravis? Wasn’t that why he was looking for them out here in Qlippoth?
“Nameless is only trying to let you know it’s all right to go back to Arx Gravis. Last thing he wants is something to happen to you. You’re all that’s left of his people.”
“That’s only because he slaughtered the rest. Hundreds, thousands, cut down like they were just hunks of meat. Whole families. Those that weren’t killed by his hand perished in a war
that he started. And you want to lead him to us? You want us to go back to Arx Gravis, after he drenched the entire city with the blood of our kin? My own wife, for pity’s sake. My folks… Heads on spikes. Heads on shogging spikes!” The dwarf released him and stepped back, sheathing his dagger. “Do as I say, and lead the shogger as far from us as possible. If I have to come back, you won’t get a chance to speak next time. Do I make myself clear?”
Nils’s mouth was so dry, he couldn’t even swallow. He looked down at his boots, wishing he had the courage to say something about how it weren’t fair, how Nameless weren’t himself back then, least not the way Nils understood it. But all he could do was nod.
“Good,” the scout said, and then slid away into the forest, leaving Nils panting with relief that he was still alive.
On instinct, he checked the front of his britches; they were still sodden from being in the lake, but they didn’t seem to have gotten any wetter. His heart was fluttering like crazy, and he struggled to breathe. Finally, when he drew in a ragged gasp of air, his eyes filled with tears, and he dropped to his knees, trembling.
Say one thing about Nils shogging Fargin, he thought through his sobs. Say he’s pathetic.
A tortured creaking cut through his grief, the rustle of branches, a startled scream, and then a tremendous crash.
Nils rushed in the direction of the noise, suddenly not afraid anymore. Something had happened. Something horrific, by the sounds of it.
He drew up sharp, gawping at the scene before him.
A huge pine had fallen, the trees either side leaning precariously, branches bent and twisted. The roots were an exposed tangle sticking from a clump of earth. It looked to all intents and purposes as if the tree had just pulled itself from the ground and toppled. A shudder passed along Nils’s spine. He flicked his eyes about, half-expecting the forest to come alive and close in on him. It was still, but he couldn’t suppress the feeling the trees were waiting for him to blunder into a well-prepared trap.
A moan broke his reverie, and he stared closer at the fallen pine. The soles of two boots were just visible poking out from beneath the trunk.
Nils worked his way around the roots to the other side of the tree and found the dwarf scout flat on his back, the trunk lying across both legs. Blood was oozing from the corner of his mouth. As Nils knelt beside him, the dwarf groaned and stared with dull eyes, face creased with pain.
“Tree… Tree tried… tried to kill me.”
Nils could quite believe that. Place was starting to give him the creeps. His guts didn’t like it one churning bit.
“Your legs?” he asked.
“Broke…” The scout grimaced. “Broken.”
“Anything else?” Nils asked, bending to examine the blood coming from the dwarf’s lips, and fearing the worst.
“Bit… my shogging tongue. Hurts more’n the legs.”
Nils knew he’d never be able to lift the tree off, but he sheathed his sword and gave it a try anyway. Like he thought, it didn’t budge. He looked about for something that might help. An overhanging branch from the neighboring tree gave him an idea.
“What… what you thinking?” the dwarf asked.
“If I had some rope—”
The dwarf closed his eyes. “Didn’t bring any. Too darned heavy.”
“Wait here,” Nils said. “I mean don’t go… I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t… Not worth it. I’m done for. Just… remember what I said. Keep him from my people.”
Nils’s eyes alighted on a thick branch on one of the leaning trees. It had been split almost clear off, and was hanging by a thread. If he could just get up there, he might be able to…”
The dwarf shook his head. “Won’t work. Too short to give you enough leverage.”
Nils frowned at him.
“Get to know these things as a dwarf. Pa was…” The scout sucked in air through his teeth and screwed his face up. “My father was an engineer.”
It made no sense, but Nils was starting to feel guilty. It weren’t like he’d even known Nameless back then. He’d been just as scared as everyone else when the Ravine Butcher’s army had laid siege to New Londdyr. He could still remember the distant booms as sappers tried to blow their way through the Cyclopean walls. Still remembered the grim-faced legionaries building their defenses street by street, in case there was a breach. Mind you, bad as things had been in New Londdyr, from what he’d heard, the dwarves had it worse at Arx Gravis.
“Well, we gotta shift this trunk somehow,” he said. “Heard about a man trapped under a slab of granite once.” Actually, it was more than once. Big Jake used to tell the tale when he was drunk, which was most nights. The Olga Bridge had collapsed when the Night Hawks’ wagon train had passed over it. They were returning from a steal up in Portis on the banks of the Chalice Sea. The bridge was ancient, and riddled with cracks. One of the wagons had ended up in the shallows, shattered to splinters by falling stones. The driver got it worst, and they’d had to leave him trapped under the slab while tools were brought up from New Londdyr. “When they finally freed him, the man got real sick and died. Big Jake—he was a wharfie, but he did jobs for the guild—said it was crush syn… syn… Said the poor bastard’s own body made the poison that killed him.”
The scout nodded. “My pa said he’d seen the same thing in the mines. Doesn’t take long, either. Even if I told you where to find my people, bring help, it would be too late.”
“Tell me anyway,” Nils said. “I’m a good runner. Fastest in New Londdyr, I reckon.”
The dwarf attempted a weak smile, but then shook his head. “I can’t. Can’t risk it. Leave me. It’s better for one person to die than—”
“I ain’t leaving you, and that’s final.” Nils stared at the loamy ground beneath the dwarf, where a shallow depression had formed due to the weight of the trunk. If he had something to dig with…
He reached under the branches covering the dwarf’s waist and hips.
“What?” the scout said. “What is it?”
Nils’s fingers located the hilt of the dwarf’s dagger, and he yanked it clear of its sheath.
“Wait,” the scout said. “Let’s not be hasty. Don’t—”
“You silly shogger,” Nils said, raising the blade and laughing. “What, you thought I was gonna put you out of your misery?”
The dwarf spluttered something, face going as red as a radish.
Nils rammed the dagger into the soft earth by the dwarf’s trapped legs and began to scrape away at the topsoil.
“Oh, I see,” the dwarf said. “You’ll never do it in time. It’ll take forever.”
“Take a damn sight longer if you don’t shut up complaining.”
A few more stabs, and he’d broken through to the even softer soil beneath. Dropping the blade, Nils got on his knees and began scooping out dirt like a dog digging up a bone.
“See, I’ll have you out from under there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nils paused for a moment. “Not rightly sure. Something my mom says a lot. Expect it had to do with Gramps being a farmer. What I mean to say is—”
“Yes, yes,” the dwarf said. “I get the point.”
Nils got back to it, his fingers already sore and bleeding, but there was no way he was gonna let that stop him, not for all the gold beneath the Gramble Range. He’d made a sizeable hole, when the dwarf screamed as his hips dropped away from the pressure of the trunk.
“Sorry,” Nils said.
The dwarf waved for him to carry on, face screwed up in agony.
Nils switched sides and deepened the hole. “You ready?” he asked finally.
“Ready.”
He got behind the dwarf’s head, took hold under his arms, and yanked.
This time, the screams went on forever, but inch by inch, Nils dragged him from under the tree. When the dwarf’s boots were clear, Nils laid him down and then collapsed on the ground beside h
im.
“Always… keep some… angelseed in my breast… pocket,” the dwarf said, removing a dried black pod and popping it under his tongue. “Helps… with the… pain. Want some?”
“What for?” Nils said. “I ain’t got no pain.”
“Won’t have none myself in a minute,” the dwarf said. “Cairn Sternfist, by the way.”
“What?”
“My… name. Cairn Sternfist.”
Nils pushed himself up on one arm. The dwarf’s face was pale, his eyes unfocused and dull. “Nils,” he said. “Nils Fargin.”
“Thank… you, Nils,” Cairn Sternfist said, and with that, he passed out.
ILESA
The serpent circled the island, its enormous body breaking the surface of the lake in three scaly bumps before it dived out of sight.
“Third time it’s done that,” Ilesa said. “Keep watching now. If I’m right, it’ll come up about there.” She pointed to the shore opposite where they’d last seen Nils. “Last time it took to the count of fifty-three to make it back round.”
“Well, that settles it, then,” Nameless grumbled. “There’s no way you can reach the shore in that time.”
“Don’t bet on it.” She’d always been a strong swimmer. It came with the territory. “Everyone swims in Portis. You have to, what with it being right by the Chalice Sea. If you’re not a fisherman, you’re the spouse or child of a fisherman. Save those that work the mines in the Gramble Range, that is.”
“That where you’re from?” Nameless upended his axe and twirled its head on the ground, sunlight glinting from the twin blades.
Ilesa sighed. She shouldn’t have said that. Didn’t pay to give anything away. Still, the damage was done. “Yeah,” she said, hazy memories of days by the beach teaching Davy how to swim rising like slurry to the surface. “My brother said I could out-swim a shark, except there aren’t any sharks in the Chalice Sea.”
“So I heard,” Nameless said, his face looking softer, warmer. He smiled, encouraging her to go on.
“Fresh water. It’s really just a big lake.” She cast her eyes around. “Damned sight bigger than this one, that’s for sure. Funny thing is, if Davy had seen what I can do—you know, now I’ve got some control over this power of mine—he might have had a point. I did a sort of mermaid thing once, just to see if I could.” The thrill of zipping through the water at such a speed brought back more images from the past. She almost smiled, but of course, memories seldom traveled alone, and not all of them were good.
