Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (2 page)

They both knew the upper levels were the most heavily patrolled. The moment outsiders reached the topmost walkway, they would be surrounded by guards in concealer cloaks, detaching themselves from the walls. The intruder would have had to be invisible to enter from above.

Carnifex suppressed a shudder as he looked back below; studied the play of moonlight on the surface of the
Sanguis Terrae
in the bowels of the ravine. Beneath its eldritch waters, a portal was said to lie: a gate to the underworld of Gehenna, and the only other way in or out of Arx Gravis.

Thumil caught him looking and frowned. “Homunculi?”

No one had seen a deep gnome for a very long time. Carnifex’s pa Droom had many years ago in the mines. Said the creature prophesied he’d have two sons; told him what to name them. The foreman accused him of drinking on shift, but when Yyalla fell pregnant, Droom did as he was bidden and named his firstborn Lucius. When Yyalla died giving birth to their second child, Droom still honored the deep gnome’s prophecy and gave Carnifex his name. He was superstitious like that; and part of him always believed the other thing the homunculus had told him: that through his sons, the dwarves would find themselves again. Through his sons, the age of legends would be reborn.

Miners still reported the occasional uncorroborated sighting. But a homunculus in the city, stealing from the Scriptorium? It made no sense.

“We should get down there, sir.”

“You really think two more will make a difference?”

Thumil was right. The lower levels were teeming with soldiers. Carnifex was about to ask, “Then what?” when something prickled the back of his neck. As he turned, black ghosted in his peripheral vision.

“He didn’t fall, sir,”—he was already running toward the Aorta—“because he doubled back.”

“What?” Thumil panted hard to keep up with him. They were going to have to talk about his drinking, and maybe a regimen with the weights.

“He went under the walkway, sir. Must have clung to the struts like the undercity gibunas.” The lower levels were infested with the shoggers—flesh-eating primates with a taste for infant dwarves. No wonder mostly baresarks lived down there. Those nut-jobs probably ate gibunas for breakfast. “He’s heading back up.”

Carnifex retraced his steps to the Scriptorium window, but if the intruder had come back this way, he’d moved fast. Except for Jarfy’s livid corpse, there was nothing inside but books, and no sign of movement on any of the adjoining walkways.

He was about to turn back, when his eye caught the shelves opposite the window. Where there had been a space before, there was now a full shelf of
Annals
.

Thumil came huffing and gasping alongside, bent double and wheezing for breath.

“It’s back,” Carnifex said. “The book is—”

A black-garbed figure emerged from an upper window. It paused on the sill, as if shocked to see them below. Beneath the cowl of its cloak, onyx eyes glistened from a gray face, craggy and rough-textured like granite. It was small, no more than chest-high to a dwarf, and lithe as a cat. It raised a hand holding a sleek metal wand.
 

Carnifex shoved Thumil back against the wall as lighting fizzed and crackled from the rod and blasted a chunk out of the walkway. He rolled back into view and hurled his axe. At the same instant, the homunculus leapt from the windowsill. The axe hit stone with a chink, and tore a chip out of the window frame. As it fell, the homunculus fell, too, but then a silver disk materialized beneath its feet. When the axe clattered to the walkway, Carnifex was already sprinting for the edge. The disk sped off, and he flung himself at it, caught its rim with the tips of his fingers.

“Carn!” Thumil cried, but Carnifex couldn’t see him. He could spare no attention for anything but clinging on, as the disk skimmed between two parallel walkways and banked into a steep dive.

A booted foot came down on his fingers, and the homunculus took aim over the edge with its wand. Carnifex let go with his free hand, swung aside from another blast of lightning. On the return swing, he lunged up and swiped the wand from its hand. The homunculus raised its foot to stamp, but Carnifex shuffled his fingers along the rim, and it missed. It stamped again, and once more he strafed out of the way.

Shouts went up from the Red Cloaks milling on the walkways. A crossbow bolt zipped past his ear. Another hit the disk and clattered off.

Down they spiraled, rocking and tilting each time the homunculus tried to tread on Carnifex’s fingers.

Into the undercity they soared, over the glimmering waters of a canal. The lanterns hanging from barges were no more than streaking blurs of amber as they passed. From some hidden space, a gibuna shrieked, and then, with a sickening dread in his belly, Carnifex saw where they were heading: straight for the moonlit surface of the
Sanguis Terrae
.
 

As they skimmed the embankment, he let go. The ground teetered toward him. He hit hard and jarred his ankle. Grunting, he stood gingerly, hopping on his good leg as the silver disk carried the homunculus beneath the surface of the lake.

Carnifex cursed, and eased himself onto his ass to nurse his throbbing ankle. Even without the injury, there was nothing he could have done. Just looking at the water turned his guts to cold mush. While it might have been mandatory training, passed on from every mother to every child in the city, Carnifex couldn’t swim. His mother hadn’t been there to teach him.

Black Cloaks descended like spiders on threads of webbing. Thumil was with them, rappelling with the grace of a sack of coal bouncing down a mine shaft.

The specials stalked toward Carnifex, cloaks flapping like bat’s wings in the swirling gusts sending ripples out across the lake. Bands of scarolite armored their chests, green-flecked black, like malachite. Six of them came at him in a pincer, as if he’d done something wrong. The seventh broke away and stood brooding at the edge of the water. He might have been considering jumping in and going after the homunculus.

Carnifex got to his feet, gingerly tested out his leg. At least he hadn’t sprained it. A few cautious steps, and it could take his weight. A few more, and it was no more than a dull ache.

Thumil pushed through the cordon of Black Cloaks. “He entered the lake?”

Carnifex swallowed down the bile in his throat and nodded. “I would have gone after him, laddie,”—he was beyond titles at that moment—“but—”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” said the Black Cloak at the lake’s edge. He spun round and glared. “You know the rules.”

Carnifex did, but he still narrowed his eyes as he nodded. Kryptès or not, he didn’t like the shogger’s tone. It was an effort not to brain him. “Aye, laddie, I know.”
 

Thumil clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, old friend. Let’s get cleaned up before we make our report.”
 

The marshal bustled toward the Black Cloaks with the confidence born from rank. To Carnifex’s astonishment, they got out of the way. He clenched his fists at his sides and followed, albeit more warily. He’d heard things about the Krypteia. Heard you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of them.
 

Thumil led him along the banks of a canal and headed toward the iron ladders that joined the undercity to the levels above. Carnifex went first, keen to
 
put some distance between him and the Black Cloaks; because if he didn’t, they might try something, and he’d be sorely tempted to try something back.

He put his hand on the first rung and snatched it away. It was coated in something brown and slimy. It was only natural to sniff it, but he wished the shog he hadn’t. It stank like an ulcerated scrotum, or worse, a pint of Ironbelly’s special brew.

Thumil chuckled and took the next ladder along. “Gibuna’s got to go, same as we all have, Fexy.”

Carnifex growled, and looked around for something to wipe his hand with. “Funny, Thumil. Very funny.” When nothing better presented itself, he crouched down to rub the stuff off against the pavement.

Thumil was already halfway to the next level. He arched away from the ladder, holding on with one arm, and began to sing the same bawdy song he’d offended everyone with last night in the bar.

Carnifex raised an eyebrow. It was a rare interlude in the marshal’s working day; one that would no doubt stop the instant they got back to barracks and had to plan what they were going to say to the Council. Because those old codgers would want to hear about this, you could bet your shogging axe on that.
 

Now, there was a thought…

“We got time to go back to the Scriptorium?” He needed to retrieve his axe.

“Why’s that?” Thumil called down to him. “Looking for something to read? Don’t reckon they keep your kind of material. And besides, it’ll make you blind. You’d be better off revisiting that lassie at Rud Carey’s Ale House, the one that gave you a bad case of the pox.”

“It wasn’t the pox. It was a reaction to the Ironbelly’s, for shog’s sake.”

“Oh, aye?” Thumil said as he swung back to the ladder. “That’s what they all say.”

Carnifex started up the same ladder the marshal had taken, still wary where he put his hands.

“And Thumil, remember what I said would happen next time you called me Fexy?”

THE COUNCIL OF TWELVE

The summons came even sooner than either of them expected. Black Cloaks were swarming about the Scriptorium, both inside and out. One of them, a scrawny wastrel in any other attire, any other role, was leaning on the haft of Carnifex’s axe like he shogging owned it.

“Baldar Kloon.” Thumil acknowledged him with a curt nod, which was his way of letting you know you were a scut or a toe-rag.
 

Carnifex couldn’t tell which; he only knew Kloon looked like a shogger who’d offer one hand in greeting and stick a knife in you with the other. He’d have said the same for Black Cloaks in general, what he’d seen and heard, but that wouldn’t have been fair. Even among the Krypteia, there had to be a shred of decency, if only you looked hard enough.

Thumil snatched the axe from Kloon and patted his shoulder with his free hand. “Good boy. Thank you.”

Kloon’s face twisted into a snarl. He was old enough to be Carnifex’s pa, but half the dwarf Droom was, skeletally thin and pallid, like he’d spent a lifetime smoking somnificus. Thumil was older than them both, and he called most everyone “son” as a matter of course. “Boy,” though, was always an insult.

Kloon opened his mouth for a retort, but Thumil turned away from him and gave Carnifex his axe back.

The flash of hatred in Kloon’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed.
 

Carnifex leaned in close to him and bared his teeth in a grin. “Much obliged, laddie.”

Least this time, the dagger-look was for him. He nodded to let Kloon know he’d seen, and he welcomed the challenge. Threaten him, and he’d note your face and watch his back. But threaten Thumil, threaten a mate, and he’d knock your shogging block off.

“Right,” Thumil said, “freshen up, a swift pint, and then we make our report.”

“No,” Kloon said. There was a rasp to his voice that was just plain wrong, as though he were a spiteful child taking pleasure in what he had to say next. “The Dodecagon, right now. You’ve been summoned.”

“Oh, aye?” Thumil said, squaring his shoulders and looking suddenly imperious in his red cloak and golden helm. It was an art, how he turned on authority at the drop of a hat. It was something Carnifex had tried to emulate, but it always came out as intimidation when he did it.

“Aye,” Kloon said, a thin-lipped smile cutting a gash across his face.

Black Cloaks closed in from either side of the walkway, upwards of a dozen.

Carnifex watched Thumil for any sign they were to resist. He tightened his grip on his axe.
 

“Thought it was past the Council’s bedtime,” Thumil said. “Oh, well, beer later, I guess. Thanks for letting us know, sonny.”
 

That was a whole degree worse than “boy,” from what Carnifex could gather; just one short step from “lassie,” or “whiskerless titty suckler.”

Kloon stiffened.

Carnifex peered at him and squinted. “You oil your beard, laddie?” Only women oiled their beards; and only cheap whores at that.

Kloon’s hand went to his lank excuse for facial hair, and he was momentarily flummoxed.

Carnifex tsked and shook his head, then he was off after Thumil, an escort of Black Cloaks in tow.

***

Rather than descending hundreds of steps spiraling around the Aorta to reach the seventh level down, the Black Cloaks led them to one of auxiliary pillars set apart from it, and they entered through a concealed door.

Carnifex had to owe it to them: they’d done a good job of concealing it—them, or the Founders who’d built the city. It was invisible, even to a dwarf; even to Carnifex, who was a miner’s son, and miner’s knew all the tricks.

The door led to a vertical shaft that fell away into darkness.

“What do we do now?” Thumil asked one of the Black Cloaks. “Jump?”

It occurred to Carnifex that they were to be pushed, though he quickly shook the thought off. They’d done nothing wrong, nothing to get on the wrong side of the Council. And besides, they were Ravine Guard, and Thumil was the marshal, too well-known, too important to suddenly go missing. Still, it did nothing to settle his nerves around the Krypteia. They were shifty shoggers of the shadows, no better than thieves and assassins; not much different to the homunculi, when you came to look at it.

Instead of answering, the Black Cloak pulled up his sleeve to reveal a silver vambrace. He held it to his mouth and muttered something, and in response, a tortured yowl sounded from the depths of the shaft.

A rush of air hit Carnifex in the face, and the wailing dropped to a whine, then a drone. Silver flashed below, and then a platform came into view, not dissimilar to the disk the homunculus had ridden into the waters of the
Sanguis Terrae
.

“Get on,” the Black Cloak said.

Thumil was hesitant. Clearly, even the marshal of the Ravine Guard hadn’t been granted access to this hidden space before.