Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (4 page)

“When Ma died,” Carnifex said, feeling the overwhelming need to defend his family now, “my pa, Droom, was too busy with the mines, and my brother Lucius was steeped in his books.”

Grago opened his mouth to say something, probably to object to the conversation slipping away from him, but it was Dythin Rala who spoke.

“Aristodeus’s protégé, no?”

“That’s right, Councilor,” Carnifex said.

“Thought as much.” The Voice’s eyes closed again, and he sat back, puffing on his pipe.

Carnifex glanced at Thumil, wondering what the significance of Dythin Rala’s words was.
 

Thumil shrugged.
 

Maybe it was because Lucius was the philosopher’s only disciple—at least in Arx Gravis. Aristodeus came and went whenever he pleased, popping up almost out of thin air. Carnifex could only imagine the heated debates the Council must have had about his taking on Lucius as a student, but, as with everything else, the philosopher had gotten his way.

“So, what was missing?” a scruffy-looking councilor said from behind a stack of books before him on the table. His robe was more yellow than white, his beard matted and flecked with dandruff. He had red cheeks, not from heat or embarrassment, but from an angry-looking rash. He scratched his head, and flakes fell to his shoulders. “Presumably one of the Arnochian folios, or an early charter.”

“What makes you say that, Councilor Dorley?” Grago asked. There was a hint of accusation in his tone.

Dorley plucked a pair of spectacles from his robe pocket and sat them on the bridge of his nose. “Because they are of the greatest value. And because the crime scene was the Scriptorium. What else would they take? The King of Arnoch’s Crown Jewels? A crate of gold ingots disguised as a book?”

Grago’s cheek twitched, and his lips pressed into a tight line. He tapped his index finger rapidly on the tabletop.

“A book was taken,” Thumil said, with a nervous glance at Carnifex. “One of the
Annals
, but it was—”

“The thief put it back,” Carnifex said. “And like I said, he was a homunculus.”

“That’s what troubles me most,” an immensely fat councilor said. He shifted in his chair, and it scraped on the floor. He whuffed like a donkey and shook his cheeks. “A deep gnome infestrating the city. I mean, the imprecations are magnanimous.”

Carnifex shot Thumil a look. The marshal was stony-faced, staring straight ahead, but something about the tightness of his jaw revealed he was trying hard not to laugh.

“Peace, Councilor Garnil,” Old Moary said. “You must not worry so. I mean, what if—”

“Strikes me,” a white-haired councilor said, “this is a lot of hullabaloo about nothing.”
 

He didn’t look old enough for his hair to have lost its color. Carnifex expected him to have pink eyes to match, but the councilor was no albino: his eyes were of sparkling blue. He was tall, too, for a dwarf—half a head above everyone else seated at the table.

“Oh, Councilor Castail?” Grago said. “And why is that, then?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Castail turned to address the Voice. In profile, his nose took on the semblance of a beak, and with the haughty tilt of his chin, you’d have been forgiven for mistaking him for the living embodiment of one of the statues of the Dwarf Lords. “The book was taken, and subsequently returned. Nothing gone. No harm done. I rest my case.”

“Save for one thing,” Thumil said.

Castail turned a withering look on him, rolled his eyes, and sighed. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

“Corporal Jarfy.”

Castail’s expression melted, and he started to stammer a reply, but Thumil spoke over him.

“One of my men. One of our citizens.” He stared at Castail until the councilor looked away, and then he continued to stare.

Eventually, Dythin Rala broke the tension. “But it still begs the question, Marshal, of what we are supposed to do about it?”

Thumil swung toward the Voice, but Carnifex clamped a hand down on his shoulder and spoke for him.

“You want us to go after him?” Into Gehenna. Into the warrens beneath the
Sanguis Terrae
, maybe even as far as the tunnels and chasms rumored to descend deep beneath the earth, until, some said, they opened up onto the Abyss. It was illegal for a dwarf to leave the ravine, but that could be changed in this very room. Special dispensation could be granted. A dwarf could be tasked with a mission. Not that it had ever happened, but in a case such as this…

Silence fell about the table. Carnifex’s words had the impact of the roof suddenly collapsing. A vulpine glint sprang up in Grago’s eyes, and they flicked between Thumil and Carnifex, as if he were waiting for one of them to give him a reason to unleash his Black Cloaks.

Garnil coughed and whimpered. Castail leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. Maybe he’d caught Carnifex’s thought about it collapsing. The lummox—Cony?—fiddled with the iron beads on his beard, as if he were taken with the idea of going into the realm of the homunculi, maybe even bringing along an axe and giving them something to think about.

But any hint that the Council might actually do something was quashed when Dythin Rala sucked at the stem of his pipe and said, “No. And it is impudent of you to suggest such a thing.” He turned one rheumy eye on Carnifex, then let the lid droop shut, as if that concluded the matter.

No one said anything for a long moment, until Grago leaned in and whispered in the Voice’s ear. They exchanged words only they were party to, and then Grago straightened in his chair and said, “This sort of thing mustn’t be allowed to happen again, Marshal.”

Thumil stiffened and said, “What—?”

Grago silenced him with the raise of a finger. “You are marshal of the Ravine Guard, are you not? And it is the mandate of the Ravine Guard to prevent incursions into the ravine, is it not? Among other things,” he added, as if he didn’t want to lose the right to fling them at Thumil at some later date.

“Jarfy,” Thumil said. His voice was shaking with suppressed rage. “My man…”

“Arrange a pyre. Honor him, or whatever it is you do. But let’s just be clear, Marshal, this is a black mark against—”

“No, Council Grago,” Dythin Rala said. He tapped out his pipe on the table, apparently fascinated by the little pile of ash it left. “No, it is not.”

Grago’s cheek twitch went up a notch. It went up another when Old Moary said, “Hear, hear.”

“You have both done well,” the Voice said. “And you have our thanks. You may go.”

Carnifex gave Thumil a “That’s it?” look, but already a Black Cloak was muttering into a vambrace, and the doors began to grind open.

Carnifex gestured for Thumil to go first, but the Voice suddenly looked up.

“Not you, Marshal.”
 

Thumil’s eyes widened in surprise.

“And, Councilors,” Dythin Rala said. “Let us call it a day. Marshal Thumil and I have things to discuss in private.”

“Thumil?” Carnifex said.

The marshal raised a hand, waved him off with a wag of his fingers. “Finish your shift, son. You’ve earned it. Get yourself home.”

BLACK DOGS AND BOOZE

As Carnifex left the Dodecagon, the thrill of the chase, the tension of being summoned before the Council still fired his blood, and he knew, if he headed straight home, he’d never sleep. Nevertheless, he descended, rather than ascended the steps spiraling around the Aorta. There was no point drinking in some priggish upper-tier tavern and then tumbling all the way back down to his sixteenth-level home. He’d already done that once. Twice, even. The bruises had lasted for weeks. A third time would be as stupid as stepping into the circle with a baresark.

The silver glow of Raphoe still possessed the sky, but it was slowly rising, and a thin smile of black now separated the moon from the top of the ravine. As the darkness widened beneath it, amber glowstones would brighten to compensate, and the evening crowds would start to make their way home as the stallholders packed up for the night.

Dozens of dwarves passed Carnifex on their way to the upper levels. The Aorta’s steps were broad enough for three abreast, and despite there being no hand rail, no one had ever heard of a dwarf falling to their death. The people of Arx Gravis were as sure-footed as the goats that pulled their carts up and down the zigzagging paths scoring the walls of the chasm.

The further he got from the Dodecagon, the more the sounds and smells grew to his liking. Incensed braziers and the incessant patter of feet from scurrying messengers gave way to the muted revelry of the clerks and merchants who frequented the next tier down. The smell of sizzling meat, slaughtered and salted in the baresarks’ abattoirs, mingled with the earthy aroma of roasted kaffa beans, which were harvested from their ledge plantations.
 

Lower still, the plucking of a harp underpinned the languid yowl of a fiddle. It was enough to make Carnifex linger for a moment, lost in the dark spell it weaved. It was only the bitter warning of experience that enabled him to wrench himself away and continue down to the next level. The music was only a catalyst, but it was something he could do without. Already, the excitement was leeching from his veins, and as it always did in the wake of a good fight, or a raucous evening in the taverns, his black-dog mood was creeping in from the shadowed edges of his mind. It feasted on scraps of vitality, hunted for glimmers of hope and happiness.

Almost the instant he reached the sixteenth level, the homey sounds of table-thumping and bawdy singing from Bucknard’s Beer Hall sent the darkness scampering back to the corners. Orange hearth-light bled through the latticed windows, and the pungent scent of hops permeated the air outside in a blessed miasma.
 

He pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold, and a dozen flagons were raised in salute: Red Cloaks, finished for the night, all of them clearly way ahead of him in their drinking.
 

The place was heaving, like it always was. Besides the off-duty Ravine Guard, there were smiths and masons, canal workers, and quarrymen. There was a scattering of miners—those lucky enough not to be on the morning shift. Most of them he knew, and they acknowledged him with nods, winks, and waves.
 

“No Thumil tonight?” Bucknard Snaff hollered from behind the bar. His gray beard was plaited into two braids that were slung back over his shoulders to keep them out of the beer.

It was hard to hear him above the din, much of it coming from the women hammering out a beat on the top of a long table, froth spraying from their whiskers as they bellowed some vigorous shanty comprised of “shogs” and “scuts” and what sounded like “hairy roots.”

“He had too much the other night,” Carnifex said as he leaned his axe against the wall and hung his helm from a peg by the door. “His guts aren’t what they used to be. Age will do that to you.”

“Oh ho!” Bucknard wagged a finger. “I’ll tell him you said that. What’ll it be? The usual?”

Ballbreakers Black Ale, he meant, but it was time for a change. Cordy was bringing out her new beer later in the week. Since her ma and pa had passed away, she’d partnered with her aunts and uncles in the family trade. The Kilderkins were Bucknard’s greatest rivals, but Carnifex’s loyalties were never in question. Bucknard was a decent enough brewer, and a nice bloke to boot, but Cordy was his mate from the
Ephebe
, and she’d break his shogging fruits if she caught him drinking Ballbreakers instead of her new brew. Now, there was an irony to bring tears to a dwarf’s eyes.

“Stand me a mead, laddie. No, stand me two.” He knew the first one would barely touch the sides.

“Mead it is,” Bucknard said, already pouring from an earthenware cask. “Hard day?”

“You heard?”

Bucknard arched an eyebrow. “Aye, Carn, I heard. The lads told me coming in. Everyone all right?”

“Save for Jarfy.”

“Aye, well, I’m sorry to hear about that. Sorry for his folks, too. Terrible business. Terrible. Here, matey, on the house.” He handed over two flagons.
 

Carnifex nodded his thanks, and did his best to hide his relief. After the other night, he was running low on tokens, and would be hard-pressed to eat if he exchanged any more for booze.

 
He carried his drink to the Red Cloaks’ table, and Kal budged up to make room for him on the bench.

“So, what’s happening?” Kal said. The others stopped their conversations to listen. “What’s the Council going to do?”

Carnifex took a long pull on his mead, paused to belch, then finished it off. He slid the empty across the table and lifted the other flagon to his lips. This one, he just sipped. The second drink was to be savored. Unless, of course, he could persuade someone to buy him a third.

Kal and the Red Cloaks waited patiently for his answer. It would have been considered rude to rush a dwarf breaking his booze-fast after a hard day’s work.

“What’s the Council going to do?” Carnifex said, eventually. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

“Shog all?” Kal said.

“Ah, laddie, you’re too good at this.”

“You’re pulling my beard, right?” Dar Shoofly said. He was new to the Ravine Guard, two weeks in, and yet to be dispossessed of the illusion the Council of Twelve actually did anything.

“They ain’t gonna let Jarfy’s death count for nothing,” Muckman Brindy said. “You mark my words.”
 

Muckman was a veteran, one of the few Red Cloaks to have ever seen action, if he were to be believed. And if you didn’t believe him, he’d gladly show you the notches on his shortsword. Rumor had it, the only action he’d really seen was going after a stray goat that had made it onto a ledge and started munching through a crop of kaffa plants. The notches on his blade, so it went, were made with a hammer and chisel.
 

“They said we could have a pyre for him,” Carnifex said.
 

He shook his head and sighed into his mead. If only things were as simple as Shoofly believed, and the Council really was like a caring parent. He wished his pa Droom’s cynicism about government hadn’t rubbed off on him, but what he’d seen tonight at the Dodecagon only confirmed Droom was right. He knew Thumil had tried to protect him from the politics and allowed him to focus on the job, on training recruits, and encouraging them in their idealism, but Carnifex wasn’t stupid. It might have been easier if he were, if he could be as brainless as a baresark and not give a shog; but he’d always smelled a rat in the way Arx Gravis was governed. He’d caught a glimpse of it, too, at times, in Councilor Yuffie and his dodgy dealings. But tonight, he’d seen another layer of the facade stripped away. The Council didn’t care about individuals like Jarfy. They didn’t even seem to care much for right and wrong. To his mind, they cared about one thing, and one thing alone: making sure nothing ever changed.