Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (10 page)

He selected a scarolite pickaxe, swung it a few times to gauge the balance. Not as heavy as his battle axe, but it would have to do. Realizing he still hadn’t answered Kal’s question, he stalked to the cave’s entrance and looked out onto the gallery. All that remained of Muckman was a spatter of gore across the floor.

He listened for a long while, scarcely daring to blink in case the creature made another move. But the passageway was silent, and the only movement was the wavering light of his lantern, from where his shaking hand couldn’t keep it steady.

“Maybe…” he started, backing away into the cavern once more. “Maybe it can’t move through scarolite like it can rock.”

Kal glanced around at the mostly black walls, floor, and ceiling. “Makes sense. So, what do we do now? Wait here and sit it out?”

“Until what? We starve to death, or Thumil sends down a rescue party, and we listen as they die instead of us?” Because that was the grim truth of the matter.

Kal swallowed thickly. “Thumil’s no mug. He’ll summon more men, and they’ll have shields. If they can’t handle it, Grago will send in the Krypteia.”

“Hah!” Carnifex said. “You really think those shoggers will do any better than us?”

“They’ve got scarolite armor, and some of them wear concealer cloaks.”

Carnifex shook his head. Ordinarily, Kal would have been right. Wait for reinforcements. Overwhelm the intruder with numbers. The only problem was, he wasn’t sure they could. His axe had shattered on contact, and while a war hammer might have done some damage to the creature, he wouldn’t want to wager on it. If they stayed put and waited for help, it was likely a lot of dwarves were going to die, and there was an equally strong chance that, when it was over, when they had no choice but to retreat, the thing would still be there, waiting for Kal and Carnifex to emerge.

Kal was watching him intently, face etched with the realization that his was but a false hope. With a sigh that landed his shoulders around his ears, he said, “This thing leaves the mines, the city’s in danger.”

Carnifex nodded. Thumil would work that out the instant he clapped eyes on it; the minute his men started dying. He’d have no choice: as marshal, his role was to protect the ravine, no matter what. He’d blow up the mines, but even that might not stop it. If the creature wasn’t destroyed in the blast, it had already shown it could pass through rock, and there wasn’t enough scarolite in Arx Gravis to prevent it from reaching the city.

“I have to try something, laddie. If it can’t pass through scarolite, maybe the ore can harm it.” He slapped the haft of the pickaxe into his palm.

Kal wandered over to the tool cart, set down his lantern on the floor, and started to rummage around inside.

“It’s all right, laddie,” Carnifex said. “I’ll go by myself, maybe lead it off. No sense in risking us both.”

“You calling me a cowardly scut, Carn?”

“A shogger, perhaps,” Carnifex said. “But definitely not a scut. And you don’t need to prove your bravery to me, Kal.”

Kal selected a long-handled hammer with a scarolite head and lifted it from the cart. He sheathed his sword so he could make a few practice swings with the hammer, and then he picked up his lantern and nodded that he was ready to go.

“Good, lad,” Carnifex said. “Now, if that shogger comes at us, drop your lantern and swing two-handed.”

At the entrance, Carnifex shone his lantern on the walls both sides of the gallery. He didn’t expect to see anything, but he had to try. Nothing but rough-cut granite, but that didn’t mean a thing. A single step over the threshold, and the creature could emerge from the walls, ceiling, or floor. If they were lucky, they’d get one good swing, and then they’d be a pulpy mess over the floor, like poor old Muckman. Shog only knew what had happened to Ming.

“Want me to go first?” Kal said, licking his lips. “You watch my back?”

Carnifex didn’t even acknowledge the question. If he thought about what needed to be done, he’d not be able to do it; his resolve would melt away, and he’d cower in the cavern until he died from lack of food and water. But that wasn’t the way he did things.

He stepped out into the gallery and aimed his lantern left and right. His heart pounded so hard, he expected to hear his chainmail jangle.

He took another step, then another. Behind him, he heard the scuff of Kal’s boots following.

Carnifex glared at the walls, defying them to move. He risked a look behind. Kal hesitated just outside the cavern, limned in its green phosphorescence. His scarolite hammer shook so much in his grip, it was a wonder he hadn’t dropped it already. Just the sight of his friend so terrified, and the thought of some monster threatening to do for him what it had done for Ming and Muckman, ignited something in Carnifex’s veins. His own trepidation turned to ire, and he scoured the gallery up ahead with an excoriating glare that should have turned the rock to magma.

“Come on, shogger,” he growled to himself. “Show yourself.”

Some sense he didn’t know he had alerted him, and he spun back. A head sprouted from the ceiling, and then two granite arms reached down for Kal.

Acting without thinking, Carnifex bounded to the wall, kicked off, and launched himself at the beast. In the very same motion, he swung the scarolite pickaxe with one hand. It struck a rough-formed wrist with concussive force. Rock shards sprayed the gallery, glanced off of Kal’s helm, and the hands withdrew.

“Run!” Carnifex yelled, landing in a crouch and wondering how the shog he’d just performed such a feat.

Kal was off at a sprint, without a glance behind.

Carnifex stared straight up at the monster’s granite head. Above empty sockets, where there should have been eyes, unfamiliar symbols blazed across its forehead in violet flames: תמא
 

For an instant, he was transfixed by them, but then the creature started to drop down out of the ceiling, and he thrust his lantern in its face. It turned its head aside, and Carnifex ran.

When he reached the ladder, Kal was already halfway to the shaft in the ceiling. Carnifex glanced behind, but of the creature, there was no sign.

“Shog,” he muttered. He’d rather have the thing where he could see it.

He started up the ladder after Kal, expecting at any moment a hand of stone to come through the wall and crush him.

Up above, Kal retched. When he’d finished, he said, “Sorry, Ming,” and then to Carnifex, “Heads up.”

Gore and offal slopped down the shaft, spattering Carnifex’s helm and cloak as it came. He growled, and made no effort to soften the sound of his pickaxe and lantern clattering against the rungs as he climbed with them in hand.

Ming hadn’t deserved this. Neither had Muckman.

“Keep going, laddie,” he called up to Kal. He wasn’t going to lose anyone else today, not if he had anything to do with it.

Kal emerged onto the gallery above and waited for Carnifex. There was another ladder a dozen yards to their right, leading up to the next level.

“Don’t stop, laddie. Keep heading up.” And with any luck, the creature would lose their scent, or leave them well alone, having felt the bite of scarolite now.

They ascended three more levels in the same manner, and Carnifex was starting to believe the creature had given up chasing them. But when they paused for breath on the sixth gallery up, screams and shouts came echoing down the shafts above, punctuated by the chink of iron on stone. There was a thunderous thump, an answering crunch, and the whole mine shook and rumbled with its reverberations.

“It’s reached the headframe,” Kal said. “It’s attacking the reinforcements.”

Carnifex froze with the realization. It had bypassed them and gone after bigger prey. More than that, it was out of the mines, and on the cusp of entering the city.

GOLEM

Fear flooded Carnifex’s veins. Not fear for himself this time: fear for the people of Arx Gravis. If it was the creature’s intention to harm the dwarves, or even if it was driven by blind bloodlust, there was going to be a slaughter.
 

He tore along the gallery and up the ladder to the next level. If he was right, there was just one more to go, and then they would be back at the headframe.

Kal’s lantern and hammer banged against the ladder below as he climbed. His breath came in wheezing gasps. The air was stale and thin, and the climb toward the surface had been hard, but that wasn’t the half of it. Kal was petrified, and yet he still came on. He knew what was at stake, and he took the oath of the Ravine Guard as seriously as Carnifex did.

Carnifex’s fear was washed away by a surging wave of pride, but then the two emotions ran into each other, becoming something else, something more. He swelled with confidence, with purpose. It no longer mattered what the cost might be. In that moment, he knew exactly who he was, what he had to do.

As he reached the topmost gallery, and Kal clambered up behind him, the clangor of battle had the ferocity of a thunderstorm directly overhead. The ceiling juddered with every pounding thud, and rock dust cascaded down. Metal rang against stone. Dwarves bellowed, dwarves roared, dwarves screamed. Orders were barked, words lost in the din. He thought he heard Thumil’s voice in among it all.

The smaller access shafts stopped at this level. Now there was only the massive central shaft, with its two service ladders leading into the green glow coming off the scarolite collar. The braided steel cable that had held the cage hung slack down the center of the shaft, swaying and twirling. Shadows of movement flickered across the aperture, and the belly of the headframe loomed above them.

“Carn…” Kal said.

“I know, laddie. You don’t need to say it. I’m going to need of a change of britches, too. But we’re Ravine Guard.”

Kal gave a cut nod and narrowed his eyes. He set down his lantern, and Carnifex did the same. There’d be no more need of them up top.

“I’ll go first,” Kal said, voice coming out hoarse.

“A ladder apiece, Kal. We’ll go up at the same time.”

There was another scream from above, and something skittered across the opening and clattered down the collar of the shaft. Carnifex swayed out of the way and watched it plummet toward the floor of the mine: a shortsword, like the kind used by the Krypteia. So, Grago’s mob had arrived to defend the ravine along with the Red Cloaks. Had to give them credit for that, he supposed.

“Ready?” he asked Kal.

“Ready.”

And together they started to climb.

As they entered the scarolite collar, Carnifex blinked until his eyes adjusted to the phosphorescent glow. The pickaxe in his hand clashed against the ladder, but the nearer he got to the top, the harder it was to hear above the tumult.

Thumil’s voice blasted out, this time clear as day: “Fall back! Regroup!”

It was answered by the crunch and stamp of a hundred booted feet, maybe more. Beneath it all, Carnifex heard the drone and whirr of the train coming in, no doubt bringing more soldiers to face the threat.

He reached the lip of the collar and poked his head up. The building that housed the base of the headframe was a chaos of activity. Red Cloaks and Black fled through the open doors, while a cordon of them surrounded the monster. Bodies littered the floor, many of them mangled beyond recognition. Higher up the latticework tower running through the center of the room, Black Cloaks clung to struts and angled hand crossbows down, but whenever they fired, the arrows ricocheted off the creature’s granite hide.

Beside Carnifex, Kal reached the top and stared out over the carnage. They exchanged glances, and then climbed into the room.

The creature had its back to them, watching the exodus of dwarves, turning its huge head to select its next victim from the Red Cloaks surrounding it. In the amber light of the glowstones, it seemed formed from magma. It was three times the height of a dwarf, and twice as broad. Although it had two legs and two arms, its features were ill-defined, like it had been hastily slapped together from clay. Nothing the dwarves had done seemed to have harmed it in any way. The only injury it had sustained was from where Carnifex had struck it with the scarolite pickaxe, and even then, it was a matter of a chink in the stone of its wrist.

The creature took a lumbering step toward the open doors, and at once, the cordon around it tightened. Axes and hammers clashed against its pillar-like legs. Blades shattered, hafts snapped, but the Red Cloaks didn’t let up. They were doing their duty. They were giving their colleagues time to escape.
 

Without warning, the creature lost its solidity and started to melt into the floor. Only its feet and calves vanished, and then it swiftly re-formed. It spun a circle and tried again, and the same thing happened.

“What the shog?” Kal said.

But Carnifex had already worked it out. “Scarolite. The floor—the ceiling of the mine—must have a high density of ore.” Of course it did. There was nothing stronger, and the miners would have left layers of it in the ceilings and walls to bolster the mines against collapse. It didn’t mean there weren’t cave-ins from time to time, only that they were less frequent than they might otherwise have been.

“So, it’s trapped?” Kal said.

Carnifex shook his head. “Just limited, is all. But if it heads outside, there’s precious little to stop it entering the city.”

“Great,” Kal said. “Shogging great.”

While the creature thrashed about, trying to find stone to merge with, the last of the Red Cloaks made it out of the building. The monster seemed to realize too late, and then charged straight at the doors. As it hit the surrounding wall, it liquefied and passed straight through, and screams swiftly followed.

Black Cloaks began climbing their way down off the headframe, but Carnifex was already sprinting for the doors. He burst through the one on the right, and Kal took the one on the left.

Red Cloaks were streaming back toward the platform and forming up in rows. Most of them had shields, which were standard issue in the event of a major incident. The snub nose of the train formed a backdrop to the phalanx rapidly taking shape. More Red Cloaks poured out onto the platforms.