Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (13 page)

“Your brother helped me choose it,” Thumil said. “Fresh from the forge. Lem Starkle’s smithy. Best there is.”

“I’ll say. Must have cost a year’s worth of tokens.”

Thumil grinned as his eyes roved the ale house. He nodded at those he recognized, which seemed to be pretty much everyone tonight. “Let’s just say, Lem owed me a favor.”

“And Lucius helped pick it out, you say? I’m surprised it wasn’t a pastry cutter.”

“Nearly was.” Thumil grew swiftly serious and swiveled back round to face the bar. “I needed an excuse to get him away from his philosopher friend for a while, so I could find out what’s going on.” He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. “The Council’s spooked about the golem. More spooked than I’ve ever seen them. Grago’s out for blood. He’s swallowed that idiot Kloon’s paranoia about the golem just happening to appear right after Aristodeus shows up. Kloon’s recovered, by the way. You didn’t break anything. Thought you might want to know.”

“I’ll have to work on my punch,” Carnifex said. “Far be it from me to agree with that shogger, but Kloon does have a point.”

Thumil shook his head. “No, there’s something missing; something we can’t see. I agree, Aristodeus knows more than he’s letting on, but being behind the incursion? I don’t think so. Neither does your pa, by the way. I hung around at the headframe till he came in for work this morning.”
 

“You did? Don’t you ever sleep, Thumil?”

“Sleep? What’s that, then? No time for sleep, with all that’s been happening. Anyhow, your pa: he’s known Aristodeus since before you were born. Said he can’t stand the bald bastard, but that he basically means well. Lucius says more or less the same, though he stopped short of mentioning the lack of hair. Ostensibly, Aristodeus is here to help review your brother’s thesis. You know what it’s about, Carn?”

He didn’t exactly. In one ear, out the other, whenever Lucius spoke about his research, which was all the time, except when his mouth was crammed full of food.

“Something about the correlation of myth and history.”

Thumil nodded. “That’s about what I could make out. He said he started out trying to prove there was no such thing as Dwarf Lords, no such thing as the lost city of Arnoch, but the deeper he dug in the
Annals
, the more he persuaded himself otherwise. Now he has this obsession about the
Pax Nanorum
, the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. He wanted me to put in a word with the Council about mounting an expedition to find it!”

“Why you? What makes him think you have any sway over those old codgers?”

Thumil didn’t answer. He stared long and hard into his tankard before setting it down without drinking. “Want to know what the Council’s doing about the golem?”

“I can guess.”

“A sweep of the mines revealed no breach,” Thumil said. “But then, a creature that can pass through granite wouldn’t exactly need one. Aristodeus explained to them—”

“He was there? Baldilocks spoke with the Council?”

“Thick as thieves with them, he is,” Thumil said. “Always has been. The Voice doesn’t exactly like it, but there’s a fair bit of resistance from some of the other councilors whenever the question of excluding Aristodeus is raised. Shog knows how old egg-head butters them up, but it must be good. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s the link between Councilor Yuffie and the somnificus coming in from outside.”

“Lucius with him?”

“At the Dodecagon?” Thumil nodded, and this time he took a drink. “Grago insisted. Had Kloon and his cronies fetch him. Problem was, the more Lucius told them what he’d learned about golems from the
Annals
, the more Grago’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. I’d say about half the Council were thinking the same thing: that your brother and Aristodeus had something to do with the incursion. Thank shog there’s a smattering of brains among the Twelve, though. Dorley’s a bookworm, and knows Lucius from the Scriptorium. He made it crystal clear what he thought of the idea. And Old Moary knows your pa, when he doesn’t forget. He was actually quite assertive. I’ve never heard, “Well, I don’t know,” brandished like a weapon before. “And then, well, I’ve already told you what Lucius wanted me to put to the Council.” Thumil slapped himself on the forehead, as if he couldn’t believe the stupidity of it. “He only goes and addresses the Voice directly, tries to convince him the golem could be the first of many. He made the Twelve look at the…” Thumil trailed off as a burly dwarf with a salt-and-pepper beard approached.

“Heard about Ming and Muckman, Marfal,” the newcomer said with an appalling lisp, “and all the otherf. I fould have been there.”

Thumil rose from his stool and embraced him. “And you would have, Stolhok, but everyone needs a day off now and again.”

“Even fo…”

“Captain Stolhok?” Carnifex said. “I didn’t recognize you without the cloak and helm. I was starting to think you slept in them.”

Stolhok was dressed in a plain brown tunic and britches, but he still had on his Ravine Guard issue boots.
 

“Lieutenant Carnifex.” Stolhok stepped back from Thumil and gave a nod of respect. “Founds like you did well back there. How many did we loof, Marfal?”

“Fifteen dead, twenty more seriously injured, and a fair few cuts and bruises. The Krypteia lost a couple, too.”

“Dark dayf, Marfal. Dark dayf.”

 
Thumil clapped him on the shoulder. “Can I get you a drink, Stolhok?”

“Thank you, but no. Juft came for the free one, and a tiny wager.” He grasped Thumil’s hand, gave Carnifex another nod, then made his way to a round table, where half a dozen dwarves were in the middle of a game of seven-card.

“Didn’t know he was the gambling type,” Carnifex said.

“You’d be surprised. Now,” Thumil said, “where was I?”

“Lucius…”

“Oh, yes. Your brother only goes and makes the councilors look at the passage he discovered in the
Annals
.”

“The one Rugbeard said didn’t exist?”

Thumil nodded and took a sip of mead. “And of course, none of them were familiar with it. Old Moary uhmed and ahed about it, but with his memory, he couldn’t be sure. About the only one who wasn’t shaking his head in disbelief was Dythin Rala, but he always plays his cards close to his chest. Aristodeus was strangely silent on the matter, but even he lost patience when Lucius started interpreting the passage as a prophecy, and floating the idea of an expedition to find the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. Having asked me to raise the issue for him, he went and brought it up himself, and the results… Well, he only has himself to blame.”

“So, my brother was a laughing stock.”

“Not altogether. I think they took the idea that there could be more incursions seriously. They want us to double the guard at the top of the ravine, and Grago’s appointing a team of Black Cloaks to keep watch at the headframe.”

“No harm in that. But they didn’t approve of Lucius’s expedition?”

“Did you think they would? There’s more chance of the Council going after the
Sanguis Terrae
dragon than the Axe of the Dwarf Lords.”

“And who could blame them?” Carnifex said. “I once knew a fisherman who claimed to have seen scaly bumps undulating through the water.”

“Yes, well, if it’s who I think it is, the only scaly bumps he saw were on the shaft of his dwarfhood.”

Carnifex laughed, but he still felt bad about Lucius being made a mockery of. His brother was about as serious a scholar as you could get, and a word here or there from a member of the Council could see his reputation in ruins.

“Thing I can’t stop thinking about,” Thumil said, “is the look on Aristodeus’s face while the councilors were laughing among themselves, and Lucius was standing there flushed and flustered. All the time everyone was attentive, Aristodeus was as dismissive as they were, but when he thought no one was paying him heed, he was anything but amused. I’d say he was worried. Haunted, even.”

Carnifex shook his head. The bald shogger was up to something, that’s for sure. And if he wasn’t, then he knew something he wasn’t sharing. Problem was, what could be done about it? No, the best thing to do when someone was playing games or keeping secrets, Droom always said, was to let them get on with it, and go about your business as usual.

“What about the homunculus that broke into the Scriptorium?” Carnifex said. “Are they taking that more seriously now?”

“Aristodeus spoke about that, but for all his alleged wisdom, he doesn’t know dwarves; or rather, he does, but he doesn’t get it. The Council’s response to everything is to tighten security and hope nothing else happens. You know how it is: one false move from them, one poor decision, and they think it’ll be Maldark and the Unweaving all over again.”

“Tell me about it,” Carnifex said. “But even they must see it’s getting silly. Lucius has been moaning about it for years, how the Council do nothing. He says the Dwarf Lords were the complete opposite: decisive, certain, and that if they hadn’t been, they’d have lasted less than a heartbeat in Qlippoth.”

Thumil finished off his mead and ordered another. “Yes, well, the Dwarf Lords aren’t real. They’re just a legend, like the
Pax Nanorum
.”

“Like the golem, you mean?”

“Point taken, son, but you’re being unfair to the Council. They’re just doing what they think’s best to… you know.”

“Keep things stagnant?”

“Safe. To keep the people safe. Make sure we survive.”

Carnifex shook his head at that. Survive for what? Just to go on surviving? “Lucius says there’s more to life than simply enduring. He says there’s a whole world up there just waiting—”

“He’s a scholar, Carn. What do you expect him to say? All that living in books, he’s hardly a guide to what’s real, what’s tangible. I’d like to see him run the city, or you, for that matter. No, on second thoughts, forget I said that. It would be a disaster either way. Lucius would have us all eating three breakfasts before work, which would no doubt involve reading and debating over an early lunch, followed by after work pie and beer, before an evening banquet and a late night supper reclining with yet more books. Within a month, we’d all be so fat, we’d need a bigger ravine, and we’d be blind as bats from all that squinting at letters on the page.
 

“But if you ran things, it would be worse. You’d have us up before dawn for a forced march of every level, then eggs and kaffa, and hours of lifting weights; next up would be sparring practice at the
Ephebe
, honing and cleaning of weapons, more eggs or goat rump steaks, more marching… It would be a nightmare.”

Carnifex did his best to look hurt. “You forgot the beer.”

“Aye, at least there’s that.”

“And the mead.”

“True, but nothing can make up for the mandatory circle fights with baresarks. Don’t think I don’t know, son: I hear things. I know you want to pit yourself against one of those crazy shoggers. I just don’t think the general populace is going to share your passion for getting your skull crushed and every limb mangled.”

“You’re thinking of Lok Tupole, not me.”

“If you say so, Carn. But seriously, this golem: I had a long talk with your brother about it. According to the
Annals
, he says, they were a frequent menace until the Founders went after them into Gehenna.”

“Where they lost the Axe of the Dwarf Lords,” Carnifex said. When Thumil scowled at him, he added, “You can’t pick and choose which bits of the story you believe. Either it’s all real, or none of it is.”

“Doesn’t work like that, Carn. You should ask old baldilocks. Tales are embellished, but even the most fanciful of them sometimes contain a grain of truth.”

“Well, Lucius clearly believes in the axe, if he wanted the Council to mount an expedition to find it.”

“He thinks we’re going to need it. He’s convinced there’ll be more golems, and that it’ll take more than scarolite mining tools to stand against them.”

“And what’s Aristodeus think?”

Thumil shrugged and accepted a fresh flagon of mead from the bar wench. “That I can’t say. He did speculate, though, that it was probably just a rogue. I suspect he was lying, telling the Council what they wanted to hear. I tell you, Carn, Baldilocks is worried about something, and yet there’s more to it than that.”

Carnifex’s eyes strayed to the game of seven-card. Captain Stolhok was raking a pile of tokens across the table toward himself.

“You read my mind,” Thumil said. “This is just a game to Aristodeus. A complex one, but a game nevertheless.”

“Aye, laddie, but what are the stakes?”

“Let’s hope we never find…”

Thumil’s eyes focused on someone in the crowd, an old dwarf with a black hood obscuring his features. He was leaning forlornly against the wall beside the entrance, as if he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.

Carnifex instinctively reached for his new axe atop the bar, but Thumil stopped him with a pat on the hand.

“It’s Jerid Garnik, Ming’s pa.”

“Oh, shog,” Carnifex said. “You want me to—”

“No, son,” Thumil said. “As marshal, that’s my job.”

Thumil downed his mead in one, then rose from his stool and made his way across the tavern to Jerid Garnik.

“I hope you two weren’t talking shop,” Cordy said, taking the opportunity to saunter over on the other side of the bar.

“During your beer launch?” Carnifex said. “Wouldn’t dare, lassie.”

She glared at him, but she was only playing. Behind her mask of anger, he could read concern in her eyes. For an instant, the facade dropped, and she softened her features with a smile that was half a frown.

“You all right, Carn? I mean, Thumil told me what you did, how you stopped that thing.”

“It was nothing, Cordy. Just got lucky. Shame Ming didn’t, or Muckman, or any of the others that didn’t make it back.”

Cordy leaned over the bar toward him. Her breasts pressing against the counter swelled above her dress, and he swiftly looked away into his flagon.

She slapped him on the arm. “You’ll ruin your palate. Can’t you wait a few minutes till the good stuff starts flowing?”

“I was thirsty.”

She rolled her eyes, then rested her hand atop his and grew serious. “It wasn’t luck, Carn. You know that. The same thing happened at the
Ephebe
, time and again. You were too fast for the rest of us, too strong.”