Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (21 page)

He followed the jeers and cheers of the fight crowds through narrow streets that cut between the canal-side warehouses and rundown tenement buildings in the
Sanguis Terrae
district. As he approached the arena, permanent structures gave way to stalls selling sausages, turkey drummers, skewered goat meat, and all manner of pies. Further in, and the beer tents were doing good business. Once or twice, he picked up the pungent whiff of somnificus, which everyone knew was freely available on the twenty-second, where the Ravine Guard didn’t dare patrol.

A gibuna came rampaging through the crowd, knuckles scraping the floor as it loped along using its spindly, hairy arms and squat legs. People screamed and yelled as it snatched a pie from a stall. The crowd around Carnifex scattered, leaving him face to face with the creature. It turned crazed yellow eyes on him, and gave him a fang-filled leer, but the instant he raised his axe, it fled, bounding from stall to stall, and leaving carnage in its wake.

“Should’ve shogging axed it, mate,” a filthy dwarf with a matted beard and greasy apron said, scratching his arse and sniffing his fingers. “It’s what you’re paid for, ain’t it? Scutting Red Cloaks!”

Carnifex shoved roughly past him. When the shogger kept on cussing him out, he stiffened, and willed himself to keep on walking. He wasn’t here for putting scut like that in their place. Nor was he here to cull gibunas. With the shock of learning about Cordy and Thumil, the fallout from the fight with Kloon, one thing, and one thing alone, had brought him to the arse end of Arx Gravis. There was nothing keeping him from it now: no Droom to worry about him; no Cordy to tell him he was being a shogwit; and no Thumil to reprimand him for bringing the Guard into dishonor.
 

He pushed his way through the loiterers, drunks, and streetwalkers to the arena, unfastening his red cloak as he went and dropping it in the gutter.

He was here to fight.

The arena was a huge oval demarcated by stacked crates that had come off the barges. Carnifex removed his helm and left it atop one of them. The flickering glow of braziers illuminated the space within in patches of orange. The oval encompassed half a dozen chalk circles, around the edge of which stood baresarks with wooden shields, to ensure the combatants didn’t step outside the lines. Several bouts were in progress, each to win the right to challenge the undisputed champion in the raised central ring that stood upon its own purpose-built platform. The perimeter of the ring was a trench for the baresarks surrounding the combatants to stand in, so the audience could see over them.

It was to the central ring that Carnifex made his way, ignoring the grunts and thuds, whuffs and screams from the fringe fights. Blood sprayed from one of the circles and spattered his beard as he passed. He wiped it off. It was nothing unusual.

The crowd around the platform were pumping their fists and chanting over and over:

“Kunaga! Kunaga!”

It was the name of the legendary baresark, and a mark of respect to the reigning champion. Currently, that was a big bastard called Kallos the Crusher, on account of his shovel-sized hands that could snap a dwarf’s windpipe, and frequently had.

Kallos was strutting his stuff, flexing and growling, every now and again roaring at the crowd, and soaking up the roars they gave in return. He was naked, save for a blood-soaked loin-cloth. His head was clean-shaven, smooth as an egg, but his beard was braided into three thick ropes and bound with leather. The tattoo of a fractured skull with blazing fire-pits for eyes adorned his thickly muscled chest, and when he turned, he gave the crowd a look at the bare-breasted strumpet on his back. He was half a head taller than any dwarf Carnifex had ever seen, and half again as wide. Muscle upon muscle was how he would have described Kallos: ridged, dense, armor-plated, even. But it was his eyes that were his most intimidating feature: black holes without the slightest shred of white. Either his pupils were dilated from too much somnificus, or they were the eyes of a demon: soulless, and empty as the Void.

A raucous cheer went up from one of the fringe circles, and an announcer called out the winner:

“Jaym the Unstoppable! Jaym the Brutal!”

“Jaym the Uncrowned Champion!” someone heckled.
 

Carnifex scanned the crowd till he found the culprit, a skinny runt with a straggly beard and hair. He had a notebook in hand and was going from dwarf to dwarf, taking bets.

“Then send him in here with me!” Kallos bellowed. He pounded his chest with meaty fists, and the crowd around the central ring began to yell “Kunaga!” even louder than before.

A red-bearded dwarf pushed his way through the onlookers. He wasn’t as tall as Kallos, but he was broader, a real brute of a baresark. He was foaming at the mouth, and his eyes were crimson with rage. The blood of his most recent opponent spattered him head to foot.

“You called?” said the newcomer.

“No, Jaym,” the scrawny dwarf taking bets said, hurrying over and grabbing his arm. “Not now. We wait, remember. Goad him, threaten him, mock him, but timing is everything in this game.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

“I want him now!” Jaym roared, striding toward the raised circle.

“Oh, yeah?” Kallos said. “Then come and get it.”

Cheers went up from another circle, and the winner was announced as Hagrock the Invincible.

“Now that’s the fight you want to see,” the scrawny dwarf yelled to the people, turning a circle to see who wanted to place a wager. “Hagrock versus Kallos! The fight of the century!”

Dwarves swarmed around him, handing over tokens, and Jaym, all but forgotten, slunk away into the crowd.

Hagrock’s invincibility obviously didn’t extend to his left ear. It was hanging by a thread as he made his weary way from his circle to the central ring. He looked utterly spent to Carnifex, drenched in the blood of his vanquished opponent, and a fair amount of his own. Like all baresarks, he was brawny and fairly muscled, and his torso was a canvas of various mismatched tattoos. About his most arresting feature was his teeth: they were capped with rusty iron points. Judging by the gore that spattered his mouth and beard, it looked like he’d been making good use of them.

Those gathered around the platform supporting the central ring jeered as Hagrock took the three short steps up. The baresarks in the trough around the fighting circle parted so he could leap across, then they closed the gap behind him.

The combatants met in the middle and touched knuckles, then stepped back till they were up against the wooden shields on opposite sides of the ring. That was the cue for the fight to begin.

Kallos moved to claim the center of the ring, and Hagrock seemed content to let him have it. As Hagrock circled him like a predator, Kallos pivoted in place to track his movements. Hagrock picked up his pace, his growls and his rage increasing with the speed of his steps. He was working himself up into the frenzy baresarks were known for. Ordinarily, his opponent would have done the same, but Kallos looked like he couldn’t be bothered. Maybe he didn’t need to draw upon a semi-crazed state to get the job done.

Hagrock grew rabid. Froth flew from his mouth. He bared his lips, showing his gruesome metal teeth to full effect. His eyes rolled into his head, came down bloodshot.

And then he sprang.

Kallos caught him by the throat and slammed him into the ground, held him there as Hagrock thrashed and spat and shrieked. The shriek became a gurgle, and then a wheezing moan. Calm as anything, Kallos knelt over him, throttling him with measured force from one hand. Pinkish drool trickled from Hagrock’s mouth. His leg twitched once, twice, and then he was still.

“Is that it?” someone in the crowd cried out when Kallos stepped away from the body.

It was murder, pure and simple, but it was also commonplace. Circle fighting was illegal all over the city, but down here, down at the foot of the ravine, who was there to enforce the law? And besides, a lot of tokens were won or lost on such fights. A shog of a lot. And it was common knowledge Councilor Yuffie was among those who benefited most from these brutal displays. So, it was no wonder the Council turned a blind eye. And, in any case, circle fights were one solution to the problem posed by a potential second uprising of the baresarks. With them taking care of their own like this, there was little need for another cull.

“Who’s next?” Kallos roared, raising his arms aloft and doing a circuit of the ring.

“I’m game,” Carnifex called out.

Kallos glared down at him from above the heads of the baresarks in the trench. “Who the shog are you? Something a gibuna shat out of its mangy arse?”

The crowd laughed dutifully. There was much shaking of heads.

“What’s your name?” the scrawny dwarf said, weaving his way through the onlookers and scribbling in his notebook.

“Carnifex.”

“No, no, that won’t do. What you need’s something to get the audience riled up, just preferably not something like ‘Invincible.’ Poor old Hagrock really believed the was, and I dare say the irony is lost on this lot. Come on, think of something, and be quick about it before he remembers my man Jaym.” He tapped his nose with a finger. “The longer we make the punters wait for the match up of the millennia, the more the tokens will flow.”

Carnifex struggled to think of some
nom de guerre
that wouldn’t make him sound a shogger. He could see the sense in Kallos’s. You only need to look at what he did to Hagrock’s windpipe to reckon “Crusher” a good choice. Then he remembered Lucius, and what he’d said their names meant. Aristodeus claimed Carnifex translated as ‘Executioner’, which was half decent, but Lucius’s interpretation was even more suited to purpose.

“Butcher,” he said to the runt with the notepad.

“Like it. All right, people, who’ll give me five-to-one on Carnifex the Butcher wiping the floor with Kallos? No one? Ten-to-one, then? A hundred?”

Dwarves started waving tokens at him, and the fight, so it seemed, was on.

Carnifex took the steps up and crossed over into the circle.

“No armor,” one of the baresarks in the trench said. “Same goes for the axe. You can get them back on your way out.”

Hoots of laughter followed. Clearly, they didn’t think he’d be going anywhere after the bout. Ever again.

He removed his hauberk and gambeson and dumped them in the trench. His axe he passed to one of the baresarks.

“Make sure you don’t tarnish the blades, laddie,” Carnifex said. “I’ll be expecting it back in the same condition.”

The baresark narrowed his eyes but took the axe all the same.

Ignoring Kallos, Carnifex limbered up and stretched his muscles. By the time he’d finished some press-ups and squats, he had a good pump on, and there were appreciative gasps from the crowd. When he looked round to acknowledge them, people averted their eyes. No one gave him a virgin’s chance in shogland of lasting any longer than Hagrock. If anything, they felt sorry for him, and the grim atmosphere that descended over the arena was more akin to that of an execution than a fair fight.

Kallos had already backed up against a shield, impatient for the bout to be over with. Up close, his bulk was even more massive. His thews looked carved from granite, and he seemed unmovable as a mountain. Orange light reflected from his bald head, and the skull tattoo on his chest seemed to come alive in the flickering glow.

Any other time, Carnifex’s heart would have been a deafening boom in his ears, but the black dog mood had followed him down from the seventh level, stayed with him at Thumil’s, and then morphed into an abyssal hound of despair that left him with nothing to lose. If anything, he was calm. Too calm to draw upon the reserves that always saw him through at the
Ephebe
bouts.

He touched his back to a shield, and the fight was on.

Carnifex was expecting Kallos to take the middle again, like he’d done against Hagrock, but instead, the Crusher charged. Carnifex spun out of the way just in time, and Kallos’s fist smacked a hole in the wood of the shield behind. Carnifex circled away, but Kallos turned and swiftly closed him down. Every time Carnifex stepped one way, Kallos had the move covered. He was a master of the ring, a veteran. And he’d never been beaten.

Kallos threw a jab, but it was a feint, and Carnifex walked straight into a hook from the other hand. He stumbled across the circle, ears ringing. Kallos was a blur closing in on him. Carnifex tucked in behind his arms, but an uppercut took him in the ribs, and all the air burst from his lungs.

He hadn’t expected this: a display of boxing skill from a monster like Kallos. It was a complete contrast to the way the Crusher had handled Hagrock.

A sledgehammer blow burst through Carnifex’s protecting ams and split his lip. He reeled back against the shield wall. Kallos came on with a cross, a jab, a scything haymaker. All found their mark, and Carnifex rolled across the shields, barely keeping his feet. Blood ran down in front of his eyes. He wiped his face to see, but Kallos hit him in the guts. Carnifex tensed just in time, made a wall of his abs. Kallos swung for his stomach again, but he may as well have struck rock. He looked momentarily bewildered, and then unleashed punch after punch at Carnifex’s guts, as if he had a point to prove. Carnifex made no attempt to block or dodge. Instead, he soaked the blows up, allowing the force of each to drive him against the shield wall and dissipate. Hit after hit he took to the midriff, thanking shog for all the work he’d put into his sit-ups.
 

Sweat sprayed off Kallos’s head, ran in rivulets down his torso, and yet he still pounded away, as if he were tunnel-visioned by Carnifex’s ability to withstand his body blows. Finally, Kallos stepped back for a breather, and Carnifex launched himself off the shield wall. He caught Kallos on the jaw with a right hook, followed it up with a left to the ribs. Kallos got off a jab, but it lacked power and stiffness. Carnifex ducked in close and delivered a shocking right to the nose, splitting it open in a shower of gore. Kallos roared, his eyes rolled, and then the rage was upon him.