Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (28 page)

“This is why they misdirected you all your life,” the homunculus said. “Kept you from the truth. But your brother was too clever for them, and you were too strong.”

“Misdirected?” Carnifex said. “Do you mean—?”

“Arx Gravis,” the homunculus said. “All that you have known. Think: did you ever feel stifled? Did you ever yearn to leave?”

“Always,” Carnifex said, “but I just thought…” Oh, shog, what was it saying? That he’d been deluded all along? Deceived by the very people he lived among: the Council, his friends, his family?

“But my pa—”

The homunculus cut him off. “Not Droom. He was untainted. Same as your mother, your brother, and those you were closest to.”

“Cordy? Thumil? What about Kal?”

“As you were, Carnifex: blind victims. Innocents for the demons to draw life from. But already, what you have done here will be known. What you have found. Your friends are in peril.”

“I don’t understand,” Carnifex said. His heart was racing in frantic spurts. “This makes no sense. What are you trying to tell me?”

“Arx Gravis is a city of the damned.”

“No,” Carnifex breathed. “You are lying. You are trying to trick me.”

The homunculus dipped its eyes and sighed. “Then it may already be too late.”

“Speak clearly, deep gnome.” Carnifex took a tight grip on the axe. The haft pulsed in response, and fire flooded his veins. It reassured him, told him he was in the presence of truth, no matter how painful, how hard to believe.

The homunculus spoke quickly, as if reluctantly giving up its secrets. “My people have long held that the hope of the dwarves, the hope of our old allies, would come from the womb of Yyalla Thane. Your brother was special, Carnifex. You are special. You may never know how much. Lucius has played his part. He has given you light to see by. And now it is in your hands. Either you will remain down here in fear and confusion, or you will return to the ravine and save your people.”

“Save them how?”

The homunculus raised its head and locked eyes with Carnifex. “You have clear sight now. Use it to sort the wheat from the chaff. You will know true dwarves from the demons who feed upon their essence.”

“You want me to return to the city? Root out these things and kill them?”

“It’s what your mother would have done, if her friends were in peril. It’s what the Dwarf Lords would have done, before they were forgotten by history and reduced to myth. Why do you think Maldark fell, Carnifex? Why do you think your people became skulking cowards? This is not the way of the dwarves known to my people. Why do you think our two races were once friends, but now the dwarves view us with suspicion and hostility?”

“No,” Carnifex said, turning away and squeezing the bridge of his nose. “This is too much. How do I know? How do I know this is the truth?”

“Because you hold the Axe of the Dwarf Lords? Doesn’t that alone prove you have been lied to by your Council, by your scholars, by that meddling philosopher who strives to keep you blinkered?”

“But why?” Carnifex said. “Why would Aristodeus do that?”

The homunculus shrugged. “What do you really know of him, other than that he hails from Urddynoor, and shows up on Aethir, at the ravine city, whenever he pleases? He has the ear of the Council, Carnifex. And have you never wondered about his clothes? His white robe is never besmirched, never soiled by travel. How does he achieve that? Have you ever seen him carry spares?”

Carnifex had wondered, but he’d formed his own theories to make sense of it. None of them were sinister, though. But now, with all that he’d seen and heard, he was starting to think again.

“You’re making the connections,” the homunculus said, “piecing it together for yourself. Aristodeus pops up all over the place, on both Aethir and Urddynoor. Here one minute, some place else the next. Space is no barrier to him, and neither is time. Don’t you see, Carnifex? There is but one master who grants such freedom to his subjects, willing or otherwise. There is but one place that scorns the laws of time.”

“The Abyss?” Carnifex said. “Aristodeus is a servant of the Demiurgos?”

His question was greeted with stony silence.

So much of what the homunculus said made sense, and went some way to clearing up the mystery of Aristodeus. But not all the way. Carnifex was as confused as he’d ever been, but beneath it all, tugging away at the threads of obfuscation, was the will do do something, and the fear that if he didn’t, he could inadvertently doom his people.

“Me discovering the axe has changed things?” he asked. “Arx Gravis is no longer the same?”

“The veil is lifting,” the homunculus said. “The demons will act fast, before they are known. There is little time left. They will slaughter the untainted, all that is left of your people.”

Will they?
Carnifex wondered.
Will they really?

It was like Droom always said about the bizarre philosophical ideas Lucius was always spouting from the books he read: You could believe what you liked, but it didn’t change a thing when a gibuna was gnawing on your knackers, or cancer was destroying you from the inside, like it had Cordy’s pa. You could call a sun a star, but it still rose every morning, and set every night. You could deny a chair was a chair, but it still numbed your arse when you sat on it too long. The bottom line for Droom was, if you could see it, hear it, touch it, then it was real. And if you couldn’t, then it wasn’t worth worrying about. He never listened much to what folk said, but he paid great attention to what they did.

Carnifex hefted the golden axe to his shoulder. “You can get me back to the ravine?”

The homunculus nodded.

In that case, Carnifex had reached his decision. He had to go see for himself.

“Then let’s go.”

And if it was all lies, if the homunculus had been trying to deceive him, he’d hand himself over to the Black Cloaks. He’d chosen to come below to find his brother, and he’d known what the consequences were. If Lucius were still alive, Carnifex would have considered running; the two of them could have made a life for themselves in Malkuth, assuming the beings who lived on the surface would permit it. But with the way things had turned out, death was the better option.

The homunculus guided him beneath the funnel, then stood off to one side. It tapped some glowing crystals set into the vambrace on its forearm, and the air began to shimmer. This time, there was no blackness, as there had been when Carnifex had floated down to the chamber. A dazzling tangle of prismatic brilliance swirled around him. Every fiber of his body screamed in agony. His skull burst into a million fragments.

And then he was standing on the embankment beside the
Sanguis Terrae
. The ravine walls oozed magma, and in their hellish glow, he saw a fur-faced devil loping toward him, scraping its knuckles along the ground. Life-sucking eyes of sickly puce bored into him. Its jaws bristled with serrated teeth. It gibbered and shrieked, and a hundred hoots and howls chorused in response.
 

Carnifex saw them then: dozens upon dozens of demonic horrors, bounding down from the rock face and coming at him in a frenzied wave.

CITY OF THE DAMNED

Fire in its eyes, the demon sprang. Filthy talons came at Carnifex’s throat. He swayed and chopped, and it fell in two pieces. The top part screeched; the legs twitched and stilled.
 

It was easy. So easy. The axe sliced through fur, sinew, and bone with no effort. No effort at all. Blood spattered the blades, but the golden brilliance coming off them seemed to evaporate it. As the crimson stains vanished, the axe haft throbbed, and Carnifex felt its heat inflame his blood.

The charging horde checked itself. Demons fanned out, gibbering insanely. One dashed in. He swung round to meet it, and it ran back off again. He took a step toward the pack; they retreated. He turned his back on them, and they came on with howls and screeches.

This time, he spun and hurled the axe. It arced across the front of the pack, slinging blood in its wake. Five demons crumpled to the floor holding their guts in, and the axe slapped back into Carnifex’s hand.
 

He couldn’t stop himself from gawping. He’d thrown axes before, but never to such effect. It’s not what they were designed for. But this one… This one had just sliced open five demons, and then flown back to him. His heart scudded about his chest, part from fascinated awe, part creeping dread. It was like in the stories; just like the axe in the stories. But knowing it was real—that the
Pax Nanorum
was real—only threw into doubt everything he’d taken for granted about myth, about reality. And now, with demons inside the city, and him wielding the legendary Axe of the Dwarf Lords against them, the world seemed sharply divided between good and evil, and both were utterly tangible.

Then fangs and claws were coming at him from every side, and he was swamped by hoots and shrieks of rage. Carnifex swung and chopped and scythed, stepping, lunging, ducking, swaying. Claws raked across his chainmail. Fangs snapped at his face. He thumped the butt of the axe into them, and teeth shattered in a spray of blood. The axe came up; the axe came down. The demon’s head split from top to bottom.

Pain flared from his arm—three deep gouges from a demon’s talons. Carnifex lashed out with the axe, connected with furry hide, then ripped the blades up to sheer off the face.

For an instant, he panicked. What if their touch corrupted? What if they infected his blood?
 

They will slaughter the untainted
, the homunculus had said. Did that mean it was possible to pick up the taint, to become one of them?

Golden light from the axe blades coursed along the haft and flowed into his wounded arm. The lacerations knitted, and the pain subsided.

Clubbing limbs pounded him from behind. As he stumbled, a demon bounded onto him, gripped his waist with its legs. Slavering jaws snapped at his unprotected throat. Carnifex threw himself backward onto the ground, slamming his weight into the demon. It let out a whuff and released him. He rolled to one knee and hacked down at it.

He twisted as he stood, slinging the axe behind him and taking off a demon’s leg. Fangs found his shoulder, and his arm went numb. The axe flared again, and feeling was restored. With a two-handed grip on the haft, he swung the
Pax Nanorum
in a wide circle, pivoting with his feet, spinning faster and faster. The demons backed away from the blades. They had seen what the axe could do, and they were growing wary.

Carnifex came to a stop. The demons continued to swirl about him for a few seconds as the dizziness passed. In spite of the gore on the ground, the blood-drenched corpses, the wounds he knew he’d sustained, he remained completely unscathed. And the axe… Not a notch or chip, not the least stain of crimson. It looked newly-forged; and it was scintillant, lit by its own inner sun.

He scanned the demons encircling him. As he met their hellish eyes, they shuffled back.
 

The axe laughed… somewhere deep inside his mind. Or had it been a sigh? He strained, trying to hear more, but there was only the low growling of the demons; the occasional nervous gibber.

They had already delayed him too long. Confidence surged through him, told him he could sweep the horde aside, if only he gave full sway to the axe. He took in a deep breath; let it out slowly. The haft trembled in his grip, and answering ripples passed beneath his skin. Stiffness ebbed from his joints; his muscles tautened, and his heartbeat galloped to a bracing tattoo, louder, stronger.

And then he charged.

So fast, the demons never saw it coming. He was in among them, hacking, hacking, hacking. The axe sang an exultant song, spurring him on. But no sooner had he registered the fact, than it changed to a mournful lament, as if it grieved for every life it stole.
 

Blood spouted in fountains, splashed his face, his arms, his armor, then evaporated into plumes of pinkish vapor. Growls became shrieks, gibbers screams of terror. And then the demons were routed, fleeing back to the ravine wall as if driven by flaming whips.

Carnifex should have felt relieved, should have been exhausted. Instead, he was angry. Angry they had wasted his time. Angry they hadn’t finished what they started. Angry he might already be too late.

He strode away from the embankment toward the warehouses flanking a canal. Everything was locked up for the night, and the district was deserted. The arena fights must have finished—there were no sounds of fighting or the crowd. How long he’d been in Gehenna was a mystery to him. Time seemed to pass slowly there, or perhaps not at all. But clearly, things had moved on since he’d left the city.
 

He had to find Thumil and Cordy, Kal and anyone else who wasn’t tainted. Shog only knew who was left. He dreaded walking into Bucknard’s and discovering it was a nest of demons. And what if he went for aid to a Ravine Guard barracks and found it overrun?
 

Faces flashed through his mind in quick succession: Grimark, Captain Stolhok, Brol Farny, Old Moary… Surely they were all right. How could they have been tainted and him not notice? He’d lived among these people all his life, eaten, drunk, fought some of them in the
Ephebe
. Had he been so blind? So deluded? And where would it have ended if Lucius had not shed light upon the deception and ultimately led Carnifex to the axe?

Layers upon layers of trickery, misdirection, and obfuscation, and all for what? So the demons could go on feeding on their unsuspecting fodder? Is that how it worked? Creatures of nightmare imbibing the essence of those they lived among, with no one any the wiser?

But the Council knew, surely? Or at least some of them did. Which would explain why no one was allowed to leave the ravine. It hadn’t always been that way. Thumil said there had been a move to found new settlements, and to engineer the volcano of Mount Sartis. Maybe it wasn’t the goblins that put paid to that particular venture. In spite of their losses, the dwarves had won the day. Maybe it was something else they’d brought back from the region. Because it struck Carnifex that’s when things had reverted to the isolationism that had constituted the life of Arx Gravis since Maldark’s fall.