Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (5 page)

The lads respected his silence and didn’t bother him with any more questions. While he sipped at his mead and followed one spiraling train of thought after another down into a burgeoning well of blackness, he was dimly aware of them discussing where to have the pyre for Jarfy, and how they were going to help his wife and kids. Even as the dark crawled back out from the corners of his mind and started to weave a canopy over him, Carnifex felt himself smiling. They were good lads, simple and true. The kind of dwarves he was proud to know. With a deep breath that filled his lungs, he set his empty flagon down on the tabletop with a thud and looked at each of them in turn.

“Now, laddies, who’s going to buy their commanding officer a drink?”

They all immediately set about turning out their pockets, looking for the tokens they had earned in service to the Ravine Guard. It was no different to the pay Droom received from the mines, or any other dwarf for that matter. That was one good thing about the Council, Carnifex supposed: every dwarf got the same, irrespective of what they did for a living. It hadn’t always been that way, the Council repeatedly told them. Up until the time of Maldark the Fallen, it had been a dog-eat-dog world, with every dwarf for himself. Now, with the even distribution of tokens, there was a sense of solidarity. Of course, like everything else in Arx Gravis, it wasn’t quite as simple as it seemed. Favors were always being done in exchange for tokens, and what you had could always be doubled at the dice table, or wagering on a circle fight. And if you had the kinds of privileges the councilors enjoyed, you might do even better for yourself, as Yuffie apparently did on the back of his somnificus trade.

Midnight came and went. Through the window, the amber light from the glowstones steadily increased as Raphoe flew the nest and left her two sibling moons adorning the night sky: Charos, a mere fraction of Raphoe’s size, and Ennoi, smaller still, or perhaps more distant.
 

The table of women quietened down somewhat at the arrival of a nocturnal feast of pie and potatoes. One of them caught him looking and winked. He smiled and turned away. She was a bonny lass, right enough, but he was hardly in the mood.

Carnifex worked his way through flagon after flagon of mead the Red Cloaks set before him, but no matter how much he put away, he never found the liberating effect of drunkenness. Truth was, he seldom did, and on the few occasions he’d been totally inebriated, he’d sobered in an instant at the prospect of a brawl or the tug of a lassie’s beard.

The other patrons filtered out, dropping their tankards off at the bar as they left. Bucknard straightened up chairs and benches, then seated himself on a barrel by the hearth, keeping a bleary eye on those still drinking. He took out a pipe and lit it with a taper he held to the flames.

One by one, the Red Cloaks bade their farewells and got up to leave.

“Coming?” Kal said. He was the only one left.

“Aye, laddie.” Carnifex pushed himself up from the bench. Twelve empty flagons were lined up in front of him. Suddenly, he felt bad about it. Bad about letting the Red Cloaks spend their tokens on him. “I’ll pay them back,” he muttered.

Kal wasn’t meant to have heard, but he did. “Don’t be a shogger. The lads don’t do anything they don’t want to. And besides, it’s your birthday. Think of it as a gift.”

“Birthday?” He’d completely forgotten, what with all the excitement. Although, that was only the half of it. The reality was, he’d tried to forget his birthday every year he could remember. “Not till tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow, you stupid scut. Look out the window.”

The amber glowstones had all gone out, and red and purple light from the rising suns reflected off the walkways overhead. Already, figures were moving about outside: stallholders hoping to catch the morning shifts on their way to work.

The tavern door opened, and in came a bunch of miners, grabbing a beer and some eggs and bacon before heading off to chip away at a vein of scarolite, or silver, or gold.
 

And that reminded Carnifex: Droom would be up and expecting to see him before leaving for the mines. It was the same every time this double-edged day came around. Droom was a stickler for celebrating the birthdays of both his sons, but today was especially important to him: it was also the memorial of his wife Yyalla’s death.
 

Carnifex gathered up his axe and helm and nodded that they should leave.

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

Outside Bucknard’s Beer Hall, Carnifex parted ways from Kal and headed for the Sward, a broad ledge jutting from the side of the ravine that had been seeded with grass and planted with trees centuries ago. From time immemorial, the Sward had housed a small village—scattered dwellings of rough-hewn stone designed to blend in with the natural rock formations. There was more accommodation further back in the ravine walls, where networks of tunnels linked subterranean homes and barracks for the Ravine Guard. But those whose ancestors had been blessed with good fortune—some said it was good breeding, back before the dwarves had learned the ways of equality—had their homes amid the trees and the greenery of the Sward. That’s where Yyalla Thane’s family had lived for as long as anyone could remember. And that’s where they lived now, one hundred and sixty years after her death.

Patches of reddish light shone through cleverly designed gaps between walkways, and, as he reached the Sward, Carnifex caught a glimpse of one of Aethir’s twin suns. It rose in haphazard fits and starts, darting in and out of the wispy cloud cover.
 

The dawn glow limning the ravine seemed unearthly; it made old familiar things look somehow fresh and new, as if he were seeing them for the first time: the stunted watchtowers of the Ravine Guard; the manicured lawns and sculpted hedgerows of Tranquility Park; and the tinkling waters of Lords’ Fountain in the plaza.

It was a magical time of day. His favorite. The air was chill and crisp, without the stultifying heat it would later acquire. And it was redolent with the smells of cooking—sausages, bacon, and toasted bread; of scented smoke pluming from chimneys. The chirping of birds and the chitter of insects gave the Sward its own brand of music, and every now and again, the muffled blare of barge horns carried up from the canals.
 

Carnifex’s tension evaporated like the morning dew pearling the sheer walls of the ravine. It was only when he passed Krank Scorby’s smallholding, adjacent to the Thane family home, that his trepidation began to rise once more. He stopped for a moment to lean on the fence, gazing out at the half dozen boars snuffling for truffles, or whatever it was they ate.

In the distance, the clangor of the blacksmith’s had already commenced. To anyone else, it would have been a deafening din, but the Thanes were so inured to it, they barely noticed. Carnifex did, though, on the bad days. And there were few worse than this.

The wind turned, and for an instant, he caught the rancid whiff of the mushroom farm across the way. During storms, when the wind howled through the ravine and gusted in vicious swirls, the stench of the fisheries around the
Sanguis Terrae
would rise to mingle with it, and there was nothing for it but to stay indoors.

 
Carnifex drew in a long, deep breath, then let it out with a sigh. He pushed off from the fence and headed for home and up the garden path with gallows’ steps. The door, as always, was open, and he entered, setting his axe and helm on the table in the hallway.

Droom stumbled out from the bathroom, one foot booted, the other covered by a threadbare sock. His gray-streaked hair was mussed up, his beard a tangle of knots. He already had on his thick-weave work jacket and britches, both with their permanent coating of rock dust from the mines. The jacket was coming apart at the seams, and Droom’s massive shoulders threatened to burst out of it at any moment.

“You seen my boot, laddie?”

Without waiting for an answer, Droom hobbled off into the hearth-room.

“Unless you left it in Bucknard’s…” Carnifex said.
 

He became aware of the muffled rumble of voices coming from the kitchen.

“Bucknard’s?” Droom said, poking his head back out. “What you talking about? It’s a work day, so I wasn’t drinking last night. Well, I was, but at home, and only a couple.”

“You mean a couple of couple,” Carnifex said.

Droom grinned from ear to ear. “Where were you all night, laddie? Thought you might have joined me, given as it’s… you know.”

It was bad enough enduring the combined celebrations and mourning one day every year, without adding the night before. Even if he’d thought about it, Carnifex would have drummed up an excuse.

“Yes, Pa, I know. I’d have liked that, too, only there was trouble.”

Droom’s eyes continued to flit about in search of his missing boot. “Trouble? What kind of trouble? You been losing tokens at the dice table again?”

“You got time for a kaffa? I’ll tell you all about it.” Carnifex only just managed to stop himself from adding “laddie.” It was a habit he’d picked up from his pa, and hardly appropriate coming from a son.

“You fix me one, laddie, and I’ll find my boot. I’m starting late today, in any case. Foreman knows what day it is. Knew your ma, he did. Oh, that reminds me.” He came back out into the hallway and clapped a shovel-like hand on Carnifex’s shoulder. “Happy birthday, son.”

“What did you get me?”

Droom winced and chewed on his top lip.

“Don’t tell me, you drank it?”

“I’ll pick up another on my way home from work.
Urbs Sapientii
mead. The best there is.”

Carnifex shook his head and wandered toward the kitchen. “You should know, Pa.”
 

And judging by Droom’s notorious forgetfulness, he’d be the only one to know. The chances of him remembering to buy another cask were the same as Lucius giving up the pies and going for a run each morning.

His brother was at the kitchen table, still in his night robe, which was threatening to burst open for a completely different reason to Droom’s jacket. Droom was all muscle, earned from a life in the mines, but Lucius had the physique of a dwarf who sat on his arse all day poring over books. And it wasn’t just his waistline that suffered: he was blind as a bat and had to wear one set of eyeglasses for reading, and another for everything else.

On the opposite side of the table, tamping down tobacco in a pipe, a steaming cup of kaffa set before him, was someone Carnifex hadn’t seen for donkey’s years.

“Aristodeus.”

“Carnifex, my boy. Happy birthday.” The philosopher said it with a sympathetic smile. He knew how hard it was.

As usual, Aristodeus wore a simple robe of white that draped over one shoulder and left the other bare. He insisted on calling it a ‘toga’. Even seated, his balding head nearly touched the ceiling. He was a human, which was only one step down from a giant. Whether or not he was tall for a human was anyone’s guess. He was the only outsider Carnifex had ever seen. More than that, he was the only outsider permitted in the ravine city. Shog knew why, and shog only knew how long he’d been visiting the dwarves. Generations, it seemed. Certainly from before Carnifex was born.

“So,” Carnifex said, crossing to the hearth, where the copper kettle sat atop its cast iron trivet so that it didn’t boil dry. “You came all the way from wherever it is you come from to wish me happy birthday. Laddie, I’m touched.”

“Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone,” Aristodeus said. He took a shiny silver object from his robe pocket and pressed down on one end with his thumb. A wavering flame sprang up, and he used it to light his pipe. He took a couple of draws on the stem and then pocketed the silver flame-maker. “I’ve always loved that about dwarves: having the entire family together under one roof. Your brother’s thesis on the
Annals
is nearing completion, and I’ve come to offer my two pennies’ worth.” When Carnifex frowned his confusion, the philosopher added, “Two tokens’ worth?”

Carnifex glanced over the hearth for something to eat. There were links of sausages hanging from the hook in the ceiling, along with a cured haunch of ham. To one side was a covered plate of cheese, and he helped himself to a chunk, grimacing as he chewed. It was hard and tasted faintly of mold.

“Didn’t know you were an expert on dwarf records,” he said, grabbing a couple of cups and adding a spoonful of powdered kaffa to each, and then pouring on hot water from the kettle.

“I’m not,” the philosopher said. “But I know history.”

Droom bustled in, both feet now booted, and his hair slightly less of a muss than it had been just now. He was running a comb through his beard but gave up with a cuss. It was too tangled to do much about.

“You’ll have to shave it off,” Aristodeus said.

“That what happened to your head,” Droom said. He took a kaffa from Carnifex and pulled out a chair. “So, laddie, what’s this trouble you mentioned?”

Carnifex leaned against the hearth. The heat from the fire seemed to thaw away some of the numbness that had crept into his limbs with the black mood.

Lucius yawned and tried to snag Aristodeus with a new strain of conversation, but the philosopher’s eyes were glued to Carnifex, as if he wanted to hear about the trouble. As if he already knew.

“Someone broke into the Scriptorium.”

Like lightning had just zapped him on the arse, Lucius sat up and took note. It’s where he spent the majority of his time. Doubtless, the books and scrolls, the
Annals
themselves, were of far more value to him than an entire mine of scarolite.

Carnifex took a sip of kaffa and near-scolded his lips. Droom swigged his and sighed with appreciation. His cast iron palate was as legendary as his cast iron gut.

“Why would they do that?” Lucius said. He drew his night robe tighter around him, as if he had grown suddenly cold.

Aristodeus said nothing. He was watching Carnifex like a vulture over a carcass.

“Took one of the
Annals
.”

“What?” Lucius said. “Why?”

“Sure it wasn’t you, laddie?” Droom said to him. “Getting in some extra study from home?”