Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (8 page)

Carnifex leaned a hand on the wall and peered inside the tunnel. Glowstones ran the length of its throat, receding into the darkness. It was the route Droom took to work most days.
 

Miners were the only dwarves who got to leave the ravine, but even they never set foot on the soil of Malkuth. They had to remain underground the entire time. The Council wouldn’t risk contact with the denizens above, and the chance of another deception. Because that’s what history said it was, Maldark’s betrayal: a deception of the Demiurgos, the Lord of the Abyss. Since that time, any action, it was felt, any decision concerning the affairs of the world, was fraught with peril. Maldark had been so convinced he was right, that the dwarves no longer trusted their own discernment. If Maldark, the wisest of the ancestors, didn’t know he was being tricked, how could the rest of them? Even centuries later, the tremors of the near catastrophe rumbled through dwarven society. It was safer for them not to act, for them to hide away and keep to themselves.

“You hear me, Carn? I said, it puts a creep in my crotch coming up here. And the idea of going through that tunnel to the mines: I don’t know how your pa does it.”

“It’s what the Council wants you to feel, laddie.”
 

Carnifex turned around and sat in front of the opening, feet dangling from the ledge. Down below, the soft light coming from the brightening glowstones bathed the ravine in a warmth that belied the crispness of the air. He reached behind and picked up a sliver of rock from the tunnel floor, then held it out above the drop, and let go. It threaded its way through the spaces between walkways until he lost sight of it past the seventh, where he’d been on duty the night of the break-in at the Scriptorium.

“Shouldn’t do that,” Kal said, slumping down beside him, and repeatedly flicking nervous glances over his shoulder at the tunnel. “You might hit someone.”

“What do you think helms are for, laddie?” Besides, at this time of night, no one who wasn’t a Ravine Guard had any business being out and about, save for the Krypteia, and he couldn’t give a shog about hitting them.

They sat in silence for a long while, Carnifex lost in dreams of what lay outside Arx Gravis, Kal nervous and unable to settle.

“We still training when we get off?” Kal finally said.
 

“If you like, but not before breakfast and a snatch of snooze.”

“No, then,” Kal said. “Last time you said that, you were still snoring when the suns set, and then it was time for work again.”

“Aye, but it only happened the once, and I put it down to the ale. Some shogger switched my Ballbreakers for Ironbelly’s; turned my guts to rancid mush. Tell you what, I’ll fix us some eggs and ham at my place, a quick snifter of mead, and then we can load up on kaffa before we hit the weights. Dead lifts, this time, and I want to see five-hundred from you.”

“Five hundred pounds? You’re yanking my beard.”

“Laddie, I frequently pull five-hundred with just one—”

A wailing cry rolled down the tunnel behind them, rising in pitch and volume.

“What the shog?” Kal said, leaping up and drawing his sword.

Carnifex stood and hefted his axe to his shoulder. “That’s the night warden’s klaxon, laddie. Signal the men, then lead them after me. Make sure a runner wakes the marshal.”

Thumil would know what to do: he was the one to write the protocols. If the Krypteia in the concealer cloaks hadn’t already dispatched someone, Councilor Grago would be alerted, too, and he’d want his Black Cloaks on the scene. It would be better for everyone if Thumil arrived first and took control.

“You’re not going—”

“It’s our job to respond, laddie.”

With that, Carnifex entered the tunnel and started to run.

He’d only ever heard the klaxon in training before. No one had expected to hear it for real. It meant there was trouble in the mines. Real trouble. For if anyone sounded the alarm and there wasn’t, there would be hell to pay.

Kal’s whistle peeped behind him, and already he could hear the stomp of boots tramping across the walkway in response.

Carnifex’s heart thudded wildly in his chest. In part, it was from the running, but most of it was from the thought he was leaving the ravine for the first time.
 

 
The tunnel turned a bend and then opened onto a low cavern. A track led off into the distance. It was formed of iron rails and scarolite sleepers. Either side of it, the floor was elevated into platforms. Other tunnels joined the cavern from various points, each linked to a different location in the city. This was the depot Droom had spoken about, where miners going to work would enter the train that ferried them back and forth. Only, there was no train, presumably because it was at the other end, along with the night warden.

The klaxon’s keening soared to a deafening pitch that echoed along the tunnel walls and spilled out into the ravine. With a quick look behind to confirm Kal was following, Carnifex jumped down onto the track and ran along it. He’d gone barely a hundred yards when the klaxon ebbed away, and a point of silver shimmered up ahead. It was accompanied by a whoosh of air and a rumbling growl as it rapidly swelled in size.
 

The snub nose of a carriage came into view, speeding toward him. Gasping, Carnifex was momentarily frozen with the realization it was the train heading his way. Sparks flew from the tracks, and metal screeched. The train began to slow, but too little, too late. At the last instant, Carnifex sprang for the platform and rolled his legs out of the way. The snaking body of the train juddered and swayed amid a coruscating shower of argent, and slowly, torturously, it petered to a halt.
 

Kal came tearing down the platform with four Red Cloaks in tow as Carnifex climbed to his feet.

“You all right, sir?” Ming Garnik said, sprinting ahead of the group.

“Fine, laddie, fine.” Truth was, Carnifex was shaking from limb to limb. A split second later, and he’d have been a crimson spatter across the rails.

A silver panel in the side of the carriage slid open with a rush of air, and a bedraggled dwarf shambled out onto the platform.

“Rugbeard?” Carnifex said. “You’re the night warden?”

“Am now, for what it’s worth.”

Night warden of the mines was a far cry from being the principle teacher of the
Annals
; it was a long way to fall.

Rugbeard swayed on his feet, then took a lurching step toward Carnifex.

“I know you, son?” His voice was slurred, and his eyes were unfocused. They had a yellowish tinge, too, same as the skin of his face.

“Course you know me. Carnifex. Carnifex Thane. You taught me the
Annals
as a boy.”

“Never heard of him.”

“And you made me my training weights, remember?” Donkey’s years ago, when Rugbeard had set up his own forge so he could experiment with the metalworking techniques recorded in the
Annals
. He’d come up with a few innovations, not least of which was a set of iron plates of different poundages that could be added to a barbell. Apparently, it’s how the Founders had trained for strength and power all those centuries ago. Knowing Carnifex had a passion for lifting, Rugbeard had worked with him on the design, and left him with the finished product.

“That was you?” Rugbeard said. Then a light went on in his eyes. “Carnifex Thane! Droom’s boy.”

“What’s going on?” Kal said. “Was that you that set off the klaxon?”

“Cranked it, you mean.” Rugbeard flexed his elbow and gave his biceps a firm rub. “The effort half killed me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slender metal flask, spun the cap off, and took three quick swigs. “Scared the shog out of me, it did.”

“The klaxon?” Carnifex said.

The other four Red Cloaks were peering inside the carriage Rugbeard had stepped out of. They would never have seen such a thing before.

“Thumping, from down in the shaft,” Rugbeard said. “Deep down, I’d have to say. Rattled the headframe. Damned near caused a cave-in.”

“An earthquake?” Muckman Brindy said, stepping away from the carriage. His fingers stroked the hilt of the sword sheathed at his hip.

Rugbeard shook his head. “Thumping, I said. And footfalls. Heavy footfalls. There’s something down there, I tell you, and I wasn’t about to stick around and find out what it was.”

“You’re sure, laddie?” Carnifex eyed the flask as Rugbeard once more brought it to his lips.

“Oh, aye,” Rugbeard said. “Blame it on the booze, why don’t you? Ol’ Rugbeard’s pissed out of his brain as usual, and can’t tell fact from fiction, is that what you’re thinking? I tell you, I heard thumping, and if you don’t believe me, go listen for yourself. You ask me, I reckon it’s Shent, up to his old tricks again.”

“Shent?” Kal said.

“The Ant-Man. Him from the
Annals
. Back when Sektis Gandaw made us dwarves to mine the scarolite he built his mountain with, he created ants the size of horses to guard the tunnels. Then he took a human and melded it with one of them, so it could keep the rest under control.”

Carnifex remembered the tale from his youth. “But the Ant-Man left the mines centuries ago.”

Rugbeard shrugged, and took another swig. “So, now he’s back.”

Carnifex wasn’t convinced. “And he thumps so hard, he can near-collapse the shaft?”

“Maybe.” Rugbeard snorted and returned the flask to his pocket. “What else could it be?”

“Let’s go take a look.”

“I ain’t going back there,” Rugbeard said.

Kal and Dar Shoofly moved to block his retreat.

“Don’t see you have much choice, laddie,” Carnifex said. “You’re the night warden. And besides, none of us have ever seen this train before, let alone had experience driving it.”

“You didn’t hear it, son,” Rugbeard said. “Great booming thuds, they was. I tell you, I ain’t going back there.”

“Marshal on his way?” Carnifex asked.

Kal nodded. “You told me to have him woken. My reckoning, they’ll see this as a major incident, least till we get to the bottom of it.”

“True, laddie.” Carnifex met Rugbeard’s jaundiced eyes. “You want to wait here and explain to Thumil why you made us walk to the headframe, when we could have gone by train, and maybe averted a catastrophe? Or perhaps there’s nothing going on, and you just imagined it.” Which was as good as saying, you sounded a false alarm. The consequences would be severe.

Rugbeard’s jaw worked, as if he were considering his options. Finally, he must have decided returning to the headframe was better than the alternative.
 

“Come on, then,” he said, leading the way to the rear of the train, where there was an identical carriage to the one he’d emerged from, only its nose pointed back toward the mines.

“Shoofly and what’s-your-name?” Carnifex said.

The red-bearded dwarf came to attention. “Frobe Trinket, sir.”

“Course it is.” Carnifex partially remembered. Reassigned from Lok Tupole’s platoon a few months back, along with a couple of others. Lok lost his command right after losing a stack of tokens on a circle fight, then tarnishing his platoon’s honor when he stepped into the circle to claw back his losses. For all his valiant efforts, he’d earned a broken jaw, two broken arms, a fractured femur, and endured the humiliation of a baresark hacking his beard off with a blunt knife. “Wait here until the marshal arrives. Tell him we’ve gone ahead and will send the train back.”

“What is this thing, anyway?” Kal asked as they stepped inside the carriage. “I always thought the miners went to work in a goat-drawn cart.”

“Homunculus tech, is what it is,” Rugbeard said. He seated himself before a console bedizened with winking lights, and began to toggle switches and turn knobs.

Behind him were three rows of benches. Carnifex, Kal, Muckman Brindy, and Ming Garnik sat on the first two. The panel in the side of the carriage closed with a whoosh.

Rugbeard took a firm grip on a lever and eased it forward. A low, pulsating hum vibrated through the floor. The carriage shuddered and shook, and then they were moving.
 

Through the window at the front, Carnifex gawped at the sleepers speeding toward them, seemingly gobbled up by the train. They came on faster and faster, until they merged into one continuous blur. And then Rugbeard pulled back on the lever, and the carriage juddered to a stop. He pressed a glowing button, and the side panel slid open onto another platform.

Rugbeard got out first, and led them to an iron ramp that took them down into an underground chamber vast enough to hold a small village. Rubble was heaped into a mountainous pile at the far end, while closer to them was a scattering of ore fragments, most of it scarolite embedded in chunks of granite. There were iron carts heaped with rock, some glistening with gold or pyrite. But it was the headframe looming out of the center that dominated the space, a tower of intersecting steel struts that reached almost to the ceiling a hundred feet above. At its top was a pulley wheel, with a wound steel cable running diagonally down from it to another pulley at ground level. The base of the tower was housed in a brickwork structure with two doors on the side facing them.

Rugbeard led them inside, where the air was heavy with rock dust. There were benches around the walls, and glowstones hanging from chains in the ceiling. The headframe ran through the middle of the chamber, a colossal framework of riveted metal. One end exited the ceiling, while the base entered a massive hole in the ground. And it was no ordinary hole: it had a collar of wrought scarolite, though how this feat of engineering had been achieved was anyone’s guess. Certainly, it was a task beyond the dwarves of Arx Gravis, at least those from within living memory. It was hard enough to mine the ore from the granite. Indeed, it would have been impossible but for the picks and chisels of scarolite that had been handed down since the time of the Founders. These days, the best the dwarves could do was to cut the ore into blocks and sheets, and its uses were limited to reinforcing buttresses or bolstering the ravine’s defenses against martial or magical attacks that no one believed were ever going to come.