The Nameless Dwarf: The Complete Chronicles by D.P. Prior

Author:D.P. Prior
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Homunculus Books
Published: 2012-12-12T06:00:00+00:00

A thick blanket of ash covered the scree slope skirting the base of the volcano. The air was heavy with sulfurous smoke that fell languidly through the clouds obscuring the summit.

Nils was more’n a little disappointed. “Thought there’d be fiery stuff, you know, oozing down the sides.”

Silas picked up a nugget of dark rock, sniffed, and tossed it over his shoulder. “Rivers of lava?”

“Yeah, lava. Thought there’d be lava.”

“She’s settling down, laddie,” Nameless said, squinting up into the cloud cover. “A day sooner and we’d have got nowhere near. See how the surface is all ridged.” He pointed to the raised veins of blackness that ran down the mountain.

“Looks like it’s melted,” Nils said.

“Oh, spare me.” Silas shook his head.

That got Nils’s goat and had him fuming. “Well I don’t know, do I? I ain’t never seen no volcano before.”

“Please speak correctly,” Silas said, throwing his hands into the air and rolling his eyes. “At least do me the honor of applying what I teach you, otherwise you can start paying for your lessons, and I sincerely doubt a lowlife vagabond like you could afford that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nils thrust his fists into his hips and stuck his chin out.

“And stop the posturing, you microcephalic moron, you’re fooling no one.”

“Eh?” Nils said. He had no idea what Silas had just called him, but he was sure it weren’t nice.

“Means about the same as ‘bird brain’ in my reckoning,” Nameless said. “Though I’m just a stupid grunt compared to his magisterial omniscience here. You boys carry on slugging it out. I’m going to have a nose around.”

He kicked his way through the scree and disappeared behind an outcrop of rock.

“Bird brain?”

“Not technically correct,” Silas said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But it’s an apposite image.”

That was it. Silas was taking the piss and it weren’t right. Same thing had happened with Magistra Archyr, all that talk about how he needed educating and then the knocks when he weren’t as clever as her. Bitch.

“If there’s something wrong with my learning, maybe it’s ’cause I’ve got a crap teacher.”

That took the grin off Silas’s face. He frowned and looked at Nils the way he might study a tricky passage in that shogging book of his. “Forgive me. I’m just tetchy.”

Nils was about to spit an angry retort and then it sank in what he’d just heard. “You’re sorry?”

Silas nodded, drew in a deep breath and sighed. “It’s driving me, Nils, I know that now.” He patted his satchel. As if in response, fingers poked out of his coat pocket, twitched and then withdrew.

“The book?” Nils seated himself on the scree and Silas did the same.

“The book, the staff. It’s all pretty much the same. And if I don’t heed either of them, this blasted hand goads me on.” He thumped his pocket, setting off squirming and wriggling from within.

“So ditch them,” Nils said. “Leave them here and come back with us to New Jerusalem.”

“I can’t.”

“Course you can,” Nils said.

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