Best Laid Plans (57 page)
Authors: D.P. Prior
The Archon’s Assassin (
coming winter 2012
)
Rise of the Nameless Dwarf (
coming summer 2013
)
A Dark Perdurance (
coming winter 2013
)
Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf
“…
this is a masterful peek into Prior's style and the world he has created. I recommend it to all fans of fantasy fiction.”
Five Stars
--
M.R. Mathias
, best-selling author of the
Wardstone Trilogy
“
This book has a wonderful plot, some great fights, twists and turns plus interesting characters; and maybe most importantly a main character with a dry and cynical sense of humor...a couple of laugh-out-load moments…I can hardly wait for future installments.
”
Five Stars
--
Ray Nicholson, Top 1000 Reviewer Amazon.com
“…strong and leads the reader on a chase to the ending. There is something for everyone in this tale: some violence, some venality, some bonding of characters and some comic relief. I found this an easy and fast paced read and quickly devoured it. I will be sure to follow Nameless through his Chronicles.”
Five Stars
--J.L. Chase,
Red Adept Reviews
“
The Ant-Man of Malfen is steeped in the tradition of good old-fashioned swashbuckling fantasy, reminiscent of Robert E. Howard…Prior writes in a style that is both fearless and entertaining, and gives each of his characters a unique voice. This novella was my first foray into this unique universe, and by the end, I was wanting more. Very good read.”
Five Stars
--
V. Daniels
, best-selling author of
The Interstellar Age
and
Fallen Angels
series
“
D.P. Prior has a talent for characterization...The plot of this book is dark, filled with sorcery, brutal fights, and more than a few monsters… I also saw just a tad of humor. Prior is a master at imagery. His pen paints a vivid picture of the realms and the characters…Fans of science fiction and fantasy will enjoy The Ant Man of Malfen.”
Five Stars
THE ANT-MAN OF MALFEN
“Told you,” Nils hollered from the top of the ridge. “Malfen.”
Silas struggled up beside him and looked down the escarpment to where flaming torches hung from sconces around high walls running like a curtain across the pass at the foot of the Farfall Mountains. The mountains rose like gigantic steps into the receding distance, never sheer, their gradient long and gentle, as if the Farfalls had been poured like molten sludge upon the plains between Malkuth and Qlippoth.
“Look down there,” said Nils pointing at the immense gate.
Silas squinted. It was more of a portcullis than a gate, probably of wrought iron and virtually impregnable. Shadowy forms passed back and forth behind the grill. It seemed that Malfen never slept, and that it was going to be impossible to enter discreetly.
“What will you do?” asked Nils.
Silas was tempted to march right up and demand a meeting with Shent, but something told him that wasn’t such a good idea. His optimism had deserted him, and the scene below was unnerving.
Malfen looked like a clump of warped and twisted structures that had been randomly thrown together. The alleyways between houses were narrow and winding, giving the whole place the appearance of a spider’s web. Shapes crept through the dark spaces and a reddish haze hung over the town like a cloak of blood.
Not for the first time, Silas wished he’d never clapped eyes on Blightey’s grimoire. If it hadn’t been for the entry about the planting of the Liche Lord’s staff in a secret place in Qlippoth, nothing would have dragged him within a hundred miles of Malfen. That, and the uncovering of a poem by the foppish Quintus Quincy who’d claimed the Ant-Man knew of every incursion into Qlippoth and had captured anyone lucky enough to escape the lands of nightmare and wrung their secrets from them. Silas had caught up with Quincy in The Wyrm’s Head in New Jerusalem. The old soak had talked like a gossiping housewife once Silas had stood him a few rounds.
Quincy said the Ant-Man was just a nickname fashioned to terrorise the people of Malfen into meeting his demands—the usual sort of things: protection and extortion.
Quincy’s source had been the journal of some gold-digging chancer called Noris Bellosh who’d spent a year and a day in Qlippoth before falling into Shent’s hands. Bellosh had served Shent for almost a decade and he believed the Ant-Man knew more about Qlippoth than anyone alive. Shent, he said, had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the geography of the nightmare lands pieced together from the agonised testimonies of his victims. Bellosh had claimed Shent literally was an ant-human hybrid, but Quincy attributed that to the man’s sensationalism. Bellosh had been offered a small fortune for publication of his journal but hadn’t lived to capitalise on it. He’d eaten poisoned walnut and date bread—his favourite repast—and the journal had disappeared. Quincy had bought it from a man named Albert in one of New Jerusalem’s flea markets.
Silas shook his head. It had started as a playful quest. He had rummaged around in libraries, visited the most ancient sites of New Jerusalem. He’d spoken with wizards and even flown on a mysterious air-raft with the mad mage, Magwitch, looking for the ancient portals that Blightey’s grimoire stated existed between the worlds. All a wild goose chase, Silas had concluded, but still the book urged him on.
Finding out about Blightey had proven more or less impossible. As Silas had learned from the diary portions of the book, Blightey was not from Aethir. He came from a place called London, so he claimed. From what Silas could gather from the later entries, the place had subsequently changed names many times. Blightey had later ruled the country of Verusia, where he’d fought valiantly against the despotism of an evil Empire known as ‘Nousia.’ At some point, Blightey had trodden the paths of the Abyss and he’d eventually emerged from one of the gorges of Gehenna into the land of Qlippoth. He’d left his staff there, planted in the loam of nightmares to await the coming of someone Blightey called The Worthy.
Throughout all his research, Silas had been sceptical; but nevertheless, the more he learned, the more he wanted to know. He studied assiduously, and if he didn’t read through the brittle pages of the grimoire until his head was ready to burst, he couldn’t sleep. He thought of little else, and whenever he was deprived of the chance to dip into the tome he’d find himself irascible, bordering on frantic.
“Well?” Nils’s nagging voice cut through the fug of Silas’ pensiveness. “I can’t stand here all day. I got you to Malfen; now you need to keep your side of the deal.”
Silas sighed and started to weave his hands through the air when he spotted something off to the left at the foot of the slope.
A few hundred yards out from the town wall, the blackness pooled in a circle.
“What’s that?” Silas asked, pointing.
Nils took a step forward and yelped as he slid on the scree. The slope shifted behind him and he was caught in a great tide of slate and rock that carried him all the way to the bottom.
Silas trudged down after him, surfing the scree in fits and starts, flapping his arms for balance. He hopped off at the foot of the slope and offered a hand up to Nils.
“Great!” said Nils. “Shogging great! Now I’ve gotta climb—”
Silas held up a hand for silence as something emerged from the circle of blackness. It was the size of a horse, but with a segmented body and thin articulated legs. Antennae twitched upon a bulbous head and twin eyes the size of saucers shone cyan in the pale moonlight.
“What is it?” Nils fumbled with his sword and tried to back up the slope. The way the scree slid under his feet it may as well have been a waterfall.
Another creature darted from the aperture, mandibles clacking like shears. Silas’ heart thumped in his chest as scores more poured forth and scuttled towards them.
“Ants,” he said with as much awe as fear.
Nils was looking frantically to left and right but there was nowhere to run. Silas put a calming hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s just hope the stories are true this time,” he said. “For if there are giant ants, maybe there’s also an ant-man to command them.”
The ants were so close that Silas could hear the clicking of their mandibles. They stopped mere inches away, their antennae twitching, front legs pawing the air. Nils was trembling so much Silas thought the lad was going to faint.
Behind the wall of ants, two men approached. Moonlight glinted from the blades of twin daggers the smaller man carried. The other, a big man with a hooked nose, brandished a long knife and swished a net before him. The ants parted to let them through and the small man spoke.
