About This Book
(The original 5 novellas collected in a single volume)
The dwarves have gone!
Thousands have been slaughtered in the blood-drenched streets of their ravine city by one of their own wielding a demonic axe.
The survivors have fled beyond the mountains, heading into a realm haunted by the nightmares of a twisted god.
When Nils Fargin, son of an underworld boss, is hired to find them, he travels with his client to seek the advice of a lowlife mage. With what he learns, he should have asked for more money.
The trail leads them to the domain of the terrifying Ant-Man, who is rumored to eat the flesh of anyone refusing to pay his toll.
And as if that wasn't enough, it turns out Nils's client is none other than the Nameless Dwarf, better known to his kind as the Ravine Butcher.
The Nameless Dwarf is an epic tale of remorse and redemption that pits a whiskerless thief, a guilt-driven assassin, a consumptive wizard, and an amnesiac dwarf against the worst imaginings of a craven mind.
But the companions bring troubles of their own, not least of which is an ancient grimoire that leads them inexorably towards a forest of tar and an evil that threatens the existence of an entire race.
The last hope of the dwarves comes from the unlikeliest of sources: a mythical city beneath the waves, an axe from the age of heroes, and the Nameless Dwarf, in whose veins flows the blood of legends.
Background:
It was against the laws of the dwarves to act in the world beyond their city, to study the old texts, or to enter the underworld—and with good reason. The deceptions of the Demiurgos, Father of the Abyss, are everywhere, and once before they brought betrayal and death on a scale that must never be repeated.
When they are accosted by one of their own with a demonic axe found on the brink of the Abyss, drastic measures are needed. The link between axe and wielder is broken by a helm of scarolite, and the lawbreaker is held in stasis in the bowels of the Ravine City, Arx Gravis. To complete his shame, his name is taken from him, permanently removed from history.
When this Nameless Dwarf is awakened by the voice of the knight, Deacon Shader, he becomes embroiled in the battles against the unweaving of all creation by the technocrat, Sektis Gandaw. He later partakes in a quest to find three artifacts with which to shatter the lingering power of the black axe and free himself from the scarolite helm. Too late, it is revealed as a trap laid by the Demiurgos and his spawn, the homunculi, and the Nameless Dwarf returns to Arx Gravis as a brutal dictator, slaughtering his kin by the thousands.
Finally, his tyrannical rule is brought to an end by his closest friend, the assassin Shadrak the Unseen. With the axe destroyed and the scarolite helm broken, the Nameless Dwarf realizes the magnitude of his atrocities. A mere few hundred dwarves have survived his reign of terror, and they have fled Arx Gravis in fear of what he might do next.
Hearing rumors that they have headed into the nightmare land of Qlippoth, where they will surely face extinction, the Nameless Dwarf hires the son of a New Jerusalem guild boss to help him find them.
What reviewers are saying:
"... so excellent, so Fafhrd and the Mouser type good - you remember those stories by Fritz Lieber, that you have to read at least three of these Nameless Dwarf stories to appreciate how absolutely fantastic they are." - Pinky Mo
"... it just doesn't get any better that this." - Ray Nicholson
"D.P. has established a fan for life in me" - Scott Poe
