The Nameless Dwarf

The dwarves have gone! Thousands have been slaughtered in the blood-drenched streets of their ravine city by a demonic axe in the hands of one of their own. 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. The Nameless Dwarf: The Complete Chronicles contains all five books of the Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf: The Ant-Man of Malfen The Axe of the Dwarf Lords The Scout and the Serpent The Ebon Staff Bane of the Liche Lord

A sprawling epic of redemption, heroism, and friendship in the face of insurmountable evil and an inexorable fate. "A beautifully written and engrossing masterwork!" (Mitchell Hogan) Fantasy Faction semifinalist for the SPFBO 2018 Child of an unreliable prophecy. Victim of a terrible deception. A soldier once. Then a killer of his own kind. A butcher. The Nameless Dwarf lies entombed beneath the earth, locked in an eternal sleep until the hour of Medryn-Tha's greatest need. With one shot at redemption, he must discover who he really is if he is to prevent the destruction of all the worlds and lead the dwarves to safety. But the deceptions that once cursed him have not been lain to rest. Every victory, every loss presents new dangers, new decisions. And history will remember him as the most cursed among the fallen, Or the greatest hero of legend.

The only thing keeping the Nameless Dwarf from once more becoming the Ravine Butcher is a helm made from the sorcerous ore, ocras, which he can never remove. Without the helm, he would succumb to the power of the black axe that caused the slaughter at Arx Gravis. After a year of fighting in other people’s wars, Nameless receives a visit from one of the underworld tricksters—a faen—who tells him the day he has long waited for has arrived: The philosopher Aristodeus has come up with a plan to destroy the black axe and free Nameless from the ocras helm. With the aid of new companions and an old friend, the assassin Shadrak the Unseen, Nameless must retrieve three artifacts that, combined, will bring an end to his suffering: The gauntlets of the fire giant, Sartis, whose lair lies in the roots of a volcano; The invulnerable armor of the Lich Lord of Verusia—an undead tyrant with a penchant for impaling and the drinking of souls; And the Shield of Warding, beneath which cowers a paranoid god on the fringe of the Abyss. But things are never that simple. Each of the companions has their own reasons for joining the quests, even Shadrak, who has been bound by an irrevocable contract—to kill the Nameless Dwarf.

The blockbusting epic fantasy from international bestselling author D.P. Prior.The entire Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Tetralogy in one volume:1. Carnifex: A Portent of Blood"Gritty, tense, and brutally tragic. High quality storytelling with great characters and a relentless plot." -- Mitchell Hogan, author of A Crucible of Souls and Aurealis Award winner." For more than a thousand years, the dwarves have hidden away from the world in their ravine city of Arx Gravis. Governed by an inflexible council whose sole aim is to avoid the errors of the past, the defining virtue of their society is that nothing should ever change. But when the Scriptorium is broken into, and Ravine Guard Carnifex Thane sees a homunculus fleeing the scene of the crime, events are set in motion that will ensure nothing will ever be the same again. Deception and death are coming to Arx Gravis. The riddles that preceded Carnifex's birth crystalize into a horrifying fate that inexorably closes in. But it is in blood that legends are born, and redemption is seeded in the gravest of sins. For Carnifex is destined to become the Ravine Butcher, before even that grim appellation is forever lost, along with everything that once defined him. 2. Geas of the Black Axe"A dwarf with no name is a dwarf most shamed." As the lands above the ravine city of Arx Gravis face their gravest peril, the last desperate hope of Creation lies in a dwarf with a grisly past: The Nameless Dwarf-a pariah, untouchable, the most cursed of dwarven kind. But in a world plagued by deception, where no action is free from risk, the road to salvation is shadowed with portents of blood.3. Revenge of the LichThe survivors of the slaughter at Arx Gravis flee their ravine city, leaving its walkways and canals awash with blood. Convinced there can be no atonement for what he has done, the Nameless Dwarf joins forces with a whiskerless thief, a guilt-driven assassin, and a consumptive wizard. Together, they pursue the dwarves into the lands of nightmare across the Farfall Mountains. But the companions bring troubles of their own, not least of which is an ancient grimoire that leads them inexorably toward a forest of tar, and an evil from Nameless's past that threatens his 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. 4. Return of the Dwarf LordsThe Nameless Dwarf: the name that is not a name, but is far better than the one he left behind. Freed from the curse that turned him into the butcher of his own kind, he once crossed half a world to protect those who had survived. Having worked out his penance and resettled his people in Arnoch, the ancient citadel of the Dwarf Lords, Nameless sets up home in the town of Brink. Now, with everything a dwarf could possibly wish for-a gym, a beer hall, and a bawdy house across the road-his new life is a welcome break from a decade of adventure. Then a blood-stained dwarf staggers into town with a message of doom: Arnoch has sunk beneath the waves, its last defense against the attack of a five-headed dragon. The one slender hope remaining to the dwarves lies in their distant past: the Dwarf Lords, who had been created for perils such as this. But for centuries, they have been in exile on Thanatos, a death-world likely to change even the greatest of heroes. With time running out for Arnoch, Nameless must find the Dwarf Lords and persuade them to come home. But before that, he first has to survive them.

Third in the medieval fantasy series. “A perfectly delicious, not entirely serious, reimagining of part of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.”—Booklist Her castle under siege by an evil knight who keeps beheading all her would-be rescuers, Lady Lynet realizes the only way to get help is to get it herself. So one night she slips away and strikes out for King Arthur’s court where she hopes to find a gallant knight to vanquish the Knight of the Red Lands and free her castle. Gerald Morris’s Arthurian novel is a highly comic tale of hidden identities, mysterious knights, faeries and enchantments, damsels-in-distress, and true love. “In Morris’s third wry, sometimes hilarious, take on an Arthurian legend, a sharp-tongued young damosel gets an education in sorcery, intrigue and what true knighthood is all about . . . Fans of Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles and similarly lighthearted fantasy will be delighted.”—Kirkus Reviews “A rollicking treatment of a lesser-known episode from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur . . . The novel is also enjoyable for its good-natured spoofing of the conventions of its medieval setting.”—School Library Journal “A rare action-fantasy that crosses age and gender lines.”—The Bulletin

Captured by the survivors of his massacre at Arx Gravis, the Nameless Dwarf is sentenced to die. The assassin Ilesa has abandoned him, and so it falls to the ex-rogue Nils and Silas the sorcerer to stage a rescue.But with the Lich Lord's grimoire obsessing him more and more, Silas suspects he is no longer in control of his own fate. Sick and close to death, he is drawn on by visions of a black staff within a forest of tar.As an ancient trap closes in on the companions, the last of the dwarves are threatened with extinction at the hands of ravenous beasts that live only to feed.And in the background, orchestrating it all, an implacable horror Nameless thought had been destroyed: A skull with crimson eyes that feast on living souls.All that remains of Otto Blightey, the Lich Lord of Verusia

The age of glory is on the horizon and Carnac Thayn must make a difficult choice — one that will either save his people or condemn them. Who can be trusted in a land of magic and deceit? “Prior weaves a fully realized world in this rich fantasy.” (Kirkus Reviews) "A beautifully written and engrossing masterwork!" (Mitchell Hogan) Fantasy Faction semifinalist for the SPFBO 2018 A child is born in the shadows of the ravine city, a child who will end the self-imposed exile of the dwarves and usher in a new age of glory. Years later, Ravine Guard Carnac Thayn discovers a break-in at the Scriptorium. A dwarf has been murdered and a book stolen, but the ruling council do nothing. Then, when Carn is called to investigate thuds and crashes from the mines, old horror rises from the deep, and the city is threatened with slaughter. Rumors begin to circulate about a mythical axe said to be lost below the earth, an axe wielded by the dwarf lords of old that might just be the last hope of a race marked to die. But deception is rife, and unseen forces manipulate all paths to the future.It is a pivotal moment for the dwarves, and Carn must make a choice that will either save or damn his people. Blood will flow in rivers through the ravine. Friends will become foes. A name will be forgotten. And a hero will rise.

25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.