Ghoulslayer

Chapter Ten Remembrance

Gotrek grimaced as he drank the wine Lhosia had found, but Mal­eneth noticed that he had managed to empty another skin. A few hours had passed since the storm had begun, and there was now quite a pile of them lying around him on the platform, all empty. It looked like he had been fighting overgrown bats and was now sprawled on their carcasses. He nodded to a row of shields that covered the walls. ‘What do they say?’

They were sitting in a circle, just inside the archway, silhouetted by the flashing rain. The torrent of bones bathed the group in ripples of light, making it look like they were under water. The temperature had dropped so they had lit a fire, with Lhosia seated to one side of the Slayer and Maleneth to the other. Trachos was opposite Gotrek, his head bowed as he muttered to the flames, his face still hidden behind his helmet.

‘The shield poems?’ Lhosia’s words were slurred. Despite her earlier protestations, she had eventually agreed to drink some of the wine. She claimed never to have drunk before, but grief had clearly given her a thirst. ‘They record the deeds of the Unburied. When an ancestor dies, we carve the story of their life into their shield and place it near the Separating Chamber. Then all who come seeking their wisdom will know how they lived and how they died.’

Gotrek bared his teeth in a grim smile. ‘Death poems. We had such things where I come from.’ He grabbed another wineskin, tore it open and drank, staring morosely at the fire.

‘Where do you come from?’ asked Lhosia. Maleneth had noticed that she kept steering the conversation away from herself and her loss, as though unwilling to share her grief with strangers.

Gotrek ignored her, hypnotised by the flames.

Lhosia looked at Maleneth.

‘His world is gone,’ she said. ‘He says it was destroyed. Somewhere beyond the Mortal Realms. Although he won’t say much else on the subject.’ She sneered. ‘He talks about his ancestors almost as much as you do.’

‘You could never understand,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘You faithless aelves have no concept of history or tradition.’ He waved at the shield poems. ‘You have no regard for your elders, never mind your ancestors. All you care about is yourself.’

Maleneth shrugged. ‘Someone has to.’

‘My people respected the past and remembered their ancestors,’ said Gotrek, giving Lhosia a sympathetic look. ‘Much as you do. We recorded deeds on oath stones and…’ His words trailed off and he shook his head, looking suddenly annoyed. ‘What does it matter? They’re all gone. All butchered. And, thanks to the treachery of the gods, I did nothing to help them.’

Lhosia was still holding the cocoon. There was no sign of the light or the figure inside. It looked like a rock, swaddled in dust and pale, fine-woven cloth. Maleneth noticed that she was counting again, mouthing the numbers in silence. Then she frowned and looked up at Gotrek. ‘Why didn’t you help your people?’

‘Grimnir told me I was his heir. He tricked me into the Realm of Chaos, promising me that I would finally meet my doom. The mightiest doom ever achieved by a Slayer, he said. Lies, all of it.’

Gotrek lurched to his feet, staggering dangerously close to the archway. The bone shards were cutting into the ground just inches from where he stood, talking to the darkness. ‘And while I languished in those wretched hells, forgotten, everything and everyone I knew was blown apart.’ His voice grew hoarse. ‘If I had remained to fight, I would have found a way to save them. But the gods tricked me. Everyone was killed and I was left alive. Sworn to die, and I outlived everyone! What could be crueller?’

It was the most Maleneth had heard Gotrek say about his journey to the Mortal Realms. The most she had heard him say on any subject, for that matter. Usually he just cursed, muttered or laughed. The wine had affected him differently to the ale he usually drank. He was still morose and bitter, but more willing to talk.

‘What did you see in there?’ she asked, trying to sound only half-interested, not wanting to spoil the moment by prying too eagerly.

Even Trachos ceased his muttering and looked up at Gotrek.

The Slayer stomped back over to the fire and sat down with a grunt, taking another swig of wine. ‘Things with no names. Things beyond words. Citadels of sound. Songs of blood. Oceans of hate. You wouldn’t understand even if I could show you. I couldn’t understand them even as I saw them. For a long time I believed the lies. I believed that I had been given a great doom. To slaughter daemonic hosts for all eternity. Until I died or they did. But nothing dies in there. Not truly. I killed and was killed with no victory or defeat. The gods laughed at me.’ His voice cracked with bitterness. ‘Then forgot me.’ He grabbed a burning stick from the fire and crushed it, the flames blinking in his eye, embers spiralling around his scarred face. ‘They won’t forget me again.’

He drank some more and fell quiet. His earlier high spirits had faded. Maleneth was about to ask Lhosia more about her own people when Trachos did something she had never seen him do before. He unclasped his neck brace and removed his helmet. The seals were dented and caked in filth, and they made a strange hissing sound as he prised them apart.

Even Gotrek looked up in surprise as the Stormcast Eternal’s face was revealed. His hair was long, white and knotted into thick plaits. Released from his helmet, it tumbled down over the metal of his cuirass like ropes, giving him the appearance of an aged shaman. His skin was the colour of polished teak, and his face must once have been handsome in a fierce, leonine kind of way. It was not handsome now. Every inch was covered in scars. They were not the rippling burn marks that covered half of Gotrek’s face, but deep, jagged cuts. One of them went right from his jaw to his forehead, wrenching his brow into a constant scowl. He looked warily at them, as though removing his helmet had made him feel exposed. ‘How did you escape?’ he said. Without his helmet on, Trachos’ voice lost its thin, metallic quality and became a deep, rumbling tenor.

The combination of wine and surprise seemed to trick Gotrek out of his usual reticence. He stared at Trachos, then stared through him, as if picturing somewhere else.

‘I began to see things,’ he muttered. ‘Things that had not happened yet, or maybe things that had happened long ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Losing my mind, I suppose. Fighting for so long. Furious at my betrayal. Struggling to remember my own name.’

He looked at Lhosia. ‘I had a rememberer once too, like your shield poets. A manling. But not like most of that cowardly, cack-handed race. He was a skilled fighter. And brave with it. A good storysmith, too. He stood by me through everything. He would have come with me if I’d let him. Then, when the madness came over me, I thought I could see him, still alive, in some other world, preserved somehow through the long ages of my purgatory.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I sometimes wonder if he’s here somehow, in these damned worlds you call realms. But then I wonder if it was someone else I saw, leading me through the Realm of Chaos, bringing me through the flames.’

He seemed to notice everyone watching him and his face hardened. ‘Whatever happened, my search spat me out into that ugly furnace you call Aqshy, surrounded by babbling idiots claiming to be Slayers. Descendants of Grimnir, they said. If they knew him like I do, they wouldn’t be so keen to claim his kinship. Not one of them understands what a treacherous crook their god is.’ He pounded the rune in his chest. ‘They’re as useless as him, though. So maybe they are his spawn. They made this bauble and then lacked the strength to use it.’

‘What is it?’ asked Lhosia, reaching out to touch it. She snatched her hand back as the rune singed her skin.

‘Property of the Order of Azyr,’ snapped Maleneth, giving her a warning glance.

Gotrek laughed, his mood lifting a little. ‘Just you try and take it, aelf. He moved his beard aside, trying to look at the rune. He grimaced as he revealed its design – the face of a duardin ancestor god. ‘Look at him, sitting in my bloody chest. Taunting me every time I see his stupid face.’

‘That’s Grimnir?’ asked Lhosia.

‘Aye. His likeness, at least.’

‘You wear a symbol of a god you despise?’

‘Not by choice, lass. It didn’t bloody look like this when I planted it in my chest. Besides, it has its uses. What do they call this stuff, again?’ he asked, looking at Maleneth.

‘Ur-gold.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The fyreslayers say it’s pieces of Grimnir, scattered across the realms.’ She stared at the rune. ‘Ridiculous, obviously, like all duardin legends, but ur-gold certainly has power. The fyreslayers hammer it into their bodies to fuel their battle rage, but none of them are equal to the one in Gotrek.’ She let her gaze caress the metal. ‘This is the Master Rune, forged by Krag Blackhammer himself. And when Gotrek destroys himself, I will take it to Sigmaron.’

Maleneth’s pulse raced as she considered what that would mean for her. She would be the one who had secured a weapon powerful enough to win the war for the realms. Her slate would be wiped clean. No one would care what she had done in the past. None of her enemies in Azyrheim would be able to lay a finger on her. Sigmar would probably make her a saint.

‘So,’ said Lhosia, frowning at Gotrek, ‘when you talk of your doom, you mean you wish to destroy yourself?’ She shook her head. ‘You say your culture reveres ancestral wisdom, but you’re prepared to throw away everything you know? What greater crime could there be than suicide? It’s a betrayal of your ancestors and your descendants. You should preserve your wisdom. You should fight to pass on what you know.’

‘I’m a Slayer, lass,’ said Gotrek. ‘I have to atone for…’ His words trailed off and he shrugged. ‘I have things to atone for, though no one here can remember them.’ He drained the last dregs of his wine and grimaced. ‘Gods, this is drakk’s piss.’

They sat in silence again, listening to the rain and the flames. Then Lhosia looked at Trachos. ‘And are you the Slayer’s servant?’

Maleneth laughed.

‘I serve the God-King,’ replied Trachos. His brutal features were exaggerated by the firelight, making his face almost as savage as Gotrek’s. His eyes looked like stars, smouldering under his furious brow. ‘And the Order of Azyr.’ He glanced at Maleneth. ‘We both do.’

Lhosia looked from Trachos to Maleneth. The enmity between them was so obvious she asked her next question with a doubtful tone. ‘You’re working together?’

It was Gotrek’s turn to laugh. ‘The aelf wants the rune, and she doesn’t care if that requires my death. Pretty boy here feels the same, but he’s tying himself in knots trying to work out what the hammer-hurler would think is the right thing to do. He’s desperate for the rune, but he doesn’t want to behave badly. That’s right, isn’t it, smiler? You don’t want to be a savage like me.’

Trachos’ eyes flickered with emotion and his head kicked to one side, but he said nothing.

‘You’ve been here before,’ said Lhosia, leaning over to study Trachos’ armour. ‘You’ve been to the Amethyst Princedoms before.’

‘What?’ demanded Maleneth.

Lhosia pointed to the jumble of equipment that covered Trachos’ belt. Tucked in amongst the measuring devices and weapons was a metal-framed hourglass filled with dust that shimmered as it moved. The piece was topped with an ornate, leering skull.

‘Or did you buy that from someone else who has been to the Amethyst Princedoms?’

Trachos grunted and covered the hourglass up. He looked angrier than ever, and his head twitched again.

Gotrek snorted in amusement. ‘Something to hide?’

Trachos grabbed one of the wineskins and drank. He ignored Gotrek and Maleneth’s intrigued expressions and turned to Lhosia. ‘I fought with a retinue of Stormcast Eternals along the southern reaches of the Amethyst Princedoms. They were Hammers of Sigmar. My own retinues had been…’ He hesitated, then tapped his turquoise armour. ‘I belong to a Stormhost known as the Celestial Vindicators, but I was the last of my retinue. I was headed back to Azyr when I was attached to the Hammers of Sigmar. We were strangers to each other, but we fought well. We took back the Amalthea Keep then scoured the whole coast. No servant of Chaos now draws breath for nearly three hundred miles of those walls.’

Lhosia nodded. ‘The Amalthea Keep. I know the name. The Radican Princes. In the ancient times they were our allies. There are still sacred texts written by Radican Princes held in the libraries of the Lingering Keep.’ She shook her head. ‘You have claimed back the keep? It is centuries, countless centuries since those lands were free of Chaos.’

Something flickered in Trachos’ eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘We claimed the keep and the land around it. I was attached to the Hammers of Sigmar to perform a specific duty.’ He tapped the devices clasped to his belt. ‘My job was to send a signal to Azyr so that the rest of their Stormhost could find a route through the aether-void. While my comrades rounded up the locals and armed them, I helped the retinue responsible for repairing the keep.’ He paused and took another deep swig of wine. ‘Weeks passed. No word from Azyr.’ He shook his head, frowning. ‘Well, nothing I could recognise. Only howls and screams. Someone was trying to warn me. But it was like cries heard through a wall. “Necroquake” was the only word I could decipher, but I had no idea what that meant.

‘We continued our work, scouring the plains for remnants of the Chaos dogs.’ His gauntlet screeched as he crushed the wineskin tighter, as though imagining squeezing the life from someone. ‘We had them on the run. We attacked. With ferocity. Such brutality. I showed the Hammers of Sigmar how Celestial Vindicators fight. Even the Bloodbound were not prepared. They had grown lax. They never expected anyone to try to reclaim the princedoms after so long. They thought these lands were theirs.’

His voice grew louder, as though he were addressing a crowd rather than three people sitting right next to him. ‘But reclaim them we did! With barely a single loss. We tore down their idols and citadels. We ripped open their prisons. We freed wretched souls who hadn’t seen light for decades. It was glorious. The hammer fell. The Bloodbound died.’

Maleneth took the wineskin gently from his hand, interrupting his memories. She took a sip and spoke quietly. ‘And yet, when you approached me and the Slayer in Aqshy, you were alone. There were no Hammers of Sigmar with you when you found us on the Slain Peak.’

Trachos’ head was shaking as he stared at her, rage bleeding from his eyes.

She slipped a hand discreetly to one of her knives, wondering if she had pushed him too far.

Trachos’ anger subsided and he slumped back. ‘We crushed Chaos. We did as we were forged to do. Those beasts could not break through the armour of our faith, but…’ He hesitated. ‘But Chaos is not the only threat in Shyish. The voices from Azyrheim grew fainter and more desperate, so we focused all our attention on fortifying the keep and arming the slaves we had freed. We knew it would not be long before word of our success reached the warlords in control of the rest of the princedom. We had taken the keep through speed and surprise, not through superior numbers. Without reinforcements we would be hard pressed. The slaves were terrified of us at first, but as the weeks wore on they saw a chance. A chance for revenge, if nothing else. Some still knew legends of the time before Chaos. Times when man lived free of tyranny. Under our care they grew stronger. Braver. We started moving out into the surrounding villages, fortifying them, spreading across the princedom. When the attacks came we were ready. And so were the mortals.

‘But then we began to hear of other things.’ His expression darkened. ‘Cannibalism amongst the wretches we had armed and fed. We had shared Sigmar’s word with them. We had told them that the Age of Chaos was over and that a new era had begun, but as soon as we left them to their own devices they fell back into savagery.’ His voice trembled with rage. ‘If people knew what we sacrificed to fight for these realms. If they knew what it meant. We are immortal but we–’ He shook his head. ‘After so long under the lash of Chaos, they had fallen back into the debased worship of the Blood God. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. I rode out from the keep to see for myself what had happened.’

His voice fell quiet. ‘It was not Chaos. They were not worshipping Khorne. I saw it as soon as I reached the nearest village. Worship of any kind was now beyond them. They were no longer human. They had crawled into the mass graves left by their oppressors and dug up the remains.’ He grimaced. ‘They were eating corpses, feeding on them like animals. After all we’d done for them, I could not understand it.’ He pounded his fist against the ground, scattering embers. ‘We freed them and they turned into animals. Couldn’t they see that they were risking everything? They were leaving us open to attack. We saved them and they betrayed us! They did not even–’ Trachos cut himself off again and shook his head.

‘What did you do?’ asked Maleneth, sensing that he was reluctant to finish the story.

Clearly the wine had had the same tongue-loosening effect on Trachos as it had on Gotrek. He looked torn, but he could not stop talking. Maleneth had seen humans like this before. Too ashamed to speak of their deeds but too tormented to stay silent.

‘I was furious,’ he muttered. ‘Some of the Hammers of Sigmar were there and they tried to calm me, but I would not listen. I tore through the village. Those people were going to ruin everything, and I was determined not to… I butchered them. All of them. I showed them how the God-King deals with those who betray their saviours.’

Maleneth shrugged. ‘Seems reasonable. You saved them and they turned into ghouls. It’s ill-mannered, if nothing else. I don’t blame you for taking a hammer to them.’

Gotrek frowned. ‘You said the other hammer-hurlers tried to hold you back. Why? You were doing the work of Sigmar. They were ghouls. Like the things we’ve fought here, in Morbium. Why shouldn’t you slaughter them?’

Trachos would not meet their eyes, and his voice became flat. ‘I was furious. It was a kind of madness. I could hear my comrades calling me, but their voices were like the screams of the aether-void. They made no sense. Like a pack of animals howling at me. My hammers rose and fell, smashed and crushed, filling my eyes with blood. Only exhaustion finally forced me to pause. And then I saw the bodies I had left.’

Maleneth nodded, finally guessing the truth. Finally understanding why Trachos’ mind was as broken as his body. ‘They weren’t all ghouls, were they?’

Trachos did not answer.

‘You were killing humans,’ she continued. ‘That’s why the other Stormcast Eternals were trying to stop you.’

Trachos spoke quietly. ‘I walked back the way I had come, but I could not make sense of it all – of the corpses. Some were definitely the things I saw gnawing at the graves. But others were…’ He shook his head.

Gotrek grimaced, drinking more wine.

Lhosia looked at Trachos with new eyes, appalled.

‘What did the Hammers of Sigmar do?’ asked Maleneth.

Trachos’ voice was a dull monotone. ‘Tried to control me. Tried to… I fought them off.’

Maleneth laughed incredulously. ‘You fought them? Your own kind?’

‘No! Not that. I fought them off. I don’t mean I attacked them. Not that, at least. Even now, changed as I am, I would not harm one of Sigmar’s own. But I resisted them. I abandoned them. I left them to their fate. I could not rid myself of the faces I saw. I still can’t.’

Gotrek was looking thoughtfully at him and spoke with softer tones than usual. ‘The gods make fools of us. All of us. You were there because they ordered you to be there.’

‘The God-King did not order me to kill unarmed families.’

Gotrek glowered at the rain. ‘When the gods talk of Order or Chaos, they just mean glory – their glory. They have no interest in what happens to the people who win them that glory.’

‘Changed as you are?’ said Maleneth.

Trachos shook his head, confused.

‘That’s what you said,’ she continued. ‘You said, “Changed as I am, I would not harm one of Sigmar’s own”.’

Trachos stared at Maleneth, and for the first time since they had met, she felt something other than amusement when she looked at him. She did not feel that she was looking into the eyes of a man. It was not a human gaze. What were they, these Stormcast Eternals? She had never really considered it before, but now she felt a chill as she realised just how peculiar he was. In some ways, he seemed less human than the ghouls.

‘I’ve lost myself,’ he muttered, finally freeing her from his inhuman stare and looking back at the fire. ‘I died for the first time at the battle of Visurgis. It was glorious. Agony, yes, but glorious. When I felt my soul, still intact, blazing in Sigmar’s halls, hammered on the Anvil of Apotheosis, I knew I had been reborn. Reforged so that I could fight again. Then I died again, fighting greenskins at the Orrotha Pass. The pain was greater that time, but still, the glory was unimaginable. A chance to live again, to fight for the God-King, to fight against all that is wrong in the Mortal Realms.’

He looked up at the stars. ‘The third time I died, the pain seemed like it would never end. Perhaps something was wrong? Perhaps I was too broken to be saved? I could not be sure. But the torture seemed endless. And that was not the worst of it. Once it was over, and I rejoined the host, I could not quite remember what it meant. Why were we fighting? Everything that had previously seemed so important felt like stage directions in a play, or the words of a song. Nothing seemed real.’

He turned to Gotrek, shaking his head. ‘I could not remember my family. Not even the name of my father. Or the place of my birth.’

‘And then you were sent to Shyish,’ said Maleneth, guessing what came next.

He nodded, without meeting her eye. ‘All I could remember was the songs. The hymns we learned in Azyr. Those glorious tunes. I sang them as I fought, praying that the words would hold me in check – that they would guide me when my mind could not. But the truth is that I do not know what I am. I have killed so many in Sigmar’s name, thinking I was doing his work. But was I? Always?’ He frowned and fell quiet again.

No one spoke for a while. Even Gotrek looked troubled by Trachos’ speech.

Something occurred to Maleneth. ‘What will happen to you when you return to Azyr? Word of your flight from Shyish might have reached them. Unless the Hammers of Sigmar all died. What will your commanders say when you return empty-handed and without your men?’

‘I will not return empty-handed. I will submit to whatever judgement is deemed appropriate, but I will not return with only failure to report.’ He gazed at the rune in Gotrek’s chest. ‘I will return with a prize.’

Gotrek’s laughter boomed around the hall. ‘Of course! You want me dead too, just like Ditch Maid. So you can cut this thing out of me and–’

‘No.’ Trachos tightened his fists. ‘I am not a murderer. Whatever I did in the past. I will keep you alive. I will let no harm come to you until I can convince you to come with me to the Celestial City.’

Gotrek staggered to his feet, unsteady with drink, and grabbed his axe. ‘Murder?’ The calm, sympathetic tone had vanished from his voice, replaced by a savage roar. His face was contorted by rage and amusement. ‘There need be no murder, manling. Face me in honest combat. Earn the bloody rune!’

Trachos remained seated. ‘I will not. You are not a creature of Chaos or an agent of the Ruinous Powers. Nor are you a revenant summoned by the Great Necromancer.’ He shook his head. ‘In truth, none of us know what you are. I doubt you know yourself. I will not fight you.’ He opened his hands and stared at the scarred, riveted palms of his gauntlets.

Gotrek stood for a moment longer, then dropped heavily back down beside the fire, grabbing another wineskin. His belligerence had lacked its usual fervour, almost as though he were going through the motions because it was expected of him. ‘Pity,’ he muttered.

Maleneth considered what she had just learned. A Stormcast Eternal whose faith had been shaken was far less of a threat than the hard-line zealot she had thought she was travelling with. There was no hope of convincing Gotrek to stroll up to Azyr and hand himself over to the Order to offer himself in service to the God-King. And if Trachos was too battle-weary to kill the Slayer and take the rune, that meant she was the only one with a chance of getting it back to Azyrheim. She leant back, sipping more wine, and grabbed some of the food Lhosia had fished out of the temple storerooms, feeling happier than she had for a while.

‘And what about you?’ asked Lhosia, turning to face her. ‘Are you here to protect the Slayer too?’

Maleneth stifled a grin and Gotrek snorted.

‘She’ll protect me unless my death offers a better chance to get the rune,’ he said.

Maleneth splayed her hand against her chest in mock offence.

‘And what about the soul you carry?’ asked Lhosia.

Maleneth laughed. ‘You don’t want to know what’s in my soul, priestess.’

‘No,’ replied Lhosia. ‘I don’t mean your soul. I mean the one you carry around your neck.’

Trachos and Gotrek both glanced up, surprised.

Maleneth clasped her hand around the amulet.

She knows what you did! Her mistress laughed wildly, delighted by the turn of events. How will you explain this one?

‘What do you mean?’ Maleneth said, pitching her voice a little too loud. ‘It’s just a memento of a kill.’

Lhosia frowned, looking suspicious. ‘Surely you know it’s more than that? If not, I can help explain. I’m the High Priestess of the Cerement. Even the most shrouded spirit is visible to me. I see every soul in Morbium.’

Maleneth cursed inwardly. She needed to silence the idiot woman before she ruined everything.

‘It’s stopped,’ said Trachos.

‘What?’ snapped Maleneth.

‘The rain.’

‘Finally!’ cried Gotrek, leaping to his feet.

They watched as the last few shards rattled across the platform and ceased, then looked at Lhosia, but she was still staring at Mal­eneth’s amulet.

Gotrek stomped out onto the platform, holding his palm up to the stars. ‘Looks like marching weather!’