Ghoulslayer

Chapter Eleven Something more than Blood

While Trachos headed back into the temple to fetch supplies for the journey, Gotrek and the other two wandered around the platform, examining the damage, running their fingers over the scars that now covered every inch of the bone-work. There were still storm clouds overhead, glinting oddly as they rolled and swelled, but they were heading south, away from the quay.

When Trachos returned, he nodded to the far end of the platform, where wide, sweeping steps led up to the beginning of another huge structure. ‘That way?’

‘Yes,’ said Lhosia. ‘And we had better move fast. The whole princedom might be infested with those flesh-eaters. They could come back at any time.’

They climbed the steps and, despite Lhosia’s request for urgency, had to pause at the top to admire the strangeness of the view. They stood at the entrance to a great road built of the same combination of bone and iron as the temple below. It swept out over the sea, curving as it vanished into the gloom. Far away, sections of it were illuminated by what looked like pale, low-hanging moons.

‘The prominents,’ explained Lhosia, nodding to the lights. ‘Home to the living and the Unburied.’ She looked pained. ‘There should be far more of them. The whole sky should be lit up.’ She turned and looked south, where there were almost no lights at all. One half of the sky was only punctuated by the faint spectral stars.

‘They’ve been destroyed?’ asked Maleneth.

‘Perhaps. But even if they are still intact, they must have been defiled. They were built to preserve the souls of the Unburied. And the light of the Unburied should be visible from here. I had hoped that Prince Volant would have done as he planned and evacuated the occupants – keeping the Unburied and their guardians in the capital where we can keep them safe. But something must have gone wrong. My own temple had not been emptied. My family were still there when…’ Lhosia shook her head.

Gotrek studied her for a moment, then peered down the road. ‘Is that a fortress? Is that one of your “prominents”?’

Lhosia and the others came to stand next to him. There was a light flickering lower than the others, on the surface of the road. It was hard to gauge distances in such a strange landscape, but Maleneth guessed it was only four or five miles away. Rather than the blue lights of the others, this was a golden glow, the colour of flames.

‘That would be the gatehouse,’ said Lhosia. ‘Each branch of the wynd is guarded at various points along its length by gatehouses.’

Gotrek waved his axe at the surface of the road. There were bloody footprints leading away into the distance. ‘It looks like the gatehouse received the same visitors as this temple.’

Lhosia nodded. ‘We should move. The sooner we reach the prince, the better.’

As the group rushed down the road, Maleneth heard a familiar voice in her head. Did you hear what that girl said?

She slowed down until the others were a few paces ahead of her. ‘What?’ she whispered, glancing down at the amulet hung from her neck.

Before she joined herself to the little dead thing – didn’t you hear her? When she was talking about Separating Chambers. She said something interesting. Surprising, I know, from someone so ugly and boring, but she did.

Maleneth frowned. ‘She said the Unburied could lead us to the prince and that the prince can help Gotrek find Nagash.’

Not that, simpleton. What did she say when she shooed you away?

‘She said she had to concentrate. She said that if she lost her thread, there was a risk she might not return intact.’ Maleneth stumbled to a halt, realising that her old mistress had a point. ‘What did she mean by that?’

You always were such a poor student. So dim.

Maleneth smiled as she started walking again. ‘And how does that reflect on you, mistress? Even someone this dim-witted was able to out-think you.’

You never out-thought me, you–

‘I killed you.’ Maleneth smiled. ‘Surely that is the very definition of out-witting you?’

And what now, you ridiculous creature? What will become of you when you finally return home to Azyr?

‘I will return with the rune. Nothing else will matter.’

That Slayer won’t die. Can’t you see that? He’s not like the others. Even if you could get some poison through his thick hide he wouldn’t notice. Something has changed him. Look at him! He talks about god-killing, but he’s half god himself.

Maleneth nodded. ‘The rune changed him. He’s not like any other duardin I’ve met. He has so much power.’

It’s not just the rune. Think what he was like when you first met him in the fyreslayers’ cells. That was before he took their Master Rune, but he was already unstoppable. Something more than blood burns in his veins.

‘What do you want to tell me about the Separating Chamber?’ snapped Maleneth, irritated by her mistress’ games.

The amulet fell silent, and Maleneth whispered a curse.

She picked up her pace and caught up with the others as the road curved and gave them their first clear view of the gatehouse. It looked like a larger version of the cocoon Lhosia was carrying, like a pale, curved tear, built around a pair of large, leaf-shaped gates. It must have once been an impressive structure, but there were now flames washing across it, filling the darkness with embers and smoke. The walls had cracked in several places, dropping huge slabs of bone onto the road.

‘No sign of mordants,’ said Lhosia, hurrying on.

‘Not that way,’ laughed Gotrek, nodding back the way they had come. There were dark shapes pouring from the temple they had just left. Even from here, it was clear that there were hundreds of them.

Lhosia spat a curse and drew her scythe.

‘We’ll never outrun them,’ said Maleneth. ‘Look how fast they’re closing the gap.’

‘Move!’ yelled Gotrek, waving them on to the gatehouse.

As they neared the building, they began to see bodies scattered across the road. At first it was only ghouls – identical to the wiry, semi-naked wretches they had fought on their way into the princedom. But then, a while later, they saw the corpse of a man who looked far less savage. It was a tall, powerfully built knight, dressed in black armour and a white, feathered cloak. His throat had been ripped out and he was clearly dead, but there were dozens of butchered ghouls lying all around him. Even in death, he was still gripping a bloody, two-handed scythe.

Lhosia shook her head. ‘Gravesward. There’s not much hope if even they can’t hold these things back.’

‘Hope’s overrated,’ said Gotrek. ‘Sheer bloody-mindedness, that’s the thing.’

As they reached the gatehouse they had to shield their eyes from the glare. The fire was ferocious.

‘Not much good as a gate anymore,’ laughed Gotrek. The front curve of the building had completely collapsed, consumed by the flames. It was possible to see the road on the far side, littered with more corpses. Again, they were mostly ghouls, but Maleneth spotted a few more of the black-armoured knights.

Gotrek crouched down on the road, looking at the metalwork at the base of the building. ‘Is that an axle?’ He glanced back at Lhosia. ‘How do these gatehouses work? Do they just bar the way? Are they just gates? Or something more complicated?’

Lhosia shook her head and then nodded, her eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, I see what you mean – they are more than just gates. It’s possible to raise a section of the road, like a drawbridge. I’d have no idea how to operate it though.’

‘Here’s your chance, manling!’ Gotrek grinned, pointing Trachos to the mechanism beneath the walls. ‘You’re an engineer, aren’t you?’ He stepped back and gazed up at the burning building. ‘Looks like the whole structure works as a counterweight. We saw a bridge that worked this way when we were back in Nuln. Do you remember? The one that crossed the Reik.’

Trachos shook his head. ‘Nuln?’

Gotrek rolled his eyes. ‘No matter. The point is that we should be able to lift a section of the road up.’ He examined the mass of arcane equipment at Trachos’ belt. ‘Does a fancy title like Lord Ordinator mean you know how to use a spanner?’

Trachos stared at Gotrek, clearly surprised. He shook his head. ‘I have never seen this kind of design before.’

Gotrek jabbed him in the chest with a blocky finger. ‘What are you scared of? Trying and failing? If you do nothing we die anyway.’

Trachos hesitated, then turned to the building, examining the layout. ‘Perhaps.’ He paced back and forth for a moment, then edged around the flames and dropped out of sight, climbing down into the mechanisms underneath the gatehouse. A few seconds later, clanging sounds rose up from the shadows.

Maleneth looked back down the road at the fast-approaching crowd of ghouls. ‘I guess ten minutes. Maybe less.’

‘We can do better than that,’ said Gotrek, hefting his axe in both hands. ‘Help the manling. He’s more capable than he thinks. Call me when he’s done.’ He started pounding back down the road towards the ghouls. ‘But don’t be too quick. This looks like fun.’ He howled a war cry, dropped his head and charged.

‘They’ll tear him apart,’ muttered Lhosia.

Maleneth watched Gotrek go with exasperation. ‘You really would think so, wouldn’t you?’

She turned back to the fire and tried to spot Trachos. At first she could see no sign of the Stormcast, but then the sound of tuneless singing led her to him. He was wailing strident verses to himself as he worked. She held up her arm to shield her face as she approached the walls, feeling her hair shrivel in the heat.

Trachos was crouched on a framework of curved metal, grappling with a series of ash-covered cogs. He was holding what looked like a pair of riveted, golden callipers, and he was trying to fix them to the struts beneath the road.

There was a furious bellowing from behind as Gotrek reached the first ranks of ghouls. They were close enough that Maleneth could see their faces as the Slayer axed them down, scattering bones and blood.

She wondered whether to go and help Gotrek or stay with Trachos. ‘Can you work it?’ she called down to him.

Trachos’ callipers were now clamped around one of the struts, and the tool was alive with aether-light. Trachos leant his weight against it, singing too loudly to hear Maleneth’s question.

‘Will it work?’ she yelled.

He twisted around, shaking his head. ‘No. The gates are warded by sorcery. I can see a lock, but we don’t have the key.’

‘The gatekeeper would have it!’ cried Lhosia, peering through the ruined gate at the bodies on the other side. ‘If you could get me into the building, I would be able to spot his corpse from the others. He might still be wearing the key.’

Maleneth stared at the wall of flames. ‘We’d cook. We’ll have to wait for it to die down.’

‘No time,’ said Trachos as he hauled himself back up onto the road, fastening the callipers back to his armour. He took his helmet from his belt and fixed it back in place, then took out both his hammers and marched towards the gates. He showed no sign of feeling the heat as he reached the inferno. He paused for a moment in front of the tall, bone-wrought doors. He leant forwards to peer at the hinges and nodded. As Gotrek careered through the crowds of ghouls, Trachos began to attack the gate, smashing the hinges repeatedly with his hammers, surrounding himself in clouds of sparks and smoke. The doors, already weakened by the flames, began to judder, and Trachos hit them with even more fury, swinging the hammers with such force that they began to spark and crackle. Finally, with a monstrous groan, the gates started to lean backwards.

Trachos retreated, lowering his hammers as they slammed down onto the road.

A wall of flames and smoke rolled towards Maleneth, forcing her back. Then the fire ebbed away to reveal the doors lying flat on the ground, still sparking and smoking but with nowhere near the same ferocity.

Trachos glanced at her. ‘How fast can you run, Witchblade?’

She nodded and darted past him, sprinting over the toppled doors and dodging the flames until she reached the road on the far side.

Through the fire she saw Trachos march over to Lhosia. They exchanged words – Lhosia seemed hesitant. Then she nodded, and Trachos picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder like she was a bundle of clothes.

The rest of the gatehouse was still engulfed in flames, but as Trachos jogged through the fallen gates with Lhosia in his arms, he was able to protect her from the few still licking around the opening.

Even from this side of the building, Maleneth could see the absurd odds Gotrek faced. The Slayer looked like he was trying to hold back a tidal wave.

‘The rune,’ she muttered. She turned to Trachos. ‘If they kill him…’

Trachos nodded. ‘The key,’ he said, looking at Lhosia. ‘Which one of these bodies is the gatekeeper?’

Lhosia rushed back and forth. Apart from the dead knights, all the bodies were ghouls. She shook her head. ‘None of them. He’s not here!’

Maleneth moved further on down the road. ‘Then he must have fled.’

‘No.’ Lhosia stared at the ruined building. ‘The Gravesward would never have let him abandon his post. It would be treason.’ She rushed from body to body, turning them over and shaking her head.

Gotrek cried out in frustration, and they all turned towards him.

The ghouls were driving him back. They could not manage to land a blow on him, so they were using sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm him, hurling themselves on the bodies of the fallen and creating a landslide of fists and claws.

‘We need that key,’ said Trachos, surveying the gruesome mess that surrounded them. ‘Are you sure none of these are him?’

‘Sure,’ muttered Lhosia, ‘but that makes no sense.’

There was another roar of defiance as the crowds pushed Gotrek back towards them.

So you die, said the voice from the blood vial, whispering smugly in Maleneth’s head. Slaughtered like cattle, miles from anywhere, in an abandoned gatehouse. A worthy end for someone like you.

Maleneth hissed a curse. She cast her gaze over the ruined walls and the empty buildings on either side of the fallen gates. There were several doors, some smashed, some intact, all of them splattered with blood. ‘I wonder,’ she muttered.

‘What?’ said Trachos.

‘Can you give me a few more minutes?’ She nodded towards Gotrek. ‘Can you help the hog hold them back for a little longer?’

He looked at her in silence for a moment, clearly suspicious. Then he shrugged and stumbled back through the flames, launching into another hymn. Maleneth guessed his logic – better to be near the rune than stuck with the murderous aelf. It didn’t matter. As long as he could buy her a few more minutes.

As the road lit up with flashes of Azyrite sorcery, Maleneth rushed to the nearest ghoul corpse and dropped to her knees, whipping out her knives.

‘It’s already dead,’ said Lhosia, staring at her in confusion.

Maleneth ignored her, slamming the blades down into the corpse’s chest. There was a dull cracking sound as she wrenched them apart, ripping open the ribcage and revealing the glistening mess beneath.

Lhosia cursed in disgust and backed away.

You can’t do this, said the voice of her dead mistress. What are you thinking? You really are a fool. Do you think that just because you watched me at work, you can perform a blood sacrament?

Maleneth thrust her hand into the wound and grabbed the still-warm heart, then stood up, ripping it from its cage in a spray of crimson. I did more than watch you, mistress, she thought. You thought me a blunt-minded tool, but I was always preparing, always planning for the day I would take your place.

With the blood still pumping, she began cutting the heart, gouging intricate sigils into the muscle, all of them centred on the symbol of her beloved, blood-thirsty lord, Khaine. When she had covered every inch of the heart, she cried out an invocation and the organ began to smoulder, spilling smoke between her fingers.

For a moment, nothing else happened. Maleneth cursed. Perhaps she was a fool, trying to pray to Khaine in such a rushed, slipshod way.

You absurd creature. If you’d really been learning from me you would know that–

Maleneth cried out and leant back, arching her back as Khaine’s fervour jolted through her. She laughed in ecstasy. The blood rite had worked. The might of the Murder God shook her with such violence that she cried out to Lhosia. ‘Help me! Hold the heart!’

Visions flooded her mind and, for a moment, they were utterly confusing. She was riding with proud warriors, clutching spears and pennants, charging into battle on glorious steeds. Their colours were unfamiliar, and the language was an ancient tongue that bore no relation to anything she had heard anywhere else in Shyish.

The riders were nothing like the black-armoured knights Lhosia had referred to as the Gravesward, but the landscape was familiar. The riders were charging down the same road she had just travelled – a highway of bone hung across the Eventide. The horsemen cried out as they saw the gatehouse up ahead. The building was still intact and there was no sign of a fire. Figures were racing back to the gates, but they were too late, caught unawares by the attack as the riders hurled spears and drew longswords, killing them before they could reach the mechanisms that raised the road.

The horsemen tore on into the gatehouse itself and began battling the defenders waiting inside – a ragtag mob of savage, sallow-faced barbarians clutching clubs and knives. Maleneth felt a wash of fury at the sight of these craven savages. Who were they to steal land from the Hounds of Dinann?

The savages fought desperately, but they were massively outnumbered and it was the work of moments to knock them from the walls and slice them apart.

There was another man in the gatehouse, though, unarmed but clearly a kinsman of the rest of the barbarians. He dashed away as the fighting began, bolting to a door at the bottom of a tower and slamming it shut behind him. Maleneth rushed towards him, outraged, but before she could reach the door, blood filled her vision and she fell heavily to the ground.

‘What happened?’ cried Lhosia, staring at Maleneth. The priestess was helping her grip the bleeding heart, her face a disgusted grimace as the gore flowed down her arms. ‘What are you doing?’

Maleneth squeezed her eyes shut, confused, the words ‘Hounds of Dinann’ still echoing round her head. What did that mean? The gatehouse was in ruins again, flames rippling across the walls. There was no sign of the proud riders on their horses or the savages they had been fighting. She had no idea who any of the warriors might have been, but Khaine’s vision had still told her what she needed to know. The door she saw slamming in the vision was still there, unchanged, with the same bloodstains across its handle and the same corpses piled in front of it.

‘He’s in there!’ she gasped, dropping the heart and hurrying over to the door. The blood rite had left her exhausted and dazed, but also exhilarated. She had joined her soul to Khaine’s! She could still feel his power hammering in her pulse. It was dizzying and wonderful. She grinned, waving for Lhosia to follow. ‘Your gatekeeper is a coward. He’s hiding.’

There was an explosion of shouts and splintering bone as Gotrek and Trachos staggered back through the broken gateway, hacking and lunging wildly at an enormous mound of grey bodies. The ghouls were as frenzied as Gotrek, oblivious to even the most horrific wounds as they tried to claw over the dead.

‘Here!’ cried Maleneth. ‘Open this door!’

Gotrek barely broke his stride. He hacked the head from a ghoul, sidestepped a raking claw, slammed his face into the door, ripping it from its hinges, then lunged back into the scrum, blood sizzling on his chest rune.

The second the door fell, a figure tried to run at Maleneth, but she moved with fast, easy grace, dodging around him and then grabbing him by the collar, jolting him to a halt.

It was the man she had seen in her vision. He howled as he struggled to escape, staring at the legions of ghouls attacking Gotrek and Trachos.

Maleneth could not entirely blame the man for his fear. The creatures did make a horrific sight. She did not feel inclined to be sympathetic, though.

‘Keys – quick!’ she hissed in his ear, pulling him close and pressing one of her blades to his throat.

He scrambled at his belt and unclasped a bundle of keys, holding them up for her to see, his hand shaking violently.

Maleneth snatched them and let him go. As he sprinted past Lhosia and raced off down the road, Maleneth considered putting a knife in his back. She decided it would be a waste of a good weapon and turned away.

‘Trachos!’ she cried, hurling the keys.

He paused, mid-strike, and caught them.

Maleneth shook her head in disbelief as she rushed to join the fight. It looked like a mass burial falling on top of her.

Trachos sprinted away, leaving her alone with the Slayer. Gotrek was now using his head as a club, his face entirely crimson and covered in bits of skull and teeth. When he looked her way, there was no sign of recognition. He was like an animal in a feeding frenzy, tearing and clawing through the throng.

Maleneth had only been fighting for a few seconds when she realised that it was hopeless. There were too many. Cuts opened across her legs and face as the ghouls lashed out blindly, smothered by their own numbers.

‘Pull back!’ she gasped, though she knew the Slayer was too far gone to hear.

She was about to stagger free when the ground shook and she lurched backwards, struggling to keep her footing as the road heaved into motion.

‘Trachos!’ she cried. ‘He did it!’

She backed away, knives raised, as the road began to rise, throwing ghouls dead and living towards her. She had to duck and weave as the bodies flew, crashing off the walls and bouncing down the slope. The brainless horrors could not seem to register what was happening, still trying to drag Gotrek down to the floor as it fell away from them. While dozens of ghouls hurtled towards Maleneth, many more fell back the way they had come, sliding from sight.

‘Gotrek!’ roared Trachos, reappearing on the road and battling his way towards the Slayer.

Gotrek was too busy smashing brains to hear.

‘Gotrek!’ repeated Trachos, slamming a hand down on the Slayer’s shoulder.

Gotrek whirled round, snarling like a maddened dog and drawing back his axe to hack Trachos down. At the last moment he hesitated, finally noticing that the ground was rising beneath him.

‘Manling!’ he gasped, grinning through the blood.

More ghouls smashed into them both, and they staggered towards Maleneth, smashing the creatures away and reaching for handholds as they found themselves suddenly standing on a steep slope.

‘Back here!’ cried Maleneth, running down the slope to where the road was level again.

Lhosia was already there, staring up at the incredible scene in amazement.

As the gatehouse rocked back and gears whirred, the road lurched up into the air.

Gotrek and Trachos fell rather than ran the last few feet, and landed gasping and coughing beside Maleneth.

As she helped them up, ghouls began thudding down all around them, crashing onto the road with weird, wheezing groans.

Maleneth dealt with the first two, her knives slashing back and forth, then Gotrek and Trachos handled the others.

As the road juddered higher, it began to change. Iron and bone struts slid apart, splaying like the fingers of a hand, forming into a fan. After a few seconds, Maleneth laughed, realising what shape it was forming. The section of road that had risen up in the air, nearly fifty feet high, had created a piece of intricate sculpture – a pair of ancient, riveted wings, complete with the same spiralled markings that Maleneth had noticed in the temple.

‘A moth?’ she said, looking around for Lhosia.

Lhosia was gazing in wonder. For the first time since she had found her family’s remains, it seemed as though her grief had been eclipsed by something. She nodded. ‘A harbinger. Waiting here since the elder days. Ready to serve.’

Maleneth broke away to cut down some more of the ghouls that had fallen on their side of the wings. ‘Very pretty. But I don’t think we should spend too long admiring it.’

Gotrek nodded. He was panting heavily and drenched in ghoul blood. Usually, after such a brutal fight, he would seem pleased with himself, but he was staring at the rune in his chest with a furious expression on his face.

‘Gotrek?’ Maleneth said, trying to rouse him from his reverie.

It took a moment for his eye to focus on her, and when it did he was clearly thinking about something else. ‘He’s trying to…’ He shook his head, looking increasingly annoyed.

‘Who’s trying to what?’ she asked. The Slayer was moody at the best of times, but now he seemed confused.

‘Bloody Grimnir,’ muttered Gotrek, staring at the rune again and slapping one of his meaty hands over it, hiding the face of the Slayer god. ‘When I was fighting, lost in the glory of it, the rune lent me its strength.’

She nodded. ‘It’s ur-gold. Fyreslayers don’t hammer that stuff into themselves just for fun. You know that. That rune has been making you stronger ever since you took it from the Unbak Lodge.’ She raised an eyebrow at the heaps of bodies. ‘You’ve never minded before.’

‘But Grimnir’s still trying to get into my head!’ Gotrek gripped the rune tighter, as though he wanted to tear it from his ribs. He was talking to himself as much as Maleneth. ‘He’s still trying to change me.’

Gotrek removed his hand from his chest and scowled furiously at the rune. ‘He’s trying to change me into him. Every time I use this bloody rune it gets worse.’ Gotrek punched his own chest. ‘Think again, Grimnir! I’m Gotrek! Son of Gurni! And I mean to stay that way.’ He ran his fingers over the golden streaks threaded through his beard. ‘None of these were here before I had the rune, were they?’

She shook her head.

‘No more!’ he growled. ‘I’ve slain daemons and dragons without any help from you, Grimnir.’ Gotrek stomped off down the road, still hurling abuse at the rune as he headed away from the gatehouse, trailing bits of hair and bloody flesh.

Lhosia followed him, cradling the tiny cocooned corpse of her ancestor and whispering to it.

Trachos limped after her, his head twitching and lightning flickering from the joints in his armour. He mumbled a hymn as he walked, celebrating their victory in a grating monotone.

Maleneth watched the strange trio go, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Am I the only one who’s sane?’ she asked the vial of blood at her neck.