Ghoulslayer

Chapter Fifteen The Hidden City

Most of the Gravesward were too busy fighting to register Gotrek’s question, but some looked round in surprise at the sight of a Slayer storming towards them.

Maleneth cursed and ran after Gotrek, with Trachos and Lhosia following close behind. The gatekeeper took his chance to flee, sprinting off up a side street.

Ghouls dashed at Gotrek as he broke from the shadows, but he hacked them down without breaking his stride.

‘Halt!’ cried one of the knights, breaking from the fight to level a scythe at Gotrek. ‘Who are you?’

The skeletal drake reared up behind him, a furious edifice of bone, locking its empty eye sockets on the Slayer.

‘I could ask the same of you,’ replied Gotrek, glaring at the knight, clearly unimpressed by the massive beast looming over him.

Maleneth muttered another curse.

‘You’re clearly not the defenders of this fort,’ continued the Slayer, ‘or you’d be up on the walls instead of hiding down here.’

Maleneth had to step aside as a ghoul broke from the scrum and leapt at her, its face rigid with bloodlust. She opened its throat and booted it into another of the creatures, then bounded over the first one and hammered a knife into both their faces. She flipped clear and landed at Gotrek’s side. Her pulse was hammering, willing her to abandon herself to the slaughter, but she held her bloodlust at bay.

A knight pushed through the crush, trying to reach Gotrek. It was the warrior carrying the fallen knight.

‘Who are you?’ he called, struggling under the weight of his burden.

‘Where’s your prince?’ shouted Gotrek, punching a ghoul to the ground and slamming his axe through its neck. ‘Well? Anyone got a tongue in their head?’

‘Take their weapons,’ said the knight. His armour was more ornate than the others’, engraved and filigreed and studded with white gemstones.

The Slayer rumbled with laughter, gripping his axe in boulder-sized fists and dropping into a battle stance. ‘Just you bloody try.’

The knights hesitated, thrown by Gotrek’s psychotic grin.

The Slayer shrugged, swapping the axe from hand to hand. ‘Not much of a weapon, to be fair.’ He tapped it against his chest rune with a clang. ‘I got it from the same mewling runts who made this. But it’ll do for the likes of you.’

The knights staggered backwards as ghouls continued to pour from the surrounding streets. Trachos limped past them, pummelling ghouls and singing.

‘Wait!’ cried the knight in the ornate armour. ‘Lhosia?’ He pushed towards her, still dragging the fallen warrior, but then hesitated when he got within arm’s reach of Gotrek.

‘Lord Aurun,’ said Lhosia, rushing past Gotrek and embracing the knight.

He smiled, clearly shocked.

‘Prince Volant!’ said Aurun, looking down at the man in his arms. ‘It’s the high priestess!’

‘You’re the Morn-Prince?’ cried Gotrek, striding towards the prone knight.

There was a loud clatter as the Gravesward locked ranks, raising shields and readying scythes.

‘Wait!’ Lhosia raised a hand. ‘The duardin is not an enemy. I would not have reached you without his help. He killed countless mordants to get me here.’

The prince managed to raise himself up and look at Gotrek.

It was only then that Maleneth realised how big he was – almost twice as tall as her, larger than Trachos, even. His armour was filthy and damaged, but he was unmistakably the leader. His face was hidden inside a tall black-and-white helmet that displayed a snarling face on one side and a serene smile on the other.

‘Your majesty,’ said Lhosia, backing away.

‘Who are you, duardin?’ gasped the huge knight, ignoring Lhosia. His voice was rough with pain, and there was blood pooling beneath him. ‘Why do you fight for Morbium?’

The ghouls surged forwards again, and there was a flurry of blows as the knights struggled to hold them back.

‘I’m Gotrek Gurnisson,’ bellowed the Slayer over the din, ‘and I fight exclusively for Gotrek Gurnisson.’ He hacked down a pair of ghouls with one savage swipe. ‘I’m here because I’ve been told you can get me to Nagash.’

‘Nagash?’ Prince Volant turned to Lhosia, shaking his head. He had to pause as more ghouls broke through the lines of knights. There was a furious flurry of scythes, and then, when there was another gap in the fighting, Volant stared at Gotrek. ‘No sane person wants to reach the Great Necromancer.’

Gotrek laughed. ‘Sane?’ He waved his bloody axe at Lhosia, still holding the cocooned corpse she had taken from the docks. ‘You live in bones and worship moths.’

Prince Volant looked past Gotrek towards Maleneth. But before he could say anything, the ground juddered and the sounds of distant battle swelled in volume. A low, booming explosion echoed down the streets.

‘Grungni,’ muttered Gotrek as a shadow loomed over the city. It looked like a column of smoke pluming from a volcano.

‘What is that?’ said Maleneth as the shape moved into the light.

‘A mordant,’ said Prince Volant, his tone bleak.

The ghoul looked similar to the others apart from its size – it was a colossus, hundreds of feet tall and teeming with legions of smaller ghouls. It smashed an enormous fist down into the battlements, destroying the rows of explosive charges lined up for the ballistae. Flames blossomed through the walls, lighting up the giant’s grotesque face. It was just as hunched and sinewy as its smaller kin, but there was a gleam of cruel intelligence in its eyes, quite different from all the others. It dragged its fist sideways through the battlements, hurling men and war machines through the air and creating another drum roll of explosions.

‘To the Separating Chambers,’ snapped Volant, turning towards Lord Aurun. ‘Protect the Unburied.’

Aurun nodded and ordered his men back across the square. They were completely surrounded and it was slow going, but the knights fought with impressive discipline, carving a path through the frantic crowds.

The fury of the fighting made more conversation impossible, so Gotrek, Maleneth and Trachos fought alongside the knights in silence as they made for a building on the far side of the square.

It was a huge, undulating structure built in an architectural style unlike anything Maleneth had seen before. It looked like a marquee of white silk, frozen at the moment its peaks were caught in a breeze, all ripples and bulges, but it was made of the same hard, bone-like material as the rest of the fortress.

‘Into the Hidden City,’ shouted Aurun, waving for everyone to follow him as he dragged the prince up the steps with the help of some of his men.

As most of the knights formed a semicircle at the bottom of the steps, raising their shields, Aurun unlocked the door, flinging it open and spilling purple light over the battle.

They hurried inside, hurling ghouls back down the steps as they backed into the hall. There was a fierce scrum at the threshold before the knights managed to shut the doors with a resounding slam.

‘Bar them!’ cried Lord Aurun, leaving the prince on the floor and rushing back to the doors. They were vast, imposing things wrought of iron-threaded bone, with thick crossbars mounted on either side. As Aurun waved his men back and forth they slammed the bars down. When each bar landed, it triggered a mechanism that whirred like an enormous timepiece, turning and interlocking and creating a lattice of bolts.

The sound of the mechanisms seemed to draw Trachos out of his habitual daydream, and he wandered over to them, fingering the locks with interest.

‘What is this place?’ asked Maleneth, looking up at the distant vaulted ceiling. There were twelve cocoons, identical to the one Lhosia was carrying.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Prince Volant, still sprawled on the floor and clutching his wounds. His skeleton steed was circling him protectively, its hollow gaze locked on Gotrek and Maleneth.

‘I serve the Order of Azyr.’ Maleneth nodded at Trachos, who was still studying the locks. ‘We’re escorting the Slayer through the princedoms.’

‘You serve Sigmar?’ The prince waved at Gotrek, who was stomping around the hall, staring up at the ceiling. ‘He doesn’t. Why are you helping him?’

Maleneth spoke up quickly before Trachos could tell the entire crowd about the rune. ‘He’s unusually powerful. And he’s an enemy of the Chaos Gods.’

‘Any gods,’ clarified Gotrek. He walked over to the prince. ‘Get me to Nagash and I’ll demonstrate.’

The prince removed his helmet and studied Gotrek. Like the rest of the Erebid, Volant’s head was pale and hairless, but unlike the others, his face was inked with a complex spiral of tattoos – slender black lines that coiled down from his eyes, mimicking the markings of a moth’s wings. His long, angular face was unmistakably regal, but it was twisted by pain. He gasped as he climbed to his feet, towering over everyone present. He stooped and tapped Gotrek’s rune with a long, tapered finger. ‘And this?’

Maleneth struggled to hold back a curse, wondering if there was anyone in the Mortal Realms who wouldn’t immediately pick up on the rune’s importance.

Gotrek laughed bitterly. ‘The reason for my sudden popularity.’

Prince Volant waited patiently for him to elaborate.

The Slayer shrugged. ‘Just a rune. And a bloody ugly one at that. Can you get me to Nagash?’

‘Why would I help you?’

Gotrek made a low growling sound, but before he could respond, Lhosia strode across the room and addressed the prince, her face rigid with anger.

‘We’ve come from the Anceps Docks. The Unburied were left to the mordants.’ Her voice trembled as she waved at the cocoons hanging overhead. ‘As they have been here. You swore that you would get the ancestors back to the capital, Prince Volant.’

‘You swore the Iron Shroud would hold long enough for me to do so.’ The prince’s nonchalant mask slipped and his eyes flashed. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who cares for the safety of the ancestors?’ He pointed at Aurun. ‘I sent an order for the Unburied to be moved months ago, and when I arrived, only hours ahead of destruction, I find Lord Aurun doing nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Lord Aurun looked outraged. ‘We can’t move the Unburied, high priestess,’ he said, addressing Lhosia. ‘I have explained all this to the Morn-Prince. We stayed here to defend them because it’s either that or abandon them. They’re bound into the workings of the fortress. They’re part of the old duardin engines. It would take months to separate them from the architecture. Years, maybe.’

Lhosia shook her head, looking up at the cogs and wheels fixed into the ceiling. ‘The Unburied are trapped?’

Aurun nodded. ‘The forefathers completed their work here.’ He tapped the haft of his scythe on the cobbles. ‘This was the final prominent to be completed. They sealed it with the souls of the Unburied and then sailed back to the Lingering Keep. The Unburied are bound by mechanisms too complex to understand. And even if we could understand them, we don’t know how the Kharadron powered these machines. And there’s no way I could have broken the ancestors out before the mordants arrived.’

Maleneth shook her head. ‘Did you say sailed? How could anyone sail in this place? Your sea isn’t liquid. It looks like it’s made of lead.’

‘It’s impossible to cross the Eventide now,’ said Aurun. ‘Even touching it means madness and death. But our forefathers crossed it regularly. They had to – there were no wynds until they built them. They borrowed engineering skills from the Kharadron. They brought the Unburied here in great engines that were able to cross the Eventide.’

Gotrek’s eye glazed over. Maleneth had seen this happen before. It tended to precede either sleep, an idea or an explosion of extreme violence. It was worryingly hard to predict which.

‘Right,’ said the Slayer, looking up at the Morn-Prince. ‘I have business with a god.’ He waved his axe at the moth-shrouded shapes hanging overhead. ‘How about this – I get your corpse eggs back to your capital, and you tell me how to reach Nagash?’

Lord Aurun laughed incredulously, and the prince simply stared.

‘Well?’ demanded Gotrek as something heavy boomed against the doors. ‘My guess is that you have five minutes before the morons break in and start chewing your skulls. Do you want my help or not?’

‘You’re insane,’ replied the prince.

‘Agreed. If I get these twelve cocoons to safety, will you get me to Nagash?’

There was another blow at the door, and it gave a low groan as the frame started to give.

‘Brace it!’ cried Lord Aurun, waving more of his men towards it. ‘Jam your scythes against the metal!’

Gotrek was still standing in front of the prince, waiting for an answer.

Volant winced and staggered. Knights rushed to help him, but he shrugged them off. He frowned at Gotrek, as though struggling to make him out in the dazzling light. ‘You are peculiar. Quite unlike anyone I have ever met.’

Gotrek shrugged.

The door shook again, and the soldiers cried out as they tried to hold back the weight.

‘How could you get the Unburied to the capital?’ asked the prince. ‘Lord Aurun says it would take weeks to break those machines.’

Gotrek turned to Lord Aurun. ‘Are these doors the only way out?’

‘There’s another exit, but it only leads to the Eventide. The chambers at the rear of the hall join with the city walls, and then there’s nothing there but dead sea and the Spindrift.’

‘The Spindrift?’

‘An aether-ship. The transportation used by the forefathers when they built the prominents – before they made the wynds.’

‘An airship?’ Gotrek shook his head. ‘Why in the blazes aren’t you using it?’

‘It’s a useless relic,’ replied Aurun. ‘Powered the same way as those.’ He waved his scythe at the machines overhead.

Gotrek looked over at Trachos. The Stormcast Eternal was helping Aurun’s men as they struggled to hold the door.

‘Right,’ he said, turning back to the prince. ‘If I rescue your corpse sacks, you’ll help me reach Nagash, agreed?’

Prince Volant sneered and seemed about to dismiss Gotrek again, but the Slayer’s tone was so confident that he hesitated.

‘He has a habit of surprising people,’ said Maleneth. ‘And he’s tediously honest. If he says he can do it, he probably can.’

‘How?’ asked the prince, his expression a mixture of outrage and intrigue.

‘Tell them, manling,’ Gotrek called over to the Stormcast Eternal.

Trachos was not following the conversation. He was staring at the mechanical doors, muttering to himself.

‘Trachos!’ shouted Maleneth.

He looked over. As usual, his face was hidden behind his helmet’s gleaming deathmask, and it was hard to know what he was thinking.

Gotrek waved him over. ‘The moth people want their corpses back. They need them out of those machines.’ He gestured with his axe at the ceiling. ‘Duardin engineering. Shouldn’t be hard to untangle.’

Trachos stared at the Slayer in silence, as though he had forgotten who Gotrek was.

Maleneth felt like jamming knives into his helmet.

The prince waved a dismissive hand. ‘These people are ridiculous.’ He turned away. ‘Aurun! Get some of your archers up on those balconies. Fast!’

A low rumbling started in Gotrek’s chest, and he stood up to his full – if not very impressive – height. He gripped his greataxe, and Maleneth saw quite clearly what was coming next. The prince was about to find out what happened to pompous nobles who refused to take Gotrek seriously.

‘They’re like the engines in Azyr,’ said Trachos, talking to the ceiling. ‘In the Sigmarabulum. In the alchemical forges. Those machines were designed almost entirely by duardin engineering guilds. These look similar.’

Maleneth looked from Trachos to Gotrek and back again, realisation dawning. ‘You’ve studied duardin engineering?’

Trachos was still talking to the ceiling. ‘Of course. Most of Azyr is built on the principles of duardin engineering. I have studied several methods of containing aetheric matter – Baraz Cylinders, Gromthi Coils. They’re no different to any other…’ He shook his head and began mumbling to himself.

Gotrek nodded. ‘Between the two of us, we could untether these cocoons.’

Trachos lowered his gaze from the ceiling and stared at Gotrek. ‘What?’

Gotrek’s grin froze on his face, and he gripped his axe tighter. ‘I said we could release them, you tin-headed lump.’

‘Oh. Yes, perhaps. It would require an influx of aetheric energy.’ Trachos tapped some of the arcane devices jangling at his belt. ‘I should be able to trigger the correct currents.’

Gotrek had just opened his mouth to say more when the doors gave way.