Ghoulslayer

Chapter Sixteen The Master Rune of Krag Blackhammer

Maleneth ducked as bone and iron whistled through the air.

Tree-sized fingers clawed at the doors, ripping away the frame, causing the walls to crumble.

Then, as the giant ghoul backed away, hundreds of its smaller kin poured into the hall, howling and snorting, their eyes rolling with kill-frenzy.

‘Shield wall!’ cried Lord Aurun, and the Gravesward locked together, forming a row of tightly packed shields just before the ghouls crashed into them.

The knights staggered under the impact but held their position. As one, they swiped their scythes beneath their shields, cutting the legs from the creatures. Ghouls slapped to the floor, thrashing in their own blood.

‘Trachos!’ bellowed Gotrek, waving at the stairs that lined the walls. ‘Get those bodies down!’ He was running as he shouted, rushing to join the battle. He vaulted a toppled column and leapt over the shield wall with a joyous howl, crashing into the heart of the ghouls.

Prince Volant waved Lord Aurun and Maleneth over. ‘Help me up!’ he called, pointing at his steed.

The skeleton drake had already lowered its head in readiness, but Aurun shook his head. ‘Morn-Prince! Your wounds!’

‘It’s an order, Lord Aurun.’

Maleneth scoured the hall for the other exit, cursing as she realised she might have to abandon her plans, after all she had endured. They were cornered like rats. It was going to be a massacre.

The other doors lead to the sea. There’s no point trying them. Her mistress’ voice was not as sneering as usual. It sounded alarmed. You heard them. Walk on those dead waters and you’ll lose your mind. There’s nowhere to go.

Maleneth hissed in annoyance. Her mistress was right. Her only chance was that Gotrek’s lunatic plan might somehow work. Trachos was still only halfway up the wall, struggling to climb because of his wounds. ‘Your prince will last longer on that thing than on the floor,’ she muttered, glancing at Aurun. ‘Get him on there.’

Aurun looked appalled that she was addressing him in such a commanding tone, but he gave a grudging nod and, between them, they hauled Volant up onto his mount.

The prince seemed reinvigorated to be looming over the fighting, and he raised his scythe. ‘Morbium eternal!’ His steed reared beneath him and the Gravesward roared in reply, their shield wall unbroken as they cut down row after row of ghouls.

Volant’s drake jerked its head forwards, jaws gaping, spewing a column of dust across the hall. It hit the ghouls with such force that it carved a path through the centre of the scrum, toppling dozens of the creatures. But as Maleneth climbed some rubble for a better view, she saw that the blast was doing more than simply knocking them over. As they tried to rise, their movements grew stiff and awkward and their flesh hardened. Within a few seconds, every ghoul that had been hit was lying cracked and lifeless on the ground.

Maleneth nodded, impressed, then remembered Gotrek. ‘The Slayer is out there!’ she cried.

‘Aye!’ shouted Gotrek, climbing onto the toppled door, the head of a ghoul in one hand and his axe in the other. He raised the weapon and grinned.

‘Watch out for Gotrek!’ she called to Prince Volant, pointing at the Slayer.

He nodded and cried out the same command, and his steed vomited more dust in the opposite direction.

Trachos was still struggling to reach the ceiling, so Maleneth bounded up the steps. As she approached him, she shook her head in disbelief. The idiot was singing to himself, as though he were enjoying a moment of quiet reflection.

She grabbed his arm and hauled him up the last few steps. They reached a balcony suspended just below the ceiling, and were now within arm’s reach of the machines. Trachos’ song faltered.

‘Incredible workmanship,’ he said, removing his helmet and fastening it to his belt so that he could study the devices in more detail.

‘We’re about to die,’ said Maleneth.

Trachos fixed her with a flat, blank stare. ‘I will not die.’

‘Oh, well that’s all fine then.’

He continued staring at her.

‘The machines, Trachos,’ she prompted. ‘Can you make them work?’

He looked back at the engines and the rows of pale ovoid shapes they cradled.

From up here Maleneth could see the twelve cocoons clearly. They were just like the one Lhosia carried – like oversized eggs wrapped in dusty gauze. Now that she knew what they contained, she found the sight of them revolting.

‘Think of all those withered little corpses,’ she muttered.

Trachos shrugged. ‘Gotrek won’t leave without the prince, and the prince won’t leave without the corpses.’

There was an explosion of howls from below as the ghouls broke through the shield wall. Knights scrambled to block the gap, but it was like trying to stem a ruptured dam. Ghouls rushed in every direction, leaping and clawing and tearing soldiers to the ground.

‘Quickly!’ cried Maleneth. ‘Get those things out!’

Trachos turned back to the machines. He singled out a particular piece of the workings and rotated cogs with his fingers, clicking them into a new position, aligning the duardin runes engraved into the ancient metal.

Maleneth laughed with relief as light shimmered through the metal­work, edging its wheels and levers.

The fighting became a desperate rout. Gravesward staggered in every direction, trying to fend off claws and teeth as their shields were ripped from their grip.

Gotrek whirled through the carnage, hacking, laughing and lunging.

‘His rune,’ whispered Maleneth.

Trachos was too engrossed in his work to hear. He had taken a spherical golden cage from his belt and fixed it to the cogs. The instrument was pulsing with the same light as the rest of the ceiling and making a bright ticking sound.

Maleneth stared at Gotrek. He was lost in the moment, fighting so ferociously that Grimnir’s face was blazing in his chest. His blocky, savage features looked like they were rising from a brazier, underlit by a hellish glow. ‘It will change him,’ she muttered.

Trachos paused. ‘What?’

‘The rune.’ She pointed one of her knives at Gotrek. ‘It’s consuming him.’

Trachos stared blankly at Gotrek’s frenzied attacks, then went back to turning the cogs.

The lights flashed brighter over the ceiling and he nodded, taking another instrument from his belt and attaching it to the first.

‘To me!’ cried Prince Volant, still clinging weakly to the back of his steed as he waved his scythe. ‘Form a circle!’

His soldiers tried to cross the room towards him, but so many ghouls had crushed into the hall that many of the knights were surrounded. Lord Aurun led a group of soldiers to the prince, and they formed an island of black armour in the heaving mass of grey.

‘If we don’t go now it’s over,’ said Maleneth, leaning over Trachos, trying to understand what he was doing.

Every part of the machinery was flickering, and there was a low humming emanating from the cradles holding the Unburied, but Trachos shook his head and backed away, leaving his implements hanging from the cogs.

‘Not enough power.’

‘What?’ Trachos was nearly twice as tall as Maleneth and clad in hulking sigmarite, but she reached up, grabbed his arm and hauled him round to face her. ‘You’re giving up?’ She shook her head in disbelief, waving at the battle that was ending below them. The Gravesward around Prince Volant were falling fast, vanishing beneath mounds of frantic ghouls. ‘If we don’t get these things out, we’re all going to be butchered.’ She pulled him close. ‘You might not die, Trachos, but what will your next Reforging be like? And what will be left when you come out the other side?’

He loomed over her, his voice taut. ‘I know what this means for me, Witchblade, but I still don’t have the power to trigger those engines. They’ve been inert too long. It would take massive amounts of aether-fire to reignite them.’

Down below, the prince’s steed let out an unearthly scream as ghouls tore into it, snapping bones in its legs even as it lashed out with foot-long claws. The prince howled a command and the drake spat more lethal dust, but it was like punching a mountain. Ghouls continued tumbling towards the prince.

‘Try again!’ Maleneth shouted, infuriated by Trachos’ fatalistic tone. ‘Even if I have to drag you–’

He barged past her, whipping his hammers from his belt.

Her fighter’s instinct told her to duck, and she heard a crack of breaking bone.

She whirled around, knives drawn, to see ghouls lurching and scrambling up the steps.

‘Get to the knights!’ she gasped.

Trachos nodded, and they began fighting their way back down the steps.

Maleneth tried to kill as she had been trained, to honour the Murder God with every cut, but she was too mired in grasping limbs. The best she could do was use her momentum to bound over the heads and shoulders of the ghouls.

Trachos resorted to similar tactics, using his weighty, armour-clad bulk to smash through the crush.

By the time they reached the bottom steps, Maleneth could barely see, her face was so drenched in blood, but she managed to stagger into the circle of knights around Prince Volant.

Trachos punched his way after her and began hammering anyone who broke through the lines. He was unusually quiet, fighting in grim silence and glancing up at the machines still glowing overhead.

Gotrek was a few feet away, fighting outside the circle, his face locked in a scowl.

‘What happened?’ he cried, snatching a glance at Trachos.

‘It can’t be done!’ yelled Trachos.

Gotrek attacked the ghouls with renewed fury, his axe a golden blur. ‘Can’t be done?’ His words were contorted by rage.

The Slayer battled towards the base of a toppled column and climbed up onto it, wiping his face and staring out at the deranged figures crashing around him. He looked like the captain of a listing ship, standing at the prow as waves swelled around him.

‘So this is my doom?’ The rune in his chest was blazing constantly now, fuelled by kill-fever. ‘These wretched things? In this wretched place?’ He was talking to himself more than Trachos. ‘I’m glad you never lived to see it, manling. It would not have been worthy of a poem.’ He pounded the dazzling rune. ‘Redeem yourself, Grimnir! Give me something better!’

At the far end of the hall, the door shook, hurling masonry through the air as the giant tried to shoulder its way into the chamber. Its grotesque face was so vast that only half of it was visible through the tumbling walls.

Gotrek laughed. ‘Aye, I suppose he’ll do.’

The Slayer glanced back at the group battling around the prince. ‘Get out!’ he shouted. ‘I can’t save your dead, but I can save you. I’ll hold the morons back. Go. While you can.’

Lord Aurun called out to his men, waving them forwards. ‘To the Slayer!’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ yelled Gotrek. ‘Go!’

As the Gravesward charged, Aurun cried out. Despite the carnage, he sounded clear and determined. ‘What are we without the wisdom of our forebears? What use living if we lose the past?’

Gotrek’s eyes flashed, and for once it was with something other than rage. ‘Well said!’ He bared his teeth in a grin, looking back at Lord Aurun. ‘Well bloody said, manling!’

He raised his axe, letting the fury of the rune blast from his chest and up into the blade. He looked like a fallen comet, burning as the world collapsed around it. ‘Then we meet our dooms together!’ He locked his single, burning eye on the colossus at the far side of the hall. ‘And that one’s mine!’

Maleneth struggled to keep her footing as the knights shoved their way deeper into the ghouls. ‘No!’ she spat. ‘I refuse to die here.’

Knight after knight fell, shields torn from their grip and necks ripped open. It was grotesque. And brutal. Whatever Gotrek thought, Maleneth saw nothing noble in the sacrifice. These men were dying for no reason, which might be fine for them, but not for a Bride of Khaine.

She fought furiously, buying time to think, but it was all going to be over in minutes.

There was no way to reach the exit at the back of the hall on her own – there were too many ghouls in the way. She looked to where Gotrek was charging head down through the creatures, making for the giant. He was consumed by his determination to reach the grotesque monster, burning so brightly now that it was hard to look at him.

‘God of Murder,’ gasped Maleneth. ‘Why didn’t I think of it? Trachos!’ she howled, opening a ghoul’s belly and standing on its back as it doubled over, raising herself over the crush.

Trachos was only a few feet away. His turquoise armour had been painted crimson by blood, but he was still swinging his hammers, towering over the battle. He looked her way.

‘Power!’ she cried, dodging a blow and trying to point at Gotrek.

Trachos shook his head, confused.

‘The rune!’ she shouted, enraged by his stupidity. ‘The Rune of Blackhammer! Power!’

Trachos hesitated, only for a moment, but it was enough for a wave of ghouls to attack him. He fell, vanishing beneath the crowd of bodies.

‘Damn you!’ howled Maleneth, shaking her head violently as she fended off another blow.

Don’t be a fool, said her mistress. What do you know of engineering?

‘He hesitated!’ she snapped, too far gone to care if anyone heard her addressing a ghost. ‘Trachos hesitated. Because I’m right!’

She shrugged off the despair that had been threatening to overwhelm her and leapt from the back of the ghoul, landing on the shoulders of another one. Determination and hope thrilled through her veins, giving her a furious surge of energy. She bounded from one wretch to the next, moving so fast that they barely registered her footfall before she had leapt clear.

In a few seconds Maleneth left the Gravesward behind and crossed the hall, arriving next to Gotrek with a final, acrobatic leap.

The Slayer turned on his heel, axe raised, ready to behead her, his face contorted.

‘Gotrek!’ she said, holding out her knife in warning, squinting into the inferno that had engulfed him. ‘It’s me!’

Recognition flickered across his eye. He axed down a pair of ghouls without looking away from Maleneth.

‘Aelf?’ His voice was hoarse from shouting. He looked barely recognisable. Golden light was slicing through the pores of his skin and rippling across his mohawk. He looked like a weapon plucked from a forge.

They were a few feet from the wall, and Maleneth pointed at the pipes stretching to the ceiling. They were still shimmering with the power Trachos had triggered.

‘The machines…’ she said, but her words faltered as Gotrek stepped closer. The sweating, porcine oaf had vanished, and she found herself facing something quite different. He looked like an avatar of war, gilded with bloodlust and burning with power.

Gotrek dealt out a storm of brutal blows, cutting a path around Maleneth. Then he shook his head. ‘It’s my time, aelf.’ Even his voice sounded different – deep and calm rather than harsh and boorish.

He turned to go.

‘No!’ cried Maleneth, leaping in front of him.

Fury burned in Gotrek’s eye. ‘Step aside!’

Maleneth saw one last chance. One hope of survival. She shook her head, crouching before him. It was suicide, but she gripped her knives and dropped into a battle stance.

Gotrek glowered, outraged, and swung his axe at her head.

She ducked, rolling clear, and Gotrek was thrown forwards by the force of his blow.

His greataxe smashed into the shimmering pipes.

Power rushed through him, pouring from the rune down the haft of his axe and into the machines.

Maleneth was hurled backwards, engulfed in white heat.