Ghoulslayer

Chapter Twenty-Seven The Flesh-Eater Court

‘I’m touched that you came back for us,’ said Maleneth as the Slayer dragged her through the remains of the door.

Gotrek ignored her, grimacing at the sparking silver veins shimmering across Trachos’ face. ‘Grungni’s teeth. No wonder you wear a hat.’

Trachos looked puzzled, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Maleneth staggered on up the pipe, struggling to keep her head above water. ‘Can we compare wounds later?’

For a while they were swimming more than walking, but eventually they reached another intersection and tumbled back down into the main sewer, sliding and bouncing over the rubble until they landed with a crash at the bottom of the main concourse.

The water was only about a foot deep, and they sat there for a while panting and coughing. Even the Slayer seemed tired, leaning back against a broken support strut and massaging his massive forearms.

‘If you two stop dawdling we might reach that tower before the whole city comes down.’ He waved his axe at the various openings that led off the main pipe. ‘I hope for your sake that you know which way to go, manling.’

Trachos was studying his reflection in the surface of his helmet and muttering to himself.

‘It won’t get any less ugly,’ said Gotrek. ‘Can you get us to the tower or not?’

Trachos fixed his helmet back in place and nodded. ‘You only needed to keep going straight on. I told you, the main sewer leads from the tower.’

Gotrek shrugged and climbed to his feet. ‘Let’s get moving then.’

‘But you already knew that,’ said Maleneth. ‘Trachos told us the route when we first came down here.’ She gave the Slayer a wry smile. ‘You were still in the main tunnel. You weren’t lost. You didn’t need to come back for us. I think you missed us.’

Gotrek glared at her, then stomped off up the tunnel. ‘I just wanted to make sure I didn’t wander around down here till doomsday.’

Maleneth winced as she stood and stumbled after him. Every inch of her was bruised and cut, and she could not remember the last time she had eaten.

‘Aelves,’ snorted Gotrek. ‘No stamina.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Every time I start to think you might be slightly interesting, you open your mouth. Then I remember that you’re an irascible infant trapped in the body of an ale-infused boar.’

Gotrek snorted and spat. ‘What’s an irascible?’

‘Don’t play the fool,’ she muttered. ‘You’re absurd enough.’

‘It’s stopped again!’ called Trachos.

They looked back down the pipe and saw that he had halted near one of the holes spilling light down from the streets above.

‘The bone rain has stopped,’ he said, shining his torch across the opening.

‘What of it?’ said Gotrek, walking back to him. ‘You said the sewers were the most direct way.’

‘But they’re flooding.’ Trachos waved his light over the water rising all around them. ‘It’s not as high yet as it was in the smaller tunnels, but it will be soon. And this whole structure is unstable. Whatever has been shaking the city has dislodged the foundations.’

He waded to the far side of the tunnel and shoved a fallen column.

Gotrek and Maleneth backed away as the masonry toppled towards them, smashing against the edge of the opening above and creating a crumbling ramp back up to the street.

Gotrek barged past her and clambered up the column. ‘Keep up, aelf. You don’t want pretty boy fishing this rune out of my corpse while you’re still swimming with turds.’

She gripped her knives tighter as she climbed up after him, amazed to think that she had actually been pleased to see his face a few minutes ago.

They emerged to a scene of such desolation that it halted them in their tracks.

The storm had been brief but apocalyptic. Roofs had collapsed and windows had shattered, and scattered across the streets in every direction, people were crawling through the wreckage, clutching wounds or sobbing over the corpses of their kin.

Even Gotrek looked shocked. The tower at the city’s heart was burning brighter than ever, bathing everything in the amethyst pall of death magic, and the desolation was terrible to look at.

Gotrek grimaced at the wounded and the dying. ‘The prince could have got them underground quicker. This could have been avoided.’ He nodded at the tower. ‘Looks like something big is happening in there.’ He rushed across the street, clambering over wrecked carts and carriages and ignoring the pitiful figures heaped around him.

As Maleneth and Trachos staggered after him, he dropped down into an empty street and hurried past the facade of what looked to be a temple, wrought of the same pale, bone-like curves as the other buildings they had seen. There were broad, sweeping steps leading up to it, and dozens of wounded people were sprawled across them, obviously struck down before they had managed to reach the temple doors.

Maleneth and Trachos tried to keep pace with Gotrek, but they were both carrying dozens of injuries, and by the time they dropped down into the street, he was far in the distance, running down a broad, empty boulevard that led to the foot of the tower.

People were sprawled all around them, groaning in pain and fear, both soldiers and civilians, cut apart and defenceless – and ghouls were rushing towards them from every direction.

‘This is a deliberate tactic,’ Maleneth said, shaking her head, surprised she had not realised sooner. ‘Their leader must be some kind of sorcerer. He hurls this bone rain at his enemies, and then, by the time the mordants arrive, there’s nothing left to fight.’

One of the ghouls was just a few feet away, and as she passed, it leapt at her. She dodged easily, lashing out with her knives as the spitting wretch stumbled on, spilling its blood across the dusty road.

As the ghoul thudded to the ground, dozens more lurched towards her, grunting and grabbing pieces of wreckage.

Trachos hammered two into oblivion, humming as he fought, and Maleneth cut down more, but there were already hundreds spilling from the streets, tearing at each other in their frenzy to feed.

Maleneth and Trachos ran on along the one remaining path through the mob and reached the approach to the tower.

Gotrek was almost at the doors, silhouetted by the light leaking through the walls, when something odd happened.

The ghouls backed away, moving in unison, as though responding to a silent command.

Maleneth staggered to a halt, confused. ‘What are they doing?’ The ghouls were acting as if they had regained control of their senses, shuffling together and even trying to form regimented lines, like an army of drunks attempting to look sober for a parade. ‘Are they ghouls or not?’

Trachos waved her on. ‘It doesn’t matter – we need to reach that tower. Volant will be waiting in the Halls of Separation.’

Maleneth shook her head as she studied the crowds. ‘It’s like they’re still human.’ She gave Trachos a warning look. ‘Surely you, of all people, want to know what you’re killing?’

He slowed to a halt and looked around. ‘They’re flesh-eaters.’

The ghouls were still hunched, aberrant horrors, convulsing and snatching, but they were trying to form orderly lines and none of them were making any attempt to attack. They had made a living colonnade down the length of the boulevard, and dozens more were joining their ranks every second. Maleneth guessed that there must already be a few hundred.

Gotrek halted and looked back at the grotesque parade while Mal­eneth and Trachos jogged towards him.

‘What are they playing at?’ he demanded as they reached him. ‘Why are they doing this?’

They both shook their heads and stared back down the boulevard. There was now a vast crowd of the flesh-eaters, huddled together in a strange semblance of order. Many of them still wore shreds of clothing, and some might have almost passed for normal if not for their blank eyes and awkward, jerking limbs.

‘Maybe that’s why,’ said Trachos, pointing his sceptre towards the city walls.

Maleneth stared into the distant gloom and saw what looked like a flock of birds soaring over the rooftops, heading straight for them. She quickly realised the truth. They were the huge, bat-like things they had seen through Trachos’ spyglass on the city walls. She heard their dreadful, screeching cry echoing through the streets.

‘Khaine’s blood,’ she hissed. ‘Not these things again.’

‘No,’ said Gotrek, jabbing his axe at the winged monsters. ‘They are not the same.’ He laughed as they flew closer and were lit up by the light of the tower. ‘These are noble steeds.’

The riders were straight-backed and proud, their chins raised, and banners trailed from their saddles. Some wore pieces of broken barrel on their heads, like crowns, and some carried pieces of wreckage on their arms, as though they were shields. But their flesh was as ravaged as the figures lined up to greet them, and their bodies were just as gnarled and misshapen.

‘It’s the Ghoul King!’ roared Gotrek, grinning. ‘How regal he looks on his giant, dead bat.’

Maleneth waved a knife at the expectant crowds of ghouls lined up in front of them. ‘What would happen to these legions of flesh-eaters if you killed their noble leader?’

Gotrek raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting idea.’

‘We need to enter the tower,’ said Trachos. ‘Gotrek has sworn to guard the Unburied until the prince and Lhosia have performed their spell.’

Maleneth shook her head. ‘A spell that will save the Unburied, but not necessarily us. They were notably vague on that point.’ She pointed at the surrounding streets. Ghouls were shuffling closer from every direction, lining up with the others. ‘Can you see how many of these things there are? And look over there.’ She pointed further out into the city, back the way they had come. Columns of figures were marching beneath the Ghoul King, countless hundreds of mordants arriving from the Eventide.

Gotrek sucked at his beard, frowning, considering her words.

Then the light in the tower pulsed with renewed energy, scattering beams across the underside of the clouds, and a bell rang out, dull and tuneless, like the one they had heard when they first reached the borders of Morbium.

They all turned to look at the building. It was like a coiled white tusk, peppered with circular windows. The smooth, honeycombed walls were made of polished bone, and as the light grew, the tower looked like a shimmering flame.

‘Something’s happening up there!’ cried Gotrek, scowling. ‘They’ve bloody started without me.’ He waved his axe at the army gathering behind them. ‘There will be plenty of time to deal with these morons.’ With that he turned and raced through the doors of the tower.

Maleneth and Trachos followed him into an atrium, slamming the doors shut behind them. The smooth, undulating walls of the tower contained no floors, only a single spiral staircase at its centre, surrounded by a wide, open, circular space. The staircase climbed to a central platform hundreds of feet above, and the walls were hung with thousands of white, wing-shaped shields, all covered in lines of poetry. There was something eerie about such an enormous space, devoid of rooms or furniture and bathed in purple light, and Mal­eneth paused for a moment, shaking her head. She felt as though she was in a dream.

The light was coming from about halfway up the walls, where the shields were replaced by hundreds of cocoons that nestled in the curves, burning with inner light. After the noise and violence of the last few days, Maleneth was shocked to find that the tower was quiet. Other than the echoes of the bell, there was a strange, peaceful hush. The screeching of the terrorgheists had been silenced as soon as they shut the doors. It was as though they had stepped into another realm.

She looked out through the nearest window and saw that the ruined city was still there, along with the crowds of ghouls, but their din had been silenced.

‘Witchblade,’ said Trachos, rushing past her and heading up the stairs.

She snapped out of her reverie and saw that the Slayer was climbing up into the light, moving fast.

Maleneth ran over to the staircase. The spiral was broad and shallow, but circling at such a pace still made her dizzy after a few minutes of running, and the building was so huge that she felt as though she was making no progress, turning without climbing in a soundless void.

The bell rang out again. Inside the tower it was deafening, and Maleneth cursed, clamping her hands over her ears as the sound reverberated through her skull.

Just as the ringing seemed to be fading, the wall of the tower caved in, slabs of bone and metal tumbling across the steps.

Maleneth dropped into a crouch as a terrorgheist screamed into view, thrashing its wings and hurling broken masonry across the staircase.

There was a ghoul on the monster’s back, wearing a crown and a preposterous air of nobility. The rider carried a rusted, crooked spear, and it pointed the ridiculous weapon at Gotrek, who was still racing up the steps, not far from the circular platform at the top of the tower.

A second terrorgheist smashed through the walls, causing more of the building to topple and revealing the rows of rooftops outside.

The creatures were enormous and revolting, skin trailing from their bones in ragged shreds and rotten intestines snaking behind them as they turned. They both had the same pug-nosed, bat-like faces, and at a signal from the Ghoul King they screamed in unison.

Maleneth howled, but her voice was lost beneath the screeching of the terrorgheists.

Trachos had halted a few steps further up. He was shaking in pain, and the sparks around his helmet had grown worse, dancing across his pauldrons and down his chest armour.

She managed to climb up towards him, still crying out as the terror­gheists whirled around them, screeching and pounding their wings.

Trachos was struggling to stand, but she grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. He leant on her shoulder, almost crushing her with his armoured bulk, before righting himself and starting to limp up the stairs.

Something hurtled out from the upper steps and slammed into one of the terrorgheists. The creature pounded its wings, trying to maintain its position as its rider stood in the saddle, straining to see what had hit its steed.

‘Gotrek,’ mouthed Maleneth, guessing the nature of the projectile even before she saw the Slayer clamber up the terrorgheist’s neck, grin furiously and slam his axe into its skull.