Ghoulslayer

Chapter Two The Bone Rain

The sorcerer paused halfway across the street, staring at something. The mammoth was gone, but there were still crowds of people dashing back and forth and loading carts. Several had done the same as Kurin, halting to look back down the road in the direction of the town gates.

‘God of Murder,’ said Maleneth. ‘What now?’

‘Another gift from the gods,’ said Kurin, calm despite the abomination that was spreading across the sky.

Beyond the gates the clouds were changing – swelling and trembling and forming mountainous black thunderheads. They were clearly not normal storm clouds. They were boiling out of an empty grey sky, like smoke pluming from a wound.

As more people noticed what was happening, the crowds became even more panicked. People screamed and abandoned the luggage they were trying to lug into carts. The wind grew in ferocity and bone cages broke free from the doorways, clattering down the street, scattering fingers and feathers as they whirled through the dust.

Maleneth coughed and gagged as dust filled her nostrils. There was an awful smell on the air – the heavy, thick stink of death. It was coming from the cloud forming on the horizon.

Drinkers spilled out of the Muffled Drum, pallid and swearing as they looked up at the approaching storm.

‘This way,’ called Kurin, waving in the opposite direction to the clouds, at a building back down the street.

Gotrek ignored him, planting his feet firmly apart and staring at the storm.

‘Gotrek!’ cried Maleneth. ‘Whatever that is–’ Her words were cut off as the inn’s sign tore free and flew through the air, almost hitting her. She leapt aside and shielded her eyes as it smashed on the road, hurling shards of wood.

Gotrek was still leaning into the wind, grinning and testing the weight of his axe.

‘Don’t die here,’ called Kurin, ‘in this tiresome little town. Don’t waste your energy on a place that’s already been forgotten. I can show you how to reach Nagash.’

Gotrek looked back at him as the pieces of a broken shrine bounced off him – shards of bone and wire knotted with hair. He frowned. ‘Tell me again why you would want to help me?’

‘I see something in you, duardin. I have a feeling that–’ Kurin tried to say more, but the storm was making it hard to breathe. Whatever the sorcerer was made of, his body was not bound by the same physics as anyone else’s. He began to fragment and dissipate, buffeted violently by the reeking storm. For a moment, he seemed to collapse completely, snatched away by the wind, but then he reformed, his regal features tumbling back into place. ‘We don’t have long!’ His voice reverberated down the street, laden with unnatural power.

Maleneth’s legs carried her after him, moving of their own volition. She cursed as she realised the man had bewitched her.

Trachos was at Gotrek’s side, hammers raised, weighted down by his hulking sigmarite armour as everyone else was being blown back down the street. The storm was now so violent that several carts were lying overturned in the whirling dust and doors were being ripped from their hinges and hurled through the air.

Gotrek was still looking at Kurin, who was flickering in and out of view, merging with the dust clouds. Then he shrugged and began walking towards the sorcerer, with Trachos staggering after him.

A porch near Maleneth broke free, and one of the beams thudded painfully into her calves. She fell and tumbled down the street, gasping and choking as she bounced over the hard ground. She slammed against the side of a wood store and managed to grab hold.

Fool, said her mistress. You missed your chance. I said you would.

Maleneth snarled, wanting to disagree, but she could barely see Gotrek now. He was just a vague, stocky silhouette in the dust, with Trachos looming over him, massive and unshakeable.

‘Gotrek!’ she cried, but at that moment, the cloud burst, splitting down the middle with a deafening boom and spewing rain on the road to Klemp.

No, it wasn’t rain; it looked more like hail – hard, white shards that gleamed as they fell and kicked up dust as they hit the ground.

The hail rushed towards the town, and the few people still on the street dived for cover, leaping through doorways and slamming shutters.

Maleneth could see no sign of Gotrek or Trachos.

‘No!’ She hauled herself from the wood store and dived through a broken window into the house next to it. ‘I won’t lose that blessed rune! Not after all this!’

There was a man cowering in the room, hunkered down behind an overturned table. She glared at him as she crawled towards an opening where the wall had collapsed. As the wind sliced into her again, she saw that the hail had now reached the town and was tearing up the street like knives, drumming loudly across the packed earth and rushing towards her in a flashing wave.

The man gasped, staring at the hail as though it were a host of daemons.

His fear was infectious. Maleneth backed away from the opening and dropped down next to him.

‘What is it?’ she cried, struggling to be heard over the din.

He shook his head, not looking at her, still staring at the hail.

She pressed a blade to his throat. ‘What is it?’ she repeated with more vehemence.

He still kept looking at the storm, but this time he did at least answer. ‘Bone rain!’ He sounded demented. ‘The death storm! Nagash’s storm!’

‘What do you mean?’ she shouted, pressing the blade harder until blood formed at his throat.

‘It means the mordants are coming!’ He was about to say more when his face turned a worrying shade of purple and he fell back against the wall.

Maleneth was confused for a moment, then cursed as she remembered lacing her knife with venom when she had been about to fight Trachos.

‘Idiot!’ she whispered, glaring at the discoloured corpse.

She let him drop to the ground then ran through a doorway into the next room, still looking for the Slayer.

There was no sign of him, just more locals, cowering fearfully under a table as the storm lashed against the walls, sounding like waves breaking against a promontory.

Maleneth cursed when she saw there was nowhere left to go. She walked over to the barred door, but the family crouched under the table immediately began screaming.

‘It’s just hail,’ she said, glaring at them, but she did not feel as confident as she sounded.

‘It’s bone rain!’ gasped one of them, shaking his head furiously. ‘It’ll tear you apart!’

Maleneth frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

The man would say no more, wrapping his arms around his head and leaning against his family.

Maleneth hissed a curse and looked back at the door. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she whispered, but she did not go any further.

She began pacing around the room, flipping her knives from hand to hand, glowering at the people under the table and wondering where Trachos and Gotrek would be by now.

They will have gone with the sorcerer. Gotrek will be glad to see the back of you.

Not true, she thought. The Slayer enjoys tormenting me. And he definitely has no love for Trachos.

After ten minutes or so, the sound of the storm started to lessen.

‘It’s passing us by,’ she whispered, itching to open the door.

The man under the table looked up at her, hope in his eyes. ‘Wait,’ he said, holding up a warning hand. ‘Be sure.’

Maleneth wanted to hurl a knife into his pathetic face, but she held off from opening the door until the noise had completely died away. Then she carefully opened it a crack and peered out into the gloom.

The rain had gone, but the storm had left the street cluttered with all sorts of debris. Whole sections of houses had collapsed, leaving rooms exposed and scattering furniture through the dust.

There were people sprawled in the rubble, bleeding and crying out in pain, lacerated so badly they looked like they had survived a knife fight. There were pieces of hail everywhere, creating a brittle carpet that crunched under Maleneth’s boots as she walked out into the street. She stopped to look closer and saw that rather than being cold and glistening, they were dry, dusty shards.

Kurin, Gotrek and Trachos had emerged from the house opposite, and the sorcerer waved at the people lying bleeding in the dust. ‘This is just the prelude.’

She shook her head, but then saw what Kurin meant. There were figures emerging from the storm, staggering through the dust clouds.

Maleneth laughed in disbelief as the first of them stumbled into view. It was as though the man were acting out a ridiculous performance. He was standing in an awkward, hunched posture, and his face was twisted in a deranged leer. Only his eyes robbed the scene of humour – they were staring and blank.

He hobbled towards Kurin, breathing heavily and flexing his bony hands. He was dressed in tattered scraps of armour and he moved like his body had been broken and only crudely repaired. He lurched and stumbled as though struggling to stand, but as he crossed the street he gained momentum, rushing through fence posts and charging.

Kurin watched the man’s approach with no sign of concern, then, at the last moment, disintegrated into a cloud of dust, his would-be attacker lunging at the space he had just occupied before falling to the floor.

The man thrashed, panting and gasping, then stood and leapt at the nearest person. Unfortunately for him, that was Gotrek.

The Slayer swung his enormous greataxe with no sign of effort, sinking the blade deep into his attacker’s skull.

The man staggered under the impact but did not fall. He looked confused as he reached up to touch the blade that was embedded in his head.

‘You’re dead,’ prompted Gotrek.

The man snarled and tried to jump at him again.

The Slayer muttered a curse, wrenched the axe free and hacked it through his neck, sending his head bouncing through the dust.

For a few seconds the man carried on, staggering towards Gotrek with blood rushing down his chest.

Then he crashed to the ground and finally lay still.

‘Gotrek,’ said Trachos, waving one of his hammers down the street.

Dozens more people were lurching into the town, men and women dressed in bloody rags and twitching like marionettes. Their backs were so hunched that their spines jutted through their flesh, and their long, emaciated arms hung down to the ground so that they punched the dirt as they ran simian-like into the light.

‘What devilry is this?’ grunted Gotrek, looking at Maleneth.

She shook her head, drawing her knives as the blank-eyed mob rushed towards them.

‘They’re mordants,’ said Kurin. He had reappeared a few feet away. Dust was still eddying around his robes, and his face took a moment to solidify. ‘Their lord sends the bone rain in first. It gives them an easy victory.’

The mob limped and hopped down the street, their hands extended and twisted, like broken claws.

‘What they lack in intellect,’ said the sorcerer with a smile, ‘they make up for in hunger.’

‘Ghouls?’ Gotrek sneered. ‘I’ve met their like before.’ He reeled drunkenly down the street, collided with an overturned cart then righted himself, raised his axe and hurled himself at the mob.

He landed with a flurry of blows, scattering limbs and heads.

Trachos limped to his side and began hammering the few creatures Gotrek had missed.

Maleneth gave Kurin a despairing look, but he just shrugged, seeming amused by the carnage.

‘Can you get him to Nagash?’ she cried, yelling over the sound of the fighting.

He nodded, still watching the fight.

As Gotrek and Trachos lunged and hacked, dozens more of the mordants were emerging from the storm, all moving with the same disjointed gait. They formed a ragged circle around the pair, closing in on them.

Gotrek and Trachos were hugely outnumbered, but Maleneth made no move to help. She had seen the Slayer face much worse odds without breaking into a sweat. As the crowds tried uselessly to swamp him, she turned to Kurin.

‘Why would you help him?’ she shouted, struggling to raise her voice over the howling wind.

‘There is a change coming, aelf. I feel it in this wind. And I can see it in your friend. Getting him to Nagash could be a piece of the puzzle.’

Maleneth shook her head. ‘Servants of the God-King do not–’

‘I don’t serve the God-King!’ cried Gotrek, striding back towards them, leaving a heap of broken bodies in his wake.

‘Not directly,’ said Maleneth, ‘but–’

‘Not in any way!’

Kurin nodded in approval, then turned to Maleneth. ‘And you? How many gods do you prostrate yourself before? Is Sigmar your only keeper?’

She glared at him. ‘I’m an acolyte of the Hidden Temple, the Bloody-Handed, the Widowmaker. The Lord of Murder is my soul and my heart. But I’m–’

‘But you’re no fool,’ interrupted Kurin. ‘Whatever you swore to Khaine, Sigmar’s Stormhosts are your only chance of survival. So your unshakeable faith is now shared with the storm god.’

Fury boiled through Maleneth. ‘My queen communed with Khaine. She is the High Oracle, and she has prophesied the destruction of Chaos. Soon everyone will see the power of the Murder God.’ She laughed. ‘Turn your back on the gods if you like, wizard, but it won’t help you escape their wrath.’

Kurin rolled his eyes.

Gotrek glanced back at the dead ghouls and then beyond the town walls, to the storm clouds that were still whipping through the darkness. ‘How would you get me to Nagash?’

‘I can do nothing unless we leave Klemp.’

Maleneth was about to ask another question when Kurin held up a hand for silence, nodding down the street.

Klemp was swarming with mordants. There were now hundreds of them, tearing down doors and clambering through windows. Screams knifed through the storm as the creatures dragged people from their homes, snarling and clawing, filling the air with blood.

‘Into my rooms,’ said Kurin, waving casually towards one of the buildings. ‘Quickly.’