The Bone Desert

Chapter Eight

She remembered being told by a human warrior, Bayzor, a fellow member of the Order of the Azyr, that whenever he awoke after being struck unconscious, it was the pain that let him know he was still living. Apparently in whatever afterlife he believed in, there was no pain, so its presence indicated that he was not yet dead.

Maleneth had no such certainties. The temples of the Black Courts and the Shadow Covens preached little other than pain, and the cold murder that eased it. As she woke, acutely aware of the spikes of agony in her side and throbbing in her skull, her sluggish thoughts wondered whether she was about to face her final trials before the Bloody-Handed, and perhaps reckon one last time with her old mistress.

A part of her, distant and icy as a Shyish morning, hoped Jakari had already crossed over, and was waiting for her.

The God of Murder would permit no such mercies. Mal­eneth’s eyes fluttered open, and she found herself looking once more at Gotrek’s scarred, blunt face. She started, trying to push herself away from the duardin and realising when she did so that she was sitting up with her back to the skyship’s hull. A section of copper pipes, ruptured, had been digging into her side, slicing her leathers. She groaned as her movements teased the dozen cuts and bruises she had gained over the previous day.

Gotrek stood, turning away from her. He had recovered his axe from somewhere, and she thought she caught a rare hint of amusement in his eye. She tested her throbbing head, touching it tentatively. Neither the lump on her scalp nor the bruises from the pipework seemed dangerous, but being flung around the hold seemed to have opened up the wound in her side given to her by the Alharabi dancers. She noticed as Gotrek moved away that his arm was injured too. Something had cut his right bicep to the bone, and the wound was still pulsing fresh blood, leaving his arm a sheet of glistening crimson.

She reached out one hand, grasping a metal strut that was broken out beyond the ribbing of what she took to be the skyship’s hull. As she stood she realised that the ground underfoot was shifting and hot – gone were the decking plates, replaced by sand.

They had landed, and they had survived. She saw that she was still in the hold, or what remained of it. The ship appeared to have grazed the top of the dune they had been plunging towards and settled on its flank in the valley between the first rise and the second. Wreckage littered the sand beyond the broken and twisted remains of the hold.

She tried to speak, but the sound came out as a dry croak, and descended into coughing. Gotrek turned back to her and undid something from his belt, tossing it down beside her. It was a flask, engraved with Kharadron markings. She put it to her lips, and was relieved to taste water rather than a burning duardin ale.

She’d barely started to drink when her stomach heaved, and she was forced to double up by a bout of retching. She was sick, the bile leaving her gasping and choking on all fours, its stink in her nostrils and its foul acid aftertaste thick in her throat. She slumped back into a sitting position, panting, wiping sweat-slick hair out of her face. She realised that she was shaking.

‘I’m almost impressed. I’d have thought such a crash would have ended a weakling, runty aelf,’ Gotrek said, standing over her.

The words made her laugh weakly, though she didn’t know why.

‘Drink more,’ he told her, turning his back again. She spat out the sickly aftertaste, and tentatively took another sip of what remained in the flask.

‘You are wounded,’ she said. The words came out raw sounding. He grunted, not turning back to face her.

‘Had worse.’

‘Not while I’ve been with you.’

‘You’ve not been with me very long, dark aelf.’

She somehow found the strength to roll her eyes. ‘You need to clean and bind that wound, before you lose any more blood.’

‘I’d rather clean and bind your incessantly jabbering mouth.’

Gotrek moved out of the hull’s shadow and into the burning light of the desert. Taking a moment to compose herself, Maleneth found her feet and followed him, shielding her eyes from the glare. Side by side, they surveyed the wreckage of the downed Kharadron skyship.

It had taken a section of the dune behind them with it during its first collision, ploughing a deep furrow down into the valley floor. Most of the ship’s broken hull was intact, but two of the three endrins had come apart completely, their twisted metal strewn all over the sand. There were bodies too, Mal­eneth realised. Kharadron corpses, scattered indiscriminately amidst the ruination of their frigate.

‘I’ve never known duardin-crafted machinery to fail like that,’ she said, looking at the crumpled remains of the only remaining semi-intact endrin, buried in the dune a hundred yards off to her right.

‘Malakai’s would not have,’ Gotrek grumbled.

‘Whose?’

‘The only dwarf I would trust to fly a damned skyship. He was an inventor, the likes of which you won’t find in these dull realms. The manling says we are not far from the Eight Pillars. They are that way.’ He gestured over the next dune.

‘The manling…’ Maleneth began, then spotted movement among the skyship’s remains. A figure was crawling from the shattered portholes of what had been the frigate’s main cabin section. As he wormed his way out into the sand, Maleneth recognised Aziz. The teamster got to his feet and, noticing her, waved cheerfully. Miraculously, he seemed completely unharmed.

‘They had supplies,’ Gotrek said by way of explanation as Aziz jogged over. He had tied half a dozen more Kharadron flasks around his waist, and they clattered with every step he took. There was a sack over his back as well.

‘You are awake, sellah,’ he exclaimed as he reached Mal­eneth. She grimaced.

‘I feel like I would rather not be.’

Aziz’s cheerful demeanour withered before Maleneth’s icy response. She forced herself to acknowledge him properly, against her better instincts.

‘Had you not told me to close the hatch, I would likely be standing in judgement before Khaine right now. For that, you have my thanks, Aziz.’

The teamster’s smile returned, infectious. He reached back into the sack and drew out two lengths of blood-encrusted silver – Maleneth’s knives.

‘Anything for you, sellah,’ he said, handing each blade to her in turn.

‘They were in the cabin,’ Gotrek said.

‘They wanted to sell us on with all of our possessions,’ Mal­eneth said, appreciating having the two weapons in her hands, before sliding them into her belt. ‘Many thanks once more, Aziz.’

‘The Eight Pillars,’ Gotrek said to the human. ‘You’re sure of the way?’

‘Sure as Hysh rises over the Sea of Mer, sellah,’ Aziz said, gesturing up at the burning orb dominating the cloudless sky. He dropped his arm to point over the nearest dune. ‘Though upon my word I do not know how far it will be.’

‘We can’t go back,’ Maleneth said. ‘Khaled-Tush will be nothing but ash now. Besides, your wound must be seen to.’

She reached out to touch Gotrek’s injured arm, but the Slayer drew back with a scowl.

‘Do not treat me like some newborn beardling, aelf. I see through your scheming. You will advise me to go to that temple of yours. You want to make me their prisoner.’

‘There are healers at the Temple of the Lightning,’ Maleneth said, trying to mask her exasperation. ‘A learned human chirurgeon, loyal to the Order of the Azyr. If you do not have it properly cleaned it will become infected. How well will a demi­god deal with amputation?’

‘I have fought through this world and the last without losing any part of me I hold dear,’ the Slayer grunted. ‘I’m not going to start now.’

Maleneth looked to Aziz, but the human wouldn’t meet her eye, clearly not wanting to be drawn into an argument between his unlikely companions. She sighed.

‘I am going to the Eight Pillars,’ Gotrek said. ‘The location of the Axe of Grimnir will be revealed to me. Where you go is your own choice.’

The Slayer trailed off as Maleneth moved suddenly to her right, her face contorting with anger.

She’d seen one of the Kharadron bodies littering the desert stirring. She had assumed they were all dead, pulverised by their fall or broken by the frigate’s impact. She realised now that she was wrong.

She recognised the duardin – it was the only one with a golden ancestor mask, rather than silver, the same one that had dragged her out of the brig. She felt her spite surge and, without thinking, dropped to her knees in the sand and pressed her knife against the Kharadron’s gorget seal.

A fist clamped like a vice around her wrist before she could push the tip home. She looked up at Gotrek, face contorted with anger.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Call it habit,’ Gotrek said. ‘But it wouldn’t sit right to watch an aelf slit a dwarf’s throat in his sleep.’

‘They’re pirates,’ Maleneth said incredulously. ‘They killed hundreds of innocent people at Khaled-Tush. They were going to sell all of us to the hag only knows who!’

‘And they’ve collected their rewards,’ Gotrek answered, pointing with his free, bloody hand at the wrecked skyship and the bodies scattered around it.

‘If any more of them have survived they’ll follow us!’

‘You think they’ll go far?’ Gotrek replied. ‘We’ve taken all their water. If you want them dead, you’ll only have to wait. Anyway, we don’t have the time to go through the wreckage and follow its trail to find every last injured one. I want to get to that damned inscription.’

The son of Gurni is correct, Witchblade. They’re as good as dead. Stop wasting time.

‘He is a fool,’ Maleneth growled back, but moved her blade away from the Kharadron’s throat. Gotrek released her arm.

‘Let us make haste then,’ she said, standing. ‘Or we could wait until he’s fully awake. Will you let me kill him then?’

Gotrek said nothing, but motioned to Aziz, standing uncertainly nearby.

‘The Eight Pillars, manling. Lead on.’