The Bone Desert

Chapter Five

It was not often that Maleneth found herself approving of Gotrek Gurnisson’s more rash moments. Just then, however, with the fires of Khaled-Tush at her back and the screams of the burned and the dying ringing in her ears, Maleneth understood the Slayer’s fury perfectly.

The Kharadrons opposite him fired. The motions seemed half in haste as they started back from the charging Slayer, and though their faces were inscrutable behind their ancestor masks Maleneth didn’t doubt that the sight of Gotrek unleashed had more than intimidated them. As he broke into a run the Master Rune surged with light, and bright energy seemed to suffuse the duardin’s body, blazing in his eye and making his hair bristle, the red dye shot through with gold.

Maleneth had seen it only a few times in all the months they had spent together, and every time it burned away any doubts she had about the power of Gotrek Gurnisson.

The net launchers carried by two of the Kharadrons failed to fire properly, one entangling its own muzzle while the second simply thumped into the dirt at Gotrek’s feet. Maleneth heard one Kharadron screaming at the others to reload as the Slayer closed the ground between them with a thunderous charge, the fire wreathing his greataxe blazing.

Maleneth raced after him, knives out. Her anger boiled no less hot than the Slayer’s, a murder-curse on her lips. If the Overlords thought Gotrek was fearsome, they had never seen a servant of Khaine raised to ire.

Gotrek hit them first, while the ones with net launchers were struggling to reload. In a panic the nearest Kharadron tried to shoot his pistol at the Slayer. The point-blank discharge simply grazed Gotrek’s flank, and he burst through the smoke with a furious two-handed overhead swing of his axe. The mighty weapon struck the Kharadron clean on the skull, and parted helmet, head and sky-suit with ease, shearing the duardin in half in a shower of blood that hissed where it pattered against the glowing steel of the heated axe blades.

‘Oath-breaking grobkaz,’ Gotrek roared, his voice booming like a thunderclap. He shouldered his way through the bloody remains of the first Overlord and swung for the second, cleaving his head from his shoulders and sending it hurtling like a catapult stone away into the night. More weapons discharged, only adding to the confusion as Maleneth leapt in among the melee. One of the Overlords had managed to look away from Gotrek long enough to see her coming, and he brought his cutlass up in time to knock away a stab towards his heart. He went back, cursing, and Maleneth kept going, jabbing at the unarmoured parts of his rubbery sky-suit, keeping her body in perpetual motion. It was like the Seventeen Blades all over again.

No, she corrected herself as she slipped around a desperate slash of the cutlass and back into the duardin’s guard. The Seventeen Blades was like murder.

‘Stand firm, you wannazi!’ one of the Kharadrons was bellowing, and Maleneth realised that more were rushing towards the fight from the direction of the burning caravans. She was hopelessly outnumbered. They should never have confronted them, even after realising the skyfaring duardin were responsible for the firestorm. She couldn’t have stopped Gotrek though, not after he’d seen the way they were cutting down those who escaped the flames.

A feint to the right, and the dagger in her left hand slipped in under the chin of the Overlord she was fighting, plunging up behind his ancestor mask. A single line of blood ran from the mouth slit down the mask’s stylised silver beard, and he made a wet gargling sound as Maleneth twisted the knife and dragged it free.

Something slammed into her from behind as she did so. She tried to spin away, but it grappled with her, fighting to find a purchase on her light leather armour. She felt something crack into her leg, making her gasp with pain. The stink of rubbery sky-suits and filthy duardin sweat invaded her senses, overpowering the reek of burning.

She managed to twist and writhe her way out of the grip, spinning with one blade outstretched as she turned. It jarred off a Kharadron’s helmet, and as she tried to dance further back to give herself more room she felt her leg give. One of the new attackers rushing to the scene had hit her calf with the swipe of a hammer, and the limb couldn’t properly support her weight any more. She buckled, spitting a blood curse at the Kharadrons as they rushed at her.

‘Alive, I said alive!’ she could hear one of the duardin shouting in his grating language. She slid around the thrust of a sky pike and knocked aside another swinging cutlass, but as she tried to repost her leg gave way entirely and she went down on one knee. Another Kharadron tackled her from the side, bearing her down onto the ground, and she felt her grip go on one of her knives. She wrapped her arms around the struggling bulk of the one on top of her and slammed her remaining blade into the small of his back, trying to work it through his thick sky-suit. He cursed, then headbutted her.

Stars burst before her eyes as the ancestor mask slammed down. She tried to turn her head away, gasping at the pain in her skull, and through her blurred vision saw Gotrek, splattered with blood, being ensnared by another volley from the net launchers.

She tried to reach out to him, tried to shout, but the Kharadron’s helm cracked into her jaw again, and she knew no more.