Ghoulslayer

Chapter Fourteen The Barren Points

The road headed south for a mile before it started to bend west and climb towards the stars. Gotrek walked just a few paces from the edge, staring out into the void and shaking his head. ‘What do you call these roads again?’ he asked, looking back at Lhosia.

‘These are the wynds,’ she replied. ‘This is the Great South Wynd, one of the largest highways in the princedom. From here we will pass the Sceptred Wynd and the Wynd of Foreknowing. Beyond that we will reach the Barren Points, home of Lord Aurun, Warden of the Northern Climbs. There we shall find Prince Volant.’

Gotrek nodded and looked back out from the road. ‘How are these things suspended? Sorcery?’

‘The wynds are the veins of the princedom. They are hung from the prominents.’

‘The prominents are your fortresses?’ asked Maleneth, studying the few lights that still shone on the horizon.

Lhosia nodded. ‘And our temples and homes. The greatest of them are vast. There are thousands of people in a fortress like the Barren Points or the Lingering Keep. There are many kinds of–’ She cut off mid-sentence and stared up at the empty tracts of ocean.

‘The Lingering Keep?’ asked Maleneth.

‘Morbium’s capital,’ said Lhosia, her voice flat. ‘Home of Prince Volant, and home to the Amethyst Princes since the dawn of time.’

Gotrek was still gazing out at the lonely lights of the temples. ‘So the roads are hung from your cities, but what keeps the cities afloat?’

‘The Unburied,’ said Lhosia, touching the cocoon she carried. ‘We preserve our ancestors, and they, in turn, loan us their immortal power, feeding life into the prominents. Or at least, that’s how it has always been until now.’

They trudged on in silence for a while, the only sound coming from Trachos’ twisted boot as he dragged it along behind him. After walking for a few hours, his limp had become even more pronounced. Maleneth imagined he would like to rest but was too proud to ask. The thought of his stoical, grimacing silence made the journey slightly more entertaining.

Every dozen yards or so, they passed another corpse – either a dismembered ghoul, one of the knights in a flamboyant, feathered cloak or one of Morbium’s civilians – pale, emaciated wretches like Lhosia, dressed in white or dark purple robes. Every one of the corpses was surrounded by a mobile shroud of tiny moths that scattered when Maleneth and the others approached, filling the darkness with movement and noise. It took a few minutes for Maleneth to realise that one of the bodies up ahead was still moving, trying to fend off the moths.

‘Gotrek,’ she said, nodding towards the struggling shape.

He nodded and veered back into the centre of the road, slinging his axe from his back as he reached the man.

When the Slayer hauled the terrified wretch to his feet, Maleneth recognised his face. ‘The gatekeeper,’ she laughed. ‘You didn’t get far.’

‘Traitor!’ cried Lhosia, barging past Maleneth to confront him. ‘How dare you abandon your post? If you had done your duty, the mordants could have been halted. How could you hide yourself away while the Gravesward fought for their lives?’

The man tried to pull away from her, shaking his head, but he was trapped firmly in Gotrek’s iron grip. ‘High priestess… forgive me.’ His voice was shrill. ‘What could I do?’

‘What you were trained to do!’ Lhosia exclaimed. ‘What you were sworn to do!’ Her voice was taut with rage. Maleneth sensed that she was venting all the grief and rage that had been tormenting her since she had left the port. She drew her scythe and brandished it at the quaking man. ‘Your cowardice will have risked countless souls! I should execute you for your–’

‘They came so fast,’ said the gatekeeper, shaking his head. ‘There was no time to lock the gates or raise the wynd. Even the Gravesward could not hold them back.’ His eyes flicked towards Lhosia. ‘I’ve never seen so many mordants. Where are they coming from? Why are the prominents growing dark?’

‘The Iron Shroud has been breached,’ said Lhosia, not looking at the man. ‘Something has broken through the power of the Unburied. We have been revealed to the rest of the princedoms.’

The gatekeeper looked like he might be sick. He shook his head and muttered something to himself. ‘You’re headed somewhere,’ he said. ‘Where?’

‘Prince Volant is at the Barren Points. And I have promised to take this duardin to him.’

The man stepped away from Gotrek, staring at him in confusion, taking in the chest rune and the streaks of gold in his beard and mohawk. Then he turned towards Maleneth.

Her leathers were drenched in gore and her hair was clotted with blood, sticking up from her head at a deranged angle. She gave him a friendly wink.

‘Take me with you, priestess,’ he gasped, looking back at Lhosia. ‘Don’t leave me with these…’

Maleneth wondered whether he was more afraid of her or the ghouls.

Lhosia did not meet his eye, but nodded.

‘Only if you can keep up,’ said Gotrek, and marched off down the road.

As the road climbed higher, they saw other highways passing beneath them, criss-crossing the sea, made of the same amalgamation of bone and iron. After a few hours, lights began to wash over the metal, coming from up ahead.

‘Is this it?’ asked Maleneth, peering at the distant shape. ‘Is this the fortress where we will find your prince?’

Lhosia nodded.

Maleneth looked again at the shape in the distance, frowning as they walked towards it. ‘Did you say the lights come from the…’ She hesitated, gesturing at the cocoon Lhosia carried. ‘From those things?’

Again Lhosia nodded. ‘The Unburied.’

‘And did you say that your prince took all the Unburied back to your capital, so that they would be safe from the flesh-eaters?’

Lhosia hesitated, staring at the lights.

‘It would appear he’s overlooked some,’ said Maleneth.

The priestess strode on, gripping her scythe and picking up her pace.

‘Finally!’ grunted Gotrek, jogging after her. ‘Someone with a sense of urgency.’

The Barren Points were nothing like the fortress they had seen at the port. Rather than a shell-like spiral curve, it resembled an overgrown version of the shrine where they had first met Lhosia – a gnarled, briar-like tangle of bone towers, each knotted around the others to make an impenetrable tangle. The whole tormented mass reached up like flames, as large as a city and as strange as everything else they had seen in the princedom. Somewhere deep inside the knotted walls was the source of the purple light, which spilled through the gaps between the towers, landing on the sea in a jumble of rippling shafts.

‘Looks as buggered as the last place,’ said Gotrek.

The far side of the fortress had collapsed, and hundreds of fires littered the ruined walls. There were figures battling through the fumes, silhouetted by the flames. Even from half a mile away, it was clear that most of the figures were ghouls. They were breaching the walls in a way that no sane warrior would attempt, swarming over the defences like rats, scrabbling over each other in a frenzy to reach the defenders that had gathered to face them. War engines hurled comet-like missiles, huge spheres of purple flame that exploded on impact, drenching the ghouls in liquid heat and adding to the fires that were spreading quickly through their ranks, but the shots were wild and sporadic.

Lhosia stared at the carnage. ‘If the Barren Points fall, there is nothing to stop them taking the Northern Wards.’

‘Are they more of your sacred moths?’ asked Maleneth, peering at the clouds of tiny shapes that tumbled around the fighting.

Lhosia frowned in puzzlement, shaking her head.

‘We would not see moths from this distance,’ said Trachos. He took a carved ivory box from his belt and flicked a clasp on its side. A dozen linked boxes rattled out of it, each one smaller than the previous one, creating a long, square-sided tube. He snapped the clasp back, locking the boxes in place, then held the tube up to his helmet, looking through a lens at the narrow end. He muttered something and handed the spyglass to Maleneth.

She grimaced as the scene over the walls swam into focus. The flying shapes were ghouls with vast leathery wings, and as the knights reeled away from them, the creatures swooped down and tore them apart. ‘No one is leading the defence,’ she said. ‘Look. It’s mayhem. Where is this prince you’ve been telling us so much about? Is he the kind of prince that directs his troops from the local hostelry?’

They each took a turn with Trachos’ spyglass, but when it came to Gotrek, he held it for a long time, muttering under his breath. ‘There are thousands of ghouls at the front gates. They’re everywhere. I presume the gates on this side will be locked, and I don’t fancy our chances of climbing the walls. Any ideas how we get in?’

Lhosia was still staring at the battle on the walls. ‘Where is the prince? Or Lord Aurun?’

‘Priestess,’ said Maleneth, causing her to turn round in surprise. ‘Can you get us in? I can’t imagine it will be long before the ghouls take a look at this side of the fortress.’

‘Of course. I have my own routes into all of the prominents.’ She waved at the approach to the gates, where several smaller paths snaked away from the main one, then started to hurry on along the road. ‘Quickly.’

As they neared the fortress walls, they heard the sound of winged ghouls whirling overhead in the darkness. Some of them were making a thin, scraping, gasping sound. It was like a knife being dragged across porcelain. Maleneth would have found the noise easier to cope with if Trachos hadn’t tried to drown it out with another ­grating hymn. He tried to look proud and triumphant as he marched on, but his wounds made him more tragic than fearsome.

Think how easy it would be to lace one of your knives and jam it through those splits in his armour, whispered her mistress.

‘I serve the God-King,’ she muttered. ‘I serve something bigger than myself. You wouldn’t understand what that’s like.’

You were meant to serve me! You serve yourself before any god. And you need Gotrek dead if you’re going to claim the rune for yourself. How else can you guarantee that he won’t end up marching back into Azyr with it?

‘Look at him. He’s half dead already. I just need to bide my time and he’ll do the job for me. That way I’ll get the rune without breaking the oaths I swore in Azyrheim. The Order of Azyr won’t last long if we murder each other every time there’s a chance of glory.’

You’re getting soft in your old age. You care about him.

Maleneth laughed. ‘I haven’t changed that much.’

‘This way,’ said Lhosia, leading them down a side road that followed the curve of the fortress walls, heading down as it went.

Maleneth glanced up. This close, the fortress looked even stranger, like a forest of heat-warped bones.

‘Look out!’ cried the gatekeeper as a ghoul dived at them from its perch on the wall.

Maleneth cursed. The thing was huge, like the ghouls they had faced at the port.

Gotrek ran at the wall of the fortress with such speed that he managed to take a few steps up its sheer side and hurl himself into the air.

The ghoul screamed in confusion as the full weight of the Slayer hit its back. It struggled furiously, forcing everyone to back away, blinded by clouds of dust, but Gotrek was still laughing as he struggled to keep his footing on the monster. He reached down, grabbed its chin and snapped its neck.

Maleneth ducked as another ghoul attacked, but she was too slow and a fist slammed into the side of her head. She stumbled like a drunk, swerving across the road. Then her breath exploded from her lungs as she tripped over rubble and thudded to the ground.

She was vaguely aware of a figure standing over her, fending off the ghouls, but she did not realise who it was until she heard Trachos’ voice, booming out, ‘Mallus-born and fiery-eyed! Godly lightning in my hand! Turning back the darksome tide! From Sigmar’s golden starlit land!’

As the dust cleared, she saw him battling for her life, chin high and voice raised in triumph. He whirled his hammers back and forth, ignoring his wounds and his pain, smashing down every ghoul that scrambled towards her, punching sigmarite into their deranged faces. There was something horribly desperate in his words. It did not stem from fear of the ghouls, she realised, but fear of his own state of mind.

With a few of the ghouls down, the screams were more bearable and Maleneth managed to stand, staring at Trachos as he staggered away from her, dragging his ruined leg and looking for another target.

‘You’re such a dunce,’ she said. ‘Why were you protecting me? Without me around you’d have a chance of getting that rune.’

‘I will protect you with whatever strength Sigmar spares me, Mal­eneth Witchblade, servant of the God-King.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘So brave.’

‘This way!’ cried Lhosia, dashing under an archway and continuing on down the road.

Maleneth ran after her and Trachos followed as quickly as he could, but Gotrek stayed in the centre of the road, roaring at the horrors above. Some were clambering over the walls and others were pounding torn, rotten wings as they circled overhead. Deranged as they were, the ghouls appeared reluctant to go anywhere near a raging Slayer. ‘Get down here!’ he cried. ‘Or on my oath, I’ll sprout wings and come up there after you!’

‘Gotrek!’ shouted Maleneth, waving her knives at the archway. ‘The prince! He’s in the fortress, remember?’

Gotrek grunted, gave the ghouls one last glare, then stamped through the carnage towards the arch, shrugging gore from his massive shoulders.

The road followed the curve of the wall, and after a few minutes, the clamour of battle began to fade.

They passed through a low arch. Lhosia unlocked a small hidden door, and they entered the fortress, emerging onto a wide paved area surrounded by windows and doors, all of which had been shuttered and barred. They could hear battle all around them, but there was no sign of soldiers or ghouls. The place seemed to have been overlooked as the fighting raged all around it.

The glow they had seen outside the fortress was brighter here, and the buildings looked like shards of alabaster held before a fire, pale and shimmering with amethyst light. Lhosia looked furious as she studied the lights. ‘The Unburied should be safely in the capital by now. I explained to the prince. We didn’t need to lose a single soul, as long as he took them to the Lingering Keep.’ She waved her scythe at the lights. ‘And here they are, still at risk, surrounded by mordants.’

‘Where is he, lass?’ said Gotrek, wiping blood from his face as he trudged into the square.

She shook her head and gestured them on, across the square. She led them to a narrow lane that looped up behind one of the buildings, lined with dozens of market stalls.

As they neared the top of the steep road, the sounds of fighting grew louder.

They readied their weapons as they crested the hill and saw another square spread out below them.

A brutal clash was in full swing. Gravesward, black-armoured archers and white-robed priests were all backing slowly into the square as mordants tumbled from every wall and roof. The ghouls were in such a frenzy that they were killing themselves to reach the defenders, leaping from rooftops and smashing themselves across the flagstones or else being crushed by the weight of bodies.

The scene was dominated by an enormous fossilised serpent that towered over the soldiers, its bleached-bone wings rattling as it lashed at the ghouls, flinging them through the air.

The Erebid numbered no more than a couple of hundred, but every building was carpeted with frenzied ghouls and more were looping overhead, pounding their wings as they looked for a place to attack. Maleneth guessed that in the streets around the square alone, there must have been thousands of the creatures, all thrashing wildly as they tried to reach the scythe-wielding knights. The Erebid had formed a tight circle around one of their fallen comrades. Mal­eneth struggled to see the wounded warrior they were so desperate to protect, but he looked to be unconscious, slumped in the arms of another knight. It was a desperate scene. The Erebid were massively outnumbered, and most of them were bleeding from multiple wounds. As they backed into the square, mordants rushed towards them from every direction, spilling out of streets and windows in a flood of grey, mottled flesh.

‘This is not a fight we can win,’ said Maleneth, searching around for a place to take cover. ‘We need to think carefully about how we–’

‘Who’s the prince?’ bellowed Gotrek, swinging his axe cheerfully as he strode out into the square.