The Bone Desert

Chapter Six

‘Move,’ Durbarak urged, throwing a glance back over his shoulder at Khaled-Tush. The flames had spread to the greenery clustered on the banks of the oasis, and now the once-bustling outpost was wholly consumed, the constellations overhead lost in a thick bank of smoke and ash.

‘Hurry,’ Durbarak reiterated, smacking his leather gauntlet on Throm’s back for emphasis. The Draz Karr lay ahead, the throbbing of its idling endrins a welcome sensation in the ash-choked air. He glanced at Stromm, Elki and Borin, all three of them struggling to keep up. He’d ordered the Draz Karr’s stoutest crewmen to drag the Slayer prisoner, and even between them they were sweat-drenched and panting, half divested of their sky-suit cowling and armour plates.

The prisoner himself was unconscious, as was the aelf. It had taken considerably more effort to knock the former out than the latter. Even just looking back at the duardin, wrapped in thick strands of skywhale gut netting, Durbarak found himself at once afraid and fascinated by the Slayer and the infamous rune gleaming in his flesh. He wanted to get him back and clapped up in the Draz Karr’s brig before he stirred.

Gotrek Gurnisson was going to make them all rich, that much he was sure of.

‘Hook him up,’ Durbarak shouted up at the skyship’s main deck. He saw a figure – probably Skeg – appear briefly at the deck’s railings, and seconds later a pair of long cargo hooks, attached to winch lines, whickered down over the side of the hull and thumped into the dirt in front of Durbarak. He motioned at the Kharadrons around him. With practised speed, the duardin who had been hauling Gotrek attached the hooks to his netting.

There was a clattering noise as one of the frigate’s cargo winches began hoisting the Slayer skywards. ‘The axe,’ Durbarak said, motioning to Krazak. The crewmate had taken custody of Gotrek’s huge Fyreslayer weapon – from the beginning, Durbarak had been clear about the importance of not just taking Gotrek alive. The Slayer’s equipment and his companions were also vital. Capturing the infamous Slayer in his entirety would magnify his value, and Durbarak wasn’t going to miss out on individual payments in exchange for an easy life. That wasn’t how the Kharadrons functioned.

Krazak handed the Fyreslayer axe to Durbarak, who strapped it over his back. Grav-ladders were being lowered from the Draz Karr’s flank now, and the pitch of the endrins was ­rising as they prepared for a full lift-off. The second prisoner, the unconscious aelf, was being carried over Throm’s shoulder. The big duardin mounted the ladders first, followed by the rest of the landing party. Durbarak waited until the end, as was customary for the captain of the sky reivers, casting his gaze back at Khaled-Tush. The outpost was now little more than a sheet of flame. The formerly cool night air of the desert was thick with the stink of charred wood and burned flesh, and hung heavy with black smoke and grey ash. The oasis had been transformed into a furnace. The sights and smells filled Durbarak with a deep grim happiness, and it took an effort to turn away and climb back aboard his ship.

As delightful as such devastation was, thoughts of the bounty he would collect with the Slayer and the aelf as his prisoners proved even more tantalising. The amount he had been offered to kill them was trifling by comparison.

The visions of wealth lasted only a few moments. Durbarak’s boots had barely thumped down on the Draz Karr’s decking plates before he realised something was out of order. Both the Slayer and the aelf had been safely deposited, but they were not the only beings brought on board by the crew. A human, young and scrawny, was being held in Skeg’s steel gauntlet, shivering and wailing in some garbled desert language.

‘Who’s this?’ Durbarak demanded, uncoupling himself from the grav-ladder and stomping across the deck to Skeg.

‘I caught the umgi hiding under the hull after we lowered the endrins,’ Skeg growled, shaking the terrified manling roughly.

‘So? Why is he still alive?’

‘He started babbling about the Slayer. I think he knows him, and you said that anything related to Gotrek Gurnisson is valuable.’

‘Sellah!’ the human wailed. Gotrek had been dragged along the deck to the open brig by a brace of boarding grapnels and now lay slumped, still netted and unconscious.

‘Sellah, sellah, please,’ the human shouted, making a pathetic attempt to get free from Skeg’s steel grasp. ‘You must wake up, sellah!’

‘Bind him too,’ Durbarak snapped. ‘Throw them all in the brig and let’s get under way. We’ve lingered here long enough.’

His orders were disturbed by a shriek. He turned, reaching for his pistols.

The aelf was awake. She had slipped out of Throm’s grip and had almost flung him over the frigate’s side. The two closest crewmates, Lorik and Stromm, rushed at her, grabbing her arms and trying to grapple her to the deck. She twisted and broke free again like a frenzied felid, punching Lorik in his prodigious gut. There was blood from a graze across her scalp running down the side of her slender face, and her dark hair was whipping around her, her black eyes wide and wild. They fixed on the human prisoner still being held by Skeg.

‘Mistress, help,’ the human pleaded piteously. She hesitated for the briefest second, and Durbarak knew she was sizing up remaining with her captive companions or leaping over the side.

In the end, the decision was made for her. Stromm, barely a foot to the aelf’s left, had cocked his aetherlock.

‘Move and die, witch,’ the duardin growled.

‘We haven’t come here to kill you,’ Durbarak added. ‘Grimnir knows, I wouldn’t mind if we did, but you’re more valuable alive. Consider that before you throw yourself over the side.’

The doubt seemed to do enough. He sensed the aelf become a fraction less tense as she accepted the situation. Durbarak made a terse motion to Lorik and Throm, and they began to edge back towards the aelf. Her expression had changed from one of wild desperation to haughty, reserved acceptance.

‘Release him,’ she said in the local human tongue. She pointed at Gotrek’s sprawled form.

‘If you have any respect for your kindred or the survival of the Mortal Realms, you won’t deliver him to whoever is paying you.’

‘I don’t have any respect for either,’ Durbarak answered in the same language, making the rest of the crew laugh.

The aelf made to answer, but Lorik slammed the butt of his aetherlock into her stomach, doubling her over, then delivered another blow to the side of her head.

‘Grungni’s golden balls, that felt satisfying,’ he said as the aelf hit the deck.

‘Get them all below,’ Durbarak snapped, turning towards the helm wheel and gear block on the skyship’s bridge. ‘And get us aetherward. Now, before any of the others catch up with us.’