‘Because the gods lied, aelf. They’re oathbreakers and frauds, the lot of them. They know the doom they promised me. They know what they swore. But did they hold up their half of the bargain? No! And here they are, playing games and building empires, like they always do. I turned my back on my friends and my kin because of their lies.’ His expression darkened. ‘And a Slayer does not forget. Not this Slayer, anyhow. I hold true. I remember my bloody oaths. Even when others do not. They’ll give me the doom I was promised.’ He scowled. ‘Or I’ll give them a doom of their own.’
The sorcerer watched the exchange patiently. Then, when the trio fell quiet again, he nodded and continued, following the tracks on through the dust.
Maleneth winked at Trachos, then sauntered after Gotrek.
Kurin led them to one of the soaring mist walls, hesitated briefly, then plunged through it, disappearing from sight.
It was only when they got within a few feet of the mist that its true nature was revealed. It was a tangled vine of spirits – naked, emaciated wretches bound into vast circular prisons. Each of the chimney-like structures was miles tall. There must have been millions of spirits trapped in each one. As Gotrek approached, they screamed, thrashing and struggling, trying to reach him, but they were too tightly knotted to move. Some spoke words Maleneth understood, begging her to free them, sobbing for help.
Gotrek marched straight through the ghosts, following the sorcerer, head low and axe high, like he was shouldering his way through a snowdrift.
Trachos and Maleneth hesitated before the dead, chilled by the cries. Maleneth did not fear death any more than she feared violence, but the enormity of the torment was still overwhelming. So many lost voices. So many twisted faces. And she was going to endure it for that deluded hog, Gotrek.
Trachos stepped forwards, then halted. His head was twitching again. Every now and then, he seemed to notice who he was travelling with, as though it had never occurred to him before. This was one of those times. He stared at her.
‘The Slayer is insane,’ he said.
‘Nothing gets past you.’
He continued staring at her.
She smiled at the irony. ‘And we need to keep him alive until one of us can get that rune.’
She could see Trachos’ eyes through the holes in his faceplate. They were as wild as the eyes of the ghouls. He was a taut string. She just needed to keep pushing. And when he snapped, the rune would be hers.
‘Aelf!’ roared Gotrek from somewhere up ahead.
She closed her eyes, then stepped into the mist with a sigh.
Chapter Five
The Iron Shroud
The wall of spirits was thick. As Maleneth staggered on, the cries became deafening. Deeper within, the ghosts summoned the strength to attack, their cold, waxy fingers clawing at her face.
After a few steps she was fighting, punching and kicking her way through the tangled limbs. The dead were desperate, trying to tear her skin, hungry for her warmth, craving her pulse. For a while she fought in silence, but as the attacks became more frantic she felt like she was drowning. She howled in defiance. Then, as the crush was about to overwhelm her, she burst through the other side of the wall and tumbled to the ground, gasping for breath.
The air was so thick and greasy that she gagged. It was like breathing cremation fumes. She lurched to her feet, coughing, and looked around.
They had entered another expanse of grey, encircled by another tower of mist. But there was a difference. In some places, the tower had collapsed, spilling ghosts across the ground. The spirits were trying to crawl away from the walls, but outside the mist their substance gave way, dissipating as they grasped at the air, thrashing across the ground like stranded fish. Gotrek was standing in the middle of the tower, and waves of spectral debris were crawling towards him, pleading and weeping. He seemed unaware of them. He was looking around in confusion.
‘Where’d the wizard go?’ he cried, glancing back at Maleneth.
Then he laughed as Trachos tumbled through the wall and landed with a clatter. ‘Still with us, manling?’
Trachos did not reply.
‘Get over here, Lord Ordinator,’ said Gotrek, sneering Trachos’ title.
Maleneth and Trachos hurried into the centre of the mist tower and stood next to the Slayer.
‘Which way did he go?’ asked Gotrek.
The spirits were whipping across the ground, kicking up dust. It was hard to see anything clearly.
Gotrek studied the astrological equipment fixed to Trachos’ belt. ‘Can one of your devices track him?’
Trachos staggered as ghosts whipped through the darkness, battering against his armour. ‘What?’ he gasped as he fended off the spectral shapes.
‘Take that bloody hat off and you might hear me.’ Gotrek tapped one of his slab-like fingers on Trachos’ helmet. ‘Where. Is. The. Wizard?’
‘I am a Lord Ordinator,’ replied Trachos, ‘not a scout. These are instruments of Sigmar’s divine will. They measure aetheonic currents. They plot the celestial spheres. They do not track conjurors.’
‘The bell,’ said Maleneth.
‘What?’ snarled Gotrek.
‘I heard it earlier, and now it’s louder. Do you hear?’
Gotrek looked at the ground, concentrating.
‘We’re getting closer to it,’ Maleneth said. ‘This…’ She waved vaguely at the diaphanous structure that was collapsing all around them. ‘This place is closer to wherever the bell is ringing. The creatures Kurin called mordants were heading towards it, so he might be too.’
Gotrek grinned and clapped her on the back so hard she staggered. He looked through the crowds of struggling spectres to the opposite side of the circular wall. It was the section that was most crumbled, and it was heaving with anguished souls. ‘Of course. A bell means a building. And buildings mean civilisation.’ He shrugged, grimacing at the bleak wasteland. ‘Civilisation might be stretching it.’
‘There’s something else, too,’ said Maleneth.
They all listened. Along with the bell there was a clamour – incoherent, bestial cries and a low, smashing sound, like a war engine pummelling a wall.
‘Sounds like a fight!’ Gotrek stomped off through the dust, waving for Maleneth to follow.
‘That’s a warning bell,’ said Trachos, staring at the tumbling walls of mist.
Maleneth nodded.
She turned to follow Gotrek, but Trachos grabbed her arm. ‘No one gets the rune if he destroys himself.’
She looked at him, her expression neutral.
‘And we can’t keep him alive if we don’t trust each other,’ he continued.
Maleneth’s smile was as cold as the dust. ‘Of course you can trust me.’ She jogged lightly away, weaving around the tumbling ghosts as she followed Gotrek.
Each tower of mist was more ruined than the previous one, and the spirits grew more desperate the further they went, but Gotrek strode on with purpose, heading unerringly towards the clanging bell. The closer they came to the sound, the more it mingled with the din of battle and the deep, seismic thudding they had heard earlier.
Finally, after breaking through a fifth wall, they saw the source of the din. Even by the standards of Shyish it was a macabre sight. Ghouls were clambering over a shrine, dozens of them, thrashing and snarling as they fought. The shrine was a splayed, claw-like structure perched on a rocky outcrop. It was made of stone, but its limbs were as sharp and twisted as a briar, hung low to the ground and knitted together in a jumble of knuckles and thorns. There were cylindrical cages hung at the end of each bristling limb, and in each cage there was a corpse. Some were no more than dusty skeletons while others were rot-bloated husks, bruise-dark and waxy, gleaming under a low-hanging moon. The corpses were moving, lunging and hacking at the ghouls, defending the shrine with silent determination.