‘What did you see in there?’ she asked, trying to sound only half-interested, not wanting to spoil the moment by prying too eagerly.
Even Trachos ceased his muttering and looked up at Gotrek.
The Slayer stomped back over to the fire and sat down with a grunt, taking another swig of wine. ‘Things with no names. Things beyond words. Citadels of sound. Songs of blood. Oceans of hate. You wouldn’t understand even if I could show you. I couldn’t understand them even as I saw them. For a long time I believed the lies. I believed that I had been given a great doom. To slaughter daemonic hosts for all eternity. Until I died or they did. But nothing dies in there. Not truly. I killed and was killed with no victory or defeat. The gods laughed at me.’ His voice cracked with bitterness. ‘Then forgot me.’ He grabbed a burning stick from the fire and crushed it, the flames blinking in his eye, embers spiralling around his scarred face. ‘They won’t forget me again.’
He drank some more and fell quiet. His earlier high spirits had faded. Maleneth was about to ask Lhosia more about her own people when Trachos did something she had never seen him do before. He unclasped his neck brace and removed his helmet. The seals were dented and caked in filth, and they made a strange hissing sound as he prised them apart.
Even Gotrek looked up in surprise as the Stormcast Eternal’s face was revealed. His hair was long, white and knotted into thick plaits. Released from his helmet, it tumbled down over the metal of his cuirass like ropes, giving him the appearance of an aged shaman. His skin was the colour of polished teak, and his face must once have been handsome in a fierce, leonine kind of way. It was not handsome now. Every inch was covered in scars. They were not the rippling burn marks that covered half of Gotrek’s face, but deep, jagged cuts. One of them went right from his jaw to his forehead, wrenching his brow into a constant scowl. He looked warily at them, as though removing his helmet had made him feel exposed. ‘How did you escape?’ he said. Without his helmet on, Trachos’ voice lost its thin, metallic quality and became a deep, rumbling tenor.
The combination of wine and surprise seemed to trick Gotrek out of his usual reticence. He stared at Trachos, then stared through him, as if picturing somewhere else.
‘I began to see things,’ he muttered. ‘Things that had not happened yet, or maybe things that had happened long ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Losing my mind, I suppose. Fighting for so long. Furious at my betrayal. Struggling to remember my own name.’
He looked at Lhosia. ‘I had a rememberer once too, like your shield poets. A manling. But not like most of that cowardly, cack-handed race. He was a skilled fighter. And brave with it. A good storysmith, too. He stood by me through everything. He would have come with me if I’d let him. Then, when the madness came over me, I thought I could see him, still alive, in some other world, preserved somehow through the long ages of my purgatory.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I sometimes wonder if he’s here somehow, in these damned worlds you call realms. But then I wonder if it was someone else I saw, leading me through the Realm of Chaos, bringing me through the flames.’
He seemed to notice everyone watching him and his face hardened. ‘Whatever happened, my search spat me out into that ugly furnace you call Aqshy, surrounded by babbling idiots claiming to be Slayers. Descendants of Grimnir, they said. If they knew him like I do, they wouldn’t be so keen to claim his kinship. Not one of them understands what a treacherous crook their god is.’ He pounded the rune in his chest. ‘They’re as useless as him, though. So maybe they are his spawn. They made this bauble and then lacked the strength to use it.’
‘What is it?’ asked Lhosia, reaching out to touch it. She snatched her hand back as the rune singed her skin.
‘Property of the Order of Azyr,’ snapped Maleneth, giving her a warning glance.
Gotrek laughed, his mood lifting a little. ‘Just you try and take it, aelf. He moved his beard aside, trying to look at the rune. He grimaced as he revealed its design – the face of a duardin ancestor god. ‘Look at him, sitting in my bloody chest. Taunting me every time I see his stupid face.’
‘That’s Grimnir?’ asked Lhosia.
‘Aye. His likeness, at least.’
‘You wear a symbol of a god you despise?’
‘Not by choice, lass. It didn’t bloody look like this when I planted it in my chest. Besides, it has its uses. What do they call this stuff, again?’ he asked, looking at Maleneth.
‘Ur-gold.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The fyreslayers say it’s pieces of Grimnir, scattered across the realms.’ She stared at the rune. ‘Ridiculous, obviously, like all duardin legends, but ur-gold certainly has power. The fyreslayers hammer it into their bodies to fuel their battle rage, but none of them are equal to the one in Gotrek.’ She let her gaze caress the metal. ‘This is the Master Rune, forged by Krag Blackhammer himself. And when Gotrek destroys himself, I will take it to Sigmaron.’
Maleneth’s pulse raced as she considered what that would mean for her. She would be the one who had secured a weapon powerful enough to win the war for the realms. Her slate would be wiped clean. No one would care what she had done in the past. None of her enemies in Azyrheim would be able to lay a finger on her. Sigmar would probably make her a saint.
‘So,’ said Lhosia, frowning at Gotrek, ‘when you talk of your doom, you mean you wish to destroy yourself?’ She shook her head. ‘You say your culture reveres ancestral wisdom, but you’re prepared to throw away everything you know? What greater crime could there be than suicide? It’s a betrayal of your ancestors and your descendants. You should preserve your wisdom. You should fight to pass on what you know.’
‘I’m a Slayer, lass,’ said Gotrek. ‘I have to atone for…’ His words trailed off and he shrugged. ‘I have things to atone for, though no one here can remember them.’ He drained the last dregs of his wine and grimaced. ‘Gods, this is drakk’s piss.’
They sat in silence again, listening to the rain and the flames. Then Lhosia looked at Trachos. ‘And are you the Slayer’s servant?’
Maleneth laughed.
‘I serve the God-King,’ replied Trachos. His brutal features were exaggerated by the firelight, making his face almost as savage as Gotrek’s. His eyes looked like stars, smouldering under his furious brow. ‘And the Order of Azyr.’ He glanced at Maleneth. ‘We both do.’
Lhosia looked from Trachos to Maleneth. The enmity between them was so obvious she asked her next question with a doubtful tone. ‘You’re working together?’
It was Gotrek’s turn to laugh. ‘The aelf wants the rune, and she doesn’t care if that requires my death. Pretty boy here feels the same, but he’s tying himself in knots trying to work out what the hammer-hurler would think is the right thing to do. He’s desperate for the rune, but he doesn’t want to behave badly. That’s right, isn’t it, smiler? You don’t want to be a savage like me.’
Trachos’ eyes flickered with emotion and his head kicked to one side, but he said nothing.
‘You’ve been here before,’ said Lhosia, leaning over to study Trachos’ armour. ‘You’ve been to the Amethyst Princedoms before.’
‘What?’ demanded Maleneth.
Lhosia pointed to the jumble of equipment that covered Trachos’ belt. Tucked in amongst the measuring devices and weapons was a metal-framed hourglass filled with dust that shimmered as it moved. The piece was topped with an ornate, leering skull.
‘Or did you buy that from someone else who has been to the Amethyst Princedoms?’