With the blood still pumping, she began cutting the heart, gouging intricate sigils into the muscle, all of them centred on the symbol of her beloved, blood-thirsty lord, Khaine. When she had covered every inch of the heart, she cried out an invocation and the organ began to smoulder, spilling smoke between her fingers.
For a moment, nothing else happened. Maleneth cursed. Perhaps she was a fool, trying to pray to Khaine in such a rushed, slipshod way.
You absurd creature. If you’d really been learning from me you would know that–
Maleneth cried out and leant back, arching her back as Khaine’s fervour jolted through her. She laughed in ecstasy. The blood rite had worked. The might of the Murder God shook her with such violence that she cried out to Lhosia. ‘Help me! Hold the heart!’
Visions flooded her mind and, for a moment, they were utterly confusing. She was riding with proud warriors, clutching spears and pennants, charging into battle on glorious steeds. Their colours were unfamiliar, and the language was an ancient tongue that bore no relation to anything she had heard anywhere else in Shyish.
The riders were nothing like the black-armoured knights Lhosia had referred to as the Gravesward, but the landscape was familiar. The riders were charging down the same road she had just travelled – a highway of bone hung across the Eventide. The horsemen cried out as they saw the gatehouse up ahead. The building was still intact and there was no sign of a fire. Figures were racing back to the gates, but they were too late, caught unawares by the attack as the riders hurled spears and drew longswords, killing them before they could reach the mechanisms that raised the road.
The horsemen tore on into the gatehouse itself and began battling the defenders waiting inside – a ragtag mob of savage, sallow-faced barbarians clutching clubs and knives. Maleneth felt a wash of fury at the sight of these craven savages. Who were they to steal land from the Hounds of Dinann?
The savages fought desperately, but they were massively outnumbered and it was the work of moments to knock them from the walls and slice them apart.
There was another man in the gatehouse, though, unarmed but clearly a kinsman of the rest of the barbarians. He dashed away as the fighting began, bolting to a door at the bottom of a tower and slamming it shut behind him. Maleneth rushed towards him, outraged, but before she could reach the door, blood filled her vision and she fell heavily to the ground.
‘What happened?’ cried Lhosia, staring at Maleneth. The priestess was helping her grip the bleeding heart, her face a disgusted grimace as the gore flowed down her arms. ‘What are you doing?’
Maleneth squeezed her eyes shut, confused, the words ‘Hounds of Dinann’ still echoing round her head. What did that mean? The gatehouse was in ruins again, flames rippling across the walls. There was no sign of the proud riders on their horses or the savages they had been fighting. She had no idea who any of the warriors might have been, but Khaine’s vision had still told her what she needed to know. The door she saw slamming in the vision was still there, unchanged, with the same bloodstains across its handle and the same corpses piled in front of it.
‘He’s in there!’ she gasped, dropping the heart and hurrying over to the door. The blood rite had left her exhausted and dazed, but also exhilarated. She had joined her soul to Khaine’s! She could still feel his power hammering in her pulse. It was dizzying and wonderful. She grinned, waving for Lhosia to follow. ‘Your gatekeeper is a coward. He’s hiding.’
There was an explosion of shouts and splintering bone as Gotrek and Trachos staggered back through the broken gateway, hacking and lunging wildly at an enormous mound of grey bodies. The ghouls were as frenzied as Gotrek, oblivious to even the most horrific wounds as they tried to claw over the dead.
‘Here!’ cried Maleneth. ‘Open this door!’
Gotrek barely broke his stride. He hacked the head from a ghoul, sidestepped a raking claw, slammed his face into the door, ripping it from its hinges, then lunged back into the scrum, blood sizzling on his chest rune.
The second the door fell, a figure tried to run at Maleneth, but she moved with fast, easy grace, dodging around him and then grabbing him by the collar, jolting him to a halt.
It was the man she had seen in her vision. He howled as he struggled to escape, staring at the legions of ghouls attacking Gotrek and Trachos.
Maleneth could not entirely blame the man for his fear. The creatures did make a horrific sight. She did not feel inclined to be sympathetic, though.
‘Keys – quick!’ she hissed in his ear, pulling him close and pressing one of her blades to his throat.
He scrambled at his belt and unclasped a bundle of keys, holding them up for her to see, his hand shaking violently.
Maleneth snatched them and let him go. As he sprinted past Lhosia and raced off down the road, Maleneth considered putting a knife in his back. She decided it would be a waste of a good weapon and turned away.
‘Trachos!’ she cried, hurling the keys.
He paused, mid-strike, and caught them.
Maleneth shook her head in disbelief as she rushed to join the fight. It looked like a mass burial falling on top of her.
Trachos sprinted away, leaving her alone with the Slayer. Gotrek was now using his head as a club, his face entirely crimson and covered in bits of skull and teeth. When he looked her way, there was no sign of recognition. He was like an animal in a feeding frenzy, tearing and clawing through the throng.
Maleneth had only been fighting for a few seconds when she realised that it was hopeless. There were too many. Cuts opened across her legs and face as the ghouls lashed out blindly, smothered by their own numbers.
‘Pull back!’ she gasped, though she knew the Slayer was too far gone to hear.
She was about to stagger free when the ground shook and she lurched backwards, struggling to keep her footing as the road heaved into motion.
‘Trachos!’ she cried. ‘He did it!’
She backed away, knives raised, as the road began to rise, throwing ghouls dead and living towards her. She had to duck and weave as the bodies flew, crashing off the walls and bouncing down the slope. The brainless horrors could not seem to register what was happening, still trying to drag Gotrek down to the floor as it fell away from them. While dozens of ghouls hurtled towards Maleneth, many more fell back the way they had come, sliding from sight.
‘Gotrek!’ roared Trachos, reappearing on the road and battling his way towards the Slayer.
Gotrek was too busy smashing brains to hear.
‘Gotrek!’ repeated Trachos, slamming a hand down on the Slayer’s shoulder.
Gotrek whirled round, snarling like a maddened dog and drawing back his axe to hack Trachos down. At the last moment he hesitated, finally noticing that the ground was rising beneath him.
‘Manling!’ he gasped, grinning through the blood.
More ghouls smashed into them both, and they staggered towards Maleneth, smashing the creatures away and reaching for handholds as they found themselves suddenly standing on a steep slope.
‘Back here!’ cried Maleneth, running down the slope to where the road was level again.
Lhosia was already there, staring up at the incredible scene in amazement.
As the gatehouse rocked back and gears whirred, the road lurched up into the air.
Gotrek and Trachos fell rather than ran the last few feet, and landed gasping and coughing beside Maleneth.