As she helped them up, ghouls began thudding down all around them, crashing onto the road with weird, wheezing groans.
Maleneth dealt with the first two, her knives slashing back and forth, then Gotrek and Trachos handled the others.
As the road juddered higher, it began to change. Iron and bone struts slid apart, splaying like the fingers of a hand, forming into a fan. After a few seconds, Maleneth laughed, realising what shape it was forming. The section of road that had risen up in the air, nearly fifty feet high, had created a piece of intricate sculpture – a pair of ancient, riveted wings, complete with the same spiralled markings that Maleneth had noticed in the temple.
‘A moth?’ she said, looking around for Lhosia.
Lhosia was gazing in wonder. For the first time since she had found her family’s remains, it seemed as though her grief had been eclipsed by something. She nodded. ‘A harbinger. Waiting here since the elder days. Ready to serve.’
Maleneth broke away to cut down some more of the ghouls that had fallen on their side of the wings. ‘Very pretty. But I don’t think we should spend too long admiring it.’
Gotrek nodded. He was panting heavily and drenched in ghoul blood. Usually, after such a brutal fight, he would seem pleased with himself, but he was staring at the rune in his chest with a furious expression on his face.
‘Gotrek?’ Maleneth said, trying to rouse him from his reverie.
It took a moment for his eye to focus on her, and when it did he was clearly thinking about something else. ‘He’s trying to…’ He shook his head, looking increasingly annoyed.
‘Who’s trying to what?’ she asked. The Slayer was moody at the best of times, but now he seemed confused.
‘Bloody Grimnir,’ muttered Gotrek, staring at the rune again and slapping one of his meaty hands over it, hiding the face of the Slayer god. ‘When I was fighting, lost in the glory of it, the rune lent me its strength.’
She nodded. ‘It’s ur-gold. Fyreslayers don’t hammer that stuff into themselves just for fun. You know that. That rune has been making you stronger ever since you took it from the Unbak Lodge.’ She raised an eyebrow at the heaps of bodies. ‘You’ve never minded before.’
‘But Grimnir’s still trying to get into my head!’ Gotrek gripped the rune tighter, as though he wanted to tear it from his ribs. He was talking to himself as much as Maleneth. ‘He’s still trying to change me.’
Gotrek removed his hand from his chest and scowled furiously at the rune. ‘He’s trying to change me into him. Every time I use this bloody rune it gets worse.’ Gotrek punched his own chest. ‘Think again, Grimnir! I’m Gotrek! Son of Gurni! And I mean to stay that way.’ He ran his fingers over the golden streaks threaded through his beard. ‘None of these were here before I had the rune, were they?’
She shook her head.
‘No more!’ he growled. ‘I’ve slain daemons and dragons without any help from you, Grimnir.’ Gotrek stomped off down the road, still hurling abuse at the rune as he headed away from the gatehouse, trailing bits of hair and bloody flesh.
Lhosia followed him, cradling the tiny cocooned corpse of her ancestor and whispering to it.
Trachos limped after her, his head twitching and lightning flickering from the joints in his armour. He mumbled a hymn as he walked, celebrating their victory in a grating monotone.
Maleneth watched the strange trio go, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Am I the only one who’s sane?’ she asked the vial of blood at her neck.
Chapter Twelve
The Morn-Prince
Lord Aurun watched as a sleeping girl was lifted up into a cart. The driver took her carefully and placed her with the other sleeping children. She was around six or seven, younger than any of the others nestling in the sacks and blankets, and she looked tiny. As the cart rattled away from him, the girl looked like an infant, frail and defenceless. He tapped his scythe against the ground, feeling his pulse quicken. I will not fail them, he thought. I have the strength to do this, and I will not fail.
‘No one would judge you if you left,’ said a voice behind him.
‘Everyone would judge me.’ Aurun’s voice was stern. ‘Above all, the Unburied. And they would be right.’
He turned to face the man standing with him at the East Gate, a frail septuagenarian with sharp, brittle-looking features – a priest dressed in white robes. Corsos was hunched by age, and he was leaning on a femur as tall as he was. The enormous bone had been bleached and carved with sigils, and an iron padlock hung from one end. Corsos was the most senior priest in the Barren Points, and the intricately engraved lock was a symbol of his authority. Aurun had also seen him use it to club sense into some of the younger acolytes.
‘We have lived through blessed times,’ Aurun continued, gazing at the buildings behind Corsos. The prominent was almost empty. Most of the windows were dark. The only light came from the souls embedded in its heart. ‘All these generations, hidden from everyone. Nothing required of us other than to watch and wait. Who in all the Mortal Realms has lived as we have? Who else has known this peace? And now, at the crucial moment, we have a chance to show our worth.’
Corsos nodded. ‘The Morn-Prince will soon come. I have seen it. The Unburied have seen it. We need only hold the walls for another day or so. Prince Volant left the capital with a host unlike anything he has ever mustered before. It does not matter how all these mordants found their way into Morbium. None of them will leave.’
Aurun smiled. ‘Bold words from a man armed with a bone. If you could have dragged yourself away from those holy texts, you would have made a good general.’
Corsos laughed and raised his arms, revealing his scrawny frame. ‘I do have the physique of a hero.’
They both looked back at the train of disparate vehicles rolling away from the fortress, dwarfed by the vast, rigid breakers of the Eventide. ‘Well,’ said Aurun. ‘Whether the prince arrives soon or not, the Barren Points will stand.’
They walked back through the gates towards the centre of the fortress. Soldiers in the black of the Gravesward were dashing from building to building, readying defences and fetching weapons before moving out to the city walls.
Aurun saluted them as he passed, filled with pride. These men had sworn their oaths as children. None of them knew what the words really meant. To serve in life and death. To preserve the Unburied, whatever the price. What does a child know of such things? But when he gave the orders for evacuation and allowed them the chance to leave with the civilians, not one of them had even considered going. The sky around them was almost entirely dark. The prominents had all died, dragged beneath the dead tides, their lights extinguished. But his men were like beacons, their lacquered armour flashing in the light of the Unburied. It was a glorious sight. Aurun had waited his whole life for this chance to prove himself, living in the shadow of the ancestors, with their tales of heroism and glory. And now he would have his chance to earn a place in their ranks, not as a subordinate but as an equal.
‘Have you met the prince before?’ asked Aurun.
Corsos shook his head. ‘I have read all the histories of the Morn-Princes, though. I know they are more than men.’
Aurun nodded. ‘Volant is larger than a normal man. And stronger. But I would not say he is more than us, Corsos. Merely different.’
‘Do you like him?’
Aurun shook his head, surprised by the question. ‘Like? “Like” would be a strange word to use in relation to Prince Volant. I respect him and I trust him, much as I think he trusts me.’ He shrugged. ‘He is hard to explain. But you should soon be able to judge him for yourself.’