‘I serve the Order of Azyr.’ Maleneth nodded at Trachos, who was still studying the locks. ‘We’re escorting the Slayer through the princedoms.’
‘You serve Sigmar?’ The prince waved at Gotrek, who was stomping around the hall, staring up at the ceiling. ‘He doesn’t. Why are you helping him?’
Maleneth spoke up quickly before Trachos could tell the entire crowd about the rune. ‘He’s unusually powerful. And he’s an enemy of the Chaos Gods.’
‘Any gods,’ clarified Gotrek. He walked over to the prince. ‘Get me to Nagash and I’ll demonstrate.’
The prince removed his helmet and studied Gotrek. Like the rest of the Erebid, Volant’s head was pale and hairless, but unlike the others, his face was inked with a complex spiral of tattoos – slender black lines that coiled down from his eyes, mimicking the markings of a moth’s wings. His long, angular face was unmistakably regal, but it was twisted by pain. He gasped as he climbed to his feet, towering over everyone present. He stooped and tapped Gotrek’s rune with a long, tapered finger. ‘And this?’
Maleneth struggled to hold back a curse, wondering if there was anyone in the Mortal Realms who wouldn’t immediately pick up on the rune’s importance.
Gotrek laughed bitterly. ‘The reason for my sudden popularity.’
Prince Volant waited patiently for him to elaborate.
The Slayer shrugged. ‘Just a rune. And a bloody ugly one at that. Can you get me to Nagash?’
‘Why would I help you?’
Gotrek made a low growling sound, but before he could respond, Lhosia strode across the room and addressed the prince, her face rigid with anger.
‘We’ve come from the Anceps Docks. The Unburied were left to the mordants.’ Her voice trembled as she waved at the cocoons hanging overhead. ‘As they have been here. You swore that you would get the ancestors back to the capital, Prince Volant.’
‘You swore the Iron Shroud would hold long enough for me to do so.’ The prince’s nonchalant mask slipped and his eyes flashed. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who cares for the safety of the ancestors?’ He pointed at Aurun. ‘I sent an order for the Unburied to be moved months ago, and when I arrived, only hours ahead of destruction, I find Lord Aurun doing nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ Lord Aurun looked outraged. ‘We can’t move the Unburied, high priestess,’ he said, addressing Lhosia. ‘I have explained all this to the Morn-Prince. We stayed here to defend them because it’s either that or abandon them. They’re bound into the workings of the fortress. They’re part of the old duardin engines. It would take months to separate them from the architecture. Years, maybe.’
Lhosia shook her head, looking up at the cogs and wheels fixed into the ceiling. ‘The Unburied are trapped?’
Aurun nodded. ‘The forefathers completed their work here.’ He tapped the haft of his scythe on the cobbles. ‘This was the final prominent to be completed. They sealed it with the souls of the Unburied and then sailed back to the Lingering Keep. The Unburied are bound by mechanisms too complex to understand. And even if we could understand them, we don’t know how the Kharadron powered these machines. And there’s no way I could have broken the ancestors out before the mordants arrived.’
Maleneth shook her head. ‘Did you say sailed? How could anyone sail in this place? Your sea isn’t liquid. It looks like it’s made of lead.’
‘It’s impossible to cross the Eventide now,’ said Aurun. ‘Even touching it means madness and death. But our forefathers crossed it regularly. They had to – there were no wynds until they built them. They borrowed engineering skills from the Kharadron. They brought the Unburied here in great engines that were able to cross the Eventide.’
Gotrek’s eye glazed over. Maleneth had seen this happen before. It tended to precede either sleep, an idea or an explosion of extreme violence. It was worryingly hard to predict which.
‘Right,’ said the Slayer, looking up at the Morn-Prince. ‘I have business with a god.’ He waved his axe at the moth-shrouded shapes hanging overhead. ‘How about this – I get your corpse eggs back to your capital, and you tell me how to reach Nagash?’
Lord Aurun laughed incredulously, and the prince simply stared.
‘Well?’ demanded Gotrek as something heavy boomed against the doors. ‘My guess is that you have five minutes before the morons break in and start chewing your skulls. Do you want my help or not?’
‘You’re insane,’ replied the prince.
‘Agreed. If I get these twelve cocoons to safety, will you get me to Nagash?’
There was another blow at the door, and it gave a low groan as the frame started to give.
‘Brace it!’ cried Lord Aurun, waving more of his men towards it. ‘Jam your scythes against the metal!’
Gotrek was still standing in front of the prince, waiting for an answer.
Volant winced and staggered. Knights rushed to help him, but he shrugged them off. He frowned at Gotrek, as though struggling to make him out in the dazzling light. ‘You are peculiar. Quite unlike anyone I have ever met.’
Gotrek shrugged.
The door shook again, and the soldiers cried out as they tried to hold back the weight.
‘How could you get the Unburied to the capital?’ asked the prince. ‘Lord Aurun says it would take weeks to break those machines.’
Gotrek turned to Lord Aurun. ‘Are these doors the only way out?’
‘There’s another exit, but it only leads to the Eventide. The chambers at the rear of the hall join with the city walls, and then there’s nothing there but dead sea and the Spindrift.’
‘The Spindrift?’
‘An aether-ship. The transportation used by the forefathers when they built the prominents – before they made the wynds.’
‘An airship?’ Gotrek shook his head. ‘Why in the blazes aren’t you using it?’
‘It’s a useless relic,’ replied Aurun. ‘Powered the same way as those.’ He waved his scythe at the machines overhead.
Gotrek looked over at Trachos. The Stormcast Eternal was helping Aurun’s men as they struggled to hold the door.
‘Right,’ he said, turning back to the prince. ‘If I rescue your corpse sacks, you’ll help me reach Nagash, agreed?’
Prince Volant sneered and seemed about to dismiss Gotrek again, but the Slayer’s tone was so confident that he hesitated.
‘He has a habit of surprising people,’ said Maleneth. ‘And he’s tediously honest. If he says he can do it, he probably can.’
‘How?’ asked the prince, his expression a mixture of outrage and intrigue.
‘Tell them, manling,’ Gotrek called over to the Stormcast Eternal.
Trachos was not following the conversation. He was staring at the mechanical doors, muttering to himself.
‘Trachos!’ shouted Maleneth.
He looked over. As usual, his face was hidden behind his helmet’s gleaming deathmask, and it was hard to know what he was thinking.
Gotrek waved him over. ‘The moth people want their corpses back. They need them out of those machines.’ He gestured with his axe at the ceiling. ‘Duardin engineering. Shouldn’t be hard to untangle.’
Trachos stared at the Slayer in silence, as though he had forgotten who Gotrek was.
Maleneth felt like jamming knives into his helmet.
The prince waved a dismissive hand. ‘These people are ridiculous.’ He turned away. ‘Aurun! Get some of your archers up on those balconies. Fast!’
A low rumbling started in Gotrek’s chest, and he stood up to his full – if not very impressive – height. He gripped his greataxe, and Maleneth saw quite clearly what was coming next. The prince was about to find out what happened to pompous nobles who refused to take Gotrek seriously.