‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Who’s ugly?’ She flinched, forgetting that she was looking into the distance as a revolting shape filled the eyepiece. It was a monstrous, snub-faced creature, like the one Prince Volant had battled over the Spindrift, but this one was saddled and ridden by one of the large species of ghouls. The rider was as corpse-grey and withered as all the other mordants, but where they hunched and lurched, this one affected an attitude of regal disdain, reins held loosely in one listless hand and its chin raised in haughty indifference. Of all the flesh-eaters she had seen since reaching Shyish, this was the first one that Maleneth had found truly shocking. Its flesh had the same rotten, rag-like texture as the others, and its eyes were the same blank, oversized orbs, but unlike all the rest, this creature was dressed in scraps of armour and carried a rusty longsword on its back. As it shifted in its saddle, Maleneth realised that the ghoul was even wearing a dented circle of metal on its gleaming pate.
‘It thinks it’s still a man,’ she said, with a mixture of amusement and unease. There was something unnerving about seeing such a debased creature assuming the air of a noble warrior.
‘There are more of them,’ she laughed as she spotted other riders circling the one with the crown. There were half a dozen or so, all with the same bat-like steeds and the same absurd facade of regal bearing. Some of them carried shields and pennants, as though they were proud knights, and one of them was riding side-saddle, as though it were a noblewoman heading out on a hunt with her courtiers and servants.
Prince Volant held out his hand and she handed the device up to him. ‘I have not seen them behave like this before,’ he said after studying the strange figures. ‘What does it mean?’ He looked at Captain Ridens. ‘Have you seen this? Mordants behaving like nobles?’
Captain Ridens seemed unnerved every time Volant so much as glanced his way. At this question he looked distinctly panicked. ‘Your majesty,’ he mumbled. ‘I do not understand the question.’
Volant handed Ridens the spyglass and directed him to the riders circling above the army.
Ridens paled. ‘Those things were not there last time we fired the flares, Morn-Prince. They must have been following close behind you. I have heard…’ He lowered the spyglass and looked up at the prince. ‘The survivors all have something terrible to tell. Some spoke of a ruler of the mordants, leading them into battle as if they were rational, human soldiers.’
Maleneth frowned up at the prince. ‘Did you say ghouls have been known to act with reason in the presence of a “leader”?’
Volant nodded. ‘According to the histories.’
Gotrek grinned. ‘Then this might be even more interesting than the last scrap. At the Barren Points they were like drunks trying to find their own feet, but if they fight like actual soldiers, in those kinds of numbers…’
‘It might not matter,’ said Trachos, still staring out into the darkness.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Maleneth.
‘Lift the spyglass a little higher. Look past the ghouls.’
Volant did as Trachos suggested. ‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment. ‘Storm clouds. Nothing else.’
Maleneth stared at Trachos with a feeling of grim realisation. ‘Storm clouds?’
He nodded. ‘Bone rain. Coming fast.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shelter from the Storm
The streets of the Lingering Keep were already chaotic before Prince Volant sounded the alert. When he ordered everyone to take cover, there was a stampede. Screams rang out through the city. People clawed at doors and dived through windows. There was a desperate battle to find shelter as thunderheads rushed through the night. There were some in the city who had seen the results of the bone rain, and fear spread like a plague, leaving people as frantic and deranged as the monsters gathering beyond the walls.
Even those who had not seen it before could tell this was no natural storm. Mountainous clouds boiled into view, flickering with amethyst and enveloping the wynds, hurtling towards the gates that had only been slammed minutes earlier as the last few arrivals scrambled into the Lingering Keep.
Maleneth sprinted through the madness, dodging mobs of panicked refugees. She had almost crossed the square when she realised Gotrek was way behind her, walking casually from the walls, his axe slung nonchalantly over his shoulder.
‘Slayer!’ she yelled.
Trachos was at her side, and they both stopped to wait for him.
Volant and his captain were at the centre of a crossroads, yelling orders to the soldiers and trying to marshal the crowds into some kind of order. There was such a panic that the Gravesward had to form ranks and raise shields, driving people back to avoid a crush.
‘There are empty houses and temples in the eastern quarter!’ shouted Volant, climbing onto his steed and launching it over the crowd. Its wings dragged clouds of dust as Volant tried to redirect the people. He waved his scythe. ‘Head that way!’
The mob was too deranged to respond, so Volant spoke to the skeleton drake and it opened its jaws in a roar so loud it cut over the noise of the approaching storm.
Finally some of the people paid attention, allowing the Gravesward to shepherd them away, relieving the bottleneck at the crossroads, but new crowds surged into the square from other directions and the situation was soon even worse.
‘The storm will hit in minutes,’ said Trachos. He and Maleneth had stepped out of the flow of bodies, climbing up a flight of colonnaded steps that led to a set of doors. The Stormcast Eternal was looking through his spyglass at the clouds. ‘These people are not going to make it.’
Gotrek shoved his way through the mob and stomped up the steps. He looked sullen. ‘Nagash is scared. That’s what this is all about. He’s doing everything he can to stop me reaching him. He’s swamping this city in skull-chewers so the Morn-Prince can’t send me to him.’ He glared at the carnage in the square. ‘And it’s not going to work.’
‘I can never decide whether to be impressed or amused by you,’ said Maleneth. She waved one of her knives at the scene below – thousands of desperate, fear-maddened people, clambering over each other as a cataclysmic storm gathered overhead. It looked like an apocalypse. ‘Does nothing here give you pause? Is there nothing about this situation that makes you think you might not be destined to reach Nagash?’
Gotrek laughed. ‘Bloody aelves. So quick to accept defeat. That was always your problem. Comes of being knock-kneed poetry readers.’
He looked up at Trachos. ‘We need to reach these Halls of Separation everyone keeps blathering on about. That’s where the prince sent the ghost eggs. We’ll go there and stand watch over the doors. I’ll take on every ghoul in the realms if I have to, until the priestess has finished her spell, but I’d rather guard a door than a city.’
Maleneth pointed at the tusk-shaped spire looming over the city. ‘The Halls of Separation are miles away, and Trachos just told you the storm will hit in minutes. You have the legs of a pot-bellied pig. How exactly do you intend to outrun those clouds?’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘The manling will work something out.’
Trachos stared at him. Then he nodded and stood a little taller.
Maleneth rolled her eyes. ‘How does this lump-headed brute have such an effect on people? How has he made you believe in yourself again, Trachos? How can your faith have been renewed by a god-hating savage?’
Trachos ignored her, peering around at the architecture. ‘This is an advanced civilisation, by the look of the buildings.’ He waved at an ornate arch reaching over their heads. ‘They have preserved things most realms lost in the Age of Chaos. These techniques must date back to the time before Chaos, when Sigmar still walked the realms. I see his hand in every–’