‘Sigmar?’ guffawed Gotrek. ‘You can’t lay everything at the feet of the hammer-dunce! These people have learned some half-decent engineering skills, and that can only have come from dwarfs. Or at least those pale shadows of dwarfs you call duardin.’
Screams broke out not far from where they were talking as the Gravesward began using their scythes on the crowd, cutting people down in an attempt to save others who were being crushed by the mob. As the crowd heaved in a new direction, bone carriages splintered and toppled and fleshless horses panicked, trampling through the mayhem, their black plumes bobbing as they tried to find a way out.
‘Minutes away, you said,’ reminded Maleneth, waving at the looming clouds. ‘Perhaps now isn’t the time to discuss engineering?’
Trachos was still facing Gotrek. ‘If the Erebid built their city on duardin principles, how would they have dealt with sanitation?’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘Latrines. Sewers.’
‘Have you lost your final shreds of sanity?’ muttered Maleneth.
But Gotrek was grinning. ‘Sewers – of course.’
Trachos studied the facade of the building they had climbed up to. ‘That ironwork looks like waste pipes.’ He leant out from the steps and looked down to the corner of the building. ‘We could follow that outlet and see where it leads.’
‘You want to crawl through the sewers?’ asked Maleneth. ‘For miles?’
‘Nowhere is safer than underground,’ replied Gotrek. ‘Besides, which would you prefer, muck or bone rain?’
Trachos led them back down the steps, muttering and glancing back at the walls of the building as he tried to follow the route of the pipes.
At the bottom of the stairs they hit the crowd. Maleneth grimaced as people crashed into her, but the bulk of a Slayer and a Stormcast Eternal was enough to smash through the crush. Trachos waved them on, heading round to the corner of the building.
As they left the main flow of people, clouds began sailing over the walls.
Some of the soldiers managed to force their way down from the battlements, but others took cover in towers and archways, looking as though they were preparing to battle the weather.
‘Here,’ said Trachos, hurrying down an alleyway at the side of the building. He reached a metal hatch and stamped on it with his boot, creating a loud, reverberating clang.
Gotrek grinned. ‘Good work, manling!’ He climbed up onto an overturned cart and looked over the heaving crowds.
‘Morn-Prince!’ he howled, but there was no sign of Volant.
The noise of the crowds and the growing storm drowned out even the Slayer’s booming tones.
‘Gotrek!’ cried Trachos as he levered the hatch open and revealed a flight of stone steps leading down into the darkness. ‘We have to go now.’
‘Where is that blessed prince?’ snarled Gotrek, his cheeks flushing with anger. ‘He needs to order these people into the sewers or they’ll all be massacred. Morn-Prince!’ he bellowed, his eye sparking, but there was no reply.
Maleneth ducked past Trachos and climbed down the steps, descending into the darkness. Glimmers of white shimmered over the walls. ‘It’s now or never,’ she said, looking back at Trachos.
‘Morn-Prince!’ cried Gotrek a third time. The gold sparks in his eye were mirrored by a flash from the rune in his chest, and his words tore through the city, charged with the power of the rune, ringing out with such fury that people staggered.
The sneer fell from Maleneth’s face. Gotrek’s cry sounded like the voice of a god.
The mayhem ceased. Everyone in the square turned to face him.
‘The sewers, you imbeciles!’ Gotrek’s face was purple. ‘Get underground!’
People stared at the Slayer, clearly shocked, then did as he ordered, sprinting for drain hatches and sewers.
A few seconds later a bright rattling sound filled the city as the downpour arrived, crashing over the walls like waves of broken teeth.
Gotrek leapt down from the cart and raced towards Maleneth and Trachos with hundreds of terrified people following him, all trying to escape the deluge.
‘Go!’ cried Gotrek, pounding down the steps and disappearing into the darkness. There was a loud splash as he disappeared from sight.
Maleneth grimaced at the thick stench that rushed up in his wake. ‘Smells as bad as him,’ she muttered, hurrying down the steps.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Ascension of King Galan
‘The Wolf is with us!’ cried King Galan as he felt his steed changing beneath him, its bones snapping and elongating and its muscles swelling. He could feel the undeniable power of his lord as the horse became a sinewy armoured drake, with vast taloned wings and powerful reptilian jaws. The creature pounded its wings and lifted him from the road, up over sun-drenched wheat fields. On his back he could feel the weight of his ancient longsword, Rancour. He had sworn not to draw it until he had the leader of the rebels kneeling before him. The sword had been blessed by Shadow Priests on the eve of the war, impregnated with the might of the Wolf, but he would not fritter its sorcery on any old warrior – he would unleash it with great ceremony on the head of his would-be usurper, with the Hounds of Dinann witnessing his righteous fury.
Nia and Lord Melvas were with him, their steeds elevated by the same miracle as his own. Other lords of the Dinann followed quickly after, laughing in wonder as their horses’ hooves became claws and their flanks sprouted wings. They left the road and began racing through the air, trailing tails through the early dawn as their riders raised spears and howled.
The same miracle had occurred at each of the previous battles, but Galan still felt his pulse racing as he looked down at his army, charging into battle below him.
‘One last time!’ cried Nia, grinning at him from a few feet away.
‘One last time!’ he laughed, gripping his spear as he rushed towards the battlements.
The traitors were so awed by the miracle of the Wolf that Galan landed on the walls to find them already abandoned. The rogues who had seized the castle were scrambling for cover, tumbling down the steps and fleeing across the courtyard.
Some of them had managed to injure themselves in their desperation to escape, and as King Galan rode down the walls, he reached a group of bloodied, terrified wretches who tried to crawl away at his approach.
‘I offered you mercy at every turn,’ he said, pointing his spear at one of the gibbering wrecks, who was slipping and stumbling towards him, shaking his head.
The soldier muttered and cursed, unable to meet his eye, and Galan finally understood what was happening. He could not believe he had not suspected it before. The glorious victories, miracles like the drakes, the terror in the eyes of his victims – they all pointed to one thing: he was ascending. The oldest of all the prophecies had come to pass – the prophecy of the Wolf Lord. This was why the Shadow Priests had imbued Rancour with such power. This must be why his later years had been so quiet and lacking in glory. The Great Wolf had been waiting for this moment to raise him up and show him the glory that had always been his due.
Nia’s drake landed beside him on the wall, and she leant out from her saddle, slamming her spear into the man’s chest. He staggered away, dazed, then fell as she wrenched her weapon free. ‘Not much of a fight,’ she said with a smile, glancing around at the few wounded soldiers left on the walls. They were all flinching and cowering, as though attacked by invisible foes.
‘I’m changing, Nia,’ Galan said, his voice trembling with the glory of his revelation.