Gotrek sniffed the bottle and grimaced. ‘It’s not Bugman’s.’
‘Don’t drink it then,’ said Maleneth, remembering what had happened the last time the Slayer got drunk. There was no way they would leave Klemp intact if Gotrek picked a fight just as an army came over the horizon.
He gave her a warning glare.
‘What about Nagash?’ she said, the first thing that came to mind.
His scowl grew even more fierce, but he did not put the bottle to his lips.
‘You dragged us all this way to find him.’ Maleneth looked over at Trachos. He was standing a few feet away, watching the exchange, but as usual he seemed oblivious, locked in his own personal hell. Realising the Stormcast would be no help, she turned back to Gotrek. ‘And now, just as his armies are about to reach us, you’re going to drink yourself into a stupor. You could miss the very chance you’ve been looking for. The chance to face him. Or whatever it is you were hoping to achieve.’
Gotrek glowered. ‘He’s not here. Gods don’t have the balls to lead from the front. Nagash will be hiding somewhere, like the rest of them.’ He drank deeply from the bottle, holding Maleneth’s gaze.
Then he paused for breath, threw more coins on the bar and took the bottle to one of the benches that lined the room. The wood groaned as he sat.
There was an elderly man sitting at the bench, and he watched with interest as Gotrek drank more of the foul-smelling stuff. He was tall and slender, sitting stiff-backed and proud, and as he sipped his drink he moved with the precise, delicate movements of an ascetic. Unlike everyone else in the Muffled Drum, he was immaculately dressed. His tunic, cloak and trousers were embroidered with golden thread, and his receding, slicked-back hair was so adorned with beads and semi-precious stones that it resembled a skullcap.
When Gotrek lowered the half-empty bottle onto the table, the man leant over and whispered, ‘You have business with the necromancer?’
The drink had clearly not affected Gotrek yet. His hand shot out with surprising speed and locked around the man’s scrawny neck.
‘Who wants to know?’
A strange noise came from the man’s chest. It might have been laughter.
Gotrek cursed. Rather than grabbing skin and bone, his hand had passed through the man’s neck and was left holding a fistful of ash. The powder tumbled through his fingers as he snatched back his hand. He glared at the man.
For a fraction of a second, the old man had no neck, just a landslide of fine dust tumbling from his lower jaw onto his shoulders. It looked like sand in an hourglass. Then the dust solidified, and the man’s neck reappeared. He stroked his greasy hair and looked at Gotrek, his eyes glittering and unfocused, as though he were looking into smoke.
Gotrek’s cheeks flushed with rage and he gripped the haft of his greataxe. ‘What are you? A spirit? In my day we burned the restless dead.’
‘I’m quite well rested, thank you,’ said the man, with a vague smile.
Maleneth and Trachos approached the table.
‘What are you?’ demanded Maleneth.
The man ignored her question, studying the rune in Gotrek’s chest and the barbs on Maleneth’s tight-fitting leathers. Then he looked at the shattered gilded sigmarite of Trachos’ war gear. ‘You don’t look like servants of the Great Necromancer.’
‘But you do,’ said Gotrek, taking another swig from the green bottle. ‘Why don’t you…’ He hesitated, looking at the bottle with a surprised expression, rolling his head loosely on his shoulders. ‘Actually, this isn’t bad.’
He looked over at the landlady and gave her a nod of approval.
To Maleneth’s disbelief, the ridiculous woman blushed.
‘Like you, fyreslayer, I kneel to no god,’ said the man, looking at Gotrek with an expression that was hard to read.
‘I’m not a fyreslayer, and you’re nothing like me.’ Gotrek stood up and started away from the table. He stumbled and had to grip the bench to steady himself. ‘This is good.’ He sat back down, and the bench gave another groan.
‘Why do you wish to reach Nagash if you don’t serve him?’ asked the stranger.
‘What are you?’ repeated Maleneth, gripping her knife handles. ‘Are you human?’
‘I’m Kurin,’ he replied, holding out a hand.
Maleneth eyed it suspiciously.
Gotrek had closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, and when he opened them again, he had to blink repeatedly to focus.
‘You’re drunk,’ muttered Maleneth.
Gotrek grinned. ‘And you’re ugly. But tomorrow I’ll be ugly and you’ll still be…’ His words trailed off and he shook his head, frowning. ‘No, wait… I mean, tomorrow I’ll be ugly and you’ll still be drunk.’ He shook his head, muttering to himself, trying to remember the joke he had cracked every day for the last week.
‘I belong to an order of magisters called the hush,’ said the man, ignoring Gotrek’s rambling. ‘Shrivers, as some used to call us.’
‘I’ve never heard of you,’ replied Maleneth, eyeing the man with suspicion. There were a lot of people who would like to get their hands on the rune in Gotrek’s chest. Perhaps it was no accident that Kurin was in the Muffled Drum at this particular moment.
‘Not many have,’ said Kurin. ‘Our skills are no longer in much demand.’
‘Skills?’
He held out his hand again, draping it before Maleneth in such a languid, aloof manner that she wondered if he was expecting her to kiss it. Then he flipped his hand around so it was palm up.
Maleneth, Gotrek and Trachos all leant closer, watching in surprise as the lines of his palm rose from his hand, spiralling up into the air like fine trails of smoke.
‘Touch them,’ he said.
Maleneth shook her head, and the other two leant back.
He shrugged. ‘We’re an ancient order. We ruled these kingdoms once, long before any of these ill-mannered barbarians who are currently trying to claim lordship. We are one with the dust. We share none of the failings of mankind – no doubts, no regrets, no grief, no shame. The sod is our flesh and the ground is our bed. It makes life simple. Mortal concerns do not bother us, so we have time to concentrate on more elevated matters.’
Gotrek managed to focus. ‘You don’t care about anything?’ He picked a shred of meat from his beard, stared at it, then ate it. ‘Doesn’t sound particularly “elevated”. Even I’ve managed that.’
Kurin smiled, his hand still outstretched, his skin still spinning a tiny storm. ‘I sense that you care about more than you would like to admit. But I can shrive you of your crimes. We are able to see into souls, Slayer – we see their value and we see what haunts them. Take my hand, tell me what drives you to drink so eagerly, and I will take the memory from you.’
Gotrek sneered, but then hesitated and stared at the man’s hand. ‘Take it from me?’
The Slayer had never told Maleneth much about his former life, but she knew he wished to atone for a past deed. He sought glorious death in battle as a kind of penance. Her pulse quickened. If Gotrek was able to forget the thing he wanted to atone for, he would stop charging headlong towards his own destruction. She could simply lead him, like an offering, back home to Azyr, with Blackhammer’s rune intact.
Kurin was still smiling. ‘Or, if you do not wish to be rid of your painful past, I can give you a chance at reconciliation. I can rouse your ghosts, Slayer. I can drag your shadows into the light. Is there someone you would wish to accuse? Or apologise to? My reach is long.’
‘A charlatan,’ sneered Maleneth. ‘I suppose you tell fortunes too. And how much does this all cost?’
‘No money. Just honesty. Nagash has persecuted my order for countless generations.’ Kurin waved vaguely, indicating the streets outside. ‘And left me surrounded by people so stupid they worship all the gods when they should worship none.’ He looked at the three of them in turn, with that half-smile still on his lips. ‘And now I hear you three are seeking him. While every other wretch in Klemp is snivelling to Nagash, you want to take him on. It’s a long time since I heard anything other than fear.’ He looked at the rune in Gotrek’s chest. ‘There is something different about you.’