As the duardin reeled back and forth, howling in outrage, Galan stepped quietly towards him, drawing back Rancour, feeling its seething power. The blade was charged with the might of the Great Wolf. It was blessed with sorcery so powerful it would cut through anything – even the golden rune.
But as the rune-light flooded into Galan’s eyes, he felt a strange sensation. It was as though the breeze were blowing through his neck rather than against it. He remembered the duardin’s strange insult and reached up to touch his throat. His fingers brushed wet, torn meat.
Cold dread gripped him, as though he were waking from a dream, but he still could not tear his gaze from the rune in the duardin’s chest. The light burned through his mind, twisting his thoughts, giving him the most peculiar sensation that he was not who he thought he was.
Pain exploded in Galan’s chest as a blade jutted out from between his ribs.
‘No need to look so grave,’ whispered a sardonic voice in his ear.
He staggered forwards, and his attacker wrenched the blade sideways as he fell, tearing his flesh apart.
Galan hit the floor in a fountain of blood and looked back to see a sneering aelf standing over him, whipcord thin and clad in barbed, blood-splattered leathers.
He tried to rise, but she put her boot on his chest, holding him down and waving a disapproving finger. He collapsed back onto the floor, dizzy with blood loss.
The aelf strolled away with the sprightly, elegant steps of a dancer, heading over to the duardin.
From where Galan was lying, he could see Nia’s dead drake and the soldiers who had entered the tower. Only, they weren’t soldiers at all. They were something else – grey, twisted horrors, with torn flesh and leering, lipless mouths. Rather than watching over their fallen queen, they were hunched over her steed, tearing hungrily at its flank, ripping its muscles, filling their mouths with blood.
He could just see Nia’s outstretched hand, mottled and grey, like rotten meat. Then he saw the wedding ring, glinting on her bloodless finger.
With his last breath, he whispered her name.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Feeding Frenzy
‘Bloody wizards,’ muttered Gotrek as the darkness dropped away from him. He stamped on the shadows that tumbled across the floor and writhed away from him. Within seconds, they had all faded and he was left glowering at the flagstones. He caught sight of Maleneth, still holding her knife with the dead ghoul at her feet.
‘Saved by an aelf,’ he groaned.
She laughed at his ingratitude. ‘Ah, but you’re a charmer, Gotrek Gurnisson – humble and eloquent in equal measure. You always know just the right thing to say. Truly, you are a credit to your species.’
He glared at her, embers dancing in his furnace-like eye.
Maleneth tensed and gripped her knives.
Then a broad grin spread across Gotrek’s face. ‘You’re almost funny,’ he laughed. ‘For a backstabbing aelf.’
She bowed with an exaggerated flourish. ‘I can but try.’
One of the ghouls reared up from the dead horse, its throat jammed with meat and blood rushing down its skin. It reached out towards them, groaning hungrily, but before it could take a step, another mordant dragged it to the floor and began eating it, snarling and gasping as it ripped flesh with its teeth.
Maleneth and Gotrek watched, bemused, as the ghouls all turned on each other in a snorting, growling kill-frenzy. They seemed oblivious to anything but the body nearest to them, and they quickly devolved into a heap of thrashing limbs and clawing fingers.
Through the windows, Maleneth could see the ghouls gathered outside in the boulevard, and they were all behaving the same way. They abandoned all pretence of being an army and turned on each other, lunging at whoever was nearest. Even the terrorgheists had joined the carnage, diving from the rooftops and devouring creatures they had previously fought alongside. ‘What in the name of Khaine are they doing?’
Gotrek watched the carnage, shaking his head. ‘Even ghouls usually manage to attack someone other than themselves.’
‘You killed their leader,’ called Trachos from the stairs above. ‘These things have no minds of their own. They were only acting with a purpose because of that.’ He waved his sceptre at the Ghoul King’s corpse. ‘You have achieved what the prince asked of you.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Gotrek. He nodded at the cocoons up in the rafters of the tower. ‘They’re not saved yet.’
‘You have saved them from the ghouls. The flesh-eaters will be so busy devouring each other, the Erebid will have no problem slaughtering them when Prince Volant summons them back out of the sewers.’
Gotrek glanced at Maleneth, and she gave him another exaggerated curtsy, delighting in the fact that she had done his job for him.
‘All that remains now is for Volant and Lhosia to perform the rite they spoke of,’ she said. ‘To fire up their magic stone and protect the Erebid from future invasions.’
Gotrek looked up towards the top of the tower. The hexagonal platform in its eaves was shining so brightly he had to shield his eyes. ‘Let’s get up there before they get so excited they forget what they promised me.’
Chapter Thirty
Deathwise
As they reached the building’s upper levels, they found themselves surrounded by Unburied. Maleneth remembered what Lhosia had said about each cocoon carrying hundreds, even thousands of souls, and she marvelled when she saw that the walls were covered in countless hundreds of them. They were all cradled in niches of smooth bone, like seeds in an enormous white pod, and the nearer they were to the platform, the brighter they shone. As she ran, Maleneth felt as though she were racing into the heart of a star with giant embers tumbling all around her, burning as they fell. The platform was made of the same pale, translucent material as everything else, and shadowy figures were walking across the surface, passing back and forth above her head.
They were still several minutes away from the platform when Maleneth cried out in alarm and stumbled to a halt.
‘Keep moving, aelf!’ snapped Gotrek, glancing back at her. As soon as he saw what had happened to her, he stopped too.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.
‘Doing? I did nothing!’ she said, staring at her arms. Her skin was naturally pale, but it had been transformed, turned into the same bone-like substance as the walls. Even her clothes had changed to the same material. ‘This is what happened to you!’ she cried, pointing at the rows of cocoons. ‘When you joined yourself to those things. It’s happening to you now! Look!’
Gotrek exclaimed in annoyance. His leathery, tattooed muscles now resembled dusty alabaster, as did the plate of armour on his shoulder. He stared at his palm, grimacing at the change in his flesh.
‘Don’t move!’ called Trachos.
‘Don’t move? What do you mean, don’t move? We need to get up there.’ Gotrek turned to continue up the stairs.
‘Remember what the priestess told you,’ said Trachos. ‘You’re fragile in that state. Tread carefully.’
Gotrek halted and looked back. ‘And what about you?’
Trachos’ armour was now the same chalky white as everything else. He shook his head, staring at his arms.
‘Ha!’ crowed Maleneth. ‘Not so eternal after all. Tread carefully yourself!’
The figures overhead suddenly rushed to one side of the platform, and the cocoons on the walls pulsed even brighter.
‘Sod this,’ grunted Gotrek, and carried on up the stairs, but he was moving noticeably slower.