Maleneth saw the opening and took it.
She sprinted, hurdling stricken monks between herself and their priest as they picked themselves off the ground. She was fast, practically a blur as she covered the hundred or so feet in a matter of seconds. The last dozen she turned into a leap, a knife appearing in her off-hand as she dropped.
‘For Khaine!’
She slashed the knife across the skaven’s throat, intending to gizzard it, only to see her blade thunk into the mouldy wood of the priest’s staff. Its reflexes were astonishing. The priest hissed, fangs bared, and swung up the butt of its staff. Maleneth twisted to one side. The staff whooshed across her chest. The priest spun, cackling like a fanatic, his censer emitting a weary drone as he spun it overhead, then turned to bring it whirring back towards her.
‘For Sigmar!’
She roundhoused the priest, a heel-kick across the snout, deliberately unbalancing herself and falling to the ground as the plague censer droned overhead. The big bronze censer crushed the flagstone behind the one she was sprawled over. Whizzing fragments ripped her drakespawn leathers. Noxious fumes rushed over her. Her eyes filled with stinging tears. The skin bared by her torn armour itched. Coughing, she crawled away from the plague fumes on her back.
The priest tittered as it jumped off its rubble mound to follow.
This was, she acknowledged, not turning into the incisive decapitating stroke that she had envisioned.
Already, the monks that Alanaer’s prayer had thrown down were rallying. Several were even peeling away from Gotrek, drawn by the commotion and their priest’s shrill laughter. She cursed, glancing back at the Slayer, and in doing so identified another good reason for the wilier of the plague monks to abandon that particular prize in search of another.
Gotrek Gurnisson was on fire. He was liquid gold, sparks hissing, poured into the cast of a duardin form. The flames grew fiercer as the Slayer butchered his way through the squealing plague monks, feeding off his fury and feeding it in kind. His greataxe moved with such speed that it looked to Maleneth as though he wielded two of them, the air around him webbed with fiery after-traces. The heat was so incredible that Halik and Alanaer could no longer even contribute to the fight at all. They had retreated to the shelter of the stairwell. The occasional refrain of a prayer rose over the roar of the flames, but otherwise the Slayer had effectively cut off his, and Maleneth’s, only means of aid. It was a testament to the unholy durability of the plague monks that they were able to endure the Slayer’s proximity and still fight.
With an ugly snarl, Maleneth tore her gaze from the approaching plague priest and looked around. A way out. A place to hide. Anything. What she found, recessed behind two thick, ivy-strangled columns, was so subtly worked into the wall and well-hidden that she almost failed to see it at all. It was an arch. A feeling of bleakness and unreasoning dread emanated from it, a chill finding its way through her violet eyes, and from there along rarely used ways to her heart. Her snarl became a shiver. Something about the arch urged the eye to move on, and discouraged any thought of approaching. But Maleneth had nowhere left to run.
Even as she ignored her own disquiet to sprint towards it, the rat-men on her heels fell off the chase with squeals of terror. Maleneth turned to look over her shoulder. The plague priest jabbed a claw at Maleneth and shrieked at the cowering monks. Maleneth did not understand the chittering speech, which was a small tragedy on the priest’s part for it was one of the last acts it would ever perform.
Gotrek reared up behind it.
The Slayer had grown massive. Muscles bulged with rune-forged might. His good eye blazed like a freshly minted coin. Even his eyepatch was limned by a halo of golden brilliance. Flames wreathed him.
Maleneth had known many great wielders of power. She had witnessed the awesome rituals performed by the magisters of the Collegiate Arcane, and had ended the life of more than one rogue wizard in her time. But even the last, desperate conjurations of sorcerers driven mad by the promises of Chaos had been tame and controlled compared to what Maleneth beheld now. It was as though someone, or something, breathed dragonfire against the thin skein separating Ghyran from the aether that swirled beyond its sphere in the cosmos. Unveiling the dead stars and wrathful deities that lingered there in all their awful magnificence.
The sooner I get that rune out of him the better, Maleneth thought.
With a howl that shook the roots of Ghyran, Gotrek cut the plague priest in half. The two halves of its diseased body consumed themselves in flame before they could hit the ground. The Slayer breathed it in, exhaling it like sparks from a furnace. Those skaven bright enough to have been directing their efforts elsewhere squealed in terror at the sight. They broke, scampering off down the long hall.
Maleneth did not expect them to come back. She noted, however, that despite being for many the closest avenue of escape, none of them had tried to flee down the side tunnel behind her.
With a deep breath, Halik emerged from her hiding place behind the stairs. She cast a wary look at Gotrek as she padded down the hall. But the Slayer did not move. He was hunched over the rubble of the priest’s pedestal. It was a cairn now, burnt to twisted plates of unreflective glass by the intensity of the heat and magic that he had unwittingly unleashed upon it. The glassy lump creaked under Gotrek’s weight, splintering and popping as it cooled. He was breathing hard, steam curling off his crisped, cooling skin.
It was probably optimistic to hope that it was the cocktail of poisons in his blood finally starting to tell. If there was a toxin anywhere in the planes of existence that could have endured such runefire then it was under the jealous protection of the Hags of Azyr – held against the day that Sigmar himself needed to feel the knife of Khaine.
‘What in Sigmar’s Storm was that?’ said Halik.
Maleneth smiled weakly and shook her head. That was a longer story than she had the strength for, and one that she was not entirely sure of the end of herself.
Alanaer crouched by Junas.
‘He’s alive,’ the warrior-priest declared. He pulled the big man up to sitting, and smiled ruefully as the brawler spat out another tooth. ‘But I doubt he’ll be breaking any more young ladies’ hearts with this face.’
Halik managed a nervous chuckle. ‘Skaven,’ she muttered, as it left her.
‘More of Thanquol’s craven minions, I expect.’ Gotrek moved like a statue taking life, slowly, vitrified gore and dust trickling from his shoulders. He drew in a shuddering breath, then coughed it up. He wiped blood from his bottom lip on his thumb, then lifted it to his eye. He grunted and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Leftovers from the war on the other side of the Stormrift Gate. With skaven you never can kill them all.’
‘No.’ Alanaer shook his head. ‘The servants of the Great Corruptor have long coveted my Queen’s realm. I expect that their presence here predates the Grey Lord’s invasions of Hammerhal Aqsha by some time.’
‘What have you found here, darkling?’ Halik looked up at the archway that Maleneth had discovered. Her footsteps slowed noticeably as she looked on it. She shivered as she reached out to run her hand along the inside of the stone arch, hesitating, finally bringing the hand back to her side unused. ‘Tambrin passed this way,’ she breathed. ‘The ground here is marked, and not by skaven paws. And.’ The ranger paused, ear cocked. ‘Can you hear that?’