But it didn’t. The avalanche had already expended a great deal of its force. It reached past the pillar on either side but didn’t travel much further before it finally began to settle. The stonework of the pillar itself had shifted slightly, but held.
‘Told you they don’t know how to use mining charges,’ Gotrek said.
Maleneth didn’t reply. A pain had gripped her, a burning sensation running through her torso. She hissed, and the next thing she knew she was on her knees, hand clutching her wound and both arms clenched to her sides. Gotrek was saying something, but she couldn’t make out what it was. Her hiss became a cry, and the pain surged to agony. It was as though a fire had been kindled inside her, the flames eating up her insides. She felt Gotrek’s hand on her shoulder.
‘The wound,’ she managed to snarl from between clenched teeth. ‘Someone… in the crowd… The wound is poisoned.’
Chapter Twelve
High Priest Shal’ek was roused from his matins prayers by one of the notaries. The main prayer room of the temple was quiet, only a cluster of candles around the hammer altar giving light to the yellowing walls and rough-hewn stone pews.
‘It is Zelja, your holiness,’ the youth said. Shal’ek opened one eye, and scowled. He could never remember which notary was which.
‘What is wrong with Zelja, boy?’ the gaunt-faced priest demanded.
‘There are travellers at the gate, your holiness. She sent me to inform you.’
Zelja, captain of the Temple Guard, knew well enough to turn away random pilgrims, especially when dawn was still only a glimmer over the distant dunes. Shal’ek assumed something more required his clarification, but that didn’t stop him from snapping at the anonymous messenger.
‘Captain Zelja does not need me to instruct her to follow her usual orders and tell them to begone. What does she want from me?’
Kneeling as he was towards the hammer altar, Shal’ek could not see the notary, but he didn’t need to in order to sense the boy squirming.
‘The captain… She reports that they may warrant your attention, your holiness. There are three of them, a human, a duardin and an aelf.’
Shal’ek’s other eye opened, and his expression changed to one of consternation.
‘The aelf and the duardin both seem to be injured,’ the notary continued. ‘The aelf is unconscious.’
‘And what of the third one?’ Shal’ek asked.
‘Zelja says he is a desert trader.’
Shal’ek grunted, and stood. He offered a brief genuflection towards the hammer altar, traced the lightning sigil with two fingers and turned to the boy, who stiffly averted his eyes.
‘Show me,’ Shal’ek said.
‘I’m going to count to ten,’ bellowed a voice from beyond the temple’s timber gateway. ‘Ong!’
Shal’ek approached the entrance, glaring, the notary scurrying at his heels.
‘Tuk! Dwe!’
‘A duardin?’ the high priest demanded of Captain Zelja. The veiled commander of the temple guard was standing next to the gate, her scimitar drawn. A dozen of her men occupied the open stone parapet above, lit by the braziers lining the wall top.
‘Fut!’
‘There is a human with him, and he seems to be supporting an aelf in the garb of the Murder Temples,’ Zelja added. ‘They say she is dying.’
‘Sak! Siz! Set!’
‘Is it her?’ Shal’ek demanded. ‘One of the Order’s wretches?’
The question went unanswered.
‘Odro! Nuk!’
‘Does Weiss know?’ Shal’ek asked, stepping towards the viewing slit set into the heavy doors.
‘I have not sent anyone to wake him,’ Zelja said.
‘Don!’
Shal’ek set his eye to the slit opening. All he caught was a blur of movement, followed by an almighty bellow and a crash that made him stumble backwards. He blinked. The edge of an axe, wickedly sharp, was gleaming an inch from his nose. Had the sound of it cleaving clean through the temple’s front doors not sent him staggering back, it would have carved his skull in half.
There was a grunt from beyond the gate, and the axe head disappeared.
‘H-he’s hacking through the gate,’ Shal’ek stammered.
‘Archers,’ Zelja commanded. There was a clatter above as the guards nocked arrows to their bows.
‘I wouldn’t do that, manlings,’ bellowed the voice from beyond the gate. There was another shuddering impact, and the axe head reappeared amidst a hail of splinters. ‘I’d far rather be cutting heads instead of timber right now. Give me an excuse.’
Zelja’s guards looked to her, and she looked to Shal’ek. The high priest tried to find an answer to the duardin’s threat, but his eyes were fixated on the axe as it reappeared for a third time, hacking through just above the gate’s locking bar. Another below – delivered with a strength and force that seemed wholly unnatural – would surely break the gates wide open.
‘The aelf with you,’ declared a voice beside Shal’ek, startling him. Weiss had appeared, clad only in a night shift, his podgy face pale from lack of sleep. ‘What is her name?’
The axe blows paused. There was a hint of a growled discussion from beyond the gate. The voice called back.
‘Some damned stupid aelf name. Witchblade.’
‘And you,’ called Weiss. ‘You must be Gotrek Gurnisson.’
‘Have I found the only manling in this cursed world with an ounce of sense?’ the voice demanded.
‘It seems like it,’ Weiss said, and then, speaking to Zelja, he ordered, ‘Open the gate, and be quick about it.’
‘Are you mad?’ Shal’ek hissed. ‘That duardin is clearly insane. He will slaughter all of us.’
‘The aelf is a valued member of the Order of the Azyr,’ Weiss said curtly. ‘And the duardin, Gotrek… He is something else altogether. Something beyond anything we can comprehend.’
Shal’ek’s protestations were stilled by the opening of the scarred gate. A duardin strode in without hesitating. Weiss was right – he was unlike one Shal’ek had ever seen before. His scarred, tattooed skin bore only a single rune, crafted in the baleful image of the duardin god, and his huge rune-etched axe was wreathed in fire. The glare from his one remaining eye burned white-hot.
Shal’ek had spent his life in observance towards the gods. He had never anticipated standing before one. He whimpered.
‘Well don’t just stand there,’ the duardin bellowed, making even Zelja cringe visibly. ‘I’ve known better welcomes in the corpse-castles of Sylvania! The damned aelf wouldn’t stop talking about you – the least you can do is help her!’
The duardin gestured behind him, at the two figures limping through the gate in his wake. One was a raggedy human, a desert pack driver by the cap he wore. The other, supported awkwardly by the boy, was a pallid aelf in purple silks and dark leather. She was unconscious, but as they crossed into the temple she convulsed against the boy’s grip and was sick. There was blood in the vomit.
‘You men,’ Weiss barked at a gaggle of Shal’ek’s priests, who had come from their sleeping dorms to stare. ‘Take the aelf to the infirmary. And someone go and awaken Draz.’
Arch-Chirurgeon Abul Draz was woken by the temple’s chief leecher. He came to with a gasp, grasping the man’s smock.