They could only sustain this defence for so long. They were still outnumbered, and no one in Khaled-Tush was going to come to the aid of a duardin and an aelf in a knife fight with the Alharabi. For all Maleneth’s own abilities, there was only so much she could do while pinned defending another’s back. She’d already taken two shallow cuts across her right arm, and the first stab she’d received in her side was still throbbing. She could feel blood running down her thigh.
The tempo of the dancers’ blows picked up as they sensed their victim’s uncertainty. She heard Gotrek snarl with frustration, a sure sign that he was still unable to lay a blow on the troupe mistress. Another knife blade struck and twisted into Maleneth’s hip, making her hiss and slash her own steel over the attacker’s arm.
To die here will bring eternal dishonour to the temple.
‘Be silent, mistress!’ Maleneth snapped, her back now physically pressed up against Gotrek’s, as one of the veiled dancers made a series of jabs towards her face and eyes, forcing her to give ground.
A tremor shuddered through the stage. It was not a pounding tattoo like Gotrek’s initial charge, but something altogether deeper. The Alharabi sensed it too. Their attacks faltered.
Maleneth didn’t get a chance to attack. A blast wave hit the black top. The screaming of the crowd intensified as the black canvas ripped, and the whole structure buckled. Maleneth saw a jagged line torn across the ceiling directly above her, a section of the pavilion plucked away to reveal the night beyond.
It was riven with fire.
Another explosion shuddered through the air, intensifying the screaming of the spectators. They had begun to stampede, some for the pavilion’s entrance, others for the hole ripped in its flanks. Maleneth realised that fire had caught and was kindling on a section of the canvas near the ground to her right, whether from the flames spreading outside or from the overturned candle stands it was impossible to tell.
The black top was about to become a furnace.
Get out.
‘We must flee,’ Maleneth said to Gotrek, still at her back.
‘Tell that to your treacherous dance partners,’ the duardin snarled. ‘Dwarfs don’t flee, especially not Gotrek Gurnisson!’
Despite the conflagration taking hold around them, the Alharabi came at them once more, more furious than ever. Maleneth met them in a low fighting crouch, blades held tip-down to either side, one wet with the blood running down her wounded arm.
Their attackers’ blows never landed. Flames burst from the rear of the stage, searing heat blazing over Maleneth and making her flinch and choke. The clothing of one of the assassins ignited, and she shrieked as the fire took her.
Maleneth felt the stage begin to tilt under her. More flames were licking at the support beams, and there was a crack as one blackened length of timber gave way. The dancers maintained their balance, but the distraction was enough. Maleneth gritted her teeth and thrust herself back against Gotrek with all her strength. She felt the Slayer going over, carried by the movement of the collapsing stage past the troupe master and the platform’s edge.
Maleneth’s stomach lurched as she tumbled into freefall. Her foot connected with the side of one of the collapsing beams, and she was able to use the brief buttress to turn herself round in mid-air. She landed next to Gotrek on all fours, knives thumping into the pavilion floor either side of her. A second later there was a splitting crash as the rest of the stage behind them gave way, the flames leaping up to gorge on the splitting timbers.
The crowd at the front of the stage had long since fled, packing into the mass now struggling to fight their way through the ripping canvas walls. The flames were still spreading, their heat overwhelming. Some onlookers had caught fire, their horrific screaming only adding to the panic and confusion. Black smoke was starting to fill the claustrophobic space. Maleneth knew they had seconds before the greater part of the pavilion’s roof gave way and descended on them all in a smothering blanket of burning cloth.
‘Rise,’ she snapped at Gotrek, retrieving her two blades as she did so. The Slayer grunted and picked up his axe. Its fires had gone out, an irony given the flames that were now engulfing everything else.
‘Damned piece of dross,’ the Slayer snarled at the weapon. ‘Why is everything in this new reality so worthless?’
Maleneth heard a shriek just as she found her feet. She spun in time to see Shaldeen leaping at them through the flames consuming the stage. Her silken clothing was alight, and she looked like a daemonic fury as she flung herself at the aelf and the duardin, her face a terrible rictus of pain and rage.
Down.
Maleneth dropped into a crouch as the troupe mistress flew at her, screaming. She felt something heavy pass overhead, and realised that she’d reflexively screwed her eyes shut. There was a sickening thump, and the scream was cut off abruptly. Something hot and wet splattered her. She opened her eyes to find herself covered in blood. The two halves of the troupe mistress lay either side of her, bisected by Gotrek’s overhead swing, the flames quickly eating up the gory remains.
‘Dance around that,’ Gotrek said.
‘We’ve got to get out,’ Maleneth repeated. She pointed towards the nearest opening in the pavilion’s flank. Fire had seared it away, its edges licked by flames. The heat was keeping people at bay. Maleneth reached down, sheathed her knives and snatched a heavily embroidered desert trader’s cape from the ground.
‘Stay behind and stay close,’ she ordered Gotrek.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gotrek panted. ‘If you go first, I’ll get to see you burn to death before I do. Maybe I’ll even get out, and then I can find the inscription in peace. Go ahead, aelfling.’
Maleneth charged the gap. The smoke was making her eyes sting and choking her throat, and the heat had slicked her with sweat. She stumbled but kept going, the cape held up before her like a shield. She could hear the heavy thumping of Gotrek’s footfalls at her back.
She flung herself against the fire-eaten hole in the canvas, feeling the intense, blistering heat wash over her. Something scorched her hands, and she dropped the cape reflexively. Initially, she could neither breathe nor see, her eyes forced shut by the smoke, the ash making her gag and retch. Then she was through – the heat was gone, a memory at her back, and she could breathe again. She stumbled, but turned the fall into a roll, finally coming to a stop on her back amidst rough oasis grass, staring up at the sky, panting.
Gotrek had come to a halt beside her, hands on his knees as he gulped down air untainted by the pavilion’s fiery demise. He muttered something, but Maleneth wasn’t listening. Her eyes were still on the sky. It was almost wholly engulfed by smoke billowing from the burning caravans, the market and the black top, but she had caught something amidst the swirling ash and red embers. It took her a moment to recognise its outline.
She was watching a duardin skyship, an arkanaut frigate most commonly used by the piratical Kharadron Overlords. Its bulk resembled the iron hull of a seagoing vessel, but instead of watery waves it traversed the clouds of the aether thanks to the arcane power of three spherical endrins suspended by cables and copper wiring above the ship’s structure.
Maleneth thought at first that the ship had been moored somewhere amidst the caravans of Khaled-Tush, and was making its escape as the fires leapt and spread throughout the outpost. As she watched though, she realised that its course must have brought it in over the oasis, and that it was holding station rather than pulling away.