The blast obliterated half of the table.
The duardin glowered over the jagged edge of the lower half, wood splinters and metal shrapnel sticking to the cooking fats that coated his jaw like glue. He hurled the table to one side, clear across the wide taproom, and advanced unsteadily on the bar.
Black Mals cursed. The rifle rattled in arthritic claws as he fought to clear the breech and reload.
A brief scuffle. A scream. A muffled thud.
The sound of an antique rifle stock being buried in an old man’s skull.
Then a gurgle.
Blood trickled over the counter’s edge and pattered the back of Nieder’s neck.
Nieder wriggled determinedly along the ground towards the duardin’s greataxe. There would be some collateral harm. The Tithekeeper would just have to take the duardin in two pieces instead of one.
A heavy-bottomed boot pressed on his shoulder, driving his cheek and brow into the bare stone and leaving his fingers worming impotently shy of the axe’s haft.
The duardin cleared the gravel from his throat.
‘I would have it known, manling, that Gotrek son of Gurni is not in the habit of brawling with the common townsfolk. His axe thirsts after redder meat. But, as has been made plain to him on one occasion too many, the rules of this time continue to escape him.’ The duardin leant over his propped thigh. Nieder groaned under the added weight. ‘I freely admit to making it up as I go, and shan’t deny enjoying myself on occasion.’
‘I–’
‘Shush, manling.’ Gotrek gave his head a shake, and looked blearily around the empty tavern. ‘I appear to be missing a companion of mine.’ He raised one bloody haunch of a hand to about the flat top of his crest of hair. ‘Poisonous-looking thing. All skin and bones. About yay big.’
‘I’ll never– Arrrgh!’
Gotrek reached across to retrieve his greataxe, the duardin’s full and enormous weight crushing down on Nieder’s shoulder and chest.
‘Forgive me, manling. You were saying something.’
The fire bound to the two monstrous blades licked at the duardin’s face like a skin hound delighted at the return of its master. The grease stuck to his face popped and sizzled, but made no clear mark on his skin. Nor even his hair. The golden rune that was embedded in his wide chest appeared to brighten with the near touch of its sister flame, muttering and scowling in a voice like beaten metal and molten rock. Half heard. Wholly felt.
‘Hamnil.’ Nieder kicked himself inwardly, but didn’t stop himself from saying it again, louder. ‘Hamnil took her.’
‘What does he want with my aelf? Why would anyone take an aelf?’
Nieder’s eyes slid to the door.
Gotrek followed his look. ‘All right then.’ He took his weight from Nieder’s back.
Nieder gasped, clawing his way back towards the bar and freedom, only then to cry out again as the duardin picked him up by the ankle and dragged him towards the door.
The duardin butted open the heavy doors and hauled him over the door jamb. A pair of lightless moons hung from the sky above like skulls mounted on posts. Behind, the grey brick façade of the Bone Drake loomed into horned shadow. The night was starless and bitter.
Gotrek let go of Nieder’s ankle. He looked up and down the deserted street. Not a gheist or rasp moved. Every door was locked, every window shuttered.
‘Which of these hovels has my aelf in it? Grungni alone amongst your pantheon of false gods and pretenders knows how many times I have sought to be rid of her. And she of me. But to have her snatched from my side in the dead of night by some backwater potboys with a grisly trade on the side…’ The duardin seemed to harden in the dark, muscles creaking like cooling metal. ‘It would sit ill with me. And she swore she’d guide me on to Thanator’s Manse, and still owes me for the night’s board.’
‘She’ll have been taken to the Tithekeeper.’
‘Who, or what, is that?’
‘The town champion. He gathers the tribute we owe and delivers it.’
‘Where?’
Nieder shook his head. ‘Only the Tithekeeper truly knows. Beyond the Marrow Hills and across the Sunken Sea, to a dread regent of the Undying King. He rules from a seat of bone and in exchange for the yearly tithe sends his fleshless legions elsewhere. We emptied our crypts, handed over our reliquaries, dismembered every crook in our gaols. But it wasn’t enough. We took to disposing of travellers. There was a time when Skeltmorr saw a lot of travellers.’
‘Few of them come back a second time these days, I’d wager. Does the aelfling live?’
‘These are the dead hours. Not even the Tithekeeper would labour through Nagash’s time. She will be drugged and bound, ready for the Tithekeeper come morning.’ He bit his lip as if to keep himself from saying more, then blurted out. ‘It was Black Mals who told me to kill you there in the tavern. I only meant to hand you over to the Tithekeeper with the aelf.’
The duardin startled him with a huge laugh. The broken lengths of old, fire-damaged chain bolted to his wrists rattled like wraiths bound in spirit iron. ‘I have lost count of all the things that have sought my death, and long ago ceased taking such attempts personally, or mourning their failures.’ Gotrek leant in close, threatening to smother Nieder again with his odour. ‘And where did you mean to drag this corpse of mine when the shameful deed was done?’
Nieder stammered. Playing for time. Selling out Hamnil was one thing. Crossing the Tithekeeper was an altogether darker step to take.
Even now, he knew who he feared most.
A shutter banged open from across the street. Gotrek lifted his one-eyed gaze. Nieder looked up. A white-haired woman in a cryptsilk gown leant from her window. She looked across the street, silent as the night, her expression too distant to make out.
‘Back to your bed, old mother,’ Gotrek growled. ‘Unless you’re the Tithekeeper I’ve heard so much of then my quarrel is not with you.’
The woman disappeared back inside. The shutters banged closed.
‘Nosy wench,’ said Gotrek.
‘I can’t betray the Tithekeeper,’ Nieder hissed, low enough that the words would carry no further than the duardin’s ears. ‘The Bone King will come looking for his missing tithe and then the whole town will die.’
‘Maybe they will. Maybe your Tithekeeper’s been lying through his teeth and they won’t.’ The duardin shrugged. ‘Where’s my aelf?’
From across the street a door creaked open. It was the old woman. She emerged into the street, her white gown fluttering in the thin breeze like the death shroud of a ghost. Unheard and barely seen, several more doors breathed wide and exhaled their occupants into the night.
None of them moved. They watched.
‘Go back to your homes. This is no business of y–’
Gotrek grunted sharply, and Nieder’s gaze travelled up to see an arrow sticking out from the side of the duardin’s thick neck.
The Wislass sisters, both women widowed within a year of one another by the Tithekeeper, stood at their windowsill with shortbows in hand. The first shot had been the elder’s. The youngest was still straining against her bowstring with the arrow nocked. Gotrek bared his bloody gums but made no attempt to step out of the way. If anything his drunken stagger only squared his shoulders to make an even larger target of himself.
The widow took her invitation and loosed. The arrow flew an inch clear of Gotrek’s shoulder and skidded off down the dirt road.
The duardin grunted in disappointment.