The Skeleton Key Read online

  The skeletons didn’t listen. They shoved against him in the effort to reach the door to the dungeon. He pushed back. More and more and more came out of the ground. Soon the dugout was full. The pressure of the mob grew too great, and Tomolandry flew out of the entrance like a popped cork. The skeletons charged into the dungeon.

  Sternright scooped the ball up just as Ramtut was reaching for it. They had both run far ahead of their teammates. No, Ramtut thought. No no no. He would not be outrun and outplayed by this priggish whelp. Ramtut growled and lunged for Sternright. He closed his fingers around the Crusader’s shoulder pads. Before he could tighten his grip, Sternright jinked right. The spikes of the pad tore through Ramtut’s wrappings, and Sternright was free.

  Ramtut sprinted after him. They ploughed through the crowd of skeletons, scattering bones. Ramtut wondered why the Bright Crusader was heading north. The Champions’ end zone was through one of the main entrances heading south. Why was Sternright going this way, running like he was bound and determined to score an own goal?

  Answers later. Catch him now.

  Goodstar and Puresoul followed close behind, running interference. Ramtut charged between them, and threw his weight left and right. He checked them hard enough to send them careening into the narrow tunnel’s walls. They banged back into each other, stunned, and Ramtut put on a burst of speed. He was only a few paces behind Sternright now.

  There was a teleport pad just ahead. The Crusader was making for it with blinding speed.

  No you don’t, Ramtut thought, and made a desperate leap to tackle.

  The teleport pad seemed to explode.

  The conclave invoked by the College of Magic would eventually pronounce that the overload was inevitable. The skeletons poured into the dungeon too quickly for the teleport pads to accommodate them all. The critical point was reached when there was a skeleton arriving on every pad. The chain reaction began. Every pad attempted to transmit, but no location was receiving. The feedback loop of energy lit the entire dungeon with shrieking blue lightning.

  Ramtut caught Sternright around the legs. They tumbled onto the pad together, into blazing, convulsed magic and a shifting kaleidoscope of confused skeletons. The dungeon disappeared in a searing flash. Ramtut tumbled through an eruption of non-light and howling colours. Space lost all meaning. Something tore.

  And then…

  Ramtut and Sternright dropped onto the peak of a huge structure. Ramtut looked around, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, and failing. They were in an inconceivably vast city, whose structures were impossibly tall. The city was at war. Bursts of unimaginable power shattered buildings. Huge engines of war, larger than any dragon, flew through the air, unleashing cataclysm. Swarms of towering, all-devouring monsters attacked walking metal mountains. And…

  And…

  Were those pyramids? Pyramids larger than any Ramtut had seen with living eyes.

  Flying pyramids?

  In the midst of incomprehensibly vast conflict, of war and war and war raging to the horizon and filling the skies, Ramtut found himself thinking, Now this is more like it.

  Sternright was standing still, mindless with shock. His jaw was wide open, and slack. A string of drool fell from his chin to his chest. His arms were hanging limply at his side and he had dropped the ball.

  Ramtut heard a sound like a tide snarling. He looked down and saw a swarm of creatures climbing the façade of the building towards them. They were about the size of a man, but had four hideously clawed arms. Bony structures like spinal columns rose from their carapaces. Their elongated, violet-hued heads gaped ravenously, serpentine tongues tasting the air.

  ‘What what what what…’ Sternright was saying.

  The centre of the rooftop began to crackle with light again. The sorcerous vortex spun. Ramtut knew better than to second-guess the possible exit. There were glories in this place, but he could not remain here. He picked up the ball and turned to go.

  Sternright did not move. The terrors of this world had broken him.

  Ramtut sighed. He grabbed the Crusader by the scruff of the neck and hauled him towards the light. As he did, the first of the monsters reached the roof. It lunged at them. Ramtut leapt back and pushed Sternright away. The beast’s jump carried it between them. One of the elongated claws of its forelimbs sank into the ball and yanked it out of Ramtut’s hand. The monster tumbled into the vortex and vanished.

  The storm of magic convulsed, sending sorcerous fireballs in all directions. It was about to disintegrate.

  A horde of monsters clambered over the parapets.

  ‘Come on!’ Ramtut yelled at Sternright, grabbing him again and running into the maelstrom.

  ‘And we’re back. CabalVision and the College of Magic wish to apologise to viewers for the technical difficulties, but it looks like we have eyes on the game again, Bob, and… and…. uh…’

  ‘Jim, what is that?’

  ‘I… I’m at a bit of a loss, Bob. I can tell you that there are no records for any player matching that description.’

  ‘Well it has the ball and look at it go! It’s tearing through the opposition like nobody’s business! It’s pounding through the skeletons like they’re not even there! The clean-up teams are going to have a lot of smashed bones to pick up when this is done. Gotta say, though, Jim, it sure doesn’t look like your typical Bright Crusaders player.’

  ‘It doesn’t, Bob, and… Ah. Well, it looks like it isn’t one of the Champions of Death either.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘It will be of small comfort to Harald Goodstar, but his was the most efficient decapitation I’ve seen in a score of championships.’

  ‘What a move, Jim! I’m telling you, if we’d had that player as a ringer back in my day…’

  ‘I can well believe it, Bob. Meanwhile, there’s still no sign of the star players for both teams and this mysterious new player is on a rampage.’

  ‘That’s no metaphor, Jim.’

  ‘No, and the ball has seen better days, too.’

  ‘It’s just a flapping pig’s bladder now.’

  ‘Please, Bob, a deflation scandal is the last thing we need to think about right now. The ball is, still, technically in play, even if we don’t know for whom. And now the player is barrelling south, and…’

  ‘I don’t believe it, Jim.’

  ‘Neither do I, Bob, but that’s an end zone!’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘We still don’t know, and I guess we won’t until both have been revealed.’

  ‘Is it going to cross the line?’

  ‘It is, Bob! It is! AND IT HAS! TOUCHDOWN! I think! And–’

  ‘Ouch. Wow, that was bright.’

  ‘I’m a little dazzled, but the player seems to be gone.’

  ‘I don’t think those tremors are supposed to be happening, Jim.’

  Greezing was making his way towards Hallic’s portcullis through a warren of crevasses in the temple ceiling. He was just north of the central chamber when there was second furious blast of light throughout the dungeon. The teleport pads exploded, and the tunnels began to shake. Greezing fell from his place of concealment in the ceiling. He tried to get to his feet, but fell as the floor cracked and heaved. This was all going wrong. The Bright Crusaders had been savaged by whatever that thing was that had come through, but everyone was so confused that Greezing’s strategy was a shambles.

  He stumbled down the tunnel, surrounded by a mob of panicked skeletons. Femurs knocked him back and forth and he squinted against the explosive magical discharges. There was no point hiding now. He headed in the direction of centre field, hoping against hope he would not be noticed in the sea of clacking bone and could make one last attempt against the Bright Crusaders.

  He was almost there when Sternright and Ramtut dropped out of the air in front of him. There was crack of thunder,
and the blasts of magic stopped.

  The tremors did not, though.

  On Greezing’s right, the cracks in the walls widened. A blizzard of dust fell from the ceiling. The rotten bricks crumbled, and the walls began to fall.

  ‘Bob, I’ve just been informed that the creature’s touchdown has been ruled invalid because it was not clear whose team it would count for. There’s also some odd language here about it not being clear whose end zone that was.’

  ‘You’d think the referees should know that, Jim.’

  ‘Be that as it may, Bob, the game is still on, and a new ball is in play!’

  ‘With a playing field undergoing total collapse! Exciting times, Jim!’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Bob.’

  The walls fell into the lava. The canal was growing wider, becoming a violent river swallowing more and more of the dungeon. Chunks of stone fell from the ceiling, splashing into the molten rock and sending burning waves on all sides. The maze was disappearing, turning the dungeon into a single vast tunnel. A large portion of the centre field chamber was still intact. Ramtut was running for the ball. So was Puresoul. Sternright was curled up on the floor, gibbering. Wherever he had been, Greezing thought, it had not agreed with him.

  Greezing reached into his pouch. His careful plans were in ruins, but he wasn’t going to flee this disintegrating ruin without making one last attempt. He opened his pouch, took out the scroll he’d been keeping there, and ran, weaving against the shaking of the floor, to Sternright. The Bright Crusader blinked down at him. Greezing pushed the scroll into his hands.

  Sternright held it limply.

  Greezing took the scroll back, unrolled it and shoved it in Sternright’s face. Look! he thought. Look at what this is! It’s a map, you fool! Do something with the knowledge while it still matters!

  Sternright sat down and began to whistle tunelessly.

  Greezing covered his face and wept.

  There was only the great flow of lava now. The last stone memories of the temple were tumbling into the blazing canal. Hundreds of skeletons bobbed and sank. The centre field chamber had collapsed, and the bleachers were perched precariously over bubbling rock. To the north, there was only the raging source of the lava. To the south, visible at the far end of the canal, was Ramtut’s end zone.

  The mummy dredged up his most ancient, foul curses. He had the ball, and he had nowhere to take it. He was standing on a narrow ledge above the lava. South of his position, Puresoul was shaking Sternright, and the Bright Crusader star player was finally beginning to respond. Puresoul kept facing north, looking past Ramtut with a puzzled, frustrated expression.

  Odd, Ramtut thought. He would have thought the Crusaders would be relieved their end zone was now utterly inaccessible.

  But why had they always been struggling to take the ball north?

  The answer came at the same moment that Puresoul’s face cleared.

  One end zone, Ramtut thought. Everything made ridiculous sense now. That was why the Bright Crusaders had seemed to be struggling to go the wrong way. They had come from the same spot as the Champions of Death.

  This, he thought, is the most degraded excuse for a game I have ever seen.

  ‘One end zone!’ Puresoul shouted at Sternright. ‘There’s only one end zone!’

  The shock of the absurd revived Sternright. He stood, and the two Bright Crusaders rushed along the ledge for Ramtut. He leapt with the ball into the flowing lava.

  ‘He’s in the lava, Jim! Ramtut is in the lava!’

  ‘Being indestructible, he’s the only player who could attempt such a bold move, Bob. And he’s managing to hold the ball above the flow!’

  ‘The crowd is going nuts! And refusing the evacuation orders!’

  ‘Indeed so, Bob. I think we should pause to reflect on the reversal we see here. The lone Champion of Death is now the underdog. Outnumbered, he is literally walking through fire to snatch victory for his team in the midst of unspeakable calamity. How far we have come from the proposed theme for this match, Bob. Where is the traditional good versus evil, heroes versus monsters narrative now? There’s a lot to learn from this, Bob, and maybe the crowd will look back on this moment in times to come. This is the transformative beauty of the sport, Bob, and—’

  ‘HE’S HEADING FOR A TOUCHDOWN, JIM!’

  The Bright Crusaders ran along the crumbling, heaving bank of the river, a sobbing goblin just ahead of them. The lava sucked at Ramtut’s limbs. It tried to pull him under. It could not kill him, but he felt the consuming fire. The edges of his being eroded, the closest he could know to real pain. He walked through a haze of shredding, uncertain self. Bitter determination held him together. He would not leave the lava. If he set foot out of it before the end zone, all the Crusaders would have to do was take the ball and victory would be theirs. There were no skeletons to help him. He saw a couple on the other side of the river, but the falling ceiling crushed them to dust almost immediately.

  Through the writhing heat of the lava, Ramtut saw the doorways and walls tumble away, and the end zone appeared. The lava flowed underneath the goal post. He walked with it to the bitter end. The wrappings on his face caught fire in the last moments, and he could no longer see. It was only when the horn sounded that he knew he had scored the goal.

  Ramtut moved to the right until his hand found the bank. He hauled himself up onto the uncertain floor. He batted out the flames on his face. The Bright Crusaders faced him on other side of the goal, honest to the last and defeated, but standing firm as the dungeon broke apart around them.

  Ramtut hurled the ball into the lava with all the force of his contempt. Then he brushed off the bits of molten rock and stood firm and silent in his victory. The match was a joke. The game was even more degraded than he had believed. But he still had his dignity. That, in the end, was his real triumph.

  He caught the slight nod Sternright gave him. Ramtut nodded back. The Crusader understood.

  Dignity. It was all about dignity.

  ‘Some late-breaking news, Jim. We’re getting some reports of Referee Hallic and an unidentified halfling spectator being taken away in chains by officials from the College of Magic.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Bob. We’ll be following that story as it develops. In the meantime, let’s get back to our post-game panel discussion, and a consideration of what the surprise announcement of Da Deff Skwad’s financial straits will mean for the next season…’

  About the Author

  David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos and the Primarchs novel Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar. He has also written the Yarrick series, several stories involving the Grey Knights, and The Last Wall, The Hunt for Vulkan and Watchers in Death for The Beast Arises. For Space Marine Battles he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction, including the novella Mephiston: Lord of Death and numerous short stories set in The Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar universes. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

  In a fantasy world where violence is a way of life, the number one sport is Blood Bowl - Gridiron where anything goes. Dirk ‘Dunk’ Hoffnung, once a barbarian swordsman, is now a rookie quarterback in the toughest football league you’ve ever seen. Follow his career as he goes from Most Promising Newcomer to MVP!

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  The Skeleton Key © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. The Skeleton Key, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Blood Bowl, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, wea
pons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.

  All Rights Reserved.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-78572-611-8

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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