A prequel to his Age of Sigmar novel Ghoulslayer, Darius Hinks’ short story The Neverspike sees the Celestial Vindicator Trachos stumble upon Gotrek Gurnisson in the mountains of Aqshy. Troubled by temperamental memories and an unnatural voice in his head, accusing him of weakness and cowardice, Trachos sees in the doom-seeking Slayer an opportunity to return to Azyr in glory. Accompanying Gotrek and Maleneth on their search for the Neverspike – a dangerous fragment of Shyish – he plots how to part the Slayer from the Master Rune embedded in his chest, without quite realising who he’s dealing with.
As Gotrek stories go this is unusual in that the Slayer is essentially the antagonist of the story. Viewed from Trachos’ perspective Gotrek is both an obstacle to be overcome and a puzzle to be understood, although the Stormcast lets his arrogance get the better of him and consistently underestimates the Slayer. Trachos is an unconventional Stormcast character, driven mostly by selfish needs rather than honour or duty, and he offers a fresh perspective on Gotrek that should allow new readers to draw their own conclusions and existing fans of the character to enjoy his dawning realisation. Despite the unusual viewpoint, all the expected hallmarks of this consistently entertaining series are present and correct, and this sets things up nicely for the next chapter in Gotrek’s saga.
The Neverspike was originally released in The Black Library Events Anthology 2018/19, and is also available as an e-short.
Check out the main Age of Sigmar reviews page on Track of Words.
