The Last Gift

Josh Reynolds

Ompallious Zeyros swept his silvery glaive out in a wide arc, removing the Rotbringer’s flabby sword-hand at the wrist. The obese warrior gave a grunting sigh and reached for Zeyros with his remaining paw.

‘Too slow, my fat friend,’ Zeyros said as he twisted aside and thrust the edge of his glaive through a rusty join in his opponent’s fungus-covered cuirass. Warm pus spurted from the wound and the Rotbringer seemed to deflate, even as he toppled forward. Zeyros tore his glaive free and spun it deftly, cleansing the blade. It had been a gift from a daemon of his acquaintance, and was as light as one of her feathers.

All around him, his servants finished off the last of the pestilential defenders of the crag-fortress known as the Rot-Horn. Cackling, pink-limbed horrors, their chest-faces twisted in manic amusement, hurled daemonic fire as oath-sworn warriors clad in armour of amethyst and lapis lazuli hacked down bloated blightkings with ensorcelled blades. The Rotbringers had sought to bar their entry to the inner chambers of the keep that clung like a stony boil to the highest peak of the mountain range.

‘But they have failed. Do you hear me, Ephraim Bollos? Or is it Lord Rotskull?’ he shouted, casting his words into the mould-shrouded corridors which spread out around him, echoing strangely. ‘Whatever you call yourself, I am here, as is your hour of reckoning.’

He received no reply. He had expected none. Still, a worm of doubt wriggled within him. ‘Is he here, Tugop? Is my foe here, or has he already fled, as he did at the Black Cistern?’ he asked, glancing at the blue-skinned horror crouched on a nearby statue. Tugop was little more than a collection of lanky limbs and a monstrous head twisted in a sullen grimace, but he was loyal, in his way. As loyal as a daemon bound in chains of ritual and blood could be.

‘Or as you did at the Pallas Ghyredes, Ompallious Zeyros?’ the daemon murmured dolefully. ‘He is here, for all the good it shall do thee,’ he added quickly, at Zeyros’ glare.

‘And what does that mean, daemon?’ Zeyros demanded.

‘Only that thy fate is come, and all possible paths have narrowed to but one, Ompallious Zeyros,’ Tugop said, as he extended one impossibly long arm and patted Zeyros’ shoulder in apparent sympathy. ‘Tread carefully, and stay to that path which the King of Manifold Paths hath chosen for thee.’

‘And victory will be mine?’

The blue horror gave a sad chuckle. ‘Who can say? Not I, not I.’

He…llo…ol…d…frie…nd.

The old familiar voice echoed up out of the fungal growths on the body at his feet. They flexed like the mouths of fishes gasping for air, causing the corpse to shudder.

‘Ephraim,’ Zeyros said. ‘Where are you?’

Wai…ting…for…you.

A stinking breeze whipped past him, drawing him towards an archway curtained in foulness. A single slice of his glaive revealed the corridor beyond. He hesitated. He looked at Tugop. ‘The path?’ he asked, softly. The blue horror spread his oversized hands and shrugged. Zeyros shook his head in disgust. ‘Burn this sty to ashes. I will deal with its master.’ His warriors murmured their assent, as Tugop bowed.

As he stepped into the corridor, he heard daemons giggling behind him as they began to slap the damp stones with burning hands. There was little the servants of Tzeentch enjoyed more than destroying the bastions of rot beloved of Nurgle. That was why he had sworn himself to the iridescent banners of the Changer of Ways that day, so long ago. The day Ephraim Bollos had broken his oaths and cast down all that they had once served.

He strode along heavy flat foundation stones carpeted with bunches of mould. Humps of toadstools clustered between the flags, and wherever he stepped, clouds of spores billowed up. They clung to his armour and robes, staining them an ugly hue. The walls around him bulged with mushrooms and furry streaks that blended in hideous harmony to give shape to faces and hands and other, less identifiable things – crusted convolutions which resembled things no mortal eye should see.

‘Until, out of corruption, horrid life springs,’ Zeyros murmured. It was an old saying, folk wisdom from a people and a land lost to the foetid tide of history. His land. We were closer than brothers, you and I, he thought. We rode to war side-by-side. How many lances did we each break on behalf of the other, before you threw it all away?

Before they both threw it away, a treacherous part of him countered. He shied away from the thought. Whatever he’d done, he’d done in the name of necessity. But Bollos… Bollos had sold his soul for power. Life. Survival. The Jade Kingdoms drowned in filth, and Bollos had chosen to join it.

A familiar laugh, deep-throated and full, echoed out around him. That laughter had followed him, haunted him, for centuries. He stopped. The corridor had expanded, widening into a round chamber, full of ghastly life. Great toadstools and hummocks of fungus stood like courtiers before a heavy slab of a dais, surmounted by a crude throne.

‘Hello, my old friend… Come to see me at last?’ Ephraim Bollos wheezed. He had seen better days. His bloated, toad-like form lolled on the throne, armour creaking as it struggled futilely to contain the hideous shape within. By the light of phosphorescent fungus, Zeyros could see that the living corruption that filled the keep originated from Bollos and his throne. Webs of fungus and mould stretched from his limbs and horned skull to spread across the walls and floor, where they had thickened and flourished into a garden of filthy creation. ‘Welcome to my garden. I can feel the heat of your hate from here, Ompallious.’

‘As I can smell the stink of you, Ephraim,’ Zeyros said. His voice carried strangely in the chamber. The doughy fungus which clung to the walls seemed to absorb all sound, as did the spongy carpet of fluted shapes which squelched beneath his feet. ‘Then, you never were very clean. Even in better days.’

Bollos laughed. ‘Better days? Is that a hint of yearning I hear in your voice?’

‘Unlike you, my brain is not shot through with rot. My memories are as vivid as ever.’ Zeyros slashed a particularly unpleasant clump of fungus apart and was rewarded by a tiny scream. Bollos sighed.

‘Do stay your hand, Ompallious. I cannot bear their pain,’ he grumbled. ‘They are a part of me, and I, them. I am in every blossom and lump.’

Spitefully, Zeyros thrust his glaive into the trembling clump and gave it a savage twist. Thin squeals of agony, or perhaps simply escaping air, reached him. Bollos twitched on his throne. ‘Once, you would not have done that,’ he said.

‘Once, we would have traded blows, rather than words,’ Zeyros said. ‘Once, you would have welcomed this. But now…’

‘Now I am older and less inclined to bestir myself for petty displays,’ Bollos said.

‘Petty, he says,’ Zeyros said. ‘Do not mock me, Ephraim. We have known each other too long to play such games.’ He took another step towards the throne. The fungus seemed to shift and bulge, as if following him. ‘Ghyran, the Jade Kingdoms… they shudder beneath the star-shod heels of a new power. The fires of Azyr rage in the forests of rot, and your patron reels in agony. Nurgle loses his hold on this realm. It is a time of change.’

‘So it is.’ Bollos gestured with a wide, warty hand. ‘And so I am. All of this… it is me, my friend. Every toadstool, every cilium, born of my flesh, culled from my rotten bone. Behold, I give a gift of myself to the future. Life begets life. It was ever Grandfather’s way.’

Zeyros looked around, a queasy feeling in his gut. Bollos truly had become one with the filth of Nurgle’s garden. ‘It was ever your way to wallow in your own filth,’ he said.

‘You should not mock me, my friend,’ Bollos said, watching him approach.

‘We are not friends, Ephraim. Maybe once, but no longer, and not for many centuries. An ocean of blood separates us, and I would see you drown in it.’ Zeyros took another step. And another. The carpet of toadstools stirred beneath him.

‘Yes. And you sold your soul for the chance, did you not?’

Zeyros said nothing. Bollos’ wide, toad-like face split in a brown grin. His teeth were broken and mossy, and something that might have been a tongue moved behind them. ‘What price a man’s soul, eh?’

‘You tell me,’ Zeyros said. ‘Was it worth it, Ephraim? All that you’ve done, to me, to the others… was it worth it?’

‘Worth has a different meaning for every man, Ompallious. You taught me that. I sold my soul for life, eternal and without end, in one form or another. What did you sell yours for? That iridescent armour you wear? That glaive you carry? Or something else?’ Bollos sighed, his round eyes half-shut. ‘Did you bargain all of your tomorrows away for today?’

Zeyros paused, his foot on the bottom step of the dais on which the throne sat. The air was thick with spores and mould, and he coughed, trying to clear his lungs. Everything in the chamber stank of Bollos. ‘I did what was necessary, and no more,’ he said, harshly.

Bollos frowned. ‘Necessity and worth are often determined in the aftermath, I have found.’ He sat back with a ponderous groan. ‘In truth, I had hoped you would come. I can no longer leave this place, for I am as much garden as gardener now. What have we made of ourselves, my friend?’

‘We stopped being friends the day you…’ Zeyros fell silent. He shook his head, and raised his glaive. ‘You are a monster. And I am a monster. But only one of us will see tomorrow, Ephraim.’

‘And then what?’ Bollos said. ‘What of tomorrow, Ompallious?’

Zeyros stopped. He was but a glaive-strike from Bollos. ‘What?’

‘What of tomorrow, when I am dead? What then, for you? What shall you do without me, my friend?’

Zeyros stared at the loathsome countenance of the creature he had once called his friend. Memories, long buried under days of blood and regret, rose briefly to the surface and then sank once more. He had chased Bollos across the Jade Kingdoms for centuries. Is he right? What next, for me? The thought was not a pleasant one.

‘We stand on the precipice of greatness, you and I,’ Bollos rumbled. ‘I made you, Ompallious. I gave you the gift of life, as I give it to this place. I gave you a reason to live, when all hope was lost.’

‘If not for you…’ Zeyros began.

‘If not for me, you would have drowned in rot and the last memory of our people drowned with you. But you survived…’

‘For vengeance,’ Zeyros said. But still, the doubt was there.

‘Yes! I kindled the fire in you. And now, you are so much more than you were. We both are, cousin. The gods favour us, Ompallious. Why do you not thank me for my gift?’

‘Thank you? Thank you?’ Zeyros said incredulously.

‘You’re welcome,’ Bollos said, smiling cheerfully. ‘Without me to feed it, your flame will gutter out and become ashes. I would not see that happen to you, my friend. I will live on, in one form or another, and you will thank me…’

Zeyros snarled and flames of every colour and none flared to life along the curved blade of his glaive. ‘Here is your thanks,’ he hissed, as doubt gave way to anger. His glaive swept down and hacked into Bollos’ shoulder. Ephraim jerked and groaned. Spores billowed from the wound and crisped in the flames. A vast sigh, of sadness, perhaps, or satisfaction, rolled through the chamber.

Bollos made no attempt to defend himself. Zeyros hacked at him, tearing great wounds in the sagging body. As he hewed, flames spread hungrily across the ligaments of fungus, devouring them. And Bollos… Bollos laughed. Zeyros staggered back, breath rasping in his lungs. ‘Stop laughing,’ he said. ‘I will burn this place. Burn you!’

‘Burn it all, brother. Such is the cycle of it: life begets fire, fire begets ash, ash begets soil and soil begets life. Burn my garden, so that it might flourish,’ Bollos wheezed. Uncomprehending, Zeyros snarled and spat a single, incandescent word. The chamber was filled with light and heat and ash. Soon, the whole of the crag-keep would be the same. It would all burn, and his memories of Ephraim Bollos with it. The memories of his betrayal, the laughter which had haunted him, it would all be ash.

And then… and then…

He shook the thought aside and leaned forward, to watch as Bollos’ skull crumpled in the fire. The body twitched, and then a hand snapped up, catching him by the arm.

‘One… last… gift, my friend,’ Bollos whispered, holding tight to Zeyros’ wrist, breathing into his face. ‘I bequeath unto you… a future. Nurture it, as I have.’

Then, with a contented sigh, Bollos sagged back and surrendered to the flames. Shaken, Zeyros left the dais, backing away as his fire filled the chamber, and the fungus screamed. As he left, he idly scraped the filth from his armour. It clung stubbornly to the metal, and he wondered if he would ever get clean. He coughed suddenly, and felt a strange weight in his lungs. The smoke, he thought. He looked at his hand, covered in char… and spores. Bollos’ spores. He coughed again, and remembered Bollos’ breath in his face, and the things moving behind his mossy teeth. He remembered the air, thick with… what?

All of this, it is me, he’d said. Ompallious Zeyros coughed again.

And somewhere, Ephraim Bollos laughed.

About the Author

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm and the Warhammer 40,000 novellas Hunter's Snare and Dante's Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt, all three featuring the White Scars. In the Warhammer World, he has written the End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen, and the novels Neferata, Master of Death and Knight of the Blazing Sun. He lives and works in Northampton.

The Lords of Chaos gather their forces...
The Call of Chaos echoes across across the Mortal Realms and into the grim darkness of the far future.

Two new serialised supplements, and new fiction for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
Collect them all and answer the Call of Chaos.

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Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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