Nagashizzar Resurgent

Mannfred von Carstein watched the columns of skeletons pour into the courtyard. Each of the undead minions bore a precious cargo held in its boney hands – a single grain of grave-sand – which it deposited into a receptacle before turning and marching towards the borders of Nagashizzar and beyond.

Mannfred focused on one of the pieces of Shyishan realmstone, watching as a withered sorcerer took it from its receptacle, and through dark alchemical magics fused it together with thousands of others to form a brick of black glass. The Necromancer then climbed a staircase of bone and placed the brick atop thousands of others to complete an enormous cube. Together with the other Necromancers in the courtyard, the Deathmage plied the cube with amethyst flames, melding the stack of bricks into a single cyclopean block. The block was then raised up from the osseous sand, lifted by necromantic magics, and in mid-air was brought into contact with several-hundred similar blocks. With a flash of amethyst energy, the blocks were sealed together, forming a slab that extended far beyond the courtyard’s walls.

With streams of fell sorcery, the Necromancers who stood before Mannfred – along with scores more in the adjoining courtyards – lifted the slab higher into the air, whereupon hundreds of wailing spirits floated down to take hold of it. The spirits lifted the slab ever upwards, towards the Great Black Pyramid that blotted out the sky. They passed beneath the inverted pyramid’s peak, the four-sided point that stabbed down at the dead earth, and joined the uncountable swirl of other spirit-hosts who were each carrying their own slabs up towards the monolith’s incomparable heights.

Mannfred kept watching the one slab until it was too small to pick out from the oppressive blackness of the pyramid. It had been his undead legions who had carried the grave-sand from the Realm’s Edge, yet he still knew so little of its ultimate purpose. He could feel the winds of Death billowing towards the pyramid, and he could see that the enormous edifice was almost complete, but he did not yet know exactly how his master planned to use it. There was precious little time left to rectify this lack of understanding, to harness this great work for his own purposes.

‘MY SERVANT.’

The chill words ripped Mannfred’s concentration away. After so many centuries he had become adept at disguising the loathing he harboured towards his master, but Nagash’s voice still sparked the hatred he held deep within his tattered soul. In another world, it would have been him that was the master, not the servant. He turned to face the archway in which the Great Necromancer stood.

‘You summoned me,’ he said, his words riding the thin edge between question and statement. Nagash looked down upon his Mortarch, his skeletal visage impassive.

‘THE HOUR OF COMPLETION DRAWS NEAR,’ said the Great Necromancer. ‘IS NAGASHIZZAR SECURE?’

Mannfred ground his fangs at the implicit insult. Nagash knew all that went on in his city, and seldom asked questions to which he did not already know the answer. He had called upon his Mortarchs to repel the armies marching upon Nagashizzar. The summons into the city, the question just posed, these were just tests of Mannfred’s loyalty – the most recent in an endless series designed to remind the Mortarch of Night of his subservience.

Mannfred forced a thin smile.

‘My armies are ready and at your disposal,’ he said. ‘But our enemies will soon be upon us. From the south, the forces of Sigmar and his allies are crossing the Mournful Peaks. The greenskin hordes have overrun the Harrowforts and are fast approaching from the east. And to the west, a Chaos Lord has gathered daemons and mortals from across the realms to his banner.’

As Mannfred finished his report, he looked to his master for any hints of the grand stratagem that was unfolding, but saw nothing in his master’s expressionless eyes.

‘YOU WILL KEEP THEM FROM MY GATES.’

At that, the Great Necromancer turned to leave.

‘Perhaps,’ said Mannfred, sensing an opportunity, ‘if I knew what part the pyramid will play, I could better direct my forces to where they will be needed.’

Nagash turned back and fixed his gaze on Mannfred again. At once, the Mortarch felt his master’s abyssal vision pierce him, his mind laid bare for the Great Necromancer to see. His innermost ambition, his secret desire for supremacy, his futile attempts at subterfuge were exhumed from within his being. Nagash saw all that he was, and Mannfred felt the malefic ire of his master.

‘YOU WISH TO KNOW MY PLANS?’ The words cut through Mannfred like hallowed blades, their burning intensity drowning out all other thoughts but hatred. But Nagash at last withdrew his transfixing stare.

‘THIS ONCE,’ Nagash continued. ‘I WILL INDULGE YOUR CURIOSITIES. THE MAGIC OF AN ENTIRE REALM HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO ME. THE ENDING OF ALL THINGS WILL SOON BE MINE TO SHAPE.’ He spoke with oppressive finality, every word delivered as an inescapable certainty.

‘WITH THE POWER OF SHYISH AT MY COMMAND, THE DEAD OF THE MORTAL REALMS WILL RISE AS ONE. THE LIVING WILL BE SLAIN BY THE UNDEAD, AND THEIR SOULS WILL DESCEND TO SHYISH – NO LONGER TO MYRIAD UNDERWORLDS, BUT ALL TO NAGASHIZZAR.’

Mannfred listened to his master’s words, his hate replaced by awe at the scope of Nagash’s design.

‘WITH THEIR FOLLOWERS GONE, THE SO-CALLED GODS WILL ALSO FALL. ONE BY ONE THEY WILL SUBMIT TO MY DOMINION, OR ELSE I WILL TURN THEM TO ASH.’

The Mortarch winced at Nagash’s words. It was this choice between eternal service and annihilation that had seen him bound to the Great Necromancer for uncounted centuries.

‘THROUGH DEATH I WILL ACHIEVE WHAT SIGMAR THE SOUL-THIEF NEVER COULD. I WILL HAVE ORDER. UNQUESTIONED. UNENDING. AND WITH THAT ORDER, I WILL PURGE CHAOS FROM THE MORTAL REALMS.’

With his last words still resonating in Mannfred’s mind, Nagash turned and floated away. But as he passed into darkness through the archway, the Great Necromancer uttered one last thing to his Mortarch.

‘DO NOT DECEIVE YOURSELF, SERVANT. MY VICTORY IS INEVITABLE.’

Mannfred looked up at the Great Black Pyramid that scarred the sky, and beheld the construction for what it truly was. Nagash was right – the end of life would soon come. Mannfred knew he could not subvert his master’s will. Not now.

Not yet.

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

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