Table of Contents

The End Times Collection – Cover

The Return of Nagash – Josh Reynolds

Title Page

Warhammer

Illustrations

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Part Two

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Part Three

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Epilogue

The Fall of Altdorf – Chris Wraight

Title Page

Warhammer

Illustrations

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part Two

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Part Three

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Epilogue

The Curse of Khaine – Gav Thorpe

Title Page

Warhammer

Illustrations

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Part Two

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Part Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Epilogue

The Rise of the Horned Rat – Guy Haley

Title Page

Warhammer

Illustrations

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Part Two

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Part Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

The Lord of the End Times – Josh Reynolds

Title Page

Warhammer

Illustrations

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part Two

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Part Three

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Epilogue

About the Authors

Legal

The world is dying, but it has been so since the coming of the Chaos Gods.

For years beyond reckoning, the Ruinous Powers have coveted the mortal realm. They have made many attempts to seize it, their anointed champions leading vast hordes into the lands of men, elves and dwarfs. Each time, they have been defeated.

Until now.

In the frozen north, Archaon, a former templar of the warrior-god Sigmar, has been crowned the Everchosen of Chaos. He stands poised to march south and bring ruin to the lands he once fought to protect. Behind him amass all the forces of the Dark Gods, mortal and daemonic. When they come, they will bring with them a storm such as has never been seen. Already, the lands of men are falling into ruin. Archaon’s vanguard run riot across Kislev, the once-proud country of Bretonnia has fallen into anarchy and the southern lands have been consumed by a tide of verminous ratmen.

The men of the Empire, the elves of Ulthuan and the dwarfs of the Worlds Edge Mountains fortify their cities and prepare for the inevitable onslaught. They will fight bravely and to the last. But in their hearts, all know that their efforts will be futile. The victory of Chaos is inevitable.

These are the End Times.

Prologue

Late summer 2522

The world was dead.

It simply didn’t know it yet.

That was the bare truth of it, and it pleased the one who considered it to no little end. Oh, there were things to be done yet, debts to be paid and webs to be spun or broken, but the weight of the inevitable had settled across the way and weft of the world. Time was running out, and the beast was all but bled white.

Long fingers – scholar’s fingers – stroked the murky surface of the blood that filled the ancient bronze bowl before him. The bowl was covered in the harsh, jagged script of a long-dead empire. It had once belonged to another scholar, who had come from a still-older empire even than the one that had produced the bowl. That scholar was dust now, like both of the empires in question: all three erased from the tapestry of history by hubris and treachery in equal measure. There were lessons there, for the man who had the wit to attend them, a voice that may or may not have been his own murmured in the back of his head. He shrugged the voice off, the way a horse might shrug off a stinging fly.

The scryer considered himself susceptible to neither arrogance nor foolishness. Were it any other moment, he might have admitted that it was the height of both to think oneself beyond either. As it was, he had other concerns. He ignored the soft susurrus of what might have been laughter that slithered beneath his thoughts with a surety that was the result of long experience, and bent over the bowl, murmuring the required words with the necessary intonation. The empire of Strigos might be dead, and Mourkain with it, but its language lived on in certain rituals and sorcerous rites.

The blood in the bowl stirred at the touch of the scryer’s fingertips, its surface undulating like the back of a cat seeking affection. Its opacity faded, and an image began to form, as though it were a shadow flickering across a stretched canvas. The images were of every time and no time, of things that had been, things that would be and of things that never were. The scryer desired to know of the calamitous events that afflicted the world, events whose reverberations were felt even in his tiny corner of the world. The world was dead, but with a voyeur’s eagerness, he wanted to see the killing blows.

The first image to be drawn from the depths of the bowl was of a twin-tailed comet, which blazed across the crawling canopy of the heavens, fracturing the weak barrier between the world of man and that which waited outside as it streaked along its pre-destined course. In its wake – madness.

A storm of Chaos swept across the world, spreading outwards from the poles to roll across the lands of men and other than men one by one. Daemons were born and died in moments, or tore their way through the membrane of the world to sow terror for days or weeks on end. There was no rhyme or reason to any of what followed; it was merely the crazed whims of the Dark Gods at work. The scryer watched it all with a cool, calculating eye, like a gamesman sizing up the opening move of an oft-played opponent.

In the cold, dark reaches of Naggaroth, the sound of drums set the ice shelves to shivering and caused avalanches in the lower valleys. A horde of northmen poured across the Ironfrost Glacier, and in their vanguard swooped down the elegant, crimson shape of Khorne’s best beloved. They smashed aside the great watchtowers, and the mighty hosts sent against them only stoked the fires of their fury. As Valkia exhorted her followers towards the obsidian walls of Naggarond itself, the scryer stirred the bowl’s contents, eager to see more.

The image shifted, and then expanded into great walls of pale stone, which thrust up from the green nest of the jungles of distant Lustria; here, scaly shapes warred with nightmares made flesh in the heart of the ruins of Xahutec. Elsewhere, the jungle was afire, and once great temple cities had been cast into ruin, as a continent heaved and burned.

Lustria’s death pyre flared up so brightly that the scryer winced and looked away. When he looked back at the bowl, the scene had changed. Red lightning lit the sky and strange mists spread down the slopes of the Annulii Mountains, bringing with them the raw power of Chaos unfettered. The land and its inhabitants became warped into new and terrible forms, all save the elves. The walls of reality wore thin and tore, and daemons flooded into Ulthuan. The forests of Chrace burned as the rivers of Cothique and Ellyrion became thick with virulent noxiousness, while in the heartland of the elven realms, the great cities of Tor Dynal and Elisia fell to the assaults of Chaos, rampaging daemons overwhelming their embattled defenders. As daemons scrambled in a capering, cackling riot towards a battle line of Sapherian Sword Masters, and elven magi drew upon every iota of power at their command to throw back their enemy, the image shattered like a reflection in a droplet of water, reforming into another scene of warfare.

Across the glades and valleys of Bretonnia, disgraced knights and covetous nobles flocked to the serpent banners of Mallobaude, illegitimate son of Louen Leoncouer, and would-be king of that divided land. The scryer watched as the nation over the mountains descended into fiery civil war, and his eyes widened in surprise as he saw Mallobaude throw down his father at Quenelles with the aid of a skeletal figure clad in robes of crimson and black. A skull blazing with malignant power, with teeth as black as the night sky, tipped back and uttered a cackle of victory as Leoncouer was smashed to the ground, seemingly dead at his offspring’s hand. Arkhan the Black was in Bretonnia, and that fact alone tempted the scryer to try to see more. But the image was already dissolving and he let the temptation pass. There would be time later for such investigations.

A new picture rippled into view. In the deep, ice-cut valleys and towering heights of the mountain range known as the Vaults, the dwarf hold known to the scryer as Copper Mountain tottered beneath the assault of a tempest of blood-starved daemons. The legion that assailed the stunted inhabitants of the hold was so vast that the hold’s defences were all but useless. But as the dwarfs prepared to sell their lives in the name of defiance, if not victory, the daemonic storm dissipated as suddenly as it had gathered, leaving only blue skies and a battered shieldwall of astonished dwarfs in its wake. As the dwarfs began to collect their dead, the scene dissolved and a new one took its place at the scryer’s barest gesture.

The scryer chuckled mirthlessly as the next image wavered into being. Another mountain hold, but not one that belonged to the dwarfs. Not any more, at least. In the deep halls and opulently decorated black chambers of the Silver Pinnacle, the self-proclaimed queen of the world, Neferata, mother and mistress of the Lahmian bloodline, led her warriors, both dead and undead, in defence of her citadel. A horde of daemons, backed by hell-forged artillery, attacked from above and below, laying siege to the main gates of Neferata’s chosen eyrie, as well as surging up from its lower depths. But these daemons vanished as abruptly as those who had attacked Copper Mountain. The scryer frowned in annoyance. It would have been far better for his own designs for the mistress of the Silver Pinnacle to have fallen to the daemon-storm. He gestured again, almost petulantly.

What came next returned the smile to his face. The great city on the mount, Middenheim, reeled beneath the tender ministrations of the Maggot King and the Festival of Disease. Pox-scarred victims staggered through the streets, begging for mercy from Shallya and Ulric. The open sores that afflicted them wept a noisome pus and their bodies were thrown on the pyres that marked every square, still crying out uselessly to the gods. How Jerek would have cringed to see that, the scryer thought, as he laughed softly. The image wavered and changed.

His laughter continued as beneath the shadowed branches in the depths of Athel Loren, the great edifices known as the Vaults of Winter shattered, and a horde of cackling, daemonic filth was vomited forth into the sacred glades of Summerstrand. Ancient trees, including the Oak of Ages, cracked and split, expelling floods of maggots and flies, and the forest floor became coated in the stuff of decay. Desolate glades became rallying points for monstrous herds of beastmen, who poured into the depths of the forest, braying and squealing. Amused, the scryer waved a hand, dispelling the image.

His amusement faded as the blood rippled, revealing a scarred face, topped by a massive red crest of grease-stiffened hair. An axe flashed and a beastman reeled back, goatish features twisted in fear and agony. It fell, and the axe followed it, separating its malformed head from its thick neck. The wielder of the axe, a dwarf, kicked the head aside as he trudged on through the fire-blackened streets of a northern city, fallen to madness and ruin. The dwarf, one-eyed and mad, was familiar to the scryer from a past encounter of dubious memory. Snow swirled about the dwarf as he battled through the city, his rune axe encrusted with gore drawn from the bodies of beastmen, trolls, northern marauders and renegades, all of whom lay in heaps and piles in his wake. The scryer saw no sign of the doom-seeker’s human companion, and wondered idly if the man had died. The thought pleased him to no end.

The image billowed and spread as the dwarf trudged on, and the scryer was rewarded by the sight of the River Aver becoming as blood, a scarlet host of howling daemons bursting from its tainted waters en masse to sweep across Averland, burning and butchering every living thing in their path. As with the other daemonic incursions, the bloody host evaporated moments before they reached the walls of Averheim.

Averheim grew faint and bled into the dark bowers of the Drakwald. Trees were uprooted and hurled aside as a veritable fang of stone, taller than the tallest structure ever conceived by man, tore through the corrupted soil and speared towards the sky. The crown of the newborn monolith was wreathed in eldritch lightning. Similar malformed extrusions rose above the tree line of Arden Forest and the glacial fields of far Naggaroth, as well as in the Great Forest and the embattled glades of Athel Loren. Some wept flame, others sweated foulness, but all pulsed with a darkling energy. Beastmen gathered about them to conduct raucous rites, the worst of which caused even a man as hardened to cruelty as the scryer to grimace in repulsion. With a hiss of disgust, he dashed his fingers into the blood, banishing the activities of the beasts from sight and eliciting another image.

Nuln erupted into violence as crowds of baying fanatics and self-flagellating doomsayers filled the streets. The mansions of the wealthy were ransacked and unlucky nobles were hung or torn apart by the screaming crowd. Even the Countess von Liebwitz was dragged from her boudoir, amidst a storm of accusations ranging from adultery to sorcery. The scryer stabbed the swirling blood, dissolving the Countess’s screeching visage and replacing it with the snowy hinterlands of Kislev.

As with Naggaroth, Kislev shuddered beneath the tread of masses of northmen, all moving south. All lands west of Bolgasgrad were awash with daemons and barbarians. Along the River Lynik, the Ice Queen led her remaining warriors in a series of running battles with the invaders. As the Tsarina led her Ungol horsemen against the howling hordes, the scryer stirred the bowl, trying to ignore the murmur of the voice that pressed insistently against his awareness, demanding to be heard.

He was in Bretonnia again, as a figure clad in green armour hurled aside his helm, revealing the features of Gilles Le Breton, lost founder and king of that realm, now found and ready to reclaim his throne. The scryer laughed and wondered what Mallobaude and Arkhan would have to say about that.

He focused on the rippling blood, banishing images of the reborn king, and saw the armies of Ostermark, Talabecland and Hochland clash with a ragged host marching under the banner of the sorcerous monstrosity known as Vilitch the Curseling in the fields and siege ditches before the battlements of Castle von Rauken. Aldebrand Ludenhof, Elector Count of Hochland, mounted the ramparts of the besieged castle and put a long rifle bullet into one of the Curseling’s skulls, forcing the creature to retreat and scattering its host.

The scryer waved a hand. The images were coming faster now, some of them appearing and vanishing before he could properly observe them. His skull ached with the frequency and intensity of the scenes playing out in the bowl.

The hordes of the Northern Wastes did not merely assault the south and west. They went east as well, hurling themselves at the Great Bastion in their thousands. Khazags, Kul and Kurgan mustered daemon engines, and dozens of warlords and chieftains led their warriors against the defences of the Bastion. The smoke of the resulting destruction could be seen as far south as the Border Princes. The image wavered and faded before the scryer could see whether the Bastion had fallen.

In the desiccated deserts of the south, the unbound dead of a long-gone empire readied themselves for invasion, and the chariots of the tomb kings rolled westward, towards the caliphates of Araby. The dwarfs sealed their holds or mobilised for war as the foundations of the world shuddered and long-dormant volcanoes rumbled, belching smoke. In the Badlands, the numberless hordes of greenskins gathered and surged towards the civilised lands as one, as if in response to some unspoken signal. The ogre tribes too were on the march, bulbous bellies rumbling. In the roots of the world, the clans of the skaven scurried upwards, attacking the unprepared nations of Estalia and Tilea in such unprecedented numbers that even the scryer was slightly dumbfounded. City after city fell, and the tattered clan banners of the Under-Empire rose over the lands that had once belonged to men.

Perturbed, he swept out a hand, stirring the blood without touching it. A familiar sight, this one, and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a triumphant snarl. An old man, clad in the robes and armour of the Grand Theogonist of the Empire, wrestled against a dark shape, cloaked in shadow. The shape twisted, becoming first a man – aquiline, noble and yet feral, with eyes like crimson pits and a mouthful of fangs – then swelling to a giant, clad in armour such as no man had ever worn, wreathed in eerie green flame. The giant’s features were fleshless, and its head was a skull bound in black iron and bronze. Skeletal jaws opened wide, bone stretching and billowing impossibly as the giant thrust the struggling shape of the old man between its jaws and swallowed him whole.

The scryer dismissed the image quickly, before the eyes of that giant could turn towards him. Something chuckled and spoke, just out of earshot. He ignored it, and concentrated on the next image as it began to form in the swirling blood. The bowl began to shake slightly, as if it were being rocked by the weight of the pictures rising up out of it.

The scryer hissed in recognition as the world’s northern pole, where the membrane between worlds was nonexistent, came into view. Daemons beyond measure were assembled there, divided into four mighty hosts of damnation such as had once sought to envelop the world in aeons past. The scryer cursed loudly and virulently, his composure momentarily shaken. What he was seeing was the merest spear-point of an invasion force, a host of such magnitude that only the raw unreality of the Chaos Wastes could contain the sheer number of daemons gathered. From amid the numberless hordes came four exalted daemons – those creatures highest in the esteem of the Dark Gods.

One by one, each of the four sank down to one knee before a figure that was tiny by comparison. The latter was clad in heavy armour, and cloaked in thick furs, its features hidden beneath a horned helm. The helm turned, and eyes that blazed with a radiance at once malignant and divine met those of the scryer, across the vast stretch of time and space that separated them. The blood in the bowl began to bubble and smoke. A will more than equal to his own beat down suddenly against the scryer like a hammer-blow. A voice like seven thunders reverberated through his skull and said, ‘Rejoice, for the hour of my glory fast approaches.’

The bowl shattered. What was left of the blood slopped across the scryer’s hands and splattered on the stone floor. Snuffling, grey-skinned, hairless shapes, wearing the filthy remnants of what had once been fine clothing, crawled across the floor, splotched tongues licking at the spilled blood with eager whimpers. The degenerate creatures were all that remained of the once proud family that had, in better times, called Castle Sternieste its home. Now, they wore the miscellany of ancestral finery, smeared with grime and foulness, as they capered and gibbered in debased mockeries of courtly dances for their master’s amusement, or raided the tombs of their ancestors for sustenance.

Mannfred von Carstein sucked the blood from his fingers as he considered the remains of the bowl speculatively. He glanced up at the body whose blood he’d carefully drained to fill it; the corpse was clad in the robes of an acolyte of one of the great Colleges of Magic – the Light College, Mannfred knew, by their colour. He’d opened the boy’s throat with his own fingers and strung him up by his feet from one of the ancient timbers above, so that the dregs of his life would drain into the bowl. There were few ingredients more effective for such sorceries than the blood of a magic user. The ghouls looked up at him expectantly, whining with eagerness. He gestured and, as one, they gave a ribald howl and began leaping and tearing at the body, like hounds at the feet of a man on the gallows. With a sniff, Mannfred pulled his cloak tight about himself and left the chamber, and its contents, to his ghoulish courtiers.

Well, wasn’t that informative? The world writhes, caught in a storm partially of your making, and where are you? The voice he’d heard as he watched the images in the bowl, the voice he’d heard for more centuries than he cared to contemplate, spoke with mild disdain. Mannfred shook his head, trying to ignore it. A shadow passed across his vision, and something that might have been a face, or perhaps a skull, swam to the surface of his mind and then vanished before he could focus on it. Where are you, then? You should be out there, taking advantage of the situation. But you can’t, can you?

‘Shut up,’ Mannfred growled.

Konrad talked to himself as well. As his habits went, that was probably the least objectionable, but still… We know how he ended up, don’t we?

Mannfred didn’t reply this time. The voice was right, of course. It was always right, curse it. Laughter echoed through his head and he bit back a snarl. He wasn’t going mad. He knew this, because madness was for the foolish or the weak of mind, and he was anything but either. After all, could a madman have accomplished what he had, and in so short a time?

For centuries he had yearned to free Sylvania, which was his by both right of blood and conquest, from the yoke of the Empire. And, after the work of many lifetimes, he had accomplished just that. The air now reeked of dark enchantments and an unholy miasma had settled over everything within the province’s borders. He strode out onto the parapet and looked out towards the border with Stirland, where a massive escarpment of bone now towered over Sylvania’s boundaries. The wall encircled his domain, making it over into a sprawling fortress-state. The wall that would protect his land from the doom that waited to envelop the world was the result of generations of preparation. It had required the blood of nine very special individuals – individuals who even now enjoyed his hospitality – to create, and getting them all in one place had been an undertaking of decades. He’d done it, however, and once he’d had them, Sylvania was his and his alone.

So speaks the tiger in his cage, the voice whispered, mockingly. Again, it was correct. His wall, mighty as it was, was not the only one ringing his fiefdom. ‘Gelt,’ he muttered. The name of the Arch-Alchemist and current Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic had become one of Mannfred’s favoured curses in the months since the caging of Sylvania. While Mannfred had battled an invasion force led by Volkmar the Grim, the Grand Theogonist, and enacted his own stratagem, Gelt had been working furiously to enact a ritual the equal of Mannfred’s own. Or so Mannfred’s spies had assured him.

Mannfred frowned. Even from here, he could feel the spiritual weight of the holy objects that caged his land. In the months preceding his notice of secession from the broken corpse that was Karl Franz’s empire, he’d sent the teeming ghoul-packs that congregated about Castle Sternieste to strip every Sylvanian temple, shrine and burial ground of what holy symbols yet remained in the province. He’d ordered the symbols buried deep in unhallowed graves and cursed ground, so that their pestiferous sanctity would not trouble his newborn paradise.

Or such had been his intent. Instead, Gelt had somehow managed to turn those buried symbols into a wall of pure faith. Any undead, be they vampire, ghost or lowly zombie, that tried to cross it was instantly obliterated, as several of his vampire servants had discovered to their cost. Mannfred was forced to admit that the resulting explosions had been quite impressive. He couldn’t help but admire the raw power of Gelt’s wall. It was a devious thing, too, and only worked in one direction. The undead could enter Sylvania, but they could not leave. It was the perfect trap. Mannfred fully intended to congratulate Gelt on his cunning, just before he killed him.

In the months since he’d destroyed Volkmar’s army, Mannfred had pored over every book, tome, grimoire and papyrus scroll in his possession, seeking some way of countering Gelt’s working. Nothing he’d tried had worked. The wall of faith was somehow more subtle and far stronger than he’d expected a human mind to conceive of, and his continued failure gnawed at him. He had wanted to isolate Sylvania, true – but on his own terms. To be penned like a wild beast was an affront that could not be borne.

But Gelt’s sorcerous cage wasn’t the only problem. Dark portals had opened in certain, long-hidden places within Sylvania, vomiting forth daemons by the score, and the distraction of putting paid to these incursions had eaten into his studies. After the last such invasion, Mannfred had resolved to find out what was going on in the rest of the world. The young acolyte of the Light College whom he’d used to fill his scrying bowl had been taken prisoner, along with a dozen others, including militiamen, knights and a few wayward priests, during Volkmar’s attempt to purge Sylvania.

Finding out that Sylvania wasn’t the only place afflicted by sudden daemonic sorties hadn’t quelled his growing misgivings. In fact, it had only heightened the pressure he felt to shatter Gelt’s wall and free Sylvania. The world was tottering on the lip of the grave and, amusing as it was to watch, Mannfred didn’t intend to go over with it. There were still things that needed doing. There were tools that he still required, and he had to be able to cross his own borders to get them.

Tools for what, boy? the voice asked. No, not ‘the voice’. It was pointless to deny it. It was Vlad’s voice. Mannfred leaned over the parapet, bracing himself on the stone, his eyes closed. Even now, even centuries after the fact, the shadow of the great and terrible Vlad von Carstein hung over Mannfred and all of his works. Vlad’s name was still whispered in the dark places and burying grounds, by the living and the dead alike. He had etched his name into the flesh of the world, and the scar remained livid even after all this time. It galled Mannfred to no end, and even the joy he’d once taken from his part in his primogenitor’s downfall had faded, lost to the gnawing anger he felt still.

He’d hated Vlad, and loved him; respected him and been contemptuous of him. And he’d tried to save him, though he’d engineered his obliteration. Now, for his sins, he was haunted by Vlad’s voice. It had started the moment he had begun his great work, as if Vlad were watching over his shoulder, and only grown stronger in the months that followed. He’d been able to ignore it at first, to dismiss the shadows that crept at the corner of his eye and the constant murmur of a voice just out of earshot. But now, when he least needed the distraction, there it was. There he was.

Do you still think that the design of the web you weave is yours, my son? Vlad hissed. Mannfred could see his sire’s face on the periphery of his vision, so much like his own. Can you feel it, boy? The weight of destiny sits on you – but not yours. As if to lend weight to the thought, Mannfred caught sight of his shadow; only it wasn’t his – it was something larger, and a thousand times more terrible than any vampire, lord of Sylvania or otherwise. Something that flickered with witch-fire and seemed to stretch out a long arm towards him, seeking to devour him. You speak of tools, but what are you, eh? Vlad purred. Who is that who rides you through the gates of the world?

‘Quiet,’ Mannfred snarled. The stone of the parapet crumbled in his grip. ‘Go back to whatever privy hole your remains were thrown in, old man.’ Without waiting for the inevitable reply, Mannfred drew his cloak about him and turned to go, not quite fleeing the voices and shadows that taunted him, but moving swiftly all the same.

He made his way through the half-ruined corridors to the great open chamber that crouched at the top of the southernmost tower of the castle. Once, it had been a meeting room for the Order of Drakenhof, a brotherhood of Templars devoted to eradicating the evil that they believed had corrupted Sylvania. Vlad had taken great pleasure in hunting them over the course of long centuries, Mannfred recalled. Every few hundred years, the knights of the order stirred in their graves, reforming and returning to their old haunts. The definition of insanity, Mannfred had heard, was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If that was the case, then the Drakenhof Templars had been quite mad.

While Vlad had been content to play with them, as a cat plays with mice, Mannfred had little patience for such drawn-out displays of cruelty. They served no purpose, and to have such a thorn work its way into his side every few decades was an annoyance he felt no need to suffer through. When he had returned to Sylvania in the wake of Konrad’s disastrous reign, he had immediately sought out every hold, fortress and komturei of the order and wiped them out root and branch. He had wiped out entire families, butchering the oldest members to the youngest, and leaving their bodies dangling from gibbets about the border of Sylvania as a warning to others. He had made a point – unlike Vlad or Konrad, Mannfred would not tolerate dissent. He would not tolerate enemies on his soil, worthy or otherwise. After the last knight had gasped out his final breath in a muddy ditch south of Kleiberstorf, he had reformed the order and turned it over to those of his creatures that found pleasure in parodying the traditions of knighthood.

Where once men had met to discuss the cleansing of Sylvania, Mannfred now stored the tools of his eventual, inevitable triumph, both living and otherwise. A ghoul clad in the remains of a militiaman’s armour and livery crouched near the entrance to the chamber, leaning against a gisarme that had seen better years. The ghoul jerked in fright as Mannfred approached and yowled as he gestured sharply. It scrambled towards the heavy wooden door to open it for him. As it heaved upon it and turned, something hurtled out of the chamber beyond and caught the ghoul in the back of the head with a sickening crunch.

The ghoul flopped down, its rusty armour rattling as it hit the floor. The chunk of stone had been thrown hard enough to shatter the cannibal’s skull and Mannfred flipped a bit of brain matter off the toe of his boot, his mouth twisting in a moue of annoyance. ‘Are you finished?’ he asked loudly. ‘I can come back later, if you’d prefer.’

There was only silence from within the chamber. Mannfred sighed and stepped through the aperture. The room beyond was circular and large. It stank of rain, fire, blood and ghouls, as most of the castle did these days. But unlike the rest of the castle, the stones of this chamber thrummed with a heady power that was just this side of intoxicating for Mannfred. It was the one place that he was free from Vlad’s voice and the lurking shadows that dogged his steps.

The room was lit by a profusion of candles, made from human fat and thrust into the nooks and crannies of the walls and floor. The latter was intercut by gilded grooves, which formed a rough outline of Sylvania, and a semicircle of heavy stone lecterns, each carved in the shape of a daemon’s claw, lined the northernmost border of the province. Giant grimoires, bound in chains, sat on several of the lecterns, their pages rustling with a sound like the whispers of ghosts.

At the heart of the chamber sat a plinth, upon which was a cushion of human skin and hair. And resting on the cushion was the iron shape of the Crown of Sorcery. To Mannfred’s eyes, it pulsed like a dark beacon, and he felt the old, familiar urge to place it on his head stir within the swamps of his soul like some great saurian. The crown radiated a malevolent pressure upon him, even now, and even as quiescent as it was. There was an air of contentment about it at the moment, and for that he was grateful. He knew well what monstrous intelligence waited within the crown’s oddly angled shape, and he had no desire to pit his will against that hideous sentience. Not now, not until he’d taken the proper precautions. He’d worn it, briefly, on his return from Vargravia, and that had been enough to assure him that it was more dangerous than it looked.

He was so caught up in his study of the crown that he didn’t turn as another rock surged towards his head. He caught the missile without looking and crushed it. He held up his hand and let the crumbled remains dribble through his fingers. ‘Stop it,’ he said. He looked at the walls behind the barrier of lecterns, where his nine prisoners hung shackled. Except that there were only seven of them. Two were missing.

Mannfred heard a scrape of metal on stone and whirled. A man clad in once-golden but now grime-caked and dented armour, decorated with proud reliefs of the war goddess Myrmidia, lunged for him, whirling a chain. Snarling Tilean oaths, the Templar of the Order of the Blazing Sun swung his makeshift weapon at Mannfred’s face. The vampire jerked back instinctively, and was almost smashed from his feet by the descending weight of a heavy stone lectern in the shape of a daemon’s claw, wielded by a brute clad in furs and a battered breastplate bearing a rampant wolf – the sigil of Ulric.

Mannfred backhanded the Ulrican off his feet with one hand and snagged the loop of the Myrmidian’s chain with the other. He jerked the knight towards him and wrapped the links of the chain about his neck. He kicked the knight’s legs out from under him and then planted his foot between the man’s shoulder blades. Wrapping the chains about his wrist, he hauled upwards, strangling the man.

The Ulrican gave a bellicose roar and staggered towards him. Burly arms snapped tight around Mannfred’s chest. He threw his head back and was rewarded by a crunch of bone, and a howl of pain. Mannfred drove his foot into the back of the knight’s head, driving him face-first into the stone floor and rendering him unconscious. Then he turned to deal with the Ulrican.

The big man staggered forwards, blood streaming from his shattered nose. His eyes blazed with a berserk rage and he roared as he hurled himself at Mannfred. Mannfred caught him by the throat and hoisted him into the air. The man pounded uselessly on the vampire’s arm, as Mannfred slowly choked him comatose. He let the limp body fall to the floor and turned to face the other seven inhabitants of the chamber. ‘Well, that was fun. Anyone else?’

Seven pairs of eyes glared at him. If looks could kill, Mannfred knew that he would have been only so much ash on the wind. He met their gazes, until all but one had looked away. Satisfied, he smirked and looked up at the shattered dome of the tower above, where fire-blackened support timbers crossed over one another like the threads of a spider’s web. He could see the dark sky and stars above, through the gaps in the roof. He whistled piercingly, and massive, hunched forms began to clamber into view from among the nest of wood and stone.

There were two of the beasts, and both were hideous amalgamations of ape, wolf and bat. Mannfred had heard it said that the vargheist was the true face of the vampire, shorn of all pretence of humanity. These two were collectively known as the Swartzhafen Devils, which was as good a name as such beasts deserved. One of the creatures clutched something red and wet in its talons and gnawed on it idly as it watched him. He had given the beasts orders not to interfere with any escape attempts on the part of the captives.

Mannfred claimed the body of the ghoul and dragged it into the room by an ankle. The vargheists were suddenly alert, their eyes glittering with hunger. He rolled the body into the centre of the outline of Sylvania and stepped back. The vargheists fell upon the dead cannibal with ravenous cries. The captives looked away in disgust or fear. Mannfred smiled and set about rebinding the two men. That they’d escaped at all was impressive, but it wasn’t the first time they’d tried it, and it wouldn’t be the last. He wanted them to try and fail, and try again, until their courage and will had been worn down to a despairing nub.

Then, and only then, would they be fit for his purpose.

His eyes flickered to the lone nonhuman among his captives. The elven princess did not meet his gaze, though he did not think it was out of fear, but rather disdain. A flicker of annoyance swept through him, but he restrained the urge to discipline her. Instead, he moved towards the prize of the lot, at least in his eyes.

‘Bad dreams, old man?’ Mannfred said, looking down at Volkmar, Grand Theogonist of the Empire. He sank down to his haunches beside the old man. ‘You should thank me, you know. All of you,’ he said, looking about the cell. ‘The world as you knew it is giving way to something new. And something wholly unpleasant. Outside of Sylvania’s borders, madness and entropy reign. Only here does order prevail. But don’t worry, soon enough, with your help, I shall sweep the world clean, and all will be as it was. I shall make it a paradise.’

‘A paradise,’ Volkmar rasped. The old man met Mannfred’s red gaze without hesitation. Battered and beaten as he was, he was not yet broken, Mannfred knew. ‘Is that what you call it?’ Volkmar shifted his weight, causing his manacles to rattle. The old man looked as if he wanted nothing more than to lunge barehanded at his captor. A wound on his head, a gift from one of the vargheists, was leaking blood and pus, and the old man’s face was stained with both. Mannfred could smell the sickness creeping into the Grand Theogonist, weakening him even further, despite the holy power that was keeping him on his feet.

‘I didn’t say for whom it would be such, now, did I?’ Mannfred said. He rose smoothly and pulled his cloak about him. He looked down at Volkmar with a cruel smile. ‘Don’t worry, old man… When I consummate my new world, neither you nor your friends will be here to see it.’

One

Stirland-Sylvania border

The world was dying.

It had been dying for a very long time, according to some. But Erikan Crowfiend, in his long trek from the battlefield of Couronne, had come to the conclusion that it was finally on its last legs. There was smoke from a million funeral pyres on the wind, not just in Bretonnia but in the Empire as well, and the stink of poison and rot was laid over everything. In the villages and wayplaces, men and women whispered stories of two-headed calves that mewled like infants, of birds that sang strange dirges as they circled in the air, and of things creeping through the dark streets that had once kept to the forests and hills.

Beasts and greenskins ran riot, carving red trails through the outskirts of civilisation as nightmare shapes swam down from the idiot stars to raven and roar through the heart of man’s world. Great cities reeled from these sudden, unpredictable assaults, and the great gates of Altdorf, Middenheim and Nuln were barred and bolstered, almost as if it were intended that they never be opened again.

Erikan had seen it all, albeit at a remove. He had been forced to fight more than once since crossing the Grey Mountains, and not just with beasts or orcs. Men as well, and worse than men. Then, Erikan wasn’t exactly a man himself. He hadn’t been for some time.

Erikan Crowfiend’s heart had stopped beating almost a century ago to the day, and he had not once missed its rhythm. He moved only by night, for the sun blistered him worse than any fire. His breath reeked of the butcher’s block and he could hear a woman’s pulse from leagues away. He could shatter stone and bone as easily as a child might tear apart a dried leaf. He never grew tired, suffered from illness or felt fear. And under different circumstances, he would have been happy to indulge his baser instincts as the land drowned in madness. He was a monster after all, and it was a season for monsters, from what little he’d seen.

But he was no longer the captain of his own destiny, and hadn’t been since the night a pale woman had taken him in her arms and made him something both greater and lesser than the necromancer’s apprentice he had been. So he moved ever eastwards, following a darkling pull that urged him on, across beast-held mountains and over burning fields, and through forests where the trees whimpered like beaten dogs and clawed at him with twisted branches.

Above him, a swarm of bats crossed the surface of the moon, heading the gods alone knew where. Erikan suspected that they were going the same place he was. The thought provided no comfort. The call had come, and he, like the bats, had no choice but to obey.

‘Erikan?’ a wheezing, slurred voice asked, interrupting his reverie.

‘Yes, Obald,’ Erikan said, with a sigh.

‘It could just be the alcohol talking, or it could be the constant seepage from these inexpertly, if affectionately, placed poultices of yours making me light-headed, but I do believe that I’m dying,’ said Obald Bone, the Bone-Father of Brionne. He took another swig from the mostly empty bottle of wine he held in one bandaged claw. The necromancer was a wizened thing, all leather and bone, wrapped in mouldering furs and travel leathers that, to Erikan’s knowledge, had never been washed. Obald lay in a travois made from the stretched hide and bones of dead men, constructed by equal parts sorcery and brute strength. He blinked and forced himself up onto one elbow. ‘Where are we?’

‘Just about to cross the border into Sylvania, Obald,’ Erikan said. He was hauling the travois behind him on foot, its straps of dried flesh and stiffened gut lashed about his battered and grime-encrusted cuirass. Their horse had come down with a bad case of being digested by something large and hungry that even Erikan had been hard-pressed to see off. He didn’t know what it was, but he hadn’t felt like sticking around to find out. Monsters once confined to the edges of the map were now wandering freely, and setting upon any who came within reach, edible or not. ‘And you’re not dying.’

‘I hate to be contrary, but I am a master of the necromantic arts, and I think I know a little something about death, imminent, personal or otherwise,’ Obald slurred. His travois was cushioned with empty bottles, and he reeked of gangrene and alcohol. He’d been getting steadily worse since Erikan had extracted the arrow that had taken him in the belly in the last moments of the battle for Couronne, just before the Green Knight had struck off Mallobaude’s head.

For the first few weeks, Obald had seemed fine, if in pain, but the wound wasn’t healing, and they weren’t the sort whom the priestesses of Shallya normally welcomed. Obald had survived worse in his time, but it was as if he, like the world, were winding down.

Obald sank back down onto the travois, dislodging several bottles. ‘Did I ever tell you that I’m from Brionne, Erikan? Good pig country that.’

‘Yes,’ Erikan said.

‘I was a pig farmer, like my father and his father before him. Pigs, Erikan – you can’t go wrong with a pig farm.’ Obald reached out and swatted weakly at the sword sheathed on Erikan’s hip. ‘Blasted Templar blade. Why do you still carry that thing?’

‘I’m a Templar. Templars carry Templar blades, Obald,’ Erikan said.

‘You’re not a Templar, you’re my apprentice. It’s not even a proper sword. Hasn’t even got a curse on it,’ Obald grumbled.

‘But it’s sharp and long, and good at cutting things,’ Erikan replied. He hadn’t been Obald’s apprentice since he’d been given the blood-kiss and inducted into the aristocracy of the night. He smiled at the thought. In truth, there was very little aristocratic about hiding in unmarked graves and devouring unlucky peasants.

‘Where’s my barrow-blade? I want you to have my barrow-blade,’ Obald said muzzily.

‘Your barrow-blade is still in the body of that fellow whose horse we stole,’ Erikan said. The flight from Couronne had been as bloody as the battle itself. When the Serpent had fallen, his forces, both the living and the dead, had collapsed in an utter rout. Obald had had an arrow in the belly by then, and Erikan had been forced to hack them a path to freedom as the dead crumbled around them.

‘Ha! Yes,’ Obald cackled wetly. ‘The look on his poxy, inbred face was priceless – thought that armour would save him, didn’t he? Oh no, my lad. A dead man’s sword will cut anything, even fancy armour.’ He rocked back and forth in the travois, until his laughter became strangled coughing.

‘So you taught me,’ Erikan said.

‘I did, didn’t I?’ Obald hiccupped. ‘You were my best student, Erikan. It’s a shame that you had to go and get mauled by that von Carstein witch.’

‘She’s not a witch, Obald.’

‘Trollop then,’ Obald snapped. ‘She’s a tart, Erikan.’ He belched. ‘I could do with a tart about now. One of those fancy ones from Nuln.’

‘Are we still talking about women?’ Erikan asked.

‘They put jam – real jam – right in the pastry. Not sawdust and beef dripping, like the ones in Altdorf,’ Obald said, gesticulating for emphasis.

‘Right, yes,’ Erikan said. He shook his head. ‘I’m sure we can find you a tart in Sylvania, Obald.’

‘No no, just leave me here to die, Erikan. I’ll be fine,’ Obald said. ‘For a man who wears as many bones as I do, I am oddly comfortable with notions of mortality.’ He upended the bottle he held, splashing much of its contents on his face and ratty beard. ‘Bones, bone, Bone-Father. I can’t believe you let me call myself that. Bone-Father… What does that even mean? The other necromancers were probably laughing at me.’

He was silent for a moment, and Erikan half hoped he’d fallen asleep. Then, Obald grunted and said, ‘We showed them what for though, didn’t we, Erikan? Those blasted nobles and their treacherous Lady.’ Obald and a handful of other necromancers had flocked to Mallobaude’s serpent banner after the dukes of Carcassonne, Lyonesse and Artois had declared for King Louen’s bastard offspring, and they’d raised legions of the dead to march beside the Serpent’s army of disgraced knights. But Obald and his fellows had been a sideshow compared to the real power behind Mallobaude’s illegitimate throne – the ancient liche known as Arkhan the Black.

Why Arkhan had chosen to aid Mallobaude, Erikan couldn’t say. He had his reasons, just as Obald and Erikan did, the latter supposed. And with the liche on their side, Bretonnia was brought to its knees. At the Battle of Quenelles, Erikan had had the pleasure of seeing the Serpent cast his father’s broken body into the mud. The southern provinces had fallen one by one after King Louen’s death, until the Serpent had cast his gaze north, to Couronne.

It had all gone wrong then. Mallobaude had lost his head, Arkhan had vanished, and…

‘We lost,’ Erikan said.

Obald gave a raspy chuckle. ‘We always lose, Erikan. That’s the way of it. There are no winners, save for death and the Dark Gods. I taught you that too.’

Erikan hissed in annoyance. ‘You taught me a lot, old man. And you’ll live to teach me more, if you stop straining yourself.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Obald coughed. ‘You can smell it on me. I know you can, boy. I’m done for. A longbow is a great equaliser on the battlefield. I’ve only survived this long out of nastiness. But I’m tired now, and I’m all out of spite.’ He coughed again, and Erikan caught the whiff of fresh blood. Obald doubled over in the travois, hacking and choking. Erikan stopped and tore himself loose from the travois. He sank down beside his old mentor and laid a hand on his quivering back.

Obald had always looked old, but now he looked weak and decrepit. Erikan knew that the old man was right. The arrow that had felled him had done too much damage to his insides. That he had survived the journey over the Grey Mountains and into the provinces of the Empire was due more to stubbornness than anything else. By the time they’d reached Stirland, he’d been unable to ride, and barely able to sit upright. He was dying, and there was nothing Erikan could do.

No, that wasn’t true. There was one thing. He lifted his wrist to his lips. He opened his mouth, exposing long, curved fangs and readied himself to plunge them into his wrist.

He paused when he saw that Obald was watching him. Blood and spittle clung like pearlescent webs to the old man’s beard. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth. Obald patted him on the cheek. ‘No need to bloody yourself, Erikan. My old carcass wouldn’t survive it, anyway.’

Erikan lowered his arm. Obald lay back on the travois. ‘You were a good friend, Erikan. For a ravenous, untrustworthy nocturnal fiend, I mean,’ the necromancer wheezed. ‘But as the rain enters the soil, and the river enters the sea, so do all things come to their final end.’

‘Strigany proverbs,’ Erikan muttered. ‘Now I know that you’re dying.’ He sat back on his heels and watched the last link to his mortal life struggle for breath. ‘You don’t have to, you know. You’re just being stubborn and spiteful.’

‘I’ve been stubborn and spiteful my whole sorry life, boy,’ Obald croaked. ‘I’ve fought and raged and run for more years than you. I saw Kemmler’s rise and fall, I saw Mousillon in all of its pox-ridden glory and I visited the secret ruins of Morgheim, where the Strigoi dance and howl.’ The old man’s eyes went vacant. ‘I fought and fought and fought, and now I think maybe I am done fighting.’ His trembling, wrinkled fingers found Erikan’s wrist. ‘That’s the smart choice, I think, given what’s coming.’ His glazed eyes sought out Erikan’s face. ‘Always get out before the rush, that’s my advice.’ His voice was barely a whisper. Erikan leaned close.

‘I miss my pigs,’ Obald said. Then, with a soft grunt, his face went slack, and whatever dark force had inhabited him fled into the crawling sky above. Erikan stared down at him. He’d been hoping that the old man would make it to Sylvania. After leaving Couronne, they’d learned that the other survivors were going there, drawn by some bleak impetus to travel across the mountains. There were stories of walls of bone and an independent state of the dead, ruled by the aristocracy of the night. They’d even heard a rumour that Arkhan’s forces were heading that way.

It was the beginning of something, Erikan thought. Obald had mocked the idea, in between coughing fits, but Erikan could feel it in the black, sour hollow of his bones. There was smoke on the air and blood in the water, and the wind carried the promise of death. It was everything he’d dreamed of, since his parents had gone screaming to the flames, the taste of corpses still on their tongues. He’d seen a spark of it when Obald had rescued him then, flaying his captors with dark magics. In those black flames, which had stripped meat from bone as easily as a butcher’s knife, Erikan had seen the ruination of all things. The end of all pain and hunger and strife.

And now, that dream was coming true: the world was dying, and Erikan Crowfiend intended to be in at the end. But, he’d been hoping that Obald would be by his side. Didn’t the old man deserve that much, at least? Instead, he was just another corpse.

At least he was free, while Erikan was still a captive of the world.

Erikan carelessly pried the old man’s fingers off his wrist and stood. He dropped his hand to the pommel of his blade and said, casually, ‘He’s dead.’

‘I know,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘He should have died years ago. He would have, if you hadn’t been wasting your time keeping his wrinkled old cadaver from getting the chop.’

‘He raised me. He took me in, when anyone else would have burned me with the rest of my kin, for the crime of survival,’ Erikan said. His hand tightened on the hilt of his blade and he drew it smoothly as he whirled to face the newcomer. ‘He helped me become the man I am today.’

In the sickly light of the moon, her pale flesh seemed to glow with an eerie radiance. She wore baroque black armour edged in gold over red silk. The hue of the silk matched her fiery tresses, which had been piled atop her head in a style three centuries out of fashion. Eyes like agates met his own as she reached out and gently pushed aside his sword. ‘I rather thought that I had some part in that as well, Erikan.’

He lowered his sword. ‘Why are you here, Elize?’

‘For the same reason as you, I imagine.’

Erikan stabbed his blade down into the loamy earth and set his palms on the crosspiece. ‘Sylvania,’ he said, simply.

Elize von Carstein inclined her head. A crimson tress slipped free of the mass atop her head and dangled in her face, until she blew it aside. He felt a rush of desire but forced it down. Those days were done and buried. ‘I felt the summons.’ She looked up at the moon. ‘The black bell of Sternieste is tolling and the Templars of the Order of Drakenhof are called to war.’

Erikan looked down at the pommel of his blade, and the red bat, rampant, that was carved there. It was the symbol of the von Carsteins, and of the Drakenhof Templars. He covered it with his hand. ‘And who are we going to war with?’

Elize smiled sadly and said, ‘Everyone. Come, I have an extra horse.’

‘Did you bring it for me?’

Elize didn’t answer. Erikan followed her. He left Obald’s body where it lay, to whatever fate awaited it. The old man’s cankerous spirit was gone. His body was just so much cooling meat now, and Erikan had long since lost his taste for such rancid leavings.

‘Are we all gathering, then?’ Erikan asked, as he followed her through the trees, towards a quiet copse where two black horses waited, red-eyed and impatiently pawing at the earth. Deathless, breathless and remorseless, the horses from the stables of Castle Drakenhof were unmatched by any steed in the known world, save possibly for the stallions of far Ulthuan. He took the bridle of the one she indicated and stroked it, murmuring wordlessly. He’d always had a way with beasts, even after he’d been reborn. He’d kept company with the great shaggy wolves that Obald had pulled from their forest graves, leading them on moonlit hunts. The day Obald had taught him how to call up the beasts himself was the closest he had ever come to true happiness, he thought.

‘All who still persist, and keep to their oath,’ Elize said. ‘I arrived with several of the others. We decided to journey together.’

‘Why?’ Erikan asked.

‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Elize asked, after a moment, as she climbed into her saddle. ‘Is it not meet that the inner circle do so? I saw your trail, and decided to see if you were interested in joining us. You are one of us, after all.’

‘I don’t recall you asking me whether I wished to be,’ he said, softly. Elize kicked her horse into motion and galloped away. Erikan hesitated, and then climbed up into his own saddle and set off after her. As he rode, he couldn’t help but muse that it had always been thus. Elize called and he came. He watched her ride, her slim form bent low over her mount’s neck, her armour glinting dully in the moonlight. She was beautiful and terrible and inexorable, like death given a woman’s shape. There were worse ways to spend eternity, he supposed.

She led him into the high barrows and scrub trees that populated the hills and valleys west of the border with Stirland. Ruins of all sorts dotted the area, the legacy of centuries of warfare. Shattered windmills and slumping manses towered over the gutted remains of border forts and isolated farmsteads. Some were more recent than others, but all had suffered the same fate. This was the no-man’s-land between the provinces of the living and the dead, and nothing of the former survived here for long.

As they left the trees and the fog that had clung to them, he hauled back on the reins of his horse, startled by the sight of the distant edifice of bone, which rose high up into the sky, towering over the area. It was far larger than the rumours he’d heard had intimated. It was less fortress rampart than newborn mountain range. Only the largest of giants would have had a chance of clambering over it. ‘Nagash’s teeth,’ he hissed. ‘I’d heard he’d done it, but I never expected it to be true.’ The sense of finality he’d had before, of endings and final days, came back stronger than ever. Sylvania had always seemed unchanging. A gangrenous wound that never healed, but never grew any worse. But now, now it was finally ready to kill. He wanted to laugh and howl at the same time, but he restrained himself.

‘Yes,’ Elize said, over her shoulder. ‘Mannfred has seceded from the Empire. Our time for hiding in the shadows is done.’ The way she said it made him wonder if she were entirely happy about it. Most of their kind were conservative by nature. Immortality brought with it a fear of change, and a need to force the world to remain in place. Erikan had never felt that way. When you were born in squalor and raised amid corpses, a bit of change was not unwelcome.

Erikan urged his horse on. ‘No wonder the bells have been sounded. If he’s done all of this, he’s going to need as many of us as he can get.’ The thought wasn’t a comforting one. Vampires could, by and large, get along, if there was a reason. But the inevitable infighting and challenges for status that would result were going to be tedious, if not downright lethal.

Elize didn’t reply. They rode on through the night, galloping hard, the endurance of their steeds never faltering. More than once, Erikan saw distant campfires and smelt the blood of men. The armies of the Empire were on the move, but he could not tell in which direction they were going. Were they laying siege to Sylvania? Or were the rumours of another invasion from the north true? Was that why Mannfred had chosen now of all times to make such a bold statement of intent?

All of these thoughts rattled in his head as Elize led him towards one of the ruins close to the bone bastion. It was far from any of the campfires that dotted the darkness and had been a watch tower once, he thought. Now it was just crumbled stone, blackened by fire and covered in weeds and moss. He saw that three men waited inside, as he climbed down from his horse and led it to join the others where they were tied to a gibbet. Elize led Erikan into the ruin, and he nodded politely to the others as he ducked through the shattered archway. There was no light, save that of the moon, for they needed none.

‘What is he doing here?’ one of the men growled, one hand on the hilt of the heavy sword belted to his waist. Erikan kept his own hands well away from his blade.

‘The same as you, Anark,’ Erikan said, as Elize went to the other vampire’s side, and put her hand over his, as if to keep him from drawing his blade. Anark von Carstein was a big man, bigger than Erikan, built for war and clad in dark armour composed of serrated plates and swooping, sharp curves. The armour had seen its share of battle, to judge by the dents and scratches that marked it. Anark had been fighting in the Border Princes, the last Erikan had heard, leading an army of the dead on behalf of one petty warlord or another.

Elize leaned into Anark and whispered into his ear. He calmed visibly. She had always had a way with the other vampire, Erikan recalled. Then, much like Erikan himself, Anark was a protégé of the Doyenne of the Red Abbey, and had even been allowed to take the name of von Carstein, something Erikan would likely never achieve. Nor, in truth, did he wish to. He had his own name, and he was content with it. That, he thought, was why she had cooled to him, in the end. She had offered him her name, and he had refused. And so she had found another blood-son, lover and champion. And Erikan had left.

He looked away from them, and met the red gaze of the other von Carstein present. ‘Markos,’ Erikan said, nodding. Markos was hawk-faced and his hair had been greased back, making him resemble nothing so much as a stoat. Where Anark was a simple enough brute, Markos was more cunning. He had a gift for sorcery that few could match, and a tongue like an adder’s bite.

‘Crowfiend, I never thought to see you again,’ Markos said. ‘You know Count Nyktolos, I trust?’ He gestured to the other vampire, who, like Anark and Markos, was clad in a heavy suit of armour. Nyktolos wore a monocle, after the fashion of the Altdorf aristocracy, and his grin stretched from ear to ear, in an unpleasant fashion. Unlike Anark and Markos, his flesh was the colour of a bruised plum, flush with a recent feeding, or perhaps simply mottled by grave-rot. It happened to some of them, if the blood-kiss wasn’t delivered properly.

‘Count,’ Erikan said, bowing shallowly. He’d heard of the other vampire. He’d been a count of Vargravia once, before Konrad had stormed through, in the bad old days. Nyktolos smiled, revealing a mouthful of needle fangs, more than any self-respecting vampire needed, in Erikan’s opinion. If he was Konrad’s get, that and his odd hue were probably the least of his problems.

‘He’s polite. I like him already,’ Nyktolos croaked.

‘Don’t get too attached,’ Anark said. ‘He won’t be staying long. Erikan doesn’t have the stomach for war. A real war, I mean. Not one of those little skirmishes they have west of the Grey Mountains.’

Erikan met Anark’s flat, red gaze calmly. The other vampire was trying to bait him, as he always did. Just why Anark hated him so much, Erikan couldn’t really fathom. He was no threat to Anark. He tried to meet Elize’s eyes, but her attentions remained on her paramour. No, he thought, no matter how much he might wish otherwise, he posed no danger to Anark, in any regard. ‘I hope you weren’t waiting for me,’ he said to Markos, ignoring Anark.

‘No, we were waiting for– Ah! Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,’ Markos said, looking up. The air was filled with the rush of great wings, and a noisome odour flooded the ruin as something heavy struck its top. Rocks tumbled down, dislodged by the new arrival as he crawled down to join them, clinging to the ancient stones like a lizard. ‘You’re late, Alberacht,’ Markos called out.

The hairy body of the newcomer remained splayed across the stones above them for a moment, and then dropped down. Erikan stepped back as Alberacht Nictus rose to his full height. The creature, known in some quarters as the Reaper of Drakenhof, extended a hooked claw and caught Erikan gently by the back of his head. He didn’t resist as the monstrous vampire pulled him close. ‘Hello, boy,’ Alberacht rumbled. His face was human enough, if horribly stretched over a bumpy, malformed skull, but his bloated body was a hideous amalgamation of bat, ape and wolf. He wore little armour, and carried no weapon. Having seen him at work, Erikan knew he needed none. His long claws and powerful muscles made him as dangerous as any charging knight.

‘Master Nictus,’ Erikan said, not meeting the vampire’s bestial gaze. Alberacht was unpredictable, even for a vampire. He looked less human every time Erikan saw him. Sometimes he wondered if that was the fate that awaited him, down the long corridor of centuries. Some vampires remained as they were, frozen forever in their last moment. But others became drunk on slaughter and lost their hold on what little humanity remained to them.

‘Master, he says,’ Alberacht growled. His face twisted into a parody of a smile. ‘Such respect for this old warrior. You see how he respects me?’ The smile faded. ‘Why do the rest of you fail to follow suit?’ He turned his baleful gaze on the others. Bloody spittle oozed from his jowls as he champed his long fangs. ‘Am I not Grand Master of our order? Must I break you on discipline’s altar?’ The others backed off as Alberacht released Erikan and turned towards them. He half spread his leathery wings and his eyes glowed with a manic light. He stank of violence and madness, and Erikan drew well away. Alberacht was fully capable of killing any of them in his rage.

‘Not for centuries, old one,’ Elize said smoothly. ‘You remember, don’t you? You gave up your post and your burdens to Tomas.’ She reached out and stroked Alberacht’s hairy hide, the way one might seek to calm an agitated stallion. Erikan tensed. If Alberacht made to harm her, he would have to be quick. He saw Anark gripping his own blade, and the other vampire nodded tersely when he caught Erikan’s eye. Neither of them wanted to see Elize come to harm, however much they disliked one another.

‘Tomas?’ Alberacht grunted. He folded his wings. ‘Yes, Tomas. A good boy, for a von Carstein.’ He shook himself, like a sleeper awakening from a nightmare, and stroked Elize’s head, as a weary grandfather might stroke his grandchild. ‘I heard the bells.’

‘We all did, old beast,’ Markos said. ‘We are being called to Sternieste.’

‘Then why do we stand here?’ Alberacht asked. ‘The border is just there, mere steps from where we stand.’

‘Well, the giant bloody wall of bone for one,’ Count Nyktolos said, shifting his weight. ‘We’ll have to leave the horses.’

‘No, we won’t,’ Elize said. She looked at Markos and asked, ‘Cousin?’

‘Oh, it’s up to me, is it? Since when did you take charge?’ Markos asked. The flat gazes of Anark and Alberacht met his and he threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Right, yes, fine. I’ll get us in the old-fashioned way. Subtlety, thy name is Elize. Form an orderly queue, gentles all, and Erikan as well, of course. Let’s go home.’

Two

Stirland-Sylvania border

Dawn was cresting the tops of the hills by the time they reached the foot of the bastion. As the red, watery light washed across the ridges of pale bone, Erikan sought some sign of an entrance, but he saw none as they galloped along its base. ‘How are we getting in there? There’s no gate,’ he shouted to Markos. The other vampire glanced at him over his shoulder and grinned.

‘Who needs a gate?’ Markos laughed. He jerked his reins, causing his horse to rear, and flung out a hand. Dark fire coruscated about his spread fingers for a moment as he roared out a few harsh syllables. A bolt of energy erupted from his palm and slammed into the bone bastion, cracking and splintering it. ‘Master Nictus, if you please!’

There was a shriek from above as Alberacht hurtled down, swooping towards the point of impact. The gigantic vampire slammed into the wall and tore through it with a thunderous crash. Markos kicked his horse into motion before the dust had cleared, and Erikan and the others rode hard after him. The wall began to repair itself with a horrible rustling sound as they rode through the gap. And there was something else – a weirdling light that spread about them as they rode, and Erikan felt as if something had opened a burning hole in his belly. He heard Elize gasp and Count Nyktolos curse out loud, and saw that they were all lit by witch-fire, but only for a moment. Then they were clear of the wall, and the feeling faded.

The first thing he noticed was that the sky was dark. The second thing he noticed was the dull, rhythmic pealing of distant bells. ‘The bells of Sternieste,’ Alberacht crooned, swiping shards of bone from his shoulders. ‘I thought never to hear their lovely song again.’

‘Nor I,’ Markos muttered. Erikan saw that he was looking at the wall.

‘What is it?’ he asked. Thunder rumbled somewhere amongst the thick charcoal-coloured clouds that choked the dark sky. There was lightning over the distant hills. Erikan felt invigorated and captivated, all at the same time.

‘Did you feel something? As we passed over the border?’ Markos asked.

‘I did. You?’

‘Aye,’ Markos grunted. His eyes narrowed to slits for a moment. Then, with a growl, he shook himself. ‘We should go. If the bells are sounding, then Mannfred will be at Sternieste. And so will Tomas and the others.’

They rode on, more slowly now. Sylvania was much as Erikan remembered it, from his last, brief visit. He had been at Elize’s side then, learning the ways of their kind, and she had brought him to Sternieste for a gathering of the Drakenhof Order. Elize had spoken for him, and Alberacht had welcomed him into the order with terrifying heartiness. The old monster had been a good Grand Master, as far as it went. Erikan glanced up at Nictus as he swooped overhead, and felt a pang of what might have been sadness.

They made their way to the castle by the old paths, known to their kind. They passed isolated villages and outposts that sought to throw back the omnipresent darkness with torches mounted on posts and lanterns chained to the walls. There was still life of sorts in Sylvania, though how long that would be the case Erikan didn’t care to guess. Most vampires needed little in the way of nourishment, but then, most had the self-control of a fox in a chicken coop. Many of those little villages would not last out the week, he knew.

They rode through the camps of Strigany nomads and sent ghoul-packs scrambling from their path as their deathless steeds sped along the dark track. Loping wolves and shrieking bats kept pace with them from time to time, as did other, worse things. Erikan had heard that when Mannfred had returned to the damned province and first set about the taming of Sylvania, he had thrown open the vaults of Castle Drakenhof and let loose every foul thing that Vlad had ever interred. All were heading east, towards Castle Sternieste. It was as if every dark soul were being drawn to that distant manse, like metal splinters to a lodestone.

It looked like a grasping talon, its trio of crooked towers jutting ferociously towards the moon above. Even from a distance, the crumbling citadel was magnificent. It was a feat of engineering that had, in its day, claimed a third of the lives employed in its construction, and their tattered souls still clung to the rain-slick stones. It crouched in the open, seemingly in defiance of those who might march against it, and Erikan could guess why Mannfred had chosen it – Sternieste was impressive, as citadels went, but it was also situated perfectly along the main artery of Sylvania. Any invaders who took the traditional routes would have to take Sternieste, before they could do anything else. Sternieste, more so than Fort Oberstyre or Castle Drakenhof, was the keystone of the province.

There was also the fact that Castle Sternieste rose high over a field of rolling hillocks. Each of the latter was a cairn of stupendous size and depth, from a bygone age. It might contain a hundred corpses or merely one, but whatever the number of its inhabitants, each dome of soil and withered, yellow grass pulsed with dark energy. And each and every one of them had been broken into. As they rode through the sea of graves, Erikan could feel the ancient dead stirring, disturbed by the passing presence of the vampires.

They passed the burgeoning earthworks being erected by an army of the recently dead. Zombie knights in shattered armour laboured beside equally dead handgunners and militiamen in the mud and dirt, raising bulwarks and setting heavy stakes. Sternieste’s master was readying his lands for siege.

Anark had taken the lead, and he led them towards the gaping main gate of the castle. The portcullis had been raised and the gates unbarred and flung open. There were no visible guards, but then, did a citadel of the dead really need them?

As they clattered into the wide, open courtyard, a flock of crows hurtled skywards, disturbed from feasting on the bodies inside the gibbet cages that decorated the inner walls. Heaps of rotting bodies lay everywhere in the courtyard, strewn about like discarded weapons and covered in shrouds of more squabbling carrion birds.

‘Lovely,’ Markos said, as he slipped out of his saddle. ‘It’s like paradise, except not.’

‘Quiet,’ Elize murmured. She tapped the side of her head. ‘Can’t you feel it, cousin? Can’t you feel him? He’s watching us.’

‘Who?’ Erikan asked, though he knew the answer as well as any of them. He could feel the presence of another mind scrabbling in the shadow of his own, prying at his thoughts and probing his feelings.

‘Who else? Welcome to Sylvania, my brethren,’ a voice called out as the doors of the outer keep opened with a squeal of long-rusted hinges. The heavy, bloated bodies of two gigantic ghouls, each the size of three of its lesser brethren, burdened with chains and rusty cow bells, moved into view as they shoved the doors open. Each of the creatures was shackled to a door, and they squalled and bellowed as a group of armoured figures stepped between them and moved to meet the newcomers.

‘Well, look what the dire wolf dragged in, finally. Elize, Markos and… some others. Wonderful, and you’re all late, by the way. I expected you days ago,’ Tomas von Carstein said as he drew close. The current Grand Master of the Drakenhof Templars looked much the same as he had when Erikan had last seen him. He’d been handsome enough as a living man, but centuries of undeath had crafted him over into a thing of cold, perfect beauty. The warriors who accompanied him were cut from much the same stripe – blood knights, Templars of the Drakenhof Order, who’d fought on thousands of battlefields. Each of them was a capable warrior, more than a match for any living man or beast. Erikan knew one or two of them, and these he nodded to politely. They returned the gesture warily – as Elize’s get, he’d been inducted into the inner circle of the order almost immediately, and Tomas was among those who’d been somewhat incensed by what he saw as her profligate ways.

‘Welcome to Castle Sternieste, where the seeds of our damnation have been sown,’ Tomas continued, extending his arms in a mocking gesture of welcome.

‘Very poetic, cousin. But I, for one, have been damned for a very long time,’ Markos said. Tomas laughed harshly.

‘This is a different sort of damnation, I’m afraid.’ He frowned. ‘We’re trapped.’

‘What do you mean? Explain yourself,’ Anark demanded. Tomas made a face.

‘Must I? You felt it, didn’t you? That grotesque frisson as you crossed the border?’ He looked at Anark. ‘We are trapped here, in Sylvania. We cannot cross the borders, thanks to the sorceries of our enemies – rather, say, Mannfred’s enemies.’

‘Lord Mannfred, you mean,’ Elize corrected.

‘Yes, yes,’ Tomas said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Lord Mannfred, in his infinite wisdom, decided to openly secede our fair homeland from the Empire. They responded in kind.’ He laughed. ‘They locked the door behind us after we left, it seems.’ His laughter grew, becoming a harsh cackle. He shook his head and looked at them. ‘Still, I am glad to see you. At least I’ll be in good company for the next millennia.’

‘Are we the only ones to arrive?’ Alberacht rumbled. ‘Where are the others? Where is the rest of the inner circle? Where is my old friend Vyktros von Krieger? Where are the Brothers Howl and the Warden of Corpse Run?’

‘Maybe some of us were smart enough to run the other way,’ Markos muttered.

Tomas laughed harshly. ‘Vyktros is dead, killed trying to breach the damnable sorceries that have us trapped. As for the others, I don’t know. What I do know is that Mannfred wished to see us – you – as soon as you arrived. And he’s been getting impatient.’ He smiled. ‘It is to be as it was in the old days, it seems, with us at his right hand. Exactly what it is that we’ll be doing, seeing as we are confined to this charming garden of earthly pleasures, is entirely up for debate. Come,’ Tomas said. He turned and stalked across the bridge. Erikan and the others shared a look, and then followed their Grand Master through the dark gates of Castle Sternieste.

The castle was a hornet’s nest of activity. Skeletons clad in the armour and colours of the Drakenhof Guard marched to and fro, in a mockery of the drills they’d performed in life. Bats of various sizes clung to the ceilings and walls, filling the air with their soft chittering. Ghouls loped across the desiccated grounds, the leaders of the various packs fighting to assert dominance. The dead of ten centuries had been wakened and readied for war, and they stood, waiting silently for the order to march.

There were vampires in evidence as well, more of them than Erikan had ever seen in one place. Von Carsteins as well as others – Lahmians, in courtly finery, and red-armoured Blood Dragons, as well as gargoyle-like Strigoi. For the first time in centuries, Castle Sternieste rang with the sound of voices and skulduggery. They clustered in the knaves and open chambers, sipping blood from delicate goblets, or fed on the unlucky men and women rounded up at Mannfred’s orders from what few nearby villages had not been abandoned and dragged to Sternieste to serve as a larder for the growing mob of predators. They spoke quietly in small groups or pointedly ignored one another. They duelled in the gardens and plotted in the antechambers.

None of them attempted to hinder Tomas and his companions. Everyone knew who the Drakenhof Templars were, and gave them room – even the scions of Blood Keep, who eyed them the way a wolf might eye a rival from another pack. No one was tempted to try their luck at gainsaying him just yet. It wouldn’t be long, though. Erikan could smell resentment on the air. Vampires, by their very nature, seethed with the urge to dominate and they chafed at being under another’s dominion.

Tomas led them through the castle, up curling stone stairwells and through damp corridors where cold air, and things worse than air, slipped in through broken walls. Ghostly knights galloped silently through the corridors, and wailing hags swept upwards, all drawn in the same direction as the vampiric Templars. It was there, in the bell tower of Sternieste, that the great black bells tolled, calling the dead to their master’s side. The sound of the bells was as the creak of a coffin lid and the thud of a mausoleum door; it was the crunch of bone and the wet slap of torn flesh; it was the sound all dead things knew, deep in the marrow of their bones.

Tomas’s warriors peeled off as they approached the narrow stairwell that led up to the bell tower. The meeting was obviously only for the inner circle. Erikan felt a twinge of doubt as they ascended, and the others seemed to share his concern, save for Anark and Elize, who chatted gaily to Tomas as they went. Markos caught Erikan’s eye and made a face. Something was going on. Erikan wondered if Mannfred had truly summoned them, or this was some ploy on Tomas’s part. Or Elize’s, a small, treacherous voice murmured in the depths of his mind. Those who took the von Carstein name tended towards ambition. To assume the name was a symbol of your devotion to the ideals of Vlad von Carstein, of a vampire-state, of an empire of the dead, ruled by the masters of the night. Only the ambitious or the insane announced their intentions so openly.

When they climbed out into the bell tower, the air throbbed with the graveyard churn of the bells, and the soft cacophony of the gathered spectral hosts that surrounded the top of the tower. Hundreds, if not thousands of spirits floated above the tower, pulled to and chained by the dull clangour. The bell-ringers were ghouls, and they gave vent to bone-rattling howls and shrieks as they hauled on the ropes.

And beyond them, his back to the newcomers, his eyes fixed on the innumerable spirits dancing on the night wind, stood Mannfred von Carstein. He had one foot set on the parapet, and he leaned on his raised knee as he gazed upwards. He did not turn as they arrived, and only glanced at them when Tomas drew his sword partially from its sheath and slammed it down.

‘Count Mannfred, you have called and we, your most loyal servants, have come. The inner circle of the Drakenhof Order is ready to ride forth at your command and at your discretion,’ Tomas said.

‘I’m sure you are,’ Mannfred said. His eyes flickered over each of them in turn, and Erikan couldn’t help but feel nervous. He’d only ever served the creature before him at a remove. To see him in the flesh was something else again. Mannfred was tall, taller even than Anark, taller than any normal man, if not gigantic. He seemed swollen with power, and his gilt-edged, black armour was of the finest quality, despite its archaic appearance. A heavy cloak made from the hairy pelt of a gigantic wolf hung down from his shoulders, and a long-bladed sword with an ornate basket hilt was sheathed on his hip. His scalp had been shorn clean of hair, and his face was aquiline and aristocratic, with a fine-boned grace to his features. ‘While I am glad that you have come, I expected more of you, cousins and gentles all.’

‘These are the greatest warriors of the order, my lord,’ Tomas said. ‘The blood of the von Carsteins runs thick in the veins of the inner circle. Will you do us the honour of explaining your purpose in summoning us?’

‘I should think it would be obvious, cousin,’ Mannfred said. He reached out a hand as the ghost of a wailing child drifted close, as if to comfort the spectre. Instead, he crooked his fingers and swept them through its features, causing the ghost to momentarily stretch and distort. ‘I am readying myself for the war to come. To wage war, I require warriors. Hence, your presence. Or must I explain further?’

‘No, no, most wise and fierce lord,’ Tomas said, looking at the others meaningfully. ‘But one must wonder why we have been summoned into a land that we cannot then leave.’

Mannfred gave no sign that Tomas’s words had struck a nerve, but somehow Erikan knew that they had. The lord of Sylvania examined Tomas for a moment. Erikan saw his eyes slide towards those of Elize, who inclined her head slightly. His hand found the hilt of his blade. Something was definitely going on. He was sure of it now. There was an undercurrent here he didn’t like. ‘What are you implying, cousin?’ Mannfred asked.

Tomas cocked his head. ‘Surely you can feel it, my lord. It is the talk of your court, and of the guests who shelter beneath the bowers of your generosity. The borders are protected against our kind. We can enter, but not leave. And as mighty as your walls are, and as great as your army might be, we find ourselves wondering why you gave us no warning?’ He looked around him, at Erikan and the others, seeking support. Anark began to nod dully, but Elize’s hand on his arm stopped him. Erikan traded glances with Markos. The latter smiled thinly and gave a slight shake of his head.

‘If I had, dear cousin, would you have come?’ Mannfred asked, turning away.

Tomas tapped the pommel of his blade with a finger, and gave Mannfred a speculative look. ‘So what you’re saying is that you’ve knowingly trapped us here, in this reeking sty you call a fiefdom. Wonderful, truly. Vlad’s cunning was as nothing compared to your own ineffable wisdom.’ He turned to look at the others again. ‘Yes, your brilliance is as bright as the light of the Witch Moon in full glow, my Lord Mannfred. I, and the rest of the inner circle of the Drakenhof Templars, stand in awe of your puissance and forethought in calling us all back and trapping us here, in this overlarge tomb of yours.’ Tomas clapped politely. ‘Well done, sirrah. What will be your next trick, pray tell? Perhaps you’d like to juggle a few blessed relics, or maybe go for a stroll in the noonday sun?’

‘Are you finished?’ Mannfred asked.

‘No,’ Tomas said, all trace of jocularity gone from his voice. ‘Not even a little bit. I – we – came in good faith, and at your request, Lord Mannfred. And you have betrayed even that shred of consideration and for what – so that we might share your captivity?’

‘So that you might help me break the chains that bind Sylvania, dear cousin,’ Mannfred purred. ‘And you did not do me a favour, Tomas. You owe me your allegiance. I am the true and lawful lord of Sylvania, and your order is pledged to my service, wherever and whenever I so require.’

‘Not quite.’ Tomas smiled thinly. ‘We do serve the Count of Sylvania, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you, cousin.’

Erikan blinked. Even for a vampire, Tomas was fast. The gap between thought and deed for him was but the barest of moments. His blade was in his hand and arcing towards Mannfred’s shaved pate as he finished speaking, and the other had started to turn.

Mannfred was not so quick. But then, he didn’t have to be. Tomas’s blade smashed down into Mannfred’s waiting palm, halted mere inches from the crown of his head. Mannfred examined the blade for a moment, and then tore it from Tomas’s grip with a casual twitch of his wrist. Still holding the sword by the blade, he looked at Tomas. ‘In a way, Tomas, you are correct. However, in another, altogether more important way, you are decidedly incorrect.’ Without a flicker of warning, Mannfred caught Tomas a ringing blow across the side of his head with the hilt of his sword.

Tomas was sent flying by the force of the blow. Mannfred tossed the now-broken sword over the parapet and strode towards the fallen Grand Master. Erikan and the others drew back. Tomas had made his play without consulting them, and the consequences would be on his head alone. He’d likely hoped they’d join him, when they learned of the trap. Then, he had never been very smart, Erikan reflected as Mannfred reached down and grabbed a handful of Tomas’s hair. Mannfred hauled the other vampire to his feet effortlessly. ‘This, Tomas, is why I called you back. This weakness, this bravado, this mistaken impression that you, that any of you, are my equal.’ He pulled Tomas close. ‘I have no equal, cousin. I am Mannfred von Carstein, first, last and only. And I cannot abide weakness.’ He flung Tomas against the wall hard enough to rattle the latter’s armour. ‘I have begun something. And I would have my servants at my disposal, rather than traipsing off, pursuing their own petty goals when they should be pursuing mine.’

Tomas clawed at the wall and dragged himself upright. He glared at Mannfred. ‘The only weak one here is you. I remember you, Mannfred, cousin, scrabbling at Vlad’s heels, hiding from Konrad – you were a rat then, and you’re a rat now, cowering in your nest.’

Mannfred was silent for a moment. His face betrayed no expression. Then, he made a single, sharp gesture. The air and shadows around Tomas seemed to congeal, becoming sharp and solid. For a moment, Erikan was reminded of the jaws of a wolf closing about a field mouse. The darkness obscured Tomas, and there came a strange squeal as though metal were scraping against metal, and then a horrid grinding sound that made Erikan’s fangs ache in his gums.

Tomas began to scream. Blood spattered the stones, and torn and bent bits of armour clattered to the ground. To Erikan, it sounded as if the Grand Master were being flayed alive. Whatever was happening, Mannfred watched it with glittering eyes and with a slight, savage smile creasing his aquiline features.

When it was done, there was little left of Tomas – just something red and raw that lay in the detritus of its former glory, mewling shrilly. Mannfred looked down at the squirming ruin and said, ‘Anark, see to your predecessor. I have other, more important matters to attend.’

Anark started. His nostrils flared, but he gave no other sign that his sudden rise to prominence had surprised him. His lips peeled back from his fangs as he drew his sword and advanced on the remains of his former comrade.

Mannfred stepped back and turned to Elize. He stroked her cheek in such a way that Erikan thought it lucky for one of them that Anark was occupied with his butchery. Mannfred leaned towards her and murmured, ‘And so I have kept my promise, cousin.’ Erikan glanced at the others surreptitiously, but he seemed to have been the only one to hear the exchange. Mannfred drew his cloak about him and left them on the parapet. Erikan waited for the sound of his boots to fade and then said, ‘Well, that was unexpected.’

‘But not unwelcome,’ Elize said. She drifted towards Anark, and rubbed a spot of blood from his cheek. ‘Tomas was a fool, and we all know it. His end has been a century in coming, and I, for one, am glad that we do not have to put up with him longer than was absolutely necessary. If we are trapped here, then Mannfred is our best chance of escape. And besides, Tomas had no concept of honour or loyalty. Anark will make a better Grand Master, I think.’

Anark grinned and ran his hand along his blade, stripping Tomas’s blood from it. ‘Unless someone objects?’ He looked at Erikan as he spoke. ‘Well, Crowfiend?’

Erikan didn’t rise to the bait. ‘I wasn’t under the assumption that we had been given a vote.’ He inclined his head. ‘Long live the new Grand Master.’ The others followed suit, murmuring their congratulations.

Alberacht even looked as if he meant it.

Three

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

Mannfred strode through the damp, cool corridors of Sternieste, trying to rein in the anger that had threatened to overwhelm him for days now. The hunched shapes of his servants scurried out of his path as he walked, but he gave them little notice.

Gelt’s barrier of faith still resisted every attempt to shatter it. He had wrung his library dry of magics, and had made not the slightest bit of difference. Soon enough, once the northern invasion had been thrown back, as they always, inevitably were, Karl Franz would turn his attentions back to the festering boil on the backside of his pitiful empire and lance it once and for all. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to go. It might take centuries, or millions of lives, but Mannfred had studied the Emperor for a decade, and he knew that there was no more ruthless a man in the world, save himself. Karl Franz would happily sacrifice Ostland and Stirland, if it meant scouring Sylvania from the map.

Mannfred wanted to scream, to rant and rave, to succumb to the red thirst and rampage through some village somewhere. Everything he had worked for, everything he had conquered death for, was coming apart in his hands before he’d even begun, leaving him still in Vlad’s shadow. Tomas had scored a palpable hit with that painful truth, before Mannfred had dealt with him. That the blow was not physical made it no less painful, nor any less lingering. Most of his followers knew better than to question him, either out of fear or because they lacked the wit to see the trap for what it was. In a way, the preponderance of the latter was his own fault. He had eliminated most, if not all, of his rivals amongst the aristocracy of the night. Vlad had bestowed the gift of immortality as a reward, without much thought as to the consequences, and Konrad had been even more profligate, turning dockside doxies, common mercenaries and, in one unfortunate incident that was best forgotten, a resident of the Moot.

Mannfred had dealt with all of them, hunting them down one by one over the centuries since his resurrection from the swamps of Hel Fenn. Any vampire of the von Carstein bloodline who would not serve him, or was of no use to him, he destroyed, even as he had destroyed Tomas. Most of Vlad’s get had been swept off the board at the outset. Tomas and the other members of the inner circle of the Drakenhof Templars were among the last of them, and with Tomas’s death, Mannfred thought that they were sufficiently cowed. Elize was more pragmatic than the others, and could be counted on to keep them under control. At least in so far as monsters like Nictus, or weasels like Markos, could be controlled.

He reached up and ran both hands over his shorn scalp. He wondered if, when all was said and done, he would finally be free of Vlad’s ghost. When he had finally broken the world’s spine and supped on its life’s blood, would that nagging, mocking shade depart.

No. No, I think not, Vlad’s voice whispered. Mannfred neither paused, nor responded. The voice was only in his head. It was only a trick of long, wasted centuries, some self-defeating urge that he could ignore. Am I though? Or am I really here with you still, my best beloved son? the voice murmured. Mannfred ground his teeth.

‘No, you are not,’ he hissed.

The voice faded, leaving only the echo of a ghostly chuckle to mark its passing. Mannfred hated that chuckle. It had always been Vlad’s signal that he was missing something that the latter thought obvious. And perhaps he was. But he had weighty matters on his mind at the moment. Most notably that his demesnes were already subject to invasion, albeit not a large one, and not one initiated by the Empire. But it was still enough to give Mannfred pause. His nascent realm had already suffered attack once, by a horde of daemons. Those had been easy enough to see off, but this new threat was proving to be more persistent. He’d sent out wolves and bats to shadow the intruder’s approach, but every time the beasts came closer to the newcomer, Mannfred’s control over them had slipped away. That could only mean that the invader was another master of the Corpse Geometries, and one unlike the other wretched creatures that had thus far made it across the border.

Whoever it was had made no attempt to either openly challenge or offer fealty to the lord of Sylvania. Mannfred had at first suspected that it was the self-styled Lichemaster, Heinrich Kemmler, who’d been his ally for an all-too-brief moment, before he’d chafed beneath the goad and taken his leave of Mannfred’s court, his hulking undead bodyguard Krell following behind him. Mannfred had kept tabs on the necromancer, and the last he’d heard the lunatic sorcerer had raised an army of the dead to lay siege to Castle Reikguard, for reasons fathomable only to him.

But the intruder’s aura, the taste of his power, was different from Kemmler’s. It was older, for one thing, with its roots sunk deep in disciplines that had existed for millennia. And it was greater, possibly even a match for Mannfred’s own. There were few creatures who could wield such power so negligently – that wretched creature Zacharias the Ever-Living for one, or that perfumed dolt Dietrich von Dohl, the so-called Crimson Lord of Sylvania. And this newcomer was neither.

Which left only one possibility.

Mannfred forced down the anger as it threatened to surge again. If the intruder was who he suspected, he would need all of his faculties to deal with him in the manner he deserved. But before he marshalled his energies for such a conflict, he would need to be certain. Time was at a premium, and he could not afford to waste his carefully husbanded strength battling shadows. That said, the thought of such a conflict did not displease Mannfred. Indeed, after the weeks of frustration he had endured, such a confrontation was an almost welcome diversion. To be free at last to strive and destroy would be a great relief to him.

The loud, raucous communal croak of a number of carrion birds let him know he’d reached his destination, and he quickly assumed a mask of genteel calm. It wouldn’t do to show any weakness, emotional or otherwise, to a creature like the Crowfiend. He’d asked Elize’s creature to meet him in the castle’s high garden. There were things Mannfred needed to ask him, to lend weight to or dismiss those theories now burgeoning in his mind.

A brace of skeletons, clad in bronze cuirasses and holding bronze-headed, long-hafted axes, guarded the entrance to the open-air, walled garden. He stepped past them, and as he entered the garden, a flock of black-feathered birds leapt skywards, screaming in indignation. He watched them swoop and wheel for a moment. Vlad had always felt a ghastly affection for the beasts. Mannfred had never understood how a creature as powerful as Vlad could waste his attentions feeding sweetmeats to such vermin, when there were more important matters to be attended to.

The Crowfiend sat on one of the cracked, discoloured marble benches that encircled the garden’s single, crooked tree. The fat-trunked monstrosity was long dead, but somehow it still grew, drawing gods alone knew what sort of nourishment from the castle into whose mortar it had sunk its roots. Erikan stood as Mannfred approached. Mannfred gestured for him to sit. He gazed at the other vampire for a moment.

The Crowfiend had a face that radiated feral placidity. There was no obvious guile in him. Cunning, yes, and cleverness, but no guile. He was not a subtle creature, but neither was he stupid. There was something familiar there as well – a raw need that Mannfred recognised in himself. A hunger that was greater than any bloodthirst or flesh-greed. Mannfred drew close to the other vampire and caught his chin in an iron grip. He pulled Erikan’s face up. ‘I can see the ghoul-taint in your face, boy. Elize tells me that your kin were corpse-eaters, though not so debased as those that prowl these halls.’

‘They were, my lord,’ Erikan said.

‘They were burned, I am given to understand.’

‘Yes,’ Erikan said, and he displayed no more emotion than if he’d been speaking of a rat he’d killed. Mannfred wondered if such lack of feeling was a mask. Vampires, contrary to folk belief and superstition, did not lose the ability to feel emotion. Indeed, undeath often enhanced such things. Sometimes every emotion was redoubled and magnified, stretched almost into caricature. Love became lust, passion became obsession, and hatred… Ah, hatred became something so venomous as to make even daemons flinch. And sometimes, they became as dust, only a fading memory of emotion, a brief, dull flicker of fires burned low.

‘If I were to say to you that the world is soon to die, what would you say?’

‘I’d say that I’d like to see that, my lord,’ Erikan said.

Mannfred blinked. He meant it, too. He let him go. ‘Is existence so burdensome to you?’

Erikan shrugged. ‘No. I merely meant that if the world is to burn, I might as well help stoke the fires,’ he said.

‘You believe it is time for a change, then?’

Erikan looked away. ‘Change doesn’t frighten me, my lord.’

‘No, perhaps it doesn’t, at that. Perhaps that is why Elize chose you – she has always had a streak of perversity in her, my lovely cousin. She was a sister of Shallya once, you know. She was at Isabella’s side, when she passed over from the wasting illness, and Vlad wrenched her back from Morr’s clutches. Poor, gentle Elize was Isabella’s first meal upon awakening. And she served as the countess’s handmaiden until her untimely end.’

Erikan said nothing. Mannfred smiled thinly. ‘Very loyal is Elize. Loyal, trustworthy, her ambition kept on the tightest of leashes. Why did she toss you aside, I wonder?’ The other vampire cocked his head, but did not reply. For a moment, Mannfred was reminded of a carrion bird. He gestured airily. ‘I don’t suppose it matters. She brought you over, and that is more a gift than most get in this fallen world.’ He turned away and strode to the tree. ‘You came from Couronne, I’m given to understand,’ Mannfred said. He gazed up at the tree. Idly he jabbed a talon into the spongy surface of the trunk. Black ichors oozed out of the cut. He glanced back at Erikan and sucked the sour sap off his finger.

Erikan nodded slowly. ‘I did.’

‘The Serpent fell, then,’ Mannfred said.

Erikan nodded again. ‘We were defeated.’

‘And what of Arkhan the Black?’

Erikan jolted, as if struck. ‘What about him, my lord?’

‘What happened to him in the aftermath?’

‘I don’t know, my lord,’ Erikan said. ‘I and– I was with Mallobaude’s bodyguard.’ His face twisted slightly. He shook himself. ‘Some say Arkhan was never there at Couronne to begin with. That he had used Mallobaude as a diversion for some other scheme. Others say that the Green Knight struck off his head as he had Mallobaude’s.’

Mannfred grunted. ‘No such luck,’ he muttered. He looked back at Erikan. ‘But he was there – in Bretonnia – of this you’re certain?’

‘I saw him, though only at a distance, my lord. It was him. He rode in a chariot of bone, which bore banners of crackling witch-fire and was pulled by skeletal steeds surmounted by the skulls of men, which screamed out in agony as they galloped.’

Mannfred nodded. ‘That sounds just ostentatious enough to be truthful,’ he murmured. The liche had long since lost any subtlety he had possessed in life. Arkhan had none of a vampire’s inbuilt sense of discretion. He was almost… theatrical.

What had the liche been after, he wondered? He was about to inquire further as to Arkhan’s activities when movement drew his eye, and he glanced up. A pale face stared down at him from among the crooked, arthritic branches of the tree, its features twisted in a mocking smile as flickering shadows gathered at the corner of his vision. Was it Vlad’s face? Or someone else’s… The features were at once Vlad’s and those of a youth from some other land, handsome and terrible and noble and bestial all at once. The thin-lipped mouth moved, but no sound came out. Nonetheless, Mannfred heard it as clear as if it had whispered in his ear. ‘La Maisontaal Abbey,’ he muttered. He blinked and shook himself. The face was gone, as were the shadows, leaving behind only a dark echo of a man’s sonorous chuckle. He felt like a child being guided towards a treat. Irritated, he gouged the trunk of the tree again, leaving five suppurating wounds in its soft bark.

Of course it was La Maisontaal. Of course! Why else would the liche have bothered with a backwater like Bretonnia? Mannfred stared at the sap seeping from the tree. But why come here, now? Unless… He grunted. Arkhan’s goals were as unsubtle as the liche himself. He had ever been Nagash’s tool. He had no more free will than the dead who served him.

He was coming for those items that Mannfred now possessed, and had spent no little effort in acquiring. His lips peeled back from his fangs as he contemplated the audacity of the creature – to come here, to Sylvania, to take what was Mannfred’s by right of blood and conquest? No, no, that would not do.

‘Once a thief, always a thief,’ he snarled. He turned, his cloak flaring about him like the stretched wing of a gigantic bat. Erikan started, and tried to stand as Mannfred swooped upon him. He grabbed the other vampire gently by the throat with both hands, forcing him to remain still. ‘Thank you, boy, for your candour. It is much appreciated,’ Mannfred purred. ‘Tell your mistress and her oaf of a progeny Anark to ready the defences of this citadel. I expect the Drakenhof Templars to defend what is mine with their lives, if it comes to it.’

He released Erikan and strode towards the doorway, cloak swirling. Erikan rose to his feet and asked, ‘And what of you, Lord Mannfred? What should I say you are doing?’

‘I, dear boy, am going to confront the invader in person. I would take measure of my enemy before crushing his skull to powder beneath my boot-heel.’

Vargravia, Sylvania

If he had been capable of it, Arkhan the Black would have been in a foul mood. As it was, he merely felt a low throb of dissatisfaction as he led his rotting, stumbling forces through the blighted foothills of Vargravia. It had been a matter of mere moments to use his magics to rip a hole in the immense bone wall that carved off Sylvania from the rest of the world, but the blackened and shattered bone had repaired itself with an impressive speed. More than half of his army had been left on the other side of the gap, but there was nothing for it. He could always raise more to replace them. If there was one thing that Sylvania didn’t lack, it was corpses.

And it would be easier now, as well. There was something in the air, here; or, rather, there was something missing. He looked up, scanning the dark sky overhead. It had been daylight when he’d crossed the border, only moments before. But the skies of Sylvania were as black as pitch, and charnel winds caused the trees to rustle in a way that, had he still possessed hackles, would have caused them to bristle. He could taste death on the wind the way another might smell the smoke of not-so-distant fire.

But despite all of that, they were going too slowly. It had taken him longer than he’d hoped to reach Sylvania. The power of Chaos was growing, and Arkhan could feel the world quiver, like a man afflicted with ague. The winds of magic blew erratically, and things from outside the walls of reality were clambering over the threshold in ever-increasing numbers. More than once, he’d been forced to defend himself from cackling nightmares from the outer void, drawn to the scent of sorcery that permeated him. Beasts gathered in the hills and forests, making them traps for the unwary, and the land heaved with conflict in a way it never had before. It was as if the world were tearing itself apart in a frenzy.

Perhaps that was why his master had begun to speak to him once more. Ever since he had been resurrected from his first death by Nagash’s magics, an echo of the latter’s voice had occupied his head. A comforting murmur that had never truly faded or weakened, even when Nagash himself had ceased to be. For years he had refused to acknowledge it for what it was, and had lied to himself, boasting of autonomy to the soulless husks that did his bidding. An easy thing to do when the voice grew dim, retreating to a barely heard buzz of mental static. But, over the course of recent decades, it had begun to grow in volume again. It had whispered to him in his black tower, compelling him to rise and strive once more, though there seemed to be no reason to do so.

His first inkling that it was not merely a stirring in the dregs of his imagination was when the armies of Mannfred von Carstein had marched on the ruins of Lahmia. Such arrogance was well within the remit of every vampire he’d ever met, but the sheer scale of the undertaking was a thing unmatched in his experience. Von Carstein had wanted something from the ruins of Lahmia. Whether he’d found it or not, Arkhan did not know. Von Carstein had fled before the might of Lybaras and its High Queen. But something had compelled the vampire to strike at Lahmia, and then later, Nagashizzar.

When Queen Khalida had made to return the favour a few centuries later, Arkhan had travelled with her to Sylvania, in pursuit of one of Mannfred’s get. Mannfred himself was long dead by that point, sunk into the mire of Hel Fenn, but the dark spirit that had compelled him to attack the Lands of the Dead was obviously present in those creatures of his creation. They came again and again, looking for something. In this case, it had been one of Nagash’s lesser staves of power – not Alakanash, the Great Staff, but a weaker version of it.

And like all tools forged by the Great Necromancer, it had had a whisper of his consciousness in it. Nagash had ever imparted something of himself, something of his vast and terrible soul, in everything of his making. Arkhan had taken the staff for his own, and though he’d held it aloft, the voice he’d long thought banished from his mind returned. It had howled in his mind, the chains of an ancient subjugation had rattled and he had begun his quest.

Upon Nagash’s destruction by the brute hillman now venerated by the people of the Empire, those artefacts of his design had been scattered to the four winds by plot and chance. The will that pressed upon Arkhan’s own had whispered to him his new task – to find these missing treasures. He was to seek out and gather the nine Books of Nagash, the mighty Crown of Sorcery, the Black Armour of Morikhane and the Great Staff, Alakanash, all of which had vanished into the weft and way of history. And there was the Fellblade of foul memory, and certain other things that must be brought together. Lastly, he required the withered Claw of Nagash, struck from the Great Necromancer’s arm by the edge of the Fellblade, and lost for millennia.

Once all of these had been gathered, Arkhan could begin the last great working. Then, and only then, could the Great Necromancer return to the world, which was his by right of birth and fate. And it was Arkhan’s task to help Nagash do so, even if it meant his obliteration in the doing of it. Such thoughts had rebounded against the walls of his skull for centuries, growing stronger and stronger, until it had reached a crescendo of such power that Arkhan was hard pressed to tell his thoughts from those of his master.

Two of the Books of Nagash were in his possession even now, strapped to the backs of his servants. And he knew where Alakanash and the Black Armour were. But someone had beaten him to the other items, or so the voice in his skull whispered again and again. And that someone, he had been assured, was Mannfred von Carstein, resurrected from the grave even as Arkhan himself had been.

That the information had come from the sore-encrusted lips of one as untrustworthy as Heinrich Kemmler, the self-proclaimed Lichemaster, did not make Arkhan doubt its veracity overmuch. Kemmler had returned to the Grey Mountains after some time in the Empire, retreating to lick his wounds after nearly losing his head to the bite of a dwarf axe at Castle Reikguard. Mallobaude had sought him out, despite Arkhan’s objections. The Lichemaster could not be trusted in such matters. His mind was disordered and he chafed at subordination.

Nonetheless, he had been intrigued to learn of Kemmler’s brief alliance with von Carstein, as well as the vampire’s acquisition of an elven princess of some standing. Kemmler had seen several of the items in question during this affair, and he, being no fool whatever his other proclivities, knew that there was some black plan brewing in the vampire’s crooked brain.

What that plan was, Kemmler hadn’t been able to say, and Arkhan felt disinclined to guess. The Books of Nagash were tomes of great power, and the Crown was a relic beyond all others. Any one of them would have served Mannfred adequately in whatever petty dreams fed his ambition. But to gather them all? That was a mystery indeed.

From somewhere far behind him, there was a great crackle of blossoming bone. He turned to watch as the yellowing shell of the wall repaired itself at last. A number of his slower followers were caught and pulverised, their rotting carcasses disintegrating as spears and branches of bone tore through them. Arkhan leaned on his staff, one fleshless palm resting on the pommel of the great tomb-blade that sat in its once-ornate and now much-reduced sheath on his hip.

‘Well, that’s interesting,’ Arkhan rasped. It had required great magic to create that wall, and maintain it. Mannfred had been busy. He reached up and scratched the maggoty chin of the zombie cat laying across his shoulders. He’d found the animal in Quenelles and, on some dark, unexplainable whim, resurrected it. In life, it had been a scar-faced tomcat, big and lanky and foul-tempered. Now, it was still as big and even worse-tempered, albeit sloughing off its hair and skin at an alarming rate, even for a zombie. Arkhan suspected that the animal was doing it to be contrary. The cat gurgled in a parody of pleasure and Arkhan clicked his teeth at it. ‘Isn’t that interesting?’

Mannfred had sealed off Sylvania efficiently enough, but Arkhan did not think he was responsible for the sour ring of faith that now enclosed the province as effectively as a dungeon door locked and barred by a gaoler. No, that particular working stank of Chamon, the yellow wind of magic – dense and metallic. That meant the involvement of men, for only they employed such basic sorceries for such complex tasks. Arkhan had little familiarity with the barbaric lands of the Empire, though he’d warred on them more than once. That they had sorcerers capable of such a wreaking was moderately surprising. That Mannfred had aggravated them into doing so, was not.

‘I still can’t believe that you brought that cat with you.’ Arkhan turned at the harsh croak, and examined the angular, patchwork face of the man who stomped towards him. Ogiers was – or had been – a nobleman of Bretonnia. Now he was a horseless vagabond, whose once-minor interest in necromancy had suddenly become his only means of protection, in the wake of Mallobaude’s failed rebellion. He was also a giant of a man, who towered over the bodies of his former men-at-arms.

‘And I can’t believe that something so inconsequential weighs so heavily on your mind,’ Arkhan said. ‘And you do have a mind, Ogiers. That’s why I pulled you from under the hooves of your kinsmen’s horses. What of the others? Did we leave anyone on the other side?’

‘Some. No one consequential. That jackanapes Malfleur and that giggling maniac from Ostland. Fidduci made it through, as did Kruk,’ Ogiers said with a shrug. Arkhan stroked his cat and considered the man before him. Ogiers’s beard, once so finely groomed, had become a rat’s nest, and his face was splotched with barely healed cuts and bruises. Big as he was, he slumped with exhaustion. He’d discarded most of his armour during the retreat over the Grey Mountains, but he’d kept what he could – more, Arkhan suspected, for sentimental reasons than anything else. The other necromancers likely looked just as tired. He’d pressed them hard since they’d reached the borderlands, keeping them moving without stopping. He forgot sometimes, how heavy flesh could be. It was like an anchor around you, bone and spirit.

He considered leaving them, while he forged ahead, but knew that would only be inviting trouble. They were frightened of him, but fear only went so far. He needed to keep them where he could see them.

Mallobaude’s rebellion had stirred a hornet’s nest of necromantic potential. In the months before his first, tentative missives had reached Arkhan in his desert exile, Mallobaude had sought to gather a colloquium of sorcerers and hedge-wizards to counter the witches of the lake and wood who bolstered the tottering throne of his homeland. Dozens of necromancers and dark sorcerers had responded, trickling over the Grey Mountains in ones and twos, seeking the Serpent’s favour. When Arkhan had arrived at last, he’d been forced to initiate a cull of the gathered magic-users. Most were merely fraudsters or crooked creatures with only a bit of lore and a cantrip or two – hardly useful in a war. These he butchered and added to the swelling ranks of dead, where they’d be more useful.

Others he’d sent off to the fringes of the uprising, to distract and demoralise the enemy. The rest he’d gathered about him as his aides. He’d rescued the best of these in the final hours of the rebellion, gathering them to him and whisking them away from harm. Many hands made quick work, and he had much to do. The angles of the Corpse Geometries were bunching and skewing as the world shuddered beneath the weight of some newborn doom. The world had teetered on the edge of oblivion for centuries and it appeared that something had, at last, decided to simply tip it over.

The thought was neither particularly pleasant nor especially unpleasant to Arkhan, who had long ago shed such mortal worries. Death was rest, and life a burden. He had experienced both often enough to prefer the former, but the latter could never entirely be shed, thanks to the grip Nagash held on his soul. ‘We will keep moving. Let the dead fall. This land is full of corpses, and we no longer have need of these. They merely serve to slow us down.’ He swept out a hand, and the shambling legions at their back twitched and collapsed as one with a collective sigh, all save the two enormous corpses that bore the heavy, iron-bound Books of Nagash in their arms. The two zombies had, in life, been ogre mercenaries from across the Mountains of Mourn. They and a mob of their kin had been drawn to Bretonnia by the war, and slain in the final battle at Couronne. Arkhan had seen no sense in wasting such brawny potential, and had resurrected them to serve as his pack-bearers.

‘This is the first time we’ve stopped in days. We are not all liches, lord,’ Ogiers said, looking about him at his fallen warriors. Arkhan had dispatched them with the rest. If Ogiers disapproved, he was wise enough to say nothing. ‘Some of us still require food, sleep… A moment of rest.’

Arkhan said nothing. Behind Ogiers, Fidduci and Kruk made their way towards them over the field of fallen corpses. Franco Fidduci was a black-toothed Tilean scholar with a penchant for the grotesque, and Kruk was a twisted midget who rode upon the broad back of the risen husk of his cousin, clinging to the wight like a jongleur’s pet ape.

‘What happened? All my sweet ones fell over,’ Kruk piped.

‘Our master has seen fit to dispense with their services,’ Ogiers said.

‘But my pretty ones,’ Kruk whined.

‘If you’re referring to those Strigany dancing girls of yours, they were getting a bit mouldy,’ Fidduci said. ‘Best to find some new ones, eh?’ He looked at Arkhan. ‘Which we will, yes? This is not a land for four innocent travellers, oh most godly and grisly of lords,’ he said cautiously.

‘Frightened, are you?’ Arkhan rasped.

‘Not all of us have escaped death’s clutches as often as you,’ Ogiers said. He looked around. ‘Maybe we should take our leave of you. We will only slow you down, lord, and you disposed of our army, thus rendering our contribution as your generals moot.’

The cat examined the gathered necromancers with milky eyes. Its tail twitched and its yellowed and cracked fangs were visible through its mangled jowls. Arkhan stroked it idly, and said, ‘No, you will not leave my side. Without me, you would be dead. Actually dead, as opposed to the more pleasing and familiar variety. We all serve someone, Ogiers. It is your good fortune to serve me.’

‘And who do you serve, oh most puissant and intimidating Arkhan?’ Fidduci asked, fiddling with his spectacles.

‘Pray to whatever gods will have you that you never meet him, Franco,’ Arkhan rasped. ‘Now come, we are a day from… What was it called, Kruk?’

‘Valsborg Bridge, my lovely master,’ Kruk said. The diminutive necromancer hunched forward in his harness and pounded on his mount’s shoulders. ‘Come, come!’ The wight turned and began to lope in a northerly direction.

Arkhan gestured with his staff. ‘You heard him. Come, come,’ he intoned. Fidduci and Ogiers shared a look and then began to trudge after Kruk. Arkhan followed them sedately. As he walked, he considered his reasons for coming to Sylvania.

Bretonnia had been, if examined honestly, an unmitigated disaster. He had intended to use the civil war as a distraction in order to crack open the abbey at La Maisontaal and secure the ancient artefact ensconced within its stone walls, but Mallobaude had failed him. He’d been forced to retreat, gathering what resources he could. He intended to return, but he required more power to tip the balance in his favour. And time was growing short. The Long Night fast approached, and the world was crumbling at the edges.

There was no easy way to tell how long it took them to reach the bridge, even if Arkhan had cared about marking the passage of time. More than once, he and the others were required to fend off roving bands of ghouls or slobbering undead monstrosities. Bats swooped from the sky and wolves lunged from the hardscrabble trees, and Arkhan was forced to usurp their master’s control to protect his followers. Ghosts haunted every crossroads and barrow-hill, and banshees wailed amidst the bent trees and extinct villages that they passed on the road to Valsborg Bridge. It was Mannfred’s hand and will behind these obstacles, Arkhan knew. The vampire was trying to slow him down, to occupy his attentions while he mustered his meagre defences.

The bridge was nothing special. A simple span of stone across a narrow cleft, constructed in the days of Otto von Drak, before the Vampire Wars. A thin sludge of water gurgled below it. Arkhan suspected that it had been a raging river in its day, but the arteries of running water that crossed Sylvania were fast drying up thanks to Mannfred’s sorcery. Storm clouds choked the skies above, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

His companions had collapsed by the roadside, exhausted by the gruelling pace. Even Kruk hung limp in his harness, stunted limbs dangling. Arkhan looked up at the churning sky, and then back at the bridge. Then he turned to his pack-bearers and motioned for them to drop to their haunches. They sank down, jaws sagging, blind, opaque eyes rolling in their sockets. They would not move, unless he commanded it, and they would not let anyone take the books they carried without a fight. He hefted his staff and stroked the cat, which made a sound that might have been a growl.

Someone – something – was coming. He could feel it, like a black wave rolling towards the shoreline, gathering strength as it came. Arkhan glanced down at his followers. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Do not interfere.’

‘Interfere with what?’ Ogiers demanded as he clambered to his feet. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To parley with the master of this sad realm,’ Arkhan said as he strode towards the bridge. ‘If you value your insignificant lives, I’d draw as little attention to yourself as possible.’ He walked across the bridge, ignoring Ogiers’s shouts, and stopped at the halfway point. Then he set his staff, and waited. He did not have to wait long. The sound of hooves gouging the ground reached him several minutes later, and then a steed of bone and black magic, bearing a rider clad in flamboyant armour, burst into view, trailing smoke and cold flame. At the sight of it, the cat curled about his shoulders went stiff, and it hissed.

The rider hauled on his reins, causing the skeleton horse to rear. Its hooves slammed down on the stone of the bridge, and it went as still as death. Its rider rose high in his saddle and said, ‘It has been some time since I last saw you, liche.’

‘I have counted the years, vampire.’ Arkhan scratched his cat’s chin. ‘Have you come to surrender?’

Mannfred von Carstein threw his head back and unleashed a snarl of laughter. Overhead, the sky trembled in sympathy. ‘Surrender? To a fleshless vagabond? It is you who should prostrate yourself before me.’

‘I have not come to bend knee, but to reclaim that which is mine by right.’

Mannfred’s sneer faded into a scowl. ‘And what might that be?’

Arkhan held up his hand, fingers extended. As he spoke, he bent his fingers one by one. ‘A crown, a severed hand, and seven books of blood-inked flesh.’ He cocked his head. ‘You know of what I speak.’

Mannfred grimaced. ‘And why should I yield these artefacts to you?’

‘Nagash must rise,’ Arkhan said, simply.

‘And so he shall. The matter is in good hands, I assure you,’ Mannfred said. ‘Go back to the desert, liche. I will call for you, if I should require your help.’

‘I am here now,’ Arkhan intoned, spreading his arms. ‘And you seem to be in need of help. Or have you discovered a way of freeing your land from the chains that bind it and trap you?’

‘That is no business of yours,’ Mannfred snarled.

‘That is up for discussion, I think,’ Arkhan said. He held out a hand. ‘Nagash must rise, leech. Nagash will rise, even if I must destroy this blighted land to accomplish it. That is my curse and my pleasure. But he has always held some affection for your kind. If you serve him, perhaps he will let you keep your little castle.’ Arkhan cocked his head. ‘It is a very pretty castle, I am given to understand.’

Mannfred was silent, but Arkhan could feel the winds of death stirring as the vampire gathered his will. The air seemed to congeal and then fracture as Mannfred flung out his hand. A bolt of writhing shadow erupted from his palm and speared towards Arkhan. The liche made no attempt to move aside. Instead, he waited. A freezing, tearing darkness erupted around him in a squirming cloud as the bolt struck home. If he had still possessed flesh, it would have been flayed from his bones. As it was, it merely tore his cloak and cowl. The cat on his shoulder yowled, and Arkhan gestured negligently, dispersing the cold tendrils of shadow.

Arkhan laughed hollowly. ‘Is that it?’

‘Not even remotely,’ Mannfred snarled.

More spells followed the first, and Arkhan deflected them all and returned them with interest. Incantations he had not uttered in centuries passed through his fleshless jaws as he pitted his sorceries against those of the lord of Sylvania… and found them wanting. Arkhan felt a flicker of surprise. Mannfred was more powerful than he’d thought. In his skull, his master’s chuckle echoed. Was this a test then, to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Dark sorceries and eldritch flames met above the bridge between them for long hours, crashing together like the duelling waves of a storm-tossed sea. Cold fire bit at writhing shadows, and black lightning struck bastions of hardened air, as the muddy turf of the riverbanks began to heave and rupture, releasing the tormented dead. Bodies long buried staggered and slumped into the guttering river, splashing towards one another. More skeletons, clad in roots and mud, crawled onto the bridge and groped for Arkhan as he batted aside Mannfred’s spells. The cat warbled and leapt from his shoulder to crash into a skeleton, knocking it backwards.

He ignored the others as they clawed at him. There were few forces that could move him once he had set himself. The biting, clawing dead were no more a threat to him than leaves cast in his face by a strong breeze. Nonetheless, they were a distraction; likely that was Mannfred’s intent. It was certainly Arkhan’s, as he directed his corpse-puppets to attack Mannfred.

The vampire smashed the dead aside with careless blows and hurled spells faster than Arkhan could follow, hammering him with sorcerous blows that would have obliterated a lesser opponent. The stone beneath his feet bubbled and cracked. It had survived a weathering of centuries, and now it was crumbling beneath the onslaught. Arkhan was beginning to wonder if he was going to suffer the same fate. He could feel his defences beginning to buckle beneath the unyielding onslaught. Mannfred’s power seemed inexhaustible; vampires were reservoirs of dark magic, but even they had their limits – limits that Mannfred seemed to have shed. Where was he drawing his power from? Some artefact or… Arkhan laughed, suddenly. Of course.

Mannfred had sealed off Sylvania, blocking the sun and the rivers and the borders. Such a working would require some source of mystical power. Mannfred was drawing on those same magics now, and it gave him a distinct advantage. But, such a resource, while advantageous, was not infinite.

Certain now that he had his foeman’s measure, Arkhan redoubled his efforts. If he could force Mannfred’s hand, he might be able to simply outlast him. Sorcerous talons and bone-stripping winds lashed at him, but he held firm, his hands clasped around his staff. Overhead, the clouds swirled and contracted. Fire washed over him, and a thousand, thudding fists, which struck at him from every side. Wailing ghosts and serpentine shadows sought to drag him down, but Arkhan refused to fall. He sent no more spells hurtling towards his foe, instead bolstering the dead who fought at his behest.

Mannfred was howling with laughter, and Arkhan could feel the weight of the mighty magics that thrummed around the vampire, waiting to be unleashed. As Mannfred gathered them to him, the words to a powerful incantation dropping from his writhing lips, Arkhan readied himself.

Nevertheless, the first shaft of sunlight was as much a surprise to him as it was to Mannfred. It burst from the clouds high above and struck the bridge between them. The latter’s skeleton mount reared and hurled him from his saddle. Arkhan staggered as the pressure of his enemy’s magic faded. The expression on Mannfred’s face as he clambered to his feet was almost comical. The vampire looked up, eyes wide and hastily released the murderous energies he had been preparing to hurl at Arkhan back into the aether. The clouds roiled and the sunlight was once more choked off by the darkness.

‘Well, that was an amusing diversion,’ Arkhan rasped. He started across the bridge. ‘Are you prepared to listen to reason now?’

Mannfred shrieked like a beast of prey, and drew his blade. Without pause, the vampire leapt at him. Arkhan drew his tomb-blade and blocked Mannfred’s diving blow in a single movement. The two blades, each infused with the darkest of magics, gave out a communal cry of steel on steel as they connected, and cold fire blazed at the juncture of their meeting. Mannfred dropped to the bridge in a crouch before springing instantly to his feet. He sprinted towards Arkhan, his sword looping out. This too Arkhan parried, and they weaved back and forth over the bridge, the screams of their swords echoing for miles in either direction. Overhead, the sky growled in agitation, and the noisome wind swept down with a howl.

Below them, in the mud and stagnant water, the dead fought on, straining against one another in a parody of the duel their masters fought above them. Arkhan could feel Mannfred’s will pressing against his own. He’d foregone magic, save that little bit required to control the dead. Their battle was as much for mastery of the warring corpses below as it was against each other. The vampire came at him again, teeth bared in a silent, feral snarl. His form flickered and wavered as he moved, like a scrap of gossamer caught in a wind storm. A living man would have found it impossible to follow the vampire’s movements, but Arkhan had long since traded in his mortal eyes for something greater.

He matched Mannfred blow for blow. It felt… good, to engage in swordplay once more. It had been centuries since his blade had been drawn for anything other than emphasis or as an implement of ritual. The ancient tomb-blade shivered in his hand as it connected again with Mannfred’s. The embers of old skills flared to life in the depths of Arkhan’s mind, and he recalled those first few desperate battles, where a gambler’s skill in back-alley brawls was put to the test by warriors whose names still lingered in legend. It was good to be reminded of that time, of when he had still been a man, rather than a tool forged by the will of another.

Arkhan wondered if Mannfred knew what that was like. He thought so. The vampire’s magics had that taste, and his voice was like the echo of another’s, though he knew it not. Arkhan could almost see a familiar shape superimposed over his opponent, a vast, black, brooding shadow that seemed to roil with amusement as they fought.

I see you, Arkhan thought. This was a test and a pleasure for the thing that held the chains of their souls. Arkhan’s master had ever been a sadist and prone to cruel whimsy. This battle had been a farce, a shadow-play from the beginning. There was a power in that knowledge. A power in knowing exactly how little of it you yourself possessed. It allowed you to focus, to look past the ephemeral, and to marshal within yourself what little will your master allowed.

Arkhan the Black was a slave, but a slave who knew every link of the chain that bound him by heart. Mannfred had yet to realise that he had even been beaten. Their blades clashed again and again until, at last, Arkhan beat the vampire’s sword aside and swiftly stepped back, his now-sodden and torn robes slapping wetly against his bare bones.

‘We are finished here, vampire.’

Mannfred’s eyes burned with rage, and for a moment, Arkhan thought he might continue the fight. Then, with a hiss, Mannfred inclined his head and sheathed his sword with a grandiose flourish. ‘We are, liche. A truce?’

Arkhan would have smiled, had he still had lips. ‘Of course. A truce.’

Four

Heldenhame Keep, Talabecland

‘The problem isn’t getting in. It’s just a wall, and walls can be breached, scaled and blown down,’ Hans Leitdorf, Grand Master of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood said, glaring at the distant edifice, which towered along the border of Sylvania. That it was visible from such a distance was as much due to its sheer enormity as to the height of the parapet he and his guests stood atop. ‘It’s what’s waiting on the other side. They’ve had months to erect defences, set traps and build an army out of every scrap of bone and sinew in Sylvania. And that’s not even taking into account the things slipping over the border every night to bolster the cursed von Carstein’s ranks. Strigany nomads, strange horsemen, beasts and renegades of every dark stripe.’ He knocked back a slug from the goblet he held in one hand. Leitdorf was old but, like some old men, had only grown harder and tougher with age. He was broad and sturdily built, with a barrel chest and a face that had seen the wrong end of a club more than once. He wore a heavy fur coat of the sort Ungol horsemen were fond of, and had his sword belt cinched around his narrow waist. ‘We’ve tried to stop them, but we’re too few. I don’t have enough men to do more than put up a token effort. And when I ask for more men from the elector and Karl Franz, I get, well, you.’ He looked at his guest.

Captain Wendel Volker gave no sign that Leitdorf’s insult had struck home. The fourth son of a largely undistinguished Talabecland family tree, he hadn’t expected a man like Leitdorf to be happy with his arrival. His uniform was still coated in trail-grime, and he shivered beneath his thin officer’s cloak. It was cold up on the parapet, and it had been a wet trip. Volker was young, with a duellist’s build and a boy’s enthusiasm. The latter was swiftly being sapped by the circumstances of his current posting, but, as his father had said on multiple occasions, one mustn’t complain.

‘Oh he’s not so bad, is our young Wendel. He guarded me ably enough on the road from Talabheim,’ the third man on the parapet rumbled, as he stroked his spade-shaped red beard with thick, beringed fingers. He was a big man, like Leitdorf, though his size had more to do with ample food supply than anything else, Volker thought. There was muscle there, too, but it was well padded. Despite that, he was the most dangerous of the three men on the parapet. Or, possibly, in the entire keep. ‘Able, aristocratic, attentive, slightly alcoholic… All virtues as far as I’m concerned,’ the third man went on, winking cheerfully at Volker.

‘You hardly needed an escort,’ Leitdorf said. ‘The Patriarch of the Bright College is an army unto himself. There are few who would challenge Thyrus Gormann.’

‘I know of one,’ Gormann grunted, tugging on his beard. He waved a hand and, for a moment, a trail of flickering flame marked the motion of his fingers. ‘Still, neither here nor there, all in the past, all friends now, hey?’ He scratched his nose and peered at the distant wall of bone that separated Sylvania from Imperial justice. ‘That is one fine, big wall the little flea has erected for himself, I must admit.’

‘The little flea’, Volker knew, was Mannfred von Carstein. Even thinking the name caused him to shudder. Still, on the whole, it was better than going north with the rest of the lads. He’d take the dead over daemons any day. Nonetheless, he couldn’t repress a second shudder when he looked at the distant wall. He caught Leitdorf looking at him and stiffened his spine. As terrifying as Mannfred von Carstein was, he was over there, and Leitdorf, unfortunately, was right here. Leitdorf snorted and turned back to Gormann.

‘Volkmar isn’t coming back,’ he said.

‘Did you think he would?’ Gormann asked. ‘No, he’d have torn those walls down if he’d been able. It was a fool’s errand, and he knew it.’

‘He had to try,’ Leitdorf said softly.

‘No, he bloody didn’t.’ Gormann shook his shaggy head. ‘He let his anger blind him, and now we have to muddle through without him. Stubborn old fool.’

‘Friend pot, have you met cousin kettle?’ Leitdorf asked.

Gormann looked at the knight and frowned, but only for a moment. He guffawed and shook his head. ‘I always forget that you have a sense of humour buried under that scowl, Hans.’

Volker watched as the two men – two of the most powerful, if not influential, in the Empire – continued to discuss the unpleasantness just across the border and decided, for the fifth time in as many minutes, to keep his opinions to himself, just as his mother had counselled. ‘Keep quiet, head down, ears perked, nose to the trail,’ she’d said. A hunting metaphor, of course. Big one for hunting was mumsy, big one for the blood sports and the trophies and such.

Blood had always made Volker queasy. He licked his lips and looked longingly at the jug of mulled wine that Leitdorf clutched loosely in one hand. Occasionally, the Grand Master would refill his goblet, or Gormann’s. Volker had not been offered so much as a taste. Another snub, of course. A sign of his new commander’s displeasure. Mustn’t complain, he thought.

As the wizard and the warrior conversed, Volker kept himself occupied by examining his new post from the view the parapet afforded. He’d heard stories of Heldenhame as a boy, but to see it in the flesh, as it were, was something else again.

At its inception, Heldenhame had been little more than a modest bastion, composed of a stone tower and a wooden palisade. Now, however, a century later, Heldenhame Keep was the grandest fortress in Talabecland. The old stone tower had been torn down and replaced by a castle that was many times larger, and the wooden palisade had been discarded in favour of heavy stone walls. Within the walls and spreading outwards from the castle was a bustling city, filled with noise and commerce. It was a grand sight, for all that it still bore the marks of the greenskin tide that had sought to overwhelm it the year previous.

The western wall was still under repair from that incident. Volker watched the distant dots of workmen reinforcing and repairing the still-crippled span. It was the only weak point in the fortress’s defences, but such repairs couldn’t be rushed. Volker knew that much from his studies. As he examined the wall, he saw what looked to be a tavern near it. His thirst returned and he licked his lips. ‘Worried about the western span, captain?’ Leitdorf asked, suddenly. Volker, shaken from his reverie, looked around guiltily.

‘Ah, no, sir, Grand Master,’ he said hastily, trying to recall what sort of salute one gave the commander of a knightly order. Leitdorf gazed at him disdainfully.

‘You should be,’ he grunted. ‘You’ll be stationed there. You’re dismissed, Volker. I trust you can find your quarters and introduce yourself to the garrison without me holding your hand?’

‘Ah, yes, I believe so, sir. Grand Master,’ Volker said. Leitdorf turned, and Volker, relieved and dying for a drink, scurried away.

Karak Kadrin, Worlds Edge Mountains

Ungrim Ironfist, king of Karak Kadrin, ran his thick, scarred fingers across the map of beaten bronze and gilded edges that lay before him on the stone table. The map was a thing of painstaking artifice and careful craftsmanship, and it was as lovely in its way as any silken tapestry or a portrait done by a master’s hand.

Ironfist, in contrast, was a thing of slabs and edges and could, in no way, shape or form be called lovely. Even for a dwarf, the Slayer King was built on the heavy side, his thick bones weighed down by layers of hard-earned muscle, and his face like a granite shelf carved sharply and suddenly by an avalanche. His beard and hair were dyed a startling red and, as ever, he wore a heavy cloak of dragon-scale over his broad shoulders.

His craggy features settled into a taciturn expression as he stared at the map. It wasn’t alone on the table. There were others stacked in a neat pile near to hand, and opposite them a number of metal tubes, containing statements and reports culled from every watch-post and lookout tower for a hundred miles in every direction. Ironfist had read them all and more than once. So often, in fact, that he knew what each one said by heart.

More reports were added by the day, as rangers and merchants brought word to the Slayer Keep from the furthest edges of the dwarf empire. These too Ironfist committed to memory. None of what he learned was comforting.

There was a strange murk upon the dust-winds that rolled west from the Dark Lands over the eastern mountains, and the sky over that foul land was rent by sickly trails of green, as if the moon were weeping poisonous tears upon the blighted sores that covered the skin of the world. Plagues such as the world had not seen in a thousand years were loose in the lands of men, and worse things than plagues, too. Devils and beasts ran riot in the Empire, and traders returning from Tilea, Estalia and Araby brought word that it was just as bad in those lands. The vile rat-things had burst from their tunnels in unprecedented numbers, and subsumed whole city-states and provinces in the same way they had the holds of his people so long ago.

The Badlands were full to bursting of greenskins; the clangour of the battles fought between the orc tribes carried for miles in all directions, and as soon as one ended, another began. Soon, as was inevitable, they would flood into the mountains and the lands beyond, hunting for new enemies. But this time they would do so in unprecedented numbers: in their millions, rather than their thousands.

However, that was as nothing compared to word from the north, where strange lights writhed across the horizon and arcane storms raged across the lands. Daemon packs hunted the high places and barbarians gathered in the valleys as long-dormant volcanoes belched smoke and the earth shook as if beneath the tread of phantom armies.

Ironfist had, in all his centuries, never witnessed such a multitude of troubles, all occurring at once. Bad times came and went, like storms. They washed across the mountains and faded away with the seasons. But this was like several storms, rising and boiling together all at once, as if to wipe away the world. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of the miasma of foreboding that clung to them.

Ironfist tapped a point on the map. ‘What word from the Sylvanian border? Are the rumours true?’ he asked the dwarf sitting across from him. Snorri Thungrimsson had served at his king’s right hand for more years than could be easily counted. He was old now, and the fat braids of beard that were tucked into the wide leather belt about his midsection were as white as the morning frost on the high mountain peaks. But he still served as his king’s hearthwarden and senior advisor. It was Thungrimsson who collected and organised the diverse streams of information that came into the hold from messengers, scouts and spies, and readied it for Ironfist’s study.

‘You mean about the, ah, bones?’ Thungrimsson asked, gesturing. He grimaced in distaste as he asked it.

‘No, I mean about this year’s turnip festival in Talabheim. Yes, the bones,’ Ironfist said.

‘They’re true enough. The whole land is surrounded by battlements of bone. It’s sealed off tighter than King Thorgrim’s vaults.’ Thungrimsson traced the border of Sylvania on the map. ‘The rangers can’t find a way through, not that they tried very hard.’

Ironfist sat back in his chair with a sigh. He tugged on his beard and let his gaze drift across the high alcoves of the library, where the watery light of hooded lanterns illuminated stone shelves and pigeonholes, each one stuffed with books, tomes, scrolls and papyri. The library was one of his great pleasures, when all was said and done. It had been built carefully and over centuries, much like the rest of Karak Kadrin. ‘Well, what are you thinking, hearthwarden?’ he asked finally, looking back at Thungrimsson.

‘It is a shame about the turnip festival,’ Thungrimsson said. Ironfist growled wordlessly and the other dwarf raised his hands in a placating gesture. ‘I’m thinking that Sylvania has been a boil on our hindquarters for more centuries than I care to contemplate. Whatever is going on in there bears keeping an eye on, if nothing else. And we should send word to the other holds, especially Zhufbar. The blood-drinkers have attacked them before.’

Ironfist gnawed on a thumbnail. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to muster a throng and smash his way into that blighted land, axe in hand. There was something on the air, something that pricked at him, like a warning only half heard. There were other threats to be weighed and measured, but Sylvania was right on his hearthstone. He had been patient for centuries, waiting for the humans to see to their own mess. But the time for patience had long since passed. If the zanguzaz – the blood-drinkers – were up to some mischief, Ironfist was inclined to put a stop to it soonest.

His eye caught a golden seal on one of the more recently arrived message tubes. He recognised the royal rune of Karaz-a-Karak, the Pinnacle of the Mountains, the Most Enduring. He flicked the tube open and extracted the scroll within. He frowned as he read it. When he was done, he tossed it to Thungrimsson. ‘We’ll have to settle for keeping watch. At least for now. The Grudgebearer has called together the Council of Kings.’

Thungrimsson’s eyes widened in surprise as he read the scroll. ‘Such a council hasn’t been convened in centuries,’ he said slowly. His eyes flickered to the scrolls and maps. He met Ironfist’s grim gaze. ‘It’s worse than we thought, isn’t it?’

Ironfist pushed himself slowly to his feet. He tapped the map again. ‘It seems I’ll be able to alert my brother-kings as to the goings-on in Sylvania in person,’ he said softly.

Lothern, Ulthuan

Tyrion’s palms struck the doors of the meeting chamber of the Phoenix Council like battering rams, sending them swinging inwards with a thunderous crash. Eltharion of Yvresse winced and made to hurry after his prince.

The latter’s haste was understandable, if not strictly advisable. Then, the Warden of Tor Yvresse had never been fond of haste. Haste led to the mistakes and mistakes to defeat. A slim hand fastened on his arm. ‘Give him a moment. He’s making an entrance.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Eldyra,’ Eltharion grated, brushing the hand from his arm. He turned to glare at the woman who followed him. Eldyra of Tiranoc had once been Tyrion’s squire; now she was a warrior in her own right, albeit an impetuous one. She was a vision of loveliness wrapped in lethality. She had learned the art of death from the foremost warrior of their race, and her skill with blade, bow and spear was equal to, or greater than, Eltharion’s own, though they had never put that to the test.

‘No, you’re afraid he’s going to kill someone.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘Better to ask whether I care,’ she said pointedly. ‘The idea of our prince taking off the head of that pompous nitwit Imrik fills me with a warm and cheerful glow.’

Eltharion shook his head and followed Tyrion into the council chamber. Tyrion had interrupted the aforementioned Imrik, Dragon Prince of Caledor, in mid-speech. The Phoenix Council had been discussing the same thing they’d been discussing for months – namely Imrik’s assertion that Finubar had ceded his right to the Phoenix Crown.

The Phoenix Council had been paralysed for months by disagreement among its members and disillusionment with the current wearer of the crown. Finubar had sealed himself in the Heavenlight Tower in order to divine the cause of the recent disasters that had beset Ulthuan, at a time when his people most needed his guidance. Eltharion could not help but wonder what was going through his king’s mind; the longer Finubar sat isolated in his tower, the more that discontent spread through the halls and meeting chambers of the elven nobility. As Chrace and Cothique were overrun by daemon-spawn, and their peoples scattered or exterminated, Finubar had yet to reappear, and had, so far, allowed only one to impinge upon his solitude – Tyrion’s brother Teclis. Teclis had come out of that meeting certain that Tyrion must take command of Ulthuan’s armies.

Tyrion, however, had taken some convincing. Not that Eltharion blamed him for being preoccupied. He and his companions had only just returned from the citadel of abomination known as Nagashizzar, where they’d failed to rescue Aliathra, firstborn daughter of the Everqueen, from her captor, Mannfred von Carstein. Aliathra had been captured earlier in the year by the vampire while she had been on a diplomatic mission to the High King of the dwarfs at Karaz-a-Karak. Dwarfs and elves both had been slaughtered by Mannfred in pursuit of Aliathra, and when word reached Ulthuan of her fate, Tyrion had been driven into as wild a rage as Eltharion had ever seen.

The reason for the sheer force of that rage was known to only two others, besides Eltharion himself. Eldyra was one and Teclis the other. The three of them shared the weight of Tyrion’s shameful secret, and when he’d made it known that he intended to rescue Aliathra, Eltharion, Eldyra and Teclis had accompanied him. But the expedition to Nagashizzar had been a failure. Mannfred had escaped again, and taken the Everchild with him.

Teclis’s spies, both living and elemental, had confirmed that the vampire had taken Aliathra into the lands of men, and Belannaer, Loremaster of Hoeth, had sworn that he could hear the Everchild’s voice upon the wind, calling from somewhere within the foul demesne known as Sylvania. Failure ate at Tyrion like an acid, making it impossible for him to focus on anything else. He had been planning for a second expedition when Teclis had forced him to see sense. Now his rage at Aliathra’s fate had been refocused, and for the better, Eltharion hoped.

‘Our lands are in turmoil, and you sit here arguing over who has the right to lead, rather than doing anything productive. No wonder the Phoenix King hides himself away – I would as well, had my advisors and servants shamed me as you now shame him,’ Tyrion said as he stalked into the chamber, the stones echoing with the crash of the doors. Clad in full armour, armed and flanked by the armoured forms of Eltharion and Eldyra, the heir of Aenarion was an intimidating sight. At least if you had any sense.

‘Ulthuan needs leadership. Finubar is not fit to be king. Not now, not when we are on the precipice of the long night,’ Imrik growled. He glared at Tyrion as fiercely as one of the dragons his homeland was famous for. ‘Speaking of which, where were you? First Finubar locks himself away in his tower, and then the Everqueen vanishes to gods alone know where. The Ten Kingdoms heave with the plague of ages and you, our greatest champion, were half a world away!’

‘I am here now,’ Tyrion said. He drew his sword, Sunfang, from its sheath and swept it through the air. The ancient sword, forged to draw the blood of the daemons of Chaos, burned with the captured fires of the sun. Runes glowed white-hot along its length and the closest members of the council turned away or shaded their eyes against the sword’s stinging promise. Only Imrik continued to glare, undaunted.

Tyrion looked at the council, his eyes blazing with a heat equal to that which marked the runes on his sword. ‘You will cease your nattering. You will take up blade and bow as befitting lords of Ulthuan, and marshal your forces to defend the Ten Kingdoms. Any who wish to quarrel further can take up their argument with the edge of my sword and see what it profits you.’

Imrik shot to his feet and slammed his fist down on the table. ‘How dare you?’ the Dragon Prince roared. ‘What gives you the right to speak to this august council in such a disrespectful manner? We are your betters, whelp! Who are you to demand anything of us?’

Tyrion smiled humourlessly. ‘Who am I? I am the Herald of Asuryan, and of the Phoenix King, in whose names I would dare anything. That is all the right I require.’ He pointed Sunfang at Imrik and asked, ‘Unless you disagree?’

Imrik’s pale features tightened and his lean body quivered with barely restrained rage. ‘I do,’ he hissed. He circled the table and strode past Tyrion. ‘Strike me down if you dare, boy, but I’ll not stay here and be barked at by you.’

Tyrion did not turn as Imrik stalked past him. ‘If you leave, prince of Caledor, then do not expect to be included in our councils of war. Caledor will stand alone,’ he said harshly.

Imrik stopped. Eltharion saw his eyes close, as if he were in pain. Then, his voice ragged, he said, ‘Then Caledor stands alone.’ Imrik left the chamber without another word. No one tried to stop him. The remaining council-members whispered quietly amongst themselves. Eltharion looked at them and frowned. Already, they were plotting. Imrik’s star had been in the ascendancy, and now it had plummeted to earth. Those who had supported him were revising their positions as those who had been arrayed against him moved to shore up their influence. None of them seemed to grasp the full extent of the situation. He saw Tyrion looking at him. The latter crooked a finger and Eltharion and Eldyra moved to join him.

‘Thank you for watching my back,’ Tyrion said quietly. ‘But now that the council has been tamed, I need you two to do as you promised. Make ready, gather what you need for the expedition, and set sail as soon as possible.’ His composure evaporated as he spoke, and his words became ragged. Eltharion could see just how much it was costing his friend to stay in Ulthuan. There was pain in his eyes and in his voice such as Eltharion had never seen.

‘You have my oath as Warden of Tor Yvresse,’ Eltharion said softly. He hesitated, and then placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He looked at Eldyra, who nodded fiercely. ‘We shall rescue Aliathra, or we will die trying.’

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

The three men descended down the dank, circular stone steps, following the woman. She held a crackling torch in one hand, and its light cast weird shadows on the stone walls of the catacombs. ‘The abbey was built to contain that which I am about to show you,’ the woman said, her voice carrying easily, despite the softness with which she spoke. ‘Rites and rituals went into the placement of every stone and every slather of mortar to make this place a fitting cage for what is imprisoned here. And so it has remained, for hundreds of years.’

‘But now?’ one of the men asked. They reached the bottom of the stairs and came to a vaulted chamber, which was empty save for a wide, squat stone sarcophagus the likes of which none of the men had ever seen. It had been marked with mystical signs, and great iron chains crossed it, as if to keep whatever was within it trapped. The woman lifted her torch and let its light play across the sarcophagus.

‘Now, I fear, we are coming to the end of its captivity. Something is loose in the world, a red wind that carries with it the promise of a slaughter undreamt of by even the most monstrous of creatures that infest our poor, tired land. Or those of its greatest heroes, Tancred of Quenelles.’

‘This is what he was after,’ Tancred, Duke of Quenelles, said staring at the stone sarcophagus. His breath plumed in the damp, chill air. Part of him yearned to touch the sarcophagus, while a greater part surged in revulsion at the thought. The thing that lay inside seemed to draw everything towards it, as though it weighed more than the world around it. Tancred felt the weight of his years settle more heavily than ever before on his broad shoulders. ‘This is what Arkhan the Black was after, then, my Lady Elynesse?’

‘Perhaps,’ Lady Elynesse, Dowager of Charnorte, said. Her voice was soft, but not hesitant. She was older than even Tancred, whose hair and beard had long since lost the lustre of youth, though her face was unlined and unmarred by time. ‘Such a creature weaves schemes within schemes, and concocts plots with every day it yet remains unburied.’ She held her torch higher and circled the sarcophagus. ‘This could be but one goal amongst many.’

‘What is it?’ one of the others asked. His hands were clamped tightly around the hilt of his blade. Tancred wondered whether the other knight felt the same pull towards the sarcophagus as he did. Though Fastric Ghoulslayer was a native of Bordeleaux, he had shed blood beside Tancred and the third knight, Anthelme of Austray, in defence of Quenelles in the civil war. The Ghoulslayer was a warrior of renown and commanded a skylance of Pegasus knights, and there were few whom Tancred trusted more.

‘Whatever it is, I’d just as soon it stays in there,’ Anthelme said nervously.

‘And so it shall, if we have anything to say about it,’ Tancred said, looking at his cousin. Anthelme, like Fastric, was a trusted companion, even beyond the bounds of blood. There were none better with a lance or blade in Tancred’s opinion. ‘Our kingdom lies broken and bleeding, and the one who struck that blow will return to capitalise on our weakness. The Dowager has seen as much. Arkhan the Black wanted this sarcophagus and its contents, even as the Lichemaster did in decades past. But we shall see to it that La Maisontaal’s burden remains here, in these tombs, even if we must die to do so.’

‘But surely whatever is in here is no danger to us? The true king has returned. Gilles le Breton sits once more upon the throne of Bretonnia, and the civil war is over. We have passed through the darkest of times and come out the other side,’ Anthelme said. Those sentiments were shared by many, Tancred knew. When Louen Leoncouer had been felled at the Battle of Quenelles by his treacherous bastard son, many, including Tancred, had thought that the kingdom’s time was done.

Then had come Couronne, and Mallobaude’s last challenge. The Serpent had challenged the greatest knights in the land on Quenelles, Gisoreux, Adelaix and a hundred more battlefields, and had emerged victorious every time. But at Couronne, it was no mortal who answered his challenge; instead, the legendary Green Knight had ridden out of the ranks, appearing as if from nowhere, and had met Mallobaude on the field between the armies of the living and the dead. In the aftermath, when the surviving dukes and lords inevitably began to turn their thoughts to the vacant throne, the Green Knight had torn his emerald helm from his head and revealed himself to be none other than Gilles le Breton, the founder of the realm, come back to lead his people in their darkest hour. The problem was, as far as Tancred could tell, the darkest hour hadn’t yet passed. In fact, it appeared that Mallobaude’s rebellion had only been the beginning of Bretonnia’s ruination, the return of the once and future king or not.

‘And so? Daemons still stalk our lands, and monsters burn the vineyards and villages. Mallobaude might have lost his head, but he wasn’t the only traitor. Quenelles is in ruins, as are half of the other provinces, and home to two-legged beasts. Bordeleaux is gone, replaced by a daemonic keep of brass and bone that even now blights the surrounding lands. No, we are in the eye of the storm, cousin. The false calm, before its fury strikes again, redoubled and renewed. I fear that things will get much, much worse before it passes,’ Tancred said firmly. He looked around. ‘Come, I would leave this place.’

He led them back up the stairs and out of the abbey, ignoring the huddled masses of peasants, who genuflected and murmured respectful greetings. More and more of them came every day, seeking the dubious sanctuary of the abbey’s walls as the forests seethed with beasts and the restless dead, and the sky blazed with blue fire or was split by the fiery passage of warpstone meteors.

As they got outside, Tancred gulped the fresh, cold air. It was a relief, after the damp unpleasantness of the catacombs, and the close air of the abbey, redolent with the odour of the lower classes. He looked about him. His father, the first to bear the name of Tancred, had funded the fortifying of the abbey in the wake of the Lichemaster’s infamous assault some thirty years earlier. The Eleventh Battle of La Maisontaal Abbey had been a pivotal moment in both the history of his family and Bretonnia as a whole.

The fortifications weren’t as grand as Tancred’s father had dreamed, but they were serviceable enough. There were garrison quarters, housing hundreds of archers and men-at-arms, as well as scores of knights, drawn from every corner of Bretonnia. The abbey sat in the centre of an army.

Somehow, he doubted that would be enough.

He turned as he heard a loud voice bellow a greeting. The broad, burly form of Duke Theoderic of Brionne ambled towards him, his battle-axe resting on his shoulder. ‘Ho, Tancred! They told me you were slinking about. Come to inspect the troops, eh?’ Theoderic had a voice that could stun one of the great bats that haunted the Vaults at twenty paces. He was also the commander of the muster of La Maisontaal. He’d come to the abbey seeking penance for a life of lechery, drunkenness and other assorted unchivalric behaviours, and had, according to most, more than made up for his past as a sozzle-wit.

They clasped forearms, and Tancred winced as Theoderic drew him into a bear hug. ‘I see that the Lady Elynesse is here as well,’ he murmured as he released Tancred. He jerked his chin towards the Dowager, who swept past them towards her waiting carriage. She had come to show them what was hidden. Now, having done so, she was leaving as quickly as possible. Tancred couldn’t blame her. Lacking even the tiniest inclination to sorcery, he could still feel the spiritual grime of the thing that lurked in the depths of the abbey. He could only imagine what it must be like for a true servant of the Lady. ‘Has she foreseen trouble for us?’

‘Arkhan the Black,’ Tancred said.

‘I thought we sent him packing, didn’t we?’ Theoderic grunted.

‘Do such creatures ever stay gone for as long as we might wish?’

‘Ha! You have me there. Never fear, though – if he comes, we’ll be ready for him,’ Theoderic said, cradling his axe in the crook of his arm. ‘Some of the greatest heroes of our fair kingdom are here. Gioffre of Anglaron, the slayer of the dragon Scaramor, Taurin the Wanderer, dozens of others. Knights of the realm, one and all. A truer gathering of heroes has never been seen in these lands, save at the court of the king himself!’

Tancred looked at Theoderic’s beaming features and gave a half-hearted nod. ‘Let’s pray to the Lady that will be enough,’ he said.

Somewhere south of Quenelles, Bretonnia

The voices of the Dark Gods thundered in his ears and Malagor brayed in pleasure as his muscles swelled with strength. He snapped the gor chieftain’s neck with a single, vicious jerk, and snorted as he sent the body thudding to the loamy earth. He spread his arms and his great, black pinioned wings snapped out to their full length. Then, he looked about him at the gathered chieftains. ‘Split-Hoof challenged. Split-Hoof died. Who else challenges the Crowfather?’ he bellowed. ‘Who else challenges the word of the gods?’

None of the remaining chieftains stepped forward. In truth, Split-Hoof hadn’t so much challenged him as he had voiced a concern, but Malagor saw little difference between dissension and discomfort. Neither was acceptable. The gods had commanded, and their children would obey, whether they were inclined to do so or not. He snarled and pawed the ground with a hoof, glaring about him to ram the point home. Only when the chieftains looked sufficiently cowed did he allow them to look away from him. They wouldn’t stay cowed for long, he knew. The children of Chaos did not have it in them to be docile, even when it served the gods’ purpose. In their veins was the blood of the gods and it was ever angry and ambitious. Soon, another chieftain would voice dissent, and he would have to fight again.

His goatish lips peeled back from yellowed fangs. Malagor looked forward to such challenges. Without them, there was no joy in life. Taking the life of an enemy with the sorceries that hummed in his bones was satisfying, in its way, but there was no substitute for feeling bone crack and splinter in his grip, or tasting the flesh and blood of an opponent.

Malagor folded his wings and looked about him as he idly stroked the symbols of blasphemy that hung from his matted mane and leather harness. Icons plucked from the bodies of human priests dangled beside twists of paper torn from their holy books, all of them stained and soiled and consecrated to the gods, who even now whispered endearments to him as he pondered his next move.

The forest clearing around him echoed with the raucous rumble of savage anarchy. Beastmen yelped and howled as they danced to the sound of drums and fought about the great witch-fires, which burned throughout the clearing. All of this beneath the glistening gaze of the titanic monolith that had sprouted from the churned earth months earlier. The strange black stone was shot through by jagged veins of sickly, softly glimmering green, and it pulsed in time to the thudding of the drums.

Ever since the dark moon had waxed full in the sky, and the great herdstones had risen from their slumber beneath the ground, so too had the voices of the gods hummed in his mind, stronger than ever before. And they had had much to say to their favoured child. They had demanded that he join the beast-tribes south of the Grey Mountains, and lead them into war with a man of bone and black sorcery. But his fractious kin had been preoccupied with battling their hated enemies, the wood elves.

It had taken Malagor months to browbeat, bully and brutalise a number of tribes and herds into following him into the war-ravaged provinces of Bretonnia, only to find that his prey had already slipped over the mountains and into the north. But all was not lost. The gods had murmured that Arkhan would return. And that he would fall in Bretonnia. That was their command and their promise. The skeins of fate were pulled taut about the dead man, and there would be no escape for him again.

‘The Bone-Man must die,’ Malagor bellowed. ‘The gods command it! Death to the dead! Gnaw their bones and suck the marrow!’

‘Gnaw his bones,’ a chieftain roared, shaking his crude blade over his horned head. Others took up the chant, one by one, and soon every beast in the clearing had added its voice to the cacophony.

Malagor’s muscles bunched and he thrust himself into the air. His black wings flapped, catching the wind, causing the witch-fires to flicker, and bowling over the smaller beastmen. He screamed at the sky as he rose, adding his howls to those of his kin.

The liche would die, even if Malagor had to sacrifice every beastman on this side of the Grey Mountains to accomplish it. The Dark Gods demanded it, and Malagor was their word made flesh. He was the black edge of their blade, the tip of their tongue and their will made into harsh reality. He flapped his wings and rose high over the trees. Overhead the sky wept green tears and crawled with hideous shapes, and Malagor felt the blessings of his gods fill him with divine purpose. He roared again, this time in triumph.

Arkhan the Black would die.

Near the King’s Glade, Athel Loren

The gor squealed and staggered back, grasping at its sliced belly with blood-slick paws. Araloth, Lord of Talsyn, darted forward to deliver the deathblow before the beast recovered. The ravaged glade rang with the sound of blade on blade, and the death-cries of elves and beasts. Blood, both pure and foul, turned the churned soil beneath his feet to mud.

A shadow fell over him, while his sword sent the beastman’s brutish head spinning from its thick neck. Araloth glanced up and saw a minotaur raising its axe over him, its bestial jaws dripping with bloody froth as it gnashed its fangs. Its eyes bulged from their sockets, and it whined and lowed in mindless greed. The minotaur stumped forward, reaching for him with its free hand. He tensed, ready to leap aside, a prayer to Lileath on his lips.

Then a second, equally massive shape slammed into the bull-headed giant from the side, bearing it to the ground. The two enormous figures ploughed through the fray that swirled about them, scattering elves and beasts alike as they smashed through the trees of the blood-soaked glade. Araloth could only watch in awe as Orion, the King in the Woods, rose over the fallen minotaur, a hand gripping one of its horns.

Orion dragged the dazed beast to its feet and locked his arm about its throat. He grabbed its horns and threw his weight to the side. The glade echoed with the crack of crude, Chaos-twisted bone, and then Orion threw down his opponent and let out a roar of victory that caused the trees to shiver where they stood.

The beastmen began to retreat, streaming back the way they had come, first in ones and twos, and then in a mad panic, bellowing and braying in fear. Orion put his horn to his lips and sounded a long, wailing note. Glade Riders galloped off in pursuit of their fleeing enemies. Orion met Araloth’s gaze for only a moment, before turning away and loping after his huntsmen. Araloth shivered and sheathed his blade.

There had been nothing but rage in his king’s eyes. Even sorrow had been burned away, and reason with it. Only the battle-madness remained.

Despite his fear, Araloth could find no fault in that. Ariel was dying, and the forest with her, and there was nothing Orion or anyone could do. He understood the king’s rage better than most, for was he not the queen’s champion? ‘Much good I did her,’ he murmured, looking about him. Every muscle in his body ached, and his hands trembled with fatigue. He had been fighting for days on end, trying to drive back this latest assault on the deep glades of the forest.

The source of the sickness that afflicted the Mage Queen was not readily apparent, but in its wake came a rot on the boughs of the Oak of Ages, and then a sickness that spread through the forest, twisting and tainting everything. Glades that had gone unaffected by the shifting seasons since the first turning of the world now withered, the trees cracking and splitting, their roots blistering and turning black as the forest floor heaved with decay. Madness swept through the ranks of the dryads and treemen, making dangerous, unpredictable enemies of ancient allies as the children of Chaos poured into these now-desolate glades in their thousands.

These were not the usual herds who perennially spent their blood beneath the forest canopy, but bray-spawn and mutant filth from hundreds of leagues away, migrating from every direction, as if drawn to the weakened forest by some unvoiced signal.

Araloth looked about him, at the piles of twisted bodies that littered the ground, and the pale, slim shapes that lay amongst them. No matter how many they killed, no matter how many times they repulsed them, the creatures continued to pour into the forest. He leaned forward on his blade, suddenly feeling more tired than he had in centuries. He wanted to sleep for a season, but there was no time for rest, let alone slumber.

He opened his eyes and began to clean his sword. There would be another attack. The king and his Wild Hunt might have driven off this one, but there were more herds in the vicinity, and all of them were moving towards the King’s Glade. Eventually, they would get through. And when that happened…

He turned as he heard the thud of hooves, dismissing the dark thoughts. A rider burst into the glade, and headed for Araloth. The wood elf swung down out of her saddle and thrust the reins into Araloth’s hands. He blinked in surprise. ‘What–’ he began.

‘The council requires your presence, champion,’ the rider gasped, breathing heavily, though whether in excitement or fear he couldn’t say. ‘The Eldest of the Ancients has awoken, and he speaks words of portent. You must go!’

Without further hesitation, Araloth swung up into the horse’s saddle and dug his heels into its lathered flanks. The horse reared and pawed the air with its hooves before turning and galloping back the way it had come, carrying Araloth into the depths of the forest.

As he rode, he wondered why Durthu had chosen now to awaken, and whether it had anything to do with their visitor. Several months after Ariel had fallen ill, an intruder had somehow navigated the worldroots and penetrated the King’s Glade. The newcomer had allowed the startled sentries, including Araloth himself, to take her into custody and asked only that they grant her an audience with the Council of Athel Loren. Araloth, bemused, had agreed, if only because it wasn’t every day that Alarielle, Everqueen of Ulthuan, visited Athel Loren.

His bemusement had faded when he had learned of her reasons for braving the dangers of the worldroots. The forest was dying, and it seemed that the world was dying with it. The balance of the Weave was shifting, and all that his folk had fought so long to prevent was at last coming to pass. The doom of all things was upon them, and no one could figure out a way to stop it. Araloth bent low over the horse’s neck and urged it to greater speed.

But if Durthu had at last risen from his slumber, if the Eldest of the Ancients had decided to address the council, as he had done so infrequently in recent decades, then perhaps that doom could still be averted.

And perhaps the Mage Queen could still be saved.

Hvargir Forest, the Border Princes

‘Die-die filthy man-thing!’ Snikrat, hero of Clan Mordkin, shrieked as he fell out of the tree onto the panting messenger. The man – a youth, really – died as soon as the skaven struck him, the weight of the rat-thing landing on his neck and the bite of the cruel, saw-toothed blade the latter clutched, serving to tumble him into Morr’s welcoming arms before he knew what was happening. Snikrat bounded to his feet, tail lashing, and whirled about excitedly, hunting for more foes.

Relief warred with disappointment when he saw nothing save the hurrying shapes of his Bonehides scrambling over the thick roots and between the close-set trees of Hvargir Forest. The clawband of black-furred stormvermin swarmed towards him, chittering in obsequious congratulations. Snikrat tore his blade free of the messenger’s body and gesticulated at his warriors. ‘What good are you if you cannot catch-quick one man-thing?’ he snapped. ‘It is a lucky thing that I was here, in this place where you see me, to dispose of the creature whose body I now stand on with this blade I hold in my paw.’

Beady black eyes slid away from his own bulging, red-veined ones, and the stink of nervous musk filled the immediate air as his warriors bunched together and the front ranks shuffled back. Snikrat knew that he cut an imposing figure. He was bigger than any two of his Bonehides put together, and clad in the finest armour warpstone could purchase. His blade had belonged to a dwarf thane, once upon a time, and though it had changed hands and owners several times since, it was still a deadly looking weapon, covered in dolorous runes and smeared with several foul-smelling unguents, which, to Snikrat’s knowledge, did nothing – but better safe than sorry.

He spat and looked down at the messenger. ‘Search the man-thing there on the ground and the clothes that he wears for anything of value, by which I mean things of gold and or conspicuous shininess, and then give them to me, your leader, Snikrat the Magnificent, yes-yes.’ He kicked the body towards his followers, the closest of whom immediately fell upon it in a frenzy of looting. A squealing squabble broke out. Snikrat turned away as the first punch was thrown.

He scrambled back up the tree he’d been hunched in before the messenger had disturbed his well-deserved meditation. From its uppermost branches, he could take in most of the forest, as well as the distant stone towers and wooden palisades that dotted the region. The lands the man-things called the Border Princes was cramped with duchies and fiefdoms, most no bigger than a common clanrat’s burrow. The messenger had likely been heading for one of them, sent out to bring aid to the keep the rest of Clan Mordkin was, at the moment, busily sacking.

Snikrat hissed softly as he thought of the slaughter he was missing. Warlord Feskit had led the assault personally, from the rear, and he had wanted Snikrat around while he did it. Snikrat grunted in grudging admiration – no one had ever accused Feskit of being stupid. Indeed, the leader of Clan Mordkin was anything but, and under his beneficent rule, the clan had recovered much of the wealth and prestige it had lost over the centuries since its ousting from Cripple Peak. Though he was growing older and less impressive with every year, he had managed to avoid every serious challenge and assassination attempt made on him.

Perched on a branch, anchored by his hairless tail, Snikrat hauled a flap of tanned and inked flesh out from within his cuirass and carefully unfolded it. The map wasn’t much, but it served its purpose. Carefully, his pink tongue pinched between his fangs, he used a stub of charcoal to draw an ‘x’ over the keep they’d just come from. There were still six more between them and Mad Dog Pass, which meant plenty of chances for him to add to his own meagre pile of campaign spoils. Idly, he reached up and plucked an egg from the bird’s nest that sat in the branches above. He’d eaten the mother earlier, and it seemed a shame to let the eggs go to waste. As he crunched on the delicate shell, and eyed the map, he considered his fortunes, such as they were.

It was a time of great happenings and glories, from the perspective of an ambitious chieftain, such as he, himself, Snikrat the Magnificent. The sky wept green meteors and the ground vomited up volcanoes as unnatural storms swept the land. It was as if the great Horned Rat himself had opened the door to the world and whispered to his children, ‘Go forth and take it, with my compliments.’

Granted, that was easier said than done. True, the man-thing kingdoms of Tilea and Estalia, as factitious in their own way as the skaven themselves, had fallen quickly enough to the numberless hordes that had surged upwards from the network of subterranean tunnels. Every city between Magritta and Sartosa was now a blasted ruin, over which the ragged banner of one clan or another flew. But there were other victories that proved more elusive.

Snikrat scratched at the barely healed mark on his throat. A gift from Feskit, and a sign of his mercy. Snikrat hunched forward and ate another egg. It had been his own fault, and he, Snikrat, was pragmatic enough to admit that, in private, in his own head. He had thought that the omens were a sign that he, Snikrat, should attempt to tear out Feskit’s wattle throat. Instead, it was he who felt his rival’s teeth on his neck.

Still, there was plenty of time. The world was the skaven’s for the taking, even as Clan Mordkin was for his, Snikrat’s. And then, the greatest treasures of the clan would be his… Including the Weapon – that oh-so-beautiful sword of glistening black warpstone that Feskit kept hidden behind lock and chain. Even he, Snikrat, had heard of the Fellblade, the slayer of kings and worse than kings, on whose edge the fortunes of Clan Mordkin had been honed. With a weapon like that in hand, there would be no stopping him, and he, Snikrat, would be a power to be reckoned with in the Under-Empire.

Snikrat chattered happily to himself and ate another egg.

Five

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

The woman who knelt before Mannfred von Carstein was pale and beautiful, and deceit oozed out of her every pampered pore. She claimed to speak for the Queen of the Silver Pinnacle, but so too did half a dozen other similar women, all of whom were mingling with his guests in a manner he found somewhat amusing. He accepted the scroll and waved a hand. She rose gracefully and retreated, leaving the garden behind. As she left, the guards crossed their blades, blocking any further entry.

Mannfred tapped the scroll against his lips. His eyes slid to his cousin, Markos, as the latter refilled his goblet from a jug of magically warmed blood. ‘Where is the liche? He practically demanded that I include him in these meetings. I find myself slightly disappointed that he chose not to show up.’

Markos hesitated. His eyes went unfocused for a moment, and then snapped back to their usual keenness. He finished filling his goblet. ‘He’s in the old library in the west wing, poring over those books and scrolls you lent him.’

Mannfred frowned. It had been weeks since the battle at Valsborg Bridge and its inconclusive climax. He had played the part of the dutiful aristocratic host, inviting his new… ally back to Castle Sternieste. Arkhan had accepted the offer with grating sincerity, and had been as good as his word. He had made no attempt at treachery, asking only that he be allowed to see those relics he had come for, and that he be included in any councils of war, as befitted an ally. Mannfred had yet to grant the former request, both out of suspicion and a perverse urge to see how far he could push the liche’s magnanimity.

The line between ally and enemy was often only the thickness of ambition’s edge, and could be crossed as a consequence of the smallest act of disrespect or discourtesy. Thus far, Arkhan had given no obvious notice to the passing of time, or Mannfred’s attempts to evade his request. He wondered if the liche’s absence was a subtle thrust of his own. ‘And his creatures?’ he said, studying the scroll of papyrus the Lahmian had given him. Arkhan’s coterie of necromancers were as untrustworthy as their master, but they had enough raw power between them to be useful. ‘What of them?’

‘They’ve settled in nicely. Several of their fellows reached us weeks ago.’ Markos tapped his chin. ‘We have quite the little colloquium of necromancers now. Enough to raise a host or six, I should think.’

‘You shouldn’t, cousin,’ Mannfred said. He hefted the scroll and it curled and blackened in his hand, reduced to ashes.

‘Shouldn’t what?’ Markos asked.

‘Think,’ Mannfred said. He ignored Markos’s glare and looked at Elize. He gestured to the ash that swirled through the air. ‘What of the handmaidens of the mistress of the Silver Pinnacle? Can they be trusted, or will they seek to sabotage my efforts for lack of anything else to do, if they haven’t already?’

Elize blew an errant crimson lock out of her face and said, ‘They’re cunning, but cautious. Overly so, in my opinion. Without word from their queen, they seem content to watch and nothing more.’ She frowned. ‘If the barrier of faith falters, even for a moment, they’ll make for the mountains as quickly as possible. We may want to inhume them somewhere out of the way, if for no other reason than to deny the Queen of Mysteries what they know.’

Mannfred paused, considering. It was a pleasant thought. But that was for the future. He shook his head. ‘No. As amusing as that thought is, the Queen of Mysteries is too dangerous an opponent to antagonise needlessly.’

‘Besides which, for every one of her creatures you see, there are at least two you don’t,’ Erikan said. He sat in the tree, whittling on a length of femur with a knife. Mannfred glanced up at him.

‘You are correct,’ Mannfred said. ‘And they’re not the only maggots hidden in the meat.’ He looked at Nyktolos. ‘What of Gashnag’s representatives? Will the Black Prince of Morgheim throw in with us, or will I be forced to bring him to heel like the brute he truly is? And can we trust those creatures of his, who currently enjoy my hospitality?’

‘Those who hold true to the banners of mouldy Strigos are, for the moment, with us.’ Nyktolos hesitated, and then amended, ‘That is to say, with you, Lord Mannfred.’ Nyktolos took off his monocle and rubbed it on his sleeve. ‘And the beasts you brought from Mousillon are as content as such creatures can be. Nonetheless, it is my informed opinion that we cannot trust them, being as they are snake-brained, weasel-spined, marrow-lickers, fit only to be staked out for the sun.’

‘Well said,’ Alberacht grunted from where he perched on the high wall, wings drooping over the stones like two leathery curtains. His lamp-like eyes sought out Mannfred. ‘We cannot trust the spawn of Ushoran, Count von Carstein. They are animals, and unpredictable ones at that,’ he growled, with no hint of irony.

Markos nearly choked on a swallow of blood. Mannfred glanced at his cousin disapprovingly. While mockery was a game he enjoyed, Nictus was deserving of more respect. He was a monster, and addle-brained, but loyal. And, in his own way, the Reaper of Drakenhof was as much a power in Sylvania as any von Carstein. Nictus had been of the old order, a cousin to Isabella and a nephew of Otto von Drak. Von Drak had ordered Nictus chained in an oubliette for some unspecified transgression, and only Isabella’s pleas had moved Vlad to bother digging him out. Nictus had served Vlad faithfully in life and then in undeath, with a dogged, unswerving loyalty that Mannfred had, at the time, found amusing. Now, centuries after his own betrayal of Vlad, he found Nictus’s continued, unquestioning, loyalty almost comforting.

He heard a sibilant chuckle inside his head and felt a flash of anger. He pressed his fingers to his head and waited for it to pass. Pushing his thoughts of Vlad and loyalty aside, he asked, ‘What of the others? The so-called Shadowlord of Marienburg? Cicatrix of Wolf Crag? Have they sent representatives or missives?’

‘No, my lord. Then, Mundvard was never one to be accused of knowing his place. When Vlad died, he went his own way, as so many of us did,’ Alberacht said. He shook his head. ‘Marienburg is his place now, and he’ll not leave it or invite us in, if he can help it.’

‘And Wolf Crag, even ensconced as it is within our borders, has not responded. If Cicatrix still lives, she may well have decided to throw in her lot with von Dohl, given their past history. She was ever fond of that perfumed lout,’ Anark said.

Mannfred sighed. Not all vampires in the world congregated in Sylvania, but Mannfred saw no reason that they shouldn’t be made aware of what he had wrought. And if they chose to come and venerate him as the natural lord of their kind for it, why, who was he to turn them away? Granted, he tempered such musings with a certain cynicism. He had travelled among his farther flung kin, journeying through the stinking jungles of the Southlands and the high hills of Cathay, and knew that, whatever their land of origin, vampires were all the same. Uniformly deceitful, treacherous and arrogant.

They could be allies – but subordinates? He smiled to himself at the thought. There was little humour in the expression. Soon, however, he thought, they would have no choice. He felt the weight of destiny on his shoulders such as he never had before, even during those heady months when he had first taken control of Sylvania. The time was fast coming when all of the descendants of the bloody courtiers of long-vanished Lahmia, whether they lurked in jade temples, insect-filled jungles or mouldering manses, would have to bend knee to the new master of death.

And are you so sure that master is you, my boy? Vlad’s voice murmured. Mannfred closed his eyes, banishing the voice. For all of the old ghost’s attempts to undermine his surety, Mannfred felt all the more certain of his path. The world would be broken to the designs laid out by the Corpse Geometries, and made a thing of unflinching, unfailing order, ruled over by one will – his.

‘Did you hear me, my lord?’ Anark asked, startling him. The big vampire had grown into his role as the Grand Master of the Drakenhof Order, bullying and, in one case, beheading, any who might challenge him. In the weeks since Tomas’s charred head had been relegated to a stake on the battlement for the amusement of the crows, Anark had weeded out the favour-curriers and courtiers, leaving only a hardened cadre of blood knights equal to any produced by the drill field of Blood Keep. Mannfred looked forward to employing them on the battlefield.

‘What?’ Mannfred blinked. He shuddered slightly. He felt as if he’d been lost in a dream, and was slightly ill from the sweetness of it. He felt the eyes of the inner circle on him, and he cursed himself for showing even the briefest of weaknesses. It wouldn’t take much to incite a cur like Markos, or even lovely Elize, to start sharpening their fangs, and he could ill afford to have them start scheming against him now.

‘I said that we have reports that the Crimson Lord has returned to Sylvania, and is claiming dominion over the citadel of Waldenhof,’ Anark said.

Mannfred waved a hand. ‘And so? What is that to me? Let that dolt von Dohl pontificate and prance about in that draughty pile if he wishes. He knows better than to challenge me openly, and if he chooses to do so… Well, we could use a bit of fun, no?’ He clapped his hands together. ‘See to our strategies for the coming year. Everything must go perfectly, or our fragile weave is undone. I must speak with our guest.’

He left them there in the garden, staring after him, and was gone out the door before they could so much as protest. He knew what they would say, even if they hadn’t been saying it every day for weeks. The incessant scheming, strategising and drilling was wearing on them, even Anark, who lived for the tourney field. Vampires were not, by nature, creatures of hard graft. They were predators, and each had a predator’s laziness. They exerted themselves only when the goal was in reach, and had not the foresight to see why that path led only to a hawthorn stake or a slow expiration under the sun’s merciless gaze.

All save me and thee and one or two others, eh, boy? Vlad murmured encouragingly. I taught you to see the edges of the canvas, where one portrait ends and another begins, didn’t I?

‘You taught me nothing save how to die,’ Mannfred hissed. He quickly looked around, but only the dead were within earshot. The truly dead these, rather than the thirsty dead, wrenched from silent tombs and set to guarding the corridors of his castle. He paused for a moment, eyes closed, ignoring the shadows that closed in on him. It was no use; he could feel them, winnowing into his thoughts, clouding his perceptions.

Vlad had indeed taught him much, his words aside. The creature who had given him his name had been as good a teacher as any Mannfred had had up until that point in his sorry life. He had learned from Vlad that the only true path was the one you forged for yourself.

In their centuries together, Vlad had taught him to change his face, and the scent of his magics, so as to hide his origins from prying forces who would seek to use the secrets of his turning against him. Vlad had taught him to trust only his instincts, and to be true to his ambitions, wherever they led, to use his desires like a blade and buckler. And, in the end, Vlad had taught him the greatest lesson of all – that power alone did not shield you from weakness. It crept in, like a thief in the night, where you least suspected it, and it slit your throat as surely as any enemy blade – Nagash, Neferata, Ushoran and, in the end, Vlad himself had all been humbled by their weaknesses. And so too had Mannfred.

But unlike them, he had risen from the ashes, remade and all the stronger for his failure. And he would not fall prey to his weaknesses again. ‘I learned my lessons well, old man,’ he murmured as he opened his eyes. ‘I will be beholden to no man or ghost, and ambition is my tool, not my master.’

Something that might have been laughter floated on the dank air like particles of dust. Mannfred ignored it and continued on through the halls, his mind turning from the past to the future and what part his newfound ally would play in assuring that it came about.

He found the liche in the library, as Markos had said. Arkhan sat at one of the great tables, his fleshless fingers tracing across the page of one of the large grimoires that Mannfred had collected over the course of his life. His pet sat curled over his shoulder, its milky orbs slitted and its ragged tail twitching. He peered over Arkhan’s shoulder, and saw the complicated pictographic script of lost Nehekhara. ‘Dehbat’s Book of Tongues,’ he said. The cat hissed at him and he replied in kind.

Arkhan didn’t turn as he reached up to scratch the cat under the chin. ‘I knew Dehbat. He was one of W’soran’s pets, in better days,’ he said, as he carefully turned the page. The book was old, older even than Mannfred, and was a copy of a copy of a copy.

‘He was wise, in his way, if unimaginative,’ Mannfred said, circling the table and heading for the great windows that marked the opposite wall. It was dark outside, as ever, but the sky was alive with a hazy aurora of witch-light. The light was not of his doing, and he knew that it was bleeding through his protective magics from the world outside. Time was running short. Eventually, Sylvania would be shorn of its protection, but still trapped by the wall of faith.

‘W’soran did not choose his apprentices for their creativity,’ Arkhan said. He closed the book. ‘I cannot say why he chose them at all, frankly. They were all disreputable, undisciplined overly ambitious vermin, without fail.’

‘So speaks Arkhan the Black, gambler, murderer, thief, sorcerer, and secret animal-lover,’ Mannfred said. ‘I know of your history, liche. You are hardly one to speak of disrepute and discipline.’ He looked at Arkhan, and the latter’s jaws sagged open in a wheezing laugh that caused Mannfred’s teeth to itch in his gums. ‘Did I say something funny? Why are you laughing?’

‘I am laughing, von Carstein, because your misapprehension amuses me,’ Arkhan said. He hefted the book and tossed it to Mannfred, as if it were nothing more than a penny dreadful from a street vendor’s stall.

‘Enlighten me,’ Mannfred said. He caught the book easily and set it back gently on the table. His fingers curled in the fraying hairs that hung lank and loose on the cover. The scalp had belonged to some night-souled shaman from one of the tribes in the Vaults, who had copied the book into its current form, and then been gutted and scalped at his own command by the savages whom he’d ruled. It was a lesson in the fine line between dedication and obsession.

‘You assume that I am Arkhan the Black,’ Arkhan said.

Mannfred froze. Then, slowly, he turned. He said nothing, merely waited for Arkhan to continue. Arkhan watched him, as if gauging his reaction. The liche’s skeletal grin never wavered.

‘Arkhan the Black died, vampire,’ Arkhan rasped. He touched one of the other tomes. His skeletal fingers clicked as they touched the ancient bronze clasp that held it shut.

‘And was reborn, as I was,’ Mannfred said, trying to read something, anything, in the flicker of the liche’s eye sockets.

‘Was I? Sometimes, I wonder. Am I the same man I was then, the man who drank of Nagash’s potions, who chewed a drug-root until his teeth turned black, who loved a queen – and lost her? Am I him, or am I simply Nagash’s memory of him?’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Are my thoughts my own, or his? Am I a servant – or a mask?’

Mannfred said nothing. There was nothing he could say, even if he had wanted to. He had never had such thoughts himself. They smacked of philosophical equivocation, something he had no patience for. He saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye, heard Vlad’s dry chuckle, and bit down on a snarl. ‘Does it matter?’ he snapped.

Arkhan cocked his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But you asked what I found so amusing. And I have told you. You are missing several key pieces, are you not?’ He rubbed the cat’s spine, stroking the bare bone and causing the foul beast to arch its back in a parody of feline pleasure.

‘I am aware of the gaps in my collection, yes, thank you,’ Mannfred said acidly. He threw up his hands. ‘And were I not trapped here, I would have those items in my hand even now.’

‘The staff, the blade, the armour,’ Arkhan said.

‘And two of the Nine Books,’ Mannfred said slyly. ‘Or are you offering those to me, as a gesture of our newfound friendship?’

‘You said that with a straight face. Your control is admirable,’ Arkhan said. Mannfred grunted, but said nothing. Arkhan inclined his head. ‘And I am, yes.’

Mannfred’s head came up sharply, and his eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

‘The books are yours, should you wish,’ Arkhan said. He stood and drifted towards the window, hands clasped behind his back. ‘This place is as safe as any, for the time being, and we both desire the same end, do we not?’

Mannfred stepped back and looked at the liche. ‘Nagash,’ he said. Shadows tickled the edges of his vision, and he heard what might have been the rustle of loose pages as a draught curled through the library.

‘Nagash must rise. As you promised the sorcerer-wraiths of Nagashizzar, the black cults of Araby, and the ghoul-cabals of Cathay, when you sought their aid in gathering your collection, as you call it.’ Arkhan pressed a bony digit to the window, and frost spread around the point it touched the glass in a crystalline halo. He looked at Mannfred. ‘For you, he is a means to an end. For me, he is the end unto itself. Yet we move along the same path, vampire. We tread the same trail, and follow the same light. Why not do it together?’

‘We are,’ Mannfred said. ‘Have I not opened my castle to you? Have I not given shelter to your creatures?’ Though he meant the necromancers, he gestured to the cat, which glared at him with dull ferocity.

‘Yes, but you have still denied my request to gaze upon those items that are necessary to our shared goal. You have denied me my request to see those prisoners whose blood is the base of the sorceries that protect Sylvania – and trap you here.’

Mannfred tensed, as he always did when the wall of faith that caged the laughable cess-pit he called a realm was mentioned. Arkhan scraped his finger along the window, cracking the glass. He had allowed Mannfred to play the genial host for long enough. It was past time for action. The world was cracking beneath the weight of warring destinies.

Arkhan had felt it, as he crossed the mountains and journeyed to Sylvania, though it had taken him the quiet weeks since to process those ephemeral stirrings into something approaching a conclusion. They were approaching a pivotal moment, and they were not doing so unobserved. Eyes were upon them, even here, in this place. Arkhan could feel the spirits of Chaos whispering in the spider-webbed corridors and rumbling far below the earth, and he had cast the bones and understood the signs. There were powers gathering in the dark places, old powers, no longer content to simply watch.

Time was their enemy now. And he could not allow Mannfred to cede any more ground, not if their shared goal was to be accomplished. ‘They are part of it, you see. The magics used to bind you here, like a cur in a kennel, are your own, twisted back upon you.’ He decided to sweeten his bitter draft with a bit of flattery. ‘Why else did you think it was so powerful, vampire? The living have no capacity for such magics, not on their own. You have made your own trap and you can break it, if you so desire.’

Mannfred twitched. His eyes narrowed and he asked, simply, ‘How?’

‘There is a ritual,’ Arkhan said.

‘What sort of ritual?’

‘I doubt that you would agree to it.’

‘Let me be the judge of that,’ Mannfred hissed. ‘Tell me!’

Arkhan said nothing. He scratched the cat’s chin. Mannfred’s upper lip curled back from his teeth and he glared at Arkhan furiously. Arkhan met the glare patiently. He could not force Mannfred into what needed doing, not without fear of provoking the vampire. No, the easiest way of getting a vampire to do something was to tell them not to do it. Mannfred snarled and struck the stone sill of the window with his fist, cracking it. ‘What sort of ritual, damn you? We do not have the time to play these puerile games of yours, liche.’

‘A sacrifice,’ Arkhan said. He removed the cat from his shoulder and deposited it on the table. ‘You possess nine prisoners, do you not? That is the number required for the blood ritual you enacted to seal Sylvania against threats divine and worldly, if my memory serves.’

Mannfred started visibly. ‘You know it?’ he asked.

‘I know more than you can conceive, von Carstein. All such sorceries derive from a single source, like the rivers of the Great Land. And I am most intimately acquainted with that source, if you’ll recall.’ Arkhan gave a negligent wave of his hand. ‘Sacrifice one of the ones whose blood you’ve used to anchor your rite, any one of them, and it will create a momentary breach in the wall of faith that encircles your land.’

‘Sacrifice?’ Mannfred asked. He shook his head. ‘Madness. No. No, I’ll not cripple the very protections I worked so hard to create.’

‘Then, we’d best get used to one another’s company,’ Arkhan said. ‘Because we’re going to be here for a very long time. Out of curiosity, how long can one of your kind last without blood? A few decades, I expect. After that, you’ll be too withered and shrunken to do much more than gnash your fangs fetchingly.’ He cocked his head. ‘By my calculations, your servants will have drunk this province dry within a month, at least. They glut themselves without consideration for the future, and you let them, to keep them distracted and under control.’

‘How I control my servants is my business,’ Mannfred growled.

‘Correct,’ Arkhan said, ‘I cannot force salvation upon you, von Carstein. I merely offer my aid. It is up to you to accept it, or to gnaw your liver in continued frustration. But you are correct. Time grows short. What happens in a month, or a week, when your prisoners are the only living things left in this place? How long will your control last then? How long before you face revolt from your servants, and from your own unseemly thirst? Is it not better to sacrifice one now, so that you might be free to utilise the others as you wish, unimpeded?’

Mannfred turned away. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

‘I will need to see them to answer that. I have ways of determining which of them is the least necessary for your pattern.’

‘And now we come to it,’ Mannfred snapped. ‘All your offers of aid and books are nothing more than your attempt to burrow your way into my vaults, are they not? You could not defeat me in open battle, and now you seek to trick me. You came to Sylvania to claim those items I won by my guile and strength, and to demand that I swear fealty to the broken, black soul whose cloak hem you still cling to. Well, you’ll get neither!’ Mannfred whirled and caught up the table, wrenching it up over his head in a display of monstrous strength, spilling books and the yowling corpse-cat to the floor. His lean frame swelled with inhuman muscle as his face contorted, becoming as gargoyle-hideous as that of any of his more bestial servants. ‘Nagash is not my god, liche. He does not command me!’

Arkhan looked up at the table, and then at the face of he who held it. He could see, though just barely, an enormous, ghostly shape superimposed over Mannfred’s own, and heard a rustle of sound in the depths of his own tattered spirit that might have been laughter. Mannfred’s face twisted, and Arkhan knew that the vampire heard it as well. The tableau held for a moment, two, three… And then Mannfred set the table down with more gentleness than Arkhan had expected. He seemed to deflate. The library was as cold as a crypt, and frost clung thick on the windows, as if something had sucked all of the heat from the room all at once.

‘Which are you, I wonder – servant or mask?’ Arkhan asked.

‘I am my own man,’ Mannfred grated, from between clenched fangs. He closed his eyes. ‘Nagash holds no power over me. I am merely in a foul humour and my temper is short. Forgive me.’ The excuse sounded weak to Arkhan. The defiance of a mouse, caught in the claws of a well-fed cat. Mannfred was bowing beneath the weight of another’s will, no matter how much he denied it, and he knew it too. The thing that held his soul in its talons had done so for far longer than Mannfred likely suspected, Arkhan thought. It battened upon him, like a leech, and only now had it grown strong enough to be felt.

Memories of his own life, in service to Nagash, before things went wrong, spattered across the surface of his mind, brief bursts of colour and sound that pulsed brightly and faded quickly. It had taken him years to understand the plague that was Nagash. How he infected his tools, both living and inanimate, with himself, with his mind and thoughts. He hollowed you out and took your place in your own skull, pulling the red rags of your psyche over himself like a cloak, emerging only when necessary. Mannfred had never had a chance… Vampires were the blood of Nagash. It was his essence that had transformed Neferata into the creature she now was, and from her had sprung fecund legions, whose veins ran with the black blood of the Great Necromancer. While creatures like Mannfred persisted, Nagash would never truly be gone.

Arkhan felt a pang of something that might have been sympathy for the creature before him. For all of them – puppets on the end of his master’s strings, though they knew it not. Some were more wilful than others, with longer strings, but they were still puppets, still slaves to the song of blood and the Corpse Geometries that hemmed them in.

Mannfred’s head came up sharply, and his nostrils flared. ‘Ha!’ he barked. He looked at Arkhan. ‘You wanted to see the prisoners, liche? Well let us go visit them.’

‘What changed your mind?’ Arkhan asked.

Mannfred chuckled and swept for the door. ‘They’re trying to escape.’

‘You don’t sound concerned,’ Arkhan said, as he hurried after Mannfred, his robes rustling. The liche’s hand fell to the pommel of his blade, as he examined Mannfred’s broad back. It would be no effort at all to simply slide the blade in. Well, perhaps some effort. Mannfred was no guileless peasant, after all. Destroying him now might spare grief later. Vampires were unpredictable at the best of times, and this was most assuredly not the best of times. Right now, Mannfred thought he was in control. Eventually, however, he would try to openly resist Nagash’s return, especially once he realised what fate awaited him, should they be successful.

Nonetheless, he still required the vampire’s aid. Many hands made for quick work. Arkhan let his hand slide away from the blade. No, the time to dispose of Mannfred had not yet come.

‘I’m not. I want them to try,’ Mannfred said. I want them to try again and again, and grow more desperate with every failure. Their spirits must be broken. There can be no resistance, come the day. Nothing must stymie us.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Arkhan said.

Six

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

Volkmar stood knee-deep in ash and dust. Harsh smoke caressed his aching lungs and stung his weary eyes. Every limb felt heavy, and his heart struggled to keep its rhythm. He was bitterly cold and terribly hot, all at once. His hammer hung almost forgotten in his hand, its ornate head broken, and its haft soaked in blood and sweat. His breath fogged and swirled before his eyes, and he could see faces in it. Men and women, some he knew, others whom he found familiar though he could not say why or how.

There was blood on his face and hands, and his gilded armour was stained with tarry excretions and reeking ichors. The smoke that entombed him stank of funeral pyres, and he could hear the roar of distant battle. Weapons crashed against shields and bit into cringing meat. The air swelled and cracked with a riot of voices, echoing from unseen places. Screams of agony mingled with pleading voices and howling cries of pure animal terror. The air was choked by the smoke that curled about him; he could see strange witch-lights pulsing within its depths, and horrible, ill-defined shapes moving around him, either too slowly or too quickly. He could not say where they were going, or why. Something crackled beneath his foot.

The smoke swirled clear for a moment, and he saw that he stood on a carpet of bones, picked clean by the ages. Old bones and new bones, brown and white and yellow, clad in the shapeless remnants of clothing and armour from a span of centuries that boggled Volkmar’s already addled mind. He saw weapons and tools the likes of which he had only seen in the most ancient of barrows, and those that seemed far more advanced than the ones he was familiar with. It was as if someone had emptied out all of the graveyards of history.

Volkmar did not know where he was, or how he had come there. He only knew that he was frightened, and tired, but not yet ready. Ready for what, he did not know, but the thought of it caused him to shudder in horror. He raised his hammer wearily, preparing himself for what he somehow knew came next.

All about him, the plain of bones began to tremble and clatter. Sparks of weird light grew in the empty sockets of every skull and a eye-searing green fire crackled along the length of every bone. The bones surged up with a cacophonous rattle, and something began to take shape – something immense and powerful, Volkmar knew, though he had never seen it before. A single voice suddenly drowned out all others, silencing them. It spoke in a language that Volkmar had only ever seen written down, and the words were carved into the chill air like sword strokes.

As the thing – the daemon, his mind screamed – grew and formed and spoke, the smoke above him cleared. He looked up at the cold, black stars that pulsed in the dead void above. A thought quavered in his head, like the tinny tone of a child’s bell. Everything was dead, here. Nothing lived, save him. Nothing moved, or breathed, or laughed or loved, without the whim of the monstrous intelligence that guided the climbing, shifting pillar of bones rising up before him. It had conquered and covered and was the world about him. His world, for he could see the ruin of the great temple of Sigmar, there, rising from the sea of death, and the Imperial palace and a hundred other landmarks, barely visible through the smoke.

His heart sank. He saw the blackened skeletons of the Vagr Breughel Memorial Playhouse and the Geheimnihsstrasse Theatre, the broken ruin of Temple Street, and shattered remnant of the Konigsplatz. Altdorf, he was in Altdorf, and it, like everything else in this world, was dead and buried. The gods were gone, and only this cold, malignity remained.

The thought incited him, freeing him from his terrified paralysis. A hoarse roar slipped from his blistered lips, and he swung the hammer up, catching it in both hands as he forced himself forwards through the clawing tide of dead matter that swirled about him. A light, weak at first, and then growing stronger, suffused him. A corona of heat swirled into being about the shattered head of the hammer as he swung it.

The hammer smacked into a giant’s palm. The sliding, slithering bones that made up the titan’s claw gave slightly at the force of the blow. Then the massive claws curled down, enclosing the hammer completely, and, like a parent taking a toy from a child, snatched the weapon from Volkmar’s grip. The arm was impossibly long, and attached to an equally out-of-proportion shoulder. The constant motion of the bones made it hard to discern the truth of the shape before him, but he saw enough to want to look away – to run, a voice screamed.

Volkmar turned and ran. It was not the first time he had done so, and he knew that it wasn’t the first time he had faced this enemy either. He had fled from it before, and fought ineffectually against it and been buried by it again and again. He ran, and his hammer was somehow in his hand again, still broken, its weight slowing him down. The thing followed him, ploughing through the smoke and charnel leavings like a shark through shallow waters, absorbing and expelling the bones it rolled over. Sometimes it was beside him, and other times it loomed over him, its shadow enveloping him in a cloak of numbing cold. It outpaced him at times or fell far behind. He had the sense that it was in no hurry. That it was enjoying itself. But he did not stop, he could not stop. To face it, he knew, was to fall. Only in flight was there life, and Volkmar dearly wanted to live.

The courage that had sustained him throughout his long life, that had kept him on his feet through fire and ruin, that had seen him match his hammer against all manner of foes, had failed him. All of his training, all of his rhetoric, all of his faith, had fled him, leaving only the raw atavistic impulse to survive at all costs. So he ran.

He ran in pursuit of the wind. He heard a woman’s voice, in the hissing sibilance of the breeze that stirred the smoke. He always heard it, as he ran. Sometimes he thought it was his mother, or an old lover, or the daughter he’d never had, but other times, he knew it was none of those. It was not a human voice. It was a voice that spoke to the wind, and to eagles, and it lent him strength, and propelled him on, easing the weight of his hurts and sweeping aside the dead shapes that lunged for him out of the smoke.

Run, she murmured.

Run, she whispered.

Run, she screamed.

Volkmar ran, and the dead world pursued him. And as his limbs failed, and his blood pounded in his ears, and the rattle of bones grew thunderous in his ears, he grasped at her words, her voice, grabbing for any shred of salvation, of hope, and, as all of the dead of Altdorf heaved beneath him, the Grand Theogonist woke up.

Volkmar’s eyes sprang open, and he sucked in a lungful of stale, damp air. He shuddered and twitched, unable to control his limbs. His heels drummed on the stone floor, and his palms flapped uselessly against his battered cuirass. He moaned and tried to roll over, but the manacles about his wrists prevented it. He was forced to squirm about and haul himself up into a sitting position. His body ached, much as it had in his dream. He coughed, trying to clear his throat, and looked around blearily.

‘Still alive, my friend?’ someone asked. Volkmar peered through the gloom, and caught sight of golden armour gleaming still beneath a layer of filth. He struggled to recall the Tilean’s name, through the mugginess of his aborted sleep.

‘If you can call it living,’ Volkmar coughed. His throat was parched and drier than the deserts of Araby. He squinted at the knight. ‘You’ve looked better, Blaze.’

Lupio Blaze, Templar of the Order of the Blazing Sun, laughed shallowly. ‘As have we all,’ he said, rattling his chains. His once-handsome features had been bludgeoned into a shapeless mass of dried blood and bruises, but his eyes were still bright, and his torn lips still quirked in a smile. ‘Still, it could be worse. It could be raining.’

Overhead, thunder rumbled. The soft plop of water was replaced by the steady downbeat of falling rain. Blaze laughed again, and craned himself backwards, so that his head and torso was caught in the downpour. ‘You see, Olf? I say that the gods still watch over us, eh?’ Blaze called out, gulping at the rainwater. He made a cup of his hands, and caught a handful of the rain. Then he kicked the legs of the figure chained next to him. ‘Up, Olf, have a drink, on me,’ he said, pouring the handful of water into the cupped hands of the burly Ulrican priest who was chained to the lectern next to his.

Olf Doggert eagerly slurped the water, and then grudgingly passed the next handful of water to the next prisoner in line, the pinch-faced young priest of Morr, Mordecaul Cadavion. Cadavion drank his share and passed along the next handful, emptying his cupped hands into those of the wan-faced matron named Elspeth Farrier, a priestess of Shallya. Volkmar turned his attention to the figure of the man chained beside her. Wild haired and raggedly dressed even before their captivity, Russett, blessed of Taal looked like a living corpse now. He hadn’t eaten in days, and he’d barely drunk anything. His flesh was mottled with bruises where he’d thrown himself at the walls, and bloody marks chafed his wrists where he continually yanked on his chains. One of his ankles had been gnawed to the bone, not by any of Mannfred’s beasts, but by the man himself in an attempt to get free of an earlier set of chains.

The nature priest had suffered more physically in captivity than any of them, save Volkmar and Sindst, the sour-faced priest of Ranald, who’d lost a hand and several chunks of his flesh on their journey across Vargravia in Mannfred’s bone cage. Russett crouched, wrapped in chains and silently rocking back and forth. Like an animal that had been caged too long, he had gone quietly mad. Now he stared at the cockroaches and rats that shared their prison, as if trying to communicate with them. But whatever esoteric abilities Taal had granted him were not in evidence, not in Sylvania. The voices of the gods, ever faint, might as well have been the only fevered imaginings of a flagellant, for all that they reached their servants here, Volkmar reflected.

He watched Elspeth help Sindst drink. He slurped greedily at the water in her hands, and nodded weary thanks when he’d finished. Volkmar looked around. After Mannfred’s last visit, they had been moved from the walls to the lecterns, and had their chains shortened. The reason hadn’t been shared, but Volkmar suspected that it was another of Mannfred’s demented games. He knew that the vampire enjoyed their futile escape attempts, just as he knew that they couldn’t stop trying. Wounded, exhausted and filthy as they were, none of them were yet ready to give up, save perhaps for poor Russett and the Bretonnian, Morgiana, whose mind and soul had been taken by Mannfred long before they had met her. She belonged to von Carstein now. She murmured to herself in the far corner of the room, unchained, but unmoving. She lay on her side on the cold stone, and stroked the floor as if it were a beloved pet, whispering constantly to it. He caught a flash of a delicate fang as she muttered, and looked away, sickened by what she had become.

Volkmar caught Elspeth’s eye, and the Shallyan priestess shook her head slightly. Volkmar sighed and winced, as the wound on his head split and began to leak blood and pus. He reached for it, but Elspeth hissed, ‘Don’t touch it. It’s having enough trouble healing without you picking at it.’

‘I don’t think it’s ever going to heal, sister,’ Volkmar said. ‘Mannfred won’t give us that time.’ He looked around. ‘You can all feel it, can’t you? That heaviness in the air? We’re in the eye of a storm, and one that Mannfred wants to unleash on the rest of the world. He needs us for that.’

‘Otherwise why keep us alive, right?’ Sindst muttered, hugging his wrist-stump to his chest. ‘We know all of this, old man. That’s why we keep trying to escape. Badly, I might add,’ he spat, glaring at Blaze and Olf.

‘Keep talking, sneak-thief,’ Olf growled. ‘Seems to me, if Mannfred needs you alive, I’d be doing us all a favour by wringing your scrawny neck.’

‘Do as you will, brute,’ Sindst said, tonelessly. ‘We’re not getting out of here upright, none of us. We’re all dead, even the pointy-eared witch over there.’ He motioned with his stump to the elf maiden.

Volkmar looked at the elf. He pushed himself to his feet and moved as close as he could to the lectern where she was chained. Her eyes were closed, as they had been for the entirety of their brief, inhospitable association. Volkmar gathered water from Elspeth, and got as close to the elf woman as he could. ‘Drink, my lady,’ he croaked. ‘You must drink.’

Her eyes flickered open. Volkmar realised that she was blind, and felt his heart twist in his chest. ‘Aliathra,’ she murmured. Volkmar blinked. He recognised her voice instantly as the same one he’d heard in his dream, urging him to run. A weak smile flickered across her face and was gone. She leaned forward, and he held his hands out. She reached up and took his hands in hers and bent her face. She drank deeply, and sat back, frowning. ‘Tainted water from tainted skies,’ she said. ‘It tastes of his sorcery.’

‘Funny, I thought it tasted of smoke, maybe with a hint of a Sartosan red?’ Sindst said.

‘Quiet,’ Elspeth said sharply. ‘That’s quite enough out of you, servant of Ranald. If you can’t be of use–’

Sindst’s manacle clattered to the floor. He stretched his good arm and Volkmar saw a twist of metal sticking from the raw stump of his other wrist, poking through the filthy bandages. He grinned in a sickly fashion and said, ‘It took a while. I had to hide it where the flesh-eaters wouldn’t sniff it out. And wait for the flying fang-brothers to go wherever such creatures go when they’re not watching us,’ he added, referring to the two vargheists that Mannfred had left to guard them.

He heaved himself up and began to free the others. ‘This is useless, you know,’ he said, as he worked on Volkmar’s manacles. ‘We’re all dying by inches – no food, no water, no weapons, sick, hurt and bled dry thanks to Mannfred and his cursed spell. We won’t get far.’

‘Then why bother?’ Volkmar asked, looking up at him.

Sindst chuckled. ‘Ranald is the god of luck, among other things. And you don’t get lucky if you don’t roll the knucklebones, Sigmarite.’

‘I hope we have a better plan than last time,’ Mordecaul said, as he was freed.

‘Run faster,’ Elspeth said.

‘That’s not a plan,’ Mordecaul said.

‘Die well,’ Olf said, heaving himself to his feet.

‘What part of the word “plan” don’t you understand?’ Mordecaul demanded.

Sindst chuckled. ‘For the servant of the god of death, you’re not very eager to make his acquaintance, are you, boy?’

Mordecaul hugged himself. ‘I wouldn’t be in his bower for very long, would I? Death is not the end here.’ He looked up, his pale face pinched with grief. ‘I can’t feel him. Morr, I mean. I can’t feel him here.’

‘None of us can feel our gods,’ Blaze said, kicking aside his chains as Sindst freed him. ‘That does not mean they are not there, hey?’ He went to the younger man and clapped him on the shoulders. ‘I knew a man, he was from Talabheim. His name was Goetz, and he was a brother-knight to me. He grew deaf to the words of Myrmidia, but he fought on, deaf and blind to her light. He still served. And when the time came, when he was at the end, suddenly – there she was!’ Blaze made a flamboyant gesture. ‘She had been there all the time, and he had been like a blind man standing in the sun, hey? That is what we are, newly blind. We must find the sun.’ Blaze patted Mordecaul on the cheek. ‘Find the sun,’ he said again.

Volkmar watched the exchange silently. Blaze’s overt display of faith made him feel ashamed, in some small way. His own faith had not so much been shaken as it had been uprooted. One did not become the Grand Theogonist on the strength of faith alone. Such a position was built on a bedrock of compromise. He had felt the power of Sigmar in his veins, but he had never spoken with his god, or gazed upon his face. He had never felt the need to do so. Sigmar provided him with purpose and the strength to carry out that purpose, and that was enough.

Or it had been. Now he wasn’t so sure. He felt eyes on him, and looked around to see Aliathra gazing at him, her face like something carved from marble. In her eyes was something he could not define – sadness, perhaps. Or pity. Volkmar felt a flush of anger and shook off the cloud of doubt that had settled on him. Mannfred had called him ‘Sigmar’s blood’. Well, he’d show the vampire the truth of those words, when he pulled out the leech’s unbeating heart and crushed it before his eyes.

Sindst had gone to the chamber door. ‘I can’t get it open,’ he said.

‘Then step back,’ Olf growled. He flexed his long arms. ‘Still a bit of strength left in this old wolf, I think. What about you, Blaze? What’s that you Myrmidians always say?’

‘We go where we are needed,’ Blaze intoned. ‘We do what must be done.’ He grinned. ‘See, I teach you something yet, yes?’

‘Shut up and put your shoulder into it, you poncy pasta-eater,’ Olf growled. Blaze chuckled and both men struck the door with their shoulders. Volkmar longed to help them, or to see to Morgiana with a sharp length of wood, but it was all he could do to stand. Instead, he kept an eye on the corner where Morgiana still lay, unheeding of their actions, as well as on the open roof above, just in case the vargheists decided to return. There was no way they could fight the creatures in their current state. It would be a miracle if they made the castle gates. But better a quick death in battle than whatever Mannfred had planned. He rubbed his blistered wrists and glanced down at the blood that flowed through the runnels that cut across the floor.

Then, his eyes were drawn to the gleaming iron crown, where it sat on its cushion of human skin. It seemed to glitter with a strange internal light, at once ugly and beauteous, attractive and repulsive in the same instant. He thought he could hear a soft voice calling to him, pleading with him, and he longed to pick it up.

I should, he thought. It was his duty, was it not? The Crown of Sorcery belonged in the vaults of the temple of Sigmar, in the Cache Malefact with the other dangerous objects. It should never have been brought into the light. How Mannfred had breached the vaults was still a mystery, but Volkmar’s fingers itched to snatch up the crown and – place it on my head – carry it away from this fell place.

He froze, startled at the thought that had intruded on his own. It had not been his, and he knew it. His eyes narrowed and he mustered the moisture to spit on the crown, which seemed to flicker angrily in response.

‘You can hear it, can’t you?’ the elf maiden murmured, from behind him.

Volkmar licked his lips. ‘I can,’ he hissed hoarsely. He looked away. ‘But it says nothing worth listening to. It is nothing more than a trap for the unwary.’

‘I saw Mannfred wearing it,’ Mordecaul said. He looked at the crown and shuddered. ‘It fit him perfectly.’

‘It fits any head that dares wear it,’ Volkmar grated. ‘And it hollows out the soul and strips the spirit to make room for that which inhabits it.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘Let the von Carstein wear it, and bad cess to him. Let it drain him dry, one parasite on another. A better fate for him, I cannot imagine.’

‘That is not his fate,’ Aliathra said. Her blind eyes sought Volkmar’s. ‘He will burn in the end. As will we all.’

‘I see the stories of the good cheer of the folk of Ulthuan were just that,’ Sindst said. He hefted a broken length of bone in his good hand. ‘If we’re going, let’s go.’

‘The door is giving,’ Olf said. The door shuddered on its hinges as the Ulrican and the knight struck it again. Even half starved and beaten bloody, both men were still strong, as befitted the servants of war gods.

Volkmar was about to reply, when a cloud of char and splinters cascaded down from above. He looked up and then turned, caught up Aliathra and Mordecaul and hurled them aside as the vargheist landed with a shriek and a crash. It reared up over Volkmar, wings filling the confined space of the chamber. It screamed again, jaws distending as it lunged for him. Then it jerked back as something soft struck Volkmar’s shoulder and hurled itself into the creature’s face. A second rat leapt from Volkmar’s other shoulder, and then a third leapt from the floor, and a fourth, a fifth – ten, twenty, until it seemed as if every rat and cockroach that had shared the chamber with the prisoners was crawling over the vargheist, biting and clawing. The monster staggered back, crashing into the lecterns with a wail as the tide of vermin knocked it sprawling.

Volkmar turned and saw Russett watching him blankly. The nature priest was surrounded by rats, and his lips moved silently as he sent his furry army into hopeless battle with the vargheist.

‘Come on,’ Olf roared as he grabbed Volkmar and propelled him into the corridor. ‘Leave him and let’s go!’

Erikan swept the femur out, and the holes he’d cut into it caught the breeze, making an eerie sound. He leaned back on his branch and placed the femur to his lips. The tune he piped out was an old one; he didn’t know what it was called, only the melody.

‘Very lovely,’ Markos said. ‘But weren’t you supposed to be helping us see to these strategies, Crowfiend?’

‘I am,’ Erikan said, not looking down. ‘I’ll take my hounds of night and silence the watch-posts along the Stir, as soon as we are able to leave. If we strike quickly enough, no one will have any idea that we are out and about.’ He whirled the femur again, enjoying the sound it made.

‘And by “hounds of night”, you mean those mouldering wolves and chattering ghouls that you seem content to spend your time with? What sort of warrior are you?’ Anark sneered, glaring up at him, his fists on his hips.

‘An effective one, Anark, and a reliable one – Elize, keep your trained ape muzzled, please,’ Markos said, poring over the map unrolled across the bench.

‘Ape, am I? I am your Grand Master, Markos, and you had best not forget it!’ Anark said, reaching for his sword. Elize caught his wrist and prevented him from drawing it. Which was wise, in Erikan’s estimation. Markos was just looking for an excuse to humble Anark. Then, so was everyone else. Anark was fine in small doses, but they’d been cooped up with him for weeks, and he was champing at the bit to bully someone into a fight. Mostly he seemed to want to fight Erikan, but anyone would do, by this point. Erikan looked down at Anark and smirked, then he brought the femur up and recommenced playing his tune.

‘Oh believe me, I have not,’ Markos purred, without turning around. ‘You deserve your new position as surely as poor, late Tomas did.’

Alberacht cackled where he crouched, gargoyle-like, on the wall. Anark glared at him, but the monstrous vampire didn’t even deign to return it. Instead, he dropped from the wall and ambled towards Markos. He tapped the map with one of his claws. ‘Heldenhame, that’s where our trouble will come from, you mark me, children.’

‘The Knights of Sigmar’s Blood,’ Nyktolos said. He was running a whetstone along the length of his sword as he leaned against the garden wall. ‘Master Nictus is correct. I have encountered them before. They are dreadful creatures, pious and murderous in equal measure.’ He looked up and frowned. ‘And Heldenhame is a tough nut indeed. High, thick walls and an armed populace do not for an easy siege make, should we get that far.’

‘But it has its weak points. Everything has a weak point,’ Elize said. Hands behind her back, she paced back and forth. ‘We simply need to find it.’

‘And hit it,’ Anark added. Elize smiled and stroked his cheek. Erikan, still in his branch, rolled his eyes. He played an annoying little tune, causing her to look up at him. Her expression was unreadable.

‘Are you ever sorry that you taught him how to speak, cousin?’ Markos asked. Anark’s face flushed purple and he made a half-hearted lunge for the other vampire, only to be stopped by Elize and Alberacht.

Erikan made to play accompaniment to the farce below, but lowered his femur as the sound of bells shook the air. He tossed aside the bone and dropped from his perch. ‘The bells,’ he said.

‘Yes, thank you, Erikan. Any other blindingly obvious statement you’d care to make?’ Markos snarled as he swept aside his maps and shot to his feet. ‘It’s why the bloody bells are ringing that I’m interested in.’

A pack of yowling, slavering ghouls surged past the garden entrance, accompanied by slower-moving skeleton guards, clad in rusty armour and brown rags. ‘The prisoners are making another escape attempt,’ Elize said. She spun and pointed at Alberacht and Nyktolos. ‘Get to the courtyard. That’s the quickest way out of the castle.’ She turned to Markos. ‘Rally the rest of the order. We’ll need to search the castle, if it’s anything like last time.’

‘And who put you in charge, cousin?’ Markos purred.

‘I did,’ Anark growled, drawing his blade. ‘You will obey her as you would me, cousin.’

‘She’s right, Markos,’ Erikan said, striding past the three of them. ‘And we have no time for arguments regardless. The prisoners are too valuable to risk either their escape or their deaths at the hands of Lord Mannfred’s other guests.’ Markos made a face, but fell silent. In the last few weeks, more than one attempt had been made on Mannfred’s inner sanctums by various vampires and necromancers enjoying his hospitality. If it wasn’t the Lahmians, it was the Charnel Circle, or one of the lesser von Carsteins, seeking, as ever, to supplant their betters.

And while no one liked to mention it, food had been getting scarce. While Strigany caravans were still trundling along the old Vargravian road, bringing wagons full of kidnapped men and women to Castle Sternieste, pickings in Sylvania itself were growing distinctly thin. Only the Strigany or other human servants could pass through the barrier of faith, and fewer of them returned every day. Some likely fell to the Imperial patrols that guarded the hinterlands of the neighbouring provinces, but others had, perhaps, simply decided not to come back.

Erikan was out of the garden a moment later, the others trailing in his wake or splitting off to do as Elize had commanded. Soon it was just himself and Elize and Anark, hurrying in pursuit of the ghoul pack they had seen earlier. The dead that stood sentry in every corridor and stairwell were all moving in the same direction, directed by their master’s will.

Volkmar and the others had tried to escape before, with predictable results. Once, they had even made it as far as the stables. But as more and more vampires had flocked to Sternieste, so too had the likelihood grown that another such attempt would lead to more than a beating for Mannfred’s amusement. Hungry vampires had all the self-control of stoats in a hen house. Regardless, there were only so many ways that the prisoners could go. Erikan thought that it was likely that they would simply try to bull their way out this time. Subtlety had got them nowhere, after all.

His conclusion was borne out by the trail of shattered bones and the twisted bodies of fallen ghouls that littered the stairs leading down to the lower levels of the keep. Erikan felt a grim admiration for the prisoners. That admiration only grew stronger when they found one of their own, a Drakenhof Templar, with his skull caved in and a jagged length of wood torn from a postern shoved through a gap in the side of his cuirass and into his heart. Anark cursed. Elize shook her head. ‘They know us of old, these mortals.’

‘Well, you know what they say… Familiarity breeds contempt,’ Erikan murmured. He didn’t recognise the vampire. Then, there were many in the order he didn’t know. Elize had kept him by her side at all times. That was one of the many reasons he’d left, and sought out Obald again.

They heard the clash of arms and followed the screams of dying ghouls. Volkmar and the others had made it through Sternieste to the inner courtyard that separated the main keep from the outer. It wasn’t hard to figure out how they’d made it that far – though the castle’s population had increased, it was night, and almost all of its inhabitants were out hunting. Those who were left were likely trying to either avoid getting involved, or were waiting to see how far the escapees got. You had to make your own entertainment, in times like these. But it wouldn’t be long before certain vampires got it in their heads to try to get in on the fun.

Erikan sprang out into the rain-swept courtyard and took in the fight roiling about him. Only seven of the prisoners had made it this far, but they were giving a good account of themselves. Most of that was down to Mannfred’s command that they not be harmed. A matronly woman swung a brazier about her with determined ferocity, sending ghouls tumbling and scrambling to get out of her way. A one-handed man guarded her back, a polearm held awkwardly in his good hand.

Volkmar himself led the way, watching over the elf maiden, who sagged against the shoulder of the young priest of Morr. And the Ulrican and the Myrmidian kept the group’s flanks protected. The Myrmidian had found a sword from somewhere, and laid about him with enthusiasm and skill, crying out to his goddess all the while. The Ulrican had a spear, and as Erikan watched, he impaled a skeleton guard, hoisted it, and sent it flying towards the courtyard wall. Volkmar was leading the group towards the portcullis that separated the inner and outer keeps, where Count Nyktolos waited, leaning on his blade, his monocle glinting in the torchlight.

Above them all, shapes, lean and a-thirst, ran along the walls, keeping pace but not interfering, not yet. Erikan recognised a number of Mannfred’s more recent hangers-on in that group, their eyes glazed with hunger and ambition as they looked down on the Grand Theogonist. Erikan understood that look, though he didn’t feel it himself. Volkmar was the living embodiment of the church that had made the scouring of Sylvania and the destruction of its bloodthirsty aristocracy a central tenet of its dogma. To see him like this, running frightened, dying on his feet, must be like a gift from the gods that Mannfred had barred from his kingdom.

They wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to see the old man scream, command from Mannfred or no. He glanced at Elize, and he saw by her expression that she was thinking the same thing. She nodded sharply and sprang for the wall. Anark made to follow her, but Erikan stopped him. ‘No, we need to recapture them,’ he said. Anark snarled, but didn’t disagree.

They split up, each approaching the prisoners from a side. Erikan hurtled the rolling body of a disembowelled ghoul and drew his sword. He arrowed towards the knight, reckoning him more dangerous than the Ulrican, so long as he had a sword in his hand. Even as their blades connected, Erikan saw Nyktolos lunge forward, his sword chopping into the haft of the spear the Ulrican wielded.

The Myrmidian whirled his blade and stamped forward, moving lightly despite his wounds. He still wore the tattered remnants of his armour, and Erikan could smell the pus dripping from the sores beneath the metal, and the blood that had crusted on its edges. Their blades slammed together again. The man was smart – he didn’t intend to pit his strength against Erikan’s. He was simply trying to drive him back. Erikan allowed him to do so, trying to draw him away from his comrades. If he could get him alone, the ghouls could swarm him under through sheer numbers.

A wild cry caused him to glance up. Mannfred’s pet vargheists circled the courtyard, screeching fit to wake whatever dead things had managed to ignore their master’s summons. Alberacht swooped between them, looking almost as bestial. He had obviously gone to rouse the beasts into helping with the hunt.

Volkmar cried out as one of the vargheists plummeted down and plucked the elf from the ground. She screamed and struck out at the beast that held her, but it merely screeched again and carried her upwards. Volkmar cursed loudly and turned. Erikan saw Anark rush towards him with his sword raised. He cursed the other vampire for an idiot, albeit silently. The old man ducked aside and looped the length of chain he carried around the vampire’s throat. Anark snarled as Volkmar hauled forwards with all of his weight, pulling him off his feet. He fell with a clatter, and his sword flew from his grip. ‘Get the blade!’ Volkmar roared.

The Ulrican snatched the sword up and spun on his heel, gutting a leaping ghoul. Erikan lunged to meet him, as Nyktolos blocked a blow from the Myrmidian meant to split Erikan’s spine. He forced the Ulrican back with a slash. The burly warrior priest swept his stolen blade out in a wild, looping blow. Erikan weaved back with serpentine grace, not even bothering to block the attack. He heard Nyktolos laugh and saw the other vampire back away from his opponent as a mob of ghouls surged forward.

The knight, freed of Nyktolos, came at him from the side, hoping to flank him, even as the ghouls chased after him. Erikan pivoted, and avoided the knight’s lunge. He flipped backwards, evading the Ulrican’s blade a second time. The ghoul that had been pressing forward behind him wasn’t so lucky. It fell, choking on its own blood. More of the cannibals rushed into the fray, trampling their dying comrade in their haste to reach the enemy.

Erikan sprang to the wall and dropped back behind the ghoul pack. Nyktolos had the right idea. There was no sense in risking himself. The two men fought hard, with desperate abandon. Bodies and blood slopped the floor. He saw that Volkmar had managed to get atop Anark and was hauling back on the chains, trying to snap his enemy’s neck. The vampire’s mouth was wide, and a serpentine tongue jutted from between his fangs as he writhed beneath the Grand Theogonist. Erikan hesitated. It was the perfect moment to be rid of Anark. He might not get another one. He heard Elize cry out and, almost against his will, began to move.

Then, the second vargheist had Volkmar in its claws, and it hauled him upwards to join its fellow. Erikan lowered his sword. ‘He who hesitates is lost,’ he murmured as he rushed to help Anark to his feet in an obsequious show of concern.

Above, Volkmar cursed and tore at the vargheist holding him, to no avail. The beast had him, and there was no escape. Erikan watched as his struggles became weaker and weaker, until at last he ceased entirely, and hung in its grasp like a corpse. The vargheist dropped him onto a parapet, and sank down on him, like a cat crouching atop its kill.

The sound of applause swept across the courtyard, cutting through the sound of the rain and the whimpers of dying ghouls. Mannfred von Carstein stood on the parapet above the portcullis, Arkhan behind him. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Look how far you got. I am quite impressed, as I’m sure my comrade is.’ He gestured to Arkhan. ‘Aren’t you impressed?’ he asked, over his shoulder.

Mannfred didn’t give Arkhan a chance to reply. Instead, he leapt down from the parapet and dropped lightly into the courtyard, drawing his blade as he rose. The torches that flickered, hissed and spat in the rain seemed to dim slightly, as if Mannfred’s presence were draining the heat and light from them. ‘I’m impressed,’ he said again, looking up at the gathered vampires who crouched or slunk about above the courtyard. ‘And yet, something puzzles me. Where did you think you were going to go? This castle is mine. This land is mine. I rule everything from horizon to horizon, every mountain, every bower, every ruin and river. All mine,’ Mannfred went on. He waved aside the ghouls, who retreated from him with undignified speed. ‘Where were you going to go?’

‘Back into the eyes of our gods,’ the knight said. His voice sounded thin and weak to Erikan’s ears. ‘Back to the light.’

‘There is no light, unless I will it,’ Mannfred said, extending his blade. He looked at the Ulrican and the Myrmidian. They were the only two left, save for the priest of Morr, who crouched nearby. The woman and the one-handed man had been knocked sprawling and pinned to the wet ground by Alberacht in the confusion. ‘There are no gods, save me.’ Mannfred smiled, and Erikan felt a cold wind sweep through the hollows of his soul. Mannfred turned his blade slightly, so that the light caught the edge. ‘If you bow, I will not hurt you too much. If you crawl to me, I will not take your legs. If you beg me to spare you, I will not take your hands.’

The stone, when it came, was a surprise, even to Mannfred, Erikan thought. The young priest had torn it from the ground and hurled it with such force that it drew blood when it caromed off Mannfred’s skull. He whirled with a cry that put his vargheists to shame and his blade nearly took the young priest’s head off. The young man fell back, face twisted in fear and defiance. Mannfred stormed towards him, but before he could reach him, a swirling storm of spirits erupted from the ground and walls of the courtyard and surrounded the man. Mannfred spun, and glared up at Arkhan, who lowered his staff silently, but did not call off the ghosts he had summoned.

Mannfred turned back in time to block the Ulrican’s attack. The big man came at him in a rush, silent and determined. His sword drew fat sparks as it screeched off Mannfred’s cuirass. Mannfred stepped back and his fist hammered into the man’s chest. Erikan heard bones crack, and the Ulrican slumped, coughing redness. Mannfred caught the back of his head and hurled him to the ground hard enough to add to the tally of broken bones.

The Myrmidian hacked at him, and Mannfred caught the blow on the length of his blade and surged forward, driving the knight back against the hall. He pinned him in place. ‘We need to sacrifice one, eh?’ Mannfred asked, glancing at Arkhan. The liche nodded slowly. Mannfred looked back at the knight, as the latter strained against his strength, trying to free himself. ‘This one, then. He’s been more trouble than he’s worth.’ He tore his blade away from the wall, and the Templar staggered forward, off balance. He recovered quickly, and lunged. The blade skidded off Mannfred’s side, staggering him. But before the knight could capitalise, Mannfred batted his guard aside and sent him flying backwards to bounce off the wall and topple to the ground, unconscious.

Mannfred looked down and then up, letting the rain wash the blood from his face. And for a moment, just a moment, between the shadows and the rain, Erikan thought he saw something terrible looming over Mannfred, shaking in silent glee.

Seven

Heldenhame Keep, Talabecland

The empty bottle shattered as it struck the wall. Wendel Volker scrambled to his feet and darted out of the commandant’s grimy office. Otto Kross stormed after him, as quickly as a man on the wrong end of a three-day drunk could manage. Kross was bald, with a thick beard and sideburns, which hid his heavy jowls, and a neck that was more an unsightly outgrowth of shoulder than anything else.

‘I told you that I’d have you, popinjay, if you countermanded me again. Those men deserved a lashing! Their hides were mine,’ Kross bellowed as he lunged, red-faced, after Volker, fists windmilling.

‘I didn’t countermand anything,’ Volker yelped, scooting across the courtyard on his backside, trying to get enough room between himself and his commandant so that he could get to his feet without receiving a faceful of Kross’s scarred knuckles. ‘I simply placed them on punishment detail. How was I to know you meant they needed a flogging?’

That was a lie, of course. He had known, and hadn’t approved. Punishment was all well and good when the men in question had committed an actual infraction or crime. But flogging was a step too far, especially when their only real crime had been to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d placed them on night soil duty, reckoning that would keep them out of Kross’s sight until he’d sobered up and forgotten why he wanted them punished in the first place. Unfortunately, someone had spilled the beans. The next thing Volker knew, he was dodging bottles and Kross’s fists.

‘I’ll stop your squawking, popinjay,’ Kross snarled. He lurched drunkenly for Volker, tripped over his own foot, and fell face-first to the ground. Volker took the opportunity to get to his feet and made to flee, until he noted the gathering crowd of men. It looked as if every trooper assigned to the Heldenhame garrison was piling into the wide, long courtyard that linked the Rostmeyer and Sigmundas bastions.

It wasn’t surprising. The past few weeks had seen a steady increase in tensions among the men. There was something growing in Sylvania, behind those blasted walls; they could all feel it. Not to mention the reports coming from the north. For every ten men who’d marched for the Kislev border, only seven reached their destination, thanks to beastmen, greenskins and plague. The fighting along the border had spilled into Ostermark and Talabecland, and the armies of those provinces were hard-pressed to hold the tide back.

Many men wanted to travel north, to fight the enemy. Others wanted to stay put, out of the way, safe behind Heldenhame’s walls. Luckily for the latter, Leitdorf was obsessed with keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Sylvania. Or, as some lackwits whispered, he just wanted to stay good and close to the centre of the Empire, in order to take advantage of what many were coming to see as the inevitable conclusion of recent events.

Sometimes, Volker thought that was why Thyrus Gormann had come. It would be difficult for Leitdorf to get up to any mischief with the Patriarch of the Bright College looking over his shoulder.

Volker heard a voice growl, ‘Two bits on the commandant.’ He looked over and saw the scowling features of Captain Deinroth. Kross’s second-in-command had never warmed to Volker. He shared his commandant’s opinion, and indeed that of most of the other captains, that Volker was a man who had bought his rank with gold, rather than blood, and was thus no sort of man at all. Which was a bit unfair, Volker thought; it had been his father’s gold after all, not his.

Deinroth, he thought, was the likely instigator of the current situation. In his years as Kross’s second-in-command, Deinroth had learned well the art of winding his belligerent superior up and setting him loose like a demigryph in a glassblower’s shop. He’d been poking and prodding at Kross to lay in to Volker for weeks now, and it looked as if he’d finally got his wish.

‘Three on the popinjay,’ a second voice cut through the rising tumult like the peal of a hammer on an anvil. Men fell silent as a robed figure strode to the front of the growing crowd. Stern-featured and grizzled by decades of service on the Sylvanian frontier, Father Janos Odkrier was a welcome enough face. Odkrier wasn’t quite a friend, but he was as close as Volker had in Heldenhame.

Odkrier winked at Volker. Around him, money changed hands and men shouted out bets. Kross staggered to his feet, face flushed, teeth bared. He swayed slightly, but didn’t fall. He raised his fists. ‘I’ll wipe that smirk off your chinless face, Volker,’ he spat.

‘There’s no need for this, commandant,’ Volker said hurriedly. A brawl wasn’t quite as bad as a duel, but the knights frowned on it regardless. Especially in times like these, with northmen howling south in ever-increasing numbers, green comets raining down out of the sky, and a great bloody wall of bone towering over Sylvania’s borders. The whole world was coming undone around them. ‘If Leitdorf finds out, we’ll both get our necks stretched,’ he said. He cut a glance towards Deinroth, who was smirking in his usual unpleasant fashion, and wondered if that was what Kross’s right hand man wanted. ‘You know how he feels about his officers brawling in front of the rank and file.’

Kross smiled maliciously. ‘Leitdorf isn’t here, popinjay.’ He shuffled forward and threw a blow that would have broken Volker’s jaw, had it connected. Volker slid aside, the way his swordmaster had taught him, and drove his fist into Kross’s side. The big man spun, quicker than Volker had expected, and caught him a stinging blow on the cheek. Volker fell back onto his rear, and only just managed to bob aside as Kross’s iron-shod boot slammed down where he’d been sitting.

Volker’s hand flew to his sword. As much as the thought turned his stomach, he knew that he could draw it and have it through Kross’s fat gut in a wink and a nod. He was a better swordsman than any of those present. Indeed, he fancied he could even match one of Leitdorf’s armoured thugs in a fair bout. But killing a superior officer was even worse than getting into a round of fisticuffs with one. Leitdorf already despised him; Volker had spent the months since his arrival avoiding the Grand Master of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood at every opportunity. Sigmar alone knew what Leitdorf would do to him if he pinked Kross even slightly. He pulled his hand away as Kross gave a bull bellow and charged towards him.

He caught Volker and swept him up in a bear hug. Volker groaned as he felt his ribs flex. Fat as he was, Kross was still strong enough to knock a dray horse off its hooves with a punch. The commandant’s alcoholic breath washed over his face, and Volker was suddenly reminded that he had been headed to the tavern, before Kross had called him in. The crowd was cheering and catcalling in equal measure, their faces a blur as Kross spun him about. Volker slithered an arm free and poked Kross in the eye with his thumb. Kross roared and released him. The commandant stumbled back, clawing at his face. He belched curses and snatched his dagger from his belt. Volker backed away, hands raised. Kross staggered after him, blade raised.

Then came the sharp, savage sound of a cane striking something metal and all the cheering ceased. Both Volker and Kross turned as a lean, broad-shouldered figure stumped through the crowd. The newcomer leaned on a cane, and was dressed in the heavy furs and coarse jerkin that all of the members of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood wore when not in armour. His face bore the sort of scars that came from getting pulled off a horse and into a knot of orcs and summarily trodden on. His name was Rudolph Weskar, and he was the closest thing to the word of Sigmar made flesh this side of Leitdorf in Heldenhame.

All of the fire went out of Kross, and he hastily put away his blade. Volker swallowed as the limping man approached them. Deinroth and the other captains were already melting away with the crowd. ‘Brawling without prior permission is a pillory offence, gentlemen,’ Weskar said, leaning on his cane. His hard, dull eyes pinned Kross. ‘Commandant Kross, I can smell the reek of alcohol on you from here. Do not make me regret recommending you to the Grand Master for promotion, Otto. Go sober up, and keep that potato peeler you call a knife in its sheath from now on.’

Kross hesitated. He glared at Volker one last time, then nodded tersely and slunk away. Volker didn’t watch him go. He kept his eyes on Weskar. He licked his lips, suddenly dying for a drink. Weskar stumped towards him. ‘Wendel, Wendel, Wendel. You disappoint me, Wendel. When I heard what was going on, I was hoping you might finally spit that hog, and thus deliver yourself to the hangman, freeing me to promote a more congenial pair to your positions. Instead, here we are.’ He came close to Volker, and the latter tensed. A discreet cough caused Weskar to glance around. Father Odkrier alone had remained where he was, when Weskar’s arrival had caused everyone else to scatter. The old Sigmarite wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything.

Weskar turned back to Volker. ‘Why?’ he asked simply.

Volker swallowed. He knew what Weskar was asking. ‘Kross was drunk, and bullying an innkeeper. When the man refused him further service, he tried to gut him. The lads intervened. Kross was still drunk when he ordered that they be flogged for laying hands on a superior officer. I thought if I could keep them out of sight until he sobered up…’ He trailed off. Weskar grunted.

‘That he might regret it, and not punish them further,’ he said. ‘You know a little something about the regrets overindulgence brings, I think, eh, Wendel?’ He leaned forwards again, like a hound on the scent. ‘You’re dying for a drink now, I’d wager.’ Volker didn’t answer. Weskar twitched a hand. ‘Go,’ he said.

Volker hurried past him, his hands trembling. Odkrier caught him around the shoulders and shoved a flask into his hands as they left Weskar standing there, staring after them. ‘Drink up, my boy. I’d say you’ve earned it.’

Karaz-a-Karak, Worlds Edge Mountains

Ungrim Ironfist sat on his stone bench and listened to the basso rumble of dwarf disagreement as the Kingsmeet entered its fifth hour. King Kazador of Karak Azul pounded upon the stone table with a heavy fist, and King Alrik of Karak Hirn crossed his brawny arms and scowled at his fellow monarch. Belegar of Karak Eight Peaks sat hunched and silent in his seat, looking at no one, his face sagging with the weight of constant worry. And glaring at them all, from the far end of the table, sat the High King, Thorgrim Grudgebearer.

As Kingsmeets went, this one wasn’t as bad as Ungrim had begun to fear, on his journey to Karaz-a-Karak. He’d learned that the occurrences in Sylvania were already well known, at least by Thorgrim, and that the von Carstein was one of the problems under discussion. One of many problems, in fact. The reports he’d received had only been the tip of the proverbial anvil, and the world seemed to be intent on coming apart at the seams, all at once.

Ungrim didn’t find that as distressing as the others. Indeed, it filled him with a bitter enthusiasm. He had long been torn between two fates – that of king, and that of a Slayer. To prioritise the one over the other was impossible, and as the centuries progressed, he had begun to feel as if he, like his father before him, would die still cloaked in dishonour, and that his son, Garagrim, would be forced to tread the same line. Ungrim closed his eyes for a moment, as the old pain resurfaced. Every time he thought it buried and gone, it clawed its way back to the forefront of his mind. Garagrim was dead now, and free of the shame that still held Ungrim. He had died as a warrior, and as a Slayer, though he’d had no dishonour of his own to expunge. He’d thought his blood could buy his father’s freedom, but such things were not proper.

Garagrim had meant well, but he had been a foolish boy, with a beardling’s bravado and his mother’s stubbornness. At the thought of the latter, he felt a pang. He missed his wife’s quiet counsel. His queen had a mind second to none, and a clarity of thought that cut through even the most rancorous preconceptions. It was she who should be sitting here. He had no mind for politics, and no patience for querulous oldbeards like Kazador.

Ungrim contented himself with examining the table. It had been carved long before the Time of Woes, and a map of the ancient dwarf empire at its height sprawled across its surface. Holds that had not existed for untold centuries were still marked there, as if to deny their destruction, as if to shout, ‘What has been still is and will always be’ into the void. Then, that was the way of his people. Like mountains in the stream of time, they sat immoveable and intractable, but worn down bit by bit, over the span of aeons.

He sighed and looked about the chamber, scanning the gathered faces that watched from the ascending rows of benches that surrounded the table and its occupants. Courtiers, thanes, advisors, second cousins twice removed of the aforementioned thanes, and anyone who could get past the chamber wardens was watching. Politics was a spectator sport among the dawi. Like as not, someone was collecting bets on when the first punch would be thrown, or the first head-butt delivered.

‘The Underway swarms with ratkin and grobi,’ Kazador said, drawing Ungrim’s attention as he cut the air with his hand. ‘But they do not attack. Something is afoot. Something is growing in the deep darkness, something foul, that threatens to drown us all when it finally surges to the surface.’

‘Or maybe they’re simply warring with one another as they are wont to do,’ Alrik said. He looked at Thorgrim. ‘Their numbers swell and their filthy warrens abut one another in most places. They seek the same holes, and like the vermin they are, they fight over them. If they have gone quiet, it is because they are busy doing our work for us!’

‘Then explain the new access tunnels my miners have found,’ Kazador snarled, slapping the table. ‘Explain the skaven-sign splashed on the walls of the lower levels. Explain the sounds echoing up from the far depths – not of battle, but of industry.’

Alrik settled back in his seat, silent and frowning. For several moments, no one said anything. Then, Thorgrim spoke. ‘I too have heard these reports, and more besides. I have seen the glowering skies and heard the growl of the stones. Beasts stir in mountain caves, and our northern kin, in their strongholds in the mountains of Norsca, send word of daemons scouring the lands, and of the mobilisation of the barbarians who worship the Dark Gods.’ He looked around. ‘But these are not new tidings. These are merely old tidings on a new day. Our people are still strong. Our enemies still break themselves on our walls and are swept away by our throngs. Did not the Ironfist shatter such a horde in years past? Did he not take the head and pelt of the Gorewolf?’

Ungrim grimaced. In truth, he hadn’t taken the Chaos warlord’s head. The Gorewolf had been killed by the renegade Gotrek Gurnisson. In doing so, Gurnisson had saved Ungrim’s life, which only added to the Slayer King’s already weighty grudge against the other Slayer. Years later, when Gurnisson had returned to Karak Kadrin on the trail of a dragon, Ungrim had considered clapping him and his pet poet in irons and dumping them somewhere unpleasant, to repay the indignity. He had restrained himself then, as before. Gurnisson wore chains of destiny that not even a king could shatter, more was the pity.

‘Horde after horde has poured into these mountains and we have shattered them all, be they northmen, orcs or ogres,’ Thorgrim went on. ‘To seal our gates is to admit defeat before we have even seen the enemy.’ He sat back on his seat and looked around. ‘I see by your faces that some of you agree, and others do not. Belegar, speak…’ He motioned to the king of the Eight Peaks, who looked up, startled. Ungrim realised that he’d been lost in his own gloomy thoughts. He cleared his throat.

‘I have little to add, High King,’ he said. ‘Siege is not new for those of us who make our home in the Eight Peaks. We war with grobi and ratkin both, and they war with one another when we retreat to lick our wounds and entomb our dead. In truth, these tidings mean little to me. I know my enemies, and I fight them daily. I fight them in the tunnels and on the peaks, and what does it matter if the sky above is blue, red or green, when a skaven is looking to gut you with a rusty blade? What does it matter if the earth shakes, when your halls are swarmed by goblins? What do the affairs of the far northern holds matter, when your own is swamped by enemies?’

He held up his hands. ‘I have only two hands, brother-kings. I have only a third of a hold – aye, a great hold, and greater still when I have wiped it clean of the remaining filth that infests it, but still… only a third.’ He looked squarely at Thorgrim. ‘For my part, I am here because I owe you a debt, High King. You helped to defend my meagre holdings against the orcs, when the beast known as Gorfang came knocking at my gates. For your part, I suspect that I am here out of courtesy only, though you would shave your beard before you admitted it, I wager. I am here, because you are worried – all of you.’ He turned, taking in the whole of the table. ‘We are small for a grand council. Where are the others? Where are the kings of Zhufbar and Karak Izor? Where is the king of Kraka Drak or the lord of Barak Varr?’ He sat back and shook his head. ‘They did not – or could not come. They are worried. More worried than ever before. The sky weeps and the world heaves, and our enemies have gone silent. They are right to be worried.’

‘Well said, brother,’ Kazador grunted. He looked at Thorgrim. ‘Alrik might be blind, but you are not, Grudgebearer. And if you will not heed me, you might heed another.’ He gestured. From out of the throng of watching advisors and hangers-on stepped a thick-set figure who all immediately recognised. A rush of whispers and mutters swept about the chamber as Thorek Ironbrow, Runelord of Karak Azul, stepped forward, one hand resting on the anvil-shaped head of his rune hammer, Klad Brakak, which was thrust through his belt.

‘Karag Haraz, Karag Dron and Karag Orrud all belch smoke into the sky, High King,’ Ironbrow said portentously. He gestured in a southerly direction with one gnarled hand. The runelord’s hide looked like leather, and was puckered by burns and pale scars.

Even by Ungrim’s standards, Thorek Ironbrow was a conservative. He was a dwarf who held fast to the oldest of ways, and his words were heavy with the weight of uncounted centuries. He had ruled over the weapon shops of Karak Azul for as long as Ungrim had been alive, and even the sons of kings dared not enter his domains without his prior approval – almost all of the kings in the council chamber had felt the lash of Ironbrow’s tongue or the hard, calloused palm of his hand on the backs of their heads as beardlings. That was why he could get away with lecturing them now. The runelord looked about him as he went on, his hard gaze resting on each king in turn, as if they were a group of particularly dull-witted apprentices. ‘Mountains that have not erupted in millennia now vomit forth fire and smoke and death. The world shudders beneath a horrible tread, my kings, and unless we are prepared, we will be ground underfoot.’

Ungrim had heard that argument before. Every time a horde swept south, out of the Wastes, or west out of the Dark Lands, Ironbrow made some variation of it. He knocked on the table with his knuckles, interrupting the runelord’s rehearsed speech. He grinned as Ironbrow glared at him for his temerity, and asked, ‘And by prepared, you mean close the gates?’

Ironbrow hesitated. Then, solemnly, he nodded. ‘We must put our faith in strong walls and shields, rather than squandering our strength upon wayward allies.’ Another murmur arose at that. Everyone with half a brain knew what the runelord was referring to by that comment.

Thorgrim had earlier spoken of the kidnapping of the Ulthuani Everchild out from under the noses of the warriors of Karaz-a-Karak, and the subsequent battle at Nagashizzar: a battle that had failed to free her from Mannfred von Carstein’s clutches, despite the aid the High King had rendered to the elgi. Ungrim glanced at Thorgrim, to see if he’d noticed the dig. It was hard to tell, given the High King’s ever present sour expression.

Ironbrow was still talking. He gestured to King Kazador. ‘My king has already heeded my council and sealed the main gates of Karak Azul. Will you not do the same, Slayer King?’

Ungrim sucked on his teeth, stung by Ironbrow’s tone. ‘No,’ he said bluntly. He cut his eyes towards Thorgrim. ‘Not unless so commanded by the High King, I won’t.’ He swivelled his gaze back towards Ironbrow. ‘Karak Kadrin has ever been the edge of the axe, as Karaz-a-Karak is the shield. Let the world shake, and rats gnaw at our roots. We shall reap and slay and strike out as many grudges as Grimnir allows in what time we have.’

‘You would doom your people, your hold, and for what? Has your inherited dishonour driven you that mad?’ Kazador asked, heaving himself to his feet. ‘Our people stand on the precipice of destruction, and all you see is an opportunity for war.’

‘And so?’ Ungrim asked hotly. He rose to his feet and slammed his knuckles down on the table, causing it to shiver. ‘My people know war. And that is what is coming. Not some indecipherable doom, or irresistible event. No, it is war. And every warrior will be needed, every axe sharpened, every shield raised, for our enemies are coming, and our walls alone have never stopped them, as my brother-king knows to his cost.’

There was a communal intake of breath from the crowd above them as the words left Ungrim’s lips. Kazador’s eyes bulged from their sockets, and his teeth showed through his beard. Ungrim thought for a moment that the old king would launch himself across the table and seek to throttle him.

‘Enough,’ Thorgrim rumbled. ‘That grudge has been settled, and by my hand. Every king here must do as he considers best for his hold and people. But there are other grudges to be settled and the Dammaz Kron sits open and impatient. I have vowed to strike out every entry in the Great Book of Grudges, and it seems that time to do so is running thin. If the throng of Karaz-a-Karak is mustered, I must know who will muster with me. Who stands with the Pinnacle of the Mountains?’ He looked at Ungrim first.

Ungrim grinned. ‘Do you even need to ask, High King?’

Thorgrim inclined his head slightly, and looked at the others in turn. Alrik stood and nodded belligerently. Belegar too stood and said, ‘Aye, the Eight Peaks will march, to our enemies’ ruin or our own.’

Thorgrim sat back. The High King seemed tired. Ungrim did not envy him the weight of responsibility he bore. Heavy sat the crown of the High King, and it was very likely that he was now watching the sun at last set on the empire of the dwarfs. Ungrim smiled humourlessly. Even so, if they were to die, then it was best done properly.

That was the only way dwarfs did anything, after all.

Adrift on the Great Ocean, sailing due east

The great beak snapped shut inches from Eltharion’s nose, and a rumbling hiss filled the hold. The horses in the nearby stalls shifted nervously as the griffon hunched forward, its claws sinking into the wood of the deck. Eltharion reached up as the beast’s chin dropped heavily onto his shoulder and stroked the ruffled feathers that cascaded down its neck. ‘Shhh, easy, Stormwing,’ he murmured. He felt one of his mount’s heavy forepaws pat clumsily at his back, and heard its inarticulate grunt of contentment.

Around them, the ship made the usual noises of travel. Not even the graceful vessels of Lothern were free of those, though elvish craftsmanship was the finest in the world, and their ships second to none. If he listened, he could hear the waters of the Great Ocean caressing the hull, and beneath that, the melodic hum of the whales that occupied the sea. Their song was one of beauty and peace, but tinged with fear. Even the most isolated of animals could sense that the world was sick.

As he stroked the griffon’s neck and head, he looked about him. The horses who shared Stormwing’s hold belonged to the Knights of Dusk, a noble family of Tor Ethel. More accurately, the only family, noble or otherwise, of Tor Ethel, which was all but abandoned these days. It sat on the western coast of Tiranoc, and each year coastal erosion took more of that once shining city into the sea, claiming gardens, sanctuaries and palaces alike. The Knights of Dusk hailed from the ever-shrinking group of the city’s remaining inhabitants. They were valiant warriors, as were the others who had accompanied him and Eldyra on this journey.

Besides the Silver Helms of Tor Ethel, there were the Sentinels of Astaril, mistwalkers of Yvresse, in whose company he had honed his archery skills as a youth, and the Faithbearers of Athel Tamarha, a company of spearmen who had fought at his side in every campaign but one. A small enough host, but tested, and experienced. They would need to be, to survive what was coming. They were entering unknown territory. The last time he’d set foot in the lands of men, they still hadn’t quite grasped the concept that hygiene wasn’t a mortal offence. He doubted much had changed in the intervening centuries.

He didn’t hate them. He simply didn’t see a reason for their existence. They caused more problems than they solved, for all that they were barely more than chattering apes. It had been men, after all, who had allowed the goblin, Grom, to pass through their lands in order to reach Ulthuan. Teclis doted on them, in his acerbic way, something that had always puzzled Eltharion. Men were the cause of the problems facing them now. Men fed Chaos a constant stream of souls, whether they knew it or not. And if they weren’t doing that, they were turning themselves into abominations like Mannfred von Carstein. Men couldn’t leave well enough alone. Some small part of Eltharion hoped that whatever was going on would swallow mankind whole before it ended, and that the Dark Gods would choke on their grubby little souls.

As if sensing the direction his thoughts were taking, the griffon grumbled into his ear, its hot, foul breath washing over him. He pushed the thoughts aside and concentrated on calming the animal. Once, when Stormwing was no more than a squalling cub, he’d have taken the beast in his arms like an infant, and carried it about until it was soothed to sleep by the rhythm of his heartbeat. Now the griffon was bigger than the largest of the horses who occupied the remainder of the hold, and a good deal more skittish about the confined space it found itself in.

‘I see Stormwing is no more fond of the sea than his master,’ a voice said. Eltharion didn’t turn. He dug his fingers into the strange spot where feathers met fur on Stormwing’s body and gave it a good scratch. One of the griffon’s rear paws thumped the deck, and its spotted tail lashed in pleasure.

‘Come to check on your own mount, then, Eldyra?’ he asked. ‘He misses you. I can tell.’

‘I doubt that. He’s asleep, the lazy brute,’ Eldyra said, crossing to the stall where her stallion, Maladhros, stood dozing. The big, silver dappled animal was the only one who showed no concern at Stormwing’s presence, though whether that was because they had been stabled together before, or because Maladhros had fewer wits than a thick brick, Eltharion couldn’t say. The stallion was strong and fierce, and Eldyra swore that it was a canny beast as well, but Eltharion thought she vastly overestimated its problem-solving capabilities. When he’d come down into the hold, it had been eating an empty bucket.

She clucked and rubbed the stallion’s nose, stirring it to wakefulness. Eltharion watched as she fed it an apple, and it crunched contentedly. ‘He’s taking the trip well,’ he said.

‘He knows it’s important,’ she said. She stroked the horse’s mane.

‘Does he now?’ Eltharion smiled.

Eldyra looked at him. ‘As a matter of fact, yes, he does. How is Stormwing?’ she asked. She stepped across the hold towards him, light on her feet despite the pitch of the deck. She was the perfect blend of grace and lethality, much as Tyrion was, Eltharion reflected. He wondered if the latter was aware of just how much he’d shaped the princess of Tiranoc in his image, and whether he’d find that worrisome. Probably not; in Eltharion’s opinion, Tyrion didn’t worry as much as he should, at least not about the right things.

‘Nervous. He doesn’t like confined spaces. He prefers to fly,’ he said. The griffon grumbled and eyed Eldyra balefully. Stormwing didn’t care for anyone other than Eltharion getting too close. He had a tendency to snap.

‘Why not let him?’

‘There’s no guarantee he’d remember to come back, rather than fly home,’ Eltharion said, rubbing his palm over the curve of Stormwing’s beak. The creature butted his chest and made a sound halfway between a purr and a chirp. ‘He’s not very bright.’ He hesitated. ‘Then, perhaps he’s smarter than both of us.’

‘Do you truly hold so little hope?’ she asked, quietly.

He smiled thinly. ‘I am not known as “the Grim” for nothing,’ he said.

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘No, it is not.’ He looked at her. ‘There is no hope. She is as good as dead, or worse. We are not heroes… We are avengers.’

‘Tyrion doesn’t think so,’ she said.

‘Tyrion lies to himself,’ he said softly. ‘Just as he lied to himself that there would be no consequences for his indiscretion. Those lies are the source of optimism, and his downfall.’

‘You think that, and yet here you are,’ Eldyra said. She said it as if it were an accusation. And perhaps it was, he thought. He nodded agreeably.

‘I am, yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Why are you here?’ he asked.

‘My lord Tyrion ordered it,’ she said stiffly.

‘I was under the impression that he was your friend,’ he said. ‘Just as he is my friend.’ He tasted the word as he said it. It wasn’t one he used often, or, indeed, at all. But it seemed fitting, in reference to Tyrion. Tyrion was his friend, and that meant that there was nothing Eltharion wouldn’t do to help him. ‘And I, like you, am smart enough to know that if we were not here, he would be, and Ulthuan would suffer for it.’

‘Or at least worse than it already has,’ Eldyra said. ‘Do you think…?’

‘I do not think. I do not worry. I trust. We have our mission. Tyrion and Teclis will drive the daemonic hosts from our shores, as they did before. And we will find Aliathra, for good or ill, whether she is alive or…’ He trailed off.

‘She is alive. Of that much, I am certain, Warden of Yvresse,’ a new voice cut in. A blue-robed shape descended the steps down into the hold. Pale eyes looked about from beneath a diadem of emeralds, and a thin mouth quirked in disgust. ‘Why you two insist on spending so much time in this makeshift stable, I’ll never understand. It smells awful.’

‘It’d smell worse if someone didn’t see to the animals occasionally,’ Eltharion said, turning to face the newcomer. He cocked his elbow up on Stormwing’s flat skull. ‘And you could have waited until we came back up on deck.’

‘Probably, yes, but then I wouldn’t have been able to interject my opinions so smoothly, now would I?’ Belannaer groused. He tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s all about the seizing the moment.’

‘What is?’ Eldyra asked, smiling crookedly. She enjoyed teasing the Loremaster of Hoeth, and Eltharion couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. Belannaer had once been the High Loremaster of Ulthuan, before ceding the title and its responsibilities to Teclis. Many, including Eltharion, thought Belannaer had been only too happy to do so, making him a rarity among the Ulthuani. In the years since, he’d found contentment amongst the tomes of yesteryear, forgoing the crudity of politics and war, for a life devoted to study and contemplation. But he’d set such prosaic workings aside when he’d learned of the Everchild’s capture. Belannaer knew, better perhaps than anyone else save Teclis, what such an event meant to the fate of Ulthuan. But though he’d shed his reclusive ways and taken up his sword once more, he was still a scholar, with a scholar’s stuffiness and a pedant’s obliviousness.

‘Everything,’ Belannaer said. He gestured airily. ‘History is made of moments and the people who seized them.’ He looked at Eltharion. ‘Aliathra has seized hers. I can hear her voice on the wind, stronger now than before, for all that she’s growing weaker. Time is running short.’

‘We can only sail as fast as the wind takes us, loremaster,’ Eltharion said. He knew what Belannaer was feeling, for he’d felt it himself. The growing impatience, the anxiety of uncertainty. There were still hundreds of miles of overland travel between them and Sylvania. They would make up time by keeping to the river, but even then, there was no telling what might arise to stymie them.

‘I know, which is why I stoked the winds with my sorcery, so that we might move faster,’ Belannaer said. Eldyra looked at Eltharion.

‘I wondered why the ship was creaking so,’ she murmured. Eltharion shushed her with a quick look and said, ‘Something is different, isn’t it?’

‘Aliathra has shown me… flashes of what awaits us,’ Belannaer said. ‘There are dark forces on the move, and this is but the smallest shred of their plan. We will need allies.’ He said the last hesitantly.

Eltharion tensed. ‘Allies,’ he repeated. ‘You mean men.’

‘And the dwarfs, if they can be convinced,’ Belannaer said.

‘No,’ Eltharion said. ‘No, the dwarfs are the reason that Aliathra was captured in the first place. I’ll not surrender her fate to their hands again.’ He felt a surge of anger at the thought of it. ‘Neither will I entrust it to men.’ He shook his head. ‘They are worse even than dwarfs. They cannot be counted on.’

‘And yet we must, if we are to have any hope of rescuing the Everchild,’ Belannaer said. ‘I’ve ordered the fleet to sail due east, for the Empire of Sigmar. They know Teclis of old, and will be open to our entreaties. We gave them aid, once upon a time, and they owe Ulthuan a debt.’

‘You ordered?’ Eltharion shook his head, astounded at Belannaer’s arrogance. ‘I lead this expedition, loremaster, not you,’ he said softly.

‘You do,’ Belannaer said. ‘And I am sure you will come to the right decision eventually.’

Eltharion glanced at Eldyra. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘No, but he’s right,’ she said.

Eltharion’s eyes narrowed. Eldyra spoke quickly, ‘Think about it, cousin… Our army is small and we will have to cross lands held by men sooner or later. Better to do it with permission, and perhaps even with allies, than to fight our way through.’ She held up a hand as he made to protest. ‘We could do it. Our army, small as it is, is better than anything they can muster. But elves will die in the doing of it. And for what – pride? Better to sacrifice pride than warriors, especially where we’re going.’

Eltharion listened silently. Some of Teclis had rubbed off on her as well, he thought. Then, given how closely the twins’ fates had been linked these last few centuries, that wasn’t surprising. Eldyra had learned the art of battle as Tyrion’s squire. But she had learned something else entirely by watching Teclis’s crooked mind at work.

Regardless, she wasn’t wrong, save about his pride. It wasn’t pride that motivated him, but caution. What profit could be gleaned from faithless allies or worse, useless ones? They would hamper the clean, quick strike, and slow them down. He was certain their host could cross quickly into Sylvania, before the men could mobilise to question them. But could they then get out again, once victory had been achieved? It would be unfortunate if they succeeded in rescuing Aliathra from one savage, only to fall prey to another.

Finally, Eltharion nodded. ‘You are right, cousin, loremaster,’ he said. ‘Better we ally ourselves with willing primitives than stand alone in defeat.’

‘Then the fleet will continue east?’ Belannaer asked.

Eltharion nodded. ‘East – it is time to see if the Empire of Sigmar remembers its debts.’

The King’s Glade, Athel Loren

Durthu, Eldest of Ancients, spoke in a voice like the rustling of branches and the cracking of bark. It filled the King’s Glade, travelling through the branches of every tree and slipped from every leaf, until the air throbbed with the sound of his voice. ‘The cycle of the world begins anew, and just as the forest once aided the folk of Ulthuan in days now slid from mortal memory, it shall do so again.’ Durthu shifted his immense weight as he spoke, and the air was rent by the squeal of twisting branches and the dull, wet crunch of popping roots. The treeman was the oldest of his kind, and his mind was like the forest itself: vast, wild and unpredictable.

Araloth watched as a ripple of murmurs spread through the assembled ranks of the Council of Athel Loren where they sat. It was rare that Durthu spoke, and rarer still that he spoke so lucidly. More and more often these days, his mind was awash in the forest’s rage, and he spoke words of war and madness. But here was the calm Durthu of old, the wise spirit who had so often guided his folk in ages past. Araloth felt a twinge of sadness as he watched the ancient tree-spirit speak. The forest was dying, glade by glade, rotting from within and falling to the madness that had poured forth from the Vaults of Winter. Soon enough, if it was not halted, Durthu would join many of his kin in either decay or madness. And that would be a terrible moment indeed.

Araloth pushed the thought aside and concentrated on Durthu’s words. ‘But as in those days, there will be a price for the forest’s aid, Everqueen of Ulthuan,’ Durthu said, his ageless eyes fixed on the proud figure of Alarielle. She stood before the council, bound in chains of leaves and vines, as was customary.

The Everqueen lifted her chin and said, ‘I know nothing of these events, revered ancient, but whatever your price, know that I will pay it willingly and in full.’ Her voice possessed a liquid musicality to it that, in other circumstances would have seemed the epitome of beauty to Araloth. But now, he could hear the sadness that tainted its harmonies, and the desperation that had driven its owner to this point.

At her words, the trees of the glade seemed to sigh, though whether in sadness or triumph, Araloth couldn’t say. Nor did he wish to guess. The forest had a mind of its own, one that no elf could attempt to fathom, not if they wished to remain sane.

Durthu receded back into his place. Having said his piece, the Eldest of Ancients had fallen silent. The bargain had been struck, and there was nothing more to be said. The Council was quick to act. One of them stood and met Araloth’s gaze. ‘You heard?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ Araloth said. He knew what was coming next, for it was the only reason that he would have been summoned to witness what had just occurred.

‘You, Lord of Talsyn, and champion of the Mage Queen, will assemble a host to pierce black Sylvania, and lend our cousins aid in their rescue attempt.’

‘I will,’ Araloth said, simply. Nothing more needed to be said. His mind was already hard at work on the logistics of such an undertaking. Axe Bite Pass would be the quickest route. They would head north, through Parravon. There would be dangers aplenty, but he had little doubt that it could be done. He would request volunteers. He would not order any to follow him into such a place.

The chains of vines and leaves fell from the Everqueen as the audience ended. Two of the Mage Queen’s handmaidens, Naestra and Arahan, waited to take Alarielle to the place of reckoning, where her part of the bargain, whatever it was, would be fulfilled. Araloth did not envy her the task to come. She glanced at the handmaidens, and then strode towards him. ‘My daughter,’ she said.

‘I will do all that it is in my power to do for her,’ he said quietly.

‘As will I,’ she said, looking into his eyes. She took his hand and squeezed it. He felt a shock as something passed between them. When she released his hand, he saw that she had pressed a locket into his palm. He looked at her questioningly.

‘It will lead you to my daughter,’ she said. ‘Let us hope, for the sakes of those we love, that you reach her in time.’

Eight

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

Mannfred felt a hum of satisfaction ripple through him as he watched Arkhan take in the room, and its treasures. There, the lecterns that held the damned tomes of Nagash. Nine, now, rather than the seven they had been, thanks to Arkhan.

And amidst them sat the Crown of Sorcery, pulsing softly with its weird light. Arkhan stood before the crown, and reached out a hand. Mannfred was possessed by a sudden urge to rip him away from it, but he wrestled the feeling down. It would not do to start a fight. Not now.

From above, the vargheists growled warningly. They hissed and snarled as the liche ran his fingers over the crown, but fell silent at Mannfred’s gesture. Arkhan traced the wicked iron points that topped Nagash’s crown, and then let his hand drop. He did not look at Mannfred when he said, ‘You have the Claw as well.’ It wasn’t a question.

Mannfred crossed his arms and smirked. ‘Indeed.’

‘Where?’

‘Not here,’ Mannfred said.

Arkhan turned. ‘Even now, you do not trust me.’ The liche cocked his head. ‘You are wise, in your generation.’ He turned towards the prisoners. ‘I thought you enjoyed their escape attempts. Why torture them?’

The prisoners hung in their chains, broken and beaten. They stank of death now, as much as anything else in the castle. Their flesh had been gouged and burned and flayed, and all remaining armour had been stripped from those who wore it. They had been crippled and hobbled, and hovered on the brink of death. Only Mannfred’s sorcerous artifice kept them from tipping over entirely into the void. Mannfred strode past Arkhan and wrenched up Volkmar’s head. Of the nine, only the old man and Aliathra were still conscious. The vampire looked at the elf woman. Her eyes were closed, but her lips moved silently. He wondered whether she, like the nature priest, had slipped at last into madness. Or worse, into damnation like Morgiana.

Volkmar glared defiantly up at him with exhausted, pain-clouded eyes. Mannfred leaned close, drinking in his captive’s pain and helplessness. ‘Because the time for games is done. If you can do as you claimed, then it is time to put away childish things and get to work,’ he said, staring at Volkmar. He leaned close to the old man. ‘Don’t you agree, Volkmar? Aren’t you tired of this never-ending game of ours? Don’t you want to see it end, finally, once and for all?’

Volkmar hawked a gobbet of bloody spittle into Mannfred’s face. Mannfred released the old man’s head and stepped back. He wiped the spittle from his face and smiled. He felt no anger at the gesture. It was nothing more than the defiance of a peasant on the block. He looked at Arkhan and gestured. ‘Well – I allowed you in here for a reason, liche. Tell me… Which one?’

Arkhan picked his way carefully across the blood-stained floor, and he gazed at each of the nine in turn. His hell-spark eyes lingered on the elf woman for a moment, and Mannfred felt himself tense, though he could not say why. Arkhan motioned to the unconscious form of the Myrmidian knight, Blaze. ‘You were correct, earlier. This one. His blood is powerful, but not as much as that of the others. It is diluted, and thus perfect for our purposes.’

Mannfred nodded slightly. ‘As I suspected.’

‘You have already assembled much of what is required. But we still lack three things.’ Arkhan turned. ‘Three items tied to the Great Necromancer’s death. All lie within reach of Sylvania, and all require but the proper application of force to acquire. Neither guile nor cunning will be necessary. Luckily for you,’ Arkhan said.

Mannfred twitched. He closed his eyes and fought to control his temper. Arkhan was baiting him, but he would not give the liche the satisfaction. ‘I know all of this, you black-toothed hank of gristle. What I do not know is how you intend to help me acquire them.’

‘I told you – the secret is in the blood,’ Arkhan said, motioning to the floor. ‘The true question is, how are we to divide the work to come?’

Mannfred ran his hands over his bare head. ‘Ah, well, there I think is my contribution. Before your – ah – timely arrival, I was already concocting stratagems for that very purpose. Heldenhame is too obvious a target, and too close. If we strike there first, our enemies will surely know that we have escaped the cage they made for me. For us,’ Mannfred said. ‘I suggest we divide our forces. You came close to acquiring Nagash’s staff, Alakanash, from La Maisontaal Abbey once… Best you succeed this time.’

Arkhan didn’t react to his dig. ‘And the Fellblade?’

‘Not far from here, as you said. My spies have brought word that it is in the possession of the skaven somewhere in Mad Dog Pass, as you yourself are likely already aware.’

Arkhan inclined his head. ‘And you will acquire it?’

‘I will.’ Mannfred gestured down at the map. ‘We will depart via the western border, I think. It will give you the quickest path into Bretonnia, and me the quickest into the Border Princes. Speed is of the essence, but it will still take us most of the year. I suggest that we save Heldenhame for our coming out party, as it were.’

Arkhan looked down at the map. He looked up. ‘Agreed. It will take me some time to prepare. A few days, no more than that.’

‘Excellent. It will take me that long to see to raising a proper host, to carry us in style to our respective destinations.’ Mannfred spread his hands. And to ensure that you return on your shield, rather than behind it, ally-mine, he thought. ‘If you were capable of drinking, I’d raise a toast to you, oh mighty Arkhan.’

‘And if I had any interest in drinking with you, Mannfred, I would accept. Go, you may leave me here. I must attune myself to your sorceries and find the right strands to pull and those to cut.’ Mannfred hesitated, and Arkhan gave a rasping laugh. ‘Fear not, vampire. Leave your dogs to guard me, if you wish. Summon ghouls or assign your pantomime Templars to stand sentinel over me, to ensure that I do not steal your treasures. I care not.’

Mannfred bowed shallowly. ‘You cannot fault me for being overcautious, Lord Arkhan. Allies, in my experience, are as the shifting sands – untrustworthy as a matter of course. But you shame me with your generosity of spirit, and courtly manner. I leave you, sir, to do as you must. And I go to do as I must.’ Mannfred swept his cloak up about him and turned and left.

As he stalked through the corridors of Castle Sternieste, Mannfred forced aside the worries that gnawed at him. He didn’t trust Arkhan, but he had little choice at this juncture. As old and as learned as he was in the arts of sorcery, Arkhan was older still. The liche had likely forgotten more about magic than Mannfred would ever be able to learn. He had been present at the birth of necromancy, and he was as good as Nagash’s will given form.

But that wouldn’t save him, once he’d outlived his usefulness.

Something yowled, and he paused. He looked up and saw Arkhan’s detestable cat slinking through the ancient support timbers above. It glared down at him with milky-eyed malevolence, fleshless tail twitching. Mannfred’s eyes narrowed. Was it watching him – spying for its master? He raised his hand, ready to blast it from existence, when something stopped him. He caught a glimpse of a massive, gaunt shape, twitching and flickering with witch-fire, out of the corner of his eye, like a giant squatting to fill the corridor behind him, and he whirled with a snarl. But there was nothing there. No giant and no shadow, save his own.

When he looked back up, the cat had vanished.

Mannfred looked around once more, and then continued on his way. He soon arrived at the high garden that he had made his war chamber for the coming campaign. He could not say why he had done so; he had rarely visited the high garden in all the months he had made Sternieste his home.

And do you remember why you avoided coming to Sternieste? Vlad purred softly. This was my garden, wasn’t it? Where I held my councils of war, in that golden age between conquest and damnation, while Sylvania was still to be won. I am honoured that you have chosen to honour my memory in such a way, my most attentive student.

Mannfred stopped. He ran his hands over the crown of his head. He had had hair once, a luxuriant mane of hair, the hue of a raven’s wing. He had been beautiful, and proud of that beauty. But after rising from the sump of Hel Fenn, he had shaved his head. His return was a rebirth. In death, he had been purged of old failings and faults, and vanity was discarded with the rest. Or so he’d thought.

Really, though, it had been to mark himself as different to Vlad. Vlad, with his icy mane and aristocratic mien; Vlad who held to the noble traditions of a long-gone empire – including the superstition that councils of war should be held in the open air, beneath the eyes of the gods so as to gain their favour.

Mannfred felt a chill course through him. Was that why he had been drawn to Sternieste, to the garden? Was he unconsciously imitating Vlad?

How many of Nagash’s detestable tomes did I gather again? One or two, surely. Your initiative in that regard is impressive, I must say. Then, you never did know how to quit while you were ahead, did you? Vlad laughed.

No, no, he had chosen Sternieste for the strategic advantage it provided. And the garden… Well, few others even knew it existed, which made it the ideal spot to confer with his subordinates without danger of eavesdroppers.

Am I so poor an example, then? Vlad whispered.

‘You’re dead. You tell me,’ Mannfred muttered. Vlad’s laughter accompanied him into the garden, where the inner circle of the Drakenhof Templars sat or stood, arguing loudly amongst themselves. Well, Anark and Markos were arguing, which had become an annoyingly regular occurrence. The two vampires snarled and cursed at one another, and Mannfred thought they might come to blows. He paused, waiting, amused now, his previous uncertainties forgotten.

‘Oh very good,’ he said, after the spectre of violence had passed on, thwarted. ‘I do so enjoy a spirited debate. I hope it was about something important.’

‘He refuses to acquiesce to my authority,’ Anark growled. Elize had one hand on his shoulder and her other pressed flat to Markos’s chest.

‘When you show me a reason to respect the puerile demands that flutter from your flapping lips, perhaps I will,’ Markos snapped.

Mannfred sighed and strode between them. Elize retreated as Mannfred’s hands snapped out and his fingers fastened on the throat of either vampire. Unliving muscle swelled as Mannfred hauled them both up and off their feet and into the air. ‘This debate, while amusing, is most assuredly moot, my friends. The only authority here to which you must acquiesce is mine own.’ Point made, he dropped them both. Anark, with a beast’s wisdom, scrambled away. Markos sat and glared, rubbing his throat. Mannfred ignored him.

‘The liche thinks that he can shatter the mystic cage that holds us,’ he said, pushing aside the flicker of anger that accompanied those words. ‘Out, all of you. Rouse the barrow-legions and draw the souls of the cursed dead from the stones where they sleep. The muster of Sternieste marches to war, and I would have every muck-encrusted bone and ragged shroud ready. Go, fly, rouse my army,’ Mannfred said, sweeping out a hand.

Markos and the others filed out of the garden. But before Elize could follow them, Mannfred stopped her. As he did so, he noticed that her pets hesitated. Brute and shadow, Anark and the Crowfiend. Anark hesitated more obviously, waiting like a loyal hound. The Crowfiend lurked outside the entrance to the garden, as if he were only stopping to admire the mouldy tapestries that dangled from the walls there. Mannfred looked at Elize and she motioned delicately to Anark. He turned and left, visibly reluctant. The Crowfiend drifted away a moment later, silent and seemingly unconcerned.

‘The loyalty you inspire in your get awes me, Elize,’ Mannfred said. He clasped his hands behind his back and strode towards the tree. ‘Do I inspire the same devotion in any creature?’

‘I am your loyal servant, my lord,’ Elize said softly.

‘So you have shown again and again, sweet cousin.’ Mannfred glanced at her. ‘You are one of the rocks upon which my foundations stand.’ He looked away. ‘We are sallying forth from this besieged province, cousin, and I would have the Drakenhof Templars in the vanguard.’

‘We have ever stood at the narrowest point, my lord,’ Elize said.

‘That point, I’m afraid, is going to become narrower still.’ He lifted a hand, and spoke a single, shuddering syllable. The air thickened and the light dimmed, as if a fog had settled over the garden. ‘There,’ Mannfred said. ‘Now we can speak freely with one another, without curious ears eavesdropping. Anark will accompany Arkhan into Bretonnia.’

‘Bretonnia,’ Elize repeated. She hesitated, and then nodded. Mannfred had not told his inner circle just what he was after, but he had no doubt that the brighter sparks among them had already guessed. ‘Are you certain now is the time, my lord?’

‘Was that a question, or a suggestion?’ Mannfred asked. ‘Arkhan’s usefulness is finite. Can your pet be trusted to do this thing for me, sweet cousin?’ Mannfred asked, looking up at the tree. It seemed to be flourishing anew, its limbs growing gnarled and strong, as if it were feeding on the mortal energies of the dead things gathered at Sternieste. He traced the jagged contours of its crumbling bark with a finger.

‘He can, my lord,’ Elize said.

‘You sound confident.’

‘In Anark’s strength and willingness? Yes, cousin, I am. I chose him for those qualities.’

Mannfred smiled. ‘Ah, cousin, my cousin, you were ever the darling of dear, sweet, mad Isabella’s eye, in those glorious times now gone to dust and memory. She relied much on you, in those final days, while Vlad was occupied with the war.’

Elize said nothing, but silence was as good an answer as anything she might have chosen to say, to Mannfred’s way of thinking. He glanced over his shoulder at Elize, studying her. ‘You were alone among her handmaidens in your practicality and – dare I say it? – your sanity. A mind second only to my own, I have often said.’

‘Have you, my lord? I have never heard you say such about anyone,’ Elize said mildly. Mannfred raised his brow in surprise. Elize was normally quite circumspect. He expected such comments from Markos, but Elize…

‘You are worried, then,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘Should I send another of your creatures? The Crowfiend, perhaps? Erikan of Mousillon,’ he continued, and his smile turned feral as a brief look of consternation crossed her perfectly composed features. ‘Oh yes, I smelt the stink of that particular demesne on him, the poor boy. He is the last surviving pup of the Cannibal Knight of Mousillon, of infamous memory, isn’t he? The Bretonnians burned that lot in their sewer palaces. The Cannibal Knight, his princess of Bel-Aliad, and their squalling retainers. Royalty, that one, at least insofar as the Bretonni judge these things. He has no idea, of course, and I shall not tell him.’ He crossed the space between them and caught her chin. ‘That shall be my gift to you, hmm? From one loving cousin to another.’ He lifted her chin, so that her eyes met his. ‘Shall I send him instead of Anark, perhaps? Or both together?’

‘As you wish, my lord,’ Elize said.

Mannfred released her and stepped back. He chuckled. ‘What game are you playing, sweet cousin, that you will not share your moves with me?’

‘It is but a small one, to amuse myself,’ she said.

‘I’ve often wondered… How did you woo him? Or did he woo you, the necromancer’s apprentice trailing after the beautiful lady without mercy?’ Mannfred turned away. ‘He angered you, though, your cannibal prince. I know that much. He left to follow his own path, without a word of thanks for all your efforts to groom him into something greater. What was your plan then? Was he to be a stepping stone to influence elsewhere?’

‘As I said, my lord, it was but a small amusement,’ Elize said.

She was lying. Mannfred nodded nonetheless, as if he believed her. ‘Then you will not mind if I send both. If one of your creatures fails, then the other will not.’

Elize’s face might as well have been a marble mask. ‘As you will, my lord. Who, dear cousin, will accompany you? And who will be castellan here?’

‘The latter is easy enough – you,’ he said.

She blinked. Then, she inclined her head. ‘You honour me, cousin.’

‘I know. See that you do not disappoint me. I’d hate to accomplish my goals, only to return to a burned-out ruin, and a scattered army.’ He ran his palms over his head and said, ‘As for who shall accompany me… Markos and our good Vargravian count, Nyktolos. Both have warred in the Border Princes before, and their experience is required. Master Nictus will stay with you, to act as your good right hand.’

Elize hesitated. Then, ‘Are you certain you wish to take Markos?’

Mannfred looked at her. ‘Concerned for my wellbeing, sweet cousin?’

‘If I were not, would I have warned you of Tomas’s intentions, all those months ago, before this affair even began? Would I have warned you that he’d made an agreement with von Dohl, that he was promised command of the armies of Waldenhof, if he took your head?’

‘As I recall, you warned me so that I might allow you to choose the next Grand Master of the Drakenhof Order. A straight bargain, Elize.’ Mannfred laughed. ‘And even if I hadn’t known, Tomas would have failed. He was a maggot, nothing more, just like von Dohl, and the cursed Shadowlord and all the others who defy my blood-right.’

‘Like Markos?’

Mannfred paused. ‘Markos has never been… comfortable in a subordinate role. Vlad spoiled him. He had a peculiar fondness for acerbity in his servants.’

And you would know, wouldn’t you, boy? Vlad’s voice murmured. Mannfred ignored it and continued, ‘It is a fondness that I do not, on the whole, share.’ Of course not. You never could stand to be questioned could you, young prince? Vlad needled him. Mannfred felt his cheek twitch as he sought to restrain a snarl of frustration. ‘I am giving Markos a chance. He will serve, or he will make his move,’ he said. ‘Either way, I am too close to victory to allow him to remain undecided. We are coming to the sharp end of all things, sweet cousin. The time when sides must be chosen, and banners unfurled for the last time. All games save mine must be put aside, for the good of all who bear the von Carstein name.’ He looked at her. ‘Including yours, my sweet Elize.’

‘Do you dream, old man?’ Arkhan asked. He examined Volkmar from a distance, head cocked. He had stood in the same place since Mannfred had left, soaking up the miasma of the place, drinking in the concentrated essence of his master’s earthly remains. All that had been Nagash, save for certain pieces, was here, and he could feel the Great Necromancer’s presence beating down upon his brain like a terrible black sun. ‘I think you do. You can hear his footsteps in the hollows of your heart, and his voice in the sour places of your memory, even as I can.’

Volkmar said nothing. He glared at Arkhan as silently as he had Mannfred. Arkhan leaned against his staff. He was not weary, but sometimes he felt what might be the ghost of such a feeling, deep in his bones. ‘I see the skull beneath your skin, old man. It’s no use denying it. He has chosen you.’

‘He is chosen, and by Lord Mannfred,’ Morgiana hissed. She rose from where she’d been crouching in the corner and sauntered towards Arkhan, as far as her chains would allow. Unlike the others, she hadn’t been beaten to within an inch of her life. She no longer had a life to lose. She glowed with the cold fire of undeath to Arkhan’s eyes, and he did not wonder why she was still chained. She had been threat enough in life. In death she was even more dangerous. Or she would be, once she learned the new limits of her power.

Arkhan examined her curiously. She was kept with the others both because she made for a cruelly amusing gaoler, and because even Mannfred wasn’t so foolish as to let a creature like Morgiana Le Fay wander loose. Her blood still pulsed with the raw stuff of life, as did her magics. It was only her presence that kept the other captives from slipping over the precipice into death’s domain. Mannfred had truly wrought something abominable when he’d turned her. Still, there was yet a sliver of the woman she had been within the beast he’d made of her.

‘How did he acquire you, I wonder?’ he murmured, drawing close to her. She hissed and retreated, her eyes narrowing with pain. Arkhan stopped. Some vampires, those with an unusual sensitivity to the winds of death, felt pain in his presence. He was little more than the power of necromancy given form, and for some vampires, that was the difference between being warmed by flames and burned by them.

Morgiana’s beautiful features twisted into an expression of bestial malice. ‘Drycha,’ she spat. Arkhan nodded. The branchwraith of Athel Loren had ever been a changeable and unpredictable factor. It did not surprise him that she had brought Morgiana to Mannfred. That sort of malevolent caprice was what Drycha was best at.

‘Free me, liche, and I shall aid you in whatever way you wish,’ Morgiana said, the mask of humanity slipping back over her face. She rattled her chains for emphasis. ‘I shall abet you and comfort you. My magics – all that I am – will be at your disposal.’

Arkhan let a raspy laugh slip between his fleshless jaws. ‘I doubt that, woman. Mannfred keeps you chained for good reason. You are more dangerous now than you were in your enchanted Bretonnian bower.’

Morgiana snarled and sprang for him. Arkhan didn’t move. He had stopped just out of the reach of her chains, and she tumbled heavily to the floor, where she rolled about, writhing and shrieking like a she-wolf in a trap. She spat bloody froth at him, and where it struck the floor, green patches of moss flourished, before swiftly withering and dying.

He turned away from her display, focusing his attentions on the Everchild, where she hung in her chains, eyes closed, lips moving in a silent song. And it was a song, for Arkhan could hear it, even if Mannfred could not. It was a hymn, a sorcerous prayer, subtle yet powerful enough to pierce the bindings Mannfred had placed about Sylvania. It was a thing of intricate beauty to his eyes and sorcerous sense, a crystalline web that stretched upwards from Aliathra, growing in strength and size, as she powered the spell with her own life essence.

‘I wonder if they have heard you yet, child?’ he asked as he approached her. ‘I think they have. I can feel the burden of gathering destinies. Your song calls your kin to your side. Perhaps you have wondered why I have not stopped you?’

The elf did not reply. Her eyes remained shut, and her lips continued to move. Arkhan brushed a strand of her hair from her face, and he felt her clammy skin quiver at his touch. ‘It serves the ends of the one whom I serve, you see. I tell you this so that you understand that we are both pawns, and that there is no malice in my actions.’

Her eyes flashed open. Arkhan lowered his hand. There was fire there, and rage. It crashed against the coldness of him, and he almost flinched back. As much power as inundated his cracked and ancient bones, the fury that lurked in the elf maiden’s blood was greater by far. It was power enough to shatter continents and crack the world’s core.

For a moment, Arkhan felt fire and pain. Then it passed, and he was himself again. He found that his cat had returned, its maggoty body pressed tight to his shoulders. Its weight had come upon him unnoticed, and it hissed at the elf maiden with feline disdain. He reached up and stroked the animal’s decaying throat. Aliathra’s eyes were closed. Arkhan turned away, disturbed.

That disturbance did not lessen in the coming days, as he prepared for the ritual that would allow for escape from the caged province. He saw Ogiers and the others but little over the following days. The trio of necromancers he’d scavenged from the ruins of Mallobaude’s army had scattered the moment they arrived, slipping his reins to find newer, more pliable partners or masters. It would have been a matter of moments to summon them back to his side, but for the moment he left them free to pursue their whims. Morgiana, despite her madness and untrustworthy nature, still had an able mind, and she proved an able replacement, in between pleas for release and demands for blood. It was fitting that she was such, for she was, herself, one of the cornerstones of the very ritual that formed the root of their current predicament.

He had faced Morgiana only briefly on the field of Couronne during Mallobaude’s revolt, but that confrontation had shown him the nature of the power that lurked beneath Bretonnia’s barbaric facade. That Morgiana was still somehow connected to it, despite her current state only confirmed his suspicions. Necromancy, at its base, had been born in elven minds, or so Nagash swore. He had altered it, and forced it into a shape more to his liking, but its seed had been planted in the wisdom of Aliathra’s dark kin, even as Morgiana’s own had its roots in the secret glades of Athel Loren.

The collegial magics that had been used to create the wall of faith were similar, albeit watered down, and altered still further to account for the frailty of the human frame. Luckily, that was something Arkhan no longer had to worry about.

As the weeks progressed, he eventually ordered Morgiana unchained, to better aid him in preparing his form for the rite to come. His bones had to be carved with the proper sigils and runes, and the ritual knife he would use had to be soaked in the blood of each of the nine captives for a certain amount of time. The proper bindings had to be prepared, as well as the unguents and powders that would be used to mark the circle and feed the braziers. Many hands made for light work, and Morgiana had proved to be pliable enough, once freed.

Time passed strangely for the dead. It moved in fits and starts, as slow as tar and as fast as quicksilver. Arkhan could only keep track of the days by the puddles of melted candle fat, so engrossed was he in studying the Books of Nagash, as well as the other grimoires he ordered brought to him by the whining ghoul pack Mannfred had given him to act as his dogsbodies. He read and studied and read still more, and as they always did in such times, the unoccupied portions of his mind drifted into the depths of memory, and were reluctant to return. He had once spent a decade brooding on his throne in his black tower in the desert, lost in the grip of his memories. They were all that he had of himself that was not of Nagash’s crafting. Or so part of him hoped.

On the last day, when the last mark was added to his scrimshawed bones and the last powder mixed and all preparations made, Arkhan stood in the centre of the chamber, admiring his handiwork. Over the centuries, he had carved and shaped his own bones more than once. Unlike his long-abandoned flesh, his bones always healed, and his work faded eventually. They would not have long before the marks he and Morgiana had so painstakingly made would vanish, necessitating that they start the whole purification rite over again. He sent the ghouls scrambling to alert Mannfred and turned to Morgiana. ‘It is time, enchantress. I thank you for your service.’ He paused, and then asked, ‘Would you see your land again, one last time? As payment, for services rendered.’ Even as he spoke he wondered when such a thing had occurred to him.

Morgiana looked at him and then away. ‘I do not think so. I know what you intend, and I know that I cannot stop you, but I would not see it.’

‘Very well.’ Arkhan looked at her.

‘You are going to kill me, aren’t you?’ Morgiana asked, suddenly.

Arkhan hesitated. ‘You are already dead,’ he said.

‘No, I am not. If I were, this would not work,’ she said, gesturing to the runnels of blood that cut across the floor. ‘If I were, I would not feel the way I do.’ She ran her hands through the ratty tangles of her once luxurious hair. ‘How can anything dead be so hungry?’ Her eyes, fever-bright with barely restrained madness, turned towards her fellow captives. All but Aliathra were unconscious, even Volkmar. Morgiana had been feeding on all of them, save those two, to keep them docile while Arkhan completed his preparations. It was the first taste of blood she’d had in a long while, and it was that which had shocked her back to something approaching lucidity. ‘It’s always with me,’ she said. ‘I can hear the Lady’s voice, but only faintly, as if I am on the opposite shore of a vast, red lake. Sometimes her words are entirely drowned out by the crash of the crimson waves on the white rocks.’ She looked at him. ‘Can you even understand, dead thing that you are?’

‘I… can,’ he said. He crossed to her as faint echoes of memory were stirred from the sludge of ages and rose unencumbered to the surface of his mind. Of another woman, of another time, of another ritual, marred by poison and betrayal. Unthinkingly, he brushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘My spirit will never know peace. I must play my part until the end of time.’

‘I thought I would as well, but the world had other plans,’ she whispered, not looking at him. ‘My path changed. And I cannot bear to see where it is taking me.’

‘I… knew a woman like you, once,’ he croaked, wondering as he spoke why he was bothering to do so. What matter to him the travails of a madwoman? Then, perhaps his unlife had simply given him perspective. Even as a man, he had never been given to torture. ‘She too was afraid, and had lost the voice of her goddess.’ He fell silent.

She looked at him, and for a moment he saw the face of another superimposed over hers. A pale face, framed by hair the colour of night, with eyes like molten pools and lips that could change from kind to cruel with the merest twitch. Even now, when his mind was not otherwise occupied, he could see her face. Her hands reached up to stroke his jawbone. ‘What happened to her?’ she murmured.

‘She persevered,’ he said. ‘She was a queen, and queens do not know fear for long.’

Morgiana closed her eyes. ‘I do not think I will have that opportunity. You will kill me, won’t you?’ she asked again.

‘I will,’ Arkhan said. ‘In the end, nine are required for the final ritual, though eight will suffice. But no less than that.’ He stroked her cheek. Some part of him snarled in warning, but he ignored it. The chamber had been replaced by another in his mind’s eye, of cool marble and sandstone. He could smell the ocean, and hear the rustle of silk curtains. ‘There will be no pain… That I swear.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘That is what I needed to know.’ Her hand dropped. A moment later, his knife was jerked from its sheath and Morgiana had its tip pressed to the flesh over her heart. The flesh of her hand sizzled as the malign enchantments wrought into the blade resisted her touch. Marble and silk again became mouldy stone and the stink of abused flesh.

Arkhan lunged forward, hand outstretched. ‘Neferata,’ he rasped, momentarily uncertain what was memory and what was reality. She shoved him back, her vampiric strength taking him by surprise. He staggered. ‘No, please…’ he said, still caught in the tangled strands of memory. He saw Neferata writhing on her bed, caught in the throes of an agonising death. He felt Abhorash’s blade, as it cut him down. The full weight of the last, worst moment of a life badly spent crashed down on him for the first time in centuries, and he could not bear it. ‘Please don’t!’ The words were ripped from him before he even realised that he’d said them.

Morgiana smiled in triumph. ‘My path was changed. But I can change it back.’ She wrapped both hands around the hilt, and thrust it into her own heart. Black smoke boiled from the wound, and blood gushed as she toppled forward into Arkhan’s arms.

The liche screamed. The sound was one of frustration, rage and despair. As her blood coated his arms and chest, he knew what she had done. It had taken her weeks, but she had ensnared him in her glamour, making him see… and feel. Rage burned through him, and then guttered out. He cradled her close as the last wisps of the glamour faded and he was himself again. No longer Arkhan the gambler, Arkhan the dread lord, now only Arkhan the Black.

He tore the knife from her chest and hurled it aside. He hesitated. Her face was peaceful, in death. But some part of her yet remained. Vampires could not truly die. He could bring her back with but a touch, to stir the black sorceries that flowed through her tainted blood. But still, he hesitated.

From behind him came a yowl. He turned and saw his cat crouched atop Nagash’s crown. Its starved, crumbling frame was draped over the iron points, tail lashing. Its empty eyes met his own and he nodded slowly. He looked back down at Morgiana and said, ‘No, my lady. Escape is not so easy as all that, I fear.’

He placed a hand against the wound, and dark lightning crackled briefly from his fingers to course through Morgiana. Her body twitched and her eyes opened wide. Her lips spread and a scream escaped them. It was a sound empty of all hope. She clawed uselessly at him, and he jerked her to her feet. In moments, she was chained once more. She crouched against the wall, sobbing. Arkhan watched her for a moment, before turning away.

He felt eyes on him, and looked around to meet Aliathra’s gaze. ‘Were you amused, Everchild? I have heard that your folk drink deep of the cup of mortal suffering, finding it to be exquisite.’

‘No,’ she spoke, her voice soft. ‘I was simply surprised that it worked. I thought dead things could not be ensnared thus. Then, you are not truly dead, are you?’ Arkhan said nothing. The elf smiled sadly. ‘For that to have worked, there must be some kernel yet of the man you once were, trapped in the husk of you, Arkhan the Black. Some small touch of mercy.’

The cat shrieked, and Arkhan turned away. ‘No. There is not,’ he said, finally. He picked up his staff and slammed it down. The chamber echoed with the sound, and he heard the howl of the vargheists who lurked in the shadows above drift down in reply. The cat leapt onto his shoulder. The vargheists dropped down heavily, snarling and snapping at one another. Arkhan pointed his staff at the unconscious form of Lupio Blaze. ‘Unchain him, and bring him. I grow weary of Sylvania. It is time to leave.’

Sylvania, the western border

‘We are still agreed, then?’ Mannfred asked, hands crossed on his saddle’s pommel as he leaned over his mount’s neck. The horse-thing was all bone and eldritch fire, and it stank of charnel pits and mouldering ashes. ‘West for you and east for me.’

‘As we agreed,’ Arkhan said. He stood at the centre of his carefully prepared ritual circle. At his feet, pinned to the ground by crudely forged bronze spikes, was the pain-contorted shape of Lupio Blaze. Black candles, with tallow rendered from human flesh, surrounded the circle, as did a number of smoking iron braziers.

And in the distance, the only obstacle between them and the return of the Undying King. Gelt’s wall of faith rode dips and curves of the border; the symbols of Morr, Sigmar, Ulric and a dozen other gods, some real, some not, hung suspended in the air, glowing with a terrible, painful light. The western border was one of the few places where the cursed barrier was visible to the naked eye, and thus the perfect spot to ensure that the spell had actually worked.

Behind Mannfred, the army of Sylvania waited. Arkhan would take only a small bodyguard of Drakenhof Templars and his dissolute cadre of necromancers into Bretonnia, while Mannfred would lead the vast bulk of the waiting army into the Border Princes. Above the silent army, the Drakenhof banner fluttered like a dying snake.

‘Excellent,’ Mannfred said. He leaned back in his saddle and slapped his thigh. ‘Well… on with it, liche. I have a world to conquer and no time to dally.’ He jerked on his mount’s reins and galloped off to rejoin his waiting blood knights.

Arkhan watched him go and then looked down at the knight. ‘Any last words, warrior?’ Arkhan asked softly. Blaze glared up at him defiantly, and spat something virulent in Tilean. Arkhan nodded respectfully. ‘As it should be. A brave man’s final words ought to be unrepeatable,’ he said.

Arkhan began to chant, slowly at first, and then faster, the words bursting from him like a cascade of rocks down a cliff-face. He spoke in the tongue of Nehekhara, and it came as easily to him as the memory of his first death. He spat the words into the teeth of the growing wind, and the vast faces, bloated and loathsome that leered down at him through the tattered veils of reality. The words were as much promise as invocation, and the world squirmed about him as his voice tore great wounds in the air. Thunder rumbled overhead. Black lightning, blacker than the dark sky, split the air, creating jagged cracks in the firmament full of squamous, daemonic shapes, which writhed and fought.

Ghostly shapes, half formed and inhuman, spiralled madly about Arkhan and his captive, and wolves, both dead and alive, began to howl. The bitter air grew thick and poisonous, as the weight of the forces Arkhan was invoking settled on the world. He drew the bone dagger from the jewelled sheath on his belt with his free hand and dropped down to crouch over the knight. The same dagger that had almost taken Morgiana’s life would now spill the blood of her fellow captive. ‘Rest assured that your sacrifice will help to save the world, warrior. Take that thought with you into the embrace of your goddess, for however long it lasts.’

Then, with two swift movements, he slit the knight’s wrist and thigh, releasing twin sprays of red blood to splash onto the thirsty ground. Blaze’s struggles grew weaker, and his curses quieter, as his life emptied itself into the soil of Sylvania. Arkhan stood, and raised his hand. His fingers snapped closed and the candles tumbled over, setting the pooling blood alight. The fire raced about the circle, spiralling upwards with a loud roar, consuming everything within, save for Arkhan, who stood untouched by the greedy flames. His robes whipped about him as he raised his hand, and the flames tore at the heavens in reply. The fire whirled about him in a flickering typhoon of destruction, and in the coruscating surface of the flames he could see the faces of his enemies, gnashing their teeth and cursing him silently. Arkhan let the flames spill upwards into the sky.

And then he snuffed them with a snap of his bony fingers. The fire went out, leaving him in a circle of char and ash. He stood for a time, as the magics he had raised coursed through him. He had taken the power that had hidden in the knight’s blood into himself, and he could feel it roil in his nonexistent veins. Its fury had momentarily silenced the voice of his master within him, and he felt as if an indescribable weight had been lifted from his old bones. He looked at his hand, considering the power he now held. It would be so easy to use it for himself, to do as he wished, for once. He could dispatch his rivals here, take Mannfred’s acquisitions for himself and remake this blighted land into something that would ride out the coming storm better than the eternal abattoir the vampire imagined. A land of order and perfect, beautiful silence, where no daemon or dark power, save himself, held sway.

He looked up and met Mannfred’s cool, calculating glare. A giant shadow hung over the vampire, looming above him, its black gaze on Arkhan. He knew that he was the only one who could see it, who could feel the impatient malevolence that boiled off it like steam. Who was it looking out of the vampire’s eyes right now? What black brain drove Mannfred in his efforts?

Arkhan knew the answer well enough. He had seen it before, on the Valsborg Bridge, and in Castle Sternieste. The world buckled beneath the weight of a dark fate, and one that he knew better than to try and avoid. ‘Nagash must rise,’ Arkhan murmured. He motioned slowly, and the ashes at his feet stirred, rising as if caught in a hot wind. They played about his fingers as he gestured with his knife and called out, ‘Bring your standard forward, vampire.’

Mannfred gestured. A blood knight rode towards Arkhan, carrying the Drakenhof banner. Arkhan anointed the ancestral banner of the Sylvanian aristocracy with a handful of ashes. ‘Carry the banner to the wall.’

The standard-bearer glanced at Mannfred, who motioned towards the partition. The blood knight grimaced visibly, and then kicked his coal-black steed into motion towards the wall of faith. As the armoured vampire extended the standard towards the hovering holy symbols, there was a flash, and one by one, the sigils and symbols tumbled from the air to land heavily on the ground. Mannfred stood up in his saddle and waved his hand. ‘Forward!’ he shouted. ‘For Sylvania, and for the world to come!’

Nine

Hvargir Forest, the Border Princes

Mannfred lifted the pale arm from his lap and sent it and the bloodless body it was attached to thudding to the ground with a negligent gesture. The body had belonged to a young woman: a peasant from one of the villages they had taken the night before, he thought. Now it belonged to the worms, until he decided to add her pitiful carcass to his legions. He brushed his thumb across his lips and said, ‘Bring Duke Forzini forward, if you please. I would speak with our host.’

Count Nyktolos nodded shallowly and stepped out of the tent that Mannfred had claimed for his own. The Vargravian’s features were a distorted parody of a man’s – too wide and flat by far, his flesh the colour of a bruise. A shark-like mouth stretched from pointed ear to pointed ear, and his eyes bulged unpleasantly. He resembled a puppet, with his monocle and his hair greased flat against his stoat-like skull. Looks aside, he was deadly with a blade and had a keen mind, two things Mannfred appreciated. Even better, his ambitions were just petty enough to be amusing, rather than annoying.

‘Since when do you palaver with food, cousin?’ Markos asked, from where he stood, examining the hide map stretched across a wooden frame in the corner of the tent.

‘Speak of the annoyingly ambitious,’ Mannfred murmured. He looked around the tent, taking in the rough decor. It had all the pomp and panoply he expected of the frontier nobleman he had borrowed it from two nights before. Tapestries and animal furs hung from the support poles of the tent, and a quadrupedal, low-slung iron brazier, filled with coals which had long-since gone cold, occupied the centre beneath the smoke hole cut into the top of the tent. A rack of spears – boar, wolf and other more esoteric varieties – stood behind the crudely carved wooden stool he now occupied. He looked down at the staff laid across his lap, and the withered, iron-wrapped thing that had been lashed to the top in ages past: the Claw of Nagash. The thing was a hand – or, more accurately, a claw. It was larger than a man’s, and it seemed to ooze a sorcerous miasma. As he looked at it, the long, skeletal fingers seemed to twitch, as if they yearned to grasp his throat. And perhaps they did. Something of Nagash’s spiteful spirit was trapped in this claw, just as it was in his crown and his books.

He’d brought the Claw so that it might lead him to the object of his search – the skaven-forged Fellblade – the very weapon that had severed Nagash’s hand from his wrist and ended his Great Work the first time. There was a sympathetic vibration between the two, and with a bit of coaxing, the one pointed the way to the other. The Claw whispered to him, and he listened and set his legion marching towards Mad Dog Pass.

It had taken him centuries to discover Kadon of Mourkain’s staff and the Claw, hidden as it had been, in the vaults of that lost city. Ushoran, fearing its power, had sealed it away in the deepest, blackest pit he could find, though he’d taken the Crown for himself. Then, perhaps the ancient vampire had thought that he could master one artefact of Nagash’s but not two, more fool him. Ushoran’s will had not proved equal to the task, though he’d come closer than any save Mannfred himself. Mannfred stroked the staff, and the Claw curled and twitched like an appreciative cat. ‘Poor Ushoran. If only you had listened to me,’ he murmured. ‘I told you that she couldn’t be trusted.’

‘What?’ Markos asked. He sounded annoyed.

Mannfred glanced at him lazily. ‘Nothing, brave cousin. Merely talking to myself.’

‘An old family trait,’ Markos muttered.

‘What was that?’ Mannfred asked, even though he’d heard Markos quite clearly. ‘You have something to say, Markos?’

‘I said that this map is out of date,’ Markos replied smoothly.

‘It’s Tilean. What did you expect? Cartography is one of the few arts that they do not claim to have invented,’ Mannfred said. ‘And in answer to your impertinent query, cousin… This is no mere hunting party, whatever our host claims. Why else bring a troop of armoured horsemen and spearmen?’

‘Spears are used in hunting,’ Markos said. Mannfred could tell from the glint in his eye that he was being deliberately obtuse. Markos’s mood had been positively acidic since they entered the Black Mountains, and hadn’t abated with battle. They’d encountered the small force as they descended the mountains and entered the Hvargir Forest. Mannfred had obscured the movements of his forces through sorcerous means as they travelled through the mountains, but Markos and the others had been growing restive when the unfortunate Duke Forzini had crossed their path with his simple ‘hunting party’. Forzini was one of a multitude of minor, self-proclaimed counts and dukes who ruled the petty fiefdoms of the Border Princes.

‘True,’ Mannfred said. ‘But what hunting expedition requires a hundred such, as well as cuirassiers, fully armoured knights, and what I believe is called a – ah – “galloper gun”, hmm? What were they hunting for, cousin?’

Markos opened his mouth to retort, but Nyktolos returned, and shoved a bedraggled figure through the tent flap. The man, bound in chains, and stinking of blood and fear, fell onto the ground at Mannfred’s feet. Mannfred clapped his hands. ‘Ah, and here he is now! The man of the hour, Duke Farnio Forzini, of the demesne of Alfori. They make a fine millet in Alfori, I’m told. Of course, the prime export, as with so many of these tiny mountain realms is violence.’ Mannfred smiled. ‘Something I myself am well acquainted with.’ He stood and hauled his prisoner to his feet. ‘Up, sirrah, up – on your feet. I am a count, and you a duke, and neither of us should kneel.’

Forzini flinched away from Mannfred’s grin. The Tilean was a big man, with the muscle of a trained knight. He had fought hard, even after he realised what it was he faced. It had taken two days to beat a sense of fear into him. Forzini saw the dead body of the maid and his face went pale. Mannfred followed his gaze and asked, ‘Oh, was she one of your peons? My apologies. I was peckish, you understand. I so rarely allow myself to indulge, but, well, you put up quite a fight and I built up a hellish appetite.’

He looked at the beaten man. He had to reach Mad Dog Pass before the first snows of the season, and that meant moving quickly through the Border Princes. He had no time to indulge in unnecessary battle. If the petty aristocracy of these lands had learned of his approach, and were mobilising to meet him in battle, he needed to know, and sooner rather than later. ‘Where were you marching to?’ Mannfred hissed. ‘Tell me, and I won’t gut you and feed you to my horses.’

‘S-skaven,’ Forzini mumbled, his eyes tightly closed.

Mannfred grunted. ‘How many?’

‘Thousands – more maybe,’ Forzini said. He looked at Mannfred. ‘We were riding to aid my neighbour, Count Tulvik, at Southern Reach. His fortress had come under siege.’

‘Then you were going in the wrong direction,’ Nyktolos said mildly, cleaning his monocle on his sleeve. ‘I was once a… guest of old Tulvik.’ He blinked. ‘Well, his grandfather, actually.’

Mannfred growled. He caught Forzini by the throat. ‘I don’t care for lies, Forzini.’

‘W-we were! I swear!’ Forzini choked out. ‘But then, a runner brought word that my own hold was under siege. So I turned back – my wife and children, my people!’ The last exploded out and Forzini broke free of Mannfred with a convulsive surge of strength. Mannfred let him go. Forzini lunged for the hilt of Mannfred’s sword. ‘I have to save them!’

Mannfred casually dropped his fist onto the back of Forzini’s skull and knocked him sprawling to the ground. He pinned the cursing duke in place with his foot and looked at Markos. The other vampire nodded grudgingly. ‘That would explain what we’ve seen, wouldn’t it? This isn’t an isolated raid we’re talking about, cousin. It’s an invasion.’

When they’d descended into the foothills of the Black Mountains, the plains and fenland and forest should have been dotted with proud, if small, cities and fortified outposts as it always had been. What they had seen instead was a land in ruins. Castles were scorched piles, and towns were reduced to smouldering embers. And everywhere, the signs of plague – bodies choked the ditches and mass graves lay full, yet uncovered.

At first, Mannfred thought it was simply the aftermath of one of the interminable border wars, which occasionally flared up and then died away. But the devastation was too extensive. Memories of the portents of doom that he had witnessed in his scrying so many months ago had come rushing back, of the fates of Tilea and Estalia, and he knew that the end that he had witnessed was drawing closer. The weft and weave of the world was realigning and time was running out. That was the only thing that could draw the skaven from their twilight burrows in such numbers as Forzini and his own scrying had described.

He had faith enough in Elize’s ability to maintain control of Sylvania in his absence, but he knew that no other could defend his realm better than he could. If the skaven were truly massing in such numbers in the Border Princes, he couldn’t count on his sorceries seeing him unmolested to his goal. Better then not to even try, now that he had passed beyond the borders of the Empire.

‘How many prisoners did we take?’ he asked, after a moment.

‘Ah, one, two, three… Fifty or sixty,’ Nyktolos said, ticking off his fingers. ‘Mostly the duke’s household guard. They fought hard for a band of jumped-up bandit-knights.’

‘Due to my friend Forzini here, I have no doubt,’ Mannfred said. He caught hold of the chains binding Forzini and pulled him close. ‘I am not ordinarily in the habit of giving choices, Forzini. It sets a bad precedent, you see, for royalty to allow the dregs to think that they get a say in their own fates. But, if there are thousands of skaven slumping and sneaking through these lands, I’ll need every sword I can get, dead or… otherwise.’ Mannfred licked his lips. Though the girl’s blood had quenched his thirst, he could still detect the erratic thump of Forzini’s pulse. Mannfred tightened his grip on the chains. ‘Swear fealty to me, Duke Forzini, and I shall save your lands for you. Indeed, you can be the hero who saves the entirety of the Border Princes, if that is your wish. Or die here, and ride at my side regardless as a nameless and mindless thing. Serve me in life, or in death. But you shall serve me. Name your preference.’

He heard Vlad’s sibilant chuckle as he gazed down into the flushed, sweating features of the duke. Those are familiar words. You honour me, my son, Vlad murmured. Mannfred could almost see him out of the corner of his eye. He blinked, and Vlad vanished. ‘Well?’ he snarled, hauling Forzini close. ‘Make your choice.’

‘Y-you will save my people?’ Forzini asked.

‘I will save everyone,’ Mannfred said.

Forzini closed his eyes and nodded jerkily. Mannfred gave a satisfied growl and sank his fangs into the Duke’s throat. As he drank, his eyes met Nyktolos’s and the ugly vampire nodded sharply and left the tent. When he had finished, he let the duke’s body slump to the ground. Crouching over him, Mannfred used a thumbnail to slit his palm, and then squeezed several drops of blood into the ragged wounds he had made in Forzini’s throat.

As he rose, his hand was already healing. ‘Is this wise, cousin?’ Markos asked, looking down at the not-quite-dead man. ‘Also, I hope you aren’t expecting us to turn his servants. Such a thing is below even my slight dignity.’

Mannfred smiled. Screams echoed from outside. ‘The Vargravian is already handling it. By the time we reach our destination, I shall have a bodyguard worthy of an emperor of the dead, cousin.’

Markos was about to reply, when the air was suddenly split by the howl of a wolf. The sound ratcheted through the tent, drowning out even the scream’s of Forzini’s men. Markos drew his blade and rushed to the tent opening. ‘The alarm,’ he barked.

Mannfred followed more sedately, wiping his lips with his fingers. It seemed he wasn’t going to have to go looking for the skaven – they had come to him.

Brionne, Bretonnia

The castle on the crag had once been one of the great bulwarks upon which the might of Brionne had been built, guarding the province’s border against all enemies. Now, it was a fire-blackened ruin, long since picked over by scavengers of all varieties, human or otherwise.

Heinrich Kemmler, the Lichemaster, lifted his staff and thumped the end of it on the ground, calling the dead of the ruined keep to attention. The crackle of bones pushing through the ash and the wreckage of their own flesh filled the air, and Kemmler closed his eyes and moved his hand and staff like the orchestral conductor at the Imperial opera. The dead rose at his cajoling, reaching towards him like penitents in a temple, and a harsh, croaking laugh slipped from Kemmler’s lips.

Arkhan watched the Lichemaster draw the dead from their too-brief slumber, and felt no little surprise at the obvious power the elderly necromancer now seemed to wield. When he had last seen Kemmler, in the waning months of the Bretonnian civil war, the Lichemaster had been a mumbling, muttering wretch, barely cognisant of the world around him. Now, Kemmler resembled the Lichemaster of old, full of cold, dark reservoirs of power.

Those reservoirs had barely been tapped in the Vaults, Arkhan knew, when he and Kemmler had cracked open the web-strewn, elf-sealed tombs that lined the high reaches of those mountains months earlier. Kemmler had swept aside the antediluvian magics that chained the wild, selfish spirits that clustered in those mausoleums as if they had been nothing more than cobwebs. Arkhan had done the same, but he knew the origins of his own strength. He knew what lay at the bottom of the inner wells from which he drew his power. Kemmler’s newfound strength, on the other hand, was a puzzle and a concern. His wrinkled frame swelled with the winds of death and dark magic, and the dead responded to his smallest gesture. Kemmler’s glittering gaze met Arkhan’s, and the old man smiled widely, exposing a crooked cemetery of brown and black tombstone teeth.

Arkhan gave no sign that he had noticed the smile. Instead, he let his gaze slide past the puppet to the puppetmaster. Krell the Undying. Krell of the Great Axe, who Arkhan knew of old, and who had served as Nagash’s right hand, as Arkhan was his left. The ancient wight, clad in his ornate armour, which was stained a rusty hue by the oceans of gore that he had waded through over the centuries, loomed over Kemmler, his terrible axe hanging from his hand. Krell met Arkhan’s gaze, and his great horned helm twitched slightly. Had that been a nod of greeting, a gesture of respect, or simply an idle shudder of the wretched berserker spirit that fuelled the wight, Arkhan wondered. There was no way to tell. Krell’s mind was a roiling storm of battle-lust and blood-greed at the best of times.

If Kemmler was a worry, then Krell was a fixed point: the unassailable rampart upon which the future could be erected. Nagash had wrested Krell’s mighty soul from the clutches of the Dark Gods, and bound it to him as inextricably as he had Arkhan’s. They were his hands, his sword and shield, and his will made flesh.

But was that all they were? He thought again of the Everchild’s taunt – had it been a taunt? – that he was, in some way, still the man he had been. He leaned against his staff, gnawing over her words. The effects of Morgiana’s glamour had long since faded, but he could still feel the wounds it had wrought in his psyche. It had stirred the embers of a fire he’d thought long since extinguished. And if those embers still existed within him, what of Krell?

He gazed at the armoured bulk of the enormous wight. If there was some part of Krell as he had been left in that powerful husk, what might it do if it awakened? Would even Nagash be able to control such an entity, if its ire was aroused?

And what if it already had been? Krell met his gaze, and the two dead things stared at one another across the courtyard. Whose puppet are you? Arkhan thought. Kemmler laughed, and Arkhan turned towards him. The Lichemaster was directing two of the newly risen dead to fit a scavenged bridle and saddle onto the resurrected body of the lord of the keep. Then, if Krell broke his leash, he suspected he knew where the Great Axe would fall first. The thought was almost amusing. If anyone deserved to be savaged in that way, it was Kemmler.

‘What is he doing?’ Ogiers asked. ‘Is he mad?’ Arkhan looked back at his coterie of servants. The necromancers stood nearby in a nervous cluster, watching as Kemmler worked his sorceries. Even amongst the desecrators of the dead, the Lichemaster was in a league of his own. None of them had wanted to come, and Arkhan could tell that even the normally phlegmatic Fidduci was bothered by the company he now found himself in.

‘You have eyes. What do you think?’ the latter asked. The Tilean was furiously cleaning his spectacles, something he did when he was nervous. ‘Of course he’s mad. He’s always been mad.’

‘But useful, yes?’ Kruk tittered, stroking his wispy beard. He hunched forward over his cousin’s rotting shoulder and stroked the dead man’s mouldering features affectionately. ‘And it is no strange thing. A horse is a horse, of course – two legs or four, yes?’ The crippled midget bounced in his harness and laughed at his own words.

Across the courtyard, Kemmler forced the dead lord to fall onto all fours. Kemmler laughed again, and raised his staff. Dark energy crackled along its length and bodies shuffled towards the kneeling lord. They knelt, linking arms and legs, and his intended mount climbed atop them. The whole twitching mass resembled nothing so much as an awkward pyramid for a moment. Then Kemmler swept his staff out and barked a guttural phrase, and the dead men began to sink and slide into one another with a variety of unpleasant sounds. Bones burst through sloughing meat and crashed into one another, splintering and reforming as flesh melted into flesh, and organs were discarded in splashes of blood and fluid.

A moment later, a conglomerate horror that reminded Arkhan of a spider, if a spider were made of writhing human bodies, pushed itself up on its multitude of hands and feet. Kemmler climbed into the saddle and hauled on the reins, forcing the thing to rear. He laughed again as it dropped down, and leered at Arkhan. ‘Well, liche? What do you think of my new pet?’

‘Very pretty, Kemmler. You’re welcome, by the way. A less genial master might not have allowed you to indulge your appetites for flesh-craft,’ Arkhan said. He was rewarded by a scowl from the necromancer. While Krell’s loyalty was certain, Kemmler had a distaste for servitude that bordered on mania.

‘Allow? We are partners, Nehekharan,’ Kemmler said. ‘You need me.’ He grinned at Ogiers and the others. ‘My power far outstrips that of your cat paws. Between them, they might just manage to summon a small horde, but you’ll never take La Maisontaal Abbey without me.’ He spat the name of their destination like a curse. Then, for Kemmler, perhaps it was. He had tried to assault the abbey more than once in his sordid career, and failed every time. Arkhan wondered if Kemmler could feel the call of the artefact hidden in the abbey’s vaults even as he himself could. He suspected that Nagash whispered in the Lichemaster’s ear, whether Kemmler knew it or not. Else how could he have controlled Krell – if he truly did.

‘Whatever you need to tell yourself, so long as you do as I say,’ Arkhan rasped. Kemmler made a face. He was different. Arkhan could not say why, or how, but it was as if something had been awakened in the necromancer. And Arkhan did not like it. He did not like Kemmler’s newfound lucidity, or the threads of power that ran through him. ‘We are both servants of a higher power. All of us here serve that power, lest anyone has forgotten.’

He turned, taking in the other necromancers, and the lazing vampires, who met his gaze with glittering red glares. ‘Do not think that you can stray. Time runs slow for the dead, but it runs all the same,’ he said, his voice carrying to every corner and ear capable of hearing and comprehending. He raised his staff and gestured to the sky, which boiled like a storm-tossed sea of green and black overhead. Sickly coronas rippled across the shroud of the night, and green scars carved through the black, streaking down towards distant mountains. It reminded Arkhan of the pearlescent flesh of a corpse succumbing to decay.

The world was rotting inside and out. It was dying. But it would linger on its deathbed for millennia, if the thrones and dominations that stood arrayed in his path had their way. The gods of men and daemons fought to own a world that had one foot in its grave. Only in death would it be redeemed. Only by the will of the Undying King.

The cat, in its usual place on his shoulder, stretched, bones and ligaments popping audibly as it dug its claws into his robes. He felt a surge of purpose in him as he continued to speak, though he wondered, deep in the secret places of his mind, whether those words were his, or those of Nagash. ‘We all serve the will and whim of the Undying King, and it is his hand that guides us on this road. It is by his will that we all exist. Vampires were born from his black blood as surely as you walkers of the deathly way follow his wisdom and hearken to his teachings, as certainly as it was by his will that I persist in my task. We owe him our service, our loyalty, for without him, we would be dust and forgotten. Instead, we stand at the threshold of the world’s heart and knock. We were the meek, and now we are the mighty. We serve the King of the World.’ He looked at Kemmler. ‘All of us. Remember that.’

Kemmler snarled and opened his mouth to reply, when a black horse galloped into the courtyard, hurtling through the shattered portcullis with preternatural grace. Its rider slid from the saddle as the horse came to a stop near Arkhan. The vampire gestured over his shoulder and barked, ‘Company!’ The vampire was one of a number Mannfred had insisted he take as an honour-guard. This one was called Crowfiend, he thought, though he resembled neither a crow nor a fiend as far as Arkhan could tell. Nonetheless, Arkhan preferred his company to that of Anark, the brutish commander of the armoured blood knights. That one stank of ambition and impatience, two things that Arkhan no longer understood or tolerated.

Arkhan cocked his head. ‘Beastmen?’ His scouts had reported that a sizeable herd of the Chaos creatures were nearby, laying waste to a village in the valley below. Whether they desired battle, or merely wanted to scavenge in Arkhan’s wake, he couldn’t say.

‘Bretonnians,’ Erikan Crowfiend said. ‘They’re flying the flag of Quenelles.’

Arkhan felt a twinge of surprise. His forces had skirted Quenelles’s southern border despite the fact that their goal lay in the strand of the Grey Mountains that marked the eastern edge of that province. Instead, Arkhan had led his followers further south, coming down out of the mountains into Carcassonne, rather than risking the wrath of Athel Loren.

The southernmost provinces had been the most heavily devastated in the civil war, stripped of foodstuffs and able-bodied men. He’d done so intentionally, hoping to leave himself a clear path to reach the abbey when he wished. But evidently, the province had not been as devastated as he thought.

‘Tancred,’ Kemmler snarled. There was an eagerness in that sound that disquieted Arkhan. He recalled suddenly that it had been a previous Duke of Quenelles who had defeated the Lichemaster during one of his periodic attempts to take La Maisontaal Abbey. It was the same duke, or perhaps his son, who had harried the Lichemaster out of Bretonnia and into the Grey Mountains.

‘Possibly, or it could be any one of a hundred other displaced aristocrats from that province,’ Arkhan said, gesturing sharply. ‘It matters little. They are in our way. We will smash them, and continue on. Nagash must rise, and none will stand in our way.’

Ten

Hvargir Forest, the Border Princes

When Snikrat saw the tents, arrayed so temptingly on the blighted plains that hugged the edge of the forest, he immediately began to salivate. It looked like yet another of the petty man-thing princelings was attempting to flee. It was the perfect target – big enough to give a fight, small enough that the fight wouldn’t last very long, thus presenting him, Snikrat the Magnificent, with the perfect opportunity to cement his heroism in the minds of his followers, without actually risking himself too much.

‘Forward, brave warriors,’ he chittered, flourishing his blade. ‘Forward for the swift-glory of Clan Mordkin! Forward, at the command of me, Snikrat the Magnificent.’ Clanrats stampeded past him, most of them already intent on looting the collection of tents and supply wagons, the latter seemingly unprotected. His stormvermin bodyguard, the aptly named Bonehides, knew better than to leave his side. Partially it was because it was their job to see that he survived, and partially because the wiser among the black-furred skaven knew Snikrat’s reputation for sniffing out the best loot. Snikrat grinned and gestured towards the supply wagons. ‘There! We must flank them, in their side, there, so that none escape, by which I mean flee and thus possibly evade us,’ he hissed out loud, just in case any of Feskit’s spies were listening. ‘Come, my Bonehides – double-fast-move-move!’

Feskit had returned to the clan’s lair with the bulk of their army, and the bulk of the loot a few days before, leaving Snikrat to pilfer the scraps and escort the slowest of the hundreds of filthy human slaves Clan Mordkin had taken in their ravaging of the Border Princes. Feskit likely thought he was being generous. Snikrat would show him true generosity soon enough – Feskit would have all the sharp steel he could stomach. The thought of vengeance, ill-defined and unlikely as it was, filled Snikrat with a surge of confidence. First he would kill any humans who tried to flee, as they inevitably did, being inveterate cowards, then he would loot the wagons – and then, yes, then, at some point, inevitably, after a suitable period of time, he would kill Feskit and wrest control of Clan Mordkin from his unworthy paws.

Granted, there were probably some steps in there he was missing, but he’d work those out when he came to them.

He led his stormvermin towards the wagons, looking forward to the screams of the man-things. But instead of screams, all he found was… Quiet. He stopped, and his warriors clattered to a halt around him. Snikrat’s hackles itched, and he sniffed the air. It stank of blood and rot, which weren’t the usual odours one associated with humans.

Snikrat heard the sounds of his warriors attacking the camp. To his finely attuned ears, it did not sound like a slaughter. At least, not the good kind. His musk-gland tightened and he fought down a sudden surge of irrational fear. What was there to be afraid of? Was he not Snikrat the Magnificent, heir to Feskit, whether the latter admitted it or not?

‘Come-come, let us take the wagons, by which I mean these wheeled conveyances here, for the greater glory of skavenkind,’ he said. His next words died in his furry throat as the air quivered with a low, harsh growl. That growl was joined by several more. Black, lean shapes moved across the top of the wagons or behind them, and Snikrat looked about, suddenly aware that the wagons weren’t as undefended as he’d assumed.

Wolves crouched on the wagons or slunk from beneath them. Each bore numerous wounds, any one of which should have laid such beasts low, Snikrat saw as he extended his blade warily, his stormvermin clustering about him. Yet they didn’t seem bothered by the broken shafts of arrows and spears that poked from their sagging hides. ‘Dead-dead things,’ a stormvermin squealed.

‘Nonsense,’ Snikrat blustered. ‘Spears!’

His warriors levelled their cruelly barbed spears and locked shields, forming a rough hedgehog. He’d learned the tactic from a Tilean slave when he was but a pup. Sometimes he regretted eating the old man as quickly as he had. Nothing alive could break a Bonehides square, especially not a pack of quarrelsome curs.

Something laughed.

There was a promise implicit in that sound. Snikrat recognised it, for he himself had often laughed such a laugh while advancing on wounded or unwary prey. It was the laugh of a wolf-rat on the hunt, and his fur bristled with barely restrained terror as his eyes rotated. There, on the top of the wagons, something purple-faced and dead crouched, eyeing him through the lens of a monocle. The thing grinned, displaying row upon row of serrated, sharp teeth. Snikrat swallowed.

‘Oh happy day. A-one, a-two, a-three… So many little rats for me,’ the vampire snarled. Then, faster even than Snikrat the Magnificent could follow, it sprang upon them, its sword whistling down like the stroke of doom.

Brionne, Bretonnia

The spear thrust out at Malagor from the depths of the hay loft. He swatted the rusty head aside with his staff and thrust one long arm into the hay, seizing the spear-wielder and dragging him screaming into the firelight.

The village had already been burned once, but that hadn’t stopped the beastmen from trying to burn it again. Malagor drew the wailing man towards him and calmly silenced him by slamming his head into a nearby post. Then, with a flap of his wings, he flew up and out of the barn, carrying his prize.

He caught an updraught, and rode the hot wind above the burning village. It had been prosperous, as such places went, before the war that had recently rocked this land. Malagor’s lips peeled back from his fangs in a parody of a smile as he looked down and saw his warriors pursuing frightened peasants. There was little enough sport in this land, and he was glad enough to provide his followers with some small bit, before they went into battle.

The herds he led had been growing restless for lack of entertainment or battle. They chafed beneath his will, and he had been forced to meet more than one challenge in the days preceding the slaughter below. The village had been a gift from the Dark Gods; he’d been running low on chieftains, forced as he was to kill any who brayed a challenge.

But the gods were watching over their favoured child, and he felt their hands lift him up and their breath fill him, as they lent him strength and clarity. Their whispers had only grown stronger as he led the herds away from Athel Loren and into the human lands of Carcassonne, burning and pillaging the pitiful remnants of a once proud province along way. At their whim, he had held fast to the reins of the herd, and not unleashed them against Arkhan’s forces when the bone-man and his followers had crossed the Vaults and into Carcassonne. Instead, he had followed them, keeping pace but never allowing the forces under his command to attack the dead legions marching across the landscape. He had been confused at first, but he now saw the truth of the gods’ plan, and found it good.

His captive squirmed and Malagor tightened his grip. The man was screaming still, and pleading with him in the incoherent babble of the man-tongue. Malagor ignored it. He hadn’t brought the creature up into the sky for a conversation. He had brought it to send a message.

Malagor growled in pleasure as his wings carried him out over the village and away. He saw the serpentine length of the River Brienne and the slumped ruin of the fortress that occupied the crags above the village. A column of smoke extended above the latter, blacker than the night sky it rose to meet. The screams of the dying carried on the wind, sped along by his sorceries. After all, what use a beacon if no one noticed?

And the village was a beacon. A signpost for the army that even now advanced towards it, riding west from Quenelles. Malagor could hear the horns of the Bretonnian host, and knew that they were close. His wings flapped, carrying him to meet them. The gods whispered to him, telling him what he must do, and he did it, happily. He swooped upwards, wings beating, and tore open the belly of his captive. Its screams were like music, and he howled in accompaniment as he gutted the squirming, hairless thing.

The bone-man and his creatures were close by, in the castle on the high hill overlooking the village and the river. They had been there for some time, and to Malagor’s eyes, the ruin glowed with the faint phosphorescence of necromantic sorceries. He could feel the dead stirring, and something else as well – something that drew the attentions of the gods. Whatever it was, it was powerful, and the gods approved of that power. A surge of envy washed through him as he went about his task, and he bit and tore at the now limp body with more ferocity than was necessary. Blood splattered his muzzle and chest, and gore matted his hair.

Butchery complete, he plunged down, wings folded, cutting through the air like a missile fired from a ballista, his burden dangling behind him, its slick intestines looped about his gnarled, hairy fist. At the last possible moment, he banked, hurtling upwards again even as he released the mutilated corpse, and let it tumble gracelessly to the ground before the front ranks of the approaching army. Then Malagor was streaking upwards, across the face of the moon and back towards the village. His warriors would need to be on the move when the Bretonnians arrived, or they would become bogged down in battle.

They would lead the humans on a merry chase, and right into the bone-man’s army. The will of the gods caressed his thoughts, soothing his envy and anger, as if to say, See? See what we do for you, oh best beloved child? See how we spare your lives? See how we deliver victory unto you? And all we ask is that you claim it, as we command.

The bone-man’s army would be weakened by battle, like a stag after it has fought off a rival, if it was not destroyed outright. Malagor could smell the stink of strange magics on the human army. But if the bone-man triumphed, then, like wolves, Malagor and his followers would harry them as they marched on. The gods whispered of living men amongst the dead, whose will kept the legions marching. They would be Malagor’s prey. Without them, Arkhan would be forced to use more and more of his power to keep the dead moving, and less of it to protect himself.

And then, when he was stretched to his utmost, Malagor would strike. The bone-man would die again… And this time, he would stay dead.

Tancred spurred his horse forwards, his heart hammering in his chest. He felt weighed down by fear and excitement, by glorious purpose. He let his lance dip and it rolled in his grip as he angled it towards the massive, red-armoured shape of Krell of the Great Axe, one of a pair of curses that had haunted the ducal line of Quenelles for centuries. The lance struck like a thunderbolt and exploded in a cloud of splinters. The remnants of it were ripped from his hand and he let it go as his destrier galloped past the reeling wight. Krell roared like a wounded lion and made a flailing grasp for his horse’s tail.

Tancred and his men had left La Maisontaal Abbey weeks earlier, in an effort both to conserve what supplies the abbey-garrison had, and to hunt down a particularly pernicious band of beastmen, which had been haunting the border country since the end of the civil war. The survivors of their attacks spoke of one with wings, which had interested Tancred. Such a beast was bound to be important in some fashion, for obvious reasons.

He put little stock in the whispers of the peasantry, who murmured the name of Malagor, for that creature was nothing more than a fairy tale. While the beastmen did have their war-leaders and shamans, they were brute things, no more dangerous than the orcish equivalent. To think that there was one whom all such dark and loathsome creatures would bow to was laughable.

Tancred had brought Anthelme with him on the hunt, leaving the defence of the abbey in the hands of Theoderic and the others. He had had his misgivings at first, but he knew that such a hunt might help ease the chafing boredom of garrison duty his restive knights were already complaining of. Now it was beginning to look as if he were being guided by the Lady herself. When they’d sighted the motley horde of braying beastmen, the creatures had broken and fled rather than giving honest battle, and in pursuing them, Tancred and his warriors had crashed right into the mustering forces of the very enemy he had been preparing the abbey’s defences against.

Arkhan the Black had returned to Bretonnia, as Lady Elynesse, Dowager of Charnorte, had foretold, and he’d brought with him an army of the dead: an army that was Tancred’s duty, and honour to destroy here and now, before it reached the abbey. He had ordered his men to charge before the undead could organise their battle line, and, like a lance of purest blue and silver, the knightly host of Quenelles had done so, driving home into the sea of rotting flesh and brown bone. He had lost sight of Anthelme in that first, glorious charge, but he could spare no thought for his cousin, not when the cause of so much of his family’s anguish stood before him.

Tancred bent and snatched up his morning star from where it dangled from his saddle. It had been his father’s, who had wielded it in battle against Krell and his cackling master decades ago. Now it was the son’s turn to do the same. ‘Father, guide my hand,’ Tancred growled as he jerked on his warhorse’s reins, causing the animal to rear and turn. He spotted Krell immediately. The wight was already charging towards him, bulling aside the living and the dead alike in his eagerness to get to grips with Tancred. The black axe flashed as Tancred rode past. He slashed at the beast with his morning star.

Krell roared again, a wheezing wail that nearly froze Tancred’s blood in his veins. The dreadful axe came around again, braining Tancred’s mount even as the animal lashed out at the dead man with its hooves. Krell staggered. The destrier fell, and Tancred was forced to hurl himself away from it and avoid being caught under the dying beast. He landed hard, his armour digging into him. He clambered to his feet as Krell lunged over the body of his horse.

Tancred stumbled aside, narrowly avoiding Krell’s blow. The axe hammered into the ground. Tancred whirled back and sent the head of the morning star singing out to strike Krell’s wrist. The wight let go of his axe and grabbed for the mace. He seized the spiked ball and jerked it from Tancred’s grip. He hurled it aside as he grabbed for Tancred with his free hand. Armoured fingers dug into Tancred’s helmet, causing the metal to buckle with an ear-splitting whine. Tancred clawed for the sword at his waist as Krell forced him back, his heels slipping in the mud. The wight was impossibly strong, and when he fastened his other hand on Tancred’s helmet, Tancred knew he had to break the creature’s grip before his skull burst like a grape. He drew his sword and slashed out at Krell’s belly in one motion. Blessed steel, bathed in holy waters by the handmaidens of the Lady herself, carved a gouge in the bloodstained armour.

Krell shrieked and stepped back, releasing Tancred. The latter tore his ruined helm from his head as Krell turned to retrieve his axe. ‘No, monster! You’ve escaped justice once too often,’ Tancred bellowed. He cut at the wight’s hands, forcing Krell to jerk back. Tancred knew that if the undead warrior got his hands on his axe, there would be little chance of stopping him. He slashed at him again, driving the monster back a step. He felt the strength of purpose flood him, washing away his earlier doubts and spurring him on. His father had gone to his grave, cursing the names of Krell and Kemmler. They had been a weight on his soul that had never been dislodged, and it had dragged him down into sour death at the Battle of Montfort Bridge. But now, Tancred could avenge his father, and Quenelles as well.

He hammered at Krell, and witch-fire crawled up his blade with every blow. He heard the singing of the handmaidens of the Lady, and felt their hands upon his shoulders, guiding him. Every blow he struck was with her blessing, and Krell staggered and reeled as strange fires crawled across his grisly armour and ichors dripped from the sharp, jagged plates like blood. His fleshless jaws gaped in a bellicose snarl and he swatted at Tancred, like a bear clawing at leaping hounds. Men joined Tancred. He still saw no sign of Anthelme, but he had no time to worry. All that mattered was Krell. Spears stabbed at the beast from every side, digging at the wounds Tancred had already made.

The wight flailed about like a blind man, splintering spears and driving back his attackers, but more pressed forward. Tancred growled in satisfaction and looked around. Kemmler would be close by. If he could find the madman, and put an end to him, then Krell would be easier to dispatch once and for all.

‘Tancred!’ a voice shrieked. Tancred spun, and only just interposed his sword as a stream of crackling, sour-hued fire swept towards him. The flames parted around the blade. A wizened, crooked figure strode through the press of battle as if it were no more important than the squabbling of vermin. ‘Duke of Quenelles, I thought you gone to the worms at Montfort Bridge,’ Heinrich Kemmler snarled. He swept out his staff and his blade. The skull atop the former chattered like a berserk ape as Kemmler drew close.

‘My father, necromancer,’ Tancred said. He felt strangely calm. It was as if every moment of his life had led to this point. As if this single moment of confrontation were his reason for being. He felt a weight upon him that he had never felt before, save the first day he had taken up the burden of his ducal duties and privileges. ‘I am the son, and it falls to me to see that you at last pay your debt to the world.’

Kemmler cackled and weird shadows wreathed him, obscuring him from sight as Tancred attacked. Tancred struck out at him, but his blade bit nothing but air again and again. ‘What’s the matter, Tancred? Too long off the tourney field?’ Kemmler hissed, as though he were right beside him. A blow caught Tancred in the back and he lurched forward. He turned, but the flickering shadow-shape was gone before he could so much as thrust. More blows came at him. One of his pauldrons was torn from his shoulder, and rags of chainmail were ripped from his torso. His surcoat was in tatters and his pulse hammered in his head painfully. He couldn’t breathe, could barely see for the sweat, and his muscles trembled with fatigue.

‘I’ve been waiting for this for centuries,’ the necromancer said, circling him, his form rippling like a rag caught in a wind. ‘Your father and grandfather – your whole stinking line – has harried me from the day I first had the misfortune to set foot in this pig’s wallow of a country. Again and again I have been forced to flee from you, but no more. Today your line ends screaming…’

Out of the corner of his eye, Tancred saw the old man’s shape waver into solidity. The necromancer raised his sword for a killing blow, his face twisted in a leer of satisfaction. Tancred spun and his blade pierced the old man’s side, tearing through his flickering cloak. Kemmler screeched like a dying cat and he flailed at his enemy with his blade. Tancred avoided the wild blows and moved in for the kill. He could hear Krell roaring behind him, but he concentrated on the hateful, wrinkled, fear-taut features of the necromancer before him. He drove his shoulder into the old man’s chest and knocked him sprawling. ‘No, old devil, this is the end of you,’ Tancred said. He stood over Kemmler, and raised his blade in both hands. ‘For my father, and in the name of all those whom you have slain and defiled, you will die.’

Before he could strike, however, he felt a sudden ripping pain, and then everything was numb. The world spun crazily. He struck the muddy ground, but felt nothing. He couldn’t feel his legs or his arms. He saw a headless body – whose body was that? – totter, drop its sword, and fall nearby. Everything felt cold now, and he couldn’t breathe. He saw Krell, axe dripping with gore, kick the headless body aside, and drag Kemmler to his feet. Whose body? he thought again, as darkness closed in at the edges of his vision. Whose body is that?

Then, he thought nothing at all.

Heinrich Kemmler watched as Tancred’s head rolled through the mud. He tried to smile, but all he could muster was a grimace of pain. He levered himself awkwardly to his feet with his staff, its skulls, hung from it with copper chains long ago gone green with verdigris, dangling grotesquely. It was a potent artefact, his staff, and he drew strength from it as he gazed down at the wound Tancred had left him as a parting farewell. Blood seeped through his coat and dripped down into the dirt. The wound hurt, but he’d suffered worse in his lifetime. He scrubbed a boot through the dirt. ‘That’s the last taste you’ll have of me,’ he hissed. He looked up as a shadow fell over him.

Krell, coming to check on him, like a faithful hound. Or perhaps a hound-master, checking on his pet. As he gazed up at the scarred and pitted skull of the wight, Kemmler wondered, and not for the first time, if he was fully in control of his own fate. He thought of the shape he sometimes saw, that seemed to lurk in Krell’s shadow – a phantom presence of malevolent weight and titanic malice. He thought that it was the same shape that padded through his fitful dreams on those rare occasions when sleep came. It whispered to him, indeed had been whispering to him all of his life, even as a young man, after he’d first stumbled upon those badly translated copies of the Books of Nagash in his father’s haphazard ancestral library.

Those books had started him on his journey, the first steps that had seen him defy death in all of its forms, benign or sinister. He had fought rivals and enemies alike, striving to stand alone. The Council of Nine and the Charnel Congress – rival consortiums of necromancers – had faded before his might, their petty grave-magics swept aside by his fierce and singular will. He had pillaged the library of Lady Khemalla of Lahmia in Miragliano and driven the vampiress from her den and the city, and in the crypts beneath Castle Vermisace he had bound the liches of the Black Circle to his service, earning him the sobriquet ‘Lichemaster’.

He had counselled counts, princes and petty kings. He had gathered a library of necromantic lore second only to the fabled libraries of forsaken Nagashizzar. He had waged a cruel, secret war on men, dwarfs and elves, prying their secret knowledge from them, and with every death rattle and dying sigh the voice in his head, the pressing thing that had encouraged him and driven him, had purred with delight. Until one day, it had gone silent.

It had abandoned him to a life of scurrying through the hills, a broken, half-mad beggar, his only companion a silent, brooding engine of destruction, whose loyalties were unfathomable. He had thought, once, that Krell was his. Now he knew better. Now he knew that they had been at best, partners, and at worst, slaves of some other mind.

Kemmler’s eyes found the tall, thin shape of Arkhan the Black, as the liche oversaw the rout of the remaining Bretonnian forces. With Tancred’s death, they’d lost heart. In some ways, the living and the dead were remarkably similar. He glared at the liche and then stooped to retrieve his sword. He grunted with pain, but hefted the blade thoughtfully.

Arkhan heard the same voice he had, Kemmler knew. Krell as well; both liche and wight were slaves to it. And that was the fate it intended for Kemmler. Just another puppet. He could hear it again, though only faintly. But it was growing louder, becoming a demanding drumbeat in his fevered brain. It was inevitable that he would surrender.

Kemmler looked at Krell. He spat at the wight’s feet and sheathed his sword. ‘Inevitability is for lesser men.’

Eleven

Skull River, the Border Princes

Mannfred brought his blade down on the rat ogre’s broad skull, cleaving it from ears to molars. The beast slid away, releasing its grip on Mannfred’s mount, as he jerked his blade free in a welter of blood and brains. Two more of the oversized vermin lumbered towards him, growling and giving high-pitched bellows. He spurred his mount towards them, his teeth bared in a snarl. As his skeleton steed slipped between the two creatures, he swept his sword out in a single scythe-like motion, sending the heads of both monsters flying.

‘A heady blow, cousin,’ Markos crowed, from nearby. The other vampire’s armour was drenched in skaven blood, and his blade was black with it from tip to the elbow of his sword arm. Markos, like the other Drakenhof Templars, had been at the centre of every recent battle.

‘Shut up and see to our flanks, Markos,’ Mannfred snapped, shaking the blood from his sword. ‘I tire of this.’ He stood up in his saddle and looked around. When his scouts had brought him stories of the lands ahead literally swarming with the rat-things, he had thought they were exaggerating. But in the past weeks, he had seen that, if anything, his spies had been conservative in their estimates of the number of skaven running roughshod over the Border Princes. This was the fifth – and largest of them all by far – horde in as many weeks to bar his path, and he was growing frustrated.

It was as if some unseen power were seeking to block him from getting to Mad Dog Pass. He’d thought it was the skaven, at first, but the hordes he faced were more intent on pillage and loot than on stopping him. They inevitably attempted to retreat when they saw the true nature of the forces at his disposal, as had the first such band they’d encountered.

He had taken the time to question the spirits of the deceased ratmen, and had found the dead ones no less deceitful than the living vermin. In his frustration, he had torn apart more skaven souls than he had slain living ones. But in the end, his suspicions had been confirmed – the Under-Empire had risen, and the skaven were at last united. They had eradicated Tilea and Estalia, and Araby was even now under siege from above and below.

No, it wasn’t the skaven; it was something in the air itself. Arkhan was right. Forces were moving in opposition to them, and not merely those from the expected quarters. Mannfred was playing dice with the Dark Gods themselves. The thought did not frighten him. Rather, it invigorated him. If the Chaos gods were taking a hand in affairs so directly, then he was on the right path. He had faced the servants of Chaos before, and emerged triumphant. This time would be no different.

He looked up at the dark sky, where strange green coronas still swirled and crawled, like flies on the flesh of a corpse, and laughed. ‘Come then,’ he said. ‘Come and set yourselves against me, oh powers and principalities of madness. Let the heavens themselves crumble in, and the earth turn to mud beneath my feet, and I will still triumph. Send your daemons and proxies, if you would, and I will show you that in this fallen world there is one, at least, who does not fear you. I have beaten gods and men before, and you will be no different. The veil of perfect night shall fall on this world, and order and perfection shall reign, according to my will and no other.’

The air seemed to thicken about him for a moment, and he thought he saw cosmic faces stretched across the sky above, glaring down at him in tenebrous fascination. He felt the weight of their gaze on his soul and mind, and he swept his sword out in a gesture of challenge.

A screech alerted him to the skaven retreat, and he looked down. The ratkin were fleeing with all the orderly precision of their four-legged cousins. He fancied that more of the pestilential vermin died in the retreat than in the battle itself. Then, considering the sheer size of the horde in question, perhaps that wasn’t all that surprising.

‘They flee, my lord,’ Duke Forzini said as his horse trotted past. His armour, like Markos’s, was dripping with blood, and his sword dangled loosely in his grip. ‘If we press forward, we might catch them.’ The duke had taken to vampirism with admirable rapidity, and his mouth and beard were matted with gore. Forzini had personally inducted most of his household knights into a state of undeath, binding them to him with blood where before they had been loyal only to his gold.

‘No need,’ Mannfred said. He sheathed his blade. ‘They are going in the same direction we are, and the fear they carry with them will infect those who stand between us and our goal.’ He looked about him, and smiled cruelly. Then, with a gesture, he drew the corpses of the two rat ogres he’d slain to their feet. ‘Besides, we have a wealth of new recruits to add to our ranks.’ More skaven followed the rat ogres’ example, their torn and mutilated bodies sliding and shuffling upright.

Despite his bravado, and despite the sheer number of skaven corpses that were even now being washed away down the roaring waters of the Skull River, the battle had been a close one – this swarm had been the largest his forces had yet faced. An ocean of squealing bodies and ramshackle war engines that had momentarily blanketed the horizon. Mannfred had been forced to rouse the dead of three ravaged fortress towns to throw at the horde.

Speed and subtlety alone was no longer going to serve, he thought. The closer they drew to Mad Dog Pass, the greater the likelihood that he would find himself facing similarly sized hordes of skaven. He needed every corpse he could find to throw at them.

He felt a tremor, and glanced up at the Claw of Nagash, where it sat atop the staff strapped to his back. The fingers twitched and stretched, as though gesturing towards the mountains rising in the distance. It seemed that its movements were becoming more agitated the closer they came to Mad Dog Pass, almost as if it were impatient to be reunited with the blade that had severed it from Nagash’s wrist, once upon a time. Mannfred could almost feel the dark magics radiating from the Fellblade. His palms itched to hold it, and he could sense the hum of its deadly energies. His hand clenched.

You don’t have it yet, boy. You still have a million ratmen between you and that dark blade, and you’d best not forget it, Vlad said. Mannfred opened his hands and looked resolutely away from the shifting shadow-shape that scratched at the edges of his attention. Vlad’s voice had only become stronger as they came closer to the Fellblade. When he fought, there was Vlad, watching him as though he were still a boy on the proving ground, fumbling with his blade. Vlad had always watched him that way.

‘Nothing I did was ever up to your standards, was it, old man? I never measured up to you or your blasted queen, or the bloody champion. And you wonder why I stole that cursed bauble…’ he muttered, running his hands over his scalp. ‘Yet here I sit, on the cusp of victory. And where are you? Ash on the wind.’

Better ash than a body rotting in a bog, Vlad said. Did you enjoy it? Sunk in the mire, a hole in your heart, unable to move or scream. I wonder, did something of that tainted place creep into your veins? Is that why you changed? You were always so vain, and now, you are as foul and as bestial as any of those treacherous animals I locked away in the vaults below Castle Drakenhof. Why, you’ll take to wing any day now, I’d wager. You’ll shed all pretence, just like Konrad, and succumb to the madness in your blood…

Mannfred snarled. His hand flew to the hilt of his blade and he drew the sword, twisting around in his saddle to face the shade of his mentor. The tip of his blade narrowly missed Markos’s nose as he rode up. The other vampire jerked back and nearly fell from his saddle. ‘Are you mad?’ he snarled.

‘Mind your tone, cousin,’ Mannfred growled. He fought to control his expression. ‘You shouldn’t sneak up on me while I am concentrating.’ He looked about, and saw that every dead thing around was standing at attention, empty eyes fixed on him. He could feel the power of the Claw mingling with his own as it spread outwards and roused the inhabitant of every grave for miles around, be it skaven, human, orc or animal. More, he could feel them stumbling forwards at his call, answering his summons. Thousands of rotting corpses and tormented spirits were coming in response to his command.

‘How many more cadavers do we require?’ Markos muttered, looking around at the swaying dead who surrounded them.

Mannfred smiled nastily. ‘Enough to drown the skaven in their burrows, cousin. I will bury them in the bodies of their kin. Come – time slips away, and I would not have my prize do the same!’

Quenelles, Bretonnia

When it came time to make camp, the village had seemed the best spot. It was still mostly intact, if all but abandoned. They had seen smoke rising up into the overcast and cloud-darkened sky, and Anark, the Crowfiend and the other vampires had ridden pell-mell to claim whatever living blood remained in the village. Unfortunately for them, all of the villagers who had not fled were piled up on a pyre in the centre of the market square, burned to a crisp.

Luckily, the vampires had glutted themselves during the battle several days before. But Arkhan had been hoping to add the inhabitants to his host. Too many of the dead had been irretrievably lost in that battle. If they were to take La Maisontaal Abbey, and then escape Bretonnia in the aftermath, they would need a host of considerably larger size than they currently had.

‘No blood, no corpses of any worth – it’s almost as if someone got here ahead of us,’ Erikan Crowfiend said as he rode up to Arkhan to deliver his report. A gaggle of ghouls gambolled after his horse. The Crowfiend had an affinity for the flesh-eaters and he had begun to assert some control over the numberless cannibals that haunted the meadows of Quenelles. ‘I’ve sent out scouts, but none of them have come back yet.’

Arkhan pondered his comment silently. Every graveyard and town they had come to since crossing the border into Quenelles had been razed to the cellar stones, and the bodies of the dead mangled or burned beyond use. Some of that, he knew, was down to the ghouls, who spilled across Bretonnia like locusts, feeding on the dead left behind by the civil war. But he could not escape the feeling that potential lines of supply were being cut one by one by unseen enemies.

In all the centuries of his existence, Arkhan had learned much of the arts of war. The back-alley gambler had become a hardened battlefield general, who knew the way of the refused flank, the feint and the coordinated onslaught. He knew when he was facing a planned attack, even if it looked like coincidence or random chance.

There was a mind working against his, and he suspected he knew where it hid. More than once, he had caught the creeping moth-wing touch of dark magics at the edges of his senses. Not necromancy, but something older and fouler by far. The magics of ruination and entropy. The magics of the Dark Gods. He could taste them on the air, as he had when he’d breached the wall of faith in Sylvania. They were gathering their strength, as the winds of magic writhed in torment. Even now, the air stank of the breath of the Dark Gods. It hung thick and foul and close, obscuring his sorcerous senses.

He glanced up, and saw a shape, circling far above. For a moment, he mistook it for an unusually large carrion bird. Then, he realised that he had seen that dim, flapping form before. It had harried his host for leagues. It never drew too close, but it had pursued them relentlessly. It was this thing that radiated the magics he sensed, he was certain. It followed him, and a horde of beastmen followed it, the very beastmen who had led the Bretonnians upon him, and now loped in his wake like wolves haunting the trail of a dying stag. They had been shadowing the undead since the battle with Tancred’s forces.

Arkhan had dismissed the creatures at first, thinking them little better than the ghoul packs that now loped in the wake of his host. But his scouts had brought him reports that the creatures had followed them from the battlefield, shadowing his forces, never engaging in conflict, and always fleeing if challenged. The herd was also growing in size. Worse, it was doing so more quickly than his own forces. He felt as if he were being driven forwards, like the beast before the hunters, and there was nothing for it but to run as quickly as possible.

‘Bah, we will find blood and corpses aplenty if we but follow Tancred’s army and destroy it. They’ll make for Castle Brenache. With the forces at our disposal we can tear it down stone by stone,’ Kemmler said. Arkhan ignored him. ‘Are you listening to me, liche?’ Kemmler snapped. He grabbed Arkhan’s arm.

Arkhan knocked Heinrich Kemmler sprawling. ‘You are a fool, old man. Your obsession has almost cost us everything. We are done with your fantasies of vengeance.’ The liche pinned Kemmler in place with his staff. Krell moved towards them, axe not quite raised. Arkhan fixed the wight with a glare, and the cat perched on his shoulder hissed at the wight. Krell hesitated, seemingly uncertain who to strike. Arkhan decided not to press the issue.

He lifted his staff and stepped back. ‘You have cost me an asset, and burdened us all, in the name of bruised pride and ego.’ Kruk had died in the battle with the Bretonnians. Kemmler had abandoned his position to attack his old enemy, leaving Kruk exposed to the lances of the knights, and the little necromancer had been dislodged from his harness somehow. He’d subsequently been trodden into a red pulp by the galloping hooves of the knights’ horses. Ogiers and Fidduci had been able to keep those dead under the little man’s control upright, but only just. With Kemmler distracted by Tancred, Arkhan’s army had nearly disintegrated.

If the Bretonnians had not routed when they had, Arkhan knew, it was very likely that his mission would have been over before it had even truly begun, so devastating had their initial charge been. Luckily, the core of his army was still intact – the wights and skeletons he’d drawn from the molehills and tombs of the Vaults, and the blood knights who Mannfred had foisted on him. And he too had recovered the ancient canopic jars that he had cached on the border of Quenelles, which housed the dust and ashes of the Silent Legion.

Over the course of centuries, Arkhan had carefully seeded many desolate and isolated places with unliving servants, so that should he ever find himself in need, he would have warriors to call on. The Silent Legion were one such group. In ages past, they had served Nagash, and it was only the increasing strength of the winds of magic that would enable Arkhan to restore them to fighting vigour and control them. But he needed time to prepare the proper rites to do so. Time that Kemmler had cost them.

‘You promised me Tancred’s head,’ Kemmler snarled as Krell helped him to his feet. The old man stank of blood and indignation, and he pressed a hand to his side, which was stained dark. Tancred hadn’t died without leaving his enemy a painful reminder of their dalliance. That wound had weakened Kemmler, and slowed down their advance considerably. ‘I was merely taking my due, and I won you the battle in the process.’

‘It should not have been a battle,’ Arkhan said. ‘It should have been a slaughter. We should have drowned them in a sea of rotting flesh and mouldering bone, and swept them aside in minutes. Instead, we were drawn out into a pointless struggle that lasted more than a day. We have no time for this.’

‘Maybe you don’t,’ Kemmler spat. ‘But Bretonnia owes me a pound of flesh and I intend to collect!’ He gripped his staff so tightly that the ancient wood creaked.

‘What you think you are owed is of no concern to me,’ Arkhan said. ‘La Maisontaal Abbey is only a few days’ march from here, and I would give our enemies no more time to prepare. I care nothing for Brenache, or your grudge. We have wasted enough time.’

‘Time, time, time,’ Kemmler mocked. ‘You act as if you still live, and that one day is different from another. What matters when we do it, so long as it is done. Let Nagash wait.’

The zombie cat twitched and fixed Kemmler with a glare that the old necromancer didn’t seem to notice. Arkhan reached up to stroke its head. ‘Nagash isn’t what I’m worried about. How long do you think we have before the new king of this ravaged land notices that we’ve invaded? Or the rulers of Athel Loren? They are occupied, for now, but that will not last forever. And there are more enemies abroad than just men and elves.’

‘Who would dare challenge the most mighty and puissant Arkhan, eh?’ Fidduci broke in, before Kemmler could spit what was certain to be an acidic reply. The Tilean took off his spectacles and began to clean them on the hem of his filthy robe.

The spear caught him just between his narrow shoulder blades and punched through his chest in an explosion of gore. Ogiers, who’d been standing beside him, fell back with a yelp. Arkhan looked up as a howl echoed through the air. The flying shape had drifted lower, and he saw then that it was no bird, but instead a winged beastman. It swooped upwards with a triumphant roar and he knew then that it had thrown the spear. Kemmler had distracted him, and he had not seen the beast’s approach.

Fidduci coughed blood and reached out, weakly, towards Arkhan. The liche ignored him, and began to ready a sorcerous bolt. He intended to pluck the flying beast from the sky for its temerity. A shout drew his attention before he could do so, however. He saw Anark and the other vampires riding back towards him, smashing aside zombies in the process. ‘Beware!’ Anark bellowed. ‘It’s a trap!’

Horns wailed and Arkhan cursed as beastmen came charging out of hiding in a rush, exploding from the meadows around the village, and out of the seemingly empty shacks, howling and snarling. They tore through the ranks of the unprepared dead like starving wolves, with crude axes and chopping blades. Arkhan whirled around, and black lightning streaked from his eyes, incinerating a dozen of the malformed creatures. It wasn’t enough. A gor, foam dripping from its muzzle, leapt over the burning, smoking remains of its fellows and brought a blade down on Ogiers’s skull, splitting the Bretonnian’s head from crown to jaw.

As the necromancer fell, Arkhan obliterated his killer. Power roiled within him, and spewed out in murderous waves, laying beastmen low by the score. But still they came on, their eyes bulging and froth clinging to their lips. They had been driven beyond the bounds of madness, and there was no fear in them. Magic had hidden their presence from him, magic wielded by the flying creature that even now circled above him, its jeering laughter drifting down like raindrops. It was all Kemmler’s fault. The Lichemaster had tarried too long, playing his games of spite with Tancred, and been wounded for it. They’d lost half of their army at a stroke, as Fidduci fell, bleeding and hurting. And now, the children of Chaos were attempting to take advantage of their weakened state. He could almost hear the laughter of the Dark Gods, echoing down from the storm-stirred heavens.

Arkhan was forced to fall back. The cat yowled and hissed as it clung to his shoulder, and he drew his tomb-blade, only just in time to block a blow aimed at his skull. He spun, crushing his attacker’s head with the end of his staff. For a moment, he won clear. But it didn’t last.

The minotaur was the largest of its brutish kind that Arkhan had ever had the misfortune to see. It rampaged towards him, bellowing furiously, bashing aside its smaller cousins heedlessly as it came closer to him, the great axe in its hand licking out towards him. Arkhan thrust his staff and his blade up, crossing them to catch the blow as it fell. The axe was the same size as his torso, and it was all that he could do to catch the blade. The force of the blow drove him down to one knee. He strained against the weight of the axe as the minotaur hunched forward, trying to break his guard through sheer brute strength.

Then, suddenly, a red-armoured form bulled into the creature from the side, rocking it away from Arkhan. The minotaur stumbled back, lowing in confusion. Krell stomped forward, pursuing the creature. The two axes met in a crash of steel again and again as beast and wight fought. The minotaur was the stronger of the two, but Krell was by far the better warrior, and the wight’s greater skill with the axe began to tell. The minotaur staggered in a circle, pursued by Krell, who opened wound after wound in its hide. Blood splashed onto the ground as the giant, bull-headed beast sank down onto all fours and gave a piteous groan. Krell planted a boot against its shoulder and sent it flopping over onto its back.

As Krell finished off the minotaur, Arkhan shoved himself to his feet and looked up, hunting for the flying creature he’d seen before. That one was the true danger, he knew. That one had the ear of the Dark Gods, else why would it be able to fly?

But the creature was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished, and, as Arkhan watched, its followers departed as well. Crude horns wailed and the beastmen began to retreat in ragged disorder, streaming back into the night, not altogether reluctantly. They had been eager enough for a fight when they’d arrived, but the dead made for bad sport.

He looked around. Fidduci had finally succumbed to the spear that had pinned him to the earth. His spectacles had fallen from his nerveless fingers to shatter on the ground, and his black teeth were wet with blood. Ogiers lay nearby, still twitching in his death throes. Arkhan felt the weight of his army settle on his shoulders, like a sodden blanket.

He wondered, as he leaned against his staff, if this had been his enemies’ intent all along. His trusted servants were dead, and his effectiveness lessened. Now he had only Kemmler to help him. Kemmler, who had already proven himself as unreliable as ever. Kemmler, who was more powerful now than Arkhan had ever seen him.

Kemmler cackled nearby as he jerked Fidduci’s and Ogiers’s bodies to their feet. He appeared unconcerned about the state of affairs, and his coarse, chilling laughter echoed over what had, only moments before, been a scene of slaughter.

Arkhan watched him, pondering.

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

Volkmar was on the plain of bones again, the stink of a hundred thousand charnel fires thick in his nose and lungs. His hammer hung broken and heavy in his hands, and his armour seemed to constrict about him like a giant hand clutching his torso. He was tired, so tired, but he couldn’t give up. He refused to surrender.

Catechisms sprang unbidden to his lips and rattled through the stinking air. Passages and entire pages from holy books shot out into the grey emptiness. He shouted out Sigmar’s name, and shrieked out the story of the Empire’s founder.

Sigmar.

Sigmar.

Sigmar!

The name pierced the emptiness like a well-thrown spear, and it hung quivering there for a moment, gaining strength. Then, as it had before, the ground began to move and shift, as if something vast were burrowing beneath it. The bones rattled and fell as the thing drew closer to the surface and ploughed after him.

He heard Aliathra’s voice, somewhere far above and behind him. Though he could not make out her words, he knew that she was calling out to him, pleading with him not to fight this time, but to run.

Volkmar hesitated, and then did as she bade. The thing, the force, the daemon, wanted him to fight. He knew it in the marrow of his bones. It wanted him to fight, so that it could sweep over him and bowl him under. So he ran. And it followed him. A hideous voice, as loud and as deep as the tolling of the monstrous bells of Castle Sternieste, smashed at him, trying to force him to make a stand.

Instead, he ran harder, faster, forcing his body to keep moving. And he shouted Sigmar’s name as he ran. Every time the word left his lips, the terrible voice seemed to weaken a little bit. But it did not cease its hunt.

Bones slipped and rolled beneath his feet. The hands of the dead clawed at his legs as they always did, dragging him down. Fleshless jaws bit down on him, and bony fingers tore at him, and he swung about with his hammer, trying to free himself. Too late, though. Always too late.

A mountain of bones rose over him, blotting out the grey light. The bones shifted and squirmed, shaping themselves into a vast countenance, titanic and loathsome. Eyes like twin suns blazed down at him, and a breath of grave-wind washed over him, searing his lungs and withering his flesh. He felt his skin shrink taut on his bones, and his marrow curdle as the wind enveloped him. He lifted his hammer, too weak to do anything else.

And then, Volkmar the Grim woke up.

Volkmar stirred groggily in his chains. Sleep still held him in its clutches, and the faintest ghost of a distant howl rippled through the underside of his mind. He felt the air stir, and knew that they had a visitor. He smelt the stink of old blood, and stale perfume, and knew that the new mistress of the castle had come to visit.

Mannfred was gone. Where, he could not say, but he had suspicions aplenty. That left a castle full of vampires still, and there was no hope of escape. That realisation had come to him slowly but surely, with insidious certainty. There was no hope, of escape or even survival. But perhaps whatever Mannfred was planning could still be thwarted. Perhaps the Empire could be spared whatever monstrous evil the vampire sought to unleash.

Then, perhaps not.

He heard the vampire as she drew close, passing amongst Mannfred’s collection. Did she linger over the Crown, perhaps, and let her fingers drift over the books?

‘What would you give me, if I were to kill one of you?’ the vampire asked, without preamble. She looked up at Volkmar with something approaching loathing. The Grand Theogonist hung in his chains like a side of beef, his eyes not quite closed, his breathing shallow. ‘That being the only way to defeat our lord and master, of course. He had nine. Now he has eight. He can do nothing with seven.’ She cocked her head like a falcon sighting prey, and her eyes slid towards Aliathra, who hung nearby, head lolling, her blonde locks spilling over her pale face, matted with blood and filth. ‘I know that you are conscious, elf. I know that you are listening.’ Her eyes slid back to Volkmar. ‘As are you, old man. Pretending to be unconscious will avail you nothing.’

‘Your kind only bargains for two reasons,’ Volkmar rasped. He had nine… Lupio Blaze was dead, then. They had come and taken the knight in the evening. They had not brought him back. He had suspected that the Tilean was dead. ‘Either you are bored… or afraid,’ One blood-gummed eyelid cracked wide. ‘Which is it, Elize von Carstein?’ The old man laughed as her eyes widened slightly. He allowed himself to feel a brief surge of pleasure at her momentary discomfiture. ‘Oh yes, I know you, witch. I know all of your cursed clan, root and branch. The witch hunter Gunther Stahlberg and I even made a chart, before Mannfred killed him. The Doyenne of the Red Abbey, Handmaiden of Isabella von Carstein, cousin to Markos von Carstein, of the red line of Vlad himself, rather than by proxy. You are as close to royalty as your kind gets.’

‘Then you know that I can give you what you wish,’ Elize said. ‘I can help you, old man.’ She turned towards Aliathra. ‘I can help you as well, elf. I can free you. I can kill you now, to spare you pain later. I can kill your fellow captives, if you are too proud to ask for yourselves. All I require is that you ask.’ She glided towards him and leaned close, her palms to either side of his head. Volkmar glared at her with his good eye. ‘Ask me, old man. Beg me, and I will put you out of your misery, like an old wolf caught in a trap.’

‘Frightened, then,’ Volkmar coughed. His lips cracked and bled as he smiled. ‘You are frightened, and I think I know of what. Something so dark and hungry that you pale in comparison. You can feel it, can’t you? In whatever passes for your heart,’ he said. He closed his eye. ‘Mannfred has left you here, and now, like a rat that scents a snake, you want to squirm away. So be it woman. Kill us, and run.’

‘Beg me,’ she growled.

Volkmar wheezed hoarsely. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was as close as he could manage. ‘No, no, I think not. Run away, little rat. Run and hide before the snake gobbles you up.’

Elize raised a hand, as if to tear out his throat. It trembled slightly, and then fell. Volkmar said nothing. He opened his eyes to watch the vampire leave. ‘You should have let her do it, priest. You should have asked her to kill you,’ someone croaked, as the chamber door rattled shut. ‘You should have begged.’

‘Be quiet, witch,’ Volkmar rasped. It was hard to get air into his lungs, hung on the wall as he was. It was all he could do to speak. The manacles bit into his flesh, and he felt his blisters pop and weep as he shifted in his chains.

‘Your arrogance has doomed us, Volkmar. And you most of all – I am damned, but you will be doubly damned,’ the Bretonnian witch yowled. Volkmar heard her chains rattle. ‘He is coming for you, old man.’

‘I said be silent,’ he snarled, trying to muster something of his former authority. He knew he’d failed when she began to laugh and wail.

There was no hope.

Volkmar closed his eyes and tried not to sleep.

Elize stood staring at the wall opposite the door to the chamber for some time. She could feel the burning gazes of the two wights, who now guarded the chamber, on her back, but she didn’t move away. They were no threat to her. Mannfred had seen to that.

She considered simply going back in and killing one of them – the nature priest, perhaps. He was little more than a mindless husk, after all this time in captivity. There were ways that it could be done that would leave no one the wiser. Mannfred would assume that he’d simply expired, despite the sustaining spells he’d etched into the prisoners’ flesh. Unless he didn’t, in which case she’d have some explaining to do.

Elize didn’t fear Mannfred’s wrath any more than she had feared Isabella’s incandescent and unpredictable tantrums, or Vlad’s quietly menacing disappointment. She knew which strands to pluck to see her safely out of the von Carstein web, and which to pull in order to get back in, should it be necessary. Mannfred was guileful and cunning, but not especially subtle. He strode across the landscape like a warrior-king, and expected his opponents to fall at his feet in awe of his majesty and political acumen.

He was, in short, a barbarian. Vlad had been much the same – a man out of time. The difference between them lay in the fact that Vlad had had an almost childlike delight in learning the ways of the Imperial court, and navigating the choppy political waters of the Empire. Vlad had been subtle: patient and unswerving. Mannfred was not patient. He never had been. He was a creature of passions and selfish demands, and he only understood those things in others. Patience, to Mannfred, was simply fear. Dedication was foolishness. Subtlety was hesitancy.

But this time, Mannfred had bitten off more than he could chew. They could all see it, even if the sisters of the Silver Pinnacle hadn’t been whispering it into every ear. It was madness, what he planned, and in everyone’s best interests to see that he failed.

Elize looked back at the door, thoughtful now. The old man hanging on the wall in there was no different, really. An obstinate, obdurate relic, sitting athwart the stream of history, determined to bend it to his will. Again, the temptation to simply kill him rose. But… no. Best to wait, until there was no other option. Best to wait until all of the pieces were in place.

‘Think carefully, child. Think, before you do something we will all regret.’

Elize turned. Alberacht Nictus lumbered down the corridor towards her, more or less a man. His wings had shrivelled to flaps that could easily be folded in the narrow corridors and he wore a set of armour purloined from somewhere. His face was still a tale of horror, but his eyes shone with kindly madness. He held out a taloned paw. ‘Come away, my sweet girl. Come away, and let the Sigmarite rot in his tomb.’

Elize took his claw gingerly. Alberacht pulled her close, like a doting uncle. ‘You always were a risk-taker, my little stoat. Always going for the throat,’ he gurgled. ‘That is why Isabella loved you best.’

‘Unlike Mannfred,’ Elize said. She allowed Alberacht to guide her away from the chamber. The big vampire chuckled harshly.

‘Mannfred heeds your words,’ Alberacht said. ‘After all, we are here, are we not?’

Elize tensed. ‘What do you mean? Speak plainly, Master Nictus.’

‘Oh, is it Master Nictus now? Have I offended you, cousin?’ Alberacht peered at her owlishly, and showed his teeth in a ghastly smile. ‘You were here, at Sternieste, before the wall went up, and before Mannfred made his bid for secession. It was you who advised him to raise the Drakenhof banner and call the order to war. You asked him to set the black bells to ringing, while you rode out to find your pet and Markos.’

‘Anark is hardly my pet,’ Elize murmured.

‘Was I speaking of him?’ Alberacht leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘You are as clear as glass to these old eyes, my girl.’

Elize pushed away from him carefully. They had come to one of the places where the wall of the keep had crumbled away, and she leaned against the gap, looking out over the courtyard far below and the plains beyond. The dead were still mustered amongst the barrows, waiting for an invasion that might never come. Screams echoed up from the courtyard, where Mannfred’s court were engaged in their early evening amusements. She’d had to put a guard on the larder once Mannfred departed, to keep the greedy parasites from emptying Sternieste’s dungeons of every breathing human in an orgy of indulgence and slaughter.

‘He left me,’ she said softly, after a few moments.

‘Aye, he did,’ Alberacht said. He loomed behind her, his claws on her shoulders. ‘Though I think he regrets it. I think the Crowfiend regrets many things.’

‘I care not whether he regrets it,’ she hissed. ‘He. Left. Me. I made him and he left. No one leaves me. I leave. I go where I will. Not him!’

‘Ah,’ Alberacht breathed. He was silent for a time. Then, he said, ‘Sometimes, I think that Vlad did us a disservice. There is something in the von Carstein blood that encourages duplicity and madness. Konrad, Pieter, Nyklaus with his ambitions of admiralty… Isabella.’

‘I am not mad,’ Elize said.

‘I am,’ Alberacht said. ‘Then, I was a von Drak, and they were all mad.’ He leaned close. ‘I was speaking of your duplicity, in any event. All of this, simply for the Crowfiend?’ He leaned around her, so that he could peer up into her face. ‘Tomas – dead. Anark elevated to a position he is unsuited for. Markos’s predilections with succession encouraged, and Mannfred warned of that burgeoning treachery. Are any of us out of your web, my child?’

‘You and the Vargravian,’ she said, smiling slightly.

‘Ah,’ he murmured. ‘Am I to feel slighted, then?’ She tensed again. There was no way of telling which way the old monster would jump at the best of times. His mind was lost in a red haze.

‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘But you are impossible to predict. And the Vargravian is an unknown quantity. I know him only by reputation. Tomas elevated him to the inner circle. The others I know.’ She pounded a fist against the crumbling edge of the gap. ‘They are fixed points, and I can weave my web, as you call it, about them.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Mannfred taught me that.’ She looked at Alberacht. ‘It is not all for Erikan. It is for us, as well. For the future. For too long we have clung to this place. Sylvania was a prison even before the wall of faith surrounded it. There is a whole world out there, past the borders, where we can spread and take root. But before we can flourish, certain branches must be pruned.’

‘And what of Mannfred’s plans, child? You know what he intends. You know what awaits us, when they return.’

Elize turned away. ‘It will not come to that. Even Mannfred is not so blinded by ambition that he would risk unleashing the Undying King upon the world.’ She smiled. ‘Anark will do his part, and Markos as well. Nagash will not rise, but when this farce is done… we will.’

Twelve

Beneath Mad Dog Pass, the Border Princes

The skaven screamed and died as the bodies of the Iron Claw orcs, torn and savaged by the ultimately futile battle that had seen the entire tribe decimated by the forces under Mannfred’s command, launched themselves through the crude pavises of wood and rope, and hacked down the clanrats manning the ballistae behind. More zombies shoved through the gap created by the dead greenskins, flooding the tunnels beyond the chamber where the skaven sentries had chosen to make their stand.

Mannfred urged his skeleton mount through the sea of carnage that his servants had left in their wake, his face twisted in an expression of disdain. This was the tenth such cavern he had ridden through in as many hours, and impatience was beginning to eat at him like acid.

Never before had he felt so pressed for time. It had always seemed a limitless commodity for him. But he felt it closing in on him now, cutting off his avenues of manoeuvre. It was as if he were being surrounded by enemies on all sides, trapped in an ever-tightening noose. He clutched Kadon’s staff to him, and took comfort in the Claw of Nagash, its withered fingers twitching and gesturing mutely.

Power. That was what it was all about. That was what it had always been about. The power to see his journey to its end. The power to control his own destiny. Too often had he been at the mercy of others, his desires supplanted by the whims of those who considered themselves his superiors. Vlad, Neferata, his father… They had all tried to keep him from achieving his destiny. But no longer. He had outlived, outfought, outschemed them all. He had thwarted his enemies at every turn, and thumbed his nose at every empire.

That you have, my boy. Your famed subtlety has deserted you, it seems. Or perhaps you deserted it, eh? The skies are blood-red, the gallows scream hungrily and Mannfred von Carstein has come into his own, Vlad murmured.

Mannfred snapped his reins, causing his mount to gallop through the cavern. The drumming of its hooves blocked out Vlad’s voice. Nevertheless, he could hear the quiet conversation of his Drakenhof Templars behind him, as they urged their steeds to keep up with his. They were talking about him, he knew. Scheming most likely, but then, they were von Carsteins. None of them would dare try anything, save perhaps Markos.

He scanned the cavern and caught sight of the latter, dispatching a squealing skaven warrior with a casually tossed sorcerous bolt. Markos was almost as good a sorcerer as Mannfred himself. He, like Mannfred, had learned much under the tutelage of the bat-faced nightmare known as Melkhior, when Vlad had employed the latter to teach them the finer arts of necromancy. Mannfred remembered the thin-limbed horror, in his stinking rags, with his fever-bright eyes as he showed them the formulas of the Corpse Geometries. There was much of W’soran, Melkhior’s primogenitor, in him, from the way he spoke, to his apparent disdain for even the most basic aspects of hygiene.

It was from Melkhior that he had discovered the origin of the dark magics that empowered the ancient ring that Vlad wore, and it was from the old monster that he learned of how it held the secrets of the resurrection of the Undying King. Melkhior had whispered of certain rites that might stir Nagash, and of the shifting of the Corpse Geometries that had seen Nagash come back and wage an abortive campaign to reclaim his pilfered crown. Then the Night of the Restless Dead, in which Nagash’s ravening spirit had managed only a single night of terror. Even diminished and shrunken, Nagash was the sort of power that caused the world to scream in horror. But he was a power without true thought. Nagash himself, as he had been, was long gone to whatever black reward awaited such creatures. All that was left of him was something less even than Arkhan the Black – blind impulse, and the fading echo of a once mighty brain.

Or so Melkhior had sworn. Mannfred knew better than to trust the words of any of W’soran’s brood. He had felt a great sense of relief when Melkhior’s student, Zacharias, had put paid to whatever subtle schemes his master had been weaving. Not that Zacharias was an improvement; if anything, he was just as devious and as arrogant as Melkhior, and W’soran before him. Indeed, Zacharias had openly opposed Mannfred’s schemes from the moment of Melkhior’s death, striving to unravel stratagems that had taken him centuries to forge. He could not fathom the other vampire’s intent, save that Zacharias feared what Mannfred might do once he gained the power of Nagash. Or, perhaps he feared what would happen should Mannfred fail.

Mannfred frowned. He considered the Claw of Nagash, where it lay across his saddle. He could feel the power it held, power enough to carve out a nation, if he wished. Once, that would have been enough for him. He had vied for thrones before. But something had changed in him. A throne, a city, a province – these were no longer good enough. Even an empire was but a drop in the ocean of his ambition.

Those ambitions were the root of every plan he had concocted since he had dragged himself from the mire of Hel Fenn, revivified by the blood of a dying necromancer. They drove him on, into the reeking tunnels, and he, in his turn, drove on the dead with the lash of his will. Vlad was right. He had discarded subtlety; there was no use for it here. The only tools of worth were the press of bodies and the savage tactics of attrition.

In the hours that followed, Mannfred willed wave after wave of zombies into the labyrinthine network of tunnels. Through the eyes of his flesh-puppets, he mapped out the safest route for him and his Drakenhof Templars to take towards the heart of the festering pit. He lost hundreds of zombies, but gained twice their number in new recruits from among the skaven dead. Entire squealing tribes of the vermin were stifled and silenced beneath the tide of rotting meat, and then dragged upright to serve beside their slayers. It was necromancy as applied brutality, sorcery wielded like a blunt object, as Mannfred battered himself a path through the enormous burrow.

He led his knights deeper into the tunnels, which grew grand in scale. The burrow was a tumour of stone and darkness. Foul poisons dripped from filth-encrusted stalactites, and the rough walls of rock were marked by generation upon generation of crude skaven-scrawl; the caverns were choked with ramshackle structures of warped wood and rust-riddled metal. And everywhere, the skaven. Some fled his approach, others tried to resist. Sometimes they even fell upon one another in vicious displays of compulsive betrayal that startled even Mannfred, who took advantage of such incidents with bemusement.

Deeper and deeper he pushed his forces. He could feel the Fellblade now, like a wound in the world, pulsing, calling to the claw it had hacked from Nagash’s wrist. It called to him, and Mannfred went gladly, driven by the devils of his ambition.

The Fellblade would be his, and with it, the power of Nagash.

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

‘It’s a fairly innocuous sort of place,’ Erikan Crowfiend murmured. He leaned over his horse’s neck and ran his fingers through the matted mane of the ghoul crouched beside him. The rest of the pack swirled about him, yapping and snarling like dogs on the scent. There were hundreds of them, drawn from all over Bretonnia to the meadows of Quenelles by the scent of death. The other vampires seemed perturbed by the presence of so many flesh-eaters, especially Anark von Carstein, who glared at the Crowfiend with barely repressed fury.

‘It is nothing more than a slightly fancy tomb,’ Kemmler said. The ghouls gambolling about the legs of Erikan’s steed avoided the Lichemaster and Krell, who stood just behind him, his Great Axe in his hands.

‘A tomb whose inhabitants are barred to us, thanks to Bretonnian witchery,’ Arkhan said. He stood on the back of his chariot and looked at his commanders, examining each one in turn. Then, he turned his attentions back to the object of their discussion.

La Maisontaal Abbey sat on the slopes of the Grey Mountains, its walls the same hue as the tumble-down stones of the cliffs around it. Its walls were half finished, but it was an imposing structure nonetheless, built to protect its inhabitants from any who might wish them harm. It had been built in the early years of Gilles Le Breton’s first reign, its construction funded by a mysterious nobleman from the east, who had claimed that the abbey was the repayment of a debt owed. Arkhan, who had once lost his head to the sword of the nobleman in question, suspected that there was more truth to that tale than not.

In the fading, grey miasma of the day, the abbey was a flickering nest of fireflies as torches, lanterns and bonfires were lit. He wondered if the inhabitants thought that firelight would be enough to keep back the host he had arrayed on the plains before La Maisontaal. ‘What do your spies tell you, Crowfiend?’ he asked, after a moment.

The vampire glanced down at one of the ghouls, who gave a warble and licked broken fangs in the parody of smile. The Crowfiend looked at Arkhan. ‘Much meat,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Asking them to count is useless. Past one, it goes “many”, “much” and “most”. That’s as accurate as they get.’ He straightened in his saddle. ‘They’re keeping close to the walls and the torches, however. That much they could say. Plenty of weak points, jammed with frail, trembling meat, ready to be torn and squeezed dry of life.’ The Crowfiend smiled crookedly. ‘A better sort of battlefield than Couronne, I will say.’

‘If you must,’ Arkhan said. He looked at Anark. ‘You, vampire. Mannfred spoke of your military experience. Analyse and explain,’ he said.

The vampire grunted and shook himself. ‘Traditional Bretonnian tactics. A shieldwall of peasantry in front of artillery, knights on the flanks to crush the attack once it becomes hung up on the fodder.’ Anark lifted himself slightly in his saddle, and his brutal features slackened into something approaching consideration. ‘Trebuchets and archers. The bonfires mean fire-arrows,’ he added, his lip curling away from a fang.

‘What is fire to the dead?’ Kemmler asked, running his fingers through his tangled beard. ‘Let our army carry an inferno into the heart of their army, if that is the fate they choose.’

Arkhan ignored the necromancer. He let his gaze drift across the ragged ranks of his army. The vast majority of it was composed of the graveborn victims of war and plague. He disliked relying on such chattel – zombies were little more than ambulatory shields for better, more reliable troops. Unfortunately, he had precious few of the latter.

The Silent Legion stood ready for battle, clad in ancient armour and bearing weapons not seen since the height of the Nehekhara. He had seen to their resurrection from their essential salts upon his arrival on the fields before La Maisontaal Abbey, and Nagash’s nekric guard stood ready to wage war on the living once more.

Arrayed about the Silent Legion were the warbands Arkhan and Kemmler had dragged from their slumber in the Vaults. Composed of wights and skeletons, the warbands were possessed of a savage bloodlust second only to Krell’s, and without the sorcerous chains that compelled them to obey Arkhan, they would have already begun the attack.

Beyond them, and scattered before and around the host were the ghoul packs that had followed them from the borderlands and into the hills. A harsh winter and a bloody spring had added to their numbers, as villages throughout southern Bretonnia became little more than haunts for newly christened cannibal clans. Such pathetic beasts were drawn to the stench of necromancy like iron filings to a lodestone. Like the zombies, they were of little practical use, but Arkhan was confident that they could readily take blows meant for more valuable troops as easily as any staggering corpse.

And last – the Drakenhof Templars. The armoured vampires were eager for war, none more so than the brute Mannfred had named Grand Master. Anark met his gaze and looked away quickly. Was he nervous, Arkhan wondered, or bored? Neither would surprise him. That Anark intended treachery was almost certain. The creature was barely competent, save in military matters, and openly defied Arkhan at every opportunity, eliciting chortles from his fellow leeches. All save the Crowfiend, whom he seemed to despise even more than Arkhan.

Arkhan dismissed the thought. He had no time to worry about traitors. He looked up at the night sky, and for a moment, immense, terrible shapes seemed to claw down towards him, like hungry birds. The cat on his shoulder hissed softly. He’d almost forgotten that the animal was there, so quiet had it become since they’d arrived. He stroked its greying flesh gently.

No time, he thought. There was no room for error now, not with the delays and losses they’d suffered. The beastman attack they’d fought off some days before had taught him that. Though they had driven the creatures off, the damage had been done. The unassailable horde he had assembled had dwindled to its current state. It was still an ocean of corpses, but he was forced to see to their control himself, along with Kemmler.

His options had been forcibly limited. There was no time for grand strategy now, only brute speed. ‘So be it,’ Arkhan rasped. He swung his staff out and pointed it at Krell. ‘Krell will take the fore. He will lead the Silent Legion, and the tribes of the dead into the centre of the enemy line. They shall be the head of my spear and the stumbling dead shall be the haft, driven forward by Kemmler and me.’

‘That is exactly what they are counting on,’ Anark protested. ‘Even a dried up old thing like you should have the wit to see that. The knights will fold into your flanks like the jaws of a trap!’

Arkhan looked at the vampire. ‘That is what you are for, von Carstein. Besides, it would be rude of us to ignore such a heartfelt invitation, would it not?’

Kemmler cackled wildly. ‘Oh, there’s hope for you yet, liche! Come, hurry! I have waited centuries to tear this rotting heap of stone apart, and I can wait no longer.’ He gestured sharply, and Krell broke into a trot. As the wight moved, the Silent Legion fell into step with him. The skeletal warbands joined them, rasping battle-cries issuing from the long-withered throats of their chieftains.

Arkhan stepped down from his chariot and made to join Kemmler, where the latter waited amidst a knot of zombie knights, still clad in bloodstained armour and clutching broken weapons. He paused as the Crowfiend interposed his steed. Arkhan looked up at him.

‘A word of advice,’ the vampire said, not looking at him. ‘Kemmler stinks of ambition.’

‘As does your companion Anark,’ Arkhan said.

‘Not my companion,’ the Crowfiend said. The vampire looked at him. ‘The Drakenhof Templars were ordered to escort you to La Maisontaal Abbey. And that is what we shall do.’

‘And afterwards?’

The Crowfiend kicked his horse into motion. He galloped away, followed by his ghouls. Arkhan watched him go. Then he joined Kemmler.

‘What did the leech want?’ the old man grunted.

‘Merely to pass on the compliments of Mannfred von Carstein,’ Arkhan said. The dead twitched into motion, lurching forwards. Arkhan and Kemmler moved with them, lending sorcerous speed to the slower corpses.

‘Ha! That’s a poisoned chalice if there ever was one,’ Kemmler spat. He peered after the Crowfiend, eyes narrowed. ‘I remember that one. He served in Mallobaude’s army. He followed that fool Obald around. Fussed over the old pig-farmer like a nursemaid,’ he sneered. He smiled nastily. ‘If he’s here, the Bone-Father must have finally died.’

‘You sound pleased,’ Arkhan said.

‘Merely satisfied, I assure you,’ Kemmler said, and tittered. ‘Obald was a fool. Just like the idiot Ogiers, or that black-toothed sneak, Fidduci.’ He glanced at Arkhan, his eyes sly. ‘They were but pale imitations of their betters. Useless chattel, fit only to be used and discarded.’ He made a fist. ‘Power belongs only to those strong enough to wield it. It belongs to those who can survive its use, and those who can take it for themselves. I’m a survivor.’ He licked his lips. ‘Pity Nagash wasn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?’

Arkhan said nothing. Kemmler laughed and turned his attentions back to the dead. The vampire had been right – Kemmler was up to something. He couldn’t help but to boast. He resolved to keep an eye on the old man, even as the night sky above was suddenly lit up by a rain of fire.

‘Arrows,’ he said, raising his staff. A quickly conjured wind plucked away those missiles that drew too close to him and Kemmler. But even as Arkhan readied himself to deal similarly with the next volley, he saw that they were not the target.

The forward elements of the undead host had crossed no more than half the field before the Bretonnian bombardment began. A second volley of flaming arrows pierced the darkness and tore into the ranks of skeletons and wights. Again and again, the Bretonnian archers fired. Only scant seconds passed between each volley, testament to the skill of the longbowmen. Peasants though they were, Arkhan was forced to admit that their skills were on par with the archers of Lybaras.

With a flick of his fingers, he willed those of his minions who possessed them to raise their shields. Nonetheless many were still set alight by glancing or lucky shots, and the shields were of little help against the larger fireballs launched by the massed trebuchets. As the great war engines found their range, more and more impacts occurred, tearing great ragged holes in the undead ranks.

But the undead marched on, driven forwards relentlessly by the combined wills of Arkhan and Kemmler. Dark magic flowed from the fingers of both necromancer and liche, rousing the fallen dead to continue the march, no matter how badly damaged they were. There were few in the world more attuned to the winds of death than he and his troublesome comrade, Arkhan knew. Dieter Helsnicht, perhaps or Zacharias the Ever-Living, but no others possessed the mastery of broken bone and torn flesh that he and Kemmler did.

The dead fell around him and rose again; shattered skeletons swirled and danced back into motion, to rejoin the unwavering advance. The attrition caused by the bombardment slackened, drew to a crawl and then ceased. Arkhan spat black syllables into the greasy air, and every iota of concentration he possessed was bent to thrusting his warhost forward, as if it were a single weapon, and his the hand that wielded it.

It would have been easier with the others – the battle-line more fluid, the tactics less primitive. But Arkhan was forced to admit that it would not have been nearly as satisfying. It had been decades since he had dirtied his hands with war in this fashion. He had stayed on the sidelines of Mallobaude’s rebellion, a fact he regretted, if only for the squandered opportunities.

His attention was drawn by screams. Krell had reached the enemy. With a roar audible only to sorcerers and lunatics, Krell unleashed the Silent Legion upon the Bretonnian lines.

The killing began.

Thirteen

Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

‘The dead-things… followed you,’ Warlord Feskit hissed. He was old, for a skaven, and his fur was the colour of ash. He tapped the hilt of the wide, jagged-bladed cleaver that was stabbed point first into the bone dais supporting his throne. The latter was a trophy taken from a fallen dwarf hold in years past, and it overflowed with pillows and cushions made from the hair and beards of men, elves, dwarfs and unlucky skaven. Feskit himself wore a necklace of orc tusks, goblin noses and human ears, all of which he’d pilfered from the various battles he claimed credit for. ‘You ran, and they followed.’ Every word was enunciated slowly, drawn out like the flick of a torturer’s knife across cringing flesh.

‘No-no, Snikrat the Magni– Snikrat the Loyal came to warn you, mighty Feskit,’ Snikrat chittered. He knelt before the throne, his loyal Bonehides arrayed behind him – far behind him – and gestured towards Feskit imploringly. ‘They seek to invade our lair, oh perspicacious one, by which I mean our tunnels, the very heart of our fortress, this place here,’ he continued, sweeping his arms out. ‘That they followed me is only incidental, by which I mean unrelated, to my own headlong plunge to assure myself of your wellbeing, because you are my warlord and I am your loyal champion.’

In truth, Snikrat had no idea whether or not the dead had followed him. It was certainly possible, but he suspected otherwise, given his cunning and the stealthy nature of his retreat across the plains, back to the mountains. He had seen other clans attempt to match claw and blade with the undead, and he had, briefly, considered lending aid. But it was imperative that he warn Feskit about the enemy; and if that enemy was destroyed before he got back… Well, the credit would be ripe for the claiming, wouldn’t it?

As it happened, he had managed to lead what was left of his warband past the undead at the entrance to Mad Dog Pass, while the charnel horde was otherwise occupied with the Iron Claw orcs. The greenskins hadn’t been faring particularly well, the last Snikrat had seen. He decided not to mention it. Clan Mordkin and the Iron Claws had waged a war for control of the pass for decades, and Feskit respected their strength inasmuch as he respected anything. If he knew that they had been beaten, he might decide to abandon the lair, rather than fight, and Snikrat’s continued survival hinged on the latter.

‘Hrr,’ Feskit grunted. He sat back, his eyes narrowed to mere slits. Snikrat tensed. He glanced at the armoured stormvermin, who crouched or stood arrayed about Feskit’s dais, ready to lunge forward to slaughter at their claw-leader’s command. The Mordrat Guard were Feskit’s personal clawband and they were loyal to a fault, thanks mostly to Feskit’s generous patronage, which ensured that they saw little in the way of actual combat while claiming the bulk of the loot. Feskit was too smart to risk them in open combat, where they couldn’t protect him from treacherous rivals, or, in certain cases, each other. They were also indolent, lazy and far from as skilled as most thought them.

Snikrat knew all of this because he had, once upon a time, been the commander of the Mordrat Guard. He had profited from Feskit’s indulgence, and then, when he had climbed as high as he could, he had made the obvious decision. Granted, it had been the wrong decision, and it had ended with him flat on his back and Feskit’s teeth in his throat, but it had seemed obvious at the time. Snikrat rubbed his throat nervously. Feskit had spared him that day, though he’d never said why.

Snikrat thought – Snikrat hoped – that it was because Feskit was canny enough to know that he was getting old, and that if Clan Mordkin were to continue to flourish, it would need a suitable skaven to lead it. A magnificent skaven, a great warrior and cunning to boot. But that skaven had to prove himself worthy of Feskit’s patronage. He had to acquire victories, follow orders and serve the clan in all those ways that most skaven simply could not, whether due to their inherent untrustworthiness or simple weakness.

As Feskit stroked his whiskers, deep in thought, Snikrat surreptitiously took in the gathered chieftains. Those Feskit considered the most loyal sat near the dais, surrounded by their bodyguards. The rest were scattered throughout the great cavern or hadn’t been invited. There were more than a dozen missing. Some were likely still out plundering the Border Princes, he suspected. Which was just as well – more opportunities for him. He needed to reclaim his place at the foot of the throne, if he was to have any chance of successfully challenging Feskit a second time. He scratched at his throat again. Unless Feskit simply had him executed.

A sudden, discordant clamour of bells echoed through the caverns. The upper tunnels had been breached, Snikrat knew. A wave of relief washed aside his worries. He’d timed his return perfectly. Death shrieks drifted down from the vaulted roof of the cavern, slithering through the numerous flue holes that marked the rock. They echoed and re-echoed about the cavern, and a nervous murmur swept through the gathered chieftains. Snikrat, who was already far too familiar with the enemy even now bearing down on them for his liking, shivered slightly.

Feskit glared at him. Then he waved a paw at the knot of trembling slaves who cowered at the foot of his throne. ‘Bring me my armour and weapons.’ He gestured to the black-clad gutter runners who lurked nearby, waiting to carry forth Feskit’s decrees to all of the small clans within his realm. ‘Summon the conclave of chieftains. The burrow must be defended.’ His eyes found Snikrat again, and his lips peeled back from his fangs. ‘It is lucky that you returned when you did, Snikrat. Where would I be without my greatest champion?’

Snikrat stood, his chest swelling. ‘Snikrat the Magnificent lives only to ensure the greater glory of Clan Mordkin, mighty chieftain,’ he said.

‘Of that I am certain, yes-yes,’ Feskit said. He flung out a paw. ‘Go then! Defend our lair from these intruders, Snikrat. Prove yourself worthy of my faith, yes,’ he chittered.

Snikrat hissed in pleasure and whirled, gesturing to the gathered chieftains. ‘You heard our most merciful and wise clan-leader! Gather your warriors and war engines. Awaken the beasts,’ he snarled. ‘It is time to drive these dead-things from the lair of Mordkin!’

Quenelles, Bretonnia

Anthelme slumped in his saddle, aching, exhausted beyond all measure, burdened by tragedy and fear alike. Nonetheless, the newest, and perhaps last, Duke of Quenelles led his companions north, to war.

He closed his eyes as he rode. His cousin’s face swam to the surface of his thoughts, and he banished it with a curse. He had failed Tancred. It hadn’t been for lack of trying, but it had been a failure regardless. At the battle’s height, his steed had been struck with terror and had fled, taking him with it. By the time he’d brought the beast under control, Tancred was dead, and his muster shattered and shoved aside by the undead host as it made its way north.

Anthelme had made his way to Castle Brenache, where he’d found Fastric Ghoulslayer and Gioffre of Anglaron and the rest of the Companions of Quenelles attempting to rally the remaining knights. Their joyful greetings as he’d ridden shame-faced into the castle courtyard had torn his heart worse than any blade. They’d thought him dead; he wished that were so. More, he wished that Tancred were alive and that he had fallen in his cousin’s place.

Instead, Quenelles was his, and the weight of it felt as if it would snap his spine. The province was in ruins – beset by beastmen and worse things. Calls for aid came every hour, and Anthelme was inundated with inherited troubles. He did not know what to do. Would the defences of the abbey hold, or would aid be required? He had sought the counsel of the Lady of Brenache, the Dowager of Charnorte. She had warned Tancred so many months before, and he’d hoped that she might help him now. And she’d tried.

Her scrying had proven a troublesome affair, marred by what he could only describe as daemonic interference. Anthelme shivered in his saddle as he remembered how the clear waters of her scrying bowl became as dark as a storm cloud, and leering faces formed in the ripples. Fell cries had echoed from the stones and the Lady’s voice had been drowned out by the laughter of the Dark Gods.

He had been ushered from her chambers then, with a promise that she would find an answer for him, and for three days she took neither food nor drink. Her chamber had rocked with the sounds of madness – strange laughter, scratching on the stones and foul smells that lingered in the corridors of the castle. The knights began to mutter that the Lady had deserted them – why else would Tancred have fallen? Why else would the realm be beset by so many enemies at once?

As Anthelme sat and waited for the Lady Elynesse to come out of her room, knights had demanded that he ride out to face one foe or another. Anthelme refused them all, though it hurt him to do so. Some knights left, sallying forth alone to confront the horrors that afflicted their ancestral lands. Others stayed, their natural impetuousness tempered by the memory of Tancred’s fall.

On the third day, their patience was rewarded. Lady Elynesse staggered from her chambers. The Lady’s voice had at last pierced her fevered dreams, and given her a dire warning to pass on – if Anthelme did not go to La Maisontaal, Bretonnia itself would fall.

‘Stop thinking,’ a voice said, rousing Anthelme from his reverie.

‘What?’ he asked. Gioffre of Anglaron grinned at him, and slapped him on the back, causing his mail to jingle.

‘I said stop thinking so hard. You’re spooking the horses.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ Anthelme looked around.

‘No, but it got you to pay attention, didn’t it?’ Gioffre said. ‘We’re but a day’s hard ride from the abbey, and you look as if you’d rather be anywhere else.’

‘It’s not that,’ Anthelme said quickly. Gioffre laughed.

‘Oh I know. Anthelme, you are a true knight, as was Tancred. I fought beside you during Mallobaude’s rebellion, remember? I know that you are no coward. Just as I know that you only fear failure.’ He smiled. Gioffre wasn’t especially handsome, but his face became almost pleasant when he smiled. ‘We will not fail. Troubadours will sing of the day the Companions of Quenelles sent the dead back into the dark, and saved Bretonnia.’ He clapped Anthelme on the shoulder. ‘Now, heads up.’ He pointed upwards. ‘The Ghoulslayer and his flock of overgrown pigeons are back.’

Anthelme couldn’t resist a smile. Gioffre had a distaste for the winged stallions that Fastric Ghoulslayer and his fellow pegasus knights rode. Anthelme suspected that it had less to do with the fact that he felt the surly beasts were unnatural, and more to do with their habit of befouling the ground beneath them as they swooped through the air. Horse dung wasn’t pleasant, especially when it was coming at you from above, and very quickly.

‘Ho, Duke Anthelme,’ Fastric shouted as his steed swooped lazily through the air. The pegasus whinnied as it descended, and it tossed its head and trotted arrogantly towards Anthelme and Gioffre. Their own steeds snorted and pawed the ground as the beast fell into step with them. Normal warhorses didn’t get along with pegasus, even at the best of times. Gioffre’s stallion nipped at Fastric’s steed, and the former planted a fist between his mount’s ears. ‘Keep that bad-tempered nag of yours under control, sirrah,’ Fastric said.

‘It’d be easier if that beast of yours didn’t provoke the other animals,’ Gioffre said.

Before the old, familiar argument could begin again, Anthelme said, ‘What news, Ghoulslayer?’

‘Beasts,’ Fastric growled. ‘Hundreds of them. They’re moving north, but much more slowly than us.’

‘Has Arkhan the Black made common cause with the creatures, do you think?’ Gioffre asked. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past that creature, frankly.’

Anthelme frowned. ‘They’ve been following us for days. If they were allies, wouldn’t they have attacked us by now? Even creatures like that should have no difficulty in divining our destination.’ He thought briefly of the beast-herd that had led Tancred into the ambush that had cost him his life, and wondered if this was the same one, before dismissing the idea. There were dozens of such warbands prowling the province now. ‘No,’ he said, straightening in his saddle. ‘No, they’re scavengers. They’re following us in hope of an easy victory. Well, let them. All they’ll find is death.’

He twisted in his saddle and looked back at the column of knights that followed him. Standards of every design and hue rose over the assembled force. Warriors from every province and city were counted amongst the Companions of Quenelles, and for a moment, just a moment, Anthelme felt the shadow that had been on his heart since Tancred’s death lift. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked at Fastric. ‘He would be proud,’ the older knight murmured. ‘As are we all. Where you lead, Anthelme, Duke of Quenelles, your Companions will follow.’

Anthelme nodded brusquely. ‘Then let us ride. La Maisontaal Abbey is in need of defenders, and I would not have it said that the Duke of Quenelles fell short in his responsibility.’ He kicked his horse into a gallop, followed by Gioffre. Fastric set spurs to his steed and the pegasus sprang into the air with a neigh.

Horns blew up and down the column, and the Companions of Quenelles hurtled north.

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

Theoderic of Brionne growled in satisfaction as the line of shields buckled, but did not break. ‘Hold, you filthy pigs,’ he rumbled as he watched the peasants resist the undead advance. ‘Hold.’ The peasants did not love him. He knew this, and accepted it as a consequence of his position. But if they did not love him, they at least feared him, and they would do their duty, dreading the price of failure.

Tancred had cautioned him against meeting the enemy in open battle, should they arrive in his absence. The dead could not be smashed aside so easily, he’d said. But Tancred hadn’t heeded his own advice, and now, if the message his cousin had sent was to be believed, his body was somewhere out there in that lurching horde.

It was almost enough to make him doubt himself. The newly christened Duke of Quenelles had sent riders from Castle Brenache, where he was taking the counsel of the Lady Elynesse, the Dowager of Charnorte. The riders had only just managed to outpace the dead, and they had brought word of Tancred’s fall and of Anthelme’s intention to ride to La Maisontaal’s aid with the Companions of Quenelles. Anthelme had advised him to retreat behind the abbey walls, and to hold the dead back, but not to meet them in pitched battle.

A sensible plan; behind the walls, the muster of La Maisontaal could more readily rely upon the magics of the three sisters of Ancelioux. At the thought of the trio of damsels, he glanced towards the shieldwall, where they stood, clad in shimmering damask and furs against the chill of evening. He knew little of the women, and what he did know, he didn’t like.

It was rare to have three daughters chosen by the Fay Enchantress, as poor Evroul of Mousillon had, and even rarer to see them after the fact. It hadn’t been a happy reunion, by all accounts – Evroul, unlucky in fortune as well as family, had chosen the wrong side in the civil war, and his own daughters had killed him. Nonetheless, their magics would come in handy in the battle to come, he thought.

Anthelme’s advice aside, Theoderic had no intention of waiting for rescue. Right or wrong, he was a man of tradition. The darkness was not to be feared, or avoided. It was to be confronted head on, and smashed aside with blade and lance. Under his command, the garrison at La Maisontaal was more active than it had been, even under Tancred’s father. It was larger, with more men than had ever before manned its walls.

As soon as his scouts had reported the host approaching the cleared plains before the abbey he had sworn on the tatters of his honour to guard, he had known that the moment he had been seeking since he had given up his ancestral lands and titles had arrived. Before him was a chance for redemption, a chance to atone for the failings of mind and body that had tarnished his family name.

‘This… is a glorious day,’ he murmured. He looked around at the knights who surrounded him. Anticipation was writ on every face, and their horses shifted impatiently, as eager as their riders to be at the charge. He knew that similar looks would be on the faces of the knights waiting for his signal on the opposite flank.

He rose up in his saddle and lifted his axe over his head. On the other side of the field, a horn crafted from the tusk of a great wyrm wailed. Theoderic knew that horn, and the man who wielded it – Montglaive of Treseaux, slayer of the wyrm Catharax, from whose cooling corpse he had hacked the tusk he had made into his horn. Montglaive commanded the right flank, as Theoderic commanded the left. As the horns on the right sounded, so too did the horns on the left, and Theoderic felt his soul stir.

He was not a man for speeches, inspiring or otherwise. It was not in him to rouse or incite, but he knew that something must be said. He felt the weight of the world’s attention on him. The air vibrated with some inescapable pulse, some fateful pull, which sharpened his attentions and tugged at his heart. He might die this day, but he would not be forgotten. He would not be remembered as a sozzle-wit or a failed knight, but as a hero. As a champion of the Lady, and of the realm. Songs would be sung, and toasts raised, and the name of Theoderic of Brionne would stand through the ages to come.

That was all he had ever wished.

‘This is a glorious day!’ he roared, spreading his arms. ‘We honoured few stand between holy ground and a black host, and the Lady stands with us! Our fair land writhes in pain, assaulted by daemon, outsider and ill-roused corpse. But we few stand here, to prove not simply our courage, or our honour, but that though all Bretonnia is besieged, hope has not yet forsaken the realm eternal! Hope, which echoes in the rattle of swords and the thunder of hooves! Ride, defenders of La Maisontaal! Ride, knights of Bretonnia! Ride and sweep the enemy before you – ride for the Lady and the world’s renewal!’

All around him, his knights gave a great shout, and then thrust back their spurs and joined the battle, Theoderic at their head. The ground shook as the pride of Bretonnia hurtled towards their enemy, lances lowered.

Theoderic bent forward over his charger’s neck. He carried no lance, but instead wielded his axe. The weapon was his only reminder of who he had been, before his disgrace. He had carried it in glory and in folly, and he would not be parted from it save in death. Its blade had been anointed in the holy font of La Maisontaal, and as it spun in his grip, it began to shine with a blessed light.

The darkness retreated before him, and he could see the dead where they stumbled, mindless and remorseless. To him, in that moment, they were a sign of all that had afflicted Bretonnia. He raised his axe, roared out an oath and struck out as his steed smashed into the flanks of the dead and pierced them like a spear. His axe licked out, shining like a beacon, and took the head from a zombie.

Then the rest of the knights struck home, and the twelfth and final battle for La Maisontaal Abbey began in earnest.

Fourteen

Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

Markos von Carstein did not consider himself unduly ambitious. Indeed, he liked to think of himself as something of an idealist. Vlad had been an idealist, and Vlad was his model in most things. Vlad was a paragon, the vampiric ideal made flesh. The King of Blood, the Emperor of Bones, his ghost was tangible in every speck of Sylvanian soil.

Markos bent away from the thrusting spear, and flicked his wrist, bisecting the squealing ratman’s skull with his sword. He twisted in his saddle, chopping another in half, and swatted away a smoke-filled globe with the flat of his blade, sending it tumbling back towards the skaven who’d thrown it. It shattered and the skaven died, choking on its own blood.

It was Vlad who had elevated him from the common muck, and made him a Templar of the Drakenhof Order. It was Vlad who had nurtured his natural gifts for sorcery and strategy. It was Vlad who had given him purpose.

And it was Mannfred who had taken it all away.

Mannfred the liar. Mannfred the schemer. Mannfred the acolyte. Mannfred, who had come from somewhere else to join Vlad, who was no Sylvanian, who sometimes spoke in an accent that Markos had yet to recognise, despite his travels.

Vlad should never have trusted him. But that too was part of the ideal. Vlad had worn his honour like armour, and it had dragged him down in the end. Markos had learned from Vlad’s mistakes and when Mannfred had set his feet on the path of empire, Markos had absented himself. Mannfred was not Vlad, and he lacked Vlad’s patience, something that inevitably led to his downfall. His attempt at conquest had ended with him sinking into Hel Fenn, and the shattering of the Drakenhof Order. They had all gone their separate ways, eager to put their defeat behind them.

Markos had spent years building up his own network of spies and informers. He had schemed and plotted dynastic marriages and political alliances, all to ensure his ultimate success. Elize, he knew, had been doing much the same, as had Tomas and the others. The Game of Night had lasted for centuries, as the remaining von Carsteins wove plot and counter-plot against one another and the Lahmians.

And then Mannfred had ruined it all by coming back.

Markos growled and parried a rust-edged cleaver. He thrust down, pinning the skaven to the cavern floor. There were seemingly thousands of the beasts, and they just kept coming in wave after wave of squealing fodder. He jerked his blade up out of the dying skaven and looked around. The cavern resembled the bowels of some vast, nightmarish engine – immense cogs, corroded pistons and acid-pitted flywheels projected from the walls at all angles, and rose from deep grooves in the cavern floor. The mechanisms were still in motion, despite the battle, and as Markos watched, a skaven warrior got too close to one and was whisked into a clanking maw, to be pulverised instantly.

The cavern was so choked with machinery that it was impossible for the combatants to fight more than five or six abreast, and the skaven suffered for this inability to bring their numbers to bear. Horns wailed and bells clanged somewhere far back in one of the tunnels, and those skaven closest to the exits began to flee the cavern.

Markos wheeled his horse about and galloped back towards the knot of undead horsemen who surrounded the Drakenhof Templars and Mannfred. As he passed through the ranks of the former, he examined them enviously. The Doom Riders had been legendary even in Vlad’s time. Supposedly, they had first ridden forth from whatever barrow had held them at Nagash’s command, and after his defeat at Sigmar’s hand, they had ridden into the depths of the Drakwald, from whence they had haunted the surrounding lands for centuries until Vlad had sought them out and bent them to his will.

The undead horsemen wore corroded armour of a bygone age, and carried lances wreathed in cold flame. They watched him as he threaded through them, and his flesh felt as if it were covered in crawling spiders as they tracked his progress with hell-spark eyes. When he reached the others, Mannfred glanced at him. ‘Well?’

‘They’re falling back,’ Markos said. He leaned back in his saddle. ‘We’ll have the cavern cleared within the hour, unless they bring up reinforcements. Which they don’t seem inclined to do, if you want my opinion.’

‘I don’t,’ Mannfred said, turning away.

Markos bit down on the reply that sprang unbidden to his lips. He turned away from Mannfred and settled down to wait, one hand resting on the pommel of his blade. His anger simmered, but he wrestled it down.

Striking now would be disastrous, whether he succeeded or not. They were miles beneath the surface, and dependent on Mannfred for guidance to find their way through the seemingly endless labyrinth of twisted and reeking warrens. He’d considered trying his luck when the skaven had attacked Forzini’s camp, but Elize’s words of caution had restrained him. Mannfred was wary, ready for treachery right now. But, when he’d achieved his goal, Markos would have his chance, or so Elize swore. With the Claw and the Fellblade in his possession, Mannfred would be distracted, drunk on victory and his own power. It was a window of opportunity, albeit a narrow one.

Strike swiftly, before he has the chance to acclimate himself to the power of the artefact, she’d said, and he had to admit that it wasn’t bad advice. Not that he trusted Elize farther than he could throw her. She was likely hoping that he and Mannfred would kill one another. So be it. He couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. Elize had her own games, just as he did.

Mannfred had ruined them all by coming back. Arrogant, assured of his superiority, he had smashed their delicately woven webs to shreds and tangles, and demanded that they kowtow to him, as they once had. As if their ambitions meant nothing compared to his own.

Well, Markos intended to show him the error of his ways.

Mannfred was as mad as Konrad had been. Oh his madness took a different form, to be sure, but he was just as much a lunatic. His time in the mire had rotted his brains, and he endangered them all with his current obsession. Markos shivered slightly as he looked at the staff Mannfred clutched, and the withered thing that occupied its head. He could feel the malignancy of the Claw in his bones.

Markos was not one to lie to himself. He knew what he was, and what he had done in his centuries of bloodletting. But there were things in the world far worse than him, and the Claw was the tool of one of them. Mannfred was caught up in its whispers and promises. They could all hear the voices – the voice – of the artefacts that Mannfred had gathered. A wheedling, demanding susurrus that permeated Castle Sternieste and haunted them. Every vampire felt the call of Nagash in their blood, whether they admitted it or not.

Most, however, knew better than to give in to it.

He looked at Mannfred again, and blinked. For a moment, in the flickering of the great globes of warpfire that hung from the roof of the cavern, he thought he’d seen something looming over the other vampire. A dark shape, far darker than any shadow, and colder than the depths of a mountain lake.

Markos shuddered and looked away.

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

Heinrich Kemmler didn’t flinch as the knights struck the vast sea of the dead. He felt the reverberations of that impact in his bones, but he ignored it. He had more important matters clamouring for his attention. His magics were growing less precise, and less effective. At first, he’d thought the culprit was Arkhan. He wouldn’t have put it past the liche to strike while he was otherwise occupied, and try to wrest control of the dead from him.

Arkhan didn’t trust him, Kemmler knew. Nor did he blame the liche. Kemmler had no intention of allowing Nagash to return, whatever Arkhan’s desires. Nagash’s time had passed and good riddance to the creature. Hundreds of arch-necromancers had risen and fallen with the tide of years since the Undying King had been gutted on his own basalt throne, each of them worth more than any old dead thing.

The very thought of it incensed him. The drumbeat – the heartbeat of the Great Necromancer – in his head threatened to drown out all of his hard-won coherency. It had driven him mad, that sound. He knew that now. It had forged him, and fed his hungers. It had been the rhythm that had guided his steps, and set him on the path he had trod for centuries. It was the voice inside his head, whispering the secrets of power and the wielding of it; and then, when he had needed it most, it had taken all of it away. That was something Kemmler could not forgive.

Fresh rage flooded him, and he clawed at the barely visible skeins of magic that flowed about him, trying to find the source of the interference. He could feel the heat of Krell’s growing battle-lust, and he focused on it, using it as a touchstone. The wight had been his constant companion for more years than he cared to count, and he had woven innumerable spells with Krell at his side. The creature was at once a sump and a sponge for dark magic. Sometimes, he even thought that he could hear Krell speak. Or perhaps not Krell, but something that clung to his brutal husk like a shadow.

When Krell was near, the drumbeat was almost impossible to ignore. But that was not the only sound in his head. There were words as well, whispers and wheedling, plaintive murmurs, which rose and fell with the winds of magic. Kemmler had first heard those voices in the hour of Krell’s resurrection, when they had offered him aid if he would bend the wight to certain tasks. And he had, and the voices too had grown quiescent. But now, as the drumbeat grew louder, so too did they, as if the initiators of each were attempting to drown out the other.

Strange currents of power flowed through him now, beneath the old familiar shroud of deathly sorcery. Like an adder beneath the water, this new power warmed him to his joints, and buoyed him. It had healed his mind and memory and soul, though it had taken centuries to do so. Centuries to clear out the rot of Nagash, Kemmler knew.

Nagash had used him. It was Nagash who had used him to build an empire, and Nagash who had guided him to Krell, but not for Kemmler’s sake. That was what the whisperers had told him. And it was Nagash who wanted to use him now. It was Nagash who stalked him in the dark hollows of memory, hunting the tatters of his soul.

Fear, now, warred with rage. He flailed as a thread of magic slipped between his fingers. A nearby zombie flopped down, inert and inanimate. More followed suit, and Kemmler hissed in mounting frustration. Concentrate, he had to concentrate. Between the hammer of the drum and the mounting agitation of the whispers, he heard the telltale cackle of the skull atop his staff.

Kemmler turned, and his eyes narrowed. He caught a pale wisp of rising magics – not the ashy smoke of the wind of death, but the gossamer effluvium of the raw stuff of life – and saw a trio of women standing behind the embattled shieldwall of peasantry. His lips writhed back from his teeth in a snarl of disdain.

The women were marshalling the magics of life to counteract his sorceries of death. Behind them, moss and flowers crawled across the stones of the abbey walls, and thick vines and roots crawled across the battlefield about them. The impertinence of it assaulted his sensibilities, and he slammed the end of his staff down, planting it like a standard.

‘This is my ground, witches,’ he hissed. And it was, in every way that mattered. He had bought it in blood and time. Every time he had made war in this place, on the abbey, he had shed his life’s blood and soured the ground with the stuff of death. They could plant all of the trees and flowers they liked, remove all of the bodies, weave every protective enchantment known to elf or man, but the ground was still his and would be forever more.

As if they had heard his words, three pairs of eyes, violet and alien, met his own dark ones. He felt a jolt as three minds, trained to think inhuman thoughts and bent to inhuman goals, reached out to him. They were powerful, these witches. The cursed elves of Athel Loren had taken their natural gifts and forced them down unnatural paths, moulding them into weapons to be used against their own kind.

Thoughts like claws tore at his connection to the winds of magic, severing his links with brutal efficiency. He snarled and champed like a beast in a trap, and every vein stood out in his neck and arms as he reached for his staff with his free hand. A wind sprang from nowhere, tearing at him, hot and cold all at once. His bones felt heavy, but hollow, and things that might have been maggots squirmed beneath his flesh and dripped from the unhealed wound that Tancred had dealt him. The soil churned beneath him, as if in pain, and there was moss growing on his staff. He swept it off angrily.

They had minds like trees with ancient roots: anchored and arrogant. He lashed out at them, attacking them mind to mind, and was rebuffed. Kemmler ground his teeth in growing frustration. His rage turned incandescent and burned away all hesitation.

The whispers rose, drowning out the drumbeat. Warmth – true warmth – flooded him, filling the cold emptiness that Nagash had left in him all those centuries ago when his voice, his spirit, had abandoned Kemmler on the eve of the Battle of Ten Thousand Skulls. Yes, they whispered. Yes, yes, yes, it is all yours for the taking. You do not serve us, but we will serve you. And he knew that they lied, because they were crafted from the very stuff of falsehood; but he also knew that what they offered was real – and that Arkhan, and his phantom master, offered nothing at all save the very thing that Kemmler had fled from down through the long, winding nightmare road of years.

No, better damnation than oblivion.

Better madness than servitude.

Better to fight and fail than surrender and be nothing.

‘Mine – the abbey, the air you breathe, the ground you stand on, all of it mine,’ Kemmler snarled, as the fire surged in him. He dug the end of his staff into the ground the way a torturer might dig a blade into the flesh of his victim. ‘So listen and listen well to the master of La Maisontaal, witches.’ Power flooded through him as he gripped his staff with both hands and channelled the new, destructive magics that hummed through his veins into the earth. Pockets of dark magic and old, sour death awoke at its touch, and the ground lost its colour as he sent the awakened power burrowing through the soil. ‘I am not the intruder here. You are.’

He felt, rather than saw, the panic begin to creep in and undermine their inhuman calm. They could feel the very earth beneath their feet rejecting their petty magics. Steam escaped from the cracked and dying soil, rising up to mingle with the smoke of the fires. Three pairs of hands began to weave a complicated counter-spell, but it was too late.

Kemmler smiled as he felt their mystical defences fall away, as if they had built them on sand. Then, the sky spoke harshly, and a bolt of black lightning lanced down through the dark sky to strike the three women and the men who protected them. Kemmler felt their deaths and he threw his head back and expelled a cackle.

‘Thus to all who would deny me my proper due,’ he roared. ‘Heinrich Kemmler yet lives!’ He swept out his hands and felt his ebullience fill the dead around him, driving them faster and lending strength to their faltering limbs.

For a moment, he stood in an eye of calm amidst the chaos of battle. He felt strong – stronger than he had ever felt before. He was cloaked in magic, and his wound was healed. He sucked in a breath.

The dead hesitated. Empty eyes turned towards him, and lipless mouths flapped as though in warning. His skull staff was silent. The rush of confidence, of self-assurance, faded. Kemmler licked his lips, suddenly nervous. Though many corpses were looking at him, they were all doing so with the same set of eyes. And they were neither as dead nor as empty as he had first thought. They were dark with anger, and with promise.

Kemmler pushed through their ranks. One or two reached out for him, but he clubbed them aside with his staff and his will. More and more of them turned to follow him, but not in the way they had before. He felt his control slacken, and knew then what he had given up.

It was time to get what he had come for.

It was time to put an end to things.

Fifteen

Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

‘Again! Burninate them again – quick-rapid!’ Snikrat shrieked, beating one of the warpfire gunners about the head with the flat of his blade. ‘Immolate, by which I mean set fire to, the cursed twice-dead, but still somehow moving and, more importantly, biting, things!’

Things were not going as well as Snikrat had hoped.

The gunner chattered curses as he aimed the warpfire thrower and unleashed a second belch of crackling green flames into the mouths of the tunnels that opened up onto the cavern. The fire lashed out indiscriminately, spraying the walls and those skaven too slow in retreating as well as the inexorable dead. Skaven flooded out of the tunnel past Snikrat and his warriors, squealing and slapping ineffectually at their fur as they sought to escape the hungry grasp of the flames.

The undead came on at a remorseless pace, pushing through the flames. Some fell, but these were replaced by more. And those that had fallen continued to crawl or slither forward until they were consumed entirely by the snapping flames. They inundated the upper tunnels, marching blindly into the spears and swords of the skaven, dragging down their destroyers as they were hacked apart. No matter how desperately the skaven fought, no matter how ferociously or cunningly, they could not match the dead, nor the unbending will that forced them on, metre by metre, tunnel by tunnel. Little by little, the warriors of Clan Mordkin were being driven back to the very heart of their domain.

‘More! More-more-more!’ Snikrat wailed, battering away at the unfortunate gunner with his blade for emphasis. ‘Hotter! Faster! Quicker! Don’t look at me idiot-fool – look at them!’ The warpfire gunner snarled and hunched, trying to avoid the blows. The warpfire throwers burbled and a third roar of green flame spewed out, momentarily obliterating the mouth of the tunnel. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Snikrat bounced on his feet, sword waving over his head as the front rank of corpses vanished, utterly consumed. ‘Fall and cease, dead-dead things. Snikrat the Magnificent commands you in his most commanding and authoritative manner to die, by which he means die again, and to thus stop moving!’ Behind him, his Bonehides began to cheer in relieved fashion. The stormvermin hadn’t been looking forward to fighting the undead again, especially in the cramped tunnels.

The cheers died away abruptly as the first stumbling, staggering torch lurched blindly out of the tunnel mouth. It was followed by another and another and another, until it seemed as if hundreds of burning corpses were squirming towards Snikrat’s ragged battle-line. A snorting undead boar, still girded with the legs of the orc who had ridden it in life, barrelled towards the warpfire throwers.

Snikrat yelped and, in his haste to scramble out of the way, his sword accidentally chopped through the hose. Green liquid sprayed everywhere as the burning pig lunged at the hapless gunners. The resulting explosion picked Snikrat up by the scruff of his neck and sent him hurtling away from the tunnel mouth, his fur crisping and his flesh burning.

He hit the cave floor hard and rolled, snuffing the flames that had caught him in the process. The cavern rumbled as fire washed the walls. Timber props, weakened by the gushing warpfire, gave way, and some of the tunnels collapsed, burying the living and the dead alike.

As Snikrat scrambled to his feet, clutching his burned tail to his chest, he saw the few surviving warriors of the Bonehides fall, dragged down by the burning dead. The air stank of fear-musk as the remaining warriors began to stream away from the cavern, pelting into the various tunnels, swarming away from the groping dead.

The tunnels were lost. Feskit was not going to be happy. Nonetheless, it was Snikrat’s duty to report on his sad failure, in person, to his liege lord. He ran with heroic alacrity, his injured tail whipping behind him as he pelted down the tunnel. He used his weight and strength to smash aside fleeing clanrats, and when the tunnel was so packed with squealing skaven that such tactics proved impossible, he scrambled up onto a clanrat’s shoulders and bounded across the heads of the others as they fought and bit for space.

Snikrat burst out of the crowded confines of the tunnel and sprinted towards the Mordkin lair’s final line of defence – a vast chasm, which split the outer tunnels from the great central cavern that was the rotten heart of the burrow. A long and winding bridge spanned the chasm. Composed of planks, spars, tar-clogged ropes and other detritus fit for purpose, including but not limited to panels of metal, bones and sheets of filthy cloth, it was the very pinnacle of skaven efficiency and engineering, and the sight of it lent Snikrat speed.

There was no other way across the chasm, not for leagues in any direction. Feskit had long ago ordered all other routes undermined to better prevent infiltration or attack by rival clans or ambitious greenskins. Skaven were clustered about the bridge, some trying to organise themselves into something approaching military readiness, while others were squealing and fighting to cross the bridge before their fellows. Snikrat charged headlong into the disorganised knot of clanrats, laying about him with his fist and sword until he reached the bridge and began to scramble across.

He heard the communal groan of their foes echo through the cavern as he ran. Skaven began to scream and the bridge swayed wildly as clanrats followed him, pursued closely by the swarming dead. Snikrat whirled as something grabbed his tail. A zombie, blackened by fire and missing most of its flesh, had lunged through the confusion and latched on to him. Snikrat shrilled in terror and lopped off the top of the thing’s grinning skull. It slumped, and its weight nearly pulled him from the bridge. As he extricated himself, he saw that those skaven who had been following him had not been nearly so lucky. They fell or were hurled into the chasm by the stumbling corpses, as the latter pressed forward, crawling along the bridge. The whole ramshackle structure shuddered and swayed wildly, and Snikrat had a sudden vision of himself plummeting into the darkness below.

Fear lent him wings, and he fairly flew towards the opposite side. A small army of clanrat weaponeers were gathering there, beneath the watchful eyes of several other sub-chiefs. Warpfire throwers and jezzail teams assembled along the edge of the chasm, weapons at the ready. As Snikrat hurtled to join them, he screamed, ‘Burn it! Burn the bridge – hurry, hurry, hurry!’

With somewhat unseemly haste, the warpfire throwers roared, the tongues of green flame barely missing him as they struck the centre of the span. He crashed onto solid ground and rolled to his feet, teeth bared and sword extended in what he hoped was a suitably heroic pose. ‘Yes, yes! Watch, minions – my grand strategy unfolds! See how cunningly Snikrat the Magnificent wages war,’ he cackled as the bridge began to groan and shift. Then, with a shriek of rupturing wood and tearing cloth, it toppled lazily into the chasm, carrying the dead with it.

Snikrat’s cackles grew in volume, and he was joined in his triumphant laughter by the other skaven as more and more zombies flooded out of the tunnels and were pushed into the depths by the mindless ranks coming behind them. The dead were stymied by the chasm, just as he had cunningly planned. Now was the time to unleash the full fury of Clan Mordkin’s arsenal. He shrieked orders to that effect, and the warpfire teams and jezzail gunners opened fire in a cloud of black powder and scorched air.

Snikrat watched in satisfaction as the dead were plucked from the opposite side of the chasm by a barrage of warpstone bullets, which whined and crashed across the divide. Zombies slewed off the edge and spiralled into oblivion, or collapsed burning. With a hiss of triumph, he sheathed his blade and strutted back towards the tunnels that led to the fortress-lair to inform Feskit of his triumph.

By the time Snikrat made it back through the gates of the fortress-lair, however, his ebullience had begun to sour. The clangour of alarms still choked the air, and clanrats scampered past him, running far more quickly than he would have expected. He could hear screams as well, and once, the dull crump of a warpfire thrower exploding.

Snikrat began to run. He had to explain to Feskit that whatever was happening wasn’t his fault. The weaponeers had disobeyed his orders – the clanrats had broken and run – the chieftains were fleeing – only Snikrat was loyal enough to stand beside Feskit, as he had in times past. His hand clenched on the hilt of his blade, as, in the depths of his twisty mind, the thought surfaced that merciful Feskit would surely be distracted enough to accept Snikrat’s blade at his back. He would need all of the loyal servants he could get, would old Feskit.

Snikrat had visions of himself courageously stabbing the tyrant of Mordkin in the back as Mordkin’s arsenal of weapons and beasts exterminated the dead. They carried him all the way to Feskit’s throne room, where chieftains and thralls scurried about in varying levels of panic. The alarm bells were deafening here, and they were ringing so ferociously that one snapped loose of its line and plummeted down, crushing a dozen slaves into a pulpy mess as Snikrat watched.

‘You failed,’ Feskit hissed from behind him. Snikrat spun, his paw still on the hilt of his sword. Feskit was surrounded by his Mordrat Guard, and Snikrat jerked his claws away from his sword as they levelled their halberds.

‘No! Successes unparalleled, oh merciful Feskit! Snikrat the Faithful, Snikrat the Dutiful, was failed by faithless, cowardly clanrats and irresponsible underlings; I-I came to warn you that the dead-dead things advance towards the gates even now,’ Snikrat babbled, his mind squirming quickly as he tried to stay on top of the situation. ‘They-they have crossed the chasm somehow – magic! They crossed it with magic, foul sorcery – and Snikrat came back to see to your defence personally.’

‘Did he?’ Feskit said. ‘I feel safer already.’ His eyes glinted. He glanced at one of his stormvermin. ‘Rouse the packmasters and the remaining weaponeers. Summon the turn-tail chieftains who enjoy my gracious hospitality, and scour the barrack-burrows for every stormvermin,’ he snarled.

‘And… and what of Snikrat, oh most kindly lord?’ Snikrat squeaked hesitantly. He rubbed his scarred throat, and wondered if he should make himself scarce.

Feskit glared at him, and then said, ‘You… Hrr, yes, I have a special task for you, Snikrat.’ He turned and grabbed another stormvermin by his cuirass and jerked him close. ‘You – tell the slaves to fetch… the Weapon.’

The stormvermin paled beneath his black fur. Feskit snarled again and shoved him back. ‘Fetch it now, quick-quick!’ Snikrat smelt the spurt of fear-musk that rose from the assembled stormvermin at the thought of the Weapon. The Fellblade, with its blade of glistening black warpstone. Could Feskit mean to give it to him to wield? He felt his courage return. With that blade in hand, Snikrat knew he would be invincible.

‘I will not fail you, Lord Feskit,’ Snikrat hissed, head full of the victories to come.

‘No, you will not,’ Feskit said. Then, with a lunge that would have put a wolf-rat to shame, he sank his yellow, chisel teeth into Snikrat’s throat. Snikrat tumbled back, clutching at his ruined jugular. Through a darkening haze, he saw Feskit chew and swallow the lump of gristle and flesh. ‘The Fellblade drains its wielder. You shall sustain me through the efforts to come, loyal Snikrat,’ Feskit said, cleaning his whiskers as his stormvermin raised their blades over Snikrat, to complete his butchery. As everything went dark, he heard Feskit say, ‘Thank you for your contribution.’

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

Arkhan’s mind was like a spider’s web, stretched to its breaking point by a strong wind, covering the battlefield. In the north, he urged Krell on about his bloody business. In the south, he goaded the shuffling dead to keep pace with the rest of the army. What remained of his attentions were fixed on Kemmler, and when he felt the surge of power, he knew that his suspicions had been proven correct.

The Lichemaster was more powerful now than ever before, and that power had not come from Nagash. The decaying cat on his shoulder hissed as a bolt of black lightning cut down through the night sky and struck a point on the battlefield. ‘What are you up to, necromancer?’ Arkhan said, out loud.

The winds of death suddenly thrashed about him, as if they were ropes that had been pulled taut. He felt the air pulse with indefinable motions and saw things not born of the world move through the shifting gossamer aurora of magics that hung over the battlefield. Daemonic voices cackled in his ear, and gloating phantom faces gibbered at him and vanished. His attentions snapped down, retracting to focus on Kemmler. But before he could do so fully, he was brutally interrupted.

‘Death to the dealers of death!’ the knight bellowed as his horse bulled through Arkhan’s skeletal bodyguard and drove the blade of his axe down through the liche’s ribcage, before the latter could react. The blow lifted Arkhan from his feet and sent him to the ground in a heap. The laughter of the Dark Gods roared in his head. He could see the trap now, in all of its crooked cunning. The beastmen, Kemmler, all of it… He was caught in the jaws of a hungry fate. Even now, with more than half of the knights who had crashed into the flanks of his host dead, there were still enough Bretonnians left on the field to carry the day, if Arkhan fell.

Something – not quite panic – filled him. It wasn’t desperation either, but frustration. To have come so close only to be denied. He saw the cat streaking towards him. It had fallen from his shoulders when he was knocked down, and he felt bereft, though he could not say why. Above him, in the smoke, faces leered down at him, mouthing the vilest curses, and devilish shapes capered invisibly about the knight, kept at bay by the light emanating from his axe. The Dark Gods wanted Arkhan in the ground, and more, it seemed that they wanted to watch him being put there.

Under other circumstances, he might have felt flattered. As the knight urged his horse forward, Arkhan’s shattered, brown bones began to repair themselves. The knight growled in satisfaction as he closed in. Arkhan tried to heave himself up. ‘Oh no, evil one. That will not do. The Lady has tasked Theoderic of Brionne with giving you the long overdue gift of death, and you shall accept it in full,’ the knight roared as he raised his axe. His armour was battered and stained, but the blade of his axe glowed brightly as the dawn broke over the battlefield.

Before the blow could fall, a blur of red iron interposed itself between axe and bone, and the knight was toppled from his saddle. Arkhan was somewhat surprised to see Anark von Carstein there, blade in hand, armour torn and stained with the detritus of hard fighting. Another slash and the knight’s horse screamed and fell, hooves kicking uselessly in its death throes. Arkhan watched in satisfaction as the knight gasped as he tried to gather his feet under him. His fall had broken something in him, the liche knew. The man spat blood and groped for his axe. He caught it up, while Anark’s blade descended for his skull. He swatted the blow aside and dragged himself to his feet.

‘Give me your name, devil, so that I might tell it to the troubadours who will sing of this day in years to come,’ Theoderic rasped, hefting his axe. Anark lunged without speaking, his blade moving quicker than the knight could follow. He interposed his axe, audibly swallowing a groan as whatever had broken inside him shifted painfully, and the edges of both weapons bit into one another. Arkhan watched the battle, somewhat amazed that the mortal was still on his feet. A raw light seemed to infuse him, as it had his axe, and it forced him up and on, lashing at him like a slave-driver’s whip. The Bretonnians called it a blessing, but Arkhan knew it for what it was. Nagash had used similar spells to invigorate and drive forward the Yaghur in those dim, dark days of the past. Whatever the Lady was, whether she was some goddess of elves or men, or something else entirely, she was as desperate as the Chaos gods to see Arkhan stymied.

Theoderic smashed the vampire in the face with his elbow and knocked him to one knee. He drove his axe down, crumpling a blood-red pauldron and gashing Anark’s neck. He drew his axe back and swung, knocking the vampire sprawling. ‘Tell me your name, beast! Let it ring over the field!’ he roared, swinging his axe up to take a two-handed grip on the haft as the beast clawed for its blade. The vampire moved so quickly, Theoderic’s words had barely left his lips before Anark launched a blow that severed both of Theoderic’s arms and his head as well.

‘My name is Anark von Carstein, meat,’ the vampire spat as he glared down at his fallen foe. Arkhan dragged himself upright. He touched the spot where the axe had caught him, and felt the bones click back into place. The weapon had been blessed, to do such damage, but he had survived worse in his time.

‘Indeed it is. It seems that I owe you a debt, von Carstein,’ Arkhan said as he retrieved his staff. The cat leapt up and hauled its way back onto his shoulder, its eyes glowing faintly. Most of the flesh was gone from its skull, and its spine rose above its sagging hide like a battlement. It felt as heavy as ever, and it gave an impatient miaow as it wrapped itself about his neck. He stroked its bony shoulder and set his staff. All around him the fallen dead, including what was left of Theoderic, began to slide and slither and stumble upright. Waste not, want not, after all.

‘One that I will be only too happy to collect from you, but not until this affray is ended,’ Anark growled. He gestured with his sword. ‘Which shouldn’t be too much longer, from the looks of things.’

Arkhan followed the gesture just in time to see the Bretonnian shieldwall shatter. Here and there, groups of men kept their order and fought against the tide that sought to overwhelm them. But most of them gave in to their terror and fled towards the dubious safety of the abbey walls. Krell’s wights pursued, taking advantage of the breach in the line. The lines of archers and war engines were overrun by slavering ghouls, led by the Crowfiend, and embattled knights were surrounded by skeletons and clawing zombies. The battle was breaking down, becoming a slaughter.

The greater part of the Bretonnian army was dead or fleeing. Those who remained would not survive long. La Maisontaal Abbey was as good as theirs. The staff of Nagash would soon be on its way back to Sylvania, to be reunited with the other relics. Satisfaction filled him such as he had not felt in centuries.

The end was coming. The end of his road, of all struggle and strife. Lamps extinguished, story finished and finally… sleep. Blessed eternal sleep. He swept his staff through a curl of smoke full of silently snarling faces. ‘Arkhan still lives, little gods. You have failed. And Nagash will shatter your petty schemes and hurl you back into the void that gave birth to you,’ he rasped, hurling his bravado at the wispy shapes like a javelin.

But his moment of satisfaction was brief. Kemmler was nowhere to be seen. And Arkhan knew where he had gone. He saw hazy daemonic shapes, small, stunted things, scampering towards the grounds of the abbey, invisible to all eyes but his. He looked at Anark. ‘Finish this. Kill everything that lives.’

The vampire looked at Arkhan as he started towards the abbey. ‘And what about you?’

Arkhan didn’t stop or turn. ‘I go to claim our prize.’

Sixteen

Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

‘It’s really quite amusing, in its way,’ Markos murmured as he leaned against the tunnel mouth, arms crossed. ‘They just keep wandering into the flames, don’t they?’

‘It’s a waste of materials,’ Count Nyktolos grunted. He plucked his monocle from his eye and cleaned it on the scorched hem of his cloak. ‘We only have three thousand, six hundred and fifty-three zombies left.’

‘Did you count them?’ Markos asked, brow arched.

‘No,’ Nyktolos said. Then, ‘Yes, possibly.’ He put his monocle back into place and sniffed. ‘There is very little to do down here but kill skaven or count zombies.’

Markos shook his head, and looked at Mannfred, where the latter stood in the tunnel mouth, hands clasped behind his back, gripping the staff of Kadon with the Claw of Nagash mounted atop it, held parallel to the ground. ‘Well, cousin? You heard the Vargravian – we’re running short on fodder. How do you intend to get us across that chasm?’

Mannfred ignored Markos. His eyes were fixed on the chasm ahead, rather than the group of vampires behind him. He heard the hiss of the bloodthirsty steeds of the Drakenhof Templars, and the soft clatter of his own skeletal mount. The former were as impatient to taste the blood of their enemies as their masters were.

He lifted the staff, and the Claw flexed. The power it radiated throbbed in him like the ache of a sore tooth. The Fellblade was close – too close to allow such a minor obstacle to stymie him. A slow smile crept across his face, as he came to the obvious conclusion. Ignoring Markos’s pestering, he strode out of the tunnel, towards the chasm. The zombies ceased their mindless advance as he took control of them directly once more, the reins of his will snapping taut about the husks, and pulled them in his wake.

Mannfred could feel the dregs of raw magic that still lurked in the warpfire-blackened stones, and in the shards of expended warpstone fired from the skaven weapons. He went to the edge of the chasm, where the anchors for the bridge had been torn free of the rock. He held the staff in both hands, and focused on drawing the residual magics from the warpstone all about him. The air bristled with energy, which only grew as the skaven began to fire at him. Warpstone bullets whistled past his head, and he drew their energy from them as they drew close. A corona of crackling magics swirled about him, and the burned and shattered dead scattered in heaps and piles began to stir.

The dead behind him moved towards the chasm, their rotting bodies shuddering as Mannfred gestured sharply. The dead flesh of the zombies split and tore as their bones began to lengthen and grow. Hooks of bone sank into the rock as the dead toppled forward. More zombies, some little more than burned skeletons, climbed over these, their bones going through a similar transformation. A symphony of bursting flesh and cracking bone overshadowed the crack of skaven weaponry as the gruesome bridge took shape.

The skaven’s rate of fire grew more intense, and Mannfred’s smile grew as a warpfire thrower, pushed past its limits, exploded and consumed its crew. Pistols and jezzails snapped and snarled, and bullets struck the bridge or hissed past Mannfred. More weapons began to misfire. The skaven began to retreat in ragged formation as the bridge drew closer and closer to the opposite ledge. Some continued to fire as they fell back, but most simply dropped their weapons and ran.

‘Oh well done, cousin,’ Markos said from behind Mannfred. He led his own mount and Mannfred’s by their reins. ‘Not subtle, mind, but we’ve dispensed with subtlety, haven’t we?’

‘Markos… shut up,’ Mannfred growled, fixing Markos with a glare. He hauled himself up into his saddle. ‘All of you, mount up. We are close to our goal, and I would tarry no longer. I want this business done. I grow tired of these reeking tunnels.’

So saying, Mannfred jerked his mount’s reins and galloped over the bridge. Markos and the others followed suit. The bridge squirmed beneath the pounding hooves of their fiery-eyed horses. Seeing the onrushing knights, the remaining skaven turned to flee. But not one of the vermin made it to the dubious safety of the tunnels as Mannfred and his followers laid about them with their blades, lopping off heads and tails, and shattering spines as they crushed the ratkin to a red mulch beneath their hooves.

The dead flowed after them. Howling spectres led the way, filling these new tunnels as they had the others, flowing through every flue, nook and cranny that the skaven had dug. Hastily erected barricades of wood and metal were no barrier to immaterial beings, and skaven clanrats died in droves, unable to fight back or even flee. Zombies too pressed forward, flooding those passages wide enough to accommodate their sheer numbers. The dead skaven left in Mannfred’s wake staggered up to join the advancing host, adding to the sheer bulk of corpses that choked the inner tunnels of the skaven stronghold.

As the dead fulfilled their function, Mannfred led his Templars on through the crooked burrow, Kadon’s staff held out before him like a standard pole. The Claw of Nagash pulled him on, drawn inexorably towards its nemesis. Over the hours that followed, Mannfred and his warriors fought their way through waves of mutated beasts, armoured stormvermin and limitless ranks of skaven warriors. Some vampires were pulled down, but even outnumbered seven to one, Mannfred and the others were more than a match for the best that the ratkin could throw at them. Where blade and muscle would not suffice, Mannfred, supported by Markos, unleashed volley after volley of devastating spellcraft, scouring entire tunnels and caverns of all life before drawing their victims to their feet and sending them ahead to attack their fellows.

So it went for hours, until at last, Mannfred, at the head of his host, stood before the walls of the fortress-lair of the skaven. The walls were, like all skaven constructions, a derelict mismatch of materials, most of which had never been intended for such a purpose. The gates were a different, and much more interesting, matter. They were made from the bones of what appeared to be a great dragon, and as Mannfred examined them, he smiled.

‘We can take the walls,’ Count Nyktolos said, calming his restive steed. Mortar fire and warp lightning began to streak from the lopsided towers, as if in reply to his statement. He whistled. ‘Or not,’ he added.

‘I lack the patience for a siege,’ Mannfred said.

‘Then what – surely you don’t mean to parley with vermin?’ Markos asked. Mannfred’s smile spread. The other vampire sounded affronted.

Mannfred lifted the Claw of Nagash, and black lightning began to spit and spark from the twitching, spidery fingers. He chuckled. ‘No, Markos. I have a more… elegant solution in mind.’

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

Erikan bounded through the line of trebuchets, his blade singing out to open up an unlucky peasant’s throat. The man fell, gagging on his own blood, and the ghouls that had followed Erikan pounced on him, ending his troubles with a few well-placed bites. Erikan watched them feed for a moment, and then continued on, pursuing the fleeing peasantry. More ghouls followed him, baying hungrily as they knuckled across the uneven ground.

The true dead were barred from the abbey grounds for the moment, leaving only creatures like himself and the ghouls capable of crossing the boundary stones in pursuit of the peasants. He’d left his horse somewhere amongst the abandoned artillery pieces. He’d never been very comfortable fighting from the back of a steed. He felt like too much of a target. Let Anark and the others play at hammer and anvil with the flower of Bretonnian chivalry. He would hunt amongst the stones and take his share of scalps there.

The air sizzled with sorcery, and he heard a thunderclap, which shook the ground beneath his boots as he moved. In the next moment, Krell bulled into the line of archers, his great black axe chopping through armour, flesh and bone with ease. Men died screaming. Smoke coiled through the air, obscuring his vision for a moment.

When it cleared, he saw a hunched shape hurrying towards the abbey. Kemmler, he realised, after a moment. The necromancer was far ahead of them, and moving more quickly than Erikan had thought possible for such a broken-down wreck of a human being. Another curl of smoke obscured the Lichemaster, and when it cleared he was gone. Erikan considered pursuing him, and then decided that it wasn’t even remotely his problem.

An armoured knight, unhorsed and bare-headed, charged towards him. He shouted unintelligible oaths and awkwardly swiped at the vampire with his blade. He was barely more than a youth, and his eyes were wide with fear and determination. Erikan parried his next blow, and for a moment, duelled back and forth with the young knight. He felt no satisfaction when his blade slid through his opponent’s guard and crunched into his throat. He kicked the body off his sword and spun in time to chop an inexpertly wielded halberd in two.

He stepped back as the man who’d thrust it at him was bowled over by a ghoul sow and her mate. The two creatures smashed the wailing peasant to the ground, but didn’t kill him. The sow shrilled a question at Erikan. He looked at her, and then at the cursing, struggling man she held down. Men just like him had taken Erikan from the only home he knew, and put his parents to the torch. The knights had ordered it, but men like this one… They had taken pleasure in it. They had enjoyed seeing his family die.

For a moment, as he stared down at the pale, frightened features, he remembered that night – the stink of torches cutting through the comforting miasma of the tunnels, his mother shrieking in anger and fear as his father bellowed and hewed at the invaders with his fine sword. He remembered his brothers and sisters fleeing into the darkness as men rode the slower ones down. He remembered a white sun on a red sky turning black. He remembered Obald saving him from the flames, and a red-haired woman – had it been Elize, even then? The memory was fuzzy and he couldn’t be sure – tending his burns.

But mostly, he remembered fire and blood.

Erikan snarled and hacked the helpless man’s head from his shoulders. He lifted his blade and licked the blood from it, as the ghouls fell to their feast. He looked about him, watching as the battle became a massacre. A new day was dawning, but the skies were mournful, as if the clouds were weeping for the fate of the defenders of La Maisontaal.

He smiled, amused at the thought. Let the world weep, if it wished. Crying never made anything better. The first drops of rain had begun to fall when he heard the horns. He turned, and his eyes widened. A curse flew from his lips as he saw the standards rising over the melee.

The new arrivals came by the south road, as if they’d followed in the footsteps of the dead. Ghouls scattered before them, and zombies were trampled beneath the hooves of their steeds as the column of knights plunged deep into the undead ranks, further fracturing an already divided army. The knights struck the dead like a battering ram, their lances thrust forwards to catch the enemy. When the lances had done their work, swords came into play, hacking apart rotting limbs and splintering ancient bone.

The undead reeled, and those with any spark of initiative converged on the newcomers. Erikan saw Anark and the other Drakenhof Templars fighting their way towards the knights, and Krell as well. Satisfied that he wasn’t needed, he turned back, ready to order his ghouls into the abbey. Before he could do so, a shadow fell over him.

He looked up as the ghouls scattered, wailing. A lance crashed into his shoulder and knocked him sprawling. The pegasus swooped overhead as its rider released his shattered lance and drew his sword. ‘Filthy flesh-eater,’ the knight roared as his flying steed dived back towards Erikan. He scrambled aside, narrowly avoiding the blow. He snatched up his sword from where it had fallen and flung himself into the frame of a trebuchet. The pegasus galloped past, wings snapping like thunderclaps. More pegasus knights plunged through the air, attacking the ghouls and wights.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Krell swat one of the newcomers from the air, killing both pegasus and rider with a single blow. The wight was steadily chopping his way through enemy and ally alike as he fought his way towards the knight in the fanciest armour. From long, bitter experience, Erikan knew that one was likely the leader. He silently wished Krell luck, though he doubted the creature would either need or appreciate it.

Erikan skinned up through the frame of the trebuchet, climbing towards the arm. His attacker circled the trebuchet, rising back into the air as Erikan burst out into the open, and as quick as lightning, climbed the arm. He ran upwards, sword held low, and sprang into the air as the pegasus passed overhead. His hand snapped out and caught hold of the saddle.

With a twist of his shoulder, he flung himself up and landed on the back of the snorting, bucking beast. The knight twisted in his saddle but not quickly enough, and their blades locked. Erikan’s lunge carried him and his enemy off the pegasus, and they hurtled towards the ground.

Erikan struck the earth first, and he shrieked as he felt bones crack. Thrashing wildly, he sent the knight flying. The man climbed awkwardly to his feet, his armour rattling. Erikan slithered to his feet, his body already healing. The knight had lost his sword in the fall, as had Erikan. The former scooped up a spear and lunged smoothly, faster than Erikan expected, and caught him in the belly. With a single, powerful thrust, he shoved Erikan back and up. Erikan howled and grasped at the haft of the spear.

‘When you get to whatever damnation awaits you, tell them it was Fastric Ghoulslayer who sent you,’ the knight roared, shoving the vampire back. The point of the spear burst out from between Erikan’s shoulder blades, punching through his armour and pinning him to the frame of a trebuchet. He screamed in agony. The spear had only just missed his heart, but agony sizzled through him, causing his limbs to spasm helplessly.

‘Do it yourself,’ Erikan spat, through bloody teeth. He kicked out and knocked his enemy sprawling. He tore the haft of the spear to flinders and fell to the ground. With a snarl, he ripped the splinter of wood from his chest and flung himself onto the knight before the latter could get to his feet. He clawed at the man’s helm as the latter struggled, and shoved the edge of it up, exposing a small expanse of flesh. With a triumphant howl, Erikan plunged the splinter of wood into the soft flesh just below his opponent’s jaw, and shoved until the tip scraped metal. The man shuddered beneath him, and went still.

Erikan rolled aside and looked up into the cold, burning gaze of Arkhan the Black. ‘Kemmler… Where is he?’

Erikan pointed weakly towards the abbey. Arkhan nodded and stepped over him. Erikan watched the liche stalk towards the abbey. ‘You’re welcome,’ he coughed, and shoved himself to his feet. Then he began to search for his sword, one hand pressed to the wound in his chest.

There was still a battle to win.

Seventeen

Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

The gates twisted and then shrieked, the dark spirit that still clung to the ancient dragon’s bones giving voice to its frustration and rage. Ropes snapped and wood ruptured as the creature tore itself free of the fortress walls that rested upon it, and the dragon’s skeleton rose to its full terrifying height for the first time since its death at the hands of the skaven. The walls sagged and crumbled as the great beast thrust itself into the lair of its murderers, seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who had long ago feasted on its flesh. Skaven died in droves as they tried to flee.

The reanimated dragon reared up and ripped an artillery tower apart. Its whip-like tail curved out, the sorcerously hardened bone cutting through stone and wood like a scythe through wheat, and part of the outer wall exploded into ragged fragments.

‘Elegant, he says,’ Markos muttered, as he stared at the ensuing devastation.

‘Perhaps we have different definitions of the term,’ Mannfred said, smiling thinly. ‘Regardless, we have our path.’ He raised the staff. ‘For Drakenhof! For Sternieste! For Sylvania – ride!’ He drove his spurs into the fleshless flanks of his horse of bones, and it shot forward, galloping faster than any living creature. His knights, vampire and wight alike, followed in his wake. They charged towards the shattered walls and on through, riding hard amidst the dust and smoke. Zombies poured through in their wake, hungry for the flesh of the living, as Mannfred allowed his control to lapse. Let the dead go where they would, and cause what mischief they wished. The more confusion, the better for him.

Skaven weapons overloaded and exploded as the gunners on the walls tried to bring down the reanimated dragon. Warp lightning arced out, destroying the ramshackle buildings and obliterating knots of skaven who rushed to repel the invaders.

Mannfred gave vent to a primal howl as he rode down a mob of clanrats. In the days since he’d entered the tunnels, he’d refrained from engaging in battle more than was necessary. But now he was free to unfetter his accumulated frustrations. His knights scattered, similarly hungry for carnage. Their lances and swords tore the life from the clanrats and stormvermin who sought to keep them at bay, or else escape them.

Mannfred unleashed baleful magics and laid about him with his blade, following the pull of the Claw. The Fellblade was close. He could feel it, like an itch behind his eyes. He pursued the sensation, galloping down the central thoroughfare of the fortress-lair, eliminating anything that dared cross his path.

Then, at last, he saw it. The Fellblade seemed to blaze with a darkling light, as its wielder swept it through the air in a gesture of command. The skaven warlord – for so Mannfred judged the heavily muscled, grey-furred beast to be – crouched atop a heavy shield, carried by four of its black-furred bodyguards. It was surrounded by a phalanx of stormvermin, and as it caught sight of him, its eyes bulged with rage. It gestured at him and chittered shrilly. The stormvermin began to advance cautiously towards him. Mannfred brought his steed to a halt and watched them come.

He considered simply charging into their midst. Kill a few, and the rest would flee. And, as big as the warlord was, it was little more than a beast and no threat to him. But the presence of the Fellblade in its paw gave him pause. Craven though its owner might have been, the blade was still dangerous. Even a lucky blow might harm him greatly. So… the oblique approach, then.

Mannfred slid from the saddle. Then, mustering the quicksilver speed of his bloodline, he sped towards the advancing skaven. But rather than attacking them, he sprang aside, skirting them and winnowing through their ranks faster than their beady eyes could follow. He let his blade lick out, and the shield-bearers who held the warlord’s makeshift palanquin aloft fell, blood spraying from their wounds. The warlord was spilled to the ground with a wail. The other stormvermin reacted much as he’d predicted, and panic swept through them. He ignored them, and circled the warlord as the beast struggled to its feet.

It whirled with commendable speed, launching a blow that, under other circumstances, might have split him crown to groin. But to Mannfred, the beast was moving in slow motion. He watched the blow descend before casually stepping into the arc of the swing. He grabbed the warlord’s forearm, and snapped it with a twist of his wrist as he slid the point of his own blade through the creature’s rusted breastplate and scabrous chest.

The skaven gave a shrill, agonised cry, and sank down to its knees. The Fellblade fell from its worthless paws and clattered to the ground. With a final whimper, the creature toppled forward, and kicked in its death throes. Mannfred watched it die, and felt little satisfaction.

Well, he was hardly a worthy opponent, was he? A bit anticlimactic, wasn’t it? Vlad laughed. More like pest control than a true battle.

Mannfred ignored the shadowy presence and scooped up the Fellblade. It seemed to writhe in his grip for a moment, like a spiteful cat, before it grew still. He peered down the length of the sword, studying the eerie patina of the black blade. Then he shoved it through his belt without flourish and remounted his steed.

He summoned his remaining knights and Templars to him as he rode back through the ruined gates of the fortress-lair, ignoring the battle that still raged all around him. The reanimated dragon and the zombies would serve to keep the skaven occupied for several days to come, until the magic he had used to reanimate them at last faded. After that, let the skaven do as they would. He couldn’t care less whether they survived, flourished or perished. Whatever their fate, they were no longer of any importance.

Mannfred bent low over his steed’s neck as he began the long trek back to the surface. He had his prize, and there was much work yet to be done.

Nagash would rise, and Mannfred would rule.

La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

‘Kemmler!’

The aged necromancer turned as Arkhan’s challenge echoed through the darkened crypt that lay in the bowels of the abbey. The bodies of the brothers of La Maisontaal lay about him on the floor, slain when they’d made one last desperate attempt to defend the malevolent artefact long ago given into their care. Arkhan paid no heed to the crumpled corpses as he stepped into the chamber.

Kemmler smiled and lifted the Great Staff of Nagash, Alakanash, in triumph. ‘Too late, puppet. Too late,’ he said. ‘I’ve found it, and I have claimed it.’

‘If I am a puppet, I am not alone in that,’ Arkhan rasped. He had foreseen Kemmler’s betrayal. Subtlety had never been the Lichemaster’s strong suit. But he had never expected the old fiend to possess enough courage to take up Nagash’s staff for his own. He could practically hear the shard of Nagash in the staff writhing in animal fury, and Kemmler’s knuckles were white as he tightened his grip on his prize.

‘Indeed. I have been a puppet for more years than I care to remember, liche,’ Kemmler said. ‘Not as long as you, but long enough to know that I do not wish to end up like you – a hollow, thin thing of ashes and scraps, haunting its own bones. Nagash is as much a vampire as the von Carsteins. He feasts on us, taking and taking, until there’s nothing left. And then he drags us up to take yet more. Creatures like you and Krell might have no will of your own left, but Heinrich Kemmler is no dead thing’s slave.’ He circled the sarcophagus slowly, leaning on Nagash’s staff. Even now, he was playing the tired old man, though Arkhan could see the power flowing through his withered frame, and the invisible daemons that capered about him like eager children. ‘I am the master here. Not you. And certainly not Nagash. He might have his hooks in you and in the fanged fop, Mannfred, but the Lichemaster is no dogsbody. I have found new patrons.’

‘New masters, you mean,’ Arkhan said.

‘Partners,’ Kemmler said, flashing rotten teeth in an expression that was as much grimace as grin. It was a lie, and a vainglorious one, and Kemmler knew it. ‘They recognise my power, liche. They see me for what I am, what I have always been, and they shower me with their gifts where Nagash would grind me under.’ He smiled in a sickly fashion. ‘And oh, they hate him. They hate him more than any creature that has yet walked this world. They hate him for his hubris, and they hate him for what he would do to this world.’

‘They hate him. And they fear him,’ Arkhan said. ‘Otherwise, this conversation would not be taking place. They fear him, and you fear him. The Dark Gods are mice, scrabbling in the holes of time, and Nagash is the cat who will drive them out.’ As he moved forwards, his thoughts reached out to the freshly slain bodies of the monks, and they began to twitch and scrabble at the floor. If he was quick, he might be able to overwhelm Kemmler before he became attuned to the power contained within the staff.

‘Not without this he won’t,’ Kemmler said. He lifted the staff and brought it down, so that the butt struck the floor. The stones hummed with a black note as mortar and dust cascaded down. Several of the bodies flopped back into motionlessness. ‘Answer me honestly, Arkhan… Do you truly want him back?’

Arkhan stopped. ‘What?’

‘It’s a simple enough question,’ Kemmler said. ‘Do you want him back? Have you ever questioned that desire? Are you even capable of doing so?’ He shook his head. ‘What am I saying? Of course you aren’t.’

Arkhan said nothing. Kemmler’s words echoed through him. That was the question, wasn’t it? He had never truly considered it before. He wanted to throw the Lichemaster’s assertions back into his face, but he couldn’t. The cat dug its claws into his shoulder. It seemed to weigh more than it had, as if death had lent it mass.

Before he could muster a reply, the beast yowled and sprang across the distance between Arkhan and Kemmler, raking the latter’s wizened face. The necromancer screamed and batted the animal aside with the staff. The cat’s body struck the wall and fell in a tangle of broken bones and rotting flesh, but it had accomplished its goal. Arkhan threw aside his staff and lunged with all the speed his long-dead frame could muster. Skeletal palms struck the staff in Kemmler’s hands and, for a moment, liche and Lichemaster stood frozen. Living eyes met dead ones, and a moment of understanding passed between them.

Arkhan understood Kemmler’s rage, his fear and his obsession. But he could not forgive it. Once, maybe. But not now. For now, Arkhan understood what was truly at stake. There were only two paths available to the world as it stood here in this moment – one led to madness and the destruction of the natural order, as the world was remade by the Dark Gods in their image; the other led to a cessation of everything before those horrific changes could be wrought. Had he not already had his destiny chosen for him, Arkhan knew which he would have preferred. At least Nagash might let him rest, eventually.

‘You have always been a selfish, short-sighted creature, Heinrich,’ Arkhan rasped. Kemmler grimaced and began to mouth a spell, but Arkhan swung him about and smashed him back against the sarcophagus that had contained the staff. ‘Driven by petty desires, unable to see the bigger picture even when it is laid out before you. The Great Work must be completed, and no turncoat beggar with delusions of grandeur will stop it. Nagash must rise, and if you must fall to serve that end, so be it. You call yourself the Lichemaster… Well then, prove it.’

Kemmler howled and the raw stuff of magic erupted from him, cascading over Arkhan, searing his bones and blackening his robes. But the liche refused to release his grasp on the staff. His will smashed against Kemmler’s, probing for some weakness. The old man’s will was like unto a thing of iron, forged by adversity and rooted in spite, but Arkhan’s was stronger yet. He had conquered death more than once, clawing his way back to the world of the living again and again. ‘Prove it,’ he said again, dragging Kemmler towards him. ‘Prove your boasts, old man. Show me the fiend who almost cracked the spine of the world at the Battle of Ten Thousand Skulls.’

‘I’ll show you,’ Kemmler screeched. He shoved Arkhan back, and they strained against one another, the staff caught between them. ‘I’ll not be your slave! I am Kemmler – I have broken cities and empires. I have slain armies,’ he shrilled. ‘And I will kill you, once and for all!’

Spell clashed against spell and magic inundated the chamber, splashing across the stones like blood. Arkhan could feel it building, growing in strength as the magic fed on itself and its surroundings. There were too many dangerous artefacts here, and they all resonated with the power that poured from him and Kemmler, even while the staff did.

The chamber around them began to shake. There was a thunderous crash as the windows upstairs succumbed to the growing pressure and exploded outwards. Green fire licked out from between the stones, rippling around them as they struggled. A tornado of wild magic swirled, and La Maisontaal Abbey shuddered like a dying man. One of the holiest sites in Bretonnia was being ripped apart from the inside out, but Arkhan spared no thought for such trivialities. It was all he could do to maintain his grip on the staff. Kemmler shrieked and cursed as magical flames caressed his flesh, billowing up around him and from within him as his new gods filled him with their power. Arkhan held on grimly, ignoring the sorceries that tore at him.

Kemmler’s flesh bulged and split like a blooming flower, and shapes squirmed in the dark within the raw redness of him. They were strange, terrible shapes that cursed and railed as they lashed Arkhan with fires of many hues and sweetly scented lightning. Kemmler’s eyes protruded, and the determination in them faded, swallowed by fire and intent. The skull-headed staff, which had been screaming the entire while, fell silent as it exploded into fragments. Caskets exploded out of the crypts around them, wreathed in fire. Arkhan felt ethereal talons tear at him and hideous voices wailed in his head, but he ignored them all, concentrating on the staff and his enemy. Kemmler’s eyes widened still further, as if he’d seen something over Arkhan’s shoulder, but Arkhan ignored the sudden babble of his voice.

And then, it was done. There was a roar, as of ocean waves smashing across rocks, and a great, sudden motion as if all of the earth had been thrown into the sky; a fire without heat filled Arkhan’s vision. He heard Kemmler wail, and it was a sound full of horror and hopelessness and frustration. Then he was on one knee, leaning against Alakanash, amidst the crater that had once been the vaults of La Maisontaal Abbey.

Arkhan chuckled grimly and rose to his full height. Ash drifted off his ravaged robes. He heard the thunder of voices and the blare of horns, and knew that what was left of the Bretonnian army was retreating.

He looked around, searching for the cat. There was nothing left of the beast, save a pile of ash and, rising above it, an enormous shadow, which had been burned into the ravaged stones. There was something unpleasantly familiar about that shadow, and Arkhan felt a pang of unease. Then, with a skill born of long experience, he brushed the feeling aside.

Nagash would rise.

Eighteen

The Black Mountains, the Border Princes

Mannfred coughed and rolled over onto his back, smoke rising from where the sorcerous blast had caught him. His fur cloak was burning and his armour was scorched. He knew by the taste of the magic who had attacked him, and he cursed himself. He had expected it to come sooner, and he had become distracted by the thrum of power that emanated from the Claw and the Fellblade. The hum of the ancient sorceries had lulled him, and now he was paying the price. His attacker strode towards him, casting aside his cloak of elegant haughtiness.

‘I expect Anark has made his move by now, the sullen fool. He won’t succeed, you know. And Erikan won’t help him. The Crowfiend knows better than to get between creatures like you and the liche,’ Markos said, stopping a short distance from Mannfred.

‘A wisdom that you do not seem to share, cousin,’ Mannfred said, as he rose to his feet. He cast a glance at the Fellblade where it lay, considering. Then, with a grunt, he turned away from it. He didn’t need it.

‘The Crowfiend knows his limits, as do I. Mine simply… extend a bit further than his,’ Markos said, gesturing lazily.

‘Have you chosen a side then, Markos? Picked a new master, perhaps?’ Mannfred asked. He considered a spell, and then discarded the idea. Markos was not his equal, but there were certain traditions to be honoured. Markos had made his challenge, and the battle would be settled in the proper way – blade to blade.

‘Hardly,’ Markos said. ‘If Anark fails, then I will see to the liche, never fear. Your rival will not long outlive you, Lord Mannfred.’

‘My heart swells,’ Mannfred said. ‘You cannot win, Markos.’

‘No? I rather fancy my chances.’ He drew his sword. ‘I had this forged for me, by a certain swordsmith in Nippon.’ He smiled. ‘You call yourself a god, cousin.’ Markos extended his sword. ‘In Nippon, they say that if you meet a god, if he is real, he will be cut by this steel,’ Markos said. ‘It is the finest, sharpest steel that can be made in this world. A man can be cut by it and not know for several hours, such is its keenness.’ He smiled and spun the blade. ‘Don’t worry, cousin. I’ll make sure you know when it’s time to die.’

Markos moved forward smoothly, with a grace and poise that Mannfred couldn’t help but grudgingly admire. He’d learned more than sorcery in his time in Cathay and Nippon, it seemed. His first slash came so quickly that it had opened up Mannfred’s cheek before he saw it coming. Mannfred scrambled to his feet, the taste of his own blood on his lips. He drew his blade, blocking a second blow.

‘You choose the most inopportune times to exert yourself, cousin,’ Mannfred hissed as he and Markos circled one another. The other Templars were staying out of it, Mannfred noted. Vampires respected little, save for the sanctity of the challenge. ‘We are on the cusp of ultimate victory, and you seek to rock the boat now?’

‘You are on the cusp of ultimate victory, and so, yes, now seems like a good time,’ Markos said. ‘I’ve read the same tomes, cousin. I’ve read the scrolls and the grimoires, and what you’re planning is madness. You can’t control what you intend to unleash, and I’ll not be the slave of some long-dead necromancer, first of his kind or otherwise.’ He fell into a defensive stance, blade angled parallel to his body. ‘You would damn us, and the world that is ours by right of blood, to servitude at the feet of a dusty god. For the good of all of us, in the name of Vlad von Carstein, I will gladly, and cheerfully, strike off your head.’

Hark at him, the supercilious little weasel, Vlad’s voice murmured in Mannfred’s ear, as if he were right over his shoulder. Familiar bit of rhetoric, though, you must admit. It wasn’t so long ago that you were framing similar arguments, right about the time my ring went missing, eh, boy?

‘Shut up,’ Mannfred hissed. Vlad laughed. ‘Shut up!’ Mannfred howled, and flung himself at Markos. Their blades crashed together with a sound like a wailing wind, and sparks slid from their edges as they scraped against one another, separated and came together again. Markos laughed tauntingly and pressed Mannfred back.

‘I’ll be silent the day I lose my head, cousin,’ he sneered. ‘I was of Vlad’s get, the same as you. My blood runs as pure as yours, and flows with the same power!’

‘Your blood,’ Mannfred spat. He caught a blow on the length of his blade and rolled into it, driving his shoulder into Markos’s chest who staggered back. ‘Your blood is gutter-froth, compared to mine. I was born in a palace, cousin. I was born the son of kings, and Vlad did not make me the creature I am. He merely honed me, the way that blade you boast of was honed.’

Vlad’s laughter faded in Mannfred’s ear drowned out by the sound of his own blood thundering in his veins, as he harried Markos back, wielding his sword as if it were a feather. His rage lent him strength, as it always had, and his arrogance as well.

He was not meant to fall here. He was meant for greater things. Better things. He had no illusions about the kind of man he was. He had sacrificed more on the altar of ambition than a guttersnipe like Markos could ever guess, all to reach this moment, this crossroads. He had been denied a throne once, in the dim, fell reaches of the past. And the world owed him a debt for that insult.

Markos’s confidence began to crumble as they traded blows. He had squandered the advantage of surprise in order to grandstand. That was the perennial flaw in Vlad’s blood, the urge to monologue, to make the enemy recognise your superiority, before the first blow had fallen. Mannfred fell victim to it himself, but he at least came by it honestly. Markos had been the son of a vintner, and not even a wealthy one.

‘You think a sword, or a bit of knowledge, makes you special, Markos? You are not,’ Mannfred said, sliding around a blow and catching Markos in the belly with a shallow slash. Armour peeled back like flesh as the blade danced across Markos’s torso. ‘You are no more special than Hans or Pieter or Fritz, or poor, sad Constantin, buried in his books. Just another funeral pyre to light the way of your betters.’ He attacked Markos again and again as he spoke, striking him with all of the speed and strength he possessed. Blood poured down Markos’s arms and legs, and his armour fell to tatters. Efficiently, ruthlessly, Mannfred cut ligaments and tendons, the way a butcher would ready an animal for sale.

Markos stumbled and sank to one knee, bracing himself with his blade. He coughed blood, and his free hand was pressed to his belly. His blood pooled about him, and the greedy earth drank it up thirstily. His lips began to move, and Mannfred felt the winds of magic stir. With a single word, he cut Markos off from them. He saw the other vampire’s eyes widen. A pall of resignation crept over Markos’s narrow features as he realised what had happened. ‘I waited too long,’ he said.

Mannfred nodded and said, ‘The approach of death lends a certain clarity.’ He caught Markos’s chin with the flat of his blade and lifted his head. ‘You went after me with a blade for the same reason Tomas did, all those months ago. You thought I was a better sorcerer than a swordsman.’

‘No, I thought you were mad. I see no evidence to the contrary,’ Markos coughed. ‘You will destroy us – all that Vlad built, and for what?’

‘For me,’ Mannfred said. ‘Always, for me. This world is mine. It did not belong to Vlad and it does not belong to Nagash or the Dark Gods. It was promised to me in my cradle, and I will have what I am owed.’ He lifted his blade in both hands. ‘Close your eyes, cousin. No man should have to see his body after his head has left his shoulders.’

Markos continued to stare at him. Mannfred shrugged and let the blade fall. Markos’s head came away, and his body slumped. Do you feel better now? Konrad always felt a bit better after a good bloodletting, Vlad hissed. Mannfred looked down, and saw something that might have been Vlad’s face – or perhaps a skull – reflected in the blood spreading away from Markos’s body.

He didn’t reply to the taunting voice. He had given in to that urge entirely too often, of late. It was stress and nothing more. The ghost of his fears and worries. Vlad’s spirit was gone from this world.

True enough, though you especially should know that beings like ourselves do not go gently into the darkness. You came back, after all, Vlad murmured. Mannfred could almost see him, circling, hands clasped behind his back, speaking the way a master speaks to a pupil. Then, perhaps I am not Vlad at all, and perhaps you did not come back all on your own, hmm?

Mannfred cleaned his blade on his cloak and sheathed it. The presence continued to speak, as if it took his silence for an invitation. He wondered, briefly, if there might have been some truth to Markos’s words. Was he going mad?

Do you care? Vlad asked.

Mannfred had no answer.

Beechervast, the Grey Mountains

The town had been called Beechervast. Now, it was nothing. Flames crackled and buildings collapsed with rumbling groans as the dead marched through the dying settlement, adding to their number. Erikan watched as a screaming woman was dragged from the ruins of a hostel by two of his order. Her screams faded to moans as the two vampires fed greedily.

Erikan let his gaze drift to where Arkhan the Black stood near his chariot, watching what his magics had wrought. After the wood elf ambush at Parravon, they’d lost most of what was left of their army, including Krell, who’d held off their attackers while Arkhan and the others made for the dubious safety of the mountains. Whether Arkhan had attacked Beechervast simply in order to replenish his forces, or to wait and see if Krell caught up with them, Erikan couldn’t say, and hadn’t asked.

They’d lost much to acquire the shroud-wrapped shape strapped to Arkhan’s back. His eyes were drawn to it. It was a staff, he thought, much like the one Arkhan carried. To Erikan, it seemed to pulse with a sour light. It was like a wound in the world, and something in it pulled at the thing he was. There was power there, but he knew that if he tried to take it, it would consume him the way a moth is consumed by flame. Arkhan was welcome to it, whatever it was. He looked away from it, and saw Anark ambling towards Arkhan. Subtle as a brick to the head, he thought. He’d been wondering when Anark was going to give it a go.

Anark sprang into motion. He leapt towards the liche and shrieked a war-cry as he swung a wild, overhand blow. The liche whirled and swatted aside the tip of the sword with his staff and drove a bony fist into Anark’s face, sending him flying backwards.

Erikan winced, as the Grand Master of the Drakenhof Templars hit the ground with a clatter. To his credit, Anark was on his feet a moment later. He charged towards Arkhan, who had stepped down from his chariot. Arkhan side-stepped the vampire’s lunge and caught him in the back of the head with his staff, sending him stumbling to his hands and knees.

Arkhan looked at Erikan, who still sat atop his horse. ‘Well, vampire?’ the liche croaked.

‘Not me,’ Erikan said, holding up his hands. ‘Not my fight, Black One.’

‘Traitor,’ Anark snarled as he regained his feet.

‘From here, it looks like you’re the one attacking our ally for no reason,’ Erikan said, settling back in his saddle, thumbs hooked in his sword belt. ‘What would Lord Mannfred say, I wonder? Or Elize, for that matter?’

‘I could hazard a guess as to what Lord Mannfred would say,’ Arkhan said, planting his staff. ‘Tell me, vampire… What did he offer you? What could possess you to act so foolishly?’

‘This is positively cunning for Anark, sad to say,’ Erikan interjected. ‘What happened, Anark? Did Elize bat her pretty lashes and ask you for one little favour? I remember those days, when I was her favourite.’

‘Shut your filthy mouth,’ Anark howled. He leapt for Arkhan again. There was no subtlety to him, only raw power. He was nothing but one big muscle, all killer instinct without the cunning to mediate it. His armour creaked as he swelled with murderous power. Arkhan caught the blow on his staff, and for a moment, liche and vampire strained against one another.

Then, the moment passed. Black lightning crackled along the length of Arkhan’s staff and caught hold of Anark’s sword. A moment later, the blade shivered into fragments, and its wielder was tossed back into the dust, bloody from the metal fragments that had spattered his face. Before Anark could get to his feet, Arkhan drove the end of his staff into his skull with all the precision of a trained spearman. There was a wet, unpleasant sound, and Anark went limp.

‘Effective,’ Erikan murmured.

‘I have dealt with treacherous vampires before,’ Arkhan said. He turned and looked at Erikan. ‘I assume that you were not part of this less-than-devious stratagem, then?’

‘I had no idea that it was even in the offing,’ Erikan lied. ‘Thick-headed as he is, that blow won’t keep him down long. Anark isn’t much, but he’s a fighter. I fancy he could keep going, even missing the whole of his head. And he won’t give up.’

‘What would you suggest?’

Erikan couldn’t say why he was helping the liche. He thought, perhaps, it was simply that Anark had been a constant source of annoyance. Or maybe he’d grown tired of the way Elize seemed to shower the brute with affection. Let her get a new, hopefully smarter, pet. ‘Chain him to the postern of the Sigmarite temple I noticed when we rode through the gates. Let the flames or the sun have him, and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘A more merciful death than I intended,’ Arkhan said. He gestured, and a trio of wights came forward and hefted Anark’s limp form. They carried him off.

‘But still a death,’ Erikan said.

‘Yes,’ Arkhan said. The liche examined him silently for a moment, and then turned away. They left Beechervast not long after, riding out at the head of an army newly swollen by the addition of the population of the town, slaughtered and resurrected.

No one seemed too put out by Anark’s death. Then, he hadn’t exactly gone to great lengths to make friends amongst the order. Neither had Erikan, but he supposed he was more tolerable than a swaggering bully any day. As a member of the inner circle, leadership of the remaining blood knights had fallen to him, and he rode at their head for lack of any better ideas. He wondered how Elize would receive the news of Anark’s death. Would she be angry, sad, or… nothing. The latter, he thought, would be the most unpleasant. Vampires could love, but it did not come easily. And sometimes it was not recognised as such until it was far too late.

The Lahmians had songs, spread by the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle, about lost loves and immortal tragedies. They turned troubadours and poets just to keep those songs and verses alive and circulating amongst the living. It made things easier, sometimes, if the cattle thought love, rather than thirst, was the norm for vampires.

As they rode towards the Sylvanian border, Arkhan communed with the spirits of the dead from atop his chariot, seeking any word on Krell. Wailing ghosts and shrieking spectres circled him like pigeons in an Altdorf plaza. Erikan rode beside him.

The spirits scattered abruptly. ‘Any word?’ Erikan asked.

‘Krell yet persists. He will rejoin us when he can. He is leading the Wild Hunt away from our trail.’ Arkhan shook his head, a curiously human gesture. ‘Beastmen, wood elves, Kemmler… Enemies at every turn.’

‘Rats in a sinking barrel,’ Erikan muttered.

Arkhan looked at him. Erikan shifted uncomfortably. ‘Why do you serve the von Carstein, vampire?’ Arkhan asked suddenly. ‘Love, fear… boredom?’

Erikan didn’t look at the liche. He didn’t like the twin witch-fires that flickered in the dead thing’s eye sockets. He’d only ever seen Arkhan at a distance; up close, the sheer wrongness of him, of something once human bent and twisted into something new, something abominable, something that should not walk upon the earth, was all too easy to see and to feel. Arkhan’s presence, the undiluted necromantic energies that emanated from his skeletal form, made Erikan’s head ache, as if he had a sore tooth.

But it wasn’t simply the liche’s noxious presence that made him hesitate. The question wasn’t an easy one. Why had he answered the call? Why had he left Sylvania in the first place? The questions were like the strands of the same cloth; as he tugged each one, another came loose. Arkhan looked at him. ‘Well? We have nothing but time, Crowfiend. Why not pass it in conversation, rather than silence?’ Arkhan cocked his head. ‘Are you upset about the other? What was his name – Anark?’ The liche made a rattling sound that Erikan had come to associate with his attempts at humour. ‘That one was not fated to find himself on the right side of history, I’m afraid. But you… You are a survivor, I think. A scrambler on the edge of destiny. When all is said and done, why do you serve von Carstein?’

Erikan hesitated. And then, he said, ‘Power. Not over the world, but over myself – my own fate. As long as others were stronger, I would never be master of my own fate. That is why I studied necromancy.’

‘I smell no stink of grave sorcery about you,’ Arkhan said.

‘I was a terrible student,’ Erikan said, smiling slightly. ‘Plenty of inclination, but no aptitude. So I sought out the next best thing…’ He bowed his head. Arkhan gave a raspy chuckle.

‘A woman, was it? And then?’

‘It wasn’t enough. I climbed one tower, to find myself at the bottom of another. So… I left.’ His smile faded. ‘From the moment I was born it was a loveless life. I lived out of spite, and it wasn’t enough. So I turned into something worse than death, and tried to take from the world until there was nothing left to take. But the world was bigger than I thought.’ He looked up at the forest canopy overhead. ‘I am tired of surviving. I am tired of the world. I want an end, and I want to watch it all fall into the grave with me. I do not want fire. I want ash, and silence. I want night, silent and eternal, stretching from pole to pole, heaven to earth.’

Arkhan looked at him for a long time. Then, as if uncertain of his own intent, he reached out and clasped Erikan’s shoulder. ‘You will have it. Nagash rises, and the world descends. We will all know the peace of oblivion.’

‘Will we?’ Erikan asked softly. ‘Or will we be puppets, for an eternity?’

Arkhan’s grip tightened. ‘No. Nagash despises anything that is not him, or of him. He hates and fears that which he did not create. We will be dust on a nightmare wind, vampire, when we have fulfilled our purpose. We will be nothing.’ He released Erikan’s shoulder. ‘Or so I hope.’ He turned away. ‘I am tired, vampire. I am so tired, but I cannot lay aside my burden, until the end of all things. I was a gambler once. I gambled and lost. And this is my debt.’

Erikan said nothing. Arkhan fell silent. They rode in silence, two weary souls, bound in chains of night and servitude.

Nineteen

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

‘Treachery,’ Mannfred intoned grandiloquently. ‘Treachery most vile.’

‘Which treachery are we speaking of – yours, or mine?’ Arkhan asked, not bothering to look at the vampire. Mannfred glared at the liche’s back. The two stood at the top of Castle Sternieste’s tallest tower. Arkhan had arrived a few days before Mannfred, and had awaited his return at the tower’s pinnacle, as if in anticipation of a confrontation. Mannfred saw no reason to deny him such, if that was his wish.

Despite the fact that they had both been victorious in their respective endeavours, and that both Alakanash and the Fellblade were now in their possession, Mannfred saw little reason for celebration. Neither, apparently, did Arkhan. Mannfred wondered whether the liche was even capable of such an emotion.

On the ride back through the Border Princes, Mannfred had managed to half convince himself that Arkhan had somehow encouraged Markos’s failed coup. He hadn’t thought the liche would actually admit it, but he’d hoped to see some sign of concern. Instead Arkhan had seemed almost… relieved? He wondered what had happened on Arkhan’s campaign in Bretonnia. The vampires who had ridden with the liche spoke of a rain-lashed battle on the Lieske Road with a herd of beastmen, and an attack by the fierce elves of Athel Loren, which had seen the loss of Krell. Whether the ancient wight had truly been destroyed, or merely separated from his master for the moment, Arkhan had not seen fit to share. Mannfred shoved the thought aside. ‘Yours is the only treachery I see, liche,’ he snarled.

‘Then you are as wilfully blind as you are ignorant, vampire.’ Arkhan glanced over his shoulder. ‘Your assassin failed.’ Mannfred let no sign of his annoyance show on his face. Elize had sworn to him that her pets could accomplish the task he’d set for them, but they’d failed. Anark was dead, and the Crowfiend had either thrown in with Arkhan or chosen discretion over valour. If it was the latter, Mannfred found it hard to blame him. If it was the former, he fully expected Elize to deal with it before he next saw her.

‘As did yours,’ Mannfred hissed. Arkhan didn’t react. Mannfred glared at the fleshless face, and wondered what he had expected. Denial, perhaps, or denunciation. That was how a vampire would have reacted. Instead, the liche simply turned away. Mannfred shook his head, frustrated. ‘And I am not speaking of overly ambitious underlings, in any event, as you well know.’

‘Illuminate me then, I beseech you.’

Arkhan stared out at the horizon, his fleshless hands clasped behind his back. He stood at the edge of the crumbling battlement, at his ease and seemingly unconcerned. Mannfred’s hands twitched, and he considered unleashing a spell to send the liche tumbling from the tower like a skeletal comet. But he restrained himself. If Arkhan wanted to play the fool, fine. He would treat him as such.

‘The protective spells I wove about my land are failing,’ he ground out. ‘You told me that losing one of the nine would have no effect.’ Elize had reported as much to him as soon as his mount clattered into the courtyard of Sternieste. She had practically flown to his side to warn him that the omnipresent clouds that swirled overhead, blanketing his kingdom, had grown thin in places. The cursed light of day was returning to Sylvania. Slowly, but it was returning. And when it had, so too would come the zealous priests and fanatical witch hunters, to harry his subjects and tear asunder all that he had worked so hard to build. Worse, Gelt’s wall of faith still stood as strong as it ever had, and showed no sign of failing.

‘I told you that it would have negligible effect. And such is the case. Your enchantments still hold – the sun is kept at bay and your empire of eternal night yet stands. Rejoice,’ Arkhan said. Mannfred snapped at the air unconsciously, like a dog provoked beyond endurance.

‘With every day that passes, the spell grows weaker, and I can do nothing to stop it. We have weeks, or perhaps only days, before the enchantment fails entirely. And then what, bag-of-bones?’ Mannfred demanded, pounding a fist into the battlement. Stone cracked beneath the blow and fell, tumbling down, down, to smash onto the courtyard so far below. Arkhan watched the stone fall, and then looked at Mannfred.

‘By then, Nagash will have risen. By then, it will be too late.’

‘You knew,’ Mannfred hissed. He leaned towards the liche. ‘You knew. You tricked me.’

‘I am but a bag-of-bones. I am dust and memory. How could I trick you, the great Mannfred von Carstein?’ Arkhan gave a rattling laugh. He looked at Mannfred. ‘How it must have galled you to take that name, eh? How it must have pricked that monstrous pride, that abominable vanity that you wear like a cloak. Tell me, did you weep bloody tears when you surrendered your silks and steel for wolf-skin and crude iron?’

Mannfred heard Vlad’s chuckle. He had hoped that he’d heard the last of the memory, or the ghost, or whatever it was, in the Border Princes. You did. I remember it quite clearly. You whined for weeks – weeks! – and over a bit of frayed silk.

‘Quiet!’ Mannfred snapped. He saw Vlad’s face, hovering just behind Arkhan. His mentor’s smile cut him to the quick, and he longed to unleash the most destructive spells he could bring to mind, just to wipe that mocking grin away.

‘Were you talking to me, or to him?’ Arkhan asked. The liche cocked his head. ‘Who do you hear, vampire? I can hazard a guess, but I would not wish to offend you.’

Mannfred spun away with a snarl, fighting to regain his composure. His hands balled into fists, and his claws cut into the flesh of his palm. ‘You have already offended me,’ he said, not looking at the liche. ‘And I hear nothing but your hollow, prattling lies.’

‘Then I shall continue… Time is our enemy. It has turned on us. The enchantments I laid upon the Drakenhof banner yet hold. But they too will eventually fade. And our work is not yet done.’

‘The Black Armour of Morikhane,’ Mannfred said. He closed his eyes. Somewhere behind him, he heard Vlad applaud mockingly. Oh well done, boy. I see you were paying attention. Then, you always were a quick study, Vlad said. Mannfred opened his eyes and turned. ‘Heldenhame,’ he said. He looked out over the battlements, towards the northern horizon, where Heldenhame Keep stood silent sentinel over Sylvania.

He felt a pang as he took in the realm he had claimed by right of blood and conquest. In the beginning, he had never truly thought of Sylvania as anything other than a stepping stone. It was a backwater, full of ignorant peasants, barbaric nobility and monsters. He had never seen its potential the way Vlad had. But as he waged war after war, shedding blood for every sour metre of soil, he had come to see what the other vampire had seen, all those centuries ago. He had come to understand why they had taken up new names, and sought to burrow into the vibrant, if savage, flesh of the young Empire.

There was a rough beauty to this land, with its dark forests and high crags. It was a cold land, full of shadows, as far and away from the land of his youth as it was possible to get. But where that land had cast him out, this one had taken him to its bosom, and he felt his pulse quicken as he gazed out over it.

This was his land now. He had died to defend his right to it, and its waters ran in his blood. Nothing would take it from him. Not Nagash, and certainly not Karl Franz. But they weren’t his only enemies. He’d seen the portents, but hadn’t truly believed, not until his march across the Border Princes. The world was in upheaval. Everything was changing. His spies had learned much while he prosecuted his campaign against the skaven. There was a war-wind blowing down from the north, and drums beat in the Troll Country, rousing the lost and the damned to war. Kislev was gone, and the northern provinces of the Empire were in flames.

As he stared out at his land, Mannfred thought of the being he had seen in his scrying, the one to whom even daemons bowed, and he felt a cold determination settle over him. If this was the end, better Nagash than nothing. ‘Heldenhame,’ he said aloud, again.

Heldenhame was the Empire’s first line of defence against any army coming from his lands, and he had wasted more than one legion on its walls. But then, so had many others – including the barbarous orcs. ‘Its walls are strong, but they have their weaknesses.’

‘And you know what they are?’ Arkhan asked.

‘I have known what they are for the better part of a year. My spies within Heldenhame tell me that the city’s western wall was badly damaged last year, during a greenskin attack. Leitdorf has spared no expense in conducting repairs, but such a thing cannot be rushed, especially when you have naught but frail men as your labourers. It will be easy to breach, with the proper application of force.’ Before Arkhan could speak, Mannfred held up a hand. ‘However, the garrison of that wall has been reinforced with cannons, fresh from the forges of Nuln, thus rendering any assault there costly.’

‘You have a plan,’ Arkhan said. It wasn’t a question.

Mannfred chuckled. ‘I have many plans. The western wall is the obvious point of assault. But to strike there is predictable, and sure to be more arduous than we would like. However, the appearance of predictability is as valuable as its absence, if properly employed. We must take the oblique approach to this.’ He stretched out a hand, and curled his fingers. ‘With one hand, we shall show them what they expect.’ He raised his other hand. ‘And with the other, we shall crack their walls.’

‘Your confidence is inspiring,’ Arkhan said.

‘And your mockery is forgivable, this time,’ Mannfred said, with a mildness he didn’t feel. ‘You were right before. We need each other, liche. We are surrounded by enemies, and time, as you said, is not on our side. So let us cease wasting it. We will march north, now. And we will rip the last piece of the puzzle from the guts of Heldenhame.’

He turned and set one foot on the battlement. He flung back the edges of his cloak, raised his hands and began to speak. Overhead, the clouds swirled as Mannfred cast his voice and his will to the winds. He called out to every creature, dead, alive or otherwise that owed him allegiance. In his mind’s eye, he saw bat-winged monstrosities flop from dank caves and ghoul packs emerge from their burrows. He felt his mind touch the ephemeral consciousness of every chill-hearted spirit within his demesne, and rouse them to abandon their haunts and hurtle through the black sky towards Sternieste.

Before the ancient bells of Sternieste struck midnight, he knew that a mighty army would be assembled before the walls of the castle. And when it marched north, the world would tremble.

Amused by Mannfred’s display of unbridled sorcerous dominion, Arkhan watched in silence as the vampire called his forces to war. He let his mind drift as Mannfred lashed the world with his will. He had more pressing concerns than Mannfred’s petulance.

He had brooded on Kemmler’s betrayal and what it meant since the obliteration of La Maisontaal Abbey. He had suspected Kemmler’s treachery, but not the reasons behind it. Nagash’s hold on the necromancer had not been as certain as Arkhan had thought, and that disturbed him. Kemmler’s taunts haunted him.

That the Dark Gods would intervene so directly in order to prevent Nagash’s resurrection seemed unbelievable. But he knew what he had felt and seen. And it hadn’t merely been Kemmler. His return to Sylvania and Castle Sternieste had seen him lead what remained of his forces through the Great Forest. After departing Beechervast, Arkhan had taken the Lieske Road, and it seemed as if every Chaos-touched creature in those woods had been drawn to him, like moths to a flame. Howling, malformed monsters had pounced from the shadows, or swooped through the branches above. Chimeras and jabberslythes and worse things had thrown themselves into battle.

There had also been the beast-herds. Frothing, goat-headed beastmen had launched ambush after ambush, culminating in a final, bloody affray during a storm that Arkhan suspected was of no natural origin. During that battle, he had again seen the winged beast that he had first spotted in Quenelles. Clad in ragged robes, it had bellowed in a crude tongue as it tried to stem the inevitable retreat of the beastmen, once their courage had been broken by Arkhan’s spellcraft and the ferocity of the Drakenhof Templars, led by Erikan Crowfiend.

Arkhan had recognised his winged foe, in that moment before it too had fled. Like Mannfred, he had his spies and for years he had gathered information about the powers that might place themselves in his path. The thing called Malagor was a true servant of the Dark Gods, in the same way that he served Nagash. Its presence would have spoken volumes as to their intentions, if he did not already suspect their meddling.

With betrayal, and obstacles, however, came clarity. Misfortune had dogged his trail for months prior to coming to Sylvania. And not only his. Every being, however removed or reluctant, who might serve Nagash had seemingly been marked for death by the Chaos gods. When he had first begun to groom Mallobaude for his task, even providing for the would-be king to receive the blood-kiss of vampirism from an old, long-established Bretonnian line of the creatures, his stronghold of Mousillon had been beset by a horde of daemons. Though the creatures had gone on to assail the realm at large, Arkhan’s plans had nonetheless been interrupted. When he had arrived in Sylvania, he had learned that Mannfred had suffered similar attacks.

His study of the mystical wall of faith forged by Balthasar Gelt had also led him to wonder just how the wizard had come by the knowledge he’d used to forge the cage that now encompassed Sylvania. Brilliant as the Supreme Patriarch was, at least as far as mortals went, Arkhan couldn’t help but question the timing.

Sylvania had been a thorn in the Empire’s flank for centuries. Why suddenly move to contain it now? Unless, perhaps, Gelt was also an agent of the Dark Gods, in some capacity. Not an active, aware one of course, otherwise he could not have so effectively shackled the power of Sigmar. But he could easily be a pawn of other powers.

Had Kemmler been telling the truth – were the gods of Chaos so frightened of Nagash’s return that they were actively attempting to prevent it? Was Nagash truly so powerful that he incited such terror in entities as vast and as unknowable as the Dark Gods? And if so, what was Arkhan truly bringing back into the world? Was it the Nagash he remembered, the petty, spiteful, stubborn Undying King, who had killed his own people because they refused to bow… Or was it something even worse?

Arkhan looked down at his hands. They had been free of flesh for more years than he could count. He had sacrificed his mortality, his flesh and his hope on the altar of Nagash’s ambition. If it came down to it, he knew that he would sacrifice all that remained. He had no choice in the matter.

Or did he?

Elize von Carstein traced the rough bark of the dead tree with her fingers. The garden was empty, save for a few carrion birds perched here and there on the battlements. The castle itself was a hive of activity, as it had been since von Dohl’s failed assault a week earlier. The self-proclaimed Crimson Lord had ridden right up to the gates and demanded that Elize turn Sternieste and all of its treasures over to him.

Von Dohl had been accompanied by Cicatrix of Wolf Crag, and the heir of Melkhior, Zacharias. The Necrarch, in particular, had seemed unusually intent on getting into Sternieste’s vaults. When Elize had denied them entry, von Dohl had been beside himself with rage. The battle that followed had been brief but brutal.

Long-dead warriors had clashed amidst the barrow-fields as the Drakenhof Templars held their lord’s fortress against his enemies. She had duelled with Cicatrix atop the gatehouse, trading sword blows with the other woman. Von Dohl had ever let his harlot fight his battles for him, and he had only retreated when Elize had struck her shrieking head from her shoulders. What was left of Cicatrix still decorated one of the stakes mounted on the gatehouse battlements, and had greeted the master of Sternieste when he returned.

Arkhan the Black had returned a few days after the battle, and Mannfred not long before him. Their confrontation had been brief, and from what her spies claimed, heated, but now the great bells were tolling and the forces loyal to Mannfred were gathering. The time had come to take Heldenhame, and the murky air of the castle was tense with anticipation.

She heard Erikan Crowfiend enter the garden behind her. She knew it was him by the sound of his footsteps and the scent of him, sweet like overripe flowers or spoiling meat. She recalled that she had once tried to teach him how to use perfumes to mask his predator’s scent, but he had never taken to it. ‘Markos,’ he asked, simply. His voice tugged at her. It was not a purr or growl, but placid like the burr of treacherous waters.

‘Dead,’ she said. ‘Just like Anark.’ She dug her claws into the bark. Impossibly, the tree had begun to flower. Its skeletal branches were covered in putrid blossoms, which stank of rotting meat. She turned away from it, and fixed Erikan with her gaze. ‘Why didn’t you help him?’ she demanded.

‘And how would I have helped Markos? I wasn’t with him.’

‘Don’t play the fool,’ she snapped. ‘I meant Anark. Why didn’t you help him?’

‘Why should I have? He was attacking our ally – the very ally we were sent to protect, in fact,’ Erikan said. ‘He’s lucky I didn’t kill him myself.’

Elize snarled. ‘Are you truly so foolish? Do you understand what you’ve done? The liche is dangerous!’ She took a step towards him, her hands curling into fists. ‘What could possess you not to seize that opportunity?’

‘I did,’ he said, flatly.

‘Then why is he still here?’

Erikan smiled. ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

Elize stared at him. For the first time in a long time, she was uncertain. She had thought that Erikan would have seized his moment and struck Arkhan down, as Anark kept him occupied. Surely, she’d thought, he would see what was so clear to her – if Nagash returned, they were doomed. Perhaps not immediately, but soon enough. She knew enough about the Undying King to know what it was he wanted, and how badly that would end for her kind. When the last mortal had died, what would they feed on?

Mannfred had likely never even considered that, she knew. He thought he could control the force he sought to unleash. But Arkhan knew better, and that made him more dangerous. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘Speak sense!’

‘Nagash must rise,’ Erikan said. ‘And I intend to see that he does. If that means I must keep the liche in one piece, so be it.’

Elize shook her head. ‘Are you mad?’

He was silent for a time. She wanted to grab him, and shake him, to force him to speak. But something in his gaze held her in place. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. ‘I think I have been. But I’m sane now.’ He reached for her, and she jerked back. He let his hand fall. ‘For the first time, in a long time, I see things as they are, rather than how I wish them to be.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Can’t you feel it, Elize? Can’t you smell it on the air?’ He looked at her. ‘Then, maybe it’s only obvious to someone who was raised by the eaters of the dead.’

‘What are you talking about?’ she growled, shaking her head. A lock of red hair fell into her face and she blew it aside impatiently.

‘The world is already dead,’ Erikan said. He stepped forwards swiftly, before she could avoid him, and he took hold of her. She considered smashing him to the ground, but stayed her hand, though she couldn’t say why. ‘All of our struggles, all of our games, have come to nothing. Whatever purpose you conceived for me the day you bestowed your blood-kiss upon me will never be fulfilled. The petty schemes of Mannfred, von Dohl and even Neferata in her high tomb are done, though they may deny it.’ He pulled her close, so close, as he had done so many times before he had gone, before he had left her. ‘The world is dead,’ he repeated. ‘Let Nagash have it, if he would.’

She stared at him. She tried to find some sign in his face of the young man she had turned so long ago, thinking to make him a king in his land the way Mannfred had made himself king in Sylvania. What had happened to him, she wondered, in all their years apart? What had made him this way? She reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘Why did you leave?’ she asked softly. ‘Oh my sweet cannibal prince, why did you leave me?’

He looked down at her, his face twisting into an expression of uncertainty. ‘I… wanted to be free,’ he croaked, with what sounded like great effort. Then, ‘I want to be free.’

She grimaced. Her lips peeled back from her fangs and her claws dug into his cheek, drawing blood. He staggered back, a hand clapped to his face. She lunged forward with a serpent’s grace and struck him. He tumbled onto his backside, his eyes wide with surprise and shock. ‘Freedom,’ she spat. ‘Freedom to – what? – slide into oblivion? That isn’t freedom, fool. That is surrender.’

He made to scramble to his feet, and she kicked him onto his back and pinned him in place with her foot on his throat. She glared down at him, her fingers dark with his blood. ‘If I had known that you would give up so easily, I would never have bothered with you in the first place,’ she hissed. ‘Fine, fool. Have your freedom, and enjoy it while it lasts.’

‘I–’ he began. She silenced him with an imperious gesture.

‘Since you feel so strongly about it, you will stay here and guard Sternieste. I will lead our brethren to war in your place, Crowfiend,’ she spat. Then Elize left him there, staring after her. There was an army to ready for the march, and the castellan of Sternieste had much to do. As she stalked through the corridors, snarling orders to scurrying ghouls and lounging vampires, her mind pulsed with dark purpose.

The world was hers, and she would not surrender it – or anything of hers – without a fight.

Nagash would not rise. Not if she could help it.

Twenty

Heldenhame Keep, Talabecland

Hans Leitdorf, Grand Master of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood, tossed the scroll aside with a weary curse, and rubbed his aching eyes. ‘I’m not as young as I used to be,’ he said.

‘None of us are, old fellow,’ Thyrus Gormann said, emptying a decanter into his cup. ‘What was that one – bill of sale? An invoice for lumber, perhaps? Or something more interesting.’ Gormann spoke teasingly. He was the only man who could get away with poking Leitdorf, and he indulged every opportunity to do so. He glanced towards the frost-rimed window. The sun was rising. It had been a long night, and they were almost out of ale. Still, it was nearly time for breakfast, a thought that cheered him considerably.

‘Elves, actually,’ Leitdorf said, leaning back in his chair. He and Gormann were in his office in the high tower of Heldenhame Keep. The office had a certain rustic charm, which spoke more to its owner’s disregard for the subtleties of interior decoration than any longing for simpler surroundings. Gormann took a swallow of wine and gazed at the other man with keen eyes. The Patriarch of the Bright College was, despite his bluff exterior, a man of quick wit and political acumen. It was something he shared in common with Leitdorf, who was more a political animal than he let on.

Gormann grunted. ‘Elves… in Altdorf?’ he guessed. ‘Ulthuani, I’m guessing.’

‘Yes. They’ve come to petition Karl Franz for aid, apparently.’ Leitdorf said. He rubbed his face. ‘Fill me a cup, would you?’

Gormann did so. ‘Well, they picked the right time, didn’t they?’ he asked, as he handed the cup to Leitdorf. ‘It’s not like we have a war to fight, after all.’

‘I don’t think they particularly care about our little disagreements with our northerly neighbours,’ Leitdorf said. He emptied half the cup and set it aside. ‘Karl Franz is keeping them at a distance, for the moment. He placated them by sending a rider to Karak Kadrin – I’m guessing to see if the dwarfs were interested in taking them off his hands.’

‘Ha! That I’d like to see,’ Gormann laughed. He tugged on his beard. ‘Old Ironfist is no friend to the elves, nor in truth to us. We’re allies of convenience, nothing more.’ He cocked his head. ‘Did your spies happen to mention what it is they want?’

Leitdorf gave Gormann a hard stare. ‘I don’t employ spies, Thyrus.’

‘My mistake. Did your… friends happen to say what the elves wanted?’

Leitdorf made a face. ‘No. Nor do I particularly care. We have enough troubles of our own.’ He swept a heavy, scarred hand out to indicate the stack of reports scattered across his desk. ‘Reports from the Border Princes, Bretonnia, Tilea… It’s all going to pot.’

‘When isn’t it?’ Gormann asked.

‘This isn’t a joke, Thyrus,’ Leitdorf growled. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d swear von Carstein had escaped Sylvania somehow.’

Gormann’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. ‘No such luck, I’m afraid. Gelt’s wall of faith still holds.’

Leitdorf sighed. ‘Admit it, Thyrus. That was the whole reason you came to visit Heldenhame, wasn’t it? To examine Gelt’s thrice-cursed enchantment.’ He shook his head. ‘I know what goes on behind the doors of your colleges. They’re worse snake pits than the Imperial court.’

‘Well, I admit, it wasn’t for your company, splendid as it is, Hans,’ Gormann said, opening a second decanter. He gave the liquid within a sniff and filled his cup. ‘Gelt’s a funny one – always has been. Powerful, but dodgy. Even Karl Franz, Sigmar bless and keep him, doesn’t like the scrawny alchemist much.’

‘Which was it that saw him usurp your position as Grand Patriarch? The power or the dodginess?’ Leitdorf asked. He held up a hand as Gormann made to reply. ‘I know, I know – it wasn’t a usurpation. It was a transition. That’s what wizards call it, isn’t it?’

‘He beat me fair and square, Hans. Truth to tell, I was getting tired of the job anyway. There’s precious little fun in it. The uptight little alchemist is welcome to it.’ Gormann took a drink. His duel with Gelt was the stuff of legend, though not for the reasons he’d wish. Gelt had been more cunning than he’d expected, though he’d heard plenty of stories about the younger man’s little tricks – turning lead to gold and the like. When the dust had cleared, he’d been out of the job, and the Gold Order had outstripped the Bright Order in prominence.

He didn’t bear Gelt a grudge – not too much of one, at any rate – but he’d come to learn that the new Grand Patriarch wasn’t adverse to cutting corners. He was cunning but sloppy, with a compulsion to tinker when he wasn’t cheating his creditors. That sort of man needed someone trailing after him, making sure he wasn’t causing too much of a mess. Gormann chuckled to himself. That he’d been elected to that position by his fellow patriarchs would be amusing, if it weren’t so sad. Then, if Gelt grew suspicious, they could simply claim that Gormann was driven by vindictiveness.

He’d come to Talabecland to study the wall of faith. The magics that Gelt had employed to create his wall were old, and far outside of Gelt’s area of study. Someone, it was assumed, had helped him. Gelt was keeping mum, but the other patriarchs, especially Gregor Martak, master of the Amber Order, were concerned, and Gormann didn’t blame them. It wouldn’t be the first time one of their own had used forbidden magics. Traitors like van Horstmann were few and far between, but their actions were indelibly engraved on the collective memory of the Colleges of Magic. Gormann didn’t like to think of them, though. As much as he disliked Gelt, he didn’t think the alchemist would willingly turn to the dark. He cleared his throat and asked, ‘What news from the rest of the Empire?’

‘The same as it’s been for a year. Kislev is gone, and her people with her, save those who fled south to warn us of the invasion,’ Leitdorf said. ‘Only Erengrad remains yet standing, and that only because of von Raukov and the Ostlanders. Men from Averland, Stirland, Middenland and Talabheim march north to bolster our defences on the border.’

He looked tired, Gormann thought. Then, he always had. Being brother to a man like the deceased and infamously insane former Elector of Averland had a way of ageing a man prematurely. Leitdorf had stayed out of the succession debacle, claiming that his duty was to the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood. In truth, Gormann was one of the few who knew that it was actually because Leitdorf was convinced that the Empire of his father and grandfather was being bled white by callow nobles and politicking aristocrats. He included Karl Franz among the latter, though he’d been wise enough never to say so where anyone important could hear him.

Gormann often feared for his friend. Leitdorf was a man of blood and steel, for whom patience and politesse were vices. Gormann had never been very good at the glad-handing his former position had required, but even his limited skills in that regard far outstripped Leitdorf’s. If the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood hadn’t been so influential, it was very likely that someone would have put something unpleasant and surely fatal in Leitdorf’s wine.

Leitdorf went on. ‘Beastmen still rampage across ten states, including this one. Plague ravages the western provinces, and our sometimes allies across the mountains are beset by their own foes.’ He drained his cup and stared at it. ‘The dwarfs have shut their gates. Tilea and Estalia are overrun.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I fear that we are living in the final days, old friend.’

‘Plenty before you have said as much, and as far back as Sigmar’s time, I’d wager,’ Gormann said. He drained his own cup. ‘We’re no more at the End Times than they were then.’

Before Leitdorf could reply, the clangour of alarm bells sounded over the town. The bells echoed through the room, and Leitdorf leapt to his feet with a curse. ‘I knew it!’ he snarled. He hurled aside his empty cup. ‘I knew it! Gelt’s wall has failed.’

‘You can’t know that,’ Gormann said, but it was a half-hearted assertion. He could feel what Leitdorf couldn’t – the rising surge of dark magic that caused a sour feeling in the pit of his gut. He knew, without even having to see, why the bells were ringing. He tossed aside his cup and snagged the decanter as he followed Leitdorf out of his office.

Outside, men ran through the courtyard of the keep, heading for their posts. Leitdorf stormed to the parapet, shoving men aside as he bellowed orders. Gormann followed more slowly. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind curled over the rooftops of Heldenhame. Flocks of carrion birds were perched on every roof and rampart, cawing raucously.

‘You told me I didn’t know that Gelt’s wall had failed, Thyrus? There’s your proof. Look!’ Leitdorf roared as he flung out a hand towards the approach to the western wall. It was thick with worm-picked skeletons, clutching broken swords and splintered spears, and steadily advancing towards the wall. Further back, on the edge of the tree line, Gormann could make out the shape of catapults. Their silhouettes were too rough to be wood or metal, and Gormann knew instinctively that they were bone.

He took a long drink from the decanter. As he watched, the torsion arms of the distant war engines snapped forward with an audible screech. The air ruptured, suddenly filled with an insane and tormented cackle that cracked the decanter and made Gormann’s teeth itch. Most of the missiles struck the wall. One crashed into the ramparts, and smashed down onto a regiment of handgunners who’d been scrambling to their positions. A dozen men died, consumed in eldritch fire or simply splattered across the rampart by the force of the impact.

‘They’re aiming for the blasted scaffold,’ Leitdorf growled. ‘The Rostmeyer bastion is still under reconstruction. There’s no facing stone to protect the wall’s core. It’s nothing but rubble.’ He whirled to glare at Gormann. ‘If they destroy that scaffold, the whole wall will come down.’

‘That’s why you put the guns there, isn’t it?’ Gormann asked, taking another slug from the cracked and leaking decanter. ‘See? There they are – happily blazing away.’ And they were. The sharp crack of the Nuln-forged war machines filled the air, as in reply to the enemy’s barrage. Round shot screamed into the packed ranks of skeletons, shattering many.

But even Gormann could see that it was like punching sand. Every hole torn in the battle-line of corpses was quickly and smoothly filled, as new bodies filled the breaches, stepping over the shattered remains of their fellows.

‘Kross is a fool,’ Leitdorf said, referring to the commander of the Rostmeyer bastion. ‘They need to concentrate on those catapults. Infantry, dead or otherwise, will break itself on the walls. But if those catapults bring it down…’ He turned and began shouting orders to his men. Gormann peered out at the battlefield. Gun smoke billowed across the walls and field beyond, obscuring everything save a vague suggestion of movement.

‘I think they figured it out,’ Gormann said. The smoke cleared for a moment, and the wizard saw one of the catapults explode into whirling fragments and flailing ropes as a cannonball struck it dead on. Men on the ramparts cheered. Leitdorf turned back, a fierce grin on his face.

‘Ha-ha! That’s the way!’ he shouted. ‘I knew Kross was the right man to command that bastion. Damn his pickled heart, I knew he wouldn’t fail me!’

Gormann said nothing. He finished the bottle. His skin itched and his eyes felt full of grit as he sensed a tendril of dark magic undulate across the field. He heard the cheers began to falter and didn’t have to look at the tree line to know that the shattered engine was repairing itself.

‘By Sigmar’s spurs,’ Leitdorf hissed.

‘All these years sitting on their doorstep and you didn’t expect that, Hans?’ Gormann asked dully. He examined the decanter for a moment, and then flung it heedlessly over his shoulder. He heard it smash on the cobblestones somewhere far below. ‘This battle won’t be as quick as all that.’

The cheering atop the battlements faded as the wind slackened and the fog of war descended on Heldenhame once more.

Wendel Volker staggered through the smoke, eyes stinging and his lungs burning. Flames crackled all around him. A shrieking fireball had crashed down onto the tavern, and it was ready to collapse at any moment. He resisted the urge to sprint for safety and continued to clamber through the wreckage, stumbling over bodies and searching for any signs of survivors. So far he’d found plenty of the former, but none of the latter.

The roof groaned like a dying man, and he heard the crack of wood surrendering to intense heat. Fear spurted through him, seizing his heart and freezing his limbs, but only for a moment. Then his training kicked in, and he whispered a silent prayer of thanks to the man who’d taught him swordplay. He knew the fear was good, and it had sobered him up. He had a feeling he was going to need to be sober. He could hear the bells of the keep, and the roar of the cannons on the western wall, punctuated by the harsh rhythm of handguns firing at an unknown enemy.

Kross would be up there, he knew, unless he was still sleeping off his drink from the night before. A brief, blissful image of Kross, asleep in his bunk as a fireball landed atop his quarters, passed across the surface of Volker’s mind. His joy was short lived. A burning mass of thatch tumbled down, nearly striking him. Ash and sparks danced across his face and clothes, and he swatted at himself wildly. He heard someone scream, and a flurry of curses. He wasn’t the only one in the tavern. He’d led as many as would volunteer into the burning building.

That they’d been close to hand was less luck and more circumstance – Volker and the men he’d led into the inferno had only just left the tavern, after all. He’d wasted an entire night swilling cheap beer rather than dealing with the stacks of make-work that the seneschal of Heldenhame, Rudolph Weskar, insisted his underlings produce. Those who could read and write, at any rate. Since Kross could do neither, his records and logs were handed over to Volker, who suspected that Weskar was still attempting to stir the pot. The seneschal had made his disdain for both men clear in the months since their last confrontation, and Volker had done all that he could to avoid Weskar and Kross, as well as Kross’s lackeys, like Deinroth.

Volker saw a bloody hand suddenly extend from beneath a fallen roof beam and flail weakly. He shouted, ‘Here!’ He coughed into a damp rag and shouted again. Uniformed men swarmed forwards through the smoke and Volker helped them shift the roof beam. He recognised the barmaid from his previous night’s carousing and scooped her up. Ash and sparks washed down over him as he grabbed her, and he heard the groan of wood giving way. ‘Everyone out,’ he screamed. The barmaid cradled to his chest, he loped for the street. Men bumped into him as they fled, and for a moment, he was afraid that he would be buried and immolated as the tavern roof finally gave way and the building collapsed in on itself.

Volker hit the open air in a plume of smoke. His skin was burning and he couldn’t see. Someone took the girl from him and he sank down, coughing. A bucket of water was upended over him and he gasped. ‘Get his cloak off, it’s caught fire,’ a rough voice barked. ‘Someone get me another bucket. Wendel – can you hear me?’

‘M-Maria,’ Volker wheezed. ‘Is she…?’ More water splashed down on him. He scraped his fingers across his eyes and looked up into the grim features of Father Odkrier.

‘Alive, lad, thanks to you.’ Odkrier hauled him to his feet. ‘Can you stand? Good,’ he said roughly, without waiting for a reply.

‘We’re under attack, aren’t we?’ Volker asked. The streets were packed with people. Some were trying to put out the spreading fires, but others were fleeing in the direction of the eastern gate. Volker didn’t blame them.

‘Sylvania has disgorged its wormy black guts and the restless dead have come to call,’ Odkrier said. Volker saw that he held his long-hafted warhammer in one hand.

Volker shuddered and looked west. The boom of the cannons continued, and he saw men in Talabecland uniforms hurrying towards the Rostmeyer bastion. He swallowed thickly, and wished that he’d managed to save a bottle of something before the tavern had gone up in flames. ‘Kross isn’t going to be happy.’

‘No one will be happy if our visitors get in, captain,’ a harsh voice said. Rudolph Weskar glared about him, as if he could cow the burgeoning inferno by sheer will. Then, Volker wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if it had worked. ‘Especially you, captain. Why aren’t you at your post?’ He raised his cane like a sword and tapped Volker on the shoulder. Excuses flooded Volker’s mind, but each one died before reaching his lips. Weskar frowned. ‘Never mind. Go to the eastern walls and bring as many men as you can. We’ll need them if the western wall comes down.’ Weskar’s hard eyes found Odkrier. ‘The men at Rostmeyer bastion are in need of guidance, father.’

‘I’ll wager they could use my hammer as well,’ Odkrier growled. He slapped Volker on the shoulder. ‘Take care, lad. And don’t dawdle.’ Then the warrior priest turned and hurried off.

Volker watched him go, and wondered if he would ever see the other man again. He looked at Weskar and asked, ‘How bad is it, sir?’

Weskar looked at him, his eyes like agates. ‘Get me those men, Volker. Or you’ll find out.’

Hans Leitdorf cursed for the fourth time in as many minutes as a merchant’s cart was crushed beneath the thundering hooves of his warhorse. The man screamed curses from the safety of a doorway as the column of heavily armoured knights thundered past. Leitdorf longed to give him a thump for his impertinence, but there was no time. Instead, he roared out imprecations at the running forms that blocked the path ahead. ‘Blow the trumpets!’ he snarled over his shoulder to the knight riding just behind him.

The knight did as he bade. Whether the blast of noise helped or hindered their efforts, Leitdorf couldn’t actually say. He felt better for it, though. No one could say that the knights hadn’t given fair warning. Anyone who got trampled had only themselves to blame.

Still, it was taking too long to reach the southern gate. When the messengers from the Rostmeyer bastion had reached him, Leitdorf had already been climbing into the saddle. A sally from the southern gate was the most sensible plan – it would enable the knights to smash into the flanks of the undead unimpeded. If they ever got there. A night soil cart was the next casualty of the horses, and Leitdorf cursed as bits of dung spattered across his polished breastplate.

He’d brought nearly the entire order with him. Those who remained he’d left to watch over Heldenhame Keep, or were abroad on the order’s business elsewhere. He felt no reluctance in bringing every man who could ride with him. He’d left the defences of the city and the keep itself in Weskar’s capable hands. Even if the enemy got into the city, the keep would hold. The walls were thick, and the artillery towers manned. No barbaric horde or tomb-legion had ever cracked those defences, and this time would be no different.

Fireballs shrieked overhead, striking buildings. Bits of burning wood, thatch and brick rained down on the column as they galloped through streets packed with panicked people. Men and women were scrambling for safety like rats, and the roads were becoming progressively more impassable. The rattle of handguns echoed through the air. The dead had drawn within range then, which meant they were close enough to scale the wall.

The enemy had no siege towers and no ladders for escalade, but Leitdorf had fought the undead often enough to know that they had little need of such. If there was a way in, they would find it. ‘Damn Gelt and his gilded tongue,’ he spat out loud.

‘You’re not the first to say that,’ Gormann said. Leitdorf looked at the Patriarch of the Bright College. The wizard rode hard at his side, clad in thick robes covered in stylised flames. He wore no hood, so his white-streaked red hair and beard surrounded his seamed face like the corona of the sun. He carried his staff of office, and he had a wide-bladed sword sheathed on his hip.

‘Nor will I be the last, I think, before our travails are over,’ Leitdorf said. ‘I knew his blasted cage would fail. I knew it.’ He looked away. ‘I argued long and hard that his sorcery was only a temporary measure at best – that it afforded us an opportunity, rather than a solution. We should have seized the moment and swept Sylvania clean with fire and sword. And now it’s too late. The muster of Drakenhof is at our gate, and the Empire is in no fit state to throw them back if we fail.’ He pounded on his saddle horn with a fist.

‘Doom and gloom and grim darkness,’ Gormann said. A fruit vendor’s stall toppled into the street as people made way for the knights, and cabbages and potatoes burst beneath his horse’s hooves. He looked up as another fireball struck home. ‘If this is an invasion, it’s a fairly tentative one. A few mouldering bones and artillery pieces do not a conquering force make. Where are the rest of them? The rotting dead, the cannibal packs, the spectres and von Carstein’s detestable kin?’

‘Sometimes I forget that you’ve been living in Altdorf, getting fat all of these years,’ Leitdorf said. He ignored Gormann’s outraged spluttering. ‘You are fat, Thyrus. I’m surprised you fit into your robes. Those dead things out there are to soften up our walls for the rest of them, when night falls. Then we’ll be on the back foot, unless we smash them here and now, and send von Carstein back over the border with our boot on his rump.’

‘You never told me you were a poet, Hans,’ Gormann said.

Leitdorf growled and hunched his shoulders. ‘Will you for once in your sybaritic life take things seriously?’

‘I take everything seriously, Hans,’ Gormann said. ‘I’m more concerned about how von Carstein circumvented Gelt’s cage. That enchantment was like nothing I’ve ever encountered, and if von Carstein managed to break it, then old Volkmar’s wild claims about that leech getting his claws on the thrice-cursed Crown of Sorcery might be more than some dark fantasy.’

‘Or Gelt’s spell wasn’t as permanent as he claimed. I ought to wring that alchemist’s scrawny neck,’ Leitdorf barked. He looked at Gormann. ‘Of course, you’ve considered the obvious…’

Gormann made a face. ‘I have.’

Leitdorf frowned. ‘What do we really know about Gelt, Thyrus? I’d always heard that he cheated you of the staff of office, but you’ve never said what really happened.’ He snapped his reins, causing his mount to rear as a pedlar scurried out of his path. ‘Out of the way, fool!’ he roared. He glanced at Gormann. ‘There are rumours about Gelt. Dark ones… What if this is part of some scheme? He caged Sylvania, right after Volkmar – one of his most influential critics – vanishes into its depths, and then claims that nothing can escape. As soon as we’ve turned our eyes and swords north, that inescapable cage is suddenly no more effective than a morning mist.’

Gormann didn’t look at him. Leitdorf had known the Bright Wizard for a long time. He could tell that what he was saying wasn’t new to Gormann. Even knowing as little as he did of the internal politics of the Colleges of Magic, he knew that Gelt’s eccentricities weren’t as universally tolerated as Gormann’s had been. Why else would they have sent Gormann to investigate the wall of faith, unless they suspected that something was amiss?

Before he had a chance to press his friend further, he saw the blocky shape of the southernmost gatehouse and barbican rising over the tops of the buildings to either side of him. His trumpeter blew another note, and the men manning the gate hurriedly began raising the portcullis. He spurred his horse to greater speed, and pushed aside his worries.

There would be time to worry about Gelt after the dead were successfully driven back.

‘Well?’ Mannfred hissed, from where he lurked beneath the trees. His eyes were pinpricks of crimson in the shadows, and his fingers tapped against a tree trunk impatiently.

‘Well what?’ Arkhan asked. He gestured and a shattered catapult began to repair itself. An easy enough task when the engine in question was composed of bone, dried flesh and hair. It was child’s play for a creature like Arkhan – barely worth the effort it took to accomplish it. In fact, none of what he was now doing was worth his attention. Any halfway competent hedge-necromancer could keep the mass of skeletons attacking a wall, and the catapults and their crews functioning.

‘Don’t taunt me, liche.’

‘I wasn’t aware that I was. I am trying to concentrate, vampire. You are disrupting that concentration. Unless you have something pertinent to say, I’ll thank you to keep quiet.’ Arkhan gestured again, resurrecting a pile of shattered skeletons moments after a cannonball tore them to flinders.

He’d spent most of the night before stalking the steep slopes beneath the distant western wall of the city, drawing those selfsame skeletons to the surface. The worms had fed well the previous year, and thousands of bodies, both human and orc, had been buried in mass graves on the field before the wall. Their spirits, only barely aware, were restless and eager to rise and fight again. Arkhan was only too happy to give them that opportunity.

The catapults had been a stroke of genius on his part. He had found a spot where the dead had lain particularly deep, and manipulated their remains to form his war engines, as he had so long ago in the Great Land. Frames of twisted bone and ropes of hair and stretched ligament worked just as well as iron and wood. His magics supplied the ammunition as well – great, cackling balls of witch-fire.

‘Do not bandy words with me, sirrah,’ Mannfred snapped. ‘Have we drawn them out?’

‘You can hear the trumpets as well as I,’ Arkhan said. In his mind’s eye, he could see what the dead saw. Balls of lead hammered into the dead ranks as they advanced up the muddy slope towards the western wall, fired by the increasingly desperate ranks of handgunners on the parapet. The men loaded and fired with an almost mechanical precision and, for a moment, Arkhan almost admired them. They displayed a courage and dedication that rivalled that of the legions of Khemri at their height. But it would buy them nothing. ‘The knights are exiting through the southern gates, as you predicted. They will crush my fleshless legion and the artillery with ease, when they get around to charging.’

‘Not too much ease, one hopes,’ Mannfred said, glaring up at the sun. It was riding low in the sky, and obscuring clouds clawed at its edges. ‘We need to keep them occupied for another few hours.’

‘Easily done. You know where the Black Armour rests?’ Arkhan looked at him. Mannfred’s cruel features twisted into a smile.

‘I’ve known for months, liche. It is sequestered in the vaults of the castle from which this detestable little pile takes its name. While you keep them occupied here, I shall seize my– Your pardon, our prize. My forces but await the weakening of the sun’s gaze.’

‘Good,’ Arkhan said.

‘That said, you should keep an eye socket tilted further west,’ Mannfred said, watching the skeletons march into the teeth of a cannonade.

‘Reinforcements?’

Mannfred’s smile widened. ‘Of sorts,’ he laughed. ‘A herd of beastmen are gambolling towards us, even as I speak. I have set wolves, bats and corpses on them, to occupy them for the nonce, but they are heading this way.’ He examined his nails. ‘They’ve come a long way, for such blissfully primitive creatures. Almost as if they were looking for something, or someone.’

Arkhan felt a cold rush of frustration. ‘Was there a winged creature leading them?’ he demanded, after a moment’s hesitation. Mannfred’s gleeful expression told him that the vampire had been expecting that question.

‘Oh yes, your crow-winged pet is amongst them. Why didn’t you tell me you’d made a new friend in Bretonnia? My heart aches,’ Mannfred said as he placed a hand over his heart. ‘It simply bleeds for the distrust you continue to show me.’

‘Now who’s mocking who?’ Arkhan said. Frustration lent strength to his magics. He raised his hands, the sleeves of his robes sliding back from the bone. Black smoke rose from the pores that dotted the bones of his forearms, and drifted towards the battlefield. Where it drifted, dead things moved with renewed vigour. ‘I did not tell you because it was not important.’

Mannfred drifted towards him. He drew his sword and Arkhan felt the edge of the blade rest against the bare bone of his neck. ‘Oh, I believe that it is, liche. We are so very close to our goal, and to have it endangered thus… aggravates me sorely.’

‘Is the Grave Lord of Sylvania afraid of a few mutated beasts, then?’ Arkhan ignored the blade and kept his attentions fixed on the western wall. At a twitch of his extended fingers, the skeletons closest to the wall surged into fresh activity. Gripped by Arkhan’s will, they climbed over one another like a swarm of ants, building ladders of bone that grew taller and taller by the moment. Soon, skeletal hands were grabbing the ramparts. Handguns and cannons barked and flamed, shattering sections of the growing constructs, but Arkhan’s magics repaired them as quickly as they were broken. The pace of the ascent barely slowed.

‘It is not the beasts that concern me, but what they represent,’ Mannfred said. ‘You were attacked by beastmen and the cursed inhabitants of Athel Loren on your journey, liche.’ He did not lower his sword. ‘We are seemingly beset by enemies.’

‘I told you that time was not on our side. The Dark Gods fear Nagash. They fear his power and his wrath. The events which even now grip this world are a sign of that.’ He looked at Mannfred. ‘Did you think it was coincidence that saw Sylvania caged right at the moment that Kislev fell to northern steel? Did you think the daemon-storms that ravaged your lands were but an odd turn of weather? Those were distractions, just like this is a distraction. Of course we are beset, fool… We seek nothing less than the unmaking of the world, and the overthrowing of the old order. They will do everything in their power to delay and hinder us. They will send beasts and even men and elves to assail us. They will aid our enemies, and undermine our allies, all to buy a few more hours of existence.’

Arkhan turned away. In his mind’s eye, he saw what was taking place on the distant wall. A doughty man, old and steeped in faith, whose aura blazed like the light of a comet, had thrust himself into the fray, sweeping the dead aside with great swings of his warhammer. Men cheered, heartened by his presence. Arkhan knew him for what he was – a priest of Sigmar – and at his impulse, the dead turned their attentions to dealing with this new threat. The warrior priest was plucked from the bastion and torn apart. The defenders began to flee, in ones and twos at first; and then, all at once, organised fighting men became frightened cattle, stampeding for the dubious safety of the second bastion on the western wall. Satisfied, Arkhan turned his attentions back to Mannfred.

‘We are at war with life itself, vampire. All life, however corrupt and insane. Without life, the Dark Gods do not exist. Without life, they will gutter like candles in the wind, and as the gods of men and elves do. They must stop us, or they face extinction.’

Mannfred stared at him. Then, almost absently, he lowered his sword. His head tilted, as if he were listening to some inner voice berate him. Mannfred shook himself. In a quiet voice, he said, ‘I do not wish the death of all things.’

‘What you wish is inconsequential,’ Arkhan said, after a moment of hesitation. Mannfred looked at him, and for a moment, the mask of von Carstein slipped, and was replaced by an older, yet somehow younger, face. The face of the man who became the vampire. The face of one who had known grief and strife and eternal frustration. Of one who had seen his hopes dashed again and again. Some spark of pity flared in Arkhan. He and Mannfred were more alike than he had thought. ‘Nagash must rise,’ he said.

The mask returned crashing down like a portcullis, and Mannfred’s eyes sparked with fury. ‘At the moment, Nagash is dust, liche. And my wishes are anything but inconsequential. He will rise, but at my behest, at my whim,’ he snarled, striking his chest with a closed fist. He flung out a hand. ‘Bring that damnable wall down. I would be done with this farce.’

‘As you wish,’ Arkhan said.

Twenty-One

Heldenhame Keep, Talabecland

Volker and the men he’d procured from the eastern bastions reached the foot of the inner wall just in time to see the entirety of the western wall give way. The battlements lurched like a drunken giant, and Volker could only stare in mounting horror as, with a great rumble and an explosive gout of dust, the centre of the wall collapsed in on itself, scaffolding and all. Rubble and crushed bodies spilled across the ground in front of him.

‘Back!’ he yelped, waving at his men. ‘Get back!’ With the scaffolding’s support removed, destruction rippled along the sturdier sections of the wall, buckling the ramparts and causing them to collapse. Men and skeletons alike were hurled from the battlements, their bodies vanishing into the ever-expanding cloud of dust and smoke.

Shock was replaced by fear, as Volker saw skeletons clamber through the dust-choked breach. He tore his sword from its sheath and lurched forward. His men followed, forming up around him more out of well-drilled instinct than inclination. As he moved over the rubble, he brought his sword up. It was made of the finest Kriegst steel, and had been a gift from his mother. He quickly kissed the twin-tailed comet embossed on the hilt and, without a word, pointed the blade at the approaching skeletons.

Someone shouted something vile, and a litany of epithets and curses boiled out of the ranks around him. It wasn’t quite the sort of battle cry the bards sang of, but it would do in a pinch. Volker gave voice to his own string of curses, firing them from his lips like shots from a helblaster volley gun as he began to run up the newborn slope of rubble towards the invaders.

A skeleton hacked at him with a broken blade and he swept it aside with a blow from his sword. As Volker reached the top of the slope, he wondered if he ought to shout something inspiring. He opened his mouth and got a lungful of dust, so he coughed instead. His men followed him up, battering aside skeletons in order to join him at the crest of the breach, where they formed a ragged line of spears and swords. Sergeants bellowed orders and a defensive formation took shape. Volker, who knew better than to interfere with sergeants, settled for looking heroic. Or as close to heroic as he could get, covered in dust and blood, and smelling of the previous night’s booze-up.

The line was barely formed when the next wave of skeletons ploughed towards them through the breach. Volker swung and chopped at the undead until his arm and shoulder were numb. For every three skeletons they hacked down, six more replaced them. They attacked in total silence, providing an eerie counterpoint to Volker and his men, who expelled curses, cries and wailing screams as they fell to ragged spears and rusty blades.

Volker stumbled, sweat burning his eyes, his lungs filled with dust. The rubble beneath his feet was slick with blood and covered in fragments of shattered bone. The enemy catapults continued to launch shrieking fireballs into what was left of the walls and the city beyond. Most of the artillery fire was directed at what was left of Rostmeyer bastion, where the surviving handgunners fired down into the melee in the breach. Volker felt bullets sing past his head and wondered which would get him first, the skeletons or his own comrades. He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the work at hand.

A fireball struck the side of the breach and crackling flames washed over the line of men. Soldiers screamed and died. Volker screamed as well as fire kissed the side of his face and body. He staggered into a soldier, slapping at the flames that clung to him. The man stumbled as Volker fell, and nearly lost his head to a skeleton.

By the time he put the fire out, half of the men he’d brought were dead. Volker pushed himself to his feet, using his sword as a crutch. A skeleton lunged out of the smoke to thrust a jagged spear at the man Volker had fallen into. Volker intercepted the blow, catching the spear by the haft. He jerked the dead thing towards himself with a yell and smashed its skull with his sword. He heard men cheer, and looked around blearily, thinking Leitdorf or Weskar had finally arrived with reinforcements.

It took him a moment to realise that they were cheering for him. He shook his head, bemused. He dragged the man he’d saved to his feet and propelled him back into line. ‘Form up,’ he shouted. ‘Back in line, back in line!’

More skeletons stalked through the breach, and many of the shattered ones began to twitch and rattle. The cheers died away. Volker spat and raised his sword. ‘Sigmar give me strength,’ he said, even as he wondered where Leitdorf was – where were the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood?

‘Sound the trumpet,’ Leitdorf growled. ‘Let the cursed dead know that the hand of the god is here to send them back to the grave.’ He drew his sword and levelled it at the mass of thousands of skeletons advancing on the breach in the western wall. When the knights of the leading brotherhoods had rounded the southwestern corner of the city wall and beheld the horde that awaited their lances, not one had hesitated, which caused the gloom that enveloped Leitdorf to abate slightly.

The loss of the city’s outer wall was a failure on his part. He had been too distracted to see personally to the repairs, as he should have done. He’d left it to the fat pig, Kross, and Weskar, when he knew the former was allergic to hard labour and the latter had no interest in such menial tasks. It was his fault that it had come to this. It was his fault that men – his men – had died. But he could see to it that no more did so. He could see to it that the dead were punished and thrown back across the border into their dark county once more.

Mannfred von Carstein’s head would be his. He would take it in a sack to Altdorf and hurl it at Balthasar Gelt’s feet, just before he took the alchemist’s lying tongue as well.

‘Sound the trumpet again,’ he bellowed. ‘The Order of Sigmar’s Blood rides to war!’ The world became a whirl of noise and sensation as the knights around him began to pick up speed. There were nearly twelve hundred warriors gathered, spreading to either side like the unfolding wings of an eagle as they urged their horses from a canter to a gallop. Once loosed to the charge, they were nothing short of a wall of destruction that could level anything in its path.

The ground shuddered beneath them. He caught sight of Gormann hunched over his horse’s neck, his staff held up like a standard, a swirling ball of fire floating above it. The wizard caught his eye and grinned widely. Leitdorf couldn’t help but return the expression. It had been too long since they had fought side by side – the Battle of Hel Ditch, he thought, and the razing of the Maggot Orchard – and he looked forward to seeing his old friend in action once again.

The closest skeletons had only just begun to turn when the charge struck home with a sound like thunder. To Leitdorf, it was as if he and his men were the curve of some vast reaper’s scythe. One moment, there was an unbroken sea of bleached or browning bone, marching beneath ragged, worm-eaten banners; the next, a wave of shining steel crashed into and over the dead in a massive roar of splintering bone and pounding hooves.

Leitdorf roared out the name of Sigmar as he hewed a corridor through the dead, making way for the knights behind him. As he took the head of a grinning skeleton, he jerked his stallion about and raised his sword. His standard bearer, close by, raised the order’s banner in response, and the trumpeter blew a single, clarion note. The men who’d been with Leitdorf wheeled about and smashed their way clear of the skeletal phalanxes that sought to converge on them. They would reform and charge again, each brotherhood picking their own targets in order to render the horde down to a manageable size and destroy it piecemeal.

He’d learned from hard experience that the dead didn’t care about numbers, or morale. If his knights became bogged down amidst the mass of corpses, they’d be swarmed under in short order. The only way to defeat the dead was to pummel them to nothing with mechanical precision. To hit them again and again, until they stopped getting back up. He looked around for Gormann and saw that the wizard’s horse had gone down in the first charge. Gormann was on his feet, however, and fire swirled about him, like silks about a Strigany dancer. His face was flushed, and his eyes looked like glowing embers as he spun his staff about, conjuring dancing flames. The air about him thickened, becoming the eye of a nascent firestorm.

Leitdorf found himself unable to tear his eyes away. It had been years since he had seen Gormann’s power unleashed. Normally the wizard contented himself with parlour tricks – lighting his pipe or conjuring a fire in the fireplace. But here was the true majesty of the Bright College, the searing rage of an unfettered inferno.

He pulled his men back with oaths and furious gestures. The knights formed up and cantered to what he hoped was a safe range. The dead closed in all around Gormann, who did not appear concerned, and for good reason. Even at a distance, Leitdorf felt the heat of what came next.

There was no sound, only fury. No flames, only incredible, irresistible heat. Bone and rusty armour fused into indeterminate slag as the heat washed over the ranks of the dead. Bleached bone turned black and then crumbled to fragments of ash as Gormann began to stride forward, encased in a bubble of devastation. The bubble shimmered and began to grow, as if every skeleton consumed by it was a log added to a fire. Tendrils of flame exploded outwards from his palms at Gormann’s merest gesture, and consumed the dead in a maelstrom of fire and smoke.

Leitdorf looked up as one of the enemy catapults fired at the wizard. Without looking up, Gormann raised his hand and his fingers crooked like claws. The cackling fireball slowed in its descent and finally stopped right above its intended target. Gormann gave a great, gusty laugh, wound his arm up and snapped it forward, like a boy hurling a stone. The fireball careened back towards its point of origin, and the catapult and its crew were immolated instantly.

More catapults fired, and Gormann slammed his staff down. The fireballs jumbled before him like leaves caught in a strong wind. He raised his staff and they followed the motion of it. With a sharp gesture, he sent them hurtling back the way they’d come. Gormann turned as smoke rose from the tree line behind him and called out, ‘Well? What are you waiting for, Hans? Get to work.’

Leitdorf laughed and signalled his trumpeter. Another note, and two unengaged brotherhoods galloped towards the tree line and the remaining artillery pieces, crushing any skeletons who tried to bar their path underfoot.

The catapults fell silent a few moments later, and he allowed himself to feel a flush of victory. The battle had been costly, but he had done it. He made to call out to Gormann when the wind suddenly shifted. The breeze, which had played across the city all morning, increased in speed and strength, becoming a roaring gale. The sun faded as dark clouds gathered, filling the sky. Instinct made him turn in his saddle.

The clouds were thickest and darkest around Heldenhame Keep. ‘No,’ he said, in disbelief. The enemy had got past them, somehow, some way, and they were in his city. He thought of Weskar, and the few men he’d left on the walls and knew that they would not be enough, brave as they were. ‘Sound the retreat,’ he snarled to his trumpeter, jerking his horse about and driving his spurs into its flanks. ‘We have to get back to the city – now!’

But as he said it, he knew it was too late.

The vargheists went first, as was their right and their duty. They hurtled down from the teeth of the storm onto the battlements of Heldenhame Keep, unleashing a frenzy of blood-soaked death upon the men who manned them. Handguns flamed, and here and there, a bat-like shape plummeted with an animal wail. But such occurrences were few and far between. The remaining vargheists took the fight across the battlements and into the passageways and barrack-rooms of the towers, drawing defenders after them into a nightmarish game of cat and mouse, just as Mannfred had intended.

Astride his steed of twisted bone and leathery wings, Mannfred watched the battle unfold with a cruel smile. His strategy had worked to perfection. Leitdorf and his cursed knights had been unable to resist the bait Arkhan had dangled before them, like meat before a lion. They had denuded the castle of defenders, and he intended to make them pay for that error in blood. ‘You thought me caged, Leitdorf? There is no cage built or conjured that can hold me!’ he roared, spitting the words down at the battlements as his mount swooped over them.

Well that’s simply not true, now is it?

Mannfred grimaced. Even here, amidst the fury of the storm, Vlad haunted him. Or perhaps not Vlad. Perhaps something else, something worse. He shook his head. ‘I say what is true. I make my own truth, ghost. Go haunt Arkhan if you wish to play these games. I grow tired of them and you.’

Clouds billowed around him, and he could almost see the outline of a face, the same face he’d glimpsed so many months ago in the garden, and from out of the corner of his eye many times since. It smiled mockingly at him and he snarled in annoyance. Vlad’s voice was loud in his head, as if the long-dead Count of Sylvania was right behind him. This isn’t a game, boy. It’s a warning from a teacher to a student – do you remember that night? The night it all began, the night I opened the Book of Nagash and set us on this path? Do you remember what I said then?

Mannfred twitched and tried to ignore the voice. At his unspoken command, spectral shapes descended through the storm or flowed up through the rocks of the castle. These were the ghosts of madmen, warlocks, witches and worse things, conjured by his skill and impressed into his service by his will. He felt their cruel desire to abate their own sufferings by inflicting pain and death, and encouraged it. At a thought, they swept into battle with those who still manned the walls and artillery towers, killing them in droves. Such things could not be harmed by mortal weapons and as such made effective shock troops.

I asked you a question, little prince… Maybe you didn’t hear me. Or maybe you are afraid to answer…

‘I am fear itself, old man. I cause fear, I do not feel it,’ Mannfred hissed, watching as the defenders of Heldenhame died in their dozens. He longed to join the battle, to drown out Vlad’s needling voice in blood and thunder, but he had to be patient. He could not risk himself, not now. He was too close to victory.

He could feel the Black Armour calling to him as the other artefacts had. It longed to rejoin them, and he could hear its whispers in his mind, imploring him to come and find it. Luckily, he didn’t have to. That was what the ghosts and vargheists were for. They would locate the armour, and when they had, he would strike.

You see it, don’t you? Or are you so blinded by ambition that you cannot temper it with common sense? Vlad hissed. What did I tell you? Answer me!

Mannfred closed his eyes and ground his fangs together. ‘You said that Nagash was not a man, but a disease that afflicted any who dared use his works. A pestilence of the mind and soul, infecting those who sought to use his power.’ His eyes opened. ‘And maybe he is. But just as he used a plague to wipe the Great Land from the ledger of history, I will use him to clean off the world and remake it in my image. His Great Work shall be superseded by mine, and I shall do what you never could – what Ushoran and Neferata never could. I will seat myself on the throne of the world and rule unto eternity. My people will worship me as a god and I shall serve them as a king ought,’ he said. ‘I have waited so long for this moment. I shall wait no more.’

Then you will be broken on his altar, as Kemmler was. As Arkhan is, so shall you be, my son, Vlad said, softly.

‘I am not your son,’ Mannfred shrieked, bending forward in his saddle, his eyes glaring at the clouds about him.

But you might have been. Now you are… what you are, and I am dead. Yet still, you conjure me to beseech me for my advice, as a son would. I am you, boy. I am your wisdom, your wariness given voice. In this moment, you know that you can still escape the trap that yawns before you. You can still be free of the shadow of Nagashizzar and its legacy, Vlad said intently. Only now, it wasn’t Vlad’s voice he heard, but his own. His own thoughts, his own worries and suspicions given shape and voice.

‘I am free,’ he said.

The words sounded hollow.

In his head, something laughed. Not him, not Vlad, but something else. Something that had shadowed him since he’d returned from the muck and mire of Hel Fenn. He closed his eyes, glad that he had left the Drakenhof Templars to safeguard Arkhan.

Freedom is an illusion, his voice murmured. Power carries its own chains. But you can slip this one now… Run. Retreat… Go anywhere else. Fly to the farthest corner of the world until its reckoning. Live out what remains of these final days as your own master. Leave Nagash to rot in whatever hell holds him. Just… leave.

‘I will not die,’ Mannfred said. ‘I shall not die. I shall not perish a beggar. I was born for greatness…’

Your mother was a concubine. You would never have ruled your city of jewelled towers and tidy streets, and you know it, his voice said. You were born and you died and you returned. You have ever meddled and sought to control the uncontrollable, and what has that brought you, save strife and madness?

‘I am not mad. Konrad was the mad one, not me!’ he shouted.

Then why are you talking to yourself? Why pretend it was Vlad’s ghost haunting you when it was your own fear? Run, fool. Fly from here. Leave everything behind. Do not die again for a fool’s dream!

Down below, there was a flash of light. Aged blades, blessed long ago, blazed like torches as the castellans of the castle rallied. The blessed weapons drove back the confused spirits, cutting their ethereal flesh. It was time for Mannfred to take a hand, if he still wished for victory.

Did he still wish it? That was the question. Some part of him, wiser perhaps than that to which he’d given voice, screamed that it was already too late, that he was being pulled in the wake of a black comet that could not be stopped from reaching its destination. An undercurrent of laughter greeted this and he looked up, trying to read the future in the skeins of the sorcerous storm clouds he had summoned.

He saw the moments of his life, spread across the tapestry of the wind-wracked sky. Every scheme and hope and mistake. A life lived in pursuit of one overriding goal.

If he gave it up now, what was he? What could he ever be?

The voices fell silent. The laughter faded. Determination replaced hesitation.

‘It is not the dream of a fool. It is not a dream at all, but destiny. I was born to rule, and I shall, one way or another,’ he said as he raised his hand. At his gesture, two massive shapes cut through the swirling storm clouds and dropped down into the castle courtyard below with twin shrieks so piercing that every window, goblet and mirror in the structure shattered all at once. The two terrorgheists had no fear of the blessed weapons that some of the defenders wielded. Driven by a ravenous hunger that could never be sated, the two beasts knuckled and lurched their way across the courtyard, snagging swordsmen and handgunners, and dragging the screaming men into their decaying gullets.

Mannfred’s mount touched down on the blood-washed stones a moment later. He could feel the song of the Black Armour trilling through his mind, washing aside his suspicions and fears. He would not die again. He would triumph and stride the world like a colossus. Still in his saddle, he turned as one of the terrorgheists squalled.

He saw a limping knight duck under a flailing wing and bring his sword around in a brutal two-handed blow, which shattered the beast’s malformed skull. As the creature collapsed in a shuddering heap, the knight extended his blade towards Mannfred in challenge. ‘You shall defile this place not one second more, vampire. So swears Rudolph Weskar.’

‘I’d be inclined to worry, if I had any idea who you were,’ Mannfred said, leaning back in his saddle. He laughed. ‘Well… come on. Some of us have a schedule.’

Weskar charged. And men followed him, knights and swordsmen. A desperate rabble, making their last stand. Mannfred was only too happy to oblige them. He kicked his steed into motion and rode to meet them, drawing his sword as he did so. He gave a mocking salute with the blade as he met them. Then, with barely a flicker of effort, he took Weskar’s head. His next blow cleaved through two of the knights, his sword ripping through armour and flesh with ease. For a moment, he crested a wave of violence as he took out his frustration and worry on the men who sought to bring him down.

He slid from the saddle as the last of them fell. The castle echoed with the sounds of horror and butchery as those defenders who yet lived fought on against his servants. He ignored them all, his eyes fixed on the great iron-banded doors that marked the entrance to the castle’s vaults, where his prize sat waiting for him to come and fetch it.

Nagash would rise, and the world would kneel at last to its rightful ruler.

Twenty-Two

Castle Sternieste, Sylvania

‘It is almost time,’ Arkhan said as he joined Mannfred in the garden. Mannfred didn’t turn around. Instead he continued to examine the worm-pale tree, whose blossoms had sprouted, flowered, and now drifted across the garden like snowflakes. He was reminded slightly of the cherry orchards of far Nippon, and the colours of their blossoms as they swirled in a breeze. There had been a beauty there that even he recognised.

‘This tree has somehow blossomed, despite being quite dead,’ Mannfred said. He plucked a fallen blossom from his pauldron and held it up. ‘They smell of rot, and of grave mould. Is that a sign, do you think?’

‘Perhaps the land is telling you that it is ready for the coming of the king,’ Arkhan said. He held Alakanash, Nagash’s staff, in one bony hand. He leaned on it, as if tired. ‘Or perhaps it is merely a sign of things to come.’

Mannfred popped the blossom into his mouth and smiled. ‘A parody of life. A good omen, I should say.’ He turned to Arkhan. ‘I can feel it as well as you, liche. The winds of death are blowing strong. Geheimnisnacht will soon be upon us.’ He cocked his head. ‘Where is it to be, then? I suppose it’s too much to hope that here will do, eh?’

‘I have located the site. A stone circle.’

‘This is Sylvania,’ Mannfred said. He gestured airily. ‘We have many stone circles.’

‘East of the Glen of Sorrows,’ Arkhan said.

Mannfred smiled. ‘Ah, the Nine Daemons. Legend says that those aren’t stones at all, you know, but the calcified bodies of daemons, imprisoned for eternity by the whim of the Dark Gods.’ He plucked another blossom from the tree and sniffed it. ‘Are you developing a sense of humour in your old age?’

‘Legends do not concern me. Those stones sit upon a confluence of the geomantic web. The winds of magic blow strongly about them.’

‘Legends might not concern you, but our enemies should,’ Mannfred said. ‘My spies–’

‘Your spies are your concern, as are our enemies,’ Arkhan said. He tapped the ground with the staff. ‘My concern is with our master.’

‘Your master,’ Mannfred spat. He calmed. ‘But you are correct. They are my concern. This is my realm, after all, and I will deal with them as I see fit. And you, my friend, will see to the preparations for our eventual triumph.’ He smiled unctuously. ‘Do not hesitate to ask, should you need any help in your preparations. My servants, as ever, are yours.’

‘Of course,’ Arkhan said. The witch-fires of his eyes flickered slightly and he inclined his head. Then, without a word, he turned and departed. Mannfred watched him go. His smile thinned, turning cruel. He turned back to the tree.

‘Well?’ he asked.

Elize stepped out from behind the tree, her hand on the pommel of the basket-hilted blade sheathed on the swell of one hip. She’d been there the entire time he’d been speaking with Arkhan, listening. ‘He’s planning something,’ she said.

Mannfred laughed. ‘Of course he is, gentle cousin. We have come to the end of our journey together, after all. Our paths diverge, come Geheimnisnacht and what was begun at the Valsborg Bridge will at last be finished.’ He looked at her. ‘What else?’

‘He’s already begun transporting the artefacts. Three wagons of bone and tattered skin left by the main gate not an hour ago, accompanied by those desert-born dead things he summoned from those blasted canopic jars of his.’

‘And the sacrifices?’

‘They are still in their chamber,’ she said, leaving the obvious question unspoken.

Mannfred shrugged. ‘Let him take them, if he wishes. The ritual protections I wove about our fair land have grown so thin and weak that they are no longer necessary in that capacity. It is past time we disposed of them.’ He gestured flippantly. ‘Now, what of our visitors, sweet cousin?’

Almost every eye and ear in Sylvania was his to command. He knew the size and composition of each of the forces that had, in the past few weeks, begun to encroach on his realm, but he thought it best for Elize to consider herself useful, and so had left the particulars of scouting out the invaders to her.

Other than Nictus, she was one of the last of Vlad’s get remaining in Sylvania. One last link to the old order. He had considered dispatching her soon after his return from the Border Princes for what he suspected was her part in exacerbating Markos’s regicidal tendencies. He had reconsidered after seeing how she had defended Sternieste in his absence. Such loyalty was to be rewarded, and such commitment to his cause was to be husbanded against future treacheries. She made a fine castellan, and a fine Grand Mistress of the Drakenhof Order.

Elize cleared her throat. ‘A force of men and elves approaches from the east,’ she said. ‘They crossed through the wall of bone a few hours ago, and are marching towards Templehof.’

‘Our old friend Leitdorf and the hounds of Ulthuan, come to punish me for my many transgressions against their respective empires,’ Mannfred said. He clasped his hands behind his back and examined the tree, watching the blossoms flutter in the cold breeze that coursed through the garden. He had known that the war in the north would only occupy the men of the Empire for so long. And after Nagashizzar, he had expected another rescue attempt on behalf of the Everchild from the High Elves. But given the way their island nation was currently beset by daemons and dark kin alike, he was surprised that they had sent the forces they had.

‘There are beastmen in the Hunger Wood,’ Elize went on. ‘The herd is undisciplined, but it’s enormous – it eclipses all of the other invaders combined. It’s as if something – or someone – has browbeaten every filthy pack of the brutes within several leagues into joining together.’

‘Yes, and I’ll bet Arkhan knows who,’ Mannfred said. He rubbed his palms over his skull, considering. The identity of Arkhan’s be-winged nemesis was obvious in retrospect. He had long heard the stories of the enigmatic creature known as the Dark Omen; the beast was a lightning rod of sorts for its primitive kin, drawing them together to do the will of the Chaos gods. In this case, their desire was plain. Arkhan was right – the Dark Gods were intent on stopping Nagash’s resurrection. He lowered his hands. ‘Still, it’s of little matter who’s behind it. They’re here and we must see them off. Who else comes uninvited to my bower?’

‘More elves, from the south-west,’ Elize said.

Mannfred’s eyes narrowed. ‘Athel Loren,’ he murmured. ‘Arkhan was nearly taken by them, as he crossed the Grey Mountains. Krell moved to lead them away, costing us his strength in this, our hour of need.’

‘We do not need a mere wight to defend our ancestral lands, cousin,’ Elize hissed.

‘Krell is no more a mere wight than I am a mere vampire,’ Mannfred said, scratching his chin. ‘He is a weapon of Nagash, as Arkhan is. One of his oldest and best. How large is their host?’

‘Infinitesimal,’ Elize said dismissively. ‘It is barely a raiding party.’

‘Nonetheless, we must take care. Elves are always dangerous, no matter how few they are,’ Mannfred said. He raised his fingers and ticked them off one by one as he spoke. ‘Men, elves, beasts, yet more elves and… Who am I forgetting?’

‘Dwarfs,’ Elize said. ‘A throng, I think it’s called. Coming from Karak Kadrin.’

Mannfred closed his eyes and hissed in consternation. The dwarfs were the only invaders who truly worried him. The warriors of Athel Loren were too few, the beasts too undisciplined, but the dwarfs were neither. For a century he had stepped lightly around Ungrim Ironfist, and taken care not to antagonise either him or his folk. Now, it seemed as if all of that was for naught. ‘The Slayer King is at our gate,’ he murmured. ‘Tch, where is he stumping, then?’

‘Templehof,’ Elize said tersely. ‘I think that they are attempting to join forces with Leitdorf and the Ulthuani.’

‘That… would be unfortunate,’ Mannfred said. He stared at the tree, thinking. None of this was surprising, though the timing was problematic. Still, he had prepared for this from the beginning. Everything had led up to this point. He had known the moment that he had kidnapped the Everchild, the moment he had seceded Sylvania from the shambolic Empire, that he would eventually face an invasion from one quarter or another. Now, at last, on the eve of his certain triumph, his enemies were making their final stab at stopping him.

He took it as a compliment, of sorts. All great men could be judged by the quality of their enemies, and after all, wasn’t it the sad duty of every new empire to eradicate those older, stagnant empires that occupied its rightful place before it could take the stage?

He plucked another blossom from the tree. ‘When I was but a headstrong youth, with more bloodlust than sense, a warrior came to my city. He was a terror such as no longer walks this world, thankfully. We called him “the dragon”. He taught me much about war, and the waging of it, and despite our… falling out some years later, I am grateful to him.’ He smiled slightly. ‘His folk often waged wars on multiple fronts, so fractious was their land. Division and conquest, he said, were as good as the same thing. When your enemies converge, you take them apart one… by… one.’ As he spoke, he began to shuck the petals from the blossom. ‘Men are like water. They can be redirected, contained and drained away with the proper application of tactics and strategy.’ He held what was left of the blossom out to her.

She stared at it for a moment, and then looked at him. ‘You have a strategy, cousin?’

‘Oh many more than are entirely necessary for the conflict to come, I assure you.’ He dropped the denuded blossom. ‘Our task is simplified by our goal – we are buying time for the inevitable.’ He pointed at Elize. ‘We must peel them away, one by one. And here is how we shall do it…’

The Broken Spine, Stirland-Sylvania border

Hans Leitdorf stared morosely over his shoulder at the distant and now crumbling edifice of bone and sorcery that had, until a few hours ago, barred his path into Sylvania. It had begun to collapse, even as had the walls of Heldenhame so many months ago, but it had still required sorcery to clear a path for his army. Luckily, his new allies had provided a certain amount of aid in that regard.

He surreptitiously examined the silvery figures as they studied the territory ahead from a nearby rocky knoll. Three of them – two in the ornate and delicate-looking armour characteristic of Ulthuani nobility, and the third in flowing robes of blue. All three carried themselves with the haughty surety of their folk, an arrogant confidence that no human could hope to match.

That it had come to this was a sign of the times, in Leitdorf’s opinion. Dark times made for strange allies, as Thyrus was wont to say. Thinking of Gormann brought back memories of those terrible, final days at Heldenhame, after the undead assault had melted away.

He remembered finding Weskar’s head, mounted on the butt of a spear that had been stabbed point first into the centre of the castle courtyard. He remembered the blood that slopped thickly down from the battlements, and the gory remains of the castle’s defenders, heaped carelessly where they had fallen. He and Gormann had personally cleansed the bestial filth from the upper barracks and towers, burning and killing those shrieking vargheists that had not fled with Mannfred.

During the cleansing of the castle, they’d discovered that the vaults of Heldenhame had been torn asunder and scoured by sorcery. Ancient treasures, gathered from Araby in the time of the Crusades, had been melted to glittering slag as a sign of Mannfred von Carstein’s disdain. There was no way to tell if anything had been taken, though Gormann had had his suspicions. Leitdorf had found them hard to credit at the time, but as the year wore on, and he had seen the current state of the Empire for himself, he had begun to believe.

Worse even than the desecration of his order’s citadel had been what happened afterwards – as he had readied his surviving forces to pursue von Carstein back into his stinking lair to accomplish what the Grand Theogonist, Sigmar bless and keep his soul, could not, a massive herd of foul beastmen had blundered through the line of trees only just recently vacated by the undead. The children of Chaos had thrown themselves at the newly breached western wall with no thought for the consequences.

The battle that followed had done little to assuage the fury Leitdorf had felt at the time, or indeed still felt. It had, however, gone much better than the first. A single charge by Leitdorf and his vengeful knights had sufficed to set the howling rabble to rout. When the beastmen had been thrown back, he had seen that the defences were repaired. Then, leaving Captain Volker in command of the forces of Heldenhame, Leitdorf, Gormann and a handful of knights had ridden for Altdorf, looking to procure reinforcements.

The journey had been nightmarish. Beastmen ran wild across Talabecland and Reikland, despite the efforts of the knightly orders who hunted them relentlessly. Every noble, innkeeper and merchant with whom Leitdorf spoke whispered of darker monstrosities than just beasts lurking beneath the trees, and of villages and towns obliterated by fire from the sky. Doomsayers and flagellants were abroad in ever-swelling numbers, agitating the grimy, plague-ridden crowds that clustered about every temple however large or small, begging for respite from gods who seemed deaf to even the loudest entreaty.

Things had been little better in Altdorf. Karl Franz had played his usual games, stalling and refusing to commit himself openly, and Leitdorf had waited for an audience for three days before being informed that the tide had turned for the worse in the north. It seemed as if Balthasar Gelt’s magics had proven as useless there as they had in Sylvania, and the Emperor had ridden north to inspect the war effort personally, along with the Reikmarshal. Gormann had ridden out after them, to see what aid he might provide, leaving Leitdorf to scrape up what additional troops he could for the long march back to Heldenhame.

That was when he had met the elves.

Leitdorf felt a begrudging respect for Karl Franz’s politesse even now – he had arranged events so that two annoyances satisfied one another, at no cost to himself or the war effort in the north. It even placed both him and the elves in the Emperor’s debt, for having done so. Each had what they sought, more or less. Awkward compromise was the soul of diplomacy, or so Leitdorf had been assured by men who knew more of such things.

Leitdorf and his new allies had ridden out that night. As they reached the eastern border of Sylvania, the silvery host of Ulthuan had been joined by the full might of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood. A mightier host Leitdorf could not conceive of. Nonetheless, such a joint effort came with its own particular difficulties.

The elves were cautious to the point of hesitation, or so it seemed to him. For a race that moved so swiftly and gracefully, they seemed inclined to tarry overmuch for Leitdorf’s liking. Irritated, he spurred his horse forward to join the elves on the knoll. His horse whinnied at the smell of the griffon, which crouched nearby, tail lashing. The great brute hissed at him as he drew close, and his hand fell to his blade instinctively. All three elves turned to face him as his fingers scraped the hilt.

‘Stormwing will not harm you,’ the woman, Eldyra, said, her voice high and musical. She spoke in an archly precise and archaic form of Reikspiel, and the harsh, jagged words sounded odd coming from her mouth. She was a princess of Tiranoc, he recalled, though he knew little of the distant island home of the elves, and so could not say what the human equivalent might be. A countess, perhaps, he thought.

‘If he tried, it would be the last thing he did, I assure you,’ Leitdorf growled, eyeing the beast warily. The elf woman smiled, as if amused.

‘I have no doubt,’ she said. ‘Are your men rested?’

‘Rested?’ he repeated, feeling as if he had missed some vital part of the conversation.

‘We stopped to allow them to rest. Humans are fragile, and lacking in endurance,’ the older elf, Belannaer, said, as though he were lecturing a particularly dense child.

‘Are we?’ Leitdorf asked, through gritted teeth. ‘My thanks. I was not aware of our limitations, or your consideration for such.’

‘I could make a list, for you, if you like. For future reference,’ Belannaer went on, seemingly oblivious to Leitdorf’s growing anger. Then, maybe he was. Sigmar knew that Leitdorf was having trouble reading anything on the marble-like faces of the Ulthuani… Maybe they had a similar difficulty with human expressions. The thought didn’t allay his anger, but it calmed him slightly.

‘That won’t be necessary. We are ready to continue on, when you are,’ Leitdorf said, addressing the third of them, the grim-faced elf prince called Eltharion. The Prince of Yvresse was plainly the leader of the expedition, yet he had not spoken one word to Leitdorf in their travels to date. Nevertheless, Leitdorf suspected that the prince could speak and understand Reikspiel well enough. He was beginning to get the impression that Eltharion resented the indignity of having to ally with men. It was all the same to Leitdorf, in the end. As long as Sylvania was a smoking ruin by Geheimnisnacht, he could indulge the elf’s pettiness.

‘Excellent,’ Eldyra said. Her eyes sparked with humour. ‘We were just discussing whether we should slow our pace so that the dawi have time to reach– What was it called again?’

‘Templehof,’ Leitdorf said. He tugged off his glove with his teeth and reached into his cuirass to retrieve a map. He tossed it to Eldyra, who caught it gingerly, as if it were something unpleasant. ‘A foul little town, located on a tributary of the Stir. It’s not far from Castle Sternieste, which is where the vampire is currently skulking, if the survivors of the Grand Theogonist’s ill-fated crusade can be believed.’ He cocked his head, considering. ‘It might be wise. Ungrim is going to be fighting his way west, through the heart of this midden heap of a province. Von Carstein will be throwing every corpse between Vanhaldenschlosse and Wolf Crag at the dwarfs, if he’s smart.’

‘And is he?’ Eldyra asked.

Leitdorf laughed bitterly. ‘Oh he’s a cunning beast, that one. But he’s still a beast. And we have him trapped in his lair.’ Which was true enough. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Gelt’s wall of faith seemed to still be intact. Objects of veneration still hung in the air like a chain of holiness about the borders, shining a clean light into the murk of Sylvania. Still, he hoped Gormann was giving the weedy little alchemist an earful of it, wherever they were.

‘Yes, very inspired that,’ Belannaer said idly, looking at the horizon. ‘I would not have expected a human mind to grasp the complexities of such an enchantment. It was crude, of course, but that cannot be helped.’

‘No, it cannot,’ Leitdorf said, biting off the rest of his reply. The worst of it was that he didn’t think that the elves meant to be insulting. They simply assumed he was too thick to tell when they were being so. Well, all save Eldyra. The elf woman shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes. Leitdorf grunted. Unnatural as her beauty was, she nonetheless made him wish he were a few decades younger, and less cautious. ‘And no, we should not. Templehof lies in the shadow of Castle Templehof, which has long been claimed by Mannfred. It is a centre of power for him, which is why I chose it for our meeting place.’

‘You wish to make our intent clear to him,’ Eldyra said, after a moment. She nodded and her odd eyes flashed with understanding. ‘We will take it, and show him what awaits him.’

‘It is a waste of time,’ Eltharion said.

Leitdorf was surprised. The elf’s voice was no less musical than Eldyra’s, but it was filled with contempt. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘We care nothing for centres of power, or clarity of intent. All that matters is rescuing the one we came for. Let the stunted ones catch up with us, if they can.’ He looked at Leitdorf. ‘We are not here to subjugate your lands for you, human.’

‘No, of that I am quite aware, thank you,’ Leitdorf snapped. The griffon hissed again, but he ignored it. ‘What are you here for then? You still haven’t even mentioned the name of the one you are supposedly here to rescue.’

‘Such is of no concern to you,’ Eltharion said bluntly. He looked away.

‘You are right. It is of little concern to me. But we are allies, and such things should be shared between allies,’ Leitdorf said. He longed to swing down out of his saddle and drive his fist into the elf’s scowling face. ‘I have fought these devils for longer than any other. We must take their places from them. We must burn their boltholes and dens. Otherwise they will vanish again and again, and the object of your mission with them.’ He looked hard at Eltharion. ‘I appreciate your desire for haste – I share it myself – but we need the dwarfs. Sylvania must be put down, once and for all, for the good of all of our peoples.’

Eltharion didn’t respond. Leitdorf felt himself flush, but before he could speak, Eldyra handed the map to Belannaer and spoke to Eltharion in their own tongue. It sounded strange and off-putting to Leitdorf’s ear. He hoped she was speaking on his behalf. Eltharion ignored her, but she persisted, fairly spitting words at him. Belannaer held up the map and unrolled it. He looked at the land ahead and then back at the map. He looked up at Leitdorf. ‘This is Templehof here?’ he asked, tapping a place on the map.

Leitdorf nodded. ‘Yes. As I said, it’s close to our destination. It will make an adequate staging area for the assault to come,’ he said. ‘We’re only a few days away.’

Belannaer nodded and handed him the map. The mage said something to the others. He spoke sharply and hurriedly. Eltharion made a face and shook his head. Leitdorf looked around in frustration. ‘What is it?’ he barked.

Eldyra looked at him. ‘Belannaer says that the route you’ve chosen is dangerous. There are many…’ She trailed off and made a helpless gesture, as if trying to pluck a word from the air.

‘Sepulchres,’ Belannaer supplied.

‘There are many sepulchres and places where the dead rest uneasy on this route,’ Eldyra said. Leitdorf laughed.

‘This is Sylvania,’ he said. ‘The whole province is an affront to Morr. Dig anywhere and you’ll find a layer of skulls beneath the soil. The trees are nourished by mass graves, and every town is built on a burying ground.’ He leaned over and spat, trying to clean the foul taste of the air out of his mouth. ‘If we get to Templehof, we can more readily defend ourselves for when Mannfred inevitably rouses the dead to stop us.’

‘It is better to delay or stem the tide, than merely weather it,’ Belannaer said. ‘I can seal or cleanse these places as we march.’ He looked at Eltharion. ‘We are but a small force, Warden of Tor Yvresse, and in enemy lands. Think of the fate you inflicted on Grom, Eltharion. Haste did not save the greenskin from the death of a thousand cuts.’

‘Grom?’ Leitdorf muttered. The only creature he knew of by that name was a historical footnote. He peered at the elves, suddenly all-too aware of the vast gulf of time that sat between them. How old were they? He pushed the thought aside. He didn’t want to know. ‘Most of what you’re talking about is near Templehof, if not actually within its boundaries. As I said, it is a centre of power for our enemy. Taking it from him will weaken him considerably.’

Eltharion looked at him for long moments. Then, with a terse nod, he said, ‘Templehof. But we will not wait long. If we have finished cleansing the place before the stunted ones arrive, they shall have to catch up.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Leitdorf said.

Twenty-Three

The Hunger Wood, northern Sylvania

Count Alphonse Epidimus Octavius Scaramanga Nyktolos of Vargravia, Portmaster of Ghulport and its waters, hunched low in his saddle as he urged his terrorgheist to greater speed. Around him, several more of the great, bat-like corpse-beasts flew, the sound of their wings echoing like thunder. Fellbats and rotting swarms of their normal-sized cousins kept pace. Every so often, Nyktolos would catch sight of a screeching vargheist amidst the swarms and even a single bellowing varghulf, as the latter lurched awkwardly through the air. It had taken him nearly a day to rouse the denizens of the deep caves, but he thought he had managed to drag forth every flapping thing and night-flyer that made its home there.

It was an odd sort of army, this, but he had commanded worse in his peculiar career. There had been the time he had led a force of brine-soaked zombie sea turtles against the harbour guard of Tor Elasor. Or that incident with the mimes. Nyktolos shuddered and looked down. The vast expanse of Hunger Wood spread out below him like a shroud of green, and he could hear the crude drums and horns of the army marching through those woods.

Lord Mannfred had tasked him with the eradication of two of the invading forces currently assailing the heartland. It was a job that Nyktolos was more than capable of accomplishing, but he nonetheless felt a certain concern.

He had learned early on that the best way to survive the continuous cycle of incessant purges and inevitable betrayals that marked one’s entry into the inner circles of the von Carsteins was to become part of the background. Show no ambition, and rarely offer more than an amusing bon mot, as the Bretonnians put it. If that failed, stand around looking stupid, busy or stupidly busy. In truth, it wasn’t much different than being a mortal aristocrat. The von Carsteins were vicious but the von Draks had been monsters.

Below, the trees cleared momentarily, and he saw the galumphing, hairy shapes of beastmen. They were still following him, as they had been since his first attack several days ago. It had taken no great effort to antagonise the creatures. His forces had struck again and again at the flanks of the great herd before retreating ever eastwards, and drawing the beasts away from the Glen of Sorrows and the Nine Daemons.

Nyktolos hawked and spat. He could feel the world grinding to a halt, deep in the marrow of his bones. The sky boiled like an untended cauldron and the earth shuddered like a victim of ague. He wasn’t a learned man, but he knew what it meant well enough. Still, the lessons of his wild youth held – stay in the background and stay alive, or as close to it as a vampire could get. Markos and Tomas and Anark had all made that mistake. They’d thought of themselves as main characters, when really they were only bit players in the story of another. Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake.

No, he would play his part to perfection. And at the moment, that part was as a distraction. The beastmen composed the largest group of invaders, and were thus the most dangerous. They could be beaten in open battle easily enough, but it would take time and effort better spent elsewhere. If, however, the brawling mass could be redirected at another of the invading armies – say, for instance, the disciplined throng of Karak Kadrin – then they could leave them to it, and get on with more important matters.

A day before he had encountered the buzzing mechanical contraptions the dwarfs called gyrocopters, and swatted them from the sky with little difficulty. He’d lost a terrorgheist and more than a few fellbats in the process, but the dwarfs had been too few and too slow. He still recalled how one of the doughty little creatures had made a terrific leap from the cockpit of his machine, axe in hand, even as a terrorgheist crushed it. The dwarf had gone right down its gullet, hacking away in a most amusing fashion. Well, amusing right up until the terrorgheist had exploded.

Nyktolos shook his head, banishing the memory. He wanted no part of the dwarfs and their explosives and cannons, thank you all the same. Better to let them vent their petty grudges on more deserving targets.

Down below, horns wailed and the beastmen slowed in their tramping. That wouldn’t do. The dwarfs were still several leagues away, and marching towards Templehof. Nyktolos clucked his tongue and set his spurs to his mount. ‘Come, my dear. It is feeding time, I expect,’ he said as the terrorgheist shrieked and dived down towards the trees. The rest of the swarm followed him, screeching and chittering. Nyktolos drew his sword as the terrorgheist crashed through the canopy and landed atop a squalling centigor. Several more of the snorting quadrupedal beastmen charged towards Nyktolos, who flung himself from his seat with a yowl. He chopped through a hairy midsection as he landed, separating the centigor’s top half from its lower body.

Quicker than thought, Nyktolos spun and blocked a club that would have dashed his brains across the forest floor. The centigor reared, and Nyktolos slashed open its belly as he ducked aside. The beast fell with a squeal. Beastmen rushed headlong out of the trees, covered in bats, and the terrorgheist lunged forwards, making a meal of two of the closer ones.

Nyktolos killed another, opening its throat to the bone with a casual flick of his blade. More creatures poured out of the trees. He surged amongst them for a moment, like a tiger amongst goats, killing them with wide sweeps of his sword and his own talons. Then, satisfied that he had regained their attentions, he leapt back onto the terrorgheist and swatted it between the ears with the flat of his blade. ‘Up, you great, greedy beast! Up!’

The giant bat-thing heaved itself up into the air with an explosive shriek, tearing apart the forest canopy as it clambered into the sky. Nyktolos guided the creature in a low swoop across the tops of the trees. ‘Follow me, little beasts. Your playmates await you!’

Malagor roared in fury as his herd rampaged out of control through the forest. They were going the wrong way and there was little even he could do about it. The horde was driven by its primal appetites. The cloven-hoofed warriors had left a trail of devastation in their wake, burning and pillaging a path right into the heart of Sylvania, and Malagor felt little impetus to control their baser urges, so long as they kept moving in the right direction.

What lay at the end of their trail was a mystery even to him. He knew only that though he was the truest of servants, he had failed to fulfil the desires of the Dark Gods three times. Three times Arkhan the Black had slipped away from him, and three times Malagor had given chase. He had pursued the bone-man across the world, from mountain to forest to plain and back again, and always, always the dead-thing escaped. With each failure, the whispers of his gods had grown in volume, until he thought his brain would be pounded to mush inside his vibrating skull. But they had not punished him, as he’d feared they might.

The Dark Gods knew that even though he was their truest child, his kin were less so. They were too wild to ignore their primitive urges and too feral to be organised for long. His failures had been no fault of his, but a weakness in the tools he’d been gifted. The gods knew this, and they whispered their endearments to him, urging him towards Sylvania. As he’d driven what was left of his horde after the debacle at Heldenhame into the lands of his enemy, more and more beastmen emerged from the forests and submitted to his will. By the time he’d reached Sylvania’s northern border, and the crumbling wall of bone that protected it, the tumult of his horde could be heard for many leagues in all directions.

It had been a simple enough matter to gain entry after that, between his magics and the brute strength of his followers. They’d poured into Sylvania like a flood, following the pull of the Dark Gods. Now, however, that pull was being disrupted yet again by his followers’ bestial instincts. No matter how many he killed, order could not be restored and they still pursued the flapping abomination that had harried them for some days.

It attacked and retreated, drawing his followers ever further away from their true goal, playing on their bloodlust and stupidity. He’d come close to killing the vampire more than once, but the creature was almost as slippery as Arkhan. It avoided open battle, and seemed content to bloody his flanks and slip away, just out of view.

Malagor flew over his loping warriors, easily dodging through the twisted woodland, his frustration bubbling away inside him. If he could get ahead of them, he might be able to head them off. That hope died a quick death, however, as he exploded out of the trees and saw what awaited him in the open ground beyond.

Arrayed about an irregular circle of standing stones the colour of freshly spilled blood, was a force Malagor recognised easily, though he’d never seen them before. Gold-topped standards rose above a wall of shields, and the air was cut by the stink of gunpowder. Malagor rose into the air, his black wings flapping, and tried to understand what he was seeing.

There were dwarfs ahead, thousands of them. Their numbers were nothing compared to those of his followers, but they should not have been there, and certainly not arrayed for battle. It made no sense – why were the stunted ones here? Was this part of the Dark Gods’ plan? Or was it something else?

As he tried to come to grips with it, he heard the first of his followers burst through the tree line. The big gor, a chieftain called Split-Nose, snorted in incredulity as his watery, yellow eyes fixed on the distant shieldwall. Then he brayed and raised the axe he held over his head. Malagor growled in realisation. He had to stop them. If he failed again, there would no next chance.

‘No,’ he roared, and fell out of the sky like a rock. He crashed down onto Split-Nose and crushed the gor’s broad skull with the end of his staff. He swung the staff like a club, battering another beastman off his hooves as they began to straggle through the trees in small groups. ‘No! Go back – Dark Gods say go back!’

A bellow greeted his cry and the ground trembled beneath his feet. A moment later an enormous doombull smashed a tree into splinters with its gargantuan axe as it charged out of the forest. Its piggy eyes were bulging redly with blood-greed, and slobber dripped from its bull-like jaws as it charged forward. Malagor bleated in anger as he thrust himself skywards, narrowly avoiding the doombull. Minotaurs, centigors and beastmen followed it. It was as if some great dam had been cracked, and a tide of hair and muscle flowed out, seeking to roll over everything in its path.

Malagor could only watch as his lesser kin charged towards the dwarf shieldwall, heedless of anything save their own desire to kill, defile and devour that which was in front of them. He could feel the displeasure of the Dark Gods beating down on him, and with a strangled snarl, he flung himself after his followers, eager to drown out the voices of the gods in the noise of slaughter.

Red Cairn, northern Sylvania

‘Come on then, scum! Come kiss my axe,’ Ungrim Ironfist roared hoarsely. His voice was almost gone, and his limbs felt like lead. Nevertheless, he and his bodyguard of Slayers bounded out from amidst the dwarf shieldwall as the pack of bellowing minotaurs and bestigors charged towards the dwarf lines stationed around the blood-red standing stones. From behind him, volley after volley of cannon fire tore great, bloody furrows in the ever-shifting ranks of the children of Chaos, but the hundreds who died only served to make room for those who thundered in their wake. The air shuddered with the roar of the guns and the maddened braying of the horde, as it had for days.

‘I’ll crack your skulls and gift my wife a necklace of your teeth,’ Ungrim shouted, as he ploughed into a mob of bestigors like a cannonball wrapped in dragonscale. He lashed out with blade, boot and the brass knuckles on his gloves. ‘Hurry up and die so your bigger friends can have a turn,’ he snarled, grabbing a bestigor by the throat. The beast bleated in fury and struck at him with a cut-down glaive, but Ungrim crushed its throat before the blow could fall.

Momentarily free of opponents, Ungrim clawed blood out of his face and looked around. The beastmen had flowed around the Slayers and smashed into the shieldwall, where many were thrown back in bloody sprays. Thunderers loosed destructive volleys at point-blank range over the shoulders of clansmen as minotaurs hacked at their diminutive opponents, stopping only to gorge upon the fallen. Skulls were cracked, and blood ran in thick streams across the lumpy ground.

Ungrim hesitated. All around him, Slayers were fulfilling their oaths as they savaged the belly of the enemy horde, and part of him longed to hurl himself even deeper into the fray alongside them, axe singing. But he was a king as well as a Slayer, and a king had responsibilities. He spat a curse and lifted his axe as he started back towards the dwarf lines. He picked up speed as he ran, and he smashed aside any beastman who got in his way without slowing down.

When the Imperial herald had come to Karak Kadrin so many weeks ago, Ungrim hadn’t been surprised. It was just like the Ulthuani to go running to the humans when the dawi weren’t feeling charitable. Given what he’d learned at the Kingsmeet the year before, and what tales his own folk brought east, from the border country, it wasn’t difficult to see that something foul was brewing in Sylvania. Despite the fact that the thought of helping the feckless elgi sat ill with him, Ungrim had decided to set an example, to show Sylvania and the world, including his fellow kings, that the dwarfs were still a force to be reckoned with. Over the numerous and vociferous complaints of his thanes, he had gathered his throng and marched west. He had made arrangements to meet Leitdorf, the Imperial commander, at Templehof. His siege engines and cannons had easily shattered the petty defences the Sylvanians had erected – walls of sorcerous bone were no match for dwarf ingenuity and engineering – but his progress had slowed considerably as they reached the lowlands.

Dead things of all shapes and sizes had come calling, and the throng had been forced to shatter one obscene army after the next. A necklace of vampire fangs rattled on the haft of his axe, taken from the masters of each of those forces. But it wasn’t just the living dead that attacked his warriors. Even the land itself seemed determined to taste dwarf blood – bent and maggoty trees clawed at them as yellowed grasses clung to their boots and sucking mud tried to pull them down. But the dwarfs had trudged onwards, until they’d reached the standing stones where they now made their stand.

They’d heard the cacophony of the horde from leagues away, and Ungrim, knowing what the noise foretold, had ordered cannons unlimbered and the oath stones placed, as the Slayers sang their death songs and his clansmen gave voice to prayers to Grimnir. Three times they’d driven the beasts back, and three times the creatures regrouped and charged again, as if the scent of their own savage blood on the air only served to drive them to greater ferocity.

Again and again and again the beasts had thrown themselves at the shieldwall of Karak Kadrin. Though it was almost impossible to tell, thanks to the sunless skies overhead, Ungrim thought that the battle was entering its second day. The dead were piled in heaps and drifts, and the dwarf lines had contracted more than once, shrinking with their losses.

Ungrim bounded over a fallen centigor and launched himself at a towering bull-headed monstrosity that was hacking at the shieldwall. It was larger than any of the others, and it stank of blood and musk. He gave a triumphant yell as his axe sank into the thick muscles of the minotaur’s back. The monster bellowed in agony and twisted away from its former opponents. Ungrim was yanked off his feet and swung about as the minotaur thrashed, but he clung to his axe grimly. He reached out with his free hand, grabbed a hank of matted hair and hauled himself up towards the creature’s head. ‘You’ll do, you oversized lump of beef,’ he roared. ‘Come on, let’s see if you can kill a king before he boots you in the brains.’

Ungrim tore his axe free in a spray of blood and chopped it down, hooking the screaming minotaur’s shoulder. He snagged one of its horns and drove his boot into the back of its skull. The minotaur reared and clawed for him, trying to drag him off. Ungrim hung on, anchored by his axe, and continued to kick the beast in the head. It wasn’t particularly glorious, as tactics went, but they were good, tough boots, and the creature’s skull was bound to give before his foot did. It caught hold of his cloak and began to yank at him, and Ungrim lost his grip on his axe. Flailing wildly, he caught hold of the brute’s horn with both hands and, with a crack, he snapped it off.

The minotaur wailed and tore him from his perch. It smashed him down and so powerful was the blow that he sank into the soil as all of the air was expelled from his lungs. Drool dripped into his face as the minotaur crouched over him, its hands squeezing his barrel torso. Unable to breathe, Ungrim rammed the broken horn into one of the beast’s eyes. It reared back with a scream. Ungrim tried to rise, but it smashed him from his feet with a wild blow. Dazed, he glared up at the monster as it loomed over him. Then, there was a roar and the minotaur’s head vanished in an explosion of red. It toppled over.

‘Och, are you dead then, yer kingship?’ a voice shouted.

‘Damn you, Makaisson,’ Ungrim spluttered as a burly Slayer dragged him to his feet. ‘What’s the meaning of cheating me out of a perfectly good death?’

‘Was that yers, then? I hae noo idea, yer kingship,’ Malakai Makaisson said. A pair of thick goggles, liberally spattered with blood, covered his eyes, and he wore a peculiar cap, with ear flaps and a hole cut in the top for his crest of crimson-dyed hair. A bandolier of ammunition for the handgun he carried in one gloved hand crossed his barrel chest, and a satchel full of bombs dangled across it. As Ungrim watched in consternation, the engineer-Slayer grabbed one of the bombs, popped the striker-fuse and slung it overhand into a mass of confused beastmen.

‘Stop blowing all of them up!’ Ungrim roared. He kicked and shoved at the minotaur’s body as he tried to retrieve his axe. If he didn’t get his hands on it quickly, there was every likelihood that Makaisson would blow up the lot of them.

‘What? I cannae hear you, what wi’ the bombs,’ Makaisson shouted as he lit and hurled another explosive. ‘They’re loud, ya ken.’

‘I know,’ Ungrim snarled. He tore his axe free in a welter of brackish blood and shook it in Makaisson’s face. ‘Why aren’t you with the artillery?’

‘Beasties are falling back, ain’t they?’ Makaisson said. ‘They’ve had enough, ya ken?’

‘What?’ Ungrim turned and saw that the engineer-Slayer was correct. The beastmen had broken and were fleeing into the trees, as if the death of the giant minotaur had been a signal. Behind them, they left a battlefield choked with the mangled and half-devoured bodies of the dead. The throng of Karak Kadrin had control of the field.

But, as he looked at the battered remnants of his once-mighty army, Ungrim was forced to come to the conclusion that though they had won the battle, they had lost this particular war. As he moved through the weary ranks of his warriors, his mental abacus tallied the losses – with a sinking heart, he saw that almost eight in ten of them had fallen in the battle. Though they’d won a great victory – perhaps the greatest victory in the annals of Karak Kadrin against the foul children of Chaos – they had failed their allies.

He looked west. Part of him longed to push on, but there would only be death for his remaining warriors if the march continued. Perhaps Kazador had been right after all. What purpose had his march served, save to cast his warriors into the teeth of death? He had a feeling, deep in his bones, that he was going to need every warrior who remained in the coming days. And that meant he had to save those he could. He had to return to Karak Kadrin, and ready himself for whatever came next.

He closed his eyes, and felt the old familiar heaviness settle on him. Then he opened them and pointed his axe at Makaisson, who was filling his pipe nearby. He shouted, startling the Slayer into dropping his tobacco. ‘On your feet, Makaisson! You just volunteered to go west and see if you can find the manlings and the elgi before they move on. They need to know that we’re not going to make our appointment.’

‘Me?’ Makaisson said.

‘You,’ Ungrim said. He smiled thinly. ‘Consider it your reward for saving my life.’

Ghoul Wood, southern Sylvania

‘Oh, my sweet Kalledria, you do this old beast the greatest of honours,’ Alberacht Nictus said as the rag of filthy silk drifted towards him through the dusty air of the crumbling tower. He extended a talon, snatched it out of the air and brought it to his nose. ‘See how she teases me, lad? She was ever a woman of passion, our Queen of Sorrows,’ he said, glancing at Erikan. ‘Much like our Elize, eh?’

Erikan stood back warily, his gaze darting between the hunched, bulky shape of Nictus and the hovering, ghostly shade of the banshee that faced him, her hellish features contorted in a ghastly parody of affection. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said.

‘Ha! Do you hear him, love? He denies what is obvious even to the blind and the dead,’ Nictus chortled as he threaded the silk rag through his hair. ‘Hark at me, whelp, you are her Vlad and she your Isabella, or I am a Strigoi. She will have you before the century is out, my lad, see if she does not.’

‘Elize has no more interest in me, old monster,’ Erikan said, sidling around the banshee. ‘She never did. Only in her schemes and games.’

‘Ha, and what do you think you are, boy, but the culmination of both?’ Nictus asked slyly. He watched the other vampire’s face assume stone-like impassivity and grinned. He had been there the day Elize had brought the scrawny little ghoul-pup into the fold, and he had seen then what both of them now insisted on denying.

Shaking his shaggy head, he looked up at Kalledria. She had been a beautiful woman once, during the reign of Sigismund. Now she was nothing more or less than malevolence given form. Her skull-like features were surrounded by a halo of writhing hair, and she wore the gauzy tatters of archaic finery. Innumerable spirits floated around or above her, all dead by her hand. There were hundreds of them, and they crowded against the cracked dome of the tower roof, their ghostly shapes obscuring the ancient, faded mural that had been painted on the underside of the dome oh so many centuries ago.

Nictus laughed. He remembered that mural well, for he’d stared up at it often enough, in his youth. He’d visited the tower often, on behalf of Vlad. Kalledria had always been welcoming. Some stories said that she had been sealed away in the tower that her shade still inhabited, but he couldn’t remember if those were the true ones or not. His mind was like a storm-tossed sea, and his memories were like helpless vessels caught away from safe harbour. Whatever her origin, he’d always thought her loveliness personified. He extended his other claw, the edges of his wings dragging on the floor. ‘Oh, my sweet, you have done so well. You have collected so many new souls for your harem,’ he gurgled as she drifted towards him, her ghostly fingers wrapping about his claw.

The hovering souls above were not merely men, but wood elves now, as well. She had taken them in the dark and the quiet of the forest, while her honour-guard of blood-hungry spectres had shadowed the others, snatching those who strayed too far from the host that even now impinged on the sovereign soil of Sylvania. She had drawn the invaders off course, and deep into the Ghoul Wood, just as Lord Mannfred had planned.

‘Oh, my lovely lass, how you do chill these crooked bones of mine,’ he said, trying to brush her fingers with his lips unsuccessfully. Some days, she was more solid than others. Her other hand passed through his face, and her mouth opened in a soft sound, like the cry of a dying hare. ‘And your voice is as lovely as ever. Music to my ears, oh my beauteous one…’

‘Master Nictus,’ Erikan said softly. Nictus turned, annoyed.

‘What is it, boy?’

‘They are here,’ the other vampire said, one hand on the hilt of his blade. He stood near the tower’s lone window, staring down into the trees below.

Nictus sighed. He could hear the sounds of battle, now that he was paying attention. Elven-forged blades clashed with poisonous claws beneath the dark canopy that spread out around the tower. The elves had corralled one of Kalledria’s servitors and traced the ancient tethers of dark power that bound the spirit to its mistress. He looked up into her hollow eyes. She had been banished before, his dark lady, and had always returned. But this time…

He was not as observant as he had once been. The weight of his centuries of unlife rested heavily upon him, and there were days where he wanted nothing more than to slip into the red haze of a varghulf and drift from kill to kill. No more plots and schemes, no more betrayals or fallen comrades. Only sweet blood and the screams of his prey. But he could feel the long night stirring deep in the hollow places of him now. Lord Mannfred, impetuous and haughty, was dredging something up out of its sleep of ages, and the world would crack at its rebirth. The Drakenhof Templars would be at the forefront of the war that was sure to follow, and so would Alberacht Nictus, broken-down old beast that he was. He had sworn an oath to the order, and his word was his bond, for as long as he remembered it.

‘We must go, my love,’ Nictus said, reaching up to not-quite touch Kalledria’s writhing locks. ‘You will do as you must, as will we.’ Her mouth moved, as if in reply, and her ethereal fingers stroked his jowls briefly, before she turned and floated upwards, trailing her harem of spirits. Nictus watched her go, and then moved to join Erikan at the window.

Beneath the trees, elves and ghouls fought. There was nothing orderly about the battle. The participants fought as individuals, and the combat swirled about the sour glen below. One of the wood elves drew Nictus’s attention. He was a lordly sort, clad in strange armour and a cloak the colour of the autumn leaves, wearing a high helm surmounted by a stag’s antlers. He wielded his blade with a grace and skill that Nictus knew even a vampire would be hard-pressed to emulate. That one was more trouble than he was worth, Nictus suspected. He stank of strange gods and even stranger magics.

‘Should we take him?’ Erikan hissed. His eyes were red as he watched a ghoul lose its head to the elven lord’s blade.

‘That is not our task, boy,’ Nictus said. He peered up at the sky. ‘Come, the Vargravian will be here soon, to take us to the Glen of Sorrows. Let Kalledria deal with the elves in her own fashion, eh? A woman’s fancy, and all that.’

Araloth, Lord of Talsyn, spun about, his sword trailing ribbons of red as he sent ghouls tumbling into death. He danced among the cannibals, avoiding their claws and striking them down in turn. It was a mercy, of sorts. Grubbing in graves was no sort of life for a thinking creature. He sank down into a crouch, his cloak settling about him, and spitted a charging ghoul. The beast grasped his blade and gasped out its life, its eyes wide in incomprehension. Araloth rose to his feet, jerking the blade free as he did so.

From somewhere far above him, he heard the shriek of his hunting hawk, Skaryn. Then he heard the chanting of the spellweavers, as they sought to bind the monstrous spirit that had plagued them so much in recent days.

He felt a pressure on his chest and grasped the locket the Everqueen had given him. It hummed urgently, pulling them ever towards the captive Everchild. But there were matters that needed dealing with before they could continue. Dead grass crunched behind him and he pivoted, his blade sliding upwards. The ghoul split apart like rotten fruit as his sword tore through its body. More of the grey-fleshed cannibals loped out of the trees, swarming like flies to a corpse.

‘Protect Keyberos and the others,’ he shouted, as his warriors retreated before the onrushing ghouls. ‘They must be given time to seal the beast in her lair.’ He glanced back at the small group of spellweavers who yet remained. Clad in dark robes, their flesh marked by savage tattoos, the mages flung every iota of the power that was theirs to command at the spectral creature that had emerged from the crumbling tower at the centre of the glen. Surrounded by a host of wailing spirits, the banshee drifted towards the spellweavers, her mouth open in a scream, which only Keyberos’s magics kept the other wood elves from hearing and succumbing to.

Of the ten spellweavers who’d volunteered to accompany him on his mission, only four remained now, including Keyberos. Three had died in the attempt to discover the lair of the creature their fellows now confronted, and three more had gone mad. Now those who remained pitted their magics against the fell power of the thing that had stalked Araloth’s warband since they’d crossed the border into Sylvania.

Blood-hungry spirits had shadowed the wood elves’ every step since they’d crossed the Corpse Run. Scouts had vanished into the dark woods never to return, or else were found strewn across the trail ahead, their bodies drained of blood. Terrible dreams of long-dead kin and courts of dancing corpses had haunted the survivors, and an unlucky few had been lost to those night-terrors, never to awaken again.

Those who remained were as tense as drawn bowstrings, their faces pale with something Araloth was unused to seeing on the faces of the warriors of Athel Loren – fear. He could not feel it himself, for fear had no purchase on his heart, thanks to his connection with his goddess and the gift she had shared with him the day that she had crossed paths with a callow lordling and made him into a hero. Since that day, he had shared a portion of her prophetic gift, and was blessed with the ability to see hope in even the most perilous of days.

But now, he saw nothing ahead save darkness. It did not frighten him, for all things ended, even his folk and their works, but it did make him more determined than ever to complete his mission. If the darkness awaited them, then it would not be said that the Lord of Talsyn had gone into it a failure. He would wring one last victory from the world or die in the attempt. Hope cost nothing, and it could be purchased on the edge of a blade.

His warriors arrayed about him, Araloth met the undisciplined charge of the ghouls. His blade licked out, glowing like a firebrand. Blood soaked the thirsty ground, and bodies tumbled upon one another in heaps as the warriors of Athel Loren reaped a toll from the inhabitants of Ghoul Wood. The ghouls were driven back again and again, but they always returned with slavering eagerness as their monstrous hunger overcame their natural cowardice.

A shrill sound rose up behind him. Araloth glanced back and saw a spellweaver topple over, black smoke rising from his eyes, nose and mouth. The banshee thrust herself forwards, as if she were trying to fly through a strong wind. Keyberos gestured, and the soil at his feet began to shift and shuffle. Vines and strong green shoots burst out of the seemingly dead ground. The nearby trees shed their withered bark and bent pale, strong branches down. Wailing spirits were brushed aside as branches and vines began to encircle the banshee. Some blackened and disintegrated as she tore at them, but others caught her insubstantial form somehow.

A second spellweaver stumbled, her hands pressed to her ears. She screamed and pitched forwards, her body turning black and crumbling to ash as she fell. The air reverberated with a faint hum, as the magics that contained the banshee’s wail began to crumble. Any moment now, he suspected that the creature would break free of Keyberos’s magics and launch itself at the hard-pressed wood elves. ‘Any time now, Keyberos,’ he shouted.

‘Keep your eyes on your own prey, Araloth,’ the spellweaver snarled, his fingers curling and gesturing. More vines and branches shot towards the struggling banshee.

A wash of foetid breath alerted Araloth to the wisdom of Keyberos’s words, and he turned. His sword separated a lunging ghoul’s jaw from its head. He used the crook of his arm to hook its throat as it stumbled past, and broke its neck before flinging the body aside. As it fell, the remainder broke and fled, scampering away with simian-like cries of dismay. A moment later, he felt a rush of noisome air and a clap of thunder. He spun, his sword raised to fend off an attack from the banshee.

His eyes widened as he took in the large cocoon of vines, bark and leaves that hung suspended above the ground. Steam rose from the mass, wafting up into the sunless sky. Keyberos sat on his haunches, his hands dangling between his knees and his head bowed. The other spellweaver sat nearby, her face covered in sweat and her eyes hollow with grief. Keyberos reached out and gripped her shoulder for a moment. Then he pushed himself to his feet and looked at Araloth. ‘It’s done.’

‘Will it hold?’

‘For as long as this forest lives,’ Keyberos said, his thin face twisting into an expression of grief. ‘Which will not be long, I think. Sylvania is dying, Araloth. I can feel its death rattle echoing through me.’

‘All the more reason for us to hurry,’ Araloth said. Keyberos gave him a look of dismay, and Araloth caught the back of his head. He brought his brow against the spellweaver’s in a gesture of brotherly affection. ‘We must press on, my friend. If for no other reason than I would not have the lives we have already spent in pursuit of this goal wasted.’

He caught the locket and held it up, so that all of his warriors could see it. ‘This is a promise, my brothers. A promise we made to our cousin, the Everqueen of Ulthuan. She has sworn to aid our queen in her hour of need and we must do all that we can to earn that oath. Even unto death…’ He trailed off, as he realised that no one was looking at him. Even Keyberos was looking away, at something that even now approached them through the trees.

Somehow, the moon had broken through the darkness above, and its silvery radiance illuminated the form of a slender elf woman, who moved towards the weary warband through the dark trees. The Ghoul Wood seemed to sigh and draw away from her, as if her presence pained it. She was paler than death, but beautiful beyond measure, and clad in robes that gleamed with starlight.

Araloth gave a great cry of joy. He knew her face, and her name – Lileath – echoed through him like the voice of a lover. He raced towards his goddess, all weariness forgotten, ignoring the cries of his fellows. She caught him, and began to speak before he could even begin to compose a greeting.

Her words were not things of sound, but rather fragments of memory, thought and image, which coalesced across the surface of his mind, showing him what had been, what was, and what must be.

Araloth could not say for how long they stood, minds and souls intertwined, but the moment passed and he knew then what she had come for, and what he had to do. He stared at her in disbelief, his every warrior’s instinct rebelling. ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked.

Lileath shook her head and held out her hand. Reluctantly, he placed the locket into it. With no sign of effort, the goddess crushed it and flung the shimmering dust into the air, to create a portal of purest starlight before him.

Araloth turned. Keyberos took a step towards him. ‘What does it mean? What is she here for?’

Araloth glanced back at Lileath, squared his shoulders and said, ‘The Everchild’s fate is written, my kinsmen. And we have no power to change it.’ As the elves raised their voices in protest, he held up his hand. ‘But there is a task for us elsewhere. On a distant shore, a great battle will be waged and the warriors of Athel Loren must go and wage it. Lileath intends to take me there. Any who wish to follow may. There is no shame to those who do not.’

Keyberos looked around at the gathered warriors, and then smiled sadly. ‘I think you know our answer, Araloth. We followed you this far. And one battle is as good as the next.’

Araloth smiled, turned and took Lileath’s outstretched hand. There was a flash of light, and the host of Athel Loren passed from Sylvania and mortal sight.

Klodebein, central Sylvania

‘Five leagues,’ Mannfred murmured, as he watched the dead fall upon the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood. He stood on the edge of the vast garden of Morr, which occupied the southern edge of the village of Klodebein, and leaned on the hilt of his sword. ‘Five leagues between him and his allies.’ He glanced at Elize, his eyes wide in mock surprise. ‘Not even my doing. His own impatience brought him here. I merely seized the moment,’ he said with some bemusement. ‘Would that all our enemies were so foolish, eh, cousin?’

‘One could argue that any who choose to invade Sylvania on the edge of winter are prone to foolishness,’ Elize said. She sat atop her horse, and looked past the tombs that crowded the garden, to where the ramshackle houses of Klodebein sat. Mannfred followed her gaze. He could hear the terrified communal thudding of the hearts of the inhabitants as they waited out the massacre occurring just past their walls. Barely a quarter of the living population of Sylvania yet remained, most in villages like this, close to the Stir. He’d wondered for a moment if the folk of Klodebein might try and warn the knights of the danger they were riding into, but instead they hid in their homes, waiting for it all to end and the never-ending night to become silent once more. He smiled and turned his attention back to the battle.

He’d have thought a seasoned campaigner like Leitdorf would know better than to lead his column through what amounted to a very large graveyard in Sylvania, but then maybe wearing all of that armour gave some men an inflated sense of invincibility. Or maybe it was Leitdorf’s infamous impatience in action. It was that same impatience that had seen him leave Heldenhame Keep undefended, and it had finally got him killed. Or so Mannfred intended to ensure.

When his scouts had reported that the joint force of knights and elves had left Templehof, he’d thought perhaps that they were planning on attacking Sternieste. Or worse, they’d somehow discovered his plan for keeping their allies at bay, and were rushing to the aid of the dwarfs at Red Cairn. Instead, they’d begun to march slowly through Sylvania’s heartlands, making for the Glen of Sorrows. That alone would have been enough to prompt Mannfred into taking action; Arkhan had not yet completed his preparations for the Geheimnisnacht ceremony, and if their enemies reached the glen before then, everything they had accomplished until now would be for naught.

Luckily, Leitdorf and his ironmongers had ever so obligingly ridden right into the jaws of a trap. As the knights rode through the closely packed tombs of the garden of Morr, the vargheists Mannfred had roused from a nearby well had struck. The Klodebein Brothers had betrayed Vlad at the Battle of Fool’s Rest, and they and their equally treacherous sister had been sealed in their coffins at the bottom of the village’s well since Konrad and Mannfred had run them to ground in the days following their disastrous ambush. The centuries had not been kind, but it had built in them a ferocious hunger, which they duly vented on the hapless knights.

As the newly freed vargheists revelled in a maelstrom of blood and death, Mannfred gestured and incited the death-magics that had long since seeped into the tombs and graves of the garden. As the first blindly clutching hands thrust upwards through the damp soil, Mannfred turned to Elize. ‘How long do you think it’ll take them to realise there’s no escape?’

‘A few minutes, if ever,’ Elize said. ‘Men like these do not admit defeat easily. The original Drakenhof Templars went to the grave assured of eventual victory, if you’ll recall.’

‘Would you care to place a wager, dear cousin?’

‘What would we wager?’ Elize asked carefully.

‘I’m sure we can think of something,’ Mannfred said, and laughed. His mind stretched out, awakening the dead in the sparse forest that surrounded Klodebein. Soon there were hundreds of shambling cadavers filling the garden, attacking the already embattled knights with worm-eaten fingers, brown, broken teeth and rusted blades. Soon there were ten corpses for every knight, and Leitdorf’s warriors began to die.

A vargheist shrieked, drawing Mannfred’s attention. He recognised Hans Leitdorf as the latter smashed his shield into the monster’s face, rocking it back. The vargheist reared, wings flapping, and Leitdorf rammed his sword through its throat.

‘Von Carstein!’ Leitdorf roared, twisting in his saddle to face Mannfred. He spurred his horse into a gallop, and several knights followed him, smashing aside any of the dead that got in their way.

‘Oh dear, he’s seen me. Whatever shall I do, cousin?’ Mannfred asked.

‘You demean yourself with such flippancy,’ Elize said softly.

Mannfred looked up at her. ‘Do I? How kind of you to let me know, cousin. Wherever would I be without your words of wisdom?’

Elize continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Leitdorf has killed many of our kind, cousin. Do you recall Morliac? Or the Baron Dechstein? What of the Black Sisters of Bluthof? They were von Carsteins, cousin, and Leitdorf slew them all. You would do well not to underestimate him.’

Mannfred laughed. ‘You sound like someone I used to know.’

‘Did you listen to her?’

Mannfred didn’t answer. His amusement faded as he watched Leitdorf gallop towards him. Elize was correct, whether he wished to admit it or not. After Volkmar, Leitdorf was his greatest foe in the region, and he had expected to feel a certain sense of satisfaction at his destruction. Instead, he felt… nothing. Annoyance, at best. He should have been at the Nine Daemons, overseeing Arkhan’s preparations. Instead, he was wasting valuable time dispatching a fool. He was so close to ultimate victory that he could taste it, and he was as impatient for Geheimnisnacht as Leitdorf was to get to grips with him.

The ground shook as Leitdorf drew closer. Mannfred watched him come, impressed despite himself by the mixture of bravado and stupidity that seemed to drive men like Leitdorf. Had he ever been so foolish? He glanced at Elize, and knew that she would say ‘yes’. She had seen him at his worst, skulking in Vlad’s shadow and scheming away against his kith and kin. Neferata too would have agreed with that assessment, he suspected. Then, the Queen of the Silver Pinnacle had never been shy about sharing her opinion on things that did not concern her.

Mannfred shook the thoughts aside. What Elize or even Neferata thought of him mattered little enough, and would matter not at all come Geheimnisnacht. He stretched out a hand and drew up the skeletons that slumbered beneath the ground at his feet. They rose in shuddering formation, and at a twist of his hand, they formed a tight phalanx immediately before him, directly in Leitdorf’s path. Timeworn spears of bronze were levelled at the approaching knights.

Leitdorf raised his sword and bellowed in defiance as he and his order struck the phalanx. The air rippled with the screams of men and horses as the impetus of the charge carried them onto the spears and in some cases, beyond. Leitdorf was thrown from his saddle as his steed collapsed, a spear in its chest. The Grand Master of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood was thrown deep into the ranks of skeletons. He crashed through them, but was on his feet with remarkable speed for one who ought to have been dead from a broken neck at the very least.

Mannfred watched as Leitdorf waded through the ranks of bleached bone, his sword flashing as he fought to reach his prey. Spears sought and found him, but he refused to fall. Mannfred found himself enraptured by the spectacle. Leitdorf’s face was not that of a berserker, or a man driven insane by fear. Rather, it was the face of one determined to see his desires fulfilled, regardless of the cost. Mannfred could almost admire that sort of determination. For a moment, he considered swaying Leitdorf to his way of thinking. Vlad had always been fond of that – turning foes into, if not friends, then allies. A brave man was a brave man, he’d always said.

Then, Leitdorf broke free of the phalanx, and his blade chopped down, narrowly missing Mannfred’s face. Mannfred sprang back, a snarl on his lips. From behind him, Elize said, ‘I told you.’

‘Yes, thank you, cousin,’ he spat. He brought his blade up as Leitdorf, wheezing like a dying bull, staggered towards him. ‘Anything else you’d like to add? No? Good. Shut up and let me have this moment, at least.’ He extended his sword towards Leitdorf in a mocking salute. ‘Well, old man, is this it then? Come to die at last?’

‘The only one who’ll die tonight, vampire, is you,’ Leitdorf said hoarsely.

Mannfred brought his blade up. ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’ He crooked his fingers in a beckoning gesture. ‘Come, Herr Leitdorf… One last dance before the world ends, eh?’

Twenty-Four

Glen of Sorrows, Sylvania

Eldyra looked up at the dark sky. Morrslieb and Mannslieb waxed full and bathed the world in an unpleasant radiance. She leaned back in her saddle and fingered the pommel of the runeblade sheathed on her hip. She said a silent prayer of thanks to Tyrion for all that he’d taught her. She’d used every ounce of skill and every swordsman’s trick she’d learned in the days since they’d found what was left of Leitdorf, hanging from a tree south of the gutted and stinking ruin that had been the village of Klodebein.

She felt a pang of sadness as she thought of her mannish ally. She hadn’t known him long, or well, but Leitdorf had seemed a good sort as far as humans went. But he had been as impatient and reckless as men invariably proved to be.

They’d lost the dwarfs as well – Ungrim’s throng had not made the rendezvous. Belannaer had cast a spell of far-seeing and discovered that the throng had come into conflict with the largest beast-horde Eldyra had seen this far from the Wastes. She couldn’t tell whether Eltharion was pleased or disappointed. He was no dwarf-friend, but even the Warden of Tor Yvresse could see that that their nigh-hopeless quest had become a suicidal one.

Nonetheless, they had not turned back. The Stormraker Host had fought its way through every obstacle Mannfred von Carstein had placed in its path – snarling packs of dead wolves, swarms of ghouls, shrieking spectres, and vampire champions clad in armour reeking of the butcher’s block. Eldyra had taken the heads of more than a few of the latter, including a particularly stupid creature who had dared to challenge her to single combat.

Belannaer, guided by Aliathra’s silent song, had guided them at last to this place, where the final fate of the Everchild, and possibly the world, would be decided. ‘To think that it all comes down to such an uninspiring place,’ Belannaer murmured from beside her. The mage stood on the edge of the slope looking down into the immense crater, at the centre of which lay their destination: nine great standing stones, arrayed on a bubo of rock and soil. And spread out around it, in all directions, was the vast and unmoving army of the dead. Eldyra doubted that they could have defeated that army even with the aid of the men and the dwarfs.

‘You would prefer Finuval Plain?’ Eldyra asked.

‘As a matter of fact – yes,’ Belannaer said. ‘The air here is thick with the stuff of death. It is their place, not ours, and they have the advantage in more than just numbers.’

‘Then we shall have to fight all the harder,’ Eltharion said. They were the first words he’d spoken in days. He sat atop his griffon, his fingers buried in the thick feathers of the creature’s neck. He leaned forward and murmured soothingly to the restive beast as it clawed at the hard ground impatiently. Eltharion’s face might as well have been a mask, for all the expression it showed.

Eldyra thought that somewhere beneath that impassive mask, the Grim One blamed himself for Leitdorf’s death. The man had tried several times to convince Eltharion to move faster, but he had been rebuffed every time. Eltharion had thought speed secondary to ensuring that their path was clear of potential enemies.

He had dispatched Eldyra to cleanse dozens of ruined mansions, abandoned villages and ancient tombs. And with every day, Leitdorf had grown more and more impatient, until at last he had simply given up trying to nudge his allies along and marched on ahead, to his death. Eltharion had said nothing either way. He’d shown no emotion when they found Leitdorf’s body, and he hadn’t mentioned the man’s name since.

If Eltharion had a fault, it was that he was arrogant enough to think that the world was balanced on his shoulders. Eldyra had always wondered if that strange arrogance was the common bond he shared with Tyrion and Teclis. Heroes always thought that the world would shudder to a halt if they made a mistake.

Then, given what they’d seen recently, maybe they were right.

‘Then perhaps it is time to tell them what we are fighting for,’ Eldyra said softly. Belannaer’s eyes widened. Eltharion didn’t look at her. None had known the identity of the one whom they sought to rescue, save she, Eltharion and Belannaer. They had hidden that information from their own folk, as well as the men and the dwarfs, for fear of what might happen were it to be known. For long moments, Eldyra thought Eltharion might refuse.

Then, as if some great weight had settled on him, he sagged. ‘Yes,’ he said.

And he did. Once a decision was made, Eltharion would not hesitate. Eldyra watched from her horse as the warriors of Tiranoc and Yvresse mustered on the edge of the crater, and Eltharion, standing high in his saddle, addressed them. He spoke long and low, with deliberate plainness. Rhetoric had no place here, only the plain, unvarnished truth.

Eldyra watched silently, wondering what the result would be. She wasn’t afraid to admit, to herself at least, that the Ulthuani had no more love of truth than their dark kin. The world coasted on a sea of quiet lies, and the truth was an unpleasant shoal best avoided.

Eltharion finished.

For a time, the assembled host might as well have been statues. Then, one warrior, a noble of Seledin by the cut of the robes beneath his armour, swept his curved blade flat against his cuirass in the ancient Yvressi salute. ‘Iselendra yevithri anthri,’ he said. ‘By our deaths, we do serve.’

As Eldyra watched, the salute was echoed by every warrior in turn. Eltharion stared, as if uncertain how to respond. She nudged her horse forwards to join him and drew her blade. She laid the flat of it over her heart as she gazed at him. ‘You heard them, Grim One,’ she said.

The briefest hint of something that might have been a smile rippled across his face. ‘Yes. I did.’ He drew his own blade and laid it against his cuirass as he hauled back on Stormwing’s reins. The griffon, never one to miss a moment to spread its wings, clawed at the air with a rumbling screech. ‘Iselendra yevithri anthri,’ Eltharion shouted. ‘For Yvresse! For Tiranoc! And for Aliathra! Let us bring light into this dark place!’ He pulled Stormwing about and the great beast leapt into the air with shrill roar.

And with an equally thunderous noise, the Stormraker Host marched to war.

‘By Usirian’s teeth, look at them,’ Mannfred hissed. He laughed and spread his arms. ‘Look at them, my Templars! Look upon the pride of Ulthuan, and know that we have come to the end of this great game of ours. Our enemies lie scattered and broken, and only this last, great gasp yet remains.’ Despite his bravado, Mannfred recognised the warrior leading the elves – Eltharion the Grim, whom he had faced in the battle beneath Nagashizzar two years before. Of all the warriors of Ulthuan, only Tyrion worried him more.

He and the Drakenhof Templars stood or sat astride their mounts in the lee of the Nine Daemons. The ancient standing stones sat atop a bare knoll, overlooking the Glen of Sorrows. Nothing grew on the knoll, and even the raw, dark soil looked as if it had been drained of every erg of life. At the foot of each of the standing stones, one of the nine Books of Nagash had been placed, and Arkhan the Black moved amongst them, awakening the power of each eldritch tome with the merest tap from Alakanash, the staff of the Undying King.

The prisoners had been gathered amongst the stones, broken and unawares. All save Volkmar were unconscious, for Arkhan had been insistent that the old man be awake for what was coming. Mannfred was only too happy to acquiesce to that demand. He turned from the new arrivals and stalked to where Volkmar was held by a pair of wights. The old man cursed weakly and made a half-hearted lunge for the vampire. Mannfred caught his chin and leaned close. ‘They are too late to save you, old man. The heat of a black sun beats down on you, and the end of all things stirs in your blood. Do you feel it?’

‘I feel only contempt, vampire,’ Volkmar croaked.

‘That particular feeling is mutual, I assure you.’ Mannfred looked past Volkmar. A scarlet light had begun to pulse deep within the standing stones, and he hesitated, momentarily uncertain. Now that the moment was here, was he brave enough to seize it? He shook himself and looked at Arkhan. The liche stood before an immense cauldron, which had been set at the heart of the stone circle. More wights stood nearby, holding the other artefacts: the Crown of Sorcery, the Claw of Nagash, the Fellblade, and the Black Armour. ‘Well, liche? Are you ready to begin?’ Mannfred asked.

‘I am,’ Arkhan said. He set the staff aside and hauled the first of the sacrifices up by his hairy throat. The Ulrican stirred, but he was too weak to do anything more. Arkhan drew his knife as he dragged the priest towards the cauldron. ‘Do not disturb me, vampire. I must have complete concentration.’

Mannfred was about to reply, when the winding of horns made him turn. The elves struck like a thunderbolt from the dark sky, singing a strange, sad song as they came. They drove deep into the ranks of the mouldered dead, fine-wrought steel flashing in the ill light emanating from the Nine Daemons. The elven mages, led by one in startlingly blue robes, who surmounted the battlefield atop a floating column of rocks, wrought deadly changes upon the withered vegetation of the glen, urging it to vicious vibrancy, and roots, briars and branches grasped and tore at the dead.

Mannfred lashed his army with his will, driving them forwards against the invaders. The reeking ranks closed about the elves, trapping them in a cage of the seething dead. Rotting claws burst from the sour soil, clutching at boot and greave, holding elves in place as rusty swords and broken spears reaped a bloody harvest. Mannfred flung out a hand. ‘Crowfiend! Summon your folk to war!’

Erikan threw back his head and let loose a monstrous shriek, which bounced from standing stone to standing stone and shuddered through the air. As his cry was swallowed by the clangour of war, monstrous ghoul-kin, larger than their packmates scurrying about their legs and broader than ogres, hurled themselves into battle, trampling the dead in their eagerness to get to grips with the living. Bowstrings hummed and spears thrust forward, catching many of the beasts, but not all of them, and elves screamed and died as poisoned claws tore through silver mail and the flesh beneath.

Mannfred turned as scale-armoured steeds and swift chariots punched through the leftmost ranks of his army. Elven riders gave voice to rousing battle cries as they swept over the dead in a crash of splintering bone. Skeletons were ground to dust and ancient wights were burst asunder and freed from their undying servitude by the force of the thunderous charge. Mannfred cursed.

‘Nothing for it now,’ Count Nyktolos said. The Vargravian drew his blade. He looked at Mannfred. ‘Do we charge?’

‘Not all of us,’ Mannfred said. He looked at Elize. ‘Guard the liche,’ he said softly, so that only she could hear. ‘Arkhan’s treachery will come at the eleventh hour. If he should try anything, confound him.’

‘Do not worry, cousin,’ Elize said. She blew an errant lock of crimson hair out of her face. ‘The day shall be ours, one way or another.’

‘Good,’ Mannfred said. He climbed into the saddle of his skeletal steed and looked about him, at the assembled might of the Drakenhof Templars. A surge of something filled him. A lesser man might have called it pride. These were the greatest warriors in Sylvania, the backbone of all that he had built. It was fitting that they would be the blade that earned him his final victory. ‘Know, my warriors, that this day is the first day of the rest of eternity. This day is the day we drag a new world, screaming and bloody, from the womb of the old. Your loyalty will not be forgotten. Your heroism will be remembered unto the end of all things. Now ride,’ he shouted. ‘Ride for the ruin of the living and the glory of the dead!’ He drew his blade and extended it. ‘Ride!’

And they did. Hell-eyed nightmares snorted and shrieked as night-black hooves tore the sod, and a wall of black-armoured death descended into the glen with Mannfred at its head. As he rode, he tried to gather the skeins of magic about him for an incantation, but found that the currents of sorcery shifted in his grasp, as if to thwart him. He knew at once that it wasn’t merely the fickle nature of the winds of magic that prevented him from weaving his spells. His eyes were drawn to the distant figure of the elven mage on his dais of floating rock, and he snarled. He was too far away to deal with the creature himself, but was he not the master of every dead thing?

Mannfred reared back in his saddle and let slip a guttural howl, and the air above him was suddenly thick with the ragged shapes of spectres and ghosts. The spectral host shot towards the distant column of floating rocks. They flowed over the mage’s bodyguard of Sword Masters like a tide of filthy water, chill fingers stretching towards the mage. The mage flung out his hands, and cleansing fires roared to life, surging in all directions. It left the living untouched, but the dead were consumed utterly. Spirits burst into clouds of ash, and zombies blazed like torches. Soon, the elves were surrounded by a ring of fallen, blackened corpses.

Mannfred laughed, despite the failure of his minions to kill the elf. They had served their purpose regardless. The elf mage had been outmanoeuvred, and his obstruction of Mannfred’s sorcerous undertakings faltered as he was forced to see to his own defence. Mannfred seized the moment, and swept out his sword, carving an abominable glyph on the quivering air even as he urged his mount to greater speed. All across the battlefield, the newly dead began to twitch to life. Whatever losses his army had suffered would be replaced within moments.

Yet he could feel the elf-mage attempting to undo what he had just wrought. He gnashed his teeth and jerked his steed about. He raised his blade and the strident shriek of a horn sounded from behind him as the Drakenhof Templars wheeled about and formed up around him with supernatural discipline. It was time to deal with the sorcerer personally. Mannfred chopped the air with his blade.

As one, the Drakenhof Templars charged.

Arkhan did not bother to bid Mannfred a fond farewell. The battle did not concern him. He drained the blood of another of the sacrifices into the cauldron, and reflected on the days to come. He did not know what awaited him come Nagash’s return, but he did not fear it, whatever it was. He hurled the body aside and chose the next.

Behind him, the vampire made little sound as she drew her basket-hilted blade from its sheath. Arkhan heard it regardless but did not turn around. ‘Do you think that he will thank you, woman?’ There was a grim sort of humour to it – Mannfred, ever alert to treachery, had placed as Arkhan’s guard the least trustworthy member of his entourage.

‘At this point, what Mannfred does or does not do is of little concern to me, liche,’ Elize said. The spurs on her boots jangled softly as she strode towards him, the blade held low by her side. She stepped over the bodies of the previous sacrifices, where Arkhan had flung them – the Shallyan, the Ulrican, the Ranaldite. He held the last of the preparatory sacrifices over the bubbling cauldron, his knife to the dead-eyed young man’s throat.

‘I was not speaking of Mannfred,’ Arkhan said, as he drew the knife across the waiting flesh of his captive. The young priest of Morr gave a gurgling moan as his life’s blood ran out to join that of the others bubbling in the belly of the cauldron. When he was satisfied that it had been drained to the last drop, Arkhan let the body fall, careful that no blood should splatter on him. The consequences of even a small drop touching him would be disastrous.

Elize stopped. ‘Erikan will thank me, when he comes to his senses. Ennui is but a passing madness – a flaw in his blood. I will draw it from him, when this madness is past, and I will make him know his proper place.’

‘How like a woman, to think that only she knows what is best for a man,’ Arkhan rasped.

‘How like a man, to think that a woman does not know what is best for him,’ Elize said. ‘Are you going to try to stop me, old bag-of-bones, or are you content to watch as I bring your plan to an untimely end?’ She raised her sword to Morgiana’s neck. The Fay Enchantress’s eyes flickered and she tilted her head back.

‘Do it,’ she hissed. ‘Kill me, before it’s too late.’

‘Quiet,’ Elize snarled. She met Arkhan’s gaze without flinching. ‘Well, liche… Try your hand, if you would. You will get no second chance.’

‘Do it, and damn the world to madness and ruin,’ Arkhan said, his knife dangling loosely in his grip. ‘If Nagash does not rise, the world burns. And you will burn with it, whatever your schemes and plans.’

‘And if he does rise, what then? Servitude and eventual oblivion? No, I’ll not accept that,’ Elize said. ‘Better to be consumed by the fire, than to suffer a puppet’s fate.’

‘Fate is a mocker,’ Arkhan said. ‘A woman once told me that. Like you, she refused to surrender to Nagash. She told me that there are no certainties, save those you make for yourself. I still do not know if she was right or wrong.’ He looked down at the cauldron. ‘Nagash will rise. The world will shudder. But the sun will still come up tomorrow. Sylvania will still be here, and Bretonnia as well. But if he does not rise, the sun will go dark and Sylvania will be consumed in fire, blood and Chaos. These are my certainties.’ He raised his hand and pointed to the battle raging outside of the Nine Daemons. ‘That is yours.’

Elize glared at him suspiciously for a moment, and then glanced back in the direction he’d indicated. The battle was a maelstrom of carnage; elves and vampires both lost their hold on eternity as two lines of knights crashed into one another. ‘I don’t see what–’ she began.

‘There,’ Arkhan said. ‘The Crowfiend fights alone against a hero of Ulthuan. A woman who has fought daemons and worse things than any suicidal blood-drinker.’

Elize turned back to face him, her eyes narrowed to crimson slashes. ‘You lie,’ she hissed. ‘No elf can kill him. I trained him myself. He is better with a blade than any among the order.’

‘Will he win, you think? Or will she take his head, as she has already taken the heads of those who fought beside him? Will your cannibal prince stand alone… or will you go to his aid one last time?’ Arkhan continued, as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘If he dies, he dies,’ Elize snarled.

‘Then why do you hesitate?’

He knew what she would do before she did. He had seen such looks before, in other places at other times. Some people possessed a pragmatic ruthlessness of spirit that outstripped even Nagash’s histrionic malevolence. Vampires were often blessed with this quality, if they survived long enough. The drive to see their goals through at any cost. They would lie to themselves, rationalising that obsession into entitlement.

But some could only go so far.

Some went to the edge of that night-dark sea and then turned back.

Elize lowered her sword, turned and sprinted away, towards the battle.

‘Run fast, little vampire,’ Arkhan said, as he turned to the Fay Enchantress. ‘We come to it at last, Morgiana.’

‘She was right, you know… Better the fire than the dust,’ Morgiana whispered, her eyes closed. ‘Better death than what is coming.’

‘And you shall have it, I swear to you. Your spirit will not rise at his command or mine,’ Arkhan said, drawing her to her feet. ‘You shall be dead, and will suffer no more.’

‘Do you promise?’

Arkhan hesitated. Then, he nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Why?’

‘It seems some small touch of mercy yet remains to me,’ he said.

Morgiana smiled as Arkhan cut her throat.

Overhead, the dark sky turned ominous as strange clouds began to gather. Screeching spirits swarmed about the stone circle. The wind began to howl, like a dying beast. Turning from Morgiana’s body, Arkhan gestured, and his wights dragged Volkmar to his feet.

‘Do what you will, corpse, but Sigmar will have you, in the end,’ the old man spat. ‘Your bones will be splintered by his hammer, and the dust he makes of you scattered on the wind.’

‘I am certain he shall, and it will,’ Arkhan said. ‘You were born for this, you know. All of your years and deeds are the foundation of this moment. The blood that flows in your veins is the same as that of your god. It is the blood of the man who destroyed Nagash, and set the world on its current course.’

Volkmar’s eyes widened. Arkhan gestured, and the wights began to place the Black Armour upon the old man. Volkmar struggled and screamed and cursed, but he was too weak to break the grip of his captors. He called down the curses of his god on Arkhan’s head. Arkhan looked up, waiting. Now would be the time for Mannfred’s enchantment to fail at last. If this were a children’s story, that is how it would go. When nothing happened, he looked down at Volkmar. ‘Nothing. Proof enough that destiny holds us all in its clutches, I’d say. This was always meant to be. This moment is an echo of a promise of a thought cast forward through a thousand-thousand years. And we must all play our part.’

The last clasp was tightened and the armour was attached. Volkmar sagged beneath its awful weight as the wights stepped back. Arkhan gestured, and a pile of iron chains, discarded when the prisoners were killed, rose at his command, clinking and rattling. The chains rushed forward and ensnared Volkmar, binding him and dragging him to his feet again. Arkhan motioned towards the cauldron, and the chains rose into the air, carrying Volkmar with them. As they deposited him feet-first into the cauldron, Arkhan reverentially lifted the Crown of Sorcery up and placed it upon the old man’s bloodstained brow.

Volkmar moaned, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Arkhan could hear the crown’s whispers start up as the voice of Nagash murmured in the old man’s mind. Arkhan retrieved Alakanash and began to chant the ritual of invocation and awakening.

Elize sprinted across the battlefield, moving quicker than any black steed from the stables of Drakenhof. She swept her blade out, cutting down anything, living or dead that sought to bar her path. Erikan had been with the Templars. She had seen them charge before she made her move to stop the ritual, and she saw that the elves had met the assault at full gallop. Now the centre of the glen was a whirling melee of screaming horses, splintered shields and falling bodies.

She charged into the melee, her blade sweeping the life from an elven knight as the warrior rose up in front of her. She saw the Drakenhof banner, flapping in an unnatural breeze, and knew that that was where Mannfred was; and where he was, Erikan and the other members of the inner circle would be as well.

She caught sight of Nyktolos a moment later, duelling with an elven knight, his too-wide jaws agape in laughter. Nictus hurtled through the air on leather wings, plucking enemies from the saddle and dashing them to the ground, mangled and broken. And there, beneath the banner, Mannfred and Erikan, fighting back to back. But even as she caught sight of them, she saw a flash of painful light as the Drakenhof Templar bearing the battle standard fell. The source of the light was a sword, held in the hands of an elf woman, who leapt into the air while the standard fell, her blade clutched in both hands.

Mannfred turned, but too slowly. The blazing sword swept down, searing the air white in its wake. And then Erikan was there, parrying the blow. He and the elf swayed back and forth, their blades ringing as they connected. Elize fought her way towards them through the press of battle, Arkhan’s words ringing in her head.

In that moment, nothing else mattered. All of her hopes and dreams and schemes turned to ash and char, consumed by the fire that drove her forward towards the man that she loved. And it was love, for all that it was built on hate and blood and deception. Perhaps that was the only kind of love available to creatures like them. Love was the reason she had schemed to bring him back in the only way she knew how, to show him that he still needed her, that he belonged with her. And she had failed. All of her lies and deceptions had done nothing save drive him even further away from her, down a dangerous path.

She bashed an elf to his knees and chopped down on him. As she jerked her blade free, she saw Erikan lose his blade and snatch up the Drakenhof banner to fend off his opponent. The elf hacked down through the standard pole as he tried to block her blow. Her sword scraped against his cuirass, and he fell.

‘No!’ Elize howled. She flung herself towards the elf, her lean frame moving like quicksilver. The elf woman pinned Erikan to the ground and raised her blade. Elize intercepted the blow and rocked the woman back with a wild slash. ‘He’s mine,’ she snarled, extending her blade. She glanced down at Erikan. His eyes were closed, and his cuirass had been split open by the blow that had felled him. Dark blood welled up from within it, and he lay limp and unmoving. Elize turned her attentions back to her opponent as the elf woman spat something in her native tongue.

Elize studied her, sizing up her opponent. Her armour was battered and her robes torn and stained. But her face was composed, with no sign of weariness or fear. Her sword was steady. She lunged smoothly, and Elize was hard-pressed to parry the blow. They circled one another, feeling each other out.

They crashed together a moment later, like lionesses fighting over a kill. The elf woman was strong, surprisingly so, and more vicious than Elize expected. Even Cicatrix hadn’t been as ferocious. She was forced to give ground, step by step.

Something caught her foot and she slid backwards. Her legs were tangled in the tatters of the Drakenhof banner and she almost laughed at the foolishness of it. She fell, and her sword was jolted from her hand. The elf lunged, blade raised.

Then, something dark rose up behind her and smashed into her, bearing her to the ground with a roar. Elize scrambled to her feet, snatching up her sword. Erikan had his fangs sunk into the elf woman’s neck, and he tore her sword from her grip and flung it aside. She screamed and tore a dagger from her belt. The blade caught him in the chest and he staggered, clawing at its hilt. The elf woman sank down to one knee, a hand clasped to her throat. Her eyes were dull with pain as she scrabbled for her sword. Elize stepped on it and pressed the tip of hers to the elf’s throat. She tensed, ready to thrust it home.

Somewhere behind them, Elize heard a monstrous roar and the earth trembled. She felt a wave of excess magic wash over her. Then something was dropped to the ground beside her. She looked down and saw a blackened corpse, clad in the burned remnant of blue robes. ‘My thanks, sweet cousin. You gave me the respite I needed to deal with that pestiferous mage,’ Mannfred said from behind her.

‘One moment more, and I’ll add another to your tally,’ she snarled. She made to ram her blade home, when she felt Mannfred’s hand on her shoulder.

‘No, I think not. This one has spirit. Most elves are nothing more than trembling knots of vanity and fragile ego, but this one is something… wilder, I think,’ Mannfred purred. ‘She killed several of your fellow Templars, and nearly killed you both as well.’ He stepped forward and crushed the charred skull of the dead mage. As the elf woman tried to get to her feet, Mannfred slapped her to the ground. She did not get up. He looked at Elize. ‘I leave her in your tender care, sweet cousin. You and the Crowfiend can finish what you started with her. Be gentle, I beseech thee.’

A moment later, his smile faded. His face twisted in an expression of panic and he clutched at his head. Elize felt something like a wasp’s hum in her head, but as soon as it had sounded, it faded. ‘What was that?’ she spat.

‘Nagash,’ Mannfred snarled. He sprang past them, running flat out back towards the Nine Daemons. As he ran, his skeletal steed seemed to appear from nowhere, galloping beside him. Without pausing, Mannfred reached up and swung himself into the saddle. Elize watched him go, and then turned back to Erikan. Count Nyktolos had joined them, and Nictus as well. Both vampires looked as if they had waded through a sea of blood, and the former had plucked the blade from Erikan’s chest. He held it up. ‘Barely missed his heart. He has the luck of a von Carstein, if not the name,’ he said, grinning.

‘He’ll live, child,’ Nictus gurgled comfortingly. ‘He is tough, your ghoul-prince.’

Elize sank down beside Erikan and caressed his cheek. He looked at her. ‘W-why did you come for me?’ he croaked.

‘Fool,’ she said gently. ‘No one leaves me. Especially not you.’ She leaned forward and kissed him. She could taste his blood and that of the elf woman. She sat back on her heels and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she looked back towards the Nine Daemons. The winds about the stones had reached a howling crescendo, and the stones themselves glowed with an eye-searing light. Whatever was happening there, it was too late for her to do anything about it. It was up to Mannfred now. She looked back down at Erikan and smiled sadly.

‘Freedom is overrated, my love,’ she said, and kissed him again.

Mannfred rode madly towards the Nine Daemons, his fangs bared in a snarl. Elize had failed him. He would punish her later, her and her pet. But for now, he had to reach the stone circle before Arkhan completed the ritual. Nagash could not be allowed to return unfettered.

So intent was he on his destination that he barely noticed the shadow that swept over him. A moment later, pain tore through him as large talons pierced his armour. Mannfred flung himself forwards, over his mount’s neck, and hit the ground hard. He rolled across the hard-packed earth as his mount came apart around him, showering him with bones and bits of flesh. As the dust cleared, he saw Eltharion’s damnable griffon swooping towards him like an immense, spotted bird of prey. Its shriek cut through his skull and he jerked his sword from its sheath as the elf’s lance dipped for his heart.

Mannfred snarled and ducked. The lance point skidded over his pauldron and tore through his cloak as he lunged upwards to meet the griffon’s descent. His blade smashed through its furry ribcage and the great beast shrieked in agony. It tore away from him, knocking him from his feet with a flailing talon, and crashed into the ground right at the foot of the slope upon which the Nine Daemons stood.

Mannfred, bloody-faced, sprang to his feet and loped towards the fallen beast. As he reached the creature, Eltharion rose, battered but unbowed. He spared a single, inscrutable glance for his fallen mount, and then he extended his blade towards Mannfred. ‘You’re in my way,’ he said.

Mannfred grinned. ‘So I am, elf.’

Eltharion strode forward. ‘I haven’t got the time for you today, beast. It would be best if you walked away, and lived to fight another day.’

‘Make time,’ Mannfred spat. Here was a creature whose arrogance rivalled his own, and he found himself stung by the sheer gall of the elf. How dare they invade his lands and presume to treat him as anything less than what he was! He interposed himself as the elf charged towards the Nine Daemons.

Two blades, one forged by the greatest artisans of an empire long since fallen, the other by the mightiest civilisation to ever walk the world’s white rim, came together with a sound like the roar of tigers. Mannfred stamped forward and shrieked, a war-cry not heard in the world for ages undreamt of slipping instinctively from his lips. Eltharion made no sound, and his face betrayed no effort as he met the vampire’s blow and blocked it.

Mannfred moved quicker than he ever had before in the entirety of his accumulated centuries. He moved faster than the human eye could follow, so fast that his flesh was rubbed raw by his speed. Nonetheless, Eltharion parried every blow with a grace that stung Mannfred’s eyes. Every blow save one. Mannfred gave a hiss of satisfaction as the tip of his blade slid across the elf’s arm, slicing easily through armour and cloth to bite the flesh beneath. Eltharion staggered, and a second blow sawed at his side, tearing at his cuirass. Mannfred laughed as the sweet smell of elf blood filled his nostrils. ‘Death, warrior – death is all that you’ll find here. Death and an eternity of servitude after.’ He circled Eltharion and continued to spew taunts. ‘You’ll be my bodyguard, I think. I’m running short on those, thanks to you. Would you like that, elf? I’ll let your mutilated husk lead my legions when I burn the pretty white towers of your people and make them my chattel.’

He’d hoped to provoke the elf. To spur him into attacking wildly, and without concern for his own wellbeing. Instead, the elf came at him with a chilly meticulousness. He parried Mannfred’s next blow and the edge of his blade came close to opening the vampire’s throat. Eltharion fought with machine-like precision, every blow calculated for maximum effect and minimum effort. If he hadn’t suddenly found himself on the defensive, Mannfred would have been impressed.

He realised, as they traded blows, that for the first time in a long time he was the less-masterful combatant in a duel. For too many years, he had relied upon old skills and sheer brute strength, but here, at last, was an opponent whom he could not simply overmatch.

A blow from Eltharion’s sword tore open his cuirass and sliced through the flesh beneath. A second blow smashed into Mannfred’s forearm with hammer-like precision, shattering bone and shearing muscle to leave the limb hanging from a single agonised strand of muscle. Mannfred howled and staggered back, clutching at his wounded limb, his sword lying forgotten in the dust. The world spun around him, and he could see all of his hopes and dreams turning to ash before him.

‘No,’ he hissed. ‘No! I’ve fought too long, too hard to be beaten now, by you!’ he roared as he flung out his good hand. Deathly magics coalesced in the air before the grimly advancing elf, forming into a sextet of black swords. Eltharion weaved through the blades, parrying their every blow.

Mannfred, crouched on the slope, watched the elf fight his way through the blades. The sable swords had only been a distraction. They would fade in moments, leaving Eltharion free to attack again. He had only moments in which to act. Ignoring the pain of his mangled arm, he summoned the energy to unleash a bolt of raw, writhing magic. He rose on unsteady legs, the scope of his world narrowed to Eltharion’s graceful form. If he could kill the elf, it would be done. He extended his hand, black lightning crackling along his forearm and between his curled fingers.

But before he could unleash the spell, he heard a guttural snarl. A heavy body lunged across the slope, trailing blood and feathers. The griffon’s beak snapped shut on his extended arm, its talons smashing into his chest and thigh. Mannfred screamed as he was borne to the ground by the monster’s weight. It was no consolation that his spell had killed the creature as it struck it.

‘No! Damn you, no!’ Mannfred screamed, pleading with fate as he tried to extricate himself from the dead animal’s claws and beak. ‘No! Not now! Eltharion – face me, damn you!’ he shrieked as Eltharion started up the slope with only a single backwards glance. ‘Eltharion,’ Mannfred wailed, squirming beneath the corpse of the griffon.

Eltharion strode towards the standing stones, seemingly gaining strength with every step. As he reached them, light crackled between them. Mannfred cackled weakly. Of course Arkhan had cast some defensive enchantment, of course!

His cackles died away as Eltharion raised his sword in a two-handed grip and thrust the sword into the mystical barrier. The magic crackled and spat, writhing around the blade like a thing in pain. The runes upon the elvish blade glowed as red as coals, and then Eltharion pushed his way into the ring of the Nine Daemons.

With an agonised snarl, Mannfred freed himself from the dead griffon, leaving behind more flesh and blood than he liked to think about. Bleeding heavily, he staggered up after the elf and, with a last surge of strength, he pounced at the gap the elf had made.

He was too slow. He struck the mystic barrier and staggered back. Wailing spirits whirled about him as he pounded his now-healed fists against the barrier. He saw Eltharion toss away his smoking and melted blade.

Arkhan had his back to the elf, standing before the cauldron, one hand wrapped in the golden tresses of the Everchild, forcing her head and torso over the cauldron’s rim. In his other hand, he held his knife in preparation for slashing her throat, as he had with all of the other sacrifices. In the centre of the cauldron, Volkmar hung limp in a mystical web of chains.

Eltharion lunged with a roar worthy of his slain mount. Arkhan released his captive and spun. Eltharion slammed into him, his hands closing about the liche’s bony neck. Arkhan glared at the elf. ‘Release me, warrior.’ Eltharion slammed him back against the cauldron as if to snap the liche in two. ‘Very well. I have no more time for mercy.’

Arkhan’s hands snapped up and caught the elf’s wrists. Instantly, a cloud of rust billowed up from Eltharion’s vambraces. As Mannfred watched, the entropic curse consumed him. It rippled across metal and flesh with equal aplomb, warping and cracking armour as it withered flesh. The elf’s hair turned white and brittle, and his flesh took on the consistency of parchment, but he did not release his hold on Arkhan. To the last, his gaze held the liche’s.

Then, with barely a sigh, Eltharion the Grim, Warden of Tor Yvresse, burst apart in a cloud of dust.

Arkhan staggered back, the witch-lights of his eyes flashing with something that might have been regret. Mannfred began to pound on the barrier anew as Arkhan turned back and jerked Aliathra to her feet. He reclaimed his dagger. ‘My father will destroy you, liche,’ she said. Mannfred was impressed. There was no fear in her voice, only resignation.

‘Your father is already dead, child. My allies have seen to that.’

‘Allies? What allies?’ Mannfred shouted. ‘Arkhan – let me in!’

Arkhan ignored him. He looked at Aliathra as she said, ‘For all of your power, you know nothing.’

‘We shall see,’ Arkhan said. He glanced at Mannfred. ‘Stop striking my barrier, vampire. It’s becoming annoying.’

‘Let me in, you fool,’ Mannfred snarled. His mind probed at the sorcery that protected the stones, trying to find a weak point. He had to get in there.

‘Why? So that you can try and subvert this moment for your own ends? No – no, I think not. You have played your part, and admirably so, vampire. Do not ruin it now with petty antics.’ Arkhan stepped forward and dragged Aliathra towards the cauldron. She struggled for a moment, then pressed her hands against the liche’s chest. Arkhan threw up a hand as a white, painful light flared suddenly. He recoiled as if burned, and then swung the elf maiden towards the cauldron. ‘What have you done, witch?’ he rasped.

‘You’ll find out,’ she said.

Arkhan hesitated, staring at her. Then, with a dry rasp of anger, he cut her throat.

As her blood spilled into the already bubbling cauldron, Arkhan began to speak. The words had a black resonance that caused the air to shudder and squirm, as if in fear. Mannfred began to pound on the shield again, howling curses at the heedless liche as he continued to chant.

As Mannfred watched in mounting frustration, Arkhan placed his knife against one of Volkmar’s wrists and, with a single, efficient motion, severed the hand. Volkmar screamed and writhed in his chains. Arkhan, still chanting, lifted the Claw of Nagash and pressed it forcefully against the Grand Theogonist’s pulsing stump.

Volkmar’s screams grew in pitch and volume, spiralling up into the tormented air to mingle with the unpleasant echoes of Arkhan’s chanting. Arkhan stepped back and snatched up Alakanash. He lifted the staff high and tendrils of dark magic burst from the stump of the Claw. The tendrils writhed about Volkmar’s arm and burrowed into the old man’s abused flesh. Volkmar screamed and shook in his chains, convulsing with a suffering that even Mannfred had trouble imagining.

He took no pleasure in the old man’s pain, though he might have, under different circumstances. He slid down, suddenly weary, as the tendrils began to expand. As they grew, they lashed and flailed and spread across Volkmar’s frame, winnowing into him and leaving only a cancerous mass of dark magic in their wake. Soon, the only thing of Volkmar that Mannfred could see were his eyes, bulging in agony.

Then, there was nothing save the mass, which swelled like an abominable leech as it feasted greedily on the blood in the cauldron. Chains snapped as the mass thrashed about, drawing sparks from the stones around it. It continued to swell as Arkhan held the Fellblade extended, point-first towards the cauldron.

Arkhan spat words like arrows, piercing the air with the hateful sound of them. The Fellblade rose from his hand as if plucked by invisible fingers. It hung in midair for a moment and then, with a loud crack, it shivered into a thousand steaming fragments, which swirled about the mass like tiny comets before striking it and burrowing into its surface.

Outside the circle, Mannfred hunched closer to the stones as the wind picked up, and the howling of the spirits grew deafening. The stones trembled and glowed with daemonic fire. Thunder rolled across the sky above, and he screamed in pain as the enchantment he had laid across the land – his land – was torn asunder. Something vast and terrible descended into the stone circle with a volcanic sigh.

His head was filled with fiery wasps, and his bones felt as if they would tear from his flesh to join the maelstrom swirling about inside the circle. His heart swelled and wrenched in his chest, and he crawled forward as the spell that had barred him entry shattered like glass. Something spoke in a voice that echoed through his mind.

‘YOU HAVE DONE WELL, MY SERVANT.’

Nagash.

It was the voice of Nagash and it tore through him like a blade, cutting through his arrogance, his ambitions, his hopes and his vanities. Mannfred shuddered in his skin as he crept towards the cauldron. He felt sick, as though a great pressure had settled on him. He knew then that his dreams had only ever been that – dreams. Arkhan had been right, in the end. There was no controlling what had come back into the world. What now spoke in a voice like sour thunder. ‘THE GREAT WORK CAN BEGIN.’

He saw that Arkhan had prostrated himself and he could not stop himself from doing the same. He bent low, hoping that the thing that now gazed at him with eyes as deep and as empty as a hole in the world could not sense the bitterness in his heart.

‘DO YOU SERVE ME?’ Nagash asked, looking down at him.

Mannfred von Carstein closed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he croaked, ‘I serve you… master.’

Epilogue

Geheimnisnacht

Mannfred von Carstein screamed.

For the first time in a long time, he truly screamed. Not a howl of frustration, or the cry of a wounded warrior, but the shriek of a frightened beast, caught in a trap. Nagash’s servants had stripped his cuirass and cloak from him, leaving him bare-chested. They held his wrists pinned, and skeletal hands sprouted from the ground like hellish mushrooms to grasp his feet and ankles.

‘No, I refuse – I will not let you do this – I forbid it!’ Mannfred screamed, struggling vainly against the withered grip of the ancient, long-dead warriors who held him.

‘YOU… FORBID?’ The sickly green witch-lights of Nagash’s eyes flickered. The fleshless jaw sagged in what might have been laughter. Nagash loomed over the vampire. ‘YOU FORBID NOTHING, LITTLE FLEA. YOU SIMPLY SERVE.’

‘Then you don’t need him! You have me,’ Mannfred howled, jerking in his captors’ grip. ‘I have always been loyal to you! I brought you back – me, not him!’

Nagash took Mannfred’s chin in one black claw. ‘LOYAL. YOUR KIND DOES NOT KNOW LOYALTY. DO THEY, ARKHAN?’ The witch-lights flickered towards Arkhan, where the liche stood watching.

‘Loyal or not, he has served you,’ Arkhan said, one hand still pressed to his chest where the Everchild had struck him. He could feel something there, as if she had passed something to him, but he could not say what. ‘As have I.’

‘YES. AS YOU WILL CONTINUE TO DO, UNTIL THE GREAT WORK IS COMPLETED. AS THIS ONE WILL DO. AS ALL HIS KIND WILL DO.’ Nagash leaned towards Mannfred. ‘YOU WERE CREATED TO SERVE ME. YOU ARE AN EXTENSION OF MY WILL, NOTHING MORE. AND I WILL DASH YOU DOWN OR CALL YOU UP AS IT PLEASES ME.’

With that, Nagash sank his fingers into Mannfred’s chest and wrenched a gobbet of flesh free. Mannfred screamed and thrashed as Nagash turned and squeezed the bloody hank of meat onto the pile of dust and soil his servants had created earlier. When the last drop of blood had been wrung from it, he tossed it aside without a second glance.

‘RISE,’ Nagash said. It was not a request. The air, murky and foul, twitched like an inattentive cat. ‘RISE,’ he said again.

The air twitched again. Dust billowed, mixing with Sylvanian grave soil and Nehekharan sand. Something vague was beginning to take shape. Mannfred’s howls of denial grew louder as the pool of his blood began to bubble and froth.

Arkhan watched, curious. The blood of all vampires was, at its base, the blood of Nagash, albeit diluted by poison and sorcery. The black brew devoured and replaced all that was human in them, making them over into something else. It made a dreadful sort of sense that Nagash would know how to manipulate it.

For as long as he could recall, the vampires had thought themselves separate and superior to beings such as himself. They had thought themselves the inheritors of Nagash’s legacy, rather than merely another sort of servant.

Today, Nagash proved them wrong.

The blood began to spread, increasing in volume, and rising upwards like a geyser to encompass the dust. The vague shape became less so. To Arkhan, it was as if someone were swimming towards him across a great distance. A sound drew his attention.

Mannfred was weeping. Great red tears rolled down his cheeks, and his mouth was open in a soundless howl of fury and fear. He’d been forced to his knees by Nagash’s servants, and he’d ceased his struggles. He stared at the pulsing column of blood as if it were the end of the world.

Then, maybe it was.

Arkhan turned back as Nagash stepped close to the blood and, without hesitation, plunged his arm in. There was a sound like the ocean’s roar and the crash of thunder, and then Nagash jerked something out of the blood and tossed it aside. As it struck the ground, Arkhan saw that it was a human figure, flesh stained red.

The blood splashed down and lost all cohesion. The figure lay on the ground, curled into a ball. Nagash reached for it, as if to shake it to wakefulness. A bloodstained hand snapped out, seizing his wrist. Nagash paused.

A voice, hoarse with disuse, said, ‘I… live.’ The figure uncoiled and rose awkwardly, as Nagash jerked his wrist free and stepped back. Beneath a mask of dried blood, feral, handsome features twisted in confusion as dark eyes gazed down at clawed hands in incomprehension. ‘I live? I-I… Isabella?’

The eyes flickered up as Mannfred at last tore himself free of his captors and lunged towards Arkhan. Unprepared, Arkhan could only stumble back as Mannfred tore his tomb-blade from its sheath and shoved him back.

‘No,’ Mannfred wailed, ‘No, not again, never again!’ He hurtled towards the newcomer, his stolen sword licking out to remove the latter’s head.

The newcomer sprang aside, stumbled and dived for one of Nagash’s warriors. He ripped the archaic blade from the wight’s belt and whirled about, bringing his newly procured weapon up just in time to block Mannfred’s next blow.

‘You,’ he said, eyes narrowing as they fixed on Mannfred’s contorted features. Thin lips peeled back, revealing an impressive mouthful of fangs.

‘I killed you once, old man. I can do it again,’ Mannfred shrieked.

Arkhan moved to break up the duel, but stopped at an imperious gesture from Nagash. The Undying King wanted to see what happened next. The two vampires lunged towards each other, their blades connecting in a screech of metal. They spun in a tight circle, their swords locked together. For a moment, Arkhan thought Mannfred had the advantage. The other vampire seemed weak, uncertain… But then, slowly, steadily, he began to gain the upper hand. Arkhan realised that he’d been feigning weakness, in order to draw Mannfred in.

Mannfred was too blinded by rage to see what his opponent was up to. He lunged, and the other vampire performed a complicated manoeuvre that Arkhan had last seen on the proving grounds of Rasetra more than a thousand years before, blocking the blow and disarming Mannfred all in one smooth motion. Mannfred, unable to halt his lunge, stumbled forward. His opponent’s blade was suddenly there to meet him, and it slid into his belly with a wet sound. Mannfred coughed and his eyes bulged in shock as he clawed at his opponent’s blade.

He forced Mannfred down to his knees, the sword still in his gut. With his free hand, he grabbed the back of Mannfred’s scalp and dragged his head up. ‘Where is Isabella, boy? Where is my ring?’ he hissed, glaring down at Mannfred.

‘Dead, and gone,’ Mannfred spat weakly. ‘Just as you were.’

‘You should know better than that, boy,’ the other vampire growled. He kicked Mannfred off the blade, and raised it over his head, as if to split Mannfred’s skull. But before the blow could fall, Nagash raised his hand.

‘HOLD, VAMPIRE. YOUR STUDENT STILL HAS HIS USES, AS DO YOU.’

The vampire turned, his eyes widening in shock. ‘Usirian’s teeth,’ he hissed. ‘Nagash…’

‘YES. AND IT IS NAGASH TO WHOM YOU OWE YOUR FEALTY, VLAD VON CARSTEIN.’ Nagash loomed over the two vampires, his eyes burning like twin infernos, the air turning sour around him. ‘KNEEL, VAMPIRE. KNEEL AND RECEIVE MY BLESSING. KNEEL, AND JOIN ME.’ Nagash raised his claws as Vlad sank slowly down to one knee, his sword planted blade-first into the ground. There was a great roar, as of a thousand-thousand voices raised in agonised protest, and the world contracted like a beast in pain. The earth trembled, and the sky wept oily rain. And Nagash found it good.

‘THE GREAT WORK CAN NOW COMMENCE.’

The world is dying, but it has been so since the coming of the Chaos Gods.

For years beyond reckoning, the Ruinous Powers have coveted the mortal realm. They have made many attempts to seize it, their anointed champions leading vast hordes into the lands of men, elves and dwarfs. Each time, they have been defeated.

Until now.

In the frozen north, Archaon, a former templar of the warrior-god Sigmar, has been crowned the Everchosen of Chaos. He stands poised to march south and bring ruin to the lands he once fought to protect. Behind him amass all the forces of the Dark Gods, mortal and daemonic. When they come, they will bring with them a storm such as has never been seen. Already, the lands of men are coming to ruin. Archaon’s vanguard run riot across Kislev and make inroads into the north of the Empire. The once-proud country of Bretonnia has fallen into anarchy. The southern lands have been consumed by a tide of verminous ratmen. And in the trackless forests of the Empire, there are whispers that another ancient power is rising. The Great Necromancer, Nagash, has returned to the world, and none know if his armies of the dead will stand against the hordes of Chaos, or fight beneath their banners.

The men of the Empire, the elves of Ulthuan and the dwarfs of the Worlds Edge Mountains fortify their cities and prepare for the inevitable onslaught. They will fight bravely and to the last. But in their hearts, all know that their efforts will be futile. The victory of Chaos is inevitable.

These are the End Times.

One

The tent’s walls flapped in the cold west wind, making the fires in the torches spit and gutter. Its lone occupant knelt on mud-slick grass, bowing his head before a makeshift altar. A rich red cloak hung, rain-heavy, from his armoured shoulders. His gauntlets were crossed on the hilt of a proffered sword, thrust naked and point-down into the earth in the knight’s fashion.

His eyes remained closed. He was un-helmed, exposing a lean, noble face lost in prayer. His hair was close-cropped and mottled with the marks of the battlefield – mud, blood, lines of old sweat.

The altar was small, and had been carried with his baggage ever since his first days as a squire. It was made of rosewood, with a carved representation of twin griffons facing one another across the battered top face. It was a cheap thing, in truth. He could have had it replaced with a gold-plated one by now, or employed priests to pray on his behalf, but he had prayed before that same altar for thirty-two years, and was not about to change now. Not today, of all days.

‘My lord Heldenhammer,’ he whispered, his breath steaming in the dawn’s chill. ‘As I have ever been faithful, remember Your servant this day. I fear no death, no pain, no trial, if it be in Your service. I admit only one fear: to prove unworthy of the sword I bear, the armour I wear, the men I command.’

From outside the tent, the noises of a preparing army could be heard – horses being led to their riders, artillery pieces being hauled across the furrowed earth on iron-rimmed wheels. He could hear the muffled roaring of battle-priests, rivalled only by the parade-ground shouts of sergeants and captains.

He had heard such sounds all his life. Ever since childhood, the instruments of war had been around him. In that, if in no other way, this day was little different.

‘When I slay, let it be in Your name. When I face the darkness, let it be in Your name. And when the hour comes, and when my service ends, let it be that I reflected honour to You in the time that I was given.’

Rain started up again, drumming on the already sodden canvas. The downpour would make the earth well with water, hampering the charge of the warhorses.

‘Let it be,’ he prayed, near-silently, ‘that no man has cause to doubt my devotion, and that they will say nothing more of me, after I am gone, but that I fulfilled my vows.’

He opened his eyes, and stood stiffly. He took up his sword and sheathed the blade, then made the sign of the comet across his breastplate and bowed a final time. As he did so, the wind whipped around the tent-walls, brushing ice-cold rain under the skirts.

He reached for his helm, held it loosely in his left hand, and turned to the entrance flaps.

Outside, they were waiting for him.

Schwarzhelm glowered massively in the drizzle, his heavy broadsword already unsheathed, his great beard dank and draggled. Huss stood in his shadow, scarce less brutal in mien, moisture running in trickles down his bald pate. The boy Valten was beside him, grasping Ghal Maraz one-handed as if it weighed less than a stick of straw. Helborg stood apart, magnificent in his war-plate, steel-clad, hard and hawk-like.

Behind them were the generals, the warriors, the foot soldiers, the knights, the halberdiers, in white and red and yellow and chequered black and carrying the serried weapons of the Empire in readiness.

As one, they raised those blades.

‘Karl Franz!’ they roared.

At that, the Elector Count of Reikland, the Prince of Altdorf, the Bearer of the Silver Seal and the holder of the Drachenzahn runefang, Emperor of all Sigmar’s holy inheritance between the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Great Sea, nodded in acknowledgement.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Let us begin.’

Heffengen, like all towns in the upper Ostermark, was fortified. Thick stone walls enclosed its tight streets of wattle-and-daub dwellings, overlooked by steep tiled roofs. Those walls, though, had been left to rot by a neglectful burgomeister, whose body now swung from a high gibbet over the gates.

Perhaps the burgomeister had done the best he could. Perhaps the plague or the heavy draft of fighting men had made his job impossible. It hardly mattered now – an example had to be set.

With the walls in their state of disrepair, Karl Franz had decided that a defence of the town itself was impossible. In any case, the army he had mustered would have struggled to fit inside, and so the coming battle would be fought on the plains, out in the open, under the rain and the watchful eyes of whatever gods deigned to observe.

Squalls continued to drive hard from the north-west, bearing more moisture with them. The land stretched away to a steel-grey horizon, glistening with standing water atop soft black earth. A few blasted trees hunched over here and there, dark against the water-heavy sky.

Karl Franz had drawn his forces up on the wastelands a mile north of Heffengen’s limits. The battlefield was bounded on the east by the deep cleft of the Revesnecht river as it snaked north towards the greater flood of the Talabec. Over to the west, open ground slowly gave way to the straggling fronds of marginal forest.

The enemy would come at them from the north, just as they always did. They would sweep over the moors, fresh from their slaughter at the Auric Bastion, tearing up sodden ground under brazen hooves. The hounds would come first, loping with jaws agape; then the cavalry on their red-eyed mounts; then, striding on cloven hooves, the armoured behemoths with spiked helms and skulls hanging from blood-glossed armour.

Their formations would be ragged, powered onward by lust for slaughter. The one defence, the only advantage possessed by mortal men, was discipline. Just as had been the case for a hundred lifetimes, raw mania would be met by ordered lines of Imperial steel.

General Talb had petitioned hard for the honour of guarding the eastern flank. His ranks of Ostermarkers stood in place, arranged into squares of halberdiers and pikemen. They were supported by units of gunners and swordsmen, including a contingent of mercenary ogres who towered over the warriors around them. Huss had taken his fanatics with him to bolster Talb’s lines, though the warrior priest’s presence alone was worth more than all the zealots he brought with him. Valten, as ever, accompanied his mentor.

Karl Franz had watched them go. It remained uncomfortable to see the holy warhammer borne by hands other than his own. Gelt had counselled against it from the start, but the decision had not been his to make.

What brought you down? thought Karl Franz, ruminating on Gelt’s disgrace and departure. Pride? Weakness of will? Or just, like so many before you, despair?

So much had changed, and in so short a time. The mighty defensive bastion Balthasar Gelt had raised across the Empire’s northern borders had been breached at last, freeing the hordes of the Wastes to pour into Ostermark like blood fountaining from a wound. The strain of maintaining it had turned the Gold Wizard’s mind in the end, damning him to association with fallen souls he would not have so much as spat on while sane.

Gelt had not deserved his sudden fall from grace, not after the service he had rendered, but then so many did not deserve the fates that had befallen them, and there was no leisure to mourn them all.

You could have fought here with us. Your spells might have turned them back.

‘You will not ride out,’ grunted Schwarzhelm.

Karl Franz smiled. His bodyguard had been fighting solidly for weeks, first on the Bastion, now as part of the long retreat south from the breach at Alderfen. He was caked with grime, much of it flecked amongst the curls of his immense beard.

‘The choice is mine, Ludwig,’ he reminded him.

‘Ludwig is right, my lord,’ said Helborg. ‘They wish to draw you out. We may fall in battle, you may not. You are the Empire.’

You are the Empire. Those words always gave Karl Franz a cold twinge of unease, though he had heard them many times before.

It was a comfort, though, to hear his two lieutenants in agreement. Such had not always been the case.

‘The judgement will be mine,’ Karl Franz said, firmly. ‘As ever, Sigmar will guide.’

The three of them stood at the very centre of the Empire battle lines, set some way back from the front ranks. Ahead of them was arrayed the main force of Reiklanders, decked in white and red. Three whole regiments of the Palace guard had been assembled, flanked by greater numbers of regular troops. Like the Ostermarkers to the east, the halberdier squares formed the backbone, supported by ranged weaponry – bowmen, handgunners, light artillery pieces. The elite of the entire army, the Reiksguard cavalry, had formed up to the left, waiting for their lord Helborg to join them. Proud banners bearing the Imperial griffon and black cross of the knightly order hung limp in the drizzle.

It looked solid. Rows and rows of steel glinted dully in the grey light, close-serried and well-drilled. Sharpened stakes protruded from the earth in steed-killing lines, dripping dankly in the morning mist.

‘And Mecke?’ asked Schwarzhelm.

The west flank was held by Lord General Mecke of Talabheim, whom Karl Franz thought was an ambitious bastard with an unseemly enthusiasm for the coming slaughter. Still, his men were as disciplined as any of the others, and he had numbers. The red and forest-green livery of his infantry squares was just visible to the west, part-shielded by fringes of foliage. The greater part of the artillery pieces were there too, lodged on higher ground and with a commanding vantage over the open field.

‘He knows his business,’ said Karl Franz. ‘Nothing more to be done, now.’

Helborg wiped a sluice of rainwater from the visor of his hawk-winged helm. Karl Franz could see he was anxious to be gone, to saddle up and join his men. That man was only truly happy on the charge, his runefang in his fist and the thunder and crash of arms around him. He would have made a poor statesman, so it was fortunate he had never been charged with that role. Killing suited him better than bartering.

‘I can smell them already,’ said the Reiksmarshal.

Karl Franz turned his gaze north. Beyond the furthest ranks of the central defence, the land ran away, bleak and empty. Eddies of rain whipped across the mud.

‘You should go, Kurt,’ said Karl Franz.

Helborg pushed his cloak back, drew his sword and saluted. ‘This day will see the line restored.’

Always confident, always brash.

Karl Franz acknowledged the salute. ‘Should we lose the field–’

‘We cannot lose,’ muttered Schwarzhelm.

‘Should we lose the field, they will press for Altdorf. We discussed what is to be done then.’

‘Middenheim is closer, and stronger,’ said Helborg, repeating what he had argued in the war council two days ago. ‘I still think–’

‘I have spoken,’ said Karl Franz, holding the Reiksmarshal’s gaze calmly. ‘These are desperate times. I have no faith in electors, wizards have proven themselves unreliable, and I barely understand Huss’s motives.’ He smiled, clapping an armoured hand on Helborg’s shoulder. ‘We are the Empire. Men. Altdorf is the key. It always has been, and they know it too.’

Helborg looked, for a moment, like he might argue the point. Then he bowed. ‘It matters not – we will drive their bones into the earth. Here is where the tide turns.’

‘Well said,’ said Karl Franz. ‘Now go in faith.’

‘Always.’

Helborg strode off. As the Reiksmarshal walked down through the ranks, attendants hurried after him. Soon he would be mounted, blade in hand, poised at the forefront of the Reiksguard’s formation.

Schwarzhelm stayed put. His unsmiling eyes strayed over to the stockade behind them, where Deathclaw had been chained. The griffon’s scent penetrated through all the others – a wild, bitter aroma, suggestive of raw meat and frenzy.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Ludwig,’ said Karl Franz.

‘Listen to Kurt, if you will not listen to me,’ grumbled the old warrior.

Karl Franz laughed. ‘I don’t know what to worry about more – them, or the fact you’re both speaking with one voice. It’s almost as if Averland never happened.’

Schwarzhelm’s face did not so much as twitch from its mask of belligerent certainty. His trials in the south were almost forgotten now, washed away by the greater war of the north. Combat with an enemy he understood had restored him to his former self, it seemed.

He looked about to say something else, no doubt some plea for the Emperor to remember his place at the rear of the army, and not to go charging off into the fray like some avatar of Sigmar reborn. Such counsel was Schwarzhelm’s duty, of course, just as it was Karl Franz’s prerogative to make his own damned mind up.

In the event, Schwarzhelm said nothing. Any words he might have uttered were snatched from his lips by a clamour rising up out of the north. It started off low, like the growl of beasts at bay, then picked up in volume, carried by the skirling winds and wafted across the empty land.

Soon it was a howl, a mass of screaming and roaring. Drums underpinned it, making the standing waters shiver. The northern horizon darkened, as if storm clouds had boiled into existence in defiance of the law of nature.

Then Karl Franz saw the truth – the clouds were birds, thousands of them, flocking unnaturally. They blotted out the meagre sunlight in a fast-moving scab of ragged black, sweeping out of the mist and circling clear of arrow-range.

The howling continued, muffled by distance for the moment, but that would not last. All along the Empire lines, sergeants bellowed at their men to hold fast, to grip their halberds ready, to remember their vows, to take no damned backward step or their bones would be first to feel the crack of the maul.

Schwarzhelm’s grizzled face tightened. His burly hand crept automatically to the hilt of his great blade, the Rechtstahl, the famed Sword of Justice.

‘Here they come,’ he murmured.

Karl Franz heard Deathclaw’s agitated growling from behind the stockade. The war-griffon was eager to tear at the foe. The beast might not have to wait much longer.

‘Unto death,’ he breathed, feeling the weight of the runefang at his belt. ‘Never yield.’

The enemy charged under the shadow of crows.

The birds wheeled and dived across the Empire defences, cawing maddeningly. Detachment captains forbade the wasting of arrows against such fodder, and so the birds were left unmolested to crash and flap into the waiting soldiers. They clawed at faces and fingers, and soon the halberdiers were flailing at them, their exposed flesh running with lacerations.

Runners broke out of the mist next, hundreds of them, isolated and without formation. From atop his mount, Helborg watched them come. No Imperial gunner opened up at them yet, giving the runners an unimpeded charge at the Empire positions. They careered mindlessly, limbs cartwheeling, eyes staring. Some were naked and daubed with inks across their snow-pale flesh; others were riddled with disease, their eyes staring and red-rimmed. All were lost in battle-fury, triggered by the poisons they had been fed by their shamans.

Helborg curled his lip in disgust. The first of the baresarks hurled themselves into the outer lines of pikemen. He saw one skinny lunatic impale himself on the stakes designed for the cavalry, and writhe there in a kind of wild-eyed ecstasy. Others slammed into the waiting defenders, and the halberds rose and fell, slewing up tatters of plague-sick gore.

Helborg felt his steed twitch under him. The warhorse knew what was coming, and was eager for it. Cold wind, still laced with fine rain, hissed up against its barding, chilling the muscles beneath.

‘Easy,’ he murmured, keeping a light hold on the reins.

More runners emerged from the mists, screaming as they came. They charged down the centre of the battlefield, ignoring the flanks. Still the handgunners restrained themselves, letting the infantry squares deal with the threat as it emerged. The real enemy was still to show itself.

It did not take long. Norscans strode out of the grey haze, rain bouncing from thick, bronze-lipped armour. They carried heavy axes, or mauls, or gouges, or double-bladed swords with obscene daemon-headed hilts. Some had helical horns twisting from their helms, others tusks, or spikes, or strips of flayed skin.

As the mist flayed into tatters around them, the front rank of Chaos warriors broke into a lumbering charge. There was still no formation to speak of, just a broken wave of massive bodies, swollen and distended by disease and mutation. War horns, carved into crude likenesses of two-headed dragons and leering troll-faces, were raised amid the throng.

The Norscan infantry brought the rolling stink with them – like charnel-house residue, but thicker and more nauseating. It seethed across the battlefield, pungent and inescapable, making mortal soldiers gag and retch. Even before the first of them had entered blade-range, the Empire’s defensive formations began to suffer.

‘First rank, fire!’ came the cry, and the first squads of handgunners opened up. A second later, and the long rifles sent a curtain of shot scything out. A few Chaos warriors stumbled, borne down by those coming behind and trodden into the mud.

After frantic reloading, the gunners opened up again, then again, taking aim as soon as they could, and the air became acrid with the drifting stench of blackpowder. The great cannons opened up from Mecke’s western position, booming with thunderous reports and driving gouges into the emerging horde. They were more effective: dozens of warriors were dragged to a bloody ruin by the iron balls.

Even the thickest plate armour was no defence against such disciplined fire, launched in wave after wave. Norscans and baresarks alike were blasted apart, their armour-shards spiralling into the swooping flocks of crows. One huge champion, antler-horned and clad in overlapping iron plates the width of a man’s hand, took a cannonball direct in the throat, severing his head clear. He rocked for a moment, before the momentum of the charge dragged his body under.

It still was not enough. The howling screams became deafening as more warriors strode onto the battlefield. Soon the cacophony was so loud that it was impossible to hear the shouts of the captains. The earth reeled under the massed treads of iron-shod boots, and the northern horizon filled with the rain-shrouded shadow of thousands upon thousands of Chaos fighters.

By then the foremost of the Norscans had caught up with the baresarks, and they crashed into the static defenders. Most detachments initially held out as the battle-blinded enemy charged straight into thickets of angled halberds. Every impact, though, drove the defenders back a pace, until gaps began to form. Halberd-shafts snapped, arms were broken, legs slipped in the mire, and the squares buckled.

The blood would flow freely, now. The preliminaries were over, and the hard, desperate grind had begun.

‘Reiksguard!’ roared Helborg, raising his blade Klingerach, the fabled Solland runefang. Rain bounced from the naked blade. ‘On my word.’

Behind him, he heard the stamp and clatter of five hundred knights prepare for the charge. They drew their swords in a glitter of revealed steel, flashing against the darkening pall ahead.

Helborg looked out, tracing a path into the storm. A mass of Reikland halberdiers stood to his right, the artillery positions and Mecke’s contingent to his left. The knights would charge through the gap, emerging into the Chaos hordes just as the last of the cannon volleys rang out. After that, the fighting would be closer, grimier, harder – just as he liked it.

‘For Sigmar!’ he roared, brandishing his sacred blade in a wild circle before pointing the tip directly at the enemy. ‘For the Empire! For Karl Franz!’

Then he kicked his spurs in, and the mighty Reiksguard, driving on in a wedge of ivory and black, thundered into the heart of the storm.

Two

Karl Franz strode up the wooden steps of the stockade, his armour clanking, and Schwarzhelm followed him up.

The Emperor could hear the incessant chants of the warrior priests. Huss had taken the best of them with him to the front, and those left behind to lead the prayers to Sigmar were the old and the wounded. Their dirges, normally strident with martial vigour, sounded feeble set against the horrific wall of noise to the north.

The Emperor reached the stockade’s summit, where a fortified platform rose twenty feet above the battle-plain. Standards of the Empire, Talabheim, Ostermark and Reikland hung heavily in the drizzle, their colours drab and sodden. Guards in Ostermark livery saluted as he approached, then withdrew to allow his passage. The only other occupants of the viewing platform were a group of extravagantly bewhiskered master engineers, peering out through long bronze telescopes before issuing orders for the artillery teams via carrier pigeon.

Karl Franz walked over to the platform’s edge and stared out across the windswept vista. His entire field of view was filled with the vast, sluggish movements of men. Whole contingents were advancing into the grinder of combat, trudging through an increasingly ploughed-up mud-pit to get to the bitter edge of the front.

The bulk of the fighting was concentrated in the centre, where the Reikland detachments held firm. Some infantry squares had already buckled under the force of the first charge, but others had moved to support them, sealing any breaches in the defensive line. The Chaos horde beat furiously at a wall of halberdiers, causing carnage but unable to decisively break the formations open.

With the enemy charge restricted to the centre, both Empire flanks had cautiously edged forward. Mecke’s gunners continued to launch their barrages, winnowing the reinforcing Norscan infantry before they could reach contact. Karl Franz fancied he could even hear Huss’s wild oratory rising over the tumult, urging the fanatics under his command to hold fast. The eastern flank had come under a weaker assault than the centre thus far, but an undisciplined charge by the flagellants so early would undermine the integrity of the whole defensive line.

Karl Franz gripped the rough-hewn edges of the platform’s railing, waiting for what he knew was coming. Then he heard the harsh bray of war-trumpets, and saw Helborg’s Reiksguard charge out at last.

He caught his breath. As ever, the Imperial knights were magnificent – a surge of pure silver fire amid the bloody slurry of battle. The packed beat of the warhorses’ hooves rang out as they powered through the very heart of the battlefield.

Karl Franz leaned out over the edge of the platform railing, peering into the rain to follow their progress. He saw Helborg’s winged helm at the forefront, bright and proud, glittering amid a flurry of Reiksguard pennants. His knights hit the enemy at full-tilt, cracking them aside and driving a long wedge into the horde beyond. Lances shattered on their impaled victims. Any who evaded the iron-tipped wave were soon dragged under by the scything hooves of the warhorses.

‘Glorious,’ murmured Karl Franz.

Shouts of joy rang out from the Empire ranks. The Reiklander infantry squares pushed back, given impetus by the Reiksguard charge. Huss at last relaxed the leash, and his zealots entered the fray from the east, followed more implacably by Talb’s state troopers. Mecke’s gunnery continued to reap a swathe from the west, now angled further back to avoid hitting the advancing contingents of Empire infantry.

The enemy reeled, struck by the coordinated counter-attacks. From west to east, Empire defenders either held their ground or advanced. The foot soldiers marched steadily through the angled cavalry stakes, held together in tight-packed formations by the hoarse shouts of their captains.

‘Not too far,’ warned Karl Franz, watching the detachments begin to spread.

Schwarzhelm nodded, and passed on the order. Runners scampered out again, tearing from beneath the stockade and out towards the command positions. An army of this size was like a giant beast – it needed to be constantly reined-in, or it would run away with everything.

Schwarzhelm rested a heavy gauntlet on the wooden parapet. His watchful eyes roved across the scene, probing for weakness. Like Helborg, he would have preferred to be in the thick of it, though his duty as the Emperor’s bodyguard prevented him entering the fray – for the moment.

‘They’re holding,’ the huge bodyguard said, cautiously.

Even as the words left his mouth, the sky suddenly darkened. Lightning flickered across the northern horizon, and the jagged spears were green and sickly.

A sigh seemed to pass through the earth, as if giants rolled uneasily underneath. Men lost their feet, and the beleaguered Norscans found fresh heart. The Reiksguard charge continued unabated, crashing aside swathes of Chaos foot soldiers and crunching them down into the mire.

‘Call him back!’ cried Karl Franz, watching Helborg’s momentum carry him deeper into the gathering shadow.

The storm curdled further, dragging ink-black clouds across a tortured sky and piling them high. More lightning skipped and crackled across the horizon, now a violent emerald hue and boiling with unnatural energies.

Shrieks echoed across the invading army – not mortal shrieks this time, but the fractured, glassy voices of the Other Realm. Karl Franz felt his heart-rate increase. No matter how many times he faced the creatures of the Outer Dark, that raw sense of wrongness never dissipated. No other enemy had such power over men’s souls. To fight them was not just to fight physical terror, it was to face the innermost horrors of the mortal psyche.

Schwarzhelm tensed as well. ‘The damned,’ he growled, balling his immense fists.

It was like the very ground vomited them up. They boiled out of the earth, seething and hissing with foul vapours. Tiny malicious sprites swarmed from the mud, clutching and snickering at the legs of mortal men. Stomach-bloated horrors lurched into existence amid gouts of muddy steam, their jaws hanging open and their lone rheumy eyes weeping.

Such apparitions were the least of the denizens of the Other Realm, mere fragments of their gods’ diseased and febrile imaginations. Maggotkin, they were called, or plaguebearers, or Tallymen of Plagues. As they limped and slinked into battle they murmured unintelligibly, reciting every pox and canker their addled minds could recall.

Beyond them, though, the skies drew together, laced with febrile flame-lattices. A crack of thunder shot out, shaking the earth, and the crows scattered.

Somewhere, far out across the boiling hordes of enemy troops, something far larger had been birthed. Karl Franz could feel it as a cold ache in his bones. The rain itself steamed as it fell, as if infected by the torture of the heavens themselves.

Karl Franz called for his helm-bearer.

‘My liege–’ began Schwarzhelm.

‘Say nothing,’ snapped Karl Franz. A servant brought over the Imperial helm – a heavy gold-plated lion-mask with sun-rays radiating out from the rim. ‘What did you expect, Ludwig? I fought at Alderfen. I fought at the Bastion. I am Sigmar’s heir, and by His Immortal Will I shall fight here.’

Schwarzhelm glowered down at him. Despite the vast gulf in rank, the grizzled bodyguard was physically far bigger than his master. ‘That is what they wish for,’ he reminded him.

Karl Franz glanced back towards the stockade behind him. He could hear Deathclaw raking against his prison. The creature was desperate to take wing, and instinctive war-lust permeated through the driving squalls.

With difficulty, he turned away. The battlefield sprawled before him again, shrouded in churning clouds and punctuated by the screams of men and the clash of arms. The stink of blood rose above it all, coppery on the rain-drenched wind.

He swallowed down his fury, and remained where he was. Schwarzhelm, satisfied, took the war-helm again.

‘For now,’ murmured Karl Franz, watching the clouds swirl into grotesque tumours. ‘For now.’

The impact of the first lance strike nearly unseated Helborg, but he dug his heels into the stirrups and pushed back, driving the iron point through the heart of a barrel-chested Norscan champion. The force of his steed’s momentum carried the creature of Chaos high into the air before the lance broke and the broken halves of its body crashed to earth again. By then, Helborg’s warhorse had already carried him onward, treading down more disease-encrusted warriors under its churning hooves.

The charge of the Reiksguard was like a breaking tide, sweeping clean through the very centre of the raging tempest and clearing out the filth before it. Helborg’s knights rode close at his side, each one already splattered with bile-tinged gore. Their pennants snapped proudly, their naked swords plunged, the horses’ manes rippled. There was no standing up to such a concentrated spearhead of fast-moving, heavily armoured killing power, and the enemy infantry before them either fled or were smashed apart.

Consumed by the power and fury of the charge, Helborg felt the change in the air too late. He did not see the clouds of crows rip apart and fall to the earth, thudding heavily into the mud. As he drew his runefang and sliced it down into the neck of a fleeing warrior, he did not see the columns of marsh-gas spew from the earth itself, coalescing rapidly into the fevered outlines of witchery.

The Reiksguard drove onward, scattering their foes before them. The air stank with blackpowder and blood, flecked with flying mud and storm-rain. By the time Helborg smelled the rank putrescence simmering on the air, his knights were half a mile beyond the Imperial reserve lines and far beyond the advancing ranks of halberdiers. He pulled his steed around, and the vanguard of his cavalry drew up in his wake.

Ahead of them, half-masked by shuddering walls of miasma, the rain was spiralling away from something. Like a glittering curtain of twisting steel, the deluge bulged outwards, veering clear of a scab of shadow at its core. Dimly, Helborg could make out a vast profile beyond – a heaped, piled, bulging mountain of flesh and blubber, crowned with antlers and split near the summit by a thousand-toothed grin. Flabby arms emerged, pushing out from swelling muscle with wet pops, followed by a rust-pocked cleaver that left trails of mucus hanging behind it.

Helborg’s mount reared, its eyes rolling, and he had to yank hard on the reins to pull it back into line. The remaining Reiksguard fanned out, forming up into a loose semicircle about their master. On the edges of the formation, cowed enemy troops regrouped and started to creep back into range, emboldened by the gathering diabolical presence in their midst.

Helborg stared at the abomination, and an icy wave of hatred coursed through him. ‘Knights of the Empire!’ he roared, throwing back his cloak and holding his blade high. ‘Break this, and we break them all! To me! For Sigmar! For Karl Franz!’

Then he kicked his steed back into the charge, and his warriors surged forward with him. Ahead of them, the enormous swell of the greater daemon fully solidified, shuddering into the world of the senses with a snap of aethyr-energies releasing. The ground rippled like a wave, rocked by the arrival of such a glut of foetid, corpulent flesh-mass. Cracks zigzagged through the mud as it schlicked open, each one spilling with clumps of scrabbling roaches.

The Reiksguard charged into contact. As they tore along, the ranks of enemy foot soldiers closed on them, narrowing their room for manoeuvre. Some succeeded in waylaying knights on the flanks, and the force of the charge began to waver. The rapidly undulating landscape accounted for several more, causing the horses to crash to the earth and unseat their riders.

Helborg, though, remained undaunted, his eyes fixed resolutely on the hell-creature ahead. He careered through the screaming hordes, his companions struggling to stay on his shoulder, his blade already whirling.

‘For Sigmar!’ he bellowed.

Ahead of him, still masked by the after-birth tendrils of the aethyr-vortex, the scion of the Plaguefather gurgled a phlegm-choked laugh, and licked a long, black tongue along the killing edge of its cleaver. Its grotesque body shivered with cold laughter.

Beckoning the mortals forwards like some obscene grandfather, it raised a flabby arm to strike, and vomit-coloured aethyr-plasma flickered along the cleaver-blade.

Karl Franz paced to and fro across the platform, never taking his eyes from the unfolding struggle ahead of him. His stockade felt less like a privileged viewing tower and more like a prison, keeping him from where he needed to be. Schwarzhelm remained silently at his side, offering nothing but a grim bulwark for his growing anger to break against.

‘Order Mecke to angle the guns higher!’ Karl Franz bellowed, sending messengers scampering through the rain. ‘And get Talb’s reserves further up! They’re useless there!’

The situation was dissolving before his eyes. Pitched battles always degraded into messy, confused scrums after the first few hours – formations collapsed and orders were misheard – but the foul conditions north of Heffengen were turning the encounter into a formless crush. He could only watch as Huss’s flagellant zealots tore headlong at the enemy Skaelings, losing all shape as their fervour carried them far beyond Talb’s supporting infantry. Karl Franz was a powerless spectator as the Reiksguard’s spectacular success took them out of reach of the Reiklanders in their wake, and as the daemon-allied northerners finally brought carnage to Mecke’s west flank.

The air vibrated with febrile derangement. Clouds of flies had taken the place of the crows, blotting out the thin grey light of the sun and turning the air into a grimy dusk. Artillery strikes had blasted apart some of the more prominent tallymen, but ravening knots of daemon-kind still stalked among the living, bringing terror in their noxious wake. The Norscan bulk of the army had been reinforced by fresh waves of other tribesmen, and already the dull mantra of Crom, Crom could be heard over the choir of screams.

Huss still stood firm, as did his protégé Valten. While they still laid about them with their warhammers, hacking through whole companies of Chaos troops, the eastern flank still had a fulcrum about which to turn. For all that, the balance of the battle still hung by a fragile thread. The bulk of the mortals could not stand against daemons – even being in proximity to one was enough to threaten madness – and so the bulk of the state troopers teetered on the brink of collapse.

‘They need me,’ said Karl Franz, unable to watch the killing unfold.

Schwarzhelm, this time, said nothing. He gazed out across the battlefield, his head lifted, listening. He sniffed, drawing the air in deep. Then a shudder seemed to pass through his great frame. ‘They are here again, my liege,’ he rumbled, looking utterly disgusted.

For a moment, Karl Franz had no idea what he was talking about. He followed his Champion’s stare, screwing his eyes up against the drift of smoke and plague-spoor.

Over in the east, where Talb’s troops struggled heroically amid a slew of shifting mud, a chill wind was blowing. The ragged clouds summoned by the daemon-kin blasted back across the wide field, exposing a clear sky. All along the horizon, black figures crested a low rise. Tattered banners hung limp in the drizzle, dozens of them, standing proud above whole companies of infantry. The figures were moving – slowly, to be sure – but with a steady, inexorable progress.

Karl Franz turned to one of the engineers and snatched a telescope from his trembling hands. He clamped the bronze spyglass to one eye and adjusted the dials.

For a moment, all he saw was a blurred mass of winter-sparse foliage. Slowly, his vision clarified, resting on an outcrop beyond the curve of the Revesnecht. As he examined it, he understood why Schwarzhelm had been so appalled.

Again, he thought, bleakly. But why, and how? And for whom do they fight?

He moved the telescope’s view down the long line of unkempt figures, resting on none of them for long. He swept north, aiming for their leader. Eventually, he found him, and the spyglass halted.

Karl Franz clutched the bronze column tightly. The rumours had swirled since Alderfen, and he had not wanted to believe any of them. It had been so long ago. The chroniclers and scholars could have been wrong – it might be an impersonator, a shadow, a lesser demagogue assuming the mantle of an older and more sinister soul.

As he nudged the dials to bring the focus into line, Karl Franz felt a hollow sensation in his guts. There could be no mistake. He saw a long, arrow-straight mane of pure white hair, hanging from a still-noble head. Eyes of purest obsidian were set in a flesh-spare visage, drawn tight across sharp bones. He saw armour the colour of a flaming sunset, blackened with old fires and old blood; a long, ebony cloak lined with finest ermine; fangs jutting from a proud, cruel mouth; a longsword, sheathed in an ancient scabbard.

And, most of all, the ring. Even at such a distance, its garnet-stone glowed like an ember, leaking smoke from its setting.

Karl Franz put the telescope down. ‘Then it is true,’ he murmured, leaning against the balcony railing heavily. ‘Vlad von Carstein.’

Schwarzhelm’s face was black with fury. He looked torn between rival hatreds – of the Chaos hordes that hammered at them from the north, and the undead blasphemers that had crept into view in the east. ‘There were rumours at Alderfen,’ he rasped. ‘They say the dead fought with us.’

Karl Franz felt like laughing at that, though not from mirth. ‘What surety can we place on that?’ He gazed up at the heavens, as if some inspiration might come from there. In days long past, it was said that the comet would appear to men at the times of greatest darkness, such as it had done for Sigmar and for Magnus. Now, all he could see was the scudding of pestilential clouds.

He reached again for his war-helm, and this time Schwarzhelm made no move to stop him. The undead continued to gather along the ridge. With every passing moment, their numbers grew. Soon there would be thousands. Between them, the armies of Chaos and undeath outnumbered the mustered Imperial forces.

‘What do you command, my liege?’ asked Schwarzhelm.

‘Talb’s flank is close to collapse,’ said Karl Franz, placing the helm on his head and fastening the leather straps around his neck. ‘Take any reserves you can find, join Huss and pull him out of there. Salvage what you can, stage a fighting retreat.’

Schwarzhelm nodded. ‘And you?’

Karl Franz smiled dryly, and his hand rested on the hilt of his runefang. As if in recognition of what was about to happen, Deathclaw let fly with a harsh caw from its enclosure.

‘We are between abominations,’ he said, his voice firm. ‘This is my realm. Once again, we must teach them to fear it.’

Then he started moving, ignoring the supplications from his field-staff around him. As he went, his mind fixed on the trial ahead. The whole army would see him take to the air. All eyes would be on him, from the moment Deathclaw cast loose his chains and ascended into the heavens.

‘Hold the line for as long as you can,’ he ordered, descending from the viewing platform with long, purposeful strides. ‘Above all, the daemon is mine.’

Three

Helborg charged straight at the daemon, spurring his steed hard. The vast creature towered over him, a swollen slag-pile of heaving, suppurating muscle. It was now fully instantiated, and its olive-green hide glistened with dribbling excreta.

The stench was incredible – an overwhelming fug of foul, over-sweet putrescence that caught in the throat and made the eyes stream. Every movement the thing made was accompanied by a swirl of flies, sweeping around it like a cloak of smog. Under its hunched withers the earth itself boiled and shifted, poisoned by the sulphurous reek and ground down into a plague-infused soup. The daemon wallowed in its own filth, revelling in the slough it had created around it.

Helborg’s horse nearly stumbled as it galloped into range, betrayed by the shifting terrain, but its head held true. The daemon saw him approach and drew its cleaver back for a back-breaking swipe. Helborg drove his mount hard towards the target. The cleaver whistled across, spraying bile as it came. Helborg ducked as he veered out of its path, and felt the heavy blade sweep over his arched back; then he was up again, raised up in the saddle and with his sword poised.

Others of the Reiksguard had followed him on the charge, some still bearing their long lances. Two of them plunged the weapons deep into the daemon’s flanks, producing fountains of steaming mucus. The daemon let slip a gurgling roar, and swung its bulk around, tearing the knights from their saddles and flinging their bodies headlong across the battlefield.

Helborg’s warhorse shied as it tore past the wall of trembling hide, and Helborg plunged his sword into the daemon’s flesh while still on the gallop. It was like carving rotten pork – the skin and muscle parted easily, exposing milk-white fat and capillaries of black, boiling blood beneath.

The daemon’s cleaver lashed back towards him, propelled by obese and sagging arms, but Helborg was moving too fast. He guided his steed hard-by under the shadow of the other daemonic arm, slashing out with the runefang as he went. More gobbets of flesh slopped free, slapping to the earth in smoking gouts.

The Reiksguard were everywhere by then, riding their steeds under the very shadow of the daemon’s claws and hacking with their longswords. The creature throttled out another echoing roar of pain, and flailed around more violently. Its cleaver caught two Reiksguard in a single swipe, dragging them from the saddle. Its balled fist punched out, crushing the helm of another as he angled his lance for the cut.

The clouds of flies buzzed angrily, swarming around the beleaguered daemon and rearing up like snakes’ heads. They flew into visors and gorgets, clotting and clogging, forcing knights to pull away from the attack. Maggots as long as a man’s forearm wriggled out of the liquidised earth, and clamped needle-teeth to the horses’ fetlocks. Swarms of tiny daemon-kin with jaws as big as their pulpy bodies spun out from the greater creature’s armpits as it thrashed around, clamping their incisors onto anything they landed on and gnawing deep.

The Reiksguard fought on through the hail of horrors, casting aside the lesser creatures in order to strike at the greater abomination beyond, but the creature before them was no mere tallyman or plaguebearer – it was the greatest of its dread breed, and the swords of mortal men held little terror for it. Its vast cleaver whirled around metronomically, slicing through plate armour like age-rotten parchment. Helborg saw three more of his men carved apart in a single swipe, their priceless battle-plate smashed apart in seconds.

He kicked his steed back into contact, riding hard for the daemon’s whirling cleaver-arm. As he went, he pulled his runefang back for the strike, and the sacred blade shimmered in the preternatural gloaming.

The daemon saw him closing in, but too late. It tried to backhand him from his mount with the cleaver’s hilt, and Helborg swerved hard, leaning over in the saddle. As the eldritch blade whistled past again, Helborg thrust out with his own sword, ramming the point up and across. The runefang plunged in up to the grip, sliding into the putrid blubber as if into water.

The daemon roared out a gurgled cry of outrage, affronted by the audacity of the attack. Helborg grabbed the hilt of his sword two-handed, fighting to control the movements of his mount, and heaved. The rune-engraved steel sliced through sinews, severing the daemon’s arm at the elbow. A thick jet of inky blood slobbered across his helm visor, burning like acid, and he pulled harder.

With a sickening plop, the daemon’s entire forearm came loose, trailing long strings of muscle and skin behind it. Weighed down by the cleaver, the chopped limb thudded to the earth, sinking into the slurry of saliva and pus underfoot. The daemon bellowed, this time in real agony, stretching its wide mouth in a gargantuan howl that made the clouds shake.

The surviving Reiksguard pressed their attack. Noxious fluids slapped and flayed out from the stricken daemon, each lashing tendril studded with clots of biting flies. Helborg pulled his steed around for another pass, his heart kindling with raw battle-joy.

It could be hurt. It could be killed.

But then, just as he was about to kick his spurs back into his mount’s flanks, he heard it. War horns rang out across the battlefield, cutting through the surge and sway of massed combat.

Helborg had heard those horns before – their desiccated timbre came from the age-bleached trumpets of another era. No Empire herald used such instruments – they were borne by armies that had no right to still be marching in this age.

Helborg twisted in the saddle, trying to scry where the sounds came from. For a moment, all he saw were the grappling profiles of knights and plague-horrors, locked in close combat around the raging mass of the greater daemon. Swirling rain lashed across them all, masking the shape of the hordes beyond.

Then, as if cut through by the harsh notes of the war horns themselves, clouds of milk-white mist split apart, exposing for a moment the whole eastern swathe of the battlefield. Helborg caught a glimpse of huge crowds of mortals and aethyr-spawn, grappling and gouging at one another across the vast sweep on the eastern flank. And then, beyond that, on the far bank of the Revesnecht, he saw the cursed banners of Sylvania hoisted against the squalls, each one marked with the pale death’s head of that cursed land. At the head of the revenant host stood a lone lord clad in blood-red armour, his long white hair standing out as starkly as bone in a wound.

A shudder of disbelief ran through him. He knew who had worn that armour. He also knew how long ago that had been. It was impossible.

Vlad von Carstein.

The shock of it broke his concentration. As he gazed, spellbound, on the host of undead advancing into the fray, he forgot his mortal peril.

The daemon lumbered towards him, dragging its vast weight forward in a rippling wall of wobbling flesh. Its lone claw scythed down, trailing streamers of smoking poisons. Helborg’s horse reared up, panicked by the looming monster bearing down on it.

Helborg fought with the reins, trying to pull his steed away from danger, but the creature had been maddened and no longer heeded him. The daemon’s talons slammed into Helborg’s helm, ripping the steel from his head and sending it tumbling. Long claws bit deep into his flesh, burning like tongues of flame.

The impact was crushing. The horse buckled under him, screaming in terror, and he was thrown clear. Helborg hit the earth with a bone-jarring crash, and blood splashed across his face. He tried to rise, to drag himself back to his feet, but a wave of sickness and dizziness surged up within him.

He gripped his sword, trying to focus on the pure steel, but the dull ache of his wounds flared up along his flank. He saw the blurred shapes of his brother-knights riding fearlessly at the daemon, and knew that none of them could hope to end it.

He cried out in agony, trying to force his limbs to obey him. A wave of numbness overwhelmed him, racing like frost-spears through his bones. He heard the deathly echo of the war horns as if from underwater. The wound in his split cheek flared, and he smelled the poison in it.

Then his head thudded against the mud, and he knew no more.

Deathclaw soared high above the battlefield. The griffon’s huge wings beat powerfully, shredding the black-edged tatters of cloud around it. Its bunched-muscle shoulders worked hard, pulling the heavily built beast into the air.

Karl Franz leaned forward in the saddle, his blade already drawn. The griffon, once released from its shackles by fearful keepers, was a furnace of bestial power. Both of them had saved the life of the other more than once, and the bond that connected them was as strong as steel.

‘You have been kept collared for too long,’ Karl Franz murmured, running the fingers of his free gauntlet roughly through Deathclaw’s feathered nape. ‘Let your anger flow.’

The war-griffon responded, emitting a metallic caw that cut through the raging airs. Its pinions swept down, propelling it like a loosed bolt over the epicentre of the battlefield.

Karl Franz gazed out at the scenes of slaughter, trying to make sense of the battle’s balance amid the confused movements of regiments and warbands. The bulk of his forces were now locked close with the Chaos warriors, gripped by brutal hand-to-hand fighting. The western flank was still largely intact and Mecke had ordered his veteran Greatswords into the fray, where they grappled with ranks of plate-armoured warriors bearing twin-headed axes and skull-chained mauls. The centre remained contested. The bulk of the Reiklanders had no answer to the seething tides of daemonic horrors, though the Reiksguard knights still fought hard amid the raging centre of the field. Over to the east, the Ostermarkers were fighting a desperate rearguard action against utter destruction. Beyond them, the army of the undead was drawing closer to the battlefield, advancing in terrifyingly silent ranks.

Karl Franz’s task was clear. Mecke still held position. Schwarzhelm, Huss and Valten would have to salvage something from the wreckage of the eastern flank, whether or not von Carstein came as an ally or an enemy. The malign presence at the core of the Chaos army, though, was beyond any of them, and its baleful aura was spreading like a shroud across the whole army. From his vantage, Karl Franz could see its bloated bulk squatting amid the shattered Reiksguard vanguard, laying about with a gore-streaked fist. Such a monster was capable of ripping through whole contingents of mortal troops, and nothing else on the field was capable of standing against it.

There was no sign of Helborg. No doubt the Reiksmarshal had charged the creature, hoping to bring it down before its full strength was manifest. It was a typically reckless move, but the daemon still lived, despite the gouges in its nacreous flesh and an arm-stump spurting with ink-black blood.

‘That is the prey, great one,’ urged Karl Franz, pointing the tip of his runefang towards the daemon’s blubbery shoulders.

The griffon plunged instantly, locking its huge wings back and hurtling towards the horror below. Karl Franz gripped the reins tightly, feeling the ice-wet air scream past him. The landscape melted into a blur of movement, all save the bloated monstrosity below them, which reared into range like a vast weeping boil on the face of the earth.

Deathclaw screamed out its battle-rage, bringing huge foreclaws up. At the last moment, the daemon’s vast head lolled upward, catching sight of the two of them just as their fearsome momentum propelled them into it.

The griffon dragged its talons across the daemon’s face, slicing into its eyes. Its rear legs raked across the daemon’s slobbering chest, churning the foetid flesh into putrid ribbons. Karl Franz hacked out with his runefang, feeling heat radiate out from the ancient blade – the runes knew the stench of daemon-kind, and they blazed like stars.

Just as the daemon reached for them with its lone arm, Deathclaw pounced clear again, circling as expertly as a hawk. The daemon’s talons slashed at it, but the griffon ducked past the attack and surged in close again. Deathclaw’s beak tore at the daemon’s shoulder, ripping more skin from its savaged hide.

The daemon twisted, pulling its obese haunches clear of the slough below and reaching to pluck the griffon from the sky. Its claw shot out, and clutching fingers nearly closed on Deathclaw’s tail.

The griffon shot clear with a sudden burst of speed, and circled in for a renewed strike. As it did so, Karl Franz seized the hilt of his sword two-handed and held it point-down. He knew just what his steed was about to do, and shifted his weight in the saddle in preparation.

The daemon reached out for them again, and Deathclaw plummeted, evading the creature’s claws by a finger’s width before clamping its own talons into the daemon’s back. The griffon scored down the length of the daemon’s hunched spine, ripping through sinews and exposing bony growths.

Karl Franz, poised for the manoeuvre, waited until the nape of the daemon’s neck loomed before him. It was a foul, stinking hump, studded with glossy spikes and ringed with burst pustules. He aimed carefully.

The daemon twisted, trying to throw Deathclaw loose, but Karl Franz plunged the sword down. The tip bit clean between vertebrae, driving into the bone and muscle beneath. The magic blade exploded with wild light, spiralling out from the impact site and tearing through the drifting filth around it.

The daemon arched its blubbery neck, choking out cries of blood-wet agony. Karl Franz was nearly torn loose, caught between the sway of his prey and the bucking movements of Deathclaw.

He held firm, grinding the blade in deeper. Thick blood raced up the blade, crashing over his gauntlets and fizzing against the metal. Clouds of flies swarmed in close, trying to clog Karl Franz’s visor, but he held firm.

Deathclaw roared with bloodlust, steadying itself on the heaving spine of the daemon, and Karl Franz gained the leverage he needed. With a huge heave, he wrenched the sword across, severing the daemon’s neck.

With a coiled spring, Deathclaw leapt clear. The huge daemon reeled in a torment of snapping sinew. Weeping from a hundred lesser wounds, it thrashed and jerked, spewing vomit and bile. Rancid coils of greenish smoke spilled from its eyes as the dark magicks required to keep it on the physical plane unwound.

Deathclaw climbed higher. Karl Franz sensed its raucous joy, and shared in it.

‘The blood of Sigmar!’ he cried, gazing in triumph at the horror he had ended. Its death-throes were ruinous, carving up the earth and mingling it with gouts of acidic blood. The plaguebearers thronging around it held their elongated heads in their hands, and wailed.

Upon such moments did battles turn. Whole hosts could lose heart with the death of their leader, and the momentum of entire campaigns could falter with the removal of a talismanic figurehead. Deathclaw soared above the sea of fighting men, screaming its elation at the heavens.

Karl Franz scoured the ground below, searching for any sign of Helborg. He was about to order the griffon to circle about and swoop lower when a harsher cry echoed out across the battlefield. His head snapped up, and he saw a new terror sweeping in from the north. The Chaos ranks had been sundered by a vanguard of heavily armoured knights on brazen steeds, their pauldrons rimmed with gold and their helms underpinned with iron collars. They thundered towards the surviving Reiksguard, ploughing up the ground on spiked metal hooves. These newcomers rode with greater discipline and verve than most servants of the Fallen Gods, though their livery was as foul as any blood-worshipping fanatic from the frozen north.

Above them all came a truly vast flying creature that bounded through the air with an ungainly lurch. It was the size of a war-dragon, and its colossal wings splayed across the skies like motley sheaves of blades. Unlike a true dragon, no sleek hide of jewelled scales clad its flanks and no flames kindled against its twisting neck. Where tight flesh should have stretched, raw bone glinted from between a lattice of age-blackened sinews. Gaping holes punctured an open ribcage, exposing nothing but coiled shadow within. A heavy skull lolled at the end of a bleached spine, wreathed in wisps of inky smoke, and awkwardly flapping wings were held together by mere ribbons of atrophied muscle.

The monstrosity’s rider was scarcely less extravagant in grotesquerie – an ivory-white face, elongated to accommodate protruding fangs, jutting from heavy armour plates. Bat-wing motifs vied for prominence on the armour-curves with chain-bound skulls and stretched skins. The rider carried a straight-bladed sword as black as the maw of the underworld, and it rippled with blue-tinged fires.

Karl Franz smelled the foul aroma of death roiling before it, and arrested Deathclaw’s swoop. The griffon thrust upward violently, already eager to tear at a new enemy.

Karl Franz hesitated before giving the order. The daemon had been a daunting foe, but it had already been weakened by Helborg and the Reiksguard, and Deathclaw was lethal against such earth-shackled prey. The huge creature tearing towards them, carving through the sky with sickening speed, was far larger, and had the advantage of being battle-fresh.

Moreover, something about the rider gave Karl Franz pause. He looked into those dark eyes, still a long way off, and his heart misgave him. He looked down at his blade, drenched with the blood of the slain daemon, and saw the fire in the runes flicker out.

With a glimmer of presentiment, a terrible thought stole into his mind.

This foe is beyond me.

Karl Franz knew he could refuse combat. He could do as Schwarzhelm had advised, saving himself for another fight, one that he could win. He was the Emperor, not some expendable champion amid his countless thousands of servants. His captains would understand. They would come to see that the Empire came first, and that his preservation, above all, held the promise of survival into the future.

He imagined Altdorf then, its white towers rising proudly above the filth and clamour of its tight-locked streets. He saw the river creeping sluggishly past the docks, teeming with all the burgeoning trade and industry of his people.

That place was the fulcrum about which his Empire had always revolved. He had always assumed that if death were to come for him, it would take him there.

Deathclaw screamed at the approaching abomination, straining at the reins. Karl Franz looked out across the battlefield, at the desperate struggle of the faithful against the closing ranks of horror. With every passing moment, more of his subjects met a painful, fear-filled end, locked in terrified combat with a far greater enemy than they had any right to be taking on.

I will not leave them.

‘Onward, then,’ ordered Karl Franz, shaking the blood from his runefang and angling the tip towards the skeletal dragon, ‘and strike it from the skies.’

Four

Schwarzhelm strode out into the heart of the battle. As he went, he drew soldiers about him, and the solid knot of swordsmen advanced under the shadow of the racing clouds.

The last of the reserve detachments had been committed to the fighting. Whole infantry squares were being hurled into the maw of the oncoming storm, in the desperate hope that sheer weight of numbers could do something to stop the tide of plague-daemons.

Schwarzhelm advanced immediately towards Talb’s eastern flank, roaring out orders to the semi-broken warbands he encountered as the fighting grew fiercer.

‘Form up!’ he roared, brandishing his longsword and raging at the Empire troops around him. ‘You are men! Born of Sigmar’s holy blood! Fight like men! Remember courage!’

His words had an instant effect. Schwarzhelm’s voice was known to every last halberdier and pikeman in the army, and though he was not loved as Helborg’s flamboyance made him loved, no living fighter was more respected. Schwarzhelm was a vast bear of a man, clad in plate armour and bearing the fabled Sword of Justice before him, and the mere rumour of his presence on the field kindled hope in men’s hearts again.

With his trusted swordsmen beside him, Schwarzhelm cut a channel towards Talb’s last known position. The enemy came at them in waves – Skaelings, for the most part, an unruly rabble of fur-clad barbarians carrying the first signs of the sickness and staring wild-eyed from their shaman’s ravings. Under Schwarzhelm’s direction, the Empire halberdiers managed to restore something like proper defensive lines, and pushed back the hammering cycle of attacks. Ground was regained, and the momentum of the onslaught lessened.

The respite did not last long. Up through the ranks of the enemy came sterner opponents – Kurgan warriors in dark armour and chainmail, bearing axes and long-handled mauls, followed by the scrabbling flotsam of gibbering daemon-kin. Behind them lumbered the obscene bloat of the plaguebearers as they limped and stumbled into battle. Their rancid stench came before them, a weapon in itself, making men retch uncontrollably even before reaching blade-range.

Schwarzhelm laid eyes on the closest of the daemonic plaguebearers, and marked it out with a furious sweep of his blade. ‘To me, men of the Empire!’ he thundered, breaking into a heavy jog towards the scabrous horror. ‘They can be killed! Believe! Believe in the holy Empire of Sigmar, and fight!’

The Empire troops surged after him, smashing into the incoming Kurgans in a flesh-tearing, armour-denting, blade-snapping flurry of limbs and fists. Eyes were gouged, sinews torn, throats cut and throttled, ankles broken. A whole band of halberdiers was ripped apart by a single Kurgan champion; a massive Chaos warlord was dragged down by a dozen sword-wielding state troops, hacking away at their huge opponent like wolves on a bear.

Schwarzhelm drove them onward, kicking aside the scuttling daemon-kin that raced along the earth to sink fangs into his boots. A Kurgan chieftain squared up to him, hefting a twin-bladed axe in iron-spiked gauntlets. Barely breaking stride, Schwarzhelm slashed his sword crosswise, cutting him across the midriff. Before the Kurgan could bring his axe to bear, Schwarzhelm jabbed the sword back, ripping through addled flesh, then crunching his leading shoulder guard into the reeling Kurgan’s face. The warlord staggered, and Schwarzhelm punched him hard with his gauntleted fist, breaking his neck and sending his body crunching to the earth.

The men around him bellowed with renewed bloodlust, and surged after him. All around him, emerald lightning continued to spear down from the heavens. The ground underfoot seethed with a vile mixture of blood and rainwater, pooling in boot prints and gurgling in rivulets.

‘Onward!’ roared Schwarzhelm, eviscerating another barbarian with a lone thrust of his blade, clearing the last obstacle before the plaguebearer.

The daemon’s weeping body pushed past the armoured warlords around it, stalking eerily on painfully elongated limbs. Its whole torso ran with rivers of pus, dripping onto the mud at its cloven feet in boiling clumps. Its olive-green skin had burst open, exposing loops of entrails. It had no eyes, ears or other features, just a face-encompassing jaw rammed with incisors. As it sensed Schwarzhelm, it let out a phlegmy cry of challenge, and swung a long staff topped with rust-pocked spikes. Every time the spikes were jangled, foul vapours billowed out, creeping across the ground like morning mist.

Schwarzhelm charged straight at it, holding his breath as he closed in, whirling his sword around in a blistering arc. The plaguebearer swung its staff to intercept, and the two weapons clanked together with a deadening thunk. Schwarzhelm lashed out again, feeling vile gases creep up his armour. The daemon lurched towards him, snapping its distended jaws, and Schwarzhelm ducked to one side as the saliva slapped against his helm.

He shoved out with one fist, catching the daemon in the torso. His hand passed clean into disease-softened tissue, disappearing up to the wrist. He tried to shake it free, but the daemon caught him by the throat with its free claw, and squeezed. Schwarzhelm hacked back with his blade, carving deep into the plaguebearer’s raddled body, but the wounds just resulted in more suffocating waves of corpse-gas pouring forth.

Schwarzhelm began to gag, and lashed out furiously, aiming to sever the creature’s stringy neck. He missed his aim, hampered by the plaguebearer’s cloying embrace, but something else impacted, and the daemon’s skull was ripped from its shoulders in a welter of mucus and brown blood-flecks.

The headless body loomed over Schwarzhelm for a moment, held upright by its staff. Then it toppled over, bursting open as it hit the ground. A swell of brackish fluid swilled over his boots.

Schwarzhelm staggered away, momentarily blinded by the spray of thick pus. He wiped his visor and saw the robed form of Luthor Huss standing over the daemon’s prone corpse. The warrior priest’s warhammer was slick with bodily fluids, and his bald pate was covered in a criss-cross of bloody weals.

Schwarzhelm bowed clumsily. ‘My thanks, lord priest,’ he muttered gruffly.

Huss nodded curtly. ‘And there are more waiting.’

The fighting raged around them unabated. Empire troops grappled with Kurgan, Skaelings and worse. The air no longer stank of blackpowder, for the artillery had long ceased firing. In its place came the rolling stench of long-rotten bodies.

Schwarzhelm’s entourage pressed on, sweeping around him and clearing a little space amid the close-packed battlefield. He shook the worst of the bile from his sword, feeling the dull ache of weariness stir in his bones.

‘The Emperor sent you?’ asked Huss, already searching out the next fight. From nearby, Schwarzhelm could hear the clear-voice war cries of Valten, the mysterious boy-champion who was wielding Ghal Maraz with a youthful vigour.

‘This flank cannot hold,’ rasped Schwarzhelm. ‘We must fall back.’

‘Impossible,’ scowled Huss.

‘We are outnumbered.’

‘By faith we shall pre–’

‘Vlad von Carstein is here.’

That stopped Huss dead. He turned his baleful gaze onto Schwarzhelm. ‘That cannot be.’

Schwarzhelm snorted impatiently. ‘Use your eyes. The dead march against the damned, and the living are caught between them. I have my orders – we must fight our way to the Reiksmarshal, rally what we can, then hold the centre until we can fall back in good order.’

Huss looked agonised. Retreat was anathema to him – only surging onward against the foe was sanctified by his austere creed, and he would fight on until the end of the world, unwearied, his warhammer dripping with the gore of the fallen.

But even he was not blind to what was happening. As Schwarzhelm spoke the words, realisation dawned across Huss’s face. The stench was not that of disease, but of death.

‘Where is Helborg?’ the priest asked.

Schwarzhelm was about to answer, when a fresh roar of challenge rang out. The voices were different again – not the bestial screams of the Norscans, nor the chill war horns of the Sylvanians, but a bizarre amalgam of aristocratic human and blood-crazed baresark. Both warriors lifted their eyes to the north.

Fresh troops were piling into the fray, their armour arterial red and their steeds towering behemoths of iron and bronze. They were still a long way off, but they were driving all before them. Above the vanguard soared a hideous creature of the darkest myth – a dragon, emaciated and splayed with bone and talon, cawing like a carrion crow and ridden by a lone red-armoured knight. It flapped through the heavens, its vast body held aloft by ancient magic.

In the face of that, even Huss’s mighty shoulders sagged a little. Then, with a defiant curl of his mouth, he hefted his warhammer again. ‘You will stand beside me, Emperor’s Champion?’

‘Until the ends of the earth, priest,’ snarled Schwarzhelm, brandishing the Rechtstahl.

Huss cracked a thin smile then. ‘We will smash some more skulls before they drag us down.’

Schwarzhelm nodded grimly. Already the hordes around them were pushing back again, slaughtering as they came.

‘That we will,’ he growled, striding back into the fight.

Deathclaw surged towards the dragon. The undead creature saw it coming, and reared up in the air, its scythe-like claws extended. Skeletal jaws gaped wide, and a noxious gout of corpse-gas burst from its gaping innards.

Karl Franz brandished his sword. The blade was still inert, bereft of the fire that usually kindled along its runic length, and even amid the rush on oncoming combat, that troubled him. Perhaps the daemon’s blood had quashed its ancient soul.

The dragon rider hailed him then, his voice ringing out through the rain like a raptor’s shriek.

‘You are overmatched, warmblood!’ he cried. ‘Flee now, while your bird still has feathers!’

Deathclaw screamed in fury, and hurtled straight into close range. Its wings a blur, the griffon swept under the hanging streamers of yellowish gas and plunged straight at the dragon’s exposed torso.

The two creatures slammed together, both sets of claws raking furiously. The griffon’s fury was the greater, and whole sheets of age-withered flesh were ripped from the dragon’s flank. The abomination lashed back, tearing a bloody line down Deathclaw’s back, nearly dragging Karl Franz clear from the saddle. As the bone-claws scraped past him, Karl Franz cut down sharply with his blade, taking two talons off at the knuckle.

Then the two creatures, powered by momentum, broke apart again, each angling back for a return pass.

‘Do you see what is happening here, warmblood?’ came the dragon rider’s mocking voice. ‘Your world is ending. It is ending before your eyes, and still you fail to grasp it.’

Karl Franz had caught a glimpse of his enemy as their steeds had grappled, and what he had seen had been unsettling. The rider wore heavy plate armour of rich blood-red, gilded with fine detailing and bearing the ancient seal of the lost Blood Keep. His jawline was swollen with fangs, and his voice bore the archaic, prideful accent of Empire nobility. Everything about him, from his cursed mount to his imperious bearing, indicated that he was an undead lord, a powerful vampire of the knightly bloodline.

Yet Karl Franz had never faced a vampire like this one. He had never seen tattoos carved into a face like that, nor heavy bronze collars adorning such armour. The rider wore a crude eight-pointed star on his breast, as black as ichor, and his sword-edge flamed as if alive with violent energies.

Can the dead fall to corruption? he wondered as Deathclaw banked hard and sped towards the dragon again. Can even they succumb?

The two beasts crashed into one another, writhing and lashing out in a twisting frenzy of mutual loathing. Deathclaw clamped its hooked beak into the dragon’s neck and tore through weak-shackled vertebrae. The dragon pushed back with a blast of poison-gas before plunging down at the griffon’s powerful shoulders, whipping a barbed tail to try to flay it from the skies.

Deathclaw shook off the dragon’s foul breath and thrust back up, all four claws extended. The two riders were propelled close to one another, and for the first time Karl Franz was near enough to strike at his adversary with Drachenzahn.

The vampire was fast, as blisteringly fast as all his damned kin, and the two blades clanged together in a glitter of sparks. Despite his heavy armour, the undead lord switched his blade round in a smear of fire and steel, thrusting it point-forward at Karl Franz. The Emperor evaded the strike, but only barely, and the killing edge scraped across his left pauldron.

Deathclaw and the dragon were still locked in a snarling duel of their own, keeping their riders close enough to maintain a flurry of sword-blows. The blades collided again, then again, ringing and shivering from the impacts.

The vampire lord was a consummate swordsman, capable of the refined viciousness of his breed and animated by the unnatural strength that was the inheritance of that fallen bloodline. In addition to that, the marks of ruin emblazoned on his armour made the air shake – they were bleeding corruption, as if leaking dark magic from the Other Realm itself.

‘For Sigmar!’ Karl Franz roared, standing in the saddle and bracing against Deathclaw’s bucking flight. He rammed his blade down two-handed, aiming to crack the vampire from his mount.

The undead lord parried, but the strength of the strike nearly dislodged him. Karl Franz followed up, hacking furiously with a welter of vicious down-strikes. The vampire struggled to fend them all off, and his armour was cut from shoulder to breastplate. The contemptuous smile flickered on his tattooed face, and for a moment he lost his composure.

But his steed was nearly twice the heft of Deathclaw, and even in its deathly state was a far more dangerous foe. The dragon’s claws cut deep into the griffon’s flesh, tearing muscle and ripping plumage from its copper-coloured back. Karl Franz could feel the fire ebbing in his steed, and knew the end drew near. If he could not kill the rider, the dragon would finish both of them.

‘Why?’ Karl Franz hissed as the swords flew. ‘Why do you fight for these gods?’

The vampire pressed his attack more savagely, as if the question struck deep at whatever conscience he still possessed. ‘Why not, mortal?’ he laughed, though the sound was strained. ‘Why not take gifts when offered?’ His fanged mouth split wide in a grin, and Karl Franz saw the iron studs hammered into his flesh. ‘They give generously. How else could I do this?’

The vampire’s armour suddenly blazed with a gold aura, and the flames on his sword roared in an inferno. Karl Franz recoiled, and the dragon rider pounced after him. Their blades rebounded from one another, ringing out as the steel clashed. A lesser sword than the runefang would have shattered; even so, it was all Karl Franz could do to remain in position. Fragments of his priceless armour cracked free, and he saw gold shards tumbling down to the battlefield far below.

He pressed the attack again, resisting the overwhelming barrage of blows with blade-strikes of his own, when the dragon finally broke Deathclaw’s guard and plunged a man-sized talon of bone into the griffon’s chest.

Deathclaw screamed, and bucked wildly in the air. Karl Franz was thrown to one side, nearly hurled free of the saddle, and for a fraction of a second his sword-arm was flung out wide, exposing his chest.

The vampire needed no more than that – with a flicker of steel, he thrust his blade into the gap, unerringly hitting the weak point between breastplate-rim and pauldron.

The pain was horrific. Flames coursed down the length of the fell blade, crashing against Karl Franz’s broken armour like a breaking wave. His entire world disappeared into a bloody haze of agony, and he felt his back spasm.

He heard roaring, as if from a far distance, and felt the world tumbling around him. Too late, he realised that Deathclaw had been deeply stricken, and was plummeting fast.

Karl Franz looked up, fighting through the pain and fire, to see the rapidly diminishing outline of the vampire gazing down at him.

‘You could have had such gifts!’ the dragon rider shouted after him, his voice twisted and shrill. ‘You chose the path of cowardice, not I!’

Karl Franz barely heard the words. Deathclaw was trying to gain lift, but the griffon’s wings were a ravaged mess of blood-soaked feathers, and the creature’s great chest rattled as it strained for breath.

He fought to remain conscious, even as a hot river of blood ran over his own armour. As the two of them whirled and spun earthwards, Karl Franz caught a blurred view of the entire battlefield. He saw the limitless tides of the North hacking their way through what remained of his forces. He saw the deathly advance of the Sylvanians from the east, covering the Revesnecht valley in a veil of darkness. The rain hammered down, shrouding it all in a bleak curtain of silver-grey, drowning the Imperial colours in a sea of plague-infested mud.

He reached out, as if he could grasp it all in his fist and somehow reverse the tide of war.

I have failed, he thought, and the realisation was like poison in his stomach. There will be no return from this. I have failed.

Even as the earth raced up towards him, his pain-filled mind recoiled at the very idea. He felt the great presences of the past gazing down at him, lamenting his great negligence. He saw the stern faces of Magnus the Pious, of Mandred, of Sigmar himself, each one filled with accusation.

I was the custodian, he thought, his mind filled with anguish. The duty passed to me.

The foul wind whistled past him. Deathclaw was struggling to fly on, to evade the heart of the Chaos horde, but his pinions were broken, and with his last, blurred sight Karl Franz saw that they would not make it.

Karl Franz did not feel himself slip from the saddle, dragged clear by his heavy armour. He never saw Deathclaw try to retrieve him, before the griffon finally collapsed to the earth in a tangle of snapped bones and crushed plumage. He never even felt the hard thud of impact, his face rammed deep into the thick mud even as his helm toppled from his bloodied head.

His last thought, echoing in his mind like an endless mockery, was the one that had tortured him from the first, as soon as the vampire’s corrupted blade had pierced his armour and rendered the outcome of the duel inevitable.

I have failed.

From the beleaguered western flank to the shattered east, every Empire soldier saw the Emperor fall. A vast ripple of dismay shuddered through the ranks. They all saw the skeletal dragon tear Deathclaw from the skies, casting the war-griffon down amid a cloud of gore-stained feathers. They all saw the creature valiantly try to drag itself clear of the battlefield, fighting against its horrific wounds. For a moment, they dared to believe that it might reach the precarious safety of the stockade again, and that even if the Emperor was sorely wounded that he might still live. For a moment, all eyes turned skywards, hoping, praying fervently, demanding the salvation of their liege-lord.

When the griffon’s flight at last dipped to earth, still half a mile short of safety and surrounded by the raging hordes of the North, those hopes died. They all saw Karl Franz fall from the saddle, dragged down into the mire, far from any possible rescue. They saw the war-griffon follow him down, the proud beast dragged to earth as if weighed with chains.

A wild howl erupted from the Chaos armies. Even the undead, now fighting their way west through turbulent formations of Skaelings, paused in their assault. The remaining Empire formations buckled, folding in on themselves as if consumed from within. The weakest soldiers began to run, tripping over bodies half-buried in the mud. The stoutest detachments fought on, though their positions were now exposed by the cowardice of lesser men.

The undead dragon ran rampant, sweeping low over the Empire lines, scooping defenders up in its emaciated claws and hurling their broken bodies far across the plain. The other fallen vampires crashed into contact, borne by monstrous creations whose eyes smouldered with forge-fires and whose hooves were lined with beaten iron. Ranged against them were the last of Huss’s zealots, a horrifically diminished band, and what remained of Talb’s hollowed-out forces. The Reiksguard still fought on, guarding their fallen captain, but were separated from the rest of the Empire army by a swirling tempest of daemons and fanatical fighters. Even Mecke’s western flank now crumbled, its defenders panicking and turning on their tyrannical commander. The army of Heffengen finally subsided, sinking into the morass.

Schwarzhelm fought like a man possessed by the spirit of Sigmar, single-handedly accounting for scores of Kurgan scalps. Huss was scarcely less brutal, shouting out war-hymns as he laid into the enemy with his warhammer. For a time, those two warriors defied the encroaching tides, bolstered by the vital energy of Valten and Ghal Maraz. Amid a sea of seething corruption, the lights of faith endured for a little while.

But even that could not last. Schwarzhelm fought to within a hundred yards of where Helborg had been felled, but as the Empire formations around him melted away, he was forced to turn back at last. Gathering what remnants he could, he hacked his way south, veering east as he reached the curve of the Revesnecht. He, Huss and Valten were harried all the way, though the pursuit faded once the prize of Heffengen itself loomed on the southern horizon.

A few other scraps escaped the carnage – a kernel of the Reiksguard cut their way free, bearing the sacred Imperial standard and taking control of the army’s baggage trains before they could be looted. Many of the wagons were set aflame to prevent the enemy taking on fresh supplies, but a few were driven hastily south. The remnants were joined by the shattered Reiklander companies, plus any outriders from the Ostermarkers and Talabheimers who managed to escape the slaughter.

For those that could not escape, the end was swift and brutal. Champions of Chaos stalked across the war-scorched battlefield, breaking the necks of any who still lived. Spines were ripped out of the corpses and draped over the shoulders of the victorious. Daemonic grotesques capered and belched amid the charnel-debris, sucking the marrow from the bones and spewing it at one another. Though the greater daemon had been slain, its lesser spawn survived in droves, sustained by the crackling magicks animating the air.

The last to quit the field was the spectral Vlad von Carstein, whose presence at the conclusion of the battle remained as enigmatic as his arrival. His undead host had reaped a terrible toll on the Chaos army’s eastern extremity, but after the Empire contingents had scattered, they were exposed to the full force of the victors’ wrath. Whole regiments of skeletons and zombies were smashed apart by charging warbands of Kurgan, adding to the tangled heaps of bones already protruding from the blood-rich mud.

It did not take long for their dark commander to give the silent order to withdraw. The winds of death were driven east by the stinking fug of decay, and the black-clad host melted back beyond the riverbank just as mysteriously as they had arrived, their purpose still unclear.

Only one duel of significance remained. Few witnessed its outcome, for a strange vortex of shadow swept suddenly across the skies, its edges as ragged and writhing as a witch’s cloak-hem. The undead dragon tore into the heart of the vortex, its empty eye sockets burning with an eerie green light. Flashes of sudden colour flared from within, as if a whole clutch of battle wizards had been trapped in its dark heart.

At the end of whatever had taken place in that sphere of magicks, the dragon took flight again, lurching as awkwardly as ever over the bleak plain and following the undead army east. Its rider still wore crimson armour, though not the same as earlier, and he carried a severed, fanged head in one gauntlet.

With that, the legions of the dead quit the field, leaving the plaguebearers to scavenge and plunder what remained. A peal of corpulent thunder cracked across the vista, echoing with faint echoes of laughter. The tallymen trudged through the dead and dying, taking note of the contagions they came across on long rolls of mouldering parchment. Insects of every chitinous variety buzzed and skittered across the rows of corpses, seeking out juicy eyeballs and tongues to feast on.

Across the whole, drab vista, the rain continued to fall, as if the flood could bear away the filth that had infected Heffengen. No natural rain could wash such plagues clean, though, and the sodden earth reeked from it, steaming in the cold as a thousand new virulences incubated in every bloody puddle.

The Bastion was broken. The Empire had been routed across its northern borders, exposing the long flank of the Great Forest to attack. Not since the days of the Great War had the wounds been so deep, so complete. Even in those dark times, there had been an Emperor to rally the free races and contest the Dark Gods.

Now there was nothing, and the winds of magic were already racing. Not for nothing did men say, in what little time of sunlight and happiness remained to them, that the end of all things had truly begun. Not in Praag, nor in Marienburg, but in Heffengen – the dank and rain-swept battlefield where Karl Franz, greatest statesman of the Old World, had fallen at last.

Five

Helborg woke into a world of agony.

He reached up with a shaking hand, pressing cautiously against the seared flesh of his raked cheek, and even his old warrior’s face winced as the spikes of pain shot through him. He tried to rise, and a thousand other wounds flared up. After two failed attempts, he finally pushed himself up onto his elbows, and looked around him.

He was in a canvas tent, the walls streaked with mud and heavy with rainwater. He had been placed on a low bunk of rotten wooden spars, little better than wallowing on the sodden ground itself. From outside the tent he could hear the low, gruff voices of soldiers.

He reached for his sword, but it was gone. With a jaw-clenched grunt, he sat up fully on the bunk and swung his legs over the edge. His armour was gone, too – he was wearing his gambeson, covered in a mud-stained cloak.

He could not make out what the voices outside the tent were saying – it might have been Reikspiel, it might not. He searched around him for something to use as a weapon.

As he did so, memories of the final combat with the daemon flashed back into his mind. He remembered the stench of it, spilling from the wide, grinning mouth that had hung over him at the end.

I should be dead, he mused to himself. Why am I even breathing?

Then he remembered the clarion calls of the dead, and a shudder ran through his ravaged body. If they had taken him, then the outlook was even bleaker. The servants of the Fallen Gods might torture their prey before death, but at least death would come at last. If he were in the hands of the grave-cheaters then the agony would last forever.

The entrance flaps of the tent stirred, and Helborg searched for something to grasp. The tent was empty, and so he grabbed one of the rotten ends of a bunk-spar and wrenched it free. Brandishing it as a makeshift club, he prepared himself to fight again.

The canvas was pushed aside, and Preceptor Hienrich von Kleistervoll limped inside.

‘Awake then, my lord,’ he observed, bowing.

Helborg relaxed. As he did so, he felt a trickle of blood down his ribs. His wounds had opened. ‘Preceptor,’ he said, discarding the spar. ‘Where are we?’

Von Kleistervoll looked terrible. His beard was a matted tangle, and his face was purple from bruising. He was still in his armour, but the plate was dented and scored. The Reiksguard emblem still hung from his shoulders on what remained of his tunic, soiled by the wine-dark stains of old blood.

‘Ten miles south of Heffengen,’ von Kleistervoll said grimly. ‘Can you walk? If you can, I will show you.’

Helborg was not sure if he could reliably stand, but he brushed his preceptor’s proffered arm away brusquely and limped past him into the open.

The sky was as dark as river mud. A bone-chilling wind skirled out of the north, smelling of ploughed earth and rust. Helborg shivered involuntarily, and pushed up the collar of his gambeson tunic.

Ahead of him, over a bleak field of bare earth, men were moving. They limped and shuffled, many on crutches or carrying the weight of their companions. Some still had their weapons, many did not. All of them had the grey faces of the defeated, staggering away from the carnage with what little breath remained in their cold-torn bodies.

Helborg watched the long column trudge along. So different from the bright-coloured infantry squares that had marched up to Heffengen, their halberds raised in regimented lines. There could not have been more than a thousand in the column, perhaps fewer.

Von Kleistervoll drew alongside him. The preceptor’s breathing rattled as he drew it in.

‘This is all we retrieved from the Reiklander front,’ he said. ‘Some of Talb’s men, too. Mecke was driven west. No idea where he ended up.

‘Schwarzhelm?’

‘He was still fighting at the end. Huss too, and the boy-warrior. They dragged together what they could and headed east.’

Helborg hesitated. ‘And the Emperor?’

Von Kleistervoll’s stony visage, scabbed with black, did not flicker. ‘You did not see it?’

Helborg could not remember. His last hours of awareness were like a fever-dream, jumbled in his mind. He thought he recalled fighting alongside Ludwig, dragging their heavy blades through waves of enemy daemon-kin, but perhaps that was just his damaged imagination.

He dimly remembered a skeletal dragon breaking the clouds, a nightmare of splayed bone and tattered wings. He recalled a rider in crimson armour, surrounded by spears of aethyr-lightning. He saw the grin of the daemon again, bubbling with the froth of madness. All of the images overlapped one another, fusing into a tableau of fractured confusion.

‘Could he have survived?’ Helborg pressed.

‘The day was lost,’ said von Kleistervoll. ‘If we had stayed a moment longer... I do not know. We could not remain.’ The preceptor’s voice was strained. ‘You were wounded, Huss had been driven east...’

‘I understand,’ said Helborg. Von Kleistervoll was a seasoned fighter and knew his warcraft – if he had judged that retreat was the only option, no doubt he had been correct. ‘What are your plans?’

‘You gave the order, lord: Altdorf, with all haste. The enemy tightens its grip on the north, fighting with what remains of the living dead over the ruins. Heffengen is no place for mortal men now – we must save what remains.’

Helborg remembered his final words with Karl Franz.

Altdorf is the key. It always has been.

He pulled the ragged cloak around him. He would have to don armour again, to find a steed strong enough to bear him. The men needed a leader, someone who looked like a leader.

‘My sword?’ he asked.

Von Kleistervoll smiled, and gestured towards a line of heavy wagons struggling through the mud. ‘We have it, and your battle-plate. Now that you are restored to health, the runefang will lead the army once more.’

Now that you are restored to health. Helborg felt hollowed-out, his body shriven and his mind tortured. He was sweating even in the cold, and the hot itch of blood under his clothes grew worse. ‘I saw him, preceptor,’ he murmured, watching as the grim procession of wounded and bereft wound its way past. ‘A legend from the past, standing under the world’s sun. What times are these, when the princes of the dead walk among us?’

Von Kleistervoll looked at him doubtfully. He did not know to whom Helborg was referring. There was no surprise in that – so many horrors had assailed them over the past few months that it had become hard to choose between them.

‘Von Carstein,’ explained Helborg, spitting the words out. ‘The eldest of the line. It was he that broke us.’

‘They say the dead fought the northmen,’ replied von Kleistervoll, carefully.

Helborg laughed harshly. ‘Do they? Who are they? Who still live who witnessed this thing?’

The preceptor had no reply. The bitter wind moaned across the land, cutting through the scant protection of their cloaks. The whole world seemed drained of life and colour, sunk into a rotting mass of corpse-earth.

‘He came to feast on the remains,’ Helborg said. ‘I felt his fell magicks even at the heart of the fighting. These are our darkest enemies, preceptor – the corrupted and the undead. The day has come when they march in tandem.’

Von Kleistervoll looked unconvinced, but said nothing. Helborg’s voice was becoming firmer. The pain in his wounds still flared, but he would recover. He would grip the Klingerach again. Karl Franz had gone, but there were other powers in the Empire, and there had been other Emperors. A successor would be chosen, and new armies raised. The war was not over.

‘My order remains,’ Helborg told him. ‘We gather what we can, and we march on Altdorf. The other electors will gather now. In the face of this, they will put their rivalries aside. They will have to.’

As he spoke, a banner-bearer walked across the land before them, dragging a limp trailing leg through the mud. His face was a mask of effort – every last scrap of energy was devoted to keeping his rain-heavy standard aloft. The banner itself hung solidly, blackened from mould-spores but still bearing the griffon icon of the Empire on the fabric.

Helborg watched him go. Other marching men looked up at the rumpled griffon, and their glassy eyes fixed on it in recognition.

‘We must get that standard cleaned up,’ Helborg said. ‘Find other regimental flags, and find men to bear them. We will march with the sacred images held before us. We will not enter Reikland like thieves, but rightful owners.’ For the first time since awaking, he felt the urge to smile – to let slip with that wolfish grin he wore in combat. ‘We do not matter, Heinrich. That matters. When we are long gone in our graves, men will still carry those signs, and they will still fight beneath them. We are but their custodians. There are no End Times, there are only our times.’

The pain in his wounds was like a goad, giving him energy again. The road would be long, but the prize at its end was worth fighting for.

‘To Altdorf, then,’ he ordered, turning on his heel and walking towards the wagon where his armour had been stowed. ‘The eternal throne of Sigmar. If there is to be an end to us, we will meet it there.’

Only the living dreamed, he had discovered.

Death was a kind of dream all of itself, so there was no escape there. In truth, he remembered very little about being dead – just vague and horrifying impressions of an absolute, eternal nothingness that extended beyond imagination.

He had once heard it said, a long time ago, that the only thought a mortal was truly unable to entertain was that of his own oblivion. Now he was able to reflect on the deep truth of that. Perhaps it was still true even of him, even after all he had experienced beyond the gates of the living.

There were many levels of oblivion, after all. As far as the faithful of the Empire were concerned, he himself had been dead for a very long time indeed, but that supposition was based on a fearful level of ignorance. There was all the difference in the world between the cold, hard existence of the Curse and the utter, profound oblivion of bodily annihilation.

He was free to dream again, now. His mind had knitted together, and with it had come all the old images, all the old desires and lusts and fears.

Preeminent among them was, of course, her. She had come to him in his dreams, dressed in bridal white, her smooth neck exposed, her dark eyes glinting wetly in the light of candles. She still moved in just the way she had done in life. Isabella had never been capable of a clumsy gesture. The sight of her again, after so long, was just as intoxicating as it had ever been. He found himself extending a withered hand into the depths of his own visions, trying to pull her towards him.

Perhaps that was the only preferable aspect to oblivion – the torment of seeing her had been spared him.

Vlad rolled a near-empty goblet in his palm idly, watching the dregs pool in its base. The fingers that cradled the silver bowl were pearl-grey and as dry as dust. Since being restored to existence by Nagash, his body had not entwined together in quite the way he might have wished. Some aspects of his earlier presence had not carried over, others had changed in subtle ways.

He felt... scoured. Learning to use muscles again had taken a long time. First, there had been the numbness, which brought on its shameful concomitant clumsiness. Then the pain had come, the raw, burning pain of reincorporation. That had been welcome – it had proved his body was his own again. He had drawn breath, and felt the damp air of the Old World sink into his lungs, and known that it was no illusion, and that he was back again, alive, and with unfinished tasks in the world of the senses.

For a long time, he had wondered whether his heart might beat. He had lain awake during the long nights, expecting to feel the hot rush of blood around his veins, pulsing with the old immutable rhythm he could barely remember.

It never came. He had been restored to the state of semi-life, just as he had been in the last days with Isabella. He still felt the Thirst, and still commanded the same strain of dark magic, and still felt at home in the shadows and the dank hearts of decay. The souls of the living were still translucent to him, burning like torches in the dark, and he still salivated at the sight of a bared vein.

I am an instrument, he ruminated sourly, pondering the time that had passed since his restoration.

In his earlier incarnation, Vlad had been master of his own destiny. Armies had risen and marched at his command. Sylvania, the Empire itself, had trembled before his name.

Much of that old power still remained. The unquiet dead still rose at his bidding, but he knew, in his silent heart, that his will was now a mere proxy for a greater intelligence.

There was no resisting the Master. There never had been. Some souls were so great, so bloated with power, that they transcended the standard order of things, and even a pride-driven aristocrat like Vlad felt little shame in bending the knee to that.

Still, it rankled. Deep in his stomach, where the last vestiges of human pride lingered, it rankled.

He lifted his goblet to his grey lips and drained the last of the wine. It was foul. In his former incarnation, even Sylvania had produced better vintages. Truly, the Empire was a shadow even of its earlier, rotten, decadent and miserly self.

Around him, candles burned low, their thick stumps heavy with molten tallow. The stone chamber was dark, and the ever-present north wind moaned through the cracks.

Before him, set on a bronze table, was a severed head. Walach Harkon’s eyes had rolled up into his skull. His once elegant features had been defiled by tattoos and scarification, something that made Vlad’s lip curl in disgust. Only the fangs gave away his proud bloodline; everything else had changed.

When Vlad had spied Harkon bringing his Blood Dragons into combat during the climax of the battle at Heffengen, he had assumed that the task was near completion – the Chaos forces would be broken between his own and those of the Empire, crushing them utterly. It should have been a great victory, the first step in the long road of bringing the living and the dead together to fight the damned. He had already rehearsed his speech before the mortal Emperor, demonstrating how only an alliance of former enemies could hope to staunch the tide of corruption spilling through the Auric Bastion.

No one, least of all him, could have guessed that Harkon had turned. Somehow, during the Blood Dragon’s enforced exile north of the Bastion, his battle-hungry mind had been twisted to the service of the Blood God.

It was shameful. Embarrassing. Mortal cattle could have their heads turned by every petty shaman raving under a standing stone, but a lord of undeath, one of those capable of delivering the Kiss, one of the mightiest servants of Death in the entire world...

The thought made him furious. Harkon had driven a wedge between that which should by now be in unity. Far from gaining the trust of the mortal Emperor, he had slain him. Such rebellion, propelled by weakness, had earned him the torment of a thousand years. It had given Vlad some little pleasure to crush him, taking control of his draconian mount and using the tortured beast to end its own rider.

By then, though, the damage had been done. The Empire army had been routed, handing the servants of the Ruinous Powers an unbreakable momentum. Vlad himself had been forced to withdraw, an ignominy he had suffered too many times over his many lives.

He placed the goblet on the table next to Harkon’s shrivelled head and glowered at the blank-eyed face. ‘Glory-hunting fool,’ he hissed.

The setback was a grave one. Every day saw more corrupted souls flock to the hosts of the North. The Empire was in no condition to offer more than a token resistance – for all Gelt’s boasts, the Bastion was entirely breached now, and the hordes would soon pour through it like blood through a sieve. The scattered cities of the northern Empire, over which he had once cast covetous eyes himself, were as good as lost. No doubt the remnants of Karl Franz’s army would attempt to make some kind of stand at Talabheim and Middenheim, but if there was to be genuine resistance, a chance to recover something before all was lost, it would have to be mounted further south.

‘Altdorf,’ he murmured, remembering his last sight of those white towers. He had got close enough to smell the fish being landed on the quays. For a glorious moment, many lifetimes ago, he had stood on the battlements and seen the entire city spread out before him, supine as a lover, tense for the ushering in of a new age of living death.

He did not know how he would feel when he saw it again. Perhaps the old passions would stir, or perhaps that was all behind him now. That was the strange thing about being reborn – he had to learn about himself again.

He sighed, and shoved Harkon’s head from the table. It hit the stone floor with a wet thud and rolled away.

There could be no postponing the matter now. He had tarried long enough, uncertain how to break the news. There were few souls in the world that could make Vlad von Carstein hesitate, but the Master was one of them.

He sighed once more, pushed himself from his chair and arranged his cloak about him. The fine ermine settled on the polished crimson war-plate. He ran his fingers through his snow-white locks, ensuring not a strand of hair was misplaced.

From the chambers below, he heard the screams of living sacrifices as the last of the rites was completed. It was a waste to end mortal souls in such a way, and he took no great pleasure in it, but establishing a link with the Master over such distances could not be done without some trivial hardship.

Vlad made his way from the chamber and towards the lower levels of the tower. The disaster at Heffengen had to be recounted, and Nagash was not one to be kept waiting.

It was well, then, that he had something else to tell him – a new path to tread, and an old one to revisit. The future was just another aspect of the past, after all, which was yet another lesson his slumber in the halls of eternity had taught him.

The dead did not dream. Neither, it so happened, did their dreams ever die.

Six

Gregor Martak, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, awoke from a fevered dream of ruin and terror.

He had done likewise for the past three weeks, and it made him exhausted and irascible. Previously, he had slept phenomenally well. Wizards of the Amber Order were accustomed to deep slumber – they had little to trouble their unwaking minds, and so they slept like the beasts they emulated: in brief, deep snatches, as dreamless as the empty vistas of the underworld.

Martak yawned and scratched his unruly beard. Then he lifted his coarse robe and scratched the rest of himself. Tufts of hay stuck out from every crevice of his makeshift nightshirt, a result of taking his bed in the Imperial Stables. As one of the three most powerful men in the Empire, he could have occupied the most opulent chambers of the Palace. He could have had a staff of hundreds, a whole series of willing and creative companions, and barrel-loads of fine victuals carted into his personal kitchens every morning.

His predecessor, the avaricious and brilliant Balthasar Gelt, had taken full advantage of such opportunities. Martak had always had a sneaking admiration for Gelt, in the way only a man of such completely antipathetic character could. The two of them had never been rivals, for Martak had spent most of his life in the wilds of Taal’s boundless forests, far from the labyrinthine conspiracies of the capital city. Where Gelt had been an accomplished puller of Imperial levers, Martak had been content to remain an uncultured savage, scavenging around the margins while his powers over beast and bower grew steadily stronger.

When news had come in concerning Gelt’s fall from grace, Martak had not been one of the many who had secretly rejoiced. Subsequently being named as Supreme Patriarch had come as a complete surprise. He had been stalking through the wildwoods of the northern Reikland when the summons had come. Six messengers had been dispatched to find him; only one made it, and he had been white from primal fear when he had turned up. The deep forest was no place for ordinary men.

Martak was under no illusions why he had been chosen: he was the least offensive candidate to the largest number of people. The Amber College was a filth-ridden backwater compared to the lofty Gold, Light and Bright Colleges, from whose precincts the Supreme Patriarchs were normally drawn, and that made him a non-contentious choice, particularly as the Emperor was not around to oversee a protracted dispute.

The Amber reputation did not worry him. If his colleagues were too preoccupied by their incessant feuding to see just how powerful the Lore of Beasts could be, and just how completely he had mastered it, then that was their fault to remedy. So he had taken the honour when it had been offered, even putting on a largely fresh robe to receive his staff of office. Then he had left the Palace for the stables, bedding down in the straw and breathing in the thick aroma of horseflesh.

For a while, surrounded by thoroughbreds, he had slept well. Then the dreams had come.

Martak ran his calloused hands through his long greasy hair, and belched. Moving stiffly after his troubled night, he staggered over to a water trough and splashed his face. He walked out of the stable doors, yawning again widely. It was the hour just before the dawn. The eastern sky was a deep blue, casting a weak light across the entire cityscape. Mist rose up from the ground, as white as cream and nigh as thick.

The stables were situated on the southern edge of the vast Imperial Palace complex, not far from the upper curtain walls. Martak strolled through courtyard after courtyard, loosening his limbs and rolling his shoulders as he went. By the time he reached the outer parapet, the first rays of the sun were slipping over the distant eastern hills.

He leaned on the stone balustrade, and took in the view.

Below him, a tangle of roofs tumbled away down the steep slope towards the river. Thin columns of dirty smoke spiralled up from the streets, bearing the wet, dirty aroma of Altdorfers’ hearths. Ahead of him, a quarter of a mile eastwards, the huge dome of the Temple of Sigmar thrust up from the clutter of houses, its copper skin relatively unscathed by the grime that affected every other building in the city.

Beyond the temple lay the wide curve of the river. The rising sun cast rippling lines of silver across its turgid surface. Barges were already plying the trade-ways, sliding like whales through the muck. Martak could hear the calls of merchants as they unloaded their cargo onto the wharfs.

Altdorf had a kind of rough, unregarded beauty to it. Perhaps Martak was one of the few to appreciate that, for he liked rough, unregarded things. The poet Heine Heinrich had once described Altdorf as having the looks of a toad-dragon combined with the charm of a threepenny harlot. Being strictly chaste, Martak could not attest to the latter, but as for the former, toad-dragons had their own kind of magnificence. They had certainly been around a long time, something that could also be said of the City of Sigmar.

He drew in a long, deep breath. The nightmares were fading. Soon the Palace would begin to stir in earnest. Night-watch soldiers would slope back to their barracks, hoping none had witnessed their snoozing in the shadow of the battlements, to be replaced by bleary-eyed, unshaven day-watch regulars. The great fires would be lit in the hearths, banishing the worst of the night chill, and pigs would be rammed on spits for the evening banquets. The refuse-strewn streets would fill with the harsh, jostling press of unwashed bodies, replacing the cutpurses and petty cultists who had stalked the night shadows.

Until then, Martak’s view would be largely untroubled by interruption. The city lay before him peacefully, barely touched by the burnishing rays of the world’s sun, as dank and sullen as fungus.

In his dreams, he had seen the city burning. He had seen the cobbled streets erupt in foul growths, and the walls collapse under the weight of rampant vegetation. He had seen monsters stalking through the ruins, their eyes bright green in the flame-lit dark. He had seen the river clogged with strangle-weed and the proud towers of the Imperial Palace cast down in flaming destruction.

He had seen the Emperor, alone, wandering across the lands of the dead, surrounded on all sides by the hosts of the damned. His armies were gone, and the sky had been alive with light of all shades, some hues having no name in the languages of mortal men.

Perhaps, if he had had such dreams a year ago, he would have disregarded them, putting them down to the strange ways of the wizard’s mind, but things had changed since then.

The city ran with rumour of imminent invasion. Armies had been sent north months ago under the command of the Emperor, who had taken his finest captains with him and most of the capital’s standing army. Since then, the news had been fragmentary and confused. Some reports had it that Kislev had been overrun, just as in the time of Magnus the Pious. Others faithfully recounted tales of carnage across Nordland and the Ostermark, where the dead pulled themselves from the earth to aid the ravening hordes of the Fallen Gods. Those stories had been the most numerous of all – that the necromancers had entered into unholy alliance with the practitioners of Chaotic magic, and that each faction planned to feast on the bodies and souls of mortal men.

None could be sure of the truth of such tales. Those few messengers who claimed to come south from the far north said contradictory things. Some had been driven mad by the journey, and others had always been, so all they brought were fragments – half-truths and whispers, none of which might be true, or all of which might be.

If Martak had not had the nightmares, he might have been inclined to dismiss the refugees as the usual doom-mongering End Times fanatics. He would have left the city and returned to the wilds, leaving the ordering of the Empire to its usual masters, the elector counts. Though they were as squabbling and infuriating as ever, they understood the deep complexities of Imperial government, something that Martak knew he would never comprehend.

In the light of his visions, though, he stayed his hand, and waited in the Imperial Palace, holding on for tidings he could trust. The Emperor would surely return soon, to whom he needed to give his tokens of allegiance as Supreme Patriarch. The latest rumours told of devastation in Marienburg, and the imminent return of the Reiksmarshal to the city. If either of those things were true, then even the most sanguine of the Empire’s servants would do well to worry.

Martak coughed up a gobbet of spittle and spewed it over the balustrade. His bodily aroma was strong, mixed in with faint overtones of horse-dung and mouldy straw. That was as it should be. The bestial spirits were strong in his blood, coursing like fine wine. As he drew in the cold, briny air, he felt his wilderness-toughened muscles respond. He would stay, observing, waiting for a signal, doing what he could to live up to the foreign responsibilities placed on his shoulders.

Below him, the city was waking up. He heard the first calls of the stall-holders setting up, the heavy clang of temple doors unlocking, and the clatter of quayside cranes unloading goods.

They were good sounds. They were human sounds, in all their inextinguishable variety. Altdorf was home to every vice and cruelty, but it also harboured joy, mirth and generosity. If you wanted to gain a picture of the race in all its messy, fragile and marvellous splendour and folly, there was no better place.

This is the heart of it all, Martak mused, leaning heavily on the stone railing. This is our soul.

By then, the sun had risen indeed, casting its thin grey light over the tops of the distant forest and gilding the temple dome. It was a faint, uncertain light, but just enough to lift the murk and fear of the long night.

Martak let it warm his limbs for a little while, before stomping back off to the stables. He had appointments with powerful men later on that day, which meant that he should make at least some effort to scrape the worst of the grime from his hands and face. He did not like the thought of it, but it had to be done.

As he padded back across the stone flags, his bare feet brushing soundlessly like a hunting cat’s, he felt the final shreds of terror dissipate from his soul. As the sun strengthened, he knew the memory would fade entirely.

Until the next night, when the visions would come back again.

The lamps were lit in Couronne every night. Teams of armed men patrolled the streets of the stone-walled citadel, keeping the fires going and banishing the shadows.

Bretonnia had become a land of nightmares. Witches were abroad, hideous apparitions crept across the devastated fields, daemons squatted in the ruins of burned-out watchtowers. The new king, the reborn Gilles le Breton, had restored a shell of order to the realm, but he presided over a shattered caste of exhausted knights and half-starved peasantry. Since announcing the start of a new Errantry War, he had been abroad for months at a time, hunting down the dregs of the Chaos armies that had vomited forth from Mousillon.

His regent at Couronne remained Louen Leoncoeur, master of the realm no longer but still a Paladin Champion of the Green Knight. The duke knelt in his private chapel at the summit of his ancestral castle. Tapestries hung in the candlelight, each one depicting great deeds of his ancient House across the generations. A stone altar stood before him, surmounted by a lone marble figurine of the Lady.

Leoncoeur knelt in his full plate armour. He clasped his naked sword, resting it point-down on the stone before him and crossing his gauntlets at the hilt. His long blond hair hung about his armoured shoulders, lank from the battlefield. Like all the knights of the realm, he had been at war near-ceaselessly since the times of strife had descended. On one such sortie, he had nearly met his end under the blade of his own bastard son Mallobaude. For a long time, lost in the far reaches of the Bretonnian wild country, he had walked a fragile path between death and life, teetering on the edge of oblivion.

It had been the Lady who had guided him back – she had spoken to him in the depths of his fever. Her voice, as soft as ermine and yet as firm as the blade he carried, had whispered to him throughout those dark, lost times, refusing him permission to yield. Leoncoeur dimly remembered begging her to let him go, to cast him loose, to let his service die even as the land around him died.

She had never relented. He could recall her stern face looming over him, refusing the command that he yearned for. A lifetime of chivalry and pious devotion had sealed his fate – he could never have refused a boon from her, and so he clung to life, refusing the seductive embrace of the underworld even as it grasped for him. His senses returned in time, and he wandered the lands, near-starved, barely more than a shade himself. When he at last found his way back to Couronne, he was nearly slain for a wraith by a grail knight, and only his mud-splattered emblems saved him.

By then, Mallobaude had been destroyed and Gilles le Breton was the new king, feted by all across the realm as a harbinger of a new dawn for Bretonnia. Leoncoeur had recovered his strength and his wits, recovering under the auspices of the white-robed Sisters of the Lady. It took longer for him to recover his pride. He had ridden out to face Mallobaude as unquestioned monarch of his domain. He had returned to find a legend from the past sitting in the throne-room to accept the acclamation of the masses.

There was no contesting the will of le Breton. The green-eyed king’s magisterial presence was unquestionable. A fey light shone in his ageless face, and his countenance bore the raw weight of centuries. All bowed the knee before him, including Leoncoeur himself.

That did not assuage the bitterness. In the long, sleepless nights as his body was restored to health, he found himself gnawing away at the injustice of it. He prayed, over and again, asking to be shown what fault he had committed, what aspect of chivalry he had transgressed that would warrant his kingdom being taken from him and his bloodline disinherited.

If le Breton himself was aware of such anguish, he did not show it. He was one of the Immortals, the avatar of the Green Knight himself, and matters of pride and propriety no longer concerned him. Even his voice was otherworldly, an archaic, haughty speech that belonged to another world. He existed now to take the war to the enemies of the realm: he was a weapon, forged from the myths of the past and given life by the unfathomable will of the Lady. Leoncoeur could not gainsay such commandments; neither, though, in truth, could he understand them.

So he knelt before the altar as the lamps burned, murmuring the words of faith he had known since childhood, seeking the answers that eluded him even in the midst of battle. Every night he did the same, and every night his prayers went unanswered.

As the first stirrings of fatigue ran through his battle-weary frame, his lips finally stopped moving. He opened his frost-blue eyes, and looked up at the image of the Lady.

A chill breeze rattled through the loose stained-glass windows, making the candle-flames shiver. The benign face of his divine mistress gazed down at him, serene and pitiless.

It was as he looked up at her, just as he had done in the dream-lands of his long near-death, that realisation dawned. There would be no answers from Her in this place. It was no longer his. Whether for good or for ill, the realm had been taken from him and given to another. To linger in Couronne like a ghost over its grave was pointless, and only grief could come of it.

Leoncoeur clambered to his feet, bowing again as he addressed the altar. He sheathed his sword.

‘Where, then?’ he asked, his deep voice soft. ‘What path shall I take?’

The figurine of the Lady gave no answer. The flames flared a little, stirred by the wind, but no other sign revealed itself. The faces on the tapestries, picked out by long-dead fingers and faded by time and trial, gazed sightlessly down on him.

Leoncoeur smiled faintly. The ways of the Lady were never easy. That was the point of Her – She was the trial, the anguish, the test. Weakness had no place in Her service, only undying devotion.

‘I will discover it, then,’ he said. He looked around him. He had prayed in the same chapel since boyhood, and the stones were as familiar to him as his own flesh. ‘This is no longer my realm. As you will it, I will find another.’

He bowed again, and turned away. Limping still from his last cavalry charge, the deposed king swept from the chapel, and the great oak doors slammed shut behind him.

In his absence, the candles still burned, and the draughts still swirled around the bases of the pillars. The figurine Lady stood in the flickering dark, her face still serene, her thoughts, behind the sculptor’s smooth smile, unknowable.

Marienburg had already fallen, but its torment was not yet over.

The streets that had once bustled with the commerce of a dozen realms were now knee-deep in reeking effluent. The great docks were shattered, their steam-cranes tilting into the brine, the loading chains already rusting into nothingness. The mighty sea-wall built atop the foundations of ancient elven ruins was smashed into lumps of subsiding masonry, and foul slithering creatures with many eyes and splay-webbed feet slapped and slid across its remains.

Bodies lay stretched throughout the ruins as far as the eye could see, and every corpse was swollen with a different strain of pox. Many cadavers had burst open, spilling nests of maggots and black-limbed spiders over what remained of the cobbled thoroughfares. The corpses were piled high at the strategic choke-points, their blood mingling with the dribbling sputum of the Plaguefather’s foul gifts. The sea itself was polluted, turned from a choppy grey into a dark-green slurry, as thick as tar and crowned with a crust of yellowish foam. The mixture lapped sluggishly against what remained of the old quay-walls, sucking and wheezing against the disintegrating stone blocks.

Above the fallen city, the clouds hung low, just as they had at Heffengen. The air carried a greenish tinge, and clouds of flies buzzed and droned through the miasma.

Everything was ruined. Every building was a hollow shell, bursting with rotting, preternatural growths. The great guild buildings in the dock-quarter were now temples of decay, draped with putrescent vines like giant entrails pulled from a body. The dull crack of thunder still echoed from the northern horizon, though the spell-summoned storms that had ravaged the city during the worst of the fighting were ebbing at last.

Through the very heart of the devastation, a vast army marched. Just as at Heffengen, they were drawn from the corrupted hosts of the North, and every tribe was represented in their tormented ranks. Norscans strode out, clad in thick furs and bearing ornately crafted axes with runes of ruin carved on the daemon’s-head steel. Skaelings and Kurgan came with them, as well as Khazags and Vargs and Kul, a collection of the whole of the Realm of Chaos’s sundered peoples, thrown together under a panoply of skull-topped banners.

It took a full day for the huge host to pass from the waterfront, through the dead city and out of the ruined eastern gates. As they marched, daemons flickered and wavered in the mournful half-light, hissing and drooling as they danced. All manner of pestilential beasts, from roaches to rats, scuttled under their feet, welling up like oil from the bubbling sewer-grates.

The host was beyond counting. Every soldier in it bore some mark of the Plaguefather, whether merely a pale pallor scored by throbbing rashes, or an entirely changed body, bloated with pox and bursting with mutations. Thick armour plate buckled outward over tumours, and ragged shirts of chainmail barely concealed festering wounds. Some clearly revelled in their diseases, leering as they crunched the bones of mortal men under their boots. Others limped along in agony, their ribcages protruding as they were consumed from the inside.

For hour after hour, the banners swayed past, each one daubed with a fresh sign of pestilence. The army was larger by far than the one that had broken the Bastion. It had been sent south by Archaon, hurled far out into the trackless ocean before sweeping back towards the Empire coastline. Ship after ship had disgorged its contents into Marienburg’s stricken harbour, overwhelming the defenders in a remorseless wave of foul sorcery and dogged blade-work. For many hours the resistance had been heroic, and the fighting had been heavy in the streets.

But the result had never truly been in doubt. Archaon had unleashed his armies on the effete lands of the South in such quantities that even Asavar Kul would have blenched to see them. Two more allied hordes were already grinding their way south, tearing through the Great Forest like blades ripped under the skin. Each one alone was larger than any prior army sent to bring punishment to the unbelieving. Taken together, there could be no stopping them.

The force sent to shatter Marienburg was the mightiest of them all, a tumultuous rabble of pustular, addled, filth-spreading, contagion-fanning glory. As rank after rank trudged east, demolishing the few remaining walls as they went, they were observed by three pairs of eyes.

In the semi-remembered past, those eyes had belonged to mortal triplets, born under the midnight sun of the frozen tundra. Their family name was Glott, though that had meant little at the time and nothing to them now. The eldest, though only by moments, was Otto, who came closest of all of them to being a warrior in the traditional sense – he was a pot-bellied monster with marsh-green flesh and the tripartite marks of the Plaguefather scraped in black ink across his pocked forehead.

Otto stood atop the ruins of the Oesterdock Temple, leaning casually against the broken cupola of the Chapel of Manann. His clammy fingers pressed against the stone, causing mould-spores to spontaneously spider out across it. He laughed throatily, watching his troops lurch and swagger, then reached down for a strip of moss that had sprung up between the bricks of the temple wall. He pressed the wiry fuzz to his slobbering chin in a mockery of an Empire Greatsword’s beard, and grinned.

Ethrac, the second triplet, saw him do it, and rolled his rheumy eyes in disgust. Like his brother, he was a wiry, spare figure, emaciated under blotchy robes of coarse wool. He clutched at a gnarled staff of oak heartwood, desecrated with columns of twisting runes, and picked his way through the rubble of the temple’s roof. As he moved, bronze bells shackled to the staff-tip clanged dully, and flatulent vapours wafted out from the hem of his torn robes. He kicked aside a few clumps of rubble, and spat at them as they tumbled down to the street below.

‘We could have lost this,’ Ethrac muttered.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ said Otto casually, picking flecks of plaster from what remained of the cupola.

Their voices were strange, wet rasps, almost like that of beasts, and filtered through mouths of blackened teeth. When they spoke, they overlapped one another constantly, as if each were just a part of one confused mind.

‘I did not foresee the dead,’ Ethrac said, pausing in his scrabbling search. ‘Why did I not foresee the dead?’

Otto picked at his nostril. ‘Does it matter?’

‘It matters, o my brother. Yes, yes, it matters. We are not seeing everything. There are portents withheld. Why? I do not know. I should be seeing the world turn, the minds of men open. I did not see the dead. I did not see them.’

Just as at Heffengen, the defenders of Marienburg had been bolstered by the sudden intervention of undead warriors, though, just as at Heffengen, the reinforcements had not proved enough to halt the onward march of Chaos. That bothered Ethrac. He had sent tidings north, hoping to warn Archaon’s war council that the Law of Death was proving more mutable than in past ages, and that it posed complications, but he had little hope of any of his messengers arriving alive. The Great Forest was as unforgiving to the damned as it was to the faithful.

‘You should learn to calm yourself,’ said Otto, scratching at a new and beautiful boil that had emerged under his chin. ‘Nothing stands between us and Altdorf now. Nothing of any note, anyway.’

Ethrac shook his bald head impatiently. ‘Does not matter! Mortals do not matter. But something has changed.’ He screwed his eyes into a frown, and the scabby skin of his forehead broke out in bloody cracks. ‘They are rising from the earth like new shoots. Why? Why is the wall between living and dead broken?’

Otto sighed and walked over to his brother. He took Ethrac’s cheeks in both hands and squeezed affectionately. ‘They are desperate, o my brother,’ he whispered. ‘Every witch-rattler between the Great Gate and the Hot Lands is flailing around for something to call up. You know why? Because we are here. They know this is the end. What if a few skeletons are thrown into our path? Do you think they will last longer at the White City than they did here?’

Ethrac nodded reluctantly, some of his agitation subsiding. ‘And there is Festus,’ he murmured. ‘We must not forget him.’

Otto released Ethrac. ‘It has been sewn up, tight as a burst stomach. The Leechlord is with us. Brine is with us, the Tallyman is with us. Stop worrying.’

Ethrac started to root around with his staff again, only half placated. ‘Festus has been working hard. I can smell it from here. Much joy, to see him again.’

Otto walked back over to the edge of the temple ruins. ‘Never forget, my favoured loin-brother, that we are three, and that we have not seen the finest of the Father’s plague-pots yet.’

As he spoke, a vast, rolling mountain of scabrous flesh lumbered into view. As tall as a guilder’s townhouse, the third of the triplets stomped past the teetering shell of the temple. His skin glowed a violent green, as if lit by weird lantern-light. Vast, muscle-thick arms hung, simian-like, from swollen shoulders. One terminated in a long, greasy tentacle that trailed along in the dust behind it. Catching sight of Otto and Ethrac, the monster cracked a wide grin, and a semi-chewed leg dropped from his jaws.

‘Good feasting, o my brother?’ asked Otto, reaching out to stroke the creature’s bald head.

Ghurk, the final triplet, nodded enthusiastically, and more half-chewed body parts slopped from his slack lower jaw. Eating made Ghurk happy, and eating warm human flesh made him even happier. Several hapless victims were still clutched in his clawed hand; some of them still struggling weakly.

Otto took a short run-up, and launched himself from the temple’s edge and into mid-air. He landed heavily on Ghurk’s shoulders, and shuffled into position. Ghurk gurgled with pleasure, and started chewing again.

‘Can anything stand against this, o my brother?’ called out Otto to Ethrac, proudly surveying the scene from atop his sibling’s unnaturally huge bulk. In every direction, the rampant desecration of the Plaguefather ran wild. Soon the last of what had been Marienburg would be overwhelmed entirely, a festering jungle on the western seaboard of the Empire, the first foothold of what would become Father Nurgle’s reign of corpulence on earth.

Ethrac gazed at his two brothers with genuine fondness, and his withered face cracked a toothy smile. ‘No, my brother,’ he admitted, making ready to join Otto on Ghurk’s back, from whence the two of them would begin the long march east. ‘You are quite correct. Nothing can stand against it.’

Seven

Drakenhof was not how Vlad remembered it. The centuries had not been kind to the ancient structure, and whole wings had fallen into ivy-covered ruin. The ice-cold wind from the Worlds Edge Mountains cut straight through the many gouges and gaps in the walls, skittering around the dusty halls within and shaking the ragged tapestries on their wall-hangings.

Since returning to Sylvania from the far north, he had done what he could to restore something like order to the ruins. He had raised the cadavers of the old castle architects, and they had soundlessly got back to work, ordering work-gangs of living dead to haul stone and saw wood, just as they had years ago.

There was no time to make the necessary repairs though, and so Vlad’s throne stood in an empty audience chamber with the chill whistling through open eaves. Sitting in his old iron throne gave him no joy, for his surroundings were scarce better than any common bandit-lord.

He deserved better. He had always deserved better, and now that he was a mortarch, one of the Chosen of Nagash, his surroundings were little more than a bad joke.

Beyond the castle’s crumbling walls, out under the sick light of Morrslieb, the entire countryside was alive with movement. A thousand undead did their dread master’s bidding, dragging old sword-blades from graves and fitting them with spell-wound hilts. Armour was pulled from cobwebbed store-chambers and dug out from long barrows, all to arm the host that would take Vlad from the margins of the Empire and back into its very heart.

Mortal men worked alongside their dead cousins, swallowing their horror out of fear of the new seigneur of Castle Drakenhof. In truth, it was not just fear that made them work – the old ties of loyalty still had purchase, and there was no doubt in their slow, brutish minds that their true lord had returned.

Vlad did not despise them for that. They were only performing what their station demanded, and he held no contempt for his subjects. When he slew them in order to drink their blood, he did so cleanly, taking libation through the magics of his sword rather than sucking the flesh like an animal. They were cattle, as necessary to his kind as meat and water were to the mortal lords of the Empire, and if they served him faithfully then their lives would be no worse than any other of the toiling peasantry across the hardscrabble badlands of the outer Empire.

Some, of course, refused to see that, which required more punitive action to be taken. Thus it was that the witch hunter hung before him, suspended in a writhing aura of black-tinged flame. His arms were locked out wide, his legs clamped together, his head thrown back.

Vlad regarded him coolly from the throne.

‘What do you think will happen to you?’ he asked.

The witch hunter, his scarred face taut with pain, could only reply through clenched teeth. ‘I will... resist,’ he gasped. ‘While I live, I will resist.’

‘I realise that,’ Vlad sighed. ‘But when your resistance ends, what do you think will happen then?’

‘I will be gathered into the light of Sigmar. I will join the Choirs of the Faithful.’

‘Ah. I am afraid not,’ said Vlad, feeling some genuine sadness. ‘Perhaps, in the past, you might have done, but the Laws of Death are not what they were. Perhaps you have not felt the change.’ He got up from the throne, and his black robes fell about him as he stepped down from the dais towards his victim. The witch hunter watched him approach, his face showing little fear but plenty of defiance. ‘The world is running out of time. My Master has wounded the barrier between realms. The long-departed will soon stir in the earth, and nothing your boy-God can do will have the slightest effect. I admit that, for a time, our kind were troubled by your... faith. Those days, I am happy to say, are coming to an end.’

Vlad walked around the witch hunter, noting with some appreciation how the mortal controlled the trepidation that must have been shivering through him.

‘You think of me as your enemy,’ Vlad said. ‘How far from the truth that is. In reality, I am your only hope. The paths of fate are twofold now: servitude before the ravening Gods of the North, or servitude before the Lord of Death. There is no middle way. I do not expect you to see the truth of it immediately, but you will, in time. All of you will. I merely hope the realisation comes before all is lost.’

The witch hunter struggled against the black flames, but they writhed more tightly, binding him as firmly as chains. Vlad needed to exert the merest flicker of effort to maintain them. Sylvania’s soil was now such a fertile breeding ground for magic that his powers were greater than they had ever been.

‘Lies,’ spat the witch hunter, with some effort. ‘My faith is unshakeable.’

‘I can see that,’ said Vlad. ‘And so I am willing to extend a great gift to you. You may join me freely. You may follow me as a mortal man, and learn the ways of my Master. Your life will be extended many times over, and you will accomplish far more against the Dark Gods than you ever would have done while in your current service. The pain can end. You can still fight evil. I have ever been a generous liege-lord – even your annals must tell it so.’

The witch hunter’s eyes narrowed, and the muscles on his jawline twitched. Vlad could feel the man’s willpower eroding – he had been tormented for hours, and every man, no matter how well-prepared, had his breaking point.

‘Never,’ he said, his voice nearly cracking with effort.

Vlad drew close to him. He extended a finger to the man’s throat, tracing the line of a raised vein. ‘Your Empire is over, mortal. I say that not to crow, for I take no pleasure in seeing the ruin of what I once aspired to rule. It is merely a fact. I saw your Emperor slain at Heffengen. I saw the Bastion break, and I saw what was behind that wall. You are an intelligent man: you can see for yourself what is happening. Plagues run free, wiping out whole villages in a single night. The forest comes alive, churning with unnatural growth. The rivers clog, the crops fail.’ He slid his finger alongside the man’s ear. ‘They say that Marienburg has already fallen. Talabheim will be next. Your house is crumbling around you – I offer a new home for your loyalty.’

The witch hunter’s face creased in agony. His fists balled. He was still fighting. Lines of magic-heated sweat ran down his temples and slipped to the floor, fizzing as the drops hit the cold stone.

‘Never,’ he said again, screwing his eyes closed as he struggled to fight on.

Vlad regarded him bleakly. The offer had been magnanimous, but even the patience of lords came to an end. ‘One thing, then,’ he said. ‘Just one scrap. Tell me your name. I will need it.’

The witch hunter’s eyes snapped open. He stared up at the open rafters, his expression proud. ‘Jan Herrscher,’ he said. ‘By the grace of our Lord Sigmar, that is the name I have always borne. I never hid it, and may it give honour to Him forever.’

Vlad nodded. ‘Herrscher,’ he murmured. ‘A fine name. And believe me, you have given him honour. Truly, you have.’

Then he withdrew, and snapped his fingers. The black flames flared into a coil, and fastened themselves around Herrscher’s neck. The coil contracted, snapping the man’s spine. For a moment, his eyes continued to stare upward, then he went limp in his bonds. Vlad gestured again, the fires flickered out, and the witch hunter’s body thudded to the stone.

Vlad gazed down at the corpse for a moment. It was a shame. Herrscher was the kind of man that made the Empire worth fighting for.

His thoughts were interrupted by a low cough at the chamber’s entrance. He looked up to see one of his white-faced servants hovering anxiously. This one was a living soul, and Vlad felt an involuntary pang as he watched the man’s blood vessels throb under his skin.

‘You pardon, lord,’ the servant stammered, clearly terrified, ‘but the first brigades are ready for inspection.

That was good. It would be a long and arduous task to create the army that Vlad required, even though Nagash had been quite insistent on the need for haste. The hosts of the North were converging on Altdorf already, and Sylvania was far further from Reikland than Marienburg. Even the expedience of raising the fallen to fight again would scarce suffice to meet the need, and so the scouring of Sylvania for living troops had begun in earnest.

‘Very good,’ said Vlad, pulling his robes about him, preparing to descend the winding stairs to the parade ground below. ‘I will attend shortly.’ His gaze alighted again on the body of Herrscher. ‘And do something with this while I am gone.’

The servant hesitated before complying. Even in death, a witch hunter could inspire terror in a Sylvanian. ‘Shall I burn the body, lord?’ he asked.

Vlad shook his head. ‘Do no such thing,’ he said. ‘Take it to my chambers and give it every proper burial rite.’

He swept imperiously out of the chamber. As he did so, the last of the black flames guttered out.

‘He is too good to waste,’ Vlad said. ‘We shall have to find ways for him to serve again.’

The Grand Chamber of Magnus Enthroned stood near the summit of the Imperial Palace’s main basilica. Vast walls of granite and ashlar stone soared above a wide marble floor. The pillars that held up the high vaulted roof were many-columned and banded with silver. Torches blazed, sending clouds of soot rolling into the heights. Statues of fallen heroes stood in alcoves along the walls, each graven from black veined stone. Magnus himself had been carved from a solid block of dark grey granite, depicted sitting in judgement on a massive throne. His image dominated the far end of the hall, fully twenty feet high, as stern and unbending as he had been in life.

Overlooked by such grandeur, the chamber’s few living inhabitants were dwarfed into near-insignificance. They stood in the empty centre in a loose circle, clad in the robes of finest silk and linen and bearing heavy gold artefacts of office – chains, amulets, crowns.

All but one. Martak had not had the time or the will to find something to wear less filthy than the robes he had slept in, and so stood apart from the others. He guessed that he smelled fairly bad to them. That was simply reciprocal – each of the others smelled truly repellent to him, with their thick-wafted perfumes and armour-unguents.

‘None have suffered more than I,’ said the sturdiest of them, a tall man wearing a fur-lined jerkin and long green cloak. His leonine face was crested with a mane of snow-white, and he wore a goatee beard on his age-lined face. Despite his advanced years, he carried himself with a warrior’s bearing, and his flinty eyes gave away no weakness.

Of all of them, Martak liked him the most. This was Theodoric Gausser, Elector Count of Nordland, and there was something attractive about his unflinchingly martial demeanour.

‘We have all suffered,’ replied a woman standing to his right. She was as old as Gausser, and draped in lines of pearls over a fabulously opulent gown of grey and silver. Her face was gaunt, though liberally rouged and slabbed with whitener. She carried herself perfectly erect, as if her spine might snap if she curved it.

This was Emanuelle von Liebwitz, Elector Count of Wissenland, as fabulously wealthy as her subjects were grindingly poor. Like Gausser, she was no one’s fool, though her imperious manner even with her peers made her hard to warm to.

‘Nordland has borne the brunt of the enemy for centuries,’ reiterated Gausser. ‘We have fought them longer and harder. I know what it takes to beat them.’

‘None of us knows what it takes to beat them,’ said a third figure, quietly. He was thinner than the others, as tall as a crane and with a pronounced nose. His attire was less flamboyant – a drab green overcoat and travel-worn boots. That would have come as little surprise to any who knew his province – Stirland was miserably poor, and far from the Imperial centre from which all patronage flowed. This one was Graf Alberich Haupt-Anderssen, a grand name that did little to disguise the poverty of his inheritance. ‘If we did, their threat would have been eradicated long before this day. They are unbeatable. All that remains is survival for as long as we can muster it.’

The other two glared at Haupt-Anderssen contemptuously. The first two were warlike electors, and their cousin’s blood was too thin for their liking.

Martak said nothing, but took some enjoyment from the incongruity of the situation. None of those assembled could remotely have been described as the finest the Empire had to offer. The greatest names were dead or missing – Gelt, Volkmar, Schwarzhelm, Helborg, the Emperor himself. Other Electors, such as the great Todbringer of Middenheim, were looking to their own defences. What remained in Altdorf were the outriders, those still obsessed enough with the Great Game to seek political advancement even as the wolves scratched at the door.

‘Your cowardice damns you, Graf,’ spat von Liebwitz.

Haupt-Anderssen shrugged. ‘There is no virtue in hiding behind fantasies.’

‘You shame this hall,’ said Gausser, gesturing to the towering image of Magnus.

Haupt-Anderssen sniffed, and said nothing.

A fourth figure cleared his throat then – Hans Zintler, the Reikscaptain. In Helborg’s absence he was the highest ranking military officer, and carried himself suitably formally, with a brass-buttoned jerkin and short riding cloak. His black moustache was neatly trimmed across a broad-jawed face.

‘With your pardon, lords,’ he interjected. ‘Only one task requires our attention this day. The news from Marienburg requires a response.’

‘Deserved everything they got,’ growled Gausser. ‘Dirty secessionists.’

‘Maybe so, lord,’ said von Liebwitz, ‘but the question is what to do about the army that laid them low.’

‘Nothing,’ said Haupt-Anderssen. ‘Look to our walls. That is the only hope.’

‘Carroburg stands in their path,’ pointed out Zintler. ‘If it is not to fall in turn, it must be reinforced.’

‘With what?’ grunted Martak, his first contribution to the debate. All eyes turned to him, as if the others had only just noticed his presence. Von Liebwitz’s elegant nose wrinkled, and she pressed a scented handkerchief to her mouth. ‘We can barely man the walls here. Send men to Carroburg and they’ll just die a little earlier.’

Gausser bristled. ‘We have wizards advising us on military matters now?’

‘You invited me,’ shrugged Martak. ‘I’d have been happier with the horses.’

Zintler coughed nervously. He was a good man, a fine soldier, but he did not like discord amongst his superiors. ‘Then, Supreme Patriarch, what would you suggest?’

Martak laughed harshly. ‘Gelt was Supreme Patriarch. I’m just a filthy bird-tamer.’ He looked at Gausser shrewdly. ‘Call the Carroburg garrison back here. Call them all back. Surrender the forest – it can look after itself. You can’t weaken this army, not out there. All we have are walls.’ He shot a glance at Haupt-Anderssen. ‘You’re right. We need to use them.’

Von Liebwitz took a short breath, trying not to sniff too deeply. ‘It is clear to me, master wizard, that you have little understanding of war. There are three armies making their way towards us. Once they reach the Reik valley, we will be without hope of reinforcement. If nothing is done to hamper their progress, the noose will tighten before the solstice falls.’

‘They won’t hurry,’ snorted Martak. ‘Do you not see it yet? Geheimnisnacht is the key. They will arrive then, when their powers are at their height and the daemon-moon rides full.’ He crossed his arms. ‘That is the hour of our doom. We can neither delay nor hasten its coming, so we should just make ready for it.’

Zintler looked uncomfortable. In normal times, Martak’s advice would have been balanced by the Grand Theogonist’s, but, as with so many others, Volkmar was missing, presumed dead, and the arch-lectors had not answered his summons.

‘Superstition,’ muttered Gausser, though with no great certainty.

Martak raised a dirty eyebrow. ‘You think so? I’ll remind you of that when the wind is screaming and the earth beneath our feet begins to move.’

‘That is already taking place,’ observed Haupt-Anderssen archly.

He was right – reports had started coming from across the city. Panicked residents had begun to flee the poorer quarters after wells had sprouted foul weeds overnight, and gutters had burst open with broods of writhing rats. The nights had been filled with unearthly screams, though the City Watch had never been able to track them down. Some even said that the river itself was changing, thickening up like broth over a stove.

‘And that is your task, wizard,’ accused von Liebwitz. ‘Let us look to the defences – your kind should be cleansing the city.’

Martak glared at her darkly. ‘We’re doing our part. It would help if I weren’t summoned to all these damned councils.’

‘We need to determine the order of defence,’ insisted Gausser, his cheeks reddening.

‘So you can master us all,’ sniped von Liebwitz.

Haupt-Anderssen laughed at that, and Gausser started to shout something about the noted cowardice of Wissenlanders, to which their elector vigorously responded.

By then, though, Martak was not listening, and neither was Zintler. Heavy crashes could be heard from outside the chamber, echoing up the long corridors. The Reikscaptain drew his blade, and slowly moved towards the double-door entrance. Two guards on either side of the portal did likewise. The commotion drew closer, growing louder on the far side.

Then the twin doors slammed back, and a band of heavily armed men broke in. They were plate-armoured, and bore the marks of a hard road on travel-worn garb.

‘Stand down!’ shouted Zintler, barring their passage with commendable bravery, seeing as how he was outnumbered eight to three. ‘This is a private council – who dares to interrupt?’

The intruders parted, allowing one of their number to stride to the forefront. Unlike the others, he was helm-less, exposing a hawk-like visage barred by a long, carefully lacquered moustache. There could be no mistaking the proud features that adorned coins and devotional lockets from Helmgart to Middenheim, though they had been badly disfigured by claw-marks along one cheek. The lines were still raw and bloody, making the Reiksmarshal look half daemonic.

‘What is this rabble?’ rasped Kurt Helborg, striding up to the electors. ‘Where is Todbringer? Where are the Reikland generals? And who is this beggar?’

Martak bowed clumsily. ‘The Supreme Patriarch, my lord. Or so they tell me.’

Helborg stared at him, incredulous, before turning to Gausser. ‘My lord elector, tell me this is some foul jest.’

Gausser shot him an apologetic look. ‘Times are not what they were, lord Reiksmarshal.’

Von Liebwitz drew up to Helborg then, a rapt expression on her aged face. ‘You are alive! Thank the gods. Now we can plan our defence in earnest – what of the Emperor? What of Lord Schwarzhelm?’

Helborg briefly looked lost then, as if the questions confused him. His gaze ran around the chamber, from Gausser to von Liebwitz to Haupt-Anderssen to Martak. ‘This is the war council?’

Martak sniffed noisily, dislodging a troublesome clot of dried mucus that had been plaguing him since waking. ‘Who were you expecting? You took every blade worth having north.’

Helborg repeated his incredulous stare, before shaking his head with resignation. ‘Then these are the tools I have. They must suffice.’ He turned to Gausser, the only figure in the room he seemed to have any rapport with. ‘I bring hard truths with me. The Emperor is slain. Our northern armies are scattered, and the enemy follows hard on my heels. We do not have much time, and the city must be secured. What preparations have been made?’

Gausser glanced at von Liebwitz, whose eyes strayed towards Haupt-Anderssen, who quickly deferred to Zintler.

‘We were debating our first moves, my lord,’ said the Reikscaptain, haltingly. ‘The news from Marienburg is just in, and we had not yet determined just where to concentrate–’

‘Taal’s teeth,’ swore Helborg. He beckoned to his preceptor. ‘Find out what forces are still in the city. Order the gates closed – no man leaves without my order. Secure the armouries. Appoint a quartermaster-general and place all water-sources and food-stores under his protection. See the Imperial standard is flown from the Palace summit, and spread the word that the Emperor has routed the enemy at Heffengen and will soon return. Make sure this is believed.’

His preceptor saluted, and departed to carry out his orders, taking the remaining knights with him. As he left, Martak chuckled softly. This was why Kurt Helborg was Reiksmarshal, and why fighting men worshipped the earth he trod. For the first time since his appointment, Martak wondered whether he actually might survive this war.

‘May I say, sir, your return seems timely,’ Martak said.

Helborg looked back at him doubtfully.

‘We will see,’ he muttered. ‘We will see.’

Deep in the foundations of the old city, far below the streets and avenues, the vapours never ceased. They curled along the brick-lined sewers, steaming from the surface of the foetid waters. They pooled in the dank, dark recesses of ancient cesspits and long-buried catacombs, curling like hair amid the endless shadows.

No natural light penetrated so far down, and the only illumination was the pale glow of phosphorescent mosses clambering all across the crumbling masonry. The moss had spread quickly since its introduction, racing down the winding shafts and choked tunnels, feeding on the filth that sank to the city’s base. It was everywhere now, smothering all other growths and lending the forgotten ways of Altdorf a ghostly sheen.

It got worse the lower one went, until the waterways were a thick soup of throbbing spore-clumps and the luminous tendrils hung from the low ceiling like stalactites. At the very bottom, in the deepest shafts of the undercity, the infestation was so complete that it felt like the entire structure was built from nothing more than fronds of softly iridescent lichen.

Down there, behind a locked door under a low stone archway, the noise of bubbling and hissing never ceased. The vapours poured out from the cracks in the door, seething out from between planks of long-rotten wood before drifting off down the myriad tunnels of the labyrinth beyond.

Within the chamber lay a bizarre panoply of instruments – copper kettles, alembics, condensers, cauldrons and mixing-pots. Concoctions bubbled in a dozen bronze jars, sending lurid coloured steam twisting up to the low chamber roof. Further in, the contents became more grisly – corpses, as thin and wasted as rabbits, hung from iron hooks on the wall, each one bearing the signs of horrific illness. Some had burst torsos, their entrails hanging from the rupture and dripping steadily onto the filth-strewn floor below. Others had no eyes, or obscene growths suspended from their agonised flesh. All bore expressions of unbearable horror on their drawn faces, the marks of their final struggles against the poxes that had killed them.

Further down, moving along narrow passageways, the sounds of bubbling and gurgling grew louder. Gouts of steam hissed from tangled iron piping, and an immense pendulum ticked back and forth as if counting time towards the end of the world. More jars and phials cluttered every surface, each one fizzing and boiling with an endless variety of lurid liquids.

Right at the far end of those chambers, deep down in the basement, a hunched figure worked steadily over a long, low bench. He was grotesquely fat, and the jowls of his under-chin wobbled as he moved. A thick-lipped mouth murmured and drooled, sending lines of yellowish sputum coursing over a boil-encrusted face. Perhaps once he had been a mortal man, for he still wore the remnants of Imperial garb amid the folds and sags of his overspilling corpulence. Now, though, he was changed, given unnatural bulk beyond the dreams of even the most assiduous glutton. Tiny creatures, no more than jaws and eyes attached to slug-like sacs of blubber, crawled all over him, wriggling between the grease-stained fabric of his clothes.

He hummed to himself as he worked, transferring frothing potions from vial to vial, mixing them, testing them, observing the results on a long, ink-stained ledger before stacking the glassware back amid the racks on the walls and starting again.

Behind him, huger than any of the others, a black iron cauldron stood, squat as a gravid sow and thick with the patina of ages. A daemon’s face had been hammered onto the swollen curve of the bowl, spewing excreta from a fanged mouth. Within that cauldron bubbled the strongest broth of all – a noxious brew that made the air above it tremble. The fat-slick surface broke, and a desperate hand burst out, clutching at the side of the cauldron and gripping tight.

The grotesque alchemist saw the fingers scrabbling for purchase and chuckled wetly.

‘Oh, no,’ he chided, reaching over and prising the hand from the cauldron’s edge. ‘Not again. Stay down, and drink it up. It will be over quicker that way.’

He shoved the arm back under and held it there. A flurry of bubbles plopped up, accompanied by what sounded like desperate gagging. After a while the bubbles ran out, and the alchemist withdrew his hand. He brought it up to his mouth, and licked the liquids from it with a long, prehensile tongue.

‘Almost there,’ he murmured, savouring the taste.

From further along, past the cauldron and into the shadows beyond, came the sound of desperate, furious weeping. The alchemist frowned, and looked up.

‘What is this?’

He shuffled past the cauldron, squeezing his heft past the cluttered work surfaces, wobbling over towards a series of iron cages bolted to the walls. Living men and women huddled inside them, their faces stark with terror. Most already showed signs of sickness. All were famished.

‘No more of this!’ the alchemist warned, brandishing a huge ladle like a weapon. ‘You are the lucky ones. You have been chosen. Show some respect.’

The captive mortals stared back at him, some with disbelief, some with rank fear, a few with some residual defiance.

They had seen what had happened to the others. They knew what was coming for them.

‘We are nearly there now,’ said the alchemist, his phlegmy voice almost tender. ‘Nearly there.’

He shuffled back to the cauldron, and started to stir. As he did so, the surface steamed and bubbled, filling the air with a hot, sweet, overpowering aroma of putrescence. Translucent slops hit the floor as the ladle stirred. Some of those slops were moving.

The alchemist leaned over the cauldron’s edge and took a long, deep sniff. As he did so, something stirred under the surface – a shadow moved, as if a creature of the deep had made its home amid the greasy soup of flesh and fat.

‘Quicken, now, great one,’ cooed the alchemist. ‘Festus calls you. The Leechlord smoothes the way between the worlds.’ His grin broadened, exposing flattened, butter-yellow teeth. ‘Altdorf awaits. It has no idea of the delights in store.’

He stirred faster, making the broth ripple.

‘But it will soon,’ he slurred, growing sweatily excited. ‘Oh, yes. It will very soon.’

Eight

Leoncoeur rode out, feeling the harsh wind brush against his face. His sword was already slick with the blood of the slain – no excursion into the countryside around Couronne passed without encountering the dregs of Mallobaude’s corruption. The land still crawled with sorcery, as dark as oil and stained deep into the soil.

Ahead of him, barren fields marched away to the north. To his right stood a scraggy mass of forest, choked with briars and bearing the dank smell of decay. The land fell away sharply as the trees clustered, tumbling towards the river Gironne as it wound its uncertain way towards the distant coast.

Leoncoeur leaned forward in the saddle, scouring the landscape ahead. His quarry could not be far off.

Then he saw it – a ragged bundle of robes, scampering madly, haring for the cover of the trees. Leoncoeur recognised the long pointed hat, the trailing wisps of a ruddy overgrown beard.

He kicked his steed into a gallop, hoping to run the hedge-witch down before he vanished into the shadow of the trees. Such wizards were petty necromancers and curse-pedlars, but in such straitened times even their trivial malice was cause for concern.

The hedge-witch sprinted hard, knowing his danger, nearly stumbling as he careered down the slope towards the woodland. He was already close to safety.

Leoncoeur spurred his mount on, kicking up mud as he went, tearing towards the rapidly approaching line of trees. He pulled his blade back, readying for the lean and swipe that would take the witch’s head off.

Just at the last moment, the man swerved aside, darting as if alerted by premonition, and scampered under the protection of the first gnarled branches.

Leoncoeur did not hesitate. Crouching low, he crashed through the forest’s edge after his prey, ignoring the whiplash branches across his face and arms.

‘Yield yourself!’ he commanded, made angry by the missed chance.

He could still see the hedge-witch ahead of him, swerving desperately between black-barked tree-trunks and slipping on the greasy leaf-litter. Soon the forest would grow too dense for the pursuit, and Leoncoeur’s charger would become useless.

With a savage kick of his spurs, Leoncoeur goaded his steed into a final burst of speed, sending it thundering across the rapidly-closing terrain. Just as the hedge-witch made for a screen of wickedly thorned brambles, Leoncoeur’s sword lashed down, raking across the man’s cloaked back and cutting down to the bone beneath.

The witch screamed, dropping to the ground and writhing. Leoncoeur pulled his steed around tightly and spurred it back towards the stricken wretch. The wizard tried to rise, to drag himself to his feet and somehow stagger out of danger, but it was too late. Leoncoeur rode him down, crushing his bloodied frame into the mire and silencing the shrill screams. Then he drew his horse to a halt, working hard to calm the enraged steed, before dismounting and striding over towards the remains.

He gazed down with disgust. The man was just another impoverished village trickster with delusions of power. It would have been better to have made an example of him, to have drawn his guts slowly out in front of a crowd of appreciative peasants. Out here in the wilds, the lesson was wasted.

Leoncoeur plunged his sword into the twitching corpse, just to be sure, then pulled the blade free, noting with distaste the stains along the steel.

He felt soiled. Running down such filth was a task barely worthy of his station. He needed something better, something grander, befitting the station he had once enjoyed.

Ahead of him, the Gironne churned at the base of a deep creek, its banks thickly cloaked with trees and creeping vines. The leaves had an unhealthy sheen to them, as if rot had penetrated down to the sap.

Leoncoeur tied his horse up and trudged down to the water’s edge. He slithered down the muddy bank and knelt down, dipping his sword into the murky water. Grabbing tufts of grass, he wiped the gore from the blade, working slowly and patiently. His sword was his life, and had been ever since he had been a raw novice with more bravery than sense.

He had always done things diligently. He had always served, and yet the reward had been snatched away.

His blade now a little cleaner, he replaced it in the scabbard. Then he knelt over the water’s edge, thirst kindling in his throat. He stared at the scummy surface, and changed his mind. Something foul was getting into the rivers – they were beginning to smell like sewers.

Just as he was about to pull away, he caught sight of his reflection gazing up at him. He looked haggard, his noble bearing thinned out by Mallobaude’s treachery and le Breton’s acquisition of his birthright.

Then, looking closer, he saw that it was not his reflection at all – he had not lost that much weight. The golden locks were too long, the face too slender. A face clarified below the filmy surface, one he remembered from the distant past.

‘My Lady,’ he breathed, falling to both knees.

The waters stirred, bubbling into a froth, then broke. A figure rose from the river, lithe and translucent. She wore a gown of purest emerald, and it flowed across her like cataracts. Her face was hard to look at for long – it had a fey, dangerous quality, as if touched by elven magic. She remained standing in the river, the weeds draped around her ankles, gazing benevolently down at the kneeling knight before her. The sunlight became a little less grey, and the leaves were touched with a golden sheen.

Leoncoeur felt his heart-rate pick up, and his face went hot.

‘Lion-heart,’ the Lady murmured, her voice as ephemeral as the wind in the reeds. ‘You were ever my favourite. My champion.’

Leoncoeur looked up at her, and the sight of her unfiltered beauty pierced his heart. ‘Then why, lady?’ he asked.

She knew what he meant. Her face did not give away pity – it would never do that – but understanding shone in her emerald eyes.

‘All things are changing,’ she said softly. ‘The world turns faster, and the old gods are passing. This realm is only one of many, lion-heart – you could not be contained by it forever.’

Leoncoeur struggled to hear her. When they had spoken before, so long ago that it seemed like a dream of infancy, she had been proud and imperious, a queen in her invincible realm. Now, she whispered as if sick, her otherworldly voice as faint as an invalid’s.

‘My soul is Bretonnia,’ Leoncoeur said, not understanding what she was telling him.

‘It was. The Green Knight has come to claim his kingdom. It has always been his. Your destiny is different. You will die alone, my champion, far from home. You will never take the throne again.’

The words were harsh, and they cut him deeply. Deep down, Leoncoeur had never quite lost the half-hope that le Breton was an apparition sent by the fell gods, some terrible shade who would be exposed in due time, leaving the throne free for him again.

‘Once, you told me different,’ he said, unable to keep the ghost of reproach from his voice.

‘I never tell false,’ she said. ‘I told you that you would lead your people into glory. That remains your destiny, should you be strong enough to seize it. Are you strong enough, lion-heart? Or has this bitterness quenched your fire?’

‘Never. Command me.’

A chill breeze made the river ripple, stirring the trees around them. The Lady shivered, and her impeccable features creased. ‘Great powers are moving. They converge on Sigmar’s city. The Fallen covet it, as do the Dead. Those who remain will not stand unaided. That is where the hammer will fall, and that is where the world will change.’

‘But my realm–’

‘It is no longer your realm.’

‘My people are hard-pressed.’

‘The Green Knight is their guardian now,’ the Lady said, almost sorrowfully, as if that alone presaged the end of her hopes for something better. ‘I tell you the truth. Is that not what you have been praying for?’

Leoncoeur looked at her intently. The beauty was still there, as was the ethereal power, but both were diminished. She was fighting against something. This apparition was costing her, and the price would be steep. ‘All lands are dying,’ he said, realising what made her sick. ‘They have poisoned the rivers.’

‘You asked for a way to serve,’ she said. ‘I have given it to you.’ She gave him a fond, faint smile. ‘If you spurn the offer, you might yet live. There might be some kind of service for you in safer places, of a meagre sort.’

Then it was Leoncoeur’s turn to smile. When their faces cast off the most oppressive lines of care, they looked so alike. ‘I never craved meagre service. I was a king.’

‘You still can be.’ The Lady began to sink, sliding down into the brackish waters. ‘The City of Sigmar, my champion. Already its foundations tremble. That is the anvil upon which the fate of man will be tempered.’

‘Then will you live, Lady?’ asked Leoncoeur, watching with concern as she slipped towards the Gironne’s tainted waters. ‘Can you be saved?’

‘Ask only of mortal fates,’ she whispered, her tresses sliding under the surface. ‘Look for me in pure waters, but the games of gods do not concern you.’

But they did. They always had. As Leoncoeur watched her subside into nothingness again, as the golden edges faded from the leaves and the air sunk once more into mud-stinking foulness, he felt as if his heart had been ripped out. He remained immobile for a long time, his knees sinking steadily into the mire, his hands limp by his sides.

‘The City of Sigmar,’ he murmured.

No force of the Empire had stirred itself when Bretonnia had been riven by war. Very rarely had the great and the good of Karl Franz’s realm given much thought to their chivalrous cousins over the Grey Mountains. Then again, it was foolish to assume that they had not been hard-pressed themselves. Leoncoeur had heard the rumours running through court – that disaster had overtaken Marienburg, that the north was aflame, that even the greenskins were terrified of something and remained hidden in their forest lairs.

He felt icy water creep under the skin of his armour plate, rousing him from his lethargy. He stood cumbersomely, hauling on looped creepers. No remnant of the Lady’s presence remained, and the Gironne looked as turgid and weed-choked as before.

Leoncoeur trudged back to his mount, slipping on the mud-slick riverbank as he went.

‘Altdorf,’ he said, musingly, already gauging the distances. ‘If that is where the fates are to be written, we must not be missing.’

He thought of the hot blood of his countrymen, and their desire to exchange the grim hunts after petty quarry for the blood-and-thunder of a real war. Many still looked to him; if he ordered them, they would ride with him still.

He reached his horse, and untied it.

‘So be it,’ he said to himself, smiling dryly as he prepared to mount again. ‘I asked for a path. I have been given one.’

He vaulted into the saddle. He turned one last time, gazing back to where ripples still radiated, and saluted.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Then he kicked his mount up the slope, and was soon gone.

In his absence, the riverbank sunk into silence once more, broken only by the faint slap of the river-current against the shore, and the mournful wind in the twisted branches.

The deathmoon rode in the eastern sky, glowing with a sick greenish sheen. Its wholesome companion was nowhere to be seen.

Such as was foretold, Vlad thought, looking up into heavens.

The land around him was limned with a ghostly light, tainted as stomach-bile. Morrslieb had ever cast a corrupted illumination, but now its noxious effluence seemed worse than ever. Its scarred face was bloated, presaging the onset of Geheimnisnacht.

That should have made him glad. In the old days, when the deathmoon rode high on bitter, cloudless nights he had gloried in the visions it had brought him. He had raised scores of unliving to march under his black banners, and their bones had shone under the glow of the tainted heaven-spoor.

He stood before Castle Drakenhof’s ruined gates, his long cloak snapping in the night wind, and gazed out over the host he had summoned. As yet it did not compare to the vast armies he had once marched west with, but it was grand enough for now. Crowds of Sylvanian troopers, shivering in the cold, stood in decent approximations of Imperial infantry squares. They were dwarfed by the clattering ranks of skeletons and zombies, some pulled from the dark soil just hours ago by Vlad’s necromancers. Skinless horses walked silently along avenues between ghostly regiments, their skull-faced riders showing no emotion as they surveyed the lines of the undead host. Black banners flew, their tattered edges pulled by roving winds.

‘Will it be enough?’ Vlad asked.

No one answered. He stood alone. On his first such crusade, Isabella had been by his side, counselling him, encouraging him. Her absence made his heart ache – to the extent he had a heart, at any rate. The grief was real enough.

In the far distance, thunder cracked along the eastern horizon. The sawtooth edge of the mountains briefly became visible, black against the outer dark. Carrion crows cawed as they flocked above in huge swarms, ready to fly west ahead of the main host.

Vlad watched them mob and swirl. There were many hours left before the dawn, and they could make good time under cover of night. Though he planned to drive the army onwards even during the daylight hours, he knew they would struggle under the sun’s harsh glare. The mortals would need to be fed and rested, and even the dead would require constant supervision from his covens of spell-winders.

They would make for the Stir, taking any towns and villages on the way and turning their impoverished inhabitants to the cause. Since the Law of Death had been loosened, the many graveyards of his cursed province would readily yield up more fell troops for the host, and so the numbers of both mortal and unliving would swell with every league they marched. Once at the river, they would take barges downstream, riding the flood as the dark waters foamed and rushed west.

He did not expect any serious resistance before reaching the borders of Reikland. The Empire was like a rotten fruit – still intact on the outside, but eaten hollow within. The fortified city of Wurtbad might prove a temporary delay, but he had already taken steps to ease that potential barrier.

Behind him, he heard the howls of vargheists as they loped and swooped amid the ruins. He sensed the shuddering movements of ghouls, and saw the shimmer-pattern of unquiet spirits. Those spectral presences would soon send the entire realm into paroxysms of fear, just as they had done so long ago. And yet, this time he was not marching to bring the Empire to its knees. Far from it.

He looked down at the roll of parchment in his left hand, sealed with a great wax glob and marked with the signet-device of the von Carsteins. He remembered how difficult it had been to find the words to use.

I am aware that the mutual enmity between our peoples will make this proposal a hard one to entertain fairly. I have no doubt, though, given the circumstances, you will see past ancient prejudices and buried grievances. You will have seen the same auguries as we have, and you will know what is at stake. And, after all, do I not have some prior claim to this title? Or does right of conquest count for nothing in these debased times?

Vlad was not sure about those lines, but he had left them in. The detail of the law could be hammered out in person – the important thing was to make the approach now, before the city was cut off by the hosts of the North.

He looked up, just in time to see an enormous bat flutter down from the castle rafters. Its body was as big as a wolf’s, and its leathery wings had a downdraft like a hunting eagle’s. More bats followed their leader down, hovering in pack formation, until nine pairs of red eyes glowed before him in the night.

Vlad wrapped the parchment tightly in oilskin and tied the bundle with twine. He held it up, and the hovering bat took it in its powerful jaws.

‘Go swift, go safe,’ whispered Vlad, reaching up to caress the animal.

Then the whole flock of fell creatures shot upward into the night, spiralling high over the assembled army and heading west.

‘Their pride will be the greatest obstacle,’ he mused aloud. ‘Can the Empire humble itself enough to see sense? That is yet to be decided.’ Then he smiled coldly to himself, feeling his long fangs snick on his lower lip. ‘All men can change, and every mortal has a turning-point. We just have to find where that is. Would you not agree, Herrscher?’

The witch hunter stepped from the shadow of the gates, flanked by ashen-faced guards. His own skin was as white as bone, shrivelled dry onto his prominent skeleton. The clothes he had worn when fully alive now hung from him loosely, and his pistol-belt had slipped almost comically about his thighs.

Herrscher stared out at the host before them. Then he looked down at his hands. He was trembling.

‘The shock will pass,’ said Vlad, not unkindly. ‘You forget the worst of the pain, in time.’

Herrscher looked at him, a mix of horror and hatred on his face. For all that, he did not reach for his weapon. ‘How is it... possible?’ he rasped, and his once-powerful voice was as thin as corpse-linen.

Vlad sighed. He would have to get used to many such initiations into the half-life of undead servitude. ‘You do not need to know that. All you need to know now is that my will gives you breath. You will accept that. You will come to cherish it. The power of resistance you once commanded has gone, and you are my lieutenant now.’

Vlad regarded Herrscher with something approaching fondness. The witch hunter would never truly know it, but his position was one of the highest honour – other captains would be appointed, but he was the very first.

Herrscher looked like he wanted to scream, to dash his own brains out, to launch himself at Vlad and wring his neck, but of course none of those things were possible now. The witch hunter might be screaming on the inside, but he would do the bidding of the one who had raised him, just as Vlad did the bidding of Nagash who had raised him.

‘Now come,’ said Vlad, placing a gauntlet on Herrscher’s shoulder and leading him out from the gate’s shadow. ‘We march within the hour. Let me show you your new servants.’

Helborg woke with a jolt. He was still on his feet, propped up against a wall. He did not remember falling asleep. He had hardly been able to close his eyes for the three days since he had been back in Altdorf, and when he did his mind swiftly filled with nightmares. He saw, over and over, the Emperor felled above Heffengen, plummeting to the earth in a deathly spiral before disappearing from view.

The grief was still raw. Karl Franz had been the undisputed master of the sprawling Empire, the only man with the patience, the guile and the sheer presence to hold the fractious provinces together. Only Karl Franz could have faced down Volkmar in one of his tirades, or kept Gelt from flying off into another half-considered magical endeavour, or resisted the grim implacability of Schwarzhelm in his worst moods. Karl Franz had kept them all in line.

If Helborg was honest, only in the past few days had he truly understood what a titanic achievement that had been. The demands of electors, courtiers, wizards, engineers and generals were endless. Every hour brought new demands to his door, burdening him with both the vital and the trivial. For the moment, he had cowed the three electors into submission and ensured his mastery over the city defences, but it would only be a matter of time before they started scheming again. Both Gausser and von Liebwitz saw the present crisis as an opportunity for advancement, and even Haupt-Anderssen sniffed the chance to profit from the flux. Only the wizard Martak seemed to understand the Empire’s desperate straits, and he was little better than a pedlar, looked down on by his more elevated kin in the colleges and disregarded by the Palace staff who served him.

Helborg pushed himself from the wall he had been leaning against, cursing himself for losing consciousness. He was still in full ceremonial armour. He wore his Reiksguard symbols at all times to remind the populace – and, in truth, himself – that he was the last remaining link to the past. Out of all the great heroes of the Empire – Gelt, Volkmar, Schwarzhelm, Huss – only he remained, isolated and cut off from what remained of the northern armies. There was no knowing if any of them still lived, and to even contemplate mounting a significant defence without them felt alien and uncomfortable.

Helborg blinked heavily, hoping none had seen his lapse. The corridor around him was empty, a stone shell lined with torches. Through narrow slit-windows he could see that it was nearly dark outside, and the night’s chill was creeping through the granite. For a moment he could not remember why he had come this way, then it all came back – inspection of the northern gate with Zintler. He had made it as far as the fortified citadel above the gatehouse. He must have just paused for a moment.

He shook himself down, still feeling groggy from lack of rest, and went quickly up towards the parapet level. He climbed two spiral staircases, strode down a long archer’s gallery, then finally emerged into the open air again.

Zintler was waiting for him on the open summit of the gatehouse, a wide courtyard ringed with shoulder-height battlements. A huge flagpole stood in the centre of the space, hung with an Imperial standard. As he passed it, Helborg could smell the mould-spores on the fabric.

Even here, he thought grimly.

Zintler saluted as Helborg approached, not giving any indication that he had been kept waiting.

‘How stands it?’ asked Helborg, joining him on the northern edge of the courtyard.

‘Plague has reached the city,’ said Zintler. ‘Barely two-thirds of the men capable of carrying a sword can still lift one. It will only get worse.’

Helborg nodded grimly. Similar reports were coming in from all across Altdorf. Despite guarding the water supplies tightly, something was infecting the poorer quarters and spreading out to the garrisons. The air itself was foul, and carried an edge of bitterness when the wind blew.

‘The walls?’ Helborg asked, peering over the edge to look at them for himself.

The northern gate had been built up and augmented over hundreds of years, and was now a vast pile of age-darkened stone, crested with gunnery emplacements and the snarling golden gargoyles of griffons and lions. Bulwarks and kill-points jostled with one another in a cunning series of funnelling formations. By the time an enemy got anywhere close to the gates themselves, they would have been pummelled by artillery and ranged magic, doused in boiling oil and pelted with building rubble, then finally overwhelmed by sorties streaming out from hidden posterns all along the ingress way.

At least, that was how it had been in the past, when the Empire’s armies were more numerous than the sands on the grey Nordland shore. Now Helborg doubted whether he had enough able bodies to occupy more than half the defensive positions available to him.

‘The walls are crumbling,’ said Zintler flatly. He reached over to the top of the battlements and prised a section of mortar from the joints. It disintegrated between his finger and thumb. Once again, Helborg smelled the stench of rot.

‘It can’t be crumbling,’ Helborg muttered. ‘This is granite from the Worlds Edge peaks.’

‘The Rot,’ said Zintler, as if that explained everything.

They were already referring to the Rot in the streets – the malaise that seemed to spread through everything, spoiling milk, fouling foodstuffs, infecting living flesh.

‘Enough of that,’ snapped Helborg. ‘Summon the master engineer and get him to shore up the foundations. The gates must hold.’

‘Master Ironblood is already engaged–’

‘Summon him!’ Helborg snapped. ‘I don’t care what he’s tinkering with – the gates must hold.’

Zintler bowed, admonished. The Reikscaptain had the grey lines of fatigue around his eyes, just as they all did. Helborg wondered if he had had any sleep either.

‘What reports from the west?’ Helborg asked, running a weary hand over his cropped scalp.

‘The enemy draws close to Carroburg.’

‘Have the Greatswords been pulled back?’

‘The messages were sent.’

‘That is not what I asked.’

Zintler looked rattled. ‘I do not know, lord. We send messengers out along the river, and never hear from them again. We send fortified contingents in barges, and they disappear. I do not have enough men to chase them all down. We do what we can, but–’

‘So be it,’ growled Helborg, not wanting to hear any more excuses. Zintler was doing his best, but the inexorable tide of work was getting to them all. Carroburg housed some of the finest regiments in the Reikland – if they could be salvaged, then the city’s defences would look a lot more secure. If they decided to make a doomed stand at the western city, then things looked even bleaker. ‘There is nothing more to be done.’

Helborg’s cheek flared with pain. The daemon’s claws had bitten deep, and though the wound had closed over, it had never truly healed. He was aware how it made him look. He could feel poisons at work under the scabby skin, and knew that no apothecary would be able to salve them.

It is my penance, he mused bleakly. For failing my liege.

Zintler’s face flushed. ‘I can try again,’ he said.

‘Too late now,’ growled Helborg, cursing the luck that seemed ever against them. ‘If they come, they come. Until then, look to the walls. Organise details to begin work on the gatehouse this night, and bring me reports from the watch. We need clean water from somewhere, and I cannot believe all the shafts are tainted.’

Zintler saluted smartly, and walked across the courtyard to the stairwell. Helborg watched him go, noting the stooped line of his shoulders.

Karl Franz would have handled him better, he thought to himself. He would have handled all of them better.

Helborg limped over to the very edge of the parapet, and gazed moodily north. Out under the cover of the encroaching dark, the tree line brooded like a vast slick of tar. The foliage had been allowed to creep closer to the walls than it should have done. Everything seemed to be growing at a burgeoning rate, blooming in a mire of foulness far more quickly than it could be cut down again.

Above the jagged lines of the firs, Morrslieb rode low, its virulent orb glowing yellow-green. As Helborg’s eyes strayed towards it, the wound in his cheek throbbed harder.

Behind him, the soft light of lanterns flickered into life, one by one, as the citizens began the nightly chore of warding against the night-terrors. Bonfires would be lit at every street intersection, and patrols doubled up. That did not stop the regular disappearance of citizens, nor the growing spread of the pox, nor the uncontrollable nightmares that made children and adults alike scream in their sweat-sodden cots.

Out there, somewhere, the hordes of the End Times were coming, burning and hacking, and with only one goal in mind.

‘I will resist you,’ murmured Helborg, fighting against exhaustion, knowing how much labour still lay ahead of him. ‘We will not retreat. We will meet you with our blades and our hearts intact, for we are men, and you have never extinguished us, not after three thousand years of trying.’

As he spoke, his gauntlets curled into fists. He stood atop the pinnacle of the northern gate, with the entire city at his back, and cursed the darkness.

Out in the gathering night, nothing changed. The trees rustled in the distance, rubbing branches against one another as if they were greedy hands clutching weapons. The eerie calls of night-birds shrieked into the gloom, and the uncaring stars came out, just as they had done since the world was made.

Slowly, his body shot through with the gathering weight of exhaustion, Helborg turned from the vista, and limped back into the gatehouse. His tasks for the night were only just beginning.

Nine

The river Reik had once flown strongly west of Carroburg. It had plunged into a narrow gorge, foaming and hissing, before reaching the cataracts that sent it tumbling down forty feet of rock-strewn white water. The cliffs on either side of the valley soared up precipitously, clad in dark firs and dripping with a constant mist of spray. The famed citadel itself had been raised on the northern shore – a spur of black rock, wound about with tight circles of inner walls and close-packed towers. Carroburg perched above the drop like a crow poised for scavenging. The banners of Middenland hung from its sheer-angled tower roofs, bearing the device of the white wolf atop a blue ground.

Dominating the city was its fortress, built for defence, with soaring outer walls jutting from sheer cliffs of rain-slick rock. Only two gates broke the circle of the citadel’s lower walls, one looking east towards Altdorf, the other west towards Marienburg. In normal times both were kept open during the daylight hours, though for many weeks they had been barred and locked tight. A meagre force of Greatswords had issued out along the great western road to relieve Marienburg once news of its siege had come in, but no news had returned regarding their fate, and the city’s burgomeisters had feared the worst. After that, no living soul passed the cordon of the walls, and the populace huddled within their protection even as the nights were filled with lurid screaming and the waters around them seemed to thicken and spoil.

Travelling at the head of their vast host, Otto and Ethrac paused at the point the Reik curved steeply north towards the Carroburg gorge. They were both riding Ghurk, and had to yank his ears hard to get him to stop lumbering.

‘What do you make of it, o my brother?’ asked Otto, licking his lips.

‘Satisfactory,’ replied Ethrac, running a wizened finger around the lip of his plague-bells. ‘Better than I hoped for.’

In years past, they would have been staring up at a daunting defensive position, a natural funnel-point overlooked by formidable gunnery and backed up by the feared garrison of Greatswords. Now, the Reik was clogged with great mats of grey-fronded moss. In defiance of the strong current, the mats had floated upriver, lodging against the bank and blocking the flow. As the flood around them ebbed, more clots of foliage bumped and twisted upstream, further silting up the power of the waters.

Even as the river had choked on the thick layers of unnatural vegetation, the forest on either bank had burgeoned and burst its bounds, sending meandering tendrils snaking out into what had once been open ground. Tree-trunks had burst, exposing thick smears of throbbing mucus within. Briars had shot from the boiling earth, tangling and throttling anything they came across. The naked cliffs below Carroburg were now writhing with tentacles, spikes and suckers. The cataract itself was gone, replaced by a slithering slop of viscous algal slime.

Otto gazed up at the fortress. The base of its still-mighty walls was a hundred feet away. He reached for a copper spyglass at his belt, and placed it against his bloodshot eye. As he did so, the lens blinked.

‘They are locked up within it, o my brother,’ Otto observed, moving the spyglass across the battlements. He could see spear-tips moving across the parapets. There were still artillery pieces on the high battlements, and some of them might do a little damage. ‘They are not getting out now. Ghurk will feast on hot flesh this night.’

Ghurk chortled, making his rolling shoulders shudder. Ethrac stood up, shaking his bell-staff. ‘The foundations will moulder,’ he muttered, invoking the dark magic that welled up all around him so easily now. ‘The stone will break. The bones will snap.’

Otto joined his brother’s chuckling. He had not slain in earnest since Marienburg, and the blood on his scythe was almost dry. ‘It will be a mercy for them,’ he said. ‘Your medicines! They will splutter on them.’

Ghurk started to lumber onwards, his cloven hooves sinking deep into the muddy mulch below. He waded across the channel where the river had been, and sank barely up to his shins. All around him, the vanguard of the pestilential host advanced in turn, surging across what should have been a raging torrent. Norscan warriors strode out, swinging their cleavers in armoured fists, followed by the long ranks of disease-addled plague-zombies.

The trees around them shivered, and strange beasts crept out from the shadows – wolves with swollen bellies and sore-thick jowls, bears with split torsos and glistening ribcages, goat-like horrors with eyeless faces and dribbling withers. The whole of nature had been perverted, and the coming of the Glottkin roused them all from whatever dank pit of misery they had curled into.

Otto felt a savage joy kindle in his rotten heart. Ethrac’s magicks would do their work soon, and the citadel’s foundations would begin to crack. He could already see the results – poison-vines prising the block apart and freezing it into powder. The air stank with glorious virulence, ushering the numberless hordes up the gorge mouth and towards the high gates.

‘Faster, Ghurk-my-brother,’ Otto urged, slapping his brother on his shoulder. ‘We are dallying. Show some speed!’

Ghurk issued a joyous bark, and started to pick up the pace. His hooves splashed deep as he rolled up the choked riverbed. In his wake, the entire horde did likewise, shambling and surging like some colossal tide of incoming filth. A thousand parched throats croaked out battle-cries, and sonorous war horns boomed a hoarse, echoing dirge.

Far ahead, from atop the tallest tower, the trumpets of the Empire issued their counter-challenge. Puffs of white smoke rippled along the parapets, presaging the blackpowder volleys that would soon be cracking and spitting among them.

Otto cared nothing for that. The seamy air coursed through his lank hair as he held tight onto Ghurk’s yawing body. Soon they would be up among them, breaking skulls.

There were times when the resistance of mortals genuinely puzzled him. What could be better than indulging in the glorious foulness of the Plaguefather? What could be better than to be blessed with such noxious, bountiful gifts?

Still, for whatever reason, they failed to grasp the possibilities and held on to their dreary, grey lives surrounded by fear and privation. He could not be too miserable about that – it meant that there were wars to be fought, and so his scythe would always run with glutinous fluids, melting from the body and ready to be slurped down quick.

He grinned, seeing how quickly Ghurk ate up the ground and brought the doom of Carroburg closer. Ethrac continued to mutter, and inky clouds roiled across the beleaguered fortress, spinning out of the lead-grey sky like bile dropped into spoiled cream.

‘Onward, my creatures!’ Otto croaked, waving his scythe wildly and straining to catch the first sight of a terror-whitened mortal face. ‘Climb fast! Drag them down! Suck their marrows and squeeze their eyes!’

The host answered him with a chorus of eager roars. Like some enormous, unnatural flood breaking in reverse, the host of the Plaguefather surged up the gorge mouth, clambered up the rocky cliffs and swarmed up towards the walls, its eyes already alight with slaughter.

Leoncoeur stood on the balcony of the old stone tower south of Couronne and gazed out across the assembled throng. The rain hammered down, just as it seemed to do all the time these days, turning the turf below into a quagmire. The eastern horizon grumbled and snapped with thunder, heralding the latest storm to blight the eastern marches. It was just as the Lady had told him – the world was coming apart at the edges, torn like a worn saddlebag.

He had chosen to make his appeal outside the boundaries of the city. Gilles le Breton had given him leave to make the case for Errantry, but it would have been discourteous to do so within the confines of Couronne. So the tidings had gone out to every keep and knightly hold between the coast and the mountains. Despite the weariness of the long and grinding war, those tidings had been answered handsomely, and knights had ridden through the wild nights to answer the summons.

That alone gave Leoncoeur some respite from the doubts that had plagued him. He may not have been king any longer, but they still responded to the House of Couronne when it called.

‘My brothers!’ he called out, shouting hard to make his voice carry across the crowds. Several hundred faces, many wearing open helms, others with their long hair lank from the rain, looked up at him expectantly. A riot of colours was visible on the collected tabards and tunics – a chequerboard of knightly houses in azure, sable, argent and crimson. Beyond the crowd, squires stood with the horses, enduring the ice-cold rain with grim fortitude.

‘Much has changed since I last addressed you,’ said Leoncoeur. ‘The traitor Mallobaude is dead, and the kingdom rests again with its founder. We have seen signs and wonders in the night sky, and the curse of foul magic creeps across our realm. You know in your hearts that this is no ordinary war, such as we have endured for time immemorial. For once, the prophecies of End Times strike at the heart of it. My brothers, the final test is coming.’

As he spoke, he studied their reactions carefully. Bretonnian knights were hard-bitten warriors, some of the finest and most dangerous cavalry troops in the entire Old World. They were not given to flights of fancy, and took tales of woe and prophecy in their stride.

‘Daemons are abroad again, and the servants of the foul gods march south with the storm at their backs. But as the winds of magic stir, other powers rise to contest it. I have seen the Lady, my brothers. She came to me from the waters and told me of the trials to come. This is why I call you here, so that her summons may be answered. I call Errantry, a crusade to strike at the heart of the new darkness.’

The knights watched him intently. From any other mouth, they might have scoffed at claims to have spoken with the Lady, but they knew Leoncoeur’s past and none raised so much as a sceptical smile. As Leoncoeur spoke, he thought he even detected something like longing in their steady expressions. They had endured so much over the past months, and the prospect of something turning the tide of long, slow defeat spoke to their martial hearts.

‘The axe will fall, not here, but on the City of Sigmar,’ Leoncoeur told them. ‘Even now, the enemy burns its way south, turning forests into haunts of ruin. We do not have long. If we muster as quickly as we may, even an unbroken ride across the mountains will scarce bring us there in time.’

Some scepticism showed on their faces now. The Empire was far away, and far removed from the concerns of Bretonnia. Relations between the two foremost kingdoms of men had ever been distant, riven as they were by both tongue and custom.

‘I know what you feel!’ Leoncoeur urged, forcing a smile. ‘You say to yourselves that Altdorf is distant, and has armies of its own, and that the Emperor did not send his own troops to aid us when we were staring devastation in the face. All these things are true. If you refused this summons then no Bretonnian would blame you. None of your ladies would scorn you, and your people would not whisper of your honour in the shadows of their hovels.’

Leoncoeur leaned out, clutching the railing of the stone balcony.

‘But consider this! The fire is coming. The war that will end all wars is breaking around us, and no realm on earth will be free of it. The anvil, the heart of it, is Altdorf. Here will the fates of men be decided, and here will the trials of the gods play out. Would you miss that contest? Would you wish to tell your children, if any future generation still lives in years to come, that the flower of Bretonnia was given the chance to intervene, and turned aside?’

The crowd began to murmur. Leoncoeur knew what stirred their hearts, and what kindled their ever-present sense of honour.

‘There is glory to be had here!’ he thundered, striking the railing with his gauntlet. ‘When we swore our vows, we swore to guard the weak and cast down the tyrant. We swore to ride out against any creature of darkness that threatened our hearth and home, and to take the vengeance of the Lady to every last one of them.’

Shouts of agreement now, and a low murmur of assent. Their spirits were roused.

‘In these times, every realm stands as our hearth, and the whole world is our home!’ roared Leoncoeur. ‘The corrupted will make no distinction between them and us. If Altdorf falls, who can doubt that Couronne will be next? When we shed blood on the Reik, we shed it for Bretonnia; when we shield the Empire from the storm, we shield the vales and towers of Quenelles and Bordeleaux!’

‘Leoncoeur!’ someone cried out, and the chant was taken up. Leoncoeur! Leoncoeur!

‘I can promise you nothing but hardship!’ Leoncoeur went on. ‘We may not return from this adventure, for I have seen the hosts of the north, and they are vast beyond imagination. But which of us has ever shied from the fear of death? Which of us has ever shown cowardice in battle, or refused a duel against the mightiest of foes? If we are to die, then let it be where the storm breaks! If our souls are forfeit, then let it be fighting in the last battle of the Old World, where our sacrifice shall echo down the ages! And when the tally of years is complete and the reckoning made for all nations, let no man say that when the call came, Bretonnia failed to answer!’

They were roaring now, drawing swords and crying out for vengeance. Leoncoeur felt savage joy rise up within his gorge.

They are still my people, he thought. And I am still their master.

‘For the Lady!’ he cried, raising both arms high in defiance of the tempest that raged about the tower.

The knights before him replied without hesitation, shouting out their fealty in a single massed roar.

The Lady!

Leoncoeur relaxed at last then, knowing the first task was over. Errantry had been called, and the heavy cavalry that made Bretonnia feared throughout the world had been unleashed. The road ahead would be dark, but at least the path was set.

The Lady had spoken. Her crusade had begun.

The vampire army travelled fastest by night. Only the weakest of Vlad’s servants suffered under the glare of the sun, but as the skies were relentlessly overcast and dark with rain even they were able to make some progress. In any case, the forest around them had burst into incredible growth, and the trees snaked and throttled one another in an orgy of tumescence.

Vlad rode at the head of his skeletal vanguard, looking about with distaste at the corruption of his land. Creepers twisted across the road, all bearing virulent fruits that burst with acid when trodden down. The soil itself seethed with fungi and clinging mosses, all striving with perverted fecundity to assert themselves against the foul growths around them.

This was life in all its disgusting, liquid excess. Even as a mortal man he would have found such violent displays of fertility alarming. As a lord of undeath, committed to the austere night-world of his Master, it was almost more than he could bear to endure it.

If he chose, he could have halted the army and summoned his necromancers and lesser vampire lords. They could have shrivelled the growths and bleached the fruits white. If they committed themselves for long enough, they could have parched the land from the Stir to the mountains, draining it of the noxious mucus that leaked from every suppurating pore and returning it to the barren waste it deserved to be.

But there was no time, and his energies needed to be husbanded for the trials ahead, so he grudgingly suffered his homeland to be overrun.

Not forever, he thought darkly, running his ancient eyes over the tangle of vines. The cold fire will come, once all is accomplished.

Herrscher rode beside him. Both their steeds were skeletons, their bones knitted together by dark magic and held in place by Vlad’s will. The undead witch hunter looked a little less miserable than he had done, though he still slumped in the saddle.

‘How do you find your gifts?’ asked Vlad, trying to take his mind off the filth around him.

Herrscher shot him an incredulous look. ‘Gifts?’ He shook his emaciated head. ‘You have poisoned me.’

‘Learn to appreciate what you have been given. You are stronger than you were. You hear better, see better, and you will endure against all magic. Scorn this, and you remain a greater fool than when you lived.’

‘This is what you wish for,’ muttered Herrscher. ‘Slaves, all of us.’

‘Not quite. I wish for order. I wish for the weak to know their place, guarded over by their betters. Do sheep resent their shepherds? Or would they rather take their chances with the wolves?’

‘I would have done,’ retorted Herrscher, his face a picture of resentment.

‘And that would be a terrible waste,’ said Vlad. ‘You are better at my side, where your talents can flourish. Do not resent the past – soon you will have trouble even remembering it.’

‘So the past does not trouble you?’ asked Herrscher, his lips curling sardonically. ‘That is not what I heard.’

Vlad’s anger rose, and he made to turn on Herrscher, when he suddenly noticed a flash of white in the road ahead. In an instant, he saw Isabella riding to greet him, alone under the trees, a look of admonishment on her perfect alabaster face, and he froze.

The illusion faded. More than one figure emerged from the arboreal gloom – eight shades, each as thin and drawn as dried fruit, carrying between them a palanquin of shimmering glass. Silently, they set the carriage down, and three women emerged, all of them wearing lace-edged gowns of purest white. They seemed to glow like moonlight, and their footfalls left no tracks in the sodden earth. They curtsied archaically, and shuffled closer.

Vlad mastered himself. He knew the names of the ladies well enough, and which master they served, though he had not expected to encounter them so soon.

‘My lord von Carstein,’ said the foremost of the pale creatures, her voice as dry and hollow as a coffin-echo. ‘We had begun to worry. This land has become an abomination.’

‘All lands have,’ said Vlad, offering his hand for the lady to kiss. ‘Why are you here, Liliet? I did not seek to find you for days hence.’

The white lady gave him a dry smile. ‘Your servant Mundvard failed. Marienburg is a nest of writhing horrors, and the Empire has been driven back like whipped curs to Carroburg.’

‘They are moving fast, then. What strength do they have?’

‘They are led by three siblings – foul triplets, each blessed with grotesque gifts. One is the size of a house, and chews his way through fortifications like a fat child through sweetmeats. Their host is swollen beyond counting. Your servant did his best – I can vouch for that – but they will not be halted.’ She shuddered distastefully. ‘Such numbers. I would not have believed it, had I not seen it.’

Vlad pursed his fleshless lips together. ‘And where is Mundvard now?’

‘Gathering what forces he can. He sent us to you, and begs leave to join his army with yours north of Altdorf. He says that no action further west can delay the enemy now, and only a combined stand at the city holds the hope of resistance.’

‘Oh, he said that, did he?’ Vlad was irritated. Mundvard was a supreme fighter, but a poor general. More than that, it was not his place to dictate tactics to his betters – he should have delayed the Chaos forces for longer at the coast, giving time for Vlad to gather the greatest host he could. Now the need for haste, already pressing, had become overwhelming.

‘He fought skilfully, lord,’ said Liliet, a little coquettishly, given her cadaverous appearance.

‘Not skilfully enough,’ snarled Vlad. ‘You do not need to return to him. Remain with me, and together we will cut a faster path. I will send messages via other means, and if he still commands more than a rabble of zombies, he can meet us in the Reikland.’

Liliet bowed, then looked sidelong at Herrscher. ‘And who is this, my lord? Surely you have not been doling out the Kiss to mortals without the consent of the Master?’

Herrscher was looking at the three women with a mix of horror and fascination on his face. That was good – in the past, it would merely have been horror.

‘My new lieutenant,’ said Vlad kicking his horse into motion again and forcing the ladies to give way. ‘Ride with us awhile, and tell us tales of old Marienburg. We make all haste to Wurtbad, and I am sure he can learn much from you on the way.’

Ten

Captain Hans Blucher felt the stone crack before he heard it, and it made his blood freeze. The flags beneath his feet sprouted paper-thin fractures, which then widened to a blade’s width.

‘Maintain fire!’ he bellowed, striding along the ranks of gunnery pieces. ‘Let no man leave his station, or by Taal’s beard I shall break his head apart with my own hands!’

The walls of Carroburg had been under sustained attack for over an hour. In his worst nightmares, Blucher could not have imagined such an assault. The earth itself seemed to have been roused against them, and the forest in every direction now rang with the tramp of hooves and iron-shod boots.

The rain had started to fall soon after the enemy had arrived. At first it had been like any other deluge, though soon the drops became heavier and heavier, until it was like trying to fight under a hail of mud splatters. Every exposed surface became greasy and treacherous, fouling the cannon wheels as they were rolled out and making men slip and stagger.

Blucher was stationed on the south wall, in command of many of the bigger artillery pieces. Helblasters jostled on the narrow parapet alongside the bigger Great Guns, each one christened by their foundries in Nuln – Grosse Bertha, Todslingeren, Trollsbane. They had been firing without pause since the first emergence of the enemy, hurling their shot out at the horde and blasting great channels through the oncoming ranks.

‘Ulric damn you all!’ hollered Blucher, not paying too much attention to which god’s wrath he invoked, so long as it inspired a faster work-rate from his men. ‘Reload! They are pouring into the outer curtain!’

The blackpowder guns had reaped a terrible swathe, but it had merely sliced a tithe from the oncoming masses. They showed no fear, clambering over the twitching corpses of the felled, whooping and gurgling with glee. The driving mud-rain should have slowed them, washing them back down the steep cliff edges and into the grimy channel that had once been the Reik, but they seemed to thrive on it, slithering up through the deluge with the effluent streaming down their calloused faces.

Blucher’s guns were arranged on the inner wall, high up above the first ring of courtyards. From their vantage they had been able to rain mortars and cannonballs with impunity, but now it felt as if the fortress’s very foundations were shaking under them.

Blucher ran to the edge, skirting carefully around the red-hot maw of Grosse Bertha and taking care not to touch the metal. He reached the lip of the parapet and peered down.

What he saw took his breath away. The curtain wall was gone – overwhelmed, lost under a simmering carpet of limbs and tentacles. Shocked to his core, Blucher nearly lost his footing, and grabbed hold of the battlement’s edge to steady himself.

Mere moments ago, the outer perimeter had been held by companies of archers and handgunners, bolstered by the few Greatswords Aldred had left behind before marching out on his doomed attempt to relieve Marienburg. It had been a diminished company, to be sure, but it should have held out for longer than that. Now the walls’ summits were crawling with all manner of mutants and daemon-spawned horrors. Even as he watched, he saw the remaining defenders caught up in a rolling wave of tortured flesh, hacked apart and absorbed by the racing riptide of green and brown.

The enemy ranks were a bizarre assortment – some mortal men in plate armour and matted furs, some grotesque plague-victims carrying hooks and spike flails, some forest-beasts swollen to obscene proportions and slavering with unnatural hungers. Amid them all shimmered the faint outlines of daemons, screaming and shrieking amid the downpour.

There was no fighting against those numbers. They swarmed like rats, scrabbling up the sheer walls along living briars and thorn-tendrils. The stone underfoot gave way, crushed by their weight, but still they came on, chortling as they trod on the tumbling bodies of their own kind.

They would be across the inner courtyard in moments, and after that the great doors to the keep would not hold them for long, not if the outer walls had been demolished and surged over so ruthlessly.

‘Belay that!’ Blucher cried, unholstering his pistol and cocking the hammer. As he did so, he noticed his hands were trembling. He had been a captain for twenty years and a trooper for ten more, and was used to the sights and sounds of battle, and they had never shaken before. ‘Fall back to the towers!’

There is no resisting this, he found himself thinking even as he retreated across the parapet towards the tower beyond. This will be over within the hour.

All around him, men deserted their stations and fled for the last bastions of defence. As they did so, more stone flags cracked and splintered, sending shattered masonry flying high. The rain intensified, splattering green gobbets across the tortured citadel.

Blucher resisted the urge to run. The main gate to the tower was less than twenty yards away, and already clogged with gunnery crews trying to cram their way in.

‘In good order!’ he cried, trying to give his orders a clarity that his mind lacked. ‘Up to the top level, form up in the Great Hall!’

He was almost there – he could see the safety of the archway before him. Then, just as the last of the artillery crews slipped inside, the ground beneath him erupted.

He was thrown back, landing on his back several yards away. Dazed, he looked up, trying to make out what had felled him.

The parapet’s stone floor had burst open, and a fountain of mud and earth was jetting from the breach. Something huge was clawing its way to the surface, flinging aside stone flags as if they were children’s toys.

The entire wall-section groaned and tilted, listing out over the courtyard below. Blucher grabbed hold of a stone railing and hauled himself to his feet, bracing unsteadily as the world swayed and cracked around him.

The beast flailed its way into the open, tunnelling up from where the gunnery level had just been. It was vast, a leviathan of earth and rubble, surging up with the bulk and weight of a river-barge and slewing debris from its massive shoulders.

For a moment, Blucher did not have anything to aim at, just a shower of loose soil and broken stone pieces, but then the beast itself shook loose and turned on him.

He had never seen a monster so big. It was the size of the officer’s mess at his old parade ground, a nightmare of bulging veins and fat-slick limbs. Its pocked flesh was the green of rotten fruit. A tiny head protruded from absurdly muscled shoulders, drooling with butter-yellow saliva and grinning inanely. A low hhurr, hhurr rattled out from its vast lungs, and an overpowering stench of un-sluiced night-pans wafted out from its sweat-moist haunches.

Blucher raised the pistol, holding it two-handed to quell the shakes, then fired. The shot spun out, perfectly aimed, and hit the creature square in the forehead.

The monster stopped dead. For a moment, Blucher dared to believe that he had felled it, as a line of thin blood ran down the monster’s face. He saw it begin to topple, swaying amid the ruin of its ascent, before it blinked heavily, shook its head, and grinned again.

Blucher tried to reload. He scrambled for another shot, pulling it from the wallet at his belt and tipping it into the palm of his hand.

The monster lumbered towards him, shattering what remained of the stone floor under its tread. With a lurch of pure horror, Blucher saw that there was no stopping it. He could fire again and again, and still make no impression on that thick hide.

He pushed himself back towards the edge of the tilting parapet, and glanced down over his shoulder. Below him, a drop of over thirty feet, the courtyard filled with enemy troops. He could see Carroburgers being pulled limb from limb amid the cackling laughter of daemons. Others were being dragged before cauldrons of boiling liquid and forced to drink, gagging and screaming as the corrosive poisons boiled their innards away. Huge booms rang out as the enemy got into the blackpowder storerooms, sending cracks racing up the flanks of the tortured fortress.

It was already over. In the space of just a few hours, one of the oldest and proudest garrisons in the Empire had been overrun. Blucher’s fear was replaced by a deadening sense of shame. They should have done better. They should have fought harder.

By then, the behemoth was nearly upon him. Blucher cast his pistol aside and reached for a short sword, staring up at the monster as it loomed over him. As he did so, he saw two twisted figures crouching on the beast’s shoulders, one in dirty robes and carrying a bell-bearing staff, the other wielding a scythe. Neither of them seemed to have noticed him – they were both absorbed in the carnage bursting out all across the reeling citadel.

‘This is not the end!’ cried Blucher, holding his blade as firmly as he could. ‘The Emperor will have his vengeance! Sigmar protects the faithful! The fate of the fallen is–’

His tirade was cut off by a single down-stomp of the monster’s hoof. His body was smashed into the stone, crushed into a bloody pulp as the earth beneath was shivered into scree.

Atop Ghurk’s shoulder, Ethrac paused and turned to his brother. ‘Did you hear something?’ he asked.

Otto was in a frenzy of war-lust, barely sensible to anything outside his own world of slaughter. His red-rimmed eyes sparkled with delight as he surveyed the volume of destruction around him. ‘Hear what, o my brother?’ he asked, absently.

‘Never mind it,’ muttered Ethrac, preparing the next phase of the noxious deluge that would rip the roofs from the towers and expose the last of the cowering defenders within. ‘Press on, Ghurk. Break and shatter, snap and wither.’

Ghurk barked with enthusiasm, too enraptured with the joy of destruction even to scrape the remains of his last kill up to his mouth. Turning cumbersomely, he swayed drunkenly towards the pinnacles of Carroburg.

The sky above them lanced with flashes of green, exposing the shimmer-pattern of daemons in the air. All around them, a symphony of screams, flesh-schlicks, ribcage snaps and eyeball-pops swelled in the storm.

The battle was won. Now the true carnage could begin.

Another day dawned over Altdorf, as dank and rotten as all the others. The Reik’s flow had slowed to a grimy halt, and the stagnant waters now lapped at the edges of the streets above the quaysides. Insects multiplied on the filmy surface, and their massed buzzing drowned out even the cries of the merchants on the loading wharfs.

Martak strode down the winding streets through the poor quarter, trying not to slip on the grime-soaked streets. Altdorf’s thoroughfares were filthy places at the best of times, but the endless rain and damp and plague and misery had turned them into little more than rivers of mud. The drenched and half-starved populace shuffled around in the margins, hugging the dripping eaves of the wattle-and-daub townhouses and shivering in the cold.

For Martak, used to the wilds of the Great Forest, the confinement and the stink were especially trying. He had long since given up trying to get used to it, and had actively turned his finely honed sense of smell towards the task of detection. The plagues were being borne by foul winds from the north, that was certain, but there had to be a source within the city as well. Every chaplain of Sigmar was chanting nightly to banish the contagions, and the fact that they had failed suggested either that the power of faith was waning, or a greater power was at work, or both.

There was no shortage of places to look for the plague’s root – the City of Sigmar was built upon a warren of alleys, cesspits, warehouses and thieves’ dens, all of which were suitable nesting places for the Rot. There might be just one source or hundreds – it was impossible to know, not without tearing the entire poor quarter apart, brick by rotting brick.

Ahead of him stood the Temple of Shallya. It had been deliberately placed in the darkest and most impoverished district of the old city, and stood like a shaft of sunlight amid piled-high tenements. Very few inhabitants of Altdorf were free of the fear of being assaulted or pick-pocketed while abroad in that district, but the Sisters of the Goddess lived their lives unmolested in the very heart of the lawless slum-city. Every day they would receive long lines of supplicants, desperate for relief from the panoply of maladies that afflicted them. Since the full onset of the Rot those lines had grown fourfold, and the temple was now permanently besieged by a throng of blistered and scarlet-faced sufferers.

As he neared the temple precincts, Martak pushed them aside, using his staff to drive them from his path.

Sister Margrit, the head of the order in Altdorf, watched him struggle. Her stern, matronly face showed some disapproval as she waited for him at the top of a wide flight of stone stairs. By the time Martak had reached her, he was sweating like a hog in midsummer.

‘Tell me, sister,’ he panted, wiping his greasy forehead, ‘how do you stand it?’

‘Stand what?’ Margrit asked.

‘The smell.’

‘You are not that clean yourself.’

Martak ran his fingers through his clotted beard. ‘True enough. But you know why I’m here.’

Margrit nodded. ‘Come.’

The two of them passed from the crowded courtyard and walked under an open colonnade. Beyond the pillars lay a shaded cloister, free from the worst of the clamour outside. A fountain played amid a knot garden of carefully tended herbal plants. Martak felt like he had stepped into another world, and took a deep breath. The faint tang of corruption still laced the air, but it was less overpowering than outside.

‘It is rare, for one of your kind to come here,’ said Margrit, walking slowly along the cloister paths. ‘Wizards and priests – we have not always seen the world the same way.’

‘Times are changing,’ said Martak. ‘And I’m not a very grand sort of wizard.’

‘You are the Supreme Patriarch.’

Martak winced. ‘Come, you know that means nothing. The Reiksmarshal has more than a dozen better battle wizards on his roster.’

Margrit stopped walking, and regarded him carefully. ‘But they are not here.’

‘No, they are not.’

Margrit considered that. Then she swept a pudgy hand around her, demonstrating what she presided over. ‘We dwell in an island now – a drop of clear water amid a sea of pain. We guard it, and we tend it, but it cannot last forever. Mark it well, my lord. All gardens wither.’

‘Where is the sickness coming from?’ asked Martak. ‘Helborg has his eyes on the walls, on the Great Guns and the Knightly Orders. He looks out from the ramparts, searching for the coming storm, but he is blind to what is happening here. What is the source?’

Margrit smiled sadly. ‘Our masters are military men. What do you expect?’ The smile faded. ‘I cannot tell you where the Rot wells up from. We have made enquiries. The people tell us things, as long as we bandage their sores and listen to their sorrows.’

‘You have nothing?’

‘It comes from the sewers, but that will not help you. There are miles of them down there, and the City Watch does not send its men under the streets.’

‘They might need to.’

‘None would come back.’ Margrit looked at him sympathetically. ‘You don’t spend much time in the city, do you, wild-man? There are things under Altdorf that have lain undisturbed since the time of the old Emperors. Only a fool would venture far down there.’

Martak shrugged, scratching his neck. ‘Wise men have not got us very far. Perhaps fools are needed.’

‘Then take armed men,’ said Margrit, seriously. ‘Take whole bands of them. Flush the tunnels with fire – if you have a Bright magister or two, all the better. I would not venture down beneath the streets with less than a hundred troops at my back.’

‘A hundred,’ said Martak, amused by the thought of this stout, severe-jowled woman leading an expedition into Altdorf’s hidden underbelly. ‘I think you’d need less.’

‘This is just the beginning,’ Margrit warned, starting to walk again. As she went, she trailed a hand along the tops of severely-harvested medicinal herbs. There were not many fresh leaves left. ‘We can feel it growing. Shallya, may She be blessed forever, does not answer us. We have a gifted sister, a young woman from Wurtbad whose power for prophecy and healing is the most powerful I have ever known, and even she hears nothing now.’

‘Why not?’

‘She hears nothing because she dashed her head against the fountain you see over there. Before we got to her, she had polluted the sacred spring with her own blood. She had been sent mad, they tell me. She had seen what was coming, and it turned her mind.’ Margrit looked close to angry tears. ‘She would have been so powerful. She would have done much good.’

Martak halted her, placing his burly hand on her arm. ‘Listen, I have to speak to the Reiksmarshal,’ he said, his gruff voice as soft as he could make it. ‘I will tell him what you told me. He has men. I will tell him we need to purge the sewers, and I will tell him to send no less than a hundred men in each party. Plus a couple of Bright mages, which I can handle.’

Margrit nodded, looking grateful. ‘If you can do that, it would help. We need our health back. If the enemy comes on us now, we will be too weak to man the walls.’

Martak knew the truth of that. As much as Helborg struggled manfully with the thousand tasks at hand, he was blind to the fundamental truth. Altdorf was not like a Reiksguard regiment, full of superbly trained men in the prime of condition – it was home to the weak, the ragged and needy. They were being given nothing, and in the final test that would cost them.

‘Lord Patriarch, tell me one thing,’ said Margrit, glancing up at him with an odd expression in her eyes. ‘We were told the Emperor will return. If he were here, I could believe that the storm will pass, but the days go by and we hear nothing. Have you any news to give me?’

Martak looked at her for a long time. They were all under strict instructions to maintain the fiction that Karl Franz was on his way south, riding at the head of his armies with Schwarzhelm at his side. Helborg had been insistent on it, fearing uncontrollable panic if the truth of his loss got out.

Martak understood the strategy. He saw the need for it. Still, the falsehood stuck in his craw.

‘You want the truth?’ he asked, hoping to evade giving an answer.

Margrit’s gaze never wavered. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I need to know.’

Martak thought of his dreams. They had grown more vivid with every night, and he had seen the Emperor in them all, alone and cast adrift in the benighted north.

Then he thought of the young sister, smashing her skull against the stone fountain, all through despair. He thought of the deathly faces in the streets outside, all desperate for something to believe in. If the gods had deserted them, then all they had was each other. In the end, perhaps the stories now told by the city’s generals were as good as those once told by its priests.

‘He will return, sister,’ Martak told her, doing his best to smile. ‘He is the Empire. In the hour of greatest need, how could he not be here?’

All across the north, the campfires still burned.

A frigid gale howled over the blasted lands, tearing straight from conquered Kislev across the shattered provinces of Ostland and the Ostermark. The settlements of men in those places were now no more than smouldering mazes of half-walls and gaping lintels, their inhabitants slain or enslaved. Nightmare creatures limped across the far horizon, some as tall as watchtowers and carrying heavy crowns of antlers on their bulbous, swaggering necks. Thunder cracked across an uneasy horizon, echoing with the half-heard laughter of glowering gods.

The realm of dreams was expanding. Spreading like a cancer in the wake of its victorious armies, the warping misrule of the Realm of Chaos was gradually twisting and carving through the Realm of Nature. Rivers dried up, or turned to blood, or boiled into poisonous smog. Birds fell from the sky to roll blindly in the muck, and creatures of the earth sprouted wings and flapped around in pathetic confusion.

In the wake of the great victory, Heffengen had been plundered down to the bone. The armies of Chaos, freed from the attentions of the undead and with the Empire forces destroyed, had been given free rein to sack the city, and had applied themselves with gusto. Very little now remained, save the long rows of gibbets and wheels that lined the road south, each bearing the broken, twitching corpse of a hapless defender. The Revesnecht still ran red, though the cloying mats of greymoss and throttlevine had already started to knit together from its silty banks, choking what flow remained.

It had been that thirst for plunder that had saved him. For a long time he had lain insensible at the base of a pile of rotting bodies. The course of battle, as confused and blind as it ever was, had raged about him, driving south and fixing on the walled prize of living flesh. If fate had been otherwise, he would have been trampled by cloven hooves, his neck broken and his spine crushed into the mud.

But the fates had not abandoned him entirely. A huge, bloat-bellied champion had seen him come down and had charged over to finish him off. A massed volley of musket-shot had felled the champion before he could swing his cleaver, just as the barrages mowed down a whole warband of marauders on the charge. Their bodies thunked into the mire, overlapping one another in a bloody carpet of limp flesh.

The champion had been the one to preserve him, masking his prone body with a heavy, rotten corpse. The sweep and ebb of battle had passed over them both, tearing south with all its grinding momentum, leaving behind the corpse-gardens of the dead and dying.

He awoke much later, while the broken walls of Heffengen still rang with the screams of the captured and the battlefield itself had not yet been plundered of its riches. He pushed the still-warm cadaver from him, grunting from the pain as his cracked ribs creaked. He dragged himself out from under its shadow, feeling the sharp pang of a broken arm. His helm had gone, lost on the dreadful plummet earthwards. For an awful moment he thought Drachenzahn had gone as well, then he saw the hilt protruding from beneath the doubled-back arms of a slain Norscan.

Hobbling to his feet, he took up the blade again. If the weapon’s spirit recognised him, it gave no sign – the rune-etched steel remained blank and lifeless.

After that he trudged north, knowing the danger, grateful for the night’s cold shadows as they stole across the fields of slaughter. He found a ditch to shelter in, part-masked by brambles and with a sliver of blood-foul water at its base. He shivered there for the rest of the night, plagued by the howls and shrieks of raucous joy, parched and yet unable to drink.

Karl Franz, Sigmar’s Heir, lay shuddering in the filth, listening to the sounds of Heffengen’s agony. Only as the eastern sky brightened to a death-grey dawn did he creep forth again, trusting that the aftermath of the night’s debaucheries would give him some cover. He limped north again, then west, skirting the city and hugging the sparse patches of undergrowth that still remained.

In the days that followed, he brushed against death a dozen more times. He was almost discovered twice by armoured patrols. His wounds festered in the dank air, and he passed out from hunger and thirst more than once. He was forced to drink brackish water that made him vomit, and gorge on spoiled grain from plundered storehouses.

Only the amulet kept him alive – the silver seal at his neck that had been imbued with sustaining magic by the magister Tarnus. In the dark of the frigid night, he could feel its aethyric energies warming his chest, staving off the worst of the injuries that threatened to overwhelm him.

A few times, when the sickness raged and despair mounted, he was tempted to cast it aside. As fever raged thickly through his mind, tormenting him with visions of the laughing vampire lord, he listened to the voices that echoed within.

You do not deserve to live. You were slain, and now only prolong the agony. Let it go! Give it up!

He grasped the chain with sweaty hands, intending to rip it clear. Only weakness prevented him – he could barely lift his arms, let alone break the links.

So he lived. He kept walking, each day a fog of pain and confusion, somehow avoiding the enemy columns as they marched south around him. The enemy’s own contagions helped him, for the rampant vegetation that erupted across the conquered land soon gave ample cover.

Slowly, painfully, he recovered himself. The amulet worked its subtle power, and his body dragged itself back from the edge of death. He was still wracked with pain, and as weak as any of his sickly peasant subjects, but the worst was past.

He no longer entertained thoughts of giving in – that had been the fevers polluting his mind. He no longer considered heading away from the danger. In fragments, his memory came back, and with it his certainty.

Nothing substantial had changed. He was the Emperor. He was alive. His duty was to fight.

With that, and for the first time, Karl Franz’s thoughts turned from survival, to revenge.

Eleven

Otto lashed out with his scythe, ripping through the chest of the state trooper and ending his challenge. It had always been an unequal contest – Carroburg had been reduced to little more than rubble, and the only sport remained hunting the last holed-up defenders and rooting them out.

The man tottered for a moment, his legs not getting the message immediately that his heart had been ripped out, before he crashed face-first onto the stone floor. As soon as he did so, a dozen tiny daemon-kin leapt onto the corpse, tearing at it with their teeth and squeaking like excitable kittens.

Otto watched them indulgently. Twenty more corpses lay prone around the basement of the old brewery, all of them leaking guts onto the stone flags where the scythe had whirled. Their bodies would be dragged off at some point and added to the vast cauldrons simmering in Carroburg’s old town square. The army had to eat.

As he gathered his breath, Otto reflected coolly on the futility of opposing powers such as his. The fall of Carroburg had been achieved with almost embarrassing ease. Marienburg, a city over three times the size, had not been much more arduous. Perhaps the Empire had finally lost its spine. Perhaps there were no more mortals truly capable of standing against the destiny that, in truth, had always been theirs.

A frog-like daemon the size of Otto’s fist pounced onto the state trooper’s face and started to suck the eyes from their sockets.

‘Greedy, o little one!’ laughed Otto, feeling a wave of affection for it.

He watched it feed for a while, before turning from the scene of slaughter and retracing his steps up a long, winding stair. The brewery building he was in was a towering edifice of many levels, and the resistance there had been stouter than almost anywhere else in Carroburg.

The men of the Empire value their beer, Otto mused, as he clambered methodically towards the top level, his scythe-blade dripping over his shoulder as he went.

From outside the thick brewery walls, he heard the ongoing crash and thud of Ghurk’s rampage through the town’s shabbier regions. There were still morsels of living flesh to be found in some of the hidden pockets, and his corpulent brother’s hunger knew no limits.

He would have made his mother proud.

After a long haul, Otto reached the summit and entered a large vaulted chamber. Once it had been lit by rows of tall mullioned windows under a high ceiling, though now the windows were all smashed and the roof sagged. Great copper kettles stood on the tiled floor, each one capable of holding hundreds of gallons. A thick slime of grease and bloody lumps churned and bumped in them now, boiling amid a soup of altogether nastier fluids.

Otto sniffed deeply, appreciating the complex fug of aromas. He could have spent whole days in that place, revelling in the creations his brother had painstakingly piped and funnelled together, if only time allowed. Already, though, the appeal of Carroburg was beginning to wane, and the need to keep moving was making him impatient.

‘Where are you, o my brother?’ Otto called out, unable to see the far end of the chamber through the clouds of steam.

‘Here, o my sibling!’ Ethrac replied from the far side of the largest of the kettles, his voice muffled from chewing.

Otto sauntered over to him, noting the elaborate array of tubes that had been strung between the old brewery’s impressive range of glass vials. ‘What keeps you busy here?’ he asked. ‘Must be on the move soon.’

‘Come,’ said Ethrac, beckoning Otto over to where he stirred a thick slop of acrid matter. ‘This was worth the effort. We are far from home now, and need all the help we can get.’

Otto joined him at the cauldron’s edge. Ethrac mumbled a few incantations, and shook his bell-staff over the liquid. The cauldron’s contents popped and seethed, sending a lumpy lip of froth over the edge. At the very centre, shapes began to shimmer into life.

‘Observe our cousins,’ said Ethrac eagerly. ‘We are not alone.’

For a few moments, Otto struggled to see what he was being shown. The cauldron’s contents morphed into bubbling shapes, like wedges of the moss that had brought the Reik to a standstill. Then he understood – he saw the wriggling path of rivers, and the crumpled mounds of mountains. He was looking at a map, albeit one that fizzed like molten metal on the forge.

At the centre lay the object of their march – the city of Altdorf, clustered in a wobbling series of towers by the shore of a trembling Reik. Otto peered closer, leaning low over the cauldron.

‘Do not break the water!’ snapped Ethrac. ‘Ignore the city. It is the others I will show you.’

He extended his clawed fingers over the vista, and it began to zoom out. Forests and mountains swept into view, all of them picked out by the foaming bubbles of Ethrac’s sorcery.

‘We were three, when we set off,’ said Ethrac, pulling the portal expertly. ‘Autus Brine, Lord of Tentacles, hacks his way through the Drakwald, slaying the greenskin as he comes.’

As Ethrac spoke, Otto made out a long wound in the vast face of the forest. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he even saw tiny figures crashing their way through the thick foliage.

‘Is that–?’ he began, but Ethrac shushed him impatiently.

‘He has been slowed, but he picks up his pace now. He brings the Harbinger with him. You know of this?’

‘Who is it?’

‘A shaman. Beast-kind.’

Otto wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘Reduced to such. Brine will be angry.’

Ethrac chuckled. ‘Allies are allies. They make a good pace now. The Drakwald is emptied, and they tear south with haste.’ The scope of the cauldron’s roving eye switched east, passing over more overabundant tracts of deep forest. ‘And the third of all – the Tallyman himself.’

Otto sniffed again. It was not good to be reminded of their rivals for the Urfather’s affections. If Archaon had not been so insistent on the need for an overwhelming, three-pronged attack, he would have preferred to have had no supporting armies at all. ‘Epidemius is foundering, it must be so,’ he said, grudgingly.

‘Wish it not, o my brother,’ chided Ethrac, shifting the cauldron’s eye over a vast crater set within the forest. ‘We will need his daemon-horde. Dharek rides with him, and they tear apart Taal’s city even as we linger here.’

Once again, Otto fancied he could make out infinitesimally small figures struggling across the face of the conjured map-face. It looked like driving rain was hammering against the walls of the rock-bound city. A great swathe of glimmering daemons was assaulting a beleaguered force of mortals. Otto screwed his eyes up, trying to gain a better view. ‘They are winning,’ he murmured.

‘That they are,’ said Ethrac, with some satisfaction. ‘Old allies fade, new allies arrive. Dharek will be at the walls of Altdorf in good time to meet us.’

Otto scratched a pustule on his cheek absently. ‘So many,’ he muttered. ‘Who will take the prize?’

‘Prizes for all,’ said Ethrac. ‘We should shackle Ghurk again – if he spends his strength on gluttony, we shall be late.’

Otto nodded. ‘I shall loop the chains around his neck. He will not be happy.’

Ethrac snapped his fingers, and the map zoomed out again, exposing the whole vast panorama of the Empire. In that instant, it was clear what was happening – the three great arms of the northern host were converging with inexorable, steady progress on the Reikland, smashing aside every obstacle in their path. It was unfolding just as the Everchosen had ordered, and the heart of the Empire was being slowly torn inside out.

‘And the dead?’ asked Otto, remembering Ethrac’s concern at Marienburg.

‘No skeletons here,’ said the sorcerer, sending the boiling visions slopping back into the cauldron. ‘Perhaps they have been seen off.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘Or maybe they turn on the living. What matter? What could stand against the three of us?’

Otto grinned back. Ethrac was right. It helped to be shown the full majesty of the plan. It helped with the nagging doubts that, every so often, snagged in his feverish mind. ‘That is good to see, o my brother,’ he said, clapping Ethrac on the shoulder. ‘So we should be off now.’

‘That we should,’ said Ethrac, gazing around himself wistfully, no doubt speculating what sport he could have had in such a place. ‘Festus will be waiting for us.’

Otto blurted a throaty laugh. He always forgot about Festus, but, in truth, the Leechlord was the pin around which the whole scheme revolved.

‘Then all hastens towards the purpose,’ he said, satisfied.

‘It does,’ said Ethrac. ‘Now fetch our brother, and feed the armies until their stomachs swell.’ He shot Otto a smile of pure, lascivious darkness. ‘Just one more march. That is all. One more.’

The knights of Bretonnia on the march was a sight unequalled in the Old World. Each warrior took with him three or four warhorses, all draped in fine caparisons and marked with the heraldic signs of a hundred different bloodlines. Squires and grooms came with them, and reeves, cooks, heralds, priests and a hundred other officials and servants. A vast train of baggage followed them all, carrying all the supplies and weaponry for a long campaign in the saddle. The whole cavalcade coursed through the countryside in a single, vast column, winding its way east from the fens of Couronne and into the highlands north of the Pale Sisters range.

Leoncoeur rode at the head of the column, pushing the pace hard. He had studied the maps long in the vaults of Couronne while the army had mustered, debating with his counsellors which path to take. Throughout, the mysterious Gilles le Breton had held his silence, offering neither blessing nor condemnation of the Errantry. Towards the end, exasperated, Leoncoeur had asked him outright what his counsel was.

‘The Lady ordained you,’ le Breton had told him, his green eyes as unfathomable as the sea. ‘I have no part in this.’

Le Breton spoke to him as if he were already dead – a walking ghost, just like so many that had been loosed across the realm.

So Leoncoeur had plotted his own course – south-east, across the highlands of Gisoreux, before descending into the borderlands of Montfort. They would cross the Grey Mountains at Axebite Pass, heading swiftly north and emerging into Reikland south of Altdorf.

That path was not the swiftest, but the news from the wasteland was now unequivocal – Marienburg had been destroyed and daemons loosed across the marshes. There was no profit in getting bogged down in fighting with such creatures when speed was of the essence. Since his vision of the Lady, Leoncoeur’s dreams had become ever more vivid, and he needed no scouts to tell him the scale of the host that was grinding its way east across the lower Empire.

Still, if the Bretonnians could maintain the blistering pace that he had set, the prospect still survived of reaching Sigmar’s city before the enemy had it completely surrounded and beyond hope of rescue. Once clear of the Grey Mountains, the race would truly begin.

For now, they picked their way up from the plains and into the granite highlands. Huge outcrops jutted into the sky on either side of them, pocked and striated from the racing winds. Lush pastures gave way to thinner grassland, littered with chalky boulders.

It was a relief to get away from the low country. The air became fresher as they climbed, rippling the pennants and making the colours flow across the flanks of the steeds. The skies above them never cleared of the oppressive grey mantle they had worn since the coming of Mallobaude, but the rains held, and the worst of the thunder growled away in the far north.

As he rode, Leoncoeur was joined by his lieutenant, Yves Jhared of Couronne, who had fought alongside him on many previous engagements and was as trusted a companion as the king had ever had. Jhared had the flaming red hair and ice-pale skin of a native of Albion, though no one had ever dared to suggest such ancestry to his face.

‘Hail, lord,’ said Jhared, pulling his horse level with Leoncoeur’s. ‘We make good progress.’

‘Needs to be faster,’ Leoncoeur replied, still preoccupied with the pace. With every passing day, the prospect of missing out on the battle loomed a little larger.

Jhared laughed easily. ‘We are the best of the realm. Command greater speed, and we will answer.’

‘I have no doubt of it,’ said Leoncoeur, scouring the skies ahead. The clouds remained blank and unmoving, which troubled him. He had not chosen the route across the Pale Ladies idly, but his hopes had not yet come to fruition.

‘Do you search for spies?’ asked Jhared, half-seriously. ‘Have the Dark Gods turned even the birds of the air?’

Leoncoeur snorted a bitter laugh. ‘Do not jest.’ He inclined his head a little, sniffing the air carefully. ‘But do you not sense them? You disappoint me.’

Jhared looked amused, then uncertain, and peered up into the skies in turn. ‘Pray, what am I looking for?’ he asked, just as the question became superfluous.

Ahead of them, where the land rose steeply towards a forked granite peak, the clouds suddenly swirled, like cream stirred in a pail. Leoncoeur held up his gauntlet, and the column clanked to a halt. He drew himself up in his saddle, turning to address the long train of knights behind him.

‘Stand fast, brothers!’ he cried. ‘You are not the only warriors to answer my summons.’

As the words left his mouth, the clouds were pierced by a dozen winged horses, swooping earthwards with the poise and grace of swans in flight. Their outstretched pinions gleamed like pristine ivory, and their proud heads tossed and bucked. More pegasi emerged in their wake, flying in formation. They wheeled around in a wide arc, galloping through the high airs just as their earthbound cousins did on the charge.

Jhared whooped with joy, as all Bretonnians did at the sight of such rare and prized steeds. ‘Never so many!’ he exclaimed, eyes shining. ‘In the name of the Lady, how did you achieve this?’

Leoncoeur could not stifle a laugh himself. It felt good, after so many months of brooding. The sky-host circled above them, four-score of the semi-wild pegasi of the mountains, each of them answering the call he had sent out, trusting to the Lady’s influence that the summons would be answered. ‘I was lord of this realm, once,’ he said, watching them soar. ‘That still counts for something.’

Jhared looked at him wonderingly. ‘So it does. But how did you give them the summons? These are wild creatures.’

Leoncoeur smiled. ‘I have one loyal servant who never lost faith.’

As the last of the pegasi emerged from the cloudbanks, they were followed by a far huger creature, a bizarre amalgam of raptor and horse, with a greater wingspan and a bulkier, more powerful body. Where the pegasi soared across the skies with an acrobat’s grace, this creature plunged through the air like a galleon crashing through breakers. It dropped rapidly, folding its huge wings as it extended four huge clawed legs beneath it.

Leoncoeur’s mount reared up, panicked by the plummet of the monstrous beast. ‘Fear not!’ Leoncoeur commanded, yanking hard on the reins. ‘This is your cousin, and it would no more eat horseflesh than I would.’

The huge hippogryph landed heavily before them, flexing its shaggy limbs and cawing harshly. Leoncoeur dismounted and raced over to it. The beast lowered its beaked head and nuzzled against its master’s embrace. Leoncoeur breathed in the familiar aroma again, and it instantly reminded him of past wars and past victories.

‘Beaquis,’ he murmured, feeling the plumage brush past. ‘Now I am complete.’

Then he turned to the assembled knights, and laughed again. It was a pure laugh, a warrior’s laugh, free of the care that had trammelled it for so long.

‘Can any doubt the favour of the Lady now?’ he cried. ‘With weapons such as these, what enemy will dare stand against us?’

The knights roared back their approval, hammering on their shields with the hilts of their blades. At the head of the column, Jhared saluted his liege.

‘Smartly done, my lord,’ he said, bowing as the pegasi circled above them all protectively.

Leoncoeur gave Beaquis a final affectionate thump on the thickly muscled neck, then strode back to his stamping, wide-eyed mount. ‘They will fly before us over the mountains. They will take saddle and halter when Altdorf is in sight, and not before. I will not have them wearied before time.’

Then he mounted once more, and kicked his horse back into motion. ‘Until then, the march continues. Ride on.’

The sun slanted weakly through the high windows of the Imperial Chamber of War, striking the veined marble floor in thin grey streaks. Columns soared up around the chamber’s circular perimeter, enclosing a vast auditorium of concentric seats. The hall’s capacity was considerable, for it had been designed to hold representatives from every elector’s staff, every senior ranking magister from the Colleges, the Grand Theogonist and representatives of the sanctioned Imperial Cults, the Engineering Colleges, the Knightly Orders and the standing regiments of the Empire, plus trading guild observers and members of the various diplomatic corps from all over the known world.

Looking up from his throne at the very centre of the chamber, Helborg noted how sparsely it was filled. Fewer than two hundred seats were occupied, and most of those by deputies and functionaries. The three resident elector counts sat in the inner circle, along with their official staff and some minor Imperial courtiers. The Colleges of Magic had sent four delegates, including the peasant-stock charlatan Gregor Martak, whose presence in the Imperial Palace continued to baffle Helborg. Zintler was there, as well as von Kleistervoll and a few dozen high-ranking generals. The Knightly Orders were headed by the brute figure of Gerhard von Sleivor, Grand Master of the Knights Panther, who sat brooding with eight of his peers in full plate armour. Several other delegates were unknown to Helborg, which in itself was an eloquent statement of how far the defenders’ numbers had been thinned.

‘Very well,’ he said thickly, feeling the weight of his eyelids as he looked down the long agenda. ‘What is next?’

‘The forest draws close to the walls,’ said Magister Anne-Louisa Trinckel of the Jade College, her grey hair falling messily around a droopy face. ‘It must be culled, for the growths are not natural.’

‘It is scheduled to be done, Herrin Magister,’ said Helborg, wondering how on earth such a woman came to be the head of her Order. ‘We are short of men, and the rebuilding of the outer walls takes priority.’

‘That is a mistake,’ said Trinckel, looking around her for support. ‘The enemy will use the trees. There is power in the trees. We have long counselled that the felling of the forest has been neglected – now the consequences have come to haunt us.’

Helborg shot a dark glance at Zintler. ‘Do we have any work details that can be spared?’

Zintler raised an eyebrow. ‘Spared?’

Helborg nodded, understanding his frustration. Every able-bodied man and woman in the entire city was being worked to exhaustion just to keep on top of the landslide of tasks. The state troopers were being drilled relentlessly, the engineers spent hours atop rickety scaffolds working on the fortifications, the gunnery crews ceaselessly practised running out the great cannons and re-arming the mortar launchers.

‘I am sorry, magister,’ Helborg said, remembering the courtesies with some difficulty. ‘At this time, we just do not have the hands for the task.’

Trinckel was about to protest, when she was overruled by Arek Fleischer, the acting Arch-Lector of the Church of Sigmar. ‘Forget the trees!’ he blurted impatiently. ‘The temples are falling into ruin. We are nothing without faith. My priests have been pressed into the service of the army, even those who do not carry the warhammer. This is unacceptable – they are not trained for war.’

Von Sleivor slammed his armoured fist on the table before him. ‘Where is Volkmar?’ he hissed. ‘He would have had you drawn and quartered for less – priests must do their part.’

‘The temples will be restored, arch-lector,’ explained Helborg, as patiently as he could. ‘Now, though, is not the time. All must take their turn on the walls. Surely you can see our weakness is in numbers?’ Fleischer did not look convinced. Helborg attempted to smile, knowing that it was more likely to emerge as a grimace. The arts of persuasion, rather than brute force, did not come easily. ‘I myself fought with Luthor Huss, your brother-in-arms. There is no finer warrior in the Empire. Surely he is the example we should be following here.’

At the mention of Huss, Fleischer’s face reddened, and he started to shout something unintelligible about heresies even in the bosom of Sigmar’s congregation. This was angrily contested by Magister Willibald de Champney, the ludicrously coiffured magister of the Celestial College, appointed following the departure to war of his superior Raphael Julevno. His fellow wizards soon piled in on his behalf, following by Haupt-Anderssen’s chief of staff and the Grand Master of the Knights of the Sable Chalice.

‘Silence!’ roared Helborg, standing up and smashing his gavel on the lectern before him. His voice rang around the chamber, quelling the restive quarrels before they became unstoppable. Looking down, he realised he had snapped the small hammer with the force of his strike.

A broken hammer. Oddly appropriate.

‘This is a council of war, my lords,’ said Helborg, his darkening visage sweeping the rows of occupied chairs before him. Not for the first time, he wondered just how Karl Franz had kept such a disparate and dysfunctional body politic operational for so long. ‘With every passing day, the enemy comes closer. Marienburg has already fallen. We have no word from Talabheim or Middenheim. The river-passages are closed to us, and our attempts to contact Nuln and Couronne have yielded nothing. If we are to survive this, we will have to start worrying less about trees and temples and more about blades and blackpowder.’

For the first time, Helborg let a little of the parade-ground earthiness into his speech, and his voice assumed the rasping quality it took on when ordering his knights into the charge. Some of the assembled worthies, like von Kleistervoll and Sleivor, appreciated that. Others, the electors among them, murmured unhappily among themselves.

‘Now,’ said Helborg, deliberately inflecting his words with as much calm, clear authority as he could, ‘let us take stock of what we have determined here. The remaining grain supplies will be removed to the main barracks, as will the surviving quantities of ale and unspoiled water. We will carry out the levy in the poor quarters, drafting any man who can stand into the reserve battalions under General von Hildenshaft. There will be no exemptions from the watch rotations. When the enemy gets here, I wish to see every able hand clutching a sword.’

Then he fixed his eyes on each of the delegates in turn, daring them to question the scant resolutions that had been painstakingly agreed. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked.

Only one man had the gall to stand. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Helborg recognised Martak.

‘I come to speak of the Rot,’ said the Supreme Patriarch, speaking haltingly in his strangely accented Reikspiel. ‘It does not matter how strong we make the walls – the plague spreads from within. We must purge the undercity.’

Martak’s voice fell flat in the huge echoing spaces of the chamber. As soon as he mentioned the Rot, irritated muttering started up again.

‘There is no such thing,’ said von Liebwitz confidently. ‘If the peasants only bathed more and ceased their rutting, all this sickness would cease.’

‘It is carried by the air,’ opined de Champney, to much nodding from his fellow magisters. ‘It cannot be eradicated while the foul winds blow.’

‘It comes from the river,’ said Fleischer. ‘And we will not dam that.’

Helborg felt a vice of weariness settle like a yoke on his shoulders. Was there nothing they could agree on? ‘And just what do you suggest, my lord Patriarch?’ he asked. ‘As you can clearly see, every ready hand already has a task to perform.’

‘I need teams of armed soldiers,’ said Martak. ‘A hundred strong each, all to be led by a magister of my colleges. The Rot rises from the sewers. Only by purging them all can we reach the source.’

‘Purge them all?’ blurted Elector Gausser. ‘You are mad, Supreme Patriarch.’

‘It cannot be done,’ added one of the master engineers, a bearded man with a bronze-rimmed monocle and gold braids on his epaulettes. ‘The undercity runs for dozens of miles.’

Martak remained calm in the face of the scorn. Throughout the uproar, his steady gaze never left Helborg. ‘Something is working against us down there,’ he insisted. ‘Something that grows stronger. It must be rooted out.’

Helborg struggled to control his irritation. Martak had not bothered to pull out the straggles in his filthy beard. Helborg could smell the man from twenty paces away, and his robes, such as they were, were streaked with dirt. ‘I do not doubt you,’ Helborg said, trying not to let his jaw clench. ‘But there is no question of those numbers. They are needed on the walls.’

‘Just one company, then,’ said Martak, stubbornly. ‘I will lead it myself.’

‘Out of the question.’

Martak bristled. ‘You’re... banning me?’

The insolence was intolerable. For a moment, fatigue made Helborg think he was addressing some dishevelled soldier out on the fields of war, and he nearly drew his blade. ‘This is not a priority,’ he growled.

‘Have you been down to the poor quarter?’

‘Of course not. Do not deflect this to some–’

‘They are dying down there. Dying like dogs.’

‘I cannot be concerned about that now.’

‘Your whole city is dying, Reiksmarshal.’

‘Silence. You have had your–’

‘The city is dying before your eyes and you cannot see it.’

‘I said, silence!’

‘If the Emperor were here–’

‘Enough!’ Helborg’s raw shout echoed from the high vaults, shocking even the hardened warriors into startled looks. ‘Who are you? What pit of filth were you drawn up from, to be thrust into my face like some mockery of your ancient office?’

The words poured like water from Helborg’s mouth. The anger made him feel alive, after so many hours, so many days, biting his tongue and abasing himself before men he would have slain on the battlefield without a second thought. Once he started, he could not stop – it was cathartic, to vent his spleen again, to pour out all his pent-up fury and frustration at a single source.

‘You come here dressed like some peddler from the backwoods of Stirland’s foulest shit-hole and dare to address the Reiksmarshal of the Empire? You dare? I walked these streets for decades while you rolled in the muck of the Reikswood and sniffed the spoor-trails of beasts. This is my city! It is my city! If you wish to challenge that, then Sigmar damn you and you may leave it!’

The echoes lingered for a while after the spittle-laced tirade had ceased. No one spoke. A few mouths hung open.

Martak himself remained icily calm. His brown eyes never left Helborg’s, who stood, trembling with rage, his chin jutting defiantly.

Then, very slowly, Martak drew in a long breath. ‘So we understand one another,’ he said, his gruff, uncultured voice heavy with contempt.

He shuffled from his place, and clumped heavily down to the chamber floor. As he left, his shoulders held stiffly, his clogs clanked noisily against the marble. It took a long time for him to leave, and the clanks rang out uncomfortably until at last he had been ushered into the corridors outside.

Gradually, Helborg recovered his composure. Almost immediately, the loss of control shocked him. Part of him wanted to rush after Martak, to apologise, to explain that he had not slept for days and that the burden of wresting an entire city from its indolence and dragging it into a war that every instinct told him could not be won was more than any man could bear.

But he could not, not with the eyes of the entire council on him. He was still the Reiksmarshal, and a display of weakness now, any weakness, would see the electors onto him like wolves on a lamb.

There were always disagreements. They could be overcome later. For now, what mattered was control – keeping Altdorf together just long enough to give it a chance.

Moving stiffly, he sat down again. The silence in the chamber was total.

Clearing his throat, Helborg turned a leaf of parchment over, moving to the next item on the long agenda.

‘Now then,’ he said, forcing his voice once more into calmness, as if nothing untoward had just happened. ‘Where were we?’

Twelve

It look Karl Franz a long time to find his quarry. Something had changed since his fall, and a kind of prescience seemed to have lodged in his mind. The world around him seemed a little more vivid than it had done, as if the colours and smells had somehow cranked up. He saw more, he felt more, and his dreams were as startlingly immediate as anything that happened when awake.

Chief among those dreams was the figure of the great antlered god, reeling under the influence of a thousand cuts. Like some stricken stag, the god stumbled in a fog of darkness, assailed from every side by hidden foes. When Karl Franz saw the wounds in the god’s flanks and limbs, he wanted to weep.

He saw other things, too. Every night he had the same vision – a bearded man in dirty robes pacing on the battlements of a far city. In the depths of his slumber, he would call out to that man, not knowing why. He never answered, lost in struggles of his own.

In his waking hours, Karl Franz nursed himself back to something like strength. The wilds of the north were vast beyond imagining, and even with the hordes of Chaos marching through them, there were still blank tracts where he could hide and gather strength. There was even food to be found for those with sharp eyes and a searching mind, and since his rebirth Karl Franz had never had sharper eyes.

He knew he needed to head south, tracing the path of whatever remained of his once-mighty armies. He had no idea how many of his generals had survived. Helborg, surely, was dead, since the greater daemon at Heffengen had been a foe beyond him. He could not quite believe that Schwarzhelm was also gone, nor Huss, but there were no clues as to where they had been driven by fate and the currents of war. His thoughts turned to Valten often. That youth had been the great hope for so many – an image of Sigmar for troubled times. Perhaps he still would be, though it was hard to see what he could accomplish now.

For the time being, though, Karl Franz did not hurry to quit the wasteland. He followed the trails of warbands, creeping close to the bonfires at night and doing what he could to divine the movements of the fractured hosts. He understood some of what they said to one another, picking up meaning from the guttural speech of the north in a way he had never been able to do before. One word was repeated over and over again – Glottkin – though he had no idea what it meant.

He heard other words he did recognise – Talabheim, Drakwald, Altdorf. The plan of attack was simple – striking towards the Empire’s heart, just as he had told Helborg.

He would never make it to the city, though, not alone and on foot. The leaguer had been broken, and he was already a long way north of the rolling battlefront. He was isolated, cut off in a desolate land of refugees and broken corpses.

As the sun set on another lonely day of foraging, Karl Franz crouched low amid a thicket of briars. With a twinge of wry amusement, he wondered how he must have looked – the Emperor of the greatest realm of men on earth, crouching like a beggar amid thorns, his beard ragged and his clothes torn.

Ahead of him, blood-red in the gathering dusk, burned another campfire. Armed men sat around it, grunting and slurping. Something turned on a spit above the coals, too big to be a hog, though with a similar stench to burning pork. There must have been over twenty warriors there, hulking tribesmen from the far reaches of the Chaos Wastes with bones hammered through their cheeks and god-marks inked on nearly every inch of exposed flesh.

They were careless, marching through a land they had scoured of enemies, and the watch was lax. Karl Franz saw a ramshackle corral on the far side of the camp, and noted the lack of guards. Just one sentry, half-asleep and resentful at being banished from the fireside, huddled against the driving wind, wrapped in a thick, fur-lined cloak.

Going silently, keeping low, Karl Franz crept away from the flickering light-circle and skirted around the edge of the campsite. Hugging the scant cover of the thorn-bushes, he edged closer to the lone sentry. Once within strike-range, he crouched down again, his hand on the hilt of his blade, and waited for the moment.

The sentry was a balding, bearded man with boiled leather armour and an iron ring through his nose. His head slid forward, his eyes half-closed.

Karl Franz moved. Padding softly, he sprinted over to the half-aware guard. Before he had had time to look up, Drachenzahn had slipped silently into his neck, killing him instantly. Karl Franz lowered the body to the ground, casting a wary eye over at the campfire.

The tribesmen were still eating, tearing chunks of meat from the spit and ripping it with their teeth. Karl Franz propped the sentry back up, making it look as if he was simply slumped against the cold earth, then moved towards the stockade.

It was a clumsy, makeshift thing, no more than shafts of wood nailed loosely together and crowned with a crude fence of twisted thorn-vines. By rights it should not have held its prisoner for more than a few moments. Karl Franz could already smell the familiar musk, though there was something else there too – the over-sweet tang of muscle rot.

He prised the planks of the stockade apart, and squeezed inside. Deathclaw immediately hissed, and tried to rise, but long leather bindings held the creature down. Karl Franz hurried over to the griffon, sheathing his blade.

‘Calm, great one,’ he whispered. ‘You know your master.’

The huge creature immediately relaxed, and the hissing turned to a low rumble within its cavernous chest.

The creature had been sorely abused. Both wings looked broken, and dozens of arrow-shafts protruded from its flanks. Clumps of plumage had been ripped from its haunches, leaving bloody weals glistening wetly in the faint light. It had been tied to stakes hammered into the ground, its limbs compressed into a permanent crouch.

As soon as Karl Franz had severed the last of the leather bindings, the griffon nearly collapsed, issuing a strangled caw of pain as its tormented muscles gave way.

Karl Franz hurried over to its head, cradling the thick neck in his arms. He reached for the amulet and pressed it against the creature’s rapidly beating heart.

Gradually, the griffon’s yellow eye regained focus. Its heartbeat slowed to normal, and something like firmness returned to its stance.

‘This will be painful,’ said Karl Franz, hearing the first noises of alarm from the campfire. ‘But it is better to be alive and in pain, yes?’

Deathclaw hissed an angry response. From outside the stockade, Karl Franz heard the tramp of boots running and the cries of the blasphemous northern tongue.

‘You have the strength for this?’ he asked, brandishing his runefang.

By way of answer, Deathclaw dragged itself to its haunches, staggered over to the corral’s wall and hurled itself into it. Freed from its bonds, it smashed through the wooden staves, ripping them up and tossing them aside with an imperious flash of copper-gold plumage. The Norscans halted in their charge, suddenly faced with a freed griffon, one whose anger they had stoked over long nights of torment and who now faced them with the flash of bestial fury in its eyes.

‘The vengeance of Sigmar!’ roared Karl Franz, charging into battle alongside the enraged Deathclaw. Even wounded, the unshackled creature was more than a match for its captors, and Drachenzahn knew it would drink deep before the night was done.

The Norscans charged straight back at them, bellowing their strange war-curses with flamboyant bravery. As Karl Franz scythed his blade around for the first strike, cracking heavily against a blunted axe-face, he felt a strange euphoria thrill through his ravaged body.

I am fighting again, he thought, as the runefang danced and the shrieks of the enraged war-griffon split the night. May it never cease.

The town of Wurtbad clung to the southern shore of the Reik, a sprawling conurbation built by the trading guilds who plied the great river barges down to Altdorf and the coast beyond. It was not distinguished by grand buildings or fine fortifications – it was a functional place, built by practical men for practical purposes. A thick stone wall ringed a motley collection of townhouses, inns, warehouses and loading derricks. Even by the standards of the provinces, it had always had a shady reputation, the kind of place a cunning man would make a fortune and a simple one would lose it. Taverns and bawdy-houses crowded the streets, jostling alongside temples, barracks and customs stations.

Since the start of the troubles, Wurtbad had been hit hard. First the barges had stopped coming down from the north. No explanation for the stop in traffic had ever been forthcoming, so the burgomeister sent members of the City Watch upriver to investigate. They came back on a single, empty vessel, hanging from meat-hooks amid piles of rotting pig carcasses.

Then news of the war in the north had come in, carried by draggled refugees from Stirland and the Ostermark. As the Empire’s creaking war-machine responded, some of the cannier Wurtbad merchants made a quick profit hawking supplies to desperate generals at inflated prices. For a time, the passage of arms wending its way up the river from Nuln and Altdorf kept the taverns and brothels in roaring business, and, also for a time, a steady flow of regiments kept coming to replace those ordered onwards.

Then the flow dried up. Every company due to be sent to the distant front was deployed, hollowing out the defences along the Reik and the Stir. The streets fell quiet and the warehouses were locked. Barges stood empty at their berths, waiting for trade to resume, just as it always had when the worst was over.

Except that, this time, no soldiers returned from the north. No proclamations came out of Altdorf celebrating deliverance in Sigmar’s name. The temples began to fill, as a previously ambivalent populace suddenly remembered its piety.

The plagues came next. No one knew from where – perhaps the thick miasmas churning in from the east, or the lines of impoverished peasants fleeing the blight in the fields, or the curdling waters themselves as they lapped the empty wharfs. Soon the bodies were piling up, and every dawn a new cart left the town gates, heaped high with cloth-covered lumps. After a while even those stopped – no one dared venture out to where the forest sprouted unnaturally under the endless sheets of rain, and so the dead lay festering in the rubbish pits where they had been dragged.

By the time the watchmen on the southern wall caught sight of black banners on the far horizon, few believed the newcomers brought salvation with them. A few zealots started chanting, taking a kind of perverse, vicious pleasure in the vindication of their endless prophecies of the End Times. The rest of the city’s survivors grimly took up arms. The gates remained locked and barred, and every surviving militia member was called to the armouries to equip. Then they waited, watching the sable-clad host creep closer through the cloying mists.

The new arrivals did not advance further while the sun shone. They waited south of the river, issuing no challenge and making no demands. Inside the town, a vociferous and terrified faction argued that the burgomeister should sue for peace, since the garrison was in no condition to resist a siege and the Empire, such as it still was, had clearly abandoned them. By nightfall, as the true nature of the attackers became horrifyingly clear, those voices subsided, and a gnawing, crawling fog of despair took over.

Ghouls flickered through the frigid air, screaming at a gravid Morrslieb above. Flocks of bats raced across the sky, their blood-red eyes glowing in the velvet dark. Rank upon rank of bone-white warriors advanced under death’s-head banners, never issuing a sound. Some warriors stalked by their own will; others glowed luminously from within with the flickering light of corposant, impelled by the necromancers who cried out in grave-scraped voices and whirled staffs hung with clattering human skulls.

Black-armoured knights nudged bony steeds through the undead throng, and wights wearing ancient tomb-garb limped and shuffled in their wake. Most horrifying of all were the vargheists, which loped into battle with huge, ungainly strides, half-flying, half-running, their animalistic faces twisted with bloodlust and their claws already extended.

At the sight of that onslaught, many of Wurtbad’s mortal defenders lost heart and fled, wailing that the gods had abandoned them, trying to find somewhere in the shadowy maze of the narrow streets to hide. Others stood firmer. The burgomeister, Jens Bohr, was a veteran of the state levy and had faced down larger armies of greenskins in his time. His warrior priest, a fervent Sigmarite by the name of Kalvin Wolff, whipped the remaining troopers into a frenzy of pious defiance. Huge fires were kindled across the walls, flooding the land beyond in a writhing aura of crimson. Every captain on the walls was given a flaming brand, and teams of runners kept the stores of wood replenished. Desperate battle-hymns rose up from the battlements, competing with the shrieks of the living dead.

That did not stop the vice closing. Gradually, the undead host spread out, moving up the southern bank of the Stir and crossing the flood on either side of the town. The still-living troops traversed using barges looted from further upstream, while the truly dead simply waded across the river bed, emerging on the far bank covered in a thick layer of slime and weeds.

Then, once Wurtbad had been fully surrounded, the assault began.

The night’s cacophony was broken by the snap and rattle of trebuchets. The warped machines, looking more like giant ribcages than engines of war, hurled clusters of human skulls high over the walls, and where they impacted, they exploded in gouts of greenish gas. Any defenders too close to the impacts immediately succumbed to the blooms, their skin falling in shreds from their bones. They died in agony, clawing at their own sinews as their bodies fell apart around them.

Next came the bats. Some were taken down by hurried volleys of arrows, but most got through, grabbing men from the parapet and sending them tumbling, their chests torn out. Ghouls and grave-shades followed, floating eerily over the defensive perimeter in shimmering clusters and latching their cold magic around any who dared face them.

As the walls were ringed with horrors, the greater mass of skeletons and zombies reached the base and started to raise siege ladders. Dozens were cast down by the defenders, but more were immediately hoisted up. Whenever a weakness was isolated, deathly warriors surged up into the breach, falling into soundless combat with the troopers who rushed to repel them.

For all the ferocity of the initial assault, however, the main ring of defence held firm. The roaring fires did their job, daunting the undead horde and preventing them from advancing recklessly. Wolff kept up his furious defiance, showing the way by smashing swathes of skeletons apart with his warhammer. Bohr used his limited corps of gunners well, picking out champions with as much accuracy as the fire-flared night would allow.

Ladders were cast down, smashing amongst the seething masses below. The zombies moved too slowly to evade the blades of determined defenders, who fought with the ferocity of men who knew their lives were forfeit if they faltered. Some of those who had fled at the first sign of the undead recovered their spirits and returned, shamefaced, to the fray, shuddering with fear but still able to clutch a weapon in their clammy hands.

Combat raged on the wall-tops for over two hours, with neither side able to land the killer strike. The fires continued to crackle, the hymns rang out, but the undead could not be shaken from their grip, and just kept on coming.

If any Imperial chronicler had been present on that night to witness the battle of Wurtbad, he would have noted, perhaps with some grim pride, that the end did not come from outside. Freed from the need to guard their backs, the defenders of Wurtbad might have held out through the darkness, perhaps using the dawn to clear their besieged walls and restore a solid line of defence. But just as the undead attack began to lose momentum, a fell prince in blood-red armour rose up in his saddle, standing high above the town on a rise north of the river. He raised a lone, clawed hand, holding it palm-upward, and cried out words in a language of the distant hot sands. Those words somehow cut through the clamour of fighting, piercing the soul of every mortal and sending the undead advancing with renewed energy. A ring blazed from his withered finger, sending coils of smoke churning out into the night.

For a few moments, nothing else happened. The deadly struggle continued, and the battle-cries kept coming. Wolff even managed to clear the enemy from the summit of the southern gatehouse, felling a vargheist with a savage blow from his hammer before launching himself at the lesser troops.

But then the earth began to boil. Sodden soils shifted, churning like molten oil. A wild snap rang out across the city, and the air buckled with actinic lightning.

The first hand shot up from the ground, withered and pale. Then another, then a dozen more. Corpses pulled themselves free from their graves, hauling their etiolated bodies out of the mire. The tottering cadavers swayed for a moment, then set off, shuffling blearily towards the noise of combat.

The people of Wurtbad had not been foolish – they had always buried their dead outside the city walls, facing down and with the marks of Morr set over their graves. But now the Law of Death had been breached, and those many hundreds who had died on the site of the town before Wurtbad had been established as an outpost of Sigmar’s Empire suddenly shifted in their cold slumber. With a shiver and a sigh, they came scratching and scrabbling back into animation. Arcane armour of lost ages and blades long-rusted into stabbing stumps cracked up through the topsoil, followed by creaking bodies slaved to a new master.

It took a while for the new arrivals to be noticed. Intent on keeping the walls free of attackers, the troops of Wurtbad resolutely devoted their attentions to the host at their gates. By the time the screaming from the heart of the town could no longer be ignored, it was too late.

Hundreds of living dead had been wrenched from their ancient graves, and they thronged in Wurtbad’s alleys and backstreets, twittering and hissing. With blank, rotting faces, they dragged themselves towards the living, their only desire now to drink the hot, dark liquor of mortal blood. They crept out of the town’s central courtyards and fanned out through the crooked streets, feasting on any unfortunates they were able to overwhelm. Even the river-rats, which had clustered in Wurtbad’s river-front, ran before them, streaming out towards the outer walls in a rippling wave of panicked grey.

Wolff was the first to notice the tumult. Dispatching a final skeleton into a clattering pile of bones, he plunged down from his position over the gates, leading a charge against the growing crowds of living dead within the town’s perimeter. Others joined him, and the fragile bodies of the newly-raised were soon being cracked and smashed apart.

That left the walls depleted, though, just as the shot for the gunners began to run low and the fires lost their vigour. The hordes outside sensed the presence of their kin on the inside, and the assault redoubled in ferocity. The real killers among the skeletal army took their chance, and armour-clad warriors wearing tattered cloaks and ornate liveries of forgotten, cruel ages pushed up the siege ladders and on to the parapets.

Dark magic raced across the night, reaching a crescendo in tandem with the greater mass of human screaming. The fires began to die one by one, doused and chilled by the advancing dead, and shadows welled and pooled more thickly, plunging Wurtbad into a slick of oily darkness.

The battle-hymns rang out right until the end, growing fainter as more and more defenders were cut down. Those mortals who were slain did not rest easily, but soon got up again, this time taking the fight to their erstwhile comrades, and so the advance of the undead grew ever stronger as the will of men was eroded.

Bohr was eventually killed after his position at the northern gate was overrun by ghouls. He died shouting in outraged defiance even as icy fingers were plunged into his thick chest and his heart was ripped out. With the death of the burgomeister, the last organised defence of the northern walls collapsed, and those who could ran for whatever temporary refuge they could find.

Knowing the futility of flight, and knowing too that hope had gone, Wolff was the last one standing. He cut his way back to his temple, gathering a few dozen of the stoutest defenders around him as he went. They made a stand before the dome of the Sigmarite chapel, overlooked by granite statues of griffons and with the final bonfires guttering about them.

Waves of undead swept towards them, chattering excitedly as they sensed the prospect of drinking the blood of the valiant, but all were repelled. Wolff’s band held the outer precinct against them all, hacking and smashing with desperate strokes until the ground at their feet was knee-deep in broken bones and parchment-dry flesh.

One by one, though, fatigue and ill-chance took their toll. The relentless numbers could not be defied forever, and in the end Wolff stood alone, his throat raw from war cries and his hammer as heavy as lead in his bloodied fists.

Just as the vanguard of the undead host was poised to launch a final push, though, a chill voice rang out. The undead fell back instantly, shuffling into the shadows and clearing a space before the temple gates.

Wolff stood under the lintel, his forehead sheened with sweat, breathing heavily. Between the parted crowds of lesser warriors, the Master of the Host strode out, his black robes rustling in the wind. Ice-white hair rippled about his shoulders, part-obscuring the scarred and cracked mask of his skin. The ring he had used to raise Wurtbad’s dead still smouldered on his finger.

The warrior priest did not flinch. His eyes fixed on the vampire lord’s, and never moved. He murmured battle-curses in an endless litany, and prepared to lift his hammer once more. He knew he was overmatched, but he could at least die on his feet, taking the fight to the enemy just as his immortal patron demanded.

Then Vlad von Carstein spoke.

‘You, too may serve,’ said the vampire, coming to a halt before the priest and folding his arms. He made no attempt to defend himself, even though he was in range of the warhammer’s strike. ‘This is why we do this. You are too good to be sacrificed to gods who appreciate nothing but mania.’

Wolff’s lip pulled back in contempt. ‘Your kind has come this way before,’ he snarled. ‘You were always turned back. You will be again.’

‘By whom?’ Vlad sighed. ‘There is nothing left. Look around you – you can see what ruins remain.’

‘From ruins come glory. From the darkness comes light.’

Vlad smiled thinly. ‘Come, you have fought enough. I always offer the valiant a place at my side – take the offer, priest. You can still fight against the greater darkness.’

‘At your side?’ Wolff laughed. ‘You know so little that you would even ask?’ He spat at the vampire, and the spittle landed on the crimson armour, sliding across its lacquered surface. ‘You have come amongst men, abomination. You may crush us for a time, you may tread across our broken bodies and burn our temples and strong places, but we will always come back at you. If I were given a thousand lifetimes, I would choose the same path every time – to smite you with the holy fire of my calling.’ He smiled with contempt. ‘And you came too close.’

He swung his warhammer. It was a fine strike, one that Huss himself would have been proud of – fast, hard, well-aimed. The hammer-head flew out, angled at the vampire’s neck.

At the same time, a single shot pierced the night, just as well-aimed. It struck Wolff clean in the forehead, penetrating the bone and punching a clean, round hole through his skull. The warhammer clanged to the ground, and the warrior priest tumbled backward, collapsing under the lintel of his own temple before coming to rest amid the shattered bones of his victims.

Vlad looked down at the corpse thoughtfully. The man’s zeal had been striking. Had he himself been capable of such fervour, once? Of course he had, but it was hard to remember just how it felt.

Herrscher emerged into the light, his pistol still smoking. The witch hunter had a tortured look on his face.

‘There,’ said Vlad, turning away from Wolff to look at him. ‘That was not so hard.’

‘I could not let you be harmed,’ said Herrscher, his voice shaking. ‘I killed... my own.’

‘He is not your own,’ said Vlad, impatiently. ‘Look around you. We are yours, you are ours. You have killed for us, and we will kill for you.’

Herrscher looked like he wanted to vomit, though his body was no longer capable of it. Before he could reply, the sound of overlapping laughter wafted across the temple courtyard.

Liliet and her sisters had climbed on to the dome of the temple. Their gowns were streaked with blood, and it dripped from their long fingernails like tears.

‘Rejoice!’ they chorused. ‘A thousand new blades for the army of the night-born! A thousand more to come before dawn-fall!’

All across Wurtbad, those of Vlad’s army with the self-command to respond lifted their parched voices in victory-cries.

Vlad laid a gauntlet on Herrscher’s shoulder. ‘The Empire trains its hunters well – that was a good shot.’ Then he turned on his heels, his cloak swirling about him, and strode away from the temple, back towards the river-front where the empty barges had been tethered, ready for the passage of the Reik. ‘Do not dwell on it. The night is still dark, and we have work to do. By the dawn, our new servants must be on the move.’

Martak’s fury took a long time to ebb. He had stormed up to his barely used chambers in the Imperial Palace and smashed a few things up in there. He gave a glimmering simulacrum of Helborg’s gaunt face to every item he hurled across the room before it smashed into the wall.

No one dared interrupt him. By then, every servant in the Palace had all heard tales of the half-feral Supreme Patriarch, and kept their distance. Gelt had been capable of rages, but at least he was vaguely understandable. Martak, deprived of even that measure of respect, took a grim satisfaction in causing fear instead.

Let them fear me, he snarled to himself. They deserve what is to come.

He did not mean that. No one deserved the horrors that lay ahead, not even the stiff-necked Reiksmarshal, and certainly not the flunkeys who struggled to do his impossible bidding.

By the time he had calmed down, his personal chamber was a mass of ripped parchment and broken crockery, and he was a sweaty, panting mess.

Martak cracked his knuckles, stomped over to the chamber’s narrow window and pushed the lead catch open. The window faced east, giving a view out over the great mass of the city.

He took a deep breath. The stench was becoming unbearable, even at such a height. He thought again of Margrit – sensible, dutiful Margrit. He had promised her that something would be done. Every hour that the Rot was allowed to swell and grow was another hour for the temple’s supplies to run down and the energies of the sisters to ebb a little further.

He propped his elbows on the sill and rested his chin gloomily on locked hands. Far below, the Reik was the colour of spoiled spinach and barely flowed at all. He could make out the sullen blooms of algae lurking just under the surface, and could smell the acrid stink of its steady fermentation.

He had made a mess of his short time as Patriarch. Helborg was making a mess of the city defences, and the electors were making a mess of assisting him. They were like children caught by the glare of a predator, frozen and witless, unable to do more than bicker in the face of oncoming disaster.

It is the city.

The realisation came to him so suddenly and so easily that he immediately wondered how he had not seen it before.

It is the poison.

Martak was a creature of the wilds, of the windswept tracts of unbroken forest. He had been known to spend months in the wilderness, kept alive by his arts and native cunning, eschewing all comforts and embracing the idiosyncratic path of his college’s disciplines.

I have allowed them to cage me. This is their world, not mine, and they have made me useless in it.

He was a sham Patriarch in a sham Empire, playing out his role in dumb-show as the world unravelled around them. He could not command men, and had no desire to. Helborg had been right about one thing: this was his city, not Martak’s.

He stood up again, and shuffled over to the writing desk he had just half-smashed. After a few moments scrabbling around, he found a scrap of intact parchment and a near-empty jar of ink. He pulled a quill from under a disarranged collection of broken-spined tomes, and started to write. Once he had finished, he folded the parchment and sealed it, stowing the letter in his grimy robes.

Then he moved over to Gelt’s old Globe of Transmigratory Vocalisation within a Localised Aethyric Vicinity – a bronze-bound sphere set atop an iron web of intricately-woven threads. It was a meagre device for one of such talents, but it had its uses.

Picking it up and setting it before him on the floor, Martak placed both palms on the cool surface of the sphere. Something like clockwork clicked inside it, and he felt the tremble of moving parts. Previously hidden runes glowed into life on the bronze, welling softly with a sudden heat.

Martak concentrated. This was Gelt’s toy, and he still was not sure he had mastered it properly.

‘Search her out,’ he whispered gruffly, imposing his will on the machine’s. ‘The soul of Sister Margrit.’

It resisted him. The device knew its gold-masked master, and resented being used roughly by a stranger. In the end, though, Martak’s presence prevailed, and the Globe performed its function. The air above it trembled, warmed, then parted, revealing a blurred and translucent image of Margrit’s garden. The priestess herself was standing with her back to the Globe’s view. As soon as Martak laid eyes on her, she stiffened, turned, and made a warding gesture.

‘Be at ease, sister,’ said Martak, knowing that he would appear to her as nothing more than a ghost, hanging above the herb-garden like a puff of steam in summer.

‘Patriarch,’ said Margrit, her voice muffled and distorted. She looked at him through the Globe’s portal, peering as if into murky water. ‘Could you not come in person?’

‘I am leaving the city,’ said Martak. A soon as he saw her face fall, he regretted his clumsy way with words.

‘All is lost, then,’ she said.

‘No, you were right – the Emperor is master. While he remains lost, we cannot stand. I go to find him.’

Margrit’s expression brightened into an almost childlike hope. ‘You know where he is?’

‘He is coming, sister. The stars foretell it, and the elements gather to witness it.’ Martak had no idea whether this was true. All he had to go on were his dreams, which had been getting more vivid with every sleepless night. He had dismissed them for too long, and knew now that he should have listened to the whispered voices much earlier. ‘It will not be easy, but yours will be the harder road. I can give you no promise the Reiksmarshal will act. I would stay, if I could, but...’ He struggled for the words. ‘This is not my place.’

Margrit nodded, accepting what he told her. ‘Then you can give me no sign.’

Martak racked his mind for something that would appeal to her. ‘When the hour is darkest,’ he said, hoping he sounded vaguely plausible, ‘look to the heavens above the Imperial Palace. Look for the sign of Sigmar reborn.’ It was poor stuff, this deception and fakery, but it was all he had. ‘In advance of that, endure, sister. Endure for as long as you are able.’

Margrit looked satisfied, and Martak found himself marvelling once again at her quiet resolve. Given the tiniest sliver of hope, she would hold fast to her station until the very ending of the world. If the Empire deserved any kind of salvation, it was for the ones like her – the faithful, the decent, the selfless.

‘Do not be long gone, Patriarch,’ Margrit said. ‘I liked the colleges better with a wolf at the helm.’

Martak laughed, and bowed at the compliment. He would have been happy betting that Gelt had never walked the streets in the shadow of the temple. ‘Go with Shallya, sister,’ he said, and lifted his hands from the Globe. Margrit’s image rippled into nothing, and the runes on the sphere faded back to blank bronze.

Back in the realm of the senses, Martak looked about him. His chamber looked as if an animal had got in and destroyed everything in its frantic efforts to escape again. Perhaps that was not so far from the truth.

He walked over to the heavy oak door and pulled it open. The corridor outside was empty, and he had to walk through two more antechambers before he found an official. The servant, wearing a crimson tunic marked with the sign of the griffon, looked startled to see the Supreme Patriarch back on the prowl.

‘My lord?’ he asked, shrinking from Martak’s malodorous presence.

‘Send this to the Reiksmarshal’s office immediately,’ said Martak, handing over the ink-stained letter. ‘Ensure that it is placed before him at the first occasion – he will want to read it.’

The servant handled the letter nervously, as if it might be a mortar primed to go off in his hands. ‘Very well, my lord. Where shall I tell him he may find you?’

Martak snorted. ‘Find me? He’ll have trouble.’ He looked around him. The corridors and chambers of the Palace were still mostly a mystery to him, a vast web of tunnels and spirals and shafts and towers. ‘But you can help me with one small thing.’

The servant looked up expectantly. Martak smiled darkly, already enjoying the thought of what he was going to do.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what is the quickest path to the Imperial Menagerie?’

Thirteen

The wind was bitter and never-ending, driving down from the high peaks with the shrieks of fell voices echoing in its wake. The skies had turned from a screen of blank grey into a churned mass of violent thunderheads, surging and boiling as if some immeasurably vast pair of hands was tearing the heavens apart.

As Leoncoeur rode up to the head of the pass, wrapped in his cloak, the deluge drummed on the rocks around him. Rivulets poured down from the rising land ahead, slushing and bubbling as the torrent picked up pace, and the stony track up to the entrance to Axebite Pass was now little more than a stream of gushing water.

Ahead of the Bretonnian column reared the mighty peaks of the Grey Mountains, piled up into the tortured sky in ranked visions of granite-headed immensity. To Leoncoeur’s left soared the double-headed summit of Talareaux, called Graugeleitet by the Imperials. To his right was the colossal bulk of Findumonde, which the Empire dwellers called Iceheart. Both summits were lost in the haze of storms.

Gales were always strong in the passes, but those during this passage had been unreasonably ferocious. Baggage wains and valuable warhorses had been washed away on the precipitous pathways, and at times every footfall had been treacherous. Progress had slowed to a grim crawl. Each night, Leoncoeur had sat sullenly around the campfires with his lieutenants, noting the growing gap between where they were and where they wanted to be.

Still, they had persevered. The highlands had slowly fallen behind, replaced by the jagged, hard country of the mountains proper. The last of the pasture disappeared, replaced by a stone-land of sheer, hard-edged severity. The rain stung like ice, and the wind whipped it into wicked eddies, creeping into every fold of fabric and armour-joint.

The raw enthusiasm of the crusade was hard to sustain in such conditions. Battered by the ferocity of the elements, the knights kept their dripping heads low, saying little. The hundreds of peasant workers in the baggage train suffered worse, their coarse woollen garments offering little protection, and many succumbed during the frozen nights, left behind in scratched, shallow graves by the roadside.

As the head of the pass loomed before them at last, Leoncoeur called a halt. He peered ahead towards the high entrance. Slushy snow lay in grey-white drifts higher up, draped across the striated shoulders of the mountains. The winding road ahead was overlooked by near-vertical cliffs of broken-edged stone, narrowing near the summit to a gap of less than thirty feet across.

His eyes narrowed. He sniffed. It was near-impossible to sense much in the shifting gales, but something registered. Something he felt he ought to recognise.

Jhared drew alongside him. Of all of them, the flame-haired knight had retained his humours the best, but even he looked windswept and rain-soaked. ‘Why are we halting, lord?’ he asked, shivering as the driving sleet bounced from him.

‘Can you hear it?’ asked Leoncoeur, inclining his head a little.

Jhared listened, then shook his head.

Leoncoeur was about to speak again, when a hard, massed roar suddenly broke out from up ahead.

Every knight in the entourage knew that sound – it had been engraved on their minds from their earliest days. The ancestral enemies of the Bretonnians could be purged, burned and driven back a thousand times, but they would always come back.

‘To arms!’ cried Leoncoeur, drawing his sword in a spray of rain.

The column’s vanguard formed up immediately, kicking their horses into a line and drawing weapons. Each knight carried a heavy-bladed broadsword, and they threw back their cloaks to expose moisture-slick breastplates marked with the livery of their houses.

Before the knights could charge, the gorge before them filled with what looked like a rolling tide of earth and rubble. It was accompanied by throaty bellows of challenge, rising quickly to a deafening crescendo that ripped through the scything curtains of sleet.

‘Charge!’ roared Leoncoeur, digging his spurs into his steed’s flanks.

With a hoarse battle-cry, the Bretonnian vanguard surged along the throat of the gorge, picking up speed rapidly despite the treacherous footing. Accelerating to the gallop, ten horses abreast, they thundered towards the landslide hurtling towards them.

Except that it was no landslide. A host of green-skinned monsters had burst from cover, their red eyes blazing with fury. The rubble that came with them was flung from their backs as they emerged from the ambush, and stones the size of fists thunked and rolled about them. There must have been hundreds of orcs before them, all jostling and tearing down the funnel of the gorge, sliding on the slippery rock and trampling their own kind like cattle on a stampede.

When the two forces collided, it was with a sick, hard smash that sent the bodies of both orc and human flying. Bretonnian warhorses were huge, powerful beasts, and their whirling hooves were quite capable of cracking skulls and snapping ribcages. The greenskins were battle-hardened monsters, each of them far larger than a man and with corded, muscled limbs that hurled axes and mauls around with plate-denting force.

Leoncoeur crashed through the hard glut of the toughest of the orcs, laying about him in flamboyant sweeps of his blade. He rode his mount with imperious perfection, compensating for every buck and rear. As the greenskins clawed for him, he laid waste to them, hammering with all the pent-up strength of the long ride.

Jhared remained close by, working his own blade furiously. ‘For the dead of Quenelles!’ he thundered, his lank hair thrashing around his un-helmed head. ‘For the dead of Lyonesse!’

Every knight of the company fought in the same way – with a cold anger generated by the many humiliations suffered by their realm. They were devastating on the charge, as pure and violent as the cascades around them. The orcs died in droves, and soon the rivulets at their feet ran black with blood.

Leoncoeur wheeled his steed around and thrust his sword point-first into the open maw of a slavering greenskin. He ripped the blade free in time to meet the swiped challenge of another, and a dull clang of metal on metal rang out. Two swift parries, and he had dispatched the next challenger.

The impetus of the orc attack was already failing. They began to retreat back up the gorge, desperate now to escape the close-serried Bretonnian onslaught. There was no escape for them that way, though, for the pegasi plummeted from the clouds, drawn by the scents and sounds of battle. Even without riders they were deadly, swooping low to lash out at the stumbling herd of greenskins.

‘Let none escape!’ shouted Leoncoeur, riding down a stumbling orc and spurring his mount towards the next. The Bretonnians loosened their formation as they gained momentum. Gilles de Lyonesse, a rider with a love of the chase that exceeded even his hunt-obsessed brethren, broke clear with a small band of like-minded brother-knights and galloped up the gorge’s flanks, aiming to cut off the rearmost greenskins. Leoncoeur and the main body of warriors advanced up the centre, cutting into the heart of the orc herd. The pegasi continued to dive and swoop, bludgeoning the slow-moving greenskins with impunity, and so the orcs were soon assailed from all sides.

The remainder of the fighting was little better than a slaughter, with the last of the creatures surrounded by a ring of stamping horses. Leoncoeur killed the last orc himself, as was his right, and lifted its severed head high in triumph. Gore slopped in a torrent from its serrated neck-stump, mingling with the deluge of crimson foam below.

‘First blood of the crusade!’ he shouted, and his knights returned the cry with genuine gusto. After so long suffering from the grinding cold, it was good to indulge in their proper calling again.

De Lyonesse soon returned, and the slower-moving infantry of the baggage train caught up, hauling their wagons over the broken ground.

In normal times the peasants would have been employed to drag the bodies of the slain for burning, for allowing the corpse of a greenskin to moulder in the open air was asking for trouble. On this occasion, though, Leoncoeur suffered none of them to waste time. The way was cleared for the passage of the largest wains, and the bodies of fallen knights were retrieved and buried with all honour, but no funeral pyres were lit.

Less than two hours later, the cavalry column was on the move again, snaking higher up into the mouth of Axebite Pass. The clouds above did not relent, but poured out their violence ever more intensely, washing the blood from the rocks and sending it tumbling down the throat of the killing ground.

Leoncoeur let his knights pass first, led by de Lyonesse, who had started singing hymns of praise to the Lady for deliverance. The old king remained at the site where he had slain the last of the greenskins, lost in thought.

‘You were right,’ said Jhared, nudging his mount past Leoncoeur’s and preparing for the final push towards the summit. ‘First blood. A good omen.’

For a moment, Leoncoeur did not reply. The severed head of his victim lay on the near-frozen earth, gazing blankly up at the heavens. ‘I do not recognise them,’ he said at last.

Jhared looked down at the piles of corpses, then back at Leoncoeur, then shrugged. ‘They look much the same as any I’ve killed.’

Leoncoeur leaned down in the saddle, poring over the piled heaps of the slain. Jhared’s confidence was misplaced – the orcs’ wargear was like nothing a greenskin south of the mountains would have worn. Leoncoeur had travelled far across the Old World and had fought in a dozen different lands. The different tribes of greenskin fought amongst themselves even more than they warred with other races. Each strain had their own territory, which was only breached on the rare occasion when an exceptional warlord would unite them into the rare explosions of aggression that gouged trails of carnage across the civilised lands.

This was not one of those occasions. The slain orcs’ wargear was in poor shape, and their armour – to the extent it could be called that – hung from their bodies in tatters. It was clear that many of them had been wounded before the fighting had even begun, and their bulk was far less than it should have been.

‘They did not come here to attack us,’ said Leoncoeur.

Jhared laughed. ‘Then why were they here?’

‘They are from north of the mountains. The Drakwald, I’d warrant. They have been driven south.’ Leoncoeur looked steadily at Jhared, letting him be in no doubt what had happened. ‘They were fleeing. Whatever waits for us, it has cleansed the forest of orcs.’

Jhared started to laugh again, but the sound trailed off. He forced a smile. ‘The forest can never be cleansed.’

Now that the fervour of battle had faded, Leoncoeur could reflect on how poorly the greenskins had resisted. He had never seen them give up, not so completely, not so quickly.

‘They were hunted,’ he said, finding himself strangely appalled by the thought. ‘They were scared.’

‘Of us.’

Leoncoeur smiled wryly. ‘Believe that if you wish.’ He kicked his horse’s flanks, and it began to move again. ‘I do not.’

He looked up, to where his knights wound their way ever northwards, passing under the night-dark shadow of Talareaux. It looked like they were snaking their way into the underworld.

Perhaps that is so, he mused. In which case, the Lady willing, we will soon set it alight.

The sun had only just risen, and its light was grey and diffuse, barred by the heavy layer of cloud that had hung over Altdorf for weeks. The parade ground was sunk into a kind of foggy twilight, part-masking the movements of the men out on the sand.

Helborg barely remembered the last time he had seen a clear sky. Ever since the first stirrings of the hosts in the north, the heavens had been masked by a grimy curtain, washing all the colour out of the world and plunging it into a dreary fog. Everything was dank, wet, sopping and grime-encrusted. Under such a constant weight of oppression, it was easy enough to believe that the gods had deserted the world of mortals at last, and that the little remaining light and heat was draining out of reality one sodden day at a time.

It got under the skin after a while, the lack of blue in the sky and freshness on the breeze. When the air tasted foul for day after day, and the nights were clammy and the days were humid, and the rain kept coming in a fine drizzle that made everything mouldy and turned the earth underfoot into a spore-infested mire, it crushed the spirit. Even if the tensions of the impending battle had not been there, the city’s people would have suffered badly under such unrelenting misery – their sleep would have been as fitful, and their nightmares just as vivid.

Reports were coming in of rioting in all quarters. Brawls started up over the most trivial of disputes, triggered by hunger, or despair, or the kind of futile anger that came simply from waiting for the axe to fall. Food shortages made the situation worse – unspoiled grain supplies were running low, despite the heavy guard placed on the remaining stores, and water was little better. Most of the populace avoided water in any case, preferring the strong beers brewed by the alemasters and the few dwarf refugees still lingering in the taverns. They said that beer warded against the Rot. Perhaps they were right.

Helborg had not had a decent drink in days, and it made his nerves brittle. The wounds across his face still had not healed, and the pain was getting worse. Whenever he found a scrap of sleep, the lacerations would flare up, waking him in sudden pain. His apothecaries could not do anything – their old remedies, never reliable, had long since ceased to work at all, and the best they could offer was to bandage the lacerations and apply a soothing salve.

Helborg refused. He would not walk around the Palace with linen strapped to his face, and nor would he seek to dampen the raw pain of the daemon’s wound with potions. The pain was a reminder to him of the price of weakness. Moreover, it kept him awake, which with his chronic lack of proper rest was becoming essential.

‘Make them do it again,’ he rasped, running his hands through days-old stubble and resisting the urge to scratch the itching weals.

Von Kleistervoll, standing by his side, barked out the orders, and together, he, Helborg and Zintler watched the drills unfold.

They were standing on a narrow balcony overlooking the parade ground. The sandy surface had begun to go black from rot, despite the incessant raking from the groundskeepers and near-endless prayers from the arch-lectors.

Down below, formations of men began to move. Sergeants yelled out the drill orders, and troopers formed up into squares and detachments. The orders kept coming, just in the same sequence as they had been for the past two hours, rehearsing the various defensive tactics set down in Robert de Guilliam’s great compendium of martial lore, the Codex Imperialis, that had provided the cornerstone of Imperial defence since the time of Mandred.

Helborg watched the detachments wheel around one another. He watched the halberdiers shuffle together, keeping tight in the first rank and holding their blades stiffly. He watched them perform the feints, the fall-backs, the rallies, all under the hoarse expletives of their taskmasters. Five hundred men moved across the parade ground, their every movement orchestrated like a masque in one of the old grand balls.

Except that there were no grand balls anymore, for the gowns had rotted away and the ladies’ rouge and face-paints had mouldered in their tins, and the glittering halls where they would once have been worn were carpeted with dust.

‘They are holding up,’ remarked von Kleistervoll, looking for the positives.

The Reiksguard preceptor had taken a personal interest in improving the readiness of the standard Altdorfer garrisons since the defeat at Heffengen. Cohesion was everything to an Empire army – in any conflict, an individual human trooper was likely to be weaker and less well equipped than his enemy, but coordination with the warriors on either side of him made up for this deficiency. A Chaos horde charged into battle in ragged bands of berserk ill-discipline, against which the only defence was tight-ordered rows of steel. If the enemy managed to breach Altdorf’s outer walls, as it surely would before the end, then such disciplined ranks would be needed to hold them up for as long as possible.

Zintler looked less sure. ‘They grow weary,’ he said, watching one squadron of pikemen fall out of step, and stumble as they tried to make it good.

‘We’re all weary,’ snapped Helborg, observing the proceedings with a critical eye. ‘Keep them at it.’

Then he turned away from the balcony’s edge and stalked back inside, followed by Zintler. Von Kleistervoll remained where he was, scrutinising his charges like a kestrel hovering over its prey.

Helborg strode down the long corridor leading away from the balcony and into the Palace interior, and Zintler hurried to keep pace.

‘How stands the gate repair?’ Helborg demanded.

‘The work was complete,’ said Zintler. ‘As soon as they finished, more defects were found. The engineers are working through the night. The West Gate will be complete by the end of this day; the others, a little longer.’

Helborg grunted. It was like trying to build with gravel – as soon as one wall was shored-up, another opened with cracks. ‘Did the Gold magisters answer the summons?’

‘They are working on the problem,’ said Zintler. ‘But in Gelt’s absence–’

‘Do not talk to me of Gelt. I do not want to hear his name.’

‘Understood. His deputy is Gerhard Mulleringen. I will speak to him again.’

Helborg felt light-headed as he walked. Chambers passed him by, one by one, their edges blurred and their doors gaping. He was vaguely aware of functionaries and knights bowing, and the muffled sound of orders echoing from other corridors, and the clatter of running feet. It might as well have been a dream – all that mattered was the army, the walls, the supplies and the defence plans. He had to remain focused.

Suddenly, he realised that one of the vague shadows flitting about him was not moving. He blinked, to see one of the Palace servants standing directly in his path. The man looked terrified, but remained where he was.

‘Your pardon, lord!’ he stammered, bowing low. ‘I was charged to deliver these as soon as I could, but you have been... hard to find.’

Helborg glared at him. The servant held two rolls of parchment, one in each hand. ‘What are they?’ he demanded, wondering whether he could face more ledgers and dockets to sign.

‘Letters, lord. One is marked with the seal of the Supreme Patriarch. The other was delivered from the Grey College.’

Helborg shot Zintler a dry look. ‘The shadow-mages. What have they laid hands on now?’ He grabbed both rolls, and broke Martak’s seal first. As he read, his reaction moved from curiosity, to disbelief, to fury.

‘He’s gone,’ Helborg said flatly.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Zintler.

‘He’s left the city. The damned traitor. I’ll have his eyes. I’ll rip his throat out and hang it from the Imperial standard. I’ll punch his–’

‘I can send a search party. We’ll bring him back.’

Helborg rolled his eyes. ‘He’s an Amber battle wizard, Zintler. Your men would limp back as green-eyed hares, if they came back at all. It’s too late – he broke into the Menagerie and worked some trickery on a war-griffon. They’re both long gone.’ He leaned heavily against the nearest wall, putting out a hand to support himself. Martak had been a pestilential fool, a peasant of the worst and most scabrous order, but he had been gifted, and his staff was needed. His loss was just one more blow amid a thousand other lesser cuts.

Zintler looked shocked, and for a moment did not say anything. When he did, his voice was weak. ‘Why?’

Helborg laughed harshly. ‘He thinks the Emperor lives. He’s gone to find him.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘The pressure’s got to him. I knew he was weak. Damn it all, what were they thinking, appointing a man like that?’

Zintler shook his head sympathetically. ‘Anything else?’

‘He advises me to perform a purge of the sewers – still on that old saw.’ Helborg snorted another bitter laugh. ‘Even now, he still presumes to advise me.’ He screwed the parchment up and hurled it away. ‘We do not need him. We still have magisters, and we still have priests, and I will not waste men on a fruitless trawl of the undercity.’

Even as he said the words, he realised how he sounded.

Desperate. I am clutching at any morsel of hope now.

He unravelled the second roll of parchment, finding himself yearning for some better news.

‘From the Grey College, you say?’ he asked, breaking the seal.

The servant nodded. ‘They told me it was found on the roof, surrounded by blood. They do not know how long it was there.’

Helborg raised a weary eyebrow – just one more portent of doom. The tidings had been so relentlessly horrific over the past few days – Carroburg lost, Talabheim silent, Nuln cut off. In the deep of the night, when he struggled for just an hour of sleep, he feared that even his iron-hard defiance was beginning to crack at the edges.

Let it be news of reinforcements – from somewhere. Anywhere!

He started to read.

To the most sublime and majestic Karl Franz, Prince of Altdorf, Count of the Reikland, Emperor of the Eleven Provinces and Heir of Sigmar (Or his deputy, given the uncertain times that have overtaken us.)

I have no doubt you will not wish to read a letter such as this, and from one such as me. You will be tempted to throw it into the fire as soon as you see the signature. I urge you to resist – I do not make this communication lightly, nor do I wage this war without urgent cause.

Your scryers will by now be telling you what all men of reason can see for themselves – the order of the world is changing. The Law of Death has been broken, and the remaining Seven Laws are straining at the edges. Powers that have stood firm for millennia are fading, while others are growing with unseemly haste.

Can any now doubt that the Gods of Ruin have put aside their ancient quarrels, and are now acting in concert? And, if that is so, can there be any further doubt that they must be victorious? The great heroes of the past are with us no more, for we dwell in a time of lesser souls.

And yet, not all is foregone. There is another way. Only one soul stands a chance of enduring the storm of Chaos: my Master, who even now strives to return from the banishment of ages. Already he has struck down enemies older than the stones you stand on, and soon he will turn his gaze northwards.

Your great ancestor once ended him in a duel that still echoes through the ages. And yet, if you wish to see the forces of Order prevail in this time, you will need to welcome him now. I am but an emissary, a forerunner of this greater soul, and I offer my services to you. My armies have already marched at the side of yours, though you may not have known it then. They will march alongside you again, should you consent to my offer, freely given and motivated by nothing more than mutual need.

The living and the dead have ever been at odds, but we are more alike to one another than to the corruptions of the Outer Dark. Where they would turn the world into a howling maelstrom of perpetual flux, we understand the principles of order, of command, of endurance. There is a future taking shape, one in which the foundations of reality are made firm again, where the weak are protected and the strong given dominion. It is not the future your priests were wont to pray for, but it is one in which humanity is preserved, and that, let me assure you, is the very best that can be hoped for now.

Make no mistake, my lord, this is the choice: alliance, or oblivion. Just as your ancestor Magnus swallowed his pride to make common cause with the elves of Ulthuan when they were denounced as witches by the ignorant, so must hard choices be made in our own time.

I demand nothing but that which has always been my birthright: Electorship of Sylvania, a province which has unfairly been denied its existence for too long. The rights and privileges of this station shall be the same as the others of that rank: a runefang, a place at the Imperial Council, the old exemptions from the common law and the freedom to raise and keep men-at-arms. I only ask one more boon of you: the chance to search the Reikland for the resting place of one who was dear to me. If the world is to be remade, then I must discover her before all is cast anew.

I am aware that the mutual enmity between our peoples will make this proposal a hard one to entertain fairly. I have no doubt, though, given the circumstances, you will see past ancient prejudices and buried grievances. You will have seen the same auguries as we have, and you will know what is at stake. And, after all, do I not have some prior claim to this title? Or does right of conquest count for nothing in these debased times?

I trust that this missive will reach you, despite all the turmoil that even now seeks to overwhelm us. By the time you read it, I will be on the march, heading along the path of the Stir towards Altdorf. By the time I arrive, I will command a host larger than the last time I camped outside your walls. I earnestly hope that I do not arrive too late, and that you will at least have the opportunity to make your judgement under clear skies and with a free heart.

Until then, I remain, as I ever have been, your loyal and ever-obedient servant,
Vlad von Carstein

Helborg took a long time over the words. When he had reached the end, he read it again, hardly able to believe what was before his eyes.

If he had not been at Heffengen, he might have assumed the letter was some malicious forgery, despite the authentic-looking seal and appropriately archaic hand. But he had been at Heffengen, and so could believe only too well that the provenance was genuine.

He remembered von Kleistervoll’s words after the battle.

They say the dead fought the northmen.

Helborg had not believed that then. He had seen von Carstein emerge, just as the battle remained in the balance. He had seen the skeletal dragon, and the onrush of the fanged knights in blood-red armour. Until he had arrived, the day had not been altogether lost.

Zintler hovered at his side, clearly itching to know what had been written. Helborg let him wait. His mind was racing.

Could he be trusted? Could I have been wrong?

As soon as the treacherous words entered his mind, he cursed himself for even thinking them.

He lives for nothing more than destruction! All of his kind do! They sense weakness, and circle for the kill.

Zintler could not restrain himself, and coughed delicately. ‘My lord?’

Helborg did just as he had done with Martak’s letter, and crumpled the parchment into a tight ball. He stuffed it into a pocket sewn on the inside of his half-cloak, and shoved it down deep. It would not do to have any but him aware of its contents. Just as with so many other things, he would have to bear the burden alone. Even the electors could not be told.

‘It is nothing, Zintler,’ he said, pushing himself clear of the wall. He dismissed the servant with a curt wave and started walking. ‘Nothing worth a damn.’

Zintler trotted to keep up. ‘And Martak? Can we do nothing?’

Helborg whirled on the Reikscaptain, fixing him with his hawk-dark eyes. As he did so, the wounds on his cheek spiked with fresh pain.

‘We do what we have to do,’ he snarled. ‘We prepare. We train. We fight the darkness. We never give in. And we do so alone. There is no salvation from outside these walls, Zintler – you understand that? We have everything we are going to be given, and it must suffice.’

He felt the thrill of mania begin to run away from him then, and he tripped over his words. When these dark moods came on him, he felt almost like laughing.

Zintler shrank back, anxiety written on his dutiful features. ‘Just so, my lord. But – forgive me – we are all mortals. There is also need for rest. When did you last take any?’

Helborg’s eyes flared at the impudence. ‘Rest?’ he blurted. ‘Rest? Did Mandred take rest? Did Magnus? Would Schwarzhelm, or Karl Franz?’

He started walking again. He could feel his joints ache, his ribs creak, his wounds leak blood in a thin trickle down his neck.

‘To the walls,’ he croaked, keeping his shoulders back, his neck stiffly upright. ‘Our labours are not yet done, and neither are the stonemasons’. I will see the works for myself, and if they have slackened from the task I will gut them with their own trowels.’

The cauldron overflowed, sending frothy, fatty matter splatting on the stone floor.

Festus stirred more vigorously, knowing the delicate juncture he had reached. He had been working for so long now, so patiently and so carefully that even a minute error now would be more than he could bear. As his flabby body sweated from the fires, the alembics and glassware funnels bubbled violently.

From one of the cages he could hear a woman weeping. Those cages were almost empty now – he would have to find a way to step up procurement before the final stage, which would not be easy. The City Watch was getting vigilant, and he had seen evidence of those damned Shallyans poking their noses around the margins of his domain.

The Shallyans were the only thing Festus truly had anything like fear for. A normal mortal could be so easily corrupted, since their appetites were so typically gross and their fear of sickness so habitually complete. The inhabitants of Altdorf were just like the inhabitants of any other Imperial city – petty, spiteful, grasping and timorous. Being turned into vessels of a greater sickness was the best thing they could possibly have aspired to, not that they ever evinced much gratitude for it.

But the sisters – they were tricky. They did not fear illness. How could they, since they spent their whole lives immersed in it? They did not suffer from gluttony, and they had no crippling fears. They accepted the world for what it was, and felt no need to change it, other than to ease the suffering of those stricken by its more painful aspects.

That, frankly, was perverse, and was just what made the Leechlord shudder. When his work was done here and the Tribulation was complete, Festus knew exactly where he was going and exactly what he was going to do. He could already hear the screams of the sisters as they writhed on the tip of his scythe. He would take his time killing them, one by one, letting them experience the full strength of what they had always denied.

It did not matter how strong or stoical they were – when confronted with the utter inevitability of defeat, they would all crack. They would be lapping up his potions sooner or later, and they would be thankful for it.

He sniffed a slug of mucus up and swallowed. Tiny daemon-kin scurried around at his hooves, licking the drops of yellowish sweat that coursed from his bulging muscles. They were excitable now. They could sense what was in the cauldron, and they knew what it meant.

All along the walls of the subterranean chamber, vials and jars rattled and shivered. The drones of tumour-sized blowflies hummed through every vaulted cavity and undercroft. His realm had spread quickly, and now occupied hundreds of forgotten shafts and pits beneath Altdorf’s foetid ground-level streets.

This was his kingdom, a foretaste of the greater kingdom of contagion to come, but it was still fragile. If he were discovered, if the mortals chose to look beneath their blocked noses and seriously try to track down the source of what ailed them, he might yet be vulnerable.

He stirred harder. Beneath the cauldron’s surface, the dark shape grew ever more solid. A misshapen antler-prong briefly broke the brackish water, before sinking again. A gurgling sigh echoed from underwater, potent enough to make Festus shiver with anticipation.

They were all looking to him. The Glotts, the Tallyman, the Lord of Tentacles, the beasts, the damned and the god-marked – they were all looking to him to unlock the Great Tribulation.

He sweated harder. He was no longer chortling as he worked, and he no longer took any pleasure in his allotted task.

Time was running out. The deathmoon was riding low, and would be full soon. The massed hosts of the Urfather were crashing through a tangled, twisted forest of nightmares, and would be hammering at the gates uncomfortably quickly.

If he failed... if any of them failed...

Festus wiped his forehead. A diminutive toad-creature nipped his foot, and he kicked it irritably away. From the cauldron, a bubbling fountain briefly erupted, but did not sustain.

‘Come on,’ Festus muttered, putting more energy into the endless stirring. ‘Come on...’

Fourteen

Martak hung onto the griffon’s neck and gritted his teeth. A range of terrors coursed through him.

This is the realm of birds, he thought grimly. I have no place in it.

It had been easy enough to break into the Menagerie. With the attention of the city locked on the walls and the impending arrival of the enemy, the internal watch had grown slack and undermanned. Martak had slipped into the vast array of pens and cages during the night, using every ounce of his art to placate the creatures that slavered at him from behind iron bars.

Initially he had hoped a Bretonnian pegasus might have been held there – he knew how to ride a horse, and guessed it would be much the same to control one of their winged brethren – but the only creatures capable of flight were the colossal Imperial dragon and the select herd of Karl Franz’s war-griffons. He had not even got close to the dragon before gouts of sulphurous smoke had forced him back, and even he was not boastful enough to think he could master that living furnace of scale and talon – the world would have to be ending around his ears for him to contemplate rousing that.

The griffons were scarce less fearsome, though, rising to over twice the height of a man at the shoulder and with flesh-ripping beaks that curved like scimitars. They all growled and hissed at him as he passed their pens, pawing at the straw beneath them and watching him with beady, unblinking yellow eyes.

In the end, he had selected a russet beast, marginally leaner than the others and with bands of crimson and gold on hawk-like wings. He had held its gaze and whispered words of control and reassurance. It had taken a long time before the griffon was calm enough for him to break the locks and dare enter, and then it still reared up, cawing furiously, and Martak was forced to delve deep into the Lore of Beasts to prevent it clawing his eyes out.

Eventually the creature suffered him to lead it by the halter, and the two of them walked out of the Menagerie’s main cage-chambers and into the dung-strewn exercise yards beyond. It took him three attempts to mount, during which the noble beast glared at him coldly with a mix of irritation and contempt. Eventually the commotion, punctuated with earthy swear-words of dubious origin, roused the less soporific members of the watch, and the thud of footfalls echoed down from the watch towers around the yard.

Cursing, Martak hauled on the reins. ‘Fly, then, damn you,’ he hissed, having no idea how such a creature was ridden. Griffon riders were vanishingly rare in the Empire’s armies, and they trained for years before mastering the tempestuous natures of their wild mounts. Very quickly Martak felt the spirit of the beast defying him – it was perfectly aware what he wanted, and perfectly aware that he had no power to compel it.

Faint lights blinked into life from the summit of the watch towers as torches were lit. A bell began to clang somewhere in the depths of the Menagerie’s guardhouse, and doors slammed.

Still the griffon remained on the ground, its wings unfurled, but resolutely unmoving. Martak cried out every word of command in his lexicon, racking his mind for the correct cantrip or word-form. Perhaps there was not one – griffons were not like the dumb beasts of the deep wood that could be charmed with a gesture, they were ancient and proud scions of the mountains, with souls as fiery and untamed as the peaks they circled.

‘Fly!’ he growled again, brandishing his staff over the creature’s neck as if the splinter of gnarled wood would intimidate such a colossal mount. The griffon hissed back at him, and strutted around the yard aimlessly. More shouts came from the surrounding buildings, at ground level this time, and the red glare of firelight spread from the barred windows. Men burst out of the doors leading back to the beast-chambers, each carrying a long spear and clutching nets between them.

A huge, burly figure, bald-headed and with an iron stud in his nose, roared up at them, his face puce with anger. ‘Get back in there, you flea-ridden fly-hog!’ he bawled, gesturing frantically at the other men to fan out and surround the griffon. ‘Sigmar damn you, you will suffer for this!’

At the sight of that man, the griffon immediately reared again, nearly throwing Martak from its back. Its forelegs scythed, and it let rip with a piercing shriek of fury.

The first net, weighted with iron balls, was thrown. With a coiled pounce, the griffon leapt into the air, flapping powerfully to gain loft.

More nets were thrown, then spears, but none reached the target. The griffon powered upward rapidly, climbing higher with every powerful down-beat of its huge wings.

Martak hung on, his heart racing, clutching to the beast’s plumage with fear-whitened knuckles.

‘Taal’s teeth,’ he swore, realising belatedly what he had taken on.

Altdorf fell away below him, a patchwork of faint lamplight amid the overcast gloom of the night sky. The griffon banked, and Martak saw the baroque sprawl of the Imperial Palace stretched out, glistening faintly from the light of a thousand lanterns. Even in the midst of his blind terror, it was hard not to be awed by the spectacle.

‘North, damn you,’ he hissed, trying again to impose his will.

The griffon did not listen, but headed east, instinctively heading for the mountains where it had been hatched. Martak persevered, reaching out to the beast’s mind and trying to quell its wilfulness.

Slowly, painfully, it began to respond. Martak whispered every scrap of the Lore of Beasts into its ears, piling on the words of command.

Eventually, with a frustrated caw of defeat, it began to listen. It toppled to one side and angled north, heading over the seas of dark-limbed trees and flying steadily.

Ever since that moment, Martak had battled with it, forcing it to obey him through sheer bloody-mindedness. There was no beautiful meeting of souls and no mutual respect between them – every wing-beat was a struggle, a draining battle of psyches. The griffon toiled through the air as if mired in it. Just staying mounted was a challenge in itself, and Martak nearly slipped from his perch more than once.

Somehow, though, they flew on until the sunrise, by which time they were far out over the forest and the Reik valley was a long way behind them. Both of them were exhausted, bad-tempered and stinking with sweat.

Martak gazed out over the vast expanse of land below. Although he had often tramped far and wide into the Great Forest, it was only from the air that one could appreciate just how immeasurably immense the Empire was. During the long flight they had barely passed any settlements, and yet the forest still stretched off towards the four empty horizons in an unbroken, daunting mass. Night-mists curled and boiled atop the crowns of the trees, spiralling into eerie columns that twisted up to meet the weak light of the sun. The eastern horizon was a weak strip of pale gold, glistering faintly under heavy bands of iron-grey.

The griffon cawed harshly. Ahead of them reared several outcrops of dark rock, thrusting clear of the canopy like leviathans breaking the ocean surface. Martak sensed the beast’s desire to set down, drawn perhaps by a landscape that reminded it of its mountainous home.

Martak allowed it to lose height, and soon they were circling down towards the nearest column of stone, angling with surprising dexterity through the chill dawn air. The griffon crouched as it touched down.

Martak gripped it tightly by the nape of the neck, and hissed into its ear. ‘You are mine, now. I do not release you. One way or another, we are bound to one another, so do not get any ideas.’

The griffon hissed back at him, and scraped its talons along the rock, but did not make any further protest. They understood one another, and a bond, however tenuous and irascible, had been established.

Martak dismounted stiffly and hobbled to the edge of the stone island. He stood fifty feet above the tallest of the trees, and could see nothing but a landscape of leaves in every direction – no rivers, no castles, no cultivated land. The forest reeked of slowly mouldering fruit. The more he looked, the more he felt the marks of slow corruption. The Great Forest had always been a perilous and dank place, but now it was truly festering.

Martak slumped to his haunches. He would have to make a fire soon. Somehow, he would have to find something to eat – if anything that still lived in the forest was worth eating.

He gazed out to the north, and at the sight of the endless ranks of trees, his heart faltered.

Is this a mistake? he ruminated. Should I have stayed? My absence will make Helborg spit blood.

He smiled grimly. That, on its own, probably made it worth the labour.

Behind him, the griffon began to preen itself, pulling at its tangled feathers with its hooked beak. Martak shuffled away from the precipice, and started to look for dry tinder. The fire would do more than keep them warm – it was the precursor to a spell, one that would allow his sight to roam far beyond the confines of his mortal vision.

It would not be easy to summon up the requisite power – scrying was not his strength, and the dreary tang of mutation hung in the air, thicker and more durable than the rolling mist.

‘But I will find you,’ Martak said aloud, startling the griffon. ‘By the Eight Winds, this journey will not be wasted.’

He hobbled across the bare stone, limping from muscle-ache and the cold, muttering to himself. Out in the wilds, the clouds hung heavily, and the plague-wind moaned.

It would be a long, cold day.

‘Consider it, o my brother,’ said Otto, softly.

‘I do so, o my brother,’ replied Ethrac, his voice hushed in awe.

Neither of them spoke for a little while after that. The two of them sat on Ghurk’s shoulders, lost in thought. Below them, their army waited for orders. They waited for a long time.

Ghurk stood at the summit of a bald, windswept hill on the north bank of the Reik. The close press of thorn and briar had given way a little there, exposing the vista to the east in all its untrammelled glory. Ahead of them, at last, lay their goal.

Just below Ghurk’s hooves, the terrain fell away sharply in terraces of foliage-clogged undulation. The Reik valley had widened since Carroburg, and was now a broad, shallow bowl. The land had once been cultivated across the flat floodplain, but now the crops rotted in their drills, reeking with a subtle aroma that Otto found immensely pleasing. Everywhere he looked, the forest had crept past its ancient bounds, smothering everything. The new growths had taken on a wild variety of hues – pus-yellow, olive-green, the pulsing crimson of blood-blisters. Above it all, the clouds still churned, making the air as thick and humid as half-warmed tallow.

A mile away, Altdorf lay, rising from the tormented plain like a colossus, straddling the wide river and thrusting its towers up towards the uncaring heavens. Far bigger than Marienburg, far bigger than Talabheim, it was the greatest of prizes, the jewel of the southern Empire.

It had never been a beautiful place, even before the Rot. It had none of the soaring grandeur of Lothern, nor the stark geometry of the Lustrian megalopolises. What it had was solidity – the huge, heavy weight of history, piled atop layer after layer of construction until the final ramshackle, glorious heap of disparate architectural and strategic visions reached up to scrape at the lowering rainclouds themselves. Mighty buttresses reinforced vast retaining walls, straining amid the lattice of bridges and causeways and spiral stairs and gatehouses and watchtowers, all surmounted by slender tiled roofs that poked upward like fire-blackened fingers. A thousand hearths sent sooty trails snaking over the tiles, casting a pall of smog that hung like pox over the entire gaudy display. Copper domes glistened dully amid the tangle of dark stone and grimy daub, and the noise of forges and manufactories could be made out even from so far away, grinding away somewhere deep in the bowels of the vast, vast city.

Its walls were intact. Otto permitted himself some surprise at that – he had been told to expect the masonry to have crumbled away. Perhaps the defenders were more capable than he had expected. They had certainly worked hard.

It mattered not. Walls of stone were of little impediment to the hosts he commanded. Altdorf was just a microcosm of the Empire itself – the true rot came from within. There was no point in reinforcing borders and bastions and parapets if the flesh contained beyond them was withering away with every passing hour. They were weak, now. Terribly weak. How many of them could still lift their weapons? How many even had the desire to?

A low crack and growl of thunder played across the eastern horizon. Great pillars of cloud were gathering, driven west by gales from the Worlds Edge Mountains. Stray flickers of lightning briefly flashed out across the grey, drab air, glinting on the Reik’s dreary surface.

The river had almost entirely turned into a glutinous slurry, and it barely lapped its own banks any more. Huge vines had slithered out of the encroaching tree-cover and extended into the water, making what remained even more viscous.

Otto smirked as he saw the transformation. The god he served was a mighty god indeed. The very earth had been poisoned, the waters thickened, the growing things perverted and sent thrusting into feral parodies of themselves. There was no resisting this – it was the wearing weight of entropy, the corruption of all purity, the glorious potential of the sick, the foul, the decaying.

‘We march now,’ Otto breathed, knowing how little time it would take. The army would sweep east, filling the valley before them from side to side, surrounding the city as the ocean surrounded its islands.

‘Not yet,’ warned Ethrac. ‘We wait for the others.’

Otto felt like snapping at him. Ethrac could be tediously particular. He loved his brother – he loved both his brothers – but Ghurk’s pleasing enthusiasms never ceased to be endearing, whereas Ethrac could, on occasion, be harder to like.

‘We may crush it now, o my brother,’ said Otto, forcing a smile. ‘Crush it like Carroburg.’

‘No, no.’ Ethrac waved his staff to and fro, and the bells clanged. ‘Not long to wait. The others grow closer. We will need all three – the Lord of Tentacles, the Tallyman, the beasts of the dark wood, the hosts of the far north.’

Otto rolled his eyes. ‘They are starved, o my brother! They are timorous.’

Ethrac shot him a crooked smile. ‘Not as starved as they will be, o my sibling. Not as timorous as they will be. While they still have a little of their native strength left, we must creep with caution. How many battles have been lost to impetuosity? Hmm? You can count them all?’

Otto was about to retort, knowing the argument was futile, when the clouds parted overhead. The fine drizzle that had accompanied them since making landfall at Marienburg guttered and trembled. A new light flooded across the valley, weaker than the shrouded sun, like a pale flame.

The hosts of ruin looked up. Otto did likewise.

He saw the flames of the comet flicker, masked by the shifting airs and made weak by the filth in the skies, but there nevertheless. Tongues of fire glimmered in the heavens, just as they had done in the half-forgotten days only recorded in forbidden books.

Otto made the sign of ruination. ‘The twin-tailed star,’ he muttered.

Ethrac chuckled. ‘It surprises you, o my brother? You have not listened to me. The comet was there to witness the birth of Sigmar’s realm, and it will be there to see it out. Such signs and portents were written into fate’s tapestry since before you or I were woven into it.’

Otto continued to stare at the comet uneasily. He could barely catch sight of it, and its light was washed out by the gloom of midday, but the brief snatches he did perceive made his stomach turn.

‘It presages nothing,’ he muttered, to convince himself as much as anything else.

‘That is right,’ said Ethrac, satisfied.

‘The full deathmoon is due.’

‘That it is.’

Otto drew in a phlegmy breath. He could sense the tension from the thousands of warriors waiting behind him. All they needed was an order.

‘Then we wait for it,’ said Otto. ‘We wait for the Night of Souls.’

‘We do.’

Otto grinned. His mood was oddly changeable. Why was that? Nerves? Surely not – he had been shown the future, and it was gloriously, infinitely putrid.

‘Not long now, then,’ he said, drumming his fingers on Ghurk’s leather-hard flesh.

Ethrac smiled contentedly, and looked up at the heavens.

‘Not long at all, o my brother.’

The wait was over. The scouts had returned from the forward stations, and the reports had been sent down from the Celestial College’s scrying towers.

In a way, it was a relief. The sham-war was over, the real one could begin. Whatever Helborg might have done better, it mattered not now. All that remained was the fight itself, the clash of steel against iron, and in that at least the Reiksmarshal had never been found wanting.

At the first sound of a warning clarion, he had donned his full battle-garb. Three menials were required to help him into it, and when they were finished he was encased from neck to knee in plate armour. They had polished it furiously hard over the past week, and the steel gleamed like silver. The scabbard of his runefang had been lovingly restored, and the icons of the griffon and the insignia of Karl Franz looked as pristine as they ever had done. The menials draped a new cloak over his shoulders, and it brushed against the stone floor with a sigh of fine fabric.

He banished them once all was done, and remained for a moment in his private rooms, donned for war.

From outside, he could hear the growing clamour of the city readying itself. Bells rang out from every temple tower, sounding the alarm and rousing the sick and the exhausted from their beds. Great arcs of lightning crackled across the rooftops as the magisters of the colleges readied their arcane war machines. Trumpets sounded in every garrison, calling the thousands of troops still in the employ of the Palace to their stations. Scaffolds cracked and groaned as huge cannons were winched into position and rolled forward on their parapet mounts.

Helborg smiled. They were the sounds he lived to hear. The troops were responding as he had drilled them to. They might have learned to curse him since he returned from the north, they might have spat his name with hatred when he had forced them into another exercise or commandeered another water-supply or made the engineers work through the night to keep the battlements intact and the foundations strong, but they were ready. The standards still flew from the turrets, and the cancer of fear had not undone them just yet.

He walked over to the door. As he did so, he caught sight of his reflection in a grimy window-pane, and paused.

He looked much the same as he had done in the past – the lean, aquiline face with its hook nose and flamboyant moustache. When he turned to one side, though, he saw the long rakes along his cheek, still flecked with scab-tissue. As if aware of the attention, the wounds flared again, hot as forge-irons.

‘Keep it up,’ Helborg snarled. ‘Keep the pain coming. It’ll only make me angrier.’

He swept out of the chamber and into the corridor outside. He walked swiftly, banishing the fatigue that had dogged him for so long. He still had not managed to sleep, but the adrenaline of the coming combat sustained him, flooding his muscles and making him itch to draw his blade.

As he went, commotion built around him. Palace officials ran to and fro, carrying orders and last-minute requisitions. Knights in full armour stomped from the armouries up to their stations, saluting smartly as they caught sight of the Reiksmarshal. Helborg saw the sigils of the Sable Chalice, the Hospitallers, the Knights Panther, the Order of the Golden Wolf, and there were no doubt more already stationed across the city.

And, of course, there were the surviving Reiksguard, restored to combat readiness following von Kleistervoll’s punishing regimen. Nine hundred were ready to deploy, counting those that had remained in Altdorf prior to Heffengen – a formidable force, and one that he would personally command when the time came.

He neared the high doors of his destination. When they saw him coming, the door-guards hurriedly pushed them open, bowing as he strode through.

On the far side, the circular Chamber of Ghal Maraz opened up in all its many-arched splendour. In times of peace, the priceless warhammer itself was hung on chains of gold from the domed roof, guarded by four warrior priests and ringed with wards from the Light College. Only the mightiest or the most faithful were ever permitted access to the chamber while the weapon hung suspended over its iron war-altar. That altar had been forged from the guns used in the defence of the city against the vampire lords of legend, and was as black and sullen as pitch.

Now the chains swung emptily, for Ghal Maraz, like so much else, was lost, borne by the boy-warrior Valten somewhere out in the wilds of the north. The city’s defenders still mustered before the altar nevertheless, as if some lingering aura of power still hung over the empty hooks.

They were all there: von Kleistervoll in his full preceptor’s regalia, Zintler looking very different in his ceremonial Reikscaptain’s war-plate, the grand masters of the Knightly Orders, the masters of the Colleges of Magic, the arch-lectors and the master engineers and the Imperial generals with their captains and lieutenants in tow. Von Liebwitz, Haupt-Anderssen and Gausser were present, all in their own ancestral battle-gear. They might have been quarrelsome, power-hungry schemers, but they each carried a runefang and had been tutored since infancy on how to use it.

The display of collected power was comforting. It would have looked better with Schwarzhelm there, or Huss, or Volkmar or Gelt, but it was still a daunting panoply. As the doors slammed closed behind Helborg, all head were lowered in deference.

‘So, the enemy has been sighted,’ said Helborg, standing before them and fixing each in turn with his gaze. ‘We know now that they are three: an army to the north that still marches; an army to the east that is almost upon us, and the largest host of all, fresh from the sack of Marienburg and within sight of the walls. They will wait until Morrslieb is full, or so the arch-lectors tell me.’

Fleischer bowed. The head of the Celestial College nodded in agreement – they all knew the power of the witching-night.

‘They outnumber us many times over,’ Helborg went on, his harsh voice echoing strangely in the huge chamber. ‘They bring foul creatures from the wilds on the edge of the world, and think to break us as easily as they broke Marienburg and – so we fear – Talabheim.’ He smiled wolfishly. ‘But they have not reckoned on the soul of this place. It is Sigmar’s city. It is our city.’

Gausser grunted approvingly. All the true fighters – the grand masters, the Reiksguard – appreciated words like this. They had spent their lives going into battle, often against horrific odds, and only needed to know that their liege was with them; that he suffered alongside them, and that, in the final test, he would stand in the mud and blood with blade in hand.

‘This is the heart of the Empire,’ growled Helborg, gesturing to the golden pilasters and columns surrounding the empty altar. ‘This is where the seat of power has always been, where the Emperors rule, where the Law was set down and where the source of our greatness was first delved. While Altdorf lives, the Empire lives. As fortune’s wheel turns, it is we who have been charged with the sacred task of keeping it secure for the next thousand years.’

As he spoke, Helborg could see doubt in the eyes of those he addressed. If even half the scouts’ reports were accurate, than the enemy was almost ludicrously vast – a host greater even than the swollen armies of Kul.

Let them doubt. What mattered was whether they stood up or fell to their knees, and there had never been a day of Helborg’s life when he had not faced his enemy on his feet.

‘Even as I speak, our troops are reaching their stations,’ he said. ‘They will remain firm so long as we remain firm. They will look to us, the masters of men, to lead the defence and show just what stuff the Empire is made of. They will not be afraid if we do not feel fear. They will not retreat if we hold fast, and they will not contemplate defeat if we do not let it enter our minds. So I say to you all this day: stand firm in Sigmar’s image! As night falls and the terror grows, stand firm in Sigmar’s image. As they bring fire from the firmament and summon horror from beyond the grave, stand firm in Sigmar’s image. He has not abandoned us, for He is a god of battle. Wish not for a world in which there is no strife or bloodshed, for that would be a pale reflection of the world of glory we have been given to dwell in.’

He grinned, feeling the seductive mania return, and his wounds broke open on his cheek. ‘And this will be the most glorious of days! Men will sing in after-ages of the heroes of Altdorf, and will curse their fortune not to have witnessed the deeds that will be done here. They will look up at the white towers of this city, standing prouder than they do today, and marvel at their eternal strength, just as they curse the darkness that thought to bring them low.’

Helborg drew his sword. ‘You know what this is!’ he said, brandishing the blade before them. ‘This is the Sword of Vengeance, the Klingerach, and it has drunk the blood of the faithless across every province in the realm. I have driven you hard, and I know the burden has been heavy, but now the Sword of Vengeance marches to war, and you will march with it.’

He lifted the sacred runefang towards the empty altar. Ghal Maraz may have been missing, but his own weapon was ancient enough to honour the sacred space.

‘And so, on this day, when the fates converge on Altdorf and we become the fulcrum of the war to end all wars, I pledge this,’ he swore, feeling the lines of blood trickle down his neck. ‘I will take no backward step. I will not retreat, I will not cower, I will not relent. I will fight. I will fight for this place with every breath and with every drop of blood in my body. And if the world is to end and if all is to be cast in the fire, then I will die in the service of the Empire as I have lived, as a warrior.’

He raised the sword high.

‘For the Empire!’ he roared.

As one, the assembled warriors raised their own weapons towards the altar.

The Empire! they cried in unison, and the massed voices soared into the dome above, echoing in fractured harmony. The Empire! For Karl Franz!

Helborg looked at them all, his blood pumping. They were as ready as they would ever be, each of them filled with the zeal of combat. This was what made the Empire great – that, for all its folly and corruption, when the storm broke they had never refused the challenge.

‘Now then,’ he snarled, feeling the dark swell of battle-lust throbbing through him. ‘The time for words and prayers is over. Take your positions, and may Sigmar guide your blades.’

Fifteen

More orcs came over the mountains after the first gang, jogging in loose bands, their maws drooling and their eyes rimmed with madness and fatigue. Every time they were dispatched, another herd would follow, not in huge numbers, but enough to slow the Bretonnians further.

The knights rode in full battle-gear all the time, keeping lances to hand and changing horses often. Snow began to fall, dusting the bare rock with a grey slush that made the horses’ hooves skid and slip, and they lost more precious steeds and men during the vicious, short-lived brawls.

‘They just run onto our blades,’ Jhared remarked. ‘It is as if...’

They no longer wish to live. Leoncoeur could have finished the sentence for him. That, beyond all he had seen since the rise of Mallobaude, filled his heart with foreboding. An orc was a crucible of nature’s wrath, a furious avatar of martial excess. They lived to fight, to scrap, to roar out their feral abandon into the world as they tore it apart. An orc feared nothing.

And yet now they were broken. Just as Jhared said, they stumbled blindly into combat, going through the motions in a kind of dumb rehearsal of their old terrible glory. For the first time in his life, Leoncoeur took no pleasure in slaying them. It began to seem... cruel.

The series of skirmishes slowed their passage through Axebite Pass, but did not halt it. Leoncoeur gave the column no respite, and they trudged on through the swirling, snow-laced squalls. Peasants who succumbed to the grinding cold were left where they fell, and the baggage train became steadily more and more undermanned. Soon they would have scarce enough hands to keep the carts rolling and the teams of warhorses guarded, but the pace never slackened.

Eventually, they cleared the worst of the bitter high path, and the road began to snake downhill again. The vast peaks of the Grey Mountains still rose impossibly high above them, their distant heads blocked by thick cloud, but the hardest portion of the traverse was over. The knights began to pick their way down the gravelly paths of scree and boulders, going carefully lest more horses go lame.

The purity of the high airs soon collapsed once more into the thick filth they had breathed in Bretonnia, except it was far, far worse on the northern side of the range. On the second day of the descent, the vanguard rounded a tight bend in a narrow gorge, and beheld for the first time the land beyond the mountains.

Barring their path a few dozen yards away was a thick snarl of tangled briars. Beyond that lay a seething glut of vines and throttle-weeds, all gently moving as if propelled by intelligences of their own. Trees studded the congested road, looking like they had sprouted from the living rock just moments ago, their gnarled roots frozen onto the cracked stone and their crowns gasping for air and light.

From his vantage at the head of the column, Leoncoeur could see that the thick undergrowth extended for miles. It ran away from them, close-bound and endless. To their right reared the old fortress of Helmgart, once a mighty citadel, but now abandoned to the clutching vines, its walls crumbled and its keep hollow. It looked like it had been empty for weeks.

Leoncoeur sensed the dismay from the warriors around him. The way was blocked, and it would take days to hack through just a tithe of it. The pegasi would soar above it all, of course, but they were merely the spear-tip of his force.

Leoncoeur whispered an order and his horse walked on, approaching the first clumps of moss that marred the stony path. As the rank wall of growths neared, he smelled the over-sweet stench of fermenting fruit.

This is the spawn of corruption, he mused, watching the polyps flex and swell under his mount’s hooves. If it comes from magic, it can be dispelled with magic.

To the left of the path, an ice-white cataract plunged down the mountainside, swollen from the storms in the peaks above. It remained pure when all around it was foetid. Leoncoeur halted before it, remembering the words of the Lady.

Look for me in pure waters.

The white river ran on ahead of him, foaming in its narrow course and throwing up a fine spray. Far ahead, it plunged under the shadows of the trees, hissing as if angered by the contagions around it.

Leoncoeur drew his blade, stained from greenskin blood, and held it high.

‘By the Lady we march!’ he cried. ‘And by Her grace will all taint be cleansed from the world!’

His warriors remained at a distance, unsure. They had been sorely tested by the passage of the pass, and Leoncoeur was not so deaf that he had not heard the mutterings of discontent. They had been promised glorious battle, not an endless slog through poison-vines.

They would need to be reminded just who they served.

Leoncoeur pointed his sword towards the river, holding the tip just above the gurgling surface. ‘They have not removed you from the waters just yet, my queen,’ he murmured. ‘I can sense your power here, just as it was in Couronne. Their faith wavers. I beseech you, humbly, restore it.’

Nothing happened. The rain started up again, drizzling down from the grey sky and making the standards heavy. The thick filigree of branches and vines seemed to tighten, drawing across the path ahead in a heavy wall of interlocking boughs.

Leoncoeur held his weapon in place, and closed his eyes. What do you demand of me, Lady? I have already pledged everything. What is there left?

He saw her then, in his mind, just as she had been in Bretonnia. If anything, her slender face seemed even more careworn.

Everything, my champion? she whispered back. You have barely been tested.

That hurt. He had lost a kingdom, and forfeited any chance of taking it back by following her command. He had already lost more than most men would ever have to give away.

The way is barred, he said.

All ways are barred, she breathed, her voice little louder than a child’s whisper. Are you sure you wish me to unlock it? If this road is made straight, you will never return along it.

Leoncoeur stiffened. She had already warned him of this. What did she expect – that he would forget his vow?

Do you wish me to live?

That startled her. She looked at him, a sudden desire playing in her immortal eyes. Of course, beloved, she insisted. I desire that of all things. Turn aside, and I will preserve you for as long as my power lasts. When you die, my heart will break.

Leoncoeur nearly opened his eyes. For a moment, he saw a future unravelling before him – the two of them, mortal man and wife, riding out across a wide grassland, the sun rising swiftly in a dew-fresh dawn. He saw her face turn to his and smile, the care wiped from it. She reached out, and their hands touched.

The vision made his heart ache. It had been forbidden even to countenance such a thing, and here she was, showing it to him.

He looked down, still locked in the dream-image. His steed’s hooves trod in the damp earth. In the marks of the hooves, tiny worms wriggled. They were white and blind, and their mouths were ringed with fangs.

There would be no escape, he told her, letting go of her hand. It would pursue us to the ends of the earth. You know this.

The Lady nodded, smiling sadly. And now you do, too. So ask me again, my champion. You wish me to give you a path to Altdorf?

He did not. He wished for nothing but the vision, even in its falsity and its deception. He wished only for a scrap of time alone with her, just as he had always dreamed of, even if it meant an eternity of damnation thereafter.

But wishes were for peasants, and he was a knight of the realm.

If it lies within your power, Lady, he breathed, make the road straight.

She bowed, her expression a mix of sorrow and satisfaction, and the vision ebbed away. Leoncoeur opened his eyes again.

Nothing had changed. His warriors gave no sign of impatience – however long the exchange had seemed to him, it had clearly been no time for them.

He straightened in his saddle, and turned to the foul morass ahead.

‘Your reach does not yet compass the world,’ he announced, gazing out at it with his fierce, blue-eyed glare. ‘While we may yet contest you, we will.’

His words rang out, echoing strangely on the air. The vines shivered, and straggling roots withdrew. The entire forest seemed to falter, as if stirred by a sudden gust of wind.

Leoncoeur smiled coldly. He could feel the divine power now, warm against his flesh like summer sun. She was weakened, to be sure, but not yet destroyed.

‘Rise,’ he commanded, raising his blade and pointing it ahead.

The waters began to surge, let loose like a dam breaking. The river burst its banks, welling up and flooding the path ahead. Leoncoeur backed up, never letting his blade waver, as the road ahead dissolved into foaming silt.

The trees immediately shrank back, and a thin hissing broke out from among the branches. The waters kept on rising, boiling up out of the ground in defiance of all natural law. Fresh springs burst through the open rock, gushing in plumes of white before crashing to the ground again and sluicing down the slope.

Leoncoeur backed up further, watching with some satisfaction as the river’s banks crumbled away, unable to accommodate the roaring torrent that now coursed through it. Boulders were dislodged, rolling along with the flow and crashing into the twisted trunks ahead. The roar of the waters mingled with the snap and crack of wood breaking.

Where the Lady’s water-magic hit the sorcerous forest, great gouts of smoke leapt into the sky, fizzing and spitting with emerald aethyr-energies. The raging river seemed to carve straight through whatever it touched, burning the foul woods away as if acid had been poured onto them. A stench like burning flesh rose up, harsh and acrid.

‘Stand firm!’ commanded Leoncoeur, working to keep his steed from panicking. The waters frothed and swirled around its hooves, causing no more harm to it than a non-magical river. Ahead of them, the torrent gouged deeper, cutting a path through the woodland and leaving ragged wound-edges on either side. The up-swell of water kept on rising, roiling and churning out from the fractured earth. The forest was ripped open, its roots torn up and its tight-wound growths carried away. As the waters smashed onwards, tearing ever deeper into the country beyond, the sound of a woman’s laughter could be heard over the thunder, faint but unmistakable.

Soon the sounds faded away, heading north as the magically roused river cut its way onward. An empty road stood in its wake, dripping and sodden, overlooked on either side by the surviving trees. The path was like a tunnel, overhung and hemmed in on all sides. The Lady’s power had only been sufficient to rid the river’s path of its filth, and the clear route extended no further than the road’s edge.

Leoncoeur looked into the shadows, his heart thumping. Witnessing the extreme release of such magic had been a mixed experience for him. On the one hand, being in close proximity to the divine strength of his lifelong queen was what gave him the reason for living. On the other, he was under no illusions that this march would be his last. The brief, snatched vision of another life had made the choice even crueller, though he knew the purpose of it.

She had to be sure. Even the slenderest chance that he would turn aside had to be discounted. He did not resent her testing him, for his whole life had been a test, and the knowledge that he had passed it made up for some of the grief.

Not all of it, though. It would take him a long time to forget the vision.

‘You have been shown the way,’ he announced, lowering his blade at last and sheathing it. His horse stamped in the waters. Ahead of them, the river level gradually subsided as the tide-face worked its way further north. ‘Now we begin the final march. Ride on, for Bretonnia and the Lady.’

The warriors about him saluted piously, and began to move. One by one, trooping in file, the knights of Bretonnia passed under the shadow of the plague-wood, and trod the last road to Altdorf.

The host of the undead grew ever larger, feeding from the slain of the battles and pulling corpses out of the ground every passing hour.

It was all so familiar. Vlad remembered doing the same thing just the previous year – gathering the lost souls to himself, giving them purpose, making them far greater than they ever had been in their first life.

Then he smiled to himself, embarrassed by the false recollection. It had not been last year – it had been over a thousand years ago, and everything in the world had changed. It was so easy to forget how long he had been away. His old enemies – Kruger of the Order of the White Wolf, Wilhelm the Theogonist – had been dead so long that no mortals outside the dusty archives still remembered their names. And yet, to him, it felt like mere months ago. He could still see the walls of Altdorf reeling before him, ripe for destruction. He could taste the blackpowder on the air, and feel the pressure of Isabella’s hand in his as they jointly planned the final assault.

She had been his strength, back then. Everything he had done had been through her, driven onwards by the raw passion that had so surprised him. To be alone, truly alone, never lost its bitter aftertaste. He could summon as many courtesans to his side as he liked, taking his pick from the cadavers of a thousand years of ossified beauty, and it would make no difference.

Perhaps, he had thought to himself in the lonely hours of the night, that was why the Master had been able to pull him back. In true death, Vlad must have been an unquiet soul, ripped untimely from the world and still hungering to return for the love he had left behind.

‘Now I am a mortarch,’ he said to himself dryly. ‘The titles he has given us, to usher in the reign of eternal order. I would have preferred Emperor, but such is fate. Perhaps I shall still be elector, which will be a decent consolation.’

He had not heard from Altdorf since sending his letter. He had not expected to, though to have no response at all, not even a denunciation, wore at his pride a little. As far as he was concerned, the offer remained open. He might have to wait until the walls were broken and the mortal armies were reeling, but waiting was something he had always been good at.

‘My lord,’ said Herrscher, sounding concerned. ‘Regard the river.’

Vlad snapped out of his thoughts, and looked up.

He sat on a throne mounted atop the high quarterdeck of a shallow-hulled river cruiser. Ranks of oars dipped and hauled into the murky waters around, dragging the ship south and west along the course of the Reik. Behind him, in a long procession of bleak ugliness, trade barges followed on, each one stuffed with the bodies of his servants. Every barge carried several hundred soldiers, and there were dozens upon dozens of them now, plundered from the destroyed Imperial settlements along the Stir and the upper Reik. The sable banners of Sylvania hung from every one, held aloft by cold hands. No sound came from those barges, save for the slap of oars in the water and the thump of reed-clumps hitting the solid bows.

Since taking to the river, progress west had been rapid. With the need to negotiate the clogged and treacherous forest paths negated, the entire army had slipped towards their goal without obstruction, travelling just as well by day as by night, pausing only to sack any of the riverside towns they came across. Kemperbad had been the last big one, a walled fortress to rival Wurtbad, and the fight to subdue it had been just as vicious. The outcome had been much the same, in the end – a cohort of newly dead and newly cowed to bolster the truly huge host now under his thrall.

Vlad had begun to relax then, safe in the knowledge that they would be there in time. He should have known better – the forces of Ruin were not led by fools, and they had formidable powers of their own.

‘I have never seen the like,’ said Herrscher.

Ahead of Vlad’s position, in the bows, the Pale Ladies stood on the very edge of the deck railing, peering into the gloom and exchanging exclamations of outrage. Even the reanimated Wolff, still sullen and moody, looked out at the approaching vista.

Half a mile downstream, where the broad flow of the river expanded into a wide, slate-grey expanse of choppy, wind-whipped froth, the forest had crept from its bounds. It had started a mile or so back – heavy clods of moss floating in mid-channel, fouling the oars and bumping against the hulls. As they had made headway, the clots and mats had grown more numerous, breaking free of the tree-lined banks even as he had watched them.

The barrier before them, though, was something else. The trees themselves had burst open, throwing obscene spears of rotten wood into the water. More had followed, building on those sent before. Vines had snaked into the splintered bulwark, binding it all tightly. More mosses had latched on to that frame, swelling and pulsing under the perpetual twilight.

Somehow, the forest had managed to block the entire river, throwing out tentacles and sinking deep into the main flow. Backed up by the obstruction, the Reik had burst its banks, filtering into the woods on either side and welling up in pools of fly-encrusted muck.

Vlad stood up. The blockage was not a temporary thing. It looked like the unnatural outgrowths continued far beyond the first barrier, breaking the flow of the Reik entirely. Leeches wriggled across the top of the arboreal dam, pale-skinned and red-eyed. The stink was even worse than it had been higher up the river, magnified by the standing water that now mingled with rotten roots.

‘We cannot break that, lord,’ said Herrscher.

The witch hunter at least had the grace to sound concerned. Herrscher had long since given up the pretence of anger at his predicament, and was now a loyal member of Vlad’s entourage. They all gave up caring, sooner or later, and settled into their new life. It was hard to sustain the old angers when one owed one’s existence to one’s enemy.

‘Of course we can,’ said Vlad, irritably, watching the twisted dam drift closer.

‘We should order the barges to halt.’

‘They will keep going.’

Herrscher looked exasperated. ‘We will run aground!’

From the bows, the Pale Ladies had started to laugh. Their chins were all glossy with blood. They had drunk too deeply the night before, and it made them giddy.

‘Who do you think you are with, Herrscher?’ asked Vlad, pushing his cloak back and raising a clawed hand. ‘I was mighty when I lived before, and I am mightier now. Nagash does not just give life, he also gives power.’

Vlad extended his arm before him. Knowing what was coming, the Pale Ladies giggled and scrambled for cover. Wolff and Herrscher looked on, one sourly, the other with interest.

The clouds above the forest-dam began to curdle. Thick slabs of stone-grey shifted, and flickers of silver lightning rippled across the horizon. The wind picked up, whipping the tips of the waves and making them froth.

Vlad began to recite words in a language he had never understood in his previous life. Now, though, they came easily, tripping from his dry tongue as if he had been chanting them since childhood.

The air shuddered, and the colour slopped out of it. Virulently green leaves crackled and shrivelled, turning black as if burned by fire. There were no flames – just a cold, cold gust as if from the maw of the underworld. The water turned slate-dark, and the trees beyond snarled and curled up. The wood dried and cracked, ageing lifetimes in mere moments. Vines unravelled from their clutch-holds and sprang back, their sap hardening and making them brittle.

With an echoing snap, the first of the bulwarks broke. Mighty tree-trunks, turning grey-white as if made of embers, dissolved away, splashing into the river below. Massive shivers ran through the entire structure. It began to give way, breaking back up into desiccated chunks. The leeches scurried for the safety of the banks, or plopped messily into the water below, screaming blindly.

Vlad smiled coldly. The unlocked Wind of Shyish surged through him, as chill as pack-ice. In the face of its limitless power, the perverted corruptions of life had no choice but to wither and collapse. In the end, that was the fate that awaited all mortal creation. The vagaries of life were impressive in their variety, but ultimately nothing compared to the bleak majesty of eternal death. Vlad had always guessed at the power of the Shyish Unlocked, but it had taken Nagash to truly reveal its potency to him. When victory came, as it surely would, this would be all that remained – empty lands, bled dry of filth and squalor, populated by the meek, whispering armies of the mortarchs. Even the sun and the moon would obey the new Law, bound into new circles and following regulated paths. There would be no more rebellion, no more misery, no more fecundity.

Herrscher shook his head in disbelief, watching the river-path open up once again. The waters rushed to fill the void, sweeping away the tinder-dry wreckage, and the river cruiser’s deck trembled as the current picked up once more.

The Pale Ladies laughed uproariously, pointing out to one another where the leeches thrashed in the waves, slowly drowning.

Vlad maintained the pressure. There were miles of matted effluent to clear, and the closer they got to Altdorf the worse it would become. ‘They are scared of us,’ he told Herrscher, as his ring boiled and coughed with magic. ‘They did not expect this on their eastern flank – all their prophecies were bound up with mortal men.’

Herrscher nodded slowly. ‘They know we are coming, then.’

‘Of course they do. They will rouse every pestilence against us, just as they always have done, and they will fail, for the dead do not sicken.’ He smiled at the witch hunter. Then he gazed across the deck of his commandeered vessel and smiled at all of his servants. They were so lucky. ‘Nothing will stop us, my friend. We will sweep towards Sigmar’s city like the cold wind over graves, and when we arrive they will see just how badly they have miscalculated by ignoring the scions of Sylvania.’

‘Who, lord?’ asked Herrscher. ‘The corrupted, or the mortal?’

‘In time, both,’ said Vlad evenly, resuming his place on the throne and keeping his claw extended before him. ‘But if the Emperor has the sense to take my offer, then all things are possible.’

He settled into position, watching the forest crumple and deteriorate before the waves of grave-magic. The display pleased him, just as it did the Pale Ladies, who still cackled like urchins.

‘Send orders to the barge commanders to row faster,’ he said. ‘I smell the first whiff of rotten fish on the air – the city must be close.’

The greater part of the enemy hosts had already moved south, but that did not make the north safe.

Deathclaw had partially recovered from its wounds, but not yet enough to take wing, and so Karl Franz and the griffon remained earthbound and vulnerable. They travelled by night, trusting to the overcast darkness to hide them against the iron-dark earth. The unlocking of ancient Law had freed all manner of foul spirits from their long-established shackles. Ghosts floated across the lurid skies, shrieking in long-forgotten tongues. Cadavers pulled themselves from the ground without the aid of necromancers, and limped off in search of living flesh to gnaw. Splinter warbands from the main Chaos armies roamed the ruined lands, hunting down what little mortal prey remained for food and torture.

Every village Karl Franz passed through was abandoned, its houses empty and its fields standing fallow. Even the fauna had fled, excepting those bloated, dull-eyed mutations that flapped and limped in place of birds and beasts. Deathclaw would kill them, but not eat them. All they had for sustenance were the rotting remains in grain-stores or the trodden-down remnants of bread and pastries in looted taverns.

Karl Franz had long since stopped hoping to meet any survivors. At first, soon after he had rescued the war-griffon, he had entertained dreams of coming across resistance fighters. He would rally them, day by day, and the news would spread. Soon he would find a way to link up with Helborg and Schwarzhelm, who surely still fought on somewhere, and jointly they would take the fight to the invader again. The enemy may have been mighty, but this was his land, and they were his people.

It had become slowly apparent, though, that there were no fighters left. The invaders had driven every one of them away, or killed them all, or had dragged them all into slavery. Every hovel was empty, and every townhouse echoed with silence. Karl Franz trudged through them all, rooting through the remains under the yellow light of Morrslieb, now a mere whisker from fullness.

It was the little things that struck at his heart – the broken looms, the cold anvils, the tin plates half-buried in the straw. He soon realised that he could not have faced any of his subjects, had they still lingered by their cold hearths. He would not have known how to meet their gaze. He was their protector, and he had failed more completely than any Emperor in the annals ever had.

During the day, when he fitfully slept, he would see them come up to him in his dreams, their plague-ravaged faces accusatory.

‘We toiled for you,’ they would say. ‘We cut land from the forest, and scraped crops from it. We built chapels, and armed ourselves, and served in your armies. We looked to you when the winter storms came, or the beasts tore up our fields, or the greenskins broke from the deep wood with blood in their eyes. We would say your name as we reached for our swords. That gave us all the hope we ever had. We would say your name.’

He would wake then, his breathing shallow and his heart pounding. He would lie in the twilight of the cloud-bound day, shivering as his body lay against the cold ground, wishing he had not seen those faces.

We would say your name.

Deathclaw was able to travel for miles without tiring, though his wings still hung broken by his harrowed flanks. Every night, they would break from whatever cover they had found the morning before, and set off. If they found stragglers from the Norscan hordes, they would kill them, and for a few moments the grief would be forgotten in the sudden heart-rush of combat. Karl Franz’s runefang would flash in the dark, wielded by angry hands, and the blood of the Fallen would spill on lands that still hated them.

He knew it could not last. Sooner or later, word of a lone griffon and its rider abroad in the wastes would filter back to whatever dark mind controlled the conquest of the north, and more serious forces would be sent to hunt them down.

Karl Franz found himself hoping for that day to come quickly. Better to die fighting than wither away from starvation, lost and unmourned amid an Empire he had allowed to pass into the hands of its ancient foes. Until then, though, he never stopped searching. He never stopped praying, even though the petitions became steadily bitterer. At the end of each fruitless day, he would kneel against the sickened soil, pressing his knees and fists into the earth, and offer his soul to Sigmar.

‘Anything,’ he would whisper. ‘Any suffering, any pain, just to be worthwhile. To serve again. The runes on my blade remain dark, the sun does not shine. What power remains in your people? Is Ghal Maraz still carried? I would know, surely, if it had passed into darkness.’

Silence. Always silence. He would fall into exhausted sleep with no answers being given, just the skirl of the wind and the stink of the foul woods.

He had lost track of how long it had been since Heffengen. On one particularly cold night, the clouds underlit with yellow-green and distant thunder crackling away in the far south, the two of them crawled along a choked river bed, hugging the shadow of the rising banks. Above them, strange lights played across the heavens, dancing like flames poured from an alchemist’s vial.

Deathclaw suddenly froze, crouching low against the ground. Karl Franz tensed, recognising his steed’s threat-posture, and gripped the hilt of his sword tight.

He sniffed. Experience had taught him it was easier to smell the enemy than see them in the dark. All he could detect was the filmy muck trickling at the bottom of the riverbed.

‘What is it?’ he whispered, reaching up to rub Deathclaw’s neck. ‘What do you sense?’

The griffon’s head rose. Its golden eyes glittered, and it opened its hooked beak. One wing extended, but the broken pinions did not unfurl. With a muffled cry of agony, the creature started to shuffle up the broken riverbank.

Karl Franz cursed. The land above the dry gulch was open, offering precious little cover, and a griffon was a big creature to hide, even at night. ‘Wait!’ he urged, struggling up after it.

They broke into higher ground, and the earth ran away from them in all directions, empty and featureless. The strange lights in the sky were more visible up there – they were like ripples of ink across the heavens, and it made him nauseous to look at them.

There were no troops marching across the ink-black wasteland, only the wind, as frigid and merciless as ever.

Deathclaw, however, remained agitated. It tried to flap its wings again, only to give up in agony. By then, Karl Franz could hear something for himself – a rhythmic beating on the air, followed by a faint tang of foulness.

He advanced warily, peering up into the unquiet skies, seeking out the source. He saw nothing, but the beating became stronger. The air shifted, stirred by some powerful force above him.

He gripped his sword-hilt two-handed.

So it comes at last, he thought, knowing that whatever approached would be far more powerful than the scattered warbands he had previously encountered. The word must have got out – he had a sudden mental flash of the zombie dragon tearing towards him, its empty eye sockets flaming.

Then something huge and dark burst from the clouds, plummeting fast. Deathclaw hissed, and rose up, its claws extended. Karl Franz crouched, his sword held point-up, coiling for the spring.

‘My liege, put your weapon down, if it please you!’ cried a gruff, part-panicked voice from above.

A second later, and the huge profile of a war-griffon emerged above them, holding position awkwardly less than twenty feet from the ground.

Karl Franz straightened. He knew that beast. He knew all the griffons stabled in the Imperial Menagerie. It was young, barely broken-in, hellish to control. It should have been unrideable.

With a sudden flare of joy, he realised what that meant – loyal men still lived. Even if all else had failed, even if his northern armies had been utterly destroyed, something still remained.

‘Declare yourself,’ Karl Franz ordered, keeping his blade raised. Deathclaw remained at his side, hissing angrily.

‘Gregor Martak, Amber College,’ came the voice from above, as harsh as rotten tree-bark. And then, as if he were strangely embarrassed by the addition, ‘Supreme Patriarch.’

Karl Franz remained wary. There had been too many deceptions for him to take him at his word, and he did not even recognise the name. ‘Supreme Patriarch, you say. Who authorised this?’

‘My fellows, as is the way of the colleges,’ came the defensive reply. ‘De Champney, Reichart, Theiss.’

Karl Franz frowned. ‘Those are deputies.’ The true Heads of the Colleges had accompanied him to the war at the Bastion, including Gormann, Starke and Kant. If they were no longer involved in decision-making, then that hardly boded well.

‘These are confused times, my liege,’ said Martak. ‘We do what we can. May I land?’

Karl Franz almost laughed at that. The wizard was a comically bad griffon rider, and his mount was quick to display its contempt, nearly throwing him from his seat as it laboured in position. ‘If you can manage it,’ he said, sheathing his sword and reaching out a calming hand to Deathclaw.

Martak’s mount crashed to earth, and the wizard slipped awkwardly from between its wings, losing footing as he landed and sprawling onto the ground. He picked himself up, swearing under his breath as he brushed himself down.

Karl Franz observed the man coolly. He was dishevelled, even for one of his wild Order. A matted beard hung from a grimy face, and his loose robes were streaked with mud. He hardly bore himself with the demeanour of a magister. Gelt would have descended from the heavens wreathed with coronets of fire and accompanied by a glittering staff of gold.

This is what we have been reduced to, Karl Franz thought grimly.

‘My pardon, lord, for taking so long,’ muttered Martak, retrieving his own knotted mage-staff from amid his griffon’s ruffled plumage. ‘The Winds are disarranged, and searching for a single soul, even one as mighty as yours, is no longer as easy as it was.’

Karl Franz folded his arms. ‘You come from Altdorf. It still stands?’

‘When I left it, it did. I don’t know for how long, what with an idiot of a Reiksmarshal in charge.’

‘So Helborg lives.’ The relief almost made his voice shake.

‘He does, aye.’

‘And Schwarzhelm? Huss?’

‘They were not there.’ Martak fixed him with a half-guilty, half-anxious look. ‘To be frank, it matters little – the city will fall. I have seen it, and I have seen the state of the defences. I could have stayed and died, but I chose to find you. While you live, something can be salvaged. There may be armies still intact somewhere. Middenheim, or Nuln, perhaps.’

Karl Franz lost his smile. ‘You are not speaking seriously.’

Martak sighed. ‘I knew this would be your response, but please, believe me. There is nothing to be done for Altdorf.’ His brown eyes stared out at the Emperor from the dark. ‘I have witnessed your death there, lord. Night after night, and the visions do not lie.’

‘Then why come to find me at all?’

‘Because fate can be cheated,’ said Martak, almost desperately. ‘You were never destined to die out here, alone. Nor do you need to die in the city. There will be other ways.’

Karl Franz smiled thinly. It was interesting how other men regarded their fate within the world. Some, he knew, cared greatly for their own preservation, or for glory, or for evasion of duty. He had never so much disapproved of those men as found them baffling. Not to be governed by duty – the iron vice of obedience to a higher power – was so far removed from his philosophy as to be almost unintelligible.

‘I thank you for searching me out, wizard,’ said Karl Franz, sincerely enough. ‘You have done what none of your fellows managed, and that alone earns you your rank. But if you have come here to persuade me to abandon the city, you are more a fool than you look. It is my place. I instructed Helborg to hold it, and if there is any chance I can join him in its defence, I must take it.’

The wizard stared back at him, looking like he was earnestly thinking of a way to change his mind. Then he shook his shaggy head. ‘You will not be persuaded.’

‘Persuasion is for debutantes and diplomats, wizard, and I am neither.’

That seemed to remind Martak of just who he was talking to. The wizard nodded wearily. ‘Don’t think I was running away,’ he muttered. ‘I’d have stood and fought, if I thought I couldn’t find you. There are... good people there, ones who don’t deserve to be abandoned.’

‘Good or not, none deserve that.’ Karl Franz turned to look at Deathclaw. The griffon was wheezing in pain, just as it had done since its rescue. It looked barely able to remain on its feet, let alone take to the skies. ‘But I fear your quest has damned one of us to remain in the north. My steed will not fly.’

Martak limped up to the griffon, studying it hard. He reached out with a calloused hand, and Deathclaw bucked.

‘Steady,’ whispered Karl Franz.

‘I can heal your creature, if it will let me,’ said Martak, running his hand down Deathclaw’s snapped pinion.

Karl Franz raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘I am a magister of the Lore of Ghur. I may be a weak scryer and a poor judge of visions, but I know beasts.’

‘You do not know how to fly them.’

Martak grimaced ruefully. ‘My feet were never meant to leave the earth.’ Then he looked more serious. ‘Come to that, I should never have been elected. If Gormann or Starke had been in Altdorf when the news of Gelt’s fall had come in, I would not have received so much as a vote. But consider this: as fate has it, you were found by an Amber wizard. None of them would have been able to make this creature whole again, but I can.’

Karl Franz considered that. Good fortune had been thin on the ground since his reawakening. For a long time, it had felt as if his immortal patron had vanished, withdrawing His presence from the world just as it was overcome by darkness.

And yet, the filthy wizard standing before him, scratching his cheek and running his thick fingers through Deathclaw’s flight-feathers, had a point.

Do I dare believe again?

He drew in a long breath. Above him, the vile lights danced in the skies, proof of the deep corruption of the world. Much of the situation had not changed – his Empire was overrun, his armies were shattered, he was far from refuge, and even if he were to make it to some safe city, it was not clear how the tide of war could possibly be turned back.

Still, it was a start.

‘Heal him, then,’ Karl Franz said, walking over to the other griffon and taking it by the halter. ‘Where we are going, we will need both.’

Sixteen

Festus cracked a wide grin as he sensed the elements come together at last. Somewhere up above street level, the last of the paltry sunlight was fading and the stars were beginning to come out. The clouds would be splitting open, ready to usher in the sick light of the deathmoon, bathing the land below in the yellow glare of putrescence.

He had stopped stirring, staggering back in exhaustion from the cauldron’s edge. The last of the mortal sacrifices had been added to the infernal stew, dragged from their cages by drooling daemon-kin. Smoke poured out from the bubbling surface, as green as bile and thick like rendered fat. The flames reared up, licking the sides of the vast kettle and making the liquids inside seethe.

Festus wiped a sweaty hand across his forehead, wincing as pustules on his skin burst. After toiling for so long, he hardly knew what to do. Should he just watch? Or was there some other rite to perform, now that the power had been unleashed?

A child-sized daemon with webbed feet and a head entirely taken up by jaws capered in front of him, laughing uncontrollably. Festus chuckled himself, finding the laughter contagious.

‘I know it, little one!’ he agreed, reaching out with a burly hand. The daemon clasped it tight, and together they danced a lumbering jig around the laboratory. ‘I share your joy!’

All through his subterranean kingdom, vials were shattering, spewing their steaming contents across the brick floors. The glassware ran with bubbles, and the valves burst their sleeves in puffs of skin-curling heat.

Festus cast off the attentions of the little daemon, and wobbled over to the next chamber along. The cages stood empty where he had left them, their doors swinging open and the soiled straw within buzzing with flies. Beyond the final set of arches, a wide shaft ran upwards, lined with mouldering brickwork and heavy with moss.

Festus entered the shaft, standing at the base and looking upward. The circular vent soared straight above him, unclogged and ready to vent his fumes into the world beyond.

‘Are you ready?’ he cried, his throaty, phlegm-laced voice echoing up the circular space. ‘Do you know the bliss that awaits you? Are you prepared?’

Of course they were not. They would be retreating to their tiny hovel-rooms now, ready for the night terror to begin. They should be out on the streets, ready to witness the coming storm. They should be revelling in it.

From the cauldron chamber, huge booms were now going off. The reactions had started, bringing to fruition months of work. Every carefully placed jar of toxins was now exploding in sequence, kindling the baleful smoke that even now surged and blundered its way along the interconnecting tunnels.

Festus pressed himself to the shaft’s edge, breathing heavily. His jowls shivered as he began to get the shakes, and a mix of terror and pleasure shuddered through his flabby body.

‘You are coming!’ he cried. ‘At last, you are coming!’

The sound of metal snapping resounded down the tunnels, followed by the hard clang of the fragments bouncing from the keystones of the arches. A vast, earth-shaking roar boiled up from the depths of Festus’s realm, making the water in the sewer-depths bounce and fizz.

Festus spread his arms wide, pressing his fingers into the mortar, and closed his eyes. Steam rushed past him, coiling and snaking up the shaft. He felt the heat of it blistering his skin, and relished every pop and split of his facial boils.

‘It begins,’ he breathed.

The bells tolled across the poor quarter, puncturing the increasingly fervid air. The Bright College had sent menials to light pyres at every street corner in the hope of rallying the populace in the face of the mounting terror, but all that did was send more smoke pluming up into an already polluted dusk.

Margrit dragged herself up to the balcony overlooking the Rathstrasse, feeling the age in her bones begin to tell. She had been working non-stop for weeks, coping with the gradually mounting toll of sick and dying. After so long resisting the contagion in the air, the endless filth had begun to overwhelm her at last. She wheezed as she leaned against the railing.

Below her, the city was burning. Bonfires blazed in every platz and strasse, throwing thick orange light up against the grime-streaked daub of the townhouses. She watched as a regiment of Reikland state troopers marched through the street immediately below the temple’s east gate, clearing the lame from their path with a brutal military efficiency.

She hardly had the energy to be outraged anymore. They were just doing their job – strutting off to wherever they were destined to die – and the sick were everywhere, blocking the doorways, the drains and the marketplaces.

She breathed deeply, feeling her heart pulse. She felt light-headed, and the charnel stink in the air made it worse. Something was coming to a head. Whenever the clouds briefly split, the sickening illumination of Morrslieb flooded the rooftops, making Altdorf look like a forest of spikes set against an ocean of yellow-green.

Where are you? she found herself wondering. For a moment, I believed you were different. You came down here, at least. Perhaps that told you all you needed to know.

The image of the bearded wizard still hung in her mind. There was something about him – a rawness, a lack of cultivation – that she had found appealing.

Too late, now. This thing, whatever it is, is beginning.

Her head started to ache. The air was like it was before a summer thunderstorm, close and clammy. The smoke of the fires made it worse. She looked down at her hands, and saw that they were trembling.

Then she sniffed. There was something else in the air. Something... alchemical. She looked up, screwing her eyes against the drifting smog. Over to the north-east, across the Unterwald Bridge and towards the slaughterhouse district, a column of smoke was rising. Unlike all the others, it glowed green from within, glimmering in the night like phosphor. While the fires of the Bright magisters burned fiercely, this column rose into the sky like oil poured in reverse, slinking and sliding upward in violation of nature’s order.

‘There you are,’ she said out loud, vindicated, though far too late. The column continued to grow, piling on more and more girth until it loomed over the entire district. Flashes of light flared up inside it, flickering and spinning, before guttering out. The hunchbacked roofs of the abattoirs were silhouetted, flashing and swinging amid the riot of colour. ‘It was under us the whole time,’ she murmured. ‘Just one regiment would have sufficed.’

A dull boom rang out, making the earth shake, and plumes of emerald lightning lanced upward, shooting like geysers in the gathering dark.

Margrit swallowed, trying to remember the words of the Litany Against the Corruption of the Body. She knew, perhaps better than anyone else in the city, just what strain of magic had been unleashed in the depths of the city. It had been there for months, cradling slowly, growing like an obscene child in the dripping sewers, and now it had been birthed under the light of Morrslieb and with the hosts of Ruin camped outside the walls.

‘Blessed Mother,’ Margrit whispered, watching the column lash and unfurl, ‘preserve us all.’

Ethrac was the first to see it.

‘There it is!’ he shrieked, jumping up from his long-held crouch and nearly losing his position on Ghurk’s back. ‘He has done it!’

Otto roused from a half-sleep, in which dreams of sucking the marrow from living victims had been making him salivate, and looked blearily at his brother. ‘Who has done what?’

Ethrac cracked him over the head with his staff, making the bells chime. ‘Festus! His spell breaks!’

Otto clambered to his feet, rubbing his forehead absently, trying to see what the fuss was about.

Then he did. Altdorf lay under the night’s thick cover, lit up along its walls by a thousand grimy lanterns. The towers soared darkly into the void, black on black, each crowned by a slender tiled roof. Just as before, he was struck by the sheer vastness of it, like a mound of rotting fruit ready for gnawing on.

The roofs were overhung by lines of smoke, just as always, except that one of them was glowing green and curling like burning parchment edges. It towered over the city, rearing up like a vast and vengeful giant, swelling and bloating into flickering excess. Its green light, as gloriously lurid as anything Otto had witnessed, sent shadows leaping across the landscape. Half-defined faces rose and sank in the smoke, each one contorted into mutating expressions of agony and misery.

‘It is beautiful,’ he murmured, absently letting his hand fall to his scythe-stave.

A low rumble from below told him that Ghurk agreed. The triplets stood, lost in admiration, as the first mark of Festus’s Great Tribulation began.

‘I can feel the aethyr bending,’ said Ethrac appreciatively. ‘He has been working on this for a long time.’

Otto chuckled darkly. ‘He enjoys his labours.’

‘As do we all.’

The column continued to grow. The clouds above the city responded, sending down tendrils like stalactites, and soon a vortex began to churn over the battlements, glowing and flickering like embers. The growl of thunder rocked the valley, though this time it was not the world’s elements that stirred. Lightning snapped down from tormented clouds, flooding more emerald light over the sacrificial city.

‘It is fitting, is it not?’ mused Ethrac. ‘That the first strike should be self-inflicted? The City of Sigmar will gnaw its own innards out, and all before the first standard is lifted.’

Otto was barely paying attention. The column of smoke was twisting like a tornado, only far vaster and slower, rotating ominously as it gathered girth and momentum. The rain started up again, as if triggered by the pillar of aethyr-energy churning up out of the city’s innards. Droplets pinged and tumbled down Ghurk’s vast bulk.

A rumble drummed across the land, lower than the thunder, like the unsteady foundations of the world grating together. The rain picked up in intensity, sheeting down in thick, viscous gobbets of slime.

Otto lifted his head and grinned, feeling cool mucus run down his cracked features.

‘And do you see them?’ asked Ethrac, his bony face twisted into a look of ecstasy. ‘The others? Look out, o my brother, and observe what the beacon has summoned.’

Otto blinked the slime from his eyes and peered out into the gloom. The sun was nothing more than a red glow in the far west, but all across the northern horizon, crimson pinpricks were emerging from the forest. First a few dozen, then hundreds, then thousands. ‘I see it, o my brother,’ he said. ‘That is the Lord of Tentacles, and the scions of the beast-forest. So many! So, so many.’

‘And, though you do not see it yet, Epidemius is closing from the east. The river will be blocked from both compass points.’ Ethrac reached down to playfully tug at Ghurk’s lone eyebrow. ‘You will be feasting on live flesh again soon, great one!’

Ghurk chortled eagerly, and his shoulders rolled with mirth.

Over Altdorf, the column of green fire burst into ever more violent life, revealing a twisting helix of luminescent power coursing at its heart. The heavens responded, and the storm overhead rotated faster in sympathy, a vast movement that spread out over the entire forest.

Altdorf was now the fulcrum on which the heavens themselves turned. As the thunder ramped up and the slime-rain fell ever more heavily, a delicious air of terror lodged firmly over the Reik, seeping up from the slime of the earth and bleeding into the churn of the ruptured skies. The column of green fire punched a hole through the heart of the swirling vortex, fully exposing the damaged face of Morrslieb, hanging at the very heart of the heavens like a severed tumour set among the stars.

‘My people!’ Otto cried out, turning from his vantage to face the colossal army that had waited for so long within sight of the prize, held in place by the triplets’ peerless command. Ranks of grizzled Norscans, wild Skaelings, gurning lesser daemons, plague-afflicted mortals and corrupted beast-mutants lifted up their sore-pocked faces and waited for the order. A thousand banners were hoisted into the dribbling rain, each one marked with a different aspect of the Urfather. Cleavers were pulled from leather slip-cases, mauls unhooked from chains, blunt-bladed swords from human-hide sheaths. ‘The sign has been given!’

Otto raised one arm, holding his scythe aloft in triumph. The heavens responded with a violent crack, and green lightning exposed him in sudden vividness, his mutated face broken by a manic grin of pure battle-lust. ‘You have waited long enough! The deathmoon swells full, the Tribulation has begun. Now for the final neck to snap!’

A guttural snarling broke out from the limitless hordes, and they began to shuffle forward, impatient for the command.

Otto laughed out loud, and lowered his scythe towards the epicentre of the maelstrom.

‘To the gates!’ he commanded.

Helborg stood with Zintler on the towering summit of the North Gate, overlooking the walls below. The two of them were surrounded by a twenty-strong detachment of Reiksguard, as well as the usual panoply of senior engineers, battle-mages and warrior priests. Below then, the parapets were stuffed with men. Every soldier on the walls held a bow or long-gun, and all eyes were fixed to the north, where the plague-forest had crept ever closer. They felt the tramp of massed boots long before they saw the vast array of torches creep towards the perimeter. They heard the brazen blare of war horns, and the low chanting of dirges to the god of decay.

When the rain began, Helborg had initially ignored it. The droplets felt heavier than normal, and splatted wetly on his helm’s visor before trickling down the steel edges. His gaze remained fixed outward, ready to give the command to open fire.

The great cannons had been wheeled into position. Many were manned by the infirm and the elderly, for the plague had thinned out the gun-crews terribly. He would never have tolerated such a state of affairs in the normal run of things, but this was not, as had long been evident, in any way normal.

‘Ready for the order,’ he said, watching the enemy emerge from the tree-cover, barely three hundred yards from the outer walls.

Zintler passed on the command, which was relayed to the master engineer, which was sent down to the gunnery captain in the firing vaults, which was dispatched by the wall-sergeants, which was finally picked up by the dozens of crews standing ready by the piles of shot and blackpowder kegs.

Helborg’s mind briefly ran over the order of defence for the final time. He and half of the Reiksguard had been stationed in the north, where the assault from the Drakwald was expected. Von Kleistervoll had taken the West Gate with most of the remaining Reiksguard force, bolstered by the sternest of the Altdorfer regiments. The East Gate defence was dominated by the Engineer’s School, which stood just inside the walls to the north of the gate itself. The engineers had somehow coaxed four steam tanks into operation, which stood ready inside the gate itself, surrounded by companies of handgunners and artillery pieces. Magisters had been deployed in every formation, mostly drawn from the Bright College where possible, as well as warriors of the Church of Sigmar and priests of Ulric. The Knightly Orders had been mostly stationed in the north, though, as in all things, Helborg had been obliged to spread them thinly.

The vast majority of the state troop defenders were arranged on the walls, and given any ranged weapons that could be drummed up. The scant reserve forces stood further back, ready to be thrown into the fray whenever a section looked in danger of being lost. Scattered bands of pistoliers stood ready at all the main platzen, operating as a fast-reaction force.

It was as well-organised as it could have been, given the time and circumstances. Most regiments stood at no more than two-thirds strength, but every man who could stand on his own feet had answered the summons. Even those that could not had dragged themselves into the streets, clutching a sword and preparing, with feverish minds and sweaty hands, to do what they could to staunch the onslaught. They knew that there would be no prisoners taken, and nowhere to flee to if they failed.

‘My lord,’ said Zintler, hesitantly.

‘Not now,’ growled Helborg, scrutinising the growing horde ahead as it crawled into position. He saw trebuchets being hauled into position, and heavier war engines grinding through the forest, dragged by teams of obscenely huge creatures with slobbering jaws. There were so many of them, more than he had ever seen in all his years of battle.

‘My lord, you should see this,’ insisted Zintler.

Helborg whirled on him, ready to tell him to stand down and attend to his own station, when he caught sight of the green light flooding the parapet.

He turned slowly, dreading what he was about to see.

A massive tornado had erupted from the heart of the poor quarter, over in the cramped south-eastern sector of the city. The rain whipped and danced around it, seeming to fuel the accelerating movement of the immense aethyr-walls. Already it had snaked high up into the skies, glowing like corpse-light and casting a foul sheen to every surface under it.

‘What, in the name of...’ Helborg began, lost for words.

Lightning scampered down the flanks of the enormous pillar. It boiled and massed and thrust ever upwards, making the rainfall heavier, driven by ever-faster winds that howled with the voices of daemons. The dense cloud cover above it broke, exposing the sickening light of the deathmoon. As the two lurid lights mingled, a booming crack rang out across the entire city, shaking it to its foundations. The war horns of the enemy rose up in answer, and a deafening wall of noise broke out from every quarter. Drums began to roll wildly, and the rain started to slam down with ever greater intensity.

‘Where are the magisters?’ roared Helborg. ‘Order them to shut it down!’

He had a sudden, terrible recollection of Martak then, but there was no time to dwell on it – the column exploded into light, thundering into the heavens with the roar and crash of aethyr-tides breaking. Huge streamers of blistering coruscation shot down in answer from the skies, laced with white-edged flame, and he had to avert his eyes.

The rain now thudded around them in thick eddies, pooling and sliding on the stone. It was not water but a kind of milky slime that loosened footing and seemed to dissolve the surfaces it slopped over.

A vast, rolling laugh broke out across the city, resounding from one end to the other. No mortal being laughed like that, nor even the daemon-servants that stalked among the enemy armies – it was the laugh of a horrific, eternal and infinitely malevolent presence of the divine plane.

The twisting column broke open, bursting like a lanced boil, spilling multi-hued luminescence into the night and banishing the last of the natural shadows. The entire city swung and lurched with crazed illumination, dazzling the eyes of any who looked directly into it.

The battle-mages were already sending counter-spells spinning up at the raging tempest, but their hastily contrived wards had little effect on the gathering inferno.

The laughter picked up in volume, but this time it spilled from more than one mouth. Within the writhing pillar of steam and fire, dark clots emerged, galloping into reality with terrifying speed. They burst from their aethyr-womb and were flung out over the city, their limbs cartwheeling and their mouths wide with mirth. Every contorted, wizened and twisted denizen of the Other Realm vomited forth – horned-faced, bulbous-bellied, wart-encrusted, boil-bursting, cloven-hoofed and rheumy-eyed, the daemons had come. They spilled out of the gap in reality like a swarm of insects dislodged from the darkest corner of the deepest dungeon, snickering and dribbling as they came.

There was no time to respond. Before Helborg had a chance to rally his forces to resist the horrors capering among his own streets, the charge was sounded from outside the walls. The war horns reached an ear-ripping crescendo, and tens of thousands of hoarse voices lifted in lust and expectation. The trebuchets opened up, hurling strangely glowing projectiles into the walls, where they shattered in foul gouts of marsh gas. The enemy hosts to the west, north and east charged simultaneously, crashing towards the perimeter in a sweeping tide that soon joined up into a seamless scrum of jostling, hard-running, weapon-brandishing hatred.

The numbers were overwhelming, both inside and outside the walls. It was as if the world had split open and thrown every monstrous servant of the plague-god into the same place, replete with daemons and half-breed terrors and mutated grotesques. It was unstoppable. It was never-ending. They would just keep on coming, smashing aside any resistance, fuelled by the unclean magicks that played and burst above them in vortices of pure destruction.

Zintler froze. The gunnery captains looked to him, lost in shock. Even the warrior priests seemed uncertain how to react to such sudden, shattering force.

Helborg, his heart beating hard, his armour running with slime-rain, thrust himself to the very edge of the parapet where he knew he would be seen by the greatest number of his troops.

‘Open fire!’ he roared, bawling into the inferno with every ounce of strength. ‘By Sigmar’s blood, open fire!’

That seemed to galvanise the others. Zintler shouted out orders to the captains, most of whom were now moving again, relaying instructions to the firing vaults. The first of the great cannons detonated, sending its shot whistling out into the seething press beyond the walls. The crack of pistol and long-gun fire rippled down the walls, followed by the hiss of arrows leaving bows.

The magisters responded to the sea of sorcery with spells of their own, and soon the raging skies were riven with the arcs and flares of unleashed magic. More cannons boomed out, shaking the walls with their recoil and hurling lines of iron balls deep into the heart of the onrushing enemy. Whole sections of the walls disappeared behind rolling curtains of blackpowder discharge, further adding to the cacophony.

The heavens were broken. The laws of reality were shattered. Men and daemons fought on the streets, while the engines of war blazed at one another across a battlefield already choked by death and madness. The rain scythed down, drenching everything in curtains of sickness, and the deathmoon presided over a lightning-flecked, smoke-barred picture of devastation.

At the heart of the storm, Helborg stood proudly, his fist raised in defiance of the arrows that already clattered and rebounded from the stone around him.

‘Stand fast!’ he bellowed, knowing he would need to stay visible. This was the hammer-blow, the hardest strike. If they faltered now, it could be over in hours – they needed to fight back harder than they ever had, and keep fighting harder. They were all that remained, the final redoubt, and that knowledge had to keep them on their feet. ‘Men of the Empire, stand fast!’

Seventeen

The Bretonnians rode clear of the worst of the plague-forest as the sun was setting. They had been moving without pause the whole time, unwilling to make camp under the eaves of such diseased trees. The knights had remained in full armour, ever watchful for attacks from the shadows. In the event, none came. It was as Leoncoeur had surmised – even the greenskins had been driven from the woodland, something he would have thought impossible had he not witnessed it himself.

The harsh pace had taken its toll, but they were now in range of the city. The pass was behind them, as was the worst of the Reikwald. Each knight could call on no more than two horses each, and some now rode the mount they planned to take into battle. They would arrive weary from the road and scarred from repeated encounters with the orcs. It was not ideal preparation for the battle to come, but the need for haste had always been the overriding concern.

As Leoncoeur rode out from under the plague-forest’s northern fringe, he whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving. The last of the river waters had dissipated, sinking back into the earth in gently steaming wells, leaving the original watercourse just as it should have been. At least this stream still ran clear – so many were now little more than polluted creeks, black with drifting spores and mutated, blind inhabitants.

The standards of Couronne and the other principalities were raised under the twilight, unfurled to the full once more as the trees gave way. A bleak land of scrub and heath undulated away from them, looking more grey than green under the failing light. Behind them rose the now-distant crags of the Grey Mountains.

One by one, the Bretonnians emerged to join him. The knights removed their helms and ran tired hands through sweat-slick hair. The peasantry did as they always did – hauled on their loads, shouldering the brute burden of the now much-diminished supplies.

Leoncoeur watched his fighters assemble, and let himself feel a glow of pride. They were intact, and still ready to fight. Their losses had been regrettable, but containable. Several thousand knights of the realm still marched with him, enough to count against any conceivable foe. When displayed in such concentrations, it was easy to forget the Lady’s warnings.

These are my brothers, Leoncoeur thought. There is no certainty in any fate. We will fight, and, who can tell? We may prevail.

Above them, the pegasi still flew, shepherded by Beaquis. They had remained in close contact through the long trek, swooping low so as to remain visible through the filigree of clutching briars. They circled lazily now, saving their strength for what was to come. Beaquis snarled and snapped at the winged horses, as much their master as Leoncoeur was master of his men.

Jhared was one of the last to emerge, having ridden to the rear of the column to guard the vulnerable supplies. He greeted his liege with a rakish grin.

‘A place to sleep, at last,’ he said, saluting. ‘I had begun to forget what that felt like.’

Leoncoeur smiled tolerantly. Resting his head against moss and grass rather than dozing in the saddle would be a welcome change.

‘We must ride a little longer yet,’ he said, casting a wary glance back towards the brooding forest-edge. ‘I will not rest this close to those woods.’

‘And you will have no argument from me.’

The last of the big wains trundled into the open, hauled by lines of peasants. The carthorses that should have pulled them had been lost in the passes.

Leoncoeur and Jhared rode on. The air smelled... foreign. It was not just the taint of corruption on the wind – this was a land as alien to them as any other, populated by strangers with strange ways. Many of those who rode with him would never have strayed across the border before. Their lust for adventure would be enough to fuel them over the last leg of the trek. Whether it was strong enough to make them fight as they would for their homeland, that had yet to be tested.

‘All this way, for visions,’ he murmured.

Jhared looked at him, surprised. ‘Doubts, my lord?’

Leoncoeur smiled. ‘No, not doubts. Never doubts.’ That was not quite true. He had had plenty. ‘And you saw Her power for yourself. Can any doubt that we were meant to be here?’ He lost his smile. ‘But still, the sacrifice. I do not remember the Empire being so swift to come to our aid.’

Jhared shrugged. ‘This war would have come to us, in the end. So you said, at any rate, back home.’

Leoncoeur was about to reply, to agree, when the north-eastern sky was suddenly illuminated by a flash of pale green.

Every warrior immediately went for their weapon, and the horses whinnied in alarm. A cold gust of wind rustled across the brush, making the gorse shiver.

‘In the name of the Lady...’ began Leoncoeur, spurring his horse onward.

In the distance, to the north-east, a slender line of emerald was snaking up into the heavens. More flashes of pale light burst out, accompanied by the sporadic dart of lightning.

‘What is that?’ asked Jhared gazing up into the sky with uncharacteristic trepidation. Even as he did so, the earth shuddered underfoot, causing the warhorses to stumble. The bloom of unearthly green grew stronger, streaming heavenwards in a slender column.

‘The city,’ breathed Leoncoeur, feeling a terrible fear strike at him. ‘We are come too late.’

Though far away, the luminescence kept growing, spreading across the fast-moving cloud cover in vile shades of pale jade. It must have been massive. It must have been more than massive.

‘Hold firm!’ ordered Leoncoeur, unable to resist looking at the baleful flame. As he did so, it seemed as if the storm above it coalesced into a vast, misshapen face, leering earthwards with lust in its blurred and fractured features. If it was a storm, then it was no storm of the earth.

Some of the peasants threw themselves onto the ground then, burying their heads under their arms and whispering hurried prayers. Even the seasoned warriors were unsettled by the vision, and struggled to control their steeds.

For a moment, Leoncoeur himself was unsure what to do. He had planned to make camp for the night, giving the chargers and their riders precious rest before leading them into battle. That was no longer possible – if they waited even an hour more, they would arrive at Altdorf to see nothing more than charred stone.

As he vacillated, Beaquis swooped down from its position, cawing furiously. There was no uncertainty in its feral eyes, just a rapidly kindled battle-lust. The hippogryph was under no illusions about what had just taken place, or what to do about it.

Leoncoeur reached up to grasp the beast’s reins, which hung below its feathered jowls. The hippogryph flapped down lower, coming level with Leoncoeur’s mount, and he leapt across the gap and hauled himself into position. Once righted, he drew his blade.

‘We are not too late!’ he cried as Beaquis gained loft. ‘Had it not been for the Lady’s grace, we would still be hacking through the forest, but we have been given a chance.’

Every warrior in his entourage looked up at him as he circled higher. The pegasi, following their master’s lead, remained in close formation. None of them yet had a rider, but that would quickly change.

‘You are weary,’ Leoncoeur told them. ‘You have already ridden hard. If you were any other people, I would not dare to ask more of you now.’ He shot them a savage smile. ‘But you are not any other people – you are the finest knights in the world, and you have been given one final chance to prove your mettle.’

By now every rider had controlled his steed, and the column was already forming up into battle order. The sky continued to glow with an ever more intense shade of sickness, but the first shock was already wearing off.

‘We ride together!’ Leoncoeur roared. ‘The winged and the earthbound, united unto the walls of Sigmar’s city!’

It would be brutal riding. The ground between them and the city walls was unknown and no doubt crawling with the enemy. By the time they arrived, they would have to move straight into battle, with no rest and no chance to prepare. It would be a desperate race.

‘You have followed me this far,’ Leoncoeur thundered, climbing into the tortured heavens. ‘If we stumble now, then all is for naught, so ride now, with me at your head, and we shall yet break the darkness with our valour!’

Vlad sensed the build-up of sorcery before he saw the tempest erupt over Altdorf. For over an hour, as the river had slipped past, he had felt the gathering of an almighty conflagration. It was like the beating of some immense heart, just beneath the surface of the world, but gathering strength with every pulse.

When the towers of smoke poured up at last from the western horizon, accompanied by the distant sound of war-drums, his fears were confirmed in full.

They have worked some great spell, he thought to himself grimly. Well then, what did I expect? That they would walk up to the gates and beg for entry?

Herrscher still had the presence of mind to be shocked. It was a difficult time for him – still caught between his old residual ties to the Empire and his new allegiance to Nagash. Vlad remained confident he would fall on the right side of the argument when the test came, but his transition had taken place in such a short period, and he had had much to absorb.

‘What is that?’ the witch hunter asked, appalled.

Vlad sat back in his throne, drumming his fingers on the armrest. ‘Your first sight of the enemy. Mark them well – if we fail here, you will be seeing a lot more of this.’

The smoke curled and writhed over the tops of the trees, burning its way into the sky. Vlad’s army was still many miles away, hampered by the Reik’s sluggish pace. As fast as his magic had cleared the river-path, more creepers and moss-mats had reached out to drag them back again.

Even the Pale Ladies looked impressed by the fires ahead. They gazed up at the gently turning storm, mouths open, watching as the heavens burned.

‘We must go faster,’ hissed Herrscher, his voice tight with impatience.

‘Calm yourself, witch hunter,’ said Vlad. ‘Look at what else approaches.’

The cavalcade of barges was still in convoy, a huge train of heavily-laden troop carriers, following like cattle in the wake of Vlad’s flagship. The entire convoy was passing around a wide bend in the river, curving from right to left as the watercourse opened up for the long straight passage towards Altdorf’s eastern wharfs.

As they neared the curve’s outside bank, a grey strand appeared, pale under the dusk shadow of the trees beyond. It widened rapidly, exposing a marshy beach on the northern shore, dotted with mottled reeds and studded with plague-webs.

The plain was not empty. Ranks of soldiers stood waiting, organised into disciplined infantry squares and carrying flaming torches. Black banners fluttered in the contrary winds, exposing old devices of Marienburg and silver death’s-head emblems against a sable ground.

One lord stood apart from the others. Even for one of his lineage, he carried himself with a studied arrogance, his cloak flung back over one shoulder and his pale chin raised.

Vlad sighed, and motioned for his ghoulish steersmen to ground the cruiser on the shoals ahead. The vessel ground to a halt, and undead menials immediately splashed into the knee-deep water and locked their hands together. Vlad rose from his throne and descended a wooden stairway hastily lowered over the side, then used the interlocking arms of his servants to avoid getting his boots wet. He alighted at the far end of the silent processional, stepping lightly onto dry sand. Behind him came Herrscher and the Pale Ladies, who were already cooing with delight.

‘My dear Mundvard,’ said Vlad, extending his ring-finger.

The vampire lord before him looked at the garnet jewel with distaste, before stiffly bowing and kissing it. ‘We are in danger of missing the party,’ he said.

Mundvard the Cruel was one of the most powerful vampires outside Sylvania. For years uncounted he had plied his grisly trade in Marienburg, only leaving once the doom of that city had become assured. He bore the marks of the degenerate aristocracy he had once been a member of – an excessively thin frame, sharp bone-structure, decayed attire harking back to a forgotten age of elegance. His lean fingers were studded with golden jewellery, and he wore a velvet frock-coat.

‘I had expected you to bring more guests,’ said Vlad, casting his eye over the forces Mundvard brought with him. Some were the dead of Marienburg, still arrayed in tattered remnants of their old uniforms. Others must have been raised on his march east, and others still were creatures of Mundvard’s old hidden retinue. At the rear of the throng, hissing under the leaves, lurked a greater beast, one that had once terrorised the Suiddock, and now slithered abroad again under new magical commandments.

Mundvard affected a look of disinterest. ‘We do what we can. Times are not what they were.’

Vlad shot his deputy a dark look. Mundvard was a skilled killer, one of the finest exponents of the dagger-in-the-dark school of murder, but his long sojourn in Marienburg had made him flighty and high-strung. If there had been time, Vlad might have been tempted to give him a lesson in command, a painful one, but Morrslieb was now full and the gaps between the worlds had already been punctured.

He withdrew his claw.

‘Tell me what you know.’

‘Three hosts assail the city,’ said Mundvard. ‘They have already started the assault. Some hex has been enacted, and daemons are falling from the sky.’ He wrinkled his slender nose in distaste. ‘Altdorf is a rotten corpse. It will not last the night.’

‘And that is why we are here,’ said Vlad, patiently. ‘Is your army ready to march?’

‘Whenever I give the word.’

‘Then give it.’

Mundvard looked at the barges, which were coming in, one by one, to ground on the beach. ‘Should we not take the river?’

Vlad shot him a contemptuous look. ‘I will enter the city when I am invited.’ He drew closer to Mundvard, pleased to find that he was a half-head taller than his lieutenant. ‘Let me instruct you in how this thing is to be done. I will not sneak into Altdorf like some beggar, fighting up from the quays and the sewage-bilges. I will demand my electorship before I raise so much as a sword to aid them. When their desperation finally forces them to crack, I will ride through the gates atop a war-steed, my head held high, and I will take the salute of the Emperor himself. They will invite me in. Do you see this? Nothing less will suffice.’

Mundvard looked at him doubtfully. Vlad could read the thoughts flickering across his elegant face. Is this what Nagash intended? Can it be worth the risk?

Eventually, though, the vampire nodded in acquiescence. ‘So be it,’ Mundvard said, as if he cared not either way. ‘The North Gate is the quickest route from here. The forest is crawling with daemons, mind.’

Vlad raised an eyebrow, and gestured to where his troops were making landfall. Shades fluttered overhead, their long faces breaking into piercing moans. Ghouls slipped between the shadows of the trees, and hulking undead champions trudged through the lapping surf, uncaring if the brackish waters slopped over the tops of their age-crusted boots. Greater beasts were waiting on the barges in iron cages – skeletal leviathans, raving vargheists, crypt horrors wearing bronze collars marked with runes of control. Thousands had already landed, and thousands more would come.

‘Daemons are but the dreams of mortals,’ Vlad said, witheringly. ‘Just wait until they clap eyes on us.’

The underworld kingdom was breaking apart. Sewer arches collapsed under the strain, showering broken bricks into the steaming channels. The air burned, throbbing with released magic that bounced and swerved through the honeycomb of chambers.

Festus went as quickly as his sagging muscles would carry him, sloshing through the turbulent slurry and making his way back to the cauldron chamber. It had been a magnificent thing to witness – his Great Tribulation, soaring up the shaft and breaking into the city above, rupturing the skin of the heavens and ushering in the deluge of daemon-kind. He could feel unreality flex and buckle around him, warping the very fabric of the undercity.

Such complete success did not come without risks. He had unleashed forces that now ran far beyond his capability to control. If he did not get out soon, he would be buried by the destruction he had caused. All he had been charged to do was start the process, and like fermentation in a barrel, it would now bubble away without his further involvement, taken over by an intelligence far greater and subtler than his own.

He stumbled along the sewer-path, kicking past a gurgling gaggle of half-drowned daemon-kin. More of the masonry around him collapsed, sending dust spiralling through the echoing tunnels. Ahead of him stood the cauldron chamber, still lined with popping vials.

This was the crowning achievement of his long art. Most of the petty daemons summoned by the Tribulation would be ripped from the tortured skies by the plague-tempest, but that would not suffice for the greatest of the breed. For such titans of contagion, a more direct route was required.

Festus hurried over to the cauldron, wincing as more glassware exploded above him. The liquids within still bubbled as violently as ever, even though the fire at the cauldron’s base had long gone out. Truly gorgeous aromas spilled from the lip, exuding freely as globular slush dribbled down the obese flanks.

A vast hand thrust up from the boiling broth. That hand alone should have been far too large to fit inside the vessel – it was a scaly, clawed and mottled hand, steaming gouts from its immersion and still wrinkled from the moisture.

Festus clapped his palms together in joy, watching as another claw shot out from the far side of the cauldron. Two enormous fists clamped onto the edges of the vessel, and flexed.

The broth spilled over, cascading to an already swimming floor, and a pair of antlers burst into view. Two enormous yellow eyes, slit-pupilled like a cat’s, blinked at Festus.

‘Plaguefather!’ cried Festus, taking a hesitant step towards the emerging monster.

Like all its kind, the daemon had many names in many realms, all of which were but a distant mockery of its true title, which was unpronounceable by all but the most studious of mortal tongues. In Naggaroth it was cursed as Jharihn, in Lustria feared as Xochitataliav, in destroyed Tilea hated as Kisveraldo the Foul-breathed, in distant Cathay reviled as Cha-Zin-Fa the Ever-pustulent. In the Empire it had earned the moniker Ku’gath the Plaguefather, and its ministrations had ever been most virulent in those lands.

Festus cared little for true names, for he was no scholar of the dark arts, just a meddler in potions and the delicious fluids of sickness. He did recognise the enormous power erupting before him, though – an unstoppable mountain of gently mouldering hides, crowned with a grin-sliced face of such exquisite ugliness that it made him want to reach up and chew it.

Ku’gath looked around, seemingly a little bewildered. It hauled itself up higher, and a truly colossal bulk began to emerge, flopping over the side of the now absurdly tiny cauldron. The daemon’s bulk was far greater than the mortal vessel could possibly have contained, a conceit that Festus found particularly amusing.

‘Where... is this?’ growled the daemon, its slurred, inhuman voice resonating throughout the gradually disintegrating kingdom.

‘Altdorf, my prince,’ said Festus, wobbling for cover as a whole rack of vials crashed to the floor, scattering the glass in twinkling fragments. ‘The Tribulation. You remember?’

That seemed to clarify Ku’gath’s mind. The giant mouth curled as it snorted up remnants of the broth, before it vomited a pale stream of lumpy effluent straight at Festus. The Leechlord revelled in the slops hitting him, sucking up as many as his purple tongue would reach.

Then Ku’gath dragged its quivering flanks clear of the cauldron. A vast foot extended, terminating in a cloven hoof and trailing long streamers of pickled gore. Laboriously, puffing and drooling, the enormous creature extracted itself from its tiny birth-chamber, standing tall before its summoner.

Unfurled to its full extent, the greater daemon was immense. Its antlers scraped the high arched vault, and its withers slobbered over broken potion-racks. When it turned around, whole shelves of priceless liquors were crushed against its sloping flanks, streaking down the steaming flesh like thrown dyes.

‘We have to leave,’ said Festus, shuffling out of the daemon’s path and knocking over an empty prey-cage as he did so. ‘This place is no longer... commodious.’

Ku’gath grunted, and started to shuffle through the chambers, smashing and crushing as it went. ‘I can smell the fear,’ it slurred, spitting through the flecks of vomit still clinging to its lower lip. ‘They are... above.’

‘Yes, yes!’ agreed Festus, doing what he could to usher the beast towards the only exit large enough to accommodate it. ‘Follow the stink! They are lucky to have lived to witness you.’

Ku’gath spat a gobbet of mucus the size of a man’s fist, and it splattered stickily against the wall. ‘I hunger,’ it gurgled.

Festus smiled lasciviously. ‘As do I, bringer of ruin, but it is just a little way now.’ He thought ahead, wondering how he would direct such a leviathan to its true target. ‘Plenty of souls to suck up, plenty of guts to slip down your gullet. They are lining up, one by one.’

‘I hunger,’ the daemon drawled, as if it were incapable of saying anything else.

‘I know you do,’ said Festus, rubbing its lower spine affectionately. ‘Your ache shall be sated.’ His smile broadened as his plans crystallised. ‘To the temple, great one. To the Temple of Shallya.’

Eighteen

The army of the Urfather tore across the final stretch of open land, charging en masse towards the reeling walls. Altdorf was directly ahead, just a few hundred yards away, looming up into the madness of the Tribulation. The Glottkin’s hordes spread out into an immense swarm of churning bodies, bearing torches as they ran and screaming the death-curses of the uttermost north.

Ghurk was at the forefront, leaping and blundering towards the vast West Gate. His breathing was already frantic and wheezing, his lust for flesh overtaking everything. His distorted right arm flailed around, and in his other hand he clutched an enormous maul that was still viscous with blood from older battles.

The city reared up before them, a soaring black silhouette amid the sheeting plague-rain. The towers starkly framed a cracked sky beyond, shrieking with daemon cries and the swirling power of the aethyr unlocked. Banked ramparts flashed and smoked with blackpowder weapons, and the hard snap of cannon-fire, followed by the boom of the report, briefly punctured the background roar of the winds and the flames and the screaming. Petty mortal magic flared in the night, shimmering with every colour of the spectrum, something that made Ethrac snort with derision.

The first ranks were already at the walls. Teams of plate-armoured Norscans strode up to the foundations bearing siege ladders. Wooden poles were hoisted up, swaying in the gales, before being shoved back by desperate hands on the high battlements. Boiling pitch was hurled down at the first rank of attackers, sending huge columns of steam spiralling up as the liquid burst over its targets.

The fighting quickly spread all along the western walls, before joining up with Autus Brine’s assault from the north. Soon the outer perimeter, extending for miles in both directions, was completely besieged. The Chaos host surged up to it, bearing yet more siege ladders, crashing against the thick stone base like the tide.

War horns rang out, one after the other, overlapping in a maddening, glorious assault on the senses. The horns were soon matched by the bellows of the fell beasts that had been driven out of the forest – scaled and tusked monsters with flame-red eyes that ground their hooves into the mud and blundered in their madness towards the looming behemoth ahead of them.

In all directions, across the churning fields of war, battle-standards swung and swayed, crowned with skulls and lined red by the fires that had already kindled in defiance of the hammering squalls. Massive war engines were dragged out of cover and into range – trebuchets with thirty-foot throwing arms, lashed by chains to the ground and daubed with runes of destruction; bronze-wheeled cannons shaped with snarling wolf’s-head barrels; siege towers pulled by teams of massive, six-horned oxen that lowed and thundered from shaggy throats even as they inched their immense burdens towards the distant target.

Otto gazed out across the measureless horde, and raised his scythe in salute. His heart was full to bursting, his whole body animated by a raw war-lust that made him want to scream aloud to the lightning-scored heavens. His forces compassed the earth in every direction, mile upon mile of battle-maddened warriors, each with only one purpose – to maim, to slay, to choke, to break bones.

Aethyric thunder snarled across the skies, making the tormented earth shake further.

‘Death to them!’ Otto bawled, waving his scythe around him wildly as Ghurk galloped towards the beleaguered gates. ‘Death! Death!’

The cry began to spread through the army, and the myriad different tribal chants and curses moulded into one, repeated, terrible word.

Death! Death! Death!

The drums matched the beat, thudding like hammers on anvils, driving the hordes on and making their eyes roll and their mouths froth with drool.

Death! Death!

Further north, where the Reik’s broad flow poured westward under the shadow of the great watchtowers, the Chaos forces leapt into the sludge and started wading towards the gap between the walls. The defenders had blocked the way with slung chains, each the width of a man’s waist, and had lined up ships, hull-to-hull, to deny passage across the unnaturally viscous Reik. Otto saw the first warriors reach their target, braving showers of arrows and blackpowder shot to clamber across the chains. They died in waves, but the tide of corpses crept closer with every surge, clogging the river further and turning it into a semi-land of trodden cadavers.

Death! Death!

The first of the big hellcannons opened up, ripping the night apart and sending flaming streamers arcing high above the toiling masses. Enormous iron-spiked balls crashed into the walls, smashing the parapets apart and showering the ground below with powdered masonry.

Death! Death!

A siege tower reached the walls, the first to do so, and drawbridges slammed down onto the battlements. A team of wild-eyed Skaelings tore across the narrow span, charging straight into the defenders on the high parapet. They were repulsed, and the siege tower was stricken with flame-bearing arrows, going up like a torch in the fervid night. Otto laughed as he watched his slaves leap from the burning tower, smashing into the ground thirty feet below before being crushed by the iron-shod boots of the advancing thousands.

Death! Death!

The West Gate drew closer, and Ghurk began to wade through the screaming bodies of his own forces, shoving them aside to get closer. Two mighty towers thrust out from either side of the massive gatehouse, each one flying the Imperial standard from iron poles. The rounded battlements were ringed with furiously firing cannons, causing angry weals of smoke to tumble and drift across the raised portcullis.

Death! Death!

Beyond the blackened walls, already charred from the sorcerous fires flung against them, Festus’s aethyric column was now glowing bright green, leering maleficently like some eerie phosphorescence thrust into the night. Otto could hear the knife-thin screams of the daemons as they tumbled from the rift, slapping and thudding onto the streets beneath and causing terror.

He could smell that terror most of all – more than the blood, the blackpowder, the stink of the corrupted river and the Rot that ran through the city’s arteries. The mortals were gripped by it now, frozen by it, and with every second the vice twisted tighter.

Death!

For the first time, Otto saw torches on the far eastern side of the valley. That meant Epidemius the Tallyman had thrown his forces into the fray. Altdorf was surrounded on all sides, brought low like a stag being dragged down by hounds.

Death!

He looked up, sweeping his joyous gaze to the summit of the gatehouse tower. A huge Imperial standard flapped wildly in the preternatural gales, half-tearing free from its pole. Men clustered beneath it, firing pistols and letting fly with arrows. There must have been dozens on the battlements, given heart by the image of the griffon that rippled above them.

‘O my brother,’ said Otto, turning to Ethrac.

The sorcerer nodded, seeing what was intended. He raised his scrawny arms, lifting his staff above his head. The bells clanged, spilling dirty smoke from their insides as the hammers hit. Ethrac mumbled words of power, the first that he had uttered since the assault had begun, then shook the staff a second time.

The standard, over two hundred yards away and separated by howling gusts of plague-rain, burst into green flames. It flared brightly, dropping fragments of its disintegrating fabric over the defenders at its base. Every scrap seemed to kindle where it landed, and the battlements were soon in confusion as men ran from the fires or tried to stamp them out.

Otto grinned. Few had died, but the mortals attached great importance to their little flags. One by one, they would all be turned into crisped piles of ash, and each loss would be like a dagger-strike to their weak hearts.

‘Very good, o my brother,’ Otto murmured, running a finger along the edge of his scythe. The gate was now close, and Ghurk was pushing his way towards it with ever greater zeal. ‘Now for the doors.’

Ethrac was already preparing. Battering rams were being brought up, dragged by blind and diseased river-trolls. The portal itself, twenty feet high and barred with crossed iron over age-seasoned oak, waited for them. It might resist force for a while, or even magic, but not both, and not in such strength.

It had stood for so long, that gate. Otto could sniff out the age in the timbers, in the granite foundations, in the ancient ironwork that clad and bound it. He could sense the waning power of faith stained deep in its fabric, and could feel the spells of binding laid across it by Empire magisters. The mortals still manned every battlement and pinnacle above it, furiously determined to hold on to it.

The very idea made him smirk.

‘Break it,’ he ordered.

The North Gate had been hit as hard as the rest. The army raging against it was a mix of Chaos warriors and beastmen dragged out of the Drakwald’s deepest pits, and the infernal alliance poured out of the storm-lashed gloom in an endless torrent.

Helborg paced the battlements, his fist clenched tight on his undrawn sword-hilt, his cheek almost unbearably painful, his mood black. The foul slime-rain continued to lance down from the churning skies, swilling across every stone surface and making footing treacherous. Archers slipped when they loosed their darts, gunners lost their footing with every recoil. The deluge got into eyes, wormed its way under collars and beneath breastplates. When it touched bare skin, it burned like acid, and several troopers had fallen to their deaths while frantically trying to rip the armour from their bodies.

‘Tell the master gunner to angle his great cannons by two points,’ ordered Helborg, furious at the delays.

The cannon crews were struggling just like everyone else. Aside from the plague-rain and the almost unbearable howl of the vortex above them, they could all hear the agonised screams of men being torn apart by daemons within the city. Helborg had dispatched every wizard and warrior priest he could to try to buy some time against them, but it was a desperate gambit, and it weakened the wall defences further.

Out in the dark, the enemy started to chant a single word, over and over again.

Shyish! Shyish! Shyish!

He knew what it meant, and needed no Amethyst magister to tell him.

Huge creatures were now stalking to the forefront of the host, barging aside or treading down any that barred their path – hulking, misshapen beasts with lone eyes and twisted horn-crowns, bellowing in cattle-harsh voices. They were followed by grotesque amalgams of dragon and ogre, which were so horrific that even the Chaos warriors around them gave them a wide berth. The stench of rotting meat washed over the whole army, sending those defenders still able to fire a pistol gagging and retching.

Helborg screwed his eyes up, leaning against the battlements, and peered into the tempest. Out in the murk, past the first detachments of infantry, colossal engines were being pulled into position. He recognised a gate-breaking ram in the centre of the cluster, hauled by centaurs.

He turned to Zintler. ‘If that gets close...’

Zintler had seen the same thing, and nodded, wiping a patch of plague-mucus from his helm’s visor. ‘We’re losing the battlements around the gate,’ he noted grimly.

On either side of the vast gatehouse, men were struggling under the relentless onslaught of the slime-rain and thick clouds of projectiles from the trebuchets and war engines. Some sections already looked close to being abandoned. If the enemy managed to get siege towers closer, then the remaining defence would be hard-pressed to hold out.

Helborg drew in a deep breath. They were assailed on all sides, and any hope he had of maintaining a tight grip on the outer walls was fast dissolving. ‘It had to come,’ he said grimly. ‘Just sooner than I’d have liked. The Reiksguard are ready?’

Even amid the carnage, Zintler could still smile at that. Of course they were.

‘General, you will oversee the defence of the gatehouse,’ shouted Helborg to Graf Lukas von Mettengrin, the grizzled Altdorfer assigned to the wall defence once, as they had always planned, Helborg was called to take the fight directly to the enemy. ‘May Sigmar be with you.’

The general saluted, as did his staff and the other members of the field command still on the parapet. De Champney was one of the few magisters still present on the outer walls, though he was far too busy summoning up pyrotechnics to respond.

Helborg and Zintler hurried down from the parapet, jogging down winding stairways into the heart of the gatehouse. Once away from the edge, the sounds of battle became muffled by the thick stone, but there was no dousing the lingering screams and cries from within Altdorf itself.

‘This must be swift, and it must count for all,’ said Helborg, testing the straps under his helm and pulling the leather tight.

‘The Knights Panther and of Morr are assembled,’ reported Zintler, rolling his lance-shoulder in readiness for the sortie.

‘Good,’ said Helborg, noting, almost for the first time, how quietly efficient Zintler had been throughout. He was unassuming in the flesh, but once in his Reikscaptain’s armour and given an order, he was the model of quiet resolve. ‘Well done.’

Zintler looked at him, startled. He did not seem to know how to reply.

He did not need to. The two men broke out at ground level on the inside of the gatehouse, into a wide marshalling yard. The full strength of the North Gate’s inner defence waited for them: nine full companies of Imperial knights, all saddled up and bearing lances. The white of the Reiksguard mingled with the black of the Knights of Morr and the blue and gold of the Knights Panther. Their warhorses were arrayed in full barding, each one adorned with the gilt emblems of their order. Every rider saluted as the Reiksmarshal and his captain emerged, and two chargers were led towards them.

Beyond the Knightly companies stood the reserve regiments of state troopers – some of the best men still at Helborg’s command, several thousand of them, drilled mercilessly in repulsion manoeuvres, almost all armed with halberds and pikes.

Helborg mounted, adjusted his battle-plate, flicked down his visor, and took his lance. His heart was hammering hard, driving blood around his battered body. For the first time ever, he felt a spasm of guilt at leaving the command station to take the charge. In the past, there had never been any conflict – he had been there to fight, to break the enemy’s will, to drive them from the field. Now his duties were many. The city needed him. They all looked to him, and he could not be in all places at once.

He remembered his last words with Karl Franz, back in the cold morn at Heffengen.

We may fall in battle, you may not. You are the Empire.

Would he be as indispensable? Surely not. Once again, Helborg felt the burden of measuring up to the real Emperor.

‘Open the gates,’ he growled, turning his horse around to face the coming tempest.

As he did so, every knight in every company readied himself. Lances were lowered, visors were closed. Final prayers were whispered, and the sign of the comet was made across breastplates and leather jerkins.

A huge clang broke out as chains were hauled over iron wheels. The mighty gears of the gate-doors shunted into position, and steam vented from the brass valves. The doors ground open, running on their iron rails across stone flags. The heavy portcullis was released, and fell open with a dull thud against the earth.

On the far side was a vision of pure madness. The sky danced with fell energies, and the earth boiled with countless bodies. The front ranks of the enemy saw the gate opening, and surged towards it, weapons in hand. They looked infinite.

Helborg picked his target, lowered his lance, and tensed.

‘For the honour of the Empire,’ he roared, ‘charge!’

‘Seal the gates!’ shouted Margrit, hurrying from the garden and towards the temple’s entrance. ‘For the love of the Lady, seal the gates!’

The order wrenched her heart – there were thousands still trying to push their way into the temple enclosure, praying that the building could give them some kind of respite from the hells unravelling outside the walls. When the plague-rain had started, the sisters had done what they always did – ushered as many wounded and infirm into the healing gardens, assessing the grades of sickness, binding wounds and whispering prayers of restoration.

But then the daemons had come, gibbering and slobbering, dropping out of the sky like hailstones. They were flung from the shrieking walls of the vortex, crashing into the sides of houses and smashing straight through mould-weakened walls. Shards of green-edged lightning danced amid the tempest, skewering men even as they ran for cover, and the sound of maniacal voices rang down every reeling alleyway.

The defenders had been caught wanting. With the emphasis on the walls, whole areas of the city had been stripped of watch-patrols and state troopers. Margrit had been forced to watch from the safety of the temple as swell-bellied grotesques had chased down and slain those who were left behind – the old, the children, the weak. Her every instinct had been to storm out onto the streets, raging, doing what she could to banish the stalking nightmares that were literally falling out of the sky.

She resisted. The powers of Shallya ran deep, but they were not martial powers. Her duty was clear – to endure, to resist, to remain pure. Once the storm hit in full, Margrit ordered the shutters to be locked, the doorways to be sealed, the precincts to be purified. The last of the temple’s priceless blessed water was handed out to the remaining sisters, carried in earthenware vials to be sprinkled around the temple’s perimeter. That might halt them for a while – as painfully insignificant as it looked, such gestures had proved their worth in the past.

All was at risk, though, as the panicked crowds outside surged towards the temple walls, ripping down the tents in which they had been tended to and wailing for sanctuary. The outer doors had been forced open, and the mob now beat at the gates to the inner courtyard, which were only lightly barred.

Margrit rushed along the walls, crying out more orders. From her vantage on the top of the battlements she could see down into the inner courtyard, where the temple guards were struggling to barricade the gates with whatever they could find – wooden planks, heavy metalware from the sacred chapels. She could also see outside, across the heads of the milling crowds and over the roofs of the houses beyond. The volume of screaming was terrific, and the stench of human fear nearly masked the ever-present musk of the Rot.

As she neared the main gatehouse, the air was ripped apart once again by the stink of magic. Bright magisters, three of them, had appeared on the far side of the grand platz before the temple, and were unleashing withering bursts of flame against the daemons that ran amok. At the same time, finally, a troop of soldiers charged into the square from the north, where the streets ran towards the river’s-edge. They bore the white and red of Altdorf’s own, and looked disciplined and prepared. Defying the slime-deluge, they barged their way through the crowd towards the clots and gluts of daemonic creatures, crying out prayers to Sigmar and Ulric as they came.

The new arrivals broke the momentum of the crowd. Caught between the battle wizards and the aethyr-creatures, many of the sick broke for easier cover, limping into the shadows of the burning townhouses. Those that remained were easier to repel, and the pressure on the inner gates lessened.

Margrit reached the gatehouse, where Gerhard, her guard captain, and many of her priestesses were gathered. All of them had pale faces.

‘Will they hold?’ asked Margrit, panting heavily.

‘For now,’ said Gerhard, watching the battles breaking out across the square with some trepidation. ‘But if they rush us again...’

Margrit turned to one of the sisters, a dark-skinned woman named Elia from the distant south whose Reikspiel had never been perfected. ‘And the well?’

Elia shook her head. ‘Some waters remains. We did not wish to make all dry now.’

‘Draw the rest. All of it. Take every last drop and make a seal around the inner sanctum. They will not cross the line, not if the ring is unbroken.’

Elia bowed, and was about to rush off down to the sacred wellsprings, when a fresh bellowing broke out from the far side of the square. All faces on the gatehouse snapped around, ready to witness whatever fresh terror had been unleashed.

Something was emerging from the eastern end of the platz, pouring out of the narrow, overlooked streets and into the rain-drenched open. Margrit saw petty daemons spill from the shadowed openings of burned-out houses, their jaws streaked with blood and their claws dragging clumps of entrails.

The Bright wizards, who had by now taken the fight to the centre of the square, rushed to staunch the new invasion. Flares of crimson flame shot out into the gloom, making the daemons squeal and pop as they were caught. The Altdorf state troopers rushed to support them, forming a ring of halberds around the three magisters.

‘My place is there, sister,’ said Gerhard, strapping his helm tight and making ready to descend to ground level.

‘Your place is here, captain,’ said Margrit, her voice hard. She could sense something coming, something far greater than the squalid daemons that had so far shown themselves.

‘They are fighting back,’ protested Gerhard, gesturing to where the Bright wizards were going on the offensive, backed up by their company of bodyguards.

‘Stay in the temple,’ Margrit ordered. She turned to the other assembled sisters. ‘No one leaves. We have done what we can – now we tend to the wards and keep the gates locked.’

As she finished speaking, a great crack rang out from the square’s eastern end. With a boom, one of the massive wooden-framed houses disintegrated, its beams snapping and its brickwork dissolving into a cloud of reddened dust. Something was thrusting up through it, tearing it apart from the foundations. The wizards retreated, launching bolts of fire at the house’s carcass. As the smoke and dust cleared, something enormous waddled into view.

Its girth was phenomenal, far greater than any mortal creature had any right to possess. Slabbed flanks of grey-green, pocked with warts and sores, overflowed in a pyramid of scarce-contained blubber. The monster crashed through the remains of house, crushing the rubble under two stump-like legs. An obese belly dragged in its wake, mottled with sticky residues. A flat, grinning head emerged from the ruins, topped with a heavy coronet of slime-slicked antlers. In one claw the creature carried a thick-bladed cleaver; the other was free to clutch, rip and maim.

Gerhard’s mouth fell open. The wizards immediately launched all they had at the greater daemon, bombarding it with flurries of starburst-pattern flames. It roared at them, flooding the entire square in yellow spittle. The flames would not catch on its hide, and the wizards retreated steadily, loosing more bolts as they fell back.

The monster lumbered after them, accompanied by the last remnants of the house it had crashed through. Despite its phenomenal size, it moved with unnerving speed, seeming to flicker and shift out of reality, suddenly lurching closer before rearing up high again.

It lunged, managing to catch one of the magisters as he fled. The daemon picked up the struggling wizard effortlessly, breaking his spine with a squeeze of his massive claw.

The remaining two redoubled their efforts, dousing the creature in a rain of rippling liquid fire, causing clots of ink-black smoke to curl from its hide. That seemed to hurt it, and it wobbled backward, hurling aside the broken body of the slain wizard and roaring angrily. The halberdiers rushed in close, displaying insane bravery, poised to thrust their long staves into the daemon’s flesh.

They never made it. Before they had got within twelve feet of the monster, their torsos burst open, spraying entrails across the rain-drenched flagstones. Screaming, they fell to the ground, rolling and clutching at their shredded skin.

A second figure emerged from the shadow of the fire-bound daemon. This one was still massive, more than twice the height of a normal man, though barely a quarter the size of the greater beast beside him. He was dressed in a parody of normal garb, though torn apart by his flabby belly and wobbling jowls. A similarly crooked grin disfigured a bloated face, stuffed with yellowing and rotten teeth. Pots hung from straps over his sloped shoulders, each one boiling with noxious fluids or stuffed with bloody clumps of human flesh.

The newcomer gestured to the two remaining wizards, and their bodies were instantly consumed with fronds of clutching vines. The strands burst from the ground below them, grasping and clutching at their throats. The wizards fought back furiously, crying out counter-spells and tearing at the tendrils.

By then, it was too late. Freed from the wizards’ fiery attentions, the daemon surged back towards them. It did not even use its claw this time – it simply rolled into them, crushing them both under thick skirts of suppurating flesh. Even then, half-wrapped in clutch-vines and crushed under the oncoming avalanche of stinking daemon-hide, they fought back, but only for a few, futile moments. With a sickening snap of bones breaking, they were both sucked under the daemon’s foul bulk.

The creature sat atop them for a moment, grinding itself over their pulverised bodies, gurgling with what looked like vile pleasure.

Margrit looked on, her jaw set defiantly. The surviving mortals in the square below, whether soldiers or supplicants, scattered. Lesser daemons scampered and scuttled after them, licking cracked lips in anticipation of the feasting to come.

The two larger horrors remained where they were. The lesser creature gazed up at Margrit, catching her directly with his rheumy gaze. His grin never went away, and a thin line of excited drool spilled from his lower lip.

‘Hide while you can!’ the creature screamed. ‘Walls will not aid you!’

Then the two of them started lumbering towards the gate, crunching bodies underfoot as they came, a leering light of conquest in their addled faces.

Margrit could sense Gerhard’s fear. She could sense the terror in her sisters. She thought of the rows of bunks inside the temple, each one occupied by at least two sick charges. She thought of the gardens, and the young acolytes fresh from the villages, all of whom she had trained herself.

It was all so, so fragile.

She made the sign of Shallya across her chest, then clutched the battlements with both hands. ‘Faith is always to be tested,’ she said. ‘We fight for every last chamber.’

That seemed to rouse the others. Gerhard barked orders to his men, and the other sisters hurried down the stairwells to draw more sacred water from the wells.

Margrit barely noticed them go. Her temple was now a lone bulwark against a miasma of degradation. In every direction, the creatures of Chaos had free rein, burning, stabbing, infecting. Flames licked ever higher, reaching up like questing fingers to the pus-thick storm above. The vortex continued to twist and curl, bringing more destruction in its wake.

The two daemonic horrors began to move again, dragging corpulent bodies ever closer. The jowly creature with the jangling collection of plague-pots was laughing uncontrollably. He looked deranged by hatred, and drew a wickedly spiked meathook from a loop around his straining waist.

‘In all things,’ Margrit murmured, working hard to control her fear, trusting even then, against the face of pure loathing, that something would intervene to save them, ‘Shallya be praised.’

Nineteen

Martak lurched awake, panting like a terrified animal, his skin clammy. Shadow lay heavily on him, and he could smell burning. He scrabbled for his staff, and his hands clutched at nothing.

Then, finally, his fingers closed over the reassuring weight of the wood, and he clutched it tight. The smell of burning came from the night’s fire, which they had let smoulder down as they slept. He was lying on the floor of a cave, little more than a scratch in the side of a moss-overhung cliff.

The dream-visions remained vivid. He saw Altdorf burning, and knew that all he was being shown was reality. More than that, he saw the antler-crowned god again, writhing in agony, his body covered in lesions. He saw vistas of pure devastation, mile after mile of land tortured and twisted into sickening pools of endless decay.

And, as always just before waking, he saw Karl Franz dying, his agonised face lit by the light of the deathmoon. That was the worst of all. It was all futile – such dreams did not lie.

Martak hacked up the night’s phlegm, and dragged himself up onto his haunches. When he looked up to the cave-mouth, he saw the huddled silhouette of the Emperor, staring out over the forest below their vantage. Did he ever sleep? Had he taken any rest since Martak had rescued him?

Martak shuffled up to join him, hawking and spitting to clear his throat.

‘Bad dreams?’ asked Karl Franz.

Martak reached for the gourd of water they shared. It was almost empty, and neither of them had dared refill it from the polluted forest streams they had passed. He poured a dribble of it down his parched gullet, and felt the temporary pleasure of the liquid against his cracked lips.

‘No change,’ he said, settling down on the rock and rubbing his hands against his face.

They were high up above the forest. Since Deathclaw’s recovery they had made use of every exposed patch of stone and earth amid the mind-bending vastness of the forest. The outcrops were like tiny islands, ringed by impenetrable overgrowth and sundered from one another by almost unimaginable distance. If they had not had the two griffons to bear them, they would be far to the north still, trudging through the brambled mire, hopelessly distant from their destination. As it was, Martak reckoned they were less than a day away.

‘Even a wizard may dream without it coming true,’ said the Emperor.

‘I never dreamed before,’ grumbled Martak. ‘Perhaps it comes with the position.’

Karl Franz looked at him carefully. ‘You are a strange Supreme Patriarch. I ask myself, would I have let them choose you?’

‘It would not be your choice – the colleges decide.’

‘What a quaint idea.’ Karl Franz stretched out. His face was still gaunt from the long sojourn in the wilds, but he had gained in strength during the flight south. There was a steely light in his eyes, something that both impressed and worried Martak.

He knows he won’t survive this. Does he look forward to death? Is that what this is about?

‘I will not ask you again, lord,’ said Martak, gathering himself for a final effort. ‘For all we know, Middenheim still stands. Schwarzhelm may have made for it. Of all your cities, it has the greatest defensive potential.’

‘Defensive potential? You sound like an engineer.’ Karl Franz shook his head. ‘We have been over this. I will not skulk around the margins. It is my city, and I will be there.’

Martak considered asking again, but decided against it. Once the Emperor’s mind was made up, he had no doubt it was impossible to shift.

He watched the sun struggle to rise, its wan light filtering slowly through the grimy soup of the night’s cloud cover. Palls of mist boiled clear of spiny conifer tops, tinged with yellow from the poisons now gnawing the roots. The stench was getting worse, like fungus unearthed from dank cellars.

The southern horizon had glowed throughout the night, a sick green that flickered and pulsed without rest. The clouds were being pulled towards the source like a gigantic blanket, rippling and furrowed in a vast, gradual rotation. At least there was no doubt over where they were headed.

‘And here they come,’ remarked Karl Franz, who had studiously avoided looking south. The two griffons were on the wing, returning from whatever hunting they had been able to find in such ravaged country.

Martak watched them approach. He took a little pride in seeing Deathclaw restored to something like its full prowess. The Emperor’s beast was far larger than his own, with a raw power to its movements that betrayed an enormous aptitude for killing. If it was still in pain from his earlier ministrations, it gave no sign of it, and now flew as strongly as an eagle.

With a whirl of claws and feathers, the two creatures landed on the ledge just below the cave-mouth, cawing at them both in what Martak guessed passed for a greeting. The Emperor acknowledged his mount’s arrival gracefully. Martak scowled at his, already dreading the prospect of riding it again.

‘You have seen the light, I take it?’ asked Karl Franz, almost casually.

Martak grimaced. ‘How could I miss it?’

‘Not the burning. The other light.’

Martak looked up. The skies were just as they always were – a sea of dirty, dingy grey, tinged with an unhealthy bruise pallor. Not knowing if he were being made fun of, he searched for something more. When he failed, he shot Karl Franz a suspicious look. ‘You mock me?’

Karl Franz shook his head, looking quite serious. ‘The twin-tailed star scores the heavens. I see it even when my eyes are closed. They can mask its light for a while, but it will burn through eventually.’ He smiled wryly. ‘What do you suppose that means? A sign of hope?’

Martak snorted. ‘What you propose is not hope but folly.’

Karl Franz looked at him tolerantly. Perhaps, in the past, wizards would have been put to the rack for such impertinence, but there were no henchmen out in the wilds, and the Emperor had proved surprisingly indulgent of Martak’s irritable ways.

‘It would not be here if our course were not sanctioned. I would perceive that.’ Karl Franz nodded towards his sword, propped up in its scabbard against the cave wall. ‘The runefang no longer answers, my armies are scattered, the sun’s light is quenched, but Sigmar’s star still burns. That is something to be cherished, I think.’

Martak did not say exactly what he thought of that. His empty stomach growled, souring his mood. They would have to be gone soon, straddling their half-feral mounts and heading towards deaths that were as certain as the rising of the moons. His counsel to head to Middenheim had been scorned, and the only consolation was that he stood a chance of fulfilling his vows to Margrit, which was very little to cling onto, since the chance of her being alive when they returned was slim indeed.

‘I am sure you are right, lord,’ he muttered, pulling his dirty cloak around him, thinking of what lay ahead, and shivering.

The knights of Bretonnia crested the last rise to the south of the city, and beheld the end of the world.

The vortex unlocked by the Leechlord was now a raging tornado, twisting its way through the lower city, ripping up roofs and throwing the tiles around in hailstorms of shattering clay. Flames roared around the walls, leaping up against the towering stone like sails in a gale, fuelled and spread by racing winds. Blooms of rot and canker flourished in spite of the inferno, glowing eerily in the fervid night and matching the unclean glare of the deathmoon, which presided over the carnage like some obscene god peering through the torn curtain of the skies.

Dawn was close, but the nearing sun made no impression on the mottled patchwork of magicks and sorcery. Altdorf was a lone rock amid a raging furnace of unrestrained madness. The Realm of Chaos had come to earth, and to witness it was to witness the birth of a new and horrific order.

The first rank of warhorses lined up on the ridge, marshalled by Jhared, de Lyonesse and the other knight commanders. The fleur-de-lys standard was unfurled, and it snapped madly in the tearing winds.

Leoncoeur himself flew above the vanguard, mounted on Beaquis. The remaining pegasi all now carried riders, each one hand-chosen to command the powerful beasts. The last of the lances had been distributed, and the clerics had cried out their benedictions. Every horse was already lathered with sweat from the desperate ride, and now yet more trials awaited them. The foremost were already stamping impatiently, tossing their manes and itching for the charge.

Leoncoeur urged Beaquis to climb, surveying the battle. The West Gate was closest, and was already tightly surrounded. An army of such immensity that it defied the senses stretched all around the walls, hammering at the perimeter amid a storm of projectiles and flashing spell-discharge. Trolls lumbered through the swarms of lesser warriors, crazed by mushrooms and waving flaming brands, only matched in ferocity by the towering, one-eyed beastmen from the deep forest. The noise was incredible – a wild chant of Shyish! bellowed out to the roll and slam of endless drums.

Already the defences were reeling. Leoncoeur could see the gates begin to buckle, the first siege ladders hitting their mark, the great engines crawling closer to unload their lethal contents. The topmost towers rose precariously above the tumult, looking impossibly fragile set against the hurricane that had enveloped them.

There would be no returning from this. To enter that maelstrom was to give up hope, to strike a single blow before the tide crushed them.

Leoncoeur looked down at his army, forged in haste and driven mercilessly across the mountains. Knight after knight took his place on the ridge, resplendent in plate armour and bearing the sigils of his heritage. It was a devastating force, one that Leoncoeur would have trusted to match any foe of the known world – until this day.

Now all had changed. The old rules had been ripped up and discarded, lain waste before the all-consuming hunger of the Ruinous Powers.

‘Jhared, lead your blades west!’ he cried. ‘Cut to the gate, and slay all before you! Teach them the fear of Bretonnia!’

The flame-haired knight saluted, still grinning as he slammed his visor down.

‘De Lyonesse, ride east, cutting off the assault on the southern walls! Hold them as long as you can, then break for Jhared’s position. Hit them hard! Hit them fast! They shall die choking on their laughter!’

The last of the vanguard drew up, over a thousand fully armoured warriors, each bearing a heavy lance. More waves readied themselves behind, forming a devastating series of thundering charges.

Leoncoeur surveyed the lines one last time, feeling pride mingle with raw grief.

They were beautiful – brave, vital and vivid, a flash of flamboyant bravado amid a world of gathering decay.

You will die alone, my champion, far from home.

Leoncoeur pulled Beaquis’s head north, facing the burning city head-on, and flourished his blade.

‘Now, the final test!’ he roared. ‘Unto death! Unto the end! Ride, my brothers! Ride!’

The charge took them clear of the gate, hurtling northwards under the first pale rays of the shrouded sun. Helborg lead the vanguard, driving his steed hard and balancing the long lance against the buck of the gallop. The Reiksguard came with him, just as they had in the north, an ivory wedge of steel-tipped murder carving its way through the heart of the mustered enemy.

For a few moments, it looked as if the beastmen did not see the danger. They lumbered towards the walls as before, roaring and bellowing in a stinking fug of battle-madness, but then even they seemed to see their fate unravelling, and sudden fear kindled in their feral eyes. By the time they recognised their peril, the lances were among them.

‘Sigmar!’ Helborg cried out, taking a raw pleasure from the surging pace of the charge.

Behind him, a thousand knights spread out across the battlefield, sweeping in an all-consuming line across the fire-flecked plain. Every rider lowered his lance, selecting a target and guiding his steed with unerring precision.

The two forces collided with a crack and whirl and thud of limbs breaking, shafts splintering and bones shivering. The Reiksguard vanguard hit as one, smashing into the ragged lines of beastmen and northmen, driving a long wound through the body of the horde.

Helborg speared a raging gor in the heart, and felt the impact radiate along his arm as he lifted the monster bodily from the earth. The shaft plunged deep, eviscerating it cleanly, before breaking mid-length under its weight. He discarded the remnants and drew his runefang, circling it into position before plunging it into the neck of another war-gor.

The Reiksguard were followed out by more Knightly Orders, each sweeping after the Reiksmarshal’s spear-tip in successive waves. Most rode mighty warhorses, but some lumbered into battle astride the ferocious demigryphs, land-bound scions of the larger griffons, with all their cousins’ furious temper and scything claws.

The main charge thundered on, plunging further into the rotten depths of the limitless hosts. The momentum was savage, carrying the horsemen in a wild hunt of speed, flair and unshackled bloodlust. Having had to watch powerlessly for days as their city was slowly consumed by Rot and sorcery, the pride of Altdorf’s mighty armies was now cut loose.

Helborg pressed northwards, slashing out with his blade to slice down two fleeing beastmen, before his steed trod three more into the slurry underfoot. Ahead of him, he could see greater concentrations of heavily armed warriors trudging into battle, each company bearing a skull-topped standard bearing sigils of the plague-gods. The truly vast creatures of Chaos – shaggoths, ogres, cygors – bellowed as they swayed towards the interlopers who dared to take the fight to the open.

Then the direction of the charge veered westwards, bludgeoning its way out towards the straggling fringes of the forest. Helborg guided them away from the core of the enemy host, leading his squadrons of knights among the rumbling war engines.

As they galloped through the towering constructions, each rider sheathed his sword and reached for a gift from the College of Engineers – a small spiked ball, stuffed with blackpowder and crowned with a small brass lever. The warhorses weaved between the trundling battle-towers, evading the flame-tipped arrows that shot down from the topmost platforms.

Helborg waited until the last of his cavalry warriors was under the shadows of the siege machinery before giving the order.

‘Let fly!’ he roared, hurling his own device at the skin-wrapped flanks of a battering ram.

As one, the knights loosed their tiny spheres. Where they hit the edges of the war machines, tiny clamps locked them fast, and the faint tick of clockwork started to whirr down.

Helborg maintained the ferocious pace, drawing the vanguard ever further west and breaking clear of the main enemy advance. Out on the flanks, the killing became easier, as the bulk of the heavy warriors remained north of the main gates.

With a flurry of sharp bangs, the grenades thrown by the horsemen went off, cracking into multi-hued explosions. Those devices were the final creations of the colleges – an ingenious fusion of engineer’s art and wizard’s cunning. An unholy concoction of blackpowder mechanics and Bright magic resulted in violent explosions far out of proportion to the devices’ size, and the hulking battle-engines rocked under the assault. Chain reactions kicked off, crippling heavy artillery pieces and sending trebuchets folding in on themselves, hurling smoke up into the lightening skies.

Helborg hauled on the reins then, bringing the long charge to a halt. He was joined by the vanguard of Reiksguard, and quickly followed by the other Knightly Orders. Their numbers had been thinned during the perilous ride, but they still remained cohesive. The charge had punched through the enemy vanguard and taken them a long way west of the horde’s core advance, a fact which had not been lost on the heavy concentrations of Chaos infantry and warbands of Drakwald beastmen. Assuming the knights were breaking for safety, they had continued to advance south, leaving their siege towers to burn and opting to press the assault on the city. The gates, now undefended, lay before them, too far away for the Imperial knights to give defensive cover to before the infantry got within blade-range.

With a lustful roar, the bulk of the northern host’s infantry broke into a shambling charge, heading towards the undefended gates. Isolated out on the western flank, Helborg could only watch them go. Zintler rode up to him, flicking his bloodstained visor open as his exhausted mount whinnied and stamped. ‘They could not resist,’ he observed.

Helborg nodded. The northmen were brutal foes, but they could never leave easy bait alone. ‘Give the signal.’

Zintler drew a long-barrelled pistol and aimed it above his head. He fired, sending a blazing flare spiralling into the twilit murk above.

The signal was received. The infantry held in readiness inside the walls now advanced en masse, pouring through the open gates and out onto the battlefield beyond. Whole sections of artillery, concealed until that moment, suddenly opened up from the parapets, sending cannonballs and rockets ploughing into the onrushing hordes. The defence that had looked so shaky now presented its true shape – ruthlessly drilled, impeccably disciplined, and marching in the knowledge that only the most desperate fighting would stave off their encroaching fate.

The Chaos vanguard had advanced too readily, trusting in the flightiness of the mortals and deceived by the knights’ sham bolt for freedom. Despite their huge numbers, they were now poorly positioned – caught between a stern defence at the walls and a powerful cavalry force on their right flank already mustering for the return strike.

‘Now we take them,’ said Helborg.

Zintler shouted out the orders, and the knights quickly formed up again. As soon as they were marshalled, the counter-charge began, driving back towards the exposed flank of the enemy.

Helborg did not lead the charge this time, opting to survey the battlefield more fully before following the Reiksguard back into the fray. He rode a short way towards higher ground, accompanied by his immediate bodyguard of Reiksguard, then pulled a spyglass from his saddlebag and placed it against his eye, sweeping across the expanse of the field.

As he did so, a sick feeling grew in his stomach. The manoeuvre had been executed impeccably, and he watched thousands of enemy troops being ripped apart by the combination of high-density artillery fire from the walls and the returning cavalry attacks. The pressure on the gates had been relieved for the moment, allowing the entire northern battle line to recover and restore a semblance of order.

But even as he watched the carnage unfold, he knew it would not be enough. He could see the west gates burning, and the enemy pouring in through the gap. He could see evidence, from the far side of the city, that the east gates had gone the same way. Pillars of smoke from all over the interior of Altdorf betrayed the desperate fighting taking place in every street and every courtyard. The Palace itself was wreathed with the greatest plumes of oily smoke. With the first shafts of sunlight angling through the murk, the whole edifice seemed to be covered in a film of grasping vegetation.

Helborg felt his heart sink. He might have saved the North Gate, but he could not be everywhere. The Reiksguard were spread too thin, the magisters were overwhelmed by the daemons in their midst, and the fragile protection of the outer walls was breaking apart.

‘Lord, what are your orders?’ asked Zintler.

The Reikscaptain was anxious to be riding again. They were exposed, and if they did not return to the battle soon then they risked being cut-off entirely. Already, enemy reinforcements were massing on the forest’s edge, creeping out from the shadows and lining up along the northern horizon. Their numbers seemed to be limitless – for every warband that was destroyed, three more took its place.

Helborg slammed his spyglass closed and stowed it away. He took up the reins and prepared to give the order to fall back to the gates. If death awaited him, he would meet it inside the walls, fighting alongside those he had worked so hard with to avert the inevitable. Perhaps they could still salvage something, a last-ditch defence of the Palace, retreating in the face of the hordes but preserving just a fragment of defiance until some relief force – he had no idea where from – could somehow reach them.

It was then, just before he spoke, that he noticed the strange devices on the armour of the reinforcements steadily bleeding out of the forest. Unlike the first wave of attackers, their banners were pure black, with none of the sigils of contagion. Their troops were neither bloated nor mutated, but looked painfully thin in ill-fitting armour. They came on silently, with none of the feral roars of the wild tribes of the Chaos Wastes.

And then, finally, he realised the truth. Just as at Heffengen, he was staring straight at the armies of the undead. With a cold twinge of horror, he recognised the fell prince at their head, wearing crimson armour and riding a skeletal steed. Helborg froze, compelled to witness the same forces that had brought down Karl Franz, and the same monster that had broken the Empire armies while the Auric Bastion still stood.

‘My lord...’ urged Zintler, increasingly anxious to be gone.

Fury gripped Helborg. He still had the letter, crumpled up on the inside of his jerkin. The daemon’s wounds, forgotten about in the heat of battle, suddenly spiked again, sending agonising bursts of pain flooding through his body.

Now his failure was complete. Now there could be nothing – nothing – preserved. He felt like screaming – balling his fists and raging at the heavens that had gifted him such an impossible task.

He gripped the runefang’s hilt, and drew it shakily. He could still ride out, alone if need be, and bring vengeance to the slayer of his liege-lord. Slaying von Carstein would do nothing to arrest the collapse of the city’s defences, but it would be a tiny piece of revenge, a morsel of sheer spite to mark the passing of the greatest realm of men between the mountains and sea.

Before he could kick his spurs in, though, his mind suddenly filled with a new voice, one he had never heard before but whose provenance was unmistakable. Von Carstein was addressing him from afar, projecting his mind-speech as amiably and evenly as if he had been standing right beside him, and the dry, strangely accented tones chilled him more than anything he had seen or heard until that moment.

‘My dear Reiksmarshal,’ the vampire said, somehow managing to sound both agreeable and utterly, utterly pitiless. ‘It is time, I think, that you and I came to terms.’

Twenty

Leoncoeur swooped low, plunging into the horde below and tearing it up. The hippogryph extended its claws, tearing the backs of the mutants that shambled to get out of its path. It picked up two, one in each foreclaw, ascending steeply, then flung them back to earth.

Leoncoeur watched the bodies tumble away before crashing into the seething mass of filth below. The pegasus riders were doing the same – tearing into the horde from the skies, skewering the enemy on lances or letting their steeds crush skulls with flailing hooves.

To the west, Jhared’s cavalry had already struck, smashing hard into the main bulk of the enemy host. The Chaos forces had seen them approach too late, caught up in the slaughter ahead and desperate to reach the broken gates to the city. They were attempting to turn now, to form up in the face of the brutal assault from the south, but it was too little, too late. Jhared’s knights ran amok, slaughtering freely.

Leoncoeur pulled Beaquis higher, angling across the battlefield and gaining loft. He hefted his bloodstained lance, still unbroken despite the kills he had made. Over to his right stood the towering mass of Altdorf, still deluged by the driving squalls and burning furiously from a thousand fires. The west gates had been driven in, overwhelmed by the concerted charge of hundreds of vast, plague-swollen horrors. The stones themselves seem to have been prised apart, and now boiled with tentacles and obscenely fast-growing fungi. The Chaos host was so vast that only the prized vanguard creatures had yet squeezed through the ruined gates, leaving the miles-long train of lesser warriors outside the stricken walls.

This was the filth that the Bretonnians now preyed upon, reaping a horrific harvest as their lances and blades rose and fell. Over to the extreme east of the battlefield, the second wave had already hit, with de Lyonesse leading a valiant charge into a shrieking mass of daemons and mutated soldiery. They were having equal success, cutting deep into the enemy and laying waste.

But the momentum of the charge could not last forever – the sheer numbers would slow them in time. Sensing the tide about to turn, Leoncoeur dived again, aiming for a great plague-ogre stumbling in a blind, spittle-flecked rage towards the breach. Beaquis folded its wings, plunging straight down like a falcon on the dive. The creature only pulled up at the last moment, sweeping low over the heads of the marching warriors and streaking towards the greater beast in their midst.

Leoncoeur leaned over in the saddle, gripping his lance tight. The plague-ogre turned to face him, swinging a heavy warhammer studded with smashed skull-fragments, and bellowed its challenge.

Beaquis adjusted course, darting up and out of reach. Leoncoeur adjusted his aim, going for the creature’s throat. The lance-tip punched cleanly, severing arteries, before the hippogryph’s momentum carried them swiftly out of reach of the whirling hammer-head.

The ogre clutched at its severed gullet, staggering on now-fragile legs, dropping its hammer from twitching fingers. Then it crashed onto its back, choking for air, crushing more than a dozen mutant warriors beneath it.

By then Leoncoeur was already searching for more prey. Riding through the foul mucus-rain was hard work, and it was difficult to see more than a few dozen yards in any direction. Beaquis’s wings began to labour as the beast struggled to gain height.

‘Stay strong,’ urged Leoncoeur. He need a better vantage. Slaying mutant beasts was satisfying, but it would not halt the momentum of the assault – there were too many of them, and they were not in command.

The hippogryph beat harder, climbing high above the swirl and crash of combat. Leoncoeur twisted in the saddle, peering out over the beleaguered city, trying to make some sense of the pattern of battle.

He had expected to find the enemy hammering at the gates, expending its rage against the walls that had stood for over two thousand years, but it was clear that fighting was already rampant across the entire city. Whole sections were burning, collapsing in piles of stinking rotten timbers. He saw daemons swarming over the ruins, chasing down the last of the mortal defenders or fighting furiously with dwindling bands of battle wizards and priests. They were everywhere, as profligate as the rain-showers that splashed around them and covered the streets knee-deep in slime.

We come too late, he realised.

He drove Beaquis even higher, desperately searching for something to use to his advantage. The earthbound knights were committed now, locked in combat with a far greater foe, but he could still choose his prey.

The vast bulk of the Imperial Palace reared up out of the gloom. It was still immense – a mighty gothic pile of imposing stone and iron, ringed with huge statues to the Imperial gods – but already thick with corrosion and unnatural growth. Just as the forest had been, the Palace was raddled with foetid plant-matter, and the austere walls and domes were heaving with clinging grave-moss. The causeways leading to the Palace precincts were rammed tight with advancing warriors, led by a truly enormous troll-like creature bearing two lesser warriors on its back. The surviving defenders were doing what they could to halt it, firing the last of their blackpowder weapons from the high walls, but it would not be enough.

Leoncoeur considered swooping down on that horror. He might be able to pluck the riders from their mounts and break their backs. Then his gaze swept east, over the tight-packed rooftops and towards the wan light of the rising sun.

The concentration of daemons was greatest there. They were streaming towards a lesser temple dome, one surrounded by the slumped hovels of the poor. A truly titanic greater daemon was lumbering directly for the temple, its echoing bellows of rage rising above the tumult.

As soon as he saw it, he knew that was the prize. Time seemed to slow down around him, isolating the creature of darkness as the true quarry of his long hunt.

He could not save the city – that was beyond any mortal now – but battles could still be won.

He wheeled back to where the pegasi still plunged and dived into the hordes below. Their attacks were lethal, but isolated, and they were doing little to blunt the momentum of the colossal army below.

‘Brothers!’ Leoncoeur bellowed, straining to make himself heard even as he raced back into their midst. ‘The prize lies within the city! Follow me!’

He banked hard, dragging Beaquis back towards the burning walls. The pegasus riders immediately fell in behind him, and the sky-host shot over Altdorf’s flaming walls.

Leoncoeur looked over his shoulder as he flew over the shattered gates, over to where Jhared’s knights fought on. They were still causing devastation, but the net was closing on them. It was only a matter of time before their unity was broken. A pang of guilt struck him, and he almost turned back.

They will die as they lived, came a familiar voice in his mind then. As warriors. They slow the attack on the Palace, and thus their sacrifice will serve.

Leoncoeur flew on, and Altdorf blurred below as Beaquis picked up speed. The pegasus riders caught up, and the phalanx burned towards its target.

And me? he asked, almost without meaning to. Just to hear Her voice in his mind again gave him comfort.

But She did not speak again. Beaquis started to plunge earthwards, and the grotesque daemon lurched up to meet them, still unaware of the danger from the skies. Lesser daemons rampaged around it, tearing at the walls of the temple and beating on the locked gates. The dome itself seemed to have some power to resist them, and alone of all the structures in that quarter of the city remained free of the creeping vines and grave-moss.

Leoncoeur fixed his eyes on the daemon, trying not to fixate on its sheer size and aura of terror. This was what he had come to slay – just one contribution amid a host of other duels that would seal the fate of humanity. Next to that, the loss of kingship felt like a trivial thing indeed.

‘Follow me down!’ he shouted to his fellow knights.

Then he shook the blood from his lance, crouched for the strike, and spurred his steed down towards the horror waiting below.

On a blasted hill to the north of the burning city, Kurt Helborg and Vlad von Carstein stood alone. Helborg’s bodyguard, fewer than a dozen mounted knights, waited further down the slope on the Altdorf-facing side. The vast army of the undead waited to the north, arrayed for the advance but still making no move. In the distance, Altdorf’s spires stood starkly against the plague-rain, now lit grey by the slowly strengthening light of the sun. Spidering strands of dark-green could be made out across the stone, strangling and crushing the ancient structures. Cannon-fire still boomed, and the crackle of magic could be made out sporadically, but the main sounds were the cries of the dying and the guttural chants of the victors.

‘You never replied to my letter,’ said Vlad.

Helborg felt light-headed and nauseous. Days of no sleep and constant toil had finally caught up with him, and simply to be in the presence of a vampire lord would have crushed the spirits of a lesser man. As he gazed up at von Carstein’s spectral face, he saw something like eternity reflected back at him. The dark orbs of the creature’s eyes barely flickered. In an instant, Helborg recognised the gulf in years between them – it was like staring down a god, one who had trodden the paths between the worlds and who had returned to usher in the destruction of them all.

At least the pain had faded. In the vampire’s presence, the legacy of the daemon’s claws seemed to lose its potency.

‘What was there to reply to?’ asked Helborg, trying to muster at least a show of belligerence.

‘That you recognised the wisdom of my offer,’ said Vlad, as smoothly as if he cared little one way or the other. ‘I have gone to some trouble to assemble the army you see before you. It will march on my command.’

Helborg smiled cynically. ‘And your price?’

‘You know it. I wish to be Elector of Sylvania. I wish to preside over my people in peace. I wish to look you in the eye as...’ He returned a colder smile. ‘...an equal.’

Helborg could still hear the sounds of battle. They were impossible to blot out, like constant reminders of everything he had done wrong.

‘That power lies with the Emperor,’ he said.

‘He is here?’

‘You know he is not.’

Vlad raised an eyebrow. ‘You credit me with too much foresight. Harkon has been disciplined for what he did – I had no part of it. As to Karl Franz’s survival or otherwise, a veil remains over it. Even my Master does not know his fate.’

Helborg wished he had something to lean on, to prop up his failing strength, but dared not show the slightest shred of weakness. Everything began to blur, like some nightmare that he had been plunged into. Contempt filled him, both for himself and for the creature he spoke to. That he had been reduced to negotiating with such a horror was humiliation enough, and he sensed there was more to come.

‘Why ask, von Carstein?’ Helborg asked, bitterly. ‘You have your armies.’

For a moment, fleetingly, Vlad looked genuinely hurt. ‘You always saw us as merely adversaries. You never stopped to ask what might be accomplished, were certain truths acknowledged.’ He shrugged. ‘The northern gate is the only one you still control. Allow me to enter it, and it will be enough. You will have invited me. That is important. I can aid you, but you must say the words.’

Helborg blurted out a sour, disbelieving laugh. ‘You... prey on us! You drag the dead from their graves and make them march beneath your banners. If Karl Franz were here–’

‘Which he is not, Reiksmarshal, and more’s the pity, because his wisdom is greater than yours.’ The vampire drew a little closer, and Helborg smelled the dry aroma from his armour. ‘You are a fighter, Kurt. Your soul is not made for governing. Already you have erred – the storm that tears your city from within could have been prevented. Do not let this thick neck lead you into more error.’ His dust-pale face creased in what might have passed for kindness, though it exposed wickedly long fangs. ‘Your time is up. I bring you power beyond your wildest hopes. Give me the word, and I will deliver your city.’

Helborg found he could not rip his gaze away from the vampire’s. There was no insulating himself from the sounds of destruction, though, nor the acrid smell of burning that drifted across the whole landscape.

Part of him burned to reach for his sword, just as he had planned. If he were quick enough, a single strike might suffice – the runefang had slain mightier creatures that this.

For some reason, he found himself thinking of Schwarzhelm. The gruff old warrior would never have got this close – the very prospect of talking to such a foul creature would have enraged him. Huss would have been the same. Helborg felt their eyes on him then, the great and the exalted of the Empire he venerated, judging him, accusing him.

But they were not there. They did not have to endure the screams, nor witness the slow destruction of all he had lived to preserve. He was alone and exhausted, and defeated.

There was nothing else. There were no other roads to take, no other allies to call on.

He looked into the darkness of the vampire’s eyes, and felt the footsteps of damnation catch up at last.

‘Then you will have what you demand,’ Helborg said, the words dragged out from his lips and tainted with loathing. ‘Save my city.’

The effect was immediate. All across the city, from the burning tenements to the moss-strangled walls of the Imperial Palace, the slime-covered soils started to shift. Just as at Wurtbad, at Kemperbad, and at every other staging-post along the great rivers, Vlad’s command of the Wind of Shyish was total. Whatever lingering power of faith that had existed over Altdorf had long been shattered by the Leechlord’s spells, and so the very fabric of Chaos came to the vampire’s aid.

The first to lift themselves were those slain in the night’s fighting. Cadavers rose from the mud, shaking off the wounds that had ended them and lurching instinctively towards the unwary servants of the plague-god. Huge piles of the dead had been dragged together before the two occupied gates, all of which suddenly began to twitch and stir.

The newly-killed were soon joined by those who had been in the cold earth for far longer. Forgotten graveyards trembled and shifted, their soils broken by dozens of clawed hands. With a sigh of ghostly half-breath, a new army arose amid the terror of the plague-rain, unaffected by fear and undaunted by the driving torrents of pus. They locked blank eyes onto the daemons, and marched towards them. All but the weakest of the aethyr-born were able to dispatch them easily, but the numbers soon rose, clogging the already claustrophobic streets with gangs of silent, eerily calm fighters.

Altdorf had been settled since the time of Sigmar, and had roots going back to the very dawn of human civilisation. With every passing moment, older warriors emerged from the slurry underfoot, tunnelling up from deep catacombs beneath lost chapels and warrior-temples. Armour that had not been seen for generations was exposed again to the uncertain light, and long-lost sigils of fallen houses were illuminated by the ravening flames.

Last of all, dredged up from the river itself, came the first inhabitants of the old Reik homesteads, the tribesmen who had marched with Sigmar himself as he forged his empire in blood. They crawled out of the stinking muds of the viscous waters, clutching onto the chains that still hung across the great wharfs. They emerged into the open, grim-faced, shaggy with stiff beards and long hair, their arms marked with bronze rings and their weapons beaten from iron. Unlike the later generations that had been raised, these looked as hale and strong as they had in life, save for the dull lack of awareness in their faces. They did not gaze in amazement at the enormous structures around them, despite their last living view of the city as a tiny fortress of wooden walls and stockades. All they had retained from their former existence was a primordial hatred of the enemies of mankind, and they raised their blades against the daemons without a moment’s hesitation. The blades that had once been borne alongside the living god retained more potency against the daemonic than any others, and soon the fighting was joined all along the riverbanks. Implacable undead took on the foul denizens of the Other Realm in bloodless, bitter combat.

The ranks of living corpses were quickly joined by Vlad’s host, which marched through the North Gate in triumph, dipping their sable banners under the portcullis and heading straight into the depths of the inner city. The surviving mortal defenders fell back to allow them passage, staring in horror at the ranks of vampires, ghouls and crypt horrors as they loped through walls that had defied them for a hundred lifetimes of men. For some, the sight was too much, and their will broke at last. They cast aside their weapons and fell to the ground, weeping with despair.

For others, though, the sight of such unnatural allies came as cause for sudden hope. Though the sight of the living dead may have turned their stomachs, witnessing them taking on the vast hordes of corrupted savages was enough to prove their worth. Those defenders remained at their posts, carving out a defence of the North Gate, hanging grimly on to the one slice of territory they had been able to keep unsullied.

Of Helborg himself, though, there was no sign. Leaving the command of the North Gate, the Reiksmarshal headed towards the river, his face a picture of harrowed resolve. Nor did Vlad von Carstein stay with the bulk of his host for long. Like the shades he commanded, the vampire melted into the shadows, leaving the prosecution of the battle to Mundvard and his other lieutenants. The bulk of the undead fanned out into Altdorf’s vast hinterland of criss-crossing alleys and thoroughfares, and soon the entire city was gripped by the murderous conflict of perverse life against preternatural death.

Margrit was unaware of all of this as it happened. With the last of the sacred waters sprinkled about the perimeter of the temple, she had taken up arms at last, determined to fight for as long as her strength allowed her. Mumbling litanies over and over, she had joined the remnants of Gerhard’s temple guard in the courtyard inside the gates. No more than three-dozen guards remained, the rest having succumbed at last to the contagions that now ran rampant even in the infirmaries. Fewer than a hundred sisters were still able to stand with them unaided, and they clustered close behind Margrit, each bearing whatever weapons had been to hand.

Before them, the inner wall’s gates shivered as the creature beyond them hammered on the wood. The defenders inched back across the courtyard, assembling on the stairs leading up to the garden colonnade.

‘Courage,’ urged Margrit, despite the fear that rose up in her gorge and nearly throttled her.

They all felt fear. They were all trembling. The difference lay in how they dealt with that.

‘Can it cross the threshold?’ asked Elia, her hands visibly shaking.

Margrit did not know. The line of sacred water snaked across the courtyard in front of them, barely a hand’s width wide. It looked so completely insubstantial – a child could have skipped across it without ever noticing it.

And yet, the temple endured while everything around had been reduced to smouldering, slime-boiling rubble. She had held her faith for her whole life, and the precepts had never failed her. The great and the good of the Empire had always looked down on the Sisters of Shallya, seeing them as matronly mystics and little more. And yet the proud Colleges of Magic were now shattered haunts of the daemonic, and the mighty Engineering School was a smoking crater.

‘The threshold will endure,’ Margrit said, trying to sound like she meant it.

The doors shuddered again, and a gurgling roar echoed out. The creature was becoming frustrated, and its maddened fury was spilling over into raw mania. The stones of the outer wall were rocked, sending trails of dust spiralling down to the earth. Another blow came in, almost snapping the main brace across the doors.

More blows came in, faster and heavier. A crack ran down the oak, splitting it into a lattice of splinters. A clawed fist punched clean through, breaking the heavy beams at last and rocking the iron hinges.

A sister screamed. Margrit turned on her. ‘No retreat!’ she shouted. ‘We stand here! We are the blessed ones, the chosen of the Earth Goddess! No creature of the Outer Dark may–’

Her words were obscured by a huge crack as the gates gave way at last. With a throaty bellow of triumph, the greater daemon smashed its way through the remains, hurling aside the severed residue and sending the ragged-ended spars spinning.

Margrit shrunk back, her defiance dying in her throat. The creature was enormous – far bigger than it had seemed when she had first caught sight of it from the walls. Surely nothing could stop it – no power of magic, no power of faith. She looked up at it as the monster swaggered and hauled itself through the gap, and its enormous shadow fell over her.

Some of her sisters vomited, overcome by the incredible stench. Temple guards dropped their blades, staring slack-jawed at the vision of hell approaching. The behemoth rolled towards them, shedding slime down its flanks as the foul rain washed it into the mire beneath.

It took all her courage, but Margrit managed a single step forward, her blade clutched in two shaking hands. She glared up at the creature of Chaos, planting her feet firmly.

‘Go back!’ she cried. ‘Take one more step, and, by the goddess, it will be your last!’

The daemon looked down at her, and laughed. Huge yellow eyes rolled with mirth, and drool the length of a man’s arm spilled from its gaping maw. Moving deliberately, with an exaggerated, mocking studiousness, it lifted a cloven hoof and placed it, heavily, over the line of sacred water.

The liquid steamed and hissed as it was defiled, and Margrit smelled rotten flesh burning. For a moment, she dared to hope that the slender barrier would be enough.

Then the daemon chortled again, and hauled itself closer, dragging its flab through the smeared puddles of water.

Margrit stood her ground, her heart thumping, her last hope gone. Sliding like oil on water, the putrid shadow of the daemon fell across her once more.

Twenty-One

Ghurk galloped onward, smashing his way up the long causeway to the Palace. Resistance was crumbling now.

Atop his habitual perch, Otto urged his outsize sibling harder, cracking the heel of his scythe across Ghurk’s scaly neck.

‘No time!’ he blurted, feeling a mix of exhilaration and consternation. ‘No time at all! Smash and break! Crush and stamp!’

The battle for the West Gate had been a frustratingly slow business, with the defenders lingering at their posts far longer than they had any right to. The cannons had caused havoc with his best troops until Ethrac had finally got close enough to burst their barrels with a few choice spells. Even then, the mortals had stupidly and annoyingly remained in place for much too long. They were led by a redoubtable captain wearing white and black who had roused them to almost insane levels of bravado. Otto had been forced to kill that one himself, leaping from Ghurk’s back and going at him with his scythe. They had traded blows on the summit of the gates with green lightning crackling around them. The human had fought well, wielding his broadsword two-handed with both speed and power.

It had done him little good in the end. Otto may have looked bloated in comparison, but his muscles were infused with the raging power of the Urfather. He did not even need Ghurk to come to his aid this time, and his scythe ripped through the knight’s stomach, slicing through the breastplate as if being dipped into water.

Once that warrior was thrown down, the defenders’ resolve melted, and the resistance began to crack. The gates were broken and the biggest and best of Otto’s serried host had flowed into the walls of the city. Just as at Marienburg, the glorious blossoming of the Urfather’s pestilential delights followed them in. The place was ripe for it – half-consumed by spores and moss-growths already, it was fertile ground for Ethrac’s conjurings.

Otto clambered back onto Ghurk’s shoulders, and the onslaught continued. Columns of chanting Norscans surged up the twisting streets, torching the overhanging houses as they went. Bands of marauders broke from the main charge and rampaged through the whole district, greeted with joy by the gangs of petty daemons squatting and slavering on the eaves.

The remaining defenders were driven back, slain in swathes every time they attempted to mount a resistance. Reserves were called up, and were swept away. Lines of artillery, placed in the courtyards on the approach to the Palace, were briefly effective but soon overwhelmed.

It would have been faster if the damned horsemen had not appeared and dragged half his army away into a desperate battle outside the walls. Ghurk had wanted to turn back and take them on himself, and only Ethrac threatening to shrink his stomach to the size of a walnut had persuaded him to keep going. Combat could rage for as long they liked on the plain west of the walls, and it would still not suffice to keep them from their true goal. They would approach the inner city with diminished numbers, it was true, but they still had enough to accomplish their divine task.

Now it approached. The Palace itself reared up into the flame-streaked murk, already covered in a creeping jacket of twisting fibres. Its vast gates were cracked and thrown down, its mighty domes gaping like smashed eggshells, its immense towers burning. Daemons leapt and scampered across its long, rangy battlements, pursuing the few living defenders with commendably spiteful zeal. Lightning snapped and twisted across its shattered vistas, licking like whips along the ragged profile.

‘There it lies, o my brother!’ shouted Otto, standing up on Ghurk’s heaving shoulders. ‘You see it? There it lies!’

Even Ethrac was grinning then. He stood too, leaning on his staff. The Imperial Palace – the very heart of the mortals’ realm – lay broken before them. No invading army had ever come this far. This was the throne of the boy-god, the very heart of his foul and decadent kingdom, and they were on the cusp of it. They had slain and slain and slain until the mud-mires of the streets were the colours of spoiled wine, and this was the reward.

Otto looked up at the colossal edifice, and began to laugh. The laughter split his lips, burbling like a torrent from his mouth. His ribs ached, his shoulders shook. There was nothing left – they had done it.

Ghurk cantered happily up the long straight road towards the Palace, crashing into the statues of old heroes that lined the processional. Behind him came the tribesmen of the wilds, driven into a frenzy by the savage joy of sacking the home of their ancestral enemies.

Otto was the first to spot the newcomers. In defiance of all reason, more defenders were clustering around the Palace’s outer walls. As if plucked from the air, they were lining what remained of the parapets and waiting for the onslaught. At first, he could not believe it – thinking it a trick of the flickering half-light.

Then, slowly, he realised the truth.

‘The dead,’ he muttered.

By then, Ethrac had sensed it, too. ‘I knew it!’ the sorcerer snapped. ‘Did I not warn you?’

Otto glowered at him. More skeletons and living cadavers were taking up position across the Palace approaches, blocking the head of the processional in ever greater numbers. Unlike the mortals they replaced, they showed nothing but implacable dedication, standing silently before the oncoming horde, their pale faces empty and their eyes unblinking.

‘Do they fight us for the carcass of this Empire?’ blurted Otto, furiously. ‘Is that it? We must lay low two armies this day?’

Ethrac spat messily onto his brother’s hide and started shaking his staff. ‘They have joined against us, o my brother. They are united in weakness.’ The sorcerer smiled grimly. ‘But two rotten planks do not make a life-raft. They will both be swept away.’

At that, he brandished the staff two-handed, and the bells clanged wildly. More forks of aethyr-tempest slammed down, breaking up the cobbles and sending the stones flying. The Leechlord’s vortex accelerated further, hurling great slaps of mucus into the waiting ranks of undead. The vines and grave-moss that had shot up from every mortar-joint writhed out like snakes.

Ghurk bellowed, pawing the ground like a giant bull. The Norscans at his feet roared in hatred, furious that an easy prize had been snatched away at the last moment.

‘We broke the mortals!’ cried Otto, his face purple with rage. ‘Now we break the immortals!’

And with that, the horrific vanguard of the plague-god surged up the processional, beating for the Palace gates like a sluice of boiled blood flung down an abattoir’s drain. With a final roar, the host of the Glottkin charged against the gathering might of the undead, and unholy battle was joined at last in the grounds of Sigmar’s Palace.

The scale of the catastrophe had been apparent for miles. As Deathclaw had neared the Reik valley, the column of fire and storm-wind had loomed ever vaster, climbing like a mountain into the skies. It was twisting in a vast, glacial rotation, as if an immense vice were being applied to the city below, gradually squeezing the life out of it like a wine-press eking out the blood of the grapes.

Neither Martak nor Karl Franz said anything for a long time. There were no words to describe the sheer size of it. The heavens themselves were being ripped open, and the fury of the Other Realm poured down onto the land below. Nothing, surely, could stand against that degree of power. Whatever spells had been recited to unleash such devastation must have been beyond any that had been spoken before.

The world was indeed changed. Martak could sense it in his blood – the Laws that governed his art were twisting, buckled under enormous pressure. They had whispered this past year that the bonds of Shyish had been loosened, thinning the boundaries between life and death, but now it seemed that all the Eight Winds were running amok.

‘This cannot be halted, lord!’ Martak blurted out at last, unable to contain his frustration at what they were doing. He felt insignificant – a mere speck against an infinite sky, hurtling headlong into a maelstrom of terrifying size and power.

The Emperor did not reply. As the scale of the plague-storm had become steadily apparent, he had retreated into himself, driving Deathclaw hard. The griffon still bore the wounds it had taken at Heffengen, and was clearly losing strength, but Karl Franz gave the beast no respite.

Below them, the forest was scored with the paths of mighty armies. Whole swathes had been trampled down, betraying the routes the enemy had taken to beat down Altdorf’s gates. The river itself was a thick, olive-green sliver of mud, its energy stripped from it. Even up high, the stench was incredible – an overpowering melange of death, sickness and mortal fear.

‘You said you dreamed of this?’ shouted Karl Franz at last.

Martak nodded grimly. Everything was as he had foreseen – the flames running riot through the lower portions of the city, the terrible slaughter all around the walls, the burgeoning vegetation rearing up against the Palace walls and breaking them open. As they neared, he could see pitched battles spreading out across the entire valley. To the west and east, mounted horsemen were fighting a desperate rearguard defence against a sea of Chaos infantry. At the North Gate, Empire troops were grimly holding onto a narrow stretch of territory against a tide of war-maddened beastmen. Inside the walls, the fighting was more confused, and appeared to be a messy three-way tussle between corrupted Chaos warriors, the hemmed-in remnants of Empire soldiery, and a host of undead, who had taken whole chunks of the poor quarter and were advancing, street by street, across the city.

The entire world, it seemed, had come to Altdorf – Sigmar’s city had sucked them in, from Bretonnia, from Sylvania, from the Wastes of the north and the depths of the forest. All had come to feast on the Empire’s harrowed corpse.

‘I dreamed of more than this,’ Martak cried back. ‘You know of what I speak.’

Karl Franz maintained the pace, forcing Deathclaw lower. The city swept closer, spread out below them in all its ravaged glory. ‘And yet you tell me the Law of Death is weakened.’

‘It is,’ replied Martak, struggling to make his own wilful steed follow the Emperor closely. ‘But what of it? I am no necromancer – we cannot raise the slain.’

Karl Franz looked up then, a strange expression on his face. Martak had never seen a look quite like it – there was no fear, not even anger, just a kind of resignation.

‘Surely even you see it now,’ said the Emperor, gesturing towards the heavens.

Martak followed his gaze. Above them, still shrouded by the turning gyre of the heavens, a new light was now visible. Shorn of the competing glow of Morrslieb, the twin-tailed star could be made out, riding high above the drifting filth of the world below. Martak watched it burn, captivated by its strange, otherworldly light.

It was not a comforting light. There was nothing homely or warming about it – Sigmar’s star had ever been a harbinger of great trials, and of the changing of ways, and of the passing of one age into another. The flames rippled along behind it, hard to focus on yet impossible to ignore.

Martak felt his heart miss its beat. All citizens of the Empire had been raised on tales of the comet. Men made its sign against their breast before going into battle; mothers made the gesture over the cots of the newborn, warding them against the terrors of the night. It was their sign, the mark of humanity, lodged amid a world of war and madness that had hated them for all eternity.

‘What does it mean?’ Martak asked.

Karl Franz flew on. The city was approaching quickly now. Below them, the gaping great dome of the Palace drew into focus. Vast forces were converging on it now, fighting against one another for the prize. Deathclaw began to plummet.

‘That death is not to be feared,’ said the Emperor, his voice trailing off as he descended.

Martak hovered above him for a moment longer, unwilling to commit to the dive. Everything below him reeked of corruption and insanity. Screams still mingled with the howl of the plague-wind, and the burning pyre of Altdorf loomed ahead like a festering scar on the hide of a gods-forsaken world.

‘What does that mean?’ he muttered, holding position, unable to share the blithe conviction displayed by his master. ‘What has he seen?’

He could still get out. He had delivered the Emperor to the city, just as he had promised, and that was where his duty ended. Even if Altdorf were to be scrubbed from the earth, there might still be places to hide, refuges in the mountains where a man like him could scratch some kind of a living.

He laughed at himself harshly. They really had appointed a terrible Supreme Patriarch.

‘I broke you out of that cage,’ he said to his griffon, grimacing wryly. ‘Time I took you back.’

He gave the command, and the griffon cawed wildly, before furling its wings and following the Emperor down into the inferno below.

Just as the daemon reached out for Margrit, something moving incredibly fast shot out of the skies, streaking like lightning from the storm. She had the vague impression of wings, blurred with speed, and the cry of a human voice speaking a language she did not understand. She scrambled backward, out of the path of the clutching claws, and saw what looked like a massive eagle diving straight at the daemon’s face.

But it was not an eagle – it was a beast out of legends, a hippogryph, part-horse, part bird, with griffon-like claws and a long, lashing tail. Its rider thrust his long lance straight into the daemon’s heart, and its hide broke open with a hideous rip.

The daemon screamed, and clutched at the lance. The rider’s momentum carried him onward, and the steel tip drove in deeper, causing black blood to fountain along its length.

The daemon ripped the lance out, hurling both rider and steed clear. With a crash of armour, the hippogryph slammed into the courtyard wall, cracking the stone. The daemon reeled, the skin of its vast chest hanging open in strips. Blood continued to gush freely, pouring like an inky cataract down its sloping stomach and fizzing where it spread across the ground.

Possessed by a sudden impulse to come to the rider’s aid, Margrit rushed forward, whirling the blunt blade in her hand. She stabbed it into the daemon’s hoof. It took all her strength just to pierce the thick layers of hide encrusting the cloven foot, and she heaved down on the hilt to drive the rusting sword home.

To such an immense creature, the blow must have been little more than a scratch, but it brought fresh bellows nonetheless. The daemon leaned forward, bending double to clutch at her. Margrit staggered out of its reach again, feeling raw fear bubble up inside her. Her attack now seemed more an act of incredible rashness than bravery. Up close, the incapacitating stench was even worse than before, and she nearly retched as the claws reached out for her.

She felt the first talons scrape down her back, dragging at her sweat-stained robes, and prepared for death.

At least I bloodied it, she thought vindictively as she was hauled back.

But then the grip released, and she was dumped to the stone again. Twisting around, she saw the reason – the hippogryph rider had charged back into the fray, his lance gone but now bearing a broadsword.

Even amid all the terror and all the filth, Margrit was struck by his sheer beauty. His blond hair seemed to shimmer like gold, and his armour, though streaked with blood, still glittered with a high sheen. He charged straight at the daemon, spitting words of challenge that sounded like some strange music, working his blade in blistering arcs and hacking into its loose flesh. He moved so fast, shrugging off wounds and taking the fight straight to the creature that loomed over him in an almost comical mismatch of sizes. He had to leap into the air even to land a blow, driving his sword once more into the daemon’s ribs and twisting the blade as gravity wrenched it out again.

The daemon, howling in rage and frustration, swept its sword at him in a massive, earth-breaking lunge. The knight, incredibly, met the strike with his shield, though the clang of metal-on-metal thrust him back six paces and nearly crushed him back against the wall.

Margrit shuffled further out of reach, on her knees, frantically searching for another weapon – something she could use to aid the knight. More cries of battle rang out from elsewhere in the courtyard, and she had the vague, blurred impression of other daemons racing through the broken gates, joining in combat with the rest of the sisters and their guards.

The greater daemon, though, consumed all her attention. It traded huge blows with the knight. Each one, by rights, ought to have broken him, but he just kept on fighting, hammering back with wild strokes, making up in speed and guile what he lacked in stature. He seemed to dance around the daemon’s lumbering frame, giving it no time to crush him under its massive fists. The lance-wound in the daemon’s chest still pumped blood, visibly draining it as the fight went on.

The monster howled with fury, and launched a backhanded swipe straight at the knight’s chest. He managed to get his shield in the way, but the force of the impact slammed him to his knees. The daemon, sensing a kill, raised its other fist high and prepared to slam it down.

With a savage scream, the hippogryph hurtled across the courtyard, flying straight into the daemon’s face and lashing out with its claws. The two creatures grappled with one another, gouging and tearing, and the daemon was once more rocked back onto its bloated haunches.

Eventually the daemon managed to scythe its heavy blade around, catching the hippogryph on its wing-shoulder and sending it tumbling back against the courtyard floor. Its wings broken and its chest leaking blood, the beast hit the stone with a wet snap, crumpled to the ground, and moved no more.

But it had given the knight time to recover. He rose again, blade in hand, and cast his battered shield to one side.

As Margrit looked on, both rapt and horrified by the spectacle, her roving hands finally closed on something. She looked down to see an earthenware pot, of the kind used by the sisters to carry the sacred water up from the wells. By some strange chance it was half-full, somehow overlooked when the rest had been poured around the perimeter. She grabbed it and dragged herself to her feet again.

‘Master knight!’ she cried, then threw it to him.

He caught the pot in his shield hand, more by instinct than anything else. He had no time to guess what it was, nor to protest, for the horribly wounded daemon bore down on him, reaching out to throttle him where he stood.

The knight lashed out with his blade, severing the hooked fingers as they closed, then raced forward, grabbing on to the daemon’s slabbed stomach and climbing up its ravaged chest.

The daemon tried to rip the knight away, but was hampered by its own clumsy blade. The knight hurled the pot at the ragged wound-edge, where it smashed open, dousing the bloody flesh-pulp with sacred water.

Huge gouts of steam immediately erupted, engulfing both combatants. The daemon’s screams were deafening now, and it clawed at itself in agony, opening up the flesh-rent further and exposing a huge, black heart within.

The knight took up his sword two-handed, holding it point-down above his head, bracing against the sway and twist of the daemon’s writhing. With a cry of vindication, he plunged it straight down, bursting the creature’s heart open in an explosion of boiling ichor.

The daemon thrashed and bucked, its entire body convulsing in a rippling wave of fat and torn muscle. Its horned head swung from side to side, narrowly missing goring the knight, who clung on somehow, twisting the sword in deeper, ramming it in up to the hilt and pressing it home.

With a horrific shudder, the daemon’s struggles gradually gave out. Aethyr-lightning burst into life across its body, snapping and tearing at the fabric of reality. It bellowed again, a sound of pure spite, but now its frame was unravelling fast, dissipating back into the realm from whence it had been summoned.

Still the knight clung on, never letting go of his sword. A huge bang resounded across the courtyard, shattering stone and making the earth ripple like water. Margrit was thrown onto her back, and she hit the ground hard. There was a rush of wind, hot as flame, and a long, agonised shriek.

The wind blew out, tearing itself into oblivion almost as soon as it had arrived. Margrit looked up, feeling blood in her mouth. The courtyard was half-demolished, with the bodies of men, women and daemons lying prone in the rubble. A huge slime-crusted crater had opened up where the daemon had been. In the centre of it stood the knight, his shoulders bowed, keeping his feet with difficulty, his armour coated in gobbets of thick black slime.

He limped over to her, pushing his visor up, a weary smile on his drawn face. He bowed low, displaying more courtesy in that one gesture than any Empire soldier had ever given her across a lifetime of service, and addressed her in broken, heavily accented Reikspiel.

‘My good lady,’ he gasped, breathing heavily, ‘you have the thanks of a king. By all that is holy, that was well done.’

Twenty-Two

Helborg ran through the burning streets, fighting when he had to, hugging the shadows and sprinting hard when he did not. Only Zintler and nine of his most trusted Reiksguard had come with him; the rest had been left to hold the precarious line to the north.

Altdorf was now more populated than it had been for generations. A bizarre mix of Empire citizens, state troops, northmen, daemons and undead warriors fought one another in a bitter and fractured melee, breaking down into a thousand little battles over every scrap of unclaimed terrain. The arrival of von Carstein’s army had thrown everything into confusion, locking the previously unstoppable march of the Chaos armies into a grinding stalemate. Across the devastated townscape, the various factions lost, gained and held ground, all under the continuing howl of the plague-storm.

In truth, the petty defeats and conquests now mattered little to Helborg. The city was lost, either to the still-massive hosts of the Ruinous Powers, or to the similarly gigantic force of raised slain that marched against them. Each enemy was as horrifying as the other. The daemons retained their unearthly powers, able to leap and shimmer through reality before bringing their spell-wound weapons to bear, while the dead had terrible strengths of their own. Helborg had seen the wight-kings tear into battle wearing the armour of ages and carrying blades forged at the very birth of the Empire. Ghosts and crypt horrors threw themselves into the fray, each capable of causing terrible damage before being dragged down. They were met by tallymen and plaguebearers, just as dire in combat and with the same lack of fear and preternatural devotion to their cause.

The result was that the mortals were being pushed to one side. Exhausted by weeks of plague, fatigued by the long siege preparations, shocked by the ferocity of the initial assault, the surviving Empire troops clung on to what little ground they could, increasingly only spectators before the real battles between the Fallen and the dead.

That was not enough for Helborg. He had not suffered so long to see his city torn apart by rival invaders. Vlad could protest as much as he liked – there was no honour in the scions of Sylvania, and as soon as the battle was done the vampire lord would revert to type. Even amid all that had taken place, there were still things that had to be accomplished.

He had to get to the Palace. That had not yet fallen in its entirety, despite the forces that fought their way towards it, street by street, kill by single kill.

So the Reiksguard ran hard. Helborg’s face streamed with blood, and the pain spurred him on. He fought with an angry, vicious fury now, forgetting any pretensions at strategy or finesse and giving in to the raw violence that had threatened to overwhelm him for so long.

As they raced across the Griffon Bridge, its wide span crawling with whole clusters of desperate duels, he kicked and hacked his way through the throngs. The Klingerach lashed out, taking the head clean off a leering plaguebearer, before he spun on his heel and smashed the hilt into the face of an oncoming marauder. Then he was running again, his brother-knights hard on his heels.

Ahead of them, the Palace reared up into the storm, now covered in a thick layer of corrupted growths, its outline obscured and its lines tainted. White-edged flames licked across its broken back, fuelled and perverted by the poisons now freely coursing through the vegetation. Laughter still resounded in the storm-wind – the laughter of an amused, sadistic god that cared little how the battle fared so long as misery and misfortune continued to spread thickly.

‘My lord!’ cried Zintler, panting hard. ‘The skies!’

Helborg looked up sharply, loath to be distracted from the chase. When he did so, however, his heart leapt.

A star burned brightly in the morning sky, only partly obscured by the roiling clouds. Its light was austere and hard to look at – a shifting flicker of pale flame. Behind it trailed two lines of fire, snapping and twisting like streamers.

He halted, suddenly held rapt by the vision.

The twin-tailed star.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Zintler.

Helborg laughed. ‘I have no idea. But it is here.’

As he stared at it, it seemed to him that two tiny specks of darkness fell from the skies, racing out of the light of the star one after the other, plummeting like peregrines on the hunt-dive.

He blinked, trying to clear his sweat-blurred vision, and they were gone. For a moment, it had looked like two mighty eagles had dropped from the heavens, falling fast towards the open carcass of the Imperial Palace.

‘We have to get there,’ he said, snapping back into focus. The bridge terminated less than fifty yards ahead, after which the land rose sharply, crowned with the mansions and counting-houses of the nobility. Most were aflame, or slumped into rubble, or blazed with unnatural light, and what little remained was now contested by the two ancient enemies of mankind who now struggled for mastery.

It would be hellish. They would have to fight their way through a mile of steep, switchbacked roads before reaching the processional leading towards the gates. That was where the concentration of Chaos warriors was greatest, and where even the undead had toiled to make progress. They would be lucky to make it halfway, and unless the twin-tailed star looked kindly on them, they might not even get that far.

Helborg found himself grinning with a kind of fey madness. Everything he cherished was already gone. All that remained was the last, desperate sprint towards the heart of it all, to where he had always been destined to meet his end. The comet showed the way, lighting up the path with its flickering, gold-edged light.

The End Times, he thought to himself grimly as he broke into a run once more. So this is what they look like.

Leoncoeur did not have time to speak to the priestess for long – the courtyard was still crawling with plaguebearers. Many had been banished by the shock wave of the greater daemon’s departure, but others lingered, re-knitting their aethyr-spun bodies together and advancing once more towards the huddled group of guardsmen and priestesses.

He could barely stand. The fight against the creature of Chaos had drained him to the core, and even with the timely aid of the blessed water he had scarcely prevailed. He backed away from the daemons’ advance, gathering his strength for renewed fighting.

The priestess came with him, unarmed now but unwilling to leave his side.

‘What is your name, lord?’ she asked, her eyes never leaving the hordes of daemons creeping through the ruined outer wall.

‘What does that matter now, sister?’ Leoncoeur replied. ‘We are all fighters.’

She looked satisfied by that. ‘I was hoping for an Emperor,’ she said dryly. ‘Perhaps a king will do.’

Then, barging aside the lesser creatures of Chaos, the obese and horrific scythe-bearer clambered over the wreckage of the gates and fixed them both with a gaze of pure loathing. Though dwarfed by the slain greater daemon, this new creature was scarce less foul, and he stank just as badly. His jowls wobbled as he raised an accusing finger.

‘You,’ the monster drawled through bloody lips. ‘You killed it.’

‘As I will you,’ warned Leoncoeur, remaining inside the line of the water. ‘You have seen it already – come no closer.’

From outside the walls, sounds of battle had broken out again. Leoncoeur could hear the unearthly cries of the plaguebearers as they took on an unseen enemy. Perhaps some of the pegasus riders still fought on, though he guessed there were few of them left now. He caught the faint whiff of something sepulchral on the air, vying with the stench of decay, and wondered what it meant.

‘You killed it!’ screamed the Leechlord, advancing across the line of sacred water as if it were not there. Though it had proved a barrier against the least of the Chaos warriors, it did nothing to halt those most steeped in the twisting powers of the aethyr. ‘Such beauty, gone from the world!’

Leoncoeur pushed the priestess behind him, shielding her with his body. The tumult of combat from beyond the walls grew louder. With a sudden realisation, Leoncoeur knew the reason for the creature’s fury – the tide had turned. Against all hope, his army of fleshy horrors was being driven back, though by whom or what he could not yet see.

He allowed himself a smile of dark contentment. He had done what he had come for. The temple was secure, and a chink of light would endure amid the darkness. Whatever happened now, the journey had not been in vain.

‘Your spells unravel themselves,’ Leoncoeur taunted, edging warily closer. ‘You will not take this place now, and it turns your mind to see it.’

That proved the final straw. The Leechlord lumbered towards him, raving and spitting, his flabby arms cartwheeling. Leoncoeur raised his sword, and their weapons clashed – steel against iron. They traded blows in a furious whirl. Leoncoeur shattered the creature’s scythe with a single swipe, then pressed the attack by driving his blade deep into his overspilled stomach. Entrails flopped out, hanging like strings from the burst skin-sac.

Somehow, that did not stop him. The Leechlord swayed back into the attack, pulling a bone-saw from his belt and slashing wildly. Every blow that landed felt like a warhammer-strike – heavy and deadening. Leoncoeur could feel his arms ache. The long ride, followed by the battle at the gates, then the grinding duel against the greater daemon – the toll was too heavy.

‘For the Lady!’ he cried, redoubling the blows from his blood-smeared broadsword. He managed to drive another thrust deep into the creature’s midriff, further opening the wound and showering the flagstones with speckled gore.

But the Leechlord was immune to pain, and his raddled body could absorb the most horrific levels of punishment. Unlike the daemon, he was a creation of flesh and blood, and would not be banished back to the aethyr. He opened his vast maw and vomited straight at Leoncoeur’s chest.

The deluge was horrific, splattering into his eyes and making him gag. He staggered away, blinded by the foul matter. Unable to defend himself, he felt the sharp cut of the bone-saw as it punched into his throat.

He jerked away, flailing wildly with his sword, but he could already feel the hot cascade down his chest. The cut was mortal, and black stars spun before his eyes.

He crashed to the ground, fighting hard to stay conscious. The Leechlord towered over him triumphantly, his whole body sagging open from the wounds he had taken, but with the vicious light of victory in his porcine eyes.

Leoncoeur’s blurred gaze wandered over to where the priestess stood, watching in horror, unable to intervene with no weapon to hand.

But she had done enough. The gift of water had proved sufficient, and the irony only then occurred to him.

Look for me in pure waters.

‘She has blessed you indeed,’ he murmured, just as the Leechlord brought the saw down and cut deep into his chest.

Leoncoeur’s back arced in agony. He felt his ribs sever and his muscles part. Fighting back against the pain, he stared straight into the face of his killer, and cracked a grin.

That enraged the Leechlord further, but before he could twist the saw in deeper, he suddenly went rigid. A look of panic flashed across his features, and his arms thrust out, shivering. He tried to turn, but his body was rapidly turning into something else – hard, bark-like matter that burst out from under his pustulent hide.

‘What... is...’ he stammered, but then his tongue solidified and his whole body shuddered into rigidity.

His awareness slipping away, Leoncoeur just had enough time to see the cause. A tall warrior wearing crimson armour stepped from the shadow of the Leechlord, a bloody stake in his hand and a smoking ring on his pale finger. The two of them looked at one another, and the crimson-armoured lord inclined an ice-white, long-maned head.

With his last sight, Leoncoeur saw the remainder of the daemons being driven from the courtyard, pursued by grey-skinned warriors in archaic armour. With the Leechlord’s downfall, there was nothing to bind them together – a new force had arrived, one with the power and the will to take them on.

Leoncoeur’s head lolled. When it hit the stone, it felt almost like the feather bolsters of his old cot in Couronne’s castle. An overwhelming feeling of numbness shot up his limbs, stifling the pain.

The priestess was at his side then, cradling him. He managed to shoot her a final smile.

‘My lady,’ he whispered.

So it was that, courteous to the last, Louen Leoncoeur died in the precincts of the Temple of Shallya, ringed by the living and the dead.

The Glottkin tore up to the Palace gates, surging like the unleashed force of nature they had always been. Undead warriors tried to block their path, forming a cordon before the open doorway, but they were swept away like chaff. Ghurk picked up several with one sweep of his fist. Disgusted that he could not eat them, he hurled their bony bodies away.

The cavernous interior of the Palace beckoned. Once it would have stood proudly, a masterpiece of baroque excess, soaring into the skies and ringed by graven images of gods and heroes. Now, mere hours after their arrival, the entire complex ran wild with an overabundance of reeking foliage. Mosses, vines and weeds sprouted from every crevice, prising apart the stone and bringing down pillars and buttresses. The entire structure now listed uneasily on its slime-glossed foundations, and entire wings had collapsed under the weight of the mucus-deluge and the burgeoning plague-growths.

Otto beat Ghurk’s hide harder, forcing him to gallop into the heart of the great sprawl of ruination. The undead were everywhere now, spilling from balconies and clawing up from the sewers underfoot. Festus’s plague-rain was already beginning to lessen, and the assault teetered on a knife-edge. Seizing the Palace was now imperative – the scryers had all foretold that the end would come there, and that he, Otto Glott, paramount servant of the Plaguefather, would be the one to land the killing blow. It would take place at the very centre, the oldest and the grandest edifice of humanity on earth, and no sudden apparitions nor ghosts from the blasted wilds could be allowed to halt that now. They had destroyed the undead at Heffengen, they had destroyed them at Marienburg, and now they would destroy them at Altdorf.

‘Onward, on, o my brother!’ Otto commanded, thrashing Ghurk madly with his scythe-butt.

Ghurk chortled happily, and crashed through a whole string of vine-strewn courtyards, lashing out with his tentacle-arm and crunching apart any skeletons unwary enough to oppose him.

Ethrac was busy too, hurling blast after blast of aethyr-lightning from his staff. Revenants were blown into slivers of spinning bone, their armour shattered and their swords crushed into spiralling shards. He had seen the twin-tailed star again, and this time the omen seemed to trouble him. He uttered no cries of victory, but mumbled an endless series of cantrips and summonings, ringing them all in a lattice of writhing witch-light.

The hosts of Chaos that had accompanied them on the long charge into the Palace grounds now fanned out, taking the fight to the scions of Sylvania. Every corridor, every passageway and bridge-span was clogged with struggling warriors, locked in a pitiless struggle for mastery. The storm raced above them, lashing the combatants in the plague-rain and drenching the few remaining open spaces. Everywhere else, the foul garden bloomed, spreading its poisons into the very depths of the city vaults.

‘I saw them come down,’ muttered Ethrac, hurling more green-laced fire from his staff-tip.

‘Who?’ asked Otto, preoccupied with directing Ghurk towards the centres of resistance.

‘The fallen king. I saw him, under the light of the comet. He will be there.’

Otto let a grin slide across his sore-thick lips. ‘We knew he would. That is the sacrifice, the one to usher in the end.’

‘Cut him deep, o my brother,’ said Ethrac, letting rip with a blast of aethyr-energy that blazed across the rain-thick air and exploded in virulent swirls against a formation of wights. ‘Cut him so deep that the world beneath him is severed. Nothing else matters.’

The Glott siblings broke into a wide muster-yard just under the shadow of the Palace’s colossal main dome. It was less than two hundred yards towards the smashed doorway inside, beyond which they could already see the marble and gold interior glinting.

Before them, though, was arranged the last defence. No living soldiers still guarded the inner Palace, but they were no longer needed. A whole army of zombies waited for them, clambering over one another in a press of squirming limbs. They seemed to be swarming out of the ground itself, piled up in a heap of wriggling, necrotic flesh that looked more like a single organism than a mob of hundreds.

Ghurk barrelled onwards, undeterred. Ethrac began to shriek new chants, and Otto built up momentum with his scythe. The Army of Corruption charged along beside them, pouring into the muster-yard.

With a high-pitched scream, the glut of zombies burst outward, cascading like a lanced boil. The tangled web of undead stumbled and staggered towards them, as thick as the slime-rain, a whole forest of grasping fingers and rusting blades. The two armies slammed into one another, and the muster-yard was immediately filled with the scrabbling, sickening sounds of dry flesh tearing and plague-riddled sinews ripping.

Ghurk waded into the melee, lashing out with his tentacle-arm and scooping up dozens of zombies. Ethrac blasted more of them, infesting their dead hides with virulent parasites that punched out from within, crippling them and leaving them writhing on the stone.

Nothing stopped them completely, though – they came on with inexorable purpose, groaning and reaching, ignoring blows that would have ended a mortal warrior. Zombies latched on to Ghurk’s legs and began to climb. Many were kicked away, but others quickly took their place. Soon Ghurk was wading waist-deep in a morass of undead, and still they came on, clambering over one another to get at the creatures riding on his back.

Ethrac began to spit out his frustration, burning the undead with balefire, torching whole bands of them as they reached out to pull up higher. Otto reached down, swinging his long scythe to dislodge those who had dragged themselves into range. A tumbling rain of severed limbs clattered down to the seething mass of bodies below, eliciting not a sound from their stricken owners.

But that was not the worst – the zombie plague was just a foretaste. With an ear-splitting scream, the vampire the triplets had fought – and defeated – at Marienburg flew down from the high parapet of the looming dome, his arms stretched wide and lined with tattered batwings. Other fell creatures came in his wake – a vast winged horror with a skeletal ribcage and bony claws – a terrorgheist – egged on by three shrieking ladies in bone-white lace. Clouds of corpse-gas billowed out as they swooped in, reacting with the plague-growths and hissing like snakes.

Ghurk instantly lunged for the winged creature, whipping his tentacle-arm up to haul it down from the skies. He connected, wrapping his arm around the beast’s spiny neck, but had underestimated its strength. The terrorgheist remained aloft, and began to drag Ghurk across the ground, pulling him further into the writhing knots of zombies.

The first of the undead clambered onto Ghurk’s back, and soon Otto and Ethrac were both fighting them off. They became separated from their own warriors, pulled by the terrorgheist deeper into the scrabbling pall of flesh-eaters.

‘Wither them!’ cried Otto, hacking his scythe down with frantic abandon.

Ethrac obliged, turning a whole gang of zombies into crackling torches of emerald flame, but it was not nearly enough. The terrorgheist continued to haul Ghurk along, forcing the compressed crowds of zombies up to chest-level.

Otto looked up, seeing the vampire lord preparing a spell of his own. Dark shadows began to crystallise around him, sucked out of the air and transfused into the Wind of Death.

‘The vampire!’ Otto shrieked, too far away to prevent it. ‘He is the master! Snap his neck! Blind his eyes! Crack his bones!’

Ethrac, riding Ghurk’s lurching back with difficulty, immediately saw the truth of it. The sorcerer lashed out with his staff, making the bells clang wildly. He spat out words of power, and the vampire’s spell immediately inverted, turning on its owner in a vortex of ragged shadow. The vampire, taken by surprise, cried out in alarm, suddenly feeling the cold touch of his own magicks, but Ethrac was now in control, and the Chaos sorcerer shook his staff again with real venom.

Mundvard the Cruel’s body exploded, flying outward in a welter of tattered strips. His skeleton hung together for an instant, then clattered down to the muster-yard’s surface. As soon as the bones hit, they were crushed into the stone by the hundreds of criss-crossing boots. Once the vampire’s grip was broken, the terrorgheist immediately lost its momentum, and the pressure on Ghurk abated.

Ghurk hauled back hard with his tentacle, digging his hooves in and tugging. The terrorgheist’s bony neck broke, and the creature gasped out a glut of corpse-gas from its gaping jaws. Its sinewy wings flapped pathetically, and it thudded to the ground. With the creature’s momentum broken, the mob of zombies collapsed around Ghurk, scattering in twisted piles of confusion at his feet.

‘There is no time for this!’ hissed Otto, using his scythe to clear the last of the clinging zombies from Ghurk’s hide. ‘Clear them out!’

Ghurk obeyed, bounding after the remaining enemy, swinging both arms like jackhammers.

The three women in lace leapt down from their vantage then, spitting curses. Ethrac was too busy breaking the remainder of the zombies to respond, so Otto hauled his scythe back, swung it around three times, then let go. The blade flew towards the leader of the trio, rotating in a blur of speed. Before she could evade the missile, it sliced clean across her neck, decapitating her in a single strike and spraying blood in broad spatters against the walls of the yard.

‘Return!’ cried Otto, reaching out with his right claw.

The scythe immediately swung around again, still spinning, and dropped back into his waiting palm.

That broke the spirit of the remaining undead horde. Bereft of the guiding will of their vampiric masters, the zombies lost all cohesion, and were soon mopped up by the oncoming tribesmen. The two remaining ladies fled back into the Palace depths, wailing like infants. Ghurk rampaged through the remaining throng, treading the last survivors into the stone underfoot. He crashed over the carcass of the terrorgheist and repeatedly stamped on it, powdering the bones and trampling the meagre scraps of sinew that still clung to them.

‘Is this really the best they can do?’ muttered Otto, still busy with his scythe.

‘We killed the master,’ said Ethrac, hurling more plague-slime about him with great heaves. ‘Why do any still stand? The dead return to death when the master is killed.’

Otto shrugged. The Palace now lay before them, its doors gaping open and its riches clustered within, and lust was already overtaking his fury. ‘Who knows? Perhaps there is another to be found.’

Ethrac kept up the barrage of raw sorcery, exploding zombies at a terrific rate. The broken dome of the Palace loomed up massively, a cyclopean structure even in its ruin. Flames still guttered around it, fuelled by the unleashed lethal energies, and the storm-pattern of clouds formed an immense cupola over the whole scene.

The devastation was now total. Every building in the city had been demolished or dragged into ruins. The death-toll was incalculable, and would never be recovered from. In a sense, it mattered not what happened now – they had done what no warlord of the north had ever done. They had broken Sigmar’s city, wreathing it in fell sorcery and drenching it in the blood of the slain.

But there was still the final blow to be struck. The human Emperor still lived, and had come back to his den in time for the denouement. Such had always been predicted, and the Plaguefather had never guided them awry.

‘He is in there,’ said Ethrac, barely noticing as his troops slaughtered and smashed the last remnants of the defence. ‘I can smell him.’

Otto grinned back at him, his face sticky with blood.

‘Then we go inside,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And bring this dance to its end.’

Margrit looked up at the vampire, not knowing whether to thank him or curse him. His fell warriors had cleared the courtyard of daemons and were now pursuing the remaining Chaos forces out of the square beyond. The surviving humans emerged from whatever places they had managed to barricade themselves behind, mistrust etched on their faces.

Vlad von Carstein was still gazing at the body of Leoncoeur. There was a sadness on the vampire’s face.

For all that, the creature’s aura still made Margrit shudder. For her whole life, she had been taught to fear and hate the grave-stealers. If any force of the world was truly anathema to hers, it was the bringers of everlasting death.

‘And what of us, lord?’ she asked, staring up at him defiantly. ‘Now you have your victory, what is your purpose?’

Vlad turned to her, as if seeing her for the first time. Margrit could not help noticing that his gaze flickered instinctively down to her throat.

‘If there were time, lady, I might show you all manner of wonders,’ he said. ‘You can see for yourself, though, that none remains.’

He looked up, past the temple dome and towards the Palace hilltop. His eyes narrowed, as if he were focusing on things far away.

‘This is your temple again, for a time,’ he said, coldly. ‘Bury your dead and look to your walls. If all goes well, I will be back.’

Then his whole body seemed to shimmer like a shadow in sunlight. The ring on his finger briefly flared with crimson light, and his gaunt frame dissolved into a flock of squealing bats. They fluttered skywards, spiralling into the rain-lashed skies.

Margrit watched the bats go, slumped against the stone of the courtyard with the dead knight leaning against her. The noises of combat were falling away as the undead drove the daemons back from the temple’s environs and into the maze of the burning poor quarter.

She looked up. The plague-rain was beginning to lessen, as was the tearing wind. Though the slimy droplets still cascaded, their force was already beginning to fade.

‘But what is left?’ she murmured to herself, looking around her destroyed temple, at the pools of blood on the stone, at the corroded and gaping rooftops beyond her little kingdom. ‘What is there to be salvaged now?’

No answers came. She smoothed the bloodied hair from the knight’s brow, and closed his eyes. It would have been nice to have known his name.

Twenty-Three

Deathclaw landed on the marble floor, its claws skittering on the polished surface. Karl Franz dismounted just as Martak’s beast landed on the far side of the chamber.

The place had once been a chapel to Sigmar the Uniter. In its prime, a hundred priests a day would perform rites of absolution and petition, processing up the long aisles with burning torches in hand. The high altar was draped in gold and surrounded by the spoils of war – trophies from a hundred realms of the earth, the bleached and polished skulls of greenskins, the wargear of the northmen’s many tribes.

Now all was in disarray. The chapel’s arched roof had collapsed under the weight of pulsating mosses, and loops of pus-glistening tendrils hung from the ragged edges. The chequerboard floor had been driven up, exposing masses of writhing maggots beneath. The altar itself was broken, cracked in two by a creaking thorn-stump, and blowflies swarmed and buzzed over every exposed surface.

Karl Franz pulled the reins from around Deathclaw’s neck and cast them aside. The very action of laying eyes on the devastation was enough to make him feel nauseous, but there was no time to linger over the desecration. From beyond the listing doorway at the rear of the long central aisle, he could already hear the echoes of fighting. The Palace was rife with it, from the high towers to the deepest dungeons. Even from the air he had seen how complete the defeat was – a huge army of Chaos tribesmen and mutated beasts had cut its way deep into the heart of the complex, resisted only by a motley mix of Palace guards and warriors of Sylvania’s cursed moors.

It was just as it had been in Heffengen – the dead fighting with the living. How such allies came to be within the sanctity of the Palace grounds, though, was a question for another time.

‘Now what?’ asked Martak, dismounting clumsily and skidding on the polished floor.

‘The Chamber of the Hammer,’ replied Karl Franz, striding out towards the doors with Deathclaw in tow.

Martak took a little more time to persuade his steed to follow suit, and had to haul on its halter to bring it along. ‘What of the Menagerie, lord?’ he asked. ‘The dragon! Can you not rouse the dragon?’

Karl Franz kept walking. He could have done that. He could have opened all the cages and let the beasts loose, but it would not accomplish anything now. There was only one course open to him, one he barely understood, one that could only bring him pain.

‘Time is short, wizard,’ he said, reaching the doors and peering out through their wreckage. A long corridor stretched away, empty of enemies for the moment and ankle-thick with fungus spores. ‘You will have to trust me.’

Martak hurried to catch up. ‘Trust you? You have told me nothing! You saw the armies, you know how close they are.’ He fixed the Emperor with a look of pure exasperation. ‘What will this serve?’

Karl Franz looked back at him with some sympathy. There were no easy answers, and it was not as if his own intentions filled him with any certainty. All he had now were feelings, stirred by the sight of the comet and prompted by vague premonitions and old whisperings.

It could all be futile – everything, every step he had taken since the disaster at the Auric Bastion. But, he reflected, was that not the essence of faith? To trust in the promptings of the soul in the face of all evidence to the contrary?

He would have to dig deeper, to drag some surety from somewhere. In the meantime, there was little he could do to assuage the wizard’s doubts.

‘If you wish to rouse the beasts, then I will not prevent you,’ said Karl Franz. ‘You have delivered me to this place, and for that alone I remain in your debt. But I will not join you – the time is drawing closer, and I must be under the sign of Ghal Maraz when the test comes.’

He forced a smile. The wizard would have to follow his own path now.

‘You may join me or leave me – such is your fate – but do not try to prevent me.’ He started walking again, and Deathclaw followed close behind, ducking under the lintel of the chapel doors. ‘This is the end of all things, and when all is gone – all magic, all strength, all hope – then only faith remains.’

The spell guttered out, and Vlad reconstituted deep in the heart of the Imperial Palace.

For a moment, it was all he could do not to stare. He had dreamed of being in this place for so long – more than the lifetime of any mortal. The yearning had stretched through the aeons, as bitter and unfulfilled as the love he had once borne for her. For Isabella. He had often imagined how it would be, to tread the halls as a victor, drinking in the splendour of aeons. Long ago, so long that even he struggled to retain the memory, he had imagined himself on the throne itself, presiding over a whispering court of black-clad servants, the candles burning low in their holders and the music of Old Sylvania echoing in the shadowed vaults.

To have accomplished those long hopes should have made him glad. In the event, all he felt was a kind of confusion. Nagash had given him what he needed to get here at last, but it turned out that all that remained was a ruin of foliage-smothered stonework and gaping, eyeless halls. It would never be rebuilt, not now. He had accomplished his goal, only to find that he was a master of ashes.

‘My lord,’ came a familiar voice.

Vlad turned to see Herrscher and a band of wight-warriors in the armour of the Palace. They must have been raised recently, for their greaves and breastplates were still mottled with soil. Further back stood silent ranks of the undead, interspersed with ragged-looking groups of zombies.

‘Where are the rest?’ asked Vlad.

‘Mundvard and the ladies rode out to halt the plague-host before it reached the Palace,’ said Herrscher. ‘They did not come back.’

Vlad nodded. Perhaps he should have expected it – the Ruinous Powers had always been too strong for his servants to take on.

‘Then their commanders will be within the walls now,’ said Vlad.

‘They have taken the southern entrance,’ said Herrscher. ‘They are heading for the centre, and we are in their path. If we leave now–’

‘Leave?’

Herrscher looked confused. ‘We cannot stay here, lord,’ he protested. ‘Your army is spread throughout the city, but they have broken into the Palace in force. They cannot be stopped, not by us, not without summoning reinforcements.’

Vlad smiled tolerantly. Herrscher looked genuinely perturbed at the prospect of harm coming to him, which was as good a sign as any that his transformation was complete.

‘You are right, witch hunter,’ said Vlad. ‘The longer this goes on, the worse things will go for us. To bring this beast low, we must sever it at the head.’ He smiled thinly. ‘The savages of the north lead their armies from the front. If we wish to find the authors of this plague, look to the vanguard.’

Herrscher looked doubtful. ‘We are so few,’ he muttered.

‘Ah, but you have me with you now.’ Vlad glanced up and down the corridor, trying to get his bearings. ‘I wonder, do any of your old kind still live, or do we have this place to ourselves?’

As if in answer, there was a huge, resounding bang from the corridor running away to the south, like a massive door had been flung back on its hinges. Following that came the sound of a low, slurring panting. The floor shook, trembling with the impact of heavy footfalls.

Herrscher drew his blade, as did the wights, and they fell into a defensive ring around their master.

Vlad unsheathed his own sword with a flourish, finding himself looking forward to what was to come. The footfalls grew louder as the beast smashed its way towards them.

‘So the hunt is unnecessary – they have come to us.’ Vlad raised his sword to his face, noting the lack of reflection in the steel. ‘Now look and learn, witch hunter – this is how a mortarch skins his prey.’

With some regret, both Otto and Ethrac had to dismount from Ghurk as he barrelled on into the Palace interior. Their huge steed now scraped the roof of the corridors, bringing down chandeliers and ceiling-panels as he lumbered ever closer to the goal.

Otto and Ethrac ran alongside him now, both panting hard from the exertion. Ghurk himself seemed as infinitely strong as ever, his bulging muscles still rippling under his mottled hide. The vanguard of their suppurating horde came on behind, wheezing through closed-face helms and carrying their axes two-handed before their bodies.

As they came, they destroyed. Paintings were torn from their frames and ripped to pieces, statues were cast down and shattered. Ghurk’s hooves tore up the marble flooring, and his flailing fists dragged whole sections of wall panels along with him. They were like a hurricane streaking into the heart of the enemy’s abode, breaking it down, brick by brick, into a heap of mouldering refuse.

As they rounded a narrow corner, Otto was the first to catch sight of fresh enemies. A thrill ran through him, and he picked up the pace. ‘Shatter them!’ he cried, his voice cracking with enthusiasm. ‘Smash them!’

Just as at the Palace gates, the warriors lined up against them were no mortals, but more of the undead that had dogged their passage ever since the breaking of the walls. Otto began to feel genuine anger – they just could not be eradicated. They were like a... plague.

Ghurk bounded ahead, and Ethrac matched pace, his staff already shimmering with gathering witch-light. The undead wights rushed down the wide passageway to meet them, racing into battle with their unearthly silence. Soon the corridor was filled with the echoing clang of blades clashing. Zombies and skeletons went up against marauders and tribesmen in a mirror of the desperate combat still scored across the entire cityscape.

There was only one opponent worthy of Otto’s attention, though – a crimson-armoured vampire lord bearing a longsword and wearing a long sable cloak. That one towered over even the mightiest of his servants, and swept arrogantly into battle with the poise of a true warrior-artisan.

Otto swung his scythe, clattering it into the vampire’s oncoming blade even as Ghurk and Ethrac blundered onwards, reaping a swathe through the undead ranks beyond.

‘You are the master, then,’ Otto remarked, parrying a counter-blow before trying to skewer the vampire with his blade’s point. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘My name is known from Kislev to Tilea,’ replied the vampire distastefully. ‘Vlad von Carstein, Elector Count of Sylvania. You, though, are unknown to me.’

Otto laughed, whirling the scythe faster. ‘We are the Glottkin. We come to bury the Empire in its own filth. Why not let us?’

Vlad sneered, trying to find a way through Otto’s whirling defence. The vampire carried himself with an almost unconscious arrogance – the bearing of a creature born to rule, and one who knew how to use a sword. ‘You would cover the whole world in your stink. That will not be allowed to happen.’

‘It cannot be stopped now. You surely know that.’

Vlad hammered his blade into the attack. ‘Nothing is certain. Not even death – I should know.’

Otto laughed out loud, enjoying the artistry of the combat. Ghurk would never have understood it, nor Ethrac, but their gifts had always been different. ‘You are rather good, vampire,’ he observed.

‘And you... fight with a scythe,’ replied Vlad, contemptuously.

As if to demonstrate the weapon’s uselessness, the vampire suddenly changed the angle of his sword-swipe, catching the hook of the blade and pulling it out of Otto’s hands. Otto lunged to reclaim it, but it fell, clanking, to the floor. The vampire trod on the blade, advancing on his prey with a dark satisfaction in his unblinking eyes.

Otto let fly with a punch, hoping to rock the vampire, but Vlad was far too quick – he caught Otto’s clenched fist in his own gauntlet, and twisted the wrist back on itself. Caught prone, Otto was forced round, his spine twisted.

Before he could do anything else, the vampire’s blade punched up through his ribcage, sliding through his encrusted skin with a slick hiss. Vlad lifted him bodily from the floor, held rigid by the length of steel protruding from his torso. The pain was excruciating.

‘And so it ends, creature of the Outer Dark,’ said Vlad, bringing his sword-tip up to his lips. As was his wont with the defeated, he licked along the sword’s edge, drinking deep of the blood that ran freely along the cutting edge.

As soon as he had gulped it down, though, he released his grip. His hands flew to his throat, and his eyes bulged.

Otto laughed, freeing himself of the blade and sauntering over to his scythe to retrieve it. The pain was already passing, thanks to the gifts of the Urfather. ‘Drink my blood, eh?’ he asked. ‘Now, I wonder, have you the stomach for it?’

By now Vlad was retching. He staggered against the wall of the corridor, his cheeks red, bile trickling down his chin. A look of horror flashed across his tortured face as he realised what he had imbibed. ‘You... are...’ he gasped.

‘Very unpalatable,’ said Otto, reaching for his blade. ‘My lord, I fear your appetites have undone you.’

Vlad gazed back at him, all the arrogance bled from his face. He vomited, hurling up a torrent of stinking black ichor. In his eyes was the full realisation of what he had done. He was poisoned to the core. He had taken in not blood but raw pollution, the very essence of plague, and now it was eating him from the inside. Once that finished him, all the souls raised by his arts would collapse back into their state of true death – every wight, zombie, skeleton and ghoul would shiver away, their reanimated corpses disintegrating back into the essence of dust.

Otto raised the scythe, appreciating the imagery of the reaper ending the necromancer. ‘That was enjoyable, vampire,’ he said, taking aim. ‘Almost a shame it has to end.’

With a snarl, the shivering Vlad crossed his shaking arms over his chest, still retching uncontrollably. There was a flash of dark matter, and his body disintegrated into a cloud of fluttering bats.

Otto swiped, but his scythe passed harmlessly through the flock, scraping against the floor in a shower of sparks. He laughed again, admiring the vampire’s art. He really had been a worthy opponent. The bats lurched and flapped down the corridor, heading for the outside and too flighty to catch.

With Vlad gone, the rest of his forces melted away. Otto turned to see the skeletons collapsing and the wights slumping to the floor. Ghurk paused in his rampage, his fists stuffed with bones, his mighty head swaying back and forth in confusion as his enemies clattered into tiny heaps around him.

The last to remain on his feet was an oddly mortal-looking warrior in a long coat and with a pair of pistols strapped to his waist. He stared at the spot where Vlad had been, his face a mix of loathing and regret. For a moment, he appeared to fight the inevitable, as if, having been reacquainted with unlife he was now loath to leave it.

But the end had to come. The man’s jaw fell open with a sigh, his eyes rolled up into their sockets, and he collapsed to the floor. Once he was down, his body withered quickly, reverting to its true state in seconds.

Otto looked up at Ethrac, and grinned. The vampire’s wound had already closed over, sealed with a line of glistening bile. There were advantages to being constituted of such glorious poisons.

‘Then we are almost done, o my brother,’ Otto remarked, brandishing his scythe.

Ethrac nodded. ‘One by one, we devour them all. Now for the final meal.’

Twenty-Four

Karl Franz and Martak entered the Chamber of Ghal Maraz. It had been abandoned long ago as the battle for the Palace was lost, and now stood as silent and as corroded as every other hall in the colossal complex.

The walls were weeping now, dripping with thick white layers of pus that fell in clots from the domed ceiling. The supporting pillars were covered in a hide of matted plant-matter, all of it shedding virulent pods that glowed and pulsed in the semi-dark. The great cupola over the circular space was half-ruined, with ivy tresses suspended like nooses from the broken stonework. Rain still spattered down through the gap, adding to the slick of mucus that swam across the chamber floor.

The two men both hurried to the high altar, the only structure to have remained relatively unscathed. The two empty chain-lengths still swayed from their bearings, hanging over the heavy iron table below.

Martak had no idea why they were there. The Imperial Palace had hundreds of chambers, many of them grander and more ornate that this one. If they had to select a place to die, why opt for the ancient resting place of the warhammer, a weapon that was now lost in the north and borne, if at all, by the boy-champion?

Karl Franz drew his runefang and backed up towards the altar’s edge. Deathclaw remained protectively by his side, growling all the while from its huge barrel chest. Martak took up position at the other end of the iron structure, his own griffon remaining close by and snarling with customary spite.

‘I do not–’ he began, but then the words died in his mouth. Whether they were being tracked, or whether fate had simply decreed that the end would come then, the doors at the far end of the chamber slammed open, ripped from their hinges and flung aside like matchwood.

Three grotesque creatures burst inside, each one a distorted corruption of a man. The first was a slack-fleshed warrior bearing a scythe in two claw-like hands. His green skin, criss-crossed with bleeding sores and warty growths, glinted dully under the reflected glare of the pus-cascades.

The second was a similarly wizened creature clad in dirty patched robes and brandishing a staff nearly as gnarled as Martak’s own.

The third was a true giant, barely able to shove itself through the huge double doors. Once inside the chamber he stood erect, one tentacled arm slack at his side, the other clenched into a hammer-like fist. His greasy, stupid face was deformed into a loathsome grin, and long trails of blood ran down from his mouth like warpaint.

Behind them, jostling for position, came more Chaos warriors, some in the furred garb of the far north, some bearing the mutated marks of more recent conversion. Their three leaders all bled horrific amounts of power from their addled frames. They were living embodiments of corruption, as vile and virulent as the Rot itself.

Karl Franz, unfazed, stepped forward, his blade raised towards them as if in grim tribute.

‘I will not repeat this warning,’ he said, and his calm voice echoed around the chamber. ‘Leave this place now, or your souls will be bound to it forever. The spirit of almighty Sigmar runs deep here, and His sign shines above us. You do not know your danger.’

There was something about the deep authority in that voice, the measured expression, which gave even the three creatures of madness pause. They held back, and the huge one looked uncertainly at his companions.

The sorcerer was the first to laugh, though, breaking the moment. The warrior with the scythe joined in quickly.

‘You did not need to be here, Emperor,’ said the scythe-bearer, bowing floridly before him. ‘We could have destroyed your city well enough on our own, but your death makes the exercise just a little more rewarding.’

The sorcerer bowed in turn, a mocking smile playing across his scarred face. ‘We are the Glottkin, your excellency, once as mortal and as sickly as you, now filled with the magnificence of the Urfather. Know our names, before we slay you. I am Ethrac, this is my brother Otto, and this, the greatest of us all, is the mighty Ghurk.’

Ghurk emitted a wheezing hhur as his name was recited, then crackled the knuckles of his one true hand.

Martak clutched his staff a little tighter, allowing the Wind of Ghur to flow along its length. The chamber was electric with tension, just waiting for the false war of words to conclude – nothing would be settled now by rhetoric.

Karl Franz’s face remained stony. His self-control was complete. Even in the heart of his annihilated kingdom, his visage never so much as flickered.

‘I do not need to know your names,’ he said, letting a shade of contempt dance around the edge of his speech. ‘You will die just as all your breed will die – beyond the light of redemption, forever condemned to howl your misery to the void.’

Otto glanced over at Ethrac, amused, and shrugged. ‘Then there is nothing to say to him, o my brother,’ he remarked.

Ethrac nodded. ‘It seems not, o my brother.’

They both turned back to face the altar, and the three of them burst into movement.

Otto was quickest, sprinting over to Karl Franz with his scythe whirring around his head. Ethrac was next, his staff alight with black energy, all aimed at Martak. Ghurk lumbered along in the rear, backed up by the charge of the northmen.

Deathclaw pounced in response, using a single thrust of its huge wings to power straight into Ghurk’s oncoming charge. The griffon latched onto the huge monster, lashing out with its claws and tearing with its open beak. The two of them fell into a brutal exchange of blows, rocking and swaying as they ripped into one another.

Ethrac launched a barrage of plague-magic straight at Martak, aiming to deluge him in a wave of thick, viscous choke-slime. Martak countered with a blast from his own staff, puncturing the wave of effluent and sending it splattering back to its sender. Ethrac lashed his staff around, rousing the vines and creepers hanging from the chamber vaults into barbed flails. Martak cut them down as they emerged, summoning spectral blades that cartwheeled through the air.

Martak’s own griffon took on the bulk of the tribesmen, bounding amongst them, goring and stabbing, leaving Otto and the Emperor to their combat undisturbed. The chamber rang with the sound and fury of combat, the runefang glittering as it was swung against the rusted scythe-blade.

‘I saw you come back,’ said Otto, letting a little admiration creep into his parched voice. ‘Why did you do that? You know you cannot beat us.’

Karl Franz said nothing, but launched into a disciplined flurry with his blade, matching the blistering sweeps of the scythe.

Martak, kept busy with his own magical duel, only caught fragmentary glimpses of the combat, but he could hear the taunting words of the Glotts well enough. The mucus-rain continued to fall, tumbling down from the gaping roof and bouncing messily on the torn-up marble.

By then Ghurk was getting the better of Deathclaw. The griffon savaged its opponent, but the vast creature of Chaos was immune to pain and virtually indestructible. With a sickening snap, the griffon’s wings were broken again. Deathclaw screamed, and was hurled aside, skidding into the chamber walls.

Martak backed away from Ethrac, fighting off fresh flurries of dark magic. The sorcerer was far more potent than he was, able to pull the very stuff of Chaos from the aethyr and direct it straight at him. With growing horror, Martak saw the first pustules rise on his forearms, and felt his staff begin to twist out of shape. His essence was being corrupted, turned against him and driven into the insane growths that had blighted the Empire from Marienburg to Ostermark.

Karl Franz fought on undeterred, matching Otto’s blows with careful precision. He carried himself with all the elegance of an expertly-trained sword-master, adopting the proper posture and giving himself room to counter every blade movement. Otto, by contrast, came at him in a whirl of wild strokes, trying to unnerve him by flinging the scythe out wide before hauling it back in close. In a strange way, they were oddly matched, rocking to and fro before the altar, hacking and blocking under the shadow of the swinging chains.

Martak fell back further, bludgeoned by the superior magic of Ethrac. The pustules on his skin burst open, drenching him in foul-smelling liquids. He unleashed a flock of shadow-crows, which flew into Ethrac’s face and pecked at his eyes, but the sorcerer whispered a single word, bursting their bellies and causing them to flop, lifeless, onto the chamber floor. More globules of burning slime were flung at Martak, and he barely parried them, feeling their acidic bite as they splashed across his face.

With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Martak knew he was overmatched. Nothing he summoned troubled the sorcerer, and he could barely keep the counter-blasts from goring straight into him. Even as he retreated further, driven away from the altar and towards the chamber’s east door, he saw the futility of it all, just as he had warned the Emperor.

There is no glory in dying here, and he wants to die.

Martak found himself snarling at the stupidity of it all. Noble gestures were for the aristocracy, for those with knightly blood or jewels spilling from their fingers. There were still other ways, still other weapons. If the Emperor would not give him leave, then he would go himself. The Menagerie was so close, and stocked with creatures that would chew through even the greatest of Chaos-spawned horrors.

His griffon, now bleeding heavily from a dozen wounds, suddenly turned and launched itself at Ethrac. The sorcerer, caught off-balance, had to work furiously not to be sliced apart, and for an instant turned away from Martak.

Seeing the chance, the Supreme Patriarch glanced a final time over at Karl Franz, uncertain whether his instincts were right. The Emperor fought on blindly, hugging the shadow of the altar. He was consumed by the duel, and Martak saw the look of utter conviction on his face. Karl Franz would not leave now, and nor could Martak reach him to drag him out.

Martak turned, and fled the chamber. Once outside, he tore down the narrow corridor beyond, his robes flapping about him. Soon he heard the sounds of pursuit as the northmen followed him, and he picked up the pace.

At least I have drawn them away, he though grimly, battling with incipient guilt at his desertion even as he struggled to remember the quickest way down to the cages. That will buy him a little more time, and I will return.

Otto watched the wizard flee with a smirk on his face. Given the choice, mortals always took the easier path. That was what made them so easy to turn, and so easy to kill. They had no proper comprehension of hard choices, the kind that would lead a tribesman to give up everything in the service of higher powers.

Sacrifice was the key. Learning to submit before the strenuous demands of uncompromising gods was the first step on the road to greatness. As he slammed the scythe towards the human Emperor’s face, he began to feel excitement building.

He would be the one to end the dreams of humanity. He would be the one who would bring the City of Sigmar down, its every stone cracked and frozen by the abundance of the plague-forest, its every tower squeezed into cloying dust by the strangle-vines and barb-creepers. Soon all that would be left would be the Garden, the infinite expression of the Urfather’s genius, swamping all else and extending infinitely towards all the horizons.

Heady with glee, he cracked the scythe down further, now aiming for the Emperor’s chest. Karl Franz blocked the blow, but he seemed to be going through the motions now. A strange expression remained on his haggard face – a kind of serenity.

That bothered Otto, and he pressed harder. With a wild swipe, he managed to knock the runefang aside. He pounced, driving a long gouge down the Emperor’s arm and eliciting a stark cry of pain.

Karl Franz staggered back against the altar, half-falling to his knees. Otto rose up triumphantly, holding his scythe high.

‘And so it ends!’ he screamed, and dragged the blade down.

Just before it connected, though, a sword-edge interposed itself, locking with the curved scythe-edge and holding it fast. Otto looked down to see an Empire warrior in the way, his blade held firm and his eyes blazing with fury. He wore elaborate plate armour, and his hawk-like face was half-hidden by a voluminous moustache.

For a second, Otto was transfixed with shock. All the mortals were supposed to be dead or driven far away from the Palace. He turned to see other armoured Empire warriors charge into the chamber and launch themselves at the remaining northmen.

So there were some humans with the spine to fight on.

Otto twisted his mouth into a smirking leer, and yanked the scythe free. The Emperor, bleeding profusely, fell to his knees, his place taken by the newcomer.

‘You come here,’ snarled the moustached warrior through gritted teeth, drawing himself up to his full height. ‘You bring the plague, you bring the fires, you bring the pain.’ His scarred face creased into an expression of pure, unadulterated hatred. ‘Now I bring the reckoning.’

Martak panted as he ran, feeling his battered body protest. They were already on his heels, and he could almost taste their foul breath on his neck.

He careered down the spiralling stairs, hoping that he had remembered the way, trying to think and not to panic. He ought to have been able to smell the beasts by now, but the festering mess in the Palace made it hard to tell the stinks apart.

He reached the base of the stairs, almost slipping on the tiles but managing to push on. He shoved through a thick wooden door, and at last heard the sounds he had been hoping to pick up.

The beasts were roused – they were pawing in their pens, driven mad by the spoor of Chaos within the Palace. The griffons would be tearing at their cages, the demigryphs and manticores would be slavering with fury. And down at the very heart of it all, the mightiest of creatures, the one that only Karl Franz had ever been able to tame, would be waiting, its old, cold mind roused to thoughts of murder.

Martak felt something whirr past his ear, and veered sharply to one side. A throwing-axe clanged from the wall ahead of him, missing by a finger’s breadth.

He kept going, trying to keep his shoulders lower. A pair of iron gates loomed before him, still locked and looped with chains. It was all he could do to blurt out a spell of opening before he stumbled into them, pushing through and staggering into the darkness beyond.

From all around him, he suddenly heard the snarls and growls of the caged animals. It was uniquely comforting – he had spent his whole life among beasts, and now they surrounded him once more.

He smiled, and kept running. He knew where he was going now, and there was no hope of stopping him. He could already smell the embers, and hear the dry hiss of scales moving over stone.

Almost there.

Karl Franz watched helplessly as Helborg took the fight to Otto Glott. He had been cut deep, and felt his arm hanging uselessly at his side. The Reiksguard knights Helborg had brought with him threw themselves into battle with the sorcerer and the behemoth, roaring the name of Sigmar as they wheeled their blades about.

Karl Franz could only look on. It was staggeringly brave. He had last seen Helborg on the eve of Heffengen, and could only imagine what trials he had faced in the meantime. He looked a shadow of his earlier, ebullient self – his face was lean, disfigured by long gouges and etched with fatigue. It looked like he could barely walk, let alone fight, but somehow he worked his blade with all the old arrogant flair, driving Otto back with every blurred arc of steel, giving him no room to respond.

Karl Franz wanted to speak out, then – to tell him that he had got it wrong, and that no force of arms could possibly make a difference now. If the Glotts were slain in this chamber, nothing would change – the armies of Chaos would still run rampant, the city would still be lost, the Reik would still be corrupted. For his whole life, Karl Franz had drilled into his subjects the need to fight on, to never give in, to reach for the blade as a first resort. He could hardly tell them any different now, but as he watched his chosen Reiksguard being hacked to pieces by the dread power of Ethrac and the sheer brute force of Ghurk, it made him want to weep.

Moving stiffly, he shoved himself onto one elbow, panting hard as the pain kicked in. He could not move from the altar. That was the key – the great sacrificial slab that had been placed under the dome for a reason. The light of the comet streamed down through the gap, bathing everything in a candle-yellow sheen. He had learned to accept that only he could see the light properly, that even Martak had not been able to perceive it truly, and that to others it was a pale flicker in a scoured sky. To him, it was the light of the sun and the moon combined, a brilliant star amid the sour corruption of the earth. It was calling to him even now, reminding him of the great trial, whispering words of power that only he could hear.

Karl Franz stood up, wincing against the pain. It was as Helborg had told him – he was not a man like any other, one whose soul was bound by mortal limits. He had always been set apart, devoted to a purer calling.

You are the Empire.

Helborg was tiring now. He could not sustain the fury, and Otto was beating him back. Karl Franz looked on grimly, knowing that Helborg had to be beaten, but nonetheless barely able to watch it unfold.

The Reiksmarshal launched into a final series of devastating strikes, throwing everything into them. The way he moved the runefang then was magnificent, as good as he had ever been, and against any other foe it would surely have brought the kill he was so desperate for. For an instant, Helborg threw off his long weariness, his disappointments and his inadequacies, and became the perfect swordsman again, a vision of pure speed and power. It was all Otto could do to avoid being smashed aside and hacked to pieces, and for the first time a sheen of sweat burst out across his calloused brow.

Karl Franz could have joined him then. He could have limped over, adding his runefang to his Reiksmarshal’s, and perhaps together they could have slain the beast. Instead, he remained bathed in the light of the comet, loathing every moment of inaction but staying true to the duty that compelled him.

When the end came, it was swift. Helborg overreached himself, leaving his defence open. Otto pounced, jabbing the point of the scythe down hard. The wickedly curved edge bit deep, cracking Helborg’s breastplate and driving into the flesh beneath. With unnatural strength, Otto dragged Helborg off his feet and hurled him to one side, ripping out his heart as he did so.

Helborg skidded across the marble before crashing into the altar, his chest torn open. With his final breath, he looked up at Karl Franz, and there was still a wild hope in those pain-wracked eyes. He shivered, his arms clutching, his body rigid and his back arched.

‘Fight... on,’ he gasped.

Then he went limp, slumped against the altar’s edge, his armour drenched in blood. The last defender of Altdorf died at the heart of his city, gazing up at the empty dome above, his haunted features at last free from the pain that had consumed him for so long.

With Helborg slain, Otto advanced on Karl Franz once more, a wide grin on his face. In the background, the Reiksguard were being cut down, one by one.

‘You people do not know when to give in,’ said Otto. ‘It becomes tiresome.’

Karl Franz watched him approach, preparing himself, knowing how painful the transition would be, dreading it and yet yearning for it to come.

‘But surely you can see that this thing is over now,’ said Otto, drawing back the scythe. His green eyes glittered with triumph. ‘There is nothing more to be done, heir of the boy-god. Listen to the truth: the reign of man is ended.’

He swung the blade, and the tip, still hot from Helborg’s blood, sliced into the Emperor’s chest.

Karl Franz staggered backward, his breath taken away by the agony of it, struggling to keep his vision. Otto ripped the scythe-blade free, tearing up muscle and sinew and leaving a long bloody trail across the altar’s side.

The Emperor slid further down, his body pressed against the altar-top, the runefang falling uselessly from his open palm. Each of the three Glott brothers, their enemies destroyed now, shuffled closer, peering with morbid curiosity as the life ebbed out of their victim.

Karl Franz looked up at them, gasping for air, feeling the blood clog in his throat.

They were not even gloating. They suddenly looked like children, shocked at what they had done, as if only now could they contemplate what it might mean.

That made him want to smile. He gripped the altar’s edge, and ceased fighting. Everything went cold, then black, and then became nothing. It was like tipping over the edge of a precipice, then falling fast.

And so it was that, under the shattered dome of the Chamber of Ghal Maraz, Karl Franz, Elector Count of Reikland, Prince of Altdorf, Bearer of the Silver Seal and the holder of the Drachenzahn runefang, Emperor of all Sigmar’s holy inheritance between the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Great Sea, died.

Twenty-Five

Martak reached the very base of the Menagerie’s dungeons, his breath heaving and his lungs burning. The last cage was buried deep, surrounded by huge walls of stone and ringed with iron chains. The air stank of flame and charring, and every surface had been burned as black as coal.

He could hear the footfalls at the top of the stairs. They had almost caught him, right at the end, and he could sense their bloodlust burning like a beacon in the darkness.

He reached the iron lattice, slamming into it and fumbling for the great lock. It was the size of his chest, and took a key the length of his forearm, but that would not be necessary now. Stammering over the words, he spoke the spell of unbinding, and the lock fell apart.

Heavy clangs rang out as iron-shod boots thudded down the steep stairs, and Martak barely pushed his way into the cage before metal gauntlets reached out to haul him back.

He wrenched himself free, skidding over to one side as he scrambled for safety. For a terrible moment, grovelling in the dark, he wondered if he had made some awful mistake, and the vast cage was already empty. If so, all he had done was lead his pursuers into a dead end, one from which there was no escaping.

A second later, though, twin gouts of flame lit up the shadows, and he allowed himself a gasp of relief.

The bursts of fire illuminated a curled, twisted and writhing mass of scaly hide, snaking in loops at the rear of the huge pen. Enormous wings folded up against the arched roof, leathery and as thick as a man’s hand. Two great eyes, slit-pupilled like a cat’s, blinked in the dark, exposing yellow depths that seemed to go on forever.

Blind to the danger, the warriors of Chaos blundered into the cage after Martak, only realising their error too late.

The Imperial dragon opened its vast jaws, sending a stream of crimson flame roaring into them. The marauders screamed, clawing at their own flesh as the dragon’s fire tore through them. Those that could tried to retreat, but the curtains of immolation overtook them all, ripping the armour from their backs and melting it across their blistered skin.

Martak pressed himself flat against the cage’s curving inner wall, feeling the furious heat surge across his face. He screwed his eyes shut, barely enduring the ferocious blaze even as it thundered past.

After only a few moments, the torrent guttered out. Martak coughed and gasped, falling to his knees as smoke billowed out from the dragon’s jaws. He glanced back to the cage entrance, where dozens of bodies lay gently steaming, as black as burned offerings.

He allowed himself a twisted grin, and shuffled up to the dragon’s great iron collar.

‘That was well done, dragon,’ he said, reaching up for the mighty lock.

The dragon hissed at him, sending a fresh burst of flame-laced hot air blasting into his flushed face. Martak whispered words for the quieting of the animal spirits, drawing on the Wind of Ghur that eddied throughout the whole Menagerie. He had no chance of truly mastering a dragon’s mind, but he could do just enough to persuade it that he was no threat, and that freedom was a small step away, and that the horrors running amok in the Palace above were the real prey.

He placed his hands over the massive padlock, and exerted his will. The lock clicked open, and the iron chains fell to the ground with a resounding clang. Though still hampered by the confines of the cell, the great creature stretched out, its head rising up to the roof and its wings unfurling around the walls. A grating, iron-hard growl emerged from its chest, and its clawed forelegs pawed at the straw.

‘Now, take the fight to them!’ urged Martak gazing up at the creature’s snake-like neck and marvelling at just how huge it was. ‘You are free – let me guide you.’

The dragon did not move. Though released from its chains, it remained where it was, curled up in a dungeon at the very base of the vast Palace. Its old, old face seemed lost in thought, its eyes narrowing and its nostrils flared.

Martak began to lose patience. If the Emperor still lived, there would be little time to save him. Every moment saw more of the city destroyed, and more lives lost.

‘Come on!’ he commanded, infusing his voice with as much beast-mastery as he could. ‘What are you waiting for?’

As soon as he uttered those words, though, he realised what was happening. The dragon was waiting for something. It had no intention at all of leaving its cell, and its huge head remained motionless, slightly inclined, as if listening.

It was only then that Martak felt it himself. He had been so preoccupied with survival, so fixed on his goal of releasing the dragon, that the tremors had passed him by completely, but now, with his hunters slain and the mighty beast standing before him, he wondered how he had missed them.

The ground was vibrating. Not strongly, as if in an earthquake, but with a steady, persistent harmonic. The straws under his feet were trembling, and lines of dust were falling from the brickwork roof. A low hum filled the chamber, reverberating just on the edge of hearing. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere – the stone, the earth, the air itself.

Martak backed away from the dragon. Whatever he sensed was nothing like the sorcery that had infused the city since the beginning of the siege. It felt... older, somehow, as if it belonged to Altdorf’s very bones. After witnessing the dead raised and the order of nature turned against itself, it should have been impossible to conceive of more potent magic coming to the Reik, but Martak was enough of a mage to recognise true power when he felt it.

‘What is this?’ he murmured, looking up at the roof of the dragon’s cage, any thought of trying to use the creature now abandoned. ‘What comes now?’

For a moment, nothing changed.

Then the first shafts of light angled down from the open dome, harsh and piercing. The Glottkin looked up, as did their surviving troops in the chamber. More shafts lanced through the gaping breach, shimmering like spun gold. They focussed on the altar, seeming to soak into the iron.

Otto started to back away. Ethrac stared at the growing pool of gold, a gathering unease on his face.

‘And what?’ Otto demanded. ‘What is this?’

Spinning points of gold coalesced over the altar-top, clustering together and glittering like stars. Far above, the clouds broke at last, burned away by the lone star riding the high airs. Across the city, beleaguered defenders suddenly stared up into the heavens, noticing the strange play of light dancing across the shattered townscape. The marauders paused in their plunder, and daemons shrunk back, their laughter halted.

‘Just a star!’ protested Ethrac, outraged. ‘You told me – it was just a star!’

The light kept growing, building up into a column of iridescence that hurt the eyes to look upon. A column of pure gold shot down onto the altar where Karl Franz’s body lay like the sacrifice it had been. Shimmering luminescence shot out in all directions, trembling with a blaze of metallic light.

Otto was forced back from the altar, his eyes streaming. Ethrac’s staff shattered in his hands, and its bells rolled across the marble.

With a roar like distant thunder, the rain of gold turned into a torrent, cascading down from the comet and smashing against the altar-top. Rays of severe iridescence radiated outward, refracting and spinning, making the columns around them glisten as if newly gilded. The stained-glass windows blew out, sending shards of diamond-like glass flying into the plague-storm beyond.

Bathed now in a pillar of shifting gold, the Emperor’s body began to change. The harrowed expression left his face and the lines of care smoothed out. His corpse rose, suspended in an aegis of fire. The chains above the altar thrashed and twisted, buffeted by a new wind.

His eyes opened, and golden brilliance flared from the sockets. He righted himself, now floating directly over the altar, and swept his blinding gaze across the cowering mutants below. He seemed to augment, to grow, becoming far more than a man. The last of his armour fell away, exposing a shifting phantasm of pure coruscation beneath. Shafts of gold danced around him, reflecting from the now-dazzling surfaces of the chamber.

It was hard to make out what manner of being now hung above the black iron. Karl Franz’s face could be made out amid the sparkling clouds of light, blurred and fractured, but older faces were there too, coexisting in a merger of souls. A series of Emperors gazed serenely out from the blistering fires, unharmed by them, sustained by them, before the vision shifted once more.

Otto’s flesh began to burn, curling away from the bone in crisping flaps. Ethrac and Ghurk followed, their withered muscles scorched by the rays of light surging from the gathering inferno of gold. The being that had once been the Emperor continued to expand, until an argent titan hung in the chamber’s heart, blazing like the dawn rising.

A voice echoed around the shimmering space, redolent of the old Emperors, but containing a choir of others with it, all speaking in a harmony of different accents and timbres.

‘The Law of Death is broken,’ it announced, and the words echoed among the roar of golden flames. ‘All worlds are now open.’

The titan’s face began to flicker, changing from one to another, now bearded, now smooth, now old, now young. A new visage came to the fore – a ruddy-cheeked youth with a mane of long blond hair, laughing with warrior’s eyes. The intensity of the golden aura became truly blinding, spreading out across the entire chamber in shimmering curtains of brilliance.

‘We are the Empire,’ announced the flickering avatar, its flaming eyes sweeping across the burning vista. ‘We have always been the Empire.’

It raised its hands high, and it seemed that a mighty warhammer now hung from the clanking chains. The titan took it up, and the weapon blazed with the same intense light that filled the chamber.

‘And now,’ it said, portentously, ‘let all things change.’

A hard bang rang out, blowing what remained of the glass out of the windows and making the earth shake. The heart of the golden being exploded, filling the vaults with white-hot illumination. A racing wave of energy surged out from the epicentre, sweeping and ethereal, consuming all before it. The burning bodies of the Glotts were devoured, seared to ash and blown away by the racing storm-front.

A radial wave smashed through the walls of the chapel, rising up in a dome of unleashed power. The hemisphere, swimming with translucence, spread across the entire city, a wall of gold, tearing out from the Palace at its heart and scouring everything it touched. The scorching barrage of flame destroyed every lingering creature of Chaos as it thundered outward, stripping the layers of slime and filth clean from the stone beneath and immolating them into nothingness. The fallen undead were blasted apart, their dry bones turned to powder and thrown into the wind.

Above the city, the last of the plague-storm clouds were torn away, exposing a clear sky above. The comet burned vividly now, linked to the earth by the roaring column of gold. The expanding fire-dome ground its way outward across the entire valley, rising into the heavens and encompassing the fields of war below. At its edge, the corrupted forest burst and burned, and its foul taints were stripped clear of the raw earth.

For a moment longer, the entire Palace shimmered from the golden storm within, its every portal bleeding pure comet-fire. The dome of Sigmar’s temple flared in answer, reflecting mesmerising rays across a glittering sky. The Reik, for so long a turgid well of slime, burst into cleansing flame, revealing pure waters boiling under the skin of filth. Aeons of grime were scrubbed from the ancient stone walls, revealing Altdorf as in the days of old – the city of white stone, the home of kings, the birthplace of Emperors.

And then, with a final roar, the dome of light shimmered out. The city below it seemed to shudder, and then fall still.

The dead were gone. The corrupted were consumed. Amid the wreckage and the ruins, the surviving human defenders crept out of whatever cover they had found, shading their eyes against the glare that still lingered on the waters.

The air was cold and clear. For the first time in months, the wind tasted fresh. The spores were gone, the cankers had been stripped away.

With a growing sense of awe, they began to realise what had happened. The enemy was destroyed, burned on the altar of wrath, its limitless powers exposed for the sham and trickery they were. Something new had emerged, something unprecedented.

The Palace still glowed from within. Whatever had been unleashed there still lingered, though none dared approach its burning precincts.

All they could do was stare up at the listing battlements and the broken towers, and guess at what new and terrible god now dwelt amid the graven images of the old.

Epilogue

Early winter 2525

As the storm clouds gradually headed north, their heavy aegis broken, the rising sun illuminated a scene of gently steaming devastation.

Everything was gone. The mighty walls had been reduced to rubble, and smoke still curled from the charred remains of the great buildings. The temples, the counting-houses, the merchants’ mansions, the beggars’ hovels – all had disappeared, withered by the fury of the North, rendered down to whitened dust.

The few that had survived lingered in the ruins only for want of somewhere better to go. The remnants of Helborg’s command fanned out from their North Gate fastness, blinking in the suddenly pure light. Bretonnian knights stumbled under the gaping arch of the West Gate, already resigned to the loss of their leader but determined to seek him out. Exhausted townsfolk all across the city fell to their knees, gazing around them in blank amazement.

No victory songs were sung, for every living throat was parched raw. A pall of shock had seeped into the earth. None had the words for what they had seen, and none tried to find any.

Slowly, though, the instincts of survival took over. Men and women began to seek one another out, searching through the rubble for survivors. Under the fractured shadow of the still-huge Palace walls, the few living commanders started to try to impose some sense of order on what remained. Food would have to be found from somewhere, and water drawn, and fires lit, and searches launched. Perhaps Helborg still lived. Perhaps some of the electors still lived.

In the city’s poorest quarter, at the very centre of where the daemon-storms had been greatest, it took a long time for Margrit to do anything other than stare up into the cleared heavens, her heart beating heavily. Eventually her senses returned to her, though the world around seemed as blurred as a badly-remembered dream.

Her fellow sisters pulled themselves up from the stone, their faces drained with shock, their hands still trembling. From within the temple, weak voices could already be heard, crying out, pleading to know what had taken place.

She had no idea what to tell them. It took her a long time to get up, first gently shifting the body of the slain king from her lap. When she stood, she felt light-headed. She tried to remember how the old tenements surrounding the temple had appeared in the past. Now the dome of Shallya was the only thing still standing, and beyond it stretched an empty landscape of smouldering rubble.

But Margrit was a practical woman, and there were already tasks at hand. The temple had to be secured. They had to look to the gardens, to try to salvage anything that might help with the wounded, for there were sure to be thousands of them. She started moving again, speaking to the others, who trod amid the detritus just as numbly as her.

‘There will be answers,’ she told them, not knowing if that were true but needing something to say. ‘For now, remember your vows.’

Once they had something to do, to occupy them, things became easier. The hours passed again, filled with the old tasks of care. A group of knights found their way to the temple, and bore away the body of their king in reverence. Margrit watched them go, making no attempt to lay claim to him. The warriors barely noticed her.

They would not have spoken to her, in any case. They were men of war, and so few of them had ever paid any attention to the women in their midst, unless they were bejewelled queens or ethereal goddesses, and Margrit was neither.

By the time Martak found her, the sun was high in the sky, and a warm wind had started blowing from the south. The wizard looked as filthy as ever, though his long beard looked to have been singed half away.

As he picked his way towards her through the wreckage, Margrit crossed her arms, and waited.

‘You never got me those soldiers,’ she said.

Martak shot her an apologetic look. ‘He was a hard man to persuade.’

‘Was?’

Martak nodded, and Margrit sighed. She had heard men curse Kurt Helborg to damnation during the days of toil, but the Reiksmarshal had stood beside them at the end, and that was worth something.

‘You promised me an Emperor, too,’ she said.

The wizard looked bone-weary. With a grunt, he sat down on a broad stone step. Margrit joined him, and together they looked out across the rubble-strewn courtyard. For a while, neither of them spoke.

‘I do not know what happened,’ said Martak eventually.

‘If you do not, then no one will.’

Martak looked at her. All his earlier gruffness had been ripped from him. His voice was still as earthy as the mulch under the forest floor, but something had changed. He looked… humbled.

‘I brought him back,’ he said, looking unsure how to feel about that. ‘Do not misunderstand me – it was his choice. I tried to get him to escape it, but he wouldn’t listen.’

Margrit placed a calloused palm on Martak’s wringing hands. ‘When you told me he would come back, I believed you.’

‘I was telling you what you wanted to hear.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She summoned a weak smile. ‘The words mattered.’

Martak looked sceptical, but said nothing. He made no attempt to shift her hand from his, and the two of them stayed where they were. Crouched at the edge of ruin, a ragged, dirt-streaked pedlar from the lowliest of colleges and a portly old woman from the most disregarded of temples.

Not much to be proud of, but they were alive.

‘So, what now?’ she asked him.

Martak shook his head, a wry expression playing across his wrinkled brow. She could tell what he was thinking. Plans would have to be made. Schwarzhelm might yet live. Valten might still carry Ghal Maraz. There were mysteries to delve into, and at some stage someone would have to go back into the Palace, searching for any remains of the… event. They had all seen the tides of gold, and they had all heard the roar of the storm, and they all knew that it had changed everything, and that a new power had been birthed in Altdorf beneath the comet’s glare.

For now, though, it was too soon.

‘I do not know, sister,’ Martak said, clutching her hand tight.

The two of them sat next to one another after that, looking out onto the aftermath of the apocalypse, sharing silence.

Altdorf was destroyed, shriven to its foundations, and there would be no rebuilding. The old city was gone – its garrisons, its theatres, its chapels, its taverns and its storehouses, swept into nothingness.

The End Times had come, but they had not brought the utter destruction the gods of the North desired.

The old stories had ended, their power gone and their magic decayed. Now new stories would be told, but where they would lead, and who would tell them, even the wisest could not tell.

The world is dying, but it has been so since the coming of the Chaos Gods.

For years beyond reckoning, the Ruinous Powers have coveted the mortal realm. They have made many attempts to seize it, their anointed champions leading vast hordes into the lands of men, elves and dwarfs. Each time, they have been defeated.

Until now.

In the frozen north, Archaon, a former templar of the warrior-god Sigmar, has been crowned the Everchosen of Chaos. He stands poised to march south and bring ruin to the lands he once fought to protect. Behind him amass all the forces of the Dark Gods, mortal and daemonic. When they come, they will bring with them a storm such as has never been seen.

Already, the first moves have been made. Valkia the Bloody led the hosts of Khorne into Naggaroth, homeland of the dark elves, laying waste to the north of the realm and bringing war to the great cities of Naggarond and Har Ganeth. Ominously, the tower of Ghrond, home of the sorceress-queen Morathi, gave no warning of this attack. Only the return of Malekith the Witch King saw Valkia cast down and Naggarond saved.

In Ulthuan, daemons have run rampant across the lands of the high elves in numbers unseen since the time of Aenarion seven millennia ago. The Phoenix King is locked away in his great tower in Lothern, so Prince Tyrion, the greatest warrior of the age, has taken command of the asur armies and, with the aid of the magics of his brother Teclis, driven back the daemons.

Now the destinies of Malekith and Tyrion will be drawn together, for the war of the gods is repeating and they will act through mortal avatars. And when they are done, the world will be forever changed. A darkness is coming for all the elves.

These are the End Times.

Prologue

This is where it all began, before history was recorded. A forest raised from sacred ground by the gods themselves, seeded by the Great Powers that shaped the world. Beneath jade and golden boughs, the elves were taught how to manipulate the energies that permeated the world and its surrounds: they learned magic.

A matriarch ruled over them, and in time she became known as the Everqueen, her immortal spirit reborn into her offspring with each passing generation. These were times of accord, of peaceful bliss and innocent harmony.

Let us be honest and call it what it was: grave naivety.

There were other powers, far older and greater than the tutors of the elves. They had been wronged, their domains trespassed upon, their authority stolen by upstarts. In their anger they laid low the Old Ones and staked their claim to the world.

Mighty was their anger and terrible were the hosts they poured forth to conquer the lands crafted by the usurpers. The pure magic of the timeless aeons was broken, split into the Eight Winds, and the gods of the elves were laid low, exposed as powerless figments. One power ruled, and one power alone: Chaos.

The daemons were their servants. The elves suffered the daemons’ wrath more than any, for the elven isle, the realm of Ulthuan, was steeped in the magical energy that sustained the avatars of the Chaos Powers. Great was the torment and slaughter visited upon the Everqueen and her followers, and in the strife of the elves the Great Powers drank rich from despair and hope, fear and rage.

Yet the dominion of Chaos was not to be.

Not then.

Aenarion, spear-wielder, scale-clad, dragon-rider, united the elves and fought the daemons. Sacrificing himself in the flames of Asuryan, Aenarion was reborn as a figure of myth, the Phoenix King, and his presence was anathema to the daemons.

Even so, Aenarion’s defiance was not enough. Still the daemons came.

Caledor the Dragontamer, magic-wielder, mage-lord of the southern mountains, allied his cause with Aenarion and the two great leaders of the elves stemmed the tide of Chaos for a millennium.

And this was not enough.

Already imbued with the power of one god, Aenarion sought the aid of another when his beloved wife Astarielle the Everqueen was slain, and he believed his children dead also. Aenarion took the Sword of Khaine from its bloodstained altar upon the Blighted Isle. The Widowmaker, the Bane of Gods, the Deathshard. Nothing, not mortal or daemon, could stand before his ire.

But bloodshed alone could not defeat the power of Chaos. Strife is their fodder, war their platter. It was Caledor Dragontamer that devised the true path to victory. He constructed a network of standing stones upon Ulthuan, making a pattern of monoliths and lodestones that created a magical vortex, siphoning the energy of the daemons out of the mortal realm.

At the end of the war, Caledor and his mages were trapped within the vortex they had created and Aenarion was mortally wounded as was his dragon, Indraugnir. The Phoenix King’s final act was to return the Sword of Khaine to its shrine upon the Blighted Isle, but neither king nor faithful steed was seen again.

So the victory of the elves should have been. The daemons were banished, trapped in the Realm of Chaos and the Northern Wastes. The elves should have claimed dominion over the world and ruled benevolently as the inheritors of the Old Ones and Chaos would have been thwarted.

Chaos is not so easily defeated.

What they could not win with war, the Old Powers sought with guile. The whispers of the Chaos Gods polluted the counsel of the elves as they sought to choose a successor to Aenarion.

The princes met in the Glade of Eternity, a great amphitheatre of trees at the centre of which stood a shrine to Isha, the goddess of nature, matron of the Everqueen. Grown of twining silver roots and branches, with emerald-green leaves festooned with blooms in every season, the Aein Yshain glowed with mystical power. By the light of the moons and the stars, the First Council convened, bathed in the twilight of the open skies and the aura of the blessed tree.

Morathi and Malekith were there. Dark-haired and coldly beautiful, the seeress wore a dress of black cloth so fine that it appeared as a diaphanous cloud that barely concealed her alabaster skin. Her raven hair was swept back by bands of finely-woven silver threads hung with rubies, and her lips were painted to match the glittering gems. Slender and noble of bearing she stood, and bore a staff of black iron in her hands.

Malekith was no less imposing. As tall as his father and of similarly dark eyes, he wore a suit of golden mail, and a breastplate upon which was embossed the coiling form of a dragon. A long sword hung in a gold-threaded scabbard at his waist, its pommel wrought from the same precious metal, a dragon’s claw grasping a sapphire the size of a fist.

With them came other princes of Nagarythe who had survived the fighting on the Isle of the Dead. They were dressed in their fine armour, and wore dark cloaks that hung to their ankles, and proudly bore the scars and trophies of their wars with the daemons.

The sinister princes of the north were arrayed with knives, spears, swords, bows, shields and armour wrought with the runes of Vaul, testaments to the power of Nagarythe and Anlec. Banner bearers with black and silver standards stood in attendance, and heralds sounded the trumpets and pipes at their arrival. A cabal of sorcerers accompanied the Naggarothi contingent, clad in robes of black and purple, their faces tattooed and scarred with ritual sigils, their heads shaved.

Another group there was, of princes from the lands founded by Caledor in the south, and from the new realms to the east – Cothique, Eataine, Yvresse and others. At the fore stood the young mage Thyriol, and golden-haired Menieth, son of Caledor Dragontamer.

In contrast to the Naggarothi these elves of the south and east were as day is to night. Though all had played their part in the war against the daemons, these princes had cast off their wargear and instead carried staves and sceptres, and in the place of war helms they wore golden crowns as symbols of their power. They were clad predominantly in white, the colour of mourning, in remembrance of the losses their people had suffered; the Naggarothi eschewed such affectation even though they had lost more than most.

‘Aenarion has passed on,’ Morathi declared to the council. ‘The Godslayer, the Widowmaker, he returned to the Altar of Khaine so that we can be free of war. In peace, my son wishes to rule, and in peace we would explore this new world that surrounds us. Yet, I fear peace now is a thing of memory, and perhaps one day to be nothing more than myth. Do not think that the Great Powers that now gaze upon our world with hungry, immortal eyes can be so easily defeated. Though the daemons are banished from our lands, the power of Chaos is not wholly exiled from the world. I have gazed far and wide this past year, and I have seen what changes the fall of the gods has wrought upon us.’

‘In war, I would follow no other king,’ said Menieth, striding to the centre of the circle formed by the princes. ‘In Nagarythe is found the greatest strength of arms upon this isle. The war is over, though, and I am not sure that the strength of Nagarythe lies in tranquillity. There are other realms now, and cities where there were castles. Civilisation has triumphed over Chaos on Ulthuan, and we shall take that civilisation across the seas and the elves shall reign where the gods have fallen.’

‘And such arrogance and blindness shall see us humbled,’ said Morathi. ‘Far to the north, the lands are blasted wastelands, where creatures corrupted by dark magic crawl and flit. Ignorant savages build altars of skulls in praise of the new gods, and spill the blood of their kin in worship. Monstrous things melded of flesh and magic prowl the darkness beyond our shores. If we are to bring our light to these benighted lands, it shall be upon the glittering tip of spear and arrow.’

‘Hardship and bloodshed are the price we pay for our survival,’ argued Menieth. ‘Nagarythe shall march at the forefront of our hosts and with the valour of the Naggarothi we shall pierce that darkness. However, we cannot be ruled by war as we were when Aenarion strode amongst us. We must reclaim our spirits from the love of bloodshed that consumed us, and seek a more enlightened path towards building a new world. We must allow the boughs of love and friendship to flourish from the roots of hatred and violence sown by the coming of Aenarion. We shall never forget his legacy, but our hearts cannot be ruled by his anger.’

‘My son is the heir of Aenarion,’ Morathi said quietly, menace in her soft voice. ‘That we stand here at all is the prize wrested from defeat by my late husband.’

‘But won no less by my father’s sacrifice,’ Menieth countered. ‘For a year we have pondered what course of action to take, since the deaths of Aenarion and Caledor. Nagarythe shall take its place amongst the other realms – great in its glory, yet not greater than any other kingdom.’

‘Greatness is earned by deeds, not bestowed by others,’ said Morathi, striding forwards to stand in front of Menieth. She planted her staff in the ground between them and glared at the prince, her grip tight upon the metal rod.

‘It is not to fall upon each other that we fought against the daemons and sacrificed so much,’ said Thyriol hurriedly. Clad in robes of white and yellow that glimmered with golden thread, the mage laid a hand upon the shoulder of Morathi and upon the arm of Menieth. ‘In us has been awakened a new spirit, and we must temper our haste with cool judgement, just as a newly forged blade must be quenched in the calming waters.’

‘Who here feels worthy enough to take up the crown of the Phoenix King?’ Morathi asked, glaring at the princes with scorn. ‘Who here save my son is worthy of being Aenarion’s successor?’

There was silence for a while, and none of the dissenters could meet Morathi’s gaze, save for Menieth, who returned her cold stare without flinching. Then a voice rang out across the glade from the shadows of the trees encircling the council.

‘I have been chosen!’ the voice called.

From the trees walked Bel Shanaar, ruling prince of the plains of Tiranoc.

One decision, poorly taken, and the defeat of the Chaos Gods was thrown away. One decision and the seeds were sown of a doom that was seven thousand years in the growing.

It is a cruel trick of Chaos that prophecy so often becomes self-fulfilling.

That was how it began.

This is how it ends.

One

The Witch King Rises

At some point lost in the depths of time someone had called it the Black Tower. Perhaps it had been black then, and perhaps it had been merely a tower. Now it was the highest pinnacle at the centre of Naggarond. The sprawling fortress had grown hundreds of outer fortifications and buttresses, spawned a warren of alleys and streets, rooftop passages and arcing bridges, becoming a settlement unto itself where the only law was the shifting will of the Witch King, alliances were fleeting and death a constant risk.

Its walls were festooned with the heads and corpses of the thousands that had displeased Malekith over the preceding millennia. Some were hung upon hooks and chains, others in nooses and gibbets. Hundreds were skeletons, preserved by dire magic, but dozens were more recent, mouldering flesh clinging to bones gnawed by the clouds of harpies that circled over the bastion seeking new victims to scavenge.

The Black Tower.

A name filled with more grief and terror than three simple words could describe, etched into the last memories of the unfortunates upon the wall, burned into the agony of those still writhing in the dungeons that were dug into the bedrock beneath the high walls and banner-wreathed ramparts.

None remembered who had first named it, not even Malekith himself as he sat upon his iron throne in a grand hall atop the tallest keep. He did remember a time when Naggarond had not existed, one of only a handful of beings across the entire world.

He had grown up in the Black Tower, the grim atmosphere overshadowed by the brooding presence of his father, Aenarion, and the wicked, bloody machinations of his mother, Morathi. His opponents had claimed that those decades had laid a similar darkness upon his heart.

The Witch King no longer possessed lips, but the irony of history would have caused them to twist into a cruel smile. A face ravaged by holy fire contorted beneath hot iron in an approximation of humour, the sort of humour that delighted in looking out of the window at the heads of a dozen generals who had failed Malekith during the recent war against the barbarous northmen. He viewed them now, taking satisfaction from the screams that had filled this chamber as their bodies had been split apart by dark magic and heated blades.

He looked out past these tokens of his anger, to the surrounding fortress and the high curtain walls beyond. Past them dark shadows pierced the sky, none quite as tall as the Black Tower, shrouded in the dismal chill mists of Naggaroth.

Naggarond.

But this was not the city of his birth, though the Black Tower had been his childhood home. That honour belonged to a fallen place, razed and raised again and again throughout the turning epochs, built upon the blood-soaked soil of ancient Nagarythe.

Anlec.

Capital of Aenarion, once the strongest city in the world, shaming even Karaz-a-Karak of the dwarfs. Anlec, envy of Ulthuan, which had fallen in battle only once, and that had been to Malekith himself and allies within the walls.

All now was ruin. The Black Tower was all that remained of Anlec. The memory was sharp even though six thousand years old.

The storm-wracked seas crashed against a harsh shore of rock pinnacles, foaming madly. The skies were in turmoil, blackened by dark magic. Through the spume and rain dark, massive shapes surged across the seas, towering edifices of battlement and wall.

The castles of Nagarythe followed in the wake of the largest floating citadel, upon the highest tower of which stood Malekith. The lashing rain steamed from his armour as he turned at the sound of Morathi’s voice from the archway behind him.

‘This is where we flee to?’ she said, anger flashing in her eyes. ‘This cold, bleak land?’

‘They will not follow us here,’ replied the Witch King. ‘We are the Naggarothi – we were born in the north and in the north we will be born again. This land, bleak as it is, shall be ours. Naggaroth.’

‘To build a new kingdom?’ sneered Morathi. ‘To accept your defeat and start afresh as if Nagarythe had never existed?’

‘No,’ replied Malekith, flames leaping from his iron body. ‘We will never forget that which has been taken from us. Ulthuan belongs to me. If it takes a thousand years, ten thousand years, I will claim my rightful place as king. I am the son of Aenarion. It is my destiny.’

Time – mortality – was a concern for lesser beings. Millennia meant nothing to the Witch King. The tally of false Phoenix Kings that had been crowned and fallen over the course of Malekith’s life could not be numbered on two hands and he had greeted the death of each with little regard.

Sometimes he lost entire days reliving the events of his past, withdrawing into his thoughts when the burning agony of his physical shell became too much to bear. The temptation was in him again to reflect on ages past, not to escape pain, but to alleviate the boredom that gnawed at his wits.

‘My king?’

Malekith turned his gaze back from the window and his contemplations. It was Ezresor that had spoken, though it took the Witch King a moment to focus and remember his name. Malekith’s oldest agent flinched as the burning stare of his master fell upon him.

‘You have a question?’ Malekith’s voice was a rasp, edged with the scrape of metal and crackle of flames. ‘A comment, perhaps?’

‘You were about to tell us your will,’ said Venil, assassin-turned-advisor, patron of many pirate fleets, still known as the Chillblade.

Fire flared through the cracks in Malekith’s armour, reacting to his displeasure, forcing Venil to take a step back, face flushed with the sudden heat.

‘Is that so?’ Malekith moved his attention to the last of the triumvirate.

Kouran met the flaming stare of his lord without a flicker of movement. Malekith stood more than a head taller than most of his minions, but Kouran was almost his equal in presence. Grim-faced, dark-eyed, he was surrounded by an air of chilling hostility in contrast to the burning iron of his lord. Alone of the three council members, Kouran was armed and armoured – the only individual in the world Malekith trusted with a blade close at hand. The captain held his halberd, Crimson Death, to one side, the blade symbolically averted from his king. While Malekith’s war plate and scale were wreathed with heat, the black steel of Kouran’s armour was like oil, shifting constantly with the trapped souls of sacrifices.

‘The prosecution of the war, the pursuit against the one they call Valkia and the hunt for your mother,’ Kouran prompted without hesitation. The captain had become perhaps too comfortable with Malekith’s lapses of focus, but the Witch King knew that alone of all his subjects Kouran would not use such information against him.

‘Why is Ebnir not here? I would hear from the Soulflayer about the state of my armies and the forces opposed to them.’

‘He is dead, your majesty,’ said Ezresor. ‘As I just informed you.’

The spymaster’s tone irritated Malekith. Insolence. Not enough to warrant death, that would be wasteful, but in pressing times control had to be total. Censure needed to be swift and obvious. The Witch King gave the slightest of nods to Kouran, who knew well enough what his master required.

The captain smashed a gauntleted fist into Ezresor’s face, bloodying his nose and sending him flailing to the floor. Widening his stance ready for a kick, Kouran looked back to his king but received a shake of the head.

‘Of course he is dead,’ said Malekith. ‘He is not stupid. He allowed the watch tower at Vartoth to fall and then compounded the error by leading a host of my warriors onto the glaciers to be slain by these hairy wretches from the Wastes. I am sure when the battle turned against him he threw himself on his own blade, or at least allowed one of the northmen to gut him like a pig, rather than face the fate he knew would await him in my dungeon.’

Ezresor pushed to his feet, uncertain, and shared a glance with Venil. The spymaster wiped the blood from his lip with the cuff of his robe and bowed in apology.

‘Hellebron has not answered my summons,’ said Malekith.

‘She fights in Har Ganeth still,’ said Ezresor. Malekith was pleased that his counsellor offered fact rather than unrequested opinion.

‘The city is nothing but ruins,’ added Venil. ‘The temples to Khaine have been thrown down.’

‘Pride keeps her there,’ said Malekith, understanding the motive of the hag queen better than most. ‘She was humiliated and now she salves her embarrassment with the blood of stragglers and the lost. I will indulge her a while longer.’

‘Forgive my surprise, majesty, but there are lords and ladies that have refused summons and paid dearly for the affront.’ Venil licked his lips and chose his next words with care. ‘I would not wish Hellebron to become a bad example to others.’

‘Hellebron is too useful to have killed,’ Malekith said bluntly. ‘I’m not sure there is anyone capable of the feat even if I desired her death, and I cannot spare another army.’

‘Shadowblade…’ suggested Kouran.

‘Is an uncertain weapon at the moment,’ Malekith replied. ‘He answers to me in this world, but his loyalty is to Khaine, and Hellebron is yet the ranking mistress to the Lord of Murder. There is little to be gained by asking of him such taxing questions at this time. Hellebron will return in time. There is no need to yank the leash just yet.’

‘There is division in Ulthuan, your majesty,’ Venil said with some glee. ‘Prince Imrik of Caledor has quit the court of the absent Phoenix King, having exchanged harsh words with Prince Tyrion about his claim to be regent in Finubar’s absence. The Dragon of Cothique, it seems, will not be able to draw upon the dragons of Caledor in his defence of the realm.’

‘I am sure Tyrion will prevail, even without the dragon princes,’ said Malekith.

‘As to the matter of the Hag Sorceress, master?’ ventured Ezresor. ‘She holds court in Ghrond, perhaps believing that you will not dare confront her in her own convent.’

‘Perhaps?’ Malekith lingered on the word. It suggested speculation, and in speculating it was possible that Ezresor thought there would be cause for Malekith’s mother to believe herself safe from his retribution.

‘We have had no direct contact with Ghrond for many years, your majesty,’ Ezresor added quickly. ‘It is hard to be certain of anything. It is unlikely, but your mother may be dead.’

‘No, she is very much alive, you can be sure of that,’ said Malekith. ‘When death finally catches up with Morathi the world will hear her screams of disappointment, mark my words. Do you not think I will know when she has perished? She gave me her life-force, sustained me in my darkest hour and guided me through the many tribulations that I faced. She is as much a part of me as this armour.’

Venil stroked his chin, his mood contemplative.

‘It was not wholly the fault of Ebnir that we received no warning of the northlanders’ attack. The loss of one watch tower could have been prevented had the seers at Ghrond foretold the incursion.’ He paused, licked his lips again and spoke slowly. ‘It seems unlikely that the Convent of Sorceresses would choose to abandon their duties on a whim, so we must be forced to conclude that the oversight was deliberate.’

‘Who could command the convent to betray their lord in such fashion?’ asked Ezresor.

‘Cease this embarrassing performance,’ snapped Malekith, slamming a fist onto the arm of his throne, throwing up a shower of sparks. ‘If you have an accusation to level against my mother, make it plain to me.’

‘Apologies, majesty,’ said Ezresor, bowing low with a flicked glance towards Kouran. ‘I am certain Morathi deliberately kept word of the Chaos attack, ensuring that we would be poorly prepared.’

‘And why do you suppose she would do such a thing?’ said Kouran. ‘Ghrond cannot stand alone against all that the Chaos Wastes vomit forth.’

‘Do not underestimate the nihilism of spite,’ said Venil. ‘For longer even than our lord she has coveted the rule of Ulthuan. Perhaps she sees some advantage in letting Naggaroth fall to disaster.’

All three advisors turned to Malekith, remembering that they spoke in his presence. None of them uttered a word but cast their eyes down at the floor and fell silent.

‘You were speaking of my mother,’ Malekith prompted, looking at Venil. ‘Continue.’

‘Begging your majesty’s pleasure, it was wrong to resurrect old arguments and vexatious issues,’ said the former assassin, wielding his words as carefully as he once wielded poisoned daggers.

‘Ezresor?’ Malekith’s dark gaze fell upon the spymaster. ‘You wish to add comment?’

‘Your mother believed you were dead, your majesty. She underestimated you, as have many, but she intended no direct assault upon your power.’

‘Without her support, I would have lost Naggarond in the absence of our king,’ Kouran growled at the others. ‘She erred, and when the error was made clear she did all in her power to protect the rule of Malekith.’

‘Usurpers had imprisoned her,’ said Ezresor, a sneer twisting his lips. ‘She would have sought alliance with a bastard shade born of a harpy if it would have helped her cause. She desires the throne of Ulthuan and has used any means to lay her hands upon it, making them puppets when they believed they were following their own will.’

‘Including your king?’ Malekith finished the sentiment. Ezresor’s pale skin seemed to whiten even further and he took a step back, putting distance between himself and his master, throwing a worried look at Kouran for good measure. Malekith laughed but it did not ease Ezresor’s fright. ‘Do you think I am so blind to my mother’s machinations, Ezresor? You may be the lord of my agents, the master of ten thousand cultists and spies, but do not think I know only that which you tell me. I know very well the manner of creature that spawned me, and the deeds of which she is capable.’

A high priestess, lithe and athletic, presided over the despicable ceremony from a dais littered with corpses and blood. Her white robes were spattered with gore, and a daemonic bronze mask covered her face. Her eyes glowed with a pale yellow light from within, and her pupils were tiny points of blackness in pools of luminescence.

In one hand, she held a crooked staff, wrought from bones and iron, and tipped with a horned skull with three eye sockets. In the other, she wielded a curved dagger still slick with the blood of many sacrifices.

Malekith charged across the chamber, cutting down any cultist who barred his path. He was but a few steps from the dais when the priestess thrust forward the tip of her staff and a bolt of pure blackness leapt out and struck the prince full in the chest. The prince’s heart felt like it would explode. With a cry of pain torn from his lips, Malekith faltered and fell to his knees. He was as much shocked as hurt, for he knew of no wizard who could best the sorcerous abilities granted to him by the Circlet of Iron.

He gazed in amazement at the priestess. She stepped down from the dais with languid strides and walked slowly towards the injured prince, the tip of her staff fixed upon him.

‘My foolish child,’ she sneered.

The priestess let the sacrificial dagger slip from her fingers to clatter in a shower of crimson droplets upon the floor. With her hand thus freed, she pulled off her mask and tossed it aside. Though caked with blood, the priestess’ lustrous black hair spilled across her bare shoulders. Her face was pristine, the very image of beauty. In her were aristocratic bearing and divine magnificence combined.

The assembled captains and knights gazed dumbly at this apparition of perfection, ensorcelled.

‘Mother?’ whispered Malekith, his sword slipping from his numb fingers.

‘My son,’ she replied with a wicked smile, eliciting from those that looked on lust and fear in equal measure. ‘It is very rude of you to butcher my servants so callously. Your time amongst the barbarians has robbed you of all manners.’

Malekith said nothing but simply stared up at Morathi, wife of Aenarion, his mother.

‘Her loyalty extends as far as necessity and no further,’ Malekith explained. ‘Her attempts to usurp my power, subtly or directly, are not new to me. Of far graver concern is her ambivalence. If she is willing to let Naggaroth drown beneath the blades of the northlanders it is because she deems our lands, our people, no longer of value. Her greatest plans require powerful patrons and large sacrifices. It is very plausible that she has relented of her disdain for the Chaos Gods and now seeks to buy their favour in its entirety, offering up thousands of Naggarothi in return for their boons.’

‘A treachery far worse than any she has committed before,’ said Venil. ‘It is not my place to instruct you, majesty, but I think it is finally time that we were rid of her meddlesome double-dealing.’

‘You are correct,’ said Malekith. Venil’s smug smile faded as the Witch King continued. ‘It is not your place to instruct me. I will deal with my mother as I see fit.’

‘But you will deal with her?’ said Venil, unable to keep silent but cringing even as he uttered the words as though his mouth had betrayed him. He offered obeisance with bowed head and spread hands. ‘We have lost too much to allow old wounds to continue to fester.’

‘I will think on the matter,’ said Malekith, turning his stare back to the window.

He spent a few moments in contemplation, imagining Venil’s near-dead carcass dancing on one of the barbed chains on the tower opposite. It brought him only a few moments of pleasure before his desire for cruel punishment was superseded by a colder, more pragmatic need.

‘The world is in upheaval,’ he said. ‘Forces of life and death stir and the gaze of the gods falls upon us all. The winds of magic have not been so turbulent since the last great war against the Dark Gods’ servants. The tempest of Chaos obscures unnatural sight, so you must bring me all news from across the globe. I will know what rumour passes in Lothern and Tor Achare. You will tell me what counsel is spoken to the ears of the human kings and Emperor. Armies march, alive and dead, and I would know their disposition and strength. All of this you will bring to me, or you are of no more use.’

‘From your will, majesty, to my hands,’ Venil said, wetting his lips once more. ‘I shall be your eyes and ears, as always.’

Two

Destiny’s Master

Malekith dismissed Ezresor and Venil, and sat down on his iron throne to consider their counsel. At a gesture from his lord, Kouran approached the throne and stood to one side, awaiting instruction.

Malekith looked at the backs of the other two elves for a moment before the huge double doors closed behind them. It was too easy to dismiss their concerns out of hand. Seven millennia had delivered many crises and setbacks to Malekith but he had overcome these disappointments. Recent events seemed at first to be world-shattering, especially to his minions that did not share their king’s advantage of such long perspective.

Weighed against the risks of over-reaction was the price of complacency. The barbarians had been at the walls of Naggarond itself, during the Witch King’s absence, and that was almost unthinkable. This was not just another incursion by the cultureless hordes of the north, this was a far rarer moment, a genuine mass migration, an expansion of the Chaos Wastes that could signify a great change in the course of history.

None other than Malekith, save perhaps his mother, understood the importance of harnessing the turning points of history to one’s own end. He looked at Kouran.

‘Destiny,’ said the Witch King, ‘is a lazy device invented by simpleton philosophers, endorsed by inadequate playwrights and poets, and thrown around by half-blind mages. The gods rarely care to interfere in the life of a single mortal, and the wider universe certainly does not pause in its cycle or shape itself for the betterment of a single person. If one believes in destiny, one forfeits the right to choose a path, giving away all credit and taking no blame for one’s actions.’

‘I understand, my king,’ said Kouran.

Malekith regarded his lieutenant, looking for a sign that this was merely platitude. It was not, and Malekith could tell.

‘Of course, my dear captain, there are few better examples of a self-made elf than you. Gutterspawn you were, am I right? Raised in the streets and alleys, orphaned?’

‘I was, my king. I fought for food, for survival. The Black Guard took me in and gave me something else to fight for.’

‘For a master?’ said Malekith, knowing the truth but curious to see if he could tease it from his loyal bodyguard.

‘Respectfully, no, my king. Though I am honoured to serve and would give my life for yours, it was not loyalty to you that drove my ascension through the ranks. The Black Guard gave me a chance to earn respect.’

‘Do they respect you, or do they fear you?’ It was a question Morathi had oftentimes asked of Malekith down the centuries. Malekith had always been ambivalent to the difference but he sensed it meant something to Kouran.

‘A mixture of both,’ the captain replied with a rare half-smile. ‘Those that do not know me, fear me, and that is enough. A few that know me, they respect me. I would hope, my king, that you do not fear me, but that I have your respect.’

Malekith nodded thoughtfully.

‘Yes, my dear Alandrian, you have my deepest respect. So few do, these days.’ Malekith was in a strange mood and felt like confiding in his companion something he had not shared with any other. ‘The truth is, I do not fear you, and perhaps you are the only mortal I do not fear. The others are weak and venal and would strike me down in a heartbeat if given the chance.’

‘Surely you are too powerful to be overthrown in such fashion, my king?’

‘I can die, despite my longevity. It is not a casual dread, of mortality, but an ever-present knowledge that I am not loved, and those that serve, except for you, serve me out of fear not respect. I wonder, Alandrian, if I should have tried harder to win them to my cause rather than coercing them into servitude.’

‘My name is Kouran, my king,’ the captain said, his voice edged with concern.

‘Yes, I know that,’ Malekith snapped. ‘What of it?’

‘Twice in the last few breaths you called me Alandrian. One of your earliest lieutenants, I think.’

‘Did I really?’ Malekith tried to recall what he had said but could not remember misnaming his companion. There was, unusually for Malekith’s retainers, no cause for Kouran to lie so the Witch King accepted the correction without doubt. ‘Take it as a compliment, Kouran. Alandrian was an exceptional commander, an accomplished negotiator and orator, and one of my most loyal servants. He helped me forge the colonies across the water in Elthin Arvan.’

‘I recall now, my king. You made him Regent of Athel Toralien. He was Hellebron’s father.’

‘The past vexes me,’ Malekith said suddenly. ‘That must be why I was thinking of Alandrian. The past is returning. It repeats itself, coming in cycles, birth and death and rebirth. Ever has it been so, since before my time, until the End Times. The gods rise and fall, are worshipped and cast aside, and the lives of mortals pass like the heartbeats of the world.’

‘What about the past particularly vexes you this day, my king?’

‘Something is changing. Like a familiar smell, of blood and hot iron, these past days remind me of a time long, long passed.’

‘We have fought many wars with the northmen – it is not strange to be reminded of such events when the barbarians come south again.’

‘It is not the northmen that I can smell, my dear Kouran. I smell something far older and far deadlier. Chaos in its raw form. The portal opens and the Realm of the Gods expands, polluting the world. The winds of magic are changing. Death shrouds the world.’ Malekith took a breath, the flames of his body dimming to ruddy embers as he shuddered. ‘Daemons, Kouran. I smell the spoor of daemons. They have come again to Ulthuan – the hosts of the Chaos Gods’ minions throw themselves upon the spears of our weaker cousins.’

‘Yes, my king, we have received reports that the upstart Tyrion leads the armies of the Phoenix King in defence of our ancestral isle. What does it mean?’

What did it mean? Malekith knew. He had known this time would come for six thousand years.

His glowing hand reached up to the spiked crown upon his head – the Circlet of Iron – and the Witch King’s thoughts drifted back across the ages to a strange city in the north, wherein he and his expedition had found a temple unlike any other, and within that temple Malekith had found a prize that promised the world.

Seven figures sat upon low square stools, more opulent versions of the skeletons below with more pearls and brooches of the same dark, black material. Six sat facing outward, each one facing one of the lines upon the ground below as far as Malekith could tell. They had no hoods but instead wore simple crowns, each nothing more than a narrow band about the skull with a black gem that reflected no light.

The seventh figure sat facing Malekith, though he suspected that he would have faced the intruders regardless of from which direction they had approached. His crown was much larger, of a silver-grey metal, with curling, horn-like protrusions, the only organic shape they had seen since entering the city.

‘Highness!’ snapped Yeasir, and Malekith turned, his hand on his sword hilt. It was only then that he realised that his other hand had been reaching out towards the skeletal king, to pluck the crown from his skull. Malekith had no recollection of having crossed the dais and shook his head as if dazed by a blow.

‘We should touch nothing,’ said Yeasir. ‘This place is cursed, by the gods, or worse.’

Malekith laughed and the noise seemed stifled and flat, with none of the ringing echoes of his earlier shout.

‘I think this great king rules here no more,’ said Malekith. ‘This is my sign, Yeasir. What greater statement about my destiny could I make? Imagine returning to Ulthuan with such a crown upon my head, an artefact of the time before.’

‘Before what?’ asked Yeasir.

‘Before everything!’ said Malekith. ‘Before Chaos, before the Everqueen, before even the gods themselves. Can you not feel it, the great antiquity that fills this place?’

‘I feel it,’ growled Yeasir. ‘There is ancient malice here, can you not sense it? I say again, there is a curse upon this place.’

‘You were willing to follow me to the Gate of Chaos,’ Malekith reminded his captain. ‘Would you rather we left this treasure here and continued north?’

Yeasir’s muttered reply was inaudible, but Malekith took it to be his captain’s acquiescence. Not that the prince needed the permission of anyone to take whatever he wanted, from wherever he wanted. Magic had guided him to this place and Malekith knew that there was purpose behind it. Whether it was the gods or some other will that had led him here, it was to stand before this prehistoric king and take his crown.

With a smile, Malekith lifted the circlet from the dead king’s skull; it was as light as air and came away with no difficulty.

‘You have it, now let us leave,’ said Yeasir, fear making his voice shrill.

‘Calm yourself,’ said Malekith. ‘Does it not make me kingly?’

With that, the prince of Nagarythe placed the circlet upon his head and the world vanished.

A kaleidoscope of clashing colours swarmed around Malekith. He was filled with the peculiar sensation of rising high up into the air while at the same time plummeting down towards some bottomless depth. His head swam and his skin tingled with power. He was lost in sensation, his whole being pulsing and vibrating with unknown energy.

In time – moments or an eternity, Malekith could not tell – the swirling colours began to coalesce around him. They formed into a nightmarish landscape above the centre of which floated the elf prince. The skies boiled with fire and black clouds, and beneath him stretched an arcane plateau that stretched on for infinity: the Realm of Chaos.

In one direction Malekith spied an unending garden, forlorn and decaying, filled with drooping willows and sallow grasses. A miasma of fog and flies drifted up from the overgrown copses of bent and withered trees, and rivers of oozing pus flowed between fronds of clinging fungi and piles of rotted corpses. Marshes bubbled and boiled and pits of tar gurgled, spewing gaseous vapours into the thick air.

At the centre of the unkempt morass rose up a mansion of titanic proportions, a grandiose but tottering edifice of crumbling stone and worm-eaten wood. Peeling paint and flaking brick stood upon cracked stone and bowed beams, crawling with sickly yellow ivy and immense black roses. Fumes belched from a hundred chimneys and gargoyle-headed pipes spat and drooled gobbets of ichor across cracked tiles and mouldering thatch.

In the smog and gloom shambled daemons of death and plague: immensely bloated creatures with pestilent flesh and pox-marked skin, and slobbering beasts with slug-like bodies and fronds of tentacles dribbling noxious emissions. Swarms of boil-like mites scrabbled over the sagging walls and roofs of the manse, while a legion of cyclopean daemons, each with a single cracked horn, meandered about the wild gardens chanting sonorously.

Turning his gaze from the filth and squalor, Malekith then looked upon a mighty citadel made up of glimmering mirrors and crystal. Its surface shimmered with a rainbow of colours, translucent yet transparent, shifting with eddies and swirls of magic. Doors yawned like devouring mouths and windows stared back at the prince like lidless eyes. Fires of all colours billowed from the spires of thin towers, sending fountains of sparks trailing down to the ground below.

All about the bizarre palace was an immense maze, of shifting walls of crystal. The twisting, contorted pathways overlapped above and below, and passed through each other via unseen dimensions. Arcing gateways of flame linked parts of the immense labyrinth together, flickering from blue to green to purple and to colours not meant to be seen by mortals.

The skies about the horrifying tower were filled with shoals of creatures that climbed and swooped upon the magical thermals, shark-like and fearsome. Formless, cackling things cavorted and whirled about the maze, flashing with magical power. Daemons with arms that dripped with fire bounded manically along the winding crystal passages, leaping and bouncing with insane abandon. Malekith felt his eyes drawn back to the impossible fortress and saw that a great gallery had opened up.

Here stalked arcane things with multicoloured wings and bird-like faces, with contorting staves in their hands and robes of glistening pink and blue. One of the creatures paused and looked up at him. Its eyes were like pits of never-ending madness, deep oceans of swirling power that threatened to draw him into their depths for eternity.

Breaking that transfixing stare, Malekith then looked upon a blasted wasteland, surrounded by a great chain of volcanoes that spewed rivers of lava down their black sides and choked the air with their foul soot. Immense ramparts were carved from the mountainsides, huge bastions of dread hung with skulls and from whose jagged battlements fluttered a thousand times a thousand banners of red.

Within the encircling peaks the land was rent by great tears and chasms that welled up with blood like wounds, as if it had been constantly rent by the blows of some godly blade. The skeletons of unimaginable creatures were piled high amongst lakes of burning crimson, and all about were dunes made of the dust of countless bones. Hounds the size of horses with red-scaled flesh and enormous fangs prowled amongst the ruination, their howls tearing the air above the snap and crack of bone and gristle.

At the centre of this desolation grew a tower of unimaginable proportion, so vast that it seemed to fill Malekith’s vision. Of black stone and brass was it made, tower upon tower, wall upon wall, a castle so great that it would hold back the armies of the whole universe. Gargoyles spouted boiling blood down its brazen fortifications and red-skinned warriors with wiry frames and bulbous, horned heads patrolled its ramparts. Upon its highest parapet there stood a thing of pure fury: rage given bestial, winged form. It beat its broad chest and roared into the dark skies.

Shuddering, Malekith turned fully about and stood bewitched by a panorama of entrancing beauty. Enchanting glades of gently swaying emerald-leafed trees bordered golden beaches upon which crashed white-foamed waves, while glittering lakes of tranquil water beckoned to him. Majestic mountains soared above all, their flanks clad in the whitest snow, glistening in the unseen sun.

Lithe creatures clad in the guise of half-maidens cavorted through the paradise, laughing and chattering, caressing each other with shimmering claws. Across emerald meadows roamed herds of sinuous beasts whose bodies shimmered and changed colour, their iridescent patterns hypnotising to the elf prince. Malekith felt himself drawn onwards, ensnared by their beauty.

Suddenly realising his peril, Malekith tore his gaze away from the mesmerising vision. He became distinctly aware that he was being watched and could feel the attention of otherworldly beings being turned in his direction. Feeling as if his soul were about to be laid bare and flayed before the gaze of the Chaos Gods, Malekith felt terror gripping him. He sought somewhere to flee, but in every direction spread the domains of the Dark Gods. With a last dread-driven effort, he wished himself away and was surrounded again by the twirling energies of magic.

When his vision had cleared again, Malekith found himself hovering far above the world, as if stood upon the edge of creation itself and looking down upon the realms of men and elves and dwarfs and every other creature under the sun. He could see the jungle-swathed forests of Lustria where lizardmen scuttled through the ruins of the Old Ones’ cities. He saw orc tribes massing in the blighted wilderness, carpeting the ground in tides of green.

Over everything drifted the winds of magic, now more clear to him than they had ever been. The prince saw them streaming from the shattered Gate of Chaos in the north and spreading out across the northlands. He saw the vortex of Ulthuan as a great swirl of power, drawing the energy out of the world. He saw sinkholes of darkness and blazing mountains of light.

In that instant it all became clear to Malekith. The whole world was laid out before him, and he saw as perhaps only his mother had before seen. There were torrents of power that swept across the lands untapped by mortal kind. The very breath of the gods sighed over oceans and plains, down valleys and across forests. From Chaos came all magic, whether good or ill. It was stunning in its beauty, just as a storm-tossed sea can enthral those not caught in its deadly grip.

Malekith lingered awhile, now aware of the crown burning upon his head. It acted as some kind of key, some artefact created by the races that had come before the rise of elves, before even the coming of the Old Ones. It would be easy for him to stay here forever, marvelling in the rich, random choreography of the dancing winds of magic. He could spend an eternity studying their heights and depths with the circlet and still not unlock all of their secrets.

Something nagged at his mind however, a sensation deep within his soul that threatened to break his reverie.

Malekith summoned the willpower to master the Circlet of Iron and returned to the mortal world. With the power of the crown, Malekith could see the magical forces binding the skeletons together and the ancient commands that blazed within their empty skulls. It was simplicity itself to order them to stop and then with another thought, the prince bade them return to their eternal slumber. All about him the hall was filled with great golden arches and glittering pillars, unseen to all except him.

Given extraordinary awareness by the circlet he could look upon the magic of the ancient architects of the city, the curving galleries and arching balconies constructed from mystical forces that even he had been unaware of. This was why the chamber had been devoid of other magic, for it contained its own power, far stronger than that of the fitful winds of magic. Just as air cannot pass into a solid object, so too the winds of magic found no room to creep into the enchantment-filled chamber.

Now gifted the insights granted by the crown, there was no telling how acutely the Naggarothi prince might master the power of Chaos. With the circlet to act as his key, Malekith could work such spells as would make the witchery of Saphery seem insignificant. Had he not looked upon the realm of the Chaos Gods itself? Did he not now know their lands, and had he not dared them and survived?

Elation filled Malekith, more majestic than any triumph he ever felt before. His mother had warned that Chaos was the greater enemy; the perils of orcs and the armies of the beastmen paled into insignificance against those legions of daemons that Malekith had seen. The Chaos Gods plotted and waited, for they had an eternity to ponder their plans and to make their schemes. The elves could not shelter behind the power of the vortex forever, Malekith realised, for he had felt the slowly growing power of the Chaos Gods even as he had stood in their midst.

It all came together in the prince’s mind. The men of the north were vassals of the Dark Gods, and as they prospered and multiplied, so too would the influence of their ineffable masters. There might come a day when the bulwark of the vortex would fail, and again the hordes of Chaos would be unleashed upon the world. Ulthuan was utterly unprepared for such an eventuality. Bel Shanaar could not hope to meet such a threat. It was an apparent truth to Malekith that he alone, with the power of the circlet, now bore the means by which the elves might be protected from this greater doom.

Slowly, with much effort, Malekith took the crown from his head. The great magical architecture faded from his vision and he found himself back in the strangely-angled hall beneath the prehistoric city. His Naggarothi surrounded him, staring at their lord with eyes full of wonder and fear.

Malekith smiled. He now knew what he must do.

‘It means,’ Malekith said slowly, ‘that a time of destiny is upon us. An opportunity to shape the future and seal fates presently caught in the balance.’

‘You plan to move on Ulthuan once again?’

‘Not yet, there is too much turmoil in Naggaroth with the army of that blood-bitch Valkia still roaming my lands, and Morathi haunts Ghrond with further mischief in mind, I am sure. There can be no fresh attack while these matters are yet to be decided.’ Malekith stood, the flames from his body erupting into fresh life, so hot that Kouran was forced to take a step back, his armour glittering in the orange and yellow light. ‘Assemble my army and call for my generals. Send the word to all that have fought beneath my banner and let them know that I demand their service again. The Witch King marches forth.’

Three

The March North

A city of tents dominated the high ground, walls and banners flapping in the incessant breeze that brought its icy touch across Naggarond from even more northerly climes. In more comfortable lands it was spring, but the Land of Chill had been well named in the first years after Malekith had arrived with his exiles. Snow covered the frozen ground, broken by patches of hardy grass and low-growing shrubs with tiny leaves and long thorns.

To the west the Iron Mountains heaped steeply from the foothills, charcoal against the pale sky. To the east the tips of the Spiteful Peaks could just about be seen, as jagged as their name suggested. The gap was the only way to reach Ghrond, and though for that day the blizzard had paused in its ferocity, many thousands of the Naggarothi host had already succumbed to the ceaseless march and deadly weather. As many again had fallen to northlander blades and mauls, slain during raids and pitched battles that had dogged the army as it had forged north, marching into the night for the daylight hours were far too few, progress slowing as their destination neared and the weather worsened.

Like any settlement the army camp had its distinctive areas and quarters, each with a character of its own. Immediately within the picket of sentries were the cloth-roofed corrals of the dark riders, where patrols and messengers came and went without hindrance. Sturdier stables of timber and chain housed the reptilian cold one mounts of the knights and nobles – the hideous smell of the beasts ensured that only slaves and the most disfavoured druchii held their quarters downwind.

The shamble of bivouacs and rough hide shelters that housed the slaves had grown slightly since the army had left Naggarond, swelled by northlanders that had been foolish enough to allow themselves to be taken prisoner. Though born into hardship in the cold wastes, they nevertheless yammered and howled their torment as icy wind cut through the sparse canopies protecting their lodgings and snow quenched their few attempts to start warming fires.

In slightly better state were the beastmasters, whose mammalian, reptilian and monstrous charges were also kept on the outskirts of the tent city. Few of the greater beasts – hydras, manticores and dark pegasi – had survived the battles of late, but some of these larger animals were bound by chains and staves, their grunts and howls muted by the snow and carried away by the wind. Hounds and smaller hunting reptiles yammered and yowled and hissed in their pens, woken by the dim grey of dawn.

The bulk of the encampment was made up of tent rows in plain black, white and purple, organised by allegiance to the various regiments and noble houses that had answered Malekith’s call to battle.

To the south the Khainites had gathered, a great pyre in the centre of their camp, their conical tents strung with gaudy and gory trophies from the preceding battles. The bodies of sacrifices to the Lord of Murder charred in the sacrificial flames and their hearts sizzled in ornate black iron braziers. Their bloodlust sated by the night’s revelries the murder cultists slumbered still, their drug-fuelled ceremonies adding to the exhaustion of marching and war.

Closer to the centre of the encampment, a coven of sorceresses still loyal to Malekith had pitched their pavilions. No others had set their tents within three dozen paces of the witches, fearful of the miasma of magical energy that permeated the air. The nights were wracked by otherworldly screams and screeches and each fresh dawn saw a pile of dead acolytes bloodying the snow outside the sorceresses’ tents.

The grandest tents belonged to the noble families of Naggaroth, each clustered around their lord’s or lady’s banner like young sucklings at a mother, feeding off their power and reputation. The peace here was uneasy, the truce between rival dynasties, warring sects and opposing factions kept only by the presence of Black Guard companies patrolling the neutral ground between camps. Even so there had been no few elves that had fallen to ambush and assassination during the long march and ancient hostilities were constantly on the verge of breaking out into open conflict.

At the heart of the druchii camp, glowering down upon all around it, rose Malekith’s pavilion, a conglomeration of steel-ringed hide and linen, black-lacquered wood and bare iron that approximated the Black Tower of his capital. It rose far higher than any other, six corners held by ramparted towers that were broken down, transported and assembled with each march, manned by Black Guard under the supervision of Kouran.

A killing ground two hundred paces across separated the rest of the army’s lodgings from their ruler, covered by repeater bolt throwers mounted in pits dug into the frozen earth by slaves.

As if these were not barrier enough to any wishing to assail Malekith there was, aside from the malice of the Witch King himself, one final obstacle. Beside the black-walled tent slumbered a beast of such proportion that at first it might be mistaken for a blackened hillock until one noticed the pattern of plate-sized scales and claws as long as bastard swords.

She slumbered, Seraphon the Supreme, but alert to the smallest hint of danger to her master. Progeny of Sulekh, greatest of the black dragons, first honoured mount of the Witch King, Seraphon would allow none to approach that did not brandish Malekith’s seal like a shield before them. Her breath spread a bank of mist around the pavilion, tinged with a poisonous gas. A yellow eye opened a slit as shouts broke the stillness.

Beyond this enclave of stillness and dormant power the camp was engulfed by tumult. Riders returned with news of an approaching army, coming south at some speed and seemingly impervious to the blizzard that had trapped the elves upon the ridge for the last five days. The scouts could not state for sure the nature of the foe, for those of their number that approached too close did not return. Of their fate, nothing could be said, but there was rumour of powerful magic and malign influence.

War drums called the companies to muster. Bleakswords, dreadspears and darkshards armed with repeating crossbows fell into rank at the shouted commands of petty nobles and professional captains. Knights and lordlings called for retainers to bring their cold ones while chariots rumbled from the stables to await their masters. The beastmasters whooped and hollered their strange cries, whips cracked and goads struck scaled and furred flesh.

The witch elves and sisters of slaughter roused from their sleep and drank deep of the libations drawn from the cauldrons of the hags that led them. Soon their dismal drug-aches were forgotten as fresh stimulants raced through their bodies and lit their senses. Their battle-screeches and praises to Khaine split the air at the soon-to-commence bloodshed.

About the flag poles and spire-like masts of the Witch King’s pavilion dark, winged shapes unfurled themselves like banners. Chittering to one another, a cloud of harpies hundreds-strong launched into the air, startled by the sudden noise.

‘The enemy host approaches, my king,’ said Kouran, presenting his halberd in salute as he bowed. There was no carpet underfoot, just weathered hide scorched in many places by the hot tread of his master. ‘Do you wish to lead the army into battle?’

Malekith barely heard his lieutenant, just as he was almost unaware of the braying horns and crashing drums. Kouran had proven himself not only a skilled warrior but an adept general. His defence of Naggarond during Malekith’s absence demonstrated beyond doubt that he was more than just a blade-wielder.

The Witch King’s concern was not set upon the thousands of unwashed, hairy barbarians that were advancing upon his army, but much further afield, beyond this battle, beyond the next battles, to a far grander war. The reclamation of Naggaroth was a necessary distraction, but he would not let such matters intrude upon his longer strategy.

He waved a dismissive hand, indicating that he was content for Kouran and the lower commanders to direct the battle in his stead. Malekith wondered, briefly, if he should have wiped out the humans when he had been granted the chance millennia before they had become civilised. Though they had become a tiresome thorn in his side, they had provided something of a bulwark also, fighting each other as much as they raided the lands of the druchii.

In the end it mattered nothing to him. They were, for the most part, such short-lived, savage creatures it was impossible to know how their fates might have changed. Like the orcs and the half-beasts and the tunnelling ratmen, the humans had bred and spread across Elthin Arvan in the wake of the great war between the elves and the dwarfs, and but for the tribes of the north had played little part in the affairs of elves until the last few centuries.

Malekith revised his earlier contempt. There were some from the race of humanity that had placed their mark upon history far more deeply than one might have expected, and another had added his name to that roll: Archaon. The so-called Everchosen – the title had spilled from the lips of prisoners easily enough, rendered in the dozens of dialects of the northern tribes – had roused the northlanders in such strength that not elf or man or dwarf had ever seen the like before.

This time was different. Malekith felt it again, the subtle shift of fates uncoiling, history parting from the normal cycle of victory and defeat. The gods were stirring. Old gods, dead gods, coming back to life to meddle in the affairs of mortals once again. His charred skin prickled at the thought.

‘Wait.’

The single word froze Kouran at the opening to the Witch King’s main pavilion.

‘My king?’ he asked, turning around, pleased at Malekith’s sudden interest. ‘You will lead us?’

‘Perhaps,’ the Witch King replied, standing up. ‘If required. I shall watch the battle. You may proceed with whatever preparations you deem fitting.’

‘As you command, my king.’ Kouran bowed again and left, with considerably more enthusiasm than when he had entered.

‘So loyal,’ Malekith said to himself. ‘So easily pleased.’

His infamous sword, Urithain the Destroyer, was already at his hip but his shield hung on a stand behind the throne. He took it up, almost as high as he was tall, emblazoned with runes that seemed like empty gouges in the plate rather than anything forged by mortal hand.

Malekith left his pavilion and called for Seraphon. The black dragon responded swiftly, flying over the outer tents to land a few paces from her lord. She did not share the gift of speech that many of her kin from Caledor possessed, but there was a gleam in her eye that betrayed her desire for battle.

Like a supplicant debasing herself before making petition, Seraphon lowered to the ground and bent down her neck so that Malekith could mount the throne-saddle on her back. At a command from the Witch King she rose up, her wings outstretched, dwarfing all but Malekith’s pavilion.

‘Up,’ the Witch King told her and she bound into the air, carrying Malekith away from the tent city with half a dozen mighty beats of her wings, the downdraught of her strokes kicking up a snowstorm through the tents below.

From on high Malekith could see only a little more clearly. The blizzard was abating and in that he felt magic stirring, the end of the snows not a coincidence. The storm had concealed the Naggarothi for a while, but also it had held them some ten days march from Ghrond, and he suspected his mother of orchestrating the terrible weather. Now its purpose had been fulfilled, delivering the army into the path of the northlander host no doubt.

There was more than just wind-sorcery in the air. Malekith ordered Seraphon to circle while he allowed the circlet upon his helm to reveal the turbulent winds of magic.

Sure enough there was something powerful approaching, but it was not magical, but rather a bottomless pit of anti-magic, a great presence that swallowed the mystical power like a lodestone bending iron towards itself.

The army marched forth, ordering itself to Kouran’s scheme, the infantry holding the right and centre with melee units interspersed with the darkshards, while the beasts, chariots and cavalry massed on the left. Dark riders and small pockets of scouts – wicked outcasts from the Blackspine Mountains known as shades – drifted ahead of the army, seeking the foe and testing the treacherous ground for the regiments to follow.

Soon Malekith was not alone in the air. Two manticores swept up from the beastmaster’s pens followed by the dark pegasi of a trio of sorceresses. The harpies were drawn to the Witch King’s presence, descending in a noisy cloud that was soon driven off by roars and clouds of noxious breath from Seraphon, always ready to jealously guard her master. Disappointed, the harpies drifted down towards the army, alighting between the advancing companies and then lifting off again to slowly circle overhead, waiting for easy targets to present themselves.

Some distance away it appeared as though the land was bleeding. A great column of crimson moved down the pass towards the elven line, which appeared pitifully thin compared to the mass of destruction bearing down upon it.

No mortal host this, Malekith knew.

The smell of blood filled the air, making Seraphon snort heavy draughts while the manticores roared in anticipation of the slaughter. The harpies rose in a flock once more, lashing out at each other with clawed fingers, snarling and biting. A grumble of unease and disconcerted whispers rippled through the army of Malekith.

At the forefront of the daemon army came the flesh hounds – immense beasts with ruddy-scaled hides and scorpion tails, snarling and howling as they led the hunt. Not far behind rumbled chariots of gold and brass pulled by the same, while others, even larger, were drawn into battle by immense juggernauts of daemonic flesh and bronze armour, snorting and bellowing. Horned bloodletters rode on the backs of these chariots, their axes and swords glinting with a light that came not from the storm-swathed sun.

The ground itself trembled at the approach of the infernal host, thousands of clawed and hoofed feet marching in unison to the crash of hellish drums, beating out the doom of their foes. Standards of bone, dripping with gore, rose from carmine ranks alongside tattered banners and skull-adorned icons of the Blood God. Brass trumpets sounded the glorious advance, their sound cutting the air like a whetstone shrieking along a blade.

Rank after rank of armoured minions marched shoulder to shoulder, glaring with dead, white eyes, curling horns splayed from their heads, fangs bared in permanent snarls. The air around them seethed with magic pouring forth from the Realm of Chaos. Their presence melted the snow and caused the ground to crack and blister as they passed, corrupting the soil they trod upon. Their leaders, the heralds, howled challenges on the wind and swore oaths to the Master of War to slay all they encountered in His name.

Daemon princes moved amongst the masses, thrice the height of any elf, some mounted on juggernauts with reins of iron, others borne aloft with wings like bats or pinions covered in raven-black feathers. Porcine, hound-like, human, all manner of faces stared down at the defiant followers of Malekith, seeing nothing but corpses yet to be made.

At the centre of the oncoming host strode a bestial figure greater still than the daemon princes. Its face was a mask of feral rage, tusked and fanged, surrounded by flowing dark hair that spilled between ridged horns that protected its head like a helm, the immense mane spreading down a back humped large with crimson-skinned muscle. From its back sprouted the ragged remnants of two wings, broken and burned.

Its body was clad in brass and bronze, plates and scales marked by savage runes of Chaos that made the eyes ache to look upon. Skulls were woven into bloodied mail, still possessed of their souls, wailing and gnashing their teeth in eternal torment, repeating the words of their killer as it snapped commands. In response the daemons broke away from each other into blood-hungry companies, baying and growling, spreading out to engage the whole of the elven line.

Malekith knew the nature of this beast, one of Khorne’s High-handed Slayers, Destroyers of Worlds, Killers of Hope and Lords of Battle.

Bloodthirster.

Four

Visions in Blood

The bloodthirster’s rage came before it like an aura, sweeping down onto the druchii like a hot wind. Infernal anger seeped into their thoughts. Immortal hatred stirred the blood. Against this daemonic influence the elves had no defence. Mutterings became battle-cries and agitation broke into violence as Malekith’s underlings suddenly sought vent for their unnatural fury.

Kouran reacted quickly, leading the host into the enemy from the front of the Black Guard, giving the elves a clear foe upon which to sate their bloodlust. There was no finesse, no manoeuvring for superior position – such niceties were boiled away in their frenzy to spill blood. The druchii line charged down the ridge, meeting the chariots and cavalry surging up towards them. Even the darkshards and shades abandoned their crossbows and set into the enemy with drawn knives and short swords.

The clash was horrendous, bodies churned beneath scythed wheels, warriors decapitated by strokes of bronze swords and axes. Undeterred the elves weathered the impact of their foes, fuelled by the daemon-rage. They quickly surrounded their enemies, tearing into them with sword and spear.

Heedless of the danger, the elves pressed on, swarming past the scant remains of their first victims. Into the teeth of the foe they charged, metaphorically and literally, drawn towards the bloodthirster as moths are drawn to flame and with similarly deadly result.

Both sides hacked at one another without thought, driven mad by the blood-rage of Khorne. Those elves that could not lay weapon or hand upon an enemy fell upon each other, slashing and tearing without relent. Even Kouran and his Black Guard, cold-blooded killers to the last elf, were swept away by the orgy of violent release, cleaving like a dark spear into the heart of the daemonic army. The Khainites were driven beyond even their zealous battle-hunger, and cut themselves to let even more blood flow, glorifying in their own wounds as much as the injuries inflicted on their enemies. Their piercing wails lifted higher than the screeching of the harpies as they fell upon the incapacitated of both sides, sating flesh-famine and bloodlust in equal measure.

The manticores descended like comets of rage, slamming into the daemon regiments with claws and fangs slashing like dozens of swords. Hydras and war dogs matched the baying and screeching of the flesh hounds as they ripped bloody chunks of unnatural flesh from bone and in turn were eviscerated and beheaded.

The bloodthirster smashed through friend and foe alike, a massive rune-axe in each hand that lofted limbs and severed heads high into the air with every swing. Like a mariner wading to shore, the greater daemon stood thigh-deep in the bodies of its victims, pushing on without mercy or pause, a bloody explosion of pure rage.

Malekith watched it all in a detached manner. Seraphon was touched by the blood-thirst too but a growl from the Witch King silenced her protest. He felt the anger pulsing around him, bringing visions of slaughter and victory.

He laughed.

The bloodthirst of Khorne was nothing compared to the hatred and anger that had burned in his heart for six thousand years. The Blood God’s promises of conquest and glory were faded temptations, long since outgrown by Malekith’s own ambition and towering desire for vengeance. Every day the Witch King fought the need to vent frustration and exact bloody retribution and today was no different.

With a derisive snort, he ordered Seraphon to descend. The battle was going poorly for his warriors, all advantage of superior strategy and skill washed away by the demands of unquestioning bloodlust. There was only one way to even the odds and avoid certain defeat.

The bloodthirster noticed Malekith’s descent and, tossing aside the broken body of a manticore, lifted both axes in challenge to the Witch King. Malekith replied with a bolt of pure dark magic that earthed along the unholy blades, sending the greater daemon reeling. Black sparks flew from its iron collar as the power of Khorne dissipated the remaining magical energy.

‘It seems your master’s protection against sorcery is not all it once was,’ Malekith laughed as Seraphon circled the brute, one wingtip almost brushing the ground. The Witch King threw another crackling bolt, but this time the collar earthed its power before any harm was done, spraying the magic away from the bloodthirster in a shower of sable lightning.

‘Know that I am thy doom, weak mortal,’ the beast roared back, clashing its axes together. ‘I am Skarbrand, the Deathbringer, the Corpsemaker, Son of Slaughter.’

‘I know of you, Exiled One,’ Malekith sneered. ‘Shamed, humbled, by the simplest of tricks, abandoned by the Lord of Skulls. And shame again you will know for daring to attack the army of the Witch King, Malekith the Great.’

‘Ignoble Malekith, the kinslayer,’ laughed Skarbrand. ‘Much is the blood that has flowed through my master’s domain at your behest. Your skull shall make a fine adornment for Khorne’s throne. Fight me, coward, as a true warrior would fight.’

Skarbrand leapt, one of its axes leaving a ruddy trail through the air as it swung towards Seraphon’s wing. The old dragon was too wily to be caught by surprise and flicked her wing out of the way, soaring above the bloodthirster’s head. Letting forth an enraged bellow, Skarbrand turned in mid-air, the other axe extended for another swing.

Seraphon caught the creature’s wrist in two claws, warding away the deadly blow. Striving with fierce growls, she bore the bloodthirster aloft. Before the daemon’s other blade could be brought back into play, Malekith struck, driving Urithain to the hilt into its eye. The tip of the blade erupted from the back of Skarbrand’s skull. Seraphon released her grip as Malekith ripped his sword free and the body tumbled groundwards, crushing dozens of the greater daemon’s minions with the impact.

Like a wind suddenly changing and freshening, the aura of death and violence that had emanated from the bloodthirster was swept away by the cold winds of the north. The bloodletters and flesh hounds were thrown into disarray by the death of their general, while the elves recovered a measure of their senses, both sides recoiling from each other in the moments that followed.

The elves recovered more swiftly, still driven by the aftermath of Skarbrand’s rage, heeding the commands of Kouran as the elven general issued swift orders to set a proper attack into motion.

As Seraphon lifted Malekith towards the snow-laden clouds, the Witch King considered returning to his pavilion, confident that his servants would know victory after his intervention. He stopped himself from withdrawing a moment later, looking at the broken body of Skarbrand far below.

The mage had foretold this day, in typically cryptic fashion. He had offered several prophecies as evidence that he spoke the truth and indeed was guided by the will of the goddess Lileath. Three visions he had spoken of, three events that would steer Malekith to their common cause.

‘I remember when the lords of Saphery ruled from a flying city,’ said Malekith, looking around the circular chamber near the pinnacle of the White Tower.

‘Beautiful Saphethion,’ his host said wistfully, thin fingers tapping together at his chin. ‘Destroyed by your ambition.’

‘It was not my ambition that brought low your floating city, but the actions of meddling mages,’ Malekith replied. ‘How little you learn.’

‘It is not a scheme of my own devising that I follow, but a divine plan from the watcher of fates herself, Lileath of the Pale Moon.’

‘You seek alliance from me?’ Malekith shook his head in disbelief, and in doing so caught a glimpse of himself in the silver reflection of an oval mirror set behind the mage’s desk. His projection here was as he had been in his early life. No iron-and-fire, no armour of midnight. A tall, darkly handsome elf with lustrous hair and sharp cheekbones regarded him solemnly. But for all that this apparition appeared healthy and hearty, the fires still burned and Malekith felt the pain of his enduring curse. His mood soured swiftly. ‘It was you that reawakened that ancient flame in my soul, resurrecting an agony of ages in my heart and bones. You are mistaken if you think I desire anything other than your drawn-out, horrendous death, Teclis.’

‘You do yourself a disservice, Prince Malekith,’ said the mage. He stood and started to pace the room, hands clasped behind his back. ‘There are many things you desire far more than my demise. You would let me live in return for your rightful return to the Phoenix Throne. You would gladly spare me if I released you from the torment Asuryan inflicted upon you so many centuries ago. Your vengeance has never been anything more than a veil for your frustrated ambition.’

Malekith reached out, his insubstantial hand passing through the mage’s throat. He tightened his fist regardless, keen to prove his point.

‘I do not expect you to trust me, any more than I trust you,’ Teclis continued. ‘You are called the Deceiver by many with good cause. Nor do I expect you to believe me without proof.’

‘You can prove that the End Times are upon us? You have proof that Lileath will guide us to the means by which Chaos can be defeated? Lay it before me now and let me judge how trustworthy your words can be.’

‘The power of three is well known to us, and so three dooms my mistress has laid upon you, as maiden, mother and crone, Morai-heg, Ladrielle and Lileath. When they have come to pass, I shall be brought to you again and you will know the truth of what I have told you.’

‘Prophecy,’ muttered Malekith. ‘Some vague declarations that could be construed to mean just about anything. Has not my own doom been prophesied? Is not the curse laid upon you and your twin nothing more than the utterings of a demented seer driven to grief by the rejection of my father?’

Teclis said nothing as he picked up his staff, the image of Lileath at its tip gleaming silver in the moonlight that came through the window. Malekith flinched, for moments before it had been noon daylight, but now he saw a full moon rising above the forested mountains to the east.

Words came from Teclis’s lips, but the voice was not his. Mellow and lilting, the female voice slipped into Malekith’s thoughts like a lover entwining arms around him, leaving the memory of the words embedded deep.

‘In tide of blood it will begin, a crimson fate that covers all. He that fell will fall again, Lord of Battle will fight no more.

‘The serpent will come forth, fangs hidden behind the snow, with scales of black and eyes of blood. Its venom shall be the doom of ambition.

‘And comes forth the Crippled One’s bane, the forgotten maker shall be found. On mercy’s anvil shall hope be forged, and godly silence shall be unbound.’

Malekith considered these words carefully as Teclis slumped back into his chair, his face even more wan than usual. His eyes were dull, his hair lank and lifeless. Coughing wracked the mage for a few moments until, with a faltering hand, he drew a phial of liquid from a drawer and took a swift draught. Almost immediately his pallor improved, the light returned to his gaze and he smiled.

‘You cannot stop him,’ Teclis said. ‘Not without my aid.’

‘If you think this is the path to anything but utter damnation, you are wrong, my nephew.’ Malekith loomed over the mage. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I have looked into the abyss where this course of action leads. If you trust anything, trust my experience. I have never been short of spite for those that disowned me, but I will warn you that you will destroy everything you love if you insist on following this road to its end. I have walked it far longer than you.’

Teclis sighed, his look one of regret. ‘A wrong six thousand years old cannot be righted in a moment. The time will come when old wounds,’ he reached out a hesitant hand and for a heartbeat Malekith’s true form was revealed, shorn of glamour and armour, incandescent and scarred for eternity, ‘the gravest of wounds even, can be healed.’

Fate was in motion. Morai-heg had foretold this day, but Malekith would not leave to her cruel whim that which he could decide for himself. With a growled command, he directed Seraphon back to the battle. There would be no mistakes this time, no confusion or setbacks or failure by lesser servants.

By his might, the Phoenix Throne would be his again. He was starting to believe.

Teclis had promised it.

The gods willed it.

Five

An Unexpected Barrier

It was not long past noon but in the northern reaches of the world the sun was barely a paler disc behind the clouds, the lands of Naggaroth shrouded by twilight. Bearing magical lanterns that burned with cold, blue fire the Naggarothi army appeared like a host of ice statues given life, the bleak light reflected from black enamelled armour plates and silver mail.

A host of knights led the vanguard, five thousand strong, mounted on reptilian cold ones. The stench of the creatures was matched by the steam of foetid breath that rose from their ranks, swathing the riders in a bank of fog that made their appearance even more ethereal.

At their heart rumbled a company of chariots drawn by more of the beasts, twenty of them, flanking the massive war engine of Malekith while Seraphon flew overhead. Malekith’s chariot was a construction of black iron, drawn by four cold ones bedecked with barbed armour over their glistening blue scales. The chariot itself was hung with chains and hooks, the wheels spinning with jagged blades to slash the legs from under any unfortunate foe or beast that came close.

The host followed a road of cracked stones, cleared of snow by a legion of slaves driven ahead of the host by whips and hunger. The rag-shrouded corpses of those that had collapsed during their labours were heaped in the snow drifts beside the ancient slabs, faces frozen in pale-skinned grimaces, limbs protruding from the white banks with icicles dangling from splayed fingers.

A lone rider appeared out of the white haze and approached, swathed in a black riding cloak. His horse, also the colour of midnight, was tall and sleek, bred from stock stolen from the fair plains of Ellyrion in generations past, the flanks marked by the brand of Lord Ezresor.

Ezresor’s dark steed whinnied and cowered at the stench of the cold ones, almost throwing him as he pulled to a walk a few paces from Malekith’s chariot. The high agent dipped his head, sunken eyes betraying nothing as they rose again to meet his king’s gaze.

‘Your majesty, the riders report that the way to Ghrond is blocked,’ Ezresor told the Witch King. The spymaster’s steed gnashed at its bit and whinnied, shying away from Malekith. He yanked the reins and dug spurs into the creature’s scarred midriff, hauling it in a circle to come alongside the Witch King once more.

‘More vagrant northlanders?’ Malekith replied. ‘Call the captains to arms.’

‘No, your majesty, it is not a foe that confronts us,’ the spymaster said. He looked perplexed. ‘It is… Well, they said we should go and look for ourselves.’

This was a deeply unsatisfactory answer but Malekith could see from Ezresor’s expression that no further detail would be forthcoming, regardless of coercion or cajoling. He raised a hand and signalled for Seraphon to descend.

The journey from the van of the column did not take long. Soon the cold one knights were left behind and he saw a group of outriders coming south, riding hard along the road. Ezresor galloped out to meet them and returned swiftly to bring their reports to his master who had landed a short distance behind. The riders departed into the bleak wilderness, moving off the road to give Malekith a wide berth, turning hooded heads to dart looks back to the north.

‘They come with a warning, your majesty. Several riders and shades attempted to breach the barrier just before midday,’ Ezresor explained. ‘They have not been seen since.’

‘Barrier?’ The Witch King did not mask his displeasure. ‘You are being obtuse, Ezresor, and I would know the reason.’

‘Your indulgence, for a little while longer, your majesty,’ said Ezresor though there was little hint of pleading in his tone. He pointed ahead, to where Malekith could see a darker blur against the white horizon.

‘Where is Ghrond?’ the Witch King said slowly, looking left and right as though he was lost. ‘We should be able to see the pinnacle of the convent by now.’

‘That, your majesty, was what we cannot explain.’

Malekith did not press the matter further at that time, but followed Ezresor along the road until the darkness in the distance became clearer. It looked as though a forest had sprung up from the tundra, of black, twisted trunks and stunted branches. It stretched east and west almost as far as the eye could see, and stood many times taller than an elf.

Coming closer Malekith saw that it was not a forest that barred his path but a giant thicket of dead-looking vines, each thicker than his arm, jagged with scimitar-like thorns. The stench of magic contorted the air, undulating as a black and purple aurora.

Malekith studied the barrier for some time, feeling the ebb and surge of the magic sustaining it, watching the lash of mystical wind that caused the thorny extrusions to sway and bend. He barely noticed the clatter of armour as Kouran arrived with a company of Black Guard. Behind them a thousand knights of Naggarond waited on their cold ones. Several of the dark riders had returned and were riding the edge of the obstacle, not so close that they would be caught, seeking any weakness in the wall of thorns. Other druchii – lordlings and petty commanders – had followed Malekith from the army and waited a short distance away, quietly discussing their own theories on the phenomenon that barred their onward route.

‘The Chaos Wastes extend south,’ said Malekith, confident of this explanation.

‘Not so, your majesty,’ corrected Ezresor, his gaze fixed firmly on the thorny growths so as to hide any hint of accusation. ‘My riders say that it can be circumnavigated, though it would take us two or more days to do so. It is not daemonic in nature.’

‘Morathi.’ Malekith growled his mother’s name. ‘She thinks that this will stop me from reaching her in Ghrond. A girdle to protect her dignity, and as sharp as her tongue has ever been.’

He dismounted to approach the looming barricade on foot. At his approach the thorny growths stirred, moving slowly towards him. A spiked tendril slithered towards his shoulder and he seized hold of it. Fire burned in his fist and the thorny tentacle shook violently, trying to rip itself from his hot grasp. Opening his hands a few heartbeats later he let the charred remnants drop to his feet.

‘It would take an age to burn through with sorcery, your majesty, even for one of your puissance,’ said Ezresor, keeping his distance and a wary eye on the unnatural hedge.

As he looked more keenly, Malekith saw that the thorns heaped higher and higher, merging with the magical storm overhead, taller than Ghrond itself.

‘Seraphon could not penetrate this mass,’ the Witch King said to himself. ‘And let us not even waste time contemplating digging to the tower.’

‘How do we proceed, your majesty?’

Malekith considered his options. Brute force was unlikely to work. Morathi would be wary of any attempt at trickery. There were, however, other types of guile.

‘How many sisters of the Dark Convent remain loyal to me?’

‘None within Ghrond that we know of, your majesty.’ The spymaster shrugged. ‘Had any desired to betray Morathi we would have received warning of the northlanders’ attack. We must assume that any that attempted as much died before their treachery bore fruit.’

‘A shame,’ said Malekith, remembering the first time he had been forced to confront his mother in similar fashion. She had usurped rule of Nagarythe and turned Anlec against him. On that occasion princes from House Anar loyal to Malekith had infiltrated her defences and opened the gates to allow entry to his army. He could not expect help from the interior this time. ‘I expect that the only course of action left to us is to undo the binding of the enchantment, and that will be laborious work.’

As the last of these words left Malekith’s ravaged lips, there was movement in the magical thicket. The vines twitched and curled, parting from each other to reveal a slender, pale-skinned figure standing less than a dozen paces away.

She was garbed in a robe of dark fur, edged with the white pelt of a snowcat. The same trimmed her high boots. Emerald rings glistened on slim fingers, matching the eyes that regarded Malekith from beneath a black shock of hair that was entwined with black brambles that twitched with a life of their own. There were mutterings of approval from the assembled druchii warriors, but Malekith knew that none would be judged worthy of such a prize – not even Ezresor or Kouran.

‘Drusala,’ Malekith whispered, as the sorceress bowed low, right leg crossed over the left. As she straightened, a fleeting smile passed her lips.

‘King Malekith,’ said the witch, assuming a demure pose, hands clasped at her waist, head slightly tilted forward, though this made her appear more coy than deferential. Her eyes glittered – literally – as she half turned and gestured along the path. ‘My Queen Morathi, beneficent ruler of Ghrond, Eternal Hekarti Reborn, bids you welcome to her demesne and invites you to attend conference at your earliest convenience.’

This caused a different sort of stirring in the elves that heard the declaration. Ezresor moved closer, his voice barely a whisper though Malekith knew that Drusala would hear his words easily enough despite this precaution.

‘Morathi declares herself to be divine?’ The spymaster wrung his hands, looking more worried by this than any news of rampaging northmen hordes and fallen cities. ‘She names herself the goddess of sorcery. There can be only one purpose to such a claim.’

‘To cow any further ambition within her sisterhood,’ said Malekith. It was a move he himself had used in the past, assuming the mantel of Khaine’s avatar to head off the growing power of Hellebron and her bloody cultists. ‘Perhaps she is not as certain of her position as leader of the convent as you thought.’

‘She would put herself above even you, my king,’ snarled Kouran. ‘To claim to be Hekarti is an affront to all the Cytharai.’

‘My Queen awaits your pleasure,’ said Drusala, as if this answered Malekith’s doubt.

The Witch King considered rebuffing the invitation, just to remind his mother that she answered to him, not the other way around. He rejected the notion as petty. The real prize was Ulthuan and the longer he delayed at Ghrond the greater the chance that Prince Tyrion and his allies would defeat the latest daemonic intrusion and recover to meet any Naggarothi attack. The season of the sun was just beginning, an ideal time of year for a fresh offensive to reclaim their homeland. If Morathi wanted to play these mind games, Malekith could put aside his pride long enough to gain entry to Ghrond, if not any longer.

‘Take me to your queen,’ said the Witch King, stepping towards Drusala. ‘At my pleasure.’

‘Of course, your highness,’ replied the sorceress.

Six

The City of Ghrond

Behind Malekith, the wall of thorns closed, cutting him off from his advisors and army. He did not even turn to look as Drusala led him deeper into the bramble-maze, the path opening up before them, the thorns entwining again when they had passed.

The magical entanglement continued as far as the walls of the city itself, which were unmanned.

‘You trust to magic more than the spears of our people?’ Malekith said to Drusala.

‘Spears are of little use against daemons, your majesty,’ replied the sorceress. ‘Better that the garrison stays away from the bloodthorns, lest unseemly incidents occur.’

Passing through the great gate beside Drusala, Malekith found the streets empty. Now and then a terrified face appeared at a window or a shutter would creak open, revealing dread-filled eyes for a moment before closing. All was shrouded in near-darkness, the cold light of the sun blocked out by the dome of thorns, broken only by a ghostly green glow that emanated from the pinnacle of the Tower of Ghrond.

The heart of the city was a lone spire almost as high as the tallest pilaster of the Black Tower. A solitary finger of dark rock topped the Convent of Sorceresses, and this tower was tipped with a faceted crystal sphere from which the sisterhood commanded by Morathi would gaze north into the heart of the Wastes, into the Realm of Chaos itself, gauging its moods and movements. The summit of the tower was partly obscured by the wavering miasma of energy sustaining the thornwall.

The atmosphere of dread was as palpable as the dark magic that Malekith felt moving sluggishly through the foundations of the city. The buildings were low and squat for elf construction – barely a tower four storeys high broke the skyline away from the convent. Slate roofs gave the city a grey appearance, broken by the silver and gold of talismans hanging over doorways and windows. Some walls were painted with red or white or pale blue runes of protection, others with names of the Cytharai and many decorated with intricate mural-geometric designs incorporating the name-icon of Hekarti.

‘Upon the edge of damnation it is wise to appease all patrons,’ Drusala said, noticing the Witch King’s stare lingering on these totems. She pointed to his shield. ‘The antithetical rune of the supreme witch protects you in battle, my lord.’

‘You find judgement where only curiosity exists,’ said Malekith, scrutinising Drusala closely. She seemed more defensive than during previous encounters. ‘Of more interest to me is my mother’s assertion to possess the mantel of Hekarti. It is not the first time in recent memory that one has claimed to me that the gods are ascending and descending to the mortal realm.’

‘Really?’ Drusala regretted her interested outburst immediately, looking away shame-faced. When she looked at Malekith again she had regained her composure, though there was stiffness in her tone. ‘Apologies, your majesty. We are indeed in tumultuous times and the gods themselves will play their part in events to come. Forgive my intrusive demand.’

‘It excites you? The possibility that we enter the End Times?’

‘There are no endings, your majesty, only beginnings that have not been exploited yet. The world turns upon cycles, and we stand on the brink of a fresh era of growth and dominance.’

‘To which ‘we’ do you refer? The Convent of Sorceresses? The Naggarothi? Mortals?’

Drusala kept her expression neutral when she replied. ‘Your people, of course, your majesty. We are all your subjects.’

‘Even Morathi?’

‘I would not speak for the incarnation of Eternal Hekarti, your majesty, but your mother has long laboured for your power and best interests. Was it not her that aided Kouran in holding together your dominion when you were cast adrift in the Realm of the Dark Lords? If she had desired to usurp your majesty’s position, she would have done so then, would she not?’

‘My mother does not support me – she fears the reprisals of the princes should one of them ever seize power.’

Drusala clamped her mouth shut, cheeks drawn in as she kept whatever remark she had to herself. It was obvious that Malekith’s barbed words had touched a nerve. He was not sure if the sorceress was offended, or upset in some other fashion by his comments. Certainly she held Morathi in very high esteem and it pained her to hear Malekith talk of his mother in such an off-hand fashion.

They continued without speaking. Drusala’s footfalls made no noise as she strode along the paved streets, but the impact of Malekith’s boots rang hollow from the buildings, each step a knell that announced his passage through the city. More and more faces peered at his approach, some of them now showing curiosity more than fear. Once or twice he caught the expectant gaze of a noble or servant, quickly replaced with fear as his dread gaze fell upon them.

He could imagine the whispered conversations, the rumour. The bloodthorn wall kept out news as surely as it guarded against attack, and perhaps that was Morathi’s true purpose. Had the people of Ghrond known that the rest of Naggaroth was being destroyed by the bloodied horde there might have been dissent, even rebellion. He knew his subjects were not overtly loyal to one another, but enlightened self-interest and the risk of total destruction always ensured they would come together against an external foe.

What lies had Morathi and her sisters spun to the military commanders? That it was safe to stay here, waiting for reinforcements that Morathi hoped would never arrive? As time dragged on she would speak of how Malekith had been absent, and how the lords of Naggarond had cared nothing for the people of the other cities. By such half-truths was a new centre of power created, and by such manipulation of events were loyalties shifted.

Drusala was right in one regard. The End Times was an unnecessarily grandiose name for a period of change no worse than any Chaos influx the world had seen before. The magical vortex of Ulthuan ensured that no matter how far the Realm of Chaos expanded, never again would the touch of Chaos corrupt the whole world as it had done during the daemonic invasions that had beset Aenarion. If the latest news from Ulthuan was true, Prince Tyrion was ably impersonating his ancestor in holding back the latest daemon surge.

It was all so repetitive. The cycle of the world, the endless ebb and flow of nations and battles, and here was Malekith again, about to take his mother to task for opposing him, for testing him. He would have hoped that she of all other people would understand the pointlessness of trying to resist his will, but her vanity always urged her to the wrong path at the most untimely moments.

I’ve been here before, he thought.

Not literally, but the similarity to events in the far past made him wonder if he was an actor in a play being staged again and again with a few alterations to the script between performances.

At the far end of the hall sat Morathi, clad in a draping wind of golden cloth that obscured very little of her nakedness. She held her staff of bone and iron across her lap, her fingers toying with the skull at its tip. Morathi was sitting in a simple wooden chair next to the mighty throne of Aenarion, which was cut from a single piece of black granite, its back shaped like a rearing dragon, of which Bel Shanaar’s throne was but a pale imitation. Magical flame licked from the dragon’s fanged maw and glowed in its eyes.

Malekith’s eyes were drawn to the throne above all other things, ignoring even his mother, for this was the strongest memory he had of this place, of his father girded for war sat upon that immense chair, in counsel with his famed generals.

The memory was so vivid that Malekith could hear his father’s soft yet strong voice echoing around the throne room. The prince was but a child, sat in the lap of his mother beside the Phoenix King, and Aenarion would occasionally pause in his conversation and look down upon his son. Always stern was that look: not unkind, yet not compassionate either, but full of pride. For years Malekith had gazed back at those strong, dark eyes and seen the fires that raged behind their quiet dignity. Malekith imagined that he alone knew the sinister spirit that hid within, clothed in the body of a noble monarch, masked against the eyes of the world lest it be recognised for what it truly was.

The soul of a destroyer, the wielder of the Godslayer.

And the sword! There across the Phoenix King’s lap lay Widowmaker, Soulbiter, the Sword of Khaine. Even at a young age, Malekith had noticed that only he and his father ever looked upon its blood-red blade, for all other elves averted their gaze and would look anywhere else but directly at it. It was like a secret shared between them.

‘Yet you did not pick up the Blade of Murder when it was offered to you,’ said Morathi, dispelling the illusion that had so gripped her son.

Malekith shook his head, confused by the enchantment cunningly wrought upon him by his mother. Truly they were real memories she had stirred, but her spell had made them as tangible as life, if only for a moment.

‘I did not,’ replied Malekith, slowly, realising that Morathi had seen into his thoughts and learned of his episode on the Blighted Isle, of which he had spoken to nobody.

‘That is good,’ said Morathi.

She was sitting in stately pose, despite her near-nudity, and exuded regal poise. Not here the barbarous priestess who tore living hearts from the breasts of her victims, not the seductive, wily seeress who wove lies with every word and manipulated all around her into a tapestry to her liking. Here she was as queen of Nagarythe, full of quiet majesty and grandeur.

‘The sword controlled your father,’ the queen said, her tone hushed, reassuring. ‘Since his death, it has yearned for you to seek it out. I was worried that you would be ensnared by its power as well, but I am proud that you resisted its bloodthirsty call. None can truly be its master, and if you are to rule, then you must be master of everything.’

‘I would rather the world devoured by daemons than unleash that fell creation upon the world again,’ Malekith said, sheathing Avanuir. ‘As you say, once drawn it will consume its wielder until nothing but blood remains. No person can become a king with its power, only a slave.’

‘Sit down,’ Morathi said, waving a hand of invitation towards the grand throne.

‘It is not yet my place to sit there,’ replied Malekith.

‘Oh?’ said Morathi, surprised. ‘And why is that?’

‘If I am to rule Nagarythe, I shall rule it alone,’ said Malekith. ‘Without you. When you are slain, the army of Nagarythe will be mine again. I shall hold power over the pleasure cults and with them secure the Phoenix Throne.’

Morathi remained silent, looking at her son with ancient eyes, gauging his mood and motive. A sly smile then twisted her lips.

‘You mean to slay me?’ she whispered, feigning shock.

‘While you live, always will your ambition be a shadow upon mine,’ said Malekith, angry at his mother’s charade. ‘You cannot help but be my rival, for it is not in your nature to serve any but yourself. I cannot share Ulthuan with you, for you could never truly share it with me. Even my father was not your master. I would exile you, but you would rise up again in some forgotten corner, a contender for everything that I aspire to.’

‘Cannot share power,’ Morathi said, ‘or will not?’

Malekith pondered for a moment, examining his feelings.

‘Will not,’ he replied, his eyes full of intent.

‘And to what is it that you aspire, my son?’ Morathi said, leaning forward eagerly.

‘To inherit my father’s legacy and rule as Phoenix King,’ Malekith replied, knowing the truth of the words even as he spoke them. Never before had he so openly admitted his desire, not even to himself. Glory, honour, renown: all but stepping stones towards his ascension to the Phoenix Throne. The circlet had revealed to him the true nature of the forces that now ruled the world, and he would not stand by while Ulthuan slowly succumbed to them.

‘Yes, Chaos is strong,’ Morathi told him.

‘Stay out of my thoughts,’ Malekith snarled, taking an angry step forward, his hand straying to the hilt of Avanuir.

‘I need no magic to know your mind, Malekith,’ said Morathi, still gazing fixedly at her son. ‘There is a bond between mother and son that does not need sorcery.’

‘Do you submit yourself to your fate?’ Malekith said, ignoring her obvious reminder of their relationship, an attempt to stay his hand.

‘You should know better than to ask such a pointless question,’ Morathi replied, and now her voice was stern, harsh even. ‘Have I not always told you that you were destined to be king? You cannot be king unless you are prince of your own realm, and I will not surrender it willingly. Prove to me that you are worthy of ruling Nagarythe. Prove to the other princes that the strength within you is greater than any other.’

They came to the great barbican of the convent. The gates were open, and above the portal to the entrance hall blazed a rune of Hekarti, made of polished bones inscribed with smaller rune-shapes that flickered with their own life. Octagonal obsidian tiles paved the floor of the first hall, inset with channels stained dark with dried blood. Walls of granite were painstakingly carved with similar runnels in arcane patterns, the thaumatic geometry spreading up the tower to the sacrificial temples just below the summit. In dire times the whole of the palace could be charged with blood magic, fuelled with death for the mystics to pierce the veil of Chaos or for the sorceresses to take more direct action against a foe.

‘Queen Morathi will be with you shortly,’ announced Drusala, moving away from the Witch King. She waved her hand towards a spiralling stair. ‘In the hall of welcoming.’

The sorceress slipped away through a curtained archway and Malekith was alone, though he could sense the presence of others very close at hand, watching him without eyes. He waited for several heartbeats to see if a new guide would come forth to lead him to his destination, but the palace seemed strangely empty.

Annoyed by the unseemly lack of proper welcome and ceremony, Malekith headed towards the steps, determined that his mother’s transgressions would be punished this time.

Seven

Mother and Queen

The audience chamber was glorious in its sumptuousness. Golden drapes hung from every wall, and basalt tiles, polished to a mirrored sheen, were barely visible beneath the wine-dark rugs. Marble statues, studies in flawless physique, lined the chamber.

Malekith regarded the statuary with contempt. He recognised a few faces as previous members of his court, who had supported Morathi and in turn been granted her boons, both pleasurable and political.

He had been made to wait for some time, no doubt on purpose. His mother had always been theatrical, and could never resist the opportunity to make a grand entrance. Making him wait upon her pleasure also enforced the notion that she held the power here, not her son. The truth was that Malekith had learned to be above such petty manipulation. There were many that accused him of arrogance, and probably with good right, but such was his towering confidence that he was able to shrug off the minor insults and oversights that drove lesser leaders to rave and punish.

He would never give his mother the satisfaction of seeing her attempts to rile him had succeeded.

A chair was set next to a table before the throne, a ewer of dark wine and a goblet ready for his refreshment, but Malekith barely needed such sustenance these days. It was another goad, for Morathi knew well that the fire that had ravaged his body had all but destroyed his sense of smell and taste as well. The finest meats were as ashes on his tongue and the wine, no doubt liberated from some grand terrace in Ellyrion or Saphery, would be like brackish water.

Wishing to make a point of his own, Malekith stepped past the chair and sat down on the great throne of bloodrock at the end of the hall. He closed metal-lidded eyes and considered what he would say.

The click of heels on tiles and the faintest breeze from the opening door alerted Malekith to a new arrival. He opened his eyes as Morathi entered, and watched as she strode across the rugs, her gaze lingering on a few of the statues that lined the approach to the throne.

A momentary sour look marred her beautiful face as she noticed where he was sitting, an expression of annoyance that was swiftly replaced with a humourless smile. She gave a deep nod of greeting – never a bow, Malekith noted, for that would imply subservience – and crossed to greet her son.

‘You have travelled far to speak with me, my child. Should I feel honoured, or afraid?’

‘I have yet to believe that either of those words holds any meaning for you, mother,’ said Malekith coldly.

‘Will you not be seated?’ he went on, inviting her to accept his position, the throne, but she would not accede even that.

‘I am quite content as I am,’ she replied, eyes narrowing. She was weighing up Malekith, trying to judge his mood, but it was impossible even for his mother to know what crossed his mind when his ravaged flesh was hidden behind his helm.

On the other hand, he was well aware of Morathi’s mood, though to any other the subtle signs would have been lost. Seven millennia had shown him the slight tension in the shoulders, the merest curl of the lip, were danger signs. She made no overt effort, but subtly the winds of magic were shifting, gathering, funnelling down from the thorn-wreathed sky into the tower of Ghrond and seeping up from the dark rock beneath.

Surely she did not mean to engage in a magical contest? It would be a desperate move. Malekith was not certain he would win such a duel, but neither could Morathi start such a battle with full confidence. It would be a last cast of the bones, and it seemed Morathi was far from cornered and finished. She had tried direct confrontation before, when both of them had been far less experienced.

At some silent command, four figures emerged from the shadows, two to Malekith’s left and two to his right. They were sorcerers by their garb, two male and two female, swathed in black robes, tattooed with dark sigils.

Malekith struck out with a blast of magic, materialising as a thunderbolt from his fingertips. Instantly Morathi was surrounded by a shadowy sphere of energy, which pulsed as the bolt struck it. Her adepts unleashed spells of their own, fiery blasts that rushed in upon Malekith in the guise of howling wolf heads, and the prince cast his own shield of darkness to ward them away.

The sorcerers and sorceresses closed in, hurling fireballs and flares of dark power. Malekith protected himself, drawing in more and more magic from the energy seething around the throne room as the spells cascaded towards him.

Morathi sat contentedly upon her chair while her followers unleashed their hexes and curses, watching with interest as Malekith countered each. Churning and bubbling, magic flowed around the hall, growing in intensity as both Malekith and his foes reached their minds out further and further, drawing energy from the city outside.

‘Enough,’ barked Malekith, letting free the energy that he had pulled into himself, releasing a blast of raw magic not shaped by any spell.

The power blazed, surrounding each of the dark wizards, filling them with mystical energy, more than they could control. The first, a red-haired witch, began to quiver, and then spasmed so hard that Malekith heard her spine snapping as she flopped to the ground. The other sorceress screeched in agony as her blood turned to fire and exploded out of her veins, engulfing her in a tempest of lightning and flames. The third of them flew into the air as if struck, his nose, eyes and ears streaming with blood, his ragged body smashing against the distant wall. The last was consumed by the ravening magic and collapsed in upon himself, crumpled like a ball of paper until he disintegrated into a pile of dust.

‘Your followers are weak,’ said Malekith, rounding on Morathi.

The seeress remained unconcerned.

‘There are always more minions,’ she said with a dismissive wave of a beringed hand. ‘That trinket upon your head gives you impressive power, but you lack subtlety and control.’

Quicker than Malekith’s eye could follow, Morathi’s hand snapped out, her staff pointed at his chest. He fell to one knee as his heart began to thunder inside his ribs, drowning him with pain. Through the haze of the agony, Malekith could feel the slender tendrils of magic that extended from Morathi’s staff, almost imperceptible in their delicacy.

Whispering a counterspell, Malekith chopped his hand through the intangible strands and forced himself back to his feet.

‘You never taught me that,’ said Malekith with mock admonition. ‘How unmotherly to keep such secrets from your son.’

‘You have not been here to learn from me,’ Morathi said with a sad shake of her head. ‘I have learned much these past thousand years. If you put aside this foolish jealousy that consumes you, then perhaps I can tutor you again.’

In reply, Malekith gathered up the coiling magic and hurled it at the queen, the spell materialising as a monstrous serpent. Morathi’s staff intercepted it, a shimmering blade springing from its haft to slice the head from the immaterial snake.

‘Crude,’ she said with a wag of her finger. ‘Perhaps you impressed the savages of Elthin Arvan and the wizardless dwarfs with these antics, but I am not so easily awed.’

Standing, the seeress-queen held her staff in both hands above her head and began to chant quickly. Blades crystallised out of the air around her, orbiting her body in ever-increasing numbers until she was all but obscured from view by a whirlwind of icy razors. With a contemptuous laugh, Malekith extended his will, looking to knock them aside.

His dispel met with failure, however, as Morathi’s magic swayed and changed shape, slipping through the insubstantial grasp of his counterspell. A moment later and the shardstorm tore through the air towards him, forcing the prince to leap aside lest they rip the flesh from his bones.

‘Slow and predictable, my child,’ Morathi said, stepping forwards.

Malekith said nothing, but lashed out with his sorcery, a whip of fire appearing in his hands. Its twin tips flew across the room and coiled about Morathi’s staff. With a flick of his wrist, Malekith wrested the rod from his mother, sending it skittering across the tiled floor. With another short hand motion Malekith dashed the staff against the wall, shattering it into pieces.

‘I think you are too old for such toys,’ said Malekith, drawing Avanuir.

‘I am,’ snarled Morathi, her face contorting with genuine anger.

Something invisible scythed through the air and connected with Malekith’s legs. He felt his shins crack and his knees shatter and a howl of pain was wrenched from his lips as he crashed to the floor. Letting Avanuir fall from his grasp, he clutched at his broken legs, writhing and screaming.

‘Stop making such a noise,’ said Morathi irritably.

Making a fist, she wove a spell that clenched Malekith’s throat in its grip, choking him. The pain befuddled his mind, and as he flailed and gasped he could not muster the concentration to counter the spell.

‘Focus, boy, focus,’ spat Morathi as she stalked forwards, her fist held out in front of her, twisting it left and right as Malekith squirmed in her mystical grasp. ‘You think you are fit to rule without me? I expect such ingratitude from the likes of Bel Shanaar, but not from my own kin.’

The mention of the Phoenix King’s name acted as a lightning rod for Malekith’s pain and anger and he lashed out, a sheet of flame erupting from him to engulf the queen. She was unharmed, but had released her spell to protect herself. Malekith rolled to his side, coughing and spluttering.

The prince was then flipped to his back and he felt a great weight upon his chest. Numbness enveloped him as the weight pressed down harder and harder, and Malekith fought against losing consciousness. As black spots and bright lights flickered in his vision, he thought he glimpsed a shadowy, insubstantial creature crouched upon his chest, a slavering horned daemon with a wide, fang-filled maw and three eyes. Pushing aside the aching of his body, he tried to focus his mind to break the spell, but still his body could not move.

Morathi stood beside her son, looking down dispassionately. She reached down and grasped Malekith’s helm in one hand and pulled it from his head. The queen regarded it closely for a moment, her eyes analysing every scratch and dint in its grey surface, her fingers lingering close to the circlet but never touching it. Gently, she crouched beside Malekith and placed the helm behind her, out of reach. Malekith fought back a surge of panic. He felt strangely naked and powerless without the circlet.

‘If you do not know how to use it properly, you should not have it,’ she said gently. She laid a hand upon his cheek, caressing him, and then placed her fingers upon his forehead as a mother soothing the brow of a fevered child. ‘If you had but asked me, I would have helped you unlock its real power. Without it, your magic is weak and unrefined. You should have paid more attention to what your mother taught you.’

‘Perhaps,’ Malekith said. With a shout of pain, he swung his gauntleted fist at Morathi, punching her clean in her face and sending her slamming to her back. ‘I learned that from my father!’

Stunned, Morathi lost her concentration and her spell evaporated. Malekith felt the invisible weight lifting from his body. With an effort, he drew magic down into his ruined legs, fusing bone back into place, knotting ruined muscle and sinew together.

Whole again, the prince stood, looming over Morathi. With a flick of his hand, Avanuir jumped from the floor and landed in his grasp, its point a finger’s breadth from Morathi’s face, unwavering.

His face grimly set, he swung Avanuir over his left shoulder and brought it down in a backhand sweep towards Morathi’s neck.

‘Wait!’ she shouted and Malekith’s arm froze, the blade no more than a hand’s span from the killing blow.

Here, in her stronghold, the sorceress was far from defenceless, but that did not mean she relished the prospect of testing her skill against that of her progeny. Any such contest would turn Ghrond into a blasted ruin before a winner was determined.

‘Why have you come?’ she asked, a sharpened fingernail resting on her slender chin.

‘You gave no warning of the northlander invasion, as was your duty,’ Malekith intoned, savouring each damning syllable. ‘Moreover, you have held back from Naggaroth’s defence. I should be quite furious with you. Indeed, for a long time, I cherished no thought so well as your broken body beneath the lash.’

The Witch King rose from the throne and began to pace the room, pausing before each statue in turn to gaze into its eyes. Some he recognised, past members of his council, watch commanders and generals that had assisted Morathi in one way or another. He could sense the life energy still trapped within the statues and wondered if any of his mother’s favourites had ever escaped her gorgon-like wrath when the relationship inevitably became too much of a burden for her.

‘Because of you, Naggaroth is all but fallen.’ He did not look at her, but stopped before the image of Cruidahn of Hag Graef, who had been Morathi’s consort more than a thousand years earlier. ‘Before the year is out, it will be but another ruin in a world already full of them. Yet I find that I feel no sadness for the loss.’

‘Pathetic! You disgrace your father’s memory.’ Morathi spat, unexpectedly flushing with anger.

‘Not at all. Indeed, I intend to honour him as never before. Our folk had fallen into weakness and squalor.’ Malekith snorted with derision. ‘We had grown fat and lazy, a herd of dull-witted beasts no longer fit for the great destiny I shall provide.’ He turned to face his mother and spread his hands expansively. ‘Now the herd has been thinned, the weak slaughtered by the northlanders’ axes. I have you to thank for that, though I am sure you did not intend matters to unfold thus. Those who remain are warriors and survivors all. They will be my army, and Ulthuan’s ruin, for they will survive only through seizing the land that is theirs by right. The throne of the ten kingdoms will at last be mine.’

‘I have heard you say such things before,’ Morathi sneered.

‘Before, I did not have aid. The Phoenix King is already slain, betrayed by one of his closest advisors. He died broken and screaming, his last dignity a memory before I choked the life from him.’

‘The Five Gates will defeat you, as they have in the past.’

‘They will not,’ Malekith assured her, ‘for I now hold the key to those fortresses, placed in my hand by one of their own. Besides, Ulthuan is as beset as we. While I do not doubt that our cousins will endure, they will not have the good sense to let the times purge their weaklings.’

‘If victory is so assured, what do you wish of me?’

‘You are my mother and, despite your myriad treacheries, you yet command my regard. Join your armies to mine, and the past will be forgotten. You shall be Ulthuan’s queen once more – glorious, regal and beautiful as the night.’

Morathi sighed contemptuously.

‘You still think like a mortal, when you should aspire to be a god.’

‘You are many things, mother, but you are no goddess.’

‘And who is to say that? The power of Hekarti pulses through my veins. As the magic rises, I can be anything I wish, and that is all that matters as the Rhana Dandra begins.’

‘You’re not the first to speak to me of the End Times, yet I remain somewhat unconvinced.’

‘The mage, I suppose,’ Morathi said, her contempt clear. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t hear him whispering to you during your journey? What lies did he tell you?’

‘It hardly matters. He serves my goals, whether he realises it or not.’

‘Of course,’ Morathi mocked. ‘You are not one to accept any wisdom other than your own. Look around you. The world cries out in torment, the skies bleed, the twin-tailed comet blazes, and you look for more proof? The Dark Gods are rising, and they will swallow us all.’

‘If what you say is proven true, then I shall fight them, as my father once did. I will not be denied my birthright.’

Morathi let forth shrill laughter, bordering on the hysterical. ‘You’re a fool! These are the End Times. Only those who embrace their true nature will survive. Yours is not that of a victor. Yours is to lose, and to blame others for the loss. Go back to Naggarond. Take what pleasures you may before the tides of Chaos close over your head. I will not waste my strength on foolishness.’

Malekith found himself consumed by a sudden and bitter mirth and matched her insane humour with a mad laugh of his own. ‘And your nature is to languish in this ensorcelled tower, I suppose, a jilted princess pining for her love until darkness falls?’

He enjoyed the contorting agony of her features as he revealed his knowledge of her earlier interference with Prince Tyrion and her declarations of affection, unseen and unremembered by all others but revealed to Malekith as he had sought escape from self-banishment in the Realm of Chaos.

‘You understand nothing,’ Morathi spat. ‘He will be mine again. I have foreseen it.’

‘How very convenient for you,’ Malekith replied calmly. ‘And might I ask what you foretell concerning my future?’

There was a long pause. Morathi watched him closely, and could not fail to sense the edge of his anger growing sharper, but equally she could not resist the opportunity to display her superiority. Malekith listened to what she had to say expecting half-truths and outright lies.

‘If you go to Ulthuan, you will lose everything,’ she proclaimed at last. ‘Your realm will fall, your purpose will waver. Everything that makes you who you are – everything that makes you my son – will crumble to naught. Even your name will no longer be your own. I would sooner see you dead.’

‘Then it seems that this will be our last farewell, mother,’ said Malekith scornfully. He searched for some hint of a lie, but he could find none. He realised that she had not confessed her true reason for allowing Naggaroth to fall into ruin, but he knew now, looking at her, that she would never tell him.

He turned to leave, but could not resist one more jibe. ‘Out of fond regard, I grant you one last gift: your life. Your treason is not forgiven, but it will go unpunished. Sit in your tower and rot.’

‘My king!’

Kouran’s shout caused Malekith to wheel his chariot about, turning to face the company of Black Guard. Behind them the thornwall was rippling with power, first moving like sinewy limbs, the movements increasing to a wild thrashing, as though the enchantment was tearing itself apart.

A huge swathe of the black-thorned barrier lifted and parted, the tearing of mystical tendrils like the scream of tortured children.

Where the thornwall had been now marched a column of armoured warriors, decked in black mail and plate, the regimental standards displaying the scarlet runes of Ghrond. Hundreds – thousands – of soldiers advanced along the old road from the gates of the city within. The warriors eyed the recoiling thornwall with fear and suspicion, many of them no doubt remembering the fate of comrades that had perhaps tried to break free or strayed too close.

The entire army of the north city marched forth.

A cabal of sorceresses led the dreadblades at the vanguard of the army. Mounted on a dark pegasus, Drusala flew over the army, the beat of bat-like wings in time to the drums that marked the tempo of the march.

The sable-skinned beast settled not far from Malekith’s chariot, tossing its head in disgust at the stench, spiralled horns embedded with gems catching the dim light. The sorceress bowed in the saddle, her pale skin stark against the dark fur collar of her robe.

Malekith looked at Drusala, not with mortal eyes but the gaze of the Witch King. He could see the winds of magic coiled about her, and the shadow of dark magic that shielded her soul from the mutating effects of the heightened magical power. There was something else in the spirit-gloom, deeper and darker even than the shadow, but Malekith did not know what it was – some power bargained from a daemonic entity no doubt, which would claim her eventually.

As the thunderous tread of the approaching army rang out on the frost-dusted stone of the road Malekith was struck by the scene, reminiscent of the second prophecy of Lileath.

The serpent will come forth, fangs hidden behind the snow, with scales of black and eyes of blood. Its venom shall be the doom of ambition.

Drusala spoke, breaking the chain of thought.

‘Queen Morathi, Hekarti Eternal, sends these gifts to her son as acknowledgement of her failings to treat him with due hospitality, and for neglecting her duties in times recent past. She would have it known that she hopes this offering of her host and most favoured coven will make some amends to heal the broken faith of late, and that ever the Witch King is the subject of not only her loyalty but her best intentions.’

Malekith looked at Drusala for some time, not speaking. His stare moved to the column of troops now reaching the Witch King’s host and back to the sorceress. Kouran was close at hand, awaiting his master’s command. Malekith directed a single, curt nod to his lieutenant, who raised his glaive in salute and turned to issue orders.

The Master of the Black Guard understood his king very well, and directed the garrison of Ghrond to precede the knights and Black Guard. He sent messengers ahead for the rest of the army to break camp and be ready to march by the time the expedition had returned, placing the Ghrondites in the centre of the column, close to the Witch King. This was no honour, as might be taken by others, but a precaution against potential treachery from Morathi’s servants.

Eight

The Witch King Commands

Turning south and then east, the army of the Witch King left the lands on the edge of the Chaos Wastes and moved back towards Naggarond. Heralds were sent to Clar Karond and Hag Graef, Karond Kar and Har Ganeth, summoning the remaining armies of the druchii to stand ready for fresh conflict. The lords and ladies of these realms were bidden to come to Naggarond to attend Malekith’s council – a demand not an invitation, couched in words that left the recipients in no doubt as to the consequences of refusal. Even Hellebron and the hag queens of Khaine realised that they were no longer above retaliation and sent word that they would attend.

While these missives moved back and forth across the breadth of Naggaroth other preparations were undertaken. Through sorcerous means word was sent to the corsair fleets still abroad in the world, raiding distant coastlines and taking slaves from far-flung settlements of many different races. The captains of the fleets and black arks were commanded to return to their cities of berth for a new endeavour. They were likewise offered no alternative when Morathi’s sorceresses placed a geas upon the distant seafarers – a curse that filled their minds with tormenting dreams, dusk to dawn each night until they set foot again on Naggaroth’s land.

Some thirty days after reaching Ghrond the Witch King was back in his capital and his council brought together. Of the one hundred nobles, slavemasters, city rulers and beastlords that had once attended such gatherings, only a score still remained following the attacks of the northlanders and Malekith’s recent purges of any that had shown past disloyalty.

Malekith brought the council together in the great throne room of the Black Tower. Normally this huge hall remained empty, the throne of Aenarion unoccupied. Even Malekith was never so arrogant that he wanted to be measured against his father, but on this occasion, with the announcement he was going to make, comparison would be inevitable and it would be good to remind his subjects that the Witch King’s heritage outshone any other elf alive.

The hall was of such vast dimension that its vaulted ceiling and pillared walls vanished into darkness. Massive buttresses, every inch of their surface adorned with intricate carvings, loomed inwards. Stone gods glowered down from the pillars, Ellinill the Lord of Destruction and his wrathful progeny. The eyes of each god were crafted from enormous gemstones, their lustre enhanced by an enchantment that caused them to glow with a smouldering malevolence. Between the buttresses the walls were lost behind macabre tapestries fashioned from scalps encrusted with gore, a silent reminder of the many who had defied the Witch King’s authority and the ultimate fate for such defiance.

At the centre of the chamber stood a great circular table fashioned from a single block of obsidian. Glyphs carved into the table’s rim denoted each of the noble houses that had been privileged to sit there. Many times a smaller glyph, outlined in crushed rubies, followed the first symbol, noting a house that had been abolished by Malekith and extirpated from both the Black Council and the world of the living.

One hundred seats were set around the table, ghoulish thrones crafted from blackened bones and flayed skin. In many chairs some infamous leader of the dark elves reposed, though not all amongst that assembly were alive. Dozens of the seats were occupied by corpses, some of them fresh and reeking of decay, others withered by time into dried husks caked in dust and cobwebs. The most notorious traitors and disappointments were afforded a permanent position on the Black Council by the Tyrant of Naggarond.

A few paces behind each of the twenty chairs to be occupied stood one of the Black Guard, their halberds gleaming and sharp. Malekith waited on the throne, bathed in shadow, the fires of his curse dimmed by an effort of will so that he seemed an immobile statue of pitted black iron.

The gathering commenced in solemn quiet, with none of the pomp and posturing of previous councils. Not only was the circumstance no cause for celebration, the messengers from the Witch King had made it plain that he expected utter obedience in this testing time and no one was prepared to call undue attention to themselves while Malekith was in such a lethal mood.

The nobles of several cities came first, those of Clar Karond wearing cloaks of sea dragon scales, whips and pendants shaped like goads signifying their accomplishments as slave-takers. Rivals from Karond Kar followed, beastmasters that wore the pelts of manticores and hydras, and bore scarred faces and limbs with pride. They sat upon chairs opposite the Clar Karond delegation, whispering taunts and darting murderous glares that were returned in kind. Lady Khyra arrived shortly after, who took her customary place between the skeletal remains of Drusith Eldraken and the empty seat formerly occupied by Ebnir Soulflayer.

Drusala came next, standing in for the Queen of Ghrond. No other had ever represented the city before and the feuding city nobles fell silent as the import of Drusala’s attendance settled in their minds. They watched her take a seat almost at the foot of the throne dais, her hands neatly clasped in her lap, a chain of silver hung with a pendant of Hekarti wrapped about her fingers. She turned and smiled at the lords and ladies and the atmosphere grew chiller still.

The next councillors to arrive hailed from Naggarond: Ezresor and Venil Chillblade. The spymaster had of late been forced to take up arms himself and there was a raw scar on his cheek from a northman’s blade. With the pair came Drane Brackblood and Lokhir Fellheart as representatives of the corsair fleets, having arrived directly from their black arks which now filled a bay not far along the coast from the harbour of Naggarond. Other great citadels of the sea and smaller vessels had clustered into the ports at Clar Karond and Karond Kar, disgorging cargoes of slaves and loot in unprecedented numbers.

A representative for the shade clans, Saidekh Winterclaw, arrived swiftly after. His bald head was tattooed with tribal designs, face pierced and fingers beringed with blood-red metal. He was dressed in fur-lined dark leather armour set with bronze rings, and about his neck hung a necklace of rotting ears and tongues from his latest victory duels with other chieftains of the mountains. The others looked on the highlander with unconcealed contempt as he took his place, returning their looks of disgust with a leer of mutual hatred for the city-dwellers.

Two watch commanders, one male, the other female – the only two surviving watch commanders – had come from far to the east and west, the towers of Shagrath and Drackla Spire, and marched in step down the carpet with helms under their arms, faces raised in haughty disdain for the nobles that had seemingly abandoned them. They glared at their Black Guard escort, unused to such close attention, but sat down without comment.

Kouran arrived next, without ceremony, and took his place beside the throne on the opposite side to Drusala, his magical glaive held upright beside him, within the visor of his helm his eyes moving from one attendee to the next in constant motion, never stopping.

There was a pause until a pair of elves entered, dressed in tabards of red and purple, of a somewhat nervous disposition. They eyed each other and then lifted the clarions they were carrying to their lips. After a further agitated pause they blew a series of rising notes that rang along the length of the hall, disturbing the still. As the last echoes of the peel reverberated into nothing, they lowered their instruments and hailed loudly.

‘Presenting the Warpsword, Tyrant of Hag Graef, Daemon’s Bane, Lord Malus Darkblade!’

Lips pursed, a strut in his step, Darkblade entered the hall and stopped on the threshold surveying the scene. All eyes turned towards his gauche entrance and there was a shaking of heads and discontented muttering. Seemingly oblivious to his indiscretion Malus sauntered down the carpet and sat next to Kouran, who fixed the Tyrant of Hag Graef with a piercing stare. The captain of the Black Guard gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and a moment later the two heralds at the door screamed as their guts splashed across the floor.

The two Black Guards that had disembowelled them emerged from the shadow of the doors and dragged the unfortunates away, leaving a trail of gore, their shrieks fading with distance.

‘By all the Cytharai, you have chosen to make an enemy of me,’ snarled Darkblade, launching to his feet to confront Kouran, who remained seated, though he flexed his fingers on the haft of Crimson Death.

Any further protest was silenced by a husky but powerful voice at the doorway.

‘Do I smell fresh blood?’

Everyone turned to watch the arrival of the last council member. The Hag Queen of Khaine was in her decrepit phase, her skin a thin veil over wasted muscle and bone, only partially obscured by a robe of flayed elfskin. Hellebron’s face was a dreadful mask of sunken flesh, eyes ringed with black kohl that turned them into a shocking glare. Despite this she carried herself without sign of infirmity. Her movements were smooth and assured, and in defiance of her haggard appearance it was clear that she had once possessed outstanding beauty. A wig of white hair stained with bloody smears hung to her waist, kept in place by hooks that bit into the flesh of her forehead, stretching the wrinkled skin. Hands like claws opened and closed like a striking raptor.

She crouched, dipping a curling fingernail into the blood by the door. She licked the fluid from her fingertip and smiled, revealing cracked teeth that had been filed to points, gums bloodless and pale, a tongue stained black by millennia of narcotic abuse flicking between them, savouring the taste of life.

Hellebron had not always been so. All the recent talk of gods incarnating in the land of mortals reminded Malekith of Death Night seven hundred years before, when he had travelled to Har Ganeth for a very special conclave with the witch elves of Khaine.

It was an even choice which grated on his nerves more – the shrieking of the Khainites, the incessant drumming or the smell of burning viscera. The first was like the scrape of a broken blade across his nerves, the second was so monotonous it made him doubt time and sanity and the third was too much of a reminder of his physical condition.

He endured it all as he endured that immortal pain, in silence.

The temple of Khaine in Har Ganeth was an open forum of black pillars with an iron dome across the top hung with decaying organs and bones that swayed and rattled in the thermals of hot air rising from the sacrificial fire and a thousand braziers. In layout it was a good approximation of the ancient site upon the Blighted Isle where the Sword of Khaine rested in its dark stone altar, but considering the heat coming from the sacred fires – heat he could barely feel but had to be near-lethal for the cavorting worshippers – he wondered if the open aspect of the shrine was more practical than symbolic.

Such thoughts amused Malekith as he watched the ceremony continue. Out in the streets of the city, as in all the other cities of Naggaroth and any settlement where there was a shrine to Khaine, the witch elves were celebrating Death Night. The cultists prowled the streets and rooftops, seeking victims for the temple. In times past only those found outside their homes had fallen prey, but as the millennia had passed generations had grown wise to the perils and now in order to meet the bloody demands of their god the Khainites were not above breaking into buildings to snatch away those that could not defend themselves. Across the city howls of grief and the clash of weapons signalled successes and failures in this quest.

The unfortunates were dragged screaming up the temple steps, their bodies already bleeding from dozens of cuts, leaving a trail of blood on the red-veined marble. Hellebron and her coterie of hag queens stood beside an immense cauldron scored with diabolic runes. Wrought from black iron also, hollow with flames burning within, a statue of Khaine was set behind the cauldron, wicked blades held over the magical vessel. There was a fire lit beneath the cauldron, in which a growing pool of blood bubbled and steamed.

The sacrifices were heaved up onto the altar and their arteries opened wide, spilling crimson life fluid into the channels carved into the stone, running down into the dungeon beneath the temple where slaves laboured with cloths and buckets, passing pails of the spilt blood up slick steps to the priestesses in the shrine. Uttering their shrill prayers to the Lord of Murder the witch elves poured their bloody libation into the cauldron for their high priestesses.

Incredibly the victims did not die from this bleeding, but remained as shambling things kept alive by the magic of the temple. That is, until they stumbled into the grim-faced Executioners that lined the columned space, their two-handed draichs slick with blood. Each victim was finished with a single strike and lesser acolytes fell upon the bodies, some to rip out the hearts to toss into the holy flames, others fighting for possession of the heads to flense and gild as trophies. The rest of the remains were dragged away by whip-scarred slaves, to the workshops where they would be rendered down for components used in the Khainites’ narcotics and poisons, the remaining organs and body parts illicitly sold on to magical practitioners not willing to draw the eye of the Convent of Sorceresses.

For the whole of Death Night this continued, until just before dawn the Cauldron of Blood was nearly full. Ascending on steps wrought of bones and sinew, Hellebron and her hag queens bathed in the heated blood, laughing and splashing like children in a pool. Malekith watched closely. His unnatural gaze, aided by the Circlet of Iron upon his brow, could see the winds of dark magic binding to the cauldron through ritual and sacrifice. The magic flowed into the blood, energising it, and passed into the hag queens within.

Hellebron emerged as the first rays of dawn shone through the gate-pillars of the temple, her pale flesh bronzed by the sun’s early light. She was exquisite, possessed of such youthful vibrancy, her hair lustrous and thick, every limb and feature perfectly proportioned. Malekith knew well why his mother had scorned Hellebron when Alandrian’s daughter had asked for favour in the queen’s service many millennia ago: simple jealousy. For all her politics and machinations, Morathi was sometimes prone to folly caused by her primal need for superiority. Had she been able to stomach the presence of a maiden more beautiful than her, Morathi would have made a powerful servant rather than an enemy six thousand years old.

He snapped himself out of his lustful contemplation, remembering that there was a particular reason he had come to Har Ganeth on this of all nights. Morathi’s pleasure cults were growing again, inveigling their way into the courts and armies of Naggaroth as they had Ulthuan in the time before the oceans had swallowed Nagarythe. For the most part they were harmless, but Malekith was never content to allow his mother free rein, and a message had to be sent reminding Morathi that the Witch King was aware of her ploys.

Malekith paced across the temple as the last of the hag queens pulled her lithe, blood-coated body from the great cauldron. He extended his will, letting Asuryan’s flame burn from the cracks and gaps in his armour. The resemblance to the statue of Khaine was uncanny and it was this that had given Malekith inspiration.

‘You know me as your king,’ he intoned, ascending the steps to stand above the mighty cauldron of the Lord of Murder. He opened his arms, flame burning from his palms. ‘Know me now also as the incarnate vessel of your lord and god, Khaine the Ruthless, the Bloody-Handed Messenger, Jaguar of the Night, the Manticore. In me has He invested His power in the mortal realm, so that He might lead you on the crusade of death.’

Hellebron had known this was to come and she hid her distaste well enough as she watched Malekith stepping down into the blood. The thick liquid roiled at the heat of his entry, bursting and splashing over the rim of the cauldron. Malekith crouched, allowing his head to sink beneath the surface, feeling the dark magic crawling across his armour. He latched onto the threads of energy and poured his own magic back along their channels.

The outside of the cauldron started to glow. The runes grew brighter and brighter until they blazed with ruddy energy, filling the temple with blood-red light. As Hellebron and the assembled Khainites watched, Malekith ascended from the blood, the life fluid blackened, caked across his armoured flesh. He turned his eyes on Hellebron and after a moment – a moment that signalled displeasure but obedience – she lowered to one knee and bowed her head, prompting the rest of the Khaine worshippers to do likewise.

‘Send the word out across the world,’ Hellebron intoned. Malekith emitted a little of his magical power, shattering the burned blood from his armour with a burst of fire. ‘Celebrate and give thanks to the mighty Lord of Murder for delivering unto us his world-born son. We have been blessed and in His name we shall bare our blades in readiness for His will as voiced by His avatar. Hail Malekith, Eternal Khaine Incarnate.’

After Hellebron came two more from the blood cults: Tullaris, most infamous of the Executioners, and Satikha, Handmaiden of Shards, priestess of Eldrazor the god of blades. They each offered obeisance to what seemed to them the image of Malekith on his throne.

The last empty chair became the next subject of attention, until Lord Saesius of Karond Kar informed everybody that his sister had been slain during a northlander ambush en route to the capital.

‘So now we must await the pleasure of our august majesty, as usual?’ said Darkblade, sitting down. ‘I wonder how long it will be before he graces us with his presence.’

Unseen by the Tyrant of Hag Graef, the Black Guard standing behind him took a pace closer, hands shifting grip on her halberd.

Malekith allowed his essence to burst forth, opening eyes like two pits of fire. Darkblade visibly flinched, hands grabbing the arms of his chair.

‘Not long, my good friend Malus,’ said Malekith, standing up to his full height, glaring down at the assembled council. ‘Not long at all.’

Nine

A Salutary Example

To his credit, Darkblade calmed his squirming and offered no defence or apology. Malekith regarded the master of Hag Graef carefully, seeing something writhing in the dreadlord’s heart, some daemonic power granted by illegal rite the Witch King suspected. There were whispers that the title Daemon’s Bane was not mere affectation but also not entirely truthful.

Malekith looked away, assuring himself that Malus would receive his justified fate soon enough. Malekith’s gaze swept over the others and finished upon Hellebron, who was staring with suspicion at Drusala, eyes narrowed like a cat’s.

‘Welcome back to Naggarond, chosen bride of Khaine,’ Malekith said slowly, extending a hand of greeting to the leader of the Khainites. ‘I offer my regrets that your temples have been so despoiled and your city ravaged.’

‘Had your bitch mother played her part we would have seen the human cattle slaughtered at the walls.’ Hellebron shuddered with excitement, eyes closing fully for a moment. She composed herself. ‘No matter. The temples of Khaine have been anointed in battle. It is a dedication, not a desecration.’

Malekith accepted this with a nod and took a moment, one hand upon the hilt of his sword.

‘Lord Vyrath Sor shall not be joining us,’ Malekith’s voice echoed across the chamber. ‘He was slow to answer my summons and only arrived this morning. I reminded him of his obligations to the Circlet of Iron. The harpies should carry what’s left of him back to his tower by sunset. It would pain me if the garrison of Nagrar were to think their master had fallen victim to some lesser fate.’

To emphasise his story, Malekith tossed an object onto the obsidian table. The gold chain clattered as it came to rest. Though caked in blood and shreds of flesh, there was no mistaking the sigil that had represented Vyrath Sor etched onto the chain’s clasp.

Malekith stalked about the periphery of the chamber, drifting between the shadows like some prowling tiger. ‘Do not mourn Vyrath Sor,’ the king advised with mock sympathy. ‘He decreed his own doom when he placed the defence of his miserable outpost before his duty to his master. The same doom any one of you might have earned by defying me.’

‘Nagrar is lost, then?’ the question was uttered by Venil Chillblade.

The Witch King made a deprecating wave of his hand.

‘An inconsequence,’ he declared. ‘The garrison will fight to the last because they have no choice. They will die as druchii should, shedding their blood on behalf of their king. When the tower falls, the advance of the barbarians will falter. They will be some time plundering their conquest and slaughtering such captives as they take. It will take their warlords still more time to gather their animals back into a fighting horde.’

‘But they will continue their advance, your highness?’ The hesitant voice of Thar Draigoth, the great flesh-merchant, sounded more like a rodent’s squeak than the words of Naggaroth’s most infamous slaver. Like Venil, he had extensive holdings in Karond Kar. After seeing his interests in Clar Karond massacred by the triumphant invaders, he was doubly worried about protecting the rest of his property.

Malekith came around behind Lady Khyra’s seat, one of his iron claws reaching down to stroke the shoulder to which her false arm was attached. The king glanced along the table, sweeping his gaze across each of his dreadlords.

‘The Rhana Dandra is coming,’ he announced. ‘The End Times are upon us and the moment for action is nigh. You have all felt it, I am sure, and we have certainly all witnessed it as daemons and northlanders bayed at the gates of our cities. Ulthuan stands on a precipice. Usurpers and faint-hearts defend our ancient isle against a foe they cannot defeat. If our people – all of our people – are to survive the coming onslaught they will need strong leaders. Leaders only Naggaroth can provide.’

‘The weakness of our cousins shall finally be their downfall,’ said Lady Khyra. ‘As soon as our city’s defences have been repaired, we shall assemble the fleets and await your command.’

‘Karond Kar suffered also,’ added the dreadlord Eillhin, eyes flicking towards his rivals, ‘but you can count upon our ships and warriors no less than any other city.’

‘Once the northlanders have been driven back, all of Naggaroth will heed the call to arms,’ said the male watch commander, whose name Malekith had not bothered to learn.

‘You misunderstand my intent,’ the Witch King told them, stilling their enthusiasm. ‘The End Times are coming. The Realm of Chaos seeks to devour the world and the Chaos Wastes expand. The northlanders will pillage everything that has not been warped by the storm of magic descending upon us, and will squat in our fallen towers where they will be preyed upon by daemons sent by the masters they seek to serve.’

He stepped down from the throne dais and paced along the hall. All eyes followed him until he stopped upon the seal of Aenarion set in gold and malachite in the floor. The sigil began to writhe, infused with the heat from Malekith’s tread, seeming to come to life to light the Witch King with an auric glow.

‘This blasted wilderness has never been our home. It was a refuge, nothing more, and it has become an anchor to our ambitions. It is time to cast free ourselves from its cold burden, and direct our fullest intention to the only home we have ever desired.’

‘The defences of Ulthuan are considerable, even if our cousins are busy fighting daemons,’ Ezresor said carefully. ‘Lines of supply and retreat…’

‘There will be no retreat.’ Malekith’s words echoed along the hall like tomb-slabs of mausoleums closing on the council. ‘Naggaroth will die and any that remain or try to return will die also. Do not mistake necessity for vanity. We must reclaim Ulthuan or perish in the Rhana Dandra. Put all other thoughts from your minds. There is no failure on this expedition, only death or victory.’

This announcement was greeted with outbursts of disbelief and horror. The Black Guards stood ready and Kouran’s eyes were fixed on Malekith waiting for the simplest of signals, but Malekith gave no indication of his displeasure. The Witch King saw his captain cast his gaze about the room, no doubt noting who protested the most, or did not, either perhaps a sign of a deeper plotting. Kouran turned his halberd in his hands, unnoticed by the others, until the blade pointed towards Ezresor, who was sneering and shaking his head at the posturing nobles.

Malekith would have killed any for such dissent only a year earlier, but his resources were dwindling rapidly and he needed these leaders of druchii society to support him. He allowed protests and veiled threats to wash over him, salving his pride with the knowledge that despite their haranguing every elf present would do exactly as Malekith commanded. Voicing a difference of opinion was one matter, openly disobeying the Witch King’s orders another.

Hellebron’s cackle cut through the uproar.

‘Khaine’s feast grows daily, and you think you can avoid the banquet?’ Fingernails like daggers scratched the surface of the table. She turned her attention to the Witch King. ‘All that is left is the bloodletting – what does it matter where the droplets fall?’

‘The blood of the druchii belongs to me,’ Malekith snarled. ‘I and I alone have made you what you are. Mine is the will that has stripped all weakness from your hearts, mine is the vision that has poured strength into your bodies. All you think, all you dream, all that you are is as I have made it. The druchii are mine, formed from my vision, moulded by my cause. From the pathetic tatters of a vanquished realm I have built a great and terrible people.’

‘But how does that help us save Naggaroth?’ Malus asked, confidence obviously fuelled by the disapproval voiced by the others. Malekith cared nothing for their opinions, only for their uses.

‘Ereth Khial take Naggaroth!’ Malekith spat. ‘Our treacherous kin are ripe for conquest! What would you do, spend the blood of your warriors to protect a land that you despise, a bleak desolation that has within it nothing but scorn and mockery? I tell you, I tell all of you, this will not be! We will not bleed our armies defending this abominable wilderness! If we are to fight, then we will fight a war that is worth fighting! We will fight to take the land that belongs to us! We will fight to claim the land that is our heritage and birthright! Naggaroth? Let it burn! Let it rot! Let it fall to daemons and beasts! It is Ulthuan we desire, it is Ulthuan that is the destiny of the druchii! Ulthuan and the crown of Aenarion! Ulthuan and the birthright of Malekith!’

The Witch King’s eyes flared from the black depths of his helm. ‘We will not waste our strength defending Naggaroth. We will instead gather every warrior in the realm, every knight and corsair, every beastmaster and shade. We will muster such a host as has never sailed against the shores of Ulthuan. Every black ark, every helldrake and galley, any ship worthy of the sea will assemble in the greatest armada the gods have ever seen. In the past, the druchii have faltered against the asur because always you restrained yourselves, you held something back. This time, such cowardice will not be permitted. You will throw the full strength of your realms against Ulthuan. Nothing will be held back, for there will be nothing to come back to. There will be only victory or death!’

There were nods of agreement, some more forced than others, but Malekith could see that the truth had lingered in their hearts for some time but was only now being acknowledged. The attacks of the northlanders had been bitter, but no more bitter for Malekith than the last six millennia of frustration and disappointment. Now his subjects could feel an iota of what he had felt for so long, trapped behind their walls, seeing all they had built brought to ruin by the failings and machinations of others.

‘Naggaroth will never recover,’ the Witch King continued, erasing all doubt from the minds of his councillors. He knew they would obey his command; they always did. He needed more. He needed them to believe in their cause with greater passion than ever before. For one time only, the entirety of the druchii had to be bound together by a common purpose: conquest or extinction. His voice rose to a shout. ‘It is not the will of our people to slowly dwindle and die, cowering behind our walls. We are the bloodied blade that delivers fate’s end. We are the hunters from whom no prey escapes. We are the victors of a thousand wars, the lords of countless lesser creatures, and we do not bow meekly to Morai-heg’s decree. We are scions of Nagarythe, the people of Aenarion! We will reclaim our birthright or die!’

The dread lords and ladies sat in shocked silence at this decree, none daring to look at any other except their lord, who prowled around the table and stopped before his throne, standing between Drusala and Ezresor. Malekith looked at the sorceress and then the spymaster.

‘Before you depart the Black Tower. Before you return to your cities to gather your warriors, a demonstration. A reminder of what must befall all who betray their king.’

Kouran rose to his feet and joined his master. From the darkness behind his Black Guards emerged Malekith’s personal torturers bringing with them the wickedly barbed, hooked and pointed implements of their profession.

Kouran stood before the iron throne, the torturers flanking him at either side. The captain turned towards Drusala, then in a sudden whirl he fell upon Ezresor. The spymaster was caught utterly by surprise, the blade he had hidden in the sleeve of his robe pinned against his wrist as Kouran caught him, the point of Crimson Death a hair’s breadth from the spymaster’s throat. Ezresor was forced to his feet as the captain bent his arm behind his back.

Malekith seized hold of the struggling elf. His iron hand gripped Ezresor’s gaunt face, forcing his mouth open.

‘You were the eyes and ears of the Black Tower,’ the king snarled. ‘But what good are eyes and ears when the tongue will not relate what has been seen and heard?’ The Witch King’s iron talons reached inside Ezresor’s mouth. A gargled cry escaped the spymaster as Malekith ripped the tongue free, blood sizzling on the Witch King’s fingertips. He held the bloodied strip of flesh for all the Black Council to see, the organ charring rapidly. ‘One of you bought Ezresor’s tongue. Look well upon what you purchased.’

Dropping the gory talisman on the floor, the king stormed from the chamber, leaving Kouran to make an example to the others.

As the Witch King ordered, so it was to be.

Though Naggaroth was to be surrendered, it was not to be gifted to the northlanders and daemons. The slaves were slaughtered in their millions, their departing souls used to cast vile enchantments upon their bodies to bring plague upon those that came after. The earth itself was cursed so that no crop or grass or flower would grow again from the blood-soaked soil. The snows and the water courses were poisoned, and the subterranean rivers and seas of the Iron Mountains were spoiled. The sky was choked by a bank of black smoke from the burning cities and towers. Nothing was left as loot or comfort for the invaders.

Only Morathi remained at Ghrond, and the most demented of Khaine’s acolytes fought endless war with Hellebron against the Bloodied Horde at Har Ganeth. All others of elven blood followed their lords to the coast and prepared not for an attack but for a migration, back to the land of their ancestors.

Because the fates have ever had a sense of drama, even at the hour of setting forth, as the sails of the corsairs’ ships darkened the ocean and the great shadows of the black arks stretched across storm-tossed waves, so the last of the daemons attacking Ulthuan fell to the Sunfang, Lacelothrai, the blade of Prince Tyrion, and his brother Teclis banished their kind from the shores of the elven homeland at great cost to his own health and future. Tired were the defenders but they knew their enemies would think them weak and vulnerable. Muted were the celebrations as the dead were buried and the fortifications repaired.

Thus was set the stage for the opening scene of Ulthuan’s last war.

Ten

The Battle of Eagle Gate

This was his land, his soil, and countless were the elven lives that had been sacrificed upon it. Malekith could almost feel the souls of millions of dead, lamenting their demise from the depths of the underworld in Mirai, who had shed their blood for the region the asur called the Shadowlands.

It was a disdainful name, dismissive of the great history that had been forged on the cold plains that had once been known as Nagarythe. This was the land of Aenarion, who had saved Ulthuan from the daemons, yet it was now regarded as a fell realm, spoken of in whispers. It was so typical of the elves of Ulthuan that they should dismiss so much of their heritage while lauding the weaker descendants of those that had created their civilisation.

More blood was watering the spiny plants and short grasses of the Nagarythe mountainsides as another column of druchii warriors marched up the valley towards the immense fortification known as Eagle Gate. No other elven keep or castle had ever rivalled the gates of the Annulii Mountains in size or imposition to attack. Each stretched across the valley it defended a score times the height of an elf, many walls deep, protected by batteries of bolt throwers, warded by the ancient enchantments of Saphery and garrisoned by thousands of Ulthuan militia.

Eagle Gate was perhaps the most impressive of all, protecting the approaches to Ellyrion on the Inner Sea. The walls were as white as the snow that topped the two peaks that flanked the awe-inspiring barrier. They had once been fashioned so well that not a crack or fingerhold would have been found on their smooth surface, but of late the relentless attacks of the druchii, and before that the assaults of the daemons, had defaced the ancient stone more than the proceeding millennia. The ramparts had suffered a battering by bolt throwers and sorcery, jagged in places like broken teeth, the slender battlements and arched revetments hastily replaced in parts by whitewashed wooden defences.

Of the eight curtain walls, only two remained whole. The outer walls had been breached in the recent daemon war and in place of enchanted stone the defence was held by resolute elves clad in white and gold. The colours of Tiranoc and Ellyrion and several of the other kingdoms rippled on the banners above the host. Here and there a few flags bore the red-and-green of Caledor, but only a few, belonging to warriors and knights that had come to the gate in defiance of Prince Imrik’s wishes.

The bows of the defenders sang as clouds of arrows fell upon the advancing host, who were as yet out of range with their crossbows, unable to loose any retaliation that might drive the asur from the rampart. The snaking column of black that was the Naggarothi host seemed beset in a sea of foaming white as chariots and riders from Tiranoc to the south engaged them from the flank. From above, mages hurled purple fireballs into the ranks of attackers, setting fires in the flesh of the druchii, charring clothing and melting mail armour. Jagged blue lightning ripped into the silver-and-purple-clad warriors, turning living soldiers into drifting clouds of smoke and molten steel.

Beside Malekith Seraphon stirred, emitting a low growl that made the promontory rumble beneath the Witch King’s feet. He patted her neck, her scales adequate protection against his burning palm.

‘You hunger for the battle,’ he said, sensing the bunch of her muscles as her instincts told her to hunt and rend. ‘Not yet, faithful Seraphon. In time you shall be allowed to the banquet, but not yet. Their claws need a little more dulling, or we shall regret our haste.’

It was not the first attack Eagle Gate had weathered since the druchii had arrived, but Malekith was determined that it would not stand against him this time. He had given the honour, dubious though it was, to Malus Darkblade, but it was not to the warriors of Hag Graef nor the knights of the Tyrant that the Witch King truly entrusted victory. It was a simple fact that from the moment the immense druchii fleet had landed on the shores of Nagarythe and disgorged its hosts towards Ellyrion, the fate of Eagle Gate had been sealed, and the efforts of Darkblade and his regiments was simply a bloody teaser of the violence to come – a test of Malus’s dedication to maintaining his veneer of loyalty to Malekith.

Malus was doomed to failure from the outset, and probably knew as much. He had saved his most precious troops, protecting them like a dwarf king hoards his gold, but the time had rapidly come when the first assaults had failed and the Tyrant was forced to commit his household troops: the knights of Burning Dark. He led them now on a desperate charge through the defenders, assisted by Drusala and her sorceresses.

No doubt the sight of Malekith standing beside Seraphon watching the proceedings did little to hearten the Tyrant. The Witch King was content to observe the lord of Hag Graef while he expended his forces, weakening his power with every failed attack, unable to defy his king. And the true beauty was that the attacks of Malus served Malekith’s purpose in another fashion, drawing the eye of the enemy outwards to the Shadowlands, bringing in more of their reserves and forces from across the nearby kingdoms. Malus did not know that knights from Ellyrion had arrived, and dismounted they waited now amongst the bolstered ranks of the defenders. Flame-winged phoenixes drove away the harpies that had been scavenging the dead in the upper towers and then swooped upon the vanguard of Malus’s latest assault threatening to scatter them as the early attacks had been thwarted. Every elf that died defending the gate was one less Malekith would face when he finally made his move, or one less to support Malus should he survive the encounter and make a claim for the crown.

Despite the forlorn situation, Malekith admired the knights and warriors bearing down upon the defenders. It was rare for him to contemplate such lowly subjects but he took a moment to acknowledge the unswerving dedication and bravery demonstrated by their sacrifice below. Many of them would die, of course, without knowing such regard existed, but the fortunate few that survived to see the dusk Malekith would reward for their endeavour, further undermining Malus’s power. He was, after all, a magnanimous ruler when required. That which could not be coerced with dread was easily bought with gold and favour, and in the new world they would carve on these shores the druchii knew only a few would rise to the top of society and would happily betray each other for such position.

There was a great commotion at the front of the assault, but Malekith could not see clearly what passed. He saw an explosion of daemonic energy and the asur army was in disarray for a while. No doubt Malus had unleashed whatever power it was Malekith had sensed at the council. It mattered little; the assault was grinding to its inevitable stop.

The mountains rang then with deafening roars, followed by a tumult of cheering from the ramparts of the gate. A palpable aura of despair engulfed the druchii host pressing into the valley, from spearmen to knights, sorceresses to the beastmasters that drove Malus’s two monstrous hydras into battle. Malekith turned to the south, knowing what it was that had caused such consternation so quickly, broken lips twisted into a smile.

Dragons.

There were dozens of the immense creatures, each ridden by one of the proud knights of Caledor. A rainbow of colours against the summer sky, a glittering chromatic display of raw strength. The surprise and delight of the defenders was all the greater for recent events. Imrik of Caledor had declined to help Tyrion against the daemon assault and had withdrawn his forces to the borders of his kingdom.

His aid had been unlooked for, but now it seemed the tide would be turned by Imrik’s intervention.

Such relief and joy was untimely.

Malekith pulled himself up into Seraphon’s saddle-throne and picked up the iron chains of her reins.

‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘Go to your cousins.’

Shouts of encouragement from the druchii followed Malekith into the sky as those below thought he sought to take on the squadrons of Caledor single-handed. Jeers rang out from the defenders, mocking his arrogance.

The jeers faded and the praise of the druchii fell to silence as Malekith and Imrik guided their monstrous mounts towards each other, weapons bared. As he closed with the Caledorian prince, Malekith was surprised by just how alike he was to his ancestor whose name he had taken. It was impossible for the Witch King not to think back to a day of destiny, a battle fought six millennia before above the fields of Maledor to the north.

Sulekh’s tail lashed, smashing into Athielle’s horse, turning it to a pulp of blood and broken bones. The princess was flung through the air and landed heavily, left leg twisting beneath her. Malekith channelled dark magic, ready to unleash another blaze of fire to finish off the Ellyrian. A movement caught his attention, a swiftly approaching blot against the clouds. He looked up to see a massive red dragon plunging towards him, a golden-armoured figure on its back.

‘Finally,’ the Witch King said, all thoughts of Athielle forgotten. He raised his voice in challenge, his words a metallic roar that carried over the din of battle. ‘Come to me, Imrik! Come to me!’

The companies of the White Lions and Phoenix Guard surged forward into the Naggarothi below while Malekith’s black dragon leapt up to meet the Phoenix King head-on. Maedrethnir plunged down from the clouds uttering a roaring challenge. The shock of the dragons’ impact almost threw Imrik from the saddle-throne, the two titanic beasts slamming into each other in a ferocious welter of claws and fangs. As a blast of fire from the red dragon splashed across Sulekh, Malekith laughed; even dragonfire was no threat to one that had survived the flames of Asuryan.

The two beasts parted and circled, gashes pouring blood from both. Imrik levelled his lance for the next pass, aiming for Malekith’s chest. The Witch King spoke a single word, the True Name of Khaine, and the baneful sorcery of his shield was unleashed. The blood-red symbol on its surface bombarded Imrik with the cacophony of war and the taste of blood filled his mouth as Khaine’s gift roused the Phoenix King’s rage.

Malekith was almost upon his foe as he shook his head to clear away the effects of the dread rune. Just as the Witch King was about to strike, Imrik swung his lance as Maedrethnir rolled to the right, the weapon’s shining tip scoring a wound across the flank of the black dragon as she passed by overhead.

The black dragon turned swiftly, almost catching Maedrethnir’s tail in her jaw. The dragon dipped in the air to avoid the attack, exposing Imrik to Sulekh’s raking claws. He turned and brought up his shield just in time, claws as hard as diamond ripping across its surface as protective energies blazed.

Gliding towards the ground, the two dragons closed again, snarling and roaring. Fire sprang from Malekith’s sword, surrounding Imrik with crackling intensity. The enchantments of his armour protected the Phoenix King from harm, the blue flames passing around him harmlessly. Maedrethnir grappled with the black dragon, their long necks swaying as each sought to sink fangs into the other. Claws raked back and forth, sending scales and blood spilling to the ground.

Bucking and twisting, the dragons descended, locked together by jaw and claw. Imrik let his lance fall from his grasp and pulled free Lathrain, just as the Witch King lashed out with Avanuir. The two swords met with an explosion of lightning and blue fire. The shock threw back Imrik’s arm and Malekith struck again, amazed when his foe managed a last-moment parry, turning aside Malekith’s blade as it screamed towards the Phoenix King’s head.

The dragons gave no thought to their riders as they savaged each other. Imrik was tossed left and right as Maedrethnir struggled with his foe, wings flapping and tail whipping. Malekith clung to his golden reins with his shield hand, steam and smoke rising from his armour.

The gaze of the Phoenix King met the eyes of the Witch King. Malekith poured forth his scorn in the form of a blood-curse, his eyes locked to the pale gaze of the Caledorian usurper. The Sapherian charms hanging on Imrik’s armour glowed as they warded away the Witch King’s sorcery. Again Imrik turned aside a stroke from Avanuir as the two dragons came close enough for Malekith to strike.

The battle continued to rage around them. In their frenzy, the dragons trampled over friend and foe without distinction, Khainites and Ellyrians, White Lions and Naggarothi clawed and trampled by the two behemoths.

Imrik kept his focus on the Witch King, seeking an opening to strike. When the black dragon reeled back from an attack from Maedrethnir, the Phoenix King seized his opportunity. His sword cut down into the Witch King’s shoulder, biting deep with a scream of tearing metal. Malekith felt the sorcery of his armour exploding from his wounded limb, snaking up the sword that bit into his flesh.

Maedrethnir gave a pained howl as the black dragon’s claws found purchase around his neck. Jaw snapping, Imrik’s mount seized hold of his enemy’s wing, biting through bone and sinew until the black dragon released its grip in a spasm of pain. Blood was gushing from Maedrethnir’s neck. The red dragon stumbled back leaving a stream of crimson on the rucked earth.

As the Witch King wrenched on the chain of the black dragon’s reins, the beast lunged at Imrik. Her jaws closed around his arm, teeth cracking against the ensorcelled ithilmar. Lathrain tumbled from his grasp. The straps of the Phoenix King’s harness parted as the black dragon shook her head, dragging Imrik from the saddle-throne, casting him to the ground.

Heaving in a gasping breath, Imrik pushed to his feet, seeking Lathrain. He saw the glitter of metal in a tussock not far away and set towards it, hand outstretched.

Malekith smashed Avanuir into Imrik’s back, launching him from the bloodied ground. The Phoenix King crashed down amidst the bodies of the slain Ellyrians, coming face-to-face with Finudel’s dead visage.

The black dragon struggled as Malekith tried to goad and steer her towards the fallen Phoenix King, eager to pursue Maedrethnir who had withdrawn, limping heavily, flanks scored with dozens of ragged gashes. The black dragon fared little better, her wings tattered, face and neck marked by claws and fangs.

The will of the Witch King prevailed and the dragon’s head turned towards Imrik. Flapping ragged wings, Sulekh pounded forwards, jaws wide, dripping bloodied saliva.

Imrik looked up, fear written across his face as Sulekh’s fangs reflected in the gems of his armour. Malekith laughed in triumph.

Victory had been so close that day. A single sword stroke away. By such margins had Malekith been thwarted on occasion, and history would have been so different but for the constant prickling of Morai-heg’s twists of fate. Incompetence in the druchii ranks, infighting by the nobles and commanders, untimely storms, two Phoenix Kings committing suicide and the gods themselves had barred Malekith’s path to ultimate victory.

Not today. Today there would be no intervention to spare Malekith’s foes. He fixed this new Imrik with his dread gaze and lifted Urithain.

Cries of surprise and dismay sounded from the mountainsides as Imrik saluted with his lance and the two dragonriders turned towards Eagle Gate, the lord of Caledor following behind the Witch King of Naggaroth. In their wake came the gold and silver and red and blue scales of Caledorian mounts, but amongst them more ebon-hued beasts raised by the masters of Clar Karond and Karond Kar.

There was already fighting on the walls as Caledorian knights that had been part of the garrison revealed their true loyalty. Even as the dragons descended with claws and deadly breath the great portal of Eagle Gate’s seventh wall was opening.

The druchii roar of glee was almost as thunderous as the cries of the dragons as Malekith’s followers surged into the pass, intent on the doomed fortification.

Eleven

An Alliance of Necessity

‘You have betrayed us all,’ hissed Imrik as Teclis stepped aside to reveal his companion. Even though Malekith’s avatar bore his original unmutilated form, his features were well known to the descendants of Caledor Dragontamer. ‘You invite… that thing into the heart of my city?’

‘Put down your weapon,’ Malekith said calmly. He waved an incorporeal hand through one of the alabaster pillars that held up the domed roof of the private audience chamber. ‘Even your ensorcelled blade will not harm this projection.’

Imrik pivoted, the point of his sword towards Teclis. ‘This traitor is real enough for blood to be drawn.’

‘Did you not receive my gift?’ said Malekith, continuing to approach. ‘I trust my ambassador was convincing in his entreaties.’

‘The dragon eggs?’ Imrik’s sword arm wavered. ‘I could not believe it was by your hand that they were returned.’

‘This must be far harder for you than it is for me,’ Malekith admitted in a conciliatory tone. ‘I know that I have had many conflicts with your ancestors, starting with your namesake, the first Imrik of Caledor, but I have never harboured any hatred for your kingdom or your people.’

‘So easily lies spill from your lips, kinslayer,’ Imrik snarled. His attention moved back to Malekith, allowing Teclis to retreat several steps, content at the moment to allow the two elves to continue without interruption. ‘You waged war upon Caledor as much as any other realm.’

‘I resent the accusation,’ said Malekith, genuinely offended by this claim. ‘Never once did I send my armies into the mountains of the south. My agent, Hotek, was given explicit instructions never to cause direct injury to your forefathers or their realm.’

‘You did not invade because you knew you would lose,’ Imrik said boldly. He sheathed his sword and folded his arms, but Malekith could already sense that the prince’s indignation was now more by habit than deeply felt.

‘I did not invade because I knew I would have to destroy Caledor to achieve victory.’ Malekith’s apparition shrugged. ‘When I gain my rightful place as ruler of our people, the dragonlords will be the vanguard of my army. Only lesser kings would desire peasant woodsmen from Chrace as their personal guard when they could have the dragon princes of Caledor.’

Imrik’s defiance wavered and his gaze slid to Teclis.

‘You have told him of what we discussed before? Concerning the visitation of my ancestor?’

‘I have not,’ said Teclis. ‘I wished Malekith to seek his own bargain with you, and that is why he is here.’

Imrik slumped into his chair, a gauntleted hand held to his forehead for several moments. When he looked up his expression was pained, directed at the mage.

‘There is no other way?’

Malekith answered before Teclis could reply. ‘It takes a great leader to wage war, but it takes a greater leader still to forge peace, Imrik. None should claim to have greater grievance than I. Six thousand years I have borne the weight of my deeds without regret.’ Malekith paused, suddenly aware of the emotion he was feeling. He had intended his words to be a salve to Imrik’s pride but as the Witch King spoke, the truth of his claim choked his speech. ‘Millions have died, but we have the chance to end that now. It is easy to cling to history, to be popular. It is far harder to be right.’

The thought that his heart’s desire, his birthright, was so close to his grasp focused Malekith’s thoughts, but it was with a surprisingly tired sword arm that he hewed his blade through the defenders of Eagle Gate while Seraphon gouged and slashed her way into their ranks.

Tower after tower tumbled under the assaults of the dragons while poisonous gas and dragonfire scoured the ramparts of life. Malekith’s attacks were methodical, machine-like, and as he cut down a Tiranocii captain the Witch King wondered why he did not take more delight in the moment of victory.

He cast his gaze towards the dragon princes, where Imrik led the charge into a regiment of Ellyrians, though his lance seemed bereft of blood for the moment. Was the victory tainted by the Caledorians’ betrayal? Did it somehow rob Malekith of the sense that it had been fought for and earned? Was it the deeper feeling that Imrik’s alliance was driven by something other than loyalty, Malekith’s unease fuelled by an inherent distrust of Teclis who had arranged the pact? Malekith had come too close to allow his future triumph to be built on such shallow foundations.

Or was it something even more fundamental that robbed the Witch King of joy at the very moment he overthrew the bulwark that had kept him at bay for so long? Perhaps a momentary acknowledgement that had he not bided his time a little longer, sought to woo the Caledorians and others more strongly, he might have legitimately succeeded Bel Shanaar?

But this Imrik was not the same as his forefather. He was wrought of softer mettle, though he did not realise it. Caledor the First had never been prideful. Stubborn, taciturn and often ill-mannered, but ambition had never been a weakness to be exploited. The first Imrik had never wanted to rule. Already disenfranchised and distanced by the Phoenix King, ignored by Prince Tyrion, the current Caledorian ruler had been ripe for the turning.

He saw Imrik pause, his dragon alighting on the ruins of a gate tower less than a bowshot away. He was shouting directions to his warriors, calling off the attack as the defenders fled by the thousands along the pass to Ellyrion. Malus’s forces were ill-placed for pursuit either into the mountains or towards Tiranoc, and the Caledorians bore up such knights and warriors of their own realm from the ruins of the gate, carrying them out of the path of the encroaching druchii.

Malekith hacked his way out of a press of defenders caught on a battlement, as content as Imrik to see his fellow elves escape. As much as he had wished them dead before the fortress had fallen, now Malekith viewed them as future subjects. When the Rhana Dandra engulfed the world he would need as many warriors as possible and the spear- and bow-armed militia of Ulthuan would make a fine first wave to absorb the venom of any Chaos attacks.

He directed Seraphon to land alongside the Caledorian prince, pulling tight on her chains before she lunged for the other dragon. Cowed, the black dragon hung her head and lapped at the puddles of blood on the wall.

Imrik turned in the saddle, his lance swinging towards Malekith’s heart, but the Witch King kept his weapon lowered.

‘Was that so difficult?’ Malekith asked, waving Urithain towards the broken walls.

‘The hardest thing I will ever do,’ replied Imrik, the pain fresh in his eyes.

‘I think not,’ Malekith replied. ‘Today is just the beginning. A battle, nothing more. Today was easy, a military objective to be achieved. Harder days will come.’

‘How so?’ said the Caledorian, shaking his head. ‘What could be harder than slaying those I once called neighbour?’

‘Meeting their families and asking them to follow you,’ Malekith replied from experience.

As dusk fell Malekith waited in the uppermost chamber of one of the few towers that remained of Eagle Gate, and with him his new ally. Imrik was dressed in all his armour and finery, a resplendent figure of gold and rubies and jade surcoat, as bright and colourful as Malekith was dark and menacing, one the sunlight, the other the ember ready to spark into violent life. The expression of the Caledorian prince did not match his ensemble, sombre to the point of bitterness.

‘Needless blood was shed today,’ said the prince, pacing back and forth across the chamber. The room was sparsely furnished with desk, three chairs and a bookcase filled with tomes of watch rotations and the tower captain’s journal. ‘If I had made known my alliance with you before you attacked, the garrison would have surrendered if offered safe haven or retreat.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Malekith, ‘but now your warriors have raised blade and lance against their kin, and the princes of Caledor have signed the pact with blood. The show of strength will also serve as an apt demonstration to the other kingdoms. Only by the strength of Caledor have I been thwarted before, and now that strength is mine to command.’

‘Mine to command,’ Imrik said sharply, stopping beside the desk. Malekith watched the prince’s hand stray unconsciously to the hilt of his sword – the Witch King had allowed his ally to bear arms in his presence as a sign of trust and equality. The truth was that Imrik had nothing to gain and everything to lose if he tested himself against Malekith’s battlecraft. ‘We are your allies, not your subjects, Malekith.’

‘Of course,’ Malekith said softly, gesturing to the bottle of wine and two glasses set on the desk. ‘I did not mean to imply otherwise.’

‘Many a truth falls from slipped tongue,’ said Imrik, regarding the Witch King with suspicion.

They stood in silence for a while longer, until Malekith realised that Imrik was not going to drink the wine.

‘You think it poisoned?’ Malekith said with a laugh. ‘Tonight, so soon after sealing our common purpose?’

‘History teaches that it is unwise to be a guest at your table,’ said the prince. ‘Bel Shanaar’s shade would warn me to be cautious.’

‘I would partake myself, but my… condition renders even the finest Cothique red a tasteless experience.’

‘Why two glasses?’

‘I am awaiting another guest.’

Silence descended again and Malekith moved to the window to look out over the two armies encamped in Eagle Pass. The druchii laughed harshly at their bonfires, singing victory songs as looted wine passed from lips to lips and bloodthirsty tales and exaggerated deeds of deadly prowess were swapped. Further towards the peaks the Caledorians camped in silence, the great shadows of their dragons dark against the rock, a few lanterns the only light to betray their presence.

Something caught Malekith’s eye. It was a movement, or rather a lack of it, a space where there should have been something but was not. With mortal eyes he watched the patrols of the Naggarothi pacing around the limits of the camp, but with his magical sense, enhanced by the Circlet of Iron, he felt the twisting of the winds of magic, creating a swiftly-moving pocket, a void that passed between the sentries without notice.

The shadow that was not a shadow quickly negotiated the gates and ruins, coming to the foot of the tower unheralded. There was a flutter of shadow magic dispersing and a moment later a figure hooded and cloaked in grey appeared at the ruined door of the tower, stepping over the threshold before any other bore witness to the arrival.

‘He is here,’ said Malekith, turning back to Imrik.

The Caledorian prince looked towards the door, where a few moments later the cowled newcomer appeared. He threw back his hood to reveal an almost painfully thin face, gaunt to the point of wasted, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. A quivering hand removed a small phial from a pouch at his belt and the blue contents were quickly imbibed. The elf closed his eyes and breathed out a long sigh. When he opened his eyes again some colour and vigour had returned and his gaze was alert, flicking between Malekith and Imrik.

He cast the cloak over one of the chairs, revealing white robes beneath an outer mantel of twilight blue that seemed to contain pinpricks of star light that waxed and waned as the elf moved to the table and poured the wine into the two glasses. Magical sigils gleamed in the cloak of stars, dappling the floor with gold and red.

‘Teclis,’ said Imrik, instinctively taking the goblet of wine as it was handed to him by the mage. ‘How? How are you here?’

‘By great effort,’ the High Loremaster replied. ‘And I cannot remain long. I must be at my brother’s camp by dusk two days hence.’

‘He is so close at hand?’ said Imrik, shocked. ‘Two days’ march from here?’

‘Relax, Imrik, the steed of shadows bears me across Ulthuan faster than any mortal horse. Tyrion remains in Lothern,’ the mage assured them. He took a long draught of wine and smiled. ‘Events continue to pass as Lileath prophesied, and to each will come the allotted role. The gods will come again, in mortal form, and by their presence we will be delivered from Chaos and the Rhana Dandra.’

‘The more you speak,’ the Witch King said, ‘the more I am convinced that you have taken council with my mother, who imagines that she is Hekarti reborn.’

‘And perhaps she is,’ Teclis replied. ‘Perhaps she always was. Is it so hard to believe? We know Isha and Kurnous dwell in Athel Loren.’

‘You hold that our gods walk amongst us?’

‘Not all of them, but enough. The cycle of history has a momentum that overwhelms even kings. Willingly or not, we will repeat that cycle in mimicry of those who came before. What is the Rhana Dandra, if not the echo of our gods’ last battle?’

‘I am Nethu,’ said Imrik, referring to the Keeper of the Last Door, Guardian of the Underworld, his whispered words spoken in sudden awareness of a hidden truth. ‘I have opened a door that should have remained closed.’

‘Say rather that you have opened the path to the flame,’ Teclis corrected. ‘But yes, the comparison is otherwise apt. Nethu’s actions, though a betrayal, prevented disaster, and so have yours.’

Malekith considered this, alarmed by what he saw as Teclis’s intent. He would no more be the vessel for a god than he would a daemon, and certainly not one whose mantle he had so casually assumed for purely political gain. When he spoke, his discontent was plain to hear. ‘It is your contention, then, that I am to play the role of Khaine?’

‘No, your path is not Khaine’s. You have worn his persona as a cloak only when it has suited you.’

‘Then whom?’ the Witch King demanded, casting through the candidates in his mind: Malus, Hellebron, Tullaris? ‘Who else is fit to bear the mantle of the Destroyer?’

‘Khaine is not yet come. You know the stories – though he began the war of the gods, it was long before he showed his hand. At present he slumbers trifurcated, trapped in prisons of blood, soul and steel. Only when these three are one will he awaken. Your path lies elsewhere.’

Malekith’s reply was forestalled by a screech from outside, the shriek of a harpy. He glanced at the window and saw the creature flash past, perhaps chasing a bat or night bird.

‘There is only one god that can aid us,’ Teclis said. ‘Your father called upon him and laid down his life in supplication to protect his people.’

‘Asuryan?’ Malekith’s laugh was like rusted blades on stone. ‘The one that made me into this… this abomination?’

‘The all-seeing king of the gods, patron of Aenarion,’ Teclis continued quietly.

‘My father would have better spent his time taking up the Widowmaker first than entreating the all-knowing, patronising Asuryan! If he had, perhaps he would not have seen his wife die.’

‘And you would not exist,’ Teclis replied with a sly chuckle. ‘Is that what you really want? No. You must do as your father did. The other kings were frauds, you know this. Protected by the spells of their mages they lived, but you must die to be reborn.’

‘Impossible!’ Malekith’s shout echoed long in the bare-walled chamber. The mention of stepping back into the flames caused a pain deep inside Malekith to flare into life. Teclis was right in one respect – death would be certain.

‘No, it is the truth.’ Teclis’s voice was still calm. ‘That is why almost all succumbed to madness. It was the price of that betrayal.’

‘Leave, both of you!’ Malekith snarled. ‘Before I forget the services you have rendered, and let my Black Guard amuse themselves with your bones.’

Imrik looked as though he would argue but thought better of it, slamming his goblet on the table before departing with clenched fists and hunched shoulders. Teclis waited a while longer, eyeing Malekith carefully. They did not speak a further word but the look they shared conveyed a whole conversation – warning and counter-warning that they were both unleashing forces on the edge of comprehension and that the other would do well to remember the follies of the past.

Confident that his purpose was understood, Teclis wrapped himself about with his cloak and drew in the power of Ulgu to shield himself from perception, becoming one with the Wind of Shadow.

Twelve

Servants to a Higher Cause

Eagle Pass made for a strange scene the following morning. Malekith had sent command to his minions that no hostile act was to be perpetrated against any son or daughter of Caledor and for the dark hours that decree had been obeyed, doubtless in no small part to Kouran’s vigilance and the patrols of the Black Guard. Overnight the druchii and Caledorians had made their camps, the former amongst the ruins of the stronghold that had thwarted them so often, the latter on the higher slopes of the mountains. Dusk had swiftly laid a dark cloak over the aftermath of the day before, but as the dragons basked in the rising sun the full horror of what had occurred was laid bare.

Not a tower stood, and not a stretch of wall for more than thirty paces. The white stones were blackened, drifts of ash made of the bodies of the defenders piled high by the prevailing wind. Amongst the charred remnants were contorted, skin-sloughed remains of those that had succumbed to the breath of the black dragons. In other places the fortifications were coated with dried blood, splashed across the pale stones like the creation of some insane artist dedicated to Khaine’s labours. Harpies, hydras and black dragons scavenged on the piles of corpses, gulping down the carrion feast as if there were not enough to last the day, though the piles of bodies were in places dozens deep.

Malekith had not slept – it was rare that his tormented dreams granted him any peace – and had paced the ruins trying to feel a sense of accomplishment. It had eluded him throughout the slaughter and it eluded him still as the magnitude of the carnage was revealed. He considered his words to Imrik the day before and realised that the Caledorian’s experience was far different from his own. For Malekith, the choice to do what was right, what was needed, had been no less difficult, but the moment of action had been far less public.

It was the day before Bel Shanaar and Malekith were due to leave Tor Anroc for the council upon the Isle of Flame when the Phoenix King commanded the prince of Nagarythe to attend him in his throne room. Malekith walked quickly to the audience chamber, his instinct for intrigue curious as to what the Phoenix King had to say.

‘I have been thinking deep upon your words,’ Bel Shanaar proclaimed.

‘I am pleased to hear that,’ said Malekith. ‘May I ask what the nature of your thoughts has been?’

‘I will put your idea to the princes,’ said Bel Shanaar. ‘A single army drawn from all kingdoms will prosecute this war against the vile cults.’

‘I am glad that you agree with my reasoning,’ said Malekith, wondering why Bel Shanaar had brought him here to tell him what he already knew.

‘I have also been giving much thought to who is best qualified to lead this army,’ said Bel Shanaar, and Malekith’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation.

‘I would be honoured,’ said the prince of Nagarythe.

Bel Shanaar opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again, a confused frown upon his brow.

‘You misunderstand me,’ the Phoenix King then said. ‘I will nominate Imrik to be my chosen general.’

Malekith stood in stunned silence, left speechless by the Phoenix King’s announcement.

‘Imrik?’ he said eventually.

‘Why not?’ said Bel Shanaar. ‘He is a fine general, and Caledor is the most stable of all the realms at the current time. He is well-respected amongst the other princes. Yes, he will make a good choice.’

‘And why do you tell me this?’ snapped Malekith. ‘Perhaps you seek to mock me!’

‘Mock you?’ said Bel Shanaar, taken aback. ‘I am telling you this so that you will speak in favour of my decision. I know that you have much influence and your word will lend great weight to Imrik’s authority.’

‘You would raise up the grandson of Caledor over the son of Aenarion?’ said Malekith. ‘Have I not forged new kingdoms across the world at the head of armies? If not my bloodline, then my achievements must qualify me above all others.’

‘I am sorry that you feel this way, Malekith,’ said Bel Shanaar, unabashed. ‘The council will endorse my choice, you would do well to align yourself with me.’

At this, Malekith’s frayed temper snapped utterly.

‘Align myself to you?’ he snarled. ‘The hunter does not align himself to his hound! The master does not align himself to his servant!’

‘Choose your next words carefully, Malekith!’ warned the Phoenix King. ‘Remember who it is that you address!’

The Naggarothi prince mastered his anger, biting back further retorts.

‘I trust that my protest has been recognised,’ he said with effort. ‘I urge you to reconsider your decision.’

‘You are free to speak your mind at the council,’ said Bel Shanaar. ‘It is your right to argue against Imrik, and to put forward yourself as candidate. We shall let the princes decide.’

Malekith said nothing more, but bowed stiffly and left, silently seething.

In the corridor around the corner from Bel Shanaar’s main chambers Palthrain stood with a tray upon which were stood a silver ewer and goblet, and a plate of cured meats and bread. Palthrain passed him the tray but Malekith’s hands were shaking and the chamberlain quickly retrieved it.

Malekith took deep breaths, trying to calm himself as if summoning the power for a difficult spell. Ignoring the purposefully blank expression of Palthrain, the prince took the tray once more, now in control of his body.

‘Are you sure this will work?’ demanded Malekith. ‘It must be final!’

‘It is used in certain practices of the Khainites, to numb the senses,’ Palthrain replied. ‘In small doses it will render its victim incapable for several hours. With the amount I have put in the wine, it will be fatal. At first he will be paralysed. Then his breathing will become difficult as his lungs freeze, and then he will fall into a coma and pass away.’

‘No pain?’ said Malekith.

‘Not that I am aware of, highness,’ said Palthrain.

‘What a pity,’ said Malekith.

The Naggarothi prince walked down the passageway to Bel Shanaar’s chambers, forcing himself to stride slowly so as not to garner attention. He knocked at the door and waited for Bel Shanaar’s call for him to enter.

The Phoenix King was sitting at a writing desk, no doubt penning corrections to his speech for the council.

‘Malekith?’ he said, startled.

‘Forgive the intrusion, your majesty,’ said Malekith with a low bow. He stepped across the room and placed the tray on the desk.

‘Why are you here?’ asked Bel Shanaar. ‘Where’s Palthrain?’

‘I apologise for waylaying him, majesty,’ said Malekith. ‘I wished to bring you your wine as a peace offering.’

‘Peace offering?’

‘I wholeheartedly wish to offer my apologies,’ replied Malekith, pouring the poisoned wine into the goblet. ‘I spoke out of misplaced anger earlier, and I caused great offence. My anger is not with you, though it might have seemed that way. I have endeavoured to earn your trust and to be a loyal subject, and it is my failings not yours that have led you to choose Imrik. I will be happy to support your choice.’

The prince passed the cup to Bel Shanaar, his face a mask of politeness. The Phoenix King frowned and for a moment Malekith feared that he suspected something. The Phoenix King took the goblet however, and placed it on the desk.

‘Your apology is accepted,’ said Bel Shanaar. ‘I do trust you, my friend, but you have personal concerns that far outweigh any duty to me. I choose Imrik not just on ability, but on the fact that I would have you address the problems of your kingdom without distraction. I would have you direct your energies solely to restoring your rule, not pandering to the whims of other kingdoms.’

The goblet remained on the desk.

‘Your consideration heartens me greatly,’ said Malekith, keeping his eyes fixed firmly upon the Phoenix King lest he dart a betraying glance towards the wine.

‘You will offer your support in the council?’ Bel Shanaar asked, finally lifting the cup to his lips and taking a mouthful of the wine.

It was not enough for the poison to work and the prince silently willed Bel Shanaar to drink more.

‘When the debate rages, none will argue harder than I,’ said Malekith with a smile.

Bel Shanaar nodded and took another sip of wine.

‘If that is all, then I wish you a fair evening and look forward to sailing with you in the morning,’ said Bel Shanaar with a polite nod.

Malekith stood there watching for some sign of the poison’s effect.

‘What are you staring at?’ asked the Phoenix King.

‘Is the wine not to your satisfaction?’ said the prince, taking a step closer.

‘I am not thirsty,’ said Bel Shanaar, placing the goblet back on the desk.

Malekith twisted and picked up the goblet and sniffed it.

‘It is very fine wine, majesty,’ he said.

‘I am sure it is, Malekith,’ said Bel Shanaar, pursing his lips. His voice became more insistent. ‘However, I feel a little sleepy all of a sudden. I shall retire for the night and see you in the morning.’

Stifling a frustrated shout, Malekith lunged forwards and seized Bel Shanaar by the throat. The Phoenix King’s eyes widened with terror as Malekith forced open Bel Shanaar’s mouth and emptied in the contents of the goblet. The goblet tumbled from the prince’s fingertips and spilt a cascade of red droplets over the white boards of the floor.

Clamping one hand over the Phoenix King’s nose and mouth and dragging his head back by his hair, Malekith choked the king until he swallowed the deadly draught. He then released his grip and stepped back to watch his future unfold.

‘What have you–’ panted Bel Shanaar, clawing at his throat and chest.

Malekith lifted the parchment from the desk. As he had suspected, it was a draft of the Phoenix King’s speech for the council. Thinking it better that no evidence of Bel Shanaar’s support for Imrik was found, he crossed the room and tossed it into the fire burning in the grate. Turning, he saw that there was still life in Bel Shanaar’s bulging eyes.

Malekith padded forwards until he was very close, and bent towards the dying elf’s ear.

‘You brought this upon yourself,’ the prince hissed.

With a last gurgle, Bel Shanaar died, his face purple, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Malekith stood for a while, absent-mindedly looking at the contorted face, not quite believing that it was almost over.

‘Well, I have to leave you now,’ he said at last, affectionately patting the Phoenix King’s head. ‘I have a throne to claim.’

Kings and princes, all had thought to rob Malekith of his rightful inheritance and they all had been sent to the underworld of Mirai for their efforts. Malekith had some respect for Imrik for the simple fact that he had been able to break the cycle of history, realising that his future was beside the true Phoenix King, not against him. If only his forefathers had been so astute the carnage and waste of elven lives would have been avoided.

Malekith turned away from the evidence of the battle, wondering why he was so preoccupied with thoughts of death and the countless lives sacrificed in endless battle for possession of Ulthuan. It was a recent phenomenon, this train of thought, having grown in frequency in the couple of centuries since his defeat at Finuval Plain and his escape through the Realm of Chaos. Perhaps back then he had sensed the rising tide of Chaos that had engulfed the world and it had nagged at his thoughts.

It was strange also that while he did not regret a single druchii life lost in service to his claim, Malekith found it harder to contemplate the losses of the asur. His own folk were driven by greed and revenge, base desires that hung on the cloak of Malekith’s quest for justice. In contrast, the asur’s stubbornness had been a constant vexation to him, their blindness to his natural right and authority an affront, but all the same his hatred for their weak society and hand-wringing rulers had been tempered by respect for their tenacity in defending such a flawed civilisation.

A shadow passed over him and he looked up to see Imrik descending on his dragon. The prince left his monstrous steed on the broken ground between walls three and four and crossed the bloodied rubble with long strides.

‘The dead should not be left to suffer such outrage,’ the prince snapped, waving a hand towards the beasts devouring the corpse banquet.

‘What would you have me do?’ Malekith asked, knowing that it was too early in the alliance to simply dismiss the prince’s squeamish concerns. ‘Their souls are in Mirai now and the mortal remains behind make good fodder for my beasts.’

‘Bury them, or at least make a pyre to mark their sacrifice.’

‘An interesting idea,’ replied Malekith, warming to the notion. ‘The stones of Eagle Gate would make a fitting mausoleum and monument to those who died here. It is a shame that we do not have time to tarry to raise such an edifice. A pyre perhaps would serve better, and its pall would mask our advance from prying eyes.’

To make his point, Malekith gestured towards the cloudy skies, where the silhouettes of great eagles and the glitter of phoenix wings betrayed the avian allies of their foes. Imrik glanced up and shrugged.

‘My dragons will teach them to be more circumspect.’

‘Our dragons would be better employed securing the eastern end of the pass, until my vanguard arrives.’

Imrik considered this, not looking at Malekith, obviously caught between the logic of the Witch King’s declaration and a desire to defy his will brought about by long centuries of stubborn defiance. No doubt the need to feel on an equal footing with his former foe also weighed on the Caledorian’s thoughts. In the end Imrik’s military sense prevailed and he nodded.

‘The Ellyrians will desire to make a counter-attack. We shall dissuade them,’ he said. ‘Who is to lead your vanguard? It will be a risky position, for surely Tyrion will bring his whole force to bear upon our advance.’

‘Riskier still considering I have no intention of following them along Eagle Pass.’ Malekith laughed at Imrik’s confusion. ‘Your people are driven constantly by history, yet forever miss its lessons. I would no more march directly into confrontation with Tyrion than I would lay aside my shield in battle. I know that his bravery cannot be questioned and his sword arm is strong, but let us see whether this upstart who claims the blood of Aenarion can wield an army with the same skill as his blade.’

‘You will march north, and attack Chrace?’

‘We will, Imrik,’ corrected Malekith.

Imrik said nothing, fingers toying with the hilt of his sword.

‘Speak, or depart, but cease your vacillation,’ said Malekith.

‘When this is done, when we have won this war and you rule Ulthuan, what then?’

‘Grief, strife and war,’ Malekith answered plainly. ‘I do not promise to end suffering, but under my leadership we will prevail against the adversity that is to come. I offer nothing but victory, Imrik, bear no misunderstanding in this matter. Should Tyrion be victorious, the elven race is doomed.’

‘Perhaps it is simply the sealing of a doom that began long ago, and we should resist it no longer.’

‘Feel free to end your own life if you desire,’ said Malekith, turning away. ‘Just leave me your dragons.’

Thirteen

The Tyrant Shamed

‘My king.’

Kouran’s quiet warning drew Malekith’s attention away from the map he was studying with his generals. They stood just out of the shadow cast by the toppled fourth wall, marshalling the columns of druchii moving through the fortress while harpies nearby picked at the corpses buried in the rubble. The captain’s gaze guided Malekith’s eye to a figure standing beneath the arch of a gatehouse a short distance away.

Malus Darkblade was a forlorn figure, almost wraith-like in his pale nakedness. All that protected his dignity was the tattered remnant of a cloak, still smeared with the blood of the corpse it had been torn from. Around his neck hung his signature heavy talisman and in his hand he still bore the warpsword of Khaine, but save for these accoutrements his battlegear had disappeared.

He pushed himself away from the stone and tottered forwards a few steps, drawing the attention of the other druchii nearby. The whispers began a heartbeat later, subtle at first, but Naggarothi had never been known to hide their cruel humour and soon their taunts and jibes followed Darkblade across the ruin.

His bared flesh was marred with small cuts and bruises amongst older scars, and in places there were puncture wounds that looked as though his bones had split the skin, though he moved without any sign of physical pain. A particularly dramatic slash of lacerated flesh stretched from navel to throat, white in the morning light. Malus’s eyes seemed darker and more sunken than usual, bloodshot and rimmed with the shadow of fatigue. Not all the blood was his; his skin was marked with bloody handprints and other smears.

Ignoring the sharp stones underfoot, Malus came directly towards Malekith. The Witch King eyed the warpsword in Darkblade’s hand, the enchantment within the blade a blaze of colour in his magical sight. Numbered amongst the few weapons that could easily penetrate the armour of midnight, the warpsword was one of the reasons Malus had risen to the top of Hag Graef in a comparatively short time. Its true origins remained a mystery to Malekith, but knowing that Malus possessed such a weapon had sometimes been a source of some concern to the Witch King. He doubted whether Malus would ever dare test the magical sword against Urithain, but there was a crazed look in the Tyrant’s eye as he approached and Kouran moved forward, Crimson Death at the ready.

Malus stopped about two dozen paces away. He seemed oblivious to the sneering remarks of the other elves at hand, gaze focused on Malekith. He swayed slightly, one eye twitching. The Witch King saw the Tyrant flexing his fingers on the grip of the warpsword and moved his hand to the hilt of Urithain.

‘You are alive,’ said Malekith, looking the haggard figure up and down. ‘Mostly.’

A degree of focus returned to Malus’s gaze and a frown creased his brow. He turned to glare at the other elves that were drifting closer to witness what transpired next, before concentrating on the Witch King.

‘Mostly alive, yes, your majesty,’ he said, bowing with a flourish. He lowered to one knee, the point of the warpsword in the ground, head bowed against the hiltstone. ‘My apologies, Lord Malekith, for my tardiness in reporting for my next commands. I was otherwise engaged during yesterday’s triumph and could not share your victory.’

Malekith paced around Malus, who kept his eye on the Witch King for as long as possible until he was behind the Tyrant of Hag Graef. The king stopped behind Darkblade, noting the fresh cuts upon his back.

‘Tell me, dear Malus, what matters of such import took your insightful counsel from my ears last night?’

Darkblade did not reply immediately, his head turning left and right in an effort to catch a glimpse of his tormentor. He sighed, long and languorous. ‘Alas, our revered king, I was so caught up by Khaine’s thirst that I pursued the enemy far beyond reasonable strategy and have only this dawn returned.’

‘You were overwhelmed with bloodlust?’ said Malekith, remaining behind Malus.

‘That is true, your majesty.’

‘And you pursued the enemy so vigorously that it took the night to return?’

‘Apparently so, your majesty.’

‘And which enemies did you pursue?’

‘The traitors that held Eagle Gate, your majesty.’

‘Be more specific, dear Malus. Which of the traitorous enemy did you pursue?’

‘I believe they were Ellyrians, your majesty,’ interjected Drusala, emerging from the crowd to Malekith’s left. Malus stood up and faced the sorceress, quickly hiding a moment of confusion behind an indifferent mask.

‘That would make sense,’ said the Darkblade. ‘They fled towards Ellyrion.’

‘And so furious was your pursuit that you abandoned your cold one? Spite, isn’t it?’ asked the Witch King.

‘In the melee before the gate was breached I was pulled from my saddle,’ admitted Malus. ‘I lost my mount and hope that one of my knights has recovered him and he awaits me in the camp of my household.’

‘And your clothes and armour?’

Malus looked down at himself, as if realising his nudity for the first time. His gaze moved back to the Witch King and then to Drusala, and then around the gathered crowd who awaited his reply with unconcealed smirks and leering.

‘Discarded, your majesty.’ Malus looked at Malekith directly, daring him to gainsay a word of his testimony. Malekith had no idea what had happened and it was clear that only torture would loosen the Tyrant’s lips.

‘Discarded? In battle?’

‘Forgive me, your majesty, for I was foolish and to heighten my battle prowess I imbibed some of the witch brew of Khaine before the fighting began. Just a mouthful, of course. Just enough to strengthen my sword arm for a long day of bloodletting. I did not realise how delayed its effects might be and in my Khaine-blessed rage to get at the Ellyrians I stripped off my armour which had been weighing me down, suffering as it had much damage during the fray so that many straps and buckles were broken and its efficacy much reduced.’

This was greeted with harsh laughter from much of the crowd, and shouts of derision. Malus rounded on the watchers with the warpsword raised. Kouran was about to take another step but Malekith gestured for him to remain where he was.

‘You laugh, who allowed the enemies of our king to retreat without harassment?’ Malus railed, spittle flying in his false indignity, eyes wide. ‘You would let them rally and fight again, their resistance, their existence, an affront to our ruler? Smirk if you dare, those that were less than worthy.’

Malekith silenced the audience with a gesture and Malus’s attention returned to him.

‘You threw off your wargear so that you could pursue the enemy with more speed?’ The Witch King shook his head, trying to decide if he was entertained or outraged by such an obvious lie.

‘Yes, your majesty, it is just as you say. He fell to his knee once more, a fist clasped to his chest. ‘I feel so ashamed, but there was nothing I could do to stop myself. I understand now why Hellebron and her bloody sisters wear so little.’

It took all of Malekith’s will to quench the laugh that rose from his gut. He knew that he should have Kouran take off the treacherous dog’s head there and then, but if lying was to be a capital crime under his rule he would have no subjects left. It was hard to see to what benefit Malus’s current display was turned. There was no advantage to Malus being absent for the night – all of the most powerful druchii had been in camp with Malekith, so no collusion had been possible. There was a chance that he had conspired with agents of the asur, perhaps seeking to make a common foe of Malekith, but Malus was despised across Ulthuan almost as much as his king. Tyrion did not have the benefit of Imrik’s flexible morality and Malekith had ensured there would be no politicking from the Phoenix King, Finubar.

‘You vouch for this account?’ he snapped, turning his wrath on Drusala. She met his infernal gaze without flinching, her face set in an expression of sincere attention. Her part in this worried Malekith more. She was Morathi’s creature, no doubt, and if the queen was truly breaking bonds with Malekith the Tyrant of Hag Graef would make a well-positioned ally. Though the host of Hag Graef had been badly mauled in the three assaults upon Eagle Gate, if they were to combine with the army of Ghrond Malekith’s resources would be outmatched, in the short term at least. ‘How can you be so certain of friend Malus’s movements?’

‘He perhaps does not remember it, but he came to me last night, in a battle-fever, confessing what had happened and seeking my advice.’ Malekith could not see Malus’s face to see any reaction this stirred. Drusala approached, holding a bloodstained cloth in outstretched hands. ‘He gave this to me, asking if I would present it on his behalf. Malus thought it terribly important, although I must confess my ignorance.’

She let the wind unfurl what she held, revealing a torn banner of light blue and white, with a prancing horse in gold thread stained with blood. The remains of a device of spread wings in silver could be seen beneath the grime.

‘The banner of Eagle Gate,’ said Kouran, stepping up to take the trophy from Drusala. He looked at Malus. ‘The Ellyrians tried to escape with it?’

Malus tried not to look surprised, and failed miserably. He addressed his answer to Malekith. ‘I have no reason to doubt the lady of Ghrond’s account, your majesty, though my recollection of events before the sun rose this morning are… hazy.’

It was impossible to believe that they were telling the truth, but the threadbare nature of the story being woven by Drusala and Malus was enough for Malekith to believe it had not been prefabricated. They were extemporising, to what end Malekith did not know, but there was no sign of former conspiracy. Malekith was hardened to the fact that most of his subjects that did not hate him lusted after his position, and to consider every scheme a direct and immediate threat would have turned him into a paranoid lunatic many millennia ago. It also meant that the druchii were very adept at hiding their lies, so the obvious subterfuge confused him.

He gestured for Kouran to join him.

‘What do you wish to do with these liars, my king?’ asked the captain.

‘You think their story lacks merit?’

‘Barely a word they have spoken is truth,’ Kouran answered with a shake of the head, ‘but I can offer no proof to discount their version of events. Malus was pulled from Spite during the battle and then disappeared, that much I witnessed myself. He is not a coward, so I do not think he fled the fighting. What happened next, only Malus can tell us. Shall I summon your torturers?’

‘I think not,’ said Malekith. ‘The day is too fraught to make any bold moves. Malus is always scheming about something, and I am sure Drusala has her own agenda, but it serves no purpose to create turbulence on the day after our greatest victory. I have allies now,’ he waved a hand towards the dragons on the peaks, ‘and should Imrik sense disquiet in my camp, the hint of division between my armies, I think he would reconsider which side he has taken.’

‘We could slay them, my king, just to be sure,’ suggested Kouran, running the fingers of his right hand along the flat of his halberd’s blade. ‘No mess, just a swift death.’

‘Malus and Drusala both know that I need their warriors if I am to capitalise on the surprise of Imrik’s turning and our victory here. I have a far better plan.’

‘Friend Malus,’ said Malekith, turning back to the Tyrant, motioning for him to stand. ‘I must admonish you for your tardiness and appearance. It smacks of disrespect to turn up late to my council wearing nothing but an asur shroud.’ Malus clenched his jaw and the tip of the warpsword in his hand rose a little, like the tail of a scorpion moving before the strike. ‘Let the humiliation you have felt coming to kneel before me and my subjects be a lesson to keep good manner about you at all times. As for the reasons for your dishevelled look and late coming, I am impressed by your persistence. It is that sort of attitude that will be required to defeat the Ellyrians.’

‘The Ellyrians, your majesty? What of them?’

‘Fast, mounted, never staying in the same place. An elusive foe, but no match for one with your stubbornness, am I right?’

‘No match at all, your majesty,’ said Malus, taken aback. ‘I will bring the Ellyrians to battle and crush them.’

‘Very good, Malus,’ said Malekith. ‘I am sure you require to make preparations. Your army shall be the vanguard – have them take supplies for the march to Ellyrion and then lead them east.’

Malus said nothing for several heartbeats, eyes flicking between the king and Kouran, and then to the crowd, who were starting to disperse. His eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, but he simply accepted the command with a deep bow.

‘And Malus,’ said the Witch King as the seething Darkblade turned to leave, ‘try to keep your armour on next time.’

Fourteen

Chracian War

Of the ten kingdoms, Malekith hated Chrace the most. In his mortal years he had found it a joyless, backward region ruled by peasant-princes and ignorance. When he had sought to claim Ulthuan’s throne it had been Chracian hunters that had saved Imrik from Morathi’s assassins – ever after honoured as the White Lions of the king’s bodyguard – and it had been the Chracians that had stubbornly refused to bow to Malekith’s rule despite every invasion and calamity he had set upon them. In short, the Chracians were far too stupid to realise when they were beaten, scrapping to the last breath for a mountainous wilderness that had nothing to recommend itself except for a certain savage beauty.

The rain rattled from Sulekh’s scales and hissed into steam where it hit the Witch King’s armour. Rivers cascaded down the mountain slopes, swelled to bursting from the spring deluge. The low clouds clung to the peaks like a shroud, swathing the pass in a thick haze. Malekith’s army picked their way down a slope strewn with boulders and fallen trees, a winding column of black that disappeared into the grey mist.

Closing his eyes, the Witch King felt the bubbling winds of magic washing over the Annulii. With the circlet, he could see every slender strand, the smallest ebb and eddy of mystical energy. He searched for disturbances hidden to normal eyes, seeking the telltale swell and whirl of living things. Giant eagles nested in the heights of the peaks; mountain goats bounded up the slopes in large herds, gorging themselves on grass revealed by the recent thaw; a bear ambled from its cave seeking food; the trees were delicate slivers of life burrowing deep into the soil.

There was something else.

Further down the pass, Malekith detected the glow of fire, drawing the magic of flames to it. A camp. Several camps. Around them he spied the silvery flicker of elven spirits. He turned to the cluster of messengers who sat astride their black horses a short distance from Sulekh, their blinkered mounts trembling with fear.

‘Warn the vanguard,’ said Malekith. ‘There are Chracians on the northern slope, where a bridge crosses a river. It may be an ambush.’

One of the riders nodded and headed off down the mountainside, his steed galloping hard, grateful to be heading away from the presence of the Witch King and his dragon.

It is almost an insult, thought Malekith. Did Caledor rate him so lowly that he thought the Witch King would be caught by such a simple trap? His armour creaking as Malekith turned his unnatural gaze back towards the east, where his army was still crossing the last shoulder of the mountain. It would be noon before they were all in the valley. It did not matter; he was in no hurry. He wanted his enemies to know where he was.

Malekith looked up, rain hammering into the mask of his helm. Droplets danced and spat on the hot armour. He tried to remember when he had last drunk water. He could not. The fires that burned inside him left him with a ravening thirst but he could not quench it. It was the same with food. Not a morsel had passed his lips since he had been sealed inside the armoured suit. Sorcery alone kept him alive, the magic sustained by the sacrifices bound within the plates of his artificial skin. It was sad in some ways, liberating in others. He could taste nothing but the ash of his own near destruction, but he could dimly recollect the sweetness of honey, the richness of wine.

Simple pleasures, taken from him by cowards and traitors. The jealous priests of Asuryan had cursed the flames so that they would not accept him. Yet their trickery had not succeeded. He had emerged from the flames with the blessing of the lord of gods. He would throw them into the fires they had tainted with their subterfuge and let them know what their god’s judgement felt like.

The ground trembled. Malekith sensed it through a shift in the magical winds, a turbulence that flowed south along the vortex. His ravaged ears could hear little over the constant crackling of the flames, but the Witch King’s magical sense was far more accurate. Boulders and logs tumbled down the slope from the camps by the bridge. He heard the screams of the warriors who had crossed over to attack the Chracians and felt their bodies crushed by the avalanche unleashed by the mountain-dwellers. The spirit of every dying elf flickered briefly, a pinprick of darkness that was swallowed up by the ever-shifting tides of magic.

There were more shouts and sounds of fighting. A column of march was no formation for battle and the vanguard had allowed itself to be surrounded, despite Malekith’s warning. With a growl, he jerked Sulekh’s iron reins and the monstrous beast launched herself from the rock, plunging down the valley in a swirl of cloud.

Nearing the bottom of the pass, Malekith saw several hundred Chracians fighting against his warriors. He saw the slew of debris blocking the bridge over which the vanguard had crossed, cutting off any reinforcement. Naggarothi warriors called for axes and bars to be brought forward so that the blockage could be cleared.

‘Stand back!’ Malekith roared as Sulekh landed on the near side of the river, clawed feet sinking into the soft mud of the bank.

He waited while the startled soldiers hurried back from the bridge. When they were clear of the crossing, the Witch King extended a hand, drawing in the threads of magic that invisibly wound down the valley, crushing them into pure energy with his force of will. He felt the icy touch of the circlet in his mind as he shaped the magic, a bolt of forking lightning leaping from his fist to smash into the boulders and hewn tree trunks. Stone and wood splinters exploded upwards, cutting arcs through the mist before drifting down on to the foaming water of the river.

‘Is it safe?’ one of the captains called out. The bridge had taken some of the blast, its stone wall collapsed for half its length on one side.

‘That is not my concern,’ said Malekith. ‘Follow me!’

Sulekh leapt across the river and with a single flap of her vast wings carried Malekith up the far slope to where his embattled soldiers were encircled by axe- and spear-wielding Chracians. Some wore the prized white lion pelts for which their kingdom was famed, the furs heavy with moisture from the rain.

As soon as they saw Malekith approaching, the Chracians scattered, breaking off their attack to sprint back into the woods. Not all reached the safety of the eaves; Malekith unsheathed his sword, Avanuir, and launched a flurry of fiery blue bolts at the retreating warriors, slaying a handful with each detonation. The Witch King drew in more magic and with a shout unleashed it in a broad wave. Where it struck, the trees exploded into black flame, the fire quickly raging up the slope, engulfing even more of the Chracian hunters. Sap exploded and leaves turned to ash as the wave of fire continued along the mountainside, engulfing the tents and wagons of the Chracian camps.

Sustaining the magical fire took all of Malekith’s concentration; as he weaved his metal-clad hand back and forth the fires spread further and further, the heat of the flames dissipating the mist as they engulfed the mountainside. The surge of dark energy flowing through him resonated with the runes of his armour, igniting dead nerve-endings, sending a shiver across the metal plates as if it were his skin.

With an effort, the Witch King cut off the flow of dark magic, pulling himself back from the brink of intoxication. The mystical flames guttered and died, revealing blackened stumps and bones littered across the mountain. The clatter of armour attracted his attention and he turned to see a squadron of knights galloping across the bridge.

‘Captain, come to me,’ Malekith said, beckoning to the elf who had been in charge of the vanguard.

The captain came forward, a bloodied sword in his hand, breastplate rent open from a Chracian axe. He dropped to one knee, eyes averted.

‘My apologies, king,’ said the soldier.

He knelt trembling, head bowed, as Malekith steered Sulekh to loom over him. The crest of the captain’s helmet fluttered with each of the dragon’s breaths, wisps of poisonous vapour coiling from her nostrils. The Witch King could feel the elf’s fear dripping from his shuddering body.

‘Do not fail me again,’ said the Witch King. The captain looked up, surprised and delighted. ‘Continue the march!’

The officer bowed and hurried away, anxious that his master might have a sudden change of heart. In truth, the captain had been ordered into the trap by Malekith and could not be blamed. His mother might dispense summary executions in such a situation, but her acts of spite were wasteful. The Witch King suffered no illusions about his opponents and knew he would need every soldier if he was to claim Ulthuan for his own.

Uncertainty keeps soldiers alert, Malekith told himself. He would not want to become predictable.

Half a dozen pairs of dead eyes stared at Malekith as he stepped out of his pavilion. The heads of the dreadlords were displayed on stakes around the entrance to the great marquee, each bearing the inverted rune of senthoi carved in their foreheads, a symbol of broken promises. The generals’ remains served as an example to their successors that Malekith was in no mood for further setbacks, and certainly had no time for equivocation and excuses.

The druchii camp spread down the ridge below, and from his vantage point Malekith could see clear six leagues along the valley to the north. The forests of the snow-drenched slopes were known as the Whiteweald, a hunting ground of manticores and griffons, home to phoenixes and great eagles.

This had once been a wilderness jewel of Ulthuan, where princes and kings had hunted beasts and sojourned with their courts. Now it was a ravaged, twisted mockery of its former beauty. Even before the druchii had come Chrace had suffered dearly during the daemonic intrusion. Swathes of the forest had been warped by their presence, the ground itself ripped and buckled in abhorrence of their invasion. Mountaintops had tumbled and avalanches cut swathes through trees that had stood proudly for several thousand years.

The course of the daemonic attack could be charted by the warped, withered remains of the trees left in their wake: some were petrified, leaves of stone grey and lifeless; others had become ice structures, slowly melting as the season turned to summer, crystalline imitations of what had come before; whole mountainsides were desolate, nothing left but rotting stumps and a thick slurry of decaying mulch.

At first Malekith had been encouraged, finding Phoenix Gate barely held against him, and the advance across the Annulii had been swift. Trusting that his plan to draw the bulk of Tyrion’s forces south with Darkblade’s army had succeeded, the Witch King had readied his host to plunge down into the foothills and plains of Chrace, to sack Tor Achare and seize the coast where the crossing to the Blighted Isle was shortest.

From then nothing had quite played out as he had planned. The people of Chrace knew their lands as well as they knew their own families, and they used every part of it to their advantage.

The Chracians would not meet his force in pitched battle preferring, as they had done during previous wars, to wage a guerrilla campaign of ambushes and feint attacks. The mountains were dotted with concealed fortresses – outposts that could sustain a thousand warriors yet not be seen even if a scout passed within bowshot.

Even though the landscape had suffered much brutality in recent times, its ways and means were still a secret to be unlocked. The Whiteweald was no place for dragons to fight, the cover of the deep forests and caves more than enough sanctuary against the mightiest beasts of the sky. Whole Naggarothi regiments disappeared pursuing their foes into the wilds, but despite this the commanders who now adorned the rough trail leading to Malekith’s pavilion had sent thousands to their doom in fruitless efforts to catch the elusive enemy.

Kouran approached, secretly alerted to his master’s emergence by the Black Guard standing sentry around the pavilion. His face was stern as he saluted the king.

‘My king, another three regiments were lost in the night,’ the captain reported. He motioned to the right flank of the advance, on the other side of the steep valley. ‘From the Ghrond host stationed to the north.’

‘The north?’ Malekith growled. ‘You told me yesterday that our northern flank was secure. Not even a Chracian hunter would pass the picket, you claimed.’

Kouran answered with a silent bow of the head, admitting his mistake and accepting whatever chastisement Malekith was prepared to dispense. The Witch King glanced at the heads around him and knew that killing Kouran would almost certainly seal the fate of the expedition. With Morathi in Ghrond and the traitor Ezresor slain, Malekith relied almost wholly on the captain of the Black Guard to keep order and ensure the loyalty of his subjects.

‘The blame is not yours,’ said Malekith. ‘There is more than the skill of peasant hunters at play here.’

He tilted his head back, closing his eyes to concentrate on his magical sense, allowing his consciousness to flow into the Iron Circlet. There was a jarring transition as part of his mind slipped into the Realm of Chaos and then back to the mortal world, for all intents and purposes detached from his physical form.

It was harder to maintain a sense of self in these mountains, where the howling winds of magic were funnelled into Ulthuan’s vortex. The influx of daemonic energy and the expansion of the Chaos Wastes had turned the vortex into a wild maelstrom. In Naggarond it had been simplicity to move his thoughts from one part of the world to another, and even to project his avatar into far-flung locations. From the Annulii it was a trying task simply to maintain a coherent pattern of thoughts amidst the buffeting mystical storm.

Drawing on the depths of his will, Malekith moved his roaming eye from the camp, momentarily lifting away towards the clouds for an overview of his situation.

The black tents of the druchii cut across the valley about a third of the way from its heights, crossing the river at the base and up both sides. Reaper bolt throwers in wooden forts protected the outer reaches of the camp, but there were too many warriors for them all to stay within the watch of these guard posts. Several thousand tents spread east and south down the curving vale, until swallowed by the trees at the lower altitudes. The advance parties had done their best to cut trails through the forest, but every few leagues the vanguard regiments disappeared, slain by the Chracians. Their latest efforts were like pale scars in the canopy, gashes of brown and black against the snow.

Even so, progress should have been swifter, and now that he was suffused with the winds of magic Malekith could see why. Against the flow of the vortex tendrils of magic drifted north from beyond the mountains, bringing mystical life to the trees and rocks of Chrace. Malekith knew this magic well, the energy of Avelorn, the power of the Everqueen.

He searched the valley for a sign of the asur’s spiritual ruler but there was no pocket of earth power to betray her presence. Instead Malekith detected smaller pools of life magic, and he swooped down upon the largest of these magical concentrations.

The trees themselves quivered with the magic, alerted to the presence of the druchii, filled with vengeance for the axes and fire they brought with them. Treemen and dryads, spirits that normally did not stray far from the Gaen Vale, had come north to aid the Chracians. Other beings, elemental creatures of air and stone, had been roused to attack the Ghrondian forces, moved to battle by the presence of an elf enchantress.

Her spoor was mingled with that of the tree-kin, sharper than the musty magic of ancient centuries. Malekith found her, a handmaiden of Avelorn, marshalling regiments of the Everqueen’s maiden guard not far to the east.

She was garbed in a flowing gown of deep green embroidered with blooms in reds and blues and purples, the lighter green of their leaves creating a swirl of lines and waves along the hem of the dress. Bangles of bronze set with topaz and opals and amber hung on the handmaiden’s wrists and about her slender neck was a pendant of pure sapphire, neatly inscribed with the rune of quyl-Isha, signifying the tears of Isha, a symbol of mourning and sad defiance. Her hair was golden, heavily braided and pinned to leave a single plait hanging down each sharp cheek. Eyes that matched the colour of the sapphire regarded the dispersing maiden guard with affection and contentment.

The handmaiden emanated calm resolve, like the deep spring that feeds the well or the roots of the ancient trees. The grass at her feet stood straighter, the petals on the flowers close at hand gleamed brighter in her presence.

Malekith detested the enchantress immediately.

It was just this sort of moon-faced pining for the peaceful prehistory of his people that had made them weak. The world before the Coming of Chaos would never return and no amount of poetry and prayers to Isha would change that. Only strength of will and strength of arms had protected the elves since, no matter the protestations of the Everqueen and her ilk.

The presence of the handmaiden reminded Malekith that he would have to deal with the Everqueen before the matter was settled. His previous attempts to kidnap her had been thwarted by the same individual that now sought to oppose him: Tyrion. He had it on good authority that the prince was Alarielle’s lover, and she would doubtless support her consort against Malekith’s ambition. When Chrace was in his hands, a full scale invasion of Avelorn would follow, and this time he would not leave the destruction to a feckless host of daemons led by the vain and jealous N’Kari.

The female archers, several hundred of them, were following warriors cloaked with lion pelts along the hidden tracks of the woods, ready to spring their attacks on the advancing companies of Naggarothi. They broke into groups of a dozen or fewer warriors, able to move swiftly and unseen along the game trails and hidden paths.

More than that, the Witch King realised as the enchantress started binding the winds of magic to her will. The energy swirled, delving into the life-force of the forests. Roots burst from the ground and branches bowed down, forming an archway twice the height of an elf, broad enough for several to walk abreast. Fresh shoots erupted along the outline of the gateway, bright leaves and flowers catching the light of the early sun.

The interior of the gate shimmered with magic, an image of blurred brown and green that resolved into a vision of a forest glade. Malekith could see that beyond the gate lay a tunnel that wound its way through the vortex, leading to the south. By this means did the warriors of Chrace and Avelorn bypass the sentries and patrols.

‘I’ve found you,’ declared Malekith, manifesting a projection of his spirit in front of the enchantress.

The maiden guard reacted quickly, surrounding the apparition of the Witch King with a ring of golden spears and arrowheads. The handmaiden looked shocked, but her fear dissipated as she realised that Malekith was present in spirit only.

‘Tell me your name,’ said the Witch King, ‘so that your kin can lament your passing in proper fashion.’

‘I am Ystranna,’ said the handmaiden. ‘I am the right hand of Astarielle and by her command I will not let you pass.’

‘You think to stop me with an army of vagabonds and hunters, earth-witch?’ sneered Malekith. ‘Or perhaps you hope that the blessings of Isha will be a match for my magic?’

‘Strength eternal guards our lands, despoiler,’ Ystranna replied, tilting her head to one side to regard Malekith with sapphire eyes. ‘Have you not learned the lesson yet? Ulthuan does not want you as her king.’

‘Ulthuan will be bound to my will just the same as every creature upon it,’ Malekith said. He clenched a fist in front of Ystranna, fire leaking from the gaps in the gauntlet. ‘You can tell Ulthuan that I will cut such wounds across her that she has never known and when I am finished she will never remember the days of green that once blessed her.’

The Witch King became aware of a nagging sensation, something relevant to his physical body. He looked at the maiden guard that surrounded him and waved them away with contempt.

‘This is the elite of Avelorn? My Black Guard shall water the trees you love so much with your blood, and they shall fertilise the ground with your bones. If you desire peace, return now to your mistress and lay down your weapons. Only those that resist need fear my retribution.’ None of the warrior-maidens moved. All regarded him with cold, unflinching stares. ‘I thought not, but the warning has been given. Ystranna of Avelorn, you must bear full responsibility for what happens next.’

Malekith did not give her time to reply as he banished his projection and allowed his spirit to fly back to his mortal shell. Opening his eyes, he saw that Kouran had been joined by two elves dressed in the manner of the shades, and by a herald swathed in the cloak of a dark rider.

‘A witch of Avelorn has bolstered the forces of the Chracians,’ Malekith told his lieutenant. Blazing eyes regarded the scouts. ‘You have fresh news of your own, I see.’

‘An army from the west, my king,’ reported Kouran. ‘Less than a day’s march away.’

‘From Nagarythe,’ Malekith said quietly. ‘It seems that Alith Anar has decided he wants to play.’

‘My king, our position has become vulnerable,’ Kouran added quietly. ‘If we press into Chrace the shadow warriors of Anar will attack the rear echelons.’

‘And if we turn to face Anar the Chracians will do likewise.’ Malekith turned his eye to the mountains in the west, where the sky was still purple, barely touched by the spreading dawn light. ‘I presume that you bring me this news accompanied by a suggested strategy.’

‘We should turn south and leave the forest to the tree-witch and her kin,’ said Saidekh Winterclaw, whom Malekith had not recognised beneath the mask of blood dried on his face. His voice was husky and dry, never more than a whisper.

‘A tempting thought,’ said Kouran, nodding his agreement. ‘There is little force in Ellyrion to stop a swift march. We would fall upon Tyrion’s host unexpectedly. Perhaps we will even reach them before they have eliminated Darkblade’s army, and the prince will be set upon from two directions, instead of us.’

‘Tempting, but wrong,’ said Malekith. ‘We merely delay the entrapment. Anar’s army can cross the mountains more swiftly than mine, and if not to bring battle then to speed warning to Tyrion. Even should they remain solely in pursuit, I cannot afford to leave a sizeable force at the rear, gnawing away at my reserves, threatening to attack any day.’

Before the Sundering he had made the mistake of not cowing every kingdom completely before moving on, driven by unseemly haste. Though time was short – all time was short if Teclis was to be believed – Malekith would not fall prey to the same impulses that had beset him before. ‘We will crush Chrace and seize the crossings to the Blighted Isle and with that route secured move into the weaker eastern kingdoms. The plan has not changed.’

The daemons had ravaged much of Chrace, but Malekith would see the remainder wiped out. No resistance would remain, and the death of the kingdom would serve as a warning to the others. The message would be learned – that this time Malekith would see Ulthuan accept him as its ruler or be totally destroyed. While his own armies were driven by the knowledge that there was no place for them to return, the princes of the ten kingdoms would come to realise that the only future left to them was at the mercy of the Witch King.

‘But the threat that arises in the west, my king,’ Kouran said to Malekith as the Witch King surveyed the mountain pass, knowing it was filled with traps and foes but there was no other way to get to his goal. ‘The traitor warriors of Nagarythe have followed us along Phoenix Pass and will attack within the next day or two.’

‘Let them,’ said Malekith. ‘If we turn to confront Anar he will disappear as surely as the shadows from which he takes his name. Archers in front and behind, and not an elf amongst them willing to stand and fight like a true warrior. I tell you, Alandrian, I will not be thwarted this time. Saidekh, gather together all of your clans – you are to lead the next attack. If the Chracians think their wild homeland has made them expert woodsmen and hill fighters, let them test their blades against the best of the Iron Mountains.’

‘Their skin will make fine cloaks and we will gamble around the fires with their teeth,’ said the shades’ leader. ‘Their hair we will weave into trinket bags for our children and their bones we shall leave as an offering to the Cytharai, whose wrath we will embody.’

‘Just make sure their resistance is broken – what you do with them afterwards is no concern of mine.’ Malekith looked at the dark rider, who had been summoned by Kouran to take messages to the army. ‘Have Imrik and his dragons raze the lower slopes. Burn everything. If Ystranna and her allies wish to retreat from this valley, they must do so through dragonfire or across a charred desolation. She can risk the open ground or face the blades and missiles of Saidekh – the choice is hers.’

The rider turned towards his steed but was called back by Malekith.

‘Ask Prince Imrik nicely,’ the Witch King added. ‘Be sure to say “please”.’

Fifteen

The Battle of the Whiteweald

For the remainder of the day it was as Malekith commanded. In their hundreds the shades swept through the forest, a match for any Avelorn spearmaiden or Chracian hunter. Ahead of them, to the east, the dragon princes set about turning the forest to cinders. Dragonfire scoured the mountainside, slaying hundreds of beasts large and small but not a single elf corpse was found amongst the charred remains. Night fell but full darkness never came to the Whiteweald. A twilight cast by the burning forest lit the sky while smoke swathed the moons and stars.

To Malekith’s growing anger, his foes would not show themselves. While his army stood guard in their camps, laughter and singing taunted the druchii and Caledorians. Arrows scythed from the darkness to slay sentries and patrols, but none dared go after the hidden archers while fey lights flickered between the trees and mysterious hisses and groans were carried on the wind.

Kouran arrived at Malekith’s pavilion early the next morning, trailing muddy footprints across the hide rugs, blood on his armour from recent fighting. He bent to one knee before the Witch King’s throne, Crimson Death held out before him as an offering to Malekith.

‘The fighting sounds close,’ remarked the Witch King. ‘It is as though I can hear the blades crashing and the arrows singing from here. Have the enemy finally decided to fight?’

‘They have, my lord, but our forces fare poorly,’ said Kouran, avoiding his master’s eye. ‘The initial attack came not from Anar’s shadow warriors but out of the Whiteweald. Our eye had been drawn to the west too far, my king, and now the enemy have already slain the outer companies and are pressing towards the encampment.’

‘The forces to the west moved in response and the traitor Naggarothi attack from Phoenix Pass?’

‘Just as you say, my king. While the Karond Kar regiments broke camp the shadow army fell upon them. Three thousand are dead – the rest have formed a defensive encirclement and are surrounded.’

‘A well-coordinated assault.’ Malekith rose and strode past his underling, keen to see for himself the unfolding battle. ‘Clearly Ystranna and Anar have been communicating in some fashion I have been unable to detect.’

Malekith stepped out into the dawn light. The sky overhead was still grey, the mountain clouds low despite the summer season. The distinct noise of battle rang through the valley, the clash of weapons, battle cries and screams of the dying and wounded. A constant whispering of bowstrings and arrows added a counterpoint to the more raucous sounds. Dragons roared and flames crackled as the Caledorians to the east responded to the Chracian and maiden guard offensive. Malekith could detect the hiss of hydras and snarl of cold ones.

There were other noises, of a more supernatural origin. The creak of trees and thrash of leaves magnified a hundredfold, accompanied by booming voices and the trilling of smaller forest spirits. The ground rumbled as animated boulders smashed through ranks of warriors, while the air carried a sibilant chorus from hundreds of wind sprites.

He smelt the smoke of dragonfire and the reek of cold ones, mingled with the aroma of sweat and fear. The pine resin scent of the forest was swamped by the iron tang of fresh blood, driving the army’s manticores into a frenzy of frustrated bellowing as they strained at their chains.

‘The ravens, my lord.’ Kouran stopped a few paces from Malekith, cautious of the flames rippling across his armour. ‘The shades caught several yesterday and learned that they were working for the Shadow King. We sent harpies to hunt them down but…’

Malekith turned his head to look down at Kouran. ‘There are a lot of ravens in Chrace?’

Kouran nodded. ‘Yes, my king.’

Malekith had to concede one point of admiration to his foes – when they committed to the attack they did not do so in half measures. It was as though the forest itself assaulted his army. More than a dozen treemen led the attack, crashing into the outer companies of druchii with fists pulping bodies and whip-crack branches severing limbs and necks. Behind them came smaller tree-kin and the dryad spirits, flooding around the treemen to despatch those trying to surround the ancient forest herders.

The Chracians formed one flank of the attack, driving a wedge into the darkshards and corsairs to the north-east, while the maiden guard formed a solid line to the north-west, their wall of glittering spears keeping knights and dark riders at bay while their bows took a toll of the same with relentless volleys of white-fletched arrows.

More archers rained arrows from a secondary line, targeting the druchii war machines and beast handlers. These were aided by several mages, including Ystranna. Malekith could detect the swirling winds of magic where the spellcasters summoned energy for their enchantments. Scything, razor-edged leaves swept out of the trees to slash through a regiment of shades that were trying to go around the flank of the asur force, while muddy behemoths rose up from the ground to wrestle with hydras and dragons. More traditional fireballs and magical lightning betrayed the presence of at least two Sapherian mages assisting the handmaiden of the Everqueen.

The western approaches were no less embattled. Overnight Alith Anar and his shadow warriors had stalked within striking distance and dawn had marked the start of the attack. The first volleys had cut down lookouts and patrol captains, silencing any alarm that might have been raised. The shadow warriors had stolen into the encampment and sliced the throats of hundreds of warriors in their sleep before the contingent from Karond Kar had finally been roused. Their leaders assassinated, enemy in their midst, the Ghrondians had retreated piecemeal to higher ground and were now being whittled down by deadly archery from an enemy hidden by surrounding gullies and boulders.

The Caledorians were slow to assemble, the princes fatigued by the previous day’s labours scorching the lower slopes. The crackle of dragonfire was intermittent as some of the Caledorians sought to counter the awakened woodland bearing down on their camp while the horns of other princes summoned their steeds from their slumbering.

The speed and ferocity of the enemy attack was almost overwhelming. After endless days of chasing shadows, the druchii army had been taken unawares by the sudden change in strategy.

‘What are your orders, my king?’

Malekith realised that his host was in danger of being overrun before it was fully mobilised. Kouran’s question snapped Malekith from his contemplation.

‘Give ground,’ he said. ‘Consolidate. Our line is too long, and we need to draw their archers out of the trees. Summon the tower captains of your regiment to stop it turning into a rout, and tell them that we must make an orderly withdrawal three hundred paces. Tell Imrik to form his dragons into two wings, one to act as a reserve to cover the withdrawal and counter any enemy breakthroughs, the other to harass the shadow army to the west. The two asur forces must not be allowed to link up, despite the retreat.’

‘As you wish, my king,’ said the captain. ‘And the mages?’

Malekith could see a pair of sorceresses supporting the Ghrond army, but they were ill-matched against the handmaiden and Sapherians. Drusala had, of her own volition, left with Malus Darkblade’s army of Hag Graef, which left only one other option.

‘Leave Ystranna and her cantrip-pedlars to me.’

Before Malekith could say anything else, another armoured figure approached, her helm dented, breastplate scored and scratched by spear blows. There was the broken shaft of an arrow jutting from her shoulder. She buried her axe into a tree stump as Kouran took a step towards her with Crimson Death raised, and approached unarmed. Her name was Aravenna, and she had been in charge of the Clar Karond host for only two days.

‘Deepest regrets and apologies, your majesty,’ she said, bowing before Malekith. ‘We expected the Anar army to attack first. They were the better positioned for such an assault. I regret that we fell for the enemy ploy.’

‘You believe it was a mistake to redeploy our forces to the west?’ Malekith asked, turning his full attention on the newly promoted commander. She averted her eyes, shoulders slumping.

‘In hindsight, that would seem the case.’

‘The order for the redeployment came from me, Lady Aravenna.’ Malekith’s quiet words dripped with threat. ‘Do you think I was outwitted by one of the Everqueen’s soppy tree-lovers and a group of peasant hunters?’

‘I…’ Aravenna looked at Kouran, seeking support or perhaps a swift end. He gave her neither, replying to her plaintive stare with a casual shrug.

‘Answer your king, Lady Aravenna,’ said the captain. He flexed his fingers on Crimson Death. ‘Swiftly and with brevity.’

‘It was an impossible decision, your majesty,’ the commander said, the words coming so quickly she was barely comprehensible. ‘Nobody could know that the attack from the forest would come first, but to ignore the Anars would have been equally ill-considered, but given all that we know of the shadow warriors’ hatred for us it would be reasonable to conclude they would seek the greater part of the bloodletting, and that a handmaiden of the Everqueen would be loathe to commit to battle.’

As Aravenna paused to take a breath, Malekith held up a hand to stop her.

‘It hurts to know you have such a lack of faith in my abilities as your military commander,’ said the king. Aravenna started to tremble, a reaction that clearly embarrassed her. A look of such self-disgust moved across her face that Malekith almost laughed.

‘Return to your army and prepare for a counter-attack,’ Malekith told her. ‘The enemy are far more stupid than I had hoped.’

‘Your majesty?’ Aravenna clenched her jaw, conflicted, fighting back tears though she fought also to stop a smile of relief twisting her lips. ‘I do not understand.’

‘I deliberately weakened the eastern defence to bait the enemy into this bold venture. They have surrendered all of their natural and strategic advantages to face us in open battle, and now we will punish them for their lack of warcraft. I cannot imagine Ystranna ordered the attack, but some Chracian prince has made a fool of himself. Anar has been forced to move in support, though I believe he would have far rather preferred to kill us one at a time, never revealing himself. We must destroy them before they see the error of their assault.’

‘As you command, your majesty.’ Aravenna hesitated, her gaze lingering on the Witch King.

‘You have a question?’

‘How will we stop the enemy simply retreating back into the forests, your majesty? I do not wish to fail you again.’

‘That is not your concern. Trust me in this matter as you failed to trust in my grander strategy.’

‘Yes, your majesty. I have one other question.’

‘You test my patience, but the thought of putting these wretches to the sword lightens my mood, so ask your question.’

‘The Karond Kar army will likely be heavily mauled.’ She shook her head, disbelieving, as she looked westwards. ‘You knew this, your majesty? You sacrificed them to draw out the Chracians?’

‘Your observation is correct, general. Be thankful that the host of Clar Karond was not in their place.’

Aravenna bowed again and hurried away, pulling her slender axe free as she departed. Malekith watched her run back down the slope to where her regiments were mustering behind the army of Karond Kar, which had taken the brunt of the Chracian assault as Malekith had planned.

‘You spared her,’ said Kouran, apparently so surprised by this fact he forgot to say ‘my king’.

‘She may not survive the battle, but if she does she will fight doubly hard to prove her loyalty, and from now on she will not question my orders. If I kill her I will simply have to repeat the lesson with another.’

Kouran accepted this wisdom with a thoughtful expression and a nod.

‘The Chracians and the aesenar of the Shadowlands seem to be making quite a headway through my troops,’ Malekith remarked, watching the lead elements of the two converging forces moving towards each other. ‘Go now and convey my orders to the generals. I wouldn’t want to accidently lose this battle when it promises such a sweet victory.’

When Kouran had departed he made his way up the ridge to where Seraphon had made her temporary lair. The other black dragons were already in the sky, duelling with great eagles, griffons and phoenixes, but Malekith’s mount lay in the shade of a great outcrop, gaseous breath billowing down the slope.

‘Come,’ said the Witch King as Seraphon raised her head, opening her long mouth to reveal rows of wickedly serrated teeth. A draught of noxious air washed over Malekith, hot and wet. ‘It is time that we educated these peons in the true art of war.’

The black dragon carried Malekith north, towards Ystranna and her maiden guard companies. It was her presence that was the greatest threat – without Ystranna the spirits of the forest would depart and the magic that bolstered the resolve of her followers would be broken.

As he scanned the forest below Malekith felt something glance from his armour. Turning in his saddle as he wheeled Seraphon to the left, an arrow ricocheted from his shoulder. Three great eagles rose up towards him, an elf prince atop the back of each, their bows levelled at the Witch King. Another flurry of arrows converged on him, sparking from the scales of his mount and deflecting from his breastplate. Malekith was about to turn away from his attackers, their missiles inconsequential, when something stinging lodged in his arm.

An arrowhead that glowed with golden energy had pierced his armour. Another mystical shaft sped past, leaving a welt across the side of his helm, a finger’s breadth from his throat. He followed the flickering trail of magic back to one of the eagle-borne princes, who was fitting another enchanted arrow to his bow.

Flicking the chains with one hand, Malekith rolled Seraphon towards the impudent asur lordling. Even as the black dragon heeled around to face the eagle, the prince steered his mount higher, climbing over the great beast. More arrows skidded from Malekith’s armour from the other two princes, a further distraction.

Leaving a wake of gold, another magical arrow sped towards Malekith as Seraphon laboured to turn after the far more agile great eagles, her tail lashing with rage. It struck the black dragon in the neck, parting scales with a spurt of thick blood. Seraphon snarled with pain, thrashing her head away from the impact, almost jarring the chains loose from Malekith’s grasp.

‘Enough,’ rasped the Witch King, pointing Urithain at the offending prince. A bolt of black energy leapt from the tip, but the eagle had foreseen the attack and folded its wings, dropping beneath the blazing flash of magic. Malekith loosed another bolt and another, chasing the eagle down towards the forest, his prey twisting and turning. Pivoting on the immense bird’s back, the asur prince shot another arrow, which tore through the skin of Seraphon’s left wing, eliciting a further screech of pain.

Changing tactic, Malekith coiled the winds of magic to his will and focused on the prince’s mind. A protective amulet about his neck started to glow, resisting the attack, but Malekith gritted his teeth and pushed harder. The amulet shattered, overloaded with dark magic. Reaching out across the gap between them Malekith let his hatred flow, filling the other elf’s brain with shards of pure agony.

He saw the prince stiffen and cry out, his bow falling from flailing fingers as he toppled from the eagle’s back. The bird stooped down to catch the falling elf but Malekith was ready and hurled another dark bolt that struck the eagle square on the spine, turning feathers to ash and flesh to dust. Crippled, the eagle spiralled down after its rider, the wail of the latter drowned out by the dying shriek of the former.

Shadow darkening the regiments below, Seraphon flattened her dive and ascended again. The other two eagles broke away, unable to harm the mighty black dragon and her immortal master.

More Chracians had joined the attack, charging from under the trees in lion-drawn chariots, driving deep into the flank of a spear regiment as they tried to fall back alongside a company of Black Guard. The white lions fell upon the druchii with claws and fangs, manes matted with splashed blood, while the chariot riders hewed to the left and right with long, slender-headed axes, cutting down those that eluded the wrath of the lions.

The attack threatened to turn the whole flank of the withdrawal, leaving Malekith no choice but to intervene. Seraphon’s climb became another dive, claws outstretched as she crashed into the lead chariots like a thunderbolt, carving apart Chracians and druchii without discrimination. She seized a mighty lion in her jaws as Malekith swept down Urithain to behead the two chariot riders behind. Three bone-crunching bites and a huge gulp later and the lion was no more.

Traces and yokes whipped and cracked as the black dragon continued on her bloody rampage, sword-long talons dragging tatters of white lion hide and viscera. Malekith’s sword crackled with dark power, blood fizzing from the infernal flame that burned along the blade. Another sweep cut a Chracian from groin to shoulder and a third sheared a lion in half across the midriff.

The impetus of their charge abated by the Witch King’s attack, the lion chariots floundered and were soon beset by the Black Guard, who spilled around and over the chariots with halberds flashing, their hate-filled snarls and battle cries as ferocious as any mountain lion’s. His task complete, Malekith steered Seraphon away, seeking the real enemy.

He arrowed the dragon towards the tree line, following the tendrils of forest magic to their source. In parts, the woods themselves had moved, encroaching upon the paths cut by the druchii the day before, following the lead of the treemen and their kind. The boughs of the moving forest were too close together for any mortal eye to penetrate, obscuring all sign of Ystranna. Malekith would have to hunt her down another way.

Seraphon seemed to feel his intent and strained at her chains to swoop down into the Avelorn contingent, her muscles bunching as she prepared for the dive. Malekith hauled back on the reins, dissuading her from the manoeuvre, eliciting a growl of frustration.

‘I have a far more fitting fate in mind,’ Malekith told the dragon. ‘She thinks to rouse the spirit of Ulthuan against me? She will learn who is the true master of this isle.’

Sheathing Urithain, Malekith reached out his will into the forest below. The life magic pouring through the woods bucked at his approach, veering away from his presence in serpentine coils. Turning the extension of his self into a stiletto point, he struck out, pinning part of the retreating Ghyran with his mind. It writhed beneath his attention but could not escape, and slowly through the blade of the imaginary poniard Malekith poured forth his dark thoughts.

Sixteen

Ghyran, the Power of Life

Like ink spreading in water, the Witch King’s magic started to pollute the stream of Ghyran brought forth by Ystranna. It was like forging against a river current, pushing against the resistance, but slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, Malekith infected the magical current with his own will, corrupting it to his desire, perverting its nature.

The grass began to wither and the branches on the trees drooped as the life-force of the forest started leeching into Malekith’s dark magic. The power that had sustained the greenery now fed his wrath, and the longer he suckled on its foul-tasting purity the stronger his own sorcery grew.

Suddenly there was a flash of golden sunlight, arrowing down through the canopy, enveloping Malekith’s extension of will with an aura of warmth. He felt himself drawn out of his body, and blinked unreal eyes against the sudden light.

He stood in a quaint grotto, the sun overhead dappled by lustrous foliage swaying in a warm summer breeze. He could smell wild flowers on the banks of the dell – a sensation he had not enjoyed for several thousand years. His armour was no more, and he was clad in garlands of blooms and leaves, which coiled about him with a comforting embrace. A stream trickled through the grotto from a tinkling waterfall, fish of all colours darting to and fro beneath the surface.

‘Why hate so much?’ asked Ystranna. ‘Hate has never created anything.’

She appeared part maiden and part light and part tree, her hair spilling like willow branches, her eyes wells of sunshine. Streamers of flowers grew from the ground at her feet and enveloped her nakedness with a gown of rainbow hues, shimmering like the sunlight on the waterfall.

‘My hate created Naggaroth,’ said Malekith.

‘And what now of that creation? It has fallen, exposed as the pale imitation of life that it was. Something raised out of jealousy can never endure.’

‘What do you hope to achieve here? To sway my mind away from destroying you and taking back that which rightfully belongs to me?’ Malekith walked across the dell, feeling the soft turf beneath his bare feet, the grass between his toes. He closed his eyes, unable to avoid the memories stirred by the sensation. Memories of living flesh when he had thought he might love and be loved, fulfilled by duty and belonging.

‘No, Malekith, I do not. This is not for you. Nature can be harsh as well as beautiful. I am here to kill you with kindness.’

Ystranna’s expression changed. Her eyes became shards of ice and the garlands that wreathed Malekith revealed themselves to be the roots of the immense tree whose boughs spread over the dell, casting darkness across the Witch King. The roots tightened around his limbs and throat while thorns erupted from the tendrils, piercing his flesh, his splashing blood nurturing the ground to bring forth more bramble-like appendages.

The handmaiden stalked closer, her skin now like the bark of white trees, her fingers the clawing taproots that could prise open the foundations of castles and penetrate the walls of cities. Green and golden Ghyran continued to pulse through her body as she approached, hand outstretched.

‘I think not,’ said Malekith, letting free the bonds he had placed on his power to conceal it from Ystranna’s awareness. Aqshy, fire magic, surged through him, burning away the grasping roots and branches in a moment, turning his avatar into a pillar of fire.

‘You cannot harm me,’ the handmaiden said, her scornful expression written in creased bark and cracked leaves. ‘This is my realm and you are nothing but a projection of your will.’

The Witch King lunged at Ystranna’s apparition and before she realised what was happening, insubstantial fingers closed on her throat. She gasped in shock as the fires of his projection died, leaving a shadow-figure in their place.

‘Your realm?’

Ystranna looked around to see that the trees were withered, twisted things hunched over sickly-looking fungal growths. The ground had become a black mire, the river bubbling with the movement of fanged, slithering eels, the sun obscured by storm clouds.

‘My will is strong indeed, Ystranna,’ Malekith mocked. His blackened fingers become iron claws, digging into the flesh of Ystranna’s neck, puncturing the blood vessels. His spite bubbled from the wounds like acid, flowing into her body to create a spider’s web of blackening veins and arteries. ‘Thank you so much for coming to me. You are the taproot, the motherstone, the source of the power and now you have opened it to me. You should have stayed hidden.’

Ystranna’s flesh blistered and burned from within, pustules erupting to release clouds of spores that stung her eyes and choked her. She was immobile in Malekith’s grasp, unable to put up the slightest resistance.

‘Ulthuan will never be yours,’ the handmaiden gasped. Ystranna’s swollen veins started to pulse, splitting her bark-skin to allow sap-like fluid to run free, washing away Malekith’s venom. Her form shrank, becoming a tangle of blossoming vines that fell from the Witch King’s grasp. The blooms shattered like glass and where the shards landed, the decay of dark magic was dispelled, greenness and life returning to push back Malekith’s curse.

Assuming his usual form, the Witch King stamped a flaming foot on the spreading patch of earth magic, leaving a cindered footprint. The patch continued to grow, running up the hunched boles of the trees leaving fresh shoots in its wake, cleansing the filth from the brook, changing pale, eyeless eels into gleaming fish once more.

‘So crude, so clumsy,’ Ystranna said, her voice coming to Malekith from all around, carried on the rustle of jade leaves and the trickle of fresh water, the creak of branches and swish of grass mocking him with subtle laughter. The words tore at his pride, so close to those barbed comments his own mother had made.

‘Is that so?’ he snarled in reply, striding up to the closest tree. He punched his fist through the bark and opened his fingers in the heartwood, letting his frustration loose as a flame that consumed the tree from within. Steam and smoke billowed from the wound as the core of the tree disappeared, leaving the mass of branches to collapse in a welter of splinters and cracking wood.

The sun broke through, a ray piercing the storm gloom to light Malekith with a pale glow, blinding him momentarily, forcing him back into the grotto.

‘How can you defeat me when you cannot even find me,’ taunted the handmaiden. As the Witch King recovered his sight he spied a faerie light bobbing in the shadows cast by the canopy, whirling left and right, up and down.

‘You forget to whom you speak, child,’ Malekith said as his body slewed into a new shape, armour dissipating like mist, his form becoming that of a giant panther with burning amber eyes, claws and fangs of iron. With a roar he pounced into the woods towards the light. The gleam dodged and fled, zigzagging between the trees, Malekith’s claws tearing up the mulch as he chased it just a few steps behind, snarling and snapping.

The light cut sharply to the left behind the bole of a huge oak, and Malekith lost sight of it. He skidded to a stop, his gaze like a lantern beam as he passed it to and fro in the arboreal twilight. Suddenly he spied the hovering wisp of energy but before he could set off another appeared, a little further away. A third emerged from the leaves of a holly bush just a little way to his right. Within a dozen heartbeats there were scores of floating spheres, a tiny winged figure with the face of Ystranna in the heart of each.

Malekith looked past the glamour of the artificial world they had created to visualise their immaterial duel, seeing the raw winds of magic at work. Malekith was a knot of raw power, bloated and seething with unreleased energy. Dark magic required a focus, a fulcrum in the real world through which its power was harnessed. For the most powerful magic this was usually a sacrifice, to avoid the corruption of the mortal body of the sorcerer, but Malekith’s immortal form placed him beyond such petty consideration.

In stark contrast, Ystranna’s spirit was dispersed across the forest, absorbing Ghyran from everywhere. It was a structure of harmony and balance, kept alive by the interplay of energies themselves, taking from one area and giving to another. It was a creation of great intricacy, requiring intense concentration to maintain. There was no central point, no convergence for him to use to locate Ystranna. She was, as far as it mattered for the winds of magic, everywhere.

‘Impressive,’ he growled. ‘But your parlour trick has run its course. I do not need to find you to defeat you.’

Malekith’s panther body shuddered, black fur falling away, flesh becoming a thorn bush, his limbs extending and splitting into roots that delved deep into the earth. Down and down the Witch King pushed his avatar, striking out to find the roots of the trees, the rivulets of water that sustained them, deeper even than the Ghyran that Ystranna commanded. Spreading like an oil slick, Malekith’s dark magic pooled beneath the forest, cutting it off from the swell of the winds of magic, forcing Ystranna to shift the balance of her counter-spell. Malekith probed and stretched, claw-like roots rasping at Ystranna’s enchantment, seeking to tear through the harmonic web that made it possible.

He felt a stab of white fire as the other mages lent their support to the handmaiden, sensing that Malekith’s plan might work. Their panic only strengthened his resolve and bolstered the dark magic coursing through his projection. Their fire guttered and died, leaving silver trails back into the minds of the Sapherians. Malekith’s glee gave haste to his next attack. He pulsed dark magic into the thoughts of the mages and on the ground above they shrieked their horror as blood leaked from their eyes and bones split within their flesh.

‘You should choose your allies more carefully,’ Malekith gloated, feeling the pool of Ystranna’s power dwindling with every moment.

The handmaiden was losing control of the Ghyran, unable to maintain the balance of power as Malekith’s assault switched and veered from one place to the next, making inroads towards her.

All of a sudden Malekith felt the closeness of Ystranna, her magical presence within reach. He made a metaphysical grasp at her, ensnaring her will with his own. A moment later they both materialised back in the grotto, Malekith’s fist inside Ystranna’s chest, clutching her heart.

Feeding on the earth power the handmaiden commanded, Malekith’s magical presence swelled, growing and growing to gigantic proportion, towering above the forest like a tornado of dark wind, crackling with lightning. Her projection crumbled into dust as she fled, cutting herself off from the winds of magic, but it was too late. Malekith laughed as her avatar slipped away, leaving a slender thread of green and golden sunlight in his hands, pulsing beneath armoured fingers. He had all the power he needed, Ghyran stripped of all its earth power to become raw magic. Swelled by this he became a bloated thundercloud of destruction that flowed between the trees and billowed into the air.

Atop Seraphon’s back, Malekith opened his eyes. Much of the day had passed during his metaphysical battle; his forces below had been pushed steadily back and now formed a semi-circle around the encampment, hard pressed on three sides. Dusk was not far off, and defeat closer still.

With a grim smile, he unleashed his spell.

The ground shuddered, throwing asur and druchii alike from their feet, toppling trees and treemen. As the broken remnants of the forest swayed, the thunderous grinding grew even stronger until the Witch King’s magic burst forth, fuelled by the strength of mountain roots, gushing directly from the vortex that whirled in the bedrock of Ulthuan. An immense chasm cracked open, swallowing hundreds of Ystranna’s maiden guard in a tumble of boulders and broken trees.

Like a volcano erupting, the Ghyran-fuelled dark magic spewed into the sky, a black-tinged fog spreading out through the daemon-cursed trees, freezing every living thing it touched but bringing life to dead branches, filling petrified trees with vitality so that they lifted up limbs and roots and set upon the archers cowering beneath them with thorn-nailed hands.

Higher and higher swelled the sorcerous mass, touching the clouds that roiled overhead. Fire and lightning flickered in their depths and rain started to fall, droplets of flame that quickly became a burning hail and then a storm of flaming meteors that crushed elves and chariots, set fire to tree-kin and lions, obliterated shadow warriors and great eagles.

Malekith felt the burning in his heart first. The spell was channelling more and more power through his body, trying to break free of his control, the peripheral effect causing his already ravaged flesh to steam with fresh vigour, the fires that had crippled him burning behind his eyes and in his bones.

With a last snarl of hatred, Malekith let the spell end, collapsing exhausted in the saddle-throne. Seraphon continued to circle, keeping any potential attack at bay with blasts of gaseous breath and roars, while below the druchii surged out of their defensive line to charge the devastated Chracians and Avelorn maiden guard. To the west the aesenar slunk back towards Phoenix Pass, their retreat covered with hails of black arrows.

His vision dimming, Malekith directed Seraphon to the mountainside and dismounted, almost collapsing as his feet touched the magic-scoured rock. Hidden by the bulk of the black dragon, he knelt down, light-headed, limbs trembling.

Time passed but the Witch King could not mark how long. Eventually the crackle of ancient fires died in his ears and some measure of strength returned to his body. He opened iron-lidded eyes with some effort. It was dark but the clouds parted to reveal the Chaos moon in full ebb, the red orb glaring down like the eye of a wrathful god. The Witch King rose to his feet, flakes of ash drifting from his armour, and stepped past Seraphon to regard the battle below.

Total victory seemed certain. The spirits of the forest had gone, either destroyed by Malekith’s spell or fled from the vengeful counter-attack of the Naggarothi. Malekith’s army advanced in three prongs, while the Caledorians had flown eastward to the bottom of the valley in pursuit of the phoenixes and great eagles.

Malekith moved to pull himself up to Seraphon’s saddle but stopped a pace away, sensing something changing in the winds of magic. He looked up, drawn to the Chaos moon, and it appeared as though its cratered surface were a skull glaring down at him.

Death. Death filled the air.

The winds of magic stilled, impossibly, as though the entire world had frozen. Malekith’s breath steamed on air that had been hot a moment before. In the pass below both sides came to faltering stops as the embattled elves, always sensitive to magical change, felt the unnatural stillness. A cold terror filled the hearts of asur and Naggarothi together as they gazed up at the skull moon.

Malekith realised what was happening and he too felt a chilling dread. What if Teclis had been wrong? What if the Great Necromancer had awoken with all of his power?

Seventeen

The Great Necromancer

‘I suddenly feel… inadequate,’ Malekith told his companion.

‘Not even the Tower of Hoeth can rival it,’ replied Teclis.

It had once been a mountain, standing on the edge of a massive crater caused by a meteoric impact during the Coming of Chaos. Centuries of labour had turned the peak into a fortress the like of which could not be found anywhere else in the world. Countless battlements and leagues of crenellations wound their way up the lower slopes, and as the mountain narrowed, jutting turrets by the hundred marked its flanks. Windows in the tens of thousands gleamed, lit from within by a pale witchlight. The summit was clad in permanent cloud, glowing fitfully with magical energy.

It was surrounded by rings of walls that made the great gates of the Annulii look like a fence between troublesome neighbours. In the depth of the crater stretched an inland sea, the waters murky, bubbling, tainted by the huge deposit of warpstone. The touch of that ancient meteorite was death and mutation to everything in the vicinity, leaving only the ghoulish descendants of cannibalistic humans to scavenge the mutant fish and loathsome slugs that survived in the tainted waters, when they did not feast on captives from rival tribes.

The warp-taint was so strong it pervaded everything, even the dry air, so that jutting stones had rictus faces. Plants resembled dangling bones and the only flowers that bloomed were black-headed roses with thorns like daggers. The wind hissed ghostly warnings on the edge of hearing that might have just been the fluttering of the thousands of tattered banners that decorated one of the shorelines, trophies taken during millennia of conquest and despotism. Arches of bone grew from the bare rock, an ossuary-avenue that led three leagues to the outermost gates of the fortress.

Nagashizzar, the most dread-inspiring fortress in the world.

Beneath the horrific castle toiled an endless army of the dead. Skeletal soldiers patrolled walls cracked and pitted by millennia of desert winds from the west. On the highest steeples and spires perched enormous dragons, ragged wings furled around half-skeletal bodies, drawn here from their dying fields on the Plain of Bones. Like monstrous gargoyles they appeared, hunched and malevolent, ready to drop down on any interloper, clouds of desiccating fume dribbling from dead lungs between cracked fangs.

Beneath the dark clouds swooped other dead things. The remains of enormous crows and buzzards, large enough to carry off a full grown elf, were themselves dwarfed by reanimated griffons and manticores that circled on endless watch beside horrific creations made from stitched body parts and bound together with necromantic magic.

The Wind of Death, Shyish, was ever-present, clinging to the rocks like fog, dribbling up through cracks and fissures in invisible steaming clouds. Wraiths haunted the deep caverns in the base of the mountains. On the higher flanks stood the cairns of wights, revenants of kings long dead sworn to the service of the Great Necromancer after whom the citadel was named.

Nagash.

Even thinking the name sent a thrill through Malekith, in equal measure jealousy and concern. There were few truly immortal beings in the world and Malekith was amongst them, but even he marvelled at the magical power that had once been at the command of the Great Necromancer. First in his Black Pyramid in Nehekhara to the south and later here, at Cripple Peak, his sorceries had blighted whole empires and laid low entire civilisations. Even the catastrophe of the Sundering unleashed by Malekith paled in comparison to such devastation.

In spirit form he and Teclis walked along a path of skulls that ran between two outer buttresses of grey rock. They passed into the shadow of Nagashizzar, the heat of the sun lost, and Malekith shuddered despite the fact that his avatar felt no mortal sensation. It was more than temperature that caused the reaction.

‘You have never come here before?’ Teclis asked. ‘Never before been tempted to look on this grandest of evil works?’

‘I had other matters to keep me occupied,’ said Malekith, not willing to admit that he had dared not come here before, for reasons both of vanity and security. ‘Besides, what purpose would it have served? There is nothing here except the mindless dead serving commands uttered three ages past.’

‘Is that so?’ Teclis made a gesture and the two of them disappeared, their spirits coalescing before an immense gatehouse, one of four that guarded the approaches to the citadel.

The gate itself was made of some black material that shone like burnished obsidian. Bone-coloured towers flanked it, each grander than the keep of Tor Achare, stouter than the forts of Karak Kadrin.

On the battlements above, motionless skeletons stood beside war machines of fused bone and sinew – bolt throwers loaded with the thigh bones of giants etched with dire runes and catapults whose phalangeal baskets held ensorcelled skulls that would burst into flame when launched.

Standing against the wall of each tower, to either side of the gate, were two rows of giant beings, made from the bones of dragons, hippogryphs, nameless lizards of the southlands and other huge creatures, bound together by enchanted gold bands. The undying guardians held spears as tall as buildings and carried bows that could fire arrows capable of splintering trees.

The pair stopped before the immense barrier and looked up, invisible even to the eyes of the undead.

‘You mean to enter?’ said Malekith. ‘To what purpose?’

‘To show you the truth,’ Teclis replied. He looked at Malekith with an infuriating half-smile. Few patronised the Witch King, and no other lived long after.

‘Not walls alone protect this place,’ warned the Witch King. ‘There are some powers that even I would not stir.’

‘Did you think that the Great Necromancer would lie dormant for eternity?’ Teclis stepped through the gate. Malekith, feeling ashamed that he hesitated, followed a moment after. Protective runes flared at the intrusion but Malekith was a strong enough sorcerer to bend aside the magical barriers set within the gate itself, emerging from the dark material to find Teclis waiting for him on a long road made from crushed bone.

‘You mean to wake… him?’ Malekith’s projection flickered as he slid ahead of the mage to stand in his way. ‘You tell me that the End Times come, that the Great Powers unite to bend their will to the enslavement of the world, and you seek to bring further ruin upon us?’

‘The gods must return,’ Teclis said, leaning on his staff, out of habit rather than tiredness. The top of the rod was cast in the shape of the moon goddess, his muse and mythical sponsor. ‘The gates of Mirai must be opened, and there is only one that can wrest control of the underworld from Ereth Khial.’

Malekith almost said the name but thought better of it. Names had power and here in the Great Necromancer’s fortress it was impossible to predict what attention the name of its creator might bring. ‘You are mad. Even as the tide of Chaos comes in, you would raise up a cliff of the undead to crush us against.’

‘Not so,’ said Teclis, passing through Malekith’s projection. Around them dead masons, withered to skin and bone, tapped with hammer and chisel at hieroglyph-covered walls, endlessly chronicling the turning of the world, day after day. The dead paid no heed to the wizards as they accelerated, becoming a blur of white and black until they reached the inner gates of Nagashizzar.

The presence of the warpstone was stronger here, making everything seem more tangible, a thickness to the air, of primordial, unrefined magic that invested every rock and bone. Sentinels crafted from the remains of trolls and ogres lined the corridor inside the gate, heads replaced with facsimiles of old Nehekharan gods, twice the height of Malekith, their scythe-like blades gleaming in the glow of green corpselight that suffused the innards of the fortress.

‘The dead do not change. He that raised this citadel desires nothing but a world of the dead enslaved to his will.’ Malekith noted that Teclis shared his caution regarding the name of the dread castle’s architect. ‘The powers of Chaos thrive on the changing ambitions of mortals, to provide the answers to questions only mortals ask. The dead have no need of rage and ambition, despair and charisma.’

‘Two forces opposed,’ muttered Malekith, seeing the clash in his mind’s eye, the legions of the dead on one side, the daemon hordes of the Chaos Powers on the other. There was one problem with that scenario. ‘And of those caught between? You choose to be a puppet of the Great Necromancer rather than the mutated spawn of Chaos?’

‘We need a bulwark against Chaos. I have done what I can to prepare the humans, the dwarfs will do as they always have done and protect their own. In Lustria the great minds of the Old Ones’ servants account nothing for our survival in their astromantic equations. This place holds our greatest chance of resisting the onslaught to come.’

They ascended, level after level as though they climbed through Mirai itself, the caverns of the damned. The dead in their hundreds of thousands waited in endless ranks for the return of their creator or laboured in mines and forges to furnish wargear to an army three thousand years in the making.

‘He will attempt the Great Ritual of Awakening,’ Malekith said as they came upon the dread throne room, a cavernous hall at the height of the dead city. A hundred thousand tallows made of the fat of the living burned in sconces and candelabras across the titanic chamber.

In the flickering lights a platform of skulls heaped up at one end of the hall, becoming an immense throne of bones. It was empty, leaving Malekith disappointed and relieved in equal measure.

About the Great Necromancer’s dais circled the only living things to be found in Nagashizzar, his disciples, necromancers brought here in fits of madness, chanting his praises as they made offering to the incarnation of undeath.

Malekith could sense the energy of Nagash pulsing like a shadow within the shadows, a constant murmuring on the edge of hearing.

‘I have put in motion a series of events that will bring him back,’ Teclis confessed. ‘It is already too late to prevent his reincarnation.’

‘I am prideful, but your arrogance puts mine to shame,’ hissed Malekith. ‘These are not forces we can control.’

‘When you sought to shut down the vortex and bring about the tide of Chaos, did you think twice?’ Teclis asked, suddenly as bitter as the Witch King. ‘A deed so insane that even now we must deal with its consequences. It is not pride but desperation that pushes me to these extreme deeds.’

‘My past actions do not alter the folly of your current plans. I will not allow this.’

The hall trembled, almost imperceptibly. The winds of magic that had been so sluggish started to swirl, eddying around the throne. The acolytes gave gasps of surprise and fear as the dark winds caused the skulls of the throne to begin chattering their teeth, the echoes of their chorus a hideous cacophony that filled the immense hall.

‘Too late,’ whispered Teclis.

The black furnace of Nagash’s soul was growing in power. More brands on the wall burst into life – the blaze of a thousand torchlights brought fresh horror to the scene. Every surface of the chamber was covered in runes and hieroglyphs, which now danced in the flame light with a life of their own, melting and reforming to channel the winds of magic into the throne, the rumbling growing stronger with every passing heartbeat.

‘All is in hand,’ Teclis tried to assure Malekith. ‘I have made sure that the Great Ritual of Awakening will not succeed, not in its entirety. Nagash will return, strong enough to thwart Chaos for a while yet not so strong that we will not be able to undo what has been done.’

Malekith thought he saw an apparition on the throne, wraith-like but terrifying, armoured and cowled, one hand replaced with a claw of metal clutching the arm of the chair, in the other dead grasp a staff of black iron wrought with Nehekharan sigils. The Great Necromancer raised his head, revealing a skull face, eyes blazing with warp-light. Though Malekith and Teclis were concealed by the greatest enchantments of stealth and darkness that they could weave, for an instant the Witch King was sure that the pale green light of those eyes fell upon him and saw him. There was no life there, no expression that could be read. The visitation lasted only a moment before disappearing.

A sudden blast of Shyish swept along the hall, the magic of death extinguishing every flame, hurling the acolytes to the floor. There was nothing else in the chamber, nothing physical at least, but Malekith sensed a pulsing in his head, as of a deep voice vibrating inside his mind. It was in a human language long dead outside these walls, but in his thoughts he recognised the concept behind the words.

I RETURN

Without thought or word between them, the spirits of Teclis and Malekith fled.

‘Teclis, you are a fool,’ snarled Malekith, aware of the tide of Shyish that was building in the Ulthuan vortex. Darkness swept over the pass as clouds of pure death magic swallowed the Chaos moon. Malekith pulled himself into the throne-saddle, iron skin fizzing with the energy of unlife. ‘Your meddling will destroy us yet.’

He was too spent from his duelling with Ystranna and the opening of the great fissure to counter the rising tide of necromantic power. Likewise the handmaiden and her allies, if they sensed at all the catastrophe about to engulf them, were powerless to prevent the influx of Shyish.

Seraphon sensed something amiss too, snorting and whining with discontent that she had never displayed before. Malekith wrestled the chains of her reins, forcing her to launch into the skies, towards the roiling storm of undeath gathering above. The higher he climbed, the more awestruck Malekith was by the magnitude of the incantation being unleashed. The Circlet of Iron was like a crown of ice on his brow, as the Wind of Shyish blew across Ulthuan, across the whole world, shifted and congealed to a single purpose, bent to a single indomitable will.

Through the power of the Circlet of Iron Malekith’s spirit soared, unexpectedly. Buoyed up by the swell of death magic, the Witch King felt his essence tugging at the bonds of flesh, unwillingly torn from the near-dead shell that had bound his spirit to the realm of the living for six millennia.

In that instant his senses were focused upon a single point, halfway across the world in tainted lands that sat overshadowed by the great mountains of the dwarfs. The region was awash with Shyish, spewing its revivifying energies across the whole of the world. Nagash had returned to the mortal world and now attempted to unleash the Great Awakening once more, as Malekith had feared.

The Witch King was caught on the outer edge of the impossibly powerful conjuration, and with all his willpower strained to maintain a grip on his armoured form, still sat astride Seraphon’s throne-saddle far below. He focused his thoughts on the burning armoured figure of his body, turning his spirit against the raging current of the Great Necromancer’s sorcery, diving back through the storm like a hawk caught in a tornado. Straining, pushing every iota of his last strength into the effort, Malekith seized hold of his body once more, hurling his essence back into the withered husk.

The pain of burning, the agony of Asuryan’s curse, was the most welcome sensation he had ever felt. Tossed upon the brink of oblivion, almost drawn into the dark abyss of endless Mirai, Malekith cried tears of fire, so great was his joy at cheating death, so invigorating was the opportunity to claw another handhold in mortal existence. The pain was life, the agony proof that he could still achieve his ambitions.

Gasping and laughing, Malekith shuddered with ecstasy as around him the necromantic storm raged.

Nagash’s curse of the Great Awakening, the most powerful spell ever unleashed, began with a single shaft of pale green lightning. Where the bolt touched the mountainside the body of a Chracian hunter twitched. Missing an arm, the dead warrior struggled to her feet, her blood staining the fur of her lion pelt cloak. Ghostlight shone from her eyes and with jerking steps she advanced towards the Naggarothi nearby, who stood transfixed by the storm above.

Another lightning strike hit the corpse of a Black Guard, coruscating across silver armour. He pushed himself to his feet, more viscera spilling from the axe wound in his gut, halberd levelled in dead hands.

‘No,’ murmured Malekith as the two dead things fell upon the Naggarothi, who cried out in horror moments before being cut down. ‘No. Not like this. Not now.’

More lightning struck, again and again, increasing in frequency until the whole valley was ablaze with flashing energy. A fog of undeath sprang up from the ground, reanimating all that it touched, shambling figures advancing within the green mist to beset the druchii companies that had stalled in their counter-attack.

Malekith watched as the eagle he had slain earlier flapped ragged wings, digging itself out from under a pile of broken branches. Its rider, the asur prince with the bow, emerged from the fog and mounted the great bird, and the two soared aloft, together in death as they had been in life.

Across the pass the Naggarothi counter-attack had advanced over thousands of dead and now the slain were returning, striking from behind their lines. Beset by the undead the regiments of druchii fractured, losing all coherence and strategy. Malekith bellowed out his rage, cursing Teclis’s name, vowing to gut the meddling Sapherian when they next met, no matter the consequences.

All was not lost, despite Malekith’s tirade. Even as the undead clawed and dragged down his warriors, so they also fell upon the asur. The Whiteweald had been a battleground for the past few days and before that the daemons had slaughtered thousands of Chracians. Now the Wind of Death breathed new vigour into rotting flesh and half-stripped bones. With sinews of magic driving them, the dead of the Whiteweald rose, falling on Chracian and maiden guard, aesenar and druchii without discrimination.

Malekith swooped low over the battlefield, searching for some presence of Ystranna. Though he had perverted the winds of magic to his needs, he had unfinished business with the handmaiden of Avelorn.

There was no sign of her, either mystical or physical, and Malekith bit back his frustration. She had escaped, no doubt with other commanders and mages. Her army was retreating, fighting through the dead of the Whiteweald, but protected from pursuit by the reanimated corpses of the recent battle.

The Witch King considered going after them, or commanding Imrik to wipe out the Chracians, but the present threat of the undead curtailed the urge. Such had been the ferocity of the battle and the daemon invasion the undead outnumbered his host and the dragons were needed protecting what army he had remaining. It would avail him nothing to wipe out Ystranna’s force only to have no army of his own to exploit the slaughter.

For most of the night he held the tide with Urithain and Seraphon, putting to the sword reconstituted manticores and hydras, slaying again dragons that had the day before been killed by war machine bolts and magic.

When his constitution had recovered sufficiently, in the greyness just before dawn Malekith tapped into the well of magic opened by his confrontation with Ystranna. He let the winds of magic spill forth from the fissure that broke the flank of the mountain, a wave of pure Ghyran washing away the taint of Shyish as one might cleanse infection from a wound, sending the last of the animated dead back to their graves.

All across the Whiteweald walking corpses collapsed, the light going from their eyes, undead grasps losing grip of weapons and shields. The druchii stumbled around in the aftermath, in no position to fight or pursue, their voices lifted in praise to their king and the gods and goddesses of the underworld.

Malekith could do no more and bid Seraphon to bear him back to his pavilion. Dismissing the dragon he issued one last command to the Black Guards that stood watch: he was not to be disturbed by anybody.

As soon as he passed out of their sight, Malekith slumped, overwhelmed by the exertions of the day. He staggered to his iron throne and collapsed into its embrace, weary in mind and body.

Sleep came, but brought with it a nightmare of death. Malekith’s dream was filled with visions of Nagash’s Great Ritual as the dead of the world burst forth from ancient graves and slid open the portal stones of their tombs.

In the Northern Wastes above the empire of the humans the corpses of thousands of dead marauders returned to life, breaking out of crude cairns to savage their former kinsmen. Chaos-cursed armies and knightly expeditions of battles long past fought again their wars of pillaging and retribution.

Across the realm of the dwarfs, runes and seals cast to prevent such magical incursion melted and burned, releasing tormented spirits that moaned and wailed through the chambers and halls of the mountain cities.

The gardens of Morr, the humans’ guardian of the dead, were awash with the Great Necromancer’s power, the rituals of the priests availing naught against the sorcery of the first Necromancer. The bodies of burghers and nobles clambered from ornate mausoleums while in the potters’ fields beyond the walls of towns and cities generations of dead were revivified and fell upon the slumbering citizenry.

Eventually darkness came and Malekith dreamed no more.

Eighteen

Fresh Plans

Though rested in mind and in body, Malekith awoke with a restlessness of spirit.

At first he could not fathom what disturbed him so. It was like an appointment he could not remember, or that he had misplaced some object and had forgotten that he should be looking for whatever was missing. He sat on the throne trying to work out what it was that vexed him, when suddenly he realised what it was.

There were only seven winds of magic.

The Wind of Death, Shyish, was gone. Not abated or dampened as he might expect following the immense raising of the dead by Nagash, but completely gone. Like a grin missing a tooth the winds blowing from the north were incomplete and it was this sensation that was so irritating to his psyche.

His smouldering form burned into fresh life as he bellowed for Kouran to attend him. With full wakening returned memory, and the recollection that Ystranna had escaped the trap she had unwittingly sprung.

‘How long since the battle?’ the Witch King demanded before Kouran could even offer a bow or salute.

‘Three days, my king,’ replied the captain. ‘And two more nights. I despatched scouts by horse and foot and wing but there is no sign of the Chracians or the host from Avelorn.’

‘Of course not,’ snarled Malekith, standing. ‘They have been bloodied and seek to bind their wounds. The mountains hold not only hunting lodges and peat-burners’ huts. There are fortresses here, hidden, dug into the stone like dwarf-holes. The Chracians have gone to ground and wait for us to make our next move.’

‘We shall not disappoint them, my king. The army is ready to march north at your word.’

‘North?’

‘To the coast, my king. Is it not your intent to seize the harbours and crossing to the Blighted Isle?’

This seemed presumptuous of Kouran, to explain strategy to the Witch King, but Malekith knew no insult was intended and let it pass.

‘I would no more have that tree-witch dogging my heels than I would the Anars. We will scour Chrace until she and her army are destroyed.’

‘My king, it could take a season to find them and they are ensconced within their hidden keeps, another season and more to break their defences.’

‘I have three score of dragons!’ Malekith roared, smashing a fist into the other hand, sending up a fountain of red sparks. ‘Did you not see what happened at Eagle Gate? Have we not advanced further than on any campaign since I was first ejected from this isle? Ystranna cannot hide from me. I know her now, and many are the ways in which she can be hunted down.’

‘If Tyrion grants us the leisure of such a pursuit, my king,’ Kouran argued. Any other advisor would have uttered such sentiment with softer words, but Kouran showed no remorse for his indelicate tone. In fact Malekith could see nothing in the other elf’s expression except earnest intent, so alien on the features of the druchii the Witch King barely recognised it.

‘Tyrion.’ Malekith spat the name. ‘Tyrion? Let Tyrion come. Let this pretty prancing prince try his might against mine. He is nothing without…’ Malekith stopped himself naming Tyrion’s brother, not wishing to reveal his involvement with Teclis, even to Kouran. The alliance was best kept secret, a source of power hidden from his rivals, both in the asur camp and his own army. ‘Without Imrik he wields a lesser force.’

‘My king, you hunt rats with a hydra,’ said the Black Guard captain. ‘Ystranna’s force is barely a fifth of ours. It is entirely her intent that we expend our limited days seeking her. It was only with a bait of ten thousand warriors that you were able to draw out her strike in the Whiteweald. She will not be tricked twice. Nor, I think, your own commanders. Alith and his aesenar have disappeared and Ystranna will not show herself again soon.’

‘Until we turn our back on her,’ Malekith said pointedly. It riled him that he had been so close to eliminating the handmaiden and her army, it felt like defeat to let her slip away unmolested. The dead rising had spoiled everything, ruining a perfectly executed strategy. ‘The moment we head north the Chracians will be nipping at our heels, a company lost here, a war machine battery there. You would have us bleed from a thousand tiny bites.’

‘We can spare a third of the army as rearguard, my king, and still have sufficient force to seize Tor Achare and the coastal towns.’

‘A third? Which part of my army would you trust with such duties? The Ghrondians, who I am sure still answer to Drusala though she is absent? Perhaps the remnants from Karond Kar? They must be bursting with loyalty to my cause. There is not a contingent or commander that I can trust out of sight or further than my reach. I burned their cities to ensure they cannot retreat, but should they find welcome in the ranks of the asur…’ Malekith held up his fist and slowly splayed his fingers. ‘Your rearguard would melt quicker than ice in my grasp.’

‘I would stand, my king.’ Kouran said the words with pride, and Malekith did not doubt the captain. ‘The Black Guard will hold the pass for you.’

‘A worthy offer, Alandrian, but one I must decline. I have greater need of your eyes and your blades in my camp, lest those untrustworthy elements I speak of seek a more direct means of betraying me.’

‘That leaves only one choice, my king, one part of the army that you can trust.’

Malekith thought about this for a moment. ‘The Caledorians?’

‘If Imrik gives his word he will keep it, my king.’

‘If…’ Malekith sat down again, settling his body to settle his thoughts. Kouran was right, of course, in principle. The death of Ystranna achieved nothing save to satisfy Malekith’s desire for revenge. Her taunts still smarted and her continued existence was an insult.

But to slay her at the expense of the greater scheme was madness. His arguments against Kouran’s course of action were revealed as thin excuses to allow the Witch King his vengeance. Malekith looked at the captain, who was waiting patiently for his master’s next utterance.

‘How do I deserve such loyalty, Kouran?’ he asked.

The captain frowned, confused that the question had to be asked. ‘You are my king.’

‘Many others seek to be your king, or queen – what makes me so worthy that you cut them down at my word?’

‘You are the true king of the elves, Malekith,’ said Kouran, uttering his master’s name for the first time since joining his service. ‘You are the son of Aenarion, champion of the Daemon War, heir to the Phoenix Crown. It is your right by deed, merit and birth and I would give my life to see that ancient wrong reversed and your rightful position restored. As an elf I can think of no higher calling.’

Malekith received this testament in shocked silence. Not even his mother had ever spoken in such bald terms, and the words were like crystal water cooling his burning flesh. The simplicity of Kouran’s assertion calmed Malekith’s ire. He felt a moment of affinity with the captain, believing for the first time in his long life that there was perhaps one other who truly understood the nature of the pain that coursed through him – not the physical agony but the spiritual torment of rejection.

Pride was his greatest weakness. Malekith knew this, and it had perhaps been the undoing of his father but the affront that had been done to him, the insult to Aenarion’s house, was so great that justice demanded an equally immense retribution.

But not yet. Kouran’s short speech salved the wounded pride of the Witch King, clearing his thoughts.

‘Go to Imrik,’ he said. ‘Bid him to pursue the Chracians and Ystranna to every corner of Chrace if necessary. I want her dead. We will march north, and with his dragons he will guard our advance.’

‘As you say, my king,’ said Kouran, showing no sign of jubilation or conceit.

‘You really are unique amongst our kind,’ Malekith said. ‘Your dedication, your obedience and loyalty are like no other.’

‘It is a lament that the Naggarothi do not value such traits as they once did,’ said Kouran. ‘I cleave to an older time, when Aenarion’s word was his bond and his selfless sacrifice prevented the extinction of our kind.’

‘Not just the Naggarothi,’ said Malekith. ‘All of elfdom. My father would have gladly fought beside you. If only you had been born in such distant times, and perhaps borne aloft his standard instead of that traitor Eoloran Anar, our history may have been very different.’

‘I think not, my king,’ Kouran confessed, ‘though I take it as great praise. Khaine desired your father’s wrath and the Great Powers feared him regardless of those he consorted with. Perhaps now we have the chance to restore what was broken.’

‘We do, Kouran, we have that opportunity.’

Kouran saluted and left, leaving Malekith to plan the march north.

Nineteen

A Hasty Council

The Witch King had studied the maps and reports from the scouts in great detail and was just about ready to call for his generals when he heard a commotion outside his pavilion. He heard one of his guards issuing a challenge and a sharp rebuke from Kouran – Malekith had expected Kouran to have been gone for the rest of the day and had left instruction that he was not to be disturbed, still weary from his recent efforts.

The argument grew louder and then ended suddenly with the sound of a sword swiftly drawn, a wet chopping noise and a dull thud.

Malekith turned to the door, half drawing Urithain as he did so, expecting treachery. The thought that even Kouran had, at the last, turned on him was almost as hurtful as the fires that raged in his body. The captain of the Black Guard strode into the chamber and stopped. Before the Witch King could say anything, another elf entered – Imrik, with blood-slicked blade bared.

‘Were all your words as empty as your oaths of allegiance?’ snarled Malekith, drawing his sword fully, squaring his stance to face-off against the two elves, the tip of Urithain moving from one to another.

‘It is not as you fear, my king,’ said Kouran. To prove himself, he tossed Crimson Death aside and held up his empty hands. ‘There is no treachery.’

‘Your guard threatened me first,’ Imrik said, by way of explanation. He flicked the blood from his sword and sheathed it.

‘I should think so too,’ said Malekith, lowering Urithain a fraction. ‘That is what guards are for when unwelcome visitors arrive.’

‘He would not listen to my command,’ said Kouran.

‘My command had been explicit.’ Malekith could see that there was no immediate threat and sheathed his blade. He sat down in his throne and beckoned the two elves to approach. ‘Kouran, only one of my four guards saw fit to deny you entry. He has unfortunately lost his life for his dedication. The other three should fare no better for their disobedience.’

‘I will attend to it presently, my king,’ said Kouran, retrieving his weapon. ‘There is a more pressing concern.’

Before Malekith could ask, the drape across the chamber entrance moved aside as Teclis entered, leaning heavily on his staff, looking even worse than he had at Eagle Gate. There was a dangerous look in the mage’s eye nevertheless and he thrust his staff towards Malekith while with his other hand he made an arcane gesture and threw up a semi-transparent wall of gold that surrounded the mage and Witch King. Kouran slashed his halberd at the barrier and was rewarded by an explosion of sparks that threw him halfway across the throne chamber.

‘I knew I could count on the treachery of one of you, at least,’ snarled Malekith. His hand moved towards the hilt of his sword again, but stopped just short. A fight with Teclis would not be conducted with steel, no matter how ensorcelled. The Witch King started to summon the winds of magic to his will. ‘Do you think me a fool?’

‘The arch-traitor stands in accusation of me?’ Teclis’s rage was almost as great as Malekith’s finest tirades. ‘You have conspired and misled me since I first came to you in your dreams, and now you think that I have betrayed you? You are a gutless serpent, Malekith, and I curse the day I ever thought to trust you.’

‘Perhaps it is your mistress, goddess Lileath, that has led you awry,’ snapped Malekith. ‘You come to my camp and threaten me, but it is I that is the traitor? How contrary.’

‘Do not deny that you and your wretched mother have been trying to manipulate me from the outset.’

Malekith was stunned by the idea and was lost for words to utter any such denial. Instead he laughed, finding the accusation so ridiculous there was no other way to answer it.

‘Even now she whispers into the ear of my brother, guiding him to his destruction.’

‘You have taken leave of your senses, nephew. Morathi broods in Ghrond surrounded by thorns and northlanders. If she desires to whisper into the ear of any mortal it would be mine.’

Teclis hesitated, his anger wavering. ‘She left Ghrond with you, in the guise of Drusala. You brought her to Ulthuan and then sent her with Malus to confront my brother, where she infiltrated his camp by means of another glamour.’

‘Nonsense. You are getting confused in your fatigue. Drusala is one of my mother’s chief sorceresses.’

‘Drusala was Morathi.’

‘I would see through such a guise in moments,’ protested Malekith, but uncertainty gnawed at his confidence. ‘Do you think I would not sense the soul of my mother?’

‘And that is why I concluded that you must have been colluding with her,’ said Teclis, but his tone was uncertain. He waved a hand and the shimmering barrier dissipated.

‘No!’ snapped Malekith as Kouran readied to launch himself at the mage. Imrik stood beside the captain looking confused. ‘Something is wrong here. I will hear him speak.’

‘Apologies, my king, but he lied to us,’ said Kouran, glaring at Teclis with unconcealed homicidal intent.

‘A lie of omission, perhaps,’ admitted Teclis, never moving his eyes from the Witch King. ‘I told you that my brother now marches north and that I needed to speak to your master. Both of these facts are still true.’

‘Tyrion seeks battle,’ said Malekith, pondering the import of this news.

‘We need to prepare if Tyrion advances on our position,’ said Imrik.

‘What of Malus Darkblade and the vanguard?’ asked the Witch King. ‘Has he also turned against me?’

‘Malus is dead,’ said Teclis.

‘Finally some good news,’ Malekith exclaimed with a contemptuous laugh. ‘I hope his demise was painful.’

‘He was possessed by a daemon, which tore him apart from inside, before being slain by Tyrion.’

The elves thought about this in silence for several moments, even Malekith’s bitter humour dissipated by the gruesome revelation.

‘Settle this matter,’ insisted Malekith. ‘You swear that Drusala was my mother wrapped in a glamour?’

‘I swear by Lileath,’ said the mage. ‘I recognised her immediately, as did my brother.’

‘And I did not…’

‘Sometimes the closest are the easiest to deceive,’ said Teclis, pacing across the chamber to stop just short of Malekith. ‘A riddle to resolve another day. Of import is that her deception has succeeded. My brother, in his vulnerable mental state, has fallen under her bewitchment. She has persuaded him that he must draw the Widowmaker.’

‘The Sword of Khaine?’ Malekith thought on this and then snorted with derision. ‘Oh Morathi, you poor enamoured soul. You think that this princeling is Aenarion reborn.’

‘I thought it odd that she relinquished him so easily before,’ said Teclis.

‘What are you two talking about?’ demanded Imrik. ‘You speak in half measures, and I would know everything we must face.’

Teclis looked at Malekith, intrigued. ‘I did not realise you were aware of the event. You were, as I recall, indisposed.’

Malekith grimaced, remembering the time well.

‘It is true that I was not of the mortal realm at that time, due to your efforts, nephew. You of all people should remember that we see much more when we have a different perspective and the Realm of Chaos gave me the greatest vantage point one might wish for.’

‘What happened, my king?’ asked Kouran.

‘The Blighted Isle, one hundred and fifty years ago,’ said Malekith. ‘Always it seems our fates revolve around that little bloodied dark altar to the God of Murder.’

It was the blood magic that attracted his attention. It made ripples in the Realm of Chaos, drawing attention from across the spaceless abode of the Ancient Powers. The first drops quickly became a waterfall, channelled by a powerful mind into a torrent of energy that blazed across the immaterial skies like a beacon.

He had been drawn to it out of instinct, moving to its source with a shoal of other near-mindless entities to lap at the delicious sacrifice. More powerful creatures, servants of the Chaos Gods, followed swiftly, causing the lesser denizens to scatter, but he remained, the scent of the blood, the feel of it flowing through him and over reminding him of something he had once been.

As more blood was spilled on the altar of the elves’ God of Murder further power thrashed through the Realm of Chaos, drawing a crimson scene upon the ever-changing world. He saw the rocks of an island – a place he had known – and two armies clashing. An altar of black stone was awash with blood, the basin-like temple around it filled with corpses of slaves and sorceresses. By the altar itself stood a tall figure, hair thick with gore, wickedly jagged sacrificial blade in hand, her naked form bathed in blood.

Looking upon the face, he remembered.

Morathi. His mother.

He was Malekith, king of the elves, and he had cast himself into the Realm of the Gods to avoid death at the hands of the mage, Teclis. He had no idea how long had passed in the mortal world, but as he watched the scene unfolding in the pools of blood around him he realised that something was amiss.

There was another with Morathi and at first Malekith was stunned by recognition. It was his father, Aenarion, the defender of Ulthuan and first of the Phoenix Kings. But the scene did not resemble any act he remembered occurring before his self-imposed banishment. His father had travelled alone to the Blighted Isle, both to retrieve the Sword of Khaine and to replace it. Morathi did not belong there.

With a shock Malekith understood. It was not Aenarion that stood slack-eyed and entranced by the Hag Sorceress, but one of his descendants, the Prince Tyrion. Malekith had no idea how Morathi had come to capture the prince, or the Blighted Isle, but it was obvious that her possession of these two at the same time was not coincidence.

Becoming fully aware of himself and his sense of being, Malekith was able to stretch forth his will into the Realm of Chaos around him. The Circlet of Iron on his brow throbbed as it guided his power, allowing him to move the image of the scene as he desired. He saw that the asur army besieging the Shrine of Khaine was led by Teclis, the twin of Tyrion, fighting desperately to free his brother.

Morathi’s intent became clear. She was trying to use Tyrion as a vessel for restoring Aenarion’s soul to the mortal sphere. She was bargaining in blood for Khaine to return the first Phoenix King, to instil Aenarion’s essence into the body of the prince.

In short, Morathi was trying to replace Malekith and put Tyrion on the throne of Ulthuan.

He raged as he saw the ceremony reaching its crescendo, cursing his mother and urging Teclis and his host to greater efforts, impotently trapped in the immortal but immaterial world. Whether the ritual would succeed looked doubtful, but Malekith wanted his mother to fail, for throwing her son aside in favour of this gullible young prince, and for disturbing the eternal rest of his father.

Malekith’s anger lent him strength, the same strength that had sustained him for thousands of years. He would not be usurped again!

Through an extension of pure will, Malekith reached into the mind of one of the Naggarothi looking on, one of the final line of defence against the asur counter-attack. The druchii’s thoughts were filled with selfish desires and hatred of the approaching asur and it took only the smallest of influences for Malekith to subvert the elf’s mind and turn it to his will.

With stolen body Malekith drew close to Morathi, stepping between the bodies of the dead, unnoticed as the Hag Sorceress shrieked her supplications and promises to Khaine. Drawing his blade, he thrust the sword between his mother’s shoulder blades and tore it free as she fell. Another stroke cut the bonds around Tyrion, but the prince just blinked and looked dumbfounded, drugged or worse.

‘Move, you cretinous dog,’ Malekith snarled, slapping the prince across the cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Wake up!’

Tyrion murmured and blinked again, as though rousing from a heavy sleep. Morathi was already pushing herself to her feet, the wound in her back sealing with magical energy.

‘Go!’ Malekith thrust the sword into Tyrion’s hands as other druchii closed on him and the prince. ‘Your brother approaches!’

Guided by instinct, Tyrion blocked a sword aimed at his throat and disembowelled the elf that had attacked him. Malekith threw his purloined body in front of a hail of repeater crossbow bolts, saving the prince as he charged the closing ring of Naggarothi. Blotting out the pain from his stolen flesh, the spirit of the Witch King had one last glimpse of Tyrion cutting his way free and then his new body died, sending his essence wailing back to the Realm of Chaos.

Imrik listened to the end of the tale with a look of disbelief, while Kouran nodded silently, absorbing the import of what Malekith had said.

‘I did not realise that you had intervened,’ said Teclis, brow creased with a shallow frown. ‘Rumour followed that an agent of Hellebron had freed my brother to confound Morathi.’

‘A rumour I did not quash on my return,’ said Malekith.

‘Why did you not slay her when you returned, my king?’ asked the Black Guard captain.

‘My mother stood by me for five thousand years, and even when I sided with Bel Shanaar and took her into custody she never gave up on my destiny to become Phoenix King.’ Malekith took a deep breath, his lungs burning and ragged while the pain of recollection swamped his thoughts. He shook his head to clear them. ‘She thought I was dead, and sought another to fulfil her ambitions. I could not blame her.’

‘The ritual guided you back from oblivion,’ said Teclis, eyeing Malekith with wonder. ‘When you disappeared into the Realm of Chaos I thought you lost forever, and wondered how it was that you managed to return.’

‘It was the spark that reignited the flame of my spirit and gave me purpose again,’ Malekith replied. His mood soured. ‘Though it appears my leniency was misplaced and since that time she has been seeking to reunite with Tyrion again. I accused her of wasting away in Ghrond like a pining lover but her greater intent becomes clear. She did not warn of the northlander attack hoping that Naggaroth would be devastated, too weak to ever reclaim Ulthuan, and she would swoop upon Tyrion and usher him to the Phoenix Throne over the bodies of any that defied him.’

‘That part of the plan has so far failed,’ said Teclis, ‘but the cycle of history turns again and this time we shall suffer for it if we do not act.’

‘Why did you not dispel her bewitchment?’ demanded Imrik. ‘This matter would be simply resolved if you broke the hold Morathi has on Tyrion.’

‘I cannot, for his heart is bound to her now by something stronger than magic.’

‘Surely he cannot love her?’ Imrik shook his head in disgust.

Teclis took a moment to drink one of his life-giving potions, gaining himself time to think. He looked directly at Malekith. ‘What first drove your father to the Sword of Khaine and the embrace of your mother?’

‘Grief,’ Malekith replied without hesitation. ‘His wife and children slain, or so he believed, he reached his darkest nadir and sought only vengeance for the ill that beset him and his people.’

‘Tyrion’s daughter is dead,’ announced Teclis, looking away. Was it an expression of guilt? Malekith wondered. ‘Princess Aliathra died trying to thwart the return of the Great Necromancer.’

‘Aliathra was Finubar’s child, the next Everqueen,’ said Imrik, confused. ‘Are you saying… ?’

‘I knew it!’ said the Witch King, earning himself looks of interest from the mage and Imrik together, but he did not care for their feelings. ‘Well, I was almost certain, and now you confirm my suspicions. And here you are, nephew, at my camp, rather than at your brother’s side doing your best to counter the machinations of my mother. Why might that be?’

Teclis did not answer.

‘Answer Malekith’s question, mage,’ insisted Imrik. ‘Your efforts would have been better spent curtailing the threat at source rather than bringing news of its unfolding to us.’

‘Tyrion blames me for Aliathra’s death. I was forced to flee.’

‘Is that so?’ crowed Malekith. ‘An intrigue going amiss, nephew?’

Teclis said nothing but the Witch King saw his expression saddening even further, fingers tightening on his staff, jaw clenched.

‘Or perhaps something worse,’ Malekith continued, relentless, recognising the self-loathing behind Teclis’s grief. His voice was filled with savage glee. ‘You meant for her to die, did you not?’

The mage quivered with emotion, almost collapsing, but none of his companions made a move to assist him.

‘Is this true?’ demanded Imrik, while Kouran laughed with scorn.

‘Enough!’ snarled the mage, with such vehemence that Imrik and Kouran retreated a step. He glared at all three of them with eyes blazing with golden energy. ‘She was my niece and I feel the loss no less for the fact that it was necessary.’

Malekith stepped down from his throne and loomed over the mage. ‘You have always intended for Tyrion to draw the Widowmaker.’

Teclis nodded, defiant. ‘By drawing again His sword, the curse of Khaine will be lifted from our line.’

‘You would unleash the Godkiller on the world again?’ Imrik’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Just to rid your family of their curse?’

‘We have no future while the curse remains,’ said Teclis, dismissing Imrik’s concerns with a wave of the hand. He slumped and looked earnestly first at Imrik and then Malekith. ‘None of us. What better time for the Godslayer to be drawn than during the Rhana Dandra? I had planned to be beside my brother, to guide him through the turmoil so that he would be able to return the blade when the End Times were over and Chaos thwarted again.’

‘You reckoned without the interference of my mother,’ said Malekith, pacing away. ‘It seems that your mistress’s prophecies are not worth much, nephew.’

‘It is too late to give up,’ said Teclis. He hesitated before continuing. ‘Nagash has returned and attempted to become the living embodiment of Shyish. As I promised, he was too weak and for the moment he has drawn the power to the land the humans call Sylvania. He seeks to regain his pyramid in Khemri and if he does so, perhaps he will also regain the means to take the Wind of Shyish into himself fully.’

‘The embodiment?’ Malekith had never thought such a thing possible. ‘A physical avatar of a magical wind?’

‘As I say,’ said Teclis, looking uneasy at the mention of such a thing, as though he regretted having to bring it up. Malekith let his suspicions remain unspoken for the time being. ‘Even now, across the ocean, the Great Necromancer’s armies and the humans fight a great incursion from the northlands. The Chaos Gods have their attention focused on the realm of Sigmar and the endless legions of Nagash’s lieutenants for the moment, but it will not linger there forever. Sooner or later the daemons will come again for Ulthuan and we must be united and ready. Lileath has shown me the way to victory and though my own plans follow a twisted path, the destination has not changed.’

‘I did not say I had given up,’ said Malekith, turning back to the others. ‘We must seize the Blighted Isle first.’

‘Do you intend to take up the Sword of Khaine, my king?’ asked Kouran, who had observed the whole exchange without voicing any opinion. His expression betrayed no thought regarding whether he thought this a good or bad idea.

‘It is not a gift, it is a trap,’ said Malekith, remembering previous experience. ‘One I have already avoided. It would be folly to put myself in such a position again on purpose.’

‘You must, if it would prevent its power being controlled by Morathi,’ insisted Teclis.

‘How do we stop Tyrion if he wields the Widowmaker?’ Imrik asked, aghast at the thought.

‘I do not know,’ admitted Teclis.

‘That is why I plan to get there first,’ Malekith said, avoiding the answer to the question. In this area he was beholden to the guidance of Teclis, and it irked the Witch King to trust the Sapherian, but he had no choice. This was a road he had chosen to follow, throwing in his fortune with the fate of others, and now he was required to follow its course to the end, bitter or otherwise. ‘I suggest you impose upon your allies and cousins a sense of urgency.’

Twenty

The Shadow of Khaine

The battle had descended into an anarchy of bloodletting and savagery as the violent shroud of Khaine fell upon all that participated in the fighting. The Blighted Isle was His domain and all blood shed on its shores belonged to Him, and all that lifted blade or bow offered up a prayer to His power. Manoeuvre and strategy, wheel and counter-wheel, lines of advance and echelons of attack had become meaningless as the druchii threw themselves at the small contingent of elves defending the Shrine of Khaine.

Kouran and his Black Guard were at the centre of the attack, the steel point of the spear thrust into the heart of the enemy, cleaving through archers and spearmen that fought beneath the colours of Yvresse, the banner of Naggarond flying proudly beside Malekith’s lieutenant. The spears and arrows of Tor Yvresse’s silverin guard met the tide of black-and-purple-clad Naggarothi dreadspears while the darkshards of the Witch King unleashed a continual storm of repeater crossbow bolts into the foe.

Overhead wheeled mages on pegasi and colourfully-blazoned knights of Tor Gavel riding griffons, where black dragons duelled with flame-winged phoenixes and Sapherian loremasters aboard flying skycutters drawn by eagles and hippogriffs.

On the periphery of the battle stalked the aesenar, who had tailed Malekith’s army through Chrace and made their own hidden crossing, led by the Shadow King. Many had been cut down by the advance of the Black Guard but the survivors sniped at regimental captains and slew the handlers of hydras and packs of war dogs, adding to the confusion and dread that reigned over Khaine’s domain. They were not the only descendants of Nagarythe fighting in defence of the shrine, for the Revenants of Khaine held the grounds of the temple itself, ready to slay and be slain to prevent the Widowmaker being seized.

Not long ago it had started raining blood, crimson streaking down pale flesh and shining armour as a benediction of Khaine’s pleasure at the slaughter. It hissed and spat from the armour of the Witch King as he tried his best to maintain some semblance of control over his bloodthirsty warriors.

Teclis stood not far away. As yet the mage had not committed to the fighting and was reserving his magical strength for some deed yet to come. The Sapherian felt the Witch King’s gaze upon him and turned.

‘Whatever happens, we must not let Tyrion take the Sword of Khaine.’

‘My army bleeds to that end, nephew – what more do you ask?’

‘Promise me that you will take up the Widowmaker instead, if that is what is needed.’

‘What a strange life you have led. Does it shame you to think of the times you and your kin thwarted me in my attempts to rule, or are you simply filled with the warm glow of satisfaction from the realisation of my rightful claim? It must be so heartening that your life’s work, your dedication, has led to this moment, when you would rather see me wielding the Widowmaker than your brother.’

Teclis said nothing more and simply glared at the Witch King.

‘Worry not,’ said Malekith, Urithain blazing to life in his grasp, ‘your brother forfeited his hands the moment he started grasping for my crown. He will possess no fingers with which to claim the Godslayer.’

‘That is not a promise,’ Teclis replied, but the Witch King’s thoughts had moved on, dismissing the mage.

Malekith’s second wave of warriors were being torn apart by the griffons and their riders and with a gesture to the dozen black dragons that accompanied him, he took to the sky on Seraphon. As he rose higher, the crash of battle dimmed and the stench of blood lessened, and it reminded him of how different it had been the first time he had set foot upon this bare rock.

Malekith came to a wide, flat expanse near to the centre of the Blighted Isle. Here jagged black rocks veined with lines of red thrust up into the ruddy skies like a circle of columns. The ground within was as flat as glass and black as midnight. At the centre there stood a block of red-veined rock and something only partly visible shimmered above it. This was clearly the Shrine of Khaine, but as Malekith looked around he could see no sign of his father’s resting place nor any remains of Indraugnir. They must have come here, for Aenarion had returned the Sword of Khaine to the very altar close to which Malekith now stood.

Even as his thoughts touched upon the Godslayer, there came to Malekith’s ears a distant noise: a faint screaming. Now that it had attracted his attention, the prince looked at the Altar of Khaine more closely. As he did so, the sounds around him intensified. The screams of agony were joined by howls of horror. The ring of metal on metal, of fighting, echoed around the shrine. Malekith heard a thunderous heart beating, and thought he saw knives carving wounds upon flesh and limbs torn from bodies on the edge of his vision.

The red veins of the altar were not rock at all, but pulsed like arteries, blood flowing from the altar stone in spurting rivers of gore. He realised that the beating heart was his own, and it hammered in his chest like a swordsmith working at an anvil.

A keening sound, like a note sung by a sword’s edge as it cuts the air, rang in Malekith’s ears. It was not unpleasant, and he listened to it for a while, drawn by its siren call to take step after step closer to the altar. Finally, the prince of Nagarythe stood transfixed before that bloody shrine just as his father Aenarion had been.

The thing embedded in the rock shimmered before Malekith’s eyes, a blur of axe and sword and spear. Finally a single image emerged, of a bulbous mace studded with gems. Malekith was confused, for this was no weapon, but rather reminded him of the ornamental sceptres often carried by other princes. It seemed very similar to the one borne by Bel Shanaar when he had visited the colonies.

It was then that the meaning came to Malekith. All of Ulthuan would be his weapon. Unlike his father, he needed neither sword nor spear to destroy his foes. He would have the armies of an entire nation in his grasp, and would wield them however he pleased. If he but took up Khaine’s sceptre, there would be none that could oppose him. Like a vision, the future unfolded before Malekith.

He would return to Ulthuan and go to Tor Anroc, and there cast down the gates of the Phoenix King. He would offer up the body of Bel Shanaar to Khaine and become undisputed ruler of the elves. He would reign for eternity as the bloody right hand of the God of Murder. Death would stalk in his shadow as he brought ruination to the empire of the dwarfs, for such was the power of the elves that they need not share the world with any other creature. Beastmen were put to the sword by their thousands, and the carcasses of orcs and goblins spitted upon poles lined the roads of his empire for hundreds of miles.

Malekith laughed as he saw the rude villages of humans being put to the torch, their menfolk tossed onto pyres, their women with their hearts ripped out, whole families with their heads dashed in upon the bloodied rocks. Like an unstoppable tide, the elves would conquer all that lay before them, until Malekith presided over an empire that covered the entire globe and the fumes of the sacrificial fires blotted out the sun. Malekith was carried forwards on a giant palanquin made from the bones of his vanquished enemies, a river of blood pouring out before him.

‘No!’ cried Malekith, breaking his gaze from the sceptre and hurling himself face-first to the rocky ground.

He lay there for a long while, eyes screwed shut, his heart pounding, his breathing ragged and heavy. Slowly he calmed himself, and opened an eye. There seemed to be nothing amiss. There was no blood or fire. There was nothing but silent rock and the hiss of the wind.

The last rays of the day bathed the shrine in orange, and Malekith pushed himself to his feet and staggered from the circle, not daring to look back at the altar. Knowing that his father would not be found, Malekith gathered his senses as best he could and made for the boat, never once looking back.

Twenty-One

The Battle of the Blighted Isle

The Blighted Isle was a battle-ravaged boneyard. For five millennia the druchii and asur had contested control of the island, neither willing to sacrifice their hold on the Widowmaker’s resting place. Even before Nagash’s spell the dead had never rested easily here, their spirits taken by Khaine, denied their eternal rest in Mirai. Now those dead were silent, the magical wind that had sustained them stilled by the return of the Great Necromancer. The bones of five thousand years lay knee-deep in places, the corpses of the last years’ skirmishes still fresh on top of the charnel pile.

The white was splashed crimson with the blood of those now selling their lives for possession of the shrine, and great must have been Khaine’s mirth at the carnage being wrought to deny his return to the world. Elves foundered through the bone-drifts, cracking bleached ribs underfoot while hydras and griffons snapped vertebrae and crushed skulls. Companies of spears crashed together, wading through mires of blood and rotting flesh, the scene made all the more grisly by the crimson storm that continued to pour from the black clouds overhead.

Desire and desperation found equal purpose in Malekith’s heart and he fought with a fervour and strength he had not possessed for many an age. Not since the battles of his first war for Ulthuan had he known such spectacle and the pivot of history was swinging in his favour. If he prevailed this day all of Ulthuan would be his, as it should have been so many centuries before.

The knights of Tor Gavel could not match him. Urithain was a blur in his hand, cutting and slashing, severing griffon wings and princes’ heads with equal abandon. Malekith trusted to the armour of midnight to protect him from harm. As his iron skin absorbed blows from the blessed steel of Yvressian princes so his spellshield devoured the bolts and flames of Sapherian enchantments. Seraphon shared her master’s mood, claws and fangs leaving a tattered trail of bloody carcasses in their wake as they tore across the skies like a black thunderbolt. Behind them the other black dragons fell upon the archers and bolt throwers lining the boulder-strewn approaches to the Shrine of Khaine, cleaving bloody furrows in the ranks of the Yvressian militia.

While Malekith’s blade cut flesh and bone, his magic consumed an equal number of foes with dark lightning and organ-charring flames. Armour melted as bolts of dark magic leapt from his fingertips and Yvressian knights shrieked their last breaths as his mind tore apart their innards and pulverised their bones. Pegasi fell from the skies like swatted insects, hearts stopped by a simple gesture from the Witch King, their riders’ plunging death screams lost in the din of the armies clashing below.

Flying the colours of Lothern, a squadron of skycutters pulled by great eagles swept down into Malekith, the riders’ spears glinting with magic. Seraphon turned into the descending skycutters, a barbed wing raking the guts from one of the eagles while her jaws snapped around the neck of another. Malekith was surrounded by a welter of claws and speartips that glanced shrieking from his armour, a flurry of feather and beaks blotting all view. Urithain split one of the attacking birds from eye to tail while a coruscating black flame incinerated the skycutter it had been pulling. The other skycutters fell away quickly, pursued by the vengeful Witch King, the roars of Seraphon hastening their retreat.

Malekith drew in the winds of magic, forming a storm of power around his upraised blade. It felt strange, the Wind of Shyish missing from the enchantment, but the vanished Wind of Death did nothing to lessen the raw power of his sorcery.

He sighted on the nearest of the Lothern chariots and unleashed the spell, but no sooner had the ball of fire left his hand than it fizzled into smoke, dispersing along the wind. Disgruntled, Malekith flung out a hand, willing bolts of power to leap across the sky towards his doomed victim. Sparks crackled across his fingertips but nothing more.

The Witch King felt the twisting of the winds of magic that had thwarted his sorcery. All thoughts of the griffons and skycutters forgotten, he steered Seraphon groundwards, seeking the elf that had thought to test their magic against his. Flying just out of bowshot above both armies, he found his prey upon a hillside to the west. The elf that confronted him was a young princess, and her features seemed familiar though he could not place them. More recognisable was the cage of magical energy that surrounded her, emanating from an amulet around her neck. As he descended on her, the Witch King thought he could hear dry, dead voices whispering on the winds, casting counter-spells against his sorcery, edged with the silvery-frost of Sapherian magecraft.

The Yvressian princess was so taken with her dispelling that she paid no heed to the black doom diving down upon her. Malekith saw her flinch, distracted, and at the same time he felt a pulsing on the winds of magic, a surge of grief that flowed from the princess’s thoughts, a moment of severance. Her counter-spell scattered by this shock, the princess looked up to see Seraphon’s plummeting form, her face a mask of terror.

Malekith laughed as he saw her pitiful attempts to reclaim the winds of magic from him. He snatched the whirling energy from her grasp, tearing it from her control as though plucking candied fruits from a child. He thought to obliterate her with magic for the affront of her resistance, but had not accounted for the speed of Seraphon’s attack.

Two of the black dragon’s claws punched into the princess like lances as Seraphon swept over the crest of the hill, lifting her from the ground. Flexing massive digits, the dragon pulled the maiden apart, separating her spine as innards spilled free. With a thunderous crack of wings flapping, downdraft knocking Yvressians to the ground, the dragon powered skywards again, flicking the two halves of the princess’s corpse deftly into her mouth.

Malekith was about to order her to strike again, his eye drawn to a prince trying to rally a regiment of spearmen against a breakthrough by Kouran’s Black Guard, when a chorus of horn blasts split the air. Ascending, Malekith looked to the east and saw the glitter of a new army arriving, marching beneath the colours of Lothern and Chrace. At their head, astride a pure-white steed greater than any normal horse, sat a figure in blazing gold armour, his sword lifted to the skies burning with amber flame.

‘The so-called Dragon of Cothique,’ shouted the Witch King. ‘Welcome, Prince Tyrion, to your final battle.’

He was about to steer Seraphon towards the advancing column of Tyrion’s host when he felt a shimmer on the winds of magic. It felt as though someone rode behind him on the saddle-throne and he heard the calm voice of Teclis.

‘The Widowmaker, Malekith. Protect the shrine at all costs. I will meet you there.’

The mage’s spirit was gone again in an instant, and Malekith considered ignoring his meddling advice. He would spit Tyrion on the point of Urithain and the battle would be over in moments, the Shrine of Khaine safe again. All of elvendom would know that their king had returned.

He was about to bring around Seraphon for the fateful attack when another thought struck him, as though from somewhere else. It was a moment of foreboding that sent a prickle of apprehension through his fire-ravaged body.

If he faced Tyrion he would die.

The thought suddenly seemed as solid as the world, as certain as the sun rising every dawn. Only the knowledge that he was meant to be king was as sure to Malekith for that heartbeat.

It was enough to give him pause for thought. Almost immediately Malekith suspected it was some trick of Teclis, an enchantment left in the Witch King’s thoughts when the mage had contacted him. His anger started to rise again, but not so swiftly that it outpaced reason. Malekith’s pride had often been his bane. He had seen this weakness in himself when he had been forced to flee Finuval Plain through the Realm of Chaos. His disembodied, timeless wandering had forced him to realise that often the greatest architect of his failure was his own arrogance. He had vowed never again to let ire be his guide, nor pride to steer his strategy.

This was the moment that such an oath had to be upheld. Morathi believed that Tyrion was Aenarion reborn. Regardless of the truth or not of such a claim, the prince was a naturally gifted warrior who had honed his skills in countless battles, and hardened the edge of his anger against the latest daemon incursion. Aenarion had triumphed with the Widowmaker and Tyrion had succeeded without, foregoing drawing the deadly blade of Khaine until Morathi’s intervention.

There was no need for Malekith to confront his foe just yet. A whole army stood between Tyrion and his goal and if that proved insufficient, if the Dragon of Cothique was able to best thousands of warriors and a dozen Naggarothi captains and princes, Malekith would be on hand to finish the task. At the very end, if no other opportunity presented itself, he would draw the Widowmaker and kill Aenarion’s heir, ending the curse by another means.

By such justification was Malekith able to quell the rage he felt at the insult shown him by Tyrion’s opposition. When Tyrion was dead, when Malekith showed his eviscerated corpse to the pitiful weaklings that continued to oppose his claim to the Phoenix Throne, then Malekith would be satisfied and his pride sated.

He turned Seraphon and headed towards the Shrine of Khaine. A company of elves still guarded the megalith-circled temple, spears and bows at the ready. Armies could not match Seraphon and the Witch King together; a few hundred militia would be little more than a diversion.

Seraphon stooped, picking up speed as dragon and rider dropped towards the black stones of the shrine. A dozen heartbeats from crashing into the unforgiving rock the dragon snapped open her wings, turning the plunge into an effortless glide, jaw open, claws outstretched. Malekith leaned to his right with Urithain poised while the winds of magic churned at his command.

Something flashed past Malekith’s left shoulder and his steed uttered a piercing cry of pain. The most majestic, powerful predator of the skies became a screeching mess of flying scales and blood, wing shredded by some missile from below. Malekith barely glimpsed a hooded, cloaked figure skulking in the shadows of the shrine – Alith Anar with moonbow in hand – before Seraphon’s descent turned into a tumbling crash, ground and sky whirling together.

Dragon and rider ploughed across the bone-strewn hillside, spraying ivory-coloured shards in their wake. Malekith clung tightly to the dragon’s chains, turning upside down over and over, his armour battering against uncaring rock every couple of heartbeats, ears ringing from the impacts on his helm. He lost his grip and fell under the rolling beast, only the armour of midnight stopping the last breath being crushed from his lungs.

They eventually came to a stop, sliding down a gore-slicked hillock some distance down the slope from the shrine. Dazed, Malekith lay with Seraphon’s bulk across his legs, staring up at the turbulent sky. He thought he heard his mother’s voice, a single clear word that called out to him, but it was on the winds of magic that the voice came to him and he knew it to be a word of command.

He heard other voices, coming closer. The defenders of the shrine encircled the fallen monster and its rider, spears levelled, bowstrings taut as the ring of warriors tightened. Stars flashed across Malekith’s vision, painfully bright.

Seraphon stirred, growling. Bone jutted awkwardly from her ragged wing and the jagged ground had torn wounds through the flesh and scales of her flank, but she heaved herself up, the broken remnants of the saddle-throne falling from her back. The asur backed away, suddenly uncertain of their oaths to protect the shrine unto death.

The dragon looked at him and Malekith saw hunger in her eyes. He saw himself reflected in the dark orbs, a twisted figure of metal and fire, and he knew he had not been a kind master. Hurting, lips rippling with the effort, the black dragon stood over Malekith, ropes of bloodied saliva drooling from her fangs.

With a bass whimper, the dragon dipped her good wing, dropping her flank so that Malekith could climb upon her bare back.

The Revenants attacked, loosing their arrows from the summit of the shrine while others charged down the slope with their spears gleaming. Seraphon swept out her good wing, blocking the storm of arrows falling through the sky, even as Malekith retrieved Urithain from amongst the broken bones. He hauled himself onto her back, spitting a curse that unleashed a hail of icy shards towards the shrine. A few heartbeats later dozens of archers fell, their bodies ripped asunder by the storm of magical splinters, skin turned to rags, flesh flensed from breaking bones.

Seraphon met the descending phalanx of spears head-on, crashing through the glistening points, jaws snapping. The Witch King leaned low to slash with his magical blade, splitting white-hafted spears and scale armour with broad sweeps. His gaze became death, shredding the minds of any that dared meet his fiery stare.

As Seraphon laboured up the hill towards the megaliths marking the perimeter of the shrine, Malekith cast his attention back to the battle. The druchii ranks had split. Elements from Ghrond were fighting against each other, while banners in the other contingents were splitting away, turning on their own kind.

Morathi.

Her single word had been a summons, calling those faithful to her to throw off the concealing veil of loyalty. The Black Guard remained steadfast at the centre of the attack, but the flanks were giving way as dreadspears turned on bolt thrower crews, bleakswords fought amongst themselves and sorceresses directed their spells against regiments of darkshards still following the Witch King.

Everything was collapsing into anarchy but there was no time to worry about the larger battle. The Witch King saw a white and gold blur carving its way through the disrupted line straight towards the Shrine of Khaine – Tyrion leading the charge. He had broken ahead of his army, leaving knights, white lions and militia to battle through in his wake. Above, Malekith spied a phoenix burning with a white fire cutting across the sky towards him. Alith Anar was already close at hand.

His enemies were growing in number and time was growing shorter.

Dragging her wounded wing like a ship that had lost a mast, Seraphon carried her lord up to the summit of the shrine-hill, leaving gouged and poisoned corpses in drifts behind her. At the moment they breached the crest, Malekith laid eyes upon the black rock of the altar.

Where the Godslayer had first appeared to him as a sceptre, a symbol that he could destroy the world with all of elvenkind as his weapon, now there rested a spear with a head of crimson lightning and a shaft of bone. It wailed to Malekith, begging him to take up his rightful gift from the God of Murder. Khaine had chosen him just as He had chosen Aenarion, and millennia of suffering had resulted from Malekith’s denial of his birthright.

A last defender wearing the plume of a captain heaved himself clear of the dismembered remains of his warriors and stood before the Witch King and his monstrous steed, breaking Malekith’s trance-like fascination. The other elf held his sword levelled at Seraphon’s chest and there was blood trickling from a wound across his cheek, but the resolute defiance in his eyes stopped Malekith.

‘I’m impressed,’ said the Witch King. ‘Your company died well. So will you.’

‘I am Caradon, last of the Revenants of Khaine,’ spat the elf, blood flying from broken lips. ‘I curse thee, Malekith. I curse th–’

Urithain took off his head as Seraphon shouldered past a standing stone and Malekith leaned low on her back. The Witch King looked again at the altar and the spear that beckoned to him with subtle words of praise and promise.

A noise, barely audible amongst the cacophony of war and the patter of raining blood. A flutter, the faintest rustling of cloth. The sound of droplets pattering on metal.

Malekith acted without thought, Urithain spearing out as he turned towards the sound. The black-clad assassin twisted in mid-air as he leapt from the monolith, the Witch King’s magical blade flashing just past his scalp. It was enough, the killing blow directed towards Malekith’s neck missing its mark, though the blackened dagger tore through his iron-skinned shoulder, the enchanted blade splitting the armour of midnight as though it were a common mail coat.

Twenty-Two

Khaine’s Promise

Malekith roared, lashing out with raw dark magic as the assassin tried to land on Seraphon’s back. The instinctive spell smashed into the Khainite, hurling him into the piled bones at the shrine’s edge. As the would-be killer rolled through the charnel debris, Malekith recognised his face. It was Shadowblade, most infamous of his calling since Urian Poisonblade, once Malekith’s deadliest weapon and most effective defence against traitors. It seemed that Shadowblade’s mistress, Hellebron, had decided to defy the Witch King, though to what ends he could not guess.

‘Why is everyone trying to kill me?’ bellowed Malekith, exasperated at another delay and distraction. ‘Don’t you know that I’m trying to save the world?’

The assassin staggered to his feet and with a flick of the wrist Malekith hurled another bolt of dark magic, smashing Shadowblade against a standing stone. As the Khainite stood up again, he shook his head and looked around as though waking up, an expression of confusion on his face. Startled by this reaction, Malekith held his next bolt for a moment. A moment too long.

The clatter of hooves and a flash of gold heralded the arrival of a foe even more dangerous than the stunned assassin. Malekith cast a glance towards Prince Tyrion as his steed forged up the slope of the shrine. He cast his spell even as he wheeled Seraphon to face the fresh danger, but Shadowblade was gone, the sorcerous blast turning a standing stone into a cloud of black splinters.

The Dragon of Cothique was a magnificent sight, clad in burnished plate and scale, his winged helm plumed with white feathers. He rode Malhandir, a steed as renowned as the prince, larger and swifter than any stallion of Ellyrion, as white as the snows of the Annulii.

In Tyrion’s grasp flashed the Sunfang, Lacelothrai, a sword as long as Malekith’s arm inscribed with runes that burned with the light and heat of the sun. The prince’s armour was of pure ithilmar, forged on the Anvil of Vaul for Aenarion himself, reclaimed from the Blighted Isle after the first Phoenix King’s disappearance.

Malekith gasped, for the vision that thundered up to the shrine was the image of his father, even the burning wrath that lit the Dragon of Cothique’s eyes.

Their eyes locked and in that moment the separation of centuries disappeared, the bloodline that locked the destiny of both elves united again. No words passed their lips as they raised their swords, but nonetheless their thoughts spoke to each other.

‘I see why they call you the Defender reborn, nephew.’

‘And I know why they call you the Betrayer.’

‘Give up! To draw the Sword of Khaine is to doom our people. My mother has bewitched you.’

‘What do you care of our doom, architect of the Sundering? I will end your treacherous existence!’

‘Do you not think I would have drawn the Widowmaker an age ago if I thought it would bring me victory? None that wield it can hope to survive its influence. Not even my father, and certainly not some spoiled prince of Cothique!’

‘You shall see how strong flows the blood of Aenarion in my veins. And when I open them, how weakly in yours.’

Malhandir cleared the last of the slope with an almighty leap and Tyrion stretched out his sword arm, faster than any stroke Malekith had ever witnessed. The two warriors passed each other and Malekith wondered where the blow had struck, but he felt no fresh pain. The answer came when Seraphon arched back her head and let out a plaintive whine. Dark, thick blood bubbled from a glowing cut across her throat. Seraphon swept out her uninjured wing, barbs flexing, but Malhandir darted aside so that the blow caught only the crest of Tyrion’s helm and tore it off, golden locks spilling free.

‘Not nearly good enough.’ Malekith swept down Urithain as Seraphon scrambled after the steed and prince, keeping her body low to bring the Witch King’s crackling sword into range.

‘You are correct.’ Tyrion turned in the saddle and Lacelothrai was a golden shimmer meeting Malekith’s sword with a flash of sparks and fire. ‘You are not good enough, nor fast enough.’

The burning tip of the Sunfang looped around Malekith’s guard and scored a deep wound across his breastplate, releasing a fountain of fire and blood, almost knocking him from the back of Seraphon. Sensing her master’s injury, the black dragon heaved herself away while Malekith gritted his teeth against the pain of shattered ribs and cut flesh. The dagger still in his shoulder vexed his bones and muscles, making every movement an agony.

‘You are fine with a blade,’ admitted Malekith, drawing on the winds of magic. ‘But without your brother, you cannot hope to defeat my sorcery.’

Seraphon attacked with wide jaws, forcing Malhandir back. Tyrion stared grimly at Malekith as the Witch King pointed Urithain, black flames burning along the sword’s length. The fires became an inferno, rushing out to engulf the asur prince, but again his steed was too swift, circling around the Altar of Khaine, the magical flames splashing harmlessly from bone and rock just behind rider and mount.

‘I do not need my pathetic twin to fight fire.’

Tyrion raised the Sunfang, drawing on the enchantment placed on the blade by the loremasters of Hoeth centuries past. The blinding light of the noon sun exploded from the sword, carving into the black flames of Malekith’s rage, the two spells meeting above Khaine’s sacrificial stone. The Witch King drew in more power, blocking out the pain of his injuries, his resentment and rage further fuelled by a growing fear. Tyrion had never been so fast and determined before, and Malekith was already badly hurt and spent from a day of battle.

The thought returned that Tyrion would kill him.

The sudden dread of this thought surged through Malekith, but it did not cause him to falter, but steeled his will, the fear of failure falling on his rage like oil cast upon a fire. The black flame swept towards Tyrion even as the bolt from Lacelothrai waned, engulfing the prince.

Malhandir let out a piercing, chilling scream as the black fires fell upon his pure-white flank, while the runes of Aenarion’s armour, forged as proof against even dragonfire, shone with magical power. But the regent of the Phoenix Throne had lost his helm. The black fire caught in his hair and scorched across his handsome face.

Despite the horrific injuries, Tyrion forced Malhandir towards Malekith, into the heart of the flame, driven by the battle-lust of Khaine. There were no taunts and threats between them now, only the silence of lethal purpose. With mane and tail burning, Malhandir leapt the altar, bringing Tyrion next to Malekith again. Lacelothrai crashed into Malekith’s arm as he clumsily raised Urithain to fend off the blow, throwing him from the back of Seraphon.

His head swam as he landed heavily in a pile of shattering bones, Urithain almost jarred from his grasp. A cut ran the length of his forearm. It was a near-miracle that the limb had not been severed by Tyrion’s blow.

Malhandir shuddered into a convulsing, burned heap beside the altar, but Tyrion did not pause, leaping effortlessly from the ash-stained saddle, Lacelothrai held at the ready. Seraphon made a last effort, the blood from her throat now a trickle, but even as she raised a claw to dash Tyrion against the altar her strength failed and she collapsed, chest heaving.

Malekith lay amongst the ruin and looked up at the golden figure striding towards him, the flicker of flames dying on his charred face, a shaft of sunlight gripped in his fist. How the daemons must have quailed at that vision, he thought, just as they had done when Aenarion took back Ulthuan. There seemed to be nothing that would stop the Dragon of Cothique, and he had not yet even taken up the Widowmaker.

It was not the first time Malekith had stood upon the threshold of Mirai’s portal. He remembered well the blood-soaked day of Maledor Field.

Lacking any weapon, Malekith set about the servants of his tormentor with flaming fists, his iron hands punching through breastplates and ripping off limbs. Towering above the Phoenix Guard, he summoned dark magic, feeding off the escaping life-force of his foes, twisting it to his own ends.

He tried to draw the magic into himself, to heal the rents in his armour. The dark magic swerved and writhed, failing to take purchase in his body. Where the blades of the Phoenix Guard had marked him, tiny golden flames burned, keeping the dark magic at bay.

Dread filled Malekith’s heart. Unable to heal his wounds, which streamed with rivulets of molten metal like blood, he realised he was about to die.

‘Never!’ he roared.

He drew himself up to his full height. The dark magic he had summoned to cure his wounds swirled around him, forming blades of blackened iron that slashed through the Phoenix Guard. With a final pulse of dark magic, he blasted the forest of magical swords into his foes, driving them back.

Leaking metal and fire and blood, Malekith turned and ran, leaving burned prints in the bloodied grass. He would not die yet, not here on this dismal moor, with the usurper looking on, laughing. The Witch King drew on the power of his circlet, reaching out into the winds of magic, grabbing all of the power he could. An oily black cloud formed around him, flickering with lightning, obscuring him from his pursuers. It spread further and further, a churning, living mass that snatched up the Phoenix Guard who came after him, twisting their bodies and snapping their bones.

He had fled then, and there were other times since when retreat had been the only recourse to avoid death. He felt no shame at this, for cowardice would have been to accept failure and to eke out his dwindling days in cold Naggaroth.

This time was different. Blood streaming from his many wounds, molten iron running with it, Malekith stood up, his left arm useless, Urithain in his right.

Malekith tried to draw in magical energy, to summon up an incantation that would shred Tyrion’s flesh from his bones, would shatter those bones to splinters, would pulverise his organs and set a burning agony into his mind, but the fog of pain that invaded his thoughts was too thick. There was a more sinister sensation that had been spreading from the dagger in his shoulder.

Poison carried from the wound caused by Shadowblade.

The winds of magic swirled sluggishly so close to Khaine’s altar and the Witch King found them slipping through his grasp. He could feel a fluttering on the winds of magic, a disturbance in Ulgu, the power of shadow, but he was too weary to make any sense of it.

The Sunfang flashed towards his throat and only at the last moment was Malekith able to raise Urithain to weakly deflect the blow. The enchanted blade exploded at the touch of Tyrion’s sword, scattering shards of black metal. Pain seared up the Witch King’s arm but it quickly dissipated, swamped by the numbness that was filling Malekith’s whole being.

Malekith could do nothing as Tyrion’s next blow, impossibly fast, crashed into the gorget protecting his throat. The impact staggered the Witch King, and he fell to his knees, a moment before his foe’s armoured boot caught him in the face, breaking his cheek. His head crashed against the black Altar of Khaine and he slid to the bloodied ground, nearly all feeling lost in his limbs.

The Dragon of Cothique loomed over the Witch King. Tyrion’s eyes were orbs of blood-red as he looked at the altar. In that moment Malekith and Tyrion were connected, and they too with Aenarion, who so long ago had set the Curse of Khaine upon his bloodline.

There was a sense of dislocation, of timelessness. Malekith looked on the fire-ravaged face of his distant nephew, but saw only the features of his father. The cycle came about, and all things that were ancient were renewed. Perhaps it was right that this happened. Perhaps he had fought against his real destiny for six thousand years. Together the Witch King and Ulthuan’s regent witnessed the moment that had defined the existence of the elves for seven thousand years.

Even as Aenarion’s thoughts touched upon the Godslayer, there came to his ears a distant noise: a faint screaming. The ring of metal on metal, of fighting, echoed around the shrine. Aenarion heard a thunderous heart beating, and thought he saw knives carving wounds upon flesh and limbs torn from bodies on the edge of his vision. The red veins of the altar were not rock at all, but pulsed like arteries, blood flowing from the stone in spurting rivers of gore. He realised that the beating heart was his own, and it hammered in his chest like a swordsmith working at an anvil.

Aenarion stood transfixed before that bloody shrine. The thing embedded in the rock danced and wavered before the Phoenix King’s eyes, a blur of axe and sword and spear and bow and knife and strange weapons not known to the elves. Finally a single image emerged, of a long-bladed sword, cross guard curled into the rune of Khaine, its black blade etched with red symbols of death and blood.

Aenarion reached out… and stopped, his fingers a hair’s breadth from the hilt of the sword. All became silent; not a movement stirred the air as the world and the gods held their breath.

Aenarion knew this would be his doom. All of the warnings came back to him, the words of Caledor merged with dire predictions of the daemons and the pleading of his dead wife. It all mattered nothing to him, for his spirit was empty and only the Sword of Khaine could fill the void within him.

As Tyrion switched the Sunfang to his left hand and reached out with his right, Malekith managed a sneer.

‘At least my father paused a moment,’ he snarled between bloody coughs. ‘I turned away. You have no willpower.’ Tyrion paid him no heed as he drew back, his prize in hand.

Widowmaker, Godslayer, Doom of Worlds, Spear of Vengeance, Deathshard, and Heavenblight. By many names it was called, by mortals and daemons and gods. But one name alone it truly held: Sword of Khaine, the Lord of Murder.

Tyrion admired the weapon with wide eyes. In his fist he held a warped mirror of the Sunfang. Where Lacelothrai was shard of sunlight, bright and golden, this new blade was as black as a starless night and as cold as the deepest abyss of space.

The storm clouds overhead roiled with cracks of thunder and shafts of blood-red lightning. Tyrion held up his new sword, lips curled in a manic grin. Malekith looked up helplessly, unable to move a muscle in retaliation.

‘Larhathrai,’ Tyrion whispered, naming the blade.

Icefang.

Twenty-Three

Brother against Brother

Something black and grey surged between the perimeter slabs of the shrine, a thick shadow bunching and releasing like the muscles of an immense horse. Slowing, the apparition did indeed become a half-formed image of a horse with midnight flanks and streamers of shadow for a mane. Teclis swung a leg and dismounted a few paces from Malekith and Tyrion.

‘Brother, don’t do this!’ the mage shouted through the blood rain.

Tyrion gave no sign of heeding the words. He flexed his fingers around the Widowmaker’s grip and swept the sword up. At once, the shadows about Malekith lengthened and the rain grew colder. Thunder cracked against the turbulent sky and dark laughter billowed in its wake. The ground shook; the skulls chattered and gibbered in sudden mirth and then fell eerily silent.

The shadow steed vanished, its magic undone by the Widowmaker’s presence, and Malekith felt the winds of magic grow thin about him.

‘I should be surprised to find you here,’ the regent said at last, turning to face his brother, ‘but little you do surprises me any longer.’ His blackened lips cracked into a cruel smile as he prodded Malekith with his toe. ‘Yet I find that I am pleased to see you. This… thing… is not yet slain, and I would like one witness to my triumph, even if it is a treacherous one.’

Thing thought Malekith? But he had not the strength to utter a contemptuous riposte.

‘You cannot kill him,’ Teclis said urgently. ‘If you do, our people are doomed.’

Listen to your brother, Malekith willed, eyes drawn to the abysall blackness of Larhathrai. I am the saviour of our people. Pay attention!

‘Our people will never falter while I am alive to lead them,’ Tyrion laughed. ‘Or at least, to lead those who prove worthy. The coming war will winnow out all others.’

Malekith managed a grimace, recalling similar words coming from his lips for these past thousands of years. Tyrion had been so noble, so exemplary of the finest traits of elvenkind only days earlier, now as bloodthirsty and cold as Malekith after six thousand years of hate-filled war. He looked at the fire-ravaged features of the Dragon of Cothique and could not help but make comparison to himself, ragged and burned by another flame. It made the Witch King remember, painfully, that like Tyrion he had once been lauded by the greatest of elvenkind as the epitome of elven nobility.

‘Listen to yourself. These are not your words,’ warned Teclis, staring at his brother but not moving. Malekith had to wonder if they had ever really been his, or put into his thoughts by another. ‘This is our curse! This is the madness of Khaine!’ As he spoke, Teclis’s expression was desperate, betraying the doubt in his heart that his cautionary words would be heeded.

‘There is no madness. The Dark Gods are rising.’ Tyrion glanced at Malekith and the Witch King would have flinched except that fatigue and terror paralysed him in equal measure. There was unalloyed death in the prince’s eyes. ‘I see that now. Our folk are too soft to fight them as we are, but I will forge them into something better, something stronger.’

‘And who has told you that? Morathi?’ Teclis demanded, his voice raw with emotion. The words cut Malekith far more than Tyrion, who shrugged away his twin’s concern. It was too much for Malekith to believe that six thousand years had been spent fighting for the ambitions of his mother, his whole existence a mocking puppetry of life as Tyrion’s had now become. ‘She’s using you.’

‘Is she now?’ Tyrion asked amenably, but then his tone grew far darker. ‘Then how very different in your dealings you are.’ He raised the icefang high and Malekith’s dread increased, though he had thought it impossible to be more afraid a moment ago. Seven thousand years, a whole civilisation wasted because he had been too weak to beat this upstart princeling. Worse, because he had been too scared to draw the Godslayer himself, or to kill his mother when given every justification and opportunity. ‘It matters not. Today our ancient enemy dies, and a new sun rises.’

Larhathrai swept down.

Tyrion, dullard that he was, had been completely ignorant of the Hysh coalescing around Teclis. The power of light was heavy, but the archmage was well versed in tapping its deep roots, and to Malekith’s eyes was becoming a twining column of white energy.

As the icefang began its descent Teclis let free streamers of Hysh that became ribbons of pure light that snared around Tyrion’s arms, stopping the deathblow. Light magic twined about the prince’s quivering limbs, growing brighter and thicker as Teclis released more of his accumulated Hysh.

If only Malekith could have moved even a finger or murmured a word of conjuration. As it was, he stared dumbly at the two brothers, watching the dark power of Khaine spilling from His bloodied altar, staining the purity of the Hysh that struggled up through the chattering skulls and clattering bones.

The enchantment broke with a crack as the blessings of Khaine poured into Tyrion. The edge of icefang gleamed blood-red as Tyrion turned on his brother. Hurriedly, Teclis threw together a shield of pure magical energy, thrashing together power from the seven remaining winds. The golden circle hovered in front of the mage for only a heartbeat before Tyrion swept through it, the hand clasping Lacelothrai knocking Teclis to the ground with one blow.

From his position propped against the altar, Malekith could see several things that the two brothers could not, intent as they were upon each other. The eddy of shadowy Ulgu power shimmered close to one of the standing stones at the edge of the shrine, and concealed behind the cloak of shadow crouched Alith Anar. Malekith saw a glint of silvery light as the Shadow King lifted the fabled moonbow and fitted a shaft to the slender string.

A white spark was also bright against the clouds above the shrine, growing larger. Malekith watched the gleam resolve into the shape of a stooping bird – a white-and-blue feathered frostheart phoenix. The ancient magical bird, its flames turned to ice by longevity, was ridden by a figure in white and ithilmar, bearing a blazon of Asuryan upon his armour. The Witch King knew from the reports of his agents that this must be Caradryan, the captain of the Phoenix Guard, silent warden of the Shrine of Asuryan.

There seemed to be no shortage of foes ready to kill Malekith. The moment of terror, of soul-destroying failure, had passed, and the Witch King found himself in a calm mood. He was not yet reconciled to his ending, but such were the horrific consequences of his death, the infernal pacts he had made that would now be paid, the lengths he had gone to in order that he would survive as long as he had, he could not comprehend it all and instead his thoughts retreated to a banal place of utter normality. He idly wondered which of his closing enemies would finish him first, and hoped it was not Tyrion.

The frostheart phoenix swept low over the shrine and Caradryan slipped from its back, halberd in hand. He landed sure-footed amongst the detritus of bones, skidding to a stop between Teclis, Tyrion and Malekith. Past the Phoenix captain, Malekith spied Alith Anar moving position, his shot blocked by Caradryan’s arrival.

Tyrion laughed without mirth.

‘I am in no need of your aid, captain, though you might restrain my errant brother for me, if you wish to serve.’

Caradryan held his position. Malekith could not see his expression but apparently Tyrion read something there, a look of defiance perhaps. Little comfort to the Witch King that he had seemingly acquired another ally, as he watched the Shadow King emerge from the gloom on the other side of the standing stone, moonbow rising once more.

Tyrion’s eyes widened in sudden realisation.

‘All about me are traitors now?’ the regent demanded. ‘Stand aside!’

Caradryan shook his head. Then, with an effort, he uttered the first word to pass his lips in decades.

‘No.’

Tyrion laughed bitterly at Caradryan’s refusal. He half turned away, then spun back, the Widowmaker hissing out to take the captain’s head.

At that same moment, Alith Anar loosed his arrow, the shaft speeding true for Malekith’s heart.

Suddenly there was nothing.

Twenty-Four

Painful Memories

The impudent mage had natural flair and unparalleled concentration, but Malekith had been a master of sorcery for more than five thousand years and had learned at the hand of Morathi, the greatest sorceress in history. It was inevitable that the Witch King’s spells would eventually break down the Sapherian’s counter-incantations and shimmering protective barriers.

Malekith hardly paid any attention to the military situation. It mattered not that his champion, Urian Poisonblade, greatest blade-wielder of Naggaroth, had fallen to the sword of the asur’s own hero. The armies of the Naggarothi were too numerous, too strong for the defenders of Ulthuan, and like the duel between Malekith and the mage of the White Tower it was simply a matter of time.

The last resistance of the asur would be crushed and Malekith would finally claim the Phoenix Throne, and ever after would be lauded the day he triumphed on Finuval Plain.

The winds of magic churned, telling their own tale of curse and counter-spell, enchantment and hex. Malekith’s dark magic was a tornado of energy, whirling, destructive, a storm of all eight winds forced together into an unstoppable mass.

The Sapherian mage, the one whose wit and will had thwarted every advantage Malekith had gained on this long campaign, wielded a far subtler force. High magic was the careful distillation and blending of the opposing forces inherent in the winds of magic, like a smith smelting iron and charcoal for the perfect steel, or a chef perfecting a recipe with the smallest hint of spices and herbs.

As swordmasters crashed into the druchii spearwall and griffons tore at manticores overhead, Malekith hurled blast after blast of dark lightning at the emissary from Hoeth, trying to overcome his foe’s defences with base fury. The Sapherian redoubled his efforts, ascending into the sky upon a pillar of magic to draw in the whirling winds of power gathered high above the battlefield.

From a magic-blasted hilltop Malekith summoned forth a storm of titanic proportion, torturing the air with dark energy until it gave vent to crashes of thunder and streaked the sky with blue and purple lightning. The mage manipulated Ghyran and Azyr, turning the tempest into tatters of cloud broken by golden rays of the sun.

Malekith cared nothing for the delay. Every elf that fell beneath blade and arrow that day fed the deathly Wind of Shyish, and from this pool of lethal energy he drew the greatest strength. The druchii could afford to lose two warriors for every asur slain and the elves of Ulthuan knew it to be true.

A sudden void in the winds disturbed Malekith’s concentration. The Witch King was shocked by the rapid cessation of energy, an utter stillness in the winds of magic. Not since the likes of Caledor Dragontamer had he seen such a spell. A secret lost to history when Caledor had been swallowed by the vortex he had created.

The Sapherian soared over Malekith, clutching tight to his staff. It was as though the young, gaunt elf was listening to his magical rod, head tilted to one side in concentration. He then looked down at Malekith, and the image of the mage’s face was etched forever in the Witch King’s memories.

He saw nothing in the mage’s eyes, none of the passion and life that ruled the minds of the asur. Instead the Sapherian looked down at Malekith with all the feeling of a shark, his gaze a predatory blank stare that the Witch King had only seen before from one individual – the eyes of his father before he had set out to return the Sword of Khaine, knowing he would not return. It was the look of a person that knew the world was about to end.

The winds of magic suddenly erupted into life once more, catching Malekith totally unawares, so entranced had he been by the mage’s appearance. Only the first syllables of a counter-spell had left his ragged lips when the wave of high magic engulfed him.

At first it felt cool, like a waterfall in reverse, numbing him from foot to head, but then the heat followed. It grew from his heart, and with it brought back the memories of Asuryan’s temple and the curse of the All-king.

Agony flared, as powerful now as it had been the first moment Malekith had set foot into the sacred fires. Renewed, invigorated, the fires burned, the dulling of six thousand years wiped away.

There was triumph, cruel victory, in the eyes of the mage as he glowered down at Malekith.

The pain was too much, the damage ravaging his body too brutal and all-consuming to bear. There was no spell or balm or talisman that could save him. In half a dozen heartbeats he would be dead, consumed as if he had stayed in the flame of Asuryan. There was only one way to escape and a moment to open the portal.

With a wordless shriek, Malekith ripped open the veil between worlds and hurled himself into the beyond, abandoning his mortal shell for survival in the Realm of Chaos.

Malekith awoke alone. The touch of Ghyran lay heavily upon his body, the Wind of Life mixed weightily, ironically, with the Wind of Metal, Chamon. He raised a hand but pain lanced into him, from his chest and gut, his shoulder and arm. The memory of what had happened at the end of his confrontation with Tyrion blurred with the disaster at Finuval Plain, but it seemed a wonder he was in one piece.

He opened iron-lidded eyes and saw the dulled gaze of Teclis looking down at him. The glow of the mage’s desperate teleportation faded around them. There was white stone, walls and ceiling, and he assumed the hard floor beneath was the same. Something dark and bulky blocked out the light to the left – the barely-living Seraphon. Malekith glimpsed another figure on the edge of vision and recognised Caradryan.

‘Rest,’ said the mage, while Caradryan looked around, as amazed as Malekith to be alive.

Malekith could not argue. His wounds were many, the assassin’s poison like acid in his body. Unconsciousness was welcome.

‘Welcome back.’ The voice was sudden, jerking Malekith’s head around. In the corner sat a silver-armoured figure, his halberd held across his knees, helm laid on the white marble floor. Caradryan had spoken softly, but even his whisper seemed incredibly loud in this place, echoing from the beautifully crafted stone. ‘Teclis’s ministrations have had some effect, I see.’

‘I thought your order was sworn to silence?’

‘For their term of service,’ said Caradryan, nodding. ‘But my life was meant to have ended at the Blighted Isle.’

‘It is written on the walls, is it not? The future of everything?’

‘Not everything,’ Caradryan confessed, ‘but much that happens now has come before. You are one of the few people that witnessed the start as well as the end.’

‘I am not sure how I am alive. Tyrion…?’

‘Lives, unfortunately. Teclis tried his best to steer events along the path foretold by Lileath, but he was only partially successful.’

‘Goddesses of fate can be terribly tricksome, I am told,’ growled Malekith. ‘I thought I was dead three-ways over.’

‘Our companion’s spell deflected Anar’s arrow a fraction’, Caradryan explained, standing up. ‘It struck Tyrion in the chest, knocking him away from the altar though it did not pierce his armour. His blow fell wide of you, and in the next moment Teclis called upon Lileath to spare us and we were transported here.’

Light footsteps drew their attention to the archway, where Teclis appeared a moment later looking worried.

‘You need to rest,’ Caradryan said, pointing at the blood that oozed from Malekith’s wounds, coating cracked armour plates. The Phoenix Guard captain left with the mage and Malekith fell back into a pain-wracked sleep.

In time Malekith, aided in part by the attention of Teclis, recovered sufficient strength to leave the shrine of Lileath where they had arrived. The mage had disappeared a few days earlier, and sent a ship to bear the Witch King and Caradryan to the Island of Flame, home to the Shrine of Asuryan. Seeing the huge temple brought back one of Malekith’s oldest and bitterest memories.

The shrine itself was a high pyramid in form, built above the burning flame of the king of the gods. The flame danced and flickered at the heart of the temple, thrice the height of an elf, burning without noise or heat. Runes of gold were inlaid into the marble tiles of the floor around the central fire, and these blazed with a light that was not wholly reflected from the flame. Upon the white walls were hung braziers wrought in the shape of phoenixes with their wings furled and more magical fire burned within them, filling the temple with a golden glow.

All the princes of Ulthuan were there, resplendent in their cloaks and gowns, with high helms and tall crowns of silver and gold studded with gemstones from every colour of the rainbow. Only the Naggarothi stood out amongst this feast of colour, taciturn and sombre in their black and purple robes. Morathi stood with Malekith and his followers, the seeress eyeing proceedings with suspicion.

Astromancers were present too, seven of them, who had determined that this day was the most auspicious to crown the new Phoenix King. They wore robes of deep blues patterned with glistening diamonds in the constellations of the stars, linked by the finest lines of silver and platinum.

The astrologers stood next to the chanting priests of Asuryan, who weaved their prayers around Bel Shanaar so that he might pass through the flames unscathed. Behind the priests sat the oracles of Asuryan: three elven maidens of pale skin and blonde hair, garbed in raiment of silver that shimmered in the dazzling light.

Yvraine and her maiden guard had journeyed from Avelorn to join the ascension of her ceremonial husband. These warrior-women wore skirts of silvered scale edged with green cloth, and carried garlands of flowers in place of their spears and bows, for no weapon was allowed to pass the threshold of Asuryan’s temple.

Bel Shanaar stood with the high priest before the flame, and about his shoulders was hung a cloak of white and black feathers, a newly woven symbol of his power and authority.

‘As did Aenarion the Defender, so too shall I submit myself to the judgement of the greatest power,’ Bel Shanaar solemnly intoned. ‘My purity proven by this ordeal, I shall ascend to the throne of the Phoenix King, to rule wisely and justly in the name of the king of gods.’

‘Your father needed no spells of protection,’ muttered Morathi. ‘This is a fraud, of no more legitimacy than the sham wedding to Yvraine.’

As the priests burned incense and made offerings to Asuryan, the oracles began to sing quietly, their verses almost identical but for a few words here and there, which rose into a joyful harmony as Bel Shanaar was ushered towards the flame of Asuryan. The Phoenix King-to-be turned and looked back towards the princes, with no sign of trepidation or exultation.

With a respectful nod Bel Shanaar faced towards the centre of the shrine and walked forwards, slowly ascending the shallow steps that led up to the dais over which the god’s cleansing fires gleamed. All present then fell hushed in anticipation as Bel Shanaar stepped within the flame, which turned to a glaring white and forced the onlookers to cast their gazes away lest they be blinded by its intensity.

As their eyes grew accustomed to the bright burning of the flame, they could see the vague shape of Bel Shanaar within, arms upraised as he offered fealty to Asuryan. Then the Phoenix King turned slowly and stepped back out of the flames unharmed. There was a sighing of exhalation as the princes expressed their relief that all went well. The Naggarothi remained silent.

The entourage left, laughing and chattering, save for Malekith, who stayed for a long while gazing at the flame and pondering his fate. The sacred fire had returned to its shifting colours, now seeming dim after its dazzling eruption. To Malekith it seemed as if they had been diminished, tainted by the presence of Bel Shanaar.

Unaware of anything but that burning shrine, Malekith walked slowly forwards, his mind a swirl of conflicting emotions. If he but dared the flame and survived, without the spells of the priests to protect him, then surely it was the will of Asuryan that he succeed his father. Yet what if he was not strong enough? Would the burning of the flames devour him? What then would be left of his hopes and dreams for Nagarythe?

Without realisation Malekith stood directly before the fires, mesmerised by their shifting patterns. The urge to reach out gripped him and he was about to place his hand into the flame when he heard the footsteps of the priests re-entering the temple. Snatching his hand away, Malekith turned from the sacred fire and strode quickly from the shrine, ignoring the priests’ inquiring glances.

There were to be many days feasting and celebration, but Malekith left as soon as the ceremony was complete, his duty having been fulfilled. He felt no urge to linger here, where his father had first thrown himself upon the mercy of the greatest god and been reborn as the saviour of his people. If Bel Shanaar wished to be Phoenix King, then Malekith was satisfied to acquiesce. There were more than enough challenges ahead for him to overcome, Malekith knew, without inciting rivalry and discord. Content for the moment, he journeyed back to Anlec to take up his rule.

As he strode down the plank of their barque, every sinew, muscle, plate and rivet of his body screamed pain but Malekith ignored it, drawing on the immense willpower that had sustained him against such hurt for so long.

The sea surrounding the Shrine of Asuryan was thick with warships, but Teclis’s spells had shrouded their arrival. The Dragon of Lothern blazoned upon every sail. Their crews pounded the ancient walls with every spell and siege engine at their command. These were Lord Aislinn’s vessels, high admiral of the harbour city, the finest ships in Ulthuan. Another section of the shrine’s outer walls collapsed into the sea under the bombardment.

The Shrine of Asuryan was not entirely defenceless. A chorus of screeches split the air as a flock of phoenixes winged across the water. Flames billowed in their wake and washed over a dragonship, timbers and sails catching light almost immediately. The fires spread hungrily, outstripping the crew’s ability to quench them. Archers on neighbouring vessels loosed their volleys skyward, but the swirling phoenixes broke apart, reformed and dived against the next vessel in line.

Caradryan winced as the whine and crack of another volley struck the walls. Teclis hurried out from the depths of the temple, robes and cloak billowing around him.

‘Well, this is glorious,’ Malekith declared. The shrine shuddered, and he reached out to steady himself on a wall lining the road.

‘It is insanity,’ Teclis countered, his irritation palpable. Caradryan said nothing, though the worry on his face was plain enough.

‘Come,’ said the mage. ‘We have no time to waste.’

Progress through the shrine was painfully slow, and every step was punctuated by the strike of an artillery bolt upon the walls, or the bellow of distant merwyrm. By the time Malekith and his companions had reached the entrance corridor’s far end, the clamour of steel upon steel had joined the cacophony outside as Phoenix Guard vied with Aislinn’s marines for control of the island beyond the temple walls. Malekith read in Teclis’s concerned features a sorry conclusion – that the Island of the Flame would soon be overrun.

‘Your plan seems to be failing, mage,’ Malekith mocked as they passed through into the inner sanctum. Two-score Phoenix Guard marched past them and back through the closing gates.

‘I had planned to bring you here at once,’ Teclis reminded him, reliving the bitterness of that particular failure. ‘But you would not be swayed, were determined to follow your pride. Who knows how many have died needlessly because of that hubris?’

The Sapherian took a deep breath. ‘Now we shall both have to hope you are strong enough, despite your injuries. My brother has become Khaine, or something very like him. You know the legends. Only Asuryan can defeat Khaine – Asuryan, or his chosen vessel.’

‘The flame rejected me once,’ Malekith said. ‘Why should it not do so again?’

‘There was no rejection. You simply weren’t strong enough. Asuryan always intended for you to succeed your father. Think on it. Why do you suppose every Phoenix King was shielded by mages in their passage through the fire? Even then, they all passed into madness of one kind or another. It was not just Aethis and Morvael – even those my people revere were consumed by the power or the guilt of a stolen throne.’

‘And what proof have you of this?’ Malekith demanded.

‘Finubar told me,’ he said. ‘Why do you suppose he hardly fought you at the end? He, at least, was good-hearted, but the guilt ate away at him. That is why he so rarely led his people to war. He knew he was but the continuance of a subverted tradition. He was glad to die.’

Without warning, a new sound joined the battle outside: the deep, primal roar of dragons. Teclis gave a small smile. ‘Imrik has come,’ he said quietly. ‘You owe him much, though I doubt you will ever accept that.’

‘Even now, when you know I have no other choice, still you attempt to manipulate me,’ said Malekith.

‘It is my right to be Phoenix King,’ growled Malekith. ‘It is not yours to give, so I will gladly take it.’

‘Traitor!’ screamed Elodhir, leaping across the table in front of him, scattering goblets and plates. There was uproar as princes and priests shouted and shrieked.

Elodhir dashed across the shrine, and was halfway upon Malekith when Bathinair intercepted him, sending both of them tumbling down in a welter of robes and rugs. Elodhir punched the Yvressian prince, who reeled back. With a snarl, Bathinair reached into his robes and pulled out a curved blade, no longer than a finger, and slashed at Elodhir. Its blade caught the prince’s throat and his lifeblood fountained across the exposed flagstones.

As Bathinair crouched panting over the body of Elodhir, figures appeared at the archway behind Malekith: black-armoured knights of Anlec. The priests and princes who had been running for the arch slipped and collided with each other in their haste to stop their flight. The knights had blood-slicked blades in their hands and advanced with sinister purpose.

At last they came to the chamber of the flame. At Caradryan’s nod, the chamber’s guards stepped aside and opened the heavy brass-bound doors. They, like the rest of the Phoenix Guard within the shrine, seemed to think nothing odd of the Witch King’s presence. On the other side of the doors, a broad marble stair led upwards. The chamber was far grander than when Malekith had last been here. At the top burned the flames of Asuryan.

They seemed dimmed to Malekith’s eye, from what he remembered. Did that bode good or ill?

‘Why do you think that Imrik fights for you?’ Teclis asked as the doors slammed closed behind them. ‘Why do you think that the Phoenix Guard have allowed you within these walls? Why was Caradryan ready to die for you? Imrik has learned the truth of things, and the Phoenix Guard have always known it.’

‘Then why do so many of them march under Tyrion’s banner?’ Malekith demanded. Now that he was standing before the flame his uncertainties grew. Why after all this time were his dreams suddenly shared by so many others?

‘They have fallen under Khaine’s sway, like so many others. They knew that if they followed Tyrion, they would join his madness. But they knew also that it was their fate, and so went anyway.’

‘A pathetic excuse.’

‘No, it is an honourable sacrifice,’ Teclis argued. ‘To pledge yourself to the Phoenix Guard is to be haunted, every day, with the knowledge of how you will fail, no matter how flawless your service.’ Teclis closed his eyes briefly. ‘It is not a path I could have chosen. I need hope, and the Phoenix Guard know only certainty.’

‘Weakness.’ As he said the word Malekith felt blood bubbling up in his throat and he degenerated into a terrible, wracking cough. Bloody spittle oozed out through his helm’s mouthpiece to drip to the floor. The Witch King stumbled, and would have fallen had Caradryan not moved to support him. Malekith pulled free. He took three staggering steps towards the flame, then stopped.

‘If I pass into the fire,’ he said without turning, ‘my every striving has been a lie.’

Teclis waited for a moment before speaking, then chose his words carefully. ‘Does that cause you to regret your deeds?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Malekith softly, without thought, but then his voice grew harder. ‘No. I would do it all again.’

‘Then nothing about you was ever a lie,’ said Teclis, ‘and by your words you prove yourself no better than those who stole the throne.’ He sighed. ‘But you are Asuryan’s choice nonetheless. All that is left of our creator waits for you in the fire. If you can withstand the pain, there is perhaps a chance for us all.’

‘And if I cannot?’ Malekith asked.

‘Then the last spark of Asuryan will fade, and those of our people who survive Tyrion’s madness will be consumed by the Dark Gods.’

Malekith was serene; all trace of his earlier anger had disappeared. He walked slowly forward as his knights cut and hacked at the princes around him, his eyes never leaving the sacred flame in the centre of the chamber. Screams and howls echoed from the walls but the prince was oblivious to all but the fires.

Out of the melee, Haradrin ran towards Malekith, a captured sword raised above his head. With a contemptuous sneer, the prince of Nagarythe stepped aside from Haradrin’s wild swing and thrust his own sword into Haradrin’s gut. He stood there a moment, the princes staring deep into each other’s eyes, until a trickle of blood spilled from Haradrin’s lips and he collapsed to the floor.

Malekith let the sword fall from his fingers with the body rather than wrench it free, and continued his pacing towards the sacred fires.

‘Asuryan will not accept you!’ cried Mianderin, falling to his knees in front of Malekith, his hands clasped in pleading. ‘You have spilt blood in his sacred temple! We have not cast the proper enchantments to protect you from the flames. You cannot do this!’

‘So?’ spat the prince. ‘I am Aenarion’s heir. I do not need your witchery to protect me.’

Mianderin snatched at Malekith’s hand but the prince tore his fingers from the haruspex’s grasp.

‘I no longer listen to the protestations of priests,’ said Malekith and kicked Mianderin aside.

His hands held out, palms upwards in supplication, Malekith walked forwards and stepped into the flames.

Prince, priest and knight alike were tossed around by a great heaving. Chairs were flung across the floor and tables toppled. Plaster cracked upon the walls and fell in large slabs from the ceiling. Wide cracks tore through the tiles underfoot and a rift three paces wide opened up along the eastern wall, sending up a choking spume of dust and rock.

The flame of Asuryan burned paler and paler, moving from a deep blue to a brilliant white. At its heart could be seen the silhouette of Malekith, his arms still outstretched.

With a thunderous clap, the holy flame blazed, filling the room with white light. Within, Malekith collapsed to his knees and grabbed at his face.

He was burning.

He flung back his head and screamed as the flames consumed him; his howl of anguish reverberated around the shrine, echoing and growing in volume with every passing moment. The withering figure silhouetted within the flames pushed himself slowly to his feet and hurled himself from their depths.

Malekith’s smoking and charred body crashed to the ground, igniting a rug and sending ashen dust billowing. Blackened flesh fell away in lumps amidst cooling droplets of molten armour. He reached outwards with a hand, and then collapsed. His clothes had been burned away and his flesh eaten down to the bone in places. His face was a mask of black and red, his dark eyes lidless and staring. Steam rose from burst veins as the prince of Nagarythe shuddered and then fell still, laid to ruin by the judgement of Asuryan.

He looked at Teclis. There was concern on the face of the mage, and sympathy too, for it was plain which event plagued Malekith’s thoughts at that moment.

‘Courage,’ said the mage. ‘The courage of your convictions. See through that which you began so long ago, and do not be afraid.’

Malekith hesitated a moment longer and gazed levelly at the loremaster. Now that Tyrion had drawn the Widowmaker, what use did the mage have for Malekith in his schemes? Malekith’s thoughts moved to Imrik. His forefather had been a usurper – perhaps it was the intent to replace Malekith again with the accursed line of the Dragontamer.

‘If Lileath desired you dead your corpse would be an ornament for the Shrine of Khaine,’ said Teclis, guessing Malekith’s line of thought. ‘I could easily have allowed my brother to kill you to seal his pact with the God of Murder. We need a Phoenix King, and you are Aenarion’s heir.’

‘What about the blessings of the priests? The enchantments of the mages?’ If it had served the usurpers well enough, it would serve now. Every fibre of Malekith warned against stepping into the flames.

‘You were right – one of Aenarion’s true lineage needs no protective spells to survive the flame.’ Teclis moved to lay a hand upon Malekith’s arm as the king-to-be took a step towards the flame, and flinched back from the gesture at the last moment, feeling the heat that emanated from Malekith’s armour. ‘You must be ready. Asuryan demands sacrifice and your rebirth is not without pain.’

‘Tell me of pain?’ sneered Malekith. Fire flared between the plates of his armour. ‘It was you that awoke the burning of Asuryan’s curse at Finuval Plain, so tell me, Teclis, what you know of pain?’

Malekith remembered a battle long before Finuval Plain when the nature of Asuryan’s touch had become clear to him, a time when rule of Ulthuan had been moments away from his grasp.

Sulekh’s body slammed into Malekith, crushing him into the ground. Pinned by her massive weight, he heaved at her mass, trying to free himself, letting out a bellow of frustration. He dropped Avanuir to the ground so that he could use both hands to push at the massive corpse that lay on top of his legs and waist.

A prickle of sensation shuddered through Malekith: the touch of magic. He turned his head to the left seeking the source.

A wave of white fire poured towards him. It was beautiful, glittering like moonlight on the sea, flecked with gold and silver. He recognised the flames. He had stood within them to receive Asuryan’s blessing. Now the lord of gods had come again to aid Malekith, as he had Aenarion.

With a surge of power, Malekith heaved free the body of Sulekh. He stood up and faced the oncoming fire, arms spread wide to receive Asuryan’s blessing. The white flames crackled closer and closer, a chill wind against his red-hot armour. He closed his eyes as the fire engulfed him, waiting for the release from the agony that had been his companion for more than two decades.

Fresh pain seared through his chest and arms. Malekith gave a cry and opened his eyes.

It was not the flames of Asuryan that surrounded him, but the halberds of the Phoenix Guard. Each blade burned with the white fires of Asuryan, every blow they landed upon the Witch King igniting the flame that had been set within his flesh by the lord of gods.

The physical pain was as nothing compared to the pain of betrayal. As his iron flesh was rent and ripped by the swinging halberds of the Phoenix Guard Malekith realised he had not received Asuryan’s blessing. His father had not endured the agony he had endured.

The Witch King’s delusion fell away and he saw his punishment for what it was. Asuryan had shunned him, cursed him with everlasting torment. The shock of it brought Malekith to his knees as more blows rained down upon him, carving furrows in his black armour.

‘You must endure,’ Teclis insisted, ignoring Malekith’s barbed words. ‘You will be destroyed and renewed. When you last stepped into the flame you were almost destroyed, and if you had but remained for a few more moments the rebirth would have begun.’

Malekith looked down at the mage, head tilted to one side.

‘I was not cursed?’ He said the words quietly, slowly, trying to digest the importance of Teclis’s message. ‘Though I profaned Asuryan’s temple with blood and sought dominion over my kin? Though I killed Bel Shanaar with my own hands, the Lord of the Cadai would have blessed me if I had endured for a few heartbeats longer? This… This pain… The wars… Six thousand years of grief, because…’

He could not bring himself to voice what he thought, but the mage knew exactly that which vexed him and spoke the concern out loud.

‘Because you were weak, Malekith.’

Hundreds had died agonising deaths simply because they had thought such a sentiment and it shook the Witch King to hear it plainly spoken, but in that moment he felt no anger for Teclis, only a sensation he had not felt for more than six millennia: shame.

‘Then let us be at it,’ said Malekith and he stepped into the sacred fire of Asuryan.

Twenty-Five

The Flame of Asuryan

He was burning, the scream wrenched from his throat fuelled by raw agony and despair. It was every moment of six thousand years relived, the pain of six thousand years welled up into one single instant coursing through his body.

The urge to flee, to throw himself clear, to escape again to the Realm of Chaos, was almost overwhelming. What did it matter if his people were destroyed – he would survive, he was the greatest of them, they existed to be sacrificed for his continued life.

But he denied the urge, listening instead to the beat of his heart rather than the fear of his mind. He remembered that he was Aenarion’s son and held firm to the resolution that he would be reborn if he could but endure for a few heartbeats longer. Teclis had promised him as much, and if the mage sought to play him false it was better now to end his life knowing the truth than continue for another pain-wracked age beset by the doubt that he had been offered that which he desired the most and refused it.

It was not the physical pain that caused such torture. The mortal pain was only a memory of the spiritual pain. He had known in that moment he had stepped into the flames the first time that he was not worthy. The blood on his hands, metaphorical and literal, had been his guilt and he had carried it with him.

There had been no judgement laid upon him by Asuryan. The only punishment he suffered was self-inflicted.

In acknowledging that, he accepted his fate, remembering that his father had been willing to die for the protection of Ulthuan. To rule as Phoenix King one had to be raised up from the ashes of death. There was no other way.

As the fires consumed him, Malekith laughed.

The flames burned through him, touching every part of his body and spirit. There was no pain, no sensation at all. Malekith felt like a ghost, apart from the mortal world. He swore that a thousand voices were now chanting.

Malekith could see nothing but multicoloured fire. He was made of it. He lifted a hand in front of his face and saw nothing save the dancing flames.

Malekith wondered if he was dead.

His body felt as though it had wings, lifting him up, borne aloft by the flames like the phoenixes of the flamespyre. He closed his eyes but nothing changed; still the flames filled his vision. A gentle breeze washed over him, its touch smoothing away metal skin and charred flesh and broken bone, reducing him to delicate ash, all without the slightest hint of discomfort.

Sensation returned, the fire coalescing again into his form, creating body and limbs and head and fingers and every part of him from its essence. Opening his eyes, he turned and stepped out of the flames.

‘I am ready.’

The priest nodded and signalled to his attendants. Each of them carried a piece of blackened metal, curved and rune-encrusted. Some were recognisable: breastplate, vambraces, gorget, gauntlets. Others seemed utterly alien, strangely shaped, trailing sheets of black mail or fixed with awkwardly angled hinges.

The first piece was put into the furnace. The slaves were whipped to increase their labours at the bellows. Muttering prayers to Vaul, Hotek fanned the flames with magic, until they burned white-hot. Reaching his bare hand into the fires, he retrieved the piece of armour. Impervious to the heat, he carried it to Malekith, who watched the proceedings with the remains of his brow knotted in concentration.

‘This will burn,’ said Hotek.

Malekith’s reply was a shrill laugh, tinged with madness.

‘I can burn no more,’ whispered the prince. ‘Do it!’

An acolyte brought forward a smoking rivet in a pair of tongs. Hotek and his assistant crouched, the priest placing the hot piece of metal against Malekith’s flesh with a hiss of vapour. Malekith giggled.

‘Now,’ said Hotek.

The acolyte pushed the rivet into place. With a few whispered words of enchantment, Hotek struck lightly with the Hammer of Vaul, tapping the hot rivet through its prepared hole and into the bone of Malekith.

The prince snarled with pain, and swayed for a moment. He wished he could close his eyes. Instead he set his mind aside, going to the place he had created for himself in the cold depths of his thoughts.

With a start, Malekith was dragged back to reality. Two bodies lay at his feet. His body burned with fresh fire, but it was no more than he had grown used to. Acolytes moved around him, painting blood from the sacrifices into the runes carved upon the pieces of armour put in place, following each curl and line with brushes made of elven hair.

His lower legs and feet were clad in the smoking black iron. He did not remember lifting his feet, but realised he must have done so. He could feel the rivets hammered into heel and toe and laughed at the thought of being shod like a warhorse.

There was chanting. His mother looked on silently, but her adepts’ words swished around the chamber, verses overlapping, creating an arrhythmic harmony of magic. More rivets were driven into the scrawny flesh of his thighs, and links were riveted into place through the sides of his knees.

When next he perceived clearly what was happening, he was clad from foot to neck in the armour. Every part of him trembled. He could feel the energy of the spirit he had consumed slipping away.

‘Too soon,’ he muttered. ‘I am falling.’

Morathi hurriedly beckoned to an adept, who sacrificed another captive and brought the blood to Malekith in a cup of ancient silver. Malekith took the cup and then stopped. He realised he had not held a thing for more than a decade. He examined the fingers of his new hand, each perfectly articulated. He recognised the dwarf-work that inspired the design and smiled to himself. Even now, his great adventures of the past were still bearing fruit.

The fires flared anew and Malekith was brought back to the present. A film of red covered his vision. His own blood, he realised.

He blinked.

The simple motion caused him immeasurable joy. The thinnest slivers of black metal had been fashioned into eyelids. Malekith blinked again, and then closed his eyes. He enjoyed the darkness and more time passed.

‘It is done,’ announced Hotek.

Malekith flexed his arms and bent his legs, trying out his new body. It felt like his own flesh, though the burning had not lessened. Half a dozen dead elves lay sprawled at his feet, throats slit, their blood anointed upon his forged form. He could feel their spirits sliding around him, trapped within the runes of the armour.

‘Not finished,’ he said. ‘My crown.’

Hotek looked confused and turned to Morathi for explanation. She summoned an acolyte who brought forth a velvet cushion on which was placed a circlet of dull grey metal, spikes jutting at strange angles like a crown conceived by a lunatic.

Morathi reached a hand towards it, but Malekith grabbed her wrist. She howled in pain and tore free from his grip, backing away. There were burns on her flesh.

‘You cannot touch it,’ said Malekith. ‘It is not yours, it is mine.’

He took up the Circlet of Iron. It felt icy cold to his touch. While Morathi fussed over her burned wrist, Malekith raised the strange crown to his head and placed it on his brow.

‘Weld it,’ said the prince. ‘Make it a piece of the helm.’

Hotek did as he was bid, striking more rivets into Malekith’s skull before securing the circlet in place with molten metal. Malekith reached up and tugged at the circlet, assuring himself that it could not be removed.

Satisfied, he closed his eyes again. He let his thoughts free from his body, tasting the dark magic seething around the dungeon chamber. He felt the inrushing of power and rode the wave of energy, spearing up through the roof of the chamber, passing through the many floors of his father’s palace like a meteor called back to the stars. Anlec dwindled below him and he shifted from the plane of mortals into a realm of pure magic.

As at the first time he had worn the circlet, he looked at the Realm of Chaos, the domain of the Chaos Gods. On this occasion he had no fear. He materialised in his armoured form, burning white-hot, his presence blazing across the dominions of the Chaos Gods as a challenge.

Sentiences not of any mortal recognition stirred. Malekith felt their attention slowly drawn towards him.

‘I am Malekith!’ he declared. A flaming sword appeared in his hand. ‘Son of Aenarion, the daemons’ bane. Hear my name and know me, the rightful king of the elves!’

As a comet of power, he plunged back to his body. The runes of his armour exploded with dark flames as he re-entered his artificial form. He opened his metal eyelids, revealing orbs of black fire.

He looked down at the elves around him. They seemed small and insignificant. His voice echoed strangely from the mask of his helm, filling the room.

‘I have returned,’ he declared. ‘Pay homage to me.’

All present fell to their knees, instantly obedient to his words; save one, who fixed him with an expression of utter happiness.

‘Hail Malekith!’ cried Morathi, golden tears streaming down her face. ‘Hail the Witch King of Ulthuan!’

The flame guttered and died behind Malekith, leaving the inner sanctum in darkness.

The ground trembled, and not from the bombardment, but from a movement deep below. With a loud snap, a crack appeared in the pyramidal roof, a shaft of light breaking through to illuminate the newly-blessed Phoenix King.

‘Hail the Phoenix King,’ Caradryan said, tone uncertain, lifting his halberd in salute. Malekith stopped, shocked by the similarity to Kouran, as though he were the light from which came the shadow that was the captain of the Black Guard.

Malekith noticed Caradryan’s confused look and gazed down at himself, expecting to see pale skin, living muscle. Instead there was the same fractured and pitted metal, though the blood had stopped leaking from his wounds.

‘You said I would be reborn!’ bellowed Malekith rounding on Teclis. The mage back-stepped as the Phoenix King stalked towards him, one finger pointed in accusation. ‘Look at me. Look at me!’

‘In spirit,’ the mage replied, stopping when he was beside Caradryan. ‘Spiritually reborn.’

‘This is a mockery,’ growled Malekith, fighting the urge to fall to his knees and weep. He swayed, a hand across his face. ‘Six thousand years encased in this prison…’

The temple bucked again, a sound like thunder reverberating from below. A chunk of masonry larger than Malekith fell from the roof to crash on the tiles close to the flame, shattering into white splinters. Another piece fell a moment later, just a few paces from the Phoenix King. The steps split, letting immense blocks of marble fall to the sanctum floor. Shards like immense icicles fell from the roof around the elves.

The sunlight flickered as the silhouettes of dragons passed over, their roars mingled with the shouts of clashing warriors and the crackle of flames.

‘We should hurry,’ said Teclis, another tremor causing him to flinch and stumble as he turned towards the doorway. ‘Even if we escape the shrine, Aislinn’s forces are all over the island by now.’

‘Not that way,’ said Caradryan, pointing across the inner shrine. ‘There is another exit, known only to the Phoenix Guard.’

The former captain started across the sanctum at a run, Teclis on his heel. Malekith followed with a leisurely stride, ignoring the pieces of stone falling around him.

‘Why do you tarry?’ demanded Teclis, stopping to look back. ‘The temple is about to collapse!’

‘I do not think Asuryan invested me with his last power only to have me squashed by wayward masonry,’ Malekith replied with a laugh. It was quite overwhelming, the mixture of elation and disappointment. He held out a hand and let his essence flow. The fire inside him burned white and he laughed again, delighted by this revelation. ‘I have become the sacred flame.’

‘I would prefer it that the flame was not extinguished quite so soon,’ Teclis said, tapping his staff on the floor in impatient agitation.

‘Do you not think I look magnificent?’ Malekith said, stopping also, confounding the desires of the mage for a little more amusement. It was pleasing to see the Sapherian so uncertain for a change, after so much time dancing to the tune he called. A thought occurred to Malekith. ‘You have not yet properly welcomed me back to the land of the living, nephew.’

‘What?’ Teclis shook his head and moved to continue his retreat.

‘Teclis!’ The Phoenix King’s shout rebounded from the breaking walls, echoing in a strange way, its metallic intonation changing as it faded. The archmage stopped in his tracks, unable to ignore the call. Malekith pointed to the floor at his feet. ‘Pay proper homage, nephew.’

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

Muttering, Teclis returned to Malekith, casting frightened glances about him as more masonry continued to crash down from above. The sound of shouts was close at hand, dulled only by the doors of the inner sanctum. Metal crashed against metal just outside.

‘Hail the Phoenix King,’ the mage said hurriedly, bowing his head.

‘I am unconvinced by your display. Try harder, with more sincerity.’

Teclis glared at Malekith and the Phoenix King looked back, burning white eyes in the slit of his helm. Nodding, suddenly humbled, the mage dropped to one knee, his staff proffered before him.

‘Praise Malekith, heir to Aenarion, rightful Phoenix King of Ulthuan.’ Teclis looked up again, earnestness written across his features. ‘Saviour of elvenkind. The Defender.’

The title cut through Malekith’s cloud of self-satisfaction. He had been so obsessed with taking up his birthright it had never occurred to him what he would do as king. Now that his ascension had been achieved, he was unsure what to do next, but Teclis’s tone made it clear what was expected.

‘It is one thing to become Asuryan’s incarnation, it is another to rule,’ said the Phoenix King, gesturing for Teclis to stand. The thud of blades on the doors to the inner sanctum lent fresh urgency to Malekith’s thoughts. ‘Better that our foes do not learn yet of what has happened here. Caradryan, lead on!’

They followed the leader of the Phoenix Guard between two columns at the back of the shrine. Pausing at the wall, he ran his hand over the stone, his fingers tracing an intricate pattern while he whispered an incantation. He stepped back when he was done and the wall shimmered into a golden field, revealing a corridor beyond.

They stepped through and Caradryan restored the wall so that none would be able to follow. At the end of the passageway was a winding stair, which led further down into the island. Another corridor brought them out onto a broad loggia looking south across the Sea of Dreams. There were a handful of ships in view, but they were sailing west to the landing grounds.

Arranged along the balcony were a number of skycutters, their empty traces lying on the bare rock. Caradryan let out a shrill whistle and waited. It was not long before the flap of immense wings preceded the arrival of a mighty frostheart phoenix, the same one that had borne Caradryan into battle over the Blighted Isle.

‘Ashtari,’ said Caradryan, smoothing the feathers of the great bird’s neck as it perched on the edge of the loggia. ‘We have need to be far away and soon, and must not be seen.’

The phoenix stalked across to the nearest skycutter, claws leaving ice-rimed scratches in the floor. With Teclis’s aid, Caradryan harnessed up the bird and all three elves stepped into the skycutter’s platform. Caradryan spoke a word and the magic of the skycutter billowed into life, surrounding Malekith with a warm aura of Azyr.

‘Go,’ he commanded and Ashtari obeyed, leaping out over the waters, the skycutter lurching into motion behind.

They sped over the sea, the phoenix’s wings almost touching the waves. A loud crack caused the elves to turn, in time to see the pyramid of Asuryan explode into brilliant white light. The temple collapsed in on itself, but the destruction did not end there. Cliffs fell into the sea and great fissures split the isle, letting the waters of the Sea of Dreams race in, washing away thousands of soldiers loyal to both sides.

Imrik’s dragons whirled away as fire and water plumed into the sky. The ships of Aislinn’s fleet put up their sails and turned away as the Island of the Flame sank. Some were too slow, the closest sucked into the maelstrom created by the island’s demise, hulls shattered and masts split by the titanic whirl of water.

The wave created by this disaster raced after the fleeing Phoenix King, as high as a tower, a wall of dark destruction. Ashtari climbed higher, leaving a trail of ice in the spume of the tidal wave as it passed beneath them.

‘Where shall we find sanctuary now?’ Caradryan asked, sadness making his voice crack.

‘Caledor,’ said Malekith, pointing at the dragons streaming south-west. ‘We shall wage the war from the land of the Dragontamer.’

Twenty-Six

The Longest Road

Over the past six thousand years Malekith had spent the equivalent of many lifetimes of lesser creatures dreaming of his moment of glory. When he had been young, his visions had been filled with adoring crowds and showered adulation. After the Sundering his thoughts had become bleaker, his coronation parade taking place along a road made from the skulls of his enemies, banners made from their skins flapping along the route. In recent times he had been content to have every prince of Ulthuan, hundreds of them, prostrate themselves before him, each in turn begging for forgiveness, giving thanks that their rightful king had finally been recognised.

It was something of a disappointment that his arrival in Caledor had more in common with the coming of a thief than the arrival of a triumphant king. What was perhaps surprising was that this clandestine approach was at his behest. They had escaped the Island of Flame unseen and it seemed to the Phoenix King the most sensible course of action to conceal not only his continued survival but his elevation to Asuryan’s avatar. There would be a time to reveal his ascension, for maximum effect on morale and to dismay his foes, but it was not yet, not least because he wanted Imrik and Teclis to pave the way for the announcement, gauging the probable reactions of the other princes.

So it was under cover of darkness – Malekith swathed in a voluminous cloak, greeted by a handful of servants hand-picked by Imrik – that the Phoenix King arrived in Tor Caleda.

The city of the Dragon Princes sat high in the peaks of the southern Annulii; To the north, south and west the mountains and precipitous cliffs barred any approach save from the air; to the east a single pass held by many towers became an elevated road leading to the barbican of a mighty gatehouse.

Not much more than a high citadel with a broad curtain wall, it was the smallest of the elven capitals, a pale imitation of the former seat of power at Tor Caled. The ruins of Caledor Dragontamer’s birthplace could be visited, several days north, petrified forever when the volcano on which it was built had erupted during the Sundering, burying city and elves alike in a torrent of fire and ash. Caledor had never been a populous realm and there had been little will to rebuild such a large settlement. The outpost at Tor Sarath had naturally grown to accommodate its new importance and taken the name Caleda in honour of the fallen city.

Now it was straining to contain the host of elves that wished to find refuge there. The causeway leading to the gate was thronged with crowds from dawn to dusk, pleading with the guards at the gate for entry. Prince and farmer alike, driven south by the fighting in Ellyrion, were all turned back by order of the newly arrived Phoenix King, though the order had been voiced by Imrik. There was too much risk that Tyrion’s agents were concealed amongst the genuine refugees. What food and shelters could be provided were despatched, but it was little to help and the lords of the city were glad that it was summer – when the season of ice came the causeway would become a snow-covered graveyard if no other sanctuary was found for the dispossessed of Tiranoc and Ellyrion.

Malekith held his first court two days after coming to the city from the Island of Flame. The Phoenix King favoured only three elves to share counsel, even amongst those that knew of his arrival: Teclis, Imrik and Caradryan. All others were sent away with harsh words from their new ruler. Wine and food was left, along with a sturdy throne for the king fashioned by the city’s foremost smithy, for no ordinary chair in the citadel could bear him.

‘War.’

Malekith allowed the word to hang in the air, ringing from the crystal lanterns that hung from the vaulted ceiling. His councillors, standing around the throne, looked at each other, expressions grave.

‘You told me that you wanted a guard of dragons when you became Phoenix King,’ said Imrik. ‘You have them. Lead us into the battle and we will see Tyrion defeated.’

‘Not yet,’ said Teclis. He gestured to the empty scabbard at Malekith’s waist. ‘Urithain was destroyed. You have no blade, your majesty.’

‘Have my sword if that is all you lack,’ said Imrik. He moved to draw his blade but Malekith stopped him with an upraised hand.

‘The Phoenix King does not ride to war with some hand-me-down heirloom of Caledor,’ Malekith snapped. ‘Tyrion already wears my father’s armour and bears his sword – what further indignity do you wish to heap upon me?’

‘What blade would be suitable?’ asked Caradryan.

‘I can answer that,’ said Teclis. He had under his arm a wrapped bundle. Moving aside platters of meats, he made space on one of the tables to unroll his burden. Contained within were shards of bluish-black metal, which Malekith immediately recognised.

‘The remnants of the Destroyer,’ he said, reaching out his gauntleted fingers to touch one of the splinters. It was lifeless, all of the magic gone. ‘How did you come by them?’

‘They were brought with us when Lileath transported us from the Blighted Isle. I kept them, believing the goddess intended something to be done with them.’

‘What can be done with a few broken pieces of sword?’ said Imrik. ‘Tyrion wields the Widowmaker, made by Vaul himself.’

‘He calls it the icefang,’ Malekith told them. ‘I heard him name the blade as he drew it.’

‘The name is irrelevant,’ said Imrik. ‘How does one fight a god-forged blade?’

Malekith looked at Teclis, guessing that the mage already had the answer. Teclis smiled and moved to a long, narrow chest he had brought with him.

‘Do you remember, Imrik, the bargain you struck with our king to secure your alliance?’ the mage asked as he started to unfasten the locks of the casket.

‘All of the dragon eggs that were stolen, and the surviving weapons of Vaul forged in secrecy by Hotek for Malekith’s army.’

‘Indeed.’ Teclis opened the chest and a magical blue glow coloured his face. He lifted out the box’s contents, a heavy smith’s hammer with a golden head emblazoned with a symbol of lightning bolts.

‘The Hammer of Vaul,’ whispered Imrik, eyes widening in amazement.

‘Did you think I had thrown it away, or perhaps lost it?’ said Malekith. He addressed Teclis. ‘Now I understand why you insisted that it was included, in secret, with the artefacts Hotek created for me. Unfortunately, if you had told me your intent at the time I would have avoided today’s embarrassment.’

‘Embarrassment, your majesty?’ Teclis frowned as Malekith stood up and plucked the Hammer of Vaul from his fingers. The Phoenix King swung the Smith God’s divine instrument a few times, leaving a faint auric trail in the air as he walked down the hall. ‘Your majesty, that is not a child’s toy…’

‘It’s useless!’ barked Malekith, spinning to face the others, the hammer pointed at Teclis. ‘With Hotek gone there is nobody left that can wield it, you fool. Do you think that if I had been able to make armour and weapons with the Hammer of Vaul for the last four and a half thousand years I would have sent my troops into battle with iron spears and chainmail? I would have unleashed a legion ten thousand strong with blades that could cut the thickest armour and plate that resisted dragonrage!’

Malekith let the hammer drop from his grasp, cracking the dark stone floor where it fell at his feet.

‘We have priests of Vaul…’ suggested Imrik.

‘So did I,’ Malekith replied with a sigh, returning to his throne. ‘Acolytes of Hotek himself.’

‘They could not wield the power of the hammer?’ said Teclis, picking up the artefact with a disappointed expression. ‘They failed to forge anything?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ replied the Phoenix King. ‘They were deafened and crippled after one stroke. A few, after suitable prompting, tried a second, but they all died. Very grisly.’

‘The world turns and Morai-heg reveals her intentions,’ muttered Imrik, shaking his head.

‘Speak clearly,’ Malekith told him. ‘What do you mean?’

The dragon prince looked at Teclis with an expression of disbelief and fear. ‘Perhaps Lileath does guide your acts, in some fashion. I do not think I can tell you – I must show you.’

‘Show us what?’ demanded Malekith, losing his patience altogether.

‘We must go to the Shrine of Vaul,’ said Imrik. ‘There is someone I think you need to see.’

A fine summer’s evening greeted four mighty guests to Vaul’s Anvil, greatest shrine to the crippled Smith God of the elves. Malekith flew upon Seraphon, who like the others had been saved by Lileath’s translocation, and with him was Imrik on the back of Minaithnir, followed by Caradryan astride Ashtari the phoenix and, below, Teclis borne swiftly over the mountain tracks by his steed of shadow magic. The evening was settling fast when Malekith saw a bright fire in the distance. Situated at the very end of the Dragon Spine range, separated by a wide valley from the rest of the mountains, a solitary peak cast its shadow over the water’s edge, shrouded with cloud and fume. To the northern slope the dragons turned, where steps were carved into the black rock, winding back and forth up the steep incline leading to a carved opening flanked by two gigantic pillars. Atop the columns were statues of bent-legged Vaul. On the left the god of craftsmen laboured over an anvil, a hammer of thunderbolts in his hand. On the right he was bound in chains, weeping over the Sword of Khaine he had forged.

Before these pillars landed the dragons. Their arrival did not go unnoticed, and acolytes garbed in heavy aprons and thick gloves came out of the shrine’s opening to assist the dragon riders in dismounting. When they saw Malekith they recoiled in horror and some turned to flee.

‘Stay!’ Imrik commanded them. ‘Behold your new Phoenix King!’

This caused some consternation, but Imrik was well known to the priests of Vaul and the presence of Caradryan and Teclis, both renowned for their loyalty to Ulthuan, mitigated their fears a little.

‘It is strange that you should come to us on this day of all days, princes and king,’ said one of the priests. He was older than the others, blinded eyes covered by a band of iron, though he moved without guidance.

‘How so?’ asked Malekith as they ascended the steps.

The priest hesitated before replying, and addressed his words to Imrik. Malekith ignored the insult for the moment, more eager to hear what the priest had to say than chastise his poor manners.

‘The prisoner started ranting this morning, shouting to all that would listen that Vaul had forgiven him.’

‘Prisoner?’ Teclis said, and Malekith exchanged a look with the mage, unsettled by his surprise. If the herald of Lileath did not know what was occurring, was any of the Sapherian’s plan truly god-sent?

‘Take us to him immediately,’ said Imrik, hastening through the arch into the ruddy chamber beyond.

They followed their guides down several levels cut into the rock of the mountain, and stopped beside a metal door at the end of a winding passageway. The door was barred by a dozen bolts, six to each side, and another thick metal spar across the width padlocked at both ends.

They said nothing as word was sent for the high priest to attend, and to bring the keys with him, but Malekith eyed the door suspiciously. He could feel waves of Chamon beating against the iron from the other side.

‘Vaul’s energy, the Wind of Metal,’ Teclis said, slender fingers fidgeting on his staff. He narrowed his eyes towards Imrik. ‘What have they got hidden in there?’

‘He was found in the maze of tunnels beneath the shrine, many centuries ago. Lost, it seems, though how he came to enter them is a mystery,’ explained one of the priests. ‘We could see that he was blinded in the fashion of our order, but none recognised him. I think he must have been from the colonies.’

‘Go on,’ urged Teclis.

‘He was mad, almost dead of thirst. He speaks little, but mutters the great incantations of Vaul. Much of what he says is nonsensical – even our most learned loresmiths can make nothing of it.’

The high priest, Fovendiel, arrived and set about unlocking and unbolting the door, visibly unnerved by the presence of Malekith. He turned before casting aside the final bolt, and looked directly at Malekith, his hand moving to within just a short distance from the king’s chest.

‘Dark work,’ the priest said, fingers flinching from the heat of the armour of midnight. ‘But a miracle, all the same. That we could once furnish such gifts to our allies. Our power is much diminished.’

‘Open the door,’ snapped Malekith, in no mood for reminiscing. Imrik’s coyness angered him, as did the mystery of the prisoner.

Fovendiel did as he had been told, stepping aside to swing the door outwards.

The figure in the room was dressed in a plain robe of black, his white hair swept back by a worn band of black leather studded with ruddy bronze. His features were severe, with high cheekbones and brow sharp. Most remarkable were his eyes, of pure white, just like those of the high priest.

He sat on a stool next to a plain bunk, surrounded by piles of tattered parchment covered with runes, writing and diagrams. Muttering, the elf was fixed upon the contents of a page on his lap.

‘How long ago did you say he arrived?’

‘That’s the miracle,’ said the high priest. ‘He has been here for more than four thousand years. Some greater power sustains him.’

The prisoner looked up, blind gaze drawn straight to Malekith as the Phoenix King stepped across the threshold.

The burning would not stop. It raged in Malekith’s mind long after his body was dead to the pain of the flames. Had his father felt like this? Is this what drove him to the Sword of Khaine, to escape the touch of Asuryan’s blessing?

The thought calmed the prince of Nagarythe. As his father had endured, so would he. What was his torment but another chance to prove his superiority? When he next stood before the princes to declare his right to be Phoenix King none of them would argue. It would be plain for them to see the strength of his character. Who of them could deny that he had passed Asuryan’s test? He smiled at the thought, cracked flesh creasing across the remains of his face.

Their resistance was fuelled by jealousy. The usurper, Bel Shanaar, had groomed Imrik like a prize stallion, though in truth he was nothing more than a plodding mule. The other princes had been blinded to the truth by the whispers of Bel Shanaar. When the evidence of Malekith’s acceptance by Asuryan was presented, they would see through the falsehoods woven by the Caledorian and his supporters. Perhaps even Imrik would bend his knee, as Malekith had so graciously done at the foot of Bel Shanaar.

The curtain surrounding the bed stirred and Morathi bent over him. Malekith tried to rise to kiss her cheek but his body failed him. A spasm of pain along his spine trapped him beneath the covers, as though a great weight was laid upon him. His mouth twisted into a snarl of anguish.

‘Be still, my beautiful son,’ said Morathi, laying a hand on his brow. ‘I have someone you should greet.’

An emaciated elf moved up beside Malekith’s mother, face almost white, eyes pale and unseeing though they fixed upon the prince.

‘Greetings, your majesty,’ he said. ‘I am Hotek.’

‘Hotek?’ Malekith whispered the name, knowing it was impossible that the ancient High Priest of Vaul could be in the same chamber, there and then. He glared at Imrik. ‘This must be some kind of trick?’

‘This is Hotek?’ replied the prince, his surprise as genuine and as deep as Malekith’s. He looked at the prisoner with wide eyes. ‘How can that be possible?’

The old priest laughed, the lines on his face deepening, but there was no madness in the sound as Malekith had feared, only humour. Hotek stood up, setting aside his studies to appraise each of his visitors in turn with blind eyes. He sneered at Fovendiel and bowed his head to Imrik, and then stopped as his unseeing gaze fell upon Teclis.

‘Another godhead,’ said the priest, cracked lips twisting into a smile. ‘I smell moonlight and mystery. Lileath has touched you, my friend.’

‘More than that,’ Teclis replied. He reached out a hand and laid it on Hotek’s shoulder, but drew it back sharply when sparks erupted from the mage’s fingertips. ‘Vaul fills you with the Wind of Chamon.’

‘I am his vessel,’ Hotek said with a nod. ‘I tried to tell these fools but the words would not come properly until now. It is as though a gag was lifted from my lips.’ He looked at Malekith and moved splayed fingers towards the king’s armour. ‘May I?’

Malekith hesitated, but consented. The priest ran his hands over the armour of midnight, the cracks and welds, the scars and rivets, almost caressing the king, his fingers long since inured to the heat of furnaces and forge. When he was done there was a look of satisfaction on Hotek’s face.

‘It has lasted well,’ said the priest, ‘but alas my sense of time has become a little unfocused. I know that when I last set eyes on you, a thousand years had passed since the fall of Nagarythe. I came back here to reclaim the notes I had abandoned during my flight, and the rest is very hazy.’

‘More than four millennia have passed since you left Naggaroth,’ said Malekith.

‘I see,’ said Hotek, receiving this news with admirable calm. ‘I see that my master’s works take time. He came to me, Vaul, and said that I had despoiled his legacy, and that I had to make amends, on my behalf and his.’

‘Is that so?’ said Teclis. ‘How are you to achieve this feat?’

‘By forging the blade that can match the Widowmaker,’ said Hotek. ‘Vaul has gifted me his power and I can sense that you have brought me his hammer. There is something else I will need.’

Teclis was about to reply when Imrik stepped forward, standing between the priest and the other elves. He looked intently at Malekith.

‘We cannot trust this traitor,’ said the prince. ‘He has betrayed Caledor before, to great detriment. What guarantee can he give that he will not do so again?’

‘Because I am willing to pay the price for my previous ill-dealings. Always Vaul loved the mountains and dragons. Oh, I will need a dragon, if you can arrange it, while it occurs to me. Nothing smelts magical steel like dragonfire! Anyway, you will cripple me and chain me to the anvil, and my last deed will be to make the blade that can stand against the Sword of Khaine.’

‘You seem very sure of this,’ said Malekith, pushing Imrik aside to confront the priest. ‘You served me before because you were promised the secrets of the dwarfs, to be wrested from their holds by our conquering armies. What do you want from me now?’

‘All that is ancient history, my king,’ said Hotek, dropping to one knee. ‘You are Asuryan and I am Vaul, and you will need a blade fit for the king of kings. It will happen as I have seen.’

‘You seem awfully quiet, nephew.’ Malekith glared at Teclis. ‘Your mistress did not reveal this to you?’

‘No, but she did speak to you of this moment, did she not?’ the archmage replied. ‘Do you recall her third prophecy?’

‘And comes forth the Crippled One’s bane, the forgotten maker shall be found. On mercy’s anvil shall hope be forged, and silence shall be unbound.’

Malekith hated this talk of gods and avatars, even though he had been through the flame of Asuryan and become one himself. The mythic tales were cycles, and he had no desire to repeat the war of the gods on the mortal plane, not at the dawn of the Rhana Dandra. But that was perhaps the whole point, to be mortal and to break the old cycles of treachery and death. He had been granted the opportunity to be the hub around which the spokes of the future might revolve.

‘Very well,’ he told Hotek. ‘It will be as you say. Forge me a blade worthy of Asuryan.’

The Phoenix King stalked away, Imrik close on his heel while Teclis remained with the priests of Vaul.

‘So you will ride to war when the sword is ready?’ the prince asked. Malekith wondered why Imrik was so keen to see Malekith risking his life in battle, but it was not the moment to question his ally’s motives. ‘How long do you think it will take Hotek to make his weapon?’

‘It took Vaul a year and a day to make the Sword of Khaine. Let us hope that Hotek is swifter.’

‘Until then?’

‘You must be the figurehead. Just as your ancestor stepped up to my challenge, you must be the visible opponent to Tyrion. The Dragon of Cothique is bewitched by Morathi and enamoured of Khaine, and there are those that will see the truth. He will become a warmonger, there is no other destiny for the chosen of Khaine. Your defection at Eagle Pass will be seen as a great moment of foresight – be sure to include Teclis in your accounts, the brother of Tyrion that has disowned him will lend further weight to your argument.’

‘Very well, but it will take more than words to stop Tyrion. When do we fight?’

‘When I sought to take this isle, I knew that my army could crush any force opposed to it, save for the dragons of Caledor. Your forefather knew that his dragons could defeat me but that they could not be everywhere at once. Neither he nor I was willing to place success or failure in a personal confrontation, and so our armies danced across the kingdoms like unwilling partners. As it was then, so it must be again. This is not a war one can win in a season, but it is a war that can be lost in a day. Give Tyrion no single enemy to destroy, but rouse up all opposition to him so that his forces must watch their backs, guard every town and garrison every fortress they take.’

‘Any other lessons of grand strategy you wish to share?’

‘Stay out of Nagarythe,’ Malekith added, ignoring the prince’s sarcasm, just as he ignored Imrik’s continued refusal to call him king. Deference would come in time – all the Phoenix King required for the moment was obedience.

Malekith stopped and held a hand to halt Imrik. He stared at the prince, intent.

‘Whatever happens, do not confront Tyrion directly. If you meet him in battle, you will die and all chance of victory will be lost.’

‘And if I should happen to be on the same battlefield as he, you expect me to avoid him?’

‘I expect you to run away, Imrik,’ said Malekith, clenching his fist. ‘Your pride is already spent – it has no value now. You are no good to me dead, and neither are your dragons. He wields the Godslayer, and you are not even a god.’

‘What if he brings the war to Caledor? We would have nowhere left to retreat.’

‘You had best make sure he does not come here, hadn’t you? I suggest you start by taking Lothern.’

Twenty-Seven

A Tale of Two Kings

As Malekith predicted, the opening stages of the war were characterised by caution. Imrik swiftly secured neighbouring Tiranoc, what little remained of the kingdom after the floods of the Sundering, and in a daring assault seized both eastern and western Eataine to lay siege to Lothern from both directions. The port capitulated quickly and within days black arks and Naggarothi corsair fleets were, for the first time in the long history of Ulthuan, passing through the harbour gates to bring war to the Sea of Dreams.

Aislinn, still smarting from the losses at the Island of Flame, was enraged by the fall of his home city and threw his flotillas at the druchii reavers with vicious abandon. The coast of the Inner Sea was littered with debris and corpses following these bloody naval conflicts but the Sea Lord came no closer to uniting with his ships trapped beyond Lothern in the Great Ocean and was eventually forced to take shelter in inlets and bays along the shore of Ellyrion.

This news pleased Malekith greatly, as did affairs at Vaul’s Anvil. Hotek’s work was progressing well; the shards of Urithain made fine material for his new sword. However, the priest was canny enough to avoid any promises regarding when the work would be complete, talking instead of cosmic convergences, spheres of power and opening portals.

The Phoenix King was not vexed by this, for his wounds at the hands of Tyrion, and the poison from Shadowblade’s dagger, still left him weak and dizzy after any considerable exertion. Asuryan’s rebirth had been more cosmetic than he had hoped. He would have died rather than admit to his allies that he was incapable of fighting, but the tale of waiting for Hotek’s sword granted him valuable time to convalesce. It was of some concern to Imrik, but Teclis, who was likely not fooled at all by Malekith’s talk of biding time and striking at the most opportune moment, revealed that his brother was similarly afflicted, leaving others to prosecute the war on his behalf.

Until, that was, summer started fading into autumn.

‘And of the war in the east, Tyrion has withdrawn his forces from Yvresse’s coast.’ Teclis’s sources, both mystical and physical, were the equal to the network Ezresor had once boasted, although those agents were now for the most part ranged against Malekith, reporting to Morathi instead. The age-long game of assassination and espionage continued; the pieces had simply changed sides. ‘The daemon-haunted fogs make keeping any troops there costly, in casualties and morale.’

‘Imrik moves on Saphery then? How fares the battle for your homeland?’

‘My call for Imrik to be aided by the local militias has carried some weight. Imrik has agreed to respect the neutrality of the White Tower of Hoeth, and so far Tyrion does the same. I take it you concur with this approach?’

‘If the loremasters and swordmasters of Hoeth wish to let us settle their differences without interference I commend them. There is little else in Saphery that can hope to resist dragonfire and lances. What else?’

‘It seems my brother’s convalescence has been concluded,’ Teclis said quietly. He did not add ‘faster than yours’, but Malekith inferred the comparison anyway. ‘He marches for Tor Yvresse. I think he means to press Imrik to open battle.’

‘Of course he does – we expected this,’ said Malekith. Teclis’s concern at this turn of events was itself a source of unease for the Phoenix King. ‘Imrik’s campaign in your brother’s absence has gone well – we have made great gains in the time afforded us.’

‘He claims the title of Phoenix King,’ said Teclis. ‘Tyrion no longer pretends to be regent, but names himself ruler of Ulthuan.’

Malekith considered this, his ire rising.

‘And they follow him? The princes?’

‘Some do, others say that he has not passed through the flame of Asuryan and cannot be king, but they are afraid to openly dispute his word.’

‘Hypocrites!’ howled Malekith. He crushed a wine ewer in his fist and hurled it the length of the hall, causing a spasm in his wounded shoulder. ‘Worthless, baseless cretins! He bears the Widowmaker openly? He consorts with Morathi in front of them?’

‘He does, your majesty,’ admitted Teclis, stepping back as fire crackled and enveloped Malekith’s raised fists. ‘Is that important?’

‘Usurpers!’ shrieked Morathi, raising up her staff. Malekith leapt forwards and snatched the rod from her grip.

‘No more!’ the prince of Nagarythe cried out. ‘I would not have the realm forged by my father torn asunder by this dispute.’

Malekith laid a comforting hand upon the cheek of his mother and when she was calmed, returned her staff to her. With a last venomous glare at Yvraine and Bel Shanaar, the seeress turned her back upon them and returned to the Naggarothi contingent to glower and sneer.

‘I do not seek the throne of Ulthuan to become a tyrant,’ said Malekith. ‘It is to honour my father and see his legacy fulfilled that I would become Phoenix King. I do not claim this as a right of birth, but surrender myself to the judgement of those here. If it is the decision of this council that Bel Shanaar should wed my half-sister and become king, I will not oppose it. I ask only that you consider my petition this one last time, for it is plain that we have allowed division and misconception to cloud our minds.’

The princes nodded in agreement at these well-spoken words, and gathered together under the eaves of the Avelorn trees. They talked for a long time, until dawn touched her red fingers upon the treetops and the morning mists drifted up from the fertile earth. Back and forth swayed the debate, for some were heartened by Malekith’s gentle entreaty and believed that though he was his father’s son, he had not wielded the Godslayer and so was not touched by its darkness. Others reminded the council of Imrik’s prophecy that Aenarion’s line was touched by Khaine, and argued that a child of Anlec could never be freed from its curse.

‘We have made our decision,’ Thyriol informed the Naggarothi. ‘While Malekith is a fine prince, he is yet young and has much to learn about the world, as do we all. Now is a time for wisdom and guidance, not iron rule, and for these reasons we remain committed to the investiture of Bel Shanaar.’

Morathi gave a scream of derision, but Malekith held up a hand to silence her.

‘The fate of Ulthuan is not for a single elf to decide, and I accede to the wisdom of this council,’ Malekith declared. He crossed the glade and, to the amazement of all, bent to one knee before Bel Shanaar. ‘Bel Shanaar shall succeed my father, though he cannot replace him, and with his wisdom we shall herald a new age for our people. May the gods grant our new king the strength to prosper and rule justly, and know that should ever his will falter or his resolve waver, Nagarythe stands ready.’

‘They would not choose me because the darkness of Khaine lay upon me.’ Malekith’s laugh was shrill, rebounding from the vaulted walls in mocking echoes. ‘A shadow of Khaine? A shadow? A hint? There were times, times of weakness, when my strength was withered and my ambition stunted, when I wondered if they had been right. I would think that the blood and mayhem was the curse of Khaine as Caledor foretold and the First Council had chosen wisely. Now the wisdom of elven princes is truly revealed. Pathetic! Had I taken the Sword of Khaine they would have quailed and begged for me to be king and we would have been doomed to slaughter ourselves into history and then extinction. Is that what they want? Do they really think this blood-hungry usurper will lead them to sanctuary?’

‘They do not think,’ Teclis said, his hands raised to calm Malekith. ‘At least, they cannot think clearly. Their ancient enemy has invaded, swift on the heels of daemons that nearly destroyed their homes. Tyrion protected them then, and he bears the armour of Aenarion and his blood. The Widowmaker, it taints their thoughts, making them warmongers also, but it is fear rather than blood-thirst that drives them.’

‘They shall all be slain, in turn,’ Malekith declared, ‘for their lack of loyalty.’

‘They cannot be loyal to a king in hiding, your majesty,’ Teclis said carefully. ‘Is it your intent to make public your ascension?’

Malekith’s first instinct, fuelled by indignation, was to declare that he would. His announcement would shake elvendom to its core, make known the fact that six thousand years of injustice had finally ended. The princes would see that he had been accepted by Asuryan and would flock to his banner as their ancestors should have done.

Teclis’s calculating gaze punctured the illusion, reminding the Phoenix King of the wounds that still dogged him and the blade as-yet-unforged. To reveal himself as king now would make Malekith a target and Tyrion would come to Caledor with all speed.

‘Better to let Imrik continue to goad the beast,’ Malekith concluded, as though speaking the mage’s thoughts for him. ‘Like the bull bitten by too many flies, Tyrion will succumb to the rage and lash out. It is only a matter of time. His allies will be as mist in the growing sun when that happens.’

They concluded their conference swiftly, for the news that Tyrion now led the enemy army directly required careful counter. Teclis removed himself to consult with such authorities and agents as he could trust while Malekith was left to ponder the possible paths of his future.

Destiny demanded that he face Tyrion at some point. It was simply the way the godly cycles worked, and could not be avoided. He would not receive unexpected but pleasant news one day that a dragon had eaten his foe or a fireball had incinerated the pretender to his throne. Myths required more direct action.

Malekith was not sure at all that he would prevail, even with Asuryan’s blade. The last time he had faced Tyrion, the Dragon of Cothique had wielded the Sunfang and fought alone. Next time he would have the Widowmaker and every sorcerous assistance Morathi could devise.

The Phoenix King regarded his options as though they were laid out on the table before him but he knew his perspective was skewed. He needed counsel, but Teclis had his own agenda and Kouran and Imrik were warriors whose advice was painfully confined to the military.

Requiring a fresh source of inspiration, Malekith spent some time preparing his audience room for a difficult ritual. Retainers came and went bringing candles and iron icons and other paraphernalia, laid out to their master’s precise instructions. When he was done, Malekith sent his minions away, forbade any interruption and began his summoning.

Drawing on his dark magic, Malekith drew forth spirits he had trapped in the hinterlands between mortality and Mirai – the souls of his dead rivals conjured from the afterlife to serve him again as they had served in the Black Council of Naggarond.

They came as insubstantial spectres, their faces barely recognisable, but Malekith knew them all by name, deed and temperament. Lord Khaivan of Ghrond, founder of the city and one of Morathi’s first lovers returned screaming to existence. Others followed soon after: Lyar Winterspear of Har Ganeth; Tyrios the Flayer; Kordrilian of Clar Karond. More than two dozen ghosts crowded into the circle of power created by the Witch King, hissing and moaning wordlessly.

‘Speak,’ commanded the Witch King. ‘I would know your minds and the knowledge you bring from beyond the veil of death. Tell me how I might slay Prince Tyrion and defeat the wielder of the Widowmaker.’

Lord Shimmerghast, Dreadmarshal of Naggarond, floated closer. The first captain of the Black Guard regarded Malekith with hate-filled eyes, the skin of his ghost torn to tatters as it had been in life.

‘No blade can match the Widowmaker. No warrior can defeat its wielder. You are doomed, Malekith. Doomed to join us in an eternity of perdition and pain!’

‘How predictable,’ said the king, dismissing the spectre with a wave of his hand. He glared at the other assembled spirits. ‘You know, I could grant you the peace you desire, if you are willing to help. Do any of you have anything to say?’

‘He that lays his hand upon the Widowmaker becomes Khaine’s weapon,’ wailed Lady Mystyr. Her face was veiled with black lace, hiding the bloody holes where her eyes had been gouged out by Malekith’s torturers. ‘Only the fire of Asuryan can defeat such a foe.’

‘I know this already!’ snapped Malekith. Mystyr screamed as he banished her soul back into the pale waters of undeath that flowed around the border of Mirai. ‘I have taken the fire of Asuryan into myself and Hotek labours on a sword fitting for the king of kings. Surely there must be more than that?’

‘You are bound by the cycle of life, the circle of myth,’ said Lothek Heartstealer. The former grand admiral of Klar Karond looked odd, his head lolling to one side on a broken neck, his floating torso missing legs and limbs. ‘Time turns and Khaine will face Asuryan. Such is inevitable, King Malekith.’

With a frustrated shout, Malekith stood and swept his arm through the shimmering haze that encircled the ritual space, causing ripples of power to break apart the apparitions within.

‘Useless!’ he raved, snuffing the light from the candles with a surge of magic, sending braziers and talismans whirling across the chamber with a flicked hand. The surge of ire that filled the king made his head throb. ‘As duplicitous and pointless in death as they were in life.’

Malekith cooled his anger, grasping his head in both hands, forcing the pain to subside, clearing his thoughts. There had to be another way. He was not prepared to gamble not only his life but the future of all elvenkind on the notion that the war of the gods would simply be repeated on the mortal plane. There was too much at stake to risk on the half-baked idea of mythical inevitability. He had been schooled and advised by the most devious minds in history and he would not relax until he found a weakness to exploit, an advantage to be gained.

He accepted the predictability of fighting Tyrion. The myths demanded a confrontation, but there was nothing in the legends that said Malekith could not try a few other plans first.

Twenty-Eight

A King in Name Only

It chafed at Malekith to wait while others sealed their glories in battle and prosecuted his war, for he had always been an elf of determined action, following the example of his father. The knowledge that his enforced absence from the battlefield would bring him later victory was a salve to the frustration, but many a day and night he paced the halls and balconies of Imrik’s citadel – the upper levels cleared of all but the most trustworthy souls lest word of Malekith’s presence be discovered by Morathi.

He wondered at these times what happened further afield, not just in Saphery and Cothique but beyond the Great Ocean in the lands of Elthin Arvan and the jungles of Lustria. With Morathi gone, Ghrond would have been overrun for some time, the last bastion of the elves in Naggaroth save for the Hellebron-stalked ruins of Har Ganeth.

Sometimes he allowed his essence to fly over the waves to the lands of the humans, where living and dead fought against and beside each other, in a complex to and fro of alliance and treachery against the great beast of Chaos, the one called Archaon. He was the herald of the Rhana Dandra, that the barbarians called the Lord of the End Times, but the fate of the elves would not rest in his hands. The gods themselves contested for the fate of Ulthuan’s children, not mere mortals.

Malekith was always careful to conceal himself on these excursions, unwilling to expose himself to detection by his mother. He could feel her sometimes scouring the winds of magic, seeking the telltale signs of his presence, and occasionally he was certain that she had found him. The magic of his armour, the force that she had poured into him to sustain him after his near death, were as distinctive as his seal. Yet however close she came, no matter how much he felt her lingering presence hovering over him as though she could set eyes upon him, he never felt that moment of connection that would reveal he had been discovered.

He brought up this matter with Teclis when the mage returned to Tor Caleda. They convened on a moonlit rampart at the summit of the fortress, the lights and sounds of the city far below while the odd footfall of a guard broke the still on the walls beneath them.

‘You really do not understand that which you have hungered after for so long,’ Teclis said, with a rare moment of genuine humour. ‘Your majesty, you have become the Phoenix King and the fire of Asuryan burns within you. Morathi is no doubt confused, because she will see the fire but not recognise it.’

‘Surely she would remember such a thing from her time with my father?’

‘Her memories are splitting, her mind finally dissembling after so many years adrift on the tides of magic. She thinks Tyrion is your father reborn. Now that he has lifted the Sword of Khaine, has become the Lord of Murder, her self-deception is complete. She was young when Aenarion was Asuryan’s chosen, and likely if she ever did witness him at that time the memory of it is quite obliterated by the towering force that was the blood-wreathed avenger he became. It was not your father she craved, it was the power of the Widowmaker.’

‘My mother is more than just the power-hungry witch as she has been painted by the lies of the Phoenix Kings,’ Malekith said. ‘Of late a madness has consumed her, and her ambition has never been a secret, but I cannot doubt that she cared for me and loved my father.’

‘It is nigh impossible for a son to think harshly of his mother,’ Teclis replied. The moonlight made his pale flesh glow with silvery light as he turned away and looked east towards the Inner Sea. ‘Family makes fools of us all at one time or another. I was blind for so long to Tyrion’s weaknesses. He was lauded from Caledor to Chrace, and that works a terrible toll upon the mind. When you despatched your daemonic ally N’Kari to kill the Everqueen, and my brother saved her and became her consort, you initiated a turn of events that led us to this current point.’

‘Your brother’s amour and the Everqueen’s poor choice of lovers is my fault?’ Malekith gripped the rampart in metal fingers, clawing grooves in the stone. ‘Is there any woe of the world for which you would not lay blame upon me?’

‘You misunderstand, your majesty, or I do not explain myself well.’ Teclis looked at the Phoenix King. ‘All of the choices we have made have laid the path that brings us to the place we are in, here and now. When I came to you and offered to make pact with you, do you think it was easy for me? Lileath showed me the grief and death to come, and I could have ended it with a single blow of my sword. I could have slain Tyrion without effort, forestalling this war.’

‘Your love of him stopped you?’

Teclis shook his head, saddened. ‘No, my fear of the consequences did. Without Tyrion we would have failed against the daemons and you would be the lone survivor in Naggarond, fighting with your last breath against the very creatures of Chaos that you unleashed upon us so many times.’

Malekith wondered if he had ever really made a decision himself, or if they were all simply pawns of powers far beyond their comprehension, playing out petty games for the amusement of otherworldly entities. They fell silent, contemplating the past.

Turning, Malekith leapt up the stairs three at a time, chasing after his mother. Despite his haste, Morathi was already standing beside the balcony window by the time Malekith reached the top of the tower. She turned and smiled as he strode into the room, and held out an arm for him to hold. Sighing, the prince allowed his mother to lay her hand upon his and led her out onto the balcony. This time, the seeress-queen and prince of Nagarythe were greeted with rapturous cheers and applause. The streets were packed with elves in every direction, and windows and balconies were full as the people of Athel Toralien sought the best vantage point to see their mysterious, glamorous visitor.

‘What are you doing here?’ Malekith whispered as he waved to the adoring crowds.

‘I have come to visit you, my wonderful son,’ replied Morathi, not turning her smile from the masses below. ‘A mother worries, you know that. Word came to me that you were heading off into the wilds for some ridiculous adventures, so I thought it best that I finally visit your new home before you left.’

‘You will not dissuade me,’ Malekith warned her. ‘I am ready to leave within days.’

‘Dissuade you?’ said Morathi with a faint laugh. ‘Why would I not want you to go? Was it not me that stood upon the quayside when you left Nagarythe, and told you to earn glory and renown for yourself and your people? Have you not done so, and have I not looked upon all that you have achieved with great love and pride?’

‘Forgive my misunderstanding,’ said Malekith. ‘If you are here to lend your support, then I am very grateful.’

Morathi did not reply straightaway, but instead indicated discreetly that they should retire inside. With a final wave and a grin, Malekith stepped off the balcony and his mother followed. Closing the window, Malekith rounded on his mother.

‘So why is it that you are here?’ he asked, not with accusation but with genuine curiosity.

‘It is not my support that you need, at least not in any physical way,’ Morathi replied.

Seeing his mother wave a hand towards the bottle upon the desk, Malekith took a clean glass from one of the many cabinets in the room and poured wine for Morathi. She took it with a nod, had a sip and then continued.

‘You have been away from Ulthuan for too long. I was of a mind to persuade you to return rather than go gallivanting across the Wastes, but then I realised that such a course of action would be a fool’s errand and only earn me your enmity, perhaps even your disdain.’

‘You are right, I will not return to Ulthuan,’ said Malekith. ‘Why do you think it is so important that I do so now?’

‘Not now, but soon,’ Morathi said. ‘I sense that Bel Shanaar’s rule is fading. His usurpation of your relationship with the dwarfs was an attempt to bolster his flagging fortunes. Now that the colonies are well established, all of the kingdoms enjoy the comfort and wealth that the realms overseas bring to us, Tiranoc no less so, nor more so than any others. Nagarythe’s most adventurous spirits have departed the shores of the isle, for new generations look to the likes of you to emulate, not to the staid and overly sincere Bel Shanaar. In comfort there is frailty, for a sword must be forged in the burning fires before it can rest in its scabbard. There is no more fire in Ulthuan. Even as her empire continues to grow, Ulthuan herself is diminishing.’

‘If Ulthuan has become lessened, then it is the fault of the princes who rule there,’ said Malekith, pouring himself some wine.

‘That is my point,’ snapped Morathi. ‘There is none capable of succeeding Bel Shanaar – his court is as weak as he is. Your achievements here have been rightly lauded, but your success has been copied and appropriated and demeaned by others. If only you had returned to us before Bel Shanaar accorded himself and his rule with the dwarfs and stole your victory. It is time to create a new legend for yourself, and return in triumph to reclaim what is rightfully yours.’

‘What would you say if I told you that I wish never to return to Ulthuan?’ said Malekith. ‘What if I have decided that my life is out here, away from the coddling embrace of Ulthuan?’

‘Then I would curse you for a fool and cast you out of my life,’ said Morathi. ‘But that is not really how you think. You do not like Ulthuan, and I cannot blame you. She is like a maiden that you love, gripped tightly within the arms of a less-deserving amour. But, just as you turn away from that sight, within your heart still lingers that love for the maiden, no matter what she does.’

‘You are right, of course,’ admitted Malekith. ‘She is like to me as a lover who has spurned my attentions many times, and yet her gaze lingers upon me always, tempting me with the notion that one day she will accept my advances. However, if what you say is true, then perhaps it is too late for me. The beauty of youth has faded and Ulthuan perhaps is on the decline into infirmity and then a swift passing away. Perhaps it is better this way – that we break our ties to that small isle, and reach out to the wider world.’

Morathi strode across the room, her face a mask of fury, and slapped Malekith across the cheek. In instinct he raised his hand to reply in kind, but Morathi was as quick as a serpent and snatched his wrist in her fingers, her long and sharpened nails digging so deep into the flesh that blood trickled across her hand.

‘How dare you!’ the seeress hissed. ‘Your father gave his life for Ulthuan, and it took his death to save her! I thought I had raised you better than this. I thought that you had not become one of those prancing, preening fools that pass as princes in Bel Shanaar’s court. How dare you condemn Ulthuan to death by indifference! Your father laid down his life to protect our isle – who are you to do differently?’

Malekith snatched away his wrist with a snarl and made to turn, but Morathi was relentless and grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her.

‘You dare to turn your back on me, just as you turn your back on your homeland!’ she snarled. ‘Perhaps the First Council was right not to choose you, not because of a darkness upon you, but because you are weak and undeserving.’

‘What more could I do?’ demanded Malekith. ‘I have conquered new lands in the name of Nagarythe, and brokered the greatest alliance our people will ever see. What more can I give to Ulthuan?’

‘Yourself,’ said Morathi. ‘When Aenarion died, he left Ulthuan a legacy, and you are part of it. To rule is also to serve – Aenarion understood that. He served Khaine, for there was no other master worthy of his fealty. You must be prepared to serve a high purpose, a great power.’

Morathi paused and took a deep breath, calming herself. When she continued her voice was low but insistent.

‘Serve Ulthuan and you will be Phoenix King. Protect her from enemies outside and within and she will embrace you in return. Go into the north and learn of the race of men. Head into the chilling Wastes and confront the dark powers that hunger over our world. Then return to Ulthuan and take up your place as ruler, to shield us against their unnatural thirst. I fear that only you can protect us against the dangers I have foreseen. I see fire and bloodshed sweeping Ulthuan again. The colonies will burn and all that we hold dear will be cast upon the rocks and be for naught.’

‘What have you seen, when will this happen?’ asked Malekith.

‘You know that there is no future that is certain,’ replied Morathi. ‘I have simply cast my gaze ahead along the path of my life, and I see death. War will come again and the Naggarothi will be called upon as they were by your father. I warned the First Council that it would be so, but they did not listen. You must learn what you can of Chaos, and of humans, for our future is entwined with both. When you are master of your fate, then return to us and take what has been kept from you for so long. Let Anlec be a beacon of hope again.’

Malekith saw desire and fear in equal measure in the face of his mother and his love for her stirred him. He laid an arm about her shoulders and pulled her close to him. She quivered, though whether from anxiety or excitement he could not tell.

‘It shall be as you say,’ said Malekith. ‘I shall go into the north and seek whatever destiny awaits me there. I will return to Ulthuan, and I will guard her against whatever comes to pass.’

‘I have given myself to Ulthuan,’ he whispered.

‘What was that?’ Teclis had been lost in a reverie of his own, or perhaps trying to discern the unwinding paths of the future guided by the whispers of his goddess.

Malekith straightened and flexed metal-bound limbs. He felt neither heat nor cold, but could tell that this year the season of ice would come swiftly. It would make no difference – the fighting was moving south towards Lothern and the campaign would continue through the winter while the north of the isle was gripped by blizzards.

‘I stepped through the flames, and gave myself to Ulthuan,’ Malekith replied more volubly. ‘I stayed in the fires and received Asuryan’s blessing. My mother told me long ago, before I travelled into the Northern Wastes, that I had to accept her and be accepted to rule the island. I had forgotten that these past six thousand years. Ystranna said something similar. I could never take Ulthuan by conquest.’

‘A wayward step has been corrected, your majesty,’ said Teclis, ‘but the journey has only just begun.’

‘There is something that plagues my thoughts in recent times,’ Malekith admitted. ‘I try to wrangle meaning from it over and over, but it makes no sense to me. If I was the chosen of Asuryan, if it was my destiny to become Phoenix King, why did the First Council reject me? Why has it taken so long?’

‘The wiles of Chaos, your majesty. The designs of the Great Powers spool across countless lives of mortals before they are fully woven. In your case, the Prince of Pleasure sowed the seed of lust and power in the heart of your mother when she was captured by His creatures. Thus was the course of history changed. It was not the darkness in you that the First Council feared, it was the taint of Chaos in Morathi, though they did not realise that. Rather than see a reign of Phoenix Kings from Aenarion unbroken to the present day over an unbroken civilisation, the Chaos Gods divided the elves and created war and strife, feeding deep on the dreams and nightmares of a broken people. Now we have one opportunity to unite again and survive, or else we will perish.’

‘From that moment, we were doomed to millennia of war?’ Malekith took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, the heat of it billowing like dragonfume in the cool night air. It was hard to still the anger that burned inside, stoked by the mage’s revelations. ‘My acquiescence to the council, my attempts to bring favour back to the house of Aenarion, were for nothing?’

‘All were worthy attempts, your majesty,’ Teclis assured him, turning with his staff clasped in both hands. ‘Had you slain your mother on that fateful day in Anlec, had you refused her offer to give you control of the Cults of Pleasure so that you would manipulate your way to power, your claim would have remained untainted and Bel Shanaar would have named you successor in time. A little faith, for a little longer, is all that was required.’

‘No!’ Splinters and sparks showered from the battlement as Malekith’s fist struck the dark stone. ‘No! The other princes had already rejected me. Imrik was their favourite.’

‘Your mother’s words,’ Teclis snapped, his stare unflinching. ‘Her lies in your head. That was the moment the Chaos Powers won. Not when you slaughtered the princes in the shrine, nor when you murdered Bel Shanaar. Those were simply the consecrations of your betrayal.’

‘But… I spared her out of love.’

‘And that love was greater than the love of Ulthuan and her people,’ Teclis continued. ‘You chose the wrong mother, Malekith, and we all had to pay the price.’

Malekith sagged, leaning against the battlement. ‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘I tire of this conversation.’

‘As you wish, your majesty,’ said Teclis. ‘On the morrow I depart for the fields of Cothique where my brother makes great gains. We must hold council before then.’

‘Leave, meddling loremaster,’ Malekith growled. ‘Spare me more of your twisted words.’

Malekith listened to the footfalls of the mage until they were gone. The rage was too much to contain and with a snarl he ripped free a block of stone and incinerated it in his grasp, hurling the broken, burned fragments over the parapet.

He hated Teclis. More self-righteous than any other mage, so convinced of his own superiority and correctness.

He hated even more that Teclis was right.

The Phoenix King’s brooding presence spread to other parts of the citadel, his sour mood infecting the spirit of the guards and servants and beyond to the streets of Tor Caleda. There were whispers and dark rumours of what lay in the upper reaches of the keep, some as outlandish as to suggest Imrik had summoned forth a daemon, others more unsettling but closer to the truth – that the prince had sealed a pact with a dark spirit from the past.

Malekith’s self-imposed imprisonment started to take its toll on his temper. Daily he sent missives to Hotek demanding news on the priest-smith’s work. Daily the replies returned that Hotek’s labours continued without pause.

The risk of magical discovery stopped the Phoenix King from transporting his spirit beyond the castle, forcing him to rely upon conventional and far slower means of news. In concert with this, Teclis came only rarely to report the progress of the war, and spoke in equivocating terms, but it was plain that Tyrion’s direct intercession had rolled back Imrik’s forces to the borders of Eataine and the coast of the Inner Sea. Though supported by the mighty fleet of Naggaroth, the dragon princes were suffering setback after setback.

One evening there was commotion in the lower levels of the citadel, rousing Malekith from a days-long fugue of depression. Panicked shouts brought the Phoenix King to full awareness, and calls for aid carried him out of the halls he usually haunted and into the main part of the keep.

His appearance caused terror and consternation, and only by the intervention of Caradryan was a band of Caledorians prevented from attacking their king. Malekith demanded to know the reason for the tumult and he was led to a stately hall close to the citadel gate.

Within was a bustle of courtiers and servants. At the centre of the chamber a tall figure in bloodstained armour stood over another in gilded plate. There was blood on the floor and apothecaries and mages shouldered and fussed at each other, competing in their attempts to attend the wounded knight.

‘Let me see,’ Malekith growled.

The crowd parted at once, save for a female mage who knelt beside the forlorn figure, channelling waves of rejuvenating Ghyran into the injured warrior’s body. The knight flailed a crimson-covered hand at the sound of Malekith’s voice, beckoning him closer. He turned his head, revealing the features of Imrik, ashen-faced and drawn.

‘What happened?’ the Phoenix King demanded, striding along the hall. He directed the question at the other Caledorian prince, whom he recognised as Marendri, an older cousin of Imrik.

‘The usurper came upon us at the shores of Lake Calliana, in Saphery,’ Marendri explained, his gaze moving quickly between his prince and his king, brow furrowed. ‘He must have marched day and night for five days or more. Possessed he was, falling upon a host five times the size of his own with just a vanguard and the griffon-knights. Tyrion led the attack, killing dozens, driving into the heart of the army before we could reform.’

‘Imrik attacked, didn’t he?’ Malekith said grimly. ‘He ignored my orders and confronted Tyrion.’

‘He saw no other way to save the battle,’ Marendri admitted. ‘He did not seek prolonged engagement, but thought that if he could but drive Tyrion back for even a few moments, our knights and spears would reset and be better prepared.’

Malekith looked at Imrik and saw that his dragonplate armour was cut from left shoulder to the centre of his breastplate. The female mage was trying her best while others were unbuckling pieces of bloodied armour and cutting away the padded jerkin beneath to see the wound more clearly.

‘He struck a fine blow,’ Marendri said earnestly, kneeling to lay a hand on his prince’s leg. ‘It pierced Tyrion’s breastplate, I swear. Any other warrior would have been slain.’

‘Tyrion is no ordinary warrior, not even before he took up the Widowmaker.’

‘It was terrible, like a slash of midnight. It shattered Imrik’s shield like glass…’ Marendri started to weep, a display that made Malekith’s lip curl in disgust. ‘Neremain, Astalorion and Findellion were on the usurper in moments, while I snatched Imrik away to safety. They died, as did three fine dragons.’

Malekith baulked at this thought – that even after being wounded Tyrion had single-handedly killed three dragon princes and their steeds. If Imrik died Malekith would have to lead the army himself. He looked at Imrik, seeing only the barest hints of life remaining despite the healer’s efforts.

‘Your life magic will not avail here,’ Malekith declared, waving the maiden aside. ‘He has been marked by a far darker power. One that must be matched tooth for tooth and claw for claw.’

A nimbus of dark magic coalesced around Malekith’s outstretched hands, forming a pulsing cloud of purple and black. The attending nurses and apothecaries scattered at the display of sorcery, some running wailing for the doors, others whispering mantras of protection against evil.

‘Settle yourselves,’ snarled the Phoenix King. ‘A little sorcery like this is child’s play.’

‘You seek to bring him back from the dead?’ The female mage was aghast.

‘You have a crude view of life and death,’ Malekith told her. He unleashed the dark magic into Imrik, sending it rippling through every part of his body. The prince convulsed, armour clattering on the bloodied tiles, his life fluid spilling from the gash in his armour, head arched back in a silent scream.

Malekith knelt beside the broken prince and poured on more energy, willing severed arteries and veins shut, forcing blood to clot and muscles to knit.

‘You’re killing him!’ screamed the mage. Marendri intercepted her as she lunged towards the Phoenix King, fireballs glowing in her hands. Malekith darted a look in her direction and she shrunk back as if struck, her spell steaming away under his burning stare.

‘He is nearer dead than alive. What the life-giving forces of Ghyran cannot mend, sorcery can reanimate. How do you think I stand here, seven thousand years after my birth, through all of the trials this mortal form has faced?’

So he spoke, and so it was seen in the body of Imrik. Dead tissue came back to life, flooded with freshly pumped blood from a jolted heart, colour returning to the skin. Imrik opened his eyes with a pained gasp, his gaze roving madly around the room for a few moments before it settled on Marendri. Familiarity brought calm. The prince panted as he sat up, his gaze moving to Malekith.

‘I couldn’t run,’ the prince croaked.

‘You were weak,’ Malekith replied, standing up. ‘I still need you. Be stronger next time.’

The Phoenix King turned and marched from the hall, his mood at its blackest for a long time.

Twenty-Nine

The Bringer of Silence

The day finally arrived, on the cusp of the season of ice, when Fovendiel arrived from Vaul’s Anvil, accompanied by a procession of lesser priests, carrying a rune-etched casket of white wood. Teclis had arrived the night before, bidden, he claimed, to attend the Phoenix King by Lileath – the reason becoming clear when news of Fovendiel’s arrival came to them.

The High Priest of Vaul was admitted to audience with the Phoenix King, but Malekith was in a poor mood and sent away his entourage of smith-priests with thinly-veiled threats, leaving himself with the high priest and Teclis.

‘Does it have a name?’ Malekith asked, as Fovendiel worked the clasps of the casket.

‘Asuryath,’ Teclis answered before the high priest could speak. The bringer of silence. ‘Asuryan’s sword is named Asuryath.’

‘Give it to me,’ rasped Malekith, snatching the box from Fovendiel.

He wrenched open the lid with clawed fingers, breaking the intricate bronze clasps and hinges, to reveal a shard of purest white. To the elves white was the colour of death, purity and silence, the three being indivisible. Thus was Asuryan the true guardian of their spirits, despite Ereth Khial’s rulership of Mirai. His was the last word, His flame was the purifier and His colour – or lack of it – was the blank sheet upon which new futures were written by Morai-heg and the other goddesses of fate.

‘Asuryath…’ Malekith breathed the word, tasting it, savouring it as his fingers closed around the hilt of the bringer of silence. He lifted the sword clear, its blade bursting into pale flame in his grasp. The weapon felt as light as air in his grasp, effortless to swing and thrust and parry. Carving sigils of flame around him, Malekith wove the tip of Asuryath in a complex series of feints, attacks and killing blows, artfully spelling out his own name with wisps of fire as he did so. He laughed, holding up the sword. ‘Hotek is indeed Vaul reborn. This is the blade to match the Widowmaker. Send him my deepest compliments and break his shackles. Tell him he is free to roam wherever he wishes.’

‘Hotek is dead, your majesty,’ said Fovendiel, head bowed. ‘We found him this morning, this blade sheathed in his chest, his hands about the hilt.’

‘He killed himself with it?’ Teclis recoiled from the blade, looking at it as though it were a serpent about to strike.

‘He anointed it,’ Malekith said, shaking his head in disbelief, new-found appreciation for Hotek’s dedication rising. ‘Vaul gave his own blood for the last tempering of the blade, and he will forge no more weapons for the gods.’

‘This is timely,’ Teclis announced, recovering his composure. ‘Tyrion’s army marches for Lothern.’

‘Leave us,’ Malekith told Fovendiel, not wishing to discuss his mind in front of the priest. He could barely bring himself to confide in Teclis, but there was no alternative. When the high priest had said his farewell and departed, the Phoenix King confronted Teclis. ‘Is it enough? Can I beat your brother with this sword?’

‘You fear to face him, even with Asuryath?’

‘I would expect you to be the last to throw accusations of cowardice,’ Malekith replied. There was a white-enamelled scabbard decorated with rubies like drops of blood in the casket. Malekith sheathed his sword. ‘You know that if I perish all will be lost – I must weigh every risk. I will face Tyrion when I must.’

‘It was a genuine question, not an accusation,’ Teclis said. ‘I cannot give you an answer. We shall only know if you are ready when the time comes. Fortunately, that time is not yet here. I am certain that Tyrion has left his army. He has gone north with Morathi, seemingly content after besting Imrik, and has left the prosecution of the war to Korhil.’

‘The name is unfamiliar to me,’ admitted the Phoenix King.

‘The captain of the White Lions. Stubborn, strong, courageous. He is a competent strategist, far more patient than my brother. He musters for a final assault on Lothern and must be stopped.’

‘Must?’ Malekith hung Asuryath on his armour, tying the silver hangers to his belt. It felt as natural as the Destroyer had done ever since he had lost Avanuir at Maledor. ‘That sounds like instruction, nephew.’

‘No, your majesty, simply a statement of strategic imperative. If Lothern falls Lord Aislinn will reunite his fleet and sweep away our ships in the Sea of Dreams. From Lothern they can attack Caledor directly. If we do not stop their advance at Lothern, Tor Caleda will be besieged before midwinter.’

‘The geography lesson is appreciated,’ Malekith growled. ‘Your assessment is pessimistic. The defences of Lothern are strong and our fleet outmatches any seaborne-attack Aislinn can muster. Why must I intervene now?’

‘The warriors of Lothern will not fight for long for a cause that is, at best, nebulous to them. It is only the presence of the Caledorians that stiffens their resolve for the moment, and only Imrik that led the Caledorians. However, unless you wish to see a reversal of the events at Eagle Gate, the people of Eataine need a focus for their loyalty. The time has come to reveal to them and all of Ulthuan that they have a Phoenix King, and it is not Tyrion.’

Malekith accepted this appraisal without comment, and after some time Teclis interpreted his silence as dismissal and left the Phoenix King to ponder his decision.

The king had been quick to quash any thought of cowardice, but alone in that hall he was free to admit to himself a very physical, mortal fear. He could hide it behind talk of surviving to lead his people, and justify his continued absence from the battlefield as sound strategy, but the truth was that he was afraid to test himself against Tyrion again. He had barely survived the last encounter and, Asuryath or not, he was in no hurry to repeat the experience.

Tyrion was every bit the swordmaster that Aenarion had been and now he wielded the Sword of Khaine. There was no deadlier fighter in the world.

It did not matter that Tyrion was not at Lothern in person. Malekith could break the siege, he was sure of it, but the moment he revealed himself the future would be set, the wheel would turn along the rut that led to the fight between Asuryan and Khaine, Malekith and Tyrion. Was there any more that he could do to prepare himself for that confrontation?

Thirty

The Battle of Lothern

The war was within view of Lothern’s walls. To the east the fields burned and the skies darkened with smoke. To the north the flotsam of sea battles, timbers and corpses, washed towards the city on lapping waves. The wind carried the clamour of battle, the crash of weapons, the curses and war cries, distant yet all-consuming.

The corpses of dragons mouldered on the hillside meadows, iron-hard scales pierced by hundreds of arrows and the bolts of war engines. Griffon bodies lay beside the feathered remains of phoenixes and harpies, figures cloaked in lion pelts and sea dragon hide, casualties of Ulthuan and Naggaroth combined, slashed and stabbed, decapitated and burned.

The air danced with Azyr lightning and Hysh thunderbolts. Sorcery and high magic whirled in multicoloured thunderheads and opened chasms lined with jagged boulder-fangs. Trees enervated by Ghyran magic uprooted themselves and hurled their branches at any creature encroaching on their woodlands, while walls of fire incinerated farms and hostelries, fed by growing waves of Aqshy. Bear, lion and panther followed the call of Ghur, and unseen lurking things crept in the shadows of Ulgu. Ancient spirits wailed their laments, their chill weapons freezing the hearts of those that came near their mausoleums, and the lodestones that powered the vortex crackled and fizzed with discharging magic, unable to beat the huge influx of magic pouring from the Northern Wastes.

The archers and spear-wielding militia on the walls of Eataine’s capital tightened their grips and looked east, seeing the first ranks of the retreating columns marching into view. The dragons appeared overhead, manticores amongst them, duelling with skycutters and great eagles.

The banners of Caledor and Eataine fluttered at the head of the returning army, but there were other standards too – grisly icons of the Cytharai, dire runes carved into steel and bone, wound about with thorny branches and hung with entrails. These were the marks of the druchii, vicious and depraved, but made uneasy allies by some means by which a great many within the city were unsure. Their princes vowed for the alliance and they fought for the princes, but it was unsettling to see the black-and-purple-clad legions of Naggarothi bearing down upon the landside gates.

And the enemy were almost on the heels of the returning host, many thousands of knights on horseback, the chariots of Tiranoc rumbling through the fields and along the white-paved roads. The banner of Cothique flew high above many of the advancing regiments, along with those of Yvresse and Chrace. White Lions and Phoenix Guard, once symbols of Ulthuan’s unyielding defence, now threatened to sack Lothern.

Across the Inner Sea came Aislinn and his fleet, and this caused even greater consternation. Born of Eataine, the Sea Lord now seemed content to see his own city ruined rather than held by another. Magical bolts flew from the decks of his ships to crash against the stones of the sea walls, while seaguard loyal to Aislinn unleashed volleys of arrows against former companions that remained true to the defence of their city.

No order was given for the gates to open, and none demanded. The Caledorian dragons turned and formed a rearguard, passing across the lead elements of the following host with fire and claw, driving back the enemy for a short while, until press of numbers and threat of being overwhelmed caused them to fall back. The task was complete, however, and the army that now fell under the command of the Naggarothi corsair Lokhir Fellheart formed for the final battle for Eataine, perhaps even the last meaningful battle for Ulthuan.

Flying at speed across the city, Malekith sensed the changing tide of war as a prickling on the skin. He had not felt as invigorated as he did now since the Battle of Maledor, when first his plans to rule Ulthuan had been crushed. More than that, it was at Maledor that he had come to believe Asuryan had rejected him, and it had been that revelation that had soured his ambition for the following millennia. Now that he had been accepted again by the king of the heavens, Malekith felt enlivened, dedicated to his cause by a fresh enthusiasm that could sustain him for another six thousand years of war.

His laugh was carefree, and something of his old flair for exhibition filled him. Beneath him Seraphon sensed his mood and let out a roar. Just as she had been raised from a captured egg by his hand, she had been restored to full health by his dedication and sorcerous attendance.

Malekith drew Asuryath and laughed again, buoyed by the flame of Asuryan that burned from the blade. The sword left a trail of silver and white across the grey skies, and bathed both black dragon and rider in a pale halo.

The Phoenix King realised just what it was that he felt, and he marvelled that he had missed it for so long.

Righteousness.

It had been stripped from him that day on the field of Maledor, tainting his ambition, perhaps fuelling an inner doubt ever since. Now he knew that he fought not only for himself but for Ulthuan and for the elves.

For an instant, a fleeting heartbeat, he was wholly at peace with himself.

He swooped down upon the oncoming army like a comet, a dozen black dragons in his wake. At his arrival Lokhir Fellheart signalled the counter-attack and trumpets blared across Lothern, ordering the gates open and the companies within to spill forth. On the western horizon the looming shapes of massive black arks, each a castle brimming with warriors and war machines, closed on the fleet of Lord Aislinn. Fellheart’s own black ark, the Tower of Blessed Dread, led the seaborne charge, bearing directly for the gates of Lothern.

The clarions of the attacking army quickly changed from calling the advance to sounding the retreat. On the Sea of Dreams Aislinn’s fleet quickly hauled about and set to the east, fleeing for the shallower waters of the Sapherian coast. Imrik, though not fully recovered, had insisted on accompanying the Phoenix King and he joined his dragons in pursuit of the breaking ships while Malekith’s black drakes savaged the fleeing elements of the land-bound host.

After the initial exhilaration of the charge, three dozen foes cut effortlessly apart by Asuryath, as many again torn to shreds by Seraphon, Malekith’s mood deflated. He broke off his attack, uncharacteristically bored by the mindless butchery. The battle had been won at the moment of his arrival, that much was clear, and it seemed pointless to slaughter his new subjects to settle the point.

It was then that he did something entirely against his normal judgement. He signalled his forces to stand fast, ordering them to marshal the thousands that had surrendered. This allowed Korhil and the rest of Tyrion’s force to flee eastward. Imrik responded after a time, returning from his pursuit to find the Phoenix King atop Seraphon in the shadow of the eastern wall watching the captives filing back into the city.

‘We had them!’ barked Imrik, stowing his lance behind his saddle-throne. ‘We could have crushed them, destroyed all resistance in one attack. What madness in Asuryan’s name has taken your senses?’

‘Asuryan’s name indeed,’ Malekith snapped back. He waved a hand to encompass the rainbow of kingdom colours flying above the returning army, and the darker icons of the druchii amongst them. ‘These are my people now, Prince Imrik. I have killed more than you can ever count, and a thousand-thousand times that number are dead because of my commands. But I am not their enemy, I am their king. I have shown mercy today. I have shown those that follow Tyrion that there is an alternative.’

‘It will take more than a few spared lives to change six thousand years of history, Malekith,’ said Imrik, but his protest was spoken softly, a touch of admiration in his voice. ‘But I suppose today is as good a day as any to start making amends.’

‘Amends?’ Malekith sneered. ‘I do not seek their forgiveness, only their compliance. Let the survivors take back the word that I can be merciful. Those that choose to face me again will learn that I can still be merciless.’

Teclis had been amongst the army retreating to Lothern, and sought out Malekith soon after, finding him in council with Imrik discussing the next moves in the war. King and prince were in disagreement, with Malekith keen to consolidate the victory in Eataine and Imrik pressing to move the army after Korhil, pushing back into Saphery and Yvresse.

‘We cannot win this war by battles alone,’ Malekith told them. ‘Tyrion will not give up his claim while he lives, and will spend the lives of his followers to the last elf in prosecuting that claim.’

‘As will you?’ said Imrik.

Malekith answered with a silent stare.

‘Or the war ends with your death or Tyrion’s?’ the prince continued.

‘Be sure to know that you will not outlive me, son of Caledor,’ Malekith replied abruptly. ‘And your people will die screaming soon after.’

‘The king has it right, Prince Imrik,’ Teclis intervened before Imrik could retaliate. ‘We must win Ulthuan to our cause and rob my brother of forces, so that when the confrontation that must happen occurs he is entirely outmatched. We must begin here, with a proper triumph, so that the citizens of Lothern can see who their saviour is and spread the word to the other kingdoms.’

‘I have seen the manner of reaction my presence provokes, in Tor Caleda,’ Malekith said sourly, flames rippling from his body to demonstrate his meaning. ‘My name is poison on the tongues of the asur, my image a vision of hate and dread.’

‘The first will be nullified by your title, King Malekith, the second…’ Teclis appraised Malekith for a while and then started an incantation. The Phoenix King felt the seven winds of magic binding around him, guided by the power of light, Hysh. He felt no physical change, but saw Imrik’s eyes widening in surprise.

‘A glamour?’ the king said, holding up his hand. He saw only dark, scarred metal and turned to Imrik. ‘What do you see?’

‘You, your majesty,’ the prince replied, his tongue faltering over the words. ‘The image of a king, the line of Aenarion, in golden plate.’

Malekith straightened to his full height, impressed by Imrik’s reaction.

‘Then let us share our triumph with the people of Lothern,’ the king declared. ‘Let them see the magnificence of Aenarion born again, and be glad in their hearts that the true Phoenix King walks amongst them.’

And with these words, Malekith set off for the city.

Thirty-One

A Heavy Crown

Malekith’s will held sway after the victory at Lothern, and his army spent the early winter restocking supplies and garrisoning towns and castles that had been abandoned by Korhil’s swift retreat northwards. He expected a counter-attack, either along the coast or across the sea, but none came. Concerned that his own forces, many of them corsairs of the fleet, would grow increasingly unruly if left to grow idle, he despatched several columns into Saphery and Yvresse, hoping to prompt a response from his foes.

It was not only Malekith’s armies that coped poorly with idleness. The king himself, now that he had revealed himself to friend and foe, was the centre of much attention. Princes of Yvresse and Eataine were keen to make audience, and under Teclis’s urging the king granted such meetings to foster fresh alliance and reveal Tyrion’s falsehoods. These affairs were tedious in the extreme, a succession of pontificating nobles that seemed to think they had the secret to winning the war, who deemed their opinions of any interest to Malekith at all.

Painfully aware that he could not simply have them killed out of hand – this was not the Black Council of Naggarond – Malekith tried his best to endure their bird-like twitterings and ill-informed grasps at politics and military strategy, but all too often his shortness of temper betrayed him and the emissaries left with stinging insults in their ears, if not bellowed threats following them out of the Sapphire Palace of Lothern, where Finubar had once ruled.

‘You cost us valuable friends,’ Imrik complained to the king a dozen days after Lothern had been saved. ‘Teclis has given you the appearance of a true king, but you have none of the nobility.’

‘You would talk to me of nobility?’ asked Malekith softly, wondering just how much longer he would require Imrik’s support. He longed for the day when the dragons answered to Malekith directly, and he could dispense with the swaggering, overblown descendant of the Dragontamer. ‘These princes try to tell me how to wage war, and seek to advise me on how best to rule my people. They are dolts and dullards, and it is a wonder that with such cretinous commanders your armies ever held against mine.’

‘A history it is best not to bring up with them,’ Teclis said smoothly, having entered unheard and unseen through one of the side doors of the great audience hall of the Phoenix King. He looked weary again, the flush of energy that had filled him following the defeat of Korhil now vanished. ‘I have spent the better part of the last two days salving the wounds your harsh words have caused, your majesty. Prince Imrik is correct, you must try to resist these intemperate moods.’

‘Moods?’ Malekith said the word slowly, with menace. ‘Lackwits try to surround me with their idiocy and I am prey to moods? The whole of the Naggarothi people were dedicated to my every word, they lived and died by my will and whim. They recognised my leadership and knew when to offer their opinions and when to listen. Perhaps I should make a few more obvious examples, so that these pretentious princes understand the nature of my kingship?’

It was in this state of mind that Malekith later received word that one of his corsair captains, Drane Brackblood, had led an attack on an outpost at Allardin, slaughtering all within and looting as was the nature of the black ark crews. Such violence against Malekith’s new allies was wholly unacceptable and the Phoenix King feared that unless he sent a strong message to the other druchii tensions between them and the asur would split apart the fragile alliance he had forged.

Turning in these troubled times to his most trusted companion, he despatched Kouran, who for some time had been working with the Caledorian princes integrating the armies of Naggarond and Caledor. The captain of the Black Guard’s orders were clear and would be carried out without hesitation – Brackblood and all of her officers, and any that took part in the killing at Allardin, were to be summarily killed.

Five days later Kouran returned to Malekith with the news that the deed had been done. The bodies of the dead were displayed from the battlements of Brackblood’s black ark Shadow Tide in the harbour of Lothern and Malekith delivered a speech to his court in which he told his allies that the perpetrators of the attack at Allardin had been apprehended and executed, and he told those from the druchii contingent that any violence against the asur when not in open battle would be punished in the same manner.

The show of strength had the opposite effect to that which Malekith had desired. Amongst his own ranks there were desertions as companies and commanders decided that Malekith no longer represented their best interests, hoping to find better understanding amongst those that had followed Morathi to Tyrion’s side. From the asur princes came an outcry against the king’s brutal actions, complaints about the tyranny of Naggaroth being brought to the homes of Ulthuan.

The following night fighting broke out in the Sapphire Palace. The battle was swift and one-sided and when it was concluded Malekith was visited by Kouran and Caradryan, whose bodyguard forces had combined to form the Shadowfire Guard, one sinister figure in black the other a bright hero in white, as though a telling embodiment of the Phoenix King’s own duality.

‘Prince Torhaeron rallied a company of the White Lions still in Lothern, your majesty,’ reported Caradryan. ‘They served once as Finubar’s bodyguard and were on their way to kill you.’

‘This Torhaeron, where is he now?’

‘Caradryan took his head, my king,’ Kouran replied, with a hint of grudging admiration in his voice. ‘The others all fought to the death too. There were no survivors.’

‘We can expect there to be other attempts on your life, your majesty,’ the former Phoenix Guard captain told him. ‘We have organised a standing guard of two hundred warriors that will attend to your security at all times.’

‘One hundred of mine and one hundred of his, my king,’ added Kouran, ‘regularly rotated from the rest of the companies.’

‘You think this was a serious threat to my life?’ Malekith growled.

‘Perhaps not this time, but the danger will grow when Morathi learns that you have taken up the Phoenix Crown, your majesty,’ Caradryan said, his expression stern.

‘I do not need two hundred shadows dogging my footsteps, getting in the way.’

‘We are resolute on the matter, my king,’ Kouran added, literally standing shoulder to shoulder with Caradryan. ‘Shadowblade tried to kill you on the Blighted Isle, and his whereabouts have been unknown since. There are too many people that want you dead, my king – we will not be refused on this.’

Malekith was stunned by the insolence, even as he was unsettled by the accord between the two captains. They could not have been more dissimilar in temperament and ambition but they now presented a united front.

‘You are right, there will be others,’ the king snapped. ‘You can have your guard of two hundred warriors, but I want a thousand more out there in the city, in the towns, scouring for signs of rebellion before they take root. Cut out any disease, eliminate potential threats before they become a problem.’

‘Yes, my king,’ said Kouran. Caradryan seemed uncertain, but said nothing in protest.

When they had gone, Malekith walked through the palace, coming to the high tower that rose needle-like over the east wing. Finubar’s Point it was called, raised by the previous Phoenix King, where he would retire and think. At the summit was a crystal-domed observatory, for Finubar had been known as the Seafarer and even after his voyages had ended he had spent many days looking out at the stars, charting their course across the heavens, gazing towards distant horizons only he could see.

The doors had been broken in, the enchanted planks split apart by many heavy axe blows. Malekith stopped at the threshold, disturbed by the last words Finubar had said to him.

The starlight beyond the dome was reflected in the still scrying pool on the raised dais at the centre of the room, like a sheet of inky blackness dotted with tiny diamonds. A ripple disturbed the water, which in turn disturbed the watcher, for Finubar had not moved for many hours and there was no breeze to cause such a thing.

The Phoenix King straightened in shock as he saw a face at his shoulder reflected in the settling water. He spun, the punch passing through the apparition of a dark-haired, lean-faced elf.

‘So it’s true what they say,’ Malekith’s spirit said lightly, stepping through the scrying pool. He stopped at the centre and turned, one finger tracing a line in the water though the rest of his projection was as insubstantial as thought. ‘Sailors, always ready with their fists!’

Finubar stepped back, eyes narrowing, a glance directed towards the door.

‘The wards… They are not broken. How did you pass them?’ The Seafarer stopped his retreat as his legs met the edge of a cabinet by the wall. ‘The loremasters assured me the barrier was inviolable.’

‘Magic can be a tricky thing, my friend,’ said Malekith. ‘But you are right, my mother and I tried for many years to breach the warding spells on this tower without success. Trickery, brute strength, nothing we tried worked. A shame we didn’t have an earlier opportunity to exploit treachery.’

‘A traitor.’ Finubar had recovered some of his composure, comporting himself again as ruler of the elves. ‘A traitor amongst the loremasters of Hoeth? Who could gain by such a thing?’

‘Not quite a loremaster, not really.’

‘Teclis?’

‘I’ll grant you this, you are one of the cleverer Phoenix Kings I have killed.’

‘So, you intend to kill me. It will not help – my death will bring you no closer to the Phoenix Throne.’

‘Actually, it will. Or so I have been told, from a reliable source.’

Malekith strode out of the pool and looked up at the stars, marvelling at the way the rays of light seemed to pass through his not-quite corporeal body.

‘Teclis again? It was a moment of weakness, assisted by wine, the night I confessed to feeling guilt at our deception.’

‘Deception? Confession?’ Malekith smiled, or at least the representation of him did. ‘Please continue.’

‘You know of what I speak. The coronation to become Phoenix King, it is a sham. I no more passed through the flames of the king of kings than you did.’

‘I knew it!’ Malekith snapped his fingers, his smile broadening to a grin. ‘There had to be something that made Teclis seek me out. He thinks the Rhana Dandra is coming, you know? He needs the true heir to Aenarion to sit on the Phoenix Throne, to save elvenkind.’

‘His brother T–’

‘Tyrion is useless, a vacant slave to his lusts for the Everqueen, cursed by the taint of Khaine as pronounced by Caledor Dragontamer. Have you not been paying attention? He even has a child from his rutting, a dirty secret to keep from the court.’

‘Alarielle has borne only my child, Aliathra.’

‘Save your lies – you know that she is not yours. What a noble spirit Tyrion must be. To cuckold the Phoenix King and sire the next Everqueen? That must be why you never named him as successor, but always spoke well of Imrik though the prince of Caledor despises you for the most part.’ Malekith was guessing much of this, but he enjoyed the look of pain that twisted Finubar’s face as each accusation was made and took it as further proof. ‘It gnaws at your heart, doesn’t it? To think that the Dragon of Cothique is lauded so highly when in truth he is nothing more than an adolescent, getting into fights and bedding your wife. Even you, noblest and most worthy of all the princes, even you cannot swallow that shame and accept that failure in your heart.’

‘Many times has the marriage and consummation between the Phoenix King and Everqueen been purely… ceremonial.’

‘More sham, more guilt?’

Finubar bowed his head, averting his gaze. He mumbled something that Malekith did not quite hear.

‘Was that an apology or a prayer?’ said the Witch King. ‘Neither will be heard.’

‘You cannot harm me here,’ Finubar announced, suddenly emboldened. He waved a hand back and forth between Malekith’s left and right shoulder and then up through his face. ‘You could not transmaterialise yourself within these walls, even with Teclis’s assistance. He has opened a window for you, nothing more. In fact, I would think that Teclis does not want me dead, not yet. He is right, I have seen in the heavens that the Rhana Dandra is upon us. The gods of the stars fall back to the world and the gate in the north opens. The daemons will be upon Ulthuan in a matter of days and Teclis knows that our people need my leadership.’

‘I cannot say for sure what Teclis intended, but rest assured I have not hidden my motives.’ Malekith’s apparition started to make signs in the air, weaving jagged rune-shapes with the tip of a finger. ‘Well, not for this night. I will, however, dispense with his alliance as soon as it becomes unnecessary. Once he has handed me Ulthuan’s keys, he will find me a less pleasant companion. You are correct in your assertion that I cannot lay physical hands upon you, much to my pity. There are other ways in which I can extend my reach.’

‘What are you doing?’ Finubar demanded, moving towards the door. Malekith’s apparition stalked after him, whispering an enchantment. With his words the floating incantation formed a circle that started to revolve around the scrying pool.

‘Dangerous things, windows,’ said Malekith, coming between the Seafarer and the door. He pointed back to the pool whose waters were colouring with blood. ‘The sisters of Ghrond have learned such lessons in very hard circumstances. Sometimes other things look back through the windows. Also, some windows can be opened, you see.’

‘What have you done?’ Finubar’s voice was choked as he dashed to the side of the raised pool and stared into the depths of his scrying-water.

‘Just a little portal,’ said Malekith. ‘It won’t last long enough to threaten Lothern.’

‘A portal to where?’

‘See for yourself.’

Finubar leaned over the edge of the pool. A hand with red skin and black claws shot out of the blood-coloured water and seized the Phoenix King by the throat. The waters boiled and a horned head emerged slowly, white-eyed, fanged mouth open in an ecstatic grin.

‘I cannot, as you said, transubstantiate my body within these walls, but daemons rarely have such problems.’

‘They’ll never accept you!’ Finubar pulled himself free from the grasp of the emerging daemon, tearing bloody welts from across his throat. ‘Ulthuan will drown in blood before you are hailed as the Phoenix King!’

Malekith said nothing as the bloodletter of Khorne leapt from the waters, hands seizing hold of Finubar while a forked tongue ran across its razor-sharp teeth. The daemon turned a hungry look on Malekith and the Witch King wondered if it would be able to follow him through the breach Teclis had made in the wards.

It was probably better to be safer than sorry, and Malekith ended the spell, pulling his spirit back to the Black Tower in Naggarond.

Malekith did not step through the broken door, but remained there in thought. After a while he turned and beckoned to one of the guards close at hand. The elf was Eataine-born, and approached with caution, her shield and spear trembling. Malekith thought it fear and then remembered Teclis’s glamour. It was not dread that unsettled the guard, it was awe.

It felt good, and was proof that Finubar would be wrong.

‘Send word to my seneschal, Kouran. This door is to be barred again. Understood?’

‘Yes.’ The elf nodded and then remembered whom she addressed. ‘Your majesty.’

With a flick of the hand the Phoenix King dismissed her from his presence and thoughts equally, and turned his mind to more difficult matters. Recalling the conversation with Finubar had reminded him of another thorny obstacle to be overcome if he was to legitimately become Phoenix King – marriage to the Everqueen. While Alarielle was not his half-sister, there could still be other objections, not least by the Everqueen herself.

Thirty-Two

The Everqueen

It transpired that Tyrion had encountered similar issues in securing the Everqueen’s endorsement. News from the north was of a great battle under the eaves of the Avelorn Forest, and it seemed that Prince Tyrion desired to take by war that which had once freely been given by the Everqueen. Details were sparse, for not only Morathi’s conjurations prevented scrying, but Alarielle’s presence also confounded attempts at magical observation.

As had become his habit, Teclis arrived at nightfall following word of Tyrion’s attack reaching Malekith’s ears. The mage travelled far and fast upon his shadow steed, but the magic was costly. The Phoenix King had noticed the disturbances in the winds of magic growing greater, filling the vortex of Ulthuan with unprecedented power but making spells of any subtlety and nuance all but impossible.

‘The King in the Woods fights alongside Alarielle,’ said the breathless mage as he was admitted to Malekith’s great hall. Imrik, Caradryan and Kouran were hard on Teclis’s heels, having been alerted to the mage’s imminent arrival by the many spies, both physical and not, surveying the Sapphire Palace and city of Lothern. ‘Your majesty, the host of Athel Loren has come to the Everqueen’s aid.’

‘How is that possible?’ asked Caradryan. ‘An ocean and continent separate the two.’

‘The more pertinent question would be why,’ said Malekith. ‘Our forest-bound cousins have never seemed interested in our continuing struggle for the isle of their ancestors. What brings Orion and Ariel to these shores now?’

‘Something of that might be answered by knowing that it is Orion alone that has come, your majesty,’ said Teclis. ‘Of the avatar of Isha, nothing has been seen. Avelorn and Athel Loren, though divided, have always been bound together in ways that we cannot fathom. The spirits of the Everqueen and immortal Ariel connect in a fashion, both stemming from the power of Isha. With the gods returning to the world, that ancient conjunction is perhaps showing itself in new ways.’

‘What if Tyrion wins, my king?’ Kouran asked, always of a practical mind. ‘If the pretender seizes control of Avelorn, his coup is all but complete. None know what happened in the Shrine of Asuryan and with the Island of Flames swallowed by the sea it is your word alone that claims Asuryan’s blessing.’

‘And my presence,’ snapped Malekith. ‘Does not the fire of the All-king run through me? Does not his blessing emanate from my being?’

‘No disrespect was intended, my king, but trickery has been used before and your opponents will dismiss such things as an artifice of the Sapherian.’

‘Should we send our forces to aid Alarielle?’ said Imrik. ‘It will take some time to arrange passage on ships but the dragons could be there in a matter of days.’

‘Just in time to see the forests burning and hear Morathi’s laughs of triumph,’ said Malekith. ‘She has always hated the Everqueen, and will stop at nothing to see her dispossessed, the power of Avelorn broken.’

‘Chosen by whom?’ asked Morathi contemptuously.

‘By the princes and the Everqueen,’ Bel Shanaar replied, standing to one side of the holy tree of Isha.

‘Astarielle was slain,’ Morathi said. ‘The reign of the Everqueen is no more.’

‘She lives on,’ said a ghostly, feminine voice that drifted around the glade.

‘Astarielle was slain by the daemons,’ Morathi insisted, casting her gaze about to spy from whence the voice had come, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

The leaves on all of the trees began to quiver, filling the glade with a gentle susurrus as if a wind whispered through the treetops, though the air was still. The long grass of the glade began to sway in the same invisible breeze, bending towards the Aein Yshain at its centre. The glow of the sacred tree grew stronger, bathing the council in a golden light dappled with sky blues and verdant greens.

In the shimmering brightness, a silhouette of greater light appeared upon the knotted trunk, resolving itself into the form of a young elf maiden. Morathi gasped, for at first it seemed as if Astarielle indeed still lived.

The maiden’s golden hair hung to her waist in long plaited tresses woven with flowers of every colour, and she wore the green robes of the Everqueen. Her face was delicate, even by elven standards, and her eyes the startling blue of the clearest summer skies. As the light dimmed, the elf’s features became clearer and Morathi saw that this newcomer was not Astarielle. There was a likeness, of that Morathi was aware, but she relaxed as she scrutinised the girl.

‘You are not Astarielle,’ Morathi declared confidently. ‘You are an impostor!’

‘Not Astarielle, you are right,’ replied the maiden, her voice soft yet carrying easily to the furthest reaches of the glade. ‘I am not an impostor, either. I am Yvraine, daughter of Aenarion and Astarielle.’

‘More trickery!’ shrieked Morathi, rounding on the princes with such an expression of anger that many flinched from her ire. ‘Yvraine is also dead! You conspire to keep my son from his rightful inheritance.’

‘She is Yvraine,’ said Oakheart, his voice a melodic noise like the sighing of a light wind through branches. ‘Though Astarielle remained to protect Avelorn against the daemons, she bid us take her children to safety. To the Gaen Vale I carried them, where no other elf has trod. There my kin and I fought the daemons and kept Yvraine and Morelion safe those many years.’

At this there were gasps from the Naggarothi, none louder than the exclamation of Malekith.

‘Then my half-brother also still lives?’ the prince demanded. ‘Aenarion’s first son is alive?’

‘Calm yourself, Malekith,’ said Thyriol. ‘Morelion has taken ship and sailed from Ulthuan. He is a child of Avelorn, as is Yvraine, and he seeks no claim to the rule of Nagarythe. He is blessed of Isha, not a scion of Khaine, and seeks neither dominion nor fealty.’

‘You kept this from Aenarion?’ Morathi’s tone was full of incredulity. ‘You allowed him to believe his children were dead, and raised them separated from their father? You have hidden them from–’

‘I am the beloved of Isha,’ said Yvraine, her voice stern, silencing Morathi. ‘In me is reborn the spirit of the Everqueen. Anlec is a place of blood and rage. It could not be my home, I could not live amongst the taint of Khaine, and so Oakheart and his kind raised me in the manner and place fitting for my station.’

‘I see now your conspiracy,’ said Morathi, stalking across the glade to confront the princes. ‘In secrecy you have muttered and whispered, and kept the Naggarothi from your counsels. You seek to supplant the line of Aenarion with one of your own, and wrest the power of Ulthuan from Nagarythe.’

‘There is no power to wrest, no line to break,’ replied Thyriol. ‘Only in pain and death does Nagarythe prevail. We sent messengers to Anlec and you turned them away. We sought to include you in our deliberations, but you would send no embassy. We gave you every right and opportunity to make the claim for your son and you chose to tread your own path. There is no conspiracy.’

‘I am the widow of Aenarion, the queen of Ulthuan,’ Morathi snarled. ‘When the daemons preyed upon your people, did Aenarion and his lieutenants stand by and discuss matters in council? When Caledor began his spell, did he debate its merits with the peons? To rule is to wield the right to decide for all.’

‘You are queen no longer, Morathi,’ said Yvraine, ghosting softly across the glade, her steps as light as settling snowflakes. ‘The Everqueen has returned and I shall rule with Bel Shanaar, just as Aenarion reigned with my mother.’

‘You will wed Bel Shanaar?’ asked Morathi, turning on Yvraine.

‘As Aenarion wed my mother, so the Everqueen will marry the Phoenix King, and ever shall it be down all of the ages,’ Yvraine declared. ‘I cannot marry Malekith, my half-brother, no matter what his entitlement or qualities to succeed his father.’

The debate continued long into the night, but it was Malekith’s decree that any force sent to bolster the defence of Avelorn would be wasted. While Tyrion’s focus was on the Everqueen it made sense to gain ground in the southern and eastern kingdoms, and perhaps to even take Ellyrion so that Tyrion would have foes to the east and west of his position.

As dawn lit the night sky, clear clarions were heard to the east. Suspecting attack, the defenders of Lothern rushed to their posts, while Malekith and his princes alighted on their dragons and took to the skies. What they saw to the east was almost like illusion, a semi-real phantasm of the dawn light.

An army marched to Lothern, but not of Tyrion or his commanders. Maidens with bows and spears led the way, and on a unicorn in their midst came Alarielle herself, flanked by companies of leaf-cloaked archers and stag riders. A morning mist followed them, creating an otherworldly air as though the army marched not on the ground but through it, passing hedge and thicket without impediment. As the sun rose higher the apparitions took more shape, their gonfalons and banners snapping in the breeze, their regiments marked out in summer and autumnal colours, greens and browns and deepest reds.

Malekith and Imrik sped back to the Sapphire Palace to make ready for a proper welcome to the Everqueen while the other dragons flew escort to the eagles and drakes that accompanied the combined army of Avelorn and Athel Loren.

The gates were opened for the Everqueen and, followed by her handmaidens, she entered the city along streets that were littered with hastily-procured leaves and petals, while choirs of children sang hymns in praise of Isha. Only once before had Alarielle come to Lothern, to publicly wed Finubar when he had been chosen as Phoenix King, and there was rampant rumour in the city regarding this unheralded arrival.

Malekith, who had no experience of how these matters were handled on Ulthuan, allowed himself to be guided by Teclis’s counsel. In the wide plaza before the Sapphire Palace a stage was quickly raised and bedecked with garlands of such flowers and plants that could be found in the palace and the gardens of the local nobles, while word was sent to those same ranking elves to attend a feast that afternoon.

Alarielle’s procession through the city was stately, and for Malekith thankfully slow, so that by the time the Everqueen and her entourage arrived at the Sapphire Palace the inner plazas of the city were thronged with princes and nobility ready to cheer her in welcome.

Following Teclis’s advice Malekith had left his immense iron throne in the audience chamber, and instead two ornately carved chairs, equal in size, were placed at the centre of the stage. Standing to one side of these, the Phoenix King, his glamour-image resplendent in dragon armour and swirling scarlet cloak, waited for Alarielle to complete her parade.

‘Bow, your majesty,’ whispered Teclis, as Alarielle mounted the steps to Malekith’s left.

‘What?’ snapped the king. ‘Why?’

‘She is the Everqueen, greater than the Phoenix King, and you seek her commendation,’ Teclis said hurriedly. ‘Your majesty.’

Malekith almost refused, thinking it beneath him. Alarielle was no more a great queen of the elves than any of the fake kings she and her foremothers had endorsed in his place over the centuries. However, when he saw the light of Ghyran that shone from the Everqueen, highlighting a beauty that was ethereal and entrancing, he allowed his old charm to surface and did not bow, but sank to one knee.

Surprised, the Everqueen stopped a few paces away while her handmaidens and grim-faced guard lined the square. Malekith had already placed warriors from the Shadowfire Guard on all the roofs and surrounding buildings lest an agent of Tyrion try to assassinate the Everqueen, but Alarielle was used to seeing to her own fortunes.

‘Welcome to Lothern,’ said the Phoenix King, standing up to offer his hand.

Alarielle looked at it, and Malekith realised that the glamour had no effect on her. She saw the truth of what he was, a haggard half-corpse in blackened armour. He left the hand out and tried to smile, though his helm hid his withered lips.

Alarielle took the hand without comment and stepped beside the Phoenix King, turning her radiant smile on the crowd. Their cheers shook the buildings as she nodded regally, her gaze passing over everyone in her audience, seeming to touch all present with a glance of wry humour or earnest intent as their expectations warranted.

Releasing her grip, Alarielle moved to the front of the stage and held out her hands for quiet. A break in the clouds bathed her in golden sunlight and a still descended, so that not even the birds nesting in the eaves made any sound. Her voice when she spoke was as clear as running water, calm but strong, carrying on the wind easily.

‘Great are the tribulations that have troubled our lands of late, and the turmoil to come is greater still. Yet in adversity can also be union, and so it is that with profound pleasure I can tell you that the houses of Avelorn and Athel Loren have been united once again. Those that were estranged are now as one.’

She gestured to the wood elves that had followed her into the square, and there was a ripple of polite applause for them. Alarielle straightened, her hands resting lightly on her girdle, and took a deep breath. Malekith could sense her nervousness now, though she did not look back at him, and knew what troubled her thoughts.

‘And of other unions I must speak. Divided are the kingdoms of Ulthuan, and divided are the loyalties of their princes. This must end, and so I have sent my maiden guard to roam wide across Ulthuan bearing the declaration I speak to you today.’ She then turned a little and beckoned to Malekith, who dutifully stepped forward. ‘As is the right and proper tradition, Malekith of Nagarythe, prince of Ulthuan, heir to Aenarion the Defender, has entered the sacred fires of Asuryan and been reborn. When his prosecution of the current war has successfully driven out the dark forces that would see us plunged into a nightmare of blood and eternal night, we shall be united in marriage, Phoenix King and Everqueen as ever it has been since the time of Aenarion.’

More rapturous cheers and claps thundered across the plaza. Someone started to chant Malekith’s name, and the shout was taken up by others. To hear voices raised in praise of him in such a fashion was something he had not experienced for a long lifetime. Spears and halberds were raised, swords clashed against shields, adding to the tumult of adulation. Yet for all the noise of his supporters there were many in the plaza that did not join the celebration. He saw elves slinking away through the streets and alleys with backwards glances, concern and distaste on their faces. Kouran had noticed them too, it seemed, for almost imperceptibly groups of former Black Guard broke from the crowd and followed these dissidents.

When the clamour had died down, Malekith and Alarielle walked together back to the Sapphire Palace, but once concealed within the gates the Everqueen took her leave of the Phoenix King and retired with her handmaidens to the south halls. Malekith returned to his chambers to assimilate the day’s events and before long the guards called out the arrival of Teclis and Imrik.

Malekith sent for refreshments for his advisors and sat silent in his throne while they debated the course of events that had led to Alarielle’s arrival. Orion was dead, all reports claimed, slain by Tyrion but not before the King in the Woods, the incarnation of Kurnous the Hunter, had gravely wounded the prince with his spear. Many other heroes of Avelorn and Athel Loren had died in the forests of Withelan, but a great toll had also been taken of Tyrion’s forces. Morathi’s attempt to claim the power of the Everqueen had again been thwarted though Avelorn itself was now abandoned.

‘Alarielle remains uncertain,’ Malekith declared. ‘Why else would she pronounce that the war will end before we are wed? It is a soft proclamation, one that our rivals will seize upon as proof that Alarielle only backs me out of coercion.’

‘Her words are more significant even than that, your majesty,’ said Teclis. ‘She talked of reuniting Ulthuan with Athel Loren. All three of our split kindreds are again becoming one. Druchii, asur and asrai, all of them returned to Ulthuan now, under your rule.’

‘It is inevitable, is it not?’ Malekith tapped his fingers on the arm of the throne. ‘I am Asuryan reborn, Aenarion’s heir, the king of kings. Not for me the false throne of Ulthuan. When I prevail I shall be ruler of all the elves.’

‘A war still lies between us and that eventuality,’ said Imrik. ‘The endorsement of the Everqueen stands in our favour and her troops are well-received, but the greater part of Ulthuan is still loyal to Tyrion. While he is wounded we would do well to strike fast and make what ground we can, spreading the word of Alarielle’s blessing.’

‘Summon the princes and generals to council tonight,’ commanded Malekith. ‘Come dawn the last war for Ulthuan will begin.’

The next morning the combined army of Malekith and Alarielle marched forth from Lothern, the Phoenix King and Everqueen at its head, one a figure of dark majesty, the other the embodiment of life and light. The banners of Ulthuan, Naggaroth and Athel Loren streamed behind them and the host that followed numbered tens of thousands.

The war that followed was a terrible time, fought as bitterly and savagely as when Malekith had first attempted to seize the Phoenix Throne. Wherever Tyrion rode the Shadow of Khaine followed, filling elves with a bloodlust and desire for battle that brought them flocking to his banner. To counter this Malekith and the Everqueen seemed to be everywhere, calling on the elves of Ulthuan to swear allegiance to the new Phoenix King.

Malekith’s army had one great advantage over Tyrion’s, and that was Alarielle’s mastery of the World Roots. These ancient magical paths were the means by which the warriors of Athel Loren had come to Avelorn, and they allowed bodies of troops to move from kingdom to kingdom, across the mountains and Inner Sea, undetected and unopposed.

It was well that the Phoenix King’s host had such advantage. Though victories and defeats seemed in equal measure between the two sides, always it seemed that Tyrion’s army was swelled by every conflict and Malekith’s diminished.

Too many are the tales to be told of that bloody affair, of armies routed and scores of dragons duelling in the skies. Morai-heg laid many a twist and turn on fate’s path over the coming seasons, so that the battle for Ulthuan was marked as much by treachery and rebellion as it was valour and sacrifice.

Most notable of these events was when Korhil, who had led Tyrion’s army to the walls of Lothern, broke free of Tyrion’s grip and Morathi’s enchantments. In a daring episode, the captain of the White Lions took the Widowmaker and attempted to bring it to Malekith’s camp.

Morathi’s hunters scoured the wilds for Korhil and the stolen Sword of Khaine but in a twist that would have made Morai-heg cackle with joy, they were set upon by rival Khainites under the command of Hellebron. The hag queen had finally abandoned Har Ganeth, and having learned that her favoured assassin Shadowblade had been ensorcelled by Morathi when he attacked Malekith, sought to avenge herself on the Hag Sorceress and her consort. Long was the rivalry between Har Ganeth and Ghrond and now that enmity was given full freedom. Cothique and Yvresse were awash with blood as the two sects of devotees to the Lord of Murder tried to outdo each other in their dedication and bloody sacrifice, but it availed Korhil nought, for he was captured and the Widowmaker returned to Tyrion. For his bravery the Lionmane was beheaded with his own axe.

The fighting moved to the mountains of Saphery, where the vortex of magic swirled strong and beasts of all size and manner were brought to the battles by both sides – manticores and chimeras, griffons and hydras. While spell and counter-spell lashed across the peaks the roars and bellows of the beastmasters’ charges heralded a deadly confrontation of fangs and claws, scorpion-stings and petrifying stares. The skies were split by thunderbolts and the earth trembled with the summoning of elementals.

The threat of assassination and treachery was rife. Though the direct attempts on Malekith or Alarielle were few, greater were the desertions and small coups. Garrisons would hail for Tyrion and ambush supply caravans destined for the armies, while ship’s captains and town elders would transport and hide the agents of Morathi, conveying the spies into the heart of Malekith’s holdings in return for promised riches and power when Tyrion was victorious.

Word often reached Malekith’s ear of a prince’s wavering loyalty or of seditious words spread through the companies of a particular general. Having learned from the fiasco of Brackblood’s execution Malekith did not act overtly against these naysayers and faint-hearts, but sent them to the areas where the fighting was hardest, allowing Tyrion’s warriors to cull the dissenters.

And throughout the war Malekith and Tyrion avoided matching each other blade to blade. Both knew that they were evenly matched. Malekith had fresh experience and his pride still smarted from his last confrontation with the Dragon of Cothique, while Tyrion was wary of Malekith’s new-found power and reforged blade, reminded that in the old myths Khaine was laid low by Asuryan’s wrath.

Even when by miscalculation or poor fortune the two found themselves on the same battlefield they would be circumspect in their fighting, such clashes becoming brief skirmishes before both sides withdrew.

At Tor Ellian Malekith’s army faced a disastrous defeat and only the arrival of warriors and spirits from Athel Loren along the World Roots allowed the Phoenix King’s forces to disengage in any semblance of order. Alarielle herself had almost been slain and the elves from beyond the Great Ocean vowed that they would never leave her side.

Tor Ellian signalled a shift in fortunes for Malekith. No matter what he tried, still Tyrion’s forces prevailed more than they lost. Engulfed by the Shadow of Khaine they would fight to the last, selling their deaths dearly while Malekith’s warriors were forced to retreat again and again to fight another day. With each encounter the Shadow of Khaine spread to more soldiers and princes once loyal to Malekith, sapping the strength of his hosts even more.

Thirty-Three

A New Ending

His desperation growing, Malekith sent Teclis across Ulthuan, demanding of the princes not yet committed to show themselves loyal to the Phoenix Throne, in battle. A great many of the nobles finally sent forth their households, but as many that declared for Malekith were matched by the number that moved to the camp of Tyrion, and an equal number refused to pick between two equally bloodthirsty tyrants.

No matter how bloody a pursuit became, nor if an army was outmanoeuvred and on the brink of destruction, there was one kingdom of Ulthuan that neither side violated. Nagarythe, a fog-shrouded desolation, was home to the Shadow King and his aesenar and neither side dared the borders of Aenarion’s ancient realm for fear of rousing the wrath of Alith Anar. Now Malekith risked the Shadow King’s neutrality and despatched Teclis to seek audience with the self-appointed ruler of Nagarythe.

It was with some trepidation that Malekith awaited his emissary’s return. In the guise of a flock of crows Teclis came back to the camp of the Phoenix King as the army was camped on the shore of the Inner Sea close to the border between Eataine and Saphery. Malekith knew immediately from Teclis’s expression that his advances had been rebuffed.

‘The ranks of the aesenar swell, as they did when the Anars first raised their banner in opposition to Morathi before the Sundering, your majesty,’ said the mage. ‘Tens of thousands of refugees from across the kingdoms have sought sanctuary under his banner, turned aside from the other kingdoms.’

‘A force that could swing the war yet he sits on his hands like a coward,’ snarled Malekith. ‘Does he not know that Tyrion and Morathi will slaughter them all once they have secured Ulthuan?’

‘He does not care, I think,’ admitted Teclis. ‘He is a bitter spirit, and your treachery still burns cold in his heart.’

‘My treachery?’ The king’s protest was like iron scraping on stone. ‘The Anars swore their oaths to me, delivered Anlec to me, and then they turned on me. He owes me an army!’

‘Nevertheless, there will be no army from Nagarythe, your majesty,’ said Teclis. The two of them walked to Malekith’s pavilion and stopped under the shade of the great awning over the entrance. Servants brought Teclis wine but he waved them away and instead imbibed one of his constitution restoratives.

‘We are being beaten, nephew,’ Malekith said quietly. ‘The time fast approaches when I must risk all or we shall lose by degrees everything we have until there is no army left to fight with.’

‘Personal combat?’ Teclis flexed his fingers as though they were stiff and rolled his shoulders with a pained expression. As much as anyone the war had taken its toll on him. ‘Do you think you can win?’

‘I think the first problem is drawing Tyrion into a fight he cannot avoid,’ said Malekith. ‘His army grows stronger every day, and with each the reasons to match his blade against mine lessen. I have misjudged this war. The Shadow of Khaine lies too deeply over our people, and loyalty to the Phoenix Throne is scarce.’

‘What do you suggest, your majesty?’

‘Do not be coy, nephew.’ Malekith stepped inside the pavilion and Teclis followed. He did not speak again until they were alone in his audience chamber. ‘You have always harboured a grander plan for the conclusion of this effort, have you not? Do not seek to dissemble any longer – the time is upon us for frank discussion.’

‘You speak of the vortex, your majesty.’ The mage did not look at the Phoenix King but busied himself at a platter of meats and breads on a side table. ‘An attempt to harness the winds of magic to end forever the threat of Chaos and the daemons.’

‘I knew it would be grandiose, nephew, but I never quite thought you could have such a high ambition! Ultimate victory over Chaos? Peace and love in our times? Wolf and lion living in harmony? I am surprised you waited this long before making your confession.’

Teclis turned but before he could speak Malekith stopped him with a raised hand.

‘You are aware that I have some personal experience in this matter, yes?’ said the Phoenix King. ‘Interfering with the vortex, I learned at great cost, can have severe consequences.’

The throne room at the heart of Aenarion’s palace was shrouded in darkness. The only light came from the glow of the Witch King’s armour, casting flickering shadows from the twelve figures that stood before him.

The humiliation hurt more than his wounds, though they were grievous; the blows of the Phoenix Guard had reignited the fire of Asuryan that had been set in his flesh. Malekith did not retreat from the pain as he had done before. He embraced it. He nurtured it. The agony in his body fuelled the rage in his spirit.

‘I will not be denied,’ Malekith growled.

‘We are defeated, master,’ said Urathion, the sorcerer-lord who ruled over the citadel of Ullar. ‘There are barely enough troops to defend the walls and the army of the accursed Anars will surely come soon.’

‘Silence!’ Malekith’s shout reverberated around the hall, echoing from the distant walls. ‘There will be no surrender.’

‘How can we resist with our armies scattered?’ asked Illeanith. The sorceress, daughter of Thyriol, asked the question in a whisper, voice full of fear. ‘It will take too long to withdraw our garrisons to the city.’

‘We will have a new army, one that Imrik and his fawning minions will never defeat,’ said Malekith.

The Witch King stood up, armoured feet ringing on the stone floor as he took several steps closer to the ring of wizards. He held out a smoking hand and cut the air with a finger. A line appeared, bulging with energy; a torrent of formless colour and noise screamed from the tear in reality. The line widened to a gap, pulled apart by clawed hands to reveal leering daemonic faces. A scaled arm reached through.

The rift into the Realm of Chaos wavered. The arm withdrew as the rent sealed itself, disappearing with the sound of tearing metal. It had lasted a few moments, but left no trace of its existence.

‘Daemons?’ said Urathion.

‘An endless army to command,’ said Morathi, stepping into the circle, her skull staff in hand. ‘Immortal and impervious. What better host to serve the lord of Nagarythe?’

‘It would take all of our power to summon a handful of daemons,’ said Drutheira, once an acolyte of Morathi, now a fully accomplished sorceress. Her dark hair was twisted with silver and her pale skin painted with runes. ‘There are yet the artifices of Vaul that can destroy a daemon’s form, enough weapons to defeat any host that we might conjure.’

‘We do not have to summon them,’ said Malekith. ‘We need only to break the bars that keep them imprisoned in the Realm of Chaos.’

There was silence as the cabal considered what this meant. It was Urathion that broke the quiet.

‘You mean Caledor’s vortex?’ said the sorcerer.

‘It cannot be done,’ said Drutheira. ‘The vortex is powered by the lodestones of Ulthuan. We would have to destroy them, and most are in the lands of our enemies.’

‘It can be done,’ said Morathi. ‘Not by destroying the lodestones, but by overloading them.’

‘A sacrifice,’ said Malekith. ‘Together we will create a surge of dark magic, enough to disrupt the harmony of the vortex. Its own power will do the rest, dragging that blast of energy into its heart.’

‘Is this wise?’ asked Urathion. ‘Without the vortex, the Realm of Chaos will be set free upon the winds of magic. Not even together can we control that power.’

‘It does not need to be controlled, simply directed,’ said Malekith. He raised a smouldering finger to the circlet set into his helm. ‘With that power turned to our ends, I have the means to focus its energies. Our enemies will be swept aside by a tide of daemons. Only those favoured by me shall survive. I will have both victory and vengeance in one stroke.’

The cabal looked at each other. Some seemed eager, others more concerned.

‘What other choice do we have?’ asked Auderion, dragging black-nailed fingers through his white hair. His gaze flickered nervously from one member of the cabal to another, never stopping. ‘We cannot hold out forever, and our lives will be forfeit.’

‘Our spirits are already forfeit,’ whispered Illeanith. ‘Bargains we have made and promises of blood have not been kept. I will not go easily to that fate.’

‘Imagine their terror,’ said Drutheira. ‘Imagine the horror unleashed upon those that scorned us, abandoned us. We will rid the world of the Dragontamer’s legacy, reverse the mistake he made and erase the insult upon Aenarion’s legend.’

Some of the cabal remained silent, not daring to speak though their unease was as palpable as the heat from Malekith’s armour. Worried eyes glittered in the gloom.

Urathion bowed his head to Malekith.

‘Forgive my objections, master,’ he said, dropping to one knee. ‘What must we do?’

‘Return to your castles and gather such acolytes and slaves as you still possess. Morathi will furnish you with the details of the ritual you must undertake. At the appointed hour, midnight ten days from now, we will begin. The blood of our sacrifices will draw the dark magic and our incantations shall send it as a storm into the vortex.’

‘What of the Sapherians?’ said Illeanith. ‘My father and his mages will try to stop us.’

‘How can they?’ said Morathi. ‘By the time they know what is happening, it will be too late for them to intervene.’

‘Even if they do, they do not have the power to stop us,’ said Malekith. ‘The vortex was wrought by Caledor Dragontamer at the height of his strength. Not even your father can contest such a spell.’

There were no further questions or objections. The sorcerers and sorceresses bowed and departed, leaving Malekith alone with Morathi.

‘If you are wrong?’ said Morathi. ‘If we cannot harness the vortex?’

‘The daemons will rampage across the world and all will be destroyed,’ said Malekith.

‘And you are sure you wish to risk such an end?’ said Morathi.

‘Risk it?’ Malekith replied with a harsh laugh. ‘I embrace it! If Ulthuan will not be mine, then none will rule. I would rather our people perished than see them laid low by the hand of another. Better it is to see the world torn asunder than suffer this eternal torment.’

‘I would not seek to break the vortex, but to channel it away from the lodestones into fresh vessels,’ Teclis explained, his expression thoughtful. ‘The stasis upon the Isle of the Dead is already weakening. The Dragontamer has sent his spirit to Imrik and has passed on his wisdom to me. In this time when the Realm of Chaos expands the vortex is not powerful enough. Only a living, immortal host can contain the power unleashed.’

‘What happened with Nagash and the Wind of Shyish…? The Great Necromancer has become the embodiment of death magic. You would do this with the other seven winds?’

‘The return of the gods is not a metaphor, Malekith, it is a necessity. Lileath has shown me how it can be done.’

‘And these other avatars, who would they be? You have chosen them already?’

‘You would be one, your majesty. Think on what you have achieved wrapped as you are in a shell of sorcery, as bound to your armour as a fish is to the ocean. Now imagine being freed, becoming an incarnation of magic, a source of power that would never wane.’

Malekith imagined it, and the thought was pleasing.

‘Alarielle, obviously, yourself, Imrik – who else is on your list?’

‘For the moment it does not matter, your majesty. Much can happen between now and the moment the vortex is released. The winds will find their way to the most suitable vessels – we need only unshackle them from the lodestones and help them on their way.’

‘That might cause some problems,’ Malekith said with an affected wave of the hand. ‘You weren’t there so I forgive you forgetting, but the last time I tried to “unshackle” the vortex, I sank two kingdoms beneath a wave.’

Teclis grew solemn and he did not speak for some time. When he did his voice was quiet.

‘Ulthuan will not survive,’ he admitted softly, meeting Malekith’s gaze. ‘Without the vortex our island will sink beneath the waves entirely. For seven millennia the winds of magic have eaten at the bedrock of Ulthuan and now there is nothing but the magic to keep us afloat. When it is gone, Ulthuan will drown.’

It was Malekith’s turn to remain silent for a considerable period, shocked by what Teclis was proposing. Talk of the vortex brought back an ancient, conflicted memory.

The hall was awash with blood. It moved with its own sluggish life, hissing and sizzling at Malekith’s feet, lapping over the twisted bodies of his victims. Morathi chanted, staff held above her head, an incantation calling upon all of the daemons and powers with which she had made pacts during her long life. The air seethed with dark energy, flowing from walls to ceiling, making the symbols and runes painted in blood on the stone glow with ruddy power.

Through the circlet, the Witch King could feel the rising tide of dark magic across Nagarythe. In castles and towers across the barren kingdom his followers despatched their sacrifices and used their deaths to draw on the winds of magic, the mystical forces congealing together under the sorcerous influence of the Naggarothi.

Morathi’s incantation was reaching its crescendo. Her voice was a wail, her body shuddering, the coils of dark magic thickening and strengthening as they whirled around the throne room.

Reaching out his hands, Malekith felt the slick touch of the magic on his iron skin. The circlet gleamed on his brow and filled his mind with ice as the Witch King grasped and manipulated the formless energy with his will, shaping it, turning its convoluted waves into a rhythmically pulsing cloud.

‘Now!’ screamed Morathi, her staff blazing.

Malekith flung the dark magic up, spearing its energies through the palace of Aenarion. He could feel the other columns of power erupting across his kingdom, pillars of pure magical energy roaring up into the heavens.

Malekith strode to an iron balcony adjoining the chamber, Morathi hurrying after him. He turned his flaming gaze to the east and saw the ravening energies gathering across the mountaintops.

‘It is done,’ said Morathi.

She pointed high into the heavens, to the north. Lights burned in the sky, silhouetting the horizon with a rainbow of colours that were constantly shifting. The magical aurora flickered, spitting bolts of energy to the ground and up towards the disappearing stars.

Malekith could see through the anarchy of shape and colour: towering spires of crystal and rivers of blood; cliffs with screaming skull-like faces and forests of waving tentacles; castles of bronze and a huge dilapidated mansion; plains covered with splintered bones and white beaches rippled by purple waters; clouds of flies and miniature suns that glared with cyclopean eyes.

And he heard the roaring and the howls, the screaming and the growls. Marching and slithering, swooping and leaping, a host of daemons poured forth.

‘The Realm of Chaos opens,’ he rasped, feeling triumphant. ‘My legions awake!’

‘No!’ screamed Morathi.

Malekith felt it too, a presence he had not known for more than a thousand years. The Dragontamer had returned. The Witch King did not know how, but he would not be defeated so easily. He poured out all of his scorn and hatred, looking to wrench control of the vortex from the elf who had betrayed his father. Morathi sensed what he was doing and added her own sorcery, seeking to overcome the Dragontamer’s spell.

The two waves of magic clashed within the vortex, detonating with a blaze of multicoloured light that swept away the storm, converting both high and dark magic into a huge detonation. Malekith felt it as a shockwave that pulsed across Ulthuan, flattening trees and toppling towers. He sensed the mountains lurching as the vortex spun again.

He felt something else too, like the world was tipping on its axis. The magic unleashed rocked Ulthuan, ripping earth and sky with its power. A crack appeared in the city wall of Anlec as a huge fissure opened up in the ground to the north. Roofs collapsed and walls toppled as Anlec convulsed. Everywhere across Nagarythe the dark magic earthed itself, mighty spires of rock erupting from the ground while huge pits and crevasses dropped down.

‘What is that noise?’ said Morathi, looking to the north.

Malekith turned, gripping the rail of the balcony tight as the palace swayed on its foundations, turrets and towers crashing down onto the buildings below in a flurry of broken stone and tiles.

To the north was a wall of white. It looked like fog at first, a bank of cloud swiftly approaching from the north-west. It brought an odd hissing, which deepened as the cloud came closer.

Malekith felt a moment of dread as he realised it was not a cloud that approached, but a wall of water. As though the ocean had heaved up itself in protest, a tidal wave stretched across the horizon, shining in the moonlight, as high as the tallest tower of Anlec.

‘No,’ said the Phoenix King. ‘I forbid it. I stand at the moment of achieving my dreams and you would throw it all away on the vacuous whim of a goddess. I will hunt down Tyrion and slay him and Ulthuan will rejoice and forever praise my name.’

‘As you command, your majesty,’ Teclis said with a bow. As the mage left Malekith knew well that his nephew could not be trusted and considered whether this was the time he had finally outlived his usefulness. For the moment the Phoenix King’s alliance was too fragile, the battle in Saphery still finely balanced. Soon, though, Malekith thought, Teclis would no longer be required and his insane scheme to destroy the Dragontamer’s vortex would prove a useful story to cover his removal.

Despite every effort on the part of Malekith, Tyrion flatly refused to meet his rival in battle. Every passing day brought fresh news of the pretender’s host growing or some defeat of Malekith’s forces, yet the Phoenix King would not countenance Teclis’s plan.

Matters were brought to a head as the Phoenix King gave the order to break camp not far from the Tower of Hoeth, at least a dozen leagues from the closest of Tyrion’s armies. At first light Imrik called upon the king and asked that he summon Teclis and Alarielle to hear what the prince had to say. Imrik was a picture of agitation, pacing the rugs back and forth as he waited for the Everqueen and mage to arrive. Malekith studied him closely, wondering what might have brought about such a disturbed disposition.

Eventually the others joined Imrik and Malekith and the prince was free to speak his news.

‘The Shadow of Khaine is growing,’ said the prince, fists balled in front of him. ‘For a time now there have been missing sentries, bodies found slain in their sleep. We thought it was assassins employed by Morathi but I have now seen the truth for myself.’

The prince shuddered and poured himself water. He downed the goblet and waited a second before continuing, haunted eyes moving from one companion to the next.

‘Marendri, my own cousin, who swore allegiance to you at Eagle Gate, has broken faith with us and attempted to desert last night.’ Imrik shook his head. ‘A more loyal warrior you would not have found in all of my kingdom, as close to me as fabled Thyrinor was to Caledor the First. He slit the throats of his brothers, all three, and only a chance encounter with the sentries revealed his crime. His tent was next to mine! My own kin, close at hand for counsel and comfort, poised to drive the dagger deepest into our heart. I heard the fighting and confronted him. A wild beast I saw, with blood-red eyes and foaming mouth. He spoke in curses of blood and I ended him quickly, mercifully so.’

Shuddering, Imrik turned away, the goblet falling from his trembling grasp. Alarielle addressed Malekith while Teclis moved to comfort the dragon prince.

‘We have striven in every way we can, but we cannot fight this. Khaine feeds on death and war – we must seek an end to this slow execution.’

‘You have spoken to Teclis?’ Malekith asked. He did not wait for answer – it was clear the mage had colluded with the Everqueen despite Malekith’s orders. ‘It is madness, for which I was damned for a seeming eternity.’

‘What would you give for victory?’ asked Alarielle, stepping closer. She laid a hand on Malekith’s, her touch warm yet also cooling the fires inside the Phoenix King. ‘Would you give your life?’

Malekith considered this and nodded. ‘I stepped into the flame of Asuryan and did not know if I would survive.’

‘Would you see countless dead on the battlefields of Ulthuan?’

‘You know my legacy as well as any. Countless already are the lives I have expended in my quest to rule.’

‘Would you be willing to lose everything? Would you give up your claim to save our people?’

Malekith found no ready answer to this question. He withdrew his hand from Alarielle’s grasp and stood up, turning his back on her.

‘I would see no other as Phoenix King while I live.’

‘Yet if you continue to face Tyrion as you do, you will lose the war and Tyrion will prevail. What you once condoned out of spite, you will not do now for justice?’

‘Justice? Where was justice these last six thousand years?’ Malekith whirled around and glared at the Everqueen. Unknowingly reliving the act of rage that had propelled his father to the Sword of Khaine, the Phoenix King snatched up his throne and heaved it over his head. With a wordless shout, he dashed it to the ground, smashing it into pieces. ‘No more!’ he roared. ‘This is a price too heavy for me to pay!’

Fire burst from his armour as he staggered away, fending off Alarielle’s attention with an outstretched hand. Malekith’s gaze next fell upon the banner of Nagarythe in its stand behind where the throne had been, woven with silver thread and inlaid with pearls and diamonds. He grabbed the haft of the banner and lifted it clear, ready to snap it across his knee.

‘Your majesty!’ Teclis’s stern words cut through the anger that threatened to swallow Malekith, water splashed on embers. ‘We will not fail.’

‘If we do,’ croaked the Phoenix King, ‘none will survive to know it.’

There was a long silence and none of the elves would look at each other.

‘Do we proceed with Teclis’s plan to unfurl the winds of magic and anchor them in mortal form?’ Alarielle asked. ‘We must be unanimous.’

‘Better to die in glory than live enslaved,’ said Imrik, his sorrow now replaced with a vengeful expression. The words might have come from Malekith himself in another time.

The Phoenix King replaced the banner of Nagarythe, the flames of his body dimming.

‘When Ulthuan sinks, what becomes of our people?’ he asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

‘They become free,’ said Teclis. ‘Free from the touch of Chaos, free from the Shadow of Khaine, free to live out their lives in sanctuary. Lileath has shown me this.’

‘Athel Loren will welcome us,’ said Alarielle. ‘It always has.’

‘Make your preparations, nephew,’ Malekith said, his voice gaining confidence as he acknowledged the inevitability of the decision. ‘The gods demand a battle the like of which they have not seen for many ages. Rule of the elves is not high enough stakes for such a cataclysm, so let us again fight for the future of the world!’

Thirty-Four

The Final Battle

On the Isle of the Dead was the fate of the world to be decided, at the very heart of the vortex raised by Caledor Dragontamer. Astride Seraphon, Malekith held the centre of the line, surrounded by warriors from ten kingdoms and further afield, all drawn together in his cause.

The air crackled with the whirl of magic, condensed into its rawest form by the eight lodestones that formed a circle at the very centre of the isle. A loremaster stood at each sparkling stone, though the monolith for the Wind of Shyish was dull and lifeless, its power stolen by Nagash.

Teclis sat atop his shadow steed to Malekith’s right, sword in hand, expression pensive. To the left Alarielle and her asrai followers guarded the approach to the inner stones, bows at the ready.

‘Protect the loremasters – that is all that matters,’ Teclis shouted up to the Phoenix King. ‘Do not let Tyrion’s forces break through. It is as when the vortex was made and Aenarion fought as the shield of the Dragontamer.’

‘I know the strategy, nephew, and have no need of another of your history lessons,’ Malekith replied. He felt calm, committed now to a course of action from which there could only be two simple outcomes. He would be victorious or he would be dead. It was strangely reassuring to have such clarity of purpose. ‘Just mind your own deeds, and I will see to mine.’

The Phoenix King drew Asuryath and a great cheer rose up from his assembled army as the splinter of light shone against the multicoloured sky.

‘I was expecting more of them,’ the king commented, as Tyrion’s army approached. It seemed if anything that the Dragon of Cothique was slightly outnumbered. Blood-frenzied hags and vicious corsairs led the attack while companies of bows filled the air with barbed shafts and phalanxes of spears moved to the flanks. Malekith’s force arrayed in deep ranks to await the assault, their banners flying colours from all of the kingdoms of Ulthuan.

Tyrion himself could be seen at the centre of the line, a golden figure amongst red and black. He raised the Sword of Khaine and a hush fell across the island, the sight of the Widowmaker causing even the bravest heart to flutter for a moment. Malekith felt the vortex churning around Tyrion. At first he thought it was the sorcery of Morathi, but he sensed his mother’s presence elsewhere. It was tempting to seek her out, to rend her limb from limb for her betrayal, but the cautioning words of Teclis held Malekith to his task. If she survived the battle vengeance would come later.

Whatever enchantment was being wrought by Tyrion, its energy flowed over the Isle of the Dead and into the sea, causing the waves to boil, washing deep spume upon the shores. There was movement in the waves, figures approaching from the waters.

Lurching and staggering, the dead of the seas answered the summons of Khaine. Bidden to the Isle of the Dead, the restless corpses of thousands forged out of the sea, some less than a day in their watery graves, others seaweed-clad skeletons who had fallen in millennia past.

Dismay flowed through Malekith’s army as these unearthly reinforcements followed after Tyrion’s host, their ghastly moaning and groans a bass background to the shriller war cries and wails of the Khainites.

‘No retreat!’ Malekith bellowed, brandishing his blade again.

There was little strategy and Malekith charged into the heart of the enemy with his black dragon, cutting to the left and right with Asuryan’s holy blade, leaving corpses wreathed in white fire behind him.

He knew little enough of the unbinding ceremony, but could feel the vortex loosening around him. He tried to concentrate on the foes in front and behind, urging Seraphon deeper into the fray to slick her claws and fangs with the blood of the enemy.

Time lost meaning. Around Malekith the battle raged, physical and magical, and the skies whirled with skycutters and griffons, mages on shining platforms and roaring manticores. He paid little heed to anything else and cut down hydras and elves, charioteers and cold ones with equal cold ferocity.

He was dimly aware of bright fire and screams when Imrik’s last surviving dragons charged the flank of Tyrion’s army, slaying with dragonfire and claw. The stench of saltwater and decay washed over him and he saw that the dead of the seas had reached the battle line. Some fought with their weapons, broken shields and rusted swords, others had clawed hands and wide maws filled with needle-like fangs like some deepwater fish.

He hewed down reanimated corpses to the left and right, though around him his followers were unsettled by the assault of the dead and began to give ground. Not wishing to become isolated, the Phoenix King was forced to back away, and in the break this granted him he saw why the dead had caused so much consternation.

At their head marched five figures, resurrected from their tombs upon the Isle of the Dead. In regal cloaks and armour, with swords and shields and necklaces and bangles about their mouldering bones, five dire warriors led the charge of the undead.

The Phoenix Kings of ages past.

Five alone of the ten, whose bodies had been interred in the mausoleums upon the water’s edge. Finubar was there, though less than three years dead his body rendered to gleaming bones by the magic of the vortex. After him came others, glowing with fey light, eyeless sockets gleaming with magic. Confronted by the kings of times past the host of Malekith drew back, bending before the advance of the undead like the bow wave of a ship.

Malekith saw that Tyrion’s forces were gathering again for a fresh attack in the wake of the undead advance. Knights and griffon riders were set ready to charge, while Tiranocii chariots mustered to force any breakthrough.

Looking on Finubar’s skeletal features Malekith was filled with a loathing born not of horror but anger. Arrayed before him were five of his worst foes, who had thwarted him in life and now their bones were beholden to a brain-addled slave of Khaine. Their weakness sickened Malekith and he rose up in Seraphon’s throne-saddle in disgust.

The vortex was like an unchained beast around him, bucking at the lodestones to tug free, smashing into the ground and whirling into the air in a storm of sparks and clouds. His simplest thought caused ripples to eddy out into the maelstrom. Shaped by his hatred of the dead kings pressing towards him, the vortex responded, gathering in his body, fizzing along fingers and limbs.

Infused with magical power, Malekith burst into flame, his armour burning white, Asuryath like a lick of fire in his hand. And in that moment Malekith understood his destiny and accepted who he was.

Asuryan reborn.

Malekith’s laughter echoed across the battlefield.

‘Kings of Ulthuan!’ the Phoenix King spat the words as a curse. ‘You are usurpers and thieves. You owe me a debt. In my name, and in that of my father, I call upon you to repay it now!’

The magic was too much to control and Malekith had to give vent to his righteous wrath. He thrust Asuryath towards the oncoming host of the dead and white fire sprang from the blade to create a ball of blazing destruction. The bones of the dead kings shattered at the impact of his magical missile, scattered to the winds as ash. As it screamed through the ranks of the undead the fire took on a shape, becoming the image of an elf.

Of Finubar, as he had been in life.

Though the fire burned out quickly, leaving a ring of charred corpses on the ground where it had stopped, the gleaming figure of Finubar remained where the bolt had exploded, glowing with white light. Drawing an ethereal blade, the shade of Finubar charged into the foe.

‘Spirits of the fallen kings, answer me now!’

Malekith hurled another fireball, which coalesced into the image of Bel-Hathor. From his fiery birth the Phoenix King known as the Sage strode forth unleashing blasts of power from his fingertips, eyes ablaze with magical energy. Eight more times Malekith cast the incantation and eight more times the spirits of the Phoenix Kings past answered his summons, appearing in coronas of white fire, reborn by the power of Asuryan, the Phoenix of the Gods.

All came that were bidden, whether warrior like Tethlis and Caledor and his son, or magic-weaver like Caradryel the Peacemaker and Bel-Korhadris the Scholar-King. Only one king did Malekith not call upon, and one king alone that had no debt to settle. Aenarion’s spirit remained unsummoned, wherever it had departed.

But Malekith did not stop there.

He was Phoenix King, the Lord of Lords, and to him was owed every oath of fealty and dedication ever sworn upon Ulthuan. With Asuryath a storm of white fire, he called forth every hero and heroine that ever laid down his or her life for the cause of the elves, from Eltharion the Grim who had died only a year before trying to rescue Tyrion’s daughter, to Yeasir, his lieutenant from ancient Anlec, killed when he had stood up to Malekith’s soldiers to protect the heir to Tiranoc before the Sundering had flooded that kingdom.

With these ancient heroes to lead them, the Phoenix King and Everqueen at the forefront of the fight, the army of Malekith surged forwards into Tyrion’s host, possessed of a righteousness of spirit that eclipsed the blind blood-thirst of their foes.

Seeing that the battle turned against him Tyrion was at last forced to come forward himself. His sword arm never ceasing in its rise and fall, he cut his way through the throng, heading directly for the Phoenix King.

‘Finally,’ Malekith said to Seraphon. ‘A foe worth fighting.’

A panicked thought intruded upon the Phoenix King’s mind and in the moment of distraction he noticed that the vortex was almost free, riding and crashing like a ship on storm-tossed waves that had broken its moorings. The sense of another close at hand announced a message from Teclis.

‘Summoning the kings of old has upset the balance of our incantations!’ bellowed the mage into Malekith’s thoughts. ‘Look what your meddling has wrought!’

Malekith glanced towards the lodestones and saw that a handful of the mages were dead, their desiccated corpses propped up against the waystones they had been controlling. Like ribbons in a storm the winds of magic fluttered free and fierce.

The white of Malhandir streaked towards Malekith through the melee, the Dragon of Cothique on the horse’s back a vision of destruction.

‘I have more pressing matters, nephew. I am playing my part, mage, now play yours!’

Taking to the air, Malekith watched as the Phoenix Kings of old tried to confront Tyrion. Each in turn fell to the Widowmaker, speared and sliced by the shard of icy death in his hand. Tyrion plunged onward, reckless in his haste, trampling friend as well as foe beneath the hooves of his steed.

It was then that Malekith realised his error. Tyrion rode not for him, but for Teclis.

Seraphon swooped at his command and magic rained from Malekith’s sword, but Malhandir was swifter even than dragon or bolt or fireball. Cursing himself for his lapse, Malekith strained every nerve to ensnare Tyrion with a spell while Seraphon, urged on by her master, almost tore herself apart in her efforts to catch the blur of white and gold on the ground below.

Teclis was unaware of the doom descending upon him, arms reaching into the air as though he tried to seize hold of the winds of magic like reins. Oblivious to his brother bearing down, the mage howled his enchantments into the vortex.

But there was to be one last turn of allegiance. No mere horse was Malhandir, but descended from the father of horses in the time before the Everqueen. He had borne Tyrion across countless battlefields and almost died a dozen times for his master, but now at the last the Lord of Steeds sensed that it was not Tyrion he carried but a far darker creature.

As Malekith dropped like a comet, Malhandir pranced, tossing Tyrion from his back to fall onto the hard rock of the outcrop where the bases of the lodestones met. The Dragon of Cothique lashed out with the icefang but Malhandir was already galloping away. The Widowmaker in his grasp, Tyrion stalked on, eyes fixed on Teclis.

Malekith smiled as Seraphon flexed her claws. Enslaved to the rage of Khaine, Tyrion had turned his back on the Phoenix King, possessed by the thirst for vengeance against his brother. He was but moments from death.

A piercing shriek cut across the clamour of battle, a warning scream that caused Tyrion to turn when Seraphon was but a heartbeat from snatching up the Dragon of Cothique. Malekith recognised the voice as his mother’s but had no time to curse her interference as Tyrion spun with supernatural speed and speared the Widowmaker towards the diving black dragon, rolling beneath the outstretched claws.

Seraphon needed no command and banked fast, pouring forth a billow of noxious vapour from her maw.

Purple lightning erupted around the dragon and her rider, crackling across scales and armour. Screeching agony from Morathi’s spell, Seraphon spasmed, wings folding as she fell. Malekith leapt clear a moment before she hit the rock, wings and spine cracking, scales and flesh torn by the jagged stone upthrusts.

Landing lightly, Malekith turned to find Tyrion almost upon him. The Widowmaker flashed for the Phoenix King’s throat. Asuryath moved as though of its own accord and the two godly blades clashed with a shower of icy sparks and white fire.

So did Malekith and Tyrion, Asuryan and Khaine, finally meet to decide who would prevail.

Thirty-Five

One King to Rule Them

Tyrion’s sword was in constant motion, but no slower was Malekith’s blade. Ice and fire wreathed the pair, the toll of enchanted steel sounding out with every heartbeat as the two demigods fought.

Malekith was aware that the winds of magic were almost undone, and in this moment stuck true to his task, defending and engaging Tyrion rather than forcing the fight for a kill one way or the other. For Tyrion the duel was a venting of a bloodlust long in the making, his red eyes fixed on his foe, every lick and lash of the Widowmaker intended to maim and kill, only centuries of unthinking instinct moving the Godslayer in defence when Malekith counter-attacked.

Malekith was wounded first, taking a cut to his left arm that bit deep to the bone. Had it not been for Hotek’s craft the arm would have been lost altogether, though the limb hanging dead at his side caused the Phoenix King some difficulty. In retaliation Malekith swept his sword towards Tyrion’s throat. The avatar of Khaine eluded the blow but at the expense of his jaw as the tip of Asuryath raked across his face.

They parted for but a moment and then flew at each other again, their swords a blur to all that watched. Malekith circled, keeping his good side presented to his foe, while Tyrion unleashed a blistering set of strikes both high and low, seeking any gap in the Phoenix King’s defences.

Each was cut a dozen times and more from glancing blows, their suits of armour streaming with blood, their blades hissing with magic. Malekith renewed his efforts, sensing that he was tiring, knowing that he had to overwhelm Khaine’s incarnation quickly. The vortex was almost freed, and in a few more heartbeats Teclis’s spell would be complete.

Tyrion weathered the Phoenix King’s offensive with hasty parries and dodges, always just ahead of the next blow. Malekith could not help but remember the result of their earlier encounter and fear crept into his heart as he looked into the unthinking, raging gaze of his foe. The dread crept through his body like ice, seeping from the wounds inflicted by the Widowmaker, sapping his spirit as well as his stamina.

It was then that Malekith knew he could not win.

The efforts of his earlier sorcery and the wounds he had received had taken too much of a toll. He could defend himself for a time more, but not long enough, or he could try to end Tyrion with one last effort.

His first blow took the avatar of Khaine back a step, his second rang against Tyrion’s helm, almost shearing through his skull. The armour of Aenarion held against the blow, however, and the impact sent shock tingling up Malekith’s weary arm.

As before, Malekith became aware of a presence near at hand – a familiar coiling of Ulgu that he now recognised as the shadow-walking of Alith Anar. Between flurries of sword strokes, he scanned the piles of dead and dying heaped upon the lodestones, searching for the Shadow King.

He finally spied Alith Anar in the shadow of a waystone, calmly watching the fight with the moonbow drawn, an arrow unerringly following Malekith’s heart. Distracted, the Phoenix King could manage only a clumsy parry of Tyrion’s next attack, and to his horror Asuryath shattered from the blow.

Tyrion’s backswing caught Malekith across the breastplate, rending through the armour of midnight and slicing open his fire-ravaged chest. Hurled to his back, Malekith gasped for air, sucking in hot lungfuls, hands scrabbling in the blood and mud.

Spitting blood, he pushed himself to his feet, the remnant of Asuryath still in his hand.

‘I regret nothing!’ snarled Malekith, raising the bladeless hilt of his sword in mocking salute.

Tyrion replied with a salute of his own, cross-hilt to his chin, before raising the Widowmaker high above his head for the deathblow. As his arm extended, Tyrion turned, and right before Malekith was revealed a tear in Aenarion’s armour where Imrik’s lance had wounded the prince.

Alith had seen it also. While Morathi’s triumphant laughter echoed over the killing ground, a black shaft sped from the shadows and buried to the fletching in Tyrion’s chest. Malekith’s strength fled as he fell back, mirroring Tyrion’s fall as his last life’s blood spurted from the mortal wound.

Morathi’s laughter became a drawn-out shriek of despair, but her cries sounded distant, muffled.

Crashing to the ground face-first, Malekith barely felt his fall. There was a pain in his back, but soon all he felt was numbness. Overhead the winds of magic danced and writhed, finally freed from the vortex.

His heart fluttered and then stopped.

A lifetime and a moment later, Malekith felt himself lifted up, elevated into the sky upon Ulgu the Wind of Shadow. It wrapped about him and pierced him, passing through limb and artery, becoming part of him.

He opened his eyes, still lying on the ground, and felt different.

The winds of magic were no more. As though the sun had burned away a morning mist, their presence had been washed from the world. Inside he felt Ulgu writhe, trapped within his immortal flesh, bound to his body as it had once been bound to the waystone.

All had become still, the sounds of fighting washed away by a clear sea breeze. He heard footsteps and though there was no sensation yet in his body, he swivelled his eyes to see Alarielle picking her way through the falling waystones to hasten to the spot where Tyrion and Malekith lay. Her face was distant and unreadable, while around her the eyes of elves who had hovered on the brink of death snapped open as the Everqueen passed, their broken bones reknitting and their agonies receding.

Alarielle stooped briefly at Malekith’s side. This close, he could feel the raw Ghyran that filled her. Always she had been a queen of life, and now the bargain was made whole, the wind of magic finding home in her. The Phoenix King realised that there was an arrow in his back and though his memory was dim now recalled that Anar had loosed another shaft as he fell, but even this had not finished Malekith. The Everqueen brushed the arrow-shaft protruding from his back and the wood burst into a fine cloud of seeds. They hung in the air for a moment, gossamer against the light. Then the wind scattered them across the rock. The seeds took root wherever they landed, shoots bursting from the husks to burrow into cracks. Alarielle’s presence was all the nourishment the seeds required. Decades of growth occurred in seconds, and soon a thin but glorious glade of oaks stood at the isle’s heart.

Malekith’s fists clenched and unclenched as the strange forest unfurled about him, but he otherwise made no move. Alarielle paid him no further heed. Without a word, she knelt in the dust beside Tyrion. Malekith watched as a single tear spilled from the Everqueen’s cheek, splashing across the prince’s brow. In death, all the malice and cruelty had faded from the prince’s face, and his aspect was again that which had brought hope to his people.

The ground rumbled and a short distance from where Alarielle knelt, a waystone collapsed, showering the ground with dust and shards of stone. The rock where the vortex had once stood fell away, replaced by a seething cauldron of white water.

Malekith, at last roused, staggered to his feet. No one moved to help and as blood splashed to the wet rocks he noticed that not all of his wounds were healing. The shaft of the arrow had been transmuted by Alarielle’s touch, but the tip remained, lodged close to his heart. Every motion was agony, but Malekith was no stranger to pain. He reached out for the Widowmaker, which lay where it had fallen from Tyrion’s hands. Malekith’s Ulgu-wreathed form blurred as he moved, every motion leaving an afterimage of shadow in its wake.

It was Alarielle who first saw Malekith moving towards the icefang. She cried out in alarm and moved to block his path. Others heard the warning and started forward, but were all too late. The shadowy fingers of Malekith’s right hand closed around the Widowmaker’s hilt, and the Phoenix King gave a snort of triumph.

For a long moment, Malekith stood silhouetted against the billowing sea spray, the Widowmaker outstretched.

‘Naught but steel,’ he declared, feeling nothing of Khaine’s power remaining in the blade. ‘Just metal, nothing more.’

The Phoenix King turned and hurled the sword into the frothing waters. For a heartbeat, the Widowmaker glinted darkly. Then it was gone to the depths of the ocean. With its master’s passing, the legendary Sword of Khaine could neither command Malekith, nor offer him anything that a dozen other blades could not provide.

As the Widowmaker vanished, another great tremor struck the Isle of the Dead. Jagged spurs of rock burst from the ground, and waystones sank into the whirling waters. Stone by stone, inch by inch, the island began to slip into the sea. It was the same all across Ulthuan. For thousands of years, only the magic of the Great Vortex had kept the continent above the waves. Now, with the magic scattered, the hungry ocean laid claim to a prize long denied.

‘You have work to do. Save our people,’ Malekith told the Everqueen, sparing a brief glance for dead Tyrion. ‘He really is the very image of my father, you know.’

Malekith managed a few more paces before his injuries and weakness proved too much. He stumbled and then collapsed and his unconscious form was carried from the Isle of the Dead by the survivors of the Shadowfire Guard.

Epilogue

His every footstep was silent, his movements precise. He had tracked his quarry for hours, and confrontation was at last here. Silently, the hunter entered the glade, approaching the Phoenix King from behind. The hunter’s bow was slung upon his shoulder, but his hand was on his sword’s pommel.

It was pathetic really. Twice before the Phoenix King had detected the approach of Alith Anar, on the Blighted Isle and the Isle of the Dead. Malekith had become the embodiment of Ulgu, the power of shadow, but the so-called Shadow King still thought that he could sneak up on the former ruler of Nagarythe.

It was strange to Malekith that Alith had survived so long, being nearly as old as he was. Malekith had done so only through the armour of midnight and daemonic pacts, his mother, now swallowed up by the Realm of Chaos trying to prevent Teclis unleashing the power of the vortex, had sustained herself with blood-rites and sorcery, while others like Ariel had been divine embodiments, fragments of the gods on the mortal plane. Alith had spent much time with the raven heralds in his youth, devotees of Morai-heg, so perhaps he was the incarnation not of Drakira the queen of vengeance as some suspected, but of capricious fate itself.

Whatever the source of the Shadow King’s longevity, he had not matured at all, and Malekith saw him as the same broken child pretending to be a prince he had confronted and sent running into the darkness before the Sundering had destroyed Nagarythe.

He had advanced to within a dozen paces when Malekith’s voice broke the silence.

‘I have been expecting you,’ the king announced without turning. Clichéd, but Alith Anar seemed to have turned his life into a long cliché in recent years. ‘Have you come to finish what you began?’

At last Malekith turned, his gaze falling across the other.

‘I do not know,’ said Alith Anar, and there was uncertainty in his voice while suspicion vied with hope in his eyes. ‘I should kill you, avenge the horrors you have wrought…’

His words faded into the darkness.

‘And yet your sword remains sheathed,’ Malekith noted, with a faint trace of mockery.

‘As does yours,’ remarked the Shadow King.

‘Perhaps we are neither of us what we used to be.’

‘Perhaps,’ Alith conceded. ‘I wish I could believe that.’

‘Then you have come as my assassin.’

‘No, but I do come bearing a message.’

Alith Anar took a step closer, his gaze hardening as he stared up at Malekith. The Phoenix King smiled, remembering the same resolute look on the youngster’s face moments before Malekith had revealed the fact that he and the tyrannical Witch King of Nagarythe were one and the same, shattering every illusion the boy had held about the world and his former prince.

‘My arrow tip rests next to your heart, and you will never be able to remove it. The agony it causes shall suffice as my vengeance for as long as you serve our people. Fail them, and my next shot will take your life.’

‘Your threats mean nothing,’ Malekith growled.

‘Then you have nothing to fear,’ Alith Anar replied. The moon passed behind a cloud. The Shadow King departed, leaving Malekith alone with his thoughts.

Not long after Alith had left, another entered the clearing. Alarielle stopped beside her husband and held a hand to his arm.

‘It is done?’ she asked.

‘Yes, he was here just now.’

‘It is better this way. If you simply kill him, others will try to avenge him. We are one people again, the aesenar included.’

‘He thinks he has me on a leash,’ Malekith said quietly.

‘Good, it will stop him doing something rash that we would all regret.’ Alarielle slipped something into Malekith’s metal hand and turned away. ‘We will control our own destiny from now on – Morai-heg will tug the strands of fate no more.’

When she was gone Malekith opened his fingers, revealing a notched arrow head of black steel. Perhaps the illusion of fulfilling his ancient oaths of vengeance would mature Alith and make him a useful member of the court. He certainly had deadly skills, and Malekith had an empire to rebuild.

So it was that in Athel Loren the elves made their home again, dwelling in the mystical forest as they had done in the time before the Coming of Chaos. As Lileath had told Teclis, there was sanctuary to be found there, and the perils of the world were kept from them for a time.

The winds of magic unchained by Teclis found resting places in great personalities of many races, across Ulthuan and Elthin Arvan. Nagash and his dead legions still walked abroad and Archaon the self-proclaimed Everchosen of Chaos laid waste to all in his path.

Malekith and Alarielle were wed and he was crowned again as Phoenix King, and they believed the great cycle of the gods and life had started again, rebirth from death, growth from destruction, harmony from discord. Only the future would reveal whether the son of Aenarion could truly overcome so much personal bitterness and strife and become the ruler the elves needed.

Such a pity that neither Malekith nor the elves had any future, for the Rhana Dandra was the End Times and there was to be no new beginning, only more death and misery.

Lileath had lied to them. They had sanctuary, for a while, but all things fall to Chaos.

Eventually.

The world is dying, but it has been so since the coming of the Chaos Gods.

For years beyond reckoning, the Ruinous Powers have coveted the mortal realm. They have made many attempts to seize it, their anointed champions leading vast hordes into the lands of men, elves and dwarfs. Each time, they have been defeated.

Until now.

In the frozen north, Archaon, a former templar of the warrior-god Sigmar, has been crowned the Everchosen of Chaos. He stands poised to march south and bring ruin to the lands he once fought to protect. Behind him amass all the forces of the Dark Gods, mortal and daemonic. When they come, they will bring with them a storm such as has never been seen.

And beneath the world, the ratlike skaven have united for the first time in many centuries. Their numbers are beyond counting and with the daemonic verminlords leading them to glory, their ascension is assured. In the western lands of Lustria, Clan Pestilens launch an all-out assault on their ancient foes, the lizardmen, an assault that the cold-blooded servants of the Old Ones cannot weather.

The southern countries of Tilea and Estalia have been devastated, and Skavenblight expands to create a capital city for the skaven from which they can rule the surface world as well as their Under-Empire. Further north, they swarm into Sigmar’s Empire to finish what the hosts of the Glottkin began and drown the remaining cities of man beneath a tide of fur.

And in the Worlds Edge Mountains, the most hated foes of the skaven, the stalwart dwarfs, fortify their holds, preparing for the onslaught that they know is coming. Their time is coming to an end and the time of the skaven is at hand.

These are the End Times.

Prologue

The Realm of Ruin

In the darkest of places, in the most timeless of times, the twelve Shadow Lords of Decay convened in dire assembly.

They came swiftly on foot, scurrying through the rotting refuse that choked their domain. Their high horned heads bobbed furtively, now visible, now hidden by mounded rubbish: the wealth and wisdom of myriad ages taken, gnawed, despoiled, tasted and inevitably discarded. One could find all manner of treasure buried in the stinking filth, but it meant nothing to the creatures who possessed it. It was only to be coveted for the sake of having, ruined for the sake of ruination, and quickly forgotten.

Such was the way of this young race. Scavengers, usurpers, content to squat in the desolation of better peoples, their unnatural vitality and ingenuity nought but engines for entropy. The skaven were the true children of Chaos, and this place, this foetid reek under a glowering sky, was theirs alone – a nowhere realm nibbled out of the Realm of Chaos, given shape by the spirits of the ratmen that came to dwell there. A dismal place, the Realm of Ruin, a hell its inhabitants dearly desired to remake upon the mortal world.

A verminlord is a huge creature, tall as a giant, but in the wrack of the Realm of Ruin there is no scale a mortal mind can make sense of. Thus, although the Shadow Lords walked on two feet, although their heads were capped with mighty horns – and although all possessed some obvious, uncanny power – when seen from afar they appeared small and timorous, resembling nothing so much as the lowly creatures from whom they had descended. They moved like rats and they were cautious like rats, stopping every hundred paces to lift their noses and sniff at the air with a rat’s sly mix of boldness and fear. Rats – rats cavorting in the rubbish of worlds.

In ones and threes, but never twos – for two lends itself too readily to betrayal – they came to the place of gathering. Verminhall, the great hall of the Realm of Ruin. The immortal lords of skavenkind converged upon the building. Once close, they broke into a scurrying run, when they were sure no others could see them scamper. They entered the portals of the vast edifice with unseemly haste, keen to clear the open space around its walls and the terrible things that hunted there.

A grandiose, overstated mirror to the Temple of the Horned Rat that stood in the living world, Verminhall was dominated by a tower that soared impossibly high. Sprouting from the uncertain centre of the building, thick and ugly, it disappeared into the churning purple clouds. Its top was lost to the sky, and its filth-encrusted walls flashed to the violence of emerald lightning. As with all things the children of Chaos possessed, it had doubtlessly been stolen from forgotten creatures – some race that had regarded itself as finer and worthier, only to fall in surprise to the vermintide. After all, this chain of events was set to repeat itself forever. In a sense, it already had. Time has no meaning in the Realm of Chaos.

The greater powers sneered at the Horned Rat, seeing him as one of the infinite array of petty godlings whose insignificant domains marred the purity of Chaos. They were wrong to do so. The Horned Rat was no longer some minor creature, for he had grown mighty. His children were legion. Long-fermented plans were at last coming to fruition.

If this terrible place taught any lesson at all – to those few able to survive here long enough to receive it – it would be this: one should not dismiss the offspring of the lowly.

The hour of the Horned Rat was at hand.

The daemonkind verminlords, first among the servants of the Horned Rat, were as numerous as their mortal counterparts, countless in their multitudes and ubiquitous in the culverts and gulleys of creation. But of them, only twelve were deemed truly great. The greatest of these twelve was Lord Skreech Verminking. He who had once been many, and was now one.

Causality had no meaning in the Realm of Ruin, not in any sense that a mortal would understand. But Verminking’s intention was to arrive after his peers, in order to underscore his own importance, and he always performed as to his intent.

The interior of Verminhall was a cave, a monument, a howling void, a place of life and of death, a temple, a palace – all, none and many more of these things besides. The laws of nature were openly mocked. Braziers burned backwards, green light glinting from Verminking’s multiple horns as warpstone condensed from the very air. Fumes pulled themselves into dented brass firebowls, adding second by second to the mass of the solid magic growing within them. The lump of warpstone embedded in the daemon’s empty left eye socket flared with sympathy at its brothers’ birth pangs as the verminlord passed.

There was no sense to the geometry of the great hall. Stairs went on infinitely to nowhere. Black rivers flowed along walls. Within round cages of iron, cats roasted eternally in green fire without being consumed. Windows opened in midair, looking upon places neither near nor far, but most definitely not within the bounds of the Realm of Ruin. The squeaking of a billion times a billion anguished skaven souls made a painful chittering that obliterated all other sound. Verminking moved through it as one long accustomed to visiting, taking unexpected turns and secret ways precipitately and without warning, the ultimate rat in the ultimate maze.

The other eleven great verminlords awaited their lord in the Chamber of the Shadow Council, a room that was at once endless in size and claustrophobically small. A hollow, thirteen-sided table, as wide as forever, dominated the floor. A pool of noisome liquid was at its centre, in whose oceans strange images stirred.

As they awaited their chief, the Shadow Lords of Decay bickered and schemed with one another, or sat grooming their remaining patches of fur with long tongues, content to listen to their peers, hate them, and secretly plot their undoing. All the others were present, and thus only two places were empty: Verminking’s own, the first position; and that next to his, the thirteenth. The head of the table, in a sense, this was the seat of the Horned Rat himself – a massive throne carved of warpstone, big enough for a god. The likeness of its owner glared in baleful majesty from its canopy’s apex.

It was said that the Great One could watch them from the unblinking, glowing eyes of his facsimile. Verminking suspected he watched them all the time; he was a god after all, the verminlord reasoned. Such was the burden of being the most favoured of the Horned Rat’s many children.

Lord Verminking was not alone in his nervousness, although he hid it better than most. As was usual at such gatherings, each member of the assembled Shadow Council broke regularly from his bluster, blagging and threats to glance at the place of the Horned Rat. The god was known to attend the meetings himself – infrequently perhaps, but thus always unexpectedly. When he did attend, the musk of fear hung heavy on the air, and often as not a new opening became available upon the Council. In their own fear of the verminlords, no mortal skaven would have ever suspected that the rat-daemons felt terror for any reason, but they did. Their hearts were as craven as those of lesser ratkin.

‘Lord, I have come!’ announced Verminking. As he made for his chair, he kicked aside dozens of the blind white rats carpeting the floor. From the mouths of these pathetic vermin came the mewling excuses of fallen skaven lords, their souls condemned to recount their failures forever.

Verminking’s musk glands clenched as he squeezed past the Horned Rat’s throne to gain his own seat. When he reached his place, a lesser verminlord – one of the elite guard of the Shadow Council – appeared from the gloom and pulled Verminking’s chair out for him. The daemon gave it a cursory examination before sitting. One could never be too careful in the domain of the Great Horned One. The verminlord guards in service to the Council had their tongues ripped out so that they could not relay what they heard, but that was no barrier to ambition – nor, in that place of sorcery, to speech.

‘You are late, Lord Skreech,’ hissed Lurklox, the shadow-shrouded Master of All Deceptions. He was Verminking’s opposite number and, therefore, his second greatest rival. At least that was the case bar every third meeting, when Lurklox was replaced by Lord Verstirix of the fourth position in ceremonial opposition to Verminking. All this was enshrined on the Great Black Pillar growing in the tower. The rules governing the mortal Lords of Decay were maddeningly complex, but as nothing to those that dictated the politics of their hidden demigods. The Black Pillar in Skavenblight had been inscribed by the Horned Rat himself. The Great Black Pillar – the real sum of the Horned One’s knowledge, the verminlords liked to think – was eternally updated. It grew constantly from the root like gnawing-teeth as more edicts were added to its hellishly contradictory catalogue. Rarely a day went by without some new ruling. The pillar was already over one hundred miles high, and the text upon it was very small. Only Verminking confidently claimed to know the full scope of the Horned Rat’s teachings. He was lying.

‘We are entitled to be late, yes-yes, Lurklox. It is our right!’ insisted the lord of all verminlords. ‘Many places we must go, many things we must see, so that you might see them too.’

‘You dishonour us,’ said Lurklox. One could never quite catch sight of the assassin, he was so swathed in shadow.

Vermalanx the Poxlord waved a diseased hand at Verminking. ‘Yes-yes,’ he said thickly. ‘Mighty-exalted the great Skreech is, he of the many minds and many horns.’

Vermalanx dipped his head in a bow that could have been mocking, but so much of the Poxlord’s face had rotted down to brown bone that it was impossible to tell. The more sycophantic members of the Council clapped politely. From lumps of warp rock, empty eye sockets and multiple eyes randomly arranged around malformed heads, they gave sidelong looks to their fellows, determined not to be out-fawned.

The shard of warpstone embedded in Verminking’s face flared dangerously. ‘Do not mock-mock, do not tease!’ He slammed his hand-claw down on the table. ‘We are the greatest of all of you. The Great Horned One himself whispers into our ear.’ Among Verminking’s many untruths, this statement had the distinction of being mostly true, even if it was disconcerting for him when the Horned Rat did actually whisper in his ear.

‘Oh, most assuredly you are the greatest, O greatest great one, most pusillanimous sage, O most malfeasant malefactor,’ said Verminlord Skweevritch. The metal prosthetics covering the upper part of his body hissed green steam as he twitched submissively.

‘Lickspittle,’ chittered the Verminlord Basqueak.

‘I say vote Skweevritch off-away! We have no time for such sycophancy,’ said Lord Skrolvex, the fattest and most repugnant, to Verminking’s eyes, of their number.

‘Silence!’ he shouted, his multiple voices covering all frequencies audible to skaven ears, to deeply unpleasant effect. ‘Silence,’ he said again for good measure. Long tails lashed. Ears quivered in discomfort. ‘There is business afoot, yes. Business we must watch, oh so carefully, my lords. In the mortal lands, great Lords of Decay meet, great Lords of Decay plot-scheme. They meet, so we the Shadow Council, great Verminlords of Decay, the true Council, must meet too-also.’

Chattering and insults were traded. Verminking silenced them with a hand-claw, and pointed his other at the pool. ‘Listen! See-smell! Look-learn!’ he said. Greasy bubbles popped on the surface as the pool became agitated. In slow circuit the liquid turned, swirling around and around, faster and faster, to form a whirlpool, whose funnel plunged deeper and deeper until it surely must have surpassed the limits of the water. A black circle appeared at its bottom, and the whirlpool went down forever. The other verminlords looked at it in askance, lest it drag them in, but Verminking had no such fear. He stared eagerly into the depths of eternity. Fumes rose from the liquid, sparking with warp-lightning, before settling down as a glowing mist. Within the mist, the following image formed.

A room not unlike the Shadow Council’s, though not so grand. A table like the Shadow Council’s, though not so ornate. Thrones around the table, like the Shadow Council’s, though not so large. In the twelve thrones sat twelve skaven lords of great power, though not so powerful as the twelve who watched them unseen.

Verminking’s skin twitched. The Verminlords of Decay watched the mortal Lords of Decay. Who watched them? Where did it stop? Were there conclaves of rats, squeaking in the sewers observed by gimlet-eyed beastmasters? Were there layer upon layer of ever greater rat-things plotting and interfering with those below? He chased the thought away, but it lingered at the back of his fractured mind, insistent as a flea in his ear.

The mortal skaven were in full debate. Things were not going well. Shouting and squeaking raised a clamour that shook the room. Many were standing to wave accusing forepaws at one another. Some squeaked privately to one another, or shot knowing looks across the table as deals were silently struck and as quickly broken.

Just as Verminking had silenced the Shadow Council, so Kritislik the Seerlord silenced the Council of Thirteen, although nowhere near as majestically. He was white-furred and horned, and that should have ensured him supremacy. He was chief of the grey seers, the wizard lords of the skaven, blessed by the Horned Rat himself, and nominal chief of the Council in his absence. But the others were in rebellious mood. Kritislik was agitated, squeaking rapidly and without authority. He had yet to squirt musk, but the look of fear was on him, in his twitching nose, widened eyes and bristling fur.

‘Quiet-quiet! You blame, shout-squeak! All fault here. Great victories we have were in manlands of Estalia and Tilea.’

‘Many slaves, much plunder-spoils,’ said Kratch Doomclaw, warlord of Clan Rictus. ‘All is going to plan. Soon the man-things will fall. Listen to the white-fur.’

‘No!’ said one, huge and deep voiced. He was black as night and unconquerable as the mountains. Lord Gnawdwell of Clan Mors. ‘You take-steal too much, far beyond your scavenge rights. You test my patience, thief-thief, sneaker. I will not listen to your prattling one heartbeat longer.’

‘My clanrats, my victory,’ said Kratch, making an effort to keep his voice low and slow. ‘Where is Lord Gnawdwell’s trophy-prize? I shall squeak you where – still in the hands of the dwarf-things, who you have not yet defeated.’

Squeaking laughter came from several of the others, including, most irksomely for Gnawdwell, Lord Paskrit, the obese warlord-general of all Skavendom.

The lords of the four greater clans scowled at this display of indiscipline among the warlord clans. Lord Morskittar of Clan Skryre, emperor of warlocks and tinkerer in chief, was not impressed.

‘Many devices, many weapons, many warptokens’ worth of new machines you of the warlord clans were given-granted in aid of the Great Uprising. What have we to show-see for it? Yes-yes, very good. Tilea-place and Estalia-place gone-destroyed.’

General noises of approval interrupted him. Morskittar held his paws up, palms flat, and bared his teeth in disapproval. ‘Fools to cheer like stupid slave-meat! The weakest human-lands destroyed only. Frog-things still in their stone temple-homes. Dwarf-things still in the mountains. And Empire-place not yet destroyed!’ He shook his head, his tail lashing back and forth behind him. ‘Disappointing.’

‘What you squeak-say? Where are your armies?’ said Lord Griznekt Mancarver of Clan Skab. ‘Guns no good without paw-fingers to pull triggers.’

More uproar and shouted accusations. All around the room, the elite Albino Guard of the Council stiffened, ready to intervene on the winning side should open conflict erupt.

‘No! No!’ said Morskittar. ‘I will speak! I will speak!’ He slammed a skull carved of pure warpstone down onto the table. It banged like a cannon, the report buying him silence. ‘Why point-indicate me with paw of blame?’ said Morskittar slyly. ‘I say the grey seers are the ones who shoulder responsibility. Clan Scruten are those who bring everything to ruin.’ He pointed at Kritislik.

‘Yes-yes!’ chittered the others immediately, all of whom had their own reasons for loathing the priest-magicians. ‘The seers, Clan Scruten!’

‘Outrage! Outrage!’ squealed Kritislik. ‘I have led this council long ages-time! I led great summoning many breedings ago! I speak for the Horned Rat!’

‘You speak for yourself,’ said Paskrit the Vast, gruffly. Sensing weakness, he heaved his bulk up to face Kritislik on his footpaws. ‘You speak for Clan Scruten. Always scheming, always plotting. Always say do this, do that! Why is it Clan Mors find itself fighting Clan Rictus? Why Clan Skurvy lose half of thrall clans the day before sea-battle of Sartosa-place?’

‘Grey seer is why, Clan Scruten! Clan Scruten are to blame,’ croaked Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch.

They all shouted then, except for the inscrutable Nightlord Sneek, master of Clan Eshin, who watched it all with hooded eyes half hidden by his mask and no scent to betray his thoughts.

‘It is not our fault! Your incompetence and greed-grasping stops the obeying of our rightful orders! We are the horned rats. We are the chosen-best of the Great Horned One! You fight-fight, scrapping like common rat-things on human middens. Listen to us, or suffer,’ shouted Kritislik.

‘No! Lies-deceit. You pit us against one another when all we wish to do is work in harmony for the betterment of all skavenkind!’ said Lord Gnawdwell.

The others nodded solemnly. ‘Truth-word!’ they said. ‘We would conquer, but for you. Grey seers make us fight-fight!’ They would all happily have knifed each other in the back at the least provocation, whether a grey seer was pulling the strings or not. That the grey seers usually were pulling the strings complicated matters enormously.

The Council of Thirteen erupted into a cacophony of squeaked accusations. The scent of aggression grew strong.

The Shadow Lords looked on with growing disapproval.

‘See-see,’ said Verminking. ‘Great victories they have, and now they fall to fighting.’

‘They are what they are, and no more,’ said Vermalanx disinterestedly. ‘Children yet, but mastery shall come to them. Then true greatness we shall see-smell in due course. I care not for this – my Nurglitch’s plans are well advanced.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Throxstraggle, Vermalanx’s ally and fellow plaguelord. ‘What care we for these pup squeakings?’

‘Your grave error to set aside Clan Pestilens from the doing-aims of the others. You are not apart from this, poxlords,’ said Verminking. ‘You and yours distance yourselves, but Clan Pestilens is nothing alone. You think-remember that.’

Vermalanx chirred angrily.

‘No mastery will come. They fail! They fail!’ spat Basqueak. ‘Fool-things! Squabbling while the world slips from their paws. Always the same, civil war comes again. Skavenblight will ring to the sound of blade on blade. Man-things and dwarf-things will recover, and skaven stay in the shadows. Always the same.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Verminking. ‘They fail. But watch…’

In the mortal realm, Kritislik stood, waving a fist at the other Lords of Decay, admonishing them for their stupidity. From the look on his face, he thought it was working, for the others suddenly fell silent and shrank back in their seats, eyes wide. A few bared their throats in submission before they could catch themselves. Someone shamefully let spray the musk of fear. It hung heavy over the crowd, an accusation of cowardice.

Kritislik began to crow. The mightiest lords of Skavendom, and he had them in the palm of his paw. Now was his chance to stamp his authority all over this rabble again!

Or maybe not. Kritislik was so taken by his own oratory that he had completely failed to notice the shape growing behind him.

Black smoke jetted from the seat of the Horned Rat. The wisps of shadow built into a cloud that writhed and began to take the form of something huge and malevolent.

‘Ah! Now! Order, is good, yes! You listen-hear good, you…’ Kritislik stopped mid-sentence. His nose twitched. ‘You are not listening to me, are you? You do not hear-smell me good?’ he said. He was answered by eleven shaking heads, the owners of which were all trying to look inconspicuous.

He turned around to see a horned head forming from darkness more complete than that found in the deepest places of the world.

Kritislik threw himself to the floor in outright obeisance as the manifested Horned Rat opened eyes that flooded the room with sickly green light. Words of power rumbled from some other place, the voice underpinned by hideous chittering – the deathsqueaks of every rat and skaven ever to have drawn breath.

‘Children of the Horned Rat,’ he said, his voice as final as a tunnel collapse, ‘how you disappoint your father.’

‘O Great One! O Horned One! Once more I welcome you to the–’

‘No one summon-bids I, Kritislik. I come, I go, wherever I please. I have no master.’

‘I… I…’

‘You squabble pathetically. This will cease now. Your plans are sound, your alliances are not. I will not countenance another failure. Long have Clan Scruten had my blessing. I have given you my mark, great power, and long life.’ The head bore down on Kritislik, lips parting to show teeth made of crackling light. ‘You have wasted my favour.’

Without warning, a hand formed from the smoke, scrabbling as if seeking purchase on an unseen barrier. Fingers and claws pointed forwards. The air warped as the hand pushed against an unseen skin, then burst its way into common reality and reached down.

Kritislik squealed in terror as he was plucked from the floor by his tail. His fine robes dropped down to cover his head. The musk of fear sprayed without restraint, followed by a rich stream of droppings.

‘The others are right-correct, little Kritislik.’ A second hand reached out from the darkness, where now a muscular torso had also formed. A gentle claw-finger lifted the hem of Kritislik’s upended robes to reveal his petrified face, and stroked along his horns. ‘So much I have given you, and yet you scheme for more. Greedy, when there is enough for all to feast upon. Your avarice stops now.’

The mouth of the Horned Rat gaped wide. Kritislik was hoisted high by the tail over a maw swirling with terrible possibilities. Kritislik stared down and gibbered at what he saw there.

‘M-mercy! M-mercy, O Great One! We will double our efforts! Triple them! Quadrupl–’ His pleas ended in a scream as his tail was released. The grey seer fell into the eternally hungry mouth of his god. The Horned Rat’s jaws snapped shut. His eyes closed with pleasure, and when he opened them again they burned with a cold and terrible light.

‘Thirteen times thirteen passes of the Chaos moon I will give you. Thirteen times thirteen moons I will wait. Go to your legions and your workshops! Bring me victory. Bring me dominance over this mortal realm! You must be as one, work as one, as single-minded as a swarm pouring from a cracked sewer-pipe – all rats scurry-flood in same direction. Only then will you inherit the ruins of this world, only then will you rule. Thirteen times thirteen moons! Fail, and all will suffer the fate of the seer.’

With a crackle of green lightning and the tolling of a bell so loud the room quaked, the Horned Rat vanished. Kritislik’s bones lay black and smoking upon the floor.

The tolling bell faded and stopped. The Lords of Decay uncovered their ears, picked themselves up off the floor and sniffed the air.

The ensuing silence lasted for all of fifteen swift skaven heartbeats.

‘I move,’ said Morskittar, swallowing to moisten his dry throat, ‘to vote the grey seers from the Council. Clan Scruten will sit-rule no more!’

For only the fourth time in skaven history, a vote was passed unanimously. As soon as it was done, the clanlords immediately fell to arguing again: over what to do, and more importantly, over who should occupy the empty seat.

In the Realm of Ruin, the twelve Shadow Lords of Decay managed a shocked silence for a little longer.

Skweevritch broke it. ‘But the Great Horned One has not gone abroad in the mortal realm for many-many years. Centuries!’ he wailed.

‘What-what? What?’ squealed Soothgnawer, white-furred as the unfortunate Kritislik. He was the champion of Clan Scruten and was dismayed, but he did not voice his objections too loudly in case the Horned Rat became aware of them. ‘No seer on the Council? No seer? Unthinkable.’

‘And what of us, what do we do?’ said Skrolvex. They all glanced nervously at the throne, in case their god should pay them a visit also. The Horned Rat’s appetite was notoriously insatiable.

Verminking spoke, cunningly and persuasively. ‘Pups need guidance. Who becomes slave, who becomes lord. The strongest decides. The Horned Rat! The Great Horned One has shown us the way. Is it not clear? We must follow his example. We must go to them, into the mortal realm. We will guide them.’ He pointed at the bickering mortal skaven.

Lord Basqueak twitched. ‘Mortal realm? We are vulnerable there! Danger! Much peril.’ His tail twitched.

They were all immortal, chosen of the Horned Rat. And yet certain rules applied to them, as they did to all inhabitants of the higher realms. To suffer death and banishment for a hundred years and a day back into the Realm of Chaos was not a terminal experience, but their places on the Shadow Council would be forfeit, and no verminlord could countenance such a loss of power.

‘Coward!’ squealed Kreeskuttle. He stood tall with a rattle of armour. Kreeskuttle was the mightiest of arm upon the Council, if not of intellect.

Basqueak hissed, jutting his head forwards. ‘Then you, Lord Kreeskuttle, shall go to the mortal lands and take the risk! Show-tell how brave you are.’

Kreeskuttle growled, and sank back into his chair.

‘I will go,’ said Vermalanx arrogantly. ‘I have no fear. I will go to the land of the frog-things, there to guide the great plagues.’

‘Yes! Go-go!’ burbled Throxstraggle enthusiastically, notably making no promise of his own to follow.

‘I too,’ said Soothgnawer. ‘It wrong-bad no seer sits on the Council. I will help them win their place again. We must atone for our sins against the Horned Rat.’

They eyed each other with quick, suspicious eyes. Plots were forming, plans being drawn up. No doubt others would go without declaring their intentions. Outrageous risk for ephemeral gain wobbled yet again on the balance of the skaven soul.

‘Soothgnawer is right,’ said Verminking. ‘The grey seers hold the key.’

The mist over the pool shivered, clearing away the bickering lords of the mortal skaven. The image wavered, and a narrow alleyway materialised, one of thousands within the crammed confines of Skavenblight. Noses twitched, teeth bared. The verminlords recognised it instinctively, although it changed daily. The home of all skaven.

‘Here-here, valued lords. Here-here is our weapon!’ said Verminking.

A white-furred figure scuttled along, constantly looking over his shoulder. A massive rat ogre paced along beside him, taking one step for every fifteen of the grey seer’s.

‘Is that…’ asked Vermalanx.

‘It isn’t…’ said Kreeskuttle.

‘It is!’ gasped Basqueak.

‘Thanquol!’ squeaked Poxparl.

‘Why him-him?’ said Grunsqueel, moved finally to speak. ‘He is useless! Great power has been gifted-given to this horned one, and what has he done? He has squandered-wasted it. Of all of them, he is by far the worst.’

‘Used it no good.’

‘True-true. How many times has Thanquol, great grey seer, failed us?’ said Lurklox. ‘The Horned Rat should eat him too!’

‘Many-many times!’ chittered the others. ‘Failure! Liability!’

‘See-watch, how weak he is! He goes always tail down, the musk of fear never far from squirting. He is weak. Excuses, excuses and never success,’ said Basqueak.

‘He is a coward!’ said Skweevritch, which was a little rich, as he was no hero himself.

‘Fool-fool. The dwarf-thing and man-thing have thwarted him alone many-many times!’ said Kreeskuttle.

‘The disaster at Nuln.’

‘The shame of his failed summoning!’ said Basqueak. The others nodded in emphatic agreement. More than one of them had been ready to step into the mortal world that day, only for Thanquol to botch it.

Verminking held up a hand-claw and hissed. ‘He is all these things and more. Failure! Dreg! It is in part because of him no grey seer sits upon the Council in the world below.’

‘Failure!’ the others squeaked.

‘Fool-fool! He should be destroyed-killed, not aided,’ said Throxstraggle.

‘Yes, failure. Yes, fool-fool. But in him is our greatest tool.’

‘What-what?’

‘Lord Skreech squeaks madness,’ said Verstirix. The warrior verminlord puffed up his chest. ‘Enough! Veto right is mine.’

‘Do you challenge us, the greatest of our number?’ said Verminking.

Verstirix looked to his colleagues for support; they pointedly looked away.

‘Grey Seer Thanquol has much service to render. Yes-yes,’ said Soothgnawer.

‘Too much faith you have in him,’ said Basqueak. ‘Fool-thing, Throxstraggle is correct. We should slay-kill very slowly. Then find another.’

Verminking stroked the surface of the foetid pool, his long black claw sending ripples across its surface and the image shimmering above it. ‘No-no. It is he, it is he.’

‘Who make you decide-determine? Vote! Vote!’ screeched Verstirix.

‘Yes, vote-vote. Ten against two. You lose, Soothgnawer, Skreech,’ bubbled Vermalanx.

‘Not two against ten, not that at all. You count bad.’

‘Two! Two! I see only two, fool-things!’

‘Three against ten,’ said Verminking quietly. He looked meaningfully at the Horned Rat’s throne. It could have been a trick of the light, but it appeared that the warpstone eyes of the effigy atop it glowed more brightly.

A silence fell over the Council. Tails twitched. Beady eyes darted beneath horns that shook, just a little, with fear.

‘I say,’ said Poxparl calculatingly, ‘that we give Thanquol another chance. Mighty Lord Skreech has moved-touched my heart.’

‘Yes-yes,’ squeaked Basqueak very loudly, talking directly towards the vacant throne. ‘I vote yes-yes.’

‘I too,’ said Throxstraggle.

‘If it is so, it is so,’ muttered Vermalanx.

One by one, the verminlords voted. The motion was passed by a narrow margin – there had never yet been a unanimous vote on the Shadow Council. Verminking looked to Verstirix, challenging him to use his veto. The ex-warlord looked at the empty throne, then found something on the surface of the table that needed his urgent attention.

‘It is done, then,’ said Lord Skreech Verminking triumphantly. ‘Let us rip the veil between worlds. Let us stalk mortal lands again! Skitter-disperse, go to your favourites.’ He peered hungrily into the pool. ‘Go where you will, as quickly as you can. We shall go to Thanquol.’

Thanquol’s nose twitched, his famous sixth sense giving him the itchy feeling that he was being watched. He looked around the stinking alley, into crooked windows, along the skyline, black against the foggy night, into alleyways where sagging duckboards crossed open sewers. He saw no threat, but shivered nonetheless. His musk gland clenched.

‘Sssss! Jumping-fear at own shadow! At own shadow!’ he scolded himself. He jerked an angry paw at his bodyguard. ‘Boneripper, on-on!’

And so, unknowing of the attention focused upon him at that moment, Thanquol continued with his furtive passage through Skavenblight.

One

Kingsmeet

The kingsmeet was over, and Belegar was glad. Soon he could go home.

The dwarf kings met in Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, home of the dwarf High King. Everpeak was the last place in the world where the ancient glory of the dwarfs shone undimmed. No matter that only half its halls were occupied, or that the works of its forges could never recapture the skill of the ancestors. The place teemed with dwarfs in such multitudes that one could be forgiven for thinking that they were still a numerous people.

Being there made Belegar miserable. In the distant past his own realm had been Karaz-a-Karak’s rival in riches and size. His inability to return it to glory filled him with shame.

He sat in an antechamber awaiting the High King, nursing a jewelled goblet of fine ale. He had been born and raised in Karaz-a-Karak, but half a century of dwelling in the dangerous ruins of Vala-Azrilungol had blunted his memory of its riches. The opulence on display was astounding – more value in gold and artefacts in this one, small waiting room than were in his own throne room. He felt decidedly shabby, as he had done all the way through the kingsmeet. Two months hard travelling and fighting to get here. He had to sneak out of his own hold, and he would have to sneak back in. Now here he was, kept behind like a naughty beardling after all the other kings had been sent to feast. Nothing Thorgrim would have to say to him would be good. The two of them had ceased to see eye to eye some time ago. Belegar steeled himself for another long rant about failed obligations and unpaid debt.

He rolled his eyes. What had he been thinking, telling the others he occupied a third of Karak Eight Peaks? From a strictly technical point of view, it could be deemed truthful. He had opened up mines, captured a good part of the upper deeps, and held a strong corridor between the surface city and the East Gate. But in reality his holdings were far less. The East Gate itself, the citadel, the mountain halls of Kvinn-wyr. Everything else had to be visited in strength. And he had promised military aid. With what?

Not for the first time, he cursed his pride.

The doors to the far end of the chamber opened wide. A dwarf in the livery of Thorgrim’s personal household bowed low, sweeping his hood from his head.

‘Majesty, the King of Kings is ready for you.’

Belegar slid from the rich coverings of the bench. A second servant appeared from nowhere, a fresh mug of ale on his silver tray. Belegar downed his first, until that moment untouched, and took the second.

‘This way,’ said the first dwarf, holding out his hand.

Belegar was shown into a chamber he knew only too well. One of Thorgrim’s private rooms high in the palace, it was large and impressive, and consequently used by the High King when he was going to dress down others of royal blood. It had grand views of the approach to Karaz-a-Karak, seven hundred feet below. Summer sunlight streamed in through the tall windows. A fire of logs burned in the huge hearth. A clock ticked on the wall.

‘Belegar,’ said Thorgrim levelly. The king wore his armour and his crown. Belegar tried to think of a time he had seen him without it, and failed. The latest volume of the Great Book of Grudges sat open on a lectern. A bleeding-knife and a quill rested in specially cut spaces by it. ‘Please, take a seat.’

Thorgrim gestured to one of a number of smartly dressed servants. They disappeared, returning moments later with a tall jug of beer and a platter piled high with roast meats.

Belegar sat down opposite the High King with resignation.

‘I do not mean to keep you from the feast. Please, help yourself, sharpen your appetite for when you join the others,’ he said.

Belegar did as asked. The kingsmeet had been long, and he was hungry. Both food and ale were delicious.

‘We’ll wait a moment before we get started,’ said Thorgrim. ‘There’s another I wish to speak with.’

The door opened again then. Belegar turned in his seat, his eyebrows rising in surprise at the sight of Ungrim Ironfist. The Slayer King strode in and took up a seat. He nodded at Belegar as he sat. His face was stony. Ungrim always had been angry. Belegar had no idea how he managed to survive caught between two oaths so contradictory. And he had just lost his son. Belegar felt a stab of sympathy for Ungrim. The safety of his own boy was never far from his thoughts.

Thorgrim pressed his hands on the desk before speaking, formulating his words with care. ‘All this business with the elgi and the walking dead has got me unsettled,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Things are happening of great portent, things that speak to me that…’ He shook his head. He looked even more tired than he had in the meeting. ‘We discussed all that. I am grateful for your support.’

‘Of course, my king,’ said Belegar.

‘Why wouldn’t I want to march out and destroy our enemies? You’ve heard all I have to say on this matter,’ said Ungrim.

‘I have,’ agreed Thorgrim. ‘Summoning the throngs will not be easy. You have heard Kazador and Thorek’s objections. They are not alone. The argument between attack and defence is one I have had all my life, and I fear it is too late to win it.’ Thorgrim paused. ‘I have asked you both here as you are, in your own ways, special cases. Ungrim,’ he said to the Slayer King, ‘to you I urge a little caution. Do not throw away your throng in the quest for vengeance for your son’s death, or in order to fulfil your Slayer’s oath.

Ungrim’s face creased with anger. ‘Thorgrim–’

Thorgrim held up his hand. ‘That is all I will say on the matter. I do not criticise you, it is a plea for aid. We will need you before the end. Should you fall marching out to bring war upon our enemies, the others will follow Kazador’s advice and lock themselves away. That way, we shall all fall one by one. By all means fight, old friend. But use a little caution. Without you, my case is weakened.’

Ungrim nodded curtly. ‘Aye.’

‘And you, Belegar,’ said Thorgrim. His face hardened a little, but not so much as Belegar might rightfully have expected. ‘Long have you struggled to keep your oaths. Loans have gone unpaid, warriors have been unforthcoming, and your hold swallows dawi lives and dawi gold as if it were a bottomless pit without any noticeable gain.’ Thorgrim stared hard at him. ‘But you are a great warrior, and the proudest of all the kings here. You and I have our differences to be sure, but of all the others, I think our hearts are most similar. Of them all, only you have set out to reconquer what was once ours. I respect you for that far more than you realise. So what I am going to ask of you will cut hard and deep. Nevertheless, it must be asked.’

‘My king?’ said Belegar.

Thorgrim sighed. ‘Against all my own oaths and desires, and against yours, I must ask you to consider abandoning Karak Eight Peaks. Take your warriors to Karak Azul. Aid Kazador. If you do, I will consider all your debts repaid.’

It was a generous offer, and sensible advice. Karak Eight Peaks was weak, besieged, a drain on the other holds.

Belegar did not see it that way. All his misery at his plight flashed at once into anger. When he stood, which he did quickly, his words were spoken in haste and fuelled by more than a little shame at his failure to secure all of Vala-Azrilungol.

When he had finally stopped shouting and stormed out of the room, his path was set. That very day, he left Karaz-a-Karak for the final time. He brooded on the High King’s words all the way to Karak Eight Peaks.

They would haunt him to his grave.

Two

Lord Gnawdwell

In the underbelly of the mortal world, a flurry of activity was set in motion. Rarely had the ancient Lords of Decay moved so quickly. A febrile energy gripped Skavenblight. Messengers scurried from place to place, carrying missives that were, in the main, far from truthful. Conspirators struggled in vain to find a quiet spot to talk that was not already full of plotters. Assassinations were up, and a good killer became hard to find.

The doings of the Council were supposed to be of the utmost secrecy, but on all lips, squeak-talked on every corner, were tidings of the death of Kritislik, and of who would inherit the vacant seat on the Council of Thirteen.

Into this stewing pit of intrigue Warlord Queek, the Headtaker, came, thronged by red-armoured guards. Through the underway, into the seeping bowels of Skavenblight, he marched to see his master, Lord Gnawdwell.

Queek avoided the streets, coming to Gnawdwell’s burrows without once having a whisker stirred by Skavenblight’s dank mists. This suited Queek, who was no lover of the surface world or the crowded lanes of the capital.

Gnawdwell’s palace was a tall tower rising over multiple layers of cellars and burrows at the heart of the Clan Mors quarter of the city. That he had summoned Queek to the underground portion of his estates was a subtle reminder of power, an accommodation to Queek. Gnawdwell was saying he knew Queek was more at home under the earth than on it. Gnawdwell was highlighting weakness.

Queek knew this. Queek was no fool.

Queek and his guards took many twisting lanes from the main underways to reach the underpalace. Great doors of wutroth barred the way to Gnawdwell’s domain. At either side were two times thirteen black stormvermin. Their champions crossed their halberds over the door. Not the usual rabble, these. They were bigger than and outnumbered Queek’s Red Guard.

Queek’s nose twitched. There was no scent of fear from the guards. Nothing – not even in the presence of mighty Queek! Was he not the finest warrior the skaven had ever pupped? Was his murderous temper not the stuff of nightmare? But they did not fidget. They stood still in perfect imitation of statues, glinting black eyes staring at the warlord without dismay.

‘State-squeak business and rank-name,’ one said.

Queek paced back and forth. ‘How stupid-meat not know Queek! Warlord of Clan Mors, Lord of the City of Pillars?’ His trophies rattled upon the rack he wore on his back, a structure of wood akin to half a wheel, every spoke topped by a grisly memento mori. His forepaws twitched over the hilts of his weapons, a serrated sword and the infamous war-pick Dwarf Gouger.

‘We know you, Queek,’ responded the guard, unmoved. ‘But all must state-squeak name and business. Is Lord Gnawdwell’s orders. As Lord Gnawdwell commands, so we obey.’

‘Stupid-meat!’ spat Queek. A quiver of irritation troubled his fur. ‘Very well. I Queek,’ he said with sing-song sarcasm. ‘Let me in!’

The corridor was so quiet Queek could hear water dripping, the constant seepage of the marshwaters above the undercity into the tunnels. Machines churned night and day to keep them dry. Their thunder reverberated throughout the labyrinth and the streets above, and their heat made the tunnels uncomfortable. They were Skavenblight’s beating heart.

‘Good-good,’ said the guard. ‘Great Warlord Queek, mightiest warrior in all the Under-Empire, slaughterer of–’

‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked Queek, who had no time for platitudes. ‘In! In! Let me in!’

The guard appeared slightly deflated. He cleared his throat, and began again. ‘Queek may enter. No one else.’

Chains rattled and the doors cracked with a long creak, revealing a gang of panting slaves pushing upon a windlass. Queek darted towards the gap as soon as it was wide enough.

The guard champions crossed their halberds to block the way.

‘No, Queek. Queek leave trophy rack at door-entry. No one is more glorious than great Lord Gnawdwell. No insult. Be humble. Arrogance in the face of his brilliance is not to be tolerated.’

Queek bared his incisors at the guards aggressively, but they did not react. He wished greatly to release his pent up aggression on them. Spitting, he undid the fastenings and handed his trophies over to the stormvermin. He growled to hide his own disquiet. He would miss the counsel of the dead things when he spoke to Lord Gnawdwell. Did Gnawdwell know? Stupid Queek, he thought. Gnawdwell know everything.

The guards also demanded his weapons, and this made Queek snarl all the more. Once divested of them, Queek was allowed entrance to the first hall of Gnawdwell’s burrow. A fat and sleek-furred major-domo with a weak mouse face came to receive Queek. He bowed and scraped pathetically, exposing his neck submissively. The scent of fear was strong around him.

‘Greetings, O most violent and magnificent Queek! Red-clawed and deadly, warrior-killer, best of all Clan Mors. O mighty–’

‘Yes-yes,’ squeaked Queek. ‘Very good. I best. All know. Why-why squeak-whine about it all day? You new or you know this,’ said Queek. ‘Guards new too.’ He looked the little skaven up and down contemptuously. ‘You fat.’

‘Yes, Lord Queek. Lord Gnawdwell gain many scavenge rights in Tilea-place and Estalia-place. War is good.’

Queek bared his teeth in a hideous smile. He rushed forwards, a blur in scarlet armour, taking the majordomo by surprise. He grabbed the front of the slow-thing’s robes in his paws and jerked him forwards. ‘Yes-yes, mouse-face. War good, but what mouse-face know of war? Mouse-face stupid-meat!’

The musk of fear enveloped them both. Queek drooled at the smell of it.

‘Mouse-face fear Queek. Mouse-face right about that, at least.’

The fat skaven raised a hand and pointed. ‘Th-this way, O greatest and most marvellous–’

‘Queek know way,’ said Queek haughtily, shoving the other to the floor. ‘Queek been here many times. Stupid mouse-face.’

Many years had passed since Queek was last in Skavenblight, but scent and memory took him to Gnawdwell’s private burrow quickly. There were no other skaven about. So much space! Nowhere else in all of Skavenblight would you be further from another skaven. Queek sniffed: fine food and well-fed slaves, fresh air pumping from somewhere. Gnawdwell’s palace disgusted him with its luxury.

Queek waited a long time before he realised no servant was coming and that he would have to open Gnawdwell’s door himself. He found the Lord of Decay in the chamber on the other side.

Books. That was the first thing he saw every time. Lots and lots of stupid books. Books everywhere, and paper, all piled high on finely made man-thing and dwarf-thing furniture. Queek saw no use for such things. Why have books? Why have tables? If Queek wanted to know something, someone told him. If he wanted to put something down, he dropped it on the floor. Not bothering about such things left more time for Queek to fight. A big table occupied a large part of the room. On it was a map quill-scratched onto a piece of vellum, made from a single rat ogre skin, and covered in models of wood and metal. Poring over this, an open book in one brawny paw, was Lord Gnawdwell.

There was nothing to betray Gnawdwell’s vast age. He was physically imposing, strongly muscled and barrel-chested. He might have lived like a seer, surrounded by his stolen knowledge. He might be dressed in robes of the finest-quality cloth scavenged from the world above, fitted to his form by expert slave-tailors in the warrens of Skavenblight. But he still moved like a warrior.

Gnawdwell put down the book he was holding and gestured at Queek to come closer. ‘Ah, Queek,’ said Gnawdwell, as if the warlord’s arrival were a pleasant surprise. ‘Come, let me see-examine you. It is a long time since I have seen-smelt Clan Mors’s favoured general.’ He beckoned with hands whose quickness belied their age. Gnawdwell was immeasurably ancient to Queek’s mind. He had a slight grizzling of grey upon his black fur, the sign of a skaven past his youth. The same had recently begun to mark Queek. They could have been littermates, but Gnawdwell was twenty times Queek’s age.

‘Yes-yes, my lord. Queek come quick.’

Queek walked across the room. He was fast, his body moving with a rodentine fluidity that carried him from one place to the other without him seeming to truly occupy the space in between, as if he were a liquid poured around it. Gnawdwell smiled at Queek’s grace, his red eyes bright with hard humour.

Awkwardly, hesitantly, Queek exposed his throat to the ancient rat lord. Submission did not come easily to him, and he hated himself for doing it, but to Gnawdwell he owed his absolute, fanatical loyalty. He could have killed Gnawdwell, despite the other’s great strength and experience. He was confident enough to believe that. Part of him wanted to, very much. What stories the old lord might tell him, mounted on Queek’s trophy rack, adding his whispers to the other dead-things who advised him.

But he did not. Something stopped him from trying. A caution that told Queek he might be wrong, and that Gnawdwell would slaughter him as easily as he would a man-thing whelp.

‘Mighty-mighty Gnawdwell!’ squeaked Queek.

Gnawdwell laughed. They were both large for skaven, Gnawdwell somewhat bigger than Queek. Ska Bloodtail was the only skaven that Queek had met who was larger.

Both Queek and Gnawdwell were black-furred. Both were of the same stock ultimately, drawn from the Clan Mors breeder-line, but they were as unalike as alike. Where Queek was fast and jittery, Gnawdwell was slow and contemplative. If Queek were rain dancing on water, Gnawdwell was the lake.

‘Always to the point, always so quick and impatient,’ said Gnawdwell. Old skaven stank of urine, loose glands, dry skin, and, if they were rich enough, oil, brass, warpstone, paper and soft straw. That is not what Lord Gnawdwell smelt of. Lord Gnawdwell smelt vital. Lord Gnawdwell smelt of power.

‘I, Gnawdwell, have summoned you. You, Queek, have obeyed. You are still a loyal skaven of Clan Mors?’ Gnawdwell’s words were deeply pitched, unusually so for a skaven.

‘Yes-yes!’ said Queek.

‘Yes-yes, Queek says, but does he mean it?’ Gnawdwell tilted his head. He grabbed Queek’s muzzle and moved Queek’s head from side to side. Queek trembled with anger, not at Gnawdwell’s touch, but at the meekness with which he accepted it.

‘I have lived a long time. A very long time. Did you know, Queek, that I am over two hundred years old? That is ancient by the terms of our fast-live, die-quick race, yes-yes? Already, Queek, you age. I see white fur coming in black fur. Here, on your muzzle.’ Gnawdwell patted Queek with a sharp-clawed hand-paw. ‘You are… how old now? Nine summers? Ten? Do you feel the slowness creep into your limbs, the ache in your joints? It will only get worse. You are fast now, but I wonder, do you already slow? You will get slower. Your whiskers will droop, your eyes will dim. Your smell will weaken and your glands slacken. The great Queek!’ Gnawdwell threw up a hand-paw, as if to evoke Queek’s glory in the air. ‘So big and so strong now, but for how much longer?’ Gnawdwell shrugged. ‘Two years or four? Who knows? Who do you think cares? Hmm? Let me tell you, Queek. No one will care.’ Gnawdwell went to his cluttered table and picked up a haunch of meat from a platter. He bit into it, chewed slowly, and swallowed before speaking again. ‘Tell me, Queek, do you remember Sleek Sharpwit? My servant I sent to you to aid in the taking of Karak Azul?’

The question surprised Queek; that had been a long time ago. ‘Old-thing?’

Gnawdwell gave him a long, uncomfortable look. ‘Is that what you called him? Yes then, Old-thing. He was a great warlord in his day, Queek.’

‘Old-thing tell Queek many, many times.’

‘Did you believe him?’ said Gnawdwell.

Queek did not reply. Old-thing’s head had kept on telling Queek how great he had been since Queek had killed him and mounted him on the rack. Skaven lie.

‘He was not lying,’ said Gnawdwell, as if he could read Queek’s thoughts. A shiver of disquiet rippled Queek’s fur under his armour. ‘When Queek is old, Queek’s enemies will laugh at him too because Queek will be too weak to kill them. They will mock and disbelieve, because the memories of skaven are short. They will call you Old-thing. I, Lord Gnawdwell, have seen it many times before. Great warlord, master of steel, undefeated in battle, so arrogant, so sure, brought low by creeping time. Slower, sicker, until he is too old to fight, devoured by his slaves, or slain by the young.’

Gnawdwell smiled a smile of unblemished ivory teeth. ‘I am much older than Sleek was. Why am I so old yet I do not die? Why you do think-wonder? Do you know, Queek?’

‘Everyone know,’ Queek said quietly. He looked at the small cylinder strapped to Gnawdwell’s back. Bronze tubes snaked discreetly over his left shoulder and buried themselves in Gnawdwell’s neck. A number of glass windows in the tube allowed observation of a gluey white liquid within, dripping into Gnawdwell’s veins.

‘Yes!’ Gnawdwell nodded. ‘The life elixir, the prolonger of being. Each drop the essence of one thousand slaves, distilled in the forge-furnaces of Clan Skryre at ridiculous cost. It is this that allows me to live now, to stay strong. That and the favour of the Horned Rat. For many generations I have been strong and fit. Perhaps you would like to be the same, Queek? Perhaps you would like to live longer and be young forever, so that you might kill-kill more?’

Queek’s eyes strayed again to the cylinder.

Gnawdwell chuckled with triumph. ‘I smell-sense a yes! And why would you not? Listen then, Queek. Serve me well now, and you may win the chance to serve me well for hundreds of years.’

‘What must I do, great one?’

Gnawdwell gestured at the map. ‘The Great Uprising goes on. Tilea is destroyed!’ He swept aside a collection of model towns carved from wood. ‘Estalia followed, then Bretonnia.’ He nodded in approval. ‘All man-lands, all dead. All ready to accept their new masters.’ Many other castles, fleets and cities clattered onto the floor.

‘Queek know this.’

‘Of course Queek knows,’ scoffed Gnawdwell. ‘But mighty though Queek is, Queek does not know everything. So Queek will shut up and Queek will listen,’ he said with avuncular menace. ‘The Great Uprising has been many generations in the planning, and soon the war will at last be over. Clan Pestilens fights to the south, in the jungles of the slann. But the Council is full of fools. All fight at first sign of success. They do not listen to I, Gnawdwell of Clan Mors, even though I make claim to being the wisest.’

‘Yes-yes!’ agreed Queek. ‘Wiser than the wisest.’

‘Do you think so?’ Gnawdwell said. ‘Listen more carefully, Queek. I make claim to be wise, I said. But I am not so foolish as to believe it. As soon as one completely believes in his ability, Queek, then he is dead.’ He scrutinised the warlord. ‘Over-confidence is ever the downfall of our kind. Even the wise may overreach themselves. This was Sleek’s greatest error. His self-belief.’

‘Lord Gnawdwell believes in himself,’ said Queek.

‘I am one of the Thirteen Lords of Decay, Queek. I am entitled to believe in myself.’ He spread his paw fingers and looked at his well-tended claws. ‘But I always leave a little room for doubt. Think on the current status of Clan Scruten. The grey seers never doubted themselves. Then the Great Horned One himself came and devoured the fool-squeaker Kritislik.’ He tittered, a surprising noise from one so burly. ‘It was quite the sight, Queek. Amusing, too. Now no white-furs are meddling in our affairs. They are gone from the Council with their sticky, interfering paws. The Lords are united. For a short while there is an empty seat on the Council, free for the first time in ages. It will not be empty for very long. I intend to put one of our clan allies in that seat.’

‘How-how?’ said Queek. He struggled to concentrate on all this. He understood all right, but he found intrigue tedious compared to the simple joys of warfare.

‘Why do you think you are here, most noted of all skaven generals? Even Paskrit the Vast is an amateur by comparison. Through war, Queek! War on the dwarf-things. We have let them live for too long. They died twenty thousand generations ago, but are too stubborn to admit it. Now is the time to inform them of their demise. We will kill them all. See-look! Learn-fear how deadly skaven are when united!’ he squeaked excitedly, his careful mode of speech deserting him momentarily.

‘Here.’ Lord Gnawdwell pointed at a set of models, these made from iron, sitting on the map. ‘Clan Rictus and Clan Skryre have deal-pledged, and attack together the holdfast of Karak Azul.’ He gave Queek a penetrating look. ‘I think they will be more successful than you. You remember-recall Azul-place, yes, Queek?’

‘Queek remembers.’

‘Here, Clan Kreepus attacks Kadrin-place. They have raised many-many warptokens in trading man-thing food-slaves. So now Clan Moulder brings much strength to their paws. Many beasts, great and horrible. There, at Zhufbar-place, the dwarf-things have Clan Ferrik to fight.’ Gnawdwell’s long muzzle twitched dismissively. ‘Weak they are, but many rabble clans flock to them, so their numbers are great. Enough to occupy them, if not prevail. Finally, at Barak Varr sea-place, Clan Krepid joined with Clan Skurvy.’

Queek’s eyes widened, his expression settling into an appreciative smile. ‘All dwarf-things die at same time. They not reinforce each other. They not come-hurry to each other’s aid. They all die, all alone.’

‘Very good. Tell me, what do you think? Is this good, Queek? Is this bad?’

Queek shuddered. This was so boring! Queek would gladly go to war! Why did Gnawdwell tell him these pointless things? Why? But Queek had wisdom, Queek was canny. Gnawdwell was one of the few living beings he feared to anger, and Gnawdwell would be angry at his thoughts. So he kept his words back. Only his swishing tail gave away his impatience. ‘Good-good that we attack everywhere at once. Then all the beard-things sure to die. Bad that Queek not get all the glory. Queek want to kill all the fur-face king-things himself! Queek the best. It not right that other, lesser skaven take trophies that rightfully belong to Queek!’

‘You have half the answer, Queek.’

Half? thought Queek. There was no component to his thinking other than Queek.

Gnawdwell sucked his teeth in disappointment. ‘It is not only you who matters, but our clan, Queek! Clan Rictus wants to discredit us, yes-yes! Take our glory, take our new seat from our allies. And Clan Skryre and Clan Moulder and Clan Rictus, and all the rest. It was Clan Mors that brought the dwarf-things down first. This is our war to finish!’ Gnawdwell slammed his paw onto the table, making his models jump. He gestured at various positions on the map. ‘This will not happen. I have taken precautions to ensure our glory. And many of our loyal troops wait with the others. To help, you understand.’

Queek didn’t see. Queek didn’t really care. Queek nodded anyway. ‘Yes-yes, of course.’ When could he go? The skin of his legs crawled with irritation.

‘They wear the colours of our comrade-friend clans. We do not wish them to be confused, to think, “Why Clan Mors here, when they should not be?”’ Gnawdwell mimicked the piping voice of a lesser skaven.

‘No. No! That would be most bad.’

Gnawdwell glanced at Queek’s thrashing tail. He bared his teeth in a skaven smile.

‘You are bored, yes-no? You want to be away, my Queek. You never change.’ Gnawdwell walked back to his general and stroked Queek’s fur. Queek hissed, but leaned into his master’s caress. His eyes shut. ‘You wish to kill, hurry-scurry! Stab-stab!’

Queek nodded, a sharp, involuntary movement. Calmness of a type he felt nowhere else came upon him as his master groomed his sleek black fur. The needles of impatience jabbing at his flesh prickled less.

‘And you shall!’

Queek’s eyes snapped open. He jerked his head back.

‘Queek is the best! Queek wish to kill green-things and beard-things! Queek wish to drink their blood and rip their flesh!’ He gnashed his incisors. ‘Queek do this for Gnawdwell. This is what Gnawdwell wants, yes-yes?’

Gnawdwell turned back to the map. ‘You disappoint me, Queek. To be a Lord of Decay is not to stab and kill and smash all things aside. You lack circumspection. You are a killer, nothing more.’ Gnawdwell’s lips peeled back in disappointment. He stared at his protege a long time, far too long for Queek’s thrumming nerves to stand. ‘You were so magnificent when I found you, the biggest in your litter, and they were all large before you ate them. I raised you, I fed you the best dwarf-meat and man-flesh. And you have become even more magnificent. Such courage. There is none other like you, Queek. You are unnaturally brave. Others think you freakish for leading from the front, not the back. But I do not. I am proud of my Queek.’

Queek chirred with pride.

Sadness suffused Gnawdwell’s face. ‘But you are a blunt tool, Queek. A blunt and dangerous tool. I always hoped you would become Lord of Decay after me, because with one so big and so deadly as you as master of Clan Mors, all the others would be afraid, and the air would thicken with their musk.’ He sighed deeply, the threads of his clothes creaking as his massive chest expanded. ‘But it is not to be. Gnawdwell will remain head of Clan Mors.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘But maybe Queek can prove me wrong? Perhaps you might change my mind?’

‘How-how?’ wheedled Queek. He desperately wanted to impress Gnawdwell. Disappointing the Lord of Decay was the only thing Queek truly feared.

‘Go to Karak Eight Peaks. Smash the beard-things. But not in Queek’s way. Queek has brains – use them! We will bring down their decaying empire and the children of the Horned Rat shall inherit the ruins. I will see that it is Clan Mors that emerges pre-eminent from this extermination. Finish them quickly. Go to help the others complete the tasks they will not be able to finish on their own. Clan Mors must look strong. Clan Mors must be victorious! Bring me the greatest victory of all, Queek. March on Big Mountain-place. It may take years, but if you are successful there… Well, we shall see if you shall age as other lesser skaven must.’

Queek cared nothing for councils. Queek cared nothing for plots and ploys. What Queek cared for was war. Now Gnawdwell spoke a language he could understand. ‘Much glory for Queek!’

‘Do-accomplish what you do so well, my Queek. Finish the beard-things, and we will shame-embarrass the others when you bring me the head of their white-fur High King and the keys to their greatest city. Clan Mors will be unopposed. We will deliver the final Council seat to our favoured thrall-clan, and then Clan Mors rule all the Under-Empire, all the world!’ said Gnawdwell viciously, his speech picking up speed, losing its sophistication, falling into the rapid chitter-chatter used by other skaven. He clenched his fists and rose up. All vestiges of the thoughtful skaven disappeared. A great warrior stood before Queek.

‘Queek is the best!’ Queek slammed his fist against his armour. ‘Queek kill the most-much beard-things! And then,’ said Queek, becoming wily, ‘Queek get elixir, so Queek not get old-fast and Queek kill-slay more for Lord Gnawdwell?’

Gnawdwell sank back into himself, the fires going out of him. His face reassumed its expression of arrogant calm. ‘That is all, Queek. Go-go now. Return to the City of Pillars and finish the war there once and for all. Then you will march upon many-beard-thing Big Mountain-place.’

‘But-but,’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say…’

‘Go, Queek. Go now and slay for Clan Mors. You are right – Queek is the greatest. Now show it to the world.’ He retreated into the shadows away from the map, towards an exit at the back of the room. A troop of giant, albino skaven, even bigger than the guards of the outer gate and clad in black-lacquered armour, thundered out of garrison burrows either side of Gnawdwell’s exit, forming a living wall between Queek and his master. They came to a halt, breathing hard, stinking of hostility.

Queek scurried over to them. They lowered their halberds. Queek vaulted over the weapons and landed right in front of the white-furs.

‘Queek is the greatest,’ he hissed in their faces. ‘I kill white-fur guards before. How many white-fur guards Queek kill before white-furs kill Queek?’ whispered Queek. He was gratified by a faint whiff of fear. ‘But Queek not kill white-furs. Queek busy! Queek will do as Lord Gnawdwell commands.’ He screech-squeaked over the heads of the unmoving guards, turned upon his heels and strode out.

‘Silence be!’ screeched Lord Thaumkrittle.

The coven of grey seers stopped arguing and turned to look at their new leader.

‘This is not the place to argue and fight. It is much-very bad that Clan Scruten is no longer on the Council, worse that our god has shown his disapproval. We must work to regain the favour of the Horned Rat.’

More than one emission of fear’s musk misted the air. The grey seers chittered nervously.

‘We are his chosen! We bear his horns and have his powers!’ said Jilkin the Twisted, his horns painted red and carved with spell-wards. ‘This all a trick by Clan Mors, or Clan Skryre! Tinker-rats want all our magic for themselves.’

‘No. That was the Horned Rat himself, not some machine-born conjuring trick,’ said another, Felltwitch. He was older than many, tall and rangy. One of his horns was missing, reduced to a stump by a sword swing long ago. ‘And we have disappointed him.’

‘It not our fault,’ said Kranskritt, once favoured among the other clans, now as despised as the rest. ‘Other clans plot and scheme against us, make us look bad to the master.’

‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked others. ‘Traitors everywhere. Not our fault!’

‘No,’ said the old Felltwitch. ‘It is our fault, and only our fault.’ He stepped around in a slow circle, leaning on his blackwood staff. ‘If we blame-curse other clans, we not learn anything.’

‘What to do? What to do?’ said Kreekwik, marked out by his deep-red robes. ‘Grey Seer Felltwitch squeak-says we have failed? How to unfail the Great Horned One? Will any more grey seers be born? Are we the last?’

Panic rushed through the room, forest-fire quick, taking hold of each grey seer’s limbs and sending them into a storm of tail lashing and twitching. Pent up magic added its own peculiar smell to the thick scent of the room.

‘We should pray,’ said Kranskritt. ‘We are his priests and his prophets. Pray for forgiveness.’

‘We should act,’ said Felltwitch.

‘Let us wait them out!’ said Scritchmaw. ‘We live much longer than they.’

‘It is not possible. Clan Skryre has the secret of longevity-life elixir. Lords of Decay live too long – no one lives longer than they. No waiting, no waiting!’ said Thaumkrittle. He too was nervous. It was one thing to become chief of Clan Scruten, another to become chief immediately after their god had eaten the previous incumbent. Thaumkrittle was on edge, his emotional state veering between great pride at his elevation and a suspicion that he had only got the job because no one else dared to take it.

‘We have lost-squandered the favour of the Great Horned One! What are we to do?’ said Kranskritt, the many bells on his arms, wrists, ankles and horns rattling.

‘Win it back! Win it back!’

‘How do you propose to do that?’ A familiar voice came from the back of the room. The entire assembly turned to look. There, at the back, Boneripper hulking behind him, was Thanquol.

‘Grey Seer Thanquol!’ shrieked Kreekwik.

‘It is him! All this is his fault!’ said Kranskritt.

A hiss of hatred went up from every seer present. Magical auras fizzed into life. Eyes glowed.

‘How my fault-guilt?’ said Thanquol, as calmly as he could. ‘Many times I am this close to victory.’ He held his fingers a hair’s-breadth apart. ‘But treachery of other clans stop my winning. They are all at fault. It is not me, friends-colleagues. Not me at all!’

Thaumkrittle shook his head, sending the copper triskeles depending from his horn tips swinging. ‘You clever-squeaker, Thanquol. Always it is the same. Always it is the lies. Always we believe. Not this time. The Horned Rat himself came forth at the meeting and devoured our leader.’ Thaumkrittle pointed his staff directly at Thanquol. ‘Fool-thing! We no longer pay listen-heed to your squeak-talk. Go from here! Go!’

‘Yes-yes, go-go!’ the others chittered.

‘You will listen to me,’ said Thanquol. ‘Listen to my speakings. I have a way!’

‘No!’ shouted Kreekwik. ‘Squeak-talk of Thanquol grandiose lies.’

‘Cast him out!’ said Felltwitch. ‘Cast him out! Banish him!’

Light fled and shadows deepened as each and every grey seer began to cast a spell, bringing a taste of rot and brimstone.

‘No-no!’ said Thanquol. He backed up to the door, only to find it inexplicably locked. He cursed the guards he’d bribed to let him in. Cornered, he summoned his own magic.

Boneripper. Boneripper was there. Sensing his master’s peril, the rat ogre snarled out a thunderous roar and ran at the other seers, chisel-incisors bared.

A dozen beams of warp-lightning intersected on his powerfully muscled body. They flayed the skin from his chest, but Boneripper kept on coming. The muscle underneath smoked. Still he kept on coming. He reached the first grey seer and reached forwards with a mighty claw. Green fire blazed from the seer’s eyes, reducing the rat ogre’s hand to ash. He roared in anger, not in pain, for Boneripper was incapable of feeling pain. He punched forwards with one of his remaining fists, but this was snared in a rope of shadow and teeth that fastened themselves into his flesh.

‘No-no!’ Thanquol shrieked. He countered as many spells as he could, draining magic away from his peers, but there were too many. His glands clenched.

With a mighty howl, Boneripper was dragged to his knees. Magic writhed all over him, burning and tearing pieces from him. Jilkin the Twisted, a particularly spiteful seer, reached the end of his convoluted incantation. He hurled an orb of purple fire at the injured construct, engulfing its wounded arm. The fire burned bright, then collapsed inwards into warp-black with a sucking noise.

Boneripper roared, his arm turning into a slurry of oily goo, which fountained over the other seers. A deafening thunderclap of magical feedback had them squeaking in agony. Many were blasted to the floor by the sudden interruption of their own sorcery.

When they got up, horned heads shaking out the ringing in their sensitive ears, they were grinning evilly.

‘No-no! Wait-wait!’ chittered Thanquol as they advanced on him. ‘Listen-hear my idea!’ He looked to them imploringly. ‘I am your friend. I was master to many of you. Please! Listen!’

Thaumkrittle drew himself up. ‘Grey Seer Thanquol, you are expelled-exiled from Clan Scruten. You will scurry from this place and never return.’

The other rats fell on him, sharp claws tearing, teeth working at his clothes, ripping his robes and charms from his body. Thanquol panicked. Drowning in a sea of hateful fur, he felt his glands betray him, drenching him in the shame of his own fear.

‘No-no, listen! We must… Argh! We must summon a verminlord, ask them what to do! We are the prophets of the Horned Rat! Let us ask-query his daemons how to pass this trial-test he has set us.’

The seers hoisted Thanquol onto their shoulders and bore him from the room. The door’s sorcerous locks clanked and whirred at their approach, the great bars rattling back into their housings.

The night of Skavenblight greeted Thanquol indifferently as he was hurled bodily into it, followed shortly after by the embrace of the mud of the street.

Thanquol groaned and rolled over. Unspeakable filth caked him.

‘Please!’ he shouted, raising a hand to the closing doors.

They stopped. Thanquol’s tail swished hopefully.

Thaumkrittle’s head poked out of the crack, the head of his staff protruding below his chin. At least, thought Thanquol, they were still wary of him.

‘If you return, once-seer Thanquol, we will take-saw your horns,’ Thaumkrittle said.

The large, messy figure of Boneripper was flung out magically after him. Thanquol barely dodged aside as the unconscious rat ogre slapped into the mud.

The door clanged shut. Thanquol snivelled, but his self-pity lasted only seconds before self-preservation kicked in. Interested red eyes already watched from the shadows. To show any sign of weakness in Skavenblight was to invite death.

‘What you look-see?’ he snapped, getting to his feet unsteadily. ‘I Thanquol! I great seer. You better watch it, or I cook you from inside.’

He set off a shower of sparks from his paws, then stopped. The light showed his beaten, dishevelled state all too clearly. The shadows drew nearer.

Clutching the remains of his robes to preserve his modesty, Thanquol checked over his bodyguard. Boneripper had lost two of his arms and much flesh, but his heart still beat. He could be repaired. Thanquol spent some time rousing the construct, his head twitching with intense paranoia this way and that. But though his glands were slack, his heart hardened. Eventually, the rat ogre hauled itself to its feet. To Thanquol’s relief, there suddenly appeared to be a lot fewer shadows in the street.

‘If Clan Scruten does not want me, then maybe Clan Skryre will,’ he said to himself. With all the haste he could manage, he headed off to their clan hall.

Inside the Temple of the Grey Seers, dull-eyed skaven and human slaves mopped at the mess that had been part of Boneripper. The grey seers resumed their places and recommenced their debate.

‘I have an idea,’ said Jilkin. ‘Let us summon a verminlord.’

‘That great idea,’ said Kreekwik. ‘Ask-beg the great ones from beyond the veil.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Thaumkrittle up on his platform. ‘A great idea of mine. I am very clever. That why I your new leader-lord, yes? So, who want to follow my great idea and speak-pray to the Horned Rat for one of his servants?’

The grey seers looked at one another. Such blatant claiming of Jilkin’s suggestion was majestic. They could respect that.

‘Of course, O most mighty and powerful caller of magics,’ Kranskritt said. He bowed.

The others followed.

Three

Karak Eight Peaks

Skarsnik, the King under the Mountains, looked out over the greenskin shanty town filling the dwarf surface city. In ruined streets, between ramshackle huts of wood and hide, raucous orcs drank and fought one another. Goblins squealed and tittered. On the slopes of scree studded with broken statuary, snotlings gambolled, throwing stones at passing greenskins, oblivious to the cold that turned their noses pink.

Autumn was halfway through, and the first flakes of the year’s snow already drifted on the wind.

Skarsnik shivered and pulled his wolf pelt closer about him. He was old now – how old he wasn’t quite sure, for goblins took less care in reckoning the years than men or dwarfs did. But he felt age as surely as he felt the grip of Gork and Mork on his destiny. He felt it in his bandy legs, in his creaking knees and hips. His skin was gnarled and scabbed, thick as tree bark, and he leaned more often on his famous prodder for support than he would have liked. His giant cave squig, Gobbla, snuffled about around his feet, equally aged. Patches of his skin had turned a pinkish-grey, for he was almost as old as his master.

Skarsnik wondered how long he had left. It was ironic, he thought, that after years of wondering whether it would be a skaven blade or dwarf axe that finished him, it would be neither. Time was the enemy no one could fight.

In truth, no one knew how old a goblin could get because they did not usually last that long. Most of them would not even consider dying of old age. Skarsnik considered lots of unusual things because Skarsnik was no ordinary goblin, and what went on in his head would have been entirely alien to other greenskins. Lately, old age had occupied Skarsnik’s thoughts a lot.

‘Must be fifty winters and more I seen. Fifty!’ he cackled. ‘And here’s another come on again. Still, stunty, I reckon I got another few to come.’ Skarsnik was all alone on the balcony, save for a couple of mangy skaven skins and several dwarf heads in various states of decay, spiked along the broken balustrade. It was to his favourite, its eyes long ago pecked out, skin desiccated black in the dry mountain air, nose rotted away, that he addressed his words. A sorry-looking head, but even in death it had a magnificent beard. Skarsnik liked to stroke it when no one was looking. ‘Duffskul’s still knocking about, and he’s well older than me.’

He grumbled and spat, muttering thoughts that not one of his underlings would understand, and drew his long chin into his stinking furs.

‘What a bleeding mess, eh, stunty? Them zogging ratties done driven me out of me stunty-house. I am not happy about that, no, not one little bitty bit.’

He looked forlornly at the ruinous gatehouse marking the grand entry to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, heart of the first of Karak Eight Peaks’s many deeps. ‘Once upon a time, stunty, that was mine. And everything under it. Not any more. On the other side of the great doors I won one of me greatest victories, and the stunty-house was me kingdom for dozens of levels down. Think about that, eh? Kept hold of it longer than your lot did, I reckon!’ His laugh turned into a hacking cough. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His next words came out all raspy. ‘Gobboes, beat them all and sorted them out. Ratties. Beat them, and then I beat them, and then I blew them up, drowned them and beat ’em some more. Stunties came back. Beat them too,’ said Skarsnik wistfully, looking across at the citadel that dominated the heart of the city. ‘Look at that will you, stunty! That’s all your king’s got. Nuffink. I’m the king around here. I am. Right?’

He paused. The dwarf’s beard stirred in the wind. Fat, wet flakes of snow splatted against its taut skin. It was coming down thicker, and the temperature was dropping.

‘Well, I’m glad you agree.’

Not that that changed anything. Skarsnik was still dispossessed, and he was not happy about it. He watched another tribe of greenskins straggling into orctown from the west gate. His eyes narrowed, calculating. They were weedy little ’uns, worn by hard travels. Within seconds of coming into the gate they were rapidly set upon by orcs and bigger goblins, who stole everything they had, leaving them naked and shivering in the cold. ‘Always more where they came from,’ whispered Skarsnik. ‘Always more.’

‘Ahem!’ A high-pitched cough demanded Skarsnik’s attention. Behind him, standing ramrod straight, was his herald, pointy hood standing as diligently to attention as its owner.

‘What you want, Grazbok?’ said Skarsnik, squinting at the small goblin. The sky was overcast, brilliant grey with pending snow, and the glare of it hurt his eyes. ‘You keep sneaking up on me like that, I’ll have to send you out scouting for ratties. And you,’ he said, kicking Gobbla in the side with a leathery thwap, ‘are losing your touch.’

Gobbla snuffled and waddled off, the chain connecting him to Skarsnik’s leg rattling as he licked scraps of dried dwarf flesh from the floor. Grazbok gave Skarsnik a sidelong look that suggested he was going to make more noise next time.

‘Your highnessness,’ the herald squeaked, ‘I have da great Griff Kruggler here to sees ya!’

Skarsnik’s lips split in a wide grin, yellow as the moon talismans dangling from his pointy hat. ‘Kruggs, eh? Send him up! Send him up!’

Kruggler was a long time coming up the steps from the halls under the Howlpeak. A pained wheezing came first, followed by the click of unsteady claws on stone.

Skarsnik’s eyes widened as Kruggler came out into the pale day upon the back of a staggering wolf. He had become fat. Enormously, disgustingly fat. His wolf mount gasped under him as it heaved itself up onto the balcony. Kruggler swung his leg over its back – with some difficulty – and slid to the flagstones. The wolf let out a huff of relief, dragged itself off into a corner and collapsed.

‘Been a long time, boss,’ said Kruggler.

Skarsnik took in the rolls of flab, the massive hat and the greasy gold trinkets festooning his underling.

‘What the zog happened to you?’

Kruggler was abashed. ‘Well, you know, living’s been good…’

‘You is almost as fat as that… what was he called? That boss. That one I killed of yours?’

‘Makiki, the Great Grizzler-Griff.’

‘Yeah! Only thing great about him was his size.’ Skarsnik laughed at his own joke. Kruggler just looked puzzled. Skarsnik scowled at his confusion. Trouble was, Skarsnik was a lot brighter than every other greenskin he’d ever met. It was depressing. ‘Gah, suit yerself. How you been?’

Kruggler pulled a face. ‘Not good, boss, to tell da truth.’

‘And there you was saying living was good.’

Kruggler looked confused. ‘Well, I did, er – well, it was, boss, it was. But things… well, they is not no good no more.’

‘What do you mean? Look at all these greenies come to join the Waaagh! Good times, Kruggs, good times. Soon there’ll be enough to kick the ratties out and take back the upper halls!’

Kruggs gave him a puzzled look.

‘Stop looking so zogging thick, Kruggs! Did I make an idiot king of all the Badlands wolf tribes?’

‘Well, er, no, boss, but…’

‘Go on, go on, spit it out!’

‘Well, I said things is no good,’ said Kruggler anguishedly. ‘I mean it! Dead things everywhere, fighting each other. Dwarfs on the march, fire mountains spitting fire and such. And the ratties, boss. The ratties is all over the place! I ain’t see so many, not ever. They’s taking over the stunty-houses, all of ’em, and not just a few. They’s slaughtering the tribes wherever they find ’em. Something big’s happening, something–’

Skarsnik was nose to nose with Kruggler before the plains goblin realised he’d moved. Skarsnik’s sour breath washed over his face.

‘Careful there, Kruggs. Don’t want you starting to bang on about the end of the world. Had a bit too much of that kind of talk lately from a few too many of the lads. Everything’s going on as normal here. We fight the rats, the rats fight the stunties, the stunties fight us, got it?’

Kruggler made a funny noise in his throat. ‘Got it, boss.’

‘Good.’ Skarsnik turned away from his vassal. ‘So what’s you saying then, Kruggs? You think they’s going to come here too? Better not, because they’ll have old Skarsnik to deal with and I–’ He coughed mightily. The fit held him for a minute, his hunchback shoulders shaking with it. Kruggler looked around, his tiny goblin mind torn between helping his boss, stabbing him, and wondering if there was anyone that could see him do either. Paralysed by indecision, he just stood and watched.

Skarsnik hawked up a gob of stringy phlegm and spat it onto a skaven hide rotting on a frame. ‘Because if they do, they’ll have me to deal with, and I ain’t no bleeding stunty! Anyways, look at all them. They’s come here to help me. They hears I’m the baddest and the bestest. Old Belegar and his mates up there in his stupid tower might have done for old Rotgut, but he can’t get me, can he? No zogging ratty or stunty is kicking me out of these mountains, you hear? You hear!’

He shouted loudly, his nasal voice echoing from the ruins of the dwarf surface city. Orcs and goblins looked up at him. Some cheered, some jeered. Some wandered off, uncaring.

‘See, with this lot coming to join da Waaagh! I’ll kick them ratties out and take it all back for good.’

Skarsnik had, of course, said this many, many times before. But it never happened. The balance of power between the greenskins and skaven swung backwards and forwards viciously; sometimes the goblins had the upper hand, sometimes the skaven – sometimes the stunties stuck their beards in for good measure. So it had been for time immemorial. But lately that had been changing. Skarsnik would never have admitted it to anyone but Gobbla, but each time he was victorious, he was able to hold less of the city, and for shorter periods of time.

‘But, boss! Boss!’ said a dismayed Kruggler. Cowardice nearly made him stop, but his loyalty to Skarsnik ran deep. He was one of the few who could tell the warlord what he didn’t want to hear. At least that’s how it’d been in the old days, and he really hoped it was that way still because he couldn’t stop himself. He plunged on, gabbling faster as his panic built. ‘They’re not here to help you, boss. They ain’t here for no Waaagh! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, boss.’

Skarsnik’s prodder swung round and was pointed at Kruggler’s face. Green light glinted along its three prongs. His expression became vicious. ‘There you go again! What do you mean? End of the world is it, Kruggs, because if you keeps it up, it will be for you.’

Kruggler held his hands up. He leaned back from the prodder so far his boss helmet slipped from his head to clang on the floor. ‘I means, boss, they is coming here because they knows you is here and you is da best.’

‘Exactly, exactly!’ said Skarsnik. He put the prodder up and nodded with satisfaction.

‘Yeah, boss. Yeah,’ said Kruggler with relief. ‘You is the cleverest. I knew you’d be clever and see.’ He came to stand next to Skarsnik and looked out. He smiled idiotically. ‘They isn’t coming here to fight. They think you can protect them! They is running away.’

Kruggler realised what he had said and clapped his hands over his mouth, but the fight had gone out of Skarsnik. He was staring out into the thickening snow at something Kruggler could not see.

‘We’ll see about that, we’ll see,’ he said sullenly.

A couple of miles away over the orc-infested ruins, King Belegar, the other king of Karak Eight Peaks, looked out into the gathering storm, engaged in his own contemplation. Abandon the hold indeed. Thorgrim’s request dogged his thoughts still. But now, six months later, a small part of him feared that the High King might have been right…

Like Skarsnik, Belegar was troubled by what he saw. Something dreadful was afoot.

He pounded his mailed fist on the rampart of the citadel, causing his sentries to turn to look at him. He huffed into his beard, shaking his head at their concerns, although he was secretly pleased at their vigilance.

‘Something dreadful is afoot,’ he said to his companion, his first cousin once removed and banner bearer, Thane Notrigar.

‘How do you know, my liege?’

‘You can stop it with that “my liege” business, Notrigar. You’re my cousin’s son and an Angrund. Even if you weren’t, we’ve fought back to back more times than I care to recall. Besides,’ he added gloomily, ‘a dawi has to be a real king to get the full “my liege” treatment.’

‘But you are a real king, my liege!’ said Notrigar, taken aback.

‘Am I?’ said Belegar. He gestured into the snowstorm, now so thick it had whited out everything further away than one hundred paces from the citadel walls. ‘King Lunn was the last real king of this place. History will remember that it was he, not I.’

‘There will be many more after you, my liege,’ said Notrigar. ‘A long and glorious line! Thorgrim is a grand lad. He is coming into his own with every day. You could not wish for a finer son, and he’ll be a fine king, when the time comes.’

Belegar was mollified for a moment. ‘A fine king, but one of rubble and ruination. And he needs to wed, and sire his own heir. Who will have him, the beggar king of Eight Peaks?’

‘But my liege! You are a hero to every dawi lass and lad. Send him back to Everpeak and there you shall have dawi rinn of every clan begging for his hand.’

‘What did I say to you? Belegar will do, lad. Or cousin, if you must.’

Notrigar, although now many years in the Eight Peaks, did not feel he knew his cousin well at all, raised as he had been in distant Karaz-a-Karak. Belegar was a legend to him, a hero. He could not countenance calling him by his name, cousin or not. He settled on ‘my lord’.

‘Yes, my lord,’ he said.

Belegar rolled his eyes. ‘Beardlings today,’ he said, although Notrigar was well past his majority and a thane in his own right. ‘All right, all right, “my lord” if it makes you feel better.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Don’t mention it. What you said, just then. That’s the problem, isn’t it? He’d have to go back. He’d have to risk the journey. It took me nigh on four months to get to Karaz-a-Karak for the kingsmeet and back, and that in the summer. Things are worse now, mark my words. What if he’s taken by grobi or urk? What if the thaggoraki steal him away. Then that’ll be that, won’t it? What we’ve all fought so hard for gone. A kingdom of ruins with no king. Fifty years! Fifty years! Gah!’ He punched the stone again. His Iron Hammers had more sense and honour than to mutter, but they exchanged dark looks. ‘When Lunn was king, this was still the finest city in all of the Karaz Ankor. What is it now, Notrigar? Ruins. Ruins swarming with grobi and thaggoraki, with more coming every day.’

‘But you have been here for fifty years, my lord. You are successful.’ Notrigar had never dreamed to see his lord and kin in such poor temper, or to confide in him in such an open and upsetting manner. He did not know quite what to say. Reassurance did not come naturally to a dwarf.

‘Right. Here I am in my glorious castle,’ Belegar said sarcastically. ‘I came here hoping to take it all back. I came hoping to look upon the far deeps, on the ancestor statues of the Abyss of Iron’s Dream. I dreamed of opening up the Ungdrin again, so that armies might freely march between my, Kazador’s and Thorgrim’s realms. I dreamed of reopening the mines, of filling the coffers of our clan with gold and jewels.’

They both became a little misty-eyed at this image.

‘But no. A few weapons hordes, a few treasure rooms and a lot of failure. We can’t even keep our master brewer safe,’ he said, referring to one of the more recent entries in Karak Eight Peaks’s Book of Grudges. ‘Six months since the damn furskins took Yorrik and I’ve not had a decent pint since.’

‘We have the will and the resolve, my–’

‘You’ve not read the reports, have you?’ said Belegar. ‘Not seen what the rangers are saying, or what those new-fangled machines of Brakki Barakarson are saying.’

‘The seismic indicators, my lord?’

‘Aye, that’s them. Scratchy needles. Thought it was all a lot of modern rubbish, to tell you the truth. But he’s been right more than he’s been wrong. There’s a lot going on underground, down in the lower deeps. Never did get very far on the way to the bottom. Grungni alone knows how many tunnels the thaggoraki have chiselled out down there. Gyrocopters coming in, telling me every inch of Mad Dog Pass is crawling with ogres, grobi and urk. No message from half the holds in months, no safe road out, and no safe road in. I’ll bet that little green kruti Skarsnik is out there right now too, standing on the parapets of Karag Zilfin looking over at us as we look over at him. It’s been that way for far too long. If it only weren’t for that little bloody…’ He trailed off into a guttural collection of strong dwarfish oaths. ‘One enemy,’ he said, holding up a finger. ‘I think I could have handled one. If it weren’t for him I’d have driven the grobi off years ago and cleared the skaven out of the top deeps. Trust me to get saddled with the sneakiest little green bozdok who ever walked the earth.’ He sighed, pursing his lips so that his beard and moustaches bristled. ‘And now it’s all gone quiet. Too bloody quiet. I’ll tell you what this silence is, Notrigar.’

‘What is it, my lord?’ said Notrigar, for Belegar was waiting to be prompted.

‘It’s the beginning of the end, that’s what it is. Or so those thaggoraki probably think.’

Notrigar looked around for help. The ironbreakers, hammerers and thunderers manning the ramparts were staring studiously off into the middle distance. He raised a hand, started to speak, then thought better of it. To Notrigar’s dismay, the king began to hiccup, his chest heaving.

‘My lord?’ said Notrigar. Oh Grungni, thought the thane, please don’t let him be… crying? Belegar’s shoulders heaved, and he turned away. Notrigar reached an uncertain hand out for his kinsman.

He leapt back as Belegar burst out laughing, a sound as sudden and surprising as an avalanche, and to the unnerved Notrigar, just as terrifying. The king’s mirth rolled out from the ramparts, wildly bellicose, as if it could retake Vala-Azrilungol all on its own.

‘That’s right, you green bozdoks! King Belegar is laughing at you, and you, you vicious thaggoraki! I am laughing at you too!’ he bellowed. His shout was blunted by the snow, the lack of echo unsettling to Notrigar, but Belegar did not care. The king wiped a tear of mirth from his eye, flicking it and a finger’s worth of snow crystals away from his moustache. He clapped his arm around his cousin, his face creased with a grim smile. ‘Oh don’t look so glum, lad. I’ve always been a sucker for a lost cause, me. We’ll show them, eh? We can hold out. We always have, keeping our heads down until more reinforcements come and the bloody fun can start all over again. They’ll never get through the fortifications we’re planning, no matter how many of the little furry grunkati come – there’ll be a trap for each and every one of them, eh, lad? Don’t worry, I haven’t gone zaki. You see, lad, you have to know what you’re fighting, and be certain you’re not underestimating it before you can crush it. Once you know what’s what, nothing is impossible, and you can shout your cries of victory right in the face of your enemy. Furry or green, or in our case both, it doesn’t matter, lad. This is the Eternal Realm. We’ll never fall.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ The other dwarfs were chuckling at their king’s good humour, laughing at Notrigar for not seeing the joke. Belegar’s arm was like a stone lintel on his shoulders. Notrigar had a sudden urge for an ale. A strong one.

‘That’s right!’ Belegar bawled, making Notrigar’s ears ring. ‘I’ll be ready for you, Skarsnik! Send everything you’ve got. It will never, ever be enough. Cheer up, Notrigar. Why,’ said Belegar, ‘I’m just beginning to enjoy meself.’

Four

The City of Pillars

The upper deeps of Karak Eight Peaks were heaving with warm fur. Every corner, every cranny, from the Trench at the very bottom to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars once inhabited by Skarsnik and his lackeys. The noise of so many ratmen’s squeaks and pattering feet close together merged into a sussuration so pervasive the very rocks seemed to be speaking with skaven voices.

Within the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, atop the pinnacle that had once housed the dwarf king’s throne, and for fifty years until recently that of Skarsnik, Queek inspected the first clawpack of the warhost of Clan Mors, and he was not happy about it.

Queek paced up and down as block after block after block of skaven marched out of the tunnels around the base of the soaring throne pinnacle, wove their way through the forest of pillars and went back out again, banners waving, their leaders proudly bringing up the rear.

‘How long this going to take? Queek bored,’ said Queek. ‘This boring!’

Thaxx Redclaw twitched his armoured neck, briefly exposing a patch of fur at his throat. He was the leader of the first clawpack, and appointed ruler of the City of Pillars in Queek’s absence. With such overlap between their roles, Thaxx felt especially vulnerable. ‘Great and deadly Queek, you are best and most perspicacious general! A cunning and mighty war-leader such as the incomparable Queek would want to inspect-smell troops?’ Thaxx nodded eagerly, inviting agreement. He received a cold stare.

‘There are many,’ added Warlord Skrikk, Queek’s supposed right claw. ‘How glorious for your gloriousness to feast nose and eye on such an army, all gathered solely for you, O great and deadly, violent Queek!’

‘Dull! Boring! Queek see hundreds of thousands of millions of skaven in his life,’ snapped Queek. ‘They all the same. Furry faces, pink noses. Some die, all die. There are always more. What need mighty Queek see all rat-faces?’

Thaxx snickered and bobbed his head, a poor attempt to hide his fear. The other clanlords atop the dais, out of Queek’s sight, backed away until they ran into Queek’s Red Guard and the massive body of Queek’s chief lieutenant, Ska Bloodtail. He stared down at them and shook his head.

‘But mighty Queek, O most cunning and stabby of all ratkin, how will stupid warrior-things know how to follow mighty Queek’s orders if glorious warlord is not there? See how their faces look upon your most awesome countenance with fear and, er, awe,’ said Thaxx.

‘You speak-squeak badly, Thaxx. Too long running this city without mighty Queek to keep you in your place. All things scared of Queek! Why is this useful for Queek to see-smell what he already knows?’

Skrikk and Thaxx glanced at each other.

‘There are questions of strategy and disposition, great fierce one,’ ventured Warlord Skrikk.

‘Oh? Oh? Strategy and disposition for Queek. Forgive ignorant Queek for asking, what use is there for you in this case?’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say you Queek’s right claw.’ Queek narrowed his eyes. ‘Gnawdwell write-say “Take Skrikk! He your right claw!” Queek says he already has right claw. It good for holding Dwarf Gouger!’ He held up his paw and clenched it. ‘And Queek has Ska! Loyal, good Ska! So, Queek has two right claws. One for Dwarf Gouger, one for punching enemies. But Gnawdwell order Queek needs another right claw, so Queek obey. Queek think, maybe Skrikk good! Maybe Skrikk good for boring things, boring things that tire Queek and make him angry. Boring things like counting skaven clanrats.’ He leaned in close to the clanlords and twisted his head to regard them one at a time, causing them both to flinch. ‘But now Skrikk squeak-says, “Queek must think strategy!” What? Queek fight. Queek command. Queek does not count stupid-meat.’

Skrikk hunched over, looking sideways at Queek nervously.

‘Who Skrikk think he is? Queek does think strategy, stupid-meat. Queek greatest warlord there is! Queek think-scheme peerless battle plans. Queek the best strategist you will ever meet, weak-meat. You will see. But what does Queek need to know colours of every stupid-meat rat-flag for if he has Skrikk? Too much pointless knowing clouds Queek’s mind.’ He leaned back with a dangerous look in his eyes. He greatly relished the fear in Skrikk’s. ‘If Skrikk can’t count or Skrikk can’t see-smell clan banners and tell Queek how many rats, how many slaves, how many clan-things and Moulder-things left before Queek run out of battle-meat for victory, perhaps Queek not need Skrikk after all? Queek be very unhappy if Queek has to do all counting and scritch-scratching himself.’

‘O mighty one is correct!’ squeaked Skrikk, far more shrilly than he had intended. ‘Skrikk count. Skrikk has counted very well! I have noted all banners and numbers. See-read!’ He beckoned a slave bearing a pile of dwarf-skin scrolls forward. The warlords at least had the will to clench their musk glands, terrified of Queek as they were. But the slave shook uncontrollably, and the fear-stink was heavy on his fur. ‘See-look. Skrikk make all these himself. All is in order. I have everything written down so I know, mighty Queek. And what humble, unworthy Skrikk knows, most cunning Queek can know too! By asking! By asking!’ he added in a panic. ‘Of course you should not weary your piercing eyes reading such dull-tedious reports.’ He shooed the skavenslave away and bowed repeatedly.

Something big in the parade let out a long, mournful low. There were many Moulder-things in the army.

‘Battle-meat, battle-meat to get Queek close to the beard-things. Five thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, it not matter to Queek,’ Queek muttered. He stared at the skaven tramping by and became suddenly still. He no longer saw the troops. In his mind, he watched images of past slaughter.

The others cringed, each subtly trying to be the rat at the back of the crowd, but not too close to the giant Ska. When Queek’s constant twitching stilled, someone usually died.

Queek clenched his fists and rounded on them all. ‘Bah! This place still stink-smell of goblin-thing. Queek hate it. Queek still smell Skarsnik-thing squatting on his throne.’ He pointed to where Skarsnik’s throne had once been. ‘It so strong, Queek see him!’ His quick red eyes darted about, taking in the goblin’s defacement of the giant statues lining the walls of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. The goblins’ shanty had been cleared, but signs of the greenskins were everywhere. What wreckage had not already been scavenged was still piled along the walls. Every inch of the place stank of goblin. He longed to kill green-things. He stared at the great dwarf gates to the surface city, opening mechanisms improved with skaven engines by the tinker-rats. On the other side of the doors were thousands and thousands of greenskins. One word would open the gates and the relief of battle could be his. Somewhere out there was Skarsnik, and he hated Skarsnik more than anything else in the world. Killing dwarfs was business, but his feud with the green-thing king was personal. His muzzle quivered with temptation.

‘Gnawdwell’s orders, remember Gnawdwell’s orders!’ squeaked the voice of Ikit Scratch from his skeleton impaled upon Queek’s back. ‘Kill beard-things first, green-things later.’

‘Queek go now,’ he said quietly, ‘before he choke on Skarsnik stink. What new boring thing has Thaxx and Skrikk to show mighty Queek?’

They had more of the same to show him, but neither dared say. ‘To the fourth and fifth deeps, O wicked and savage Queek,’ said Thaxx, spreading his arms and bowing low. ‘To the second and third clawpacks, who await your merciless majesty with much fear and anticipation.’

‘Yes-yes,’ added Skrikk, not to be outdone. ‘They are rightwise awestruck.’ The three-week journey here from Skavenblight had been somewhat detrimental to his nerves, and he jumped every time he thought Thaxx bettered him in flattery.

Three days it took to see the next two clawpacks. Queek only stopped to eat – which he did savagely and messily – or to sleep, which he did in short, rapid-breathed bursts. The finest burrows were set aside for him, the best flesh-meat. He did not care.

Much to his annoyance, nobody tried to kill him. His legs spasmed with impatience when he lay down. His hands itched to hold Dwarf Gouger. Everyone around him feared his fury. Murder was imminent, they were sure. Each warlord and clan chief he greeted showed their necks and squeaked in most pitiable homage. Each one half expected to die. Thaxx and Skrikk had it worst by far, for they had to accompany Queek everywhere. They were both sure it was only a matter of time before Queek killed one or the other, and their attempts to outdo each other in their obsequiousness became more outrageous by the hour. Their wheedling only angered Queek more.

But no one did die. They could all see-smell Queek was bursting with the need to kill, but he raised a paw against no one.

‘Steady, steady,’ said the dead beard-thing Krug to Queek. ‘You muff this up, lad, and you’ll not be getting Gnawdwell’s potion.’

‘The beard-thing is correct, mad-thing,’ added Sleek Sharpwit’s annoying voice. ‘Be careful, or you will perish.’

Queek shot Sleek’s fleshless skull a murderous glare. ‘Do not call Queek mad-thing, dead Old-thing!’

‘Steady!’ said Krug. ‘Steady.’

‘Yes-yes,’ mumbled Queek, cradling the dwarf king’s skull to his chest one sleep. ‘Krug right, Krug wise! Time only enemy Queek cannot kill. Only Gnawdwell help with that.’

‘And so the mad-thing listens to the dead dwarf, but not to the wisdom of the living. You are a poor warlord, Queek, no match for me at my peak,’ said Sleek.

‘I alive, you dead. I better,’ said Queek acidly.

And so Queek set all his will to restraining his considerable temper, resolving to add Thaxx and Skrikk’s heads to his trophy rack in due course.

Clawpacks two and three were led by Skrak and Ikk Hackflay, ex-lieutenants from Queek’s Red Guard. These stormvermin were known to him, and respected by him as much as he could respect any skaven. They were braver than most, and Queek was almost civil to them, bringing much prestige to their names. For all his hatred of machination, he changed the status of skaven simply by looking at them wherever he went. This in turn upset alliances and friendships, led to back-stabbings and new pledge-bonds. His passage through the ancient dwarf city rippled outwards, rewriting the architecture of treachery and false promises that underpinned any skaven society.

He was aware of it, but tried his best not to think about it. It only made him angrier.

Clawpacks two and three were much like the first. The second bigger than the third, half of each made up of Clan Mors warriors, the rest a selection of scruffy rabble clans.

‘Queek not see-smell slaves. Where slaves?’ he demanded shortly after visiting the third clawpack.

‘This way, O most terrible one!’ said Thaxx.

They cut across the city in the fourth deep, emerging below the stone-pile the beard-things called Karag Rhyn, and the goblins White Fang. There were many long tubular caves deep below this mountain, each carpeted with bones, some full to the ceiling with brittle skeletons. Queek looked repeatedly to the curved roof. Up there, somewhere, was Skarsnik. The imp had taken refuge in the northern range after finally, finally being chased out from the deeps. Queek sighed happily as he imagined gnawing his way up through the rock, to emerge in the imp-thing’s own room, where he would bite him to death. He tittered to himself, but his amusement turned to anger as the scenario’s impossibility rudely intruded. Queek’s tail flicked in agitation.

Laired in the bone caves were so many skavenslaves that Queek could not count them. He was dizzy on their scent. They shrank back into side tunnels at his approach, tripping over their chains to get out of his way, their eyes downcast.

‘There is many-many slave-meat?’ he asked, peering into a tunnel packed full of eyes glinting as they looked away.

Thaxx and Skrikk fought to be the one to deliver the information.

‘Over one hundred thousand, O lordly Queek!’ said Thaxx, cutting Skrikk dead. ‘We have bred them especially quickly, raising them in unprecedented time with black–’

‘Many are from Thaxx’s breeding pits, masterful Queek,’ butted in Skrikk. ‘He must be so proud, to make so many weak-meat for Queek. Poor, lowly Skrikk only provide clanrat warriors and stormvermin for Queek’s armies. Skrikk sorry!’

Thaxx scowled at his colleague. Skrikk returned a cocky smile.

‘Many weak-meat?’

‘Many-many!’ said Thaxx through gritted chisel-teeth.

‘Good-good!’ said Queek. ‘Then Thaxx not miss these.’

Queek could restrain himself no longer. He leaped into the tunnel, drew his weapons, and vanished into the gloom.

‘But they my slaves…’ said Thaxx.

‘If you like,’ said Ska, lounging on a rock and picking his claws, ‘you go stop him. I sure-certain that work out just fine for clever Warlord Thaxx.’ Queek’s Red Guards tittered.

The squeal of panicked ratmen blasted from the tube. They blundered out into the dimly lit corridor, but could not go far, caught by their chains.

One tripped and fell at Skrikk’s feet. He looked up at the clanlords pleadingly.

‘You go quick-quick now,’ said Skrikk. ‘Back in there so mighty Queek may kill-slay.’

‘He very bored,’ said Ska. ‘You be good and make him happy.’

The skavenslave stared at them piteously as he was dragged back into the cave, knocking a pile of bones out of the way. He grabbed a skull, but it did not arrest his progress and he disappeared into the dark still clutching it.

A short and noisy time later, during which the cave’s stale air ripened with the reek of blood, bowels and musk, Queek emerged from the tunnel, dripping with gore. He panted lightly.

‘That no fun,’ he said. He licked his lips free of blood and smiled with cruel joy nevertheless. ‘No challenge for Queek to slaughter slaves.’ He looked speculatively at Thaxx. Skrikk nodded enthusiastically behind his back, jiggling his eyebrows at Thaxx and making a pantomime of how formidable a warrior Skrikk was.

‘Skrikk greater warrior!’ said Thaxx in a tumble.

‘Not so great as mighty Queek!’ said Skrikk, his tail twitched nervously.

‘Who is?’ said Queek with a shrug. ‘Now, where final clawpack? If it far, Queek not happy. Maybe we see how good Skrikk and Thaxx are…’

‘Not far! Not far, mighty Queek!’ said Thaxx, bowing low. ‘A half day, then all inspections done.’

Skrikk shot Thaxx a warning look. Thaxx caught it.

‘Er, but Warlord Queek must be tired, so much travelling. He should go rest-sleep to increase his strength so that he might kill-slay beard-things and green-things better.’

‘You say Queek is sleepy-tired, less-brilliant-than-Queek Warlord Thaxx?’ said Queek.

‘Oh no, your deadliness, of course not. All know that Queek could kill all things half asleep and with a small feeding spoon. It is just that you are right…’ Thaxx took a step backwards as Queek reared up over him.

‘You say sometimes Queek not-right?’

‘No! No! Queek is always right! Every time! Everyone knows!’ squealed Thaxx.

‘Yes-yes, Queek the mightiest. Queek also the most correct and cleverest,’ said Skrikk. Queek was mollified.

Thaxx relaxed a little. ‘You say boring. It boring looking at so many rat-things.’ He flapped his paw dismissively. ‘They look all the same. Perhaps we go back now? Meet fifth clawpack later?’

Queek’s eyes narrowed. ‘What Thaxx hide? What Thaxx think Queek not like about fifth clawpack?’

‘Hide?’ said Thaxx, his eyes wide with wounded innocence.

‘Never,’ said Skrikk.

‘You quite insistent, both of you, that Queek see boring rats. And now, all of a sudden, you not want Queek to see boring rats. Queek not stupid. You think Queek stupid?’

‘No,’ wailed Thaxx.

‘You better tell Queek now,’ said Ska.

Thaxx abased himself upon the floor. ‘It is not Thaxx’s fault. Stupid-meat minions make mistake. He told by great lords to do it.’

‘Do what?’ said Queek. He hefted Dwarf Gouger and gave it a pleased lick.

‘It better,’ said Skrikk with a resigned expression, ‘if Queek see-smells with his own eyes and nose.’

They went downwards from the bone caves into old skaven ways, gnawed by teeth long before the invention of tunnelling machines. These cut a slope across the outermost edges of the dwarf deeps under the Great Vale. Innumerable shafts and stairways joined the halls carved into the mountains to the undercity proper. The skaven tunnels cut across them all. They came to a winding stair, and went down this for many thousands of paces – round and round, until Queek felt dizzy. He had lived most of his life in Karak Eight Peaks, but this stair was new to him. The Eight Peaks was so vast that it was impossible to know it all, although the hated green-imp claimed to.

Down and down, passing into areas of the city that had collapsed. Some skaven, like Sleek Sharpwit, heretically said that beard-things were not stupid and built well. Queek laughed. Here was proof it was not so! There were many cave-ins and collapses that had sealed off whole sections of the beard-things’ burrows before quicker minds had rejoined them.

‘Earthquakes, poor skaven engineering undermining good dwarf work,’ said Sleek’s dead voice sulkily.

‘Stupid beard-things,’ said Queek.

His underlings, as always, pretended not to notice Queek’s one-sided conversations with his trophies.

They skirted the edges of the City of Pillars, the main part of the skaven domain in the Eight Peaks, where the last of the dwarfish deeps gave way to broken mines and endlessly convoluted warrens of skaven burrows. The journey took three feedings before they emerged at the very bottom of the world.

Deep in the deepest reaches of the City of Pillars, hundreds of fathoms below the lowest of the old dwarf deeps, was the Trench.

Who knew what cataclysm had torn this gap into the bowels of the earth? Nearly a mile deep and half a mile across, it went further into the living rock than even the skaven wished to go, and they were the children of the underworld. Along its base were dozens of cave mouths. These were not natural formations. They were carved by living creatures, but only a portion of them by the skaven. Down there were strange things, blindwyrms, deep trolls, scumbloids, mad-things and worse. Skaven who went into those tunnels often did not come out again.

Not today. The tunnels had been pressed into use as barrack burrows and every one crawled with armed skaven. Nothing that did not squeak or bear fur would dare come into the Trench. From end to end and wall to wall, the floor of the canyon was a seething mass of ratkin bodies.

‘The fifth clawpack, your most mightiness,’ said Skrikk, bowing.

Queek’s mouth opened. He shut it with a click. He was reluctantly impressed. There were dozens of warrior clans – none of the greater ones, admittedly, but some of the more respected names among the rabble clans were present. More arresting were the large numbers of Moulder-beasts, far more than in the other formations. He spotted a great number of rat ogres, thousands of giant rats and, most impressively, a pair of caged abominations. Far more monsters than Queek had seen in the rest of the city.

‘Who lead-bring such an endless rat sea to the City of Pillars?’ asked Queek quietly. Both his lieutenants ducked their heads submissively.

‘It hard to say, most subtle and dangerous–’ began Thaxx.

‘That is, it not easy to put into words, great and–’ interrupted Skrikk.

‘I do,’ said a voice from the shadows. A shape was there, lurking where the dark was too thick even for skaven eyes to see through. Queek smelt the identity of the squeaker before he threw back his hood to reveal the silhouette of horns.

‘White-fur!’ said Queek, his sword hissing free from its scabbard.

‘O mighty, terrible and great warrior Queek! I am Kranskritt, servant of the Horned Rat and emissary of Clan Scruten.’ Kranskritt stepped out of the dark and bowed to the jingle of small bells. A bunch of flunkeys came skulking out behind their master. They had precisely none of his poise and threw themselves down to the stone hurriedly for fear of Queek.

Thaxx and Skrikk scuttled backwards, banging into Ska.

‘Where you go?’ said Ska mildly. He arched an eyebrow. He enjoyed the effect Queek had on the warlords.

Queek laughed horribly. ‘White-fur, white-fur! What you squeak-say?’ He pointed the rusted blade of his sword at the grey seer, but Kranskritt walked directly towards Queek, his back straight, muzzle smooth and glands closed.

‘I say I am the chosen of the Horned Rat, his emissary here in the City of Pillars, and master of the fifth clawpack.’ He looked at Queek’s swordpoint, hovering inches from his nose. ‘I am not frightened of your sword.’

‘Oh? Why-tell? You have few heartbeats before I kill-slay. Give me entertainment with last pathetic breaths, stupid-meat. Scruten no longer have favour of Horned Rat. Horned Rat say so himself. I hear he squeak-say it very forcefully to white-fur Kritislik.’ Queek giggled a rapid, twittering series of squeaks.

The grey seer came fully into what little light there was. His eyes glowed a dull warpstone-green. He wore purple robes embroidered with arcane sigils. Bells were round his ankles, his horns and his wrists. They tocked and clonked with his every movement. Strangely, none of the skaven present had heard him approach.

‘I am not frightened, because we work together for greater quick-death of beard-things. Allies not be frightened of each other, foolish, yes?’ said the seer mildly. ‘And Gnawdwell, he tell you to work with all, to make quick work of beard-thing pathetic fort-place? It would be a big shame if you kill me for supposed insult and all Kranskritt’s warriors go home. Queek’s job is then so much harder.’ He shook his head sadly, rattling his ornaments.

‘Gnawdwell a long way away from here, white-fur. I chop-kill and no one know.’

‘Oh everyone will know, most indubitably dangerous and most martial Queek. I doubt-think you care much. But I will tell you a secret.’ Kranskritt leaned in close. ‘I not care either. You kill-slay me, I go to Horned Rat quick-fast. There perhaps I can explain why Clan Scruten has been wronged, and why Queek is a big danger to all his children. And then you can come too and tell him yourself, because without my clawpack, Queek not get what Gnawdwell promise. Big, big shame and sorrow for mighty Queek as age and time make him weak. And dead. Yes! Dead-dead!’ He laughed weirdly.

Queek was outraged. His eyes bulged and veins stood out on his neck. His heart hammered so quickly its beats blurred into one constant note. Equally swiftly, Dwarf Gouger was in his hand. Kranskritt’s lackeys shrank back on their bellies. But not Kranskritt.

Kranskritt tilted his head. ‘Ah, the real Queek. Kill me then, I do not care.’

Queek squeaked. A paw held back his arm.

‘Who dares touch Queek?’ said Queek, trembling with fury.

‘He is right,’ hissed Skrikk. ‘Gnawdwell. Remember what Gnawdwell said!’

Skrikk was shaking. Queek wondered what inducements their lord had given him to be so bold as to touch Queek’s fur! But this other, he was even more troubling. He exhibited no sign of fear at all, and in the face of the mighty Queek. Queek let his weapons drop and paced around the grey seer, examining and sniffing the stranger from every angle. The seer’s servants backed away, still on their bellies.

‘You very brave, white-fur. I respect that. But there are no seers on the Council now.’

‘We are being tested by the Horned One,’ said Kranskritt. ‘That is all. You will see. Observe the might I bring to your army!’ He swept his paw behind him at the masses in the Trench.

‘No power, no influence.’ Queek sniffed suspiciously. Warpstone, yes, name scent, yes. Food, old filth and fresh-licked fur. But no fear! No fear at all. ‘You are not scared! Why you not scared of Queek?’

‘Come and see. I will show you what I have brought, yes? Then Queek know why I know you will not kill-slay Kranskritt, and so Queek will know why I am not scared. Simple, yes?’

Kranskritt gestured to the skaven waiting in the canyon. ‘No seat on the Council for Clan Scruten, no-yes. But still have power and influence we do, yes? See! I have warriors from thirty-eight clans, and many-much Moulder-beasts.’

Queek looked sidelong at the grey seer. Still he was unafraid. He held up a delicate white paw and gongs sounded. The skaven below began to march in procession. The hubbub of their gathering became a roaring, the tramp of soft feet and rattle of weapons overwhelming, and the skaven lords struggled to be heard over it. Surely even Belegar high up above could hear this doom that approached him. Queek hid a smile under his scowl.

The fifth clawpack was vast. Kranskritt rattled off the names of units and clans as they went past and into their garrison-burrows, their leaders coming nervously forward from the back of the shelf to be introduced. Despite his avowed disinterest in military minutiae, Queek recognised most of the banners. Some of them were far from home: Clan Krizzor from the Dark Lands, Clan Volkn from the Fire Mountains, for example. He snarled as the banners of traitor-Clan Gritus wobbled past. Only recently they had turned on their Clan Mors masters. Their appearance there was a slight.

‘How white-fur get so many warriors?’ demanded Queek.

‘Have power! Have influence, many-mighty horde of ratkin, yes? See! Many-much veterans, scavenge-armed from sack of Tilea-place and Estalia-place,’ shouted Kranskritt.

Queek sneered. ‘Stupid man weapons. Stupid man armour. This boring! Ska Bloodtail!’

‘Yes, O Queek?’

‘We go-depart now. Skrikk will stay. He write down all clan-things. Thaxx stay-listen to stupid white-fur boast-squeaks too. Punishment for not say-squeaking about white-fur.’ Queek stepped in close. Thaxx stood his ground as best he could, quailing at the stench of old blood and death coming from Queek’s armour. ‘Queek bored. Queek go think.’

Skrikk and Thaxx bowed repeatedly.

As Queek swept irritably from the Trench, Kranskritt smiled at his back.

Five

Treachery in the Deeps

Queek, Ska and Queek’s Red Guard jogged upwards. The din of the fifth clawpack mustering in the Trench was amplified by the tunnel, hurting their sensitive ears. Time and distance diminished it, until the trumpets and stamping of feet joined with all the other mysterious echoes that haunted the City of Pillars, and they found they could talk again.

‘This not good-good,’ said Queek to Ska. The latter ran as fast as his master, but his great size – for he was a giant among his kind, as tall as a tall man, and bigger than the mighty Gnawdwell himself – made him seem plodding next to Queek’s swift movements.

‘No, great Queek,’ said Ska.

‘Thaxx and Skrikk sneaky-sneaks. Not like good and loyal Ska.’

‘Thank you, great Queek.’ Ska had fought by Queek’s side for many years and was of a similar age. Where his arms were visible between his plates of scavenged gromril, his black fur was spotted with patches of brilliant white. Many battles had left their mark upon his face in a pattern of pink scars. One of his ears had been torn off. Already intimidating, he was made fearsome by his war wounds.

They passed onto a wide dwarf-built way. Once a feeder road for the lower mines, it led directly back to the lower levels of the skaven stronghold. Even there, there was little space left, most of the width of the road taken up by sleeping clanrats atop unfolded nesting rolls. From top to bottom, Karak Eight Peaks heaved with vermin. They ran along this for a quarter of a mile, kicking skaven out of the way, then turned into a lesser-used tunnel.

‘If white-fur here, much scheming. Queek hate tittle-tattle squeak plots! Queek only wish to fight.’ He gnawed at his lower lip as he thought. ‘Send-bring me Grotoose, leader of Clan Moulder here, and master assassin Gritch of Clan Eshin. Queek question them both. I find out who behind this, who try to trick Queek.’ He squeaked with annoyance. ‘Queek happier if Queek bury Dwarf Gouger in Kranskritt’s stupid horned head.’

‘That is not a good idea, great Queek,’ said Ska cautiously.

‘Stupid giant-meat Ska! Queek know this! Queek make joke! Queek only wish for sim–’

A tremendous rumble cut their conversation dead. The roof caved in, and a tumble of boulders rushed from the ceiling, clacking one atop the other until they filled the way. Ska pushed Queek aside, but his Red Guard were not so lucky. They squealed in pain and fear as three of them were crushed, and the rest cut off from their master.

Queek rolled with Ska’s shove and was back on his footpaws instantly, sniffing the air. Fear musk, blood, the sharp scent of rock dust, registered on his sensitive nose.

‘Where Ska?’

‘Here, mighty Queek!’ said his henchman from the ground. He lay with his feet trapped by rocks.

‘Ska better not be hurt – big rat with crushed feet no good to Queek!’

Ska grunted. ‘I am not hurt, only trapped. I will dig myself– Queek! Look out!’

Queek was moving before Ska had finished squeaking. He somersaulted backwards as three razored blurs sliced through the air where he had been standing – throwing stars, which clanged from the rock fall leaving smears of bitter-smelling poison on the raw stone.

Queek landed sure-footedly on a boulder. He drew his weapons as he leapt, pushing himself off with his back paws and tail. Ahead of him, a black shape detached itself from the tunnel wall. Its cloak was patterned to match the stone and no name-scent came from it. An assassin. They had their glands removed as part of their initiation. Only they among the skaven carried no smell.

‘Die-die!’ squealed Queek. He landed in front of the assassin, who promptly flipped backwards, hurling two more stars from quick paws at the apex of his jump. Queek’s sword moved left then right, sparking as it deflected the missiles. Queek jumped after his attacker, bounding on all fours, the knuckles of his clenched fists hitting the floor painfully. The assassin turned to face him, brandishing a pair of daggers that wept a deadly venom.

Queek lashed his tail from side to side, aiming to wrap it around the assassin’s ankle, but the killer stepped over it as easily as if it were a jumping rope and came in, daggers weaving. Queek parried rapidly, his and the assassin’s blades making a network of steel between the skaven. Ska watched his master helplessly, moaning and tugging desperately at his feet. Metal sparked and rang. Suddenly, it stopped.

The assassin’s arms sagged, his blades fell to the tunnel floor. Queek dropped Dwarf Gouger and grabbed the assassin by the throat. He struggled feebly in Queek’s grip, his pathetic choking noises making Queek smile until they stopped.

The assassin’s body followed his daggers to the floor as Queek withdrew his sword from his chest.

‘Stupid-meat! No one beat Queek! Queek the best!’ He licked his sword clean with a long pink tongue, working out chunks of gore from its serrated edge with his gnawing teeth. He smacked his lips and frowned at his friend. ‘What Ska doing there, lying around? Lazy Ska! Come-come! Help Red Guard dig through. Hurry-scurry.’

‘Yes, great Queek,’ said Ska resignedly, and recommenced tugging at the lumps of rock trapping his legs.

Queek waited in his trophy den for his minions to arrive. Racks where runic axes and dwarf mail coats had once hung displayed skulls and battered armour. Piles of smashed objects and trinkets were heaped all over the floor, a chieftain’s spoils gathered over a lifetime of war. He was ten! Ten years! He could not believe it. Time had gone so fast. His muscles twitched, setting his fur quivering. Not from fear, no, never that. But soon he would be old, and he did not like to think about it.

Queek had not been in his trophy room for over thirteen moons. He was gratified that it remained untouched. ‘Queek the best,’ whispered Ikit Scratch in the back of his head. ‘Everyone fear Queek!’

‘Yes-yes!’ Queek said. ‘No one dare touch Queek’s trophies.’ He ran his hands over a manticore skull, enjoying the memory of the beast’s death. ‘No one touch Queek’s trophies but Queek.’ He licked the skull and chirred with delight.

Krug Ironhand, Sleek Sharpwit and Ikit Scratch’s eyeless skulls looked on from their shelf of honour. The pickled hands of Baron Albrecht Kraus of Averland had joined his head next to them. This had not been preserved and had mummified in the chamber’s dry air, its browned flesh dried into a perpetual, lopsided grin.

‘I must say that it is good to have my hands with me,’ the baron said. ‘You know, I always say that you should have my head with you. Do I not say that, chaps? When the mighty Queek is not here?’

A chorus of ghostly groans came from Queek’s trophy collection.

‘Yes-yes! Others right! It because you always say “I always say” that your head stays here and is not with Queek and hands are!’ snapped Queek. ‘“I must say this,” and “did you know” and “I suggest”! Very boring. Hands not talk. Hands come with Queek, head stay here.’

‘My dear fellow…’

‘Silence!’ Queek was more irritable than ever. He rapidly read the source of his annoyance again, a parchment lately arrived from Skavenblight. On it were direct orders from Gnawdwell. Here he said that Queek should engage the dwarfs in a war of attrition, wear them out with the slave legions of Thaxx Redclaw.

He bared his teeth at it. The hand looked to be that of Gnawdwell, but it made no mention of their earlier conversation and Gnawdwell’s orders to finish the beard-things quickly. He held it up to his nose. The scent mark was right too.

‘This not right,’ he said for the third time. ‘Forgery. Must be trick.’

‘Trick-trap!’ suggested Ikit.

‘Maybe,’ Queek shrugged. ‘Maybe Gnawdwell change his mind, not want Queek to go to other clans.’ He sniffed the parchment again. ‘Name-smell is Gnawdwell’s,’ he reassured himself.

‘Your kind are traitorous vermin,’ suggested Krug. ‘Anything is possible. I’d watch out if I were you.’

‘Yes-yes, true,’ said Queek. ‘Maybe Gnawdwell sick of Queek. Maybe Gnawdwell send white-fur to check my power.’

‘Yes-yes!’ agreed the ghost of Ikit Scratch. ‘White-furs have no power. Someone else is behind this happening. Why not Gnawdwell?’

Queek stopped pacing, his tail swishing back and forth metronomically as he thought. The orders were contradictory, but in contradiction was latitude, freedom to act as he saw fit.

‘Very useful. Very useful indeed. Queek…’ He stopped and raised his nose into the air. ‘Shhh,’ said Queek, holding up his paw. ‘Everyone silent! Someone coming.’

Even with his back turned, Queek knew who it was. He smelt them before they came. One of the reasons he had chosen this old armoury was that the prevailing air currents blew in, not out. One of the approaching skaven had a heavy reek of beasts and skalm, the other very little scent at all. Their footsteps gave them away in any case – the light pad of a stabber-killer from Clan Eshin and the heavier tread of a hulking beast-handler.

‘Greetings, O most malevolent of potentates, O sovereign of mighty Mors. I have hurried quick-quick at your summons,’ said Gritch, his cloak whispering as he bowed. ‘My watch-spies have already told me much-much. So sorry for cave-in. Assassin not one of mine.’

‘Hail, great Headtaker,’ said Grotoose.

Queek smiled. Grotoose was gruff, to the point, and a deadly fighter – the qualities Queek admired the most. He almost trusted him. Gritch was a useful spy, but as with any Clan Eshin member, he favoured intrigue and was likely to be playing more angles than he had claws. Queek pointedly kept his back to them for a moment, showing he had no fear of a dagger between the shoulder blades. Besides, he could rely on the dead-things to warn him.

Queek placed the manticore skull upon the floor in front of him and stepped around it, acknowledging his minions by turning to face them. Without greetings or preamble, he went to the heart of the matter. ‘A grey seer! What is the meaning of this? Did Queek not squeak-tell Lord Gnawdwell about the grey ones’ interfering ways? Did either of you know that the fifth clawpack is led by a horned one?’

Grotoose looked Queek in the eyes and bared his fangs. ‘I not know,’ he said. ‘My Moulder-brothers tell me nothing. Big secret.’

Gritch drummed his nervous, twitchy fingers against themselves, scratched his whiskers, and looked at his shuffling feet.

‘Gritch? Speak-squeak,’ coaxed Queek.

‘Yes, yes-yes. I knew. Not for certain, O terrible one,’ he said, looking up quickly. ‘I hear rumours, I hear whispers. I wait-wait to tell Queek, when next we met.’

‘You come see Queek earlier next time!’

‘We meet-greet now,’ said Gritch with a shrug.

With a swift flick of his wrist, Queek sent Dwarf Gouger to split the manticore skull before him.

‘Ska!’ shouted Queek.

‘Yes, great one,’ said Ska from the mouth of the tunnel.

‘Fetch Skrikk! Queek want to know what he has to say about this. One look from Queek’s eye and he squirt musk and tell all!’

‘Yes, great one.’

‘And send for Clan Skryre tinker-rats. Time for them to report to Queek. Much-much needs finishing before great signal.’

Queek snarled. He hated all this, hated, hated, hated.

‘Queek want to bury Dwarf Gouger in beard-thing’s head!’ he said.

‘Patience!’ said Ikit Scratch. ‘Soon the time come for death-slay and end of all dwarfs.’

Queek tittered. ‘Yes-yes. You right. You clever warlord. But not so clever to kill Queek! Now be quiet, others here.’

Grotoose gave Queek a concerned look. His tail twitched. ‘My lord?’

‘Nothing! Nothing squeaking for your ears, beastmaster. No! You return to your beasts, Grotoose,’ snapped the Headtaker. ‘Gritch tell Queek everything he knows about this. This is the Council’s doing. But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘was Gnawdwell the paw behind it? That is the big question.’ He let this last statement hang a moment, knowing full well it would reach eager ears. If they thought the rat was out of the bag, then his opponents might panic. Gritch’s face stayed studiously neutral. ‘Tell Queek about Kranskritt. Squeak-tell me everything.’

Kranskritt leaned hard against the burrow wall, his head pounding to the merciless beat of his heart. Every sphincter he had twitched, threatening to flood his robes with urine and musk. He shook all over and his paw-pads sweated. The potion was wearing off. Soothgnawer had warned him that the after-effects were unpleasant. Naturally, he expected the verminlord to lie to him, or not tell him the whole truth at least, but in this one thing he had been truthful – the sensations of withdrawal were awful.

It was horrible down there in the Trench. He hated being at the bottom of the pit. Every sleep he had he was woken by the screams of half-mad Clan Moulder-things. Every time it happened he thought they were coming from him. He was too hot and shook, as if all the fear he should have felt while under the potion’s influence were merely delayed, and afflicted him all at once.

With palsied hands he pulled a soft man-skin pouch from under his robes, fished out a piece of dully glowing warpstone and nibbled at it. A surge of wellbeing coursed through him, driven on by his racing heart. Frantically, he dabbed at the crumbs on his front and licked them from his fingers.

Kranskritt closed his eyes and pressed his back and palms against the cool rock, letting the rush of the warpstone chase away his discomfort. He stayed like that until his heart slowed and his glands gave one last twitch. Feeling weak but better, he staggered the remaining way into his burrow, using the wall as a support.

Crates and boxes, some opened and their contents half spilling into the room, filled his chambers. He had not known how much to bring, not knowing how long he would be in the City of Pillars. In the end, he had packed everything, worried he might leave something important behind. But the crammed state of his burrow meant he couldn’t lay a paw on anything, and it made him anxious.

He sought a reason other than his own weakness – or Queek, for he was so frightened of him he didn’t want to think about it – for his disquiet.

‘Soothgnawer, yes-yes. He is too strong!’ chittered Kranskritt. ‘It is him! So tricksy and sneaky. Never a straight word for poor, honest Kranskritt.’

He paced back and forth. ‘A binding, a binding. That must be it. Make him my servant, not the other way around. I am too strong for him!’ he snickered. ‘Guards!’ he called. An unacceptable number of heartbeats later, three mangy stormvermin sloped into the room. Kranskritt missed the elite white-fur guard that usually accompanied seers of his rank, but all that had gone with Kritislik’s death and Clan Scruten’s disgrace. At least these, being of Clan Gritus, were unlikely to betray him to Queek and Clan Mors.

Probably.

‘Clear the floor,’ he squeaked imperiously. ‘Make me a space! And carefully! No more breakages.’

The stormvermin rolled their eyes but did as they were bid, working until the floor was clear and the crates were stacked more or less safely along the burrow walls. Kranskritt dismissed the stormvermin and hunted about for his warpstone stylus. He couldn’t find it. Forgetting his admonishment to the guards, he lost his temper and upended three crates before he seized upon it with a screech of triumph.

‘Now,’ he said, kicking packing straw and broken possessions to the edge of the room. ‘Where to begin?’

Kranskritt spent a happy bell scuttling around his chamber, sketching out his circle in chalk then filling in the design with his stylus. Where the lines met, they glowed with the non-light of warpstone. The atmosphere of the room changed, growing pregnant with power. And then he was interrupted.

‘Greetings, Grey Seer Kranskritt, O most wise and malign. I gather-bring news of the Headtaker.’

Turning from the writhing runes he was scratching into the chamber floor, Kranskritt glowered at his messenger.

Bowing profusely, the skaven gave his report to the floor, not daring to look upon the seer. ‘A boulder trap missed Queek. Three of his Red Guard were smashed-slain, but the Headtaker leapt aside.’

Kranskritt’s muzzle twitched. ‘He will know it was a set-trap, yes-yes,’ said the grey seer. ‘Who will he suspect-blame? Tell me who has he questioned about my presence?’

‘Grotoose of Clan Moulder, Gritch of Clan Eshin and Warlord Skrikk, my lord,’ responded the messenger without raising his eyes.

‘Hmmm, but not Gnarlfang?’ said the grey seer, musing to himself. ‘Strange-odd. Send Gritch to me immediately.’

Twitching his head to listen, Kranskritt waited until the sound of the messenger’s footsteps had receded before returning to his circle.

‘Your circle will not work,’ said a whisper from the shadows. ‘You are inscribing it wrong.’

Kranskritt froze. ‘Why don’t we tell-explain to the Headtaker that it is not us? Clearly he will come after me soon,’ said Kranskritt to the darkness.

A soft and altogether evil laughter filled the room, a sound as palatable as nails scratching on polished slate. ‘Of course he suspects you, but it would be no good to tell him that the one behind the attempts is Lord Gnawdwell. He suspects this to be the case, but he would not believe you. And yes, his agents are already on their way.’

After a long pause, the voice spoke again. ‘I could protect you, little Kranskritt, but there must be no more attempts to bind me.’

Kranskritt stamped his footpaw in frustration and threw down his stylus. ‘You tell me not to be scared of Queek. I not scared of Queek, but Queek almost kill this poor, stupid-meat. Then potion wear off and I am plenty-scared! Why did you not tell me how bad I would feel?’

‘But I did,’ which was true, ‘and you were not scared, little horned one,’ which was also true.

Kranskritt drew a breath in to whine and dissemble, but he stopped, puzzled. ‘No. I was not scared.’

‘And so you are still alive. My potion worked. Stop-Fear! No gland will betray you. Fear is weakness. When will you learn-understand that what I say is truth?’

Whenever you start telling the truth consistently, and not only when it suits you, thought Kranskritt, though he did not say it. He cringed. How did he know the verminlord could not read his mind? He hurriedly composed a fawning apology in his head.

A mist gathered in the centre of the circle, coalescing into the form of a verminlord with white fur and many horns sprouting from its bare skull. Soothgnawer stepped daintily over the bounds of the binding circle, eliciting a squeak of annoyance from the grey seer. ‘I did say you were doing it wrong.’

Kranskritt slumped into a sulk, arms crossed. The first time he had seen the verminlord, taking shape in the magical fumes of the Temple of the Grey Seers in Skavenblight, he had collapsed in fear and adulation. He had been even more frightened when Soothgnawer had chosen him as the catspaw for his schemes. Not any more. Familiarity really did breed contempt. Now what he felt mostly was petulant, the verminlord treated him like a favourite slave. From under its impressive rack of horns, it gazed down at him with a wholly infuriating mixture of indulgence and smugness, like it knew it knew far more than Kranskritt ever could, and although it kept most of its knowledge to itself, it was secretly pleased when Kranskritt figured out a part of the greater picture. Most patronising, most infuriating!

‘Queek is angry, little seer,’ the verminlord said. ‘He travels repeatedly from clan to clan, despite his irritation with the role. Soon he will visit you – you cannot hide from him forever.’

Kranskritt’s tail twitched. His glands clenched. ‘Queek has his paws full. Many clans, all together. Bad recipe for big trouble. He is a mad-thing, always talking to himself.’

‘His name is enough to quell any revolt, little seer. He is not as mad-crazed as he pretends to be. When he talks, voices answer him.’

‘Whose? Who speak-squeaks to Queek?’

Soothgnawer laughed, a velvety evil sound. ‘That I will not tell you, for you do not need to know.’

‘Then what do I need to know?’ whined Kranskritt, and he threw himself flat on the floor, his forehead and the full length of his muzzle flat against the stone. ‘O great and powerful malicious one! Give-tell humble servant of the Horned Rat instructions so he might further great verminlord’s master’s schemings.’

‘Hush! Hush!’ said the verminlord. It reached out a massive claw. Kranskritt forbore to be tickled between the horns. ‘Be calm, little seer. You must keep Queek on your side, for now. Do as he says until I instruct-command otherwise.’

Kranskritt looked up into the currently skeletal face of Soothgnawer. His appearance was inconstant, and changed worryingly.

‘Do not fear, little seer. Soon there will be opportunity for Clan Scruten to regain influence. That is what we both want-desire, yes-yes?’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Kranskritt.

‘Your fellows labour upon the Great Spell in Skavenblight. Already they draw the Chaos moon nearer to this world. This has been revealed to the remaining eleven Lords of Decay. The disturbance its presence will have upon the earth will be the signal to attack.’

‘But the tinker-rats? What if they are successful with their rocket and our spell is not?’

‘Clan Skryre attempt the construction of their rocket to destroy the moon. This contest between the clans becomes heated. Much turmoil in Skavenblight, many assassinations.’ Soothgnawer paused. ‘And Grey Seer Thanquol helps Clan Skryre.’

‘Thanquol?’ said Kranskritt in surprise.

Soothgnawer nodded. ‘It is not my doing. He has proven his lack of worth time and again. He is deservedly outcast. You are my preferred instrument to restore the fortunes of Clan Scruten.’

Kranskritt grovelled in appreciation.

‘The head of our Council has plans for him, as I have plans for you, little seer. Thanquol will succeed in his venture, but Clan Skryre will fail. The Great Spell must succeed!’

‘Why cannot Kranskritt join in this most holy of sorceries, great one?’ said Kranskritt, who really would have been anywhere else but near Queek.

‘Because, little seer, there is more than one task to be done. The beard-things must die. All of them.’

Kranskritt, still abased on the floor, felt the air stir the fur on his neck as Soothgnawer bent low. ‘And do you really think,’ the verminlord said, his hot breath washing over the seer, ‘that we can trust a mad-thing like Queek to accomplish that? No.’ Soothgnawer often answered his own questions. ‘Without you, he will fail. And without you, he might survive.’ Soothgnawer’s fleshless smile grew wider on his skull. ‘And we can’t have that, can we, little seer?’

Six

The Breaking of the Mountains

Morrslieb loomed, bigger than it had ever been, peering over Karag Nar like a glutton eyeing a honey cake. Sickly light shed from its mournful face reflected from the snow, painting the world a disturbing green.

‘As you see,’ said Drakki Throngton, loremaster of Vala-Azrilungol, ‘the Chaos moon waxes huge, my lord.’

‘What does this all mean?’ whispered Belegar. ‘Other than it’s got bigger,’ he said sharply, remembering Drakki’s endless lectures on precise speech during his youth.

‘I do not know,’ admitted Drakki sorrowfully. His breath misted his half-moon spectacles in the cold night air. ‘All I can do is check the measurements of our ancestors against our own observations.’

‘And?’ said Belegar.

‘Technically, my lord?’

‘Aye! Technically. I’m no beardling.’

‘I apologise, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Well, see here.’ He flopped open a book over his forearm. The moonlight, cursed though it was, was ample illumination for a dwarf to read by. ‘The Chaos moon waxes and wanes according to its own whim. Sometimes there is a pattern, often there is not. It has grown larger and smaller in the past.’ He licked an ink-stained finger and flicked back a couple of hundred pages, two centuries’ worth of measurements. The handwriting was the same as in the recent pages. Drakki was old. ‘Such as here. That was when it was at its largest.’

Belegar glanced up from the page. ‘The years of the Great War Against Chaos.’

‘Indeed, my king.’

‘And the numbers?’

‘Well, my liege. There we have the most troubling news. These indicate that this is the largest it has ever been. Diameter, illumination, frequency of transit…’ His voice trailed away. ‘All higher numbers even than during the Great War.’

‘Hmph,’ said Belegar. He leaned against the parapet. In the city in the Great Vale, greenskin campfires burned insolently. ‘And what if I were to request the non-technical version?’

Drakki shut the book with finality. ‘Then I would say we were in a great deal of trouble, my liege. And not just us. Everybody.’

‘Now that’s putting it mildly,’ said Belegar. He drummed his fingers on the stone. ‘I’ve had requests, from the other holds, asking for their warriors back. Even, would you credit it, from High King Thorgrim.’

‘Yes, my liege.’

‘What kind of world is it, where even a dwarf can’t keep his word any more? A few weeks ago I was up here with Notrigar, winding him up.’

‘Oh, he is a little on the sparse-chinned side when it comes to recognising a good joshing, sire,’ said Drakki, his aged face crinkling with mirth.

‘That he is,’ said Belegar, no humour in his voice at all. ‘But I don’t feel it now. I look out at this place, Drakki, and all I can see is my dream slipping through my fingers.’

‘We will prevail, sire.’

‘That’s what I told Notrigar.’ Belegar huffed. The breath strained through his frosty beard to break free in clouds. ‘We do what we can. We’re as fortified as we can be. All we can do is wait for them, because as sure as gold is in the ground and khazukan crave it, they are coming. The only question is when.’

They looked out over the vale for a while, until a rumbling from the earth had them both casting their eyes downwards. Fragments of stone jumped like frogs from shelf to shelf on the outside of the citadel, click-clacking all the way down. A louder grumble took up with the first, then another and another, all eight mountains ringing the city protesting the failures of the world, sorrowful as longbeards deep in their ale. The ground convulsed, once, then again. The grating of stone on stone from the city told of ruins collapsing.

Belegar and Drakki swayed, their flat dwarfish feet keeping them upright. Alarms went off up and down the citadel, horns and clanging triangles.

‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’ dwarfs shouted.

The citadel’s masonry ground block on block, sending showers of ancient mortar down on the dwarf king, but the dwarfs were wise to the ways of the earth and built accordingly. The citadel did not fall. Hammerers ran to his side, pitched across the wavering battlements like sailors on a stone ship. ‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ their leader, Brok Gandsson, bellowed. Shield rims clacked into one another as the dwarfs formed a barrier of gromril and steel to shelter their lord, half of them angling their shields upwards over his head. Fragments of masonry bounced off them.

‘Get back! I’m no beardling frightened by a little shiver,’ Belegar shouted, shoving at his protectors. They stood solid as the stones themselves.

‘Not until this is over, my king,’ said Brok.

The earthquake went on for long minutes, dying only gradually. Belegar waited under the shield roof while the earth gave one more heave. No more aftershocks came, and he shoved his men aside. Drakki followed him from the knot of hammerers.

A wind, unnaturally hot, stirred their beards, the runes on their weapons pulsing with blue light as it ran over them. Out in the ruins came the clamour of panicking orcs and goblins.

‘My lord, look!’ Drakki was pointing south. The winter skies were stained orange by distant fire. ‘Karag Haraz is erupting most fiercely.’

A distant boom rolled over the mountains, reflected from every rock face, until it seemed they clamoured in despair. Far to the north, more flamelight tainted the sky, colouring the high vaults of night.

‘And Karag Dronn,’ said Belegar.

‘They have been spouting fire for long months now, but these latest eruptions must be immense, if we can see them from here,’ said Drakki, unconsciously reaching for a notepad to mark the phenomenon down. ‘Karag Dronn is over one hundred leagues away.’

‘If they both speak, then doubtless Karag Orrud and the Karag Dum do.’

‘And east,’ said Drakki quietly. A gentle aftershock shook the ground, causing the hammerers to tense again. Drakki nodded to the eastern night sky. A haze of red coloured it as far as they could see from north to south.

‘Grungni’s beard,’ Belegar said. ‘All of them?’ The others remained silent. Such troubles from deep in the earth had brought the Karaz Ankor to its knees in the distant past and heralded the beginning of the dwarfs’ long decline. Nobody needed reminding of that.

‘Is it over, loremaster?’ asked Brok.

‘There will be further small earthquakes, but I expect the strongest have passed, for now.’ He looked to the Chaos moon, crowding its once larger brother from the sky. ‘There must be some connection. And if it continues to grow, there may be worse to come.’

Belegar nodded curtly. ‘Messengers!’ he called. Several lightly armoured dwarfs appeared from inside. ‘Get yourselves down into the first deep. I want to know of every stone out of place, do you understand?’

‘Yes, my liege,’ they all said.

‘It would be our bloody luck if that lot brought down some of our defences. If there are any casualties, Valaya forfend, you let me know.’

The messengers ran off, heavy boots clumping down the winding stairs leading down from the parapet into the citadel.

‘Something’s coming, very soon. If this doesn’t–’

A sky-shattering explosion tore through the night. The face of Karag Nar leapt outwards with surreal slowness, long cloudy trails of rock dust puffing up like flour from a burst sack. The ruined fortress upon its shoulder tumbled down like a town made of model bricks pushed over by a child, the finely cut dwarf masonry becoming one with the tumble of broken rock racing down the mountain’s flanks. Belegar watched open-mouthed as debris arced towards him.

Belegar was unceremoniously shoved to the flagstones of the wall-walk by his guards. This time he did not order them back. Pebbles rattled off gromril armour, the heavier stones that came tumbling soon after eliciting grunts from the hammerers covering the king. More explosions boomed, these muffled by depth.

A rain of boulders slammed down into the city, levelling whole districts. Avalanches of rock poured off the flanks of the mountains, burying further sections.

Silence was a long time coming.

Belegar’s hammerers jumped up, hauling the dazed king to his feet. They attempted to hustle him back inside, calling for more of his bodyguard. Belegar was filled with rage and shoved their hands away. He went to the edge of the parapet to see what had been done to his kingdom, ignoring their cries for him to be careful, to get inside.

A choking mist of pulverised rock hung over the Great Vale, biting the throats of everyone who breathed of it. Caught by the wind, it drifted away like rain, to reveal a scene of utter devastation presided over by the grinning moon.

Three of the eight mountains bore wounds in their sides. Karag Nar’s eastern face had slumped inwards, while Karag Rhyn had collapsed into a broad fan of rubble, its height reduced by a half.

Belegar stared out in disbelief. Behind him, his hammerers formed up, but none dared approach the king.

When he turned to face them, a tear tracked down one dusty cheek.

‘The mountains. They have killed the mountains.’

‘That was no earthquake,’ said Drakki, blood from a cut on his forehead making red tracks in his dust-whitened face.

Horns sounded again, this time from inside the citadel, answering others blown in the first deep. Belegar clenched his fist.

‘Thaggoraki,’ he said. ‘It is starting.’

‘Another war,’ said Drakki.

‘No,’ said Belegar, pitching his voice low enough that only Drakki and Brok could hear. ‘The beginning of the end.’

Seven

The Hall of Reckoning

Horns sang all over the dwarf-held part of Karak Eight Peaks, echoing down corridors and up forgotten shafts, so that it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.

‘That’s the signal! Here they come, lads!’ cried Borrik Norrgrimsson. His ironbreakers, Norrgrimlings all, held their shields up and locked them together, awaiting the arrival of the ratmen.

‘It’s about time the thaggoraki got here,’ growled Hafnir Hafnirsson, Borrik’s second cousin. ‘I’m eager to split a few heads.’

‘We’ve been standing in this hall for two months waiting for this lot. I’m sure we can hang on for a few more minutes,’ said the Norrgrimlings’ notoriously miserable Ironbeard, Gromley. ‘Now shut up, or you’ll put the thane off. He’s on to something.’

Borrik kept a careful eye on all three entrances to the Hall of Reckoning. Two dwarf-made stairwells leading down into the enemy-infested second deep, and a massive pit, gnawed by some unspeakable thing, gaped in the middle of the floor. Not goblin work, or Borrik was an umgi. Other places gave him cause for concern. He had a keen eye for tunnelling, Borrik, and had spent a goodly amount of time tapping at the walls with variously sized hammers. There were more tunnels behind the walls, some of them worryingly new. And if there was one thing ‘new’ meant to dwarfs, it was trouble.

When Belegar assigned him to the hall, he had examined every inch thoroughly. Four hundred and one half-dwarf paces long, part of a broad thoroughfare that once ran east-west through the first deep to join with the Ungdrin Ankor. Blocked at both ends by rock falls, it would have been of little concern, save one thing. The fall at Borrik’s end was pierced by a narrow gap, shored up by a failed expedition many centuries ago. At the other end, in a chamber hacked out of the loose rubble, was a steel-bound door that led into another passageway. This in turn led to the lower parts of the citadel. The door of Bar-Undak was its name, a messenger’s access way to the Ungdrin in happier days. Now, in Borrik’s seasoned opinion, a bloody liability. Belegar had been determined to keep the hall open, it being one of the more easily defensible ways into the deeps. So it stayed open, as did thirty-nine other ways, thought Borrik grimly. Thirty-nine. Sometimes the king was a real wazzok.

In this tunnel, the Axes of Norr were arranged, two dozen in all, their front rank of ten flush with the low entrance. Seven irondrakes – the Forgefuries – were ranged in front of them.

‘If Belegar has one fault, it’s optimism,’ he grumbled to his banner bearer, Grunnir Stonemaster.

‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, his eyes fixed like Borrik’s on the arched stairwells leading into the hall. ‘Like you, my lord, I find anything other than healthy cynicism in a dwarf entirely unnatural. But I’ll say this, what other trait would lead a dwarf to try to retake Karak Eight Peaks? There’s a lot to be said for bloody-mindedness. I thought you of all people could respect that.’

‘If it had been down to me, I would have blocked off this tunnel long since. As I’ve said to the king a dozen times…’

Grunnir rolled his eyes. He’d heard this opinion a lot recently. Borrik wasn’t one to let a point lie.

‘…ever since Skarsnik’s grobi got pushed out of the upper levels two years gone–’

‘It’s been obvious the thaggoraki are planning something,’ said Grunnir, finishing his thane’s words for him, so often had he heard them before. ‘You’re not the king, Borrik. And you and me and all the rest of us followed him here, didn’t we, you grumbaki?’

‘So? I’ve every right to grumble.’

‘As has every dwarf with a beard as long as yours, cousin. My point is that we all share Belegar’s fault – if it is a fault – in being here at all. So it’s not really his fault, is it?’

Borrik sniffed. There was no arguing with that. He was quiet a moment. ‘I’d still have sealed this tunnel off, mind.’

‘Oh, give it a rest, would you?’ said Grunnir. Borrik raised his eyebrows. ‘Thane,’ added Grunnir.

‘That’s better,’ said Borrik.

There was so much history around them. Ancestor faces at the top of the stairways told of Vala-Azrilungol’s glory days. The rock falls recalled its weakening and downfall, the marks of the mason who had chiselled out the tunnel they now defended harked back to one of the many doomed attempts to reclaim it, while the gaping, tooth-gnawed pit before them told them all who Karak Eight Peaks’s real masters were now.

A hideous chittering echoed up out of the dark.

‘Right, that’s it, here they come,’ said Borrik. ‘Ready, lads!’

A musty draught blew up from the tunnels.

‘By Grimnir’s axe, there must be a lot of them,’ said Grunnir, flapping his hand in front of his face. ‘I can smell them from here!’

Hafnir grinned. ‘There’s always a lot of them, but it doesn’t matter how many, because we’re here. One hundred or a million of them, they’ll not get past!’

‘Aye!’ shouted the lads.

Stone-deadened explosions sounded down the stairs, sending a brief, fiercer breeze washing over the dwarfs that smelt of gun smoke, sundered rock and blood.

‘That’ll be the traps, then,’ said Hafnir. Grim chuckles echoed from gromril helms.

More explosions sounded, closer now. Any other attacking army might have been discouraged, but the skaven were numberless and were never put off. Borrik hoped they’d killed a lot anyway.

The first skaven spilled into the room, eyes wild with fear. They were scrawny, badly armed if at all, mouths foaming. They saw the dwarfs in their corner. The front rank hesitated but were pushed on, those attempting to go against the tide falling under the paws of their fellows.

‘Typical,’ said Borrik, indicating the rusted manacles and trailing chains of the lead skaven with a nod of his head. ‘Slave rats. They’re going to try and wear us down.’

‘Don’t they always?’ said Grunnir.

‘Just once, it’d be nice to go straight to the main course,’ moaned Gromley.

‘In your own time, lads,’ said Borrik, nodding at Tordrek Firespite, the Norrgrimlings’ Ironwarden leader. The Forgefuries levelled their weapons. The skaven scurried forwards, forced on by the mass of ratkin boiling up out of the depths. The far side of the chamber was a mass of mangy fur, crazed eyes, twitching noses and yellow chisel teeth.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek.

Thick blasts of searing energy shot out of the Forgefuries’ guns, punching through skaven and sending them sprawling back into the mob. The fallen disappeared under their scurrying colleagues. Many fell into the hole in the centre, forced over the edge by the surging press; others stumbled and were crushed underfoot.

‘Fire!’ cried Tordrek again. Once more the irondrakes spoke, misting the air with gunsmoke.

‘Fire!’ he said one more time. The entire front rank of the skaven horde had been smashed, but thousands more came on behind them.

‘That’s close enough. Part ranks!’ shouted Borrik. The dwarf ironbreaker’s formation opened up like a clockwork automaton, allowing the Forgefuries to slip through to the back. They went unhurriedly into the small chamber around the door of Bar-Undak, as if there weren’t a numberless pack of crazed thaggoraki snapping at their heels.

‘Close ranks!’ bellowed Borrik. The gromril-clad dwarfs slid back together, presenting their shields as the first skaven hit home.

The skavenslaves were slight creatures, no bigger than grobi and less heavily built. The wave of them crashed feebly upon the shield wall. Rusty blades and rotten spears broke on impenetrable gromril. More and more skaven piled in from behind, pinning the arms of the foremost, crushing the air out of their lungs. The dwarfs stolidly pushed back, unmoved by the immense pressure. The skaven trapped at the front snapped at the dwarfs, shattering their teeth on armour. The dwarfs responded by swinging their axes, chopping the foe down with every swing. They could not miss. Behind the shield wall it was surprisingly peaceful, as if the dwarfs waited out a storm battering the windows of a comfortable tavern.

‘This is too easy,’ grunted Kaggi Blackbeard, hewing down his fourteenth skaven.

‘Aye, but how long can we keep it up?’ said Hafnir. ‘How long will your muscles hold? This is not a contest of arms, but one of arms!’ he laughed.

‘I’m just getting warmed up,’ said Kaggi. ‘And save your puns for when you’ve a better one, Hafnir.’

Desperate claws scrabbled over the shields held over the front rank by those in the back, as a slave forced itself through the narrow gap between shields and tunnel ceiling.

‘Oi! Oi! Up top!’ shouted Grunnir. The skavenslave dropped down behind the back rank. It brandished a knife, realised where it was, vented the foulest stink and was promptly chopped down for its troubles.

‘Woohoo! Smell that! It’s like Albok’s been at the chuf again!’ said Kardak Kardaksandrison.

‘You want to be up front,’ said Hafnir. ‘Fear stink. It’s all over me shield.’

‘It’ll take an age to clean off,’ said Gromley miserably. ‘You mark my words. Don’t get any of that muck in your beard or you’ll run out of water before you ever get it out.’

‘Here comes another!’ warned Hafnir.

A second and third skaven scrambled over the shields, more intent on getting away from the crush than fighting. They found no escape. One was hewed down in midair, the other gut-barged by Tordrek and stamped to death by the Forgefuries.

The floor became slippery with spilt blood, but the surefooted dwarfs barely noticed. The skaven were not so lucky, skidding over in the viscera of their slaughtered littermates.

‘Pressure’s easing off!’ shouted Hafnir. The proof of his words came as more rotting spears and rusting blades battered against the shield wall as the skaven found room to move.

‘Ready,’ ordered Borrik. ‘Prepare to advance!’

The dwarfs in the front pulled their shields in tighter, while those at the back lowered them from over the front rank’s heads.

‘Forward!’ said Borrik. ‘Deep formation!’

Swinging their axes, the Axes of Norr stepped forwards, mowing down skaven. As they advanced, they smoothly rearranged their formation, so that they were arranged into a block four dwarfs deep and five wide, the thane at the front in the middle. Shields overlapped to the fronts and sides, making them a walking fortress of gromril and thickset dwarfish limbs.

‘Charge!’ yelled Borrik.

‘Gand dammaz! Az baraz! Norrgrimsson-za!’ The dwarfs shouted the ancient war cry of their clan, and broke into a stately jog. They were not fast, but when they hit they were unstoppable. The skaven parted in front of them, scrabbling over each other to get out of the way. The Axes of Norr ploughed on. The stink of terrified skaven became overpowering, that sweet, old-straw smell of rodent urine mixed with something stronger and far more acrid.

Almost as one, the remaining rats broke and fled. Borrik and his ironbreakers pursued them, still in formation, as far as the pit in the centre of the chamber.

‘Halt!’ cried Borrik. ‘Forgefuries!’

Blazing bolts of energy seared past the dwarfish block, cutting down fleeing ratmen. The skaven tore at each other in their haste to escape, ripping their comrades to pieces. Many were pushed into the hole, or leapt into its fathomless depths in blind panic. Another volley went booming past. The skaven poured back down the stairwells.

And shortly came running back out again, the fleeing, terrified rats who had just exited the room driven back into it by a fresh legion of skavenslaves.

‘They’re coming again,’ shouted Hafnir.

‘They always come again, lad,’ said Kaggi.

‘Pull back, lads. Back to the tunnel!’

The dwarf formation halted and reversed, faces always to the enemy, pulping the corpses of their foes under weighty dwarf boots. Once in the tunnel mouth, they held their ground again.

One more time the dwarfs rushed out. One more time the skaven were cast back. The fighting went on for hours, until the last assault broke, and the skaven fled. Borrik had his panting ironbreakers rest, ordering Tordrek forward with his irondrakes.

That time, the skaven did not come again. The ironbreakers rotated their shoulders and worked aching muscles, complaining loudly that they had not enjoyed proper exercise before the skaven fled. They broke out pieces of stonebread and chuf – the hard survival cheese of their kind. A keg of ale stored by the door of Bar-Undak was broached and leather flagons passed around thirsty lips.

‘Oh look at that,’ spat Gromley. ‘Look at that!’ He ran his finger along a tiny scratch in his shield. ‘Ruined! Absolutely ruined.’

‘Shut up and drink your ale,’ said Grunnir.

Gromley stared mournfully from the depths of his helm. ‘It’s all right for you to say that. Nobody’s scratched your shield, have they?’ He shook his head. ‘No respect for good craft, you youngsters. Happy with umgak work, you are. Now, in my day I’d have got a bit of sympathy. But is one of you reaching for your polish to help an old longbeard grind out the damage? No. And we wonder why we’re in this mess!’

‘Show some respect, shortbeards,’ said Uli the Elder, the oldest of their number. ‘Let’s not let our standards slip.’

Good natured jeers vied with heartfelt grumbles.

At the front, Borrik conferred quietly with Tordrek.

‘When will they come again?’ Tordrek asked.

‘Too soon. We’ve been lucky. I reckon we’ve accounted for about four hundred of their lot, for not a single one of the lads.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe. ‘Good work, and greater fortune, but it can’t last.’ He called back over his shoulder. ‘Hafnir! Gromley! Get me some blackpowder.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at the doors. ‘I reckon it’s time to get ready to stop up some mouseholes. The rest of you, we need some clear space to fight. I want these corpses shifted to one hundred paces out.’ The others gulped their ale and moved out from the tunnel, wiping suds from their beards with the backs of bloodied hands. ‘And be clever about it,’ said Borrik. ‘Don’t stack ’em – we don’t want to give the thaggoraki anything to hide behind, do we?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at a young dwarf, barely sixty years old, who was doing just that. ‘Call yourself a Norrgrimling, Albok? Think, lad! What would your old dad say?’

‘Sorry, thane.’ Albok pushed over the pile he’d made with a boot. ‘Where do we put them then?’

Borrik grinned and jabbed with his pipe stem. ‘Chuck them down that there hole.’

Albok heaved a skaven corpse into the black, his thick arms tossing it as easily as a wet fur blanket. No sound came. Albok cocked his head appreciatively, and began to throw them in quickly.

‘That’s right, lads, don’t tarry. We’re not going to have long before the little furry kruti come back for another go.’

Queek paced back and forth angrily. He struck down the messenger, drawing blood from his muzzle.

‘Still standing! Still standing! What squeak-nonsense Clan Skryre tinker-speaker bring to Queek? Four mountains were bombed-targeted. Only one collapse! What news of Skarsnik?’

‘No sign of him, O most undefeated and puissant of overfiends,’ said the messenger. ‘The other tall-rock, it also nearly gone. White Mountain-place, half size it was. My masters…’

Queek glared at him so hard the skaven pulled his head all the way back into his shoulders. The sight of it was so pathetic that Queek laughed madly.

‘Stupid-meat, or brave-meat, hrn?’ Queek bounded over and flipped the Clan Skryre skaven onto his back with a footpaw. He leaned in and sniffed. ‘Stupid-meat.’

The skaven squealed in terror, exposing his neck and spreading his arms. Queek had lost interest and walked away. ‘And you, rest of you! Why beard-things not dead?’

‘It stupid beard-things fault!’ said Skrikk. ‘Not mine, oh no. Seventy thousand slaves we sent…’

‘Thaxx say one hundred thousand!’ said Thaxx.

Skrikk shrugged. ‘Skrikk count, Thaxx lie. Terrible, terrible shame. And I thought him so loyal. No doubt great and fiercely intelligent Queek can see to the traitor-meat squirming beneath loyal-fur.’

‘Thaxx Redclaw the most loyal–’ began Thaxx.

‘No squeak-tellings! Beard-things!’ snapped Queek so loudly Skrikk flinched.

‘They are not killing the slaves quickly enough, grand one,’ said Grotoose. ‘They have chosen good spots for defence and cannot be dislodged. Our slave legions can attack on narrow fronts where they are easily slain. This is not the way to beat them.’

‘You tell Queek that stupid-meat beard-things, with their slow and stupid minds, are outwitting the swiftest thinker-tinkers in all of the Under-Empire?’

The assembled skaven looked at one another and pointed fingers. Queek squeaked loudly, stopping the accusations and counter-charges of incompetence before they could begin.

‘Enough, enough! Enough with slaves and weak-meat! Send in the clanrats. Call in the stormvermin. Kill the beard-things. Kill them all dead-dead!’

‘What of orders?’ said Thaxx. ‘What of Lord Gnawdwell’s commands?’

‘I do not care. Queek general here – where is Gnawdwell?’

‘In Skavenblight?’ ventured one.

‘Yes-yes, whereas Queek the Mighty here. We will win. Nothing else is important. We will destroy. Queek will show the whole world that Queek is the mightiest, the best, the most deadly! We will see what Gnawdwell says about orders then.’

The messengers bowed several times and rushed away. The clanlords and potentates of the City of Pillars attempted a more dignified exit. Queek’s long mouth split in a hideous grin and he waved his paws at them. ‘You too, hurry-scurry! Queek not like sluggards. Loyal Ska tell sluggards what Queek thinks of slow-meat.’

‘Queek does not like them,’ said the giant stormvermin, ‘and I don’t like them either.’

‘Boo!’ shouted Queek, making as if to leap into their midst, and away they fled spraying fear musk, much to Queek’s amusement.

The chamber was empty bar the patter of retreating paws and the smell of fear. Queek snickered to himself.

‘You see, Ska? This is why Queek is so great.’

There came no reply. Ska was thankfully brief in his praise of Queek. All the bowing and scraping and insincere flattery that characterised skaven social interaction the warlord found tiresome, but Ska usually said something.

Queek’s nose twitched. Something was wrong. A smell of old fires, rubbish and hot warpstone made him sneeze. The light leached from his surroundings, leaving everything grey. Ska was unmoving, frozen in position. He called for his guards, but they did not come.

Movement in the unmoving world caught his eye. He did not turn to it, not immediately. Something big was in the corner.

He spun around, leaping into the air and twisting his entire body. Dwarf Gouger leapt into his hand, and moved in a blurred arc impelled by all his weight and speed. His serrated sword came up next, aimed directly at the vitals of his giant ambusher.

Queek crashed into the stone. The creature was not there.

‘Oh ho! You are as good as they say. But mighty Queek could be the mightiest of all mortal skaven, and he still would not catch me.’

Shadows boiled all around him, darting like swarms of flies over the marshes. Queek hissed and made feints and jabs, but the darkness moved away from him, slipping around his weapons like water.

‘Who-you?’ he cried. His fur bristled with a fear he would not allow himself to feel. For the first time in years, his glands clenched. ‘What you want with Queek?’

The darkness ran together and parted for an instant, affording the warlord a glimpse of a masked, rodent face, ten feet in the air, topped with three sets of horns, two straight, one curved. The ends of them were twisted into the runic claw-mark of Clan Eshin.

‘I am Lurklox, Shadow Lord of Decay, one of the twelve above the twelve. And what I want with you, strutting warlord, is your victory.’

Eight

The Hall of Pillared Iron

In the Hall of Pillared Iron, King Belegar took counsel. Between the thick iron columns that gave the place its name, venerable dwarfs of many clans crowded around low tables layered with maps. The hall had been built with the same attention to detail and pride with which the ancestors had built everything. Each of the room’s sixty-four column capitals had been wrought in red iron to resemble four straining longbeards holding up the roof. The remainder of the columns were inscribed with runes inlaid with precious minerals, most picked out by rapacious greenskins, but in the more inaccessible places electrum, silver, polished coal and agate still glittered, a reminder of the hall’s former glory.

Despite the care and craft of its making, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a foundation, a utilitarian room intended to support the finer citadel halls above. The metal in its walls and pillars allowed the citadel to reach its great and graceful height without compromising its efficacy as a fortress.

That had been then. The upper chambers were mostly toppled by centuries of war and earthquakes, among them the magnificent Upper Throne Room, whose wide windows and fine art made it the mirror to the Great Throne Pinnacle in the Hall of a Thousand Pillars in the first deep. Unique in all the dwarf realms, at the height of the Karaz Ankor the twinned thrones had represented Karak Eight Peaks’s mastery of the worlds under sky and under stone. Of these two hearts, one was rubble and the other had been occupied by a succession of foul creatures.

So low had the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks sunk that the Hall of Pillared Iron was their greatest hall. Magnificent though it was, as grand as Belegar’s throne looked when viewed down its aisles, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a support. Might as well call a single stone block all the temple. Belegar had refused to have it completely restored, lest the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks forget why they were there, and become content with scraps.

Drakki was speaking, addressing his king and his advisors. Brunkaz Whitehair, the oldest dwarf in the hold, was beside him. His beard was so long it looped three times in a complicated plait about his thick gold belt.

‘At Bar-Undak the Norrgrimlings are taking casualties. The endless stair is being overrun, half the Zhorrak Blue Caps are dead. Valaya’s quay has fallen, our warriors there falling back to the base of the citadel.’

‘The Undak?’

‘Still running clear,’ said Drakki. ‘But how long will that continue? The thaggoraki poisoned the river once – now we’ve lost the quays at the headwater, they could easily do it again.’

‘Buzkar,’ swore Belegar. He looked from map to map, searching for a sign of hope, some weakness in the enemy he could exploit, some dawi strength he could call upon.

He spread his hands over a portion of the map, caging it protectively in his fingers. ‘Kvinn-wyr still holds strong. So long as we hold the mountain, our people will have somewhere safe to stand. We’ve got the gyrocopter eyries at Tor Rudrum. As long as we have them, we can stay in touch with the other holds. Above all, the citadel is safe. Perhaps it is time to abandon the first line of defence and make our next stand at the Hall of Clan Skalfdon,’ said Belegar. He pointed to a great hall in the first deep below the citadel, three quarters of a mile from the collapsed east halls, where many lines of communication intersected. ‘Beat them back there and they’ll think twice about trying to crack the hold.’

‘There’s not time to fortify it,’ said Brunkaz. ‘We need to dig in there, or it’ll be a slaughter.’

Belegar laughed. ‘The only slaughter I’ve seen in recent weeks is that of the ratkin! We’ve slain so many I could carpet the east road all the way to the Uzkul Kadrin in vermin fur.’

‘Aye, true enough,’ conceded Brunkaz, although his expression made clear his distaste at covering good dawi stone with ratskin. ‘But these aren’t dregs we’re facing – that part’s done with. Belegar, you know how they work. The Headtaker is sending in his clan warriors and stormvermin. Our lads are worn down, and we’ve lost a good number. They’ll not last until the defences are ready.’

‘They’ll have to,’ said Belegar firmly.

‘There’s no time, my king,’ said Brunkaz.

‘There’ll have to be time, or we’ll not get the other lines finished!’ snapped Belegar.

Drakki cleared his throat, politely interrupting before grudges began to sprout like grobi in a damp cave. ‘And what of the way into Kvinn-wyr?’

‘That at least is in hand,’ said Belegar. ‘Dokki,’ he called over to an engineer hard at work over his own maps.

‘My king?’

‘How’re the preparations at the Arch of Kings going?’

‘Give me three weeks and the dawi I’ve got, or sixty more engineers and two days and I’ll have the fort back in dawr order. Before that…’ He sucked in his breath and clucked his tongue. ‘You’ll be lucky if it’s before the end of the month.’

‘This is the Eternal Realm! Surely we have time,’ said Belegar. ‘What about Kolbron Feklisson’s miners?’

‘Ah! Here we have less dire tidings,’ said Drakki, brightening a little.

‘We’ve retaken the western foundries?’ said Belegar hopefully.

‘Er, no. The miners have lost the foundries, but are still holding the eastern entrance.’

‘That’s good news,’ said Belegar hesitantly, fully expecting the worst. He was rewarded with it.

‘For now, my lord. They’re going to be encircled here and here – it’s only a matter of time,’ said Drakki, tracing a series of halls on the map. ‘We’ve rumour of thaggoraki tunnelling teams at work behind them.’

‘From who?’ said Brunkaz. ‘Half our number are sparsely bearded hill dwarfs or umgdawi.’

‘Sadly not from them, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘From Kolbron himself. No one knows stone better. If he says there’s something going on in the rock, you can bet your last coin there is.’

Belegar shook his head from side to side, his beard whispering against the parchment. ‘Tell them to withdraw.’

‘They won’t retreat, Belegar,’ said Drakki, a note of pleading in his voice.

‘Tell them it’s a direct command from me. I’ll write it on a bit of paper if it makes them happy. Get them back up here. I want them reporting to Durggan Stoutbelly and helping him fortify the Hall of Clan Skalfdon before sunrise or I’ll be writing grudges against the lot of them, is that clear? With their stonecraft under Stoutbelly’s direction, we’ve a fighting chance of establishing the next perimeter.’

‘It’ll be a hard task,’ said Brunkaz. ‘Not like the old days.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ said Belegar tersely, only just reining in his temper and maintaining the appropriate level of respect due to the living ancestor. ‘It never is like the old days, and it never will be again if we don’t give good account of ourselves here. We’re in a tough spot, aye, but we’ll all be dead if we grumble about it.’

Brunkaz’s wrinkled face paled under his beard at Belegar’s lack of deference. Belegar regretted his tone. ‘Have the messengers set out?’ he said, more softly.

‘This morning, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Six for each of Zhufbar, Karak Kadrin, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Azul. No gyrocopters, as you commanded.’

‘We need them here.’ Belegar ground his broad teeth. Going cap in hand to the High King grated on his honour. What choice did he have? ‘The other kings will understand we cannot send their warriors back. They’ve not failed us yet. We’ll just have to dig in. Get Clan Zhudak to the gates of Bar-Kragaz, hold them back at the west tunnel. They’ll be coming through from the foundries that way as soon as they discover the miners have gone.’

‘Aye, my lord.’ Drakki hesitated, words that would not be spoken keen on his lips.

Brunkaz curled his lip at Drakki and made a rumble of disapproval that started deep in his gut and travelled upwards, quivering his moustaches as it came out of his mouth. ‘Drakki’s too good a dwarf to say it, but I will. We’ve got no chance. Half of us are dead already. The skaven are numberless. They’ve never attempted anything like this before. We’d be better off fighting our way out and leaving them to the greenskins.’

‘It’s a bigger attack, I’ll grant you. Nothing we can’t handle,’ said Belegar, his voice stiffening.

‘They’ve blown up Karag Nar! The sunset mountain, gone! Karag Rhyn’s a shadow of itself – half the old farmlands to the south are buried in its rubble. Can’t you see? Has pride blinded you so much? The mountains, Belegar, the mountains themselves are in pieces! If they can’t endure, what chance do we have?’ Belegar stared at his advisor, but Brunkaz had gone too far to stop. ‘There’s only one reason the Headtaker’s done that, and that’s to keep the greenskins off his back while he comes to finish us off. Or have you considered, it may not be long before they do the same to us? The thaggoraki have changed. We are not fighting against rats with sticks any more. Some of their machines make the creations of the Dawi-Zharr seem like toys! Why do you think they’ve left the surface camps alone? Why has Lord Duregar not had so much as a whiff of rat round the East Gate these last months while we’re knee deep in them? The answer’s simple – they’re coming to wipe us out! They don’t care. They’re massing for a final blow right at our heart, right into Kvinn-wyr.’

Belegar’s face grew purple, and his words when they came were quiet, the hiss of rain before the first thunder crack of a storm. ‘You will not mention the eastern kindreds in these halls again.’

‘All your life you’ve asked me for my counsel, from beardling to the king I love and serve gladly. I’ll give you the truth and aye, unvarnished,’ said Brunkaz. ‘This is my sooth, king of Karak Eight Peaks. Leave now, before we’re all dead. We tried our best. Sometimes we have to retreat a little further than we wish. Let the grobi and thaggoraki fight over the scraps. When the world’s troubles die down again, we can come back and take our lands from whoever wins. They’ll be weaker for their victory. More importantly, we’ll still be alive.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’

‘Think of your son, Belegar.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’ Belegar’s shout cut through the quiet muttering of dwarfs at council, so loud the candles and torches lighting the hall wavered before its fury. Only the glimlight of the glowstones was unperturbed.

Brunkaz could not meet his king’s eyes. He worked his cheeks, causing his beard and moustache to move around like a live thing. ‘Aye. That should just about cover it.’

‘Thank you. I suppose you’ll be wanting to leave, then? If you do, I’ll release you from your oaths, but the others’ll not thank you for it.’

Brunkaz went bright red. ‘I’ll not abandon my oaths! Course I’m staying. Why, if you were a few decades younger I’d put you over my knee and–’

‘Very well,’ interrupted Belegar. ‘If you’re staying, I’d appreciate you keeping your words tucked up behind your beard unless they’re something to do with defending the hold. Do you have anything useful to add in that regard?’

Brunkaz buried his chin in his chest, considering his next words. ‘There are ogres in the pass, my lord,’ he said slowly.

‘There are always ogres in the pass,’ said Drakki dismissively.

‘More than usual, Drakki Throngton. Golgfag Maneater leads a great host of them,’ said Brunkaz, still not looking at his king.

‘The Maneater is in the Uzkul Kadrin?’ said Belegar, brightening. He reached his hand, richly gloved, up to his mouth, as if he would hide the smile spreading under his beard.

‘You can’t be thinking on hiring him, my king? Ungrim nearly killed him. He’s a thug, a pirate, a… a… mercenary,’ said Drakki, taking his turn to be outraged.

‘That’s exactly what he is,’ said Belegar. ‘A mighty one.’

‘I beg you, my king, recall Duregar from the East Gate,’ said Drakki.

‘What, and let Skarsnik have it? And how do we get out then, if it should come to that?’ The king shot Brunkaz a warning look not to take up his cause again. ‘The East Gate garrison stays where it is, for now. Golgfag is what we need. He’s fought many times for the dawi.’

‘And just as often against us. And he doesn’t come cheap,’ said Brunkaz.

‘You’d beggar the kingdom for an ogre’s sword?’ Drakki shook his head so vigorously that he dislodged his spectacles. He pushed them back into place with an ink-stained finger, and squinted expectantly at his king.

‘Better a beggared kingdom than a fallen one. I’ll promise him the pick of the treasury.’

‘There’s precious little in the treasury,’ grumbled Drakki.

‘He doesn’t know that, does he?’ said Belegar. ‘Get a messenger out to him.’

‘There’s a blizzard rising.’

‘Then no one will be able to see him, will they?’ said Belegar. ‘Do it now, Grungni scowl at you!’

Now both longbeards were taken aback by Belegar’s attitude. Belegar supposed he should feel guilty, snapping at these honoured elders like they were callow beardlings, but he didn’t. They knew his temper well enough.

The longbeards walked away from the table, chins wagging like fishwives. Belegar ignored the pointed looks they gave him. To keep others from approaching him, he affected an air of bristling bad temper. He didn’t have to try very hard. Those dwarfs waiting to petition him – priests, merchants, umgdawi and hill dwarfs – were discouraged, if not by his manner then by his hammerers, who ushered them out of the hall. He heard their complaints well enough; the hall wasn’t that big. Fair enough, some of them had been waiting a day or so, but he wasn’t in the mood to dispense the king’s justice. He feigned deafness and returned to his maps, staring hard at them until his eyes swam. As if that would be enough to turn the red and green parts of the map blue again.

If only it were so simple.

One dwarf, somehow, got through.

‘Perhaps now your majesty might consider our request?’

The smell of rancid pig fat and lime was unmistakeable. Belegar looked up from his maps into the magnificently crested face of Unfer, nominally the leader of the Cult of Grimnir in the hold. When the Slayers wanted something, it was Unfer who asked. Belegar assumed he must be their leader, but in truth he did not know. Their ways were closed and mysterious to all who had not taken the oath.

The king tried to look away, but was arrested by the Slayer’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, set into a face scarred by cuts and inner pain. They were out of place, clear blue as ice, and as devoid of emotion.

Belegar tugged at his beard and cleared his throat. He waved his hand over his maps.

‘I’m loath to let such fine warriors go out. I need every axe we have here.’

Unfer glanced at the maps like they were a carpet he had no interest in buying, and Belegar an overeager merchant. ‘That is not the nature of our oath, my lord. We have no desire to retreat until there is nowhere left to retreat to, to find our doom backed into some corner, or worse, to be taken alive. There is no hope in this defence. Let us go, and kill as many of them as we can for you. It is a service we gladly offer you.’

Unfer’s glacial gaze bored into Belegar’s eyes. The insult to the king’s ability as a general was implicit.

‘There is always hope,’ said Belegar. ‘Help might come yet.’ He heard the desperation in his own voice; he was afraid that the Slayer was right.

‘There is no hope left in all the Karaz Ankor. No one is coming. The Eternal Realm is finished. Best we all shave our heads and take the oath so that we might die with a song on our lips and our shame washed away in blood.’

‘Shame?’ said Belegar. Unfer shrugged shoulders craggy with muscle. Blue tattoos writhed over them. In hands like boulders, he carried paired rune axes – royal weapons. Belegar often wondered who he’d been. Unfer would never tell.

‘The shame of all our kind,’ said Unfer. ‘That we have failed to restore the glory of our ancestors. Better to fight. Better to wish for a good death than a ragged hope.’

Belegar was tempted. To sally out with his remaining few folk, and kill the thaggoraki until they themselves were killed. Let them taste dawi steel and remember them forever!

He blinked visions of a glorious end away. He could not. He was a king. He had responsibilities. He had a son, the first heir born to the king of Karak Eight Peaks since its fall two thousand years ago. He would not retreat. He would not abandon the legacy of his ancestors, so much dearer now it was the heritage of another.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We wait here. We will defend, and retreat, and defend. And we shall prevail.’

Disappointment flickered over Unfer’s face. ‘As you wish. It is your kingdom.’ The Slayer put one axe over each shoulder and turned away.

‘I have not finished,’ said Belegar sternly. ‘You have my permission to go,’ he added with understanding. ‘I cannot keep you from your oaths. What manner of king would I be if I did? I wish you would reconsider, but if you must, you have my leave. Fight well, and find the doom you deserve, Unfer.’

Unfer nodded once. ‘It is all any of us can hope for any more. Grimnir go with you, King Belegar. If we meet again, may it be in happier times for all dawi.’

‘You’ll not go yet,’ said Belegar. Unfer cast a weary look over his shoulder. The Slayer moved in the way those with deep depression do: slowly, as if through a treacle of despair. ‘I may be a poor king, but I’m still a king. You’ll get a proper send off. I’ll open my cellars to you, we’ll say the right words, drink to your deaths.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘The old way.’

Unfer gave an appreciative bow. ‘Let no dawi say that King Belegar is ungenerous. It is good to hold to the old ways while we still can.’

‘Aye,’ said Belegar. ‘Aye, it is.’ He meant it as a good thing, but his troubled face said otherwise. All they had was the past, he thought, and even that was running away from them.

He didn’t notice Unfer leave. A commotion at the gates drew his tired eyes. One of the Iron Brotherhood, Skallguz the Short, was pushing his way through. He jogged up to his lord, red faced and out of breath.

‘My king!’ he said, and dropped to his knees.

‘What is it?’ said Belegar.

‘It is the queen, my lord. The prince…’ The dwarf stammered to a halt.

‘Spit it out!’ Belegar’s face went pale with terrible presentiment.

‘My lord,’ the dwarf said. ‘I don’t know how to say it… They’ve both gone!’

Nine

Kemma’s Way

Wind sang sadly through the teeth of the broken window, set in the dairy, high up in the side of Kvinn-wyr. A sheer drop of four thousand feet fell away down the mountain outside, ending in broad fans of scree covered by snow. Gromvarl pulled his head back in through mullions worn edgeless by the wind and rain, and leaned against a cracked milk trough. He shook the snow from his shaggy mane of hair and filled his pipe.

He winced at the taste of the tobacco. Once the dwarfs had produced the world’s finest smoking weed in the Great Vale, along with much else. The soil of the bowl cupped between the eight mountains was so rich they called it Brungal – brown gold. In Belegar’s pocket kingdom there had been plans, and much talk in ale cups, of how the dwarfs were going to clear the farmlands and raise great crops to end Vala-Azrilungol’s reliance on the other holds. Of course, like so much Belegar said, it remained an unattainable dream.

A stealthy tread sounded in the old goat way outside. Gromvarl brought his crossbow up one-handed, wincing as he rested the stock in the crook of his broken arm.

He narrowed his eyes, finger on the trigger lever, then relaxed. No skaven or grobi whistled like that.

A deeply tanned dwarf with an expression so cheerful it belonged on the face of no real dawi came in through the door. He doffed his wide-brimmed hat, showing the scarf tied tightly over his ears and under his chin. His name was Douric Grimlander, a dwarf reckoner, a calculator of debts and grudges. Little better than a mercenary, to Gromvarl’s eyes.

‘Gromvarl! What happened to you?’ Douric said, his eyes lighting on Gromvarl’s splinted arm.

‘An urk happened to it. And then I happened to the urk.’

Douric peered about the small dairy. ‘You alone then?’

‘What does it look like?’ said Gromvarl through teeth gripping his pipe. He had always found Douric insufferable, even at the best of times.

‘I told you he’d say no,’ said Douric breezily. ‘I suppose it’s all off then. Belegar’s a fool to turn your offer down, but that’s that.’

‘Listen to me, you scraggle-bearded wazzok,’ said Gromvarl. ‘Why do you think he said no? This is his hold. Thorgrim is his son and heir.’ Gromvarl fixed the shorter dwarf with a beady eye and poked him in the chest with his pipe stem. ‘I wonder if you’re a real dwarf at all. You’ve no honour.’

Douric took the insult as a compliment, or so his broad smile suggested. ‘I like money. You like money. Who doesn’t like money? I have honour, but like my money, I’m just a little more careful than you where I spend it, that’s all.’

Gromvarl grunted, wiped the mouthpiece of his pipe on his bearskin, which was no cleaner than Douric’s jerkin, and replaced it in his mouth with the clack of ivory on teeth. ‘Oaths are worth more than gold, reckoner.’

‘I keep mine, unlike your king,’ said the reckoner mildly. ‘If I combine honour with payment, does it make me all that bad? Besides,’ he said, hitching his hands into his wide belt. ‘You’re the one who suggested to the king we should steal the queen out of the city against all tradition. So where’s your honour?’

Gromvarl adjusted the sling holding his broken arm, sliding thick fingers between the fabric and his neck. ‘My oath has always been to protect the queen, ever since she was a child. I’m doing that now.’

‘Doing that…?’ Douric’s eyes widened. ‘Oh ho ho! Gromvarl! I didn’t think you had it in you. She is here isn’t she?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gromvarl grudgingly. ‘Soon.’

‘Handing her over to me! A mere mercenary. Tut tut, Gromvarl. You’ll be coming with us now, I’ll warrant. It’ll be a mite uncomfortable down there once Belegar finds you’ve kidnapped his son.’ Douric jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back down the passageway in the exact direction of the citadel. Douric always had had a fine sense of direction, even for a dwarf.

Gromvarl grumbled, levered himself up from the tub and took a heavy step forwards, until he was nose to nose with Douric. ‘I’ve other oaths, oaths of service to the king. I’ll not break either. I need a dwarf of your… moral flexibility.’ He looked the reckoner up and down, his grubby clothes, his odd umgak gear garnered from who knew where. He was right, this was no true dwarf.

‘So you’re in a bind, then? Who’s the more fortunate here – you, all thick with responsibility, or me, who tends to the more cautious side–’

‘Self-serving more like,’ interjected Gromvarl.

‘–of things?’ continued Douric, undeterred. ‘A philosophy that enables me to help you out now. Who else would, Gromvarl? Who’s the better?’ He waggled his eyebrows in almost lewd fashion.

‘You little krutwanaz…’

‘Will you two stop arguing? The pair of you, thicker-headed than trolls!’ A sharp female voice speared out of the corridor. Queen Kemma of Karak Eight Peaks emerged into the dairy. She was followed by a very young dwarf, no older than ten or twelve, whose chin was covered in the straggly hairs of first bearding, and a hammerer, who nervously glanced behind them. Both the queen and youngster wore travelling cloaks and the rough clothes favoured by the kruti and foresters who worked overground. When the queen pushed past Gromvarl, her fastenings parted slightly, revealing rich gromril mail beneath. Both of them too had a royal bearing. Gromvarl sighed. No matter how they dressed up, there was no hiding who they were. He just hoped they had not been seen sneaking away.

‘I am sorry, vala,’ said Gromvarl, who at least had the decency to look abashed. He cast his eyes downwards. Douric, on the other hand, arched his back, and clasped his hands behind his back, an exceptionally self-satisfied look on his face.

The hammerer rubbed at his bulbous nose. ‘Here they are. I better get back.’

‘Another oath-bender!’ said Douric. ‘They’re popping up like mushrooms.’

‘Guard the queen as long as she is in Karak Eight Peaks, that was my oath. Well now she’s not,’ said the hammerer. ‘Nearly.’

‘You’re a good dawi, Bronk Coppermaster,’ said Gromvarl. He held up a small purse, distastefully pinched between finger and thumb, as if it were soiled. ‘For your trouble.’

Bronk looked at it in horror. ‘You’ve been hanging around with these here reckoners too long. Just see her safe, that’s all I want. If this ends well, then I’ll take my chances with Belegar, and we’ll still have our prince. If it doesn’t end well… Well,’ he shrugged, his gromril rattling musically, ‘then it’s not going to matter very much what Belegar thinks.’

Gromvarl nodded. ‘I look forward to fighting alongside you, Bronk.’

Bronk nodded and hurried off back up the passageway.

Meanwhile, Douric was attempting his charm upon the queen. ‘Vala Kemma! It has been too long. With every passing year your beauty grows greater.’ He bowed his head and reached for her hand.

‘Don’t even think about it, reckoner,’ said Kemma, snatching her fingers back from his puckered lips. ‘We have to be away now.’

‘Mother, are we sure this is the right thing to do?’ said Thorgrim. ‘I am the prince of Karak Eight Peaks, my place should be here. Father will be furious.’

Kemma placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. Not yet full grown, he was already turning into a fine figure of a dwarf. He was already three feet tall; chances were he was going to be bigger than his father, and certainly as strong. Bryndalmoraz Karakal they called him – the bright hope of the mountains.

‘I am taking you to be safe, my son. Is it not your first responsibility to preserve the royal bloodline?’

Prince Thorgrim’s young face twisted with inner conflict. ‘But I am the prince, mother. I will not be an oathbreaker.’

‘You have taken no oaths,’ soothed his mother, stroking the lines on his face. ‘If you did not believe us to be doing the right thing, then you would have stayed behind. We have already come so far.’

The prince looked doubtful and bit his lip, causing the fuzz of growing beard to puff up. He nodded in what was intended to be a decisive manner, but Gromvarl saw he was still unsure. He was brave for a boy of his age.

‘Very well,’ said Thorgrim.

‘King Belegar for a father and that one there for his mother, I don’t envy that youngster,’ said Douric quietly.

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Gromvarl replied as the queen and prince talked. ‘But he’s almost past all that. He’ll be his own master soon, mark my words. He’s got a strong head, that boy, but with her temperament, thank Valaya. The last thing Karak Eight Peaks needs is another Belegar.’

‘I’m not sure the queen’s temperament is necessarily an improvement,’ said Douric.

Gromvarl snorted.

Strange noises sounded from deep in the mountain.

‘We best be away, vala. These tunnels were much fractured in the time of Great Cataclysm. They are unsafe. No one knows where they go,’ said Douric.

Kemma’s face crinkled with bitterness. ‘There is nowhere safe in Karak Eight Peaks – there never has been. I should have left as soon as Thorgrim was born.’ She reached into her robes. Douric held up his hand.

‘Payment upon safe delivery, or my word is not my bond,’ he said. ‘Best say your farewells.’ Douric tactfully withdrew, drawing the prince after him to leave Kemma alone with her guardian.

Gromvarl gave his queen a bow. He huffed on his pipe like a steam engine building power, filling the dairy with smoke.

‘Well, I suppose this is goodbye.’

‘Brave Gromvarl. Are you sure you will not come with us?’

‘Not with this, vala,’ said Gromvarl, lifting his broken arm. ‘And even without, I’d have to stay. You know why.’

Kemma smiled her understanding. ‘I lack the words to thank you for all that you’ve done for me.’ She leaned through the clouds around him and laid a gentle kiss on his old cheek.

‘It’s not necessary! Get on with you now, young lady,’ said Gromvarl, his voice inexplicably warbly. He coughed. ‘Damned tobacco making my eyes water! I’d give my other arm for a pouch of Everpeak Goldleaf.’

Douric led on up the passage, a krut ungdrin, where in better days herds of goats had been driven from their pastures to be milked and overwintered. They went through ways long forgotten, winding up the secret stair to a door high up on the shoulders of Kvinn-wyr.

‘Be careful, my lady, my prince,’ said Douric. ‘It’s cold and mighty windy out.’

This proved to be something of an understatement. The three of them were buffeted by a howling gale that drove needles of snow into their faces. The path they found themselves on went down steadily towards alpine pastures arrayed on the mountain’s shoulders. Rusted spikes of ancient iron in the rock showed where a safety line had once been anchored, but it was a distant memory. The three of them clung on to the stone for dear life until they turned a corner onto the southern flank of the mountain, where the wind dropped to strong gusts that plucked at their clothes, petulant at its lost power.

‘That’s the worst bit, for now,’ said Douric.

‘You know this way well?’ said Kemma.

‘I know all ways well, my lady. A reckoner’s not a reckoner if he can’t get in or out of a place where reckoning needs doing. Those with debts are generally shy, retiring sorts. They can be a little tricky to dig out,’ he said with a grin.

They went through high fields well above the tree line. Subject to the caprices of the wind, much of the snow had been blown from them, gathering in huge drifts against broken dry-stone walls and the cairns of piled rocks cleared from the fields by the ancestors. Tumbledown shacks marked the refuges of goatherds, and in one place the walls of a ruined village made straight, soft lines in the snow. All was abandoned, as everything was in the Eight Peaks. Here, however, there had recently been dwarfs tending flocks. The signs of recent occupation were visible in places, especially near other krut ungdrin. Once again, the pastures were empty.

Kemma found it hard to believe, but not so long ago there was an optimism to Karak Eight Peaks, a sense that things were turning for the better. Another cruel joke, and one she had never fallen for herself. This had always been a fool’s errand, and in Belegar the errand had found its fool. Nevertheless, she was a dwarf, and the ruination upset her as much as any other. She had never told anyone, but this was why she hated Vala-Azrilungol so much. Every inch of it was a shameful reminder of what her people had lost.

Douric hadn’t looked back at them the whole time they’d been outside; if he did she hoped he’d think her tears were brought forth by the biting wind and not from sorrow.

At one corner, they passed a collection of dwarf beard scalps, frozen stiff in the wind and rattling against their posts. ‘Thorgrim! Look away!’ she said. Her son did not heed her, and gawped at them. Anguish pulsed in her breast that he had to see such things, but it hardened her resolve. This was why they had to leave.

As they threaded their way through a series of terraced fields, the air grew thicker and it became easier to breathe. The tall white finger of Kvinn-wyr, cloaked in winter snow from peak to skirts, raised itself behind them. They were hidden from the feeble sun, trudging through a world of shadow and ice.

‘Soon we must go back inside,’ said Douric. ‘Through another way. We can rest a while at its head before we press on.’ He said this for the benefit of Thorgrim, who had a long way yet to go before he developed the full width of his thighs. He was trying his hardest to hide his discomfort like a good dawi, but his pale face and trembling lips told another story.

Kemma went to her son, and fussed over him as mothers do. He was proud enough to shoo her away, and Douric smiled at that. Kemma frowned, which he thought a little extreme, but then she held up her hand. ‘Shhh!’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

Douric cocked his head. His eyes widened in concern. ‘Curse my ears, I’m getting old!’

Kemma drew her hammer and put herself in front of her son.

‘Off the path! To that hut down there, and stay on the rocks. Leave no tracks!’ Douric pointed to a sorry ruin thirty yards away. Too late. A party of Belegar’s hammerers came around the corner from below, lining up three abreast to block their way down the rocky path.

‘Brok Gandsson,’ said Kemma. ‘Belegar has you chasing mothers who love their sons, has he? Your beard thickens with honour day by day.’ She spoke haughtily. There was no point in pretence. There was only one reason he could be here.

‘Halt! Halt in the name of the king!’ said Brok Gandsson, leader of the Iron Brotherhood. He stood athwart the path, puffing clouds of cold breath. Dressed in full armour, he wore no extra garb in concession to the temperature, and his nose was red and dripping as a result. His expression made it clear that he meant business.

‘I’ll do no such thing. You’ll let me by, Brok Gandsson. The future of the Angrund clan and all of the Eight Peaks is here by my side. Take him back, and you will doom him. Let me take him away from here.’

Brok stood his ground, his face set. Tension showed in the line of his jaw, bunching muscles under beard. He was not enjoying this role. That was something, thought Kemma.

‘The mountains are full of grobi and urk, and the tunnels heave with vermin. If I let him off this mountain, it is you who will be killing him, not I. I will not let your mistake weigh on my conscience.’

‘It’ll be your mistake, not mine. I’ve made my mind up.’

‘She’s coming with us,’ said Brok to his warriors in an unnecessary display of authority. ‘If her highness complains, clap her in irons.’

‘I am your queen!’ said Kemma, outraged.

‘No dwarf is to leave Vala-Azrilungol without the say of King Belegar. Queen or not, Vala Kemma, you’ll not be among those who disobey him.’

Douric stepped forwards, hands held in front of him as if they were full of reason, and they would all go away content if only they would look into his palms to see. He wore his habitual grin openly, like they were all sharing a joke that needed a punch line. ‘Wait a minute here, Brok. Can we not see our way through to some other solution? The lady only wants what’s best for her son, and the Angrund clan.’

But Brok was in no mood for amity. He looked upon the reckoner with undisguised hatred. ‘What do you know of the honour of the Iron Brotherhood? Long have you been a thorn in our king’s side! Always you reckoners taking a peck of this here, a pick of that there, when you have no right.’

Douric’s good humour fell away from his face in an avalanche, showing the cold hard stone beneath. ‘I have every right. I am a lawmaster of the High King, my lad – a petty one, I grant you, but I bear his seal and his authority.’

‘Then go back to Thorgrim in Everpeak, and steal your ale from his cup for a change!’

Douric took another step forwards. ‘You should let them go.’

Brok raised his hammer. ‘Do not come another step closer, wanaz. I’m warning you.’

‘Let’s just talk this out…’

Brok swung his hammer to smack into the side of Douric’s head with a final crack. The reckoner spun on his feet and went down hard, falling limp to the ground, where broad red flowers bloomed in the snow. His hat blew away on the wind.

Brok stepped from foot to foot, horrified at what he had done. His dawi murmured. Brok’s face hardened. ‘A pox on all reckoners and their dishonourable dealings! Gazul judge you harshly, oath worrier, grudge doubter!’ He spat on the rock. ‘You dawi! Stop your grumbling. Help the queen and the prince here back into the mountain. It’s cold up here and there are grobi about.’

Two hammerers came forward, reaching for Kemma.

‘Unhand me! I command you to let me by!’

Their hands dropped.

Some of the fury went out of Brok, and he sagged, unmanned by what he had done. ‘Belegar gives me my orders, vala,’ said Brok. ‘I had no choice. I am oath-given.’

‘Dawi killing dawi. Oaths or not, that’s a fine sight, not that my husband would care. He’s wanted Douric gone a long time. Too stupid to see a good dwarf in front of his nose, like a wattock can’t tell fool’s gold from gold.’

‘For what it’s worth, I am sorry.’

‘Not sorry enough to take the Slayer’s oath.’

Brok stared at her with a peculiar mix of emotions, all strong.

‘The reckoner’s body?’ asked one of his followers. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’

Brok stared at the dead dwarf. The wind teased his hair and beard, his hands were still open in a display of peace. He looked asleep, but for his caved-in skull. Self-hatred got the better of Brok, and he turned it outwards. ‘Yes we can, and we will. He was a traitor. Umgdawi to the core and gold-hungrier than a dragon. Leave him for the grobi and the stormcrows.’

‘Thane…’

‘I said leave him!’ bellowed Brok.

‘Shame on you, Brok Gandsson, shame on you,’ hissed Kemma.

‘We should all be ashamed, vala. We’ve taken a few wrong tunnels on the way, and now it’s too late for all of us,’ he said, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her forwards. Two other hammerers gently helped Prince Thorgrim away with encouraging words and swigs of ale. ‘Each and every one.’

Ten

An Oath Fulfilled

Borrik hewed down the last of the stormvermin still facing him, his runic axe pulsing with power. The pure blue of its magic, clear as brynduraz in the sun, radiated more than light. The axe’s blessings brought relief to his burning muscles, drove the tiredness from leaden limbs. This was good, for Borrik could not remember the last time he had slept.

Once the Norrgrimlings had been renowned for sleeping upright while standing guard, taking turns in the centre where they might be held up by their brothers. Borrik yearned for those days as much as he yearned for sleep. Neither would come again. There were not enough Axes of Norr left to attempt their famed feat, and he feared they would never rebuild their numbers enough to do so again. It was a point of pride to his ironbreakers that they never had nor ever would abandon a post given them to guard. Pride had ever been the undoing of dwarfs. Soon it would be the end of them.

‘They’re falling back,’ he said. His strong, proud voice reduced to a hoarse wheeze. ‘Forgefuries, forward!’

With a stoicism that would shame a mountain, the remaining four Forgefuries set off with the same skill and speed they had possessed two months ago. Only their faces betrayed their fatigue, pale skin and brown smears under eyes grown small and gritty.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek. His dawi reloaded and fired with breathtaking skill, pumping round after round of blazing energy into the back of the skaven, incinerating them as they fled.

The squeaking panic of the ratmen receded down the tunnels. Borrik stared at the near-invisible drill holes packed with powder around each stairwell mouth. If Belegar would only let him blow them… But the king would not. His name was a byword for stubbornness, even among the dwarfs. He cursed the king under his breath.

‘Right, lads,’ said Borrik. ‘You know the drill.’

‘Aye aye,’ said Albok tiredly. ‘Rats in the hole. Come on!’

The remaining Axes of Norr lumbered forward, clenching and unclenching fists that were moulded into claws suited only to holding axes. They betrayed no sign of weariness as they heaved up dead skaven from the floor, save perhaps a certain slowness as they tossed the corpses into the hole at the centre of the chamber. Not scrawny rat slaves these, but skaven elites, black-furred stormvermin equipped with hefty halberds and close-fitting armour. Some of this was dwarf-made. For the first days of the battle against the better skaven troops, the dwarfs had diligently stripped the work of their ancestors from the ratmen and stockpiled it in the chamber fronting the door of Bar-Undak. But there was so much of it, so very much, that they had given up. Now the defiled armour went into the hole like everything else, swallowed up along with their grief at seeing the craft of their ancestors so abused.

What cheer the Norrgrimlings had was gone. Weeks of hard fighting had worn them down, stone-hard though they were, as centuries of rain will wear down a mountain. Their eyes were red with lack of sleep, their beards stiff with blood they had neither the time nor the strength to comb out. Seven of them had gone to the halls of their ancestors, among them Hafnir and Kaggi Blackbeard. Their voices were as missed as their axes. Uli the Elder had lost an eye to a lucky spear-thrust, but refused to retire. Gromley had several missing links from his hauberk to add to the scratch on his shield, and complained bitterly about it. No one teased him for his grumbling any longer.

‘Is there any more ale?’ asked Borrik. ‘My throat’s dryer than an engine-stoker’s dongliz.’

‘There’s another delivery due soon, but they’re getting tardy,’ said Grunnir Stonemaster. There was no way of telling the time in the dark underground, but the dwarfs had an unerring knack for it. ‘It’s past midday or I’m a grobi’s dung collector.’

Borrik managed a grin that hurt his face. ‘That you certainly are not. Not only are they late, but the barrels are getting lighter.’

Grunnir shrugged. ‘Back in the glory days that would never have happened. Proper brewmasters then, and proper brew.’

Borrik looked at the devastation around him. Nothing was like it was, not any more. ‘You’re sounding like a longbeard.’

Grunnir tugged his beard. ‘It’s been well watered with blood these last weeks. It’s growing as quickly as my tally of grudges.’

Distant drums sounded. Borrik stood. ‘All right, lads! Back in formation – they’re coming for another go!’

The ironbreakers tossed another few corpses into the pit and trudged wearily back to their stations. Skaven began filing out into the Hall of Reckoning in organised lines that spread into calm ranks, a far cry from the panicking thralls they had first faced.

‘Look at them,’ said Gromley, taking in the number of stolen dwarf items in the hands of their enemies. ‘Thieving vermin. They’re so intent on killing us, they never stop to think who’ll they’ll steal off when we’re gone.’

‘Less of that,’ said Uli. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

‘Well,’ said Grunnir, settling his standard into a more comfortable position. ‘If they do win, I hope the little furry beggars choke on their victory.’

‘Borrik! Borrik!’ A hand tugged at the mail shirt of the thane. Tordrek had come forward. ‘There’s someone at the door.’

‘Ale?’ said Borrik brightening.

Tordrek shook his head. Borrik cast an annoyed look at the marshalling skaven and followed his friend through the thin back rank of the Axes of Norr. There remained a single full line of ten to block the way.

The sound from the skaven was muted in the chamber at the rear. A steady tap-tapping came from the door. Borrik pressed his ear against it.

Borrik counted three different hammer sizes beating out the code, the notes they made identical to anyone but a dwarf.

‘Aye, that’s the right signal. Open the door,’ he said. ‘Quickly now, we don’t want this gate gaping wide when the skaven come to attack.’

‘We’re all right for a minute,’ came Gromley’s sour voice from the front of the ironbreakers. ‘They’re still trying to get themselves in order.’

Tordrek’s remaining Forgefuries, guarding the door, opened it.

What emerged was not ale. A spike of orange hair came around the door. Borrik took a step back, face grim. ‘It’s come to that, has it?’ he said. ‘Make way, lads!’ he called. ‘We’ve got company.’

Silently, the Slayers came out, more than twenty of them, all stony-faced killers. Their leader, an emotionless dwarf who made Borrik look the size of a beardling, nodded a greeting to the thane. The rest filed out without looking. Borrik didn’t look them in the eye, because behind the flinty light that burned there you could catch the darkness of shame. A broken oath, a grandfather’s mistake uncovered, a romantic advance rebuffed… Whatever crimes these dwarfs had committed or shames they had suffered, trivial or gross, they all felt the same. They were all broken by their experiences. Through the narrow passage they went. At the far end, the Norrgrimlings parted to let them past.

The skaven were working themselves up into a frenzy, biting at their shields, their leaders squeaking orders from the back, their soldiers squeaking together in response.

‘Quickly now, quickly,’ said Borrik. ‘Close ranks as soon as they’re through.’

Gromley gave him a hard stare that suggested that wasn’t going to be necessary, but prodded his tired warriors into place with his axe haft.

The Slayers spread out once in the hall, not in a disciplined line but each finding a spot that suited him best. That meant as far away from the others as possible. They said nothing as they waited for the skaven to attack. The ratmen did so cautiously, their eagerness for the fight seeming to desert them when they saw these fresh opponents.

Driven on by furious squeaking and the clang of cymbals, the skaven charged, flowing over the broken, bloodied floor of the Hall of Reckoning as one.

When the enemy were close, the Slayers counter-charged. Some shouted out to Grimnir, some sang, others howled with the pain of whatever shame had driven them to take the oath. Yet others made no noise, but set to with voiceless determination.

They were engulfed by the vermintide like bright rocks in a dark sea. Like rocks, they were not overcome.

‘Look at them,’ muttered Gromley. The Slayer leader leapt and whirled, his paired rune axes trailing light and blood in equal part.

‘This is a rare sight. I’m glad I have one eye left to see it with,’ said Uli.

‘Look at that one! The big one with the scars!’ Albok pointed to a dwarf who was wider than he was tall, his body covered in tattoos, his tattoos scratched through by scars. He wielded a single, double-handed axe with a head as big as his own torso.

‘That’s the Dragonslayer Aldrik the Scarred, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Gromley. He blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘If you live to be five hundred, you’ll be half the warrior he is.’

Aldrik was a solid presence amid the churning mass of skaven. They were far quicker than him, but he moved aside from every blow. His axe strokes were deliberate. Not a single one missed. Every swipe cut a skaven in half.

The Norrgrimlings relaxed. It was plain to them all that they were not going to be needed in this engagement. The Slayers were butchering the skaven, and the ratmen were close to breaking. Already, their back ranks were becoming strung out from the mass at the front.

Of a sudden, the skaven had had enough. They fled, squealing frantically. The Slayers let out a shout and chased after them. Surrounded by piled bodies were three orange-haired dwarf corpses. The remainder disappeared down the stairheads after the fleeing skaven.

The Axes of Norr let their guard drop.

‘That’s that, then. Time for a rest,’ said Grunnir.

‘Aye, and more besides,’ said Thane Borrik, pushing his way to the front with a metal message scroll in his hand. ‘We’ve got new orders from the king. Time to pull back to the Hall of Clan Skalfdon.’ He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Got a herald back there, so it’s as official as it gets. Tordrek, blow those doors up before we go.’

‘What about the Slayers, Thane?’ asked Albok.

‘Three groups of them have gone out,’ said Borrik. ‘It’s shameful to say, but we won’t see the likes of this for a long time. They’ve got their wish. Let’s take their dead back. The least we can do is lay their axes on the shrine of Grimnir, and let him know they fulfilled their oaths.’

As the Norrgrimlings tenderly retrieved the dead Slayers, Tordrek stepped up with his dawi and headed for the centre of the room. Once there, they opened fire and ignited the charges packed around each stairhead. The explosion in the Hall of Reckoning sounded like the end of everything. Dust blew out, coating the surviving members of the Axes of Norr so they appeared like the ancestors, freshly awoken at the roots of the world. Bright eyes peered out from grey faces.

‘That should keep them back a bit,’ said Borrik, when the last rock had clattered to a standstill. ‘Come on, lads, let’s see if there’s any ale left in the citadel. This has been a thirsty couple of weeks.’

Eleven

A Confrontation

‘A messenger is coming,’ said Soothgnawer’s voice, as yet unattached to a body.

Kranskritt startled. It was unnerving how the verminlord came from nowhere. He looked around for Soothgnawer, nose working frantically. He caught a whiff of the otherwordly creature, but the scent was faint and all around him, and Kranskritt could not see him.

‘There is always a messenger coming. Who? What-what?’ responded the grey seer testily.

‘One of the Red Guard,’ came the reply. Soothgnawer had still not manifested. Kranskritt saw a darkening against the wall, a shadow out of place. He stared fixedly at it, determined not to be surprised.

‘Queek will give the orders I foresaw,’ said Soothgnawer smugly. ‘Queek has guessed the deception. It is to the peaks you will go, hunting goblins. He wishes your clawpack to engage Skarsnik and keep him away from the main assault upon the beard-things’.

‘Pah! Mad-thing does great insult to me,’ Kranskritt said. ‘I should be with him, I should whisper-command in his ear! He is mad and foolish-stupid.’ Kranskritt shivered. The bells on his ankles, wrists and horns tinkled with fury.

‘Hush, little seer! Do you remember our plans? You will have what you wish.’ Soothgnawer’s voice was poison-perfumed velvet, smooth against the senses, beguiling, yet smothering.

Kranskritt bridled. They were most assuredly not his plans. He did not like this situation. It was typically he who had foreknowledge and he who did the manipulating. This creature was always two scurryings ahead of him, possibly more.

‘Not our plans!’ he said, wringing the hem of his robe. ‘Yours! What happens if Queek discovers? What if he say-accuses me? He has no fear of the Horned Rat. He has no fear of me!’

‘Patience!’ said the voice, now from right behind him.

With a yelp, Kranskritt spun on the spot. From the shadows between unpacked crates, a space far too small to accommodate the verminlord, large eyes full of an ancient malevolence regarded him. Half concealed in this too-small space, yet there nonetheless, the creature’s triple rack of horns seemed to grow and twist sinuously. At that moment skin and fur clothed his skull, and he looked like a grey seer grown vast on magic and evil. A clawed hand thrust out, holding an enormous gazing globe.

‘You are right to fear the future, Kranskritt. If Queek suspects, then die long and horribly you will, and lower the status of Clan Scruten becomes. Look-look! There are many paths to follow. All bad but one. In life I too walked as a grey seer. Now I am more. Much more. I scry beyond space and time – the future is downwind. And I tell you, there is no other way.’

The voice left the room, burrowed directly into Kranskritt’s mind. It was at once compelling and threatening. Soothgnawer had a way of posing questions that provided their own answers, which, when examined later, posed more questions. The endless conundrums this generated in Kranskritt’s agile mind was threatening to drive him as mad as Queek. He turned an involuntary blow at his own head into a scratch of his ear so furious it drew blood, and glanced into the ball.

‘Yes-yes, I see-scry that now.’ He saw nothing, but wished to appear wise before this creature. He instantly regretted the hesitancy in his voice. Verminlords could smell deception.

‘You see nothing.’

Kranskritt wailed. ‘I cannot see!’

‘Look harder.’

The grey seer turned away, shaking his head, but the voice would not be dislodged. ‘Tell me, why-why is my clawpack not ordered into the fight?’ demanded Kranskritt. ‘Why must I chase the green-thing? I have the largest clawpack.’

‘Patience, little seer. Queek was confounded. Two sets of orders from his master demand his action in opposing manner.’

Kranskritt tittered. ‘A good trick-treachery on the arrogant mad-thing! Who is behind it? Is it your doing, horned master? Such a trick is worthy of your unsurpassed intellect,’ he said, remembering his manners under the verminlord’s gaze.

Soothgnawer emerged a little further into the material world, huge and terrifying. ‘Little seer must learn to listen more closely. Both sets of orders come from Lord Gnawdwell. The lord of Clan Mors tires of his general.’

Kranskritt wrinkled his muzzle. ‘Then why two orders? Why not bad orders, or simple kill-slay? It makes no sense!’

Soothgnawer eased himself out of whatever hellish realm he inhabited and into Kranskritt’s burrow. The laws of space-time asserted themselves, and he popped into existence. Fully manifested, he filled the room, his horns scraping fragments of stone from the ceiling. He pushed crates over and sat down on one. Still he towered over Kranskritt. ‘Is this the level of the grey seers’ intelligence in these times? So sad. No mystery to me why the Great Horned One punished Clan Scruten.’ Soothgnawer spoke with infinite paternal patience to the seer. ‘Gnawdwell wants to see what Queek will do. He is too attached-fond to the warlord. In his head, here,’ the verminlord tapped between his eyes, ‘he thinks that he confuses Queek to make him hesitate, to anger his underlings so that they will kill-slay him and replace him. But in his heart Gnawdwell has become too sentimental. His attempts on Queek’s life are poorly planned and half-hearted, and so is this scheme-plan. He does not admit it, but he gives Queek another chance, a way from death. If Queek is successful here, Gnawdwell will not kill him. He knows Queek is unworthy as his successor, that a creature as insane as Queek can never sit upon the Council of Thirteen, but he has deluded himself that the Headtaker might change, and so Gnawdwell’s heart wars with his mind.’

Kranskritt spat. ‘The heart is quick and treacherous. Great thinkings only come from the mind. Is it not established that the skaven are the most intelligent of all races? We grey seers do not listen to our traitor-hearts.’

‘This is so. This is right. Make sure you stay that way, little seer.’

‘Tell-squeak me, how you know what Gnawdwell think-feels, great and wise Soothgnawer?’ asked Kranskritt, half afraid of the answer, for if the verminlord could read minds as he suspected, Kranskritt would have a lot of grovelling to perform. His glands twitched.

‘To be a master of our kind, as I am, little seer, you must look beyond what each ratkin does to another, and into the mind behind the scheme. Within all of you there are many reasons and many desires, and these vie and plot one against the other as surely as you fight one another.’ The creature paused. Its white-furred face lost all flesh and skin to appear as an eyeless skull, turning back into a grey seer’s face without appearing to change, even to Kranskritt’s magic-sight. Kranskritt felt very weak indeed and flinched from him. ‘Now Queek reacts with open violence. It is what Queek does. He is as unsubtle as his Dwarf Gouger. Look-look into the ball and see.’

Reluctantly, Kranskritt stared into the verminlord’s over-sized gazing glass. If he had put his arms around it, his paws would not have met. Now he saw. In its uncertain depths were crystal-clear images of skaven marching all over the City of Pillars, all going upwards. The burrowing machines of Clan Skryre worked tirelessly to bore them new routes. Massed ranks of skaven confronted lines of glowering dwarf-things, the long-fur on their faces bristling. Skaven war machines opened up on them, killing the stupid creatures by the score.

‘The dwarfs will soon retreat. The future is changing. We come to a nexus in the way. At the right moment, you must be in place to act and seize the right path. See why, little seer. Watch now and witness a fate that will be yours and all grey seers’ if you are not successful,’ said Soothgnawer, his voice lodged still in the space behind Kranskritt’s eyes, more irritating than a tick. ‘Watch-watch.’

Kranskritt gave a startled squeak. He was no longer in his burrow, but in a hall choked with many skaven dead. A large hole was in the centre, and two piles of shattered stone were to either side. Rock dust drifted on air currents, the smell of freshly broken rock and blackpowder was choking, but although he could smell it, although he felt he should be coughing hard, he breathed easily. He looked about for Soothgnawer. He could not see him, but could feel his presence.

‘You are here and not-here, little seer. This is the Hall of Reckoning, as the dwarf-things call it. Great things happen here very soon. Be calm and watch.’

Kranskritt tried his best not to think about where he was or how he was there. On the edge of his perception was the endless, anguished squeaking of millions of voices that he did not care to hear.

Fortunately for him, the burring noise of heavy machinery soon troubled the chamber and drowned out the squeals of the damned. The ground shook. A short distance from the leftmost blocked tunnel, a fall of dust sheeted away from the rock. Small stones skittered from their position on the rock falls as the vibrations grew louder, until with the crack of broken stone, a giant drill head breached the wall, multiple toothed grinding heads all turning in separate directions. The Clan Skryre machine jolted as it drove out of the tunnel and dropped six inches to the floor of the hall. A platform on tracked wheels followed the drill head, two goggled and masked warlocks tending the mass of sorcerous machinery mounted atop it. They pulled levers, flicked switches. Lightning burst from the tops of brass orbs. Fluids bubbled in long glass tubes protected by copper latticework. The drilling machine drove off to one side, pulping skaven corpses under its truckles. The drill ceased spinning and the machine came to a halt, powering down with a teeth-wounding whine.

A score of heavily built stormvermin came from the new corridor, a thunder of pounding, muscular legs and thick armour. Stones pattered from their shoulders as they emerged, but the tunnel held. They fanned out, forming a solid square in the middle of the chamber. Kranskritt drew back into the shadows.

‘Foolish little seer, they cannot see you,’ laughed Soothgnawer in his mind. ‘Do not fear!’

Their leader, a mid-ranking member of Clan Mors whose name-smell was Frizloq, came next, entering the Hall of Reckoning as warily as a common rat might dare a night-time kitchen. He sniffed the air, stepping delicately down the spilled rock to survey the room. Whatever he expected to find there was gone, and he grinned widely at its absence. He prodded one of his minions with the butt of his polearm, gesturing that he should enter the tunnel in one corner. The skaven cringed at being separated from the warmth and protection of his littermates, but obeyed. He disappeared into the tunnel with a wary backward glance.

A second passed. The stormvermin re-emerged.

‘Empty!’ he squeaked triumphantly. ‘Broken beer keg. Slain skaven, but beard-things gone!’

‘The door?’ asked the leader.

‘Locked-barred. No traps,’ reported the scout.

The clawleader rubbed his hands together. ‘Locked, you say? Barred, you squeak? We shall see-see. We shall see! Get it open! Get it open for the glory of Clan Mors! We shall be first into the citadel!’

A flurry of activity followed. At first the skaven tried to beat the door down themselves, but the gate of Bar-Undak was too strong and they were too feeble to breach its steel.

The leader pulled his warriors back, generously rewarding them for their efforts with the battle corpses littering the floor. As they settled down to eat, he conferred sharply with the warlocks, pointing and chittering something lost under the noise of the idling machine. The engine roared, black smoke tinged by green flecks puffed from its chimney, and it ground around to face the tunnel to the chamber. The drill picked up speed and the machine chewed through the thirty feet to the door chamber in short order, widening the original tunnel considerably. As soon as it backed up, Clan Moulder packmasters brought in two monstrously built rat ogres. Their masters gestured to the stones on the floor by the rock falls. The rat ogres understood, taking up a hefty lump of rock in each fist. They loped then into the widened tunnel and thence the chamber. There, under the direction of their masters, they battered at the doors, snarling as they grazed their knuckles and banged their heads on the ceiling in the cramped space. Their handlers goaded them with sparking prods and the rat ogres squeal-roared, bashing harder with their improvised tools. The door shook on its deep-set hinges.

For an hour, during which time Kranskritt continued to watch from his shadow-place, the door refused to give. The rocks scarred the steel, little else. But slowly the strength of the rat ogres began to tell, and the door became loose. They pounded out a bowl in the middle and a rent appeared. The rat ogres cast aside their stones to work their claws into the gaps and tug and pull at it.

At this juncture, Warlord Thaxx Redclaw arrived at the front, stepping imperiously from the tunnel mouth with an honour guard of equally arrogant stormvermin.

‘Masterfully canny Thaxx arrives at the most opportune moment, as no doubt his incomparable planning intended,’ squeak-greeted the skaven leader. ‘Humble Frizloq has great news. This door is soon to be destroyed. Come-see!’ He beckoned to his lord excitedly. ‘You are just in time to witness the opening of the way!’

‘You have done well, Frizloq,’ said Thaxx coolly, looking down his muzzle at the clawleader. ‘Four-score weak-meat I will pledge-give you for your adequate efforts on my behalf.’

Frizloq dipped his head in gratitude.

A bellow came from the door chamber, then a crash as the door was torn from its hinges and cast down.

Frizloq called out to his warriors, all of whom were feasting or sleeping, grabbing the opportunity to rest while the rat ogres worked. ‘To arms! To arms!’ he squeaked. ‘To the beard-thing citadel, and there to victory!’

Thaxx Redclaw grabbed his underling’s arm and shook his head. ‘No-no! Wait-wait.’

Frizloq became confused. ‘Why-why? The door is broken, the door so many died to breach. Why we not press on? Catch the beard-things unawares? If we hurry-scurry, we might disrupt them. Surely they fortify-build as we squeak? That is their way.’

‘No-no,’ repeated Thaxx. ‘Warlord Queek’s orders. All attacks on this front must halt. He does not wish Clan Mors warriors to die-die in dwarf-thing traps. First clawpack will wait, wait for slaves, for weak-meat.’

Frizloq opened his mouth, for Thaxx’s command directly contradicted his earlier orders from Queek himself, but he thought better of it. He twitched meekly and exposed his throat as a display of his utmost subservience. ‘As great Thaxx demands, so shall it be!’

‘Not humble I, but mighty Queek,’ corrected Thaxx. ‘We must thank to his strategic pre-eminence for this clever-smart move. Thaxx is but his worthy message-bearer.’

As if in direct challenge to Thaxx’s statement, a clanking came up the corridor. Frizloq’s skaven were shoved aside. Red-armoured stormvermin burst into the room, their mouths twisted into snarls, tails swiping with pent-up aggression. At their head came the biggest skaven in the City of Pillars, Ska Bloodtail. Thaxx’s nose quivered. He swallowed rapidly and blinked. Where Ska went, Queek was close behind.

The Headtaker bowed low to enter the Hall of Reckoning, saving his precious trophies from damage on the ceiling.

‘Who speak-squeaks on my authority?’ he demanded. ‘Why this front not press on? Mighty Queek say all stormvermin attack! All clanrats to move forward! The time for weak-meat is done. Why Thaxx say otherwise?’

Thaxx curled his lips, exposing his teeth all along his muzzle. In his shadow-space, Kranskritt shrank back, terrified by the murderous glare burning in Queek’s red eyes. The Headtaker bullied his way through the crowd, skaven scrambling over each other to get out of the way. He confronted Thaxx. Redclaw stood tall and held his ground.

‘What bribe-gift you take to betray Clan Mors?’ asked the Headtaker, tail swishing back and forth.

Those around the two powerful war-leaders spread out, forming a large challenge ring. Fear musk sprayed from the lesser members of the crowd. The stormvermin watched intently, but others were desperate to find elsewhere to be. Walking sideways, the two combatants began to circle each other, their muscles tensing to spring.

Excuses, denials and renewed pledges were the tried and true ways of skaven avoiding, or at least delaying, such confrontations. Thaxx Redclaw had known Queek Headtaker too long to attempt such pretence. He knew what was coming next, had planned for it. He had not expected it to happen now, necessarily, but no scheme was mad-thing proof, and he was ready. Baring his teeth in a hissing grimace, the warlord of the first clawpack drew his sword, its cruelly serrated edge glistening with warp venom. Yet how did Queek know? Thaxx had told no one of his dealings with Clan Skryre. And how did the Headtaker get here so quickly? Both things were impossible – but now was not the time to think upon it.

The Headtaker sneered. ‘You wonder how I know? Mighty Queek has informants you could never dream of, fool-thing… No one bests Queek!’ He drew his sword and weighed Dwarf Gouger carefully in his other hand, his gaze fixed on Thaxx’s head. Thaxx glanced nervously at the new spike of pale wood lashed to the Headtaker’s trophy rack. ‘Now, tell Queek, Thaxx traitor-rat, what was the promise-pact? No warptokens or breeders – you have too many of those already,’ said Queek. ‘Yes-yes, don’t look surprised. Queek knows what you hide in your under-warrens. No, the great Thaxx would not be tempted by what he already has. The offer was to be first warlord of Clan Mors, wasn’t it? Yes-yes? Replace great and mighty Queek in City of Pillars? Delay long enough until Queek failed and a replacement was in order, unless there was an accident first?’ Queek tutted. ‘Queek say Thaxx has been left alone for too long in City of Pillars. Now Thaxx learn highly unpleasant lesson from good teacher Queek.’

Thaxx leapt forwards, his sword hissing down at Queek. Queek dodged out of range with ease, and Thaxx went right past him. But Thaxx’s attack was merely a feint, giving him space to draw a hidden warplock pistol with his free hand. He spun past the Headtaker, turning his failed lunge into a graceful turn.

‘Die-die!’ shrieked Thaxx, squeezing the trigger over and over.

Queek laughed. Thaxx should never have reached for another weapon. Without that, he stood more of a chance. Against the mighty Queek, Queek thought, that was still less than no chance, but he might have died with dignity.

With the agility of a warrior born, Queek leapt aside. Knowing he would never close the distance in time, he hurled his sword.

Thaxx had time to fire off three quick shots from his repeater pistol. Two of them dented Queek’s armour, sending showers of warpstone-impregnated dust from it. The third missed, and then Queek’s blade slammed into his pistol. The sword severed one of Thaxx’s fingers, the digit still locked upon the trigger as the pistol clattered to the floor. Thaxx squealed with pain. In shock, the wounded warlord looked down first upon his bleeding hand, and then to the fallen pistol, to find his missing finger. This was his final mistake.

Queek crossed the gap between them in a single bound. He brought Dwarf Gouger down and then up, catching Thaxx under the chin with the blunt side.

Thaxx’s jaw shattered, and he was sent sprawling onto his back. Queek pounced so that his feet were spread either side of Thaxx’s chest. He thrust his yellow incisors close to Thaxx’s face.

‘Tsk tsk, foolish Thaxx. Queek knows a bribe from Clan Skryre when it is fired at Queek,’ hissed Queek. ‘But tell-say, who else is involved? That venom on your sword-blade smells like Clan Eshin good stuff. Tell-squeal and Queek will end it quick-quick.’

Queek leaned in, so that Thaxx’s burbling, blood-choked words were audible to him alone. But Kranskritt, aided by Soothgnawer’s magic, heard them too, mangled though they were through the Redclaw’s wounded jaw.

‘The Horned Rat skin you forevermore, mad-thing.’

To Kranskritt’s surprise Queek laughed and nodded with satisfaction. He drove Dwarf Gouger down point first into Thaxx’s belly, and ripped upwards, disembowelling Thaxx.

Straightening up, the Grand Warlord of the Eight Peaks surveyed the skaven gathered around him in the Hall of Reckoning. ‘First clawpack,’ rang out Queek’s voice. ‘Thaxx betrayed Clan Mors. I will lead you now.’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ the others shouted. Frizloq prostrated himself with admirable alacrity. His officers, then the lesser rats, did the same, all chanting the Headtaker’s name.

‘Loyal Ska!’ yelled Queek over the adulation.

‘Yes, O mighty Queek?’

‘This not over. Bring me Skrikk, bring me Kranskritt, bring me Gritch.’ He snickered evilly. ‘It is time all traitor-things dance with Queek!’

‘See now?’ said Soothgnawer to Kranskritt. ‘This is what you face.’

Kranskritt nodded.

‘Good. Back we go!’

The Hall of Reckoning faded from view, and Kranskritt found himself in his burrow once more.

The grey seer gathered what little courage he had and thrust out his horns. He closed his eyes – a skaven show of confidence. This time he spoke more boldly. ‘Yes-yes. How could perfect Soothgnawer be anything but correct?’

‘Indeed,’ said Soothgnawer.

‘I will find the goblin and make the offer. Goblin kill first clawpack, Kranskritt save the day with fifth clawpack. Grey seers look like heroes.’

And so, Kranskritt dearly hoped, Kranskritt could avoid his meeting with Queek.

When he opened his eyes once more, he was alone. Soothgnawer was gone, but the verminlord’s voice rang still in the secret spaces of his skull. ‘I know,’ it said.

Kranskritt threw together a variety of magical ingredients. He called in his servants. ‘Gather fifth clawpack! Into the mountains! Send-scurry message to mighty Queek.’ Kranskritt smiled as his scribe fetched quill and man-skin parchment. ‘Tell him unworthy Kranskritt follow mighty Queek’s orders to the letter, loyally and without question.’

Twelve

Skarsnik’s Big Deal

The halls under Karag Zilfin had once belonged to a powerful dwarf merchant family. In the glory days of the Eternal Realm, the place was plaqued with gold, its dark ways lit with glimlight glowstones and runic lamps whose oil never ran dry. Not that Skarsnik, the current occupant, knew that. Vala-Azrilungol had been stripped thousands of years before Skarsnik had sprouted. He had to contend with walls that ran black with mould, water that dripped from the ceiling all the time, and the constant blast of the mountain winds whistling in through glassless windows and empty door frames.

‘I hates this. It’s rubbish,’ he muttered as he walked to his chambers. He passed through his audience room, which was embarrassingly tiny compared to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars he’d once called his own. Tribute lay heaped chaotically everywhere. ‘Really rubbish. Nowhere near enough room for all me presents. I miss it in the proper underground, Gobbla. Nice and warm.’ He cut down a long corridor, perfectly carved in the stunty way with not a curve or kink to halt the wind blasting in from outside. Treasuries, store rooms and steps leading down opened up either side of him. At the end were his private quarters. He wasn’t too happy when he got there and came upon the moonhat guards and phalanx of little big ’uns trusted with his safety, all of whom were sprawled about the place snoring and not at all doing a good job of guarding. He was too annoyed to kick them awake. Instead, he let Gobbla eat one. His screams woke the others and they ran, mismatched armour rattling, to their posts.

‘Zogging idiots!’ he shouted. ‘There’s a bleeding war on!’

He muttered darkly and scowled at them. Gobbla burped. The goblin elite shook so hard their knees knocked.

There was, at least, a door across the entrance to his rooms. He went in and shut it behind him with a sigh. A fire of bigshroom stalks burned in a long stone trough in the fireplace. He looked at the filthy furs heaped on his bed, and thought of sleeping.

He shook his head. ‘Nah, never no time for sleeping. Sleep when you’s dead, eh, Gobbla?’ He chuckled. ‘Got work to do. First mind, I reckon it’s time for a little drinky.’ On a table piled high with parchment covered in his spidery handwriting were numerous bottles. He shook them until he found one that was full. He held it up critically, grumbling that he had to tilt it this way and that to read the label. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be.

‘Produzzi di Castello di Rugazzi,’ he said. He shrugged at it. Castello di Rugazzi had been burned down along with the rest of Tilea a couple of years before. He wouldn’t have cared had he known, but what Skarsnik held in his hands was quite probably the last bottle of wine from that vineyard, if not from Tilea. Skarsnik’s stash had once had brews from all across the Old World, purloined from caravans braving the trek over to the Far East. But once Gorfang was killed and the rats infested Black Crag, there was no one to police Death Pass. Then the wars had started. No one had come that way he could bully or rob for a long while, and Skarsnik’s cellars were running dry.

‘Gotta be better than Duffskul’s brew,’ he said sourly. He found his goblet on the floor, groaning as he stood up straight and his back cracked. He tipped a spider out and peered in. The goblet was filthy, so he spat in it and cleaned it with his ink-stained thumb until he was satisfied.

He bit the top off the bottle with his needle-teeth and poured. As it glugged into the goblet, Skarsnik smacked his lips in anticipation. He pulled a snotling out of a cage and made it drink some. He watched it for a moment. It smiled stupidly, and obligingly did not die, so he shoved it back into its prison.

‘Cheers, snotties,’ he toasted his tasters, and slurped down a mouthful of wine. Then he lit a candle of dwarf fat and sat down to his work. ‘Now then, now then,’ he said, rubbing his hands. He was determined to update his list of tribes currently squatting in the surface city and the Great Vale. ‘Got to be organised, eh, Gobbla? Where are you if you’s not organised?’

Gobbla growled. That was not the correct response. Skarsnik stiffened. His ears prickled.

A ball of black lightning burst into being behind Skarsnik, caused him to spin round so fast he lost his face in the back of his hood.

‘Not this again! Ratties, they never learn!’ he said, wrestling with his bosshat. ‘You’ve tried this fifteen times before, ya dumb gits! Garn! Get some new ideas!’ He stood up violently, sending his papers onto the floor. His goblet he caught deftly in one hand as the table toppled from underneath it. With the other hand he snatched up his prodder, and pointed it at the fizzing orb.

Black energy throbbed, sending arcs of greenish-black sparks earthing in his possessions. Much to his annoyance, his papers caught fire. ‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ he yelled. ‘You want to come and talk to me, use the zogging front door like everyone else! You’s burning all me stuff up! Bleeding ratties! Got no manners!’

The whirling energies settled down. Through a dark portal, an arrogant horned rat-thing, fur white as snow, robes suspiciously clean, stepped into Skarsnik’s bedroom. The grey seer surveyed the room as if it owned it, and that really annoyed Skarsnik. Actually, that was kind of the entire problem with the Eight Peaks. When would they learn that the place was his!

The rat sniffed the air and pulled a face at what it found. ‘I great Grey Seer Kranskritt. I come-skitter with deal-tidings, green-thing.’ It spoke in accented orcish, higher than a gobbo, but perfectly intelligible. Skarsnik was used to that.

‘Well, well, well – a horny rat!’ said Skarsnik back in Queekish, the language of the skaven, and that took the grey seer by surprise, to Skarsnik’s delight. ‘Tinkle-tankle little bells too. Very nice, very pretty. Learn that off an elf? Cut above the average squeaker, ain’t ya? But it’s not like your lot to turn up yerselves. Usually get some poor rodent to do your dirty. You can’t be that important.’

‘I very-very much-important, green-thing!’ said Kranskritt, eyes boiling with outrage. ‘You show me respect!’

Skarsnik leered a yellow grin and slurped upon his wine. ‘Yeah? Or what? I’ll tell you what, you goat-rat… fing, whatever you is. You’ll get angry and then I’ll blow you up with me prodder, that’s what’ll happen. It’s happened before. It’s getting late and I’ve got a lot on, so be my guest. Tempt me, and then I can gets on with me work.’

Kranskritt clashed his incisors together, eyeing the prodder nervously. Its power was well known by his kind, and feared.

‘I suppose you want to make a deal, then? Your lot don’t do well in deals with me, you realise that?’ said Skarsnik.

‘You very annoying-pain, green-thing,’ admitted Kranskritt.

‘You could have just sent me a messenger.’

‘We did. His skin-pelt now your new bedding,’ said Kranskritt, pointing disdainfully at Skarsnik’s bed.

Skarsnik looked sidelong at the fresh rat pelt serving as a coverlet. ‘Oh. Right. Yeah. He did try to tell us something, to be fair. If it makes you feel better, he was very tasty. Right then. I got things to be doing. Stuff to write. Plans to make. You know, you burneded all me papers up. Took me ages to do that. I’m not happy.’

‘Pah! Green-thing plans little plans. I know-know much more.’

‘So you said.’ Skarsnik had another drink. The wine wasn’t too bad. ‘Actually, you haven’t said much of anyfink apart from how important you is.’

The grey seer hissed and clenched its fists. This meeting was obviously paining it. ‘Tomorrow, Lord Queek of Clan Mors begins the next stage of the great war of extermination against the beard-things. He attacks in the Hall of Many Beard-Things.’

‘In the citadel?’

‘Big beard-thing fortress, yes-yes!’ snapped Kranskritt. His tail lashed.

‘Funny really, don’t know the citadel well. Even before the stunties came back, didn’t really go there. Full of traps. Nasty little stunties. I quite like being alive, y’see. No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I show-show!’ snapped Kranskritt.

‘All right, all right, keep your horns on.’ Skarsnik giggled at the skaven as it bristled. ‘What’s the point?’

‘It would be good-proper if Lord Queek is not successful. Tunnel teams dig-melt their way upwards. I show. You take them, good quick-fast, yes? You come up into citadel. You kill many dwarf-things, many, er, stunties, you stop Queek’s easy victory.’

Skarsnik set his drink down. ‘Why? I ain’t no patsy for ratsies.’ He laughed again. He was on form today.

Kranskritt clawed his hands. ‘Foolish green-thing! Now your time is done, but still you making stupid joke-laughs! The children of Chaos rise! The Under-Empire will rule over all! You be destroyed, swept-aside like leaves in storm! You do it, and you live. Not enough for you, green-thing? You die now, if you prefer.’

‘Yeah, right. Blah, blah, blah. Squeak, squeak, squeak.’ With his teeth on his lips, Skarsnik mimed a little rat mouth jabbering. ‘I have heard it all before!’ he said, suddenly angry. ‘Year in, zogging year out! It’s always the same with your lot! Ooh, we is so clever. Ooh, we is the best. If that’s the bleeding case, how comes I’m the king of Karak Eight Peaks?’

Skarsnik stood tall. He was very large for a night goblin, bigger than the seer. The prodder thrummed with orcy power. ‘I ain’t no idiot. If you are so powerful, you don’t need me, does you?’

Kranskritt growled in irritation. He and his kind were used to skaven grovelling before them, squirting the musk of fear as soon as a seer showed its face. This goblin’s cool insolence was deeply disrespectful. ‘Very well! You help my faction, you help yourself. Hand-claw to hand-claw. Friends-alliance! No war! You take back upper deeps when beard-things dead.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Skarsnik. ‘All the deeps to the third, and no poking yer little pink noses out of yer burrows for four winters.’

‘Skweee! Done-done,’ said Kranskritt.

‘All right then. Yeah. I’ll do it.’

‘Tomorrow! Third bell.’

Skarsnik shrugged. ‘Sorry?’

Kranskritt squealed. ‘New-day sunrise! Be in the west foundry, fifteen scurryings down-up-down-north of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars!’

‘Lots of ratties down there. In my house, I might add,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’ll bet you know some of them. They’ll probably try to kill me. I’m not all that popular with your lot.’

‘I know you know-have ways in. Be there!’

Kranskritt disappeared with a squeak of annoyance and a burst of purplish light.

Skarsnik let out a long breath and shook his head. After a moment, he went to refill his goblet and gathered up the remains of his work. He frowned as he stared at the still-smouldering edges. ‘So then, Gobbla, rats is fighting rats again. Always the way. And when they is fighting, there’s some space for the likes of me to make something of it. Get me house back, get me halls back. Get some of them greenboys from up top down there to keep it, and for good this time! Be warm again!’

He flopped into a chair. The chamber rumbled with yet another tremor. They had never really stopped since the days the mountains had exploded. Gravel pattered onto his head. Gobbla waddled up and snuffled for a scratch. Skarsnik obliged, massaging Gobbla’s favourite spot between his eyes. ‘Of course, boy, it’s all a big trap. It always is.’ He slurped his wine. ‘But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘why does I have this feeling this time things is a teeny bit different? And not in a good way…’

He sat there a long time rubbing Gobbla’s leathery skin, thinking thoughts no other goblin could, alone as always.

Thirteen

Payment for Services Rendered

Duffskul flapped his sleeves manically until his grubby green hand was free to press the stunty face. The fist-sized carving made a click, and the secret door it activated rumbled back into the wall. Duffskul puffed on his pipe and clucked his tongue with appreciation. It never ceased to amaze him how long the stunty-stuff kept on working.

Cold wind keened through the crack of the door, became a moan as the gap widened, and then a blast of winter that put out his pipe. Duffskul frowned and tapped the ashes from the bowl. He tucked the pipe into his belt, muttered some words to Mork and Gork, and waved his hands around desultorily. It was a poor effort, but lately the world had been so heavy with the essence of the Twin Gods, he barely had to try any more. The spell came on quickly, flattening him out, deepening the darkness of his robes. Soon all that was visible of him was a shadow like all the other shadows, excepting perhaps a greenish smear that might have been a face until you looked right at it.

The door finished its grinding recession, leaving the shaman’s way clear. Duffskul stuck his head out into the day. He was a night goblin and therefore not at all fond of daylight, but what little effort the sun put forth through the winter sky, choked as it was with ash and magic, was weak and unimposing.

He hopped out of the door. The odd flake of dirty snow splatted against his hood. Snow had been falling for weeks in the mountains, and Duffskul squinted at all the brightness of it, but wrapped up in his shadow cloak he felt safe enough from the Evil Sun. Besides, he couldn’t see it through all that cloud, so it couldn’t see him, could it? The thickest runt knew that. Even if the ground shone like silver. Humming tunelessly for courage, Duffskul tottered off, out onto the flanks of the Silverhorn.

Seventeen treacherous switchbacks later, a quick dart past a fresh skaven tunnel, and a hairy moment when a dozen rocks the size of cave squigs bounded inches past Duffskul’s nose, the aged shaman reached the bottom of the mountain. There the path joined a wider dwarf way, its cobbles much split by tree roots, which in turn descended through scrubby pine woods to join the main old road that ran through Death Pass.

Duffskul came out in a place not far from the Tight Spot, where the road went through high moorland. The dwarf road was heaving with greenskins of every kind, passing in long scrap trains out of the Dark Lands. They had started coming a few years ago, fleeing some upheaval out there and heading into the Badlands. Goblins first by the thousand, because they don’t like fighting. But lately there had been many orcs also. They had their fiercest faces on, but Duffskul was canny, almost as canny as Skarsnik, and he could see they were afraid. Duffskul wondered what was happening in the wider world. He had tried staring out through Gork and Mork’s eyes, but there was so much magic bleeding into everything that it made him dizzy just to try. Most troubling was that on the western side of the pass, where most of this lot were heading, the greenskins were coming back again. Life in the Badlands wasn’t too good either, Kruggler kept saying. All fine news for Skarsnik, thought Duffskul, as the majority of the greenskins, having nowhere else to go, were ending up in the Eight Peaks. But what did it mean? Through his persistent fug of intoxication, the old shaman couldn’t help but be concerned.

The ground rumbled. Rocks pitter-pattered down from the heights. It was not, reflected Duffskul, a question that needed answering. Earthquakes were frequent. They’d always had a bit of the old heave-ho coming from the ground, but nothing like this. Over the eastern peaks of the mountains the sky was black as night, and the sun never, ever shone there any more. The Dark Lands had become a whole lot darker.

‘The world is changing, that’s what,’ he muttered to himself. ‘A sorry sight, and no mistake, oh yus.’ A group of wolf riders bolted as his shadow popped, turning him back into his usual solid self. He giggled at the sight of the riders struggling to control their mounts, causing chaos in the already fractious crowds of greenskins marching west. It took his mind off being exposed to the light.

‘Can’t be helped,’ he muttered. ‘Get trod on if I is a shadow.’

He plopped himself down on a dwarf milestone. From under his filthy robes he produced a puffball flask. He guzzled down the contents, some of his own special brew. Courage fortified, he refilled his pipe with shroom-smoke fungus, and took in the view.

At this point past the Tight Spot, Death Pass opened up. Here it stretched ten miles wide, the far side blued by distance. Much of it thereabouts was inhospitable moorland, broken by humps of rock, little streams and the grey stumps of pines hacked down by the greenskins for their fires and rickety constructions. Only the old dwarf road offered good travel, and that’s where the traffic was.

In a state of disrepair, the road of Death Pass still held the power to impress. It went dead straight as much as possible, burrowing through such minor inconveniences as mountain spurs without stopping. There were ditches to either side, deep and lined with stone, although all that was visible this time of year were indentations in the snow and hairy yellow grass poking through. Every eight hundred yards, paired statues of stunty gods stood guard over it. Most had been broken aeons ago by orcs, but a few were more or less whole, glaring at the usurpers marching under their noses. Duffskul scuttled by these intact ones whenever he encountered them, because they gave him the creeps.

The pass had long been the domain of the orcs. The way had been tightly controlled for years by Gorfang Rotgut down in Black Crag. But the Troll-Eater was gone, killed by the king of all the stunties, so they said, and no one collected his tolls any more. Duffskul supposed sudden freedom of passage hadn’t helped the traffic levels.

He watched the endless caravans groan past. Most of the greenskins were wolf tribes, not much use for Skarsnik’s battles underground, but they had at least a number of ferocious beasts in their rickety cages. He even saw a group of much-battered hobgoblins chained up in one.

What is the world coming to, he thought, if even them treacherous backstabbers aren’t being stabbed first chance? They don’t even taste very nice. Why keep ’em?

He scowled at them. Cowardly at the best of times, they were beaten and downcast, and did not return his gaze.

He smoked awhile with his eyes closed to shut out the horrid glare of the sun until he felt suitably fortified by smoke and brew. He opened one eye, then the other, hiccupped and slid off the rock.

‘Suppose I better be getting on,’ he said. He let his finger rise up of its own accord, snaking around in the clouds of pungent shroomsmoke until it had found the right direction. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that way.’

He headed east, and the crowds parted for him. Now he was far from the ratties and stunties, he could trust to his status as a shaman of Mork and Gork to keep him safe. It wasn’t just a matter of respect due him for his ability to commune with the Great Twins, but one of fear. Not even the biggest black orc wanted turning into a squig, a magic that was well within Duffskul’s considerable capabilities.

When Skarsnik had called Duffskul in, he hadn’t needed to ask what had happened; Skarsnik’s rooms still stank of magic and rat.

‘You had a visitor, boss?’ he’d said.

‘Them ratties are trying to make a deal,’ Skarsnik said. And then he had told Duffskul what the deal was, and who had made the offer.

Duffskul wasn’t fazed – the ratties were always trying somesuch nonsense or other. ‘Yus, boss,’ Duffskul said. ‘They is always trying to do that, isn’t they, boss? Do deals and that, oh yus.’

‘Yes, yes, they are. But I’m not having any of it. Not this time!’

‘You not going to do it, then? Not make the deal?’

‘Of course I’m going to do it!’ Skarsnik said. He had paced up and down his room with his hands behind his back, head bowed in thought. Gobbla waddled faithfully behind him, the chain that connected them clinking. ‘There’s always more to it with them furry little zoggers. There’ll be some nasty surprise for us in there. And the chances of them giving us back the upper stunty-house like what they said they would are about as big as Kruggler’s brain.’

They both laughed, Duffskul’s eyes spinning madly in his ancient face.

‘What we need is a plan of our own. I says we do what that magic ratfing says. We go in and take these burrowing gizmos off of them rats, burst up through the floor as planned. But…’ Skarsnik held up a finger. There was always a ‘but’ with the king of Eight Peaks, you had to hand it to him. ‘But, we have a few alterations. Make a plan of our own, so to speak. They have a plan, and so I has a plan.’

‘Oh yus, boss, right you are, boss,’ said Duffskul, leaning on his staff. He’d never known Skarsnik not to have a plan. ‘What plan would that be then, boss?’

Skarsnik grinned slyly. He pulled out a heavy-looking sack from under his bed and dropped it on one of his many work desks. It hit the wood with that kind of rich clunk only solid gold makes. He whipped back the filthy material to reveal a battered but still impressive crown. Five types of gold, stunty runes, some really finickity chasing work and an awful lot of big gemstones.

‘Ooh, that’s nice, that’s lovely that is.’ Duffskul reached out a hand; he couldn’t help himself, but snatched it back when Gobbla fixed him with his one good eye and growled.

‘Ogres, Duffskul! Ogres is me plan. Been saving this for a special occasion,’ the boss said. ‘Now’s as good a time as any.’ He nodded at the sack. ‘I’ve heard Golgfag is nearby.’

‘What, Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, boss?’

‘That’s the one. Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, Duffskul.’

‘And what do we wants with this incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain? He’s known for not playing it straight, if you gets me, and he often fights for the stunties.’

Skarsnik smiled broadly, Duffskul smiled back. ‘And those two reasons, me old mate, is exactly why we want him, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yus, boss! Oh yus! I gets ya!’

The pair of them had laughed long and hard together. Skarsnik’s snotling food tasters joined in from their cages, not a single idea as to what they were laughing at in their empty little heads.

Now Duffskul pushed on to where his finger told him Golgfag could be found – a trick he’d learned long ago, from the somewhat mad Tarkit Fing-Finga, back in the… Well, there was no telling how long ago it was now. Greenskins swore and cursed as he went against the tide of the migration, moving their wagons aside just the same. Wolves snapped at each other as they were whipped out of the way. The road got progressively narrower as he approached the Tight Spot, where the pass was squeezed hard between two mountains.

Then a wolf was before him, snarling and drooling. Duffskul squeaked with shock, but it yelped as reins tugged its head back. A wall of mangy fur and stinking, bandy-legged goblin raiders flowed into being in front of him.

‘Shaman! Which way to the Eight Peaks?’ a goblin warchief with gold teeth shouted at him, his accent all funny. Duffskul giggled at him, he sounded so stupid. ‘Where do we find Skarsnik the Great?’

The Great? thought Duffskul. He’ll like that. ‘That way!’ he said. ‘Follow the big road up into the mountains. Big city, huge stunty-house. You really can’t miss it, to tell the truth, oh yus.’

The goblin chief wheeled his steed around and let out an ululation, waving his hand around his head. He shot forwards and his band followed, leaping over the ditch, over the uneven ground at the roadside, and scrambling onto the loose rocks and snow that lined the pass. They must have been from the mountains somewhere, because they were quickly away on the rough ground, drawing annoyed shouts from the other goblins forced to trudge along.

A scrapwagon pushed by grumbling stone trolls creaked by next, the slave-cage atop it empty of prisoners but heaped with ragged possessions. A fat goblin on the top waved a couple of snotlings on a stick in front of the trolls to make them move. He looked unspeakably glum, as did the tribe behind. They were all injured, some seriously, many with burns and blackened faces.

There came a blast of brazen horns resounding off the pass’s sides. Gruff orc voices shouted, huge black orcs moving forward in the crowd, shoving lesser greenskins out of the road. ‘Make way! Make way for Drilla Gitsmash! Make way, yer lousy runts!’ They backed their words with slaps and worse, spilling dark red blood on the setts. They stamped forward, until one was right in front of Duffskul, staring down at him with furious eyes. It snorted plumes of steam into the chill mountain air.

‘Get out da way, wizlevard, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Will I now?’ said Duffskul. He cocked an eyebrow over one mad eye. The black orc roared and hammered its axe against its breastplate, but moved on just the same.

Around the corner came the biggest orc Duffskul had ever seen. That would have been enough to make him shift, but the contraption the orc rode decided it. Duffskul lifted the skirts of his dark robes and hopped over the ditch like he was a hundred years younger. He took up position well out of the way at the foot of a fan of scree.

Drilla Gitsmash’s mount was a clanking, mechanical boar, its black iron spell-marked with the runes of the curly bearded tusk-stunties of the Dark Lands. Steam hissed from its pistons as it trotted by, hooves cracking the slabs. Four banner bearers came after him, holding high icons fashioned from steel. Further along the pass, the black orc heralds were shouting at the goblins and their troll cart, cursing them off the road. Trolls moaned, goblins wailed. A snap cracked off the mountainside, and the cart sagged on a broken axle. Shouting angrily, the black orcs cut the traces of the trolls, put their shoulders to the wagon bed and heaved it over, ignoring the shrill protests of its owners. It toppled into the ditch and broke apart.

Drilla’s brigade of black orcs marched past Duffskul in perfect step. They held their heads high, the tusks of their visors jutting towards the sky. They were disgustingly clean, their armour immaculate. On and on they went. There must have been over three hundred of them. Screams sounded from further up the pass as they ran into the thick press of greenskin refugees, but they did not slow, they did not stop.

The last rank of black orcs went by. A final blast of brazen horns resounded off the pass’s sides, and the black orcs disappeared round a shoulder of the mountain.

For a few minutes the pass was clear. Duffskul scrambled back onto the roadway to take advantage of the lull, and jogged as fast as his old legs would carry him. The crowds thickened soon enough, but when they caught sight of the shaman, his dirty robes held high over his knees, face determined, they got out of the way no matter how cramped the road was.

The ogres were camped at the Tight Spot. There were two old stunty-houses there, both forts, on knolls either side of the road. One was so tumbledown it looked like part of the mountain, the other was whole and, consequently, full of ogres. On the other side of the Tight Spot the pass rapidly widened again, becoming heavily wooded and sloping steeply down towards the Dark Lands. Duffskul left the road and puffed his way up the broken track to the gates, flanked by large ogre banners depicting that big gob of theirs. He paused in his ascent for a look out east. The line of greenskins went on forever. He tried counting them – and he could count, properly; not quite as well as his boss, but not far off. He had to give up. There were too many.

He didn’t get much further up the hill before he was noticed.

‘Ooh looks, it’s a shaman, zippety zap!’ gnoblars jeered from behind rocks in accented greenskin.

Duffskul waved his staff at them, and they ran away shrieking in terror. ‘I dunno, only kind of greeny worse than you lot is the zogging hobgobboes!’ he shouted. ‘Gnoblars! Hill goblins! No sort of gobbo at all!’

A pair of bored ogres stood guard at the dead-eyed gatehouse to the stunty fort. They stood taller and gripped the handles of their swords as he approached.

‘What you want?’ one demanded, his voice thick, clogged with fat and anger.

Duffskul leaned on his staff like he didn’t have a care in the world and stared up. ‘You Golgfag’s lot?’

‘Yeah, what’s it to you?’ said the ogre.

‘Got a job for him.’

‘From who?’ said the second ogre. ‘We already got employment.’

‘So I hear, but I’s got an offer for your boss he might find very interesting. Money’s a wonderful thing, ain’t it?’ He leaned forwards and whispered behind his hand, ‘And we got lots. Let me in, let me see Golgfag.’

The ogres looked at one another. One shrugged. The other jerked his head into the camp. ‘Can’t do any harm. Go on then. You’ll find him easy enough. He’s having his dinner.’

For some reason that made them laugh deeply. Duffskul shook his head. Ogres were such fat idiots.

The place was better organised than a greenskin camp would have been, but only just. Piles of bones, scraps of half-cooked flesh still stuck to them, littered the place, filling the courtyard with the stench of decay even in the cold. Ogres went about their business heedless of everything below gut level, forcing Duffskul to dodge out of the way frequently. Despite the chill, nearly all of them were naked from the waist up. A semicircle of heavy wagons filled the back half of the fort. Giant shaggy draught beasts and mounts were corralled by a fence made of tree trunks nearby.

Golgfag was indeed hard to miss. He sat at the centre of the camp upon the top half of a broken stunty statue, next to a roaring bonfire. Bigger than every other ogre in the place, his head seemed disproportionately small atop the mountain of fat and muscle that was his body. A maul and sword were propped up next to him, an iron standard depicting a circular, toothed maw thrust into the ground behind. A pair of halfling cooks worked nearby over a smaller fire. Whatever they were cooking smelt much tastier than the gnoblars being roasted over smaller fires.

Golgfag was munching on one such cooked gnoblar. The outside was burned to a crisp, the inside pink.

‘When’s my stew ready, Boltho? I’m nearly done on my starter!’ Golgfag shouted in grumbling Reikspiel.

‘Coming right away, gutlord!’

Duffskul licked his lips, at both the halflings’ food, and the sight of the halflings themselves.

The ogre tore a mouthful of meat off, white strings of tendon hanging from his mouth.

‘Ahem,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag turned round, searching at ogre height for his interlocutor, greasy moustaches flapping. It took him a moment to look down.

‘Ah, another course,’ said the mercenary brightly. ‘Thanks for delivering yourself.’

‘Nah, you’s not going to eat me,’ said Duffskul. ‘Got a business offer.’ He sat down and began to fill his pipe.

‘Oh yeah?’ said Golgfag. ‘Already got a job. I don’t see what a hole-skulking cave runt goblin like you can offer me that the king of Karak Eight Peaks can’t. Go on, get out of here, or I will eat you.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Duffskul. He clamped his pipe in his mouth. His eyes glowed green and it ignited. ‘Because I’m here from the real king of Karak Eight Peaks.’

‘I’m not worried by no scrawny goblin magician!’ laughed Golgfag. ‘And I’m not too impressed by this Skarsnik either. If he’s so great, how comes he’s always fighting? He’s been at war for half a century! I would’ve beaten them all by now.’

Duffskul shrugged. He pulled out an object wrapped in oilskin from under his cloak and put it on the ground. He unwrapped it, revealing the lost crown of Karak Eight Peaks. Ogres were greedy for more than food, and Golgfag’s eyes widened comically at the sight. He shuffled round on his seat to get a better look.

‘Now that’s a pretty trinket.’

Duffskul tittered. ‘It is, ain’t it? From Skarsnik. You like it?’

‘What’s not to like?’ The ogre leaned forwards, face alight with avarice.

‘You can have it. Payment. We just need a little favour. Carry on like you is, be all friendly like with the stunties…’

‘What, then when the time comes turn on them and give ’em a nasty surprise? That old trick? What do you say I don’t just rip your head off and eat you and take that there crown off you right now? I’m getting sick of gnoblar. Goblin’s got an altogether gamier flavour. Very nice your lot taste, underground greenies. Hint of mushroom to you. Delicious. I like a nice wizard too, sparkles on the tongue.’ A different kind of hunger showed upon the ogre’s face. His gut rumbled, twitching behind its horned belly plate.

‘Because, fatty, this ain’t it, is it?’ Duffskul passed his hands and the crown dissolved into a handful of old leaves.

Golgfag sat back and belched out a reek of uncooked meat. ‘Right. So in that case, how do I know you have actually got it? Your boss ain’t exactly known for his upright nature.’

‘Oh, we’ve got it all right.’

‘King Belegar has promised me one tenth of the treasure in his treasure chamber. That’s a lot of gold. Now that’s a pretty crown. But worst case for me is that you’ve no crown, and when I pull the old switch on the stunties I get no gold at all. And that is not happening.’

‘Lot of gold? Belegar? It ain’t a lot of gold,’ countered Duffskul – now it was his turn to laugh – ‘because he’s having you on! Old Belegar ain’t got no gold!’

‘Nah, he’s a dwarf, they’ve always got gold,’ said Golgfag, flapping the shaman’s stinking smoke away from his face.

‘Not this ’un. Poorer than a snotling, he is. Not much more sense either. Tell you what, do this for us and you can have half of Belegar’s stunty-hoard. And the crown.’

Golgfag took a bite from the gnoblar’s haunch and pondered for a moment. ‘Seems fair enough. If you make it three-quarters. Got me overheads – not cheap running a mercenary band like this, and the price of grog is way up. If your lot lose, I’ll get only the crown and Belegar’s downpayment, nothing else. You understand.’

Duffskul made a sympathetic face. ‘Times is hard. That crown is worth a lot, though.’

Golgfag smiled, the gaps in his teeth jammed with bloody meat. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do says so, and you heard me say it. Now tell me, what do we get for the crown then?’

‘The real crown?’

‘Course,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag stood up and stretched. He tossed the remains of his first course into the fire. ‘See them gutlords marching?’ He pointed a greasy finger at heavily armoured ogres sparring with hooked swords as big as an orc. ‘You’ll get them. And me other lads. The whole lot. I’d throw in a few gnoblars for you as well, but Belegar’s messenger was quite insistent on us not bringing them in.’ He belched and scratched under his belly plate. ‘He didn’t want any greenskins in his hold at all. As if gnoblars count! Ain’t that the ironic thing? Anyways, we ate all the fighting ones. It doesn’t matter, because they’re useless at fighting. We only bring ’em along to distract the enemy. No great loss. Still got me pets.’

‘They is not gobboes, that’s the truth, oh yus.’ Duffskul could not agree more on that score. ‘Also, you promise no double-double crossing!’

‘Hah!’ said Golgfag. ‘Now that’s funny coming from you. Don’t you worry, Belegar would never give us more money. Too tight, them dwarfs, especially if he’s as skint as you say. It’ll be the end of them, if you ask me.’

‘And what about the other party?’ said Duffskul obliquely.

‘The ratmen? Nah, can’t stand them myself. Vermin. Always getting into my larder.’ He nodded at a couple of spitted skaven roasting on a fire. ‘Caught them trying to sneak into the pay wagon three nights ago. When they pay you, half the time they don’t pay you, if you know what I mean. If I told you how many of their cash deliveries turned out to be magicked, the chests full of rats in black cloaks that go all maniac on yer with their little stabby knives, you’d be surprised.’

Duffskul hiccupped. ‘Nah, I don’t think I would.’

Golgfag laughed. ‘Right. Your lot’s got experience there. Let’s shake on it then.’ He gobbed a truly impressive mouthful of spit into his palm and held out his hand to shake, humie-style. His fingers were thicker than Duffskul’s limbs, and smelt of roast greenskin. ‘We got a deal?’

Duffskull took a finger on the proffered hand and shook it carefully. ‘We have got a deal.’

‘See you around, little greeny. I’m off to finish my dinner. I’ll send word to the lads not to eat you on the way out.’ The general’s vast bulk shifted around. It was like watching a hill move. ‘Send us the details later. We’ll need some kind of signal. You have a little think about that, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Until later, shorty,’ said Golgfag.

‘Until later, fatty,’ giggled Duffskul.

Fourteen

The Hall of Clan Skalfdon

Atop a mound of rubble, King Belegar stood at the front of his Iron Brotherhood, Notrigar beside him bearing the clan banner of the Iron Hammers. The dwarf battle line stretched from the eastern side of the hall to the west, the high ground of an ancient rock fall at the north-western end held by Durggan Stoutbelly and the grand battery of Karak Eight Peaks. Past the Iron Brotherhood, the east end of the rubble pile was occupied by the Clan Zhorrak Blue Caps, and beyond that the rubble shelved off. From there to the walls of the hall, the ground was level, the flagstones uncovered by detritus. Two hundred yards behind Belegar’s position was the Gate of Skalfdon, one of the last fine things remaining in the derelict hall, a massive portal barred by a rune-carved stone gate five feet thick.

To the south, the Hall of Clan Skalfdon stretched away, the ancestor statues carved into its far walls lost in the gloom. A few lonely glimlights still burned up in the high roof a full twenty centuries after the fall of the city, stars lost in a stone forest of pillars supporting the vaulted sky. Most of the light came from less grand sources – torches and lanterns in the main, held by the dwarf host.

Belegar looked up and down the ranks of his people. Six hundred of them, pretty much all the strength he had, barring Duregar’s garrison holding the East Gate at the end of the Great Vale. Clan Skalfdon’s hall swallowed them up, built at a time when a thousand times six hundred dwarfs had dwelled within Karak Eight Peaks. That glory was long gone, like the Skalfdon clan itself, the last of whose scions had perished in one of the many attempts to retake the Eight Peaks before Belegar was successful.

Successful. He snorted. This wasn’t success. Already the skaven were creeping out of their holes, coming in through the dozen archways at the southern end of the hall.

‘Something troubles you, my king?’

‘Aye, Notrigar, a great deal,’ said Belegar. ‘I look at them and my blood boils. This is their domain, not mine. Look at how at home they are in the ruins, skulking about in the graves of better people. Look at them! Look at their dirty feet scrabbling on the faces of our ancestors. Look at the weapons they carry. They value nothing, not hard work, or craft, or skill – all they wish is to tear down and destroy, and disport in the remains. They thrive on blight and decay. They don’t build anything to last. They don’t build anything fair to look upon. All their kingdoms are but the debris of dying civilisations. It is unfair that such as these should inherit the world while better folk perish.’

‘It strikes me as so, my king,’ agreed Notrigar. These depressing rants of Belegar’s had become more frequent, his moments of humour seldom as the war wore on.

‘It strikes me that the gods are a bunch of baruzdaki,’ said Belegar, ‘by whom our own great ancestors were sorely mocked. Everything’s gone, diminished. Look to this battle, one of the great acts of our days, and I see the pale reflections of the Karaz Ankor in pools of blood. Our ancestors battled the lords of misrule themselves, forcing them step by step out of this world and back into their own. What would Grimnir, who holds to this day the hordes of Chaos at bay, think of his descendants smashing rats into the dirt in their own homes?’ He shook his head.

Mutters of agreement came from the ranks of the Iron Brotherhood.

‘Still, we’ll give them a pasting to remember, eh, lads? It ends here! One way or another, or I’m no dawi.’ Belegar pointed, past the carpet of giant rats and slaves seeping into the hall like rising floodwaters. Glints of metal could be seen coming through the gateways, blocks of troops forming up behind the wretches in the vanguard.

‘See, brave khazukan!’ shouted the king, so all could hear. ‘See how our great foe comes! See how he marshals all his strength against us! The Headtaker is here!’

A wail of fury went up from the dwarfs. They clashed their axes against their shields and roared. Belegar continued to speak, his anger powering his voice through the clamour raised by his warriors.

‘He comes to see us die, to see an end to dawi in the great city of Vala-Azrilungol! Well, I say, let him come. Let him break his vermintide upon the shields and axes of the sons of Grungni. Let him be disappointed! Khazukan! Khazuk-ha!’ he bellowed.

‘Khazukan! Khazuk-ha! Grungni runk!’

Durggan added the voices of his war machines to the dwarfish war cry. At various points within the hall, range-markers had been secreted, white stones that told Stoutbelly exactly who he could hit from where, and with what. The lead ranks of skavenslaves now passed the first of these.

Cannons boomed thunderously, tearing long holes in the ranks of the slaves. They squealed in terror, and doubtless those nearest the carnage would have turned to flee if it were not for the endless swarms pushing them on. At the back, whips cracked. In reply to the cannons, streaks of green whistled into the dwarf ranks, felling warriors along the length of the line.

‘Jezzails!’ shouted their officers. ‘Shields up!’

‘Garrak-ha!’ shouted the dwarfs. Triple-forged dwarf steel rippled upwards along the dwarf line, locked together with a clash. Bullets still punched through, but fewer dwarfs fell.

‘Belegar! My lord! Get down!’

Belegar stood at the front of the Iron Brotherhood shouting his defiance. Warpstone bullets pinged off his rune-armour and the Shield of Defiance, disintegrating into puffs of nose-searing green smoke. ‘Let them try, Notrigar. I am no skulking ratman to hide at the back of his warriors. Let them come! Let them come! Queek, I am here! I am waiting for you!’

Dwarf crossbows twanged as the skaven came into range. Shortly after, the popping reports of handguns joined them. So tightly packed were the skaven that every bullet and bolt found its mark. Those who fell were pulped under the feet of those following. Bolt throwers skewered them in threes and fours, cannons blasted them to pieces. Grudge-stones rained down, sailing between the columns of the roof on perfect trajectories. But there were thousands of skaven, and no matter how many died, there were always more. The tunnels leading back into the lower deeps were thick with them, their red eyes shining in the dark.

At the appropriate time, Durggan unleashed the fiery horror of his only flamecannon, incinerating a wide cone of skaven. They squealed in fear and pain, and the air was thick with the smoke of their burning.

‘Here they come, lads!’ bellowed Belegar. He gestured forwards with his hammer. ‘At them!’

Shouting the war cries of their ancestors, the Iron Brotherhood ran into the mass of skavenslaves.

Queek watched patiently from a broken statue, squeaking orders when he felt his minions were letting him down. These were carried off by rapid scurriers, who forced their way into the ranks to seek out Queek’s officers.

‘You wait, little warlord, this is good,’ hissed a voice only Queek could hear. The shadows cast by a pillar danced with more than the flamelight of battle. Queek’s trophies were unusually silent, cowed by the verminlord.

‘Pah! Queek hate waiting. Queek want to smash-kill dwarf long-fur and take head! But Queek is no fool, Lurklox-lord,’ he said, the honorific unpleasant on his tongue. ‘Dwarfs outnumbered ten to one. And this is but the first clawpack! They have no reserves. Queek guess that no dwarfs are anywhere else nearby, except sick, young and old.’ He tittered. ‘Young very tasty. Not so tough as old long-furs!’ He sneered. ‘Dwarfs are stupid, slow-thinking – not quick-clever like skaven – but they are strong. Very good armour. Fine weapons. Much singing.’ He shuddered; the grinding-stone sound of the dwarfish battlesongs hurt his sensitive ears. ‘No matter.’ He waved his hand-paw dismissively. ‘Under enough pressure, even dwarf-forged steel will snap. Soon will be time. Loyal Ska!’

‘Yes, great Queek,’ said Ska from the foot of the statue, where he restricted access to the mighty Queek.

‘Ready my guard. Tell Grotoose now is time to loose his monsters.’

Queek watched the dwarf line. Having made a space at the front of the king’s position, Belegar’s Iron Brotherhood were retreating with mechanical precision from their initial foray to the safety of the line. Slaves scattered in the opposite direction, many shot down as they tried to flee. Others surged forwards, drawing themselves right onto the dwarfs’ guns, where they died in droves. ‘Pah!’ said Queek. ‘That is what slaves are for, yes-yes, Lurklox?’

There was no reply. The shadows were empty.

‘He has scurry-gone,’ said Ikit Scratch from his position along the central run of spikes on Queek’s trophy rack.

The dead-thing sounded afraid.

From the gates behind Queek came an unpleasant bellow as Grotoose, the Great Packmaster of Clan Moulder, prodded his creatures into the fight. First to come were packs of slavering rat ogres, starved for the battle. They ran at the dwarf lines, barely directed by their packmasters.

Behind them came two gigantic Hell Pit abominations, their naked, maggoty skin rippling as they heaved themselves forwards, their many heads snapping at the air. The creatures, a hideous mix of flesh and machine, moved surprisingly quickly. Cannonballs slammed into the foremost abomination, and it howled in idiot rage. But its unnatural vitality saw its skin knit back together almost instantly, and it continued onwards. They squashed hundreds of slaves as they went towards the dwarf shield wall, but that did not matter. Queek had thousands and thousands more of such weak-meat. Every dwarf killed could never be replaced. He snickered as the first then the second abomination burst into the dwarf line, punching a big hole in it. No slaves followed into the openings, too terrified of the beasts. But the abominations were mighty enough alone. The entire dwarf east flank became bogged down fighting only one, while the other abomination turned at right angles to the beard-thing’s battle line and began to work its way up towards the west flank, scattering those dwarfs it did not kill.

The rat ogres, meanwhile, loped forwards, giant hands grasping, swatting aside any slave that did not move away quickly enough. Queek watched as they swiftly arrived at the front of the battle. The largest pack was sent against a weak spot in the dwarf line hard by the king, a group of blue-capped beard-things wielding slow-loading crossbows. Such a pathetic weapon, typical of the dwarf-things: powerful but ponderous. Obsolete and doomed as their owners! The beard-things had time for three shots and no more before the rat ogres went raging into them. These dwarf-things were lightly armoured and did not last, the surviving few breaking and running, allowing the rat ogres to pile into the flank of Belegar’s bodyguard.

Queek’s eyes narrowed. This was the moment he had been waiting for. He bounded down the side of the statue, towards the front of his Red Guard.

‘Now, Ska, now! Sound the advance!’

Skaven gongs rang. The slavemasters ceased cracking their whips, allowing the slaves to flee. They needed little prompting, their ragged remnants trickling away from the hall, leaving space for Queek’s advance. The second line of skaven readied themselves, these well armed and armoured. Gongs clashed, bells rang. They started forwards.

At their centre went Queek Headtaker.

Belegar’s hammer crushed the skull of his opponent, spattering all those around him with skaven brains. His fellows threw down their arms and ran for it, affording Belegar a moment’s respite. From his vantage point, he could see up and down the line of his warriors. All were embattled. In two places his line had been breached by the abominations, and more deadly creatures were coming to attack them. Rat ogres were headed right for Clan Zhorrak. Belegar swore. The Blue Caps were no match for the beasts, and their supporting units were thoroughly occupied with the reeking monstrosity rampaging through his rear echelon.

‘Blue Caps, bring them down!’ he shouted, gesturing with his hammer.

The dwarfs shot numerous quarrels into the rat ogres, felling several. But there were well over a dozen of them, and most barrelled forwards ignoring the missiles sticking out of their bodies. With a hissing roar, the rat ogres bounded up the rubble pile, right into the Blue Caps. The dwarfs dropped their crossbows to pull out their double-handed axes. Bravery was not enough against the creatures, and the quarrellers were lightly armoured. Sword-long claws ripped the quarrellers apart. The rat ogres pushed through their formation, slaying many. By the time the Blue Caps of Clan Zhorrak broke, there were few left. Without stopping even to feed, the rat ogres pivoted and slammed right into the flank of the Iron Brotherhood. Signal flags fluttered on the opposite side of the cavern. Skaven war-gongs and bells tolled. Seeing the king’s guard assailed, and the dwarf line sorely pressed all along its front, the skaven elite pressed forwards.

‘Queek.’ Belegar pointed towards the approaching skaven.

The rapidly thinning horde of slaves fled. Those who were slow were pushed forwards onto the axes and hammers of the dwarfs by the bigger skaven coming from behind. With horrifying speed, Queek and his Red Guard were upon the Iron Brotherhood.

The dwarf hammerers were holding their own against the rat ogres, smashing skulls, ribcages and knees with typically dwarfish efficiency. But they were pinned in place by the monsters, and could not react effectively to the charge of Queek’s favoured.

‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ shouted Brok Gandsson. A knot of hammerers hurried forwards, and surrounded Belegar. The Red Guard smashed into the dwarf front, huge ratmen almost umgi-tall, their sleek black fur rippling with muscle. They wore the tokens of their might: the teeth of black orcs and giants, stolen dwarfish talismans, beardscalps and skulls. Tirelessly the Iron Brotherhood fought them back; for every one hammerer who fell, three elite skaven paid with their lives.

Queek had not yet entered the fight, but that was about to change. He scurried up the rubble like it was a set of shallow steps, the hated Dwarf Gouger and his serrated sword held out either side. He launched himself skywards, spinning as he went. Using the momentum of his somersault, he punched the spiked side of Dwarf Gouger through a hammerer’s helmet. Queek landed on the shoulders of another, his sword flashing down to end the dwarf’s life before he could react, then leapt again. Hammers aimed at him seemed to move through treacled ale, so slow were they in comparison to the Headtaker. He leapt and spun and killed and killed and killed, unhindered by his heavy armour and unwieldy trophy rack. Without gaining so much as a scratch, he was in the middle of the Iron Brotherhood’s formation, killing his way towards Belegar.

Belegar roared. ‘Now, Notrigar! Now! Sound the horn! Sound the horn!’

The dwarf horn-bearer lifted the Golden Horn of the Iron Brotherhood to his lips. Bejewelled, ancient and honoured, the Golden Horn was among Clan Angrund’s most treasured relics.

A bright note lifted over the battle, pure as fresh-cut diamond. The dwarfs took heart at its sounding, singing their songs of grudgement louder and fighting harder. But that was not the purpose of its winding.

A noise like a giant drum came from the Gate of Skalfdon, followed by the rattling of chains so heavy their movement could be heard through the thickness of the gate. The gate slid upwards, the stone moving smoothly over its ancient mechanisms, flooding the hall with golden light.

Roaring out the name of their leader, Golgfag Maneater’s mercenary band marched into the hall. The dwarf line near to Durggan Stoutbelly’s position opened, and the ogres barged their way into the fight, mournfang cavalry and sabretusks going before them, driving wolf rats away from the artillery battery. Skaven were flung high into the air by the force of the ogres’ impact, and the mercenaries penetrated many yards into the seething fur before they were slowed. The ogres were untroubled by the skaven’s weaponry, and killed the creatures easily, their cannon-wielding warriors slaughtering whole units with each blast. Golgfag’s disciplined force then turned to the left, and began fighting their way down the front of the dwarf line, their cavalry pushing their way deep into the horde. The pressure came off Durggan’s position, and the dwarf artillery intensified its fire, blasting, spearing, roasting and squashing hundreds of clanrats.

Belegar smiled. His eyes gleamed. He pointed his hammer at Queek. ‘Come on then, Headtaker! Match your skill against mine. There is one head here you will never have!’

‘Charge-kill!’ screeched Queek. He leapt from rock to rock, then into the dwarfs.

Time slowed in his quick skaven mind. He reacted without thinking, relishing his skill. In battle he was free of scheming lords and underlings and verminlords. Here he was the mightiest, unmatched Queek, the greatest skaven warrior who had ever lived! No more, and no less.

He bounced and slaughtered his way through the clumsy beard-things, killing them with ease. Their hammers moved so slowly! His Red Guard, not so mighty as he, fared less well against the long-face-fur’s elite, but it did not matter. All he needed was a little time, and for now the Red Guard were full of courage, scrambling forwards up the piled stone to replace those slain. Ska Bloodtail fought at their fore, knocking down dwarfs with every swing of his mighty paws.

Queek had come up the hill some way from the dwarf king. Once within the packed ranks of the dwarfs he started to kill his way towards Belegar. Jammed together, the beard-things were easy prey and handy stepping stones both.

A horn rang out several yards from Queek, the horrid nature of its tune hurting his ears. There was the sound of a gate lifting, and shortly the music of the battle changed. Queek was too involved in his own melee, too intent on the dwarf king, to take notice of what it betokened.

Belegar turned to face the Headtaker, a triumphant look on his flat, funnily furred face. He shouted a challenge at the warlord. Queek grinned.

He bounded from the shoulders of one of the king’s tough-meats, killing him and two others before his paws touched the ground. Queek ducked an arcing hammer, and three more dwarfs died.

Then Queek was before King Belegar. The beard-thing glared at him, his eyes ablaze, the reek of hatred leaking from his body. His long-fur twitched on his patchy-bald face, his hand gripped his hammer tightly.

‘So, Belegar beard-thing. You want to fight Queek? Good-good! Queek is here!’ said Queek. He always used Khazalid when he spoke with the dwarf-things. It upset them so much.

Queek launched himself at the dwarf king so quickly it was hard to see him move. Belegar was ready, side-stepping the warlord’s rush and landing a heavy blow on Queek’s shoulder guard. Queek rolled with the hit, saving his shoulder, but his armour split with a shower of glinting, green-black motes of metal. He squealed at the shock. Belegar reeled, blasted back by the magic of Queek’s warpshard armour.

The pair circled each other for a moment, Belegar with his guard up, his shield in front of him, hammer at the ready. Queek held both his weapons wide, his sinuous body low. He hissed and giggled, and his tail twitched behind him with excitement.

‘So long I have waited for this!’ he said; his use of the secret tongue of the dwarfs clearly riled the king.

‘I too, filth. Today will be a great day when your entry might be stricken from the Dammaz Kron of Karak Eight Peaks!’

Queek attacked without warning, hammering Belegar with a flurry of blows from both his weapons. But slow and stolid though the beard-thing was, he was always in the right place, always ready with a block when Queek thought he had a killing blow. Queek twisted around Belegar’s replying strikes, acrobatically evading blows that would have shattered his body had they connected. Five times Queek was sure he had landed a final blow on the king, five times Belegar deflected them. Queek was quick, Belegar skilled. After two minutes of fighting, all Queek had to show for his efforts were a series of small scratches on Belegar’s shield.

Battle raged all around them, the dwarf and skaven ranks now thoroughly intermixed. The din of battle in the hall was amplified by the stone walls. Fire, blood and death were everywhere. Queek boiled with irritation. He hid it behind a wicked smile.

Queek wiped his mouth on the back of the paw holding Dwarf Gouger. ‘Belegar-king good warrior! This is most satisfying for mighty Queek. Too many famed killers die too quick-quick. That very boring for Queek.’

Belegar glared back at him.

‘But beard-thing king not as good as Queek! He cannot stand against mighty Queek for long. Already, Queek has slain many beard-things. See?’ He waggled his back, sending a dried dwarf head’s beard swinging atop his trophy rack. ‘Beard-thing king’s littermate. He was very poor. Not so good as strong-meat Belegar, but Queek kill him anyway. Now I kill-slay you. I bring him out specially from Queek’s trophy room, so he see you die-die. Soon your head will sit next to his. You will have long-ages to discuss how mighty Queek is. Won’t that be nice for long-white face-fur?’

To Queek’s frustration, Belegar did not react as so many beard-things would at his taunting – with a wild bellow of rage and a foolish attack. Instead, he warily circled the skaven.

And then he made his mistake. The tiniest opening. Belegar’s eyes flicked involuntarily up to the head of his brother impaled upon the spike.

Queek reacted instantly. Belegar was ready again, catching the blow of Dwarf Gouger upon his shield, but he was distracted and the block was not as true as his others had been. The shield was slightly too far out; it would take a fraction of a second longer to reposition. Queek made as if he were to make a second swipe. Belegar tensed to react. Queek swept Dwarf Gouger up and away, pirouetting past the king’s shield, putting all his weight and momentum into a backhand blow that sent Dwarf Gouger’s vicious spike through the king’s gromril and into his side. Queek yanked it free, and danced backwards, but too slowly. Belegar slammed him in the face with his shield, denting Queek’s helmet. A following blow from his hammer drew sparks from the rock as Queek rolled aside. He was licking dwarf blood from the maul as he regained his feet. He tittered, although his head rang like a screaming bell.

‘Mighty Queek!’ bellowed Ska. He was throttling a dwarf in ornate armour in one hand. The creature’s face went purple, and Ska cast it aside with a clatter. ‘We are in much-much danger!’

Queek’s eyes darted about. Ska was correct. Big-meat ogres and dwarf-things had pushed back the skaven line. The left flank was melting away. The dwarfs were occupied in containing the Hell Pit abomination there, and that was all that was saving his clanrats from destruction. How long it would hold them back was uncertain; it was surrounded on all sides by angry beard-things and was being hacked into pieces by their axes. The other abomination continued to wreak havoc, but elsewhere ogres pushed deep into the skaven horde with seeming impunity, while the dwarfs’ cannons were firing freely into Queek’s army. Worse still, the last rat ogre went down as Queek watched, its head smashed into a bloody pulp. The king’s guard were now free to concentrate on Queek’s Red Guard. Their formation tightened up, they began to push forwards, and the Red Guard were dying quickly, their morale wavering. Queek was in danger of being surrounded, and cut off.

Queek took all this in an instant. He made his decision to retreat just as quickly. He backed up. Belegar screamed at him, charging forwards with his hammer raised. Queek leapt out of the way, landing on the edge of the rubble pile’s cliff-like face.

‘Run-retreat!’ he squeaked. ‘Fall back, quick-quick!’

Gratefully, the Red Guard fled, more of them bludgeoned to death as they showed their tails.

‘We meet again soon, long-fur,’ chittered Queek, dodging hammer blows as dwarfs interposed themselves between him and the king. ‘Until then, Queek takes another trophy.’

He jumped from the circle of dwarfs, pushing off with one foot-paw from the helmet of one of Belegar’s warriors. He aimed himself at the king’s banner bearer, fending off the warrior’s hopeless parry. Queek relished the look of surprise and fear in the beard-thing’s face as his sword descended, cutting perfectly into the weaker mail at his neck and severing the dwarf’s head. The head toppled along with the standard, the metal icon painted red by fountaining blood.

Ska scooped up the fallen prize, and together they fled the stony mound.

‘Notrigar! Notrigar!’ howled Belegar.

‘Oh dear,’ said Queek to Ska as they scurried away. ‘Look like long-fur beard-thing lose another littermate.’

The dwarfs cheered as the skaven fell back, hurling insults after Queek. Some of the skaven army retreated in good order – Queek’s guard and his other stormvermin units held firm – but most did not and scrambled for the exits. Ogres ran them down without mercy, knocking handfuls of them flying with each swing of their massive clubs and swords. Green trails in the air marked out where jezzail teams aimed for the mercenaries, but the toxic bullets seemed not to affect them much, and it took several rounds to bring even a single ogre down.

The battle-dirges of the dwarfs changed. Victory songs erupted along the line at the flight of the skaven.

At the centre, the Iron Brotherhood found themselves unengaged. They yelled insults and banged their hammer hafts on the rock and on their shields.

Brok Gandsson sought out his lord, who stood at the brink of the cliff, looking down upon the scattering of bodies and blood-washed rock.

‘A great victory, my king!’ said Brok, his eyes bright, the shame of his murder of Douric forgotten for the moment.

Belegar looked with hollow eyes at the headless body of his cousin.

‘My lord?’ said Brok. He gestured for another to take up the fallen standard.

‘It is not a victory, not yet. If we prevail, and I say “if” carefully, Brok Gandsson, a dozen of our finest lie dead around us. Grungni alone knows how many others have fallen.’

‘Shall we pursue them? We stand a chance of catching the Headtaker,’ said Brok keenly. ‘Many are the grudges that can be stricken from the Book by his death.’

‘Pursuing Queek is futile,’ said Belegar. ‘We will be drawn into the mass of troops waiting for us and killed piecemeal. We have other foes of direr nature, and closer to hand.’ He pointed his hammer at the second abomination. The first was dead, but in their fury at the losses of their kin, the dwarfs of the Stoneplaits clan continued to hack at it. The second was dragging its vile bulk through the army, mindlessly unaffected by the general rout of the skaven. A bold unit of miners stood their ground in front of its heaving bulk. They buried their mattocks in its sickly white hide, only for them to be torn out of their hands by the convulsions of its flesh. A cannonball smacked into it, as effectual as a child’s marble impacting dough. ‘There is yet one more task for our hammers.’

‘My king!’ Brok bowed. He ordered the Iron Brotherhood to come about face. The king marched with them, his wound concealed by his shield. He gritted his teeth against the pain and told no one of it.

The abomination reared over them, stinking of decayed meat and warpstone-laden chemicals. The weapons of half a dozen clans were embedded in its flabby sides, its underside slick and red with the blood of those it had crushed under its enormous weight.

Upon seeing their king and his guard arrive, the remaining miners fighting the creature took heart and shouted their war cries anew. Those without weapons took up whatever they could find to assail the creature.

‘The heads! Destroy the heads,’ ordered Belegar.

‘They’re high up for a killing stroke,’ said Brok.

‘Then let’s get its attention,’ said Belegar, ‘and make it bring them nearer our hammers.’

He strode forwards. Shouldering his shield, he swung the Ironhammer two-handed, smacking the thing hard on the rump. Waves rippled away from the impact. A second blow shattered a leg, a third a wheel grafted to its rear.

Finally recognising what it felt for pain, the abomination howled and reared up, dragging a pair of dwarf miners off their feet. They hung on to their picks for grim death as it lumbered around to face this new irritation.

‘Khazuk! Khazuk! Khazuk-ha!’ shouted Brok.

The hammerers advanced. Their numbers had been whittled down by a quarter in their earlier fight, and they had been battling for a good part of the morning without rest or refreshment. Lesser creatures would have been weary, and suffered for it. But these were dawi, many highborn, all warriors of the finest mettle. In their endurance they were indomitable, and they swung their hammers as if taking them up for the first time that day. Like triphammers in the forges of Zhufbar, the hammers of the Iron Brotherhood fell in a wave, pounding upon the skin of the horror, snapping bone and mashing flesh. The creature roared, swiping with one of its many arms. The first rank of hammerers were knocked down like pins in a game of skittles, but thanks to their armour few were hurt. The second rank stepped up to deliver another rippled blow. A grasping hand was shattered, a bloated paw burst. Brok Gandsson bellowed a challenge and ran at the side of the creature, pushing himself up the shattered machinery crudely grafted to its limbs. His feet bounced on its rubbery hide, but he kept his footing, ran to the top and cracked it hard over one of its nine heads. The neck attaching it to the sack of its body cracked, and the head sagged, dead. The abomination flung its upper portion to and fro, sending Gandsson flying.

Shouting mightily, the hammerers followed their champion, surrounding the creature and smashing at it furiously. The abomination thrashed, howling horribly. It killed but a few of the dwarfs, and its lower portion was soon so pulverised that its unnatural vitality could not heal all the tears in its flanks. Crying, it sank low, biting at its tormenters, allowing the hammerers access to its heads by doing so. These the dwarfs smashed to pulp one after another as soon as the snapping jaws came near.

Finally, the last head was split. With a tremendous shudder and a pitiful moan, the abomination breathed its last through pulverised lips and broken jaws.

The hammerers gave a ragged cheer.

‘Well done, Brok Gandsson,’ said Belegar, as the Iron Brotherhood helped their bruised but otherwise unhurt champion to his feet with many a clap on the back. ‘A deed worthy of the ancestors.’

Brok bowed his head. ‘My thanks, my king.’

‘Now blow the Golden Horn once more. It’s time we left this battlefield and retreated to the next defence.’ Belegar looked around sadly. To do so meant leaving the deeps completely in the hands of his enemies. From now on, they would be fighting for the citadel’s roots alone.

The war for the underhalls was lost, probably forever.

The horn blower lifted the sacred relic to his lips, but did not blow.

‘What…?’ said Belegar. All dawi eyes looked to the ground.

Through the ground came a rumbling sensation that built steadily until the floor itself vibrated. No dwarf could mistake it for an earthquake. The sensation was too regular, too localised for natural perturbation of the rock.

‘Tunnelling machines,’ gasped Brok.

‘Reform!’ bellowed Belegar. ‘Reform… ahh.’ He gasped, and clutched at his side. Red blood dripped upon the floor. His head swam. A strange, unholy heat radiated from his wound.

‘My lord,’ said Brok in dismay. ‘You are wounded!’

Belegar shouted back, annoyed at himself for betraying his injury. ‘It is nothing – a scratch. I gave the Headtaker more to remember me by than this, believe me. I commanded the army to reform. Look to them, not me. Be about it quickly, or all is lost!’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Brok relayed the order, and his orders were passed on by others. Dwarfs were efficient in all things, and very shortly horns sounded as the dwarfs called back their warriors from the pursuit.

A sound came from behind the Iron Brotherhood’s new square.

‘My king!’ shouted Brok.

Brok pointed at the abomination. Its skin shuddered. Three of its mouths worked. Bones cracked as jaws reset. Eyes grew bright. Flesh knitted together. It vomited freely from all of these mouths, and with a pained squeal, it jerked fully back into life and hauled itself up once more.

Fifteen

Enter Skarsnik

Queek’s scampering slowed. He looked to the ground and giggled. ‘Halt-stop!’ he called, holding up his hand-paw.

The Red Guard tittered, recognising the rumbling for what it was – the anticipated arrival of their reinforcements from the third clawpack. They formed up. Other units were slowing, their flight turning. For a moment they stood in a state of stilled disorganisation, before flowing back together, units consolidating almost magically from the chaotic mass of the rout. From the gateways into the hall more skaven issued. This was the remainder of the first clawpack, ordered to join battle by Queek only when the tunnelling machines made their presence known.

‘Hehehehe,’ snickered Queek. ‘Now we see who is the best, Belegar-king. See, loyal Ska, how the dwarf-things have broken their line in their foolishness. Too quickly they are to believe Queek would run-run! They have fallen for mighty Queek’s trap! They will all die-die, no matter how fast they stump-run to find their clawpacks again!’

Ska frowned. To his simple mind, it had looked like they were about to lose. Ska wasn’t particularly quick, but he was smart enough to know saying so would not be wise. ‘Yes, mighty Queek,’ he said instead.

The vibrations grew stronger, a bone-shaking grinding joining them. The entire hall rumbled. Just when it seemed they couldn’t possibly get any louder, the tone of the noise changed and piles of splintered rock mounded up in various places in the hall.

Queek leapt onto a boulder and brandished his weapons. ‘Be ready!’ shouted Queek, his voice barely carrying over the noise of the tunnelling machines. ‘Third clawpack arrives! Today, mighty Queek take long-fur’s head!’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ squeaked his army.

The snout of a drilling machine appeared from one of the oversized molehills to the north, fifty yards short of the rapidly reforming dwarf army. The drill poked a few feet overground, then withdrew. With nothing to support it, the centre of the hillock collapsed, leaving a gaping hole in the ground.

Queek waited gleefully, his tongue searching out fresh scraps of dwarf flesh and blood in his fur.

Green light issued from the hole. Smoke poured after it. Other machines were poking up out of the floor and walls, and retracting, leaving fresh tunnel mouths behind them. One by one they fell silent and the tremors dwindled.

‘Not long now, loyal Ska. Truly is Queek the most cunning of generals.’

‘The most cunning of the cunningest,’ agreed Ska.

Something emerged from the hole. It was a long way to see for Queek’s weak skaven eyesight. He squinted hard and made out a bouncing, round shape headed for the dwarf lines.

‘That not third clawpack…’ said Ska in dismay.

‘Queek can see that!’ squeaked Queek loudly. ‘Queek know!’

The hole burst outwards as dozens more of the creatures came boinging out, their powerful hindlegs propelling them at great speed into the air. They slapped into the ground, rolling and bouncing, shoving themselves off with their legs to repeat the process. The mushroom stink of green-things blew from the holes.

‘Skarsnik!’ chittered Queek, stamping from foot to foot. ‘Skarsnik! What is this? How does he know? How does he still live?’

As if invoked by the name of their king, the green-things poured in great multitudes from the holes in the ground. Regiments of night goblin archers came first, firing as they ran, the new tunnel mouths wide enough to let them come out four abreast. The skaven, expecting allies to come from the ground, were taken by surprise, and some among the newly rallied army were seized again by panic. Black-fletched arrows fell among them, bringing forth many death-squeaks. The massed skaven retreated from the holes, allowing legions of goblins to flood the hall.

There were many tribes, and many kinds of green-thing. Queek narrowed his eyes and hissed. ‘Imp-thing been busy!’

The greenskins wasted no time in attacking both armies. From a hole opened right before the Gate of Skalfdon, ranks of tittering spearmen, drunk on fungus beer, marched out. They jogged into position on the far side of the dwarfs. Staggering fanatics carrying massive iron balls were pushed from their regiments. They blinked and stared around themselves, laughing and drooling. And then they began to spin.

Faster and faster they went, round and round, the drugs coursing through their veins allowing them to drag the huge weapons they carried up and get them airborne. In a blur of metal and spinning pointed hoods, they connected with dwarfs turning to face the goblins behind them.

The fanatics moved quite slowly, but such was their momentum that they smashed the dwarf shield wall apart, caving in the best armour and pulping bodies. If their initial impact was bloody, their lives after were short. Some spun through into the skaven on the far side; others wavered unsteadily along the dwarf line or turned back upon their frantically shrieking comrades. Ultimately, they came variously to throttle themselves on their chains, collapse exhausted or crash into the pillars and rubble piles that made the hall so hazardous for them.

It did not matter, the damage was done. The goblins followed their fanatics quickly, charging the disordered dwarf lines.

Squigs were running amok through the dwarf army, gobbling down a dwarf with every bound. Queek’s quick mind followed his quick eyes and nose as he judged the situation. ‘Now would be a good time to fall back, lad,’ said Krug, from his perch.

‘Oh, good time for you to talk now, dead-thing,’ muttered Queek. Still, he was of half a mind to follow the dwarf king’s advice, retreating while the beard-things were occupied with a new enemy. Let them wipe each other out. Queek would come back for whoever was left later.

He would have done so too, had Skarsnik himself not appeared.

Skarsnik rose from a hole in the ground in the very middle of the hall. Explosions and flashes of magic surrounded him, the indescribable noise of squigpipes played him in, making sure all saw his grand entrance. He walked cockily from the hole, his attendants carrying banners stuck with the heads of the leaders of the third clawpack. He walked to a pile of fallen rock, and climbed unhurriedly to the top, his rotund pet obediently following. Queek squealed in annoyance. The sheer arrogance of Skarsnik enraged him. He behaved like he was the best, when who was the best? Queek was!

‘Listen, youse lot!’ shouted the green-thing, his voice carried on the magic of the smelly lunatic who always accompanied him. Sure enough, he was there, blowing foul fumes from his pipe not far behind the king’s right shoulder. ‘I’s the king here, so why don’t all you furboys and stunties zog off. Give to Skarsnik what belongs to Skarsnik, and we’ll call it quits.’

With that inspired piece of oratory, Skarsnik held aloft his prodder and let a stream of violent green energy streak into the roof. Razor-sharp shards of rock blasted out from the impact, slicing into whoever was below. Which was mostly goblins, but Skarsnik, true to form, didn’t care about that.

This was altogether too much for Queek.

‘Skarsnik! Imp-thing! Kill-kill!’ he shrieked. He ran forward, leaving his guard behind. They milled about confused until Ska Bloodtail squeak-ordered, ‘After him! After the mighty Queek!’

Seeing their lord and his guard surge ahead, the skaven clan leaders, clawpack masters and other officers decided they had better advance. Their ragged charge became organised as more of them came to the same conclusion and followed.

The skaven were so intent on the goblins that they didn’t notice the ogres change sides.

‘Keep up the fire to the front there!’ shouted Durggan Stoutbelly.

The cannons boomed over the heads of the Axes of Norr, detailed to guard the battery. It was an honourable task, given to them in thanks for their heroic efforts at the door of Bar-Undak.

Borrik ducked as a bolt of green lightning blasted past his face. He snarled in the direction of Skarsnik. The goblin king was stood upon a pile of rock in the centre of the battlefield, capering madly.

‘He looks pleased with himself,’ muttered Gromley.

‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, spitting on the floor. ‘Little green kruti.’

This is not looking good, not looking good at all, thought Borrik. The goblin ambush had surprised both armies, but the dwarfs suffered the most for it. Their flank, anchored by Durggan’s war machines, had become cut off from the bulk of the dwarf throng as a prong of the greenskin ambushers pushed its way through the army. Worse, although Belegar was sounding the orders for retreat, their way from the cavern was blocked by hundreds of grobi and no small number of urk emerging from at least two fresh tunnels.

And there were the ogres as well. This wasn’t a very good day.

‘Here they come again, honourless fat baruzdaki,’ said Borrik. ‘Norrgrimlings-ha!’ he shouted.

A regiment of swag-bellied Ironguts ran up the slope at the much-depleted battery. Only two cannons remained. The others were silent, destroyed by magic or their crew all slain. Dead goblins, skaven, dwarfs and ogres were intermingled around the battery, their corpses dangling from the earthworks and dry-stone walls erected before the battle.

‘Fire!’ shouted Durggan. With a deafening bang and gouts of smoke, the cannons unloaded two lots of grapeshot right into the teeth of the ogre charge. The last few Forgefuries added their hand-cannon shots to the fusillade. The front rank, four ogres wide, stumbled and fell.

Gromley cocked his eyebrow. ‘Now I don’t say it often, but that was impressive.’

‘Well I live and breathe, at least for a few moments longer,’ said Borrik, shouting over the ogres’ deafening war cry. ‘Gromley impressed by something! I reckon I can die happy, and maybe not a little surprised.’

Gromley’s sour response was lost to the clatter of ogre gutplates hitting gromril. The thin line of the remaining Axes of Norr, five all told now, bowed but did not break. ‘At ’em, lads!’ shouted Borrik, and hewed an ogre’s foot away with a single blow of his rune axe. The ogre hopped about, crashing down when Gromley took his other leg off at the knee.

‘Serves ’em right for being so tall,’ he said.

The Axes of Norr hurled back the charge. The remaining ogres broke and fled. The dwarfs let out a small cheer from tired throats.

‘I’d kill for some ale right now,’ said Borrik.

‘You are killing,’ said Gromley, ‘but I don’t see any ale at the end of this.’

‘There might have been more, if the rats hadn’t done for poor old Yorrik,’ said Grunnir. ‘Oh, look at that, they got Albok.’

‘Grungni curse those treacherous ogres,’ spat Gromley.

Albok lay dead, his head open from the crown to his nose, his brains glistening inside his broken helmet. Four Axes of Norr remained standing.

Insane tittering came at them. A pair of fanatics spun into view. Two shots rang out, and both goblins fell with smoking holes between their eyes. Borrik looked up to see Durggan blowing the smoke from his pistols.

‘Aye, good lad, Albok,’ said Borrik. He lifted his shield. Every sinew and muscle twanged with fatigue. There wasn’t much more to say to it than that. They’d grieve properly later, if there was a later.

Goblins milled about just out of grapeshot range, the corpses of the three previous failed charges buried now under dead ogres. ‘That’s right,’ said Gromley. ‘You stay down there.’

‘Hang on, lads, this might be us,’ said Grunnir.

Golgfag was marching up the hill, his maneaters behind him.

‘They’re a mean crew and no mistake,’ said Gromley.

Borrik looked down his meagre line of clansmen, four Axes, three Forgefuries. Where had they all gone? He remembered a time when the Norrgrimlings had been a large and prosperous clan. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do when he got to the Halls of the Ancestors. ‘Grunnir, Gromley, Uli, Fregar, Tordrek, Gurt, Vituk… I’d say it’s been an honour…’

‘Not living, breathing and fighting with this lot of grumbaki!’ said Grunnir.

‘Hush! The time for jesting’s done.’ He gave Grunnir one of his sterner looks. ‘It’s been more than an honour,’ continued Borrik. ‘A lot more. I could say more, I could wax lyrical, but you know what I mean. We’re dawi, aren’t we? I’m not an elf to collapse into tears and give everyone a cuddle.’

‘Dawr spoken,’ said Gromley.

Golgfag’s ogres were breaking into a charge.

‘Norrgrimling khazuk! Khazuk-ha!’ Borrik said. His warriors repeated the words. He wondered what each was thinking here, at the last stand of the Axes of Norr.

He supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they stood by him until the end.

Durggan was lining the cannons up to get one last shot on the ogres. One of his crew let out a cry and fell, a black-fletched grobi arrow sticking from his throat. Another died, slumping over the gun with a warpstone bullet embedded in his chest.

‘Keep it up! Keep it up!’ barked Durggan. ‘We’ll not fall without one last blast, eh, lads?’ He helped the remaining crewman of the cannon to line up the barrel. The second was ready, the last dwarf of its crew grasping the firing string, but Golgfag raised a pistol as big as a dwarf handgun and blasted him off his feet. As he was thrown backwards, the dwarf jerked the cord. An ogre took the ball to his gutplate, sinking to his knees with blood gushing around his hands. The other ogres hurled themselves into the Norrgrimlings. Golgfag singled out the thane, and attacked.

As proud and skilful a warrior as Borrik was, he could not stand against the Maneater. Golgfag quickly put him down with a punishing blow to the head. Through blurring vision, Borrik saw his remaining clans-dwarfs smashed down, barged off balance by fat stomachs, then bludgeoned by umgi-high clubs.

The maneaters wheeled and went for the cannon. Durggan, working on his own now, struggled to get the last piece aligned.

‘Not today, stunty,’ said Golgfag. He drew another pistol and blew out Durggan’s guts with it. So died the chief engineer of Karak Eight Peaks.

The ogres halted. There were none left alive on the high ground except Borrik. He couldn’t move.

‘Look at this lot,’ said Golgfag waving his giant hand out over the battlefield. ‘This is madness! Nobody’s going to win this. Stunties in the north-east, skaven to the south, gobboes in the middle. It don’t make sense.’

‘They are not soldiers, not like we are, captain,’ said one ogre, almost as massive as his master and dressed in outsized Imperial finery.

‘What now, Captain Golgfag?’ said another.

‘I reckon we’re done here. Fulfilled our side of the contract. We’re never going to see that dwarf king’s gold if we stick around for the end of this mess. It don’t matter whose side we’re on. Besides, I got a healthy down payment.’ He patted a bulging pouch at his side. A gold object was poking out of it. Even through his near insensibility, Borrik recognised the crown of Vala-Azrilungol, lost for ages. He added that to his growing mental list of grudges.

‘Kulak, shout the withdrawal. We’re leaving.’

‘Captain! What about that one? He’s still alive,’ said someone Borrik couldn’t see.

Golgfag swung around and looked right at Borrik. The ogre chief walked towards him, his boots filling Borrik’s vision. A rough hand grabbed his mail and rolled him over. Borrik found himself staring into the lumpen face of the world’s foremost mercenary captain.

‘Tough little buggers, your lot,’ said Golgfag. ‘I really hate fighting dwarfs. You take ages to kill. All that armour! Haha! Ha!’ he laughed, as if to include Borrik in his joke. A gale of halitosis swept over Borrik, rank with poorly cooked meat. ‘It ain’t nothing personal, stunty. Business is business.’ Golgfag patted Borrik’s chest with a massive hand.

‘The lads are coming, captain,’ said the finely dressed maneater.

‘Right then,’ said Golgfag, looking away. ‘West tunnel, third in. Looks very badly guarded. We’ll fight our way out that way. Any objections?’

None came.

‘Good.’ Golgfag hitched his trousers into a more comfortable position and stood, his gut obscuring Borrik’s view of his face.

‘What about him?’ said an ogre. ‘You not going to kill him?’

‘The stunty? Nah,’ said Golgfag, leering down at Borrik. ‘It’s your lucky day, shorty. Like I said, I’ve fulfilled my part of the contract. I’ve finished here.’

The ogres left Borrik lying in the shattered remnants of his clan.

If I ever get out of this alive, he thought, I’m donating my entire treasury to the priesthood of Valaya, and then I’m taking the Slayer oath.

Queek butchered goblins by the score. Spears of wood and toughened mushroom stalk shattered under the blows of his weapons. He snarled and spat as he slew them, squeaking in frustration as his blades became fouled in their filthy robes. He was attempting to reach the hated imp, Skarsnik, the so-called king. But for every goblin he slew, there seemed to be a dozen more. They tried to retreat from him, and wisely, but could not for they were packed into the hall so tightly. The dwarf artillery had been silenced, but Skarsnik was still blasting skaven and dwarf-things alike with impunity with the prodder. Queek had witnessed Skarsnik’s magical trident at work many times in the past, but never like this. It glowed with green light so bright it was nearly white. The glare of it left painful after-images streaking across his vision. The energy bolts it threw seemed many times more powerful, and more numerous, than ever before.

‘Let me pass! Get out of Queek’s way!’ shouted Queek at a group of skaven who found themselves in his path. They were lowly clanrats, scared beyond comprehension. They stared at him stupidly as he yelled at them to move. They did not, so he cut them down where they stood. Skarsnik was now only one hundred and fifty scurries from him. The goblin had seen him and was gesticulating obscenely. A bolt of green light came after his gestures, singeing Queek’s whiskers as he threw himself out of the way.

‘You wait-wait, green-thing. Today you die-die!’

Queek leapt onto a pile of rubble, and from there threw himself into the melee swirling around its base. He cleared himself a space, slaughtering combatants from both sides. An ogre was close, isolated from his fellows a few yards further on. Queek launched himself at it, slamming his pick’s spike into the creature’s forehead. He used this to arrest his leap – curving over the ogre’s back, he yanked Dwarf Gouger out in a spray of blood and brains. Landing nimbly, he found himself alone on bare rock, as skaven, goblins and the ogre’s comrades fled from him.

The way to Skarsnik was clear.

Queek gathered himself for another leap, tittering evilly.

The ground shook. Light blasted around him and he fell to the floor, Dwarf Gouger clattering from his grasp. His ears rang from the blast. When he looked up, goblin and skaven corpses smoked all around him.

At first he thought he had been hit by Skarsnik, but the goblin was gone from his rock pile. Away to the right of where Skarsnik had capered, Queek caught a glimpse of pale grey fur, almost white.

‘White-fur!’ hissed Queek. ‘You pay for this with your head!’

Kranskritt rose from a tunnel in the centre of the cavern, arcane power crackling around him, and came to rest on the side of a toppled pillar. He snarled imperiously and flung out one hand-paw. The ground rumbled. Fissures opened like hungry mouths, swallowing creatures of all kinds indiscriminately. Queek started, meaning to run-scurry at the white-fur and strike him dead. But there was something else with him, a shadow behind him, half hidden by the black glare of Kranskritt’s magic.

Verminlord. Queek snarled. At first he thought it the same one as had come to him, but it was not. The horns were different, for one, and it was less hidden in the shadows than the other.

‘Two verminlords in the City of Pillars?’ he whispered to himself, ill at ease. ‘Unprecedented.’

The ground shook regularly as Kranskritt and his master – for the verminlord was almost certainly the weak-willed sorcerer’s ruler – unleashed a storm of earthquakes, sending even the agile Queek staggering. Snarling, he ran towards Kranskritt.

‘Fool-fool! Stop-stop!’ shouted Queek.

To his surprise, Kranskritt heard him and looked down. An expression of pure, malicious calculation crossed his face. His hands rose. Queek tensed, ready to dodge. His warpstone amulet pulsed with protective magics.

The moment passed and Kranskritt performed a deep bow. One without any sign of submission, the sort of acknowledgement given to an equal! Kranskritt was getting too confident. Another reason to kill him.

‘Do not despair, mighty Queek!’ the sorcerer shouted over the noise of his patron’s continuing magical barrage. ‘I came from my hunt in the mountains as quick-quick as I could. Clan Scruten will aid mighty Queek and save the day from green-thing treachery!’

The verminlord loomed over Kranskritt. The grey seer’s tail swished easily, given confidence by the proximity of the daemon. Queek snarled. His mind worked fast. If he killed Kranskritt now, it would be in front of everyone at a time when the sorcerer was helping turn the battle. Furthermore, he had a verminlord stood right behind him. Queek fleetingly considered matching his blades against it, but wisely decided not to.

He shouted instead. ‘Fool weak-meat! You send the green-imp scurrying away from mighty Queek’s blade! You will pay for this!’

‘And mighty Queek was doing so well without me,’ said Kranskritt sarcastically. ‘See! The goblin tunnels collapse. They are trapped! You win-win, mighty Queek. You are correct – I should be paid for this. I should be paid many-much warptokens, not with unkind bite of steel.’

Queek bared his fangs and held his serrated sword up in challenge to the seer. Then with a swift turn he sprang away, seeking others to vent his anger upon.

He would kill Kranskritt later. He promised himself that he would.

A great tremor ran through the ground as the skaven daemon and his pet sorcerer unleashed another earthquake. The goblins’ tunnels fell in, opening long trenches in the floor. Warriors from all sides fell into the gaping pits.

Belegar’s plans were in tatters.

‘A thousand times a thousand curses on Golgfag and his honourless ogres,’ said one of his bodyguards.

‘Yes,’ said Belegar absently. He watched the skaven sorcerer. He was troubled anew. Daemons were abroad in Vala-Azrilungol.

‘They are ogres. It was a gamble, a poor roll of the dice, no more, my lord,’ said another.

Belegar shook with anger. ‘It’s not that. I don’t understand,’ said Belegar. ‘How did Skarsnik know? How did he speak with them?’

Behind his back, the hammerers shared glances. This was an oft-repeated story: bold King Belegar outwitted by a goblin.

The abomination was finally dead, for good this time, but the price had been high. The crushed corpse of Brok Gandsson leaked its life-fluids onto the bare rock, pinned under the bulk of the twice-living monster. Only thirty or so of Belegar’s elite hammerers remained.

Belegar looked at the disaster unfolding in the hall. Durggan’s battery was shattered; all his men and those set to guard him were dead. The sorry remnants of the flank the artillery had anchored were surrounded on all sides, cut off and beyond hope. The horns sounded the retreat time and again, but many of the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks were mired in battle with one faction or the other and could not retreat. Either that or they had fallen into all-consuming fits of hatred, desperate to bury their axes in their despised foes. These dawi had lost all reason and did not heed the signals. Worst of all, the path to the doors of Clan Skalfdon was thick with goblins.

‘Sire, sire!’ said a familiar voice.

‘Drakki?’ Belegar said flatly. ‘Why aren’t you with the rearguard, recording our…’ He wanted to say defeat, he should have said defeat, but somehow he couldn’t. He was bone weary, not merely from today, but from fifty years of chasing an impossible dream. Defeat was too big a word to fit into his mouth.

‘The rearguard are with you, my king. The lines have collapsed. We have been pushed together.’ He gestured at the shrinking knot of dwarfs, units fighting back to back. ‘Bold dawi await your command, my king.’

Belegar was dazed. ‘I…’

Drakki grabbed the king’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Do something,’ he whispered.

It was thanks to the mercy of Valaya, Belegar supposed, that the ogres were leaving the hall, killing anyone of whatever army who got in their way. He blinked. The fuddle of emotion clouding his mind receded.

‘Blow the charges,’ he said.

‘My king?’ said Drakki.

‘I said, blow the charges,’ Belegar repeated, more clearly. He hefted his hammer. His warriors breathed easier seeing their lord return to them.

‘Are you sure this is wise?’ said Drakki.

‘No. But they are rigged to collapse the hall to the south. If Durggan did his work well – and when did he ever not? – we should be able to retreat through the gate.’

‘Dawi of Karak Eight Peaks! Dawi of Vala-Azrilungol that was! To arms to arms! Make for the gate!’ called their thanes.

Horns blew loudly. The dwarfs checked their aggression, forming up into squares and blocks.

‘Do it now,’ said Belegar.

A complex tune played from the Golden Horn of the Iron Brotherhood.

‘To the fore! To the fore!’ shouted Belegar’s clan lords.

The dwarfs, now in a broad column, lurched like a train of ore carts beginning their journey. Slowly they gained traction, and then they were away, axes and hammers falling, carving a red path through thaggoraki and grobi alike towards the great doors of Clan Skalfdon.

Three minutes later, long fuses burned their way to the charges hidden around the bases of the pillars to the southern end of the hall. Twelve explosions followed one another quickly, their reports amplified to deafening levels by the enclosed space.

The pillars ground on shattered bases. Broken at top and bottom, they tumbled with apparent slowness, an illusion created by their great size and weight. They broke into many pieces as their toppling accelerated, falling on the hordes of Belegar’s enemies as effectively as bombs and bringing torrents of stone from the ceiling with them, killing hundreds more.

The dwarfs fought on, too occupied to pay much attention to the roof falling in behind them. The collective scream of skaven and goblins being crushed chilled even boiling dwarf blood.

‘My king,’ shouted Drakki. He pointed upwards. Belegar followed his arthritis-knobbed finger to the ceiling. ‘Something has gone wrong!’

A crack was opening across the sky of stone, dislodging glimstones that had shone for five thousand years. The fissure spread with ominous leisure, slowly, as if it were sentient, and choosing for itself the most devastating route. Stones rattled down on the column of embattled dwarfs.

Shouts rose from along the force’s length ‘Ware! Ware! Cave-in!’

The dwarfs raised their shields over their heads, as the roots of the world fell in upon them.

Sixteen

Queen Kemma’s Oath

‘Tor Rudrum is gone, vala,’ said Gromvarl.

Queen Kemma set down her riveting pliers and sagged over her metalwork. She did nothing but thread mail links to one another all day every day, because there was nothing else for her to do. Belegar would not let her out, nor would he see her.

‘We are trapped, then,’ she said.

‘Aye, lass,’ said Gromvarl. He reached out awkwardly to pat her back. ‘That’s about the size of it. A flight of gyrocopters came in yesterday.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Only one got through, Kemma,’ he said gently. ‘The rest were shot down by the thaggoraki. They’ve overrun all the peaks, those that are not in the hands of the grobi, at any rate.’

Kemma gave a sad nod, staring at the shining hauberk, perfectly crafted although not yet finished, in her lap.

‘The last one, pilot by the name of Torin Steamhammer, just got in before the ledges were taken by grobi on spiders.’

‘Spider riders? I thought they lived in the forests in the lowlands.’

‘They did,’ said Gromvarl, wheezing as he sat down on a three-legged stool. He took his pipe out from his jerkin and filled it. He thought to take a half-bowl, for there was precious little tobacco left in the Eight Peaks, just like there was precious little of anything fine remaining. But with things the way they were he figured he probably had scant days left to smoke what small amounts he had, and after a second thought rammed it full with his thumb. ‘All sorts of monsters up here now. Things I’ve never seen in the mountains before. The world’s in turmoil, vala.’

‘Do you have to call me that?’ Kemma said sharply. A booming played under their conversation, deep and monotonous, never stopping – the beat of an orcish battering ram on the great gates of the citadel. The greenskins had been at it ever since they’d driven the dwarfs back from the outer defences. Belegar’s warriors did what they could to keep Skarsnik’s hordes back, but they were low on everything bar rocks to drop on the besiegers. ‘You’re my only friend, Gromvarl. My only link with home.’

Gromvarl looked at her fondly. How much she’s grown, he thought. Such a pity the way fate falls. ‘Aye.’

‘He still won’t talk to me, will he?’

Gromvarl shook his head, sending his clouds of smoke shifting about his head.

‘My son?’

‘Thorgrim’s fine, my lady. He’s fretting about you. Keeps asking his dad to come and talk things through, but Belegar’s having none of it.’ He didn’t tell her that Belegar had precious little time for his heir either. He had become withdrawn, pale. He wasn’t sleeping, he was sure of that. Dawi were tough, and Belegar tougher than most, but that wound he was trying so hard to hide from everyone was not only obvious, it was not healing. Gromvarl was worried, very worried, but he did his best to hide it from Kemma behind an air of grave concern.

‘My husband is an arrogant, prideful fool, Gromvarl,’ said Kemma.

‘He’s one of the best, if not the best, warrior in all the Karaz Ankor, va– Kemma.’

‘He’s an idiot, and we’ll all die because of him.’

Gromvarl couldn’t disagree in all honesty, so he harrumphed and looked around the chamber, searching for the right thing to say. It was austere, cold, lacking a womanly touch. He found it depressing that such a good-hearted rinn as Kemma should have been brought to this. He was glad he did not have daughters. He was glad, in these awful times, he had no children at all. Still, he had not finished imparting his run of bad news. He mulled over how much he would say, but he had promised to keep her up to date.

A promise is a promise, he reminded himself. Without honour, and trust, what did they have left? An oath lasted longer than stone and iron.

‘There’s more, Kemma,’ he said quietly. Kemma fixed him with her eyes, expressionless, waiting patiently. ‘The gyrocopter brought a message from Karaz-a-Karak. After he read it, the king sat on his own in the Hall of Pillared Iron all day, bellowing at anyone who came near. He only told us what it said this morning, when he’d calmed down. A bit. Most of the holds are under siege, it can’t be much longer before they all are.’

‘And?’ said Kemma. ‘There is more, isn’t there, Gromvarl?’

The longbeard sighed. She always was far too clever. ‘Karak Azul has fallen.’ His heart pained him to speak it aloud. ‘King Kazador and Thorek Ironbrow were both killed, an ambush in the high passes some time ago.’

Kemma drew in a sharp breath. Ironbrow in particular was a terrible loss. None had his wisdom and skill with the runes. Much sacred knowledge was lost with him.

‘The hold was overrun not long after,’ continued Gromvarl. ‘The message from the High King was the same as all the others the king has had these last weeks.’

Kemma clutched at the hauberk. The rings tinkled. Gromril, by the look of it. ‘This is for Thorgrim,’ she said. ‘He’s outgrown his last.’

‘He’s getting a good girth on him,’ said Gromvarl approvingly. ‘He’ll be a strong lad, and a good king.’

Much to Gromvarl’s dismay, Kemma burst into tears.

‘He’ll never be king! Can’t you see? It’s all over. They’re coming to kill us all. They’ll kill you, and the king, and my son!’

Gromvarl reached out his hand uncertainly. A year on, his arm still pained him. Though it had set true, it had been wasted from weeks of disuse, and half-rations were no aid to building its strength back up. ‘Come on now, lass, there’s no need for that. It’s worse than it was even in the time of King Lunn, I grant you, and yet your husband is holding out. There’s not many who could do that. The runes might no longer glow upon the gates…’

‘Why?’ demanded Kemma. ‘The magic of the ancestors deserts us.’

Gromvarl clucked his tongue and rattled his pipe on top and bottom teeth. ‘No one knows. No one knows anything any more.’ It was a poor answer and did little to satisfy her. He blundered on. ‘My point is, they’re strong still. They’re tall, made of stone, steel and gromril. Made to last forever. They have not fallen yet. Why,’ he forced a smile, ‘the urk have been at it for days and they’ve not even dented them.’

‘There are many things like that in the dwarf realm, supposedly eternal, and they are failing one by one,’ said Kemma. She wiped her eyes, angry at herself for her lapse in control. ‘I’m sorry, but this is my son! A curse on dawi heads and the blocks of stone they call their brains. We should have gone months ago. Pride will kill us all.’

‘You’ll see,’ said Gromvarl. ‘Things are bad, but we’ll prevail. We’ve less ground to cover now the surface holdings are gone. Duregar’s finally been called back from the East Gate. We’ve some strong warriors here. Good lads, and brave. Most are veterans. I’ve not seen such a lot of battle-hardened dawi in my life. With them at our backs we’ve every chance. We’ve still got our defences. Kromdal’s line is the strongest yet. There are only four ways through that: the King’s Archgate, the Blackvault Gate, Varya’s Stonearch and the Silvergate. Hundreds of dawi wait there, and they’re all spoiling for a fight. And if they get through that there’s the Khrokk line, and after that…’

‘After that they’re into the citadel,’ said Kemma harshly. ‘Belegar is waiting for our enemies to fall on each other, or to wear themselves out. But they won’t. Ogres, greenskins and thaggoraki have us under siege. There’s never any less of them, and fewer of us every day. We’ve nowhere left to run. My husband’s too set in his ways! He can’t see that they’re not going to kill themselves on our shield walls – they’re going to keep coming until they break through and destroy every last one of us.’

‘It’s worked all the other times.’

‘This isn’t like all the other times! Valaya preserve me from the thickheadedness of dawi men!’ she said. ‘You’ve already told me there’s no help coming. We’ve not changed, Gromvarl. It’s why we are going to fail. Doing the same thing over and over and over… All it has to do is not work once. It didn’t work at Karak Azul. Why should it work here? They killed the reckoner. Dawi killing dawi! Do you know why?’ She didn’t give him a chance to respond but answered for him. ‘They killed him because he knew. Because he wasn’t a tradition-bound fool.’

‘Because he was helping you leave,’ said Gromvarl. He deliberately avoided the word escape.

‘It could have been you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t.’

Gromvarl sighed around his pipe stem, and patted her hand. She was right. Kvinn-wyr was overrun, all the surface outposts, the East Gate three weeks back. The citadel was all they had left, and only the part above the ground at that.

‘It’ll all be fine, you’ll see,’ he said.

Kemma grasped his hand. She smiled through her tears. ‘You have been a loyal servant. You are wise beyond the length of your beard, and a fine warrior, Gromvarl, but you are a terrible liar.’

He humphed and clicked his teeth on his pipe.

‘Don’t get into a huff! I’m no beardling to be coddled. If we’re to die, then I’ll do it with my hammer in my hand,’ she said. Her smile hardened with resolve. ‘This I swear.’

Seventeen

Ikit Claw at the Eight Peaks

‘Patience, Queek, patience. You cannot kill Kranskritt, not any more.’

Queek hissed and gripped the arms of his throne. He didn’t like this new advisor of his much. For a start, the dead-things he had so carefully collected over his bloody career would no longer speak with him while Lurklox was around. Secondly, the verminlord showed no deference or fear towards him whatsoever. Kranskritt’s daemon ruled him utterly. Queek was determined the same would not be the case with him. He had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t succeeding.

‘Pah! What sneaker-squeaker know?’

‘I killed many thousands for the Council while I still lived, little warlord,’ said Lurklox menacingly. ‘Deathmaster Snikch’s skill is a poor imitation of my glorious ability.’

‘What you know of killing in plain view, Queek means! You hide and hide before stab-strike. Too cunning, too cautious. Mighty Queek sees an obstacle, mighty Queek destroys it! Hidey in the dark is not my way.’ Queek grumbled and settled into his throne. ‘Why all this pretence-pretending! It boring! Queek bored!’ He cast a look at his favourite trophies, arrayed upon a massive rack fanning across the back of the throne. Dwarf Gouger and his sword were in a lacquered weapon stand taken from some Far Eastern place to his right. All down the aisle leading to the throne-burrow mouth were heaped piles of dwarf banners. The right claw of Clan Mors liked to boast he had more dwarf standards than the dwarf king himself. But to have them all on display made him uneasy. These were Queek’s private things! Not to be seen or touch-sniffed by any other. Mine.

‘You will do as I say, small creature,’ said the voice, coming first from near, then from behind and then to his left, ‘or I will devour you as surely as the Horned Rat himself devoured Kritislik. Arrogance is a virtue, but too much of a good thing is still too much.’

Queek glanced about. Lurklox had disappeared completely; the twitching shadows that betrayed his presence were not visible. Queek felt the first stirrings of fear. He shifted on the throne, acutely aware of his musk glands for the first time in years.

‘You are right to be afraid, O most mighty and invincible Queek,’ mocked Lurklox’s voice, coming from nowhere in particular. ‘I know you are wary of the Deathmaster, and yet perhaps one as talented as you in kill-slaying might best him in open combat. Yes-yes,’ the voice turned to musing. ‘That would be a good-fine match to watch. But I am not the Deathmaster. I am Lurklox, the greatest assassin ever to have been pupped in Skavendom! In my mortal years my name alone could stop a ratkin’s heart. In open battle you would stand no chance against me then, and now I am the immortal chosen of the Horned Rat himself. You could never beat me.’

Queek’s ears twitched.

‘Oh I know-smell you think of it, and that a part of you wishes to try. Against the lesser verminlords of the Realm of Ruin, you might even triumph.’ The voice hissed close to his ear, startling Queek. ‘Never against me! And if we were to come to violence-conflict, it would never be face to face. You would die screaming in your sleep, mad-thing Queek, and I would place your head upon your trophy pole to rant at those you killed, for no one else would hear your words. This would be my kindness to you, for the pain would be great but the humiliation worse. Do as I say-command. You are important to my plan-scheme, but no one is indispensable. You should know that. You should understand. Do you understand, Queek?’

Queek stared straight ahead, unblinking. ‘Yes-yes,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘Good. Now listen-hear to what I say-squeak. You cannot kill Kranskritt. You know why. News of his success has already reached Skavenblight. My brother in darkness aids him. They seek to regain the seers’ position on the Council. I suspect this to be the will of the Horned Rat, to test his chosen. The seers of Clan Scruten always were his favourites. I see no reason why they are no longer. My advice is that it would be foolish to disturb this test.’

‘Kranskritt is powerful, useful-good,’ said Queek. ‘You say this Soothgnawer wanted to create good impression with Kranskritt’s victory by helping mighty Queek? This is nonsense. He wants Queek dead, to take all glory for his scheming white-furred self. When Kranskritt is no longer useful, he is no longer good. Then Queek slay-kill. If you try stop me, then we will see if mighty-dark Lurklox say-squeaks the truth about supernatural battle-prowess.’

‘You are not as mad as they say.’

Queek giggled. ‘Mad or not, Queek still mighty.’

‘That you are, Queek of Clan Mors, although you have many enemies. Too many for even you.’

‘Kranskritt, Skrikk, Gnawdwell, Soothgnawer and Lurklox,’ he said rattling the names off quickly. ‘Queek does not care.’

Lurklox did not speak, Queek knew he was reading his body language and scent for the lie in his words, probably his mind too, and he knew also that Lurklox would find none.

‘I withdraw,’ the daemon said presently. ‘Ikit Claw comes. Do not reveal my presence! It will be worse for you than would be-is for me.’

Queek chittered his acknowledgement, irritating though it was to be beholden to the verminlord.

The hall fell silent. Lurklox allowed none near Queek while they spoke. Not even the dead-things. Not even loyal Ska!

Queek could hear the clanging iron frame and steam-venting hiss of the approaching Ikit Claw long before he could see him. It was not by accident that the dignitary was forced to walk the lengthy corridor. Queek watched the warlock slowly approach. He did not move fast, being more machine than rat, but there was a solidity to him, a stolidness too, that was lacking in other ratkin. He reminded Queek of a dwarf-thing. Queek suppressed a titter at the thought.

Ikit Claw did not speak until he had finally clanked to a stop before Queek’s towering trophy throne. A voice rasped behind his iron mask. ‘Greetings, O great Queek, Warlord of the City of Pillars. I bring-carry tidings. Yes-yes, I have slain many beard-things – I have broken Iron-Peak!’

Queek had heard that the rival Clan Rictus had as much to do with bringing Azul-place low as Ikit had, but he was too canny to mention it. What Ikit Claw said was as much provocation as delivery of news; Queek’s own failure years ago to destroy Karak Azul was widely known.

Queek squeaked in annoyance as Ikit drew in a long metallic breath, presaging a long flurry of ritual greetings and mock-flattery. Queek went straight for the point.

‘Why-tell are you here?’

A menacing green glow emanated from Ikit’s iron mask. ‘I bring great Queek tribute. The Council bid I gift you Clan Skryre weapons. Very kill-kill, these devices.’

Ikit paused. If he was expecting gratitude, he was disappointed.

‘Where-tell are they? Show mighty Queek!’

A grating clunk sounded from Ikit’s metal face that might have been a noise of regret. ‘Clan Mors will not be granted direct usage of these weapon-gifts. Much work has gone into their creation by Clan Moulder and Clan Skryre, although mostly hard-work thinkings of Clan Skryre. Trained teams of Clan Rictus direct them where Queek needs.’

‘I see-smell,’ said Queek coldly. ‘Is cunning Ikit Claw also to remain, to hold Queek’s hand-paw all the way to victory?’

Ikit raised his paw to his chest and bowed slightly. ‘Unfortunately not. As mighty Queek doubtless knows in his most labyrinthine and devious mind, the chief servants of the Council must hurry-scurry on and on. I cannot stop-stay,’ he said. ‘I am bid-go to the mountain of the crested beard-things, there to make much war-killing, and end another infestation of dwarfs for betterment of all skavenkind. Fool-clans besiege Kadrin-place for many months, and cannot break it. I have much fame, much influence. I killer of dwarf-places. They call for me to come here. But mighty Queek does not need much help, does he? Not like weak-meat fighting the orange-beards.’

Without waiting for a reply, the master warlock engineer turned tail and began clanking his way back. ‘But I will be back if Queek cannot do the task,’ he said. ‘So speaks the Council of Thirteen.’

‘We shall see-see,’ said Queek softly as he watched Ikit painfully clatter his way out again. ‘While fool-toys of Clan Skryre face beard-things, Queek will deal with his other enemy, and then we see-smell who is the greater. Tomorrow, Skarsnik imp-thing dies on my sword.’

‘Wait, Queek, there is another way…’ said Lurklox. The shadows thickened once more, and a rank smell of decay filtered into Queek’s nose from behind his throne. Ikit Claw left the throne-burrow and the door slammed shut. Queek levered himself out of his chair and gathered up his things. He felt better once his trophy rack was on his back. He lifted his weapons. ‘Yes, there always another way, rat-god servant. There is Queek’s sword, and there is Queek’s Dwarf Gouger. Two ways is enough choice for Queek! Skarsnik die by one of them. Which, Queek not care.’

‘Queek!’ said Lurklox warningly. ‘We must be cunning…’

But Queek was already scampering away, calling for his guards and the loyal Ska Bloodtail.

At the Arch of Kings, dwarfs waited.

A tributary of the Undak had once run through the cavern, and the arch had been built to bridge it. In its day, the cavern was among the most glorious places in Karak Eight Peaks, a cave of natural beauty enhanced by dwarf craft. The river had gathered itself together from six mountain streams in a wide pool below a small hole some half a mile upstream. The dwarfs had channelled the flow into a square trough five dwarfs deep and sixteen wide, coming into a broad grotto of cascading flowstone. Lesser channels led off from the river to aesthetic and practical purpose, flowing in geometric patterns around stalagmites, before exiting the cavern through various gates and sluices to power the triphammers of the western foundries.

The river was long dry, the streams that fed it blocked by the actions of time or the dwarfs’ enemies, the natural columns and peaks of the stone smashed. The trough had become instead a dry ditch, the rusted remains of the machinery that had once tamed the river broken in the bed. But the walls were true, sheer dwarf masonry still flawlessly smooth, affording no purchase to the most skilful of skaven climbers, and so it still presented a formidable obstacle to invaders. For fifty years the Arch of Kings had aided Belegar in keeping the ways open between the citadel and the dwarf holdings in Kvinn-wyr. Additionally, it provided an easily defensible choke point to fall back to, should need arise. Now the dwarfs had been driven out of their halls in the White Lady, that need had arisen, and the ditch kept the enemy from coming any closer to the citadel from the mountain. The Arch of Kings was the key defence for the west.

Belegar’s enclave had erected a gatehouse on the eastern side of the riverbed, modest by the standards of their ancestors’ works, but sturdy enough. As the road descended from the apex of the bridge’s curve, it encountered thick gates of iron and steel that barred the way to the citadel. A wide parapet with heavy battlements hung over the road, overlooking the river beyond. The wall-walk was machiolated over the foot of the bridge, to allow objects to be dropped onto the heads of attackers. Similarly, murder holes pierced the stone of the gate’s archway before the gate and behind it. A portcullis was set behind the gate, behind that, another gate, and behind that was a regiment of ironbreakers, well versed in the arts of war and irritable with the lack of decent ale.

Ikit Claw’s weapons went there first.

‘Movement!’ called Thaggun Broadbrow, the lookout that fateful day. His fellow quarrellers immediately started on the windlasses of their crossbows, drawing back the strings. They were practised; their bows were drawn quickly and the sound of bolts slipping into firing tracks clacked up the battlement.

‘See,’ said one to another, ‘I always held that crossbows are better than guns. Where are the handgunners, eh? Out of powder, that’s where. Whereas me, my lad, will always have a missile to hurl, as long as there’s a stick and a knife to sharpen it with to hand.’

‘Aye, true that, Gron, too true.’ Gron’s companion tapped out his pipe on the wall and carefully stowed it before fitting his own bolt into his bowstock. ‘Always be able to send a couple of them away, no matter what the situation.’

‘Grim. That’s what it is, Hengi. Grim.’

‘Aye. Grim comments for grim times.’

‘Rat ogre!’ called the lookout. ‘Rat ogre...?’ Thaggun’s voice trailed away into astonished query.

Gron peered out into the dark. ‘Now what by the slave pits of the unmentionable kin is that?’

‘Big, that’s what,’ said Hengi, sighting down his weapon at the beast approaching.

Big didn’t cover it. This was the largest rat ogre any of them had ever seen, and being dwarfs oathsworn to defend Karak Eight Peaks to the bitter end, they’d seen more than their fair share of the things. This one was a head higher than the biggest, covered all over in iron and bronze armour. Grafted to each arm was a pair of warpfire throwers, the tanks feeding each thick with plating.

‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said someone. ‘Why isn’t it charging?’

‘Ah, who cares? We’ll have it down in a jiffy,’ said another.

‘Not before it goes crazy and kills half its own!’ said someone else.

But the rat ogre plodded forwards, showing none of the snarling, uncontainable antipathy its kind usually evidenced.

‘Quarrellers of the Grundtal clan! Ready your weapons!’ shouted Gron.

The clansdwarfs rested their weapons’ stocks on the battlements, secure in their position behind the thick stone.

‘Take aim,’ called Gron.

They each chose a point on the rat ogre.

‘Loose!’ said Gron, who would never be caught dead saying ‘fire’.

Artfully crafted steel bows snapped forwards on their stocks, sending bolts of metal and wood winging at the rat ogre, by now halfway across the bridge. A unit of skaven bearing the banners of Clan Rictus ran cautiously behind it.

Not one of the bolts hurt the creature. They hit all right, but clattered off its armour. A couple punched through or encountered weak spots and stuck in the creature’s flesh, but it was unaffected.

‘Reload! At it again!’ cried Gron. ‘You lot down there better be ready,’ he shouted through a hole to the gate’s ironbreaker guards.

Quickly the dwarfs wound back their bows and fitted fresh missiles. Again they fired, to similar effect. Several clanrats fell screaming from the bridge, felled by wayward bolts, but the rat ogre stomped along, blinkered by an eyeless helm. There was a smaller rat riding its back, Gron noted. The rat ogre’s arms came up to point brass nozzles at the gates.

‘Everyone down!’ yelled Gron.

With a whooshing roar more terrifying than dragon-breath, green-tinged fire belched from the rat ogre’s weapons. It washed against the gates and melted them like wax. Backwash shot up through the murder holes onto the parapet. Several quarrellers were hit this way, spattered by supernatural flames that would not go out. They screamed as the fire burned its way through cloth, armour, flesh and bone.

The sharp smell of molten metal hit Gron’s nose. The Axes of Clan Angrund below were shouting, orders to form up and sally forth echoing up. It did no good.

The warpfire throwers blazed again. The rat ogre held them in position for a long time, melting its way through the portcullis and the second gate. The stones warmed under Gron’s feet. Screaming came from below as the ironbreakers were engulfed. A terrible way to die – Gron had seen it before. They would be cooked alive in their armour, if not outright melted.

‘Bring it down, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘Get it away from the bridge!’ Doing so was suicidal, but this thing had to be stopped.

His warriors stood up and crossbow bolts rained down. At this close range they had greater penetrative effect, and the rat ogre roared in pain. It took a step back and raised its arms.

‘Down!’ shouted Gron, and once more the quarrellers hit the stone flags. The battlements could not save them. Green fire washed over and around them, setting the quarrellers ablaze. Gron felt the diabolical heat of it as a patch stuck to him, charring its way into the skin of his left arm. A gobbet of it hit his right thumb. He gritted his teeth; no one suffered like a dwarf. But try as he might, the agony was unbearable and he screamed.

The fire abated. His arm and hand no longer burned, but were useless. His left arm he could not feel at all aside from an awful warmth. His right hand was clawed and blackened. His dawi were all dead or mortally wounded. The stone of the parapets glowed red-hot, the crenels melted back to rotten-toothed stumps.

Hengi rolled onto his back, groaning.

‘Hengi! Hengi!’

‘My eyes… Gron, my eyes!’

Gron looked out. The rat ogre had moved aside. Skaven waited for the ruined gates to cool. He saw then that the rider of the rat ogre was nothing of the sort, but some hideous homunculus grafted to its flesh.

‘Hengi, Hengi, take my bow.’ He thrust his weapon at his blinded kinsman as best he could with his ruined limbs. Hengi’s hands were sound, but his upper face was a red raw mess, his eyes weeping thick fluids. Lesser creatures would have been howling in agony, but they were dawi. Pain could not master them. ‘They’ve something controlling the rat ogre, some creature of theirs. If we can kill it, we might be able to stop it.’

‘Shoot then,’ said Hengi, his voice thick with bottled pain.

‘I cannot, my arms are ruined. You will have to do it. Let me aim it for you, here!’

Gron guided Hengi to a crenel whose merlons were not red-hot, pushing him with his shoulders into the gap. The pair were hidden by the smoke of stone burning beneath them, allowing Hengi to fumble the crossbow onto the wall. Gron got behind Hengi and sighted down it as best he could.

He squinted. ‘Left a touch. Up, up! No, down. Easy, Hengi. Now,’ he said.

The last discharge of a dwarf crossbow upon the King’s Archgate occurred, sending a bolt fast and true to bury itself in the wizened creature on the back of the rat ogre. The monster reacted immediately, shaking its head as if coming out of a drugged sleep.

It roared. Clanrats squeaked in fear. The warpfire throwers belched again and again, fired by the furious monster without thought. Gron looked on with satisfaction as the rat ogre spun round, setting the regiment alight. Presently its fuel ran out and the skaven brought down their wayward creature eventually, but only after one regiment of thaggoraki had been entirely destroyed, and three more fled.

Gron looked back over the dry river. The darkness was alive with movement and red eyes. As soon as the rat ogre was dead, they were on the move again.

He sank back against Hengi. Soon the skaven would be coming for them.

‘Let’s not let them take us alive, eh? Lad?’ said Gron. ‘You’ll have to go last, I can’t move my hands at all.’

Hengi nodded. His knife slid from his belt.

All along the third line of defence, similar things were happening. Rat ogres armed with ratling guns, upscaled poisoned wind mortars and other terrible weapons came against the dwarfs. One by one the gates fell, with such speed that the dwarfs of the Khrokk line had no time to prepare, and this too fell the same day.

The way was open to the citadel.

Eighteen

A Gathering of Might

Duffskul hiccupped and waddled along the corridor to Skarsnik’s personal chambers in the Howlpeak. He hummed to himself as he went, trailing clouds of stinking shroomsmoke behind him. He was wearing his best wizarding hat – a once very bright yellow, now so grubby it was almost green – and a collection of charms that hummed with Waaagh! magic.

The little big ’uns and moonhats by Skarsnik’s chambers scrambled over themselves to open the doors.

‘A fine welcome, oh yus. You got the right respects for your betters, grotty boys,’ he said. They simpered gratefully at his praise.

In the corridor it was freezing; the constant winds whistling through the windows gave the mountain its goblin name and its hurty-bit biting temperatures. In Skarsnik’s rooms it was a different matter, swelteringly hot from the fire blazing in the hearth. Duffskul brought in a gust of sharp-smelling winter with him, but it was swiftly defeated, carried off by the vapours steaming from his robes in the sudden heat.

‘Duffskul, me old mate,’ said Skarsnik, looking up from his work. As usual papers tottered around him, and on many other desks too, to which he flitted as he worked. He wrinkled his eyes, holding a parchment at arm’s length.

‘Too much reading’s bad for you, boss, oh yus.’ Duffskul kicked old bones, rags and bottles out of the way as he made his way over to a sturdy dwarf chair near the fire. Gobbla lay asleep on the filthy rug before the flames, whiffling gently in his sleep.

‘Someone’s got to keep these zogging idiots in line,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Can’t do it if you’s not organised…’ His words trailed away as he deciphered whatever it was that he had written there.

‘I always said you was a funny little runt. Done us proud you have wiv all that thinking there in the old brain box.’ Duffskul rubbed his hands together in front of the fire and sighed contentedly. His heated robes gave off the most noxious smell. ‘Ooh, that’s nice, ooh, that’s very nice!’ He smacked his lips and pulled out his gourd of fungus beer. He sloshed it around disappointedly. ‘If only I had a little drinky to help meself really enjoy it.’

Skarsnik had gone back to his work, the enormous griffin quill in his hand scratching over his parchment.

‘Wanna drink? Help yourself,’ he said distractedly.

Duffskul didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed up the nearest bottle and uncorked it. ‘You is running low.’

‘And you is going to have to brew up a lot more fungus beer. And preferably stuff that don’t taste of old sock!’ said Skarsnik. ‘Precious few stunty barrels to nick, and none of the grapey goodstuff coming out the west these days, so don’t you go gulping it all. I needs me drinks to thinks,’ he said, and giggled quietly.

Duffskul guzzled anyway, glugging priceless Bretonnian wine right from the bottle until it had nearly all gone. ‘Ahh! Now that is better. Ooh, that is a lot better.’

‘Right. Now you is all nice and comfy, why don’t you tell me what you is doing here,’ said Skarsnik, finally looking up and laying down his quill. ‘I am a very busy goblin.’

‘Ain’t you just, ain’t you!’ giggled Duffskul.

‘Get to the point, you mad old git,’ said Skarsnik affectionately. Duffskul had been with him right from the very start, and had stuck with him when others had wandered off, turned traitor or inconsiderately died.

‘Well, we has questioned the ratty scouts.’

‘Yeah?’

‘And we has kept careful watch on their doings and all that, oh yus.’

‘Tolly’s boys?’

‘Best sneaks in the peaks,’ said Duffskul. ‘And I has been trying to speak with da Twin Gods! Gork and Mork, what you has visited and who is the mightiest greenies of them all.’

‘Right. And? Are the ratboys going to attack, then? They’ve got them stunties well bottled up. Only a matter of time before they make their move on me. When and where, that’s what I want to know, when and where.’

‘And you shall know, king of the mountains!’ Duffskul swivelled in the armchair, and leaned on its torn, overstuffed arm. ‘The rats are going to try and drive us out for good, starting with orctown in the old stunty city and da camps outside the walls.’

‘Right,’ said Skarsnik, who had expected as much. ‘East Gate?’

‘Drilla’s boys went to kick out the stunties yesterday. Empty. Well, it was – full of black orcs now.’

‘Hmm.’ Skarsnik drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Well, let’s ambush the little furry bleeders.’

‘They’ll be expecting that,’ said Duffskul.

‘Course they will! That Queek’s not an idiot, even if he is as mad as snot on one of your better madcap brews. But what he’s not gonna be expecting is a special ambush, and so I’s going to make it a very special ambush. He’ll definitely not expect that!’

‘Oh no, oh yus,’ said Duffskul.

‘The Waaagh!’s building, Duffskul, greenies coming to me from left right and centre.’ He paused, and looked down at his lists, running ink-stained fingers down the parchment. ‘I reckon I should meet with this Snaggla Grobspit. Drilla’s lads have already come over. Time to take that cheese-stealing maniac to task, don’t you fink?’

‘Oh yes, boss! Oh yes. Oh yus,’ said Duffskul, his eyes spinning madly in his face. ‘And I’ve got a cracking idea meself.’

‘Have you now?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Right then, tell me all about it, and we’ll figure out exactly what we is going to do…’

The paired skaven warpsteam engines at the gates of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars chuffed madly, whistling as they vented pressure to equalise their efforts. Masked Clan Skryre engineers looked out from the haphazardly armoured embrasures holding their machines, then scuttled back to their charges, fiddling with knobs and tossing levers. Satisfied that their pistons were synchronised, the tinker-rats blew whistles at one another, then set about yanking more levers into the correct positions to open the doors. The tone of the engine’s voices deepened as their gearing wheels thunked into position, engaging with the massive cogs that worked the door mechanisms. Huge gear chains twanged as they came under tension. Machinery hidden high in the roof of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars rattled, and the great gates of the underhalls of Karak Eight Peaks creaked open.

The skaven massed behind the doors shrank back in terror of the sunlight. Few of them had ever been overground, and the prospect of a world without a roof sent a chitter of nervousness through their ranks.

‘Hold-hold!’ their masters ordered, cracking whips and punching the most timid.

The gates crushed rubble and other detritus to powder as they opened. Ponderous but unstoppable, they were one hundred feet tall. The tired sun picked out their decoration as they swung inwards, the runes and clan marks of the beard-things that made them still fresh as the day they had been carved.

‘Forward!’

The first claws of skaven scurry-marched up the ramp leading into the surface city.

All around Karak Eight Peaks, skaven emerged blinking and terrified into the sunlight, pale though it had been made by the choking ejecta of the world’s volcanoes and the endless, uncanny storm that wracked the skies. At the fore of the warriors emerging from the Hall of a Thousand Pillars into the surface city went Ikk Hackflay, a rising star in Queek’s entourage. He was a logical replacement for Thaxx and Skrikk, whose heads now graced the Grand Warlord’s trophy room.

From the skaven-held mountains, more warriors emerged. Four of Queek’s five clawpacks. Reduced by months of war, they still numbered in the tens of thousands. Over one hundred thousand warriors marched forth. Every column flinched as it walked out into the day, and not just for the frightening lack of a ceiling. They all expected to be ambushed as they came out, no matter how well hidden or supposedly secret their burrows were.

They were not ambushed. The immediate fighting they had planned for never came. They surfaced instead to a ghost town. The thickly packed orc-shacks and tents in the city were empty, as were the encampments in the weed-choked farmland beyond the city walls.

Queek surveyed all this impatiently from the top of part of the rubble slope created by the collapse of Karag Nar.

‘Careful, Queek,’ said Krug from his trophy rack. ‘He’s a wily one, that Skarsnik.’

‘What news?’ he said to his gathered lieutenants. ‘Grotoose?’

‘Nothing, great Queek.’

‘The fifth clawpack has found not one of the green-things, exulted Queek,’ fawned Kranskritt. Queek gave him a hard look. He still did not trust the grey seer. Only Lurklox’s insistence kept the wizard alive.

Skrak reported the same, as did Gnarlfang and Ikk Hackflay, who had been furiously stomping from place to place in search of something to kill.

‘There is no one here,’ said Gritch, his assassin’s voice pitched just over the wind soughing through the dry winter grasses. There had been precious little snow that year, though it was bitingly cold. ‘The siege camp is empty. They have abandoned their attack on the gates. There is a new idol in the main square of the beard-thing city. Stone and iron, it stares-glares with skull-eyes at dwarf-thing fort-place.’

‘So good your scouts are. Well done! So skilled to find big stone giant, but not little things,’ Queek said. ‘What about scouts sent to the mountain halls and peaks? Where is the Skarsnik-thing, where are his armies?’

‘Many scouts not scurry back, great Queek,’ said Gritch, bowing low.

‘Queek very impressed.’

Gritch began to protest, but Queek cut him off. ‘Big-meat ogre-things?’ said Queek.

‘Gone with the gold,’ said Skrak.

‘Fools,’ said Queek. ‘Why they so obsessed? Gold soft, useless.’ He held up his sword and looked up its length. ‘Not hard-sharp like steel. They like to eat, more than a skaven gripped by the black hunger.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe they eat it.’

‘Skarsnik has gone then,’ said Grotoose. ‘He has fled the wrath of mighty Queek!’

Queek rounded on him, raising Dwarf Gouger. ‘Oh no, do not be mistaken. Little imp watches, little imp waits to see what we will do. Little imp thinks he will beat Queek in very-very cunning-clever trap. But little imp will not trap Queek.’

‘Will he attack in the day?’

‘Skaven love-like the night. We scurry under the big roof now that is no roof at all. Skaven not like it, pah! But Skarsnik’s little soldiers no different.’

Kranskritt glanced nervously up at the sun, shining pale yet still menacing through the thick cloud. ‘What do we do then, mighty one?’

Queek wondered if he could strike the seer dead now. He could, he thought. Lurklox was not there, and he did not see Soothgnawer – nor did he think he was near, for his trophies whispered their wisdom to him, something they did not when either verminlord was close by. He refrained from acting upon his whim.

‘We clear the city as planned, Queek decrees! Tear it all down, break it to pieces, smash the imp-thing’s little empire on the surface as we smashed his town in the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. Then we will see if he can be tempted out or not.’

Orders were given, and the army split into its various components to cover the vast area encompassed by the bowl sheltered by the eight peaks. Clan Skryre engineers set up their war machines near the mostly securely held skaven mountains in case of attack, while the armies subdivided further and began the work of demolishing the greenskins’ settlements. In ruined fields covered by scrubby forest, greenskin shelters were kicked down. Clanrats clambered over the crumbling dwarf city, levering stones out of the walls of rough-built huts. Warpfire teams torched entire villages of tents, while wind globadiers tossed their poisons into ruins and caves that might hold monsters. Teams of rat ogres tackled the bigger structures, clawing down idols of stone, wood and dung.

None, however, could bring low the great idol of Gork staring fixedly at the citadel in the centre of the city. Queek followed the line of its gaze. Glints on the battlements of the citadel showed dwarfs powerlessly watching as the skaven rose up to take control of yet more of their ancestral home.

‘Soon, Belegar long-fur, it will be your turn,’ hissed Queek.

The idol was as tall as a giant, but much more massive, its crude arms and legs made of monoliths stacked on top of each other and chained in place in crude approximation of orcish anatomy. A huge boulder with crude eyeholes hacked into the face topped it off, a separate jaw of wood hanging by more rusty chains from its face. It looked as if it should be pushed over easily, but would not fall. Warpfire splashed off the rock and iron. Warp-lightning crackled across it without effect. More powerful explosives were sent for. All the while the idol hunched there, apish and insolently strong as the day wore on.

Still Skarsnik did not come.

From his position atop the parapets of Howlpeak, Skarsnik watched the skaven go about the business of wrecking orctown. Fires burned everywhere.

‘They is behaving like they own the place, burning our houses down,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Old Belegar is probably loving every bit of this.’

‘Should we go and get them now, boss?’ said Kruggler. Crowds of orc and goblin bosses hung around him, the lot of them sheltering under nets and swags of cloth covered with dust and dyed grey to hide them from the skaven’s eyes.

Skarsnik snapped his telescope shut; the skaven weren’t the only ones to steal from dwarfs. ‘In a minute, Kruggs.’ He swept his hand out towards the eastern peaks. ‘We’ll wait until they’re nice and spread out, then we’ll attack, smash the centre, rout the rest and have a nice big ratty barbecue.’

‘I is not for waiting!’ grumbled Drilla Gitsmash, king of the Dark Lands black orcs. What with his thick accent, he was almost unintelligible behind his heavy, tusked visor. ‘We should get out there and smash ’em good now. I is not for waiting!’ he repeated.

‘Oh yes you is, if you want to win,’ said Skarsnik, looking up at the black orc as if he weren’t twice his size and four times his weight, before re-extending his telescope and turning back to the view. ‘But if you wants to go out there on your own and get chopped up to little itsy bitsy pieces, then go ahead. I is sure my boys could do with a laugh. No?’ Drilla said nothing. ‘Good idea that. Best to wait until we’re all going out. Is everyone in position?’

‘Yes, boss,’ said Kruggler.

‘Tolly Grin Cheek?’ This was not the original supporter of Skarsnik from way back, but the fourth murderous goblin to bear the name, and the facial scars that went with it.

‘He’s up behind them, boss.’

‘And that Snaggla fella? Not sure about him. Tell you, spiders is fer eating, not riding – and what’s this nonsense about some spider god? How many gods are there, boys?’

‘Gork and Mork,’ said one. ‘That’s four.’

‘Five?’

‘Definitely more than one!’

‘One,’ grumbled Drilla. ‘Mork don’t count.’

‘There’s two!’ said Skarsnik, his voice becoming shrill. ‘Two. Gork and Mork. Not three, or lots, or twenty-two thousand.’

Goblin faces creased in pained confusion at the mention of this incomprehensible number.

‘I told you, boss, I fought wiv some of them forest boys up north in the Border Princes,’ said Kruggler. ‘They is real sneaky. Morky as you like. You’ll love it.’

‘Right,’ said Skarsnik. He gave the vista one last pass with his telescope. He squinted at the sun. Noon, as near as he could reckon it. Not good for his night boys, but it couldn’t be helped. ‘Now or never,’ he said. ‘Positions, lads. And get the signal to Duffskul sent!’

Skaven passed under Duffskul’s nose. From the shoulder of the idol he was looking right down at the top of their pointy little heads, and some of them looked right back at him. He pulled faces at them and laughed at how close they were. They couldn’t see him, couldn’t smell him, didn’t know he was there at all. They milled about, trying one thing after another to destroy his idol, arguing over how it had got there. Duffskul knew the answer to that, of course.

It had walked.

It had taken him ages to ride it back down from old Zargakk the Mad’s wizlevard cave, way up over the Black Crag. A risky journey, but funnily enough, he hadn’t been bothered by anyone at all on the way back.

A single puff of smoke, black as a night goblin’s robes, rolled up into the sky over the tumbled parapets of the Howlpeak’s Grimgate. Duffskul laughed. He did a little dance. He whispered horrible things in the general direction of the skaven.

And then he did his magic.

‘What-what is that noise?’ said the skaven warlock nearest to the idol’s foot.

‘What noise?’

‘Deaf-deaf, you are! A scream-shriek, getting louder.’ The pair of them looked left, looked right and all around them, turning in circles to find the source of the rapidly loudening cry.

‘I hear now!’ said the second, exactly half a second before a goblin smashed itself to paste yards from their position. All that was left was one twitching foot, a shattered pair of canvas wings, and the echoes of its scream.

Only then did the skaven, born and bred in a world with comfortably low skies, think to look upwards.

Goblins were arcing through the heavens in long lazy curves, swishing their wings back and forth like birds. The illusion was impressive. One could almost think a goblin could fly, so at home the doom divers seemed in the clouds.

They were, unfortunately for the goblins, as aerodynamically gifted as boulders, and their flights lasted only marginally longer. Unfortunately for the skaven whose regiments they steered themselves onto, they did about as much damage as boulders too. A goblin’s head was uncommonly dense, especially when crammed into a pointed helmet.

‘Look-look!’ The second skaven tugged upon the sleeve of the first.

‘Yes-yes, I see! Flying green-things, very peculiar.’

‘Not there,’ he said, grabbing hold of his colleague’s head and pointing his gas-masked face at the head of the idol, their field of vision being somewhat restricted. ‘There!’

The skaven looked up at the idol. The idol, eye-caves glowing a menacing green, stared back.

‘Waaaaaghhhhhh!’ the idol shouted.

The skaven shrieked as a heavy rock foot ground them out of existence.

Atop its shoulders, Duffskul whooped. By way of reply, the mountains and ruins of Karak Eight Peaks resounded to the blaring of horns and the clanging of cymbals, the roll of dwarf-skin drums and the tuneless squeal of the squigpipes.

With a rapid clacking, the Grimgate swung open, splitting the grimacing orc-head glyph painted over the ancestor runes in two.

Out marched legions of greenskins. They headed right for the centre of the city.

‘All right, Mini-Gork, I believe we’ll be needing to go thataway!’ said Duffskul.

With rumbling strides accompanied by the grinding of rock, the Idol of Gork swung about and set off towards the enemy.

‘He is coming! Green-imp shows his hand-paw! Foolish green-thing. Loyal Ska, sound the advance!’

Skaven cymbals clashed, and the entirety of Queek’s first clawpack rose up from its hiding places. Forming rapidly into claws, the elite of Queek’s army made a wall of strong, armoured ratmen across the widest of the Great Vale’s shattered boulevards.

‘Forward!’ shouted Ska. ‘Forward for the glory of Queek! Forward for the glory of Clan Mors! Forward or I’ll kill-slay you myself!’

Ikk Hackflay’s Ironskins were off first, the fangleader eager to prove himself. Queek had had his eye on the skaven ever since he had raided Belegar’s lower armouries months ago, taking enough dwarf armour to equip his entire claw, changing their names from the Rustblades to the Ironskins afterwards. From the speed he set off at, he evidently felt Queek’s scrutiny upon him.

Lightning blasted skywards from the ground, bursting goblins apart in the air. Some got through, some of those shattered the scaffolds the lightning cannons were mounted upon, and so the goblin doom divers and the best of Clan Skryre occupied one another.

‘That’s good, that is,’ said the dead dwarf king Krug. ‘Stops them from smashing your lads up.’

Queek hissed irritably. ‘Of course, Queek knows this. It is all part of Queek’s plan!’

Down the slopes of the mountain, innumerable hordes of goblins poured. Queek glanced nervously around the mountain bowl, across the city and out beyond where the lower reaches of the further peaks were hazy. His eyesight was as good as any skaven’s, which is to say at distance, not very good at all. But he saw no sign of movement elsewhere, and heard no sound of battle.

‘Ska!’

‘Yes, masterful Queek.’

‘Send messengers. Be sure to warn our lieutenants. This is not the fullness of the green-things’ force.’

Ska nodded, detailing his own minions to fulfil the orders.

Meanwhile, Skarsnik’s vanguard were jogging forwards to form a broad front. Queek ordered the slaves ahead, and with a terrified chittering, caused as much by the snarling packmasters at their rear as fear of the enemy, they surged across the mounded ruins of the dwarf city towards their greenskin foe. As the slaves neared, the goblins laughed loudly and shoved out whirling fanatics towards them. Queek had seen this so often by now that the tactic no longer held any surprises for him, but he remained wary of them. They spun round and round, laughing madly, hefting giant metal balls at the ends of long chains that should have been impossible for a goblin to lift.

He could not see their connection with his slave legions directly. The bodies of weak-meat tossed high in the air by the goblins’ swinging balls informed him of when it happened anyway.

‘Pick up speed! Hurry-scurry!’ shouted Queek. The Red Guard broke into a jog, their wargear clattering. ‘Mad-thing green-things will come through, kill-slay slaves – we must be through before they can turn and chase Queek!’

Queek’s elite burst through their screen of slaves, hacking down those who did not get out of the way. The goblins had advanced some three hundred yards from the Grimgate, filling the wide road and spilling into the ruins either side. The city here had been much reduced, piles of rubble with twisted trees poking out from them or greened mounds showed where once workshops and homes had stood. It made for difficult ground to fight over.

The town sloped downwards from Queek’s position, following the contours of the Howlpeak. Above was the still-open Grimgate. Ikk Hackflay’s Ironskins pushed their way out of the slaves there, slightly ahead of Queek’s formation. From his vantage, Queek saw the broad, bloody lanes through the skaven created by the fanatics. These wobbled in uncertain lines, some looping right the way back round towards the goblin lines. The casualty numbers were horrendous, but all were slaves and of little worth. Queek snickered; they had performed their role excellently. The fanatics were falling one by one, smashing into low walls, dropping from exhaustion, or becoming hopelessly tangled with the slaves, their miserable deaths aiding the skaven cause far more than the ratkin ever could in life.

The slaves were thinned by panic, fanatics, bow-fire and doom divers. Clanrats came through them to support their general. Poisoned wind globadiers ran before them, approaching perilously close to the goblin lines before heaving their spheres of gas into their foes’ tight-packed ranks.

Queek sniffed the air. The wind was rank with greenskin. Neither his nose nor his eyes could pick out Skarsnik. ‘That way!’ he shouted, pointing directly at the centre of the greenskin force. ‘Come-come, quick!’

With a fierce cry, the Red Guard ran forwards. They burst through their screen of slaves and into the goblin vanguard, where they hacked their way through two mobs of goblins in short order. Queek’s view of the battle became restricted. He heard rather than saw the charge of Hackflay’s Ironskins, and the following clanrats. The first line of goblins bowed under pressure, nervous of the stormvermin carving their way through and the masses of clanrats coming next.

Deeper into the greenskin army Queek pushed, spinning and leaping, effortlessly felling the feeble warriors. Another goblin regiment parted before him, throwing down their shields and crooked spears rather than face him. His Red Guard skidded to a halt, momentarily cowed by the massive mob of black orcs they saw on the other side.

‘Oi! Squeaker!’ shouted their leader, a massive brute of an orc. ‘I’m gonna have you!’

The black orcs executed a flawless turn to the left, and charged.

‘Kill-slay them all!’ squealed Queek. ‘Breeding rights to the three who kill most big-meat!’

Spurred on by his generous offer, Queek’s Red Guard broke into a run. The two elite units met with a clash of metal that drowned out all else.

These were no goblins, but the ultimate orcs, bred by magic in the slave pits of Zharr-Naggrund. They smashed down the Red Guard with their huge axes. The Red Guard duelled with them, seeking to keep the black orcs at arm’s length with their halberds. The skaven felled a good number, but there were many, and they were fearless. The Red Guard’s advance ground to a halt. Their leader pushed his way forwards, levelling his massive two-handed axe at Queek.

‘Come on then, Headtaker! I’ve heard a lot about you. Nonsense, I reckon.’

The greenskin’s accent was outlandish, but Queek understood. He replied in the beast’s own language.

‘Come die then – always space for more trophies for Queek!’

The orc roared and charged, bowling over a Red Guard who got in the way and trampling him down into the dirt. Queek spun round, allowing the orc to pass him, then smashed the spike of Dwarf Gouger through its chest. The orc made a noise of surprise. Queek finished it with a thrust through its visor slit with his sword, skewering the orc’s small brain. It fell over heavily.

Queek wasted no time, prising off its tusked helmet and sawing its head off. He handed it to one of his guard, who jammed it upon a free spike on Queek’s rack. He’d left many empty for today.

Seeing their leader cut down disturbed the black orcs, and the Red Guard pressed their advantage, surrounding them and hewing through their thick mail with their halberds. Clanrat regiments had cut through the shattered goblin vanguard, joining Queek. They pressed back at greenskins moving to fill this potential gap in the line.

‘Ska! Break them!’ called Queek, cutting down two more of the black orcs.

Ska nodded, slammed a black orc out of the way, and leapt at their standard bearer.

The black orcs’ metal icon wobbled in the air as Ska attacked, then fell.

The orcs, reduced to a knot surrounded by ferocious skaven, broke. Queek and his warriors cut many of them down. Predictably, the greenskin centre collapsed around them. Seeing their toughest regiment destroyed, and well aware that their destroyers lingered still in their midst, a huge tranche of weaker greenskins broke.

‘The way to the gates are open!’ squealed Queek, forgetting in his exultation exactly who he was dealing with. The clanrats surged forwards after the fleeing goblins.

Horns sounded from all across the city. The left and right flanks of the goblin army angled inwards, coming at the mass of skaven from both sides. A fresh wave of doom divers began to rain down from the sky, unsettling the skaven with their shrieks. They plummeted into the horde of ratmen with final wet splats, their broken bones and flying harnesses shattering into spinning shrapnel that cut down many ratkin. Under the ferocity of this suicidal bombardment, the clanrats’ advance slowed and began to break up.

‘No! No!’ shrieked Queek. ‘We have them!’

He bounded up onto a ruined wall, the last corner of a building torn down who knew when. The age-worn stones were cold under his bare foot-paws.

Queek hissed at what he saw. Goblins were pouring out of the mountains to the west, encircling his rear. The huge idol they had discovered that morning had come to life, smashing its way through the skaven centre, some sorcerer atop it flinging bolts of green lightning from its shoulder. Queek wished for a screaming bell, or an abomination or two, but the dwarf-things had slain both of his. From caves thought cleared came a stream of squigs, including one big as a giant. It squashed as many skaven as it ate. Lesser round shapes bounded around its feet. A collective squeak of terror drew Queek’s attention to the foot of Karag Zilfin, where mangler squigs carved red ruin through his army.

Queek returned his attention to the fleeing goblins. Skarsnik had lured him into a trap, that much was certain, but it was not going to plan. The green-imp’s bait force had not rallied and fled still.

Even so, the skaven army was at a disadvantage.

Squeaks from the foot of the wall called to him. His minions had caught up with him. A gaggle of messengers stood there, waiting expectantly to carry fresh orders away.

A final messenger, its fur matted with drying blood, came to a panting stop. ‘Great Queek! Much terror-slaughter on the east. Giant spiders attack.’

‘How big? Fist-paw big?’

The messenger shook his head and swallowed. ‘Wolf-rat big and… Much-much bigger.’

Queek bared his teeth in anger. Away out beyond the outer edges of the city, into the derelict farmland to the east, many death-squeaks were being voiced. He narrowed his eyes. In his blurred distance vision, large shapes lurched against the pale horizon.

Just as he thought he was getting a paw on the situation, a terrifying screech rent the air and there was a snap of leathery wings. A dark shape swooped overhead, bringing with it a carrion stink and a sharp, reptilian smell.

A wyvern bearing an orc warboss landed heavily right in the middle of the clanrat regiments behind Queek.

A fresh wave of panic rippled through the clanrats around his position. This proved too much for them. Predictably, they ran. A huge section of the skaven centre collapsed. There was now a large part of the central battlefield devoid of combatants, each side running from the other. Queek was left alone with his Red Guard, who held fast about the Great Banner of Clan Mors.

‘Stand! Stand! Cowards!’ squealed Queek. He turned to his messengers with a snarl.

He pointed to one.

‘Kranskritt!’ he commanded. ‘Go to him! It is most important he kill-slay the idol!’

He spared a look for the rampaging rock construct. Warp-lightning crackled around it with no effect.

To another he said, ‘To the Burnt Cliffs with you – call out the reserves.’ He spoke then directly to Ikk Hackflay and Grotoose. ‘Ironskins and rat ogres, pursue green-thing rout.’

‘And you, mighty leader?’ rasped Ikk.

Queek scanned the sea of black-robed goblins, seeking out the tell-tale splash of red that would reveal the location of Gobbla, and therefore his master. Queek could not find him! The imp-thing would have to wait. He turned his face to the wyvern flapping about the battle and slaughtering clanrats.

‘Queek has other matters to attend to.’

Nineteen

War in the Great Vale

‘Waaagh!’ cackled Duffskul madly. He danced a little jig and threw bolts of green lightning from his fingertips, blasting skaven to pieces with every shot. His knees popped as he danced, but he was too excited to care. Swarms of ratmen fled before the feet of the Idol of Gork, squealing in terror. Wherever the stone monster went, skaven units burst apart like ripe puffballs, disintegrating into individual warriors who ran in every direction like mice fleeing an orc. ‘That’s right, ya little ratties! That’s right! Run away!’

Duffskul’s eyes glowed with the surfeit of Waaagh! energy washing over the battlefield. From atop his idol he could see right across the Great Vale for miles and miles. The main scrap was right there, in the old dwarf surface city, but smaller skirmishes were going on right the way across the entire bowl. Outside the walls, wolf riders ran down blocks of skaven infantry. Streaks of green whizzed down from on high where jezzail teams discharged their guns. Doom divers plummeted from even higher up. Batteries of goblin artillery duelled with skaven lightning throwers, sneaky gobboes dripping in night-black squig oil fought running battles with groups of skaven assassins. Right at the back, mobs of spider riders ran amok, unopposed by anyone. The ratboys were trying to bring their lightning cannons about, but weren’t having much luck. Not long now and they would smash up the skaven artillery. There was a lot more to see than just the big ruck at the centre, oh yus.

Duffskul liked a nice fight, and this was the biggest and best he had ever seen. There were loads of greenies! Lots of lots, boys from every tribe and every kind of greenskin you could think of – except sneaky hobgobboes and stupid gnoblars, naturally – while there were so many ratties on the other side that he couldn’t even begin to count them, and Duffskul could count pretty high for a goblin. It was a proper Waaagh!

‘Waaagh!’ he screeched. ‘Waaagh!’ The powers of Gork and Mork flooded through him and out his arms and toes and nose, the great idol of mad old Zargakk filling him with power.

What had happened to Zargakk, Duffskul had no idea. No one had seen him in years. He was probably dead. Good thing too, or there’d be no way Duffskul would have got his hands on the idol.

‘Come on, Gork!’ he called. A phantom foot formed from the magic spilling from Duffskul’s skin. With a screech he sent it smashing into a unit of ratties, squashing them flat. He laughed uproariously, so hard he cried. Orc magic that one; Duffskul might be crazy, but he was deeply in favour with the Great Green Twins.

The idol lurched to one side, nearly tipping Duffskul from his perch on its shoulder. With desperately scrabbling hands, he caught himself on the rough stone. Sucking his lacerated fingers, he cast about for his attacker.

A flash of black lightning crackled against the idol, making it moan. It stumped around to face its tormentor, a white-furred skaven sorcerer who was hurling magic of his own at Duffskul’s new pet. Unlike the blasts from the skaven cannon, this was hurting it.

‘Oi!’ he shouted, responding with a crackle of his own destructive magic. He screamed in triumph as it fizzed towards the skaven, but the rattie waved a dismissive hand, and the green light of Waaagh! power dissipated. The sorcerer raised his hands and hurled twin blasts of blacklight at the idol’s knee. Duffskul countered, but the magic got through, weakened, but still effective. With a tinkle, the chains binding the menhirs of the idol’s left leg burst apart. The idol took another step, reaching out crude hands to grab the sorcerer, but its foot was left behind.

‘Watch out! Watch out!’ Duffskul said in horror as the footless leg descended once more.

The idol let out a moronic bellow as it fell. The ground rushed up at Duffskul.

‘Heeeeeelllllp!’ he wailed. The idol crashed down, breaking into a dozen pieces of bouncing rock that rolled all over the place, trailing wisps of dying magic.

The sorcerer stood triumphantly, sure of his victory.

Duffskul was having none of that. Bruised but otherwise undamaged, he stood and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Oi! Ratty! Who do you think you are?’

The rat snarled, exposing the tiny needle teeth either side of its flat incisors. Its eyes went dead-black. Smoke tinged with purple flares poured from its mouth.

Duffskul threw up his own hands. Giant green fists formed around them. He held out his hand, a hand that had become the magic-wreathed, crackling fist of Gork himself. He swung at the sorcerer, who warded off Duffskul’s magic with his dark mist. Duffskul swung again. The skaven responded too late, and Duffskul grabbed him hard.

‘How you like that, eh, ratty? Orc magic that. I know it because I is the chosen of Gork and Mork, their teller of fings to Skarsnik, who was raised up high because of me!’ He squeezed hard. The skaven squealed.

‘We make deal-deal?’ it said in mangled greenskin.

‘I don’t fink so.’

Duffskul sucked in deep, inhaling the winds of magic rushing over the excited orcs and goblins. Power filled him. So much power! He could drink it all in and then he’d be the bestest wizlevard who ever lived, mighty as the gods themselves!

Duffskul’s head hurt with the strength of it, a good pain, deep and satisfying, like the kind of itch it is a pleasure to scratch. The magic-light flaring in his eyes bleached out his vision.

Duffskul giggled. The skaven white-fur shrank in his magic fist. ‘I’m gonna do this proper, you squeaking cheese-thief,’ said Duffskul. Determined to make a show of it, Duffskul fished inside his robes and pulled out a piece of shamanshroom. He taunted the skaven with it.

‘You know what this is, ratty? This is a shamanshroom. From da deep caves, where only those in da know can go. An old shaman, taken root, you might say, gone into da great green! But they leaves some of their magic behind, leaves it for the likes of me to eat up and squish ratties like you. Oh yus.’

Duffskul popped the leathery fragment in his mouth and chewed hard with black teeth. Something of the dead shaman’s residual power flooded into him, augmenting the magic coursing through Duffskul to catastrophic levels. Everything went far away. He could hear the laughter of the Twin Gods in the distance. Sometimes that was a good sign. But not always, far from it.

‘Now I is… Now I is…’

He hiccupped. Something went pop deep inside his brain. Duffskul frowned.

‘Whoopsie,’ he said.

With a wet splotch, his head exploded, fountaining a great deal of blood and a lot less brain all over the remains of the idol and the skaven sorcerer both.

The green fists evaporated into mist, and Kranskritt fell, taking in a deep and welcome breath to his bruised lungs.

‘Heh heh, green-thing. Very good. Very interesting. But you dead now.’ He frowned and leaned in to check. The green-thing’s head had gone, what was left soaking messily into his dirty yellow robes. ‘Yes-yes, definitely dead.’

Trying to salvage his dignity, Kranskritt brushed as much brain off his clothes as he could and walked away, checking all the time that no one was looking.

Skarsnik held up his prodder and waved it. Horns sang out all through the fleeing tribes. The regiments immediately stopped and turned around. A few of the more enthusiastic lads carried on going right through the city and up the mountain slopes; others were too far gone in panic to heed the rallying horns, but the majority – and all of these were Skarsnik’s own boys, he noted proudly – reformed their ranks. A fresh flood of night goblins poured out from the gates to reinforce his back line.

Skarsnik peered under the black cloth covering Gobbla. ‘You all right under there, mate?’ he said. Gobbla snuffled back. ‘Good.’ Skarsnik looked up and down his lines. All in order. ‘Let’s see what we can see,’ he said and unsnapped his telescope.

The skaven army was in total disarray. Split up by Skarsnik’s ambushes, large parts of it were isolated into groupings of a few hundred strong. He watched with satisfaction as the foreigner Snaggla Grobspit and his giant spiders tore apart the skaven war machines. But it wasn’t over yet. The Headtaker had a strong force about him, and was heading for that cocky big head Krolg Krushelm on top of that big lizard he was always riding about. Well, Skarsnik would wait to see what happened there. Either way, Krolg’s loss would be no great one. The orc hadn’t been in the Peaks long, and hadn’t yet learned to show the proper respect. That was the usual way with the orc bosses, but this one was more uppity than most, and making the other orcs behave badly.

He turned his spyglass elsewhere. In other parts the battle was in balance, not going quite as well as he had hoped. The manglers had run out of steam over by the Burnt Cliffs and been killed, allowing skaven reinforcements to pour out of the rat holes there and strengthen the flank about the base of Silver Mountain. Big Red the giant squig was stomping far from the main fight, chasing down a dwindling pack of ratmen, but was effectively out of the battle. A flare of magical energy drew his attention to the Idol of Gork rampaging around the skaven rear. A sympathetic ‘Oooh!’ went up from the army as the magically animated statue lost a foot and pitched forwards flat on its face. Skarsnik saw Duffskul fall with it, then lost him amid the ruins. ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Skarsnik to himself, although he was worried – not for Duffskul, but mainly because he had expended his store of secret weapons and the skaven still weren’t broken.

Still, neither was his army.

He turned his telescope to the front, where, through the magnified points of goblin hats, he saw Ikk Hackflay’s Ironskins and a bunch of massive ratboys closing with his position. Furry ogre-things came with them, driven on by a fat, mean-looking skaven. Two of Queek’s best, he thought. Be good to get rid of them. ‘Ready, lads! We’ve got big furry lads coming in, one mean looking fella leading them, and some ogre-fings with a fatty ratty. We’s gonna kill them both. Everybody ready?’

‘Waaagh!’ they responded.

‘I’m glad you said that,’ he said, with a crooked smile.

Queek ran at full scurry towards the wyvern and its stupid-meat rider. The wyvern charged about on the ground, smashing prey down with its heavily armoured skull and gulping them down whole. Gore hung from its mouth. The bloody remains of skaven were scattered everywhere, along with piles of the wyvern’s dung. As it moved, it toileted, clearing room in its bulging stomach for more meat. Given enough time, it would eat itself into a torpor, but wyverns had big appetites and that time would be too long in coming.

The orc speared a clanrat, dangling the still-squealing creature in front to the mouth of his mount. The wyvern’s beady eyes fixed on the morsel, and snapped at it as the orc snatched the skaven out of the way. He laughed uproariously as he teased the beast.

Queek signalled to his guard to halt, and strode out. He banged his weapon hilts on his breastplate to get the orc’s attention.

‘Big-meat! Queek the Mighty, ruler of City of Pillars, will fight you.’

Hearing this, the orc heaved on the wyvern’s reins, pulling it around to face Queek.

‘Headtaker,’ he spat. Krolg eyed the stormvermin twenty paces behind Queek carefully. They made no move to come forwards, or he might well have flown off. That’s why Queek had ordered them to stay where they were. The wyvern spread its wings and bellowed. Its tail arched high over its back, in the manner of a scorpion. Black venom dripped from the point of it sting. The vinegary stench of it made Queek’s eyes run.

Krolg dug long spurs into the tender skin under the wyvern’s wings. It leapt into the air, gliding the short distance at Queek. The impact of the beast’s landing shook the ground. The orc thrust at him overhand with his spear, a clumsy blow that Queek parried easily, riposting with a powerful backhand against the wyvern’s head. Queek had never fought one of these creatures before, and its iron-hard scales took him by surprise. The blow jarred his arm so hard his teeth clacked together. The wyvern barely registered it, snapping at him from one side while the orc drove his spear at him from the other. Queek sprang back, only to expose himself to a punishing strike from the wyvern’s poisoned tail. Queek barely threw himself aside. He skidded as he landed, vulnerable for a moment, but the orc and his mount were too slow. The stinger plunged into the ground, whipping back almost as quickly.

Queek wiped spatters of burning venom from his muzzle. The orc atop the wyvern chuckled at him and urged his mount on.

The rock here was harder to gnaw than it appeared, so the old saying went.

The goblins stumbled backwards, pushed by the fury of the stormvermin. A massive rat-leader slew a brace of goblins with each sword stroke. Skarsnik levelled his prodder at him and let fly with a blast of raw magic. Some sixth sense caused the rat-leader to leap aside, and Skarsnik burned up half a dozen of his fellows instead.

‘I’m going to have to sort this out myself, aren’t I?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Come on, Gobbla.’ He pulled on his squig’s chain, and the pair of them shoved their way down to the front.

Skarsnik’s prodder emerged first, punching through the gap between two goblins and spearing a stormvermin on its triple prongs. Skarsnik grunted as he pushed, shoving the dead rat back off its feet and tripping those in the ranks behind it. The rat was big, but Skarsnik was strong. Under his robes he was a mass of knotted muscle, his success such that he had grown huge for a night goblin – for a goblin of any kind, for that matter. Only Fat Grom had been bigger, but as Skarsnik liked to say, that was all fat and it didn’t count.

‘Come on, you ratties!’ shrilled Skarsnik. Recognising their master’s arch nemesis, the stormvermin scrambled over each other to get at him, eager to be the one to take his head. He stabbed and blasted with his prodder. Gobbla fought at his side, snapping the heads off halberds that might have speared his master, snapping the hands off that held the halberds, and snapping off the heads of the vermin that guided the hands. Skarsnik was old and thoughtful, but when roused he was mean as an orc warlord after a heavy night on the fungus brew. With Gobbla by his side, he was well nigh unstoppable. By his own efforts, he opened a wide circle in the front ranks of the stormvermin. ‘Go on! Get on at ya!’ he shouted, whirling the prodder round his head and whooping with delight. The goblins pushed forwards after him, chanting his name.

Skarsnik brought his prodder in a wide arc, aiming to decapitate three stormvermin with one blow, only to find it intercepted by a black sword. A terrible strength was behind it. He pushed, and a fat, heavily muscled skaven pushed back. Skarsnik did not know his name, but it was Grotoose. A pack of rat ogres moved in and boxed in Gobbla, leaving the King under the Mountains to face Grotoose alone.

The Clan Moulder war-leader leaned in close to Skarsnik, both of them grimacing with hatred and effort. With a flourish, Skarsnik disengaged, flinging Grotoose’s sword arm wide. Skarsnik reversed the prodder, sending the weighty ferrule on its base driving into Grotoose’s flabby stomach. Air exploded from the skaven’s mouth, and he doubled over. Skarsnik stepped in, but Grotoose was shamming. As Skarsnik approached, Grotoose slammed his sword hilt into Skarsnik’s head, and again. Driven back, Skarsnik stumbled, his feet fouled in the chain attaching Gobbla to him.

Grotoose loomed over him, blotting out the pale sky.

He raised his sword. ‘Now you die-die!’

Grotoose never landed his blow. Gobbla came from the side, a bolt of crimson death, teeth snapping. He swallowed the claw leader of Clan Moulder whole.

Skarsnik got to his feet and patted his pet. ‘That was close! That was too close,’ he muttered. ‘Good boy, Gobbla.’

Gobbla burped.

Skarsnik took a moment. The stormvermin and rat ogres had been driven back, the flow of battle moving away from him. Annoyingly, the stormvermin’s boss was still alive and kicking, but he was on the defensive. ‘They don’t need us no more, come on. We got some strategising to do,’ he said. His speech was peppered with bastardised Reikspiel and Khazalid words he used for concepts Orcish lacked the capacity to express. He led his pet back to his vantage point to begin said strategising.

He extended his telescope again. The battle was much as it was before. Then he saw something he had never seen, a blurring shadow that leapt all over the battlefield. One instant it was in one place, in another elsewhere. A disk of metal whirred out from this darkness, curving through air and flesh alike without interrupting its course. It banked around and flew back to its starting point, being snatched out of the air by a huge clawed hand.

‘That’s weird,’ said Skarsnik. ‘That looks a bit like one of them…’

Gobbla whined. Skarsnik looked down.

‘What’s wrong, boy?’

Gobbla’s nose snuffled. He looked up into Skarsnik’s eyes with his one good one.

‘Gobbla?’

A dribble of blood collected at the corner of the squig’s mouth. Skarsnik knelt down, concerned. A squelching sound came from Gobbla’s innards. Skarsnik put his ear to the squig’s side.

Gobbla whined again.

A knife burst through the top of the squig’s skull. Gobbla’s eye rolled back into his head, and the squig collapsed, deflating. His bulk wobbled and shook, and the knife cut downwards.

‘Gobbla!’ screamed Skarsnik.

Grotoose hauled himself from a long slit in the squig’s side. His skin was blistered from Gobbla’s potent stomach acids, fur falling out in clumps. Half his face had been melted off. Groaning in pain, he dragged himself away with fingers whose flesh came away from the bone as he scrabbled at the rock.

Skarsnik looked on in speechless horror. Grotoose raised a head with eyes that had been burned to whiteness.

‘I first Clan Moulder beastmaster in Eight Peaks,’ he said thickly. ‘It take lot more than stupid red-ball, fungus-thing to kill me.’

His face contorting with rage, Skarsnik raised the prodder high and drove it down through Grotoose’s back so hard it shattered the stone beneath. Grotoose shuddered, as if he’d still planned on getting up, before he finally realised he was dead.

‘Gobbla,’ said Skarsnik, in a small voice. The battle forgotten, he dropped his prodder and fell to the squig’s side. The squig sagged in on itself, its capacious body pooling like a half-empty wineskin. Skarsnik knelt and hesitated, eyes surveying this most cruel ruin as if he could bring it back to wholeness by wishing it otherwise.

It didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. Gobbla was dead, his small, faithful brain leaking out through the hole in the top of his head.

Skarsnik laid both hands on the leathery hide of his closest companion.

‘Gobbla,’ said the Warlord of Karak Eight Peaks, with a catch in his throat. ‘Gobbla!’

Queek dodged another thunderous blow from the wyvern, tripping on a half-buried lump of masonry as he did. He was panting heavily, bleeding down one arm from a lucky spear-thrust.

‘Getting tired, incha, little rattie?’ rumbled the orc. ‘You’re a tasty fighter, that’s what they all say. Down in the Badlands they say that. That far away. Yeah, that’s right. Ain’t you proud?’ The orc laughed. ‘Broken Toofs, my tribe. We heard that all right, we heard all about da Headtaker.’ He widened his eyes in mock fright. ‘But I reckoned it was all bluster, all talk. Load of nonsense. No rat going to outfight an orc every day of the week like what they say you can, though I see you got a couple of blackies up there on your spikes. Idiots, they are. No fun in them. I ain’t one of them snaggle-toothed stunty slaves. I’m a free orc – you’ll never beat me.’

Queek kept his distance from the circling wyvern. He spat on the ground. Let the orc talk himself into an early grave. The ones with the big mouths always spoke too much, leaving themselves open to Queek’s mightiness.

This fight had gone on too long. If he didn’t finish it soon, the green imp might win!

How to end it? How to end it? Queek burned inside.

‘My name,’ said the orc, ‘is Krolg Krushelm! You hear that, now. I wants you to be thinking it when I guts ya! I’m a real greenskin, not like this sneaky little git here. No wonder you ain’t been beat yet. As soon as I’m done with you, I’m taking that cave runt down. It’s about time the Eight Peaks had a real boss.’ Krolg spurred his mount.

The wyvern roared, spraying Queek with foul-smelling spittle. The tail swiped down, jaws coming at him from another angle, Krolg’s spear from a third.

Queek had the measure of his opponents. A good fight, a fine challenge. A pity to finish it.

He ducked the sting, batted the spear tip aside with his sword, rolled under the wyvern’s head, sprang to his feet and, with a powerful swing, buried Dwarf Gouger in the wyvern’s eye. The spike on the pick punched through the soft eyeball and the thin bone at the back of the socket with ease.

The wyvern bellowed in agony and spread its wings. It wrenched its head back from the source of its pain. Queek kept tight hold of Dwarf Gouger’s haft, letting go only when the time was right. As he arced through the air, Krolg’s mouth formed an ‘o’ of surprise below his twisting body.

Krolg was still wearing the expression when his head toppled from his shoulders and rolled into the dirt.

Queek landed on his feet in a crouch, a gleeful smile on his lips.

He waited until the wyvern’s death throes had ceased before retrieving his favourite weapon.

‘Boss! Boss!’

Skarsnik heard the words only dimly. His entire attention was fixed on the dead Gobbla, his hands still pressed into his gradually sinking flesh.

A hand grabbed him. ‘Boss!’

Skarsnik whirled round and snarled into the face of Kruggler.

Kruggler took a step backwards, both hands raised. ‘Boss! Now ain’t the time. Don’t let them see you like this, boss. The lads need bossing, boss! What are we going to do?’

Skarsnik shivered. The skin around his eyes felt tight. A strange emotion he’d not felt before… Nah, nah, that wasn’t right. Once before, long ago, when Snotruk had killed Snottie, his loyal companion in his lonely days as a runt. Hollow like, all empty inside, like nothing really mattered any more.

He shook it off, but it clung on, clamping around the quivery bit of meat inside his chest like it would crush it with cold, cold ice.

‘Ye’re right, ye’re right.’ He nodded at Gobbla. ‘Someone take that away!’ he said, trying to sound like he didn’t care. The goblins that came forward were wise enough to handle the dead squig very carefully indeed. Kruggler helped the goblin warlord up while one of Skarsnik’s little big ’uns smashed the chain with his long axe.

The weight gone from his foot felt weird. He wiggled it around speculatively. Definitely weird.

‘Boss!’ said Kruggler in exasperation.

‘What? Yeah, sorry, the battle, the battle.’ Skarsnik raised his hand to his eyes. He couldn’t see very well because they kept filling up with water and he didn’t know why. He blinked it away and took stock of the battle.

Towards Silver Mountain, a fresh horde of clanrats running down the remainder of the squig teams there.

To the east, the now very distant form of Big Red trumpeting his way towards the evening. To the south, a mighty arachnarok spider being dismembered by the mysterious shadow.

To the centre, the broken Idol of Gork – or was it Mork? He really couldn’t be sure – and an additional item: one slaughtered wyvern, topped with a headless orc. The Headtaker’s troops were forming up, gathering stragglers back into solid formations. The formation that Skarsnik’s little big ’uns had broken was being bullied back into shape by its leader.

‘I’ve seen enough,’ said Skarsnik.

‘What?’ said Kruggler.

‘It’s a bust. We’ve lost. A good scrap, but we couldn’t pull it off, because there really is a lot of them, ain’t there?’ said Skarsnik to himself. ‘Farsands, and farsands.’ He did a quick mental calculation, the kind that would make a normal goblin die of a brain infarction. ‘That’s actually a lot more of them than there is of us…’ He looked to the citadel. ‘Old Belegar’s next. We need to scarper.’

‘What?!’ repeated Kruggler.

‘Kruggs, mate, we have lost! Can I make it any simpler for you? If we don’t shift, Queek’ll have our heads on that poncy bedstead he wears on his back quicker than he’ll have Belegar’s. I don’t think I want to stick around for that. Sound the retreat!’ he shouted.

‘What about the rest of the boys?’

‘What? Out-of-towners, weird scrawny runts wot smell of old leaves and ride about on spiders, and deadbeats? Nah, they played their part. Leave ’em. Besides, if we all go at once, then the rats might attack us before we can get away, mightn’t they?’ Skarsnik tapped his grubby forehead with a bloody finger. ‘Always thinking me. That’s why I is king and you is not.’ He addressed his signallers again, before they commenced their flag-waving and horn-blowing. ‘And by retreat, I mean walking back inside carefully with your weapons ready, not running for the hills so we’s can all get out of breath, run down, chopped up and et by ratsies! Got that?’ he bawled.

His horn-blowers and flag-wavers nodded. At least some of them understood. They relayed his orders as best they could. Some of the greenskins even obeyed them. All in all, thought Skarsnik, as he watched his tired tribe and its allies about face and march up to the gates of the Howlpeak, things could have been a whole lot worse.

Once he’d regained the gates himself, he went up to the broken battlements atop it. Through his telescope he watched the skaven break into a desperate run as the last of the Crooked Moon tribe withdrew to the safety of the Howlpeak. For a long time, he kept his spyglass trained on Queek’s furious, furry face and watched it get madder and madder. He kept watching, in fact, until the gates clanged shut.

Now that was funny.

‘Gobbla,’ he said, meaning to share the moment with his pet. ‘Gobbla, look at that, eh? Boy? Boy?’ Skarsnik looked down at his side.

But, of course, there was nobody there.

Twenty

Lurklox’s Deal

Skarsnik went into his private rooms as quickly as he was able. That was not very quickly. He had to patrol the borders of his much-reduced kingdom to make sure the lads were watching out properly, and that there were units ready to see off an attack, and that the outsiders who had come into the Howlpeak didn’t cause any bother. That went double for any who were orcs. He had a few challenges now Gobbla was gone, but that was not such a bad thing. He needed to put a couple of orcs down to keep the rest in line. Without Gobbla, they found him still extremely dangerous, and the fact that he could still break an orc with his bare hands without his giant pet had quietened them down real quick. But Gobbla’s loss was telling on him in other ways. Without the squig, he’d lost his skaven assassin early warning system. He might as well leave the door unlocked, dismiss all his guard and go to sleep with a knife conveniently laid out next to his bed.

Once inside, he locked the door and commenced pacing, the butt of his prodder clashing on the floor. He banged it harder and harder as he got more and more worried. Skarsnik was no stranger to dilemmas, but this one was a real pickle and no mistake.

‘Got to get organised, got to get organised!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Where is I if I don’t gets organised?’ He glanced to his papers, but this time they didn’t hold the answer. ‘Gotta fink!’ he said, and worried at his fingers with sharp goblin teeth. ‘Item one,’ he said to himself. ‘Old Queek’s going for conquest. Item two, there’s loads more of them than there is of us. Item three, them stunties aren’t going to be there much longer, and when they is not, old squeaky Queeky’s gonna come knockin’ on me door with all his monsters and such. So what to do? Need Duffskul, yeah.’ He made to call the shaman, but remembered he was dead too. Who else could he call on? No one had seen Mad Zargakk in years, Kruggler was the brightest of the gobboes to hand but still very thick, and there was no point at all in asking an orc…

He caught something from the corner of his eye, a flicker in the room where one shouldn’t be.

‘Oh, come on. Not again!’ he groaned. He levelled his prodder at the globe of black lightning crackling into being. ‘I’m not in the mood today, ratboy! Buzz off or get a face full of Morky magic!’

But as the visitor manifested, Skarsnik’s expression of defiance turned to a gape. His intention to zap the rat dissipated. This wasn’t your usual rat with horns, magicking himself in to have a pop – although it did, he supposed, have horns. And it did look like a rat, only not that much. Bigger, it was. Everywhere.

‘Rats,’ he said, ‘aren’t usually that big.’

Skarsnik took a step back as an immense shape stepped out of the shadows. Although, that wasn’t right, because the shadows came with it. They writhed over the thing, whatever it was, stopping Skarsnik from getting a good look at it. He got an impression, nothing more – long, hairy arms lined with thick tendons, black claws, and a head crowned with an impressive rack of horns above a masked face where terrible eyes burned.

For the first time in a long time, Skarsnik gulped fearfully. The thing! The weird thing from the battle that had taken out Grobspit’s spider monsters, right there in his bedroom! The creature was huge, bigger than a troll, all wiry muscle and patches of fur. It had claws bigger than Gobbla’s teeth. Then Skarsnik recognised it for what it was, and recovered his wits. Better the daemon you know, and he knew this kind well enough.

‘Oh. Right. It’s one of those.’ The stink of rodent and glowy green rock was unmistakeable. ‘Ratfing daemon, one wiv lots of extra shadow, but a ratfing daemon you is. Well, ain’t I honoured,’ he said archly. ‘Oi, back off,’ he shouted, holding his ground. His prodder crackled with power. ‘I ain’t no snotty to be pushed about.’

‘I am a lord of the Thirteen in Shadow!’ scoffed the rat-daemon. ‘I am master-assassin! That cannot hurt me. You cannot hurt me!’

‘Yeah, right. Shall we give it a little try? I reckon a blast of Mork magic’d put a very big hole in you, you… you… ratfing. Don’t you?’

‘This is no stand-off, green-thing. I mighty-powerful. I show you mercy. If I wanted you dead, tiny and most vexing imp, dead you would be.’

‘Who’s showing who mercy? You want to test?’ He jiggled the prodder. ‘Fzapp!’ it went, very quietly but menacingly. Skarsnik sniffed at the sharp smell of discharged magic. ‘What is it you want, anyhow? Not seen one of your like for a while.’

‘I am verminlord! Master of skaven. You have glimpsed-seen my kind?’ said Lurklox, catching his surprise just a moment too late.

Skarnsik nodded the tip of his pointy hat to a large skull mounted over the fireplace. ‘Yeah. You could say that. Bagged that one about fifteen winters back.’

Lurklox looked at the yellowing skull then back at the prodder. Skarsnik grinned evilly.

‘So now we got that out of the way, what do you want, then? Get on with it, I haven’t got all day. Just lost a battle, and I need to do something about it.’

Skarsnik’s bravado rather put Lurklox off his stride, and spoiled his grand entrance. He stood taller, but the goblin would not be intimidated.

‘Green-thing!’ said Lurklox portentously. ‘You are beaten-defeated. The indefatigable Queek has smashed your army for the last time.’

Skarsnik looked off at his heaped stuff, disinterested. ‘Has he now? There’s a lot more where those boys came from.’

‘Lie-lie! Green-things like strength. You beaten, you not strong. They leave soon, and you die-die.’

‘Right,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’m no quitter though, and I’ve won a lot more battles than I have lost.’

‘Already your large and bouncing beast-thing is no more.’ Lurklox pointed at the broken chain still manacled to Skarsnik’s ankle. ‘We kill-slay it, we kill-slay you.’

‘You wait a minute,’ said Skarsnik with sudden and dangerous anger. ‘The fight ain’t gone out of me yet, you big horned rat… rat… What was it you said you was?’

‘I great verminlord!’ shrieked Lurklox.

‘I don’t care what you are, you’re in my bedroom and I’m not happy about it!’

Lurklox sniffed the air and made a disgusted noise. ‘Neither of us are. To business, then! I come offer-give with mighty gift-offer for green-thing Skarsnik! In possession of Ikit Claw, arch-tinker rat, is a very powerful bomb.’

‘A bomb?’ said Skarsnik.

‘A bomb! The greatest bomb ever made by rat-paw and skaven ingenuity.’

Lurklox waved a paw, and a scene wreathed in warpstone-green smoke shimmered in the air before Skarsnik. It showed a vast and busy workshop. Skaven in strange armour worked at cluttered benches. Atop one of these was an intricate brass device the size of a troll’s head.

‘Yeah?’ said Skarsnik, careful to hide his surprise at the workshop, the likes of which he’d never seen before. He rapidly factored its existence into his calculations, allowing for it being an illusion, but he reckoned it probably wasn’t. ‘So what? Why are you telling me this? Gloating, are we? Going to blow me up? Didn’t work last time, did it?’ He decided the towering rat god wasn’t going to kill him just yet, and he sat down on his filthy bed with a groan. It had been a testing day.

‘No-no! I give-bring to goblin warlord! A fitting gift-prize for worthy foe.’

‘And what the zog exactly am I supposed to do with this giant metal egg, eh?’

‘There are many dwarf-places left. See!’ Lurklox brandished his shadowed claws again. An image of a strong dwarf citadel surrounded by a siege camp. ‘Zhufbar-place! Impregnable, undefeated. Many skaven die here. Perhaps you could win great glory for yourself by bringing it low?’

‘Looks like you’ve got plenty of furboys there right now. What do you need me for? And come to think of it, why not just get one of your sneaky pink-nosed little pals to do it? You don’t need me at all.’ Skarsnik’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why not just off me now? I’m not buying this at all.’ Skarsnik emphasised his words with the prodder.

‘You are as much boon-thing as problem-trouble, green-thing. Many pieces on the board-game. I prefer to keep you alive. The skaven at Zhufbar-place are weak. You are strong. Dependable.’

‘That’s nice to know,’ said Skarsnik.

‘You do as I squeak-say, green-thing?’

Some of the defiance went out of Skarsnik. He felt older than ever. He was tired. Outside a sea of rats awaited him, Queek wanted his head and might just get it this time, he’d lost his only useful advisor, and then there was Gobbla. The next time this big rat paid him a visit, he might not survive. Skarsnik slumped a little, it was time to face facts. ‘I don’t see I got much choice,’ he said quietly. ‘But it’s going to cost you more than the big boom boom,’ he added sharply.

‘Yes-yes?’

‘If I can’t kill Queek,’ he spat the name, ‘I’ll not be happy leaving both them gits alive. Bring me Belegar’s head for me collection, and I’ll do as you say. Skarsnik will leave the Eight Peaks,’ he smiled. ‘Although it’s more like six and a half peaks now, ain’t it?’

‘You swear-swear, and you go to Zhufbar? Lead your mighty armies there?’

‘And then I’ll never come back. I swear it. Although you know that means nothing, right?’

Lurklox’s masked face appeared for a moment in the swirling green-black fog surrounding his form. Something like a smile wrinkled the skin visible around his eyes.

‘I see why we have not beaten you yet. You are almost like a skaven.’

‘Oi!’ said Skarsnik. ‘There’s no need to be rude.’

There was much to be done upon the surface. Queek’s desire to see the green-things’ shanty totally demolished and their burrows stopped up bested his patience, and it was growing dark before Queek, still besmirched and begrimed with the filth of battle, marched back towards the comforting darkness of the underworld. His troops lined every street on his route, squeaking out his name. He went slowly, letting them see him, his head held high and chest puffed out, his trophy rack bloody with new heads. Ska went behind him, his Red Guard marching in perfect step after Ska.

‘Another victory!’ Queek said. ‘Another victory for mighty Queek! Queek brings Clan Mors only victory!’

‘All hail mighty Queek!’ shouted Ska.

His guard clashed their halberds on their shields and shouted. The army cheered, bowing and fawning over their leader as he walked past them.

Once inside, Queek made straight for the burrows he had requisitioned as his base for this war on the surface. His servants awaited his coming. Blind, weak and castrated, they were feeble examples of the skaven breed, and that suited Queek perfectly.

He went to be cleaned, allowing the quaking slaves to unstrap his armour. They licked blood from his fur, bit out tangles and scabs, and gingerly cleaned his few scratches. His armour was given the same attention. Once upon a time, Queek had been lax in his hygiene, allowing the muck of battle to cake his armour for weeks at a time until he stank. Not any longer. He had resolved not to go abroad filthy as a plague monk. He told himself it was all about appearances, but deeper down, and as Sleek Sharpwit’s head kept telling him, it was because the smell of death reminded him that he was getting old.

As his servants worked on him, he relaxed. Some of the murderous tension went from his muscles. To his followers he had delivered a great victory, but all he could think about was the green-thing retreating back through his gates to the safety of the Howlpeak. Queek’s lip curled, his fists clenched. Belegar was easy-meat now, dead-meat weak-meat, but his extermination of the dwarfs would give the imp time to retrench, and Queek had not slain as many of his goblins as he had hoped.

If he were truthful, he was lucky to have won at all.

The torches in Queek’s chamber flickered. In the corner he had a pile of looted glimstones, their cold light forever constant, but these too stuttered. The presence of his dead-thing trophies, always tentative of late, receded entirely. A shadow gathered. It would be behind Queek. It always was. He did not give Lurklox the pleasure of turning to greet him.

‘Little warlord preening, good-good. Sleekness is stealthiness,’ said the verminlord’s voice, as Queek had predicted, from behind him.

Even blinded, the thralls felt the powerful presence and scurried to get out. The shadow grew around Queek, making everything black. Queek alone remained illuminated, alone in the dark.

Lurklox stepped through into the bounds of this world, gracefully uncoiling himself from nothing into something. Although he had seen it many times now, Queek was unnerved by the way the towering verminlord stepped out from the shadow.

Queek did not care for the way Lurklox spoke to him, nor did he like the way his fur stood on end in the rat-daemon’s presence.

‘What have you found out?’ demanded Queek.

‘Impudence, haste-haste. Always the same. Either too much greeting, or none at all. The warlord clans never change.’

Sensing that Queek had steeled himself against such provocations, the verminlord got to the point.

‘The grey seer needs you as an ally. Your Lord of Decay Gnawdwell moves to ally with Clan Skryre. It is he that makes the attempts upon your life. It was he that bid-told Thaxx to delay. It was he that called upon Ikit Claw to shame you. You are being used, Headtaker. Gnawdwell grooms many replacements for you.’

Queek burst into laughter. Lurklox’s anger grew thick, a palpable, dangerous thing, but Queek did not care. ‘Great and stealthy Lurklox talk as if this not known to Queek!’ He dissolved again into giggles. ‘None of this news to Queek. Every lord tests his lieutenants. So what? Most die, some live to be tested tomorrow. And Queek has lived to see many tomorrows! Gnawdwell will not be disappointed by Queek disappointing him.’

Lurklox loomed, growing bigger. Queek stared defiantly up at the shadowy patch he judged the verminlord’s face to occupy.

‘Then what of Gnawdwell’s prize, long life and forever battle?’ said Lurklox, and Queek’s blood ran cold. ‘Does it still stand, or was Gnawdwell only lying to Queek? Queek is a fool-thing, mad-thing. Queek does not know everything, but I do.’

Lurklox let his words hang, making sure he had asserted dominance over the warlord before continuing. Queek wanted to know if the offer was real; Lurklox could taste his incipient fear at his growing age. Good. Let him be afraid.

‘Time runs on,’ said Lurklox, hammering the sentiment home. ‘Time Queek no longer has. I have come from council with Skarsnik. I have struck a deal with the goblin-thing for you. The war here will soon be over. Queek is needed elsewhere.’

The shock on Queek’s face was a further reward for the verminlord.

‘Yes-yes!’ said Lurklox, encouraged. ‘Deliver the dwarf-king’s head by sunset tomorrow and Skarsnik will leave the City of Pillars.’

Queek snorted and licked at a patch of fur his slaves had missed. ‘What else did you give-promise Skarsnik? Queek’s lieutenants make uncountable bargains with the goblin king, and he breaks every single one. What make Lurklox think this time will be any different?’

‘Queek guesses well. Clever warlord. There was something else. The promise of that head… and something Ikit Claw does not yet know is missing. A threat-gift. If the imp-thing not take, then we use it against him.’

‘Why not use this thing-thing against him in first place, mysterious Lurklox? Simple way best. Skaven too stupid to see.’

Lurklox did not answer.

‘Very well,’ said Queek. ‘I will slay the beard-thing and hand over his head to the imp. Queek has-owns many dwarf-thing trophies already. What does Queek want one more for?’

On rickety shelves, nearly two dozen trophy heads looked at him with empty eyes.

Queek refrained from explaining to Lurklox just how tricksy the goblin was. It would give him a great deal of amusement to see the verminlord upstaged by the imp. There was no way that the so-called king would give up the kingdom he had been fighting over for his entire life. And when he broke his deal, Queek would kill him and take back Belegar’s head and Skarsnik’s into the bargain. Queek tittered.

‘A great-good deal, clever high one, most impressive.’

Twenty-One

The Final Saga of Clan Angrund

In an out-of-the-way cellar of the citadel, Gromvarl stood in a pit in the floor and tugged at an iron ring set into a flagstone. Unprepossessing, lacking the adornment of most dwarf creations, a slab of rock hiding a secret. There was a finality to it.

‘Someone give me a hand here!’ grumbled the longbeard. ‘It’s stuck.’

‘It’s the differentiation in air pressure – sometimes does that, sucks it closed. It’s murder to get open,’ said Garvik, one of Duregar’s personal retainers. ‘Come here. Ho ho, Frediar! Hand me a lever.’

Garvik’s nonchalant manner turned to swearing. Soon there were four of them in there, arguing over the best way to prise the door open. Finally, after much effort, it budged. Air whistled around the broken seal. They tugged hard, and a fierce draught set up, building to a shrieking wind that settled into an eerie moan once the stone had been set aside.

Gromvarl looked down the narrow shaft the trapdoor covered: big enough for a dwarf, no more. He held his lamp over it. Red iron rungs stretched down into the blackness. The shaft descended thousands of feet. That it had not been uncovered by the thaggoraki or the grobi was a wonder. Only weeks ago, a handful of rangers had set out from this place to guard the refugees fleeing the sack of Karak Azul. There had been hopeful talk of their numbers swelling those of the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks, but Karak Eight Peaks had become a place of wild hopes. None of the dwarfs of Ironpeak had ever arrived, and the warriors sent out to help them were lost.

A double-or-nothing gamble for the king, and the dice had come up poorly once more. The dice these days were always loaded. Douric could have told him that. The king rolled now in desperation, a dawi down to his last coin.

‘Gromvarl! Get yourself out of there. The king’s coming.’

Gromvarl disdainfully allowed himself to be helped up out of the pit, like he was doing those who helped him a favour, and not the reverse. Truth was, he was not so spry any more, but he hid it under a barrage of complaints.

Once out, he stood among a group of fifty dawi gathered in the cellar, three dozen of them dressed for hard travelling, all armed. The room was crowded, the damp air fogged by their breath and the heat of their bodies. Longer than it was broad, with a tapering roof of close-fit stone, the cellar was flawless work, but all unembellished as the escape door. No such place of shame should be decorated. No carven ancestor face should look upon the backs of dwarfs as they fled. That was the reasoning. A shame that ordinarily ale barrels and cabbage boxes hid.

Several of those present were proper warriors, rangers and ironbreakers. They stared at the floor, humiliated beyond tolerance by the king ordering them to leave. They understood that what they had to do was important, all right, but Gromvarl would bet his last pouch of tobacco – and he was down to the very last – that every one of them wished some other dawi had been selected and told to go in his place. They chewed their lips and moustache ends and fulminated. Gromvarl could see at least three potential Slayers among their number.

A dwarf matron rocked a babe in arms. The child, its downy chin buried in its mother’s bosom, snuffled in its sleep. Gromvarl smiled sorrowfully at the sight. There were too few unkhazali in these dark days, and there was no guarantee this one would survive. His expression clouded. Dwarf babies were as stoic as their elders, but they still cried from time to time. One misplaced call for milk and ale from the bairn could spell the end for the lot of them.

Better out there than in here. His thoughts turned to others, whose parents could not be swayed to leave. He thought too of Queen Kemma, shut up in her tower. As merciful as Belegar had been in permitting, and in some cases ordering, others out, he could not be swayed to release his queen and his prince. Oaths, said the king. Sadness gripped Gromvarl. Some oaths were made to be broken.

With that in mind, he clutched the key in his pocket.

Torchlight glinted from artful wargear. The king and his two bodyguards entered the small cellar where the dwarfs waited to flee.

The king was wan, his eyes heavily pouched and bloodshot. He tried to hide the stiffness in his side, but Gromvarl was too old to be fooled. The rumours of the king’s injury told of a sad truth. That was far from the worst of it, however. Gromvarl could tell from the look on Belegar’s face; he had finally given up on the slender hope of aid from elsewhere. He was prepared to die.

‘I’ll not make a meal of this,’ said Belegar softly. ‘I know none of you made this decision lightly, and some of you didn’t want to go at all. Let it be known that I release you all from your oaths to me. Find some other king, a better king. Under his protection and in his service, may you live out more peaceful lives.

‘Warriors,’ he said to those handful of such. ‘I have not chosen you to go because I can spare you. I cannot. I have chosen you because you are among the finest dawi left alive in Karak Eight Peaks. These are your charges. They need you more than I do. I release you also from all your oaths to me, and consider them fulfilled two and a half times over. Had I gold to give, you would have it by the cartload and in great gratitude. Instead, I place upon you one final burden – guard these last few of the clans of Karak Eight Peaks with your lives and your honour. Do not let the bloodlines of our city die forever.’

At these words dwarf resolve stiffened. Gazes were no longer downcast. Lips trembled with new emotions, and spines straightened.

‘Aye, my king,’ said Garvik, then the others repeated this one after another, some of the shame at their departure leaving through their mouths with the words. Belegar held the eye of each one and nodded to them.

‘Now go, go and never return. This was a glorious dream, but it is over. We wake to the darkest of mornings. May you all see the light of a better morrow.’

Gromvarl stood back. Garvik wordlessly indicated that they should begin. A ranger went first, the group’s guide, spitting on his hands before he reversed into the dark hole and took grip of the first of the iron rungs. The moan of the wind changed tone as he blocked the shaft.

‘Four thousand feet,’ he said, his words bearing the soft accent of the hill dwarfs who had once ranged above the ground of the Eight Peaks. ‘Your arms will hurt, dawi or not. Keep on. After me, leave ten rungs, then ten rungs between each that follows after. Anyone thinks they’re going to fall, call a halt. Pride will kill everyone beneath you should you slip. Remember that. Don’t talk otherwise. This way is as yet undiscovered by our enemies, let us keep it that way.’

His head disappeared into the shaft. They counted ten ringing steps.

‘Next!’ whispered the ranger from the ladderway.

The first went, then the next. As they disappeared into the dark, wives bid farewell to husbands, children to fathers, warriors to their master. Then they were all gone, swallowed up by the ground as if they had never been.

Gromvarl watched them all go into the hole, one after the other, his heart heavy and a lump in his throat. So went the last sorry inhabitants of Karak Eight Peaks, to a doom none within would ever know.

When the last had gone, the king nodded. Gromvarl beckoned to two others. With their help, the trapdoor was replaced. Runes of concealment flared upon it. As the marks faded back into plain stone, the trapdoor went with them. The inset iron ring disappeared, as did any sign of a join with the pit floor. Then the dwarfs levered the flagstone that concealed the pit wherein the trapdoor nestled back into place. Masons hurried forwards, swiftly mortaring it back into place. Within a couple of hours, it would look like any other slab in the floor of the cellar.

Barrels were rolled back in, filling up the room.

The escape route disguised, the dwarfs filed out in silence.

‘And here we come to the end of it all,’ said Belegar. ‘Fifty years of dashed hopes and broken honour. Was it all worth it?’

Never numerous, there remained only two hundred fighting dwarfs left in all of Karak Eight Peaks, a sum that included those untried warriors previously restricted to garrison duty, and those elders honourably retired from the front lines. A shattered people remained, drawn in to this last toehold from every part of the kingdom that had been so painfully retaken. Too few to adequately defend the doors into the Hall of Pillared Iron, Belegar had ordered them into a square at the centre of the room.

‘Do not lament cracked stone, cousin,’ said Duregar. ‘If you swing the hammer so clumsily, the chisel slips. Best learn to swing it better.’

Belegar laughed blackly. ‘There has to be a next time for the learning to take, Duregar.’

Duregar shrugged, working his mail into a slightly more comfortable position. ‘Then others will learn from our errors, if errors they were. There’s no harm to be found in trying to do something right and failing. Better to chance your arm than never risk failure at all.’

‘Your words are a comfort to me.’

‘They are intended to be, my king.’

‘To the end, then, Duregar?’

‘As I swore, to the end. For the Angrund clan, and for the chance at a more glorious future.’

Duregar gripped his cousin’s hand tightly. The king squeezed back.

‘Whatever it is I have achieved here,’ said Belegar, ‘I could not have done it without you, Duregar.’

A black masked face appeared around the main doors at the far end, and quickly withdrew.

‘A scout, lord!’ shouted one of the lookouts.

‘Leave it be. Get back into formation. At least we know they’ll be here soon. A small surprise seeing us stood here rather than behind more barred doors, eh?’ Belegar paused. ‘I’d make a speech, say words of encouragement to you all, but you need none of that. You know what is coming, and will fight boldly all the same. I could not be prouder of you all. I…’ He stopped. ‘This is something better said with ale rather than speech.’

The hogshead of ale at the centre of their formation was cracked open. To the last the dwarfs were fastidious in all they did, carefully tapping the barrel with a spigot, lest any go to waste. Foaming tankards were passed around, each dwarf given as much as he desired. The days of rationing were ending along with all else.

They drank quickly, wiping suds from their beards with satisfied gasps. This was the king’s ale, the best and last. In quiet ones and twos they clasped arms and said their farewells, toasted kinsmen fallen in battle or treacherously murdered by the thaggoraki and grobi. Fond reminiscences were aired, and particular grudges recounted.

Belegar counted his men again. Of the Iron Brotherhood, fourteen remained. Duregar’s bodyguard swelled their ranks to twenty-nine. They had only three cannons pointed at the two main gates, precious few guns or other machines, and just a smattering of crossbows.

‘Like the last days of King Lunn,’ said Belegar. ‘Traditional weapons, tried and tested – none of your new fangled gear. Iron and gromril and dwarfish muscle.’

‘Personally, I’d be glad of a flamecannon,’ said Duregar.

‘Aye,’ admitted Belegar. ‘So would I.’

Noise echoed up the corridors leading from the lower levels of the citadel.

‘Here they come! Dawi, to arms!’ shouted Belegar. His wound twinged as he climbed atop his oath stone and took his shield and hammer from his retainers. He tried not to wince.

Explosions rippled out, their distant rumbles carrying billows of dust into the hall. Worthless slave troops, sent to their deaths in the dwarfish traps. That was always the skaven way. Belegar wished that Queek would get on with it.

The battle was short by recent standards. Four waves of skaven came in and were thrown back, broken upon the unyielding steel of the shield walls. Poisoned wind globadiers scurried in the wake of the clanrats to be shot down by dwarf quarrellers with tense trigger fingers. This last time the skaven’s poisons choked their own. Ratling guns and warpfire thrower teams met the same fate, every one felled by pinpoint shots. The dwarf cannons fired until their barrels glowed.

But the dwarfs were few, and the skaven many. In ones and twos the final brave defenders of Karak Eight Peaks fell. The defensive ring around Belegar grew smaller and smaller. The skaven pressed their attack. The cannons fell silent. The number of dwarfs shrank steadily from two hundred, to a hundred, to fifty. The fewer they were, the harder they fought, no matter how tired they were, no matter how thirsty for ale. Each kinsman dragged down fired the dwarfs with righteous anger, driving every one on to acts of martial skill that would have been retold in the sagas and noted in books of remembrance, if only there were survivors to carry their stories away.

It was clear there would be none.

The latest skaven attack flowed back from the dwarfs, but there was no rest. A flood of red-armoured skaven bearing heavy halberds came streaming into the room.

‘Queek Headtaker’s personal guard,’ said Belegar. ‘He is coming.’

‘This is it, then,’ said Duregar, who stood side by side with his cousin still. ‘You and he will meet for the final time. Strike him down, Belegar. Send him back to whatever hell sired him.’

Belegar set his face and hefted his hammer. The crust on his wound opened again. Blood dampened his side under his armour.

The stormvermin of Queek’s Red Guard crashed into the remaining two-score dwarfs. The stormvermin were fresh and fired with vengeance. Long had the Iron Brotherhood been a ratbane. They hacked down the dwarfs, although the folk of the mountain gave good account of themselves. The last dozen dawi crowded round their lords, sending the Red Guard back time and again. Belegar and Duregar fought back to back, hammers crushing limbs and heads.

One by one the last of the dawi were dragged down, until only Belegar and Duregar remained. All round the kinsmen, skaven fell upon the fallen, tearing at dwarf flesh in their feeding frenzy, or wrenching trophies from the corpses. Duregar was attacked by six of the creatures at once and pulled down, his last words in that life a defiant war-shout to Grimnir.

‘Come on! Come on!’ bellowed Belegar. ‘Take me too, then, you miserable vermin!’ He brandished his hammer, sweeping it about him, but the skaven withdrew to a safe distance, imprisoning him in a circle of spearpoints. ‘Where is the Headtaker? I would show him my hammer!’ Belegar wept freely, tears of sorrow mingled with tears of anger.

The ring opened, and in stepped Queek.

‘Here I am, dwarf-thing. Eager-keen to die?’ he said in high-pitched Khazalid. This was too much for Belegar. To be confronted with this theft of the innermost mysteries of the Karaz Ankor at the very end was one insult too many.

‘Still your tongue! The language of our ancestors is not for you to profane! Bring your head here so that I may crack the secret of our speech from your skull. Attack me, Headtaker, and let us see how well you fare against a king!’ roared Belegar.

Queek hefted Dwarf Gouger and his sword. ‘Queek kill many kings, beard-thing. Your head joins theirs today, yes-yes.’ He tittered, then sprang into a spinning leap, the infamous Dwarf Gouger and sword whirling with deadly speed.

Belegar parried them with stolid economy. Queek curled over a hammer strike that would have flattened a troll and landed behind the king. Belegar faced him.

‘And I thought the Headtaker a master of combat,’ said Belegar quietly. All emotion save hatred and defiance had bled from his face. He stood on legs weakened by his wound and battle fatigue, but he stood nonetheless. ‘If you are the finest warrior your kind has to offer, no wonder you must resort to cheap tricks to bring your enemies low.’

Queek snarled and ran at Belegar. He punched forwards with the head of Dwarf Gouger, intending to make Belegar sidestep onto the point of his sword. But Belegar moved aside a fraction of an inch, evading the maul. He stamped down on Queek’s sword, though it moved almost too quickly to be seen, wrenching it from Queek’s grasp. A hammer blow of his own caught Queek by surprise. The skaven warlord moved aside awkwardly, holding only Dwarf Gouger. The hammer grazed him nonetheless, bruising his sword arm and driving his own armour into his flesh. Queek jumped back, swordless, blood matting his fur.

‘Pathetic,’ said Belegar. ‘Flea-ridden vermin, swift and twitchy. There’s not a dwarf alive who isn’t worth twenty of you.’

‘Queek has killed many hundred beard-things,’ said Queek. He shook his arm. Agonising pins and needles ran from his shoulder to his hand, jangling the nerves of his fingers. His shoulder was numb. ‘Queek kill one more very soon.’

‘Probably. I am tired, and I am beaten, and the memory of our last encounter festers still in my flesh. But even as you hack the head from my neck, Queek, you will know that you could never best me in more honourable circumstances.’

Few skaven gave a dropping for honour, but Queek was one of this unusual breed. His honour was not as a dwarf would see it, but it was there, built of arrogance though it was. Queek became enraged at this slur upon it.

The duel that followed was swift, its outcome inevitable, but Belegar was not done yet. Queek spun and ducked, casting a deadly net of steel about the dwarf with his terrible maul. Belegar smashed it aside several times with his shield, but with each swipe he became weaker. Queek hooked the king’s shield with the spike of his weapon, yanking it free from Belegar’s arm with a squeak of triumph. A following blow smashed into Belegar’s side, causing the king to cry out as his wound burst wider, but Queek overreached himself and the dwarf’s hammer hit his left side, rending apart his warpstone armour and cracking his ribs. Agonised, Queek staggered, only at the last turning his stumble into a spin that had him facing the long-fur again.

He and Belegar panted hard. Belegar bled freely from the wound Queek had given him in their last encounter. Blood pooled about his feet. He had other wounds, some small, others graver. He could not see it himself, but his face was ghostly white.

Queek smiled in spite of his pain. The end approached.

‘Greet-hail your ancestors when you meet them, beard-thing. Queek will come for them next. Death is no refuge from the mighty Queek!’

Again Queek charged, putting all his cunning into a complicated swipe reversed at the last moment to send Belegar’s hammer spinning away from him. Another blow took the dwarf king in the knee, shattering it, and sending the dwarf down. But to Queek’s amazement, the king arrested his fall. Holding himself in a kneel, his weight on his undamaged leg, he glared at the skaven, his eyes poison.

Queek swung Dwarf Gouger a final time. The spike connected with the side of the king’s helmet, punching through the gromril. Queek squealed at his victory, but his cries turned to pain. He looked down. The dwarf had somehow got Queek’s own sword up, and now it pierced him at the weak shoulder joint of his armour. He stepped back, and Belegar fell over with a crash, his eyes never leaving Queek’s face.

Queek screamed as he pulled out his sword from his armpit, the weapon’s square teeth dragging lumps of his own flesh with it. Ska rushed out from the ranks of the Red Guard, but Queek shoved at his massive chest with his unwounded hand.

On shaking legs, Queek walked over to the dwarf king. He plucked Dwarf Gouger free, casting it onto the carpet of dwarf bodies. With a yell, he swung his sword over his head, severing the king’s head with one blow.

He dropped his sword and bent over, then held aloft Belegar’s head with his good arm. He stepped up onto the dwarf king’s oath stone.

‘The City of Pillars is ours, from deepest deep to loftiest peak! Queek brings you this greatest of victories, only Queek!’

His guard squeaked out their praises, and Queek showed them all the lifeless head of Belegar. Such a fine trophy. Such a shame he had to give it up.

Twenty-Two

The Last King of Karak Eight Peaks

Gromvarl staggered up the stairs. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, crowding out what little light there was left in the citadel. The poisoned wound in his back throbbed a strange sort of pain, at once unbearable yet simultaneously numb. He fought against it with all his dwarfish will, forcing himself on in the fulfilment of his first, last and most important oath.

The protection of Vala Kemma.

The sound of fighting still sounded from below, but it was that of desperate, lonely struggles fought in dark corners against impossible odds, and not the regimented clash of two battle lines. Screams came with it, and the stink of burning. There were only the old, the sick, and the young in the upper levels. The skaven were coming for Karak Eight Peaks’s small population of children.

Gromvarl stumbled on the steps, his feet failing to find them. He broke a tooth on the stone. Five thousand years old, and still a sharp corner on the step edge. Now that, he thought, was proper craftsmanship.

Kemma was up above, locked in her room and forbidden to fight. Gromvarl had one of the only keys, but had been forced by the king to swear he would not use it.

The king was dead. As far as he was concerned, the oath died with him.

He staggered his way upwards, his progress growing slower and slower as he went. The fiery numbness had taken hold of his limbs. He had to rest often, his unfeeling hand pressing against the stone. He knew that if he sat down he would never reach his destination.

Finally, he arrived, one hundred and thirty-two steps that had taken a lifetime to climb behind him.

The door wavered ahead of him, its black wutroth shimmering as if seen through a heat haze. He fell to his knees and crawled towards it, the poison in his blood overcoming his sturdy dwarf constitution at the last.

With a titanic effort of will, Gromvarl slid the key home in the lock. Only his falling against the door enabled him to twist it at all.

The door banged open and he fell within. He moaned as he hit the floor. He slid into blackness. To his surprise, it went away again, and he managed to heave himself up to his knees. His head spun with the effort.

‘Kemma!’ he said. ‘Kemma!’ His throat was dry. A fire raged in it, consuming his words so they came out as insubstantial as smoke.

The queen was not there. The room was too small for her to hide. There were sounds coming from her garderobe, smashing, a frantic scrabbling.

A black-clad skaven came out, a scarf wrapped around its muzzle. It was a wonder it hadn’t heard the door; then Gromvarl realised that the sounds of battle were very close behind.

Upon seeing him, the skaven assassin leapt over him, and pulled back his head sharply by the hair. A blackened dagger slid against his throat, the venom that coated it burning his skin.

‘Where dwarf-thing breeder-queen?’ asked the skaven. Like all of its kind, its voice was surprisingly soft and breathy. Not a hint of a squeak to it when they spoke the languages of others. Gromvarl found this rather funny and laughed.

The skaven twitched behind him, agitated.

‘What so amusing, dwarf-thing? You want to die?’

‘Not particularly, you thieving thaggoraki.’ He burst out laughing again.

‘Very good. You die-die just the same.’

A loud bang filled the room. The skaven slid backwards, its poisoned knife clattering to the floor. Gromvarl tossed the smoking pistol away.

‘Never did like guns,’ he grumbled, ‘but I suppose they have their uses.’ He fell onto his hands and knees. ‘Not long now, eh, Grungni, eh, Grimnir? Soon I’ll be able to look you in the eye and ask how I did. Appallingly, I’ll bet.’ He coughed, and bloody froth spattered from his mouth. Before he fell face down onto the floor, he smiled broadly.

Vala Kemma had always been as particular as any dwarf. Even in this prison in all but name, she’d kept her mail well oiled and her armour shining.

The mannequin that it had sat upon was empty.

Kemma had got away.

‘That’s my lass,’ he said into the stones of the floor. They were cool, welcoming. His breath dampened them with condensation. ‘That’s my lass,’ he whispered, and the stones were damp no more.

Kemma ran through the upper storeys of the citadel, her secret key clutched in her hand, not that she needed it now. Poor Belegar, he always underestimated her. Leaving her shut up behind a simple lock? She felt a moment of anger; it was almost like he didn’t think her a proper dwarf, probably because she was a woman.

But she was a dwarf, with all that entailed. Dawi rinn, and a vala too. More the fool him for not realising. He had always been so blinkered! Look where that had got him. Look where that had got them all.

People were running, those few warriors stationed in the top floors of the tower towards the sounds of fighting coming from the stairs, the remainder away to the final refuge with as much dignity as they could muster.

Only now, at the very end, were some of the dwarfs succumbing to panic, and not very many of them at that. Most were shouted down and shamed by their more level-headed elders, and there were plenty of them up there to do the shouting.

She caught sight of a familiar figure, bent almost double by the weighty book she had chained about her neck. Magda Freyasdottir, the hold’s ancient priestess of Valaya. Even at the end she was dressed up in the lavender finery of her office, her ankle-length, silk-fine hair bound in heavy clasps of jet.

‘Magda! Magda!’

The priestess turned, her face surprised. Kemma ran right into her arms.

‘Steady, my queen,’ she said ironically, and rightly so, for Kemma’s kingdom was by now much circumscribed. ‘I am not so steady on my feet as I was. I have someone here who might better appreciate your hugs. My king!’ she called. ‘Here he comes,’ she said to Kemma. ‘The last king of Karak Eight Peaks.’

Thorgrim came through the door, fully armed and armoured, his wispy beard hidden behind a chin-skirt of gromril plates. The sight of it made Kemma’s heart swell. Next month he would have been eleven years old, nineteen years until the majority he would never attain. In his boy’s armour he looked ridiculously young. In the visor of his helmet, his soft brown eyes, so like his father’s in particular, were wide with fear but hard with duty. My son, thought Kemma. He would have been a fine king.

‘Mother!’ he shouted with undwarf-like emotion. The others looked away at the boy-king’s unseemly display. They embraced. Someone tutted.

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘I too,’ said Kemma. She looked him deep in the eyes. His return look said he knew it too, that soon they would be.

‘Where are your Valkyrinn?’ said Kemma to Magda, looking about for the priestess’s bodyguards.

‘Gone. Gone to fight, and now doubtless dead.’

‘The king is dead?’ she asked, although she knew the answer.

‘Fallen. We are the last few dawi of Karak Eight Peaks. Thorgrim is our lord now.’

‘Whatever you say, mistress Magda,’ said Thorgim.

Magda chuckled. ‘You’re the king! You don’t have to defer to me.’

‘I think I will,’ said Thorgrim gracefully. ‘If it’s all the same to you.’

The last few dwarfs were running down the hall towards the room, heavy boots banging sparks from once fine mosaics. Worryingly, this included the last few warriors. Bloodcurdling screams and a horrible squeaking pursued them.

‘We better get in, and quickly,’ said Magda. She produced from under her robes a heavy object wrapped in oilcloth and offered it to the queen. ‘You’ll be wanting this.’

‘My hammer?’ guessed Kemma.

‘Of course. No queen should stand her last without her weapon. Are we dawi, or are we umgi females to go screaming into the night?’

Kemma nodded and took the oilcloth from the priestess; there indeed was the hammer.

‘Thank you.’

‘I took it from the armoury. I had no doubt you would need it at the end. Valaya provides for her champions.’ She gave a weary sigh, and steadied herself on Kemma’s shoulder. ‘I fear she has one final task for you before the end.’

Freya beckoned her through the door. The few dwarf warriors outside nodded their heads grimly and slammed it shut. A key turned in the lock from outside, and those inside barred the door as best they could, nailing planks across the door and frame that had been left there for that purpose.

What a last stand. Here were the young and infirm, the very, very old. Those beardlings old enough to fight or who flat out refused to leave, those young unkhazali who were too young to chance the journey. Their parents’ choice, not theirs. Kemma wished Belegar had ordered them all to go.

A room mostly full of those who never would or could no longer swing an axe. But all of those strong enough to lift them held one. Cooks, merchants, beardlings and rinn. All dwarfs had warrior in them, but some were more warlike than others, and the dwarfs in that room were among the least. They were down to the very last. She and Thorgrim were the champions of the room, the last heroes of this failing land.

She looked out of the room’s small window. Snow swirled around the tower, but it could not obscure the hordes of greenskins camped outside, insolently within gunshot of the walls. It made her sick to see them. Within hours, she reckoned, they would be fighting with the skaven over her bones.

The door shook. The beardlings tried their best to be brave, the younger children were openly terrified, the unkhazali cried in their mothers’ arms. There were not many children there; Karak Eight Peaks had never been a kind environment to raise beardlings. And here they all were, Karak Eight Peaks’s hopes for the future, trapped like rats and waiting to die.

The warriors in the corridor called out their battle-cries. From beyond the door a clashing of blades and the squealing of dying skaven set up. Thorgrim looked to his mother.

‘Don’t hold your axe so tightly,’ she scolded gently. ‘It will jar from your hand, and then where will you be?’

‘Sorry, mother,’ said Thorgrim.

Kemma smiled at him sadly. ‘Don’t be sorry. You have never done a wrong to dawi or umgi or anyone or anything else.’ She reached up to pat his face as she always had, a mother’s gesture for her child. But, she realised, he was not a child any more, despite his years. He was a king. She grasped his arm instead, a safe warrior’s gesture. ‘You would have been a very great king, my boy.’

The sound of arms abruptly ceased. There was a thump on the wood and a dying gurgle. Blood pooled under the door. Queekish squeaked outside. Silence. Then the door began to shake.

The door bounced in its frame. The wood splintered. The nails in the planks worked loose, and the first of them clattered to the floor.

‘They’re coming!’ screamed Kemma. ‘They’re coming!’

The fight was short and bloody. Kemma barred the way, keeping her son behind her, but he was singled out, and he was among the first to die. Kemma held back her grief and fought them as long as she could, a succession of untried warriors taking the position at her side. The skaven were stormvermin, strong and cunning warriors, but she was a queen, her hammer driven by a mother’s grief. They stood no chance. Ten she slew, then twenty. Time blurred along with her tear-streaked vision.

Kemma felt relief when the poisoned wind globe sailed into the room over the stormvermins’ heads, and shattered on the stone walls behind her. The choking gas poured with supernatural alacrity to fill every corner. The skaven in front of her died, white sputum bubbled at its lips, eyes bulging. Kemma held her breath, though her head spun and eyes stung and blurred. She ran forwards, hoping to buy time enough for the dwarfish young to die. Better a quick death by gas than the lingering torment of enslavement that would await them should they be taken alive.

‘Dreng! Dreng thaggoraki! Dreng! Dreng! Dreng!’ she shouted, swinging her hammer wildly. Her lungs burned, she could feel them filling with fluid. She was drowning in her own blood. Still she fought, sending the skaven breaching party reeling. Behind her, the cries and coughs subsided. Good, she thought. Good.

‘Za Vala-Azrilungol!’ she cried, holding her runic hammer aloft. The runes on it were losing their gleam, the magic leaching away, becoming nought but cut marks in steel. ‘Khazuk-ha! Vala-Azrilungol-ha! Valaya! Valaya! Valaya!’ She swung her hammer for one final swing, bloodying a stormvermin’s muzzle, but she was dying, her strength fleeing her body, and they brought her down. They pinned her to the floor, and she spat bloody mouthfuls at them. She panted shallowly, but could draw no sustenance from the air. The world and all its cruelties and disappointments receded. A golden light shone behind her as the halls of her ancestors opened their doors. Before she passed through, she flung one last, panting curse at her murderers.

‘Enjoy your victory. I hope you live to regret it.’

The column of greenskins toiled up the slopes of the mountains, into the bitter chill of the unnatural winter. They were led by a toothless, wrinkled old orc clad in nothing but a pair of filthy trousers and a stunty-skin cloak with the face still attached. The head of the stunty sat on the orc’s scalp, moustaches hanging either side of the orc’s face, beard tied under his chin. Consequently the dangling arm and leg skin of the dead dwarf only came halfway down the orc’s back. He had on no shoes, no shirt, no nothing, and it was freezing cold.

‘This way, this way!’ said Zargakk the Mad, for that was who the orc was. ‘No it ain’t!’ he scolded himself. ‘Oh yes it is!’ he replied.

‘Just where have you been these last years, Zargakk?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Funny you just turning up this morning like that. We could’ve used you in da fight.’

‘Yep, yep,’ yipped Zargakk. ‘Could have, could have. But I’s been busy. Yep, very busy. Part of it I was, er, dead. Yeah. I forget, um, the rest. But you got me Idol of Gork, dincha? That was a help! And I’m here now. Whoop!’ His eyes blazed green. Smoke puffed from his ears. Duffskul had been nutty, but Zargakk was totally crazy.

‘Funny, ain’t it,’ said Skarsnik, half to himself, ‘in an ironical kind of way, that we is using the same little hidden ways to gets out that them stunties used to get in.’

‘Suppose,’ said Zargakk. The goblin and orc chiefs marching with them shared perplexed looks.

‘But there’s no stunties there now, boss, none at all. They’s all gone!’ said one, who was either braver or even thicker than the rest.

Skarsnik shut his eyes tight and shuddered.

They had marched out in the morning, after a nervous-looking skaven had delivered the king’s head. Zargakk had been sitting on a toppled stunty statue in front of the Howlpeak, the citadel burning behind him. All across the skies were clouds of blackest black, so black the night goblins didn’t really notice it was day at all. In the east, south and north they were lit red by the fires of the earth. Only to the west was there a hint of blue, and that was pale and scalloped by roils of ash.

Up, up onto the slopes they went, chancing the high passes. The main road out of the Eight Peaks to the west was buried in rubble from the skaven’s detonation of the mountains. Although large numbers of skaven had departed to the north, some remained, and the East Gate was most likely in the hands of the ratmen by now. Skarsnik wasn’t banking on them keeping their word, so up into the cold they went.

From high above the Great Vale, Skarsnik turned to take one last look at his former domain. His entire army stopped with him. Most of it did, anyway, those elements that did not tripping over the ones that had, and no small number of them slipping to their deaths as a result.

‘Garn! Get on! Get on!’ yelled Skarsnik, planting his boot in the breeches of a mountain goblin. ‘Blow the zogging horns, you halfwits. Do it! Get ’em moving! Just cos I is stopping don’t mean everyone should!’

Horns blared, the mountains answering sorrowfully. Drums rolled like distant thunder in the forgotten summers of the world. Skarsnik thought there might never be a summer again.

‘Look at that. Would you look at that,’ said Kruggler, peering out from under his dirty bandages. He’d been wounded across the forehead during the battle, but his skull was particularly dense and he seemed unharmed. ‘Seems such a waste, leaving it all behind.’

‘Yeah,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Don’t it just? All them zogging rats just upped and left an’ all. Ridiculous. It’s empty. Empty after all this time.’

‘The greatest stunty-house in all the world!’

‘Second greatest,’ corrected Skarsnik, holding up a grubby finger. ‘Second greatest. And it was all mine.’

‘Why they going?’ said Kruggler.

‘Search me,’ shrugged Skarsnik. ‘Don’t make no sense.’

‘Why don’t we just go back then?’ said someone.

‘Nah,’ said Skarsnik. ‘We do that, they’ll come back. Besides, new vistas, new worlds to conquer. All that.’

‘Stupid rats,’ grumbled Dork the orc, current boss of Skarsnik’s bigger greenies. Skarsnik had lost so many of his chieftains he wasn’t sure who was who any more, and he couldn’t exactly stop to check his lists.

‘Mark my words, it’ll be full of trolls soon enough,’ said Tolly Grin Cheek the Fourth.

‘Maybe,’ said Skarsnik, raising his eyebrows. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time, except, it won’t happen.’

‘How you know that, boss?’ said Dork.

Skarsnik plucked a human-made watch from his pocket and screwed up his eyes to peer at it. ‘I just do. Should be about now.’

‘What, boss?’ said Tolly Grin Cheek.

‘You don’t think I’d let those ratboys have the place, did you? You don’t think I’m beat do you? Eh? Eh?’

The goblins and orcs looked at each other searchingly. No one wanted to hazard a guess at the right answer to that one.

‘Course not!’ said Skarsnik. ‘Y’see, those ratboys are too zogging clever by half.’

‘Not like us, eh, boss!’ said Dork. The others laughed at their own cleverness.

‘No. No. Definitely not,’ replied Skarsnik flatly. ‘Anyways, that big ratfing promised me two things. Old Belegar here.’ Skarsnik patted his dwarf-hide pouch, wherein languished the severed head of the king. ‘And one of them fancy machines the ratties are always meddling with. I had a mob put it down there, set it off to go, then run away.’

‘What was it, boss? What was it?’ they shouted excitedly.

Skarsnik pulled a pained expression and shuddered. ‘Can’t one of you zogging morons have a guess, just one guess?’

‘A super trap!’ said one.

‘A big axe?’ said Dork hopefully.

‘A troll!’

‘A dragon!’

‘Two dragons!’

‘Lots of dragons!’ someone else shouted, getting carried away with the whole dragon idea.

‘It’s a bomb, you snotlings-for-brains. Our boss here got a big bomb off them, didn’t he?’ Zargakk the Mad said. ‘He did, he did!’ he added, nodding in enthusiastic agreement with himself.

‘That’s the truth, right there,’ said Skarsnik. ‘A bomb. Apparently, they was going to blow up the big dwarf mountain up north where the king of all stunties live. Well, not now they ain’t!’

They all shared a good laugh at that.

‘This big rat god fing showed up, and offered it to me. Tried to talk me into blowing up Zhufbar with it! So I said yes.’

‘But we ain’t at Zhufbar, boss!’

‘Yeah, Zhufbar’s, like, miles away.’

‘It’s at least three.’

‘More like loads.’

‘Will you just let me finish?’ shouted Skarsnik. ‘Zhufbar’s one thousand and eighty-four miles away, if you must know. So I thoughts to meself,’ he continued at normal volume again, ‘I ain’t walking all that way on the say-so of a ratboy! Then I finks, well, if I ain’t going to have the Eight Peaks, and the stunties aren’t going to have the Eight Peaks, then the zogging ratboys certainly aren’t going to have it. I’m going to be the last king of the Eight Peaks. Me,’ he said, low and growly. ‘Not some mange-furred rat git with cheesy breath! I tells you, it’s the biggest bomb what ever there was. Huge! All brass and iron and wyrdstone.’ He had to exaggerate its size. The goblins would never have believed something small as a troll’s head could do so much damage.

‘Weeds toe what?’

‘He means the glowy green rock what the ratties likes so much,’ said Dork, glowing almost as much as said rock himself with self-satisfaction.

‘Yeah, that’s right. The green glowy. About a ton of it, I’d say, all packed about with black powder.’

‘What’s an “aton”?’

‘Lots! A ton is lots! Very heavy! It’s lots, all right?’ said Skarsnik, his hood vibrating with irritation. ‘So lots it’ll make them little bangs what the ratties brought down Red Sun Mountain with look like squigs popping on a fire. And I made ’em give it to me! Me!’

A tinny chime sounded from out of the watch, strange music to play out the destruction of their home, accompanied by the slap-tramp of goblin feet as the tribes wound their way upwards.

‘And that’s the timer,’ said Skarsnik. He chuckled evilly.

They all stared expectantly at the city. Big ’uns and bosses had to lash the lads to stop them from gawping at what their betters were looking at.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

‘Was that it? Has it gone?’ asked a particularly thick underling, who was staring right at Karak Eight Peaks’s desolate ruins.

‘No. No. No! That wasn’t it, you zogging git!’ Skarsnik roared. He spun round and blasted the gobbo with a bright green zap of Waaagh! energy. The goblin exploded all over everybody else.

An uncomfortable silence fell, punctuated by the drip of goblin blood. Karak Eight Peaks remained resolutely, undemolishedly there.

‘Er,’ said Kruggler, tentatively tapping Skarsnik’s shoulder. ‘You know them skaven gizmos, they don’t always work, do they, boss?’

‘Mork’s ’urty bits,’ said Skarsnik. He sniffed. He spat. He shuffled about a bit. The chain that Gobbla used to be attached to clanked sadly. He couldn’t bring himself to take it off. ‘Not with a bang, but with a whimper,’ he muttered to himself.

‘Sorry, boss?’

‘Nothing, Krugs,’ said Skarsnik with forced bonhomie. ‘Nothing. Just something I read in a humie book once.’ Skarsnik shook his head and waved his sorry band onwards. ‘Come on, boys. Nothing left to see here. Nothing left at all.’

‘’Ere, boss,’ called someone. ‘I got a question.’

‘Yes?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Dazzle me with your piercing insight, Krugdok.’

‘Just where exactly are we going?’

‘And I remain undazzled,’ said Skarsnik with such sharp sarcasm you could have trimmed a troll’s nose hair with it. Besides Zargakk, not one of the goblins or orcs, excepting perhaps Kruggler – and then only perhaps – noticed. ‘To tell you the truth, and I really mean it this time…’ The goblins dutifully tittered. The orcs scowled. ‘…I haven’t got a bleedin’ clue.’

And with those eternal words, the last king of Karak Eight Peaks turned from his kingdom for the final time, and trudged over the mountain shoulder. Ahead of him the lowering volcanic skies hid an uncertain future.

Twenty-Three

Twelve in One

Thanquol splashed through shallow puddles on the walkway by the sewer channel. He had given up trying to keep his robes clean. They were roughly made anyway, not like the finery he was used to.

‘This not good-good,’ he grumbled. ‘Grey seers fall low, Thanquol lowest of all.’

He scurried along, head constantly twitching to look behind him. He missed the comfort of Boneripper’s presence. He got more done when he wasn’t constantly watching his own back.

Not very far over him were the warrens of the man-things, the city-place they called Nuln. He was here to take it for Clan Skryre, and things were not going very well at all.

If he’d known how much the clan would expect of him, then he probably wouldn’t have thrown himself on their mercy.

Probably.

Not so long ago, Thanquol and his fellow seer Gribikk – how annoying to find him here too! No doubt he had already reported Thanquol’s presence back to Thaumkrittle – would have been in charge of the expedition, and it would all have been over some time ago. But it was Skribolt of Clan Skryre who was in charge, his large contingent of warlocks supposedly fighting alongside Clans Vrrtkin, Carrion, Kryxx and Gristlecrack. Naturally, the entire expedition was unravelling.

It was all Skribolt’s fault, not his. The Great Warlock was a fine inventor, Thanquol could see that, but he lacked vision, and his strategies lacked scope. How was it Thanquol’s fault that Clan Vrrtkin and Clan Carrion had turned on each other? How was it his doing that they could not even take a warehouse full of gunpowder without fighting among themselves?

Of course, he was being blamed. Poor Thanquol, once the darling of the Council, now a scapegoat for a tinker-rat of limited vision. He gnashed his teeth at the terrible injustice of it all. He was desperate. The plans to raid the man-thing’s city for gunpowder and a working steam engine had come to nought. The Council of Thirteen had made it very clear the mission would succeed, or heads would be forfeit. As things stood, that meant his head, and that would not do at all. The emissary from the Council had been quite specific, in a roundabout way. Thanquol still could not believe that the grey seers had fallen so far. The shame of having to explain himself for something that patently was not his fault made his ears burn. Worst of all, it had been a lowly warlock who had come all puffed up and guarded by the Council’s elite Albino Guard to deliver the ultimatum. That was a grey seer’s task.

Skribolt was close to ridding himself of Thanquol. He was in league with Gribikk – it was the only explanation. They’d taken Boneripper from him not long afterwards, ostensibly for repairs, but Thanquol knew the truth of it. Another attack on the surface failed shortly afterwards, again due to the treachery of Clan Vrrtkin. Ordered to report his own ‘failure’ by farsqueaker, he had sabotaged the machine and fled to the sewers. The uprising was going wrong all over the Empire, and they couldn’t blame him for all of it. But they didn’t have to. He was at last resorts. He didn’t know whether to be more angry than afraid, or more afraid than angry. If this didn’t work…

Thanquol reached the door he sought and glanced about himself, nose twitching with nerves. The bundle he carried mewled, and he shushed and patted at it. A splash sounded up the river of filth flowing sluggishly past him. He stayed deathly still, ears pricked for any sound, but nothing came to him but the steady drip of water, and a far-off rushing sound from where the sewer discharged into the river.

He unfroze, tail moving first and then his whole body melting into nervy activity. With his free hand he drew forth the key for the door, stolen from the city sewerjacks many years ago.

They hadn’t missed the key. The lock was so clogged with rust it was patently obvious no one had been here since his last visit. He had to place the squirming bundle on the floor to turn it. The squealing it made set his heart pumping and glands clenching. The door groaned louder still when he pushed it open. He paused again, holding his breath until he was satisfied.

He scooped up the bundle and scurried in, pushing the door slowly to behind him.

As he suspected, the chamber was undisturbed. The man-things definitely hadn’t been there, and he breathed a little easier. Cobwebs thick with dust festooned the domed ceiling. A lesser drain ran diagonally through the circular room, cutting off a third of it from the rest before disappearing through a culvert in the walls. Thanquol absently patted the bundle again, and set it down in the corner as far away from the stream of human waste as he could. To summon the verminlord, it was important his offering was as pure as possible.

He flexed his right hand-paw. The grafting scar around his wrist itched. He held both of them, regarding their mismatched nature. ‘Gotrek!’ he hissed, recalling the moment his hated nemesis had severed the paw. He clapped his left hand over his muzzle. Who knew if the dwarf-thing were here, lurking in the shadows and ready to foil him yet again?

Thanquol took a generous pinch of warpstone snuff to calm his nerves. His head pounded at the effect, his brain strained against his skull. His chest rose and fell expansively. His vision cleared, and he saw revealed the straining tendrils of magic crossing the room. So much of it in the world!

Enough perhaps for success. His eyes narrowed, and he allowed himself his most diabolical chuckle.

Thanquol set to work.

First, he brushed as much dust away from the centre of the room with his foot-paws as he could, revealing the stone beneath. Though segments of the walls dripped with moisture, and filth ran through it, the room was otherwise wholesome, and surprisingly dry. With a shard of sharpened warpstone, he scratched out a double circle and filled the band between inner and outer layers with intricate symbols. He fought the urge to nibble on the warpstone shard, at least until he was done. When he had, he munched on the blunt end as he scrutinised his work. He nodded, and turned to the bundle.

He unwrapped it quickly.

‘So ugly!’ he hissed. ‘Not like skaven pups. Come-come! You sing for Thanquol now.’

Thanquol drew his knife and placed the squealing bundle in the centre of the circle.

When he was done, Thanquol carefully dripped the blood into the gouges in the floor. His usual frenetic movement became measured as he carefully filled in each. This had to be done precisely. Messing it up didn’t bear thinking of. He whispered words of summoning under his breath, hoping it wouldn’t be like the last time, hoping that…

Skarbrand…

Do not think-recall the name! he told himself. It was probably still listening. He calmed himself, waited until the memories of the bloodthirster he’d accidentally called up the last time faded, then continued.

He placed the pup’s remains and its bloodied rags outside the circle, and held up his hand-paws.

Although his past efforts had ended in disaster, once more the white-furred sorcerer attempted to slice the veil between realms. Once more he attempted to bring forth a verminlord. He spoke-squeaked the words of power, calling upon the Horned Rat and the mightiest daemons of his court. Green fire crackled from his eyes and between his upraised paws.

‘Come-skitter! Join me in the realm of the mortal! I command you! I, Grey Seer Thanquol so squeak-say!’ he said. There was a blast of power and the fabric of reality rippled.

He stood there exulted, hands still upraised. It was working!

Nothing happened.

He let his arms drop, and looked around. The room was unchanged. He was alone.

Once more Thanquol had failed. This time, at least, he had not done so with the same disastrous consequences as his previous attempt. He groaned. His paws clenched.

‘Why-why?’ he said. The temptation was to storm out, destroy the circle, and find someone else to blame. But he could not. He was the one being blamed – entirely unjustly – by others. He had to succeed.

Tail swishing, the grey seer paced out of the circle, careful not to scuff the marks. He went around and inspected them all.

‘Perfect! Perfect! They are all perfect! The Horned Rat himself could not have drawn them better. Why-why does it not work?!’ he squealed angrily. The bloody rags caught his eyes. Maybe two…?

It was then that Thanquol perceived a shadowy hand reaching out of the blackness gathered in the chamber’s vaulted ceiling. The claws ripped through reality with a screech that sent pain running down his spine. The enormous hand headed unerringly for him. He found that he could not move, not even when the hand grabbed him by the ankles and lifted him upright, dangling him upside down as its owner stepped out of a black abyss of shadows. Remembering the fate of Kritislik, Thanquol liberally vented the musk of fear.

But he was not consumed. The entity stepped through into the realm of the mortal, casually bestriding Thanquol’s protective circle. It examined him with curiosity, peering at him this way and that.

Thanquol could do nothing but squeak in wide-eyed wonder. He had seen verminlords before, of course, but never anything like this. No horns had ever sprouted so majestically as the ones upon its head. Multiple sets curved and entwined the daemon’s face. They seemed to sinuously curve and move as Thanquol watched them. Beneath the horns one eye was missing. In its place was not an empty socket, but a warpshard, or if the angle was correct, a black hole of endless nothing. Thanquol’s head throbbed as he looked into it.

‘Ahhh, Thanquol, you took your time. Perhaps you are not so gifted as I thought?’ it purred. ‘I have waited for you to call me. Yes-yes, we have much to do.’

‘Who-what are you, O great master?’ shrilled Thanquol.

The creature placed him gently alongside the channel. Only then did the grey seer notice that one of the verminlord’s foot-paws was in the drain. It did not sink into the river of filth but hovered above it.

The ancient being stooped to Thanquol’s level.

‘Our name is Lord Skreech Verminking,’ said the verminlord. ‘There are many of us, and one.’ As he spoke, Thanquol saw before him – or perhaps he imagined it – the verminlord’s visage flicker, revealing many ghostly aspects that together somehow made the face the creature wore: the contagion-ridden body of a plague priest, the shadowy assassin, the hungry hordes, the tinkering weaponsmith, the future-gazing seer. ‘The ruins, the decay, they give me power. I was called here by blight and destruction. There is much in the world in this time, and it is good,’ it said, sniffing the air and craning its neck. ‘And by you, Thanquol.’

Thanquol swallowed in awe. Could it be? The grey seers had long spoken in whispers of ‘the One’, a Rat King – a conglomerate evil. As mortal skaven had their hierarchies of clan, caste, and rank, so too did the verminlords above them. There was one, an entire Council of Thirteen elevated by the Horned Rat in the past to daemonhood as one creature. He was their ruler, the lord of the supposed Shadow Council of Thirteen. Had Thanquol really just summoned forth the most powerful of all verminlords? He had always known he was special, but this was pleasing confirmation. Pleasing indeed. He smiled.

The grey seer looked up into that strange face staring back at, and possibly through, him. It seemed to have read his thoughts, for it looked down upon him indulgently, its enormous claw reaching out to ever so gently stroke his horns. ‘I am who you think I am, yes-yes, little seer. You have a purpose. I have need of your singular talents. Together we shall conquer.’

Thanquol’s heart soared. With this creature at his side, none could stand before him! He couldn’t wait to see Skribolt’s face, or to smell him squirt the musk of fear.

‘Nuln-place first?’

The verminlord nodded its head, pleased with the seer, or so it seemed to the conceited Thanquol. ‘And much more besides. We have many tasks ahead of us. But first, gifts!’

Impossibly, a huge shape was in the corner of the room, half shadowed, like it had been there all the time and was patiently waiting for its cue. Thanquol’s eyes widened. The largest rat ogre he had ever seen stepped out of the shadows.

Thanquol’s whiskers twitched with glee.

‘Many thanks-gratitudes for such beneficent generosities, O great and unplumbably wise Lord Verminking!’ Thanquol’s eyes narrowed, his imagination alive with much smashing and kill-slaying. ‘I shall call him Boneripper,’ he said.

In the war council of the Nuln-place clawpack, all was not well. For hours the skaven assailing the city had hurled accusations at each other by the dimly flickering light of warp-braziers. The room the council occupied was a small one, built and forgotten by humans long ago, and pitifully insufficient in size to contain so many over-weaning egos.

‘I say-squeak you are a worthless weak-meat, and all Clan Vrrtkin are puny-small and shifty!’ squeaked Warlord Throttlespine of Clan Kryxx. He had drawn his sword and pointed it at Warlord Trikstab Gribnode of Clan Vrrtkin. ‘You are at fault for our lack of success, tricking and lying and attacking when we should fight together.’

‘Lies, lies! Not good lies either,’ squealed Gribnode. He pulled his own sword. The other members of the war council stood hurriedly from the table, upsetting their chairs. ‘All knows Thanquol-seer is weak link in rusty chain here, and you are next weakest, Throttlespine. Banish Thanquol, great and cunning Warlock Skribolt! Banish him, so we not have to suffer the stink of his slack musk-hole! It is this that foils our efforts! Then let us banish Throttlespine. He is in league with Thanquol! His cowardice too is legendary.’

Throttlespine growled and jumped onto the table. ‘Coward, am I? I lead from the back of my ratkin as every true warrior should-must, whereas you, where are you? Skulking and hiding off the battlefield! You are to blame, and seek to smear my good-true name with ordure of failure. I am a loyal servant of the council!’

‘No, I am the loyallest servant of the council!’ retorted Gribnode.

‘Stop-cease, halt!’ squeaked Skribolt. ‘This is too much!’ Unable to get anyone to listen to him, he began to crank the handle of his warp-lightning generator.

Throttlespine was tensed for a leap when the sound of fighting came from outside.

‘Stop-stop!’ squeaked a stormvermin beyond the door. ‘Many-much council leaders exercise deep and important thinkings. Go aw–’ The guard’s order was cut short. The sound of armoured bodies clattering off the walls took its place. A terrifying roar had them all looking at each other, and struggling to control their fear glands.

A single blow felled the plank door so hard it hit the flagged floor with a bang like a cannon shot. On the other side was the largest rat ogre any of the council members had ever seen, even Grand Packmaster Paxrot of Clan Moulder, and he knew his rat ogres very well. The four-armed behemoth doubled over to squeeze its bulk through the doorway. Following the monster came Grey Seer Thanquol.

‘Thanquol?’ said Skribolt, his hand slowing on the warp-lightning crank, then speeding up again. ‘You are banished!’

‘Good-good, all still here? I bring news from the Council,’ said Thanquol, who was puffed up and obviously very pleased with himself.

This proclamation was most stunning to Great Warlock Skribolt, whose claw still churned the handcrank on his warp-energy generator. His muzzle twitched as he grasped for what to say.

‘Yes-yes, after so much incompetence,’ and here the grey seer paused to look at Skribolt, ‘I am to be in charge. Any disputes can be directed to my bodyguard, Boneripper.’ At this, Thanquol nodded at the hulking beast stood snarling behind him, surveying the gathering with hate-filled eyes.

‘But that is not…’ Skribolt started to say, but the grey seer cut him off.

‘My new bodyguard, Boneripper,’ said Thanquol. ‘The old one was mostly dead,’ he added dismissively. ‘This one better. Now that the element of surprise is gone-lost,’ Thanquol continued, ‘I feel it is time to switch tactics. My plan is to–’

At last Skribolt found his tongue. ‘Enough! No more! Halt-stop!’ said the Great Warlock, the last words coming out perhaps more shrilly than he had wished. ‘On whose orders were you gift-granted authority? Why-tell was I not informed?’

Skribolt was standing, lightning wreathing him as his whirring contraption sucked in the winds of magic. All the other skaven – warlords, a top assassin, and a master moulder – took a step backwards away from the two.

When a voice spoke from the shadows all turned, finding a terrible sight. The blackness strained with life, and an awful shape moved there. Such was the power inherent in it that several of the lesser warlords let their musk glands loose.

‘On our authority, Great Warlock!’ said the shadow. The room went black, lit only by dancing chains of lightning. A long, elegant claw reached out, snuffing out the sparks between Skribolt’s backpack conductors. In the blackness a single terrifyingly evil eye radiated green over them, holding them each in its turn, leaving none in any doubt that his most treasured schemes had been exposed, digested and dismissed as the work of fools.

As suddenly as it appeared, the blackness was gone. The war council was alone again.

‘What do you bid-command, O great and exalted leader Thanquol?’ intoned Warlord Throttlespine, bowing low. The rest of the skaven followed suit, although they did subconsciously shuffle away from those who had befouled themselves.

Thanquol had already surmised that Throttlespine was the smart one, yet it was gratifying to be proven correct. Nodding his head slightly in acceptance, Thanquol began again. ‘As I was squeal-saying, my plan…’

Twenty-Four

The King’s Head

The world had changed.

No longer could the dawi count the mountains as their own. They teetered on the brink of extinction.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer ground his teeth together. The Dammaz Kron lay under his hand. It had glutted itself on woes, growing thicker faster than at any other time in the High King’s remarkable reign.

He stared at the Granite Gate two hundred feet away. Massive twin doors of stone, imposing despite being only half – and it was exactly, precisely half – the height of the tall, vaulted corridor they barred. The gates shuddered under an impact from the far side: a quiver in the stone so small that only a dwarf, stone born and stone master, could see. Bands of runes carved into the gates glowed intensely with inner blue light, their magic striving to keep the gates whole and closed.

The skaven were coming. As sure as Thorgim’s chin wore a beard, they would get through. The ratkin had burst every defence, arcane and otherwise, that the dawi of Karaz-a-Karak had thrown up.

Thorgrim thought on the horrors that afflicted his people.

Karak Azul overthrown.

Karak Eight Peaks lost a second time.

Zhufbar swarmed by an endless tide of vermin.

Barak Varr pouring smoke from its great dock gates, the pride of the dwarf fleet broken in the sea before it.

The holds of the Grey Mountains overcome and lost in three horrific nights of bloodshed.

Karak Kadrin poisoned.

Karaz-a-Karak besieged for years now, cut off on all sides above and below. The streams of refugees pouring into the dwarf capital from other kingdoms had given Thorgrim much anguish. At a time when he thought his dream might be fulfilled, that the lost realms of the Karaz Ankor would be reclaimed, it had all come to nothing. The fleeing dwarfs brought with them tales of proud strongholds cast down, and not only in dwarf lands. Many dwarfs of the diaspora had fled back to their ancestral homeland from human cities – their habits and speech strange; some of them even trimmed their beards! – telling of similar woes beyond the mountains. But what was more horrifying than the incoming flood and the dire tidings they brought was that it had stopped. No dwarf had come into Everpeak for months.

Tilea, Estalia and Bretonnia ashes. The Empire devastated. The moon cracked in the sky, invasion from the north, and ratmen swarming from everywhere.

‘We stand alone,’ he said into his beard, his unblinking stare locked upon the door. It shuddered again.

‘The runes will not last, my liege,’ muttered Hrosta Copperling. A runesmith, but a mere beardling compared to the likes of Kragg the Grimm and Thorek Ironbrow. Their kind would never come again into this world. Hrosta was loyal and dedicated to his task, but his store of knowledge was paltry.

Thorgrim did not grace Hrosta’s obvious statement with a reply, but continued to stare at the Granite Gate.

Forty feet wide, fifty tall, the gate was a lesser portal of Everpeak. Leading onto a once-safe and well-travelled section of the Ungdrin Ankor, it had become, like all the other many gates into the mountain, yet another way for the skaven to attack them.

‘Thaggoraki,’ Thorgrim growled. He thought of what he had seen from the Rikund, the King’s Porch at the summit of Karaz-a-Karak. The endless seas of enemies, whose bodies stained the roads leading to his kingdom brown. There were so many of them, more than there had ever been before.

‘My king, I implore you to return to the Hall of Kings,’ said Gavun Tork, the most venerable of his living ancestors.

‘You leave, my friend, we have lost too many heads full of wisdom. Go back and be safe. My duty is here. The time for counsel and talk is done. The Axe of Grimnir will speak for me.’

‘Thorgrim, please!’

Thorgrim jerked his head at the living ancestor. Two of his hammerers broke from the ranks of the Everguard. ‘Escort Loremaster Tork back to the eighteenth deep. Keep him safe.’

‘Aye, my king,’ said his warriors.

Tork gave the king a helpless look, his rheumy blue eyes brimmed with concern that threatened to spill into the deep lines on his face. ‘If I were but two hundred years younger…’

‘You have swung many axes for the glory of Karaz Ankor, my friend,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Let those younger take your place. Yours is a different burden.’

‘I…’

‘Go!’ said the king.

The living ancestor shook off the hands of the hammerers. ‘Very well. But stay safe! This is foolishness. You should not risk yourself.’

‘You are wrong, loremaster,’ said Thorgrim, his flinty eyes returning to regard the door. ‘It is exactly what I should do.’

The clink of the Everguard’s armour receded. Silence regained its hold over the throng. One hundred ironbreakers, irondrakes in support, and three score of his Everguard.

It should be enough, thought Thorgrim.

The doors’ runes flickered and went out. The rock at their centre glowed bright orange, a pinprick at first that spread out in a perfect circle. The stone of the Granite Gate had been chosen well; there was not a flaw in it.

‘Close secondary portcullises!’ bellowed the gatewarden of the Granite Gate.

Three sets of heavy iron portcullises descended simultaneously from slots in the roof, their machinery noiseless. Only when they met the ground, and their heavy-toothed bottoms slid into matching holes in the floor, did they make the faintest clink.

The glow in the doors spread to engulf their middle, top to bottom. The light of it glowed redly from the ceiling and polished floor, catching in the eyes of ancestor statues, whose faces, changed by shadowplay, took on horrified expressions. A dribble of molten rock ran from the gate’s centre, creating a hole that grew as the rock collapsed outwards, a hole that guttered a plume of fire.

‘Irondrakes!’ called the gatewarden. ‘Airshaft doors ready!’

Fifty runic handcannons were levelled at the door.

The Granite Gate sagged all at once, its perfection lost in a pool of cooling slag.

‘Fire!’ bellowed the gatewarden. Tongues of flame burst from the irondrakes’ guns, aimed at the centre of the hole. Whatever was on the other side exploded noisily before it could withdraw. Green-tinged fire rolled out, licking at the irondrakes’ enchanted armour without effect. Squeals of dismay came from the other side of the doors. The stink of skaven fear and burning rock washed over the throng, and the air became stuffy and difficult to breathe.

The stone skinned over and cooled to a dull, ugly grey. A thick vapour obscured whatever lay on the far side of the broken gate.

Next came a hissing noise, as a green mist issued from the breach.

‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ shouted the gatewarden. ‘Airshafts open!’

The noxious fog rolled towards the dwarfs, sinking low to the floor. The clink of rolling glass and its shattering followed. Lesser plumes of poison sprouted as short-lived mushroom clouds around the front of the dwarf line.

The gatewarden’s orders were quickly obeyed. Dwarfs cranked open large steel flaps, revealing shafts that stretched far up the mountain. Steam engines churned on levels above, creating a ferocious wind that blew downwards, exiting from angled horns to blow the gas back towards the door. More squeaking came.

Thorgrim smiled to hear them panic. The dwarfs were slow to embrace the new, but when they did, you could be sure it would be perfect.

The gas dissipated, misting the air. It was in danger of choking the dwarfs, and so the doorwarden ordered the steam engines disengaged. The pumped wind ceased, and the natural pressure difference between the low halls and the high mountain sucked the gas away, venting it harmlessly high above the tree line many thousands of feet above their heads.

Only then did the skaven come. As usual, the frantic squealing of slaves being driven at the dwarfs preceded the main assault. These were shot down without mercy, the blasts of the irondrakes’ handcannons immolating them by the handful.

‘No matter what they do, they are not coming through this tunnel,’ said Thorgrim.

In that, the High King was wrong.

What should have come next was more slaves, thousands of them, sent to die solely for the wasting of the dwarfs’ ammunition.

Through the reek of battle came no slaves. Instead the smoke curled around a great shape, horned and tall as a giant. Light warped around it, as if recoiling from the unnatural beast, shrouding it in a flickering darkness.

‘Verminlord,’ called out Thorgrim. ‘This one is mine!’

The rat-daemon strode forwards. Jabbering in some unholy tongue, it swept its glaive in a wide arc, allowing its hand to slip far towards the counterweight at the bottom, and extending its reach to well over fifteen feet. Trailing green fire, the weapon impacted the first portcullis with a thunderous clash. The steel was sundered, deadly shrapnel from its destruction slicing into the ranks of irondrakes. ‘Fire!’ called the gatewarden. Handgun fire from embrasures in the walls joined the shorter-ranged bursts of the irondrakes. All were stopped by the cloak of shadow that wreathed the daemon. The second portcullis was broken. Thorgrim ordered his thronebearers forward. They obeyed instantly, bearing the great weight of the High King’s throne without complaint. The ironbreakers parted ranks to allow their king passage.

‘Shield wall!’ roared the gatewarden. A line of overlapped steel formed to the front of the ironbreakers. The irondrakes withdrew, leaving the ironbreakers facing the monster before them. The third portcullis was thrown down, its refuse clattering off the ironbreakers’ shields. The verminlord threw back its head and squealed.

Then the skaven attack began in earnest, a rush of clanrat warriors pouring through the ruined gateway. As they reached the heels of their demigod, the daemon broke into a run, glaive thrumming around its head.

Thorgrim raised up his axe, and roared out a challenge. The creature came right at him. It brought its weapon down in an overhead sweep that would have slain a rhinox. But the mystic energies of the Throne of Kings responded and a flaring shield of magic stopped the blow three feet above Thorgrim’s head. He shouted his war cries, voicing the unyielding defiance of the dwarfs, and struck back. The Axe of Grimnir clove through the shadow protecting the creature and into its evil flesh. Blackness like ink spilled in water escaped from the wound, bringing with it the scent of rot. Thorgrim’s beard prickled at his proximity to the thing. He bellowed again, and swung again, and the creature blocked, spinning its glaive around the axe, nearly tearing it from Thorgrim’s grasp.

The skaven were upon his warriors. Driven to a great fervour of war by the presence of their god’s avatar, they slashed with their weapons with strength beyond their feeble bodies, and bit so hard they broke their teeth. But they did not care. Thorgrim’s bearers hewed about them, keeping the creatures from their lord while he duelled with the daemon.

The verminlord struck again, thrusting with the point of its glaive, spear fashion. The rune of eternity blazed again, but the warpmetal – greenish black and as unearthly as its owner – slid through the protective magic. The great strength of the verminlord punched it through the Armour of Skaldour, ripping open Thorgrim’s side. The poisonous pain of warp contamination burned in his blood, but his roar was one of anger for the damage done to his panoply, for the skills to repair it had long been lost. The verminlord regarded him with amusement glittering in its red eyes. It assumed a guard posture, ready to strike again.

A fey feeling came upon the dwarf king. The settling of some great power about him. He felt it first as one feels the breath of another upon the cheek, perhaps unexpected, often welcome. His beard crackled with energy. This was magic, or he was umgdawi, but it was a clean sort, heavy with age, and if dwarfs respected anything at all, age was foremost. His doughty mind rebelled against it, yet against his will his heart welcomed it, and it came into him without resistance.

The world glowed golden. The metal of his throne gleamed in a way he thought impossible. The gold took on a most amazing lustre, a warmth pooled about his wounded side, and he felt the metal move there.

Infused with this glamour, Thorgrim lurched to his feet, his bearers expertly accommodating the movement of the king in combat as they fought themselves. He ran to the prow of his throne, and it felt as if the stuff of his wargear helped him – the metals that made it lending power and purpose to him above and beyond the already mighty measures he had of both. He came up level with the beast’s head. Before the power upon the king, the dark magic that pinned the rat-daemon to the fabric of the earth unravelled, the glow going from its glaive blade, the shadow wafting back as surely as the gas attack had been dispersed by the ingenuity of the dwarfs. The verminlord understood what was coming at it and recoiled. The thing was slowed somehow, and the king brought the axe down hard, splitting the skull of the creature before it could move out of reach. It died with a shriek that had warriors of both sides clutching their ears in agony. A jet of noxious black spewed from its shattered head as it fell backwards. The glaive dropped and vanished, while the body collapsed into its own shadows, boiling away to nothing before it could crush the ratmen scurrying at its feet.

Seeing their godling so decisively bested, the thaggoraki wavered, even though they were hundreds deep and outnumbered the dwarfs many times over. Their cowardice had ensured the dwarfs’ survival time and again.

‘Forward!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Retake the gate. Allow not one of them to set paw upon the sacred stones of the inner mountain!’

With a great shout the ironbreakers pushed forwards. Thorgrim’s Everguard led the charge, bludgeoning skaven with looks of murderous determination. The waver turned into panic, then into rout.

Almost as one, the skaven turned tail and fled, many dying on the axes and hammers of the vengeful dwarfs as they scurried to escape, and leaving their wounded to their fate.

‘Victory!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Victory!’

‘My king, of course the traps are primed,’ said Chief Engineer of the Cogwheel brethren, Bukki ‘Buk’ Ironside, ‘but we are…’

Buk was not an easily intimidated dwarf, not by a long measure of beard, but he wilted nonetheless under Thorgrim’s furious stare. Not the boldest dawi, nor the oldest, nor the wisest, could weather the king’s glare. His advisors stood in a semicircle before the Great Throne, all of them deeply interested in their beard ends.

‘There is no place for “but” in my kingdom!’ said the king. His eyes were red with unexpressed emotion and lack of sleep.

‘We stand ready at your command, my king,’ said Buk hurriedly, bowing several times as he shuffled from the king’s displeasure back into the safety offered by his engineering peers.

‘Good!’ snapped Thorgrim.

‘My king,’ began Gavun Tork. He stood at the head of a dozen other living ancestors, all grim and uncomfortable-looking in their gold-thick finery and elaborate beard plaits. ‘We have advised you several times on this matter. We counsel that we should weather this storm as we always have…’

‘As I have heard your counsel!’ said Thorgrim. He patted the Dammaz Kron. ‘So we sit and we sit and we wait, while our defences are weakened and our numbers dwindle.’

Nockkim Grumsbyn, a short but headstrong dwarf, tired of Tork’s moderate attitude and pushed his way forward. ‘Defence has guaranteed our continued existence for many millennia, what you propose is suicide.’

‘Hiding behind our walls has all but doomed us!’ roared Thorgrim, all deference to the ancestors’ age and wisdom burned away by his furious despair. ‘For the entirety of my reign I have desired to march out with the axe-hosts of the dawi kingdoms and exterminate the skaven. Time and again I argued that this alone would save our kind. But you counselled against it, you and your like, Nockkim. And so we find ourselves skulking like trapped badgers in our hole, while our enemy, allowed to grow unchecked to uncountable numbers, plots our final demise. No more!’ he roared again. He stood. ‘Get out! Get out, all of you! I am king of the dawi nations. Your advice is flawed. For too long have you filled my ears with the whispers of caution, keeping me from reclaiming the glory of our ancestors, dwelling instead upon their dwindling legacy. Well now it dwindles to the point of extinguishment. Get out, I say!’

The entire gaggle of king’s councillors stepped back in horror. Never had they seen Thorgrim fly so brashly in the face of traditional respect.

‘Sire, there is something amiss.’ Tork gestured at Thorgrim’s throne. ‘The throne, your words – there was an odd light upon you in the battle and although it may have gone…’

‘Out! Get out! All of you!’ Thorgrim slammed his fist down on the Dammaz Kron. ‘Out,’ he said, his voice subsiding. ‘Get out.’

Thorgrim’s Everguard stepped forward. ‘Clear the throne room! By order of the High King of the Karaz Ankor! Clear the throne room!’

The Everguard, all fifty of them on honour duty at that moment, formed a line in front of their king and marched out slowly, shepherding the king’s council out before them.

All around the mighty hall, whisperings and rustlings spoke of servants and other attendants withdrawing.

It took a full five minutes for the scandalised court, its servants and Thorgrim’s bodyguards to leave the room. The great doors swung to with a soft boom.

Thorgrim stared down the aisle between the columns for a while. When he was completely sure he was alone, he stood up, gasping at the pain from his wound.

Whatever the strange power was that had settled on him had healed his armour, but not his flesh. Many dawi had seen him struck, but none had seen his armour rent. Consequently, none knew of his wound but a select few of his closest retainers and the priestesses of Valaya who had treated him. From all of them he had extracted oaths of silence on the matter. Among this select few, only the priestesses knew that it was not healing, poisoned by warp metal. He would let no one else know. If he began griping about every scratch, then how were his people to feel? Dwarfs were of adamant; nothing could break them. They needed to see that quality exemplified in him.

He gritted his teeth against the pain as he stepped from the Throne of Power, steadying himself on its dragon-head decorations for a moment before going on. He had already been weak before the wound. Writing so many grudges into the great book had demanded too much of his blood.

He went to the back of the throne and bent down. Agony stabbed him afresh and he choked back a cry. It was partly to deny the others the sight of their king in pain that he had sent them away, but mainly because Tork had been wrong. The light in the throne had not gone.

It had faded. The gold gleamed still, but only as bright as dwarf gold should. The magic had hidden itself away, that was all. Thorgrim could feel it all about him, and the king knew where it might be.

Sure enough, the Rune of Azamar was glowing with a steady light, more brightly than it had for centuries. The rune of eternity had been carved, it was said, by the ancestor god Grungni himself at the dawn of time. So powerful was it that only one of its type could exist at a time. It was also said that so long as it was whole, the realm of the dwarfs would endure. Thorgrim placed his hand upon it, and the rune’s pulsing could be felt through the metal of his gauntlets. He let his hand drop. This magic was alien to him, not of the dawi at all. But it was not malevolent. Cautious though he was in most matters, he somehow knew this for an unassailable fact.

He missed his runesmiths more than anything then. Kragg the Grim had died months ago during the Battle of the Undermines there at Karaz-a-Karak. The only other who had exceeded his knowledge had been Thorek Ironbrow, and he was also dead, slain years before. No other had their knowledge. He considered asking the younger runesmiths, or the runepriests of Valaya, or the priests of the ancestor gods, but that was a risky course of action. They would likely be as baffled as he, and the tidings would get out. In that time of threat and upheaval, there was only so much more the dwarfs could take. The last thing Thorgrim wanted were whisperings of fell powers in their king’s throne, or, perhaps more damaging, wild hopes of the ancestor gods’ return. Was this not Grungni’s own rune? Did it not guarantee the persistence of the dawi race while it was still whole? Thorgrim felt the first stirrings of such hope himself.

No one was coming. He could not risk the crash in morale that could follow the revelation of this hope being false.

He would wait and see. That was the proper dwarf way. Only when he was satisfied would he reveal this new development.

His mind made up, he wearily got into the throne. He sighed. He supposed he had better apologise to the longbeards. Tork at least needed to know what was happening.

Before he could summon his servants, a long, mournful blaring filtered down sounding shafts into the hall. Thorgrim sat forwards, listening intently. Up on the tops of Everpeak’s great ramparts, the karak horns were sounding. The immense tusks of some ancient monster, the twinned horns were blown whenever danger threatened. From the notes played by the hornmasters, the entire city could be informed of the nature and size of the enemy force.

They played ominously long and low.

The doors at the end of the hall cracked open. A messenger huffed his way up the long granite pavement to the foot of the throne. Red-faced, he executed a quick bow and began to speak.

‘My king, a fresh force of thaggoraki is moving to reinforce the besieging ratkin outside the gates.’

‘Who brings this news?’

‘Gyrocopter patrols, my liege. They report a massive horde on its way.’ The messenger’s face creased with worry. ‘They fill the Silver Road with their numbers for twenty miles and more. Clans Mors is here, Queek Headtaker at their head. Banners of the warlock clans and their beastmasters also. Clan Rictus too. They have many hundreds of war engines, my lord. Also in the deeps, my king. Traps give forewarning. Mining teams report much stealthy movement.’

‘This is it,’ said Thorgrim, clenching his hand. ‘This is it! Bring me my axe! Thronebearers! Everguard! Marshall of the Throngs, call out the dawi of Karaz-a-Karak! We skulk no longer behind our gates! Open the Great Armoury. Take out the weapons of our ancestors. Let them sit in prideful peace no longer! Dawi and treasures both to war! To war!’

As the king lifted his voice, more horns played out their alarms from the many galleries of the Hall of Kings. Within minutes, the entire city was abustle, called to the final battle.

The electric flea-prickle of the skitterleap tormented Thanquol from horn curl to tail tip, and then the sensation was gone. He clutched his robes about him with the sudden chill.

From Nuln to Lustria to the man-thing place of Middenheim, Thanquol had followed Lord Verminking. He had been dragged about the world only half willingly, skitterleaping unimaginable distances. He did not trust the verminlord, because he was not a fool. Thanquol knew he was being used. He was arrogant enough to think initially that he was the master in his relationship with the Verminking, but wise enough to quickly reach the correct conclusion. Thanquol was merely a pawn in the mighty daemon’s game.

Once he had accepted that, everything did not seem so bad. Surely it was no bad thing to serve the most powerful rat in existence after the Great Horned One? And he was learning a great deal from the creature. More, perhaps, than Verminking intended to teach.

He examined their new location. It was an unusual place for a meeting, thought Thanquol, but the symbolism was hard to miss.

Even with its head blasted to rubble, the statue of the ancient dwarf-thing was enormous. Once this great stone king would have watched over the Silver Road Pass, an image of the strength of the dwarf kingdom. Now, in its ruin, it made rather the opposite statement.

‘They come,’ hissed Verminking. ‘Be silent, be deferential, or even I will not be able to protect-keep you!’

Clouds of shadows blossomed all around Thanquol and Lord Skreech. Ten more verminlords towered over him, gazing down, their ancient eyes gleaming with malice.

‘Why-tell the little horned one here?’ asked one of two diseased Lords of Contagion among their number.

Not knowing what to do, Thanquol gave the sign of the Horned Rat and bowed low before each. This seemed well received by the entities. Only the two foulest-looking of them gave tail flicks of displeasure.

‘You know why, Throxstraggle,’ answered Verminking, his own twin tails flickering menacingly. He glared intently at the greasy rat-daemon for a long moment before continuing, addressing the circle of verminlords. ‘We asked-bid you here so that we all agree. The Council of Thirteen decree is that the clan that delivers the dwarf-king’s head name-picks the last Lord of Decay. We are as one on this agreement, yes-yes?’

This was news to Thanquol. From Verminking’s feet he tried to gauge the reaction around the circle. Most of the verminlords bowed their heads in assent. A few of them looked irritated and abstained. It was with some pride that he noticed that none of the verminlords had horns as twisted or as magnificent as did the mighty Lord Skreech.

‘We are but eleven in number – where-tell is Lurklox?’ asked one, a grossly inflated parody of a skaven warlord.

‘Here,’ said a voice from behind them. Thanquol startled, but was pleased not to have leaked out anything regrettable.

A black-shaded Lord of Deception joined the circle, its face masked and body hidden in curling shadows. ‘As we anticipated,’ it said in a whispering voice, ‘the end of the dwarf-things approaches.’

‘All goes to plan-intention?’ asked Verminking.

‘What plan-intention?’ said a white-furred verminlord of inconstant appearance. ‘We agree-pledge that Clan Scruten will be reselected to the Council. This is our plan.’

Again, general indications of assent from the circle, with some dissension.

‘Quite right, we all declared it to be so. Why fret-fear?’ said Verminking reasonably.

‘My candidate is ready. Tell-inform me how the head will be won, and how it will be delivered to Kranskritt.’

‘You doubt our purpose?’ said Lurklox.

‘Lord Skreech takes new-pet Thanquol with him everywhere. He is a grey seer. I suspect-think Lord Skreech intends to gift-give the head of the long-face-fur to him.’

Verminking bristled. ‘You doubt my word, Soothgnawer?’

Soothgnawer laughed. ‘I would be a fool weak-meat to give any credence to your words at all.’

Verminking dipped his head in appreciation of the compliment. ‘Be easy. Thanquol has been very useful, very cunning. He will win great reward for his efforts, but…’ He looked down. ‘His place is not to be on the Council. We need his many talents elsewhere.’

Thanquol inwardly shrank. Until the fateful words were said, he had felt privileged; now he felt like a serving-rat. He kept up his outside appearance of interested confidence, behaving as if he often attended gatherings of such august personages, but inside he seethed.

‘Is this true, little grey-fur? Tell me the truth! I will know otherwise.’

Several of the giants crowded over him. Thanquol’s glands twitched. ‘Mighty lords! The fine and most infernal Lord Skreech Verminking has not told me of any plans to gift-grant me the fine and high most honourable exalted station of a seat among the Thirteen.’ This was exactly the truth. Verminking told Thanquol very little, only revealing his intentions when the outcome was already unfolding.

Soothgnawer sniffed the air as Thanquol spoke, then stood straight.

‘He speaks the truth, the precise truth, although he is very much disappointed to hear he will not sit beside the other little Lords of Decay. Very wise, very clever not to tell the little one of your plans, Skreech.’

‘The wise and cunning Thanquol knows everything he needs to know,’ said Verminking.

Thanquol looked up to the verminlords talking around him. That they could smell untruth and knew the mind of any skaven was an established fact. But it suddenly dawned on him that these gifts did not work upon each other. To all intents, in their own company they were as reliant on bluff and double-dealing as any other skaven. He wondered how. He wondered if he could possibly replicate their methods…

Thanquol remembered this for later use. Already ideas were forming. He wasn’t yet decided on how he could wring an advantage out of this information, but he would. He was certain of that.

Twenty-Five

Queek’s Glory

Queek was old. He felt it in his stiffening limbs. He saw it in the grey that grizzled the blackness of his coat all over, a coat once sleek and now broken with dry patches, whose coarsening fur revealed pink skin crusted with scurf.

Decrepitude surprised him suddenly, coming on swift as an ambush. He had thought to suffer a slow decline, nothing like this. Only three years after his great victory at Eight Peaks, and look at him. Beyond the limits of his arms’ reach, his sight grew dim and unreliable. Through the mists of age, the marching lines of his army blurred into one mass, losing colour around the edges. His smell and hearing remained sharp, but into his limbs a weakness had set, one that made itself more apparent with every passing day in the numbness of his fingers and the stiffness of his joints. The cold made it worse, driving him into frequent murderous rages that his troops had learned to fear.

It was always cold now, no matter where they went. It had been since the night the Chaos moon had burst, circling the world with glittering rings that obscured the stars. In the mountains it snowed all year round.

So much had happened. The swift victory Gnawdwell had wanted had not come. In many places the Great Uprising had not gone to plan, and the Great War against the dwarfs dragged on and on. The land of the frog-things and lizard-things had been annihilated, most of Clan Pestilens along with it, while in the lowlands in the ruins of the man-thing’s lands, the skaven conquered, only to fracture along clan lines. Such was the way of skaven. Alliance with the followers of Chaos had come, a move that made many on the Council, Gnawdwell included, deeply uneasy.

That was politics, and it was not for Queek. During that time Queek had fought the length of the Worlds Edge Mountains, destroying dwarf strongholds one by one, and exterminating their inhabitants wherever they were to be found. Clan Mors had grown rich on the plunder.

Finally, Queek had been ordered to Beard-Thing Mountain-place, where all attempts to take the dwarf capital had failed. Gnawdwell, inscrutable as always, continued his attempts on Queek’s life, simultaneously releasing the full might of Clan Mors and ordering it to go to Queek. Queek had not been back to Skavenblight in the years since their last meeting, wary of Gnawdwell’s intentions, but for the time being Queek seemed to be in his lord’s favour. All Clan Mors’s allies and thralls, from the Grey Mountains, Skavenblight and beyond, came with the Great Banner of Mors. Karak Eight Peaks had been emptied, leaving it an empty tomb for the many warriors who had fallen there in the long years of war.

The dwarf realms had been reduced to but one, the mightiest, the greatest. Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, as dwarfs and men respectively called it. Beard-Thing Mountain, as the skaven called it. A name supposed to convey their contempt, but uttered always with fear. Under skies perpetually darkened and striated with the sickly colours of wild magic, the skaven marched to bring their four thousand-year war with the Karaz Ankor to its end.

‘This whole pass stinks-reeks of dwarf-thing,’ said Queek, sniffing tentatively. His tail twitched. The scent of the dwarfs had become inextricably linked with bloodshed in Queek’s mind, and thus with excitement. It never failed to arouse his sluggish pulse, to excite his aged heart.

‘What does the mighty warlord expect it to smell of?’ said Kranskritt haughtily. The presence of Ikit Claw made the grey seer arrogant. Despite the long enmity between their clans, the two of them were knot-tailed much of the time, constantly tittering and squeak-whispering just out of Queek’s earshot, or so they thought. Queek’s hearing was better than he let on.

Queek growled by way of reply. He was in no mood to bandy insults with the seer. Kranskritt still smelt youthful to Queek, granted unnaturally long life by the Horned Rat. Even those grey seers without alchemical or mechanical aid could be known to reach the ridiculously advanced age of sixty. Not like Queek. Queek was old, he felt it. Kranskritt could smell it. Weakness.

‘It will smell of burrow and home soon enough,’ said Ikit. ‘We will smash the beard-things and take their heads. No more dwarf-things! All done. All ours.’

‘This is true. Once enough failures accrue, they call for Queek. No one is better than Queek at killing dwarf-things. Queek will end this siege. Queek will win this war!’

The dead things on his back wailed and gibbered. What they said now made little sense. When their utterances became intelligible, what they said made Queek’s fur crawl. Their voices never ceased. The long periods of quiet he had once enjoyed were no more. Even when the verminlords were close, which had been rarely of late, they did not stop their racket.

‘Not without my help,’ said Ikit. He too, under his mask of iron, had aged better than Queek. Queek could smell the long-life elixir on him. ‘I am the pre-eminent slaughterer of dwarf-things. They call me here to finish it – you are only to help.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Queek sarcastically. ‘Queek hear many times of great Ikit Claw’s impressive victory over orange-furs of Kadrin-place. I hear the flesh of the dead so poisonous after Ikit Claw’s masterful plan not even trolls would eat it, and even now, three cold-times since big death there, the air is still deadly to breathe. Very good plan, making such a fine mountain-holdfast uninhabitable to skaven clan-packs. Very clever way of denying living space to Clan Skryre’s enemies.’

‘And the dwarf-things,’ said Ikit, his voice ringing inside his iron mask. How Queek had grown to loathe that voice.

Queek found the warlock engineer even more irksome than the grey seer, although he was secretly relieved that the warlock’s clanking pace allowed him to walk more slowly. Ikit’s war engines were impressive, even if it annoyed him to admit it to himself. A lesser clan might scrape together enough warptokens to buy one or two lightning cannons from Clan Skryre. A greater clan might have a dozen. In the siege train of their army there were hundreds, dragged painstakingly through tunnels and mountains to assail this last enduring rock of the dwarf-things. No other warlord clan could access such materiel. As a result of Gnawdwell’s manoeuvring, Skryre and Mors were open allies. The supply of sorcerous machines had been cut off to all other clans. Clan Eshin had not been drawn into the pact, but provided Queek’s army with their warriors anyway. Clan Moulder backed all sides, so consequently many of their creatures, and specifically the newer rat ogre weapon-beasts bred in conjunction with Clan Skryre, supported his troops. With Skryre came the larger part of Clan Rictus’s clanrats. From Rictus, Ikit Claw had his own bodyguard, the Clawguard, war-scarred stormvermin as large and imposing as Queek’s own Red Guard. At Queek’s back went one of the largest skaven armies ever to brave the surface.

‘The fate of more than the dwarfs depends upon this war,’ said Kranskritt. ‘Remember, O ignoble and most devious warlords, whoever takes Thorgrim-Whitebeard’s head will win the seat on the Council of Thirteen. Most assuredly it will be I, and Clan Scruten will regain its rightful place.’

Queek snorted. Poor-fool Kranskritt. He was naive to the point of idiocy, not like mighty Queek! Gnawdwell had forged a pact with the other Lords of Decay, stipulating this final condition for victory in the struggle for the seat. Tired of the long years of instability the empty seat had provoked, the other clans had agreed. Clan Mors and Clan Skryre had steered events masterfully so far. Together they would claim the head of Thorgrim and break the power of the grey seers forever.

Queek wondered how long Clan Skryre had been working themselves into this position. He had no doubt that the head of the dwarf king, once he took it, would find its way into the paws of Clan Skryre, who would at the last cheat Gnawdwell. Who would stop them? Clan Pestilens were mostly destroyed in the war for Lustria.

Mighty Queek, that was who. He recalled the scratch marks on the order scroll that had arrived six weeks ago, and which he had swiftly eaten. Gnawdwell would allow Queek some of the long-life elixir, if he brought the head of the long-fur to him.

Finally, finally. Queek could not wait. He had tasted infirmity and had no liking for it.

Kranskritt was being cossetted and fooled. Even the verminlords were being played off against each other. Or were they deceiving the Council? The interminable power plays of the skaven court made Queek’s teeth ache. Ever dismissive of politics, he had grown careless over the last few years, openly provocative. He set out to deliberately antagonise the heads of other clan clawpacks. Only his reputation, his distance from Skavenblight, and his own skill at arms kept him alive.

He bites his own tail, just to see it bleed, others said of him. ‘Doom, doom, doom! Death, death, death!’ wailed the chorus of his victims.

Only when he had a battle to fight did the ailments of mind and body recede.

The endless column of skaven crested a rise in the Silver Road Pass, and the capital of dwarf-kind came into view.

Queek was chief general of the most powerful warlord clan in all Skavendom. As such, he had seen Karaz-a-Karak many times before, but never so close. The mountain was colossal, one of the tallest in the world. Soaring above the pass and into the bruised clouds, its peak was lost to the boiling skies, its flanks dappled by the polychrome strangeness of magical winds. The raw stone had been shaped by generations of the dwarf-things, so that giant faces, hundreds of feet tall, glared challengingly at Queek. The main gate was yet many miles away, but even Queek’s failing eyesight could see the dark smudge of its apex reaching high up into the cliff face that held it, surrounded on all sides by soaring bastions. The skaven leaders and their bodyguards left the road and mounted a hillock that blistered the side of the mountain. They clambered onto the rubble atop it. The beard-thing watchtower that had occupied the mound had been melted into bubbled slag. Streaks of metal in the contorted stone hinted at the fate of its garrison.

Kranskritt hissed, daunted by the sight of Everpeak. In contrast, Queek felt the confidence only those gifted with supreme arrogance can. Behind Queek stretched more clawpacks than had ever been assembled in one place. Millions of skaven were his to command. They marched by in an endless stream, their fur carpeting the road as far as the eye could see, from one end of the pass to the other. More moved underground, ready to attack from below.

‘How will we take-cast down such a place?’ said Kranskritt. ‘There must be so many beard-things within.’

Ikit Claw laughed, his machinery venting green-tinged steam into the chill noon, as if it shared his amusement. ‘The dwarf-things breed slowly. Many breeders produce no young. They were dying even before we challenged them for their burrows,’ said Ikit. ‘Surely you must know these things, wise one?’

Kranskritt shook his hand at the warlock. The bells on his wrist conveyed his irritation in tinkles. ‘The will of the Horned Rat is my interest, not the breeding habits of lesser races.’

Ikit sniggered again.

‘Are you sure this plan of yours will work, Queek?’ said Kranskritt. He had stopped using the insincere flattery of their kind some time ago when speaking with the Headtaker. This social nicety had always annoyed Queek, but it annoyed him more that Kranskritt had ceased its use. ‘It is rather simplistic, attacking directly.’

‘Queek’s plan is sound. We come on all fronts. Every shaft and hole will be assaulted at once, white-fur. And what does white-fur know of strategy? Thorgrim beard-king will not know where to defend. His forces will be scattered and easily worn down. This is the way of the dwarf-things – to stay behind their walls and fight, fool-meat that they are. We have the numbers, and they have no time. So declares mighty Queek.’

‘It is still simple,’ said Kranskritt. ‘A pup-plan.’

Queek shrugged. ‘The simpler the better, white-fur. How many grand schemes fail-wither due to incompetence and stupidity, or treachery? Treachery is so much the harder when there are fewer folds to hide in. Simple plan, Queek’s plan, is best.’

‘For this once, the mighty Queek speaks wisdom,’ said Ikit Claw. ‘All weak points are already known. This fortress has been attacked a hundred times, a thousand. There is nothing we do not know about it. Why waste time with cunning ruses to learn what we already know?’

‘We have a long wait,’ said Queek. ‘We must meet-greet the clan warlords here and take command. Too long they have besieged the great beard-king. Thorgrim-dwarf-thing must be very sad at all this. He need not worry, for soon it will all be over. Mighty Queek is here!’

A day later Queek ordered the attack. Alone atop a newly broken statue, he watched the advance through brass looking glasses – made for him by a foolish warlock, who was dead as soon as he completed the commission. Let not know of Queek’s weaknesses!

The slave legions went in first, if for no other reason than Queek had them, and they went in first by tradition. From their thousand gunports, the dwarfs gave fire.

He saw the light flashes of cannons long before he heard the sound. Rolling thunder filled the pass. The vast numbers of skaven looked puny in front of the great gates of Karaz-a-Karak.

The hundreds of lightning cannons in the skaven train were pushed into range and set up under fire. Warlocks squealed frantic orders. The guns elevated and replied.

Soon the vale at the doors of Karaz-a-Karak was thick with gunsmoke lit by discharges of greenish lightning. The skies overhead were dark, polluted by magic seeping into the world from the north. The thunders of the battle vied with those ripping the heavens apart. The imaginings of the most deranged flagellant of the Empire could not outmatch the scene. This was the end of the world, beating its apocalypse upon the stone doors of the dwarfs.

The skaven died in howling masses at the gate, the machines they dragged with them to penetrate it smashed to pieces before they ever reached the stone and steel. Slaves surged back and forth, waves on a beach capped by froths of blood as they were cut down by dwarf and skaven alike.

So it went. So Queek expected it to go, until one of the many attacks he had ordered from the underworld broke through and skaven got into the soft underbelly of Beard-Thing Mountain-place, silenced the guns one by one, and allowed his siege engines to approach unmolested. Queek had killed many examples of the myriad creatures that crowded the world, but his greatest pleasure, and his greatest skill, lay in killing dwarfs. He knew their minds well. They would sit behind their stout walls until nearly dead, and then likely as not they would march out, determined to kill as many of the enemy as they could before they themselves were killed.

‘It will cost you many lives,’ said the voice of Krug. Queek’s ears stiffened. The voices had been constant yet incoherent for a very long time. Krug spoke clearly, without the respect he once had. Queek glanced behind him. From a spike on Queek’s rack, Krug’s eye sockets glimmered with wild magic.

‘Yes-yes, but I have meat to spend. The dwarf-things do not,’ said Queek.

‘They will make you pay,’ said Krug, and there was a note of pride and defiance in his voice.

‘Do not be so sure, dead-thing!’ Queek snapped. Krug’s voice melted into gruff laughter, before rejoining the howling chorus of the others.

Queek scratched at his head; it was bloody from his constantly doing so. The voices receded eventually.

The battle did not proceed as he expected.

The dwarf bombardment ceased. The last thunder of their discharge rolled and died. Queek watched, fascinated, as smoke puffed from the gunports and blew away. The lightning cannons went on firing unchallenged, blasting showers of rock from the mountain and its fortifications. Surely his infiltrators had not succeeded so quickly?

The great horns mounted high up the mountain blared: first one, then the other, their mournful, bovine hooting joined by hundreds of others from every covered walkway and battlement carved into the mountain. The noise of it was dreadful, and Queek flinched from it. Under it there came a great groaning creak.

‘The gates! The gates!’ he said excitedly, moving his field glasses from the gunports to the doors.

He fiddled with the focusing wheels, cursing their maker as the vista became a blur. He pulled the view back into focus in time to see a gleaming host emerge from the gates of Karaz-a-Karak.

The king went at the fore upon his throne. He looked as if he rode a ship of gold upon a sea of steel.

From out of the gates, the last great throng of the dwarfs marched to meet their doom.

Queek lowered his glasses for a moment. His nose twitched in disbelief. His fading eyes did not deceive him. From the vale, the sounds of gruff beard-thing voices in song drowned out the crack of lightning cannons, and the clash of arms was louder still. Loudest of all was the voice of the king. Queek raised the glasses again. Thorgrim stood upon his throne platform, one finger tracing the pages of his open book. His words, though faint, were heard clearly by Queek even from so far away.

‘For the death of Hengo Baldusson and the loss of ninety-seven ore carts of gromril, five hundred thaggoraki heads. For the loss of the lower deeps of Karak Varn, two thousand thaggoraki hides. For the cruel slaying of the last kinsfolk of Karak Azgal, nine hundred tails and hides. For the…’

His recitation of his grudges roared from him, the atrocities of four thousand years of war driving his warriors onwards. Queek watched in disbelief. For the dwarf-things to sally out so early was unheard of! He panned across the column. There were hundreds of beard-things. Thousands! He gave a wicked smile.

‘The whole army of Beard-Thing Mountain comes to make war on Queek!’ he tittered. ‘Very kind, oh very considerate, of Thorgrim dwarf-king to bring his head to Queek’s sword!’

As the dwarfs advanced into the seething mass of skaven, the guns of the walls spoke all at once. Cones of fire immolated hundreds of slaves, while cannon balls streaked overhead, the guns’ aim recalibrated, to shatter dozens of the lightning cannons.

A good loss, thought Queek. He laughed as he watched Clan Skryre’s pride battered by the vastly superior dwarfish artillery force. No matter how many war engines they dragged up here, the dwarf-things would always have more. Open space before the gates became a killing field, a zone of destruction advancing in front of the dwarfs in a devastating creeping bombardment.

The skavenslaves predictably broke. They fled away from the vengeful dwarf-things only to be slaughtered by the skaven stationed behind them. They went into a panicked frenzy, tearing each other apart, gnawing on anything to escape. This was a fine exploitation of the explosive violence of the skaven’s survival instinct, and had won many battles on its own. But every dwarf was armed and armoured in fine gear. The weapons they carried glowed with runes, Thorgrim’s dread axe brightest of all. The Axe of Grimnir shone as if sensing the rising tide of war, emitting a radiance that could be seen far down the gloomy pass. The throng of armoured bodies shone blue in its reflected effulgence.

The dwarfs waded through the frenzied slaves regardless of their snapping mouths and their insensate fighting. Weapon-light pushed back the twilight of the dying world. Queek had never seen so many magical weapons deployed in one place. He would not have thought there so many in the world. Queek’s triumphal squeaking quieted as the dwarfs cleaved their way relentlessly through the slave legion and into the clawpacks waiting behind. Skaven died in droves. Soon enough, the dwarfs were through the slaves and trampling Clan Rictus and Clan Mors banners underfoot.

A titanic boom rumbled from a few miles up the pass. Queek swung his glasses around, catching sight of the sides of the pass collapsing along a good mile of the road. The rocks peeled away either side to bury thousands of his troops, and his better ones at that, in deadly avalanches. Pale new cliffs shone in the war-choked gloom, menacing as bared fangs.

No, this was not quite as good as he first thought. Still, the inevitable was happening. The dwarfs drove forward. Caught up in their hatred, they were moving further and further away from the gates. The guns would soon stop for fear of killing their own. Something Queek himself had no qualms about.

Making his decision, Queek secreted his seeing aid within his robes.

‘Loyal Ska!’ he called.

The great skaven limped around a boulder that had until recently been the nose of a dwarf king.

‘Coming, O mighty one,’ he said. Ska too was old and slow, but his arm was still stronger than that of any other.

‘Order up the next clawpack! Make the dwarf-things rage. Soon-soon they go out of range of their guns, fool-things. Ready Queek’s Red Guard. When the beard-things are tired, when they are alone, then Queek will attack and add the head of the last king to his collection!’

‘Yes, great one,’ said Ska with a curt bow.

‘Ska?’

‘Yes, O mightiest and bloodiest of warlords?’

Queek looked back into the valley, the battle a shifting blur without his glasses. The noise from below told him all he needed to know. He had seen many dwarf armies at bay before, fighting to their last out of sheer, stubborn vindictiveness. A sight that was as glorious as it was terrifying. ‘The long war is nearly over.’

‘For the slaughter of the miners of Karak Akrar, fifty thaggoraki hides!’ roared Thorgrim. The power of the throne was in him, the pain of his wound dulled by his hatred. The stink of the rat creatures surrounding him angered him further. Only their blood could slake the terrible thirst for vengeance he felt. ‘For the deaths of Runelord Kranig and his seven apprentices, and the loss of the rune of persistence, nine hundred tails!’ The Axe of Grimnir hummed with power as it bit into worthless furry hides.

‘Onward, onward! Crush them all! Queek is impudent – we shall meet him head on and take his head!’

His army, initially reluctant, were overcome with their loathing. Every dwarf fought remorselessly.

Thorgrim spoke of Karak Azul, and Zhufbar, and the sack of Barak Varr, and the endless litany of unpaid-for wrongs that stretched back to the Time of Woes. The orders he gave were few and barked impatiently. Always he read from the Great Book of Grudges. He became a conduit for grudgement; millennia of pain and resentment flowed out from its hallowed pages through him.

The slaves were all dead. By now the dwarfs had pierced deep into the skaven army, moving away from the gates to where the vale was wider. The outlying elements reached the thaggoraki weapon positions. At the vanguard went the Kazadgate Guardians. These well-armed veterans had pushed into the war machines and were cutting their crews down. Their irondrake contingent, the Drakewardens, drove off reinforcements coming to save the machines with volleys from their guns. Their handcannons crippled the war machines, and warp generators exploded one after another in green balls of fire. The surviving warlocks squealed in anguish to see their machines destroyed.

A clashing of cymbals heralded a counter-charge led by a skaven in an armoured suit that hissed steam. Thorgrim, up on his throne, had a fine vantage point and recognised him as Ikit Claw.

‘For the warpstone poisoning of the Drak River, the life of Ikit Claw!’ he said, pointing out the warlock.

Claw came with a thick mob of stormvermin, but these were cut down easily by axe and forge-blast. Ikit Claw attempted to rally his followers, casting fire and lightning from his strange devices at the ironbreakers and irondrakes. But the Drakewardens walked through the fire unscathed. Their return fire blasted the stormvermin around Claw to bits. He wavered, Thorgrim thought, but a terrific racket drowned out the battle-chants of the dwarfs as a dozen doomwheels came barrelling over a rise. Too late to save their cannon, the doomwheels exacted revenge for their loss, running down a good portion of the Kazadgate Guardians.

At this insult, Thorgrim took pause. He had come right out in front – too far in front. In the wider vale, the dwarfs had no way of protecting their flanks, and his army was being encircled, broken up into separate islands of defiance. They were gleaming redoubts in a universe of filth. Thorgrim could count the warriors remaining to him, and their numbers dwindled. The skaven were effectively infinite.

Thorgrim looked from side to side. His Everguard and throne stood alone, one of the smallest of these islands. His fury was the greatest and had carried him furthest.

The Great Banner of Clan Mors, festooned with obscene trophies, was approaching him at the head of Queek’s Red Guard. Alongside it came rat ogres of a new and vicious kind, bearing whirring blades instead of fists, smoke belching from the engines upon their backs.

The High King and his bodyguard were cut off. The nearest group of his army had noted the peril he was in and were fighting desperately to come to him. They hewed down skaven by the hundred, but there were always more to fill the gap. They might as well fight quicksand. By the time the other dwarfs reached the High King, it would be too late.

‘Bold dawi,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Queek comes. We shall meet their charge.’

His Everguard reformed into a square, clearing space in the skaven horde for their manoeuvre with their hammers. Thorgrim spied Queek’s back banner at the front of the formation moving to attack them.

‘Stand firm!’ he called. ‘In our defiance, eternity is assured!’

Queek broke into a run, coming ahead of his followers, his yellow teeth bared, the pick that had taken the lives of so many dwarfs raised high.

Queek vaulted over the front line of the Everguard, cutting one of them down. Before he landed, the lines of dwarf and skaven met with a noise that shook the mountain.

Queek had not waited for the best time, thought Thorgrim; he would have been better served holding off for a few more minutes. But it was still a good time, he thought ruefully.

The Everguard were the elite of the dwarf elite, warriors bred to battle, whose fathers’ fathers had served the kings of Karaz-a-Karak since the dawn of the Eternal Realm. The Red Guard could not hope to match them.

Queek, however, could. Thorgrim was chilled at how easily the skaven seemed to slaughter his warriors, spinning and leaping. Every thrust and swipe of his weapons spelled death for another dwarf, while their own hammers thunked harmlessly into the spot the skaven lord had been a moment before. There were still many ranks of Everguard between Thorgrim and Queek, but time was not on their side.

‘I’ll not wait to be challenged by that monster! Forward, thronebearers. Forward! Everguard, you shall let me pass as your oaths to me demand!’

In dismay, the Everguard parted, fearing for the life of their king. They were beset on all sides, the rat ogres chewing through their right flank. The dwarfs killed far more skaven than died themselves, but they fought the same battle every dwarfhold had fought and lost: a hopeless war of attrition.

‘Forward! Forward! Bring me to him so that he might feel the kiss of Grimnir’s axe!’

The shouts of dwarfs were becoming more insistent. They were far out of the range of their guns. The cannons spoke still, slaughtering every skaven that came close to the gates, but the greater part of the throng of Karaz-a-Karak was isolated, and surely doomed.

Thorgrim reached the front line. His axe sent the head of a rat ogre spinning away. His Everguard cheered as it died. He would not allow that he had doomed his hold and the Eternal Realm. Only victory was on his mind; it was the only possible outcome. The magic in the throne reached up, lending strength to him through the metal of his armour and weapons. Queek changed course. He was twenty feet away, then ten. The square of dwarfs shrank as more of their number fell, Thorgrim’s thronebearers stepping back in unison with them.

The end was coming.

‘For Karaz-a-Karak! For the Karaz Ankor!’ Thorgrim shouted, and prepared himself for his ancestors’ censure for his foolishness.

Horns sang close at hand. Dwarf horns.

Thorgrim eviscerated a rat ogre. It went down, teeth still clashing. He lifted his eyes upwards. Against the glow of the shrouded sun, he picked out figures. The silhouette of a banner emerged over a bluff, as down an almost invisible game trail, dwarfs came.

Atop the banner gleamed a winged ale tankard.

‘Bugman is here! Bugman comes!’ shouted the dwarfs, and swung their tired arms harder.

Bugman’s rangers were few in number, no more than a hundred. Vagabonds who roamed the wastelands behind their vengeful leader, survivors of the sacking of Bugman’s famous brewery, they were scruffy and ill-kempt. But each and every one was an implacable warrior, as skilled in the arts of death as he was in brewing. Crossbow bolts hissed into the Red Guard’s rear. Surefooted dwarfs ran down the steep slope, tossing axes at the greater beasts and bringing them down. A brighter light shone, that of fire, and what Thorgrim saw next burned itself into his memory.

Ungrim of Karak Kadrin was with Bugman’s rangers. On him too was a strange, magical glow. His eyes burned with the heat of the forge. The Axe of Dargo trailed flame, the crest on his helmet elongated by tongues of fire. With a desolate roar of rage and loss, the last Slayer King launched himself twenty feet from a cliff top straight into the skaven ranks. Burning bodies were hurled skywards with every swipe of his axe. Behind him came many Slayers, the last of his kin and his subjects, each one orange-crested and bare-chested. They scrambled down rocks and set about their bloody work. Night runners detached themselves from the shadows, hurrying to intercept the reinforcements, but they were slaughtered, flung back, their remnants scurrying away back into obscurity.

‘Bugman! Ungrim!’ laughed Thorgrim. His face changed. ‘Queek,’ he said quietly. He ordered his thronebearers to set down his throne. ‘Headtaker! I call you! Queek! My axe thirsts for vengeance. Come to me and with your blood we shall strike many grudges from the Dammaz Kron!’

Heaving himself up out of the Throne of Power, Thorgrim marched upon Queek in open challenge.

Twenty-Six

The Death of a Warlord

His troops were letting him down again! Queek smelt the fear-stink, heard the calling of beard-thing instruments and the change of pitch in their shouts from despair to excitement.

‘Must finish this quick-fast,’ he muttered.

The Horned Rat must have heard Queek. Thorgrim approached him, stepping down off his land-boat, bellowing Queek’s name.

‘Good-good,’ snickered Queek. ‘Very good! Here dwarf-thing, a spike is waiting, much company for the long face-fur!’

Queek flicked his wrist, spinning Dwarf Gouger, and took up his battle stance. With one finger he beckoned Thorgrim onwards.

Thorgrim shouted at him, his voice deeper than the pits of Fester Spike. ‘Queek! Queek! For the death of Krug Ironhand! The head of Queek!’

Queek laughed at his petty grievances.

‘Queek flattered that mighty beard-thing not need his special book to recount Queek’s fame!’

‘For the illegal occupation of Karak Eight Peaks! The head of Queek!’ shouted Thorgrim. The dwarf-thing’s eyes were glazed and spittle coated his beard. Quite mad, thought Queek. Good.

‘Queek is coming!’ trilled Queek, and laughed. ‘Queek killed many dwarf-things – soon there will be no more left to kill. This makes Queek sad. Maybe Queek take a few of High King Thorgrim-thing’s littermates back to Skavenblight for fighting practice? Truly Queek is merciful.’

Roaring his hatred, Thorgrim charged, just as Queek had anticipated. Dwarfs were a weak race; their affection for their pups and littermates made them easy to goad. Such a pity, Queek had wanted this duel to be one to savour in the long years ahead, when he grew young on Gnawdwell’s elixirs and there were no more dwarf-things in the world to slay.

Queek waited until Thorgrim was so close he could see the red veins threading his tired eyes before launching his rightly famed attack. Queek leapt, his age forgotten, his body spinning. He drew his sword and simultaneously swung the weighted spike of Dwarf Gouger at Thorgrim’s helmet. Queek’s mind worked quickly, so fast the world appeared to move more slowly to him than to those of longer-lived races. He did not know it, but it was a blessing in some ways, this rapid life cycle. Queek could enjoy the sight of his weapon spike hurtling towards the dwarf’s face in unhurried slowness.

Queek blinked. Thorgrim swept up his axe. Impossible! The runes on the axe shone as bright as the hidden sun, searing their image onto Queek’s eyes. He could not read the scratch marks, but in one terrible moment of understanding their meaning became clear: Death. Death to the enemies of the dwarfs!

Dwarf Gouger met the axe. The rune-shine whited out his vision, and he knew if he survived his eyes would never recover. Dwarf Gouger shattered on the edge of the blade with a bang and discharge of freed magic. Queek landed, panicked. He thrust at Thorgrim with his sword, seeking to make him dodge aside so that Queek could put distance between them. But the snarl nested in the thing’s long face-fur grew more ferocious. He grabbed Queek’s sword in his armoured fist and yanked him forwards. Queek scrambled to get back, but could not. So unusual was the situation that he did not think to release his sword’s hilt until it was too late. Thorgrim dropped his axe and grabbed Queek by the throat, lifting him high into the air. Only then did Queek let his sword go, and Thorgrim flipped it around, using it to cut loose Queek’s treasured back banner. The dead things’ heads fell, screaming in exultation, free at last.

‘For the Battle of Karak Azul, the head of Queek,’ rasped Thorgrim, his voice ruined by his screaming.

Queek squirmed and thrashed, his teeth clashing in panic. He braced his legs against Thorgrim, trying to flip backwards. His world turned black around the edges. Queek scrabbled with his hand-paws, raking at the king’s face.

‘For the killing of Belegar Angrund, rightful king of Karak Eight Peaks, the head of Queek,’ spat Thorgrim.

Queek’s struggles weakened. His frantic gouging became more precise. He gave up trying to hurt Thorgrim and desperately attempted to pry the dwarf’s granite grip loose. The fingers would not shift, and Queek’s own bled as his claws tore loose on the king’s impenetrable armour. Thorgrim tightened his grip. Queek’s choking became wet, feeble as the death croaks of a dying slave-rat.

The king pulled Queek level with his bearded face. ‘For the death of many thousand dawi, the head of Queek. Now die, you miserable son of the sewers.’

The last thing Queek ever saw were the eyes of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, burning with vengeance.

Thorgrim shook the skaven. Queek’s neck snapped. His body went limp, but Thorgrim continued to squeeze, the litany of woes he shouted at Queek transforming into a long, inchoate roar.

At last, he dropped the body at his feet and stamped upon it with ironshod boots, shattering Queek’s bones. He spat on it with disdain.

‘You can keep your head upon its neck, thaggoraki. I’ll not have it sully my halls.’

Thorgrim retrieved the Axe of Grimnir and gestured to his thronebearers. The skaven were in full flight, mad panic radiating out from the points where Thorgrim stood and where Ungrim slaughtered them. Queek’s Red Guard were smashed down as they broke.

‘That’s right! Flee, you worthless, honourless cowards!’ shouted Thorgrim. The sun had sunk below the level of the boiling clouds, and a golden light shone on the battlefield, as if the strange aura of his throne had expanded to take in the whole of the vale.

Satisfied at what he saw, he turned and walked back towards his throne, his bearers kneeling in anticipation. He looked forward to striking out many grudges today.

Unseen by the king, a black-clad skaven flitted from the churning mass of fleeing ratmen and ran at him. Too late, one of his thronebearers called a warning, dropping the throne and raising his axe to protect his lord. His bodyguard were too far away to intercept it, caught up in the merciless slaughter the battle had become. Thorgrim was exposed and alone, surrounded by bodies.

The assassin leapt as Thorgrim began to turn, drawing two long daggers that wept black poisons. It drove them down, putting all its momentum into the strike with a victorious squeal. The blades shattered upon the Armour of Skaldour, and Thorgrim dispatched the creature, opening its body from collarbone to crotch with the Axe of Grimnir.

Thorgrim flicked the blood from his rune axe and remounted his throne as a ragged cheer went up. All around the skaven were fleeing. Trapped by the avalanches unleashed by the dwarfs, they had nowhere to run, only a few making it over the broken mountainside blocking the road back to the safety of their tunnels. They still outnumbered the dwarfs five hundred times, but their flight was unstoppable. Only Queek could have halted them, and Queek was dead.

‘Destroy them all! Destroy them!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Let none escape!’ Cannon and gunfire slew those who attempted to run towards Karaz-a-Karak in the confusion. Ungrim and his Slayers cut down the warlock engineers, Ungrim’s axe blasted fire over their leader. Thorgrim saw Ikit Claw fall. He watched to see him rise again, but he did not. Another grudge answered.

A roaring filled the vale as gyrobombers flew over the king, stirring his beard hair with their progress. They swooped low, bomb racks rattling, blasting the skaven apart. Ungrim’s fire consumed those few ratkin who tried to reform.

The battle was over. Thorgrim saw the greatest victory of his time play out around him, and it felt good. But the strange power had left him and his throne. It gleamed only as much as gold could gleam, and his armour felt heavy upon him again. He sent a silent prayer to Grungni for his aid, if that was indeed who had sent it.

‘My king!’ said a thronebearer. Thorgrim glanced down to the ashen face of Garomdok Grobkul.

Thorgrim felt ice in his heart. Somehow, he knew what Garomdok was about to say before he said it.

‘The Rune of Azamar, my king, it is broken!’

Twenty-Seven

Eternity’s End

At the edge of the battlefield, three dwarf lords watched their kin go about their sorrowful work.

‘I could not save them,’ said Ungrim Ironfist. Fire still flickered around him, on his axe and in his eyes, but it could not hide his despair. ‘I marched too far from my gates, filled with thoughts of vengeance. They sprang their trap. Three of their abominations breached the gates. They had within them bombs full of gas…’ His face contorted. He could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. ‘Everyone, everything… It is all gone, gone!’

‘Rest easy, lad,’ said Josef Bugman, who had a particularly disrespectful way with kings. ‘Here, let me get you something for your nerves.’

Bugman beckoned over one of his warriors, a young dwarf already scarred and grim-eyed from many battles. Bugman took a tankard from him and offered it to Ungrim. ‘Fit for a king,’ he said encouragingly.

The Slayer King stared at him, deep in shock. ‘I am not a king any more. I have failed in one oath. Only by fulfilling the other can I make amends.’

All over the battlefield dwarfs worked, retrieving their lamentable number of dead. There were many runic items scattered amid the gore. These were attended to even before the slain, while a large block of troops stood ready, in case the skaven mounted another attack, took them unawares and armed themselves with the treasures of their ancestors. Dusk had fallen. Night came quickly, abetted by the fumes that clogged the sky and kept the sun away.

‘Drink,’ said Bugman encouragingly.

‘No, no, I will not,’ said Ungrim. ‘I cannot rest, I will not rest. My Slayers and I will go to the Empire, to lend what aid we can to the Emperor, if he still lives.’

‘All need light in dark days,’ said Bugman.

‘Grimnir is with me,’ said Ungrim.

‘At least let me give you a few casks of ale for your warriors. They’ll march further and fight harder with a little of my XXXXXX in their bellies.’

Ungrim nodded, and Bugman gave the necessary orders. The last dwarfs of Karak Kadrin, unsmiling though they were, were nevertheless grateful.

Thorgrim and Bugman watched them go into the fast-falling night, Ungrim’s fiery aura making of him a living torch to light the way.

‘A kingly gift, Master Brewer,’ said Thorgrim.

‘I am not a king either, High King,’ said Bugman affably. ‘But I do what I can.’ He sighed. ‘A bad business this. A bad, bad time.’

‘It is a time we cannot recover from,’ said Thorgrim quietly. ‘Look at Ungrim. Karak Kadrin fell three years ago and he behaves as if it were yesterday. If we prevail, shall we all be the same? Broken-minded, fit only to roam the lands of our ancestors?’

‘Steady now, that’s not like you to say so, king.’

‘The Rune of Azamar is broken,’ said Thorgrim.

To them both, the mountain breeze blew a little more chill. Silently, Thorgrim led Bugman round the back of the throne and pointed out the awful truth. There was no light to the rune, and a long, fine crack ran across it from top to bottom.

Bugman tamped down tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and sat down upon a rock. Behind them, dwarfs shouted and chisels clattered as the stonemasons’ guild repaired what damage they could to the walls. Bugman blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘Aye,’ he said at last. ‘I am not surprised.’

‘The Karaz Ankor will fall.’

‘What about Ungrim? The light of Grungni was on him. Surely that’s worth something.’

Thorgrim eased himself down next to the old brewer. ‘It’s not the light of Grungni. Something similar affected me too, filling my armour and weapons with might. Ungrim is possessed by some fire spirit, and I think something rooted in the spirit of metal came to me.’

‘Is it gone now?’

Thorgrim nodded.

‘Well,’ said Bugman, ‘Grungni or not, there’s still good in this world, that’s for sure.’ He gave the king a penetrating stare. ‘Will you drink with me, High King? You’ll not refuse my brew too, will you now?’

Thorgrim was taken aback. ‘A king can refuse many things, Master Brewer, but never a sup from Bugman’s own barrels.’

‘Good for you,’ said Bugman. ‘But I can do better than my own barrel. I reckon you could do with a bit of pepping up. Here, drink from my own tankard. You’ll never taste its like, I promise.’ The dwarf passed over a battered pewter tankard. Once finely worked, it seemed to have taken much hard use and its decorations were worn smooth where they were not tarnished.

The High King took the tankard from Bugman. It brimmed with frothy ale, although the cup had been but moments before hanging empty at the brewer’s belt. The colour was perfect: a deep, golden brown, as pure as a young rinn’s eyes. And its bouquet… Thorgrim lacked the words to describe it. Just smelling the beer made him lightheaded. He immersed himself in the sensation. It brought back memories of happier days, and he forgot all his woes.

Bugman chuckled. ‘Go on then, don’t just stare at it! Drink up, I swear by Grungni’s long beard you’ll feel better for it.’

Thorgrim did as he was told, even though part of him did not want the moment of expectation to pass. He put the pewter to his lips and drank deeply of the ale. Warmed to perfection, it tasted finer than anything he had ever partaken of before, and he’d enjoyed plenty of Bugman’s ales in the past.

As he drank it down, a glow as golden and clean as the colour of the beer seeped into his limbs. There was a brief, vicious stab in his side as the wound seemed to fight back, but it was overwhelmed, and the warmth pushed aside the dirty, itching pain the injury caused him. He drank half the tankard down, of that he was sure, before pulling it away. His gasp of satisfaction turned to one of amazement. The tankard was still full.

‘Take another pull, O king,’ said Bugman.

The king did. When he finished, he patted his side, then prodded it, then poked hard. Nothing.

‘The wound is not healed, I’m afraid,’ said Bugman. ‘It’s too far gone for even my old great-granddad’s tankard to fix with a couple of draughts. But you won’t feel it for a while, and it might just tip it onto the right road to be mended. The curative powers of the mug and my ancestor’s best brew. You’ll not get that anywhere else now but from my own pot. Count yourself privileged.’

Thorgrim, usually so stern, was wide-eyed. ‘It is the greatest honour I have enjoyed in a long time, Master Brewer.’

‘Isn’t it just?’ said Bugman. He looked the king dead in the eye. For all his power and honourable ancestry, Thorgrim felt the battered ranger, born from the dwarf exodus, little better than city-dwelling umgdawi, to be far more than an equal to him. ‘When my old dad’s brewery burned to the ground, and my folk were all killed, I thought it was the end of the world.’ He sighed, a spill of smoke twisting its way from his mouth. ‘And it was the end of one. Another began. I am still here. Don’t scratch out the dawi yet, High King. There’s fight in us all still.’

Bugman hung his magic pint pot, now mysteriously empty again, from his belt. He stood up and offered his hand to the king, like they were two merchants in a bar and not a dispossessed brewer and the lord of all dwarfs. Thorgrim shook it.

‘I’ll be away now.’ He looked into the night, broken only by the dwarfs’ lamps and torches and the light streaming from the high windows of the forts. ‘There are other dwarfs out there as need me.’

‘Still?’ said Thorgrim.

Bugman smiled down at the king. ‘Aye, and there always will be. Whatever happens next, king of kings, don’t ever forget that. We’ve lost a lot, that’s for sure, but there’s no use crying over spilt ale. As long as the mountains are made of stone, there’ll be dwarfs in them, of that I’ve no doubt.’

Bugman lifted up his head, and let out a long trilling whistle. The call of the high mountain chough, not heard for years in those parts. It brought a tear to the king’s eye.

Dark, solid shapes moved from out of the rocks. Thorgrim rubbed his eyes. He felt quite drunk. Bugman, seconds ago alone, was surrounded by his warriors.

‘Look after those of my lads that fell here, king.’

Thorgrim nodded. Bugman winked and vanished into the dark.

Blearily Thorgrim got into his throne. From the vantage it offered, he looked about, but Bugman was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly felt very tired.

‘I shall rest a moment,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’ He sat down, closed his eyes, and drifted off to the sound of dwarfs hard at work repairing the damage others had done.

Thanquol was nauseous. No matter how he held himself, he felt like he was about to fall over. The walls of the tower – he assumed it was a tower, but who knew if it was or if it was not – did not look right. He felt like he was standing at an angle even when he was quite straight. Wherever Lord Verminking had brought him was not of his world.

‘Now we show you, as promised,’ said the verminlord.

‘What should I see?’ asked Thanquol. He stared into the swirling scrye-orb Verminking produced out of nowhere.

‘Doom, yes-yes. Doom which will lead to your ascension,’ said Skitzlegion.

This did not exactly answer Thanquol. He had no idea how the swirling clouds within the orb amounted to doom, and how was he going to ascend? The grey seer was about to question the verminlord further when the mists of the globe coalesced into faintly glowing images. He was watching a dwarf-thing.

‘The king of all dwarfs!’ he whispered. ‘How do you do-accomplish this? Dwarf scratch-magic makes see-scrying impossible.’

‘Not to us,’ said Verminking, tittering. ‘We know things you shall never know. Concentrate. Think yourself inside his head. You will know all. You will know his thoughts, his heart, his mind. Breath-breath! Yes, yes, that is right. In, we skaven can steal into anything, why not another’s soul? Listen to me, Thanquol, and you learn much, plenty-good magic…’

Thanquol’s vision swam. And then he wasn’t there any more.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer looked up the first curl of the spiral Stair of Remembrance. The walk to the King’s High Porch atop Karaz-a-Karak was always an arduous climb, but right then the stairs were as daunting as a steep mountain slope. He was bone tired. He’d woken a few hours before dawn to find himself exhausted. A clean tiredness, that of the purged, but heavy upon him. He suspected his whole body ached, but could only feel the renewed throb of his wound. Bugman had been right, though. The returned pain was less than it had been before he drank from the fabled tankard. He supposed he should rest more, and he would, but this had to be done first. With his jaw set in determination, the High King began the journey up the spiral stair. Although he longed for sleep, this personal ritual, a way to both commemorate the fallen and ultimately to clear his head, had to be performed.

Despite his victory, his mind was awhirl. Ungrim – grown stranger than ever – had given the High King much to muse over, but that would have to wait. And Bugman, with his never-empty cup and unquenchable hope. Could it be the dwarfs would persist? Now the ale glow was gone, Thorgrim was not so sure, and his oaths to retake their ancient realm seemed laughable.

The stairs demanded his attention, and he turned it upon them. Up and up he wound, each step bringing him pain.

No one but the High King might use these stairs. The lookout at the top and its King’s View was his privilege alone. It was High King Alriksson, Thorgrim’s predecessor, who had shown Thorgrim the way, and even then he had not been permitted to look out, not until Alriksson was dead, and he had made the journey alone.

With each clumping step, Thorgrim remembered one of the slain from the day’s battle. He recalled each dwarf, his name and clan. The journey took hours, yet Thorgrim always ran out of stairs before he ran out of names. The rest of the fallen must await his return trip.

Towards the top, the air grew very thin, and Thorgrim’s lungs laboured hard, aggravating the pain in his side. Dwarf blood was thick, but the air was too sparse here even for them. His progress slowed. The last quarter took longer than the rest. He saved the names of the greatest of warriors for this difficult part of the climb.

At last he reached the top, a high dome carved right inside the very tip of the mountain, adorned with carvings unseen by any other eyes and lit with a king’s ransom of ancient runic glimlights. The sight always awed him slightly, a reminder of the power and glory of the old dwarf kingdom. Coming here was like ascending into the heavens themselves.

Outside, there were no longer any stars. Thorgrim pushed open the rune-heavy door to the porch. The stone slid outwards soundlessly.

Wind whistled around the edges. The air this high was icy and incredibly thin. Thorgrim took deep, panting breaths to stave off dizziness and stepped onto the shallow balcony of the King’s High Porch. Twelve paces across, seven deep, a small balcony, whose balustrade pillars were fashioned in the shape of dwarf warriors. Cut from a natural bay in the mountain, the porch was invisible from below. When shut, the door behind Thorgrim blended seamlessly with the stone. Below him the high snowfields of Karaz-a-Karak plunged downwards. The horizon to the east was a dull silver, the rising sun fighting against the murk. In the few clear patches of the night-gripped sky overhead, only rings of black-green could be seen, the whirling remnants of the cursed Chaos moon.

From the top of the world, Thorgrim looked down upon the lesser peaks. They marched away to every horizon, untroubled by the wars of the creatures who lived among them. Only now in this private spot did the High King begin to open and examine the chambers of his mind. Karaz-a-Karak had resisted, but for how long? And how much stock could he put in the legend of the Rune of Azamar? He wished Ungrim had remained behind – he had never expected Bugman to – but perhaps he could do something to aid the realms of men. In some of the few accounts Thorgrim had received, the Emperor was dead; in others he was alive, but his nation was a ravaged ruin. If he still lived, he would need all the help he could get.

Deep in thought, Thorgrim never saw the black shadow unfold from the rocky peak. Spider-like, it crawled down a cliff face before letting go.

‘Assassin!’ squealed Thanquol in his nowhere place.

‘Hsst!’ warned Verminking. ‘Do not let your excitement alert the king to our presence. We are in his mind!’ Then, more gently, he continued, ‘This is the culmination of many scheme-plans. Deathmaster Snikch delivers the final blow to the dwarf-thing’s empire. It has taken him long-long to work his way to the top of Beard-Thing Mountain-place. No other but he and Lurklox could have achieved it.’

‘The king’s armour…’ began Thanquol doubtfully.

‘He bears new knives, they are warpforged, each triple blessed by the retchings of the Verminlord Lurklox, Master of All Deceptions. They can slice through gromril as easily as incisors sink into a corpse. He will not fail, now hush, and watch!’

In mid-air, the dark shape somersaulted and drew forth its three blades – one in each hand and a third in its tail. With all the momentum of his fall, Snikch drove all three blades into his target.

Thorgrim staggered forwards, great stabs of pain coursing through him. Thanquol gasped, sharing a sliver of his agony. As the king fell to his knees, Thanquol fell to his. Through Thorgrim’s eyes he could see the points of three blades jutting out of his chest, and for a gut-churning second, Thanquol thought it his own.

Thorgrim’s last thoughts were for his people. Like a damned fool beardling he had left the door open behind him. There were so many grudges left unanswered. His last thought crystallised with painful clarity – of course, the hateful cowards had stabbed him in the back.

Thanquol’s consciousness retreated from the dead king, and he observed the scene once again through the scrying-orb.

Tail lashing with excitement, Thanquol watched Snikch saw off the king’s head with his tailblade. The Deathmaster kept watch on the open runic door, his tail performing the grisly deed by its own volition.

‘That head will come to you, little horned one,’ purred Verminking behind him. ‘You must take-show it before the Council of Thirteen, Reclaim the grey seers’ rightful place.’

‘But… but… you told Verminlord Soothgnawer, many praises be upon him, that…’

Verminking chittered, half in amusement, half in exasperation. ‘I had not expected such naivete from you, little seer.’

Thanquol, who had long anticipated himself on the Council of Thirteen, let his mind race with possibilities.

In the orb, the asssassin was scrawling runes upon the stone.

Verminking explained. ‘He is summoning Lurklox. Dwarf scratch-magic prevents skitterleaping, but his scratch-markings will overcome them. Soon an army of gutter runners will be inside Karaz-a-Karak. They will open the gates for our rabble army. Clan Mors has been all but destroyed, but the lesser warlord clans wait in the deep tunnels, and they will be inside before the dwarf-things know. The dwarf realm will be utterly broken!’

‘Then we have won, yes-yes?’ asked Thanquol in surprise. The thought of it seemed… odd.

Verminking shook his head solemnly, his majestic horns swaying. ‘We have won much, but not all. The lizard-things and their lands are dead-gone – but Clan Pestilens is broken. I sense Vermalanx and Throxstraggle’s fury. Although,’ he mused, ‘we must not forget Skrolk, or the Seventh Plaguelord, for he is hidden within the Under-Empire even from my eyes. Clan Skryre has been humbled, but Ikit Claw just survived and will be dangerous. While more goes on in the minds of the Moulders than you know.’

Verminking looked down upon the grey seer, his enormous claw-hand patting Thanquol’s head.

‘And our new allies – the Everchosen, Chaos. They are most powerful of all, yes-yes. We need-must not tell you. Yet we, you and us, we will bide our time. One day it will all be ours.’

Thanquol smiled faithfully up at Verminking. The answer to how to conceal his true thoughts had been simple, when it came to him. As he guarded his words, he must guard his thoughts. All day he had been practising at obscuring his intentions from the verminlord behind a wall of sycophantic loyalty he built across his mind. Once he was certain of the method, he had thought the most treacherous thoughts he could. And Verminking did not hear! All through the battle he had done so without repercussion. He was growing in power.

Shielded by this mental redoubt, Thanquol plotted how he would rid himself of the verminlord for good, and use what he had learned to his greater advantage. He was Thanquol! The most cunning skaven who had ever lived. Lord Skreech Verminking would come to regret forgetting that.

‘Yes-yes, O great one,’ said Thanquol. His eyes narrowed. Soon he would be the master. Soon he would sit upon the Council of Thirteen in the mortal world. But why should he stop there? Unwittingly, the verminlord had opened endless worlds of opportunity to him.

Thanquol’s face betrayed even less than his mind did. ‘Your wishes are my commands,’ he said, and meant not a word of it.

The world is dying, but it has been so since the coming of the Chaos Gods.

For years beyond reckoning, the Ruinous Powers have coveted the mortal realm. They have made many attempts to seize it, their anointed champions leading vast hordes into the lands of men, elves and dwarfs. Each time, they have been defeated.

Until now.

The Three-Eyed King has come. With the Empire in flames, Archaon Everchosen has marched south with all the armies of ruin at his heels to claim his birthright and usher in the Age of Chaos. The city of Middenheim, one of the few bastions remaining to men, dwarfs and elves, is his target, for buried deep in the mighty rock upon which it sits is an ancient weapon with which he will bring about his ultimate victory.

The last hope lies with a few heroes. With the great vortex sundered, the Winds of Magic have been freed, and each has found a mortal host. Only the power of these ‘Incarnates’ can prevent the cataclysm that Archaon seeks to unleash. But they are scattered, and even if they can be gathered, they may not be able to work together.

The winds of Life, Light, Shadow and Fire have gathered in Athel Loren, in the bodies of high elves and dark elves, now united under the rule of Malekith, the Eternity King. Two, the Celestial and Metal winds, have inhabited men, who will stand alongside their old allies. The wind of Death has found its home in Nagash himself, but none can say how the Undying King will choose to act. And the wind of Beasts is lost, its host unknown.

As Archaon’s plan comes to fruition, destiny draws the Incarnates together, and the final battle approaches, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

These are the End Times.

Prologue

Autumn 2527

The Drakwald Forest

The runefang slid from its sheath with a dreadful hiss. The blade shimmered crimson as it bit into the squealing ungor’s neck and removed the beastman’s verminous, almost-human head from its scrawny shoulders. The unlucky creature’s comrades scrambled to avoid a similar fate, but the sword rose and fell in a display of red butchery, spattering the trunks of nearby trees with gore. The blade’s wielder gave a harsh cry and his horse reared, one iron-shod hoof snapping out to catch a fleeing beastman in the back, snapping the wailing creature’s spine.

Boris Todbringer, Elector Count of Middenheim, Marchlord of the Drakwald, twisted in his saddle, laying about him with the runefang. The sword, called ‘Legbiter’, seemed to hum with joy in his hand as it went about its work. It, like its master, took pleasure in the simple things in life and the shedding of blood was the simplest thing of all for such a weapon. Ungors screamed and died to blade and trampling hoof, and Todbringer roared with pleasure as each new carcass struck the soft loam of the forest floor.

‘Come on then, come and die, filth,’ he bellowed. ‘Let Khazrak hear you scream.’ An ungor leapt at him, a spear clutched in its hairy hands. The blade drew sparks as it scraped across his cuirass and he brought his shield edge down on the creature’s skull, splitting it.

Todbringer smiled fiercely, despite the close call. He felt more alive now than he had for many years. He’d at last shifted the weight of responsibility to stronger shoulders, and was free to do as he wished. And what he wished was to hunt down the foe whose shadow had blighted his life for too long. The creature which had claimed the lives of his sons and taken his eye. The beast which had massacred his people and challenged his authority.

Khazrak would die. Even if the world was coming to an end, even if the Emperor himself fell, Khazrak would die. The beast must die. That certainty drove Todbringer on, and lent strength to his aching limbs as he hewed and slashed at the enemy like a man half his age – or one possessed. The world had narrowed to that singular point, and nothing else mattered. In some part of his mind, Todbringer wondered if killing the beast might not reverse the course the world had taken in the fraught months since the second fall of Altdorf.

The Empire was in flames. Even the most sceptical of men could see that the great kingdom which Sigmar had built was now turning to ash on its death-pyre. The plague-ravaged remains of Marienburg crawled with maggots and rot. Nuln was a rat-gnawed ruin, reduced to a blasted crater by the vermin which even now laid siege to Middenheim. Talabheim was a stinking shell, so poisonous and foul that it was avoided even by the armies of the Three-Eyed King. Even Altdorf, which had weathered the plague-storm that had consumed Marienburg, had fallen at last to the chittering hordes of the ratmen. The Emperor had fled south to Averheim, while others had come north, to the City of the White Wolf. His city.

A crude axe bounced from his shield and he urged his horse forwards into the press, trampling the beasts as they tried to form a ragged phalanx. His runefang, the sign of his authority, of his right of rule, sang a woeful song as he swept it out in a precise arc, lopping off spear heads and malformed limbs alike. ‘Fight me, beasts,’ he roared. ‘Come and die, you spawn of a six-legged goat!’

Even nature itself was in rebellion. The skies roiled with crackling, magic-laden clouds and the birds and beasts had fled. The Drakwald was empty of all life save the mutated aberrations who now died beneath his sword. It was the End Times. That was what Gregor Martak had claimed, when he’d arrived alongside the so-called Herald of Sigmar, Valten – a former blacksmith, of all things! Martak might have been the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, but deep down he was still a country lad from Middenland, with soil in his ears and gloom in his heart, and Todbringer wouldn’t have put much stock in his mutterings save for the evidence of his own eyes.

Martak and Valten had come, bringing men and news, and their army of stragglers, refugees and flagellants had breached the zigzag trench lines and burrowed encampments of the ratmen which had ringed Middenheim. Todbringer had welcomed them, though not the news they’d brought. Not at first, at least. They spoke of the fall of the great cities and more besides, of the collapse of the dwarf empire and the slow dissolution of Bretonnia. Tilea, Estalia, all of the great southern states were ashes as well, burned to cinders by the conflagration which even now pressed in on the remnants of the Empire.

The End Times. The thought was enough to send a shiver of uncertainty through him, even as he chopped down on a shield of wood and animal hide. The ungor brayed in fear as the runefang sought its heart. Todbringer grunted and sent the body slewing into its fellows with a flick of one thick wrist. The End Times. That was why he had heaved his responsibilities onto Valten’s broad shoulders, and named him Castellan of Middenheim. Let the Herald of Sigmar fight the war to end all wars. Todbringer had his own war: a smaller war, but of the utmost importance. If the world was coming to an end, then he had one last matter to attend to. One last debt to settle.

It was a pure, just thing in a time when the foundations of the earth seemed to be eaten away and the sky gaped wide and hungry. That was what he told himself. One valorous act to stem the tide of brute corruption which sought to envelop everything. Kill the banebeast, and break the warherds. With the beast-tribes broken, the war in the north could be won easily. Without their fodder, the armies of the Three-Eyed King would find themselves bereft of their numerical advantage. That would be enough to turn the tide. It would be enough. It had to be.

A pulse of guilt shot through him. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, he knew. A small but insistent part of his mind constantly whispered that he had left his city, his people, in the hands of strangers. Only a Todbringer could weather the storm that had come to engulf Middenheim, it said, and he felt determination fade to doubt, and that doubt became a certainty that he had made a mistake.

At least until the band of ungors he was now rampaging through had trampled out of the undergrowth, and doubt had at last given way to the rough joy of vindication. After days of searching, days of threading through the tangled trails of the Drakwald, he had been overjoyed to find the enemy at last. When he’d spotted the semi-human beastmen, he hadn’t been able to resist the urge to slake the bloodlust that had steadily built up in him over the weeks of his fruitless hunt. Deaf to the alarmed yells of his entourage, he’d spurred his horse into a gallop and charged right into the midst of the enemy.

Now ungors surrounded him on all sides, shrieking and snarling, and his horse reared, lashing out with its hooves even as Todbringer smashed his runefang down on hideous faces and primitive shields. He roared and cursed as he fought. From behind him, he heard the howl of the Knights of the White Wolf who made up his bodyguard as they laid about them with their brutal hammers, and the rising curses and war cries of the threescore huntsmen who had accompanied him into the baleful recesses of the Drakwald. The battle swirled about the muddy trail, in the shadows of sour-rooted trees, and twisted bodies fell in heaps. At last, the ungors broke and began to stream away. Some dived back into the undergrowth they had emerged from, while others broke into lurching flight along the trail. Todbringer was tempted to pursue the latter at once, but he jerked on his steed’s reins, turning about to face the slaughter that was occurring behind him. ‘Leave one alive,’ he roared, as he watched his men butcher those creatures too slow or frenzied to flee. ‘Damn your hides, I need one of the beasts breathing, so it can tell me where its one-eyed master is lurking.’ If any of his warriors had heard him, however, they gave no sign.

He cursed himself, as he finally recognised the ruin he had inadvertently wrought. The orderly column of soldiers he had led into the Drakwald had devolved into a disorganised mass of men, milling about in a wild battle beneath the trees. The Drakwald ate men as surely as did the beasts it sheltered beneath its dark boughs, and staying within sight of one another was the only way of not losing men to the shadows and false trails that blighted it. Even then it was no sure thing. How many men had he lost to the Drakwald over the course of his time as elector count? A thousand? More? How many good men had he fed unwittingly to the hungry dark?

The forest seemed to press close to either side of the rutted track. The path was a narrow, muddy thing, barely wide enough for three men to march abreast. There was no space to form lines, no room for a proper charge. He was suddenly aware of how stifling the silence was, beneath the crash of arms, and how thick the dark beneath the trees was. It was as if the Drakwald were holding its breath. Unease strangled his eagerness and he kicked his horse into motion. He needed to restore order, and swiftly.

I hope you’re satisfied, old man, he thought bitterly. You know better! He began to bellow orders as he rode, trying to shout over the din of battle. In his youth, he’d had one of the best parade-ground voices in the Empire, but age had dimmed his volume somewhat. The flush of combat was fading from him, and he felt tired and old. Every joint ached and the runefang felt heavy in his grip, but he didn’t dare sheathe it. Not now.

The enemy was close. He saw that now, and he cursed himself for not thinking about it earlier. How often had his men been led into just such an ambush? How often had they done the leading themselves? He’d allowed his need for vengeance to blind him, and he could feel the jaws of the trap grinding shut about him.

A long, winding note suddenly rose from the trees. The sound of it speared through his recriminations and struck his gut like a fist. He jerked on the reins and turned his horse about, scanning the forest. More terrible groaning notes slithered between the trees and rose above the canopy, piercing the stillness. Brayhorns, he knew. The hunting horns of the warherds. Then, with a suddenness which defied reality, the forest, so still before, was suddenly alive with the sounds of tramping hooves, rattling weapons and snorting beasts.

Arrows hissed out from between the trees, punching men from their feet. Todbringer yanked his horse about. He had to reach his men – if they could form a shield-wall, they might manage an organised defence, long enough perhaps to escape the trap he’d led them into. But even as he galloped back towards his warriors, the beastmen burst through the trees on all sides at a run, slamming into the scattered column like a thunderbolt. There were hundreds of them, more than any shield-wall or line of hastily interposed spears could hold back, and men and horses screamed as they died.

Todbringer howled in rage as he spurred his horse to greater speed. He crashed into the mass of snarling beasts and the force of the impact sent the foe rolling and squealing as his horse trod on those too slow to get out of the way. His runefang quivered in his grasp as he swept it out and chopped down on upraised maws and clutching hands. For a moment he was adrift on a sea of snarling faces, jagged tusks and rusted blades. He cursed and prayed and screamed, matching them howl for howl, as he hewed about himself. Blood hung thick on the damp air, and it dripped into his armour and from his beard. Still they swirled about him, a never-ending tide of bestial fury. He glimpsed his men falling beneath filth-splotched blades one by one, dragged down and reduced to bloody ruin.

The trees nearby exploded outwards in a spray of splinters as a minotaur charged into battle, its bull-like head lowered and its great hooves trampling man and beast alike. The monster roared and swung an axe in a wide arc, cutting a Knight of the White Wolf and his braying opponent in half in a spray of gore. Todbringer kicked his horse into motion and charged towards the beast even as it turned to meet him. The minotaur lurched towards him through the press of combat, its eyes bulging with blood-greed. It swung its axe and the notched blade caught Todbringer’s stallion in the neck, killing the poor beast instantly. The animal sagged and the count toppled from the saddle.

He rolled away, avoiding the horse’s death-throes. The minotaur lumbered towards him, froth dripping from its champing jaws. Todbringer forced himself to his feet, even as the monster dropped its axe towards him. The runefang shuddered in his grip as he caught the blow, and the crude axe blade shivered to fragments. The minotaur reeled back, shocked from its fury by the loss of its weapon. Todbringer lunged, and his sword opened the brute’s belly. The minotaur shrieked and clutched at its guts as it grabbed for him awkwardly. Todbringer avoided its clumsy attack and brought his blade down on its forearm. The runefang bit through flesh and bone with ease, and the severed arm flopped into the mud at his feet.

The minotaur collapsed like a felled tree, its blood steaming as it pumped across the ground. Beastmen pressed in around Todbringer, and he found himself beset on all sides. His breath rasped harshly in his agonised lungs as he moved and fought harder than ever before, seeking to wrestle just a few more seconds of life from the talons of what seemed to be his preordained fate.

Some part of him had always known that it would end this way, with him surrounded by braying herds, his standard trampled in the mud. Martak had been right; this was the End Times. The time of the Children of Chaos, when the cities of man would burn and be torn apart stone by stone. The world would belong to the mewling, goat-faced freaks which gibbered and snarled around him. He set his feet and heaved back against them, using his shield to batter the closest to the ground, where they were easy prey for his runefang.

For a moment, he stood alone. His heart ached with sorrow as he heard the sounds of the last of his men being put to the sword by the milling beast-kin. Your fault, old man, he thought. He stared at the snarling faces that closed in around him. These, then, were the inheritors of the world. He snorted and couldn’t restrain the laugh that forced its way out of his throat. It rang out hard and wild over the track, and silence fell in its wake.

He swept his arms out as he glared at the beasts that milled about him, inviting them to attack. ‘Come on then, beasts. Dogs of abomination, whelps of darkness – curs by any other name. A Todbringer yet stands. Middenheim stands. Come and feel the White Wolf’s bite!’

The beastmen lunged forwards. They came at him from every side, remorseless and hungry. Todbringer slashed, hacked and chopped at the horde, and they returned the favour, their barbaric weapons scoring his armour and gashing his exposed flesh. Soon, he could hear the rumble of his heartbeat in his ears and the world seemed squeezed between ribbons of black as he wheezed and staggered. His foot slid in the mud, and he sank down to one knee. The beasts crowded around, and he readied himself for the end.

Horns blew, loud and low and long. The sound shivered through him, and the beastmen pulled back, whining and griping like hounds denied the kill. Something pushed through their ranks and came into view. ‘I knew it,’ Todbringer murmured.

Khazrak the One-Eye had come to claim his due. The banebeast of the Drakwald was large, and bulky, heavy with muscle and old scars beneath a suit of piecemeal armour. Yellowing skulls hung from his leather belt, and he carried a barbed whip in one giant paw, and a blade covered in ruinous sigils in the other.

The trees rustled in a sudden breeze, and it sounded like laughter. Khazrak spread his arms and the beastmen backed away, making room. Todbringer felt his heart speed up. Khazrak hadn’t just come to watch him die. The banebeast had come to kill him.

Mortal enemies, brought together by fate. The thought brought a mirthless smile to Todbringer’s face. He glanced up. The clouds resembled vast faces in the sky, leering down through the canopy of branches: like gamblers watching a dog savage rats in a pit, he thought. ‘Well,’ he croaked, ‘here we are again, old beast.’

Khazrak hesitated. The beastman’s good eye narrowed. For the first time, Todbringer noticed how much white there was in the other’s hair, and how carefully the beast moved. Like an old warrior, conserving strength. Like Todbringer himself. He felt a pang of sadness. For all that the monstrosity before him deserved death, it had been the closest thing he’d had to a friend these past few years. Knowing that Khazrak was out there had given him a sense of purpose. It had given him a reason to live, after his wife’s death, even if that reason was for hate’s sake. And in a way, he was grateful to his enemy for that, for all that he intended to take Khazrak’s head. Some things are just meant to be, he thought grimly. Then, he laughed. At least now I can stop chasing fate.

Khazrak’s thick wrist flexed, and the barbed whip uncoiled. Todbringer took a breath. ‘How long, old beast? A decade? Two? It seems a shame to miss the end of the world, but we’ve never been showy, have we?’ he asked. ‘No, best to let them get on with it, eh? We know where the real war is, don’t we?’

The caterwaul of the gathered beastmen dimmed as he raised his sword. They were no longer important. They never had been. Only Khazrak mattered. The others were animals, and no more or less dangerous than any beast of the forest. But Khazrak was almost a man, and he deserved a man’s death. Preferably, a long, lingering one.

Slowly, the two old warriors began to circle one another. ‘Oh yes, we know,’ Todbringer murmured. ‘You took my sons, and I took your whelps. I took your eye, you took mine.’ He reached up to trace the scar that cut across the empty socket. Khazrak mirrored the gesture, seemingly unthinkingly. ‘The world is on fire, but our war must take precedence. We have earned this, haven’t we, old beast?’

Khazrak met his gaze, as the question lingered on the air between them. ‘Yes, this is our moment. Let us make the most of it.’ Todbringer took a two-handed grip on his runefang. Khazrak raised his blade. It might have been a salute, but Todbringer doubted it. No, Khazrak knew nothing of honour or respect. But he recognised the totality of this moment, as Todbringer did. Strands of destiny bound them together, and as the world ended, so too would their war. It was only appropriate. Todbringer brought his sword back and closed his eye. Guard my city, Herald of Sigmar. May the Flame of Ulric burn bright forevermore, and may its light guide you to victory, where I have failed, he thought.

Khazrak bellowed, and Todbringer’s eye snapped open as the beast lunged for him. Their blades slammed together with a sound that echoed through the trees. The two old enemies hacked and slashed at one another ferociously. They had fought many times before, and Todbringer knew the creature, even as the beast knew him. Blows were parried and countered as they fell into an old, familiar rhythm. Two old men, sparring in the mud, surrounded by a circle of monstrous faces and hairy bodies.

He flashed his teeth in a snarl, and Khazrak did the same as they strained against one another. The faces of his sons, his wives, his soldiers flashed through his mind – all of those he’d lost in the course of his war against the creature before him. He wondered if Khazrak was seeing something similar – how many whelps had the banebeast lost over the course of their conflict? How many of his brutish mates and comrades had Todbringer’s sword claimed? Did he even feel love, the way a man did, or did he know only hate?

The mud squirmed beneath his feet, and his heart hurt. His head swam, and his lungs burned. He was old, too old for this. He could smell Khazrak’s rank perspiration, and the creature’s limbs trembled no less than his own. How many challenges to his authority had Khazrak faced, in his long life? Todbringer recognised some of the beast’s scars as his handiwork, but the rest… ‘Did they toss you out, old beast? Is that why you’re here, and not with the rest, laying siege to Middenheim? Or did you refuse to go, did you refuse to bow before the Three-Eyed King until our score was settled? Were you waiting for me?’ he gasped as he leaned against his sword, pitting all of his weight against that of his opponent.

Khazrak gave a bleat of frustration as they broke apart for a moment, and the whip hissed and snapped as the beastman sought to ensnare Todbringer’s legs. An old trick, and one that had caught Todbringer unawares many years before. But he was ready for it now. He avoided the lash and stamped down on it, catching it. Even as he did so, he lunged forwards awkwardly, slashing towards Khazrak’s neck, hoping to behead the beast. Khazrak staggered back and parried the blow.

Off balance, Todbringer jerked back as Khazrak snapped the whip at his good eye. The tip of the lash tore open his cheek. Khazrak pressed the attack. The beast’s sword hammered down once, twice, three times against Todbringer’s guard. One blow tore the shield from Todbringer’s grasp and sent it rattling across the ground, the second and the third were caught on the runefang’s length, but such was the force behind the blows that Todbringer was driven to one knee. Thick mud squelched beneath his armour, and he felt his shoulder go numb as he blocked another blow. Khazrak was old, but strong; stronger than Todbringer. And fresh as well. He had saved himself, gauging the best time to strike. Even as he reeled beneath his enemy’s assault, Todbringer felt a flicker of admiration. What a man you would have made, had you been born human, he thought. A fifth blow slid beneath his guard, and he felt a pain in his gut. He shoved himself back, and saw that Khazrak’s blade was red to the hilt.

The gathered beastmen scented blood and began to bray and stamp in anticipation. Todbringer was nearly knocked off his feet by Khazrak’s next swing. He sank back, rolling with the blow. Khazrak charged after him, snorting in eagerness. Todbringer lashed out, and felt a savage thrill of joy as his blade caught Khazrak in the shin. Bone cracked and Khazrak gave a cry. The banebeast fell heavily, and Todbringer hurled himself onto his enemy, knocking the weapons from Khazrak’s fists. He raised his runefang over Khazrak’s pain-contorted features. ‘For my sons,’ Todbringer hissed.

Khazrak’s good eye met his own. The beastman blinked, just once, and stilled his thrashing, as if in acceptance of what was about to transpire. Then Khazrak snarled, and the runefang descended, piercing the creature’s good eye and sinking into his brain. Khazrak’s hooves drummed on the ground for a moment, and then were still. Todbringer leaned against the hilt of the runefang until he felt the tip sink into the mud beneath Khazrak’s skull. ‘This time, stay dead,’ he wheezed.

The gathered beastmen were silent. The Drakwald was quiet. But Boris Todbringer was not. He rose wearily, his strength gone, only stubbornness remaining. He was wounded, weakened, and surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of beastmen. He would die here.

But he had won.

Todbringer tilted his head back and laughed the laugh of a man who has shed the last of life’s shackles. For the first time in a long time, he felt no weight on his heart. He had won. Let the world burn, if it would, for he had made his mark, and done what he must.

He looked down at Khazrak, spat a gobbet of blood onto the death-slackened features of his old enemy, and ripped his sword free, even as the closest of the beastmen began to edge forwards, growling vengefully. He was going to die, but by Ulric, they’d remember him, when all was said and done.

‘You want the world?’ Boris Todbringer growled. Clasping his runefang in both hands, the Elector Count of Middenheim, supreme ruler of Middenland and the Drakwald, raised the blade. He smiled as the enemy closed in.

‘You’ll have to earn it.’

One

Middenheim, City of the White Wolf

Gregor Martak, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, took a pull from the bottle of wine and handed it off to the man standing beside him atop the battlements of the Temple of Ulric. The temple, fashioned as a fortress within a fortress, dominated the Ulricsmund and the city of Middenheim itself, and was the highest point of the Fauschlag. Martak’s companion – clad in the dark armour of a member of the Knights of the White Wolf, albeit much battered and in need of a good polishing – took the bottle grudgingly, after the wizard shook it invitingly. Martak scratched at his tangled beard and looked out over the city. From the temple battlements one could see further than anywhere else in Middenheim, almost to the ends of the horizon. And what Martak saw now chilled him to the bone.

Rolling banks of black cloud had swept in from the north, and hung over the city, blotting out the sun. Every torch and brazier in the city was lit in a futile effort to hold back the dark. Sorcerous lightning rent the clouds. The crackling sheets of lurid energy lit the streets below with kaleidoscopic colours, and mad shadows danced and capered on every surface. But the darkness was no barrier to what now approached the city.

The pounding of drums had been audible to Martak and the rest of the city for some hours before the arrival of the horde which now seethed around the base of the Fauschlag in an endless black tide. The wind had carried the noise of the drums, as well as the guttural roars and screams of the damned who made up the approaching army. Flocks of crows had darkened the rust-coloured sky, and the roots of the mountain upon which Middenheim stood had trembled.

The front-runners of the horde had emerged first, from the edges of the forest to the city’s north. Trees were uprooted or shattered where they stood, the groans and cracks of their demise joining the cacophony of the army’s arrival as they were battered aside by hulking monsters the likes of which Martak had hoped never to see. Behind the savage behemoths came numberless tribesmen from the far north clad in filthy furs, armoured warriors and monstrous mutants. They poured out of the forest like an unceasing tide of foulness, and the thunder of the drums was joined by the blaring of war-horns and howled war-songs, all of it rising and mingling into a solid roar of noise that set Martak’s teeth on edge and made his ears ache.

Now, the horde stood arrayed before Middenheim, awaiting gods alone knew what signal to launch their assault. Thousands of barbaric banners flapped and clattered in the hot breeze, and monstrous shapes swooped through the boiling sky. Beastmen capered and howled before the silent ranks of armoured warriors. The horde’s numbers had swelled throughout the day, and even the most sceptical of Middenheim’s defenders had realised that this was no mere raiding band, come to burn and pillage before fading away like a summer storm. No, this was the full might of the north unbound, and it had come to crack the spine of the world.

‘I hate to say I told you so, Axel, but… well,’ Martak grunted. He swept back his grimy fur cloak and gestured with one long, tattooed arm towards the walls beyond which the foe gathered in such numbers as to shake the world. Or so it seemed, at least, to Martak. His companion, despite the evidence of his senses, didn’t agree.

Axel Greiss, Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf and commander of the Fellwolf Brotherhood, used the edge of his white fur cloak to wipe the mouth of the bottle clean, and took a tentative swig. ‘What is this swill?’ he asked.

‘A bottle of Sartosan Red. Some fool had hidden it in the privy,’ Martak grunted.

Greiss smacked his lips, made a face, and handed the bottle back. ‘It’s a rabble out there, wizard. Nothing more. You’ve spent too much time amongst the milksops of the south if that’s your idea of a horde. I’ve seen hordes. That is no horde.’ He sniffed. ‘Middenheim has withstood worse. It will withstand this.’ He gestured dismissively. ‘Ulric’s teeth, they’ve even chased off the ratmen for us.’

Martak took another pull from the bottle. ‘Have they?’ The skaven who had been besieging the city prior to the arrival of the horde had abandoned their siege-lines, like scavengers fleeing before a larger predator. Some of the ratmen had gone south, Martak knew, while others had surely scampered into the tunnels below the Fauschlag. Not that he could get anyone to listen to him on that last score. It was Altdorf all over again. What good was being the Supreme Patriarch if no one listened to him? Then, it wasn’t as if the Colleges of Magic still existed, he thought bitterly.

Greiss, as if echoing Martak’s thoughts, eyed the Amber wizard disdainfully. ‘They’re gone, wizard. Fled, like the cowardly vermin they were. Do you see them out there?’

‘Doesn’t mean they aren’t there,’ Martak grunted. It was an old argument. He had ordered scouts sent into the depths of the Fauschlag, despite the vigorous protestations of Greiss and his fellow commanders. What they had reported had only confirmed his fears of an attack from below. The skaven hadn’t fled. They’d merely given over the honour of the assault to Archaon. No, the ratmen were massing in the depths, preparing to assault Middenheim from below. He could feel it in his bones.

‘Doesn’t mean they are, either,’ Greiss said. He shook his head. ‘And if they are, what of it? Middenheim stands, wizard. Let the hordes break themselves on our walls, if they wish. They will fail, as they have done every time before. As long as the Flame of Ulric burns, Middenheim stands.’ Martak made to hand him the bottle, but Greiss waved it aside. ‘Stay up here and drink the day away if you will, wizard. Some of us have duties to attend to.’

Martak didn’t reply. Greiss’s words stung, as they had been meant to. He watched the Grand Master descend from the battlements, his armour clanking. Greiss didn’t like him very much, and if he were being honest, Martak felt the same about the other man. He didn’t like any of his fellow commanders, in fact.

Men of rank and noble birth from Averland, Talabheim and Stirland, as well as Middenheim, were all somewhere below in the city, jockeying for position and influence. The world was collapsing around them, shrinking day by day, and men like Greiss thought it was just another day. Or worse, they saw it as an opportunity. The world was ending, but men were still men. Martak upended the bottle, letting the last dregs of wine splash across his tongue. Men are still men, but not for much longer, he thought.

He shuddered, suddenly cold, and pulled his furs tighter about himself. He’d thought, just for a little while, that victory was possible. Just for a moment, he’d seen a ray of light pierce the gathering dark, and a spark of hope had been kindled in the ashes of his soul.

He’d seen that light – the light of the heavens – ground itself in the broken body of Karl Franz, and restore him to life in the ruins of Altdorf. He’d seen the foul gardens of plague and pestilence scoured from the stones of the city, and the monstrous things that had grown within them struck down. He’d seen more besides… The broken body of Kurt Helborg, his proud face stained with blood; the regal figure of Louen Leoncoeur, King of Bretonnia, as he stood against daemons in doomed defence of a realm not his own; the shattered statue of Sigmar, weeping blood. The light had washed it all away, in the end.

But only for a moment. Then, the dark had closed in once more. With the Auric Bastion no more, and Kislev turned to ashes, the armies of Chaos had swept south, burning and pillaging. Names out of black legend had returned to bedevil an Empire that had thought itself free of them. And not just the Empire. Bretonnia was shattered into warring fragments; Tilea had been erased by the chittering hordes of ratmen; Sylvania had swollen from boil to tumour, and the unbound dead roamed the land, attacking the living.

Martak stuck a finger into the mouth of the bottle, feeling around for any remaining droplets. Altdorf had survived one assault only to fall to another. Now it was a haunt for scuttling vermin. Karl Franz had fled to Averheim, the only city other than Middenheim yet remaining to the Empire. And soon it’ll be down to one, unless Averheim has already fallen, Martak thought sourly. Greiss’s overconfidence aside, Martak knew a losing battle when he saw one. He’d lived most of his life in the wilderness, and Middenheim reminded him of nothing so much as a wounded stag, surrounded by hungry wolves. Oh, the stag would gore a few. It’d put up a good fight, but in the end… the outcome wasn’t in doubt.

Regardless, he had his own part to play. He would see to the tunnels beneath the city, since no one else thought they were worth defending. He could do some good there, he hoped. He had ordered barricades to be pulled into place at the top of the winding stairs that led down into the guts of the Fauschlag, and had demanded, and received, a levy of men from the walls to guard key tunnel junctions. Soon enough, he would go down to join them, in the dark, to wait for the attack.

There were thousands of skaven massing in the depths, whatever Greiss thought. That was where they had all gone when Archaon arrived, but they wouldn’t stay below for long. And when they decided to come up, there would be little Martak could do to stop them.

He stuck a finger in his mouth and sucked the liquid from it. He’d never been much of a drinker before all of this, but now seemed as good a time as any to develop a few bad habits. Martak hefted the bottle in preparation to hurl it out over the city, when something made him stop. A voice, strong and sonorous, rose from somewhere below him. He could not make out the words, but he recognised the timbre easily enough.

Valten.

The Word made flesh. The Herald of Sigmar, come to light their darkest hour. He had been a blacksmith once, they said. Martak’s father had been a swineherd, and he saw no shame in humble beginnings. Especially when the end result was so… impressive. He lowered the bottle and set it on the battlement. Then, picking up his staff from where it lay, he made to descend. As he headed for the steps, he heard a soft growl behind him.

Martak stopped. He turned, heart thudding in his chest. Something that might have been a wolf, or the shadow of a wolf, sat where he’d stood only a few moments before. It regarded him steadily for the span of a single heartbeat, and then, like a twist of smoke, it was gone. Martak stared at the spot, mouth dry, hands trembling. He was suddenly very, very thirsty. He turned away and left the battlements as quickly as his legs could carry him.

When he at last reached the main rotunda of the temple, Valten’s speech was coming to a close. His voice swelled, momentarily blotting out the noise from outside the walls. Martak moved through the large crowd of refugees that had occupied the main chamber of the temple, towards the main doors and, beyond them, the steps that led down into the close-set streets of the Ulricsmund. The huddled masses gave way before him, and whispers of worry preceded him, as well as murmurs of disgust for his unkempt presence. Even the basest peasant had standards, Martak supposed; standards which he obligingly failed to meet as often as possible.

Valten had given some version of this same speech several times since the arrival of Archaon’s forces outside the walls. The streets were thick with panicked citizens, and frightened refugees crowded every temple and tavern. But where Valten passed, Ghal Maraz balanced across his broad shoulders, calm ensued. He spoke to crowds and individuals alike, with no preference or bias for province or station. His voice was measured, his words soothing. Be at peace, for I am here, and where I stand, no evil shall prevail, Martak thought as he trudged out towards the vast steps of the temple. It was an old saying, attributed to Sigmar. From what little Martak knew of the man behind the myth, he doubted the veracity of the phrasing, though not the intent.

He watched the tall, broad figure of Sigmar’s Herald speak words of comfort to the massive crowd of soldiers and refugees occupying the steps, and felt the burden on his heart lift, if only slightly. Valten was taller than any man Martak had met, but he moved with a grace that an elf would have envied. He’d grown a beard since the fall of Altdorf, and now looked more at home in Middenheim than even an old wolf like Greiss.

That was the trick of him, Martak had learned. Valten simply… fit. Wherever he went in the Empire, he found a home. Talabeclanders, Averlanders, Middenlanders, they all claimed Valten as one of their own. He spoke their dialects, he knew their history; he could even sing their songs. It was as if the burly, bearded young warrior were the Empire made flesh and bone. He was everything that was good and pure about the land and its people incarnate.

As he spoke, Valten seemed to shine with an inner radiance that warmed a man better than any fire. His voice rose and fell like that of a trained orator, and he spoke with a passion that would have put even the late Grand Theogonist, Volkmar, to shame.

Martak paused in the entrance to the temple, so as not to interrupt the speech. The great iron-banded doors had been flung wide at the start of the ratmen’s siege, and they yet remained open, welcoming any who sought sanctuary. The entrance itself was a vast stone archway carved in the shape of a wolf’s upper jaw, complete with great fangs, and as it rose over him he thought again of the shadow-shape he’d seen on the battlements, and shivered. It hadn’t been a daemon; that much he was sure of. While the Flame of Ulric burned, no daemon could set foot inside Middenheim.

He glanced at the Flame, where it crackled in the centre of the immense temple rotunda. The fire burned silver-white, casting its light throughout the main chamber of the temple, warming the crowd and illuminating the enormous bas-reliefs depicting Ulric’s defeat of the bloodwyrm, his breach of the stormvault and countless other deeds of heroism performed by the wolf-god. More and more people had begun to seek the comfort of its presence as the unnatural darkness fell. Martak couldn’t fault them for it. It was the embodiment of Ulric’s strength and rage, and for that reason it provided a beacon of hope to the wolf-god’s chosen people. It was said that should the fire go out, winter unending would grip the world.

As the thought crossed his mind, he caught sight of a low, lean shape prowling through the legs of the crowd. The shadow-wolf had followed him, it seemed. Its yellow gaze met his own briefly and then it vanished into the forest of humanity. He was about to follow it, when he heard a voice say, ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

Martak turned, and looked up at Valten. He grunted and shrugged. ‘One fire is much like another, to one used to doing without.’

‘I grew up in a forge,’ Valten said, simply. ‘There’s a strange sort of beauty in fire, I think. It is all colours and none, it provides comfort and light, but can kill or blind the unwary. A tool of both creation and destruction… rather like a hammer.’ He hefted Ghal Maraz for emphasis. ‘Sigmar built an empire with this weapon, and destroyed the works of his enemies.’

Martak smiled sourly. ‘Very pretty. Will that homily go in your next speech?’

Valten chuckled. ‘I doubt there’ll be time for one. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come to tell me that you’re about to go below.’ He looked at Martak, and the wizard shifted uncomfortably. Valten had a way of staring right into a man’s soul. He never judged what he saw there, though that only made the feeling worse.

‘Yes, it’s time,’ Martak said, leaning on his staff. ‘Scouts have reported that there are ratmen massing in the depths. And Archaon’s rabble didn’t walk all the way here just to sit outside and look menacing.’

‘I know,’ Valten said. He looked up, and closed his eyes. ‘It’s almost a relief.’

‘Not exactly how I would put it,’ Martak said.

Valten smiled. He looked at the wizard, and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Then, you’re a gloomy old bear, and there’s no denying it.’

Martak snorted. ‘And you’re a cheerful lamb, is that it?’

Valten’s smile faded. ‘No. No, I can feel the weight of this moment, Gregor, as well as you. It has pressed down on my soul and my mind since I first swung my father’s hammer in anger at the Auric Bastion. It has sought to forge me into the shape it wishes, the shape it requires, but sometimes… I do not think it will succeed.’ He dropped his hand and hefted Ghal Maraz. ‘This is part of it, I think. Burden and blessing in one,’ he said, turning the ancient warhammer in his hands. ‘Sometimes, this hammer is as light as a feather. Other times, I can barely lift it. I am not certain that it is my hand which is meant to wield it.’ He looked at Martak. ‘Sometimes I wish Luthor were still here, to tell me that I am wrong, and that my course is set.’ He smiled sadly. ‘No offence, Gregor.’

‘None taken,’ Martak said, waving aside the apology. ‘I wish Huss were here as well. And while we’re wishing, I’ll add the Emperor, Mandred Skavenslayer and Magnus the Pious. Because Taal knows that we could use them now.’

Valten’s smile turned fierce. ‘We shall just have to act in their place, my friend. We can do no less. Middenheim stands. The Emperor and Graf Boris charged me to keep this city and her people safe, and I will do so or die in the attempt.’

Martak was about to reply, when he felt something stir in him. He clutched his head, and heard a great cry which seemed to echo up from every stone in the temple. It was as if a legion of wolves had howled as one, and then fallen silent. Valten grabbed him as he stumbled. ‘Gregor, what is it, are you–’

Wordlessly, Martak moaned. He felt as if there were something missing in him, as if someone had carved a portion of his heart out. He heard Valten gasp, and blinked blearily as he tried to clear his head. As he forced himself erect, he saw that the crowd had moved back from the Flame of Ulric. Men and women were wailing and moaning in fear. Valten raised his hands, trying to calm the growing panic. Martak pushed away from him and staggered towards the Flame, staring at it in disbelief.

As he watched, the Flame of Ulric guttered, flickered and died. The chamber was plunged into darkness, and the crowd began to stream away, seeking safety elsewhere. He heard the screams of the trampled, the wailing of lost children, and Valten’s voice, rising above it all, trying vainly to impose order on the chaos. And beneath it all, beneath the cries and the shouts, beneath the fear… laughter. The laughter of the Dark Gods as Middenheim’s hope faded, leaving behind only ashes.

Martak closed his eyes. Something itched at the back of his mind, like someone speaking just at the edge of his hearing, but he couldn’t catch it for the laughter that echoed in his head. He gripped his staff so tightly that the wood creaked in protest. He felt cold and hot all at once, and his skull felt two sizes too small as images crashed across the surface of his mind’s eye. There were shapes squirming in the dark behind his eyes, impossibly vast and foul, and they were scratching eagerly at the roof of the sky and the roots of the earth. He saw a shadowy figure confronted by wolves of ice, and heard the moan of a god as the Flame dimmed. He heard the bray of horns and the rumble of drums, and felt his guts clench in protest as the moment he’d feared came round at last.

A hand gripped his shoulder, shaking him out of his fugue. ‘Gregor – it’s time. The enemy are advancing,’ Valten said. ‘I must go to the walls.’

‘And I must go below,’ Martak croaked. He looked at Valten, and as he did, the daemonic laughter crowding his thoughts suddenly fell silent. There were some things that even daemons could not bear to look at. ‘The gods go with you, Herald.’

‘I know that one, at least, walks with me,’ Valten said. He lifted Ghal Maraz and saluted Martak. ‘Middenheim stands, Gregor. And so do we.’

‘But for how long?’ Martak murmured, as he watched the Herald of Sigmar depart.

Northern Gatehouse, Grafsmund-Norgarten District

‘That, my friends, is nothing less than a bad day wrapped in fur,’ Wendel Volker said, indicating the army that was on the march on the plain below, as he upended the jug and gulped down the tasteless Kislevite alcohol. It was the last of its kind, since Kislev no longer existed, and he intended to enjoy every foul drop in the hours before his inevitable messy demise. He only wished he had a bottle of good Tilean wine to wash it down with.

He stood atop the gatehouse, having shooed the men who were supposed to be on duty back down into the structure. He stood on the trapdoor, so that he could have a few moments of uninterrupted drinking. The taverns were packed, and every wine cellar and beer hall in the city had been drunk dry three days ago. He’d managed to squirrel away the jug of Kislevite vodka, but it was almost as bad as being sober.

Volker had come up in the world since his days as a captain in the fortress of Heldenhame. Now he wore the armour and regalia of a member of the Reiksguard, given to him by Kurt Helborg himself as a reward for salvaging what was left of Heldenhame’s garrison and bringing it to Altdorf just in time to bolster the city’s defences. It wasn’t exactly the sort of reward that Volker had hoped for, but one couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially in times like these. And the armour had come in handy more than once, for all that it was dratted heavy and rubbing him raw in all the wrong spots.

Volker handed the jug off to one of his companions, a big man clad in sea-green armour, decorated with piscine motifs where it hadn’t been battered into shapelessness. ‘A bad day, Wendel, or the bad day?’ the latter said, as he took a swig. Erkhart Dubnitz was the last knight of an order that wasn’t officially recognised by anyone with any sense. The Knights of Manann had fought to the bitter end when the plague-fleets had sailed into Marienburg’s harbour, but Dubnitz alone had escaped the freistadt; he’d been sent to Altdorf, bearing tidings of warning that had, sadly, not been heeded until it was far too late. Now he was a man without a country, fighting to preserve a nation not his own. It was in Altdorf that Volker had made the acquaintance of the Marienburger, and found a kindred spirit, of sorts. At least where it concerned spirits of the alcoholic variety.

‘What’s the difference, Erkhart? Either way, we’re the ones it’s happening to,’ the third man standing atop the gatehouse said. He waved aside the jug when it was offered to him. ‘No, thank you. I’d rather die with a clear head, if it’s all the same to you.’ Hector Goetz had the face of a man who’d seen the worst the world had to offer, and hadn’t come away impressed. His armour bore the same hallmarks of hard fighting that Volker’s and Dubnitz’s did, but it was covered in the signs and sigils of the Order of the Blazing Sun. As far as Volker could tell, Goetz was the last templar of the Myrmidian Order left alive. Most, it was said, had died with Talabheim. Goetz had been there, but he refused to talk about it. Volker, a native of Talabecland himself, resisted the urge to press him.

In truth, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. He’d left his parents, his kin, and several enthusiastic and entertaining paramours behind in Talabheim when he’d been given a commission in the Heldenhame garrison. That they were all likely dead had yet to pierce the armour of numbness which was the only thing protecting his sanity at this point. It was either numbness or madness now, and Volker had seen too much to think that there was any sort of relief in madness these days.

‘Suit yourself, Hector. More for me and young Wendel,’ Dubnitz said, with a grin. He passed the jug to Volker, who took another swig, and then gave a mournful burp.

‘It’s empty,’ he said. ‘Dubnitz, be a friend and go get another one.’

‘There isn’t another one,’ Dubnitz said. ‘Gentlemen, we are officially out of alcohol. Sound the retreat.’

Volker cradled the empty jug to his chest. ‘Why bother? There’s nowhere to go.’

‘Nonsense. The horizon is right over there.’

‘He’s right, Erkhart. There’s nowhere to go. The gods are dead,’ Goetz said softly. His expression became wistful. ‘I thought, for a moment, that they were still with us.’ His face hardened. ‘Then Talabheim happened, and I knew that they were gone.’

Dubnitz’s grin faded. He sighed. ‘It’s a sad thing, when a man outlives his gods.’

‘Aye, and we’re soon to join them,’ Goetz continued. He glanced at Volker. ‘Unless, of course, that Herald of yours has some divine trick up his sleeve.’

‘Not that he’s shared with me, no,’ Volker said. When he’d first seen the Herald of Sigmar in the flesh, he’d been duly awed. The man was everything the priests of Sigmar had promised. A demigod, come down amongst mere mortals to fight at their side and lead them to victory against the enemy. That awe had not faded, in the weeks since, so much as it had matured. There was something about Valten that chased away despair and neutered fear. But he was a man like any other, Volker knew. A good man, a just man, but a man all the same. He was about to elaborate, when Goetz suddenly stiffened and cursed.

‘Well… here we go,’ Dubnitz breathed softly. ‘Time’s up.’

Volker saw a flash of polychromatic light below, rising above the horde. The air took on a greasy tang, and he tasted something foul at the back of his throat. He recognised it easily enough, though he wished he didn’t. The clouds began to thicken and twist, and howling gales of wind rippled across the city. Goetz’s face was pale as he backed away from the ramparts. ‘Daemons,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘They’re calling daemons.’ He clutched at his side, as if in memory of an old wound. ‘I can hear them screaming…’

‘That’s not all,’ Dubnitz said. He pointed out across the city. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that where the western gatehouse is?’

Volker turned and saw a column of smoke rising over the city to the west. His mouth felt dry. ‘Oh, gods,’ he rasped. He twisted about as a dull rumble filled the air, and saw a second cloud, this one a sickly greenish hue, rise over the city’s eastern gatehouse. Then, a half-second later, the world gave a sickening lurch as the whole gatehouse shook, nearly knocking him from his feet. He heard screams from below, and thin trickles of green smoke began to creep around the edges of the trapdoor. ‘What the devil–?’

Dubnitz suddenly reached out and grabbed the back of his cuirass, hauling Volker back, even as a blade hissed through the air where his head had been. ‘That’s the devil,’ Dubnitz said conversationally as a strange apparition, hunched and wrapped in black, landed on the rampart and sprang towards them, a serrated blade clutched in its verminous paws.

Volker acted instinctively, bringing the jug up and catching his attacker in the skull. The clay jug exploded and the creature fell twitching. ‘Skaven,’ he said dumbly, staring down at it.

‘Really, and here I thought it was a halfling with scabies,’ Dubnitz said, drawing his sword as more of the creatures appeared, scrambling over the edge of the ramparts. ‘Where are the blasted guards?’ he growled, as he hacked down a leaping ratman.

‘Dead, if that gas is what I think it is,’ Goetz said. He had his own blade in hand, and effortlessly blocked a blow from one of the black-clad skaven. ‘It’s poison. Don’t let it touch you.’ As he spoke, he moved away from the trapdoor, which was fuming steadily.

‘That’d explain why the vermin are wearing masks,’ Volker grunted as he booted a skaven in the chest and off the rampart. He swung his sword about in a tight arc, driving his opponents back. He heard the muffled squeal of chains and cranks, and knew that the gas had only been a means to an end. ‘They’re lowering the drawbridge. They’re going to let the northmen into the city!’

‘Well, sod this for a game of sailors, then,’ Dubnitz said. He rushed towards the inner rampart which overlooked the courtyard of the gatehouse below, and, in a rattle of armour, vaulted over the edge, taking a squealing skaven with him. Volker looked at Goetz, and then, as one, both knights followed their companion over the rampart, leaving the astonished skaven staring after them.

Volker screamed until he struck the hay cart, and from there it was curses. He rolled off the cart, every limb aching, and hit the cobbles with a crash. The body of the skaven that Dubnitz had caught up flopped to the ground beside him. The big knight grinned down at him, and offered him a hand. ‘On your feet, young Wendel – we’ve got unwelcome visitors on the way, and our swords are needed.’

Spitting hay, Volker allowed Dubnitz to haul him to his feet. ‘Did you know this hay cart was here the whole time?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ Dubnitz said. ‘You learn a lot, being a drunkard. For instance, always make sure you have a soft place to land handy, just in case. Now help me extricate Goetz, before we’re knee-deep in murderous daemon-fondlers.’

Northern Viaduct

‘Horvath, have you ever wondered about the choices that brought you to this point in your life?’ Canto Unsworn rumbled to his closest companion in the press of Chaos warriors, northern tribesmen and howling beastmen moving steadily up the viaduct. There were hundreds of them, moving in a slow but steady lope towards the gatehouse above. An ugly green smoke rose from the ramparts of the wall and the drawbridge had thudded down not a handful of moments before, a sign that their verminous allies had delivered on their promise to knock out the gates.

That the Three-Eyed King had seen fit to trust such creatures was still a matter of some disbelief among the gathered warriors who had flocked to his banners. That the skaven had, in fact, followed through on their promises was even more unbelievable, at least as far as Canto Unsworn was concerned, and it made him wonder what further marvels awaited him, should he survive the carnage to come.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ Horvath roared, echoing the cry of the men around him. He glanced at the other and frowned. ‘What are you nattering about now, Unsworn?’

‘Never mind,’ Canto said.

Horvath eyed him suspiciously. The two warriors were a study in contrasts. Both were big, as befitted men who had survived the numberless dangers of the Chaos Wastes, and clad in baroque armour too heavy to be worn by any man not touched by the breath of the Winds of Change and the light of the Howling Sun. Horvath’s armour was the hue of dried blood, and bedecked with grisly sigils of murder and ruin. A trophy rack wobbled on his back, cradling an intact skeleton, every bone of which was carved with a blasphemous litany. Canto’s black armour, while as heavy and imposing as Horvath’s, bore neither sign nor sigil, and he carried no trophies save for the yellowing skulls with strange marks carved into them which hung from his pauldrons and cuirass.

‘Why must you always talk, Unsworn? Why must you chatter like a nurgling?’ Horvath growled, shaking his head.

‘The gods gave me a voice, Horvath. Blame them,’ Canto said. ‘Crossbows.’

‘What?’

‘Crossbows,’ Canto said and raised his shield as crossbow bolts punched into the front rank of warriors moving up the viaduct. Dozens of men and mutants fell. One, however, remained on his feet. Crossbow bolts jutted from his all-encompassing and faceless armour, but still he staggered on, dragging his sword behind him. As he neared the gatehouse, he seemed to gain strength, and he swung his sword up to clasp it with both hands. With a hoarse cry, he began to run towards the enemy. ‘That one is looking to catch the eyes of the gods,’ Canto muttered as the lone warrior charged towards the smoky ruins of the gatehouse.

‘He already has, Unsworn,’ Horvath grunted, plucking a bolt out of his arm. ‘Don’t you recognise him?’ He snapped the bolt in two. ‘That’s Count Mordrek.’

‘The Damned One?’ Canto murmured. ‘No wonder he seems in such a hurry.’ Mordrek the Damned was a living warning to all those who vied for the favour of the Dark Gods. He walked at the whim of the gods, never knowing rest, oblivion or damnation. Mordrek, men whispered, had died a thousand times, but was always brought back to fight again. He was the plaything of the gods: beneath his ornate armour, his form was said to change constantly, as if he were the raw stuff of Chaos made flesh.

‘He just wandered into camp last night. He wasn’t alone, either. We wage war accompanied by the heroes of old, Unsworn. Aekold Helbrass might be content to play in the ashes of Kislev, but others have come in answer to the Three-Eyed King’s challenge – Vilitch the Curseling, Valnir the Reaper, a dozen others. All rallying to the banner of the Everchosen,’ Horvath continued. He slammed his axe against his shield with every name he rattled off. ‘To march in Mordrek’s wake is an honour, Unsworn. We follow in the footsteps of legend!’

Horvath’s cry was swallowed up by the roar of the warriors around them. Mordrek’s charge had roused the horde, and Canto found himself carried along as the warriors around him and Horvath began to press forwards up the viaduct once more. As they moved, hatches banged open on cannon embrasures to reveal the hollow muzzles of guns ready to fire. Canto felt his heart quicken with anticipation of the noise and fury to come. He was not afraid; not precisely. He knew what cannons could do. He’d seen the war-engines of the dawi zharr first-hand, and knew that these guns were but a pale shadow of those terrible devices. Men would die, but not him. Not if his luck held, as it had so far.

Canto had fought his way south with the rest of Halfgir’s Headsmen, as they called themselves, when the thrice-damned sorcerous bastion the southerners had erected had come down at last. He’d fought living men and dead ones, and rival champions seeking the favour of the gods as well. The sky was the colour of blood and the moons were crumbling, and sometimes, when he looked up quickly enough, he could see vast faces, leering down at the world from whatever lofty perch the gods regularly crouched on.

The thought gave him no pleasure. They were just watching now, but if it truly was the end of days, if the Last Hour was finally upon them, then the gods might start taking a more direct hand in the affairs of mortals, and Canto didn’t want to be around when that happened. The gods were unpredictable and malignant, and no man could survive their attentions.

Middenheim’s walls came alive with blossoms of fire. Bolts, bullets, cannonballs and mortar shells fell among the throng. Canto saw a bouncing cannonball carom off Count Mordrek, knocking the Damned One from his feet. A moment later Mordrek was shoving himself upright, the buckled plates of his armour reshaping themselves even as he staggered back into motion. ‘He is truly blessed,’ Horvath said.

‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ Canto grunted. All around them, blood and torn flesh sprayed into the air as cannonballs and mortar shells struck the massed ranks of men moving up the viaduct. Canto grimaced as blood spattered across his armour. He’d counselled the others against this, but they hadn’t wanted to hear it. No, they wanted the glory, the honour of first blood. And he’d had no choice but to go along with it; to do otherwise was to risk death. They would have cut him down where he stood, and then gone anyway. Story of your misbegotten life, Canto, he thought.

Despite the barrage from the walls Mordrek reached the gatehouse intact, Canto and the others dogging his heels. The Damned One struck the defenders like a wolf attacking sheep. His sword arced out, lopping off limbs and opening bellies. Even as the wounded men fell, their bodies began to writhe and change. New, monstrous limbs erupted from them as the newly awakened things within them shed their human flesh. Monsters sprang up in Mordrek’s path, and launched themselves at their former comrades.

Monsters within, monsters without, Canto thought, as he broke into a run. He beheaded a whey-faced halberdier, and then he was inside the walls of the City of the White Wolf, an army of the lost and the damned at his heels.

Two

The Depths of the Fauschlag

Beyond the flickering light of the torches, beady red eyes gleamed. Gregor Martak peered into the dark and frowned. He reached out with his mind, grasping the strands of Ghur which inundated the tunnels. The Amber Wind flowed wild throughout Middenheim, rising from the god-touched stones. The Fauschlag seemed to reverberate with the howling of wolves that only Martak could hear, and he felt a wild, terrible power settle into the marrow of his bones.

‘Well, wizard?’ Axel Greiss grunted, hefting his hammer. Greiss had come to observe the defence of the tunnels, and had brought reports of enemy contact at the other junctions. A cadre of armoured knights surrounded him, each one a glowering, bearded beacon of Ulric’s favour. The presence of the knights and the Grand Master had done much to stiffen the resolve of the common soldiers. Rumours about what had happened in the Temple of Ulric had spread like quicksilver through the city, and Middenheim was in turmoil as priests and templars of Ulric sought to calm the panicked citizenry and soldiery both.

‘Hush,’ Martak said absently. ‘I need to concentrate.’ Greiss flushed and growled something, but Martak ignored him. He set his staff and pulled that savage influence into himself, drawing it up, and with a whisper he set it flooding into the packed ranks of troops standing before him, granting courage and strength where there was a deficit of either. As the power flowed out of him, he thought he saw something low and white slink through the legs of the soldiers before him. He felt a wash of hot breath on his neck, and something growled softly in his ear. He shuddered, and the feeling fled.

The skaven poured out of the darkness, a chittering, squealing mass of mangy fur, rusted armour and jagged blades. Men recoiled in instinctive horror, but the whip-crack of a sergeant’s voice, loud in the confines of the tunnel, was enough to steady most of them. A second order saw crossbows clatter. A volley of bolts tore through the rapidly diminishing space between the defenders and the encroaching enemy. At such close range, in the narrow tunnel, it was impossible to miss. ‘Ha! That’s the way,’ Greiss bellowed.

Martak watched as the front rank of skaven were punched from their feet. Their bodies, some still twitching, vanished beneath the talons of the next rank as the horde pressed forwards. A hurried second volley proved no more an obstacle than the first, and the skaven ground on, over their own dead and dying, until Martak could hear nothing save their squealing. An order rippled up and down the Empire line and shields were hastily locked, even as the enemy reached them.

‘Now you’ll see, wizard,’ Greiss said. ‘This is how a true son of Middenheim fights. With iron and muscle, not sorcery.’

His words stung. Martak looked away. Born in Middenheim he might have been, but he was as much a stranger here as Valten. More so, in fact. Valten wasn’t a sorcerer. In the City of the White Wolf, there was no such thing as a good wizard. There was only Chaos, and anyone who practised magic was destined for a fiery end, tied to a witch’s stake in a market square, unless the Colleges of Magic got to them first. Even now, they looked at him with suspicion. Even now, they thought he was as bad as the enemy battering at their gates.

If I had my way, I’d tell you to go hang, and take this cesspool with you, Martak thought, watching the battle unfold. He’d always hated cities, and as far as he was concerned, there was no difference between Middenheim and Altdorf. Let them fall. The world would be the better for it. He leaned against his staff, letting it support him for a moment. But who are you to decide that, eh? he thought, not without some bitterness. The gods decided your lot long ago, Gregor Martak. They might be dead and gone to dust, but the course they set for you still holds true. And you’ll follow it to the bitter end, because there’s no other way out of this trap.

Screaming ratmen crashed into the shield-wall, and paid a deadly toll. Snouts were smashed to red ruin, and furry bodies were impaled or hacked down by thrusting spears and jabbing halberds. Martak saw a frothing skaven scramble up the surface of a soldier’s shield and fling itself onto the man behind him in an effort to escape the deadly press.

Everywhere Martak looked, men and skaven strove against one another. The press of battle swayed back and forth, but the ratmen could not break the shield-wall. Soon, they began to falter. Martak gestured and strengthened flagging sword arms. Unbloodied state troops moved in to bolster the line, and Martak stepped back, pulling his cloak tight about himself, grateful he’d had no cause to enter the fray directly. Ever since the winds of magic had begun to blow so strongly, he could feel the boiling rage that accompanied the Wind of Beasts – a need to tear and bite, to eat and eat and eat. He closed his eyes and shivered. When he opened them, he could see Greiss looking at him sidelong, though whether in concern or disgust, he couldn’t say.

Pushing the thought aside, he turned his attentions to the battle. As glad as he was that the skaven were being held at bay, he wondered at the absence of the strange weapons which they had used to such devastating effect during the battle for Altdorf. Where were the gas weapons, the warpstone-fuelled lightning guns? Where were the rat ogres, or even the armoured, black-furred elite of the chittering horde?

‘Chaff,’ he muttered. ‘They’re throwing chaff at us. Why?’ He stepped back as more troops flooded into the tunnel. Over-enthusiastic commanders were throwing their men into battle with the skaven, stripping them from the garrisons above, trusting in the walls of Middenheim to hold the enemy without while they destroyed the enemy within. And that hadn’t been an unreasonable assumption, while the Flame of Ulric had burned. But the fire that stirred the blood of the men of Middenheim and kept daemons out of its streets had been snuffed. ‘It’s a trick,’ he grunted.

‘What?’ Greiss asked.

‘These are the dregs,’ Martak said, gesturing. ‘They have better troops than this. So where are they? Now is the perfect time to strike, but they are not here.’ He looked at Greiss. ‘Was it the same in the other tunnels?’

‘What’s the difference? One rat is much like another,’ Greiss said.

‘It’s a trick,’ Martak said. ‘They’re bleeding us, drawing our eyes away from something else, some other point of attack.’ He hesitated. ‘We need to fall back. We’ll strip men from the reserves in the tunnels above, and bolster the defences along the walls. They’re up to something, and we can’t let ourselves get trapped down here.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Greiss said dismissively. ‘This is no trick. You said it yourself, man… They’re attacking from below, as Archaon attacks from without.’ He looked at Martak. ‘You were right, wizard,’ he said, grudgingly.

‘Then how do you explain it?’ Martak demanded, knowing that whatever he’d thought earlier, and whatever Greiss now believed, there was more going on than he could see. He could feel it in his bones.

‘I don’t have to,’ Greiss snarled. He hefted his hammer warningly. ‘They attack. So we must defend. Middenheim stands, and while it does, we fight.’

‘But what if you’re defending the wrong spot?’

‘What other spot would you have me defend, wizard? Here is where the enemy is, and– Eh?’ The tunnel shuddered violently, interrupting Greiss’s outburst. Dust drifted down. Martak looked up. The northern gatehouse was somewhere above them. He blinked dust out of his eyes. Cracks ran along the roof of the tunnel, and his eyes widened.

‘By the horns of Taal,’ he muttered, as he realised too late what had occurred. He looked back towards the skaven hurling themselves on the swords and spears of the state troops, distracting them, occupying them. He looked back at Greiss. The old knight looked confused. ‘Don’t you understand? I was wrong! This is a feint! The enemy is in the city,’ Martak snarled. ‘If you would save your city, Greiss, then you’d best shut up and follow me.’

Northern Gatehouse

Smoke filled the courtyard. Not the greenish cloud from earlier, but black, greasy smoke which vented from the gatehouse and its attached structures. Someone had set fire to something somewhere. The skaven had vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Small favours, Wendel Volker thought, as he followed Dubnitz and Goetz across the courtyard. He could still feel the echoes of the drawbridge thudding down in his bones. The sound of it had reminded him of a death-knell, but whether it was for him, the city or the world, he didn’t know and feared to guess.

O Sigmar, please take some other poor fool today if you must, but not me, Volker thought as he coughed and staggered towards the raised portcullis that marked the way to the drawbridge. The gatehouse was, in many ways, a small fortress in its own right, and it was far bigger than it first looked. It would take the enemy several minutes to traverse it. He could hear the thudding of feet on the drawbridge, and the creak of the outer portcullis as the enemy sought to rip it from its housings. Stone buckled and burst with a shriek, and men roared in triumph and fear. ‘At least we’re not alone,’ he rasped, drawing his sword.

Those soldiers who had survived the skaven attack on the gatehouse had apparently mustered in the inner causeway between the portcullises, and he could hear some unlucky sergeant screaming for them to hold fast, even as the enemy butchered them. He heard shrieks and cries, and the roars of monsters. Handgunners and crossbowmen on the walls above fired down into the melee. Volker took some comfort in the belch of gunfire, though there was precious little of it to his ears. Where were the reinforcements? Why wasn’t anyone coming?

‘Probably heading for the eastern gate,’ Goetz said. Volker blinked. He hadn’t realised that he’d spoken aloud. ‘That stuck-up wolf’s hindquarters Greiss stripped half the garrison to reinforce the tunnels.’

‘Now is that any way to talk about the Grand Master of our honoured brethren in the Order of the White Wolf?’ Dubnitz asked. ‘What would he think, if he were here to hear you?’

‘I wish he was here,’ Goetz shot back. ‘It’d be one more body between us and whatever is bloody well coming across that gods-bedamned drawbridge.’ He plucked a shield from the lifeless grip of one of the bodies littering the courtyard and ran the flat of his sword across its rim with a steely screech.

‘I’ll tell you who I wish were here – a priestess I knew by the name of Goodweather. That woman and her magic shark’s teeth would come in handy right about now,’ Dubnitz said. His smile faltered for a moment, and his eyes tightened, as if he were seeing something he’d rather not. Then he shook himself. ‘Ah, Esme,’ he said softly. He shook his head. ‘No use wishing, at any rate. We’re what’s here, and we’ll have to make do.’

‘Or we could leave,’ Volker muttered. ‘Make a strategic redeployment somewhere else – preferably Averheim.’ Despite his words, he didn’t mean it. Not really. He wasn’t a coward, though he felt like one at times. He simply wanted the world to slow down, for just a moment, so he could catch his breath.

Unfortunately, the world didn’t seem to care what he wanted. Men began fleeing through the courtyard, past Volker and the others. They were bloodied, and looked as if all the daemons of the north were on their heels. Which, Volker supposed, they were. Clawed, incandescent flippers abruptly emerged from the gateway and gripped either side as something squamous and bloated squeezed itself out and gave a deafening screech. A multitude of colourful tendrils moved across its oily skin as it flopped after a fleeing swordsman and scooped him up with an eager grunt.

Before the knights could move, the unlucky man was stuffed kicking and screaming into the monstrous thing’s wide maw. Scything fangs reduced the man to silent ruin, and the orb-like eyes of the beast rolled towards them. ‘Chaos spawn,’ Goetz spat. He swatted his shield with the flat of his sword. ‘Come on, ugly. Come to Hector. Come on!’ Sword and shield connected again, the sharp sound drawing the monster’s attention.

‘Goetz…’ Volker began.

‘Stay back,’ Goetz said warningly. He spread his arms, as if inviting the creature to attack. It duly obliged, bounding towards him with a thunderous croak. Its jaws spread like a hellish flower as it flung itself towards him. ‘Chew on this,’ Goetz snarled as he rammed the rim of his shield into the creature’s mouth. He hacked at its protoplasmic flesh, ignoring the lashing tendrils that sought to pull him apart. It grunted and moaned as his sword bit into it. Volker moved to help him, but Dubnitz grabbed his arm.

‘Don’t worry about Goetz, my friend,’ Dubnitz said. ‘He once killed a troll with nothing but a broken shield and harsh language. Man was touched by the gods – when there were gods, I mean.’ He snatched two fallen shields from the ground and tossed one to Volker, who caught it and slid it on just as the first of the enemy exploded out into the courtyard.

Volker’s shock and fear fell away from him as he blocked an axe-blow and brought his sword around and down on the northman’s skull. For a moment, the world shrank to the weight of the blade in his hand and the sound of metal biting flesh and bone. He remembered Heldenhame and the long, gruelling march to Altdorf; the retreat north, with roving warbands of skaven and beastmen dogging their heels; the promise of safety which was never quite fulfilled; the faces of friends who’d died on the way.

He stamped forwards, ramming his shield into a marauder’s chest, shoving the man back. He drove his heel down on the man’s instep, and caught him in the throat with the tip of his sword as he jerked back. In his mind’s eye, he saw bodies left lying in the snow and the mud. He heard the crying of children without parents, and the screams of parents without children. And above it all, he heard a booming laughter which he wanted to believe was simply distant thunder, but in his heart knew was anything but.

Nearby, Goetz backhanded a screaming tribesman with his shield, knocking the warrior flat. His sword was a blur of steel, and for a moment, Volker thought that the last Knight of the Blazing Sun might throw back the hordes of Chaos on his own. But more of the howling, wild-eyed northmen slipped past him and charged towards Volker and Dubnitz, the names of their vile gods spilling from their lips.

‘There are too many of them for us to hold here,’ Volker said. ‘Not alone – we can’t do it without reinforcements.’ He looked around, hoping to hear the tramp of boots or the clop of hooves, but all he saw were the bodies of the dead, and all he heard were the blasphemous cries of the enemy as they made their way over the drawbridge and through the gatehouse. Volker realised with a sinking sensation that he and his fellow knights were the only defenders left. ‘This isn’t fair,’ he whispered, his guts roiling as he lifted his shield to block a wild blow from a frothing beastman. He thrust his sword out instinctively, gutting the creature. He’d come all this way, survived so much – just for it to end here?

‘Way of the world, my friend,’ Dubnitz grunted, hewing at a Chaos marauder. Blood spattered the big man’s face and glistened in his wide, spade-shaped beard. He thrust his knee up between another opponent’s legs and opened the warrior’s skull from pate to chin.

‘What world?’ Goetz said, his bronze-hued armour dulled by dust and blood, as he whipped his blade out in a tight arc and opened the throats of three of the shrieking warriors pressing towards them. ‘Everything’s gone, Dubnitz, and we’re fighting over the damned ashes.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Dubnitz growled. ‘I’m fighting for that last bottle of Sartosan Red I’ve got chilling in the privy. I’ll be damned if one of these barbarians gets to enjoy it before I do. I didn’t fight my way out of what was left of Marienburg with it stuffed down my cuirass, just to miss out now!’

‘I’m sorry, did you say Sartosan Red?’ Volker asked, as he caught an axe-blow on his shield. ‘What year is it, then? And you told me we were out!’

‘Does it matter?’ Goetz asked. ‘It’s not like any of us will get the chance to drink it.’

‘Pay him no mind, Wendel, he’s a Talabeclander. Got the taste buds of a radish,’ Dubnitz said. He snagged the braided beard of his opponent and jerked the northman towards him. Their heads connected with a dull sound and the Chaos marauder staggered back, eyes wide. Dubnitz gave a laugh and lunged, spitting the man on his sword. He whirled and smashed aside the shield of another warrior, opening the man up to a skull-splitting blow from Goetz. ‘There we go – look at that. Just like old times, my friend,’ Dubnitz chortled.

‘Erkhart – look out!’ Volker reached for Dubnitz, even as the Chaos warrior’s blade erupted from the other knight’s chest. Dubnitz coughed and lurched forwards, pulling himself off the blade. He sank down to one knee, his hand clamped to the wound. Goetz caught the Chaos warrior a blow on the head, staggering him.

‘Get him up and out of here,’ he snarled, as he moved to confront the warrior who’d felled Dubnitz. The Chaos warrior came at him, roaring something in a guttural tongue. His sword seemed to drink up the blood that coated it, and it glowed with pale flames. Goetz moved quicker than Volker thought possible for a man in full plate, blocking his enemy’s blow and countering with one of his own. The two warriors traded blows in the breach, neither giving ground. Behind the Chaos warrior, more northmen mustered, ready to rush the gatehouse when the contest was over. Volker could see that Goetz was tiring, despite his spirited defence. He felt a grip on his arm and looked down into Dubnitz’s bloody grin.

‘Second privy from the left,’ Dubnitz said.

‘What?’

‘The wine, Wendel. Just in case you live through this,’ Dubnitz wheezed. He levered himself to his feet with Volker’s help. ‘Fall back. They’ll need you out there, and no sense in you dying here. Two will do as well as three. We will hold them here, as long as possible.’

‘You’ll die,’ Volker protested.

‘Really? Hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. You stay, we’ll go.’ Dubnitz caught the back of Volker’s head and gave him an affectionate shake. ‘Don’t be an idiot. My guts would trip me up before I took two steps, and poor Hector has been looking for a place to die since Talabheim.’ He smiled weakly. ‘It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? I thought I’d die at the hands of an irate husband. At the very least, I’d do it in Marienburg. Still, one place is as good as any other. Like Hector’s late, lamented brothers were wont to say, we do what must be done.’ He pushed away from Volker. ‘Remember – second one from the left. Don’t let it go to waste,’ Dubnitz called, as he staggered towards the gatehouse. Along the way he snatched up one of the braziers the sentries had used for light, and hefted it like a spear.

As Volker began to back away, he saw Dubnitz give a shout and lurch into the Chaos warrior, smashing the armoured brute from his feet with the brazier. Goetz was too busy to capitalise on his foe’s predicament, as the massed ranks of the enemy gave a roar and charged into the courtyard. Goetz hefted his shield and readied himself to meet them.

The first of the invaders reached him, and their shields slammed together. Goetz was shoved back, but his sword slid across the top of both shields and through his enemy’s visor. He wrenched the blade free and shoved the body back, even as a number of slavering Chaos spawn bounded towards him and Dubnitz out of the smoke, their jaws wide. Dubnitz shoved himself to his feet, and for a moment, his eyes met Volker’s. He grinned briefly, displaying blood-stained teeth, and winked before he swung around, catching the first of the spawn in the side of its malformed head with the brazier.

Volker turned away. He heard Goetz cry out the name of his goddess, and then he was staggering out of the courtyard, chest heaving. A rank of levelled spears awaited him, protruding from within a wall of locked shields. He stopped short, and then turned as a wild scream caught his attention. A northman charged out of the courtyard, axe raised. And then another, and another. Volker backed away, shield ready. He killed the first of them, grief and anger adding strength to his blow. The second slammed into him, and they fell in a tangle. Volker slammed the pommel of his sword against the warrior’s head, and then opened his throat to the bone.

Before he could get to his feet, the third was upon him, axe raised for a killing stroke. Volker tensed to receive the blow he knew was coming. Sorry, Erkhart, he thought. I guess that wine will go to waste after all.

Moments before the barbarian’s blow landed, a warhorse interposed itself, and a hammer sang down, driving the warrior to the ground in a broken heap. Volker looked up into the eyes of the Herald of Sigmar himself, and felt the despair of only a few moments before begin to give way before a surge of hope. ‘Are you the last?’ Valten asked, his voice carrying easily above the din of battle.

‘I… yes,’ Volker croaked, trying not to think of the others. I’m sorry, he thought again.

Valten nodded brusquely, and turned his head towards the gatehouse. ‘Then on your feet, Reiksguard. I need every man who can stand. The enemy is coming, and I would welcome them properly.’

Canto Unsworn strode over the tangle of bodies that blocked the way into the gatehouse courtyard. Dead Chaos spawn, tribesmen and the armoured figures of several of Halfgir’s more eager Headsmen were in evidence, as were the bodies of the defenders, one clad in bronze, the other in green. Two men, he thought. Horvath strode past him, kicking a plumed helmet aside. ‘Two men did all of this,’ Canto said, keeping pace with him as they headed for the shattered portcullis at the far end of the courtyard at a fast lope.

‘Khorne will welcome their skulls,’ Horvath growled. They stepped out of the courtyard and into a melee. Canto saw Count Mordrek wading through the enemy with casual disregard, his blade shrieking in pleasure as it tore the humanity from its victims.

‘Maybe so, but I’m not very keen on this invasion if that’s the sort of welcome we can expect,’ Canto said as he parried the blow of a desperate halberdier. ‘These sorts of things have a way of – well, let’s be blunt, shall we? – spinning out of control.’

‘Silence, Unsworn,’ Horvath growled as he chopped through an upraised shield and into the man cowering beneath it.

‘All I’m saying is, this just proves that things could go very badly, very quickly. Pivotal moments, Horvath. They’re an unsteady sort of foundation to build future endeavours on.’

‘By all of the names of all of the gods, would you be silent, Canto? You’ve been yammering incessantly since Praag,’ Horvath hissed. ‘If Halfgir were to hear you…’

‘Halfgir caught a cannonball in the gut coming up the viaduct. He’s not hearing anything any time soon,’ Canto said, not without some humour. ‘I suppose that means you’re in charge of the warband now – Horvath’s Headsmen, they’ll call us.’

‘I said be silent,’ Horvath snarled, slapping a swordsman aside. ‘By the brass balls of Khorne, do you ever shut up?’

Canto didn’t reply. An Ulrican priest circled him, moving lightly across the blood-slick cobbles, hammer raised, wolf-skin cloak flapping. Canto concentrated on the man’s sweaty, snarling features, waiting for that oh-so-familiar tightening of skin around the eyes that would betray his next move. Flesh crinkled, and the Ulrican stamped forwards, hammer whirling. Canto twisted aside at the last moment, and the hammer smashed down, shattering cobbles. Before the priest could recover, Canto drove his sword through the man’s side. The Ulrican howled, and Canto twisted his blade and shoved, chopping through the man’s spine and out of his back in a spray of blood.

He was already moving forwards as the body flopped to the ground. Swords and spears sought him from every direction, and he chopped and slashed, trying to clear himself room. The Empire troops were beginning to waver. Already the rear ranks were retreating. But there were still enough of them to prove troublesome. Tilea, Estalia, maybe even Cathay, but no – Kislev. You chose to go to Kislev, he thought. But that was a lie. There had been no choice. He and Horvath and all of the others, the whole innumerable horde-to-end-all-hordes, were like drowning men caught in a maelstrom. There was no way to break its pull, no way to escape. You could only go with the tide, and hope you drowned later, rather than sooner.

Or, in the case of some men, that you drowned at all.

Count Mordrek lashed out with the flat of his blade and his fist, driving back his own allies. Marauders stumbled back in confusion as Mordrek cleared a space between the two sides. The soldiers of the Empire, in contrast to their enemies, seemed only too glad for the momentary respite. Mordrek whirled about and pointed at a figure on horseback with his sword. ‘Herald of Sigmar! I see thee, I name thee and I demand thy presence!’ he roared, in archaic Reikspiel. ‘Count Mordrek challenges thee, son of the comet.’

Canto lowered his own blade. ‘So that’s why you were in such a blasted hurry,’ he muttered. Around him, Horvath and the others had realised what was about to happen. Gore-encrusted weapons began to smash against shields, or thump against the cobbles. Canto examined the warrior that Mordrek had called to, and felt a stirring of recognition as the man urged his horse through the ranks of the state troops. He’d seen that face before, during the battle at the Auric Bastion. And he recognised the heavy warhammer clutched in his hand, as well. ‘Skull-Splitter,’ he hissed.

‘What?’ Horvath grunted.

‘That’s Sigmar’s hammer, dolt,’ Canto said. ‘The Skull-Splitter itself. I saw it used once, a long time ago. Some self-righteous prig from Nuln was using it to put the fear of his god into the enemy at the battle of the Bokha Palaces. Like a thunderbolt wrapped in gold,’ he murmured, lost for a moment in images of the past. That was when he’d first set his foot on the path to immortality and ruin. In Kislev, when another Everchosen had been knocking on the door of the world, Canto had been given a choice. And he’d made the wrong one. But who knew old Wheezy von Bildhofen would become Emperor? Not me. How was I to know? Not a sorcerer, am I? I did my bit, he thought, centuries of bitterness welling up as fresh as the day he’d chosen not to slip a knife in the back of his old school-mate, out of some misguided sense of – what? – friendship? Pity? Or something else… Fear, maybe.

And now here we are again, Canto. Part of the Army of the End Times, only this time you’re being honest about whose side you’re on, aren’t you? he thought, watching… Valten, that was his name, riding towards them, carrying the weapon of a god. Unease gnawed at his gut as Valten drew closer. It wasn’t just the hammer; it was everything about him – the set of his shoulders, the armour he wore, the look in his eyes. All of it screamed ‘danger’, the same way von Bildhofen had, so many centuries ago.

‘On this day, I at last see clearly. The world is once more real to me. The voices of the gods have guided me to this moment. Time, fate and destiny grow thin, and there is only the now. A chance to feel alive,’ Mordrek continued as Valten approached. His voice, rusty with disuse, began to grow stronger as he spoke. ‘The gods demand that I kill you, Herald, and then they will free me. But they lie. They always lie, even when it serves no purpose.’

Valten slid from his horse and strode towards Mordrek, hammer in hand. As he drew close, Canto felt a quiver of fear blossom in him. He looked around and saw that he was not alone in feeling out of sorts. A shape, larger than any man, at once ghostly and somehow more real than the world around it, crouched within that husk of flesh, and it was hungry. It was so terribly hungry. It hungered for split skulls and splintered bones, for battle and cleansing fire. In Valten’s footsteps, Canto could hear the rattle of spears, the roar of warriors, the howl of wolves and, above it all, the dull, ponderous rhythm of a hammer slamming down on an anvil. He’d heard that sound before, at the Bokha Palaces, in the words of a man named Magnus. It rang in his skull like the stroke of doom, and he began to edge back.

‘What is that? What is it?’ Horvath growled hoarsely, eyes wide. ‘Is it a daemon?’

‘Did you think we were the only ones with gods, you blood-drunk fool?’ Canto snapped.

A warrior, unable to control himself, broke from the ranks and charged towards Valten, howling out a prayer to the Skull Throne. Mordrek cut his legs out from under him before he’d gone far, and then beheaded the writhing spawn that erupted from the dying man’s tattooed flesh. He spun, arms spread, driving them back with the force of his fury. ‘This day is mine! I have been waiting for it always. I will not be denied. Not by gods or men or even the Three-Eyed King himself,’ he roared.

Point made, he turned back to Valten, who had stopped some distance away, hammer held low. Mordrek lifted his sword. ‘I know the fire which snarls in me, Herald. Even in death, it burns. It cannot be extinguished, not even by the gods themselves. It can only be snuffed by the hand of the one fated to do it. By your hand! Never more to be raised up, never more to be kindled anew. Kill me if you can, Herald of Sigmar,’ the tall warrior intoned. ‘And Count Mordrek, once-lord of Brass Keep, once-elector, once-son of a forgotten Emperor, shall sing your praises in the world to come.’ He struck his cuirass with a clenched fist.

‘Gladly,’ Valten said. That single word sent a ripple of unrest through the men around Canto, and he could not blame them. The word was a promise, and a prophecy. Mordrek made a sound deep in his throat, like an eager dog, and he sprang forwards.

Cursed blade and godly hammer connected in a shower of sparks. A shriek, like that of a dying goat, echoed through the streets as the daemon trapped in Mordrek’s weapon felt the touch of Ghal Maraz. They duelled back and forth, moving almost too fast for Canto to follow.

Mordrek lunged, stamped and thrust, wielding his sword two-handed. Valten blocked every blow but launched few of his own, content to prolong the fight for as long as possible. A moment later, Canto realised why. Past the fight, he saw that the Empire ranks were beginning to thin. He felt a smile creep across his face. Clever, he thought. No wonder Valten had agreed to the duel. While they were occupied watching Mordrek work out his frustrations, the enemy were slipping away. He considered bringing it to someone’s attention, and then dismissed the thought. He wasn’t in charge, and it wasn’t as if there were anywhere to go. If those men didn’t die here, they’d die somewhere else. At this point, it was a foregone conclusion.

Mordrek’s blade screeched as it skidded across Valten’s pauldron, drawing smoke from the metal. Valten turned into the blow and his hammer smashed into Mordrek’s belly, catapulting him off his feet. Mordrek hit the ground and rolled. Valten stalked forwards as Mordrek levered himself up, one arm wrapped around his stomach. Mordrek, still on one knee, extended his sword towards Valten, holding him at bay.

‘Pain,’ Mordrek rumbled. ‘I have felt so much pain. Pain will not kill me, Herald. My will is strong, and I will not be denied.’ He lunged to his feet, sword whirling over his head. Valten ducked aside as the blade snarled down, cleaving a cobblestone in two. Mordrek spun, and his sword lashed out again. It connected with a hastily interposed hammer. Even so, the force of the blow nearly knocked Valten from his feet. ‘Fight, damn you,’ Mordrek roared. ‘Fight me, Herald. I am here to kill you – to spare the Three-Eyed King your wrath, and see that the desires of the gods are not thwarted. But I do not care about Archaon, or the petty wants of fate. What shall be or would have been is not my concern. Fight me. Kill me!’

Valten did not reply. He swatted aside Mordrek’s next blow and sent Ghal Maraz shooting forwards through his grip, so that it crunched into the visor of Mordrek’s helmet. Mordrek staggered back. The terrible hammer licked out and smashed down on Mordrek’s sword arm. His blade fell from nerveless fingers and clattered to the ground, where it screeched and wailed like a wounded animal. Valten stamped down on it and kicked it aside before Mordrek could retrieve it.

The hammer snapped out, and Canto winced as one of Mordrek’s knees went. Mordrek sank down with a groan, and the world seemed to shudder slightly, as if it were out of focus. The hammer dropped down, crushing a shoulder, then a clawing hand. Canto risked a look up at the howling sky, and saw no leering faces. The gods had turned away from this battle now. Were they disappointed, he wondered? Part of him hoped so. Part of him hoped that here and now Mordrek would slip their leash. He turned his attentions back towards the duel.

Mordrek knelt before the Herald of Sigmar, head bowed, his armour shuddering slightly, as if what it contained were seeking escape. Mordrek made no move to stand. He looked up as Valten’s shadow fell over him.

‘I never had a chance,’ Count Mordrek said. He sounded happy.

‘No,’ Valten said.

Mordrek began to laugh. The eerie sound slithered through the air, and even the most slaughter-drunk warrior fell silent at its approach. Mordrek bowed his head again. The hammer rose. When it fell, the mountain shuddered. The sky twisted, and the wind howled. An empty suit of armour rattled to the ground. Thus passed Count Mordrek the Damned, wanderer of the Wastes and exile of the Forbidden City.

The Herald of Sigmar turned to face the ranks of the invaders. In his cool blue gaze was a promise of death and damnation. He raised his hammer, and the closest of them drew back. Their gods were not here, and there would be no help. Canto shivered inside his armour, and wondered if there were any champion among them who was equal to the man before them.

Valten held their gaze as the moment stretched. Then he turned, caught his horse’s bridle, and swung himself into the saddle. He turned the animal around without hurry, and rode away, after his retreating troops.

The northern gatehouse had fallen to the enemy.

Three

The Manndrestrasse, Grafsmund-Norgarten District

Gregor Martak flung out his hand. Shards of amber coalesced about his curled fingers and shot forwards to puncture the dark armour of the Chaos knights charging towards the embattled soldiers. He spun his staff in his hands, his fingers bleeding where they had been scraped raw by the rough wood, and a whirlwind full of amber spears roared across the plaza, sweeping up tribesmen and reducing them to red ruin. But it wasn’t enough. The enemy pressed his threadbare force from all sides. The air stank of smoke and blood, and the battle cries of Talabecland and Middenland warred with idolatrous hymns to the Lord of Skulls and the Prince of Pleasure. Courtyards and junctions were swept clear of the enemy by cannonades, only to be filled anew moments later.

Guns boomed around him, banners fluttered bravely overhead, and his own magics threw back the enemy time and again, but it wasn’t enough. Still the enemy ground on, showing no more concern for their fallen than the skaven had in the tunnels. Black-armoured figures chanting praises to the Dark Gods poured with undimmed enthusiasm towards the men of the Empire. Mingled among them were the hairy forms of loping beastmen, and the abominable, contorted shapes of mutants and worse things besides.

Rage surged in him and he slammed the end of his staff down. Cruel spikes of amber burst through the street, impaling a knot of snarling, scarred Aeslings. His breath shuddered in his lungs, and he cursed himself for the third time in as many minutes.

Stupid old man. Thought you were so clever, didn’t you? Well look at where that cleverness has got you now, ran the refrain. It was, he had to admit, not without merit. After realising what the skaven were up to, he had hurried back to the surface, stripping reserves of state troops from the staging points in the upper tunnels as he went. The way he’d seen it, those men would be more useful on the surface, than waiting for an attack that might never come below.

And they had been. He’d led them up onto the streets, and they’d thrown back the Chaos vanguard. Martak had led the way, flinging spears of sorcerous amber, and bellowing orders in his best imitation of Grand Master Greiss. The halberds and crossbow bolts of those following him had butchered northlander tribesman by the score. Knights of the White Wolf galloped down cobbled streets, hammers swinging, driving entire tribes of the enemy before them. Men from every province fought together as one, united in their desire to drive the northlanders from the city.

Unfortunately, his decision to strip the garrisons had proven to be less than inspired when a fresh wave of skaven reinforcements had driven the token force that remained in the tunnels out. Even now, a seething wave of chittering ratmen was flooding down the broad avenue of the Manndrestrasse towards his lines, driving the remainder of the tunnel garrisons before them. He caught sight of Greiss, as the latter crushed a rat ogre’s skull with a brutal blow from his hammer. As the beast fell, the old templar glared at him, fury in his eyes.

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Martak muttered, though he knew the old man couldn’t hear him. If both of them survived this, Greiss would kill Martak himself, and the wizard wouldn’t blame him. He thrust his staff out like a spear and a tendril of amber shot from the tip, plucking a Chaos knight from his mutated steed.

Hundreds of ratmen had followed Greiss and the others into the streets, and these were no fear-crazed vermin, but the elite of that fell race. Bulky, black-furred rats clad in heavy armour marched alongside lumbering rat ogres with belching fire-throwers strapped to their long arms and metal plates riveted to their abused flesh. More skaven, Martak fancied, than even had laid siege to the city before Archaon’s arrival. By the time he’d understood the full enormity of his error, the skaven had struck his lines from behind.

Now, they were making a last stand on an avenue named for the Skavenslayer himself as the skaven swept through the city, their forces joining those of Archaon to isolate the remaining gatehouses. While the north and east had already fallen, the south and west gates had remained barred to the enemy. But Martak could see the smoke, and runners had brought him word that the gatehouses were surrounded and cut off.

Middenheim would fall. It was not his fault, but that didn’t make it any better. Not everyone agreed, of course. Greiss’s horse thrust its way through the fighting towards him. ‘Was this your plan, then?’ Greiss snarled. ‘We’re cut off from the rest of the city. The enemy is before us and behind us.’

‘As they would have been had we stayed below,’ Martak rasped.

‘So you say,’ Greiss snapped. The old man looked fatigued, and blood streaked his features and armour. ‘You’ve doomed us, wizard. We should never have abandoned the Ulricsmund.’ He twisted in his saddle and swatted a leaping mutant from the air. The creature fell squalling amongst a group of halberdiers, who swiftly dispatched it. ‘And where is the so-called Herald of Sigmar, eh? Where is Valten, when we need him?’

‘Fighting for the city, as we are, I imagine,’ Martak said. He felt the winds of magic tense and flex beneath the clutch of another mind. He turned, seeking the source of the disturbance. A cloaked and hooded figure crouched atop a nearby roof, worm-pale hands gesturing tellingly.

Martak shoved past Greiss and shouted a single word. The air before them hardened into a shield of amber even as arrows of shadow launched themselves from the curling fingers of the sorcerer towards the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf. The amber barrier cracked and split as the shadowy missiles writhed against it. Martak gestured, and the barrier collapsed about the darkling projectiles, sealing them inside. A second gesture sent the amber sphere hurtling away at speed, back towards the sorcerer on the rooftop. The man leapt gracefully from the roof a moment before impact. He dropped to the cobbles, where he was engulfed by the battle and lost to Martak’s sight.

A moment later, that part of the street erupted in a flickering balefire. Bodies were hurled into the air or slammed back against the buildings that lined the street. Warriors from both sides screamed as the coruscating flames consumed them. Men fell, wracked with sickening, uncontrollable mutations, their bodies growing and bursting like overripe fruits. The sorcerer, his robes askew, strode through the conflagration, his hood thrown back to reveal a golden helmet covered in leering mouths. ‘Malofex comes…’ the mouths shrieked as one. ‘Bow before Malofex, master of the Tempest Incarnate, freer of the First Born, bowbowbowbow.’

‘No,’ Martak said. He slammed his staff down, and the street rumbled as a ridge of amber spikes sprouted and stretched towards the sorcerer. Malofex stretched out a hand, and the amber turned liquid and rose into the air, becoming globules which began to spin faster and faster about the sorcerer’s head. Then, with a sound like the crack of a whip, the globules shot back towards Martak.

Martak’s eyes widened and he whipped his staff up and around in a tight circle, carving protective sigils on the air. The globules of amber struck the invisible barrier and exploded, casting razor-edged shards into the melee around him.

‘Malofex, who freed Kholek Suneater, Malofex, who uprooted the Gibbering Tower, bids you cease and kneel, hedge-wizard,’ the mouths on the sorcerer’s helmet ranted. ‘Bow to Malofex, and live.’ As the sorcerer moved towards Martak, colourful flames sprouted on his robes, rising about him like an infernal halo. The flames swept out and struck the ground, towering around them like the walls of a keep.

Martak set the butt of his staff on the ground, and gripped the haft in both hands. Shards of amber formed and darted for the sorcerer, and were melted by the flames, or caught and crunched by the hateful mouths. He could feel the other’s will pressing down on his own. He had surprised his opponent before, caught him off-guard, but now the full force of the sorcerer’s attention was on him, and Martak found himself slowly but surely buckling beneath the weight of it. He was tired. He had been since Altdorf. There was no time to rest his mind or body. The war had been gruelling and his strength was worn to the nub. But he would not surrender, not now, not here. He hurled spell after spell at his opponent, and each was blocked or dispelled easily.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Greiss trying to break through the flames that had risen to isolate him and his opponent from the battle going on around them. In the flames were faces, moaning, screaming, laughing, and they licked at Martak’s flesh, raising weals of strange hues and sending shivers of pain through him. He could hear the chuckles and whispers of the mouths, and the sibilant crackle of the flames rising from his opponent’s frame as the sorcerer drew close. But, then, a new sound intruded and the world grew slow around him. The flames seemed to freeze in place, and the colour drained from them as they fell silent.

In their place was the howling of wolves. Martak’s breath frosted as the temperature dropped. His skin felt cold and clammy, and he heard the snarls and growls of beasts on the hunt. Lupine shadows stretched across the ground towards him. And then, as it stepped through Malofex’s fire, he saw it.

The wolf loped towards him, seemingly unconcerned by what was going on around it. It moved effortlessly, as if it were a thing not of flesh but instead a ghost or phantom. Its jaws sagged in a lupine grin, and the howls grew louder, threatening to rupture Martak’s eardrums. He could no longer hear Malofex, and the roar of battle sounded as if it were far away. All he could hear were the howls, and the harsh panting of the white wolf as it closed in on him.

It leapt past the sorcerer, sparing him not a glance. Martak wanted to move out of its path, but some force held him frozen in place. The wolf grew larger and larger, its mouth expanding until its upper jaw blocked out the sky and its lower tore furrows in the street, and then Martak was between them and they snapped shut.

Martak was enveloped in darkness. Frost formed on his shaking limbs, and icicles grew in his tangled beard. The howling grew thunderous, and he sank down to one knee, hands clasped to his ears. White specks swam through the dark, faster and faster, and he thought that they might be snow. He heard the crunch of footsteps: human ones, not the padding of paws, but somehow more terrifying for all of that.

Get up.

Martak peered into the swirling snow. The voice had been like ice falling from the face of a cliff, or the stormy waters of the Sea of Claws as they smashed into the shore. It reverberated about him, surrounding him and filling his head.

Get up, Gregor Martak. A man of Middenheim does not kneel.

Martak shoved himself to his feet. Something massive and terrible lunged out of the whirling snow, and caught his throat in a cold grip. He felt claws digging into his neck, and found himself flung down onto hard stones.

He does not kneel. But he will bare his throat, when it is demanded.

The curtain of snow parted, revealing not a beast, but an old, stooped man crouched over him, one hand locked about his throat. The old man’s nostrils flared and he tilted his worn, hairy features up, as if tasting the air. He was clad in white furs and bronze armour, of the kind worn by horse-lords and the barrow kings who had ruled what was now the Empire in the centuries before the coming of Sigmar. His eyes glinted like chips of ice as he dragged Martak to his feet. ‘Who–?’ Martak croaked.

The old man threw back his head and howled. The sound was echoed by the unseen wolves, and its fury battered Martak like the blows of an enemy. He would have fallen, but for the old man’s grip on his throat.

Quiet. Listen.

Martak shuddered, as the gates of his mind were burst asunder and a wild host of images flooded into him. He saw a vast cavern, somewhere far beneath the Fauschlag, though he did not know how he knew that, and saw the roaring light of the Flame of Ulric, stretching upwards towards the Temple of Ulric above. He saw a figure clad in flowing robes step from the shadows and saw ancient wolves rise from the sleep of ages to defend the Flame from the intruder.

In the flashes of sorcerous light which accompanied the short but brutal battle, the figure stood revealed. An elf, Martak thought, confused. His confusion turned to horror as he watched the elf thrust his staff into the Flame. The fire shrank away as the head of the staff touched it, and the guardian wolves howled as one and collapsed into shards of bone and ice. A moment later, the chamber fell into darkness.

And in that darkness, something moved and grew. In the ashes of the Flame, something began to stir, and Martak felt fear course through him. ‘What is it?’ he groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut. There were stars in the darkness, not the clean, pure stars of the night sky but rotten lights which marked the audient void, strung between sour worlds. He could hear voices, scratching at the walls of his mind, and heard the cackling of daemons.

Chaos, Ulric said. The thief stole my flame, and now the world aches as old wounds open in her flesh. Our mother dies, Gregor Martak, and I die with her. I am the last of the Firstborn, and my power, my rage… fades.

Martak looked up into the old god’s face. There was fear there, but anger as well. The anger of a dying wolf as it snaps and snarls at its hunters, even as the trap crushes its leg and the spears pierce its belly. Ulric released his throat and laid a hand on his shoulder.

But it is not gone yet.

Ulric was not one to waste time. There was a moment of pain, of a cold beyond any Martak had felt, and a tearing sensation deep in his chest, as if something had eaten out his heart to make room for itself. And then, the world crashed back to life around him.

Martak opened his eyes. He could hear the crackle of Malofex’s flames, Greiss’s shouts, the din of battle. And beneath it all, the heartbeat of a god. Frost slipped from between his lips as time began to speed up. His staff vibrated in his grip as the ancient wood was permeated with rivulets of ice. He released it and it exploded into a thousand glittering shards, which hovered before him. The temperature around him dropped precipitously, and Malofex’s flames were turned to ice. The sorcerer stopped and looked around, confused.

The hungry smile of a predator spread across Martak’s features. The shards of icy wood shot forwards, punching through Malofex’s hastily erected mystical defences as if they were not there, and smashed into the sorcerer’s body. He was hurled backwards, and where he crashed down, ice began to creep across the cobblestones.

Malofex tried to pull himself upright, his many mouths cursing and screaming. The shards burrowed into him and tendrils of ice erupted from his twitching frame, coating him in frost and covering the street. Soon, there was nothing left of the sorcerer save a grisly sculpture. Martak turned his attentions to the northmen.

As the Chaos worshippers charged towards him, he raised his hands. He snarled a string of guttural syllables, and the air hummed, twitched and then exploded into a howling blizzard. Those closest to him were flash-frozen where they stood, becoming ice-bound statues, much like Malofex. Martak brought his hands together in a thunderous clap, and the newly made statues exploded into a storm of glittering shards. Hundreds fell to the icy maelstrom. Beastmen, skaven and Chaos warriors alike were ripped to shreds by Ulric’s wintry fangs.

Martak lifted his hand, drawing the newly fallen snow and ice up in a cracking, crunching wave, and a moment later, the Manndrestrasse was blocked by a solid wall of ice. The wizard lowered his hand, and turned. Frightened men stumbled away from him, their breath turning to frost on the chilly air which emanated from him. Only Greiss did not fall back as Martak approached. Even so, the old knight flinched as Martak’s eyes came to rest on him.

‘Your eyes… they’ve changed,’ Greiss said.

‘Yes,’ Martak said. ‘We must fall back. To the Temple of Ulric, where the heart of the city still beats. Valten will meet us there, as will any other survivors.’ He strode past Greiss without waiting for a reply.

‘How do you know he’ll be there?’ Greiss demanded. ‘How did you do whatever it was you just did?’ He lumbered after Martak. ‘Answer me, wizard!’

Martak stopped, and turned. Greiss froze. The old man stared at him, and his face paled as he began to at last comprehend what he was looking at. ‘Your eyes are yellow,’ Greiss murmured. ‘A wolf’s eyes…’

Martak said nothing. He turned away. A moment later, the first of his men followed. The ranks split around Greiss and flowed after Martak, leaving the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf staring after them.

The Ulricsmund

Wendel Volker beat aside the rough wooden shield and drove his sword through the northman’s stinking furs. The warrior uttered a strangled cough as he folded over the blade. Volker set his boot against the dead man and jerked his weapon free.

Panting, he looked around. The battle, such as it had been, was winding down. A few dozen had tried to ambush his small troop of handgunners and halberdiers, and had fared accordingly. His mother had always said that northmen had neither fear nor sense, and that combination was what made them dangerous. Volker was forced to agree, given what he’d seen of their conduct so far. It was as if they had all been driven mad, all at once, and unleashed by some ill-tempered caretaker.

Then, perhaps their madness was merely acceptance of the inevitable. The horizon glowed with witchfire, and strangely hued smoke rose above the eastern section of the city. He could hear strange sounds slithering through the streets, like cackling children and grunting hogs. Shadows without bodies to cast them moved tauntingly along the walls to either side of Valten’s battered column of men, and sometimes, when Volker glanced at them quickly enough, they seemed to be reaching for him.

Ghosts, he thought. The city was full of ghosts now. Would it become like they said Praag had been, before its final razing, or like Talabheim was now – a haunt for monsters and daemons, unfit for normal men? That was always the bit of the old stories that had stuck in Volker’s craw as a child. Even when men won, they lost. It hadn’t seemed particularly fair to a lad of six, and the world hadn’t done much to change his opinion since.

‘Right, lads, back in line,’ he called out to the others. They wore a collection of uniforms from various provinces and carried a motley assortment of weapons, and there was at least one woman among their ranks, a narrow-faced sneak-thief named Fleischer. ‘Close ranks, wipe the blood off your faces and don’t get separated. If you get lost, I’m not bloody well coming to look for you.’

‘Not unless we’re in a tavern,’ one wit grunted, a formidable looking man by the name of Brunner. He wore a dented sallet helm that covered most of his face, and a battered suit of brigandine armour. Bandoliers of throwing knives and pistols scavenged from gods alone knew where hung across his bulky torso.

Volker pointed his sword in Brunner’s direction. ‘And if you find one that’s still standing, and not drier than the Arabyan desert, be sure to let me know.’ The others laughed, as Volker had known they would. Even Brunner cracked a smile. He’d known men who commanded through fear, like the late, unlamented Captain Kross with whom he’d shared duties at Heldenhame, and others who seemed born to it, like Kurt Helborg. But for the Wendel Volkers of the world, who were neither particularly frightful, nor authoritative, humour was the lever of command.

A jape and a jest served to keep you surrounded by friends, rather than resentful underlings. Discipline was required, but a bit of honey helped it work its way down. It was especially useful given that he and his motley coterie were the merest nub of the hundred or so men who had followed Valten from the northern gatehouse or been picked up en route. The northmen were pressing into the city from all directions now, and the shattered remnants of the defensive garrisons were retreating before them.

Why exactly he’d volunteered to lead the way and act as the point of the spear, Volker couldn’t say. Valten hadn’t asked, and there were other men likely better suited to the task close to hand. But he’d needed to do it. He’d needed to prove something to himself, perhaps, or maybe he’d simply needed to do something. Something to occupy his mind, something to focus on, to keep him busy while the darkness closed in. When the end came, Volker didn’t want to see it. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be any more pleasant for seeing it coming. Not for him a hero’s death. Something quiet and relatively painless would suit him fine.

He reached up to rub his shoulder in an effort to ease the ache growing in it, and swore under his breath as his armour snagged painfully. He still wasn’t used to it. He didn’t know why he’d accepted the commission into the Reiksguard. The Volkers had always been staunch Feuerbachists, rather than supporters of the Holswig-Schliestein family. ‘Up Talabecland,’ as his father had often used to say, loudly and at inappropriate times. Then, what did political divides matter when the wolf was at the door of the world?

Volker swept his sword clean on his defeated opponent’s furs, nose wrinkling in disgust. As he sheathed his blade, he thought again of Goetz and Dubnitz. He wished they were here. Bravery had come easily in their presence. They had been like him – normal men, trapped in abnormal times. A dying breed, he thought, as he looked back at the column as it advanced down the boulevard, Valten at its head.

He caught the other man’s gaze and nodded once, briskly. Valten returned the nod and raised his gore-stained hammer, rousing his men to the march once more. He spoke of the Temple of Ulric as if it were a source of salvation, rather than a place to make a final stand, and his words instilled courage and drove back fatigue. He wasn’t like Volker. Volker had been wrong, before. He saw that now. Valten was something else – not just a man, but an idea made real. Hope given form, and authority. The Empire made flesh. Abnormal times bred abnormal men. Only gods and monsters could survive what was coming, Volker thought. Where that left him, or any of the rank and file, exactly, he didn’t know, and didn’t care to think about.

He shook himself, and looked at his men. ‘Let’s go. We’ve got half the Ulricsmund between us and the temple, and the wolves of the north are snapping at our heels. It’ll take the Three-Eyed King time to get them all moving in the same direction, but I’d like to be behind a cannon when that happens. Brunner, take point.’ The big man nodded and moved forwards through the smoke, along the ruined boulevard, falchion in one hand and a pistol in the other. Volker had heard somewhere that Brunner had been a bounty-hunter, before the natural order had been overturned. Whatever he’d been, he was a born scout – stealthy, sneaky and utterly vicious.

Volker and the others followed as Brunner loped ahead of them. Volker kept his eyes on the surrounding buildings and alleyways, alert for anything that might signal an attack. He could hear the sound of battle echoing up from the city around him, and the air stank of a thousand fires. A mass of men as large as the one behind him was bound to attract attention. It wasn’t a question of if an attack would come, but when – not to mention what form it would take.

Besides attacks by random warbands of northmen, out for slaughter and pillage, the column had had to deal with worse things. The creature calling itself Count Mordrek had been but the first. Others, champions of the Dark Gods all, had hurled themselves at Valten out of the press of battle as he led his men through the reeling city. Volker could not help but keep a tally, for some of those names were nightmares which had frightened him as a child: names like Ragnar Painbringer, Sven Bloody-Hand, Engra Deathsword, Vygo Thrice-Tainted and Surtha Lenk. Names to conjure with, warlords and near-daemons, all of whom seemed intent on taking Valten’s head before he laid eyes on Archaon.

Whatever their names or titles, Valten fought them all. Ghal Maraz took a steady toll of shattered skulls and broken bones, and through it all, the light within him shone brighter and brighter. It was as if whatever force drove him was growing stronger. Vashnar the Tormentor fell on the steps of the Middenplatz, and a burly, boisterous warrior calling himself Khagras the Horse-lord was left broken in the ruins of the Dragon Ale Brewery. The most recent of them, Eglixus, self-proclaimed Executioner of Trechagrad, had fallen mewling and broken-backed in the dust of the Freiburg, as Valten led his men steadily towards the Temple of Ulric.

Volker heard a whistle from up ahead. Brunner appeared out of the smoke, his taciturn features pale beneath his helm. ‘How many?’ Volker said.

Brunner held up three fingers. ‘Three,’ he rasped.

‘Three what? Three dozen? Three hundred?’

The former bounty hunter shook his head. ‘Just three.’ He looked at Volker, and then past him. Volker turned, as Valten rode towards them.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Three men,’ Volker said. He looked up at Valten. ‘Do you want us to go ahead?’ he asked, even as he prayed that the other man would say no.

Valten shook his head. ‘No.’ He smiled, and for a moment, it was as if something older and infinitely more savage looked out at the world from behind his eyes. ‘No, I think they are waiting for me.’ He turned and signalled for the column to wait. Then he urged his horse forwards, into the smoke. Volker looked at Brunner and the others, shook his head and gestured.

‘Well, we bloody well can’t let the Herald of Sigmar ride off alone, now can we?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Brunner muttered. But he followed Volker as the latter led the others in pursuit of Valten. They didn’t have far to go. They just had to follow the sound of weapons meeting, and the harsh curses of the combatants. A large edifice, once regal, now smashed and defiled, rose up before them through the smoke.

Volker stifled a gasp as he recognised the Temple of Verena. The dome of the roof had been cracked wide open, and what appeared to be a Norscan longboat now rose from it. How it had got there, Volker couldn’t imagine. The wide avenue before the steps was littered with bodies in the livery of three provinces, all buried beneath clouds of humming flies. The bodies were already beginning to bloat and burst, as if they had been out in the sun for days, rather than hours. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, and tried to control the surge of bile that suddenly filled his throat.

Two men duelled amid the heaps of bodies. One was a monster of a man, clad in black, ruined armour, wielding a triple-headed flail. The other, a hairy northman wearing battered armour and more skulls than any self-respecting human ought, fought with a Norscan longsword and a heavy kite shield. They paid no heed to the newcomers, seemingly occupied with their duel.

‘They’ve been fighting for just hours,’ a languid voice said. Volker’s spine itched as the words reached his ears. For the first time, he noticed the golden-haired man sprawled across the steps of the temple, a polished shield propped up beside him and his feet crossed on the broken body of a priest of Verena. The man was inordinately handsome. Too handsome. Volker felt something in him twitch away from the sheer, monstrous beauty of the speaker.

‘You’ll have to forgive Valnir and Wulfrik,’ the man continued. There was a glow about him, as if thousands of fireflies were flitting about his head and shoulders. ‘They are otherwise occupied. Selfish brutes that they are, they have little thought for the boredom such games inflict on others.’ He smiled widely and sat up. ‘Lucky for you, I am unengaged.’

Valten straightened. He laid his hand on the hammer where it lay balanced across his saddle, as if to calm the ancient weapon. The man on the steps frowned, and Volker felt his guts turn to ice. ‘Are you not going to ask who I am?’ the man said.

‘I know who you are, Geld-Prince. Sigvald, boy-prince of an extinct tribe, monster, cannibal and daemon.’ The strange lights surrounding the other man seemed to dim as Valten spoke, and when he took hold of Ghal Maraz’s haft and lifted the weapon, the lights faded entirely, leaving only a ghostly afterglow.

‘Not a daemon. Not yet. Perhaps never. Such ugly things, daemons. Function over form, as they say,’ Sigvald said. His smile returned. ‘The gods have tasked we three with killing you, but, well, that is not an honour lightly bestowed,’ he purred, admiring his reflection in the polished surface of his shield. He glanced at them, and Volker felt a chill as those radiant eyes swept over him and dismissed him in the same instant. ‘I, of course, felt it should have been mine, but, well, my… comrades disagreed. So, the Reaper and the Wanderer fight. Winner gets you, Herald of Sigmar.’

‘And you?’ Valten asked.

Sigvald laughed, and Volker cringed. He wasn’t alone in that reaction. Even Brunner looked uncomfortable, and Fleischer unleashed a flurry of curses beneath her breath. The sound of Sigvald’s laughter was too perfect, too beautiful, and nearby, one of Valten’s men wept bloody tears as he dropped his weapon and clutched at his ears. He sank down into the dust, and began to whimper. Sigvald smiled, as if the sound were for his benefit. ‘I have no interest in you, son of the comet. You are but the appetiser to the glorious banquet to come, and one does not gobble such morsels. This is a very tasty world, and one must pace oneself, mustn’t one?’

He sniffed and rose gracefully to his feet. ‘No, the Chosen Son of Slaanesh shall not sully himself on the Herald, when he might yet taste the real thing. Am I not deserving of such an honour?’ His lips twitched. ‘The answer, by the way, is most assuredly yes. I am perfection, and I do not waste my gifts on the imperfect. Thus do I take my leave. There are still pleasures yet to be plumbed in this moving feast of a city, and I shall wallow in them to my heart’s content, while I wait the coming of the king.’

Valten watched as Sigvald strode off down the avenue, whistling a cheerful tune. Only when the creature had vanished into the clouds of dark smoke rolling across the street did he turn his attention to the duel. The battle had continued even as he and Sigvald had conversed, and neither warrior seemed to have noticed the new arrivals or have the upper hand.

Every time the armoured hulk wielding the flail battered the hairy giant from his feet, the latter was up again a moment later, cursing and slashing at his enemy, his blows glancing from the other’s maggot-ridden suit of Chaos plate.

Finally, the flail tore the heavy kite shield from its owner’s grasp. The latter staggered back, apparently off balance. His opponent closed in, stomping forwards. ‘Fall, Wanderer, for the glory of Father Nurgle,’ the Chaos champion rasped.

‘You first, Valnir,’ Wulfrik said. He twisted aside, avoiding his opponent’s next blow, and drove the broad blade of his sword into the pustule-lined gap between Valnir’s helmet and cuirass. Wulfrik leaned into the blow with a grunt, forcing the sword all the way through his opponent’s neck. The tip of the blade emerged in a burst of stinking gas and leprous filth. Valnir squawked and dropped his weapon as he reached up to claw at the blade. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Wulfrik growled. He set his boot against the other champion’s hip and wrenched his blade free, out through the back of Valnir’s neck.

Valnir’s head dropped from his bloated frame and bounced across the cobbles. Wulfrik shoved the twitching body aside and spat after it. ‘Say hello to the Crowfather for me, eh?’ he said, as he retrieved his shield. Wulfrik turned towards Valten. ‘Well, I like a man who’s prompt,’ he said in crude Reikspiel, spreading his arms. ‘Herald of Sigmar, I, Wulfrik the Worldwalker, the Inescapable One, demand that you face me. The gods want your skull on their fire, and I’m of a mind to give them what they wish.’

Valten said nothing. He slid from the saddle, and waved back Volker and the others. It was a command Volker was only too happy to obey. Wulfrik grinned. ‘I heard you did for old Mordrek. I killed him once myself.’ He blinked. ‘Twice, actually, now that I think about it.’

‘This time, he will stay dead. Is that what you wish for yourself?’ Valten asked, as he moved to meet the Chaos champion. ‘Death? I know you, Wanderer, though I do not know how. I know your name, and your fate. I know why you are here, and I know that you cannot stop me. My doom is… already written.’ Valten hesitated, as if uncertain. Then, he said, ‘And it is not by your hand.’

‘No, it wouldn’t be, would it?’ Wulfrik grunted. He sucked in a deep breath, and released it loudly. ‘Ahhhhh. No, I feel the weight of your weird from here, Herald. Not a grand doom, for you. Just a doom. Stupid and small.’ He looked up. ‘Do you think, at the end, there will be anyone left to sing our sagas?’

Valten was silent. Wulfrik laughed. ‘No, I thought not,’ he said. He slapped his shield with the flat of his sword. Valten raised his hammer. Wulfrik attacked first. He bulled forwards, attempting to smash Valten flat with the face of his shield. Valten pivoted aside, but before he could bring his hammer around to strike, the other’s sword was screeching across his armour. Valten stumbled back, eyes narrowed in surprise.

Wulfrik flashed his grin again and moved round warily, blade balanced on the rim of his shield. ‘Come on, boy… Long fights are the stuff of poets’ dreams,’ he growled.

Valten whirled Ghal Maraz about, and advanced. Wulfrik gave a harsh laugh and raised his shield, but Valten didn’t alter the trajectory of his blow. A moment later, Volker realised why – Ghal Maraz connected with the broad face of the shield, and the latter exploded into red hot fragments. Wulfrik was flung back by the force of the blow, and he skidded through the bodies. He was on his feet a moment later, his necklace of skulls rattling.

‘Now it’s a fight,’ Wulfrik roared. He caught his sword in two hands and bounded in, hurdling the piles of corpses. Valten met him halfway. Sword and hammer connected again and again, the sound echoing through the streets. Valten made a wild swing, driving Wulfrik back. The Wanderer retreated, but only for a moment, twisting in mid-step to bring his blade around in a blow meant to decapitate his opponent. Valten fell, avoiding the sword’s bite but losing his balance. He crashed to the ground, armour rattling, and rolled aside as Wulfrik’s blade came down again, drawing sparks from the cobblestones.

Valten, still on his back, swung Ghal Maraz. The head of the hammer smacked into Wulfrik’s waiting palm. Volker heard the bones of the man’s hand splinter and crack from where he stood, but Wulfrik gave no sign that he felt any pain. Instead, his broken fingers folded over the hammer as his foot lashed out, catching Valten in the chest. As Valten fell back, Wulfrik tore the hammer from his grip and hurled it aside.

Valten shoved himself up on his elbows as Wulfrik approached. ‘That hurt,’ the champion grunted. ‘Maybe your weird wasn’t so heavy after all, eh?’ He raised his blade in one hand, and brought it down.

Valten’s hands shot up, catching the blade. He gripped it tight, even as it bit into his palms. Thin rivulets of blood ran down the tip of the blade. Wulfrik was forced back a step as Valten gathered his feet under him and slowly rose, still gripping the sword. Metal cracked as Valten and his opponent faced one another across the length of sharpened steel. Wulfrik’s grin became a grimace of effort.

The sword shattered. Wulfrik fell forwards, eyes wide. Valten, a chunk of the sword still in his hand, slid it into the Chaos champion’s throat as he stumbled past. Wulfrik toppled, clutching at his neck. Valten retrieved his hammer and turned back to his enemy. Wulfrik, gasping and choking, lowered his hands and lay waiting. He was smiling again, his teeth stained with blood. ‘Good fight,’ he gurgled as Valten stood over him. He closed his eyes. Ghal Maraz struck.

Valten made his way back to the others. The blood on his hands had already dried. Volker was possessed by the sudden urge to kneel. An urge shared by his men, and one by one, they did so. Even Brunner. Valten looked down at them silently. Then, a slow, sad smile crept across his face. ‘Up,’ he said softly. ‘The Temple of Ulric is just ahead. And for good or ill, that is where we will make our stand.’

Grafsmund-Norgarten District

Horvath died slowly, and angrily if his frustrated howls were any indication. The Knights Panther, clad in their swirling, spotted skins and dark armour, had ridden out of an isolated cul-de-sac as the horde passed by, moving in pursuit of the retreating state troops. Horvath had been one of the unlucky ones, caught and spitted on a lance in that first charge. But it wasn’t until the Knights Panther were joined by halberdiers, spearmen and crossbowmen, all flooding the wide boulevard, that Canto realised that the Headsmen, and the warbands following in their wake, had been drawn into a trap.

Middenheim, for all that it was undone and doomed, was still a battleground. Every house, every temple, every guildhall and tavern, was a fortress filled with desperate, deadly enemies, all determined to make Archaon’s followers pay in blood for every stretch of street. Helblasters vomited volleys of shot from open doorways, and handgunners fired from behind overturned wagons and toppled stalls at the other end of the boulevard.

The warriors of Chaos pressed forwards, into the teeth of the fire, because there was little else they could do. And because the eyes of the Everchosen were upon them. Canto parried a halberd and hacked down its owner, even as he caught sight of the battle-standard of the Swords of Chaos rising above the melee. He couldn’t say where they’d come from, or when they’d arrived, but they were here now, and where his Swords went, the Three-Eyed King would not be far behind.

A lead bullet struck his armour and caromed off into the press of battle. Canto spun and rammed his sword through an open doorway, killing the handgunner. He forced his way into the structure beyond, the taproom of a mostly empty tavern. Women and children cowered behind a barricade of tables, as men in the livery of Stirland raced to intercept him. Canto gutted the first to reach him, and beheaded the second. A sword shattered on his daemon-forged armour, and he turned, grabbing its wielder by the throat. He shoved the man back and slammed him against a support beam.

Canto tilted his head, looking up. He smelt smoke, coming from above. Some fool had set fire to the thatch. He looked back at the man he held pinned. The swordsman struggled uselessly in his grip. Ineffectual fists pounded on his arm. Canto considered snapping his neck. Then, without quite knowing why, he released him. ‘Get your women and children and go. Out the back. Find a hole and hide, if you can. Or die. It makes no difference to me,’ he said, stepping back. The swordsman stared at him. Canto turned away, and stepped back out onto the street. As his foot touched the cobbles, he was already regretting his mercy.

Then, it wasn’t really mercy, was it? Middenheim was doomed, and its people with it. There would be no door strong enough, no hole deep enough to keep out the followers of the Dark Gods when the battle was won. When the last defenders fell, then the true horror would begin. Archaon had promised this city to the gods, and the word of the Everchosen was law.

As if the gods had heard his thoughts and wished to punish him, a lance slammed into his side, knocking him to one knee. His armour had been forged by the daemonsmiths of Zharr Naggrund and the mortal weapon merely splintered, peeling away as it struck him. Even so, the force of the blow was enough to rattle his brains, and he reeled, off balance. The knight galloped past, freeing a heavy morning star from his saddle as he did so. The spiked ball crashed down on Canto’s helm. He lurched back, slamming into the doorway of the building. The horse reared over him, hooves lashing out. Canto snarled a curse and lunged forwards, driving his shoulder into the animal’s midsection.

The horse toppled with a squeal, carrying its rider with it. Canto dispatched both swiftly. But even as he wrenched his blade free of the knight’s shuddering body, he saw that his attacker hadn’t been alone. The Knights Panther had ploughed through the jammed ranks of the horde, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake. It was a suicidal endeavour, but it had a purpose. Most of them had already been pulled from their saddles, but some still rode on, intent on their quarry – Archaon himself. One of the knights roared a challenge as he spurred his horse forwards, and raised a single-bladed war-axe in readiness for a killing blow.

The Everchosen was mounted upon a coal-black nightmare of a beast, with eyes like burning embers and hooves which split the stones they trod upon. Its fanged maw champed hungrily at its iron bit as Archaon hauled back on the reins and turned the animal to face his challenger. The menace of the steed was nothing compared to that of its rider. It was the first time Canto had seen the Everchosen in the flesh.

Archaon was taller and broader than most who fought under his banner and his armour was far more ornate, its plates covered in lines of scrawled script, strange runes and abominable sigils which made even the most puissant sorcerer weep with fear. Too, it seemed to be of all colours and none, shifting as it caught the light through a vast spectrum of hues wholly unknown to man. Canto had heard that the armour had belonged to Morkar the Uniter, First Chosen of Chaos, in the dim, ancient days of the past.

In his hand, Archaon held a heavy sword – the infamous Slayer of Kings. The blade writhed with barely contained power, and leering faces formed and dissolved on its surface as he brought it up and sent it slamming down through his challenger’s shield and into the body below. The knight fell from his saddle as his horse thundered past. His death did not deter his comrades, however. Indeed, it seemed to only spur them on.

Canto watched in incredulity as the Everchosen was surrounded and separated from his bodyguards by the remaining knights. Those chosen to keep the Swords of Chaos at bay did so with reckless abandon, fighting furiously, with no thought for their own well-being. The remaining trio engaged Archaon. Two came at him from either side, while the third hung back. As soon as Archaon had turned to deal with his companions, the knight kicked his steed into motion and galloped towards the Everchosen.

Time stopped. The world grew still and silent. Canto held his breath. Archaon was the Chosen of Chaos, the man before whom all the daemons of the world bowed. But he was still a man. He could still be killed, and a blade to the back would do the job as easily as a cannonball or a warhammer in the hands of the Herald of Sigmar himself.

Against his better judgement, Canto looked up. The sky still moved. The clouds writhed and became faces, before breaking apart and becoming just clouds again. The gods were watching. Now would be a good time to pretend he hadn’t seen anything, that he was elsewhere. Pretend you’re not here, he hissed to himself. Let the gods look after their own.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Canto hurled himself forwards. His blade hewed through the horse’s legs, and the animal fell screaming. Its rider toppled from the saddle, but came to his feet a moment later. His sword slammed into Canto’s and they duelled over the body of the dying horse, but only for a moment. The man was hurt, and perhaps even dying, even as his sword arm faltered and Canto’s sword landed on his shoulder, driving him to his knees. The dawi zharr-forged blade cut through the knight’s heavy armour with ease and he flopped across the body of his steed, dead.

Canto jerked his weapon free of the body. ‘You have my thanks, warrior,’ a voice rumbled. Canto turned. The Three-Eyed King looked down at him, and Canto wondered how far away Kislev was. Archaon looked down, at the body of the knight, and then back up, taking in Canto’s unadorned armour. Canto stepped back, suddenly conscious of the lack of devotional markings on the baroque plates of black iron. He was called ‘Unsworn’ for a good reason; he had never climbed the eight hundred and eighty-eight steps to the Skull Throne, or hacked his way into Nurgle’s Garden looking for a patron. The gods couldn’t be trusted. They gave a man everything he wanted, even when he begged them to stop.

‘Kneel,’ Archaon rumbled.

‘Rather not – trick knee,’ Canto said, but he was already sinking down even as the words left his lips. The battle still raged about them, but here, in this moment, he felt the weight of a terrible silence descend on him. The clangour of war was muted and dull. He refused to look up, because he knew that if he did, something would be looking down at him from the wide, hungry sky. For the first time, the gods would see him. You’ve done it now, fool, he thought. You’ve got their interest now, and you know what that means.

Except he didn’t, not really. Oh he’d seen what could happen, but he’d spent centuries avoiding the gazes of the gods. He’d done just enough, but never too much. Just enough to survive, but never enough to prosper. A rat hiding in a midden heap. His heart stuttered in its rhythm, and his armour rattled.

‘Canto the Unsworn,’ Archaon said. He sounded amused. Canto didn’t bother to wonder how Archaon knew his name. The gods had likely whispered it in his ear. ‘You rode with the Gorewolf, and before him, Tzerpichore the Unwritten.’ Archaon cocked his head. ‘They say Tzerpichore’s great tortoise of iron and crystal still walks the Wastes, searching for its master.’

‘Yes, they do,’ Canto said. ‘And it does.’

‘There are few men these days who do not find sanctuary in one god or another’s shadow. But you stand apart. Is that due to fear or pride, I wonder?’

‘Fear,’ Canto croaked. Archaon’s eyes shone like stars, and he felt the strange heat of a cold fire wash over him. It was as if he were being flayed from the inside out, opened up so the Everchosen could examine every nook and cranny of his black and blasted soul.

‘What do you fear?’

‘Death. Madness. Change.’ The words slipped out before Canto could stop them. They hung on the air, like the notes of a song. He felt the hideous interest intensify, and knew what a mouse must feel when it is caught by a cat. Several cats, in fact. And their king was glaring down at him, considering where to insert his claws.

‘I was damned from the first breath that I took. All men are,’ Archaon said, almost gently. ‘We change from what we were with every moment and hour that passes, losing ourselves the way a serpent loses its skin. To hold on to the old, that is madness. To strive against the current, that is madness. There is nothing to fear, Unsworn. Not now. The worst has happened. The horns of doom have sounded, and the pillars of heaven and earth come crashing down.’ His great blade stretched out. Canto closed his eyes. He saw his life – a life of running and fighting and colours and sounds and somewhere, out there, far away, he thought he could feel the slow rumble of the tortoise as it continued on its way through the Chaos Wastes, and he felt a moment of inexplicable sadness.

There was a soft sound, and he opened his eyes as the flat of Archaon’s blade touched his shoulder. ‘Rise, and be fearless. Rise, and find sanctuary in my shadow, Unsworn. We ride for ruin, and our victory is assured.’ Then the sword was lifted, and Archaon’s steed reared, pawing the air with an ear-splitting shriek.

Time snapped back into focus. Noise washed over Canto, staggering him. A howling, wolf-cloaked warrior charged towards him, hammer swinging out, and he rose to his feet smoothly. He swept his sword out and disembowelled his attacker. A riderless horse, its flesh writhing with thorns and its eyes made of smoking gemstones, galloped past, snorting and kicking. Like a gift from the gods, Canto thought, even as his hand snapped out to catch hold of its bloody bridle.

Four

The Temple of Ulric

Gregor Martak climbed the broad steps of the Temple of Ulric, looking about him with satisfaction. Whether that satisfaction was solely his or was shared by the power now inhabiting his body, he couldn’t say, but he thought Ulric must approve of Valten’s preparations. The Herald of Sigmar was no fool, whatever his origins.

He had garrisoned the cloisters and processionals of the eastern and western wings of the temple with bands of state troops, ensuring that the flanks and rear of their position were well defended. The bulk of the surviving forces under his command now occupied the northern edge of the vast cobbled square which sat before the temple’s main entrance. Deep ranks of troops stood before the steps, their lines anchored by the wings of the temple. Men of Averland, Ostermark and the Reikland stood ready to the east, their fire-torn standards whipping in the unnatural wind that curled through the streets of Middenheim. To the west, Talabheimers stood firm alongside the musters of Altdorf and Stirland. The honour of the centre position had been given to their hosts, who stood in the shadow of their god, halberds and crossbows ready for the storm to come.

The survivors of the various knightly orders who had chosen to make Middenheim their burying ground stood behind the centre. The Knights of the White Wolf, the Gryphon Legion, the Knights of the Black Bear, and the Knights of the Broken Sword were all in evidence. There were others scattered throughout the city, fighting a desperate holding action or mounting suicidal counter-attacks. The knightly orders had ever been the mailed fist of the Empire, and in these final hours most seemed determined to get in as many blows as possible, even if that meant their own annihilation.

Deployed at the top of the steps, before the doors of the temple, were the remnants of Middenheim’s once-proud Grand Battery. Every gun that could be salvaged from the walls and keeps of the city had been, and they were now arrayed so as to belch fire and destruction into the enemy whose approach even now caused the street to shake slightly.

Martak joined a group of men at the top of the steps, before the battery. A ragtag group of captains, sergeants, and mercenary commanders stood in tense discussion. Martak recognised a few of them, including the raven-haired Torben Badenov, the peg-legged Marienburger Edvard van der Kraal, and the loutish Voland, a hedge-knight from Tilea. Nearby, Axel Greiss was arguing with two of his fellow Grand Masters, Nicolai Dostov of the Gryphon Legion and Volg Staahl, the Preceptor of the Order of the Black Bear. The latter nodded to Martak and said, ‘Look, Martak’s here. The day is saved.’

Greiss whirled. He glared at Martak, but only for a moment. ‘Glad you could join us, wizard,’ he muttered, turning back to the others. ‘Tell him what you told me, Staahl.’

Dostov and Staahl shared a look. The other man’s dislike of Martak was well known, and the wizard wondered if Greiss’s sudden desire to include him in their hastily convened war council surprised them. Like Greiss, they were older men. Dostov, a white-moustachioed Kislevite clad in the banded mail and back banner in the shape of a pair of wings which marked a warrior of the Gryphon Legion, was lean and hard-faced. Staahl, on the other hand, was a keg with legs. With his ash-smeared plate armour and ragged bear-skin cloak, he resembled nothing so much as a particularly fat, disreputable bear.

‘Achendorf is dead. Took his knights and made a try for the head of the beast, poor fool,’ Staahl rumbled. Dostov frowned, but said nothing. Greiss snorted.

‘Do not pity him. He gambled, and lost. Would that he had succeeded,’ he said.

‘It’s not him I pity,’ Staahl snapped. ‘It’s us. We could have used him and his men, Axel. Instead, he sacrificed them in a foolhardy attempt at glory. Every sword counts, and he took good men into death with him.’

‘Does it matter where they die?’ Greiss growled, bristling. He gestured at the men below with his hammer. ‘That is why they – why we – are here, you fat old fool. To fight and die, so that the Emperor might live one more day. We are bleeding them. Nothing more.’

‘No.’

They all turned as one, Martak included. The fragment of Ulric within him twitched as he caught sight of Valten ascending the steps. Down below, more men hastily squeezed into the ranks. ‘No, we are not just a sacrifice, Master Greiss. In the end, perhaps. When the war is done, and scribes record the events of this day, that is what they might say of us. But here and now, we are so much more.’ The trio of Grand Masters stepped aside as Valten strode past them. He looked up at the temple for a moment, and then turned back to them. ‘Here and now, we are the Empire of Sigmar. Here and now, we are the City of the White Wolf. Middenheim stands. And while it does, so too does the world.’ He raised his voice, pitching it to carry. Down below, the noise of men preparing for war had dimmed. Martak realised that almost every eye in the square was upon them.

As cheers rose up from below, Valten turned back to Martak and the others. Greiss and his fellow knights were staring at him as if, for the first time, they suddenly understood that Valten was not merely a jumped-up blacksmith in borrowed armour, but something else entirely. Valten met Martak’s gaze. The part of the wizard which was Ulric recognised the spark of… otherness in the man before him. It was only a spark, but it might grow into a roaring flame. One to cleanse the stones of the Fauschlag of the filth that crept over them. If it was given the time.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Valten’s smile faded, becoming sad. He shook his head slightly, a gesture so infinitesimal that Martak knew he alone had seen it. And in his soul, Ulric howled mournfully.

Greiss cleared his throat. ‘A very pretty speech, blacksmith. But speeches alone won’t see us safely to another sunrise.’

Valten turned to the old knight. ‘No, for that we’ll have to trust in Altdorf steel, Nuln gunpowder and Middenheim courage.’ He paused, as if taking stock of the situation. Then, he continued. ‘We hoped that the Fauschlag would protect us. That the walls of Middenheim would keep the enemy at bay for weeks, if not months.’ He looked at each of the gathered officers in turn. ‘We hoped that the Emperor might rally the rest of the Empire from Averheim, and perhaps even relieve us here. That together, we could drive the enemy back into the Wastes.’ He grinned. ‘Doesn’t seem very likely now, does it?’

Staahl snorted, and several of the captains chuckled. Greiss and Dostov frowned. Martak couldn’t restrain a harsh cackle. He felt Ulric growl unappreciatively within him; the wolf-god wasn’t, by nature, fatalistic. Nor did he have a sense of humour.

‘The enemy is inside the walls. All we can do now is hope to bear the brunt of his fury, and break his back when he exhausts himself,’ Valten continued. He looked at Martak. ‘If we can bring Archaon to battle, then we have a chance. If the Three-Eyed King falls, his army will disintegrate. Middenheim might well be consumed in that conflagration, but that is a small price to pay for victory.’

Ulric snarled in agreement within Martak’s soul, and Valten smiled slightly, as if he’d heard the god’s voice. Martak wondered just how much Valten saw. If they survived the coming conflict, he intended to ask him. He heard the winding howl of a war-horn, and turned. ‘It looks like we’ll have no trouble with the first part of that plan,’ Martak murmured.

Along the southern edge of the square, the foe had begun to arrive. Black-armoured northlanders chanted and bellowed, clashing their weapons and shaking their shields in furious tumult. Drums boomed back, deep in their ranks. Daemons capered about them, hurling incoherent threats at the men standing before the Temple of Ulric. Beastmen paced at the fringes of the gathering horde, throwing back their heads to add their roars and wildcat screams to the dreadful clangour. But, even as their numbers swelled, they did not move to cross the square and attack.

‘They’re waiting for their master to arrive,’ Valten said. He stared at the gathering ranks of the enemy, as if in search of Archaon.

‘Biggest dog gets first bite,’ Martak grunted. He could feel the essence of the wolf-god gathering itself in him, ready for the fury to come. His breath came in pale puffs, and those men closest to him stepped back nervously.

Suddenly, the air was split by the sound of beating wings. It was as if a hundred thousand crows had chosen that moment to fill the air above the square. The men on the steps cried out in alarm, and clapped their hands to their ears as the thunderous wingbeats threatened their eardrums. Even Valten staggered slightly as the air rippled with the shadows of diving, swooping birds. Martak alone stood tall.

His eyes narrowed, and his hand shot out to catch hold of the end of a spear moments before it lanced through Valten’s chest. The whirring, shifting shadows parted, and the spear’s wielder was revealed – a snarling beastman, with wide, black-feathered wings rising from his broad back. Malagor, the Dark Omen, Best-Loved of the Dark Gods, Ulric’s voice growled in his mind. Martak’s lips skinned back from his teeth, and he returned Malagor’s snarl in kind. The tableau held for a moment, as man and beast stared at one another. Martak’s arm trembled as he slowly forced the spear back. Malagor’s wings beat heavily, as it tried to drive the weapon forwards. Then, in a clap of darkling thunder, the creature was gone.

On the other side of the square, the gathered beastmen suddenly broke ranks and pelted forwards, as if Malagor’s attack had been a signal. They brayed wildly and brandished crude weapons as they charged in a scattered, undisciplined mass towards the gleaming ranks of spears and halberds.

Valten shook himself, as if emerging from a dream. He raised his hammer. ‘To your places, brothers, captains, masters… May Sigmar and Ulric both watch over you,’ he said, looking at the others. They snapped into motion, hurrying to their positions, as down below orders rang out along the Empire battle-line, drums rattled and horns blared. Valten looked at Martak. ‘They want me dead,’ he murmured. ‘They do not want their chosen weapon to meet me in combat.’

‘Well, let’s disappoint them, then,’ Martak growled. He looked out over the square, eyes narrowed. Whatever madness had seized the beastherds had not consumed the rest of Archaon’s army. Unsupported as they were, and out in the open, the beastmen were being cut to ribbons by volleys of crossbow bolts and gunfire. Behind Martak, the great cannons began to bellow, and soon cannonballs bounced across the square, ploughing into the frenzied ranks of charging beastmen. Mortar shells and rockets hammered the disorganised herds, hurling broken corpses through the smoke-stained air. A looming ghorgon, massive jaws snapping hungrily, toppled backwards as a cannonball smashed through its skull, and crushed a dozen of its lesser kin.

A shriek from above tore Martak’s attentions from the carnage being wrought in the square. He and Valten looked up, to see a swirling murder of crows descend on the artillery at the top of the steps. Gunners cried out in fear and pain as Malagor swept through them, plucking eyes and raking flesh. The Dark Omen was monstrous and unstoppable, and his body dissolved into a shower of feathers only to reform elsewhere to wreak more havoc. Even as the bodies of those he’d slain tumbled down the steps, Malagor vanished, the thunder of wings echoing in his wake.

Valten started up the steps, hammer in hand. Martak grabbed his arm. ‘No. I’ll handle the beast. You see to the battle.’ Valten opened his mouth, as if to reply, then nodded and turned to race down the steps. Martak cracked his knuckles, and then closed his eyes. His nostrils flared as he inhaled the stench of Malagor’s magics. The creature was ripe with the stink of the swirling energies which permeated the clouds far above. Martak, eyes still closed, turned one way, and then another, following Malagor’s twisting, turning pilgrimage across the battle-lines of the Empire. Men died wherever the beast settled, and it seemed to be unconcerned with the savage slaughter being inflicted on its kin, for its attacks were random, rather than calculated to ease the advance of the beastmen.

Nonetheless, the beastmen were possessed by an unmatched ferocity, and down in the square they hurled themselves through the teeth of the artillery and crashed home at last, smashing into the ranks of the state troops. The creatures were outnumbered, and almost ridiculously so, but Martak knew that such concerns no longer held sway over them. The Children of Chaos had been driven into a killing frenzy, and they were determined to taste the blood of their enemies.

There!

The thought sliced through his consciousness, and Martak’s eyes snapped open. His head ached with the pounding of wings as he turned and saw a mass of whirling feathers dropping towards Greiss and his knights. Martak raced down the steps, one arm flung back. He stopped, and his arm snapped forwards. A jagged spear of amber, coated in ice, cut through the air with a whistling shriek.

The mass of shadow-crows gave a communal scream and something hairy dropped from their midst to crash down on the steps. Martak pounced, his hands seizing the length of his conjured spear, and he shoved his prey back down as it tried to rise. Malagor howled in agony as it pawed uselessly at the ice. Its blood had splattered out across the steps like the wings of some great, malignant bird. Martak leaned against the spear with his full weight. Malagor’s flesh blackened with frostbite, and its froth became frozen slush. It glared at Martak, and he matched that gaze, even as he had before.

Then, with a frustrated whimper, Malagor flopped back and lay still. Martak shoved himself back, and stood. Down below, the fury of the beastmen was mostly spent. Martak watched with grim pleasure as Valten struck a minotaur, the force of his blow driving the monster to its knees. His second blow took its head completely off, sending it rolling across the cobbles. The surviving beastmen were beginning to flee.

Valten wheeled his horse about and rode back through the lines, speaking calmly to the soldiers. A joke here, a word of comfort there… The god in Martak watched in wonder as men who had only moments before been filled with fury and fear straightened their spines and locked shields once more. The ragged holes carved in their ranks by the beastmen vanished as fresh men moved to fill the gaps. Fallen standards were lifted high as Valten passed along the shield-wall, meeting the gaze of each man in turn. He began to speak, and his words were almost immediately drowned out by cheers.

What is he? Ulric murmured. Martak smiled. ‘A blacksmith,’ he said, softly. War was Valten’s anvil, and, were the world a kinder place, perhaps he could have made something stronger from the raw materials the End Times had provided him. For a moment, Martak could almost see it… a world of shining towers, and prosperous peoples. Where no woman would have to abandon her deformed child to the forests; where no man would so fear the touch of tainted water that he chose a slow death by alcohol, rather than risk the waters of the Reik. Where the cities of men were not threatened by howling hordes of northmen or orcs.

Ulric growled within him, and Martak felt his smile slip. Such a world was not a pleasant thought for a god of war, winter and woe. ‘Well, it’s not as if we have to worry about it, eh?’ he asked himself. ‘The wheel of the world is slowing, and soon enough it will stop.’

Valten rode up to the bottom of the temple steps, and Martak went down to meet him. ‘Do you hear the drums, Gregor? I think we’ve caught their attention,’ Valten said. His eyes strayed to the remains of Malagor, and then he turned in his saddle, peering out across the square. ‘Which is all to the good, I think. The men have had a victory. They’ll be hungry for another.’

Martak followed his gaze. The horde gathered along the southern edge of the temple square had grown to massive proportions. It was a seething tide of black armour, cruel weapons and ragged banners. The latter stretched back into the gloom which dominated the narrow streets and crooked avenues of the Ulricsmund beyond. A wave of noise rose and spread from the ranks of the Chaos worshippers, tortured syllables crashing down and flowing over the men of the Empire. The raw surge of noise rose to mingle with the thunder that rocked the strange clouds overhead, to create an apocalyptic cacophony which drowned out all thought and sense.

Then lightning flared across the sky, and the horde fell silent. The sudden quiet was almost as bad as the noise had been. Martak felt Ulric bristle within him, and he looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the monstrous, ghostly shapes which moved behind the clouds. They are here, Ulric growled. They come to watch.

Eyes as wide and as hot as the sun washed over him, through a tear in the clouds, and Martak shuddered and looked away. There had been nothing recognisable in that gaze – nothing save an eternity’s worth of hunger and madness. The Chaos Gods were not as the gods of men. They had known the world as dust in the aeons before creation, and they would know it as dust again before they were finished.

Out across the square, the host of the lost and damned parted like split wood. Chaos warriors, scarred tribesmen and squabbling daemons all pushed and thrust against their fellows to create a wide corridor. And down that corridor, riding at an unhurried pace, came the architect of all the world’s pain himself.

Archaon, Lord of the End Times, had arrived.

Wendel Volker wished he had time for a drink. He wished he had time for anything. He stood amid the lines of the state troops, his armour stained with gore and his shield hacked almost to flinders. Brunner stood nearby, his falchion resting on his shoulder. The former bounty-hunter looked almost at ease, as if the carnage of only a few moments before had been nothing at all. The rest of Valten’s men had spread out among the ranks, filling in gaps or simply seeking out friends and comrades to stand with. Volker had neither. Not any more.

He closed his eyes, and tried to relax. The worst was yet to come, and a Volker couldn’t be found wanting. Behind him, he heard the murmurs of healers and warrior priests as they worked to stiffen spines and bind wounds. Servants of Sigmar, Ulric and even Ranald, all were present. Whether their gods were was another matter.

‘He’s a big one,’ Brunner grunted.

Volker opened his eyes. The Chaos horde had fallen silent. Their master, the Three-Eyed King himself, had arrived. Volker lifted his visor to get a better look at the king of all monsters. Brunner wasn’t wrong – Archaon was big, bigger than any of his followers, save for those who loomed over buildings. His armour shone with a terrible light, and the air about him shimmered as if the weight of his presence caused reality itself to stretch and fray. Archaon was wrong, Volker thought. He was the very essence of wrongness, of the foulness that crept in through the cracks in the world, and Volker felt his stomach twist in agonised knots as he watched the Lord of the End Times ride through his followers and into the square.

‘How much do you think they’d pay me for his scalp?’ Brunner said.

‘They’d make you bloody emperor,’ Volker said, not looking at him. Archaon was in no hurry. His daemonic steed pawed the ground as it moved forwards. The ground cracked and steamed where the animal’s hooves touched. The Three-Eyed King was surrounded by a bodyguard of Chaos knights, each of them a monster in his own right. Archaon, his great sword balanced across his saddle horn, stared at the forces arrayed before the temple.

Volker fought the urge to shrink back into the ranks. He felt soul-sick and weary as Archaon’s inhuman gaze swept over him. Overhead, the roiling clouds had thickened and darkened as the storm redoubled its fury. A hot rain had begun to fall, softly, slowly at first, and then with hissing fury. The sword in Volker’s hand felt heavy, and his breathing was a harsh rasp in his ears. Archaon straightened in his saddle. His armour creaked like the wheels of a plague cart, and when he spoke, Volker felt each word in the marrow of his bones.

‘I am the Final Moment made flesh. I stand here on this mountain, and I will sit on its throne. I will be the axis upon which the wheel of change turns, and the world will drown in the light of unborn stars.’ Archaon looked up. ‘Can you feel it, men of the Empire – can you feel the air tremble like a thing alive? Can you feel the heat of the fire that rages outside the gates of the world?’ He lowered his head, gazing at them, his expression unfathomable, hidden as it was within the depths of his helm. ‘The End Times are here, and there is no turning back. There is no past, no future, only now. Time is a circle and it is contracting about the throat of the world,’ Archaon said, making a fist for emphasis. ‘Why do you cling so to the broken shards of Sigmar’s lie? There is no afterlife. There is no reward, no punishment. Only death, or life.’

Volker blinked sweat from his eyes. Men to either side of him shifted in obvious discomfort. Archaon’s words ate at his resolve like acid, stripping him of courage and will. Archaon gazed at them for a moment, as if to let his words sink in, and then he began to speak again. ‘Look to the sky. Look to the street. Cracks are forming in what is, and what was. That which shall be presses against the threshold of time itself. This world is, and always has been, but a moment delayed. A single drop of blood, hanging from the tip of a sword. And now, it splashes down.’

Archaon swept his blade up, and fire crawled along its length. ‘This sword. Your blood. Your age has passed. The pallid mask of human existence has begun to peel back, revealing the canker within. Why not rip it off at once, and glory in these final hours – shout, revel, kill, and taste the blood of the world as it dies.’

Men murmured. Fever-bright eyes blinked. Tongues caressed lips. Volker shuddered, trying to push his way through the numbing fog that had engulfed his thoughts. Archaon seemed to glow with a sour light, like a beacon calling all of the world’s children home. Part of Volker wanted to follow it wherever it led, to give in to despair and rage and wash away the memories of Heldenhame and Altdorf in blood. He looked down, and caught sight of the crowned skull emblazoned on his cuirass, with the ‘KF’ sigil of Karl Franz.

The sound of hooves shook him from his reverie. Men stood straighter, and looked about, as Valten eased his horse through the press. He looked tired, the way they all did, but not weak. Not exhausted. When he spoke, his voice carried easily through the rain, and across the square, from one wing of the army to the other.

‘He is right, brothers,’ Valten said. ‘All of history has come down to this place. Every story, song and saga, they have all led up to this day, this hour, this moment. We stand in the shadow of heroes and gods, and their hands are on our shoulders, urging us in one direction… or another.’ As the words left his mouth, he turned towards Archaon.

‘But it is up to us to choose who we listen to. We have been given this day to make our stand. To bar the door of the world against the beast that would devour everything we hold dear. We have been given this moment to show our teeth. To show our anger, and let it light the flames of the world’s wrath.’ Valten looked out over the massed ranks of soldiery. ‘Let its heat warm you, and its light drive back the dark. Let that fire light the way to the ending of the world, if that is what the gods will. Let it scour the rock, and consume the stars themselves. Let the heat of our pyre scorch the Dark Gods cowering in the shadows, if that is the will of Sigmar.’

He paused. And smiled. It was a gentle smile. The smile of a blacksmith at his forge. ‘But either way… let the fire burn, brothers.’ The words were delivered quietly, but they carried nonetheless. Volker was not alone as a cheer ripped its way from his throat. Hundreds of voices rose, mingling into a single roar of defiance. The sky ripped wide, as if the cacodaemoniacal gods above had been driven into paroxysms of fury by the sound.

Archaon raised his sword. Lightning shrieked down, striking the blade and casting a sickly light across the square. The cheers ceased as the Lord of the End Times reminded them of his presence. Volker hunkered down behind his shield as stray sparks of lightning spat and crawled across the ground at his feet.

‘This is the way the world ends,’ Archaon rumbled. ‘This is the way the world begins. Let my name ring out, and let the very mountains tremble. I have come for the rotten heart of your Empire, and I will not leave until I feel it grow still in my hand. Run and die, or stand and die, hammer-bearer, but die all the same.’ He spread his arms, as if inviting attack.

‘Death is a small price to pay for victory,’ Valten said. He spoke steadily, with certainty, and his voice carried easily across the square. ‘And our victory is writ in the heavens themselves. You are not the one to unravel the weave of the world. Ride home, ride back into the darkness.’ He gestured with his hammer.

‘I am home,’ Archaon snarled. ‘And I will not be denied.’ He hauled back on the reins of his monstrous steed, causing the beast to rear. He raised his blade up and then swept it down, as if it were a headsman’s axe and it were Middenheim’s neck on the block.

With a roar to shake the Fauschlag itself, Archaon’s army charged.

The moment the Slayer of Kings swept down, Archaon was in motion. Bent low in the saddle, the Lord of the End Times led the attack. Canto, surrounded on all sides by the grim, armoured figures of the Swords of Chaos, had no choice but to follow in his wake.

Canto ducked his head, and bent almost parallel to the neck of his newfound mount. The animal gibbered ceaselessly in what sounded like Tilean, spewing what were either curses or recipes as it pounded along, its hooves eating ground at a relentless pace. He’d tried hitting it, but that only made it talk more loudly, and it had tried to bite him to boot. He’d decided to settle for holding on and letting the beast do as it willed.

Holding tight to the reins, he risked a glance back. The rest of the Chaos horde was in motion behind the Swords. Chaos warriors from a hundred different warbands pounded after their warlord, shaking the square with the fury of their charge. Wild, yelling tribesmen ran alongside them. Packs of twisted, mutated hounds bayed madly as they loped across the cobbles, and daemons capered and gambolled in their wake. To the east, Canto caught sight of a massive slaughterbrute ploughing forwards, flinging aside unlucky tribesmen in its haste to get to the enemy. Gibbering Chaos spawn flailed about madly around its mighty form, screeching and screaming. Behind this vanguard came wave after wave of northmen, enough to bury all of Middenheim in corpses if that was what it took to win the victory.

He heard the roar of guns, and turned to see flashes of fire from the top of the temple steps. As soon as the horde had broken into a charge, the Empire guns had opened fire. Mortars thumped, cannons boomed and helblasters let out a staccato roar. To his right, a barrage of rockets slammed down amongst the remnants of the Headsmen, tearing his former comrades to pieces. Tribesmen fell as cannonballs pounded into the close-packed mass of bodies. Crossbow bolts hummed through the air like wasps, plucking riders from the saddles and catching leaping hounds in mid-air. Despite there being more room, it reminded Canto unpleasantly of his earlier march up the viaduct.

He jerked his mount to the side, narrowly avoiding a bounding pink horror as it was shredded into a pair of moaning blue ones in a spray of twinkling multi-coloured motes. Somewhere behind him, a Chaos-tainted giant gave a long, drawn-out death-howl as it toppled forwards like a felled tree. The ground shuddered beneath his steed’s hooves as the great body crashed down, crushing a score of inobservant tribesmen.

But none of it mattered. There were simply too many bodies to be so easily thrown on the fire and forgotten. All around Canto, bellowing Kurgan, Aeslings and Tahmaks pressed forwards over the fire-torn bodies of the dead, climbing heaps and drifts of corpses in their eagerness to reach their foes. Snarling Dolgans, mounted on shaggy horses, galloped alongside Khazags and the horse-lords of the Kul. Kvelligs, Aghols and Bjornlings forced their way up, into the teeth of the enemy fire, their broad, brightly painted kite shields bristling with bullet holes and broken crossbow bolts. Too, masked cultists from the softer southern lands charged as wildly as their hardier northern allies, robes the colour of dried blood flapping as they smashed round shields with bronze-headed maces in terrible hymns to the Lord of Skulls.

The end was as inevitable as a storm in summer, or snow in winter. Canto drew his sword as his horse vaulted the broken body of a mutated ogre, and felt a cold weight in his gut. Either way, what happened here would determine the fate of all involved. Death or glory, he thought bitterly, as the Swords of Chaos galloped on.

Even as he drew close to the Empire lines, Canto felt an old, horribly familiar tingle at the nape of his neck. Somewhere behind the enemy, a whirling white vortex took form and rose above the heads of the soldiers. A figure clad in furs rose with it, long arms gesturing frantically. A harsh voice spat out jagged words of power, and a blizzard of shimmering ice-forms erupted from the swirling vortex. Canto heard a chill shriek and saw an immense flock of white crows, with beaks and talons of glittering ice, hurtle towards Archaon, and by extension, himself.

Riders to either side of him were torn from their saddles by the birds. He ducked his head, and felt talons scrape against his helm and cuirass. A skull was plucked from his pauldron. He’d lost his shield not long after entering the city, and he cursed himself for not claiming another. With a roar, he whipped his blade about his head in an attempt to drive the flapping ice-constructs back as he urged his horse on. He caught a glimpse of Archaon moments before the Lord of the End Times struck the enemy like a thunderbolt.

The shield wall exploded, as if it had been hit by a volley of cannon fire. Archaon could not be stopped or slowed, and wherever his head turned, men died. Canto and the others joined him a moment later, thundering home with a resounding crash. Screaming soldiers were smashed off their feet by the impact, while the blades of the Chaos knights cut through breastplates and shields or hacked off heads. Canto laid about him without enthusiasm, fighting on instinct. Every blow felt like the turn of a page, bringing them closer to the end. But that’s what you want, Unsworn, he thought. An end to this madness.

It sounded like something Count Mordrek might have said. Under other circumstances, that alone might have made him dismiss it out of hand, but the act of killing brought with it a strange sort of clarity. Was it truly escape from this battle, from the eyes of the gods, which he desired, or was it an ending?

When he’d first chosen sides and taken up arms against his fellow man, it had seemed that he would never tire of battle, or of the rewards bought with blood. But a few centuries’ worth of slaughter was enough to glut any man, especially the son of a spice importer from Nuln. He’d slipped off the wheel of fate, and hadn’t looked back.

It had all seemed so clear, once upon a time. The triumph of the Dark Gods seemed a certainty. But he’d never stopped to ask himself what form that triumph might take. The gods weren’t warlords or tribal chieftains, for whom land and slaves were the spoils of victory. The gods only desired souls and destruction. Neither of which appealed to Canto, particularly.

To the west the Empire lines suddenly exploded into a lurid disharmony of light and sound, and Canto was nearly jolted from his saddle by the reverberations. The air stank of magics, and with a great roar, a firestorm exploded above the Empire army’s western flank. Men screamed as their clothing caught light and their skin ran like tallow. Weapons warped and curled, transmuted into horrible shapes or inert elements. The ripple of sorcerous destruction spread outwards, claiming the lives of any in its path.

But in the centre, the shield-wall still held, much to Canto’s frustration. He found himself surrounded by grim Middenlanders and howling, sackcloth-clad flagellants. Flails and halberd blades struck his armour from all sides, and it seemed that no matter how many men he killed, there were always more. Suddenly, the knot of death about him began to unravel as the Three-Eyed King forced his way through. He met Canto’s bewildered gaze with a terse nod. ‘You’ll have to fight harder than that, Unsworn. We have a ways to go, yet.’

Archaon’s eyes bored into him, as if the Lord of the End Times could see his earlier thoughts and had found them wanting. Canto’s sword arm twitched, and he saw an image of his blade sliding into the gap between the Everchosen’s helmet and gorget. Shadow-shapes hunched and slithered at the edges of his vision, and he felt taloned hands on his shoulders and on his forearm, ready to guide his blade – where?

He felt a kernel of panic begin to grow in him, and he recalled how the air had tasted in that far-off, but never far away, moment when he’d had a man named Magnus at his mercy, and chosen obscurity over glory. He’d had a chance, once, to earn the rewards of the gods. He had chosen their ire and indifference instead.

He had another chance now. It was as if that same moment had hunted him down through all of the ages, and now it had found him. He could hear its howl of triumph as it stalked him over the points of spears and shaking standards. Run and hide or stand and fight, Unsworn – your appointed hour has come round at last, something whispered in his head. Was that his voice, or Archaon’s? Was it a human voice at all, or something else?

And, more importantly, what was the choice it wanted him to make?

Archaon turned away, and began to fight his way forwards once more. His dreadful sword rose and fell with a sinner’s wail, cutting short destinies and devouring hope. Canto looked down at the blade in his hand. Then, with a sharp cry, he drove his knees into his mount’s flanks and charged in the Everchosen’s wake.

Five

The Temple of Ulric

Gregor Martak spun, and his ice-wreathed hands punched through the cackling daemon’s soft belly. The pink horror shrilled as it began to split into two smaller blue ones, but Martak’s fingers caught the creatures before they could fully form and filled their gaping maws with ice and amber. The daemons evaporated with tinny moans, as Martak turned his attentions elsewhere. Inside him, he could feel the godspark of Ulric raging and smashing against the confines of his soul.

To the west, the west, the god howled.

‘Are there not enemies enough for you here?’ Martak snarled. Ice and snow rose from his hands, sweeping forward to flash-freeze a slobbering Chaos troll. The brute toppled over and shattered into a dozen chunks. Northmen filled the gap left by the troll, and hurled themselves towards him with suicidal courage. Martak, mind reeling with the fury of the god nesting within him, hastily created a shield of amber and frost, blocking the first blow. At a gesture, the shield twisted and transformed, splitting into a multitude of stabbing lances. Several of his attackers were punched off their feet, and the rest were driven back. Martak stepped forwards, gathering his strength, and gestured again. The lances bulged, cracked and split, becoming shrieking hawks, raucous crows and even a few stinging hummingbirds.

The barbarians were forced back by the swarm of mystical constructs, even as he’d hoped. Breathing heavily, he staggered back too. The state troops closed ranks to his fore, buying him a few precious moments to catch his breath. He was tired – more tired than he’d ever been. Every muscle ached, and his body felt like a wrung-out wineskin. It was no easy thing to carry the weight of a god, and he knew, with animal certainty, that even if they won the day, he would be burned to nothing by the cold fire of Ulric’s presence. Whatever happened here today, Gregor Martak was a dead man.

He smiled thinly. Then, his life expectancy had dropped to almost nothing the moment he’d been made Supreme Patriarch. And in a time of war, no less. He’d almost died ten times over in the first battle for Altdorf, and its fall almost two years later. He shook himself all over, like a dog scattering water, and sniffed the air. He caught the rank odour – like sour milk and spoiled fruit – of fell sorcery, and peered west, as Ulric had urged.

His eyes widened as he caught sight of the eldritch inferno sweeping across the western flank of the Empire’s battle-line. He could hear the screams of men and the cackling of daemons, and knew that, unless whatever magics had been unleashed there were countered, the whole flank might collapse. He cursed and looked around for Valten.

The Herald of Sigmar sat on his horse nearby, with Greiss and the other commanders. His armour was dented and scorched, and his face was drawn and haggard. He had fought in the vanguard for those first terrible moments of the attack, but had been forced back behind the shield-wall by simple necessity. Now he was trying to organise a counter-attack with Greiss, Staahl and the remaining knights.

Martak hurried towards them. ‘We ride through them, then,’ Greiss was saying, as the wizard drew close. ‘Middenheimers are bred hard, boy, and we don’t balk at necessary sacrifice.’

‘There’s a difference between necessary sacrifice, and foolishness,’ Valten retorted. For the first time since Martak had met him, the Herald of Sigmar looked angry. He seemed to loom over the knights. ‘These are our men, Greiss, and you shall not treat them as mere impediments to your glory. They are not pawns to be sacrificed, or tools to be discarded,’ Valten growled. ‘They are men. My men.’

‘Men die in battle,’ Dostov said. It was obvious whose side the Grand Master of the Gryphon Legion was on. Then, the Kislevite wasn’t unduly burdened by sentimentality.

‘Men die, but they are not ridden down like dogs by their own commanders,’ Valten said. He raised Ghal Maraz. ‘And I will split the skull of the next man who uses the phrase “necessary sacrifice” to my face in such a way again.’ He turned in his saddle, and looked down at Martak. ‘Gregor, what–?’

Martak, about to tell Valten what he had seen to the west, felt his words die on his lips as a new sound intruded over the booming report of the artillery at the top of the steps above them. From within the confines of the temple came the scream of voices and the clash of weapons. These were mingled with the rapid chatter of gunfire and dreadful chittering. Even as Valten and the others turned to look up the steps, towards the great entrance of the Temple of Ulric, the artillery crews began to hastily pivot their guns.

‘What are they doing?’ Greiss snarled. ‘The enemy is out here!’

Martak didn’t bother to remind Greiss he’d said something similar before, and been wrong then as well. Blackened and bloodied soldiers, survivors of the temple garrisons, stampeded out through the great doors, hampering the efforts of the artillery crews. They were followed by hulking, armoured rat ogres, who tore into the fleeing soldiers and artillery crews both. Great cannons were upended and sent rolling down the steps. Gun carriages shattered to matchwood. Bullet holes stitched their way along Nuln-forged gun barrels, courtesy of the skaven ratling gun teams. Powder kegs were perforated as well, and the subsequent explosion rocked the temple to its foundations. The concussive blast killed men, skaven and rat ogres besides, and only Martak’s quick thinking and magics prevented the explosion from reaching Valten and the others.

As his amber shield crackled and fell to pieces, Martak saw a fresh tide of ratmen sweep over the burning wreckage of the Grand Battery. Stormvermin and clanrats poured down the steps of the temple in a screeching flood. Valten cursed. He looked at Greiss. ‘Hold the line. I’ll deal with the vermin.’ Without waiting for the surly knight’s reply, he looked at Martak. ‘Gregor, can you–?’

Martak shook his head. ‘The western flank is collapsing. Daemon-fire is sweeping the square there, and I am needed.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I was coming to ask for your help.’

Valten shook his head. He hesitated, and for a moment, Martak saw not the Herald of Sigmar, but the callow young blacksmith Huss had introduced him to, so many months ago. ‘It appears our journey is coming to an end,’ Valten said, fighting to be heard over the noise of battle. ‘Since Luthor vanished, I have relied on your advice more than once. It has been a pleasure to call you friend, Gregor.’ Valten bent low and reached out his hand. It was Martak’s turn to hesitate. Then, he clasped forearms with the Herald of Sigmar. Valten smiled and straightened in his saddle. ‘I do not think we will meet again, my friend.’

Then he turned, jerked on his horse’s reins, and galloped up the steps to meet the coming threat. Martak hesitated again, for just a moment. Then, with a snarl, he turned to the west. He ignored Greiss’s shouts as he began to push his way along, moving more swiftly than a man ought. He ran smoothly, his steps guided by Ulric, and in seemingly no time at all he was bulling through the ranks towards the daemon-threatened stretch of the line. As he moved, he reached out with his mind, snagging the errant winds of magic and drawing them in his wake.

I grow weak, son of Middenheim, Ulric murmured. Soon my spark shall gutter out, and you will crumble to cold ash.

‘Then we’d best take as many of the enemy with us as we can,’ Martak growled. ‘Or would you rather crawl into a hole and die?’ He heard the indignant snap of the god’s jaws and bared his teeth in satisfaction. He shoved aside a pair of spearmen, and found himself staring at a hellish inferno of dancing, multi-coloured flames. Screams of terror filled the air as men burned and died, or worse, changed. Daemons leapt and shimmered beyond the flames, cackling and chanting.

As the line of soldiers around him fell back, Martak spread his arms, calling up what strength Ulric could spare him. The heat from the fires faded, and with a single, sharp gesture, Martak snuffed them entirely. He felt his body swell with power as he drew the winds of magic into himself, bolstering the strength of the fading godspark.

Martak threw back his head and howled out incantation after incantation. Daemons screamed as ice-coated spears of amber spitted them. Others were flash-frozen, or torn to shreds by icy winds. The daemonic assault faltered in the face of the combined fury of man and god, and for a moment, Martak thought he might sweep every daemon from the field.

Ulric howled a warning and Martak twisted around, freezing the air into a solid shield over him with a sweep of his hands as a wave of sorcerous fire lashed down at him from above. A gigantic avian shape crashed down, nearly crushing Martak. The wizard hurled himself aside, trying not to think about the men who still writhed beneath the immense daemon’s talons. He scrambled to his feet.

Two pairs of milky, possibly blind eyes regarded him, and two cruel beaks clacked in croaking laughter. The daemon’s two long, feathered necks undulated as its vestigial, yet powerful wings snapped out, casting the wizard into their shadow. He recognised the beast, though he had never seen it before. Kairos Fateweaver, dual-voiced oracle of the Changer of Ways. ‘Ulric, man and god. We see you, wolf-god. We see you, cowering in this cave of blood and meat. Come out, little god… Come out, and accept the judgement of fate,’ the daemon rasped, its voices in concert with itself.

Martak felt Ulric twitch within him. Even a god wasn’t immune to accusations of cowardice. ‘You are not fate,’ he roared, though whether they were his words or Ulric’s, he didn’t know. ‘You are its slave, as are we all.’ Frost swirled about his clenched fingers. ‘You are but the merest shard of a mad, broken dream. A cackling, senile shadow which schemes against itself because it is too myopic to recognise the wider cosmos.’ He flung his hands out, releasing a blast of wintry power.

Kairos staggered, cawing angrily. The daemon’s great wings flapped and its twin beaks spat sizzling incantations. The air about Martak took on a greasy tinge and strange shapes swam through it, passing through the fleeing soldiers as if they were not there. Motes of painful light swirled about, emerging and twisting about an unseen aleph.

‘We have seen what awaits us all, wolf-god. It is a beautiful thing, and hideous, and it will unmake all and fashion it anew. The earth will crack, the skies will burn and all will cease, before beginning again. Why do you struggle and snap so?’ the Fateweaver croaked.

A strange howling grew in Martak’s ears and he staggered as unseen hands plucked at him, trying to draw him into the Realms of Chaos. If he had been as he was, he would have been lost. But he was more than he had been. And he was not alone.

Ulric roared, and Martak roared with him. His muscles bunched and he hurled himself away from the unseen hands. Claws of amber formed about his hands and he raked them across the Fateweaver’s wrinkled chest. The raw stuff of magic poured from the wounds and the daemon snarled. Twin beaks snapped at Martak, who stumbled back. ‘What have you done, cur?’ the Fateweaver cawed. ‘You were supposed to die. We saw it!’

The daemon hefted its staff and swung it in a furious arc. Martak, his muscles filled with the power of the last god of mankind, caught the staff in mid-swing. He grinned into the teeth of the daemon’s fury. ‘What you saw, and what is, are not necessarily the same thing,’ he said. Frost spread from his fingers, curling up the length of the staff. The Fateweaver squawked as it tried to rip its staff free of his grip. The unnatural flesh of its arms began to blacken and peel away from brass bones.

With a single, thumping beat of its wings, the Fateweaver hurled itself skywards. It paused for a moment, wings flapping, and glared down at Martak. Then, with a sound which might have been a frustrated scream, or a laugh of contempt, or even perhaps both, the Fateweaver vanished.

Martak stared upwards for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze to the remaining daemons. The creatures, deprived of their master and of their advantage, cowered back. He gestured sharply and jagged chunks of ice and swirling snow struck the closest of the creatures, as the soldiers of the Empire gave a great shout and surged forwards, their courage renewed. Martak stood unmoving as the line passed him, driving into the daemonic host. Ulric growled softly in his head as Martak turned east, where he knew that even at that moment, Valten was trying to drive back the skaven.

The god sounded as weak as Martak felt, and he knew that neither of them had much time left. But he was determined to make it count for something. Though the City of the White Wolf and its god might die today, the Empire would be preserved. Whatever else happened, Martak, and the spark of godly fury within him, could do that much.

The explosion had come as another unpleasant surprise in a day already full to the brim of them. Wendel Volker fought in the centre of the Empire lines, alongside Brunner and a few other familiar faces, including a number of dismounted Reiksguard and Knights of the Black Bear. They acted as a steel core to anchor the centre, but they rapidly became an island in a sea of panic as the Grand Battery ceased to exist and Archaon’s forces attacked with renewed vigour. Volker cursed as crossbowmen fled past him, seeking the dubious safety of the temple. He thought he saw Fleischer among them, moving as quickly as her legs could carry her. He could hear screams echoing behind him, and the rising chitter of skaven.

A smaller explosion followed the first, and a keg of black powder, wreathed in flames, soared overhead. He looked up, watching it arc over the square. When it exploded, he instinctively raised his shield, and left himself open to a bludgeoning blow that catapulted him off his feet. He slammed into another knight, and they both fell in a rattling tangle. Wheezing, Volker looked up as a burly northman, wearing the shaggy hide of an auroch, swept his stone-headed mace out and drove another Reiksguard to his knees. The knight wobbled and was unable to avoid the next blow, which sent him spinning head over heels into the air. The northman spread his arms and roared, ‘Where is the Herald of Sigmar? Gharad the Ox would crush his delicate bones in the name of the Lord of Pleasure!’

‘Over there somewhere,’ Volker coughed, forcing himself to his feet. ‘Why not go look for him?’ He was shoved aside as the man he’d slammed into got to his feet and lunged towards the Ox. The stone mace came down and pulverised the knight’s head, helmet and all. Volker stared at the gory ruin of the man’s skull for a moment, and then back up at Gharad. ‘All right, then,’ he muttered, raising his sword.

The mace whipped out and Volker stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow. As the weapon whistled past his chin, he brought his sword down on the brute’s arm. The blade chopped through meat and muscle, but became lodged in the bone. Gharad howled in pain, and his mace fell from his fingers. The northman clawed at Volker’s throat with his good hand, while the latter tried to pry his weapon free.

Their struggle was interrupted by the sound of horns and the thunder of hooves. Volker dragged his sword free and hurled himself backwards as, with a mournful howl, the Fellwolf Brotherhood and the Knights of the White Wolf charged. Fleeing state troops were ridden down by the templars of Ulric as they galloped through the disintegrating centre line and smashed full-tilt into Archaon’s advance. Empire and Chaos knights met with a mighty crash. Armoured steeds slammed together, crushing limbs and sending horses rearing in panic as their riders hacked and hammered at one another.

Volker scrambled away from the stomping hooves of the horses, one arm wrapped around his chest. Pain shot through him with every step, and it was hard to breathe, but he had to get clear of the press. Even his armour wouldn’t save him from being trampled to death. He’d seen men die that way, and he had no wish to share their fate.

But, as he made to extricate himself from the situation, a large hand fastened itself around his ankle. He looked down, into the grinning, battered features of his opponent. ‘Gharad is angry. He has been stomped on by many horses, little man,’ the northman said, as he yanked Volker off his feet. ‘Let Gharad show you how it feels.’ Gharad slammed a bloody fist down on Volker’s chest, denting his cuirass and driving all of the air from his lungs.

The northman tore Volker’s gorget loose and flung it aside before fastening his thick fingers around Volker’s throat. Gharad hunched over him as horses stomped and whinnied around them. Volker clawed at his opponent’s wrists, trying to break his grip. Gharad grinned down at him. ‘Goodbye, little man. Gharad the Ox has enjoyed killing–’ The northman’s eyes crossed, and his grin slipped. With a sigh, he slumped over Volker, revealing a falchion, three throwing daggers and a hand-axe embedded in his back.

Volker heaved the dead weight off him, and looked up at Brunner. ‘Thanks,’ he gasped, as he rubbed his aching throat.

‘Come on,’ Brunner said, jerking his falchion free of the fallen northman.

‘What?’ Volker said, shoving himself to his feet. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Cut off the head, and the body dies,’ Brunner spat. There was a dark stain on his side, and he grimaced as he pressed a hand to it. He jerked his chin towards Archaon. The Three-Eyed King was impossible to miss, despite the confusion. As they watched, he cut down a howling knight. ‘Kill him, we get out of this alive.’

‘I don’t like our odds,’ Volker wheezed. Something in his chest scraped. The blow from the northman’s mace had, at the very least, cracked his ribs.

‘I fought my way across half the Empire, through the walking dead, beastmen and worse things, all to get here,’ Brunner growled. ‘Never tell me the odds.’

Volker shook himself and looked around. The bulk of the Empire troops still held their place, despite the massed ranks of the enemy that pressed against them. But Volker had commanded enough men to see that the Middenheimers were close to collapse. The halberdiers still hacked and thrust at their enemies with grim resolve, but exhaustion was taking its toll, and Greiss and his fur-clad maniacs charging through the centre of their own lines hadn’t helped matters. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed tireless, and without number. Every northman who fell was quickly replaced by two more; but there were no fresh troops to throw into the gaps growing in the defenders’ ranks. What reinforcements there were, were busy trying to hold off the skaven pouring out of the Temple of Ulric.

That fact, in the end, made Volker’s decision for him. If Archaon fell, the Chaos attack might disintegrate, easing the pressure on the embattled defenders. Evidently Brunner thought the same. He gestured with his sword. ‘By all means, lead the way.’ You lunatic, he added, in his head. Brunner smirked, as if he’d heard Volker’s thoughts, and turned.

The bounty-hunter moved through the press of battle like a shark. His falchion snaked out left and right, cutting through legs or chopping into bellies. Volker did his best to keep up, smashing aside tribesmen with his recovered shield and sword, despite the pain in his chest. At times, through the smoke that now obscured most of the square, he caught sight of the battle going on atop the steps of the Temple of Ulric. Valten was there, his golden armour reflecting the light of the fires as he employed Ghal Maraz with lethal efficiency. The Herald of Sigmar had ploughed into the ratmen like a battering ram, and broken, twitching bodies flew into the air with every swing of his hammer.

‘There he is,’ Brunner shouted. He grabbed Volker and gestured with his bloody falchion. Volker peered through the smoke and saw their quarry. Archaon’s horse reared as the Three-Eyed King chopped through a bevy of thrusting spears.

‘What do we do?’ Volker said.

Brunner smiled, pulled one of the pistols from his bandolier and fired. To Volker’s surprise, Archaon tumbled from his saddle. ‘What–?’ Volker said.

‘Wyrdstone bullet,’ Brunner said, tossing aside the smoking pistol. A moment later, the bounty-hunter was ducking past the daemonic steed’s flailing hooves, and arrowing towards its rider. Volker tried to follow him, but he found himself preoccupied by the attentions of one of the Chaos knights who made up Archaon’s bodyguard. He caught a hoof on his shield, and felt a shiver of pain run through him. His sword sliced out, driving back a horse and rider. He saw Brunner’s falchion flash down, only to be intercepted at the last moment by Archaon’s blade.

Archaon forced Brunner back, and rose to his full height. Green smoke rose from the hole in his armour where Brunner’s bullet had struck home. To his credit, the bounty-hunter didn’t seem impressed. He lunged, and their blades came together with a barely audible screech. Volker saw Brunner’s free hand flit to his vambrace, and then something sharp flashed and Archaon roared. The Lord of the End Times stepped back and groped for the throwing blade that had sprouted from between the plates of his cuirass. Brunner drew another pistol, his last, and fired. Or tried to, at least. There was a puff of smoke, followed by a curse from Brunner, and then Archaon lunged forwards, thrusting his sword before him like a lance.

The tip of the sword emerged from Brunner’s back and he was lifted off his feet. Archaon held him aloft for a moment, and then, with seemingly little effort, swept the sword to the side and slung the bounty-hunter off. Brunner hit the street hard, with a sound that made Volker cringe inside his armour. He took a chance and darted through a gap in the press of battle, ducking a blow which would have removed his head.

Archaon was already climbing back into the saddle when Volker reached Brunner. He sank down beside the man, but he could see that it was already too late. And not just for Brunner – he heard a roar from behind him, and turned. He saw Archaon catch a blow from Axel Greiss, Grand Master of the White Wolves, on his shield. The Grand Master recoiled, readying himself for another swing as his stallion bit and kicked at Archaon’s own mount. The White Wolves duelled with Archaon’s knights around them.

Archaon swung round in his saddle, and his sword chopped down through plate mail, flesh and bone, severing Greiss’s arm at the elbow. Greiss’s scream was cut short by Archaon’s second blow, which tore through the old knight’s torso in a welter of gore. Volker looked away as Greiss’s body slid from the saddle.

He looked down at Brunner. He realised that he’d never seen the other man’s face in the little time they’d known each other. They hadn’t been friends. Merely men in the same place at the same time, facing the same enemy. Even so, Volker felt something that might have been sadness as he looked down at the dead bounty-hunter.

Panic began to spread through the ranks of the Empire almost immediately. The troops in the centre had held their ground against the worst Archaon could throw at them, but the death of Greiss was too much, even for the most stalwart soldier. Volker couldn’t blame them. He knew a rout in the offing when he saw one, however, and he was on the wrong side of it, cut off from the obvious route of retreat by the fighting. Knots of defenders still battled on, most notably around the standards of the Order of the Black Bear and the Gryphon Legion, and to the east and west the flank forces still held, but the line had been broken.

Volker looked around desperately, trying to spot an avenue of escape. If he could reach someone – anyone – he could organise a fighting withdrawal. At the very least, they might buy themselves a few more hours. Averheim, he thought. Save as many as I can – get to Averheim. The Emperor is at Averheim. The Emperor will know what to do.

‘Yes, he will,’ a voice growled. Volker looked up into a pair of yellow eyes. ‘Up, boy,’ Gregor Martak growled. His furs were scorched and blackened, and his arms and face were streaked with blood. Volker knew, without knowing how, that it was not merely the wizard who regarded him, but something else as well. Something old and powerful, but diminished in some way. The wizard hauled him to his feet with ease, sparing not a glance for Brunner’s body. Martak’s eyes narrowed. ‘Volker,’ he rasped. ‘One of Leitdorf’s lot, from Heldenhame.’

‘I–’ Volker began.

‘Quiet.’ Martak’s eyes were unfocused, as if he were listening to something. ‘You survived Heldenhame, Altdorf and everything in between. You might even survive this, where braver men did not.’ The yellow eyes looked down at Brunner. ‘The time for heroes is past, Wendel Volker. Wolves are not heroes. They are not brave, or honourable. Wolves are survivors. The coming world needs survivors.’

Volker struggled against Martak’s grip. The wizard shook himself and grinned savagely. ‘It’s the end, boy. You can feel it, can’t you?’

Volker’s lips tried to form a denial, but no words came. Men were fighting and dying around them, but no one seemed to notice them. Martak laughed harshly. He grabbed hold of Volker’s chin. ‘It’s like a weight in your chest, a moment of pain stretched out to interminable length, until death becomes merely release.’ His chapped, bleeding lips peeled back from long, yellow teeth. ‘But not for you. Not yet. You must tell the Emperor what has happened. You must show him what I now show you.’ Martak dragged Volker close. The fingers clutching Volker’s chin felt like ice. ‘You must claim my debt.’

Images filled Volker’s mind – a shadowy shape creeping through the Fauschlag; the snuffing of the Flame of Ulric; and worst of all, a pulsing, heaving tear in the skin of reality itself. Volker screamed as the last image ate its way into his memories like acid. He tried to pull himself free of the wizard, but Martak’s grip was like iron. He felt cold and hot all at once, and a cloud of frost exploded from his mouth. His heart hammered, as if straining to free itself of his chest, and he thought that he might die as his insides filled up with ice and snow and all of the fury of winter and war.

‘No,’ he heard Martak growl. ‘No, you will not die, Wendel Volker. Not until you have done as I command.’

Panic spread like wildfire through the Middenheim companies, fanned to greater fury by the bludgeoning advance of the Swords of Chaos. Canto, still astride his cursing steed, could only marvel at the sheer, dogged relentlessness of Archaon’s warriors. They fought like automatons. There was never a wasted motion or excess of force. As soon as one enemy fell from their path they moved on to the next without hesitation. They fought in silence as well, uttering no battle cries or even grunts of pain when a blow struck home.

Archaon, in contrast, was all sound and fury. He was the centre of the whirlwind, and he seemed to grow angrier the more foes he dispatched. Men were trampled beneath the hooves of his daemon steed, and banners were chopped down and trodden into the thick streams of blood which ran between the cobbles. One moment, he was amidst a desperate scrum of hard-pressed soldiers. The next, it had collapsed into a howling mass of terrified humanity, each seeking to get as far as possible from the roaring monster who had come to claim them.

The Everchosen spurred his mount through the madness, ignoring the fleeing soldiers. Canto knew who he was looking for and he spurred his own beast in pursuit, the whispers of the gods filling his mind. He tried to ignore them, but it was hard. Harder than it had ever been before. They were not asking that he follow their chosen champion – they demanded it. And Canto had neither the strength nor the courage to do otherwise.

So he galloped in Archaon’s wake, and watched as the last defenders of Middenheim parted before the Three-Eyed King, or were ridden down. ‘Where are you, Herald?’ Archaon bellowed, as his horse reared and screamed. ‘Where are you, beloved of Sigmar? I am here! Face me, and end this farce. How many more must die for you?’

Archaon glared about him, his breath rasping from within his helmet. ‘Face me, damn you. I will not be denied now – not now! I have broken your army, I have gutted your city… Where are you?’

Canto jerked on his mount’s reins, bringing it to a halt behind Archaon. The latter glanced at him. ‘Where is he, Unsworn? Where is he?’ he demanded, and Canto felt a moment of uncertainty as he noted the pleading tone of Archaon’s words.

‘I am here,’ a voice said, and each word struck the air like a hammer-blow. Canto shuddered as the echo of that voice rose over the square, and the sounds of battle faded. A wind rose, carrying smoke with it, isolating them from the madness that still consumed the world around them. ‘I am here, Diederick Kastner,’ Valten said. His words were punctuated by the slow clop-clop-clop of his horse’s hooves.

‘Do not say that name,’ Archaon said, his voice calmer than it had been a moment ago. ‘You have not earned the right to say that name. You are not him.’

‘No, I am not. I thought, once, that I might be… But that is not my fate,’ Valten said. ‘And I am thankful for it. I am thankful that my part in this… farce, as you call it, is almost done. And that I will not have to see the horror that comes next.’

‘Coward,’ Archaon said.

‘No. Cowardice is not acceptance. Cowardice is tearing down the foundations of heaven because you cannot bear its light. Cowardice is blaming gods for the vagaries of men. Cowardice is choosing damnation over death, and casting a people on the fire to assuage your wounded soul.’ Valten looked up, and heaved a long, sad sigh. ‘I see so much now. I see all of the roads not taken, and I see how small your masters are.’ He looked at Archaon. ‘They drove their greatest heroes and warriors into my path like sheep, all to spare you this moment. Because even now… they doubt you. They doubt, and you can feel it. Why else would you be so determined to face me?’

‘You do not deserve to bear that hammer,’ Archaon said. ‘You do not deserve any of it.’

‘No.’ Valten smiled gently. ‘But you did.’ He lifted Ghal Maraz. ‘Once, I think, this was meant for you. But the claws of Chaos pluck even the thinnest strands of fate. And so it has come to this.’ His smile shifted, becoming harder. ‘Two sons of many fathers, forgotten mothers and a shared moment.’ He extended the hammer. ‘The gods are watching, Everchosen. Let us give them a show.’

‘What do you know of gods?’ Archaon snarled. ‘You know nothing.’

‘I know that if you want this city, this world, you must earn it.’ Valten urged his horse forwards and Archaon did the same. Both animals seemed almost as eager for the fray as their riders, and the shrieks and snarls of the one were matched by the whinnying challenge of the other. Canto tried to follow, but found himself unable to move. He was not here to participate, but to watch. The Swords of Chaos spread out around him, a silent audience for the contest to come. He felt no relief, and wanted nothing more than to be elsewhere, anywhere other than here.

Archaon leaned forward, and raised his sword. Valten swung his hammer, and Archaon’s shield buckled under the impact. The Everchosen rocked in his saddle. He parried a blow that would have taken off his head, and his sword wailed like a lost soul as its blade crashed against the flat of the hammer’s head. As they broke apart, Archaon’s steed lunged and sank its fangs into the throat of Valten’s horse. With a wet wrench, the daemon steed tore out the other animal’s throat.

Valten hurled himself from the saddle even as his horse collapsed. He crashed down on the steps of the Temple of Ulric. Archaon spurred his horse on and leaned out to skewer the fallen Herald. Valten, reacting with superhuman speed, caught the blow on Ghal Maraz’s haft. He twisted the hammer, shoving the blade aside. The daemon-horse reared up, and Valten surged to his feet. His hammer thudded into the animal’s scarred flank. The beast cried out in pain, and it stumbled away. Archaon snarled in rage and chopped down at Valten again and again. One of the blows caught Valten, opening a bloody gash in his shoulder.

The Herald of Sigmar staggered back. Archaon wheeled his steed about, intent on finishing what he’d started. His mount slammed into Valten, and sent the latter sprawling. As Valten tried to get to his feet, Archaon’s sword tore through his cuirass.

Valten sank back down, and for a moment, Canto thought the fight was done. But, then Valten heaved himself to his feet, and he seemed suffused with a golden, painful light. Canto raised a hand protectively in front of his eyes, and he heard a rattling, hollow moan rise from the stiff shapes of the Swords of Chaos.

Archaon’s steed retreated, shying from the light. It gibbered and shrieked, and no amount of cursing from Archaon could bring the beast under control. The Everchosen swung himself down from the saddle and started towards his opponent. As he entered the glow of the light, steam rose from his armour, and he seemed to shrink into himself. But he pressed forward nonetheless. Valten strode to meet him.

They met with a sound like thunder. Ghal Maraz connected with the Slayer of Kings, and Canto was nearly knocked from his saddle by the echo of the impact. Windows shattered across the plaza, and the Ulricsmund shook. The two warriors traded blows, moving back and forth in an intricate waltz of destruction. Archaon stepped aside as Ghal Maraz drove down, and cobbles exploded into fragments. Valten leaned away from the Slayer of Kings’s bite, and a wall or statue earned a new scar. When the weapons connected, the air shuddered and twisted, and each time the Swords of Chaos groaned as if in pain.

Their fight took them up the steps of the Temple of Ulric. First one had the advantage, and then the other. Neither gave ground. Canto watched, unable to tear his eyes away, though the power that swirled and snarled about the two figures threatened to blind him. Two destinies were at war, and the skeins of fate strained to contain their struggle. The rest of the battle faded into the background… heroes lived, fought and died in their dozens, but this was the only battle that mattered. The future would be decided by either the Skull-Splitter or the Slayer of Kings.

Or, perhaps not.

A figure, reeking of blood and ice, clad in scorched furs, darted suddenly through the smoke. For an instant, Canto thought it was a wolf. Then he saw it was a man, and felt something tense within him. The man radiated power – dark, brooding and wild. He sprang up the steps of the temple, bounding towards the duellists. ‘Stay your hand, servant of ruin,’ he howled, in a voice which was at once human and something greater. ‘This is my city, and you will despoil it no more!’

‘Gregor – no!’ Valten cried, flinging out a hand. The newcomer froze, half-crouched, like a wolf ready to spring. Magic bled from him, and the air about him was thick with snow and frost. ‘This is my fight. This is the moment I was born for, and you well know it, Gregor Martak. And even if its outcome is not to your liking, neither you nor Ulric shall interfere.’

The air vibrated with a growl that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. To Canto, it was as if the city itself were a slumbering beast now stirring. Archaon hefted his blade in both hands and said, ‘Growl all you like, old god. You are dead, and your city with you. And that shell you cower in is soon to join you, Supreme Patriarch or no.’

‘Maybe so, spawn of damnation,’ the newcomer growled, ‘but even dead, a wolf can bite. And when it does, it does not let go.’

‘Bite away and break your teeth, beast-god. My time is now,’ Archaon snapped.

‘No,’ Valten said. ‘Our time is now.’

Silence fell as the three men faced one another. Archaon slid forwards, blade raised. Valten moved to meet him. Canto longed to draw his sword, but he could not, nor did he know why he felt so. Who are you planning to help this time, Unsworn? What god do you serve? He pushed the thought aside. Something was happening on the steps. Something no one but him seemed to notice. He squinted, trying to see through the greasy envelope of smoke and the harsh light of the fire.

A sense of wrongness pervaded the air, as the shadows cast by the firelight seemed to congeal. A mote of darkness, which grew, like a rat-hole in an otherwise unblemished wall. Where before there had only been a conjunction of firelight, drifting ash and darkness, there was now something vast and verminous. It sprang too swiftly for Canto to get a clear look at it, but he thought it must be a skaven, although of great size. He caught only the glint of a blade. He could not even tell who it was heading for, whether its target was Archaon or Valten. His answer came a moment later.

‘Valten, behind you,’ Martak roared, flinging up his hands. With almost treacle-slowness, Valten and Archaon both turned. The triple blade hissed as it whipped through the air and struck Valten cleanly in the neck. The Herald of Sigmar made a sound like a sigh as his head tumbled from his shoulders. Archaon lunged forward and caught his body as it fell, roaring in outrage. From the darkness came a sound like the scurrying of myriad rats, and a whisper of mocking laughter. Then it was gone.

Archaon sat for a time, cradling the body of his enemy. ‘He was mine,’ he said. He looked up. The Eye of Sheerian flared like a dying star on his brow, and Canto felt a wave of incandescent heat wash over him. ‘Mine.’ Archaon’s rage was a force unto itself, burning clean the smoke and driving back all shadows. Above the city, the sky buckled and the clouds tore open as a bolt of sorcerous lightning slammed down. A portion of the temple dome collapsed with an explosive boom. Smoke billowed out through the temple doors and swept down the steps. Archaon set Valten’s body aside and rose.

‘He was never yours,’ Martak rasped. He tapped the side of his head. ‘This was never preordained, not in the way you think. It was a game. And it has been won.’ His hands twitched and he stepped forward. ‘But I have never been very good at games.’ His hands flexed and the air ruptured as a great bolt of amber and ice shot towards Archaon.

Archaon split the bolt in two with his sword. More blades followed as Martak advanced slowly, tears streaming down his face. Archaon smashed them aside one by one. Shuddering, eyes white and hoarfrost crackling across his flesh, Martak thrust his hands out and a howling blizzard, composed of a million glinting shards of amber, enveloped the Everchosen. Shreds of his cloak slipped from its obscuring pall, and Canto felt his heart lurch in his chest.

Archaon emerged from the blizzard, hand outstretched. He caught Martak about the throat and lifted him high. ‘The only game that matters is mine, wizard. Not yours, not that of the withered godspark in you which fades even now, and not even those of the Dark Gods themselves. Only mine. But you were right. It has been won.’

Martak twisted in his grip, howling like a beast. A knife appeared in his hand, and he thrust it into a gap in Archaon’s armour, eliciting a scream. Archaon dropped him and staggered back, clutching at the wound, which smoked and steamed like melting ice. Martak rose up, eyes blazing. ‘Even in death, a wolf can still bite. And what it bites, it holds,’ he growled. ‘You will not leave Middenheim alive, Everchosen. Whatever else happens, you will die here.’

Martak lunged. Archaon’s sword slashed out, and the wizard’s head, eyes bulging with fury, bounced down the steps. The air reverberated with a mournful howl as something left his body, and then all fell still. Archaon sank down onto the steps, his sword planted point-first between his legs. He leaned against its length.

‘Yes, wizard, I will,’ Archaon said softly, as he stared down at Martak’s head. Nonetheless, his words echoed across the plaza. Canto, at last able to move, urged his horse forwards. The Swords of Chaos followed him. Around them, the battle was coming to its inevitable conclusion. The army that had stood with Valten was no more, its positions overrun and its few survivors fleeing through the streets, pursued by their victorious enemy.

Middenheim, the City of the White Wolf, had fallen.

Six

The Eternal Glade, Athel Loren

Jerrod, the last Duke of Quenelles, hunched in his saddle and steeled his mind against the creeping quiet of the Forest of Loren. Since childhood, he had feared the forest which clung to the south-eastern border of Quenelles. Over the years, it had been responsible for the deaths and disappearances of more friends and subjects than he cared to count. More than once, as a young lord, he had ridden to its edge on the trail of a missing peasant child, only to be forced to turn back in failure. It was a place of pale shapes and bad dreams. Then, the world itself had become a nightmare of late.

He closed his eyes, and wished yet again that the burden he now bore had not passed to him. That his cousin Anthelme had not perished in Altdorf, victim of a plague-stained blade. That Tancred, Anthelme’s predecessor, had not fallen to the black axe of Krell. That he, Jerrod, was not the last of the line of Quenelles. But mostly, he wished that he was not here now, riding into the belly of the beast rather than fighting alongside his people in their hour of need – whatever remained of them.

Jerrod could still recall the smoke that lay thick on the horizon as he’d ridden hard through the pine crags, seeking aid for his beleaguered companions. The smoke that rose over the pyre that had been his homeland, and more besides. For there to be so much smoke, the whole of Bretonnia would need to be aflame, he knew.

What had happened, in the months since he and the Companions of Quenelles had ridden out alongside Louen Leoncoeur’s crusade into the heart of the Empire, to bend their lances in aid of their oldest rivals, greatest enemies and occasional allies? What had befallen Bretonnia in that time? He opened his eyes and reached beneath his helmet to scratch at the week-old growth of beard covering his cheeks and jaw. Since his manservant had been brained at the Battle of Bolgen, he’d had no one to make him presentable.

If what was occurring in Bretonnia was anything like what was happening in the Empire, he feared to learn of it. The Empire had always seemed an unconquerable behemoth to him, a vast dragon with many heads, belching fire and ruin against its foes. To test oneself against that dragon had been the dream of many a young knight, himself included. But now the dragon had fallen, slain by a death of a thousand cuts, each more inglorious than the last. Then, when your enemy wielded plague, storm and fire as easily as a peasant wielded a cudgel, glory was the first casualty, as he and his Companions had discovered to their cost.

Barely a third of the men who had ridden beside him, first in the civil war against Mallobaude’s wretches, and then later at La Maisontaal Abbey, and finally to Altdorf at the command of the Lion-Heart, still lived. Gioffre of Anglaron had died beneath Krell’s axe at La Maisontaal Abbey. The cousins Raynor and Hernald had fallen beside Anthelme at Altdorf. Old Calard of Garamont had died on the walls of Averheim, sword in hand and a curse on his lips. Those who remained, however, were the cream of what Bretonnia had stood for – driven by duty and their oaths to the Lady to stand against evil wherever it might be found. And there was evil aplenty in the Empire.

First Altdorf, then Averheim, had become victims of the foulness seeping down from the north. The other cities of the Empire had fallen besides, but he had been at both Altdorf and Averheim, and had led the Companions in battle against the enemy alongside the Emperor Karl Franz himself, as well as the wild-haired Slayer King of the mountain folk, Ungrim Ironfist.

The thought of the latter only made the weight on his soul all the heavier. The Slayer King had died so that they might live, and escape the trap Averheim had become. While Jerrod knew little of dwarfs, he knew from the weeks they’d spent fighting beside one another that such a death had long been Ironfist’s desire. That made it no less sorrowful, and he felt a moment of pity for the remains of the once-mighty throng which had followed Ironfist out of the Worlds Edge Mountains and into defeat. Like the Bretonnians, they too were the last gasp of a shattered people. And like the Bretonnians, they had no way of knowing the fate of those they had left behind.

He turned slightly in his saddle, to glance down at the heavy form of Gotri Hammerson as the dwarf runesmith stomped alongside Jerrod’s horse. He was old, older perhaps than many a storied Bretonnian keep, Jerrod thought, and as hard as the stones of the mountains they now travelled through. He and the dwarf had not become friends – not quite – but they had fallen into a companionable routine. Their outlooks were not entirely dissimilar, for all that the dwarf mind was a thing utterly alien to Jerrod.

It was Hammerson who had seen them safely away from Averland, after the magics of Balthasar Gelt had plucked the battered remnants of their forces from the clutches of the Everchosen. Hammerson had led the Emperor and his motley assemblage of humans and dwarfs through the Grey Mountains by hidden dwarf roads. Indeed, it was only thanks to Hammerson that they had been able to proceed at all. Unguided, the army would have foundered, burdened as it was by the number of wounded.

Even with Hammerson’s aid, the going had been difficult. Mindless dead clustered in the high crags, their only purpose to kill the living. Pools of suppurating wild magic had given birth to monsters and daemons. Too, the mountains were home to hundreds of orc and goblin tribes. Even the hidden dwarf paths had not been entirely safe. More than once, the battered group of men and dwarfs had been forced to defend themselves against greenskins which swept howling out of the crags. There, only Zhufbarak guns and Gelt’s spellcraft had carried the day, a fact which proved no small frustration to Jerrod and his remaining knights.

While he respected Hammerson, his feelings for the wizard, Gelt, were mixed. The man, clad in filthy robes and a tarnished golden mask, made Jerrod’s skin crawl. He stank of hot metal, and there was something… otherworldly about him. Jerrod had felt similarly when in the presence of the Emperor, who had wielded lightning at the Battle of Bolgen.

Unfortunately, whatever power had infused the Emperor now seemed to be gone, ripped from him by the hands of the Everchosen himself. He was nothing but a man now, in a time when men were all but helpless.

Jerrod sighed. He had seen two great nations consumed in fire and blood, and he longed to do something, anything, to achieve some small measure of retribution, no matter how futile. Nonetheless, even with guns and sorcery, it was invariably a close thing. The greenskins had ever frenzied forth in great numbers, but now, as the world came undone, they seemed particularly driven to madness. It was as if some unseen power had caught hold of them and set their brute minds aflame.

But even battle-maddened greenskins had been as nothing compared to what had come after. Even as the column of refugees had reached the pine crags that marked the northern boundary of Athel Loren, the wind had carried the sound of berserk howls. They had been pursued all the way from Averheim by an army of the Blood God’s worshippers, and it was at the infamous Chasm of Echoes that they had been forced to make their stand. While Gelt and Hammerson’s dwarfs had held the pass, Jerrod and the Emperor had ridden hard, braving the forest’s dangers in an effort to make contact with Athel Loren’s defenders.

Jerrod looked up towards the head of the column, where the Emperor walked alongside his griffon, Deathclaw. The animal was limping, but even so, it looked as dangerous as ever. It was a rare man who could ride such a beast without fear. Rarer still was the man who actually felt some form of affection for his monstrous mount. That Deathclaw seemed to reciprocate this affection was merely proof of Karl Franz’s worthiness, and the rightness of Leoncoeur’s decision to bring aid to the embattled Empire.

Jerrod had fought alongside the man for months. While at times Karl Franz seemed aloof and otherworldly, Jerrod had come to admire him, foreign sovereign or not. The Emperor inspired the same sort of loyalty in his men as the resurrected and re-crowned Gilles le Breton had in Jerrod’s own countrymen. Especially his Reiksguard, the knights who acted as his personal bodyguard. Jerrod had got to know one of them quite well – Wendel Volker.

It was Volker who had brought the sad tidings of Middenheim’s fall to the Emperor at Averheim. Volker was young, but his hair was white and his face worn like that of a man twice his age. His armour was battered and scorched, and he moved at times like one who was trapped in a dream. He was, like many men in these sad times, broken. He had seen too much, and endured more pain than any man ought.

Volker was walking beside the Emperor, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He had not left Karl Franz’s side since arriving at Averheim’s gates, leading a tiny, exhausted band of riders – the only survivors of Middenheim. How Volker had got them out, he’d never said, and Jerrod hadn’t asked. They had arrived only days before Archaon’s forces, and had ridden their horses to death to reach the dubious safety of the city walls. As if he’d heard Jerrod’s thoughts, Volker slowed, turned and soon fell into step beside Jerrod’s horse.

‘Hail and well met,’ Jerrod said, leaning down. He extended his hand. Volker took it.

‘Never thought I’d see this place,’ Volker murmured, without preamble.

Jerrod looked around. ‘Nor did I.’ He shivered. ‘I wish there had been some other way.’

‘You and me both, manling,’ Hammerson grumbled. He looked up at Volker. ‘It’s no place for men nor dwarfs.’

‘Few places are these days,’ Volker said. He ran a hand through his frost-coloured hair. ‘And fewer by the day.’ He blinked and looked up at Jerrod. ‘I’m sorry, Jerrod, I spoke without thinking.’

Jerrod smiled sadly and sat back in his saddle. ‘We’ve all lost our homes, Wendel,’ he said. He swept an arm out. ‘We are all that remains of three mighty empires, my friends. The last gasp of a saner world. I would that it were not so, but if it must be, at least we die as the Lady wills, with courage and honour.’

‘I’m sure Sigmar is of a similar mind,’ Volker said, with a grim smile. He looked at Hammerson. ‘And Grungni as well, eh?’

‘I doubt a manling knows anything of the mind of a dwarf god,’ Hammerson said sourly. He sniffed. Then, ‘But aye… if death comes, let it come hot.’

‘No danger of it being otherwise, given our rescuers,’ Volker said. He pointed upwards, towards the sky, where the fiery shapes of phoenixes swooped and cut through the air. They were ridden by elves, Jerrod knew.

It had been by purest chance that he had found himself on the path to Ystin Asuryan, as their rescuers had called it. Fiery birds, white lions, and tall, proud elven warriors clad in shimmering armour had marched along its length, and gone to the aid of Hammerson and Gelt against the followers of Chaos. Now, the remains of that host escorted them deeper and deeper into the winding heart of Athel Loren.

All at once, Jerrod was reminded of where he was. Around them the trees seemed to press close, and strange shapes stalked through the gloom, watching them. This forest was no place for men. And there was no telling what awaited them within its depths.

Gotri Hammerson ignored the shadows and the trees and the whispers and concentrated on the path ahead, as Jerrod and Volker continued to speak. Let the forest talk all it wanted. He didn’t have to listen. That was where the manlings always went wrong… they listened. They couldn’t help it. They were curious by nature, like beardlings, only they never grew out of it. Always poking and prodding and writing things down. And on pulped wood or animal skins at that, he thought. They trust their knowledge to things that rot… That tells you all you need to know.

Still, they weren’t all bad. He glanced at Volker, and at Jerrod, who sat slumped in his saddle. The Bretonnians were a hardy folk, and they knew the value of an oath. It was a shame that they had the stink of elves on them, but that was humans for you. Naive, the lot of them. You couldn’t trust an elf, everybody knew that. Common knowledge in Zhufbar, that was. Couldn’t trust elves, halflings or ogres. Not an honourable bone in any of that lot.

And you certainly couldn’t trust a forest. That much wood in one place was unnatural. It did odd things to the air, and the light. And this particular forest was a wellspring of grudges, stretching from the time of Grugni Goldfinder to the present day. Many a dwarf’s bones were lost beneath the green loam of the deep forest, their spirits trapped by the roots, never able to journey to the halls of their ancestors.

It was a bad place, full of bad things, like a pocket of old darkness in an abandoned mine. At least we’ve got the ancestor gods on our side, Hammerson thought. He felt a moment of shame, but pushed it aside. It wasn’t the manling’s fault, no matter what some among his dwindling throng might grumble. Still, there wasn’t a dwarf alive who wouldn’t be discomfited by the thought of one of their ancestor gods – and Grungni no less! – blessing a human so.

And there was no other explanation for it. Balthasar Gelt was blessed. How else to explain how runes flared to vigorous life in his presence? In the wizard’s vicinity, gromril armour became harder than ever before and weapons gained a killing edge that no whetstone could replicate. Hammerson sniffed the air.

He didn’t even have to look around to know that Gelt was near. The wizard glowed with an inner fire, like a freshly stoked forge. The air around him stank like smelted iron, and when he spoke, the runes that were Hammerson’s to shape and bestow shimmered with the light of Grungni. Hammerson could feel the human’s presence in his gut, and it bothered him to no end to admit that, even to himself.

Why had the gods gifted a manling with their power? And a wizard at that – a blasted elf-taught sorcerer, without an ounce of muscle on his lean frame and no proper axe to speak of. And he rides a horse. With feathers, Hammerson thought sourly. Couldn’t trust a horse, especially one that could fly. A horse was just an elf with hooves.

And speaking of elves, and their lack of trustworthiness… Hammerson stumped ahead, one hand on the head of the hammer stuffed through his belt, to join Caradryan at the head of the column. The elf looked as tired as Jerrod, for all that he sat erect on his horse. His overgrown chicken was somewhere above them, turning the night sky as bright as day. Only an elf would ride a bird that burst into flame if you gave it a hard look. Caradryan, like Gelt, smelt of magic. He stank of wildfire and burning stones. It was a familiar odour to Hammerson.

‘So you’ve got it then, have you?’ he said, without preamble. He’d heard the Phoenix Guard weren’t allowed to talk, so he was anticipating a short conversation. Or maybe just a nod, or grunt of acknowledgement. ‘Ungrim’s fire?’

Caradryan blinked and looked down. ‘What?’ he said, and his voice crackled like a rising flame. His eyes shone strangely, but Hammerson wasn’t afraid to meet them. He’d got used to eyes like that, on the march from Zhufbar to Averheim. Ungrim had been like a flame caged in metal, sparking and snarling, aching to unleash its power.

‘I thought you lot couldn’t talk,’ he said.

‘We can speak. We simply did not. Asuryan commanded it,’ Caradryan said. The elf’s face twisted, and what might have been sadness filled his eyes.

‘Nice of him to let you talk now,’ Hammerson grunted.

‘Asuryan is dead. And silence is no longer an indulgence we can afford,’ Caradryan said.

‘Just like an elf. Wouldn’t catch a dwarf breaking a vow just because he misplaced his god,’ Hammerson said, bluntly.

Caradryan’s expression became mask-like. ‘What do you want, dwarf?’

Hammerson looked up at him. ‘Got a bit of godfire in you, elf. Don’t deny it. Ungrim Ironfist had it, before he fulfilled his oath. I can feel it from here. Worse than that bird of yours. I’m surprised that horse hasn’t died of heatstroke.’ Hammerson looked away. ‘Godfire or no, if you’re leading us into a trap, I’ll crack your skull.’ He patted his hammer affectionately.

‘Why would I rescue you, only to lead you into a trap?’ Caradryan murmured. Hammerson frowned. He didn’t like being reminded of that. He was no prideful beardling, and he knew that the presence of the elves had been instrumental in turning back the tide of blood-worshippers who had caught up with the dwarfs and their mannish allies in the pine crags. But it was impolite to mention it, and even an elf ought to know better.

‘Who knows why elves do anything? You’re all crooked in the skull,’ Hammerson said, twirling his finger about alongside his head. ‘And you didn’t rescue us. Maybe you helped the manlings, but the Zhufbarak need no aid from your sort.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘We didn’t have to offer you our help, you know,’ Caradryan said, frowning.

‘Elves never offer help freely. There’s always a price.’

‘And your people would know all about that, eh, dwarf?’ Caradryan said.

Hammerson looked up at him, and made to retort. But before he could, someone said, ‘There is a price, and it is obvious, Master Hammerson. For we have all asked it, and paid it, in these past few months.’

Hammerson glanced over his shoulder, and saw the human Emperor striding along beside his griffon. Karl Franz had one hand on the beast’s neck, and its striped tail lashed in pleasure as he scratched beneath its feathers. ‘We fight for each other. That is the price and the paying of it, in these times. To fight alongside one another, and for one another, in defence of all that we knew and loved.’

Hammerson grimaced and turned back to the trail ahead. ‘Aye,’ he grunted. ‘Doesn’t mean we have to like it, though.’

The Emperor laughed. ‘No, nor would I ask it of you. Irritable dwarfs fight better than content ones, I have learned.’

Hammerson opened his mouth, ready to deny it. Then he snorted, shook his head and looked up at Caradryan. ‘And what about elves, then?’ he asked.

‘We fight better than dwarfs, whatever their disposition,’ Caradryan said. The elf turned in his saddle and looked at the Emperor. ‘We are drawing near. When we arrive, you will accompany me into the Eternal Glade alone.’

‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’ Hammerson growled.

‘You do not.’ Caradryan didn’t look at him. He spoke disdainfully, as if Hammerson were no more important than a pebble lodged in his horse’s hoof. Then, that was elves for you. They thought the world danced to their tune. Even now, with everything that had happened, elves were still elves. But dwarfs were still dwarfs.

Hammerson stumped around in front of Caradryan’s horse and extended a hand. As the horse drew close, the dwarf reached out and gave the animal a hard flick on the snout with one thick finger. The horse reared and snorted. Caradryan cursed and fought to control his steed. The whole column crashed to a halt behind him. White lions roared in consternation as horses whinnied and men shouted questions. Elves pelted forwards, bleeding out of the forest like ghosts. Hammerson ignored them, and the arrows that were soon pointed at him.

The runesmith crossed his brawny arms and smiled. ‘Seems like I do, lad. Now, before we go a step further, I think we ought to decide who’s going where, and who’s invited to what.’

‘Move aside, dwarf,’ Caradryan said. The air grew hazy around his head and shoulders, and Hammerson could see the faint outline of flames. Hammerson shook his head.

‘No.’ Behind Caradryan, he could see the Emperor watching the confrontation, and Gelt as well. The latter looked as if he intended to intervene, but the Emperor stopped him with a gesture. Hammerson felt his smile widen. Aye, leave it to the dwarfs, manling, he thought.

‘Move aside, or be moved,’ Caradryan growled. He slid from the saddle and approached Hammerson. Flames crawled across his armour and his flesh was growing translucent, his every pore shining with reddish light. Hammerson held his ground, though every instinct he had was screaming for him to run. The elf wasn’t really an elf any more, even as Gelt wasn’t human. There was a power there he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to. But that power was as nothing compared to the weight of the responsibility on Hammerson’s shoulders.

‘No. Whatever happens, from here on out, my people will be heard and will hear all that is said. We’ve earned that right, in blood and iron.’

‘You’ve earned nothing, dwarf,’ Caradryan said, in a voice like the hiss of flame across stone. ‘That you still live, after being allowed so far into the last, most sacred place of my people, should be enough, even for your greedy kind.’

‘If you think that, then you really don’t know much about us. Whatever is said, it likely concerns us, and I would hear it.’ The Zhufbarak, his warriors, his kin, were all that remained of Zhufbar. As far as he knew, they might be all that remained of the dwarf race. He had a responsibility to them, to see that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. To see that their enemies, at least, remembered them. To see that, whatever else happened, they had a say in how they met their end.

‘I should have left you to die,’ Caradryan growled. Hammerson wondered how much of the anger in his voice was him, and how much was the power that now resided in him. Ungrim had been much the same, in those final days. Angry at everything, and nothing.

‘Would have been convenient for you, aye,’ Hammerson said. He cut his eyes to Gelt, and then added, ‘Without us to caution them, the manlings would fall right into whatever trap you’ve laid out for them. That’s why you don’t want us to hear it, eh?’

Caradryan frowned. ‘You know nothing,’ he snapped. Flames blazed to life around his clenched fists and crawled up his forearms. In their light Hammerson saw strange figures, part wood and part woman, slink through the trees, their bark claws flexing eagerly. More elves had arrived as well, these clad in the colours of the woods, and he felt a chill as he recognised the wild elves and dryads of the forest.

‘Well that’s why I want to hear all about it,’ Hammerson said. He thought of home, of the Black Water, and of the huge waterfall that cascaded down the side of the chasm in which the hold was nestled. If he were to be burned here, he wanted that to be his last thought.

‘Wait,’ someone said, from behind him. Hammerson turned.

Several figures stood behind him, suffused by a soft light which threw back the darkness that clung to the trees. Three elves – a woman and two men, both of the latter armoured, one in black iron, the other in gold and silver. The woman stepped forwards, her forest green robes rustling softly. She wore a crown of gold, and her face was so beautiful as to be painful, even to Hammerson. Caradryan sank to one knee, head bowed. His flames flickered and died.

The Emperor moved then to stand beside Hammerson. He sank down slowly, arms spread, head lowered. ‘Greetings, Alarielle the Radiant, Everqueen, Handmaiden of Isha. We come before you to humbly beg sanctuary and to offer our aid in these troubled times,’ Karl Franz said. His voice carried easily through the trees. He looked up. ‘Will you welcome us to Athel Loren?’

Hammerson lifted his chin in defiance as the woman’s gaze passed over him. He knew of the Everqueen, and knew that she could incinerate him on the spot with the barest word. The runes branded into his flesh ached, and he could feel the power of her through them. But he was a dwarf of the Black Water, and he would not kneel before an elf.

Her eyes met his, and, after a moment, what might have been the ghost of a smile passed across her lovely features. She inclined her head. ‘Be welcome, travellers,’ she said. She raised her hand, and the elves lowered their weapons. The dryads retreated, slinking back into the forest. ‘The world has changed, and old distrusts and grudges must be abandoned. You have done well, Caradryan.’ Alarielle gestured for the Emperor to rise. ‘Come. There is much to be discussed, before the end of all things.’

The Eternal Glade

Teclis, once-Loremaster of the now-shattered Tower of Hoeth, blood of Aenarion and Astarielle, sat beneath an ancient tree in the Eternal Glade, eyes closed, his head pressed against the staff he held upright before him.

To his mystically attuned senses, the heartbeat of the primordial forest of Athel Loren was almost deafening. The forest, and the Eternal Glade in particular, was a place of immense, incomprehensible power. It would have taken him an eternity to learn its secrets, if he had been so inclined. And then only if the forest itself had let him.

The murmur of voices rose and fell around him, beyond the barrier of his eyelids. Not just the voices of elves, more was the pity. There were men as well, and dwarfs. Athel Loren had become the final redoubt for the mortal races as well as the immortal.

When Caradryan, captain of the Phoenix Guard, had led a column of weary survivors into the Eternal Grove that morning, he had paid no notice to the furore it elicited in the inhabitants of the woodland realm. Instead, his mind had turned inwards, hunting, seeking, probing, trying to root out some clue as to the source of his failure.

Where did I go wrong?

He was not used to asking such questions. In him was personified both the capability and the arrogance of his people, and it was not without cause that some – including himself – thought he was the greatest adept produced by the folk of Ulthuan since the breaking of the world in those far, dim days when daemons had poured through the wounds in the world’s poles. He was the first to admit it, and wore it as a badge of pride. Like his brother, Teclis was the best and the worst of his folk made flesh.

I made a mistake. Somewhere, somehow… What did I miss? What factor did I overlook? The thoughts spiralled around and around, like leaves caught in a stiff breeze. Where did I go wrong? He examined the moment again and again, from every angle and facet.

He could still feel the frustration of that moment – the winds of magic raging within the Vortex, even as Ulthuan crumbled beneath him, his ancient home sinking into the raging sea. He could feel the winds escaping, one by one, slipping through his grasp as quick as eels, and the mounting sense of loss. He had wagered everything on a single throw of the dice, and while he had not lost, he hadn’t won either.

His hands tightened on his staff. He knew every groove and contour of it by touch, and he had worked magics into it since he had first taken a knife to the length of wood in which it had hidden. The staff was as much a part of him as one of his limbs. It was warm to the touch, and the pale wood shone with a soft light. The residual power of the lore of Light, the one wind until recently within his grasp, coiled within the core of his staff, where it had slumbered until he’d found the one on whom he would bestow it. The one whom he had resurrected and transformed into the Incarnate of Light, a living embodiment of Hysh, the White Wind of magic.

Oh my brother, what have I made of you? What have I done to you? What have I done for you? The latter question was easier to answer than the former. His sins in that regard were ever at the foreground of his thoughts. Tyrion, his brother, had died, consumed by the curse of their mutual bloodline, his body and soul twisted by the madness of Khaine. And it had happened by Teclis’s design.

It had always been Tyrion’s destiny to become the Incarnate of Light. But if he had done so while still bearing the curse of Aenarion, that power – the power necessary to redeem the world – would have become corrupted, and bent to the will of Khaine… or worse things. Thus Teclis had been forced to manipulate his own brother, to set the one he loved best on a path that would inevitably lead to his death. That such an outcome had been the only way of ensuring that the curse exhausted itself did not ease Teclis’s guilt. Nor did the knowledge that Tyrion’s resurrection as the Incarnate of Light was the lynchpin of his plan to throw back the Rhana Dandra – to win the unwinnable war. All that mattered was that he had killed his brother and doomed the world.

But Teclis had brought Tyrion back from death’s bower; he had transported the frail, mummified remains of his twin across the world, from the shattered remnants of Ulthuan, leaving his people in the hands of Malekith.

He had come to Athel Loren, and watered the seeds of Tyrion-as-he-had-been within the Heart of Avelorn. When Tyrion had awoken from the slumber of death, Teclis had filled the emptiness left behind by Khaine’s passing with the Flame of Ulric, filling Tyrion’s still-weak limbs with new strength. He had damned a city and all of the innocents within its walls in order to give his brother a chance of survival, and he knew, in his heart, that he would make the same choice again. Tyrion had endured too much, and all of it at his brother’s hands, for Teclis not to. And then, when he was sure that Tyrion could stand it, he had given him the power of Hysh, and stirred the ashes of destiny to life once more.

He had given his brother back his life, and in return Tyrion had fought alongside his fellow Incarnates, Malekith and Alarielle, to save the Oak of Ages from the depredations of Chaos’s firstborn son, Be’lakor, and those dark spirits he had twisted to his foul cause. Now, in the aftermath of that desperate battle, the few survivors of another, equally terrible conflict had come seeking sanctuary under the boughs of Athel Loren. And with them had come two more Incarnates.

Through the staff, he could sense the presence of the five Incarnates, their power grounded in frail flesh and bone, and the briefest trace of a sixth. The world hummed with the weight of them. Their every word sent shockwaves through his senses, and he could taste the raw power that seeped from their pores.

Slowly, his eyes still closed, he turned his staff, the gem set in its tip moving like a serpent’s tongue, tasting the scent of each wind in turn. The gemstone was almost as old as the world itself, and it had taken him decades to work it and carve its facets to the proper shape. In his mind’s eye, he saw the radiance of each – the blinding aura of Hysh, the constantly-shifting morass of Ulgu, the throbbing heat of Ghyran, the roaring hunger of Aqshy, the dense power of Chamon and, last and least, the faint thrum of Azyr, the Blue Wind of magic. Light, Shadow, Life, Fire, Metal and the faintest traces of the Wind of the Heavens. Only two were missing… Shyish, the Wind of Death, and Ghur, the Wind of Beasts.

Of the two, he suspected he knew where the former had ended up – indeed, where else could it have gone? – but he had lost all hope of learning the location of the Wind of Beasts, or of the identity of its chosen host. The others, however, were here, right where they were supposed to be, and his regret was tempered by some small relief.

Nonetheless, he had failed. He had failed to control the Incarnates, failed to bestow the winds of magic on his chosen soldiers, and failed to bring them together in time. He had failed Ulthuan, he had failed his people, and now the world teetered on the knife-edge of oblivion. What remains of it, at any rate, he thought. The island-realm of the high elves was gone, lost to the swirling waters of the Great Ocean; the blood-slicked stones of Naggaroth were now little more than a haunt for cannibals and monsters; and Athel Loren was an inhospitable refuge for what remained of the elven peoples.

The elves were not alone in their doom, however. The ancient temple-cities of Lustria were no more, consumed in fires from the sky, the fate of their inhabitants unknown. The dwarfs had fared no better; their greatest holds had been all but overrun by skaven and worse, and those that remained had barred their gates in a futile effort to wait out the end of all things.

The realms of men had suffered as well. Bretonnia was a haunted wasteland, overrun by daemons and monsters despite the best efforts of its defenders. The lands of the south were gone, erased by the rampaging hordes of the ratmen. Kislev had been stripped to the bone by the hordes of Chaos, its people slaughtered or driven into the frozen wilderness to die. And the Empire, the last hope of the human race, was all but gone, its greatest cities taken by the enemy or reduced to plague-haunted ruins.

The enormity of it all threatened to overcome him, and would have, had events not conspired to bring the Incarnates together at last. He had doomed the world by his actions, his carelessness, but there was still a chance to salvage something. There was still a chance to weather the storm of Chaos, and throw back the Everchosen. And while there was a chance, Teclis would not surrender to despair. He could not.

‘Teclis.’

Teclis opened his eyes. A ring of expectant faces met his sight. He took note of some of them – the newcomers had only been allowed a few representatives. The Emperor, Karl Franz. Duke Jerrod of Quenelles. Gotri Hammerson, runesmith of Zhufbar. Balthasar Gelt, wizard and Incarnate. And a white-haired knight, who was the Emperor’s bodyguard. Something about the latter drew his attention. The man looked cold, as if he had been doused in ice-water, and when he caught Teclis looking at him, his face twisted, just for a moment, into a snarl. Teclis blinked, and the expression was gone. He hesitated, suddenly uncertain. ‘What would you wish of me, Everqueen?’ he asked, looking at Alarielle.

The Everqueen had been a living symbol of Isha, the mother-goddess of the elves, in better times. But her beauty had been transfigured into something terrifying since she had become the host for the Wind of Life. No more the nurturer, Alarielle had become instead the incarnation of creation and destruction, of life’s beginnings and endings. The trees of the Eternal Glade shuddered and twitched in time to her heartbeat, her breath was in the wind, and in her voice was the rush and crash of the brooks and rivers.

‘What I wish, Loremaster, and what I require are two separate things,’ Alarielle said. Teclis knew she meant no insult, but even so, the coldness of her tone was almost too much for him to bear. Ever since she had given up the Heart of Avelorn to help resurrect Tyrion she had become withdrawn, as if the love she had once borne for his brother had become as dust.

‘Not Loremaster,’ he said. ‘Not any more. Ulthuan is gone, and the Tower of Hoeth with it.’ He spat the words with more bitterness than he’d intended. You have no right to bitterness, he thought, not when your actions are the cause.

‘But you still live, brother,’ Tyrion said, softly. ‘We still live. Our people survive, thanks to you. Ulthuan is gone, but while one asur lives, its spirit persists.’

‘Oh yes, very pretty. And while one asur lives, or druchii or asrai for that matter, I am still their king, as much good as it does any of us,’ Malekith interjected, his voice a harsh, metallic rasp. Like Alarielle, he had been bound to one of the winds of magic. In his case, it had been Ulgu, and the coiling, cunning lore of Shadows suited Malekith to his core. He was less a being of flesh than of darkness now, stinking of burned iron and radiating cold. ‘And as king, I would have answers. Why do you come to us, human?’ Malekith asked. ‘Why do you dare to come to Athel Loren?’

‘Where else is there to go?’ Karl Franz said. ‘The world has grown hostile, and sanctuary is hard to come by. Old allies find themselves equally hard-pressed.’ He indicated Hammerson and Jerrod. ‘Our greatest cities are in ruins, and our people are in disarray. Our last redoubt, Averheim, is dust beneath the boots of the world’s enemy. I am an emperor without an empire, as are you,’ Karl Franz said, looking at Malekith.

‘Look around you, human… my empire still stands,’ Malekith said. He stood and spread his arms. ‘The enemy have broken themselves on it again and again. But we still stand.’

Karl Franz smiled. ‘If this is what you call an empire, I begin to wonder why Finubar feared you.’

Shadows coiled and writhed around Malekith’s form as he went rigid with anger. ‘You dare…?’ he hissed. ‘I will pluck the flesh from your bones, king of nothing.’

‘Yes, for that has ever been the way of your folk. The world burns, and you can think of nothing better to do than to squabble in the ashes.’ Karl Franz gestured sharply. ‘You would rather kill the messenger than hear the message. You would turn away allies, because in your arrogance you mistake strength for weakness and support for burden.’

‘What would you know of us, human?’ Alarielle said. Teclis glanced at her. Her features were perfectly composed, but he thought he detected the trace of a smile on her face.

‘I know enough,’ Karl Franz said. He turned, his eyes scanning the Eternal Glade. ‘I know that what your folk call the “Rhana Dandra” has begun – indeed, it began several years ago. I know that Ulthuan is gone, and that the Great Vortex is no more.’ His eyes sought out Teclis. Teclis twitched. The Emperor’s gaze revealed nothing, but the elf felt a glimmer of suspicion.

Why had Azyr sought out Karl Franz? The winds were drawn to their hosts as like was drawn to like, but the Emperor had, to the best of his knowledge, never displayed the least affinity for the lore of the Heavens. Teclis forced the thought aside. It mattered little now, in any event. The power was gone, torn from him. Teclis shook himself and said, ‘And do you know why?’

Karl Franz looked at him. ‘No,’ he said, and Teclis knew it was a lie.

‘Oh, well, let Teclis illuminate you, eh?’ Malekith said. He had sunk back onto his throne, his anger already but a memory. Teclis looked at him, and Malekith gestured sharply. ‘As your king, I command you to tell the savages of your crimes, schemer.’ Malekith laughed. ‘Tell our guests how you gambled the world, and lost.’

Teclis looked at the thin, dark shape of the creature once known as the Witch-King, sitting on his throne of roots and branches beside the Everqueen. The creature he had helped crown Eternity King, and had gifted with more power than he deserved. Malekith met his glare, and Teclis knew that the former ruler of the dark elves was smiling behind his metal mask.

Teclis used his staff to help himself to his feet, and he pulled the tattered remnants of his authority about him. He looked at the newcomers. Despite being bedraggled and bloodstained, they did not look beaten, and for that, Teclis thanked the fallen gods of his people. They would need every ounce of strength that they could muster for what was coming. He cleared his throat, and made ready to speak.

Before he could, however, a snarl ripped through the glade. A snarl that was achingly familiar, and utterly terrifying. He turned, and his searching gaze was met by a yellow, furious one. Beast eyes those, and blazing with intent. The temperature in the glade began to drop.

‘Thief!’ the white-haired knight roared, in a voice not his own. The Reiksguard shoved past the Emperor, and hurled himself towards Teclis, fingers hooked like claws.

‘Volker – no!’ the Emperor bellowed, reaching for his guard. The man slithered out of his grip.

With a curse, the dwarf, Hammerson made a grab for Volker. ‘Hold him back, lad, or it’s an arrow to the giblets for the lot of us,’ the dwarf roared at the Bretonnian as he wrapped his brawny arms around Volker’s legs. The Reiksguard fell sprawling and Jerrod sprang on top of him, armour rattling. Volker thrashed beneath them, howling like a wolf. Teclis stumbled back, one hand pressed to his throat, his face pale with shock.

Volker was cold; colder than Teclis thought it was possible for a man to become and survive. The air around the struggling figures became silvered with frost, and the grass beneath them turned stiff and shattered. Jerrod’s teeth were chattering, and Hammerson was cursing. Volker glared at Teclis, his eyes yellow and bestial. ‘Thief,’ he snarled again, and Teclis shuddered, pulling his cloak about himself. He had expected this, though he’d hoped it would be otherwise. Ulric was not the sort of god to pass quietly into oblivion, even if it would be better for all concerned.

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Yes, I am a thief. And your moment has passed, old wolf. You are dead, and I will not let you sacrifice a life merely to take mine.’ He lifted his staff, and the words to an incantation rose in his mind. But before he could speak, Karl Franz stepped between them. Though the Wind of the Heavens had been stripped from him, there was still something yet in him that made Teclis wary. A lurking strength, as unlike his own as Tyrion’s was. He lowered his hands. ‘I did what I had to do,’ he said, without quite knowing why, as he met the Emperor’s gaze. ‘I did what was necessary.’

‘And would you do it again?’ Karl Franz said, his voice a quiet rumble.

Teclis hesitated. He glanced towards Tyrion. ‘In a heartbeat,’ he said.

The Emperor nodded slowly, as if he had expected no other answer. He turned and looked down at his bodyguard. The man thrashed and howled, fighting to be free of his captors. Veins bulged on his neck, and froth coated his lips. Karl Franz looked back at Teclis. ‘Can you help him?’ he asked.

Instead of replying, Teclis knelt. Volker’s body twitched and his face seemed to elongate, becoming monstrous and unformed. Teclis stretched out his hand and plunged his fingers into the wet chill that obscured the man’s face. He tried to grasp the shard of Ulric’s essence that had made its home in the man, even as he had grasped the Flame in Middenheim. But this was different. It was no mindless flux of power, but rather a desperate consciousness, savage and determined. It struggled against him, and he heard Volker wail in agony.

Images flooded his mind. He saw Middenheim burn, felt the heat of the flames, and the blistering cold as the sliver of Ulric’s might was pressed into Volker’s soul. Fear, weakness, fatigue, all were buried beneath the cold, so that Volker might survive the sack of the city and escape to bring warning to Averheim. Even in death, the wolf-god had been determined to watch over his chosen people. Sigmar might have been their greatest god, but Ulric had been their first.

But now, with warnings delivered, there was one last task. Ulric had known that somehow, someway, Teclis would cross paths with the men of the Empire once more, before the end of all things. And he was determined to have his revenge. Teclis felt a sudden, stabbing pain, as if teeth were tearing into his flesh, and he jerked his hand back with a hiss. Steam rose from his blue-tinged flesh as he cradled the wounded limb to his chest. Alarielle and Malekith’s guards started forward, but the Eternity King slammed a fist down on his throne. ‘Be still,’ he grated. ‘No more of our people’s blood shall be spent in payment of his schemes. Let him survive or fall on his own.’

Volker flung off his captors. ‘You killed them, thief,’ Volker snarled, lunging for him again. His voice echoed strangely amongst the trees, with a sound like ice-clad branches snapping. As he fell back, Teclis saw Tyrion start forwards, one hand on his blade. He waved a hand, stopping his brother before he could interfere. This is my fight, brother, my burden, Teclis thought. ‘You killed my city – my people – you killed the world. For what?’ Volker growled, in a dead god’s voice.

‘For him,’ Teclis said, indicating his brother. ‘For them. I sacrificed your people for my own, and I would do it again, a thousand times over, if I had to.’ He extended his staff to hold Volker at bay. ‘Malekith was right. I gambled the world. But I did not lose, for here you all stand… Incarnates, gods in all but name, ready to throw back the end of all things.’ He made a fist. ‘I tore apart the Great Vortex, and sought to ground the winds of magic in living champions, who would become mighty enough, as a group, to defy the Chaos Gods themselves.’

He saw Balthasar Gelt nod, as if a question had suddenly been answered. The wizard said, ‘But not all of the winds are accounted for – what of the Winds of Beasts, and of Death?’

Volker threw back his head and howled, before Teclis could even attempt to reply. The air quivered with the sound. He ripped his sword from its sheath and swung a wild blow at Teclis. The sound of steel on steel followed the echoes of the howl, as the Emperor interposed himself, and his runefang, between the maddened knight and his prey. ‘No,’ Karl Franz said. ‘No, the time for vengeance is done.’

‘Who are you to gainsay me?’ Volker roared. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and froth dotted his patchy beard. He strained against Karl Franz, trying to untangle their blades.

‘I am your Emperor, Wendel Volker. And that should be all that needs to be said.’ The Emperor spoke quietly as he leaned into the locked swords. ‘Now sheathe your blade.’ The two men locked eyes, and for a moment, Teclis wondered which would win out. Then Volker staggered back and slumped, his sword falling to the grass. He sank down, and the frost that coated his armour began to melt. The Emperor dropped to one knee and placed a hand on Volker’s shoulder. Teclis could still feel the wrath of the wolf-god, or whatever was left of him, retreating, slinking back into hiding. It was not gone, but its fury was abated, for now.

Before anyone could speak to break the silence that followed, the trees gave out a sudden rattle, and a wind rose up, causing the leaves to make a sound like murmuring voices. Teclis stiffened. While he was no native of the forest, he knew well what that sound meant. It was a warning.

A moment later, a member of the Eternal Guard moved out of the trees to Alarielle’s side and whispered something into her ear. Her eyes widened and she stood quickly. She looked around. ‘It seems that you are not the only refugees seeking sanctuary within the forest,’ she said. Her voice was strained, and her skin pale. ‘An army approaches the edge of the Wyrdrioth.’

Teclis’s grip on his staff tightened. He could feel the presence of another Incarnate – and one far more powerful than any of those now standing in the Eternal Glade. Together, they might equal him, but separately, they stood no chance. Even here, in the living heart of Athel Loren, he could feel the malignant, suffocating pulse of Shyish – the Wind of Death – and the one who had become its host.

‘An army?’ Malekith snarled. ‘Who would dare?’

‘The Wind of Death,’ Teclis said, before Alarielle could speak. He bowed his head. ‘It is the Incarnate of Death.’ He looked up, meeting the gaze of each Incarnate in turn.

‘The Undying King has come to Athel Loren.’

Seven

The Wyrdrioth, Northern Edge of Athel Loren

‘Well, they appear to have prepared quite the welcome for us, I must admit,’ Mannfred von Carstein said as he lounged insouciantly in Ashigaroth’s saddle. The abyssal steed growled in reply. Mannfred patted the creature’s armour-plated neck, and glanced around at his bodyguard of Drakenhof Templars. The armoured vampires sat astride their cannibal steeds, awaiting his orders. Or so they wish me to believe, he thought. His good humour evaporated. He turned back towards the forest and ran his palm over his hairless scalp.

If he’d been human, what he saw before him might have taken his breath away. Banners of all colours and designs were raised together as, for the first time in generations, elves, dwarfs and men prepared to fight as one. The battle-lines had been arranged before the tree line, barring the army of the dead from the Wyrdrioth.

If he’d had any intention of taking his forces into the forest, such a display might have annoyed him. He turned in his saddle, taking in the bleak host which was spread out behind him. The banners of the dead were thick among the pine-crags. An army of worm-picked bone and tattered wings, lit by baleful witch-fires, the dead had spilled down from the mountains in their thousands, their every step precise, guided by a single, crushing will. The will of Nagash.

Mannfred snapped his teeth in frustration. In the years since he had aided Arkhan the Black in resurrecting the Undying King, he had seen everything for which he had worked since his resurrection from the stinking mire of Hel Fenn turn to ashes. Every scheme, every triumph, gone like dust on the wind. All of it ground beneath the remorseless heel of Nagash, as the Undying King prepared for the final war.

Even Sylvania was no longer his – Nagash had given the blighted province over to Neferata to defend, while he marched to war with his remaining lieutenants. Speaking of which… where is the bag of bones? He twisted about, hunting for any sign of his rival. Arkhan was never very far from Nagash these days. Too, he seemed somehow… diminished by the association. As if Nagash’s will had completely obliterated his own. In and of itself, the neutering of his old rival didn’t bother Mannfred all that much. But the implications of it were unpleasant, to say the least.

I’d rather not become a mindless automaton, thank you very much, he thought. Such a fate was beneath him. Then, so was the current state of affairs. Still, reduced circumstances often meant increased opportunities. And there were plenty of the latter, in the wake of the destruction of the Black Pyramid.

He smiled thinly, relishing the memory. At the time, it had not been so enjoyable. But in the aftermath, with several weeks between then and now, he had come to see it for the opportunity it was. A sizeable Chaos army, composed of the rotting dead, giggling plague-daemons and howling barbarians, had smashed through Nagash’s defences with a single-minded determination that put the Undying King’s own forces to shame. Even worse, the enemy had been commanded by old friends and absent companions – the spectral abomination known as the Nameless, and Isabella von Carstein, newly resurrected and as unhinged as ever. One of them would have been bad enough, but the presence of both had made a bad situation all the worse.

The Nameless had ever been treacherous; the dark spirit was a thing fuelled by spite and treachery, more so than any vampire, and its questions and petulant demands had been a constant annoyance. Why Nagash had brought it back, when there were any number of appropriate champions to choose from, Mannfred couldn’t say. The Great Necromancer could stir the waters of death and bring any spirit bobbing to the surface – why not bring back Konrad or one of the other von Carsteins? Anyone other than Vlad, he thought. But no, Nagash had seen fit to bend the Nameless to his will, and then forgotten about it until the creature had returned in the service of a new master.

And Isabella had come with it. Hadn’t that been a surprise, he thought. Of all the von Carsteins he had certainly never expected to see her. Indeed, he’d half expected that Nagash had hidden her soul away in some phylactery somewhere, so as to better control Vlad. It was what Mannfred would have done, had he ever conceived of such a ploy. Unlike Nagash, however, he had no illusions as to just how uncontrollable Vlad truly was. Or had been, Mannfred thought, not without some amusement.

Sylvania had resisted the End Times until that point, inviolate and unchanged. Now, it was a reeking ruin, and what little life it had once had was gone, snuffed by the contest between Nagash and Nurgle. And more than one of Nagash’s lieutenants had been claimed in that conflagration – Luthor Harkon, gone at last to join his treacherous kinsman Walach, and the mighty Vlad von Carstein himself, brought low by the woman he loved.

Mannfred couldn’t restrain a laugh. Goodbye, goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow, he thought gleefully. So soon returned to the dust where you belong, old man. How the Chaos Gods had got their talons in Isabella’s twisted soul he didn’t know, but she had been the most effective weapon they’d employed to date. She had distracted them all, even Nagash, while the skaven had burrowed beneath Nagash’s nightmare pyramid and claimed a debt that the Undying King had owed them since the razing of Nagashizzar.

It had been a plan worthy of… well, him. He scratched his chin and chuckled, studying the ranks of the living. Of course, if he had been in charge, he would have made sure Nagash had been returned to his well-deserved oblivion, one way or another. Instead, all the Dark Gods had managed to do was stir the tiger from his lair. And now the predator had come to make common cause with his prey, against the fire that threatened to claim the forest around them. Not that the prey knew that just yet. The smell of fear on the wind was delightful.

‘Ah Vlad, if only you could be here – at last, he follows your sage counsel. Too little, too late,’ Mannfred murmured.

‘You sound cheerful for one who has just had his territories stripped from him,’ a familiar voice said. Mannfred twisted about in his saddle and looked down at Arkhan the Black as the latter pushed through the front rank of corpses. ‘I thought you might make your move at last, when he made Neferata castellan of Sylvania.’

Mannfred’s smile faded. ‘My loyalty is as solid as the bedrock beneath our feet, liche.’

Arkhan’s skull tipped back, and a weird scuttling sound rose from his fleshless jaws. Mannfred’s lips peeled back from his fangs. The liche was laughing at him. ‘Oh, be silent, you withered husk,’ he snapped.

‘You are like a spoiled child, angry at having a favoured toy snatched from his grasp,’ Arkhan rasped, staring towards the army of the living. ‘And it is only fitting that Neferata rule… She was born for it, and it would take all four gods of Chaos to shift her. Besides which, there are now more Nehekharan nobles in your precious province than the backward Sylvanian aristocracy you and Vlad dote on. Nagash took the Great Land from them, and now they will have Sylvania in recompense.’

‘Yes, because gods forfend that they should be discomfited in any way. A fragile breed, your desert princes,’ Mannfred spat. Arkhan was right, which only made it worse. The customs of the kings and queens of Nehekhara were alien to him, and without Nagash there to quell them, they would revolt against him the moment he tried to impose his will. For now, at least. He pushed the thought aside and hunkered forwards in his saddle.

‘Think of it, Arkhan. Few men, living or dead, can say that they have seen the green-vaulted reaches of Athel Loren. What secrets must linger in that wild wood? What secrets might you or I rip from it? All we have to do is…’

‘Parley,’ Arkhan said.

Mannfred snorted. ‘Of course. Forgive me. For a moment, I forgot we had an army of but thousands at our back. So of course we must parley, lest their few hundred wreak unmentionable havoc.’ He looked slyly at Arkhan. ‘Why the sudden change of heart, you think? Why now, after all this time, does our lord and master stoop to address the cattle?’ He smiled and tapped his nose. ‘Vampires are very good at smelling weakness, liche. We can taste death on the air.’ He leaned down, and met Arkhan’s flickering gaze unflinchingly. ‘Just how badly did losing the Black Pyramid hurt him, eh?’

‘Why not ask him yourself?’ Arkhan said.

‘I thought I was,’ Mannfred said. He turned away. ‘In any event, who’s it to be, then? Who’ll act as herald, to bring word of our peaceful intentions to yon foemen?’ He sat back. ‘You, perhaps? Or one of your Nehekharan addle-pates? Perhaps that loudmouthed fool, Antar of Mahrak? He’s a favourite of yours, is he not?’

‘You will do it,’ Arkhan said, not looking at him.

‘Will I?’

Arkhan said nothing. Mannfred sniffed, stood up in his saddle, and craned his neck, searching for the Undying King. Nagash was hard to miss – he stood at the centre of the army, a skeletal giant surrounded by a flickering corona that changed colour by turns, becoming green, then black, then purple. He was the corrupt heart and dark will of an army that was little more than a single, charnel entity. The hooded and cloaked forms of a dozen necromancers surrounded him as ever, each one lending his will to ease Nagash’s burdens.

Nine heavy tomes, each filled with Nagash’s darkest wisdoms, floated around him, pages flapping with a sound like the snapping of jaws. The grimoires were connected to Nagash by heavy chains, and they strained at them like beasts at the leash. Moaning spirits swirled about him, blending together and breaking apart in a woeful dance of agony. There were men there, and elves and dwarfs, as well as other races. To die at Nagash’s hands was to not die at all, but instead be condemned to eternal servitude.

The wide skull, lit by its own internal flame, turned, and the blazing orbs that danced in its cavernous sockets brightened briefly. Nagash did not speak. He did not need to. Mannfred knew that Arkhan would not have spoken without Nagash’s permission. He turned and snapped Ashigaroth’s reins. The abyssal steed leapt into the air with a shriek, and hurtled towards the lines of the living.

He did not bother to attempt to conceal himself. As pre-eminent as he was in the sorcerous arts, those below were his match. The most powerful surviving sorcerers, wizards and necromancers in all the world, those not aligned with the Archenemy, were here in this place. The rest were dead, or hiding. Creatures like Zacharias the Everliving had perished, defying Nagash to the last, while monsters like Egrimm van Horstmann had been consumed by the ever-shifting tides of war and madness. Those who remained had chosen their hills to die on, and were gathering their strength for the storm to come.

Zacharias, at least, had made his end an entertaining one. He smiled as he thought of it – the sky had been wracked with spasms, and the Vanhaldenschlosse chewed to steaming wreckage by the confrontation between vampire and liche. Zacharias had held off Nagash’s army alone with only his magics for days, before Nagash had bestirred himself to end the conflict. There had been something personal in it, there at the end, Mannfred thought. As if the two knew one another, and there was some grudge between them. In the end Zacharias had perished at Nagash’s hands, strangled in the ruins of the Vanhaldenschlosse and his remains cast upon the pyre.

He leaned forwards, and Ashigaroth wailed like a lost soul as it hurtled over the heads of elves, dwarfs and men. Mannfred laughed as he let his steed indulge itself. Like him, the creature fed as much on fear as flesh, and there was precious little of the former left in a world so close to ultimate ruin. But while it lasted, he saw no harm in enjoying it.

He knew he was trusting in the curiosity, and perhaps even the misguided honour, of the living. And that trust was not misplaced. No arrow, bullet or spell assailed him as his abyssal steed dropped to the top of a towering boulder just before the line of raised shields. He sat for a moment, relishing the attention. He had moved in the shadows for so long, waging little wars, that he had almost forgotten what it was like to be the focus of so much fear. Once, long ago, he had faced men and dwarfs arrayed similarly. His enjoyment lessened as he recalled how the battle of Hel Fenn had gone. For all his power, he had been struck down in what should have been his moment of ultimate triumph.

And now, he was merely one nightmare amongst many. Mannfred shook his head, and smiled. ‘Ah well,’ he murmured. ‘Best to be about it.’ He straightened and said, ‘So – who will it be, then?’ His voice carried easily. The living were almost as silent as the dead. Mannfred grinned. ‘Come now, don’t be shy. We are all men of the world, and is not my presence a guarantee of good conduct? Who will it be? The Emperor without an empire? Or one of the exiles of fair Ulthuan, who now infest these shores like field mice? Come, come, step forward, and sign thy name into history as the one who stretched out a hand in fellowship to the Undying King,’ he said. ‘You have called, and we have come. Do not turn us away now, at light’s last gleaming.’

It was a pretty speech, equal parts mocking and inviting. And it had the desired effect: a tall figure, clad in darkly gleaming armour, stepped forwards. ‘Say what you have come to say, abomination, and then begone,’ said Malekith. His armour’s death-mask rendered his words strangely metallic, and Mannfred felt a chill. Here was one like Nagash, bound to some greater power. He could smell the raw essence of magic rising from the Witch-King, and for a moment, he felt his confidence waver.

Mannfred leaned in. ‘And if I choose to tarry?’ he spat.

‘Then we will destroy you, and forget you,’ said a second masked individual. Robes rustling, Balthasar Gelt stepped up to join Malekith. ‘Your master has a surplus of puppets, vampire. One more or less will hardly change things.’

Mannfred smiled lazily. Though he could sense the power that now held Gelt in its glittering clutches, he was on firmer ground with Vlad’s former pet. ‘Ah, Gelt. Twice-traitor, first to your Empire and then to Vlad.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor Vlad… He could have used your help, you know. There at the end, I mean.’

Gelt stiffened, and Mannfred laughed. ‘And now, here you stand.’ He leered at Alarielle, who stood behind Malekith. ‘I wouldn’t trust him, my lady. Yon poltroon is the very best of serpents. Why, his heart is rotted clean through with guile and malice.’

‘Something you would know intimately,’ Karl Franz said. He didn’t look at Mannfred as he spoke, and the latter knew, without turning to look, that the Emperor was staring at Nagash. And that, even more worryingly, Nagash was staring back at him.

Incensed, Mannfred glared at the man. ‘I know only that you are a relic of a newly dead world. What use have you now, eh? A statesman without a state, a tyrant stripped of his power. A dead man would be more use than you, Karl Franz, last of the rotten house and failed potentate that you are. I dub thee Fumbler of the Faith and Lord Lackwit,’ Mannfred said, making the sign of the hammer in mocking fashion. The Emperor looked at him, and Mannfred lowered his hand. Smoke rose from his fingers, and he shook his hand to disperse it. Even now, the symbols of Sigmar held some power over him.

‘You have no power in that regard, thankfully,’ Karl Franz said. ‘Only one vampire was named elector, and he does not stand before me.’

Mannfred blinked. For a second, he was tempted to cross the distance between them and tear out the man’s throat. But he restrained himself. Now was not the time to be drawn into foolishness. He licked his lips and looked at Malekith, pointedly ignoring the human. ‘You commanded that I speak my piece, so I shall, mighty elf-king.’ He swept out his arm to indicate the maggoty host stretched across the horizon. ‘Great Nagash, Lord of the Underworld, Undying King and Supreme Lord of All Dead Things, wishes to parley.’

Arkhan the Black watched Mannfred confront the last rulers of the living world, and thought how, under different circumstances, the army spread out around him would be here for different reasons. Instead of a triumphal siege, however, they had come seeking allies in a last-ditch gamble.

The thought elicited some amusement. In life, he had been a notorious gambler, and a champion of debt; that was how Nagash had first caught him up in his schemes of empire. And here he was at the last, wagering what little he still had in one last great throw of the dice. He reached up and touched a charred spot on his robe. The black mark was in the shape of a hand – the hand of the Everchild, Aliathra of Ulthuan. In her final moments, before Arkhan had slit her throat, the elven princess had struck him. Something had passed between them, though he could not say what it had been. Whatever it was – curse, blessing or something in between – it was still within him. And it was growing stronger.

Arkhan looked up, examining the wheel of stars and the tortured heavens. They held no answers. The music of the spheres had become discordant and painful. Auguries showed only falsehood, and the oracular spirits spat gibberish, even when Nagash himself questioned them. The underworld was in disarray, and the gods of men were dead or diminished.

The Great Work was undone. An eternity of careful preparation, of strife and conflict, all for nothing. The thought did not weigh as heavily as he’d feared it might. In truth, it was worth it, if only to see the Undying King at a loss. Though his mind and soul had long been bartered away to Nagash, some flicker of the man he had been yet remained. Some sliver of that cynical, acid-tongued wretch, with his black teeth and gaudy robes, still lingered in the husk of him, and was, perhaps, growing stronger as Nagash’s attentions were diverted to more important matters. And that fragment, that ghost of a ghost, was amused to no end by the predicament that Nagash had found himself in.

‘Irony is a beautiful thing, if you are not its victim,’ someone said, close beside him. Arkhan looked around. He was surrounded by a flock of robed and hooded adherents – liches, vampires, necromancers – all students of the Great Work. Mortuary priests, disciples of poor, dead W’soran, and those few surviving living practitioners of the Corpse Geometries, all gathered together now at his discretion. But the one who had spoken was none of those things – he was as unique as Arkhan himself. He wore a hooded cloak, concealing his identity, but there was no hiding the warrior’s build, or the aristocratic posture.

‘I was never one to indulge in the misfortunes of others,’ Arkhan said.

The hooded figure gave a bark of laughter. ‘You forget – I have played dice with you, Arkhan. I know exactly what sort of man you were – and still are.’

‘And what sort of man are you?’

‘One who honours his debts.’

Arkhan turned away. ‘It is a shame that you could not reach Averheim in time. You might have turned the tide.’

The hooded figure looked at him. ‘It is a shame that our lord and master failed to heed me when I suggested that we muster in defence of the Empire. And now look where we are. The last place any of us, especially him, wanted to be.’

‘Which him are you referring to? Nagash… or your hapless progeny?’

‘Both, I think,’ Vlad von Carstein said. ‘But Nagash especially. Mannfred knows that failure breeds opportunity as well as, or better than, success in the right circumstances. Nagash, I think, does not.’ The vampire looked towards the towering shape of Nagash, his expression speculative.

‘Nagash cannot conceive of failure. To fail would imply that he made a mistake. To admit that would unravel all that he is, was and will be,’ Arkhan said.

‘And would that be so bad?’

Arkhan leaned against his staff, skull pressed to its length. ‘For better or worse, Nagash is as close to a god as remains to this dying world. To remove his certainty would be to cripple him, and by extension, condemn us all.’

‘Arrogance set him on his path, and arrogance will see him through,’ Vlad said. He shook his head and sighed. ‘More and more, I wonder if Mannfred is not his truest servant after all, given the similarities between them.’

‘Mannfred is a fool. Nagash is not.’ Arkhan looked at Vlad. ‘Why have you not informed him of your survival? He believes that you met your end in Sylvania, at your paramour’s hands.’

‘To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that he still thinks I’m dead,’ Vlad murmured. He frowned, and for a moment Arkhan considered asking him about Isabella. That the Chaos Gods had brought her back was of little surprise to him. Nothing was beyond them, and such a resurrection was merely a parlour trick for such powers. But he decided against it. What Vlad thought of it was unimportant. All that mattered was that he served.

‘He has never been very observant, where his desires are concerned. He wishes for you to be dead, and so you are,’ Arkhan said. ‘That is his greatest weakness, and greatest strength. His lies propel him on, fuelling the arrogance that lends him strength.’

‘Like Nagash,’ Vlad said, with the smile of one who believes he’s scored a point.

Arkhan shifted uncomfortably. He did not reply. Let the vampire think what he liked. In all the years he’d spent duelling with Mannfred, he’d forgotten how much more deadly the first von Carstein was. Mannfred, for all his faults, was not a philosopher. He was pragmatic, and focused on the material world. A craftsman of death, rather than an artist. For all his pretensions of nobility and all of his insistence that the world’s throne was his by right of blood, Mannfred was still a callow, petty creature.

Vlad, on the other hand, was anything but. He had wrung knowledge from the writings of Nagash without the benefit of a tutor, learning through trial and error. He had fought for everything he claimed, and claimed nothing he had not shed blood in pursuit of. Mannfred schemed towards a single, final goal, like an arrow travelling towards its target. Vlad, however, was more like a sword, capable of more than simply carving out an enemy’s heart.

‘Was I ever as arrogant as Nagash?’ Vlad asked. ‘Was I ever as blind as Mannfred?’

Arkhan looked at the vampire. ‘You tell me,’ he said, after a time.

‘Neferata certainly thought so,’ Vlad said, and chuckled. He rubbed the heavy ring that decorated his finger. ‘Never could abide arrogance, that one.’

‘No… she cannot.’ Arkhan turned away from him. Vlad smiled.

‘She and Isabella have – had – much in common. I thought, once upon a time, that I could mould her into the image of the queen. When she resisted, when she turned my arrogance back on me, hissing and spitting, I knew that there was no need. The first time she raised her voice to me in anger, I felt my heart ignite.’ Vlad cocked his head. ‘Was it that way with you, gambler? Prisoner, slave, lover… so many masks between you two. And now, shorn of all pretence…’

Arkhan said nothing. Vlad waited. When no reply seemed forthcoming, he sighed and shrugged. ‘And that is the shame of it all. Love, that rarest of alchemies, is lost so easily when the wind shifts and the fire is sighted on the horizon. Luckily, for some, adversity only adds strength to that bond.’

Arkhan turned to see what Vlad was looking at. Behind them were arrayed the Drakenhof Templars. Loyal once to Mannfred, they had, by and large, honoured their oaths to serve the master of the von Carstein line, and had bent knee to Vlad upon his resurrection. Of the inner circle, only a few remained. Count Nyktolos had met his fate on the sands of the Great Desert; and the burly monster Alberacht Nictus, the Reaper of Drakenhof, had died defending that infamous pile, and the scores of huddled Sylvanian peasantry sheltering within it, against daemons more monstrous even than himself.

Of those he had known, and who had aided him in restoring Nagash, only two remained – Erikan Crowfiend, and Elize von Carstein. The morose Bretonnian, in his dark patchwork armour, sat close beside the crimson-haired von Carstein woman, both of them mounted on cannibal horses from the Sternieste stables. He saw that their hands were not-quite touching, fingers barely intertwined. Love was not forbidden among the dead, for Nagash had little understanding of it, save as a goad. But it was rare. Vlad watched them surreptitiously, his eyes unreadable.

If he had been capable of it, Arkhan might have smiled. Instead, he let his gaze play over the other templars. Von Carsteins, most of them, though there were a few who bore on their faces the stamp of other primogenitors. Hard-eyed Blood Dragons, cunning Lahmians, even one or two brutal Strigoi, wearing tattered armour and cradling crude weapons. And one other, her face composed and so still as to resemble marble.

Eldyra of Tiranoc was an elf, or had been. She was the only survivor of Eltharion the Grim’s doomed rescue attempt on behalf of the Everchild, she whose life essence had been used to quicken Nagash’s spirit from its dark bower in those final moments at the Nine Daemons. She had fallen in that last, fateful battle, but Mannfred had been seized by one of his distressing whims, and had shown her mercy. Of sorts, at any rate.

Now, she sat astride her horse, as undead as the rest of the Drakenhof Templars, and as bloodthirsty as any of Mannfred’s get. The elf noticed his attentions, and met his gaze. Her eyes held no hint as to her thoughts. As he watched, Elize von Carstein leaned over and murmured something to Eldyra, and the elf looked away.

‘Not the first mistake Mannfred has ever made, but it might be his last,’ Vlad said. Arkhan looked at him. Vlad gestured to Eldyra. ‘Still, I am impressed that it was done at all. A rare thing, to see one of our sort crafted from alien flesh.’

‘Your sort. Not mine,’ Arkhan said.

‘But even you have to admire the artistry of it. Men are born to die. They are well on their way to being corpses with the first, squalling breath that they draw. But to take a thing of life, a thing which will not know death, and to twist it so… Ah, well.’ Vlad shook his head. ‘Mannfred was always creative. For a limited value of the term.’

‘Yes. And foolish. He is taunting them,’ Arkhan said. Vlad followed his gaze, and frowned.

‘Well, that’s hardly a surprise, is it?’ He chuckled. ‘It has ever been his nature to be imprudent. That arrogance you mentioned earlier, I think. He cannot conceive of a defeat or a treachery of which he is not the author.’

‘Then he is in for a rude surprise,’ Arkhan said. He looked at Vlad, and then past him, at Nagash. The Undying King paid no attention to the living or the dead, instead communing with the roiling tempest of souls which had made him its aleph in the moments following his consumption of the gods of Nehekhara so many months ago. Arkhan cut his eyes back to Vlad. ‘You are certain, then?’

‘If I weren’t, I would have said nothing. I would not be hiding myself from him,’ Vlad said softly. He frowned. ‘Mannfred is a poison, and he always has been. He is treacherous and uncontrollable. He knows no master save ambition, and he listens to no counsel save that which is born in the black froth which passes for his mind. And he is the author of too much of the tragedy, too much of the grief which afflicts them. Though I am loath to admit it, Mannfred shook the pillars of heaven and earth. And the only way to patch the resulting cracks is… well.’ He smiled sadly. The emotion, Arkhan noted, did not reach his eyes.

‘He will be missed,’ Arkhan said.

Middenheim, City of the White Wolf

Canto Unsworn rode through the ruined streets of Middenheim on his gibbering horse and tried to ignore the shrieks and screams that even now, a year after the fact, still rang out at odd intervals from the shadowed recesses of the fallen city. He also ignored the moans of the beaten, battered shape which he had dragged behind his horse across half of the city. Ignoring the former was easier than ignoring the latter.

A crackling bolt of sorcerous lightning hammered into a nearby building, causing a section of it to collapse and a cloud of dust to wash across the street. Canto looked up. The skies overhead still boiled with madness. The fury of the maelstrom above was matched by the destruction below. In the wake of the slaughter wrought by the victorious Chaos forces, the city had been scoured of what life it had once possessed. Archaon’s forces ran riot through the ruins. Corpses had been piled into heaps in every square and plaza, unstable mountains of carrion that grew until they rivalled the city walls in sheer height. Many of these had been set on fire, and now a pall of stinking charnel smoke hung over sections of the city. Northmen, skaven and beastmen alike looted freely and with abandon.

Canto knew that it was only the will of Archaon which kept the disparate parts of the horde from turning on each other. For the servants of the Dark Gods, victory was as perilous as defeat, and the only safety was in battle unending. Already, the knives had come out; more than one ambitious chieftain or champion had made a try for Archaon’s throat. Their bodies now hung above the city’s gatehouses, beside the bodies of the Fellwolf Brotherhood, the Gryphon Legion and any others who had elicited the Three-Eyed King’s displeasure.

The latter had been the last of the organised resistance within the city to fall. The hardy Kislevite knights, led by their Grand Master, Dostov, had holed up in the House of Coin, alongside the survivors of the various mercenary companies who had fought for Middenheim. Surrounded and besieged in an ill-provisioned prison of their own making, Dostov and his followers had nonetheless held out for several weeks. When the break-out attempt came, the Gryphon Legion – or what was left of it – had led the way, thundering towards the northern causeway and the viaduct beyond. Those who made it had found themselves fighting upriver against the warbands which were even then still streaming into the city.

Now Dostov hung from a stake on the northern gatehouse, beside what was left of the Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf, Vilitreska the so-called Lord of the Flux, Fregnus the Pallid, and the Pox-Knight.

Canto hauled back on his mount’s reins, forcing it to stop as a pack of baying hounds loped across the street ahead. Through the smoke he thought he saw manlike shapes moving amongst them, and heard human voices mingled with the howling. Nearby, a nest of writhing tentacles and pulsing flesh that had once been a carriage house emitted a soft, wheezing moan, as if in mockery of the mortal wreckage Canto dragged behind him.

‘Quiet, Ghular,’ Canto said, as he twisted about in his saddle. ‘Unless you want me to take your other hand.’ The bedraggled shape shivered and fell silent. How the mighty have fallen, Canto thought. Ghular Festerhand, the Ravager of Loren, the King of Flies, and the Duke of Rot, was mighty indeed. Or had been, before Canto had taken off the blighted limb from which he had taken his sobriquet.

‘You have only yourself to blame for this, you know,’ he said, turning away. ‘You saw what happened to the others, didn’t you? The Pox-Knight? Cringus of the Thirty-Seventh Configuration? The Copper Princess? Do those names ring a bell, perchance? No? Of course not. Because if they did, you certainly wouldn’t have planned to do what you were planning to do.’ Canto shook his head. ‘I understand the temptation, believe me. But did you really think the Everchosen wouldn’t step on you like the disgusting maggot you so resemble?’

Canto kicked his steed into motion and rode on without waiting for an answer. The streets squirmed beneath the hooves of his horse, and ahead of him, a giant made from broken stones, splintered beams and masticated corpses staggered drunkenly across the Ulricsmund, roaring unintelligibly. Whole sections of the city had become distorted reflections of their former glory, transmogrified into screaming sculptures of living fire or revolving facets of impossible design and unknowable angles. Those that were left untouched by the warping power of Chaos had been claimed by petty chieftains or muttering cults, made over into personal lairs and fanes.

Granted, there weren’t as many of the latter as there had been in the weeks following the city’s capture. Archaon had seen to that, dispatching the detestable Curseling south to lay siege to Averheim. He’d sent the most enthusiastic and troublesome with the two-headed sorcerer, and as a result the city had quieted down nicely. For a time at least.

But then, the Curseling had gone and ruined everything. By the time Archaon had marched on Averheim, Vilitch had vanished. He wasn’t especially missed, but his ineptitude had enabled the Emperor to escape into the mountains. Archaon had gone into a rage – denied the lives of both Valten and the Emperor, he’d butchered threescore of his lieutenants and tossed their skulls to the hounds. Canto had avoided that particular fate only by dint of luck; in the aftermath of the siege of Averheim, several plotters had chosen to take advantage of Archaon’s fury to make their moves.

Canto had put himself between the Everchosen and the blades of his enemies. He had done so without thinking, and now reaped the rewards. He looked back at Festerhand. Some rewards are better than others, he thought morosely.

Archaon had taken Averheim as a message from the gods. He had returned to Middenheim, taking only such forces as were necessary. The rest, mostly worshippers of Khorne, he’d sent haring off to chase down the surviving enemy. Averheim had been left to the beasts. Some milky-eyed brute named Moonclaw ruled there now, the last Canto had heard of it. Now, Archaon sat brooding on his throne, conferring only with daemons, and marshalling his forces for… something.

And oversaw the excavation, of course. Mustn’t forget that, must we? Canto thought, without amusement. Indeed, how could one forget a steadily growing chasm being gouged into the very heart of the Fauschlag by hundreds of slaves, both human and otherwise? At the very least, the massive heaps of spoil and slag which surrounded the ever widening scar were a constant reminder. Gangs of skaven scuttled past, keeping to the shadows. They lurked amongst the spoil and smoke, their chittering voices accompanying the screams of slaves and the hum of warpstone-powered devices.

Archaon had been quite put out with the skaven for a time, despite the alliance between his forces and those of the so-called ‘under-empire’. He had become enraged when the ratmen had interfered in his duel with the Herald of Sigmar, and he had personally hunted down a number of the creatures in order to make them answer for their effrontery, including the creature which had first proposed the alliance – a whining, sneaky wretch of a rat called Thanquol. Now their bodies were displayed with the rest, and those that survived had quickly made themselves useful as overseers, foraging parties and slave labour.

When he reached the Temple of Ulric, Canto did not stop, but let his horse climb the steps. Besides being able to curse in four languages, the animal was quite adept at scaling stairs. That it could do both never failed to impress Canto. As it climbed, he gazed east, towards the excavation where it abutted the temple. Day and night, the Ulricsmund rang with the sounds of it, and he fancied his ears would never be free of it.

He rode past toppled statues of the wolf-god, and into the temple proper. The echo of his horse’s hooves as he rode through the rotunda sounded strange, and slightly distorted. All around him was madness: busts and statues had been thrown down, or carved into hideous new shapes. Faces writhed and moaned along the walls. The vaulted ceiling had been hung with thick iron chains, from which dangled hooks and blades. On the latter were spitted the bodies of priests. All were present – the servants of Sigmar, Ulric, Shallya and more besides. Most were dead. Some were not.

Archaon was waiting for him, as ever, at the centre of his chosen throne room. The Everchosen had claimed the dais from which the Flame of Ulric had once burned as his own, and had placed his throne there. The throne was a monstrous construction, composed of brass and black iron, covered with stretched skin and skulls. Ghal Maraz sat at its apex, clasped in brass claws. A heavy shadow, black and stinking of hot iron, crouched behind Archaon’s throne. It was massive, larger than any ogre or troll. As Canto approached, the shadow straightened with a sound like a bellows and great wings unfurled. He felt a wash of heat, as if from a smokeless fire.

He knew the daemon’s name, though he wished that he did not. Ka’Bandha, the Skull-Smasher. Ka’Bandha, the right hand of the Blood God himself. Eyes like forge-fires gazed at him, burning him inside out. The air around the bloodthirster shimmered, as if the creature’s very presence were a wound in reality. It eyed him with interest, as if sizing him up for a challenge. Canto ducked his head and tried to make himself smaller. Even Archaon himself would have been hard-pressed to survive an encounter with Ka’Bandha. Canto would have no chance at all. He kept his gaze averted, and relaxed slightly as he felt the daemon’s disappointment wash over him. No fun for you here, beast, he thought.

The Swords of Chaos lined the way to the throne. Even now, having fought beside the black-armoured sentinels more than once, Canto could still feel the palpable menace which radiated from them. He hauled back on the reins and brought his disagreeable mount to a halt amidst a flurry of gutter-Estalian.

Canto waited, counting the moments. When Archaon did not stir, Canto cleared his throat and said, ‘I come bearing gifts, my lord. As you requested.’ He reached behind him and cut the straps that held Festerhand tied to his saddle. The champion, or what was left of him, flopped to the floor with a groan. His armour hung in ragged tatters from his maggot-like body, and his pale flesh was streaked with blood and bruises. He cradled the stump of his wrist to his sunken chest. Ka’Bandha chuckled. The sound was like scalding water hissing over stones.

Archaon looked up. He stared at the broken shape of the traitor for long moments, and then said, ‘His hand?’

Canto reached into his saddlebag and produced a dripping sack. Something moved unpleasantly within. ‘I thought it best to disarm him,’ he said. He tossed the sack down.

Archaon didn’t laugh. He rarely laughed. He pushed himself up, off his throne, and strode down from the dais, after gesturing for the bloodthirster to remain where it was. He stepped over the sack as if he hadn’t seen it, and made his way to Ghular’s side. He looked down at the broken creature. ‘Grandfather Nurgle grows impatient. How many of his champions has he thrown in my path of late?’ He looked at Ka’Bandha as he spoke.

‘You do them honour, to call them champions,’ the bloodthirster growled. Canto heard the clatter of brass chains as the shadowy mass moved about behind the throne. ‘They are as blossoms, pruned from his garden, and as easily crushed.’

‘Yes,’ Archaon said. ‘Fewer of them than the Schemer or the Prince of Pleasure, to be sure, but still… a not inconsiderable number. Is it vengeance for the Glottkin? Or something else?’ The bloodthirster subsided into silence.

Canto knew Archaon wasn’t expecting an answer. He followed Ka’Bandha’s example and kept silent. It was always the same; Archaon spoke more to hear himself speak, than because he wanted replies. The Everchosen sank to his haunches with a creak of metal, and examined Canto’s prisoner. ‘Did he fight hard?’ he asked.

That he expected an answer to, Canto knew. ‘No harder than the others,’ he said. ‘I waited until he was looking the other way, and then cut his hand off. After that, he didn’t have much fight in him.’

Ka’Bandha made a sound like a dog choking on a bone. The heat grew intolerable, and Canto forced himself to look only at Archaon. The bloodthirster had a short temper, and it was made even shorter by such admissions. Simple murder was beneath the god of slaughter, apparently. ‘Coward,’ the beast gurgled, eyes shining like beacon fires.

Archaon stood. ‘You are getting a reputation, Unsworn. They say you are my executioner.’ Ka’Bandha made another disapproving noise, but Archaon ignored the creature.

‘I am but your humble servant, my lord,’ Canto said, bowing his head.

‘Then come with me, O humble servant. I wish to look upon my great work, and see how it progresses,’ Archaon said. Ka’Bandha rose to its full height, as if it intended to follow the Everchosen, but settled back at a gesture from Archaon.

Canto hesitated, watching the daemon warily, then slid out of the saddle and hurried after the Everchosen as the latter strode deeper into the temple. He could feel Ka’Bandha’s eyes on him the entire way.

‘What about the Festerhand?’ he asked, as he caught up with Archaon. They were descending into the chill depths of the Fauschlag. Those who knew such things said that the skaven had bought their survival with a treasure that they had located deep in the mountain’s guts, somewhere beneath the temple. And that treasure was the reason for the great excavation, as Archaon employed hundreds of slaves and gangs of sorcerers and daemons both in the endeavour, carving a path down through the heart of the mountain. Canto knew the truth of it, and knew that it was not a treasure, but something infinitely worse.

‘What about him?’ Archaon said. ‘If he survives until I return, then I will kill him – or spare him, as the mood takes me. If he doesn’t, the point is moot.’

‘As you say, my lord,’ Canto said obsequiously. He wondered what would get the Festerhand first… his wounds, or Ka’Bandha. Khorne had less use for beaten champions than he did for murderers.

Archaon stopped. Canto stumbled to a halt, just barely avoiding slamming into the Everchosen. Archaon turned. ‘Do you disagree?’ he asked. Canto hesitated. Archaon cocked his head. ‘Do you know why I elevated you, Unsworn?’

A thousand witticisms sprang to mind and immediately turned to ash on Canto’s lips. He shook his head slowly. ‘No, my lord,’ he said.

‘I elevated you because I am not your lord,’ Archaon said softly. ‘Not really. You are a scavenger, a jackal, haunting the edges of eternity. You owe no fealty to any god or warlord. Like a thousand others, you are a man apart, with no loyalty or code to bind your words or mark your path. You do not seek pain, pleasure, pestilence or power. You seek only to survive. Of all the men and women who ride beneath my banners, you and your ilk are the most human. The most flawed, the weakest. But also the strongest.’ Archaon turned away and continued walking. Canto followed.

Archaon continued talking. ‘The followers of the gods burn bright, but burn swiftly. In every war, they die first, and at the pleasure of the gods. But your kind survives. You cling to this world like a barnacle, holding tight to what you once were, though it profits you nothing. Why did you never seek out the favour of the gods, Unsworn?’

You’ve already asked me that. You ask me that every day, Canto thought. What he said was, ‘Fear, my lord. I feared losing myself.’ It was the same answer he always gave, but it never seemed to satisfy Archaon. Then, few things did. The Three-Eyed King seethed with a cosmic frustration, as if the very air scraped his nerves raw.

‘And would that be so bad?’ Archaon asked. Canto looked at him. It was the first time Archaon had asked that. They had come to a massive cavern, its walls marked by skaven graffiti and piles of rotting bodies heaped in the corners. Chittering, red-eyed rats scattered as Archaon and Canto stepped into the eerie light cast by the iron and brass braziers set about the circumference of the cavern.

Before Canto could answer Archaon’s question, a guttural voice bellowed a challenge. A trio of ogres, their flesh marked by tattoos of ownership and allegiance, and their arms and armour bearing all of the hallmarks of the daemonsmiths of Zharr Naggrund, stepped into view out of the shadows. The ogres bore heavy swords, and horned helmets that obscured their brutish features. Archaon raised his hand, and the ogres sank to their knees with much grunting and grumbling.

Archaon led Canto past the brutes, and into the gloomy chamber beyond the cavern. Something horrible and flickering occupied the bulk of the chamber – a black, glistening globe supported between two golden hemispheres. The globe was a blotch of shimmering darkness which seemed to draw all sources of light towards it. Canto staggered, struck, as always, by the sheer wrongness of the thing.

He had seen it more than once, but it never failed to cause his mind and what was left of his soul to tremble and cringe. He could hear a vast roaring of innumerable voices, and a thinner, sharper sound, like the scraping of rats behind the walls of the world.

Even worse, he knew it was but the merest tip of whatever monstrous eidolon was buried beneath the Fauschlag. Gangs of slaves worked day and night to uncover it, when Archaon’s pet sorcerers weren’t studying it, trying to unlock its power. Both slaves and sorcerers died in great numbers, their bodies left to rot at the bottom of the pit from which the thing rose. Soon they would have it fully uncovered, and they would pry it free of the mountain, like a pearl from an oyster.

Archaon moved across the chamber towards the dark globe, and the coven of robed cultists who were gathered about it. The cultists were muttering and invoking for all that they were worth. Which, Canto knew, wasn’t much. The masked fools were little more than attendants. One of them, obviously the leader if one went by his golden mask, hurried towards Archaon, trying to run and bow at the same time.

‘Can we proceed?’ Archaon said, not looking at the coven leader.

‘It stirs to life even now, mighty Archaon,’ the man whimpered. He flung out a trembling hand. ‘See how it shines, with the radiance of a thousand unseen suns. We have only uncovered the barest tip, and already it awakens.’

‘Can we proceed?’ Archaon asked again. There was a hint of menace in his voice.

The coven leader jerked upright in a flare of robes. ‘If the gods will it,’ he said. Archaon was silent. The man twitched and added, ‘An offering of souls will be needed.’

‘Then make it,’ Archaon rumbled.

‘My lord?’

‘The slaves,’ Canto interjected, unable to bear the coven leader’s stupidity. ‘Start feeding it the slaves.’ He moved closer to Archaon.

‘You never answered my question,’ Archaon said softly, after a moment of silence. ‘Would it be so bad, to lose yourself?’

Canto hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. Who I am, who I was, is the only thing I have left. To surrender it is to lose everything I fought for in the first place.’

‘You value the life you had, then?’ Archaon said. ‘You cling to the past, afraid to face the future.’ He swept out a hand towards the shimmering black globe. ‘See, Unsworn, the beautiful thing which awaits all of us. It is not terrifying. It is life, and change, and growth. It is the life which springs from death. This world is dead, but a new one is growing here.’

‘Mushrooms from a corpse,’ Canto said.

Archaon lowered his hand. ‘If you like. Maybe the world to come will be simpler, at that. Less burdened by the weight of history and failure. What I do know is that it will be stronger than this husk of a world we reside in now. There will be no weakness, no false morality or burdensome piety to chain men. The gods will sweep aside the old, and unmake the false foundations upon which the lie of this world stands.’

‘And that will be better, will it?’ Canto asked, without thinking.

‘Yes.’

‘For whom?’ he asked. Archaon looked at him. Canto waited, then, when no punishing strike came, he continued. ‘I never wanted this burden. It just came on me. I’m only a man,’ he said softly. He looked at his hand, encased in black iron for gods alone knew how many centuries. ‘I’ve only ever been a man. A wicked, evil man, who has done wicked, evil things. But I was never a monster. Never that.’

Archaon chuckled. ‘And what would you be now, Unsworn? Man or monster?’

‘I would be true to myself,’ Canto said, though not without hesitation.

‘There was one other who spoke like that,’ Archaon said. ‘His name was Mortkin. They called him the Black-Iron Reaver, and he carved his saga on the hearts of the gods themselves.’ He glanced at Canto. ‘He could have been the one standing here, once upon a time.’

‘And why isn’t he?’

‘In the end, he remained true to himself. He was a man, Unsworn, not a monster.’ Archaon turned back to the coruscating darkness of the globe. ‘But I shed my humanity long ago. I cannot escape what is inside me, nor would I wish to. I have been in darkness for so long, that I fear I would find the light blinding.’ He stared up at the globe, as if seeking something within its glistening depths.

‘I am a monster and I have set the world aflame, so that I might watch it burn.’

Eight

The King’s Glade, Athel Loren

It had been a week since the arrival of the dead on the border of Athel Loren, and what some were calling the Council of Incarnates had gathered in the King’s Glade to at last discuss the ramifications of that arrival. The week had been one fraught with whispered discussions and late-night visitations as the influential vied against one another in preliminary debate. Too, it had taken a week to debate the truth behind Nagash’s offer of parley. Some had sworn it was only a trick, meant to allow the Great Necromancer access to the Oak of Ages. Others had believed that Nagash himself was fleeing certain destruction and looking for protectors, rather than allies.

For his part, Duke Jerrod of Quenelles suspected that either possibility was likely, or that some other, even more subtle scheme was at work. He had argued fiercely against even allowing the creature into the forest, but, as was becoming clear to him, his voice counted for little in the debate. So, instead, he stood in silence beside Gotri Hammerson and Wendel Volker, and watched as those whose voices did count argued over the fate of the world, and of Nagash himself.

The council was an uneasy affair. Trust was not in ready supply amongst the powers gathered beneath the green boughs of the glade. There was discord amongst the elven Incarnates, though Jerrod couldn’t say where it originated from. Too, none of the elves trusted Gelt or the Emperor, and Gelt, for his part, kept a wary eye on Malekith. The Emperor, as ever, moved amongst all of them, trying to reach an accord.

It wasn’t simply the Incarnates who bickered, either. The elves were divided amongst themselves, united only in their disregard for the dwarfs and men who now shared the forest with them. The dwarfs were uncertain and tense in the trees, and Jerrod had no doubt that the strangeness of Athel Loren grated on them as much as it did his own people.

‘Foolishness,’ Hammerson muttered. He tugged on his beard. ‘Look at it – standing there as if it has a right to exist. Fouling the air with its grave stink. Surrounded by flying books. Can’t trust a book that flies, manling.’ He gestured towards Nagash, who stood in the centre of the glade accompanied by his mortarchs, Mannfred von Carstein and Arkhan the Black. They stood within a ring of spears, surrounded by the Eternity King’s personal guard. Malekith’s Eternity Guard were amongst the finest warriors left to the elven race. They counted former members of the Black Guard, the Phoenix Guard and the Wildwood Rangers among them, and had faced daemons and beastmen alike in defence of their liege-lord. Despite the fierce pedigree of those guarding them, Nagash and his mortarchs didn’t seem particularly intimidated.

Nagash was terrifying, even to one who had tasted the waters of the Grail. He was a hole in the world, an absence of life, heat and light. He radiated a cold unlike any that Jerrod had ever felt. It was the cold of the grave, and of hopelessness. Even here, in the heart of the forest, spirits whined and moaned as they swirled about the Undying King, caught in the maelstrom of his presence. Everywhere he walked, the grass died beneath his feet, trees withered, and the dead stirred.

‘Is there any sort of book you do trust, Gotri?’ Volker replied. The white-haired knight leaned against a tree, a jug of something strong and dwarfish dangling from one hand. Jerrod wondered where he’d got it. The dwarfs were stingy with their reserves of alcohol, especially given the fact that it was likely the last such in the world. Then, perhaps they’d thought it wiser to give Volker what he wanted without too much fuss.

Jerrod studied the knight. Sometimes, in the right light, Volker’s eyes flashed yellow, and his face took on a feral cast. Mostly, it happened when Teclis was nearby. It was as if whatever force rode Volker were stalking the elf mage. Though, after the first incident, it seemed disinclined to attack. And thank the Lady for that, he thought. He’d heard the men of the Empire muttering the name ‘Ulric’ whenever they thought Volker was out of earshot, and wondered if the gods were truly gone, or merely biding their time.

Even as he thought it, his eyes swept the glade, taking in the faces of those who might as well be gods. The Incarnates were gathered together on the dais which held the thrones of the Eternity King and the Everqueen. They were speaking in hushed voices, intently and at times angrily. Of them all, only Balthasar Gelt paid any attention to Nagash. Though he could not make out the man’s face behind his gilded mask, Jerrod knew that the wizard was glaring at the Undying King. Gelt’s hatred for the creature had been plainly evident from the moment Mannfred von Carstein had brought word of Nagash’s offer.

The Incarnates were not alone in the glade. Besides Jerrod, Hammerson and Volker, there were elves of every description, huddled in scattered groups, or standing alone, like Teclis, who watched Nagash like a hawk. Jerrod’s eyes were drawn past Teclis, however, to the pale, radiant figure of the elf woman called Lileath, who stood nearby. It was not the first time he had found his attentions fixed on her. She was beautiful, but it was not her beauty which caught him. Instead, it was the vague, nagging sense that he knew her. That he’d always known her, somehow. Where she had come from, or who she represented, was a mystery. The elves seemed to defer to her, though she was no Incarnate.

‘Stop staring at that elgi witch, lad. She’ll have your soul out of your body like that,’ Hammerson grunted, snapping his fingers for emphasis. Jerrod looked down at the runesmith.

‘You know who she is, then?’

‘Don’t have to. She’s an elf. Only two types of elves, manling… the ones that’ll gut you, and the ones that will steal your soul before they do the gutting.’ Hammerson crossed his arms. ‘Heed me well, you stay away from that one.’

‘Are we allowed to associate with any of them, then?’ Jerrod asked, with as much innocence as he could muster. Volker snorted, stifling a laugh with the mouth of his jug. Hammerson glared first at the other man, and then at Jerrod.

‘This is no laughing matter, manling. We’re in their realm, and make no mistake – we’re not guests. We might not be prisoners either, but that’s only because they’re more worried about him.’ He pointed at Nagash.

Jerrod was about to reply when a hush fell over the glade, stifling each and every murmured conversation. Malekith rose from his throne of tangled roots, stone and metal, and said, ‘Enough.’ The word hung in the air like the snarl of an animal. ‘Our path is obvious. We have the beast caged… Why not simply dispense with him once and for all? Let us scour this abomination from the face of the world, while we have the chance.’

He looked about him, as if seeking support from the other elven Incarnates. Caradryan remained silent, which didn’t surprise Jerrod in the least. The silence of Alarielle and Tyrion, however, did. Only Gelt spoke up.

‘I agree,’ Gelt said. ‘Nagash is as much a danger to us as the Dark Gods themselves, and he will turn on us in a heartbeat, if it suits him.’

‘You’re one to talk, sorcerer,’ Mannfred said. Gelt flinched. The vampire smiled, and made to continue. He fell silent, however, as he glanced at Nagash, who had not moved, and did not seem inclined to do so.

Jerrod tensed, and his hand dropped to his sword. Nagash had said nothing, but Mannfred had obviously heard him nonetheless. The creature seemed disinterested in the debate, as if he were above the petty concerns of the living. Part of Jerrod longed to confront the beast – here was the living embodiment of the corruption which had so devastated his homeland, and he was barred from drawing his sword against it.

Frustrated, he drew his sword partway from its sheath and let it drop back with a rattle. He caught Lileath looking at him, and felt a flush of shame for his loss of control. Her eyes seemed to pull him in, and open him up. It was as if she knew everything about him, and somehow found him wanting. She looked away as the Emperor spoke up, and Jerrod twitched in relief.

‘And if we destroy him, what then?’ Karl Franz said. His voice carried easily through the glade. ‘The foundations of the world crumble beneath us as we argue. We have no time for this. He is here, and his might, joined with ours, might yet win us the world.’

‘Oh, well said, well said,’ Mannfred crowed, clapping briskly.

Teclis spoke up. ‘He is right, Malekith. It was only thanks to Nagash’s theft of the Wind of Death that I was able to imbue you all with the powers you now wield. Though I wish it were otherwise, his presence is as necessary now as it was then. He is the Incarnate of Death, for better or worse. His destruction would serve only to weaken us,’ he said. He looked at Nagash and met the Great Necromancer’s cold, flickering gaze without flinching. ‘And he knows, whether he admits it or not, that treachery will avail him nothing, save that he meets his ending sooner rather than later. Is that not so, O Undying King?’

Nagash said nothing. He merely stared at Teclis. Malekith, however, was in no mood for silence. ‘Oh yes, and you would know all about treachery, wouldn’t you, schemer? More even than myself, I think, and I am no novice in that regard.’ Malekith laughed harshly. ‘I never imagined to find myself here, the lone voice of reason in a world gone mad. The beast must die. This I command.’ He sliced his hand through the air.

‘Are you deaf as well as spiteful?’ Teclis spat. ‘Did you not hear me?’

‘I heard,’ Malekith said. ‘I heard what you didn’t say, as well. We need only the Incarnate of Death, not Nagash. The solution seems obvious to me.’ He looked at Nagash. ‘We slay him, and bind Shyish to another… Someone more trustworthy.’

‘More tractable, you mean,’ the Emperor said.

‘And what if I do? Better a weapon under our control than a maddened beast which might turn on us at any given moment,’ Malekith said. He looked at Teclis. ‘Tear Shyish from him, wizard. We shall bestow it on another, of our choosing.’

‘Aye, that’s the way,’ Hammerson muttered, nodding slowly. Jerrod looked down at the dwarf. Hammerson met his questioning gaze. ‘My folk have grudges aplenty against the liche-lord. The spirits of our ancestors will know peace, once that skull of his is pounded into dust.’ He blinked. ‘Though, come to think of it, Malekith has just as many.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘Isn’t that always the way? The wolf-rat or the squig, which is worse? Both want to gnaw on your beard, so which do you kill first?’

‘Squig,’ Volker said, absently, as he stared at Nagash.

Hammerson and Jerrod looked at him. Volker shook himself and returned their look. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Why the squig?’ Hammerson said.

‘Bigger mouth, obviously.’ Volker gestured to his face. ‘Fit more of the – ah – the beard in, as it were.’

Hammerson was silent for a moment. Then his broad face split in a grin. ‘Ha! I do like you, for all that you smell like a wolf den in winter, manling.’ He gave Volker a friendly slap on the arm, almost knocking him from his feet. Jerrod shook his head and turned back to the debate.

Teclis stood between Malekith and Nagash. The elf looked tired. His robes were torn and faded, and his face was white with exhaustion. Jerrod felt a moment of pity – they were all worn down by constant battle, but something in Teclis’s face told him that the elf’s battles had started much, much earlier than their own, and that even here, he found no respite.

‘There is no being in existence capable of containing so much death magic, who would not be as dangerous as Nagash,’ Teclis said. He leaned against his staff. ‘Human, elf or dwarf… it matters not. Shyish would change them, and for the worse, into something other. Also, like calls to like.’ He looked at each of the Incarnates in turn. ‘In each of you, there was something – some kinship – with the wind which chose you as its host. Like calls to like.’ He glanced at Nagash. ‘Nagash is the first, and the greatest necromancer the world has seen. Master of an undying empire, and ruler over the dead.’ He glanced at Malekith. ‘And all because your followers had the bad luck to wash up on the shores of Nehekhara so many centuries ago,’ he added, waspishly.

‘Necromancy can be taught,’ Gelt said.

‘And if it’s the symbolism of the thing, we have plenty of dead empires about… including Bretonnia,’ Malekith added. He gestured to Jerrod. ‘Why, we even have the de facto ruler of that dead land here among us.’

‘What?’ Jerrod said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘You are a duke, are you not?’ Malekith said. ‘The only one amongst your barbaric conclave of horsemen, if I’m not mistaken. Your claim is superior.’

‘Bretonnia is not dead,’ Jerrod said. He looked around, seeking support. He found only speculation and calculation, in equal measure. ‘My people still live. Else what is this for?’ he asked, helplessly. Helplessness turned into anger, as Malekith gave a harsh caw of laughter.

‘Hope is the weapon of the enemy, human,’ the Eternity King said. ‘Your land is ashes, as is mine, as is everyone’s. A haunt for daemons and worse things. The quicker you accept it, the more useful you’ll be.’ His eyes glittered within the depths of his mask.

Jerrod’s hand fell to his sword hilt. He heard Hammerson say something, but he ignored the dwarf’s warning rumble. Malekith had said nothing that Jerrod himself had not thought a thousand times since the fall of Averheim. But to think it, to fear it, was one thing. To say it aloud – to make sport of it – was another. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to draw his sword and strike. Hammerson was right: Malekith was as much a monster as Nagash. The world would be better off without him.

Cool fingers dropped over his hand before he could draw his blade. He whirled. Lileath released his hand and stepped back. ‘No,’ she said, softly. ‘If you do, you will be slain in the attempt. And then where will your people be, Jerrod of Quenelles? Would you abandon your duties so casually? Is your honour so frail as to be torn by the words of such a spiteful creature?’

‘You forget yourself, woman,’ Malekith said. ‘I am king.’

Lileath looked past Jerrod. ‘It is you who forget yourself. King you might be, but I am Lileath of the Moon, and Ladrielle of the Veil, and it is by my will that you have survived to take your place on that throne. My power may have dwindled to but a spark, but I am still here. And I know you, Malekith. Deceiver and hero, arrogant and wise. The best and worst of your folk, housed in iron and forged in flame. You are as dangerous as the Sword of Khaine itself. But I was there when that sword was nothing more than a lump of metal, and I was there too when you were torn squalling from your mother’s womb.’

She extended her staff and used it to gently push Jerrod back as she stepped forwards. ‘If you do not put aside your differences, if you do not unite, then this world will be consumed. There is no time to pass petty judgements, or to exclaim in horror at the choices you have made, or the allies who offer their fellowship. The world is ending. The End Times are here. And if you would not be swept away like spent ashes from a cold hearth, you will heed me.’

Jerrod stared at her, wondering why her names struck such a chord in him. Who are you? he thought. He saw that Mannfred too seemed to recognise Lileath. The vampire’s eyes met his, and the creature smirked, as if he and Jerrod shared some awful secret. Jerrod turned away with a shudder. Hammerson, in a rare display, patted his arm.

‘He was lying, lad. That’s what the elgi do,’ the runesmith said. The words were scant comfort. Jerrod shook his head.

‘No, Gotri. I don’t think he was.’

Hammerson looked up at the knight, and felt a tug of sympathy. Despite what he’d said, he knew that what Malekith had said was more than likely the truth. Or some version of it, at least. From his expression, Jerrod felt the same.

It was no easy thing to lose kin or a home. To see all that was familiar torn away in an instant and reduced to ash. Hammerson glanced up at Volker, and saw a similar expression on the other man’s face. Aye, the humans were now getting a taste of the bitter brew that his folk had been drinking for centuries. And the elves as well, come to that, though Hammerson felt less sympathy for them. They’d brought it on themselves, after all. The humans, though… Hammerson sighed. Humans had many, many flaws, as any dwarf could tell you. But they didn’t deserve the ruination that had befallen them.

Then, who does? he thought. He looked at Mannfred. Except maybe that one. The vampire had a smug expression on his face, as if he were enjoying the bickering that surrounded him. Hammerson frowned.

He had been at Nachthafen the day that Konrad von Carstein had slaughtered the Zhufbarak. He’d been but a beardling, apprenticed to a runesmith, but he still had the scars from when Konrad and his accursed Blood Knights had attacked their position, overrunning it in moments. He remembered the king’s fall, his throat torn open by the creature calling itself Walach Harkon, and he remembered the surging tide of corpses.

Mannfred was cut from the same grave shroud as Konrad. He’d waged war on Zhufbar as well, when he’d come to power, and many a dwarf had perished at his hands. If grudges had physical weight then Athel Loren would have long since sunk deep into the earth, between Malekith, Nagash and Mannfred.

No dwarf would ally himself with such creatures, even in the face of destruction. That, in the end, was the difference between his folk and the humans and elves. For a dwarf, better destruction than compromise, better death than surrender. If the thing must be done, let it be done well, he thought. It was an old proverb, but one every dwarf knew, in one form or another. All things should be approached as a craftsman approached his trade. To compromise was to weaken the integrity of that work. To allow flaws, to invite disaster.

Not for the first time, Hammerson wondered if he should simply take his folk and go. They would return to Zhufbar and see what remained of it, either to rebuild or avenge it. It was a nice thought, and it kept him warm on cold nights, staring into the dark of the trees, pipe in hand without even a good fire to provide light and comfort.

But that was all it was. If the thing must be done, let it be done well. And the dwarfs had made an oath long ago to the human thane, Sigmar, to defend his people for as long as there was an empire. And dwarfs, unlike elves, knew that an empire was made not of stone or land or castles, but of hearts and minds. Stones could be moved, land reshaped and castles knocked down, but an empire could survive anything, as long as its people still lived.

While one citizen of the Empire yet lived, be they soldier, greybeard, infant or Emperor, the Zhufbarak at least would die for them. Because that was the way of it. An oath was an oath, and it would be fulfilled, come ruin or redemption. Even if the humans chose to throw in their lot with the King of Bones himself, the Zhufbarak would stand shield-wall between them and the ravages of Chaos until the end.

Speaking of which, he mused, studying the giant of bone and black iron where he stood in an ever-widening circle of yellow, brittle grass. For a creature whose very existence was under threat, Nagash didn’t seem altogether concerned. Which, to Hammerson’s way of thinking, was worrying.

Malekith obviously felt the same. He was in fine form, arguing passionately with Lileath and Teclis. Hammerson could almost admire the Eternity King, if he hadn’t been a deceitful, backstabbing kinslayer. Kings had to be harder than stone, and colder than ice, at times, and Malekith was both of those and no mistake. But too much cold, and even the hardest stone grew brittle.

He heard a hiss from Volker, and glanced at the knight. The white-haired man was staring hard at Nagash. Hammerson looked more closely at the liche and saw that the creature was stirring. One great claw rose, and silence fell over the glade. ‘YOUR FEAR IS WITHOUT CAUSE,’ the liche said. His voice spread through the glade like a noxious fog. ‘THE WORD OF NAGASH IS INVIOLATE. AND NAGASH HAS SWORN TO FIGHT FOR THIS WORLD.’

Hammerson shuddered. The liche’s voice crept under your skin like the cold of winter, and fastened claws in your heart. He wasn’t alone in feeling that way. The Incarnates stared at the creature the way birds might regard a snake. Malekith reacted first. ‘Any betrayer would say the same, if it suited his interest,’ the Eternity King rasped, glaring down at Nagash from his dais. Nagash stared at the elf, as if sizing him up. Then he inclined his head.

‘INDEED. AND SO I OFFER A GIFT, AS TOKEN OF MY INTENT.’

Malekith laughed. ‘A gift offered by one such as you can hardly be considered proof of anything. I know, for I have used the same trick to great effect more than once.’

‘I HAVE WRONGED YOU. YET THE INITIAL OFFENCE, THE FIRST LINK IN THE CHAIN, WAS NOT AT MY INSTIGATION,’ Nagash grated. If a skeleton could look amused, Hammerson thought, then Nagash was it. The wide, fleshless rictus seemed to grow wider still, less a smile than a tiger’s grin. ‘THE EVERCHILD’S DEATH WAS NOT MY DOING.’

Teclis flinched as the words rolled over the glade. He closed his eyes. He could feel the heat of Tyrion’s rage beginning to build. Nagash’s words had stoked fires that could never truly be extinguished. Malekith too must have sensed it, for he moved quickly to speak. But he fell silent, his words dying on his lips, as Alarielle rose from her throne.

‘You speak of my daughter as if you were fit to say her name,’ the Everqueen said coolly. Her voice was composed, and controlled, but Teclis could sense the fragility beneath. ‘More and more, you insist on your own destruction.’

‘MY DESTRUCTION WILL NOT BRING HER BACK. NOR WILL IT AVENGE HER.’ Nagash looked around the glade. ‘IT WILL ONLY BRING RUIN.’

‘Listen to the dead thing plead,’ Tyrion snarled. He had not drawn his sword, but his hands were balled into fists, and the light within him was beginning to stir. ‘We will not bargain for Aliathra’s soul,’ he spat. Alarielle looked sharply at him, but said nothing. Teclis could feel the Wind of Life beginning to stir as well. Is this how it ends, even as it began… over the soul of the Everchild? he thought.

His brother’s sin, come home to roost. The child he’d fathered, against all logic, reason and tradition, the child who had been the hope of Ulthuan, and its destruction. Aenarion’s curse made flesh, in a moment of passion and stupidity. Teclis’s grip on his staff tightened. Brave child. I failed you, as I failed your father and our people. But I failed you most of all. Sorrow washed over him, leaving only numbness in its wake.

It seemed like only weeks ago that Aliathra had been sent to the dwarfs of Karaz-a-Karak as part of the Phoenix Delegation of Ulthuan. As royalty, and a sorceress in her own right, the Everchild was thought fit to treat with the High King, Thorgrim Grudgebearer. Aliathra had her mother’s grace and poise and her father’s courage, and the old alliances had been renewed and invigorated. But then, death had swept down on tattered wings and put paid to the plans of dwarfs and elves.

Teclis studied Mannfred von Carstein, taking in the sharp contours of a face that shifted constantly between regal indifference and bestial malice. The name the creature went by was an assumed one, just another falsehood tacked on to the ledger that contained his crimes. Once, Teclis had sought to unravel that particular mystery – to find the source of the von Carstein bloodline and perhaps even eliminate it. Of all the vampiric infestations which blighted the world, theirs was the most militant, if not the best organised, and thus a potential threat to Ulthuan in the future. And of all the von Carsteins, Mannfred was the most dangerous.

His defeat of Eltharion the Grim in Sylvania proved that, if nothing else. The Grim Warden had attempted to rescue Aliathra at Tyrion’s behest. The army he had taken into death with him had been sorely missed in the days and weeks which followed. Teclis could not say for certain that Eltharion’s counsel would have ameliorated the tragedies that occurred after Tyrion had gone mad and their people had fallen to civil war, but his presence might have been enough to avert at least some of the anguish of those terrible days.

Instead, he’d died. And the hopes of Ulthuan had died with him. And now his killer stood smirking in the heart of Athel Loren, protected by an even greater evil. For a moment, Teclis wished that he were his brother, that he had even an ounce of Tyrion’s fire in him, so that he might put aside reason and caution and drive his sword through Mannfred’s twisted heart. But he wasn’t, and he never had been. Instead, he watched and thought, and wondered why Nagash was offering anything at all.

When the answer occurred to him, he smiled. Ah, clever. Of course. Why else insist on bringing the creature into the forest?

Nagash faced Tyrion and Alarielle. Perhaps the creature judged them the greatest threat, or maybe he simply wished to enjoy their agony. ‘YOU HAVE NO NEED TO BARGAIN. THE SOUL OF THE EVERCHILD IS NOT MINE TO GIVE. LIKE ALL OF YOUR KIND, SHE IS ALREADY FODDER FOR THE DARK PRINCE,’ Nagash said. Alarielle’s hand lashed out, catching Tyrion in the chest, stopping him before he could lunge at the liche.

Teclis could feel the other Incarnates gathering their powers now. Malekith and Gelt would act first, before the others. Caradryan would act last, despite being bound to the most impulsive of winds. He would wait for Alarielle, or Tyrion. The Emperor, as ever, stood to the side. Teclis could almost see the wheels turning in the human’s mind. The Emperor glanced at him, and gave a barely perceptible nod. He had figured out Nagash’s ploy as well.

‘INSTEAD,’ Nagash went on, ‘I WILL OFFER YOU THE ARCHITECT OF HER DEATH, TO DO WITH AS YOU WILL.’ As he spoke, Mannfred threw a triumphant look at Arkhan the Black. That look crumbled into abject horror, as Nagash turned and fastened one great metal claw on the back of the vampire’s head, hoisted him from his feet, and tossed him towards Tyrion and Alarielle without hesitation.

Mannfred struck the dais with a resounding crack, and flailed helplessly for a moment, his face twisted in shock. ‘No,’ he shrieked. ‘No, it wasn’t me! I didn’t kill her, it was…’ Whatever he’d been about to say was lost as Tyrion’s blade descended like a thunderbolt. Mannfred barely avoided the blow, scrambling to his feet, his own sword in hand. He whirled, looking for an exit, some avenue of escape, but a crackling flare of amethyst light rose and spread between the trees at the merest twitch of Nagash’s talons.

‘No, I’ve come too far, sacrificed too much to be your scapegoat,’ the vampire snarled. He turned back and forth, blade extended, trying to keep everyone at bay simultaneously. He looked at Nagash. ‘I served you! I brought you back, and this is how I am to be repaid?’

‘YOU STILL SERVE ME, MANNFRED VON CARSTEIN. YOU HAVE SERVED ME IN LIFE, AND YOU WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO BY YOUR DEATH.’ Nagash cocked his head. ‘REST ASSURED THAT IT IS APPRECIATED.’

Mannfred threw back his head and howled. He sprang from the dais, quick as a cat, and lunged for Nagash. His blade slammed down. Nagash caught the blow on his palm, and wrenched Mannfred from the air. The vampire tumbled end over end. He struck the ground, bounced, and lay still. Nagash held up the trapped sword, and his talons flexed. The blade shattered as if it were spun glass. The pieces fell to the ground in a glittering cascade, one by one, thumping into the dead grass.

Mannfred pushed himself to his feet. His eyes were empty, void of emotion. Teclis felt nothing. This was not victory of any sort or kind. It was a thing which had to be done for the greater good, and that drained it of any satisfaction it might have otherwise provided. Mannfred was to be but one more body for the foundations, rather than a conquered enemy. He met the vampire’s gaze, and saw a spark in the blackness. A refusal to surrender to fate. In the end, that was all vampires really were. Survival instinct given form and voice.

Mannfred made to speak.

Nagash cut him off with but a gesture. Bonds of amethyst formed about the vampire, mummifying him in dreadful light. Soon, a cocoon of death magic hovered above the ground, occasionally twitching as its occupant tried to free himself.

A hush fell over the glade. Nagash stood silent and still, his gift hovering behind him, ready to be delivered into the hands of his prospective allies, if they agreed. No one spoke, however. Some were shocked by Nagash’s actions. Others wondered if it were merely a ruse. Teclis wasn’t shocked, nor did he believe it was a trick.

The liche’s skull creaked as it swivelled to face him. The eerie light that flickered within Nagash’s sockets flared. Teclis stared back, unperturbed, at least outwardly. He had faced Nagash twice before, once in the quiet of Nagashizzar, many years ago, when he had tried to enlist the Great Necromancer’s darkling spirit as an ally against the growing shadow in the north. Nagash had refused then. Teclis wondered if the creature regretted that refusal now, when he was being forced to give up one of his servants as the price for what he could have once had freely. No, Teclis thought. No, you regret nothing. Such emotions have long since turned to dust in the hollow chasms of your memory. He smiled sadly. Lucky for you, I have regret enough for all of us.

Teclis looked at his brother. ‘Well, brother?’

Tyrion glanced at Teclis, and then looked at Alarielle. He made as if to offer her his hand, but turned away instead. ‘Honour is satisfied,’ Tyrion said. Alarielle stared at him for a moment, and then returned to her throne.

‘Honour is satisfied,’ she repeated, softly.

Malekith, who had watched them in silence the entire time, gestured sharply and returned to his seat. ‘Time itself is our enemy. As such, if… honour is satisfied, then I withdraw my objection.’

Teclis looked at Gelt. ‘And you, Balthasar Gelt?’ Gelt said nothing. After a moment, he nodded tersely. Teclis looked at the others. Caradryan shrugged. The Emperor nodded. Teclis sighed in relief. He turned his attentions to Nagash. ‘You heard them, necromancer. Mannfred is ours, and in return, you will be allowed a place on the Council of Incarnates.’

‘A PRETTY NAME. AND WHAT IS THIS COUNCIL, LOREMASTER?’

Teclis ignored the mention of his former position. ‘That should be obvious, even to one as removed as you.’ He met Nagash’s flickering gaze directly.

‘It is a council of war.’

Nine

Somewhere beneath the Eternal Glade

Mannfred von Carstein cursed himself for a fool. It had become his mantra in the days following his betrayal and incarceration. He sat in the dark, constrained by a cage of living roots. The enchantments which had been laid upon his prison were a source of constant discomfort. He could not even muster the smallest cantrip.

This, he thought, this is how I am repaid? He had been loyal, hadn’t he? Loyalty must run both ways, though. He had served faithfully and honestly, and how had he been repaid? With the loss of all that he had fought for, with betrayal and punishment for a crime he had not even committed. It had been Arkhan who had slit the elf maiden’s throat, and used her blood to revive Nagash. Why hadn’t Nagash dispensed with the liche instead? Arkhan had served his purpose – he was a shell now. Nothing but an extension of his master’s will.

Maybe that was it. Neferata had said it herself – Nagash despised anything that wasn’t Nagash. And what Nagash despised, he feared as well. Do you fear me, Undying King? Even after all I have sacrificed on your behalf?

For the first few hours of his imprisonment, he had raged and ranted, hoping to attract the notice of guards, or, even better, one of the Incarnates. He thought that if he could but tell them the truth of things, they would see how Nagash had tricked them. He couldn’t say what he thought that might accomplish. He knew, now that he was imprisoned, he would not be freed, even if he proved his relative innocence. But to see Nagash defeated, or even destroyed, and Arkhan with him, was too tantalising a dream to relinquish.

But no guards came, if there even were guards. None of his enemies came, to gloat or to accuse. He was left alone in the dark, without the sorcery that was his birthright. Worse than his lack of magics, he could feel the very stuff of him draining away, as if the trees above him were drawing sustenance from his bones. The magics that permeated him were being siphoned off, and likely transmuted into new and vibrant growths above. A vampire being vampirised, he thought, and not for the first time. Under different circumstances, he might even have seen the humour of it all. As it was, he filled his days with plotting ever more savage revenge schemes for the day of his inevitable freedom.

And he would be free. That was the certainty which sustained him, even as his prison sought to suck the life from him. He had been buried before, more than once. Trapped in the dark. But he had always returned. Like Nagash himself, he had mastered death. It was not the end. He pushed himself to his feet. He looked up. ‘Do you hear me? It is not the end! I still live, and while I live, I…’ He trailed off. Someone was clapping. He whirled, a snarl splitting his features. ‘Who dares mock me? Show yourself!’

‘“Who dares mock me,” he asks. Would you like a list?’ Vlad von Carstein said, as he stepped out of the shadows and stood before the cage. He seemed healthy for a dead man, Mannfred thought. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope that Vlad had come to free him. Then common sense reasserted itself, and he took a wary step back.

‘Come to gloat, old man?’ Mannfred said. He glared at Vlad, wishing that he could kill with a glance. ‘Or maybe you’ve come to finally put me out of my misery. Well, took you long enough. I was beginning to wonder how many assassination attempts it would take…’

‘I’m not going to kill you, boy. The world has seen enough change, in my opinion.’ Vlad leaned against the roots that made up the bars of Mannfred’s prison and stared at him. ‘You are only alive because I asked him to spare you.’

‘Did you really?’ Mannfred spat.

Vlad smiled. ‘Well, not exactly. I pointed out that your suffering would make a better peace offering than your death. And Nagash, being, well, Nagash, thought that made sense.’

‘Remind me to thank you at the first opportunity,’ Mannfred said.

Vlad frowned. ‘I did it for you, boy. Whatever you think, whatever self-deluding lie is even now burrowing into the sour meat of what passes for your brain, know that what I did, I did for you.’ He leaned forwards, gripping the ancient roots. ‘You are still my… friend. My student. Even now. Even here.’

‘And that is all I will ever be, as long as you walk this world,’ Mannfred said. He slid down the wall and sat. Hands dangling across his knees, he laughed bitterly. ‘I will always be in the shadow of giants. You, Neferata, Abhorash… even that old monster W’soran. You carved up the world before I realised what was happening.’ He smiled. ‘I wonder where they are now.’

‘Neferata is doing what she has always done, boy. She rules.’

Mannfred grunted. ‘Yes. She rules the land we bought in blood and fire.’

Vlad chuckled. ‘Such is the way of queens.’ He leaned his head against the roots. ‘W’soran is dead, I think. If such a thing can die. Otherwise he would be here, with us, scheming away.’

‘And Abhorash?’

Vlad was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Abhorash fights. But he fights alone. He will not serve Nagash, or any man. Even so, some small part of the world will survive the coming conflagration, thanks to him. Where Abhorash stands, the enemy will never triumph.’

Mannfred looked at him. ‘You know where he is,’ he said finally.

‘I’ve made it my business to know where my people are. Especially him. Walach’s bloodthirsty lunatics were but pale shadows of the Red Dragon. Even Krell would not be able to match him. There is nothing alive or dead in this world that can, I think.’ He sighed. ‘What I wouldn’t give to fight beside him once more.’ His gaze turned inwards, and his expression lost its mask of jocularity. Mannfred studied him in silence. For the first time in their long, often bitter association, Vlad looked his age – old beyond reckoning, and battered on the rocks of existence. ‘We should, all of us, the last sons and daughters of Lahmia, be here. We were the first, and we should be here at the last.’

‘Life’s just not fair, is it?’ Mannfred said, spitefully. Vlad glared at him. He pushed away from the cage, and shook himself, as might one who has just awoken from a long dream.

‘No, it is not. It is a beast, and it is always ravenous. It eats and eats, but is never satisfied.’ He tilted his head. ‘Do you remember the day we met? Do you remember the first lesson I taught you?’

Mannfred said nothing. Vlad looked disappointed. ‘The first lesson was this… nothing stays the same. No matter how hard we fight, no matter how much we struggle, the world moves on. The world will always turn, empires will rise and fall, and if we are not careful, we will be drowned in the ocean of time. We must adapt and persevere.’

‘That is what I was attempting to do, before you came back and ruined everything,’ Mannfred snarled. He shot to his feet and flung himself at the bars of his cage. He slammed into the roots and thrust his arm through, clawing for Vlad’s face.

Vlad stepped back, out of reach. ‘Whatever ruin has been wrought, it was not my doing, but yours. It was your foolishness that saw Nagash resurrected, that saw the elven realms thrown into turmoil, and the Empire weakened in its darkest hour. You pulled down this house of cards, boy, not me. The Dark Gods exploited your hubris, and now we all must pay the price.’

‘From where I stand, I seem to be paying the price for us all.’

‘You might be the safest of us, boy. Here, hidden away in your living tomb. You’ll be safe from the fires that flicker on the horizon. It is my last gift to you.’ Vlad pulled his cloak tight about him. He smiled. ‘Rest now, my son. Your labours are over.’

‘Vlad, do not leave me here,’ Mannfred hissed. ‘You cannot leave me here. You need me. Nagash needs me. I know things, Vlad – about your so-called allies, about our enemies – but I can’t tell you if I’m trapped here!’

‘Nor can you try and use those secrets to benefit yourself at the expense of everyone else. I know you, boy. I know what monster drives you, and I know that if we are to have any hope at all, you must be left here, and forgotten.’ Vlad turned away. ‘Close your eyes and sleep, boy. Dream, and learn from your mistakes.’

‘Vlad,’ Mannfred called out. Then, more loudly, ‘Vlad!’

The elder von Carstein did not stop, or even glance back.

And soon, Mannfred was left alone in the dark once more.

The King’s Glade, Athel Loren

Vlad von Carstein flexed his hand, and admired the way the dappled light which dripped through the verdant canopy overhead played across his ring. He felt better than he had in months. His death and resurrection had cleansed his system of Otto Glott’s blight, freeing him from the pain and weakness which had afflicted him since the Battle of Altdorf. The light stung his flesh, but he relished the clarity that came with such aches. It would help keep him focused in the hours and days to come.

He glanced up at Nagash. The Great Necromancer stood silent and still, as if he were some ancient idol, dug up from the sands of Nehekhara and carted to Athel Loren. Only the ever-shifting shroud of spirits which draped over him, and the flickering witch-light in his eye sockets, betrayed his awareness.

Arkhan, as ever, stood at his master’s right hand. Equally immobile, he nonetheless gave the impression of being far more alert than the Undying King. Vlad smiled. Arkhan made for an effective watchdog. Though he’d been stripped of flesh, the soul of the man yet remained. He was no dull, dead thing, his senses muffled by time and Nagash’s will. For all that he pretended otherwise, there was still enough of the back-alley gambler in the liche to make him dangerous. Much like Vlad himself.

His smile faded as he thought of Mannfred, buried down in the dark. Ah, my boy, what a disappointment you turned out to be. Too ambitious to see the trap laid out before you. Then, if it hadn’t been Mannfred, it would have been someone else. The world was winding down, and had been for centuries. It could not be turned back. It could only be stopped – frozen at the last moment of the last hour, eternally poised on the precipice. But that was better than nothing. The world would survive, in some fashion.

He looked across the glade. As before, only a select few were present. The elven Incarnates, of course, and the Emperor as well. Teclis and the woman, Lileath. The Bretonnian duke, and the dwarf runesmith. And, of course, Balthasar Gelt. Vlad met the wizard’s gaze, and inclined his head respectfully. Gelt too had cleansed himself, his mind and will no longer infected by the spiritual malaise which had been eating away at him when they’d first met on the Auric Bastion. Gelt had fallen, and been reborn as something new and powerful. Vlad smiled again, thinking of his own rebirth; the first, and the hundreds which followed, down the long road of years. He rubbed his thumb over his ring.

Gelt didn’t return his nod. Then, Vlad hadn’t expected him to. He let his attentions wander. He could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, to the west. That would be the elf-prince, Imrik, fighting against one of the many marauding herds of beastmen which threatened Athel Loren. The creatures grew bold, as the world weakened. They had penetrated the forest’s defences, and got farther into its depths than ever before. The elves hunted them now, where they were not fighting them openly, and not alone. As a gesture of good faith, men, dwarfs and even Nagash had lent their forces to that effort.

The Emperor’s man, Volker, led woodsmen from Middenland and Averland as well as foresters from Quenelles in daily patrols through those parts of the forest safe for human travel, and thus likely to be stalked by beastmen. Dwarf gyrocopters patrolled above the pine crags, and Vlad had set loose a few of his more over-eager followers, including Eldyra, on the hunt – a task which the elf-turned-vampire seemed to relish. He frowned. She was self-destructive, that one. Her new life did not sit well with her, and she was ever at odds with her fellow Drakenhof Templars. He had been forced to break up more than one confrontation in the past few days, and his patience with the former princess of Tiranoc was wearing thin.

Vlad glanced speculatively at Tyrion. The Incarnate of Light stood, as ever, near the throne of the Everqueen, one hand resting on his sword. Like Caradryan, Tyrion said little at these gatherings. Instead, he stared west, as if he could see the battle taking place there and longed to be at its forefront. From what Eldyra had told him of her old master, Vlad thought that the latter was exceedingly likely. He wondered if, perhaps, it might not be wise to bring master and former apprentice together once more. Eldyra would be of great help in the battles to come, but she needed focus. She needed to see that there was only one path open to her, and that path was Vlad’s. Whatever the elf thought of the changes wrought in her, he would surely strive to aid her.

And in the lending of that aid, common cause might arise between Vlad himself and the elf-prince. Vlad had no illusions as to the disgust and mistrust his presence engendered among the others. It had ever been such, and it was no less than he expected. But if the Emperor could put aside his distaste, and even Gelt could be civil, then there might be hope yet. The time was coming when Nagash would dispense with him and return him to the dust from which he had been drawn. To Nagash, his champions were but tools, and easily disposed of.

Vlad had no intention of going back into the dark. Not now. Not while Isabella still walked the world, held in thrall to the Dark Gods. And not while the empire he was owed could yet be salvaged. He reached up and touched the tattered seal affixed to his cuirass – the official seal of Karl Franz, and the sign of an elector. Yes, he would speak to Tyrion and the Emperor both, and ingratiate himself to his enemies as only one who had manoeuvred through the adder-pits of the Courts of the Dawn could.

But later, I think, Vlad thought. When Nagash’s presence was not such a sore point for the others, they might be more inclined to think charitably of him and his. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of argument. It was a familiar sound, and almost depressingly so. Teclis and the others were, Vlad reflected, finding that forging such an assemblage of disparate powers was one thing, but getting them to work in harmony was another entirely.

Elven voices outweighed those of men and dwarfs here, and it was only thanks to the mediating efforts of Karl Franz that violence had not already erupted between the haughty exiles of Ulthuan and their guests. And the less said about Nagash, the better. Everyone had their own opinion as to what action the gathered Incarnates and their ever-dwindling followers must take next, but none could convince the others. The pendulum of discussion swung back and forth from civil discourse to squabbling arguments, and Vlad watched it all in amusement. This time, it was the sorcerer, Teclis, trying to sway the so-called Council of Incarnates to his strategy.

‘The fate of the eighth wind is of the utmost importance,’ Teclis was saying.

Lileath stood beside him, her face grave. She added, ‘The Wind of Beasts is loose somewhere in the world, and while it is lost to us, your power cannot hope to match that of the Chaos Gods. If we are to have any hope of victory–’

‘And what victory would that be? To save a world already infected by the taint of Chaos?’ Malekith snarled. ‘No, that is no victory at all.’ He rose from his throne. ‘With our powers we might yet seal the great breaches through which the winds of Chaos roar. Imagine it, a world free of Chaos, and of the tyranny of wild magic.’

‘And without magic, what then?’ Alarielle said. ‘Our world only thrives because of it. Rather than dispensing with it, we should combine our abilities, and infuse Athel Loren itself with the very stuff of magic. We can return it to the splendour of ancient days, and make it a fitting final redoubt which might stand against the Dark Gods for an eternity.’

‘No,’ Arkhan the Black said. He stepped forwards, to the consternation of the others. Vlad hid a smile. Nagash rarely deigned to speak to the living, preferring that either Vlad or Arkhan handled such a tedious chore. The living undoubtedly considered it to be arrogance; in truth, Vlad knew that Nagash was ever at work attempting to bring the untold millions of mindless, unbound corpses which had wandered the world since his resurrection under control. Such a feat required every iota of Nagash’s attentions.

‘No,’ Arkhan went on, ‘Nagash shall not sacrifice that which is his by right. Not on behalf of the demesne of another.’

‘Indeed,’ Vlad said, speaking up. He smiled and gestured airily. ‘Especially when there are better ways to use such things.’

‘You will be silent, leech. You are only here on sufferance,’ Malekith snapped.

‘No,’ Gelt said. The wizard stepped forwards. ‘Whatever you think of him, in his time Vlad von Carstein was a military commander without equal. For that reason, if no other, we should heed him.’ Vlad hid his surprise. Gelt was the last one he had expected to speak for him, except for Hammerson, possibly. Vlad inclined his head.

‘The lands from here to Kislev are swarming with the walking dead – bodies without life or consciousness, uncontrolled, but waiting.’ He indicated Nagash. ‘With the power of the other Incarnates added to his own, Nagash would be able to control the dead in their entirety. An army of billions, waiting to be utilised howsoever we see fit. Imagine it,’ Vlad said, gesturing. ‘The Everchosen may have armies aplenty, but they are not limitless, and with every battle, our numbers would swell.’

‘Pah. Why bother with the dead at all? We should send emissaries to my folk,’ Hammerson barked, pounding a fist into his palm. ‘There are mighty holds yet in the mountains. Copper Mountain is but a few days travel east of here. My kin would open their doors to me – to us. And we would have an army capable of smashing us a path wherever we wish to go, or to hold these forests and crags indefinitely if that is your wish.’

‘Hammerson is right,’ Gelt said. He looked at the Emperor, as if seeking support. ‘The dwarfs have always been the staunchest allies of the Empire, come what may. They would not abandon us now.’ Hammerson nodded fiercely.

‘Aye. But say the word, and I’ll send my rangers into the crags. They’ll use the dwarf paths, the routes known only to the dawi, and bring us back an army…’

‘Time is short enough, without wasting it begging for aid from those who’ve already made their cowardice clear,’ Tyrion said scornfully. Hammerson snarled an oath, and made as if to attack the elf, but Gelt held him back. Tyrion looked around, seemingly oblivious to the dwarf’s mounting anger. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘we have an army. The finest in the world – Aenarion himself would have been proud to lead it.’

‘And you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?’ Malekith said.

The Emperor spoke up before Tyrion could reply. ‘And what do you suggest we do with this army?’ he asked.

Tyrion laughed. ‘Isn’t it obvious? We take back your Empire, my friend. We rally your folk, province by province. We drive the enemy back, back into the north, back into the void whence they came.’

‘There are no provinces to rally, Tyrion,’ the Emperor said, after a moment. His voice was rough with barely restrained emotion. ‘There are no armies to raise, no sieges to lift. There are no embers of resistance to fan into rebellion.’ He spoke slowly, as if every word was painful. ‘The Empire that I – that Sigmar – built is done and dust. It has been ground under and made as nothing.’

Gelt hunched forwards, leaning against his staff. ‘The Emperor is correct. The forces we have here are all that remain to us. To all of us.’

‘All the more reason then, to take control of the limitless dead,’ Vlad interjected. ‘We can bury them in hungry corpses.’ He looked at the Emperor. ‘And perhaps take some measure of vengeance for the atrocities they have wreaked on our lands.’

‘Not to mention the power that would give your master,’ Caradryan said, speaking up for the first time. ‘What would he do with that army, once our common foe was defeated?’

‘Aye, the elf has the right of it,’ Hammerson grated. He pointed a stubby finger at Vlad. ‘The living cannot trust the dead. My people know that better than most. Bad enough that we must fight alongside elves, but at least the pointy-ears are alive.’

Vlad smiled and spread his hands. ‘You think far ahead for one dangling from a precipice, Master Hammerson.’ He looked around. ‘There is no guarantee that even with the dead under our sway, it would be enough to throw back the enemy. Why worry about the future, when it is the present which is under threat?’

‘Because it is for the future that we fight,’ the Emperor said. He looked around. ‘Survival is not enough, my friends. Nor is victory. One without the other would be a hollow triumph at best, and pyrrhic at worst.’ His eyes met those of Vlad, briefly. Vlad stepped back, his pretty words suddenly so much ash in his mouth. ‘This world is all that is, and will be, for our peoples. There is nowhere that can be made safe, nowhere that we can run.’

As the Emperor spoke, Vlad saw Lileath blanch and step back, her hand at her throat. He wondered idly what secret she hid that made her react so, even as he said, ‘Then what are we even doing here?’ He gestured about him. ‘Beautiful as this forest is, I do not fancy it as a tomb.’

‘Nor do any of us,’ the Emperor said. ‘Which is why whatever else is decided here, it must be unanimous. We must stand as one, or we will fall separately.’

Vlad glanced up at Nagash, and then away. He smiled and shook his head.

It was a pretty sentiment. But it was going to take more than sentiment to sway any of the gathered powers to a single cause.

Middenheim, City of the White Wolf

The Temple of Ulric rang with the sound of footsteps. Robed, huddled shapes scuttled into the dark, hissing and murmuring in abominable fashion. Strange, inhuman figures cavorted in the shadowed alcoves and aisles. Bestial forms clambered through the chains strung across the curve of the dome, feeding off the rotting bodies which hung there.

Pale shapes swayed and danced to the piping sound of flutes before the throne of the Three-Eyed King. They were clad in silks and damask, smelling of sweet oils and perfumes, and their hooves and claws were sheathed in gold. They sang and laughed as they danced, delicately clawing one another and scattering the blood about them as if it were rose petals. The pipers, slovenly, fat-gutted plaguebearers, crouched on the dais and played duelling melodies, as cackling pink horrors clapped and kept time.

Canto Unsworn strode forwards, through the silently arrayed ranks of the Swords of Chaos. To the best of his knowledge, the Chaos knights hadn’t moved since they had taken up their positions some weeks earlier. The daemonettes, in their dance, moved amongst them, but not a single one of the knights so much as twitched. Canto gestured sharply as one horned and cloven-hoofed beauty pirouetted towards him, and the creature dashed away, favouring him with a sulky smile as she spun past him. Her claws clicked across the side of his helm as he moved away.

As Canto drew close to the throne, he tossed the still-smoking helm of Nalac the Eschaton onto the floor. ‘The Changer of Ways sends his regards,’ Canto said, as the pipes went still and the horrors ceased their laughter. The helm, composed of millions of shards of tinted glass, caught the light in a thousand ways. It reminded him of another helm, belonging to another devotee of Tzeentch, long ago and far away. He pushed the thought away.

Archaon, heretofore slouched on his throne, sat up. ‘Nalac. I do not know him.’ He had Ghal Maraz across his lap. Even now, the hammer terrified Canto. No mortal hand would ever wield it again, but even so, it seemed to hunger for death and destruction. His death, and the destruction of those he served. Others had encouraged Archaon to dispense with it, to shatter it, or hurl it from the city walls. Their bodies now hung from the chains above, along with the others who had tested Archaon’s patience.

‘And you never will, my lord,’ Canto said. ‘He was one of Vilitch’s disciples, and was trying to rouse the tribes occupying the Sudgarten District. I thought it prudent to – ah – head that off at the pass, as it were.’ He gave the helmet a kick.

‘Did he die well?’

‘I’m not entirely certain. A flock of purple ravens burst out of his armour after I cut his head off. They flew off. I think that means I won.’ He looked up at Archaon. ‘The army grows restless, my lord.’

‘The army eats itself, Unsworn,’ Archaon corrected. ‘Like a fire, swelling to fill a room and snuffing itself in the process. That is the nature of Chaos. Like the serpent eating its own tail, it feeds on itself, until there is nothing left to devour.’ Archaon stroked the hammer gingerly, as if afraid it might bite him. ‘And then, it begins again.’ He shoved the hammer from his lap. It struck the dais and tumbled down the stairs. Daemons scrambled out of its path with shrieks and yowls. Canto stepped back as the hammer smashed into the floor at the foot of the steps. ‘It always begins again,’ Archaon said.

‘Yes, my lord,’ Canto said carefully, bowing his head.

When he looked up, Archaon was studying him. ‘Have I thanked you yet, Unsworn? While I sit here, in my seclusion, you wield sword and shield in my defence. You fight battles so that I do not have to. Do you begrudge me, my executioner?’

Canto did not meet Archaon’s gaze. He could feel its weight on his soul, and knew that his answer might determine his survival. Archaon had dispensed with most of his advisors and confidants in the days following the fall of Averheim. The lands of men were fallen, or of little consequence. The lands of the elves had sunk beneath the sea, and the dwarfs had retreated into the roots of the earth. The sour redoubt of Sylvania was ringed about by armies of beasts and daemons and skaven, and its crushing was of minor importance with Nagash’s departure. There were no enemies left that Canto could see, save Archaon’s own lieutenants.

Chaos feeds on itself, Canto thought. He lifted his head. ‘I do not, my lord. I am content with my lot.’ As he spoke, he hoped Archaon couldn’t see that he was lying.

In truth, Canto had been preparing to leave for days. Every time he thought he might slip out of the gates and ride hell for leather for Araby or Cathay, some champion or chieftain got it into their head to cause trouble. If it wasn’t a schemer like Nalac the Eschaton, it was a brute like Gorgomir Bloodeye, being spurred on by a suspiciously pale courtesan. Finding a vampire amongst the daemon-worshippers wasn’t that surprising. There was at least one other in the city, to Canto’s knowledge.

And a frightening creature she is, he thought. The Countess kept to herself, for the most part, and stayed within the plague gardens that had sprung up in what had been the merchant district. They said that she spent her days humming and singing to herself. On a whim, Sigvald the Magnificent had tried to hack his way into the gardens only to be put to flight, his tail between his legs.

‘I do not remember what contentment feels like,’ Archaon said. ‘Maybe I never knew.’

Before Canto could even attempt to formulate an answer to that, the heavy oaken doors of the temple were smashed open. The sound of splintering wood filled the rotunda, silencing all else. Then, a thunderous voice boomed, ‘You mock me!’

The temple shuddered as a heavy form entered Archaon’s throne room, stinking of fire and blood. Ka’Bandha strode through the swirling daemonettes, scattering the handmaidens of Slaanesh as it strode towards the throne. One of the Swords of Chaos was caught a glancing blow from Ka’Bandha’s axe, and fell. Before the knight could get to his feet, the bloodthirster sneered, raised one great hoof, and brought it down on the warrior’s helm, pulping it. As if the death of one of their own had been a signal, the Swords of Chaos swept into motion. As one, they drew their swords and turned towards the daemon.

Canto took up his position on the dais, his own blade drawn. He doubted if he would last much longer than any of the others but there was no place to run that the daemon couldn’t catch him, if it so desired. That was what he told himself, at any rate. Why else would he put himself between Archaon and the daemon? Better to stand with the Everchosen than perish. There was no telling what had driven the beast into a rage. The servants of Khorne longed for battle the way other beings desired food.

Archaon said nothing as the daemon thundered forwards. He merely raised his fist, and, in eerie rhythm, the Swords sheathed their weapons and retreated to the chamber’s perimeter. Canto hesitated, but then sheathed his own blade. There was no sense in making himself a target, after all.

‘You forget yourself, daemon,’ Archaon intoned as he slowly rose from his throne. ‘I am the Everchosen, and I am the edge of Khorne’s axe on this world. Would you approach his throne in so rash a manner?’ His words echoed through the rotunda, and a ripple of daemonic titters followed in its wake as the watching daemons twitched in glee to see Ka’Bandha spoken to in such a manner. There was no love lost between the beasts, even here, united beneath Archaon’s standard. They were worse than men, in some ways. ‘Remember, daemon. In this world, you serve at my whim.’

‘You are but a mortal speck,’ Ka’Bandha snarled. ‘I serve you only so long as you lead us to slaughter. But there is no slaughter here, Everchosen. Where is the ocean of blood we were promised? Where are the skulls you have tithed to the Lord of Carnage? I see nothing before me but the dried leavings of crows and jackals.’

The bloodthirster straightened, wings unfurling. A wash of heat billowed outwards, rippling from the daemon’s form and filling the rotunda. The stones at Ka’Bandha’s feet blackened and grew soft from that heat, and the chains dangling above its hunched shoulders turned white hot and dripped to the floor, link by link. ‘You mock me, king of filth. You mock Ka’Bandha, and make him an overseer for puling slaves,’ Ka’Bandha roared out, shaking the chamber to its foundations. The daemon smashed the flat of its axe against the brass cuirass which clad its hairy torso. The sound of metal on metal echoed through the temple and lesser daemons fled the sound of it, their paws pressed to their ears.

‘Those slaves toil and die in the cause of the Four-Who-Are-All. What they uncover, what they feed with their broken bodies and blistered souls, will, when it awakes, spill more blood than all of the axes ever forged. But it must be excavated, and it must be fed.’ Archaon paused. He cocked his head. ‘Unless the great Ka’Bandha fancies excavating it himself.’

The bloodthirster lifted its axe and drove it into the ground, splitting stone and rocking the chamber. ‘I will not be mocked,’ the creature roared, as it wrenched its axe free of the floor and lashed out, splitting one of the chamber’s support pillars in two.

Stone and dust cascaded down as part of the ceiling collapsed. Canto ducked aside as a chunk of stone smashed into the dais. Archaon didn’t so much as twitch, even as Ka’Bandha advanced on the throne. ‘No. I see that,’ Archaon said, as Ka’Bandha loomed over him. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. He looked up at the daemon. Their faces were only bare inches apart. ‘What is it you wish, then?’ he asked quietly. ‘Would you have me dispense with you, as I dispensed with the Fateweaver?’

Canto shivered. The two-headed daemon had grown agitated in the aftermath of the Emperor’s escape from Averheim. It was a given that the Fateweaver had been working to undermine Archaon; treachery was second nature to the servants of the Changer of Ways. When the beast had openly challenged Archaon, demanding that he pursue the Emperor into the Grey Mountains, a confrontation which had been simmering for weeks occurred in the blink of an eye. There had been no speeches, no grand gestures. Merely a sword, flashing in the dark, and the sound of two monstrous heads falling to the floor. What was left had been fed to the thing in the depths of the Fauschlag.

Ka’Bandha was silent. For a moment, Canto wondered whether it might attempt to strike Archaon down. Part of him hoped it would try. Part of him hoped it would succeed. The creature glared down at Archaon, axe half-raised. Archaon waited. When no blow was forthcoming, he said, ‘I am fulfilling your lord’s wishes, Ka’Bandha. If you doubt that, then strike me down.’ He spread his arms. ‘Let us see whether Khorne rewards you… or punishes you.’

The bloodthirster snarled and took a step back. ‘Blood must flow,’ the daemon snapped. ‘There is no blood here, Everchosen. Let the servants of lesser gods guard slaves. I would have battle.’

‘There has been battle aplenty. Enough to glut even the King of Murder himself. The world drowns in blood, mighty Ka’Bandha. Only a single lone island resists the tide, and it matters little, isolated as it is.’ Archaon lowered his arms.

There was something about his voice, his manner, which Canto found confusing. Archaon wasn’t trying to calm the beast – no, he was trying to aggravate it. It wasn’t just mockery. What are you up to? he thought.

‘The Emperor escaped you,’ Ka’Bandha growled.

Archaon shook his head. ‘And so? What is a ruler with no land to rule? And what power he stole from the heavens, I stripped from him with my own two hands. His power, temporal or otherwise, is gone. He is broken, his armies scattered, his land… ash. The lie of him has been exposed to the world, as I swore to do. And now I shall fulfil my oath to our masters, Ka’Bandha. I shall crack the world open, so that they might feast on it at last. What is the Emperor, compared to that?’

Says the man who has spent weeks brooding because Karl Franz slipped through his fingers at Averheim, Canto thought. His eyes were drawn to Ghal Maraz, where it sat at the bottom of the steps. Even Ka’Bandha avoided it, and cast occasional wary glances at the weapon. Archaon was up to something – but what?

‘It is a mistake to think him defeated,’ Ka’Bandha rumbled. ‘His skull belongs to Khorne.’

‘Then, by all means… go collect it,’ Archaon said, gesturing towards the doors to the temple. ‘Karl Franz’s life is yours. I give it to you freely, and without stipulation, save one.’ He held up a hand, as Ka’Bandha growled. ‘Let Khorne have his skull, by all means. But his skin is mine. Promise me this one small gesture, and I shall release you from my service, so that you might hunt your prey wherever he seeks to hide.’

The bloodthirster snorted. ‘Aye, so it shall be. I shall collect skin and skull both. I shall drown the trees in blood, and bury the mountains in offal.’ The creature threw back its head and roared in satisfaction. ‘Let the Blood Hunt ride once more, before the end of everything!’ The daemon spun on its heel and stormed from the chamber, smashing aside another pillar in its exuberance.

‘Well, that’s one way of handling it,’ Canto said, as the dust cleared.

Archaon descended the steps, and sank down on the bottom one. He looked down at Ghal Maraz. He reached out, and traced the intricate pattern of runes which covered the hammer. ‘Time… fractures, Unsworn. A thousand-thousand possibilities flare bright, and burn out before my eyes with every moment. But there are fewer and fewer of them with every passing hour. Our path grows narrow and thorny, and I am forced to play a game of death and deceit to ensure the proper outcome.’

The Everchosen picked up the hammer and held it out, as if weighing it. ‘The hours grow short, and the shadows long. I would have vengeance, not because I desire it, but because it must take place, else what was it all for?’

Canto’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword. Archaon was not looking at him. One blow, and he would be free. Or dead, he thought, as he lowered his hand. ‘I do not know, my lord.’

‘The beast will not succeed.’ Archaon touched the shimmering gemstone set into his helm. ‘I have seen its failure, spread across the skein of possibilities. The only question is one of time. When will the pieces fall? And where?’ He spun Ghal Maraz gently in his grip. ‘It must be here. There is a moment here, waiting to be born. It has weight, and draws every other moment towards it, like a stone drawing the man whose leg it is tied to down into the dark water. It will happen in Middenheim.’ He glanced at Canto. ‘The end must justify the means. The world is a lie, and the truth must out.’ Archaon rose to his feet, Ghal Maraz in hand. ‘I cannot rest until that is done, Unsworn. Even if I must defy the gods themselves, I will have the truth.’ He climbed the steps slowly, the hammer dangling from his grip.

Canto watched the Everchosen sink back onto his throne, and thought of Araby.

Ten

The Silvale Glade, Athel Loren

Duke Jerrod drove his blade down into the hairy back of the slavering beastman, severing the creature’s spine. He wrenched the blade free and twisted in his saddle, lopping off the arm of another. The creature howled and staggered back, clutching at itself. His stallion whinnied and lashed out, killing the creature with a single blow from its hoof.

The beasts were wild with madness. The bloodlust so common to the minotaurs had spread to every gor and ungor loping beneath the trees. For days they had hurled themselves into death on the spear points and sword blades of the elves, and for every thousand that perished, another thousand prowled forth, slavering and berserk. For the most part the bulk of the enemy were held at bay by the elves, but some small groups had slipped through the wall of spears and shields to ravage behind the static positions. It was these isolated fragments of the horde that the Incarnates had roused themselves to destroy.

The elves, led by the Dragon-Prince, Imrik, were on the verge of exhaustion. But to give in, to surrender even a single glade, was to threaten the safety of the King’s Glade. And that was too steep a price for even an hour’s respite. But such was the fury of this latest onslaught, that even the Incarnates had been stirred from their interminable debate.

Or so it seemed to Jerrod, at least. Endless hours of argument, back and forth, accomplishing nothing tangible save to put folk who should be allies at each other’s throats. It seemed inconceivable to him that such a thing was possible, that even now men and women broke and shattered beneath the weight of their own hubris.

Then, not everyone had the Lady to guide them onto the proper path as he and his knights did. Around him, the Companions of Quenelles fought with courage and honour, lances and swords red with the blood of abominations. He murmured a silent prayer as an axe hacked away one of the frayed strips of silk which decorated the crown of his helmet, and nudged his horse around. The flat of his shield caught the minotaur on the side of the head, knocking it aside. It stumbled, and then fell, as a spear erupted from its side. The beast collapsed onto all fours. Its hide bristled with arrows, and despite the spear in its side, it tried to struggle to its feet. An armoured boot caught it in the head, shoving it back down.

Wendel Volker caught the haft of the spear and jerked it free, before plunging it down through the minotaur’s bulging, bloodshot eye. The Reiksguard looked up at Jerrod and smiled. It was a fierce, unnatural expression, lacking in humour. ‘Much better than listening to all that bickering, eh?’ Volker said.

‘I never knew you to be so eager for a fight, Wendel,’ Jerrod said.

Volker left his spear where he’d planted it. He drew his sword, and a single-bladed axe, from his belt, and hefted them meaningfully. ‘What else is there?’ he rasped. ‘There’s nowhere to run now. May as well take what I’m owed, before the end.’

Volker had changed much in the weeks since they had arrived in Athel Loren, Jerrod reflected. It was as if something grew within him, remaking him in its image. What that image was, and what form it would eventually take, Jerrod could not say. Whatever it was, it frightened him. The white-haired knight had always been a brave, if hesitant man, with too much love of the bottle for Jerrod’s taste, but in the past few weeks he had become a fierce warrior, staying out on the borders of Athel Loren for days at a time, leading his band of foresters and scouts in hunting down any beastmen that slipped through the defences of the elves. The men who followed him included priests of Ulric and Taal, shrieking flagellants and howling, fanatical worshippers of the wolf-god. The mad and the lost, formed into a murderous pack that even the most bloodthirsty beast hesitated to cross.

Volker’s eyes blazed, and Jerrod’s horse whinnied nervously as the temperature dropped suddenly. He followed Volker’s gaze, and saw that he was staring at the elf mage, Teclis. The mage fought beside Lileath, the elf-woman who was neither Incarnate nor noble, as far as Jerrod could tell. He could not, in fact, say what she was. Lileath of the Moon, and Ladrielle of the Veil – that was what she had called herself. But what did those names mean? Why did they sound so familiar to him, as if he had heard them before? In a dream, perhaps, he thought. Volker took a step towards them, weapons raised. Jerrod nudged his horse between them, blocking Volker’s line of sight. ‘Your Emperor has said that the mage is not to be harmed, my friend,’ he said.

Volker grunted. ‘So he has.’ He twitched, and looked up at Jerrod. For a moment, his face was that of the man Jerrod had first met in Averheim, so many months ago. Then the mask was in place once more, and something feral looked out through Volker’s eyes. He nodded to Jerrod and turned, raising his weapons. He howled. Jerrod’s stallion stepped sideways in agitation as Volker’s band of lunatics ghosted through the glade, following into step with their commander. They flowed smoothly towards a point where the elven battle-line was beginning to buckle, and smashed into the beastmen with howls and wild screams.

Jerrod saw the enemy reel from the sudden onslaught. Another charge might put them to flight, he thought. He signalled for one of his Companions to sound his horn. At the first quavering note, the Bretonnian knights broke off from the melee with an ease born of hard-won experience and formed up about him. Jerrod had lost his lance in the first crashing charge, but he wouldn’t need it. Momentum, and the blessings of the Lady, would see him through. And if not, well… death would not find him a coward.

He spurred his horse into a canter and the Companions followed suit, falling into position behind him, arranging themselves by instinct without need for his command. The horses began to pick up speed as they drew closer to the main thrust of the battle. His blood sang in his veins as the canter flowed smoothly into a gallop. It had been too long since the Companions of Quenelles had ridden out and faced the enemy head on. There had been too much skulking behind walls or in glades; such was not the proper way of it, and he relished the chance to show the haughty inhabitants of Athel Loren how a true son of Bretonnia fought.

Elves turned as the thunder of hooves filled the glade. They had knights of their own, but their steeds moved with the grace and silence of a morning mist. The warhorses of Bretonnia on the other hand shook the earth and sky with their passing. They were not graceful or silent. They were a force of destruction, a mailed fist thudding home into the belly of the enemy. They were the pride of Bretonnia, and the sound of their hooves was the roar of a doomed people, proclaiming that they would not go meekly into the dark.

Jerrod hunched forwards in his saddle as the elven lines parted smoothly before them, as he’d hoped they would. And then the knights of Bretonnia smashed home in a rumble of hooves and a splintering of lances, driving into the ill-disciplined ranks of the beastherds with a sound like an avalanche. Those creatures unlucky enough to be in the front seemed to simply evaporate, torn apart or ground under hooves at the moment of impact. Those behind were dragged down seconds later, or else speared on the ends of lances. Those beasts closest to Jerrod were knocked aside, sent sprawling or trampled by his stallion as he hacked at the enemy. The knights pressed on, their formation spreading like a fist opening up. Behind them, the elves reformed their lines.

Jerrod laid about him until his arm ached and his heart shuddered in his chest. The beasts began to fall back, but not all at once, and not as he’d hoped. They were too disorganised for that, he realised. One herd cared little for what befell the next, and whatever fury drove them had yet to relinquish its hold on their stunted brains. Cursing, he made to signal for withdrawal. They could fall back, and charge again.

His horse reared as a number of ungors thrust spears at him. One glanced off his thigh, and another slashed through the strap of his saddle. Before he could stop himself, he was sliding ignominiously off his mount. He crashed hard to the ground, and was forced to roll aside to avoid being trampled by his own horse. Spears dug for his vitals and he flailed desperately, chopping them aside. Hairy hands grabbed for him, and cruel skinning knives or cut-down sword blades crashed against his armour as the creatures swarmed through the forest of stamping hooves and falling bodies.

A strong grip fixed itself on the back of his tabard, and he found himself dragged upright. An arm clad in black armour extended past him, clutching a long blade. An ungor spitted itself on that sword, and its malformed body withered and shrank within moments. The blade pulsed red for a moment and then returned to its original hue as its wielder ripped it free of the husk. Jerrod looked up into the smiling features of Vlad von Carstein.

‘I thought you might require assistance,’ the vampire said, as Jerrod parried an axe and opened its wielder’s belly. ‘I was nearby, and saw no reason not to lend it. You are from Quenelles, are you not? I thought I recognised your heraldry.’

‘I am,’ Jerrod said stiffly. He took a two-handed grip on his sword. He’d lost his shield in the fall, and his hip and shoulder ached. But the pain could wait; as long as he could move, however stiffly, he could fight. Vlad took up a position beside him.

‘Ah, Quenelles… such a lovely land. I whiled away many a night there in the company of fine ladies. And the dumplings, ah…’ Vlad kissed his fingertips in a gesture of appreciation. He beheaded a beastman with a casual swing of his blade. ‘I taught young Tancred the proper way to hold a sword; this was the first Tancred, of course. Long dead now, poor fellow. Ran afoul of some detestable necromancer, I’m given to understand.’

Jerrod fought in silence. The vampire moved too quickly for his eye to follow. Vlad chopped through the neck of a beast and whirled to face Jerrod. ‘You’re the latest to bear the dukedom, I’m told. I too know the pain of being the last ruler of a fallen province.’

‘Quenelles still stands,’ Jerrod said.

‘Of course it does, of course,’ Vlad said. ‘How could it not? But its people face much difficulty in the days to come, my dear duke. Have you considered the possibility of an alliance, for the days ahead?’ He ducked beneath the wild swing of a club, and sent a beastman sprawling with an almost playful slap.

‘With you?’

‘Who better? We are both men of royal blood, are we not? And in the years to come, both the Empire and Bretonnia will need each other – humanity must stand together, Jerrod.’

‘Humanity?’ Jerrod blurted, as a beastman lunged for him. He stepped aside and brought his blade down on the creature’s back. He heard the tramp of feet, and saw that the elves were moving forwards, spears levelled. They were taking advantage of the momentary lull the Bretonnian charge had caused, and were now moving to take back the ground they had lost. Jerrod raised his sword, signalling for his knights to withdraw.

‘I was as human as you, once, and unlike some, I have never forgotten it,’ Vlad said smoothly. He stepped back as the elves marched past them. ‘Too, I am an elector of the Empire, and as such view it as my duty to put forth the idea of alliance, come our eventual victory.’

‘You are so confident in our survival, then?’ Jerrod said. His stallion trotted towards him, its flanks heaving, its limbs striped with blood. He stooped to check the animal, relieved that it had survived. Vlad watched him for a moment. He reached out, as if to stroke the animal’s nose, but the horse shied away. Vlad let his hand drop, a tiny frown creasing his features.

‘Of course,’ the vampire said. ‘As the Emperor said, we fight for the future. To countenance defeat is as good as accepting it. And I have come too far, and accomplished too much, to accept the ruin of it all.’ He looked at Jerrod. ‘The world stands, Duke of Quenelles.’ He put his hand on Jerrod’s shoulder.

‘And I would see that it do so for many years yet to come.’

Gotri Hammerson clashed his hammer and axe together, summoning fire and heat. Beastmen fell, consumed and turning to ash even as they charged towards the Zhufbarak line. The runes of fire dimmed as he lowered his weapons. The dwarfs had taken up the flank, without asking permission. The elves had, in a rare display of sense, left them to it without protest. Now guns and good Black Water steel threw back the Children of Chaos again and again.

The beasts poured out of the trees in a disorganised mass. The giant, gangly shapes of ghorgons and cygors roared and smashed aside ancient oaks as they lumbered after their smaller cousins, and knots of bellowing minotaurs carved a path through their own kind to get to the dwarf lines. All of them were thrown back, again and again.

‘Ha! We’re hammering them just like the Ironfist did at Hunger Wood, Master Hammerson,’ one of his Anvil Guard barked, his broad face streaked with powder burns and blood. ‘They’ll remember the Zhufbarak, sure as sure.’ He swung his axe and beheaded an ungor as it scrabbled ineffectually at his shield.

‘Aye, and if you don’t pay attention, Ulgo, they’ll be the only ones to do so,’ Hammerson snarled. He smashed his hammer down, shattering a crude blade as it sought his gut, and gave its wielder an axe in the skull by way of reply. As he wrenched his weapon free, he raised his voice. ‘I want a steady rate of fire. I want them pummelled into a greasy patch on the topsoil, lads, and an extra tankard of Bugman’s best to whoever brings down that Grimnir-be-damned ghorgon over there.’ The rhythmic snarl of gunfire answered him as the lines revolved, fresh Thunderers stepping forwards to take the places of those who had just fired. The Zhufbarak were a millstone, grinding over the enemy. They had plenty of powder and shot, and a sea of targets. Some beastmen inevitably made it through the fusillade, however, and when that happened, it was time for the rest of the throng to earn their ale.

The ground trembled. He craned his neck and saw Jerrod and his knights smash into the enemy centre like a hammer striking an anvil, and couldn’t restrain a smile. ‘Good lad,’ he grunted. The Bretonnians fought like it was what they were bred for, and they hit almost as hard as a proper cannonade.

Something flashed at the corner of his eye, and he turned. His smile faded. Gelt stood at the heart of the battle-line, standing head and shoulders over the two dwarfs set to guard him – they were members of Hammerson’s own Anvil Guard, clad in gromril armour and bearing heavy shields marked with runes of resistance and shielding. Stromni and Gorgi, good lads, he thought. Hard lads, like ambulatory boulders with as much brains between them, but once they’d set their feet and locked shields, nothing short of death would move them. Gelt was safe with them.

Not that he needs much in the way of protection, Hammerson thought, as a wave of shimmering light erupted from Gelt’s hand and turned a number of beastmen to solid gold statues. Around Gelt, runes glowed white-hot, and the guns of the Thunderers seemed impossibly accurate. Axes hewed without going dull, and hammers broke through even the toughest armour and splintered the thickest bones.

A flash of runes caught Hammerson’s eye. They lined the edge of a ragged cloak, which swirled about a figure who stood where the fighting was thickest. The dwarf was old, older even than Hammerson himself, to judge by the icy whiteness of his plaited beard. His features were hidden beneath the hood of his cloak, and he bore no clan markings on his armour. The axe in his hands hummed with barely contained power as it lopped off a beastman’s head. The mysterious dwarf spun to smash a lunging beastman from the air, and his eyes caught Hammerson’s as he did so.

For a moment, the din of battle receded, and Hammerson heard only the sounds of the Black Water, and the rhythmic crash of the great forges of Zhufbar. He heard the rolling work-songs of his clan, and smelt the forge-smoke. He saw the shimmer of a thousand clan standards gleaming in the sun, and the glint of rune-weapons raised in defence of ancient oaths and old friends. All of this and more he saw in the eyes of the white-bearded dwarf, and a name came unbidden to his lips.

‘Eyes forward, Master Dwarf,’ a smooth voice purred. Hammerson whirled, the name slipping from his mind as he came face to face with a bulky beastman. Its teeth were clenched and its eyes rolled wildly, but it had been stopped from reaching him by a quintet of pale fingers which were sunk knuckle-deep into the meat of its back, just between its shoulders. Vlad von Carstein smiled in a neighbourly fashion and then, with a wink, ripped a section of the creature’s spine out. It toppled forwards with a single moaning bleat, and Hammerson instinctively crushed its skull with his boot.

The vampire bounced the chunk of bone on his palm for a moment before pitching it over his shoulder. ‘I would have thought a warrior such as yourself would know better than to become distracted in battle, Master Hammerson,’ he said.

‘And I’d have thought you’d have the sense not to save a fellow who means you ill, vampire,’ Hammerson grunted. Ulgo had noticed the vampire at last, and the Anvil Guard raised his axe threateningly. Hammerson glared at him until he lowered it. Aye, and we’ll be having a chat later, lad, about why it was the vampire who saved me and not you, eh? he thought sourly.

‘Still, and after I prevented that beast from braining you?’

‘Who asked you to? I owe you nothing,’ Hammerson said. He looked around, trying to spot the strange, white-bearded dwarf, but the old one had vanished into the eddies of battle. Hammerson shook his head, trying to banish the unease he suddenly felt.

‘Perhaps I didn’t do it for you, eh?’ Vlad said. He stepped over the creature and smoothly took up position beside Hammerson in the shield-wall. The closest dwarfs looked askance at the vampire, and more than one gun-barrel drifted towards him. Hammerson gestured sharply. No sense starting a second fight when they were already in the middle of one. He signalled for those closest to fall back a step.

‘Then why did you do it?’ Hammerson clashed his weapons together again. Fire roared out, earning them a moment of respite. He looked at the vampire. ‘And why aren’t you with your master?’

‘Which one?’ Vlad asked. ‘I am as much a son of the Empire as I am a child of death, Master Hammerson. And it is in my capacity as elector that I–’

‘Who says you’re an elector?’ Hammerson snapped. ‘Last I heard, electors carried runefangs – good dwarf weapons, those – and not whatever that monstrosity is.’ He gestured towards the blade in von Carstein’s hand.

Vlad smirked. ‘I am an elector because the Emperor says I am. And that means that we are allies, bound by old and sturdy oaths.’

Hammerson said nothing. Through the smoke, he saw Gelt slam the end of his staff down. The ground squirmed as great thorn-vines, composed of precious metals, rose from the earth and ensnared beastmen.

‘He is quite talented, for a mortal,’ Vlad said softly. ‘He served me for a time, did you know that? And now he is redeemed and host to powers greater even than ours, runesmith.’

Hammerson hadn’t known, and the thought didn’t please him. Old doubts about Gelt, ones he’d thought he’d put aside, came back stronger than before. He looked at Vlad. ‘What do you mean?’ he growled.

‘Things change, dwarf,’ Vlad said. ‘The world we pry from the jaws of destruction will not be the same as the one we remember. And old enemies might even be new friends, come that happy day.’

‘Speak plainly, leech,’ Hammerson spat.

Vlad sniffed. ‘Fine. The Emperor is but a man. He will die, in time. Perhaps even in this war. As sole remaining elector, I will take his place. I would ensure that the ancient oaths between the Empire of man and the empire of the dwarfs are upheld, despite old grudges.’

Hammerson stared at him. Then he laughed. Great whoops of amusement tore their way from him, and he bent forwards, gasping with breath. Vlad stared at him in consternation. Ulgo and the others joined in, guffawing. The vampire turned, eyes narrowed.

‘Oh, if that isn’t the funniest thing I’ve heard in days,’ Hammerson wheezed. He grinned at Vlad. ‘And you accused me of paying too much attention to what might be. Ha! Trust a manling to start portioning out the stew before the pot’s even warm. Even the dead ones, it seems.’ The runesmith shook his head. ‘Aye, vampire, we’ll honour the old oaths, come what may. We’ll defend the empire from whatever seeks to harm it.’ He met Vlad’s gaze and poked him in the chest with a finger. ‘Be it living, or dead. Remember that, blood-drinker.’ He turned away. ‘Now be off with you. This is a time for fighting, not for talking. We have a battle-line to maintain, and I’ll not have you flitting about, distracting my lads.’

Hammerson didn’t bother to watch the vampire depart. He smiled grimly. One battle at a time, Gotri, he thought. One battle at a time.

‘This is a waste of time,’ Lileath said. She whipped her staff about, crushing skulls and splintering bones with a strength far beyond what her slight frame seemed capable of. Teclis stood at her back, his hands extended and the air sizzling with his magics. ‘Every moment we stand undecided, is another moment lost,’ she continued. Her staff shot forwards, puncturing the muzzle of a snarling gor in a spray of blood and broken fangs.

‘I agree, but there is nothing to be done, my lady,’ Teclis said. ‘The others will not be swayed by pretty words or promises – especially not from me. Not now. My crimes are too numerous, my betrayals too fresh.’ His sword hummed out, drawing blood and howls of agony from the enemy. He set his staff and lightning crackled from the tip, arcing out to smash into the ranks of beastmen. Contorted bodies were flung high into the air, to land smoking on the churned earth.

‘Then you should have hidden your crimes better,’ she snapped. Teclis almost snapped off a retort, but held his tongue. Though she had given the last of her power to slow the blight of Chaos, Lileath was still one of the ancient gods of elvenkind. And she was still the closest thing he had to a guide on the path he now trod.

In fact, it had been Lileath who had first set him upon that path. It was her staff he wielded, and her strength which had flowed through it, once, into him. As a goddess, prophecy had been amongst her gifts, and she had foreseen the End Times, and perceived the shape of their coming, long before his birth. It was she who had warned him of Aenarion’s curse, and how it would twist Tyrion and doom their people. It was she who had convinced him of Malekith’s legitimacy, and the need for the Incarnates. And it was she who had shown him how to bring Tyrion back from death, and what sacrifices would be required.

It had all been Lileath, and he had performed every task to her expectation save one – he had not been able to control the winds of magic. The shattering of the vortex had failed, and now the eighth wind was lost, somewhere in the east. If he strained his senses, he could feel it, just barely. It had found a host, he knew, though what sort of host he couldn’t say. What he did know was that the Incarnate of Beasts was steadily moving west, pulled by the same sorcerous signal which had drawn the other Incarnates. But the host, whoever or whatever it was, would not reach them in time. Not unless they went out to meet it.

Then, united, the Incarnates could throw back Chaos once and for all. Or so Lileath had assured him. Even now, however, he wasn’t sure. He watched her as they fought, studying her. Her determination was inhuman, greater than any save perhaps Nagash’s, but was it truly bent in service to his cause? Was she truly fighting for the elves, or was there some other game being played? Some deeper purpose that the once-goddess had not seen fit to share with her servant.

His mouth twisted into a frown. Was that all he was now? A servant of fate? The thought did not sit well with him. Fate had ever been his enemy, from the first moment he had learned of the curse that had lurked in his and Tyrion’s bloodline. Without thinking, he sought out his brother. As ever, Tyrion was deep in the maelstrom of battle, his form glowing brightly as he rode Malhandir through the press, striking down beastmen with every blow. The Emperor rode beside him on his screeching griffon, and though the human did not glow with power, his sword, and the claws and beak of his beast, took an equal toll.

The two were accompanied by Imrik and his fellow Dragon Princes, who crashed and swirled through the enemy ranks like lightning. The finest cavalry in all of Ulthuan, it was all but impossible to force them to maintain proper battle order. The Bretonnians too had joined with them, carving out a trail through the heart of the warherd. And above the massed charge flew Caradryan and his Phoenix Guard. The captain unleashed torrents of flame which burned only beastmen, and spared elves, men and trees alike.

And still, it was not enough. Teclis could feel the awful pulse of dark magics which hissed through the blood of the enemy. The Children of Chaos had ever been the fodder of the dark armies, and they had been called to Athel Loren in their thousands, united at last in common cause. They were not meant to succeed, he knew. They were but chaff, sent to die and keep the last redoubt under siege, until the Everchosen bestirred himself to launch a final attack.

The question was, why hadn’t Archaon yet launched that attack? Why did he still sit north of the Grey Mountains, rather than flowing down and engulfing Athel Loren in fire and steel? Why not make an end of it?

There was something they were missing, some piece of the puzzle not yet fitted into place. Frustrated, Teclis whirled his staff over his head and brought it down. Crackling talons of lightning shot forth, catching nearby beastmen in their grasp. The creatures fell, wreathed in smoke. What have we missed? he thought. He heard the sound of a signal horn, and saw the Dragon Princes and the Bretonnians retreating. They flowed through the ranks of spearmen, who formed up behind them as the beastmen pressed forwards. He could hear elf nobles shouting out orders up and down the lines. They were buckling, and there was nothing anyone, even the Incarnates, could do. And will we survive long enough to find out?

He saw Imrik’s standard bearer gallop past. The spearmen were falling back in good order, covered by bowmen and Alith Anar’s Shadow Warriors as well as the dwarf Thunderers, but there were too many bodies in white and silver left behind. The battle-line was swinging inwards, folding in on itself as the press of the enemy became too great. Teclis set his staff, and readied a spell. It would not end here, but they would lose the Silvale Glade, and the enemy would draw ever closer to the heart of the forest-kingdom.

Then, a wash of cold, foul air filled the glade. The beastmen, once braying in triumph, began to edge back, suddenly uncertain. Teclis turned, and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. Nagash had at last decided to act. The Great Necromancer had stood at the rear of the army, accompanied by Arkhan the Black, seemingly content to do nothing more than observe. But now, the Undying King moved slowly to the centre of the glade. The bodies of the dead twitched and stirred as he moved through them, and moaning souls were drawn in his wake. His nine books thrashed in their chains and snapped like wild beasts.

A minotaur charged towards him, roaring. Nagash’s claw snapped out and caught the creature by the throat. Without slowing, or any visible effort, he broke the beast’s neck and slung the body aside. Horns sounded and the elves retreated, streaming back from the liche. Teclis forced himself forwards. He doubted Nagash needed any help, and he wasn’t inclined to offer it besides, but he was curious about what the Incarnate of Death was planning.

Nagash raised his staff in both hands, and brought it down. The ground groaned, and a circle of dead grass spread out from the point where the staff touched. Amethyst light blazed through ruptures in the soil. It grew brighter and brighter, and where it passed, beastmen died in untold numbers. Hundreds fell in moments, and fear swept through those who survived. Soon, those that the light hadn’t touched were fleeing back into the trees. The herd was broken. Teclis released a shuddering breath.

Nagash lowered his staff and turned.

‘IT IS DONE.’

‘You… have our thanks,’ Teclis said. Silence had fallen over the glade in the wake of Nagash’s spell. Nagash strode past him without reply. Arkhan fell in step beside him. Vlad hesitated. He looked around, a slight smile on his face, and sheathed the sword he’d been holding. The vampire looked as if he’d participated in the fighting, at least.

‘Well, I trust you’re now seeing the benefit to our presence,’ the vampire said. He grabbed Lileath’s hand and bowed low. ‘My lady,’ he murmured. He released her and nodded to Teclis. ‘Loremaster,’ he said. Then he straightened, turned on his heel, and strode after Nagash.

‘Though you did not choose him, I am forced to admit he is impressive,’ Lileath murmured. She cradled her hand to her chest, and for a moment, Teclis wondered whether she was talking about Nagash or Vlad.

‘I would be more impressed if he’d done that to begin with,’ a harsh voice said. Teclis turned to see a familiar figure clad in blue and silver armour approaching, leading a horse in his wake.

‘Well met, Imrik,’ Teclis said. The Dragon Prince of Caledor looked as tired as Teclis felt, and worse besides. His once-proud bearing was bent beneath the weight of exhaustion, and his fine armour was hacked and torn and covered in gore. Imrik nodded curtly.

‘The beasts are retreating, for now at any rate,’ he said. His voice was hoarse from strain. He pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. ‘They will return, though. In a matter of days, if not hours.’ He turned his helmet over in his hands. ‘There are more of them every time. It is as if every beast left in the world has gone mad, and come to Athel Loren.’

‘You’re not far wrong,’ Teclis said. He looked up at the blistered sky, where the clouds seemed to congeal into leering faces which came apart as soon as he caught a glimpse of them. ‘The Dark Gods muster their strength for some final blow – one which I fear will fall here, and soon.’ He looked at Imrik. ‘Can you hold them, if they come again?’

Imrik looked away, across the glade. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘After that, however…’ He trailed off. He shook his head. ‘Your brother fought well, mage. He helped turn the tide here, as he did when the daemonspawn attacked the Oak of Ages. Hard to believe… what he was. It is almost as if it didn’t happen.’

‘Is it, Prince of Caledor? I find it all too easy to remember,’ Teclis said. He watched as Tyrion picked his way through the carnage, sword held loosely in his hand. Even now, suffused by Light, he looked as if he belonged nowhere else.

‘Aenarion come again,’ Imrik said. ‘And gone as quickly.’ He looked at Teclis. ‘Something must be done, mage. And soon… My forces are bled white while the Eternity King consorts with savages and worse things,’ he muttered, casting a wary glance at Nagash.

‘I know,’ Teclis said. He leaned against his staff. His limbs felt like lead. ‘I know.’

Eleven

Somewhere beneath the Eternal Glade

Mannfred’s eyes opened slowly. He had not been sleeping. His kind did not sleep, no matter how much it might have passed the time. He had been thinking, plotting his course should the opportunity for freedom present itself.

There were few paths open to him. Sylvania was a trap that would be his unmaking, if he dared cross its borders. Neferata would send his fangs back to Athel Loren without hesitation. The rest of the world was being consumed in a conflagration the likes of which even he had never seen, and he had no intention of dying alone and forgotten in some hole. No, there was only one route that promised even a hint of a chance at victory.

Middenheim, he thought bitterly. Middenheim, the heart of enemy territory. Having been rejected by his allies, he had no place to go but the arms of his former foes. Would they welcome him? He liked to think so. How could they not? Was Mannfred von Carstein not a pre-eminent sorcerer and tactician, a master of life and death? And did he not know many valuable secrets?

Indeed I do, he thought. So many secrets, including the presence of the goddess of the moon herself. He smiled cruelly. His brief association with the branch wraith Drycha had yielded much, including the revelation that the Lady so assiduously worshipped by the Bretonnians was, in fact, the elven goddess Ladrielle, albeit in disguise. And since Ladrielle had kindly revealed that she and Lileath were one and the same, in the King’s Glade earlier, it wasn’t hard to see the weapon such information could be in the right hands.

But first, he would have to escape. And he judged that the opportunity to do so had just presented itself. A faint stirring of the air had brought him fully alert, and now his gaze roamed the shadows. There was a new smell on the air, indefinable but nonetheless familiar. Something was watching him. ‘I smell you, daemon,’ he said, acting on a hunch.

A shape moved out of the shadows on the other side of the bars. Great wings folded back as a horned head bent, and a voice like the grinding of stone said, ‘And I smell you, vampire. You stink of need and spite.’

‘And you smell like an untended fire-pit. What’s your point?’ Mannfred asked. ‘I’d heard that the elves had chased you out of the forest with your tail between your legs, Be’lakor.’ He gestured. ‘They cast you out, as is ever your lot. It must get tiring, being thrown out of places you’d rather not leave. Shuffled aside and forgotten, as if you were nothing more than an annoyance.’

Be’lakor cocked his head. ‘You are one to speak of being forgotten, given your current situation,’ the daemon murmured.

‘True, but you have fallen from heights I can but dream of,’ Mannfred said. ‘Be’lakor, the Harbinger, He Who Heralds the Conquerors, the Foresworn, the Dark Master. Blessed at the dawn of time by all four of the dark powers, you ruled the world before the coming of the elves. And now look at you… a shadow of your former glory, forced to scrabble for meaning as destinies clash just out of reach.’ He smiled. ‘One wonders what victory you seek here, in my guest quarters.’

‘No victory, vampire. Merely curiosity,’ Be’lakor said. ‘And now that I have satisfied that, I shall take my leave.’ The daemon prince turned, as if to vanish back into the shadows. Mannfred recognised the ploy for what it was. For an ageless being, Be’lakor had all the subtlety of a brute.

‘Free me, daemon,’ Mannfred said.

‘And why would I do that, vampire?’ Be’lakor asked. He stopped and turned. ‘Will you promise to serve me, perhaps?’ Obsidian claws stretched out, as if to caress the roots of Mannfred’s cage. ‘Will you sign yourself over to me, and wield those not inconsiderable powers of yours at my discretion?’

Mannfred laughed. ‘Hardly.’ He smiled. ‘I know you, First Damned. I know your ways and your wiles, and our paths have crossed more than once. I saw you slip through the streets of comet-shattered Mordheim, and I watched from afar as you tried to break the waystones of a certain foggy isle in the Great Ocean. Your schemes and mine have ever been woven along parallel seams, though until now we have not met face to face.’ Mannfred sniffed. ‘I must say, I wasn’t missing much.’

‘You mock me,’ Be’lakor rumbled.

‘And you mock me, by implying that you would free me in return for my loyalty. We both know that such an oath, made under duress, would be no more binding than a morning mist.’

Be’lakor’s hideous features twisted into a leer. ‘Even if it were not made under duress, I would no more trust you than I would trust the Changer of Ways himself. You are a serpent, Mannfred, with a serpent’s ambition. Power is your only master, and you ever seek it, even when it would be wiser to restrain yourself.’

‘Ah, more mockery… Be’lakor, hubris made manifest, warns me of overreach. Did I not say that I know you, daemon? I have read of your mistakes, your crimes, and you are the last being who should warn anyone of the perils of ambition. There is a saying in Sylvania… grave, meet mould.’ Mannfred chortled. ‘I leave it to you, to decide which you are.’

‘Are you finished?’

‘I’m just getting started. I have nothing but time here, and nothing to do but to sharpen my wit. Shall I comment on your many failures next?’

Be’lakor growled. Mannfred subsided. He sat back, and smirked at the daemon. He’d planned to provoke the creature into attacking, and thus freeing him, but he had the sense that Be’lakor was too canny for such tricks, despite his lack of subtlety. ‘No, instead, I think I shall offer thee a bargain. A titbit of some rare value, in return for thy aid in shattering the cage which so cruelly detains me.’

‘And what is this bibelot, this morsel, that I should exert myself so?’

‘Oh, something of great value, for all that it is but a small thing… a name.’ Mannfred cocked his head. ‘Much diminished, this name, but valuable all the same, I think.’

‘Speak it,’ Be’lakor said.

‘Free me,’ Mannfred replied.

‘No. Why should I? What good is this name to me?’

‘Well, it is not so much the name as the soul upon which it hangs. A divine soul, Be’lakor. One which has supped at the sweet nectar of immortality, but now is but a mortal. Helpless and fragile.’

‘A god,’ Be’lakor rasped. The daemon’s eyes narrowed. ‘The gods are dead.’

‘Not all of them. Some yet remain.’ Mannfred stepped back. He spread his arms. ‘One, at least, is here, in this pestilential forest. Hidden amongst the cattle.’

‘A god,’ Be’lakor repeated, softly. The daemon’s features twisted. Mannfred could almost smell the creature’s greed.

‘An elven god,’ he said. ‘One whose blood, mortal or not, contains no small amount of power, for one who knows how to extract it. I had considered it myself, but, well…’ He motioned to the cage. ‘I will gladly offer their identity in exchange for but the simple favour of cleaving these pestiferous roots which do bind me.’

Be’lakor was silent for a moment. Then, with a gesture, a sword of writhing shadows sprouted from his hand. He swept the blade across the bars, and Mannfred clapped his hands to his ears as he heard the trees which made up his prison scream in agony. He made to leave, but found the tip of Be’lakor’s blade at his throat. ‘The name, vampire.’

‘Lileath, goddess of moon and prophecy,’ Mannfred said, gingerly pushing the blade aside. It squirmed unpleasantly at his touch.

‘Where?’ Be’lakor growled.

‘That was not part of the bargain,’ Mannfred said. ‘But, as I am an honourable man, I shall tell you anyway. The King’s Glade. She sits on the Council of Incarnates, and listens to their bickering, no doubt plotting some scheme of her own.’

Be’lakor grinned. Then, in a twist of shadow, the daemon prince was gone. Mannfred sagged. Free of the deadening effect of the magics, he suddenly realised just how weak he truly was. Hunger gnawed at him.

He heard the rattle of weapons, and realised that Be’lakor’s destruction of the cage had roused the guards. Mannfred smiled, and as the first elf entered the chamber, he was already in motion, jaw unhinged like that of a serpent and claws sprouting from his fingertips. He bowled the elf over with bone-shattering force and tore the spear from his grip. He hurled it with deadly accuracy, spitting the second and driving her back against the wall. With a growl, he tore the helm from the first guard’s head and fastened his jaws on the helpless elf’s throat.

Pain lashed across his back, even as he fed. He turned, jaws and chest stained with blood, and twisted aside as the sword came down again. The elf pursued him as he slithered away. Mannfred caught the blade as it stabbed for his midsection, and hissed in pain as the sigils carved into its surface burned his flesh. He drove the claws of his free hand into the elf’s throat and tore it out.

He fed quickly, knowing that more guards were on their way. When he had supped his fill from each of the guards, he fled into the labyrinth of roots, taking care to keep to the shadows and to hide himself from the spirits which haunted Athel Loren. Freed of his cell, his magics had returned, and he had little difficulty in reaching the surface.

As he reached the open air, he tilted his head and sniffed. Escape was his most pressing concern, but he hesitated. He had been betrayed and humiliated. All of the plots and schemes he had concocted in his confinement came rushing back, and he savoured them. No, it wouldn’t do to leave without saying goodbye. Nagash was beyond the scope of his powers. But he could still poison the well.

Which one will it be? he thought, as he glided through the trees, moving swiftly, conscious of the alarms which were even now being raised. The Incarnates were all, like Nagash, beyond him, though he hated to admit it. That left only certain individuals. And only one whose scent was close at hand.

Mannfred smiled as he set off in pursuit of his quarry. How appropriate, he thought. Maybe fate is on my side after all. If nothing else, it might prove amusing to take Be’lakor’s prize off the table before the daemon got a chance to claim her. And if in doing so he could rend his faithless former would-be allies from a safe remove, all the better. Moving swiftly, he navigated the ever-shifting trails of the forest, avoiding the kinbands likely dispatched to bring him to heel, until he found the one he sought.

And then, with the surety of a serpent, he struck.

Duke Jerrod rose to his feet and spun, his sword flying from his sheath and into his hand. The point of the gleaming blade came to rest in the hollow of Mannfred von Carstein’s throat. ‘Do not move, vampire, or I will remove your foul head,’ Jerrod said.

The Council of Incarnates was squabbling again, arguing over which course of action to take. He’d hoped that the battle with the beastmen would have seen them united at last, but such was not to be. Even as they’d returned to the glade, arguments had started anew. While Hammerson seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching such rancorous discussion, Jerrod no longer had the stomach for it. It reminded him of the last days in the king’s court, before Mallobaude’s civil war. An enemy on the horizon, and all of them more concerned about getting their own way. Even demigods, it seemed, were not immune to foolishness.

He had been kneeling in the glade, praying to the Lady, asking for some sort of sign which might show him the way, when he’d heard a stick snap beneath the vampire’s tread. Mannfred smiled and spread his hands. ‘Why would I move, when I am where I wish to be, Duke of Quenelles?’ He stepped back slowly, and bowed low. ‘At your service.’

‘I doubt that,’ Jerrod said. He kept his sword extended, ready for any attack the vampire might make. His blade had been blessed by the Lady herself, and would cut through magic and flesh with equal ease. That said, he felt little confidence that he could do much more than distract the creature before him until aid arrived. Even in Bretonnia, the name of von Carstein was a watchword for savagery and death. ‘I did not expect you to escape. Few make it out of the depths of Athel Loren alive.’

‘Well, I’m not really alive, am I?’ Mannfred said. His smile slipped. ‘I am not much of anything now.’ He paused, as if gathering his thoughts, and said, ‘We are two of a kind, you and I… lords without lands, deceived by those we placed our trust in, and fought for.’

‘We are nothing alike, vampire,’ Jerrod said. A part of him screamed for the vampire’s head. The creature deserved death for his crimes. But another part… He blinked. ‘What do you mean “deceived”?’ he asked, without thinking.

Mannfred pulled his cloak tight about him. ‘You do not know, then. How unfortunate. But how in keeping with the selfishness of such creatures, that even now, when you have sacrificed so much, she still refuses to tell you.’

‘She,’ Jerrod said. He knew who the vampire meant. Lileath, he thought.

As if he’d read Jerrod’s thoughts, Mannfred nodded. ‘Yes, you know of whom I speak.’ He frowned. ‘I come now to warn you, Duke of Quenelles, as I wish I had been warned. A final act before I depart this malevolent grove, to perhaps rectify at least one wrong in my misbegotten life.’

‘Say what you have come to say, beast.’ Jerrod readied his sword. ‘And be quick. I hear the horns of Athel Loren sounding in the deep glades. Your jailers will be here soon.’

Mannfred glanced over his shoulder, and then back at Jerrod. ‘Lileath of the Moon, and Ladrielle of the Veil,’ he said. ‘I knew I had heard those names before, secret names for a secret goddess. A goddess of the elves… and of men.’

Jerrod hesitated. ‘No,’ he said, softly.

‘Oh yes,’ Mannfred said. He stepped close as Jerrod’s blade dipped. ‘They do like their amusements, the gods. How entertaining it must have been for her to usurp the adoration of your people, and mould you like clay.’ He leaned close, almost whispering. ‘Just think… all of the times you’ve sworn by the Lady, well, she was right there, within arm’s reach. She heard every prayer, witnessed every deed.’ Mannfred grabbed his shoulder. ‘And said nothing.’

‘No,’ Jerrod croaked in protest. But it all made a terrible sort of sense. He could feel the connection between them, though he had not known what it was. And why else would the Lady have fallen silent, save that she was no longer the Lady, and had no more use for Bretonnia? He lowered his sword. For the first time in his life, he felt unsure. It was a strange feeling for him, for he’d never doubted himself before, not in battle or otherwise. But now…

He turned. Mannfred was gone. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. The vampire wasn’t important. Only the truth mattered. He was lying, he had to be, he thought as he hurried towards the King’s Glade. But what he’d felt when he’d first laid eyes on her and every time since. The way she would not meet his gaze. The way she had stepped between him and Malekith. Lying, oh my Lady, let him have been lying, he thought.

No guards barred his way, for which he was thankful. He burst into the glade where the council was being held. His sudden appearance had interrupted Malekith’s latest snarling rant, and all heads turned towards him. All save one.

‘Lileath,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Face me, woman.’

Silence fell over the glade. Malekith waved his guards back to their positions. The Eternity King slumped back into his throne, and said, ‘Well, face him, Lileath. Give the ape what he wants and maybe he’ll slink back off to wherever he goes to hide when someone raises their voice.’ Jerrod looked at him, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Malekith sat up. ‘Ah, I was wondering when he’d figure it out,’ he said softly, glancing at Alarielle. ‘Such dim-witted beasts. Unable to recognise divinity, even when it is right beside them.’

‘Be silent,’ Hammerson barked. The dwarf stepped towards Jerrod, ignoring Malekith’s sputtering outrage. ‘Lad, what is it?’

‘I know her name now,’ Jerrod said. Hammerson frowned, but before he could speak, Lileath turned.

‘And who told you that, Duke of Quenelles?’ she asked.

‘Is it true?’ Jerrod replied.

‘There are many truths,’ Lileath said, after a moment’s hesitation.

Malekith laughed bitterly. ‘This is pointless. I shall have my guards remove the ape and the dwarf both. How are we expected to proceed with such distractions?’

‘Proceed where?’ Hammerson said. Thumbs hooked in his belt, the dwarf scanned the faces of the Incarnates. ‘It’s been weeks, and all you’ve done is given yourselves a pretty name. Even the great councils of Karaz-a-Karak move faster than this, when the enemy is on our doorstep. Distraction – pfaugh. I’d think you’d welcome it.’ He patted the hammer stuffed through his belt. ‘And I’ll crack the skull of the first elf to lay a hand on me or the lad here.’

‘There is no need for skull-cracking, Master Hammerson,’ Lileath said. ‘I shall speak to Jerrod alone, away from the council, if he wishes.’ She looked at Jerrod and a wash of images flowed across the surface of his mind, memories and dreams, and for a moment, he was tongue-tied, humbled by her presence. He wanted to kneel.

Instead, he turned and began to leave. Lileath followed. They left the glade where the council met, and walked in silence to a nearby grove. For a while, the only sounds were those of the forest. The quiet shudder of branches, the rustle of leaves. And then, the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath.

‘Is it true?’ Jerrod said.

‘As I said…’ Lileath began.

‘No,’ he croaked. ‘No, do not play the mystic with me. I am only a man, and I would know whether or not my life has been a lie. I would know whether my people died for the games of a goddess not even our own.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘What does it matter?’ Jerrod snarled. ‘All you have to do is say that it is untrue. Say that you are not the Lady, and I will apologise. I will renounce my seat on the council, and we shall ne’er meet again. But tell me.’

Lileath was silent. Her face betrayed no anxiety, only calm. ‘I do not deny it,’ she said. Her voice was icy. ‘Indeed, I am proud of it. I am proud of what I made of your primitive forebears.’

‘You used us,’ Jerrod said. ‘We were but pieces on a game board, dying for a cause that did not exist.’ He raised his sword. ‘We thought you were our guiding light, but instead you were merely luring us to our doom. Now the best of us are dead, and the rest will soon follow.’

‘There was no other choice,’ Lileath said. ‘Prophecy was my gift, and I foresaw the End Times at the moment of my birth. I needed an army, and your people provided one.’

‘Why us?’

Lileath looked away. ‘Asuryan would never have countenanced the creation of a new race. Not after what was provoked by the crafting of the elves.’ She turned and swatted aside his sword with her staff. ‘I chose your forefathers to serve a greater purpose. I drew them up out of the muck, and gave them nobility and honour second only to that of the elves. Without the codes and laws that I gave you, your ancestors would have wiped each other out, or else been trampled into the muck by orcs or worse things.’ She extended her staff, nearly touching his chest. ‘Make no mistake, human. What you have, your honour, your lands, your skill, all of that is my doing. You owe me your life and loyalty, whether I be Lady or Ladrielle. And I make no apology for collecting on that debt.’

Jerrod heard a low, animal sound and realised it was coming from him. His sword arm trembled with barely restrained fury, and his blood thumped in his temples. The point of his blade rose. ‘You are no goddess,’ he whispered. ‘You are a daemon.’

‘No,’ Lileath said. ‘No, I am merely one who does what must be done.’ She lowered her staff. ‘It was necessary, Jerrod.’ Her voice lost its ice, and became sorrowful. Her poise crumpled, replaced by resignation. ‘The world is doomed. But that does not mean that hope is lost. There is a world – a Haven – where life may yet continue, even as this one is consumed in the fires of Chaos. Without Bretonnia’s sacrifices, I could not have created it. Surely that is worth something?’

She stepped towards him. Her hand stretched out, and Jerrod flinched back. ‘Listen to me,’ she pleaded. ‘This war could never have been won. Not by you, or any of your brothers who died in service to the Empire, or in the civil war. But part of them, part of those who died, lives on in my Haven, protecting it from the evil which even now seeks to infect it. Even now, the spirits of your brothers, of all the knights who have ever died in service to the Lady – to me – fight on for a new world. A better world.’

‘So even in death, you use us as weapons?’ Jerrod said. A chill crept through him. ‘Even our ghosts know no peace?’

Lileath dropped her hand. Her eyes were sad. ‘What is a knight, but one who sacrifices for others?’ she said, softly.

Jerrod stepped back. ‘Small consolation, given that you were the author of that creed,’ he spat. He shook his head. ‘Is that all, then? Is that the story of us? Dogsbodies in life and death, serfs to immortal masters who see us only as weapons to be used and discarded?’

‘Is that not what one does with serfs?’ Lileath said.

Jerrod said nothing. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Why was he here? Had it all been for nothing? Lileath sank down to her knees, her skirts pooling about her. She bowed her head. ‘If you do not believe me, then kill me, Jerrod, Duke of Quenelles. Kill me for what I have done. I ask only that after your honour – the honour I instilled in you – has been satisfied, you hold true to your oath and fight beside the Incarnates. Fight to hold back the darkness, so that a new world may be born.’

Jerrod hesitated. Then he raised his sword, taking a two-handed grip. He was ready, in that moment, to bring it down on Lileath’s head. It was too much for him. The whole of his world, the philosophy by which he and all of his people had lived their lives, was nothing but a goddess’s gamble. A game between inhuman forces, in which he and his were but pawns, raised up and spent with no more thought than a child might give to her toys.

‘Why?’ he croaked. ‘Why did you do this to us?’

‘I have already told you,’ she said, softly. ‘Saying it again will not help you understand. I made your people into the point of my spear, and used you as such. And now, you have turned in my hand, and your tip rests above my heart. Strike if you must.’ Lileath looked up at him. ‘But I would have your oath, before you do.’

‘I… no,’ he said. ‘No, no more oaths, no more lies.’

‘You will give me your oath,’ Lileath continued, as if he had not spoken. ‘You will swear to me, Jerrod of Quenelles, that you will fight alongside the Incarnates. That you will die for them, as you once might have died for me. You will swear this.’

‘I will not,’ Jerrod said. ‘No more games of death on your behalf, or on the behalf of any other. You have broken us, ruined us, and my course is set. I…’ He trailed off. The blade in his hand trembled. Before his eyes, he saw the faces of every slain Companion, and every fallen friend and family member. They had believed, and they had died, thinking that the Lady was watching over them. Instead, it had all been nothing more than a cruel hoax by a goddess who cared nothing for her people, or his.

But something held him back. Some tenuous strand of the man he had been, before Lileath had broken his certainties. Some small part which whispered to him that the deed he contemplated was unworthy of him. That to kill her, was to prove her right. To prove that her meddling and scheming had been necessary… That his people would never have found the light without her.

Jerrod looked down at her. He met her cool, alien gaze and said, ‘You’re wrong.’

Lileath blinked. Jerrod lowered his sword. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said again. ‘We owe you nothing. It is you who owe us, and you will not get out of our debt so easily.’

Lileath’s eyes widened. She made as if to speak, but no sound passed her lips. She snatched up her staff and rose to her feet so quickly that Jerrod thought she meant to attack him. Then he heard the snap of great wings, and knew that Lileath hadn’t been looking at him. He spun, and saw a dark shape explode from the shadows of the glade. Though he had never seen the creature before, Lileath clearly recognised it.

‘Be’lakor,’ she spat.

‘Yes,’ the daemon thundered as he charged forwards. ‘I have come for you, fallen goddess. You denied me once, but now I will have both your soul and the Haven you boasted of for my own.’ Wreathed in smoke and darkness, the daemon prince charged towards Lileath, shadow-blade raised, the glade shaking beneath his tread.

There was no time to think, no time to fear. Instinct took over. Jerrod stepped forwards, between the daemon and his prey. Be’lakor’s sword smashed down against Jerrod’s upraised blade, and the knight’s arm went numb from the force of the blow. For all that the creature seemed barely substantial, it had a strength greater than any he’d ever known. Be’lakor’s hell-spark eyes widened and his wings snapped, pushing him aloft. Leaves swirled about Jerrod, caught in the updraught as the daemon rose into the air.

He wished briefly that he’d thought to bring his shield. Then Be’lakor was dropping towards him, shadow-blade extended like a spear. Jerrod readied himself to meet the creature’s attack but at the last second Lileath shoved past him, her staff in her hands. She raised it, and bolts of blinding light lanced from its tip to strike the approaching daemon. Or they would have, had they not passed through Be’lakor’s form like arrows punching through fog. Jerrod reached out and grabbed the goddess by her shoulder, flinging her aside as Be’lakor swooped down over them.

He caught the creature’s blow on his sword once again, and pain pulsed through his shoulder joint. As he stumbled, Be’lakor’s free hand sliced towards him. The creature’s black talons tore bloody furrows in his face and hurled him to the ground. Jerrod skidded backwards through the mud and fallen leaves. He slammed into a tree and rolled onto his face, struggling to suck air into his abused lungs. He was blind in one eye, and his cheek felt like a punctured water skin. Everything hurt, and thin rivulets of what could only be his blood crept across the ground.

With a groan, he levered himself up onto one knee. Using his sword, he tried to push himself to his feet, but his arms lacked strength. Be’lakor strode slowly towards him, trailing fire and smoke. ‘Why do you fight?’ the daemon prince gurgled. ‘I heard all that passed between you, mortal. Your goddess has used you as badly as my gods once used me. She raised you up, and cast you down when you were of no more use.’

‘While I can stand, monster, I will fight,’ Jerrod groaned. He made to rise again, but his strength was gone. He toppled backwards. Be’lakor studied him for a moment. Then, with a grunt, the daemon lifted one clawed heel and slammed it down on Jerrod’s left leg. Jerrod screamed as the force of the blow split his armour and pulverised the flesh and bone beneath.

‘Now you cannot stand.’ Be’lakor smiled. ‘Do not feel obliged to interfere further, mortal. This is a matter for demigods.’ Seemingly satisfied, the daemon prince turned away. Jerrod rolled awkwardly onto his side, and tried to pull himself towards his fallen sword as the creature closed in on Lileath.

Her eyes were closed, and spirals of glowing white energy began to form about her. Those spirals lashed out at Be’lakor as he drew close, and he bellowed in agony as wisps of his shadow thinned to nothing or were plucked from his body. Snarling, Be’lakor brought his blade down, smashing the staff from Lileath’s hands and knocking her to the ground. ‘You think to banish me?’ Be’lakor roared. He smacked a fist into his chest. ‘I am the First Damned, and older than any exorcism or rite of banishment. I have more right to stride this world than you, and I will not be cast out – not now, not ever!’

Jerrod’s fingers closed on his sword. Biting back a scream, he plunged it into the ground and used it to haul himself upright. He lurched on his good leg, using the sword as a crutch, his eyes locked on Be’lakor’s broad back.

Lileath scrambled away, her eyes wide. Be’lakor laughed. ‘Is that fear I see in your eyes, little goddess? Prophecy was once your gift… Did you see this moment? Have you feared it all of this time? Is that why you offered your neck to the ape, so that you might escape your destiny?’ He reached for her. ‘Take it from one who knows, woman… There is no escaping destiny. There is only pain. Inevitable and unending.’

Lileath shied back from his outstretched talon, and Be’lakor leaned in. But he immediately reared back with a wail of pain as Jerrod lunged and slammed his sword into the daemon prince’s back. Be’lakor thrashed wildly and Jerrod lost his grip on his sword, falling heavily to the ground. He rolled aside as Be’lakor’s foot came down. The daemon prince’s screams threatened to burst his eardrums, and he clapped his hands to the side of his head as the sound rose to agonising heights.

With a howl, Be’lakor finally tore the sword free of his back and flung it aside. But before he could move to finish its incapacitated wielder off, he was distracted by an ear-splitting roar that shook the trees to their roots. Large talons slammed into the daemon prince and knocked him sprawling.

The black dragon landed in the middle of the glade, giving vent to a second roar, louder than the first. Jerrod saw Malekith perched on the beast’s back, sword in hand and a shroud of shadows curling about his lean frame. Be’lakor scrambled to his feet with a snarl and whirled as if to flee, but a thunder of hooves made him hesitate. A figure glowing as brightly as the sun hurtled into the glade and cut off the daemon’s path of retreat.

Jerrod stared as Tyrion urged his horse up. The light which poured from the elf-prince incinerated the shadows which made up Be’lakor’s form. The daemon prince reeled, and his body shrank and twisted, losing mass. Be’lakor lunged away from the newcomers and dived towards the welcoming shadows beneath the trees.

Malekith gave a sharp, mocking laugh and gestured. The shadows about Be’lakor seemed to twitch and stretch, and the daemon prince snarled as he was dragged backwards. He fell, clawing at the ground for purchase, but to no avail. Even as he struggled, chains woven from light snagged him by his limbs and wings and horns, imprisoning him. The daemon was like a child before the power of the Incarnates, and soon, Be’lakor, who had thought to seize a goddess, had himself been made a prisoner.

Jerrod saw Lileath running towards him, and he wanted to speak, but no words came. Darkness crowded at the edge of his vision, and he fell back into oblivion, accompanied only by the frustrated shrieks of the First Damned.

Twelve

King’s Glade, Athel Loren

Gotri Hammerson chewed on his cold pipe and stared into the dark. The sounds of celebration had died away quickly after Jerrod had entered the vast glade where the Bretonnians and the other refugees from Averheim had made camp. Now, there was no noise at all, as people retired to their cold meals or ragged tents and the glade fell into darkness. But it was no darker than a mineshaft, and so Hammerson sat and thought.

The duke had survived, but only thanks to the efforts of Athel Loren’s healers. Even so, he was crippled, missing a leg and an eye. And all to save an elf woman who was not what she seemed. Hammerson sighed and adjusted his posture. He’d waited to welcome the lad back with the rest, after hearing of his heroism. But Jerrod had been in no mood for celebration or exultation. He had taken his men and retreated to the far edge of the glade, away from the other refugees and the Zhufbarak. Now the great camp was quiet, and Hammerson sat in the dark, wondering what had happened.

It was the elf’s doing, he knew that much. Whatever else, he knew he’d been right to warn Jerrod away from her at the start. You couldn’t trust elves, especially ones who claimed to have been goddesses. He tugged on his beard, wondering what he should do, or if he should do anything at all. Was there even anything he could do?

His hand fell to his hammer as he smelt warm metal and forge-smoke. He didn’t look around as someone eased out of the dark to sink down beside him. ‘The manling will live, then?’ a rough voice asked. It was a voice such as the mountains might have spoken with.

‘He will,’ Hammerson said, after a moment.

‘That is good.’ There was a flash of heat, as a pipe was lit. ‘They’re fragile, humans.’

‘But brave.’

‘Aye, they are that. Too brave. Too rash.’ Hammerson’s companion puffed quietly on his pipe for a moment before continuing. ‘Then, maybe these are the days for the foolhardy among us. The days of sealed holds are done. There will be no barred gates strong enough to resist what is coming, I fear.’

Hammerson turned to look at the white-bearded dwarf. Even now, a hood obscured his features, and he had his great, single-bladed rune-axe balanced on his knees. ‘Is this to be it, then? Is there no hope, old one? Are our people to vanish into the hungry dark, unmourned and unremembered?’

‘Aye,’ the old dwarf said, softly. Then, he smiled and reached out to clap a heavy hand on Hammerson’s shoulder. ‘But we’ll not go alone, lad.’ He heaved himself to his feet, axe in hand. ‘We’ll march proudly into the dark, son of the Black Water, axes sharp and shields raised. We’ll make the enemy pay for every inch of ground, and water the roots of the world to come with their blood, young Hammerson. That I swear.’

And then he was gone, as if he’d never been. Hammerson did not look for him. Grombrindal went where he wished, and no dwarf, daemon or god could hinder or follow him if he did not wish it.

‘Who was he?’ a voice asked.

‘Who was who, manling?’ Hammerson turned. ‘I was wondering where you were. Not in a celebratory mood?’ he asked.

‘Not as such,’ Wendel Volker said. ‘I think they’re planning to leave.’

Hammerson looked at the man. ‘And why would you think that?’

‘I heard Jerrod say as much, when I was eavesdropping,’ Volker said. He held up a small cask as Hammerson glared at him. The little barrel was some unlucky dwarf’s personal supply of drink, designed to hang from his belt or the inside of his shield. ‘I didn’t mean to. I was just going to get this,’ Volker said, shaking the cask.

Hammerson’s glare intensified. ‘Is that one of ours?’

Volker popped the plug on the cask and took a swig. He smacked his lips. ‘Yes,’ he said, handing it to Hammerson. ‘I got it off poor old Gorazin, after that last fight with the beastmen. He wanted me to have it.’ The dwarf shook his head and accepted the cask. He took a long pull and handed it back.

The liquid burned going down. ‘Gorazin knew his Bugman’s, I’ll say that for him,’ he muttered. ‘Not done, giving an ancestral cask on to a manling, though. Remind me to admonish him, when we get to the halls of the ancestors.’

‘How am I going to do that? Seeing as I’m not a dwarf, I doubt I’ll be going to those particular halls, lovely as they sound.’ Volker took another swig.

‘You’ve drunk enough Bugman’s over the past few weeks to be a dwarf. I think the gods will overlook your abnormal height,’ Hammerson said. He stuffed his pipe back into his armour and added, ‘Did you come out here just to get a drink, or did you have something to say?’

‘The council requires your presence. Or so the wizard says,’ Volker said, stuffing the plug back into place. He belched and rose to his feet. ‘Gelt convinced the rest of them that the daemon should be interrogated. The wizard thinks knowing what Archaon’s up to might help the council come to some sort of decision. They’re about to question the beast. Gelt thought you’d like to be there for it.’

‘Aye, that I would,’ Hammerson said. He rose to his feet and gestured. ‘Lead on.’

When they reached the King’s Glade, Be’lakor had already been brought before the council. The daemon prince had traded his chains of light for shackles of silver and starlight, and he looked the worse for wear, surrounded by the levelled halberds of Malekith’s Black Guard. Be’lakor knelt at the centre of the ring of heavily armoured elves, his body shrunken and battered. His wings had been clipped and broken, and one horn had been smashed. The elves had not been gentle on their captive.

Not that I blame them, Hammerson thought as he and Volker joined the Emperor and Gelt. The dwarfs too had their stories of the Shadow-in-the-Earth, and his fell deeds were carved into the record of grudges for many a clan and hold. It was said that Be’lakor had been responsible for the destruction of Karak Zhul, among other crimes.

Malekith reclined on his throne, Alarielle beside him. Tyrion stood to the left of them, and Caradryan to the right. Teclis and Lileath stood at the foot of the dais. The latter looked hale and healthy for a woman almost stolen away by a daemon, Hammerson thought. Then, maybe the gods of the elgi were made of sterner stuff than gossamer and moonbeams. Nagash, as ever, stood away from the rest, accompanied only by Arkhan the Black and Vlad.

‘I heard the other vampire escaped,’ Hammerson murmured, looking at Gelt. ‘Slipped clean away in all the confusion.’

‘He can’t have got far,’ the Emperor said. ‘Athel Loren is a trap from which there is no escape, I’m told.’

Gelt shook his head. ‘You don’t know Mannfred. He’s escaped, otherwise Vlad wouldn’t be here,’ he said, nodding towards the vampire. ‘If Mannfred were still loose in this forest, Vlad would be on his trail. That he’s here instead…’ He shrugged.

‘What’s one more monster loose in the world, eh?’ Hammerson said. He fell silent as Malekith rose from his throne.

The Eternity King looked down at Be’lakor. ‘Well, beast. What have you to say for yourself? I would have thought that you’d have learned your lesson when you came for the Oak of Ages and we sent you scuttling off back into the dark.’

Be’lakor looked up, eyes smouldering with hatred. ‘Did you ever learn from your many, many attempts to conquer Ulthuan, Witch-King?’ Be’lakor looked at Teclis. ‘Or did you have to wait for someone to do it for you?’ The daemon prince laughed.

‘At least I accomplished it in the end,’ Malekith said. ‘You, unfortunately, have been descending ever further into cosmic irrelevance with each passing century. Look at you – you’re barely a ghost now. Just a flickering blotch at the corner of my vision, a whisper easily ignored.’

Be’lakor looked at the halberds pointed at him. ‘You do not seem to be ignoring me.’

‘No,’ Alarielle said. She did not rise, but her voice commanded immediate attention. ‘You have made that impossible, beast. You must be dealt with.’

‘And yet here I kneel,’ Be’lakor growled.

‘Destruction is far too merciful for a creature like you,’ Malekith said. He glanced at Lileath as he spoke. ‘Besides, who knows how long you’ve been flitting about, listening to our councils? Why send you back to the Realm of Chaos, where your dark spirit would merely inform your masters of what you’ve learned?’ Malekith gestured derisively. ‘No, I think we can do better than that.’

Be’lakor laughed. ‘I do not fear you.’

‘THEN YOU ARE A FOOL,’ Nagash said. ‘LONG HAVE I BEEN CURIOUS AS TO THE DURABILITY OF CORPOREAL MANIFESTATIONS SUCH AS YOURSELF. HOW MUCH IS FLESH AND HOW MUCH IS THOUGHT? I SHALL DISCOVER THE ANSWER AT MY LEISURE. AND YOU? YOU WILL HOWL.’

Be’lakor stared at the liche, as if trying to gauge the truth of his words. Then he laughed. The sound was a bitter one, full of malice but also resignation. It was the laugh of a master who had met his match. ‘I know you, Nagash of Khemri. I saw you place yourself on your father’s throne, blood still wet on your hands. And I know that you will do as you say, and worse besides.’ He looked at Malekith. ‘What must I offer, to escape the tender mercies of the Lord of the Charnel Ground?’

Gelt stepped up. ‘Information, daemon. We wish to know why the Everchosen sits in Middenheim, and allows beasts to lay siege to this place. Why has he not come himself?’

‘Perhaps you’re just not that important,’ Be’lakor said. Malekith gestured, and the shadow-stuff which made up Be’lakor’s form writhed for a moment. The daemon shrieked and shuddered. Malekith lowered his hand, and Be’lakor sagged, panting. The daemon prince laughed weakly. ‘It is the truth,’ he hissed. He looked at Gelt. ‘Three times, I have sought to pre-empt the Everchosen’s successes with my own, and three times I have failed. But there will not be a fourth. So I will speak. I will tell you all that I know.’

He shoved himself to his feet. The Black Guard stepped back as one at Malekith’s gesture, giving the creature room. Be’lakor looked around. ‘Archaon has no reason to come to Athel Loren, for he already has what he desires – what the gods themselves desire. You think them directionless. You think them to be mad, idiot intelligences, but they are anything but. There is purpose in the random, and direction in the storm. The destruction of your petty Empire was never the goal,’ he said, leering at the Emperor. The latter didn’t so much as bat an eye, and Hammerson felt his respect for the human grow.

‘The gods care little for the slaughter of nations, or the deaths of kingdoms. Oh, they dine well on the souls offered up so, but Middenheim is the true prize. Middenheim, and what lies beneath it,’ Be’lakor continued. His eyes strayed to Volker and the daemon twitched back. Volker shuddered and made a low sound in his throat, but the Emperor placed a hand on his shoulder, calming him. Be’lakor blinked, and said, ‘There is an artefact there, a device from an earlier age, before the coming of Chaos. Even now, Archaon works to excavate it.’

‘What sort of artefact?’ Teclis demanded, voice hoarse. Hammerson was startled by the elf’s expression. He had never known one of that race to ever show such raw horror so openly before. The mage was white-faced and trembling.

‘One which, if certain rites are performed, will detonate. It will create a rift in the fabric of your colourless reality. A rift to equal those which occupy the poles of this broken world.’ The daemon prince smiled. ‘So you see, you are not important, for you have already lost.’

‘Well, I don’t see it,’ Hammerson blurted out. ‘What is this overly talkative soot-stain hissing about?’ He looked at Gelt, who shook his head helplessly.

‘It means the end of everything, dwarf,’ Teclis said. ‘The end of the world.’

Teclis sagged. He felt as if his strength were but a memory. Everything he had done, every sacrifice he had made… all for nothing. He felt Lileath reach out to steady him, but he flinched away from her. He forced himself up, and looked around. Every eye was upon him now, waiting for answers only he could provide. Answers that he did not wish to provide. He closed his eyes and cleared his throat. ‘The Loremasters of Hoeth theorised that our world only survived the coming of Chaos because a terrible equilibrium formed between the two polar rifts. They cancelled one another out, and became stable. But if a similar rift is opened in Middenheim, with no counterbalance…’ He trailed off, unable to get the words out.

‘THE WORLD WILL BE CONSUMED,’ Nagash said.

‘It might take years, or days or mere moments,’ Teclis said. ‘But if that rift is called into being, if it hasn’t already been called into being, the end is certain.’ He looked around. Horror and fear was etched onto every face.

I did this, he thought. If he hadn’t taken the Flame of Ulric, Middenheim might have withstood the siege. Tyrion would be dead, but the world might have survived. He had sacrificed everything to resurrect his brother, and now it was all for nothing. The world was doomed regardless. He closed his eyes and pressed his head against his staff. My fault, he thought. Forgive me, please.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the man, Volker, staring at him. The human’s eyes had gone yellow, and something terrible and lupine was superimposed over his own features. It was invisible to the others, he knew, save perhaps Lileath and Nagash. But the godspark was there, crouched in the dark of Volker’s soul, waiting. The wolf-god met his gaze and licked his chops. Teclis shuddered and looked away. No wonder the god persisted. Teclis had bet the world and lost, and now his debt was fast coming due.

‘THE ARTEFACT MUST BE SEIZED,’ Nagash rasped.

‘Middenheim is too far, liche,’ Malekith said. ‘Too much territory to cover, and too many enemies between us and it. The worldroots have withered, and we do not have the manpower to make such an invasion feasible.’ The Eternity King sank back into his throne. ‘The daemon is right. We lost this fight before we even drew our blades.’

Silence fell. Teclis tried to think of something. He had always had a plan, even in the darkest moment. But nothing came to him now. There was no path to take that did not lead to destruction. He felt a hand on his back, and turned as Lileath stepped past him. She was shaking slightly, and he wondered again what had passed between her and Jerrod, before Be’lakor’s attack. He had had no time to ask, and he doubted she would tell him.

‘Impossible or not, it must be accomplished,’ she said, her voice cold and hard. ‘The artefact must be destroyed. Together, you have the power to do it, and to thwart this madness before it overtakes us all.’

‘Were you not listening, woman? There is no way,’ Malekith snarled. He thumped his throne with a fist. ‘We do not have the troops or the time.’

‘Then use magic to make up for both,’ Lileath said coolly, not looking at him.

‘I know such magics – I used them to help us escape Averheim – but I cannot transport so many such a distance,’ Gelt said. ‘And even if I could, to unleash such magics in close proximity to the rift might prove disastrous. We might precipitate the very catastrophe we hoped to stop.’

‘Nonetheless, it must be done,’ Lileath said. ‘There are no more options. There is only this path, this certainty – if we do not act, the world dies.’

‘The world is already dead,’ Be’lakor said. ‘You merely seek to postpone its burial.’ He looked up at Malekith. ‘Well, Witch-King? Have I bargained for my life satisfactorily?’

Malekith sat silently for a moment. Then he laughed harshly. ‘Oh yes, I’d say so. You will have life, of sorts.’ He gestured. ‘You shall be broken on the Anvil of Vaul, daemon, and sealed in ithilmar.’ He looked at the Everqueen.

Alarielle reached up, and plucked a ruby from her crown. She handed it to Malekith and said, ‘This ruby shall be your cell. The essence of you shall be sealed within its facets, once my… husband has cracked your bones and stripped you of your flesh.’

If Malekith had noticed Alarielle’s hesitation in referring to him as her husband, he gave no sign. Instead, he held up the ruby and continued, ‘Thus bound, you shall be sealed away, deep beneath the Glade of Starlight, in a prison of root and stone which shall outlast even the Rhana Dandra. You shall live, in the dark and the quiet, while the world lives or dies about you.’ Malekith leaned in. ‘Your story is done, daemon. It has come to its final ignominious conclusion.’

Be’lakor snarled and made as if to lunge up the dais, but the halberds of the Black Guard flashed and the creature fell, squealing. He cursed and screamed as he was dragged away, Caradryan and Malekith following in his wake to see to his imprisonment. Teclis watched them go. The council had broken up without making a decision, but he had expected as much.

‘Fools,’ Lileath said, watching as the Incarnates drifted away to discuss events with their advisors and allies. ‘Can they not see what is made plain?’

Teclis did not reply. He took a deep breath. The air was thick with the dry smell of changing seasons, as winter overtook the forest. Finally, he said, ‘You told me that we could win. Is that still the truth?’

Lileath looked away. ‘No.’

‘Was it ever the truth?’ Teclis asked softly.

Lileath looked up. ‘I knew from the first that this doom would come upon us.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘What sort of prophet would I be otherwise?’

‘You lied to me,’ Teclis said, fighting to keep his voice even.

‘You told me once that you could not fight without hope,’ Lileath said. She looked at him. ‘So I gave it to you. I needed you, Loremaster.’

He felt sick. ‘It was all for nothing then.’

‘Not at first,’ Lileath said. She spoke hurriedly, her words clipped and forceful. ‘By the sacrifices you made, I wrought a great working – a Haven. A place of safety that would have seen your people – our people – through the coming storm.’ She smiled sadly. ‘But… I cannot feel it any more.’

‘What happened to it?’

She turned away. ‘I do not know. Maybe it still exists. Maybe the Dark Gods found it, and have already consumed it and the untold souls within, including my brave Araloth and… our child. My daughter.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I cannot feel my daughter, Teclis.’

Teclis stood helplessly as she began to weep. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.

‘You will not stay, then?’ the Emperor said, as he helped Jerrod onto his horse. ‘Your sword will be missed, Duke of Quenelles.’

It had been several days since Be’lakor’s interrogation and imprisonment. The elven healers had done what they could in that time for Jerrod, but the marks of the daemon’s claws remained. His face was a ruin, one eye covered by a ragged length of cloth torn from a standard. His leg was almost useless, a lump of dead meat held together only by his armour. Even so, Jerrod felt he had got off lightly.

Jerrod looked down at the other man, and smiled sadly. Volker and Hammerson were there as well to see the Bretonnians off. The dwarf looked glum, and Volker looked drunk. Jerrod thought it was appropriate, seeing as they’d looked much the same when he’d first met them. He shook his head. ‘We cannot stay. I have told you why.’ He looked out at the western edge of Athel Loren, where the trees grew thin and gave way to the vastness of Quenelles, and felt his heart grow heavy.

‘I know,’ the Emperor said. He reached up and clasped Jerrod’s forearm. ‘And I do not begrudge you your anger. I hope… I pray that you find some sanctuary in this world, Jerrod. I hope your people survive and flourish, and that one day, we again feel the ground tremble beneath the hooves of the true sons of Bretonnia.’

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Jerrod said. The Emperor nodded and stepped back. Jerrod looked at Volker and Hammerson. ‘Goodbye, my friends. It has been an honour to fight beside you. Both of you.’

Volker clasped his hand, and stepped back to join the Emperor without speaking. Hammerson glared up at Jerrod for a long moment. Then, with a sigh, he said, ‘If you ever have need of the Zhufbarak, lad, you have my oath that we will come. So long as your kith and kin exist, we shall stand at their side.’

‘And will you lead them, then?’ Jerrod said, smiling.

‘If I don’t die in the next few days, certainly,’ Hammerson said. He hesitated, and then patted Jerrod’s leg. ‘Maybe I’ll even make you a new leg, eh?’

Jerrod laughed softly. ‘I look forward to it, Master Hammerson.’

Hammerson nodded tersely and stepped back. Jerrod watched the three of them return to the forest, and did not feel slighted at their departure. There were plans to be made and a war to be won or lost. But it was not his war, not any longer. The elves had lied to them, and no knight in his company wished to fight alongside those who had used them so.

Before he could set his horse into motion, however, he heard the drumming of hooves, and turned to see four riders approaching out of the dark. He tensed as he recognised Vlad von Carstein in the lead. ‘Well met, Duke of Quenelles,’ the vampire called out, as he drew close. ‘Might I have a word, before you leave?’

‘A quick one,’ Jerrod said brusquely.

‘I wished to impart a story I heard, not long after my resurrection,’ Vlad said, dismounting as his steed drew up beside Jerrod’s. ‘I think you’ll find it interesting.’

‘I do not have time for stories, vampire.’

‘You have nothing but time,’ Vlad said. ‘And this is no ordinary story. It is about a monastery.’ Jerrod blinked in confusion, but said nothing. Vlad leaned forwards. ‘There is said to be a monastery, somewhere in the Grey Mountains, where Gilles le Breton has decided to make his stand,’ he murmured. ‘I had it from the mouth of one who rides with us now – a mad creature, whom your folk knew as the Red Duke.’ He turned and gestured to one of the other riders. Jerrod looked past him, and met the malignant gaze of a nightmare out of legend. The Red Duke sat proudly in the saddle of his skeletal steed, one hand on the pommel of his infamous blade. At first, he scowled at Jerrod, but then, after a moment, he dipped his head in a gesture of respect. Jerrod returned the nod before he could stop himself. He looked back at Vlad.

‘In that place, it is said that your king fights beside a knight garbed in crimson, in defence of what remains of your people,’ Vlad went on.

‘A red knight…’ Jerrod murmured. He looked at Vlad. ‘He is one of your kind. Like… the Duke. Like you.’

‘No. Not like that sad, mad warrior or like me. Abhorash is the best of us,’ Vlad said softly. ‘He owed a debt to your king, and swore an oath, and while he fights, Bretonnia lives. In some small corner of your shattered land, the heart of all that was Bretonnia survives.’

‘Why do you tell me this?’ Jerrod asked hoarsely.

‘Because I know that it was Mannfred who broke your faith, and set you at odds with Lileath. And because I too know what it is like to lose everything. To lose your home, your people, even your gods.’ Vlad turned away. ‘I would not wish it on anyone.’ He looked back at Jerrod and smiled. ‘Even a man who, under other circumstances, would be doing his level best to remove my head.’ He stepped back. ‘The Red Duke knows the way. He will lead you to your people, if they yet live. And two others will go with you, to see that you and your men arrive safely, and that your guide does not… get out of hand. Erikan Crowfiend and Elize von Carstein, a daughter of my blood and a son of the Bretonni. They are old, and strong in the ways of our kind.’

Jerrod looked at the other two vampires, on their mummified steeds. One was a haughty-looking, crimson-haired woman, the other a dishevelled, broad-faced man. Their steeds stood so close together that the knees of their riders touched. As Jerrod watched, the man took the woman’s hand. He blinked, and looked down at Vlad.

‘You can trust them. And when you reach your sanctuary, tell Abhorash that…’ Vlad hesitated. He laughed and shook his head. ‘Tell him that he was right, in the end.’

‘About what?’ Jerrod asked, without thinking.

Vlad chuckled and turned away, pulling his cloak tight about himself. The vampire hauled himself into the saddle and rode away, leaving Jerrod staring after him. After the vampire had vanished, Jerrod turned. His people waited. He looked at the Red Duke.

‘Well?’ he asked, softly.

The creature turned his skeletal steed about. ‘West,’ he growled. ‘To the fires beyond the horizon, and into the mountains.’ With a shout, the vampire kicked his mount into a gallop. The other vampires shared a look, and then followed suit.

Duke Jerrod, the last son of Quenelles, inhaled the clean air of Athel Loren one last time. Then he spurred his horse into motion. And the knights of Bretonnia followed.

The Winterglade, Athel Loren

‘I should not be here,’ Eldyra of Tiranoc said. Even marred as it was by a predator’s rasp, her voice was still a thing of beauty. Measured and graceful, more so than any human could hope to mimic. ‘I have no right to this place.’ She looked from side to side slowly, staring at the trees and the shadows. ‘Not any longer.’

‘And who told you this?’ Vlad said, softly. He walked beside her, hands clasped behind his back, seemingly at ease. In truth, he was as nervous as she, for Athel Loren contained dangers even for creatures like himself. Nonetheless, he felt a sense of satisfaction. After the revelations of the council, it felt good to accomplish something, anything. Even if it was only honouring an old debt.

He wondered if the Bretonnians would make it. He hoped so. There was little enough nobility in the world, and for it to pass away entirely was not something he wished to see happen. What might you have made of them, Abhorash, if you had not made that oath? He smiled. What might he make of them still?

Too, it was good to know that at least one of his bloodline might survive the coming conflagration. Whatever else happened, the von Carstein name would not die. Oh Isabella, you would be so proud of your little Elize, he thought, and then frowned. He rubbed his neck where Isabella’s blade had hacked his head from his shoulders, only a few months before, and thought of his loving paramour and the twisted fate which had befallen her. The gods were cruel, and cunning. They had snatched Isabella’s soul from Nagash’s grasp, and brought her back. They had bound her tortured soul up with that of a daemon of plague and pestilence, in an act equal parts malice and mockery, and set her loose on Sylvania.

It was that attack which had roused Nagash, and convinced the Undying King that he required allies. And it was that attack which had convinced Vlad of his course. In order to save Isabella, he had to save the world. And that meant making alliances, and binding together the separate strands of the remaining forces opposed to the Ruinous Powers, whether they liked it or not. And the only way to convince them to stand together was to give them hope that there would be a world, come the morning.

Of course, it would be helpful if I believed that, he thought sourly. In the attack, he and Isabella had met, and she had killed him. Granted, it wasn’t the first time Isabella had stuck something sharp in him, but it was the first time she’d done so with such an excess of malice. He growled softly, and pushed the thought aside. The Dark Gods wanted him to agonise over her fate, to falter and hesitate. But he was not one to crumble beneath the pangs of loves lost or imperilled. He loved her, and he would do what he could to save her. He would free Isabella one way or another, even if he had to take her head to do it.

That was one lesson Mannfred had never bothered to learn. Loyalty went both ways. He owed as much to those of his bloodline as they did to him. Thinking of Mannfred gave him pause to wonder where his former disciple had vanished to. That he had escaped Athel Loren was obvious. As to where he had gone, well, he had had several days to get there. Vlad pushed the thought aside. Mannfred was a problem for another day, if another day ever dawned.

‘No one had to tell me I wasn’t welcome here,’ Eldyra hissed. She wheeled about, perfect features cracked and uncertain. The beast poked through her bones. Then, it was never very far from the surface in elves. They were as savage as any barbarian hillman, for all the airs they put on. Perhaps even more so. He smiled.

She had been waiting at the edge of the forest while he saw the others off. Given the events of the council, he’d thought it best to clear up all lingering questions, debts and worries. One needed to be free of mind to properly enjoy a cataclysm, after all.

‘Then how do you know? Does your flesh burn? Does your soul cringe? If not, then there is no bar to your presence here. Indeed, I had hoped that a walk through these woods might even soothe your unquiet spirit somewhat.’ Vlad gestured airily about him.

Eldyra stared at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead turned away, hugging herself. Vlad frowned and reached for her. She whirled and slapped his hand aside. She hissed, eyes red and wild. Vlad backed away, hands held out in a pacifying gesture. ‘You have not fed. The beast is harder to control when you are starving.’

‘Blood will never cross my lips,’ she spat.

‘It already has, otherwise you wouldn’t be in this situation, my dear,’ Vlad snarled, letting his own mask slip. ‘And if you continue down this path, you will lose what little sanity remains to you.’ He spread his arms. ‘We do not die of starvation, princess of Tiranoc. We merely shed our skins, like snakes, losing all pretence of humanity. Vargheist,’ he said. He gestured. ‘Too much feeding, the same. Varghulf, then. The beast is always lurking, just below the skin. It rages like a fire, and like a fire, it requires careful tending.’

‘Better to snuff it entirely, then,’ she croaked. She looked down at her hands. ‘I will not be a slave to darkness.’

‘You are not a slave. You are one of night’s dark masters,’ Vlad said. He held out his hand. ‘Take my hand, and I will teach you, as I have taught so many. You have been given a gift, and I would not see it go to waste.’ Eldyra strode past him. He laughed and caught up with her. She needed to be taught, even as Isabella had. As they all did. And he had brought her here, so that she might speak to the only man who might help her learn.

They found Tyrion in a clearing, but he wasn’t alone. The Emperor stood beside him. They were speaking quietly as they watched the burning sky. He held up a hand, and Eldyra halted. Her eyes were fixed on Tyrion, and she trembled slightly. Vlad gestured for her to remain silent. Despite the distance, he could hear their conversation as clearly as if he stood beside them.

‘I see little cause for hope,’ Tyrion said.

‘Meekly spoken, for one who has returned from the dead,’ the Emperor said. Tyrion glared at him. Vlad smiled. A point for the man without a kingdom, he thought.

‘It will take more than clever words to survive the coming doom,’ Tyrion said. ‘Even for you, god-king.’ Vlad blinked. Had that been a turn of phrase? If so, it was surely an odd one. Vlad cocked his head, considering. There was something about the Emperor, it was true… Vlad felt a vague sense of unease whenever he drew too close to the man. As if there were some force within him which threatened the vampire’s very existence. Until now, he’d put it down to the lingering traces of the magic which had reputedly been torn from the Emperor. But what if it were something else?

‘That is why you and I must persuade the others to go to Middenheim,’ the Emperor said. ‘Lileath is right. Archaon must be stopped. At any price.’

‘The city lies many weeks’ march away, through territory swarming with foes. Do you honestly believe that we can prevail against such odds? Even with the aid of our… allies, it will be almost impossible.’

The Emperor grunted. ‘I shall not sit back and wait for death.’

Tyrion was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head. ‘No. Nor shall I. To Middenheim we shall go, then. And whatever fate awaits us there.’

‘Not immediately, one hopes,’ Vlad said, smoothly.

Tyrion and the Emperor turned, and Vlad winced. The elf glowed with an internal light that was almost impossible to bear. He heard Eldyra whimper, and clamped a hand on her shoulder. ‘Stand, for his sake, if not your own,’ he murmured. Still clutching her, he bowed low. ‘My Emperor, I have come before you, seeking a boon.’

‘I was under the impression that your master was Nagash,’ the Emperor said, with what might have been a slight smile on his face.

‘Ah, but a man may have many masters,’ Vlad said, straightening. ‘Some, even, by choice.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘I am Elector of Sylvania, am I not? Indeed, I fancy I am the last elector, besides your gentle self, my lord.’ Vlad’s smile turned feral. ‘Aye, if you were to die I would, by default, become emperor, would I not?’

‘No, you would not,’ the Emperor said.

‘No?’

Karl Franz smiled. ‘The emperor must be elected by a majority of electors.’ His smile turned hard and cold. ‘The dead, unfortunately, do not have a vote.’

Vlad frowned. He was about to reply, when Tyrion said, ‘Why are you here, vampire?’

‘I believe you know my companion, O mighty prince,’ Vlad said, stepping aside. Eldyra twitched, as if she might flee.

‘Eldyra,’ Tyrion said, softly. She froze, quivering. She took a hesitant step. Tyrion, his face sad, held out his hand. ‘I feared you dead, sister of my heart.’

‘I am dead,’ she hissed. Her fangs flashed in the moonlight. ‘I died in Sylvania. I failed and died, cousin. And now I pay the price.’

Tyrion said nothing. He merely held out his hand. Eldyra hesitated. Then, she reached out and took his hand. Vlad watched as Tyrion led her off, out of earshot. The Emperor looked at him. The human showed no fear, no disgust. Only curiosity. Vlad was impressed. The Empire had improved the calibre of its aristocracy since he had last walked abroad, he thought. ‘Why did you bring her here?’ Karl Franz asked.

‘What else could I do?’ Vlad said. He shrugged. ‘She is of no use to me as she is. Maybe he can make her see sense.’

‘Meaning to accept her fate,’ the Emperor said, looking at Tyrion and Eldyra. ‘To surrender to the curse which has been thrust upon her. To give herself up, like a lamb to the slaughter.’

‘No,’ Vlad said. ‘To fight. To live!’ He shook his head. ‘We all must make sacrifices if we are to survive. She has only two paths before her – acceptance or madness. And the world is mad enough already.’

‘There are always other paths,’ the Emperor mused. Vlad made to reply, when he heard the sound of a sword being drawn. He turned, and his eyes widened. Eldyra knelt before Tyrion, her head bowed. Tyrion stood over her, sword raised, his face expressionless.

‘No,’ Vlad snarled. He reached for his sword, but froze as he felt the edge of the Emperor’s runefang slide beneath his chin. Karl Franz had drawn the blade so swiftly, so silently, that Vlad hadn’t noticed.

Before he could react, Tyrion’s blade fell. Vlad closed his eyes and looked away. Anger pulsed through him, but he fought it down. He looked up, at the Emperor. ‘Why?’ he growled.

‘She asked me to,’ Tyrion said. Vlad turned to him.

‘You had no right. She was mine,’ Vlad hissed. ‘She was of my blood.’

Tyrion sank down beside the body, which was beginning to smoke and crumble into ash. He drew his fingers through it, and sent it swirling into the air. ‘She was my friend,’ he said, after a moment. ‘How could I refuse her?’ He looked at Vlad, and the vampire turned away, raising his cloak to cover his face as the light seared him. ‘Go now, Vlad von Carstein. You have my thanks, for what it is worth.’

‘I do not require your thanks,’ Vlad spat.

‘You have it, all the same,’ the Emperor said. He sheathed his blade. ‘You will find us in the King’s Glade tomorrow, as ever.’

Vlad backed away. ‘Yes, another day of acrimonious indecision ahead of us. How thrilling.’ He stopped as the Emperor looked at him.

‘No. No, one way or another, tomorrow will see the path ahead made clear. I expect to see you there, Elector of Sylvania.’ The Emperor turned away, and placed his hand on Tyrion’s shoulder.

Vlad hesitated. He had seen something there, a shadow-shape superimposed over the man’s frame, a giant made of starlight and the sound of clashing steel. Part of him wanted to kneel and swear fealty to the thing. Another part, the oldest part and the wisest, wanted nothing more than to run away.

Vlad listened, and fled.

Thirteen

The Silvale Glade, Athel Loren

Prince Imrik, once of Caledor, now of Athel Loren, coughed as the tainted smoke clawed at his lungs. Smoke from the pyres stained the sky, and a film of ash clung to everything in the glade. As fast as they burned the bodies of the beastmen, new pyres had to be lit. The creatures came again and again, heedless and mad.

Nagash’s display had only scared them off for a few days. They had returned, in greater numbers, driven forward by inhuman impulse. The entire glade stank of that madness, and whole seas of blood had been spilled. Whatever else happened, the glade would never recover from the carnage which occurred beneath its boughs.

How did it all come to this? The same thought had rattled in his mind since Ulthuan had broken apart and vanished into the hungry ocean. Could it have been prevented? Could any of it have been changed?

Imrik did not think so. At least not by him. He knew who was to blame, whose schemes had unravelled the very thread which bound their world together. But there was no refuge in recrimination. And revenge – well, there was no time for that either. Whatever Teclis had done, he had done because it had seemed the right thing to do. Imrik knew what that was like well enough. He had made similar decisions himself.

He had joined Malekith’s side during the war for the promise of dragons, and unity in the face of the storm seeking to devour them all. He had sacrificed his own ambitions on the altar of necessity, on the advice of a ghost. Caledor the First had spoken to him in his dreams, and showed him what must be done. Tyrion had gone mad, his mind and soul subsumed by Khaine. Malekith was the lesser of two evils, and whatever else, he was the true heir of Aenarion. Too, he had glimpsed chinks of nobility gleaming through the calloused soul of the Eternity King. In those moments, he knew that Malekith was the only one who could lead the elves into a new, better world.

Unfortunately, the world seemed to have other ideas. Horns sounded, and he signalled his men to regroup. The beasts were coming again. ‘Archers to the rear, spears to the fore,’ he roared. The tactic lacked elegance, but it had served them well so far. Arrows thinned the herd, and the spears did the rest. He and his knights would break any knot of beastmen too strong to fall to arrow or spear. Like Vaul at his anvil, he thought, with grim amusement. He readied himself, testing the weight of his lance. He looked around at his knights.

They were the finest knights in the world, survivors of the battle at the Isle of the Dead. To an elf, they looked tired, worn down. Only duty sustained them. Imrik had long ago run out of words and speeches. He met the eyes of the closest of the knights, and said, ‘Princes of the Dragonspine, ride with the speed of Asuryan, and fight with the valour of ages.’

He turned back to the battle as the first herds burst from the treeline. They pelted full-out, with no discipline or order or hesitation of any sort. Arrows flew, and those first herds died. Imrik sat up in his saddle. There was something different this time. There was something on the air, some thickening of the light and stink of battle. He looked up. Red clouds roiled above the trees, as they had for weeks. Some said that they could see faces in those clouds, but thankfully, whatever lurked in the sky had never revealed itself to him. His horse grew restive, pawing at the earth. Its eyes rolled in fear. He reached down to stroke the animal, and found it was trembling.

The din of battle grew muted and faint, but a new sound quickly intruded. It was as if all sound and fury had been drawn to a single point and squeezed into a throbbing pulse. Imrik saw an arrow take a beastman chieftain in the throat. As the arrow sank into the hairy flesh, it seemed to reverberate with a sound like thunder.

And then, with an ear-splitting crack, the world burst asunder.

The ground churned as the blood-soaked meadows ran like water drawn into a whirlpool. Trees were uprooted and smashed, and beastmen exulted as they were swept away by the bloody tide. Those elves closest to the writhing vortex of blood and darkness tried to scramble back, out of reach of the ground that snagged and grasped at them. Some made it, some did not. ‘Fall back,’ Imrik roared. ‘Fall back!’

The beastman assault had ended, but he could feel the earth screaming, and knew that something much worse was coming. His horse stamped and whinnied in terror, but he held tight to its reins. Whatever it was, it would not find Imrik of Caledor a coward.

Horned figures, red and lanky, burst from the roiling firmament and threw themselves at the collapsing battle-line of the elves. They were joined by baying daemon-hounds, and behind them came shapes even more monstrous – larger than any minotaur, with wings and horns and great roaring voices which called down the blessings of the Blood God.

Imrik shouted orders, but it was no good. There was no discipline, only fear, and his army bent in two and broke as the daemonic horde smashed through their centre like the tip of a blade. He urged his horse forwards, through the broken ranks of fleeing elves. King’s Glade, they’re heading for the King’s Glade, he thought. He had to stop them, though he knew not how. His knights followed, picking up speed as the army dissolved around them. Imrik lowered his lance and pointed his charger towards the largest of the daemons.

His lance splintered as it struck the creature, and it reeled with an angry bellow. But before his steed could carry him past, Imrik found himself smashed from the saddle by a fist the colour of dried blood. He hit the ground and rolled, his body convulsing with pain. He coughed blood as he tried to rise, but his legs refused to work. He struggled to draw air into his bruised lungs as he clawed weakly for his sword.

A heavy weight came down on his back, pressing him flat to the ground. He was enveloped in the stink of butchery and slaughter, and could only glare up at the being holding him down. ‘You are not the one I seek, little elf,’ the bloodthirster growled. ‘And anyway, the Lord of Pleasure has claim on your pathetic soul. But you struck a blow, and for that, I give you your life, such as it is. Take it and run, and do not seek to put yourself between the Blood Hunt and its prey.’ Then, with a triumphant roar, the beast sprang into the air, its powerful wings flapping.

Unable to move, wracked with pain, Imrik could only watch in horror as the daemonic tide flooded towards the King’s Glade.

The King’s Glade, Athel Loren

‘Then we are decided. Middenheim must be taken,’ Lileath proclaimed. The elf woman stood in the centre of the glade, staff in hand, the focus of every eye and thought. ‘Even if it costs our lives to do so.’

Gotri Hammerson let out a sardonic cheer. He had anticipated another day of acrimonious wrangling, but had been pleasantly surprised to find that the Incarnates were, for once, of one mind. Even Malekith and Nagash had no objections to raise. Privately, Hammerson wondered whether it had been the departure of the Bretonnians which had motivated the accord. The absence of Jerrod and his men further reduced the forces available to the council, should the need for battle arise. They couldn’t take the chance that others – like the Zhufbarak – might follow suit.

You might have done us a favour, lad, though you’ll be sorely missed, he thought. He glanced up to find the Emperor looking at him. The man had a slight smile on his face as he turned away, and Hammerson shook his head. He knew for a fact that Karl Franz had visited most, if not all, of the Incarnates the night before. Was that why you didn’t stop him from leaving, then? Did you need a pair of tongs to stir the fire with?

He was a cool one, was the manling Emperor. He moved people like pieces on a board, and was always two or three moves ahead. Not that it had helped him at Averheim. Nonetheless, he was more formidable than the dwarf had expected. Hammerson looked at Vlad von Carstein where the vampire stood, as ever, beside Nagash. He recalled what the creature had said in the Silvale Glade, and he snorted. You’ll have a hard time supplanting that one, blood-sucker, elector or no. He’s already divided your loyalties, and you don’t even realise it.

Suddenly, alarm-horns sounded from the outer glades. Hammerson looked around, one hand following to his hammer. The air in the glade grew thick, and he could taste smoke and ash in the back of his throat, though he was nowhere near a fire. He saw Gelt stagger, and reached out to steady the human. ‘What is it, lad?’ he growled.

‘My… my head,’ Gelt said, cradling his skull. ‘I can feel it – feel them!’

Hammerson whipped around as Alarielle screamed and fell from her throne, to collapse on the dais. Both Malekith and Tyrion went to her side. ‘What in the name of Grimnir is going on?’ he snarled.

The glade was filled with a sound like tearing metal, and then a body flew into the glade. It crashed down, broken and bloodied. Hammerson recognised it as having been one of the ceremonial guards stationed outside the glade. Even as the body struck the ground, the air was filled with the stamp of cloven hooves and howls of eagerness. Nightmares made flesh streaked into the glade, before the dead guard’s body had even settled or the echoes of Alarielle’s scream had faded.

The daemons loped towards the dais, steaming blades bared, seeking flesh. And then they combusted into crackling ash as Tyrion rose to his feet, drew his blade and seared them from the fabric of the world with a blinding wave of light. Caradryan was the next to act, his halberd spinning in his grip, creating a vortex of hungry flame which enveloped another group of daemons and reduced them to greasy motes on the air.

Even before the ashes of the Incarnates’ victims had settled, a chorus of howls announced the arrival of a second, larger wave of daemons. The creatures burst into the glade from all sides, tearing through the undergrowth. Black blades glistened in the crimson hands of the hissing bloodletters as they loped towards their intended prey.

Caradryan flung out a hand and a wall of flame roared to life, catching a score of bloodletters in mid-leap. Some of the daemons survived the flames, however, and they came on, skin aflame. Caradryan set his feet and swept out his Phoenix Blade, killing one even as the rest bowled him over. Hammerson was about to go to his aid, when he heard a screech and saw the elf’s firebird plummet into the glade like a flaming comet. The great bird tore the daemons from its master, flinging them across the glade, and Caradryan sprang onto the animal’s back as it swept back towards him.

‘Master Hammerson, to your left,’ the Emperor shouted, as his runefang snaked out to block a blow that would have taken his head. Hammerson turned and caught a descending blade on the crossed hafts of his weapons.

He forced the bloodletter’s blade aside and rocked forwards, slamming the front of his helmet into the creature’s snarling features. The daemon shrieked and fell back, clawing at its face. ‘Why bother putting runes on your helmet, Gotri?’ Hammerson said, mimicking the voice of the runesmith who’d trained him. ‘That’s why, you old goat,’ he spat, as he cut the bloodletter’s legs out from under it and crushed its skull with his hammer.

The Emperor fought beside him, his steel caked in daemonic ichor. The human fought in silence, moving with the precision of a hardened veteran. Though the power he’d once wielded had been ripped from him, he was no less a warrior. Hammerson felt a moment of pride as he watched Karl Franz fight, and knew that he had made the right choice in staying. This was a man who was worthy of a dwarf oath. Even if he did ride an oversized buzzard.

Hammerson glanced at the dais as lightning flashed over his head. A nimbus of light played about Tyrion’s head and rippled from his blade to scour daemons from existence. Beside him, Teclis swept his staff out, wrenching lightning from the air and sending it snarling outwards to throw back the encroaching daemons. Near the twins, Malekith wielded his own magics, shadow-claws tearing at daemonic flesh.

As the tide of daemons pressed in, intent on reaching the Incarnates, the three were forced to fight back to back to protect the unconscious form of Alarielle. In that moment, all differences, all past conflicts, were forgotten and the last of Aenarion’s bloodline fought as one against an enemy as old as time itself.

Hammerson shook his head and smashed a leaping daemon-hound from the air, before he spun to crush the skull of another with his axe. ‘Come on, filth! Come and taste the steel of Zhufbar!’ he roared, clashing his weapons. ‘Though the Black Water might have fallen, her people still fight – come and take what you’ve got coming to you.’ The runes on his weapons flared and the air became as hot as a forge, to burn and blacken the flesh of the scuttling daemons. They fell twitching and squealing, and he finished them off quickly.

More took their place. They charged towards him, howling out hissing prayers to the Lord of Skulls, and Hammerson felt a twist in his gut. There were too many for him to fight alone. But he set his feet and hunched forwards. ‘You want me? Come and get me,’ he muttered. Before the first of the creatures could reach him, however, he heard a scream and felt a breeze. A massive wing smashed the daemons aside as the Emperor’s griffon, Deathclaw, landed in the glade. Hammerson glanced nervously up at the beast as it prowled past him, tail lashing. That nervousness faded as he saw more daemons bounding forwards. The griffon crouched, and Hammerson knew that even with the beast at his side, they’d be hard pressed. He looked up as a shadow fell across him, and saw Arkhan the Black, mounted atop his monstrous steed.

The liche seemed unconcerned with the battle raging below him. ‘A little help?’ Hammerson bellowed. Even as he spoke, he knew his words were futile. To such a creature, he was likely more use dead than alive. Arkhan turned away, as if the conflict below bored him. A knot of daemons burst past Deathclaw and flung themselves at the runesmith. Hammerson was knocked sprawling, his weapons flying from his hands. He drove a bunched fist into a leering face, and felt a flush of satisfaction as fangs snapped and the creature pitched back. But the others bore him down.

As his back hit the ground, however, the weight of the daemons vanished. He looked up and saw the creatures turning to dust. As they dissolved on the breeze, he saw Arkhan the Black looking down at him. The inscrutable liche held his gaze for a moment, and then turned away. Hammerson snorted and retrieved his weapons.

‘Don’t expect me to say thank you,’ he grunted, as he clashed his weapons and readied himself to face the next wave of foes.

Vlad von Carstein did not wait for Nagash’s permission before he leapt into battle. Let the Great Necromancer do as he saw fit; Vlad wanted nothing more than to lose himself in combat, if only for a little while.

He was frustrated and angry, and the daemons paid the price. He whirled and stamped, fighting with all the fury of an Arabyan dervish one moment, and then with the blunt force of one of the war-monks of Cathay the next. He slid from style to style, indulging in the raw physicality of combat. His sword flashed as he recalled lessons in peach orchards and vineyards, on dusty training grounds and ice-floes.

The bloodletters responded, coming for him like flies to spoiled meat. He spun, parried and thrust, using their numbers and his speed to his advantage. As he fought, he heard again the sound of Tyrion’s blade striking home, and the soft whisper of Eldyra’s essence fading. Again and again, he saw it, heard it, felt it, and his rage grew.

He knew why she had done it. Indeed, he was surprised she hadn’t done it herself. But he did not understand, and he cursed himself for a fool. If he had not taken her into the grove, then she would have lived. Unhappily, perhaps, but she would not have tossed away her life to no purpose. That, in the end, he could not forgive.

Fool, he thought, you had the power to make a difference. The power to set your world right, and instead you threw it away and for what – honour? Disgust? Fear? Mannfred should have known better than to allow his servants to turn Eldyra and give her their dark gift. Elves were too fragile, at their core. Too enamoured of their life as it was, to see the glory in becoming something else. Like the dwarfs, they were stagnant, trapped in themselves.

Thinking of Mannfred, he wondered where his student had fled to. He had set the Drakenhof Templars on his trail, but Mannfred had eluded them all. Now he was loose in the world, doing who knew what. I wish you well, boy. May you at last have learned something from your mistakes.

Vlad bent backwards with serpentine ease, avoiding the sweep of a black blade. He righted himself and drove his sword home, impaling the daemon. It folded over his arm, clawing at him weakly. He shoved it aside with a disdainful sniff.

He heard the screech of metal on metal and turned to see another of his former protégés, Balthasar Gelt, fighting side by side with Lileath. They had joined their magics, unleashing a molten storm of metal on the pack of flesh hounds bounding towards them. Several of the creatures were torn apart by the storm, but still more made it through, the brass collars about their necks glowing white hot. One of the slavering hounds leapt for the former goddess, jaws wide. Its pounce knocked her sprawling, and Gelt was too distracted to lend aid.

Vlad was at her side in an instant. He snatched the daemon from the air and dashed it down. As it struggled to right itself, he thrust his blade through its throat. He tore the sword free and spun, slashing a second hound in two in a single motion. As one the remaining hounds bayed and loped towards him, ignoring Gelt and the elf-woman, as Vlad had hoped.

He dispatched them efficiently and quickly, moving among them like a bolt of dark lightning. Wherever he struck, a flesh hound fell dead. When the last sank down with a querulous whine, he stepped back, and helped Lileath to her feet.

‘You… saved me,’ she said.

‘One does what one can, in these trying times,’ Vlad said. He inclined his head to Gelt. ‘And are we not allies? Sworn to defend one another, against a common foe?’

‘And what about your master?’ Gelt said. The wizard swung his staff out in an arc and the air was filled with glittering shards of silver, which plucked a bevy of bloodletters off their feet and sent them crashing down some distance away. Vlad turned.

Nagash stood alone, at the heart of a writhing amethyst vortex, surrounded by heaps and piles of withered, steaming daemon corpses. Fragments of broken bone and torn flesh swirled about him, dancing upon the unnatural winds he had called into being. The air about him was thick with wailing spirits, and at his merest gesture, daemons fell.

‘Nagash needs no aid,’ Vlad said, with a shrug.

‘No,’ Lileath murmured. She looked pale, and Vlad could smell the fear on both her and Gelt. Even his fellow Incarnates, it seemed, were not immune to the horror that was the Undying King. ‘Nor is he alone in that.’ She looked up. Vlad followed her gaze.

Above them, Malekith’s black dragon twisted through the air, breathing dark, poisonous fumes wherever daemons clustered. And where the dragon’s shadow touched, blackfire constructs in the shape of Malekith himself rose to howl across the glade, immolating any creature which stood against them.

Then the air was stirred by thunder and heat, and Vlad could taste the coppery tang of blood in his throat as roaring shapes, larger than any bloodletter, dropped towards the glade from above, crashing down like the fists of Khorne himself. Vlad was nearly knocked from his feet by the force of their arrival. Lileath fell with a cry, and Gelt was only able to remain standing thanks to the support of his staff. ‘Bloodthirsters,’ the wizard said, as Vlad hauled Lileath to her feet once more. The wizard whistled sharply, and the sound was answered by a shrill whinny as his pegasus darted through the upper reaches of the glade.

‘More than that,’ Lileath hissed. ‘It is the Blood Hunt – bloodthirsters of the Third Host.’

‘You say that as if I should care,’ Vlad said. ‘One daemon is much the same as another.’

‘The same could be said of vampires,’ Lileath said.

Vlad looked at her. He smiled. ‘I stand corrected. I– Look out!’ He caught hold of her and jerked her aside as Caradryan’s firebird crashed down into the glade, its body entangled in the whip of one of the bloodthirsters. The Incarnate of Fire was hurled from the saddle, and skidded through the carnage.

‘One side,’ Gelt said. The wizard caught hold of his pegasus’s mane and hauled himself into the saddle as the animal galloped past Vlad and Lileath. With a snap of its great wings, the pegasus thrust itself into the air and hurtled towards the fallen Incarnate, even as daemons pressed close about him. Vlad was tempted to join Gelt in his rescue attempt, but there were enemies aplenty, closer to hand.

Besides which, it was clear enough to him that Gelt had matters under control. The wizard cast chains of gold and air about the bloodthirsters as they descended on his fellow Incarnate, and held them back through sheer force of will. Caradryan rose to his feet, halberd in hand, and flames rose with him, reaching out to incinerate the roaring daemons where they struggled against Gelt’s magics.

Vlad stepped back as a bloodletter lunged for him. The creatures reminded him of the more feral of his kind, all brute instinct and no skill or finesse. Back to back with Lileath, his sword reaped a deadly toll on the bloodletters that careened towards him without an ounce of self-preservation between them. Lileath thrust out her hand and bolts of cold moonlight speared forth, causing daemonic flesh to smoulder and sear where it touched.

‘Well struck, my lady,’ Vlad laughed. ‘We might win the day yet!’

‘We are outmatched, brother,’ Teclis said, as he caught a daemon’s blade on his staff and forced it aside. As the creature staggered, off balance, he drove his sword into its side and angled the blade to catch its foul heart. The creature came apart like a fire-blackened log as he pulled his sword free. His arm ached from the force of the blow, and sweat stung his eyes. ‘There are too many of them,’ he panted. He couldn’t catch his breath.

‘And what would you have me do? I’m killing them as fast as I can,’ Tyrion snapped. He beheaded a bloodletter with a swipe of his sword and turned, pressing two fingers to his mouth. He whistled sharply.

‘Calling for your steed, then? Planning to leave us so soon?’ Malekith growled. ‘I never thought you a coward, whatever else you were.’ Shadow tendrils lanced from the Eternity King’s form and speared a pack of howling flesh hounds as they loped up the dais.

‘No – he’s right,’ Teclis said, forcing himself to stand up straight. ‘There are few of us, and many of them. We must keep moving and spread out, unless we wish to be overwhelmed. Make them divide their forces, and draw them to the strongest Incarnates. We will destroy them piecemeal.’

Malekith grunted. He looked down at Alarielle. The Everqueen was still unconscious. ‘What of her?’ he asked, his voice softening, though only slightly.

‘I shall guard her with my life,’ Teclis said.

The Eternity King looked at him and laughed hollowly. ‘I am sure she will appreciate it.’ He raised his hand, and with a roar that shook the glade, his dragon swooped towards him. Malekith shot skywards on a column of twisting shadows, and was in the saddle moments later. The dragon roared again and Malekith laughed wildly as the beast crashed into one of the newly arrived bloodthirsters, coiling about it like an immense black serpent.

Two more of the bloodthirsters raced towards the dais, their mighty hooves churning the soil. One leapt into the air with a single flap of its leathery wings and flew towards them with a bone-rattling bellow. ‘This one’s mine,’ Tyrion said. He extended his sword and a burst of cleansing light shot from the blade, clipping the daemon’s wing. The bloodthirster smashed into the dais with a startled roar. Before it could recover, Tyrion reversed his blade and leapt, driving the sword into the beast’s skull with both hands. As he tore the blade free, the second hurtled past him, towards Teclis.

Teclis gritted his teeth and smashed the end of his staff down. Magic flowed through him, and out, assailing his opponent. All eight winds were his to command, and he did so now, battering the daemon with amber spears, thorny growth, blistering starlight and searing flame. Blinded, bleeding and burned, the creature crashed down onto the dais, and did not move again. Teclis met Tyrion’s gaze, and the latter nodded curtly.

Tyrion turned as his steed, Malhandir, galloped through the press of battle, bowling over flesh hounds and trampling bloodletters. He vaulted into the saddle, hauled on the reins and turned the horse’s head east, towards the spot where the Emperor and Hammerson fought. Teclis silently wished his twin well.

Every muscle in his body ached and he could feel his strength beginning to ebb. The Incarnates had reserves of power he did not possess, and he was drawing near his limits. He looked down at Alarielle. There was no telling why she had collapsed, but he thought it likely had to do with the eruption of a daemonic portal so close to the heart of Athel Loren. As the Incarnate of Life, she was tied body and soul to the living world. The opening of such a portal would have felt much like a red hot blade being driven into her flesh.

A shadow fell over him, and he looked up in horror as another bloodthirster dropped towards he and Alarielle. His exhaustion forgotten, he raised a hand and hurled a bolt of cerulean lightning at the daemon. The creature roared as the bolt struck home, but it did not fall. It landed on the dais, the ancient white wood cracking and warping beneath the touch of its hooves. The beast loomed over him, reeking of blood and offal. He thrust his staff forwards, calling forth more lightning.

The bloodthirster shrieked and stomped up to him, hacking at him with its axe. The blow smashed into the dais, narrowly missing him. Teclis tumbled backwards. Before he could get to his feet, the axe was descending on him again. Hastily, he interposed his staff, knowing that it wouldn’t protect him even as he did so.

The axe halted, bare inches from him. The bloodthirster gave a strangled cry as it staggered back. Teclis’s eyes widened as he saw thick tendrils of plant life coil about the beast’s wings, legs and arms. And beyond it, he saw Alarielle on one knee, her palm pressed to the dais. The wood buckled and ruptured as more roots thrust through it and snagged the struggling daemon. The creature bucked and thrashed, snarling, but for every tendril it ripped free, more tightened about it.

‘This is my domain, beast,’ Alarielle said, as she rose to her feet, ‘and you are not welcome here.’ She made a fist, and the bloodthirster screamed as the roots suddenly burrowed into its flesh. As its roars reached a crescendo, she opened her hand, splaying her fingers. A moment later, the bloodthirster convulsed and then was torn apart by the flailing roots. As chunks of daemon pattered down, Teclis climbed to his feet.

‘Alarielle, I–’ he began.

‘Quiet,’ she said. She turned and surveyed the ruin that had been made of the glade. Her features contorted into an expression of grief and anger. ‘The forest is screaming. It is caught in a nightmare which does not end. It must awaken,’ she snarled. ‘Do you hear me? Awaken.’ She raised her hands, and swept them out as she spoke. ‘Awaken and fight!’

And before Teclis’s disbelieving eyes, it did.

It happened swiftly. At first, there was only the sound. Deep and sonorous, it was akin to the rumble of a distant avalanche. Then, all around the glade, trees began to move, their roots tearing free of the clammy ground as their bark flexed and twisted into half-remembered shapes. In ones and twos the ancient guardians of Athel Loren were jarred awake by the cry of the Everqueen. The ground shook with a fury unseen since the days before the coming of the elves as the forest began to move.

Ponderous at first, and then faster and faster, the gnarled feet of the newly awakened treemen thudded home into the sod, propelling them into battle with the ravening daemons. They erupted from the forest on all sides, hurling themselves at the enemy with creaking roars. Bloodletters and flesh hounds alike were smashed aside or trampled underfoot and brass-fleshed juggernauts were crushed like tin as the ancient guardians of the forest roared into battle with the invaders. Daemons scattered like dead wood caught in a gale.

Teclis watched in awe as Athel Loren awoke for the first time in millennia. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying, for the forest unbound was as powerful in its own way as the Dark Gods, and equally as deadly.

Only where the treemen clashed with the bloodthirsters did their advance slow. The greater daemons were shards of Khorne’s rage made manifest, even as the treemen were splinters of the great soul of Athel Loren. Not since the first incursion of Chaos had such a battle been waged. Lesser daemons were crushed as the titans battled, and even the Incarnates were not immune to the fury of the creatures. Teclis saw Arkhan nearly swatted from the air by the wing of a bloodthirster, and a moment later, his brother was almost crushed by a toppling treeman.

A roar sounded, echoing above the din of the colossal battle. Teclis looked up, and saw a black shape, vast and terrible, dropping towards he and Alarielle. One of the treemen climbed the dais and sought to ward off the new arrival, but the ancient was no match for the newcomer. A great hammer, covered in ruinous sigils, thudded down, and the treeman’s arm evaporated into a cloud of charred splinters. As the guardian reeled, an axe hacked deep into the thick bark. The treeman fell with a groan. A moment later, its head vanished beneath the hoof of the bloodthirster as it climbed the dais to confront Teclis and Alarielle.

‘Ka’Bandha of the Third Host, Huntsman of Khorne, bids you greeting,’ the creature rumbled. ‘The Lord of Skulls has laid claim to this forest and every scalp within it, and it is my pleasure to claim them on his behalf.’ As it spoke, the creature drew closer, until it loomed over them. It raised its hammer.

‘Prepare thyselves, for thy doom is come…’

Fourteen

The King’s Glade, Athel Loren

Teclis stared up at the beast, and felt fingers of dread claw at his heart. He knew the name Ka’Bandha, for it was associated with many dread prophecies and dark futures. The Huntsman of Khorne stalked his prey across the vast sea of infinity, and had last trod the world during the previous great war against Chaos, when Teclis had helped the human leader, Magnus, escape the clutches of the Blood Hunt.

As he had done then, so many centuries ago, Teclis called up the lightning and cast it into the leering face of damnation. Jagged bolts of crackling energy struck Ka’Bandha; hissing magics crawled across the daemon’s armour, and sparks played over the runic crown it wore. Ka’Bandha laughed gutturally, and bore down on them.

Two more treemen moved to cut the daemon off. They bounded up the dais with great, creaking leaps. Ka’Bandha cut down the first one without slowing, but the second caught the daemon a blow on the back with both of its fists, dropping the brute to one knee. Ka’Bandha roared and swung to face its attacker, ignoring the lightning that Teclis continued to hurl at it. The treeman caught the daemon’s thick wrists in vine-laced fingers.

For a long moment the two creatures stood almost motionless, straining against one another. Teclis knew that the contest would not last forever. Strong as the guardian was, the daemon was stronger. He reached out, trying to grasp the faint strands of Ghur which permeated the glade. Though the Wind of Beasts was not strong here, it could still be manipulated, if he but had the strength. Catching it, he sent it flooding into the treeman, giving the guardian new strength. He staggered, and Alarielle caught him.

Ka’Bandha roared in baffled fury as it was slowly pushed back by its opponent. The bloodthirster opened its fanged maw and vomited a torrent of deep and ruddy flame into the treeman’s face. The ancient guardian was consumed in moments, and Ka’Bandha ripped its arms free in an explosion of charred wood. The bloodthirster whirled on Teclis and Alarielle, burning spittle dripping from its jaws. ‘I will have your skulls for such effrontery, little elves,’ Ka’Bandha growled.

Teclis stared at the beast in growing horror. He had faced untold daemons over the course of his life, and he had bested them all. But this beast seemed resistant to everything he hurled at it. Is this it, then? he thought, as the creature’s shadow fell over him. Is this my debt come due at last? It seemed fitting – an elf could only taunt the gods for so long before they turned their full attentions upon him.

Ka’Bandha’s axe flashed down, and Teclis reacted on instinct, interposing his staff. The force of the blow drove him down, and pain thrummed through his arms and shoulders. His magics could protect him, but not for long. He glanced over his shoulder, intending to tell Alarielle to run.

The Everqueen ignored his panicked exclamation, and set her staff. The stuff of life itself writhed about her in a shimmering halo of all colours and none. Thorny vines burst from the cracked expanse of the dais and sought to snare Ka’Bandha, as they had the other bloodthirster. But unlike the earlier beast, Ka’Bandha easily tore itself free of the constricting plant life, heedless of the many wounds it caused itself.

The bloodthirster’s hammer slammed down towards Alarielle. Teclis threw out a hand, and a shimmering shield of magical energy coalesced between the Everqueen and the daemon-weapon. Teclis bit back a groan as his body began to quake with the strain of his sorcery. Ka’Bandha lifted its hammer for a second blow.

‘It speaks ill of the Lord of Skulls that his Huntsman is so easily distracted from his true prey,’ a voice called out. Ka’Bandha stepped back, and turned. Teclis’s eyes widened as Deathclaw landed heavily on the steps of the dais. The Emperor sat astride the griffon, and he gestured at Ka’Bandha with his runefang. ‘It is known that you once came for Magnus the Pious, but failed to claim him. Did your god punish you for that, beast?’

Ka’Bandha snarled. ‘Yes, I failed to claim the skull of one human emperor. But yours shall suffice as a replacement,’ the bloodthirster hissed, gesturing at the Emperor with its axe. Before it could do more than gesture, however, Deathclaw was already hurtling forwards like a feathered cannonball at the Emperor’s behest. The griffon crashed into the daemon and the animal’s beak tore at Ka’Bandha’s throat, even as its talons sank into the bloodthirster’s arms.

Teclis pulled Alarielle aside as the two creatures careened down the dais, roaring and snarling. The Emperor clung grimly to his saddle and stabbed down at Ka’Bandha with his sword. ‘Fool,’ Teclis muttered. ‘Without the power of Azyr, he’s no match for that creature.’

‘He is a fool, but a brave one. He is buying us time, and we must make use of it.’ Alarielle raised her staff. ‘I can feel Durthu – he is less than a league hence, and drawing near,’ she said. Teclis felt a chill. If there was any creature in Athel Loren which could match Ka’Bandha for pure hate, it was the ancient treeman known as Durthu. Powerful beyond measure, despite the old scars which covered its frame – a legacy of a long ago confrontation with the dwarfs – Durthu was the rage of the forest given form.

Alarielle continued, ‘Durthu will not be coming alone. We have three armies in this forest, and by now they will all know that something is occurring. We must simply hold out until they arrive.’

Teclis looked at her. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’

Alarielle didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted her staff over her head. Teclis flinched back as the Wind of Life churned about her, and he felt a hum deep in his bones as she once again called out to the forest. All across the glade, those treemen not currently engaged with the enemy began to move towards the centre of the clearing. Those already there sank their roots deep into the soil and locked their limbs, creating a living palisade.

Other treemen moved to join them, and along the way, they plucked up those Incarnates or their advisors who were not lucky enough to be riding a steed, or able to fly. Teclis saw a treeman scoop up the dwarf, Hammerson, and, ignoring the runesmith’s virulent cursing, carry him to the dubious safety of the growing bastion. Teclis grabbed Alarielle’s arm. ‘Come, we must go,’ he said urgently.

‘What of the human?’ she asked.

Teclis turned, seeking out the Emperor. He cursed as he saw that his worst fears were confirmed. Ka’Bandha had recovered from the griffon’s attack and had wounded the animal, driving it back and nearly spilling the Emperor from his saddle. Before he could move to help, however, a roiling cloud of shadow enveloped the bloodthirster. Each mote of darkness pierced the daemon’s flesh, eliciting a startled shriek of pain from Khorne’s Huntsman. As the bloodthirster staggered, flailing blindly at the shadows, Teclis saw Tyrion galloping towards the daemon, sword in hand. There was a flash of light, and the daemon screamed again as Tyrion swept past, his blade trailing a line of ichor.

Teclis gestured to the Emperor as the man glanced his way. Karl Franz hesitated, as if reluctant to leave the fight, but then nodded. He hauled on the reins, and forced his snarling mount to swoop away from its opponent and towards them. Deathclaw spread its talons and scooped the two elves up as it sped over the dais.

As they flew towards the living palisade of treemen, a crash of timber heralded the arrival of the last of Ka’Bandha’s forces. Teclis watched in horror as great engines of shimmering brass and impossible heat, all thumping pistons and fang-muzzled cannons, burst into the glade, belching fire and ruin. Treemen were torn apart by howling barrages, and the forest itself was set aflame. Alarielle writhed in Deathclaw’s grip, wracked by agony as she experienced Athel Loren’s pain as her own. The palisade shuddered around them as Deathclaw landed.

The Incarnates were still scattered, Teclis saw. A column of pulsing amethyst light marked where Nagash still fought alone, uncaring of the greater struggle. Vlad von Carstein struggled to free Hammerson from the twisted wreckage of the treeman which had been carrying the dwarf. The guardian had been struck from behind by a roaring bloodthirster, and the vampire fought desperately against the daemon. Lileath was nowhere to be seen.

With a shrill whinny, Gelt’s pegasus crashed to the ground and rolled awkwardly, kicking futilely at the daemons which clung to it. The bloodletters shrieked and hissed as Gelt, pinned beneath his thrashing steed, incinerated them with a spray of molten metal. Teclis hurried to aid the wizard. Above them, Caradryan’s firebird cut a sharp turn, as the Incarnate of Fire turned his attentions to the wave of daemons already clambering over the palisade of treemen. Teclis hauled Gelt to his feet with one hand as he sent a cerulean bolt of mystical energy smashing into a knot of bloodletters.

‘We’re out of time,’ the Emperor said, shouting to be heard over the rumble of daemon-engines and the death-shrieks of trees. ‘If we do not escape, then we have lost everything. Even if we survive the battle, the world will be doomed.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Teclis snarled.

‘Use your magic! Get us to Middenheim, while some of us can still fight,’ the Emperor said. He gestured with his sword. ‘Even a few of us might be enough to prevent the Everchosen from ending everything.’

‘I told you before, I lack the power to do that. And even if I could, such an expenditure of magic that close to Middenheim might cause the very catastrophe we seek to prevent,’ Teclis said. ‘It cannot be done!’

‘Then what do you suggest we do?’ the Emperor growled. ‘The daemons will just keep coming until this forest is ash, and us with it. We have no more time, Teclis. It must be now, or never.’

‘I – I…’ Teclis hesitated. He shook his head. He was tired. So tired. The world pressed down on him from all sides, and his mind worked sluggishly. There were so many things he had not anticipated, so many missteps he had made. What if he made another? In trying to save the world, would he only hasten its demise? He looked at Alarielle, but she shook her head, her face pale and strained. There was no help there. He tried to catch sight of Tyrion – his brother would know what to do. Tyrion was always certain of the right path.

Only he’s not, is he? He never was, a voice whispered in his head. It was always you, in the end. Your decisions, your morals, your certainties. But your cold, fathomless logic has failed you at last, just when you need it most.

The battle raged about him. He glimpsed scenes of heroism and despair as he turned, searching for some answer in the confusion. He saw Nagash stand alone and unbowed against hundreds of squalling daemons, like a pillar of black iron in a crimson sea. He saw Tyrion and Malekith, still locked in combat with Ka’Bandha. Through the thickening wall of the palisade, he saw Caradryan vault from his saddle and plummet onto the hull of one of the daemon-engines, his halberd sweeping down to pierce the brass and send a gout of cleansing flame into its interior. He saw newly arrived elves die, even as they rushed to the defence of the Eternity King. A treeman sank down, groaning, its ancient soul snuffed by the fiery barrage from a daemon-engine.

He felt a hand on his arm, and turned. Lileath, her face streaked with blood and soot, smiled gently at him. ‘There is a way,’ she said. ‘My body is mortal, but the power of a god still flows in my veins, and in my spirit. With them, you could do what must be done.’

Teclis stared at her. From behind him, he heard the Emperor mutter, ‘Innocent blood…’

Lileath laughed harshly. ‘I have not been innocent for a long time, king of the Unberogens. Neither have you, or indeed any of us. We are here at this moment because we are the only ones strong enough to withstand the storm.’ She reached up and gently stroked Teclis’s cheek. ‘I have lied, and committed treachery. I have condemned the innocent to death, and sent brave men to their doom, all to prevent the end now unfolding around us. I have done what is required, and if my heart’s blood is the key to victory, then that shall be given as well.’

‘You will die,’ Teclis croaked. He grabbed her hand.

‘We are all going to die, son of my son. It is the Rhana Dandra, the end of all stories and songs. And better I die for a purpose, than drown in horror.’

‘You are Lileath of the Moon. Your voice has guided me since I was but a child. When I try to remember my mother, it is your face I see. Your voice I hear,’ Teclis whispered. ‘Do not ask this of me, my goddess. Are my hands not stained with enough blood?’ He closed his eyes, and held tight to her hand. The sounds of battle grew dim, and seemed to fade.

‘If you truly love me, my beautiful Teclis, you shall grant me this final boon,’ she said. He saw that there were tears in her eyes. ‘I cannot feel my daughter, or my love, Teclis. I have lost everything. I would know peace.’

‘He will do it,’ the Emperor said.

Teclis released Lileath and whirled, lightning crackling about his clenched fists. ‘You do not speak for me, master of apes. If your folk had done as they were meant to do, none of this would be happening.’

‘The same might be said of yours,’ Lileath said. Teclis turned back to her, helpless. ‘He is right. There is no time. You know, in your heart, that this must be your path.’

He wanted to argue. But his words were lost in the scream of one of the guardians which made up the palisade. It was uprooted and flung back by a gout of flame from a daemon-engine, to crash down nearby, twitching and smoking. The sound of battle rolled back in on him, and he could hear it all, in its terrible glory. It was the sound of a world ending. ‘What must I do?’ he asked.

Lileath pressed a dagger into his hands and sank to her knees. ‘It cannot be swift,’ she said. ‘When my spirit flees, so too will my divinity, and any advantage you might gain with it. My death must be slow. It must be perfect.’ She caught his hand, and guided the dagger point to a spot just to the left of her breastbone. ‘There,’ she said softly. She looked at him, and smiled sadly. ‘Are you ready?’

‘No,’ Teclis rasped. Then he rammed the blade home with every ounce of strength he could muster. Lileath stiffened and moaned. He sank down to catch her as she toppled forwards. Blood stained his robes, and her breaths, shallow and rasping, were loud in his ears. The fading spark of her divinity danced across the dark of his mind as he reached out to catch it before it could flee. Several times it slipped his grasp, and he panicked. Then, he felt her hand reach up and rest on the back of his neck, and he grew calm. A moment later, a hand found his shoulder, and he heard a calm voice murmur encouragement. New strength filled him, and he hurled his mind and spirit at the slippery spark of power.

Bolstered, he seized the fading power and bound it to himself, drinking it in greedily. As it suffused him, driving aside all doubt and weakness, he felt her hand slide away, and her body shudder once, and grow cold. For a moment, his mind soared high above Athel Loren, and he could see the embattled mortals as flickering pinpricks of light, struggling against an all-encroaching ocean of darkness. The Incarnates showed more brightly still, the light of their power almost blinding. Nagash alone shone with a darkness almost as complete as that of the creatures he fought.

Teclis saw Gelt sheltering beneath a shield of gold as a bloodthirster hammered at it. He saw Nagash pluck another from the air, and crush its thick bones to powder in his unyielding grip. He saw Ka’Bandha tear his way free of the magics of Tyrion and Malekith, and Alarielle, and charge towards Vlad and Hammerson.

And he saw himself, kneeling, cradling Lileath’s body. The Emperor stood behind him, one hand resting on his shoulder, and he knew the origin of that calming voice, and the sudden surge of strength. Something lurked within Karl Franz’s frail envelope of flesh, something akin to both Lileath and the strange, fierce godspark in the man Volker, but more powerful than either. The Emperor looked up, and Teclis knew that the man could see him.

No, not the man. Karl Franz had not been a man for some time, Teclis knew. The Emperor nodded slowly, and Teclis turned his thoughts from mysteries to Middenheim. His mind and spirit stretched out, and pulled the disparate strands of the winds of magic to him. Without thinking, without even truly understanding, he began to weave them together, moving swiftly. The last spark of Lileath’s power was already beginning to fade, and the magics he’d harnessed threatened to overwhelm him.

Pain shot through him, such as he had never felt before. He worked feverishly, fighting against the pain and the fatigue that came with it. The spell he was weaving was already beginning to unravel, even as he crafted it. Desperately he reached out with his magics, and carefully gathered up the motes of light which were the Incarnates and the others and enfolded them in the tapestry of the spell. One he had to reach further for, across vast distances into the east, and it struggled mightily in his grip, but it too joined the others.

They will not be enough, he thought.

They will have to be, the Emperor’s voice replied.

Even as the man’s voice echoed in his head, the spell, at last complete, tore loose from his weakening grasp and hurtled away from him, towards the distant darkling light of Middenheim. Then, overcome at last, Teclis slumped forwards, and collapsed into darkness.

Somewhere Else, Some Time Later

‘Wake up, elf.’

Teclis groaned. A sudden flare of pain ripped through him, and his eyes shot open. He lurched awake, a scream on his lips. He blinked back tears and looked up as a familiar figure carefully extracted his claws from Teclis’s thigh.

‘There we are. Back among the living, then?’ Mannfred von Carstein said, smiling genially down at Teclis as he licked blood off his talons. ‘I’d wager you thought you saw the last of me, eh?’

‘Hoped, more like,’ Teclis mumbled. He was not so much surprised to see the vampire as he was disgusted. After the creature’s escape, he had feared that Mannfred would turn up again at an inconvenient time. And, true to form, it seemed he had.

Mannfred laughed and kicked him. Teclis grunted in pain. ‘Where am I?’ he wheezed, after a moment. He was lying face-down on cold stone. Manacles bit into his wrists, keeping him from standing. The only light came from guttering torches placed somewhere above his head, and the air stank of blood.

‘Where do you think, elf?’ Mannfred spread his hands. ‘Can you not feel it? You are in the shadow of cataclysm itself.’ The vampire grinned. ‘Middenheim, mage. You are in Middenheim.’

‘And why are you here?’ Teclis asked. He knew the answer well enough. It was Mannfred who had started this chain of events, however unwittingly, and fate was not so kind as to deprive the beast of his final reckoning. You are here because you have no choice. None of us do. We are all caught in the storm, Teclis thought.

‘How could I not be here? To witness the end of those who so cruelly betrayed me – me, who came in good faith, with heart open and hands empty.’ Mannfred leered down at him. ‘I knew there was only one place you would come, elf. I knew, as surely as I knew Be’lakor would allow his greed to overrule his judgement.’ He sank to his haunches and caught Teclis’s chin. ‘But just how you got here, well, that was interesting… You crashed right through the roof of the Temple of Ulric, and smashed down before the throne of the Everchosen himself. I never suspected that you had that sort of power. Too bad it seems to have deserted you…’

‘Silence, leech,’ a voice rumbled. Its owner was hidden in the shadows which dominated the farthest reaches of the great chamber. Mannfred flinched and stepped aside. He bowed low, pulling his cloak tight about himself.

‘Of course, my lord. Do forgive thy most unworthy of captains for his zealotry. Mine heart was overcome with adder’s venom, and I sought to–’

‘I said be silent,’ the voice said. This time, Mannfred fell quiet. Teclis heard the rasp of armour on bone, and then, ‘Well?’

‘The elf is powerless, my lord,’ a third voice said. Teclis looked up as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadows, the twisted metal of his mask gleaming in the torchlight. His tone was obsequious, his posture locked in a permanent half-bow, and he stank of dark magic. Teclis noted with some distaste that the sorcerer held his own purloined staff and sword. ‘His magics have deserted him, as is the fate of all such false creatures.’

Despite what the creature said, Teclis was not wholly powerless, not that he planned to admit it. He could feel the presence of the Incarnates still, and felt a thrill of bitter satisfaction. He had transported some of them, at least, to Middenheim, along with many of their followers. Unfortunately, the spell had slipped from his control in the last few moments, and scattered them across the city.

Too, he could feel a new element. The Wind of Beasts was close at hand. He had feared at the time that he might have imagined its presence, but now he knew for certain that all eight Incarnates were accounted for. All eight Incarnates were in Middenheim.

‘Not entirely, I think,’ the first voice said. It sounded amused, and Teclis resisted the urge to shrink back from it. The sorcerer turned slightly to peer into the dark.

‘I told you, fool,’ Mannfred said, sneering at the sorcerer.

‘Quiet, leech, or I shall stake your body out for the crows.’ Through the shadows, past the pit of hissing, seething blood, on the throne of skulls which sat at the chamber’s far end, a heavy figure reclined. As Teclis watched, the figure rose, and the eyes within its golden helm were unreadable. ‘You have travelled a long way to die, elf,’ Archaon said. ‘But do not despair. The world shall not long outlast you.’

Fifteen

The Ulricsmund, Middenheim

An angry red dusk had fallen over the Fauschlag. Strange lightning carved the sky into facets, and the streets boiled with activity. War had again come to Middenheim; only now it was the servants of the Everchosen who found themselves under siege, and on multiple fronts.

The heart of the Ulricsmund, within sight of the Temple of Ulric, was one such front. Caradryan, Incarnate of Fire and Chosen of Asuryan, had not wasted time wondering how he had come from Athel Loren to the blasted streets of a human city, or what had happened to the other Incarnates. Indeed, there had been no time to even consider it.

Scarcely had the storm of magic about him and those elves who found themselves at his side ebbed when they found themselves under attack from the axe-wielding, black-armoured Kurgan they now faced. Wreathed in fire, the Phoenix Blade hissed as it smashed home into the chest of a howling northman and sliced him into two blackened halves. Before the edge of the blade could strike the blood-smeared cobbles, Caradryan had reversed the stroke, pivoted, and removed the head of a second northman.

Fire crawled along his lean limbs, and his hair crackled like a halo of flame as he fought. He’d lost his helmet during the battle in Athel Loren, but it was of no matter. He moved swiftly, the Phoenix Blade an extension of his arms. The haft slid through his grip as he raised the ancient halberd and spun, letting it sing out to its full length. Northmen fell back in a bloody tangle as he completed the turn. He retracted the weapon, pulling it in tight even as he came to a halt, before punching it forward to spit a slavering Chaos hound in mid-leap.

The captain of the Phoenix Guard tossed the dying beast aside and fell into a defensive stance as he retreated back towards the other elves. The sutras of Asuryan ran through his head as he gauged the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies who pressed close about him, pursuing him. Chaff before the wind, he thought. It was not arrogance which prompted that conclusion, though once it might have been. He had been arrogant in his time, possessed of a certainty in his own superiority. It had taken a god to humble him, to show him the truth of his place: to show him that just because he was alive, that didn’t mean he truly lived, and that just because he could speak, that didn’t mean he should.

You must crawl before you can walk, boy, Asuryan had said, his voice rising from the flames in the holy Chamber of Days. I will teach you, though in time, you might wish I had not. And he had. His lessons had begun that day, and a callow, spiteful brat had become, if not a better elf, at least a more tolerable one.

He signalled silently for the archers among his miniscule host to let loose a volley. Arrows hissed overhead, and the front ranks of the Kurgan fell. The rest retreated in disarray. Now that the initial impulse to violence had been curtailed, the northmen seemed to be coming to grips with the fact that an enemy force had materialised in their very midst. They wouldn’t remain hesitant for long, he knew. Then they would come again, and he and his small band would be overwhelmed.

He looked west, towards the slag-heaps and spoil piles which had been at his back when he’d arrived. Immense clouds of smoke and soot rose into the air above the area, and he recalled Be’lakor’s taunts about the artefact Archaon was looking for. He frowned, wishing that the voice of Asuryan still whispered to him. But he did not. Asuryan, like all of the gods, was dead. But his servants would do what they could, in his absence and in his name. Even if that meant nothing more than dying well.

Roars and shouts rippled from between the ruined buildings which loomed above and around them. The Kurgan were regrouping. Chieftains and champions would be restoring order, and in a few moments, the enemy would be upon them again.

Never before had his fate weighed so heavily on him. Even the power caged in his body was no guarantor of his survival; after all, that power, the raw fury of Aqshy, had consumed Ungrim Ironfist in the end. Is that my end, then? he thought. To be consumed in flames, like Ashtari?

He looked up, and saw the firebird swoop low over the elves. The great bird shrieked. His kind had long dwelt amongst the Flamespyres of Ulthuan, laying their eggs amongst the great alabaster pillars of rock, where magical flames flickered eternally. Now, with Ulthuan’s destruction, there were no more Flamespyres, and there would be no more firebirds. A wave of sadness swept through him as Ashtari’s shadow passed over him, and the cry of the bird reverberated through his bones. No, there would be no more firebirds.

But they could burn brightly one last time, before the end.

Yes. We can all burn. The thought passed across his consciousness as Asuryan’s whispers had once done. For a moment, it was as if the god were still alive. Fire does not diminish as it is divided, he thought. Instead, it only grows stronger. He almost laughed for the simplicity of it. What good was caging the fire in one warrior, when it could lend its strength to many? He raised the Phoenix Blade, and felt Aqshy struggle within him, seeking its freedom. He reversed his halberd and drove it down, blade-first, into the ground. Now you are unchained, he thought, go, spread and avail them of your strength. The fire rose around him, licking out to engulf those elves closest to him, even as the Kurgan mounted their charge.

As the northmen thundered towards them, Aqshy blazed forth, the flames growing and dividing a thousandfold. It spread through the ranks of his tiny army, and flames flickered to life along the edges of blades and in the eyes of his warriors, whether they had been born in Ulthuan, Athel Loren or Naggaroth. Fatigued bodies straightened with new strength, and warriors shouted, their spirits renewed. Caradryan rose to his full height, the Phoenix Blade held out before him. He watched the enemy draw close, and the last captain of the Phoenix Guard smiled.

‘In the name of Asuryan,’ he said, pitching his voice to carry for the first time in centuries, ‘and for the fate of our people… charge!’

The Wynd, South-east of the Ulricsmund

So, you yet live, eh? Malekith thought, as he caught a glimpse of the fire suddenly rising above the rooftops of the Ulricsmund. In Malekith’s opinion, of them all, Caradryan was the least suited to wield the powers he had come by. Better by far that it had been given to one more suited to such things.

Still, one must make do, he thought, as he guided Seraphon through the reeking air above the city, towards the distant smoke. He recognised the telltale sign of an excavation immediately, having overseen similar enterprises in his life. How many magical baubles had he dug out of the mountains and ice-floes, forced to grub about like a dwarf while seeking an easier path to the power so long denied him? ‘Pity I never thought to simply rip it out of the Vortex, eh, Seraphon?’ he said, and stroked the dragon’s long neck. The black dragon screeched and unleashed another searing cloud of fire into the tangle of streets below.

Malekith leaned forwards in his saddle and peered down at the battle taking place below. His forces, such as they were, swept through the narrow streets and drove the skaven before them. The ratmen had been surprised to see the enemy on their doorstep and Malekith had seized the advantage, driving his cohort on, the Eternity Guard at the fore. In the tangled streets the skaven could not bring their numbers to bear, and his warriors harried them mercilessly.

The skaven were detestable creatures, barely worth unsheathing his sword for. He contented himself with sending his shadow-shapes to draw blood in his place, while he sat safely astride Seraphon. The dragon screeched again, and incinerated another squalid nest. Skaven ran shrieking into the open, their greasy fur alight. Malekith laughed.

His laughter faded as he looked up at the sky. Things pressed heavily against the clouds, half visible but wholly incomprehensible. He felt all mirth drain from him. It was as if the skin of the world were stretched too tight over some gangrenous wound. He could smell the foulness of it on the wind, and feel it in his blood.

Memories of another moment and another sky like that crashed down on him, and the Eternity King shuddered in his armour. He had stepped into the realms of Chaos once, in a desperate gamble, and fought his way free only by dint of luck and willpower. The sky in that dread country, where time and space had no meaning save that which was given them by the whims of deranged gods, had looked the same.

‘The world is dying, Seraphon,’ he murmured, stroking the dragon’s scales. ‘All of our striving has come to nothing, it seems. Even as my deceitful mother swore.’ He smiled beneath his mask. ‘So be it. I am king, and I will face the end as a king.’ He leaned back in his saddle, his cloak of shadows rippling about him as he gazed up at the roiling sky. ‘Heed me well, you puny gods. Malekith, son of Aenarion, last true lord of the elves, has come to meet you on the battlefield. And as my father before me, I shall carve my name into your mind, so that you might shudder at the mere thought of it for all eternity. I shall break your fragile schemes, throw down your blood-soaked champions, burn your halls of decadent indulgence and scour the plague-ridden earth with cleansing fire.’

He drew his sword. ‘You will win in the end, because that is the way of it. But I shall poison your victory with my last breath. Do you hear me?’ he roared, casting his words into the howling winds. ‘I shall not go lightly into destruction. I shall burn like a black sun, and you shall know fear before my standard is cast down. I will break this world before I let you claim it. This I swear.’ He swept his blade out as magical lightning slammed down around him, shattering buildings and casting the bodies of the dead high in the air. The sky twisted in on itself, and the red light grew darker.

Malekith paid it no mind. He bent over, urging Seraphon to greater speed. Let all the gods stand in his way, if they dared. He was the Eternity King, and this world was his. And he would not lose it now, not without a fight.

Neumarkt

Arkhan the Black watched in satisfaction as Krell and the Doomed Legion brought the gift of death to the enemies of Nagash. It had been but the work of moments to lend his sorcerous might to the great spell Teclis had woven in Athel Loren. Another power, too, had been there, lending aid, and between them, they had bolstered the reach of the spell so that more than just those in Athel Loren were caught up in its folds.

Almost the entirety of Nagash’s army had been plucked from the pine-crags and transported to the streets of Middenheim to join their master for the final battle. And it was the final battle. Arkhan could feel it in his bones. It was like an ache, edging towards true pain, and he welcomed it. He reached up to touch the Everchild’s mark on his chest. Would her curse reveal itself soon, he wondered? Would it even get the chance? The very bedrock of the world was shifting beneath his feet, and he felt that soon it might swallow them all. Even Nagash himself might not survive. He pushed the thought aside, even as it occurred to him.

Oblivion, he thought. To sleep at last, no more to be awoken, no more to be set on the war-road. He watched as the northmen, heavy with sleep and ale, died swiftly beneath the axe of Krell. Do you welcome the end, as I do? he wondered, watching the wight wade through the enemy with obvious glee. Krell was an enigma to the living, but to Arkhan he was a brute, barely chained by Nagash’s sorcery, a creature not wholly one thing or another. Now he fought those he once might have led, and without hesitation. No, he decided. No, Krell would not welcome an end to his days of slaughter.

Nor would others, Arkhan suspected. Vlad was in this city somewhere – he could feel the vampire’s black soul, pulsing like a ghost-light – and he had no intention of succumbing to oblivion. Vlad was as treacherous as Mannfred, and, worse yet, far wiser than his protégé. When the end came, when the Great Work at last came to its resolution, Vlad would pit himself against Nagash; else why would he seek to curry favour with humans and elves alike?

And he was not the only one. Neferata too would rally her followers, and set her standards in opposition to the Undying King. Arkhan felt some slight satisfaction at the thought… He had counselled Nagash to leave her as castellan of Sylvania for that very reason. Let Neferata cull the more treacherous elements of the dead for her own armies. Best to know who the enemy was, when the time came.

‘COME,’ Nagash said. Arkhan looked up at his master. Nagash surveyed the carnage as if it were of no more import than a squabble for table scraps between dogs. The Great Necromancer started forwards, almost floating as the spirits of the dead rose to join the throng which surrounded him. Arkhan followed in his wake, lending his spells to those of his master as they drew those slain by Krell and his wights back to their feet and added them to the already substantial horde. Nagash, it seemed, intended to drown the city in an ocean of corpses.

It was an effective tactic, if lacking in finesse. Arkhan glanced at his master. Then, the Undying King had never been one for finesse. But once, at least, he had understood subtlety. Now, even that seemed to have been discarded. In his own way, Nagash was just as much a brute as Krell – he was not human, not any more. Nor was he the liche who had resurrected Arkhan to serve him in Nagashizzar. He had become something else, something far closer to the gods of old Nehekhara. A vast, irresistible force aimed at a distant target.

Cries filled the air. Arkhan looked up. Few buildings still stood in this part of Middenheim, and those that were in evidence had been repurposed into slave pens. Arkhan saw that many, if not all, of the captives were clad in the ragged and faded uniforms of a number of provinces. As the northlanders flooded past the ramshackle gates of the pens, the slaves had begun to cheer, but those cheers became screams as they saw the dead shambling in their captors’ wake.

‘Should we free them? Such chattel might be useful, in the coming fray,’ Arkhan said, looking up at Nagash. The other Incarnates, he knew, would look kindly on such an action. Such small mercies were the way to bind their unwilling allies to them all the more tightly.

‘YES. WE SHALL FREE THEM,’ Nagash intoned. He reached out a hand, and Arkhan felt the Winds of Death rise. Amethyst light played about Nagash’s outstretched claw, and then a darkling fire washed across the stinking pens which covered Neumarkt, choking the life from all it touched. The screams rose to a fever pitch, and then, all at once, fell silent.

But they did not stay silent for long. Soon, every corpse in Neumarkt was rising to its feet, and making to join the still-shambling throng. They smashed from their pens, and rose from the streets, and fell in with the horde, which continued on through the city and into what had once been the Great Park. Arkhan said nothing as the dead swarmed. Nagash was his master, and Arkhan’s will had never been his own. Better to argue with the storm, than with the Undying King.

There, amongst the burned-out trees and bald earth, the enemy had chosen to make their stand. The horde lurched to a stop at a simple gesture from Nagash. Arkhan took in the thick ranks of steel shields which lined the park’s eastern overlook, and the warriors who crouched behind them. Behind this bulwark, sorcerers chanted loudly, tracing strange sigils in the air, and the air grew hot and foul as fell sorceries were worked.

Nagash laughed. The distant chants faltered and fell silent, as the sound of it crawled across the park and into the ears and hearts of the enemy. It was a terrible sound, like the crackle of ice-covered bones as they were trod underfoot.

Nagash looked down at Arkhan, his eyes glowing balefully. He swept out his staff to indicate the followers of Chaos. ‘LOOK, MY SERVANT. MORE SLAVES TO BE FREED.’ Nagash set his staff and set the dead to moving again with but a thought.

‘LET US SHATTER THEIR CHAINS.’

The Palast District

Vlad von Carstein caught the northman’s chin and wrenched his head to the side. There was a sharp pop as the man’s neck snapped, and the vampire sank his fangs into the dying man’s throat. When he had finished, he shoved the body aside to join the others, and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. The blood tasted foul, but it was nourishing enough.

The group of northmen, clad in reeking furs and black iron, had been as surprised as he when he’d appeared suddenly in their midst. He’d felt the magics that Teclis had invoked, but had not grasped their intent until he had been surrounded by startled warriors. He’d recovered his wits first, and then butchered the lot. He looked around. He recognised the Palast District easily enough, though it had been substantially redecorated since he’d last visited Middenheim.

‘Ah, Jerek, my old friend, you would weep to see your city treated so,’ he murmured as he took in the sheer, bewildering scope of the desecration which had occurred. Even Konrad, bloody butcher that he had been, would have been in awe. The gardens and palaces he had once known so well were now lost beneath a charnel shroud.

Lacerated offerings to the Blood God hung from gore-slicked trees, or lay chained in fountains given over to bubbling blood. Bodies hung from gibbets or crow-cages, or were impaled on fire-blackened stakes. Some of the victims of these tortures still lived, mewling pitifully, their eyes gouged out and their tongues cut loose from their moorings. Even Vlad, who thought he had seen the worst the world could offer up in his centuries of life, was disgusted by it all. There was no artistry here, no purpose to the pain, and thus it was all a monumental waste. And if there was one thing Vlad could not abide, it was waste.

This was what awaited the world, if the Incarnates failed. He shook his head, more determined than ever to see this affair put to rest. He passed through the blood-sodden gardens like a ghost, delivering the mercy-stroke more than once on his way. Sounds of battle echoed through the district, and every figure he observed – be it armoured northerner or, more disturbingly, feral, pale-fleshed elf woman – was running south.

He followed them at a safe distance, killing only when necessary to hide his presence, and keeping to the walls and rooftops when he could. He was certain, given the sounds of battle wafting back towards him, that he would find allies at the end of his journey, though whether they would be in any state to aid him was another matter. He pursued the horde to the heart of the Middenplatz, where a scene of impressive carnage met his eyes.

Perched atop the northern gatehouse, he watched as treemen traded booming blows with bestial giants, and braying gor-bands hewed at shrieking dryads with crude axes. Whistling arrow volleys raced across the red skies, thudding into horned skulls and twisted bodies. The elves and their allies were surrounded on all sides by a seething ocean of madness. Beastmen, blood-cultists and daemons all were in evidence, and no matter how many fell, more took their place. As Vlad watched, one howling berserker cut through his own bestial allies to reach the elves, only to be smashed aside by a treeman a moment later.

He saw Alarielle at the battle’s heart, jade life-magic flowing from her hands, healing wounds and restoring her fallen warriors to fight anew. Even so, it was plain enough to Vlad that Alarielle was growing weaker. She was pale and drawn, and her limbs trembled with fatigue… or perhaps pain. He suspected that she would have fallen long since, had the ancient creature fighting at her side not supported her. The vampire recognised Durthu easily enough – the treeman was hard to forget. The indomitable creature stood like a breakwater against the forces which lapped about them, and his mighty fists and gleaming sword brought death to any who sought to harm the Everqueen.

Vlad had commanded enough armies in his time to recognise when one was doomed. Alarielle’s forces were being steadily ground down, and even his power was not so great as to turn the tide. An army was required, and he was but one man. He sank to his haunches and watched. He could not save them, and he had no intention of dying with them, but even so, he could not make himself depart. Alarielle fought on, despite her weakness, and Vlad could not help but be enthralled.

It might be possible, he thought, to save her. Her warriors were doomed, but if he were fast enough, he might be able to extricate her from the slaughter. She would not thank him for it, he suspected, but the other Incarnates certainly would. He readied himself to lunge into the fray, but before he could so much as twitch, the air was split by the roar of cannons and the entire eastern wall of the Middenplatz blew apart. Chunks of jagged stone flew across the square, pulverising beastmen and blood-cultists in their dozens.

Vlad was nearly knocked from his perch by the force of the explosion. As he regained his balance, he heard the crack of gunfire. Bullets punched through the spiralling dust and gromril armour gleamed in the smoke. Dour and dolorous voices erupted into song, and the sound of heavy boots on the march filled the air.

Alarielle and her forces had needed an army, and it seemed an army had come. Vlad smiled as he recognised Gelt, standing tall among the runic banners of the Zhufbarak. Hammerson was with him, looking none the worse for wear. That they both had survived was a surprise, but a pleasant one. Vlad drew his sword and readied himself to join the fray as, with a great shout, the armoured ranks of the dwarfs started forwards, and battle was joined.

The Sudgarten

Wendel Volker threw back his head and howled. His sword flashed, cutting down a skaven in mid-leap, and he led his followers forwards. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he caught glimpses of what had befallen Middenheim in his absence. The air stank of ash and ruin, and rage warred with sorrow in him as he led his motley band of priests, flagellants, foresters and knights into the heart of the skaven horde to avenge the city he had fought for and failed.

Teclis had brought them back, somehow. The last Volker recalled, he and his men had been hurrying towards the King’s Glade, to lend aid to the embattled Incarnates. Now they fought through the tangled streets of the Sudgarten, against ratmen rather than daemons. He and his men loped in the wake of the Emperor and those knights who still had horses to call their own – banners bearing the emblems of the Reiksguard, the Knights Griffon and the Knights of the Twin-Tailed Comet rose above the wedge of armour and horseflesh that charged into the teeth of the jezzail-fire. Clouds of gun smoke rolled across the street, momentarily obscuring the enemy battle-line. A bullet plucked a howling flagellant off his feet and knocked him sprawling. Volker felt a shot whizz past his cheek, but didn’t slow.

He longed to lose himself in battle, to join the ghosts he saw swirling about him everywhere he looked. Goetz, Dubnitz, Martak and others, including faces he had not seen since the fall of Heldenhame, like the brutal Kross or old Father Odkrier. They watched him from the windows and doorways, from behind the enemy ranks and just out of the corner of his eye. They coalesced in the smoke, and their faces rose through the blood that trickled between the cobbles. They spoke to him, but he could not hear them. Ulric’s snarls drowned them out.

The fury of the wolf-god burned in his breast, driving him on through the stinking powder smoke despite his fatigue. Gregor Martak’s parting gift had been less a blessing than a curse. Volker had not slept since he’d escaped Middenheim the first time, leading those survivors he could to the dubious safety of Averheim, thanks to the godspark nestled within him. Most of those he’d saved were now dead, so perhaps it hadn’t mattered either way.

He felt his bones shudder in their envelope of flesh, and knew Ulric was lending him strength. He pivoted as the god growled a warning, and caught the crashing blow of a rat ogre on his shield. The force of the impact drove him to one knee. A burst of light blinded him as he readied himself for a second blow. He heard the rat ogre shriek, and saw it turn and rear back, pawing at its eyes, as a golden, glowing shape rose up before it. A blade flashed, and the creature toppled like a felled tree.

The elf, Tyrion, galloped past, shining like the sun, and behind him came the knights of the elves, moving more quietly, but no less swiftly, than their human allies. The elves had appeared near the western gatehouse of Middenheim alongside the Emperor and his followers. Now they fought side by side, as they had centuries past, against the forces of another Everchosen. Volker rose to his feet and turned, Ulric muttering in his head. He cannot be trusted, the wolf-god snarled. He is the thief’s brother!

‘Shut up,’ Volker hissed. A crude spear dug for his vitals and he smashed it down with the bottom of his shield, before driving his sword into the throat of the skaven who held it. He drove forwards, forcing skaven aside with his shield, and cutting down those who would not be moved. Around him, men and elves moved up, whether on horseback or on foot, and the skaven steadily retreated, falling back through crossroads and squares.

You dare? I am Ulric!

‘You’re bloody annoying is what you are,’ he muttered. The god had been in his head since Martak had given him up, and he hadn’t shut up since. Sometimes, Ulric talked so much that Volker had trouble telling which thoughts were his, and which belonged to the wolf-god. Every day, there was a little less of the man he had been, and a little more of the thing Ulric was turning him into. The wolf-god had eaten him hollow.

He heard the scream of the Emperor’s griffon and saw the beast swoop low over the melee, scooping up skaven in its talons as it went. It dashed the unlucky ratmen against the cobbles as it banked and turned. The Emperor clung to the beast’s back and swung his runefang out, lopping off limbs and crushing skulls.

He is tiring, Ulric rumbled. He is but a man, with a man’s frailties. Volker felt a moment of panic, and muttered, ‘Is that what you were waiting on, then? To jump from me to him, the way you left Martak?’ He knew, without knowing how, that if that occurred, he would die not long after. Part of him was even looking forward to it.

I did not leave Martak. I died with him. As I will die with you, Wendel Volker. I have split myself again and again, until I am but a sliver of the god-that-was, all to survive, to reach this moment, when I might sink my fangs into the flesh of the one who took my city – my people – from me. I am Ulric, the god of battle, wolves and winter, and I will have my vengeance!

‘For all you know, Teclis is dead,’ Volker growled. He hacked down on an armoured stormvermin, knocking the black-furred skaven off its feet. It lashed out at him with a heavy, serrated blade. He felt the tip scrape across his cuirass, and dodged back. Before the skaven could get to its feet, his sword hammered down to split its skull. ‘And if he’s not, we might need him,’ he added, desperately.

I will have vengeance, Wendel Volker. Whether the world lives or dies, Middenheim will be avenged. You will be avenged, Ulric growled.

Then his head ached with the mournful cry of innumerable wolves, and he threw back his head and howled again and again, as he fought on. And as he fought, Wendel Volker’s tears turned to ice on his cheeks.

The Merchant District

‘Waaagh!’

Orcs spilled through the streets like a green tide of violence, and unprepared northmen and panicked skaven drowned beneath them. They hacked, thumped and head-butted their way through the ruins of Middenheim’s merchant district and with every foe who was pulled down by the brawling horde, be they armoured Chaos warrior or skittering skaven jezzail team, the war cry only grew louder. It was a deep, feral rumble that rose and spread ahead of the onslaught, louder even than the sounds of battle.

‘Waaagh!’

Crude blades smashed down through iron shields and crumpled steel helms as the orcs hacked at their foes with a wild abandon, inflamed by a force beyond their comprehension. They chopped at the enemy until their blades blunted and broke, and then continued to pummel their foes with bloody fists.

The greenskin warlord fought at the head of the horde, his axe spinning like a bloody whirlwind about him as he bellowed challenge after challenge. Massive, broken-toothed and clad in battered armour, where Grimgor Ironhide went, the enemy shield-walls split and Chaos champions died, the names of their gods still on their lips. Monstrous beasts, strong with the stuff of Chaos, fell dismembered, and their remains were trodden into pulp as the horde rampaged on through the streets, tireless and relentless.

Grimgor caught a northman by his bone-bedecked beard, and yanked the unlucky man forwards. Their skulls met with a resounding crack and the northman slumped back, his skull cracked open like an egg. Grimgor licked blood and brains from his lips as he shoved the body aside and drove his axe down on an upraised shield covered in writhing, shrieking colours. He split the shield, releasing a wailing prismatic spray, and reached through the ruins to grip the throat of its bearer. ‘Get over ’ere,’ he growled. He flung the brawny warrior into the air, and roared, ‘Lads, catch!’

Behind him, his Immortulz cheered as they hacked at the fallen human, painting themselves with his blood and howling with laughter at his screams. Ahead of Grimgor, the humans were falling back, retreating through the close-set streets, keeping their shields between themselves and the orcs. He’d fought them long enough now that he knew what they were planning. The horse ’umies, on the plains, would scatter and reform – it was like trying to bash rain. But these were the iron ’umies… They’d fall back and form a shield-wall, and wait for their bosses to send for reinforcements. He knew from experience that iron ’umies could hold out for a long time. If they didn’t want to move, they didn’t.

For some reason, that wasn’t as pleasant a thought as it might normally have been. He felt an itch, just to the left of his skull, and knew Gork wanted him to keep moving. Go fasta, the god growled, fastafastaFASTA!

Grimgor threw back his head and bellowed in frustration as Gork’s words cascaded across his brain. Why couldn’t the ’umies just take a kicking? They had to know that they couldn’t get away from him, or resist him. They were worse than the bull-stunties, with their armour and fire and whips.

A grin split Grimgor’s grotesque features as he recalled how the stunties had wailed as he’d torn down their city of pillars and pits, freed their slaves and toppled their statues. That’d teach them to break their staves on his hide. That’d teach them to try to make Grimgor a slave. The grin faded, and the old anger came back, hotter and fiercer than any stunty fire-pit. He lifted Gitsnik and pressed the flat of the great axe to his brow. His gnarled frame was a patchwork of scars, most earned properly, in the heat of battle. He’d fought stunties – both kinds – and rats and gits and big-bellies aplenty in the past few months, but it had always come back to the bull-stunties and their fire-pits. Their whips and chains and iron staves.

They had given him his first scars when he’d been no more than a runt. And he owed them for that.

Gork had shown him favour, filling him with strength enough to kick over the stunties’ towers and turn their ziggurat of black obsidian into rubble. But first, he’d broken skulls and taken heads and put together the biggest Waaagh! around – orcs, goblins, even ogres. After Gork had blessed him with his strength, he had crushed Greasus Goldtooth’s skull with the ogre’s own mace. In the years that followed, he had broken the back of the Necksnapper and shattered the lodgepoles of the Hobgobla Khan. He had cracked the Great Bastion, and burned the dragon-fleets of Nippon. The East was green, and it was his. But it hadn’t been enough. Something was pulling him west. Gork, maybe, or Mork, drawing him towards a bigger fight. A better fight. He could feel it in his veins, thrumming along, like that time Gitsnik had got hit by a lightning bolt.

He’d thought, at the time, he’d found that fight in the city of the bull-stunties, but the gods hadn’t even let him enjoy the krumpin’ he’d given them before they’d scooped him up, and all his boys with him, and deposited him into the middle of a fight. A big fight, bigger than any he had ever seen. There were ’umies, rats, stunties, point-ears, and bone-men – every flavour of opponent. For a moment, Grimgor thought he’d died and gone to Gork’s hall, but then he’d got an arrow in the head and realised that they were in a human city. He reached up to scratch the wound. The arrow had got dislodged somewhere along the way, and the wound had already scabbed over. Gork clamoured in his head and Grimgor shook his head in irritation.

He lowered his axe and eyeballed the northmen. He grunted and turned. Gork wanted him to get to the heart of the city, and fast, and Grimgor wasn’t of a mind to argue with the gods… not yet anyway. This situation called for a bit of… Morkishness. ‘Oi, Wurrzag!’ he bellowed, punching his Immortulz aside to clear a path. ‘Get up here, ya git.’ He knew the crazed shaman would be close. Wurrzag was never very far away these days, not since Gork had reached down and given Grimgor a flick on the noggin.

Orcs and ogres made way for a capering, tattooed figure, wrapped in badly stitched hides and wearing a wooden mask decorated with feathers. Wurrzag wobbled to a halt before Grimgor, twitching in time to some internal rhythm. Grimgor grimaced. The air around the shaman sparked and crackled with energy that made an orc’s blood fizz and his flesh itch. Wurrzag shook his staff under Grimgor’s nose. ‘All hail da once and future git,’ the shaman warbled. The shaman hesitated in mid-hop. ‘Werl, one o’ dem, anyways.’

‘Yeah, shut up wiv’ that nonsense and go do that fing you do, right?’ Grimgor snarled, gesturing towards the enemy with his axe. He wanted to plant Gitsnik right in the middle of the shaman’s stupid mask on general principles, but Wurrzag was too valuable. ‘They is in my way, and I want ’em gone. Gork wants me somewheres else, and I intend to go there. But that ain’t here, so go blast ’em.’

‘Yes, oh mighty git,’ Wurrzag squawked, shaking his staff.

‘And stop calling me a git,’ Grimgor roared, as the shaman twitched past him. He turned and raised his axe. ‘Golgfag, get over ’ere,’ he snarled, as he caught the ogre’s attention. Golgfag muscled aside a couple of orcs, and only had to thump one of them. They were scared of the ogre, and Grimgor didn’t like that. The only thing his lads ought to be scared of was him. ‘Get your lads up here,’ he bellowed at the ogre. ‘Me and you are breaking that shield-wall. You got a problem with that?’ He glared at the ogre challengingly. Golgfag and his ogres had joined the Waaagh! as it crossed the Worlds Edge Mountains, and he’d come close to killing the mercenary more than once. Every time, Gork had whispered to him and quelled his anger.

The big ogre had proven more useful than most of his greedy kin – he was as smart as any runt, and dead sneaky when he needed to be. It had been Golgfag who had got the gates of Zharr Naggrund open, so Grimgor’s lads could barrel in. The ogre had held the great iron gates open, despite having half a dozen stunty crossbow bolts in him. He and Grimgor had fought side by side and back to back up the steps of the black ziggurat, and had toppled the massive statue of the stunties’ bull-god, alongside Borgut Facebeater and Wurrzag. That had been a good day, even if he’d had to kill ol’ Borgut later, on account of him trying to make himself boss. He missed Borgut. Not at the moment, but in general.

‘Got no problems, boss,’ Golgfag rumbled. He wore a heavy horned helm that added to his already considerable height, and for an instant, Grimgor considered cutting him off at the knees. He didn’t like standing in the ogre’s shadow. ‘Happy to bash whoever, wherever, whenever.’

‘Good,’ Grimgor grunted. He heard the air sizzle behind him, and felt his skin prickle. The light turned green, and cast weird shadows on the buildings around them. All around him, orcs, ogres and goblins set up a caterwauling and men screamed. He turned to see Wurrzag dancing a madcap jig as the shield-wall crumbled beneath a storm of crackling emerald lightning. Grimgor felt the strength of Gork rising in him, an elemental fury that outstripped even his own boiling anger. He grinned and Golgfag stepped back warily.

‘Let’s get to bashing then,’ Grimgor snarled. He lifted his axe and waved his Immortulz forwards. Golgfag roared out for his followers, and the mingled wedge of black orcs and ogres took the fore as they thundered towards the enemy lines that Wurrzag had softened up. Grimgor sped up, wanting to get the first lick in. He caught Gitsnik in both hands and lifted it. ‘I’m gonna stomp you ta dust, and break your bones,’ he roared, hurling his words towards the faltering shield-wall. ‘I’m gonna pile yer bodies in a big fire and cook ’em good! I’m gonna bash heads, break ya faces and jump up and down on the bits that are left!’

And when I get where Gork wants me ta go, I’m gonna get really mean, he thought in satisfaction. Then, he was upon the enemy, and there was no need to think at all.

Sixteen

The Temple of Ulric, the Ulricsmund

‘How tedious. Surely we are all capable commanders. I do not need my hand held, even if I were intending to commit myself to an afternoon of carnage,’ Sigvald the Magnificent groaned, one arm flung over his head as he reclined on the steps of the dais which led up to Archaon’s throne. ‘Dechala, my love, please inform the Everchosen that I am afflicted with ennui and will be unable to sully my fingers with the grime of battle today.’ He flapped a hand at the serpentine shape of the daemon princess known as Dechala the Denied One.

Dechala possessed the upper body of the beautiful elven princess she had once been, and the lower body of an immense serpent. She hissed at Sigvald. Whether it was a sign of annoyance, or some form of flirtation, Canto could not say. He watched as she slithered closer to the manacled form of the elf mage, Teclis, where he lay huddled next to the dais. His robes were filthy and blackened and his face was turned away from the gathering, but Canto knew he was still paying close attention, even so. He was a cool one, was the elf, and he stank of powerful magics. Even though he was a prisoner, Canto knew it was best not to get too close to him. Dechala, however, seemed unconcerned. She caressed him gently, as if trying to tease a lover awake, and leaned close, her tongue flickering.

She caught Canto watching her, and wrinkled her nose in a fashion that had him momentarily forgetting the six arms and the spiky bits. Don’t even think it, Canto, he thought. Those who knew such things said that Dechala’s embrace was a moment of pleasure, followed by an eternity of pain. She had been in Ind, he knew, alongside Arbaal, bringing the wrath of the gods down on that far land, until she and her rival had been scooped up by whatever dark forces were responsible for such things and brought to Middenheim.

He turned away as one of the others he’d brought to the temple at Archaon’s behest made his feelings known. ‘Cease your prattling, Geld-Prince,’ Arbaal the Undefeated rumbled. ‘The gods have called us here to do battle with their enemies. Would you deny their wishes?’

‘And are you so arrogant as to know the wishes of a god not your own?’ the horned, winged creature known as Azazel, the Prince of Damnation, purred as he sauntered out from behind Archaon’s throne. The daemon prince’s talons clicked across the haft of Ghal Maraz, where it was mounted above the throne.

Arbaal growled wordlessly and hefted his axe. A large, scaly paw pressed itself to his cuirass, stopping him from hurling himself at Azazel. ‘None of us know the will of the gods,’ Throgg, the self-proclaimed King of the Trolls, rasped. ‘At least not until it is too late.’ The troll was larger than any other of his kind that Canto had ever had the misfortune to run across. And his eerie self-control was equally as disturbing as Dechala’s sinuous attempts at seduction. They said the troll had been plucked from Kislev by the whims of the gods, and that he bore the marks of battle on him. Canto wondered who would be insane enough to go toe-to-toe with Throgg. Then, he wondered whether they had survived.

‘All I know is that I was enjoying the finest flesh Parravon had to offer, before I was whisked back to this inglorious termite mound,’ Sigvald said. ‘I am without even my sword-boy, or my mirror-eunuchs. How am I expected to perform without my mirror-eunuchs?’

‘We all have our burdens to bear, Geld-Prince,’ Mannfred von Carstein said. The vampire examined his talons, not looking at Sigvald, or, more pointedly, at the shrouded figure of Isabella von Carstein, who stood well away from the creature who shared her name. The two vampires had studiously ignored one another since Mannfred’s arrival.

Canto watched Mannfred warily. He still didn’t understand why Archaon had allowed the beast, or, for that matter, creatures like the renegade dark elf priestess Hellebron, into the city. They were treachery incarnate, and if they knew what the Everchosen was planning – indeed, if any of the gathered champions knew – they would turn on him in an instant. ‘And in any event, eunuchs are easily replaced,’ Mannfred continued.

‘Are you volunteering, prince of leeches?’ Sigvald purred. ‘I believe I have just the paring knife for you…’

Mannfred laughed. ‘Would that I could, barbarian.’ The vampire turned his red gaze on Sigvald. ‘Would that I could match my strength against yours, but… well. We have enemies enough, I think, and on our very doorstep.’

‘Our doorstep, vampire?’

Canto stiffened as Archaon’s hand fell on his shoulder. ‘You have brought them all?’ the Everchosen said, gazing at the assemblage.

‘As many as weren’t already engaged, my lord,’ Canto said, as Archaon stepped past him. ‘Hellebron has already brought the foe to battle in the Palast District, and only a few of the skaven are not currently hard-pressed,’ he continued, gesturing to the tiny knot of skaven who stood near von Carstein. The ratmen looked nervous, as well they should have – they were not well liked by their allies. ‘Harald Hammerstorm will do as he wills, as ever. And the other warlords send their regrets, I’m sure.’ Not that there were many of the latter left. Most of the champions and warlords worth the name had already gone to join the gods, in one fashion or another. Those that hadn’t died in the taking of the city, or during the assault on Averheim, had crossed Archaon and paid for that temerity with their lives.

‘What of the Broken King?’ Archaon asked, his amusement evident.

Mannfred and Isabella were not the only dead things in Archaon’s service. The Broken King was another – a foreign potentate, ruler of a dead land, clad in shattered vestments and filthy wrappings. He was one of the skeletal princes of far Nehekhara, though which one, he had never revealed, even as he prostrated himself before the Everchosen’s throne in the months after the destruction of Averheim.

‘He has already gone to confront the enemy,’ Canto said. In truth, he did not know where the Broken King was, or what he was up to, and he did not feel like hunting the creature down to ask it. Let it live or die, as it wished.

Archaon said nothing for long moments. Then he shook himself slightly, and murmured, ‘Monsters and fools. How fitting.’ He looked around. ‘We are besieged. You all know this, and you know too that this is the last roll of the dice for our enemies. This is the last gasp of the civilised lands, and when this battle is done… the gods will reward us.’ Archaon made a fist. Canto felt a chill streak through him, and he glanced upwards, towards the red sky clearly visible through the shattered dome of the temple.

The gods are watching, he thought. But he didn’t think they particularly cared who won. He looked at Archaon. You don’t either. Not really. Because you think you’ve already won. It’s a foregone conclusion to you… Because it wasn’t about battles or enemies for Archaon. Not now. Now it was all about time and fire. While the rest fought, he contented himself with stoking the flames. Canto gripped the hilt of his sword and wondered how one might escape those flames when one was already in the pot.

Archaon was still talking. ‘The enemy are scattered, for now. If we are quick, we might be able to destroy them piecemeal. If not, well…’ He spread his hands. ‘Such is the will of the gods.’ He gestured to Arbaal. ‘Most important are those closest to hand. A host of elves is on our doorstep, just east of here. Their skulls are yours, should you wish.’

Arbaal nodded silently. Archaon looked at Dechala. ‘You will take the south – the Sudgarten. The enemy muster there as well.’ As the elf-snake hissed her agreement, Archaon motioned to Isabella. ‘And you, countess… you shall reinforce Hellebron in the Palast District. Catch the enemy between the engines of blood and pox, and crush them.’

Isabella, face hidden behind her veil, gave no sign that she’d heard. Instead, she simply turned and strode away, accompanied by Arbaal and Dechala. Canto looked towards the dais and saw that Azazel was gone as well, though the daemon prince had been given no orders. Archaon didn’t seem concerned for such trivialities. He turned to the skaven. ‘Darkendwel,’ he said, addressing the large shape which crouched above the knot of skaven warlords, perched high on a broken statue.

The shadowy shape of the skaven verminlord twitched as Archaon spoke its name. The squabbling warlords and seers gathered about it fell silent as the Everchosen turned to face Darkendwel. ‘The orcs in the merchant district. Do they fight alongside the others?’ Archaon asked. ‘Have our enemies grown so desperate as to elicit the aid of mindless savages?’

‘No, O most mighty King-With-Three-Eyes,’ the verminlord chittered. It hesitated, and then added, ‘Or such does not appear to be the case.’

‘Then find out,’ Archaon rumbled. ‘Lead them towards… the Wynd, I think. Let us see if they prefer the elves as playmates.’ Archaon cocked his head, as if in thought. Then, ‘I was sorry to hear that your fellow verminlord, Visretch, fell to the blade of the elf-prince, Tyrion. I had much I wished to discuss with him, when the time came.’ Canto smiled as Darkendwel tensed. One of the verminlords had been responsible for killing Valten, against Archaon’s wishes. The Everchosen hadn’t found out which one had struck the blow, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

‘He died in your name, O most magnificent god-king,’ the verminlord intoned.

‘Then you can do no less,’ Archaon said. He turned and pointed at Sigvald. ‘The dead are yours. I want the skull of this so-called Undying King for a drinking cup, Geld-Prince.’ Archaon glanced at Throgg. ‘You will take your forces and join him. Sigvald will require assistance.’

‘I require no such thing,’ Sigvald said, pushing himself to his feet. ‘And I will not share my glory with an ape in a crown.’ He gestured dismissively towards Throgg. ‘I can barely tolerate his smell… How do you expect me to fight alongside him?’

‘I do not,’ Archaon said simply. ‘I expect you to die beside him. Perhaps I am mistaken. I am curious to see which it is.’

Sigvald gaped at him. The Geld-Prince’s hand strayed towards the hilt of his sword, but Throgg reached him first. One scaly hand clamped down hard, trapping Sigvald’s hand and wrist. The troll-king grinned unpleasantly. ‘Come, beautiful one. We have carrion birds to feed, and dead men to set to rest,’ Throgg rumbled. Sigvald jerked his hand free of the brute’s grip and hurried away, Throgg trailing after.

‘And what of me, O mighty Everchosen? What are your commands for me?’ Mannfred said, bowing obsequiously, as they left. Archaon climbed the dais and took down Ghal Maraz before he glanced at him.

‘Go where thou wilt, and die as you wish, leech. I have no commands for you, save that you remember whose side you have chosen, and that the gods have your scent, and they will harry you to destruction, should you forget.’ Archaon gestured dismissively with the hammer.

Canto smiled slightly, pleased. Mannfred annoyed him. Only room enough for two lickspittles in this court, I’m afraid, he thought. As if the vampire had heard his thoughts, Mannfred turned a red-eyed glare on him. Canto’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword, but Mannfred stormed past him, trailing shadow and the stink of old blood in his wake.

‘I’m going to have to kill him, I think,’ he said, without thinking.

‘Possibly,’ Archaon said. He still held Ghal Maraz in his hands. ‘Then, possibly, it shall become unnecessary before long. It is all winding down, Canto. Can you not hear it? The wind which howls through the streets is the dying gasp of this sad world. The tremors which shake this mountain are but its death-shudders. Soon, it will all be done. All lies revealed, all gods thrown down, and the earth and sky made one.’

Canto shivered in his armour. His hand was still around the hilt of his sword. One blow, that’s all it would take… One swift blow, and then… Cathay, he thought. Only there wasn’t a Cathay any more, or an Araby, or anywhere that wasn’t here. Still… just one blow…

‘It would take more than one, Canto, and you know it,’ Archaon said, softly. He did not turn around. Canto froze nonetheless. ‘You had your chance once, to change the fate of all things, and you squandered it. You ran, rather than make a choice. In the end, it all comes down to choices, Canto. You chose to remain a man, in a world fit only for monsters. And now you face another choice.’

Archaon turned, Ghal Maraz swinging loosely in his grip. ‘The gods are always of two minds, Canto. One mind says strike, and the other says hold. The gods see all possibilities and none, and they are blinded by this wealth of knowledge. So they plot within plot, and scheme against themselves, even in their moment of victory. For if I succeed, the game ends. The world ends and their playthings are but ashes on the cosmic wind.’ He lifted the ancient hammer, turning it slightly in his grip, as if to admire the way the light glinted off the runes which marked its surface. ‘Like this hammer, the Dark Gods are both creator and destroyer, and they cannot make up their minds as to which they are in any given moment.’

He swung the hammer experimentally. ‘They are idiot gods, Canto – they are more powerful than you can conceive, but in truth, they are little better than giggling imbeciles, drawing shapes in the mud. They will crush this world into dust and blow it away, and then move on to some other world, some other place where the game begins again. That is the truth of it.’ Archaon tossed the hammer aside carelessly, and it thumped down with a hollow clang. ‘In a way, you were wise not to pledge your allegiance to any of them. That alone has given you the will to decide your own fate. The others will fight, because their gods demand blood. But you have a choice. Indeed, you have so many choices that I cannot help but envy you. I have no choices left to make, and am bound to my path.’

Canto shook his head. ‘What… what choices?’ he croaked.

‘You could kill me,’ Archaon said. He spread his arms. ‘It might be enough to halt what has begun. With me dead, the gods would certainly turn away, though whether in satisfaction or anger, I cannot say. Or you could run. You could flee, and live for however long the world remains. I will not stop you.’ Archaon crossed his arms. ‘You could fight. You could be Unsworn no more, and perhaps even gain some measure of power in these final hours. Become a demigod like Azazel or Dechala, eternal and inhuman.’

Canto stared at him. After a moment, he said, ‘None of those sound particularly enjoyable.’ He looked down at his hand, clamped tight to the hilt of his sword, and, not for the first time, thought of Count Mordrek and the way he’d died. An ending, that’s all any of us are after, he thought.

‘Nonetheless, the choice is upon you at last. What do you wish to do, Unsworn?’ Archaon asked. ‘Which road will you take? Once, you showed some small touch of mercy, and spared the world its due punishment. Now, you have that chance again. Will you show it mercy a second time?’ There was something in Archaon’s voice which made Canto hesitate. A note of pleading perhaps, or resignation. It was the voice, not of a conqueror, or a great champion, but a man tired unto death, and wanting only oblivion.

Run and hide or stand and fight, Unsworn – your appointed hour has come round at last, he thought. He’d thought it had passed, but Middenheim, Averheim… it had all been a single moment, stretched over weeks and days. But now it was done, and he could no longer avoid it. He could only choose, as Archaon had said.

Canto’s sword was in his hand, before he knew he had drawn it. There were no voices in his head, no whispers, only the sound of a tortoise of iron and crystal as it trudged on and on, into endless wastes, searching for something that could never be found. His sword slashed down towards Archaon’s head, and then there was a flash of light, and pain and he was falling back – back onto the ground.

‘I hoped you would run,’ Archaon said solemnly. The Slayer of Kings hung loosely in his hand, its edge red with blood. It had cut through Canto’s armour as if it were nothing. ‘If you had run, I could have spared you this, for a few hours more. You have served me well, and without complaint, and I would have liked to have given you that much.’

Canto couldn’t breathe. There was a fire in his belly, and it was consuming him from the inside out. Even so, he still managed to laugh. ‘I… am running,’ he wheezed. ‘Death is the only escape from… from what’s coming.’ Pain swelled in him, choking off his laughter. Archaon knelt beside him.

‘Do you fear the truth so much, then?’ Archaon asked. He sounded regretful, and confused. You aren’t bound to your path, you just never bothered to look for another, Canto thought, through a haze of agony. Were you too scared? Is that it? Are you afraid, Everchosen? And here I thought I was the coward…

‘Whose truth?’ Canto said, his voice barely a whisper. Archaon twitched, as if struck. The world was going red and black at the edges, and the pain had faded, leaving only a leaden weight on his limbs and heart. Canto closed his eyes. ‘I’ll not be forced to choose between dooms,’ he slurred. ‘Let the gods catch me if they can. I remain true to myself.’

Archaon said something, but Canto couldn’t hear it. He could hear nothing now, save the distant laughter of thirsting gods, and the slow, soft wheeze of the tortoise as it walked on, towards the edge of the world.

Canto ran after it.

Teclis watched Archaon rise to his feet, sword still in his hand. He left the body of the Chaos warrior where it lay, and turned towards his captive. Teclis had not caught everything that had passed between them, but he thought he understood it regardless, and he cursed the warrior, whoever he had been, for not killing Archaon when he’d had the chance. The moment had passed now, and it would take more than a blade in the back to topple the Everchosen from here on out.

‘He was the world’s last hope,’ Archaon said, as he turned towards Teclis. ‘I thought, for a moment, he might… but no matter. The way is clear and my path assured. Let the skies weep and the seas boil. Let us be free, at last, of the hideous weight of life.’

Teclis gathered his legs under him as Archaon strode towards him. ‘Not all of us think it a burden,’ he croaked. Archaon raised his sword and shattered the chains which connected the elf to the dais, as Teclis shied away instinctively. Archaon reached down and grabbed the chains, hauling Teclis upright.

‘I do not care what you think, mage. I care only what you see. Come.’ Archaon dragged Teclis up through the temple, onto the ancient battlements which surrounded the shattered dome. Teclis nearly stumbled and fell many times, but Archaon kept him moving with sharp tugs and cuffs about the head and shoulders. When they reached the open air, Teclis gulped it in, trying to clear his mouth and nose of the taste and smell of the foulness within the defiled temple.

Archaon paused at the top of the battlements. The Everchosen gazed out over the city, watching the play of light and shadow stretch across the ruins. Even from here, Teclis could hear the sounds of battle, and see the smoke. He could hear the boom of guns, and the raucous cries of the orcs. And wasn’t that a surprise, he thought sardonically. It made a strange sort of sense. The Wind of Beasts had gone east and found a suitably bestial host. Appropriate, if unanticipated.

Archaon tugged on the chains. ‘What do you see?’ he rasped.

Teclis looked at him, and a dozen different answers sprang to mind. What should I tell you? That the Incarnates are bound together by bonds of magic, and those same bonds are drawing them here? That it is fate, that it has come down to this, and that even the Ruinous Powers are but children in the hands of destiny? But no. Archaon didn’t want to hear any of that. The question had been rhetorical. The Everchosen was no longer a man, but merely a mechanism… a toy, wound up and set loose by irrational beings.

The elf sniffed. ‘I see the end of all you have planned, and the fall of the Dark Gods.’

Archaon laughed. The sound set Teclis’s gut to churning. ‘Such defiance. Do you not fear me?’ the Everchosen asked. There was no threat there. Only a question.

‘What does it matter?’ Teclis said. He examined the Everchosen, studying the stained armour, the ragged furs and the expressionless helmet. Once, he thought, the man before him could have been something else. There was a whiff of destiny deferred about him. It reminded him of Tyrion, in a way. Archaon could have, once upon a time, become the guiding flame for humanity, leading his folk out of the shadows and into glory.

Instead, he had become nothing more than a black fire, blazing at the heart of a world-consuming inferno. You could have been a hero, Teclis thought, and felt a wave of sadness sweep through him. But you didn’t even try, did you? Did you even have the chance? He shook his head and looked out at the city. ‘My life and death are irrelevant. I have played my part in this sorry affair.’

‘Let me tell you what I see,’ Archaon said, hauling Teclis close. ‘I see a battle already won, and the dying spasms of a world already ended. Whether your allies win or lose, I win. Or were you hoping one of them might turn the tide? Your brother, perhaps?’ Archaon shoved Teclis back.

Teclis fell to his knees on the hard stone. He ignored the pain, and glared up at the Everchosen. So certain, are you? So assured of the outcome that it has blinded you to any other possibility. You made your choice, and you expect the world to fall into line with it. He snorted. You are more like my brother than I thought. ‘Armies are not the only expression of strength. And my brother is not who you should fear. It is the Emperor.’

‘Karl Franz is a weakling. A mortal serving a false god in the name of a nonexistent empire,’ Archaon said. ‘I tore his magic from him, and sent him running.’

Teclis allowed himself a wintry smile. ‘I did not say the Emperor is Karl Franz.’ He looked away, out over the city. He could see the lights of the Incarnates, drawing close. And one in particular attracted his eye. He could feel Archaon’s eyes boring into him. ‘Karl Franz died in Altdorf, at the hands of your servants. He was a man, and he died a man’s death. But an empire must have an emperor, and one came who answered the call.’ He smiled. It had taken some time to puzzle it all out.

‘What are you saying?’ Archaon said.

‘Did you really believe that the Heldenhammer would do nothing while you annihilated all that he built?’ Teclis said. He turned and met Archaon’s black gaze without flinching. ‘Sigmar is coming, Everchosen. Even as he came for your predecessors. And with him, all of the fury and fire of this world which you so casually claim is dying.’

Archaon lashed out with a fist, and knocked Teclis sprawling. ‘Sigmar is a lie,’ he snarled. He grabbed Teclis’s chains and jerked the elf to his feet. ‘He is a lie!’

Teclis grinned through bloody lips. ‘I hope I get to see you tell him that face to face.’

Mannfred cursed loudly and steadily as he stormed out of the Temple of Ulric and flung himself into Ashigaroth’s saddle. The great beast groaned as it flung itself into the air at his barked command. Mannfred snarled uselessly as he flew over the rooftops of the Ulricsmund. It was all going wrong; he could feel it. The wind was shifting, but he couldn’t tell in which direction. This is not as I foresaw, he thought. Victory had seemed so certain, then. Now, there was no certainty save that the end was fast approaching.

When he had arrived in Middenheim a few days earlier, Archaon had readily accepted his offer of fealty, even as he had that of the renegade elf priestess, Hellebron, and, even more surprisingly, Settra the Imperishable. The former king of Khemri was the last individual, living or dead, that Mannfred had expected to see here of all places. He’d thought the ancient liche reduced to dust and scattered across the sands of his beloved Nehekhara, after his refusal to serve Nagash as a mortarch.

The Everchosen had seemed amused by these turncoats more than anything. And the Everchosen’s other champions had wasted no opportunity to remind Mannfred of his new place in the scheme of things. He had been forced to defend himself, and his place in the pecking order, more than once. Such efforts had hardly been worth it, however.

He already regretted coming to Middenheim. This disrespect was the last straw. He would not fight for Archaon. Servitude to a jumped-up barbarian was no less galling than being Nagash’s slave, and he had no taste for either. Let them fight one another. He would keep clear, and be ready to take advantage of what remained.

Ashigaroth hurtled on through the sky, as Mannfred turned his attentions to the battles taking place throughout the city. Somehow, Teclis had managed to drag the Incarnates and their followers to Middenheim, but he had not done so in any organised fashion. Nevertheless, they were moving steadily towards the Temple of Ulric, and Archaon. It would not take them long to smash aside the few obstacles Archaon had set in their path.

Mannfred glanced over his shoulder, back towards the temple. What is your game, Everchosen? Why are you not making a more concentrated effort to stop them? What am I not seeing? Since arriving in the city, he had attempted to uncover the reason for Archaon’s seeming unwillingness to abandon the city. What was so important about Middenheim that Archaon would trap himself here?

Thus far, no answers were forthcoming. Archaon had shared his intent with few beyond his inner circle, most of whom were now dead by the hand of that fool, Canto. Archaon’s executioner was nothing special – just another barbarian. But the others had deferred to him, as if he held some special place in Archaon’s esteem. Mannfred’s lip curled. As if a creature like that could be important.

Ashigaroth screamed and reared in mid-air. Mannfred fought to remain in the saddle as the beast bucked and shrieked. He twisted in the saddle, searching for what had disturbed his mount, and saw the sky over the Grafsmund split open, and spit out something like a falling star. He urged Ashigaroth closer, even as the falling thing slammed into the street and shook the city. Badly battered buildings collapsed all about the circumference of the newly made crater, filling the air with smoke and ruin. Northmen streamed through the streets below him, hurrying to confront the new arrival. Curiosity compelled him to follow suit.

The fallen rubble shifted and slumped as the monstrous form of a bloodthirster rose to its feet. The daemon was badly hurt, its unnatural flesh scorched by fire and marked by dozens of wounds, but it did not lack for strength as it tore its way free of the crater. The charging northmen had stumbled to a halt, and, as Mannfred watched, they sank down to their knees before the bloodthirster. As the smoke cleared, the vampire caught a good look at the beast, and he jerked on Ashigaroth’s reins, pulling his mount up and away. Mannfred had studied the servants of the Dark Gods, and had familiarised himself with such entities as the Fateweaver and the Plaguefather. He knew Khorne’s Huntsman when he saw him, and he wanted to be nowhere near such a ravening engine of destruction.

What the beast was doing here, he could only surmise. Archaon had sent Ka’Bandha to claim the skull of the Emperor – perhaps the daemon had simply followed his prey with the single-minded determination that so characterised the followers of the Blood God. The daemon unleashed a roar fraught with almost tangible frustration, and lashed out with the hammer it clutched in one claw, pulverising a number of the kneeling humans.

Ka’Bandha roared again. The surviving northmen, overcome by the daemon’s bloodlust, threw back their heads as one and unleashed a warbling, communal howl. As the daemon strode away, the northmen followed, running on all fours as often as on two legs.

Mannfred shook himself. While he was immune to the daemon’s presence, even he could feel the heat of the creature’s rage. He urged Ashigaroth away, towards the Palast District. The more distance he put between himself and the daemon, the better. As he passed over the blood-soaked ruin Hellebron’s cultists had made of the Middenplatz, a flash of movement below caught his attention. Something black, streaking across a rooftop.

Mannfred blinked. Vlad, he thought. So, you’ve come as well. I thought you were smarter than that. Then, you could never resist a grand moment, could you? He urged Ashigaroth in pursuit, and loosened his sword in its sheath. There was little chance, given the powers involved, that he could sway the battle one way or another. The thought galled him, but he was pragmatic enough to admit when he was outmatched. But he could accomplish at least one thing in the meantime.

Nagash should never have brought you back, old man, he thought. And I’ll see you sent back into the dark before this world ends. Mannfred smiled cruelly as he hurtled in pursuit of the other vampire. Whatever else happened, whatever fate awaited Mannfred or the world he’d sought to claim, Vlad von Carstein would die.

Seventeen

The Wynd

Malekith cursed as the eastern flank of his forces began to buckle beneath the weight of the orc assault. The ruins shook with savage cries as the greenskins barrelled through the thinning ranks of the fleeing skaven and crashed into the elves. The elves fought with all of the discipline and fury of their race, but they could not match the pure, bestial ferocity of the newcomers. He tugged on Seraphon’s reins, drawing the dragon through the air towards the collapsing lines. Below him, elves on horseback galloped to bolster the flagging flank.

He couldn’t say where the greenskins had come from, nor did he particularly care. That they were here now and attacking his forces was all that was important. It had all been going so well. The skaven had been driven before them, fleeing like the rodents they were. But even as the elves had pressed forwards, the orcs had been lured onto a collision course with Malekith’s forces. He could see the cunning pattern now – the ratkin had ever been willing to sacrifice thousands of their own kind in order to secure a minor victory. He cursed himself for not being more wary. Now he had a more persistent foe to contend with, and he knew, though he could not see them through the fog of war, that the skaven were likely regrouping. They would not have led both armies here, if they did not have some–

The thud of jezzail shots and the crackle of warp-lightning cannons interrupted his thoughts, and confirmed his suspicions. Seraphon caught an updraught and reared to hover in the air as, below, jezzail-shot thudded into the melee, gouging bloody trails of dead and wounded through the press of battle. Poisoned wind mortar shells burst open along his lines, claiming the lives of many elves, including the fierce corsairs of the Krakensides.

Of course, he thought. Why draw one foe into a trap, when you can draw two? Cunning vermin. Malekith snarled in frustration and jabbed his spurs into Seraphon’s scales, urging the dragon on.

With a shriek, the great beast undulated through the air, eastwards, in search of the hidden skaven positions. Malekith hunkered low in his saddle as green lightning arced from a crumbled second-storey archway, and at his command, Seraphon tucked its wings and plummeted towards the ruins like a diving falcon. The black dragon smashed into the ruins hard enough to shower the streets below with debris, and its head snaked forwards, jaws agape. Thick, black smoke spewed from its maw, and filled the ruin. Dying skaven staggered into view, collapsing even as they tried vainly to escape the noxious poison.

Malekith summoned flames of shadow and sent them roaring into the depths of the ruin, searing those skaven whom Seraphon’s breath had not reached. He laughed as the vermin burned, and longed to do the same to the whole city. Let it all burn, and be lost to darkness, so that the enemy might know the futility of standing against the Eternity King.

He heard a squeal from above him, and twisted in his saddle. Shapes dropped towards him from the upper reaches of the ruin, wielding curved blades that glistened with poison. Even as he raised his blade, he knew that he would not be able to stop every blow.

Something flashed in the dark, and spun past him. Several of the assassins went limp, like puppets with their strings cut, and smashed into the ground below. The remaining skaven landed on Seraphon’s back and leapt towards him, only to die with his sword in its skull. As he swept the twitching carcass away from him, he turned to see a dwarf axe embedded in the stonework nearby. Whoever had thrown it had done so with consummate skill, killing two assassins in mid-air with a single throw.

‘You never were any good at watching your back, were you?’ a rough voice rumbled, from somewhere nearby. Malekith froze. He recognised the voice, though he had not heard it in millennia. Not since those dim, distant days before elf and dwarf had discarded all oaths of friendship, and gone to war. ‘Just as well I was passing through.’ He caught a glimpse of gleaming armour and a flash of white beard, and felt his heart lurch in memory of a pain he’d thought long forgotten.

‘Snorri,’ Malekith whispered. ‘My friend – I…’

But the speaker, whoever they had been, was gone. He turned and saw that the axe was gone as well, as if it had never been. Malekith shook his head. He knew the legends, and had heard the stories from the lips of slaves and captives, but he had never believed… not until now. He smiled. Go in peace, my friend, and meet your doom as is fitting.

Even as the eastern knot of skaven guns fell silent, so too did those situated to the south. Malekith pushed aside old memories and regrets as he peered into the darkness and glimpsed the glint of golden murder-masks there – the Chaindancers had found new prey. Malekith’s smile turned cruel as he heard the screams of the ratkin, and silently wished the sisters of slaughter luck in their hunt. ‘Such hubris these vermin display, to believe that we are prey, eh, Seraphon?’ he murmured, as he gave the dragon’s reins a tug. The beast flung itself back into the air, wings pumping.

As he passed over the heaving sprawl of battle, a dull ache began to grow in his skull. It was a familiar sensation – the tug of strong magics, of the great winds of the Vortex striving against one another. He felt it most strongly when another Incarnate was close by. He peered down, and saw a war-hydra fall, its coils split by the bite of a crude axe. A burly figure bounded through the writhing death-spasms of the beast, and crashed into the close-packed ranks of the Phoenix Guard. Amber energy sparked and snarled around the orc, as if the creature were the eye of a storm.

‘The eighth wind,’ Malekith hissed. And bound to the body of a brute at that. Suddenly, the presence of the orcs made sense – this was Teclis’s fault. Much like everything else, he thought sourly. And like everything else, it is up to me to see to the rectification of this colossal blunder. The orcs were uncontrollable, and filled with the power of Ghur. They would ruin whatever slight chance of victory the Incarnates possessed.

‘No, best to let the Wind of Beasts seek out a more fitting host,’ he said, as he urged Seraphon into another dive. ‘Once we have freed it from its current shoddy shell, of course.’ The dragon roared, as if in reply, and dived down towards the orc warlord.

Improbably, the brute ducked beneath Seraphon’s grasping talons. Malekith cursed as the dragon turned, jaws wide. The orc whirled and charged towards them, axe raised. The dragon spewed poison smoke, but the orc plunged through it heedlessly. Malekith blinked in shock, as the orc suddenly bounded from the cloud of poison and crashed down onto Seraphon’s spined skull. Before the dragon could do more than issue a startled snarl, the orc was scrambling up Seraphon’s ridged neck, towards the Eternity King.

The orc was even more monstrous up close, Malekith thought, even as he drew his blade to block a blow from that lethal axe. One eye blazed fiercely from a green, scowling face pitted with scars. The black armour was tarnished and piecemeal, but sturdy, and the orc’s arms bulged with thick knots of muscle. There was a flare of light as their blades met, and Malekith grunted in pain as the force of the blow jarred his arm. The orc was strong; far stronger than he’d assumed. ‘Grimgor is gonna gut ya,’ the orc snarled, spraying spittle all over Malekith. ‘Gonna rip out yer spine and beat ya to death wit’ it. Gonna squish yer heart like it were a squig, and suck it dry!’

‘You’ll do nothing except scream, brute,’ the Eternity King hissed. Malekith’s hand snapped out, the clawed tips of his gauntlet sinking into the orc’s arm, eliciting a bellow of pain. The orc rocked and his broad skull slammed into the faceplate of Malekith’s helm, almost buckling it. Nearly jarred from his saddle, and dazed by the blow, Malekith slumped back, releasing his hold on the orc. The creature grinned and hefted his axe for a killing blow, but a sudden undulation from Seraphon as the dragon launched itself back into the air sent the brute tumbling away, back to the street below.

Before Malekith could attempt to spot where his foe had landed, a great chittering shriek rose from the north, and he turned to see a host of armoured skaven ploughing through the ruins of a burnt-out guildhouse, straight towards his already embattled forces. ‘No,’ he spat. ‘No more of this foolishness.’ Even as he spoke, however, the sound of more orcs arriving reached him. Hundreds of orcs were spilling through the rubble of storehouses and shops, an unyielding wave of green violence, seeking to sweep his embattled forces from the field. Giants and ogres lumbered amongst them, and squealing, snorting boar riders careened through the streets ahead of the rest.

His host was caught in the jaws of a trap, and there would be no escape. Not through force at any rate. His elves were too few, and even his own power, great as it was, could not prevail over so many enemies. Is this it, then? Is this my fate – our fate? To be drowned in violence by uncomprehending savages or cowardly vermin? Am I to preside over ignominious defeat? Is that to be my legacy? he wondered, as his heart sank and his warriors died.

No. No, this was not his fate. He had struggled too hard, fought too long to give it all up now due to the error of another. He was Malekith. He was supreme. He had survived the Flame of Asuryan not once but twice, and forged two nations in his lifetime. He had beaten daemons, and matched his will to that of the Dark Gods themselves and emerged whole and triumphant.

But there had ever been one common element to his victories. One foe that had to be defeated first, in every case. Pride, damnable pride. It was pride that drove him; he knew it and accepted it. It was pride that lent him strength, and pride too which had endangered his every plan and scheme. Pride told him that he needed no aid; pride murmured that he could find a more fitting host for the Winds of Death and Beasts; pride demanded that he fight to the last, against those he deemed inferior.

And it was with a single twist of his limbs that Malekith dashed pride to the ground, and dropped from Seraphon’s saddle. He landed lightly, despite the weight of his armour, borne to the street by coiling shadows. The orc still lived, and was hacking his way through the Phoenix Guard with a single-minded determination that put Malekith in mind of Tyrion. Brutes of a feather, he thought, as he strode towards his opponent.

The orc roared as he caught sight of Malekith. Several of his followers made as if to charge the Eternity King, but the orc cut them down without hesitation. Malekith smiled. The beast would allow no other to claim his victory. Pride is not the sole province of Asuryan’s children, he thought as he drew close to the rampaging orc. Amber light sparked and snarled about the orc warlord, illuminating him with a pale glow.

Well, now to see whether I am right… or dead, Malekith mused, as he swiftly sank down to one knee, bowed his head, and extended his sword hilt-first towards his opponent. ‘I yield,’ he said, loudly.

The orc, axe raised over his blunt skull, blinked. Malekith said, ‘I yield, in my name, and in that of the elven race. We are your servants.’

The orc hesitated for a moment. Then a slow, cruel snarl of triumph spread across his features. The orc raised his axe and turned towards his brawling followers. ‘Grimgor is da best!’ he bellowed. He pounded his chest with a closed fist, and his followers added their voices to his victorious roar.

‘No,’ Malekith said.

The orc whirled about. ‘What?’ the brute growled.

Malekith matched the beast’s gimlet stare with one of his own. ‘I – we came to this city to defeat one who claims that title for himself.’ He flung a hand out to indicate the skaven. ‘They serve him, as do the northmen. They say he is the best, the strongest warrior in the world. So strong that he intends to crack it, and drown what’s left in fire.’ Malekith inclined his head. ‘How can Grimgor be the best, if Archaon kills the world?’

‘Archaon,’ Grimgor rumbled, drawing the Everchosen’s name out like a curse. Amber sparks danced in the brute’s good eye. The beast turned north, towards the Temple of Ulric. ‘Archaon… thinks he’s better than me?’

‘I doubt that he thinks of you at all,’ Malekith said.

‘Take me to him,’ Grimgor snarled, shoving the flat of his axe beneath Malekith’s chin. ‘I’m gonna bash ’im, and then I’m gonna stomp ’im, and then we’ll see who’s best.’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ Malekith murmured, rising to his feet. Grimgor snorted and turned. At a single bellow, his orcs began to flow around the elves, and towards the skaven. Malekith could almost admire the iron control the beast had over his simple-minded followers. But he still intended to plant his sword between the brute’s shoulder blades once the day was won. He’d sacrificed his pride on the altar of necessity, but that didn’t mean that matters between them were resolved.

I hope you survive what’s coming, beast. If only so you can witness my supremacy first-hand, when your services are no longer required…

The Great Park

Arkhan the Black pinned the northman to the ground with a sweep of his staff, and watched disinterestedly as the savage convulsed and withered to a lifeless husk. It joined the others that surrounded him in an ever expanding ring of death, and he paid the body no more notice. It wasn’t even worth raising to fight anew.

From around him rose the clangour of battle, as barrow-blade crashed against ensorcelled steel in a monotonous rhythm. Nearby, the wights of the Doomed Legion fought against the black-armoured reavers of the Wastes, both sides trampling the bodies of Kurgan and northmen beneath their heavy treads. With a gesture, Arkhan re-knit broken bones and rebound wicked spirits to their mouldering bodies, dragging those wights who had fallen back to their feet to rejoin the fight.

The sky had gone from red to black, and squirmed like a carcass full of maggots. The few remaining trees in the Great Park had been set alight by witch-fires as the battle surged back and forth. The living had been joined by a cavalcade of daemons – graceful, dancing shapes which moved with impossible quickness across the field. One such bounded towards Arkhan, her lilting song playing across the grave-whisper of his thoughts. Faces flashed in his mind’s eye – Morgiana, Neferata, others, women he had loved and lost in his sorry life – but he ignored them easily enough. His will was not his own, and could not be broken so lightly. The vast, black bulwark of Nagash’s thoughts steadied his own, and he interposed his staff as the daemonette’s claws snapped shut inches from his skull.

The daemon hissed at him and he twisted to the side, throwing the androgynous creature to the ground. Before it could rise, he had drawn his barrow-blade and severed its head from its neck. He turned, blade still in hand, and scanned the park. Wailing spirits hurtled through the ashen air to the south, ripping the life from Kurgan warriors, even as the latter fought on beneath their skull-topped banners against a lurching, fire-blistered horde of zombies. He heard a rasping roar, and turned to see Krell’s axe crash down on the mirrored shield of a creature he recognised as Sigvald the Magnificent. Arkhan had only crossed paths with the Geld-Prince once before, in Araby, but he knew that the Chaos champion was a deadly opponent, despite being a preening brat.

Arkhan extended his staff, unleashing a crackling amethyst hurricane of death-magics at the daemonettes who capered past Sigvald and Krell, unbinding them and reducing them to motes of glittering dust. Through the cloud, he saw Sigvald driven back by Krell’s whirling blows, each of which bled seamlessly into the next.

Again and again, Sigvald lunged at Krell, his flickering blade skittering across Krell’s ancient armour, but the wight gave no ground, and continued to drive his opponent before him. Krell launched a wide blow, meant to decapitate Sigvald, but the Geld-Prince ducked beneath it. The blow shattered the scorched husk of a tree, showering both warriors with cinders and ash. Sigvald lunged, and his sword punched through Krell’s breastplate with a screech of metal and a puff of dust.

Krell staggered back, a dry, death-rattle laugh echoing from his fleshless jaws. He pivoted, wrenching the sword from Sigvald’s grip, and backhanded him, sending the Chaos champion flying backwards. Arkhan nodded in satisfaction. All was as it should be.

Suddenly, a throaty roar split the cacophony of battle. Arkhan looked towards the overlook of the park and saw a vast, lumpen silhouette clamber over the hill. A tattered red cloak flapped about the beast’s shoulders, and a tarnished crown pulsed strangely on its brow. Arkhan raised his staff warily. This creature too he recognised, though he had never before laid eyes on it. Arkhan had heard the stories from his agents in the north, of Throgg and his ice-palace in the ruins of Praag. Of the capture of sorcerers and mages of all races and descriptions; of Throgg’s obsessions, and his fall at the hands of a one-eyed dwarf. It seems that fall was not so long as one might hope, Arkhan thought.

For now, it seemed as if the Wintertooth, the so-called King of the Trolls, had come to Middenheim, and he had not come alone. Trolls, giants and mutants of the northlands flooded down the overlook, smashing into both the dead and the living without regard to whether they were friend or foe. Feral minotaurs slaughtered Kurgan warriors as the ghorgons of the Drakwald tore through the massed ranks of zombies.

Arkhan wove spells of strength and recovery with all the speed his dead limbs could muster, trying to hold the army of corpses together. He could feel Nagash’s displeasure ripple through him, and with a twitch of his staff he summoned the surviving morghasts from the angry skies. The osseous constructs hurtled down like birds of prey, their spirit-bound blades chopping into bestial flesh. But for every dozen brutes and beasts that fell, a morghast was pulled down from the sky, to be hacked apart or torn limb from limb.

Though it took almost every iota of concentration he could muster to reform the destroyed constructs and fling them into battle once more, Arkhan kept one eye on the duel between Krell and Sigvald. If the wight could manage to dispatch the champion, it might tear all heart from the surviving Kurgan and put them to flight. With them out of the way, the beasts would be easy prey. Or so he hoped.

That hope, however, proved to be in vain. Arkhan watched, disconcerted, as Sigvald lunged to retrieve his sword, still stuck in Krell’s chest, and Krell’s axe whistled down to shatter the mirror-shield the man held. Sigvald staggered back, sword in hand, face bloody. The axe had bifurcated the shield and gashed the Geld-Prince’s handsome features, reducing one side of his face to a ruin. Sigvald clapped a hand to his mangled flesh and wailed like a dying cat. The champion lunged, still shrieking, and launched blow after blow at Krell.

Krell staggered back beneath the rain of wild blows. His axe lashed out in reply, scarring Sigvald’s gleaming cuirass or scoring his flesh, but the Geld-Prince was too far gone to feel the blows, Arkhan realised. The two warriors whirled and clashed through the melee, smashing down any creature, living, dead or otherwise, unlucky enough to get between them. Arkhan considered lending Krell aid, but dismissed the idea even as it occurred to him. He had his own battle to fight – a roaring giant stretched a wide hand towards him, as if to scoop him up. Arkhan ducked under the grasping fingers and lashed out with his sword, slicing through the creature’s wrist. The giant howled and retracted its limb, as Arkhan thrust his staff out and spat a killing word. The great beast staggered as its mighty frame began to shrivel and sag. It turned to dust even as it fell.

Arkhan heard a crash and spun. Sigvald, broken sword in hand, had borne Krell to the ground. One of the wight’s arms was missing, and as Arkhan watched, Sigvald braced his knee against the other, pinning Krell. The champion was howling unintelligibly as he battered at the wight with his broken sword and bleeding fists. Krell’s armour crumpled beneath the maddened Geld-Prince’s blows, and Arkhan could feel the wight’s spirit slipping loose from its husk. He took a step towards them, but found his path blocked by a massive shape.

Throgg roared and smashed his club down, narrowly missing Arkhan. The troll-king wrenched his weapon up, scattering cobblestones, and swung it again. Arkhan twisted aside and hacked a bloody trench in the troll’s side. Throgg staggered, clapping a hand to the steaming wound. His club found Arkhan’s hip, pulverising the bone. Arkhan stumbled, and it was only thanks to his staff that he stayed upright. He dragged himself out of reach as his bones re-knit, but Throgg didn’t follow. Instead, the troll seemed captivated by Sigvald and Krell’s confrontation.

Arkhan shuddered as he heard the fading scream of Krell’s ancient, black soul, and he glanced over his shoulder. Sigvald sat back on his heels, panting and bloody-faced, staring blindly down at the shattered remains of Krell. The Geld-Prince threw back his head and screamed, though whether in triumph or in mourning for his ruined features, Arkhan couldn’t say. Regardless, the scream was cut short a moment later by Throgg, who split Sigvald’s head open with his club, dashing his brains across Krell’s carcass.

Throgg turned, a smile on his grotesque features. ‘He was a fool, and a wastrel,’ the troll rumbled. Arkhan was startled by the troll’s voice. It was not that of a beast, but of a man. A man in agony. For a brief moment, Arkhan felt a strange kinship with the creature – they were both but pawns in the designs of others, their own hopes and dreams but sparks lost in the grand conflagrations of those they served.

‘And you are neither, I suppose,’ Arkhan rasped.

‘No. The gods sent me here to die on your sword, so that my body might tangle your feet and delay you,’ Throgg said. He looked around. More bellowing creatures – monsters of all shapes and sizes – spilled down from the overlook with every passing moment. What was left of the Doomed Legion was already being swept away, and only the southern stretch of the Great Park was still firmly in the hands of the dead. The battle was going badly, Arkhan knew. He could feel Nagash’s growing frustration, and the heavy tread of his approach.

‘A TASK FOR WHICH YOU AND YOUR HORDE ARE SINGULARLY WELL SUITED, APE,’ Nagash said, as he stepped over the burning carcass of a chimera. Blood stained his robes and armour, but the nine books still thrashed and snapped at the ends of their chains, and his captive spirits still wailed. ‘BUT I HAVE NO TIME FOR SUCH DISTRACTIONS. I HAVE GODS TO SLAY.’

Throgg hefted his club. ‘Make time, carrion-bird,’ he roared. ‘I have been denied an empire, but I will not be denied victory.’ The troll surged forwards, brushing Arkhan aside as if the liche were no more substantial than a spider-web. ‘I will wear your skull as an amulet, and the gods will grant me all that I wish!’

Nagash’s great blade looped around, and chopped through the club. Throgg lurched to the side, off balance, and Nagash’s free hand snapped forwards, talons digging into the troll’s throat. Nagash dragged the troll close. ‘THE GODS GRANT NOTHING YOU DID NOT ALREADY POSSESS, FOOL. THEY ARE LIARS AND THIEVES. I WILL DRAG THEM SCREAMING FROM THEIR NIGHTMARE WOMB AND FLAY THEIR SECRETS FROM THEM. SERVE ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU ALL THAT YOU MIGHT DESIRE.’

Throgg pounded uselessly on Nagash’s arm, trying to break his grip. The troll glared at Nagash. ‘Better death,’ he snarled, in his almost-human voice. ‘Better death than service to such as you. The gods might raise us up, or dash us down, but there is a chance there, at least. There is no hope, not in you.’

‘AS YOU WISH,’ Nagash intoned. His great blade, death-energy writhing along its length, plunged down, through the troll’s thick shoulder and into his torso. Throgg screamed and sank down, clawing at Nagash’s robes. The Undying King held the sword in place, and the magics in that fell blade did their work, chewing through the troll’s mutated body like acid. Throgg collapsed slowly, falling in on himself, until there remained only a pile of char and ash, and a tarnished crown, which rolled slowly away across the cobbles to fall flat at Arkhan’s feet.

‘And thus do the unworthy fall,’ a voice as dry as the desert sands rasped. Arkhan looked up from the crown, and turned. A familiar form, ancient bones shrouded in tattered ceremonial wrappings and broken armour, stepped towards them, khopesh in hand. ‘Will you join him in oblivion, Usurper?’

‘SETTRA,’ Nagash said.

‘I have walked across half of this world to find you, Usurper. You broke me and scattered me, but Settra is deathless. Settra is eternal. And so Settra returned, and now he stands here, sword in hand, and he denies you, Usurper. He stands between you and triumph,’ Settra croaked. He lifted his khopesh and pointed it at Nagash, who regarded him as if he were less a threat than a curiosity.

‘I DID NOT BRING YOU BACK, LITTLE KING,’ Nagash said.

‘No,’ Settra said. ‘You did not.’ The khopesh dipped. ‘They did. The jackals of the smokeless fire, the howlers in the Wastes. They dared to offer Settra aid.’

‘HOW FOOLISH OF THEM,’ Nagash said.

‘They offered Settra victories, and empires and life unending.’

‘AND WHAT DID THEY ASK IN RETURN, LITTLE KING?’

‘That I serve them and kill you.’ Settra looked down at the remains of Throgg, and then, quicker than Arkhan could follow, lunged. Nagash lurched aside, but Arkhan realised that Settra had not been aiming for the Incarnate of Death. Instead, the ancient king’s blade chopped into the scaly torso of the dragon ogre which had been preparing to smash its enormous axe down on the back of Nagash’s skull. The beast roared in agony, but Settra did not give it time to recover. He tore his blade free and slashed upwards, separating the monster’s head from its shoulders. It toppled over like a felled tree, and Settra turned.

He extended his khopesh towards Nagash. ‘Settra does not serve. Settra rules.’ He strode past them, towards the horde of monsters. ‘Go, prince of Khemri. Settra will forgive your trespasses if you but make the jackals howl. Teach them that the kings of the Great Land cannot be bought and sold like slaves. And then, when it is done, Settra shall take your head, and take back his people.’

As the last words left his mouth, Settra the Imperishable broke into a run, slashing out at a snarling giant even as the great beast reached down for him. His khopesh removed its fingers, and then its lower jaw in rapid succession. A moment later, he was lost to Arkhan’s sight as he plunged into the heart of the battle.

Arkhan looked up at Nagash. The Undying King gazed in the direction Settra had vanished for a moment longer, as if bemused. Then he turned to look down at Arkhan. ‘MY SERVANT,’ he said.

‘What would you have me do, master?’

‘I MUST REACH THE ARTEFACT, OR ALL IS FOR NAUGHT. TAKE TWO HOSTS OF THE MORGHASTS AND HOLD HERE, UNTIL YOUR LAST STRENGTH IS GONE. DO NOT FAIL ME.’

Arkhan didn’t flinch. He had fallen before, as had Krell. It was never the end. No matter how often he wished it were so. Settra’s reappearance was proof enough of that. And Nagash was right. They could not break away from the enemy here. Even though Throgg was dead, and Sigvald too, their foes were too numerous and too far gone in their bloodlust to be so easily shifted, even by one as mighty as Settra. For Nagash to make his escape, someone would have to stay behind and keep the remaining Kurgan and the monstrous horde occupied. And since Krell was no more, that left him. ‘Yes, master. Do you have any further commands?’

Nagash hesitated. And for the first time, Arkhan the Black felt a flicker of hope. He had never known the Great Necromancer to hesitate, even in the face of defeat. It was as if, for the first time in centuries, the Undying King was uncertain of the ultimate outcome. Nagash looked down at him and said, finally, ‘DIE WELL, MY SERVANT.’

Then Nagash stalked south, leaving Arkhan to face the enemy alone. Arkhan turned away, and set his staff. The remnants of Throgg’s army that weren’t currently being occupied by Settra rampaged towards him, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Arkhan tightened his grip on his sword, and thought of a long-forgotten alleyway, where he’d first set his feet on the path to eternal servitude. A path that had, at long last, reached its end.

He thought of the feeling of sand across his cheeks, and the smell of Cathayan spices on a sea breeze. He could taste blood, and the black leaf, and the kisses of a queen. He looked down at his fleshless hand, clasped about the hilt of his sword, and then up, at the crawling sky.

If Arkhan the Black had been capable of smiling, he would have.

The Palast District

‘Fire!’ Gotri Hammerson roared, chopping the air with his axe. The ensuing volley punched through the ranks of the beastmen, dropping many. The rest came on, braying coarse-tongued battle cries as they charged heedlessly into the dwarf shield-wall. ‘Ironbreakers – to the fore!’ Hammerson bellowed, as he signalled for the Thunderers to retreat.

The Ironbreakers, clad in gromril and bearing runic shields, stumped forward, accompanied by Balthasar Gelt, as the dwarf line fell back around them. The Incarnate of Metal planted his staff, and the runes inscribed on the ancient armour of the dwarfs glowed with power. A moment later, the beastmen crashed into them, hacking at flesh and armour with frenzied abandon. The dwarfs held firm, and soon the last of the creatures was slumping into the dust or scattering in flight. Hammerson caught Gelt’s eye, and nodded sharply.

They had come to the aid of the elves, but almost too late. Alarielle’s forces were outnumbered and surrounded by an ever-expanding ring of foes. And unlike the beastmen, these didn’t look as if the thought of dwarf bullets filled them with much dread. Witch elves, howling blood cultists, and daemons swirled about Alarielle’s elves and tree-spirits, and only where Durthu and the remaining treemen fought was the battle not going badly.

Hammerson knew that wasn’t going to last. He could see a massive cauldron-shrine grinding slowly across the plaza towards Alarielle, and perched atop it, the fugitive Blood Queen, Hellebron. The wiry witch elf spat and railed, issuing orders and threats in a voice twisted by madness. She clashed her blades and gesticulated wildly, as if overcome by the same frenzy which possessed her followers. He’d heard that she had fled Athel Loren before the arrival of the refugees from Averheim, and had learned enough about her proclivities to know that she meant Alarielle ill.

‘We must rescue her,’ Gelt said, as he hurried towards Hammerson. His golden mask was dented and tarnished, but his eyes glowed with power. ‘If Alarielle falls, so too will the world,’ he continued. He gestured with his staff towards the cauldron-shrine, as its heavy wheels ground over the broken dead and laughing witch elves came leaping in its wake.

‘Aye,’ Hammerson grunted. ‘I have eyes, lad. I know.’ He raised his axe. ‘Zhufbarak – shield-march,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s go give the tree-huggers a hand, lads.’ The Ironbreakers locked shields and started forwards, as the clansmen and Thunderers followed suit. A dwarf throng on the march was akin to one of the Empire’s steam tanks, capable of rolling over almost any enemy. Clansmen on the flanks used their shields to provide cover for the Thunderers, who unleashed volley after volley, reloading as they moved. The Ironbreakers formed the wedge, smashing aside any enemy who sought to stand in the throng’s path. And there were plenty of those. Hammerson and Gelt took the point of the wedge for themselves, unleashing their respective magics on the foe.

Hang on woman, we’re coming, he thought, as he summoned runes of fire and swept aside a shrieking witch elf. Not that I have any clue how to help you, when we get there. Or if you’ll even live that long, with the way you’re looking…

From his few glimpses of her, as she fought in the shadow of Durthu, the Everqueen looked less radiant than cadaverous. It was as if she had aged centuries in moments, and her movements were faltering. Nonetheless, she fought on, her magics reaching out to snare and break the enemy at every turn. Hammerson had no real fondness for the elves, but he knew bravery when he saw it. And he was determined not to let it be in vain.

The Zhufbarak throng advanced at a glacier’s pace, with all the relentless inexorability that implied. Salvoes thundered forth, flinging bodies into the air and throwing the already anarchic ranks of the enemy into complete disarray. The great, coiling war-horns of Zhufbar groaned so loudly as to shake the rubble, and where bullets and steam did not reach, axes and hammers served to split Hellebron’s host in two.

At a gesture from Gelt, golden light danced across the weapons of the dwarfs, awakening the full power of the ancestral runes. Gromril armour flared and shone like the stars that had once shone in the skies above as it was struck by enemy blows. Hammerson raised his axe and gestured east. With his other hand, he motioned west. The dwarf shield-wall split with perfect synchronicity, and two lines of clan warriors turned outwards around a hinge composed of a doughty core of Ironbreakers, one to the east, the other to the west. Hammerson gestured to Gelt. ‘Take the west, lad. I’ll see to the east,’ he growled. ‘Let the enemy break themselves on good dwarf steel. Give the elgi a chance to catch their breath. We’ll collapse the wall when we’ve earned some space, and squeeze the enemy between us, like grist beneath a millstone.’

Hammerson watched Gelt go, and then turned to study the turmoil they had wrought in their wake. He grunted in satisfaction as he saw that their intervention had destroyed any momentum the enemy possessed. They’d cut Hellebron’s forces in two, with the Blood Queen herself caught on the wrong side of the shield-wall and trapped between dwarfs and elves. Then, that didn’t seem to bother her all that much. She was exhorting her followers to greater efforts, ranting and shrieking loudly enough to wake the dead. The elves would have to hold out until the dwarfs could fall back to their position.

Hammerson glanced back at Alarielle. I hope you can handle her, woman, because we’ve got our hands full, he thought. A thunderclap shook the Palast and rattled his teeth in his jaw, and he turned to see the followers of the Blood God slam into the western shield-wall. Axe-blades chopped over shield rims or hooked dwarf legs, and the wall wavered, but only for an instant. Rune-axes carved red, efficient arcs through the packed ranks of the enemy, as the Zhufbarak gave their foes their fill and more of skulls and blood.

‘Hold them, lad,’ Hammerson growled. He looked around at his warriors, as they strained against the enemy. ‘And you, you great wattocks… that goes for you as well!’ he roared, clashing his weapons together. ‘Hold!’

The ancient treeman gave a cry, like the splintering of a great oak, and collapsed. Alarielle whipped around, the pain of the world’s dying a drumbeat in her temples, and stared in shock as Skarana, eldest of the oldest, toppled down into death. The bloodthirster roared in triumph and ripped its axe free of the treeman’s body, scattering charred splinters across the heads of the wailing dryads which flung themselves on the daemon’s followers. The daemon charged towards her and Durthu, wings flared, arms wide, as if inviting them to meet it in battle. She could feel her protector stiffen in anticipation, and then relax.

Durthu would not leave her side willingly. Not while only a thin wall of spears separated her from Hellebron’s maddened servants. The treeman did not trust the dwarfs to reach her in time. But he was the only one among them strong enough to dispatch the daemon even now charging towards them. She placed a hand on the rough bark of his wrist. Durthu was the greatest of Athel Loren’s children. In his mighty frame was the strength of the forest itself, and the blade he carried had been forged by the gods.

‘Go,’ Alarielle said. Durthu looked down at her, silently. Alarielle frowned. ‘Go, Durthu. Go begrudgingly, or willingly, but go. Do as I command. I will be here when you return.’ Durthu reached out, and brushed a lock of hair from her face. Then, with a sound like an avalanche, the treeman turned and strode to meet the daemon.

Durthu picked up speed as he moved past the spear-wall of the defenders, and his great root-feet trampled the enemy as he charged towards the approaching daemon, his massive blade held out behind him. He reached out with his free hand, and roared with all the fury of Athel Loren as he smashed into the bloodthirster, sending the daemon staggering sideways into the Middenplatz wall. There was a crackle of snapping bone as the force of the impact shattered the daemon’s wings, and the beast howled in agony.

Durthu didn’t slacken his assault. Even as the bloodthirster tried to rise, the treeman swung his Daith-forged blade up and drove it down through his opponent’s breastplate and into the unnatural flesh beneath. The bloodthirster shrieked and grasped the blade. It hauled itself up and smashed at Durthu with its axe, hacking deep grooves into the treeman’s bark. Durthu ignored the frenzied assault and twisted around, wrenching his blade free of the bloodthirster’s chest. Without pausing, he whirled about, bringing the sword about to chop clean through the daemon’s thick neck.

The treeman stepped aside as the daemon collapsed, but Alarielle did not see what happened next. Her attentions were dragged back to her own predicament, as one of her warriors gave a shout. Alarielle grimaced as the corpse impaled on the woman’s spear abruptly flopped into motion and pulled itself off the point of the weapon. Others began to rise as well, slipping and sliding in their own blood as they struggled upright. Alarielle hissed in pain as the Winds of Life recoiled from the abomination taking place before her. She raised her hand, ready to sweep the risen dead aside with her magics before they could attack, when a sudden shout stayed her hand. A familiar form had dropped from the Middenplatz wall and into the battle, laying about him with a deadly blade.

‘Take heart, dear lady,’ Vlad von Carstein called out as he sprinted past her warriors, accompanied by the staggering forms of the newly slain, who stumbled in his wake. ‘Your champions are legion, be they man, dwarf or heroic tree-stump. Your burying place is not here, and not today. So swears Vlad von Carstein, Elector of Sylvania,’ he shouted, flinging himself into battle like a dark thunderbolt. Where he moved, the enemy fell, only to rise again at his command. With every corpse that rose, a jagged thorn of pain cut into her heart. But those pains were but pinpricks compared to the agony she felt with every breath. The world itself was coming undone, collapsing in on itself like a rotten tree, and she could feel the sharp ache of the artefact Archaon was employing to accomplish the unmaking.

The vampire slithered into the heart of the ranks of the bloodthirster’s followers, his sword flickering like lightning. He employed finesse and brutality in equal measure, and moved with such grace that Alarielle thought even Tyrion might have looked upon him with envy. He employed the risen dead like ambulatory shields, using them to create opportunities for his kills. She shook her head, grateful and disturbed in equal measure, and turned her attentions to her own battle.

Despite the aid of the dead and the dwarfs, Hellebron’s forces had reached the ring of dryads who protected Alarielle, sacrificing their lives to keep her safe. She felt every death, every mangling blow that afflicted the tree-spirits, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet. She watched in dull-eyed horror as dryads flung themselves up the iron stairs of the cauldron-shrine that steadily bore down on her. The spirits attacked Hellebron, who hacked them down with shrieks of laughter. Alarielle closed her eyes. She felt every blow, and her body shuddered as each spirit fell. Hellebron bounded off the cauldron, her lithe shape covered in blood and sap. ‘I see you, queen of weeds and maggots,’ she screeched, gesturing with one of her cruelly curved blades. ‘I see you, and I will wear your pretty skin as a cloak.’ She darted forwards, and two of Alarielle’s guards moved to intercept her. Without slowing, Hellebron swept her blades out and removed their heads.

Alarielle stepped up. Her asrai fell back at her command, clearing a path. She wanted no more of them to die in a futile attempt to stop the Blood Queen. Hellebron danced towards her, grinning madly, and Alarielle wondered how it had come to this. What had set the Blood Queen on this course? She had come to Athel Loren with Malekith and the others, but her loyalty to her people had faded like a morning mist, leaving only this… thing which now capered and shrieked at her in challenge. A challenge that she would meet, though she was no warrior. Though she had learned blade-craft from the finest warriors in Ulthuan, the Everqueen was a creature of peace, rather than war, and even with the power of Life Incarnate, she was little match for the former ruler of Har Ganeth.

‘We looked for you,’ Alarielle said, ‘after Be’lakor’s attack on the Oak of Ages. We thought you had been slain.’ She waited for Hellebron, trying to conserve her strength.

‘That would have pleased you to no end, I’m certain,’ Hellebron cackled. She pulled the edges of her blades across each other, filling the air with their shriek.

‘If you think that, then you are truly demented,’ Alarielle said. ‘You were welcomed into Athel Loren, sorceress. You and your followers both, despite your foul ways. You are of the asur, despite your predilections, and I would not see you dead.’

Hellebron grimaced. ‘You lie,’ she spat. Her grimace twisted into a manic grin. ‘And now, you die!’ She lunged, and Alarielle interposed her staff. The cobblestoned street ruptured as a writhing thicket of thorn-vines burst upwards to ensnare the leaping form of Hellebron. The Blood Queen shrieked in pain, but did not stop. Her blades flashed out, chopping through the vines, and a moment later, she was free. She snarled and drove one of her blades into Alarielle’s belly.

Alarielle screamed as Hellebron jerked the blade free, and clapped a hand to the wound in her stomach. She slumped to her knees, the pain overwhelming her. Her staff rolled away, forgotten. The world seemed to shudder around her, as if in sympathy, and she bowed her head, trying to concentrate through her own internal din. She could feel the essence of Ghyran trying to mend her torn flesh, but she was too weak. The world’s pain, added to her own, was too much to bear. Nonetheless, she could not give in. Too much counted on her. She tried to focus her own magics through those of Ghyran, to bolster her flagging body.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hellebron’s second blade descending towards her neck, as if in slow motion. The Blood Queen’s features were distorted by rage, triumph, and something else. Fear, Alarielle realised. Hellebron was afraid. Of what, she couldn’t say, but that fear was driving the Blood Queen to attack like a wild animal. The Wind of Life whispered in Alarielle’s mind, and in that instant, the Incarnate of Life knew what was required of her.

Alarielle forced herself to her feet and caught Hellebron’s wrist as she rose, halting the blade a hair’s breadth from her neck. She forced her opponent back and tore her hand from her wound. The green energy of life crackled between her bloody fingers as she pressed her hand gently to the side of Hellebron’s contorted face. The magics flowed into the dark elf, and centuries of madness and frenzy were washed away by the healing tide of Ghyran. The fractured psyche of the Blood Queen became whole, for the first time in a thousand or more years, and with lucidity came understanding. For a moment, a different woman entirely looked out through Hellebron’s bulging eyes, saw what she had made of herself, and the witch elf moaned in horror.

Alarielle met Hellebron’s horrified gaze and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then, grabbing hold of her opponent’s wrist with both hands, she forced Hellebron’s own blade up into its owner’s chest. The deadly blade passed through Hellebron’s ribs and its curved tip found her heart, and the horror in her eyes faded as her contorted features slackened into something resembling peace. She slumped against Alarielle, and the Everqueen sank back down, blood pouring from the wound in her belly. She slipped down beside her fallen opponent.

She felt cold, and the dark crept in at the edges of her vision. She heard the screams of Hellebron’s remaining followers and the agonised shouts of her people, and wanted to weep for the uselessness of it all, but lacked the strength to do anything but lie still. Is this death, then? she thought. She did not fear it. Aliathra’s face swam before her eyes, and she reached up, hoping to touch her daughter’s cheek once more, to say at last all the things she should have said. I will tell you of your father, and how he tore me from my silk pavilions and slew any who stood in his way, the day that Malekith came for me. I will tell you how we hid in the forests of Avelorn, and what occurred there. I will tell you everything, at last… You are so like him, my daughter. Brave and foolish and proud… I–

A shadow fell over her. Heavy, rough hands picked her up, and a voice like the curling of roots through the hard-packed earth spoke gently to her. Durthu. The treeman cradled her close, and the last thing she heard before oblivion swept her under was his roar, as it shook the Middenplatz down to its foundations.

Vlad watched in consternation as the treeman, still cradling the broken form of the Everqueen, wrenched the cauldron-shrine from its frame and, swinging it by its broken chains, hurled it at the remaining blood-worshippers. Then, with another bone-rattling roar, the ancient spirit uprooted its sword and stalked into battle, killing any who dared stand against it, be they elf, human, beast or daemon.

Too little, too late, brute, Vlad thought, as he blocked a blow from his current opponent, a hammer-wielding berserker who’d announced himself as Harald Hammerstorm, as if Vlad either knew or cared as to his identity. If the Incarnate of Life was dead, that boded ill for their chances to see off whatever apocalypse Archaon was brewing in the bowels of Middenheim. He snarled in frustration. To have come so close, only to fail now, was unacceptable. He had lost Isabella, Sylvania, even Mannfred… He would not lose the world as well.

‘Die, beast,’ Hammerstorm roared. He struck out with a looping blow, which Vlad easily avoided. His riposte glanced from the Chaos warrior’s shield, and they circled one another, each searching for an opening in the other’s defences. Why the warrior had singled him out, Vlad couldn’t say, but he was getting bored. Hammerstorm was tenacious, and annoyingly difficult to hurt. Vlad grinned as the warrior surged towards him, shield tilted, hammer swung back. It was the first mistake his opponent had made, and Vlad intended to make it his last. He slid forward to meet the Chaos warrior, rather than retreating, and let his blade glide across the face of Hammerstorm’s shield. The point of his sword pierced Hammerstorm’s visor, even as the warrior’s hammer caught him in the ribs and knocked him sprawling.

Vlad rolled to his feet with a hiss of pain, one arm pressed tight to his side, as Hammerstorm took a faltering step towards him, hammer raised for another blow. Blood was pouring down the Chaos warrior’s visor. He took another step, a third, and then toppled forwards. He crashed down, and his hammer clattered from his grip. Vlad rose to his feet with a wince, and saluted his fallen enemy.

The wind shifted, and a familiar, if foul, stench invaded his nostrils. He whirled and cursed as he caught sight of the diseased host that crashed against the dwarf line, even as the last of the blood-mad berserkers died. Plaguebearers wielded rusty, pus-encrusted blades against the ragtag shield-wall of the Zhufbarak, and where they struck, metal rusted, leather rotted and flesh turned black and swollen. The golden light of Gelt’s magics warred with the malignant wind of putrefaction as the weary dwarfs met their foes with stolid determination. Even as Vlad hurried towards them, he saw his zombies begin to rot and collapse, even as they had in Sylvania so many weeks ago, and he knew, even though he could not yet see her, that Isabella was near.

‘Hello, wife,’ he murmured. A plaguebearer lurched towards him. Vlad blocked a blow from its mottled blade and snatched a flapping length of intestine from its bloated belly. With a jerk, he tore its guts from its thin body, and decapitated it as it fell to its knees, off balance. ‘Do not hide your pretty face from me, my love… Where are you?’

‘Behind you, my love, my darkling light,’ a voice breathed in his ear. The words faded into the buzzing of flies and he twisted about as a blade tore through his cloak, scraping sparks from his cuirass to mark its path. The swarm of biting, stinging flies enveloped him and he staggered as the insects covered his eyes and nose and mouth, as if seeking to burrow into the meat of him. ‘Come, give me a kiss, Vlad. Open your mouth and let me in,’ Isabella purred, her voice coming from every direction and none.

Vlad slashed out blindly, and the swarm scattered. His zombies were all fallen back into the arms of death, and he stood exposed and alone, caught between the dwarfs and the daemons. He cursed and sprang out of the path of battle, bounding from fallen statues to the tops of fire-blackened stakes and finally to the crumbling ramparts of the Middenplatz wall. Isabella would follow him, he was certain. If she did, their confrontation might give Gelt and Hammerson a chance to defeat the daemons. Without Isabella to guide the beasts, they would be easy enough to banish back to the realm of Chaos.

As he cleared the ramparts, however, a shadow fell over him, and he looked up to see an abyssal steed swoop low over the wall before alighting on a crumbled tower, just out of reach. He glared up at the creature and its rider in annoyance. ‘Hello, boy. Come to help, or to hinder?’ Vlad asked.

Mannfred sneered. ‘Neither, if it’s all the same to you. I merely wanted to come say goodbye before your inevitable messy end, old man.’ The other vampire leaned back in his saddle and clapped his hands together. ‘It’s a better one than you deserve, I’ll say that for you.’

‘What you know about what anyone deserves could fill a very small jar,’ Vlad said, suddenly weary. ‘I see you’ve chosen a new side to fight for. How egalitarian of you.’

‘Any port in a storm,’ Mannfred said. He frowned. ‘And the only side I’m interested in fighting for is mine, Vlad. I fight for myself, and no other.’

Vlad smiled, and looked up at the dark sky. ‘I was right. You are like Nagash. More like him than the rest of us, even old Arkhan.’

‘I am nothing like him,’ Mannfred snarled, hammering a fist into his mount’s neck, eliciting a snarling squeal from the beast. ‘Nothing!’

‘No, you’re right. Nagash at least has a will to match his monstrousness. He is true to himself, whatever else. But you are a tyrant, just as he is.’ Vlad shook his head, and looked down at the battle below. ‘A true ruler believes in something greater than himself, boy. A nation, an empire, an ideal. Something…’

‘Oh, spare me,’ Mannfred growled. He flung out a hand. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? You have never done anything out of largesse, old man.’ He smacked his fist against his breastplate. ‘Even me – you only took me under your wing because you needed me.’

Vlad grunted. ‘Not so.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I took you in because I pitied you.’ He cocked his head. ‘In truth, I always preferred Konrad. Dumb as a stone, but honest.’

Mannfred drew himself up, his eyes blazing with hate. Vlad tensed, readying himself for his former protégé’s attack. But Mannfred did not attack. Instead, he shook himself and looked away. Vlad frowned. ‘If you’re not here to plant a sword in my back, boy, why are you wasting my time?’

‘Maybe I simply wanted to indulge in the conviviality of a family gathering once more, before I go to forge my own destiny,’ Mannfred said. Vlad blinked, and then turned towards the gatehouse tower behind him, where he could hear the humming of flies. Isabella, ragged skirts flowing, stepped onto the ramparts.

‘Greetings, husband,’ she said. Her musical tones were overlaid with the guttural growl of the daemon that possessed her. ‘Will you not embrace me?’ she continued. She extended her hand, like a proper noblewoman looking to dance.

‘Yes, Vlad, by all means… embrace her,’ Mannfred said.

Vlad glanced back at him. ‘Leave, boy.’

‘And if I choose to stay?’

‘Then I will kill you after I kill him,’ Isabella said, softly. She drew her sword and extended it. ‘This is not for you, Mannfred. You do not belong here, and you will not sully this moment with your rancour and spite. Run away, little prince. I will find you before the end, have no fear.’

Vlad smiled and shrugged. ‘You heard her, boy. This is a game for adults, not conceited brats. Go bother the elves, eh? I understand Tyrion would like a word or three with you.’ He flapped his hand loosely. Mannfred snarled in frustration and jerked on his steed’s reins. The creature took to the air with a shriek, and Vlad watched it depart. He turned back to Isabella. ‘I won’t let you kill him, my love. Foul as he is, the little prince is still bound to me, and I owe him my protection.’

‘And what do you owe me, my love?’ Isabella said, stepping gracefully towards him.

‘More than that,’ Vlad said softly. ‘I owe you life, and happiness, and eternity. That is what I promised you, once upon a time.’

‘You lied,’ Isabella said, drawing closer.

‘No. Not to you. Never to you,’ Vlad said, readying himself.

‘Lies,’ Isabella hissed. She came for him in a rush, faster than even he could process, and it was only through luck that he parried her blow. They fought back and forth along the rampart, trading blows that would have killed any normal human, or even many vampires. It was all Vlad could do to keep up with her – the daemon in her soul gave her unnatural strength, as well as twisting her mind. Isabella had always been mad but the daemon made it worse, and he cursed it and the gods it served as he fought.

In his mind’s eye, he could still see her as she was on that first night, leaning over her father’s deathbed as he gasped his last. ‘Do you remember the night we met, my love?’ he said, as they crossed blades. ‘The night your father died, and your deceitful uncle attempted to usurp your claim? Do you recall how the stars looked that night?’

‘There was a storm, and no stars,’ Isabella snarled. ‘And you murdered my uncle!’

‘Only with your permission,’ Vlad said, as they broke apart. She screeched and came at him, forcing him to back-pedal. ‘I loved you then, and I love you now…’

‘Lies,’ she hissed, and her sword slashed down, nearly severing his hand at the wrist. His blade fell from nerveless fingers and he staggered back against the ramparts, clutching his wounded wrist. Isabella smiled cruelly, and for a moment, he saw the gloating face of a daemon superimposed over her own. Beneath his grip, he could already feel the ring he wore employing its magics to knit his torn flesh and muscle.

She stretched out her hand, and took a step towards him. ‘I will enjoy seeing your flesh putrefy and slough from your cankerous bones, husband. It is all that you deserve.’

‘Maybe,’ Vlad said. ‘I left you, my poor Isabella. I swore that I would stay by your side forever, and I… lied. I died. And then you…’

She paused, mouth working. He saw the daemon again, snarling silently. Isabella shook her head, and he knew that she was still in there, somewhere. ‘I… died too,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘I died.’ She looked at him. ‘I died.’

‘But you live now, and I live, and I will not let you die again, even if it means that I must,’ Vlad said hoarsely. He thought of his dreams, and hopes, of the Empire he’d hoped to rule and serve, and of old friends he’d hoped to see again before the end. And he thought of a young woman named Isabella von Drak, and the way she’d smiled at him in the moonlight, and touched his face without fear, when the beast in him was awakened. And just like that, Vlad von Carstein knew what to do.

He flung himself forwards as she hesitated, and smashed the blade from her hand. As she lunged for him, he grabbed her arms and twisted them up behind her back. Where her hands touched his, his flesh began to moulder and rot, and he snarled in agony, even as he slid the von Carstein ring from his finger and onto hers. Then, grabbing hold of her, he shoved them both towards the edge of the ramparts with the last of his fading strength.

As they fell towards the fire-seared stakes below, Vlad laughed. This feels unpleasantly familiar, he thought, in the moment before they struck one of the stakes at the foot of the wall. The point of the stake punched through Vlad’s heart an instant after Isabella’s. He felt her go limp beneath him. He felt no pain, or regret, and as his body came apart, he caught her head and pressed his lips to hers. Then she was gone, and what was left of Vlad von Carstein slumped into oblivion on its stake.

Balthasar Gelt shouted an incantation, and felt the Wind of Metal surge through him. The air coalesced about the plaguebearer that had been about to strike down one of his bodyguards, and the daemon was suddenly encased in silver. Steam spewed from the tiny gaps in the sheath of blessed metal as the daemon was sent howling back into the void. The dwarf reached out with his hammer and nudged the statue over. He caught Gelt’s eye and grunted wordlessly, as he hefted his battered shield and moved back into the fray.

‘It was my pleasure,’ Gelt said. He wasn’t entirely sure which of the two Anvil Guard it was – whether it was Stromni he’d saved, or Gorgi. It didn’t matter, in any event. They weren’t the most talkative duo, and didn’t seem to know his name either, calling him variously ‘manling’, ‘wizard’ or the more ubiquitous ‘human’.

He swung his staff about, unleashing a crackling surge of magic. More daemons were erased from existence, ripped apart by golden bolts or shredded by tendrils of thrashing iron. But for every chortling plaguebearer that fell, two more took its place. The daemons were without number, and without fear. They crashed again and again into the ragged and ever-shrinking shield-wall of the Zhufbarak like a limitless tide of filth. The air was thick with flies and screams. Not even his magic could hold them back indefinitely.

The knowledge didn’t weigh as heavily on him as it once might have. As far as he was concerned, he was living on borrowed time. He had cast his soul into the blackest depths, and it was only by chance that he had been saved from damnation. If this be doomsday, I will not flinch from it, he thought, and then smiled at his own pomposity. It’s not like I’ll have the time, at any rate. The world is coming apart and it will take greater powers than mine to hold it together. He tossed his staff from one hand to the other and drew his sword, parrying a blow from a pox-riddled blade. As their weapons scraped apart, Gelt rammed his staff into the plaguebearer’s belly and sent a pulse of magic thrumming through it. The plaguebearer twitched in consternation, and then exploded as a thousand thin spikes of gold tore it apart from the inside.

Gelt swung his staff about like a morning star, and sent the ever-expanding sphere of spikes hurtling into the packed ranks of the enemy. The sphere exploded into a thicket of thrashing tendrils, and at his shouted command, the dwarfs took the opportunity to fall back while their foes were otherwise occupied. As dwarfs streamed past him, Gelt set his staff and roused the hidden deposits of ore in the bedrock of the Fauschlag, summoning them to the surface. Great barricades of molten metal flowered into being between the Zhufbarak and the plague-host.

‘That won’t hold them long.’

Gelt turned to see Hammerson stumping towards him. The runesmith had lost his helm, and his face and beard were streaked with blood and soot. Nonetheless, he was smiling grimly. ‘Good plan, though. Give us a minute to have a wee drink, at any rate.’

‘I think we’re out of Bugman’s,’ Gelt said. ‘You’ll have to settle for water.’

‘I’ll die thirsty then,’ Hammerson said. ‘Out of Bugman’s… it really is the end of the world.’ He tossed his head, indicating the remaining elves. ‘The elgi woman, Alarielle… she’s dying, lad.’

Gelt turned and looked towards the ragged ring of elven shields that sheltered the fallen Everqueen. Her remaining warriors surrounded her, fighting alongside the dwarfs. The treeman, Durthu, loomed over the Everqueen, killing any daemon which drew too close. As Gelt watched, the ancient spirit spread its arms and roared so loudly that a semi-ruined wall nearby collapsed, filling the air with dust.

‘What is he doing?’ Gelt muttered, as Durthu hurled its sword into the leering, bloated face of a great unclean one, spitting the greater daemon like a hog over a fire-pit. The treeman shoved Alarielle’s defenders aside and sank down beside her limp, pale form. Gelt started forwards, but Hammerson grabbed him.

‘Don’t even think about it, lad. Whatever he’s doing, it’s only bound to help, and you’ll only rile him up if you interfere,’ the dwarf said. Gelt subsided, but continued to watch, unable to look away. As he watched in awe, the treeman’s bark-flesh withered and cracked, and leaves fell like dust from his shoulders and head. Gelt could feel the power flowing between Durthu and Alarielle, and knew, without knowing how, that the treeman was giving of his own life to restore the Everqueen.

The calcified and crumbling husk of Durthu collapsed in on itself as Alarielle’s form swelled with light and life. She rose, her flesh unmarked, her eyes clear. She gently touched the crumbling remains of Durthu and then turned. The light of Ghyran crackled in her eyes, and she spread her arms and threw back her head to sing a single perfect note.

Gelt and Hammerson threw up their hands to protect their eyes as white fire, crested with green, filled the Middenplatz and roared hungrily through the Palast District. It passed over the heads of the remaining elves and dwarfs harmlessly, but where it struck the hordes of daemons, it wreaked a terrible destruction. Hundreds of daemons were reduced to ash in a matter of moments, but thousands more pressed forwards, through the sooty remains of their fellows. To Gelt, it was as if the Dark Gods were determined to prevent them from reaching the centre of the city at any cost.

And why wouldn’t they be? That is where Archaon is, and his devilish artefact, and that is where the true battle is. Not here, Gelt thought, looking around. They were cut off. Surrounded on all sides… save one. The northern gatehouse had been cleared by Alarielle’s fire. As she moved to join he and Hammerson, he looked at her. ‘We must get to the Temple of Ulric,’ he said. She frowned, one hand pressed to her head.

‘Yes… I can feel it. That is where the artefact is,’ she said, wincing as if the thought pained her. ‘But we have no time. Our forces cannot…’

‘No,’ Hammerson grunted. ‘We cannot. But we can hold the way clear, and buy you time.’ The runesmith gestured and Gelt saw one of Hammerson’s Anvil Guard lead his pegasus, Quicksilver, towards them. His heart leapt at the sight of the proud animal. It had been hurt during the battle in the King’s Glade, one wing badly scorched. But though the animal couldn’t fly, Quicksilver was still the fastest stallion this side of the famed stables of Tiranoc. Or would have been, had either the stables or Tiranoc still existed.

‘I do not wish to ask this of you,’ Gelt began, as he looked at Hammerson. He reached out, without thinking, and placed his hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. Hammerson twitched, as if to knock the hand aside, but in the end, he merely shook his head.

‘Then don’t. No time for long goodbyes, lad,’ Hammerson rumbled, placing his heavy hand over Gelt’s. ‘We made an oath, and we’ll not break it now.’

Gelt hesitated, trying to summon the words. Hammerson nudged him impatiently, poking him in the belly with the flat of his hammer. ‘Go on, lad. Get moving, the both of you. There’s work to be done, and it’s best done well. Don’t let the elgi and that tottering tower of bones mess it up.’ The runesmith grinned. ‘We’ll see to things here, one way or another.’

Gelt nodded and turned away. He caught hold of Quicksilver’s bridle and hauled himself into the pegasus’s saddle. The animal whinnied and reared, as Gelt extended his hand to Alarielle. She climbed into the saddle behind him, without hesitation. ‘We must ride swiftly, wizard,’ she murmured as she wrapped an arm around his midsection. ‘They will pursue us.’

‘Let them try. Quicksilver has outpaced daemons before. Aye, and worse things besides,’ Gelt said confidently. At a tap of his heels, the pegasus began to gallop towards the northern gatehouse. He did not look back as he felt the twinge of Hammerson’s magics on the wind, and heard the crack of gunfire. Alarielle pressed her face to his back as her people moved around them, elves and dryads fighting and dying to clear them a path.

Daemons bounded forwards to block their route, but Gelt thrust his staff out, over Quicksilver’s head, and swept the creatures aside with a gout of shimmering energy. Then they were past the northern gatehouse and galloping through the streets beyond, in the direction of the Ulricsmund and the Temple of Ulric.

As they rode, Gelt whispered a silent prayer to whatever gods might still be listening that the other Incarnates would be there to meet them.

Hammerson watched Gelt ride away, and smiled sadly. ‘A good lad, that one, for all that he’s had a rough path to walk.’

‘Aye,’ Grombrindal rumbled. Hammerson could not say where the white-bearded dwarf had come from, or when he had arrived, but he was here now, and that was all that mattered. If this was to be the last war of the dwarfs, it was only fitting that the White Dwarf himself be there to fight alongside them. Grombrindal hefted his axe, and ran his thumb along the edge. ‘But he and the elgi woman are best out of it, eh? This is dwarf work.’

‘Aye, that it is,’ Hammerson said. He no longer felt tired. Though Gelt’s enchantments were fading, his warriors looked as fresh as the day they’d set out for Averheim, so long ago. It was as if the presence of the revered ancestor had renewed their strength.

He looked past the shield-wall and saw that the Chaos hordes, daemons and mortals alike, were readying themselves to charge once more. If they were allowed to get past the Zhufbarak, the Incarnates would pay the price. Hammerson raised his axe. ‘Plant the standards, lads,’ he bellowed. ‘I want to fight in the shade.’

With a loud rattle, the clan standards were stabbed into the ground, creating a makeshift forest of gold and steel. Hammerson looked up at them, and knew that he was seeing them for the last time. ‘I forged some of those myself,’ he said.

‘Good runework,’ Grombrindal said.

‘Not worth doing, otherwise,’ Hammerson said.

Flesh hounds howled, and bloodthirsters roared. Bloodletters shrieked and mortal warriors added their chants and screams to the daemonic clamour. The dwarfs ignored the noise. Hammerson nodded in satisfaction. ‘I wish Ungrim were here. He’d love this.’

‘He is here, lad,’ Grombrindal rumbled. ‘They’re all here, standing with us, in this moment. All the kings and their clans, be they thane, clansman or Slayer, they are with us now. Can’t you feel them? They are crying out for vengeance. Today is a day for the settling of all grudges, great or small.’

As the White Dwarf spoke, Hammerson thought he could see them. The ghosts of his ancestors moved through the ranks of the living to fill the gaps in the shield-wall. And not just the dead of storied centuries, but those more recent. He saw Thorek Ironbrow, and Ungrim Ironfist. He saw Thorgrim, the Grudgebearer himself, and others besides. Faces and names from history and recent days. It was as if the entirety of their people had come to witness this final act of defiance.

He saw Grombrindal standing upon a broad shield, supported on the shoulders of a one-eyed Slayer and a tankard-carrying ranger. The good eye of the Slayer met his own, and Hammerson felt his growing sadness washed away in a moment of anger. Anger that it had come to this, that all the great works of his people were now as nothing. The fate of the world would be decided elsewhere, by the hands of humans and elves.

For the dwarfs, there was only this. The whole of their history, brought to this point. Hammerson met Grombrindal’s gaze, and the White Dwarf nodded slowly. If it must be done, let it be done well, Hammerson thought. Whether they were dead or alive, that was the only way dwarfs knew how to do anything.

On the other side of the shield-wall, the Chaos horde had jolted into motion at last. Hammerson lifted his weapons. ‘We make our stand here,’ he said, trusting in his voice to carry to every ear. ‘No more running. We stand here, for the Black Water, for every hold, and the world entire. Do you hear me, sons of Zhufbar? Like the stones of the mountains… we will hold.’

Eighteen

The Ulricsmund, Middenheim

Caradryan spun his Phoenix Blade, blocking the deadly bite of the axe as it flashed towards him. The Chaos champion known as Arbaal the Undefeated roared in fury and hacked at the Incarnate of Fire again. Nearby, Ashtari shrieked in fury as he tore at the scaly body of Arbaal’s flesh hound. The daemon-dog wailed in frustrated rage as the firebird drove its beak into the beast’s flesh again and again.

‘I have slaughtered armies of elves,’ Arbaal roared. His axe reeked of hot blood, and it left trails of crimson smoke in its wake as he brought it slashing down towards Caradryan’s head. ‘I have broken the backs of dragons, and eaten the hearts of sea-leviathans.’

‘Your culinary practices are no concern of mine,’ Caradryan snarled, parrying the blow. His arms ached, but he whirled the halberd about as if it were as light as a feather. He twisted and spun, driving the Chaos champion back. ‘It does not matter to me how many you have murdered, monster. It ends here.’

Quicker than thought, Caradryan lunged, slashed and jabbed, striking Arbaal again and again. He knew that were he not host to Aqshy, he would have no hope of standing up to such a foe, let alone defeating him. But with the fire raging in him, he felt as if there were no battle he could not survive. It was a dangerous feeling. He had spent centuries honing his mind and body, and learning to control the rage that was the curse of every elf. But the fire called to that primal part of him, and lent it strength. He wondered if this was akin to what Tyrion had felt, when the fury of Khaine had driven him into madness and despair. There was a freedom in it that called to him, and that he longed to embrace. Instead, he whispered the mantras of Asuryan, trying to maintain focus.

Arbaal swatted the Phoenix Blade aside, ripping it out of Caradryan’s hands. The elf cursed himself for his momentary lack of focus and threw himself over Arbaal’s next blow, his hands reaching for the halberd’s haft. He caught the weapon and rolled to his feet, turning just in time to block a blow that would have split him in half. Shattered cobbles shifted beneath his feet as Arbaal put all of his weight behind his axe, and forced the elf back.

Caradryan wrenched his halberd to the side, trying to twist the axe out of his opponent’s grip, but Arbaal was ready for such a tactic, and he drove a fist into the elf’s belly. Caradryan staggered back, and lurched aside as Arbaal tried to smash him from his feet.

The axe gashed his arm, and Caradryan bit back a scream. His blood hissed and bubbled as it splattered Arbaal’s cuirass, and the Chaos champion hesitated, giving Caradryan a chance to put distance between them. As he retreated, Caradryan cursed himself for a fool. If he hadn’t moved when he had, Arbaal’s blow would have taken his arm off. He could feel the fire within him, demanding to be let out. But to do so would be to doom his warriors to certain death. Arbaal charged towards him, axe ready. The weapon howled as it came around. Only one chance, he thought.

Caradryan spun about and leapt backwards over the sweeping blow. He tumbled through the air and dropped down behind Arbaal. Even as the champion whirled to face Caradryan, the Phoenix Blade slashed out. Ancient armour, crafted in Khorne’s own forges, ruptured as the fiery blade tore upwards through it. Arbaal sagged backwards, clutching at the wound. He raised his axe, but Caradryan hacked his arm off at the elbow. Arbaal screamed in fury and lurched towards the elf, groping for him with his remaining hand.

Caradryan stepped back, out of reach, and pivoted, hammering the edge of his halberd into the space between Arbaal’s collar and the bottom of his helmet. The white-hot blade tore through the champion’s neck, and his head tumbled free to roll away across the cobbles. Caradryan sank back against a wall, panting. He placed a hand to the wound in his arm, and winced as his touch cauterised the bloody slash.

He looked up. Proud princes of drowned Caledor swooped fearlessly through the increasingly agitated skies on their dragons, braving the lightning and sorcerous fire that rained from the bloated clouds in order to drive back the enemy. As he watched, a dragon was struck by a Chaos-birthed bolt of emerald lightning and its smoking corpse plunged from the sky to demolish a row of ramshackle houses.

Below them, plunging recklessly through the plazas and streets of the Sudgarten and the Ulricsmund, came the remaining knights of Ulthuan, the Empire and even chill Naggaroth – Reiksguard galloped alongside Silver Helms and the shrieking, scaly shapes of Cold Ones. The wave of armour and horseflesh swept over and smashed down the enemy wherever they struck. And at their head rode the shining figure of the Dragon of Cothique, his blade searing the darkness and all those things which sought to hide in it. It was the greatest cavalry charge in the history of the world, led by the greatest hero the elven people had ever produced. And he was not alone – the Emperor was there as well, on the back of his griffon, Deathclaw. Where the great beast pounced, blood and horror ensued for the followers of Chaos.

Around Caradryan, his host battled on against the enemy as well. His warriors were cloaked and shielded by fire, and it spilled from their weapons to consume northman and daemon alike. And there were plenty of both to feed the growing conflagration. Even with the forces of Tyrion and the Emperor, they were hard-pressed. The closer they drew to the Temple of Ulric and the great excavation which marked it, the harder the servants of the Ruinous Powers fought. But they fight in vain, he thought.

Already, the less fanatical of the enemy were beginning to fall back. Especially those who had witnessed the defeat of Arbaal. The champion had slaughtered a score of Ulthuan’s finest before Caradryan had reached him, and like as not, he could have carried the day by himself. With his fall, his warriors were starting to retreat, and the daemons who had accompanied him were wavering into instability, their always-tenuous hold on the world slipping. Too, he could feel the presence of the other Incarnates, not just Tyrion and Karl Franz, but Nagash and the others as well, all drawing closer. They would be here soon, and if Teclis was to be believed, no power in the world could stand against them. Victory seemed not only possible, but imminent.

A bellow, deeper and more powerful than the loudest roll of thunder, pierced Caradryan’s burgeoning hopes and swept them aside. It echoed down from the sky and rose from the ground; it shivered through the bricks and tore through alleyways and escaped from cul-de-sacs. The sound reverberated through every cobblestone and he clutched his head in agony, even as he turned, seeking out the author of that cry.

A moment later, the sky erupted in fire. Blazing meteors pierced the clouds and smashed home amidst the battle, killing warriors from both sides indiscriminately. The cry continued, growing impossibly loud as more and more meteors hammered down, levelling buildings and pummelling streets into ruin. Caradryan swept his halberd out, summoning a shield of flame to protect those few of his warriors that he could reach. But it was to no avail. His flames were snuffed, and elves died. Caradryan snarled in fury and whistled for Ashtari. The phoenix rose from the corpse of Arbaal’s flesh hound with a single beat of its crimson wings and swooped towards him, dodging through the rain of burning debris. He caught hold of the bird’s harness and hauled himself up onto its back as it streaked past.

His warriors followed him as he flew on, each one knowing, even as Caradryan did, that to stand still, or to seek shelter, was to die. So they followed him, plunging through the fleeing ranks of the enemy and carving themselves a path towards their goal. The Temple of Ulric was within sight, and nothing – not the enemy, or the wrath of the Dark Gods themselves – would deter the sons and daughters of Ulthuan from reaching it.

Tyrion swept Sunfang out in a shimmering arc. The daemoness the Loremasters knew as Dechala, the Denied One, parried the blow, shrieking and cursing him in the ancient tongue of his people as her coils tightened about he and Malhandir. The battle swirled on around them, as the finest warriors of three kingdoms fought and died against the forces of the Dark Gods, and the sky wept fire. Nearby, what had once been a tavern exploded, filling the air with burning chunks of wood and stone.

Dechala’s many arms flailed at him as she rained blow after brutal blow down, but he blocked each of them with a speed which shocked even him. He could feel the power of Hysh flowing through him, lending him speed of body and mind. Whatever you have done to me, brother, wherever you are, thank you, he thought. The daemoness had come at him suddenly, out of the press of battle, striking like an adder. It was as if she had been hunting for him alone, but he suspected any Incarnate would have done. He caught sight of Deathclaw, swooping low over the battle, and saw the Emperor’s runefang flash and remove a bloodletter’s head as he passed it. Despite the situation, he was glad the daemoness had found him, rather than the human. Whoever or whatever he was, he was still no match for a creature like Dechala.

Dechala chose that moment to lunge for him, swift as the serpent she resembled, her beautiful features contorted with hate. Her jaws spread wide, and he was forced to catch hold of her chin with his free hand. The poison dripping from her fangs hissed and sputtered where it dripped onto his gauntlet. Tyrion shoved her head back, and her flesh began to smoulder where he touched it as his aura of light started to burn away her cloak of darkness. She shrieked and squirmed, tail lashing. Malhandir whinnied in pain as her coils tightened convulsively.

Tyrion parried a blow meant to gut him, and his riposte was swifter than even the daemoness could follow. Sunfang was a blur of light, and it pierced Dechala’s chest before she even had a chance to scream. The Denied One slumped, smoke rising from her, and her coils loosened and flopped quivering to the ground, to be trodden into ruin by Malhandir’s hooves. Tyrion urged his horse on, and the animal reared and lunged away from the dissolving ruin of the daemon princess even as a fiery meteor obliterated the spot where she had fallen.

He heard a familiar shriek from above, and saw Caradryan hurtle towards the Temple of Ulric in the distance, his host following in his shadow. Flaming blades and spears cut the host a path through the disorganised rabble of the Chaos forces. Tyrion grinned. Leave it to the silent one to lead the way, he thought. He hauled on Malhandir’s reins, and the stallion pawed the air with a whinny.

‘Ride,’ Tyrion roared with all the strength he could muster, to those of his warriors still fighting around him, whether they were human or elf. ‘Ride and fear no darkness. Ride, for the world, and the breaking of the gods!’ Even as his steed’s hooves struck the ground, the animal was in motion, charging in Caradryan’s wake. Those who could fell in behind him, as fiery ruin continued to hammer the cursed city from above. Knights of Stirland, Altdorf and Ostland, of Cothique and Caledor, of Ghrond and Hag Graef, galloped in his wake. The proud survivors of three kingdoms, who looked to him for orders and inspiration.

Tyrion felt the weight of that responsibility keenly, even as he found joy in the sound of thundering hooves and the rattle of lances. He knew, in his heart, that this was the last charge of the world’s defenders. Even if they won, even if the Dark Gods were cast back, the flower of elven ithiltaen and of human chivalry would fall here, never to ride again. Win or lose, the pillars of his world had been broken. And we must see that it was not in vain, he thought. He leaned forwards, over Malhandir’s neck, and hacked down a northman standard bearer as he swept past.

The Temple of Ulric rose into sight as Tyrion galloped through the cramped streets of the Ulricsmund. The building was a shell of its former glory. It had been defiled and shattered by the servants of the Ruinous Powers. Tyrion recalled how Teclis had spoken of the city, when he had made common cause with the human Magnus against the forces of Chaos. Tyrion himself had been occupied fighting the druchii, after the battle of Finuval Plain. Teclis had said that Magnus had been a small man, and unimpressive at first glance, but filled with an inner fire that had been matched only by the Flame of Ulric itself. The same Flame that now coursed through Tyrion’s blood, and lent its strength to his own.

He heard a snarl, and looked over his shoulder to see the Emperor’s bodyguard, Wendel Volker, riding hard at his elbow. The Reiksguard looked almost as monstrous in that moment as their enemies, his eyes as yellow as a beast’s and his lips peeled back from teeth which were too long. Then the moment passed and he was but a man again. Tyrion turned away. He did not know for certain what force lurked in the human, but whatever it was, it made him as savage as any of the great lions of Chrace.

Malhandir whinnied, and Tyrion snapped out of his reverie with a curse. They were within sight of the great excavation which marred the side of the Temple and marked where the artefact Be’lakor had spoken of was housed, but even as they drew close, a blaze of crackling warpflame suddenly roared to life, blocking off their advance. Tyrion hauled back on Malhandir’s reins, bringing the horse to a sudden stop.

‘Can you do anything?’ a voice called down from above. Tyrion looked up as the Emperor’s griffon landed nearby. The human looked as exhausted as Tyrion felt, but he still gripped his sword firmly. ‘We are running short on time.’

‘I… don’t know,’ Tyrion said. He urged Malhandir forwards, aware that as he did so, he could hear a growing war-chant echoing from the north. The enemy had found their courage, now that the rain of fire had slackened, and were regrouping. Tyrion felt Hysh rise within him as he extended Sunfang towards the crackling flames. Through the multicoloured haze, he could see the robed shapes of Chaos sorcerers and capering daemons.

Light flared, rising from his every pore, driving back the dark all around him. The flames quavered as the light struck them, and recoiled for a moment before reforming, even stronger than before. Tyrion climbed down from Malhandir’s saddle and strode forwards, blade still extended. The flames gave way before him, but then roared up, as if to envelop him.

A gleaming halberd slid into place alongside Sunfang. Tyrion glanced aside, and saw Caradryan take up a position beside him. The Incarnate of Fire smiled thinly. ‘Let us face the fire together, heir of Aenarion,’ Caradryan rasped. Tyrion nodded tersely, and then turned back to the flames. Together, the two Incarnates drove their power against the warpfire barrier, trying to snuff it. Beads of sweat rolled down Tyrion’s face as he summoned the light and sent it frenzying forth to sear the unnatural flames. Beside him, Caradryan’s own flames burned hotter and brighter than the colourful daemon-inferno. But still, the warpfire barrier held.

Behind him, Tyrion could hear the Emperor shouting orders, reforming the ranks of the combined armies to face the attack that was imminent. The human was a commander without equal. But he also knew that this was no longer a battle for mortals… It was the Rhana Dandra and only gods could hope to keep their footing in the torrent of blood to come. He almost turned back, to lend his aid, when Caradryan grabbed his shoulder. He glanced at the former captain of the Phoenix Guard, and nodded. You are right, my friend… If these flames are not snuffed, we will all perish this day.

The howling grew louder and louder, until it beat at his ears. Tyrion risked a glance, and saw a nightmare horde burst through the streets and dash pell-mell towards the combined armies of men and elves. Northland hounds, lean and athirst, loped ahead of savage brutes which had once been men, before some fell power had driven all reason and humanity from them, reducing them to feral monstrosities. The berserker wave slammed into the allied lines, and died in droves. But not all of them, and some managed to drag a knight from his horse, or pounce on a spearman and bear him to the ground, their teeth in his throat.

Tyrion instinctively turned, his blade sweeping out. Light speared forth, and a group of howling barbarians were immolated in an instant. Before he could turn his attentions back to the barrier of flame, however, Caradryan shoved him aside. Tyrion hit the ground and rolled to his feet as a monstrous shape slammed down onto the street where he’d been standing. Tyrion raised his sword as the bloodthirster rose to its full height and turned towards him. The beast gestured with its hammer. ‘Ka’Bandha has come, elf,’ it roared. ‘You thought to escape me, mortals, but the Huntsman of Khorne will not be denied!’

‘Running wasn’t my idea, I assure you,’ Tyrion snarled. He darted in, and threw himself beneath the daemon’s first blow. As its hammer smashed down on the street, he was already on his feet. Sunfang whipped out, carving a trail of fire across the bloodthirster’s back. Ka’Bandha reared back and roared. It whipped around, and Tyrion was forced to leap back as the axe it clutched in its other hand crashed down, carving a gouge in the street. Before he could launch another attack, the daemon wrenched its weapon free of the street and reared back, slamming one massive hoof into his chest. Tyrion skidded backwards, his chest aching and no air in his lungs.

Before Ka’Bandha could take advantage of his predicament, however, the Emperor was there, his runefang singing as it carved through one of the bloodthirster’s wings, eliciting a shriek of fury. That shriek rapidly became a snarl of triumph, as Ka’Bandha whirled and smashed Deathclaw from the air with the flat of its axe. ‘You… Your skull is mine, human,’ Ka’Bandha roared, as it closed in on the fallen animal and its rider.

‘And yours is mine, hound of carnage,’ Caradryan grated, as Ashtari swooped around the bloodthirster’s head. The Phoenix Blade flashed and Ka’Bandha staggered as flames roared about it, singeing its unnatural flesh and scorching its brass armour. But the beast did not fall, no matter how many wounds Caradryan opened in its hide.

Ka’Bandha bellowed and swung its hammer out, catching the phoenix as it dived past. The great bird fell with a scream and the bloodthirster was on it in an instant, with fatal results. The daemon’s hammer rose and fell with deadly precision, and the last phoenix of the Flamespyres died. Caradryan, who had fallen from his saddle, hacked at the daemon in a fury, and his halberd, wreathed in white-hot flames, crashed down on Ka’Bandha’s skull hard enough to shatter the brass crown the daemon wore, and to open its scalp to the bone.

Ka’Bandha, blinded by its own ichor, lashed out wildly, trying to drive the Incarnate back. As Tyrion dragged himself to his feet, he saw one wild swing of the hammer catch Caradryan in the legs, and he heard the snap as the elf’s bones were shattered by the impact. Caradryan fell heavily, striking the hard rock of the Ulricsmund with crushing force, and his halberd was jarred from his hand as the bloodthirster bore down on him.

Tyrion, one arm wrapped around his side, staggered towards them, but was too slow. Ka’Bandha lifted one hoof high, over Caradryan, who strained to reach the haft of his weapon, which lay just out of reach. The daemon stamped down onto the Incarnate’s chest, and, with a thunderous crunch, Caradryan, captain of the Phoenix Guard, servant of Asuryan, died. Tyrion watched in horror as sparks of flame burst from the shattered corpse and took root in the bloodthirster’s flesh, running hungrily across its limbs, until no part of the daemon was not aflame. Ka’Bandha wailed and thrashed in obvious agony as it felt the wrath of Aqshy. Even so, the beast did not fall.

Tyrion saw Deathclaw hurtle towards the daemon once more, the Emperor clinging to his saddle, his blade sweeping out. But before his blow could land, Ka’Bandha lashed out, even as it had before, and struck the griffon from the air with its hammer, driving the beast into the rubble of the temple nearby. The Emperor was flung from his saddle by the impact, and thrown high through the remnants of a stained glass window and into the temple beyond. Tyrion’s heart sank as the bloodthirster turned towards him, grinning through the flames that ate at its bestial features. Though the fires burned it, its lust for battle had not dimmed.

‘Flee, blood-speck, and I shall save your skull for another day,’ Ka’Bandha gurgled, as it glared down at him. ‘Flee, little elf, and do not seek to come between the Huntsman and his prey this night.’

Tyrion straightened, and felt the fire sing in his veins. The light around him began to glow, and the daemon winced. It raised a hand, as if to shield its eyes. Tyrion raised Sunfang. ‘I do not bargain with daemons,’ he said. ‘I kill them.’

Then, with a yell, he launched himself towards Caradryan’s slayer.

The Temple of Ulric

The Emperor awoke in darkness, his face sticky with blood and his body a mass of aches and pains. Forgot what that was like, he thought sourly, as he pushed himself to his feet. The air was heavy, and a slaughterhouse stink was thick in his nostrils.

He looked around warily, hands flexing. He’d lost his runefang somewhere between here and Ka’Bandha’s hammer, and he scanned his surroundings for something to take its place. He peered into the darkness, marking the body of a Chaos warrior nearby. The man’s sword was to hand. Though he was loath to touch it, beggars couldn’t be choosers. As he started forward, he took note of the corpses hanging from the ceiling on heavy chains and hooks.

With a start, he realised he was under the great dome of the temple. For a brief heartbeat, rage pulsed through him to see this most holy of shrines defiled so, but he regained control of himself quickly. ‘Work first, mourn later,’ he muttered.

‘Same old Sigmar.’

The voice slithered out of the dark. The Emperor froze, and then turned, following the echoes of laughter. He saw a throne of skulls and flayed skin rising above a dais of bones, and at its base, a familiar gleam of bronze. ‘Ha,’ he murmured. No cleansing flame, no sunlit morning, had ever seemed as beautiful as the sight of his hammer, gleaming in the dark. He stepped towards it, hand reaching out, but stopped as the laughter echoed again.

‘Yesssss, it is you. I knew it from the first. I smelt your stink on the wind the moment that fool elf freed you from the Vortex, Unberogen. For two thousand years, this world was free of you, but here you are, hiding in a dead man’s skin.’

Sigmar looked up as the alabaster-skinned figure climbed atop the back of the throne and spread great black wings. Eyes like polished opals shone as the horned head twisted about. ‘It has been a long time, my old friend,’ the daemon prince murmured. ‘Centuries since last we spoke, eh, Sigmar?’

‘Gerreon,’ Sigmar said. He felt the old hate welling up again, like a wound that had never properly healed. A woman’s face passed before his eyes, and receded into memory. This thing before him had been his friend, once upon a time. Now, it was a plaything of Chaos.

‘Azazel,’ the daemon prince corrected, gently. ‘Alas, no time to catch up, I’m afraid. No time to speak of better days, of loves lost and won. Time is speeding up, and the world judders to pieces in haste. I thought… well. One last moment, before the end.’ Azazel pointed at the fallen shape of Ghal Maraz, where it lay amidst the refuse of barbarity. ‘You want that filthy thing, cousin? Then come and take it, if you dare.’

Sigmar lunged for the hammer. Azazel gave a wild shriek of laughter and flung himself towards his prey, drawing a blade covered in ruinous sigils as he did so. The blade slammed down, inches from Sigmar’s head. The Emperor rolled aside. Azazel rose, wings stretching out. He stood between Sigmar and his weapon, and spread his arms as if in invitation. ‘A good effort, but not good enough. Not for this,’ Azazel said. He took a step towards Sigmar. ‘I wish that we had more time, my friend. I have been waiting so long to see you again.’

‘Can’t say the same, I’m afraid,’ Sigmar said.

Azazel laughed. ‘Oh, how I have missed you,’ he said. Then with a single snap of his wings, he hurtled forwards. His blade hissed as it whipped towards Sigmar’s neck. Sigmar twisted aside and flung himself towards his hammer. Even as he caught the haft, he heard the boom of Azazel’s wings. He rolled onto his back, and just managed to block the daemon prince’s blade with the haft of Ghal Maraz. For a moment, Azazel crouched above him. The blade writhed like a thing alive in his clawed grip. ‘Do you ever think of her, brother of my heart?’ Azazel purred, as he forced the blade down. ‘Do you recall her scent in lonely moments, or the way the light caught her hair? Do the memories press down on your heart, when you recall Ravenna? Do you spare even a thought for dear Pendrag?’ Azazel chuckled. ‘I know I don’t.’

‘I think about them always, Gerreon. As I have thought about this moment,’ Sigmar said, from between gritted teeth. He felt stronger than before, as if some part of him which had been missing up until now had returned. It wasn’t simply the presence of Ghal Maraz, but something else – as if a weight had been lifted from him. He heard the clash of steel in his head, and the song of distant stars. He pushed back against Azazel. The daemon prince’s eyes widened.

‘What are you–?’ Azazel began. Sigmar shoved the haft of the hammer up, and Azazel screeched as the edge of his own blade gashed his chest and throat. He tumbled backwards, wings flailing. His blood hissed as it burned the flagstones. Sigmar swept his hammer out, and inhuman bone splintered as the force of the blow tore the daemon prince’s sword from his grip. The sword wailed like a wounded cat as it was sent skidding across the floor.

Sigmar kicked him in the head as he tried to rise. The daemon prince yowled as the Emperor trod on his wings, pinning him in place. Sigmar raised Ghal Maraz over his head. ‘You said it yourself, Gerreon. There is no time. And so I send you back to the forge of souls more quickly than you deserve.’

‘No!’ Azazel shrieked. His eyes bulged in fear as he tried to tear himself free, to no avail. The hammer came down with thunderous finality. The great wings twitched once, and then fell still. Sigmar Unberogen looked down at the rapidly dissolving ruin of a man he’d once called friend, shook himself, and strode away, towards the sound of fighting.

There was a war to be won. And a world to be saved.

Nineteen

The Ulricsmund, Middenheim

Wendel Volker grunted as his sword became lodged in the skull of a snarling northman, and he released it as the body slumped. He reached down and snatched up the axe of a fallen White Lion and spun it experimentally. Somehow, the axe, despite not being made for human hands, felt more natural in his hand than any sword ever had.

An axe is a warrior’s weapon, Ulric growled softly. Volker ignored the god and turned to chop a leaping Chaos hound out of the air, sending the dying beast crashing down nearby. He whirled back, and smashed aside a brass-faced shield before cleaving through the breastbone of its owner. He tore the axe free and spun, seeking more foes. He’d lost his horse in the first charge, but he’d never been comfortable with the animals. As far as Volker was concerned, being on a horse made you a target. Ulric seemed to feel the same way.

Anarchy reigned wherever Volker cast his gaze. Bellowed war cries and the clash of steel echoed across the city. All around him, men and elves were hard-pressed by the savage northmen. The latter seemed tireless, driven beyond all reason and discipline and into a red rage that ended only in death. They came again and again, hurling themselves at the dwindling ranks of the Empire and the elves, dying in droves but pulling down warriors in their death-throes. Even worse, the northmen were not alone in their assault. The clamour of battle was drawing enemies from all over the city, including beastmen and skaven.

A flare of light startled him, and he turned to see Tyrion still locked in combat with the bloodthirster. The elf was holding his own, but only just. The bloodthirster had already killed one Incarnate, and though it was wreathed in flames and bleeding from dozens of wounds, it didn’t seem to be slowing down. And Tyrion was beginning to tire.

A knight, bearing the bull emblem of Ostland on one pauldron, staggered into him. Volker grabbed his arm, and the knight tried to pull free. His armour was scorched and dented, and he’d lost his helmet. ‘Let go of me, damn you,’ he cried.

‘Get back in line,’ Volker snarled. The man paled and stumbled back.

‘The Emperor is dead,’ he shouted. ‘We cannot win!’

Volker tensed, and Ulric snarled within him. Before he could stop himself, he swung his axe and decapitated the knight. Cowardice is like a disease, Ulric growled, and it spreads as swiftly as any pox. Volker saw other men, knights and halberdiers, woodsmen and handgunners, staring at him in shock and fear. His fellow Reiksguard, whom he’d been fighting among, edged away from him. His gut churned, but he lifted the bloody axe high and bared his teeth. ‘Fight or die, men of the Empire,’ he snarled. He could feel the god adding his strength to Volker’s voice, making sure he was heard by every human ear on the field of battle. ‘I do not care which, but do it bravely, and do it well. Fight, in the name of Sigmar, who forged our Empire. Fight, in the name of Ulric, who forged our people! Fight and rend the enemy like the wolves who birthed you!’

A northman charged through the press towards him, bellowing incoherently. Volker spun the axe in his hands and brought it down in a two-handed grip, cleaving the barbarian from pate to jowl. He tore the axe free and gestured towards the enemy. ‘Fight, you Unberogens! Fight, you Teutogens, Jeutones and Brigundians, fight, sons of Ulric all! Fight until the Fauschlag quakes and the Dark Gods hide in fear,’ he roared. And they roared with him. He could feel the panic and dismay giving way to anger and determination as he charged towards the foe, his people at his back, and felt Ulric’s contented growl roll through him. Whatever else happened here today, the men of the Empire would not falter.

A new sound pierced the clangour of combat then, even as Volker led his people into battle. It rose from the south, spiralling up into the smoky air, and set the hair on the back of his neck to dancing. Through the madness of battle, he caught sight of green shapes flooding into the plaza. ‘Orcs,’ he muttered, as he slammed his shoulder into a bloodletter’s gut and flipped the daemon over his back. ‘As if things aren’t mad enough.’

Not just orcs, Ulric roared, elves as well. The Incarnates approach. Allies, Wendel Volker. Or if not allies, then those who come to make war on our enemies. He shuddered as the godspark howled within him, joyously this time. War, man, war so as to shake the pillars of heaven itself! See them, Wendel Volker, see how they come, scenting the blood of our prey!

Volker shook his head, trying to ignore Ulric’s howls and concentrate on the fight at hand. He heard someone shout his name, and jerked back as the Chaos warrior charging towards him was suddenly transmuted to gold. He turned and saw Balthasar Gelt riding towards him, the Everqueen sitting behind him on the pegasus’s back. ‘Volker, where is the Emperor?’ the wizard shouted. Volker signalled for his fellow Reiksguard to fall in around Gelt and Alarielle, and the remaining knights did so swiftly.

‘That… thing struck him down. I don’t know where he is, and there’s no chance of finding out, not with the enemy hemming us in,’ Volker said, gesturing towards the spot where Ka’Bandha and Tyrion still fought as Gelt helped Alarielle down from the pegasus. ‘If you’ve got any magic that can find him, now’s the time to use it,’ he continued.

Before Gelt could answer, an ear-splitting screech sounded over the din of the battle. The two Incarnates and Volker turned to see the bloodthirster reel back, away from Tyrion, its axe a twisted ruin. It tossed the smoking weapon aside and reached for Tyrion. It smashed his sword down, and knocked him from his feet. The daemon loomed over the elf, its hammer raised for a killing blow.

‘No,’ Alarielle hissed. She started forwards, but Volker stopped her, even as Ulric howled a warning in his mind.

‘Wait – look!’ he said. A sudden gale sprang up, sweeping across the Ulricsmund. And with it came a charnel stink that hung heavy on the air. A moment later, a swirling black cloud, roiling and pulsing with dark energy, burst out from between two buildings. The street shook beneath the tread of something monstrous as the cloud rolled forwards. Where it passed, combatants fell dead, their skin desiccated and cracked, their weapons and armour crumbling to dust. The cloud of death made no distinction between orcs and elves, skaven and northmen. It claimed them all.

The cloud drew close to Ka’Bandha, who stared at it in bewildered rage. As it got within arm’s reach, it split open to reveal an immense, skeletal figure standing amidst the thinning vapour. Nagash had come, at last. And death came with him.

Volker cringed back as Nagash drew his great, serrated blade and hewed at the bloodthirster. The daemon interposed its hammer at the last moment, and the two baneful weapons connected in a shower of sparks. Nagash gave a death-rattle of frustration and launched another blow. Ka’Bandha swatted it aside with a roar. The two beings slammed together and broke apart, their duel scattering the combatants around them as it shook the street. The remaining windows in the temple shattered as sword and hammer met again, and even the warpflames shied away from the duel.

Through the smoke and dust thrown up by the confrontation, Volker saw a horse galloping towards them, the slumped form of Tyrion on its back. Alongside Alarielle, he caught the elf as he toppled from the saddle. ‘Does he live?’ she asked.

‘I live,’ Tyrion coughed, reaching up to stroke her face. She caught his hand and held it. Volker turned away, uncomfortable. Battle is no place for such things, Ulric growled petulantly.

‘Quiet,’ Volker murmured. He could hear something. Like a rattle of spears and a rumbling of drums, or the snap of distant flames. He turned, to ask Gelt if he’d heard it, and saw that the three Incarnates were staring up at the sky. Gelt was shaking in his saddle, and the elves looked bewildered.

Lightning slammed down, not the blood-red lightning of the Chaos-cursed skies, but something brighter and purer. It struck the dome of the temple, and shook the Fauschlag down to its core. Ka’Bandha and Nagash both shrank back from the light, their fight forgotten in the face of such overwhelming elemental fury.

Tyrion laughed.

‘Welcome back, my friend,’ he said.

Sigmar strode through the dust and the smoke, lightning crawling across his form, Ghal Maraz in his hand. He had cast off the remains of his cloak, and his helmet. For the first time in a long time, he felt whole. Complete.

He had been reborn in the broken body of Karl Franz as the Glottkin had ravaged Altdorf, called to a man of his blood by the winds of magic and fate, and perhaps even necessity. An empire, even a dying one, needed an emperor. I was the first, and so I will be the last, he thought sadly. Then he looked out at the massed ranks of friend and foe, and smiled. Or perhaps I will be the first again, come what may.

But he had not been reborn whole. His power had been split, even as Ulric’s was, between himself and the man called Valten. But what had been in Valten had coiled waiting in the hammer he now held after the youth’s death, waiting for the hand of its true owner. Now, reunited, the power of the heavens was his once more, and Sigmar Unberogen was whole.

He raised his hammer, and it began to glow with a cerulean light. As he passed Deathclaw’s broken form, the griffon stirred and clambered to its feet with a groggy scream. ‘Up, you lazy beast,’ Sigmar murmured, stretching out his hand to stroke its feathered neck. ‘Up. We have a war to win,’ he said. The beast made to follow him, but he waved it back. He strode towards Nagash and Ka’Bandha. The liche met his gaze and, after a moment’s hesitation, inclined his head.

‘UNBEROGEN,’ Nagash said.

‘Monster,’ Sigmar said conversationally. He swept Ghal Maraz out, and Nagash flinched back. ‘Step back, Nagash of Khemri. This one is mine.’ Sigmar stared at Ka’Bandha. The bloodthirster was still warily watching Nagash, even as the liche slunk back. ‘Turn, hellhound.’

Ka’Bandha turned, a smile creeping across its distorted features. The daemon’s nose wrinkled. ‘Ahhhh. I smell the stink of a broken soul. You have defeated the Prince of Damnation.’ The bloodthirster’s smile widened, in its mask of flames. ‘Good. That saves me the trouble.’

‘I didn’t do it for you,’ Sigmar said, stepping through the rubble. ‘He was an obstacle. A stumbling block, set on the path of fate by your masters. They fear me.’ He lifted Ghal Maraz. ‘They fear this.’

‘I do not fear you,’ Ka’Bandha growled.

‘No. But then, you aren’t important. Just another obstacle.’ Sigmar leaned his hammer across his shoulder. ‘You’ve done your part, beast. And now the story goes on, without you.’

‘I will have your skull,’ Ka’Bandha snarled, raising its hammer.

‘No. But I will have yours,’ Sigmar said.

Ka’Bandha roared and swung its hammer down. Sigmar ducked under the blow as it sizzled through the spot his head had occupied, and leapt onto the fallen statue of a forgotten hero. As Ka’Bandha turned, roaring, Sigmar was already in the air, his hammer clasped in both hands. The weapon seemed to glow for just a moment as it descended, and then with a thunderous crash, it slammed home. Ka’Bandha’s roar was cut short as the rune weapon crumpled Chaos-spawned bone and tore steaming flesh. Sigmar landed in a crouch, and Ka’Bandha crashed down beside him, its body already unravelling as the dark spirit of Khorne’s Huntsman fled back to the abattoir of souls from which it had been plucked.

Sigmar rose slowly to his feet. As if that had been a signal, a great cry rose from the ranks of the Chaos horde, and, almost as one, they at last faltered. Some howled and fled, others dropped to the ground and cowered. Some fought on, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the brawling mass of orcs. Even as Sigmar joined the other Incarnates, the remainder of the Chaos horde broke and fled into the city, pursued by the greenskins and ogres. All save for a burly one-eyed orc, and his bodyguard.

Sigmar eyed the beast as it stumped towards them, its broad form suffused with what he knew to be the Wind of Beasts. Well, that explains that, Sigmar thought. He hid a smile as the brute gestured curtly for Malekith to step forward. The Eternity King looked as battle-worn as any of them, and his eyes were hard behind his mask. ‘Grimgor, Boss of the East, demands that he be allowed to challenge the Everchosen,’ he said, his tone making it clear that he would brook no humour at his expense. ‘If you have a problem with it, he wishes it known that he will – ah – crump you.’ Grimgor nodded and glared about challengingly.

‘IF THE BEAST WISHES TO TRY ITS LUCK, LET IT,’ Nagash said. The uproar of battle had faded, and now the only sound was the eerie crackle of the warpflame barrier. Sigmar looked at it, stroking Deathclaw’s neck.

‘He will not try it alone,’ Tyrion said, sheathing his sword. ‘It will take all of us to win this battle.’ He frowned as he said it, and glanced sidelong at Nagash. ‘Even those we would rather not fight beside.’

‘YOUR PREFERENCES ARE OF LITTLE CONCERN TO ME, ELF-PRINCE. I WOULD HAVE THIS AFFAIR DONE WITH,’ Nagash said. The liche stalked towards the barrier, amethyst magics crawling along his limbs as he focused his powers on the wall of daemonic flames.

‘We must aid him,’ Sigmar said. ‘All of you – turn your power upon the barrier. We must act as one, if we are to accomplish what we must.’ As he spoke, he thrust out a hand, and a bolt of lightning streaked from his palm to strike the barrier. One by one, the other Incarnates followed suit, and soon, the warpflames were assailed by the dichotomic onslaught of light and shadow, of life and death, lightning and shards of gold. The flames died back and surged forth, redoubling in strength even as the Incarnates smote them.

Grimgor alone did not unleash the power that had made him its host. Instead, the orc hefted his axe and bellowed a wordless challenge at the pulsating barrier, before rushing in to strike the flames with a wild blow. Sigmar smiled as the barrier collapsed at last, and the orc staggered through. Grimgor spun wildly and decapitated one of the sorcerers responsible for the flame-barrier, even as the backwash of the broken spell consumed the others and reduced them to ash.

Beyond the flames, Sigmar could see the great excavation and the smoke rising from its depths. He could feel the pull of those depths, and his hand tightened on Ghal Maraz’s haft. The Fauschlag gave a shudder, and he stumbled, feeling a hollow sensation in the pit of his gut. He looked around. ‘We must hurry. The artefact has awakened.’

‘How can you tell?’ Tyrion said.

‘How can you not?’ Alarielle said, striding past him. Her face was pinched and tight with pain. ‘It is like a wound which will not heal – the world is screaming in agony.’ She stumbled, and Malekith solicitously caught her arm.

‘THE WORLD IS DYING,’ Nagash said.

‘And that is why we must hurry,’ Sigmar said. He looked around. ‘The fate of the world is in our hands, my friends,’ he said softly. ‘And we cannot afford to fail.’

Twenty

The Depths of the Fauschlag

Teclis opened his eyes as the cavern shook. Great fangs of rock fell down from the roof of the chamber to smash across the ground, and dust choked the air. Whatever was going on above, its echoes were reverberating through the mountain Middenheim was built on. Or perhaps it was not the battle above but the abomination below that was causing the Fauschlag to shudder so.

The warp-artefact shone ominously at the centre of the rough-hewn chamber, its surface rippling with hateful colours. He squinted against its cold light, trying to make out the shapes that dived and swam within it, but gave up after a moment. Sorcerers clustered about it, uttering harsh chants to coax the thing to life.

Learned as he was, he only recognised a few of the incantations being shouted. Even those he knew were archaic, older even than the elves themselves, and had likely not been spoken aloud since the time of the Old Ones. As he watched, a sorcerer toppled over, smoke rising from her mouth and eyes. Her body joined those of the others who had been overcome by the power they were seeking to manipulate.

Teclis tested the bonds that held him moored to the cavern wall. Despite the wide cracks that now ran the width and breadth of the walls and floor, his chains remained taut. His wrists were raw from previous attempts, and blood dripped down his fingers. He did not stop trying, despite the pain. There was nothing else to do but try. Anything else was surrender, and now that he was here, now that it had come to this point, Teclis had discovered wellsprings of what some might have called courage, but which he suspected to be spite.

The spite of a child always in the shadow of his stronger sibling. The spite of a man who had never been trusted by those he called friends and allies, because of his gifts. The spite of one who had been forced to sacrifice everything for a chance at victory, only to find himself falling short yet again, despite his best efforts. And it was the spite of a gamesman without any moves left, as much as anything else, of one who had been outmanoeuvred and outplayed. So Teclis hauled on his chains, strengthened by bile, and anger, and frustration; there was hatred in his heart, and he would not, could not yield. He did not know what he would do if he got loose, but he would do something. Anything.

That he could feel the wellspring of magic which filled the cavern only added to his frustration. It had been drawn from the rock and the air by the thousands of blood sacrifices Archaon had ordered conducted. The bodies of those unfortunates lay strewn about the chamber like a carpet of abused flesh, and the smell of their dying hung thick on the air. The magics roared about like a wind, caught in the pull of the warp-artefact, but Teclis could not manipulate even the slenderest thread, thanks to baleful runes etched into his manacles.

Where are you, brother? he thought. Do you still live? Do the others? Or was it all for nothing? He threaded his thin fingers through the links and turned, trying again, as he had so many times before, to pull the chains free of the rock. As he did so, he looked around, taking in the silent ranks of the Swords of Chaos, and their master on his hell-steed. Archaon stared up at the oily surface of the artefact as if captivated. He had not looked away from it since they’d arrived, save to occasionally check that Teclis was still safely bound.

You should have killed me, Teclis thought, bracing his foot against the wall. Pain screamed through his shoulders and arms, but he ignored it. But you need an audience, don’t you? Like a petulant child, waiting to throw his tantrum until his parents are close by. You need me to see what you have done. His muscles throbbed with weariness and a bone-deep ache, but he strained backwards regardless. Blood welled around the edges of his manacles, and he could not restrain a grunt of pain.

Another quake shook the cavern. Stalactites speared down, shattering on the ground, filling the air with debris. Gold gleamed in the cracks above his head, and not for the first time, he wondered about the true nature of the Fauschlag. Not that it matters, he thought. Yet, the part of him that was still a loremaster remained curious. More stalactites rained down, and several of the chanting sorcerers were crushed into messy pulp. Those closest to them made as if to flee, but returned to their labours at a simple gesture from Archaon. They feared the Everchosen more than a death by falling rock, and Teclis couldn’t blame them.

A faint sound tugged at his ears. Faint, but growing louder. He recognised it instantly, and smiled suddenly, fiercely. Brother. I knew you would not let me down. I knew it!

Teclis licked his cracked and bleeding lips, and cleared his throat. ‘Do you hear that, Everchosen?’ he called out, letting his chains fall.

Archaon did not turn.

Teclis smiled. ‘Do you hear the sound of the drums, Archaon? The crash of steel, the tread of feet? Those are the sounds of battle, Three-Eyed King. You asked me earlier what I saw, Archaon. Well, I saw the future – your future – and it is not pretty.’ He hurled the words at Archaon, taunting him. Words were all he had left, and he intended to expend his quiver.

‘Silence,’ Archaon said. He turned in his saddle, his eyes glowing eerily within his helm.

‘Do you remember what I said, on the ramparts?’ Teclis continued. ‘Sigmar is coming, Archaon. No… he is here. Do you hear him? Do you feel him?’

‘Sigmar is a fairy tale. A myth for children, the mad and the blind,’ Archaon rumbled. ‘Which are you, elf?’

‘I don’t know. Which are you, human?’ Teclis spat. Child, he thought, I am a child. Or mad, but I have seen too much to be blind.

Archaon wheeled his horse about, and his hand hovered over the hilt of his sword. For a moment, Teclis wondered if the Everchosen would strike him down. The chamber shuddered again, and Archaon laughed softly. He glanced over his shoulder, up at the flickering warp-artefact. As Teclis watched in horror, the artefact’s gleaming surface abruptly swelled, doubling in size. Those sorcerers closest to it were sucked into its depths, their screams echoing through the cavern. Vast, pain-wracked faces bulged from within it, pressing against the oily skin of the artefact, and whorls of colour contracted and broke apart in dizzying fashion. Terrible lights gleamed up through the cracks in the cavern floor, and a strange, sickly sweet smell filled Teclis’s nostrils as the air wavered, suddenly full of shapes which were not quite in synch with the world. They moved too swiftly, or too slowly, about him, and he shied away from leering faces and insubstantial gripping talons.

Daemonic whispers filled his mind, clawing at the walls of his soul. The sphere increased in size again, and the whispers grew louder. He thrashed in his chains as the daemons tore at his will and sanity. The end was mere minutes away, he knew. The sphere was growing exponentially, but it could only grow so big before it at last imploded. And when it collapsed, the Fauschlag, and all within it, would be wrenched into the Realm of Chaos, as the rest of the world was slowly, but surely torn apart.

‘It is beautiful, is it not?’ Archaon said, as the wraith-like shapes of daemons swirled about him as if he were the eye of a storm. ‘Here is the doom of all mankind, come round at last.’ He raised a hand, and daemonic shapes coiled about his arm and fingers like serpents. ‘These are the last moments. Glory in them, Teclis of Cothique, for after this, only horror awaits you.’ Archaon spread his arms.

‘A great and beautiful horror awaits us all.’

Wendel Volker watched in awe as the Emperor, Tyrion and the orc, Grimgor, carved a savage path through the horde of squealing skaven. Though the fighting was not confined to them, they bore the brunt of the red work being done in those tunnels. The skaven died in their hundreds, and their bodies carpeted the cold bedrock of the calcified catacombs where they’d chosen to make their stand, but there were always more of them.

Volker, axe in hand, hauled a wounded elf archer to her feet and shoved her back towards her fellows as armoured stormvermin burst out of a side tunnel and charged towards the small force of men and elves. Before he could shout for his fellow Reiksguard, Gelt stepped forwards and gestured sharply, sending a hail of golden shards hammering into the ratkin. He watched in disgust as the newly dead skaven twitched upright a moment later, dragged back to their feet by the will of Nagash. He cut his gaze towards the swirling black cloud which surrounded the Undying King, and felt Ulric snarl within him.

He knew how the god felt. It was one thing to ally with elves, or even orcs, but the liche was something else entirely. He was as wrong as Chaos, in his way, and he cared nothing for the lives of his allies. Nagash ranged ahead of them all, moving swiftly, killing himself a path through the enemy with magic, sword or choking cloud. No skaven monster or war machine could stand against him, and they had faced plenty of both after descending into the Fauschlag. The deeper they went, the more fierce the resistance became.

The Incarnates had been forced to combine their efforts, fighting together for the first time since they had all gathered in Athel Loren. Malekith’s shadow-constructs harried the enemy, driving them squealing into the path of Gelt’s shards or Alarielle’s thorns. Tyrion and the Emperor guarded Grimgor’s flanks as the orc and his Immortulz bulled ahead, taking on the worst the skaven could send against them with enthusiasm rather than strategy.

From behind him, Volker heard the rasping intake of breath that heralded Malekith’s dragon preparing to breathe its reeking smoke into another set of tunnels. The great beast, and Deathclaw, had had a tough time of it at first, for neither beast would be parted from their respective masters and they’d had to squirm and scrape through the upper tunnels. But once those manmade tunnels had given way to the cavernous natural corridors, the dragon had flared its wings and lent its might to the advance.

Tough beast, Ulric murmured, admiringly.

‘Glad it’s on our side,’ Volker said. He spun his axe, and chopped through a spear as it sought his belly. He slashed out, killing the skaven who’d wielded it, and then those behind it. Ulric had some strength yet, and the god lent it freely. Volker was not equal to the Incarnates, but he was more than the man he had been.

The Fauschlag continued to shake and shudder about them, and more than once, Volker heard the scream of a man or elf as they vanished into some crevasse, or were crushed by rocks tumbling from above. The moans of the wounded pursued them all down through the tunnels. Those who were trapped, or could not walk, were left behind to survive as best they could. That which was still the man he had been cringed in horror at the thought, but the wolf in him, the part that was ice, knew that it was necessary. Time was of the essence, and there was none to spare for those who could not march.

A strange light played across the blade of his axe as he swung it and swept the head from a skaven’s shoulders. As the body fell, he saw that the ratmen were fleeing, scuttling for their holes. Do you smell it, Wendel Volker? We are here, Ulric thundered in his head. The wolf-god gave a joyous howl. We are here and our prey is at last within reach! Blood is on the air, and the sounds of battle fill our ears. Rend and slay, tear and smash! Vengeance!

Volker shuddered as the godspark twisted and writhed in agitation within him. Blood poured down his skin as white hairs grew from his pores, and his bones cracked and shifted. He closed his eyes, trying to fight past the pain. Suddenly a cool hand pressed itself against the back of his grimy neck, and he felt a cleansing wind blow through the cold runnels of his soul. He turned and saw Alarielle. The Everqueen smiled sadly, and stepped back as he flinched away from her. ‘I – thank you,’ Volker said. He could taste blood in his mouth. He didn’t know what she had done, but the pain had lessened.

‘Do not thank me,’ the Everqueen said. ‘Fight, son of the Empire. Fight hard, and die well, if it comes to that.’

‘Which it almost certainly will,’ Malekith said. The Eternity King glared at Volker. ‘Whatever lurks within you, man, see that it does not seek to hinder us. We have arrived at the precipice and I would not be sent over the edge by mistake.’ Malekith gestured with his sword, and Volker turned back towards the strange light. He smelt an acrid stink, and Ulric growled, Daemon-spoor. They had come to a wide, high cavern, which rang with the shrieks of daemons and the grinding of shifting rock. And the light as well, which burned and chilled at the same time, the way the sun was said to do in the far north.

Before them was arrayed the full might of the Lord of the End Times. Daemons of every size and description blocked their path to the artefact, and they surrounded a core of black iron – Archaon, Volker knew, and his Swords of Chaos. ‘There are thousands of them,’ someone muttered. Similar mutters ran through the ranks, and hands tightened on weapons as men and elves faced the army of the End Times.

‘More than that,’ Volker said. If I were still a gambling man, I wouldn’t bet a farthing on our chances, he thought. He felt strangely calm, and wondered whether that was Ulric’s doing, or Alarielle’s.

‘No wonder the vermin ran,’ Gelt said hollowly. ‘I wouldn’t want to get caught in the middle of this either.’ The Incarnate of Metal sounded tired, and Volker knew how he felt. Wherever he looked, there were bloody bandages, bound limbs and exhausted faces.

Volker looked to the Emperor, and saw him sitting rigid in Deathclaw’s saddle, his hammer across his lap. He stared across the cavern, and his face was placid, as if he were deep in thought. That was always his problem, Ulric growled. Too much thinking. What is there to think about? The enemy is here, we are here, there is only one choice. There is no more time for cleverness. There is only time now for blood, steel and will!

As if in reply to the wolf-god’s muttering, Grimgor threw back his head and gave a wild bellow, which drowned out even the raucous howling of the gathered daemonic hosts. The orc spread his arms, and his Immortulz gave voice to their own cries. Then, with a rattle of iron, the greenskins charged. ‘Well, that’s torn it,’ Volker said.

The daemons reacted instantly, surging forwards like a sea of infernal fury to meet the Incarnate of Beasts and his warriors. Bloodletters bounded up, hissing Khorne’s praises; horrors of all hues and shades laughed uproariously and hurled torrents of writhing magic without regard for friend or foe; plaguebearers shambled into battle, pox-blades ready; and the handmaidens of Slaanesh danced in, claws snapping. And behind them all came the greater daemons, driving their lesser manifestations on with lash and bellowed order.

The Emperor lifted Ghal Maraz, and, as one, the Incarnates and their remaining forces started to advance. There was no grand strategy or battle-order. There was only the raw press of the melee, strength against strength, and human muscle and will against daemonic caprice. Volker began to run as, around him, knights galloped into battle. Silver Helms and Dragon Princes joined the charge, shouting out the battle cries of fallen Ulthuan and Caledor. Arrows arced overhead, and Malekith’s dragon uttered a scream of rage and anticipation as it launched itself into the air. The dead bodies of skaven, elves and men lurched past Volker as he ran, stumbling into battle with broken blades and empty fists.

Volker ducked under the slash of a bloodletter’s black blade, and hammered his axe into the daemon’s gut. The creature folded over him, its fiery ichor scorching his armour. He tore the axe loose and turned. There, Ulric snarled. There he is – the thief!

He saw the ragged shape of Teclis chained to a wall across the cavern, and he snarled deep in his throat. Volker hefted his axe and began to lope towards the prisoner. Icy strength flooded his limbs, propelling him faster and faster. Daemons lunged at him out of the press of battle, and he hacked them down. He leapt over the body of a burning elf as a salvo of coruscating sorcery enveloped a number of Malekith’s warriors, and chopped through the gangly arm of a pink horror as it sought to snare him.

As he ran, he saw the orcs crash into the wild, pirouetting daemonettes. The shrieking laughter of the latter rapidly turned to screams as the black orcs proved uninterested in anything save slaughter. Volker was forced to leap aside as the pearlescent hoof of a keeper of secrets slammed down nearby. The daemon strutted into battle against Grimgor. The orc launched himself at the creature with a roar, and his axe smashed down into the distorted, bovine skull, filling the air with ichor. The orc’s roar of triumph followed Volker as he continued on, arrowing towards his prey.

A plaguebearer rose up before him, and he smashed his axe into its bulging side, tearing it out the other in a welter of foulness. The daemon sagged, its blade falling from its rubbery fingers as Volker stepped over it. The air was cold around him. He looked down at Teclis, and said, ‘Hello, thief.’ But it wasn’t his voice. It was the deep, rough growl of the godspark within him. ‘Your debt has come due.’

‘Well, wolf-god, if that is who and what you are,’ Teclis murmured, through bloody lips, ‘I am helpless at last. Your prey hangs before you, throat bared. What will you do?’

Volker glared at him. Everything around him, the noise of the battle behind him, the constant keening wail of the shimmering black sphere at the centre of the cavern, all of it fell away, lost in the howling of wolves. He was cold inside and out, and despite the heat of the cavern, his breath frosted on the air. He raised his axe. Teclis closed his eyes.

Volker hesitated. Teclis cracked one eye. The elf smiled. ‘Then, perhaps I am not your prey after all, despite your howling.’ He grimaced, as a spasm of pain rippled through him. ‘Am I your enemy, Wendel Volker? Or are we at last allies in this last hunt?’

Volker shook his head. He lowered his weapon. The Fauschlag shook, and Volker closed his eyes for a moment as the howling grew too much to bear. In his head, he heard the voice of Gregor Martak. You will not die, Wendel Volker. Not until you have done as I command. ‘No,’ he said, softly, as he looked at Teclis. ‘You are not my quarry.’ He turned. He spotted Archaon, galloping through the press of battle, and Ulric howled within him. Yes, yes!

And then, axe in hand, the last servant of the wolf-god went on the hunt.

Sigmar Unberogen saw the battle as if through a prism – scenes and vignettes of heroism and struggle flashed across his eyes. He saw Malekith, once more astride his dragon, shadows flaring about him like a dark cloak, hurtle into battle against two malevolent lords of change. He saw Alarielle, pale and weak, the world’s pain battering at her body and mind, snare a gambolling beast of Nurgle in a web of thorns and tear it to slimy shreds. He saw Gelt unbind the enchantments that bound together daemonic weapons, and loose swarms of flesh-rending shards to tear scores of daemons apart. He saw Nagash, lurid amethyst fires boiling in his eye sockets, stalk forwards, his spells and legion of corpses driving the enemy before him.

Strange times, he thought, as he watched the liche do battle with the world’s foes. There was a strange sort of nobility there, buried beneath the murk and madness. A will that rivalled his own, a drive for victory that was second to none. Nagash would fight to the end, for he could not countenance defeat. As he watched, the liche swung his blade and opened a bloodthirster’s belly, scattering burning ichor through the air.

Deathclaw’s screech brought him back to himself and Ghal Maraz lashed out, smashing the malformed skull of a plaguebearer. Around him, the remaining members of the Reiksguard fought from horseback, or on foot, as they slowly pushed their way towards the warp-artefact. Sigmar watched as the men – his men – fought on, and thought, once, I would have known your names. I would have known who you were, and we would have shared wine and blood. I do not know you now, and I am sorry.

He jabbed his hammer out, and sent a bolt of cerulean lightning smashing into a pack of flesh hounds as they loped towards Grimgor. The orc was oblivious to his peril, being too occupied with trying to shove his axe down the throat of a great unclean one. The beasts were hurled back, or up into the air, their scaly bodies blackened and broken. Saving an orc, Sigmar thought. What would Alaric say? He smiled. He’d probably be annoyed all of his runefangs have gone missing.

The air throbbed as the artefact at the chamber’s heart pulsed, and as Sigmar turned towards it, he saw it expand to almost four times its previous size. Jagged lesions appeared on its outer skin, spreading like stress fractures in a pane of glass. A brilliant white light shone from the growing wounds, dazzling and painful in its intensity. The Fauschlag gave a sudden, jarring lurch, and Sigmar knew that they were out of time.

Great slabs of rock crashed down from above, pulverising zombies, daemons and even a few luckless elves. Sigmar jerked Deathclaw into motion as he saw Tyrion’s horse go down amidst the rain of debris, its leg broken. The griffon barrelled in with a shriek and snatched both horse and rider out of the path of a stalactite. The elf looked up at Sigmar and nodded his thanks as he and his wounded steed were deposited nearby. Sigmar didn’t waste words on inquiring after the elf’s health. Hurt or not, Tyrion would fight on. He urged Deathclaw back towards the centre of the cavern, hoping he might reach the artefact. Though what I’m going to do when I get there is another matter entirely, he thought, as his hammer crashed down on a bloodletter’s flat skull.

He spotted Malekith as he hurtled through the rain of falling stones, and gestured towards Teclis’s bound form, hoping the Eternity King would understand. There was no way his voice would carry through the cacophony of the collapsing cavern. Fortunately, the Incarnate of Shadow seemed to have grasped his meaning, and he nodded tersely as his dragon wheeled about in the air to swoop towards Teclis, ignoring the rocks which bounced off its scaly hide. Sigmar looked around, trying to spot the other Incarnates.

He saw the great unclean one Grimgor had been attempting to throttle struck by an immense chunk of rock, and it burst under the impact, foetid liquid spurting free from the torn prison of unnatural flesh to spatter all who fought around it. The orc dodged aside at the last moment and now stood alone almost in the centre of the cavern, his Immortulz spread out around him, locked in combat with the fallen daemon’s servitors.

As Grimgor turned towards the light of the sphere, Sigmar saw Archaon, still sitting astride his horse before the artefact, raise a fist. The Swords of Chaos lowered their lances as one, and started forwards. The Chaos knights picked up speed, and soon they were galloping towards the orcs, Archaon at their head.

‘Faster, old friend,’ Sigmar shouted, as Deathclaw lunged. But even as the griffon careened towards the centre of the cavern, Sigmar knew he would be too late. Grimgor caught sight of Archaon and roared in delight. The orc charged to meet the oncoming knights, his bodyguard loping alongside him. The greenskins crashed into Archaon’s warriors and carnage ensued. Grimgor beheaded a horse with a wild blow, and dragged a knight from his saddle as the man sought to ride past.

The Incarnate of Beasts swung the hapless Chaos knight like a bludgeon, battering at the latter’s comrades with more enthusiasm than accuracy. He hurled the limp body aside and whirled to meet the charge of the Lord of the End Times. Archaon bore down on the orc, intending to ride him under, but Grimgor was too fast. He slid aside, avoiding the thrashing hooves of the hell-steed, and lunged at its rider. His axe slammed into Archaon’s shield, buckling it and knocking the Three-Eyed King from the saddle.

Sigmar felt a thrill of hope as he watched the orc stalk towards the fallen Everchosen. Of all of them, he had thought the brute the least likely to strike the killing blow. But fate, it seemed, had other plans.

‘I will not be felled by a beast,’ Archaon snarled, his voice carrying over the clamour of battle. He surged to his feet, even as Grimgor reached him. ‘I am Archaon, and I am the end made flesh,’ he shouted. He slashed out, nearly opening the orc’s belly. ‘What do you say to that, animal?’

‘Grimgor says shut up and die,’ the orc roared. Axe crashed against sword, as the brute hurled himself at Archaon with wild abandon. Back and forth, they reeled through the melee, trading blows that would have felled dozens of lesser opponents. The orc’s axe scored red lines across Archaon’s armour, and Archaon’s blade drew blood again and again.

Finally, axe met sword and the two weapons became tangled, and their wielders strained against one another, using every ounce of strength that they possessed to hold their ground against their foe. For a long moment they stood, head to head, the Lord of the End Times and the Once and Future Git, the Three-Eyed King and the Boss of the East. Then, with a guffaw, Grimgor’s skull crashed against Archaon’s helm. Sigmar saw the strange, flickering gemstone set in the Everchosen’s helmet shatter, and realised that Archaon was the Three-Eyed King no more. The Everchosen would have to make do with the two he’d been born with – what was left of the Eye of Sheerian speckled the broad expanse of Grimgor’s brow.

The blow broke the stalemate, and the two warriors staggered apart. Archaon reached up to touch the crumpled face of his helm, and he howled in rage. A strange energy suddenly illuminated the blade of his sword and rippled up his arm, and then he was striding in with liquid grace. Grimgor met his advance, and each time they traded blows, black lightning streaked from the point of impact, until at last the orc’s axe succumbed and shivered apart in his hands. The orc staggered back, eyes bulging.

He didn’t stay off balance for long, however, and he tossed aside the remains of the useless weapon and leapt for Archaon, hands reaching for the Everchosen’s throat. Archaon rolled into the collision, and his sword’s point erupted from between Grimgor’s shoulder blades in an explosion of blood. The orc staggered, and slumped with a guttural sigh. His thick fingers clawed uselessly at Archaon’s cuirass as he slid to the ground, and a writhing amber haze rose from his form, to coalesce briefly in the air before collapsing into wisps of light which were drawn towards the shimmering void growing within the warp-artefact.

Grimgor’s warriors uttered a communal howl of fury as their boss fell, and flung themselves at the Swords of Chaos with redoubled ferocity. Archaon beheaded one as the orc clawed at him, and turned to meet Sigmar’s gaze as the latter leaned forwards in Deathclaw’s saddle. The griffon hurtled across the cavern, the Reiksguard galloping in his wake. Behind him, Sigmar heard the death-scream of a dragon, but he could not afford to take his eyes off his enemy. ‘Archaon,’ he roared. ‘Face me, Destroyer.’

Chaos knights hurriedly interposed themselves, and died beneath Deathclaw’s talons. Sigmar smashed Ghal Maraz down on upraised shields and shattered thrusting swords. Axes and swords hacked into the griffon’s limbs and flanks, and its shrieks of pain and rage filled Sigmar’s ears, but he could not afford to retreat, not now, and never again. He caught sight of elves and zombies to either side of him, fighting against the daemons that sought to envelop his desperate spearhead. He heard the crackle of magics, and saw screeching daemons evaporate as they swooped towards him.

Deathclaw gave a great shudder and lunged with a heart-wrenching cry, to slam into a rearing steed. Sigmar was flung from the saddle, as was the rider of the horse, and as he rose to his feet, he saw that he was face to face with Archaon.

Sparks flew as Ghal Maraz smashed against the Slayer of Kings. Lightning rippled along the hammer’s rune-etched head, vying with the dark fire that swirled about the Everchosen’s daemon-blade. Nearby, Deathclaw and Archaon’s steed fought savagely, and the rocky ground was spattered with blood and ichor as the two animals clawed and bit one another. ‘I beat you once, follower of lies,’ Archaon roared, thrusting out a hand. ‘I ripped your lightning from you, and shattered your last redoubt, and I will do it again…’

Sigmar grinned fiercely as nothing happened. Blood streaked his face and beard, but he felt no weakness. Not now. He batted Archaon’s hand aside and slammed Ghal Maraz down on the Everchosen’s pauldron, knocking him back. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’ he said. He thrust the hammer forwards like a spear and caught Archaon in the chest. ‘Take my lightning, Everchosen.’

Archaon staggered back. ‘I – what?’

Sigmar tapped his own brow. ‘We’re on an equal footing now, boy. Just me and you.’ He swung the hammer again, and Archaon barely parried it. Each punishing blow bled into the one that followed and Sigmar pushed his opponent back, until Archaon slashed at him, gouging his armour and cutting the flesh beneath. Behind him, the warp-artefact gave another blinding pulse, and the cracks in its surface grew wider. He heard Deathclaw utter a shrill cry, and saw the griffon fall, tangled with Archaon’s mount in its death-throes. The latter gave voice to a final whinny before Deathclaw’s talons tore out its throat, and then both beasts were still. Sadness swept through him as he bashed Archaon’s sword aside and drove his hammer into the Everchosen’s cuirass, turning one of the skull tokens hanging there to powder.

The griffon had known he wasn’t its master, though he wore the man’s skin. It had served him regardless, and it had served him well. He had not known Karl Franz, though he wished he had. That the beast had loved him so, enough to fight on as it had, spoke well of the Emperor. Scattered memories, not his own but those of the body he had taken possession of, filled his mind, and he saw the Imperial Zookeeper hand over an egg to a youth on the edge of manhood. He saw the first faltering steps of the cub, as Karl Franz fed it morsels from his own fingers. And he saw their first battle, and felt a savage joy as the griffon defended the body of its wounded master. I am sorry, he thought. I am sorry for it all.

‘You will fall here,’ Sigmar said, fighting for breath. His strength was ebbing. ‘Whatever else happens, you will fall.’ He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet, and he saw that the warp-artefact was no more – it had been completely consumed by the swirling void it had given birth to. The roiling surface of the sphere ate away at the cavern around it, and a crackling, empty void of white was left in place of the churned rock. His heart sank.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Archaon said. ‘Nothing matters. I’ve won. This world will burn, and something better will rise from the ashes.’ He launched a flurry of blows that Sigmar was hard-pressed to block. He was moving slower now, and the entire right side of his armour was slippery with his own blood. Archaon didn’t seem to tire, but Sigmar, for all his power, knew he wasn’t so lucky. His heartbeat hammered in his ears and his lungs burned, but despite it all, despite the danger, he knew he wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.

This is where I was meant to be, he thought. Despite the fury of battle, he was calm. This is my reason for living, this is why I was born. This moment is mine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a white-furred shape lope towards him, and he smiled. Hello, old wolf. You told me once I would come to a bad end, and here we are.

Archaon’s sword slipped past his flagging guard and smashed into his cuirass. Sigmar fell back, off balance. He struck the ground hard, and Ghal Maraz was jolted from his hand. He stared up at Archaon, as the latter lifted his blade in both hands.

‘To think, they believed that you could save them,’ Archaon said.

‘To think, I once thought you might do that yourself,’ Sigmar said. Archaon hesitated. Sigmar smiled sadly. ‘Diederick Kastner, son of a daughter of the Empire. You could have been the sword that swept my land free of Chaos forever. In a better world, perhaps you have. But here and now, you are nothing more than another petty warlord.’

‘You know nothing about me,’ Archaon said, still holding his sword aloft.

‘I know you. I saw you born and I saw you die, again and again. I saw your soul twisted all out of shape by the honeyed words of daemons, and I saw you turn your back on me. I saw and I wept, for you, and for what I knew you would do.’

Archaon lowered his blade. ‘No…’

‘You made yourself a pawn of prophecy,’ Sigmar said. ‘You set your feet on this path. The daemons helped, but it was you who walked into the darkness. It was you who fled the light, Diederick.’

‘You are not Sigmar. The gods are all dead, and he was a lie,’ Archaon grated.

‘Are they dead, or are they a lie? Make up your mind,’ Sigmar said. He could see Ghal Maraz’s haft, just out of the corner of his eye. He stretched a hand towards it.

‘You are lying,’ Archaon roared. He lifted his sword, but before he could bring it down, there was a flash of white fur, and then Wendel Volker was there. Axe and sword connected with a screech, and the former exploded in its owner’s hands. Volker staggered, and Archaon’s sword chopped down, through his shoulder and into his chest. Archaon tore his blade free and the Reiksguard fell. Sigmar rolled over and reached for the hammer, but Archaon kicked it aside. ‘No! No more distractions. No more lies,’ Archaon howled. ‘You die now, and your Empire dies with you.’ He made to move after Sigmar, but something stopped him. Sigmar looked down, and saw Volker clinging to Archaon’s legs.

‘I told you once, Everchosen. When a wolf bites, he does not let go,’ Volker croaked. ‘And I told you that you would die here, whatever else.’ Archaon looked down in obvious shock, and Volker grinned up at him. ‘This is my city, man, and you will not take it!’ Ice began to spread across Archaon’s greaves, and he roared in anger and pain as the cold gnawed at him. Then the Slayer of Kings flashed down, and Wendel Volker, bearer of the godspark of Ulric, was no more.

Sigmar saw Volker slump, and heard, deep in his mind, the death-howl of the god he had worshipped in his youth. He had no time to mourn, for even as Archaon tore his blade free of the body of the last of the Reiksguard, the Everchosen pivoted and brought the howling daemon-blade down. But Volker and Ulric’s sacrifice had given him the time he needed to recover, and call up the lightning that was again his to command.

Sigmar thrust his hands up, and felt the blade crash against his palms. Lightning crackled between flesh and the hungry bite of tainted steel, and Sigmar slowly closed his fingers tight about the blade. Then he pushed himself erect, driving Archaon back with every step. The Everchosen tried to push back, but the Emperor was too strong.

And then, with a scream that was of joy as much as it was of pain, the Slayer of Kings shattered in Sigmar’s grip. Archaon reeled as smoking shards of the daemon-blade tore into his armour. Blinded, dazed, he stumbled back. Sigmar lunged forwards and drove his fist into Archaon’s featureless helm, buckling the metal, and driving him back, over the precipice, and into the maelstrom of shadows.

Archaon, Lord of the End Times, vanished into the darkness.

Twenty-One

The Depths of the Fauschlag

Sigmar shoved himself to his feet and, Ghal Maraz in hand, backed away. The sphere shuddered like a sick animal. A moment later, it shattered and collapsed in on itself, leaving a swirling rift of energy in its place. The white had become black, and it hurt Sigmar’s eyes to look upon it. Howling winds sprang up, buffeting all those who remained in the chamber and pulling them towards the writhing void. Sigmar saw that he and the other Incarnates, along with Teclis, were the only living beings in the cavern; every elf and human who’d descended into the depths with them was dead. Sadness warred with relief. Better death than what would have awaited them in the void. The powers of the Incarnates protected them from the energies now filling the cavern, but mortals would have been swept away within moments of the rift’s explosion.

All around him, the remaining daemons began to shudder and come apart. Their flesh ran like melted wax, and they were pulled, drop by drop, into the maw of the void. The fitful pulses which had marked the sphere were gone, replaced by an ominous rumble whose intensity grew with every passing moment. Sigmar turned away from the rift and began to force his way towards the other Incarnates, fighting the pull of the wind with every step.

The rock beneath his feet ran like water in a whirlpool, its hue and shape changing from one second to the next. Leering faces formed in the shifting stone, and vanished as soon as he looked at them. All around the chamber, the laws of nature were coming undone as the raw stuff of Chaos leaked into the world through the rift.

‘We were too late,’ Malekith snarled as Sigmar reached them. The Eternity King had to shout to be heard over the wind. He supported Teclis, and one of the mage’s arms was flung over his shoulder.

‘No,’ Gelt shouted. ‘No, we have not lost, not yet.’

‘What can we do?’ Alarielle screamed. She leaned against Tyrion, and Sigmar could tell from her face that she felt every single one of the torturous changes the cavern was undergoing. ‘It is but a trickle now, but it is growing stronger with every passing moment. We cannot hope to contain it!’

‘WE MUST. WE WILL,’ Nagash thundered, facing the void. ‘THIS WORLD IS MINE. NAGASH WILL NOT FALL. NAGASH CANNOT DIE. I WILL NOT. NOT AGAIN.’

‘He’s right,’ Sigmar said. He looked at Teclis. ‘If we combine our magics, as we did against the warpflame barrier, will it be enough?’

‘I – I do not know,’ Teclis said, shaking his head. The elf struggled to stand on his own, and pushed away from Malekith. He held his staff and leaned against it. ‘The Winds of Aqshy and Ghur, they are lost…’

‘They are not lost,’ Tyrion said. ‘I – we – can all feel them still. They are here, with us.’ He looked at his brother. ‘We must try, brother. Else what was it all for?’

Teclis stared at his brother in silence for a moment, his robes rippling in the shrieking wind. Then he nodded. ‘You are right, brother. You are always right.’

‘Except when I’m wrong?’ Tyrion said, smiling.

‘Even then,’ Teclis said, grinning. He shook his head. ‘You know what to do. The winds know their task, and they will guide you in the doing of it. I will try to bend Ghur and Aqshy to it as well. Even without hosts, they will be of some use.’

Sigmar looked at the others, and then, as one, they spread out, moving to the edge of the void. As they approached the roaring maelstrom, each Incarnate summoned the last vestiges of their power, and flung it forth, seeking to cage the uncageable. Sigmar groaned as the lightning crackled from him to spend its fury on the swirling rift. The void sought to draw the power from him, as Archaon had done at Averheim, and it took every ounce of his remaining strength to prevent it. He clutched Ghal Maraz in both hands and drew the lightning tight, focusing his will through the ancient hammer.

He saw Teclis set his staff, at the centre of the line, and begin to draw the Winds of Fire and Beasts into himself. He was not a suitable host for either, let alone both, and the winds struggled against him. Sigmar watched helplessly as the elf’s flesh began to boil and peel. What Teclis was attempting was a death sentence, but they had no other choice. Our lives for that of the world. That’s a fair bargain, he thought. He gritted his teeth against a sudden surge of pain. A light was growing in the chamber, as each of the winds was pitted against the audient void. And then, against all probability, the rift began to shrink.

We’re doing it, Sigmar thought. Gods of my fathers, wherever you are now, help us last just a little longer. Give us all strength. His body shuddered, and he felt as if the meat of him might separate from his bones. Smoke rose from the head of Ghal Maraz as he poured bolt after bolt of celestial lightning into the yawning abyss.

Something flickered, just out of the corner of his eye. He twitched his head to the side, and his eyes widened as he saw a familiar shape detach itself from the dark at the edges of the cavern and rush forwards silently. Sigmar flung out his hand. ‘No!’

Balthasar Gelt turned at Sigmar’s cry, but his reply was lost as Mannfred von Carstein’s sword erupted from his chest. The wizard was lifted off his feet by the vampire’s blow, and a beam of golden light sprang from his limp frame and vanished soundlessly into the void. ‘Mine,’ Mannfred howled. ‘The power will be mine. Even as this world is mine.’

Teclis, seeing the loss of Chamon, stretched out a hand, as if to grasp the Wind of Metal and haul it back from the abyss, but the effort was too much for him. Sigmar watched in horror as Teclis of Cothique, High Loremaster of Ulthuan, was ripped apart by the triumvirate of magical winds, and reduced to swirling ash. Even as Teclis perished, the rift gave an ear-splitting shriek and, in a flare of inky black light, tore free of the Incarnates’ control. Sigmar was flung back across the cavern, and he struck the ground hard. The other Incarnates had suffered similar fates, or had retreated at the first convulsion of the rift.

As Sigmar picked himself up, he saw that only Mannfred and Nagash were left standing next to the rift, and the vampire gesticulated at the liche, his feral features twisting in triumph. ‘Vlad told me to pick a side, and I have, master. Better to be the right hand of anarchy, than the slave of Nagash. Walach was right, the blood-soaked fool. Aye, and Kemmler as well. You are nothing but a disease, Nagash… a plague on all the world, and with this power, I shall drive your midnight soul into the void forever. And it shall be me who rules this world, and rides its corpse into eternity. The world shall have a new Undying King, and you shall be forgotten!’

The vampire spun towards the rift, and, as Teclis had, he thrust out his hands, as if to draw the winds to him. Instead, however, it was the raw substance of the rift which answered his call. It washed over him, and Mannfred’s laughter degenerated into a scream as he staggered back, his flesh smoking.

The rift flared and Sigmar added his screams to those of Mannfred, as did all of the remaining Incarnates. The void tore the winds loose from their hosts and drew them into itself. Sigmar thrashed as the celestial magics of Azyr were dragged from him a second time, and sucked into the nightmare abyss. He collapsed, his body trembling, and his strength gone. He saw the other Incarnates fall, one by one.

Nagash was the last. For long moments, the Undying King stood unbowed against the howling void and his own dissolution, as the magics that had given him form slowly unravelled. He fought against the void, as if determined to wrench back the Wind of Death through sheer will. Then, at last, the Great Necromancer threw back his head and screamed desolately one final time before he suffered Teclis’s fate and was torn apart by the swirling energies.

As the ashes of his former master were swept into the void, Mannfred staggered blindly away from the rift, clawing at his seared flesh. He ranted and railed in a language Sigmar did not recognise, and called out for people who were not there. Sigmar tried to push himself to his feet, but he lacked the strength. He heard the scrape of steel on stone, and turned to see Tyrion lurch to his feet, sword in hand.

Mannfred did not notice Tyrion’s approach until the last moment, and as he whirled, fangs agape, Tyrion slammed his sword up through the vampire’s belly and into his black heart. Mannfred screamed and clawed at Tyrion’s arms as the elf lifted him off his feet. Sunfang flared as the magics forged into the blade awoke, and Mannfred thrashed as he burned to ashes from inside out. Tyrion jerked his blade free, and what was left of Mannfred von Carstein collapsed into ashes, to join those of Teclis and Nagash in the void.

As Tyrion stepped back, the cavern gave a great crack. The walls shifted and sickly yellow blood dripped down from the cracks. Vast sections of the cavern floor fell away, into nothingness. Boulders and stalactites fell like rain. Sigmar looked up as a great spill of rock tumbled down towards the Everqueen, and he shouted to Tyrion, who whirled about, but too late. The Everqueen would have perished there, had Malekith not lunged forward and thrown her clear, towards Tyrion’s reaching arms. The Eternity King vanished amidst the thundering downpour of rock a moment later.

Sigmar shoved himself to his feet, and took a staggering step towards the fallen rocks. If there was even a chance that Malekith might be saved, he intended to try. But as he drew close to the expanding edge of the rift, a dark shape rose out of the void and smashed into him.

He turned as Archaon lurched into him, the Everchosen’s fingers scrabbling for his throat. The Lord of the End Times roared incoherently as he battered at Sigmar, his words lost in the howl emanating from the ever-expanding rift. Sigmar smashed him down with Ghal Maraz, but he was on his feet a moment later, reaching out to grab the haft of the hammer. The two men struggled for a moment on the edge of the void.

Then, they were gone, lost amidst the swirling darkness.

Epilogue

Autumn 2528

Neferata stalked through the ruins of Middenheim, as the world died around her, and wondered why she had come. She had left the uncertain safety of Sylvania, left her new kingdom in the hands of her greatest rival and only friend, Khalida, and made for the certain doom of Middenheim. She had flown through the tortured skies, urging her abyssal steed on to greater and greater speed for reasons she could not articulate. Her armour was scorched and scarred, and wounds marked her flesh, but she felt no pain. There was no more time for pain, or fear, or anything save sadness. She looked up, and watched the sky burn. Her steed screeched in agitation where it crouched on the northern gatehouse.

You were right, Khalida, she thought. It is the end, and nothing we have done means anything any more. All our petty grievances and spiteful schemes are as dust before the doom that is coming to claim us all.

A whimper caught her attention and she turned, seeking out its source. She saw a woman, clad in ruined armour, crouched nearby, amongst rubble and the bodies of elves, dwarfs and northmen. Neferata sniffed, smelling Vlad’s blood on the woman. She moved towards her, sword in hand. The woman had been beautiful once, and might have been again, if there had been time.

‘But there is no time,’ Neferata said, softly. ‘There is no time.’ The end had come and gone, and all that was left now was for the carrion birds. She could feel it on the air and beneath her feet. She looked down at the woman, pondering. Then, hesitantly, she stretched out a hand.

‘Her name is Isabella.’

Neferata whirled, her heart thudding in her chest. Arkhan the Black staggered towards her, through the smoke and fire, leaning on his staff, his ragged robes swirling about him. When he reached them, the liche looked down at Isabella. ‘Vlad must have saved her somehow. He was always a determined fool.’

‘Not a fool,’ Neferata said softly. She sank down and cradled Isabella, as if the other woman were a child. ‘Just a man.’ She looked up at him. ‘You survived.’

‘I did. Thanks to Settra.’

‘Settra,’ Neferata said, unable to believe her ears. She shook her head, dismissing the thought, and asked, ‘Nagash?’

Arkhan extended his hand. Neferata’s eyes widened, as she took in the slow dissolution of Arkhan’s skeletal fingers. ‘The Undying King is gone, and his magics with him. Soon, I will join him. The Incarnates have failed, and the world is coming undone beneath our feet.’

Neferata looked up. ‘We will all join him. The world is done,’ she said. Isabella whimpered, and Neferata murmured comforting nothings to her. ‘All our striving, all our pain… for what?’

Arkhan was silent for a moment. He looked down at her and then placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘For the chance at something better,’ he said. He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. ‘Do you feel it, Neferata?’

She jerked her hand away. ‘Feel what?’

‘One last roll of the dice,’ Arkhan said.

‘Spoken like a gambler,’ Neferata said. She hugged Isabella close and stroked the whimpering vampire’s matted hair. Crimson tears rolled down her cheeks and plopped into the dust. Arkhan reached out and wiped them away, before he turned away, to face the growling dark that crept through the streets towards them. ‘The End is here, my queen. The all-consuming black fire of the empty spaces between worlds. I see it, even as Nagash must have seen it. It will devour the world, bit by bit, until nothing is left. Until our world, our history, is but dust on the cosmic wind. When they have finished toying with the remains, the Ruinous Powers shall turn away. They will turn their attentions to other worlds, other times, and it will be as if we never existed.’ Arkhan extended his hand without looking at her. She took it, and he hauled her to her feet. She still held Isabella. The city trembled around them, and a strange light rose from the cracks in the street.

‘But I see something else, in the void… I see a figure, shining with the power of light and the heavens, swimming through the dark, determined to stir the embers of our passing and free the seeds of a new world, and new life,’ Arkhan went on, his rasping, creaking voice filled with something she thought might be wonder. He touched his chest, and she saw a light shimmering through the rents in his robes. He glanced at her. ‘There may yet be hope, though that word feels strange to say.’ He looked down at his chest, and touched a black mark on his robes, in the shape of a hand. ‘I thought she had cursed me, but I think she knew, in the end, that it would come to this. I see a figure, small in the darkness, but it will grow stronger, and I will help, even as oblivion claims me.’

Neferata looked at him. Questions danced through her mind, but she could not speak. She wanted to tell him to abandon whatever mad fancy had seized him. She wanted to tell him that her powers might sustain him, that together, they could hold off the end of everything. But the words turned to ash on her tongue. Arkhan turned fully towards her, and caught her chin in his crumbling fingers.

‘Run, Neferata. Run and perhaps you may yet outrun the end. Perhaps you may survive, to flourish with those seeds of life I will help plant in the world to come. Run to Sylvania, fly back to our people, and lead them, in these final hours. Lead them into death, and into the new life the old gods of the sands once promised us.’

‘Arkhan…’ Neferata murmured. She caught his hand, and kissed his mouldering bones, and then stepped back. ‘I will lead them.’

‘I will buy you what time I can. It will not be much, but it will be all that I can give. Go, quickly,’ Arkhan said, turning back to face the destruction. Neferata turned without another word and ran, Isabella cradled to her chest. Behind her, Arkhan extended his arms, as if he might bar the doom of all the world through sheer determination. Amethyst energy crackled along his bones and leaked out through the cracks in the same. His robes flapped about him as he lifted his staff high, and spat the words to every spell and incantation he knew that might hold back the tidal wave of destruction.

She could almost imagine him smiling, in those last few moments as she fled Middenheim on the back of her abyssal steed. A flash of purple from behind her and the crack of splitting air told her of his fate, and she closed her eyes to weep for the only man she had ever loved.

The world died around her, as she fled. Middenheim fell first, consumed by the nightmare forces awakened in its depths. The hungry darkness crept outwards from the void where the Fauschlag had once stood, and crawled across Middenland, consuming the Middle Mountains and the Drakwald. It was at once empty and full of squirming, abominable shapes, like vast serpents or the writhing tendrils of some immense, unseen kraken. Riots of colour and sound filled it, only to vanish and reappear. The keening of a thousand daemons washed across the stricken land ahead of it.

Beastmen stampeded out of the Drakwald in their thousands, fleeing before a doom that called out to them, even as it drove them mad with fear. Neferata saw them below her as she flew, vast hordes of panicked animals, and the Children of Chaos were soon joined by others – humans, orcs and even ogres, all fleeing before a doom they could not understand, and had no hope of escaping.

The darkness grew, devouring one province and then the next, over the course of the days and weeks that followed. Talabecland vanished, and then the Reikland, swallowed up by the cacophonous void birthed in the heart of Middenheim. Averland fell next, and then the others, one by one. In their mountain holds, the remaining dwarf clans saw nothing of the end, and would not have fled, even if they had.

The Grey Mountains crumbled, and even its staunchest defenders could not prevent the wave of desolation from washing over what remained of the kingdom of Bretonnia. The great forest of Athel Loren vanished, as if it had never been. The new-born over-empire of the skaven followed, and no burrow was deep enough to hide the scurrying hordes of terrified ratmen from obliteration.

The world shuddered down to its roots as it was consumed. In Sylvania, what was left of the peasantry, as well as refugees from Averland and the Moot, sought safety in the ruins of Castle Sternieste, where the dead made ready to protect them as best they could. By the time Neferata reached her lands, the sky had gone black from horizon to horizon.

Her abyssal steed smashed into the battlements of Sternieste, its form wreathed in smoke. It groaned and shuddered as Neferata hauled Isabella off its twisted form, and lifted the nearly comatose vampire up. Her retainers met her on the battlements, their eyes wide with fear. ‘Mistress, what–?’ one began.

‘The end,’ Neferata snarled. ‘Where is Khalida? Where are the liche-priests? Where are the necromancers? Summon them all! Gather them here, so that we might–’

‘We might what, cousin? Escape our fate, one last time?’

Neferata turned, and saw Khalida, once High Queen of Lybaras, and once her cousin, standing nearby, staring out at the encroaching darkness. Even now, her thin limbs wrapped in crumbling wrappings and her ceremonial vestments tarnished with age and battle, she was the very image of a queen. Neferata snarled in frustration. ‘And you would meet it gladly, then?’ She shook her head. ‘I will not go like a sheep to slaughter. Not now, not ever.’

‘You speak as if we had a choice, cousin,’ Khalida said.

‘There is always a choice,’ Neferata began, but the words died in her throat as she saw the distant shape of the great bone wall raised by Mannfred in the year before Nagash’s resurrection crumble like sand. The darkness swept over it, and Sylvania shuddered like a dying beast. Below, in the courtyard, the surviving humans screamed and wept in fear. Neferata shook her head. ‘Too late,’ she muttered. She looked down at Isabella and kissed the other vampire on the brow. ‘I am sorry, little one. I was not fast enough.’

‘Yes,’ Khalida said. She turned towards Neferata. ‘Time has caught up with us at last, cousin. The Great Land is dead, and soon we will join it.’

Neferata laughed sadly. ‘Maybe it is past time. But I will not do so cowering in a hole.’ She looked at her cousin and smiled. ‘We are queens, cousin. We are daughters of the Great Land, which was old when the world was young. Let us die in a manner befitting our station.’ She extended a hand. ‘Will you join me, Khalida?’

Khalida stared at the proffered hand, and, after a moment of hesitation, took it. Down below, the warriors of Lybaras, Khemri, and Sylvania raised their shields, as if bronze and steel might be enough to resist the destruction sweeping towards them. Frightened humans cowered behind skeletal warriors and armoured vampires, seeking protection from those they had once feared.

And then, the final darkness swept the last of the old world away.

The world came apart and the hungry dark stretched out towards the stars, unsated. The raw stuff of Chaos consumed the heavens in an orgy of uncreation. Stars flickered out one by one, until only darkness remained. It might have taken moments, or millennia, but the Dark Gods were not bound by the flow of time, and did not mark its passage.

But even as the ashes of the shattered world settled in the void, the powers and principalities of Chaos moved away, already bored by their triumph. The four great powers turned upon one another, as they always did, and mustered their forces for war. The Great Game began again, on new worlds, and the Dark Gods broke off from the swirling void at last. Had they not done so, they might have noticed a mote of light, within the dark.

The tiny pinprick of light tumbled through the dark. It had once been a man, though it had forgotten its name. It fell for what might have been centuries, until it came to a shard of the world that had been. Desperate, it reached out and caught hold of the shard with a grip that could shatter mountains, saving itself from the storm of nothingness.

As it slumped, exhausted, thought and memory returned, and soon, its strength as well. And with strength came memory – a name. And with that name came purpose. Gathering what remained of his strength, he stretched out a hand.

And then a miracle took shape in the void…

About the Authors

Josh Reynolds is the author of 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, and the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm. In the Warhammer world, he has written The End Times: The Return of Nagash, 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 Sheffield.

Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Scars, the novella Brotherhood of the Storm and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Wolves novels Blood of Asaheim and Stormcaller, and the short story collection Wolves of Fenris, as well as the Space Marine Battles novels Wrath of Iron and Battle of the Fang. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, including the Time of Legends novel Master of Dragons, which forms part of the War of Vengeance series. Chris lives and works near Bristol, in south-west England.

Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Deliverance Lost, as well as the novellas Corax: Soulforge, Ravenlord and The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs. He is particularly well-known for his Dark Angels stories, including the Legacy of Caliban series, and the ever-popular novel Angels of Darkness. His Warhammer 40,000 repertoire further includes the Path of the Eldar series, the Horus Heresy audio dramas Raven’s Flight and Honour to the Dead, and a multiplicity of short stories. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering, and much more besides. He lives and works in Nottingham.

Guy Haley is the author of Space Marine Battles: Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

The Return of Nagash first published in 2014.
The Fall of Altdorf first published in 2014.
The Curse of Khaine first published in 2014.
The Rise of the Horned Rat first published in 2015.
The Lord of the End Times first published in 2015.
This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover artwork by Paul Dainton.
Map artwork by John Michelbach.
Internal artwork by Alex Boyd, Paul Dainton, Mark Holmes and Slawomir Maniak.

Warhammer: The End Times Collection © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Warhammer: The End Times Collection, The End Times, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, 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: 978-1-78251-997-3

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.