Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

More rat ogres closed in, driven from behind the ranked war machines by the whips of their masters. The brutes had been freed from their chains and even now most of them were running headlong towards what remained of the front ranks of the undead army. W’soran dashed past them, avoiding a casual swipe from one of the closest.

Even as he moved, W’soran saw the skaven war-engine fire again. Crackling green light burst into being and washed over the undead ranks, dissolving bone and melting ancient armour to slag. The advantage had been taken from them in an instant. W’soran saw Rudek and the other Strigoi loping towards the party of skaven on the nearest machine’s platform. Rudek was no fool, despite his swaggering manner. He knew as well as W’soran that that weapon signified a quick defeat for the Strigoi, unless they could put it out of commission.

W’soran moved quickly after the Strigoi. Possibilities and potentialities rushed through his head as he ran. Among the skaven on that platform was one whose fur was not brown or black but a filthy off-white, and W’soran knew enough to know what that implied. The Strigoi reached the platform and bounded across it. Two heavy-bodied rat ogres, who stood to either side of the group of skaven, lumbered forward to meet the vampires with massive mattocks clutched in their paws. Unlike the scarred and chained brutes he had just avoided, these were well-fed and armoured. They were likely bodyguards or pets of some description.

The Strigoi closed with the beasts, looking like hounds going after bears. Rudek dived past them, heading for the skaven. W’soran cleared the edge of the engine platform even as Rudek removed a burly skaven’s head with a casual backhand. More black-furred creatures closed in, striking at the Strigoi with halberds. Rudek weaved around the blows, and his sword looped out, repaying them in kind.

The white-furred ratkin watched the Strigoi butcher its guards with visible disdain. It was a tall creature, and clad in colourful, if filthy, robes. Heavy horns curled from either side of its skull, and its eyes glowed with a terrible, easily recognisable green hue. By all rights, the creature should have fled by now, W’soran thought — instead, it seemed to be eager for the confrontation. Almost languidly, the skaven raised a paw and gestured.

Green fire boiled from its palm and seared a black scar across Rudek’s shoulder. He screamed and flopped over backwards, clutching at the smoking wound. W’soran stabbed his scimitar into the slimy wood of the platform and laughed. The skaven turned, energy leaking from its eyes and mouth. One hand was full of abn-i-khat, which it hurriedly shoved into its mouth as he approached.

‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘I expected as much. They eat it, you know.’ He directed the last towards Rudek, who hissed at him. W’soran gestured absently, his eyes on the white skaven. ‘Oh yes, my yes, they eat it, they secrete, and bathe in it for all I know. It provides them with the energy for their magics as well, even as it dissolves them from the inside. Foolish little beasts…’

The skaven snarled and gestured sharply. Green fire washed towards W’soran and he slashed his arms out, dispersing it with barely a twinge of effort. ‘They are quite powerful, though, in the right circumstances. Facing an unprepared opponent, for instance,’ W’soran continued, stepping between Rudek and the skaven.

More green flame, darker this time, and hotter. Green foam bubbled from the creature’s mouth, and its eyes bulged as it thrust both hands forward. Its claws had blackened and its flesh was peeling. Thin cracks of green had appeared in its skin, showing easily through its patchy fur.

It was powerful, but not so much that it was a threat. Another shrieking burst and W’soran’s own magics deflected the energy, sending it curling towards the Strigoi and the rat ogres. All died, consumed by the weird flames. W’soran chuckled. ‘Yes, quite strong. It’ll be dead soon though. You can always tell when their skin begins to crack and flake like that. It’s burning up from the inside out.’

The war-engine shuddered. W’soran’s eye flicked upwards. The massive chunk of abn-i-khat mounted in the weapon seemed to be reacting with the white skaven’s magics. The stone was unstable at the best of times, but right now it was smoking and sparking. The dull internal glow that it always seemed to have had brightened to an almost blinding degree.

Calculations rattled through his skull. The simplest solution was invariably the best. He lunged forward through green fire and wrapped his claws in the skaven’s robes. It squealed in fear for the first time as W’soran swung it easily into the air. Its stunted body radiated a strange, unnerving heat, and his flesh puckered and steamed as he drew the creature over his head. He met its wide-eyed gaze and exposed his fangs. ‘I have a theory. Let us test it together, eh?’

Then he hurled the screaming skaven towards the glowing chunk of stone.

The explosion, when it occurred, was far from disappointing. The top of the war-engine erupted in a gout of fiery emerald. The upper mechanisms toppled, smoking, and smashed into those of the next engine in line. Further explosions ran down through its frame in a massive chain reaction, torn apart by the very thing they had used to deal destruction. Fire washed past him without touching him. W’soran watched in satisfaction as blistering, emerald smoke filled the cavern, thrown up by the explosion. He could hear the rumble of collapsing stone and the squeals of the skaven as their victory was snatched from them. He turned to Rudek. ‘I see you still live,’ he said.

Rudek grimaced and made to sit up. He was healing slowly. The touch of the abn-i-khat was deadly even to a vampire. ‘I suppose you have proven your use yet again, sorcerer.’ He grinned weakly. ‘Vorag’s concubine will be displeased.’

‘Will she now?’ W’soran said mildly. Inwardly, however, he was seething. That damnable witch! Lupa Stregga — one of Neferata’s harlots — clung to Vorag’s cloak, whispering in his ear and guiding him. She had done so since before the Bloodytooth had decided to remove himself from Mourkain; indeed, W’soran suspected that she was the reason for Vorag’s rebellion against Ushoran. As ever, when something went wrong, Neferata could be found at the heart of it. A queen-spider, crouching in her web, weaving plots and schemes to trap all the little flies… but there were flies, and then there were flies. She’d bitten off more than she could chew with Ushoran.

For a moment, he was again back in the black pyramid of Kadon, around which the city of Mourkain had sprouted like gangrene in a wound. He was again in that moment, that split-second moment when the ghost of Alcadizzar, the last Prince of Rasetra, had been drawn from his ignoble tomb by sorcerous hooks and forced to relinquish the black crown he held to Ushoran. He saw it all, like a phantom pantomime occurring across the surface of his mind. Mourkain had been built on Alcadizzar’s bones and the ghost of the crown — Nagash’s crown — had drawn them all there. All of them — Ushoran, Abhorash, Neferata and even he himself — had felt its malevolent pull. It spoke to them, whispered sweet nothings into their skulls and promised eternity.

But it had spoken to Ushoran strongest of all, apparently. And now, the crown had him. It rode him the way the Strigoi rode their stubby mountain ponies, filling his crooked mind with Nagash’s thoughts and his twisted frame with Nagash’s power.

In that moment, that brief flicker of time, W’soran had craved that power for himself. But Neferata had been quicker. And what had that gotten her, but abuse, humiliation and enslavement? She had been swatted like a fly by the darkling thing Ushoran was becoming. And he was becoming something — he was a chrysalis, a worm on his way to becoming… what? Something terrifying. W’soran thought that it was a fate that had, perhaps, been intended for him. Might still be intended for him…