Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

W’soran had gone back into the darkness of that collapsed tunnel after the battle was over to ensure that Stregga was truly dead. Ostensibly, he had been leading a rescue party. Vorag had clutched Stregga’s withered form to him and keened for hours, shrieking his sorrow to the unheeding rocks.

Of the other two Lahmians, Khemalla was missing, and likely buried somewhere. Layla, however, provided a moment of unpleasant surprise. Despite the state of her head, despite the damage to her body, the Lahmian yet lived, though only just. Unable to provide her the ending she so thoroughly deserved, W’soran had had her body removed along with that of Stregga. The latter’s corpse lay stiff and still on a bier in Vorag’s chambers; the former was ensconced in a stone box in W’soran’s laboratories, awaiting his further examination. He had never imagined that Neferata’s creatures could prove so durable. A bit of luck, perhaps — he yearned to continue his study of vampiric flesh, and Neferata had unwittingly provided him with the raw materials he needed.

‘Surely one torment is as good as another,’ W’soran said to Vorag carefully, gesturing to the hovering spirits. ‘This way, they can be of some use, at least. And you had no complaints when I did the same, a year ago, and saved your hide from decorating a skaven banner pole.’

Vorag thrust his head through the spirits, sending them fluttering like bats. His eyes bulged wildly and his scalp-lock was undone, leaving his lion-like mane, now turned ice-white, to curl about his head. ‘She was mine, W’soran,’ he hissed. ‘Mine and mine alone, just like these…’ He swept out a talon, indicating the dead skaven. ‘Everything is mine, sorcerer. I am king here, I am master and lord. Or do you doubt that?’

‘If I have given offence, I am sorry, my lord,’ W’soran said, forcing out each word. He wanted nothing more than to burn Vorag’s leering face off, but he needed the Strigoi, as yet. He needed the raw strength that they provided, to wrest an empire from the sour soil of the mountains. And, annoying as he was, he needed Vorag. ‘I merely sought to aid you in your task.’

‘Not for any love of me, I suspect,’ Vorag hissed. He leaned close. W’soran could smell the thick odour of blood and offal wafting from the Strigoi. In the months since Stregga’s death, Vorag had sunk further and further into barbarity. It was as if, in killing his helpmeet, W’soran had inadvertently stripped him of all remaining humanity. The proud frontier lord who had set out from Mourkain, determined to wrest control of Strigos from the man he saw as a usurper, was gone, replaced by something that was all hunger and savagery. ‘I do not claim what loyalty squirms in your rotten heart, old monster. I know traitors. I am a traitor, and I can smell your treachery. Are you growing impatient with my grief, W’soran, or with my presence?’

W’soran did not flinch as the skeletal gargoyle face drew close to his. He had faced worse monsters than this jumped-up brute. Vorag’s claw flickered up, tapping the scar on W’soran’s face, where Nagash’s brand of obedience had once burned. ‘Sanzak says we should go south. He says that there is war there, for me to lose myself in. That we should ignore Neferata’s entreaties for now,’ Vorag murmured. ‘That is easy to do, now that her envoys are gone, eh?’

W’soran met Vorag’s hateful gaze. ‘Have you sent messengers, Lord Vorag, to tell the Queen of Silver Pinnacle about the deaths of her servants?’ he asked, knowing that the other had not. That had not been his doing, and it had surprised him, somewhat. The idea that Vorag might be somewhat more cunning than he had anticipated, and that the Bloodytooth might welcome a moment of respite from Neferata’s web of schemes, had not truly crossed his mind.

Vorag looked away. His shoulders slumped and he gestured lazily. ‘I am weary of slaughter. Send your phantoms into the darkness, sorcerer. Cleanse these vaults of infestation.’

W’soran nodded and turned. The entrance to the warren gaped welcomingly. He could smell the fear of the remaining rats as they huddled within, waiting for the end. He flicked his fingers and the spectral host swept forward, flowing through the entrance and into the tunnels beyond. Every skaven they killed would add to their number until those last tunnels were peopled only by ghosts. Faint screams echoed from within and he smiled.

‘I sometimes wonder which of us is the worse beast,’ Vorag said, from behind him. W’soran glanced at him, frowning. Vorag was examining his talons, watching the play of muscle beneath flesh and the drying blood on the cruel curves of his claws. ‘Which of us enjoys this more, W’soran? I am a warrior, and slaughter is the hymn of war. But you — you bask in it, like a snake sunning itself on a rock.’

‘One simply grows used to such things,’ W’soran said.

‘Ushoran awakened something in me. I know this,’ Vorag said, making a fist. ‘I don’t think you were much changed by Neferata’s bite. I think you have always been what you are.’

W’soran didn’t reply. Vorag laughed. ‘What sort of empire will we build, W’soran?’ He sank into a crouch and hefted a dead skaven. With a grunt, he fastened his mouth to its throat and tore it open, gulping the thickening blood.

‘A better one than I helped Ushoran build,’ W’soran said harshly. ‘A better one than Neferata desires.’ He turned to Vorag. ‘You allowed me to join your rebellious band because I am your best bet for gaining that which you desire.’

And what he desired, what they all desired in some way, though they knew not why, was the crown of Mourkain. Nagash’s crown wrought in iron and fire and made strong with his power. It tugged at them all, every vampire, pulling at something in their blood. Granted, only a handful of them had come to Mourkain, following the black call of the crown. The others had been either too far away or… he growled and shook his head. The idea that a fop like Ankhat could be more strong-willed than he, or even Neferata, was laughable.

He frowned again, feeling the ghosts within the warren twist and writhe on his sorcerous hooks. He was strong enough now to manipulate hundreds, if not thousands of spirits in a similar manner. He felt the tormented spark of each spectre as it sought to numb its pain by swallowing the life of its former companions. The screams from within the last warren rose to a crescendo and he stretched, tasting the ashes of souls on his tongue.

Vorag desired the crown, deep in his brute brain, just as they all did. Only W’soran had recognised it instantly for the poisoned meat that it was. He knew Nagash’s stink and had smelled its foetid odour in every crack and crevice of Mourkain. It was in the soil and water of the place and it tainted the blood of the Strigoi, making them beasts, even as Nagash had corrupted the Yaghur. The crown sought to make them all into beasts of burden.

‘Perhaps I do not want it any more,’ Vorag said, dropping the pitiful remains of the skaven. ‘I saw what the crown did to Ushoran, sorcerer. Can you promise me that it will not do the same to me?’

W’soran paused. Then, ‘Yes. I can rip the secrets from that detestable circlet, given time.’ That was not quite a lie. In time, he could indeed discover the secrets that Nagash had woven into the forging of that crown. He would learn the secrets that had broken Kadon and Ushoran in turn, and make them his. ‘I can make you the master of Mourkain and high hetman of all Strigos, Vorag — emperor of a vastly expanded empire, even. All I need is time.’

‘So you keep saying,’ Vorag growled as he stood. His eyes glittered eerily. ‘Neferata will not be happy.’

‘Neferata will have her own war to keep her occupied. And while she and Ushoran fight over Mourkain, we can take Nagashizzar. Within its bowels lie the tools I need to make you chief of chiefs, Vorag. It sits waiting to be garrisoned by a powerful host — provide that host! Take Nagashizzar! Take the Great Land and Araby beyond it, and create a kingdom to rival Strigos — a fruitful kingdom, and one that will provide you with the strength you need to beard the beast in its lair.’