Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

W’soran gestured and the bone-giant began to disassemble itself, bit by bit, returning to its component parts, even as it passed him from hand to hand to the ground. He stepped lightly across the snowy ground and trotted towards Melkhior, who crouched over the dead man, his jaws hooked into the man’s throat. ‘That’s enough,’ W’soran said.

Melkhior ignored him. His eyes were red with blood-greed and he snarled like a cur with a bone. W’soran frowned and reached out, swiftly grabbing Melkhior’s unruly mane and jerking him from the body. With a twist, he hurled his apprentice aside. Then he sank to his haunches and ripped the tome from the dead man’s body. It was a heavy thing, its covers made from some hairy animal hide stretched over a bone frame, with a brass spine and iron nails holding it together. He snapped the lock with a flick of his finger, and scoured the pages.

They were made from tanned skins, and were blotchy and flabby. As he’d thought, the incantations and spells within were his own, albeit changed slightly. He stood, still flipping through the pages. Morath had adapted what he’d been taught, changing it to compensate for the lack of raw magical strength that afflicted men. ‘Bold, my student,’ he muttered. ‘To twist the gifts of the gods, rather than accepting what should be.’

It had never occurred to him that such could be done. Oh, the old tomb-priests of the Great Land had done it, but they had had the gods to intercede for them, to hear them tell it. But if Morath’s scribbling was correct, then skill might provide a balance to strength. Morath had never accepted that the blood-kiss was the logical next step in his tutelage. He had stubbornly held tight to his humanity. Perhaps there had been something to his stubbornness after all.

W’soran clapped the tome shut as Melkhior picked himself up. He looked at his apprentice and shook his head. ‘You are an eternal disappointment in a sea of inevitable frustration, Melkhior. You brawl like a beast, when you should duel like a king. Have I not taught you my magics? Have I not equipped you with the arts of death and divinity? And still, still , you resort to the basest carnage. Perhaps I made a mistake, eh? Perhaps I am an old fool, hmm? Perhaps I should have chosen others to accompany me, to become my good right hand, eh?’

He hefted the tome and gesticulated with it. ‘Maybe Morath, who, at least, seems to have learned something from my poor efforts.’ He shook his head again. ‘Ah, if only Zoar had not been so selfless, I might have the help of a bright student. Poor W’soran! To be so alone, abandoned by his pupils, and left only with dullards to aid him in his task.’

‘Are you finished… master?’ Melkhior growled.

‘Only until you disappoint me once again,’ W’soran said and tossed him the tome. ‘Collect his other scribbling. If Morath has assumed my duties as head of Mourkain’s Mortuary Cult, it would behove us to learn exactly what he is teaching them.’ Hands clasped behind his back, he looked about the inside of the palisade. While he and Melkhior had dealt with the necromancer, the butchery had continued. The dead that the necromancer had controlled — including the wights — had fallen like string-cut puppets with his passing. The living had continued to fight for some few minutes more, but save for a few, strangled cries the defenders of the palisade were now silent.

Ullo and the others strode towards him, kicking aside snow and bodies. ‘This place is ours,’ Arpad said, removing his helmet and tucking it beneath his arm. ‘Now what are we planning on doing with it?’

‘Oh, we’ll find a use for it, I’d wager. Beyond that other wall there are the far frontiers of Strigos, my lords,’ W’soran said, throwing out an arm. He did not look in the direction he had indicated, for he knew what he would see. The black, flickering blotch that spread oily coils across the horizon, day or night, a brooding malevolence that beckoned him even as it caused his mind and spirit to quail in terror. The shadow of Nagash was spreading daily, lending the sting of urgency to W’soran’s natural impatience. He did not know whether the spreading shadow implied that Ushoran was growing more powerful, or simply being more swiftly hollowed out by the nightmare mind that resided in the iron crown he wore. ‘Lands that should have been yours and mine, and now belong to puppets of cursed Ushoran. Let’s go take them back, shall we?’

‘Vorag’s command was to assume control of the high passes and then wait for him to return,’ Ullo grunted, his tiny eyes glittering.

‘Why wait to do later what can be done now?’ W’soran asked, shrugging. ‘I have never been a patient man. How many years will it take Vorag to wrest control of the gateway to the east from the skaven and the unbridled dead, eh? Even with the aid of those of my students that I sent to accompany him, it will take time.’

‘We have nothing but time, sorcerer,’ Tarhos said. The big Strigoi’s hook hand was scarred and cracked and he ran a whetstone over it, clearing the bone of imperfections. ‘We are immortal, after all. What do a few centuries, more or less, mean to us?’

‘Ah, so, that is the reason,’ W’soran said, with a nod. He wrapped his cloak tight about him and turned away. ‘I had wondered why you three were chosen to be my watchdogs. And now I see.’ He chuckled. ‘You are cowards . Of course he left you behind!’

Arpad gnashed his teeth and Tarhos growled. Only Ullo remained silent. ‘Watch your tongue, sorcerer!’ Arpad snarled, gesticulating with his helm. ‘We have bathed in oceans of enemy blood and taken the tusks of thousands of urks ! The greenskins fear us even more than the ratkin!’

‘Orcs and vermin are one thing — but the might of Strigos? It is no shame to be afraid of Abhorash, or the warriors he has chosen to replace you in defence of Mourkain. Even Vorag is afraid…’ W’soran purred, glancing at them.

Tarhos roared and leapt for him, hook swinging up as if to perforate W’soran’s skull. Melkhior lunged to meet him, his sword locking against the hook. The two vampires strained against one another in the swirling snow. Arpad, as if shocked by his companion’s attack, had his blade half-drawn, but Ullo grabbed his arm, forcing the sword back into its sheath. The grey-skinned Strigoi looked at W’soran, and then reached out an arm, hooking Tarhos by his scalp-lock and yanking him backwards off his feet.

‘Sanzak warned me about you, sorcerer,’ Ullo said, idly kicking Tarhos in the side of the head to calm him. He shoved Arpad back and grinned, displaying a mouth full of triangular razors. ‘He said you couldn’t be trusted, that you would lie to us to serve your own ends.’

‘And what if our ends happen to coincide, Ullo?’ W’soran asked.

Ullo’s grin became a smile. It was an unsettling expression. ‘Then we would follow your lead. Wherever it may take us,’ he said.

Nagashizzar

(Year -1151 Imperial Calendar)

Nagash was dead.

W’soran stared at the remains of the throne, and the deep, black score marks that covered it. The throne had been crafted from large blocks of stone and sections of petrified wood and lined with the bones of beasts and men. Still-glimmering strands of abn-i-khat shot through the stone, casting a sickly illumination over the floor all around it. Nagash’s corpse was missing, perhaps taken by the skaven his minions had reported were mobilising in the antechambers and lower levels of the citadel. With the Undying King dead, the ratkin were readying themselves for war once again. Too, the dead of Nehekhara, raised from their slumber by Nagash’s Great Working, would soon be banging on the gates, looking to separate his flesh from his bones. Without Nagash’s will to bind them, they were as much the enemies of the remaining inhabitants of Nagashizzar as the vermin that seethed in the depths, or the orcs howling in the slave pens.