Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

In the two years since their first clash, the dead of the Great Land had learned the ways of dispatching their blood-drinking foes. Invariably, they sought to pierce the heart or remove the head, even if it cost them a hundred dead men to bring down one vampire.

W’soran recognised the leader of the horsemen easily enough — King Ptar of Numas had been hunting them since that fateful day W’soran had run afoul of his legions. To say that the newly-awakened kings of the Great Land were not happy about their resurrection would be an understatement. ‘Eater of filth,’ Ptar roared. His voice was a crackling rasp that nonetheless carried easily. ‘Sneak-thief of eternity,’ he continued, urging his mount around. ‘Your head is mine!’

W’soran rose from the water, fangs exposed. ‘Only if you can take it,’ he snarled, thrusting out a hand. A sorcerous bolt shattered the rider closest to Ptar, disintegrating both horseman and horse. Ptar rode on regardless, khopesh whistling through the air on a curved arc towards W’soran’s neck. He twisted to the side and avoided the blade but not the horse. It struck him, and he was dragged beneath its hooves. Pain exploded through him as he was stomped into the muck. Foul water flooded his mouth and stung his good eye as he flailed.

His fingers touched long-buried bone. A ghost of a memory spiked through him — of the marsh-tribes that Nagash had butchered upon arrival. Thousands of corpses littered these marshes, it was said. Black sorcery boiled from him in speeding tendrils, seeking the closest of those corpses. Even that small effort exhausted him — it had been months since he had tasted blood, and he was already fatigued.

As Ptar galloped past him, W’soran was hauled up by the momentum of the king’s charge. He rose again from the water, spitting blood, but not alone. Waterlogged corpses, crudely preserved by the murk of the marshes, rose and reached for his fleshless attackers. As the horsemen reeled, surprised by the sudden onslaught from below, W’soran scrambled away, clutching his chest. The horse’s hooves had shattered his ribs and one of his legs wasn’t working. He would heal, but not in time. Nonetheless, he scrambled for the sanctuary of the marshes, hoping to escape Ptar while the latter was distracted.

That hope dwindled as a spear slid through his shoulder, knocking him to one knee. Another spear dug for his side, and grated across his ribs. With a howl, W’soran grabbed the first and broke it, freeing himself. He grabbed the second in both hands as he was shoved sideways by its wielder.

‘Pin him, my warriors! Pierce his heart and chain him! We shall deliver him to Settra so that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords might punish him for his effrontery!’ Ptar roared, jerking on the gilded reins of his mount.

Panic flared in W’soran’s withered heart, and he thrashed like an animal. More spears dipped towards him, more than he could avoid. He screamed in rage.

Then, without warning, something massive and leather-winged fell upon the closest horseman and crushed him in his saddle. The great bat shrieked and darted towards another of the skeletal riders. And not alone — more bats, dozens, perhaps hundreds, pierced the murky sky of the marshes and descended like living arrows, battering riders from their saddles and biting at those who refused to fall. Ptar cursed and flailed at the trio of bats that clung to him like hairy barnacles, their needle teeth tearing at his mummified flesh.

‘What are you waiting for, old monster?’ a voice called out from somewhere in the depths of the marsh. Ushoran’s voice, W’soran realised, belatedly. ‘Get up and run!’ the Lord of Masks roared…

The Worlds Edge Mountains

(Year -285 Imperial Calendar)

Men and women screamed as they were herded into the wheeled cages by skeletal overseers. Behind them, a walled village burned and its former defenders, mutilated and blank-eyed, helped their new comrades herd the survivors into the cages. W’soran watched it all with a satisfied air. ‘Excellent,’ he hissed. ‘How many of these detestable little border villages does that make?’

‘Fifteen,’ Ullo growled, his black eyes reflecting the light of the fire. ‘We use more corpse-men to guard the cages than we do to fight.’ For several weeks, W’soran’s forces had ravaged the border. First one legion would strike, and then another and finally a third, smashing a village or border fort to oblivion and then vanishing before the Strigoi could respond in force.

‘Good,’ W’soran purred, fondling his amulets. ‘Just a few more and then we’ll return to the mount for the season.’ He looked up, considering. In a few weeks, the full force of a mountain winter would descend, making travel more difficult than he liked, especially through the high passes. They would retreat back to Crookback Mountain, and wait for the spring thaw. The slaves wouldn’t last long, but they would provide ample raw materials. And while Ushoran was distracted with the tribes that Neferata had stirred up, W’soran could do as he liked. He needed slaves for his mines, food for his acolytes, and materials for his experiments — all of which these pathetic frontier villages provided.

In the five years since he’d visited the Draesca, and in the nearly three decades since Vorag had left for the east, W’soran had begun to build his empire. With Crookback Mountain as the aleph, he had begun to scour the lands to the west and north, gathering human and greenskin slaves by the hundreds and building his armies. The sound of hammers rang in the depths of the mountain, as the forges of the skaven were repurposed by dead hands. He had five tomb-legions at his disposal now, armoured and armed at his command and ready to march beneath his banners. His vampiric commanders, though nominally loyal to Vorag, eagerly followed his orders.

And he had acolytes aplenty these days — outcasts and dark scholars from as far as the republics that clung to the southern reach of the Vaults and the feudal morass of the western peninsula. Arabyans as well, and men from the north, wearing cloaks made from wolf-hide and crow feathers. Dozens of them flocked eastward, as if drawn by a black beacon.

True, some had gone to Mourkain, but others, the wisest of the lot, or at least the most discerning, had continued east until they reached his burgeoning empire. Like called to like — there were men aplenty in the world who desired to learn Usirian’s mathematics — and their blood sang in his veins, binding each of them to his will. A bit of him in each of them, lending them something of his focus and will, making each of them, whether savage Norscan or subtle Arabyan, more than a match for the puling whelps that Morath had inducted into his false cult.

More than just the forges were lit in his mountain fastness; his new students, under Melkhior’s watchful eye, had partitioned off laboratories and libraries for themselves, and brought the watered-down, yet still useful knowledge of their own backwater principalities with them. They had brought scrolls and treatises written by men who had been but motes of possibility when Nagash had dragged the dead of Mahrak to their feet.

And some — a rare, precious few — were older than Khemri. Dark tomes, bound in dawi hair and written on the marble flesh of the asur — the elder race — that had been found in northern temples or places hidden in the empty vastness of the Great Desert. All of which spoke to W’soran’s growing understanding that Nagash was not the first man to wrest control of the stuff of death from the gods. He had simply, with characteristic arrogance, assumed he was.

Of the greater war, between Mourkain and the Silver Pinnacle, he knew only a little — only what news his new followers brought. The Draesca waged haphazard war, attacking and retreating, and they knew little of the ebb and flow of greater events. W’soran himself refused to give open battle to Strigos’s armies, and retreated from them when he could not easily overwhelm them. Occasionally Arpad or Tarhos would grumble, but Ullo restrained them. Ullo understood the strategy. Or he thought he did, at least.