Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

‘Yes. I was afraid. But I have seen the grinning skull beneath the skin of the world now, and fear is no longer in me. But you — you stink of it, W’soran. You always have, you know. Fear and need. Just like me.’ Ushoran laid a hand on his scrawny shoulder. ‘What do you fear, W’soran?’

W’soran brushed his hand aside. ‘I fear nothing.’ It was a lie, and he could tell Ushoran knew that it was a lie. The other vampire smiled slightly.

‘Then why do you keep running?’Ushoran asked. He emptied his goblet. ‘I am going north. You are free to accompany me, or seek your own fortune.’

‘What do you intend to do in the north?’ W’soran asked, looking down into his goblet, and the dregs that remained there. ‘There’s nothing out there but mountains and savages.’

‘I told you — fear has been burned out of me. There are kingdoms over the mountains, crude brawling child-kingdoms, where a strong man… a smart man, might rule. Where dust might be stirred, and glory once again awakened.’ Ushoran exposed his fangs.

‘I will go north and build an empire.’

Crookback Mountain

(Year -280 Imperial Calendar)

‘Has there been any word from Vorag?’ W’soran asked, climbing down from his saddle. Brackish blood coated his limbs and robes and he could still taste the throat of the last orc he’d killed, though it had been several days ago. Mindless corpse-servants waited nearby, clutching heavy buckets full of cistern water. As he walked towards them, W’soran stripped off his armour and tossed it to his acolytes, who followed him like a bevy of baby chicks.

The stable was a recent innovation, built to house the substantial force of skeletal cavalry that the citadel now contained. None of the scents and sounds a living man would associate with stables were evident, for all the beasts in it were dead, and were, if not quietly rotting, then simply quiet. Their riders, clad in verdigris-coated mail, slumped against the stalls, waiting for the moment they would be commanded to mount and once more ride to war.

‘Not for some months,’ Melkhior said, passing a gore-encrusted pauldron to another acolyte with a grimace of distaste. He had been waiting in the stables for W’soran to arrive, fresh from the destruction of the final remnants of the Red Eye Waaagh. It had taken five years, but the deed was done, and, to W’soran’s way of thinking, done well indeed. ‘Then, is that any surprise?’

‘No. In point of fact, it means everything is going according to plan,’ W’soran said. He snapped his fingers, and the zombies with the buckets upended them over him, sluicing off the majority of the blood and offal that covered him. While hygiene was not one of his main concerns, there was a point where even his fossilised sensibilities were offended.

Across the stable, several Strigoi were receiving the same treatment. In the years since the Battle of Black Water, more dissatisfied vampiric noblemen had crossed the high peaks, looking to join the Bloodytooth in forming a new and better empire. Not many, true, but enough to provide W’soran with a coterie of experienced commanders whose thirst for battle was only rivalled by their annoying tendency to vocally, not to mention loudly, wonder when Vorag was coming back to lead them in glorious final battle with the forces of the usurper, Ushoran.

Thus far, W’soran had only had to kill two of the newcomers. At a remove, of course, but he had overseen their destruction as surely as if he had pierced their hearts himself. If he had learned one thing from his time in Mourkain, it was that troublemakers should be removed immediately before they could upset the spice cart. Ushoran was paying for his leniency in that regard even now.

‘And what plan would that be, my master?’ Melkhior asked, watching as W’soran wrung out his sopping robes. ‘The plan where you conquer the east, using Vorag as your weapon, or the plan where you conquer Mourkain, while Vorag is busy elsewhere?’ He made a face. ‘Or, perhaps is it some plan which you have yet to deign to share with me, your most loyal acolyte?’

‘Speaking of troublemakers,’ W’soran muttered.

Melkhior blinked and asked, ‘Master?’

W’soran gestured airily. ‘Nothing, my son. The plan is as it has always been. We proceed apace and on schedule. Our citadel stands, despite greenskins and treachery, our armies grow steadily, and our enemies grow weaker.’ He glanced at Melkhior. ‘Speaking of our enemies — how is our guest?’

‘Which one do you mean,’ Melkhior snorted, ‘the rat or the witch?’

‘Both, either,’ W’soran said with a shrug.

‘The same,’ Melkhior said. ‘The rat almost died a few months ago. It tried to swallow its tongue. I stopped it. It’s been… restrained, for the moment.’

‘And the woman?’ W’soran asked.

‘Little change there,’ Melkhior said. ‘She is still unconscious, though her wounds have healed. She is no longer as lovely as she once was, however.’ He seemed pleased by that. Given his own degraded appearance, W’soran could understand, though he was slightly disappointed in Melkhior’s vanity.

They left the stables, W’soran leading the way. They ascended the curving steps that coiled about the innards of the mountain like the interior of a conch shell. Undead sentries tromped past, their glowing eye sockets scanning the rock walls for any signs of infiltration. As they ascended, the acolytes were joined by W’soran’s scribes — dwarfish, crooked, broken things, made from the remains of goblins, skaven and men, wrapped in sackcloth and cowled, carrying heavy rolls of papyri on which they scratched out W’soran’s words for posterity.

He had conceived the idea early in his bid for empire. A true history of Mourkain, its master and the events surrounding its rise, fall and return beneath his iron rule, from his unbiased perspective, with the musings and philosophical quandaries which had brought him to his path. It would be a true liber necris — a book of the dead, for the dead. He would not countenance the lies of Neferata or Abhorash to taint his new world. He would not let their deranged philosophies infect future generations.

Not that there would be future generations, as such, but nonetheless, only W’soran’s words would be remembered. His heroism in Mahrak and Lahmia, at the Battle of the Hot Gates and in the struggle for Nagashizzar would be remembered, as would his great discoveries in the arts of sorcery and the natural sciences. He would write a new, glorious history, even as he trampled the old into the dust. Poor W’soran — never respected, never feared; but no longer. He would no longer be poor W’soran, a tattered carrion crow flapping in the wake of others. He would be the new Undying King, for a silent, perfect world. And he would cast the old king down soon enough.

‘What of Ullo? Has he reported in from the Black Water?’ W’soran asked as he clasped his hands behind his back. ‘And Arpad as well — he should have completed his pacification of the settlements along the Blind River.’

‘Both have sent riders. And Tarhos has joined up with the Draesca. He claims that the entirety of the Vaults will fly our banner within a few more months,’ Melkhior said sourly.

W’soran heard the sour note and smiled thinly. ‘You doubt our brave captain?’

‘Tarhos is barely better than the savages he’s leading,’ Melkhior said. ‘Even when he was alive, he was reckoned one of the stupidest ajals in the empire. Being undead has not noticeably improved his cunning.’

‘Harsh words,’ W’soran murmured. ‘Still, as long as he keeps those tribes that still bear allegiance to Mourkain and Ushoran on the back foot, he serves a useful purpose. Too, the slaves he’ll send us will fill our mines nicely.’