Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

Perhaps Vorag had run afoul of the unbound dead of Nehekhara, or some other enemy, and been destroyed. Perhaps Neferata had gotten her vengeance for Vorag’s abandonment at last, and his brute head decorated a spear in the Silver Pinnacle.

Perhaps he had simply decided not to return.

That last thought was the most disturbing. He had expected Vorag’s army, whatever was left of it at any rate, to slink back to Crookback Mountain sooner or later. Though he had convinced Vorag of the victories that awaited him in the southern reaches, he knew that there was little way that such a brute could take Nagashizzar, let alone conquer the risen kings of the Great Land. He had simply wanted his figurehead safely out of the way while he drew Ushoran — Nagash — out of hiding and into the open. If Vorag returned triumphant, fine, and if he returned beaten, even better, so long as he returned. With W’soran as his vizier, Vorag could rule, and rule well and long. And W’soran would have the order he needed to make a true and uninterrupted study of Nagash’s crown and the secrets therein.

And then, once he had those secrets…

But none of that mattered now. Carts before horses , he thought. For now, it was Ullo who was the key to his victory. It was Ullo who held the loyalties, or at least the respect, of his Strigoi generals. Not poor W’soran, who was regarded, at best, as a necessary evil by his followers, despite everything he had done for them. And while Ullo did not require as much placation as Vorag, it was best not to press him too far. The vampire had a ruthless sort of practicality, and would, if push came to shove, easily forget his debt to serve his own ends.

W’soran sniffed and looked around, meeting the gazes of his commanders. Then, his gaze travelled to the horizon, where blackness seemed to spread across the sky like spilled ink on paper. Nagash was waiting, he knew, crouching like a beast in a cave. He grasped his amulets, succumbing to a sudden nervous impulse. He felt as if he were standing in a storm wrapped in iron and waiting for the lightning to fall. ‘We will make camp and await our allies. I will send messages to Melkhior, inquiring as to his tardiness. And then we will march to Mourkain, and lay claim to an empire!’

The Worlds Edge Mountains

(Year -950 Imperial Calendar)

The beastmen died swiftly, their crooked bodies blasted to bloody chunks by W’soran’s destructive magics, and the mountains echoed with their screams. He swept aside his tattered cloak and thrust out his talons, gesturing. Dark magic coursed from his hands, washing over a charging bull-headed giant. The beast screamed in agony as its flesh was flayed from its thick bones. Its remains toppled into the snow at his feet, still smoking. The survivors of the first attack turned to flee back into the snow-capped trees, squalling and bleating like the herd animals they resembled.

‘Do not pursue them,’ he snarled to his acolytes. Zoar made as if to protest, but a glare from his master caused his mouth to snap shut. ‘Let them run, boy. I want to study that stone of theirs uninterrupted,’ W’soran continued, lowering his arms.

The stone in question occupied the centre of the clearing. It was a massive fang of rock, covered in sigils daubed in blood and filth, and hung with thick chains that were heavy with skulls, skin-sacks and other, even more grisly trophies. It radiated a strange magic, one that W’soran was only familiar with in passing. He stepped over the corpses of its defenders and approached it. He was careful not to touch it.

It reeked of old blood and bodily fluids and it was crudely carved in places. He glanced aside, at the heavy stakes set into the ground around it at intervals, and the bodies that had been tied to them. They were men, though of a tribe he was unfamiliar with: brawny and pale, with sharp features and their scalps shorn clean save for greased scalp-locks. There were a number of them, and all were dead. The beastmen had been eating them, a bit at a time. Most had died before the creatures got past their waists, though at least one had lived long enough to see his intestines chewed like sausage. Bits of the dead men had been smeared on the stone, like a primitive offering.

W’soran had encountered the beasts before, though their numbers seemed to be increasing the farther north he went. He had seen their herdstones as well, though none quite this… decorated. The warping magics contained in the fang of stone reminded him of a starving cur, equally likely to bite off his hand as lick his palm. It was untrustworthy, and while he had several tomes containing incantations relating to similar sorceries, he had yet to experiment with them.

‘Master,’ Zoar began, ‘is this…?’

‘No,’ W’soran said harshly. It wasn’t the dark beacon he had sensed all those weeks ago, the beacon that had drawn him ever further into the wilds, pulsing in the sky like a black sun. It was not a real sun but instead more akin to an afterimage, a darker-than-dark blotch on the retina of his mind’s eye, burning cold and hungry beneath the moon. He felt it calling to him in his quiet moments, purring seductively in his mind, infiltrating his thoughts. There was a malign familiarity to the voice, and something in it made him very afraid. It was a ringing depth that he could not plumb, no matter how hard he listened. It pulled him on, like a bell in the night, summoning him.

Instinctively, his eyes slid away from the stone and his gaze rose, finding the blotch. The voice was whispering again, just a brief hiss of dim noise, just on the edge of his hearing. Irritated, he shook his head. ‘Stop it, stop hissing at me,’ he growled to no one in particular.

‘Master,’ Zoar said.

‘What?’ W’soran snapped, turning.

Men watched them, men with bows, who had seemingly crept out of the trees as silently as ghosts. They closely resembled the bodies slumped against the stakes, albeit more vital. W’soran watched them approach calmly. They stank, not just of bear grease and sweat, but of something else… something familiar.

Then, something heavy landed on the herdstone and W’soran spun, fangs exposed. Ushoran, his features human and handsome, crouched on the spur of stone. He was clad in heavy furs and leather armour, and his hair was bound in a thick lock. A simple gold band encircled his head.

‘When my scouts reported that there was thunder among the trees, I half-expected it to be you, old man,’ Ushoran said, dropping down from his perch. He carried no weapon, but he’d never truly needed one. He gently touched one of the dead men and he sighed. ‘Poor Garek,’ he murmured, closing the dead man’s staring eyes. ‘I wish you had accepted my gift, my friend.’

W’soran said nothing. His mind whirled, calculating. So this was where the Lord of Masks had decided to make his empire. Coincidence, or… no; W’soran didn’t believe in coincidences. Ushoran was here for the same reason he was. Something had called him, had perhaps, been calling him since the last time W’soran had seen him. Ushoran ignored him as he cut each of the bodies free and laid them gently on the ground. When he had finished, he looked at his men and said, ‘Gather wood. We will commit them to the fire, and lay the bodies of their killers at their feet, as befitting the sons of Strigu.’ He turned to W’soran. ‘So, old monster… you have no idea how glad we are to see you.’

‘We?’ W’soran inquired, his good eye narrowing. A length of cold metal dropped onto his shoulder, its edge pressed lightly to the side of his neck.