Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

But with a word, he could render the vault impenetrable save by himself, or transport its contents to a pre-arranged location, set up years before and in secret. One of Zoar’s final services before he’d met his sad fate. Not even Melkhior knew of that place, nor did he know of the simple spell that would remove W’soran’s most prized possessions from the vault. W’soran stepped past the door. He ignored Melkhior’s cry of warning.

His library was as he’d left it. Dozens of tomes sat on an equal number of stone podiums, and more books and rolls of papyri and scrolls sat piled around the bases of the latter. The vault was featureless save for the podiums, which were themselves little more than fangs of melted and re-shaped rock, drawn upwards to serve as book rests. The pages of the grimoires rustled as he stepped into the vault, as if in greeting. The scent of age and dark magic washed over him. He stroked the cover of a hairy book and flipped through the thick, slightly damp pages of another.

There was no light in the vault, save for that which he’d brought in with him. In the darkness, something rustled and W’soran froze. He looked up and saw fangs. Each was the length of a sword and equally sharp, and that thicket of death descended at speed.

W’soran raised a hand and the fangs halted, their curves kissing his palm. Two eyes like balls of balefire bobbed beyond the grisly maw and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a miasmic cloud. The odour of rot and age filled his nostrils, and he could just make out the shadowy shapes of two great wings and the vaguely serpentine bulk they were attached to, filling the vault from ceiling to floor. He felt a monstrous pressure from the gaze of thing, and was, for a moment, reminded of Nagash at his most terrible.

But even Nagash’s fury paled before the sheer unadulterated rage in those glowing orbs. It was the rage of something at once divine and bestial that was now trapped in a cage of sagging muscle and rotting meat. He knew that the dead were, on some level, aware of their fate, but never to this extent, and never before had he felt such hatred from a corpse.

‘My minions found it on the Plain of Bones, to the south-east of here while scouring for raw materials,’ Melkhior said from outside the vault. ‘It was too big to use in battle, save in the deepest bowels of the mountain, and I thought it better utilised here, as a watchdog. I took it apart carefully and reassembled it in here, bit by bit, piece by piece. ’

The fangs, and the maw they occupied, rose away into the darkness, as if the thing were assured that W’soran was no threat. He cautiously sent his ball of witch fire bobbing upwards to reveal the monstrous enormity that now called his vault home.

He had seen dragons before, though only once or twice, and at a distance. The thing he saw had perhaps, once upon a time, been such. Now it was a rotting horror, all exposed bone and gangrenous muscle, lumpen and lurking beneath a ruptured and peeling hide of armoured plates. Great curving horns surmounted its thick, fleshless skull and chains of mystical binding dangled from its gaping torso. It shifted its weight, and the vault seemed to shudder. A cloud of flies was dislodged from somewhere within it, and they filled the air, humming angrily. Its wings were tattered sails, shredded and flapping as it leaned forward on them, and its claws, still cruel looking despite their cracked and splintered state, carved gouges in the stone floor.

W’soran felt a burst of avarice as he gazed up at the abomination. ‘It is… beautiful,’ he said.

‘I thought so,’ Melkhior said.

‘I will take it,’ W’soran said as he turned to face his acolyte.

‘What?’

‘In recompense for your tardiness in supplying reinforcements,’ W’soran said, rubbing his hands together in pleasure. ‘Such a creature will more than make up for any military shortfall, I think, and quite nicely.’

‘But master…’

‘Think carefully before you reply, Melkhior,’ W’soran said gently.

Before Melkhior could answer, a cloud of chittering bats suddenly swooped into the vault and circled him like a tornado of leather and teeth. The creatures swirled around him for a moment and then shot out back the way they had come. Melkhior snarled and turned. ‘The orcs are back!’

W’soran hurried after his acolyte. ‘This… Dork-creature you mentioned?’

‘Yes, he’s attacking the slave pens!’ Melkhior said. He yowled out orders to his creations and they hurried to obey. W’soran gestured for his wights to follow them, and they hurried towards the lower levels of the citadel.

By the time they reached the slave pens, the battle was in full swing. Ghouls and skeletons clashed with orcs clad in scavenged gear and wielding improvised weapons. The orcs were not quite a horde — there were only perhaps a hundred or so, W’soran noted as he stepped out onto the overseer’s balcony to look down into the pens. In the pens, the still-imprisoned orcs were rattling their cages and bellowing out encouragement. The few remaining human slaves had huddled as far away from the fighting as they could get.

Bats filled the cavern, diving at the attacking orcs and clinging to them like squirming, hairy shrouds. Groups of ghouls mobbed individual orcs, knocking them off their feet and the skeletal guards duelled with others. Melkhior leapt lightly from the balcony and dropped straight down into the melee, blade in hand, gruesome face split in a screech of rage.

He cleaved an orc in two as he landed and backhanded another hard enough to pulp the creature’s skull. More of them rushed towards him with raucous howls. W’soran watched for a moment and then turned his attentions to the wider battle. He was in no hurry to join the fight; the orcs, for all their ferocity, were hardly a threat. Melkhior could handle them easily enough, and if he couldn’t, well, it was of little concern to W’soran.

He scanned the battle, hunting. Dork was easy enough to spot, when you knew what to look for. Greenskin magic had a particular aura about it, like charged air after a storm, or cold water washing over stones. He could taste it on the air.

Dork was big, bigger than most orcs he’d seen. The mines built muscle, and the orc stood head and shoulders over his followers. He had the ocular pigmentation that marked him as a Red Eye, and wore a headdress made from the hides of cave lizards and armour scavenged from earlier battles. With an axe in one hand and a sword in the other, Dork smashed his way through the guards, bulling his way towards the slave pens. His intent was obvious. The orc needed an army. W’soran smiled.

The smile faltered when he saw the emerald lightning crawl across Dork’s scarred flesh as he locked blades with a wight. Dork howled, his red eyes going green and blazing like torches, and the wight exploded, ripped apart by the brutal magics spiking out from the greenskin’s twitching form. Dork stomped his foot and the cavern shuddered in sympathy.

‘Well, aren’t you full of yourself,’ W’soran murmured, watching the shaman storm towards the pens. He leapt lightly from the balcony, his magics coiling about him like a breeze, carrying him safely to the cavern floor. As he landed, there was a thunderclap of dark magics and orcs were sent tumbling, their bodies wreathed in sorcerous fire. He didn’t bother to draw his sword. Instead he wove complicated gestures and gave his magics free rein. Orcs died by fire and lightning; others were torn apart by living shadows, or swallowed by the rock of the cavern. Methodically, he carved his way through them until he reached Dork, who spun about, piggy eyes blazing with fervour.

‘ Oi, Bluddrinka ,’ Dork roared, clashing his weapons together.

‘ Bossbluddrinka ,’ W’soran corrected in the greenskin tongue. He spread his arms and bared his fangs. ‘Come, beast… show me your power.’