Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

‘Good,’ W’soran said. He’d just come from the temple that was the centre of Mourkain’s Mortuary Cult. He’d set it aflame and slaughtered the priests. If he was being forced to flee, he was damned if he was going to leave any of his tools for Ushoran to use. Nagash had made that mistake, but W’soran was smarter than the Undying King. ‘Grab everything we can’t take — we’ll pile it in the centre of the room and burn it. Nothing will be left behind.’ Ushoran would not suspect him, not yet. That would buy them enough time to escape Mourkain, at least.

‘Burn it?’ Melkhior hissed, startled.

W’soran wheeled around to face his acolyte. ‘Are you deaf? Yes, burn it!’

‘But-’ Melkhior began. Like many savages, Melkhior regarded the written word with an almost totemic fascination, as if the words themselves were holy, rather than the power that they unlocked. W’soran had yet to break some of his more stubborn Strigoi acolytes of that fascination, to show them that true power resided not in musty tomes but in how you put the knowledge they contained to use. And not only the Strigoi — a number of his acolytes had perished in the fall of Lahmia attempting to save useless volumes of mystic knowledge from the great temple library.

Knowledge was merely a tool, and tools could be refined and replaced. Spellcraft could be honed like a blade, stripped of useless components and ritual to make a leaner, deadlier thing. That was why he insisted that his acolytes craft their own personal grimoires, and that those grimoires be copied to his own library. His apprentices were tools he used to sift through the grit to find the precious minerals buried there. Every discovery they made added to his arsenal. Creatures like Melkhior weren’t servants so much as they were walking spell-books, to be drained of knowledge and discarded when they had made their discoveries or refinements. Melkhior didn’t yet understand that, and W’soran doubted he ever would.

‘Tools that cannot be used are useless, fool,’ W’soran snarled, leaning close to Melkhior. ‘Useless to us, and — even worse — useful to our enemies. Ushoran already has that damnable crown, I’ll not give him anything else. Burn it, all of it.’

‘But… isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this what we’ve been working toward?’ Melkhior asked, as W’soran shoved scrolls and loose pages into his arms. ‘Ushoran is weak now, overcome by the power of the crown. We — you can take it!’ There was a burr of greed to his words and W’soran shook his head.

‘No,’ W’soran barked. ‘Now is not the time. We shall go east and see if we can find sanctuary with Vorag’s rebels.’ The Bloodytooth had begun his revolt well before Ushoran had placed the crown on his head. Likely it was simply another addle-brained plan of Neferata’s. Vorag had retreated to the eastern mountains with a bevy of cronies and their men, bellowing about a second Strigoi Empire.

So far Ushoran had ignored his rebellious vassal, but that wouldn’t last. Vorag would leap at the opportunity to have a sorcerer of W’soran’s calibre at his beck and call. Of course, that meant abandoning his place here. He shook his head, trying to gather together the tattered threads of his plans and schemes. A careful web had been shaken and stretched by the advent of Nagash’s damned spark.

Flight was the only option available. If he stayed, the sheer malevolent force of the crown’s presence would eventually crush his will, as it had Neferata’s. She served her new master meekly, barely more than an automaton. If you fought, you were crushed. That was Nagash’s way — he had no servants, no advisors, only tools. No dissent would be brooked in Ushoran’s new Nagashizzar. Not even from the man wearing the crown.

He paused, remembering the look on Ushoran’s face as the crown had set its hooks into him. W’soran remembered that half-moment of pleading, as Ushoran had realised just what he had awakened. Neither he nor Neferata had truly understood what the crown was. W’soran had tried to explain it to Ushoran, but he had been adamant. He had been convinced that the crown had held the power he required to carve an empire for his adopted people out of the mountains.

It had the power, all right. But it also had a will of its own, if no sentience, a terrible, night-black drive that hungered for the beautiful silence of Corpse Geometries. It had called them all out of the night, and brought them together to further that drive. It had chosen Ushoran as its mount, but it could have picked any of them, even W’soran himself. That it hadn’t provoked both relief and an odd, savage spurt of anger. Once again, poor old W’soran had been tossed aside in favour of another. Once more, poor old W’soran had been judged wanting by unworthy minds.

‘Blessing in disguise,’ he growled.

‘But why are we running? Surely your might is equal to his,’ Melkhior said.

‘Perhaps, but now is not the time to test that theory,’ W’soran snarled. ‘Not with both Abhorash and Neferata under his thumb. No, no we must flee — we must find a place from which to observe and plot anew. We must-’

Suddenly, a series of howls echoed through the lair. W’soran stiffened. ‘Damnation,’ he hissed. He had stationed ghouls at the approaches to his lair, to keep watch just in case Ushoran wasn’t quite as distracted as he appeared. Those howls meant that that was sadly the case.

It looked like they would be fighting their way out of Mourkain after all…

Crookback Mountain

(Year -262 Imperial Calendar)

In the end, it had been easy enough to escape.

Ushoran had let him flee. There had been no mocking laughter, no pursuit, merely satisfied silence, as if some long-argued point had been proven. He had fled the pyramid, ignoring the fate of his commanders, allies and acolytes, ignoring the battle that still raged. Abhorash had seen him, and had grown even paler, his stony face settling into an expression of resigned sadness that stung W’soran more than any blade or mockery.

He had fled the city, wreathed in ghostly scarabs, hurtling himself away from the malignant enormity that had almost claimed him. In the days that followed, some of his forces caught up with him. Barely a third of his army had remained, and that third had disintegrated by steady increments as he made his way back to the dubious sanctuary of Crookback Mountain.

Ullo was dead, he thought, though he couldn’t be sure. Abhorash had killed him, or perhaps Walak or Morath, or maybe he too had fled. Dhrox and Throttlehand had led a fighting withdrawal, only grudgingly giving ground as they were forced out of the city. Voloch was dead, and his wights had borne his body out of the city, the Draesca trailing behind them. Voloch II, his oldest son, had already assumed the helm, and it was only the magics within it and him that had enabled the Draesca to escape the field. They had made for the west and the Vaults. Dhrox and Throttlehand had gone west as well, with their followers.

W’soran’s acolytes were dead, torn apart by the vengeful Strigoi. It was only his concentration that kept his army together; and day by day, it slipped a bit more and he left a trail of rotting body-parts and bones in his force’s wake. W’soran rode no steed, skeletal or otherwise, but instead stumbled through the hills and bowers, cloak pulled tight, his gaze directed within, rather than without. He did not notice as his forces collapsed or wandered away as his control of them slipped and faded. The great bats were gone, and the spirit-hosts had dissipated.

When he at last reached the passes that marked the entrance to his demesnes, he was accompanied only by what remained of his bodyguard — a dozen wights. The wights neither complained nor spoke, and it was not his will alone that kept them animated. The rites required to permanently anchor their spirits to their bodies had been an exhausting process, but one he soon found to have been worth the effort.