Master of Death

Chapter Eleven

The Black Gulf

(Year -1149 Imperial Calendar)

It was less a fishing village than a pirate enclave. One of a hundred nestled along the coast. Corsairs, smugglers and slavers from Araby, Sartosa and Cathay walked the crude boardwalks that connected the pontoon-balanced lodges. It squatted on the edge of the marshes, where the salt waters of the Black Gulf met the sour, but fresh waters of the marshes. Ushoran had claimed one of the outer lodges, just outside the sea-wall palisade. W’soran did not ask what happened to the previous occupants, and the other inhabitants of the enclave kept their distance. Ushoran had no get and W’soran’s surviving followers had made themselves at home.

‘I should have expected that you would find sanctuary amongst pirates and thieves,’ W’soran said, sipping from the crude goblet. It was the first taste of human blood he’d had in weeks, and he gave a small sigh as a burst of long-absent strength filled him. He had learned early on that their kind could, if necessary, subsist on the stuff of sorcery, but it was in blood that they found pleasure. Ushoran, sitting nearby, grunted.

‘Not for long. The dead move fast, and the kings of the Great Land have woken in their hundreds, to reclaim their ancient demesnes. Numas once claimed these marshes. Ptar and the other kings will soon put this place to the torch. A matter of weeks, I estimate, until the pecking order is sorted out amongst the awakened kings, and the sortie is launched.’ He set his own goblet down and ran a finger across his lips, wiping away the blood that clung there. It had belonged to a young woman that Ushoran had purchased from a disreputable Arabyan slaver of his acquaintance that evening and subsequently gutted. ‘I, for one, do not intend to be here when they arrive.’

‘Sensible,’ W’soran muttered, clutching his goblet in both hands. He hesitated, then asked the question that had been bothering him since they’d arrived. ‘Why did you save me?’

The bats had done their job well. The dead of Nehekhara had been distracted while W’soran made his escape. With Ushoran as their guide, they had come to the settlement within a few days. The pursuit had broken off after Ushoran’s ambush, though W’soran doubted that Ptar was once more safely in his grave. Nehekhara was in upheaval, despite the unloving state of its people. King fought king in the streets of every city and silent legions clashed in the wastes between. Ptar likely couldn’t waste the time hunting W’soran any longer, not with eighteen generations of his fellow kings jostling for control of his territories.

Ushoran was silent for a moment. Then, he looked through the flattened strips of marsh-reed that made up the curtain over the entrance to the lodge. It was night outside, and a silvery moon graced the sea with its kiss. He picked up his goblet and took a sip. ‘I never let a useful tool go to waste,’ Ushoran said.

W’soran grimaced. ‘I am no tool of yours, Lord of Masks.’

‘Not at the moment, no,’ Ushoran said. ‘But who can say what the future holds?’

W’soran gave a snort of laughter. He sobered quickly. ‘I could have used your aid in Nagashizzar.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Ushoran said dismissively, watching the moon.

‘It might have,’ W’soran said. He cocked an eye at the other vampire. ‘Where were you? The rest of us were sent out, but you…’

‘Nagash forgot about me.’ Ushoran tapped the side of his head. ‘He forgot a lot, towards the end.’

W’soran was suddenly alert. ‘You saw how he died?’

‘I saw much, in those final days,’ Ushoran said, softly. ‘He wasn’t a god, you know.’

‘I’m well aware of Nagash’s failings,’ W’soran said. Then, suspiciously, ‘What did you have to do with it, Ushoran?’

‘Nothing, W’soran,’ He said and smiled. ‘Then, perhaps something.’ He sighed and looked away. ‘It was Alcadizzar. The ratkin freed him and gave him a blade. They almost didn’t find him.’ He took another sip of blood and made a face. ‘They were quite surprised, at the time. But they are a race used to treachery, and they didn’t question.’

W’soran stared. ‘You treacherous animal…’ he hissed. ‘You helped them. You helped them!’ He stood and gestured accusingly. ‘It was your fault — all of it was your fault!’ A flush of rage filled him — not for Nagash’s sake, or even for what had been lost, but for himself. He’d seen no hint of treachery in the other vampire, and it annoyed him to be made a fool of.

Ushoran leaned back in his seat. ‘Yes. It was.’

‘Why?’ W’soran demanded, looming over the seemingly unconcerned Ushoran.

‘Why?’ Ushoran asked. He set his goblet aside and stood slowly. ‘He killed us, W’soran. He killed our people — every man, woman and child. He killed every animal and every oasis. He killed our history and our future. He killed the Great Land for spite, and for spite’s sake, I helped his killers in turn.’

W’soran stepped back, frowning. ‘Don’t tell me you felt something for them. You were happy enough to bleed the living when we ruled…’

‘It was ours, W’soran,’ Ushoran said, and there was heat to his words, now. ‘The Great Land was ours. It belonged to us. We lifted it from the muck and made it a land to be feared once again!’

‘And then you let it slip through your fingers,’ W’soran said. ‘Was this about revenge, then? Dead is dead. What matters the how of it, or who made the killing stroke?’

Ushoran smiled and shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ The smile faded. ‘We could have made an empire to rival Settra’s, and instead we allowed it all to fall to dust. And Nagash… Nagash was a monster. He would have seen the end of everything. Does that prospect truly appeal to you, W’soran? Is a slow march to oblivion what you truly want? Or do you desire something else?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why did you serve Nagash, W’soran? Men only serve when they are too afraid to rule.’

W’soran hesitated. ‘You served Neferata,’ he said. ‘And Nagash!’

‘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.’

‘We are still playing for time, then?’ Melkhior asked.

W’soran ascended a few more steps before replying. He gazed up at the eternally-burning, yet never-consumed skeletons that cast a weird light across the vast stairs. They were held in great cages chained to the dips and nooks of the stone walls and wreathed in a sorcerous fire that never went out. He and his kind did not truly require the light, but it was somehow… comforting. A visible, simple reminder to himself of the power he wielded. He admired his handiwork a moment before replying. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Strigos totters, but it is not yet ready to fall.’

‘And in the interim, Ushoran grows stronger,’ Melkhior said harshly. ‘That daemon-crown he wears grows stronger.’

‘Ah, I see you have finally resumed your studies,’ W’soran said, looking down at his acolyte. ‘And what have you learned, hmmm? What gleanings have you gathered from my knowledge, eh?’

Melkhior glanced at the other acolytes, and then at the crouching scribes before replying. ‘I know that while Strigos may falter, our true enemy only grows more powerful. Do you fear him… master?’

W’soran blinked. Then he smiled. ‘What are you implying, my son?’

‘Why are we playing a waiting game?’ Melkhior flung out a hand. ‘We have the strongest army in these mountains. We are the greatest sorcerers and the Strigoi will flock to us, even with Vorag’s absence! Even the Lahmians would join us, if we made tacit reparations. We could close the trap and finish this charade!’

‘Could we? Or would we merely hasten our own defeat, eh? The Lahmians — and the Strigoi too, don’t doubt it — would turn on us the moment Ushoran was toppled from his damnable throne,’ W’soran said, descending towards Melkhior. ‘Yes, Ushoran grows stronger and more sure of his new power, but so too do we.’ He spread his arms. ‘Let him rise, unbridled and roaring like Nagash reborn, then, and only then we will meet him in a clash of death, in dead lands, from which only one will emerge the victor. They will all see then, Melkhior. They will see our might, and know fear.’ He made a fist and exposed his fangs in triumphal sneer. ‘Only then, will our foes know our power, and bow to us.’

‘You… you want him to tap into the full power of that damnable crown?’ Melkhior asked.

‘Of course,’ W’soran said. ‘If this is war — if I am to be emperor — I must prove myself to be the strongest, the fittest to rule. By my brain, my strength and my sorcery, I will be declared the master of death, and none will gainsay me. I will defeat Ushoran, and impose my will on the others in the doing of it. I am owed that much, for my services and struggles, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You’re mad,’ Melkhior hissed, forgetting himself in his shock.

W’soran let the comment pass. ‘No. I am efficient. In Mahrak, we had a saying… take the tail, you only anger the serpent. But take its head… ah.’ He held up a finger and twitched it with pedantic precision. ‘The thing that drives Ushoran crouches just past the skin of the world, pressing its talons against it — it is nothing but will without mind, intent without intelligence. It is not Nagash, but simply the last shreds of the power that grew in him. I intend to let that power in, then finish it for good. Otherwise… what is the purpose of immortality, eh? What is the purpose of an eternity of fearing such a thing? No! Let Ushoran drape himself in Nagash’s might. I will kill him. I will break his black soul on the charnel rack of the Corpse Geometries and smash down the sour light of that foul crown for all time. I will take every secret, every forgotten thought from Nagash’s creation and make it mine — as they always should have been! I was his student! I was his heir — not that fool, Arkhan, and certainly not Ushoran! And I will not have that which is mine to claim taken from me by an inferior mind,’ W’soran rasped and chopped the air with a stiffened hand. Abruptly, he calmed and straightened, lowering his hands, and said, more quietly, ‘I am owed this.’

He looked down at them. His other acolytes cowered behind Melkhior, who looked fairly uncertain himself. The scribes continued to write, unheeding. ‘Do you know what it is like to see the face of divinity and have it ripped aside to expose the flawed, weak thing within? They say — or said, rather — that that is what happened to Nagash. That he saw that the gods of the Great Land were not truly gods, but simply… powers. And that he could rival them in their power, and in knowing that, he thought them weak and pathetic.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘Nagash was no more a god than those ancient powers. He was not infallible, or omnipotent. He was a stupid, crippled thing, addicted to these stones,’ he continued, gesturing to his amulets of abn-i-khat, ‘and addicted to his spite. And he is dead and that of him which remains is nothing but a nightmare that I will disperse to claim my due.’

They were strong words, words for posterity and words of power. They were lies. He knew that they were lies, even as he spoke them. An errant memory bubbled to the surface, even as he spoke: a memory of Ushoran, sitting across from him, asking him what he feared.

He had not answered then. He did not truly know the answer, nor, in truth, did he truly understand the question. There was much to fear in the world. As his power grew, so too did the fear. The fears of the mighty were far greater than the fears of the weak. He felt contempt for Nagash, but he also feared him still, though he was long gone from the world. He feared the one being that he could not fight — could not even confront, as he had confronted others.

That fear gave Nagash power over him still, even now. Perhaps that was the real reason he stalled and dithered and waited. The thought struck him like a bolt from the blue, a moment of realisation that made him more tired than any battle or contest he had yet faced.

‘Enough. A good student should ask questions, Melkhior, and answer them. How go the mining operations in the depths?’ he asked, changing the subject.

Melkhior coughed and straightened his robes. ‘Satisfactory, we have thousands of slaves — both dead and alive — down in the pits, mining the ores we require. If — when — Vorag returns, he’ll have a treasury greater than any yet seen by the kings of these mountains. Iron ore as well, and quarried stone for the fortifications we will build.’

‘Excellent. I think your services as an overseer far outweigh your abilities as a sorcerer, Melkhior,’ W’soran said mildly. He began ascending the stairs once more. ‘With what’s left of the Red Eye tribe added to the slave pens, our production capabilities will increase dramatically. Not to mention our raw materials…’ He smiled gleefully. ‘Oh, the things I will make.’

‘And what of the weapons you promised Vorag so long ago, master? When will you create them?’ Melkhior asked, shushing another acolyte.

W’soran didn’t pause. ‘Oh, I never intended to do that,’ he said, gesturing airily. ‘No, we’ll strip those engines of their secrets, but we have no need of such crude ballistae. We can craft more reliable war engines from the materials at hand. I simply wanted to study them, and distract Vorag from his obsessions.’

‘As opposed to yours, you mean,’ Melkhior snapped.

W’soran laughed. ‘Oh, you are in a rare mood aren’t you, my son. Accusing me of cowardice, and then of being obsessed…’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘One would think you’re feeling left out of the war-mongering.’

‘I should be at your side!’ Melkhior said. ‘Not here, in this stone kennel. Let Urdek or one of these others keep your books and catalogue the mine proceeds. Let me loose, master, and I will lead your legions into the heart of Mourkain.’ Several of the other acolytes murmured assent. They were as eager to be rid of Melkhior as he was to be rid of them.

‘Would that I could trust you to do so, my son,’ W’soran said, mock-gently. ‘But your way of waging war is too savage for my plans. You would attempt to gut the beast, before properly bleeding it. You have no patience.’

Melkhior opened his mouth, as if to protest. Then, with a grunt, he fell silent. W’soran nodded in satisfaction. ‘Maybe there is hope for you yet,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me — our envoys to the ogre tribes and the dawi of the eastern wastes… have they returned yet?’

‘The dawi have agreed to provide us with arms and armour, in return for slaves,’ Melkhior said. The dawi — or dawi zharr, as they called themselves — were an odd lot, quite unlike the stern rulers of the mountain deeps. It had been a lucky accident when his legions had stumbled across them. They were vile creatures, with a penchant for casual cruelty that W’soran could almost admire. But they made wonderful arms and armour; things far better than the crude armour crafted by his dead smiths. The armouries of Mourkain were full of wargear manufactured in the workshops of the Silver Pinnacle previous to Neferata’s usurpation of the mountain hold from its previous owners. W’soran intended to match that with dwarf-forged weaponry of his own.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘We’ll send out the first caravan this month. And the ogres?’ he added.

‘I believe they ate our envoy,’ Melkhior said.

‘How many does that make?’

‘Sixteen,’ Melkhior said.

W’soran grunted. The ogres rarely travelled far west enough to trouble the tribes of the mountains, but when they did, nothing but death and destruction followed in their wake. They were fearsome beasts, and all the more so if they were under his banner. ‘Send another,’ he said.

Melkhior nodded. ‘Should we send riders in pursuit of Vorag?’

W’soran hesitated. Then, ‘No.’ He did not elaborate. Let Melkhior draw his own conclusions. They continued their ascent until they reached the uppermost levels of the mountain. W’soran forced Melkhior to run through everything that had occurred in his absence; even the smallest of matters did not escape his notice.

By the time they reached his laboratories, W’soran’s keen mind was scheming anew. Plans always sprouted more plans. Neferata wasn’t the only one who could spin webs within webs. When he entered his chambers, the smell of Arabyan incense and spoiled meat coiled about him. He closed his eyes and inhaled, tasting the sour scent of the dark magics that stained the stones after almost a century of experimentation.

When he opened his eyes, his gaze was drawn immediately to the cage hanging from the ceiling, where Iskar crouched, watching him with his new, glittering eyes. W’soran had plucked the skaven’s ruined orbs from their sockets and replaced them with new ones, cultivated and grown in a febrile tumour of flesh kept alive by a serum crafted from powdered abn-i-khat and vampire blood. Iskar’s eyes looked like faceted emeralds, and they cast a sickly glow on anything the ratkin looked at. It hissed silently, baring its rotted fangs around the strange leather and iron muzzle that simultaneously pinioned its jaws and trapped its tongue. Drool dripped from its maw and dried foam coated the corners of its mouth.

Despite this, the skaven looked stronger than it had in a decade. No longer was it a withered thing, but instead muscled and sleek. W’soran leaned close to the cage and made satisfied noises. He looked at Melkhior. ‘I see the improvement in its diet has had gratifying results,’ he said.

‘I still don’t understand why it’s still alive. What use is it now — especially if you’re not intending to use those weapons?’ Melkhior asked. He stepped aside quickly as a severed hand, a coiled, sharpened spinal column grafted to its wrist stump, skittered past like a fleshy scorpion.

‘Knowledge is sometimes its own reward, and I am loath to dispense with a potentially useful tool,’ W’soran said. ‘At the moment, I’m merely curious as to how long this beast will live. I’d wager it’s already survived well past its allotted span.’ He sniffed and turned.

Half-dead, half-living things hung from the great chains that draped the open spaces of the cavern like a massive web of iron. He had begun experiments in grafting living flesh to dead, to see what effect the one had on the other. A thing that had the heads of an orc and a skaven on its malformed shoulders squealed and thrashed as he drew close to it and traced the suture marks that marked where green flesh had joined hairy. ‘Wonderful,’ he chuckled, ‘so persistent.’ He looked at Melkhior. ‘I do so miss this place, when on campaign.’

‘Then perhaps it is time for you to leave the dirty business of war to me, my lord,’ Melkhior said. ‘I am ready to serve you, in any capacity you desire, and I would be happy to lead our legions to war.’

‘Are you deaf, or simply forgetful?’ W’soran asked. ‘My decision is final, no matter how much you whine.’ He stretched out a hand and whistled. Slack-jawed human heads bobbed obscenely through the air of the laboratory at his call, fluttering on bat wings that had been grafted to their skulls. A cephalopod-like mass of spinal columns and squirming intestines, protected by sheaths of crusty blood and bile, flopped towards W’soran like a dog welcoming its master home. He clucked welcomingly and bent to stroke the quivering, bulbous face that briefly surfaced from the writhing morass, its tongue lashing across his fingers. He moved on, and it squirmed into the shadows after giving Melkhior a wet growl.

Rank upon rank of heavy sarcophagi, plundered from Nagashizzar by Vorag in earlier years, lined the walls of the cavern, and W’soran’s servants inspected, measured and tested the dead things within. Ancient experiments he’d long thought lost, now returned to him again — old kings of the long-extinct Yaghur now mummified and wrapped in sorcerous linens. W’soran paused to examine them and nodded as one of his cowled scribes croaked a reply to a brief question. He patted the squatting creature affectionately and turned to a heavy half-sphere, constructed from thick shards of amber set into a bronze frame that occupied a space nearby.

Over it hung the limp, bloodless corpses of a dozen orcs, the bodies hung head-down, so that their foul fluids might plop into the sphere. More of the crooked scribe-things scuttled about the place, stirring its steaming contents and striking the bodies above with long poles in order to free the last drips of blood.

‘And is this a matter of curiosity as well?’ Melkhior grunted.

W’soran sank to his haunches and peered through the thick amber. A dull form floated within, barely discernible in the opaque stew of blood. Layla of Lahmia yet lived, albeit after a vastly diminished fashion. ‘In part… more, I wish to know at what point our kind finally give out. Removing the head or the heart will drop even a being of my age and potency, but if they could be reattached or healed somehow… would these old bones still live?’

He gestured to himself. ‘We are not true immortals, Melkhior. We are merely more persistent than the run of the mill beast. Even the resurrected dead are not immortal. They suffer cessation, if not true death. I believe we do the same. Both Neferata and I were pinned through the heart, and left for dead, and we both walk now among the living. Abhorash, I’m told, was devoured by a great beast in the Southlands during his exile, and yet even now bestrides the earth like an infuriating colossus. And Ushoran was set on fire and eaten by jackals. I wish to know why our flesh resists the corruption of death. Rather, say, I wish to know why it does it in some cases and not others…’

He placed a hand against the glass. ‘I wish to know the secrets of life and death. I wish to know where the dividing line is, and how it might be erased entirely. There is a saying, in Araby… what is not dead can eternal lie and over strange eons, even death may die. It is as true as it is trite.’ W’soran stood. ‘Nagash is both dead and yet not. Something of him, of his black will, persists, like a flea in the fold of a jackal’s skin. True immortality…’

‘Is it?’ Melkhior asked. ‘It seems like no kind of immortality to me.’

‘You place too much importance on the body, my son. That has ever been your main failing,’ W’soran chided. He strode towards the cages where a number of orcs crouched snarling, fresh from the mountains. They were survivors from the Red Eye tribe, given the pernicious pink tint that afflicted their piggy orbs. W’soran strode close to the cages and the orcs howled and lunged at the bars, grasping at him wildly. ‘These husks are like anchors, holding our minds in bondage. Nagash was a fool — clutching at the physical, when he should have concentrated on the spiritual. The raw stuff of magic flows in us, pumping our blood and allowing us to wield it as a weapon, or to embrace it to transform, moulding our shapes as we see fit. Not without good reason do the Cathayans call our kind Yiangshi, or “corpse-ghost”.’ He held up his hand, as if to examine it in the light of the braziers that lined the cavern. ‘We are ghosts possessing our own bodies. In time, I will know the secret that Nagash stumbled upon, like a cave-dweller learning of fire.’

‘That’s why you want Ushoran to unlock the secrets of the crown,’ Melkhior said, quietly. ‘That is the debt you wish to collect.’

W’soran looked at his apprentice. ‘Among others, yes.’

Melkhior shook his head. ‘Plans within plans,’ he muttered.

W’soran snorted. ‘Where you see complexity, I see subtlety. Birds and stones, boy — the only lesson Neferata ever took from me was that of the subtle plan. Plans are like layers of armour, insulating you from failure. You would do well to remember that,’ he said pointedly.

Melkhior frowned. ‘I have taken your every lesson to heart, my master.’

‘A beautifully parsed sentence, my boy,’ W’soran said. ‘I have long feared that the art of rhetoric and grammar died with the Great Land.’

‘You are a good teacher,’ Melkhior said.

W’soran smiled. ‘Another beautiful sentence. Now, I dislike having these Strigoi hanging about, getting up to mischief. We’ll need to organise a new campaign for them. Something that takes them far enough away to not trouble me with their incessant complaining, but close enough that — eh?’ He stiffened. ‘I smell something.’

Melkhior tensed, and his hand flew to the hilt of the sword on his hip. The other acolytes reacted more slowly, but reacted all the same, clutching at their knives or scrolls. It had been years since the last skaven incursion, but there were more tunnels than even W’soran’s diligent vermin-hunters had been able to ferret out.

W’soran turned in place, head cocked. The only sounds he heard were the bubbling of the alembics and the screeching of his captives. But he smelled something out of place. As he looked about, the great web of chains suddenly rattled. W’soran spun around, raising a hand.

A dark shape launched itself from the chains. A blade flashed. W’soran staggered back as the flesh of his palm parted and he howled. He slammed back against the cage of orcs and they grabbed at him, pinioning him. Tusks sank into his flesh and bellicose roars deafened him. The dark shape seemed to skate towards him, blade angling for his heart.

Then Melkhior was there, deflecting the blow. He shoved the would-be assassin back. The dark shape crashed among the acolytes, who scattered. It bounded to its feet, revealing itself to be a man — no, a vampire — clad in dark leathers. A scalp-lock whipped about his head as he slashed the air with his sword and drew a heavy dagger from his belt.

‘Assassin,’ Melkhior snarled.

‘Really, how observant of you,’ W’soran shrieked, ripping his arms free of the orcs. ‘How impressive that you were able to deduce that,’ he continued with a hiss. Another hiss, ‘It’s almost as if you have eyes and can use them. Imagine that!’ He whirled about and barked a sibilant incantation. The orcs writhed as if lashed by invisible whips and shied back from the bars, cowed.

He jerked back just in time. A second assassin dropped from the top of the cage, his sword burying itself in the stone. It snapped off, and the vampire tossed it aside with a curse as he leapt for W’soran, his fingertips extruding claws.

W’soran backhanded the assassin, shattering his neck and spine with a single blow and sending the body hurtling across the laboratory. ‘You dare,’ he roared. ‘You dare attack me here?’

‘Master, look out,’ Melkhior bellowed, flinging himself against W’soran even as a third killer materialised from the shadows, wielding a short, stabbing spear. The blade, edged with silver, hissed as it pierced Melkhior’s side and he screamed in agony. He chopped down on the spear, shattering it as he fell. W’soran shoved him aside and spat another incantation.

A knot of blackness formed on the assassin’s chest. The vampire stepped back, confused. The knot billowed and blossomed into something else; tendrils of purest darkness exploded from it, ensnaring the hapless assassin. He had time for one, single scream, before he was drawn into the small obsidian knothole in a cacophony of snapping bones and tearing flesh.

W’soran rose to his feet with impossible grace and turned to search for the last assassin. The vampire was gone. W’soran’s lips writhed back from his fangs and he turned, stooped, and plucked Melkhior from the floor like a man snatching up a hare. ‘How did they get in here?’ he roared, clutching Melkhior by the throat. ‘Where were my guards? This is my citadel, Melkhior! Mine! How did they get in here? Fool. Fool!’ Melkhior could only respond with a weak gurgle. ‘You worthless ape, you spawn of flea-bitten jackal,’ W’soran howled.

With a frustrated shriek W’soran tossed his acolyte aside. He turned, fixing his acolytes with a burning, one-eyed glare. ‘Find him. Find any others who might be with him. Scour this mountain peak to root and find him! I want to know who has dared to invade my sanctum! Find him, find him, find him,’ he howled as the mountain echoed with his fury.