Master of Death

Chapter Five

The Sea of Claws

(Year -1166 Imperial Calendar)

The great bat shrieked in hunger as it swooped high over the choppy, frigid northern waters. That it was dead, and had, indeed, been dead for a number of years, and thus could not be hungry, made no difference to it. W’soran, astride its back in a saddle crafted from furs and tanned human skin, felt a distant kinship with the massive beast.

‘Death is not the end,’ he murmured. His words were lost in the rushing wind. Below him, a galley made furiously for the mouth of a river. W’soran smiled. ‘Well, not for all of us,’ he added. He bent low in his saddle and hauled sharply on the reins. The giant bat folded its wings and plummeted towards the galley with another shriek.

The craft was Nehekharan in origin, though it had been much patched and repaired since it had first set sail from the City of the Dawn. Saurian hide patches marked its hull and Cathayan sails billowed from an Ind-style mast. Its crew were men, despite the nature of its master. Then again, he had never been entirely comfortable with the dead.

In the months following Ushoran’s capture, W’soran had sent out spies and searchers, hunting for word of the rest of the Lahmian Court. Word of Abhorash had been sparse, and Neferata seemed to have disappeared entirely. W’soran held out hope that she had died in the fall of Lahmia, but knew better than to do more than hope. Neferata had a habit of surviving the best laid plans of others.

Of all the former members of the inner circle, only Ankhat had been easy to locate. In the years since Alcadizzar’s destruction of the City of Dawn, Ankhat had not remained hidden. Indeed, he had discarded subtlety entirely. In Cathay, he had claimed to be an immortal sorcerer-prince, and he had led the Dragon-Emperor’s armies in hurling back an invasion from the north that had attempted to breach the Great Bastion.

Soon after, his nocturnal feedings had apparently been uncovered by a secretive society of courtesans and Ankhat had been exposed. A fighting retreat had left the Port of Dogs in flames and Ankhat’s forces reduced to a few vessels and some hundred men. He had prowled the oceans, raiding and hiring out his services to various coastal lords and masters, including the petty chieftains of the icy north. Freed of the responsibilities of royalty, Ankhat had apparently taken to the life of a freebooter. Being a sea-borne thief suited him, W’soran thought.

The crew reacted to the appearance of the bat much as W’soran had expected. Arrows cut through the air, striking the dead beast. W’soran laughed. The bat landed on the prow with a heavy, wood-splintering thump, its wings folding up and its claws crushing the rail. W’soran stood in his saddle and gestured, sweeping the life from the closest men with a single spell. ‘Come out, come out wherever you are, Ankhat,’ he called out. ‘I have a proposition for you, oh mighty lord of Lahmia.’

The door to the cabin’s quarters was flung open and a lean shape clad in light armour and a dark cloak stepped out. Ankhat had not changed much since the fall of Lahmia, W’soran noted. He still had the same arrogant bearing and supercilious expression on his face that W’soran remembered. His hair had gone white, but he was still darkly handsome and of noble position.

‘W’soran,’ he said, his hand fondling the pommel of the heavy eastern blade that hung at his side. ‘If there was one face I had hoped to go without seeing for the rest of eternity, yours would be it.’

‘I’m flattered,’ W’soran said, leaning over the pommel of his saddle. He motioned to the galley. ‘You have been on quite a trip, it seems. I have tracked you from the Port of Dogs to the Bay of Pirates. It’s almost as if you’re running from something, Ankhat. Whatever could that be, hmmm?’

‘You know damn well what I’m fleeing,’ Ankhat snapped. He pointed at W’soran. ‘After all, you clutch at its skirts and bony ankles like a trained ape.’

Stung, W’soran exposed his fangs. ‘Watch your tongue, Ankhat, or I’ll tear it from your head.’

‘Come and try it,’ Ankhat spat. Then, without warning, he shouted an incantation and night-black fire roared from his out-thrust hand. It crashed across the mast and caught the giant bat full in the face and chest. The creature hopped back with a squeal as flames crisped its dry, dead hair. W’soran cursed and slashed out a hand, summoning an icy wind to put out the flames.

Ankhat grinned at him and spread his arms. ‘I always wondered where you’d gotten to, in the end. You left behind a library of scrolls and tomes, you know. Then, maybe you thought Alcadizzar had burnt them, eh?’ Ankhat folded his arms. ‘So many interesting scrolls… so much knowledge, for a man smart enough to see it.’

‘You never struck me as smart,’ W’soran said. ‘So, you’ve pillaged my old library and think yourself now a match for me? Is that it, Ankhat?’

‘Enough of a match to give you a fight,’ Ankhat sneered. ‘But I’d rather not, if I don’t have to. I can only think of one reason for you to hunt me down, W’soran, and the answer is no. I assure you that the others will answer in similar fashion, if you ever find them.’

Something about his tone caught W’soran’s attention. His eyes narrowed. ‘You know where they are, don’t you?’

‘Perhaps, but why should I tell you?’ Ankhat asked. He smiled smugly.

‘If you don’t, I’ll burn this galley to the waterline and take you back to Nagashizzar in chains, even as I did Ushoran,’ W’soran said.

The smile slipped from Ankhat’s face. ‘I’ll fight you,’ he said.

‘Why would you, when you could fight for the Undying King? Why whore your powers out for the petty tribal kings of these barbaric shores when you could serve a true power?’

‘If you have to ask why, you’ll never understand, W’soran,’ Ankhat said, exposing his fangs. ‘A trade, then. I’ll tell you what I know and you leave me be.’

W’soran frowned and sat back in his saddle. The bat stirred restively and he stroked its skull. In truth, Ankhat was hardly a catch — W’soran had always considered him a subpar general and subpar sorcerer. But, if he knew where the others were…

He sniffed. ‘Fine, then. If you wish to remain in these inhospitable climes, who am I to gainsay you? Where are they — Neferata and Abhorash? Tell me where the queen and her champion might be found…’

Crookback Mountain

(Year -322 Imperial Calendar)

When W’soran stepped out of the tunnel and onto the ledge of the crag, Sanzak was waiting for him, even as he’d promised. The Green Witch, the smaller of the two moons, hung full and ugly in the sky alongside its larger sister, and pale streaks cut across the darkness in the distance.

‘Wyrdstone,’ W’soran said, causing Sanzak to turn from his study of the heavens. ‘Those streaks are the tears of the Green Witch, which take the form of the abn-i-khat when they strike the earth.’

‘Interesting, but not why you asked to see me, I trust,’ the Strigoi said. W’soran examined his scarred features in the eerie light of the moons. Sanzak looked like a lump of raw meat with fangs, but his eyes sparked with a keen intelligence. Of all the Strigoi W’soran had met, he was the closest to Ushoran in terms of guile, though that cunning was tempered by an unfortunate propensity to unquestioning loyalty.

‘Knowledge is its own reward,’ W’soran said.

Sanzak snorted. ‘Then why are you so determined to garner other glories?’

‘Vorag’s plan is madness,’ W’soran said bluntly, ignoring the question. ‘It is madness and you know it.’

Sanzak crossed his heavily muscled arms and tilted his head. ‘And if it is? And I do? I will not be a party to betrayal, W’soran. Vorag is my friend and he is my lord. I will give my life for his before I let him come to harm.’

‘Fine sentiments, but would you risk losing everything we have built here, on a whim of Neferata’s?’ W’soran asked, pulling his robes more tightly about himself. Overhead, vast shapes slid through the skies, and faint shrieks drifted down. The great bats of the deep caverns were out and on the hunt.

In the months since the arrival of Neferata’s envoys, Vorag’s army had begun to mobilise for war. Raiding parties scoured the mountains for supplies and new recruits both. Great herds of orc prisoners were being driven into the newly constructed pens in the belly of the mountain, and those who resisted and did not survive that resistance were added to the ranks of zombies that Vorag intended to lead into the eastern marches of Strigos.

Vorag himself, accompanied by Stregga, had begun leading raids on those far-flung holdings of the Strigoi Empire that abutted the territories he himself had claimed. Ushoran’s vassals were put to the stake and torch, unless they swore fealty to Vorag, or somehow managed to escape north. Word was also beginning to filter to the frontier agals and ajals, and as little love as they had for Ushoran, many were flocking to Vorag’s banner with their retainers. Sanzak knew all of this as well, and he had his own doubts, W’soran knew. Sanzak’s loyalty was a weapon that he could hone to a killing point, if he were careful.

Now, Sanzak peered at W’soran and rubbed his chin. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s using him, using all of us, and you know it. Neferata won’t put Vorag on the throne any more than she’d put me or you. No, that one wants to rule herself, and Vorag is playing right into her hands. She’s done it before, Sanzak. She builds heroes and then casts them into the dust when they’ve served their purpose.’

‘She doesn’t strike me as a woman interested in ruling. Now, telling others how to rule, perhaps…’ Sanzak smiled. The expression made his features even more hideous. ‘I fought at her side, W’soran, against the greenskins. I know full well what she’s capable of. She’ll put the Bloodytooth on the throne and feed him speeches, true enough, but he’ll be king nonetheless.’

‘You have no idea, Strigoi,’ W’soran said. ‘You fought beside her? You think that tells you anything about the way her crooked mind works? Neferata pulls you into an embrace only so that there’s less distance across which to drive a dagger. Vorag is nothing to her. We are nothing to her, save pawns to be expended in some obtuse game of power.’

‘Then tell Vorag,’ Sanzak said.

‘I have,’ W’soran said. He chuckled. ‘As have you, if what Zoar says is true.’

Sanzak grimaced and said, ‘Zoar?’

‘Oh, spare me — did you think he would betray my secrets so readily unless I had given him permission to?’ It was W’soran’s turn to snort. ‘How many of you grubbing barbarians tried to co-opt my followers in Mourkain, to learn their secrets without having to bother with joining my circle, eh? Ten maybe, or twenty, or a hundred… my only question is, was it you who decided you needed to learn the art of the winds of death, or Vorag?’

Sanzak turned away, and that gave W’soran his answer. ‘Ah, and isn’t that interesting?’ he said silkily. ‘You’re using your own initiative, Sanzak. That’s a bad habit, in times like these and in a place like this.’

‘Vorag doesn’t trust sorcery,’ Sanzak said.

‘Yet he is happy to use it, at least at a remove,’ W’soran said. He looked out over the mountains. ‘He trusts you?’

‘He did,’ Sanzak said.

‘Before Stregga, eh?’ W’soran said, clasping his hands together. ‘You served beside him for how long? A century or so, before Neferata and her creatures arrived, as I recall. A century of brotherhood, tossed aside for a blonde strumpet. So much for loyalty,’ he said and made a dismissive gesture. ‘Pah. Vorag is a warrior, but nothing more. He only sees what is in front of him and not what lurks off the path.’ He looked at Sanzak. ‘She will destroy him. She will use him as a weapon against Ushoran and break him on Mourkain’s battlements. And you will be broken with him.’

Sanzak said nothing. The Strigoi stood silently, waiting. W’soran held up a finger and continued, ‘Unless, we do something about it now.’

‘Like what?’

‘We cut the cord of influence,’ W’soran said. He made a chopping gesture. ‘Mourkain will be a battleground for centuries yet. Neferata is hoping to ensure that Vorag and Ushoran are the two armies in the field. Instead, we force her to fight her own battles for once.’

‘Vorag hungers for war,’ Sanzak said doubtfully.

‘And war he will have, but not with Mourkain. At least not directly,’ W’soran said. He swept out a hand, indicating the mountains. ‘A great empire sits silent and waiting to the south, over these mountains. And its doorway, the citadel of Nagashizzar, sits open and empty. If Vorag were to sweep south and take it, all of Araby would be ripe for the plucking and the dead cities of the Great Land as well.’

‘Dead cities are right. Neferata spoke of what crouches in those distant ruins, sorcerer,’ Sanzak said. ‘The way is hardly open and you know it. We will have to fight for every scrap of rock and sand.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, but it will be a war that Vorag can easily win, with my help. With your help, Sanzak,’ W’soran said testily. ‘The dead of Nehekhara are old and brittle and few. We will have all of the dead of Nagashizzar and these mountains at our back. More, we have ourselves. The Strigoi are pre-eminent warriors. Your people are born conquerors, so, why not go forth and conquer?’ He laughed. ‘Vorag will have battle aplenty, for years to come and his — your — rewards will be greater than any mouldering mountain city or stagnant hardscrabble empire.’

‘Stregga will not hear of it,’ Sanzak said, after a considering silence. ‘She will try and convince him to move towards Mourkain himself, with all of his forces. And you are forgetting that that is what he wants to do as well. Empires be damned, Vorag wants Ushoran’s head on a pike, aye, and Abhorash’s as well — more than he wants a crown or a throne.’

‘And he will have them,’ W’soran said. ‘But those things will be easier to take with the resources of an empire of our own at our back than the pitiful dregs we possess now.’

‘That still leaves Neferata’s women…’ Sanzak began.

‘Not for long,’ W’soran said.

Sanzak lifted a hand. ‘Say no more. I do not wish to know.’

‘Squeamish, are you, Sanzak? How unexpected,’ W’soran cackled. ‘Never mind then. My plan does not require your assistance or even your acknowledgement. I only ask that you lend your voice to mine, in the moment to come.’

Sanzak hesitated. ‘And Vorag will not be harmed?’

‘I swear by the hackles of Usirian that Vorag will not be harmed,’ W’soran said. ‘In fact, he will gain everything he wishes, in the end.’

Sanzak nodded sharply, after a moment. Then, without another word, he left the crag, stalking back into the tunnel. W’soran didn’t watch him go. Instead, he sniffed the air and said, ‘You heard all of that, I trust?’

‘How long have you actually known Zoar was teaching that fool?’ Melkhior hissed, detaching himself from the upper reaches of the crag. He scrambled down to join W’soran, moving like a spider. In their time in Mourkain, Melkhior had learned how to hide his scent and sound from their kind — all save W’soran, who knew how to look for what was not there as well as what was.

‘Long enough,’ W’soran said.

‘And yet you didn’t discipline him?’ Melkhior demanded.

‘Why would I do that? I did not forbid you from taking your own apprentices, Melkhior,’ W’soran said, relishing the look of fury that passed across Melkhior’s face. ‘Besides, it has proven useful, has it not? Did you do as I commanded?’

‘Yes master,’ Melkhior said. ‘I have pulled the sentries from the deep warrens. The way is unguarded. Do you truly think the skaven will attack?’

‘They’ve been skittering through those tunnels for months now, sniffing for the stores of abn-i-khat they left. Even a single shard would be enough to impel them to attack. With the guards gone, they’ll jump at the opportunity for mischief. And Vorag won’t be able to resist such a direct assault on his “kingdom”,’ W’soran said. ‘And when he moves to counter them, we will have an opportunity of our own to seize.’

‘The deep warrens, you mean,’ Melkhior said. He smiled nastily. ‘I know you, master. And I know that this isn’t just about getting rid of those interfering creatures of Neferata’s, is it?’

W’soran eyed Melkhior for a long moment before he chuckled. ‘You’ve always been something of a disappointment to me, Melkhior. Up until this moment, at any rate… yes, there are obvious goals and subtle ones. I’ve learned quite a bit from Iskar. The mad little rat has finally begun talking, and what stories he weaves. I thought the skaven were a localised phenomenon, but according to him, they lurk everywhere, under every mountain and molehill. Most importantly, there is more to this mountain than what we have found. A whole secondary fortress beneath the fortress we took. With armouries, breeding pens and workshops of filthy creation, all for the taking, if we are quick enough and cunning enough to do it.’ He rubbed his hands together in glee. ‘There is more to this citadel than those dullards the Strigoi know, and it will all be mine.’

‘And how do you intend to escape Neferata’s vengeance, in the interim?’ Melkhior asked.

W’soran glanced at him. ‘With a citadel and an army, I will have little need of “escape”, Melkhior,’ he said. He leaned over the crag, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘In truth, the story I have spun for Sanzak is just that — a story. A deception, Melkhior, for Neferata is, at best, merely an obstacle. She is not a threat to us, not in the same way that Ushoran is. Oh yes, she is scheming even now to forge us — forge Vorag, I should say — into a blade to drive into Ushoran’s heart. This is because, despite all that I taught her in lost Lahmia, she lacks the ability to grasp what is truly at stake here, and what sort of war is being waged.’

He tapped his head. ‘She thinks like a queen still, and thinks that this is a war of kings and queens and thrones. Like Vorag, her strategies revolve around passes and supply lines, territory… material things. Oh, but Ushoran knows now, even as I know, that this is not a war of men, but of magicians. Men, and their valour and their greed, are incidental. The throne is incidental. Empires are but the dust beneath our feet. Neferata does not see that. She is not our enemy, Melkhior. She is but a tool, like Vorag and Abhorash and all of the others — pieces in the game Ushoran and I are playing.’

‘I’d wager she thinks the same of you,’ Melkhior said.

W’soran smiled. ‘I’m certain she does. She’s wrong; but then, given her history, that’s not surprising.’ He chuckled. ‘It serves my purposes to build her as an enemy in Sanzak’s eyes. And, should he survive, in Vorag’s. It keeps them from seeing the true game, and gives them an enemy equal to their understanding. And, well, if I did not strike at her, she would become suspicious. And we can’t have that. So, I will take her pieces, and counter her puling attempt to bully her way into mine and Ushoran’s game, and keep her busy striking at shadows, even as I did in Mourkain. And, when she finds Vorag’s forces nowhere to be seen, she’ll realise that she’s overextended her hand and she’ll retreat.

‘And Ushoran… Ushoran will pursue and pull her pathetic little mountain down around her ears. If we’re lucky, she’ll come running to us for sanctuary, grovelling on her belly as she always should have done, seeking the favour of her betters.’ He snapped his fangs for emphasis. ‘Stupid preening cow, always so assured of her own righteousness, of her own intelligence. It was she who ruined it, you know… all of it. She mooned after that lout Alcadizzar instead of ringing the cities of the Great Land in fire and steel and squeezing them until they wept blood. It was she who ruined Lamashizzar’s plans to tease the secrets of immortality out of that fool, Arkhan.

‘And if she had allowed me to make an offer of alliance to Nagash early on, Lahmia might yet stand — the City of the Dawn, reborn as the City of Eternal Night, where an ageless aristocracy ruled the dead sands forevermore!’

‘And where were you while she was doing all of this, master?’ Melkhior asked, after a moment of silence.

W’soran didn’t reply. Where indeed? He had been in a jar, with a splinter in his heart and only the spiders for company. He stared out over the mountains. To the north and east, he could see the flickering blacker-than-black aura that crossed the dark sky like a ribbon. He felt a distinct tug on his mind, like hooks settling gently into the meat of it, and hissed in irritation. ‘Fool,’ he said softly, then, almost sadly, ‘you foolish, foolish man.’

He had never had friends, either as a child or as a man grown, for such petty social concerns had always been beneath him. But if he had indulged, Ushoran would have been one. W’soran looked at his withered hands. It had been Ushoran who had, all those many long years ago, helped him escape Mahrak. It had been Ushoran who had brought him into the conspiracy and then, after Neferata’s murderous attack, back out of the darkness.

Ushoran had feared him, and had hated him, had kept him around only because he was useful, but nonetheless… there it was. For no matter how W’soran twisted and schemed, only Ushoran had never lost patience, or decided to do away with him. Only Ushoran had seen his potential, had seen him for the power he truly was. Even Nagash had denigrated and underestimated him.

Only Ushoran had ever cared enough to truly fear W’soran for his capabilities, rather than his looks or his proclivities. That was why he was the only one worth playing against. Fear bred respect, after all. Neferata was nothing, and Abhorash even less than that. They were primitives, besotted by blood and unheeding of the true currents of power. But when Ushoran’s fear had been driven from him by the power of the twisted iron crown that now ensnared him, W’soran had run. He’d done as he’d always done, scuttled for the shadows, his tail between his legs. He’d left Mourkain and Ushoran.

But then flight had ever been his first choice, even as a boy in Mahrak. In flight, there was no risk, only gain. To fight was to risk pain, or death. But to flee was to live, to borrow a bit more time from inevitability. That was why he had sought immortality. He knew well enough now how fragile it was, but at the time it had seemed the ultimate escape. But in fleeing Mourkain, he had sacrificed much.

He closed his fingers, letting the tips of his talons pierce his flesh. When he’d sent Neferata to Nagashizzar, he’d half-hoped she would fail. That she would fail and die; that if the skaven failed to kill her the dead of Nehekhara would have succeeded. But she had won through, and brought back those resources he’d requested. Another shadow-chase he’d sent her on that she’d preened at seeing through, as if she had actually accomplished something.

He hadn’t truly needed the book. He could have drawn Alcadizzar’s spirit from the stones of Mourkain at any time, and bound it once more to its tattered flesh for Ushoran to maul to his heart’s content. But he’d hoped to distract Ushoran from his growing obsession. Even now, he couldn’t say whether that attempt had been for his own ends, or out of some misguided attempt to protect the only creature he had even the smallest shred of affinity for.

But Ushoran’s demands had grown ever more strident. He had sat atop that damnable crown longer than any, had felt it caress his mind every night, been tormented and seduced by it, until finally it had snapped him up and pulled him under. It could have been any one of them, in the end. Ushoran had simply gotten there first. He had always been quick to seize an opportunity.

Even now, even here, the thought of that moment, of that horrified realisation that had risen from within Ushoran’s eyes, sweeping aside madness, pricked him. Anger bubbled in him, for himself, and perhaps for all of them. The struggles of ants, eclipsed by the whims of gods; but ants could bite and kill.

As if in response to his thoughts, the distant black aura seemed to brighten and pulse. W’soran looked at it and snarled. He could feel it creeping up on him, drawing close about him, beckoning him on. Was Ushoran fighting for control even now, or had he already surrendered? Was his seeming opening to attack true weakness or a feint, designed to draw them all in once more? Was it all a ploy to draw in W’soran, for who better to be the bearer of the Crown of Nagash than his former disciple? Not Ushoran, or Abhorash or Neferata, but W’soran. Whose game was being played? Though there was no sentience in that crooked diadem, there was a malign drive. A compulsion, woven into the metal in its forging, that fools like Neferata confused for intelligence.

He closed his eyes and shuddered as the black aura seemed to blaze beneath the moons. He could sense the daemonic challenge that rode the charnel winds from Mourkain. Ushoran, unlike Neferata, would be a worthy opponent. Who else but Ushoran suspected the full power that lurked in Nagash’s crown? Who but Ushoran was left to vie with for such a secret? Arkhan cowered somewhere to the south, and the rest of Nagash’s disciples had either gone to their final deaths or fled the lands of men entirely. Only the two of them were left. Would he, W’soran, be able to rise to the occasion?

OR WILL YOU RUN AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS RUN, W’SORAN OF MAHRAK?

The voice — Ushoran’s voice — rumbled in his head like ice sliding from a crag to crash against slopes far below. His hands flew to his skull and he gasped. In his mind’s eye, he could see the throne room of distant Mourkain as if through a pool of water. He saw the great and the mighty of that realm, clad in barbarous splendour, as they roared out Ushoran’s name.

Ushoran strode through their ranks, a demigod clad in gilded armour and bearing a handsome face. On his head, he wore the iron crown, and shadows seemed to sweep in his wake like the wings of some mighty bird of prey. But there was another face beneath his, another figure occupying his space, just out of sync with him, but yet connected — a massive shape, twisted and dark and mighty in that darkness, but unseen by any save he, W’soran knew. Ghostly brass claws held tight to Ushoran’s broad shoulders, guiding him towards his throne as musicians played a triumphal march and his people cheered.

W’soran could see the tightness of Ushoran’s muscles, the resistance in every movement. The ghostly claws tightened, slicing into him, and Ushoran’s lips peeled back from his fangs in a grimace that his court likely took for a smile. The crown pulsed and burned to W’soran’s eyes, like a gangrenous wound wrought in iron. Strands of hateful magic stretched from it and spread down into Ushoran, digging into his vitals like a torturer’s hooks.

Ushoran took his throne, and Abhorash moved out from the crowd to stand at the foot of the dais that supported his throne. From Abhorash’s face, W’soran knew that he knew and that he saw what W’soran saw. And yet he stayed. What madness compelled him, W’soran wondered? Was he too under the power of the crown, even as Neferata had been, or was it something else?

Before he had more than a moment to contemplate those questions, he saw Ushoran, slumped on his throne, turn slightly, as if looking in his direction. Then, with sickening certainty, W’soran knew that he was. Pain rippled through him, a dull, pounding ricochet of agony, searing him. Again, he felt Khalida’s arrow at the Gates of the Dawn, and the wet tearing of Neferata’s improvised stake as it punched through his sternum. His claws dug into his skull as he quivered in agony.

Looming above Ushoran, skull wreathed in balefire, something looked at him and then Ushoran asked, WHAT ARE YOU? WHAT IS W’SORAN OF LAHMIA? Ushoran’s eyes blazed as the words thundered in W’soran’s head, spiralling into agonising incandescence. And Ushoran twitched upon his throne, as if trying to pry himself free of what held him. His eyes met W’soran’s and there was a terrible plea in them. The Lord of Masks was caught in a trap that not even his cunning could set him free of.

Then, all at once, the vision was done, and there was nothing in his head save the sound of the night wind howling through the crags and the dull warble of Melkhior’s voice as he reached out a claw. ‘Master, are you unwell?’

W’soran spun about, and he slapped Melkhior off his feet, nearly knocking him from the ledge. One hand clutching his aching head, W’soran snarled, ‘Never touch me!’

Then, without a backwards glance, he left the winds and his cringing apprentice behind as he strode back into the mountain, shaking and shivering with rage and fear.

There was murder to be planned and a war to be won. And perhaps, just perhaps, an old — what? — friend, that was as good a word as any, to be saved — saved from himself, from the ghosts of the past, from his unearned throne.

But most importantly of all, there was an empire to be had.

‘What is W’soran of Lahmia, old friend?’ W’soran asked himself as he swept his cloak about himself. ‘Why, he is your master. He is the Master of Death, and he will break you on the altar of your own hubris!’