Master of Death

Chapter Fourteen

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.

‘We,’ Abhorash said.

Crookback Mountain

(Year -263 Imperial Calendar)

W’soran cursed as the hooves of his steed slipped and slid on the ice encrusting the rocky path leading to the entrance to his citadel. The wind howled through the crags, and sheets of snow and frozen rain pelted him as he hunched forward in his saddle, his tattered cloak providing little protection. He did not feel the cold, but the snow and ice made it hard to move and even harder to see. Winter in the mountains was never pleasant, even for a being such as him.

The difficulty in reaching his citadel had only added to the pile of steadily building frustrations that threatened, at times, to crush him under. It had all been going so well, and, to an extent, it still was. His army maintained its position, and had thrown back a number of Strigoi assaults. Palisades had been erected and trees cleared. The temporary camp had become a fortified bulwark, a wedge of influence in enemy territory. He was forced to trust that Ullo and the others could hold it, especially given the lack of reinforcements.

Vaal the Thirst had not rejoined them. His forces had been ambushed by unknown enemies in the hills to the west. Lukas, the other Strigoi outrider, had found Vaal’s head on a spear, standing amidst the detritus of his forces. Lukas’s own force had been harried all the way back to the main body of the army, attacked by small parties of the dead. W’soran recognised Neferata’s handiwork, though not a single quicksilver killer had been seen. There was something going on in the west, something she didn’t want him to see. Perhaps she was simply shielding the flanks of the tribes of the lowlands, whose barbarous warbands were streaming into Strigoi territory with a relentless savagery. Or perhaps she was finally mobilising her own forces for the final battle. She could smell the scent of Ushoran’s weakness as well as he could, though she had no hope of defeating Nagash in a direct confrontation.

You had your chance, witch. It’s my turn, he thought sourly. Or, it would have been, had he not been dragged from the forefront of battle by the negligence of his supposedly capable castellan. Melkhior had much to answer for. He had sent no reinforcements, and the citadel was woefully undefended, as evidenced by the lack of any sentries accosting him upon his arrival. For a moment, he ruefully contemplated the lack of exterior fortifications. He had never considered them necessary, despite Melkhior’s protestations to the contrary. There were defences within, and strong ones at that, but he had never thought it necessary to add any to the slopes of the mountain. Why advertise the citadel’s presence, after all?

It wasn’t only a matter of men and materials; the proceeds from the mines had dried to a trickle and the mineral wealth that had bought him the loyalty of certain tribes and served to bribe others into inactivity was threatened. It was all his agents could do to keep the hillmen of the Vaults from attacking the Draesca while their king was away. If the gold stopped coming, they would attack and a third of his army would melt away as Chown took his men home to defend his kingdom.

Everything hinged on the mines and the reinforcements. He had thrown everything into this attack, had planned and prepared for years for this moment, and now it was all teetering on the edge of a knife held by a dithering, twitching fool. He angrily scrubbed snow from his shoulders. He’d known Melkhior was too unreliable to serve him in battle, but had hoped that he’d prove an adequate major domo. Instead, he was beginning to regret ever having bothered to turn the idiot Strigoi in the first place. What a waste of blood and power that was turning out to be…

The only forces W’soran had brought with him were his bodyguard of wights. The dead chieftains looked about slowly as they rode into the crooked cavern that marked the entrance to the mountain and acted as the forecourt of the citadel. Scorch marks marred the cavern walls and debris covered the rough floor — bits of bone and armour, and patches of melted rock.

Something had happened.

Perhaps reinforcements hadn’t come because there were none to send. W’soran growled deep in his throat. What foolishness had his acolyte perpetrated?

Eyes were on him, and he brought his dead steed to a halt in the centre of the forecourt. He looked around. There were no torches lit, no burning skulls to greet him. Leather brushed against rock. W’soran’s gaze rotated. Thousands of bats clustered on the ceiling of the cavern, their tiny bright eyes staring down at him. Hairy bodies squirmed against one another in a living carpet of teeth and wings, and he wondered at their number. There had always been bats in the deeper reaches of the mountain, but never so many, he thought.

He grunted and swung out of his saddle. His wights followed suit, drawing their weapons even as their feet touched the floor. W’soran didn’t bother to draw his scimitar. He looked to the wide flat steps that curved up into the mountain. The slap of leather soles on stone sounded dully out of the darkness. A moment later a cloaked shape stood at the summit of the steps, glaring down at them. W’soran frowned.

‘What is this? No happy greeting from student to master? No cry of welcome, no reception befitting my status?’ he called out harshly. There was no reply. Irritated, W’soran raised his hand and a soft corona of sickly light formed above his upturned palm. Light washed over the cavern and the shape at the summit threw up a hand to cover its eyes.

‘I expect an answer when I ask a question, Melkhior,’ W’soran said. ‘Or have you forgotten all of your duties, rather than just a few?’

‘Master, is that you?’ Melkhior rasped, peering down at them.

‘Who else would it be, you idiot?’

Melkhior visibly hesitated. W’soran’s good eye widened slightly as he caught sight of the creatures behind Melkhior. He thought they were ghouls at first, but then saw that they weren’t alive, in the traditional sense. Stained wrappings were wound round their blistered and scarred flesh, and their faces were a gruesome blend of man, beast and corpse. They seemed to be caught between life and death, and they reeked of wrongness. Their mottled flesh blended easily with the darkness and they crept forward around Melkhior in a protective manner. W’soran felt a sting of pleasure at the thought that Melkhior had created them. Perhaps he wasn’t as much of an idiot as he seemed.

‘I see you have been keeping up with your studies, at least,’ he said.

Melkhior’s hand fell to the flat skull of the closest of the beasts, and he stroked it idly. He seemed to relax slightly. ‘There have been… incidents, in your absence, master.’

‘So I see,’ W’soran said, gesturing about him. ‘What has happened?’

‘The ratkin have returned,’ Melkhior said bluntly.

W’soran hissed. He looked about him. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the signs of collapsed tunnels in the walls and floor of the cavern. He had half-expected it, but not so soon. Not now, when he couldn’t deal with them as they deserved. ‘When?’ he asked, starting up the stairs.

‘Months ago,’ Melkhior said. He watched his master approach, a strange expression on his face. ‘But their scouts infiltrated the mountain a year ago or more. We didn’t detect them until too late.’ He hesitated. ‘They freed your… pet.’

‘Iskar is still alive?’ W’soran asked, bemused. ‘Fascinating, I’d have thought he’d have died in my absence.’ Then Melkhior’s words fully sank in and he snarled. ‘Freed him? How, when?’

There was another hesitation. Then, Melkhior said, ‘Two years ago.’

‘Two…’ W’soran repeated and shook his head.

‘They snuck in and destroyed the laboratories. They freed him then. At first, I thought he’d died, but we never found a carcass…’ He stopped and shrank back as W’soran glared at him.

‘My laboratory,’ W’soran said, his hands clenching. Fury built in him. ‘What of the vaults?’ In the aftermath of the first attempt on his life, W’soran had realised that his most valuable treasures — the carefully hoarded books and scrolls of dark design upon which his power was based — were vulnerable to theft or destruction, as they were. They had been copied again and again by his acolytes, and it was true that if they were lost, the knowledge in them could be recovered, but there was a malevolent power in those original manuscripts that could not be replaced. Not wishing to risk it, he had overseen the construction of a specially prepared vault, guarded around the clock by unsleeping guardians.

‘Safe, master, I swear,’ Melkhior said quickly. ‘They are under guard day and night. I created the perfect guardian to replace those destroyed by the skaven. Come, come! I will show you!’ He spun about and started up the steps, his creations scuttling after him. W’soran watched him flee, and then, more slowly, followed.

The citadel bore mute testimony to Melkhior’s assertions. W’soran had no real cause to doubt his acolyte’s word, but he knew better than to trust him. He knew better than to trust any man, servant or no. Nevertheless, the citadel showed signs of conflict that put him in mind of those early months just after their arrival, when they had battled the skaven for control of the mountain. He saw patrols of battered skeletons, much repaired and moving slowly. Rotting zombies crafted from orcs and men guarded the entrances to the side caverns, and he saw more of Melkhior’s creations prowling the side-tunnels and darkened ledges. But not many — when he had marched for Strigos, Crookback Mountain had echoed with the sounds of industry and marching dead men. Now, an eerie, empty silence hung about the place and his every step seemed to echo and re-echo.

‘Where are the legions I left for you, Melkhior? Where are your fellow acolytes?’ he asked.

‘Dead — the final death,’ Melkhior said, not looking at his master. ‘The skaven returned with deadly weapons, master… weapons that spat sorcerous fire and monstrous creatures that tore vampires apart as if they were nothing more than men. You cannot resurrect ash and char. I have… had to make do.’

‘All of them, Melkhior?’ W’soran pressed.

‘Those who did not die in the destruction of the laboratory fell in battle,’ Melkhior said. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at W’soran. ‘I am your only remaining apprentice, master.’

‘All save those who accompanied me to war, yes. How unfortunate,’ W’soran murmured. Melkhior was lying. He knew it as surely as he knew that the other vampire had gone mad. He could smell that madness seeping from Melkhior’s pores. W’soran recognised it, for he had smelled the same stink on Ushoran and on Neferata — the madness of certainty, of a single overwhelming design. If W’soran had felt even the slightest amount of affection for his acolytes, he might have been angrier. As it was, he only required one to see to the citadel — if Melkhior had elected himself to be that one, fine.

Melkhior appeared not to have heard W’soran’s insult. ‘But the citadel remains in our hands, master. I have thrown back the skaven every time they have attacked, no matter the losses. I have scoured their old warrens with armies made from their own dead and I have filled the deep tunnels with my eyes and ears…’ Here, he gestured upwards. W’soran looked up and saw more bats, all watching him. ‘I have done all that you asked of me, master.’

‘Except supply me with reinforcements,’ W’soran said. He stopped and turned. ‘I would see my laboratory,’ he said, stepping through an archway.

Melkhior hurried after him. ‘It is dangerous, master. The abn-i-khat has tainted everything, and your experiments-’ he began, reaching for W’soran, who caused him to freeze in place with a glare. As Melkhior shrank back, W’soran turned back to the great doors that marked where his laboratory had once been.

‘My experiments are of no concern. I can recreate them, in time. What of our other guest?’

‘Other…?’

‘The Lahmian witch, Melkhior,’ W’soran said, pressing one hand to the doors. The amulets around his neck grew warm and they caused his flesh to tingle where they touched it. He could smell the essence of abn-i-khat beyond the doors. The scent was almost overpowering, and the old need rippled through him, making it hard to think. ‘Or was she destroyed as well?’ he continued.

His curiosity was almost impossible to ignore — what sort of weapon had the skaven used to destroy his labs? More — how had they gotten in? His labs had been warded both inside and out, the very stones wrapped in layers of sorcery. The doors bulged slightly, though they had been chained shut. The thick wood was scorched and the metal warped by a great heat, a heat which was still present. W’soran drew his hand back and examined the raised blisters on his palm with some interest. Through the cracks in the door, he could see a strange flickering light, and there was an eerie tang to the air. Everything seemed greasy, as if it were covered in a thin film of… something.

‘I… don’t know,’ Melkhior said. ‘There were fires — fires that still burn! Not even we could stand it for long. The wyrdstone fires burn without consuming, master, and I can find no way to extinguish those flames. I have had to seal it off.’

W’soran stepped back from the doors. He turned to Melkhior. ‘You disappoint me. The vaults,’ he snapped. Melkhior scuttled away, and W’soran followed. ‘What of the mines?’ he asked.

‘The orcs grow rebellious,’ Melkhior grunted. ‘There is a band of them loose in the bowels of the mine, led by a creature called Dork.’ Melkhior shuddered. ‘It broke free of the work gangs in the last revolt. It was whelped here, I think. Grown in the dark like a mushroom, and raised in the mines. It — it is not like the others.’

‘What do you mean?’ W’soran asked. ‘And how much trouble can one band of orcs be?’

‘More than I expected,’ Melkhior said hesitantly. He twitched. ‘The creature employs sorcery.’

‘Impossible,’ W’soran said. The orcs had shamans, but their magics were primitive, and more likely to kill the caster than an enemy.

‘He is smart. It is as if he has learned,’ Melkhior continued, as if W’soran hadn’t spoken. He shook his head. ‘I thought it was impossible for the greenskins to learn, but this beast has. It employs cunning, avoiding my patrols. Every day, more orcs vanish in the mines, freed or killed by this creature, and I do not have the resources to both find him and guard against the skaven.’ He looked at W’soran, and his expression was sour as he added, ‘Or to send you reinforcements, master.’

W’soran didn’t reply. He fingered his amulets thoughtfully, studying his acolyte. ‘Show me the vaults,’ he said.

The vault was set into a hollowed-out crag, with only one entrance, and only one purpose. The entrance was normally guarded by a coterie of wights raised specifically for that task, but they were not in evidence now. The door was crafted from stone, with a great iron pull-ring set in its centre. Melkhior moved to open it, but W’soran shoved him aside and grabbed the ring himself. He grunted as he shifted it, eliciting a grinding groan from the stones of the portal. He could feel the spells he had worked into the vault washing over him, determining his identity. Only he and his most senior acolytes were allowed within. At this point, of course, Melkhior was the only one of the latter remaining.

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.’

Dork howled again, and his muscles seemed to swell. The hazy aura about him snapped into sharp focus, and W’soran was reminded of the vision he’d had of Ushoran, with Nagash’s shadow superimposed over him. For a moment, the orc, as large as he was, appeared akin to a giant crammed into a body that was three sizes too small. The cavern shuddered and great chunks of rock fell as Dork charged forward, swinging his weapons.

W’soran eeled around the first blow and twitched aside from the second as Dork’s aura sparked and snapped like an overfed fire and the green heat washed over him. He drew his blade in time to block another heavy blow, and batted aside the axe as it dug for his chest. The orc was fast — almost impossibly so. More green lightning sparked from Dork’s frame, striking the walls and floor and W’soran as well. His flesh peeled and split where the crackling energy touched him and he hissed in consternation.

‘Crumpya,’ Dork roared. ‘Chopya!’

‘I think not,’ W’soran snarled. He shoved himself back, sliding momentarily out of the orc’s reach. Dork was strong. Too strong, in fact. W’soran glared about, his mind calculating and discarding possibilities. He knew much of the greenskins, including… ‘Ah,’ he hissed. Death magic swirled about him in a black cloud as he began to draw power from every part of the cavern. Dork charged towards him, bellowing.

W’soran thrust out his arm, and a rippling bolt of black energy burst from his palm. It narrowly missed Dork, who roared in triumph and brought his weapons down on W’soran. The latter barely held back the descending blades with his scimitar, and he sank to one knee, momentarily overwhelmed by the raw, sorcerously enhanced strength of his opponent. Dork leered down at him, certain of his triumph. Then, when he saw the wide grin on his opponent’s face, the orc hesitated.

‘Yesss,’ W’soran chuckled. ‘You are a smart one.’

Behind Dork, the slave pens had fallen silent. Every single living thing, orc or otherwise, in the pens was dead, killed by the lethal magics that W’soran had hurled at them — hundreds of orcs, slain in a single moment. Dork’s jaw sagged as his gaze flickered between the pens, hunting for any signs of life. Then he turned back, his eyes glowing so brightly that W’soran was forced to cover his own.

Dork howled. And every surviving orc, those who had come with their new warboss to free their fellows, howled with him, their great jaws gaping as they gave vent to a communal scream of primal ferocity and berserk rage. The cavern began to shudder and shake. The ceiling ruptured and bats spiralled frantically as jagged chunks of stone crashed down, piercing the floor and releasing serpentine cracks that sped across the ground.

W’soran climbed to his feet. Nearby, a trio of orcs fell as their heads burst. As if that had been a signal, more orcs twitched and fell as their skulls popped. There was a growing pressure in the cavern, and W’soran’s mystically attuned senses screamed a warning. The ground beneath his feet burst, the hard stone shifting like melting ice. He turned and ran. Dork remained where he stood, a focal point for the snarling rhythms of green lightning that threatened to collapse the entire cavern.

W’soran reached the wall upon which the observation balcony sat and scrambled up it, climbing like a malformed and arthritic spider. He caught sight of a black-clad form — Melkhior — doing the same. They reached the balcony at roughly the same time, and both vaulted through the archway into the corridor beyond as a heavy fang of rock sheared the balcony away from the wall. W’soran turned and laughed wildly as around them, Crookback Mountain shook with the rage of Dork of the Red Eye tribe.

‘Did you see that, Melkhior? Did you see it?’ he shouted, as the corridor groaned and the mountain’s guts rumbled. Smoke and dust boiled out through the archway, and grit caked them as W’soran’s wights, whom he’d left safely behind, helped them up. ‘Fascinating, eh? Impressive, wasn’t he? To have that much power in him must surely be a result of-’

‘Impressive? Impressive,’ Melkhior hissed. He snapped forward, like a striking adder, claws digging for W’soran’s throat. ‘You nearly destroyed everything, you fool!’

W’soran caught his wrists and jerked him around. With a twitch of his arms, he slammed his acolyte against the wall and pinned him in place, using one hand to hold his wrists and his other to cup his jaw. ‘And so what?’ W’soran asked. ‘It is mine to destroy, Melkhior, just as you are. You are still mine, aren’t you?’ he continued, his voice dropping low. He squeezed Melkhior’s jaw and felt bone crack and the muscle rip beneath his fingers. ‘Yesss, I made you, my son, and I can unmake you. You are a tool, boy, to be used as I see fit, as is this citadel, and everything in it. And I will use you, to secure my victory.’

Without releasing Melkhior, he glanced back at the archway and the fallen rocks that now blocked it. ‘You will dig that out. Dead, those orcs will likely make better slaves at any rate. Then you will bring the levels of production back up to my standards. I will be taking half of your remaining forces with me when I depart. Now, any parting words for your poor burdened master?’

He released Melkhior and threw him to the floor. Melkhior glared up at him, and rubbed his bloody jaw. ‘If — if you take half of my forces, I will not be able to hold off the skaven, let alone supply you with your gold…’

‘Oh, I’m certain you’ll manage, my son. It would have been easier, had you a few of your fellows to help, but… well,’ W’soran said with a shrug. ‘One must make do with what one has, eh?’

‘You… you are more powerful than I am. Let me go in your stead. With you here, the skaven will not dare attack, and I am more than capable of-’

‘Of course you’re capable, my boy,’ W’soran said, looking down at him. ‘That’s why I left you here. You are much too useful for me to risk you on the battlefield. Why, if I lost you, who would guard my laboratory or my books? Though, it must be said, you’re not very good at the former.’

Melkhior flinched. He made no effort to get up. ‘I have always been loyal, master…’

‘Loyalty is worthless if the source is useless,’ W’soran said, turning away. ‘You are useless, Melkhior, and you always have been. So greedy for my favour that you fail to see that I despise you. And I despise you, because you are wasteful, Melkhior. You break what is still useful, like a child throwing a tantrum.’ He stopped, and glanced over his shoulder. ‘The only reason that I don’t kill you now, boy, is that you have made yourself indispensable, if in a thoroughly roundabout manner. I am running out of time, and simply by existing in this moment, you have become useful.’

He raised a talon, like a parody of the pedantic tutor he had once been, and said, finally, ‘But use is finite. And though it would pain me, if yours should ever run out entirely, I will flay the foul hide off your crooked bones myself.’ He turned and continued on, his wights following silently.

As he left Melkhior sitting in the darkness, W’soran called out, ‘Use is finite, my son. Prove you still have yours!’