Master of Death

Chapter Fifteen

The City of Mourkain

(Year -850 Imperial Calendar)

‘This is madness,’ W’soran snapped, slapping aside the record books and scrolls that occupied the table. He shot to his feet as they fell to the floor. ‘They’ll never believe it, let alone forgive old grudges.’

‘They will, because we have what they want,’ Ushoran said mildly. He picked up a handful of the gold that W’soran’s dead servants had clawed from the dark vaults beneath Mourkain. It had taken decades to find those vaults, but the legions of well-preserved dead entombed by mad, bad Kadon were now once more hard at work, building Ushoran a war-chest that outstripped even the wealth of long-lost Lahmia at its height. ‘Gold is what interests the dawi, and only gold.’

‘You forget honour,’ Abhorash rumbled, standing nearby, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed down at the pile of maps that Ushoran’s cartographers had been hard at work crafting for the better part of two years. The edges of those maps were still hazy, but, if you squinted, and the light was good, the rough outline of an empire became somewhat visible.

It was only the three of them in the chamber of Kadon’s pyramid that Ushoran had designated as his war-council. That was not unusual, though it had grown rarer as the years passed and they began to recall just how much they actually disliked each other. But initially, Ushoran had seemed to welcome the awkward camaraderie — indeed, he seemed almost desperate for it, and W’soran, despite himself, could not blame him. In the deeps of the mountains, a black voice tolled again and again, urging them on and whispering malevolently seductive promises. He recognised that voice, even if Ushoran did not, and it made him frequently question his reasons for acquiescing to Ushoran’s request that he join him in the benighted land.

‘I forget nothing. I merely disregard it in this instance. Mourkain — Strigos — has forfeited honour, to the dawi way of thinking. A change of leadership will not change that. All that is left is this shiny bit of promise,’ Ushoran said, examining a nugget. ‘And this, they want. They crave it, as we crave blood.’ He tossed the nugget onto the table and sniffed. ‘So we will extend the proper invitations and see what comes of it.’

‘Idiocy,’ W’soran said, leaning forward and balancing on his knuckles. ‘Why beg what we could borrow, why borrow what we can take, eh?’

‘Why take what will be freely given?’ Ushoran asked. He glanced at Abhorash. ‘What of the northern frontier?’

‘The daemon worshippers come in great numbers, but they are… fragile,’ Abhorash said, his arms crossed, his face set. ‘I can drive them back, given time and men. Once a few of their champions lose their heads, they’ll scurry back to their wastes.’

‘And what of the devils that accompany them, eh?’ W’soran sneered. ‘Will you chop their heads off, champion?’

‘I rather thought that you might help him with that, old monster,’ Ushoran said, pulling a map towards himself. ‘Unless, of course, you have finally learned what you need to know from Kadon’s scribbling to acquire for me my crown?’

W’soran froze and he noticed that Abhorash did the same. Both vampires traded a glance and then looked at the Lord of Masks. For a moment, just an instant, something seemed to hunch over Ushoran, something infinitely massive and terrible, and the torches set into the walls hissed and flickered as if that same something were drawing the heat and light from them.

Oh yes, it had its claws deep in him, no doubt about it. The question was, did it want him? Or was Ushoran merely… a substitute?

Everything about the place seemed to press down upon him as he stood there, as if it sought to force him to crawl before it. The voice — his voice — was louder now, murmuring constantly, just behind his thoughts. An aura of darkness clung to the stones and his bones felt brittle and cold within their envelope of weak flesh.

Death coiled waiting in this place. But waiting for what — or whom — he could not say.

W’soran licked his lips. ‘Not — ah — as yet, Ushoran,’ he said.

‘Lord Ushoran,’ Ushoran corrected. ‘We must observe the proprieties, W’soran. I am a lord now… but I will be a king soon — an undying one and a great one, as soon as you fulfil your part of our bargain, old monster.’ His eyes flickered, as if something lean and hungry moved behind them, jaws agape and mind athirst. ‘Get me my crown, W’soran, so that I might remake this world into a better one.’

The City of Mourkain

(Year -260 Imperial Calendar)

Mourkain was burning. The city was alight with a hundred fires as its walls shuddered beneath the weight of the siege that encompassed it. Smoke rose into the night sky in thick plumes as the screams of dying men and the roar of battle rose to mingle with it in the heights. Bats wheeled and flapped across the face of the moon and the air was full of wailing spectres and howling spirits.

W’soran hunched forward in his saddle and cackled as the zombie-dragon smashed into the inner gates of Mourkain, a cloud of noxious gas spewing from its bony jaws to engulf the warriors who cringed back from it in horror. Its ancient talons gouged the stone, sending rock tumbling down into the river below. Its serpentine neck whipped back and forth, and its pestilential breath spread across the wall and into the gatehouse, killing men in their dozens.

The Strigoi warriors screamed and tore at their armour as it corroded, and their flesh, even as it sloughed from their bones. W’soran gestured and a rippling bolt of black sorcery tore through a watchtower, ripping the edifice from the wall and dropping it down into the gorge below to crash into the raging waters.

Satisfied, he flexed his will and the dragon pushed away from the wall with a rasping cry. It was not a natural sound and it affected those who heard it almost as badly as the zombie-dragon’s breath had done. The monster flapped its tattered wings once, twice and then it was barrelling upwards through the smoke-choked night air.

Below him, the siege of Mourkain spread out in a gore-stained panorama. The city was surrounded by a heavy wooden palisade in concentric and ever-shrinking rings that jutted from the rocky slope. Smoke rose from within, striping the air with greasy trails. The decaying bodies of Draesca tribesmen had been impaled on great, greased stakes lining the approaches to the city.

Bone-giants battered at the palisade, killing men with every sweep of their great khopesh or spears. Ushabti crafted from bone and clay and rotting meat stalked through gaps the giants had already made, followed by hunting packs of ghouls and crypt horrors. The sky was filled with swarms of bats, both of the normal variety and the titan monstrosities that he had wrenched from their slumber in the depths. Squalling, screeching monstrous bats smashed into the watchtowers and high barricades, their quivering spear-blade noses sniffing out any defender whom they might devour.

Within the palisade, a great stone gateway rose, blocking access to a wide bridge of thick wooden logs that led to a second, smaller gate. Beneath the bridge, the river crashed and snarled, and even at this distance he could feel the spray. As W’soran cackled in glee, his wights led skeletal legions towards the bridge as quickly as their dead legs could move. The outer gates could be controlled from within the city proper, as long as the ropes held. And if the ropes were cut, the stone gates would remain closed and the bridge sealed off. The Strigoi on the inner walls had been intent on doing just that when he’d attacked. Now they had no time.

He looked beyond the wild river that separated the palisades from the inner fortifications, towards the ancient stones where what might have been the remnants of some long-ago destroyed wall rose up, linked anew by newer stone fortifications put in place long ago by W’soran’s own servants. He found it to be the height of irony that those same servants would now tear down all they had built.

It had taken almost three years for his forces to fight their way through the lines of fortifications that marked the Plain of Dust and surrounded Mourkain in its mountain fastness with a ring of stone and iron. Ushoran, ever the keen student, had plucked inspiration from the four compass points, mingling the military styles of Nehekhara, Cathay and even the terrifying strongpoints devised by the dwarfs — hard-to-reach isolated towers, firmly anchored to the rock and packed with supplies and armaments for a hundred men. For three gruelling years, W’soran had led his nightmare legions past each defensive line, smashing them one after the other. In that time, he had faced numberless enemy necromancers, northern mercenaries and dozens of Strigoi — Gashnag’s peers, spouting childish incantations as they sought to match his mastery of the winds of death. None had done more than distract him. W’soran now wore a necklace of fangs to match his necklace of wyrdstone, and the still-aware, still-screaming heads of his vampire enemies hung from his standards like strange fruit. But none of them were the enemy he truly wished to face.

‘Where are you?’ he hissed. His free hand found the abn-i-khat amulets hanging from his throat and the urge to swallow them was suddenly overpowering. Soon, soon he would need them. Ushoran would not be able to resist this assault. Everything was going just as he had planned. His legions were without limit, his forces mightier even than those of Nagashizzar at its height, and soon, he would prove his mastery over the pitiful spark of Nagash that thought to impose its wretched will on the world.

‘Master, is it? Who’s the master now, eh? Who is the master, Nagash?’ he snarled, spitting the words down at the black city below. The streets of Mourkain were like lines drawn on parchment, crossing one another over and over again. The city was a spiral of stone, with crude thatch huts and lean-tos giving way to more sturdy stone dwellings and finally the great buildings that seemed to form the heart of the city. The streets were choked with the smells, sights and sounds of a thriving, vibrant metropolis under siege.

The citizenry — those who weren’t on the walls — fled, seeking shelter away from the forefront of battle. There weren’t so many of these; the Strigoi were a warrior race, even their women knew how to handle blades. Haphazard barricades were being thrown up at intersections and the dead who had entered the city were being thrown back, oft-times by other corpses, these animated by the magics of the Mortuary Cult. Dead men clashed in the streets in a gruesome gavotte, and the city itself seemed to shift in contentment.

Something had always been in this place, whether its name was Mourkain or not. It was a city in the same way that Lahmia had been, grown over centuries by generations, spreading first behind the river and then over it. As he swooped past the gates once more, he looked up and saw that its bulk was punctuated by hundreds of alcoves packed with skulls. Some of the skulls were brown with age, while others glistened white and clean. They were the skulls of Mourkain’s enemies. As he passed by them, he gestured, and horrible fires blossomed in the depth of each eye-socket. Mourkain was a sump of dark magic, and it was easier here than most places to raise the dead, especially those who still burned with some small ember of hatred for Mourkain and the Strigoi.

The skulls, which were now mounted on new bodies composed of shadows and dark flame, squeezed from their alcoves and began to climb the walls. They slithered up over the walls and gate and fell upon the Strigoi defenders, burning and tearing at them. W’soran laughed wildly as his mount landed heavily on the gatehouse. He stood in his saddle and cast out a hand, ready to drag the dead defenders to their feet to join his ranks.

But… something prevented him. The bodies twitched and jerked, but did not rise. W’soran hissed angrily, and he twisted in his saddle, following the delicate skeins of interfering magic back to-

‘Morath,’ he snarled.

Morath of Mourkain, necromancer and nobleman, stood on the wall, surrounded by a flock of Mortuary Cultists, all garbed in black. Morath was much as W’soran remembered him, if a bit thinner. He had been handsome once, had Morath, but now he was like a knife that had been over-sharpened, all sharp angles and gestures, and his robes and furs flapped about him as he chanted hoarsely, incanting in W’soran’s direction.

A flurry of flaming orbs streaked from the corona that sprang up around Morath’s gestures. W’soran swiped at the air, snuffing the deadly comets before they reached him. Something akin to pleasure filled W’soran as he watched Morath begin to gesture anew after barely a moment’s hesitation. ‘Oh, Morath, you do me proud, my son,’ W’soran called out.

‘No son of yours, monster,’ Morath shouted back. ‘I am a son of Mourkain, and Mourkain alone!’ He flung out both hands, and the gathering shadows cast by flame and moon swirled about W’soran and his mount; tendrils of purest darkness grabbed at the zombie-dragon, and the corpse-monster croaked a challenge. W’soran reached out and grasped one of the tendrils and let his will thrum through it. Morath gave a wail as control of his spell was torn from him, and he staggered.

W’soran examined the squirming, semi-ghostly tendril and smiled. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘You were ever the most impressive of my students, boy, and far superior to your fellows. It broke my poor heart when you refused my gift — think of what you might have accomplished without fear of death or infirmity, eh?’

‘Think of what I would have lost,’ Morath said, as his assistants helped him to his feet. ‘What you offer is no gift, monster. It’s a curse — better death than a carrion eternity.’

‘Death — ah, well, that will be my last gift to you, then, I suppose…’ W’soran said, with a shrug. Then he flung the writhing remnants of Morath’s spell back at the group of sorcerers who opposed him. The shadow-thing spread and grew, like ink on water, billowing out and engulfing them. Several, Morath included, defended themselves immediately, bellowing desperate incantations to ward off the preternatural tendrils.

Those who avoided them were soon confronted by the skull-wraiths that W’soran had summoned. The bobbing skulls of Mourkain’s enemies, riding their bodies of smoke and black flame, loped towards the sorcerers. Morath destroyed several with a burst of spellcraft, but others crashed into him, burning his flesh with their ghostly talons. Morath screamed and lightning snapped and snarled from him, shattering the champing, burning skulls.

Several of his acolytes pushed through their enemies to confront W’soran. But before they could so much as gesture, or bring the first syllables of a spell to their lips, a bestial shape blurred past them. A heavy blade went snicker-snack and their heads rolled free from their necks.

Ullo turned and gave his shark’s grin. ‘Three more heads for the pile, sorcerer!’ he roared. W’soran smiled as the other vampire bounded towards Morath and his remaining students. Morath had succeeded in sending the shadow tendrils back where they had come from, but he was having a harder time with the skulls. Ullo crashed amongst the necromancers like a cat amongst pigeons, his broad blade looping out to lop off limbs or open bellies. Sorcery did a man little good when his guts were all over his feet. Soon enough, only Morath was standing, and he was forced to draw his sword and defend himself.

Ullo howled, and the two traded blows as W’soran watched in amusement. His mount screeched and belched gas over the Strigoi reinforcements approaching the gatehouse. Down below, a massive bone-giant tore the stone doors from their hinges, sending the ancient doors toppling down into the roaring waters below. The giant shoved its way through the gateway, followed by more of W’soran’s forces — skeletal spearmen and archers took up positions inside the walls as armoured wights charged towards the reeling defenders, and cleared the walls of life with the help of fluttering masses of blood-bloated bats.

‘Sorcerer! Watch out!’ Ullo roared, flinging Morath aside. W’soran glanced at him, and then twisted around to see a descending thunderbolt clad in red. He screeched and drew his scimitar with only seconds to spare, barely halting the blow that would have split his skull.

Abhorash dropped to the parapet of the gatehouse, his fur cloak flaring around his crimson-armoured form. Though he had not seen the former champion of Lahmia in a century, he was as intimidating as W’soran recalled — sheathed in the serrated, sharply curved iron armour of Ushoran’s personal guard, Abhorash was a giant amongst men. He wielded his great sword with its iron blade engraved with curling, savage sigils as if it were a feather, and he moved as if his armour weighed no more than a morning mist.

He sprang for W’soran again, his face contorted in a terrifying snarl within his dragon helm. With a thought, W’soran urged his mount into the air with a single snap of its wings, but too late. Abhorash’s hand flashed out and his fingers sank into the gangrenous flesh of the zombie-dragon’s flank.

Even as W’soran sought to put distance between them, Abhorash hauled himself up, eyes blazing. ‘I knew you wouldn’t stay out of it, you withered old fool,’ Abhorash roared. ‘I warned him that he was only courting betrayal by letting you live!’

‘Who has betrayed who, eh, champion? You betrayed your queen and your new followers by serving a hag-ridden madman,’ W’soran said, rising from his saddle, cloak whipping about him as his mount soared high into the air. ‘What price your loyalty, Abhorash? What has he promised you?’

‘I do not have to explain myself to such as you,’ Abhorash growled.

‘No, nor would I care to hear it, even if you deigned to do so, brute,’ W’soran said. Then, so saying, he leapt from the dragon’s back, and plummeted downwards. While he yearned to wipe the self-righteous sneer from Abhorash’s face, the warrior was not his prey this day.

As W’soran hurtled away, the zombie-dragon twisted around. Abhorash, dislodged by the beast’s undulations, fell, but not for long. The corpse-dragon, responding to W’soran’s urging, coiled about the warrior like a striking serpent, its jaws agape and its talons crunching into the vampire’s armour as it seized him the way an eagle might seize a rat. Its wings flapped once, carrying it higher, and dragged Abhorash into the dark sky.

W’soran dropped through the darkness. His spectral scarabs swarmed about him as he fell, wrapping him in a cocoon of ghostly light, and in the blink of an eye, he was no longer in the air, but standing in the courtyard beyond the walls of Mourkain. His sudden appearance startled Ullo and Arpad. The former grunted and asked, ‘Abhorash?’

‘Occupied,’ W’soran said. As if on cue, the zombie-dragon screeched somewhere far above. He continued, ‘Morath?’

‘Gashnag organised a counter-charge. He and Morath are pulling back what’s left of the usurper’s troops. They’re falling back to the next line of defences,’ Arpad growled. ‘They’re not giving an inch unless we wash it in bone-chips and blood. And we still haven’t taken the outer palisades!’

‘Abhorash’s Hand is to blame for that. That bastard Walak and his cursed brother are out there. It’s all our men can do to keep them contained to the southern palisades,’ Ullo snapped. ‘But we hold the entrance to the city — if we can push on, and take the palace…’

‘If we can take Ushoran, you mean?’ W’soran asked. He stretched, and felt the raw power of Mourkain tug at him. It seemed to grow and shift at his notice, like the heat from a stoked forge. It was feeding on the death agonies of the hundreds who were dying even at that moment, swelling like a toad gorging itself on gnats.

In a way, this was what Nagash had wanted — for all life to be scoured away and the world to be wiped clean. Perhaps that was what Ushoran wanted now as well, and perhaps this moment was not by W’soran’s design alone. The thought filled him with anger, that even now, even here, he was being used as a tool to scour life from the territories he claimed. In invading, in inciting slaughter, he was merely providing Ushoran with the raw materials he’d need for later conquests.

‘Even after all these centuries, is that how you still see me?’ W’soran muttered, casting a glare towards the distant palace. It was a massive structure, bristling with outcroppings and crude structural additions that seemed to serve no purpose save ornamental.

Though it had been designed to look like one, it was a pyramid in name only; the resemblance was superficial. It was a crude mockery of the great pyramids of Nehekhara, devised by barbaric minds and built by unskilled hands. Heavy dark stones had been piled atop one another much like the grim barrows which dotted the northern lands. It careened high above the city, and stable growths of structure flourished along its length. There were narrow windows and balconies and things that might have been towers. It crouched like a beast over the winding river which encircled and ran through Mourkain, and the rest of the city seemed to recoil from it, as if in fear.

He could feel the malignant will within it, beckoning him closer. Ushoran was as eager for this confrontation as he was. He had never denied himself an opportunity to prove his superiority over his followers, flaunting his might the way a foppish courtier might flaunt a fine cloak. ‘I am coming, old friend,’ W’soran growled. ‘We go forward. If we must drown this city in death to take it, so be it!’

Ullo and Arpad shared a look and then both Strigoi grinned. ‘You aren’t half the coward Melkhior made you out to be, sorcerer,’ Arpad said.

W’soran ignored the backhanded compliment. Overhead, the zombie-dragon shrieked again. The war machines he’d brought continued to fire from outside the city, hurling rocks and debris against the walls and into the city itself, and the street trembled beneath his feet. He could hear the clangour of weapons from around him, as his grave-legions fought against Mourkain’s defenders. Over the tops of nearby roofs, he caught sight of a bone-giant, a heavy howdah on its broad shoulders. Skeletal archers fired down as the bone-giant stomped through the streets. His acolytes could keep the army functioning, while he turned his attentions to more important matters.

Even if they couldn’t, it wouldn’t matter. His army had done its job, and well. It had delivered him to the time and place he required and whether it survived or was destroyed now was of no consequence to him. Even Melkhior, squatting in his tenuous citadel, was of no more use, and good thing as well, for the flow of wealth and reinforcements had dried up swiftly.

The clopping of hooves caught his attention and he and the other vampires turned to see Voloch, new king of the Draesca and lord of the Grave-Host, and his wights approaching, accompanied by several renegade Strigoi, including the bulky brute known as Dhrox and the whipcord-thin lunatic known as Throttlehand. Voloch saluted with his double-bitted axe. Chown had succumbed to the helm’s poisonous touch a year earlier, but Voloch was easily his match. Now Chown had joined his predecessor Shull amongst their descendant’s bodyguard.

‘We have breached the walls, oh Speaker for the Dead,’ Voloch said. ‘Our forces stream into Morgheim, but they face stiff resistance. We must break the enemy, and soon, for our forces are stretched thin.’

‘Abhorash’s Hand is scattered,’ Throttlehand rasped, stroking his throat with an armoured claw. ‘They’re holding what they’ve got, but they can’t mount an organised defence, not without the Great Red Dragon holding their hands.’

‘Crush ’em,’ Dhrox rumbled as he smacked his hairy paws together. His lumpen features were covered in dried gore and combined the worst aspects of bat and wolf. ‘Smash ’em and suck the pulp.’

‘I’d say Dhrox speaks for all of us,’ Ullo growled.

‘Good,’ W’soran said. ‘We will push straight through the city, like jamming a dagger into a heart. Let nothing stand in our way.’

They began moving forward, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. They flooded the streets, smashing aside barricades and driving back the men holding them. Swarms of bats flapped ahead of them, attacking the defenders, blinding and harrying them. Voloch’s mounted wights thundered ahead of the slower skeletons and vaulted the barricades, followed by over-eager Strigoi like Dhrox. W’soran’s eyes strayed continually to the pyramid. Ushoran had not shown himself, and W’soran knew that he was waiting in his throne room. Nagash too had refused to bestir himself, until the last moment.

The human defenders fell back, street by street, as the dead moved deeper into the city. Until, at last, the largest group of defenders made their stand in the great plaza before the pyramid. Ushoran’s personal guard was there, and Gashnag, who rode at their head, and Morath, as well. Morath stood surrounded by the newly-risen dead — men and women, soldiers and otherwise, had been jerked from death’s bower to defend their home. The zombies moved forward slowly, shuffling at Morath’s gesture. W’soran noted with some amusement that Morath looked unhappy with the prospect of commanding the corpses of his people. ‘Too much of the man in you, and not enough monster,’ W’soran murmured. ‘You’ll learn though, if you survive.’

The two sides faced one another across the plaza. The space was immense, bounded on its sides by great columns covered in carved skulls and topped by massive braziers that still burned despite the siege, casting their light across the plaza. Spears were lowered and arrows notched as the two groups sized one another up.

But, before a single arrow could be fired, a terrifying scream rocked the city. W’soran looked up and his good eye widened as he saw his zombie-dragon twisting through the air, falling towards the city. He could feel the dark magic that animated it fading. Impossibly, improbably, Abhorash was beating it.

‘By Strigu’s bones,’ Ullo murmured, looking up. ‘He can’t have won — he can’t!’

‘He has,’ W’soran said flatly.

The zombie-dragon smashed into the plaza like a shrieking comet. Two of the columns exploded at the point of impact, showering the surrounding streets and the plaza with a hail of broken stone. As the smoke began to clear, both sides faced each other warily as they waited to see what pulled itself out of the crater now gouged into the street.

With aching slowness the writhing coils of the corpse-dragon stilled, as its false life fled at last. A tall shape rose up and iron sang down, ringing as it struck the rock of the street.

Then Abhorash stepped through the smoke, dragging the beast’s head behind him by one splintered horn. His armour hung from him in tatters and his marble flesh was stained black and striped red, but the fire in his eyes burned undimmed. He had lost his helm, and some of his hair where the dragon’s breath had scoured his flesh. He released the head, letting it flop to the ground, and reached up to strip the ragged remains of his cuirass and pauldrons from his torso, tossing them aside as if they were of no more consequence than the bloody wounds that were already congealing on his mighty frame.

W’soran cursed himself for a fool. He had suspected that Abhorash would triumph, but he had hoped that the fight would carry him far from Mourkain. Instead, it was as if some dark power had dropped one of the greatest obstacles to his plan directly into his path.

Others seemed to feel similarly. Arpad cursed, and before either Ullo or W’soran could stop him, he darted forward, moving like lightning. He sprang towards Abhorash and vaulted up, blade extended. Almost casually, Abhorash struck out, shattering his opponent’s weapon and then, in a reversal so quick that not even the watching vampires could follow it, slashing upwards, catching Arpad as he descended. The latter didn’t even have time to scream as his body was bisected, split in two from thigh to shoulder. The two halves fell to the ground wetly and Abhorash flicked his blade, cleaning it of blood. He met W’soran’s shocked gaze and inclined his head. ‘Take him alive,’ he rumbled.

Fear flooded W’soran, washing away his earlier anger. He stepped back, and his spectral scarabs clicked and hummed softly as they swarmed about him, ready to yank him from peril.

He forced the fear down, driving it back into its hole. Nagash — no, Ushoran, not Nagash, Nagash was dead, crown or not — wanted him — fine. He was here, regardless. ‘Ullo,’ W’soran growled.

‘He’s mine,’ Ullo snarled and bounded towards Abhorash. As if that had been the signal, the battle was joined as both sides surged forward. W’soran found himself locked in combat once more with Gashnag, and the Strigoi seemed to have no intention of allowing him to gain enough room to use his sorcery. Instead, Gashnag hemmed him in, his pale features split in a snarl.

‘You heard the Dragon, sorcerer,’ Gashnag said, slashing low. W’soran stepped back, knocking several men sprawling. ‘Surrender yourself to us, and perhaps Lord Ushoran will spare you the worst of his planned torments!’

‘W’soran — surrender? You must be mad,’ W’soran barked. ‘When I’m winning? When I’m finally on the precipice of victory?’ He hissed an incantation and his scimitar became enveloped in obsidian flames. With a roar worthy of the Strigoi, he launched a flurry of attacks that drove Gashnag back. ‘Surrender is for the weak — for the useless! I am not useless! I am not weak! I am the strongest! I am the master of all I survey — the master of life and death! Surrender — you should all surrender to me!’ He battered the Strigoi backwards, driving into the ranks of the enemy, his swings lopping off limbs and shattering spears as he shoved Gashnag back, deeper into the ranks of men who kept him separated from his goal.

It had all been for this moment — every game, every death, all building to this point in time. Every scheme and plot had all been to buy him time and to arrange things so that the pieces would fall in his favour. He had forced Neferata’s hand, and Ushoran’s as well, forcing them into making the decisions he wanted. He had guided Mourkain, building the perfect cage for death’s tiger. Let the shreds of Nagash’s spirit thunder and rage, let him taunt and whisper. Ushoran knew as well as W’soran did that the game was done. The time for gods and monsters was past and now only two men — two minds — remained, to fight their final duel, a duel that W’soran of Mahrak would win.

He would not wear the crown, but instead shatter it and drain it. He would drink of its power, and with the strength of the Undying King added to his own, he would sink his fangs into the throat of the world and suck it white. He would do what Nagash had only dreamt of, and do it better. The world would bend and break beneath his heel and the sky itself would weep to see the agonies he inflicted.

He would be a god — a god of death and order, come to set the world to rights. He would become a god and put the world and all its peoples where they belonged… at his feet.

‘You wanted me, my master?’ he shrieked, slapping Gashnag’s blade aside. ‘You wanted to see your old student once more? Well, here I am! Here I stand!’ Gashnag’s blade shattered and the Strigoi staggered. W’soran, in his fury, had carved a red crater in the Strigoi ranks and men pressed back from the spider-limbed, splay-fanged apparition that howled and capered in their midst. W’soran tossed his blade aside and pounced on Gashnag, bearing him down. With a ripple of hidden strength, he hauled the Strigoi over his head. ‘Here I stand, master! Here is your truest son! Not Neferata! Not Ushoran! Me! I am your heir, your servant — no, I am your better!’

Then, with a shriek, W’soran twisted Gashnag, shattering his spine and neck. He hurled the howling Strigoi aside and snatched up his scimitar. ‘Here I am! Face me!’ he screamed, gesticulating with his scimitar at the black pyramid. ‘Face me, damn you! I have beaten you!’

NO. YOU HAVE NOT.

The words were like hammer blows on the surface of his mind. They nearly dropped him from his feet and his black heart, pumping sour blood, shuddered in its cage of bone. It was Ushoran’s voice, but it almost wasn’t.

COME, MY SERVANT. COME TO ME.

W’soran shivered as a cold wind cut through him, a cold such as he had not felt in centuries. It was the cold of a damp tomb, or of an open grave… the pure, inexorable cold of death. He hesitated… and almost lost his head as Abhorash’s blade looped out and chopped into a nearby column. W’soran snapped around and his scimitar carved a black trail across Abhorash’s chest.

Abhorash stepped back and touched his chest. He examined the blood and smiled grimly. ‘You are quicker than I remembered,’ he said. He jerked his chin towards the pyramid. ‘You heard him. He’s waiting for you.’

‘And I’m to believe that you’ll just let me go to confront him?’ W’soran snarled, straightening. He had always wondered whether the champion had heard the whispers of Nagash’s shredded spirit as clearly as the rest of them.

‘Yes,’ Abhorash said. ‘You might be the only one who can. Unlike you, I am not blinded by arrogance.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ W’soran spat as they circled each other. Abhorash seemed unconcerned, which infuriated W’soran. ‘Why are you even still here? Do you willingly serve Ushoran, champion? What are you doing here?’

Abhorash was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Repaying a debt.’

W’soran stared at him. Abhorash stepped aside. Behind him, there was a clear path to the pyramid. He could hear the voice of the crown in his head, urging him on, and what might have been Ushoran’s voice as well, pleading with him. He shook his head and asked, ‘Why?’

‘If you have to ask, sorcerer, you wouldn’t understand,’ Abhorash said, turning away. ‘I have a battle to win, W’soran. And you have your own. I would hurry.’

W’soran did. He hurried away from the battle, leaving his men behind. No one tried to stop him from entering the pyramid. All of the guards were otherwise occupied, as he’d planned. But now, at the moment, he almost yearned for opposition, anything to delay what was coming next. What he feared was waiting for him.

He had visited the pyramid often enough in his time in Mourkain. But never before had it seemed so oppressive. The corridors were crafted from slabs of stone and, like the pyramids of home, they moved across from east to west, and then up south to north in a zigzag pattern. It was like following a well-worn path. He knew where it would come out as he recalled the routes he had taken decades before. With every step he took, the whispering in his head grew stronger. It was almost painful in its intensity, and he fought to ignore it.

The throne room crouched in the web of corridors that surrounded it, nestled like a cancer in the heart of the pyramid. Smoking, glowing braziers were scattered throughout the room, their light revealing the high balconies and great expanse of floor. At the other end of the room, a huge flat dais rose, and on it, a throne. The throne was made from the ribcage of some great beast and spread across the rear wall, and on that throne… Ushoran.

He sat slumped, as if bowed beneath an incredible weight, almost to the point of breaking. His shape rippled and contorted as he sat, as if at first assuming one form and then changing to the next in a blur of faces and shapes, both human and otherwise. He moved from monster to man and back again as he sat on his hard-won throne.

But it was not Ushoran alone who sat there; the great iron crown he wore seemed to pulse like the eyes of a predator as it sighted prey. A vast shadow unspooled from Ushoran’s slumped form, spreading across the walls and floor, slithering towards W’soran, who, for a moment, forgot why he had come and what he desired, and wanted only to cower before the awful immensity which squatted in the throne room, looming over everything.

In his time beneath the crown’s influence, Ushoran had grown strong. The Lord of Masks had become something else; something massive and world-breaking. And even as he realised that, W’soran knew that the process was not yet finished. That what Ushoran was now was but the merest shadow of what he would become in time. Like some dreadful seed, the true horror was yet to flower.

‘No,’ W’soran said, forcing himself to step forward. ‘No, I won’t let you… you won’t take it from me. It’s mine — this world, them — Ushoran, Neferata — they’re all mine!’ Even to his own ears, he sounded petulant. Like a child scolding an uncaring parent. The crown couldn’t hear him. Nagash couldn’t hear him, but he still lashed out, hoping to score points against the god that had failed him.

HELLO, W’SORAN.

Ushoran’s mouth was open, but it was not his voice that reverberated from it. His hands reached up and clutched his temples, as if he were in pain. ‘W’soran,’ he gasped a moment later. ‘You came…’

W’soran said nothing. He clutched the hilt of his scimitar so tightly that the bone of the handle cracked. Ushoran’s eyes were tight with pain. ‘I thought — I thought I could control it. I thought I was stronger than Kadon, but it is too strong for me. I need your help,’ he said, between gritted teeth. ‘It’s taking all of my strength — all of me — to resist it, to keep it from killing every living thing in Mourkain and riding their corpses into battle with the world.’ His eyes rolled madly in their sockets and his flesh trembled as if something was moving within him.

THERE IS TIME. IS THAT NOT SO, W’SORAN? WE HAVE TIME. TIME BEATS DOWN MOUNTAINS AND BREAKS WILLS… EVEN WILLS AS STRONG AS THOSE POSSESSED BY YOU AND YOUR ILK. THE STRENGTH IN SPITE IS FINITE.

Ushoran’s voice — was it his voice? — echoed through the throne room, weighing down the air itself. W’soran’s flesh crawled as the words brushed across his mind like greasy fingers. ‘I thought it would be different,’ Ushoran whispered. ‘I thought I was a monster, that we were monsters, but we’re nothing compared to him.’ His eyed focused on W’soran. ‘I can’t take it off anymore. It won’t let me.’ W’soran’s good eye widened as he saw Ushoran’s claws dig into his own flesh, as if he sought to strip the meat from his scalp.

He screamed and hunched forward on his throne. His talons slammed down on the armrests, cracking them. He glared helplessly at W’soran and said, ‘Help me, my friend… please…’ He closed his eyes and shuddered, racked by pain.

‘Ushoran, I-’ W’soran began. Memories rose up in him; memories of Ushoran freeing him from his jar, of Ushoran saving him from Abhorash, of Ushoran rescuing him in the Marshes of Madness.

NO. THERE IS NO HELP. THERE IS NO USHORAN.

THERE IS ONLY DEATH.

Ushoran’s eyes opened. But they weren’t Ushoran’s eyes. He rose, and there was another shape superimposed over his — a towering shape, wreathed in green fire.

‘YOU WANTED TO PROVE YOUR POWER, W’SORAN? COME THEN. SHOW YOUR OLD FRIEND WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED,’ Ushoran said.

And W’soran did.