The End Times | The Return of Nagash

by Josh Reynolds

  Gormann didn’t look at him. Leitdorf had known the Bright Wizard for a long time. He could tell that what he was saying wasn’t new to Gormann. Even knowing as little as he did of the internal politics of the Colleges of Magic, he knew that Gelt’s eccentricities weren’t as universally tolerated as Gormann’s had been. Why else would they have sent Gormann to investigate the wall of faith, unless they suspected that something was amiss?

  Before he had a chance to press his friend further, he saw the blocky shape of the southernmost gatehouse and barbican rising over the tops of the buildings to either side of him. His trumpeter blew another note, and the men manning the gate hurriedly began raising the portcullis. He spurred his horse to greater speed, and pushed aside his worries.

  There would be time to worry about Gelt after the dead were successfully driven back.

  ‘Well?’ Mannfred hissed, from where he lurked beneath the trees. His eyes were pinpricks of crimson in the shadows, and his fingers tapped against a tree trunk impatiently.

  ‘Well what?’ Arkhan asked. He gestured and a shattered catapult began to repair itself. An easy enough task when the engine in question was composed of bone, dried flesh and hair. It was child’s play for a creature like Arkhan – barely worth the effort it took to accomplish it. In fact, none of what he was now doing was worth his attention. Any halfway competent hedge-necromancer could keep the mass of skeletons attacking a wall, and the catapults and their crews functioning.

  ‘Don’t taunt me, liche.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that I was. I am trying to concentrate, vampire. You are disrupting that concentration. Unless you have something pertinent to say, I’ll thank you to keep quiet.’ Arkhan gestured again, resurrecting a pile of shattered skeletons moments after a cannonball tore them to flinders.

  He’d spent most of the night before stalking the steep slopes beneath the distant western wall of the city, drawing those selfsame skeletons to the surface. The worms had fed well the previous year, and thousands of bodies, both human and orc, had been buried in mass graves on the field before the wall. Their spirits, only barely aware, were restless and eager to rise and fight again. Arkhan was only too happy to give them that opportunity.

  The catapults had been a stroke of genius on his part. He had found a spot where the dead had lain particularly deep, and manipulated their remains to form his war engines, as he had so long ago in the Great Land. Frames of twisted bone and ropes of hair and stretched ligament worked just as well as iron and wood. His magics supplied the ammunition as well – great, cackling balls of witch-fire.

  ‘Do not bandy words with me, sirrah,’ Mannfred snapped. ‘Have we drawn them out?’

  ‘You can hear the trumpets as well as I,’ Arkhan said. In his mind’s eye, he could see what the dead saw. Balls of lead hammered into the dead ranks as they advanced up the muddy slope towards the western wall, fired by the increasingly desperate ranks of handgunners on the parapet. The men loaded and fired with an almost mechanical precision and, for a moment, Arkhan almost admired them. They displayed a courage and dedication that rivalled that of the legions of Khemri at their height. But it would buy them nothing. ‘The knights are exiting through the southern gates, as you predicted. They will crush my fleshless legion and the artillery with ease, when they get around to charging.’

  ‘Not too much ease, one hopes,’ Mannfred said, glaring up at the sun. It was riding low in the sky, and obscuring clouds clawed at its edges. ‘We need to keep them occupied for another few hours.’

  ‘Easily done. You know where the Black Armour rests?’ Arkhan looked at him. Mannfred’s cruel features twisted into a smile.

  ‘I’ve known for months, liche. It is sequestered in the vaults of the castle from which this detestable little pile takes its name. While you keep them occupied here, I shall seize my– Your pardon, our prize. My forces but await the weakening of the sun’s gaze.’

  ‘Good,’ Arkhan said.

  ‘That said, you should keep an eye socket tilted further west,’ Mannfred said, watching the skeletons march into the teeth of a cannonade.

  ‘Reinforcements?’

  Mannfred’s smile widened. ‘Of sorts,’ he laughed. ‘A herd of beastmen are gambolling towards us, even as I speak. I have set wolves, bats and corpses on them, to occupy them for the nonce, but they are heading this way.’ He examined his nails. ‘They’ve come a long way, for such blissfully primitive creatures. Almost as if they were looking for something, or someone.’

  Arkhan felt a cold rush of frustration. ‘Was there a winged creature leading them?’ he demanded, after a moment’s hesitation. Mannfred’s gleeful expression told him that the vampire had been expecting that question.

  ‘Oh yes, your crow-winged pet is amongst them. Why didn’t you tell me you’d made a new friend in Bretonnia? My heart aches,’ Mannfred said as he placed a hand over his heart. ‘It simply bleeds for the distrust you continue to show me.’

  ‘Now who’s mocking who?’ Arkhan said. Frustration lent strength to his magics. He raised his hands, the sleeves of his robes sliding back from the bone. Black smoke rose from the pores that dotted the bones of his forearms, and drifted towards the battlefield. Where it drifted, dead things moved with renewed vigour. ‘I did not tell you because it was not important.’

  Mannfred drifted towards him. He drew his sword and Arkhan felt the edge of the blade rest against the bare bone of his neck. ‘Oh, I believe that it is, liche. We are so very close to our goal, and to have it endangered thus… aggravates me sorely.’

  ‘Is the Grave Lord of Sylvania afraid of a few mutated beasts, then?’ Arkhan ignored the blade and kept his attentions fixed on the western wall. At a twitch of his extended fingers, the skeletons closest to the wall surged into fresh activity. Gripped by Arkhan’s will, they climbed over one another like a swarm of ants, building ladders of bone that grew taller and taller by the moment. Soon, skeletal hands were grabbing the ramparts. Handguns and cannons barked and flamed, shattering sections of the growing constructs, but Arkhan’s magics repaired them as quickly as they were broken. The pace of the ascent barely slowed.

  ‘It is not the beasts that concern me, but what they represent,’ Mannfred said. ‘You were attacked by beastmen and the cursed inhabitants of Athel Loren on your journey, liche.’ He did not lower his sword. ‘We are seemingly beset by enemies.’

  ‘I told you that time was not on our side. The Dark Gods fear Nagash. They fear his power and his wrath. The events which even now grip this world are a sign of that.’ He looked at Mannfred. ‘Did you think it was coincidence that saw Sylvania caged right at the moment that Kislev fell to northern steel? Did you think the daemon-storms that ravaged your lands were but an odd turn of weather? Those were distractions, just like this is a distraction. Of course we are beset, fool… We seek nothing less than the unmaking of the world, and the overthrowing of the old order. They will do everything in their power to delay and hinder us. They will send beasts and even men and elves to assail us. They will aid our enemies, and undermine our allies, all to buy a few more hours of existence.’

  Arkhan turned away. In his mind’s eye, he saw what was taking place on the distant wall. A doughty man, old and steeped in faith, whose aura blazed like the light of a comet, had thrust himself into the fray, sweeping the dead aside with great swings of his warhammer. Men cheered, heartened by his presence. Arkhan knew him for what he was – a priest of Sigmar – and at his impulse, the dead turned their attentions to dealing with this new threat. The warrior priest was plucked from the bastion and torn apart. The defenders began to flee, in ones and twos at first; and then, all at once, organised fighting men became frightened cattle, stampeding for the dubious safety of the second bastion on the western wall. Satisfied, Arkhan turned his attentions back to Mannfred.

  ‘We are at war with life itself, vampire. All life, however corrupt and insane. Without life, the Dark Gods do not exist. Without life, they will gutter like candles in the wind, and as th
e gods of men and elves do. They must stop us, or they face extinction.’

  Mannfred stared at him. Then, almost absently, he lowered his sword. His head tilted, as if he were listening to some inner voice berate him. Mannfred shook himself. In a quiet voice, he said, ‘I do not wish the death of all things.’

  ‘What you wish is inconsequential,’ Arkhan said, after a moment of hesitation. Mannfred looked at him, and for a moment, the mask of von Carstein slipped, and was replaced by an older, yet somehow younger, face. The face of the man who became the vampire. The face of one who had known grief and strife and eternal frustration. Of one who had seen his hopes dashed again and again. Some spark of pity flared in Arkhan. He and Mannfred were more alike than he had thought. ‘Nagash must rise,’ he said.

  The mask returned crashing down like a portcullis, and Mannfred’s eyes sparked with fury. ‘At the moment, Nagash is dust, liche. And my wishes are anything but inconsequential. He will rise, but at my behest, at my whim,’ he snarled, striking his chest with a closed fist. He flung out a hand. ‘Bring that damnable wall down. I would be done with this farce.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Arkhan said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Heldenhame Keep, Talabecland

  Volker and the men he’d procured from the eastern bastions reached the foot of the inner wall just in time to see the entirety of the western wall give way. The battlements lurched like a drunken giant, and Volker could only stare in mounting horror as, with a great rumble and an explosive gout of dust, the centre of the wall collapsed in on itself, scaffolding and all. Rubble and crushed bodies spilled across the ground in front of him.

  ‘Back!’ he yelped, waving at his men. ‘Get back!’ With the scaffolding’s support removed, destruction rippled along the sturdier sections of the wall, buckling the ramparts and causing them to collapse. Men and skeletons alike were hurled from the battlements, their bodies vanishing into the ever-expanding cloud of dust and smoke.

  Shock was replaced by fear, as Volker saw skeletons clamber through the dust-choked breach. He tore his sword from its sheath and lurched forward. His men followed, forming up around him more out of well-drilled instinct than inclination. As he moved over the rubble, he brought his sword up. It was made of the finest Kriegst steel, and had been a gift from his mother. He quickly kissed the twin-tailed comet embossed on the hilt and, without a word, pointed the blade at the approaching skeletons.

  Someone shouted something vile, and a litany of epithets and curses boiled out of the ranks around him. It wasn’t quite the sort of battle cry the bards sang of, but it would do in a pinch. Volker gave voice to his own string of curses, firing them from his lips like shots from a helblaster volley gun as he began to run up the newborn slope of rubble towards the invaders.

  A skeleton hacked at him with a broken blade and he swept it aside with a blow from his sword. As Volker reached the top of the slope, he wondered if he ought to shout something inspiring. He opened his mouth and got a lungful of dust, so he coughed instead. His men followed him up, battering aside skeletons in order to join him at the crest of the breach, where they formed a ragged line of spears and swords. Sergeants bellowed orders and a defensive formation took shape. Volker, who knew better than to interfere with sergeants, settled for looking heroic. Or as close to heroic as he could get, covered in dust and blood, and smelling of the previous night’s booze-up.

  The line was barely formed when the next wave of skeletons ploughed towards them through the breach. Volker swung and chopped at the undead until his arm and shoulder were numb. For every three skeletons they hacked down, six more replaced them. They attacked in total silence, providing an eerie counterpoint to Volker and his men, who expelled curses, cries and wailing screams as they fell to ragged spears and rusty blades.

  Volker stumbled, sweat burning his eyes, his lungs filled with dust. The rubble beneath his feet was slick with blood and covered in fragments of shattered bone. The enemy catapults continued to launch shrieking fireballs into what was left of the walls and the city beyond. Most of the artillery fire was directed at what was left of Rostmeyer bastion, where the surviving handgunners fired down into the melee in the breach. Volker felt bullets sing past his head and wondered which would get him first, the skeletons or his own comrades. He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the work at hand.

  A fireball struck the side of the breach and crackling flames washed over the line of men. Soldiers screamed and died. Volker screamed as well as fire kissed the side of his face and body. He staggered into a soldier, slapping at the flames that clung to him. The man stumbled as Volker fell, and nearly lost his head to a skeleton.

  By the time he put the fire out, half of the men he’d brought were dead. Volker pushed himself to his feet, using his sword as a crutch. A skeleton lunged out of the smoke to thrust a jagged spear at the man Volker had fallen into. Volker intercepted the blow, catching the spear by the haft. He jerked the dead thing towards himself with a yell and smashed its skull with his sword. He heard men cheer, and looked around blearily, thinking Leitdorf or Weskar had finally arrived with reinforcements.

  It took him a moment to realise that they were cheering for him. He shook his head, bemused. He dragged the man he’d saved to his feet and propelled him back into line. ‘Form up,’ he shouted. ‘Back in line, back in line!’

  More skeletons stalked through the breach, and many of the shattered ones began to twitch and rattle. The cheers died away. Volker spat and raised his sword. ‘Sigmar give me strength,’ he said, even as he wondered where Leitdorf was – where were the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood?

  ‘Sound the trumpet,’ Leitdorf growled. ‘Let the cursed dead know that the hand of the god is here to send them back to the grave.’ He drew his sword and levelled it at the mass of thousands of skeletons advancing on the breach in the western wall. When the knights of the leading brotherhoods had rounded the southwestern corner of the city wall and beheld the horde that awaited their lances, not one had hesitated, which caused the gloom that enveloped Leitdorf to abate slightly.

  The loss of the city’s outer wall was a failure on his part. He had been too distracted to see personally to the repairs, as he should have done. He’d left it to the fat pig, Kross, and Weskar, when he knew the former was allergic to hard labour and the latter had no interest in such menial tasks. It was his fault that it had come to this. It was his fault that men – his men – had died. But he could see to it that no more did so. He could see to it that the dead were punished and thrown back across the border into their dark county once more.

  Mannfred von Carstein’s head would be his. He would take it in a sack to Altdorf and hurl it at Balthasar Gelt’s feet, just before he took the alchemist’s lying tongue as well.

  ‘Sound the trumpet again,’ he bellowed. ‘The Order of Sigmar’s Blood rides to war!’ The world became a whirl of noise and sensation as the knights around him began to pick up speed. There were nearly twelve hundred warriors gathered, spreading to either side like the unfolding wings of an eagle as they urged their horses from a canter to a gallop. Once loosed to the charge, they were nothing short of a wall of destruction that could level anything in its path.

  The ground shuddered beneath them. He caught sight of Gormann hunched over his horse’s neck, his staff held up like a standard, a swirling ball of fire floating above it. The wizard caught his eye and grinned widely. Leitdorf couldn’t help but return the expression. It had been too long since they had fought side by side – the Battle of Hel Ditch, he thought, and the razing of the Maggot Orchard – and he looked forward to seeing his old friend in action once again.

  The closest skeletons had only just begun to turn when the charge struck home with a sound like thunder. To Leitdorf, it was as if he and his men were the curve of some vast reaper’s scythe. One moment, there was an unbroken sea of bleached or browning bone, marching beneath ragged, worm-eaten banners; the next, a wave of shining steel crashed into and over the dead in a massive
roar of splintering bone and pounding hooves.

  Leitdorf roared out the name of Sigmar as he hewed a corridor through the dead, making way for the knights behind him. As he took the head of a grinning skeleton, he jerked his stallion about and raised his sword. His standard bearer, close by, raised the order’s banner in response, and the trumpeter blew a single, clarion note. The men who’d been with Leitdorf wheeled about and smashed their way clear of the skeletal phalanxes that sought to converge on them. They would reform and charge again, each brotherhood picking their own targets in order to render the horde down to a manageable size and destroy it piecemeal.

  He’d learned from hard experience that the dead didn’t care about numbers, or morale. If his knights became bogged down amidst the mass of corpses, they’d be swarmed under in short order. The only way to defeat the dead was to pummel them to nothing with mechanical precision. To hit them again and again, until they stopped getting back up. He looked around for Gormann and saw that the wizard’s horse had gone down in the first charge. Gormann was on his feet, however, and fire swirled about him, like silks about a Strigany dancer. His face was flushed, and his eyes looked like glowing embers as he spun his staff about, conjuring dancing flames. The air about him thickened, becoming the eye of a nascent firestorm.

  Leitdorf found himself unable to tear his eyes away. It had been years since he had seen Gormann’s power unleashed. Normally the wizard contented himself with parlour tricks – lighting his pipe or conjuring a fire in the fireplace. But here was the true majesty of the Bright College, the searing rage of an unfettered inferno.

  He pulled his men back with oaths and furious gestures. The knights formed up and cantered to what he hoped was a safe range. The dead closed in all around Gormann, who did not appear concerned, and for good reason. Even at a distance, Leitdorf felt the heat of what came next.