Archaon: Lord of Chaos

by Rob Sanders

  As they travelled, Archaon discovered that he was being hunted. The Dragon Emperor of Grand Cathay had heard of Archaon’s coming. Spies had reported the warlord’s decimation of coastal kingdoms of the Ind and the emperor had been advised to have his own amassed armada of celestial vessels meet Archaon in battle out on the Far Sea, away from the Cathayan coast. It was a colossal battle, fought on the sun-blushed emptiness of open water. Archaon never got the chance to meet the Dragon Emperor’s admiral, although he wished he had. Fighting for days, through the equatorial heat of the sun and the star-lit depths of night, both fleets eventually broke off the engagement. Although Archaon’s hordes and airborne monstrosities claimed many celestial sons and war-junks of the enemy fleet, the impregnable turtleships of the armada smashed through Archaon’s formations and celestial sorcery claimed many Ruinous warriors. A change in the wind made further engagement difficult and while Archaon hunted for the Dragon Emperor’s fleet, he never saw their exotic vessels again.

  Re-fitting his fleet in the shattered lands off the coast of the New World, Archaon’s fleet rounded Lustria to sack the scaled civilisations of the Fire Islands, not for their gold but for the treasure of their ancient knowledge. Finding himself once more on the expanse of the Great Ocean, Archaon decided upon returning to the Old World, with its delusions of enlightenment and the sweet taint of ancient corruption. He became convinced that finding the treasures of Chaos everywhere but the Old World meant that it was almost certain to be nestling somewhere on the edge of civilised darkness. Having spent decades bringing hell to the other side of the world, Archaon found himself strangely pulled towards his homeland and its neighbouring nations. His blade ached for the blood of pompous fools and the crushed will of the underclasses upon which they had always ridden high. Dark dreams drew him north. The taunts of daemons and sorcerous whisperings.

  It had been lifetimes since he had set foot in such a land. He had left the Empire a formidable warrior. His time in the Wastes and the abyssal realm had crafted him into an almighty champion of darkness, exalted to demi-godhood by the Ruinous treasures in his possession. The decades on the far side of the world had done more than temper the living weapon he had become. With age, study and experience had come the rewards of merciless leadership. He was not just a dark warrior at the head of a fractious mob, the first among equals. He was not a brutal conqueror leading a bestial horde into bloodshed. He was a warlord of consummate skill. He had held a great Chaos host together – which ordinarily would have torn itself apart along divisions of Ruinous worship and individual allegiance – through strategy, cold supremacy and the ruthless force of his dread will. He had become a worthy leader of the dark things of the world, commanding the corrupt hearts of mortal monstrosities and inspiring in his champions and lieutenants a reverence usually reserved for their daemonic overlords. His armada was doom sweeping in from the darkness of the open ocean. His army of pantheon-pledged champions and veteran Chaos warriors had been hewn from calamity into a force of darkness undivided. An abominate army of ruin that shook the world.

  As he sailed north to his destiny, Archaon’s fleet met strange ironclad vessels that belched smoke and fire in the waters of the Black Gulf and made the seaport beardlings of Barak Varr pay in torture-sought knowledge and blood. Archaon’s dark armada all but wiped out the pirate fleets of Sartosa and sacked Tilean cities, ransacking libraries and private collections of antiquities in search of answers to dread questions. He burned an Estalian armada of carracks and caravels at anchor at Magritta before lighting up the coastal kingdoms of the west. An attempt to make back out to sea was frustrated by storms that swallowed the dark warlord’s own and succeeded in smashing the armada up along the shores of Bretonnia. The bad weather held his great swarm of black ships to the coastline along the Sea of Claws. With his monstrous armada barely holding off the rocky shores and the glowering moonlight of Morrslieb dusting the distant Marches of Couronne with its dread attentions, Archaon became suddenly aware of an intrusion in his dark thoughts.

  Archaon…

  The warlord looked up from the altar, with its maps and scrolls.

  Archaon… Chosen of the Ruinous Gods. Pawn of the Harbinger. Hear me.

  As Archaon left the chart room, he hauled himself up the companionway ladder with his cloak trailing him. Zwei and Drei followed like shadowy sentinels.

  Brother darkness. We are bearers of his mark both…

  ‘Lord Master on the deck,’ a Chaos warrior called from his sentry position on the ladder archway. Archaon looked back to see Eins – the wraith-warrior was standing against the poop deck rail, his wings globed to protect him from the storm. Archaon always had Eins on deck when he wasn’t. He might have left command of the flagship and coordination of the armada and its captains to Kurdogoli Darghouth, but Archaon left Eins as his trusted eyes on the deck. The Sword of Chaos nodded his head at Archaon who strode out towards the helm.

  The great black deck of the galleon rolled with the churn of the seas. Above, the clouds billowed and flashed with the shore-smashing storm. Rain and salty droplets from waves crashing about the flagship’s tall, port-sealed sides pattered across Archaon’s dark plate. The storm ruffled his furs and tugged at his cloak.

  The flagship had been a captured Estalian battle galleon that the Cloven Captain had re-named the Perdición in honour of his new master. Kurdogoli Darghouth had confided to Archaon that it was considered, even among his own wretches, bad luck to re-name a ship but the warlord had told him that where they were going, bad luck was the least of their worries. Archaon had added that they would be bad luck indeed to any vessel falling within the scope of their spyglasses.

  The Cloven Captain was where Archaon always found him – at the Ruinous Star of the Perdición’s great wheel. A dark-skinned southerner stood aside at the rhythmic rattle of Archaon’s approach and bowed. The buds of horns ruined the shiny perfection of his blade-shaved head, while his face jangled with hoops, jewellery and gold. His chest was tattooed with maps of his many journeys and his bulging arms bore the mangled flesh of scar tallies. He had been one of Darghouth’s former slavers, now serving as the captain’s enforcer and boatswain on board the flagship. On the rare occasions Kurdogoli Darghouth left the wheel of his dark ship, he also doubled as helmsman. For now his great hands were employed in holding the Cloven Captain’s spyglass and sack of spiced wine.

  Kurdogoli Darghouth was a breed apart, even for the cannibal wretches that crewed his vessels. Magnificent of black beard and moustache, the Kalabadian tied the lustrous lengths of his midnight mane in a turban. A boat cloak rolled off his powerful shoulders and down the length of his stallion’s back, having the torso of a man but the body, legs and tail of a horse. The Cloven Captain’s hooves clopped on the deck as he re-aligned himself to the pitch of the Perdición – although having four legs instead of two, the Ruin-blessed Darghouth coped with this better than most. Archaon caught the glint of the captain’s mighty scimitar – the broad curve of its monstrous blade half sheathed to the side of the Cloven Captain’s muscular flank.

  Darghouth said nothing as Archaon approached the wheel, too busy with keeping the Perdición and Archaon’s dark armada off the Bretonnian rocks. Snatching the spyglass out of the southerner’s hand and slipping it in his belt, Archaon stepped up on the rail and leapt for the rigging. Scrambling up for the lines, Archaon hauled himself up through the shrouds and ratlines as bonnets and sails buffeted about the towering main mast. The effort tore at old injuries and the tenderness of muscle. Stone-laced bones ached with the jarring ascent. Archaon might have benefitted from the gifts of the Dark Gods – an enhanced body, an ever-keen mind and an indomitable will. He might have lived beyond his years, the warping powers of Chaos helping him to resist the ravages of old age. He hurt like any other warrior of half his age, however. Bones grated in their sockets. Muscles burned for the youth they had once known.

  The higher Archaon climbed, the g
reater the forces threatening to tear his armoured form from its purchase. The wind dragged him back and forth with a terrible will, while his gauntlets slipped on the wet, swollen ropes of the rigging.

  Archaon’s mind ached with the intrusion once more.

  You have come far, exalted one. Now come to me and learn what the Dark Master wants for us.

  With a snarl, Archaon leapt for the highest of the main mast’s yards and hauled himself up. Holding on to the tapering trunk of the mainmast, Archaon felt the ship move below him, rolling through the storm-whipped waves and leaning over into the wind. He suddenly realised that he was not alone. In the bone basket of the crow’s nest, Archaon saw Gorst’s wretched form, quietly rusting away in his chains and head-cage. The flagellant had exchanged the whip for the lash of the wind and the freezing rain.

  Anchoring himself to the shuddering mast with a leg and an arm, Archaon aimed the spyglass about the battle galleon. Behind the flagship, with the Ruinous Star of its shredded pennant whipping with the wind, Archaon could see the countless ships of his fleet rounding the long shore spit of the curving Bretonnian coastline. Vessels of every exotic designation sailed in the fleet. In the main, the Cloven Captain favoured Old World designs over equatorial craft, the complexities of vessels sailed by the elder races or indeed the war-dhows, xebecs and galliots of his own pirate coast. Bone-lined carracks and spiked caravels swarmed with smaller cogs and storm-battered pinnaces, while towering galleons of black sail and fat hulks formed the trailing backbone of the armada.

  Swinging slowly about the wet wood of the mast, Archaon turned the spyglass south, in the direction the fleet was heading. Squinting through the storm, Archaon could see the torches of distant Marienburg and the lantern-lights of fat merchant vessels moving hurriedly into the colossal port and out of the storm. Lightning flashed above the city, giving Archaon the momentary impression of a forest of masts belonging to the anchored fleets and vessels of the port, poking up above the tile and thatch of roofs.

  Archaon edged around. As he did Gorst reached out for the warlord, fearful of his master falling. The voice was suddenly there again. A powerful presence that cut through his thoughts and echoed about his mind.

  The history of days to come knows Archaon as the Everchosen of Chaos. It knows me as the Curseling. As the Twisted Twin. I offer you the most twisted of all things, chosen one. I offer you the truth.

  Archaon scanned the rocky cliffs of the Bretonnian coastline. A benighted realm, cast by the storm and the balelight of Morrslieb breaking periodically through the cloud, in different shades of glowering darkness. Then he saw it. A figure on the cliffs. A tall figure standing in the haze of a thick mist. Under Morrslieb’s gaze and with the spuming mist lit by sporadic flashes of lightning, the ghostly shape assumed the eerie appearance of some twisted phantom.

  Pulling the spyglass away from his good eye, Archaon drew upon the Eye of Sheerian set in his helm. Cutting through the mist, the tendrils of which swirled about the cliff like the serpentine embrace of a hydra, the Eye granted Archaon a vision of the figure. It was the Curseling from his dreams. The Twisted Twin that had spoken to him through some sorcerous means.

  A Tzeentchian fusion, the warrior-twin wore the gleaming plate and scalemail of his calling. His armour ached with sigils sacred to the Great Changer. An ensorcelled blade sat in a scabbard on his hip, while the spiked length of a flail hung from a chain on his belt. A matching cloak snaked about the brute warrior, held in place by a colossal shoulder spike. The other arm, bereft of plate, bulged with muscle and pulled the cloak tight about it. Sprouting from the same shoulder was the horror of the sorcerer twin. A thing of squirming, worm-like horridness. No eyes. No ears. Nothing but a needle-toothed mouth that whispered into the helm of its warrior-twin. A mane of feathers ran down its back, while in one long-fingered hand of a spindly arm, the sorcerer thing held a staff. The headpiece of the staff was a Tzeentchian eye, but within that burned the Ruinous Star of Be’lakor, the Dark Master. Archaon’s lip curled. Unlike the hulk Gangryss, unlike Ograx the Great, the Curseling was not hiding his allegiance. The headpiece dribbled a strange, sorcerous smoke that writhed about the Curseling, settling into a haze that washed over the cliff edge.

  Archaon thought on the sorcerer’s invitation. His memory of him from dark dreams and his dramatic appearance on the cliff. Here. Now.

  ‘All stop!’ Archaon roared down from the crosstrees. As the Chaos warlord began to clamber down through the rigging, Gorst watching him as he went, he felt the Perdición answer. ‘Drop anchor!’ Archaon added as he snatched a line and leapt from the shrouds, the weight of his stone-laced bones and cursed plate taking him swiftly to the black deck.

  ‘All stop, master,’ Kurdogoli Darghouth told him, his hooves clattering on the deck as he twisted and turned at the wheel, giving orders for signal flags to be hauled up, ordering the dark armada to fall into position and hold a storm-battered station on the cliff. It was not an ideal location for such a request but neither Darghouth nor any of his Ruinous captains were going to argue with an order issued from Archaon’s own lips. ‘Lower the launch,’ Archaon barked. ‘I’m going ashore.’

  ‘Lower the launch, aye,’ the Cloven Captain echoed, before adding a snort and a rattle of the lips. Archaon threw the dark-skinned boatswain his spyglass before the Ruinous thug went off to whip a crew together for the launch and have the boat lowered down the towering side of the galleon.

  ‘Going ashore. In this?’ a cracked voice barely managed above the storm. Archaon saw the daemon sorcerer Sheerian hobble with difficulty across the pitching deck on his bone staff. His gift of youth regained had been spent in the service of Archaon and so he was a spot-livered ancient once more.

  ‘I’m not afraid of a little water,’ Archaon told him.

  ‘That’s not a little water,’ Sheerian returned. ‘It’s a lot of water. But that’s not what bothers me.’

  ‘The sorcerer on the cliff,’ Archaon agreed. ‘The Curseling.’

  ‘His name is Vilitch,’ Sheerian told his master. ‘He’s blessed by the Great Changer. A very powerful sorcerer. His brother unfortunate is Thomin. He’s no beginner with a blade either. Do not underestimate the Twisted Twin.’

  ‘Am I not to be underestimated?’ Archaon said as the launch was swung over the side and Zwei and Drei climbed in with the crew of slave-strongbacks and spawn.

  ‘Of course, master,’ the ancient said, ‘but Vilitch is no fool. He knows this of you and invites you anyway.’

  ‘U’zuhl thirsts,’ Archaon told Sheerian, slapping his gauntlet against Slayer of Kings, the daemonblade sitting in a black, baroque scabbard across the Chaos warlord’s back. ‘He groans for the blood of weakling sorcerers. Should I feed him your soul instead?’

  ‘What I’m saying, my most mighty lord,’ Sheerian said, ‘is that you are almost certainly walking into a trap.’

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ Archaon told the sorcerer, as he climbed over the bulwark and into the launch. ‘The Curseling honours the Great Changer with his powers and deceit but wears the mark of the Dark Master. Perhaps his god-blessed ambition has the better of him. Like Ograx and that monstrosity at the top of the world, the Curseling seeks to serve Be’lakor through the wider pantheon and become the Everchosen of All Chaos.’

  ‘And perhaps his hearts beat with allegiance to the Great Changer still,’ Sheerian said amid the boatswain’s rough calls and the launch began its juddering descent. ‘There is no love lost between my Byzantine god and the Dark Master. This could be more than a trap. It could be a double cross.’

  ‘Yes,’ Archaon agreed, seeming to enjoy the prospect of action on dry land after such a long, storm-battered journey up the Bretonnian coast. ‘But for whom?

  Zwei sat at the front of the launch, like some kind of gargoylesque figurehead, flapping his wings at the boat’s coxswain to help the strongbacks and spawn keep time with their oars.
The slaves and god-blessed unfortunates had been selected for their physical strength and the powerful heaving of their arms on the oars sent the launch cutting through the stormy waves and rock-churned surf. Drei sat in the back of the launch with his master, wings outstretched like a ghoulish parasol, to protect Archaon from the worst of the weather.

  As the boat crunched up on the gravel of the nearby landing, the strongbacks and spawn hauled the launch ashore. Ordering the slaves and spawn to wait on the exposed landing, amid the crashing waves, Archaon threw himself at the wet rock of the cliff. Zwei and Drei were obliged to follow suit, the wraith-warriors batting their wings to give them the extra lift required to get their first handholds. Clawing his gauntlets at wet handholds and moss-greasy ledges like grapnels, Archaon powered up the cliffside. Jumping for purchase on the summit overhang, the Chaos warlord dangled dangerously for a few moments, his plate and the stone laced through his bones threatening to drag him to his death. Hauling his armoured form up and over the edge, Archaon allowed the insistence of an offshore breeze to ruffle through his cloak and clear the grit from where it had fallen onto his plate.

  With Zwei and Drei shimmering their shadow forms into a flanking formation, Archaon marched towards the Curseling. A glow of mist swirled about its cloaked form, the crackling haze seemingly separate from the weather around it. The ghoulish flesh of the Twisted Twin made Archaon’s own crawl under his plate. The warrior stood impassive, like a statue, seemingly unaware of the monstrous twin sprouting from its shoulder. All the armoured warrior knew were the sickly whisperings of his monstrous brother. Like a blind worm, Vilitch twisted and turned, its needle-like teeth gnashing at silent sorceries. When the Twisted Twin did speak, it spoke through the helm of the blank-minded warrior-twin.

  ‘Welcome to Bretonnia, Archaon.’