The End Times | The Lord of the End Times

by Josh Reynolds

  Arkhan looked up at Nagash. The Undying King gazed in the direction Settra had vanished for a moment longer, as if bemused. Then he turned to look down at Arkhan. ‘MY SERVANT,’ he said.

  ‘What would you have me do, master?’

  ‘I MUST REACH THE ARTEFACT, OR ALL IS FOR NAUGHT. TAKE TWO HOSTS OF THE MORGHASTS AND HOLD HERE, UNTIL YOUR LAST STRENGTH IS GONE. DO NOT FAIL ME.’

  Arkhan didn’t flinch. He had fallen before, as had Krell. It was never the end. No matter how often he wished it were so. Settra’s reappearance was proof enough of that. And Nagash was right. They could not break away from the enemy here. Even though Throgg was dead, and Sigvald too, their foes were too numerous and too far gone in their bloodlust to be so easily shifted, even by one as mighty as Settra. For Nagash to make his escape, someone would have to stay behind and keep the remaining Kurgan and the monstrous horde occupied. And since Krell was no more, that left him. ‘Yes, master. Do you have any further commands?’

  Nagash hesitated. And for the first time, Arkhan the Black felt a flicker of hope. He had never known the Great Necromancer to hesitate, even in the face of defeat. It was as if, for the first time in centuries, the Undying King was uncertain of the ultimate outcome. Nagash looked down at him and said, finally, ‘DIE WELL, MY SERVANT.’

  Then Nagash stalked south, leaving Arkhan to face the enemy alone. Arkhan turned away, and set his staff. The remnants of Throgg’s army that weren’t currently being occupied by Settra rampaged towards him, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Arkhan tightened his grip on his sword, and thought of a long-forgotten alleyway, where he’d first set his feet on the path to eternal servitude. A path that had, at long last, reached its end.

  He thought of the feeling of sand across his cheeks, and the smell of Cathayan spices on a sea breeze. He could taste blood, and the black leaf, and the kisses of a queen. He looked down at his fleshless hand, clasped about the hilt of his sword, and then up, at the crawling sky.

  If Arkhan the Black had been capable of smiling, he would have.

  The Palast District

  ‘Fire!’ Gotri Hammerson roared, chopping the air with his axe. The ensuing volley punched through the ranks of the beastmen, dropping many. The rest came on, braying coarse-tongued battle cries as they charged heedlessly into the dwarf shield-wall. ‘Ironbreakers – to the fore!’ Hammerson bellowed, as he signalled for the Thunderers to retreat.

  The Ironbreakers, clad in gromril and bearing runic shields, stumped forward, accompanied by Balthasar Gelt, as the dwarf line fell back around them. The Incarnate of Metal planted his staff, and the runes inscribed on the ancient armour of the dwarfs glowed with power. A moment later, the beastmen crashed into them, hacking at flesh and armour with frenzied abandon. The dwarfs held firm, and soon the last of the creatures was slumping into the dust or scattering in flight. Hammerson caught Gelt’s eye, and nodded sharply.

  They had come to the aid of the elves, but almost too late. Alarielle’s forces were outnumbered and surrounded by an ever-expanding ring of foes. And unlike the beastmen, these didn’t look as if the thought of dwarf bullets filled them with much dread. Witch elves, howling blood cultists, and daemons swirled about Alarielle’s elves and tree-spirits, and only where Durthu and the remaining treemen fought was the battle not going badly.

  Hammerson knew that wasn’t going to last. He could see a massive cauldron-shrine grinding slowly across the plaza towards Alarielle, and perched atop it, the fugitive Blood Queen, Hellebron. The wiry witch elf spat and railed, issuing orders and threats in a voice twisted by madness. She clashed her blades and gesticulated wildly, as if overcome by the same frenzy which possessed her followers. He’d heard that she had fled Athel Loren before the arrival of the refugees from Averheim, and had learned enough about her proclivities to know that she meant Alarielle ill.

  ‘We must rescue her,’ Gelt said, as he hurried towards Hammerson. His golden mask was dented and tarnished, but his eyes glowed with power. ‘If Alarielle falls, so too will the world,’ he continued. He gestured with his staff towards the cauldron-shrine, as its heavy wheels ground over the broken dead and laughing witch elves came leaping in its wake.

  ‘Aye,’ Hammerson grunted. ‘I have eyes, lad. I know.’ He raised his axe. ‘Zhufbarak – shield-march,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s go give the tree-huggers a hand, lads.’ The Ironbreakers locked shields and started forwards, as the clansmen and Thunderers followed suit. A dwarf throng on the march was akin to one of the Empire’s steam tanks, capable of rolling over almost any enemy. Clansmen on the flanks used their shields to provide cover for the Thunderers, who unleashed volley after volley, reloading as they moved. The Ironbreakers formed the wedge, smashing aside any enemy who sought to stand in the throng’s path. And there were plenty of those. Hammerson and Gelt took the point of the wedge for themselves, unleashing their respective magics on the foe.

  Hang on woman, we’re coming, he thought, as he summoned runes of fire and swept aside a shrieking witch elf. Not that I have any clue how to help you, when we get there. Or if you’ll even live that long, with the way you’re looking…

  From his few glimpses of her, as she fought in the shadow of Durthu, the Everqueen looked less radiant than cadaverous. It was as if she had aged centuries in moments, and her movements were faltering. Nonetheless, she fought on, her magics reaching out to snare and break the enemy at every turn. Hammerson had no real fondness for the elves, but he knew bravery when he saw it. And he was determined not to let it be in vain.

  The Zhufbarak throng advanced at a glacier’s pace, with all the relentless inexorability that implied. Salvoes thundered forth, flinging bodies into the air and throwing the already anarchic ranks of the enemy into complete disarray. The great, coiling war-horns of Zhufbar groaned so loudly as to shake the rubble, and where bullets and steam did not reach, axes and hammers served to split Hellebron’s host in two.

  At a gesture from Gelt, golden light danced across the weapons of the dwarfs, awakening the full power of the ancestral runes. Gromril armour flared and shone like the stars that had once shone in the skies above as it was struck by enemy blows. Hammerson raised his axe and gestured east. With his other hand, he motioned west. The dwarf shield-wall split with perfect synchronicity, and two lines of clan warriors turned outwards around a hinge composed of a doughty core of Ironbreakers, one to the east, the other to the west. Hammerson gestured to Gelt. ‘Take the west, lad. I’ll see to the east,’ he growled. ‘Let the enemy break themselves on good dwarf steel. Give the elgi a chance to catch their breath. We’ll collapse the wall when we’ve earned some space, and squeeze the enemy between us, like grist beneath a millstone.’

  Hammerson watched Gelt go, and then turned to study the turmoil they had wrought in their wake. He grunted in satisfaction as he saw that their intervention had destroyed any momentum the enemy possessed. They’d cut Hellebron’s forces in two, with the Blood Queen herself caught on the wrong side of the shield-wall and trapped between dwarfs and elves. Then, that didn’t seem to bother her all that much. She was exhorting her followers to greater efforts, ranting and shrieking loudly enough to wake the dead. The elves would have to hold out until the dwarfs could fall back to their position.

  Hammerson glanced back at Alarielle. I hope you can handle her, woman, because we’ve got our hands full, he thought. A thunderclap shook the Palast and rattled his teeth in his jaw, and he turned to see the followers of the Blood God slam into the western shield-wall. Axe-blades chopped over shield rims or hooked dwarf legs, and the wall wavered, but only for an instant. Rune-axes carved red, efficient arcs through the packed ranks of the enemy, as the Zhufbarak gave their foes their fill and more of skulls and blood.

  ‘Hold them, lad,’ Hammerson growled. He looked around at his warriors, as they strained against the enemy. ‘And you, you great wattocks… that goes for you as well!’ he roared, clashing his weapons together. ‘Hold
!’

  The ancient treeman gave a cry, like the splintering of a great oak, and collapsed. Alarielle whipped around, the pain of the world’s dying a drumbeat in her temples, and stared in shock as Skarana, eldest of the oldest, toppled down into death. The bloodthirster roared in triumph and ripped its axe free of the treeman’s body, scattering charred splinters across the heads of the wailing dryads which flung themselves on the daemon’s followers. The daemon charged towards her and Durthu, wings flared, arms wide, as if inviting them to meet it in battle. She could feel her protector stiffen in anticipation, and then relax.

  Durthu would not leave her side willingly. Not while only a thin wall of spears separated her from Hellebron’s maddened servants. The treeman did not trust the dwarfs to reach her in time. But he was the only one among them strong enough to dispatch the daemon even now charging towards them. She placed a hand on the rough bark of his wrist. Durthu was the greatest of Athel Loren’s children. In his mighty frame was the strength of the forest itself, and the blade he carried had been forged by the gods.

  ‘Go,’ Alarielle said. Durthu looked down at her, silently. Alarielle frowned. ‘Go, Durthu. Go begrudgingly, or willingly, but go. Do as I command. I will be here when you return.’ Durthu reached out, and brushed a lock of hair from her face. Then, with a sound like an avalanche, the treeman turned and strode to meet the daemon.

  Durthu picked up speed as he moved past the spear-wall of the defenders, and his great root-feet trampled the enemy as he charged towards the approaching daemon, his massive blade held out behind him. He reached out with his free hand, and roared with all the fury of Athel Loren as he smashed into the bloodthirster, sending the daemon staggering sideways into the Middenplatz wall. There was a crackle of snapping bone as the force of the impact shattered the daemon’s wings, and the beast howled in agony.

  Durthu didn’t slacken his assault. Even as the bloodthirster tried to rise, the treeman swung his Daith-forged blade up and drove it down through his opponent’s breastplate and into the unnatural flesh beneath. The bloodthirster shrieked and grasped the blade. It hauled itself up and smashed at Durthu with its axe, hacking deep grooves into the treeman’s bark. Durthu ignored the frenzied assault and twisted around, wrenching his blade free of the bloodthirster’s chest. Without pausing, he whirled about, bringing the sword about to chop clean through the daemon’s thick neck.

  The treeman stepped aside as the daemon collapsed, but Alarielle did not see what happened next. Her attentions were dragged back to her own predicament, as one of her warriors gave a shout. Alarielle grimaced as the corpse impaled on the woman’s spear abruptly flopped into motion and pulled itself off the point of the weapon. Others began to rise as well, slipping and sliding in their own blood as they struggled upright. Alarielle hissed in pain as the Winds of Life recoiled from the abomination taking place before her. She raised her hand, ready to sweep the risen dead aside with her magics before they could attack, when a sudden shout stayed her hand. A familiar form had dropped from the Middenplatz wall and into the battle, laying about him with a deadly blade.

  ‘Take heart, dear lady,’ Vlad von Carstein called out as he sprinted past her warriors, accompanied by the staggering forms of the newly slain, who stumbled in his wake. ‘Your champions are legion, be they man, dwarf or heroic tree-stump. Your burying place is not here, and not today. So swears Vlad von Carstein, Elector of Sylvania,’ he shouted, flinging himself into battle like a dark thunderbolt. Where he moved, the enemy fell, only to rise again at his command. With every corpse that rose, a jagged thorn of pain cut into her heart. But those pains were but pinpricks compared to the agony she felt with every breath. The world itself was coming undone, collapsing in on itself like a rotten tree, and she could feel the sharp ache of the artefact Archaon was employing to accomplish the unmaking.

  The vampire slithered into the heart of the ranks of the bloodthirster’s followers, his sword flickering like lightning. He employed finesse and brutality in equal measure, and moved with such grace that Alarielle thought even Tyrion might have looked upon him with envy. He employed the risen dead like ambulatory shields, using them to create opportunities for his kills. She shook her head, grateful and disturbed in equal measure, and turned her attentions to her own battle.

  Despite the aid of the dead and the dwarfs, Hellebron’s forces had reached the ring of dryads who protected Alarielle, sacrificing their lives to keep her safe. She felt every death, every mangling blow that afflicted the tree-spirits, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet. She watched in dull-eyed horror as dryads flung themselves up the iron stairs of the cauldron-shrine that steadily bore down on her. The spirits attacked Hellebron, who hacked them down with shrieks of laughter. Alarielle closed her eyes. She felt every blow, and her body shuddered as each spirit fell. Hellebron bounded off the cauldron, her lithe shape covered in blood and sap. ‘I see you, queen of weeds and maggots,’ she screeched, gesturing with one of her cruelly curved blades. ‘I see you, and I will wear your pretty skin as a cloak.’ She darted forwards, and two of Alarielle’s guards moved to intercept her. Without slowing, Hellebron swept her blades out and removed their heads.

  Alarielle stepped up. Her asrai fell back at her command, clearing a path. She wanted no more of them to die in a futile attempt to stop the Blood Queen. Hellebron danced towards her, grinning madly, and Alarielle wondered how it had come to this. What had set the Blood Queen on this course? She had come to Athel Loren with Malekith and the others, but her loyalty to her people had faded like a morning mist, leaving only this… thing which now capered and shrieked at her in challenge. A challenge that she would meet, though she was no warrior. Though she had learned blade-craft from the finest warriors in Ulthuan, the Everqueen was a creature of peace, rather than war, and even with the power of Life Incarnate, she was little match for the former ruler of Har Ganeth.

  ‘We looked for you,’ Alarielle said, ‘after Be’lakor’s attack on the Oak of Ages. We thought you had been slain.’ She waited for Hellebron, trying to conserve her strength.

  ‘That would have pleased you to no end, I’m certain,’ Hellebron cackled. She pulled the edges of her blades across each other, filling the air with their shriek.

  ‘If you think that, then you are truly demented,’ Alarielle said. ‘You were welcomed into Athel Loren, sorceress. You and your followers both, despite your foul ways. You are of the asur, despite your predilections, and I would not see you dead.’

  Hellebron grimaced. ‘You lie,’ she spat. Her grimace twisted into a manic grin. ‘And now, you die!’ She lunged, and Alarielle interposed her staff. The cobblestoned street ruptured as a writhing thicket of thorn-vines burst upwards to ensnare the leaping form of Hellebron. The Blood Queen shrieked in pain, but did not stop. Her blades flashed out, chopping through the vines, and a moment later, she was free. She snarled and drove one of her blades into Alarielle’s belly.

  Alarielle screamed as Hellebron jerked the blade free, and clapped a hand to the wound in her stomach. She slumped to her knees, the pain overwhelming her. Her staff rolled away, forgotten. The world seemed to shudder around her, as if in sympathy, and she bowed her head, trying to concentrate through her own internal din. She could feel the essence of Ghyran trying to mend her torn flesh, but she was too weak. The world’s pain, added to her own, was too much to bear. Nonetheless, she could not give in. Too much counted on her. She tried to focus her own magics through those of Ghyran, to bolster her flagging body.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hellebron’s second blade descending towards her neck, as if in slow motion. The Blood Queen’s features were distorted by rage, triumph, and something else. Fear, Alarielle realised. Hellebron was afraid. Of what, she couldn’t say, but that fear was driving the Blood Queen to attack like a wild animal. The Wind of Life whispered in Alarielle’s mind, and in that instant, the Incarnate of Life knew what was required of her.

  Ala
rielle forced herself to her feet and caught Hellebron’s wrist as she rose, halting the blade a hair’s breadth from her neck. She forced her opponent back and tore her hand from her wound. The green energy of life crackled between her bloody fingers as she pressed her hand gently to the side of Hellebron’s contorted face. The magics flowed into the dark elf, and centuries of madness and frenzy were washed away by the healing tide of Ghyran. The fractured psyche of the Blood Queen became whole, for the first time in a thousand or more years, and with lucidity came understanding. For a moment, a different woman entirely looked out through Hellebron’s bulging eyes, saw what she had made of herself, and the witch elf moaned in horror.

  Alarielle met Hellebron’s horrified gaze and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then, grabbing hold of her opponent’s wrist with both hands, she forced Hellebron’s own blade up into its owner’s chest. The deadly blade passed through Hellebron’s ribs and its curved tip found her heart, and the horror in her eyes faded as her contorted features slackened into something resembling peace. She slumped against Alarielle, and the Everqueen sank back down, blood pouring from the wound in her belly. She slipped down beside her fallen opponent.

  She felt cold, and the dark crept in at the edges of her vision. She heard the screams of Hellebron’s remaining followers and the agonised shouts of her people, and wanted to weep for the uselessness of it all, but lacked the strength to do anything but lie still. Is this death, then? she thought. She did not fear it. Aliathra’s face swam before her eyes, and she reached up, hoping to touch her daughter’s cheek once more, to say at last all the things she should have said. I will tell you of your father, and how he tore me from my silk pavilions and slew any who stood in his way, the day that Malekith came for me. I will tell you how we hid in the forests of Avelorn, and what occurred there. I will tell you everything, at last… You are so like him, my daughter. Brave and foolish and proud… I–