Arrows hissed through the air as the wagons flashed by. An arrow struck Alcadizzar in the left side, but the point failed to penetrate the rings of mail sewn into his raider’s coat. Only a few of the archers could fire on him at any one time, and the speed of his horse made him a difficult target.
In less than a minute he reached the last wagon in line and was galloping out into the open. Shouts rose behind him and he expected a fusillade of arrows to rain down on him, but just then the Lahmian cavalry arrived on the scene, their yellow silk standards flapping in the wind. He charged full into their midst, dashing straight down the column of charging riders. The Lahmian archers had no choice but to hold their fire, and within moments Alcadizzar had vanished in the churning dust cloud kicked up by the cavalry troop.
A fist pounded at the prince’s shoulder and laughter boomed in his ear. “That was boldly done!” the chieftain said. Alcadizzar glanced over his shoulder and saw that the raider had pulled aside his headscarf. He was a young man, no more than twenty-five or so, with a handsome, tanned face and a brilliant smile that was more than a little mad.
“I am Faisr al-Hashim, of the bani-al-Hashim,” the young man said. “And I am in your debt, stranger. Ask of me anything, and it is yours.”
A half-mile down the trade road, the prince reined in his mount. In the distance, the Lahmian cavalry were chasing the rest of the bandits northwards. Alcadizzar glanced back at the chieftain. Nawat and his rabble were forgotten; this was the opportunity he’d been looking for.
“Anything?”
The chieftain laughed again, drunk from his close brush with death. “Anything, upon my honour! What is your heart’s desire?”
The prince smiled. “I wish to ride with the bani-al-Hashim.”
—
Into the Trap
Nagashizzar, in the 99th year of Usirian the Dreadful
(-1285 Imperial Reckoning)
“Out of the way, damn you! Move-move!” Eekrit laid about with the flat of his blade, striking shoulders and backsides. The clanrats yelped and snarled, glaring back at the warlord with pure murder in their eyes—then lowering their heads and squeezing against the walls of the narrow tunnel once they realised who he was.
Eekrit drove onwards, shouldering his way through the press of armoured bodies. The journey from the lower levels of the fortress had taken nearly twice as long as expected. After successfully dodging enemy patrols and slipping past the kreekar-gan’s barricades, they’d emerged into a scene of utter pandemonium at mine shaft one. Some kind of massive troop movement was under way, with the army’s assault troops being pulled from the battle-line and replaced with yowling mobs of slaves. Every passageway to the lower levels was packed tight with snarling, cursing skaven going in one direction or the other, slowing movement to little better than a crawl. Eekrit was exhausted already from fighting his way through one crowded passageway after another. His arms ached and his patience had long since worn thin. The only thing preventing him from using the sharp end of his blade was the fact that the maddened clanrats would likely turn on him in an instant. The army had enough problems already without touching off a bloody melee within its own ranks.
The warlord shoved his way to the front of the pack, with Eshreegar and the rest of his raiders close at his heels. The leader of the clanrats started to hiss a curse as Eekrit stalked past, but a glare from the Master of Treacheries left the warrior cowering in a cloud of fear-musk.
Just past the clanrats was yet another shuffling mass of stinking fur and rustling armour, but this time Eekrit pulled up short. It was a pack of the Grey Lord’s heechigar, standing shoulder-to-shoulder and probably thirty rats deep. The warlord paused, his narrow chest heaving. His whiskers twitched, sensing the movement of air currents up ahead. They had to be close to their goal now, he reckoned, and the storm-walkers were moving along at something approaching a slow march. At the moment, that was good enough for him. Eekrit fumbled for his scabbard twice before he finally managed to put away his sword.
“How long?” he asked, as Eshreegar came up beside him.
The Master of Treacheries took a deep breath, focussing his tired mind. “Seven hours,” he replied. “Maybe a bit more.”
Eekrit spat a sulphurous curse. “The kreekar-gan’s probably on the move right now. The attack could begin at any minute.”
Eshreegar cocked his head at the warlord. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s the worst possible thing that could happen,” Eekrit growled. “That’s been the one constant in this whole, miserable war.”
They followed the heechigar for several minutes before a bone whistle blew up ahead, and the storm-walkers surged ahead at a loping, rattling trot. Moments later, Eekrit found himself standing at the mouth of the branch-tunnel leading into mine shaft four.
The army’s base camp had expanded dramatically in the weeks since the raiders had last been there. Huge piles of food and supplies, separated by clan and guarded by anxious packs of warriors, stretched from one end of the long tunnel to the other. Smoke from cook-fires and hissing furnaces created a bluish-black haze along the roof of the mine shaft; the air was hot and reeking from the copper stink of the swordsmiths’ forges. The slave pens that he could see had been emptied and units of heavily armed warriors were hastening down the narrow lanes to the call of screeching bone whistles or the bark of clan chiefs.
Eshreegar surveyed the chaos and scowled. “What in the Horned God’s name is going on?” he said.
Eekrit wasn’t quite sure what to make of it himself. “We’ll know soon enough,” he replied, and set off at a trot for the Grey Lord’s pavilion.
They made better time cutting across the mine shaft and reached the sprawling collection of wood-and-hide enclosures within a matter of minutes. A pair of heechigar stood watch at the pavilion’s main entrance, nervously clutching the hafts of their fearsome-looking polearms. Their hackles bristled as Eekrit and the raiders approached.
Eekrit was in no mood for displays of dominance. “I must speak with Lord Velsquee at once,” he said without preamble.
“Lord Velsquee is meeting with the war council,” rasped one of the storm-walkers.
The warlord glared up at the broad-shouldered warrior. “How convenient,” he replied. “I’m on the war council.”
The two heechigar exchanged sly looks. “That’s not what we were told, black-robe,” the burly guard said, baring his teeth in a lopsided sneer. “Aren’t you supposed to be past the barricades, sniffing up the kreekar-gan’s bony arse?”
“You shut your teeth,” Eshreegar warned, his voice low and full of menace.
The storm-walker’s smile broadened. “Do your worst, one-eye.”
Eshreegar stepped forwards, a pair of cruel-looking knives appearing in his paws as if by magic. His answering smile was wicked and cold. “You asked for this,” he told the storm-walker. “I want you to remember that once I’m finished with you.”
“Enough,” Eekrit snapped, and the tone of his voice was enough to get even the heechigars’ attention. “We don’t have time for this.” The warlord stepped up to the towering guard. “You listen to me,” he told the storm-walker. “The leader of the army’s scouts has an urgent message for the Grey Lord and the council. If he doesn’t get that message immediately, then Velsquee will hold the both of you responsible. Do you care to take the blame for the army’s defeat?”
The guard’s eyes narrowed, searching Eekrit’s face for signs he was bluffing. Finally, the storm-walker shrugged. “No need for that,” he muttered, and then sent his companion into the pavilion with a jerk of his head.
Eekrit and Eshreegar fumed in silence, tails twitching, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, the second guard returned. “All right,” he said, with no sign of deference. “You two come with me.”
The Master of Treacheries tensed again at the guard’s insolent tone, but Eekrit forestalled him with an upraised paw. “Lead on.”
They followe
d the storm-walker past the hanging hide flap and into the noisome darkness of the pavilion. Foul-smelling incense—some acrid swamp fungus that was currently fashionable in the Great City—curled listlessly about the ceiling of the narrow antechamber beyond. Slaves from a number of the army’s prominent clans abased themselves as Eekrit passed by.
The heechigar led them down a maze of twisting, close-set passageways, fashioned to suit skaven sensibilities and confound would-be assassins. After several minutes, they emerged into a slightly larger antechamber, this one laid with expensive rugs and stinking of slightly less acrid smoke. More slaves, these belonging exclusively to Velsquee, crouched silently in the far corners of the chamber as they awaited their master’s summons. Another passageway opposite led deeper into the pavilion. From somewhere beyond came the faint murmur of voices.
As they entered the chamber, the hide flap across the room was pulled aside. Eekrit came to a sudden halt as he caught sight of the skaven lord who’d come to meet them.
Lord Hiirc was clad in rich robes embroidered with gold and silver thread. Tokens of burning stone gleamed balefully from fine chains around his neck. Like Eekrit, the lord of Clan Morbus could afford the best charms and potions that money could buy back at the Great City. He looked like a skaven barely half his true age, Eekrit noted irritably. Hiirc’s gold-capped teeth glinted coldly as he spoke.
“What in the-the Horned God’s name are the two of you doing here?” he said. His voice was thin and shrill, like a poorly tuned whistle. The lord’s fur was tangled and unkempt, and his ears twitched apprehensively.
Eekrit wondered at his appearance, but then realised that it was very early in the morning for the clan lords, who were accustomed to the luxuries of camp life.
“There’s going to be an attack, Hiirc,” Eekrit snapped. “The kreekar-gan has led us into an ambush.”
Hiirc’s ears folded back against his skull. “Is that so?” he hissed. “And how exactly do you know this?”
Eekrit growled under his breath and took a step towards Hiirc. His paw drifted to his sword hilt. He wanted nothing more than to bury his blade between the fool’s beady eyes. The heechigar sensed this at once and let out a warning snarl, moving to place himself partially between the two lords. Eshreegar shifted slightly, paws at his sides.
The warlord caught himself at the last moment. However much he wanted it, painting the hide walls with Hiirc’s blood would only complicate things with Velsquee. Eekrit paused, took a deep breath, and told his erstwhile second-in-command what he’d learned.
Hiirc listened carefully to the story, even nodding thoughtfully at the description of the tunnel mouth and the captured clan chief. When Eekrit had finished his report, the Morbus clan lord snapped his fingers. Instantly a slave appeared, bearing a bowl of wine on a silver tray. Hiirc took the bowl and sipped its contents.
“Is that all?” he asked.
Eekrit stared at Hiirc. Even the heechigar seemed shocked.
“Isn’t that enough?” the warlord snarled. “What is-is so hard to understand, Hiirc? The burning man and his warriors are likely moving through the tunnels even as we speak. They could attack at-at any moment—”
“We know,” Hiirc replied, his tail lashing smugly. “We’ve known for hours, in fact.”
“You know?” Then, suddenly, Eekrit understood. “The spy. Of course.”
Hiirc shifted uncomfortably. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Eekrit cut him off with an upraised claw. “Don’t be more of an idiot than you have to be, Hiirc,” he snapped. “There’s been a traitor in the enemy’s ranks all along. How in the Horned God’s name did you get the warning so quickly?”
Hiirc finished the wine and tossed the bowl back onto the slave’s tray. “That’s none of your concern,” he shot back. “Velsquee’s summoned our best troops. When the burning man attacks, he’ll walk right into a trap. In an hour, two at most, the war will be over,” he said. Hiirc bared his golden teeth in a malicious smile. “Which means your services to the army are no longer required.”
Before Eekrit could reply, Hiirc snapped his fingers once again. This time the hide flap behind him was drawn aside and twelve more storm-walkers filed ponderously into the room.
Eekrit glared at the broad-shouldered warriors. “What is the meaning of this?”
Hiirc turned to the leader of the heechigar. “Escort Lords Eekrit and Eshreegar to the under-fortress,” he commanded. “Confine them to the warlord’s lair and guard them closely.”
The storm-walkers surrounded the two skaven. Eekrit bared his teeth, furious that he’d allowed Hiirc to trap him so easily. With the rest of the scout-assassins behind him he might have made a fight of it. But now…
Eekrit folded his arms in resignation. “Lord Velsquee will hear of this.”
Hiirc’s ears fluttered with amusement. “It was the Grey Lord himself who ordered this.” He waved a paw in dismissal to the guards. “Remove them by one of the side entrances,” he ordered. “If you even think they might give you trouble, hack them to bits.”
The heechigar leader grunted in assent and nodded to his warriors. Lowering their polearms, they herded their two prisoners past Hiirc and back the way they’d come, past the hide flap and into another adjoining room connected by three branching corridors. Down a side-corridor they went, passing into another labyrinthine set of passageways that finally led them to an exit on the far side of the pavilion.
Outside the enclosure the air still rang with shouted orders and the shrill cry of whistles as the storm-walkers and the army’s veteran clanrats prepared their hasty ambush. Eekrit paused, surveying the scene. The rest of the scout-assassins were nowhere in sight, and with so much noise there was no way to call for aid.
A sharp bronze point jabbed the warlord in the shoulderblade. “Move,” said the storm-walker behind him.
The phalanx of guards started off towards the opposite side of the mine shaft. Eshreegar fell into step beside Eekrit. He gave the warlord a sidelong look.
“Any brilliant ideas?” he asked.
“I’m thinking,” Eekrit muttered.
The Master of Treacheries leaned closer. “There’s a slave trader in the under-fortress who owes me some favours,” he whispered. “If we can get to him, he’ll smuggle us back to the Great City for a price.”
Eekrit walked along in silence, considering his options. After a moment, he looked up and considered the hulking forms of the storm-walkers.
The warlord took a deep breath. “Eshreegar, how much gold have you got?”
The preparations for the attack took hours to complete. Swift messengers carried orders to the barbarian companies, withdrawing them from the barricades and assembling them in four large contingents along the deserted storage chambers close to the approach tunnels. Large packs of flesh-eaters—nearly all that remained of the debased Yaghur tribes—prowled the tunnels around the assembled warriors, hunting for enemy scouts who might spoil their master’s plans. The northmen, some four thousand strong, left behind a mere thousand skeletal warriors to man the barricades and hold the enemy at bay.
As the warriors gathered, Nagash went to the secret vault that contained the last of the abn-i-khat. The windowless stone chamber, carved from the very bedrock of the mountain, was large enough to rival the vast treasure houses of the kings of old Khemri; now its shelves and marble plinths sat empty but for a single, small table at the far end of the vault. There, flickering like a pair of baleful eyes, sat two fist-sized lumps of burning stone.
Nagash paused but a moment at the threshold, surveying the dark, empty place. Once a measure of Nagashizzar’s wealth and power, now it spoke only of defeat and a long, bitter decline.
At length he entered the echoing vault, his bony footsteps making faint, scraping sounds upon the stone. His body moved with an unnatural gait more akin to a beast or a reptile than to a man. His arms and legs, unmoored by muscle or sinew, moved like serpents beneath the parchment-like folds
of his ancient robe. His wight bodyguard followed at his heels, ghostly green fire flickering across their tarnished armour and down the length of their deadly blades.
The macabre procession halted before the table and Nagash spread his skeletal hands possessively above it. The magical stone seemed to respond to the necromancer’s desires, flaring like coals in a furnace. The light of the burning stone played across the surface of the bronze and leather breastplate that they rested upon and the long, straight, double-edged blade that lay before it. The armour had been wrought by the smiths of the northmen and enchanted by Nagash’s own hand; each scale had been inscribed with a rune of protection to turn aside the spells and blades of his foes. The blade had been taken from an ancient northern barrow during the long war of subjugation, and had been wrought from obsidian in the days before men knew how to shape metal. The art of its making was a mystery even to Nagash; there was terrible power coiled within, a hunger for life that was depthless and cold as the abyss itself.
Nagash plucked the stone orbs from their resting place and weighed them in his hands. At once, the left-hand orb was wreathed with a shimmering green mist that soaked into the necromancer’s blackened bones. At once, he stood straighter, his skeletal frame drawing together tightly as the arcane energies leapt from joint to joint. He craved more, but with an effort of supreme will he put his hunger aside. He had measured out each and every ounce according to his battle plan. Nothing would be held back. Either he would defeat the ratmen once and for all, or be destroyed in the process.
At his command, the wights gathered around him. For the first time in more than a century, they set aside their bared blades and reached for the wargear resting upon the table.
Slowly, with unspoken ceremony, the risen dead garbed Nagash for war. The weight of the armour upon his chest reminded him of ancient times, of past glories won beneath Nehekhara’s burning sun, but the memories filled him with a strange sense of foreboding. As the champions went about their work, cinching cords and fastening ties, the necromancer found himself studying the vault’s shadows for pale figures and ghostly, accusing faces.
03 - Nagash Immortal Page 22
