03 - God King (21 page)

If such tales were to be believed, then Nagash had walked the earth for over
two thousand years, a fantastical span of time that Eoforth had trouble in
grasping. It seemed absurd, but then the ultimate goal of the necromancer was to
cheat death and live forever, so perhaps it was not so unbelievable after all.

Some of what Eoforth read was plainly nonsense, tales of a beautiful queen of
the dead who had become his consort and sired the race of blood drinkers, an
alliance with a burrowing race of vermin creatures who infested the hidden
corners of the world and, most incredible of all, the building of a vast
obsidian pyramid somewhere in the southern mountains that prevented the
necromancer from ever truly dying.

All the accounts agreed on one thing: Nagash was the bane of life, a twisted
and corrupt sorcerer whose existence had transcended his human origins to become
something more monstrous and more evil than anything that had ever walked the
face of the world. His powers were beyond imagining, his reach limitless and his
armies legion.

Inextricably linked with the tale of Nagash was the tale of the crown he had
forged and into which he had bound the essence of his damned soul. This, the
ancient taletellers agreed, was the source of Nagash’s greatest power and his
greatest weakness. The manuscript from the burning galley spoke of an ancient
warrior named Al-Khadizaar who slew the Lord of Undeath with a dreadful sword of
fell power and cast his bones and crown into a great river.

Frustratingly, the manuscript said no more of the crown, but in a long-dead
trader’s recounting of his travels in the blasted lands south of the Black
Mountains, Eoforth unearthed mention of a ruined ancient city that bore all the
hallmarks of having been destroyed by a greenskin invasion. When Sigmar had told
him of the battle against the necromancer of Brass Keep, he had spoken of a
phantom city beneath the ice; a vision conjured by Morath to recreate the fallen
glory of his lost city of Mourkain. Like the cities of Nehekhara, it too had
been made great and then brought low by Nagash’s crown.

A greenskin invasion had destroyed the city, but had they been drawn to
destroy Mourkain by the crown’s influence? Everywhere the crown appeared in
history, great devastation quickly followed: terrible invasions, cataclysms of
dreadful power or corruptions of once noble civilisations into barbarism. The
crown was a talisman of woe, a bringer of destruction that brought only misery
and death whenever it came to light.

And it was buried in the heart of Reikdorf.

A soft gust sighed past Eoforth, and he heard a dry, dusty chuckle that
echoed from the blackness between the stone pillars. It drifted on the still
air, and Eoforth knew in that moment he was not alone. Deathly eyes were turned
upon him, mocking his feeble attempts to unlock the nature of a creature that
had walked the haunted paths of the world from the earliest ages of Man. Cold
chills travelled the length of his spine and Eoforth slammed the book shut, his
breath misting before him as the light from the flickering candles dimmed and
the shadows crept closer.

Gathering up his notes, Eoforth fled the library.

A dozen riders fled north, whipping their mounts in a frenzy of terror and
desperation. Khaled al-Muntasir watched them go with a wry grin of amusement on
his lips. A city of nearly eight thousand people, and twelve men were all that
now lived. He watched from a high balcony of the Count’s Palace, a grand tower
decorated with finery from all across the Empire and a number of artefacts he
recognised as belonging to civilisations from the other side of the world.

“You were a man of culture,” said Khaled al-Muntasir, lifting a
delicately-wrought vase of pale white ceramic decorated with exquisite images
picked out in blue ink. The artist had skilfully rendered a man and women
drinking tea at a low table in a bamboo-framed home. The brushwork was flawless
and the detailing incredible. In any land this piece would fetch a small
fortune.

Khaled al-Muntasir tossed the vase from the balcony, watching as it tumbled
down the cliff to smash to fragments on the way down. The vase’s owner didn’t
bat an eyelid at his prized possession’s destruction.

“Yes,” said Khaled al-Muntasir, moving back into the Great Hall, its walls
painted with colourful frescoes depicting scenes of hunting and battle. “You
have some wonderful pieces here. This rug, for example, bears the handiwork of
the dreamweavers of Ind, while this wall hanging is from the silk-worms of the
Dragon Emperor is it not?”

The vampire stopped beneath a podium of oak, upon which was mounted a pair of
giant ivory tusks. He stroked the monstrous fangs, marvelling at their size and
contemplating the scale of the beast from which they had been torn. The vampire
looked towards the warrior standing motionless in the centre of the audience
chamber, a tall man in golden armour and a crown of the same metal upon his
brow. His hair was white and flowed across his shoulders like a frozen
waterfall.

“Ordinarily, I would say these belonged to a dragon, but I know of no such
beasts in these lands anymore. So tell me, Siggurd, what manner of creature
once owned these?”

The warrior turned to face Khaled al-Muntasir, his face drained of life and
his throat a ruined mess of torn sinews and muscle. Blood coated his chest and
his eyes were now sunken, filled with a hideous red light. His mouth opened and
closed, but no words came out, just a hiss of dead air from his opened throat.

“Ah, yes, of course…” said Khaled al-Muntasir. The vampire muttered a petty
incantation of dark magic and the torn meat of Siggurd’s throat began to close
up, the necrotic flesh weaving the ghastly wound closed. “Now, you were
saying…?”

The count of the Brigundian tribe’s mouth opened and a rasping death rattle
emerged, a sound dragged from the abyss that carried such pleasing anguish that
Khaled al-Muntasir couldn’t resist a wide grin.

“Skaranorak…” hissed Siggurd. “A dragon ogre…”

Khaled al-Muntasir’s eyes widened, and he stroked the heavy tusks with his
carefully clipped nails, a new-found respect in his deathly eyes.

“You killed this beast yourself?” he asked.

“No,” said Siggurd, his voice returning. “Sigmar killed it.”

“Ah, yes, Sigmar,” said the vampire. “I should have guessed.”

Siggurd walked out onto the balcony, a perch from where he had once surveyed
the lands belonging to his tribe, lands that had once brought trade and wealth
to his city, but were now overtaken by darkness and fear. Swollen by the
Menogoth dead, the army of Nagash had taken Siggurdheim in a matter of days, its
rugged peak climbed by hundreds of ghoulish infiltrators as thousands of dead
warriors marched along its steep winding roads to batter their way in through
the heavy gateway. The city had fallen in a night that still held sway, the
Great Hall’s many windows admitting no light, only the darkness of eternal
night.

“Are you not going to stop them?” asked Siggurd, his flesh finally losing its
vigour and warmth as the Blood Kiss destroyed the last of his humanity and
completed his journey to become an immortal killer of the living.

“Why would I care to do that?” said a voice laden with thousands of years of
blood and slaughter. Like tombstones crumbling, it was the sound of toppled
civilisations, cultures destroyed and entire realms drained of life.

Siggurd and Khaled al-Muntasir bowed as Nagash entered the Great Hall. The
darkness beyond the windows was eclipsed by the bleak presence of the arch
necromancer, a thick miasma of dark energy that filled his servants with macabre
vigour. The coiled snake staff crackled with simmering power, and his metallic
fingers dripped beads of dark magic to the stone floor of the hall.

The hulking violence that was Krell marched at Nagash’s right hand, his black
axe strapped across his armoured back. The fallen warrior of the Dark Gods had
run rampant through the city, killing with a frenzy that would no doubt have
pleased his former master. To Nagash’s left was the wolfish figure of Count
Markus, his lean frame now invigorated with slaughter. His blade and chin were
covered in blood; his eyes alight with the thrill of feeding on so many fearful
hearts.

“They will carry word of what has happened here,” said Siggurd, staring
hungrily at the blood on Markus’ blade. “It will give them time to prepare for
your attack.”

“It matters not,” said Nagash. “Already my vassal forces spread fear to the
furthest reaches of this land. Man is a beast and it is good that fear fills
him.”

“And that fear will drain men’s hearts of courage,” said Khaled al-Muntasir,
returning to the balcony. “But more than that, it tastes so sweet…”

Khaled al-Muntasir watched as the riders fleeing Siggurdheim’s destruction
disappeared over the horizon, their life lights as bright as stars. “Where will
they go?” he asked.

“North to Asoborn lands,” answered Siggurd, licking his lips and pacing the
hall like a restless stallion. “They will flee to Queen Freya in Three Hills.
She lives for war and will muster her warriors as soon as she learns what has
happened here.”

“Then that is where you will go, Khaled al-Muntasir,” said Nagash. “Hunt down
this queen and destroy her.”

Khaled al-Muntasir bowed and dropped into the throne that had once belonged
to the Brigundian count.

“I will leave her lands as desolate as Bel Aliad itself.”

“What of the Merogens?” asked Siggurd, his hands clawed into fists. “Is
Henroth dead?”

“Henroth’s people huddle around flickering candles within their castles of
stone, surrounded by the dead. They will be no threat,” said Nagash as Markus
walked over to Siggurd and took hold of his chin.

The former count of the Menogoths turned to Khaled al-Muntasir. “The
birth-hunger is upon him,” he said.

“It is,” agreed the vampire.

“He will need to feed soon or else go mad.”

“There are living yet within this city’s walls,” said Khaled al-Muntasir,
languidly twirling a finger through the air, as though stirring its flavours.
“Young Siggurd must learn to hunt on his own, just as you did.”

Siggurd took Markus’ hand from his chin, his eyes hostile, and they circled
like two virile males in a wolf pack. Khaled al-Muntasir smirked at such
posturing in newly-ascended blood drinkers.

“Give a mortal a taste of true power and it all but overwhelms them,” said
Nagash.

“If either survive to learn how to use that power they will be formidable
killers,” said Khaled al-Muntasir.

“The fate of blood drinkers interests me not at all,” hissed Nagash ducking
below the balcony’s archway and casting his immortal gaze over the landscape.
The darkness of his armour and tattered cloak swirled around him like sable
light, the faint glow from within his bones like the last sunset of the world.
“Only the crown matters.”

“Then why am I to ride north?” asked Khaled al-Muntasir. “Surely we should
march straight to Reikdorf.”

Krell took a thunderous step towards him, his axe unsheathed in a heartbeat
and the light in his skull shining with the threat of furious violence.

“You question my purpose?” said Nagash.

“No, my master,” said Khaled al-Muntasir, smoothly swinging his legs from the
arms of the throne and giving an elaborate bow. “I am your humble servant in all
things.”

Nagash’s eyes bored into him, and Khaled al-Muntasir instantly regretted his
flippant tone. He felt himself touched by a fraction of the necromancer’s power,
a dreadful extinction that held everything that lived or once drew air into its
lungs with contempt. Even the living dead were not immune to the necromancer’s
touch. His enormous reservoirs of power could snuff out unlife as easily as a
mortal blew out a candle.

Khaled al-Muntasir had passed the point where he feared much of anything, but
the one fate that still struck horror through his undying flesh was oblivion. To
live forever, to hunt the living and to indulge his every sense and vice was the
sum total of his desire, and the thought of that ended filled him with dread.

Nagash saw his acquiescence and the lambent glow in his eye sockets shimmered
at his vassal’s fear. The Lord of Undeath turned to the darkened landscape
beyond Siggurdheim.

“Spread the terror of death before you and drive those you do not kill toward
my crown,” hissed Nagash. “Lay waste these petty kingdoms and scour the seed of
mortals from this land.”

“It shall be my pleasure,” Khaled al-Muntasir assured Nagash.

A low bell tolled, echoing across the Old Town harbour, and Sergeant Alwin of
the Jutonsryk Lancers paused to watch the beacon fire atop the Tower of Tides
light up, signalling the end of another day.

“Regular as always,” he said to himself. “Good to know that some things never
change.”

He moved on, walking with an unhurried gait, his sword sheathed at his side
and his blue cloak flitting behind him in the choppy evening wind blowing off
the seafront. It was a quiet night, which made a nice change, the drunks keeping
a low profile instead of roistering in the streets or brawling in the taprooms.

The docks were quiet, just the slap of water against the quay, the creak of
ships’ timbers and the sigh of wind through the rigging and flags. His lancers
followed behind him, four men of proven character, all of whom he could rely on
in a tight spot. Not that he expected any tight spots tonight; the day had been
without incident, as though the thousands of sailors, tradesmen and inhabitants
of the city had been reluctant to remain outdoors for any length of time. He’d
thought it odd, but anything that helped keep the peace in Jutonsryk was a boon
as far as Alwin was concerned.

He paused by the westernmost spur of the docks, putting his foot up on one of
the iron mooring rungs set in the quay. The
Ormen Lange,
an Udose vessel
familiar to the docks of Jutonsryk, was moored here, and he waved up to the
bearded clansman at ship’s watch in the forecastle.