The End Times | The Return of Nagash

by Josh Reynolds

  He hit the cave floor hard and rolled, snuffing the flames that had caught him in the process. The cavern rumbled as fire washed the walls. Timber props, weakened by the gushing warpfire, gave way, and some of the tunnels collapsed, burying the living and the dead alike.

  As Snikrat scrambled to his feet, clutching his burned tail to his chest, he saw the few surviving warriors of the Bonehides fall, dragged down by the burning dead. The air stank of fear-musk as the remaining warriors began to stream away from the cavern, pelting into the various tunnels, swarming away from the groping dead.

  The tunnels were lost. Feskit was not going to be happy. Nonetheless, it was Snikrat’s duty to report on his sad failure, in person, to his liege lord. He ran with heroic alacrity, his injured tail whipping behind him as he pelted down the tunnel. He used his weight and strength to smash aside fleeing clanrats, and when the tunnel was so packed with squealing skaven that such tactics proved impossible, he scrambled up onto a clanrat’s shoulders and bounded across the heads of the others as they fought and bit for space.

  Snikrat burst out of the crowded confines of the tunnel and sprinted towards the Mordkin lair’s final line of defence – a vast chasm, which split the outer tunnels from the great central cavern that was the rotten heart of the burrow. A long and winding bridge spanned the chasm. Composed of planks, spars, tar-clogged ropes and other detritus fit for purpose, including but not limited to panels of metal, bones and sheets of filthy cloth, it was the very pinnacle of skaven efficiency and engineering, and the sight of it lent Snikrat speed.

  There was no other way across the chasm, not for leagues in any direction. Feskit had long ago ordered all other routes undermined to better prevent infiltration or attack by rival clans or ambitious greenskins. Skaven were clustered about the bridge, some trying to organise themselves into something approaching military readiness, while others were squealing and fighting to cross the bridge before their fellows. Snikrat charged headlong into the disorganised knot of clanrats, laying about him with his fist and sword until he reached the bridge and began to scramble across.

  He heard the communal groan of their foes echo through the cavern as he ran. Skaven began to scream and the bridge swayed wildly as clanrats followed him, pursued closely by the swarming dead. Snikrat whirled as something grabbed his tail. A zombie, blackened by fire and missing most of its flesh, had lunged through the confusion and latched on to him. Snikrat shrilled in terror and lopped off the top of the thing’s grinning skull. It slumped, and its weight nearly pulled him from the bridge. As he extricated himself, he saw that those skaven who had been following him had not been nearly so lucky. They fell or were hurled into the chasm by the stumbling corpses, as the latter pressed forward, crawling along the bridge. The whole ramshackle structure shuddered and swayed wildly, and Snikrat had a sudden vision of himself plummeting into the darkness below.

  Fear lent him wings, and he fairly flew towards the opposite side. A small army of clanrat weaponeers were gathering there, beneath the watchful eyes of several other sub-chiefs. Warpfire throwers and jezzail teams assembled along the edge of the chasm, weapons at the ready. As Snikrat hurtled to join them, he screamed, ‘Burn it! Burn the bridge – hurry, hurry, hurry!’

  With somewhat unseemly haste, the warpfire throwers roared, the tongues of green flame barely missing him as they struck the centre of the span. He crashed onto solid ground and rolled to his feet, teeth bared and sword extended in what he hoped was a suitably heroic pose. ‘Yes, yes! Watch, minions – my grand strategy unfolds! See how cunningly Snikrat the Magnificent wages war,’ he cackled as the bridge began to groan and shift. Then, with a shriek of rupturing wood and tearing cloth, it toppled lazily into the chasm, carrying the dead with it.

  Snikrat’s cackles grew in volume, and he was joined in his triumphant laughter by the other skaven as more and more zombies flooded out of the tunnels and were pushed into the depths by the mindless ranks coming behind them. The dead were stymied by the chasm, just as he had cunningly planned. Now was the time to unleash the full fury of Clan Mordkin’s arsenal. He shrieked orders to that effect, and the warpfire teams and jezzail gunners opened fire in a cloud of black powder and scorched air.

  Snikrat watched in satisfaction as the dead were plucked from the opposite side of the chasm by a barrage of warpstone bullets, which whined and crashed across the divide. Zombies slewed off the edge and spiralled into oblivion, or collapsed burning. With a hiss of triumph, he sheathed his blade and strutted back towards the tunnels that led to the fortress-lair to inform Feskit of his triumph.

  By the time Snikrat made it back through the gates of the fortress-lair, however, his ebullience had begun to sour. The clangour of alarms still choked the air, and clanrats scampered past him, running far more quickly than he would have expected. He could hear screams as well, and once, the dull crump of a warpfire thrower exploding.

  Snikrat began to run. He had to explain to Feskit that whatever was happening wasn’t his fault. The weaponeers had disobeyed his orders – the clanrats had broken and run – the chieftains were fleeing – only Snikrat was loyal enough to stand beside Feskit, as he had in times past. His hand clenched on the hilt of his blade, as, in the depths of his twisty mind, the thought surfaced that merciful Feskit would surely be distracted enough to accept Snikrat’s blade at his back. He would need all of the loyal servants he could get, would old Feskit.

  Snikrat had visions of himself courageously stabbing the tyrant of Mordkin in the back as Mordkin’s arsenal of weapons and beasts exterminated the dead. They carried him all the way to Feskit’s throne room, where chieftains and thralls scurried about in varying levels of panic. The alarm bells were deafening here, and they were ringing so ferociously that one snapped loose of its line and plummeted down, crushing a dozen slaves into a pulpy mess as Snikrat watched.

  ‘You failed,’ Feskit hissed from behind him. Snikrat spun, his paw still on the hilt of his sword. Feskit was surrounded by his Mordrat Guard, and Snikrat jerked his claws away from his sword as they levelled their halberds.

  ‘No! Successes unparalleled, oh merciful Feskit! Snikrat the Faithful, Snikrat the Dutiful, was failed by faithless, cowardly clanrats and irresponsible underlings; I-I came to warn you that the dead-dead things advance towards the gates even now,’ Snikrat babbled, his mind squirming quickly as he tried to stay on top of the situation. ‘They-they have crossed the chasm somehow – magic! They crossed it with magic, foul sorcery – and Snikrat came back to see to your defence personally.’

  ‘Did he?’ Feskit said. ‘I feel safer already.’ His eyes glinted. He glanced at one of his stormvermin. ‘Rouse the packmasters and the remaining weaponeers. Summon the turn-tail chieftains who enjoy my gracious hospitality, and scour the barrack-burrows for every stormvermin,’ he snarled.

  ‘And… and what of Snikrat, oh most kindly lord?’ Snikrat squeaked hesitantly. He rubbed his scarred throat, and wondered if he should make himself scarce.

  Feskit glared at him, and then said, ‘You… Hrr, yes, I have a special task for you, Snikrat.’ He turned and grabbed another stormvermin by his cuirass and jerked him close. ‘You – tell the slaves to fetch… the Weapon.’

  The stormvermin paled beneath his black fur. Feskit snarled again and shoved him back. ‘Fetch it now, quick-quick!’ Snikrat smelt the spurt of fear-musk that rose from the assembled stormvermin at the thought of the Weapon. The Fellblade, with its blade of glistening black warpstone. Could Feskit mean to give it to him to wield? He felt his courage return. With that blade in hand, Snikrat knew he would be invincible.

  ‘I will not fail you, Lord Feskit,’ Snikrat hissed, head full of the victories to come.

  ‘No, you will not,’ Feskit said. Then, with a lunge that would have put a wolf-rat to shame, he sank his yellow, chisel teeth into Snikrat’s throat. Snikrat tumbled back, clutching at his ruined jugular. Through a darkening haze, he saw Feskit chew and swallow the lump of gristle and flesh. ‘The Fellblade drain
s its wielder. You shall sustain me through the efforts to come, loyal Snikrat,’ Feskit said, cleaning his whiskers as his stormvermin raised their blades over Snikrat, to complete his butchery. As everything went dark, he heard Feskit say, ‘Thank you for your contribution.’

  La Maisontaal Abbey, Bretonnia

  Arkhan’s mind was like a spider’s web, stretched to its breaking point by a strong wind, covering the battlefield. In the north, he urged Krell on about his bloody business. In the south, he goaded the shuffling dead to keep pace with the rest of the army. What remained of his attentions were fixed on Kemmler, and when he felt the surge of power, he knew that his suspicions had been proven correct.

  The Lichemaster was more powerful now than ever before, and that power had not come from Nagash. The decaying cat on his shoulder hissed as a bolt of black lightning cut down through the night sky and struck a point on the battlefield. ‘What are you up to, necromancer?’ Arkhan said, out loud.

  The winds of death suddenly thrashed about him, as if they were ropes that had been pulled taut. He felt the air pulse with indefinable motions and saw things not born of the world move through the shifting gossamer aurora of magics that hung over the battlefield. Daemonic voices cackled in his ear, and gloating phantom faces gibbered at him and vanished. His attentions snapped down, retracting to focus on Kemmler. But before he could do so fully, he was brutally interrupted.

  ‘Death to the dealers of death!’ the knight bellowed as his horse bulled through Arkhan’s skeletal bodyguard and drove the blade of his axe down through the liche’s ribcage, before the latter could react. The blow lifted Arkhan from his feet and sent him to the ground in a heap. The laughter of the Dark Gods roared in his head. He could see the trap now, in all of its crooked cunning. The beastmen, Kemmler, all of it… He was caught in the jaws of a hungry fate. Even now, with more than half of the knights who had crashed into the flanks of his host dead, there were still enough Bretonnians left on the field to carry the day, if Arkhan fell.

  Something – not quite panic – filled him. It wasn’t desperation either, but frustration. To have come so close only to be denied. He saw the cat streaking towards him. It had fallen from his shoulders when he was knocked down, and he felt bereft, though he could not say why. Above him, in the smoke, faces leered down at him, mouthing the vilest curses, and devilish shapes capered invisibly about the knight, kept at bay by the light emanating from his axe. The Dark Gods wanted Arkhan in the ground, and more, it seemed that they wanted to watch him being put there.

  Under other circumstances, he might have felt flattered. As the knight urged his horse forward, Arkhan’s shattered, brown bones began to repair themselves. The knight growled in satisfaction as he closed in. Arkhan tried to heave himself up. ‘Oh no, evil one. That will not do. The Lady has tasked Theoderic of Brionne with giving you the long overdue gift of death, and you shall accept it in full,’ the knight roared as he raised his axe. His armour was battered and stained, but the blade of his axe glowed brightly as the dawn broke over the battlefield.

  Before the blow could fall, a blur of red iron interposed itself between axe and bone, and the knight was toppled from his saddle. Arkhan was somewhat surprised to see Anark von Carstein there, blade in hand, armour torn and stained with the detritus of hard fighting. Another slash and the knight’s horse screamed and fell, hooves kicking uselessly in its death throes. Arkhan watched in satisfaction as the knight gasped as he tried to gather his feet under him. His fall had broken something in him, the liche knew. The man spat blood and groped for his axe. He caught it up, while Anark’s blade descended for his skull. He swatted the blow aside and dragged himself to his feet.

  ‘Give me your name, devil, so that I might tell it to the troubadours who will sing of this day in years to come,’ Theoderic rasped, hefting his axe. Anark lunged without speaking, his blade moving quicker than the knight could follow. He interposed his axe, audibly swallowing a groan as whatever had broken inside him shifted painfully, and the edges of both weapons bit into one another. Arkhan watched the battle, somewhat amazed that the mortal was still on his feet. A raw light seemed to infuse him, as it had his axe, and it forced him up and on, lashing at him like a slave-driver’s whip. The Bretonnians called it a blessing, but Arkhan knew it for what it was. Nagash had used similar spells to invigorate and drive forward the Yaghur in those dim, dark days of the past. Whatever the Lady was, whether she was some goddess of elves or men, or something else entirely, she was as desperate as the Chaos gods to see Arkhan stymied.

  Theoderic smashed the vampire in the face with his elbow and knocked him to one knee. He drove his axe down, crumpling a blood-red pauldron and gashing Anark’s neck. He drew his axe back and swung, knocking the vampire sprawling. ‘Tell me your name, beast! Let it ring over the field!’ he roared, swinging his axe up to take a two-handed grip on the haft as the beast clawed for its blade. The vampire moved so quickly, Theoderic’s words had barely left his lips before Anark launched a blow that severed both of Theoderic’s arms and his head as well.

  ‘My name is Anark von Carstein, meat,’ the vampire spat as he glared down at his fallen foe. Arkhan dragged himself upright. He touched the spot where the axe had caught him, and felt the bones click back into place. The weapon had been blessed, to do such damage, but he had survived worse in his time.

  ‘Indeed it is. It seems that I owe you a debt, von Carstein,’ Arkhan said as he retrieved his staff. The cat leapt up and hauled its way back onto his shoulder, its eyes glowing faintly. Most of the flesh was gone from its skull, and its spine rose above its sagging hide like a battlement. It felt as heavy as ever, and it gave an impatient miaow as it wrapped itself about his neck. He stroked its bony shoulder and set his staff. All around him the fallen dead, including what was left of Theoderic, began to slide and slither and stumble upright. Waste not, want not, after all.

  ‘One that I will be only too happy to collect from you, but not until this affray is ended,’ Anark growled. He gestured with his sword. ‘Which shouldn’t be too much longer, from the looks of things.’

  Arkhan followed the gesture just in time to see the Bretonnian shieldwall shatter. Here and there, groups of men kept their order and fought against the tide that sought to overwhelm them. But most of them gave in to their terror and fled towards the dubious safety of the abbey walls. Krell’s wights pursued, taking advantage of the breach in the line. The lines of archers and war engines were overrun by slavering ghouls, led by the Crowfiend, and embattled knights were surrounded by skeletons and clawing zombies. The battle was breaking down, becoming a slaughter.

  The greater part of the Bretonnian army was dead or fleeing. Those who remained would not survive long. La Maisontaal Abbey was as good as theirs. The staff of Nagash would soon be on its way back to Sylvania, to be reunited with the other relics. Satisfaction filled him such as he had not felt in centuries.

  The end was coming. The end of his road, of all struggle and strife. Lamps extinguished, story finished and finally… sleep. Blessed eternal sleep. He swept his staff through a curl of smoke full of silently snarling faces. ‘Arkhan still lives, little gods. You have failed. And Nagash will shatter your petty schemes and hurl you back into the void that gave birth to you,’ he rasped, hurling his bravado at the wispy shapes like a javelin.

  But his moment of satisfaction was brief. Kemmler was nowhere to be seen. And Arkhan knew where he had gone. He saw hazy daemonic shapes, small, stunted things, scampering towards the grounds of the abbey, invisible to all eyes but his. He looked at Anark. ‘Finish this. Kill everything that lives.’

  The vampire looked at Arkhan as he started towards the abbey. ‘And what about you?’

  Arkhan didn’t stop or turn. ‘I go to claim our prize.’

  SIXTEEN

  Mordkin Lair, the Border Princes

  ‘It’s really quite amusing, in its way,’ Markos murmured as he leaned against the tunnel mouth, arms crossed. ‘They just keep wandering into the flame
s, don’t they?’

  ‘It’s a waste of materials,’ Count Nyktolos grunted. He plucked his monocle from his eye and cleaned it on the scorched hem of his cloak. ‘We only have three thousand, six hundred and fifty-three zombies left.’

  ‘Did you count them?’ Markos asked, brow arched.

  ‘No,’ Nyktolos said. Then, ‘Yes, possibly.’ He put his monocle back into place and sniffed. ‘There is very little to do down here but kill skaven or count zombies.’

  Markos shook his head, and looked at Mannfred, where the latter stood in the tunnel mouth, hands clasped behind his back, gripping the staff of Kadon with the Claw of Nagash mounted atop it, held parallel to the ground. ‘Well, cousin? You heard the Vargravian – we’re running short on fodder. How do you intend to get us across that chasm?’

  Mannfred ignored Markos. His eyes were fixed on the chasm ahead, rather than the group of vampires behind him. He heard the hiss of the bloodthirsty steeds of the Drakenhof Templars, and the soft clatter of his own skeletal mount. The former were as impatient to taste the blood of their enemies as their masters were.

  He lifted the staff, and the Claw flexed. The power it radiated throbbed in him like the ache of a sore tooth. The Fellblade was close – too close to allow such a minor obstacle to stymie him. A slow smile crept across his face, as he came to the obvious conclusion. Ignoring Markos’s pestering, he strode out of the tunnel, towards the chasm. The zombies ceased their mindless advance as he took control of them directly once more, the reins of his will snapping taut about the husks, and pulled them in his wake.

  Mannfred could feel the dregs of raw magic that still lurked in the warpfire-blackened stones, and in the shards of expended warpstone fired from the skaven weapons. He went to the edge of the chasm, where the anchors for the bridge had been torn free of the rock. He held the staff in both hands, and focused on drawing the residual magics from the warpstone all about him. The air bristled with energy, which only grew as the skaven began to fire at him. Warpstone bullets whistled past his head, and he drew their energy from them as they drew close. A corona of crackling magics swirled about him, and the burned and shattered dead scattered in heaps and piles began to stir.