by Rob Sanders
Archaon turned his head and angled the tip of Terminus at one of his father’s shadow sentinels. The silhouettes behind him had edged closer. ‘Back off, darkling,’ Archaon warned, ‘or you will see the light – and it won’t be pretty.’ After a moment’s otherworldly hesitation, the things drifted back.
‘You can bring your bastards into the world,’ Archaon continued, fixing his monstrous father with a hateful gaze. ‘You can inspire the low and the faithless. You can keep company with shadows. What you cannot do is be what you were. The Great Changer cursed you, Be’lakor. You cannot be crowned while conducting dark coronations for others. As you will do for me, daemon. With you or without you – it is my destiny. I am chosen of the Dark Gods and I will be the Everchosen of Chaos. You will meddle no further in my future. I am not yours to be manipulated or mastered. I will destroy you, creature of darkness.’
The palace boomed with the daemon’s laughter. It was a horrible sound that bounced about the strange chambers of the palace and through the twists and turns of labyrinthine passageways. It was everywhere and felt like a chorus of monsters laughing at Archaon.
You? Destroy me? You are less than worthless if you believe that. Perhaps, Archaon of the North, you are my biggest disappointment.
‘Surely nothing could disappoint you more than yourself, daemon?’ Archaon said. ‘Destroy you? My blade will send you back to whatever deviant plane you came from. It is my deeds that will destroy you, monster. The Everchosen of Chaos is known by his treasures, but the Lord of the End Times – he is known by his aftermath. By the oblivion that follows in his wake and the endings he brings. An end to all things. To the mortal races and their foetid beliefs. To the gods – both of law and of ruin – who are sustained by such patronage. An end to you, daemon.’
Be’lakor’s horrific features contorted further around an infernal snarl.
You have the soul-sucking gall to talk to me of ends, Archaon of the North, the monster seethed. Let me show you what I know of ends…
With the sibilance still on the daemon’s wretched lips, the Chaos warrior turned. The shadow behind him had barely registered its Dark Master’s instruction to act. Archaon slashed Terminus across the being’s throat, opening up a ragged gash of blinding light in the sentinel. The other shadows retreated as the thing blazed in its death throes, screaming away its existence in a nimbus of palace-scalding brightness. With the Sigmarite sword still held overhead, Archaon stabbed forth and plunged the blade through the chest of the second. Expertly retracting the weapon and resting the flat of the blade on top of his shield, Archaon slowly turned. The second shadow screeched horribly as the blazing puncture wound in its chest became a vortex of light, churning the shadow of the warrior thing about like a whirlpool before devouring the entity.
Destroy the interloper! Be’lakor commanded, pointing one of his cruel, black claws at Archaon. The throne room was suddenly a cradle of darkness – every pillar, nook, archway and alcove became the birthplace of shadows. Warriors rushed Archaon from every direction. The living silhouettes bore the shapes of the things they had been. Some seemed to wear plate; others were shaggy shapes in fur; some were spiked like urchins while others were the muscular outlines of marauder savages and barbarians. Stained in a deeper darkness over each of their hearts was the Ruinous Star. The star of darkness united. Be’lakor’s star. Archaon was caught in a maelstrom of rushing shadow. The solidified darkness of weaponry came at him. As the Chaos warrior smashed it furiously aside with shield and sword, it felt real enough. Real enough to carve a cleft of darkness through the warlord or stab howling shadow through his chest. As Terminus turned axe, spear and sword aside, there was the bright flash of an impact. With every axe blade and spear-head Archaon lopped from the weapons, every head he took and gaping hole he stabbed through their shadowy forms, a blaze of light erupted from the keen edge of the Sigmarite blade. His predicament worsened because with every flash of light, the orientation of shadows in the throne room changed. Sentinels disappeared from one place only to erupt from another, forcing him to fight twice as hard.
Very quickly Archaon came to realise that these were the shadow forms of past Chaos warlords – the blackness of their hearts pledged to Be’lakor – or perhaps even the aspirant Everchosen of Chaos like Archaon himself. Their axe strikes were too murderous, the spear thrusts too assured and bladework too masterful for rank and file butchers. Be’lakor had surrounded himself with failures – like himself. The shadows of exalted champions who had led hordes to war and whose blades had been altars upon which sacrifices to the Dark Gods had been made.
Archaon brought up his shield and was almost knocked back by the impact of a spear that bled shadow across the chamber, before its flight path sent it hammering into the Chaos star adorning the shield’s surface. Archaon went to slice the spear shaft away but there was nothing there but the black haze of the weapon that had been. Moving between pillars and ducking back through archways, Archaon evaded the avalanche of presented weaponry. The palace interior was disorientating enough, but bathed as it was in a sea of shadows and punctuated by the blinding deaths of the sentinels, Archaon soon lost track of where he was. There was the silky smoothness of marble stairs – he almost broke his neck falling down them. There was also some kind of gallery, and he made a balcony-clearing hop and drop out of the path of a shadow-streaming battle axe. It was wielded by some mountainous barbarian of the Steppe with as much insane abandon in Be’lakor’s dark service as it had in its former life. He was no longer in the throne room. Sentinels were already waiting for him in the large chamber into which he had dropped. Everything was the flowing architecture of the chamber and the trailing blackness of shadowy blades.
‘Come on!’ Archaon roared, splitting the silhouette of a northman in two before hammering a marauder aside with his shield. He brought Terminus back up above his helm and rotated the blade with his wrist. Suddenly accelerating the turn he sent blessed steel through the throat of a Kurgan warlord before lopping the head off the shape of a shaggy Norscan champion. As an axe half bit into his shoulder and a spear tip glanced off his armoured thigh, Archaon bellowed at the champions of shadow. Chopping down through what Archaon assumed to be an easterner, from the outline of his armour, before cleaving back and forth through a spear, Archaon slammed the darkness of an axeman into a pillar with his shield. Thrusting the Sigmarite blade through the gut of a Chaos knight with an ornately-shaped helmet, Archaon turned and smashed his fist into the featureless face of the axeman pinned to the pillar. Archaon hammered him again and again with his shadow-stained gauntlet before the warrior’s axe dropped away to drifting darkness and Archaon’s armoured knuckles found stone. Snatching the hilt of Terminus back and withdrawing the blade, Archaon unleashed a howling radiance that ate the Chaos knight alive.
Enough…
Be’lakor’s voice echoed through the chambers and passageways of his empty palace. It wasn’t enough to save the horned silhouette of a bestial chieftain that Archaon cleaved in two, or the shadow of the caped Kislevite champion in spiked plate who received the stabbing Sigmarite blade straight through the darkness of his helm’s faceplate. In the blaze of their deaths, the sentinels became one with the palace shadows once more. Casting a quick glance about his surroundings, Archaon found himself in the vaulted expanse of some great feasting hall – all pillars and black tables. The Chaos warlord doubted very much that anyone had ever actually eaten in there.
Archaon saw Be’lakor. The daemon prince strode through a magnificent archway that led into the cavernous hall. The Dark Master’s talons chewed up the black marble at his feet while his wings stretched and extended in the same way a pugilist might stretch his neck before a fight. Archaon didn’t need such preparation. He had already fought his way back through half the palace and an army of shadows. As the sentinels dissipated, Archaon turned to present himself to his father-in-shadow.
‘Enough?’ The Chaos warrior repea
ted, his words echoing unnaturally about the chamber. ‘Not nearly enough. In fact, I was just warming up.’
Be’lakor stopped. From the darkness of the vaulted chamber roof dropped a colossal blade. Ancient. Notched. Streaming with shadow, the blade stabbed down into the black marble floor of the chamber with an impact Archaon could feel through his boots. The Chaos warrior shivered. He had been standing there mere moments before. The blade quivered before its master, its crossguard great serrated spikes that were part of the blade. The pommel was similarly a great spike, making every part of the cursed, colossal weapon a death-dealing point. Be’lakor wrenched the infernal blade from the stone. It was broad and almost as long as the monster was tall. The Dark Master passed it between his claws, turning the weapon experimentally with his wrist. The massive blade trailed smoky shadow as its weight and cleaving edge moved through the air. It was as though it had been some time since the daemon prince had personally had the pleasure of despatching a foe with the blade. The fang-filled snarl of satisfaction that afflicted the creature’s face told Archaon that the expectation of such pleasure was starting to return.
I was your beginning, Be’lakor told him… I will be your end.
‘Then you will be an end unto yourself,’ Archaon spat back, gesturing his impatience with Terminus.
Be’lakor’s daemonic maw opened wide and the creature bent over as it released a stone trembling roar. Tables tumbled before the force of the infernal bellow, rolling across the marble floor and smashing into one another. Archaon chopped this way and that, cutting the furniture in two and bludgeoning it into splinters. Before long the Chaos warrior was buried in a mountain of long tables and benches. With its path cleared, the daemon prince stomped up the length of the hall, wings back and its great shadow sword held above it. Sweeping in, the blade was like a dark force of nature, smashing huge drifts of furnishings aside and carving stone-shattered furrows into the marble floor. Holding its colossal blade high, the daemon prince sniffed at the air. Shrugging off shattered tables, Archaon roared atop the height of wreckage and leapt through the air at the monstrous daemon. Bringing his shadow sword up and holding it hilt and tip, Be’lakor absorbed the murderous, cleaving action that drew dark sparks from both blades. Twisting his torso and heaving immediately back, the daemon prince pushed Archaon away, using the force of his leaping attack to throw him into a pillar. The marble was unforgiving and as the Chaos warrior hit the stone, his armour jangled over the sound of a sickening thud. Half bouncing, half dropping to the floor in his buckled plate, Archaon stumbled and slipped among the shower of pulverised marble.
The daemon was suddenly there above him. Archaon pushed himself to his feet, but was forced almost immediately back to the floor as the shadow blade cleaved straight through the pillar. Archaon rolled across his shield to evade the avalanche of black stone thundering from the chamber ceiling. Be’lakor shrugged the debris from his great arched wings, swinging on with dark, daemonic fury. Archaon rolled again. And then back again, his shield scraping through the grit. The shadow sword plunged down though the floor, cleaving the marble into craterous gashes. Archaon was up – and just in time. Like a monstrous black guillotine, the daemon’s blade whooshed down towards him. Slipping Terminus across the surface of his shield, Archaon awaited the impact. He knew that the supernatural force of such a blow would sunder the shield and his arm in two. As Be’lakor brought his infernal strength down on Archaon, the Chaos warrior felt the force of his daemon might through sword, through shield, flesh and bone, and the soles of his boots that shattered marble about them.
Snarling behind the skull-fashioned faceplate of the Everchosen’s helm, Archaon pushed back with all the power he could muster. Straightening his legs and arms, the Chaos warrior batted back the daemon with a thrust of his shield and drew a shower of black sparks from Be’lakor’s blade as Terminus swept it aside. Archaon came straight in with a withering thrust of his sword – a manoeuvre that had every right to skewer a boar. Be’lakor had backed, however, and had brought his black blade around to knock the Sigmarite sword aside. Archaon spun around, his shield ready to receive the flashing glance of the shadow sword on its surface before following with another deadly thrust. This one found its mark and the tip of Terminus slid straight into the darkness of the daemon’s midriff. Archaon felt no resistance through the shaft of the blade. The weapon had hit nothing but silky shadow. As Be’lakor stomped to one side – the thunder of his footsteps feeling real enough through the floor – he brought his blade down on Archaon. As the weight of the weapon crashed off the surface of his shield, Archaon decided that the monstrosity was once more flesh and bad blood.
Denied permanent form by the Great Changer, the daemon prince had found a way to turn his curse into a gift. Every time Archaon’s blessed blade nicked, stabbed or sliced through the abomination’s flesh it was the emptiness of shadow. Whenever Be’lakor’s huge blade came down at the Chaos warrior, however, the daemon prince momentarily assumed all the monstrous brawn and infernal ire of his physical form. How Archaon could defeat such a creature – that was at once everything and nothing – he did not know. While his mind reeled with the futility of the task, his father-in-shadow proceeded to press his diabolical advantage. While Archaon ducked, weaved and deflected with sword and shield, the daemon prince’s shadow sword sheared through the black stone of the palace interior. The Dark Master roared as he pulled down columns at the Chaos warrior, forcing Archaon one way, only to stomp one of his mighty claws down in his path. The blade landed blows on Archaon’s shield with such searing force that it sent him skidding left and then right across the marble floor.
When Archaon countered with his own blade, in readiness for a renewed attack, often Terminus passed straight through the shadow that was the daemon’s weapon. Lurching forward, Archaon found the bludgeoning force of the blade become real once more as Be’lakor attempted to cleave the Chaos warrior through the back. Each time Archaon got his buckled shield between himself and the blade’s furious judgement. Each time the shadow sword came that little bit closer to cutting him in half. Knocked to the side by one such shield-crumpling blow, Archaon felt the flat of the blade descend. The Chaos warrior brought up his Sigmarite sword but the daemon’s weapon passed straight through it. The notched broadness of the black blade solidified as it smashed Archaon into the stone floor. Forced down on one knee, Archaon got his shield up to deflect the second and third merciless blows. He rode out the earth-shattering fury of each daemon strike, preparing to bring Terminus savagely up into Be’lakor’s gut. As he came out from behind the shield, templar blade at the ready, the daemon prince’s great taloned foot was waiting for him.
Grabbing Archaon by the torso like a bird of prey with a tiny, tortured mammal, Be’lakor kicked out, sending the Chaos warrior straight through the chamber wall. From toe to temple, the impact was a sickening agony. There was the rumble of collapsing architecture, the pitter-patter of falling grit and the hiss of masonry dust on the air. Archaon found himself in another chamber, buried in a small mound of shattered rock. It took a moment to get back to his senses. The Chaos warrior coughed up blood, spitting it at the inside of his helm. Morkar’s armour had saved him from the worst the wall had to offer but still, several things felt broken. Something deep inside his chest scraped at his every twist and turn. His left arm also throbbed with a dull ache that would not be ignored. At least his back had not been broken. Then, like a spooked raven flying away, Archaon felt a flutter of panic pass through him. Scanning the darkness he found his shattered shield nearby, but the Sigmarite sword Terminus was half buried in debris some distance away. Archaon felt the thunder of the daemon prince’s steps approach.
Hooking his thumbs beneath a section of demolished wall, Archaon heaved the shattered section off him and scrambled through the grit to his feet. He was an equal distance from both his sword and the new entrance he had made in the chamber wall. He saw the shape of the approaching Be’lakor f
ramed in the ragged opening. Archaon surged for the creature. As the monstrosity put his grotesque, horned head through the hole, Archaon grabbed a large piece of shattered masonry from the floor and heaved it up towards his chest. As Be’lakor turned his head, Archaon smashed the thing across the jaw with the stone. Not having expected such an attack, the beast retracted his horns from the ragged hole, spitting dust and ichor. Just as Archaon ran for his weaponry, the wall exploded. Be’lakor’s mighty blade had demolished it in a single swing. With broken ribs shearing the flesh inside him, Archaon rolled, picking up his shield as he did so. Be’lakor stood there in the swirling dust and raining stone.
The Chaos warrior ran at Be’lakor. Archaon was without sword but the daemon was not. Lifting the shadow blade high above his head, Be’lakor brought the Ruinous weapon down on his son-in-shadow. Although it was agony to do so, Archaon leapt at the beast, meeting the cleaving action before it had time to reach its full speed and fury. Still, the strike pounded Archon and his shield straight back at the ground. As Archaon had planned. As the savage force of the blow took him back towards the floor, Archaon angled the edge of the shield. It smashed into the daemon prince’s foot, shattering the bones of his taloned toes and shearing away a single, bloody claw. The creature wailed; not expecting such a swift reply to the attack it had not reached its shadow form in time. Rearing from the floor, Archaon back-slashed the ruined shield across the daemon’s wailing maw. Burning with the agony of a fracture, Archaon took the daemon with a left hook, his shield smashing the monstrosity’s face back the other way.