The End Times | The Lord of the End Times

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘I should have left you to die,’ Caradryan growled. Hammerson wondered how much of the anger in his voice was him, and how much was the power that now resided in him. Ungrim had been much the same, in those final days. Angry at everything, and nothing.

  ‘Would have been convenient for you, aye,’ Hammerson said. He cut his eyes to Gelt, and then added, ‘Without us to caution them, the manlings would fall right into whatever trap you’ve laid out for them. That’s why you don’t want us to hear it, eh?’

  Caradryan frowned. ‘You know nothing,’ he snapped. Flames blazed to life around his clenched fists and crawled up his forearms. In their light Hammerson saw strange figures, part wood and part woman, slink through the trees, their bark claws flexing eagerly. More elves had arrived as well, these clad in the colours of the woods, and he felt a chill as he recognised the wild elves and dryads of the forest.

  ‘Well that’s why I want to hear all about it,’ Hammerson said. He thought of home, of the Black Water, and of the huge waterfall that cascaded down the side of the chasm in which the hold was nestled. If he were to be burned here, he wanted that to be his last thought.

  ‘Wait,’ someone said, from behind him. Hammerson turned.

  Several figures stood behind him, suffused by a soft light which threw back the darkness that clung to the trees. Three elves – a woman and two men, both of the latter armoured, one in black iron, the other in gold and silver. The woman stepped forwards, her forest green robes rustling softly. She wore a crown of gold, and her face was so beautiful as to be painful, even to Hammerson. Caradryan sank to one knee, head bowed. His flames flickered and died.

  The Emperor moved then to stand beside Hammerson. He sank down slowly, arms spread, head lowered. ‘Greetings, Alarielle the Radiant, Everqueen, Handmaiden of Isha. We come before you to humbly beg sanctuary and to offer our aid in these troubled times,’ Karl Franz said. His voice carried easily through the trees. He looked up. ‘Will you welcome us to Athel Loren?’

  Hammerson lifted his chin in defiance as the woman’s gaze passed over him. He knew of the Everqueen, and knew that she could incinerate him on the spot with the barest word. The runes branded into his flesh ached, and he could feel the power of her through them. But he was a dwarf of the Black Water, and he would not kneel before an elf.

  Her eyes met his, and, after a moment, what might have been the ghost of a smile passed across her lovely features. She inclined her head. ‘Be welcome, travellers,’ she said. She raised her hand, and the elves lowered their weapons. The dryads retreated, slinking back into the forest. ‘The world has changed, and old distrusts and grudges must be abandoned. You have done well, Caradryan.’ Alarielle gestured for the Emperor to rise. ‘Come. There is much to be discussed, before the end of all things.’

  The Eternal Glade

  Teclis, once-Loremaster of the now-shattered Tower of Hoeth, blood of Aenarion and Astarielle, sat beneath an ancient tree in the Eternal Glade, eyes closed, his head pressed against the staff he held upright before him.

  To his mystically attuned senses, the heartbeat of the primordial forest of Athel Loren was almost deafening. The forest, and the Eternal Glade in particular, was a place of immense, incomprehensible power. It would have taken him an eternity to learn its secrets, if he had been so inclined. And then only if the forest itself had let him.

  The murmur of voices rose and fell around him, beyond the barrier of his eyelids. Not just the voices of elves, more was the pity. There were men as well, and dwarfs. Athel Loren had become the final redoubt for the mortal races as well as the immortal.

  When Caradryan, captain of the Phoenix Guard, had led a column of weary survivors into the Eternal Grove that morning, he had paid no notice to the furore it elicited in the inhabitants of the woodland realm. Instead, his mind had turned inwards, hunting, seeking, probing, trying to root out some clue as to the source of his failure.

  Where did I go wrong?

  He was not used to asking such questions. In him was personified both the capability and the arrogance of his people, and it was not without cause that some – including himself – thought he was the greatest adept produced by the folk of Ulthuan since the breaking of the world in those far, dim days when daemons had poured through the wounds in the world’s poles. He was the first to admit it, and wore it as a badge of pride. Like his brother, Teclis was the best and the worst of his folk made flesh.

  I made a mistake. Somewhere, somehow… What did I miss? What factor did I overlook? The thoughts spiralled around and around, like leaves caught in a stiff breeze. Where did I go wrong? He examined the moment again and again, from every angle and facet.

  He could still feel the frustration of that moment – the winds of magic raging within the Vortex, even as Ulthuan crumbled beneath him, his ancient home sinking into the raging sea. He could feel the winds escaping, one by one, slipping through his grasp as quick as eels, and the mounting sense of loss. He had wagered everything on a single throw of the dice, and while he had not lost, he hadn’t won either.

  His hands tightened on his staff. He knew every groove and contour of it by touch, and he had worked magics into it since he had first taken a knife to the length of wood in which it had hidden. The staff was as much a part of him as one of his limbs. It was warm to the touch, and the pale wood shone with a soft light. The residual power of the lore of Light, the one wind until recently within his grasp, coiled within the core of his staff, where it had slumbered until he’d found the one on whom he would bestow it. The one whom he had resurrected and transformed into the Incarnate of Light, a living embodiment of Hysh, the White Wind of magic.

  Oh my brother, what have I made of you? What have I done to you? What have I done for you? The latter question was easier to answer than the former. His sins in that regard were ever at the foreground of his thoughts. Tyrion, his brother, had died, consumed by the curse of their mutual bloodline, his body and soul twisted by the madness of Khaine. And it had happened by Teclis’s design.

  It had always been Tyrion’s destiny to become the Incarnate of Light. But if he had done so while still bearing the curse of Aenarion, that power – the power necessary to redeem the world – would have become corrupted, and bent to the will of Khaine… or worse things. Thus Teclis had been forced to manipulate his own brother, to set the one he loved best on a path that would inevitably lead to his death. That such an outcome had been the only way of ensuring that the curse exhausted itself did not ease Teclis’s guilt. Nor did the knowledge that Tyrion’s resurrection as the Incarnate of Light was the lynchpin of his plan to throw back the Rhana Dandra – to win the unwinnable war. All that mattered was that he had killed his brother and doomed the world.

  But Teclis had brought Tyrion back from death’s bower; he had transported the frail, mummified remains of his twin across the world, from the shattered remnants of Ulthuan, leaving his people in the hands of Malekith.

  He had come to Athel Loren, and watered the seeds of Tyrion-as-he-had-been within the Heart of Avelorn. When Tyrion had awoken from the slumber of death, Teclis had filled the emptiness left behind by Khaine’s passing with the Flame of Ulric, filling Tyrion’s still-weak limbs with new strength. He had damned a city and all of the innocents within its walls in order to give his brother a chance of survival, and he knew, in his heart, that he would make the same choice again. Tyrion had endured too much, and all of it at his brother’s hands, for Teclis not to. And then, when he was sure that Tyrion could stand it, he had given him the power of Hysh, and stirred the ashes of destiny to life once more.

  He had given his brother back his life, and in return Tyrion had fought alongside his fellow Incarnates, Malekith and Alarielle, to save the Oak of Ages from the depredations of Chaos’s firstborn son, Be’lakor, and those dark spirits he had twisted to his foul cause. Now, in the aftermath of that desperate battle, the few survivors of another, equally terrible conflict h
ad come seeking sanctuary under the boughs of Athel Loren. And with them had come two more Incarnates.

  Through the staff, he could sense the presence of the five Incarnates, their power grounded in frail flesh and bone, and the briefest trace of a sixth. The world hummed with the weight of them. Their every word sent shockwaves through his senses, and he could taste the raw power that seeped from their pores.

  Slowly, his eyes still closed, he turned his staff, the gem set in its tip moving like a serpent’s tongue, tasting the scent of each wind in turn. The gemstone was almost as old as the world itself, and it had taken him decades to work it and carve its facets to the proper shape. In his mind’s eye, he saw the radiance of each – the blinding aura of Hysh, the constantly-shifting morass of Ulgu, the throbbing heat of Ghyran, the roaring hunger of Aqshy, the dense power of Chamon and, last and least, the faint thrum of Azyr, the Blue Wind of magic. Light, Shadow, Life, Fire, Metal and the faintest traces of the Wind of the Heavens. Only two were missing… Shyish, the Wind of Death, and Ghur, the Wind of Beasts.

  Of the two, he suspected he knew where the former had ended up – indeed, where else could it have gone? – but he had lost all hope of learning the location of the Wind of Beasts, or of the identity of its chosen host. The others, however, were here, right where they were supposed to be, and his regret was tempered by some small relief.

  Nonetheless, he had failed. He had failed to control the Incarnates, failed to bestow the winds of magic on his chosen soldiers, and failed to bring them together in time. He had failed Ulthuan, he had failed his people, and now the world teetered on the knife-edge of oblivion. What remains of it, at any rate, he thought. The island-realm of the high elves was gone, lost to the swirling waters of the Great Ocean; the blood-slicked stones of Naggaroth were now little more than a haunt for cannibals and monsters; and Athel Loren was an inhospitable refuge for what remained of the elven peoples.

  The elves were not alone in their doom, however. The ancient temple-cities of Lustria were no more, consumed in fires from the sky, the fate of their inhabitants unknown. The dwarfs had fared no better; their greatest holds had been all but overrun by skaven and worse, and those that remained had barred their gates in a futile effort to wait out the end of all things.

  The realms of men had suffered as well. Bretonnia was a haunted wasteland, overrun by daemons and monsters despite the best efforts of its defenders. The lands of the south were gone, erased by the rampaging hordes of the ratmen. Kislev had been stripped to the bone by the hordes of Chaos, its people slaughtered or driven into the frozen wilderness to die. And the Empire, the last hope of the human race, was all but gone, its greatest cities taken by the enemy or reduced to plague-haunted ruins.

  The enormity of it all threatened to overcome him, and would have, had events not conspired to bring the Incarnates together at last. He had doomed the world by his actions, his carelessness, but there was still a chance to salvage something. There was still a chance to weather the storm of Chaos, and throw back the Everchosen. And while there was a chance, Teclis would not surrender to despair. He could not.

  ‘Teclis.’

  Teclis opened his eyes. A ring of expectant faces met his sight. He took note of some of them – the newcomers had only been allowed a few representatives. The Emperor, Karl Franz. Duke Jerrod of Quenelles. Gotri Hammerson, runesmith of Zhufbar. Balthasar Gelt, wizard and Incarnate. And a white-haired knight, who was the Emperor’s bodyguard. Something about the latter drew his attention. The man looked cold, as if he had been doused in ice-water, and when he caught Teclis looking at him, his face twisted, just for a moment, into a snarl. Teclis blinked, and the expression was gone. He hesitated, suddenly uncertain. ‘What would you wish of me, Everqueen?’ he asked, looking at Alarielle.

  The Everqueen had been a living symbol of Isha, the mother-goddess of the elves, in better times. But her beauty had been transfigured into something terrifying since she had become the host for the Wind of Life. No more the nurturer, Alarielle had become instead the incarnation of creation and destruction, of life’s beginnings and endings. The trees of the Eternal Glade shuddered and twitched in time to her heartbeat, her breath was in the wind, and in her voice was the rush and crash of the brooks and rivers.

  ‘What I wish, Loremaster, and what I require are two separate things,’ Alarielle said. Teclis knew she meant no insult, but even so, the coldness of her tone was almost too much for him to bear. Ever since she had given up the Heart of Avelorn to help resurrect Tyrion she had become withdrawn, as if the love she had once borne for his brother had become as dust.

  ‘Not Loremaster,’ he said. ‘Not any more. Ulthuan is gone, and the Tower of Hoeth with it.’ He spat the words with more bitterness than he’d intended. You have no right to bitterness, he thought, not when your actions are the cause.

  ‘But you still live, brother,’ Tyrion said, softly. ‘We still live. Our people survive, thanks to you. Ulthuan is gone, but while one asur lives, its spirit persists.’

  ‘Oh yes, very pretty. And while one asur lives, or druchii or asrai for that matter, I am still their king, as much good as it does any of us,’ Malekith interjected, his voice a harsh, metallic rasp. Like Alarielle, he had been bound to one of the winds of magic. In his case, it had been Ulgu, and the coiling, cunning lore of Shadows suited Malekith to his core. He was less a being of flesh than of darkness now, stinking of burned iron and radiating cold. ‘And as king, I would have answers. Why do you come to us, human?’ Malekith asked. ‘Why do you dare to come to Athel Loren?’

  ‘Where else is there to go?’ Karl Franz said. ‘The world has grown hostile, and sanctuary is hard to come by. Old allies find themselves equally hard-pressed.’ He indicated Hammerson and Jerrod. ‘Our greatest cities are in ruins, and our people are in disarray. Our last redoubt, Averheim, is dust beneath the boots of the world’s enemy. I am an emperor without an empire, as are you,’ Karl Franz said, looking at Malekith.

  ‘Look around you, human… my empire still stands,’ Malekith said. He stood and spread his arms. ‘The enemy have broken themselves on it again and again. But we still stand.’

  Karl Franz smiled. ‘If this is what you call an empire, I begin to wonder why Finubar feared you.’

  Shadows coiled and writhed around Malekith’s form as he went rigid with anger. ‘You dare…?’ he hissed. ‘I will pluck the flesh from your bones, king of nothing.’

  ‘Yes, for that has ever been the way of your folk. The world burns, and you can think of nothing better to do than to squabble in the ashes.’ Karl Franz gestured sharply. ‘You would rather kill the messenger than hear the message. You would turn away allies, because in your arrogance you mistake strength for weakness and support for burden.’

  ‘What would you know of us, human?’ Alarielle said. Teclis glanced at her. Her features were perfectly composed, but he thought he detected the trace of a smile on her face.

  ‘I know enough,’ Karl Franz said. He turned, his eyes scanning the Eternal Glade. ‘I know that what your folk call the “Rhana Dandra” has begun – indeed, it began several years ago. I know that Ulthuan is gone, and that the Great Vortex is no more.’ His eyes sought out Teclis. Teclis twitched. The Emperor’s gaze revealed nothing, but the elf felt a glimmer of suspicion.

  Why had Azyr sought out Karl Franz? The winds were drawn to their hosts as like was drawn to like, but the Emperor had, to the best of his knowledge, never displayed the least affinity for the lore of the Heavens. Teclis forced the thought aside. It mattered little now, in any event. The power was gone, torn from him. Teclis shook himself and said, ‘And do you know why?’

  Karl Franz looked at him. ‘No,’ he said, and Teclis knew it was a lie.

  ‘Oh, well, let Teclis illuminate you, eh?’ Malekith said. He had sunk back onto his throne, his anger already but a memory. Teclis looked at him, and Malekith gestured sharply. ‘As your king, I command you to te
ll the savages of your crimes, schemer.’ Malekith laughed. ‘Tell our guests how you gambled the world, and lost.’

  Teclis looked at the thin, dark shape of the creature once known as the Witch-King, sitting on his throne of roots and branches beside the Everqueen. The creature he had helped crown Eternity King, and had gifted with more power than he deserved. Malekith met his glare, and Teclis knew that the former ruler of the dark elves was smiling behind his metal mask.

  Teclis used his staff to help himself to his feet, and he pulled the tattered remnants of his authority about him. He looked at the newcomers. Despite being bedraggled and bloodstained, they did not look beaten, and for that, Teclis thanked the fallen gods of his people. They would need every ounce of strength that they could muster for what was coming. He cleared his throat, and made ready to speak.

  Before he could, however, a snarl ripped through the glade. A snarl that was achingly familiar, and utterly terrifying. He turned, and his searching gaze was met by a yellow, furious one. Beast eyes those, and blazing with intent. The temperature in the glade began to drop.

  ‘Thief!’ the white-haired knight roared, in a voice not his own. The Reiksguard shoved past the Emperor, and hurled himself towards Teclis, fingers hooked like claws.

  ‘Volker – no!’ the Emperor bellowed, reaching for his guard. The man slithered out of his grip.

  With a curse, the dwarf, Hammerson made a grab for Volker. ‘Hold him back, lad, or it’s an arrow to the giblets for the lot of us,’ the dwarf roared at the Bretonnian as he wrapped his brawny arms around Volker’s legs. The Reiksguard fell sprawling and Jerrod sprang on top of him, armour rattling. Volker thrashed beneath them, howling like a wolf. Teclis stumbled back, one hand pressed to his throat, his face pale with shock.

  Volker was cold; colder than Teclis thought it was possible for a man to become and survive. The air around the struggling figures became silvered with frost, and the grass beneath them turned stiff and shattered. Jerrod’s teeth were chattering, and Hammerson was cursing. Volker glared at Teclis, his eyes yellow and bestial. ‘Thief,’ he snarled again, and Teclis shuddered, pulling his cloak about himself. He had expected this, though he’d hoped it would be otherwise. Ulric was not the sort of god to pass quietly into oblivion, even if it would be better for all concerned.