02 - Nagash the Unbroken

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  Thus, the death of the priests was a ritual in more ways than one, Nagash mused, as he approached the condemned men.

  Malakh’s high priest had been lashed to the statue facing Nagash. He and the two senior priests to his left and right glared at the necromancer with pure, fanatical hatred.

  “You have not won!” the high priest spat. The Forsaken spoke a purer, somewhat more cultured form of the tongue once spoken by the Yaghur. “You will not defeat great Malakh by ending our lives! He is eternal! He will triumph after—” the holy man’s curse faltered.

  “After my works are dust, and I am nothing but bones,” Nagash chuckled cruelly. “Your curses mean nothing to me, old man. I am eternal. What can your petty god do to one who has passed beyond life and death?”

  The high priest thrashed against his bonds. “May pestilence find your house! May it burrow in the walls and consume your treasures!”

  Nagash shook his head in disgust. The Forsaken had been worthy foes. He’d hoped for better from their high priest. He raised his right hand. The energies of the burning stone had permeated the flesh that remained, until it was swollen and foul with cancerous tumours. Black veins, thick and pulsing with unnatural life, penetrated muscle and tendon and sank their roots into bone, where they drew sustenance from the deposits of burning stone. He reached out and seized the priest’s jaw, cutting off his tirade. Nagash’s fingers left streaks of slime on the northman’s cheeks.

  “There is nothing your god can do to me that I have not willingly inflicted upon myself,” Nagash said. “Malakh’s days are done. Go and tell him, when your soul is wandering the wastelands beyond death’s door.”

  Nagash released the high priest and withdrew a few steps. On cue, Thestus, the leader of his Forsaken vassals, came forward with a blazing torch in his hand. The northman, once the chieftain of a hill fort nearly as large as Maghur’kan, wore leather and bronze armour in the Nehekharan style, and his scalp had been shaved bare. His hard, craggy features showed no emotion at all as he approached the bound priests and held his brand aloft. It was important that the people of Maghur’kan saw one of their own feeding their god to the flames.

  “Witness!” Thestus cried. “Malakh rules here no longer! From this moment forward, Maghur’kan serves only Nagash, the Undying King!”

  The high priest spat upon Thestus. The Forsaken warrior’s only reaction was to bend low and thrust the torch into the wood directly beneath the holy man’s feet.

  Flames whooshed through the pitch-soaked wood, until the totem and the men tied to it were wreathed in hungry blue flames. The priests began screaming at once, their cries of agony piercing the night. From the narrow mud lanes of the hill fort, the Yaghur began to howl in reply. Nagash listened to the gruesome chorus for a moment, savouring the sound, then left Thestus and his warriors and headed to the opposite side of the square, where the warlord’s great hall could be found.

  The Forsaken built their halls the same way they built their barrows. It was large and dome-shaped, with a roof of wood and thatch, and the only building in the entire fort with a thick, stone foundation. As he approached the hall, dark, humanoid shapes glided from the shadows and paced along behind the necromancer. They wove back and forth in Nagash’s wake like a pack of two-legged hounds, panting and sniffing at the sweet smell of roasting flesh.

  There were no guards stationed outside the hall’s large, round door; only a pair of lit braziers, vainly trying to hold back the shadows of the night. The Yaghur raised clawed hands to shield their faces from the hateful light; their eyes shone a pale yellow in the firelight, like a jackal’s.

  Nagash passed through the open door, noting the sorcerous wards that had been incised into its wooden foundation. Protection against misfortune, against pestilence and evil spirits… he felt not the slightest murmur of power from the old symbols. Perhaps they had died along with the men burning in the square outside.

  Beyond the door was a wide passageway leading to the centre of the hall, flanked by branching corridors that ran left and right around the building’s circumference. Tapestries hung along the walls, depicting glorious victories against the northmen’s many enemies. Nagash saw human tribes defeated and enslaved, and fierce battles against hulking, green-skinned monsters that walked upright like men. He also saw one old, threadbare tapestry that depicted the Forsaken triumphing over a horde of rat-things like the ones he’d encountered in the wasteland.

  Interestingly, there were no tapestries showing mighty victories over their old foes, the Yaghur. Nagash wondered what his long-time vassals thought of such an omission—if they thought of it at all.

  At the far end of the passageway, Nagash entered a large, circular great room, dominated by a crackling fire pit in the centre of the space. A crowd of silent, grim-faced warriors stood around the dying flames, their scarred faces fixed in masks of anger and despair. They turned as the necromancer appeared, and retreated slowly to the perimeter of the room.

  These were the Forsaken warlord’s few remaining allies, as well as the survivors of his own personal warband, gathered together at Nagash’s command to bear witness to Braghad Maghur’kan’s submission.

  Over the tips of the crackling flames, he could see Bragadh, the last of the Forsaken warlords. Even in defeat, the young leader of the northmen was proud and defiant, flanked on his right hand by Diarid, his scarred, grey-haired champion, and on his left hand by Akatha, the last of his witches. Akatha’s two sisters had died horrible deaths during the battle at the fort’s main gate. She had survived Nagash’s sorcerous bolts only because of the heroism of another of Bragadh’s champions, who had stepped in front of the blast and had died in her place. Like Bragadh, she was very young, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six. In Nagash’s day, as a priest in Khemri, they would have been considered little more than children. It was a sign of how badly the northmen had suffered during the last, bitter years of the war.

  Nagash paused just inside the great chamber, pointedly ignoring the hateful stares of the Forsaken as he studied the many war trophies hung along the walls. Eventually his gaze came around to where Bragadh stood. The necromancer smiled coldly.

  “I had expected a throne, at the very least,” he said.

  The warlord nodded at the timber crackling in the fire. “You’re looking at it,” he growled. He was a huge, broad-shouldered giant, with a forked, red beard and a heavy, brooding brow.

  Nagash inclined his head to the warlord. That kind of bitter spite was something he could understand. “It is time,” he said.

  Bragadh raised his chin stubbornly. “Let’s hear your terms.”

  “Have I not already given them?” Nagash countered.

  “I want my people to hear you say them as well.”

  Nagash considered the request. Bragadh had been a fearsome war leader in his time: bold, cunning and ruthless to a fault. The necromancer did not take him for a petty man; that suggested his allies did not necessarily support his decision to surrender.

  “Very well,” Nagash said. “You will receive the same terms as every other fort which has surrendered to me. To begin with you will reject the worship of Malakh from this night forward. In addition, two-thirds of your fighting men will return with me to my fortress, where they will serve in my army until death and beyond. The rest will remain here, along with the women and children, to tend the fields and grow the population. Two-thirds of each male generation will be called to serve, while the village will supply them with shipments of meat and grain twice each year. These are the only tithes that you will owe to me as your master.”

  The Forsaken glanced sidelong at one another. The terms were very generous, as far as Nagash was concerned.

  Diarid folded his muscular arms. Like Bragadh, his long face was framed by a dark, forked beard, and polished finger bones were plaited into his hair. “How will our people defend themselves against our other enemies?” he asked. “You would leave us with too few warriors to survive.”

  Nagash chuckl
ed. “I have walked your lands from one end to the other,” he said. “There are a great many graves here. Enough for a very large army indeed. They can be called to war at any time.”

  Diarid’s dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The implication hadn’t escaped the young champion. If any village were foolish enough to rebel, their own ancestors would rise up to punish them.

  Bragadh nodded. “All this you will swear to, if our villages submit?”

  “I would not have said so otherwise,” the necromancer replied.

  “No!” cried one of the Forsaken to Nagash’s right. He was an older man, with streaks of grey in his beard, and a barrel-like body clad in bronze and leather armour. He stepped forward, shaking his fist at Bragadh first, then at Nagash. “We are true men, not slaves!” he said. He turned to face Nagash, his expression savage. “I would sooner choose death than to betray my god and serve the likes of you!”

  Nagash regarded the old village leader for a moment. ’As you wish,” he said.

  At once, the Yaghur were upon him. Sleek, misshapen figures burst from the passageway, racing past their master and leaping on the man. Their bodies were hunched, naked and hairless, covered in layers of dried blood and filth, and they propelled themselves across the packed earth floor using all four limbs, like mad, bloodthirsty apes.

  A baying chorus of terrible, ululating howls filled the great hall as they seized the old man in their clawed hands and dragged him off his feet. Jagged, rotting teeth sank into the barbarian’s face and neck. He tried to struggle, screaming in terror and pain, but the creatures held him fast. Flesh tore like rotting cloth; hot blood sprayed through the air, and the man’s screams became a choking death-rattle. The Yaghur tore at the man’s body with their claws, ripping apart his armour to get to the warm meat beneath. Their howls transformed into slobbering, chewing sounds as the monsters began to feast.

  “Before the sun rises, every man, woman and child in his hill fort will be dead,” Nagash said into the stunned silence that followed. “The fields and buildings will remain, and will be given to someone with better sense than he.” His gaze swept across the crowd. “Your choice here is simple. Serve me, and your people will survive. They will even prosper, as well-tended vassals should. Otherwise, they will die, and their bones will serve me in the mines for centuries to come. Do you understand?!”

  No one spoke. Finally, the witch—a tall, dark-haired woman with large eyes and a narrow, pointed face—folded her arms and glared at the men. “Don’t be fools,” Akatha snarled. “The time for defiance has passed. We must be pragmatic. The True People must survive.”

  One of the Yaghur raised his head as the witch spoke, blood drooling from his jaws. His flat nostrils flared, and he growled hungrily. After a quarter millennia of feasting on human flesh, the Yaghur had developed an especial love for the soft meat of women and children.

  Bragadh glared hatefully at the ghoul, and the Yaghur quickly turned back to its meal. The warlord sighed. “The witch speaks true,” he said wearily. “We must all take the long view now, and look to our people’s survival.”

  Groans went up from a dozen throats as Bragadh walked around the fire pit towards Nagash. When he stood before the necromancer he drew the great, bronze rune sword from its sheath and sank to his knees.

  “I am Bragadh Maghur’kan,” he intoned. “Warlord of the True People.” He carefully set his blade at Nagash’s feet. “And I submit.”

  For a moment, no one moved. Then, one by one, the village leaders came forward to lay their weapons at the necromancer’s feet.

  Nagash accepted the submissions in silence, his expression of triumph lost within the depths of his hood. Across the chamber, Diarid and Bragadh’s chosen men watched with stricken expressions as they watched their honour and traditions laid at the feet of their long-time foe.

  Only Akatha met the necromancer’s eyes. Her expression was hard as stone. Pragmatic, but no less hateful for that, Nagash noted. Well enough, he thought. So long as she serves.

  The Yaghur watched the ceremony with feral disinterest, chewing noisily.

  The long procession marched from Maghur’kan just after sunset on the following day. First came Nagash, borne upon his oaken palanquin and attended by his skeletal bodyguard. Behind them came his vassal lieutenants, Bragadh, Thestus and Diarid, and the witch Akatha. They marched from their ancestral home with their heads high, but their expressions were bleak.

  In their wake marched the columns of Nagash’s infantry—human and undead, more than four thousand strong, their ranks replenished by the corpses of those they’d slain. Then, shoulders hunched and heads hung low, came the remnants of the once-mighty Forsaken host: four hundred barbarian warriors, stumbling from exhaustion and the pain of their wounds. Not all of them would survive the three-week march to the mountain. The Yaghur loped along the army’s flanks, sniffing the air and waiting for the first of the barbarians to stumble.

  South the column wound, through conquered territories that had lain under Nagash’s hand for many decades. The hill forts were well maintained, the fields tended and the muddy lanes kept clean of filth. Silence and despair, heavy as a funeral shroud, hung over the entire region. Food and water were brought out for the human soldiers by hollow-eyed men and women, none of whom seemed to understand the simplest of questions posed by Bragadh or his kinsmen.

  After the second week the army was close to the northern end of the Plain of Bones, and on bright, moonlit nights they could see a pall of dark grey clouds hanging low on the southern horizon. At first, the enslaved barbarians thought they were seeing storm clouds hanging over the Sour Sea, but night after night, the sight was still the same.

  Three nights later the army had reached the Plain of Bones. The old battlefield had changed a great deal in the last two-and-a-half centuries, as Nagash had pursued his campaign against the northmen. A wall of stone had been built across the narrow, northern approach to the plain, anchored on each end by a citadel garrisoned by human and undead soldiers. A wide gate in the centre of the wall creaked open as the army approached, and the warriors marched through a tunnel of stone some ten yards long before emerging onto a wide expanse of tortured earth. Every square foot of the plain had been churned by pick and shovel over the centuries, digging up the bones of those who had fallen there over the millennia and adding them to Nagash’s undead army.

  A pall of stinking, ashen cloud hung low over the plain, plunging it into perpetual darkness, and a heavy, almost tangible silence clung to the broken land. Even the baying of the Yaghur was muted beneath the churning shadow cast from the south.

  From that point on, the army marched day and night through the perpetual gloom. Hard-bitten warriors who had endured the bitter siege and the torturous march south became unmanned as they stumbled through the nightmarish landscape. Some broke ranks and tried to flee, raving and screaming in terror before the Yaghur pulled them down. Others simply fell by the wayside, their hearts gone dead between one step and the next as the burden of fear and despair simply grew too heavy to bear.

  Two days later, as they crossed the southern edge of the plain and began the long descent to the coast, the vassals got their first sight of the great mountain. Nagashizzar, it was now called, which in Nehekharan meant “the glory of Nagash”, and a quarter millennium of constant labour had transformed it into a vast and impenetrable fortress. High walls girdled the wide slopes in seven concentric rings, each one higher and more forbidding than the next. Hundreds of towers clawed at the ashen sky, interspersed between barracks buildings, storehouses, foundries and mine works.

  Wavering tongues of ghostly green fire flickered from scores of bronze forges, and twisting plumes of noxious vapours poured from countless mineshafts carved deep into the mountainside. The great barrow plain that once stretched westward towards the coast was now covered in vast piles of crushed stone and poisonous tailings from the mines, spilling down into the dark waters of the sea. To the north, where the Yaghur still dwelled, the
marshland had turned into a poisonous waste, devoid of all life save for the flesh-eaters and their squalid lairs.

  As the army descended onto the coastal plain the barbarians’ fears mounted. Howls rose from the wasteland as the Yaghur sensed the return of their master, and shrill, wailing horns echoed them from the phantasmal towers. Down they went, across the lifeless slope and through the ruins of the old temple fortress, and then along a wide road of crushed stone that led to the first of the fortress gates.

  Men began to wail in horror as they approached that dark portal. It yawned wide like the mouth of a hungry beast, eager for their souls. And, in a sense, they were correct.

  Slowly, inexorably, the fortress gate swallowed them whole. The screams of the Forsaken echoed for a long time afterwards, until the huge gates crashed shut behind them.

  As vast and ominous as Nagashizzar was upon the surface, the fearsome array of walls, towers and industry only represented a fraction of the fortress’ true size. Much of the enormous stronghold had been burrowed into the mountain itself, with miles upon miles of tunnels, mineshafts, laboratories, vaults and storehouses. Night and day, Nagash’s undead servants toiled in the darkness, extending tunnels and hollowing out still more chambers to support Nagashizzar’s ever-growing population. No one knew for certain how deep the tunnels went any more, or even where many of them led. There were exploratory tunnels and deep shafts that had not been trod in a hundred years or more.

  Deep, deep within the earth, in the very lowest levels of the mighty fortress, bare hands clawed relentlessly at dirt and stone. When at last they broke through into a vast, half-finished gallery, the exhausted tunnellers all but fell onto their snouts in the open, echoing space. They lay there on the smooth stone for several seconds, wringing their taloned hands and panting shallowly. Their smooth, pink noses tasted the dank air. Oil and metal, old bone and the teasing scent of man-flesh. Could this be the place the Grey Seer had sent them to find?