Lord of Undeath

by C. L. Werner

  The fury of the lightning failed to stop the Chaos lord. Spurring his snake-like steed onwards, the warlord made one final push to reach Neferata. She could read the grisly determination in his eyes, the obsession that drove him to claim her even in the face of certain defeat. He cast the scorched ruin of his glaive aside, reaching for the swords hanging from his belt.

  A thunderbolt struck just then, a blast more brilliant and furious than any that had come before. Neferata recoiled before it, driven back by its violence. When the blinding flash dissipated, she saw a black-armoured warrior standing in the smoking crater left by the lightning, a storm-knight with wings like those of the warriors flying overhead. Unlike his comrades, the lone knight bore a golden halo around his helm and a great lantern was clenched in his upraised hand. The vampire queen screamed at the searing sting of the light that blazed from within the lamp.

  The winged knight noticed her aversion, angling the lantern away from her so that she was shielded from its rays. Even so, she could feel the azure glow piercing her with a sensation that was at once both cool and warm. She felt revulsion at the purity of the energy, yet also a desperate craving for it.

  The Chaos lord’s steed hissed in terror as the azure light spilled across it, its charge arrested as it drew back in fright. Sparks glanced from the daemon’s steaming hide as the purifying rays washed over it. Only the vicious urging of the warlord goaded the monster onward. Swift as a striking tomb-cobra, the daemon’s head shot towards the winged knight. Swifter still was the flash of that warrior’s sword, shearing through the serpentine head in a gout of purplish ichor. The decapitated daemon crumpled back upon itself, writhing in agonised spasms. The lion-faced warlord was smashed against the ground, crushed beneath the undulating coils of his steed. The maddened thrashing of the monster at last brought the chaotic tangle of rider and mount to the edge of the cliff. With a final twitch, the daemon-snake rolled over the side, hurtling down the face of Throne Mount. As the creature’s vitality dissipated, its body faded away, leaving its master to plummet alone to the burning streets below.

  The blinding light was extinguished as the winged knight snapped closed the latch of his lantern. He turned towards Neferata, bowing to the vampire queen. ‘Greetings, Lady Neferata,’ the warrior said. ‘I am Huld, Knight-Azyros of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. I hail from the Realm Celestial, and come seeking alliances as were of old.’

  Before Neferata could answer Huld, the spectral tide that had been raging across the ruin of Nulahmia rose up from the city, sweeping across the summit of the Throne Mount. A black veil of death, glowing phantoms swirling within its current, howled all around them. The bones of her morghast guard were drawn up into the tempest, vanishing into its titanic whirlwind. Only the Mortarch and the Knight-Azyros remained, standing in the very eye of the morbid cyclone.

  A hellshriek rose from the black storm, a sound of such enmity that it rattled across the whole of Nulahmia. Out from the swirling eddies of phantasmal forces and spectral warriors, a maleficent figure strode. Prodigious in stature, the fleshless revenant marched across the summit. Black robes were draped about his bony body, and chitinous plates of deathly armour shrouded his skeletal frame. In his withered hand, he bore a tall staff of bone surmounted by a funerary icon. Atop his skinless skull, he wore a tall crown of obsidian and gold that pulsated with arcane energies and glowed with an amethyst light.

  Shakily, Neferata dropped from Nagadron’s back, prostrating herself before the advancing apparition. No mere Mortarch had descended upon Nulahmia, but rather the one being in all existence before whom even she knew terror. The Great Necromancer himself, Master of the Deathly Realm. The Death God, Nagash.

  She could feel the gaze of Nagash upon her, studying her from the depths of empty sockets. Though he had long ago withdrawn to his underworld, she knew he was aware of her secret kingdom, her manifold manipulations and schemes by which she had thought to expand her own power. Nothing could be hidden from him. Nagash saw all, and what he saw did not please him.

  Even as she trembled before her master, Neferata was stunned by the courage of Huld. Could it be that the Knight-Azyros was ignorant of whom he stood before? How else to explain that he didn’t fall to his knees in terrified worship? When Nagash turned his gaze upon Huld, a gaze that had reduced warlords to simpering wrecks and demigods to grovelling vassals, the storm-knight stood proud. He defied the tremendous will that emanated from the core of Nagash’s being. Instead of abasing himself, he rendered only the same slight bow he had offered Neferata. His salutations to the Great Necromancer were no different; no tremor of fear polluted his voice or dulled his words.

  Neferata waited in dread for Nagash to respond to such arrogance. As impressive as Huld’s assault upon the Chaos lord had been, she knew Nagash could exterminate the knight almost without a thought. As the silence stretched on, her fear continued to mount. All of the ambitions she had entertained about harnessing the might of the storm-knights would be extinguished the instant Nagash loosed his wrath upon Huld.

  ‘Spoken like a true son of Sigmar,’ the sepulchral voice of Nagash hissed. The Great Necromancer swept his staff through the air, dispelling the swirling maelstrom of spirits, sending them streaming back into the underworld from which they had been called. He advanced towards Huld, staring down at the winged knight. ‘Unbowed. Unbroken. How like your god you are. An echo of his dream.’

  A malignant glow rose within the pits of Nagash’s skull. ‘How many dreams may fade into nightmares.’

  Chapter Six

  Stretching across the wilted fields, a vast double-column of bleached bone and withered flesh marched. What remained of the armies of Neferata, Mortarch of Blood, advanced with grim silence, only the rattle of rusted armour or the creak of ancient bones giving note of their passage. At the centre of the column, carried within funerary carriages, were the vampire queen and her handmaidens. The revivified morghasts surrounded the carriages, their bestial skulls leering with menace at the lands through which they passed. Ahead of the queen’s attendants rode Lord Harkdron and the few remaining blood knights of Nulahmia.

  Behind Neferata’s entourage, a massive throne of bone hovered across the earth, supported upon phantasmal energies that moaned with spectral malice. Even the regiments of skeletons and zombies that marched silently to either side of the throne were loath to draw near to it, the embers of awareness within their rotted heads drawing back in fear from the entity that reposed upon the throne. Living or undead, all trembled in the presence of Nagash.

  Trailing behind the column of undead strode the ebon ranks of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. Hundreds strong, the Stormcasts kept pace with the advancing skeletons and zombies but made no move to close the gap between them, observing the separation with an almost religious fervour.

  The smoke rising from the ruins of Nulahmia was fading away in the distance, absorbed into the miasma of icy fog that inundated the dominion that had once been Neferata’s kingdom. The city they left behind was now as desolate as the terrain that had once hidden it, another lifeless necropolis littering the lands of Shyish. The ghosts and spectres that haunted Nulahmia’s cursed ground now did so without the interruption of mortal life and immortal sorcery.

  A part of Lord-Celestant Makvar felt regret that the Anvils of the Heldenhammer had come too late to save the city and preserve its inhabitants from the depredations of Chaos or the spectral carnage that followed. He had not been deaf to the misgivings of Knight-Heraldor Brannok when the Stormcasts marched from Nulahmia. Brannok had wanted to detach a few retinues of Liberators and Prosecutors to search the ruins and ensure they were not abandoning any pockets of survivors. He felt that to do so would be a blemish on the honour of their Warrior Chamber, but even Lord-Castellant Vogun, who was sympathetic to Brannok’s concerns, felt such a dalliance would be a waste of time. Nothing alive had been spared by the black storm that descended upon Nulahmia – only those upon
the slopes of the Throne Mount had escaped its consuming malevolence. To tarry in the haunted streets would simply tempt the anger of the unquiet dead or draw the attention of such daemons as had managed to slip away during the battle for the Pathway of Punishment.

  Makvar’s concerns were more pragmatic. They had to be. The benefits of lingering to rescue a few dozen – even a few hundred – survivors hidden amidst the havoc had to be balanced against the scope of their mission to the Realm of Death. He simply couldn’t justify the risk. Not when so much depended upon their success. Not when the Anvils had been presented with an opportunity far greater than that which had been entrusted to them when they left the Realm Celestial.

  They had come to Shyish to broker an alliance with a Mortarch, to secure the aid of one of the realm’s deathless lords. Instead they found themselves confronted by a god, a being that had walked among the divinities of Sigmar’s pantheon. Nagash, the Master of Death, one of the mightiest entities in all the Eight Realms. The daunting prospect of parley with a god was eclipsed only by the enormity of what stood to be gained by such discussion. If Makvar could sway the mind of the Great Necromancer, then it wouldn’t simply be the might of a single Mortarch but that of the Realm of Death itself which he would bring into the arsenal of Azyr.

  ‘To what purpose do we march?’ Lord-Castellant Vogun wondered. He held his warding lantern out, its rays dispelling the grave-gas that swirled all around the Stormcasts, pawing at them with phantom tendrils that left lines of frost on their armour. As far as the rays could pierce the fog, there was only the barren wastes of a withered land, lifeless fields spilling into stands of dead trees and jumbles of craggy grey stone. ‘These lands are spent, bled dry by the hunger of their masters as much as the rampaging armies of Chaos. What refuge do they think to lead us to?’ The question brought a worried growl from the gryph-hound that loped along beside him.

  ‘A crypt would be sanctuary enough to the undead,’ Lord-Relictor Kreimnar reminded Vogun. ‘The hordes of Chaos may have overlooked much in their rush for conquest and glory. A living city might draw the invaders like moths to a flame, but would a cairn offer the same lure to their ilk? It is the living they seek to dominate and corrupt, not the bones of the dead.’

  ‘It is a cheerless thought,’ Vogun said, ‘to leave one graveyard behind only to seek another.’ He turned and looked back at the winged Knight-Azyros Huld. Of them all, only Huld had stood in the presence of Nagash and traded words with the Death God. ‘Again, I question the reason for our sojourn and the reason we couldn’t be given an audience in Neferata’s palace.’

  ‘I can only repeat what was said to me,’ Huld replied. ‘There was concern that the taint of Chaos hung heavy about Nulahmia, that the presence of the Ruinous Powers lingered upon the Throne Mount. It is enough that the enemy is aware that we have descended upon Shyish, should we also reveal our mission where daemonic ears might be listening? No, I find this display of caution to be well reasoned.’

  Brannok shook his head. ‘It is vexing,’ he said. ‘If we march, then we should be told where we march. Not simply commanded to follow where he would lead us.’ The Knight-Heraldor pointed to the retinues of Liberators marching behind the officers. The Stormcasts strained under the colossal weight of the obsidian obelisk that had been uprooted from the Queensroad. More than the physical mass of the monolith, it was the ethereal taint that exuded from its glassy surface that tested the endurance of the knights. The warriors carrying it had to be rotated every few hours lest its uncanny emanations become onerous to them.

  Brannok’s words fed Makvar’s own concerns. Nagash had commanded haste in debarking from Nulahmia. A prudent decision, for if one army of Chaos could find the hidden city, there was no reason to believe another wouldn’t be quick to follow. Indeed, Neferata had been given little time to summon her attendants from her palace-temple and gather a few of her most treasured belongings. But the Obelisk of Black, for the plinth to be excavated and removed – for that the retreat from Nulahmia had delayed. Under the exacting supervision of Lord Harkdron, the vampire general who had fought against the Anvils during the battle for the Throne Mount, the Stormcasts had cut away the ensorcelled paving that grounded the obelisk. The lanterns of both Vogun and Huld had been necessary to hold back the gales of phantoms that swirled around the site, angry that the relic was being disturbed.

  The potency of the arcane power infused into the Obelisk of Black was something it didn’t take someone of Kreimnar’s or Vogun’s nature to sense. It was a thing saturated in the dark energies of Shyish, a shard of death itself. Makvar didn’t need to understand its workings to know that the relic was a weapon, hideous in its potential. That Nagash would entrust the relic into the Stormcasts’ care was something that gave him hope for the success of his mission. However much of a burden the Obelisk might be, by carrying it they would be returning the faith the Great Necromancer had extended to them.

  ‘If you leave a battlefield, do you leave your sword behind?’ Makvar turned in his saddle and looked down at Brannok. ‘Our weapons are sigmarite and steel. The weapons of Shyish are those of magic. The more disquieting the instruments of that magic, the more potent its power.’ He swept his gaze across the rest of his officers. ‘We came here to gather warriors for the God-King. It is towards that goal we must all persevere.’ He nodded at the Obelisk. ‘However arduous our trials, we will persevere.’

  Rising above the stagnant depths of a festering tarn, the castle snarled at the moonless sky with fang-like battlements and the jagged parapets of broken towers. The great rock upon which the fortress perched was pitted and scoured, immense fissures snaking down the crumbling cliffs and deep caves yawning blackly from ledges and overhangs. Swarms of bats flitted from the caves, swooping across the scummy water below to snatch insects from the rank air. Packs of wolves howled from the darkness of desiccated forests, their lonely cries echoing across the windswept moors.

  The towns and villages that they had passed since leaving Nulahmia had been desolate and abandoned, not so much as a rat prowling among their ruins. Here, however, in this blighted place, signs of habitation greeted the Stormcasts. Lights shone from the windows of the castle and the murmur of voices rose from behind its walls, accompanied by the discordant sound of an untuned harpsichord.

  All at once, the undead column came to a halt. Makvar raised his fist into the air, arresting the advance of his Stormcasts. The knights kept a wary hand near their swords, bracing themselves for whatever would soon unfold. Their wait wasn’t a long one. Riding out from among the undead ranks upon a steed as fleshless as any bone warrior, Lord Harkdron approached Makvar and his officers. Gojin snorted with agitation as the deathly stench of the skeletal steed struck the dracoth’s senses.

  Harkdron scowled at the reptile, and the look with which he favoured its rider was no less hostile. ‘I bring salutations from Queen Neferata,’ he said. ‘She requests the company of Lord-Celestant Makvar and his officers.’

  ‘And where does her highness expect to entertain us?’ Lord-Relictor Kreimnar asked.

  ‘You are to be guests in the castle,’ Harkdron stated, waving his hand in the direction of the sinister fortress. ‘Your troops may bivouac on the plain below.’ A malicious gleam shone in his eyes. ‘If they are vigilant, they should come to no distress.’

  Makvar leaned back in Gojin’s saddle and studied the vampire general. He might be uncertain of Neferata’s intentions, and be even less sure of what he could expect from Nagash, but there was no mistaking the hate boiling inside Harkdron. The only question was how far he would go to indulge that hostility.

  ‘What of your queen’s master?’ Makvar asked. ‘When may we expect an audience with Nagash?’

  Harkdron bristled at the note of expectation, the almost demanding turn of Makvar’s words. ‘Mighty Nagash will receive you in the great hall of Schloss Wolfhof,’ he said. The vampire’s lips pulled back, revealing his fangs.
‘It is rare quarry that is so eager to tempt the hunter’s hunger.’

  Makvar returned the vampire’s cold stare. ‘Return to your mistress,’ he said. ‘We were sent here to treat with the rightful lords of Shyish, not bandy words with one of their more ineffectual minions.’ He drew back on Gojin’s reins, causing the dracoth to raise his head, the reptile’s jaws only inches from Harkdron’s shoulder. ‘Tell Queen Neferata I eagerly anticipate our conference, and my audience with the Great Necromancer.’

  Seething at his curt dismissal, Harkdron wheeled his skeletal horse around and galloped back towards the motionless ranks of the undead column. Makvar waited until the vampire was well in the distance before addressing his comrades. ‘Brothers, the castle above us appears to be the refuge to which we have been marching. It would seem this is the setting Nagash has chosen to formally receive us. My presence and that of the officers of our Warrior Chamber has been requested. If fortune favours us… If my eloquence be equal to the task, it may be that our mission will soon be accomplished here.’

  The Lord-Celestant’s announcement brought a subdued response from his warriors. Reserved even by the standards of the Stormcast Eternals, the spirits of the Anvils were further depressed by their sombre surroundings and the grim influence of the Obelisk they carried with them. As the Liberator-Primes and the commanders of the Paladin retinues issued orders to the knights to prepare the camp, Makvar noted the visible relief with which those carrying the plinth lowered it to the ground. Already it seemed to be drawing nebulous, ghastly wisps of energy up from the earth upon which it rested.

  ‘Vogun, I want you to remain behind,’ Makvar told the Lord-Castellant. ‘Your warding lantern may be necessary to fend off whatever wayward ghosts the Obelisk attracts to it. It seems to become at least partially dormant when a celestial light falls upon it.’ He shrugged as another thought occurred to him. ‘Besides, I need to leave someone familiar with Gojin’s habits and temper to look after him while I am being feted in Schloss Wolfhof. However dilapidated their castle has grown, I doubt they would welcome a dracoth in their great hall.’