The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  Raamket turned in the saddle and surveyed the imposing fortress. After a moment, the Red Lord glanced at Aten-heru, who gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘Very well,’ the boy said. ‘It will take six hours to disembark the rest of my troops. After that, the attack begins.’

  Arkhan watched as the spokesmen mounted up, and the Red Lord braved the gauntlet of arrows once more. As the riders dwindled in the distance, Shiwat’s mouthpiece turned to him.

  ‘Raamket will betray us the first chance he gets,’ he said.

  Arkhan chuckled. ‘I never expected otherwise. But he doesn’t know the fortress like I do. Those gates nearest his landing site aren’t real. They’re decoys, meant to tempt an invader to try and outflank the main gate. He will lose thousands of troops trying to take them, while we cross the wall farther north, on the other side of the main gate, and fight our way into the fortress.’

  Shiwat seemed convinced, but not Khamenes. The heavy cavalryman eyed Arkhan warily. ‘And then we divide Nagash’s tomes amongst ourselves.’

  Arkhan gave the corpse a black-toothed smile. ‘You have my word upon it.’

  The assault on the fortress ebbed and flowed like the tides. One wave after another crashed against the walls, raising ladders made of scavenged bones and surging upwards to try and seize sections of the outer wall. The undead fell in droves, struck down by the steady rain of spears and arrows, or smashed to bits by bouncing catapult stones. Ladders were pushed away from the walls by metal-tipped poles, hurling scores of attackers to the rocky ground, only to see them raised by the same bony hands a few moments later. The assault would continue until most of its strength had been spent, and then the survivors would withdraw to make way for a fresh wave to resume the attack. It was a tactic that Nagash and his lieutenants had perfected over the centuries, whereby even a superior enemy force could be ground to dust by sheer, unrelenting pressure.

  The battle for Nagashizzar had been raging for hours, and the defenders showed no signs of breaking. The fortress walls and an inexhaustible supply of missiles had managed to keep the attackers at bay and inflict a tremendous amount of casualties. Losses had grown so great that Shiwat and Aten-heru were now fully occupied with raising up new skeletons to keep the battle going. The carnage had in fact grown so great that hungry packs of flesh-eaters had begun slinking about the edges of the battlefield, sniffing for marrow and tendon to fill their aching bellies.

  There were signs that the pressure was starting to take its toll. Raamket’s forces had spread further along the wall than Arkhan had hoped, striking not just at the false gates but at empty stretches of wall as well. They had reached the top of the wall almost a dozen times in the past few hours, and the defenders were finding it harder and harder to drive them back again. At the same time, fighting around the main gate had been exceptionally fierce, but the strength of the enemy’s counterattacks had begun to wane. An hour before, a suicide raid by a company of Kahmenes’s spearmen had managed to force their way atop the barbican and set fire to several of the catapults. The wind off the Sour Sea continued to fan the flames, wreathing the gatehouse in thick clouds of grey smoke.

  Arkhan stood atop a ruined length of wall at the temple fortress, far to the rear of the assault. Without troops to command, he had relegated himself to countering the enemy’s spells, a role that Khamenes and the others were all too pleased to relegate to him. They were as close to the front lines as they dared, waiting for the moment their warriors would carry the walls and the race for the prize began.

  What the fools didn’t realize was that the role Arkhan had chosen placed him in a perfect position to read the tides of battle and pinpoint the location of his foe. The enemy necromancer had cast a flurry of deadly spells during the early hours of the assault, striking from the top of a high tower that Nagash himself had once used in the war against the rat-men. Arkhan had countered most of those spells with ease; in general it was far easier to negate an incantation than to perform one. Over the course of the next six hours the necromantic duel continued, and Arkhan had learned quite a bit about his foe: a powerful and skilled necromancer, but lacking Arkhan’s degree of experience. His incantations were complex designs, rather than the simple, brutally effective ones that worked best on the battlefield, which made them all the easier to negate.

  Over time, the barrage of deadly spells began to abate. The enemy devoted more and more energy into incantations that were meant to replenish his mounting losses. Arkhan interfered with most of those as well, letting only as many succeed as he thought would keep the battle going. Even those had dwindled to a trickle now, and the source had shifted, relocating from the tower to a chamber deep within the mountain.

  The battle was entering its final phase. Now was the time to put his plan into motion.

  Out on the slopes, Khamenes was ordering another wave of spearmen to attack the walls close to the barbican. To the south, Raamket had dismantled several of his transport ships and used the parts to construct a trio of ponderous siege towers, which were slowly approaching the outer wall. The liches sensed that the tide had turned in their favour. They would be waiting to pounce at the first sign of a breach.

  Arkhan made his way down from the ruined wall. His horse waited at the bottom, surrounded by his ever-vigilant wights. The liche climbed into the saddle and led his riders away from the battle, back into the hills to the northwest. Not even the flesh-eaters took notice of their passing.

  Arkhan had not fought in the war against the rat-men, but he knew its history well. For years he had collected tribute from the repulsive creatures in the sullen peace that had followed, and supplied them with the discs of abn-i-khat that had turned the River Vitae to poison.

  During that time, he had learned a great deal about their underground network. Including the ones they’d used to stage raids on the flesh-eaters at the height of the fighting.

  Shiwat and Khamenes had marched past a half-dozen entrances to the great mountain and never known it. There was an old, abandoned flesh-eater nest not more than a mile from the ruins of the temple fortress. Around its base, Arkhan quickly found a trio of muddy holes that might have looked like sinkholes to an untrained eye. Two of the tunnels had collapsed over the years, but the third one descended to a rocky side-tunnel fifteen feet below the marshy ground.

  The liche got his bearings quickly and set off with his bodyguards through the darkness, moving as swiftly as he dared. Even with his knowledge of the labyrinthine tunnels, it would take hours to reach his goal. After all his efforts to undermine the fortress’s defence, he now found himself hoping that the defenders managed to hold out just a little while longer.

  From the mouth of the tunnel, it was three miles to the lower levels of the mountain’s mine works. Veins of abn-i-khat glowed poisonously from the walls of the mineshafts, illuminating the toppled forms of hundreds of skeletal miners. The workers had collapsed all at once when their master had been destroyed.

  Once inside the mine works, Arkhan made his way back towards the surface. He passed through dark, deserted halls and echoing vaults; past storehouses stocked with armour, weapons and ammunition enough for a hundred wars and shuttered laboratories that had once witnessed all manner of blasphemous experiments. He moved like a ghost through the vast mountain crypt, drawing ever nearer to his prey.

  The antechamber to the great throne room was empty. Arkhan suspected that every available warrior had been sent to the outer wall. The liche drew his sword. At his unspoken command, his wights formed a wedge behind him. Fell blades shone balefully in the darkness.

  Arkhan raised his left hand and uttered a simple incantation, and the doors to the throne room groaned inward. Grave light gleamed coldly in the chamber beyond. The air stank of old blood and putrefying flesh.

  The corpses of a dozen barbarians lay sprawled on the marble floor, their throats expertly slit open and their faces frozen in masks of terror and pain. They surrounded a large, complicated ritual circle, its precise lines dra
wn with a mix of chalk and abn-i-khat dust. Five gaunt, pale figures in filthy brown robes stood at cardinal points around the circle. Once they had been men of the northern barbarian tribes, but now they were monsters. Rotting blood painted their cheeks and blackened their bony chins. At the sight of Arkhan they raised clawed hands and hissed like vipers, exposing vicious, needle-like fangs.

  At the far end of the chamber, seated upon the throne of the Undying King, was the blood-drinker W’soran. The necromancer looked even more corpse-like since he’d fled the battle at the Gates of the Dawn, some fifteen years ago. His skin, once grey and thin as parchment, had now turned nearly black, like a mummy that had lain for centuries in a desert tomb. Thin, cracked lips were drawn back in a permanent snarl, and his teeth were nearly as black and jagged as Arkhan’s. His right eye, which had been put out by an arrow during the battle, had grown back as a milky-white orb without iris or pupil. His left eye was black as a chip of polished obsidian, and burned with a cold, all-consuming hate.

  To the left of the throne sat a trio of tall, rounded jars, of a type that Arkhan knew all too well. Spread about W’soran’s feet and spilling down the steps of the dais were ancient, leather-bound tomes, many open to diagrams of ritual circles, or detailed notes written in a careful, precise hand: the tomes of Nagash, the Undying King.

  Arkhan stalked into the vast room like a desert cat, his sword held low at his side. His wights spread out around him, pacing their master step for step.

  ‘How stupid I was,’ the liche said. ‘Of course it would be you. How long did you cower in the north, waiting for your chance to slink back into Nagashizzar? You pathetic bag of bones! You’re worse than the rat-men!’

  W’soran rose from Nagash’s scarred throne. ‘Bold talk from a traitor,’ the blood-drinker sneered. ‘I mean to continue the Undying King’s plan, while you and your ilk circle the mountain like jackals, come to pick at his bones!’ He extended a skeletal finger at the liche. ‘I am your lord and master now!’ he shrieked. ‘Bow to me, or suffer my wrath!’

  Arkhan threw back his head and laughed. The dreadful, joyous sound echoed in the vast hall.

  ‘This is a gift from the forsaken gods,’ he exulted. ‘How I have longed to send your soul screaming into the Abyss! Come to me, you misbegotten worm. Come and face your doom.’

  W’soran shrieked an incantation in reply, and green lightning leapt across the room. Arkhan dispelled it with a few snarled words and rushed towards the throne.

  As one, the blood-drinker’s servants leapt to defend their master. Arkhan tore one part with a bolt of sorcerous fire, and then the rest were upon him. The creatures looked frail, but they shared W’soran’s blood, and were swift as snakes. Claws raked at his arms and chest, ripping through scale mail and leather with ease. The liche struck back with his sword, but his target dodged nimbly aside. A moment later the wights joined the fight, lashing at the blood-drinkers with their rune-etched blades.

  Arkhan stabbed at another of W’soran’s blood-drinkers, ripping a deep wound in its side. The creature howled in pain, recoiling from the blow, and the liche lunged past, searching for W’soran.

  There was a flash of sickly green light and a clap of thunder. Arkhan was blown from his feet. Heat scorched his bones and consumed him with pain. W’soran’s bolt hurled him backwards into a blood-drinker and a pair of his wights, sending them all crashing to the floor.

  A mortal might have died at once from the sheer agony of the blow, but Arkhan had suffered worse in his time. Snarling, he struggled upright. The blood-drinker he’d knocked down reached for his throat. With a curse, he buried his blade in the side of its skull and levered himself to his feet.

  Another bolt of power sizzled through the air. This time, however, Arkhan was ready. He turned the deadly spell aside and responded with his own, raking W’soran and the throne with a torrent of burning darts. W’soran tried to deflect the attack, but hours of constant spellcasting had left him weak. Several of the darts punched through his chest and buried themselves in the back of Nagash’s throne. W’soran screamed, clutching at the smoking wounds, but did not fall.

  Bones clattered across the marble floor as one of Arkhan’s wights was torn apart. Another fell victim to a bolt of magical fire. Three of W’soran’s servants still survived, but they all bore ghastly wounds from the wights’ fell blades. Arkhan ignored the blood-drinker’s servants. Instead, he snarled an invocation and leapt through the air like a loosed arrow, plunging down upon the dais with his sword held high.

  Arkhan crossed the intervening space in the blink of an eye, but W’soran was still faster. With an angry cry, he dodged to one side and Arkhan’s blade buried itself deep in the back of Nagash’s battered throne. W’soran responded with outstretched hands and a ball of magical fire that the liche only barely dispelled, leaving his scale armour shimmering with spent heat. The concussive force of the blast sent Nagash’s heavy tomes flying off the dais and skidding across the polished floor.

  With a roar of fury, Arkhan gripped his sword with both hands and heaved with all of his supernatural might. The sword was buried deep and refused to come free, so he picked the chair up by the blade and smashed it down onto W’soran. The blood-drinker barely had enough time to get his arms up in front of his face before the chair struck. The throne flew apart with a rending crash and flung W’soran from the dais.

  Grinning like a daemon, Arkhan leapt after W’soran, but the blood-drinker scuttled away from him like a grotesque spider. The liche sent a storm of magical bolts chasing after him, leaving a trail of tiny craters along the polished marble floor.

  Arkhan uttered a malicious laugh. ‘Your power is ebbing, W’soran,’ he hissed. ‘I’ve spent hours wearing you down. You cannot fight me and maintain Nagashizzar’s defences at the same time.’

  W’soran barked a command. One of his servants snatched up a fell blade from a fallen wight and charged at Arkhan. The blood-drinker’s sword blurred through the air, but the liche weaved away from the blow and chopped off the servant’s sword-hand. His return stroke bisected the creature’s skull. And at that moment, W’soran struck.

  The bolt of necromantic force struck the corpse of W’soran’s servant first. Rather than shield Arkhan from the blast, however, it prevented him from seeing the attack coming until it was too late. Its power consumed the corpse in an instant, converting it to energy and adding fuel to the attack.

  Arkhan tried to dispel the bolt’s energy even as it enveloped him. His armour began to melt at once. The leather beneath it blackened and caught fire. The impact was so intense, he felt no pain—just a gale of power that began to rip his soul free from its moorings and hurl it into the outer darkness.

  W’soran cackled in triumph, despite the strain etched on his skeletal features. He held nothing back; all of his remaining power coursed through the bolt that was slowly ripping Arkhan apart.

  ‘You’ve underestimated me for the last time, Arkhan the Black,’ W’soran sneered. ‘I am the greatest necromancer in the world. Beg my forgiveness. Plead with me for mercy, and perhaps I will destroy your soul instead of consigning it to the Abyss.’

  Arkhan fell to his knees. It took every last iota of his will just to stay upright. The power of the spell was too strong; there was no chance of turning it aside. His burning armour fell away and the skeleton beneath began to blacken. He could not speak, could not move. Darkness, absolute and eternal, began to close in around him.

  It was all he could do to focus upon a single thought, and distract W’soran long enough for his last surviving wight to chop its blade into the blood-drinker’s neck.

  W’soran spasmed. Ichor gushed from his gaping mouth. His spell failed as he staggered, reeling away from the wight’s blow. Arkhan’s bodyguard pulled its fell blade free and made to strike again, but W’soran lashed out with his fist and struck the wight in the side of its helmet. Bronze crumpled under the blow, and the bodyguard’s skull shattered into pieces.

  Dimly, Arkhan wat
ched W’soran turn about. The blood-drinker’s eyes were wide with fear. Ichor poured from the deep wound in his neck. His stained lips moved, but no words came out. For a moment, he glared hatefully at Arkhan, then lurched towards the dais.

  Arkhan summoned the last reserves of his strength. He tried to rise, to grip his sword, to curse at the stricken W’soran. The blood-drinker reached the steps of the dais and fell to his knees. One dripping hand reached for the jars at the foot of the throne.

  No! Not again! Fuelled by rage, Arkhan managed to raise his hand. His jaws worked, spitting out a few arcane syllables, and three magical darts leapt from his charred fingers.

  Two of the darts struck home, blasting a pair of the jars to ash. The third struck W’soran’s outstretched arm, ripping flesh from bone but not preventing him from pulling the lid from the last jar.

  Arkhan watched in helpless fury as the blood-drinker was engulfed in a boiling cloud of swarming beetles. They hung there for a moment, filling the chamber with their buzzing song, and then darted in a glistening stream past the open doors of the throne room and out of sight, taking W’soran with them.

  Arkhan stumbled through the darkness of the deep tunnels, clutching his prizes tightly to his chest. His armour was gone, and his robes hung about him in tatters. His sword belt barely hung about his hips, causing the blade to clatter against his legs with every halting step.

  He had lost count of how long he had been walking through the depths of the great mountain. By now, Raamket and the others would have reached the throne room and found the remains of his wights. No doubt they were searching for him, expecting him to be plundering Nagash’s sanctums, or poring through his vaults. They could look for days before they realized he was nowhere about, though he expected their own greed would cause them to forget about him soon enough.

  They were welcome to the fortress and everything in it. They could have the mountain and the abn-i-khat, if they were bold enough to try and use it. By now, the rat-men had to know of Nagash’s demise. Soon enough they would return in their thousands to claim the burning stone. After Raamket and the others were finished betraying one another for Nagashizzar’s treasure, they would be easy prey for the creatures.