Lord of Undeath Page 11

  The armies of Chaos had rampaged through the Mirefells many times, scourging the swamps of those who hid in its wastes. Though the invaders had razed every shelter, massacred each camp, the swamp itself had resisted their conquest. It had sucked them down into bottomless quagmires and drowned them under stagnant streams. Venomous bats and pestiferous spiders had taken their toll upon the intruders. Choking miasma and glowing soulblight had consumed the essence of beasts and men, leaving their ravaged bones as grim warnings to those who followed. From the hundreds of cemeteries and tombs half obliterated by the mud and muck, vengeful spirits rose to slaughter all who defiled their forsaken domain.

  It had been many lifetimes, as mortals reckoned such things, since the Great Necromancer had felt the dread vibrations of the Mirefells seeping into his bones. In centuries past, entire kingdoms had vanished within the expanding mire. The spires of sunken palaces and temples protruding from muddy islands were the only testament to their passing. Yet even in nameless oblivion, the forgotten dead stirred at Nagash’s approach. He could hear them crying out to him, wailing in the throes of their unquiet sleep, begging for a mercy unknown to the Lord of Death.

  Nagash wondered how much of the swamp’s essence Sigmar’s warriors could sense. There were those among them with some affinity for the eldritch and the arcane. The morbid Kreimnar, certainly, would be aware of at least the most strident of the necrotic harmonies. Perhaps Vogun would feel some of the malignant energies, Vogun with his purifying lantern and his righteous zeal. The Stormcasts were an enigmatic admixture of honour and duty, faith and obedience. Concepts that were sometimes put at odds with one another, standards that were subsumed to the demands of their mission.

  Among them all, Nagash most pondered the mystery of the knight who led them. He had lied to Lord-Celestant Makvar when he told the knight that the Anvils of the Heldenhammer were the first of Sigmar’s Stormcasts that he had encountered. But then, there were many things he had kept from Makvar. There were questions that Nagash would see answered, riddles that needed solving. Makvar and his Anvils were different from the other Stormcasts in a manner that nagged at the Lord of Death. Their resistance to the Obelisk of Black’s emanations was still a puzzle to him.

  That experiment, at least, had run its course. After leaving Schloss Wolfhof, Nagash had commanded the better part of Neferata’s undead army to bear the relic down into one of the underworlds where it would be safe from harm. There was no need leaving it exposed to the Anvils any longer, and taking the risk that they might learn its true nature. From subtle alterations in Makvar’s demeanour, it seemed that he, at least, had begun to harbour suspicions about the Obelisk.

  It would be a mistake to dismiss any of the Stormcasts as simple or foolish. Nagash could detect the great age of the souls bound within their physical incarnations, taste it like a vintage wine. These were spirits that had worn the mantle of flesh many times, purged in the flames of death and rebirth in a fashion far different to the black art of necromancy. Instead of being diminished, instead of carrying the taint of the grave in their bones, they had been reshaped and remoulded, transmuted into something greater than they had been. Only by the most exacting artifice could Nagash create warriors of such potentialities, and those entities often demanded the life-force of lesser creatures to sustain their might.

  In the millennia since his withdrawal into the Realm Celestial, had Sigmar discovered some new path of resurrection? Or had he merely found a different means to the same processes Nagash had mastered long ago? What was this force that sustained the Stormcasts beyond their mortal span? What were the limitations of such power? That was the great question that dominated the Death God’s mind.

  When he unlocked the secrets of the Anvils, then Nagash would know what course to follow.

  ‘The stink of this place will never leave my armour,’ Knight-Heraldor Brannok growled as he slogged through the filthy mire. ‘I’ll have to boil each rivet and plate to divest myself of this stench.’

  ‘That should avail you little,’ Lord-Relictor Kreimnar commented. He removed his skull-shaped helm, letting the foul air of the swamp strike his senses unimpeded by the layers of sigmarite armour and leather padding. After a moment, his stern features curled into a grimace of contempt. ‘The smell of this swamp is going to seep into our very flesh.’

  Brannok shook his head at Kreimnar’s rejoinder. Reaching up to seize hold of a corpse-willow branch, the Stormcast pulled himself up onto a patch of weed-choked ground that at least feigned a semblance of solidity. Stagnant water drained out from his leg armour, streaming back into the mire in little rivulets. White leeches clung to the sigmarite plates, vainly trying to suck their way through the metal to reach the warm body within. With a grunt of annoyance, Brannok brushed the vile parasites from his legs.

  ‘You’ll only make room for new ones,’ Kreimnar told him. Grabbing hold of the same branch Brannok had used, he joined him on the tiny rise. From the slight vantage, he could see the file of black-armoured Anvils trudging along the boggy creek, their boots stirring up the layers of wilted leaves and dead amphibians embedded in the sediment, further contributing to the murkiness of the water. It said much of the treacherous state of the muddy earth confining the creeks and streams that Makvar had decided their passage would be easier if they plunged directly into the shallows. Many times, the column had been forced to slow its pace while a Decimator was extracted from some hungry quagmire or a Liberator was withdrawn from the watery depths of a gator-pit that had been hidden from view by a layer of weeping grass.

  The Lord-Celestant reacted to each delay as though it were a personal affront. Kreimnar found it easy to sympathise with Makvar’s attitude. Nagash’s entourage didn’t allow the hazards of the swamp to inconvenience them. Their steady, tireless march never wavered, their course never faltered. When one of their number fell into quicksand or was caught in the jaws of a crocodile, the undead didn’t bother rescuing their hapless comrade. Sentiment had no claim upon them, only the surety of purpose and objective.

  The Stormcasts had too much humanity within them to slide so easily into such callousness.

  ‘Have Huld and the Prosecutors returned yet?’ Brannok asked as he plucked an especially large leech from his pauldron and scrutinised it for a moment before flinging it into the creek.

  Kreimnar shook his head. Makvar had dispatched the winged Stormcasts hours ago, charging them with scouting ahead and finding an easier path through the Mirefells – a course unknown to or forgotten by their undead companions, or perhaps one that they chose to keep to themselves.

  ‘I don’t envy them the task they’ve been given,’ Kreimnar said. He kicked the toe of his boot against the muddy soil. ‘From the air, all of this muck must look the same. It can be no easy matter to decide what is solid earth and what is simply grass hiding a bog beneath its roots from that vantage point.’ A cheerless laugh rose from his throat. ‘At least they won’t get lost. Vogun’s light is the only bright spot in this festering mire.’ He nodded in the direction of the Lord-Castellant. The officer was hidden around a bend of the creek, but the vitalising glow of his warding lantern could be seen through the trees and weeds.

  Brannok suddenly turned from Kreimnar, his attention seized by something much closer at hand than Vogun’s light. The knight crouched down beside the corpse-willow’s trunk, clearing away the tangle of weeds and vines clumped around it. His efforts quickly disclosed a chunk of discoloured stone embedded in the base of the tree. The outlines of the stone were too even, too regular to be any natural formation. Uprooting more of the weeds and tearing away some of the dangling vines, he exposed more of what proved to be an oval. Leaning back, studying the sprawl of the trunk, he could detect a certain roundness about its outline, as though the tree itself had grown to conform to a definite pattern.

  ‘What have you found?’ Kreimnar asked, taking note of the Knight-Heraldor’s distraction. Brannok looked up
ward, ripping away still more of the vines. Faintly visible, just protruding from the bark, was the stump of a stone wrist and, further down, the outline of a knee.

  ‘A fountain stood here once,’ Brannok declared, gesturing at the traces of the statue buried within the tree and the evidence of the basin hidden beneath its roots. The Stormcast looked across the dismal mire surrounding them, gazing at the swamp as though seeing it for the first time. ‘There was a village here, perhaps an entire town.’

  Kreimnar drew his morbid helm back down over his face. ‘Almost anything might be buried under this slime,’ he said. ‘The hordes of Chaos have long dominated the Realm of Death and destroyed much in their rampages. There is no comfort in pondering the things already lost to the enemy.’

  Brannok shook his head. ‘But which enemy was this place lost to?’ he wondered, pressing his hand against the corpse-willow. ‘How long has this tree grown over the graves of a vanished people? Was it the depredations of Chaos that brought them doom or was it the creatures who claim mastery over the Realm of Death?’

  ‘Would knowing the answer make any difference?’ Kreimnar asked. ‘War demands sacrifice, and there is no sacrifice harder to bear than the sullying of virtue. The lofty ideals of nobility and righteousness are things to keep locked away within the heart, preserved in the one place where they cannot be soiled by the demands of necessity. Chaos has many enemies, but unless they stand together, they cannot stand at all. Sigmar has seen this. It is why we have descended into this blighted realm. It would be an easier thing if those we came to befriend shared our ideas of justice and order, but we must take our allies where we find them and as we find them. We must compromise if we would see the long night of Chaos brought to an end.’

  ‘Yes,’ Brannok agreed, ‘there is no need to remind me of our duty, or my role in it. Yet it is difficult to divest myself of foreboding. We have appealed to a malignant power in hopes of setting it against a greater evil.’

  ‘Place your trust in Sigmar,’ Kreimnar advised. ‘Do not forget that Nagash was once a part of the God-King’s pantheon and walked at his side.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Brannok said. ‘My fear is that Nagash has.’

  The dracoth’s head plunged beneath the muddy waters of the creek, emerging an instant later with a crocodile impaled upon his fangs. Gojin shook his head from side to side in a violent burst of ferocity, cracking his prey’s spine and reducing it to an inanimate mass hanging from his jaws.

  ‘Drop it,’ Makvar told his steed. The Lord-Celestant walked beside the enormous reptile, slogging through the muck. It had always been his maxim that a true leader didn’t spare himself the travails of his warriors but instead shared in them. While his Stormcasts were forced to trudge through the slime, Makvar didn’t have the heart to keep warm and dry in the dracoth’s saddle. That his knights wouldn’t begrudge their commander such comfort only hardened his resolve to shun it.

  Gojin glanced back at Makvar, a snort of irritation spraying from his nostrils. The dracoth was too obedient to protest his master’s command, even if he didn’t understand the reason for it. With another shake of his head, Gojin sent the broken carcass crashing onto the embankment.

  Makvar watched the carcass, observing the eerie animation that crept back into its sinews and set its long tail thrashing against the weeds. After a moment, it raised its head, oblivious to the broken vertebrae protruding from its scaly hide. Soundlessly, the crocodile slid back into the creek and sank beneath its scummy surface.

  ‘See – you don’t want something like that in your belly,’ Makvar cautioned his steed. The dracoth shook his horned head, long tongue rolling across his fangs as though to rid himself of the aftertaste of the would-be meal. Makvar patted his steed’s neck, reassuring him that he would find cleaner prey soon.

  Makvar was certain the dracoth would find no such fare within the Mirefells. The further the Anvils pressed into the wasteland, the more nebulous the distinction between life and death became. On the fringes of the swamp, the demarcation between living flesh and necrotic corruption was readily apparent. Now it was all blurred together, flowing into a confusion of fecund growth and morbid decay. Swarms of hideous blue flies pestered shrivelled toads that snapped them up in turn. Bloated rats gnawed at the stems of yellowed weeds, only to have vampiric stalks wind around their throats and draw the blood from their furry bodies. Bedraggled crows pecked away at the rotted organs of cadaverous bats only to have the creatures suddenly erupt into violence and sink their fangs into the birds.

  Somewhere in this ghoulish desolation, Nagash declared they would find the Mortarch of Sacrament, Arkhan the Black. Makvar knew little about the ancient liche-king beyond his name and title. There were legends, nay myths, about the skeletal warlock and his mighty sorceries, but he preferred information of a less lurid and imaginative nature. To question Nagash directly would have been to undermine the impression of staunch confidence and unwavering commitment Makvar hoped to convey. If his mission was to succeed, it was vital to make the Great Necromancer appreciate the formidable nature of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. He had to see for himself the benefit of numbering the Stormcasts among his allies and the danger of making the stormhosts of Sigmar his enemies. Anything that might suggest weakness was something Makvar couldn’t afford to risk.

  The Lord-Celestant turned his head, following the progress of Lord-Castellant Vogun as he sloshed through the sluggish water. The azure light glowing from behind the shutters of his warding lantern was a stark reminder to Makvar that Nagash needn’t look too hard for evidence of the Stormcasts’ strength. Neferata and her vampires could scarcely abide the revivifying glow, much less the purity of Huld’s celestial beacon. As he had witnessed for himself during the fighting in Nulahmia, the arcane spark that animated lesser undead could be extinguished simply by prolonged exposure to the holy luminescence.

  ‘I think Gojin might swallow first and ask later the next time,’ Vogun said as he drew near Makvar. The Lord-Castellant had his gryph-hound, Torn, slung across his shoulders, carrying the beast well above the boggy mush of the creek. Torn seemed to appreciate the indulgence extended to him by his master, tail wriggling contentedly against the Stormcast’s back.

  ‘Then we will learn how well your healing light serves a dracoth’s indigestion,’ Makvar retorted. He scowled at the swamp around them. ‘Though I confess, I doubt anything could conspire to make this place smell worse.’

  ‘Never tempt the gods,’ Vogun warned with severity. After a moment’s thought, his voice grew still more sombre. ‘Especially when you march in company with one.’

  Ahead of them, the Stormcasts could just see the ancient skeletons of Neferata’s army marching around the next bend of the creek. The bone warriors lacked grace in their movement, but at the same time, they showed no sign of being slowed by the mire. The Anvils prided themselves upon their stamina and endurance, but the undead legions were truly indefatigable. Neither hunger nor weariness caused them to waver in their march. So long as a greater will exerted its influence upon them, they would never stop. And there was no will more formidable than that of the Great Necromancer himself.

  If there was an antithesis to the comforting glow of Vogun’s lantern, then it was the aura of dread that rose from the ancient bones of Nagash. Makvar didn’t need to see the Lord of Death to be aware of his presence. It was a phantasmal taint that sent a shiver through the soul, a spectral hiss just at the edge of his hearing. To a Stormcast Eternal, the sensation provoked a heightened wariness, but in mortal hearts, Makvar expected the feeling would provoke nothing short of terror.

  ‘It is a great and terrible force that we court,’ Makvar told Vogun. ‘It is precisely because Nagash is great and terrible that Sigmar seeks to draw him into alliance. If the legions of Shyish stand with us when we assault the Allpoints, it will be the turning of the tide. Archaon will suffer a defeat from which he will never recover.’ />
  Vogun shook his head. ‘Can we trade the corruption of Chaos for the depravity of the undead? You saw the outrage and cruelty in Neferata’s city. From your own lips, I have heard of the madness within Schloss Wolfhof. My faith in Sigmar is as unshakable as your own, Lord-Celestant, but I confess, I lack the wisdom to reconcile myself to these injustices.’

  ‘To save the many, sometimes it is needful to sacrifice the few,’ Makvar said. ‘That is the hardest lesson to learn, but it is the first any leader must accept. Truth isn’t always pleasant, and necessity is sometimes as ugly as what it seeks to overcome. Should the hordes of Archaon prevail, should the dominion of Chaos extend yet further into the Mortal Realms, it will mean the extermination of all. Existence itself would be devoured, sucked down into the infernal madness of the Realm of Chaos. All light, all order would be extinguished, and only the dominion of the Ruinous Powers would remain. Beside such horror, even the evil of the undead would be a thing to be welcomed.’

  A motion among the bushes along the embankment drew Makvar’s attention away from Vogun. His fingers tightened around the grip of his sword, ready to draw should some denizen of the swamps more formidable than a crocodile choose to show itself.

  Instead, what emerged from the undergrowth was a lissom maiden arrayed in a simple gown of web-like silk. Her pale skin was nearly as colourless as her white raiment, and she shielded her eyes from the rays of Vogun’s lantern. Makvar recognised her from the grisly dinner in the ghoul-court. She was one of Neferata’s handmaidens, a vampire thrall named Kismet.