While his undead troops converged upon Bistra, a new disturbance drew Vanhal’s attention. Through his witchsight, he could see the black cloud of sorcery drawing down from the north. Before the first skeleton marched into sight, he knew the nature of what was coming. Even as mortal kings must struggle over their domains, so his arcane power had drawn a rival to contest his might.
Dourly, Vanhal waited while the rival force marched ever closer. The other necromancer possessed some skill; the spells that had cloaked his army’s advance for so long proved that even more than the immense size of that army. There were tens of thousands of zombies and skeletons in that host, far beyond the capability of a mere dabbler in the black arts.
In eerie silence, the undead troops struck Vanhal’s battle line. Rusted swords chopped down into desiccated flesh, corroded bludgeons smashed rotten skulls. The intruders stormed across the outer ring of Vanhal’s army. It was a weird, ghostly fight, devoid of blood and screams. No cries for mercy or shouts of triumph, only the march of bony feet and the cleaving of decayed flesh. Deathless, fearless, the two undead hosts collided.
With reluctance, Vanhal drew his forces away from Bistra to confront this new foe. He watched as the intruders continued their violent advance, biding his time as he studied the tactics of his enemy and attempted to judge the extent of his magic. There was a callousness and arrogance in what he saw, an almost sneering contempt that bespoke either supreme ability or colossal over-confidence.
At last, as the intruders were storming across the fields, Vanhal found what he had been waiting for. In the midst of the horde was a great black coach drawn by skeletal steeds. Seated within the coach, wrapped within the folds of a black cape, was his rival. Vanhal could see the streams of power coursing through the other necromancer, could sense the enormity of the aethyric energies he had harnessed. Strangely, the very magnitude of that power emboldened Vanhal. The sorcerer was an amateur after all, despite his pretensions. No truly knowledgeable practitioner would dare invest such a magnitude of power within his own body. Simply looking at the man, Vanhal could see his own power eating him, withering his flesh and thinning his hair. Every breath he took leeched his essence of an hour. Simply by withdrawing from the field, Vanhal could overcome his enemy.
Pride refused such action. It had been pride that drove him into exile as a boy, set him on the path that would bring him to Sylvania and ultimately to embrace the black arts. Pride did not relinquish its hold now. Exerting his will, Vanhal set the multitudinous legs of his palanquin scuttling across the fields towards the decayed ranks of the enemy. At the same time, he stretched forth his hand and focused his will upon the carcasses lying strewn behind that advancing horde. Drawing upon his magic, Vanhal concentrated upon the little wisps of spirit energy escaping from the twice-slain corpses, gathering them together, knitting their disparate energies into a single whole. Bit by bit, he drew the wisps into a monstrous energy, a phantom juggernaut of howling spectres. Ghastly faces gibbered and screamed from the ectoplasmic colossus, skeletal arms clawed and groped from the swirling mass. Like the surge of some ghostly hurricane, the spectral host crashed through the ranks of skeletons, scattering them like leaves before a storm. The black coach was pulverised, its deathly chargers shattered into bony shards, its passenger flung through the air.
Vanhal saw his rival crash amidst the splintered wreck of his conveyance, sensed the expenditure of energy that preserved him from more serious harm. Closing the fingers of his hand, Vanhal drew the raging spirit-storm back upon the necromancer, directing its full fury against him. Ghoul-fires and ghost-lights flashed from the embattled necromancer as he strove to defend himself against the phantom tempest. In his panic, he neglected the great army he had summoned.
Vanhal did not forget them. Maintaining the spirit host, he was still able to direct his own undead legion. Steadily they cut a path through the intruders, each wisp of essence speeding away from the destroyed husks to replenish the energies of the spectral storm raging around the necromancer.
Bit by bit, Vanhal could see his rival’s great power waning. Before the sorcerer’s energies could falter entirely, the spirit host was dispersed by an unspoken command from the former priest. By now, Vanhal’s legion had cut completely through the intruding army. As the swirling apparitions faded into nothingness, a vanquished foe found himself staring up at a palanquin fashioned from animated bone, and a masked man clad in the habit of a Morrite priest.
‘When you die,’ Vanhal told the defeated necromancer, ‘your flesh belongs to me.’
Raw terror filled the man’s eyes. ‘Spare me, great master!’ he pleaded. Frantically, he dug beneath his robes to produce De Arcanis Kadon, holding the book towards his vanquisher.
Vanhal’s eyes narrowed behind the skeletal mask, his lips moving as he silently read the hieroglyphs on the cover. ‘What is to prevent me from simply taking the book from you?’ he asked.
‘This book contains all the secrets of Kadon,’ the man announced. ‘I came to seek your help unlocking its secrets. Much… much of it is beyond my comprehension,’ he admitted. ‘It may even be beyond your skill,’ he added, then hurried to continue. ‘Together, perhaps, with our combined knowledge…’
Vanhal raised his hand, and a bony arm emerged from the face of his palanquin to snatch the tome from the man’s grasp. Shifting through the mass of the palanquin, the arm finally thrust itself from the skeletal floor beside the necromancer, holding the book for him as he perused it.
‘I will allow you to live,’ Vanhal decided, still studying the bloody pages. ‘Not because of your gift, or because I am impressed by your mastery of the black arts.’
The other necromancer stared in frank astonishment at Vanhal, disbelief in his face. ‘Why then do you spare me?’ he asked.
Vanhal looked away from the tome, fixing his new apprentice with a weary gaze. ‘I need someone to talk to,’ he confessed.
‘Someone I didn’t conjure from the grave.’
Chapter IX
Middenheim
Ertezeit, 1118
There was deception about Kurgaz Smallhammer’s name. The weapon clenched in the dwarf’s brawny hands was taller than he was and nearly equal to his own weight. Gromril runes were etched into its massive head, flowing across it in an intricate spiral of heritage, tradition and magic. Drakdrazh, it had been named in the long ago, crafted by the ancient runesmiths for the War of Vengeance. Wyrms had died beneath that hammer, their reptilian skulls shattered by the force of runemagic and dwarfish determination.
After the War of Vengeance, Drakdrazh had never again been inflicted upon such tremendous foes, a circumstance that provoked endless grumbling around the hearths of the Smallhammers. For generations, the family had been forced to settle for lesser enemies, adversaries unworthy of facing them in battle, unfit to stand before the might of Drakdrazh.
As Kurgaz brought his hammer swinging around, the gromril runes burned with eldritch fire. The effect when the weapon connected with his foe was an apocalyptic spectacle. The creature didn’t crumple, didn’t collapse. Instead, its carcass was splashed across the wall in a welter of black blood and furry meat.
The magnitude of the skaven’s destruction brought shocked silence to the subterranean gallery. Dwarf and ratman alike paused in their battle, their attention riveted by the thunderous clap as Drakdrazh slammed into its victim. The obliteration of the unfortunate ratkin sent a thrill through all who witnessed it. For the embattled dwarfs, it was a fiery rush of exhilaration. For the skaven, it was the stuff of raw terror.