W’soran could respond with only a gurgling snarl. He saw Stregga moving in on him from the side, and Khemalla as well, circling him as Layla drove him back. Behind them, Faethor gave a despairing howl as the relentlessness of the true dead won out against the ferocity of the near-dead. Spears pinned the Strigoi to the wall, puncturing his heart and skull. W’soran flung out the hand that had been clutched to his throat, spattering blood across Layla’s face. She reeled with a cry of disgust. W’soran sank beneath Stregga’s blow, and the Lahmian’s sword drew sparks from the tunnel wall. She grunted as W’soran crashed against her, knocking her from her feet.
W’soran whirled, barely countering a blow from Khemalla. The three Lahmians were all on their feet again, and closing in. He swung his scimitar in a wide circle. He was stronger than they, but they were better warriors, and faster. They were hemming him in, keeping him from concentrating for even a moment. Neferata had schooled them well in how to combat sorcerers. The Strigoi were falling back. They had realised that they were alone, and unsupported. The tunnel was shaking now, and the rocks were grinding loudly.
Khemalla shrieked like a banshee and lunged. Her blade skidded along the side of his cuirass as she sought to spit him. Layla darted to the side, climbed the wall, and leapt down, her blade smashing against his pauldron, and he was sent spinning about by the force of the blow. Stregga’s blade chopped down into his forearm. W’soran screamed.
Then, at last, the roof caved in. The returning Strigoi were blotted from sight by the falling rocks. Stregga pulled back for another blow and gaped upwards as the world fell in on them.
W’soran seized his moment. He slithered through the falling rocks like a striking snake. His talons pierced the flesh of Stregga’s throat and he coiled around her with every iota of speed he possessed. Then, with a hiss, he bit down on the other side of her neck, savaging flesh and cartilage, and finally bone, as her black blood — Neferata’s blood — pumped down his throat.
He swallowed Stregga’s final scream as the tunnel fell in on them. Amidst the thunder of rocks and the growl of the mountain, he slapped his palm down flat on the ground and the shadows swirled about him like a swarm of insects. Ghostly scarabs the colour of oil and the grave fluttered around him with a sibilant clatter, their phantom shapes somehow protecting his thin one from the falling rocks. The scarab-jars he had used to escape his enemies in Nehekhara were long gone, but the fluttering spectres of the insects that had been contained in those jars were still his to command, bound to him by unhallowed rites and the force of his own will. They protected him now, their constantly moving forms deflecting the rubble that pounded down on him, creating a cone of safety.
The last rock fell with a crash. It had been his intention to simply allow the skaven to bury his problems for him. The Lahmians had forced him to get his hands dirty. Dust stung his eyes and nose as he slid his fangs from Stregga’s throat. She flopped limply from his grip, her eyes opaque and white and her once lush form withered and thin. He had drained her dry. Her vitality coursed through him, adding to his own and filling him with a feeling of invigoration that left him feeling slightly light-headed. It warred with the old familiar fear of being buried, numbing it.
W’soran paused for a moment, looking down at the corpse, searching for any hint of life. There was none. If a vampire could be said to have met the true death, Stregga had. Perhaps he would tell Vorag that the skaven had taken her captive. A slow grin pulled at his thin lips. Yes, that would be amusing.
The forms of the scarabs faded like an evening mist and he drew his cloak to him. He pulled his amulets from beneath his cuirass and rubbed one with his thumb. It had been years since he had eaten one, but he already felt the craving, almost as strong as his thirst for blood, rising in him. It was like an itch he could not scratch. A soft whisper, just out of earshot, tempting him, reminding him of the power that could be his, if he had but the courage to take it. Stregga’s blank eyes glared at him contemptuously, as if she saw his hesitation and mocked him for it. ‘Your mistress has tried to kill me more than once, witch. And she has failed this time, as she has failed in every other attempt,’ he said to the body.
‘She… only… needs… to… succeed… once,’ a voice coughed, startling him. He turned, and snorted in amusement. Layla had been attempting to reach him, perhaps to save her sister-in-blood, or perhaps simply to take advantage of the distraction Stregga’s death provided. She had been caught in the collapse, half-buried in the rubble. Her head and one arm protruded from the tightly packed rocks and dark blood stained the stone in a cruel halo about her pale flesh. More blood coated her chin and streamed from her nose and eyes. Even with the weight of the mountain on her, the Lahmian still somehow lived. ‘Just once, old monster,’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Yes, but perhaps she will think better of it henceforth, eh?’ W’soran said, sinking to his haunches in front of her. Still clutching his amulets in one hand, he reached out with his other and grabbed her crimson-stained hair, twisting her head up and to the side so that he could examine her face. ‘Especially when her hunting beasts do not return to their kennel, bearing my scalp,’ he said. ‘If your mistress bothers to rip your screaming spirit from the audient void to question you, you will say this — no more running. W’soran of Mahrak makes his stand here. In this place, I will build my own Lahmia, my own Nagashizzar. A city of the new dawn and corpse winds, wherein I shall build the chains that will drag down this fallen world and make of it something perfect. I will show both Neferata and Nagash for the frauds they are and were, mewling things demanding titles that are not their right. I spit on queens and grind kings beneath my heel, witch.’ He yanked on Layla’s hair, eliciting a grunt of agony. ‘You will tell her this, when you next see her,’ he snarled. ‘Your noisome shade shall pass my words on to your queen, squatting in her tomb.’
He released her and stood. There were half a dozen amulets dangling from his long fingers and they seemed to pulse in time to the beat of sour blood in his head. He stared at them, half in longing and half in fear. The first time, there had been no choice. It had been the wyrdstone or entombment, perhaps forever. But now he had a choice. He could escape without them. He was not injured this time.
He looked about him, and felt the closeness clawing at the edges of his mind. He fought it down, wrestling the gibbering terror that clung to him like an unwanted passenger into a box in the back of his mind. ‘I’m not afraid,’ he hissed. ‘I’m not.’ His words sounded petulant, even to him.
This wasn’t about fear this time. It was about expediency. That was all. He needed power. The amulets provided power. And what they took in return, he was willing to sacrifice. He had ever done so, so why hesitate now? He held the amulets up and examined them. The darkling glow of them was comforting at first glance, but it grew less so, the longer he looked.
He needed power, if he was to do what needed doing. He hissed and opened his jaws to skin-splitting width, and dropped the amulets in, one after the other. Fire burst along his mummified nerves, greater than before. His shrivelled muscles swelled and his eyes bulged as a daemon-heat was kindled within him. It happened more quickly than before, and he was almost overwhelmed. Oily smoke issued from his pores, wreathing him in a cloak of foulness. His hands twitched jerkily as he sank to his knees, wheezing and hissing. The mountain seemed to press down on him from all directions — he could feel its weight in every nerve and on the tip of every hair.