‘Why?’ Ushoran asked, speaking up before W’soran could.
‘She is contained. It is enough. I will not surrender her to slavery or death,’ Abhorash said.
‘Those are her only options, Abhorash,’ Ushoran said, stepping forward. ‘Why are you protecting her? She will not appreciate it.’
‘And she should not. She is a queen. It is my duty to protect her, while she lives. I could not protect her from herself, but I can protect her from you,’ he growled. ‘You will not turn her over to the Usurper.’
‘And if we insist?’ W’soran asked. Power crackled between his hooked fingers. He was almost happy that it had come to this. He had waited for years to match himself against the brute.
‘Don’t,’ Abhorash said softly.
W’soran hissed and flung out his hands. He spat an incantation, and Abhorash reeled as he groped for his blade. W’soran knew, on some level, that this was a mistake. Attacking a killer like Abhorash was tantamount to suicide, a small part of him screamed. But another, larger part of him was determined to rip the look of mockery from Abhorash’s face. The champion had never feared him, never respected him. Well, he would respect him now.
Obsidian-hued lightning curled from W’soran’s fingers, stretching towards Abhorash. The champion jerked like a marionette, but refused to fall. A snarl rippled across his features as he staggered forward, his blade springing from his sheath. W’soran backed away, goggling as Abhorash pressed towards him. Steam rose from his rapidly blistering skin, but Abhorash refused to retreat. The tip of his sword closed the gap.
W’soran gave a gasp of relief as Ushoran crashed into Abhorash’s back. Ushoran moved like lightning, coiling about the warrior. His human face had bled away, revealing the beast beneath. Talons that could puncture armour and bone with ease sank into the champion’s shoulders, and his muzzle dipped towards Abhorash’s throat.
W’soran’s relief was short-lived, however. Abhorash roared, grabbed Ushoran’s muzzle with his free hand, tore the Lord of Masks from his back and hurled him into W’soran, knocking them both sprawling. Abhorash leapt towards them, blade raised. Only Ushoran’s quick recovery saved them, and he dragged W’soran aside as the blade came down, cracking the floor.
The three vampires faced one another silently, as the dust settled. Abhorash smiled tightly at them. ‘If you run, I will not kill you,’ he said.
‘The day you kill me, warrior, is the day I deserve to die,’ W’soran spat as he scrambled to his feet, Ushoran at his side. ‘I’ll flay the flesh from your treacherous bones!’
‘No,’ Ushoran said, forcing W’soran’s hand down. ‘No. We are finished here.’
‘What?’ W’soran barked, looking askance at his ally.
‘We are done,’ Ushoran said, looking at him. ‘She is contained. That is enough.’
‘But-’
‘I only attacked him to save your miserable hide, W’soran, so shut up and kindly allow me to do so,’ Ushoran hissed, jerking him away. He turned to Abhorash. ‘We will go, champion. But you have made enemies this day, when you could easily have had allies.’
‘I think I’ll live,’ Abhorash said. The sneer in his words rattled in W’soran’s head as they made their way from his palace…
Crookback Mountain
(Year -320 Imperial Calendar)
The skaven squealed as Vorag bit down on its head. His powerful jaws cracked the creature’s skull and the helmet that supposedly protected it. The Bloodytooth tossed the twitching body aside, his jaws and chest covered in dark blood. He roared, and the line of skaven flinched back as one. He wore neither armour nor furs, and his flesh was corpse-grey and pulled taut over inhuman muscle.
It had been a year since Vorag had lost his woman, and in that year, he had scoured the skaven from the mountain, from crag to canyon, from peak to root, butchering them in his rage. Now, the skaven defended their deepest warren — the last warren of Crookback Mountain — as Vorag and his snarling Strigoi made to fall upon them.
W’soran watched from within his bodyguard of hulking, scar-covered crypt horrors as Vorag slung another skaven into the air with a backhanded swipe. The line of black-furred beasts was crumbling beneath the relentless assault of the Strigoi and the slavering ghouls that bounded at their side. W’soran watched and chuckled. He rubbed his hands together, thinking of what secrets might be housed in the warren. He felt certain that it would contain breeding pens, at the very least.
Still chuckling, he extended a hand and unleashed a sorcerous blast at the shrieking wolf-rat that lunged at him. Hundreds of the berserk quadrupeds had been released as the Strigoi pressed their assault on the remaining tunnels — a last-ditch defence. They attacked both sides in their fierce hunger, however, and as many skaven as corpses had fallen to their bestial appetite.
More bounded towards the knot of mammoth ghouls, who growled warningly and clutched their great hammers and clubs more tightly in anticipation. As always, their pointed, ape-like heads had been sealed inside bronze cage-helms, to lessen their chances of biting their masters, and their bulbous, malformed torsos were protected by crude studded cuirasses of banded bone and leather. One gave a shrill roar and slapped a leaping wolf-rat from the air with its maul. W’soran left them to it, and turned his attentions back to Vorag’s efforts.
The skaven had their own warlords and war-chiefs and it was one such, clad in heavy armour and wielding a sword and a hooked war-pick, that bounded forward to meet Vorag in the centre of the blood-slick cavern, accompanied by its bodyguard. The creature was larger than most of its kind. W’soran wondered whether that was due to blood or simply having access to more food than its followers. It wore a crested helm and back-banners reminiscent of the horsemen of the eastern steppes, and a spiked ball was mounted on the end of its tail. Foam gathered at the corners of its mouth, indicating that it had consumed a number of the strange potions and brews that the ratkin employed to circumvent their instinctive cowardice.
Vorag met it with a howl. He ducked beneath the slash of its cleaver-like blade and gouged canyons in its cuirass with his claws. The creature bounced off him. The war-pick sank into Vorag’s thigh and he roared in pain. Nonetheless, he jerked aside as the tail-ball swung towards his head. He slapped aside the sword and grabbed for the beast. He only managed to snag a handful of its helmet crest and his howl of outrage was audible over the sound of battle.
Finally, he caught the tail-mace in his palm and held tight, ripping the creature from its feet. He swung it up and brought it down, spine-first, against the cavern floor with a shuddering crump. The creature lay, breathing heavily, obviously broken, as Vorag tore the pick from his thigh and sent it slicing down into the skaven warlord’s chest. Crouching over the squealing creature, Vorag shucked it of its armour and flesh, digging open its chest in a bid to extricate its heart. When he’d reached the morsel, he plucked it free and stood, holding it aloft. Then, with the air of a starving man, he shoved it into his mouth and tore it to shreds.
‘He’s lost all sanity,’ Melkhior hissed as the grisly scene played out. His features were hidden within the folds of a heavy hood, to hide the still-healing burns that further marred his unpleasant countenance. He and Zoar had defended Vorag in the skaven’s final assault on the citadel’s central cavern, and had suffered for it. The skaven had unleashed new weapons that vomited wyrdstone-created flames and had, with unerring accuracy, apparently caught both Melkhior and Zoar with them. When W’soran had arrived, at last, to that final battle, he had been greeted by the sight of his ghoul-borne palanquin burning like a merry torch, and his oldest remaining apprentice screaming in his death-throes as he clawed at his burning flesh.