Across the stable, several Strigoi were receiving the same treatment. In the years since the Battle of Black Water, more dissatisfied vampiric noblemen had crossed the high peaks, looking to join the Bloodytooth in forming a new and better empire. Not many, true, but enough to provide W’soran with a coterie of experienced commanders whose thirst for battle was only rivalled by their annoying tendency to vocally, not to mention loudly, wonder when Vorag was coming back to lead them in glorious final battle with the forces of the usurper, Ushoran.
Thus far, W’soran had only had to kill two of the newcomers. At a remove, of course, but he had overseen their destruction as surely as if he had pierced their hearts himself. If he had learned one thing from his time in Mourkain, it was that troublemakers should be removed immediately before they could upset the spice cart. Ushoran was paying for his leniency in that regard even now.
‘And what plan would that be, my master?’ Melkhior asked, watching as W’soran wrung out his sopping robes. ‘The plan where you conquer the east, using Vorag as your weapon, or the plan where you conquer Mourkain, while Vorag is busy elsewhere?’ He made a face. ‘Or, perhaps is it some plan which you have yet to deign to share with me, your most loyal acolyte?’
‘Speaking of troublemakers,’ W’soran muttered.
Melkhior blinked and asked, ‘Master?’
W’soran gestured airily. ‘Nothing, my son. The plan is as it has always been. We proceed apace and on schedule. Our citadel stands, despite greenskins and treachery, our armies grow steadily, and our enemies grow weaker.’ He glanced at Melkhior. ‘Speaking of our enemies — how is our guest?’
‘Which one do you mean,’ Melkhior snorted, ‘the rat or the witch?’
‘Both, either,’ W’soran said with a shrug.
‘The same,’ Melkhior said. ‘The rat almost died a few months ago. It tried to swallow its tongue. I stopped it. It’s been… restrained, for the moment.’
‘And the woman?’ W’soran asked.
‘Little change there,’ Melkhior said. ‘She is still unconscious, though her wounds have healed. She is no longer as lovely as she once was, however.’ He seemed pleased by that. Given his own degraded appearance, W’soran could understand, though he was slightly disappointed in Melkhior’s vanity.
They left the stables, W’soran leading the way. They ascended the curving steps that coiled about the innards of the mountain like the interior of a conch shell. Undead sentries tromped past, their glowing eye sockets scanning the rock walls for any signs of infiltration. As they ascended, the acolytes were joined by W’soran’s scribes — dwarfish, crooked, broken things, made from the remains of goblins, skaven and men, wrapped in sackcloth and cowled, carrying heavy rolls of papyri on which they scratched out W’soran’s words for posterity.
He had conceived the idea early in his bid for empire. A true history of Mourkain, its master and the events surrounding its rise, fall and return beneath his iron rule, from his unbiased perspective, with the musings and philosophical quandaries which had brought him to his path. It would be a true liber necris — a book of the dead, for the dead. He would not countenance the lies of Neferata or Abhorash to taint his new world. He would not let their deranged philosophies infect future generations.
Not that there would be future generations, as such, but nonetheless, only W’soran’s words would be remembered. His heroism in Mahrak and Lahmia, at the Battle of the Hot Gates and in the struggle for Nagashizzar would be remembered, as would his great discoveries in the arts of sorcery and the natural sciences. He would write a new, glorious history, even as he trampled the old into the dust. Poor W’soran — never respected, never feared; but no longer. He would no longer be poor W’soran, a tattered carrion crow flapping in the wake of others. He would be the new Undying King, for a silent, perfect world. And he would cast the old king down soon enough.
‘What of Ullo? Has he reported in from the Black Water?’ W’soran asked as he clasped his hands behind his back. ‘And Arpad as well — he should have completed his pacification of the settlements along the Blind River.’
‘Both have sent riders. And Tarhos has joined up with the Draesca. He claims that the entirety of the Vaults will fly our banner within a few more months,’ Melkhior said sourly.
W’soran heard the sour note and smiled thinly. ‘You doubt our brave captain?’
‘Tarhos is barely better than the savages he’s leading,’ Melkhior said. ‘Even when he was alive, he was reckoned one of the stupidest ajals in the empire. Being undead has not noticeably improved his cunning.’
‘Harsh words,’ W’soran murmured. ‘Still, as long as he keeps those tribes that still bear allegiance to Mourkain and Ushoran on the back foot, he serves a useful purpose. Too, the slaves he’ll send us will fill our mines nicely.’
‘We are still playing for time, then?’ Melkhior asked.
W’soran ascended a few more steps before replying. He gazed up at the eternally-burning, yet never-consumed skeletons that cast a weird light across the vast stairs. They were held in great cages chained to the dips and nooks of the stone walls and wreathed in a sorcerous fire that never went out. He and his kind did not truly require the light, but it was somehow… comforting. A visible, simple reminder to himself of the power he wielded. He admired his handiwork a moment before replying. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Strigos totters, but it is not yet ready to fall.’
‘And in the interim, Ushoran grows stronger,’ Melkhior said harshly. ‘That daemon-crown he wears grows stronger.’
‘Ah, I see you have finally resumed your studies,’ W’soran said, looking down at his acolyte. ‘And what have you learned, hmmm? What gleanings have you gathered from my knowledge, eh?’
Melkhior glanced at the other acolytes, and then at the crouching scribes before replying. ‘I know that while Strigos may falter, our true enemy only grows more powerful. Do you fear him… master?’
W’soran blinked. Then he smiled. ‘What are you implying, my son?’
‘Why are we playing a waiting game?’ Melkhior flung out a hand. ‘We have the strongest army in these mountains. We are the greatest sorcerers and the Strigoi will flock to us, even with Vorag’s absence! Even the Lahmians would join us, if we made tacit reparations. We could close the trap and finish this charade!’
‘Could we? Or would we merely hasten our own defeat, eh? The Lahmians — and the Strigoi too, don’t doubt it — would turn on us the moment Ushoran was toppled from his damnable throne,’ W’soran said, descending towards Melkhior. ‘Yes, Ushoran grows stronger and more sure of his new power, but so too do we.’ He spread his arms. ‘Let him rise, unbridled and roaring like Nagash reborn, then, and only then we will meet him in a clash of death, in dead lands, from which only one will emerge the victor. They will all see then, Melkhior. They will see our might, and know fear.’ He made a fist and exposed his fangs in triumphal sneer. ‘Only then, will our foes know our power, and bow to us.’
‘You… you want him to tap into the full power of that damnable crown?’ Melkhior asked.
‘Of course,’ W’soran said. ‘If this is war — if I am to be emperor — I must prove myself to be the strongest, the fittest to rule. By my brain, my strength and my sorcery, I will be declared the master of death, and none will gainsay me. I will defeat Ushoran, and impose my will on the others in the doing of it. I am owed that much, for my services and struggles, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You’re mad,’ Melkhior hissed, forgetting himself in his shock.
W’soran let the comment pass. ‘No. I am efficient. In Mahrak, we had a saying… take the tail, you only anger the serpent. But take its head… ah.’ He held up a finger and twitched it with pedantic precision. ‘The thing that drives Ushoran crouches just past the skin of the world, pressing its talons against it — it is nothing but will without mind, intent without intelligence. It is not Nagash, but simply the last shreds of the power that grew in him. I intend to let that power in, then finish it for good. Otherwise… what is the purpose of immortality, eh? What is the purpose of an eternity of fearing such a thing? No! Let Ushoran drape himself in Nagash’s might. I will kill him. I will break his black soul on the charnel rack of the Corpse Geometries and smash down the sour light of that foul crown for all time. I will take every secret, every forgotten thought from Nagash’s creation and make it mine — as they always should have been! I was his student! I was his heir — not that fool, Arkhan, and certainly not Ushoran! And I will not have that which is mine to claim taken from me by an inferior mind,’ W’soran rasped and chopped the air with a stiffened hand. Abruptly, he calmed and straightened, lowering his hands, and said, more quietly, ‘I am owed this.’