He looked down at them. His other acolytes cowered behind Melkhior, who looked fairly uncertain himself. The scribes continued to write, unheeding. ‘Do you know what it is like to see the face of divinity and have it ripped aside to expose the flawed, weak thing within? They say — or said, rather — that that is what happened to Nagash. That he saw that the gods of the Great Land were not truly gods, but simply… powers. And that he could rival them in their power, and in knowing that, he thought them weak and pathetic.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘Nagash was no more a god than those ancient powers. He was not infallible, or omnipotent. He was a stupid, crippled thing, addicted to these stones,’ he continued, gesturing to his amulets of abn-i-khat, ‘and addicted to his spite. And he is dead and that of him which remains is nothing but a nightmare that I will disperse to claim my due.’
They were strong words, words for posterity and words of power. They were lies. He knew that they were lies, even as he spoke them. An errant memory bubbled to the surface, even as he spoke: a memory of Ushoran, sitting across from him, asking him what he feared.
He had not answered then. He did not truly know the answer, nor, in truth, did he truly understand the question. There was much to fear in the world. As his power grew, so too did the fear. The fears of the mighty were far greater than the fears of the weak. He felt contempt for Nagash, but he also feared him still, though he was long gone from the world. He feared the one being that he could not fight — could not even confront, as he had confronted others.
That fear gave Nagash power over him still, even now. Perhaps that was the real reason he stalled and dithered and waited. The thought struck him like a bolt from the blue, a moment of realisation that made him more tired than any battle or contest he had yet faced.
‘Enough. A good student should ask questions, Melkhior, and answer them. How go the mining operations in the depths?’ he asked, changing the subject.
Melkhior coughed and straightened his robes. ‘Satisfactory, we have thousands of slaves — both dead and alive — down in the pits, mining the ores we require. If — when — Vorag returns, he’ll have a treasury greater than any yet seen by the kings of these mountains. Iron ore as well, and quarried stone for the fortifications we will build.’
‘Excellent. I think your services as an overseer far outweigh your abilities as a sorcerer, Melkhior,’ W’soran said mildly. He began ascending the stairs once more. ‘With what’s left of the Red Eye tribe added to the slave pens, our production capabilities will increase dramatically. Not to mention our raw materials…’ He smiled gleefully. ‘Oh, the things I will make.’
‘And what of the weapons you promised Vorag so long ago, master? When will you create them?’ Melkhior asked, shushing another acolyte.
W’soran didn’t pause. ‘Oh, I never intended to do that,’ he said, gesturing airily. ‘No, we’ll strip those engines of their secrets, but we have no need of such crude ballistae. We can craft more reliable war engines from the materials at hand. I simply wanted to study them, and distract Vorag from his obsessions.’
‘As opposed to yours, you mean,’ Melkhior snapped.
W’soran laughed. ‘Oh, you are in a rare mood aren’t you, my son. Accusing me of cowardice, and then of being obsessed…’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘One would think you’re feeling left out of the war-mongering.’
‘I should be at your side!’ Melkhior said. ‘Not here, in this stone kennel. Let Urdek or one of these others keep your books and catalogue the mine proceeds. Let me loose, master, and I will lead your legions into the heart of Mourkain.’ Several of the other acolytes murmured assent. They were as eager to be rid of Melkhior as he was to be rid of them.
‘Would that I could trust you to do so, my son,’ W’soran said, mock-gently. ‘But your way of waging war is too savage for my plans. You would attempt to gut the beast, before properly bleeding it. You have no patience.’
Melkhior opened his mouth, as if to protest. Then, with a grunt, he fell silent. W’soran nodded in satisfaction. ‘Maybe there is hope for you yet,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me — our envoys to the ogre tribes and the dawi of the eastern wastes… have they returned yet?’
‘The dawi have agreed to provide us with arms and armour, in return for slaves,’ Melkhior said. The dawi — or dawi zharr, as they called themselves — were an odd lot, quite unlike the stern rulers of the mountain deeps. It had been a lucky accident when his legions had stumbled across them. They were vile creatures, with a penchant for casual cruelty that W’soran could almost admire. But they made wonderful arms and armour; things far better than the crude armour crafted by his dead smiths. The armouries of Mourkain were full of wargear manufactured in the workshops of the Silver Pinnacle previous to Neferata’s usurpation of the mountain hold from its previous owners. W’soran intended to match that with dwarf-forged weaponry of his own.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘We’ll send out the first caravan this month. And the ogres?’ he added.
‘I believe they ate our envoy,’ Melkhior said.
‘How many does that make?’
‘Sixteen,’ Melkhior said.
W’soran grunted. The ogres rarely travelled far west enough to trouble the tribes of the mountains, but when they did, nothing but death and destruction followed in their wake. They were fearsome beasts, and all the more so if they were under his banner. ‘Send another,’ he said.
Melkhior nodded. ‘Should we send riders in pursuit of Vorag?’
W’soran hesitated. Then, ‘No.’ He did not elaborate. Let Melkhior draw his own conclusions. They continued their ascent until they reached the uppermost levels of the mountain. W’soran forced Melkhior to run through everything that had occurred in his absence; even the smallest of matters did not escape his notice.
By the time they reached his laboratories, W’soran’s keen mind was scheming anew. Plans always sprouted more plans. Neferata wasn’t the only one who could spin webs within webs. When he entered his chambers, the smell of Arabyan incense and spoiled meat coiled about him. He closed his eyes and inhaled, tasting the sour scent of the dark magics that stained the stones after almost a century of experimentation.
When he opened his eyes, his gaze was drawn immediately to the cage hanging from the ceiling, where Iskar crouched, watching him with his new, glittering eyes. W’soran had plucked the skaven’s ruined orbs from their sockets and replaced them with new ones, cultivated and grown in a febrile tumour of flesh kept alive by a serum crafted from powdered abn-i-khat and vampire blood. Iskar’s eyes looked like faceted emeralds, and they cast a sickly glow on anything the ratkin looked at. It hissed silently, baring its rotted fangs around the strange leather and iron muzzle that simultaneously pinioned its jaws and trapped its tongue. Drool dripped from its maw and dried foam coated the corners of its mouth.