‘I’ve got more than that,’ Gashnag said. ‘Some of us are not fools, old man. And sorcery isn’t so difficult when you’ve got centuries to learn it in.’ Then, as if to twist the knife, he added, ‘And Morath is a much better tutor than you ever were.’
W’soran snorted. ‘You always were an arrogant fool, Gashnag.’ Gashnag gestured and more fire splashed across the air mere inches from W’soran’s face. Behind him, the corpse of his steed flopped over and twitched. ‘Sorcery is not a bludgeon, it is a scalpel.’ The horse’s hide split, peeling away, and its carcass opened like a flower as bones and organs uncurled and spread. Gashnag shouted crooked words, trying to hook the winds of magic to his will, to pierce W’soran’s mystical defences. ‘It is a subtle art, requiring skill and will in equal measure — neither of which you possess in any great quantity.’
The flopping horse-flower fell upon Gashnag with a convulsive heave, hunks of flesh and chains of bone wrapping about the vampire’s limbs. He yelped in surprise, and turned. He tore at the thing as it bore him down. Spears of splintered bone punched through his shoulder and belly, piercing his mail with sorcerous strength as slithering organs sought to tighten about his head. W’soran watched intently, his hands clasped before him.
‘To manipulate the winds of death requires the temperament of an artist, and the patience of a philosopher. Any fool can learn to bark a few incantations, if his blood is sour with the stuff of dark magic. Ushoran’s bite might have given you the ability, but you will never know the true power of it all,’ he said, raising his arm. The effluvium of the battlefield rose at his gesture — blood and offal swirled about him in a foul cyclone. The bodies of Gashnag’s men twitched and jerked, rising. ‘Not even Morath will know, for he is too frightened to see. He fears the power, when he should embrace it.’
Howling ghosts rose from the blood-soaked soil, both ancient spirits from battles centuries old and the recent dead, and sped towards W’soran. He glanced at them, seeing the black strands of magic which bound them to a trio of approaching riders. They bore the tattoos of the Mortuary Cult, and they wore flapping furs and bronze skull masks. They galloped towards him on their stubby Strigoi steeds, gesticulating and shouting, racing to Gashnag’s aid. Gashnag tore at the thing holding him captive, struggling to get free, as the spectral host surrounded W’soran and slid over him like shadows, unable to reach him thanks to the swirling cloud of battlefield detritus. W’soran looked around without concern, ignoring the moaning phantoms.
The battle had collapsed into a disorganised melee. The living fled from the dead, and the Strigoi lines had collapsed. His followers were pursuing their defeated foes with gleeful howls or grave silence. He smiled as the spirits of the departed approached him, followed by their summoners. They needed to salvage Gashnag. Ushoran likely didn’t have many generals left, given the defections and deaths. Not that Gashnag was much of a general. W’soran chuckled. In a way, letting the vampire escape would hurt Ushoran more than help him. ‘Fine,’ he said, decision made. ‘A trade, then.’
He cocked a hand and then snapped it forward, as if hurling a spear. The typhoon of blood and offal swirling about him shot forward at the gesture, hurtling towards the approaching necromancers like a rain of gruesome arrows. Bits of bone and boiling blood pierced their bodies, plucking them from their saddles and dropping them to the ground. ‘Three talented students for a brute, a good trade, eh, Gashnag?’ he said, glancing at the vampire as he tore his way free of the horse carcass. They locked eyes through the swirling cloud of ghosts and W’soran said, ‘Run away, Gashnag. Tell Ushoran that I’ll be along shortly.’
Gashnag ran. Not quite with his tail tucked between his legs, but close enough. He sprinted for the trees, avoiding battle, joining his men in harried flight. W’soran raised a hand and caught the loose threads that bound the ghosts that continued to swirl about him like a semi-sentient fog bank, and he stalked towards the trio of necromancers. All three were quite dead, and he examined the fading glimmer of the magic that had inundated them. ‘Yes, three for one is quite fair, I think,’ he said.
He stretched out his hand, stirring the embers of their magic the way a man might stir a campfire. He had not seen fit to craft any more such creatures as those he had summoned that day when the Lahmians had come for him. Their presence had annoyed him on a spiritual level, their proximity grating on his senses like a file on iron. He had freed those wraiths, but had remembered and refined the method behind their creation, like a blacksmith hammering out imperfections.
Words slipped from his mouth. The words were meaningless, a vocal focus as all incantations were, stabbing his will into the corpses at his feet, stirring the ashes of their souls into white-hot fury and drawing them forth in a cataclysmic display of power. As before, so many years ago, that power burst from the bodies like coruscating clouds of inky darkness. The ghosts that fluttered about him seemed to shrink back from these new spirits. If the dead could be frightened, the bound souls of dead necromancers would be the thing that did so. He watched the things gain shape and form and sniffed in satisfaction.
‘Mighty magics indeed, my lord,’ a voice growled behind him. W’soran turned to see Chown riding towards him. The Draesca king’s body and armour were covered in blood, and his great mace dripped a trail as it dangled from his grip. The bat-winged helm seemed to pulse with a satisfied hum upon his white-haired head, and, as ever, W’soran examined it closely, peering up at it, wondering if the piece of him that lurked within it had yet flowered into malign sentience. ‘I would know those secrets,’ Chown continued, his eyes glowing with an eerie light. Then, a moment later he added, ‘If it would please you, my lord.’
Yes, there’s definitely something of me in you, man, W’soran thought in amusement. ‘In time, oh mighty king, you shall know this and many things besides.’ He gestured to the blood that coated Chown’s mace. ‘Victory, then, I take it?’
‘Victory and death,’ Chown said, grinning fiercely. ‘The dogs of Morgheim have fled the field, and my riders harry them. We shall hunt them to the very walls of their lair and bring them to battle, my lord.’ Around him, the dead kings of the Draesca seemed to groan softly in agreement, and their glowing eyes sought out W’soran. He met their gazes and raised his hand in benediction, and the dead seemed to sigh.
‘Aye, that we will, King of the Draesca, and soon to be Lord of the Vaults,’ W’soran said. Chown’s face betrayed his surprise and pleasure. W’soran smiled thinly. ‘Emperor Vorag has sworn it, and as his castellan, I shall ensure it. You will be lord of those mountains, though we must scour them of life.’ Chown gave a grunt of satisfaction. The barbarians were easy enough to placate, W’soran reflected, and their wants were minimal at best. He could easily take back his gift at a later date, should he so desire, after all.
Ullo and Arpad rode towards him, the former holding a knot of heads by their scalp-locks. The slack jaws of the heads sagged, revealing their fangs. By the condition of them, it appeared that Ullo had simply ripped them loose from their owners’ necks. He held up the gory trophies and his black eyes glittered. ‘Ushoran must be desperate if he’s reduced to employing such thin-blooded weaklings. These pups barely had five decades apiece. They were no sport at all.’
‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing,’ Arpad said, grinning. ‘I prefer an easy fight, me.’ He twisted in his saddle, looking around. ‘That’s what this has been from the first.’
‘Too easy, maybe,’ Ullo said, examining the heads, as if trying to glean an answer from their vacant stares. The black gaze flickered to W’soran. ‘What do your magics tell you, sorcerer? Is the empire dying?’