Without releasing Melkhior, he glanced back at the archway and the fallen rocks that now blocked it. ‘You will dig that out. Dead, those orcs will likely make better slaves at any rate. Then you will bring the levels of production back up to my standards. I will be taking half of your remaining forces with me when I depart. Now, any parting words for your poor burdened master?’
He released Melkhior and threw him to the floor. Melkhior glared up at him, and rubbed his bloody jaw. ‘If — if you take half of my forces, I will not be able to hold off the skaven, let alone supply you with your gold…’
‘Oh, I’m certain you’ll manage, my son. It would have been easier, had you a few of your fellows to help, but… well,’ W’soran said with a shrug. ‘One must make do with what one has, eh?’
‘You… you are more powerful than I am. Let me go in your stead. With you here, the skaven will not dare attack, and I am more than capable of-’
‘Of course you’re capable, my boy,’ W’soran said, looking down at him. ‘That’s why I left you here. You are much too useful for me to risk you on the battlefield. Why, if I lost you, who would guard my laboratory or my books? Though, it must be said, you’re not very good at the former.’
Melkhior flinched. He made no effort to get up. ‘I have always been loyal, master…’
‘Loyalty is worthless if the source is useless,’ W’soran said, turning away. ‘You are useless, Melkhior, and you always have been. So greedy for my favour that you fail to see that I despise you. And I despise you, because you are wasteful, Melkhior. You break what is still useful, like a child throwing a tantrum.’ He stopped, and glanced over his shoulder. ‘The only reason that I don’t kill you now, boy, is that you have made yourself indispensable, if in a thoroughly roundabout manner. I am running out of time, and simply by existing in this moment, you have become useful.’
He raised a talon, like a parody of the pedantic tutor he had once been, and said, finally, ‘But use is finite. And though it would pain me, if yours should ever run out entirely, I will flay the foul hide off your crooked bones myself.’ He turned and continued on, his wights following silently.
As he left Melkhior sitting in the darkness, W’soran called out, ‘Use is finite, my son. Prove you still have yours!’
Chapter Fifteen
The City of Mourkain
(Year -850 Imperial Calendar)
‘This is madness,’ W’soran snapped, slapping aside the record books and scrolls that occupied the table. He shot to his feet as they fell to the floor. ‘They’ll never believe it, let alone forgive old grudges.’
‘They will, because we have what they want,’ Ushoran said mildly. He picked up a handful of the gold that W’soran’s dead servants had clawed from the dark vaults beneath Mourkain. It had taken decades to find those vaults, but the legions of well-preserved dead entombed by mad, bad Kadon were now once more hard at work, building Ushoran a war-chest that outstripped even the wealth of long-lost Lahmia at its height. ‘Gold is what interests the dawi, and only gold.’
‘You forget honour,’ Abhorash rumbled, standing nearby, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed down at the pile of maps that Ushoran’s cartographers had been hard at work crafting for the better part of two years. The edges of those maps were still hazy, but, if you squinted, and the light was good, the rough outline of an empire became somewhat visible.
It was only the three of them in the chamber of Kadon’s pyramid that Ushoran had designated as his war-council. That was not unusual, though it had grown rarer as the years passed and they began to recall just how much they actually disliked each other. But initially, Ushoran had seemed to welcome the awkward camaraderie — indeed, he seemed almost desperate for it, and W’soran, despite himself, could not blame him. In the deeps of the mountains, a black voice tolled again and again, urging them on and whispering malevolently seductive promises. He recognised that voice, even if Ushoran did not, and it made him frequently question his reasons for acquiescing to Ushoran’s request that he join him in the benighted land.
‘I forget nothing. I merely disregard it in this instance. Mourkain — Strigos — has forfeited honour, to the dawi way of thinking. A change of leadership will not change that. All that is left is this shiny bit of promise,’ Ushoran said, examining a nugget. ‘And this, they want. They crave it, as we crave blood.’ He tossed the nugget onto the table and sniffed. ‘So we will extend the proper invitations and see what comes of it.’
‘Idiocy,’ W’soran said, leaning forward and balancing on his knuckles. ‘Why beg what we could borrow, why borrow what we can take, eh?’
‘Why take what will be freely given?’ Ushoran asked. He glanced at Abhorash. ‘What of the northern frontier?’
‘The daemon worshippers come in great numbers, but they are… fragile,’ Abhorash said, his arms crossed, his face set. ‘I can drive them back, given time and men. Once a few of their champions lose their heads, they’ll scurry back to their wastes.’
‘And what of the devils that accompany them, eh?’ W’soran sneered. ‘Will you chop their heads off, champion?’
‘I rather thought that you might help him with that, old monster,’ Ushoran said, pulling a map towards himself. ‘Unless, of course, you have finally learned what you need to know from Kadon’s scribbling to acquire for me my crown?’
W’soran froze and he noticed that Abhorash did the same. Both vampires traded a glance and then looked at the Lord of Masks. For a moment, just an instant, something seemed to hunch over Ushoran, something infinitely massive and terrible, and the torches set into the walls hissed and flickered as if that same something were drawing the heat and light from them.
Oh yes, it had its claws deep in him, no doubt about it. The question was, did it want him? Or was Ushoran merely… a substitute?
Everything about the place seemed to press down upon him as he stood there, as if it sought to force him to crawl before it. The voice — his voice — was louder now, murmuring constantly, just behind his thoughts. An aura of darkness clung to the stones and his bones felt brittle and cold within their envelope of weak flesh.
Death coiled waiting in this place. But waiting for what — or whom — he could not say.
W’soran licked his lips. ‘Not — ah — as yet, Ushoran,’ he said.
‘Lord Ushoran,’ Ushoran corrected. ‘We must observe the proprieties, W’soran. I am a lord now… but I will be a king soon — an undying one and a great one, as soon as you fulfil your part of our bargain, old monster.’ His eyes flickered, as if something lean and hungry moved behind them, jaws agape and mind athirst. ‘Get me my crown, W’soran, so that I might remake this world into a better one.’
The City of Mourkain
(Year -260 Imperial Calendar)
Mourkain was burning. The city was alight with a hundred fires as its walls shuddered beneath the weight of the siege that encompassed it. Smoke rose into the night sky in thick plumes as the screams of dying men and the roar of battle rose to mingle with it in the heights. Bats wheeled and flapped across the face of the moon and the air was full of wailing spectres and howling spirits.