W’soran hunched forward in his saddle and cackled as the zombie-dragon smashed into the inner gates of Mourkain, a cloud of noxious gas spewing from its bony jaws to engulf the warriors who cringed back from it in horror. Its ancient talons gouged the stone, sending rock tumbling down into the river below. Its serpentine neck whipped back and forth, and its pestilential breath spread across the wall and into the gatehouse, killing men in their dozens.
The Strigoi warriors screamed and tore at their armour as it corroded, and their flesh, even as it sloughed from their bones. W’soran gestured and a rippling bolt of black sorcery tore through a watchtower, ripping the edifice from the wall and dropping it down into the gorge below to crash into the raging waters.
Satisfied, he flexed his will and the dragon pushed away from the wall with a rasping cry. It was not a natural sound and it affected those who heard it almost as badly as the zombie-dragon’s breath had done. The monster flapped its tattered wings once, twice and then it was barrelling upwards through the smoke-choked night air.
Below him, the siege of Mourkain spread out in a gore-stained panorama. The city was surrounded by a heavy wooden palisade in concentric and ever-shrinking rings that jutted from the rocky slope. Smoke rose from within, striping the air with greasy trails. The decaying bodies of Draesca tribesmen had been impaled on great, greased stakes lining the approaches to the city.
Bone-giants battered at the palisade, killing men with every sweep of their great khopesh or spears. Ushabti crafted from bone and clay and rotting meat stalked through gaps the giants had already made, followed by hunting packs of ghouls and crypt horrors. The sky was filled with swarms of bats, both of the normal variety and the titan monstrosities that he had wrenched from their slumber in the depths. Squalling, screeching monstrous bats smashed into the watchtowers and high barricades, their quivering spear-blade noses sniffing out any defender whom they might devour.
Within the palisade, a great stone gateway rose, blocking access to a wide bridge of thick wooden logs that led to a second, smaller gate. Beneath the bridge, the river crashed and snarled, and even at this distance he could feel the spray. As W’soran cackled in glee, his wights led skeletal legions towards the bridge as quickly as their dead legs could move. The outer gates could be controlled from within the city proper, as long as the ropes held. And if the ropes were cut, the stone gates would remain closed and the bridge sealed off. The Strigoi on the inner walls had been intent on doing just that when he’d attacked. Now they had no time.
He looked beyond the wild river that separated the palisades from the inner fortifications, towards the ancient stones where what might have been the remnants of some long-ago destroyed wall rose up, linked anew by newer stone fortifications put in place long ago by W’soran’s own servants. He found it to be the height of irony that those same servants would now tear down all they had built.
It had taken almost three years for his forces to fight their way through the lines of fortifications that marked the Plain of Dust and surrounded Mourkain in its mountain fastness with a ring of stone and iron. Ushoran, ever the keen student, had plucked inspiration from the four compass points, mingling the military styles of Nehekhara, Cathay and even the terrifying strongpoints devised by the dwarfs — hard-to-reach isolated towers, firmly anchored to the rock and packed with supplies and armaments for a hundred men. For three gruelling years, W’soran had led his nightmare legions past each defensive line, smashing them one after the other. In that time, he had faced numberless enemy necromancers, northern mercenaries and dozens of Strigoi — Gashnag’s peers, spouting childish incantations as they sought to match his mastery of the winds of death. None had done more than distract him. W’soran now wore a necklace of fangs to match his necklace of wyrdstone, and the still-aware, still-screaming heads of his vampire enemies hung from his standards like strange fruit. But none of them were the enemy he truly wished to face.
‘Where are you?’ he hissed. His free hand found the abn-i-khat amulets hanging from his throat and the urge to swallow them was suddenly overpowering. Soon, soon he would need them. Ushoran would not be able to resist this assault. Everything was going just as he had planned. His legions were without limit, his forces mightier even than those of Nagashizzar at its height, and soon, he would prove his mastery over the pitiful spark of Nagash that thought to impose its wretched will on the world.
‘Master, is it? Who’s the master now, eh? Who is the master, Nagash?’ he snarled, spitting the words down at the black city below. The streets of Mourkain were like lines drawn on parchment, crossing one another over and over again. The city was a spiral of stone, with crude thatch huts and lean-tos giving way to more sturdy stone dwellings and finally the great buildings that seemed to form the heart of the city. The streets were choked with the smells, sights and sounds of a thriving, vibrant metropolis under siege.
The citizenry — those who weren’t on the walls — fled, seeking shelter away from the forefront of battle. There weren’t so many of these; the Strigoi were a warrior race, even their women knew how to handle blades. Haphazard barricades were being thrown up at intersections and the dead who had entered the city were being thrown back, oft-times by other corpses, these animated by the magics of the Mortuary Cult. Dead men clashed in the streets in a gruesome gavotte, and the city itself seemed to shift in contentment.
Something had always been in this place, whether its name was Mourkain or not. It was a city in the same way that Lahmia had been, grown over centuries by generations, spreading first behind the river and then over it. As he swooped past the gates once more, he looked up and saw that its bulk was punctuated by hundreds of alcoves packed with skulls. Some of the skulls were brown with age, while others glistened white and clean. They were the skulls of Mourkain’s enemies. As he passed by them, he gestured, and horrible fires blossomed in the depth of each eye-socket. Mourkain was a sump of dark magic, and it was easier here than most places to raise the dead, especially those who still burned with some small ember of hatred for Mourkain and the Strigoi.
The skulls, which were now mounted on new bodies composed of shadows and dark flame, squeezed from their alcoves and began to climb the walls. They slithered up over the walls and gate and fell upon the Strigoi defenders, burning and tearing at them. W’soran laughed wildly as his mount landed heavily on the gatehouse. He stood in his saddle and cast out a hand, ready to drag the dead defenders to their feet to join his ranks.
But… something prevented him. The bodies twitched and jerked, but did not rise. W’soran hissed angrily, and he twisted in his saddle, following the delicate skeins of interfering magic back to-
‘Morath,’ he snarled.
Morath of Mourkain, necromancer and nobleman, stood on the wall, surrounded by a flock of Mortuary Cultists, all garbed in black. Morath was much as W’soran remembered him, if a bit thinner. He had been handsome once, had Morath, but now he was like a knife that had been over-sharpened, all sharp angles and gestures, and his robes and furs flapped about him as he chanted hoarsely, incanting in W’soran’s direction.
A flurry of flaming orbs streaked from the corona that sprang up around Morath’s gestures. W’soran swiped at the air, snuffing the deadly comets before they reached him. Something akin to pleasure filled W’soran as he watched Morath begin to gesture anew after barely a moment’s hesitation. ‘Oh, Morath, you do me proud, my son,’ W’soran called out.
‘No son of yours, monster,’ Morath shouted back. ‘I am a son of Mourkain, and Mourkain alone!’ He flung out both hands, and the gathering shadows cast by flame and moon swirled about W’soran and his mount; tendrils of purest darkness grabbed at the zombie-dragon, and the corpse-monster croaked a challenge. W’soran reached out and grasped one of the tendrils and let his will thrum through it. Morath gave a wail as control of his spell was torn from him, and he staggered.