The skaven flopped limply to the snow. It was clad in white sack-cloth and its pale fur was encrusted with ice. Its blood cut canyons in the snow as it twitched and expired. His good eye widened and he looked around, sensing more than seeing its companions approaching. He gaped as he realised that there were hundreds of the ratkin creeping through the snow towards him and that they had likely been watching him the entire time, readying themselves to attack.
The skaven had long memories. They had sent an army for him; not just the white-clad killers, but armoured, black-furred warriors, and heavy-limbed rat ogres as well. They moved through the ruin, eyes fixed on him. The rat ogres rattled their chains and bellowed in anticipation of the blood yet to be spilled. Hundreds of ratkin moved towards him with but a single goal. He wondered, as he faced them, if he should have been flattered.
Slings whirred and bullets of silver struck him, burning his skin and cracking bone. W’soran staggered, screaming. ‘Kill them,’ he shrieked, but his wights did not move. They stood as stiff and as still as statues, their eyes glowing dully. His magics snapped and coiled about them, stymied by an unseen presence, and he gawped, off-balance and unprepared. Another sling-bullet caught him on the back of the head and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, his body racked with pain.
This was how it ended, then. The whole of it, shaved down to this sharp point of time. This was to be how W’soran of Mahrak died… butchered by vermin within sight of his citadel. It was almost poetic. He grimaced. He’d never liked poetry.
The skaven crept closer, some drawing blades. Others stayed at a distance, crouching on the rocks or the ruined palisade, their slings ready. Then, a sharp, raspy voice barked a command and the skaven froze. W’soran looked up. A hunched, crooked figure drew closer, stalking through the snow, wrapped in heavy furs. Its eyes blazed a sickly shade of green within the hood it wore. Armoured talons held its mangy furs tight about it, and a scarred, hairless snout protruded from its hood. W’soran recognised those scars, and the carefully shaped eyes of abn-i-khat that glared unblinkingly down at him. ‘Out of time, man-thing,’ Iskar hissed.
W’soran was astonished that the creature was still alive. Its features within its hood were more bone and brass than flesh and the gauntlets it wore over its crippled paws were seemingly less for protection than to hold its aged limbs steady. ‘The mountain is ours,’ it continued, a worm-like tongue dancing over its teeth. ‘All of this is ours.’
W’soran shoved himself to his feet. ‘Is it, then?’ He looked around. ‘Is that what Neferata has come to now? Making bargains with vermin against her old allies?’ he asked loudly.
Iskar laughed in a weird, high-pitched voice, the skaven’s crippled body shuddering with its mirth. That laughter was met and matched by the falsetto giggles of the women. W’soran gnashed his teeth in anger.
‘You make enemies the way some men make wagers,’ a woman said, striding forward through the swirling snow. ‘Foolishly and with no intention of paying debts.’ She was clad in thick furs that did little to hide the scars that covered her arms. In one hand, she loosely clutched a spear, its wide blade edged in silver. Her voice was muffled by the mask of silver she wore beneath a headscarf of crimson wool. The mask’s expression was beautiful, yet stern, but behind it, her eyes burned with raw hatred. ‘Is it any wonder that your creditors come together, to force recompense?’
W’soran stared at her without replying. She gestured to her mask. ‘Admiring your handiwork, monster?’ she asked. ‘I am as you made me.’
‘Layla,’ W’soran muttered. ‘Ha.’ A thin, crooked smile spread across his face as he looked her up and down. ‘I thought you were destroyed. Then again, I assumed you were dead as well,’ he added, shooting a look at Iskar. ‘Ah, poor foolish W’soran, to be haunted by old mistakes…’ he began, mock-wretchedly.
‘You ruined her,’ the second voice spat. W’soran turned to see the Lahmian called Khemalla striding through the ranks of skaven, followed by the crimson-haired Iona. Both Lahmians wore furs and carried swords. ‘You broke her and flayed her and the sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle will make you pay for every drop of blood you squeezed from her flesh. You will pay for her pain and for that of Lupa Stregga as well, old monster!’
‘Ha!’ W’soran barked. ‘Come then, come and take your pound of flesh, hags and vermin.’ He turned slowly, casting his one-eyed glare about him. He spread his arms. ‘Here I stand, beaten and helpless. Poor W’soran is at your mercy.’
‘Beaten, possibly, but helpless? I doubt that.’
W’soran gave a grunt and turned. A black cloaked shape was trudging towards the fort. The skaven made way for it, and W’soran didn’t need to see its face to recognise it. The moment the wights had disobeyed his commands to attack, he’d known that only one other will could vie with his for control of the dead, even as fatigued as he was.
‘Melkhior,’ he growled. ‘I wish I could say that this is a surprise, that I expected you to die like a proper acolyte, defending my citadel, but…’
‘But I am, as ever, a disappointment,’ Melkhior said, stopping a respectful distance away. ‘I have endured variations of that observation for centuries, as well as other abuses by your hand.’ He looked around, his grisly features splitting in a needle-fanged grin. ‘I thought you were the mightiest creature in the world, when Ushoran first bid me serve you. And I served you well — I fought for your praise, the way you taught me. I made myself indispensable. The others were weak and I disposed of them for you, and you called me wasteful. I followed you into exile, and you showered praise on that traitor Morath. I guarded you from assassins and treachery and I was repaid with distrust and insults. And now, at last, I gain my own back. Today, master, you die.’
W’soran didn’t reply. Melkhior chuckled wetly and began to circle him. ‘This was all my doing, you know.’ He motioned to the skaven and the Lahmians. ‘I was forced to resort to more oblique means of maintaining your citadel for you, old monster. Are you not proud of my ingenuity?’
‘If you displayed any, I might be,’ W’soran said.
Melkhior snorted. ‘I made allies of enemies and all for the cheap price of… you. I bought myself time, just as you taught me. I bought myself peace.’ He looked back at the distant shape of Crookback Mountain. ‘What need have I of fortresses and mountains?’
‘They were not yours to give,’ W’soran said.
‘Nor were they yours to keep — Vorag, remember? The true heir to Kadon’s throne,’ Melkhior said. He tapped his malformed skull. ‘Your authority is based on lies, old monster. Plans within plans, webs within webs, but what happens when the web is torn, eh?’ Melkhior stopped moving and pointed at W’soran. ‘While you marched on Mourkain, I weaved my own webs. Better and stronger than yours — the skaven are quite willing to make a deal, if the terms are beneficial. And with the skaven as intermediaries, I made overtures to old friends…’ He gestured to the Lahmians. ‘And now, here, at the end of all things, your death is assured.’ Melkhior grinned widely. ‘I have beaten you. Me — I beat you!’
‘Did you?’ W’soran asked. ‘I don’t think so. In fact, I rather think that you have misjudged the situation. Is that not right, Lahmian?’ He glanced at Iona, who frowned.
‘Silence, monster,’ she said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Melkhior snarled.
‘Oh Melkhior, have I not told you time and again that Neferata is perfectly willing to subordinate her desires to her needs?’ W’soran grinned. ‘She needs me. She needs my power. Neferata is not wasteful, like you. She may bury me away, in the dark, but she will not kill me. She needed me to defend Lahmia, and she needs me now to help her defend her new kingdom. They are not here to kill me, you fool… they are here to kill you.’