The skaven ranks began to retreat — pulling back from the apparition that faced them. W’soran’s hiss reverberated across the pass, and snow and ice tumbled from the high crags to crash into the ruin. Then he howled and death flew from his fingers and mouth. Skaven died in droves, burnt, boiled or blasted aside. With a shriek that would have frightened even the great bats of the depths, W’soran ploughed into the skaven ranks, lashing out with whips of flame and blades of shadow. He did not bother to raise the dead; he had no need of them. He fought alone — he had always fought alone. Bodies tumbled and spun about him, sent hurtling into the air by his frenzied magics. The air was full of blood and fear-musk.
The abn-i-khat sang in his veins and burned in his blood as he washed the life from the mountain pass. They had taken his refuge from him, but he intended to see that they paid for it in full, measure for measure. So intent was he on this that he barely noticed what effect his slaughter was having on the pass in which the ruined fort crouched.
With a thunderous roar, several tons of ice, snow and rock plummeted from the upper reaches of the pass and speared down onto the ruin, shattering what was left of the palisades and bunk-houses. Skaven screamed as they were buried beneath the avalanche. W’soran stood, the power draining from him as he let the rock and ice crash around him.
He felt relief, but no fear. Was that what Ushoran had meant, so long ago on the coast of the Black Gulf? Was this what it felt like, when the fear was burned out of you?
His last sight, before the darkness consumed him, was of the shadow over Mourkain.
Epilogue
The Worlds Edge Mountains,
(Year -223 Imperial Calendar)
As the darkness cleared, taking his jumbled memories with it, W’soran’s remaining hand snapped up and clamped against Melkhior’s throat as the latter’s jaws descended. Blood pumping from his torn throat, W’soran locked gazes with his treacherous acolyte. ‘Webs within webs,’ he gurgled. Melkhior’s eyes widened as he realised his danger, but too late. He grabbed for W’soran’s wrist, but couldn’t break his grip.
In the end, W’soran had figured it out entirely by accident. It was ironic, and painfully so, but by that time, he hadn’t cared. The secret of immortality had come so easily, in that white-hot moment of fear in Ushoran’s palace, though he had not realised it until much later. And not simply that secret, but all of the mysteries which had plagued him had become clear in those disjointed moments as he had faced his enemy, and then fled.
It was about death. More, it was about the fear of death. There was a great power in fear, this he had always known. But through fear had come clarity. It was fear that had shown him the path to true immortality. The fear that had been his bane since childhood had shown him the way, at the last.
The answer had been in front of him the entire time. The body — the mortal flesh — was an anchor and in the case of himself, an anchor that could not be dislodged from its place without extraordinary effort. Vampires, liches and wights — every undead thing was a ghost haunting its own mortified flesh. And it was only when that spirit was in danger of being freed of its anchor that true immortality beckoned.
He had seen that for himself with the wraiths dragged from the mutilated flesh of necromancers. The spark of their power remained and blossomed into something beautiful once freed of its restrictive meat. Why should the same thing not be possible with W’soran himself? But try as hard as he might, the key to unlocking that power remained elusive. Until Mourkain, until he had felt the fear of destruction — the fear of the final darkness.
It was fear, the mortal fear of death, that motivated men like Morath, whether they admitted it to themselves or not. It made them learn, experiment, and evolve in ways that creatures like W’soran could not, frozen as they were in time like flies trapped in amber.
While W’soran lived, he could never truly attain the immortality — the power — he desired. Only in dying could he become the master of death. That was Nagash’s secret — to transcend death and fear, one had to be consumed by them, like a disease burning itself out.
You have finally proven useful, my son, W’soran thought, as I have always suspected you would. His blood mingled with Melkhior’s as they struggled and he read his acolyte’s thoughts with the ease with which he might have read a book or scroll. Images flared and faded as he plunged through the shadowed recesses of Melkhior’s mind.
He saw the aftermath of that final ambush near Crookback Mountain, and saw Melkhior being dragged from the icy tomb of the pass by Neferata’s servants. By then, W’soran had been long gone and far away, having burned his way free of the snow and rock. They had taken Melkhior back to the Silver Pinnacle, where Melkhior had traded on his knowledge of his master to buy himself a few more years of life.
What did you promise them? Did you kneel at Neferata’s feet and claim to be able to drain my secrets from my corpse? Did you swear that in devouring me, you would learn all that I knew and employ it for Neferata’s benefit? If his throat hadn’t been a gaping ruin, W’soran might have laughed. He almost admired Melkhior’s sheer stubborn refusal to admit defeat. It was one of the few things they had in common.
Ah, but we both know that you had no intention of giving her what she wanted, did you, my son? Melkhior’s thoughts whirred and flitted like frightened birds as W’soran spoke into his mind. You spent years hunting me, hounding my trail, and for what? To give up what you learned to her? No, you have never been one for sharing, have you? She must have seen that. That is why she sent her hounds with you — to see that you returned. Did you think that you would fight them? That you could win? Or was the thought of servitude nothing next to your petulant desire to defeat me, and to prove yourself the master?
He had had time to think, in his years of isolation. Not all of his acolytes had died — some had been smart enough to flee the battle at Mourkain or Melkhior’s madness, and they had found him in the wilderness and he had begun again. But not because he intended to play the game, no, he knew better than that now.
This fortress, even himself — it was all bait.
Were you impressed with my acting skills? Did you even wonder why I desired the books now, when I had ever before been willing to sacrifice them for my safety? Of course you didn’t, because you never understood that they are merely tools and of little consequence to one such as I. Bait, Melkhior, bait for the beast, bait for the trap, he thought, bait for you, my most faithful son!
He had learned his lessons. Before, he had been drawn in and spitted on his own hubris. He had made too many enemies, shown too much of his power. They knew him now, his foes. They had drawn him from his den, and seen his teeth and claws, and they would not rest until he was caged or dead.
He had been caged enough for one lifetime. That left death, the ultimate escape.
Webs within webs and plans within plans; flight had always been his preferred option, regardless of what he told himself. Why do you always run, that had been Ushoran’s question.
And the answer was… survival.
To outlive and outlast his enemies was the only vengeance worth the name. Contests of strength were for warriors and brutes and W’soran was neither. He had been fooled, for a time, into thinking he was, even as Nagash had, but unlike Nagash, he knew better now. Power — true power — was not measured in heads on posts or kneeling foes, but simply in being the last man standing. To win ultimate victory, all one had to do was wait for a time. All one had to do was persist.