Incensed, Mannfred glared at the man. ‘I know only that you are a relic of a newly dead world. What use have you now, eh? A statesman without a state, a tyrant stripped of his power. A dead man would be more use than you, Karl Franz, last of the rotten house and failed potentate that you are. I dub thee Fumbler of the Faith and Lord Lackwit,’ Mannfred said, making the sign of the hammer in mocking fashion. The Emperor looked at him, and Mannfred lowered his hand. Smoke rose from his fingers, and he shook his hand to disperse it. Even now, the symbols of Sigmar held some power over him.
‘You have no power in that regard, thankfully,’ Karl Franz said. ‘Only one vampire was named elector, and he does not stand before me.’
Mannfred blinked. For a second, he was tempted to cross the distance between them and tear out the man’s throat. But he restrained himself. Now was not the time to be drawn into foolishness. He licked his lips and looked at Malekith, pointedly ignoring the human. ‘You commanded that I speak my piece, so I shall, mighty elf-king.’ He swept out his arm to indicate the maggoty host stretched across the horizon. ‘Great Nagash, Lord of the Underworld, Undying King and Supreme Lord of All Dead Things, wishes to parley.’
Arkhan the Black watched Mannfred confront the last rulers of the living world, and thought how, under different circumstances, the army spread out around him would be here for different reasons. Instead of a triumphal siege, however, they had come seeking allies in a last-ditch gamble.
The thought elicited some amusement. In life, he had been a notorious gambler, and a champion of debt; that was how Nagash had first caught him up in his schemes of empire. And here he was at the last, wagering what little he still had in one last great throw of the dice. He reached up and touched a charred spot on his robe. The black mark was in the shape of a hand – the hand of the Everchild, Aliathra of Ulthuan. In her final moments, before Arkhan had slit her throat, the elven princess had struck him. Something had passed between them, though he could not say what it had been. Whatever it was – curse, blessing or something in between – it was still within him. And it was growing stronger.
Arkhan looked up, examining the wheel of stars and the tortured heavens. They held no answers. The music of the spheres had become discordant and painful. Auguries showed only falsehood, and the oracular spirits spat gibberish, even when Nagash himself questioned them. The underworld was in disarray, and the gods of men were dead or diminished.
The Great Work was undone. An eternity of careful preparation, of strife and conflict, all for nothing. The thought did not weigh as heavily as he’d feared it might. In truth, it was worth it, if only to see the Undying King at a loss. Though his mind and soul had long been bartered away to Nagash, some flicker of the man he had been yet remained. Some sliver of that cynical, acid-tongued wretch, with his black teeth and gaudy robes, still lingered in the husk of him, and was, perhaps, growing stronger as Nagash’s attentions were diverted to more important matters. And that fragment, that ghost of a ghost, was amused to no end by the predicament that Nagash had found himself in.
‘Irony is a beautiful thing, if you are not its victim,’ someone said, close beside him. Arkhan looked around. He was surrounded by a flock of robed and hooded adherents – liches, vampires, necromancers – all students of the Great Work. Mortuary priests, disciples of poor, dead W’soran, and those few surviving living practitioners of the Corpse Geometries, all gathered together now at his discretion. But the one who had spoken was none of those things – he was as unique as Arkhan himself. He wore a hooded cloak, concealing his identity, but there was no hiding the warrior’s build, or the aristocratic posture.
‘I was never one to indulge in the misfortunes of others,’ Arkhan said.
The hooded figure gave a bark of laughter. ‘You forget – I have played dice with you, Arkhan. I know exactly what sort of man you were – and still are.’
‘And what sort of man are you?’
‘One who honours his debts.’
Arkhan turned away. ‘It is a shame that you could not reach Averheim in time. You might have turned the tide.’
The hooded figure looked at him. ‘It is a shame that our lord and master failed to heed me when I suggested that we muster in defence of the Empire. And now look where we are. The last place any of us, especially him, wanted to be.’
‘Which him are you referring to? Nagash… or your hapless progeny?’
‘Both, I think,’ Vlad von Carstein said. ‘But Nagash especially. Mannfred knows that failure breeds opportunity as well as, or better than, success in the right circumstances. Nagash, I think, does not.’ The vampire looked towards the towering shape of Nagash, his expression speculative.
‘Nagash cannot conceive of failure. To fail would imply that he made a mistake. To admit that would unravel all that he is, was and will be,’ Arkhan said.
‘And would that be so bad?’
Arkhan leaned against his staff, skull pressed to its length. ‘For better or worse, Nagash is as close to a god as remains to this dying world. To remove his certainty would be to cripple him, and by extension, condemn us all.’
‘Arrogance set him on his path, and arrogance will see him through,’ Vlad said. He shook his head and sighed. ‘More and more, I wonder if Mannfred is not his truest servant after all, given the similarities between them.’
‘Mannfred is a fool. Nagash is not.’ Arkhan looked at Vlad. ‘Why have you not informed him of your survival? He believes that you met your end in Sylvania, at your paramour’s hands.’
‘To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that he still thinks I’m dead,’ Vlad murmured. He frowned, and for a moment Arkhan considered asking him about Isabella. That the Chaos Gods had brought her back was of little surprise to him. Nothing was beyond them, and such a resurrection was merely a parlour trick for such powers. But he decided against it. What Vlad thought of it was unimportant. All that mattered was that he served.
‘He has never been very observant, where his desires are concerned. He wishes for you to be dead, and so you are,’ Arkhan said. ‘That is his greatest weakness, and greatest strength. His lies propel him on, fuelling the arrogance that lends him strength.’
‘Like Nagash,’ Vlad said, with the smile of one who believes he’s scored a point.
Arkhan shifted uncomfortably. He did not reply. Let the vampire think what he liked. In all the years he’d spent duelling with Mannfred, he’d forgotten how much more deadly the first von Carstein was. Mannfred, for all his faults, was not a philosopher. He was pragmatic, and focused on the material world. A craftsman of death, rather than an artist. For all his pretensions of nobility and all of his insistence that the world’s throne was his by right of blood, Mannfred was still a callow, petty creature.
Vlad, on the other hand, was anything but. He had wrung knowledge from the writings of Nagash without the benefit of a tutor, learning through trial and error. He had fought for everything he claimed, and claimed nothing he had not shed blood in pursuit of. Mannfred schemed towards a single, final goal, like an arrow travelling towards its target. Vlad, however, was more like a sword, capable of more than simply carving out an enemy’s heart.