The briefest hint of something that might have been a smile rippled across his face. ‘Yes. I did.’ He drew his own blade and laid it against his cuirass as he hauled back on Stormwing’s reins. The griffon, never one to miss a moment to spread its wings, clawed at the air with a rumbling screech. ‘Iselendra yevithri anthri,’ Eltharion shouted. ‘For Yvresse! For Tiranoc! And for Aliathra! Let us bring light into this dark place!’ He pulled Stormwing about and the great beast leapt into the air with shrill roar.
And with an equally thunderous noise, the Stormraker Host marched to war.
‘By Usirian’s teeth, look at them,’ Mannfred hissed. He laughed and spread his arms. ‘Look at them, my Templars! Look upon the pride of Ulthuan, and know that we have come to the end of this great game of ours. Our enemies lie scattered and broken, and only this last, great gasp yet remains.’ Despite his bravado, Mannfred recognised the warrior leading the elves – Eltharion the Grim, whom he had faced in the battle beneath Nagashizzar two years before. Of all the warriors of Ulthuan, only Tyrion worried him more.
He and the Drakenhof Templars stood or sat astride their mounts in the lee of the Nine Daemons. The ancient standing stones sat atop a bare knoll, overlooking the Glen of Sorrows. Nothing grew on the knoll, and even the raw, dark soil looked as if it had been drained of every erg of life. At the foot of each of the standing stones, one of the nine Books of Nagash had been placed, and Arkhan the Black moved amongst them, awakening the power of each eldritch tome with the merest tap from Alakanash, the staff of the Undying King.
The prisoners had been gathered amongst the stones, broken and unawares. All save Volkmar were unconscious, for Arkhan had been insistent that the old man be awake for what was coming. Mannfred was only too happy to acquiesce to that demand. He turned from the new arrivals and stalked to where Volkmar was held by a pair of wights. The old man cursed weakly and made a half-hearted lunge for the vampire. Mannfred caught his chin and leaned close. ‘They are too late to save you, old man. The heat of a black sun beats down on you, and the end of all things stirs in your blood. Do you feel it?’
‘I feel only contempt, vampire,’ Volkmar croaked.
‘That particular feeling is mutual, I assure you.’ Mannfred looked past Volkmar. A scarlet light had begun to pulse deep within the standing stones, and he hesitated, momentarily uncertain. Now that the moment was here, was he brave enough to seize it? He shook himself and looked at Arkhan. The liche stood before an immense cauldron, which had been set at the heart of the stone circle. More wights stood nearby, holding the other artefacts: the Crown of Sorcery, the Claw of Nagash, the Fellblade, and the Black Armour. ‘Well, liche? Are you ready to begin?’ Mannfred asked.
‘I am,’ Arkhan said. He set the staff aside and hauled the first of the sacrifices up by his hairy throat. The Ulrican stirred, but he was too weak to do anything more. Arkhan drew his knife as he dragged the priest towards the cauldron. ‘Do not disturb me, vampire. I must have complete concentration.’
Mannfred was about to reply, when the winding of horns made him turn. The elves struck like a thunderbolt from the dark sky, singing a strange, sad song as they came. They drove deep into the ranks of the mouldered dead, fine-wrought steel flashing in the ill light emanating from the Nine Daemons. The elven mages, led by one in startlingly blue robes, who surmounted the battlefield atop a floating column of rocks, wrought deadly changes upon the withered vegetation of the glen, urging it to vicious vibrancy, and roots, briars and branches grasped and tore at the dead.
Mannfred lashed his army with his will, driving them forwards against the invaders. The reeking ranks closed about the elves, trapping them in a cage of the seething dead. Rotting claws burst from the sour soil, clutching at boot and greave, holding elves in place as rusty swords and broken spears reaped a bloody harvest. Mannfred flung out a hand. ‘Crowfiend! Summon your folk to war!’
Erikan threw back his head and let loose a monstrous shriek, which bounced from standing stone to standing stone and shuddered through the air. As his cry was swallowed by the clangour of war, monstrous ghoul-kin, larger than their packmates scurrying about their legs and broader than ogres, hurled themselves into battle, trampling the dead in their eagerness to get to grips with the living. Bowstrings hummed and spears thrust forward, catching many of the beasts, but not all of them, and elves screamed and died as poisoned claws tore through silver mail and the flesh beneath.
Mannfred turned as scale-armoured steeds and swift chariots punched through the leftmost ranks of his army. Elven riders gave voice to rousing battle cries as they swept over the dead in a crash of splintering bone. Skeletons were ground to dust and ancient wights were burst asunder and freed from their undying servitude by the force of the thunderous charge. Mannfred cursed.
‘Nothing for it now,’ Count Nyktolos said. The Vargravian drew his blade. He looked at Mannfred. ‘Do we charge?’
‘Not all of us,’ Mannfred said. He looked at Elize. ‘Guard the liche,’ he said softly, so that only she could hear. ‘Arkhan’s treachery will come at the eleventh hour. If he should try anything, confound him.’
‘Do not worry, cousin,’ Elize said. She blew an errant lock of crimson hair out of her face. ‘The day shall be ours, one way or another.’
‘Good,’ Mannfred said. He climbed into the saddle of his skeletal steed and looked about him, at the assembled might of the Drakenhof Templars. A surge of something filled him. A lesser man might have called it pride. These were the greatest warriors in Sylvania, the backbone of all that he had built. It was fitting that they would be the blade that earned him his final victory. ‘Know, my warriors, that this day is the first day of the rest of eternity. This day is the day we drag a new world, screaming and bloody, from the womb of the old. Your loyalty will not be forgotten. Your heroism will be remembered unto the end of all things. Now ride,’ he shouted. ‘Ride for the ruin of the living and the glory of the dead!’ He drew his blade and extended it. ‘Ride!’
And they did. Hell-eyed nightmares snorted and shrieked as night-black hooves tore the sod, and a wall of black-armoured death descended into the glen with Mannfred at its head. As he rode, he tried to gather the skeins of magic about him for an incantation, but found that the currents of sorcery shifted in his grasp, as if to thwart him. He knew at once that it wasn’t merely the fickle nature of the winds of magic that prevented him from weaving his spells. His eyes were drawn to the distant figure of the elven mage on his dais of floating rock, and he snarled. He was too far away to deal with the creature himself, but was he not the master of every dead thing?
Mannfred reared back in his saddle and let slip a guttural howl, and the air above him was suddenly thick with the ragged shapes of spectres and ghosts. The spectral host shot towards the distant column of floating rocks. They flowed over the mage’s bodyguard of Sword Masters like a tide of filthy water, chill fingers stretching towards the mage. The mage flung out his hands, and cleansing fires roared to life, surging in all directions. It left the living untouched, but the dead were consumed utterly. Spirits burst into clouds of ash, and zombies blazed like torches. Soon, the elves were surrounded by a ring of fallen, blackened corpses.
Mannfred laughed, despite the failure of his minions to kill the elf. They had served their purpose regardless. The elf mage had been outmanoeuvred, and his obstruction of Mannfred’s sorcerous undertakings faltered as he was forced to see to his own defence. Mannfred seized the moment, and swept out his sword, carving an abominable glyph on the quivering air even as he urged his mount to greater speed. All across the battlefield, the newly dead began to twitch to life. Whatever losses his army had suffered would be replaced within moments.