Yet he could feel the elf-mage attempting to undo what he had just wrought. He gnashed his teeth and jerked his steed about. He raised his blade and the strident shriek of a horn sounded from behind him as the Drakenhof Templars wheeled about and formed up around him with supernatural discipline. It was time to deal with the sorcerer personally. Mannfred chopped the air with his blade.
As one, the Drakenhof Templars charged.
Arkhan did not bother to bid Mannfred a fond farewell. The battle did not concern him. He drained the blood of another of the sacrifices into the cauldron, and reflected on the days to come. He did not know what awaited him come Nagash’s return, but he did not fear it, whatever it was. He hurled the body aside and chose the next.
Behind him, the vampire made little sound as she drew her basket-hilted blade from its sheath. Arkhan heard it regardless but did not turn around. ‘Do you think that he will thank you, woman?’ There was a grim sort of humour to it – Mannfred, ever alert to treachery, had placed as Arkhan’s guard the least trustworthy member of his entourage.
‘At this point, what Mannfred does or does not do is of little concern to me, liche,’ Elize said. The spurs on her boots jangled softly as she strode towards him, the blade held low by her side. She stepped over the bodies of the previous sacrifices, where Arkhan had flung them – the Shallyan, the Ulrican, the Ranaldite. He held the last of the preparatory sacrifices over the bubbling cauldron, his knife to the dead-eyed young man’s throat.
‘I was not speaking of Mannfred,’ Arkhan said, as he drew the knife across the waiting flesh of his captive. The young priest of Morr gave a gurgling moan as his life’s blood ran out to join that of the others bubbling in the belly of the cauldron. When he was satisfied that it had been drained to the last drop, Arkhan let the body fall, careful that no blood should splatter on him. The consequences of even a small drop touching him would be disastrous.
Elize stopped. ‘Erikan will thank me, when he comes to his senses. Ennui is but a passing madness – a flaw in his blood. I will draw it from him, when this madness is past, and I will make him know his proper place.’
‘How like a woman, to think that only she knows what is best for a man,’ Arkhan rasped.
‘How like a man, to think that a woman does not know what is best for him,’ Elize said. ‘Are you going to try to stop me, old bag-of-bones, or are you content to watch as I bring your plan to an untimely end?’ She raised her sword to Morgiana’s neck. The Fay Enchantress’s eyes flickered and she tilted her head back.
‘Do it,’ she hissed. ‘Kill me, before it’s too late.’
‘Quiet,’ Elize snarled. She met Arkhan’s gaze without flinching. ‘Well, liche… Try your hand, if you would. You will get no second chance.’
‘Do it, and damn the world to madness and ruin,’ Arkhan said, his knife dangling loosely in his grip. ‘If Nagash does not rise, the world burns. And you will burn with it, whatever your schemes and plans.’
‘And if he does rise, what then? Servitude and eventual oblivion? No, I’ll not accept that,’ Elize said. ‘Better to be consumed by the fire, than to suffer a puppet’s fate.’
‘Fate is a mocker,’ Arkhan said. ‘A woman once told me that. Like you, she refused to surrender to Nagash. She told me that there are no certainties, save those you make for yourself. I still do not know if she was right or wrong.’ He looked down at the cauldron. ‘Nagash will rise. The world will shudder. But the sun will still come up tomorrow. Sylvania will still be here, and Bretonnia as well. But if he does not rise, the sun will go dark and Sylvania will be consumed in fire, blood and Chaos. These are my certainties.’ He raised his hand and pointed to the battle raging outside of the Nine Daemons. ‘That is yours.’
Elize glared at him suspiciously for a moment, and then glanced back in the direction he’d indicated. The battle was a maelstrom of carnage; elves and vampires both lost their hold on eternity as two lines of knights crashed into one another. ‘I don’t see what–’ she began.
‘There,’ Arkhan said. ‘The Crowfiend fights alone against a hero of Ulthuan. A woman who has fought daemons and worse things than any suicidal blood-drinker.’
Elize turned back to face him, her eyes narrowed to crimson slashes. ‘You lie,’ she hissed. ‘No elf can kill him. I trained him myself. He is better with a blade than any among the order.’
‘Will he win, you think? Or will she take his head, as she has already taken the heads of those who fought beside him? Will your cannibal prince stand alone… or will you go to his aid one last time?’ Arkhan continued, as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘If he dies, he dies,’ Elize snarled.
‘Then why do you hesitate?’
He knew what she would do before she did. He had seen such looks before, in other places at other times. Some people possessed a pragmatic ruthlessness of spirit that outstripped even Nagash’s histrionic malevolence. Vampires were often blessed with this quality, if they survived long enough. The drive to see their goals through at any cost. They would lie to themselves, rationalising that obsession into entitlement.
But some could only go so far.
Some went to the edge of that night-dark sea and then turned back.
Elize lowered her sword, turned and sprinted away, towards the battle.
‘Run fast, little vampire,’ Arkhan said, as he turned to the Fay Enchantress. ‘We come to it at last, Morgiana.’
‘She was right, you know… Better the fire than the dust,’ Morgiana whispered, her eyes closed. ‘Better death than what is coming.’
‘And you shall have it, I swear to you. Your spirit will not rise at his command or mine,’ Arkhan said, drawing her to her feet. ‘You shall be dead, and will suffer no more.’
‘Do you promise?’
Arkhan hesitated. Then, he nodded. ‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘It seems some small touch of mercy yet remains to me,’ he said.
Morgiana smiled as Arkhan cut her throat.
Overhead, the dark sky turned ominous as strange clouds began to gather. Screeching spirits swarmed about the stone circle. The wind began to howl, like a dying beast. Turning from Morgiana’s body, Arkhan gestured, and his wights dragged Volkmar to his feet.
‘Do what you will, corpse, but Sigmar will have you, in the end,’ the old man spat. ‘Your bones will be splintered by his hammer, and the dust he makes of you scattered on the wind.’
‘I am certain he shall, and it will,’ Arkhan said. ‘You were born for this, you know. All of your years and deeds are the foundation of this moment. The blood that flows in your veins is the same as that of your god. It is the blood of the man who destroyed Nagash, and set the world on its current course.’
Volkmar’s eyes widened. Arkhan gestured, and the wights began to place the Black Armour upon the old man. Volkmar struggled and screamed and cursed, but he was too weak to break the grip of his captors. He called down the curses of his god on Arkhan’s head. Arkhan looked up, waiting. Now would be the time for Mannfred’s enchantment to fail at last. If this were a children’s story, that is how it would go. When nothing happened, he looked down at Volkmar. ‘Nothing. Proof enough that destiny holds us all in its clutches, I’d say. This was always meant to be. This moment is an echo of a promise of a thought cast forward through a thousand-thousand years. And we must all play our part.’