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Ghoul King: Conqueror of Worms

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Ghoul King:
Conqueror of Worms

Josh Reynolds

The ghoul gave a ululating shriek as it sprang from the porous slope of volcanic rock. Its filthy talons were spread and its slavering jaws were wide as it hurtled down towards the intruders, followed by a screaming, snarling tidal wave of its slick-fleshed brethren. A hundred more ghouls boiled out of the cancerous innards of Cripple Peak, skin stretched tight over starveling bellies and crooked bones, their howls rising in discordant symphony towards the mocking, silvery moon above.

Vorag of Chaim, the Bloodytooth, timajal of Strigos and prince of Mourkain, waited for them, his long, muscular arms spread wide, and his eyes blazing like twin hell-lanterns. Coarse white fur ridged his bare arms, and his barrel torso was clad in a cruelly ridged cuirass of ornate design. Armour of a similar grotesque design sheathed his legs, and a kilt made from braided scalps and flayed skin dangled from his waist. He carried no weapon, for he needed none, save his own strength and speed. Vorag Bloodytooth needed no weapon because he was a weapon, and more deadly than any sword, spear or axe. His face shrivelled and assumed a bestial cast in the moonlight, and he threw back his white-maned head and gave a thundering roar. Then, the echoes of that roar still bouncing from the rocky crags all about him he sprang to meet the ghouls.

Vorag struck the first knot of scabrous cannibals, opening a red door into their ranks with a wide sweep of his claws. He thrust himself in amongst them, trampling the dying even as he slapped the life from those lucky enough to survive his first strike. Blood spattered across him, soaking him finger-to-shoulder as he savaged his way through the enemy. He rampaged amongst them, his undead flesh absorbing their futile blows with a monstrous resiliency. Ghouls died in fives and tens, closing with him only to be wrenched apart, disembowelled or crushed.

Vorag whirled and backhanded a leaping ghoul, shattering its spine. Pleasure filled him; this was what he lived for, what he had been bred for. He was built for blood and slaughter, and even before he had accepted the gift of a grateful king and become the creature he now was, he had relished battle in all of its gore-choked glory.

But now, he did not simply relish it. Now, he fed on it. He grew strong on the blood of his enemies, thanks to Ushoran. The name brought a face swimming to the surface of his red-tinged thoughts – a face at once monstrous and regal, inhuman and heroic. Ushoran the Liberator, Ushoran of Lahmia, Ushoran the vampire, who had come to Mourkain and thrown down the sorcerer-king Kadon, and taken the latter’s empire for his own. Vorag had once ridden at Ushoran’s right hand, slaughtering his enemies and waging his wars of conquest and expansion.

But no more. Now, Vorag waged his own wars, and ruled his own lands. Soon, his empire would outstrip Ushoran’s and, in time, perhaps even consume it. The thought filled him with darkling warmth – he longed to see his enemies broken and bleeding at his feet, and to hold their eternal lives in his hands. They had used him and thrown him aside when his use had ended. They had turned his own people, for whom he had shed so much blood, against him. And for that insult, the Bloodytooth would glut himself on their heart’s blood for as long as it took to wring every spiteful, arrogant drop from them. Ushoran, Neferata, Abhorash… All of them would fall beneath his teeth and talons, to be used up and thrown aside, as they had done to him.

A gnawed femur crashed down on his shoulder, and he twisted with inhuman grace, burying his talons in the shrunken belly of a ghoul. Its eyes bulged as he divested it of its guts with a flick of his wrist. He raised the reeking mass and tilted his head. His jaws gaped like those of a snake preparing to swallow a rodent and he greedily swallowed the black blood that dripped down. Tossing the drained hunk of meat aside, he turned his gaze on the remaining ghouls.

Those closest to him had drawn back, their ferocity blunted by his rampage. They cowered around him in a wide ring, snarling and pacing, unable to muster the courage to press their attack. Even once-men like ghouls recognised that the first to attack the intruder would be the first to die. Vorag turned slowly, his expression contemptuous. ‘Is that it?’ he growled. His voice carried easily, and the ghouls stirred at the sound of it. ‘Is this all that remains of you? Are you nothing but maggots, burrowing in the corpse of a mountain? I was told that you were men once, and as proud and fierce as any son of Strigu, as any ajal or vojnuk of my folk.’ Vorag licked blood from his talon-tips, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Is this all you are now? Beasts, fit only for the butchering?’

A ghoul, larger than the others, a tabard of rattling bones and twine covering its chest, rose and shrieked. It lunged from the ranks of its fellows and sprinted for Vorag. He avoided its wild blows easily and caught it by the back of the skull. Vorag wrenched the struggling creature into the air and looked up at it. ‘Is that all you are?’ he snarled as he shook it like a hound shaking a rat. ‘Is it?’

The ghoul struggled in his grip, its face twisted into an expression of animal rage and fear. It gibbered, and clawed for Vorag’s throat. With a grunt, he dashed its brains out on the rocky slope. As if that had been a signal, the remaining corpse-eaters began to retreat, scattering back into their holes and hollows. Vorag watched them go, and then turned to look down the slope where his followers waited. There were six of them – five Strigoi ajals, clad in furs and banded mail, their heads shaved clean save for the traditional scalp-locks that marked blooded warriors amongst the Strigoi, and one other, clad in tattered robes and clutching a staff topped by a man’s skull, the yellowed bone carved with strange symbols and words in a language long since dust. Vorag directed his next words to the latter. ‘What did it say?’ he asked.

‘It said, “We are men”, mighty Vorag,’ the shave-pated vampire hissed, black eyes glittering. His name was Kadar, and he was one of W’soran’s prize pupils. Or so he claimed; in truth, Vorag suspected that Kadar was less a sorcerer than a spy, placed in his entourage by the old monster.

W’soran, too, was an exile from Mourkain. His enemies were Vorag’s enemies, and he had thrown in his lot with the renegade Strigoi, seeking protection as well as vengeance. But the old monster was cunning, and more dangerous than he pretended. He and his acolytes might resemble withered mummies, but they were as deadly as any Strigoi warrior, living or dead.

Still, Kadar had his uses, as he had proved in their march to the east. It was his magics that had animated the bones in the mountain passes, foothills and marshes they had traversed since leaving Crookback Mountain and which now swelled the ranks of Vorag’s army.

‘So it was a liar,’ Sanzak grunted as he climbed the slope towards his master. Sanzak looked like a lump of raw meat with fangs, but his eyes sparkled with a keen intelligence. Like Vorag, he had been gifted with immortality, and like him, he had fled Mourkain. Sanzak was the most loyal of the vampiric noblemen who had chosen to follow Vorag east after he had been driven from Strigos. In life and in death, he had served the Bloodytooth with honour and dedication.

‘No, they do not have the wit to lie,’ Vorag rumbled. He glared down at the dead ghoul, taking note of the crude ritual scars that marred its frame and the bones it wore. The other creatures had been clad in rags, but this one…

‘A clan chieftain,’ Kadar said, appearing suddenly at Sanzak’s elbow. The Strigoi jerked away with a startled hiss. Kadar looked as if a strong wind would snap him in half, but he was capable of moving swiftly, and with a silence that Vorag’s scouts envied. If Kadar had noticed Sanzak’s reaction, he gave no sign. He scrutinised the corpse and swatted it with his staff. ‘Or, perhaps calling it a pack-leader might be more appropriate.’ He looked at Vorag. ‘There will be more attacks the longer we stay here.’

‘Good,’ Vorag said, turning to look at the grim peak rising high above them. Cripple Peak, and at its summit, the black-iron citadel called Nagashizzar. It had been abandoned for centuries, avoided by all but the corpse-eaters and the rat-things that seemed to infest the bowels of the mountains like a plague. Ushoran and W’soran and all of the rest feared this place. They feared the dark spirit that still clung to it like a shadow, even if that spirit had found another place to dwell. For a moment, he wondered if they were right to do so, then he brushed the thought aside.

Whatever daemon now drove Ushoran, it was no concern of Vorag’s. Whatever nightmare presence W’soran swore inhabited the crown of Mourkain, Vorag cared not at all. He was not Ushoran, and needed no crown or gee-gaw to prove his dominion. He was Vorag, and Vorag conquered, crown or no. His thoughts turned to the problem at hand.

‘That was impetuous of you, you know,’ Sanzak said mildly. ‘Rushing ahead like that is why we’re in this mess to begin with, you’ll recall.’

Vorag glanced sidelong at Sanzak. His words were true enough, which only added to their sting. It was his desire to take Ushoran’s throne that had caused him to move before his then-allies were ready and to subsequently abandon the lands he had once called his own, driven out by men he had once called ‘comrade’, riding beneath the banners of that fool, Abhorash. Idly, he wondered if Neferata had forgiven him for that moment of foolishness yet. It had cost her as well as him. ‘Are you calling me foolish?’ he asked.

‘No, merely pointing out that you have an army, and you should use it,’ Sanzak said. He gestured to the mountains in whose shadow they stood. ‘These are dangerous lands, and we should be wary. You should be wary.’ He clasped Vorag’s shoulder – an act of camaraderie that only Sanzak was allowed to get away with these days – and said, ‘We cannot afford to lose you, Vorag.’

Vorag shook the hand off. He looked at other four ajals. They were a motley lot: greedy, grasping opportunists who had not prospered as they wished under Ushoran, and had thrown in their lot with his rival. He wondered whether Neferata, or W’soran come to that, had been whispering in their ears as well as his own. Other than Sanzak, he trusted none of them further than he could throw them.

A wave of sadness washed through him. Once, he had had many trusted brothers. Oathsworn and twice-blooded, they had been swayed to support Ushoran in those early turbulent years. And as each of them was given Ushoran’s gift, they had drifted apart, no longer brothers, but rivals and then, at last, enemies. Gashnag… Ullo… Morath. Brothers and would-be heroes, become something else entirely thanks to Ushoran and his cursed ilk.

Ushoran had made the Strigoi something more than men, but also something less. He had taken honour from them, and replaced it with ambition. He had made them powerful, but at a cost that Vorag was only now discovering. Morath had tried to tell them, in those early days, but they had not listened.

‘I doubt these fine ajals share your opinion, my friend,’ Vorag said, gesturing to the ajals and smiled to show that he was joking. They laughed agreeably, but their smiles, like his, held knives. He could tell from Sanzak’s expression that he was not fooled. ‘Besides, the day I can’t set a few corpse-hounds to running is the day I go lie out in the sun.’ He looked at Sanzak. ‘Your concern is noted, but I must be the one to break them,’ he said.

‘There are easier ways, my lord,’ Kadar purred. ‘The eaters of the dead are as numberless as the sands of the shores of the Sour Sea, but they cannot stand up to the army that stands at our back. With but a word, I could send your legions into the warrens and tunnels beneath this mountain to bring these foul beasts to heel.’

‘No,’ Vorag said flatly. He chopped the air for emphasis. ‘I want them broken, not annihilated. I need them, sorcerer.’ He looked at the necromancer. ‘Or have you forgotten our purpose here?’

‘It would be a simpler matter to simply raise them afterwards–’ Kadar began, eyeing the bodies thoughtfully. He stopped as Vorag turned to look at him. ‘As you wish, my lord,’ he said, grudgingly.

Sanzak looked at Vorag. ‘Then what should we do, Bloodytooth? Storm the tunnels with fang and claw? I don’t relish fighting the grey-skinned bone-lickers on their home ground. From what the old monster told us–’

Kadar snarled and spun, bringing the head of his staff up just beneath Sanzak’s chin. ‘You will show Master W’soran the respect he deserves when you speak his name, barbarian,’ he spat.

‘Or what, you crypt-lizard?’ Sanzak growled, slapping the staff aside. ‘Will you match your sorceries against mine?’ The burly Strigoi had, at Vorag’s quiet encouragement, begun to learn the arts of the winds of death. The dark magic that brought groaning corpses from their graves to fight again was far too useful to leave to creatures like Kadar and the rest of W’soran’s coterie. Vorag never had, and never would, trust the other vampire and his followers. They were not warriors, and most of the blood they spilled was each other’s, in their incessant internecine squabbles. They fought each other for W’soran’s attentions like murderous children. That the old monster encouraged such bloodletting was only one of his annoying habits.

Vorag looked at them. ‘Enough,’ he said. Both vampires fell silent. The gathered ajals watched silently, used to the duo’s bickering. Some of them had already chosen sides, he knew. Some curried favour with the necromancers, either because they were easily impressed by stumbling cadavers or because they wanted the secrets of how to accomplish such themselves. The others, the more traditional amongst his followers, sided with Sanzak, mostly because they wanted no part of the sorceries that Kadar employed. Vorag did not care one way or another – as long as both camps bent knee to him, and fought when he told them to, they could do what they liked.

He looked back down-slope, where his army waited. Though their numbers had been limited at the beginning, their ranks had swelled with the newly-risen dead in the intervening years. The black wolf-tail banners of his standards flew in the sour breeze over a largely silent legion. Rank upon rank of weather-picked bone waited for his command, and his other Strigoi sat at their head, mounted on the black, red-eyed steeds that had been bred in the dark stables of Mourkain. Cannibal horses for vampire riders, he thought, amused.

And amidst the army, protected from attack, was a large black palanquin, borne aloft by a group of the great crypt horrors that W’soran had created. The large, yurt-like shroud that covered the palanquin was made from wolf fur and wyvern hide, daubed black with ash and mud to keep it sealed from the glaring eye of the sun. The morningstar did not trouble Vorag as much as some of his followers, and there was little enough of it in these perpetually overcast lands, but he had learned from harsh experience that caution was not the same as cowardice.

For a moment, as he looked at the unmoving flaps of the palanquin’s entrance, he thought that he could hear her voice, that he could see her shadow there, that at any moment, her pale hand would slide the flap aside and he would catch a flash of golden hair and…

Vorag closed his eyes and stilled the sudden spurt of raw, red, rage that bubbled up from within him. He turned and looked east, towards the future, rather than the past, where the mountains became sand and jungle. The lands of the dead, where mighty armies composed of mummified kings and their bony servants clashed in grim parody of the living. And beyond them, the jewel of Araby, where caliphs ruled isolated cities and waged war on desert raiders. Such places were the stuff of legend to one who had been born in a barbarian lodge, behind a crude palisade, in the harsh, high mountains. These were the lands that he had come to take.

Heat bloomed within him as he contemplated the undertaking. It was a conquest worthy of him, though he knew that had not been W’soran’s reason for suggesting it. He met Kadar’s calculating gaze and smiled, causing the other vampire to flinch and turn away. You are a snake I have yet to tread upon, he thought, you and your master both.

W’soran thought him an idiot, he knew. And his acolytes shared that opinion, save, possibly, Melkhior, who had once fought at Vorag’s side in the wars against the northern daemon-lovers. They thought him a blood-hungry brute; indeed, that, he fancied, was their opinion of all Strigoi. That was Neferata’s opinion, certainly. His smile grew as he thought of his mighty queen, her mind as convoluted as a spider’s web. Even she failed to see what Ushoran had seen in the hill-folk he had raised from the mire of mad Kadon’s rule. The Strigoi lacked sophistication, it was true. But they had passion.

In them burned the blood of Strigu, first of their people, and the warrior who had carved a kingdom out of the wilderness for his folk, to give them sanctuary from the horrors that pursued them. Strigu, whose son, Kadon, had bound spirits and monsters alike and driven back the daemon-lovers and the braying beast-folk when his father had died at the talons of the monstrosity called the Sun-Eater.

Kadon had been a mighty chieftain in his time. He had been a mighty king, who had led his folk to his greatness, only to dash them on the stone of his hubris, even as Ushoran was now doing. That, in the end, was why Vorag had come east. He would return to Mourkain – to Strigos – only when it was time to topple the usurper of Strigu’s legacy.

But to do so, he would need an army.

That was why he had come to Cripple Peak. There was an army within it, and one that others had used to good effect. The ranks of his legions would swell, and he would have the might he needed to accomplish what was necessary, as well as smash down his enemies.

He strode down the slope as Kadar and Sanzak and the others followed him, the two still bickering, though more quietly than before. The other Strigoi met him, and he hurled orders at them like javelins. Pickets would be set, and scouts sent out, to watch for the armies of the dead that patrolled the southern regions ceaselessly, hunting for any who might dare to seek access to the fortress of their great enemy from that direction. Since he had absolutely no intention of getting any closer to Nagashizzar than he absolutely had to, he was not overly worried about the restless dead of Nehekhara. If they attacked, he would fight, but was otherwise content to leave them for the moment. He had more important matters to attend to.

Part of him yearned to continue with the attack, to harry the ghouls into their tunnels immediately, but there were proprieties to be observed, and goodbyes to say, before he began the campaign in earnest. He had to see her one more time before he went again into the dark.

Vorag moved through his army like a shark through shallow waters. The silent dead parted for him as he approached the black palanquin and his commanders peeled off and retreated. None save Sanzak were allowed within it, and even him only rarely. It was wide, wider than any three chariots and as long as a siege engine, built from brass and the bones of the great monsters that roamed the crags of the Worlds Edge Mountains. Immense femurs and ribs made up its frame and the leonine skull of a manticore was its peak, held upright by the stiffened spines of several giants. A half-dozen crypt horrors – huge war-ghouls, easily double his height and triple his girth – held the palanquin aloft on their rounded shoulders with ease.

The crypt horrors shifted uneasily as he approached. Their ape-like heads were sealed inside heavy iron muzzles, and crude, scalloped armour decorated their gigantic frames. They were chained to the palanquin, and unable to leave it; each of them was armed with a great mattock or crude chopping blade. Vorag slid a claw across his wrist as he approached them and their uneasiness became eagerness as they scented his blood. The beasts fed on vampire blood, and their muzzles had been designed so that they could be fed without endangering the vampire in question.

Vorag leapt up onto the palanquin and squeezed blood into the fluted muzzles of each of the beasts in turn, and they responded with grunts and cries of pleasure. One grabbed for him, greedily, and he kicked it in the head, causing the palanquin to shift slightly. He sank to his haunches and grabbed the chain that connected its gorget to the palanquin and jerked it back to its feet. ‘Steady,’ he rumbled, and they stilled, like hounds listening for the command of their master. As they grew still, he turned and slid through the flap into the palanquin. The palanquin was empty, save for a single bier in the centre. The bier had been crafted from bone and leather and iron, and upon it, she lay. ‘My queen,’ Vorag whispered. ‘Stregga.’

She did not answer. She could not answer, and would not. There was no life left in the withered husk of Stregga Lupa, drained as it was of every ounce of the vitality that had first caught him and held him fast in its web, so many decades ago. The golden hair was now the colour of frost and the flesh resembled not porcelain, but badly cured leather. The eyes, once so full of cunning and delight, were milky, unseeing orbs and the beautiful mouth now no more than a ragged slash.

‘The ghouls attacked, as they did when you first came here with Neferata. As you told me they would. I saw them off,’ he said quietly. ‘I butchered them. You see?’ He held up a bloody claw and traced her withered lips. ‘I am going into the dark. I came to say goodbye.’ He paused.

Even now, he could not say why he had brought her so far, or why he had not burned her corpse, as was his people’s tradition. Some dark instinct, some faint whisper in the depths of him had forestalled him. Sometimes, he prayed to Strigu and Shaya, and all the spirits of moon and night that once, just once, she would sit up and hold out her arms to him as she had done so often before. He reached out hesitantly to stroke her hair. He brushed the stiff, dry strands aside to reveal the ragged wound on her throat. The rage flared anew, and he hissed.

‘It was W’soran, you know,’ Sanzak said, from behind him. ‘He killed her.’

Vorag froze, but only for a moment. He had not heard the other Strigoi follow him, but he was not surprised. Other than Vorag, Sanzak was the only vampire who could safely approach the palanquin’s bearers. ‘I know,’ he said. That was why he had hidden her remains from the old monster, after pretending to burn them.

He had known of W’soran’s guilt the moment the skeletal vampire had crawled out of that collapsed tunnel alone and unharmed. Stregga and her sisters had made no attempt to hide their disdain for W’soran, even as he had not attempted to hide his own loathing for them and their mistress, Neferata. Perhaps they had tried to kill him, and he had turned the tables. Perhaps it was the reverse, and he had struck first and best. Regardless, Vorag had known who was responsible, even before Sanzak had admitted to colluding with the creature to thwart Stregga’s machinations.

‘And yet, you let him live,’ Sanzak said, almost accusingly. He stood in the entrance, holding the flap closed behind his back.

‘What would it have served, to kill him?’ Vorag said, not looking at the other vampire. ‘He was – is – still useful.’ W’soran served now as his castellan, holding the hard-won citadel of Crookback Mountain, and the territories around it, against their mutual enemies, though he suspected that W’soran held it more for his own sake than Vorag’s.

‘That does not sound like the Vorag I know,’ Sanzak said.

Vorag whirled, reaching Sanzak before the other vampire could react. He grabbed him by his throat and lifted him easily. Outside, one of the crypt horrors gave a querulous grunt at the sudden motion. ‘The Vorag you knew would have killed you as well, for plotting with him, Sanzak, my old friend.’ Vorag dragged Sanzak’s face close to his own. ‘He would have opened your belly the moment you confessed your perfidy, and cared not a bit for the consequences. The Vorag you so fondly recall would not have played these games of manipulation and subtlety and would have left his skull decorating one of Ushoran’s stakes before long.’ He squeezed gently and Sanzak hissed in pain. ‘But I forgive you, my friend.’ He flung the other Strigoi to the floor of the palanquin, eliciting another grunt from its bearers.

Sanzak lay on his back and rubbed his throat. ‘And him?’ he croaked.

‘No,’ Vorag said. ‘No, W’soran’s time will come, even as Ushoran’s will.’ He turned away and leaned over the bier. ‘But other things come first.’

‘I only meant to help you,’ Sanzak said. And he meant it, too. Vorag was as certain of that as he was of W’soran’s guilt. Sanzak had feared the influence of Neferata’s handmaidens over Vorag, thinking they wanted to use him as a puppet for the Queen of Mysteries to rule Strigos through. But he had not meant to see Stregga dead. Otherwise, Vorag would have torn his treacherous heart from his breast and sucked it dry. Only a few centuries earlier, he might have done so regardless. But he had learned much from his golden haired she-wolf – patience, caution and cunning.

‘By allowing her to be killed, you mean?’ Vorag gave a harsh laugh. ‘Oh yes, your aid was very timely my friend. How can I ever repay you?’ He glanced at Sanzak. ‘Perhaps I should have killed you, at that.’ His lips peeled back from the nest of fangs that occupied his mouth. ‘Perhaps I still will… unless you have a reason for me to continue to spare you?’ The last was as much a plea as a threat.

Sanzak clambered to his feet. ‘I think – I think I may know how to do what you wish.’

Vorag, suddenly alert, turned. ‘How,’ he hissed.

‘Blood is not the only thing which our kind feed on,’ Sanzak said. ‘Kadar and his ilk are proof enough of that.’ He paused. Vorag said nothing. Sanzak moved towards the other side of the bier. ‘They feed on the stuff of death, as much as the stuff of life. W’soran himself has died several times.’

‘I know this. Get on with it,’ Vorag snapped.

Sanzak licked his lips. ‘She is not dead. Not truly. Some spark yet remains. If we could revivify it, fan it from a spark to a flame…’

‘She would awaken,’ Vorag said hoarsely. He looked down at the withered thing and ran his fingers down the curve of one hollow cheek.

‘Possibly,’ Sanzak said. ‘My studies are – are incomplete. I have learned much, but I am no necromancer. I will need time. And…’ He hesitated.

Vorag’s eyes blazed. ‘What? Speak.’

‘We cannot move her. She must sup at the trough of death in peace. Like a flower, drinking in the sun,’ Sanzak said slowly. He looked down at the body and continued, ‘It will require time and patience.’ He looked at Vorag. ‘Neither of which you possess, my friend,’ he said challengingly. ‘Not if we continue south, as planned. There will be death aplenty in the desert, but no safety, no peace. She will remain a husk.’

Vorag was silent. Then, he said, ‘What do you suggest?’

‘East,’ Sanzak said, ‘into the Plain of Bones.’ He stepped back from the bier. ‘I think that there is a reason that Nagash made his stand here. A carrion wind blows from the east, carrying the promise of old death. He fed on it, growing strong even as she will. There is much death in those barren lands, and we will find what we need there.’

‘You are certain of this?’ Vorag said, after a moment.

‘No,’ Sanzak said bluntly. ‘I am certain of nothing when it comes to our kind. But I believe.’

‘Are you willing to gamble your life on that belief?’ Vorag said.

‘My life has always been yours to do with as you wish, Bloodytooth. Whatever you think of me, I still serve you.’ Sanzak straightened and met Vorag’s red gaze.

‘W’soran will see it as a betrayal, when he learns of it,’ Vorag said.

‘And so,’ Sanzak said. ‘He should be used to it by now, unpleasant as he is.’

Vorag laughed. He clapped Sanzak on the shoulder. ‘I am glad I did not kill you, my friend.’

‘Yes,’ Sanzak said, rubbing his shoulder. ‘As am I.’

‘Regardless of which direction we’re going, we’re still going to need an army,’ Vorag mused, ‘to keep W’soran off of our backs, if nothing else.’

‘Then you’re still intent on going into those tunnels?’

‘More so than ever,’ Vorag said, grinning. ‘Come. Soonest started is soonest done.’ He strode past Sanzak and swept aside the flap, stepping out onto the edge of the palanquin. He leapt to the ground without pausing and saw Kadar skulking nearby. He smiled. ‘Kadar,’ he said. ‘Ready yourself, sorcerer. We are going into the dark.’

‘What?’ Kadar blinked in surprise and suspicion.

‘Sanzak will accompany us. The rest of you will wait here.’ Vorag watched impatiently as his orders sparked the expected protest. Not for any love for him, he thought, but for the simple fact that few Strigoi could stand being left behind when battle was in the offing. A single snarl was enough to silence them. ‘You will wait here,’ he roared, drowning out even the loudest grumbler. ‘There will be blood enough in the days to come. But for now, you will wait.’ He glared at his followers, matching their red gazes with his own, forcing each of them to look away in their turn. Even before they had been given Ushoran’s gift, the ajals and agals of the Strigoi had jockeyed ceaselessly for dominance over their fellows. It was, if anything, more civilised now. At the very least, it was harder to stick a knife in a man’s back when it was not likely to kill him. Vorag was a veteran of the snake-pit that was Ushoran’s court, and he had the necklace of fangs, torn from the mouths of his enemies, to prove it.

Satisfied that they would obey, Vorag started back towards the slope. As he moved, he inhaled the odour of stale blood and fear. The ghouls would be easy enough to follow. Kadar’s rotting minions were already dragging the dead ghouls down towards the army in readiness for their being added to the ranks. When he had reached the body of the ghoul chieftain, he bent down and hauled the corpse up. With a single savage jerk, he tore its head from its neck and tied the gory trophy to his belt by its wispy scalp. ‘Vorag…’ Sanzak began, as Vorag turned back towards the other two vampires.

‘You have never doubted me before, old friend. I hope you’re not choosing to do so now,’ Vorag said, smiling slightly.

Sanzak hesitated, and then ducked his head in agreement. Vorag’s gaze swivelled to Kadar, who clutched his staff and frowned. ‘You speak the corpse-eaters’ tongue, necromancer? You know their rites?’

‘Aye,’ Kadar said, carefully. That was why he had been sent, ostensibly. Amongst W’soran’s flock of acolytes, Kadar was the one who best understood the debased pantomime that served as a society for the corpse-eaters.

‘Good,’ Vorag said. ‘Come, both of you.’ He moved up the slope, towards the closest of the great, gaping mole-holes that the ghouls had issued from. Their stench grew stronger the closer he drew, and he knew that it would be a simple enough matter to track them through the warren.

‘What are you planning, if I might inquire, oh mighty one?’ Kadar asked unctuously. ‘Only, I had assumed that we would overawe the marrow-lickers and herd them before us as befitting such rank chattel.’

‘And how many would we lose in the doing so, sorcerer?’ Vorag said, pausing before the entrance to the warren. ‘No, they were men once, much like my own folk. And if what you and your master have told me is true, they yet maintain certain… traditions.’

Kadar blinked. Then, slowly, he nodded. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see.’

‘I don’t,’ Sanzak said.

Vorag slapped the decapitated head that dangled from his belt. ‘You do. How did we bend the tribes of the Southern Vaults to Strigos’ will, old friend? We took the scalps of their petty kings and laid them at Ushoran’s feet. Kill the pack-leader, break the pack.’

‘Won’t they just find a new leader?’

‘Yes. Me,’ Vorag said, grinning. ‘Now, let’s go get my army, shall we?’

They entered the warrens cautiously. Vorag found them to be much as they had been described – coiling worm tunnels, hollowed out of the stuff of the mountain by countless generations of the living and the dead alike. What Nagash had begun with his mines, the skaven had continued, and the ghouls had added to, adding their warrens and trails. By now, Cripple Peak was as hollow as a bone sucked clean of marrow, and riddled through with secret arteries. It was a wonder that it did not simply collapse in on itself. Faint veins of the strange green stone called abn-i-khat, or wyrdstone, grew visible the deeper into the tunnels that they went.

They saw no sign of the ghouls they had broken on the slopes, but Vorag had not truly expected to. The tribe had disintegrated and, like any group of animals whose territory has been invaded by a stronger group, they had fled. Nonetheless, he followed their spoor, tracking them along the dark routes they’d used to flee. They would lead him to the next tribe, he knew.

‘This is foolish,’ Kadar murmured some time later, his staff rising to score a mark in the soft stone. While their kind could see easily in the pitch black, and the soft, weird glow of the abn-i-khat gave them some light, even in the darkest regions, even they could become lost in such a maze. Thus Kadar had marked their path the entire way. More for his own sake than theirs, Vorag suspected. ‘You should have allowed me to bring a few corpses, at least.’ They had been walking for several hours, and had long since left behind the entrance. The tunnels had grown more and more convoluted as they moved deeper into the mountain, and the stink of ghouls had grown thicker. It was that stink that led them in unerring pursuit of their prey, and the vampires’ sense of smell would enable them to find first the ghouls and then, afterwards, the way back to the surface, if Kadar’s marks failed to do so.

‘I agree,’ Sanzak said with one hand on his sword. Kadar looked at him in surprise. Both of them had been growing ever tenser, the further from the entrance they travelled. Vorag could not find it in him to blame his followers. He recalled the battles they had so recently waged in tunnels much like these in the depths of Crookback Mountain, against the ratmen. Even for vampires, it was a strain, fighting through the cramped, stinking darkness. At its worst, it had put Vorag too much in mind of fighting hungry vermin in an overlarge grave.

‘The ghouls would retreat before any show of force,’ Vorag said. ‘They would melt into these tunnels like shadows, or, worse, they would arouse the ratmen…’

‘The skaven likely already know of our presence,’ Kadar murmured.

‘Then why haven’t they attacked?’ Sanzak demanded.

‘Because experience has taught them caution,’ Vorag said, before Kadar could reply. ‘They know we’re here, but they don’t know why. As long as we don’t bother them in their mines, they’ll leave us be. Or so your master claimed,’ he added, casting a speculative look at Kadar, who nodded jerkily.

‘Aye, Master W’soran is correct. The skaven will not fight unless pressed.’

‘And as long as my army stays out of these tunnels, they won’t feel pressed. Nor will the ghouls flee, forcing us to dig them out. In fact…’ Vorag paused and looked around, nostrils flaring. He looked at the walls and floor of the tunnel and saw that a broken skull had been carefully placed into a cranny in the rock wall, its brittle surface marked in a strange fashion. ‘Ha,’ Vorag grunted.

Kadar looked at the skull and hissed. ‘Territorial marker,’ he muttered.

‘Yes,’ Vorag said. He looked at Sanzak and smiled widely. ‘Feel that, old friend? They’re all about us. They have been for awhile, I’d wager.’

‘What do we do?’ Sanzak said, making to draw his blade. Vorag caught his hand, preventing him from doing so.

‘Not that. Sorcerer,’ he said.

Kadar raised his staff and a crackling light of abominable hue suddenly flooded the tunnel, revealing a number of ghouls, crouched on the floor or clinging to the walls and ceiling like bipedal salamanders. The ghouls shied away from the painful light. They turned and fled in ones and twos, loping away down the tunnel, shrieking and gibbering. Vorag launched himself in pursuit, barrelling after the fleeing ghouls. Sanzak shouted for him to stop, but Vorag ignored him. When the tunnel abruptly ended, opening out into a narrow cavern, he skidded to a stop. There were dozens of ghouls waiting for him in the cavern. One of them, larger than the rest, wore a headdress of raggedly flayed skaven fur, complete with gnawed ears, and its face was covered by a mask crafted from bones and cloth. It shook a yellowing femur at him, and struck out at its followers, as if to urge them to the attack.

One or two began to edge forward, but a snarl from Vorag sent them scrambling back. The impasse lasted only a few moments before Kadar and Sanzak caught up with Vorag.

Kadar goggled at him. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Here?’

‘Do it,’ Vorag growled.

Kadar shouted a flurry of gibberish, and the ghouls gave out what might have been a unified sigh. They drew back, leaving the one in the headdress alone. Vorag chuckled. ‘What did he say to them?’ Sanzak murmured.

‘It is the Yaghur litany of challenge,’ Kadar said, holding his still glowing staff aloft. ‘Debased as they are, they still recall some of their ancient traditions.’

The ghoul in the headdress struck the floor of the cavern with its femur and howled. Vorag stepped forward, threw back his head, and howled in response. The ghoul lunged, the femur smashing down on Vorag’s shoulder even as the vampire’s claws raked its grey flesh. Vorag caught the creature by its mask and sent it tumbling across the floor. It scrambled to its feet with a snarl and came for him again. He caught the femur in his palm and jerked it from the ghoul’s grip, shattering the bone as he did so. The ghoul leapt upon him, its knobbly fingers seeking his throat. Vorag drove the broken end of the femur up beneath the ghoul’s ribcage and into its heart with a single, forceful blow. Warm blood gushed and the creature sighed and went limp. He let it fall to the floor of the cavern and turned to the watching ghouls. ‘Run,’ he growled.

Though they did not understand his words, their meaning was apparently clear enough. The ghouls fled, yelping and whining, vanishing into tunnels and holes. Vorag watched them go then he squatted and wrenched the dead ghoul’s head off. He tore its headdress into strips and used two of them to secure his two trophies together.

Sanzak watched him and said, ‘How many tribes of corpse-eaters are in this mountain?’

Vorag looked at Kadar, who said, ‘There’s no way to tell. They war amongst themselves incessantly, and entire packs rise and fall in the space of a decade. Though, I had expected more resistance than this.’

Vorag smiled and stood. ‘We’ve only just begun,’ he said. He laughed and set off into the darkness.

In the days that followed, the three vampires fought their way into the guts of the mountain. Ghouls came at them in waves, led into war with the invaders into their territory by roaring chieftains. Again and again, the scene from that first cavern was replayed. Kadar would shriek the words of challenge and Vorag would meet the enraged chieftain between the two forces. Some of these confrontations took longer than others, while some lasted only seconds. In every case, Vorag’s ferocity and strength carried the battle, and his collection of heads grew from two to twelve in as many days. Every time, the ghouls, who had, only moments before been so eager to fling themselves at the invaders, would retreat, falling back into the darkness, taking their mates and cubs with them, deeper and deeper into the depths of the mountain.

At last, the ghouls had stopped fighting them altogether. For days, they moved through abandoned tunnels and burrows, following the traces left behind by the creatures. It was not difficult; the corpse-eaters were not attempting to cover their tracks. Vorag could feel something building in the walls and floor, almost like a signal. When he finally realised what it was, he stopped and laughed, startling Kadar and Sanzak. ‘Listen,’ he growled. Then, louder. ‘Listen!’

The sound was faint at first. A shrill whisper, growing in volume as it echoed through unseen caverns and tunnels until it was a rasping howl. Sanzak cursed and Kadar flinched back, flashing his fangs in a snarl. Vorag clapped his hands together and laughed again. ‘I hear you,’ he roared, casting his own howl into the teeth of the noise.

‘What is that noise? What are they doing?’ Sanzak asked.

‘What did the barbarians in the Vaults do, when we took that first head?’ Vorag said. ‘They’re spreading the word.’ He smashed his fist into the wall of the tunnel they were moving through. ‘They’re calling us to war, Sanzak. They’re making a stand. Ha!’ Vorag laughed uproariously, his jaws inhumanly wide, his arms spread. ‘Come, come!’ He lunged ahead of the other two vampires and began to run, sprinting through the cramped tunnels, following the sound to its source.

When he found it, he stopped, allowing the others to catch up. There were ghouls waiting for them, watching them. ‘Ambush,’ Sanzak hissed, making to draw his blade.

‘No,’ Vorag said, extending an arm to hold the other vampire back. He looked at Kadar, who licked his lips and nodded. Vorag smiled and gestured to the nearest ghoul. ‘Lead on,’ he said.

The ghouls did not move towards the vampires, save to close about them protectively like a primitive honour guard, sent to escort the invaders into the presence of… what?

As a group, they moved deeper into the honeycombed caverns, and the howling rose in volume around them. Red eyes watched them from the nooks and crannies and hidden spaces of the warren, and Vorag’s keen hearing caught the slithering, padding sound of hundreds of feet, moving all about them in a river of living flesh. The ghoul-tribes were on the move again, swarming about them, unseen, but keeping pace. Vorag licked his fangs.

At last they reached the end of the tunnel and saw, stretching before them, a cavern larger than any other. The walls of the tunnel seemed to vibrate with the noise issuing from the cavern and their escort whined and snapped at one another in agitation. ‘What is this place?’ Sanzak muttered.

‘The last redoubt,’ Vorag grunted, swinging his head back and forth.

Kadar nodded absently. ‘It seems so. They have some wit, it seems.’

‘Wit enough to recognise a threat to their rule, at least,’ Sanzak said, eyeing their escort with caution. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. ‘We’ve united them against a common enemy. It sounds like every ghoul in this blasted mountain is in that cavern.’

‘Good. It will be easier this way,’ Vorag said. He stalked out of the tunnel and into the great, ribbed cavern. It reminded him of a beehive carved from rock, a vast honeycomb of cavern mouths and ledges that all looked down upon this central point. Once this place had likely been a section of the mines of Nagashizzar, but it had become something else in the centuries since the ghouls had wrested it from the ratmen. It was the heart of their kingdom and the nooks and crannies of the cavern were stuffed with the skulls of men, ghouls and skaven. The wide veins of abn-i-khat that marked the walls and roof of the cavern cast a strange glow over everything, glowing as brightly as torches and in the weird light, thousands of ghouls capered and screamed. The noise crashed around them like a waterfall and both Sanzak and Kadar winced.

Vorag lifted his chin, letting the noise wash over him. It was music to his ears. The last chieftains of the ghoul-tribes watched him warily from where they crouched. They had the look of whipped curs, and they grew agitated as Vorag stepped into the cavern, his arms at his sides.

The cowering pack-leaders had gathered around a heavy stump of purest abn-i-khat, the wyrdstone projecting from the cavern floor like a softly glowing boil. Crouched atop it was the creature that Vorag had been hunting, though he had not realised it until now. ‘A king,’ he murmured. ‘Of course.’

The ghoul was the largest of its kind that Vorag had ever seen. It was taller and broader than he was, even crouched, with apish arms that dragged the ground and a malformed, almost lupine skull. Its thick wrists were protected by ancient bracers of -tarnished and battered gold. It wore the remnants of barbaric armour, long since rust-riddled into uselessness and evidence of ritual scarification covered its greasy flesh. One eye was bisected by a pale scar and the ruined socket was stuffed with a crudely shaped chunk of abn-i-khat. A necklace of finger-bones and teeth clattered about its bull neck and a chest-piece of browning, broken skulls, linked by heavy strands of woven hair, covered its pectorals and prodigious belly.

It was a king amongst its kind, even as he was, a lord of worms. He wondered how it had come to that role, and how many of its own kind it had been forced to kill in its rise. Had its road to power amongst these cramped tunnels mirrored his or had it done it the hard way, by conquest? Regardless, this was the creature that the ghouls had been fleeing towards, the weak running for the protection of the strong.

As Vorag stepped into the cleared space, the ghoul king heaved itself upright with a thunderous grunt. It was old, far older than it should have been. He fancied that it persisted through sheer, savage determination. That was the story of the ghouls, after all. Where other men died, where other folk went extinct, the Yaghur, and those like them, had survived by any means necessary. And whatever came of Vorag’s ambitions, whatever the result of his quest, they would continue to do so. There was a fierce permanence to the creatures that he could not help but admire, even as a wolf might admire the cornered courage of a jackal as it bit through the smaller animal’s windpipe.

The ghoul king flung out a long arm and bellowed incoherent gibberish. All around the cavern, the watching hordes responded in kind, screeching and shrieking in support of their king. There was such a stubborn rage in that cacophony that for a moment Vorag thought that they would descend upon him en masse. Then, with an imperious gesture, the king rendered them silent. It had an impressive amount of control over its followers. How long had that taken, Vorag wondered? How many years had it taken for it to become king of these burrowing worms in the earth? The eye of green stone flickered strangely in the weird light of the cavern as the creature cocked its head and examined Vorag.

What was it seeing, when it looked at him? An enemy, a rival, or something else – did it see in him an ending? Did it see one final battle to cap its reign over these mouldering warrens? If it did, it showed no fear. Its movements were as assured and arrogant as those of any Strigoi lordling. It was master here and had been for some time, and perhaps it could not conceive of it being otherwise.

Vorag could feel the old hunger building in him. The thirst that came with immortality was as nothing compared to the hunger. The need to break and mangle those who stood in his path was strong. It had always driven him, in battle and peace both. The need to dominate, to conquer, was his birthright, as much as the ability to ride a horse or fire a bow. His muscles swelled with heat as he watched the ghoul king watching him. ‘Tell it why I have come, sorcerer,’ he rumbled. He felt Kadar stir behind him.

‘Are you sure this is the wisest course, my lord?’ Kadar replied hesitantly.

‘Tell it!’ Vorag roared. The ghouls stirred uneasily as the sound carried up into the high reaches of the cavern. His lips peeled back from his fangs. Kadar spoke and the ghouls fell silent.

The ghoul king sank back into a crouch and snapped irritably at the air. It barked strangled words. Kadar cleared his throat. ‘It – ah – it says you have not earned the right to face it in battle, my lord.’

‘Have I not?’ Vorag said. He spread his arms. ‘I have taken the heads of a dozen chieftains. I will take the remaining dozen, if that is what it requires.’ He tore the heads from himself and sent them rolling and bouncing across the floor. He gestured. ‘Come, then. Come and die.’

The ghoul king was silent for a moment. Then, with a grunt, its great hands slapped down on the stump of wyrdstone between its feet. It slapped the green stone again and again, and the sound seemed to slither and ripple through the green veins of the cavern, causing the wyrdstone to spark and flash. The gathered tribes of ghouls began to do the same, beating on the rocks with their fists, crafting a dull rhythm that swelled to fill the space.

The ghoul king rose to its full height and swept its arms forward, as it screeched at the gathered pack-leaders. They cowered and whined, and the ghoul king’s arm snapped out, snatching up the closest of them and, with little ceremony, bit out its throat. It hefted the twitching carcass over its head and hurled it out into the cavern, even as it swallowed the chunk of bloody meat. It gave another bellow and the remaining pack-leaders loped towards Vorag, though not without some hesitation.

He waited for them. As the first drew close, Vorag easily avoided its initial blow and caught it by the neck. He spun and jerked the squalling creature from its feet. With a flourish, he drove it snout-first into the floor. Its skull popped like an overripe fruit and he whirled the body about him like a flail, knocking several of the others from their feet. One, more agile then the rest, leapt over the improvised weapon and landed on Vorag’s back, driving him to his knees as it tore at his face and throat with its jagged claws. Vorag snatched the thing from his shoulders and broke its back over his knee. Two more crashed into him, and he staggered. They tore at him in frenzy, biting and clawing. The rest closed in, the pungent odour of vampire blood filling their nostrils. They swarmed about Vorag like hyenas attacking a lion. Claws tore his flesh and fangs gnawed muscle.

He could have changed form. It was difficult, but he had learned the trick of it, though Neferata had tried to hide it from him. He could become a wolf or a bat or a stinking mist, with some effort and not a little will. He could have taken a sword, or employed those petty sorceries that he had learned, without W’soran’s knowledge. All of these things or one would have brought him victory within moments, but that had never been his way. Even as a man, he had disdained the use of bows and spears, preferring the axe or bludgeon.

It was best, this way. It was proper. He would prove himself to these beasts, as he had never been able to prove himself to his people. He had ever striven to protect his people, to show them the true path of Strigu, but they had turned from him. They had turned to outsiders and Vorag had been banished. Again and again, his people had denied him. Again and again, they had told him that he was not worthy.

With a roar, Vorag flung the ghouls from him. He caught one as it tried to scramble away and tore it in half. He stamped on a second, shattering its spine. The remainder tried to retreat, but Vorag pursued, smashing them down and flinging them into the air. Only when the last of them was dead did he pause.

The cavern had gone silent. The gathered ghouls watched him like mice watching a cat. They seemed to be waiting for something. He looked towards the stump of wyrdstone. The ghoul king was nowhere in sight.

‘Vorag,’ Sanzak roared. ‘Look out!’ The Strigoi drew his blade and sent it spinning across the cavern towards Vorag. The latter caught the blade and swept it around and up even as the heavy, two-handed sword slammed down. Vorag caught the blow on Sanzak’s blade and grunted in surprise at the strength behind the blow. The ghoul king growled and stepped back, dragging its great blade with it. It was an old blade, gone almost black with age, and its edge was badly notched and chipped.

‘Cunning,’ Vorag said, as the giant ghoul circled him. ‘But not cunning enough. I have my supporters as well.’ He launched himself at the beast, and they spun in a circle trading crashing blows. The creature was as strong as he was, if not stronger, but it was alive. It would grow tired, and Vorag would not. The ghoul seemed to recognise that as well, and its brutal flailing assumed a desperate urgency as it sought to batter him from his feet. The clang of metal filled the cavern, until at last the ghoul’s blade, weakened by age and ill-use, snapped in half even as it connected with Vorag’s borrowed blade. The ghoul did not hesitate, flinging the broken blade at Vorag and grabbing his scalp in one mammoth paw. With a roar, it flung him aside.

Vorag hit the ground hard and lost hold of his blade. He rolled to his feet and whirled, blocking a blow that would have crushed a mortal man’s skull, and drove a battering-ram fist into the web of skulls that covered the ghoul’s torso. Broken bits of bone spattered his face as the ghoul staggered back. Vorag did not give it time to recover. He leapt on it, jaws expanding to accommodate his prey’s wide neck. The ghoul reacted more swiftly than he had anticipated, driving him to the ground with a hammer-blow to his back.

Vorag rolled aside as the ghoul’s foot slammed down, narrowly missing his head. He sprang to his feet, bending beneath a looping swipe and tackling the brute, knocking it onto its back. The ghoul king twisted with a yowl, squirming in Vorag’s grip and leveraging its greater size to fling its head forward and fasten its jaws on the side of Vorag’s throat.

Vorag shrieked as the ghoul’s fangs slid into his flesh and his grip tightened. The creature released him as several of its ribs splintered. It tore itself free of his grip and slapped him aside. He hurtled backwards, crashing amongst the crowd of ghouls clustered about the edge of the cavern. Several ghouls were crushed beneath his weight, their bodies broken. Their wails added to the rising chorus of howls from the onlookers.

Blood pulsed from the wound in his neck, and one of his legs had been shattered by the impact. Vorag pushed himself upright with a hiss of pain. The ghoul king was wheezing and had one arm clamped tight to its ribs. Vorag dragged himself towards it. He would heal, given time and blood, but he could not wait. He refused to wait.

The ghoul king snatched up a shattered bone from amongst the bodies lying scattered about and, as Vorag shoved himself forward, slammed the sharp edge of the bone through a gap in Vorag’s cuirass and into his chest. Vorag gasped as the bone burrowed for his heart, but resisted the urge to retreat. Instead, he grabbed the ghoul king’s arms and jerked himself forward. With a convulsive heave, he snapped his jaws shut on the creature’s throat. Even as the shard of bone scratched across his heart, he tore the brute’s throat out with a spasmodic shake of his head.

As the king’s body fell, Vorag rose to his feet, tore the splinter of bone from his heart, and hurled it aside. He looked down at the beast, and at the legions of ghouls that watched him in stunned silence.

Then, with a thunderous roar, the ghouls of Cripple Peak greeted their new king.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author of the novels Knight of the Blazing Sun, Time of Legends: Neferata and Gotrek and Felix: Road of Skulls, Josh Reynolds used to be a roadie for the Hong Kong Cavaliers, but now writes full time. His work has appeared in various anthologies, including Age of Legend and several issues of the electronic magazine Hammer and Bolter.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.

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