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Ghoul King: Empire of Maggots

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Ghoul King:
Empire of Maggots

Josh Reynolds

Starveling wolves with mangy coats loped through the billowing dust, their howls echoing across the plains of ash and bone. Goblins of the Red Cloud tribe clung precariously to the back of each wolf, their green limbs hidden beneath ratty furs and barbaric tattoos. The wolf riders fired crude bows as they rode their slavering mounts towards the approaching phalanx of skeletal warriors. The latter had invaded the goblins’ territory with the rise of the moon that even now gleamed idiotically down on the clash, and seemed intent on seeing that not a single goblin survived to see its setting.

The dead ignored the spattering of arrows and continued to press forward, with shields locked and spears levelled. The wolf riders wheeled about in a cloud of lupine yelps and greenskin curses. Their usual hit-and-run tactics, which served them so well against Cathayan merchant caravans and other slow-moving and badly defended slave trains, made little to no impact on the army of the dead. The Red Clouds had been a name to strike terror into the hearts of those they attacked in the years preceding the arrival of the invaders to their lands, but the dead felt no fear. Skeletons marched on, arrows jutting from eye sockets and ribcages, and it was a rare lucky shot that would drop one, its skull burst or spine broken.

‘Ha, look at them run!’ Vorag Bloodytooth growled. He pounded on the neck of the great black horse he sat astride. Horse and rider stood on one of the high dunes of rock and compacted ash that marked these lands, away from the cut and thrust of the battle. From where he sat, he could oversee the battle, and send riders carrying orders to the being responsible for controlling the dead warriors harrying the goblins and herding them back towards their pathetic lair.

At the thought of the necromancer, Vorag looked towards one of the nearby crags. The fang of volcanic rock had been forced up from beneath the ground by the reverberations of some long-ago cataclysm. And atop it, a weird figure stood, surrounded by a corona of dark magic. The skeletally thin figure was clad in tattered robes and clutched a staff topped by a human skull. His name was Kadar, one of the vampire W’soran’s prize pupils, and, likely a spy, sent to keep an eye on Vorag for his master.

W’soran had sought sanctuary from the machinations of Ushoran with the enemies of the latter, of whom Vorag was the foremost. Or so he had been, at the time. Like all men of power, Ushoran collected enemies like a cur collected fleas. That many of them had once been his foremost allies was also not unusual. Vorag himself had been raised from a mere frontier lord to Ushoran’s right hand, before he had fallen from the latter’s esteem.

Though before that had occurred, Ushoran had given him many gifts, including immortality. Vorag ran his tongue across the tips of his fangs. Like most Strigoi nobility, he was a vampire. He glanced at his aides – a group of red-eyed, white-fanged Strigoi ajals in cuirasses of banded mail and furs, their heads completely shaved save for the traditional scalp-locks that marked blooded warriors amongst the Strigoi, riding their own horses – and said, ‘Are Moise and Seneslau and their riders in position? I won’t have those green-skinned maggots slipping through my fingers again.’

‘Aye, my king,’ one of the aides, a crook-necked vampire named Barbat, said obsequiously. Vorag grunted in satisfaction and turned back to watch the goblin retreat. It was the fifth such tribe of greenskins that he and his legions had made to crush in as many months. There were hundreds of greenskin tribes – orcs and goblins both – in the dusty wastes between the Plain of Bones and the Ash Ridge Mountains. The latter were clearly visible in the distance, belching black smoke into the air. There was little sunlight in these lands, which made them perfect for Vorag’s purposes.

A land of gloom and death would be the perfect cradle for his nascent empire. Let Ushoran have the forests and crags of Strigos; there were no living men left in the ranks of Vorag’s legions, and the dead were not bothered by ash clouds and sandstorms.

He had come east from Cripple Peak with his legions almost a decade previous, his skeletal army bolstered by a massive swarm of ghouls from the cramped and filthy tunnels beneath the dread citadel of Nagashizzar. The ghouls had been won to his banner over the course of a dozen days of bloodletting which had seen Vorag return to the open air carrying the scalps of close to thirty ghoul chieftains, and followed into the moonlight by their respective tribes. A number of those same ghouls gambolled about the mounted vampires, clad in rags and rattle-trap half-armour, their sickly greyish flesh shining like silver in the moonlight as they sniffed the air and growled hungrily. They had caught the odour of dying goblins, carried on the night wind, as had Vorag himself.

He sat up straighter in his saddle, nostrils flaring. Goblin blood had its own peculiar scent – acrid, yet sweet. His face shrivelled and assumed a bestial cast in the moonlight, and he threw back his white-maned head and howled. The ghouls joined in, their screaming cries mingling with those of their king.

Without a word to his ajals, Vorag kicked his horse into motion. The ghouls loped after him as he galloped towards the battle below. His men uttered startled oaths and curses and galloped after him, drawing their weapons. Vorag hunched low over his red-eyed mount’s neck and unsheathed his own great chopping blade. It had once belonged to the king of the Cripple Peak ghouls, before Vorag had torn out the monster’s throat and claimed both its crown and blade for himself. He had had the ancient barrow-blade re-forged into something more fitting a king, and it was now a thing of sublime and sinister cruelty, elegant in its brute design.

Vorag and his riders caught up with the fleeing wolf riders easily, their red-eyed horses faster than any half-starved wolf. Vorag smashed a goblin from its saddle with a single sweep of his blade. Arrows shattered on his armour, save for one that he caught mid-air and snapped in half with his fangs. The wolf riders were leading them right back to their lair, even as he had hoped. He had spent weeks trying to dig this particular tribe out of their hidey-hole, and now that he had them, he did not intend to let them get away. He kicked savagely at his mount’s flanks, urging it to greater speed.

The wolf riders were heading for an eruption of badly constructed palisade and rotting animal-hide tents. Like most greenskins, this tribe was nomadic, moving from lair to lair, and their encampment was suitably unimpressive. Screeching horns caterwauled, and brawling knots of goblins carrying spears and bows boiled out of the palisade, heading straight for the approaching undead. The goblins were brave enough, in their numbers, but once you had butchered half of them, the rest invariably scattered.

Vorag and his riders and ghouls overtook the retreating wolf riders, and both beasts and goblins died. Those that survived did so only because they turned and sprinted through the ranks of their enemy. But there was nowhere to go – the approaching phalanxes of skeletons had cut off all routes of retreat in that direction.

A tall goblin, clad in furs and wearing a wolf-skull helm, gesticulated with a club as it tried to beat its warriors into some semblance of shape. But the greenskins lacked any sort of discipline, and many of them fell to fighting amongst themselves even as Vorag crashed in amongst them, laying about him with his heavy blade. The other Strigoi followed suit, howling and roaring as they chopped through upraised limbs and skulls alike. The ghouls fell upon the goblins a moment later, some using weapons, but most using only their teeth and claws. The goblins came apart like a thin tent in a windstorm. The knots of greenskins came untangled, scattering in a hundred different directions, scrambling for the dubious safety of the palisades or the wastes.

The wolf-helmed chieftain screeched as Vorag spitted him on his blade and flicked him into the air. He caught the flailing body with a second blow, nearly bisecting the screaming creature in mid-air. He grinned in satisfaction as he heard the hunting horns of the riders he had stationed out of sight nearby sound. They would round up as many of the fleeing goblins as possible, employing the large nets woven from hair and leather that Vorag had had crafted for just this purpose.

Vorag leaned back in his saddle as he watched the ghouls maul those goblins stupid enough to make a stand. He inhaled the sweet scent of slaughter and closed his eyes. A face swam to the surface of his mind – pale and golden haired and laughing – and his eyes snapped open. A snarl forced its way through his clenched fangs and he angrily sheathed his sword.

When the survivors had been rounded up and bound in nets, ropes and chains, Vorag ordered his men to set fire to the palisade and the stinking, badly tanned hides that served as tents. Then they began the long march back to the tower. His tower, now, though it had belonged to someone – something – else long before Vorag and his followers had even been born. Kadar had many theories, each more bizarre than the last, and none worth Vorag’s attention.

They had found the tower easily enough. It was visible for miles around, a narrow column of bronze-gone-verdigris, like a grave marker or a spear planted in a dying beast’s hide. It extended high above the plains, unbowed by time or weather, and nothing grew upon it or around it. Its corridors and curving staircases stank of old ghosts and secret things, and the plain around it had been filled with the bones of great beasts and things that might have been men, before they had become something else. The bones were cleared away now, and massive walls rose, slab by slab, around the tower.

Something stirred in Vorag’s belly when he caught sight of his citadel. When he had first seen it, it had seemed like a bounty from Strigu, a feather from his dark wings. He had entered the tower alone, for no other had had the courage. Immortality did not make a man brave; indeed, it seemed to have the opposite effect on many. They became fearful things, hiding in the dark and not daring to put muscle to blade. The citadel was a thing of beauty.

It had taken decades to reach its current state, and it would take decades more to finish. Luckily, there was no surfeit of slaves to be pressed to the task. The stone walls were higher even than those of Mourkain, and formed from the hard, pale stone quarried from the deep pits that his followers had found near the shores of the Bitter Sea. Orc and goblin slaves were visible even at a distance, heaving and scrambling across the walls like insects. The former were almost impossible to break to the lash and the latter horribly easy, but they all served regardless. Both sorts responded to strength, and Vorag was the strongest there was in these lands. The walls were defended by large, rotating platforms upon which were mounted bolt-throwers and catapults. The platforms were turned by a simple arrangement of ropes and pulleys. A dozen slaves could turn the war-engines about to be aimed in any direction just by pulling on the great ropes and chains that hung from the platforms.

The citadel was far larger below than it was above. The ghouls, never comfortable above ground, had quickly discovered that there was a vast network of half-collapsed tunnels and caverns below the tower and had begun to enlarge those in the months after Vorag had laid claim to the tower. There had been some sign of goblins in those tunnels once, but no longer. Now, the roots of his citadel were sunk deep in these lands, like the talons of a hawk in the flesh of its prey.

As the conquering force returned to their fortress, Vorag was pleased to see distant riders wheeling about and galloping towards the citadel. Until watchtowers could be built, and bodies spared to man them, his empire had to rely on a system of outposts and messengers. Horns blew within his ranks, and were greeted by welcoming blasts from the gates.

The gates were composed of stone, bone and fossilised wood. The bones of the giant beasts that had surrounded the tower had been put to good use, being both almost impossible to shatter and capable of bearing great weight. Massive rib-bones marked the frame of the gate, and the heavy doors were controlled by ropes and chains hauled through a weight and pulley system by a hundred, overly muscled ghouls who had been trained to do nothing else save this task. They barked and shrieked in greeting as they dragged the doors open and the army flooded through the titan portcullis. Braziers made from overturned shields and crudely shaped bronze bowls lined the walls and sat in the courtyard mounted upon tripods made from planted spears. Bodies dangled from some of the latter, mostly orcs, but occasionally ghouls, held upright by thick lengths of rope. Most were dead, but some moved feebly, and passing Strigoi would fasten their fangs into old grooves and gulp the thin trickles of blood that spurted forth.

Vorag inhaled the scent of industry – blood, sweat and pain – and gave a satisfied sigh. He hauled on his mount’s reins, bringing the animal to a stop. ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured.

‘For something created on a whim, it is indeed impressive,’ Kadar hissed, jerking his mount to a halt beside Vorag’s. The army streamed about them, dragging the captives to the slave pens, and the dead reassuming the positions that they held when not on the march. While he preferred living men to the dead, Vorag had to admit that the dead were less trouble all told; easier on the supply train, at least. He looked at the necromancer. He noticed the crook-backed Barbat nearby, watching him intently, and Vorag fought to hide a smile. These days, wherever Kadar went, Barbat was close by.

‘You have something to say?’ he said.

‘Merely to implore that you honour your oaths, Lord Vorag, as befitting a king,’ Kadar said, his wizened, rat-like features pinched with a familiar frustration. To say that he had been unhappy when Vorag had ordered the army east was an understatement. W’soran’s acolyte had raged for three days, stopping just short of outright challenging Vorag, which had been the only thing to save him from having his withered heart dug out of his chest and placed smoking on Vorag’s board. Kadar still had his uses, as he had proved in their march to the east. It was his magics which had animated the bones in the wastes they had traversed since leaving Cripple Peak and swelled the ranks of Vorag’s army. And he was teaching a number of Vorag’s other followers the art of the same, including, Vorag wagered, Barbat. For all their flaws, the servants of W’soran were not jealous with their knowledge. Indeed, they seemed to be unable to resist sharing it. Even Vorag had learned something of it, though he was careful to keep that bit of information from the increasingly troublesome Kadar.

The rat-like necromancer thought his intrigues with Barbat and the rest had passed beneath Vorag’s notice. Kadar thought him a fool, as did W’soran. Indeed, all of those ancient vampires – W’soran, Neferata, Abhorash and yes, even Ushoran, who had raised the Strigoi from the muck – thought him a brute thing, driven by bloodlust and battle-greed and fit only to serve them; indeed, he suspected such was their opinion of all Strigoi. They wanted to hone him, like a blade, and if he broke in the process, they would replace him with another likely candidate. At that thought, he glanced at Barbat, who looked away. Vorag grunted. He was a tool to them, and always would be, regardless of what he did or how many oceans of blood he waded through.

Their arrogance, like their power, was great indeed. Once, Vorag would have gutted a treacherous piece of filth like Kadar and left him to rot as a lesson to the others. But he had learned caution over the centuries. Even before they had been given Ushoran’s gift, the ajals and agals of the Strigoi had jockeyed ceaselessly for dominance over their fellows and Vorag was a veteran of the snake-pit of court politics. He had the necklace of fangs, torn from the mouths of his enemies, to prove it.

He fondled the necklace as he listened to Kadar prattle on about oaths, and honour and duty. Annoying as his petty machinations were, it was hard to truly fault him. Betrayal was in his blood. The acolytes of W’soran were infamous for their incessant internecine squabbles. They fought each other for W’soran’s attentions like murderous children and the old monster encouraged such bloodletting.

‘It is well past time, my lord. Master W’soran must be made aware of your new undertaking,’ Kadar said. He gestured to the fortress that rose around them, and the enslaved orcs and goblins labouring in their thousands. ‘He must know that you have discarded his stratagems in favour of… this.’ The contempt in the vampire’s voice was obvious, and it was laced with the barest hint of challenge. Kadar was not so foolish as to come right out and fling his accusations in Vorag’s face, but it was clear that he intended to remind the Bloodytooth where his true loyalties lay. ‘We must return to Crookback Mountain, if we are not going to march on the lands of the dead. These troops – these resources – are needed on the frontiers!’

‘I think I am capable of deciding what resources are necessary for the support of my frontiers, necromancer,’ Vorag said, not looking at Kadar. Instead, he kept his eyes on Barbat. The other vampire flinched away from his gaze, either from guilt or fear. ‘W’soran is my castellan. I am not his.’

‘I did not mean to imply–’ Kadar began, but Vorag cut him off with a sharp gesture.

‘But you did.’ Vorag pinned the necromancer with a glare. ‘How is Sanzak coming with his studies, Kadar?’

‘I – what do you mean?’

‘Only that if you wish to rejoin your master, I will allow you to do so, once Sanzak is capable of keeping my army on its feet,’ Vorag said, leaning towards the other vampire. He grinned and Kadar shied back, nearly tumbling from his saddle. ‘In fact, you may go with as many as wish to join you.’ That last he directed at Barbat, whose eyes narrowed in consternation.

‘What?’ Kadar said.

‘You heard me, Kadar,’ Vorag said, kicking his mount into a trot. He galloped through a crowd of slaves carrying great blocks of stone towards the walls, and his horse trampled a squealing goblin as he forced it through them. The glowing-eyed wights that acted as overseers for the bellowing, whining greenskins uncoiled heavy whips and sent them hissing across the backs of the creatures. Vorag ignored the resulting screams and urged his horse towards the foot of the great tower that occupied the centre of the growing fortress. Everything he had built radiated outward from this aleph.

He looked up at the edifice, admiring the ingenuity that had gone into its construction. Up close, it put him in mind of the peel of a fruit that had been pried free and all in one piece from the sweetness within and left to dry in the sun. It looked wide at the base and seemed to grow narrower as it rose, though that was simply an illusion, he now knew. In truth, it was far bigger than it appeared. Something about it put him in mind of the black pyramid of Mourkain, though if the tower had an inherent malevolence akin to that malign structure, it was of a different sort altogether.

The large doors that marked the entrance were forced open by a group of wights, their withered limbs shorn of ornamentation. Their eyes glowed with an ugly light as they shoved the doors open, allowing a burly shape to stalk through. ‘Hail the conquering hero,’ the vampire said. ‘Rounded up another load of the green swine, then?’

‘Hard not to,’ Vorag said, swinging himself down from his saddle. A number of ghouls scuttled forward to take his reins. They would see to his mount. ‘The urka practically fell over each other to greet us, Sanzak.’

‘They obviously heard you were coming, and were overcome.’ Sanzak was nearly as burly as Vorag for all that he looked like something that had been dragged face-first over stony ground. Of all of Vorag’s servants he was the most loyal of those who had come east, after the war had taken a turn for the worse. He had served Vorag on a hundred battlefields and if he were not the most cunning, he was certainly the most pragmatic of the vampiric nobles who followed him. ‘More slaves, or are they for the tower,’ he said clasping Vorag’s forearm.

Vorag drew him close. ‘Does she require it?’

‘It can only help,’ Sanzak said, casting a glance at the tower. ‘Their lives are brief things, and she gobbles them like sweetmeats. It takes more and more to keep her from slipping back into the dark.’ He caught Vorag’s look and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It means she is getting stronger, my friend.’

Vorag closed his eyes. ‘Then… it is working.’

‘Yes,’ Sanzak said softly. ‘We will wash her chambers in the blood of a hundred goblins and their young tonight, and you will see.’ He held Vorag, preventing the other from stepping back. ‘I saw that confrontation with Kadar, and that cunning jackal Barbat lurking off to the side. You should let me deal with them.’

Vorag smiled crookedly. ‘Do you think yourself a match for the sorcerer?’

Sanzak hesitated, and then nodded. ‘I can match him.’

‘I believe you, my friend, but now is not the time. He has his uses yet, and your talents are more useful here, seeing to the health of my queen,’ Vorag said quietly.

‘As you wish,’ Sanzak said. ‘That is not why I came to greet you, at any rate.’

Vorag looked at him. ‘What is it?’

‘There have been attacks while you were out hunting. Goblins, mostly, and not a tribe I’m familiar with. They’ve been attacking our supply routes and mining operations.’ Sanzak tapped the pommel of the sword sheathed at his hip nervously. ‘More organised than the barbaric little fiends we’ve been tripping over lately. More ambitious, as well,’ he added.

‘They’ve tried to breach the citadel?’ Vorag said.

‘Isolated groups, little more than sneak-thieves,’ Sanzak said, nodding, ‘I don’t know how they got in, but I have a suspicion. The ghoul burrows are growing extensive… If the goblins have found one of them…’ He trailed off and made a face. ‘Strigu knows they could have been here the entire time, lairing somewhere close by. Though if that’s the case, how they remained hidden all this time is a mystery. That’s not all, though.’ He paused and glanced again at the tower. ‘We have… a guest,’ he said.

Vorag had known Sanzak long enough to know that tone. ‘So,’ he murmured, ‘they’ve found us, then, have they?’ He had expected it, sooner or later. He doubted there was anywhere in the world one could go to escape the eyes and ears of the Queen of Mysteries. He frowned. ‘Where are they?’

‘Just one. She got into the tower – I don’t know how – but I caught her before she got to the top. She hasn’t seen her.’

‘There are always three of them,’ Vorag interjected, shaking his head. Neferata’s handmaidens always travelled in packs. If Sanzak had only caught one, it was because she had wished to be caught. He looked around. There were two more of them, at least, somewhere nearby. Possibly in the citadel, possibly outside the walls, but he could feel them. They would stay close, but out of sight. Their sister had come to deliver a message, and they would not show themselves unless she was in danger. ‘They travel in threes. Which one is she? Did you recognise her?’ he said intently.

‘No.’ He knew what Vorag meant, well enough. ‘But that means nothing. She is of our folk, though.’ He meant Strigoi. But that meant nothing, if she served who Vorag thought she did. The women who served Neferata had long since given up any loyalty save that for their queen. Vorag could not fault them – he had once shared that loyalty, after all. Ushoran had given him the gift of the vampire, but it was Neferata who had taught him how to use it. She had likely thought that sending a Strigoi woman would put him at his ease, which, if anything, only proved that even now, for all her cunning, Neferata did not truly understand the Strigoi. ‘She demanded to see you upon your return.’

‘I will see her when I choose and not before,’ Vorag growled. ‘Neferata is not mistress here, no matter what she thinks. Where did you put her?’

‘In one of the antechambers on the fourth level,’ Sanzak said. ‘There are guards on the doors, and ghouls prowling the corridors. She will not leave until we let her.’

‘Somehow, I am less than confident in your assessment, old friend,’ Vorag said. He shook himself. ‘I am going to see my queen.’

Sanzak opened his mouth as if to protest, but said nothing. He merely shook his head and stepped aside. Vorag stepped past him, stopped, and placed a hand on the other vampire’s shoulder. ‘None of this is a coincidence, my friend. It remains to be seen who our immediate enemies are, but be watchful.’ Sanzak nodded. Vorag continued into the tower.

The interior of the tower was as odd as the exterior. It had been built around a hollow core that stretched down into a gigantic stone cistern on the ground floor. How deep the cistern went, Vorag did not know, nor did he care. It extended well past the warrens of the ghouls, implying that the tower’s roots went deeper than even Kadar imagined. It served its purpose well enough, as the rust-coloured stains on the edges attested. From the cistern, great bronze chains rose through the hollow core, stretching all the way to the enclosed top of the tower, which Vorag had claimed. The chains had not been crafted by men and sometimes, in the darkest part of the evening, they rattled as if something far below sought to climb them. Even now, the links glistened with blood. Whether it was the blood of the hundreds of greenskins that were tossed with ritual regularity into the pit, or of something else, even Sanzak could not say. Regardless, thanks to the latter’s sorcerous skill, the blood climbed the chain drop by drop, link by link, growing in potency and power the higher it went.

Hundreds of greenskins, those not earmarked for a life of slavery, were sacrificed, their deaths fuelling a ritual that was equal parts innovation as incantation. The chains rustled softly, as if in welcome, as he climbed the stairs to the top of the tower.

Dead men stood guard on every floor save the highest, clad in jagged black armour and carrying heavy shields and cruel-bladed spears. They had served him in life as vojnuk – the armoured horsemen who wielded hunting spears to deadly effect against the enemies of Mourkain. Their crashing charges had broken the back of more than one orc horde or barbarian battle line. Now, in death, they had become wights, their bloodthirsty souls anchored to their withered husks by Kadar’s sinister arts. They had been the edge of his army’s blade in life, and in death they fulfilled much the same function, when they were not serving as guards.

On the top floor, the malformed, elephantine crypt horrors that had once borne his queen from Crookback Mountain kept watch, crouched outside his chambers, their large, scarred forms weighed down with armour and chains. The beasts stiffened as Vorag reached the top floor, and they rose warily to their feet, dull, savage eyes gleaming within the sealed helmets that enclosed their bestial skulls. Vorag raised his hand and they sank back down silently. He stepped into the chamber.

The room was circular, with large windows that looked out in all directions. The night wind whistled through the room, causing the furs he had had placed over each window to flap and curl. The room was empty, save for the bier. And on the bier lay what was left of the woman he would have made his queen, when he finally took the throne of Mourkain for himself.

Her hair, once the hue of the sun he only dimly recalled, was now the colour of dirty ice and her once supple flesh resembled something left out too long in the sun. The eyes, once so full of cunning and delight, were milky, unseeing orbs and her mouth, now no more than a ragged slash. She was dead, and had died in his moment of triumph, and in doing so, rendered victory meaningless.

Sanzak swore that the rituals he had learned, the rituals that called for death and blood aplenty, would draw her dark spirit out of whatever bower it now sheltered in. Sometimes, he prayed to Shaya the goddess of the moon in her thousand forms that she would sit up and hold out her arms to him as she had done so often before. He brushed the stiff, dry strands of her hair aside to reveal the ragged wound on her throat. He hissed in anger, and a name burned in his brain – W’soran.

W’soran had killed her. Sanzak had admitted as much, years before. Stregga had made no attempt to hide her disdain for W’soran, even as he had not attempted to hide his own loathing for her and her mistress, Neferata. Perhaps she had tried to kill him, and he had turned the tables. Vorag did not care. All that mattered was calling her back from the darkness. Then, together, they would rend the old monster shin to spine as he deserved. Vorag growled softly, relishing the thought of making a banner from W’soran’s flayed hide. It would be a better fate than the necromancer deserved.

Vorag looked down at the runnels that ran from each corner of the bier to the hole in the floor where the chains stretched up and connected to heavy iron rings sunk deep into the stone. The blood that had been sorcerously compelled to climb the chains crept slowly through the runnels to the bier, and from it, to Stregga’s corpse. As he watched, a blob of blood rolled towards her mummified fingers and splashed across them only to vanish like water on parched soil. He could see no change in her, no matter what Sanzak proclaimed. All he could do was trust that Sanzak was correct.

‘I have my army,’ he said, stroking her stiff, dry hair. ‘Thousands now march to my banner. But it is not enough.’ He leaned close, and his lips brushed against hers. ‘It will never be enough. Not until you are returned to me.’

‘A king must have his queen.’

The voice was familiar, but Vorag could not attach a name to it. From the way she stood, its owner had obviously expected him to spin and leap at her, upon her interruption. But Vorag had learned much in his exile, and while his temper and instincts occasionally betrayed him, he had expected such an interruption the moment he told Sanzak to leave the Lahmian waiting. He stood slowly, nostrils flaring as he took in her scent – sickly sweet, like dying flowers, as most of Neferata’s get tended to smell – and turned to face the intruder. She threw back her hood, revealing crimson tresses and a feral beauty.

‘Yes,’ he said, simply.

‘We thought that she was dead,’ the Lahmian said, relaxing slightly.

‘She is,’ Vorag said, ‘as you can see.’

‘But you keep her as a keepsake?’ The question was a jab, meant to provoke him. Vorag fought down the surge of animal rage that accompanied it. She was watching him, as if gauging his reaction. He was reminded of Neferata; she had always been able to tell what he had been thinking just from observing his face or the way he stood. She had been able to read him as easily as Kadar read one of his mouldering tomes.

‘I keep her, because I must,’ Vorag said, stepping between the bier and the Lahmian. ‘I will protect her in death, as I failed to do in life.’

‘Admirable sentiments,’ the woman said, moving around him. ‘She does not look as dead as all that, however.’ She looked at him, her gaze sly. ‘Maybe she is getting better, eh?’

Vorag tensed. ‘Why are you here, woman?’

‘My name is Iona, King Vorag,’ the Lahmian said, looking at him. ‘And I am here at the behest of my queen, who hopes to be a friend to you now, as she was in the beginning.’

‘And what does she want, your queen? What can the Bloodytooth provide the Queen of Mysteries?’

‘Your good right arm,’ Iona said, drawing closer. ‘She misses your counsel, and the counsel of her she-wolf.’ She reached out, as if to touch Stregga. Vorag caught her hand and pushed her back, but gently.

‘I doubt that,’ Vorag rumbled.

‘It is true,’ she said. ‘Ushoran’s madness grows by the hour. Soon, it will consume him utterly and Mourkain and Strigos with it, if nothing is done.’

‘And what does your mistress think I should do, eh? Bring my legions back and wage war?’

‘Together, we could topple the tyrant, and set your people free,’ Iona said.

‘Is that what you call it?’ Vorag said, chuckling.

‘Don’t you? The throne is yours, by right. You are the true heir to Strigu, and everyone knows it,’ Iona said. ‘You are the rightful hetman of Mourkain, the rightful emperor of Strigos. Why rule this empire of maggots and dust when you could rule your chosen people? When you could liberate them from the clutches of a mad monster and his viperous followers?’

‘Everyone knows,’ Vorag repeated, turning away. Gently, he stroked Stregga’s cheek. He glanced back at Iona. ‘Everyone knows because your mistress spread that cunning little fable about with abandon. Aye, she and W’soran both like to bandy about that story about the “rightful king”. There are many who have just as much claim as I – Morath, for instance, or that arrogant fool, Gashnag. They have just as much claim to the throne and crown as I.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘And they’d make better kings, I’d wager.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Maybe not Gashnag.’

‘Do you truly believe that they would be better for your people than you?’

Vorag laughed uproariously. ‘Of course not,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘But I have grown tired of playing the lack-wit.’ He snorted and looked at Iona. ‘I will tell you why Neferata wants me to return. Because she still thinks to rule; but she is wise enough to know that the Strigoi will never accept a woman, especially her, as their ruler. So, she comes to Vorag – stupid, greedy, ambitious, Vorag. Vorag, whom she tutored in the art of politesse; Vorag, in whom she instilled the ambition to be something more than a frontier lord; Vorag, who is too simple-minded to outwit her,’ he said. He leaned close to her. ‘I presume that you’ve already visited W’soran?’

Iona said nothing. Vorag grinned and nodded. ‘Of course you have. The old monster would be useful, wouldn’t he?’ He gestured. ‘I served Neferata’s whims long enough to recognise when she’s gathering her strands for weaving. Why else would your sisters have come to Crookback Mountain to urge me to ride to her aid, when we both know that she has little need of another cast-off Strigoi nobleman? Ushoran’s court is bleeding renegades and has been since…’ He trailed off.

‘Since you decided to start the war early,’ Iona said. It was not an accusation, not quite. Nonetheless, it still stung. Vorag growled softly and turned away. Iona did not hesitate. ‘She would have put you on the throne, my lord. You would have been king… and my sister would have been your queen.’ That last was said with a snarl. Vorag whirled, unable to contain the spurt of raw, red rage that the unspoken accusation evoked. Iona avoided his backhanded blow and danced out of reach, moving like a quicksilver shadow. ‘You would rule an empire even now, and she would be by your side. Not dead and withered on that bier,’ Iona hissed, her eyes flashing.

Vorag roared and lunged for her. Again she avoided him. He turned to follow her, and saw her perched on the bier, crouched over the body of Stregga. ‘You could still rule, Bloodytooth. You are a fool and a beast, but you could rule, if you would but return to your proper place.’

Vorag snarled. ‘You are the second to remind me of my proper place this day, witch.’ He pointed at her. ‘I’ll give you the same answer I gave him… I have my empire. I have my citadel, my throne, my slaves, my legions. I have taken the scraps your queen deigned to gift me with and made them a meal fit for a god.’ He stepped back and crossed his arms. ‘I am content, for now, to let your mistress wage her own wars. I am content to let my false allies waste themselves on their enemies as they see fit. And when I have determined that the time is right, I will return and add Mourkain and its shattered lands to my empire. And when that day comes, perhaps then, we shall see what my proper place is.’

Iona straightened and stepped off the bier. ‘Perhaps we will, King Vorag.’ She stepped past him, showing neither fear nor nervousness. ‘Though I doubt we will meet again.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘No,’ Iona said, crossing to the window, ‘merely a statement.’ She looked at him. ‘If she cannot count you a friend, she must count you an enemy, my lord.’

‘She has ever done as she will, but I will not bow. I will not serve. I am Vorag, and I am king.’

‘Then enjoy your kingdom of maggots and slaves for as long as it lasts, my lord,’ Iona said.

‘That was definitely a threat,’ Vorag said, as the Lahmian vanished out the window. He made no move to stop her. There was no sense in aggravating Neferata any more than he already had. He moved to the window and peered down, but saw nothing save a cloud of bats cutting across the face of the moon. He grunted and turned back to the bier. ‘I hope you awaken soon, my love. I need you, and I will need your cunning in the days to come.’

Despite his fears, however, no attack came in the months that followed. At least not immediately and not from the direction he anticipated. Weeks passed, and with them, his empire grew by miles and mountains. Dead men patrolled the shores of the Bitter Sea and the foothills of the Ash Ridge Mountains, pushing the greenskin tribes further west.

Occasionally, when Kadar’s demands grew too strident too ignore, slave caravans travelled into the Worlds Edge Mountains, ferrying greenskin prisoners to Crookback Mountain. Eventually, he ceased altogether. Kadar grew more strident, but never moved into open rebellion. His only allies in Vorag’s court were spiteful creatures like Barbat; the other Strigoi were content to engage in the traditional pursuit of orc-hunting. The goblin tribe that had so worried Sanzak seemed to have vanished into the wastes, and no more attacks came; though the ghouls reported hearing strange things in their warrens and tunnels, and sometimes his scouts went missing. The slaves grew more restless by the day, muttering to each other in their uncouth tongue, their bestial eyes glittering. None of this worried Vorag.

He knew he was playing a dangerous game, and even if he were not, Sanzak was there to remind him of it. Neferata sent no more envoys, but then neither did W’soran. Strigoi stragglers, fleeing east, brought word that W’soran had begun to raid the frontiers of Strigos, taking slaves and plunder with abandon, and that Neferata’s handmaidens were leading the hill-tribes of the Grey Mountains and the northern Vaults into bloody war with Ushoran’s proxies. War spread through the mountains like wildfire through dry grass. The drums of the orc tribes sounded in the deeps and the dawi shut fast the gates of their mountain holds as Ushoran and his ancient rivals duelled on the rim of the world, and threatened to drown everything in the blood of the Strigoi and their enemies.

And Vorag waited and watched. The mountains were a cauldron, threatening to boil over. When it reached its peak, he would strike. Or so he told himself. So he whispered to Stregga, on her bier, as he watched her shrunken form absorb drop after drop of blood.

‘We will be heroes,’ he murmured to her. ‘We will rule an empire that straddles the spine of the mountains, and none shall stand against us. I will shuck your queen from her mountain lair, and fling W’soran into the dust. I will have mighty chains made and I will break them and collar them and they will serve us. Ushoran will die, because he must and Abhorash as well, the bastard. Them I will kill with my own claws, and I will have their fangs set into a diadem for you, my love.’

She did not respond, but he fancied that he saw the ghost of a smile pass across her ravaged features. He leaned forward to kiss her, but a sudden rumble caused him to whirl from the bier. The tower seemed to shudder around him and the chains rattled, and from outside came the blare of a horn. More horns sounded, echoing out over the fortress. The sounds of battle began to filter up through the windows, and he could hear the shrieking of ghouls and the high-pitched screams of goblins. Vorag tore aside the furs that blocked the closest window, wincing as the grey, weak light of day stung his eyes. Down below, the courtyard was in chaos – the lean shapes of wolves bounded through the gangs of slaves, as their goblin riders flung burning torches at the knots of skeletal warriors attempting to intercept them. Vorag froze in shock. His patrols had reported nothing, and his sentries had given no alarm – so where had the attack come from?

‘Vorag, we’re under attack!’ Sanzak cried as he burst into the room.

‘Yes, I have eyes,’ Vorag snarled, bursting past his servant and flinging himself towards the bloody chains. The stairs would take too long. He slid down the chain, his humanity seemingly giving way to the beast within. He reached the bottom in moments and leapt to the ground, his frame wracked with a monstrous transformation. His features twisted and smoothed into something feral and frightening, with the worst elements of bat, wolf and man mashed together in a horrible medley. Crooked fangs blossomed from his bloody gums and his eyes bulged redly in their sockets as his skull sloped back and his face extended into a pointed snout. Fat black veins, worm-like and throbbing, spread over his pale flesh, as his muscles swelled and hair burst through his pores in stiff patches.

He drew his blade as he smashed through the doors, scattering the wights who guarded it in his haste.

Immediately, a number of orcs, freed from their bonds in the confusion, charged towards him, giving voice to bellicose cries. Vorag butchered the lot, rampaging through them. Wolf riders loped past him, peppering him with arrows. He snarled in fury, plucking an arrow from his neck and hurling it aside. He lashed out wildly, bisecting a leaping wolf and its rider both. The air was full of dust and noise and he wondered where the creatures had come from – how had they gotten in? Surely the ghouls would have prevented any use of their warrens by an invader, unless…

Vorag pushed the thought aside. It was not important now. He threw back his head and howled, summoning his ghouls to war. Those not already engaged formed up in their packs around him, whining and snarling, ready to follow their king once more. A vampire ran past, heading for the walls, bloody blade in hand. Vorag reached out to grab him and he hauled the Strigoi back. ‘Where are the others? Where is Kadar? We must drive the invaders back!’ he spat.

‘The slaves are revolting, my lord,’ the vampire said, squirming free of Vorag’s grip. ‘Every orc and goblin in this citadel is vying for the chance to take our scalps!’ He gestured and Vorag saw a group of orcs hurl a struggling wight from the wall. The undead warrior struck the ground and its bones burst upon impact. A multitude of goblins swarmed a Strigoi, climbing the vampire and stabbing at him with chips of stone and bone. A number of the grey-fleshed trolls that called the Ash Ridge Mountains home were in evidence as well, striking wildly about them at skeletal warriors that sought to guard the walls. Similar struggles were visible the length of the walls and all throughout the great courtyard. The citadel was under attack from within and without. Goblins manned several of the war-machines on the walls here and there and they began to fire them into the crowded melee as the trolls hauled the platforms around. He saw a duo of ghouls pinned to the ground by a bolt even as a wight was slapped aside by a troll. Vorag laughed bitterly, impressed despite himself. The greenskins had obviously been planning this for some time. Somehow, they had gotten an army past his defenses and now his impregnable citadel was rapidly becoming a cauldron of death.

The vampire made to say something else, but his words were lost in the roar of the crackling green fire that suddenly enveloped him. Vorag stumbled back as the Strigoi became a shrieking torch, and turned to see a cackling, cavorting goblin clad in a robe of wolf-skin and carrying a staff that was nearly the length of its skinny frame, standing nearly upright on the back of its wolf. The greenskin saw him and grinned, dragging a crooked thumb nail across its throat.

Vorag roared in rage and led his ghouls forward towards the group of goblins surrounding the shaman. The dust billowed around them, seemingly whipped up into frenzied proportions by the chanting creature. A moment later, the ground shifted under his feet and his ghouls howled in dismay as a hole opened up in the ground beneath them. Vorag lunged forward, grabbing the edge of the pit as the ghouls tumbled down into it. They did not have far to fall, but the goblins, clad in rags and wielding spears, that sprang from the hidden tunnel mouths that encircled the bottom of the pit, saw to it that few survived to regain their feet. Vorag snarled and hauled himself out of the pit. The shaman’s bodyguard lunged forward in a chortling mass, stabbing at him with their spears. The barbed blades pierced his flesh and became tangled in his armour, and as he surged to his feet, he dragged a number of goblins with him.

He had held onto his sword, and now he swept it about him like a reaper’s scythe, lopping off green heads and limbs. The shaman screamed and gestured and the wind became a howling cyclone, tearing at Vorag.

Vorag bulled his way towards the shaman, despite the pulsing winds that sought to force him back, and before the creature could evade him, had shattered its skull with a single blow. The windstorm screamed for a few moments more, pelting everything with ash and grit before slowly subsiding.

The goblins wailed as their shaman fell, and Vorag killed those that did not flee. He turned as wolves loped past, their riders kicking their ribs to hurry them along. The goblins, and many other greenskins, freed in the battle, fled into the massive crater that had been opened up in the courtyard. Dust billowed up from it, and Vorag saw that the bodies of many ghouls lay in the pit. ‘What happened?’ he barked, looking around for his commanders. ‘How did this happen?’

‘The wolf riders came out of the ghoul warrens,’ a Strigoi shouted as he finished off a struggling orc. ‘Hundreds of them, they just burst from the warrens as if they’d been down there all along! There’s fighting going on down there. Kadar and Barbat have already gone down to see what they can do!’ More vampires were gathering to beat back the rioting slaves, their flesh hidden from the sun by helmets and robes.

‘Have they now?’ Vorag snarled. That explained that. An army could easily fit into the warrens, and goblin magics, destructive as they were, could have torn a hole in the courtyard, allowing the horde to boil out and into the heart of the citadel. Once the attack had begun, the slaves would have seized the moment and everything would have rapidly descended into chaos. The greenskins were cunning, in their way, but not as cunning as all that. Someone had crafted a stratagem for them, and had helped them, hid them from his patrols and sentries. And he knew exactly who that someone was.

More dust boiled out of the crater as fleeing goblins squirmed into the tunnels that had been revealed. He heard the sounds of fierce fighting echoing up from those tunnels and wondered who was winning. He readied himself to leap down and join his warriors but before he could do so, an explosion nearly knocked him from his feet. He looked up, eyes wide, and saw thick, oily plumes of smoke rising from the top of the tower. ‘Stregga,’ he hissed, and ran for the doors. A troll, covered in bloody wounds, its hide heavy with arrows and broken spears, rose up before him, jaws gaping. Vorag leapt past it, his blade chopping easily through its thick neck as he moved. The beast toppled forward, its head bouncing away, a surprised expression on its face.

He took the stairs three at a time. He was not caught unawares when the first of the undead guardians he had thought under Sanzak’s control attacked him, and he tore through the corpses as if they were no more substantial than a morning mist. No man living or dead could face the fury of Vorag Bloodytooth. At the top of the stairs, the crypt horrors were dead, their malformed bodies torn apart by dark magics, as he had known they would be.

The doors to his chamber had been blasted off their hinges. He stepped through. At his feet lay the smoking, charred remains of Sanzak whose magic had not, in the end, been a match for the creature staring down at the bier, and its precious burden. He felt a dim flicker of regret, but pushed it aside. There were more important matters to be attended to. ‘Kadar, has the time finally come?’ Vorag growled, stepping over the body.

Kadar turned, face twisted in a rictus of contempt. ‘For this,’ he said. ‘For this, we sit and rot? There is an empire to be won, and for the sake of one puling witch, we sit?’ He flashed his fangs. ‘W’soran was wrong. You are an idiot, and worthless. There are others upon whom the crown will rest more easily.’

‘Of that, I have no doubt,’ Vorag said. ‘You aided the greenskins, didn’t you? Hid their massing forces from my sentries, enabled them to enter the warrens undetected, and set loose the slaves…’ He smiled. ‘W’soran would approve.’

‘I had little choice,’ Kadar said. ‘They would have attacked sooner or later. I simply ensured that it would occur when it could benefit me. They’ve been in those tunnels and caves since we arrived, and it was a simple enough matter to make common cause with the treacherous little worms. Unlike the orcs, goblins are quite patient, given the right incentive. You were growing too comfortable here, in this hidey-hole you’d made for yourself, in this petty empire of maggots and corpse-eaters. W’soran needs this army, and I shall bring it to him, and be made his right hand, above that fool Zoar or that murderous lunatic Melkhior. I gave you a chance, Vorag. I gave you many chances, but you spurned them all, like the fool you are.’ He gestured to the bier. ‘Spurned them all for a cadaverous trollop–’

Vorag roared and launched himself for Kadar, who jerked back in fear. Staff and sword connected and then Kadar had put the bier between them.

‘One more step and I’ll bring this damnable tower down! You can be buried in the ruins of your empire with this putrescent corpse you call queen, if that is your wish,’ he hissed. He lowered his staff, and the skulls hung from it draped across Stregga.

‘Destroy the tower, destroy everything, sorcerer,’ Vorag said, ‘I care for nothing but her. I have condemned thousands for her. I have raised this citadel for her. Not for your master, or for me, but for her.’

‘Then I’ll destroy her,’ Kadar snapped. ‘I’ll reduce her corpse to ash!’

Vorag tensed, considering the threat. Kadar licked his lips. ‘Sanzak was half right, you know, about how to bring her back. The blood is incidental. It is the death that matters. The greater the death, the stronger she would have become.’ He looked down at her. ‘In time, she would have awoken.’

Vorag said nothing. Kadar frowned. ‘You have betrayed my master, Vorag. That cannot stand. W’soran requires this army. He requires the forces you have created for his grand purpose. You were to win him an empire, but instead you have dawdled and wasted time and blood on building a temple to a dead witch. You have removed yourself from the weft of history. I am simply filling in the grave.’

‘No, you are stalling,’ Vorag said, and showed his fangs. Kadar’s eyes widened slightly, and Vorag chuckled, knowing what was coming, even before he caught the whisper of steel drawn from its sheath of bone and bat fur.

He whirled, quicker than thought, and the tip of his blade pricked Barbat’s throat. The latter froze, sword in hand. ‘What did he tell you, Barbat? That W’soran would place your crooked posterior on the throne, once I was safely dealt with? Or were you hoping to take my head to Ushoran, perhaps, and reclaim your lost lands and titles?’

‘I– I–’ Barbat began, red eyes wide.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Vorag said. ‘Your answer is as inconsequential as you are.’ He smelled scorched air and hurled himself aside as the plume of black flame spewed from Kadar’s staff and struck Barbat full in his chest. The Strigoi screamed and staggered back, burning, consumed by infernal shadows. Vorag rose to his feet and threw himself upon the stunned necromancer. Sword and staff went spinning aside as the two vampires crashed together and rolled across the chamber.

They slammed into the wall and more black flames crawled from Kadar’s hands as he grabbed Vorag’s head. Vorag shrieked as his flesh blistered and burned and he ripped his head from Kadar’s grip. His talons tore through the necromancer’s robe and gouged quivering black canyons in the other vampire’s sagging flesh. Kadar screamed in agony and backhanded Vorag, sending him sprawling. Kadar was stronger than he looked, and desperate enough to use that strength to good effect.

But Vorag was stronger. He rolled to his feet as Kadar pounced, and snatched up Kadar’s staff. With a swift blow, he shattered it and spun the broken length between his hands as Kadar backed away and began to chant. ‘No. Enough magic,’ Vorag said, lunging smoothly and driving the jagged length of wood into Kadar’s chest with a single, vicious thrust.

Kadar gaped at the length of wood protruding from his chest and made no attempt to resist as Vorag grabbed his throat and thigh in an iron grip. Muscles swelling, he heaved Kadar up over his head and hurled him through the nearest window. Kadar screamed as he smashed through the fur curtain and tumbled through the air like a wounded bird. Watching him fall, Vorag wondered whether W’soran’s acolyte knew how to alter his shape.

Kadar smashed into the ground, ending his screams abruptly. ‘I guess not,’ Vorag murmured. His amusement faded as he took in the devastation that had been wrought upon his citadel. Everything that could be burned was doing so, set aflame by enthusiastic goblins. On the top of the walls, he saw mobs of greenskins gathered about his war-machines as stones and bolts struck the tower, causing it to shudder down to its roots. The battle beneath the ground still raged, and with neither Kadar nor Sanzak around, and those few Strigoi who had a talent for necromancy otherwise occupied, the legions of the dead wavered and toppled one by one. Vorag hissed in consternation as his army began to fall apart even as it fought. ‘No,’ he growled, ‘No!’ His empire, newly born and bound for glory, was dead in its cradle. He saw it all slipping through his fingers, and he howled in fury as stones and bolts, fired by enthusiastic greenskins, smashed into the pinnacle of the tower around him. He made for a fine target, exposed as he was, but he did not care. It had all been for nothing – the struggle, his sacrifices, all for nothing.

Shapes moved through the smoke below – quicksilver shadows speeding through the chaos, leaping over struggling ghouls and goblins, and along the walls. Vorag snarled as he saw a Strigoi fall, his head removed neatly from his shoulders by one of these shapes. The goblins manning a bolt-thrower screamed and died as the quicksilver shadows butchered them. He caught a flash of red hair as one of the latter slid to a stop in a cloud of dust and smoke, perched atop a fallen troll. A familiar pair of eyes met his, and he knew, in that moment, that Kadar, for all his bluster, had only ever been a dupe. Had he truly made common cause with the greenskins, or had someone else done it for him? And he knew that he had been no different. Even now, even here, Vorag had been used and now, his use had ended.

He recalled the look on Iona’s face when she had seen Stregga. There had been no surprise there, no shock. ‘Oh.’ Vorag felt himself relax. ‘Of course,’ he said and smiled sadly. He had been foolish. He had thought himself a match for them in cunning, but even now he was nothing more than a rank amateur. Even now, he was nothing but a pawn in the games of another.

Distracted as he was, Vorag had no time to react as a stray bolt took him in the chest, crushing his ribs and spine as its head exploded from between his shoulders in a spray of gore. He staggered back from the window, clutching weakly at the bolt, trying to draw it out. But his strength was draining out of him with his life. It was only his will that kept him on his feet. He stepped back and stumbled towards the bier. If he could just reach her, all would be well.

It had not been for nothing, in the end. Vorag fell on all fours and coughed. His heart was gone, torn out and scattered across Stregga’s form like the petals of a rose. The force of the bolt’s entry had spattered the bier with his blood, and as he sank to his knees before it, he thought he saw movement in the shape there. Had her hair become darker? Had her form become fuller? He reached out a trembling hand as his vision went red at the edges and then black. For the first time in his life, he felt weak. His limbs could no longer support his weight. Shadows gathered around him, moving with mercurial speed, surrounding the bier. He did not know if they were truly there, or were merely figments of his imagination. He hoped they were real.

‘Tell her…’ he croaked, but lacked the strength to finish.

He thought he could hear a voice saying something in reply. He thought he could hear her voice.

And then he heard nothing at all.

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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ISBN 978-1-78251-253-0

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