The End Times | The Return of Nagash Read online

  ONE

  Stirland-Sylvania border

  The world was dying.

  It had been dying for a very long time, according to some. But Erikan Crowfiend, in his long trek from the battlefield of Couronne, had come to the conclusion that it was finally on its last legs. There was smoke from a million funeral pyres on the wind, not just in Bretonnia but in the Empire as well, and the stink of poison and rot was laid over everything. In the villages and wayplaces, men and women whispered stories of two-headed calves that mewled like infants, of birds that sang strange dirges as they circled in the air, and of things creeping through the dark streets that had once kept to the forests and hills.

  Beasts and greenskins ran riot, carving red trails through the outskirts of civilisation as nightmare shapes swam down from the idiot stars to raven and roar through the heart of man’s world. Great cities reeled from these sudden, unpredictable assaults, and the great gates of Altdorf, Middenheim and Nuln were barred and bolstered, almost as if it were intended that they never be opened again.

  Erikan had seen it all, albeit at a remove. He had been forced to fight more than once since crossing the Grey Mountains, and not just with beasts or orcs. Men as well, and worse than men. Then, Erikan wasn’t exactly a man himself. He hadn’t been for some time.

  Erikan Crowfiend’s heart had stopped beating almost a century ago to the day, and he had not once missed its rhythm. He moved only by night, for the sun blistered him worse than any fire. His breath reeked of the butcher’s block and he could hear a woman’s pulse from leagues away. He could shatter stone and bone as easily as a child might tear apart a dried leaf. He never grew tired, suffered from illness or felt fear. And under different circumstances, he would have been happy to indulge his baser instincts as the land drowned in madness. He was a monster after all, and it was a season for monsters, from what little he’d seen.

  But he was no longer the captain of his own destiny, and hadn’t been since the night a pale woman had taken him in her arms and made him something both greater and lesser than the necromancer’s apprentice he had been. So he moved ever eastwards, following a darkling pull that urged him on, across beast-held mountains and over burning fields, and through forests where the trees whimpered like beaten dogs and clawed at him with twisted branches.

  Above him, a swarm of bats crossed the surface of the moon, heading the gods alone knew where. Erikan suspected that they were going the same place he was. The thought provided no comfort. The call had come, and he, like the bats, had no choice but to obey.

  ‘Erikan?’ a wheezing, slurred voice asked, interrupting his reverie.

  ‘Yes, Obald,’ Erikan said, with a sigh.

  ‘It could just be the alcohol talking, or it could be the constant seepage from these inexpertly, if affectionately, placed poultices of yours making me light-headed, but I do believe that I’m dying,’ said Obald Bone, the Bone-Father of Brionne. He took another swig from the mostly empty bottle of wine he held in one bandaged claw. The necromancer was a wizened thing, all leather and bone, wrapped in mouldering furs and travel leathers that, to Erikan’s knowledge, had never been washed. Obald lay in a travois made from the stretched hide and bones of dead men, constructed by equal parts sorcery and brute strength. He blinked and forced himself up onto one elbow. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Just about to cross the border into Sylvania, Obald,’ Erikan said. He was hauling the travois behind him on foot, its straps of dried flesh and stiffened gut lashed about his battered and grime-encrusted cuirass. Their horse had come down with a bad case of being digested by something large and hungry that even Erikan had been hard-pressed to see off. He didn’t know what it was, but he hadn’t felt like sticking around to find out. Monsters once confined to the edges of the map were now wandering freely, and setting upon any who came within reach, edible or not. ‘And you’re not dying.’

  ‘I hate to be contrary, but I am a master of the necromantic arts, and I think I know a little something about death, imminent, personal or otherwise,’ Obald slurred. His travois was cushioned with empty bottles, and he reeked of gangrene and alcohol. He’d been getting steadily worse since Erikan had extracted the arrow that had taken him in the belly in the last moments of the battle for Couronne, just before the Green Knight had struck off Mallobaude’s head.

  For the first few weeks, Obald had seemed fine, if in pain, but the wound wasn’t healing, and they weren’t the sort whom the priestesses of Shallya normally welcomed. Obald had survived worse in his time, but it was as if he, like the world, were winding down.

  Obald sank back down onto the travois, dislodging several bottles. ‘Did I ever tell you that I’m from Brionne, Erikan? Good pig country that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Erikan said.

  ‘I was a pig farmer, like my father and his father before him. Pigs, Erikan – you can’t go wrong with a pig farm.’ Obald reached out and swatted weakly at the sword sheathed on Erikan’s hip. ‘Blasted Templar blade. Why do you still carry that thing?’

  ‘I’m a Templar. Templars carry Templar blades, Obald,’ Erikan said.

  ‘You’re not a Templar, you’re my apprentice. It’s not even a proper sword. Hasn’t even got a curse on it,’ Obald grumbled.

  ‘But it’s sharp and long, and good at cutting things,’ Erikan replied. He hadn’t been Obald’s apprentice since he’d been given the blood-kiss and inducted into the aristocracy of the night. He smiled at the thought. In truth, there was very little aristocratic about hiding in unmarked graves and devouring unlucky peasants.

  ‘Where’s my barrow-blade? I want you to have my barrow-blade,’ Obald said muzzily.

  ‘Your barrow-blade is still in the body of that fellow whose horse we stole,’ Erikan said. The flight from Couronne had been as bloody as the battle itself. When the Serpent had fallen, his forces, both the living and the dead, had collapsed in an utter rout. Obald had had an arrow in the belly by then, and Erikan had been forced to hack them a path to freedom as the dead crumbled around them.

  ‘Ha! Yes,’ Obald cackled wetly. ‘The look on his poxy, inbred face was priceless – thought that armour would save him, didn’t he? Oh no, my lad. A dead man’s sword will cut anything, even fancy armour.’ He rocked back and forth in the travois, until his laughter became strangled coughing.

  ‘So you taught me,’ Erikan said.

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ Obald hiccupped. ‘You were my best student, Erikan. It’s a shame that you had to go and get mauled by that von Carstein witch.’

  ‘She’s not a witch, Obald.’

  ‘Trollop then,’ Obald snapped. ‘She’s a tart, Erikan.’ He belched. ‘I could do with a tart about now. One of those fancy ones from Nuln.’

  ‘Are we still talking about women?’ Erikan asked.

  ‘They put jam – real jam – right in the pastry. Not sawdust and beef dripping, like the ones in Altdorf,’ Obald said, gesticulating for emphasis.

  ‘Right, yes,’ Erikan said. He shook his head. ‘I’m sure we can find you a tart in Sylvania, Obald.’

  ‘No no, just leave me here to die, Erikan. I’ll be fine,’ Obald said. ‘For a man who wears as many bones as I do, I am oddly comfortable with notions of mortality.’ He upended the bottle he held, splashing much of its contents on his face and ratty beard. ‘Bones, bone, Bone-Father. I can’t believe you let me call myself that. Bone-Father… What does that even mean? The other necromancers were probably laughing at me.’

  He was silent for a moment, and Erikan half hoped he’d fallen asleep. Then, Obald grunted and said, ‘We showed them what for though, didn’t we, Erikan? Those blasted nobles and their treacherous Lady.’ Obald and a handful of other necromancers had flocked to Mallobaude’s serpent banner after the dukes of Carcassonne, Lyonesse and Artois had declared for King Louen’s bastard offspring, and they’d raised legions of the dead to march beside the Serpent’s army of disgraced knights. But Obald and his fellows had been a sideshow compared to the real power behind Mallobaude’s ille
gitimate throne – the ancient liche known as Arkhan the Black.

  Why Arkhan had chosen to aid Mallobaude, Erikan couldn’t say. He had his reasons, just as Obald and Erikan did, the latter supposed. And with the liche on their side, Bretonnia was brought to its knees. At the Battle of Quenelles, Erikan had had the pleasure of seeing the Serpent cast his father’s broken body into the mud. The southern provinces had fallen one by one after King Louen’s death, until the Serpent had cast his gaze north, to Couronne.

  It had all gone wrong then. Mallobaude had lost his head, Arkhan had vanished, and…

  ‘We lost,’ Erikan said.

  Obald gave a raspy chuckle. ‘We always lose, Erikan. That’s the way of it. There are no winners, save for death and the Dark Gods. I taught you that too.’

  Erikan hissed in annoyance. ‘You taught me a lot, old man. And you’ll live to teach me more, if you stop straining yourself.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Obald coughed. ‘You can smell it on me. I know you can, boy. I’m done for. A longbow is a great equaliser on the battlefield. I’ve only survived this long out of nastiness. But I’m tired now, and I’m all out of spite.’ He coughed again, and Erikan caught the whiff of fresh blood. Obald doubled over in the travois, hacking and choking. Erikan stopped and tore himself loose from the travois. He sank down beside his old mentor and laid a hand on his quivering back.

  Obald had always looked old, but now he looked weak and decrepit. Erikan knew that the old man was right. The arrow that had felled him had done too much damage to his insides. That he had survived the journey over the Grey Mountains and into the provinces of the Empire was due more to stubbornness than anything else. By the time they’d reached Stirland, he’d been unable to ride, and barely able to sit upright. He was dying, and there was nothing Erikan could do.

  No, that wasn’t true. There was one thing. He lifted his wrist to his lips. He opened his mouth, exposing long, curved fangs and readied himself to plunge them into his wrist.

  He paused when he saw that Obald was watching him. Blood and spittle clung like pearlescent webs to the old man’s beard. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth. Obald patted him on the cheek. ‘No need to bloody yourself, Erikan. My old carcass wouldn’t survive it, anyway.’

  Erikan lowered his arm. Obald lay back on the travois. ‘You were a good friend, Erikan. For a ravenous, untrustworthy nocturnal fiend, I mean,’ the necromancer wheezed. ‘But as the rain enters the soil, and the river enters the sea, so do all things come to their final end.’

  ‘Strigany proverbs,’ Erikan muttered. ‘Now I know that you’re dying.’ He sat back on his heels and watched the last link to his mortal life struggle for breath. ‘You don’t have to, you know. You’re just being stubborn and spiteful.’

  ‘I’ve been stubborn and spiteful my whole sorry life, boy,’ Obald croaked. ‘I’ve fought and raged and run for more years than you. I saw Kemmler’s rise and fall, I saw Mousillon in all of its pox-ridden glory and I visited the secret ruins of Morgheim, where the Strigoi dance and howl.’ The old man’s eyes went vacant. ‘I fought and fought and fought, and now I think maybe I am done fighting.’ His trembling, wrinkled fingers found Erikan’s wrist. ‘That’s the smart choice, I think, given what’s coming.’ His glazed eyes sought out Erikan’s face. ‘Always get out before the rush, that’s my advice.’ His voice was barely a whisper. Erikan leaned close.

  ‘I miss my pigs,’ Obald said. Then, with a soft grunt, his face went slack, and whatever dark force had inhabited him fled into the crawling sky above. Erikan stared down at him. He’d been hoping that the old man would make it to Sylvania. After leaving Couronne, they’d learned that the other survivors were going there, drawn by some bleak impetus to travel across the mountains. There were stories of walls of bone and an independent state of the dead, ruled by the aristocracy of the night. They’d even heard a rumour that Arkhan’s forces were heading that way.

  It was the beginning of something, Erikan thought. Obald had mocked the idea, in between coughing fits, but Erikan could feel it in the black, sour hollow of his bones. There was smoke on the air and blood in the water, and the wind carried the promise of death. It was everything he’d dreamed of, since his parents had gone screaming to the flames, the taste of corpses still on their tongues. He’d seen a spark of it when Obald had rescued him then, flaying his captors with dark magics. In those black flames, which had stripped meat from bone as easily as a butcher’s knife, Erikan had seen the ruination of all things. The end of all pain and hunger and strife.

  And now, that dream was coming true: the world was dying, and Erikan Crowfiend intended to be in at the end. But, he’d been hoping that Obald would be by his side. Didn’t the old man deserve that much, at least? Instead, he was just another corpse.

  At least he was free, while Erikan was still a captive of the world.

  Erikan carelessly pried the old man’s fingers off his wrist and stood. He dropped his hand to the pommel of his blade and said, casually, ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I know,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘He should have died years ago. He would have, if you hadn’t been wasting your time keeping his wrinkled old cadaver from getting the chop.’

  ‘He raised me. He took me in, when anyone else would have burned me with the rest of my kin, for the crime of survival,’ Erikan said. His hand tightened on the hilt of his blade and he drew it smoothly as he whirled to face the newcomer. ‘He helped me become the man I am today.’

  In the sickly light of the moon, her pale flesh seemed to glow with an eerie radiance. She wore baroque black armour edged in gold over red silk. The hue of the silk matched her fiery tresses, which had been piled atop her head in a style three centuries out of fashion. Eyes like agates met his own as she reached out and gently pushed aside his sword. ‘I rather thought that I had some part in that as well, Erikan.’

  He lowered his sword. ‘Why are you here, Elize?’

  ‘For the same reason as you, I imagine.’

  Erikan stabbed his blade down into the loamy earth and set his palms on the crosspiece. ‘Sylvania,’ he said, simply.

  Elize von Carstein inclined her head. A crimson tress slipped free of the mass atop her head and dangled in her face, until she blew it aside. He felt a rush of desire but forced it down. Those days were done and buried. ‘I felt the summons.’ She looked up at the moon. ‘The black bell of Sternieste is tolling and the Templars of the Order of Drakenhof are called to war.’

  Erikan looked down at the pommel of his blade, and the red bat, rampant, that was carved there. It was the symbol of the von Carsteins, and of the Drakenhof Templars. He covered it with his hand. ‘And who are we going to war with?’

  Elize smiled sadly and said, ‘Everyone. Come, I have an extra horse.’

  ‘Did you bring it for me?’

  Elize didn’t answer. Erikan followed her. He left Obald’s body where it lay, to whatever fate awaited it. The old man’s cankerous spirit was gone. His body was just so much cooling meat now, and Erikan had long since lost his taste for such rancid leavings.

  ‘Are we all gathering, then?’ Erikan asked, as he followed her through the trees, towards a quiet copse where two black horses waited, red-eyed and impatiently pawing at the earth. Deathless, breathless and remorseless, the horses from the stables of Castle Drakenhof were unmatched by any steed in the known world, save possibly for the stallions of far Ulthuan. He took the bridle of the one she indicated and stroked it, murmuring wordlessly. He’d always had a way with beasts, even after he’d been reborn. He’d kept company with the great shaggy wolves that Obald had pulled from their forest graves, leading them on moonlit hunts. The day Obald had taught him how to call up the beasts himself was the closest he had ever come to true happiness, he thought.

  ‘All who still persist, and keep to their oath,’ Elize said. ‘I arrived with several of the others. We decided to journey together.’

  ‘Why?’ Erikan asked.

  ‘Why w
ouldn’t we?’ Elize asked, after a moment, as she climbed into her saddle. ‘Is it not meet that the inner circle do so? I saw your trail, and decided to see if you were interested in joining us. You are one of us, after all.’

  ‘I don’t recall you asking me whether I wished to be,’ he said, softly. Elize kicked her horse into motion and galloped away. Erikan hesitated, and then climbed up into his own saddle and set off after her. As he rode, he couldn’t help but muse that it had always been thus. Elize called and he came. He watched her ride, her slim form bent low over her mount’s neck, her armour glinting dully in the moonlight. She was beautiful and terrible and inexorable, like death given a woman’s shape. There were worse ways to spend eternity, he supposed.

  She led him into the high barrows and scrub trees that populated the hills and valleys west of the border with Stirland. Ruins of all sorts dotted the area, the legacy of centuries of warfare. Shattered windmills and slumping manses towered over the gutted remains of border forts and isolated farmsteads. Some were more recent than others, but all had suffered the same fate. This was the no-man’s-land between the provinces of the living and the dead, and nothing of the former survived here for long.

  As they left the trees and the fog that had clung to them, he hauled back on the reins of his horse, startled by the sight of the distant edifice of bone, which rose high up into the sky, towering over the area. It was far larger than the rumours he’d heard had intimated. It was less fortress rampart than newborn mountain range. Only the largest of giants would have had a chance of clambering over it. ‘Nagash’s teeth,’ he hissed. ‘I’d heard he’d done it, but I never expected it to be true.’ The sense of finality he’d had before, of endings and final days, came back stronger than ever. Sylvania had always seemed unchanging. A gangrenous wound that never healed, but never grew any worse. But now, now it was finally ready to kill. He wanted to laugh and howl at the same time, but he restrained himself.