The End Times: The Return of Nagash

Erikan winced, as the Grand Master of the Drakenhof Templars hit the ground with a clatter. To his credit, Anark was on his feet a moment later. He charged towards Arkhan, who had stepped down from his chariot. Arkhan side-stepped the vampire’s lunge and caught him in the back of the head with his staff, sending him stumbling to his hands and knees.

Arkhan looked at Erikan, who still sat atop his horse. ‘Well, vampire?’ the liche croaked.

‘Not me,’ Erikan said, holding up his hands. ‘Not my fight, Black One.’

‘Traitor,’ Anark snarled as he regained his feet.

‘From here, it looks like you’re the one attacking our ally for no reason,’ Erikan said, settling back in his saddle, thumbs hooked in his sword belt. ‘What would Lord Mannfred say, I wonder? Or Elize, for that matter?’

‘I could hazard a guess as to what Lord Mannfred would say,’ Arkhan said, planting his staff. ‘Tell me, vampire… What did he offer you? What could possess you to act so foolishly?’

‘This is positively cunning for Anark, sad to say,’ Erikan interjected. ‘What happened, Anark? Did Elize bat her pretty lashes and ask you for one little favour? I remember those days, when I was her favourite.’

‘Shut your filthy mouth,’ Anark howled. He leapt for Arkhan again. There was no subtlety to him, only raw power. He was nothing but one big muscle, all killer instinct without the cunning to mediate it. His armour creaked as he swelled with murderous power. Arkhan caught the blow on his staff, and for a moment, liche and vampire strained against one another.

Then, the moment passed. Black lightning crackled along the length of Arkhan’s staff and caught hold of Anark’s sword. A moment later, the blade shivered into fragments, and its wielder was tossed back into the dust, bloody from the metal fragments that had spattered his face. Before Anark could get to his feet, Arkhan drove the end of his staff into his skull with all the precision of a trained spearman. There was a wet, unpleasant sound, and Anark went limp.

‘Effective,’ Erikan murmured.

‘I have dealt with treacherous vampires before,’ Arkhan said. He turned and looked at Erikan. ‘I assume that you were not part of this less-than-devious stratagem, then?’

‘I had no idea that it was even in the offing,’ Erikan lied. ‘Thick-headed as he is, that blow won’t keep him down long. Anark isn’t much, but he’s a fighter. I fancy he could keep going, even missing the whole of his head. And he won’t give up.’

‘What would you suggest?’

Erikan couldn’t say why he was helping the liche. He thought, perhaps, it was simply that Anark had been a constant source of annoyance. Or maybe he’d grown tired of the way Elize seemed to shower the brute with affection. Let her get a new, hopefully smarter, pet. ‘Chain him to the postern of the Sigmarite temple I noticed when we rode through the gates. Let the flames or the sun have him, and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘A more merciful death than I intended,’ Arkhan said. He gestured, and a trio of wights came forward and hefted Anark’s limp form. They carried him off.

‘But still a death,’ Erikan said.

‘Yes,’ Arkhan said. The liche examined him silently for a moment, and then turned away. They left Beechervast not long after, riding out at the head of an army newly swollen by the addition of the population of the town, slaughtered and resurrected.

No one seemed too put out by Anark’s death. Then, he hadn’t exactly gone to great lengths to make friends amongst the order. Neither had Erikan, but he supposed he was more tolerable than a swaggering bully any day. As a member of the inner circle, leadership of the remaining blood knights had fallen to him, and he rode at their head for lack of any better ideas. He wondered how Elize would receive the news of Anark’s death. Would she be angry, sad, or… nothing. The latter, he thought, would be the most unpleasant. Vampires could love, but it did not come easily. And sometimes it was not recognised as such until it was far too late.

The Lahmians had songs, spread by the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle, about lost loves and immortal tragedies. They turned troubadours and poets just to keep those songs and verses alive and circulating amongst the living. It made things easier, sometimes, if the cattle thought love, rather than thirst, was the norm for vampires.

As they rode towards the Sylvanian border, Arkhan communed with the spirits of the dead from atop his chariot, seeking any word on Krell. Wailing ghosts and shrieking spectres circled him like pigeons in an Altdorf plaza. Erikan rode beside him.

The spirits scattered abruptly. ‘Any word?’ Erikan asked.

‘Krell yet persists. He will rejoin us when he can. He is leading the Wild Hunt away from our trail.’ Arkhan shook his head, a curiously human gesture. ‘Beastmen, wood elves, Kemmler… Enemies at every turn.’