‘That is not justice. That is oblivion.’ Balthas twisted the blade aside and drove the end of his staff into the centre of Thaum’s chest. Thaum reeled, and Balthas ripped his staff free and slammed it against the side of the nighthaunt’s helm.
As the creature reeled, Balthas turned. The necropolis rocked as his warriors clashed with the dead. They had arrived too late to save Mara, but some of her cohort still fought, and now the two forces moved as one against the horde of spirits. With Pharus distracted, the creatures were little more than feral gheists – certainly not an organised threat.
Even so, gheists rose from the ground all around him, dripping upwards, their bodies distended like hot wax. Balthas slammed the ferrule of his staff down and scratched an arcanogram in the stone. The nighthaunts screamed as the stones they emerged from became threaded with silver. They sank out of sight, their twisted forms burning with a cleansing flame.
Pharus lunged through the flames. Blade met staff and they skidded back, smashing into a crypt. It collapsed with a rumble as they twisted away, weapons still locked. Balthas grunted as the amethyst lightning flickering beneath Pharus’ armour licked across his own, charring away the ritual sigils marked there.
‘Nagash has commanded,’ Pharus snarled. ‘So must it be.’
Balthas said nothing as they staggered in a macabre dance, neither willing to give ground. Fire swept out around them, first amethyst, then cobalt, setting the ancient stones alight. He felt strange, as if something inside him had torn loose and were burning, along with the stones. Every blow took a century to fall, every riposte, an epoch. But Balthas met his opponent blow for blow, and held him. Even as his arms grew numb and his head began to ache, filled as it was with thunder and heat. He could call to mind none of the magics he knew – instead his mind was full of lightning, and all he could see was fire. A hundred thousand fires, a million, more, all burning in the dark.
Nagash had set the realms aflame. What he had done could not be undone. What he had started could not be stopped. But Balthas knew they must try, even so. And as he fought, he knew that he had done this before, in another life, in another realm. He had set himself against the inevitable, and failed.
But he would not do so again.
Lightning burned through him, snarling outwards to engulf Thaum. For a moment, they were connected, as they had been in the Chamber of the Broken World. He saw all that had happened, all that Thaum had done, and knew that Thaum saw into his mind as well. For an instant, they saw one another with perfect, aching clarity.
The dead man staggered, smoke boiling from the gaps in his armour. And within the smoke, Balthas saw a light. Just a spark of cerulean, tiny and barely there at all. But it was a spark nonetheless, trapped in the hollows of Thaum’s shell. An ember of the man he had been, waiting to be rekindled.
The moment had come.
Now, a voice rumbled.
Balthas stretched out his hand, his magics spearing out towards the spark of blue. But the moment stretched and warped out of sorts. The sands in the hourglass pommel of Thaum’s blade ceased their flow. Time… stopped.
‘You.’
A single word, followed by a laugh that curdled his soul. Unable to stop himself, Balthas looked up into a gargantuan rictus. A god was looking down at him. Not as one foe looked at another, but as a sage might study some unknown species of insect.
The cavern seemed suddenly small. The sounds of battle faded to a dim rustling, as if all sound and fury had been drained from the moment. Taller than any living man, clad in shrouds and bones, the Undying King loomed over his servant, eyes blazing with unlight. Thaum jerked and twitched like a marionette with tangled strings.
‘You,’ Nagash said again, as if savouring the word. ‘I know you, little soul. I know your scent. You were mine, once, as Pharus Thaum was.’ He leaned through the glare of lightning and fire, his witchfire gaze fixed on Balthas. It burned hot and cold at the same time, and Balthas felt something in him shrivel. This was no nighthaunt or daemon to be banished, but a god. He possessed no power that could match the immensity before him.
‘Insult of insults, that he uses you to block my path,’ Nagash continued. His voice was like some great, black bell, tolling out Balthas’ final hour. ‘I will crack open this black shell you wear and scoop out the spirit within. Shall I show you who you were, little soul? Shall I answer those questions I see burning in your mind?’
Balthas blinked sweat from his eyes. In the fires around him, he could see things. Faces. People. Places. Moments from a life that was no longer his – a voyage to a great city, and a flare of light as lead became gold. The whicker of a horse, and the flap of great wings. The pain of unintended betrayal, and the relief brought by redemption. He felt an ache inside himself, as if Nagash had reached into him and torn something loose. He closed his eyes to the swirl of broken memories, and felt what might have been a hand on his shoulder. A voice, as deep as the seas and as warm as the summer wind, spoke softly in his ear.
I told you I would be here, Balthas. Let me guide your aim.
‘I have no questions,’ Balthas said, through gritted teeth. A new strength flooded his limbs, dulling the pain. He felt something beyond strength, growing inside him. ‘I am not who I was. The past is ash. And the future is yet to be written.’
‘Yes. By dead hands. I will order a record made, so that in the silent aeons to come, I might read it and remember.’ Purple flame caressed Balthas’ form. His war-plate grew warm, almost painfully so. ‘No,’ Balthas said. The heat increased. He could smell his flesh burning. He wanted to scream, but he lacked the breath to do so. Lightning erupted from his flesh, savaging the air.
‘No,’ another voice echoed, and the sound boomed out, shaking the stillness. Nearby flames darkened and then paled, becoming azure.
Nagash drew back, as if nonplussed by this turn of events. ‘Who would stand between the Undying King and his prey?’ he roared, shaking the cavern.
‘Me, brother. Always me.’
The words echoed from Balthas before he realised he was speaking. He felt invigorated, suddenly. He pushed himself to his feet, lightning crawling across the edges of his armour. ‘I stand against you here, and along every wall. I stand against you, as the day stands against night.’
The words – the voice – neither were his. Balthas felt as if something were inside him. As if he were no more than a mask that the speaker had chosen to wear in that moment. But he felt no fear. This moment – all that had happened – had been planned for. Sigmar had seen it, in the stars, and set the blocks to tumbling into place. What came next was a matter of gods, not men, whether dead or alive.
He had chosen his moment, and Sigmar would guide his aim.
‘Without the night, there is no day,’ Nagash said. He swept closer, and Thaum stumbled in his wake. ‘Without death, no life. To stand against me is to stand against the law of all things. Are you so prideful, then?’
‘No longer. Necessity guides my hand.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Balthas saw something take shape around him. A vast form, greater than his own, and yet similar. Thaum made a harsh croak of recognition, and Balthas wondered what he saw.
Nagash seemed to swell, until his skeletal form filled Balthas’ vision. ‘Necessity. What would you know of such a thing? I am necessity. By my will alone shall the realms be preserved from the ravages of Chaos. When I have claimed all that I am owed, when all are one in death, I shall cast my spite into the teeth of the dark gods, and drag them from their petty thrones.’
‘And then you will rule over a silent kingdom, until the last star is snuffed, and even death perishes at last.’