She had been his strength, back then. Everything he had done had been through her, driven onwards by the raw passion that had so surprised him. To be alone, truly alone, never lost its bitter aftertaste. He could summon as many courtesans to his side as he liked, taking his pick from the cadavers of a thousand years of ossified beauty, and it would make no difference.
Perhaps, he had thought to himself in the lonely hours of the night, that was why the Master had been able to pull him back. In true death, Vlad must have been an unquiet soul, ripped untimely from the world and still hungering to return for the love he had left behind.
‘Now I am a mortarch,’ he said to himself dryly. ‘The titles he has given us, to usher in the reign of eternal order. I would have preferred Emperor, but such is fate. Perhaps I shall still be elector, which will be a decent consolation.’
He had not heard from Altdorf since sending his letter. He had not expected to, though to have no response at all, not even a denunciation, wore at his pride a little. As far as he was concerned, the offer remained open. He might have to wait until the walls were broken and the mortal armies were reeling, but waiting was something he had always been good at.
‘My lord,’ said Herrscher, sounding concerned. ‘Regard the river.’
Vlad snapped out of his thoughts, and looked up.
He sat on a throne mounted atop the high quarterdeck of a shallow-hulled river cruiser. Ranks of oars dipped and hauled into the murky waters around, dragging the ship south and west along the course of the Reik. Behind him, in a long procession of bleak ugliness, trade barges followed on, each one stuffed with the bodies of his servants. Every barge carried several hundred soldiers, and there were dozens upon dozens of them now, plundered from the destroyed Imperial settlements along the Stir and the upper Reik. The sable banners of Sylvania hung from every one, held aloft by cold hands. No sound came from those barges, save for the slap of oars in the water and the thump of reed-clumps hitting the solid bows.
Since taking to the river, progress west had been rapid. With the need to negotiate the clogged and treacherous forest paths negated, the entire army had slipped towards their goal without obstruction, travelling just as well by day as by night, pausing only to sack any of the riverside towns they came across. Kemperbad had been the last big one, a walled fortress to rival Wurtbad, and the fight to subdue it had been just as vicious. The outcome had been much the same, in the end – a cohort of newly dead and newly cowed to bolster the truly huge host now under his thrall.
Vlad had begun to relax then, safe in the knowledge that they would be there in time. He should have known better – the forces of Ruin were not led by fools, and they had formidable powers of their own.
‘I have never seen the like,’ said Herrscher.
Ahead of Vlad’s position, in the bows, the Pale Ladies stood on the very edge of the deck railing, peering into the gloom and exchanging exclamations of outrage. Even the reanimated Wolff, still sullen and moody, looked out at the approaching vista.
Half a mile downstream, where the broad flow of the river expanded into a wide, slate-grey expanse of choppy, wind-whipped froth, the forest had crept from its bounds. It had started a mile or so back – heavy clods of moss floating in mid-channel, fouling the oars and bumping against the hulls. As they had made headway, the clots and mats had grown more numerous, breaking free of the tree-lined banks even as he had watched them.
The barrier before them, though, was something else. The trees themselves had burst open, throwing obscene spears of rotten wood into the water. More had followed, building on those sent before. Vines had snaked into the splintered bulwark, binding it all tightly. More mosses had latched on to that frame, swelling and pulsing under the perpetual twilight.
Somehow, the forest had managed to block the entire river, throwing out tentacles and sinking deep into the main flow. Backed up by the obstruction, the Reik had burst its banks, filtering into the woods on either side and welling up in pools of fly-encrusted muck.
Vlad stood up. The blockage was not a temporary thing. It looked like the unnatural outgrowths continued far beyond the first barrier, breaking the flow of the Reik entirely. Leeches wriggled across the top of the arboreal dam, pale-skinned and red-eyed. The stink was even worse than it had been higher up the river, magnified by the standing water that now mingled with rotten roots.
‘We cannot break that, lord,’ said Herrscher.
The witch hunter at least had the grace to sound concerned. Herrscher had long since given up the pretence of anger at his predicament, and was now a loyal member of Vlad’s entourage. They all gave up caring, sooner or later, and settled into their new life. It was hard to sustain the old angers when one owed one’s existence to one’s enemy.
‘Of course we can,’ said Vlad, irritably, watching the twisted dam drift closer.
‘We should order the barges to halt.’
‘They will keep going.’
Herrscher looked exasperated. ‘We will run aground!’
From the bows, the Pale Ladies had started to laugh. Their chins were all glossy with blood. They had drunk too deeply the night before, and it made them giddy.
‘Who do you think you are with, Herrscher?’ asked Vlad, pushing his cloak back and raising a clawed hand. ‘I was mighty when I lived before, and I am mightier now. Nagash does not just give life, he also gives power.’
Vlad extended his arm before him. Knowing what was coming, the Pale Ladies giggled and scrambled for cover. Wolff and Herrscher looked on, one sourly, the other with interest.
The clouds above the forest-dam began to curdle. Thick slabs of stone-grey shifted, and flickers of silver lightning rippled across the horizon. The wind picked up, whipping the tips of the waves and making them froth.
Vlad began to recite words in a language he had never understood in his previous life. Now, though, they came easily, tripping from his dry tongue as if he had been chanting them since childhood.
The air shuddered, and the colour slopped out of it. Virulently green leaves crackled and shrivelled, turning black as if burned by fire. There were no flames – just a cold, cold gust as if from the maw of the underworld. The water turned slate-dark, and the trees beyond snarled and curled up. The wood dried and cracked, ageing lifetimes in mere moments. Vines unravelled from their clutch-holds and sprang back, their sap hardening and making them brittle.
With an echoing snap, the first of the bulwarks broke. Mighty tree-trunks, turning grey-white as if made of embers, dissolved away, splashing into the river below. Massive shivers ran through the entire structure. It began to give way, breaking back up into desiccated chunks. The leeches scurried for the safety of the banks, or plopped messily into the water below, screaming blindly.
Vlad smiled coldly. The unlocked Wind of Shyish surged through him, as chill as pack-ice. In the face of its limitless power, the perverted corruptions of life had no choice but to wither and collapse. In the end, that was the fate that awaited all mortal creation. The vagaries of life were impressive in their variety, but ultimately nothing compared to the bleak majesty of eternal death. Vlad had always guessed at the power of the Shyish Unlocked, but it had taken Nagash to truly reveal its potency to him. When victory came, as it surely would, this would be all that remained – empty lands, bled dry of filth and squalor, populated by the meek, whispering armies of the mortarchs. Even the sun and the moon would obey the new Law, bound into new circles and following regulated paths. There would be no more rebellion, no more misery, no more fecundity.