‘I do not–’ he began, but then the words died in his mouth. Whether they were being tracked, or whether fate had simply decreed that the end would come then, the doors at the far end of the chamber slammed open, ripped from their hinges and flung aside like matchwood.
Three grotesque creatures burst inside, each one a distorted corruption of a man. The first was a slack-fleshed warrior bearing a scythe in two claw-like hands. His green skin, criss-crossed with bleeding sores and warty growths, glinted dully under the reflected glare of the pus-cascades.
The second was a similarly wizened creature clad in dirty patched robes and brandishing a staff nearly as gnarled as Martak’s own.
The third was a true giant, barely able to shove itself through the huge double doors. Once inside the chamber he stood erect, one tentacled arm slack at his side, the other clenched into a hammer-like fist. His greasy, stupid face was deformed into a loathsome grin, and long trails of blood ran down from his mouth like warpaint.
Behind them, jostling for position, came more Chaos warriors, some in the furred garb of the far north, some bearing the mutated marks of more recent conversion. Their three leaders all bled horrific amounts of power from their addled frames. They were living embodiments of corruption, as vile and virulent as the Rot itself.
Karl Franz, unfazed, stepped forward, his blade raised towards them as if in grim tribute.
‘I will not repeat this warning,’ he said, and his calm voice echoed around the chamber. ‘Leave this place now, or your souls will be bound to it forever. The spirit of almighty Sigmar runs deep here, and His sign shines above us. You do not know your danger.’
There was something about the deep authority in that voice, the measured expression, which gave even the three creatures of madness pause. They held back, and the huge one looked uncertainly at his companions.
The sorcerer was the first to laugh, though, breaking the moment. The warrior with the scythe joined in quickly.
‘You did not need to be here, Emperor,’ said the scythe-bearer, bowing floridly before him. ‘We could have destroyed your city well enough on our own, but your death makes the exercise just a little more rewarding.’
The sorcerer bowed in turn, a mocking smile playing across his scarred face. ‘We are the Glottkin, your excellency, once as mortal and as sickly as you, now filled with the magnificence of the Urfather. Know our names, before we slay you. I am Ethrac, this is my brother Otto, and this, the greatest of us all, is the mighty Ghurk.’
Ghurk emitted a wheezing hhur as his name was recited, then crackled the knuckles of his one true hand.
Martak clutched his staff a little tighter, allowing the Wind of Ghur to flow along its length. The chamber was electric with tension, just waiting for the false war of words to conclude – nothing would be settled now by rhetoric.
Karl Franz’s face remained stony. His self-control was complete. Even in the heart of his annihilated kingdom, his visage never so much as flickered.
‘I do not need to know your names,’ he said, letting a shade of contempt dance around the edge of his speech. ‘You will die just as all your breed will die – beyond the light of redemption, forever condemned to howl your misery to the void.’
Otto glanced over at Ethrac, amused, and shrugged. ‘Then there is nothing to say to him, o my brother,’ he remarked.
Ethrac nodded. ‘It seems not, o my brother.’
They both turned back to face the altar, and the three of them burst into movement.
Otto was quickest, sprinting over to Karl Franz with his scythe whirring around his head. Ethrac was next, his staff alight with black energy, all aimed at Martak. Ghurk lumbered along in the rear, backed up by the charge of the northmen.
Deathclaw pounced in response, using a single thrust of its huge wings to power straight into Ghurk’s oncoming charge. The griffon latched onto the huge monster, lashing out with its claws and tearing with its open beak. The two of them fell into a brutal exchange of blows, rocking and swaying as they ripped into one another.
Ethrac launched a barrage of plague-magic straight at Martak, aiming to deluge him in a wave of thick, viscous choke-slime. Martak countered with a blast from his own staff, puncturing the wave of effluent and sending it splattering back to its sender. Ethrac lashed his staff around, rousing the vines and creepers hanging from the chamber vaults into barbed flails. Martak cut them down as they emerged, summoning spectral blades that cartwheeled through the air.
Martak’s own griffon took on the bulk of the tribesmen, bounding amongst them, goring and stabbing, leaving Otto and the Emperor to their combat undisturbed. The chamber rang with the sound and fury of combat, the runefang glittering as it was swung against the rusted scythe-blade.
‘I saw you come back,’ said Otto, letting a little admiration creep into his parched voice. ‘Why did you do that? You know you cannot beat us.’
Karl Franz said nothing, but launched into a disciplined flurry with his blade, matching the blistering sweeps of the scythe.
Martak, kept busy with his own magical duel, only caught fragmentary glimpses of the combat, but he could hear the taunting words of the Glotts well enough. The mucus-rain continued to fall, tumbling down from the gaping roof and bouncing messily on the torn-up marble.
By then Ghurk was getting the better of Deathclaw. The griffon savaged its opponent, but the vast creature of Chaos was immune to pain and virtually indestructible. With a sickening snap, the griffon’s wings were broken again. Deathclaw screamed, and was hurled aside, skidding into the chamber walls.
Martak backed away from Ethrac, fighting off fresh flurries of dark magic. The sorcerer was far more potent than he was, able to pull the very stuff of Chaos from the aethyr and direct it straight at him. With growing horror, Martak saw the first pustules rise on his forearms, and felt his staff begin to twist out of shape. His essence was being corrupted, turned against him and driven into the insane growths that had blighted the Empire from Marienburg to Ostermark.
Karl Franz fought on undeterred, matching Otto’s blows with careful precision. He carried himself with all the elegance of an expertly-trained sword-master, adopting the proper posture and giving himself room to counter every blade movement. Otto, by contrast, came at him in a whirl of wild strokes, trying to unnerve him by flinging the scythe out wide before hauling it back in close. In a strange way, they were oddly matched, rocking to and fro before the altar, hacking and blocking under the shadow of the swinging chains.
Martak fell back further, bludgeoned by the superior magic of Ethrac. The pustules on his skin burst open, drenching him in foul-smelling liquids. He unleashed a flock of shadow-crows, which flew into Ethrac’s face and pecked at his eyes, but the sorcerer whispered a single word, bursting their bellies and causing them to flop, lifeless, onto the chamber floor. More globules of burning slime were flung at Martak, and he barely parried them, feeling their acidic bite as they splashed across his face.
With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Martak knew he was overmatched. Nothing he summoned troubled the sorcerer, and he could barely keep the counter-blasts from goring straight into him. Even as he retreated further, driven away from the altar and towards the chamber’s east door, he saw the futility of it all, just as he had warned the Emperor.
There is no glory in dying here, and he wants to die.