‘Archaon,’ Grimgor rumbled, drawing the Everchosen’s name out like a curse. Amber sparks danced in the brute’s good eye. The beast turned north, towards the Temple of Ulric. ‘Archaon… thinks he’s better than me?’
‘I doubt that he thinks of you at all,’ Malekith said.
‘Take me to him,’ Grimgor snarled, shoving the flat of his axe beneath Malekith’s chin. ‘I’m gonna bash ’im, and then I’m gonna stomp ’im, and then we’ll see who’s best.’
‘It would be my pleasure,’ Malekith murmured, rising to his feet. Grimgor snorted and turned. At a single bellow, his orcs began to flow around the elves, and towards the skaven. Malekith could almost admire the iron control the beast had over his simple-minded followers. But he still intended to plant his sword between the brute’s shoulder blades once the day was won. He’d sacrificed his pride on the altar of necessity, but that didn’t mean that matters between them were resolved.
I hope you survive what’s coming, beast. If only so you can witness my supremacy first-hand, when your services are no longer required…
Arkhan the Black pinned the northman to the ground with a sweep of his staff, and watched disinterestedly as the savage convulsed and withered to a lifeless husk. It joined the others that surrounded him in an ever expanding ring of death, and he paid the body no more notice. It wasn’t even worth raising to fight anew.
From around him rose the clangour of battle, as barrow-blade crashed against ensorcelled steel in a monotonous rhythm. Nearby, the wights of the Doomed Legion fought against the black-armoured reavers of the Wastes, both sides trampling the bodies of Kurgan and northmen beneath their heavy treads. With a gesture, Arkhan re-knit broken bones and rebound wicked spirits to their mouldering bodies, dragging those wights who had fallen back to their feet to rejoin the fight.
The sky had gone from red to black, and squirmed like a carcass full of maggots. The few remaining trees in the Great Park had been set alight by witch-fires as the battle surged back and forth. The living had been joined by a cavalcade of daemons – graceful, dancing shapes which moved with impossible quickness across the field. One such bounded towards Arkhan, her lilting song playing across the grave-whisper of his thoughts. Faces flashed in his mind’s eye – Morgiana, Neferata, others, women he had loved and lost in his sorry life – but he ignored them easily enough. His will was not his own, and could not be broken so lightly. The vast, black bulwark of Nagash’s thoughts steadied his own, and he interposed his staff as the daemonette’s claws snapped shut inches from his skull.
The daemon hissed at him and he twisted to the side, throwing the androgynous creature to the ground. Before it could rise, he had drawn his barrow-blade and severed its head from its neck. He turned, blade still in hand, and scanned the park. Wailing spirits hurtled through the ashen air to the south, ripping the life from Kurgan warriors, even as the latter fought on beneath their skull-topped banners against a lurching, fire-blistered horde of zombies. He heard a rasping roar, and turned to see Krell’s axe crash down on the mirrored shield of a creature he recognised as Sigvald the Magnificent. Arkhan had only crossed paths with the Geld-Prince once before, in Araby, but he knew that the Chaos champion was a deadly opponent, despite being a preening brat.
Arkhan extended his staff, unleashing a crackling amethyst hurricane of death-magics at the daemonettes who capered past Sigvald and Krell, unbinding them and reducing them to motes of glittering dust. Through the cloud, he saw Sigvald driven back by Krell’s whirling blows, each of which bled seamlessly into the next.
Again and again, Sigvald lunged at Krell, his flickering blade skittering across Krell’s ancient armour, but the wight gave no ground, and continued to drive his opponent before him. Krell launched a wide blow, meant to decapitate Sigvald, but the Geld-Prince ducked beneath it. The blow shattered the scorched husk of a tree, showering both warriors with cinders and ash. Sigvald lunged, and his sword punched through Krell’s breastplate with a screech of metal and a puff of dust.
Krell staggered back, a dry, death-rattle laugh echoing from his fleshless jaws. He pivoted, wrenching the sword from Sigvald’s grip, and backhanded him, sending the Chaos champion flying backwards. Arkhan nodded in satisfaction. All was as it should be.
Suddenly, a throaty roar split the cacophony of battle. Arkhan looked towards the overlook of the park and saw a vast, lumpen silhouette clamber over the hill. A tattered red cloak flapped about the beast’s shoulders, and a tarnished crown pulsed strangely on its brow. Arkhan raised his staff warily. This creature too he recognised, though he had never before laid eyes on it. Arkhan had heard the stories from his agents in the north, of Throgg and his ice-palace in the ruins of Praag. Of the capture of sorcerers and mages of all races and descriptions; of Throgg’s obsessions, and his fall at the hands of a one-eyed dwarf. It seems that fall was not so long as one might hope, Arkhan thought.
For now, it seemed as if the Wintertooth, the so-called King of the Trolls, had come to Middenheim, and he had not come alone. Trolls, giants and mutants of the northlands flooded down the overlook, smashing into both the dead and the living without regard to whether they were friend or foe. Feral minotaurs slaughtered Kurgan warriors as the ghorgons of the Drakwald tore through the massed ranks of zombies.
Arkhan wove spells of strength and recovery with all the speed his dead limbs could muster, trying to hold the army of corpses together. He could feel Nagash’s displeasure ripple through him, and with a twitch of his staff he summoned the surviving morghasts from the angry skies. The osseous constructs hurtled down like birds of prey, their spirit-bound blades chopping into bestial flesh. But for every dozen brutes and beasts that fell, a morghast was pulled down from the sky, to be hacked apart or torn limb from limb.
Though it took almost every iota of concentration he could muster to reform the destroyed constructs and fling them into battle once more, Arkhan kept one eye on the duel between Krell and Sigvald. If the wight could manage to dispatch the champion, it might tear all heart from the surviving Kurgan and put them to flight. With them out of the way, the beasts would be easy prey. Or so he hoped.
That hope, however, proved to be in vain. Arkhan watched, disconcerted, as Sigvald lunged to retrieve his sword, still stuck in Krell’s chest, and Krell’s axe whistled down to shatter the mirror-shield the man held. Sigvald staggered back, sword in hand, face bloody. The axe had bifurcated the shield and gashed the Geld-Prince’s handsome features, reducing one side of his face to a ruin. Sigvald clapped a hand to his mangled flesh and wailed like a dying cat. The champion lunged, still shrieking, and launched blow after blow at Krell.
Krell staggered back beneath the rain of wild blows. His axe lashed out in reply, scarring Sigvald’s gleaming cuirass or scoring his flesh, but the Geld-Prince was too far gone to feel the blows, Arkhan realised. The two warriors whirled and clashed through the melee, smashing down any creature, living, dead or otherwise, unlucky enough to get between them. Arkhan considered lending Krell aid, but dismissed the idea even as it occurred to him. He had his own battle to fight – a roaring giant stretched a wide hand towards him, as if to scoop him up. Arkhan ducked under the grasping fingers and lashed out with his sword, slicing through the creature’s wrist. The giant howled and retracted its limb, as Arkhan thrust his staff out and spat a killing word. The great beast staggered as its mighty frame began to shrivel and sag. It turned to dust even as it fell.