03 - God King by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead) Page B

deepest, darkest night given form and motion. As Krell towered over Khaled
al-Muntasir, so too did this giant figure loom over them all. It stepped into
the flickering circle of light cast by the fallen torches, yet no hint of
illumination touched its blackened form.
    A mighty figure cloaked in night and armour from the darkest forges of the
damned, its eyes burned with the same green light as shimmered in Krell’s vacant
skull. One arm clutched a forked staff in the form of an elongated snake while
the other had a sickly metallic sheen to it, like iron with a rainbow scum of
oil slithering across its surface.
    Grotesque and twisted with vile animation, the grim visage was that of death
itself, a horror cast from the nightmares of men and women since the dawn of
time. Markus’ wife fainted dead away with horror, and he felt his own fragile
grip on sanity slipping in the face of such irrevocable knowledge of his own
death. His sword fell to the ground and tears spilled from his eyes as he turned
his daughter’s face away from the monster.
    She sobbed uncontrollably, and Markus knew it would be a mercy to cut her
throat rather than have her face what was to come. Until this moment, Markus had
not feared death, knowing his courage in battle would surely earn him a place in
Ulric’s Hall. One look into the lambent pits of this horror’s eyes told him
there would be no journey to the next life to hunt in the forests of eternal
winter. Even the horror of the grave, with cold earth embracing his rotting
flesh and the worms growing fat on his meat was to be denied him. Compared to
the fate this creature was soon to visit upon them, such an end would be a
mercy.
    Markus dropped to his knees before this dreadful apparition as it closed on
him.
    “It is fitting that you give homage to the new lord of these lands,” said
Khaled al-Muntasir.
    Markus fumbled for his dagger, thinking to end his and his family’s life, but
before his hand even closed on the hilt, the blood drinker was at his side and
holding him in an unbreakable grip, the cold flesh of his face inches from his
own.
    “No, not yet,” whispered Khaled al-Muntasir. “Not when there are such sights
left to see.”
    Darkness boiled from the towering black warrior’s form, filling the sky with
unnatural gloom, blotting out the moon and filling the sky with evil clouds and
the screeching of bats. Wolves howled in the darkness, blood-hungry beasts of
the deep forest, not the noble creatures of the northern woods that carried the
chill winds of Ulric in their veins. The darkness closed on Hyrstdunn, obscuring
it from view, but Markus heard the screams and knew his city was doomed.
    “I want you to say his name,” said Khaled al-Muntasir.
    “I don’t know it,” said Markus, wishing that were true.
    “Come now,” chided Khaled al-Muntasir, digging a manicured nail into his
throat. “It lives in mortal minds as a nightmare of distant lands and forgotten
days. It is a name of death that travels with fearful taletellers and poisons
the lips of scared men huddled around fires in the foolish belief that they are
safe from his reach. Say it, mortal. Say it now.”
    “No,” wept Markus. “I cannot.”
    “Of course you can, it’s just wind noises passing through your throat.”
    “He is… he is…”
    “That’s it, go on,” urged the blood drinker.
    “He is Nagash,” said Markus, spitting the name like a curse.
    As though giving voice to the name of the dread necromancer from the ancient
horror tales gave it power, the mighty form slammed its vile metal hand into the
earth of the Morrdunn. A booming peal of thunder split the heavens and the green
light in Nagash’s eyes blazed with incredible power, flowing through his
withered, monstrous body to pour into the earth of the Empire like a corruption.
    Flickering green light danced over Markus’ son’s body, like wisps of corpse
light in the swamps. Though he was cold and dead,