Blood of Aenarion

Blood of Aenarion - By William King

Prologue

79th Year of the Reign of Aenarion, the Cliffs of Skalderak, Ulthuan

From high atop the cliffs of Skalderak, Aenarion looked down on the camp of his enemies. The Chaos worshippers’ fires blazed in the darkness, more numerous than the stars. There were hundreds of thousands of his monstrous foes down there and even if he killed every last one of them, more would come.

He was going to die. The whole world was going to die. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. He had tried, with all his enormous strength, with all his deadly cunning, with power greater than any mortal had ever possessed, wielding a weapon so evil it was forbidden by the gods, and still he had failed to stop the forces of Chaos.

Their armies surged across Ulthuan, crushing the last resistance of the elves. Howling hordes of blood-mad beastmen smashed through the final defences. Armies of mutants overwhelmed the last guardians of the island-continent. Legions of daemons revelled in the ruins of ancient cities.

After decades of warfare, Chaos was mightier than ever, and his people were at the end of their strength. Victory was impossible. He had been mad to think it could be otherwise.

He cast his gaze back to his own camp. Once he would have deemed his own army mighty. Hundreds of dragons slumbered amid the silk pavilions spread out across the mountaintop. Tens of thousands of heavily armoured elf warriors awaited his command. They would throw themselves into the attack once more if he gave the order, even though they were outnumbered more than twenty to one. With him to lead them they might even win, but it would be a fruitless victory. The Chaos army at the foot of the cliffs was only one of many. There were other armies, equally great and many greater, scattered across Ulthuan and, for all he knew, the rest of the world. They could not all be beaten by the forces at his disposal.

He turned and strode back inside his pavilion. It was futile to contemplate the size of the enemy force.

He unsheathed the Sword of Khaine. It glowed an infernal black, casting out hungry shadows that dimmed the hanging lanterns within the great silk tent. Red runes burned along a blade forged from alien metal. The Sword whispered obscenely to him in a thousand voices, and every voice, whether commanding, entreating or seductive, demanded death. It was the most powerful weapon ever forged and still it was not enough. It was heavy in his hand with the full weight of his failure. For all the good it had done him, he might as well have kept using Sunfang, the blade Caledor had made for him back when they were still friends.

The Sword was killing him by inches, bleeding away his life a droplet at a time. Every hour aged him like a day would age another elf. Only the unnatural vitality he had acquired when he passed through the Flame of Asuryan had enabled him to survive this long and even that would not last forever.

If the Sword was not fed lives it feasted on him instead. It was part of the devil’s bargain he had made when he had still thought it was possible to save the world, when he had still thought that he was a hero.

Morathi stirred in her sleep, one arm thrown out, casting off the silken coverlet, leaving one perfect breast revealed, a strand of her long curly black hair caught between her lips as she writhed in some erotic dream. The potions still worked for her. She could still find sleep, no matter how troubled. The drugs had long ago ceased to work for him even when taken in dosages that would have killed anyone else.

Wine had no savour. Food had no taste. He lived in a world of moving shadows, far less vivid than the one he had known as a mortal. He had given up much to save his people – his ideals, his family, his very soul.

Kill her. Kill them all.

The Sword’s ancient, evil voices kept whispering in his head. In the quiet of the night he could still ignore them. There had been times when the mad bloodlust was upon him when he could not, and he had committed acts that made him burn with shame and wish that the wine still worked so that he could find forgetfulness in it.

Had there been time enough left, the day would come when he would no longer be able to resist the Godslayer’s urging, and nothing within his reach would be safe. If the daemons did not end the world, he would do it himself.

He laughed softly. Phoenix King they called him now. He had passed through the sacred flames and come out the other side, not burned but stronger, faster, more alive than any mortal should be. He had offered himself as a sacrifice to save his people when the gods had rejected all others, and they had taken his flesh and his agony as their offering and sent him back transformed to do their work.

He had died and been reborn the day he passed through the Flame of Asuryan, and he had caught glimpses of things that had blasted his sanity. He had seen the vast damaged clockwork of the ordered universe and that which lay beneath it and beyond.

He had looked upon the Chaos that bubbled around everything for all eternity. He had seen the smile on the face of the daemon god who waited to devour the souls of his people. He had witnessed that god’s kin use worlds for their playthings and populations for their slaves. He had glimpsed the great holes in the fabric of reality through which their power and their servants poured in to conquer his world.

He had seen eternities of horror and he had come back reshaped, remade, reborn to fight. He had tried then with all his new-found might to save his people from the tide of daemonic filth engulfing the world.

At first he thought he could win. The gods had gifted him with power beyond that of any mortal. He had used it to lead the elves to victory after victory but every triumph had cost them irreplaceable lives and for every foe that fell two more came to take their place.

He had not realised then that it was all a black cosmic joke. He was only slowing down the destruction of his people, making it more painful by drawing out the agony.

He had taken the Everqueen as his wife and she had borne him two perfect children, a promise of a brighter tomorrow, or at least a pledge that there still would be a tomorrow. He had believed that then, but his family been taken from him by the daemons and slaughtered. In the end he had not even been able to protect his own kin, and their loss had ripped the heart from him.

It was then that he had sought out the Blighted Isle and the Godslayer. It was a weapon never meant to be drawn from the Altar of Khaine but he had drawn it. If the gods had given him strength, the Sword had made him all but invincible. Where he walked daemons died. Where he led, victory was inevitable. But he could not be everywhere and with every day the forces opposed to him grew stronger and those who followed him grew fewer and fewer.

The evil of the Sword had seeped into him and changed him, making him angrier and less sane as the odds against him mounted. His closest friends had shunned him and the people he was pledged to save had drifted away, leaving only hardened embittered remnants, elves as angry and deadly as himself, a legion of warriors almost as mad and twisted as the foes they faced. They too had been changed by the baleful influence of his unholy weapon. He had taught his people too well how to make war.

A mood of black despair had come upon him, and at that darkest period of his life he had found Morathi. He glanced at her beautiful sleeping form, loathing her and wanting her at the same time. What he had with her he could not call love. He doubted he was capable of any tender emotion any more, even with a woman less twisted than his current wife. This was a mad, sick passion. In Morathi’s caresses he had found some respite from his troubles and in their wild love-making he had found distraction from his cares.

She had brewed potions that for a time had let him sleep and made him almost calm. And she had borne him a son, Malekith, and taught him that there was still some spark of feeling within him yet. He had found something to fight for once more and returned to the fray, if not with hope, at least with determination. But now, at long last, he could see that it was over, that his enemies would win, and that his people were doomed to death and an eternity of damnation.

A glow in the air warned him. Long, sharp-edged shadows danced away from him. He turned, sword raised ready to strike, and only at the last heartbeat did he stay his hand.

‘Aenarion, can you hear me?’ asked a voice of eerie quietness that seemed to be carried on some dismal breeze from the desolate margins of the world.

Caledor stood there, or at least his image did, a glowing translucent ghost, cast across long leagues by the force of the mage’s magic. Aenarion studied his former friend. The mightiest mage in the world looked half-dead. His body was wasted, his cheeks were sunken, his face looked like a skull. His features were schooled to impassiveness by the power of his will but terror glittered in his eyes. It was never far from the eyes of any of the elves now.

‘Aenarion, are you there?’ The image flickered and Aenarion knew that all he had to do was wait and the image would vanish as the spell collapsed. He did not want to talk to the one who had turned his back on him, who had walked away from the doom he felt that Aenarion was leading their people towards.

He bit back words of anger and reined in the rage burning in his breast. In his more lucid moments he knew that Caledor had done the right thing, taking some remnant of the people out from under the shadow of the Sword and the doom that Aenarion carried within him.

‘I am here, Caledor,’ Aenarion said. ‘What do you wish of me?’

‘I need your aid. We are besieged by land and sea.’

Aenarion’s laugh was bitter. ‘Now you need my help! You turned your back on me but you do not scruple to seek my aid when you need it.’

Caledor shook his head slowly and Aenarion could see the weariness eating away at him. The mage was at the end of his tether. His last resources of strength were dwindling. Only willpower was keeping him going. ‘I never turned my back on you, my friend, only on that cursed thing you carry and the path you set your feet upon.’

‘It comes to the same thing. I saw the way that would save our people. You, in your arrogance, refused to follow.’

‘There are some roads it is better not to travel even if they are the only way to escape death. Your way would make us worse than the things we face. It would merely be a different kind of defeat. Our enemies would win in the end either way.’

In his heart of hearts Aenarion agreed but he was too proud to admit his folly. Instead he gave vent to his bitterness and anger. ‘Accursed you have called me, accursed till the end of time, and all of my seed to be accursed. And yet you dare ask for my aid?’

‘I did not curse you, Aenarion. You cursed yourself when you drew that blade. Perhaps you were accursed before that. I know you were always chosen by destiny and that in itself is a sort of curse.’

‘Now that you need my help, you seek to twist your words and give them a honeyed meaning.’

Anger passed across Caledor’s features. His lips twisted into a sneer. ‘The world ends and yet your pride must be salved. It is more important to you than life, the life of our people. You will not aid me because of harsh truths I once spoke. You are like a child, Aenarion.’

Aenarion laughed. ‘I have not said I will not aid you. What is it you seek?’

‘There is only one way to save our world. We both know it.’

‘You intend to put your plan into effect then, to sing your spells and try and banish magic from the world.’

‘That is not what I seek and you know it.’

‘Morathi says that will be the effect of what you do.’

‘I doubt your wife knows more of the ways of magic than I do.’

‘Now who is mad with pride, Caledor?’

‘The gates of the Old Ones are open. The winds of magic blow through them like a hurricane. They carry the energy that causes the humans to mutate and lets the daemons dwell here. Without that energy they must leave our world or die. This is truth. We have constructed a mighty network of spells to channel that energy, to drain it away, to use it for our own purposes. All we need do now is activate it.’

‘We have been over this a hundred times. Too much could go wrong.’

‘We are dying, Aenarion. Soon there will be none of us left to oppose Chaos. We have tried your way. It has not worked. The forces of Chaos are stronger now than they were the day you passed through the Flame.’

‘That is not my fault, wizard.’

‘No, but it is the truth.’

‘So you seek my permission to try your plan?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘We have begun.’

‘You dare to do this when I have forbidden it?’

‘You are our leader, Aenarion. We are not your slaves. The time has come for a last throw of the dice.’

‘I will decide when that is to be.’

‘It is too late for anything else, Phoenix King. If it is not done now, it will not be done at all. The forces against us will be too strong. Perhaps they already are.’

‘If you have decided to defy my will, why bother telling me?’

‘Because the daemons sense our purpose and try to stop us, and we do not have the strength to prevent them.’

‘So you want me and mine to protect you, in spite of your defiance.’

‘We are all one people. This will be the last stand of the elves. If you do not wish to be there, that is your choice.’

‘There will be other battles.’

‘No. This will be the last. If our spell goes wrong the fault lines beneath Ulthuan will be torn apart, the continent will sink, drowning our enemies. Perhaps the whole world will end.’

‘And yet you will still proceed.’

‘There is no other choice, Aenarion. You told me once that mine was the counsel of despair and that you would find another way to win this war. Have you done so?’

He wanted to cast the mage’s words back into his teeth but he was too proud and too honest to do so. He shook his head.

‘Will you come to the Isle of the Dead? We need you.’

‘I will consider it.’

‘Do not consider too long, Phoenix King.’

Caledor put his hands together and bowed and vanished. Morathi’s eyes snapped open and she screamed.

He turned to look at his wife. She stared at him as if looking at a ghost.

‘You are not dead, thank all the gods,’ she said.

‘Apparently not,’ he said.

‘Do not joke about such things, Aenarion. You know I see the future and tonight in my dreams I had a vision. A battle is coming. If you take part in it you will die.’

‘So?’

‘If you leave my side, you will die.’

He stared at her hard, wanting to ask her how she knew and not daring to because he feared the answer and what he would have to do if she gave it.

Morathi had studied the ways of their enemies for a very long time, and, he suspected, far too closely. There were times when he was not sure where her true loyalties lay. He only knew that she looked at him, as he looked at her, with a mixture of lust, respect, hatred and anger. It was a potent, heady brew that had fuelled many memorable days and more memorable nights.

‘Everyone dies,’ he told her.

‘I will not,’ she said with certainty. ‘And your son Malekith will not. And if you listen to me, you will not either. If you go today you forfeit immortality. Stay with me and live forever.’ She stretched out her hand in entreaty. It seemed for a moment as if she were actually going to beg. She would not ever do that. And yet...

‘That is not possible,’ he said quickly, to break the spell of the moment.

‘You are the Phoenix King. Anything is possible for you.’

‘Whatever else I am, I am a warrior, and today may be the last battle the elves ever fight.’

‘You are going to help that fool Caledor with his insane plan.’ She was angry now. Rage did not make her ugly. It made her more beautiful and more dangerous. He stared at her, unintimidated. She had never frightened him. He suspected that intrigued her. He was probably the only one her rage had never daunted.

‘It is the only way we can win this war. I know that now,’ he said calmly, because he knew that would goad her more.

‘And I say to you, if you go, you will die.’

He shrugged and began donning his armour. As he fastened the clasps, he spoke the words that activated its dormant power. Titanic fields of protective magic shimmered into place around him. Potent spells amplified his already enormous strength. It was a barrier between himself and her that he wanted at that moment though.

She walked towards him, arms outstretched in entreaty. ‘Please stay with me. I do not want to lose you forever.’

As ever he was astonished by her beauty. He doubted there had ever been a woman as lovely as Morathi. At the same time, he was untouched by her loveliness. It had no hold over him. It never had. And he knew that in some way that was the secret of the power he held over her. Other elves might be driven mad with longing and lust for her. He was not. There was a coldness in him that she could not touch but nothing could stop her trying.

He pulled on his gauntlets and reached out and touched her cheek with his armoured hand. He could not feel the softness of her skin but that was not so different from the normal way of things. He felt neither pleasure nor pain as much as normal mortals did after he passed through the Flame.

‘I will return,’ he said.

She shook her head with absolute finality. ‘No. You will not. You are a fool, Aenarion, but I love you.’

The words hung in the air. It was the first time she had ever said them.

She stood there waiting for him to say something, obvious entreaty in her eyes. He knew how much it cost her to say such words. Not to hear any response must be humiliating to one of her enormous pride.

There was nothing he could say or wanted to. He had only ever loved one woman and she was dead, along with the children she had borne him. Nothing could change that fact. Nothing ever would.

Morathi was merely wicked and she had drawn him into her wickedness. Even now she was trying to prevent him from going forth to face his foes. At that moment he felt certain that she was numbered among his enemies and the enemies of his people, and she would be forever.

Kill her, whispered the Sword.

He would be doing the elves a service if he struck her down. He stared at her for a moment, certain that she knew what he was thinking, and just as certain that at that moment she did not really care what he did.

She moved closer as if daring him to strike. He reached out with one hand, jerked her to him and crushed her lips against his, putting all his lust and rage and hatred into one long and brutal kiss. She responded in kind, writhing against his metal-encased form until he thrust her away, her naked body bleeding in a dozen places from pushing against the edges of his armour.

He smiled at her savagely, turned on his heel and left the pavilion without another word. He thought he heard her crying as he left. He told himself he did not care.

Indraugnir stood before him like a living mountain. The span of the dragon’s wings blocked out the sky. His head arched downwards on the titanic column of his neck. Aenarion looked into his strange glittering eyes and saw a ferocity and anger there that matched his own. The dragon sensed his fey mood and responded with a bellow. The other dragons took up his war cry until the mountains around them echoed as if to the sound of thunder.

Horns rang out summoning the elves to war. Dragon riders rushed forth to greet the dawn, clutching their long spears, strapping on their glittering armour, making the air shimmer with the enchantments on their gear. Grooms attached saddles and harnesses to the dragons’ necks. The air stank of sulphur and leather and the deadly gaseous breath of the great beasts.

All eyes were upon him now. His whole army watched him. All of them were grim, scarred elves with hard eyes and a cruel set to their mouths. All of them had suffered in this long war. All of them were consumed with a mad hatred of their enemy that Aenarion understood only too well. All of them knew they had been summoned forth for some mighty effort. Enormous ranks of ground troops formed up beyond them. They would be useless in the coming battle. They would not be able to travel to the Isle of the Dead fast enough to take part. They expected him to speak. The magic of the dragon armour carried his calm measured tones to the furthest units of the assembled army.

‘You have followed me far. Some of you must follow me a little further. We must ride far and fast and only those mounted on dragons will be swift enough to follow me. The rest of you must remain here and guard my queen.’

He saw anger and pride war in the faces of the infantry and cavalry. They knew he had already lost one wife and they would not let him lose another. These troops had followed him through hell and they loved him in their cold, cruel way. ‘Those of you who stay must guard this place and endure. After today you may be the last elves in the world. You will need to follow my queen and my son and rebuild our kingdom come what may.’

They heard the knowledge of his own death in his voice at the same moment as he heard it himself. He had given them implicit instructions for the succession. These veterans would see they were carried out. He turned his attention to the dragon riders, the elite of the elite, the greatest warriors of the elves. He paused for a moment and let his gaze sweep over them all, meeting the eyes of every soldier. As he did so Indraugnir roared again, and the other dragons took up the chorus till the mountains echoed.

‘Today will be our last battle. Today, for better or worse, this war ends,’ he shouted, and his voice carried even over the bellowing of the dragons. ‘Today we go forth from this place to victory or to death. Gird on your armour. Make ready your lances. We ride!’

Aenarion leapt into the saddle and tugged the reins. Indraugnir threw himself into the sky, his enormous leathery pinions beating the air with a crack like a storm hitting the sails of an ocean-going ship.

The roar of the wind was loud in his ears as they gained altitude, the great line of dragon-borne elf warriors taking their place in formation until a huge arrowhead filled the sky behind him. For the first time in a long time, wild joy filled him. This might be the last dawn he ever saw but there were still wonders in this world that could stir his heart and make it beat faster.

‘To the Isle of the Dead,’ he shouted and the wind carried away his words so that only Indraugnir could hear him.

He did not need to know the direction in which they should fly. In the distance an eerie glow filled the sky, rivalling the dawn. His elven senses told him that there a great confluence of magical energies gathered. Caledor had lit a beacon that would attract the attention of anything with the slightest sensitivity to magic and there were things out there that could sense the casting of the faintest spell at a distance of a thousand leagues.

Their journey carried the dragons over mountains and forests, plains and seas. He had time to take in the wild beauty of the land he had sworn to protect for one last time. Even marred by the monstrous hordes of Chaos, it was lovely. As the leagues and hours rushed by, the land beneath him came alive with monsters and mutants and daemons all racing towards the place where the most powerful spell ever woven was being cast.

As they approached the Isle of the Dead, horror and wonder filled his mind in equal measure. Thousands of crude ships filled the sea, delivering legions of monsters to the shores of the island.

Hundreds of thousands of twisted beings filled the beaches beneath him, some the size of elves, some the size of dragons and every size and shape in between. Here and there things raised hands or claws or a staff to the sky and a futile bolt of magical energy blasted skyward to strike a dragon impotently. At this range and height there was nothing their foes could do to harm them. Those flying Chaos creatures that dared to rise and challenge them were blasted from the sky by the power of dragon-breath or elven magic.

Ahead of him now, he could see the great open-roofed temple where Caledor had chosen to work his ritual magic. The air above it shimmered with power. Already the sky was changing colour, clouds becoming yellow and gold and crimson and sapphire as they swirled like a great whirlpool in the air. Multi-coloured lightning flickered. The winds became stronger, slowing the flight of even a dragon as mighty as Indraugnir.

Aenarion swooped lower. He saw lines of apprentice wizards standing in geomantic formation around the centre of the temple, chanting words of power, feeding their strength to the archmages who stood at the point of each column, all adding a tiny morsel to the overall pool of energy.

At the centre of it all stood Caledor and his circle of the greatest of all elven magii. Each was limned with an aura of awesome power. From their outstretched hands, writhing bands of energy fed the ever-more complex enchantment growing in their midst. The force of magic at the centre of that web was already so great that nothing unprotected could survive there for long. He sensed that the spell was spinning on the edge of being out of control. Something mighty enough to shatter the world was being shaped down there. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before and Aenarion doubted anything like it would ever be attempted again.

The daemons were drawn to it like sharks to blood. The clever ones must know that what was being done here was not for their benefit. The less clever ones just wanted to reach this great trove of power.

A seemingly endless horde of Chaos worshippers surrounded the place, brandishing the banners of the four great Powers they worshipped: Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch and Nurgle.

Each of the armies was led by a greater daemon sworn to those powers, chosen representatives of the daemon gods. They were mighty beyond the understanding of mortals. They had led their forces to countless victories in countless places. The fact that they were all gathered here argued that the daemonic leaders understood quite as well as he did exactly how important this place was, that the fate of the world would be decided by what happened here today.

He took in the battleground at a glance, understanding the play of forces on it instinctively. The elves were doomed. Their foes were too numerous and too powerful. Nothing could stop the forces of Chaos triumphing today. The best that might be achieved was that they be delayed long enough for Caledor to finish working his spell.

So be it, Aenarion thought. If the only road to victory is by way of death, we will take it.

Kill, whispered the Sword.

Aenarion raised his blade and the first wing of dragons peeled off and descended on the advancing Chaos hordes. They swept over the teeming multitude, breath of fire cleansing the tainted earth. The Chaos worshippers were packed so closely together there was no way to avoid the flames raining down from the sky. They died in their thousands, like a column of warrior ants marching into a pool of burning oil.

Wave after wave of dragons descended. Legion after legion of Chaos worshippers died. The smell of scorched flesh rose to reach even Aenarion’s nostrils as he circled high above the battlefield.

The winds grew stronger. The columns of fire above the temple grew brighter. In the distance the earth erupted as towers of magic sprang into being in answer to the spells of Caledor and his fellow mages. As far as the eye could see fingers of swirling magical light stabbed into the sky, illuminating the darkening land and revealing the great crowds of Chaos monsters racing towards the site of battle. All over Ulthuan the same thing was happening as Caledor’s vortex came to life.

Clouds obscured all of the sky now. Below him it was dark as night save where the hellish illumination of the glowing columns lit their surroundings or the dazzling flash of some mighty polychromatic lightning bolt split the sky. The geomantic pattern the elf mages had been arranged in was plain now, a great rune made of flesh and light visible from the sky through which Aenarion flew. The terror and the wonder of it filled his heart.

This was a sight worth seeing even if it cost the life of the world.

In the distance the sea boiled with ships and huge monsters. All sensed that the hour of final battle was at hand. The screaming, chanting horde surged up the stairways of the shrine. The Isle of the Dead was never meant to be a fortress but a holy place. The makeshift defences of the elves were smashed by the rampaging daemon worshippers.

Chaos sorcerers on glowing disks of light rode the skies, howling incantations as they tried to breach the spell walls protecting the shrine. One by one, the barriers fell, for there were not enough elven mages left to maintain them. Too many were committed to the creation of the vortex.

As he passed over, Aenarion saw mighty banners fluttering over enormous moving towers. Each bore the sign of the greater daemons who were the generals and champions of the besieging force. Even in the shadow of the gigantic spell Caledor was weaving, Aenarion sensed the power of these deadly creatures. They were the mightiest of their kind, hardened by millennia of constant warfare in the hells they came from. Normally they would have been the deadliest of enemies, but on this day, in this place, they seemed to have managed a truce in order to crush the one threat remaining to their domination of this world.

The dragons swooped and slew like great birds of prey. Hills of smouldering corpses rose on the way to the temple but it did not matter. No matter how many they killed more came on, rushing forwards to inevitable death as to the embrace of a lover. Now the dragonfire began to weaken as the dragons reached the end of their resources. Flocks of winged daemons surrounded individual dragons and smashed them from the skies.

They could not prevent the great horde reaching the outer defences of the temple and engaging the thin lines of desperate elf soldiers waiting there.

A terrible wave of agony and terror rippled out from the temple. For a moment, the huge spell at the centre of it trembled and threatened to collapse. Aenarion swooped lower and saw that one of the archmages had fallen along with all the apprentices who had been linked to him. The power of the spell had burned the life out of him. The whole mighty edifice Caledor was creating threatened to collapse like a palace hit by an earthquake.

Somehow the mage at the centre of it all managed to stave off the disaster and continue. The structure of the spell stabilised and the ritual went on. Aenarion was not sure how much longer it could endure.

How many of the archmages could die before Caledor was unable to constrain the forces he had unleashed and destruction rained down on them all? For better or worse, Aenarion thought, it would all be over soon.

Four gigantic forms made their way to the temple, each surrounded by a bodyguard of potent worshippers. The greater daemons who led the Chaos horde were vying to see which would be the first to reach Caledor and end the threat he posed. The greatest enemies of all wanted to be in at the kill.

Ahead of them the first wave to reach the walls of the temple looked as if they were about to break through and interrupt the ritual. If they were not stopped, they would succeed.

He dropped Indraugnir into the middle of the melee. They landed on top of a massive self-moving siege engine within which the living essence of a dozen daemons was bound. The dragon took the great battering ram in his claws and beat skyward, lifting it and sending it toppling backwards to crush a hundred foes beneath its weight. It lay there broken, like a beetle turned on its back. Indraugnir smashed into the press of bodies, tearing foes asunder with his claws, searing them with his fiery breath, snapping twisted Chaos monsters in half with his jaws.

A group of elf soldiers tried to fight their way towards the embattled Phoenix King but died before they could reach him, overwhelmed by the sheer number of their foes. Aenarion leapt from Indraugnir’s back, like a swimmer diving into a sea of monstrous flesh. His blade flickered faster than mortal eyes could follow, smashing through the bodies of his enemies as if they were made from matchwood. A beastman leapt at him, jaws snapping; he caught it in the air one handed, and sent it flying a hundred yards with a flick of his arm. It cartwheeled through the air to splatter against the walls of the shrine.

Aenarion cleaved through his opponents, killing everything within reach, his blade sending pulses of black light over the battlefield, the red runes glowing ever stronger as it drank life. His enemies died in their hundreds and then their thousands. Nothing could stand against him, and seeing his unleashed wrath his foes turned to flee.

For a moment, Aenarion thought he had turned the battle but then the air in front of him shimmered and a hole appeared in the fabric of reality. A figure of horror emerged, towering twice as high as any beastman, monstrous wings snapping on its back. A huge vulture-like head, gazed down with eyes that held more than elven wisdom. The appearance of this greater daemon, this mighty Lord of Change, halted the rout.

‘Long have I wanted to meet you, Phoenix King. Now the hour of your death is at hand.’ The daemon’s voice was high-pitched and shrieking and it would have broken the nerve of a less bold warrior than Aenarion just to listen to it.

‘What is your name, daemon,’ Aenarion said, ‘so I can have it etched on my victory stella that all may know who I conquered?’

The daemon laughed. There was madness in its mirth that would have blasted the sanity of most mortals. ‘I am Kairos Fateweaver and I will send your soul to Tzeentch so he may use it as a bauble for his pleasure.’

It stretched out its taloned hands and ravening streamers of multi-coloured light flashed towards Aenarion. Whatever they touched, living or unliving, warped and changed. Beastmen devolved into protoplasm, hardened stone ran like water. Aenarion raised his blade in front of him and the ribbons of light parted on either side of him. He pushed forward, like a swimmer against a strong tide.

The Lord of Change bellowed its rage and fury and invoked another spell, but by the time it was complete Aenarion was upon it, and the black blade bit home into its flesh. Where the weapon struck, chunks were hacked away and ectoplasm swirled forth in a choking cloud. The daemon screamed, unable to believe that anything could cause it so much pain. Its mighty taloned hands reached out to grip Aenarion.

Such a feast, whispered the voices in his head. More.

Sparks flickered where the daemon’s grip bit into Aenarion’s breastplate. The Lord of Change was a being of awful magical energies and not even the potent spells woven into the elf’s armour could completely resist it. The talons bit flesh and drew blood as they sought out the Phoenix King’s heart.

Aenarion stifled his own cry of pain, and, knowing he had only one chance to live, struck a blow with the black blade, piercing the daemon’s head and striking its jewelled brain. It exploded into a thousand pieces. The force of the blast hurled him through the air to land sprawling on the steps of the temple. He felt ribs break on impact.

Behind him the Vortex surged, and a high-pitched keening roar filled his ears. The air stank of ozone. A thousand voices screamed in unison as death overtook them. Another archmage had fallen. Who could it be, Aenarion wondered? Rhianos Silverfawn? Dorian Starbright? Undoubtedly it was someone he had known and now did not have the time to mourn.

He glanced around him dazedly and caught sight of another gigantic figure slaying the last guardians of the doorway beyond which Caledor and his mages still struggled to maintain their spell. The warding spells could not stop it. The guardians were not even trying to. They were throwing themselves willingly onto the monster’s claws, and greeting death as they would a newfound lover. There was something obscene about the way they went to meet their doom.

Aenarion’s heart sank. He knew this four-armed creature. It had taken all his strength to kill it once and now here it was again. This was N’Kari, the Keeper of Secrets, one of the deadliest of all the servants of the Gods of Chaos, the leader of the forces of Slaanesh, Lord of Pleasure.

‘I see I must slay you again,’ Aenarion shouted to get the daemon’s attention. ‘Or will you escape your just doom by some new trick as you appear to have done in the ruins of Ellyrion?’

N’Kari laughed its beautiful woman’s laugh, and the wind bore its pungent erotic aroma to Aenarion’s nostrils. Normal mortals would have been bemused, but Aenarion was hardened against any temptation it might have borne.

‘Arrogant mortal, I let you live once so I might experience the sensation of defeat. Now I am gorged on ten thousand souls and I am invincible. Be honoured! Your soul will learn agony and ecstasy under the lash of the Dark Prince of Pleasure once I send it to meet him.’

N’Kari sprang, and its huge crab-like claw snapped together where Aenarion had been standing a moment before. It was a feint, and it caught Aenarion with its other hand. Aphrodisiac poisons poured from its nails. Its cloying perfumed breath filled Aenarion’s nostrils. For a moment, he was dizzy and his legs threatened to give way beneath him.

‘Now is the moment of ultimate pleasure,’ said the Keeper of Secrets. ‘You will fall to your knees and adore me before you die, Phoenix King.’

Aenarion lashed out with his blade, slashing the creature’s chest. Such was the daemon’s power that the flesh tried to knit behind the blade as it passed, but nothing could resist the fatal power of the Sword, and after a moment, N’Kari’s flesh smoked and burned.

‘I do not fear you or that blade you carry,’ said N’Kari, but there was an odd strain in its voice.

‘I will teach you to do so before this day is much older,’ said Aenarion. Rage filled the daemon’s eyes at his mockery. The massive claw swung round and gripped Aenarion’s chest. It closed. Aenarion felt the weakened armour buckle and his ribs snap.

‘You will not defeat me again, mortal.’

Aenarion reached out with his hand into the cavity the black blade had made. He pulled forth the daemon’s still pulsing heart and raised it before him.

‘No,’ bellowed N’Kari. Aenarion closed his fist, crushing the heart. The daemon spasmed as if the organ being pulped were still within its chest. Poisonous blood dripped over Aenarion’s mailed fist, burning through the armour and threatening to make his hand useless. Aenarion forced its own blood into the daemon’s eyes, blinding it, then he raised the blade once more and drove it into N’Kari’s shattered chest.

Ectoplasm poured forth as the daemon sought to evade the killing power of the sword. Tiny fragments of its essence flickered through the air towards the Vortex and vanished. As they did so, some of the chanting sorcerers moaned in ecstasy and died.

Aenarion reeled. His left hand was burned and useless now. His chest was a fiery cauldron of agony. The pain mingled with an odd pleasure caused by the effects of the daemon’s blood.

More. More. More. The voices in his head were crazed with demented passion now. The Sword was feasting on essences stronger than any it had known in a long time and it was enjoying its meal.

A monstrous giggling form loomed over him. The smell of excrement and rotting flesh overcame the scent of everything else. He looked up to see the towering figure of a Great Unclean One, mightiest of the servants of the plague lord, Nurgle. It was the largest of the daemon princes by far. It loomed over him like a living mountain of filth, its vast flabby belly rippling in time to its idiot laughter.

‘Two of my peers have fallen to you, Phoenix King, and I would not have thought that possible.’ The daemon’s voice was deep and rich and humorous. Its tone was conversational. The cruelty of its gaze belied the warmth of its manner. ‘Still I, the Most Amiable Throttle Gurglespew, shall do my humble best to claim the victory.’

The Great Unclean One vomited forth a mass of maggots and bile onto him. The creatures began to burrow their way into Aenarion’s flesh through the gaps in his armour, and force themselves into his eyes and mouth through the open visor of his helmet. He tried to keep his mouth closed but they wriggled up his nostrils and into his ears. They found gaps in his armour and squirmed across his flesh.

Each of the maggots had a tiny face that was a perfect copy of the features of the massive daemon that had belched it forth. All of them tittered with an insane mirth that was a high-pitched echo of the greater daemon’s. They bit and gnawed at him and every bite was infected. He felt even the fires of the Phoenix within him gutter as his life force was drained away.

A wave of fire passed over him, hotter than the heart of a volcano, brighter than the sun. The tiny daemons vaporised under the incandescent barrage. Aenarion, who had passed through the Flame of Asuryan, remained standing. Through the blaze he saw Indraugnir blast the greater daemon of Nurgle with flames and then rend its putrid flesh asunder with its mighty talons.

Aenarion cheered his companion on as it tore its foe to pieces, reducing the greater daemon to a foul-smelling stinking pool of sewage on the ground. Indraugnir raised its head to the sky and let out a long bellow of triumph.

An explosion of dragon flesh and dragon blood smashed into Aenarion’s face. An enormous gash appeared in the dragon’s side and a burning axe emerged from it. Indraugnir toppled backwards, a huge hole carved in its flank. Its triumphant cry died in its throat.

Aenarion’s heart sank. Before him was a Bloodthirster, a greater daemon of Khorne, perhaps the deadliest creature in all creation save for the Blood God himself. It was a massive thing with mighty wings and a monstrous animal head. Its eyes blazed like falling meteors. Its huge form was encased in runic armour of bronze and black iron. It radiated an aura of power greater than that possessed by any living creature Aenarion had ever faced.

The Bloodthirster struck again, with the force of a thousand thunderbolts, and Indraugnir bellowed and was still. Only its tail gave one last reflexive twitch and all life seemed to go out of it. Aenarion’s awareness narrowed until it contained only himself and the daemon. They were like the last two living things moving in the ruins of a dead world.

Kill it. Kill it. The voices chorused in his head. They sounded even more demented than ever as they advised him to use his waning strength against this all but invincible opponent.

Limping painfully Aenarion forced himself to confront the last and mightiest of his foes.

It tossed back its head and laughed at the sight of him. He understood its mirth. His body was broken, his armour shattered, his flesh seared by the dragon’s cleansing flame. Poisons and disease spores raced through his bloodstream. It was a race between them and loss of blood to see which killed him first. That was if the final greater daemon did not do their work for them.

He staggered towards it, holding his blade at the ready with both hands. The daemon sprang forward in a cloud of fire and brimstone. Its weapons lashed out and Aenarion twisted to avoid the blow. It caught Aenarion in his already wounded arm, breaking armour, shattering bone, sending the Phoenix King flying through the doorway of the temple to land amid the last few surviving wizards who still chanted the spell.

Aenarion looked around, appalled. So few mages were left. They had given up their lives to create the Vortex. At the centre of the chamber, near that towering whirlwind of unleashed magical power, only a few of the archmages remained, with Caledor standing on the central rune frantically trying to complete his spell even as the effort killed him.

The greater daemon roared with triumph. ‘I am victorious,’ it said in a voice like the blast of a thousand brazen trumpets. ‘Only I remain and soon this world will be mine to do with as I will. I will take this power you have so conveniently collected and use it to reshape the face of this creation.’

Aenarion forced his broken body to move and staggered between the Bloodthirster and its prey. It stared at him with burning eyes. ‘You cannot live through this, Phoenix King.’

‘I do not need to live,’ Aenarion said quietly. ‘I only need to kill you.’

‘That is not possible, mortal. I am Hargrim Dreadaxe and I am invincible. Never have I known defeat.’ The Bloodthirster pounced like a tiger leaping on a deer. Its speed was almost too fast for mortal eye to follow. Its power was all but irresistible.

Aenarion unleashed the last of his carefully husbanded strength. A mighty blow arced downwards. The Sword howled in triumph as it smashed through eldritch armour, bit into unearthly flesh, shattered bone and ribs and cleft the daemon from head to groin. It fell to earth chopped almost in two, leaving Aenarion standing over its swiftly evaporating form.

‘There is a first time for everything,’ Aenarion said.

The Phoenix King turned to stare at the wizards. He was near the end of his strength and he remembered Morathi’s prophesy. Once again his wife’s predictions had proven to be correct. He would die soon.

Only Caledor stood now, his form incandescent with power.

Thunder boomed. Lightning jumped from peak to peak. The great towers of light blazed brighter than the sun. Caledor’s flesh shrivelled and turned black until only something like a mummified corpse stood there, still chanting. Then even that desiccated husk blew apart, turning to ashes on the howling wind, leaving only the afterglow of the mage’s spirit, standing there, imprinted on Aenarion’s retina like the image of the sun seen through closed eyes.

Aenarion leaned on his sword, unable to move his broken body. Pain burned every nerve ending. His ragged breathing rasped through broken lips. Something gurgled deep within his chest as his lungs filled with blood. He had taken more punishment than even his mighty frame could endure. He had been smashed, poisoned, blasted with fire and magic. He had defeated four of the mightiest daemons ever to blight creation. His army was all but dead. His friends were dead. And still the spell was not complete.

They had rolled the dice and they had lost. The last gamble of the elves was over and all that remained was to pay the price of failure. He threw back his head and laughed.

They had tried and there would be none left to witness their failure. He considered throwing himself into the still half-formed Vortex and offering himself up as a sacrifice as he had once done before the Flame of Asuryan but he knew that this time it would not work. There was nothing left to be done, except to return to the fray and slay what he could until he was pulled down into death.

Yes, whispered the voices. Go! Kill until the world itself ends.

A moment of awful silence came. The Vortex spun and danced before him, about to fall like a child’s top that had run out of energy. Aenarion watched fascinated and horrified as it began to collapse. Then the fading image of Caledor stabilised. The ghost turned to the Vortex and continued its spell. Shimmering figures appeared around him as if summoned by his will. Aenarion recognised them as the ghosts of the dead archmages. Somehow, something of them still survived in this place. Even in death something now bound them to it.

The spirits of the other archmages joined in the ritual, walking one by one into the Vortex and vanishing. Aenarion peered at them through fast dimming eyes. He could see them becoming frozen, trapped in the awful centre of the spell as they continued the ritual. Something within him told him what was happening, that the ghosts were giving themselves up for all eternity to hold together the spell they had woven.

No! The voices in his head shrieked. He felt the chorus of mad hatred build up in his head, threatening to overpower his will. Destroy it! Destroy them all! Destroy the world!

The chant was seductive. He wanted to obey it. Why should anyone else live when he was dying? What did he care whether the world went on, if he could not be in it, ruling it?

He walked slowly towards the centre of the Vortex. The ghost of Caledor stood before him and made a gesture for him to stop. The archmage shook his head, and pointed at the blade. It howled within Aenarion’s grasp, urging him to cut down Caledor and then leap into the Vortex, slashing all around him. By doing so, he would undo everything, slay the entire world by unleashing all the pent up magic the mages had struggled so long and so hard to control.

He was tempted. He could end everything, kill everyone, and the blade could feast upon the death of an entire planet. Part of him wanted to do it, to end all life even as his own life ended. If he was to die, why not take everything else with him?

He stood there, gazing at the ghost of the elf who had once been his friend. Caledor’s spirit sensed the struggle within him but there was nothing it could do to either aid or hinder. The decision was Aenarion’s own, or it was the Sword’s.

That thought at last made Aenarion stir. He was his own master. He had always gone his own way. He had not bowed to his people, to Chaos, to the gods of the elves. In the end he would not bow to the Sword. It howled in frustration as if it sensed his decision and fought against it.

Caledor smiled and waved farewell, and turned and walked into the place where he would be trapped for all that remained of eternity.

Slowly, Aenarion turned his back on Caledor and the Vortex and walked away. The Sword fought him every step of the way.

Outside, all was howling madness. Lightning lashed down from the sky. Time flowed strangely within the range of the Vortex’s influence. The daemons were vanishing, turning back into the stuff of Chaos that had formed them. Their worshippers aged before his eyes, years passing in seconds, putrefying flesh falling away from corpses even as they fell. Piles of bones formed everywhere.

Aenarion stood and watched. Even the elves caught within the range of the newborn Vortex were ageing. He gestured for the survivors to flee and they obeyed.

Aenarion knew he was dying from the wounds and the poisons burning in his veins. He knew he had to leave, to return the Sword to the place from whence it came. He could not risk it falling into the hands of anyone else. Not so near the heart of the Vortex. Not with the possibility of some daemon or creature of evil finding it. He knew now why the gods had not wanted any to wield it.

He looked upon the corpse of Indraugnir. ‘It is a pity you cannot help me now, old friend,’ he said.

One great eye opened, and the dragon tried to bellow. Instead of its usual proud roar, its voice was a mere hiss, but it forced itself upright on weakened legs, and stood there tottering as its heart’s blood pumped forth.

‘One last flight then,’ said Aenarion and the dragon nodded as if in agreement. ‘We take the blade back to the Blighted Isle and drive it so deeply into the altar that no one will ever be able to take it out again.’

Aenarion forced himself into the saddle on the dying dragon’s back and strapped himself in. He took one last look about him at this place of destruction. Strange magic flowed all around him. The shadowy outlines of ghosts were visible in the ruins of the temple working on some great mystical pattern, performing the rites of some vast incomprehensible ritual. He tugged on the reins and the dragon leapt into the sky, soaring through the swirling clouds, climbing towards the sun.

The winds of magic howled beneath Indraugnir’s wings as he and his dying rider flew into legend.

N’Kari the Keeper of Secrets looked out from within the newly born Vortex and watched Aenarion depart. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it. The weapon the Phoenix King had carried was potent even beyond the imagining of daemons.

Never in all his aeons-long existence had N’Kari experienced anything like this. He was reduced to the barest nub of sentience, a thing little greater than a maggot or a human, barely aware of its own existence. He had only just managed to escape from Aenarion by casting himself within the roaring magical energies summoned by the elven archmages and hiding there. And he was barely a shadow of what he had been. The Sword had weakened him greatly, in some way he still did not quite understand.

Still, all he had to do was escape and his power would regrow as it always did.

He willed himself elsewhere, trying to plunge into the great Realm of Chaos to bathe in its eternally renewing energies. Nothing happened. He could not escape.

Rage and something else he did not quite recognise filled his mind. Perhaps it was fear. He was trapped within the huge spell the elves had cast. It was preventing him from departing this world for his own.

Even now, some vague sense of self-preservation warned him to keep still, to do nothing, to gather his strength. Around him were beings of awful power, the ghosts of the archmages who had given their lives to weave this spell. They were weaving it still.

His encounter with Aenarion had left him so weakened that he would have no chance if one of those terrible ghosts were to turn its attention on him and the small flaw in the vast matrix of spells he occupied. They could squash him from existence with the barest effort of their will.

It was painful and humiliating for N’Kari to admit his plight to himself, but it had been a long time since he had enjoyed these sensations and he determined to make the best of it.

Now he needed a plan, a way to escape from this enormous trap of a spell without the ghosts noticing him. He needed to wait and husband his power and let his strength regrow until he was himself again.

He did not doubt that it was possible, that he would get out of this place. He was a daemon. Time had little meaning for him, even the strangely altered flow of time within the Vortex. As long as he was careful and did not draw attention to himself he would survive, and he would work out a way to be free.

Then he would enjoy another sensation – vengeance on Aenarion and all of his blood.