With the Flesheater Courts now with us, and their liege-lord Ushoran soon to emerge, our gaze turns to the Summercourt, where the Mortarch of Delusion presides over his noble household…
The blood droplet beaded on the ceiling, above the rotten doors. It lingered, clotted and sagging, before falling to the flagstone.
How had it gotten up there, wondered Grand Justice Gormayne? How did blood get everywhere, in this wretched place?
Of course, Gormayne’s own vile form answered that question. Hairless and pallid, eyes sunken and teeth like talons: truly, an exemplar of the vampiric aristocracy. He was an abhorrant, a beastly scion of a poisoned genealogy.
Except Gormayne was no beast. Alone of his kind, total chivalric lunacy eluded him. Flashes of cursed sanity rendered stark the horror of his existence, even as they preserved his faculties. Hence the ‘Summerking’ dribbling out the command that Gormayne would serve as his lawkeeper. What an honour – to be attended by gurgling yeomen and hear the grievances of cannibals, clad in severed hands and a periwig of slick intestines.
Gore dripped down his brow. He licked at it idly. One could not persist in New Summercourt without partaking. One had to conform with the king’s crazed sycophants, or else stoke their suspicions and become their meal. Even if you were not mad. Like Gormayne.
‘Loathsome,’ he muttered, glancing at what at first looked like a hound nibbling a bone. By the time he focused, the half-dead rat was already darting away.
‘Deliberating with the castle vermin, Grand Justice?’
Clad in deathly finery, Sekhar – Fang of Nulahmia – walked with stately dignity, flanked by handmaidens who carried serpentine knives and wide-bellied amphorae. The vampire diplomat’s expression was porcelain, but the sneer was in her eyes. Gormayne supposed he would have acted the same, if confronted with himself.
‘Alas, my lady, ’tis the only engaging discourse one finds in these climes.’
‘You surprise me, Gormayne,’ Sekhar said. Being forced to entertain the ghouls’ delusions had sharpened her bladed tongue, and the more lucid Grand Justice was apparently the outlet for her contempt. ‘Why, I see scarce difference between the Blood Court and this… hovel.’
‘Yet here thou art,’ Gormayne said. ‘Neferata must think highly of thee, to grant such an illustrious posting.’
‘At least Queen Neferata is capable of thought,’ Sekhar chuckled. Snarling, Gormayne let his gaze fall on the slithering entity at Sekhar’s side. The bloated serpent stared back. Sekhar smirked, pale fingers dancing along the hissing beast’s brow.
‘You really must make peace with Ouboroth. You two have such commonalities. Table manners, for one.’
‘Indeed. And ’tis heartening that thou hast a companion of similarly venomous character.’
‘Don’t be churlish,’ Sekhar cooed. ‘The Great Necromancer granted him to me. A godly gift.’ Her gaze narrowed to the sealed portal before them. ‘He is within?’
‘As ever.’ On cue, the doors shook to baritone howls. Sekhar tutted.
‘Let us proceed, then.’
The doors groaned as they were pushed open, wood and rust shaking free. Light washed over Gormayne, as howls turned to seraphic choirs. His steps echoed off marble polished to a mirror sheen. Looking down, Gormayne beheld his reflection: ruddy of pallor, robust of physique. He lifted his gaze past tapestries woven from gilded cloth, towards the source of the blessed light.
It shone from a dais at the far end of the chamber. Surrounded by floral garlands, the Summerking’s ermine robes seemed barely able to contain his divinity. Councillors clustered and whispered around him, yet Ushoran’s radiant smile seemed reserved for his Grand Justice alone. Gormayne felt the urge to weep, to kneel and recant every boorish doubt—
‘Focus, fool,’ Sekhar hissed.
No. This was a madman’s illusion, and Gormayne was not mad. He willed himself to see. Where once had been light, darkness now filled the hall. The tapestries were scraps of bloodied flesh. The garlands were corpses. Offal and blood carpeted cracked stone. And the king…
Ushoran was an abomination, any hint of regality gruesomely stretched over a body bulging with foulness. Here was the curse of the abhorrants made flesh, the vitiated font they had unwillingly supped from. The king remained imposing, no doubt. Strength bubbled within his twisted form, and his filthy claws were long and wicked. A pulse of necromantic energies radiated from him, sending the heads sewn into his cloak moaning. He could be supreme amongst the Mortarchs in might and majesty, if only he had mastery of himself. Instead Ushoran squatted in these dilapidated halls, drooling and screeching while thinking himself noble. It was frustrating. It was… embarrassing.
‘Beloved Gormayne!’ Ushoran rumbled, shifting upon his osseous throne. ‘Thou hast caught us reminiscing with Chancellor Gristelstik.’ Gormayne glanced at one of the severed heads that hung from Ushoran’s mantle, locked in a scream.
‘As you say, my liege.’
‘No doubt your wisdom speaks for itself, Lord of Summer,’ Sekhar interjected. The mesmeric fluidity to her bow served to realign Ushoran’s wandering attentions.
‘Hail, niece!’ He crooned, as if he had not seen Sekhar for decades rather than days. ‘Our sister-in-darkness keeps thee among us, eh?’
‘Be assured, lord, that Queen Neferata is well informed of your hospitality,’ Sekhar said, without a hint of irony. ‘And of your munificence to would-be allies.’
‘Ah,’ Ushoran said. A slick tongue lashed at his fangs. ‘So ’tis that time. Verily, let it never be said we are miserly with our boons. Come, come,’ he bid. ‘Proceed with ransacking our cellars.’
Bearing a practised smile, Sekhar nodded, sending her disciples to ascend Ushoran’s dais. Gormayne watched them make slick cuts across his royal flesh. Golden nectar – no, Ushoran’s rancid ichor – seeped into the amphorae.
This was the Nulahmian scheme. Claiming to be distributing his fabled wine to deserving souls, Sekhar and her brood leeched Ushoran’s blood. These ‘offerings’ were smuggled into enemy lands on black-sailed barques, spreading his creeping madness. It was the only way, Sekhar maintained, that Ushoran – so mercurial of soul – could be trusted to contribute to the war against the living. Nagash had not forgiven his Mortarch’s past transgressions, but in his cunning, the god had found a use for him.
And for all his sins, Gormayne was a true believer in the Supreme One – ultimate avatar of unstinting law. That was how Sekhar had ensnared him. He was in Ushoran’s good graces, able to keep his sire’s fractured mind away from his status as a blood-bag, and the rest of the Summercourt pliant. It had rewarded Gormayne with influence, however grudgingly given. More importantly, though, it made him of purpose to his god.
Even if deception rankled, and Sekhar’s sneering superiority made it no easier to stomach.
‘Sir Jerrion still wars against the plague sorcerers, sire,’ Gormayne said. ‘Many bannermen rally to him.’
‘Good,’ Ushoran grunted, twitching as a blade bit deeper. ‘Good! And Baron Bitenbach’s trial continues?’
‘Indeed, sire.’ More truthfully, Bitenbach was currently scraps of meat in Mistress Gristlehook’s pot. The abhorrant’s madness had wavered long enough for him to perceive a Nulahmian taking a dagger to Ushoran, and presume the worst. If there was one transgression the jovial ghouls would not forgive, it was harm to their beloved king.
‘A sad instance,’ Ushoran grumbled. ‘What say you, Lord Ouboroth? How might thee proceed, should a courtier prove false?’
‘He is but a snake, my lord.’ Sekhar’s amenable tone betrayed none of the irritation she likely felt at her pet being addressed.
‘Is he?’ Ushoran chuckled. ‘Is he indeed?’ Sekhar’s flicker of surprise was controlled, but Gormayne sensed it.
The bleeding ceased. Ushoran wheezed, slumping into his throne. Despite himself, the sight of his sire so reduced saw Gormayne wince. Then Ushoran chuckled, and any sympathy was extinguished.
‘Another… thorough raid. But for the good, if our gifts spread… peace and good cheer.’
‘Take heart, my lord,’ Sekhar nodded. ‘Your generosity shall—’
‘Sire!’
Flapping wings echoed in a cacophony beyond an arched window. A pegasus-riding knight barrelled through the opening, skidding to a halt in the chamber’s heart. Gormayne blinked, but the false vision persisted, albeit growing more blurred. Only a reflection in a pool of blood revealed the interloper’s true form; the bat-winged form of Marquis Thoromir. The abhorrent bowed awkwardly.
‘Sigmarites, sire! Moving through the mountains!’
‘Coming to besiege us?’ Sekhar hissed, her diplomat’s tongue briefly forgotten. Gormayne’s stomach dropped. A barrier ringed the mountains where New Summercourt lurked, garrisoned by ivory praetorians as dedicated to keeping enemies out as they were Ushoran contained. But the peril was not in an attack; that might even have given Ushoran back his taste for war. No, the danger lay in the Summerking’s propensity for deranged theatrics seeing him proclaim exactly what he did.
‘Hark!’ Ushoran roared, lurching upon his throne like a ship in a stormtide. ‘But these are glad tidings! Come to honour the alliance between goodsire Nagash and Azyr’s gild-king. Verily, we must ready to receive them!’
‘Hardly,’ Sekhar spat, courtly sensibilities briefly forgotten. ‘Brigands, flying false colours. And we cannot simply open our gates—’
‘Our gates?’
Ushoran had stopped shrieking. He leant forward, hunched and still. A predator scenting the wind. Dripping blood broke the smothering silence.
‘Surely, niece, thou meanest my gates?’ There was no hint of challenge in the king’s voice, and yet Gormayne spied Sekhar’s handmaidens flinch. ‘And didst thou not speak of my largesse? T’would be petty, to deny succour to the needy.’
The beast had her trapped. After a moment Sekhar smiled, bowing low.
‘As ever, lord, your beneficence humbles me.’
Such obeisances typically placated Ushoran. This time he remained coiled, eyes burning dark. His gaze flicked to Gormayne. A prey-beast’s terror thrilled up the Grand Justice’s spine. Only then did the Summerking nod. He sat taller and clapped his monstrous hands.
‘Prepare the feast!’
The fourth book in the Dawnbringers series will be available to pre-order soon. In it we’ll discover more of Ushoran, Gormayne, and the rest, who are also making their final preparations to return to Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
