Morathi, High Oracle of the aelven war-god Khaine and Grand Matriarch of the Daughters of Khaine, rose from Mathcoir’s crimson depths, blood and magic dripping from her. She stepped from the great iron cauldron with a shiver of delight, the rejuvenation of her body and spirit complete. Strong, lithe and long-limbed, Morathi’s beauty was as cold and magnificent as ice and as deadly, too – not just to the unwary but to all those on whom she turned her formidable charms.
Three handmaidens, powerful warriors and sorcerers in their own right, hurried to dry and dress her, while a fourth was tasked with brushing out her luxurious hair until it shone like moonlight. Her magic swirled around her, as potent as an aphrodisiac. It, too, had been replenished in the cauldron’s sacred blood-waters. Dressed and filled with the boundless energy of Mathcoir, Morathi took her spear, Heartrender, from its bracket on the wall and paced through the corridors of the grand temple in the citadel of Hagg Nar. All who encountered her progress prostrated themselves and she passed without a glance or a murmur. She barely noticed them unless they failed to offer her the correct respect.
Encircling Hagg Nar like a translucent wall writhed the shadow-magics that made the Realm of Ulgu impenetrable to those who had not the knowledge to navigate its ways. Shadows that confused and waylaid wanderers also gave succour to the Daughters of Khaine, whose own magic was attuned to it, but those same coils of mist hid the stealthy incursions from the unholy minions of Slaanesh and Nagash, who had learnt many of the secrets of Ulgu and exploited them for their own evil purposes. The realm’s earth these days ran with blood and her mountains echoed with screams as the Daughters of Khaine defended their sacred home from the Forces of Chaos.
No, Ulgu was not a peaceful realm, but then Morathi had rarely craved peace in her long, extraordinary life. It certainly did not serve her purposes now. The Shadow Realm’s magic, and the blood spilt within it, was both blessing and curse: power that gave and also took away. Morathi was intimately familiar with such a seeming contradiction. Her life and purpose had alike been forged in such extremes, in horrors such as none living could ever begin to comprehend. Horrors Morathi herself refused to dwell on or allow to be spoken. And yet now, thanks to Khaine and the she-aelves who so zealously worshipped him and worked for his return, her strength grew and her power with it.
Morathi ascended the spiralling walkways from deep within the temple until she came to a wide balcony overlooking an arena of black sand. Slabs of jagged stone stood here and there within the oval pit, and surrounding it was row upon row of tiered seating, filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of her Daughters, eager for the contest to begin.
Above them, the sky was black, its surface pitted and cracked by lightning that flickered through and behind obsidian clouds. Beyond Hagg Nar’s limits, Ulgu was a realm of deception and bemusement, where a well-trodden path could as easily lead over a chasm as it could to a Daughter’s intended destination. For a Khainite to live within the peculiar magics of the Shadow Realm, she was required to dedicate herself wholly and without restraint to the war-god and his High Oracle. She risked death with every breath she took, and in so doing, she triumphed over it – and dedicated that triumph to Khaine himself.
But not all of Ulgu was completely hostile to those who called it home. Though coils of shadow, of magic and misinformation, still writhed at the gates, their questing tendrils could not penetrate the dome of protection built over the citadel by Morathi’s power and reinforced daily by the Scathborn who lived within Hagg Nar. The barrier protected Morathi and Mathcoir itself from attack, but also the thousands of she-aelves who lived and worshipped here.
Magic sparked across the dome as Morathi stepped back from the balcony, a coruscation of crimson sparkles and flitters that danced and shattered high above them. Weird shapes and patterns flickered over the black sands and the murmur from the seats faded away. Morathi sat in the huge carved-stone throne at the balcony’s centre, ignoring Melusai Filstag who waited in inscrutable silence beside it. Filstag had much news; Filstag could wait.
The arena fell into held-breath silence, the weight of thousands of awe-struck gazes caressing Morathi’s skin, the reverence no less than her due and her demand. She held them in suspense a little longer, winding the tension, savouring their hunger, their love. And then she slammed the butt of her spear onto the stone, the flat crack echoing out across the vast space: the signal for the first bout to begin.
All around the circumference of the arena, she-aelves began to call out in praise of Khaine and in anticipation of the bloodshed to come. Only under cover of that sound did Morathi give Filstag leave to speak. Still she did not look at her, but kept hungry eyes fixed on the warriors running onto the sands below. More blood for Khaine’s glory, for the war-god’s exaltation.
‘The Forces of Chaos grow bolder, First Daughter, both here on Ulgu and elsewhere. Our war-covens march with the humans and duardin, or come to their aid when the benefit falls to us, and turn the tides of every battle they fight. Still, the lesser races shrink from our forces, understanding nothing of us and our dedication. Some have ventured the opinion that they do not need us to achieve victory. That… our ways mark us not as servants of Order, but of Chaos.’
Morathi noted the tiny hesitation in the melusai’s response. Her lip curled. The old fear rising in the weak, frightened denizens of the Mortal Realms as it ever did when the Daughters of Khaine threw themselves into battle to honour their god. Combat was sacred; slaughter was an act of reverence and dedication that had made the Daughters of Khaine the mightiest allies of Order since Sigmar himself. To kill for Khaine, to destroy life in honour of the sacrifice he had made, was their highest, and only, purpose. Of course humans couldn’t understand such dedication. Not even their Stormcast Eternals spent their lives so willingly, for they knew that resurrection awaited them. Morathi suspected they’d take fewer risks in battle if their deaths were final, as the aelves’ were. That was true dedication; true glory.
The temptation to abandon the other realms to face the horrors of Chaos alone was great, but Morathi resisted. Every enemy death was a triumph, after all, and every being, god or mortal, who had ever harmed her was an enemy, whether they allied with Chaos or Order. And every drop of blood spilt was holy – and filled with glorious purpose.
‘Khaine himself is pledged to destroying Chaos. We must do no less, despite the mewling of the lesser races. Are your sisters so feeble that the disgust of mere humans can dampen their battle-fever? Is their faith in almighty Khaine, in me, so small that they would cower from words and hard looks the way a tzaangor cowers from our khinerai lifetakers?’
Filstag cowered herself, just a little. She was a fierce warrior in her own right, had led war-covens in a dozen brutal, bloody campaigns before becoming Morathi’s bodyguard, but none withstood the High Oracle’s rage unscathed.
‘They fight hard and with honour, regardless of what their allies speak or think,’ she said quickly. ‘They fight for Order and for you. For the god of battle above all. There will be no cease until Khaine is returned to us, First Daughter. Until he is restored by your power and the sacred magic of Mathcoir itself.’
Morathi’s fingers tapped Heartrender’s smooth haft in idle, unconscious threat. ‘In Khaine’s image and for his glory,’ she said, and Filstag hurried to echo her.
Mathcoir. The great iron cauldron from which Morathi’s magic sprang. Mathcoir had held her portion of the souls reclaimed from the belly of Slaanesh, the God of Excess and Morathi’s greatest nemesis. She too had spent aeons in that belly and, before that, in torments and tortures that had forever twisted her. From those freed souls she had crafted the first Daughters: melusai like Filstag; and the khinerai. From those small, humble beginnings, the Daughters of Khaine had grown in stature, in number, in influence. In power.
Tens of thousands of she-aelves now dedicated their lives, their skills and their deaths to the war god – through Morathi. Morathi who would not stop until Chaos was defeated. Morathi who would not stop until she, herself, gained immortality. Morathi who sat now in the heart of her power, in the very centre of Hagg Nar beneath its sheltering, concealing mists, and watched blood spilt in her name and Khaine’s.
And yet she was not content. Morathi was never content, for always she was slighted – her Daughters were slighted – by the more puritan of the Forces of Order.
‘It pleases me to report, though, that I found no base for your fears among the sects you sent me to investigate,’ Filstag said, breaking into Morathi’s reverie.
The High Oracle raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ she asked, turning briefly to the melusai. ‘That surprises me. Perhaps you are ill-equipped to ferret out treachery. Perhaps it was going on beneath your very nose and you could not see it. Still, tell me what you can of your travels and interactions of the last months. I shall judge for myself their loyalty or otherwise.’
The Grand Matriarch listened to Filstag’s steady, calm breathing. Whatever she was or wasn’t, she did not anger easily. Still, Morathi suspected that Filstag harboured oceans of rage beneath that cold, inscrutable visage. Here in the very heart of Hagg Nar, the melusai had dropped the illusion that made her appear as other aelves. Her slender waist thickened where her hips should be into a muscular tail of emerald shading into midnight black and she swayed tall upon her coils. Monstrous in Morathi’s own image, but beautiful, too.
She was a Blood Sister, and she had been Morathi’s bodyguard for decades, following her into battle and assisting her in many rituals. And yet despite their history, in the past few years the High Oracle of Khaine had begun to doubt Filstag’s loyalty. It should be impossible, she knew, for one of the Scathborn to betray her, for she had moulded that aelf’s soul herself when it had been freed from the curse of Slaanesh. Moulded it and given it life as a melusai, armed with loyalty and bloodlust and the exquisite pain of the Scath touch, and yet the more time that passed, the more convinced she became.
Filstag was disloyal. Filstag was a traitor. She stank of it.
As head of the Cult of Khaine, Morathi did not need proof to act upon her suspicions, but she was determined to discover how far the rot spread. None of these thoughts showed in the High Oracle’s perfect face as she looked back down at the black sands and the combat reaching a frenzy below. She slammed her spear into the stone again, and more gates in the arena walls opened. Captured beastkin lumbered forth, braying challenges, and the fighters who seconds before had been duelling to first blood – and occasionally to the death – united into a single cohesive force against this new, true enemy.
The cheers from the crowd rose in pitch, shrill prayers to Khaine for blood and victory piercing the cacophony.
‘The Realm of Life is particularly beset by enemies, First Daughter,’ Filstag said without a hint of animosity about Morathi’s opinion of her ability or otherwise to sniff out treachery. ‘The Dark Gods have their claws deep in Ghyran’s verdant hide, though both the Draichi Ganeth and the Khailebron sects oppose them at every turn. The Draichi Ganeth, in particular, have integrated themselves into most of the major cities in order to learn whatever they can to aid us in our great quest. Both sects are ever alert for a disparaging word said against them or against you, First Daughter, and retribution is ever swift and savage. They are loyal,’ she said again, perhaps unwisely, perhaps a little too forcefully.
Filstag paused, but Morathi gave her nothing, instead perceiving her via her magic as she kept her face turned to the slaughter in the arena below. One of the beastkin, a giant wolf five times its normal size and with a slavering muzzle over-full with yellowed, wickedly sharp teeth, had a witch-aelf by the leg and was shaking her, blood and gobbets of flesh flying. Her screams shamed her, and one of her sisters waited until others had hacked into the wolf’s hindquarters and distracted it, and then decapitated her as she began to crawl away. The crowd yelled its disgust for her cowardice and stones and rocks rained down on her corpse from those sitting close enough.
‘I spent time with each sect, as commanded, observing their structure and worship, their daily ritual combat and the interactions and commands of their priestesses. The Ghyran Khailebron take on such quieter tasks as their hag queen, Belleth, commands,’ Filstag continued, and her tone now was one of stilted disdain. Most of the Daughters of Khaine shared her contempt for the Khailebron aelves, though Morathi kept herself above such pettiness; her favouritism extended to particular aelves, those who showed real promise, not entire sects. The Khailebron spies and assassins had many uses that those loyal to other splinters of the Cult of Khaine could not fathom. Yet it pleased Morathi to foster inter-sect competition. The more her children fought each other, the less likely they were to unite to fight her.
‘Their hag queen agrees to only those assignments that will further our cause, First Daughter, and marches her war-coven to battle when called upon and when prudent. All she does is in your honour and that of our lord. Meanwhile, the Draichi Ganeth hag queen in Ghyran has sent a coven to Phoenicium to scour it for the Shards of almighty Khaine. It is mainly a den of thieves and outcasts now, but they won’t allow that to stop them, of course. They will take apart that abandoned city stone by stone if they must.’
‘And have they found success?’ Morathi snapped, as fast as a striking snake.
‘Not by the time I left, First Daughter, but they did discover some artefacts and scrolls that may aid us in where to search next. Again, I found nothing to fault in that coven during the weeks of my stay with them. The Daughters in the Realm of Life are unswerving in their devotion to you, Grand Matriarch, and to Khaine himself.’
‘So you say.’ Morathi made no effort to melt the ice in her tone. The melusai did not respond. ‘Next.’
‘Another coven of Draichi Ganeth that came to your attention,’ Filstag continued smoothly, ‘those in the far reaches of Ulgu. I spoke with their hag queen, Lilithan, and observed their ritual combats and interactions. Their temple’s work proceeds as expected. They provide gladiatorial entertainment for a price, act as guards and foot patrols on the borders with Chaos-held lands, and throw themselves into glorious battle alongside our allies. Their foes are numerous and sly, but your children neither fear nor are fooled by them. A great victory was recently won by the Daughters when they came to the aid of ten companies of Freeguilders, who were caught between the enemy and a swamp, and fell on the Nagashi undead like vengeance itself, hacking them apart to sever the divine spark animating their corpses. None survived and the Freeguilders in question now offer us their full support. Hag Queen Lilithan expects they will be vocal in their defence of us among the Forces of Order from now on.’
All this, too, Morathi already knew, but she let Filstag prattle on. As if the Daughters of Khaine required the mewling voices of Freeguilders raised in their defence.
The last of the beastkin in the arena below were pulled down and destroyed. The surviving Daughters raised weapons and demanded the applause of their sisters in the seats. Thousands of she-aelves surged to their feet to give it, ululating triumph and bloodlust of their own. When the gladiatrixes turned to her, she raised both fists in salute. The cheering increased and the aelves on the sand stood tall despite their injuries. In ones and twos they limped to the exits, while leathanam raced into the arena with hooks and chains to drag the dead monsters away. Others raked over the bloody sand.
‘Those Draichi Ganeth have accepted fifty witch-aelves who wish to be promoted into the Sisters of Slaughter,’ the melusai went on, and that did interest Morathi. The Sisters were counted among the most zealous of all Daughters of Khaine, forever marring their beauty and risking their lives in the initiation ritual that included living metal masks being welded to their skin, destroying their faces forever and killing many through blood loss in the process. The survivors then underwent a series of gladiatorial contests, with only the victors being welcomed into the elite ranks of the Sisters of Slaughter.
‘I see Hag Queen Lilithan is most diligent in her recruitment,’ Morathi said and Filstag swelled with pride as if it was she the Grand Matriarch was praising. ‘Are there any of special promise?’
‘Two, First Daughter. I have their names and histories here,’ Filstag said, handing out a scroll. Morathi waved it away. ‘I will see it is placed in your chambers.’
They were silent as the next group of warriors came into the arena: khinerai lifetakers who swooped on their wide pinions to take a perch on the tall slabs of rock dotted around the sands. Their harsh calls echoed as the spectators abruptly quieted. Into that silence came a series of underground booms, as of something massive beyond comprehension throwing itself against the very bones of the earth. A huge gate beneath Morathi’s vantage point rumbled open and onto the sand erupted a sunwyrm from the Realm of Beasts.
The khinerai shrieked and leapt into flight, circling as the enormous creature surged around the arena looking for escape. Those aelves seated closest to the sand threw stones to drive it back into the centre, though the missiles had no effect on its thick, spiky hide. It coiled around one of the pillars of rock pointing like an accusing finger at the sky, and flexed. The stone cracked through its middle, the top half tumbling to the sand. The khinerai attacked in flights of three, arrowing out of the sky with their long spears extended, rending the sunwyrm’s back and flinging themselves upwards before it could rear and pluck them from the air with its huge mouth lined with rings of serrated teeth.
The crowd screamed its approval, thousands of fists and feet drumming on the stone in rapture. Morathi permitted herself a small smile. The games were good. Not just the bloodshed, but the bloodlust wafting like incense from the crowd; it came to her and nurtured her. She siphoned it out of the air and funnelled it into Mathcoir without a soul noticing. Not even Filstag. Its power danced across her unblemished skin and brought a girlish flush of pink to the tops of her sharp cheekbones.
They watched in silence as the khinerai battled the sunwyrm, as its sudden lunges and twists caught more than one unawares. Wings were shredded and spears lost in its flesh, but for every injury it inflicted, they scored a dozen on its great length. A trio of khinerai hovered and sent arrows at its blunt head, shaft after shaft, to weaken it further. Their actions were met with jeering scorn – to fight from a safe distance was the mark of a coward – and as soon as their quivers were empty, they threw aside their bows and dived in formation, to close with the wyrm and win back honour in the eyes of their sisters.
One landed for a few moments on its back to plunge her spear into its spike-armoured hide. It bucked and threw her aside, but the weapon had bitten deep and soon the sands were wet with gore. The wyrm’s high-pitched keening drowned out even the roar of the crowd.
Morathi spun her fingers through a complex web and then gestured. A flash of crimson and the noise was suddenly muffled, as if behind a screen, though they could still see the proceedings.
‘And the Kharumathi?’ she asked, for Filstag was mesmerised by the battle.
The melusai started. ‘Forgive me, First Daughter. Yes, the Kharumathi. They remain… fractious, on the verge of self-destruction. Though there is much internal strife, more than I have seen before, it’s true, that doesn’t make them inherently untrustworthy. While they battle for supremacy among themselves, their devotion to you remains clear. Those who fight to control the sect do so only in your name, to your glory and almighty Khaine’s. Of that I am certain.’
‘You are certain, are you?’ Morathi snapped, and Filstag shifted upon the coils of her tail. Its stinger rose and flexed and then sank again.
Morathi narrowed her eyes; was that insult? Or challenge? Or merely an unconscious indication of inner turmoil?
‘Again, it is clear your ability to understand the politics among the sects is lacking. I hope your skills as a warrior have not become as poor.’
Filstag clenched her fists. ‘They have not, First Daughter,’ she said, anger clear in her icy voice.
‘What do you think will happen if the Kharumathi fall apart?’ Morathi continued as if the Blood Sister hadn’t spoken. ‘Will the other sects accept those Daughters into their ranks, Daughters who let strife and arrogance destroy their covens and who embraced a sect so clearly lacking in cohesion that it tore itself apart?’
She paused and Filstag opened and then closed her mouth, unsure whether the question was rhetorical.
‘Well?’ Morathi demanded, though her gaze was fixed on the sunwyrm’s dying struggles. Even in its extremity it had the ability to cause vast destruction – of the khinerai, of the arena itself. Much like the Kharumathi themselves if their infighting proceeded much longer.
‘I do not know, First Daughter,’ the melusai replied with false humility.
‘No. You do not. Yet you stand there and tell me there is no need for concern, that these aelves can be trusted. Trusted to spread sedition through any Daughters they come into contact with. Trusted to break away and form their own cult of Khaine, leaching legitimacy and followers from us, the war-god’s true worshippers and interpreters of his divine will. Will their hag queen set herself up as my rival? Will there be civil war among us once more?’
The melusai’s tail writhed in distress, but this time she did not attempt an answer.
‘You observed their internal strife and did nothing to combat it. You allowed it to proceed, unable to see the dangers inherent in such surreptitious clawing for power. No, I think you are good only for killing these days,’ she added, the statement deliberately ambiguous.
Filstag summoned the last dregs of fire. ‘You asked me to report on their loyalty,’ she tried, the dry rustling of her scales on the stone loud in the muffled silence of Morathi’s magic.
‘And you failed to do so,’ Morathi interrupted. ‘You discover not the slightest whiff of corruption within covens that I myself told you to investigate. Think you that I sent you there idly, sister? For your health?’ she mocked.
The High Oracle stared down into the arena at the carnage. The sunwyrm was a heap of foul-stinking flesh cooling as blood and life left it. The khinerai circled, screeching their victory, swooping low over the tiers of seating to accept the applause from the watching aelves. Morathi’s pinions, bladed and wrought of shadow-stuff, stirred in time with their wingbeats and Filstag slithered a little further away.
‘We aelves are the highest of the mortal races,’ Morathi continued abruptly. ‘Your incompetence shames us all. We are born with a single great, glorious purpose – to return Khaine from destruction. My every effort is bent to that sole task, and the majority of my children revel in their faith. And yet there are always some who put personal glory and the pursuit of power above the needs of the many and the return of our lord. I sent you to seek them, the corrupted and the greedy. You tell me they do not exist.’
She faced Filstag directly, so the melusai could not doubt she was speaking about her.
‘Those aelves think they could secure Khaine’s return better than I, as if they understand the first thing about the complexity of the task. They think their devotion to be somehow greater than my own, their sacrifices larger and of more import than mine. Those aelves shame themselves – and they shame Khaine.’
Melusai Filstag sank to the stone, arms and face pressed against its chill. ‘First Daughter, Grand Matriarch of the Daughters of Khaine and High Oracle of the Lord of Murder, forgive my failings. I will return at once to the sects and I will not stop until I have uncovered the treachery at their hearts. I will–’
‘Get up, sister.’ Morathi’s voice was suddenly as sweet as honey, as warm as fire. Filstag choked off her apology and dared to raise her face. The High Oracle smiled, putting all the power of her centuries of seduction into it. ‘Get up,’ she repeated softly. ‘I suspect everyone, these days. Each year that passes without the discovery of another Shard of Khaine tears at me. Perhaps it is as you say – you are rarely wrong, after all.’
Filstag rose back up, uncertainty and pleasure warring on her features. They watched the khinerai fly out of the arena. The sunwyrm’s bloated, ruined body remained where they’d cut it down; captive beastkin would be sent in to devour it once the games concluded, so that they were strong and quick opponents for the Daughters of Khaine to face. Before then, those in the next contest would fight around, over and even within its corpse if they had to.
‘Tell me of Hellebron and the latest plots she has cooked up,’ Morathi said, and once again she slammed Heartrender into the stone.
Hellebron, ruler of Har Ganeth and the Second Daughter of Khaine, was the most senior hag queen in the hierarchy behind Morathi herself. Their rivalry was bitter and centuries old. Hellebron had thousands of aelves under her command and constantly plotted to overthrow Morathi and steal the Mathcoir from her. Ever they danced around each other, manoeuvring for position, seeking a secret or piece of information to give them the upper hand.
‘Is she still old and ugly?’ the High Oracle added, a small, cruel smile playing across her beautiful mouth. Below them, four gates opened and a hundred aelves flooded onto the sands. They were all acolytes seeking promotion within their respective sect.
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