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