The Golden Horde, the Nehekankh – the death which brings life

The Nehekankh — Lucifer216's Ossiarch Bonereapers

Nagash is the God of Death, the source of all necromancy and the scourge of those who would deny him his rightful soul-tithe. He’s also a terrible manager.

The hearts of his many servants do not beat, but the fear of the true death courses through their withered and decayed remains just as blood once did when they were among the living. Ask yourself, gentle reader, if such creatures would honestly tell someone who had engineered the downfall of entire civilizations that they might be able to fulfill his orders to the letter? The Mortarchs might dare to do so, but the nameless, the liches and necromancer-priests who scurry to obey? One might as well wait for the sand to rise up the hourglass. And so, the information that passes to the top of the pyramid is scant indeed; painstakingly polished until anything at all that might ignite the God of Death’s fury has been smoothed away. Furthermore, lies of omission and the actions required to prevent them from coming to light tend to multiply, gradually crushing all that which seems certain. It is this tendency that is the true genesis of the Nehekankh. Born from lies they are and of lies they must be. Their story begins when Nagash ordered the creation of the Ossiarch Bonereaper legions. At first all was well but as the task progressed his minions began to feel the first pangs of unease. Supplies of the necessary soul-stuff were quickly vanishing and yet the work on the last few legions had barely begun. It didn’t take long for his minions to realise that the Great Necromancer’s plans had not been adjusted to account for the souls that Sigmar had stolen from his grasp and used to create the Anvils of the Heldenhammer — the Stormhost forged from the aeons-dead heroes of the World-That-Was. It is not recorded by any scrimshaw-scribe who first proposed this course of action, but it wasn’t long before the soul-stuff required to make fearless, peerless killing machines was watered down with… other elements. Long had the Mortisan Soulmasons and their predecessors observed that mortals fighting for a cause seem to be far more effective than their lack of martial skill would suggest. The mother fighting to protect her young, the wounded man who bids his friends leave him so that they can escape, the son who takes up his father’s sword even its weight sits ill within his trembling hands. But this was not enough. And so it was that another source of soul-stuff was considered. In the darkest of oubliettes, known only to but a few, Nagash kept the souls of his former countrymen from the World-That-Was there to await his personal excruciation. But what need of such wretches for valour or skill at arms? All that was needed was their capacity for suffering. Normally, this would have been flayed away from them with the utmost care, but the risk of discovery was so great that much else was cut away in haste and decanted into the swirling mix of soul-stuff that was used to create the Golden Horde. At first all seemed well — Nagash’s latest legion was tasked with gathering the bone-tithe from Chamon, the Realm of Metal and the initial harvests of bone were plentiful. However, this was for two reasons — the Realmgate through which they had gained access to the Realm of Metal was far from the bulk of the conflict between the forces of Tzeentch and those of order and the sheer amount of bone waiting to be collected from Chamon’s battlefields and graveyards. As the Golden Horde continued its march and began full scale conflict with the realm’s native inhabitants along with daemons and Arcanites, such resources began to wane, forcing it to go on the defensive and dig deep into their scant reserves to build a network of fortifications.

An example of a Kavalos Deathrider in Nehekankh livery 

With the supply situation becoming critical, Liege-Kavalos Zalicazar and his retinue of Kavalos Deathriders sallied forth in search of a solution. The more they journeyed, the more they realised that the sheer amount of unbridled change magic and the depredations of daemons had cut a swathe through the human cities and settlements. Simply trying to raise cattle or grow crops was nearly impossible — a typical farmer would thank Sigmar if their cows and indeed themselves had the same number of limbs from sunrise to sunset. 

Returning weeks later with little to show for their efforts — and fearing the worst — Zalicazar and his companions were astonished to find that a dense and thriving jungle had sprung up almost overnight where the waves of unfettered and wild possibility collided with the deathly energies emanating from the Ossiarch Bonereapers’ fortifications. It was P’tah the most learned of the Golden Horde’s  Mortisan Boneshapers who first proposed the strategy of encouraging tribes and refugees fleeing lands made barren by wild magic to resettle in the newly fertile lands that ringed the borders of their territory. 

N’knef, the legion’s oldest and wisest Mortisan Soulmason pointed out in a voice like the crackling of dry leaves that this wouldn’t be enough — the legion would actually have to defend such settlements and tithe them sustainably, despite that doing so would directly contradict (at least in the short-term), their god’s vision of a perfect unending lifeless necrotopia. But the vague and far off possibility of being unmade as heretics by their ultimate master paled into insignificance when weighed against the absolute certainty of disgrace and torment should they return to Nagashizzar in failure. 

So it came to pass that a legion of animated bone revenants raised with the sole purpose of ushering all life into the malign grip of Nagash has become the Nehekankh – the death which brings life. 

As the decades has passed, the legion has become more comfortable with its decision — for nurturing the human settlements and even inducting the souls of the departed into their ranks with only the slightest refinement sits more naturally with them then the many massacres they carried out when the legion was first unleashed and the legion’s masters have long struggled to understand what would be required of them should Nagash’s vision ever come to pass. 

However, this inner peace is an uneasy one for all of the legion who carry the spark of sentience fear the day that Nagash eventually learns of their blasphemy. To forestall that dreaded day, great cartloads of bone are dispatched back to Nagashizzar with ever-increasing frequency — for the settlements have become great cities thanks to the unceasing labour of deathless hands and the supernaturally fertile fields that surround them. 

But the cities are no longer the Nehekankh’s only source of bone — for its strength has grown and its reach is long. Its leaders are no longer content to garrison walls and defend their livestock. They take the battle to the chaos filth who pollute their lands, while to the south the jungles have become infested with Seraphon — and their great beasts’ remains make the perfect raw material with which to build more Gothizzar Harvesters.

Meanwhile, to further increase their chances of survival once the Great Necromancer eventually discovers their betrayal, the Nehekankh have sent out expeditionary forces across the realms in search of unpillaged stormvaults and the wonders within. This search has led a small force to the Tallowlands...