Neferata

ELEVEN




The City of Bel Aliad

(–1149 Imperial Reckoning)

The dead fought in silence, their weapons rising and falling with monotonous ferocity. They hacked their way through the living warriors of Bel Aliad without slowing or stopping, and those that fell were replaced by their victims in time.

Arkhan the Black watched it all from the roof of the temple of the ghoul-god, and found it good. Or so Neferata assumed. The withered liche-thing barely resembled the man she had once known and… What? She pushed the thought aside. That was in the dim past and this was the present and here and now, Arkhan endangered everything she had built.

‘You can’t do this,’ she said, approaching him.

‘Neferata,’ Arkhan said in his hollow voice. ‘You still live.’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘No,’ Arkhan said. Bones rustled as he turned, his glowing gaze sweeping over her without apparent emotion. ‘Does this city hold some special place in your heart?’

‘No,’ Neferata said. Her armour hung from her body in ragged scraps; it had been battered and torn by Arkhan’s bodyguards as she had killed them. In the ruins of her once great temple, her followers battled his, even as her enemies battled the dead in the streets. It was a war on three fronts, fought by three armies. She raised the notched and dull khopesh she held and pointed it at him. ‘But it is mine nonetheless. You will not take it from me.’

‘Would you match your strength against mine?’ Arkhan said. ‘You ran from Nagash. Am I so much less fearsome?’

‘Infinitely,’ she said.

‘Nagash is dead,’ Arkhan said suddenly.

Neferata hesitated. ‘What?’

‘He is dead.’

‘Did you–’

Arkhan made a rasping, wheezing noise she took to be laughter. ‘No. And neither did your old friend W’soran.’ The glowing eyes dulled slightly. ‘It was Alcadizzar.’

Neferata closed her eyes, just for a moment. The pain was faint now, but it was there. She swallowed it down. ‘Is he...?’

‘I know not. Nor, in truth, do I care,’ Arkhan said. ‘Nagash is gone and I have been driven from Khemri. I need a new fortress, a new place to rebuild my strength before my opponents follow me.’

‘Your opponents – who were they? Nagash killed everyone!’ Neferata said. She knew even as she asked what the answer would be. She had known since that night where the sky turned green and the dead had grown restless in the burial vaults.

‘The Great Land is a land of the dead now. They rule it in the darkness even as they did beneath the sun.’ Arkhan used two fingers to push aside her blade. ‘The tombs of the mighty gape wide and the war-chariots of Settra rumble to war.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Yes, he brought them back. All of them unto the first generation,’ Arkhan intoned. ‘And they are angry, Neferata. They curse my name even as they curse Nagash’s… and yours.’

‘What?’ Neferata said, shaken.

Arkhan lunged, swatting aside her sword and grabbing her wrist. He pulled her to him, his skull pressed close to her face. ‘They hate you. All of the dead of Lahmia hate you. They want to punish you and all your court for your crimes. And her voice is the loudest of all.’

‘Her?’

‘The little hawk,’ Arkhan whispered, and his words were like a knife sliding across her sensitive flesh. ‘Khalida of Lybaras hunts once more, Neferata, and she is coming even now across the sands of the Great Desert.’ He grabbed her chin. ‘And she is coming for you…’

The City of Mourkain

(–350 Imperial Reckoning)

They returned to Mourkain under cover of darkness.

Neferata rode through dark streets, and was reminded of times long past, and another city that held its breath by night. Rasha and Layla rode close behind her. Stregga, of course, had stayed with Vorag, who was in no hurry to return to Mourkain. Instead, he intended to visit the other frontier nobles. Men, like him, who were kept at arm’s length from the centres of power. Men who, like him, all had among their trains Neferata’s handmaidens, though most knew it not, thinking them mere concubines, or priestesses or slaves.

In contrast to how long it had taken to subvert the religions of Strigos, it had taken no time at all to take swift and decisive control of the burgeoning slave trade. Now, her followers controlled the flow of slaves from the west and the north and of the latter, those who met a certain set of requirements were culled and sent to Mourkain to receive Neferata’s blessings. As a result, her handmaidens numbered over a hundred these days, their numbers only exceeded by those of Ushoran’s get.

Sometimes she felt a faint sense of displeasure at the thought of employing so many in such a capacity. She had taken living creatures, women much like she had once been, and turned them from beings with their own destinies into playing pieces on a board whose parameters she was still, as yet, uncertain of. But those thoughts were few and far between. Mostly, she concerned herself with the humming strands of plot and counter-plot that stretched from her black brain. With the orcs broken, the trade routes had blossomed into full flower, bringing new blood from the west into the lands of the Strigoi. She had spent almost a century seeing to it, visiting the wildling tribes and those from farther west whose representatives had heard of Strigos and wished to see its power up close.

But rather than exploiting that strength, Neferata had instead undermined it. She had moved from tribe to tribe, spreading not the story of Mourkain’s majesty, but of its frailty. She had whispered of the decadence of its rulers, of the weakness of its armies, and of the great wealth which it had, but did not deserve.

She smiled slightly. The Draesca had wasted little time; the wildling tribes had already begun asserting their control of the rough country and taking what could charitably be called more than their fair share of the wealth from the trade routes. Too, the Draesca had begun to eye the Draka and the other large tribes askance. Ushoran was not the only would-be emperor in these mountains.

It would be war soon enough. A few years perhaps, maybe a decade, and by then the wild tribes would have become less wild and thus more dangerous to Strigos, which had already begun to stagnate in its superiority. She could almost smell the rot; she sniffed, tasting… ‘Blood,’ she said, suddenly alert.

‘The air is thick with it,’ Rasha murmured, riding just behind her.

Layla sniffed. ‘Why is it so quiet? What is going on?’

‘Halt!’

Iron-capped spear-butts thumped on the street as the armoured warriors moved into the open. They wore fur cloaks to protect themselves from the night’s chill, and their armour was chipped and black. ‘Curfew, strangers… Do you have a reason for being out tonight?’ one grunted.

‘Curfew, is it?’ Neferata said, pulling back her hood. The watchmen seemed to hiss collectively. They knew her face. There was no woman in Mourkain who looked like Neferata, though many aped her style. ‘On whose orders, I wonder?’

‘Hetman Ushoran, my lady,’ the watchman stuttered. ‘From sunset to sunrise, all citizens are to remain indoors.’

Neferata urged her horse closer. ‘Why?’ she said, holding the man’s eyes with her own. Rasha and Layla joined her.

‘Spies, my lady,’ Naaima said. Neferata looked up. Her handmaiden stood across from the watchmen. She had arrived silently. Or perhaps she had been waiting for them. ‘I am glad to see you back. We need no escort,’ Naaima added, touching one of the men on the arm. ‘Continue about your business and be assured that your superiors shall hear of your dedication.’ The man saluted gratefully and the whole lot slid around and past the mounted vampires with as much speed as the dignity of their office could allow. Neferata watched them go before turning back to her handmaiden.

‘I see events have occurred in my absence,’ she said.

‘Someone tried to kill Ushoran,’ Naaima said bluntly. ‘He’s blamed us. He has Anmar.’

‘What?’ Neferata snapped, jerking on her horse’s reins. The animal whinnied and lashed at the air with its hooves. ‘Explain yourself!’

‘His paranoia has become a force unto itself,’ Naaima said. She extended a hand and Neferata swung her up onto her horse. Naaima settled behind her, clutching her mistress. She answered Neferata’s next question before she had a chance to ask it. ‘It was not us.’

‘Good,’ Neferata said simply, urging her horse into motion. The others followed closely. Perhaps Khaled has learned from his blunders in Bel Aliad after all, she thought darkly. ‘Who was it, then? Was it W’soran?’

‘I don’t know. I suspect so. It doesn’t matter. He has her. He wanted to see you as soon as you arrived,’ Naaima said.

‘Where is Khaled? Did he have nothing to say about this?’ Neferata growled. Naaima didn’t answer immediately. Neferata tensed. She could sense her handmaiden’s disquiet. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

‘Khaled is the one who took her,’ Naaima said harshly. ‘He and Ushoran’s guards intervened in a brawl between five of ours and a number of W’soran’s abominations.’

‘What happened?’

‘Four of ours are dead. Anmar was the only survivor. Those creatures… they tore them apart, right in the street. W’soran claims they were resisting his authority.’

‘His authority?’ Neferata spat incredulously. ‘That creature only has as much authority as I deem fit. Khaled as well. He forgets himself if he thinks to put himself at cross-purposes with me.’ Neferata cursed and urged her horse to greater speed. In his years in Ushoran’s bodyguard, the former Arabyan princeling had become too comfortable, she had known that. But it was that very thing which had likely endeared him to Ushoran. Was he merely playing the part she had assigned him? Or was he now truly Ushoran’s dog? It was a question she intended to get an answer to tonight. One of many questions, in fact, that the time had come to have answered.

Since she had learned about the crown of Mourkain, and Ushoran’s desire for it, a number of previously nonsensical elements had fallen into place. She sniffed the air, tasting the dull black skeins of W’soran’s magic. It had permeated the stones of Mourkain over the centuries, like ancient damp rising anew. It tasted different tonight.

Vorag had told her much of Ushoran’s coming, and how Kadon had ruled before then. How Kadon had worn a crown of black metal, but how Ushoran seemed to either disdain it, or have mislaid it. Or, perhaps, he had been denied it.

There were only a few reasons she could think of for Ushoran to give sanctuary to a treacherous serpent like W’soran, and one of those was to make use of the old monster’s knowledge, but why? Ushoran could simply have had another crown made. What was so important about this one?

At that thought, something vibrated through her, its ugly voice echoing eerily in her head. Come to me, Queen of the Dawn! Come, Beautiful Death! Run to me. Run to my embrace, it hissed, its words scraping across the underside of her thoughts like the coils of some great serpent. She could feel its intangible presence pulling at her as she rode.

The horses galloped through the streets towards the pyramid. She saw more guards, but none tried to bar their way. The city was bristling with them, and here and there among them, she saw the black robes of W’soran’s ghouls. Hurry, Queen of Lahmia! The stars spin faster and faster as dust is stirred by hollow winds. The dead howl in their cages of breathing meat! Hurry, the voice hissed in her ears. She bent her head, trying to ignore it. Her eyes found the dark shape of the pyramid and she heard a whisper of ghostly laughter. Naaima held her tighter.

‘You’re trembling,’ she murmured, low enough that others couldn’t hear.

Neferata controlled herself. The moon was fat and bloated in the black sky and it cast a yellow eye over the plaza in front of the pyramid. She tugged on the reins as they entered the plaza. More guards awaited them. Spears were lowered and warnings shouted, but Neferata ignored them, leaping from her horse and stalking towards the doors, the others hurrying after her. Her talons slid from her fingertips as the guards in front of the door held their ground.

‘Stand aside,’ a voice bellowed as the doors were pushed open from within. Khaled stepped through, shoving a guard viciously aside. ‘I said stand aside, fools!’ he roared. He met Neferata’s gaze as she swept towards him, not slowing. ‘My lady, let me expla–’

She didn’t let him finish. She snatched him up by his throat and lifted him over her head, her eyes blazing like coals. ‘Fool,’ she snarled. Her voice echoed across the plaza and she smelled the sudden surge of fear from the guards. Khaled gagged and tried to speak as her fingers tightened about his throat. Cartilage popped and bone crunched and Khaled jerked and flopped like a broken-backed snake. She flung him aside and spun to face Naaima and the others. ‘Come!’

She struck the doors with her palms, forcing them open with a thunderous boom which echoed throughout the pyramid. She stalked through the corridors, servants fleeing before her like chickens fleeing a leopardess. A duo of Strigoi moved to bar her way at the entrance to the throne room and she gazed at them with blank fury. ‘Move aside,’ she growled.

Both wore the heavy black armour of Ushoran’s guard, and both were familiar to her. Zandor bowed mockingly, one hand on his sword. ‘We must announce you, my lady,’ he said. ‘It is the custom.’

‘You might have forgotten, what with all that time spent among the barbarians,’ Gashnag added, glaring at her. Both Strigoi looked ready for a fight. They were no longer the parasitic courtiers they had been so long ago. Now they were warriors, or carried themselves as such. She wondered, in the moment before she hurled herself at them, whether Abhorash had had a hand in that.

Zandor reacted first, half drawing his sword before her talons opened his face to the bone. He screamed and reeled, clutching at his face even as she caught Gashnag’s sword in her hand. Blood dripped down the blade as the tableau held for several seconds. Then she tore the blade from the startled Strigoi’s hand and backhanded him into the great bronze doors of the throne room. The doors burst inwards, carried wide by Gashnag’s weight. He slid across the floor, his armour clattering, and Neferata followed him, carrying his sword.

‘My Lady of Mysteries, to what do we owe the pleasure?’ Ushoran said. He looked human and ordinary on the throne. Anmar sat at his feet. The chamber was empty save for the hooded figures which stood near the great throne like a silent court, and the bulky forms of several monstrous ghouls. She was reminded of the creature that W’soran had unleashed on her in the vaults and she hissed. He had made more of them, obviously, and he had got better at whatever dark process had been involved in their creation. These creatures were bigger than the other, and were not quite so patchwork. They gazed at her with dim hunger and she remembered how the other had attached itself, remora-like, to her arm.

She tore her eyes from the monster to the steps of Ushoran’s throne where Anmar sat, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Neferata gazed at the girl for a moment before she addressed Ushoran. ‘I come to reclaim what is mine,’ Neferata said, gesturing to Anmar. See how he sits in your chair, the voice hissed. She ignored it.

‘If you had been a few moments slower getting here you would have had nothing to reclaim,’ Ushoran said idly. ‘I intended to give her to W’soran’s pets there. What do you think of them, hmmm? Much improved from the last time you saw one. They are quite striking and vicious as well. They have a taste for the blood of our kind, I’m told. Isn’t that so, W’soran?’

One of the hooded figures standing near the throne tossed back his hood to reveal W’soran’s desiccated features. ‘Oh yes, as I’m sure Neferata realises by now.’

Neferata ignored him. ‘Why have you taken my handmaiden, Ushoran?’ she demanded.

‘You mean to say that your little spies haven’t told you yet?’ Ushoran said, gesturing to Naaima as he pushed himself up from the throne. He spread his arms. ‘Someone tried to kill me,’ he said. He gestured to Anmar. ‘This creature of yours was seen in their company.’

‘By whom?’ Neferata said.

Ushoran’s eyes flickered aside, towards W’soran. ‘A little bat,’ he said.

Neferata snorted. ‘Of course. Why else would he have sent his beasts, rather than alerting his king?’

‘You would know all about that, would you?’ W’soran spat. ‘What secrets do you keep, Queen of Mysteries?’

Neferata ignored that. ‘Anmar,’ she said. ‘Come here.’

‘She stays, Neferata,’ Ushoran said mildly. ‘She must be punished.’

‘Then I will punish her,’ Neferata said, extending her hand towards her handmaiden. ‘Come here.’ Anmar rose hesitantly. When Ushoran made no move to stop her, she bolted towards Neferata. Neferata held her for a moment, examining her. ‘Your brother has much to answer for,’ she murmured, stroking the girl’s hair.

‘He saved me,’ Anmar hissed. ‘W’soran’s monsters would have killed me, my lady! They’d have left me in the street like the others!’ She grabbed Neferata’s hand. ‘It was the only way, my lady,’ she said urgently.

Neferata hesitated. Then, anger overrode the brief spark of regret. ‘He should have saved all of you,’ she hissed. She stepped past Anmar and glared at Ushoran. ‘Anmar and the others were following a conspirator, as you commanded. That is why she was in his presence. My people work at crooked angles, Ushoran, and must occasionally play friend to our – to your foes.’

Ushoran cast a lazy glance at W’soran, who trembled with rage. ‘I told you,’ Ushoran murmured. He looked back at Neferata. ‘This is the throne room of Ancient Kadon himself, you know. And it was here that I killed him. Impressive, is it not?’

‘Why should I be impressed because you managed to throttle some elderly madman?’ Neferata asked.

‘Elderly, yes, but mad? No,’ W’soran said. ‘Kadon’s knowledge was greater even than mine.’

‘Many things are greater than you, W’soran,’ Neferata said pointedly.

Ushoran laughed. ‘Such venom you spit, my queen. Such raw red rage you display, and for what? What have we done to elicit it?’

‘The night is short, Ushoran, and I lack the patience to go into the many perfidies that you and that sour old corpse-thing by your side have inflicted upon me and mine. Tell me why I should not take this latest insult as the last?’

‘Because you’re curious,’ Ushoran said, grinning. He tapped his head. ‘I am as well. Does it speak to you in the quiet moments, Neferata? I’d wager it does.’

She hesitated, struck by the sudden certainty that there was a deeper game here. She had intended to use this breach to bully Ushoran into revealing his secrets at a later time. But perhaps Ushoran was seizing an opportunity of his own. Tread carefully, she thought to herself.

‘Ahhhhh,’ Ushoran breathed, nodding knowingly at her silence. He glanced smugly at W’soran. ‘I told you that it speaks to her and Abhorash as well, I’d wager. And you said that they lacked the spark or wit to hear it.’

‘Hear what?’ Neferata snarled, taking a step forwards. She knew the answer already, but she wanted to see the limits of the web Ushoran was spinning. Dust falls from the eyes of heroes and kings, and the dead are stirring in their tombs, the voice whispered. They will rise and march and thrust the world into a silent, serene shape. The Corpse Geometries will bend and slide into formation for the dead, binding the fires at the poles and snuffing the stars themselves.

‘That,’ Ushoran said, as the shriek of the nails-on-bone voice faded in her head. ‘I thought I was privileged at first, to hear it. Like a lover’s croon. But it’s not,’ he said, the humour fading from his voice. ‘It’s the command of a master to a servant.’

W’soran bridled, grimacing. ‘It’s an echo, Ushoran… I’ve told you–’

Ushoran moved so fast that Neferata barely caught it. He backhanded W’soran, catapulting the thin vampire off his feet and to the floor in a heap. W’soran’s servants closed ranks, and the air was suddenly alive with the acrid odour of fell magics. Ushoran paid them no mind, instead focusing his attention on Neferata. ‘It’s like acid, isn’t it? Etching its way into your thoughts. You never met him, of course. That’s why you don’t recognise it. But I did, and when I heard it…’ He shook his head. He made a face. ‘W’soran was his favourite. Like a child with a new toy. He barely noticed me, damaged as I was. He left me to his beasts.’ His fingers curled into fists and his human seeming wavered. ‘But it was I who answered his call first! I who came to him! Me!’

‘Which is why we’re still here, of course,’ W’soran said, as his acolytes helped him to his feet. Ushoran tensed. ‘All this time after the fact, we’re still here, trapped in this primitive shadow of Lahmia, forced to grub in the dirt like peasants.’ W’soran wiped a bit of blood from his lipless mouth. His eyes swivelled to Neferata. There was more than just disdain there. There was also a warning. Ushoran wasn’t the only one spinning a web. ‘Because the first to come wasn’t strong enough to do what needed doing,’ he added, still looking at Neferata.

‘Silence,’ Ushoran snarled.

‘What are you yammering about, old leech? What secret are you dancing around?’ Neferata said.

‘Have you ever wondered why our king wears no crown? The savages he rules so admire a fine crown.’ W’soran grinned.

‘Kadon’s crown…’ Neferata said, a number of things falling into place. Both W’soran and Ushoran started at that, but Neferata drove on before they could recover. ‘But that is not Kadon’s voice I hear, is it?’

‘In part perhaps,’ W’soran said with a shrug. ‘But as Ushoran said, there’s a reason you didn’t recognise it. Or maybe you did, but pretended you didn’t, even to yourself. You have heard it before, haven’t you, centuries ago? I know, because I was there when Nagash spoke to you.’ He looked at Ushoran. ‘We both were.’

Nagash. The name hammered into her brain like a nail. Nagash, the Great Necromancer. Nagash, whose name had been wiped from the historical records of the Great Land. Nagash, whose elixir of immortality even now pumped in altered form through her veins.

‘Nagash’s, not Kadon’s… It is Nagash’s crown,’ she whispered.

‘My crown,’ Ushoran countered, his hands twitching slightly. ‘And with it, I will rule even as he did. But my rule will extend unto eternity, as even his failed to do. I will not make his mistakes and I do not possess his flaws. But I will have all of his power…’

‘But you don’t. Not yet. Why?’ Neferata said. ‘Where is it?’

Ushoran hesitated, his smugness evaporating. He looked almost… afraid. W’soran answered her, and he sounded as hesitant as Ushoran looked. ‘Here. Right here and yet it is so far away.’

Ushoran went to the wall behind the throne, towards an empty niche where a statue might once have stood. He placed a hand against the stones and a hidden door slid open, revealing a set of winding steps. ‘There,’ Ushoran said softly.

‘Ushoran–’ W’soran began.

‘No. No, if she wants to see it, we shall let her.’ Ushoran looked speculative. ‘Perhaps… perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps this was the answer all along.’ He looked at the dark passage. ‘Perhaps this is the price he demands.’

‘Neferata, don’t,’ Naaima said as Neferata stepped towards the passage. Neferata shook Naaima’s hand off. Her handmaiden’s voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of silence that spilled out of the darkness. It was an absence of sound which muffled everything. Ushoran stepped within and she followed, hesitant at first and then faster. Her instincts screamed warnings of treachery and deceit but not for the first time in her life, she ignored them. She had to see what lay beyond. She needed to confront that which had drawn her here, even if it endangered her very existence.

‘Come and see, it said, and I came unto Mourkain and saw,’ Ushoran whispered hoarsely as they walked. His words rustled in the narrow tunnel like bats and the stones of the corridor beyond the hidden entrance seemed to vibrate in tune to his voice. Gently, she brushed dust from the stones, revealing the crude pictograms which had been scratched into the walls by the ancient builders. Like the hieroglyphs of home, these told the story of the tomb. The body had been found in the river that curled through the mountains, a crown in one hand. The body of a mighty man, larger than any man of the Strigoi, though reduced to ruin by unknown enemies. His features had been obliterated by old marks, like those made by claws.

‘Who was he, Ushoran?’ she said.

‘Can you feel it, Neferata?’ he said, ignoring her question as they reached the end of the corridor.

‘What is it?’ she said, shivering. There was a vibration in her bones. It echoed from the floor and the walls and ceiling, and it was as if she were inside some great, living organism.

‘The echo of a heartbeat,’ Ushoran said, not looking at her.

Neferata listened, and knew he was right. The thudding boom-boom-boom, echoing up from untold depths and seeping through the stone, had the regular rhythms of a man’s heartbeat. Steady, strong… familiar. ‘No,’ she said as the sound caressed her ears.

Ushoran turned, his face twisted in a sneer. ‘Yes. Listen to it, Neferata. Do you hear it? Do you hear his heart? Does it beat faster?’ He made to grab her and she slithered back instinctively, out of his reach. ‘Do you hear him?’

The air became cold and sluggish and damp. Neferata swiped instinctively at it, as if it were full of cobwebs. A hand grabbed her wrist, but dissolved into curling wisps of mist as she spun. Words bled through the rock, snippets of past conversations.

‘Damn you, Ushoran, who is buried here?’ she snapped.

‘You did this,’ Ushoran said. ‘You made him this way!’

Neferata turned around and around as half-formed faces made to speak and dissolved in a silent storm surrounding her. All familiar, though they spanned swathes of time she had not been there to see. The faces were of a child, a boy, a man and – what? – a corpse or a wraith or wight? Regardless, he was a king.

Alcadizzar, the boy she had raised as her own. The man she had groomed to be king and the king who had died for Nehekhara. Neferata hissed and spat as the smoky fingers drifted across hers in a gesture at once familiar and abominable. ‘Away, wraith,’ she said, swiping her claws through the wisps.

‘Mourkain is built on his bones,’ Ushoran snarled, lunging through the mist. He grabbed her wrists and his human façade rippled and tore like wet papyrus, revealing the horror beneath. Grey dead flesh over an ape’s skull, with a thicket of fangs spilling from a lipless mouth. Eyes like the embers of a dying fire glared at her as he tried to pull her close.

‘W’soran cannot break his hold over the crown! And without the crown I cannot truly be king! But you – maybe you…’

Neferata bent and brought the soles of her feet sliding up between them. Catching Ushoran in the belly, she tore him loose and sent him flying back. He hit the rock and screamed, as if it burned him. She rose. The floor felt warm beneath her feet. She smelled the hiss of cooking meat and, a moment later, felt the pain.

She was burning, even as Lahmia had burned, as Khemri and Zandri had burned, at Nagash’s command. Alcadizzar whipped her with a lash of fire and regret and she screamed in agony. Ushoran, driven berserk by pain, roared and charged and his massive talons nearly took her head off. She ducked and he cut a gouge in the rock face. She cut through his belly and chest and his growls became screams as she opened him to the spine. He fell and writhed on the ground, his skin bubbling and rupturing. Turning, she began to run even as the heat ate into her own limbs. She had to escape this place. Her feet were burned raw and an agony she hadn’t felt since that first night of her new existence raced over her nerves, eating at them like acid. Still, she stumbled on, trying to escape the embrace of the tunnel. If she could get to the main chamber, perhaps the pain would stop. That was all she could think about.

She could hear Ushoran following her, his claws scraping stone. The corridor felt as if it was closing like a fist around her and the needle-on-bone voice of the crown was drowned out by the grim rumble of stone and the echoes of Alcadizzar’s voice as it thrummed through her mind, evoking ancient memories and ancient pain.

She burst out of the tunnel like a bat from the depths, flames wreathing her slender shape. She screamed, and there was nothing human in her voice. Ushoran caught her in mid-air, his grotesque gargoyle shape having sprouted wings. He too was on fire and the flames congealed greedily as his talons sought her throat. Maddened by pain and need, the two vampires crashed down onto the floor.

Her hair crisped and crackled like cloth in a cooking fire and her face split and shrank against her bones as she sank her fangs into Ushoran’s throat. He howled and bucked, pummelling her with burning fists. They thrashed and fought, rolling across the floor. She worried the flesh of his throat, the blood boiling from the heat even as it reached her mouth.

‘Off – get off,’ he yowled, muscles heaving beneath his charred skin as he slapped her aside. She spun through the air and struck the wall, dropping bonelessly to the floor. The flames winked out, leaving them both blackened wrecks. Neferata cracked a crisped eyelid.

More of the obese ghoul-things had come into the chamber while she had been gone, and not just them. Smaller ghouls and the dead men who served W’soran as his guard filled the hall, surrounding her followers.

Stupid. She had been stupid to come here. Ushoran coughed and scrambled to his feet, his charred flesh cracking and sloughing off. He had been burned before and he shook it off with the speed of experience. His claws scraped the floor as he made his way towards her. His previous berserk rage seemed to have left him, and he looked deflated and weary.

‘You see?’ he croaked. ‘Even in death, he denies us our due. The crown is ours by right. With it, we can recreate that which was lost.’

Neferata pushed herself to her feet. The voice of the crown – Nagash’s voice – was back, smashing at her doubts and worries and fears. For an instant, she wondered if this was how others felt when she turned her gaze upon them.

The instant was washed away by visions of a great city, not quite Mourkain or Lahmia, but a blending of both. It was a city of possibilities, a city of could-be and will-be; a city ruled forever by a night-hearted aristocracy, where she would sup on the blood of princes and kings as all the rulers of the world bowed at her sandalled feet, and on her brow, a crown.

Crown and throne, Neferata, it purred. Goddess and queen, Neferata – that is what you will be. All yours…

Did Ushoran hear the same? Did it speak to him in the same soothing tones? Did it make the same promises? Perhaps it had even done so for Kadon.

‘You have done your best to keep me on my throne,’ Ushoran hissed. ‘You have done this even as you have schemed to supplant me in the minds of my subjects. That is why I ask you this now. Help me, Neferata.’ He half-reached for her, with a trembling claw. ‘You want Lahmia back, just as I do, just as Abhorash does, and W’soran.

‘Help me,’ he said again. ‘Help me put the world back to rights, Neferata.’

Take the crown and the throne and the WORLD…

The lessons of the past crumbled in an instant, like the dead flesh which drifted from her burned limbs like black snow. All that was left was desire.

‘As my king commands,’ Neferata said, taking Ushoran’s hand with her own.